Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychological Determinants of Emotional Eating in Adolescence

Emotional eating is conceptualized as eating in response to negative affect. Data from a larger study of physical activity was employed to examine the associations among specific emotions/moods and emotional eating in an adolescent sample. Six-hundred and sixty-six students of diverse backgrounds from 7 middle schools in Los Angeles County participated. Cross-sectional analysis revealed no gender differences in emotional eating, and showed that perceived stress and worries were associated with emotional eating in the total sample. Gender stratified analyses revealed significant associations of perceived stress, worries and tension/anxiety to emotional eating for girls, while only confused mood was related to emotional eating in boys. These findings bear potential implications for the treatment and prevention of pediatric obesity and eating disorders because they suggest that interventions would benefit from incorporation of stress-reduction techniques and promotion of positive mood.
Malabsorption is uncommon in restless legs syndrome

Celiac disease (CD), which is one of the most important malabsorptive diseases in adults, has been associated with several neurological disorders including peripheral neuropathy, cerebellar ataxia, myopathy, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorders. Recently, 2 independent studies 1,2 reported a high prevalence of restless legs syndrome (RLS) in CD patients (25%–31%). In the first study, 1 iron deficiency was present in 40% of CD patients with active RLS compared with 6% of patients without RLS, whereas in the second study, 2 no significant correlation was found between RLS and iron parameters. Other authors 3 reported 4 patients with RLS and serum ferritin below 25 ng/mL whose screening tests were positive for CD. Because these data suggest that CD is frequently associated with RLS and because CD could be an underlying correctable factor for some patients diagnosed with idiopathic RLS, we evaluated the absorptive status in 112 consecutive patients referred to our Sleep Disorders Center (68 women, 44 men; mean age, 59.6 years) with a diagnosis of idiopathic RLS. The diagnosis of RLS was made by face-to-face interview using International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group (IRLSSG) criteria. 4 In our patients, mean RLS severity according to the IRLSSG rating scale 5 was 24.9 (range, 10–38). Using current criteria, 6 CD diagnosis was based on the presence of specific screening antibodies in serum (antitransglutaminase IgAtTG) and on the evidence of intestinal damage at duodenal biopsy. For investigating malabsorption in our RLS patients, the following typical symptoms and signs of CD 7 were considered: abdominal pain, anorexia, diarrhea, flatulence, muscle wasting, vomiting, and weight loss. Moreover, all patients were tested for anti-tTG antibodies with the Eu-tTG Quick test (refence 9113, lot 3368, Eurospital). 8
Effects of Multithreading on Cache Performance

As the performance gap between processor and memory grows, memory latency becomes a major bottleneck in achieving high processor utilization. Multithreading has emerged as one of the most promising and exciting techniques used to tolerate memory latency by exploiting thread-level parallelism. The question, however, remains as to how effective multithreading is on tolerating memory latency. The performance of multithreading is not only affected by the overlapping of memory latency with useful computation, but also strongly depends on the cache behavior and the overhead of multithreading (e.g., thread management and context-switch costs). In particular, multithreading affects the behavior of caches, and, thus, the overall performance in a nontrivial fashion. To study these issues, this paper presents the Multithreaded Virtual Processor (MVP) model. MVP integrates the multithreaded programming paradigm and a modern superscalar processor with support for fast context switching and thread scheduling. Our studies with MVP show that, in general, the performance improvements are obtained not only by tolerating memory latency but also lower cache miss rates due to exploitation of data locality. However, multithreading creates an additional stress on the memory hierarchy caused by the interference among threads. Also, the dynamic behavior of multithreaded execution hinders the instruction locality that results in a high number of misses in the L1 instruction cache.
Inhalation sedation with the ‘Anaesthetic Conserving Device’ for patients in intensive care units: A literature review

Background. The Anaesthetic Conserving Device is a modified heat and moisture exchanger that enables the application of inhalation sedation with existing ventilators in intensive care units. The following review describes the advantages of inhalation sedation using the Anaesthetic Conserving Device in comparison to standard intravenous sedation for patients in intensive care units and highlights the technical aspects of its functioning.Methods. The literature search was limited to PubMed, Sage Journals and CINAHL databases, using the terms »anaesthetic conserving device«, »volatile anaesthetic reflection filter«, »AnaConDa« independently and in connection with the terms »sedation« and intensive care unit«. Included are articles published up until December 2014.Results. Use of inhalation sedation with the Anaesthetic Conserving Device enables faster transition to spontaneous breathing and a shorter awakening time than with intravenous sedation. Even short-term inhalation sedation of patients after open heart procedures has a cardioprotective effect and reduces troponin T values. Despite increased concentrations of inorganic fluoride in serum after sevoflurane exposure, no clinical studies to date have shown its nephrotoxic effect, even after long-term (48 h) sedation. The Anaesthetic Conserving Device is accurate in maintaining target values of volatile anaesthetics. However, increased dead space volume was found in several studies, exceeding the internal volume of the Anaesthetic Conserving Device.Conclusion. Results to date show that inhalation sedation with the Anaesthetic Conserving Device may be an effective and safe alternative to existing protocols of intravenous sedation for patients requiring intensive treatment.
Trends in food intakes in Swedish adults 1986–1999: findings from the Northern Sweden MONICA (Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease) Study

Abstract Objective To determine changes in reported food frequency in adults between 1986 and 1999. Design Four consecutive cross-sectional surveys. Setting Counties of Norrbotten and Västerbotten, Northern Sweden. Subjects The Northern Sweden MONICA (Monitoring of Trends and Determinants in Cardiovascular Disease) population, four independent cross-sectional surveys in 1986, 1990, 1994 and 1999. Randomly selected age-stratified samples of the population aged 25–64 years. Analysis is based on 2982 males and 3087 females who completed an 84-item food-frequency questionnaire. Results Between 1986 and 1999, average reported consumption of 3%-fat milk decreased from 42 to 7 intakes month-1 in men and from 28 to 4 intakes month-1 in women. Reported use of 1.5%-fat milk increased from 6 to 27 intakes month-1 in men and from 6 to 24 in women. Monthly intakes of potatoes and root vegetables decreased from 38 to 27 in men and from 39 to 32 in women. Consumption of pasta increased from 4 to 7 intakes month-1 in both sexes. Intakes of solid fats with 80% fat content dropped from 92 to 62 per month in men and from 78 to 52 per month in women, whereas use of 40%-fat spread increased from 12 to 22 intakes month-1 in men and from 5 to 26 in women. Monthly intakes of vegetable oil increased from 3 to 12 in men and from 3 to 15 in women. The percentage of overweight or obese individuals (body mass index >25 kg m-2) increased from 52 to 65% in men and from 41 to 52% in women (P for linear trend in all these changes, <0.001). Conclusions Our data indicate reduced consumption of foods with a high content of saturated fats. In spite of that, there is an unbroken trend towards increased obesity.
Percutaneous Kirschner Wire fixation in distal radius metaphyseal fractures in children: does it change the overall outcome?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to determine the effect of Kirschner wire fixation after closed reduction of radial metaphyseal fractures with high risk of redisplacement. PATIENTS AND METHODS In this retrospective study 40 cases were studied in two groups. In group 1 (n=20, average age 11.2 years), K-wire fixation was performed after closed reduction. In group 2 (n=20 average age 10.1 years), only plaster immobilization was applied following closed reduction. The compared clinical and radiological parameters were, pain, limb deformitiy, range of motion of the wrist, angulation of the fracture site, radial distal epipihyseal angle and severity of translation. RESULTS Redisplacement rate was 10% in group 1 and 50% in group 2. This shows, Kirschner wire fixation has a positive effect in the maintanence of the initial reduction (p<0.05). Age, gender, reduction quality had no effect on redisplacement (p>0.05). Concerning the severity of translation, the risk of redisplacement increases in stage 3 (50%- 100%) and stage 4 (>100%) fractures (p<0,05). Concomitant complete ulnar fracture has also redisplacement risk (p<0.05). Redisplacement risk increases when the distance of fracture line to epiphyseal line was between 11-20 mm (p<0.05). There was no significiant difference between two groups after last evaluation based on radiological parameters and clinical results (p>0.05). CONCLUSIONS This study shows that Kirschner wire fixation prevents redisplacement in early follow-up of first three weeks but there is no superiority after 20 months follow-up in distal metaphyseal fractures of children.
An Experience of Using LMI Technique in Student Projects

Abstract LMI technique is very popular in modern control theory and applications due to powerful LMI solvers (such as SeDuMi, CSDP, SDPA) and efficient interfaces provided by YALMIP parser. Generally, these tools are MATLAB-based software. In addition, there exist free SCILAB-based and NSP-based versions, SCIYALMIP and NSPYALMIP, possessing limited functionality in comparison with their MATLAB-based counterparts. The stated facts represent a serious motivation for embedding LMI-based approaches in control education programs for bachelor's and master's degrees. In this paper, we present our experience of using LMI technique and software in student projects.
A Secure Routing Protocol for SensorNet

The secure delivery of data between a source node and a sink node is an open problem in wireless sensor networks. We review the security model used for The University of Kansas’s SensorNet project, and discuss how it might be improved by using a secure routing protocol. In this paper we extend work done in developing multipath extensions to AODV. Unlike previous proposals on multipath extensions to AODV, the scheme proposed in this paper allows each node to use multiple disjoint paths concurrently to reach another node. Each of the paths is validated by using zero-knowledge proofs. Under the new scheme data is protected by traditional cryptography as well as using separate paths for key and data delivery. This increases the resiliency of the network as well as the security of the data.
Research on Internationalisation in Higher Education

This contribution provides an overview of the developments of research undertaken since the mid-1990s on international higher education. The general state of research is characterised by an increase of theoretically and methodologically ambitious studies without a dominant disciplinary, conceptual, or methodological “home. ” The main topics of research on internationalisation in higher education reach from mobility, mutual influence of higher education systems, and internationalisation of the substance of teaching and learning to institutional strategies, knowledge transfer, cooperation and competition, and national and supranational policies. The modes of inquiry are varied but have not changed much over time. A brief localisation of the role of the Journal of Studies in International Education in the context of research about internationalisation in higher education is followed by conclusions emphasising a certain amount of continuity but also a broadening of the field with an increasing number of ambitious studies. The contribution closes with a few proposals for future research.
Communication pattern based node selection for shared networks

Selection of the most suitable nodes on a network to execute a parallel application requires matching the network status to the application requirements. We propose and validate a novel two step approach that exploits the knowledge of the communication structure of the application to address this problem. In the first step, a small set of candidate node groups are selected potential sites applications execution, by analyzing the network status information and the communication patterns used by the application. The second step is based on the concept of a communication skeleton, which is short running program that generates the dominant communication operations of the application it represents. The communication skeleton is executed on all candidate groups of nodes. The node group selected for application execution is the one that achieves the best performance on the communication skeleton. This approach leads to customized node selection and is particularly well suited to situations where available network information is of poor quality or expected communication performance cannot be modeled accurately. We motivate this approach, describe a prototype implementation, and present performance results for NAS parallel benchmarks executing on a shared network testbed.
Natural Language Generation in Interactive Systems

An informative and comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in natural language generation (NLG) for interactive systems, this guide serves to introduce graduate students and new researchers to the field of natural language processing and artificial intelligence, while inspiring them with ideas for future research. Detailing the techniques and challenges of NLG for interactive applications, it focuses on the research into systems that model collaborativity and uncertainty, are capable of being scaled incrementally, and can engage with the user effectively. A range of real-world case studies is also included. The book and the accompanying website feature a comprehensive bibliography, and refer the reader to corpora, data, software and other resources for pursuing research on natural language generation and interactive systems, including dialog systems, multimodal interfaces and assistive technologies. It is an ideal resource for students and researchers in computational linguistics, natural language processing and related fields.
Low-jitter and high-power 40-GHz all-active mode-locked lasers

A novel design strategy for the epitaxial structure of monolithic mode-locked semiconductor lasers is presented. Using an all-active design, we fabricate 40-GHz lasers generating 2.8-ps almost chirp-free pulses with record low high-frequency jitter and more than 7-mW fiber coupled output power.
Comparison of Cirrus OCT and Stratus OCT on the ability to detect localized retinal nerve fiber layer defects in preperimetric glaucoma.

PURPOSE To evaluate and compare the diagnostic ability of Cirrus and Stratus optical coherence tomography (OCT) to detect localized retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) defects in patients with normal standard automated perimetry. METHODS This study included 55 eyes of 55 subjects with preperimetric localized RNFL defects and 55 normal control eyes of 55 age- and sex-matched subjects. Areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROCs) were calculated and compared. Based on the internal normative database from each device, the sensitivity and specificity for detecting preperimetric localized RNFL defects were calculated. RESULTS There was no statistically significant difference between the AUROCs for the best parameters from the Cirrus OCT (inferior thickness, AUROC = 0.728) and Stratus OCT (7 o'clock sector, AUROC = 0.760; P = 0.477). The sensitivity of the Cirrus OCT parameters ranged from 21.0% to 87.1% and that of the Stratus OCT parameters ranged from 4.8% to 30.7%, with the criterion of abnormal at the 5% level. Based on the normative database, the highest Cirrus OCT sensitivity was obtained with the deviation-from-normal map (sensitivity 87.1% and specificity 61.8%), and the highest Stratus OCT sensitivity was obtained with the TSNIT thickness graph (sensitivity 30.7% and specificity 85.5%). CONCLUSIONS There were no significant differences between the AUROCs for Cirrus and Stratus OCT, indicating that the two devices have similar diagnostic potentials in preperimetric glaucoma. After comparison with their normative databases, Cirrus OCT had generally higher sensitivities; however, this was largely at the cost of lower specificities than Stratus OCT.
Tocilizumab Inhibits Structural Joint Damage and Improves Physical Function in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis and Inadequate Responses to Methotrexate: LITHE Study 2-year Results

Objective. To assess radiographic progression, physical function, clinical disease activity, and safety in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who had inadequate response to methotrexate (MTX) and who were treated with tocilizumab-MTX or MTX during Year 2 of a 2-year study. Methods. During Year 1, patients were randomized to placebo-MTX, 4 mg/kg tocilizumab-MTX, or 8 mg/kg tocilizumab-MTX. During Year 2, patients continued the initial double-blind treatment or switched to open-label 8 mg/kg tocilizumab-MTX. Co-primary endpoints at Week 104 were mean change from baseline in Genant-modified Total Sharp Score (GmTSS) and adjusted mean area under the curve (AUC) for change from baseline in the Health Assessment Questionnaire–Disability Index (HAQ-DI). Signs and symptoms of RA and safety were also evaluated. Results. At Week 104, mean change from baseline in GmTSS was significantly lower for patients initially randomized to tocilizumab-MTX 4 mg/kg (0.58; p = 0.0025) or 8 mg/kg (0.37; p < 0.0001) than for patients initially randomized to placebo-MTX (1.96). Adjusted mean AUC of change from baseline in HAQ-DI was also significantly lower in patients initially randomized to tocilizumab-MTX 4 mg/kg (–287.5; p < 0.0001) or 8 mg/kg (–320.8; p < 0.0001) than in patients initially randomized to placebo-MTX (–139.4). Signs and symptoms of RA were maintained or showed improvement. No new safety signals were noted. Conclusion. Compared with placebo-MTX, tocilizumab-MTX significantly inhibited structural joint damage and improved physical function in patients with RA who previously had inadequate response to MTX. An extension of this study is continuing and will provide additional longterm efficacy and safety data. National Clinical Trials registry NCT00106535.
The dispersion of joint source-channel coding

In this work we investigate the behavior of the distortion threshold that can be guaranteed in joint source-channel coding, to within a prescribed excess-distortion probability. We show that the gap between this threshold and the optimal average distortion is governed by a constant that we call the joint source-channel dispersion. This constant can be easily computed, since it is the sum of the source and channel dispersions, previously derived. The resulting performance is shown to be better than that of any separation-based scheme. For the proof, we use unequal error protection channel coding, thus we also evaluate the dispersion of that setting.
The Endocannabinoid System and Neurogenesis in Health and Disease

The endocannabinoid system exerts an important neuromodulatory function in different brain areas and is also known to be involved in the regulation of neural cell fate. Thus, CB1 cannabinoid receptors are neuroprotective in different models of brain injury, and their expression is altered in various neurodegenerative diseases. Recent findings have demonstrated the presence of a functional endocannabinoid system in neural progenitor cells that participates in the regulation of cell proliferation and differentiation. In this Research Update, the authors address the experimental evidence regarding the regulatory role of cannabinoids in neurogenesis and analyze them in the context of those pathological disorders in which cannabinoid function and altered neuronal or glial generation is most relevant, for example, stroke and multiple sclerosis. NEUROSCIENTIST 13(2):109—114, 2007.
Storage Management in AsterixDB

Social networks, online communities, mobile devices, and instant messaging applications generate complex, unstructured data at a high rate, resulting in large volumes of data. This poses new challenges for data management systems that aim to ingest, store, index, and analyze such data efficiently. In response, we released the first public version of AsterixDB, an open-source Big Data Management System (BDMS), in June of 2013. This paper describes the storage management layer of AsterixDB, providing a detailed description of its ingestion-oriented approach to local storage and a set of initial measurements of its ingestion-related performance characteristics. In order to support high frequency insertions, AsterixDB has wholly adopted Log-Structured Merge-trees as the storage technology for all of its index structures. We describe how the AsterixDB software framework enables "LSM-ification" (conversion from an in-place update, disk-based data structure to a deferred-update, append-only data structure) of any kind of index structure that supports certain primitive operations, enabling the index to ingest data efficiently. We also describe how AsterixDB ensures the ACID properties for operations involving multiple heterogeneous LSM-based indexes. Lastly, we highlight the challenges related to managing the resources of a system when many LSM indexes are used concurrently and present AsterixDB's initial solution.
Improving speech intelligibility in noise by SII-dependent preprocessing using frequency-dependent amplification and dynamic range compression

In this contribution, a new preprocessing algorithm to improve speech intelligibility in noise is proposed, which maintains the signal power before and after processing. The proposed AdaptDRC algorithm consists of two timeand frequency-dependent stages, which are both functions of the estimated SII. The first stage applies a timeand frequency-dependent amplification, while the second stage applies a timeand frequency-dependent dynamic range compression (DRC). Experiments with a competing speaker (CS) and a speech-shaped noise (SSN) show an increase in speech intelligibility for a wide range of SNRs for four different objective measures that are correlated with speech intelligibility. Listening tests conducted within the framework of the Hurricane Challenge with 175 subjects confirm these findings and show improvements of up to 20.5% in intelligibility for SSN and 12.3% for CS.
Variation in Facial index of Gujarati Males - A Photometric study

Facial anthropometry has its well known implications in fields like forensic science and reconstructive surgery. Facial index and face type provides an indication about the races and individuality. The present study aimed to examine Facial Index in Gujarati Males and to find out the distribution of their face type. Presence of the morphometric variations in the faces makes it necessary to have baseline data for reconstruction and forensic science. Mean facial index of Gujarati Male was 81.7 whereas dominant face type was Euriprosopic (42.96%) and rare type of face was Leptoprosopic (3.64%). We found significant variation in the face type in adult males of Gujarat.