Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of the kidneys in glucose homeostasis: a new path towards normalizing glycaemia

The maintenance of normal glucose homeostasis requires a complex, highly integrated interaction among the liver, muscle, adipocytes, pancreas and neuroendocrine system. Recent studies have showed that the kidneys also play a central role in glucose homeostasis by reabsorbing all the filtered glucose, an adaptive mechanism that ensures sufficient energy is available during fasting periods. This mechanism becomes maladaptive in diabetes, however, as hyperglycaemia augments the expression and activity of the sodium–glucose cotransporter (SGLT) 2 in the proximal tubule of the kidney. As a result, glucose reabsorption may be increased by as much as 20% in individuals with poorly controlled diabetes. SGLT2 is a low‐affinity, high‐capacity glucose transport protein that reabsorbs 90% of filtered glucose, while the high‐affinity, low‐capacity SGLT1 transporter reabsorbs the remaining 10%. SGLT2 represents a novel target for the treatment of diabetes. In animal studies, SGLT2 inhibition reduces plasma glucose levels, resulting in improved β‐cell function and enhanced insulin sensitivity in liver and muscle. Human studies have confirmed the efficacy of SLGT2 inhibitors in improving glucose control and reducing the A1c. Because the mechanism of SGLT2 inhibition is independent of circulating insulin levels or insulin sensitivity, these agents can be combined with all other antidiabetic classes, including exogenous insulin. Although the long‐term efficacy and safety of SGLT2 inhibitors remain under study, the class represents a novel therapeutic approach with potential for the treatment of both type 2 and 1 diabetes.
An Epidemiological Reappraisal of the Familial Aggregation of Prostate Cancer: A Meta-Analysis

Studies on familial aggregation of cancer may suggest an overall contribution of inherited genes or a shared environment in the development of malignant disease. We performed a meta-analysis on familial clustering of prostate cancer. Out of 74 studies reporting data on familial aggregation of prostate cancer in unselected populations retrieved by a Pubmed search and browsing references, 33 independent studies meeting the inclusion criteria were used in the analysis performed with the random effects model. The pooled rate ratio (RR) for first-degree family history, i.e. affected father or brother, is 2.48 (95% confidence interval: 2.25–2.74). The incidence rate for men who have a brother who got prostate cancer increases 3.14 times (CI:2.37–4.15), and for those with affected father 2.35 times (CI:2.02–2.72). The pooled estimate of RR for two or more affected first-degree family members relative to no history in father and in brother is 4.39 (CI:2.61–7.39). First-degree family history appears to increase the incidence rate of prostate cancer more in men under 65 (RR:2.87, CI:2.21–3.74), than in men aged 65 and older (RR:1.92, CI:1.49–2.47), p for interaction = 0.002. The attributable fraction among those having an affected first-degree relative equals to 59.7% (CI:55.6–63.5%) for men at all ages, 65.2% (CI:57.7–71.4%) for men younger than 65 and 47.9% (CI:37.1–56.8%) for men aged 65 or older. For those with a family history in 2 or more first-degree family members 77.2% (CI:65.4–85.0%) of prostate cancer incidence can be attributed to the familial clustering. Our combined estimates show strong familial clustering and a significant effect-modification by age meaning that familial aggregation was associated with earlier disease onset (before age 65).
Plastic Deformation Characteristics and Evaluation of Press Formability for Ti-6Al-4V Sheet at Warm Temperature

Titanium alloy sheets have excellent specific strength and corrosion resistance as well as good performance at high temperature. Recently, titanium alloys are widely employed not only aerospace parts but also prosthetics and motorcycle. However, titanium and its alloys are difficult-to-form materials due to limited slip system and plastic anisotropy. Titanium alloy sheets were usually formed by slow forming or hot forming with heating die and specimen. In the sheet metal forming area, FE simulation technique to optimize forming process is widely used. To achieve high accuracy FE simulation results, identification of material properties and deformation characteristics such ad yield behaviors are very important. In this study, the yield locus of Ti-6Al-4V sheet was obtained at warm temperature. The experimental results are compared with the theoretical predictions. Also, the Forming Limit Curves (FLC) was achieved at warm temperature.
La fusion libre : le cas simple

Abstract We construct the free fusion of two geometric thories over a common ω-categorical strongly minimal reduct. If the two theories are supersimple of rank 1 (and satisfy an additional hypothesis true in particular for stable theories or trivial reduct), the completions of the free fusion are supersimple of rank at most ω.
Francisella tularensis Molecular Typing Using Differential Insertion Sequence Amplification

ABSTRACT Tularemia is a potentially fatal disease that is caused by the highly infectious and zoonotic pathogen Francisella tularensis. Despite the monomorphic nature of sequenced F. tularensis genomes, there is a significant degree of plasticity in the organization of genetic elements. The observed variability in these genomes is due primarily to the transposition of direct repeats and insertion sequence (IS) elements. Since current methods used to genotype F. tularensis are time-consuming and require extensive laboratory resources, IS elements were investigated as a means to subtype this organism. The unique spatial location of specific IS elements provided the basis for the development of a differential IS amplification (DISA) assay to detect and distinguish the more virulent F. tularensis subsp. tularensis (subtypes A.I and A.II) and subsp. holarctica (type B) strains from F. tularensis subsp. novicida and other near neighbors, including Francisella philomiragia and Francisella-like endosymbionts found in ticks. Amplicon sizes and sequences derived from DISA showed heterogeneity within members of the subtype A.I and A.II isolates but not the type B strains. These differences were due to a 312-bp fragment derived from the IS element ISFtu1. Analysis of wild-type F. tularensis isolates by DISA correlated with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis genotyping utilizing two different restriction endonucleases and provided rapid results with minimal sample processing. The applicability of this molecular typing assay for environmental studies was demonstrated by the accurate identification and differentiation of tick-borne F. tularensis. The described approach to IS targeting and amplification provides new capability for epidemiological investigations and characterizations of tularemia source outbreaks.
Effects of buffer layers on adhesion and antimicrobial properties of amorphous ZrAlNiCuSi films

Abstract To extend the practical applications of bulk metallic glasses, the preparation of metallic glass coatings on various substrates becomes an important research issue. Among the interfacial properties of the coatings, the adhesion between films and substrates is the most crucial. In this study, amorphous Zr61Al7·5Ni10Cu17·5Si4 (ZrAlNiCuSi) thin films were deposited on SUS 304 stainless steel at various sputtering powers by dc sputtering. According to the scratch tests, the introduction of Cr and Ti buffer layers effectively improves the adhesion between the amorphous thin films and substrate without changing the surface properties, such as roughness and morphology. The antimicrobial results show that the biological activities of these microbes, except Acinetobacter baumannii, are effectively suppressed during the test period.
Adult height and the risk of cause-specific death and vascular morbidity in 1 million people: individual participant meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND The extent to which adult height, a biomarker of the interplay of genetic endowment and early-life experiences, is related to risk of chronic diseases in adulthood is uncertain. METHODS We calculated hazard ratios (HRs) for height, assessed in increments of 6.5 cm, using individual-participant data on 174374 deaths or major non-fatal vascular outcomes recorded among 1085949 people in 121 prospective studies. RESULTS For people born between 1900 and 1960, mean adult height increased 0.5-1 cm with each successive decade of birth. After adjustment for age, sex, smoking and year of birth, HRs per 6.5 cm greater height were 0.97 (95% confidence interval: 0.96-0.99) for death from any cause, 0.94 (0.93-0.96) for death from vascular causes, 1.04 (1.03-1.06) for death from cancer and 0.92 (0.90-0.94) for death from other causes. Height was negatively associated with death from coronary disease, stroke subtypes, heart failure, stomach and oral cancers, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, mental disorders, liver disease and external causes. In contrast, height was positively associated with death from ruptured aortic aneurysm, pulmonary embolism, melanoma and cancers of the pancreas, endocrine and nervous systems, ovary, breast, prostate, colorectum, blood and lung. HRs per 6.5 cm greater height ranged from 1.26 (1.12-1.42) for risk of melanoma death to 0.84 (0.80-0.89) for risk of death from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. HRs were not appreciably altered after further adjustment for adiposity, blood pressure, lipids, inflammation biomarkers, diabetes mellitus, alcohol consumption or socio-economic indicators. CONCLUSION Adult height has directionally opposing relationships with risk of death from several different major causes of chronic diseases.
Textual Properties and Task-based Evaluation: Investigating the Role of Surface Properties, Structure and Content

This paper investigates the relationship between the results of an extrinsic, task-based evaluation of an NLG system and various metrics measuring both surface and deep semantic textual properties, including relevance. The latter rely heavily on domain knowledge. We show that they correlate systematically with some measures of performance. The core argument of this paper is that more domain knowledge-based metrics shed more light on the relationship between deep semantic properties of a text and task performance.
Thermal stability of sputtered copper films containing dilute insoluble tungsten: Thermal annealing study

This paper describes studies on the thermal annealing behavior of Cu films with 2.3 at. % W deposited on Si substrates. The magnetron cosputtered Cu films with insoluble W were vacuum annealed at temperatures ranging from 200 to 800 °C. Twins were observed in focused ion beam and transmission electron microscopy images of as-deposited and 400 °C annealed pure Cu film, and these twins were attributed to the intrinsic low stacking fault energy. Twins in pure Cu film may provide an additional diffusion path during annealing for copper silicide formation. The beneficial effect of W on the thermal stability of Cu film was supported by the following observations: (i) x-ray diffraction studies show that Cu_4Si was formed at 530 °C in Cu–W film, whereas pure Cu film exhibited Cu_4Si growth at 400 °C; (ii) shallow diffusion profiles for Cu into Si in Cu–W film through secondary ion mass spectroscopy analyses, and the high activation energy needed for the copper silicide formation from the differential scanning calorimetry study; (iii) addition of W in Cu film increases the stacking fault energy and results in a low twin density.
The missing stink: sulphur compounds can mediate a shift between fly and wasp pollination systems

The radiation of the angiosperms is often attributed to repeated evolutionary shifts between different pollinators, as this process drives diversification of floral forms and can lead to reproductive isolation. Floral scent is an important functional trait in many pollination systems but has seldom been implicated as a key mechanism in pollinator transitions. In this study, we suggest a role for sulphur compounds in mediating a shift between specialized carrion-fly and pompilid-wasp pollination systems in Eucomis (Hyacinthaceae). Flowers of closely related Eucomis species pollinated by carrion flies or pompilid wasps have very similar greenish-white flowers, but differ markedly in floral scent chemistry (determined by GC–MS analysis of headspace extracts). Comparison of the floral colours of the four Eucomis species in the visual systems of flies and wasps suggests that colour plays little role in pollinator discrimination. Nectar properties and morphology also do not differ strongly between fly- and wasp-pollinated flowers. By comparing floral scent bouquets and experimentally manipulating the scent of plants in the field, we demonstrate that shifts between wasp and fly pollination in these four congeners can depend on the production or suppression of sulphur compounds (dimethyl disulphide and dimethyl trisulphide) in the fragrance bouquet. This suggests that mutations affecting the production of particular scent compounds could precipitate shifts between pollinators, independently of floral morphology, colour or nectar properties.
Optimal energy routing in networks with energy cooperation

We consider the delay minimization problem in an energy harvesting communication network with energy cooperation. We investigate the problems of optimal energy management at each node and optimal energy routing between nodes through energy cooperation. For the case without energy cooperation, each node needs to distribute its harvested energy over its outgoing links. For this problem, we show that each node should allocate more power to links with more noise power and to links through which more data flow. For the case with energy cooperation, each node needs to distribute its harvested energy among its outgoing links, and in addition, each node may transfer a portion of its harvested energy to neighboring nodes through energy cooperation. For this problem, we develop an iterative algorithm to determine the optimal energy routes in the network. We numerically observe that energy is routed from nodes with lower data loads to nodes with higher data loads.
Effect of Chitosan, Aluminum Oxide and Silver Nanoparticles on Antibacterial, Deodorizing and Moisture Absorption Properties of Nonwoven Polyester Fabrics for Use in Medical Textiles

Background and Objective: Hospital clothing and textiles have a great role in providing medical services to patients. Hospital services would not be possible without using these textiles. The aim of this study was to prepare non-woven polyester for use in medical textiles. Methods: In this study, most important expected properties of hospital clothing were created on polyester fabrics via various stages of finishing using chemicals such as calcium chloride, sodium alginate, chitosan and nanoparticles of silver nitrate and aluminum oxide. Antibacterial (activity against Staphylococcus aureus ), deodorizing and wicking properties of samples were evaluated using nano-biomaterials via standard tests. Results: The water absorption rate of nonwoven samples that were finished with chitosan significantly improved. The results also showed favorable level of antimicrobial activity caused by silver nitrate and chitosan. In addition, deodorizing activity was observed in all samples. However, silver nitrate-finished samples had higher deodorizing activity. The capillary action of all samples reduced after completion of all finishing procedures. Conclusion: The results show that the use of chitosan and alginate along with nanoparticles of silver nitrate and aluminum oxide can be effective in achieving the desired properties of medical textiles.
Optimal Operation of Three Gorges Reservoir Based on Ant Colony Algorithm

The problem of reservoirs optimal operation involves non-linear optimization in the solution with high dimensionality and large number of equality and inequality constraints. The conventional methods often fail to yield global optimal solutions. The heuristic algorithm called Ant Colony Optimization algorithm is applied to reservoir optimal operation. In order to improve the optimization ability of ACO and avoid getting in the local optimal solution, the Max-Min ACO was adopted and a sensitivity-based visibility factor was applied to the ACO. The Max-Min ACO algorithm is applied to monthly optimal operation of Three Gorges reservoir, which is a multi-purpose reservoir system located in the middle of the Yangtze River. To evaluate the performance of Max-Min ACO algorithm, the dynamic programming (DP) is also applied to solve the problem. The results show that Max-Min ACO model performs better than the DP in terms of computing speed and convergence.
BLIND DATE: USING PROPER MOTIONS TO DETERMINE THE AGES OF HISTORICAL IMAGES

Astrometric calibration is based on patterns of cataloged stars and therefore effectively assumes a particular epoch, which can be substantially incorrect for historical images. With the known proper motions of stars we can “run back the clock” to an approximation of the night sky in any given year, and in principle the year that best fits stellar patterns in any given image is an estimate of the year in which that image was taken. In this paper, we use 47 scanned photographic images of M44 spanning the years 1910–1975 to demonstrate this technique. We use only the pixel information in each image; we use no prior information or metadata about image pointing, scale, orientation, or date. Blind Date returns date metadata for each input image. It also improves the astrometric calibration of the image because the final astrometric calibration is performed at the appropriate epoch. The accuracy and reliability of Blind Date are functions of image size, pointing, angular resolution, and depth; performance is related to the sum of proper-motion signal-to-noise ratios for catalog stars measured in the input image. All of the science-quality images and 90% of the low-quality images in our sample of photographic plate images of M44 have their dates reliably determined to within a decade, while 75% of our science-quality images have their dates reliably determined to within 3 years. This method has the potential to insert “lost” data into incomplete sets of time-domain imaging, improving constraints from historical data on transients, variable stars, stellar motions, and minor planet orbits.
Determinants of non-performing loans in Licensed Commercial Banks: Evidence from Sri Lanka

This study investigates the determinant factors of ex-post credit risk considering non-performing loans (NPLs) as proxy variable in Sri Lanka? s commercial banking sector and is carried out with a sample of nine licensed commercial banks for the period from 1999 to 2012. The study finds that the level of NPLs can be attributed to both macroeconomic conditions and banks? specific factors. It reveals that, NPLs tends to increase with deteriorating bank? s efficiency. There is also a positive correlation between loan to asset ratio and NPLs. Meanwhile, banks with high level of credit growth associated with a reduced level of non- performing loans. Larger banks incur lesser loan defaults compared to smaller banks. With regard to macro-economic variables, NPLs vary negatively with the growth rate of GDP and Inflation and positively with the prime lending rate.
QTL-guided metabolic engineering of a complex trait

Engineering complex phenotypes for industrial and synthetic biology applications is difficult and often confounds rational design. Bioethanol production from lignocellulosic feedstocks is a complex trait that requires multiple host systems to utilize, detoxify, and metabolize a mixture of sugars and inhibitors present in plant hydrolysates. Here, we demonstrate an integrated approach to discovering and optimizing host factors that impact fitness of Saccharomyces cerevisiae during fermentation of a Miscanthus x giganteus plant hydrolysate. We first used high-resolution Quantitative Trait Loci (QTL) mapping and systematic Bulk Reciprocal Hemizygosity analysis (bRHA) to discover 17 loci that differentiate hydrolysate tolerance between an industrially related (JAY291) and a laboratory (S288C) strain. We then used this data to identify a subset of favorable allelic loci that were most amenable for strain engineering. Guided by this “genetic blueprint”, and using a dual-guide Cas9-based method to efficiently perform multi-kilobase locus replacements, we engineered an S288C strain with superior hydrolysate tolerance than JAY291. Our methods should be generalizable to engineering any complex trait in S. cerevisiae, as well as other organisms.
A novel architecture for fast and EMC compliant power MOSFET drivers in automotive applications

Based on the identification of major EMI sources in power semiconductor inverter circuits a novel EMC compliant power MOSFET driver architecture (patented EP 0756 782 Bl) with switching times as low as 200 ns is presented. The driver is part of an EC motor controller test chip. Measurements on the demonstration board prove the performance
Real-time Rendering of Dynamic Vegetation

This paper presents a new approach to shading realistic leaves at high frame rates. The proposed physically based translucency model allows the accurate simulation of subsurface scattering in leaves while accounting for the leaf micro-structure. This approach is based in the local frame of the leaf, so it can be instantiated to any number of leaves without needing to generate new data. Besides rendering leaves in a realistic way, a method is proposed to animate trees in wind in a physically based and efficient manner. This method allows the bending of branches as well as the movement of individual leaves according to the wind. A small set of parameters allows an artist to tweak the appearance of the animation to her liking in real-time.
Mild traumatic brain injury in U.S. Soldiers returning from Iraq.

BACKGROUND An important medical concern of the Iraq war is the potential long-term effect of mild traumatic brain injury, or concussion, particularly from blast explosions. However, the epidemiology of combat-related mild traumatic brain injury is poorly understood. METHODS We surveyed 2525 U.S. Army infantry soldiers 3 to 4 months after their return from a year-long deployment to Iraq. Validated clinical instruments were used to compare soldiers reporting mild traumatic brain injury, defined as an injury with loss of consciousness or altered mental status (e.g., dazed or confused), with soldiers who reported other injuries. RESULTS Of 2525 soldiers, 124 (4.9%) reported injuries with loss of consciousness, 260 (10.3%) reported injuries with altered mental status, and 435 (17.2%) reported other injuries during deployment. Of those reporting loss of consciousness, 43.9% met criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as compared with 27.3% of those reporting altered mental status, 16.2% with other injuries, and 9.1% with no injury. Soldiers with mild traumatic brain injury, primarily those who had loss of consciousness, were significantly more likely to report poor general health, missed workdays, medical visits, and a high number of somatic and postconcussive symptoms than were soldiers with other injuries. However, after adjustment for PTSD and depression, mild traumatic brain injury was no longer significantly associated with these physical health outcomes or symptoms, except for headache. CONCLUSIONS Mild traumatic brain injury (i.e., concussion) occurring among soldiers deployed in Iraq is strongly associated with PTSD and physical health problems 3 to 4 months after the soldiers return home. PTSD and depression are important mediators of the relationship between mild traumatic brain injury and physical health problems.