Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gel of chamomile vs. urea cream to prevent acute radiation dermatitis in patients with head and neck cancer: a randomized controlled trial.

AIM To compare a gel made with chamomile (Chamomilla recutita) with a cream of urea as an intervention to delay the time to occurrence of radiation dermatitis. BACKGROUND Radiation dermatitis is one of the most common adverse effects of radiotherapy in patients with head and neck cancer. It is characterized by erythema, itching, pain, skin breakage and burning sensation, and there is no consensus on how to prevent it. DESIGN The study is a randomized controlled clinical trial. METHODS We will recruit 48 individuals with head and neck cancer who will be starting their radiotherapy and randomize them to receive either gel of chamomile or cream of urea, as an intervention for prevention of radiation dermatitis. Social-demographic data will be collected at baseline, and clinical data will be collected before the initiation of radiotherapy. Participants will be followed weekly to assess development of radiation dermatitis. The protocol is funded by Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico (Brazil). The study was approved by a research ethics committee. DISCUSSION Given the clinical relevance of preventing radiation dermatitis and the lack of evidence supporting specific preventive interventions, it is important to study new products that might be efficacious to prevent this complication. This article presents the protocol of a randomized controlled trial comparing a gel made with chamomile (intervention) with a cream of urea (control) to prevent radiation dermatitis in patients with head and neck cancer undergoing radiotherapy.
Annual Research Review: Childhood maltreatment, latent vulnerability and the shift to preventative psychiatry – the contribution of functional brain imaging

Background Childhood maltreatment is a potent predictor of poor mental health across the life span. We argue that there is a need to improve the understanding of the mechanisms that confer psychiatric vulnerability following maltreatment, if we are to progress from simply treating those with a manifest disorder, to developing effective preventative approaches that can help offset the likelihood that such disorders will emerge in the first place. Methods We review extant functional neuroimaging studies of children and adolescents exposed to early neglect and/or maltreatment, including physical, sexual and emotional abuse across four neurocognitive domains: threat processing, reward processing, emotion regulation and executive control. Findings are discussed in the context of ‘latent vulnerability’, where alterations in neurocognitive function are considered to carry adaptive value in early adverse caregiving environments but confer long‐term risk. Results Studies on threat processing indicate heightened as well as depressed neural responsiveness in maltreated samples, particularly in the amygdala, thought to reflect threat hypervigilance and avoidance respectively. Studies on reward processing generally report blunted neural response to anticipation and receipt of rewards, particularly in the striatum, patterns associated with depressive symptomatology. Studies on emotion regulation report increased activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during active emotion regulation, possibly reflecting greater effortful processing. Finally, studies of executive control report increased dorsal ACC activity during error monitoring and inhibition. Conclusions An emerging body of work indicates that altered neurocognitive functioning following maltreatment: (a) is evident even in the absence of overt psychopathology; (b) is consistent with perturbations seen in individuals presenting with psychiatric disorder; (c) can predict future psychiatric symptomatology. These findings suggest that maltreatment leads to neurocognitive alterations that embed latent vulnerability to psychiatric disorder, establishing a compelling case for identifying those children at most risk and developing mechanistically informed models of preventative intervention. Such interventions should aim to offset the likelihood of any future psychiatric disorder.
Decentralized adaptive synchronization of a class of discrete-time nonlinear multi-agent systems with unknown parameters and high-frequency gains

This paper addresses the challenging problem of decentralized adaptive control for a class of coupled hidden leader-follower multi-agent systems, in which each agent is described by a nonlinearly parameterized uncertain model in discrete time and can interact with its neighbors via its available information on its neighbors. One of the agents is a leader, who knows the desired reference trajectory, while other agents have no access to the desired reference signal or are unaware of existence of the leader. In order to tackle unknown internal parameters and unknown high-frequency gains, a projection-type parameter estimation algorithm is proposed. Based on the certainty equivalence principle and neighborhood history information, the decentralized adaptive control is designed, under which, the boundedness of identification error is guaranteed with the help of the Lyapunov theory. Under some conditions, the multi-agent system eventually achieves strong synchronization in the presence of strong couplings. Finally, a simulation example is given to support the results of the proposed scheme.
A content analytic comparison of fitspiration and thinspiration websites.

OBJECTIVE "Pro-ana" or Thinspiration websites are internet sites that support weight loss and eating disorders. Fitspiration websites are a newer type of site that supposedly advocates a fit and healthy lifestyle. METHOD The first 10 images from a sample of 50 Fitspiration and 50 Thinspiration websites, chosen using a standard internet search protocol, were rated on a variety of weight, eating, and appearance characteristics. χ(2) analyses were conducted to compare website content. RESULTS Thinspiration sites featured more content related to losing weight or fat, praising thinness, showng a thin pose, and providing food guilt messages than Fitspiration sites. However, sites did not differ on guilt-inducing messages regarding weight or the body, fat/weight stigmatization, the presence of objectifying phrases, and dieting/restraint messages. Overall, 88% of Thinspiration sites and 80% of Fitspiration sites contained one or more of the coded variables. DISCUSSION Prior research has examined Thinspiration websites and noted the potentially hazardous messages contained on these sites. This content analysis indicates that sites supposedly devoted to healthy pursuits (fitness) may also contain thematically similar content.
Manufacture and Performance of Z-Pinned Composites

The chapter provides the first review of the state of the art in the novel technology of Z-Fiber® reinforcement of polymer matrix composites. It describes the manufacture of the reinforcing fiber rodstock and the various means by which the Z-Fibers, so-called Z-pins, are inserted either into uncured lay-up or into polymeric foam (X-CorTM and K-CorTM), to give rise to three-dimensionally reinforced composite structures. The available experimental data and analytical as well as finite element (FE) modeling tools relating to the mechanical properties of Z-pinned laminates are presented. It is shown that Z-pinning is capable of enhancing the delamination resistance of aerospace-grade continuous carbon fiber–thermoset composites by about an order of magnitude, accompanied by a loss of in-plane stiffness of some 10%. The influence of the presence of the Z-pins upon in-plane strength is dependent on the lay-up and on the mode of loading, but the knock down in these properties correlates well with existing models accounting for increased fiber waviness in the plies. It is shown that the main benefit of Zpinning is to be expected from the high crack-stopping potential of selective placement of blocks of Z-pins in a composite structure. Models for delamination resistance, relevant to z-directional reinforcement, are summarized for the cases of mode I, mode II, and mixed mode I/ II loadings. Most of these had been developed previously for stitched composites, but they are being adapted quite successfully to deal with the new form of through-the-thickness reinforcement. The chapter concludes with an overview of the current industrial applications of Z-pinning technology, showing its potential as a new tailored engineering solution to overcome the traditional out-of-plane weakness of composite structures. 3.
Effect of Exercise Training on Cardiac Biomarkers in At-Risk Populations: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND Studies have demonstrated beneficial effects of exercise on cardiovascular disease biomarkers for healthy individuals; however, a comprehensive review regarding the effect of exercise on cardiovascular disease biomarkers in at-risk populations is lacking. METHODS A literature search was performed to identify studies meeting the following criteria: randomized controlled study, participants with pathology/activity limitations, biomarker outcome (total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, low-density lipoprotein, C-reactive protein, insulin, triglycerides, or glucose), and exercise intervention. Means and standard deviations from each biomarker were used to calculate standardized Cohen's d effect sizes with 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS In total, 37 articles were included. The majority (44/57; 77%) of data points demonstrated moderate to strong effects for the reduction in total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein, and elevation in high-density lipoprotein following exercise. The majority of data points demonstrated strong effects for reductions in blood glucose (24/30; 80%) and insulin (23/24; 96%) levels following exercise intervention. CONCLUSION Evidence is heterogeneous regarding the influence of exercise on cardiovascular disease biomarkers in at-risk patients, which does not allow a definitive conclusion. Favorable effects include reductions in triglycerides, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, glucose, and insulin, and elevation in high-density lipoprotein following exercise intervention. The strongest evidence indicates that exercise is favorable for the reduction in glucose and cholesterol levels among obese patients, and reduction of insulin regardless of population.
A General-Purpose Method for Faithfully Rounded Floating-Point Function Approximation in FPGAs

A barrier to wide-spread use of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) has been the complexity of programming, but recent advances in High-Level Synthesis (HLS) have made it possible for non-experts to easily create floating-point numerical accelerators from C-like code. However, HLS users are limited to the set of numerical primitives provided by HLS vendors and designers of floating-point IP cores, and cannot easily implement new fast or accurate numerical primitives. This paper presents a method for automatically creating high-performance pipelined floating-point function approximations, which can be integrated as IP cores into numerical accelerators, whether derived from HLS or traditional design methods. Both input and output are floating-point, but internally the function approximator uses fixed-point polynomial segments, guaranteeing a faithfully rounded output. A robust and automated non-uniform segmentation scheme is used to segment any twice-differentiable input function and produce platform-independent VHDL. The approach is demonstrated across ten functions, which are automatically generated then placed and routed in Xilinx devices. The method provides a 1.1x-3x improvement in area over composite numerical approximations, while providing similar performance and significantly better relative error.
Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Changes following Afforestation of Marginal Cropland across a Precipitation Gradient in Loess Plateau of China

Cropland afforestation has been widely found to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil total nitrogen (STN); however, the magnitudes of SOC and STN accumulation and regulating factors are less studied in dry, marginal lands, and therein the interaction between soil carbon and nitrogen is not well understood. We examined the changes in SOC and STN in younger (5–9-year-old) and older (25–30-year-old) black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L., an N-fixing species) plantations that were established on former cropland along a precipitation gradient (380 to 650 mm) in the semi-arid Loess Plateau of China. The SOC and STN stocks of cropland and plantations increased linearly with precipitation increase, respectively, accompanying an increase in the plantation net primary productivity and the soil clay content along the increasing precipitation gradient. The SOC stock of cropland decreased in younger plantations and increased in older plantations after afforestation, and the amount of the initial loss of SOC during the younger plantations’ establishment increased with precipitation increasing. By contrast, the STN stock of cropland showed no decrease in the initial afforestation while tending to increase with plantation age, and the changes in STN were not related to precipitation. The changes in STN and SOC showed correlated and were precipitation-dependent following afforestation, displaying a higher relative gain of SOC to STN as precipitation decreased. Our results suggest that the afforestation of marginal cropland in Loess Plateau can have a significant effect on the accumulation of SOC and STN, and that precipitation has a significant effect on SOC accumulation but little effect on STN retention. The limitation effect of soil nitrogen on soil carbon accumulation is more limited in the drier area rather than in the wetter sites.
A Role for Innexin2 and Innexin3 Proteins from Spodoptera litura in Apoptosis

Gap junctions formed by two hemichannels from two neighboring cells are cell-to-cell communication channels; hemichannels are communication channels between intracellular and extracellular environments. Hemichannels are hexameric proteins formed by connexins, pannexins, innexins and vinnexins. Innexin-hemichannels (innexons) exist in the lepidopteran cell surface, but their component innexins and functions have not been reported. Recent studies by others have demonstrated that hemichannels, connexons and pannexons from vertebrates serve as regulators of apoptosis via inactivating the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. Here, the apoptogenic properties of innexons are demonstrated using two innexin cDNAs, Spli-inx2 and Spli-inx3, which were isolated from hemocytes of lepidopteran Spodoptera litura. Alignment analysis revealed that these two genes belong to a conserved innexin family, as they contain the insect signature YYQWV motif at the beginning of the second transmembrane domain. Immunofluorescence showed that two fusion proteins, Inx2-V5 and Inx3-V5, were localized predominantly in the cell membrane, cytoplasm and also nuclei. Ectopic expression in Sf9 cells and over-expression of Inx2 and Inx3 in Spli221 cells promoted apoptosis. In the Spli221 cells, apoptotic cells presented remarkable membrane blebbing. This study also showed that Sf9 and Spli221 cells undergo low level apoptosis under normal culture conditions, but not Hi5 cells. In Hi5 stable cell lines, biotinylation was used to isolate surface proteins and confirm Inx2 and Inx3 localization in the cell membrane and also further data showed that Hi5 cells may activate the PI3K signaling pathway via phosphorylating molecular Akt downstream. This result suggests that innexon-promoted apoptosis may be involving the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. These findings will facilitate further examinations of the apoptotic regulation by the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway and comparative studies of innexons, connexons, pannexons, and vinnexons.
Hankel Matrix Rank Minimization with Applications to System Identification and Realization

We introduce a flexible optimization framework for nuclear norm minimization of matrices with linear structure, including Hankel, Toeplitz, and moment structures and catalog applications from diverse fields under this framework. We discuss various first-order methods for solving the resulting optimization problem, including alternating direction methods of multipliers, proximal point algorithms, and gradient projection methods. We perform computational experiments to compare these methods on system identification problems and system realization problems. For the system identification problem, the gradient projection method (accelerated by Nesterov's extrapolation techniques) and the proximal point algorithm usually outperform other first-order methods in terms of CPU time on both real and simulated data, for small and large regularization parameters, respectively, while for the system realization problem, the alternating direction method of multipliers, as applied to a certain primal reformulation, usuall.
CNTs as ion carriers in formation of calcium phosphate coatings

Surface functionalisation of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) provides possibility of employing them in the biomedical industry as drug/growth factor carriers improving healing of a patient after injury. Carbon nanotubes are also very perspective nanomaterials as reinforcement in composites because of their mechanical properties. In the present work, single wall CNTs (SWCNTs), single wall/double wall (SW/DWCNTs) and multiwall CNTs (MWCNTs) functionalised with –COOH, –OH and –NH2 groups were tested as ion carriers in electrodeposition and as reinforcements in the composite calcium phosphate coatings. In our research, new composite coatings with Ca/P ratios ranging from 1·0 to 1·50 were obtained during electrodeposition in electrolytic solutions containing –COOH functionalised SWCNTs and MWCNTs. Amorphous calcium phosphates were fabricated in electrolytic solutions containing –NH2 functionalised MWCNTs, while no coating was fabricated in electrolytes containing –OH functionalised SW/DWCNTs. The structure and kind of functionalised groups of CNTs had an influence on the type, morphology and thickness of electrodeposited calcium phosphate coatings.
QoE-ensured price competition model for emerging mobile networks

The ubiquitous availability of devices such as smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices enables the collection of massive amounts of distributed data from the daily lives of citizens. These types of emerging mobile networks can provide new forms of valuable information that are currently not available on this scale via any traditional data collection methods. In such networks, price competition is the most important factor among the participants (mobile devices, services organizers [SOs], and users), highly affecting their quality of experience. In this article, we first explain how a game theory model can depict social behavior, price competition, and the evolutionary relationship among devices, SOs, and users, and then provide insights to understand the price competition process of the participants in mobile networks. Finally, we outline several important open research directions.
Effect Of Diesel Pollution On Sub-Grade And Permeability Characteristics Of Fly Ash-Sand Composite

In this study, the variation of compaction, strength and permeability characteristics of fine sandfly ash composite are studied with varying percentage of fly ash and contaminating oil product used was diesel. After compaction at maximum dry density with optimum water content, the load bearing characteristics, California bearing ratio (CBR), and permeability characteristics of fly ash-fine sand composite and the optimum sand: fly ash mix contaminated with diesel were evaluated. The compaction characteristics of fly ash-sand composite are improved and optimum value of maximum dry density is achieved for 32% fly ash content. The CBR values are observed to improve and the maximum values of soaked and un-soaked CBR are observed for the optimum fly ash content. The maximum dry density of diesel polluted soil composite decreases upon increasing the diesel content and the optimum moisture content also decreases. The un-soaked and soaked CBR values of the soil composite decrease as diesel content in the sand-fly ash composite increases. The permeability of soil composite decreased upon increasing the fly ash content. The permeability of composite decreases further upon contamination with increasing percentages of diesel. Thus, fly ash-fine sand composite can be used in construction of sub-grade for oil storage tanks.
The Food Colloid Principle in the Design of Elderly Food

It is necessary to control the rheological properties of bolus to prevent aspiration. To know the risk of aspiration for each person with difficulty in mastication and swallowing, it will be effective to use a test fluid which enables doctors to judge the safe range of the viscosity based on videofluorography. Since the knowledge of dominant factors which govern rheology is required, effects of shear rate, cooling rate, concentration of polysaccharides, coexisting seasonings on viscosity and viscoelasticity are overviewed. Since chemical senses are also known to affect the swallowing behavior, the relation between texture and flavor release is described briefly. Mixture of polysaccharides, proteins and fluid gels are overviewed as texture modifiers. Acoustic analysis of swallowing, extrusion method, a falling needle viscometer, tribological study on frictional coefficient of bolus are also described as each method is expected to be a useful tool to understand the complicated aspect of the disorder in mastication and deglutition. Mastication and swallowing of minced foods and model food gels are also described. Finally, the importance of the communication and collaboration between different disciplines is emphasized. Practical Applications Polysaccharides have been used to modify the texture of foods. It is necessary to know how these polysaccharides influence the swallowing behavior to design foods for elderly. Since the texture of foods is influenced by taste, aroma and conversely these are influenced by texture, the knowledge on the relation between texture and flavor release is crucial to manipulate the foods to reduce the risk of aspiration. Some examples which are expected to be helpful to design foods for elderly are shown.
Monitoring Shedding of Five Genotypes of RotaTeq Vaccine Viruses by Genotype-Specific Real-Time Reverse Transcription-PCR Assays

ABSTRACT RotaTeq (RV5) is a widely used live attenuated pentavalent rotavirus (RV) vaccine. Although fecal shedding of RV vaccine strains persists for long time periods, it is unclear how each vaccine strain replicates in intestinal tissue and is excreted in stool. To examine this issue, we established RV5 genotype-specific real-time reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) assays. Five real-time RT-PCR assays were designed for the VP7 gene in genotypes G1, G2, G3, G4, and G6. All assays exhibited excellent linearity, and the detection limit was 1 infectious unit (IU)/reaction for G2, G4, and G6 and 10 IUs/reaction for G1 and G3. No cross-reactivity was observed among G genotypes. The inter- and intra-assay coefficients of variation were less than 3%. The assays were used to examine 129 stool samples collected from eight infants who received RV5. In cases 1 and 2, who received three rounds of vaccination, RV shedding decreased gradually with the number of vaccinations. G1 and G6 shedding appeared to be predominant in comparison to shedding of the other genotypes. Patterns of fecal shedding of the five genotypes of vaccine viruses differed between the eight vaccine recipients. RV5 genotype-specific real-time RT-PCR assays will be useful to study the molecular biology of RV5 replication in infants and experimental animals.