Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychosocial Factors of Dietitians' Intentions to Adopt Shared Decision Making Behaviours: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Objectives While shared decision making (SDM) promotes health-related decisions that are informed, value-based and adhered to, few studies report on theory-based approaches to SDM adoption by healthcare professionals. We aimed to identify the factors influencing dietitians' intentions to adopt two SDM behaviours: 1) present dietary treatment options to patients and 2) help patients clarify their values and preferences. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional postal survey based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour among 428 randomly selected dietitians working in clinical practice across the Province of Quebec, Canada. We performed descriptive analyses and multiple regression analyses to determine the variables that explained the variance in intention to perform the behaviours. Results A total of 203 dietitians completed the questionnaire. Their ages were from 23 to 66 and they had been practising dietetics for 15.4±11.1 years (mean ± SD). On a scale from 1 to 7 (from strongly disagree to strongly agree), dietitians' intentions to present dietary treatment options and to clarify their patients' values and preferences were 5.00±1.14 and 5.68±0.74, respectively. Perceived behavioural control (β = 0.56, ρ<0.0001), subjective norm (β = 0.16, ρ<0.05), and moral norm (β = 0.22, ρ<0.0001), were the factors significantly predicting the intention to present dietary treatment options, while perceived behavioural control (β = 0.60, ρ<0.0001), attitude (β = 0.20, ρ<0.05), and professional norm (β = 0.22, ρ<0.001), significantly predicted the intention to help patients' clarify their values and preferences. Conclusion Our results showed that dietitians intend to adopt the two SDM behaviours studied. Factors influencing intention were different for each behaviour, except for perceived behavioural control which was common to both behaviours. Thus, perceived behavioural control could be a key factor in interventions aiming to encourage implementation of SDM by dietitians.
An untold story of middleboxes in cellular networks

The use of cellular data networks is increasingly popular as network coverage becomes more ubiquitous and many diverse user-contributed mobile applications become available. The growing cellular traffic demand means that cellular network carriers are facing greater challenges to provide users with good network performance and energy efficiency, while protecting networks from potential attacks. To better utilize their limited network resources while securing the network and protecting client devices the carriers have already deployed various network policies that influence traffic behavior. Today, these policies are mostly opaque, though they directly impact application designs and may even introduce network vulnerabilities. We present NetPiculet, the first tool that unveils carriers' NAT and firewall policies by conducting intelligent measurement. By running NetPiculet on the major U.S. cellular providers as well as deploying it as a smartphone application in the wild covering more than 100 cellular ISPs, we identified the key NAT and firewall policies which have direct implications on performance, energy, and security. For example, NAT boxes and firewalls set timeouts for idle TCP connections, which sometimes cause significant energy waste on mobile devices. Although most carriers today deploy sophisticated firewalls, they are still vulnerable to various attacks such as battery draining and denial of service. These findings can inform developers in optimizing the interaction between mobile applications and cellular networks and also guide carriers in improving their network configurations.
Association between Total Bilirubin and Hemoglobin A1c in Korean Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Recent studies have shown that bilirubin is negatively associated with hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) in the general population. The association between bilirubin and HbA1c in serum of diabetes patients has not yet been studied. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the association between total bilirubin and HbA1c in Korean patients with type 2 diabetes. A total of 690 of the 1,275 type 2 diabetes patients registered with the public health centers in Seo-gu, Gwangju and Gokseong-gun, Jeollanam-do participated in this study. Following an overnight fast, venous blood and urine samples were collected and analyzed. The mean HbA1c values differed significantly according to total bilirubin (≤ 0.4 mg/dL, 7.6%; 0.5 mg/dL, 7.3%; 0.6-0.7 mg/dL, 7.2%; and ≥ 0.8 mg/dL, 7.1%; P for trend = 0.016) after we adjusted for other confounding factors. When the odds ratio (OR) was adjusted for other confounding factors, there was a significant association between total bilirubin and HbA1c (OR, 0.4 [95% confidence interval, 0.2-0.8] for total bilirubin ≥ 0.8 mg/dL versus ≤ 0.4 mg/dL. In conclusion, total bilirubin concentrations in serum are negatively associated with HbA1c levels after adjustment for sex, age, and other confounding factors in type 2 diabetes patients.
Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy: Overcoming Ventricular Dyssynchrony in Dilated Heart Failure

&NA; Despite optimal medical therapy, dilated heart failure is associated with a dismal prognosis and relentless progression. Intraventricular conduction delay or bundle branch block is a marker of heart failure progression and worsening prognosis. Patients fitting this profile have been shown to benefit from a specific form of cardiac pacing now referred to as cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). This monograph is an in‐depth review of the theory and consequences of ventricular dyssynchrony in dilated heart failure, and provides an overview of the major clinical trials of CRT. Practical considerations for achieving ventricular resynchronization are discussed, with an emphasis on biventricular pacing.
The Ethylmalonyl-CoA Pathway Is Used in Place of the Glyoxylate Cycle by Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 during Growth on Acetate*

Background: The ethylmalonyl-CoA pathway represents an alternative to the glyoxylate cycle. Results: The ethylmalonyl-CoA pathway operates during acetate growth of Methylobacterium extorquens and represents one of three entry points into central metabolism. Conclusion: Isocitrate lyase-positive and -negative bacteria differ substantially in overall metabolic flux distribution. Significance: Tight coordination must exist for operation of the citric acid cycle in conjunction with the ethylmalonyl-CoA pathway. Acetyl-CoA assimilation was extensively studied in organisms harboring the glyoxylate cycle. In this study, we analyzed the metabolism of the facultative methylotroph Methylobacterium extorquens AM1, which lacks isocitrate lyase, the key enzyme in the glyoxylate cycle, during growth on acetate. MS/MS-based proteomic analysis revealed that the protein repertoire of M. extorquens AM1 grown on acetate is similar to that of cells grown on methanol and includes enzymes of the ethylmalonyl-CoA (EMC) pathway that were recently shown to operate during growth on methanol. Dynamic 13C labeling experiments indicate the presence of distinct entry points for acetate: the EMC pathway and the TCA cycle. 13C steady-state metabolic flux analysis showed that oxidation of acetyl-CoA occurs predominantly via the TCA cycle and that assimilation occurs via the EMC pathway. Furthermore, acetyl-CoA condenses with the EMC pathway product glyoxylate, resulting in malate formation. The latter, also formed by the TCA cycle, is converted to phosphoglycerate by a reaction sequence that is reversed with respect to the serine cycle. Thus, the results obtained in this study reveal the utilization of common pathways during the growth of M. extorquens AM1 on C1 and C2 compounds, but with a major redirection of flux within the central metabolism. Furthermore, our results indicate that the metabolic flux distribution is highly complex in this model methylotroph during growth on acetate and is fundamentally different from organisms using the glyoxylate cycle.
Axonal Ensheathment and Septate Junction Formation in the Peripheral Nervous System of Drosophila

Axonal insulation is critical for efficient action potential propagation and normal functioning of the nervous system. In Drosophila, the underlying basis of nerve ensheathment is the axonal insulation by glial cells and the establishment of septate junctions (SJs) between glial cell membranes. However, the details of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying axonal insulation and SJ formation are still obscure. Here, we report the characterization of axonal insulation in the Drosophila peripheral nervous system (PNS). Targeted expression of tau-green fluorescent protein in the glial cells and ultrastructural analysis of the peripheral nerves allowed us to visualize the glial ensheathment of axons. We show that individual or a group of axons are ensheathed by inner glial processes, which in turn are ensheathed by the outer perineurial glial cells. SJs are formed between the inner and outer glial membranes. We also show that Neurexin IV, Contactin, and Neuroglian are coexpressed in the peripheral glial membranes and that these proteins exist as a complex in the Drosophila nervous system. Mutations in neurexin IV, contactin, and neuroglian result in the disruption of blood–nerve barrier function in the PNS, and ultrastructural analyses of the mutant embryonic peripheral nerves show loss of glial SJs. Interestingly, the murine homologs of Neurexin IV, Contactin, and Neuroglian are expressed at the paranodal SJs and play a key role in axon-glial interactions of myelinated axons. Together, our data suggest that the molecular machinery underlying axonal insulation and axon-glial interactions may be conserved across species.
Adaptive observer based fault-tolerant chaotic synchronization comunication design

This paper deals with the fault tolerant adaptive synchronization problem of the drive-driven type chaotic systems via a scalar transmitted signal. Given certain structural conditions of chaotic systems, a fault tolerant adaptive observer-based driven system is presented to synchronize the drive system whose dynamics are affected by the system's disturbances, some unknown parameters and loss of effectiveness in actuator. By appropriately selecting the observer gains, the synchronization and stability of the overall systems can be achieved by an Lyapunov-like analysis. Finally, a well-known chaotic systems-Chua's circuit is considered as an illustrative example to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Ionic Cross-linked Chitosan Beads for Extended Release of Ciprofloxacin: In vitro Characterization

Chitosan beads loaded with ciprofloxacin hydrochloride were fabricated by ionic cross-linking with sodium tripolyphosphate. The beads showed an excellent water retention property. The degradation of fabricated beads was influenced by the pH of test medium. High drug load was achieved within the bead with a short curing time. Drug release was high in acidic medium (pH 1.2) vis-à-vis intestinal medium (pH 7.4). Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride release increased with an increasing concentration of ciprofloxacin and decreasing proportion of chitosan. Drug release followed both first-order and Higuchi's root time kinetics showing non-Fickian release mechanism.
Development of adaptive channel equalization using DE

The digital channel equalizers are located in the front end of the receivers to avoid the effect of Inter-Symbol-Interference (ISI). In this paper, the equalization problem has been viewed as an optimization problem. In past the Least Mean Square Algorithm (LMS), Recursive least square (RLS), Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) have been successfully employed for nonlinear channel equalization. The LMS, RLS and ANN techniques are derivative based and hence are chances that the parameters may fall to local minima during training. Though GA is a derivative free technique, it takes more converging time. We propose a novel equalization technique based on Differential Evolution (DE). DE is an efficient and powerful population based stochastic search technique for solving optimization problems over continuous space and hence the channel equalization performance is expected to be superior.
Scheduling techniques for variable voltage low power designs

This paper presents an integer linear programming (ILP) model and a heuristic for the variable voltage scheduling problem. We present the variable voltage scheduling techniques that consider in turn timing constraints alone, resource constraints alone, and timing and resource constraints together for design space exploration. Experimental results show that our heuristic produces results competitive with those of the ILP method in a fraction of the run-time. The results also show that a wide range of design alternatives can be generated using our design space exploration method. Using different cost/delay combinations, power consumption in a single design can differ by as much as a factor of 6 when using mixed 3.3V and 5V supply voltages.
Low-Rate Repeat-Zigzag-Hadamard Codes

In this paper, we propose a new class of low-rate error correction codes called repeat-zigzag-Hadamard (RZH) codes featuring simple encoder and decoder structures, and flexible coding rate. RZH codes are serially concatenated turbo-like codes where the outer code is a repetition code and the inner code is a punctured zigzag-Hadamard (ZH) code. By analyzing the code structure of RZH codes, we prove that both systematic and nonsystematic RZH codes are good codes, in the sense that for an RZH code ensemble, there exists a positive number gamma0 such that for any binary-input memoryless channel whose Bhattacharyya noise parameter is less than , the average block error probability of maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding approaches zero. Two decoding algorithms-serial and parallel decoders for RZH codes-are proposed. We then employ the extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart technique to design irregular RZH codes. Results show that the optimized irregular RZH codes exhibit a performance that is very close to capacity in the low-rate regime.
Subliminal activation of social ties moderates cardiovascular reactivity during acute stress.

OBJECTIVE The quality of one's personal relationships has been reliably linked to important physical health outcomes, perhaps through the mechanism of physiological stress responses. Most studies of this mechanism have focused on whether more conscious interpersonal transactions influence cardiovascular reactivity. However, whether such relationships can be automatically activated in memory to influence physiological processes has not been determined. The primary aims of this study were to examine whether subliminal activation of relationships could influence health-relevant physiological processes and to examine this question in the context of a more general relationship model that incorporates both positive and negative dimensions. METHOD We randomly assigned participants to be subliminally primed with existing relationships that varied in their underlying positivity and negativity (i.e., indifferent, supportive, aversive, ambivalent). They then performed acute psychological stressors while cardiovascular and self-report measures were assessed. RESULTS Priming negative relationships was associated with greater threat, lower feelings of control, and higher diastolic blood pressure reactivity during stress. Moreover, priming relationships high in positivity and negativity (ambivalent ties) was associated with the highest heart rate reactivity and greatest respiratory sinus arrhythmia decreases during stress. Exploratory analyses during the priming task itself suggested that the effects of negative primes on biological measures were prevalent across tasks, whereas the links to ambivalent ties was specific to the subsequent stressor task. CONCLUSIONS These data highlight novel mechanisms by which social ties may impact cardiovascular health, and further suggest the importance of incorporating both positivity and negativity in the study of relationships and physical health.
First-principle simulation on the crystallization tendency and enhanced magnetization of Fe76B19P5 amorphous alloy

Iron-based amorphous alloys have attracted a growing interest due to their potential in the application of magnetic coil production. However, the magnetization of this kind of material is usually low due to the lack of long range ordering and high alloying element content. In this paper, an Fe76B19P5 amorphous alloy was simulated with ab initio molecular dynamics based on a previous simulation work on an Fe76Si9B10P5 amorphous alloy exhibiting that electron absorbers such as B and P can help enhance the magnetization of nearby Fe atoms. The present simulation results show that replacing Si with B can destabilize the amorphous structure, making it easier to crystallize, but no separate α-Fe participation can be observed in experiments during annealing due to its high B/P content. The results also show an increase in saturation magnetization by 8% can be expected due to the intensified electron transfer from Fe to B/P, and the glass forming ability decreases correspondingly. The idea of enhancing electron transfer can be applied to the development of other Fe-based amorphous alloys for the purpose of larger saturation magnetization.
Nearest-neighbor Queries in Probabilistic Graphs

Large probabilistic graphs arise in various domains spanning from social networks to biological and communication networks. An important query in these graphs is the k nearestneighbor query, which involves finding and reporting the k closest nodes to a specific node. This query assumes the existence of a measure of the “proximity” or the “distance” between any two nodes in the graph. To that end, we propose various novel distance functions that extend well known notions of classical graph theory, such as shortest paths and random walks. We argue that many meaningful distance functions are computationally intractable to compute exactly. Thus, in order to process nearest-neighbor queries, we resort to Monte Carlo sampling and exploit novel graph-transformation ideas and pruning opportunities. In our extensive experimental analysis, we explore the trade-offs of our approximation algorithms and demonstrate that they scale well on real-world probabilistic graphs with tens of millions of edges.
Analysis and Mitigation of Interaction Dynamics in Active DC Distribution Systems With Positive Feedback Islanding Detection Schemes

The direct current (DC) technology has gained significant momentum in modern distribution systems due to the high penetration levels of dc loads and dc-based distributed generators (DGs). Unlike conventional ac distribution systems, dc distribution systems have the following distinct features that challenge the system stability. 1) The high penetration level of tightly regulated converters used to interface both DGs and loads yields a destabilizing constant power load (CPL) effect in a considerable range of frequencies. 2) The filtering inductors and capacitors form poorly damped LC networks that interact negatively with the CPLs leading to further deterioration of the system stability. 3) Because islanding in a dc system can be hardly detected with passive methods due the absence of the frequency and reactive power terms, DGs are usually equipped with active islanding detection methods to detect the grid disconnection state; however, the islanding detection schemes could negatively impact the distribution system stability. The analysis and mitigation of undesirable interaction dynamics in a dc distribution system considering the aforementioned practical characteristics are not reported in the current literature. In this paper, the interaction dynamics of a dc distribution system characterized by a high penetration level of CPLs, and DGs equipped with positive feedback islanding detection scheme are investigated. The factors affecting the system stability with a single and multiple DGs are thoroughly addressed. Further, a stabilizing compensation loop is proposed to mitigate the stability problems and poor damping capability. Detailed time-domain nonlinear simulations and experimental results validate the analytical results.
R2D: Combining replication and redundancy to enhance the performance and reliability of storage systems

Due to the continuous upscaling of the storage capacity and downscaling of the physical size of storage systems, the data reliability problem has become a research highlight. While various redundancy schemes have been proposed to include extra redundant data to ensure that the correct data can be recovered even in the presence of bit errors or bad blocks, they might introduce unexpected performance overheads on data accesses. In particular, in the case of unreliable block devices, as a number of data blocks are grouped together for redundant data computation, even reading a single bad block might require to read out the whole set, including the data blocks and their redundant blocks, to recover the correct data, thereby considerably amplifying the read traffic. On the other hand, the replication scheme does not have such a serious overhead of read amplification, but introduces a serious space overhead to keep multiple copies of the same data. In this work, we propose to integrate redundancy and replication schemes according to the access patterns of different data, which can strike a proper balance between the space and performance overheads. The proposed scheme, “redundant or replicated data (R2D),” is then verified through experimental studies, where the results are quite encouraging.
Finding Aliases using Noun Detection Algorithm

Increased amount of internet users leads to collision in the names on the web forums and in many scenarios, which in turn leads to maximum number of users who are using their aliases in the web. This creates a difficulty in detecting the proper user. So, systems are suggested to identify their aliases using the entity graphs. But most of them are experimenting on the datasets; on the other hand very few systems exist to be worked on real entity. So implemented system put forward an idea of finding aliases on the real web data by using an enhanced web crawler which collects all sub URL’s of the given seed URL, which is analyzed by the another baby crawler to fetch and parse the web data as human readable content using random walk relational theory. Alias graph is identified to be more efficient with the help of real relation entity graph on the collected web data. General Terms Pattern Recognition, Algorithms
Stimulation by calcium ions of pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphate phosphatase.

In a number of mammalian tissues (heart, liver, kidney, fat-cells and brain), pyruvate dehydrogenase activity (EC 1.2.4.1) has been shown to be regulated by a phosphorylation-dephosphorylation cycle (Linn et al., 1969a,b; Wieland & Siess, 1970; Jungas, 1971; Coore et al., 1971 ; Siess et al., 1971). Phosphorylation of the dephosphorylated (active) form of the enzyme by an ATPMg2--requiring kinase tightly bound to the enzyme complex leads to the formation of pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphate, which is inactive; conversion of pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphate into active pyruvate dehydrogenase is catalysed by a phosphatase, which is activated by Mg2+ and is less tightly bound to the complex than is the kinase. Insulin action on rat epididymal fat-cells activates pyruvate dehydrogenase by increasing the proportion of the active form to that of the inactive phosphorylated form (Jungas, 1971; Coore et al., 1971). During experiments designed to ascertain whether insulin acted through inhibition of pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase or activation ofpyruvate dehydrogenase phosphate phosphatase it was noticed that the use of EGTA* in the isolation of fat-ell mitochondria led to a diminution in the activity of the phosphatase in extracts of mitochondria. We have found since that the Mg2+-requiring pyruvate dehydrogenase phosphate phosphatase from pig heart, pig kidney cortex and rat epididymal fat-cell mitochondria is markedly activated by Ca2+ (0.1-10uM).