Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
American Journal of Epidemiology Original Contribution Generational Differences in the Prevalence of Hearing Impairment in Older Adults

There were significant changes in health and lifestyle throughout the 20th century which may have changed temporal patterns of hearing impairment in adults. In this study, the authors aimed to assess the effect of birth cohort on the prevalence of hearing impairment in an adult population aged 45–94 years, using data collected between 1993 and 2008 from 3 cycles of the Epidemiology of Hearing Loss Study (n ¼ 3,753; ages 48–92 years at baseline) and a sample of participants from the Beaver Dam Offspring Study (n ¼ 2,173; ages ! 45 years). Hearing impairment was defined as a pure-tone average of thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz greater than 25-dB HL [hearing level]. Descriptive analysis, generalized additive models, and alternating logistic regression models were used to examine the birth cohort effect. Controlling for age, with every 5-year increase in birth year, the odds of having hearing impairment were 13% lower in men (odds ratio ¼ 0.87, 95% confidence interval: 0.83, 0.92) and 6% lower in women (odds ratio ¼ 0.94, 95% confidence interval: 0.89, 0.98). These results suggest that 1) older adults may be retaining good hearing longer than previous generations and 2) modifiable factors contribute to hearing impairment in adults. The 20th century saw profound changes in the economic , technologic, and social environments. These changes greatly affected people's everyday lives and thus may have reshaped the pattern of disease from generation to generation. Changes across generations are referred to as the birth cohort effect. Understanding birth cohort effects has important implications for public health because of the key role they play in predicting health-care needs and developing corresponding prevention strategies, particularly in the field of chronic disability, with the aging of the population (1, 2). Hearing impairment is one such chronic disability. As the third-most-prevalent chronic disability in the United States, hearing impairment is estimated to affect 29 million Americans aged 20–69 years (3). Hearing impairment usually causes difficulty in understanding speech, an extremely important tool for communication. People with hearing impairment may further suffer psychological, physical, and social consequences, which, together with its high prevalence, make hearing impairment a major public health concern (4). The number of people with hearing impairment is expected to increase as the population ages. However, the numbers may be lower if later generations have lower prevalences of hearing impairment. To our knowledge, there have been no population-based studies of generational differences …
Toward Specifying and Validating Cross-Domain Policies

Formal security policies are extremely useful for two related reasons. First, they allow a policy to be considered in isolation, separate from programs under the purview of the policy and separate from the implementation of the policy’s enforcement. Second, policies can be checked for compliance against higher-level security goals by using automated analyses. By contrast, ad hoc enforcement mechanisms (for which no separate policies are specified) enjoy neither benefit, and non-formal policies enjoy the first but not the second. We would like to understand how best to define (and enforce) multi-level security policies when information must be shared across domains that have varying levels of trust (the so-called “cross domain” problem). Because we wish to show such policies meet higher-level security goals with high assurance, we are interested in specifying cross domain policies formally, and then reasoning about them using automated tools. In this report, we briefly survey work that presents formal security policies with crossdomain concerns, in particular with respect to the problem of downgrading. We also describe correctness properties for such policies, all based on noninterference. Finally, we briefly discuss recently-developed tools for analyzing formal security policies; though no existing tools focus on the analysis of downgradingoriented policies, existing research points the way to providing such support.
Two‐dimensional‐strain echocardiography in intensive care unit patients: A prospective, observational study

Two‐dimensional‐strain echocardiography (2D‐strain) is a promising technique for the early detection of myocardial dysfunction. Our study was aimed to assess its feasibility in the intensive care unit (ICU). Our secondary goal was to determine if 2D‐strain could predict the patient's outcome.
Incentives to Exercise

Can incentives be effective when trying to encourage the development of good habits? We investigate the effect of paying people a non-trivial amount of money to attend an exercise facility a number of times during a one-month period. In two separate studies, we find that doing so leads to a large and significant increase in the average post-intervention attendance level relative to the control group. This result is entirely driven by the impact on people who did not previously attend the gym on a regular basis, as the average attendance rates for people who had already been using the gym regularly are either unchanged or diminished. In our second study, we also obtain biometric evidence that this intervention improves important health indicators such as weight, waist size, and pulse rate. Thus, even though personal incentives to exercise are already in place, it appears that providing financial incentive to attend the gym regularly for a month serves as a catalyst to get some people past the threshold of actually getting started with an exercise regimen. We argue that there is scope for financial intervention in habit formation, particularly in the area of health.
Superpower Interventions and Their Consequences for Democracy: An Empirical Inquiry

Do superpower interventions to install and prop up political leaders in other countries subsequently result in more or less democracy, and does this effect vary depending on whether the intervening superpower is democratic or authoritarian? While democracy may be expected to decline contemporaneously with superpower interference, the effect on democracy after a few years is far from obvious. The absence of reliable information on covert interventions has hitherto served as an obstacle to seriously addressing these questions. The recent declassification of Cold War CIA and KGB documents now makes it possible to systematically address these questions in the Cold War context. We thus develop a new panel dataset of superpower interventions during the Cold War. We find that superpower interventions are followed by significant declines in democracy, and that the substantive effects are large. Perhaps surprisingly, once endogeneity is addressed, US and Soviet interventions have equally detrimental effects on the subsequent level of democracy; both decrease democracy by about 33%. Our findings thus suggest that one should not expect significant differences in the adverse institutional consequences of superpower interventions based on whether the intervening superpower is a democracy or a dictatorship.
Diffusion reflection technique for diagnosis of atherosclerosis in mice using gold nanorods

Atherosclerosis, the leading cause of morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular disease, occur due to hardening and narrowing of arteries for development of vulnerable plaques made of cholesterols, tissue macrophages, foam cells and smooth muscle cells. Early detection of atherosclerosis is essential for proper treatment. Our group has already reported about the potential application of the non-invasive diffusion reflection (DR) technique in the detection of atherosclerosis using gold nanorods (GNRs) as contrast agent in carotid artery injured mice model. The basics of the study lie on the uptake GNRs by macrophages that located at the vulnerable plaques, which act as a good absorption contrast for DR measurement. Accumulations of GNRs cause changes in the optical property of the tissues and in turn cause changes in DR profile. In this study, we report the potential application of DR measurement in the detection of atherosclerosis in high-fat diet mice. Here, we have used PEG-coated GNRs with absorption maxima around 660nm. The time kinetics showed that after 24h of GNR injection the DR can find the atherosclerotic plaques and with time (up to 72h) the GNR accumulation in plaques were faded out, but still can be detectable by DR. Our result strongly suggests that in future DR can be used for early detection of atherosclerosis.
Sun Protection Among New Zealand Primary School Children

Schools are an important setting for raising skin cancer prevention awareness and encouraging sun protection. We assessed the clothes worn and shade used by 1,278 children in eight schools in the Wellington region of New Zealand. These children were photographed for the Kids’Cam project between September 2014 and March 2015 during school lunch breaks. Children’s mean clothing coverage (expressed as a percentage of body area covered) was calculated. Data on school sun-safety policies were obtained via telephone. Mean total body clothing coverage was 70.3% (95% confidence interval = 66.3%, 73.8%). Body regions with the lowest mean coverage were the head (15.4% coverage), neck (36.1% coverage), lower arms (46.1% coverage), hands (5.3% coverage), and calves (30.1% coverage). Children from schools with hats as part of the school uniform were significantly more likely to wear a hat (52.2%) than children from schools without a school hat (2.7%). Most children (78.4%) were not under the cover of shade. Our findings suggest that New Zealand children are not sufficiently protected from the sun at school. Schools should consider comprehensive approaches to improve sun protection, such as the provision of school hats, sun-protective uniforms, and the construction of effective shade.
An Approach for Direct Dataflow Execution on Contemporary Multicore Systems

Traditionally, imperative programming uses a series of state-based operands to model control-flow and, as a result, suffers from the well-known von Neumann bottleneck. In contrast, dataflow programs are driven only by the availability of instruction operands. However, the lack of mainstream dataflow hardware hinders direct dataflow instruction execution. On the other hand, direct execution of dataflow programs on von Neumann machines incurs a high performance cost. In this paper, we present preliminary results on the direct execution of dataflow programs on multicore systems through emulation of tagged-tokens mechanism. Compared with direct translation of SISAL programs to C code, we achieved a speedup of 44 for CPU-intensive applications and 22 for memory-bounded applications on a 48-cores AMD NUMA system.
High Order Neuro-Fuzzy Dynamic Regulation of General Nonlinear Multi-Variable Systems

The direct adaptive dynamic regulation of unknown nonlinear multi variable systems is investigated in this chapter in order to address the problem of controlling non-Brunovsky and non-square systems with control inputs less than the number of states. The proposed neuro-fuzzy model acts as a universal approximator. While with the careful selection of a Lyapunov-like function, the authors prove the stability of the proposed control algorithm. Weight updating laws derived from the Lyapunov analysis assure the boundedness of the closed-loop signals incorporating the well-known modified parameter hopping. In addition, the proposed algorithm shows robustness when facing modelling errors, and therefore, the state trajectories present uniform ultimate boundedness. The proposed dynamic controller proved to control those general nonlinear systems, which are difficult or even impossible to control with other algorithms. Simulation results on well-known benchmark problems demonstrate the applicability and effectiveness of the method. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2175-6.ch007
The benefits of statins in people without established cardiovascular disease but with cardiovascular risk factors: meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

Objectives To investigate whether statins reduce all cause mortality and major coronary and cerebrovascular events in people without established cardiovascular disease but with cardiovascular risk factors, and whether these effects are similar in men and women, in young and older (>65 years) people, and in people with diabetes mellitus. Design Meta-analysis of randomised trials. Data sources Cochrane controlled trials register, Embase, and Medline. Data abstraction Two independent investigators identified studies on the clinical effects of statins compared with a placebo or control group and with follow-up of at least one year, at least 80% or more participants without established cardiovascular disease, and outcome data on mortality and major cardiovascular disease events. Heterogeneity was assessed using the Q and I2 statistics. Publication bias was assessed by visual examination of funnel plots and the Egger regression test. Results 10 trials enrolled a total of 70 388 people, of whom 23 681 (34%) were women and 16 078 (23%) had diabetes mellitus. Mean follow-up was 4.1 years. Treatment with statins significantly reduced the risk of all cause mortality (odds ratio 0.88, 95% confidence interval 0.81 to 0.96), major coronary events (0.70, 0.61 to0.81), and major cerebrovascular events (0.81, 0.71 to 0.93). No evidence of an increased risk of cancer was observed. There was no significant heterogeneity of the treatment effect in clinical subgroups. Conclusion In patients without established cardiovascular disease but with cardiovascular risk factors, statin use was associated with significantly improved survival and large reductions in the risk of major cardiovascular events.
Determinants of Arterial Stiffness in Chronic Kidney Disease Stage 3

Background Early chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with increased cardiovascular (CV) risk but underlying mechanisms remain uncertain. Arterial stiffness (AS) is associated with increased CV risk in advanced CKD, but it is unclear whether AS is relevant to CV disease (CVD) in early CKD. Study Design Cross-sectional. Setting and participants 1717 patients with previous estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) 59–30 mL/min/1.73 m2; mean age 73±9y, were recruited from 32 general practices in primary care. Outcomes Increased arterial stiffness. Measurements Medical history was obtained and participants underwent clinical assessment, urine and serum biochemistry testing. Carotid to femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV) was determined as a measure of AS, using a Vicorder™ device. Results Univariate analysis revealed significant correlations between PWV and risk factors for CVD including age (r = 0.456; p<0.001), mean arterial pressure (MAP) (r = 0.228; p<0.001), body mass index (r = −0.122; p<0.001), log urinary albumin to creatinine ratio (r = 0.124; p<0.001), Waist to Hip ratio (r = 0.124, p<0.001), eGFR (r = −0.074; p = 0.002), log high sensitivity c-reactive protein (r = 0.066; p = 0.006), HDL (r = −0.062; p = 0.01) and total cholesterol (r = −0.057; p = 0.02). PWV was higher in males (9.6 m/sec vs.10.3 m/sec; p<0.001), diabetics (9.8 m/sec vs. 10.3 m/sec; p<0.001), and those with previous CV events (CVE) (9.8 m/s vs. 10.3 m/sec; p<0.001). Multivariable analysis identified age, MAP and diabetes as strongest independent determinants of higher PWV (adjusted R2 = 0.29). An interactive term indicated that PWV increased to a greater extent with age in males versus females. Albuminuria was a weaker determinant of PWV and eGFR did not enter the model. Limitations Data derived from one study visit, with absence of normal controls. Conclusion In this cohort, age and traditional CV risk factors were the strongest determinants of AS. Albuminuria was a relatively weak determinant of AS and eGFR was not an independent determinant. Long-term follow-up will investigate AS as an independent risk factor for CVE in this cohort.
Volume and Frequency of Breastfeedings and Fat Content of Breast Milk Throughout the Day

OBJECTIVE. We aimed to provide information that can be used as a guide to clinicians when advising breastfeeding mothers on normal lactation with regard to the frequency and volume of breastfeedings and the fat content of breast milk. METHODS. Mothers (71) of infants who were 1 to 6 months of age and exclusively breastfeeding on demand test-weighed their infants before and after every breastfeeding from each breast for 24 to 26 hours and collected small milk samples from each breast each time the infant was weighed. RESULTS. Infants breastfed 11 ± 3 times in 24 hours (range: 6–18), and a breastfeeding was 76.0 ± 12.6 g (range: 0–240 g), which was 67.3 ± 7.8% (range: 0–100%) of the volume of milk that was available in the breast at the beginning of the breastfeeding. Left and right breasts rarely produced the same volume of milk. The volume of milk consumed by the infant at each breastfeeding depended on whether the breast that was being suckled was the more or less productive breast, whether the breastfeeding was unpaired, or whether it was the first or second breast of paired breastfeedings; the time of day; and whether the infant breastfed during the night or not. Night breastfeedings were common and made an important contribution to the total milk intake. The fat content of the milk was 41.1 ± 7.8 g/L (range: 22.3–61.6 g/L) and was independent of breastfeeding frequency. There was no relationship between the number of breastfeedings per day and the 24-hour milk production of the mothers. CONCLUSIONS. Breastfed infants should be encouraged to feed on demand, day and night, rather than conform to an average that may not be appropriate for the mother-infant dyad.
Interferon-Inducible Protein IFI35 Negatively Regulates RIG-I Antiviral Signaling and Supports Vesicular Stomatitis Virus Replication

ABSTRACT In a genome-wide small interfering RNA (siRNA) screen, we recently identified the interferon (IFN)-inducible protein 35 (IFI35; also known as IFP35) as a factor required for vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) infection. Studies reported here were conducted to further understand the role and requirement of IFI35 in VSV infection. Consistent with the siRNA screening data, we found that depletion of IFI35 led to reduced VSV replication at the level of viral gene expression. Although no direct interaction of IFI35 with the viral replication machinery was observed, we found that IFI35 negatively regulated the host innate immune response and rescued poly(I·C)-induced inhibition of VSV replication. Promoter-driven reporter gene assays demonstrated that IFI35 overexpression suppressed the activation of IFN-β and ISG56 promoters, whereas its depletion had the opposite effect. Further investigation revealed that IFI35 specifically interacted with retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I) and negatively regulated its activation through mechanisms that included (i) suppression of dephosphorylation (activation) of RIG-I and (ii) proteasome-mediated degradation of RIG-I via K48-linked ubiquitination. Overall, the results presented here suggest a novel role for IFI35 in negative regulation of RIG-I-mediated antiviral signaling, which will have implications for diseases associated with excessive immune signaling. IMPORTANCE Mammalian cells employ a variety of mechanisms, including production of interferons (IFNs), to counteract invading pathogens. In this study, we identified a novel role for a cellular protein, IFN-inducible protein 35 (IFP35/IFI35), in negatively regulating the host IFN response during vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) infection. Specifically, we found that IFI35 inhibited activation of the RNA sensor, the retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I), leading to inhibition of IFN production and thus resulting in better replication of VSV. The identification of a cellular factor that attenuates the IFN response will have implications toward understanding inflammatory diseases in humans that have been found to be associated with defects in the regulation of host IFN production, such as systemic lupus erythematosus and psoriasis.
Computational analysis of aortic hemodynamics during total and partial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and intra-aortic balloon pump support.

PURPOSE The extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a temporary, but prolonged circulatory support for cardiopulmonary failure. Clinical evidence suggests that pulsed flow is healthier than non pulsatile perfusion. The aim of this study was to computationally evaluate the effects of total and partial ECMO assistance and pulsed flow on hemodynamics in a patient-specific aorta model. METHODS The pulsatility was obtained by means of the intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP), and two different cases were investigated, considering a cardiac output (CO) of 5 L/min: Case A - total assistance - the whole flow delivered through the ECMO arterial cannula; Case B - partial assistance - flow delivered half through the cannula and half through the aorta. Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) analysis was carried out using the multiscale approach to couple the 3D aorta model with the lumped parameter model (resistance boundary condition). RESULTS In case A pulsatility followed the balloon radius change, while in case B it was mostly influenced by the cardiac one. Furthermore, during total assistance, a blood stagnation occurred in the ascending aorta; in the case of partial assistance, the flow was orderly when the IABP was on and was chaotic when the balloon was off. Moreover, the mean arterial pressure (MAP) was higher in case B. The wall shear stress was worse in ascending aorta in case A. CONCLUSIONS Partial support is hemodynamically advisable.
Multiparametric Quantitative MRI of the Cervical Spinal Cord to Measure Microstructure and Tissue Injury: Development, Validation, and Applications of a Clinically Feasible Protocol

An array of spinal cord (SC) quantitative MRI (qMRI) techniques can measure aspects of microstructure and tissue injury. This research develops a clinically feasible multiparametric MRI protocol, including diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) fractional anisotropy (FA), magnetization transfer ratio (MTR), and measurement of SC cross-sectional area (CSA). A novel biomarker of white matter (WM) injury is also introduced, normalizing T2*WI WM signal intensity by grey matter (T2*WI WM/GM). A study of 40 healthy subjects establishes methods, normalization procedures, normative values, and reliability. 58 patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) are studied, showing significant differences in 10 metrics. Combining these measures using multivariate methods overcomes the limitations of each technique, achieving good diagnostic accuracy and clinical correlation. T2*WI WM/GM shows strong potential as a novel biomarker, comparing favourably with established biomarkers FA and MTR. Our study of healthy subjects identifies an alarming rate of asymptomatic SC compression (ASCC) at 50%. Objective criteria and automated shape analysis are developed to create a new definition of SC compression, and qMRI demonstrates significant tissue injury in this group.
Telephone Quitlines for Smoking Cessation

recent years as an alternative system for delivering smoking cessation services. The convenience of telephone counseling encourages program participation, which has been a significant barrier for formal treatment programs (Fiore et al., 1991; Lichtenstein and Hollis, 1992). Telephone quitlines can also be centralized; for example, one toll-free number can provide most cessation services to smokers in even a large state. This makes it easier and more cost-efficient to promote the services in a large public health campaign.