Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Outcomes of left split graft transplantation in Europe: report from the European Liver Transplant Registry

Split liver transplantation (SLT) has been widely adopted across Europe, resulting in remarkable reduction in the paediatric waiting‐list mortality. Left split graft (LSG) is commonly used for paediatric recipients; however, deceased donor criteria selection are not universal. The aim of this study was to analyse the LSG outcome from the European Liver Transplant Registry and to identify risk factors for graft failure. Data from 1500 children transplanted in 2006–2014 with LSG from deceased donors were retrospectively analysed. Overall, graft losses were 343(22.9%) after 5 years from transplantation, 240(70.0%) occurred within the first 3 months. Estimated patient survival was 89.1% at 3 months and 82.9% at 5 years from SLT. Re‐transplantation rate was 11.5%. At multivariable analysis, significant risk factors for graft failure at 3 months included the following: urgent SLT (HR = 1.73, P = 0.0012), recipient body weight ≤6 kg (HR = 1.91, P = 0.0029), donor age >50 years (HR = 1.87, P = 0.0039), and cold ischaemic time (CIT) [HR = 1.07 per hour, P = 0.0227]. LSG has good outcomes and SLT is excellent option for paediatric recipients in the current organ shortage era. We identified practical guidelines for LSG donor and recipient selection criteria: donor age may be safely extended up to 50 years in the absence of additional risk factors; thus, children <6 kg and urgent transplantation need CIT <6 h and appropriate graft/recipient size‐matching to achieve good outcomes.
Prevalence of iron deficiency with and without concurrent anemia in population groups with high prevalences of malaria and other infections: a study in Côte d'Ivoire.

BACKGROUND Iron deficiency is highly prevalent in most developing countries. However, its detection is often obscured by infections and inflammatory disorders that are common in the same populations. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence of iron deficiency with or without concurrent anemia in different population groups from Côte d'Ivoire and to evaluate the influence of infectious and inflammatory disorders on iron-status indexes. DESIGN Blood samples from 1573 children, women, and men were analyzed for hemoglobin, serum ferritin, zinc protoporphyrin, and serum transferrin receptor. C-reactive protein was used as the indicator of inflammation or infection, and samples were screened for malarial parasites and hemoglobinopathies. Iron deficiency was defined as 2 of 3 iron-status indexes outside the cutoff values, and iron deficiency anemia (IDA) was defined as iron deficiency with concurrent anemia. Pearson's correlation coefficients were used to evaluate the influence of malaria and inflammation on iron-status indexes. RESULTS The prevalence of iron deficiency was 41-63% in the women and children and 13% in the men, whereas the prevalence of IDA was 20-39% in the women and children and 4% in the men. The detection of iron deficiency and IDA was obscured by the high prevalence of inflammatory disorders. CONCLUSIONS Iron deficiency and IDA are highly prevalent in the women and children in Côte d'Ivoire. Iron deficiency was detected in approximately 50% of anemic women and children, which indicates that hemoglobin alone is not a good indicator of iron status when inflammatory disorders are highly prevalent. The serum transferrin receptor is the most useful single indicator of iron deficiency because it was the only iron-status index unaffected by malaria or inflammation.
Beta-glucan incorporated into a fruit drink effectively lowers serum LDL-cholesterol concentrations.

BACKGROUND beta-Glucan can reduce serum concentrations of total and LDL cholesterol. The mechanism of this action is not clear, however, and it is difficult to predict the cholesterol-lowering effect of a food product enriched with beta-glucan. OBJECTIVES We examined the effects of a beta-glucan-enriched fruit juice on serum lipids and lipoproteins and on markers of cholesterol absorption (serum concentrations of plant sterols) and synthesis (serum concentrations of lathosterol). In addition, we measured effects on lipid-soluble antioxidants. DESIGN After a 3-wk run-in period, healthy subjects consumed daily a fruit drink providing 5 g rice starch [placebo (control) group; n = 22] or beta-glucan from oats (n = 25) for 5 wk (parallel design). At the end of the run-in period and at the end of the intervention, blood samples were taken for analysis of lipids and lipoproteins, noncholesterol sterols, and fat-soluble antioxidants. Changes between the end of the run-in period and the end of the intervention were calculated for each subject. Differences in changes between the groups were analyzed statistically. RESULTS The differences between the control and beta-glucan groups in the change in serum concentrations of total and LDL cholesterol, respectively, were -4.8% (P = 0.012) and -7.7% (P = 0.005). The differences between the groups in the change in serum concentrations of lathosterol and sitosterol were -13% (P = 0.023) and -11% (P = 0.030), respectively. No significant effects were found on fat-soluble antioxidants. CONCLUSIONS Beta-glucan lowers serum concentrations of total and LDL cholesterol when incorporated into a fruit drink. A reduced cholesterol absorption contributes to the cholesterol-lowering effect of beta-glucan without affecting plasma concentrations of lipid-soluble antioxidants.
Toll-like receptors in hepatocellular carcinoma: potential novel targets for pharmacological intervention

ABSTRACT Introduction: Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are expressed by a wide variety of cell types including immune cells. They play a crucial role in the inflammatory and host defense response against microorganisms, and triggering TLRs can mediate the activation of innate immunity. Furthermore, research suggests that various TLRs may function differently on different tumor cells. The change in TLR activity may elicit an anti-tumor activity in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells and may serve as a novel therapeutic target for HCC therapy. Areas covered: This review discusses the role of the TLR family in HCC and the underlying signaling pathway of TLRs as a form of pattern recognition receptor in mediating inflammation and HCC immunity responses. Agonists and antagonists of TLRs, which render TLRs as potential therapeutic targets, activate downstream molecules, subsequently causing HCC cell survival. The proliferation or protection against the development of HCC is also described. Expert opinion: A series of studies have highlighted a crucial role of TLRs in HCC and consider TLR signaling pathways as potential therapeutic targets for HCC. However, the conclusions of these studies are in part paradoxical and controversial. Thus, it is necessary to extend further research to help determine the signaling pathways involved.
Structure Inference for Bayesian Multisensory Perception and Tracking

We investigate a solution to the problem of multisensor perception and tracking by formulating it in the framework of Bayesian model selection. Humans robustly associate multi-sensory data as appropriate, but previous theoretical work has focused largely on purely integrative cases, leaving segregation unaccounted for and unexploited by machine perception systems. We illustrate a unifying, Bayesian solution to multi-sensor perception and tracking which accounts for both integration and segregation by explicit probabilistic reasoning about data association in a temporal context. Unsupervised learning of such a model with EM is illustrated for a real world audio-visual application.
Measuring Transaction Costs in the Absence of Timestamps

This paper develops measures of transaction costs in the absence of transaction timestamps and information about who initiates transactions, which are data limitations that often arise in studies of over-the-counter markets. I propose new measures of the effective spread and study the performance of all estimators analytically, in simulations, and present an empirical illustration with small-cap stocks for the 2005-2014 period. My theoretical, simulation, and empirical results provide new insights into measuring transaction costs and may help guide future empirical work.
Nutrient Requirements and Interactions The Protein Digestibility–Corrected Amino Acid Score Method Overestimates Quality of Proteins Containing Antinutritional Factors and of Poorly Digestible Proteins Supplemented with Limiting Amino Acids in Rats

The validity of the protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score (PDCAAS) method in predicting the quality of fourteen protein products was compared with the commonly used protein quality methods, protein efficiency ratio (RER) and net protein ratio (NPR). A rat growth and balance study was conducted to determine protein digestibility and quality of the animal and vegetable protein products by the PER and NPR methods. Amino acid compositions of the products were also determined, and PDCAAS were calculated using a rat and a human pattern of amino acid requirements. Compared to the biological methods, the scoring method overestimated protein quality of mustard flour [PDCAAS of 84–92% vs. relative PER (RPER) or relative NPR (RNPR) of 0], raw black beans (PDCAAS of 45–72% vs. RPER or RNPR of 0), alkaline-treated lactalbumin and soybean protein isolate (PDCAAS of 44–67% vs. RPER or RNPR of 0) and heated skim milk (PDCAAS of 29–31% vs. RPER and RNPR of 0–5%). The scoring method also overestimated the protein quality of zein (true protein digestibility of 63%) supplemented with Lys, Met, Thr and Trp (PDCAAS of 63–71% vs. RPER and RNPR of 3–44%). These data demonstrate that the PDCAAS method is inappropriate for predicting protein quality of those protein sources which may contain naturally occurring growth-depressing factors or antinutritional factors formed during alkaline and/or heat processing. J. Nutr. 127: 758–764, 1997
Warm dust and aromatic bands as quantitative probes of star-formation activity

We combine samples of spiral galaxies and starburst systems observed with ISOCAM on board ISO to investigate the reliability of mid-infrared dust emission as a quantitative tracer of star formation activity. The total sample covers very diverse galactic environments and probes a much wider dynamic range in star formation rate density than previous similar studies. We find that both the monochromatic 15 µm continuum and the 5−8.5 µm emission constitute excellent indicators of the star formation rate as quantified by the Lyman continuum luminosity LLyc, within specified validity limits which are different for the two tracers. Normalized to projected surface area, the 15 µm continuum luminosity Σ15 µm,ct is directly proportional to ΣLyc over several orders of magnitude. Two regimes are distinguished from the relative offsets in the observed relationship: the proportionality factor increases by a factor of ≈5 between quiescent disks in spiral galaxies, and moderate to extreme star- forming environments in circumnuclear regions of spirals and in starburst systems. The transition occurs near ΣLyc ∼ 10 2 Lpc −2 and is interpreted as due to very small dust grains starting to dominate the emission at 15 µm over aromatic species above this threshold. The 5−8.5 µm luminosity per unit projected area is also directly proportional to the Lyman continuum luminosity, with a single conversion factor from the most quiescent objects included in the sample up to ΣLyc ∼ 10 4 Lpc −2 ,w here the relationship then flattens. The turnover is attributed to depletion of aromatic band carriers in the harsher conditions prevailing in extreme starburst environments. The observed relationships provide empirical calibrations useful for estimating star formation rates from mid-infrared observations, much less affected by extinction than optical and near-infrared tracers in deeply embedded H  regions and obscured starbursts, as well as for theoretical predictions from evolutionary synthesis models.
Anthropometric indicators of nutritional status: implications for fitness, activity, and health in school-age children and adolescents from Maputo, Mozambique.

BACKGROUND Studies are needed to test the relevance of the anthropometric criteria for health and well-being, particularly in developing countries. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to identify the relevance of anthropometric indexes as indicators of nutritional status. DESIGN The sample consisted of 2316 subjects (n = 1094 males, 1222 females) aged 6-18 y from Mozambique. Anthropometric variables, maturity stage, physical fitness, physical activity, and metabolic fitness were measured. Samples of blood, urine, and feces were obtained. Subjects were classified in 5 nutritional groups labeled normal, low height-for-age (stunted), low weight-for-height (wasted), low height-for-age and low weight-for-height (stunted and wasted), and overweight, according to cutoffs set by a World Health Organization expert committee. Socioeconomic status was classified according to region of residence. RESULTS Prevalence rates for males and females, respectively, in the nutritional groups were 3.0% and 2.3% (stunted group), 21.9% and 10.0% (wasted group), 3.0% and 0.8% (stunted and wasted group), and 4.8% and 7.7% (overweight group). With control for age, socioeconomic status, and maturity stage, the overweight group performed significantly worse than did the other groups on most of the fitness tests. Compared with the normal group, the 3 undernourished groups performed significantly worse in absolute strength tasks, better in endurance tasks, and equally in flexibility and agility. Very few differences were found in physical activity scores. The 3 undernourished groups had scores for the biochemical indicators that were similar to those of the normal group and had more favorable profiles for blood pressure and cholesterol. CONCLUSIONS In this population, the cutoffs used to classify overweight status appear to appropriately identify potential health problems. No relevance to health was found for the lower cutoffs identifying undernourished children.
Thermoset shape memory polymers and their composites

This article reviews the main progress in the development of typical thermoset shape memory polymers. Thermoset polymers are usually stronger in their microstructure than thermoplastic polymers due to their covalently crosslinked three-dimensional networks. The virtues of thermoset polymers make them great source materials for shape memory polymers. However, their three-dimensional networks endow thermoset shape memory polymers with not only high shape fixity rates and shape recovery rates but also low deformation abilities and brittleness. In the past decade, many breakthroughs have been made regarding thermoset shape memory polymers. Typical thermoset materials, such as epoxy resin, cyanate resin, thermoset polyurethane, polyimide, and polystyrene, have been studied as raw materials for shape memory polymers. Studies on thermoset shape memory polymers have been carried out to not only improve their fundamental properties (i.e. broadening of their operating temperatures and service environments and enhancing their thermal stabilities and mechanical properties) but also introduce functional performance properties (e.g. responsiveness to light, electricity, magnetism, and chemical stimuli). This article aims to present a brief review of the development of thermoset shape memory polymers, including the selection and preparation of materials, the improvement of properties, the functionalization of their composites, and their potential applications.
Compensating for telecommunication delays during robotic telerehabilitation

Rehabilitation robotic systems may afford better care and telerehabilitation may extend the use and benefits of robotic therapy to the home. Data transmissions over distance are bound by intrinsic communication delays which can be significant enough to deem the activity unfeasible. Here we describe an approach that combines unilateral robotic telerehabilitation and serious games. This approach has a modular and distributed design that permits different types of robots to interact without substantial code changes. We demonstrate the approach through an online multiplayer game. Two users can remotely interact with each other with no force exchanges, while a smoothing and prediction algorithm compensates motions for the delay in the Internet connection. We demonstrate that this approach can successfully compensate for data transmission delays, even when testing between the United States and Brazil. This paper presents the initial experimental results, which highlight the performance degradation with increasing delays as well as improvements provided by the proposed algorithm, and discusses planned future developments.
A Resource-Shared VLIW Processor for Low-Power On-Chip Multiprocessing in the Nanometer Era

We propose a low-power resource-shared VLIW processor (RSVP) for future leaky nanometer process technologies. It consists of several single-way independent processor units (IPUs) that share parallel processor resources. Each IPU works as a variable-way VLIW processor sharing the parallel resources according to priorities of given tasks. RSVP allocates shared parallel resources to the IPUs cycle by cycle. It can minimize the number of NOPs that is wasting power. The performance per power (P 3 ) of a 4-parallel 4-way RSVP that corresponds to four 4way VLIWs is 3.7% better than a conventional 4-parallel 4-way VLIW multiprocessor in the current 90 nm process. We estimate that the RSVP achieves 36% less leakage power and 28% better P 3 in the future 25 nm process. We have fabricated an RSVP test chip that contains two IPU and a shared resource equivalent to two 2way VLIWs in a 180 nm process. It is functional at 100 MHz clock speed and its power is 130 mW.
An efficient FHE proposal based on the hardness of solving systems of nonlinear multivariate equations (II)

We propose a general framework to develop fully homomorphic encryption schemes (FHE) without using Gentry’s technique. Initially, a private-key cryptosystem is built over Zn (n being an RSA modulus). An encryption of x ∈ Zn is a randomly chosen vector e such that Φ(e) = x where Φ is a secret multivariate polynomial. This private-key cryptosystem is not homomorphic in the sense that the vector sum is not a homomorphic operator. Non-linear homomorphic operators are then developed. The security relies on the difficulty of solving systems of nonlinear equations (which is a NP-complete problem). While the security of our scheme has not been reduced to a provably hard instance of this problem, its security is globally investigated.
EEG Source Connectivity Analysis: From Dense Array Recordings to Brain Networks

The recent past years have seen a noticeable increase of interest for electroencephalography (EEG) to analyze functional connectivity through brain sources reconstructed from scalp signals. Although considerable advances have been done both on the recording and analysis of EEG signals, a number of methodological questions are still open regarding the optimal way to process the data in order to identify brain networks. In this paper, we analyze the impact of three factors that intervene in this processing: i) the number of scalp electrodes, ii) the combination between the algorithm used to solve the EEG inverse problem and the algorithm used to measure the functional connectivity and iii) the frequency bands retained to estimate the functional connectivity among neocortical sources. Using High-Resolution (hr) EEG recordings in healthy volunteers, we evaluated these factors on evoked responses during picture recognition and naming task. The main reason for selection this task is that a solid literature background is available about involved brain networks (ground truth). From this a priori information, we propose a performance criterion based on the number of connections identified in the regions of interest (ROI) that belong to potentially activated networks. Our results show that the three studied factors have a dramatic impact on the final result (the identified network in the source space) as strong discrepancies were evidenced depending on the methods used. They also suggest that the combination of weighted Minimum Norm Estimator (wMNE) and the Phase Synchronization (PS) methods applied on High-Resolution EEG in beta/gamma bands provides the best performance in term of topological distance between the identified network and the expected network in the above-mentioned cognitive task.
Dietary intake and iron status of Australian vegetarian women.

BACKGROUND Despite the possible overall health benefits of a vegetarian diet, there is concern that some vegetarians and infrequent meat eaters, particularly females, may have inadequate iron status because of low or no heme-iron intakes. OBJECTIVE The objective was to investigate the nutritional intake and iron status of vegetarian women. DESIGN The nutritional intakes of 50 free-living vegetarian women aged 18-45 y and 24 age-matched omnivorous control women were assessed by using 12-d weighed dietary records. Iron status was assessed by measuring hemoglobin and serum ferritin concentrations. RESULTS There was no significant difference between mean (+/-SD) daily iron intakes of vegetarians and omnivores (10.7 +/- 4.4 and 9.9 +/- 2.9 mg, respectively), although heme-iron intakes were low in the vegetarians. Vegetarians had significantly lower intakes of protein (P < 0.01), saturated fat (P < 0.01), and cholesterol (P < 0.001), and significantly higher intakes of dietary fiber (P < 0.001) and vitamin C (P < 0.05). Mean serum ferritin concentrations were significantly lower (P = 0.025) in vegetarians (25.0 +/- 16.2 microg/L) than in omnivores (45.5 +/- 42.5 microg/L). However, similar numbers of vegetarians (18%) and omnivores (13%) had serum ferritin concentrations <12 microg/L, which is a value often used as an indicator of low iron stores. Hemoglobin concentrations were not significantly different. CONCLUSION It is important that both vegetarian and omnivorous women maintain an adequate iron status and follow dietary practices that enhance iron absorption.
Neurostimulation in the treatment of primary headaches

There is increasing interest in using neurostimulation to treat headache disorders. There are now several non-invasive and invasive stimulation devices available with some open-label series and small controlled trial studies that support their use. Non-invasive stimulation options include supraorbital stimulation (Cefaly), vagus nerve stimulation (gammaCore) and single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (SpringTMS). Invasive procedures include occipital nerve stimulation, sphenopalatine ganglion stimulation and ventral tegmental area deep brain stimulation. These stimulation devices may find a place in the treatment pathway of headache disorders. Here, we explore the basic principles of neurostimulation for headache and overview the available methods of neurostimulation.
The Impact of Standards on Egyptian Trade: Evidence from SPS Measures

According to the World Trade Organization (WTO) standards, countries are allowed to adapt regulations under the Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) agreements in order to protect human, animal and plant health as well as environment and human safety. Therefore, using an Egyptian firm-level dataset, we analyze the effects of product standards on exports. We merge this dataset with a new database on specific trade concerns raised in the TBT and SPS committees at the WTO. Our main findings show that SPS measures imposed on Egyptian exporters have a negative impact on the probability of exporting a new product to a new destination. By contrast, the intensive margin of exports is not significantly affected by such measures.