Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Blue light aids in coping with the post-lunch dip: an EEG study

The ‘post-lunch dip’ is a commonly experienced period of drowsiness in the afternoon hours. If this inevitable period can be disrupted by an environmental cue, the result will be enhanced workplace performance. Because blue light is known to be a critical cue for entraining biological rhythms, we investigated whether blue light illumination can be a practical strategy for coping with the post-lunch dip. Twenty healthy participants underwent a continuous performance test, during which the electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded under four different illumination conditions: dark ( < 0.3 lx), 33% blue-enriched light, 66% blue-enriched light and white polychromatic light. As a result, exposure to blue-enriched light during the post-lunch dip period significantly reduced the EEG alpha activity, and increased task performance. Since desynchronisation of alpha activity reflects enhancement of vigilance, our findings imply that blue light might disrupt the post-lunch dip. Subsequent exploration of illumination parameters will be beneficial for possible chronobiological and ergonomic applications. Practitioner Summary: As blue light is a crucial cue to entrain human circadian rhythms, we investigated whether blue light can cope with the post-lunch dip. As a result, blue light significantly improved cognitive performance, and reduced the EEG alpha activity, reflecting enhancement of vigilance. Therefore, blue light helps in avoiding the post-lunch dip.
A Comparison of Regional Variations of Fertility in Bangladesh

This study, based on the 2004 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS), examines the extent to which regional variations of reproductive behavior are explained by inherent demographic, socioeconomic, and programmatic differences among regions. This article also attempts to investigate the impact of four intermediate fertility variables; namely marriage, contraception, lactational infecundability, and induced abortion, on fertility among different regions in Bangladesh. The contribution of proximate variables was observed through the decomposition of the total fertility rate (TFR) into proximate components. The results indicate that contraception is the highest fertility reducing factor in all the regions.
Patient Characteristics Associated With a Successful Response to Nurse‐Led Care Programs Targeting the Oldest‐Old: A Comparison of Two RCTs

BACKGROUND To improve the effectiveness of community-based care programs, especially those targeting the oldest-old population (80+), data are needed that elucidate those factors associated with a successful response to the intervention. Two comparable nurse-led care programs have been evaluated in two large randomized controlled trials (RCTs), one in Switzerland and one in the Netherlands. AIMS To identify common patient characteristics that are related to a successful response to proactive nurse-led care, we explored if and to what extent, identical factors were present in both study populations. METHODS A secondary data analysis using trial data from the intervention group of both RCTs was conducted. The study sample consisted 461 older adults, 230 from the U-PROFIT trial (the Netherlands) and 231 from the HPC trial (Switzerland). The mean age of the total sample was 85.1 years (SD 3.7). The UPROFIT intervention, delivered by registered nurses, included a frailty assessment and a comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) at home followed by an individualized evidence-based care plan, care coordination, and follow-up. The HCP intervention was delivered by advanced practice nurses consisting of four home visits and three phone calls, and was guided by the principles of health promotion, empowerment, partnership, and family-centeredness. A successful response was defined as "stable" or "no decline" in daily functioning at follow-up. Daily functioning was measured with 13 items of activities of daily living and instrumental activities of daily living. Multivariate logistic regression models were applied to calculate the association between individual characteristics and a successful response. RESULTS Almost half of the participants in the U-PROFIT trial (50.9%), and two-thirds (65.7%) of the participants in the HCP trial had a successful response at follow-up. Fewer comorbidities and a better self-rated health had the strongest predictive value for benefiting from the intervention (OR = 0.83 [95% CI 0.66-1.03], and OR = 1.5 [95% CI 0.92-2.45]), respectively. LINKING EVIDENCE TO ACTION Two large RCTs demonstrated that a preventive nurse-led care program can preserve daily functioning in the oldest-old population. Older people with few comorbidities and higher self-rated health had a higher likelihood of a positive outcome. Unraveling the characteristics associated with a successful response provides important information for further refining and targeting an intervention to obtain maximum effectiveness. More effort is needed to modify interventions for the oldest-old with multiple morbidities and low levels of education.
Evolution of Chlamydia trachomatis

We know surprisingly little about the evolutionary origins of Chlamydia trachomatis. It causes both ocular (trachoma) and sexually transmitted infections in humans, it is an obligate intracellular pathogen, and there are only a few “isolates” that have been well characterized. From the first few genomes analyzed, it seems that the C. trachomatis genome is highly conserved. The genomes possess high synteny and, in some cases, the sequence variation between genomes is as little as 20 SNPs. Recent indications from partial genome analyses suggest that recombination is the mechanism for generating diversity. There is no accurate molecular clock by which to measure the evolution of C. trachomatis. The origins of both sexually transmitted and ocular C. trachomatis are unclear, but it seems likely that they evolved with humans and shared a common ancestor with environmental chlamydiae some 700 million years ago. Subsequently, evolution within mammalian cells has been accompanied by radical reduction in the C. trachomatis genome.
Death, Hope and Sex

James S Chisholm Cambridge University Press, £17.95, pp 310 ISBN 0 521 59708 0 Rating: ! [Graphic][1] ! [Graphic][2] There have been many attempts to use evolutionary theory to justify controversial moral or social positions. In the 19th century the British social philosopher Herbert Spencer proposed a social Darwinism that would marry evolutionary ideas and Protestant ethics. In the 1970s, the discipline of sociobiology gained popular appeal for its synthesis of the natural and social sciences. And in Sweden's recent policies of eugenic sterilisation the state itself was attempting an enforced “survival of the fittest. ” James Chisholm wants to save evolutionary theory from accusations of misuse and abuse. We have nothing to fear from it, he argues, for it offers a humane explanation for our behaviour and … [1]: /embed/inline-graphic-1.gif [2]: /embed/inline-graphic-2.gif
Design criterion and construction methods for partially coherent multiple antenna constellations

We consider multiple-antenna communication systems in Rayleigh fading channel, where the transmitter does not know the channel coefficients and the receiver has only an estimate of them. We further assume that the transmitter and receiver know the statistics of the estimation error. We refer to this system as partially coherent system, for which we derive the expressions for the optimal detector and study the constellation design problem. Since the Chernoff bound on pairwise error probability of the partially coherent systems appears to be intractable, we use Stein's Lemma to propose a design criterion based on Kullback-Leibler (KL) distance between conditional distributions. Using the KL-based design criterion, we construct constellations for multiple-antenna systems which can be demodulated in the presence of channel estimation errors. The proposed constellations are multi-level, with multi-dimensional spherical constellations at each level. We show that these new constellations provide significant performance improvement over the conventional single-antenna PSK and QAM constellations, and multiple-antenna techniques such as Bell Lab's Space-Time (BLAST) architecture and orthogonal transmit diversity (OTD) schemes, when the estimation variance is comparable to the reciprocal of the signal-to-noise ratio.
A theoretical study of the role of astrocyte activity in neuronal hyperexcitability using a new neuro-glial mass model

The investigation of the neuronal environment allows us to better understand the activity of a cerebral region as a whole. The recent experimental evidences of the presence of transporters for glutamate and GABA in both neuronal and astrocyte compartments raise the question of the functional importance of the astrocytes in the regulation of the neuronal activity. We propose a new computational model at the mesoscopic scale embedding the recent knowledge on the physiology of neuron and astrocyte coupled activities. The neural compartment is a neu-ral mass model with double excitatory feedback, and the glial compartment focus on the dynamics of glutamate and GABA concentrations. Using the proposed model, we first study the impact of a deficiency in the reuptake of GABA by astrocytes, which implies an increase in GABA concentration in the extracellular space. A decrease in the frequency of neural activity is observed and explained from the dynamics analysis. Second, we investigate the neuronal response to a deficiency in the reuptake of Glutamate by the astrocytes. In this case, we identify three behaviors : the neural activity may either be reduced, or enhanced or, alternatively, may experience a transient of high activity before stabilizing around a new activity regime with a frequency close to the nominal one. After translating theoretically the neuronal excitability modulation using the bifurcation structure of the neural mass model, we state the conditions on the glial feedback parameters corresponding to each behavior.
Omnibus Risk Assessment via Accelerated Failure Time Kernel Machine Modeling

Integrating genomic information with traditional clinical risk factors to improve the prediction of disease outcomes could profoundly change the practice of medicine. However, the large number of potential markers and possible complexity of the relationship between markers and disease make it difficult to construct accurate risk prediction models. Standard approaches for identifying important markers often rely on marginal associations or linearity assumptions and may not capture non‐linear or interactive effects. In recent years, much work has been done to group genes into pathways and networks. Integrating such biological knowledge into statistical learning could potentially improve model interpretability and reliability. One effective approach is to employ a kernel machine (KM) framework, which can capture nonlinear effects if nonlinear kernels are used (Scholkopf and Smola, 2002; Liu et al., 2007, 2008). For survival outcomes, KM regression modeling and testing procedures have been derived under a proportional hazards (PH) assumption (Li and Luan, 2003; Cai, Tonini, and Lin, 2011). In this article, we derive testing and prediction methods for KM regression under the accelerated failure time (AFT) model, a useful alternative to the PH model. We approximate the null distribution of our test statistic using resampling procedures. When multiple kernels are of potential interest, it may be unclear in advance which kernel to use for testing and estimation. We propose a robust Omnibus Test that combines information across kernels, and an approach for selecting the best kernel for estimation. The methods are illustrated with an application in breast cancer.
A Cold-Blooded View on Adult Neurogenesis

During brain development, highly complex and interconnected neural circuits are established. This intricate wiring needs to be robust to faithfully perform adult brain function throughout life, but at the same time offer room for plasticity to integrate new information. In the mammalian brain, adult-born neurons are produced in restricted niches harboring neural stem cells. In the fruit fly Drosophila, low-level adult neurogenesis arising from a dispersed population of neural progenitors has recently been detected in the optic lobes. Strikingly, these normally quiescent neural stem cells proliferate upon brain injury and produce new neurons for brain regeneration. Here, we review adult neurogenesis in crustaceans and insects and highlight that neurogenesis in the visual system is prominent in arthropods, but its role and underlying mechanisms are unclear. Moreover, we discuss how the study of damage-responsive progenitor cells in Drosophila may help to understand robust regenerative neurogenesis and open new avenues to enhance brain repair after injury or stroke in humans.
Insulin Resistance or Insulin Deficiency: Which Is the Primary Cause of NIDDM?

Extensive investigations of the pathophysiology of non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) have identified two defects in endocrine function: insulin resistance and insulin deficiency. Despite general agreement that both defects are present in most patients with established NIDDM, many authorities have debated the question of which defect is the primary cause of NIDDM. Many interesting physiological studies have been conducted in an effort to address the following questions: Which defect can be detected earliest in the course of the disease? Which defect is more important in the pathogenesis of NIDDM? These clinical investigations have provided valuable insights into the pathophysiology of NIDDM. However, like many productive scientific investigations, they have raised as many questions as they have answered. Fortunately, after years of spirited debate, methods are becoming available that are likely to resolve the controversy. Genetic factors contribute importantly to the predisposition to develop NIDDM. Nevertheless, abundant evidence suggests that environmental factors (e.g., nutrition, physical exercise, etc.) may also modulate the expression of the diabetic phenotype. (Such interactions between genetics and the environment are commonly observed in many genetic diseases. For example, patients with mild forms of glucose&-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency are usually asymptomatic unless they are exposed to environmental stresses [e.g., administration of certain drugs, infections, etc.].) Inasmuch as NIDDM is a genetic disease, the identity of the cause of the disease is encrypted in the sequence of nucleotides in the patients' DNA. To learn the secret of the disease, we need to decipher the code. With the development of powerl:ul methods of molecular genetic analysis, the time is rapidly approaching when identification of the primary genetic defects that render an individual susceptible to NIDDM will be possible. In this perspective, we review the evidence supporting the balanced view that both insulin resistance and insulin deficiency contribute to the pathogen
Beneficial Effect of Mechanical Stimulation on the Regenerative Potential of Muscle-Derived Stem Cells Is Lost by Inhibiting Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor

Objective—We previously reported that mechanical stimulation increased the effectiveness of muscle-derived stem cells (MDSCs) for tissue repair. The objective of this study was to determine the importance of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) on mechanically stimulated MDSCs in a murine model of muscle regeneration. Approach and Results—MDSCs were transduced with retroviral vectors encoding the LacZ reporter gene (lacZ-MDSCs), the soluble VEGF receptor Flt1 (sFlt1-MDSCs), or a short hairpin RNA (shRNA) targeting messenger RNA of VEGF (shRNA_VEGF MDSCs). Cells were subjected to 24 hours of mechanical cyclic strain and immediately transplanted into the gastrocnemius muscles of mdx/scid mice. Two weeks after transplantation, angiogenesis, fibrosis, and regeneration were analyzed. There was an increase in angiogenesis in the muscles transplanted with mechanically stimulated lacZ-MDSCs compared with nonstimulated lacZ-MDSCs, sFlt1-MDSCs, and shRNA _VEGF MDSCs. Dystrophin-positive myofiber regeneration was significantly lower in the shRNA_VEGF-MDSC group compared with the lacZ-MDSC and sFlt1-MDSC groups. In vitro proliferation of MDSCs was not decreased by inhibition of VEGF; however, differentiation into myotubes and adhesion to collagen were significantly lower in the shRNA_VEGF-MDSC group compared with the lacZ-MDSC and sFlt1-MDSC groups. Conclusions—The beneficial effects of mechanical stimulation on MDSC-mediated muscle repair are lost by inhibiting VEGF.
Energy efficiency analysis of Cooperative Access with Relay's Data algorithm for multi-rate WLANs

The aim of this paper is to provide an energy efficiency analysis of the Cooperative Access with Relay's Data for Multi-rate wireless local area networks (WLANs), named CARD protocol at the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer taking into account the impact of both transmission channel states and multi-rate transmission. Simulation results closely match the analytical results confirming the effectiveness of the proposed model.
Measuring perceived interactivity of mobile advertisements

Interactivity is considered a prominent characteristic of mobile advertising; however, a properly developed tool to measure the concept has not been developed. This study focusses on the development and validation of an instrument for measuring the interactivity perceived by individuals who interact with mobile advertisements on handheld devices. The confirmatory factor analysis results show that perceived interactivity in mobile advertising is comprised of six correlated but distinct constructs: user control, synchronicity, two-way communication, connectedness, playfulness and interpersonal communication. The result from a series of tests and examinations indicated that the multidimensional scale exhibits content validity and discriminant validity. The internal consistency of the scale reaches an acceptable level. The relationship with personal variables was also analysed. Gender, education, monthly income, years using cell phones, monthly cell phone charges, monthly cost for data services on cell phones and previous experiences with mobile advertisements have no influences on respondent interactivity perception with mobile advertisements. But user age is negatively correlated with perceived interactivity and years using the Internet are positively correlated with perceived interactivity. Young people with more Internet experience are more likely to perceive interactivity of mobile advertisements.
Aging Is RSKy Business

Progress in defining a signaling pathway that controls mammalian life span raises the possibility of discovering treatments for aging-related diseases. Following hot on the heels of recent studies showing that dietary restriction slows aging in primates (1) and that inhibiting the enzyme mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) increases life span in mice (2), a report by Selman et al. on page XXX of this issue (3) uncovers an important role for another enzyme, a ribosomal S6 protein kinase (RSK) called S6K1, as a determinant of mammalian aging. S6K1 is a target of mTOR, so the new finding further defines a conserved longevity pathway that links nutrient availability to aging in organisms as diverse as yeast and mice. The study also has potentially important implications for future attempts to increase longevity and slow the progression of age-associated diseases in humans.
Enhanced sensitivity in PCR detection of Listeria monocytogenes in soft cheese through use of an aqueous two-phase system as a sample preparation method

A sample treatment method based on an aqueous two-phase system containing polyethylene glycol and dextran was developed for enhancing sensitivity in the detection of Listeria monocytogenes in soft cheese with PCR. The results suggest that the improved detection sensitivity following partitioning of the cheese homogenate in an aqueous two-phase system may be due to partitioning of the PCR inhibitors to the polyethylene glycol phase.
Carry-Over of Aflatoxin B1 to Aflatoxin M1 in High Yielding Israeli Cows in Mid- and Late-Lactation

The potent hepatotoxin and carcinogen aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is a common mycotoxin contaminant of grains used in animal feeds. Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) is the major metabolite of AFB1 in mammals, being partially excreted into milk, and is a possible human carcinogen. The maximum permitted concentration of AFM1 in cows’ milk is 0.05 μg/kg in Israel and the European Union. Since milk yield and the carry-over of AFB1 in the feed to AFM1 in the milk are highly correlated, it was considered important to determine the AFM1 carry-over in Israeli-Holstein dairy cows, distinguished by world record high milk production. Twelve such cows were used to determine AFM1 carry-over following daily oral administration of feed containing ~86 μg AFB1 for 7 days. The mean carry-over rate at steady-state (Days 3–7) was 5.8% and 2.5% in mid-lactation and late-lactation groups, respectively. The carry-over appears to increase exponentially with milk yield and could be described by the equation: carry-over% = 0.5154 e0.0521 × milk yield, with r2 = 0.6224. If these data truly reflect the carry-over in the national Israeli dairy herd, the maximum level of AFB1 in feed should not exceed 1.4 μg/kg, a value 3.6 times lower than the maximum residue level currently applied in Israel.
Effect of the printing bed temperature on the adhesion of parts produced by fused filament fabrication

For parts produced by fused filament fabrication (FFF) the adhesion between the first printed layer and the printing bed is crucial, since it provides the foundation to the subsequent layers. Inadequate adhesion can result in poor printing quality or destroyed bed surfaces. This study aims at understanding and optimising the adhesion process for parts produced by FFF. The consequences of varying printing bed temperatures on the adhesion of two commonly used printing materials on two standard bed surfaces were investigated by means of an in-house built adhesion measurement device and complemented by contact angle measurements. This study shows a significant increase in adhesion forces, when printing parts at a bed temperature slightly above the glass transition temperature of the printing material.
Optimal Time of Efficacy for Using Bone Tissue Engineered Cell Therapies and Pulsed Electromagnetic Field [PEMF] for the Treatment of Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis affects half the population of people over 60 in developed countries. Various anabolic, anti-resorptive, hormone replacement therapies and bone grafting have been used to retain healthy bone mass and strength; however, they can produce serious adverse effects. To test alternative therapies to drugs, we evaluated the effect of FDA approved 3-D biodegradable poly-L-lactide acid scaffolds seeded with both osteoblasts and mesenchymal stromal/progenitor cells exposed to a 15 Hz, 2.4 milli Tesla pulsed electromagnetic field to promote osteogenic bone regeneration by stimulating osteogenesis. Once adhered, cell scaffolds were evaluated for active osteogenic bone proteins to provide evidence that PEMF accelerates osteoblast and MSC proliferation, differentiation, and mineralization. Evaluation of active osteogenic markers showed pulsed electromagnetic field increased levels of osteocalcin, osteopontin, and alkaline phosphatase in cell therapies up to 30%. An increase in the rate of osteogenesis was observed between 7-14 days, providing a window of efficacy for combining both pulsed electromagnetic field therapy with cell-seeded tissue engineered scaffolds. The combination of PEMF with bioengineered cell therapies can provide alternative treatments to current problems of limited tissue availability, donor site morbidity, immune rejection, and pathogen transfer due to autograft.