Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mastication of almonds: effects of lipid bioaccessibility, appetite, and hormone response.

BACKGROUND Epidemiologic and clinical data indicate that nuts can be incorporated into the diet without compromising body weight. This has been attributed to strong satiety properties, increased resting energy expenditure, and limited lipid bioaccessibility. OBJECTIVE The role of mastication was explored because of evidence that the availability of nut lipids is largely dependent on the mechanical fracture of their cell walls. DESIGN In a randomized, 3-arm, crossover study, 13 healthy adults (body mass index, in kg/m(2): 23.1 +/- 0.4) chewed 55 g almonds 10, 25, or 40 times. Blood was collected and appetite was monitored during the following 3 h. Over the next 4 d, all foods were provided, including 55 g almonds, which were consumed under the same chewing conditions. Complete fecal samples were collected. RESULTS Hunger was acutely suppressed below baseline (P < 0.05), and fullness was elevated above baseline longer (P < 0.05) after 40 chews than after 25 chews. Two hours after consumption, fullness levels were significantly lower and hunger levels were significantly higher after 25 chews than after 10 and 40 chews (P < 0.05). Initial postingestive glucagon-like peptide-1 concentrations were significantly lower after 25 chews than after 40 chews (P < 0.05), and insulin concentrations declined more rapidly after 25 and 40 chews than after 10 chews (both P < 0.05). Fecal fat excretion was significantly higher after 10 chews than after 25 and 40 chews (both P < 0.05). All participants had higher fecal energy losses after 10 and 25 chews than after 40 chews (P < 0.005). CONCLUSION The results indicate important differences in appetitive and physiologic responses to masticating nuts and likely other foods and nutrients. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00768417.
Proceedings of the 7 th International Workshop on Biosignal Interpretation

Pupil is controlled by the activity of the autonomous system. Under constant light and visual stimulus, it performs complex size oscillations and movements. Here, it is assumed that pupil behavior can be described by some unknown nonlinear deterministic rules. The techniques of time series embedding are applied to pupil size, obtaining a trajectory in the phase space. A trajectory is also obtained considering the movements of the eye. Indexes are obtained from Fourier analysis and from recurrence quantification analysis applied to trajectories in the phase space of the time series sampling pupil size and movement. Some insight into pupil control is obtained investigating data recorded in different stationary conditions (light vs darkness, rest position of the jaw vs dental occlusion).
A Preliminary Mixed-Method Investigation of Trust and Hidden Signals in Medical Consultations

Background Several factors influence patients' trust, and trust influences the doctor-patient relationship. Recent literature has investigated the quality of the personal relationship and its dynamics by considering the role of communication and the elements that influence trust giving in the frame of general practitioner (GP) consultations. Objective We analysed certain aspects of the interaction between patients and GPs to understand trust formation and maintenance by focusing on communication channels. The impact of socio-demographic variables in trust relationships was also evaluated. Method A cross-sectional design using concurrent mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods was employed. One hundred adults were involved in a semi-structured interview composed of both qualitative and quantitative items for descriptive and exploratory purposes. The study was conducted in six community-based departments adjacent to primary care clinics in Trento, Italy. Results The findings revealed that patients trusted their GP to a high extent by relying on simple signals that were based on the quality of the one-to-one communication and on behavioural and relational patterns. Patients inferred the ability of their GP by adopting simple heuristics based mainly on the so-called social “honest signals” rather than on content-dependent features. Furthermore, socio-demographic variables affected trust: less literate and elderly people tended to trust more. Conclusions This study is unique in attempting to explore the role of simple signals in trust relationships within medical consultation: people shape trust and give meaning to their relationships through a powerful channel of communication that orbits not around words but around social relations. The findings have implications for both clinicians and researchers. For doctors, these results suggest a way of thinking about encounters with patients. For researchers, the findings underline the importance of analysing some new key factors around trust for future investigations in medical practice and education.
Challenge levels of everyday technologies as perceived over five years by older adults with mild cognitive impairment

ABSTRACT Background: In clinical practice, efficient and valid functional markers are needed to detect subtle cognitive and functional decline in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This prospective study explored whether changes in perceived challenge of certain everyday technologies (ETs) can be used to detect signs of functional change in MCI. Methods: Baseline and five-year data from 37 older adults (mean age 67.5 years) with MCI regarding their perceived ability to use ET were used to generate Rasch-based ET item measures reflecting the relative challenge of 46 ETs. Actual differential item functioning in relation to time was analyzed based on these item measures. Data collection took place in 2008–2014. Results: Seven (15%) of the ETs included were perceived to be significantly more challenging to use at year five compared to at baseline, while 39 ETs (85%) were perceived to be equally challenging to use, despite the fact that the participants’ perceived ability to use ET had decreased. Common characteristics among the ETs that became more challenging to use could not be identified. The dropout rate was 43%, which limits the power of the study. Conclusions: Changes in the perceived challenge of ETs seem to capture functional change in persons with cognitive decline. Both easier and more challenging ETs typically used at home and in society need to be addressed to capture this functional change because significant changes occurred among ETs of all challenge levels and within all types of ETs.
Morphological and Physiological Effects of Mechanical Trauma to the Spinal Cord

Spinal cord injury carries a high risk of mortality and morbidity. This report provides a summary of fundamental physiological aspects of the neuronal plasma membrane that are relevant to the study of spinal cord injury and a review of experimental animal models analyzing the morphological and physiological consequences of mechanical trauma to the spinal cord. There is currently no standardized method of inducing experimental spinal cord injury and quantifying the extent of injury. In general, the acutely damaged cord showed axonal compaction, periaxonal swelling and disruption of myelin sheaths. Weeks later, injured cords revealed a reduction in gray and white matter with progressively increasing axonal preservation toward the perimeter of the cords, a pattern attributable to the response of viscoelastic cord materials to mechanical impact. Degeneration of axonal function in both acute and chronic injury may be explained by damage to myelin sheaths and elemental derangement. Acute biochemical changes include an efflux of K+ into the extracellular space and an intraaxonal influx of Na+ and Ca2+. Chronically elevated intraaxonal Ca+ concentration appear to play an important role in cellular and myelin damage. The studies indicate that the ionic deregulation is mediated by a number of membrane channels as well as ionotropic glutamate receptors.
Native American Diabetes Project: Designing Culturally Relevant Education Materials

From the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Dr Carter), University of New Mexico School of Medicine Department of Medicine (Dr Carter and Mss Gilliland and Perez) and Department of Pediatrics (Mss Levin and Cunningham-Sabo and Dr Davis), and the Diabetes Headquarters Office, Indian Health Service (Mss Broussard and Valdez), Albuquerque, New Mexico. This study was supported by the Veterans Administration; a grant from the National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive, and Kidney Diseases, Grant No. DK 47096; and Dedicated Health Research Funds of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Correspondence to Janette S. Carter, MD, Surge Building, Room 251, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque NM 87131. Reprint requests to The Diabetes Educator, 367 West Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60610-3025. In minority communities where diabetes is a major health problem, diet and exercise behaviors have cultural intlu-
Boosting the Peroxidase-Like Activity of Nanostructured Nickel by Inducing Its 3+ Oxidation State in LaNiO3 Perovskite and Its Application for Biomedical Assays

Catalytic nanomaterials with intrinsic enzyme-like activities, called nanozymes, have recently attracted significant research interest due to their unique advantages relative to natural enzymes and conventional artificial enzymes. Among the nanozymes developed, particular interests have been devoted to nanozymes with peroxidase mimicking activities because of their promising applications in biosensing, bioimaging, biomedicine, etc. Till now, lots of functional nanomaterials have been used to mimic peroxidase. However, few studies have focused on the Ni-based nanomaterials for peroxidase mimics. In this work, we obtained the porous LaNiO3 nanocubes with high peroxidase-like activity by inducing its 3+ oxidation state in LaNiO3 perovskite and optimizing the morphology of LaNiO3 perovskite. The peroxidase mimicking activity of the porous LaNiO3 nanocubes with Ni3+ was about 58~fold and 22~fold higher than that of NiO with Ni2+ and Ni nanoparticles with Ni0. More, the porous LaNiO3 nanocubes exhibited about 2-fold higher activity when compared with LaNiO3 nanoparticles. Based on the superior peroxidase-like activity of porous LaNiO3 nanocubes, facile colorimetric assays for H2O2, glucose, and sarcosine detection were developed. Our present work not only demonstrates a useful strategy for modulating nanozymes' activities but also provides promising bioassays for clinical diagnostics.
Factors related to changes in the quality of life among Polish adolescents and adults with cystic fibrosis over a 1-year period

Background The aim of this study was to determine the effects of clinical factors, physical activity, and sociodemographic variables on 1-year changes in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in Polish adolescents and adults with cystic fibrosis (CF). Method The study included 67 subjects with CF (mean age 21.1±5.1 years; range 14–37 years; 34 males and 33 females). The Cystic Fibrosis Quality of Life Questionnaire was used at baseline and after 1 year. Lung function data, body weight, and body height were extracted from medical records. Clinical assessment was performed with the Shwachman–Kulczycki scale. Results The highest scores in both HRQoL examinations came from the domains of physical and social functioning, and the lowest from future concerns, body image, and career concerns. No significant changes of Cystic Fibrosis Quality of Life Questionnaire scores were documented over a period of 1 year. Patients with better baseline spirometry results more frequently reported an improvement in the treatment issues (subjects with FEV1 >50% of predicted, P=0.020) and in the career concerns (patients with FVC >50% of predicted, P=0.039). The improvement in the career concerns also depended upon daily physical activity (P=0.024), which was shown to modulate future concerns (P=0.032), along with place of residence and living conditions (P=0.003). Moreover, the time elapsed from the last pulmonary exacerbation was related to the change in social functioning (P=0.026). Conclusion When planning treatment, attention should be paid to interventions which may improve HRQoL. Systematic chronic therapy improves lung function, related to treatment issues and career concerns. Maintaining good physical condition and activity may positively influence future and career concerns. Special attention must be devoted to patients living in rural areas and enduring difficult living conditions, as they are especially vulnerable to deterioration in future concerns.
Location Cheating: A Security Challenge to Location-Based Social Network Services

Location-based mobile social network services such as foursquare and Gowalla have grown exponentially over the past several years. These location-based services utilize the geographical position to enrich user experiences in a variety of contexts, including location-based searching and location-based mobile advertising. To attract more users, the location-based mobile social network services provide real-world rewards to the user, when a user checks in at a certain venue or location. This gives incentives for users to cheat on their locations. In this paper, we investigate the threat of location cheating attacks, find the root cause of the vulnerability, and outline the possible defending mechanisms. We use foursquare as an example to introduce a novel location cheating attack, which can easily pass the current location verification mechanism (e.g., cheater code of foursquare). We also crawl the foursquare website. By analyzing the crawled data, we show that automated large scale cheating is possible. Through this paper, we aim to call attention to location cheating in mobile social network services and provide insights into the defending mechanisms.
Mitochondrial targeted peptides preserve mitochondrial organization and decrease reversible myocardial changes in early swine metabolic syndrome

Aims The mechanisms responsible for cardiac damage in the early stages of metabolic syndrome (MetS) remain unknown. Mitochondria are intimately associated with cellular myofibrils, with the cytoskeleton functioning as a linkage coordinator, and closely associated to the calcium release sites of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR). We hypothesized that early MetS is characterized by mitochondria-related myocardial damage, associated with altered cytoskeletal-mitochondria-SR interaction. Methods and results Domestic pigs were studied after 16 weeks of diet-induced MetS, MetS treated for the last 4 weeks with the mitochondrial-targeted peptide elamipretide (ELAM; 0.1 mg/kg SC q.d), or Lean controls (n = 6/group). Cardiac remodeling and function were assessed by fast comuted tomography. Myocardial mitochondrial structure, SR-mitochondria interaction, calcium handling, cytoskeletal proteins, oxidative stress, and apoptosis were studied ex-vivo. MetS pigs developed hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and insulin resistance, yet cardiac function was preserved. MetS-induced mitochondrial disorganization, decreased (C18:2)4 cardiolipin, disrupted ATP/ADP balance, and decreased cytochrome-c oxidase (COX)-IV activity. MetS also increased mitochondrial hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production, decreased nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH)/NADP and GSH/GSSG, and decreased myocardial desmin and β2 tubulin immunoreactivity, and impaired SR-mitochondrial interaction and mitochondrial calcium handling, eliciting myocardial oxidative stress and apoptosis. ELAM improved mitochondrial organization and cardiolipin species profile, restored ATP/ADP ratio and COX-IV activity, decreased H202 production, and improved generation of NADPH and GSH. ELAM also improved cytoskeletal-mitochondria-SR interaction and mitochondrial calcium handling, attenuating oxidative stress, and apoptosis. Conclusions Disorganization of cardiomyocyte cytoskeletal-mitochondria-SR network is associated with cardiac reversible changes in early MetS, preceding overt cardiac dysfunction. These findings may introduce novel therapeutic targets for blunting cardiac damage in early MetS.
Beyond fat-trees without antennae, mirrors, and disco-balls

Recent studies have observed that large data center networks often have a few hotspots while most of the network is underutilized. Consequently, numerous data center network designs have explored the approach of identifying these communication hotspots in real-time and eliminating them by leveraging flexible optical or wireless connections to dynamically alter the network topology. These proposals are based on the premise that statically wired network topologies, which lack the opportunity for such online optimization, are fundamentally inefficient, and must be built at uniform full capacity to handle unpredictably skewed traffic. We show this assumption to be false. Our results establish that state-of-the-art static networks can also achieve the performance benefits claimed by dynamic, reconfigurable designs of the same cost: for the skewed traffic workloads used to make the case for dynamic networks, the evaluated static networks can achieve performance matching full-bandwidth fat-trees at two-thirds of the cost. Surprisingly, this can be accomplished even without relying on any form of online optimization, including the optimization of routing configuration in response to the traffic demands. Our results substantially lower the barriers for improving upon today's data centers by showing that a static, cabling-friendly topology built using commodity equipment yields superior performance when combined with well-understood routing methods.
Not Just About Size - A Study on the Role of Distributed Word Representations in the Analysis of Scientific Publications

The emergence of knowledge graphs in the scholarly communication domain and recent advances in artificial intelligence and natural language processing bring us closer to a scenario where intelligent systems can assist scientists over a range of knowledge-intensive tasks. In this paper we present experimental results about the generation of word embeddings from scholarly publications for the intelligent processing of scientific texts extracted from SciGraph. We compare the performance of domain-specific embeddings with existing pre-trained vectors generated from very large and general purpose corpora. Our results suggest that there is a trade-off between corpus specificity and volume. Embeddings from domain-specific scientific corpora effectively capture the semantics of the domain. On the other hand, obtaining comparable results through general corpora can also be achieved, but only in the presence of very large corpora of well formed text. Furthermore, We also show that the degree of overlapping between knowledge areas is directly related to the performance of embeddings in domain evaluation tasks.
A Comparison of Phenotypic Traits Related to Trypanotolerance in Five West African Cattle Breeds Highlights the Value of Shorthorn Taurine Breeds

Background Animal African Trypanosomosis particularly affects cattle and dramatically impairs livestock development in sub-Saharan Africa. African Zebu (AFZ) or European taurine breeds usually die of the disease in the absence of treatment, whereas West African taurine breeds (AFT), considered trypanotolerant, are able to control the pathogenic effects of trypanosomosis. Up to now, only one AFT breed, the longhorn N’Dama (NDA), has been largely studied and is considered as the reference trypanotolerant breed. Shorthorn taurine trypanotolerance has never been properly assessed and compared to NDA and AFZ breeds. Methodology/Principal Findings This study compared the trypanotolerant/susceptible phenotype of five West African local breeds that differ in their demographic history. Thirty-six individuals belonging to the longhorn taurine NDA breed, two shorthorn taurine Lagune (LAG) and Baoulé (BAO) breeds, the Zebu Fulani (ZFU) and the Borgou (BOR), an admixed breed between AFT and AFZ, were infected by Trypanosoma congolense IL1180. All the cattle were genetically characterized using dense SNP markers, and parameters linked to parasitaemia, anaemia and leukocytes were analysed using synthetic variables and mixed models. We showed that LAG, followed by NDA and BAO, displayed the best control of anaemia. ZFU showed the greatest anaemia and the BOR breed had an intermediate value, as expected from its admixed origin. Large differences in leukocyte counts were also observed, with higher leukocytosis for AFT. Nevertheless, no differences in parasitaemia were found, except a tendency to take longer to display detectable parasites in ZFU. Conclusions We demonstrated that LAG and BAO are as trypanotolerant as NDA. This study highlights the value of shorthorn taurine breeds, which display strong local adaptation to trypanosomosis. Thanks to further analyses based on comparisons of the genome or transcriptome of the breeds, these results open up the way for better knowledge of host-pathogen interactions and, furthermore, for identifying key biological pathways.
Automated quality assessment for crowdsourced test reports of mobile applications

In crowdsourced mobile application testing, crowd workers help developers perform testing and submit test reports for unexpected behaviors. These submitted test reports usually provide critical information for developers to understand and reproduce the bugs. However, due to the poor performance of workers and the inconvenience of editing on mobile devices, the quality of test reports may vary sharply. At times developers have to spend a significant portion of their available resources to handle the low-quality test reports, thus heavily decreasing their efficiency. In this paper, to help developers predict whether a test report should be selected for inspection within limited resources, we propose a new framework named TERQAF to automatically model the quality of test reports. TERQAF defines a series of quantifiable indicators to measure the desirable properties of test reports and aggregates the numerical values of all indicators to determine the quality of test reports by using step transformation functions. Experiments conducted over five crowdsourced test report datasets of mobile applications show that TERQAF can correctly predict the quality of test reports with accuracy of up to 88.06% and outperform baselines by up to 23.06%. Meanwhile, the experimental results also demonstrate that the four categories of measurable indicators have positive impacts on TERQAF in evaluating the quality of test reports.
Modulation of Gq-Rho Signaling by the ERK MAPK Pathway Controls Locomotion in Caenorhabditis elegans

The heterotrimeric G protein Gq regulates neuronal activity through distinct downstream effector pathways. In addition to the canonical Gq effector phospholipase Cβ, the small GTPase Rho was recently identified as a conserved effector of Gq. To identify additional molecules important for Gq signaling in neurons, we performed a forward genetic screen in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans for suppressors of the hyperactivity and exaggerated waveform of an activated Gq mutant. We isolated two mutations affecting the MAP kinase scaffold protein KSR-1 and found that KSR-1 modulates locomotion downstream of, or in parallel to, the Gq-Rho pathway. Through epistasis experiments, we found that the core ERK MAPK cascade is required for Gq-Rho regulation of locomotion, but that the canonical ERK activator LET-60/Ras may not be required. Through neuron-specific rescue experiments, we found that the ERK pathway functions in head acetylcholine neurons to control Gq-dependent locomotion. Additionally, expression of activated LIN-45/Raf in head acetylcholine neurons is sufficient to cause an exaggerated waveform phenotype and hypersensitivity to the acetylcholinesterase inhibitor aldicarb, similar to an activated Gq mutant. Taken together, our results suggest that the ERK MAPK pathway modulates the output of Gq-Rho signaling to control locomotion behavior in C. elegans.