Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Children with HIV in the UK: A Longitudinal Study of Adaptive and Cognitive Functioning

Children infected with HIV are a vulnerable group who have not been studied widely in the UK. They may be at risk of cognitive and psychological problems, but the relative influences of multiple factors have not been examined. This study aimed to assess a group of children with HIV in detail, including cognitive, adaptive and behavioural functioning and to apply psychological models of chronic illness in children. A longitudinal, naturalistic case study design was used. Eleven HIV-positive children, aged 4–13 years, were assessed twice. Two case studies illustrate some of the psychosocial and contextual factors impacting on these children’s adjustment. Cognitive ability and adaptive functioning were assessed. Behavioural measures, medical results and demographic information were also included. There was wide variability in the children’s functioning. Many displayed significant weaknesses in adaptive functioning compared with cognitive functioning. There were significant changes over time for some children. There was a high prevalence of behavioural and attention difficulties. Many children had experienced major life events such as moving countries and parental bereavement. Other challenges such as poor socio-economic status, limited social support and uncertainty about the future contributed to poor psychosocial adjustment. Children with HIV contend with multiple risks for their development and psychological well-being. Deterioration in psychological functioning can occur.
REZUMAT TREATMENT OF THE HEPATIC HYDATID CYST BY ULTRASOUND-GUIDED TRANSCUTANEOUS PUNCTURE

REZUMAT TREATMENT OF THE HEPATIC HYDATID CYST BY ULTRASOUND-GUIDED TRANSCUTANEOUS PUNCTURE Abdulah Salim1, Doru Bordos1, Ciprian Duta1, Delia Zahoi2, Ecaterina Daescu2 Introduction: The hepatic hydatid cyst, a parasitic disease caused by Taenia Echinococcus, can nowadays be successfully treated using ultrasoundguided transcutaneous puncture, a minimally invasive method, described in the literature as early as the ‘90s. Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the results of the percutaneous puncture treatment of the hepatic hydatid cyst, a method that is more cost effective and often safer than surgery. Material and methods: The study was conducted on 319 patients (aged between 16 and 67 years), treated between April 1996 and December 2011. Out of the 319, 46 were operated laparoscopically, 56 by classical surgery and 217 were subjected to ultrasound-guided transcutaneous puncture. Results: The average duration of hospitalization was 3.5 days. The reduction in cyst diameter was: 58-100% in the first month; 69-100% after three months; 72-100% after 6 months and 75-100% after 12 months. A number of 5 (2.3%) patients had mild allergic reactions, 86.56% of the cysts disappeared, 5.97% needed to undertake the puncture procedure again and 7.46% of the cysts relapsed. Conclusions: The advantages of this method are obvious in terms of surgery trauma, post-operative morbidity, duration of hospitalization, surgically difficult to reach areas and post-surgery relapses.
A transparent and energy aware reconfigurable multiprocessor platform for simultaneous ILP and TLP exploitation

As the number of embedded applications increases, companies are launching new platforms within short periods of time to efficiently execute software with the lowest possible energy consumption. However, for each new platform deployment, new tool chains, with additional libraries, debuggers and compilers must come along, breaking binary compatibility. This strategy implies in high hardware and software redesign costs. In this scenario, we propose the exploitation of Custom Reconfigurable Arrays for Multiprocessor Systems (CReAMS). CReAMS is composed of multiple adaptive reconfigurable processors that simultaneously exploit Instruction and Thread Level Parallelism. It works in a transparent fashion, so binary compatibility is maintained, with no need to change the software development process or environment. We also show that CReAMS delivers higher performance per watt in comparison to a 4-issue Superscalar processor, when the same power budget is considered for both designs.
Current dipole localization with an ideal magnetometer system

The goal of the study was to explore the most fundamental aspects of a magnetoencephalography (MEG)-based dipole source analysis. For that purpose, a MEG measurement with an ideal magnetometer system (providing the radial component of the magnetic field as a continuous function) is considered. The analytical formulas derived for the variances and covariances of the parameter estimation errors, validated by means of Monte Carlo simulations, allow quantitative predictions in terms of dipole depth, radius and span of the magnetometer system, signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio, and other parameters. A negative correlation exists between radial coordinate and longitudinal component of the moment (perpendicular to radial direction, same plane as actual dipole moment and center of sphere), whereas the other parameters are independent. The standard deviations of the 5 dipole parameters show fundamental differences with respect to their asymptotic behavior for deep dipoles: If the root mean square (rms) value of the magnetic field is kept constant (moment with depth-dependent amplitude), the error for the transverse coordinate (perpendicular to radial and longitudinal coordinate) is proportional to the distance R between dipole and center of sphere, the errors for the other dipole coordinates, and the relative error for the transverse component of the dipole moment are constant, and the relative error for the longitudinal component of the dipole moment follows a 1/R law.
Towards document engineering on pen and touch-operated interactive tabletops

Touch interfaces have now become mainstream thanks to modern smartphones and tablets. However, there are still very few "productivity" applications, i.e. tools that support mundane but essential work, especially for large interactive surfaces such as digital tabletops. This work aims to partly fill the relative void in the area of document engineering by investigating what kind of intuitive and efficient tools can be provided to support the manipulation of documents on a digital workdesk, in particular the creation and editing of documents. The fundamental interaction model relies on bimanual pen and multitouch input, which was recently introduced to tabletops and enables richer interaction possibilities. The goal is ultimately to provide useful and highly accessible UIs for document-centric applications, whose design principles will hopefully pave the way from DTP towards DTTP (Digital Tabletop Publishing).
A Study on the Distributed k -Mutual Exclusion Problem

The distributed k -mutual exclusion problem is the problem of guaranteeing that at most k processes can enter a critical section at a time in a distributed system. The distributed 1-mutual exclusion problem is one of fundamental distributed problems in distributed systems and many algorithms for solving the problem have been proposed. In this paper, we introduce the k -coterie as an extension of the coterie used to solve the distributed 1-mutual exclusion problem, and propose a distributed k -mutual exclusion algorithm based on the k -coterie. The algorithm we propose and an algorithm proposed by Raymond [1] are compared by experiments using workstations connected by Ethernet. Since the fault tolerance is a very important issue in distributed systems, we introduce a measure called ( k; r )-availability, which is a probability that at least r processes can enter a critical section at a time. And then, we investigate a necessary and a suﬃcient conditions that a class of k -coteries, k -majority coterie, is optimal in terms of the ( k; r )-availability.
Enhancement of solid state fermentation for production of penicillin G on sugar beet pulp

In this study, two local strains of Penicillium chrysogenum named EGEK458 and EGEK469 were selected for enhancement of Penicillin G (PenG) production under solid state fermentation (SSF) conditions. These two strains were selected among seven strains according to their fermentation yields for PenG production during previous tests under submerged fermentation conditions. Sugar beet pulp, an agro-industrial residue of the sugar industry, was used as an inert support for the first time in PenG production under SSF. In order to enhance the production of PenG, two points of moisture level and three concentration values of nutrients (impregnated in solid support), which are the key parameters in production of PenG, were compared. As the yields from solid and submerged fermentation were compared, 570U/g of PenG – almost 15 times higher quantities of its production vs. submerged conditions – were obtained under SSF conditions in 50 hours by the strain EGEK458. The conditions for the enhanced production of PenG were 65% moisture content with a four-fold concentrated nutrients impregnated solid support.
Optimization for packet routing using chaotic dynamics

We propose a new algorithm for controling packet routing using chaotic dynamics. First, we construct a packet routing method using a neural network based on information of shortest distances from a node to the other nodes, which works as the Dijkstra algorithm. We discovered that when the network structure is regular, the algorithm works well, however, when the network structure becomes irregular, the algorithm does not work well; almost all packets cannot be sent to their destinations because of congestion of packets at the nodes. To avoid this problem, we extended this model to employ chaotic dynamics. We confirm that our routing algorithm is very effective for many irregular and scale-free networks comparing with the Dijkstra algorithm
Longitudinal Study of Cytokine Expression, Lipid Profile and Neuronal Growth Factors in Human Breast Milk from Term and Preterm Deliveries

Breast milk (BM) is considered as a reference for infant nutrition. The role of bioactive components, such as cytokines, hormones, growth factors (GFs) and fatty acids (FAs) is poorly known, but they might be implicated in immune response development. The aim of this study was to identify the lipid profile and the spectrum of cytokines and neuronal GF in BM samples and analyse the influence of gestational age and lactation time on these components. This study used a longitudinal prospective method for the characterization of cytokines, FAs and GFs global profiles in 120 BM samples from 40 healthy mothers (20 preterm and 20 term) collected as colostrum, transitional and mature milk. The cytokines were analysed by protein array (Ray Bio® Human Cytokine Array G6. Ray Biotech, Inc. Norcross, GA, USA) and the FAs were analysed by gas chromatography. The FA profile was similar between the term and the preterm BM samples. Omega-3-α-linoleic and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and omega-6-linoleic acid were the most abundant in the term and preterm samples during lactation. Omega-3 ETA and omega-3 EPA we observed exclusively in the preterm samples. The cytokine profile showed a different trend based on gestational age. A significantly higher expression of neurotrophic factors was found in the mature preterm milk samples as compared to the mature term samples. Our study is the first to identify the influence and interactions of perinatal factors on cytokine, GFs and FAs in human milk.
Connectivity With Nature as a Measure of Environmental Values

The authors hypothesize that environmental values derive from a sense of connectivity with nature. Connectivity describes a perception of sameness between the self, others, and the natural world. The experience of connectivity involves dissolution of boundaries and a sense of a shared or common essence between the self, nature, and others. Connectivity with nature differs theoretically and operationally from other explanations of environmental values, including cultural bias, postmaterialism, and social altruism. The authors describe their development of a sociometric scale to operationalize connectivity with nature. Based on data from a mail survey of Pennsylvania landowners, the authors use multiple regression analyses to determine the extent to which connectivity with nature predicts and explains environmental concern and behavior in the presence of standard sociodemographic variables. Survey respondents reported a high level of connectivity with nature, and connectivity retained a significant and positive relationship to environmental concern and environmental behavior in multiple regression models. Implications of these findings are advanced.
Transcription Fluctuation Effects on Biochemical Oscillations

Some biochemical systems show oscillation. They often consist of feedback loops with repressive transcription regulation. Such biochemical systems have distinctive characteristics in comparison with ordinary chemical systems: i) numbers of molecules involved are small, ii) there are typically only a couple of genes in a cell with a finite regulation time. Due to the fluctuations caused by these features, the system behavior can be quite different from the one by deterministic rate equations, because the rate equations ignore molecular fluctuations and thus are exact only in the infinite molecular number limit. The molecular fluctuations on a free-running circadian system have been studied by Gonze et al. (2002) by introducing a scale parameter for the system size. They consider, however, only the first effect, assuming that the gene process is fast enough for the second effect to be ignored, but this has not been examined systematically yet. Here we study fluctuation effects due to the finite gene regulation time by introducing a new scale parameter , which we take as the unbinding time of a nuclear protein from the gene. We focus on the case where the fluctuations due to small molecular numbers are negligible. In simulations on the same system studied by Gonze et al., we find the system is unexpectedly sensitive to the fluctuation in the transcription regulation; the period of oscillation fluctuates about 30 min even when the regulation time scale is around 30 s, that is even smaller than 1/1000 of its circadian period. We also demonstrate that the distribution width for the oscillation period and amplitude scales with , and the correlation time scales with in the small regime. The relative fluctuations for the period are about half of that for the amplitude, namely, the periodicity is more stable than the amplitude.
Teaching Resonant Converters: Properties and Applications for Variable Loads

This paper summarizes a lesson on resonant converters included in the new course, Advanced Power Conversion Techniques, within the M.Sc. program in electrical engineering at the University of Cantabria, Spain. The course has recently received the National Accreditation for official programs. The M.Sc. program, along with the Ph.D. thesis, forms a Ph.D. program in industrial engineering. The contents motivate the students to find suitable resonant converter applications of industrial interest. A new approach to teaching resonant converters is presented that focused on their properties at certain frequencies, such as for voltage sources, current sources, or sink and power source operation with very variable loads. The analysis of the converters enables the identification of these operating points and, by means of a sensitivity analysis with respect to the components of the resonant tank, explains the robustness of their behavior. Using as a starting point the fulfillment of the desired property, we propose that the students develop open-loop designs, with stable behavior, or closed-loop designs, with very small variation in the operating point. Two practical application examples are shown: electronic ballasts for high-intensity discharge lamps and power supplies for electrical discharge machining.
Race and end-stage renal disease. Socioeconomic status and access to health care as mediating factors.

OBJECTIVE To examine whether lower socioeconomic status and limited access to health care explain the racial inequities in the incidence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD), and whether these factors are independently associated with ESRD. METHODS This case-control study compared 716 patients with ESRD with 361 population controls of the same age, 20 to 64 years old, from Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, DC. Race, indicators of socioeconomic status (household annual income, years of education), and indicators of access to health care (health insurance status, number of missing teeth, usual source of care, use of preventive services) were assessed via a telephone interview. RESULTS Independent risk factors for ESRD included non-white race (odds ratio for blacks, 5.5; 95% confidence interval, 3.8 to 8.0; odds ratio for other nonwhites, 3.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.2 to 10.0), categories of income (odds ratio gradient, 1.0 to 4.5; 95% confidence interval, 2.6 to 7.8), receipt of Medicaid benefits (odds ratio, 3.5; 95% confidence interval, 1.5 to 8.4), and number of missing teeth (odds ratio gradient, 1.0 to 2.2; 95% confidence interval, 1.2 to 4.1). Adjustment for socioeconomic variables reduced the odds ratio for blacks only partially, from 8.1 to 5.5. The proportions of ESRD incidence that could be attributed to each risk factor were 46% for minority race, 53% for income categories, and 33% for missing teeth. CONCLUSIONS Low socioeconomic status and limited access to health care were strong risk factors for kidney failure, but they explained only part of the excess of ESRD in blacks. Racial and social factors account for a large part of ESRD incidence. The mechanisms of these associations should be targeted by further research.
The Impact of Family Background and Early Marital Factors on Marital Disruption

A high level of marital disruption remains a major factor of American family experience. This analysis takes advantage of the broad coverage of family-related issues by the National Survey of Families and Households (1987-1988) to explore both methodological and substantive issues concerning marital dissolution in the United States. The analysis finds that marital disruptions are seriously underreported by males, making the analysis of male marital histories problematic. Also, the potential impact of reconciliations on the estimates of recent marital disruption based on separation is explored; no upward bias is likely to result from the inclusion of separations that may subsequently reconcile. The impact of a wide variety of factors on the risk of marital disruption is examined using proportional hazard techniques. Among them are included parental background factors, respondent's characteristics at the time of marriage, differences in spouses' characteristics, and joint activity statuses of marital partners in the first year of marriage. The risk of marital disruption is highest among women with young age at marriage, low education, a cohabitation history, and those whose spouse has been married previously. Parental family disruption affects marital stability primarily through age at marriage and cohabitation. Religious and educational heterogamy and male unemployment reduce marital stability.
Why do women with panic disorders not panic during sex (or do they)? Results of an empirical study on the relationship of sexual arousal and panic attacks

Reported sensations during sexual arousal and panic attacks were compared in women with panic disorder and in controls. Hypotheses: patients with panic disorders report: (1) similar sensations during sexual arousal and panic attacks, but (2) these sensations do not trigger panic during sexual activity, because (3) there is no sense of loss of control in sexual arousal. Thirty women with panic syndrome and 27 age-matched controls were included in this study. The two groups were compared using a self-developed questionnaire. The results do show a significant overlap of reported sensations (80% of sexual sensations identical with panic sensations), but with a different subjective perception for many women. Unexpectedly, most reported sensations during sex (masturbation and partner activity) were experienced as unpleasant. Contrary to our hypothesis, 30% of our sample did panic during sexual activity, 50% experienced a loss of control and 70% of the sample did not panic during sex, in spite of overlapping sensations. These results provide incentives for further studies on this topic.
Effects of Lutein and Docosahexaenoic Acid Supplementation on Macular Pigment Optical Density in a Randomized Controlled Trial

We studied the macular pigment ocular density (MPOD) in patients with early age macular degeneration (AMD) before and 1 year after nutritional supplementation with lutein and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Forty-four patients with AMD were randomly divided into two groups that received placebo (n = 21) or a nutritional supplement (n = 23, 12 mg of lutein and 280 mg of DHA daily). Heterochromatic flicker photometry was used to determine the MPOD. At baseline, the MPOD in AMD patients with placebo was 0.286 ± 0.017 meanwhile in AMD patients with supplementation it was 0.291 ± 0.016. One year later, the mean MPOD had increased by 0.059 in the placebo group and by 0.162 in patients receiving lutein and DHA. This difference between groups was significant (p < 0.05). Lutein and DHA supplementation is effective in increasing the MPOD and may aid in prevention of age related macular degeneration.
Current and emerging management options for patients with Morquio A syndrome

Morquio A syndrome is a lysosomal storage disease associated with mucopolysaccharidosis. It is caused by a deficiency of the lysosomal enzyme, N-acetylgalactosamine-6-sulfate sulfatase, which leads to accumulation of keratan sulfate and condroitin-6 sulfate in multiple organs. Patients present with multisystemic complications involving the musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, and digestive systems. Presently, there is no definitive cure, and current management options are palliative. Enzyme replacement therapy and hematopoietic stem cell therapy have been proven effective in certain lysosomal storage diseases, and current investigations are underway to evaluate the effectiveness of these therapies and others for the treatment of Morquio A syndrome. This review discusses the current and emerging treatment options for Morquio A syndrome, citing examples of the treatment of other mucopolysaccharidoses.
Heparanases and tumor metastasis

The successful penetration of endothelial basement membranes is an important process in the formation of hematogenous tumor metastases. Heparan sulfate (HS) proteoglycan is a major constituent of endothelial basement membranes, and we have found that HS‐degradative activities of metastatic B16 melanoma sublines correlate with their lung‐colonizing potentials. The melanoma HS‐degrading enzyme is a unique endo‐β‐D‐glucuronidase (heparanase) that cleaves HS at specific intrachain sites and is detectable in a variety of cultured human malignant melanomas. The treatment of B16 melanoma cells with heparanase inhibitors that have few other biological activities, such as N‐acetylated N‐desulfated heparin, results in significant reductions in the numbers of experimental lung metastases in syngeneic mice, indicating that heparanase plays an important role in melanoma metastasis. HS‐degrading endoglycosidases are not tumor‐specific and have been found in several normal tissues and cells. There are at least three types of endo‐β‐D‐glucuronidases based on their substrate specificities. Melanoma heparanase, an Mr ∼96,000 enzyme with specificity for β‐D‐glucuronosyl‐N‐acetylglucosaminyl linkages in HS, is different from platelet and mastocytoma endoglucuronidases. Elevated levels of heparanase have been detected in sera from metastatic tumor‐bearing animals and malignant melanoma patients, and a correlation exists between serum heparanase activity and extent of metastases. The results suggest that heparanase is potentially a useful marker for tumor metastasis.