Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Severity of Depressive Symptoms Pre- and Postcardiac Rehabilitation: A COMPARISON AMONG PATIENTS IN BRAZIL, CANADA, COLOMBIA, THE UNITED STATES, AND VENEZUELA

PURPOSE: Depression is 3 times more prevalent in the cardiac than the general population in high-income countries and is particularly high in middle-income countries. Comorbid depression is associated with twice the mortality after a cardiovascular event. The objectives of this study were to describe and compare depressive symptoms pre- and postcardiac rehabilitation (CR) among patients in high-income countries and middle-income countries in the Americas. METHODS: The study design was prospective and observational. A convenience sample of CR participants completed the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) at CR intake and again at program discharge. Clinical data were extracted from medical charts. RESULTS: There were 779 participants: 45 Brazilian (5.8% of sample), 214 Canadian (27.5%), 126 Colombian (16.2%), 309 American (39.7%), and 85 Venezuelan (10.9%). Pre-CR depressive symptoms significantly differed between countries (P < .05), with Colombian participants reporting higher scores than Canadians and Venezuelans. Total PHQ-9 scores significantly decreased during CR in Colombia (mean change =−2.33; P < .001), the United States (mean change =−1.12; P < .001), and Venezuela (mean change =−2.14; P < .001), but not in Brazil (where less psychosocial intervention was offered) or Canada (where pre-CR scores were low). Among the 102 (13.1%) participants with scores in the elevated range pre-CR, the mean change in PHQ-9 scores was −6.57 ± 1.09 and 40 (39.2%) participants no longer had elevated symptoms postprogram. CONCLUSIONS: Depressive symptoms are variable among patients with CR in South and North American countries. CR programs incorporating psychosocial components can reduce these symptoms.
Lifestyle change diminishes a hypertensive response to exercise in type 2 diabetes.

PURPOSE A hypertensive response to exercise (HRE) is common in patients with type 2 diabetes and is associated with increased left ventricular (LV) mass and mortality. This study aimed to determine whether lifestyle modification would improve exercise blood pressure (BP) and reduce LV mass in patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS One hundred and eighty-five patients with type 2 diabetes were randomized to 1 yr of lifestyle intervention (n=97, mean ± SD age=54.7 ± 11.3 yr, 51% men) or usual care (control; n=88, age=53.8 ± 8.1 yr, 61% men). Brachial BP was measured at rest and during a graded maximal exercise test at baseline and 1 yr. Patients also underwent two-dimensional echocardiography to determine LV dimensions. A subgroup of 61 patients had resting and exercise central BP estimated from radial tonometry. An HRE was defined as a maximal exercise systolic BP of ≥210 mm Hg for men and ≥190 mm Hg for women. RESULTS At study entry, there were 101 patients (55%) with an HRE (n=51 controls). Compared with controls, lifestyle intervention significantly reduced the propensity to develop an HRE in those participants who did not have HRE at baseline (29.8% vs 59.5%, P=0.006). However, absolute values of exercise and resting (brachial and central) BP and LV mass were not significantly changed (all P values >0.05). There were significant (all P values <0.05) improvements in V˙O2max, body mass index, plasma glucose, insulin resistance, and HDL cholesterol after lifestyle intervention compared with control. CONCLUSIONS Lifestyle intervention significantly attenuates the development of an HRE but does not reduce cardiac size after 1 yr in patients with type 2 diabetes.
High-speed trajectory planning for autonomous vehicles using a simple dynamic model

In this article, we propose a new approach to drive a vehicle at high speed along a predetermined path using Model Predictive Control. Instead of modeling precise vehicle dynamics, which strongly restricts the planning horizon that can be considered in real-time, we use a simplified second-order integrator model which is constrained to match the vehicle's feasible dynamic envelope. Moreover, and contrary to many MPC approaches taking a target speed as input, our formulation also includes velocity planning, making the vehicle able to automatically adjust its speed to the layout of the road. Simulation results on a highly precise vehicle model show that our approach can be used in real-time to provide feasible trajectories that can be tracked using a simple control architecture. Moreover, the use of our simplified model makes the planner more robust and yields better trajectories compared to kinematic models commonly used in trajectory planning.
Microglia show altered morphology and reduced arborization in human brain during aging and Alzheimer's disease

Changes in microglia function are involved in Alzheimer's disease (AD) for which ageing is the major risk factor. We evaluated microglial cell process morphologies and their gray matter coverage (arborized area) during ageing and in the presence and absence of AD pathology in autopsied human neocortex. Microglial cell processes were reduced in length, showed less branching and reduced arborized area with aging (case range 52–98 years). This occurred during normal ageing and without microglia dystrophy or changes in cell density. There was a larger reduction in process length and arborized area in AD compared to aged‐matched control microglia. In AD cases, on average, 49%–64% of microglia had discontinuous and/or punctate Iba1 labeled processes instead of continuous Iba1 distribution. Up to 16% of aged‐matched control microglia displayed discontinuous or punctate features. There was no change in the density of microglial cell bodies in gray matter during ageing or AD. This demonstrates that human microglia show progressive cell process retraction without cell loss during ageing. Additional changes in microglia occur with AD including Iba1 protein puncta and discontinuity. We suggest that reduced microglial arborized area may be an aging‐related correlate of AD in humans. These variations in microglial cells during ageing and in AD could reflect changes in neural‐glial interactions which are emerging as key to mechanisms involved in ageing and neurodegenerative disease.
Within the Brain: The Renin Angiotensin System

For many years, modulators of the renin angiotensin system (RAS) have been trusted by clinicians for the control of essential hypertension. It was recently demonstrated that these modulators have other pleiotropic properties independent of their hypotensive effects, such as enhancement of cognition. Within the brain, different components of the RAS have been extensively studied in the context of neuroprotection and cognition. Interestingly, a crosstalk between the RAS and other systems such as cholinergic, dopaminergic and adrenergic systems have been demonstrated. In this review, the preclinical and clinical evidence for the impact of RAS modulators on cognitive impairment of multiple etiologies will be discussed. In addition, the expression and function of different receptor subtypes within the RAS such as: Angiotensin II type I receptor (AT1R), Angiotensin II type II receptor (AT2R), Angiotensin IV receptor (AT4R), Mas receptor (MasR), and Mas-related-G protein-coupled receptor (MrgD), on different cell types within the brain will be presented. We aim to direct the attention of the scientific community to the plethora of evidence on the importance of the RAS on cognition and to the different disease conditions in which these agents can be beneficial.
ERK inhibition represses gefitinib resistance in non-small cell lung cancer cells

Gefitinib, an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is used to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with activating EGFR mutations. However, the resistance to gefitinib eventually emerges in most of the patients. To understand its mechanism, we generated two acquired gefitinib-resistant NSCLC cell lines. The resistant cells have slower growth rates, but are more resistant to apoptosis in the presence of gefitinib, compared with their sensitive counterparts. In addition, our genome-wide transcriptome analysis reveals unexpected pathways, particularly autophagy, are dysregulated in the gefitinib-resistant cells. Autophagy is significantly enhanced in resistant cells. Importantly, inhibition of autophagy reduces gefitinib resistance. Furthermore, the phosphorylation of ERK, the extracellular signal-regulated kinase, is activated in resistant cells. Inhibition of ERK phosphorylation abrogates gefitinib resistance by suppressing autophagy both in vitro and in vivo. These findings establish a link between ERK and autophagy in gefitinib resistance, and suggest that the ERK signaling may serve as the potentially therapeutic target for treating gefitinib resistance in NSCLC patients.
A Service-Oriented Architecture for Computational Creativity

Creativity is a long cherished and widely studied aspect of human behavior that allows us to re-invent the familiar, and to imagine the new. Computational creativity (CC) is a newly burgeoning area of creativity research that brings together academics and practitioners from diverse disciplines, genres and modalities, to explore the potential of computers to be autonomously creative, or to collaborate as co-creators with people. We describe here an architecture for creative Web services that will act as a force magnifier for CC, both for academic research, and for the effective deployment of real CC applications in industry. For researchers, this service-oriented architecture supports the pooling of technologies in a robust interoperable framework, in which CC models are conceived, developed and migrated from lab settings to an industrial strength platform. Industry developers, for their part, will be able to exploit novel results of CC research in a robust, low-risk form, without having to re-implement algorithms from a quickly moving field. We illustrate the architecture with the first of a growing set of creative Web services that provide robust figurative language processing on demand. Category: Smart and intelligent computing
Representation of learning objects in cloud e-learning

Everything stored on the cloud could potentially be a knowledge source used for e-learning. Given learners' profiles, desires and feedback on what they have already learned, a new form of personalised e-learning emerges, namely Cloud E-Learning (CeL). CeL should be able to choose from structured to totally unstructured learning material but needs to make them useful for each individual. Existing metadata standards cannot facilitate composition of personalised learning paths as a series of learning objects. In this paper, we present the structure of CeL Learning Objects (CeLLOs), which include an additional set of metadata suitable for each phase of CeL development.
Looking and homing: how displaced ants decide where to go

We caught solitary foragers of the Australian Jack Jumper ant, Myrmecia croslandi, and released them in three compass directions at distances of 10 and 15 m from the nest at locations they have never been before. We recorded the head orientation and the movements of ants within a radius of 20 cm from the release point and, in some cases, tracked their subsequent paths with a differential GPS. We find that upon surfacing from their transport vials onto a release platform, most ants move into the home direction after looking around briefly. The ants use a systematic scanning procedure, consisting of saccadic head and body rotations that sweep gaze across the scene with an average angular velocity of 90° s−1 and intermittent changes in turning direction. By mapping the ants’ gaze directions onto the local panorama, we find that neither the ants’ gaze nor their decisions to change turning direction are clearly associated with salient or significant features in the scene. Instead, the ants look most frequently in the home direction and start walking fast when doing so. Displaced ants can thus identify home direction with little translation, but exclusively through rotational scanning. We discuss the navigational information content of the ants’ habitat and how the insects’ behaviour informs us about how they may acquire and retrieve that information.
Exploring the Impact of Extroversion on the Selection of Learning Materials

The Internet provides access to many learning materials that could complement class room teaching. An educational recommender system can aid learners to find learning materials most suitable to them. The best learning materials will depend on learner characteristics. This paper investigates the influence of learner personality. In particular, it describes a study in the language learning domain that explores the relation between learners’ extroversion and the extent to which learning materials are perceived to be enjoyable and to increase their confidence and skills. We found positive correlations between extroversion and these criteria for social and active learning materials.
Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in relation to Parathyroid Hormone , and Calcium Intake In Saudi Healthy Premenopausal Women . Short Title : Vitamin D , Parathyroid Hormone , and Calcium Intake

Introduction: No information is available on dietary calcium intake among Saudi premenopausal women in relation to vitamin D status. Thus, the objective of the present study is to assess the inter-relations between dietary calcium intake, 25-hydroxyvitamin-D [25(OH)D] and PTH among Saudi healthy premenopausal women. Subjects and Methods: A total of 138 Saudi healthy premenopausal women living in the Jeddah area were studied. Each woman completed a questionnaire on life-style factors, anthropometric data and dietary calcium intake. Fasting blood samples were collected for the measurements of serum 25(OH)D, parathyroid hormone (PTH), calcium, phosphate and magnesium. Bone mineral density (BMD) was measured by a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Results: All women showed vitamin-D deficiency (serum 25(OH)D < 50 nmol/L). Stratifying women by tertiles of daily dietary calcium intake showed that women with the lowest tertile exhibited significantly lower serum 25(OH)D (P<0.026), as compared with the group with the highest tertile. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis showed that changes in serum 25(OH)D contributed to the variation in daily dietary calcium intake. Conclusions: Vitamin-D deficiency is common among Saudi healthy premenopausal women and such was associated with low daily dietary calcium intake. 3
Harmonic and percussive source separation using a convolutional auto encoder

Real world audio signals are generally a mixture of harmonic and percussive sounds. In this paper, we present a novel method for separating the harmonic and percussive audio signals from an audio mixture. Proposed method involves the use of a convolutional auto-encoder on a magnitude of the spectrogram to separate the harmonic and percussive signals. This network structure enables automatic high-level feature learning and spectral domain audio decomposition. An evaluation was performed using professionally produced music recording. Consequently, we confirm that the proposed method provides superior separation performance compared to conventional methods.
Dietary fiber intake and risk of colorectal cancer: a pooled analysis of prospective cohort studies.

CONTEXT Inconsistent findings from observational studies have continued the controversy over the effects of dietary fiber on colorectal cancer. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association between dietary fiber intake and risk of colorectal cancer. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS From 13 prospective cohort studies included in the Pooling Project of Prospective Studies of Diet and Cancer, 725,628 men and women were followed up for 6 to 20 years across studies. Study- and sex-specific relative risks (RRs) were estimated with the Cox proportional hazards model and were subsequently pooled using a random-effects model. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Incident colorectal cancer. RESULTS During 6 to 20 years of follow-up across studies, 8081 colorectal cancer cases were identified. For comparison of the highest vs lowest study- and sex-specific quintile of dietary fiber intake, a significant inverse association was found in the age-adjusted model (pooled RR = 0.84; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.77-0.92). However, the association was attenuated and no longer statistically significant after adjusting for other risk factors (pooled multivariate RR = 0.94; 95% CI, 0.86-1.03). In categorical analyses compared with dietary fiber intake of 10 to <15 g/d, the pooled multivariate RR was 1.18 (95% CI, 1.05-1.31) for less than 10 g/d (11% of the overall study population); and RR, 1.00 (95% CI, 0.85-1.17) for 30 or more g/d. Fiber intake from cereals, fruits, and vegetables was not associated with risk of colorectal cancer. The pooled multivariate RRs comparing the highest vs lowest study- and sex-specific quintile of dietary fiber intake were 1.00 (95% CI, 0.90-1.11) for colon cancer and 0.85 (95% CI, 0.72-1.01) for rectal cancer (P for common effects by tumor site = .07). CONCLUSIONS In this large pooled analysis, dietary fiber intake was inversely associated with risk of colorectal cancer in age-adjusted analyses. However, after accounting for other dietary risk factors, high dietary fiber intake was not associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer.
Modified stacking ensemble approach to detect network intrusion

Detecting intrusions in a network traffic has remained an issue for researchers over the years. Advances in the area of machine learning provide opportunities to researchers to detect network intrusion without using a signature database. We studied and analyzed the performance of a stacking technique, which is an ensemble method that is used to combine different classification models to create a better classifier, on the KDD'99 dataset. In this study, the stacking method is improved by modifying the model generation and selection techniques and by using different classifications algorithms as a combiner method. Model generation is performed using subsets of the dataset with randomly selected features and not all of these models are used as input for the combiner. Various metrics are used in model selection and only selected models are used as input for the combiner method. In our experiments, the stacking technique provided higher accuracy results all the time compared to pure machine learning techniques. The second important result in our experiments was obtaining the highest detection rate for user-to-root attacks compared to other studies.
Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Multiscale Zirconia Ceramics Prepared by Field Assisted Sintering Technique

Two kinds of powders of 3 mol. % yttria stabilized zirconia (3Y–TZP) with different particles sizes; one was 20 nm denoted by N whereas the other was 0.5 µm denoted by M, were mechanically mixed via ball milling machine using different amounts of N wt. % to obtain multiscale zirconia composite powder. Then the mixed powders were sintered by field assisted sintering technique (FAST). The effect of N content on the microstructure as well as on mechanical properties of zirconia is investigated. Results show that the microstructure of M completely surrounded by N emerged in zirconia composites, and tetragonal phase is presented in all the sintered samples. The obtained zirconia ceramics with 15 wt. % N own a highly dense structure (~ 99.9 % relative density) and high flexural strength of 813.59 MPa wherein a 15 % increase in flexural strength compared to zirconia ceramics without adding N, but the fracture toughness of the composites just lightly decreases. The improved flexural strength of the composites is caused by the multiscale effect.
Human and Animal Fecal Contamination of Community Water Sources, Stored Drinking Water and Hands in Rural India Measured with Validated Microbial Source Tracking Assays

We examined pathways of exposure to fecal contamination of human and animal origin in 24 villages in Odisha, India. In a cross-sectional study during the monsoon season, fecal exposure via community water sources (N = 123) and in the home (N = 137) was assessed using human- and nonhuman-associated Bacteroidales microbial source tracking (MST) markers and fecal coliforms (FCs). Detection rates and marker concentrations were examined to pinpoint pathways of human fecal exposure in the public and domestic domains of disease transmission in study communities. Human fecal markers were detected much more frequently in the domestic domain (45% of households) than in public domain sources (8% of ponds; 4% of groundwater drinking sources). Animal fecal markers were widely detected in both domains (74% of ponds, 96% of households, 10% of groundwater drinking sources), indicating ubiquitous risks of exposure to animal feces and zoonotic pathogens. This study confirms an often suggested contamination link from hands to stored water in the home in developing countries separately for mothers' and children's hands and both human and animal fecal contamination. In contrast to MST markers, FCs provided a poor metric to assess risks of exposure to fecal contamination of human origin in this rural setting.
Why We Engage in FLOSS: Answers from Core Developers

The maintenance and evolution of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects demand the constant attraction of core developers. In this paper, we report the results of a survey with 52 developers, who recently became core contributors of popular GitHub projects. We reveal their motivations to assume a key role in FLOSS projects (e.g., improving the projects because they are also using it), the project characteristics that most helped in their engagement process (e.g., a friendly community), and the barriers faced by the surveyed core developers (e.g., lack of time of the project leaders). We also compare our results with related studies about others kinds of open source contributors (casual, one-time, and newcomers).
AKA-PLA: Enhanced AKA Based on Physical Layer Authentication

Existing authentication mechanisms in cellular mobile communication networks are realized in the upper layer by employing cryptographic techniques. Authentication data are broadcasted over the air in plaintext, enabling attackers to completely eavesdrop on the authentication and get some information about the shared secret key between legitimate nodes. Therefore, reusing the same secret key to authenticate several times results in the secret key’s information leakage and high attacking rate. In this paper, we consider the most representative authentication mechanism, Authentication and Key Agreement (AKA), in cellular communication networks and propose an enhanced AKA scheme based on Physical Layer Authentication (AKA-PLA). Authentication responses generated by AKA are no longer transmitted in plaintext but masked by wireless channel characteristics, which are not available to adversaries, to generate physical layer authentication responses by a fault-tolerant hash method. The authenticator sets the threshold according to the authentication requirement and channel condition, further verifies the identity of the requester based on the matching result of the physical layer authentication responses. The performance analyses show that the proposed scheme can achieve lower false alarm rate and missing rate, which are a pair of contradictions, than traditional AKA. Besides, it is well compatible with AKA.