Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and determinants of hypertension in the urban and rural population of a north Indian district.

BACKGROUND Hypertension is a major contributor to the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in industrialized countries. Reports suggest that hypertension is rapidly increasing in developing countries like India. Non-communicable diseases are likely to overshadow infectious diseases in the coming years and pose a heavy strain on health budgets in our country. In this study we have tried to study the prevalence of hypertension in a north Indian population based on the recently formulated criteria of the JNC-7 and to identify the determinants of hypertension. OBJECTIVES (1) To determine the prevalence of hypertension in the urban and rural population of Lucknow District. (2) To study the relationship of hypertension with age. (3) To study the determinants of hypertension in the urban and rural population of Lucknow District. SETTING AND DESIGN A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in four randomly selected areas in urban and rural parts of Lucknow district, respectively. Two-stage stratified random sampling technique was used. METHODS We studied 800 subjects (355 men, 445 women) aged 20 years and above, 400 from urban area and 400 from rural area of Lucknow district. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to elicit the required information from the study participants and the diagnostic criteria for hypertension were taken according to the Seventh Joint National Committee Report on Hypertension (JNC-7). STATISTICAL ANALYSIS Pearson's Chi-square test, Student's t-test, and multiple logistic regression. RESULTS The prevalence of hypertension was 32.8% in the urban population and 14.5% in the rural population. The mean blood pressures were 128.4 +/- 18.8 mmHg systolic and 82.6 +/- 10.2 mmHg diastolic in urban area and 120.5 +/- 16.1 mmHg systolic and 77.8 +/- 8.8 mmHg diastolic in rural area. A significant correlation of blood pressure with increasing age was seen. In urban area, hypertensives were less physically active, and more likely to smoke and consume alcohol. About 9.2% of the hypertensives had coexisting diabetes mellitus. Mean weight, BMI and waist circumference of hypertensives was significantly higher, whereas there was no significant difference between mean heights. In rural area, similar association was seen except alcoholism and diabetes. Multivariate logistic regression showed that regardless of area, age and gender, were significant risk factors of hypertension. In the urban population, diabetes (OR = 6.917) and BMI (OR = 1.195) and in the rural population, physical activity (OR = 0.483) and waist circumference (OR = l.094) were significantly associated. CONCLUSIONS A high prevalence of hypertension was seen in the urban and rural population of a north Indian district Risk factors of hypertension were age and gender in urban as well as rural population. Diabetes, higher BMI values, decreased level of physical activity and increased waist circumference also significantly contributed to the risk of hypertension, which necessitates intervention at the primary health care level for its prevention.
Suture-Button Syndesmosis Fixation: Accelerated Rehabilitation and Improved Outcomes

Syndesmosis screws have significant problems including loosening, breakage, the need for removal, and late diastasis. A new technique of syndesmosis fixation is proposed in this study, in which a heavy suture is placed across the syndesmosis, which has been looped and tightened through cortical button anchors on either side of the ankle. Indirect placement of the medial button avoids a medial incision. Sixteen patients had this suture-button fixation in a prospective clinical study. Mean American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society ankle scores were significantly better in patients who had suture-button fixation than in a comparative group of 16 patients who had syndesmosis screw fixation at 3 months (91 versus 80, respectively) and at 12 months postoperatively (93 versus 83, respectively). Return to work was faster (2.8 months in patients who had suture-button fixation versus 4.6 months who had syndesmosis screw fixation), and no patients who had suture-buttons required secondary surgery for implant removal. Axial computed tomography scanning at 3 months showed maintenance of reduction. Suture-button fixation is simple, safe, and effective. Patients have had improved outcomes and faster rehabilitation, without needing routine implant removal. It may become the treatment of choice in patients with a syndesmosis injury. Level of Evidence: Therapeutic study, Level III-2 (retrospective cohort study)
Achieving cooperation in a distributed multi-robot team

DMAPS (Distributed Multi-Agent Planning System) is a planning system developed for distributed multi-robot teams based on MAPS(Multi-Agent Planning System). MAPS assumes that each agent has the same global view of the environment in order to determine the most suitable actions. This assumption fails when perception is local to the agents: each agent has only a partial and unique view of the environment. DMAPS addresses this problem by creating a probabilistic global view on each agent by fusing the perceptual information from each robot. The experimental results on consuming tasks show that while the probabilistic global view is not identical on each robot, the shared view is still effective in increasing performance of the team.
Management of advanced gastric cancer

The management of advanced gastric cancer has only evolved a little over the last 15 years: platinum and fluoropyrimidine chemotherapy remains the backbone of therapy with ongoing debate as to the benefit of triplet therapy with either an anthracycline or taxane. Recently published trials of biological agents, in particular those targeting the Her2 receptor, have provided some signs of improvement. This article summarizes the relevant literature, discusses the role of these agents, as well as geographical variations in use, and provides recommendations regarding both ‘standard chemotherapy’ and the role of biological agents in advanced gastric cancer. Given the relative lack of progress for gastric cancer over the last 15 years, the focus for the next 5 years should be on an improved understanding of the molecular basis of gastric cancer, thus allowing rational integration of new molecular agents.
Improved LQG benchmark based control performance monitoring for multivariable systems

By subspace identification technique, this article investigates the problem of control variance performance monitoring for multivariable systems. Based on LQG benchmark, an improved strategy is developed to overcome the deficiency of the conventional LQG benchmark based methods in practical applications. The multivariable system is first decomposed into multiple multi-input single-output (MISO) subsystems. Then the LQG benchmark is respectively obtained for each subsystem and the corresponding variance performance assessment indicator is yielded. The performance monitoring result of the overall system can finally be derived by weighting to each subsystem's assessing indicator. Simulation example illustrated the validity of the proposed method.
A Mesocosm Experiment On The Effects Of Hydrocarbon And Copper Pollution On A Sublittoral Soft-Sediment Meiobenthic Community

Meiofaunal assemblages in undisturbed box-core samples of sublittoral sediment were subjected to 4 dose levels of pollutants (copper and hydrocarbons) in a mesocosm experiment designed for the GEEP Workshop. Multivariate analyses of species abundance data for nematodes and copepods showed only marginal differences in species composition between treatments at the end of the experiment, principally between the high-dose treatment and the others. Diversity profiles for the nematodes were virtually unaffected, but copepods showed a graded response of decreasing diversity with increasing dose level, both intrinsically and relative to the nematode diversity profiles. Changes in copepod diversity were brought about by disproportionate increases in abundance of certain species rather than selective losses, a situation which parallels the effects of particulate organic enrichment.
Pharmacological actions of statins: potential utility in COPD

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterised by minimally reversible airflow limitation and features of systemic inflammation. Current therapies for COPD have been shown to reduce symptoms and infective exacerbations and to improve quality of life. However, these drugs have little effect on the natural history of the disease (progressive decline in lung function and exercise tolerance) and do not improve mortality. The anti-inflammatory effects of statins on both pulmonary and systemic inflammation through inhibition of guanosine triphosphatase and nuclear factor-κB mediated activation of inflammatory and matrix remodelling pathways could have substantial benefits in patients with COPD due to the following. 1) Inhibition of cytokine production (tumour necrosis factor-α, interleukin (IL)-6 and IL-8) and neutrophil infiltration into the lung; 2) inhibition of the fibrotic activity in the lung leading to small airways fibrosis and irreversible airflow limitation; 3) antioxidant and anti-inflammatory (IL-6 mediated) effects on skeletal muscle; 4) reduced inflammatory response to pulmonary infection; and 5) inhibition of the development (or reversal) of epithelial-mesenchymal transition, a precursor event to lung cancer. This review examines the pleiotropic pharmacological action of statins which inhibit key inflammatory and remodelling pathways in COPD and concludes that statins have considerable potential as adjunct therapy in COPD.
Quality Analysis of Cognitive Radio Networks Based on Modulation Techniques

Cognitive radio network (CRN) is a 5-G future technology which is helpful to mitigate band width crises. There are several factors that are responsible to improve CRN quality such as modulation, routing protocols, and transmission power, etc. In this paper, we have analyzed various modulation techniques like QPSK, QAM-16, & QAM-64, and shown that QAM-64 modulation scheme performs well in terms of throughput, and outperforms the QPSK, & QAM-16. For simulation we used Net Sim software.
A specialized on-the-fly algorithm for lexicon and language model composition

This paper presents an algorithm for the composition of weighted finite-state transducers which is specially tailored to speech recognition applications: it composes the lexicon with the language model while simultaneously optimizing the resulting transducer. Furthermore, it performs these computations "on-the-fly" to allow easier management of the tradeoff between offline and online computation and memory. The algorithm is exact for local knowledge integration and optimization operations such as composition and determinization. Minimization and pushing operations are approximated. Our results have confirmed the efficiency of these approximations
Liquid handling control for service robot by hybrid shape approach

Humanoids are expected to be placed in the restaurant as service robots considering the liquid suppression control. This paper proposed a gain scheduling hybrid control to suppress sloshing. It is based on hybrid shape controller proposed in our former work. However, in order to design the controller by former method, natural frequencies had to be known in advance. In this study, the natural frequencies would be obtained from the measurement with force sensor. Then appropriate parameters of the controller are given by solving optimization problem.
Application of MLR, PLS and Artificial Neural Networks for Prediction of GC/ECD Retention Times of Chlorinated Pesticides, Herbicides, and Organohalides

Quantitative structure–retention relationship (QSRR) models correlating the retention times of diverse chlorinated pesticides, herbicides, and organohalides in gas chromatography/electron capture detector (GC/ECD) system and their structures were developed based on different multivariate regression techniques by using molecular structural descriptors.Modeling of retention times of these compounds as a function of the theoretically derived descriptors was established by multiple linear regression (MLR), partial least squares (PLS) regression and Artificial Neural Networkwith batch back propagation algorithm (BBP-ANN). The stepwise regression using SPSS was used for the selection of the variables that resulted in the best-fitted models. The aim of this paper was to compare the performances of different linear and nonlinear multivariate calibration techniques. The predictive quality of the QSRR models were tested for an external prediction set of 12 compounds randomly chosen from 38 compounds. The best model obtained from the training set based onhighest external predictive R 2 value and lowest RMSEP value also showed good internal predictive power. The ANN method with Batch Back Propagation (BBP) algorithm was used to model the structure-retention relationships, more accurately. The squared regression coefficients of prediction for the MLR, PLS and ANN models were 0.951, 0.948 and 0.968, respectively
Aphasia in senile dementia of the alzheimer type

We assessed language function, using a brief clinical Aphasia Battery and psychometric measures, in 150 subjects with senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT) and 83 elderly controls. Aphasia occurred only in demented subjects, and its prevalence increased with severity of dementia. Aphasia in mildly demented subjects was associated with both an earlier age of onset and more rapid progression of SDAT than in similarly demented nonaphasics. Language dysfunction in SDAT subjects was characterized by early decline in measures of comprehension and written expression, whereas other components, including oral naming, were less profoundly affected. Performance on the verbal psychometric measures, the Sentence Repetition and the Token tests, correlated strongly with Aphasia Battery scores and declined only minimally in nonaphasics, despite increasing dementia. We conclude that aphasia is a common feature of SDAT subjects and identifies a subgroup with more rapid progression of dementia. Furthermore, it represents language‐specific dysfunction beyond the global cognitive impairment of SDAT.
Inhibition of GSK-3β Rescues the Impairments in Bone Formation and Mechanical Properties Associated with Fracture Healing in Osteoblast Selective Connexin 43 Deficient Mice

Connexin 43 (Cx43) is the most abundant gap junction protein in bone and is required for osteoblastic differentiation and bone homeostasis. During fracture healing, Cx43 is abundantly expressed in osteoblasts and osteocytes, while Cx43 deficiency impairs bone formation and healing. In the present study we selectively deleted Cx43 in the osteoblastic lineage from immature osteoblasts through osteocytes and tested the hypothesis that Cx43 deficiency results in delayed osteoblastic differentiation and impaired restoration of biomechanical properties due to attenuated β-catenin expression relative to wild type littermates. Here we show that Cx43 deficiency results in alterations in the mineralization and remodeling phases of healing. In Cx43 deficient fractures the mineralization phase is marked by delayed expression of osteogenic genes. Additionally, the decrease in the RankL/ Opg ratio, osteoclast number and osteoclast size suggest decreased osteoclast bone resorption and remodeling. These changes in healing result in functional deficits as shown by a decrease in ultimate torque at failure. Consistent with these impairments in healing, β-catenin expression is attenuated in Cx43 deficient fractures at 14 and 21 days, while Sclerostin (Sost) expression, a negative regulator of bone formation is increased in Cx43cKO fractures at 21 days, as is GSK-3β, a key component of the β-catenin proteasomal degradation complex. Furthermore, we show that alterations in healing in Cx43 deficient fractures can be rescued by inhibiting GSK-3β activity using Lithium Chloride (LiCl). Treatment of Cx43 deficient mice with LiCl restores both normal bone formation and mechanical properties relative to LiCl treated WT fractures. This study suggests that Cx43 is a potential therapeutic target to enhance fracture healing and identifies a previously unknown role for Cx43 in regulating β-catenin expression and thus bone formation during fracture repair.
A New Heuristic for Shift Work Management

Organising shifts, or work rosters, is a problem that affects a large number of businesses where staff are subject to some kind of work rotation or other. Researchers in the fields of Operations Research and Artificial Intelligence have devised several systems in an attempt to optimise the problem. This paper focuses on the problem of medical staff shift rotation at a hospital emergency department, and attempts to establish a method to automate its management by applying genetic algorithms. It also analyses one of the duty rosters that came out of the proposed solution.
On Privacy Preserving Collaborative Filtering: Current Trends, Open Problems, and New Issues

Automatic recommender systems have become a cornerstone of e-commerce, especially after the great welcome of Web 2.0 based on participation and interaction of Internet users. Collaborative Filtering (CF) is a recommender system that is becoming increasingly relevant for the industry due to the growth of the Internet, which has made it much more difficult to effectively extract useful information. In this paper, we introduce a taxonomy of the different CF families and we discuss the most relevant Privacy Preserving Collaborative Filtering (PPCF) methods in the literature. To understand the inherent challenges of the PPCF, we also conduct an overview of the current tendencies and major drawbacks of this kind of recommender systems, and we propose several strategies to overcome the shortcomings.
Antimicrobial resistance and PCR-ribotyping of Shigella responsible for foodborne outbreaks occurred in southern Brazil

Little information about Shigella responsible for foodborne shigellosis is available in Brazil. The present study aimed to investigate the antimicrobial resistance and PCR-ribotyping patterns of Shigella isolates responsible for foodborne outbreaks occurred in Rio Grande do Sul State (RS), Southern Brazil in the period between 2003 and 2007. Shigella strains (n=152) were isolated from foods and fecal samples of victims of shigellosis outbreaks investigated by the Surveillance Service. Identification of the strains at specie level indicated that 71.1% of them were S. flexneri, 21.5% S. sonnei, and 0.7% S. dysenteriae. Ten strains (6.7%) were identified only as Shigella spp. An increasing occurrence of S. sonnei was observed after 2004. Most of the strains were resistant to streptomycin (88.6%), followed by ampicillin (84.6%), and sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (80.5 %). Resistant strains belonged to 73 patterns, and pattern A (resistance to ampicillin, sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim, tetracycline, streptomycin, chloramphenicol, and intermediate resistance to kanamycin) grouped the largest number of isolates (n=36). PCR-ribotyping identified three banding patterns (SH1, SH2, and SH3). SH1 grouped all S. flexneri and SH2 grouped all S. sonnei. The S. dysenteriae strain belonged to group SH3. According to the results, several Shigella isolates shared the same PCR-rybotyping banding pattern and the same resistance profile, suggesting that closely related strains were responsible for the outbreaks. However, other molecular typing methods need to be applied to confirm the clonal relationship of these isolates.
Adaptive photorefractive interferometers for ultrasound detection

The principle of optical detection of ultrasound consists in measuring the phase modulation induced by the small ultrasonic surface displacement upon a probe beam impinging on the surface. An interferometer is used to transform phase-modulated light scattered from the surface into a modulated electrical signal. Since usual material surfaces are rough, such an interferometer should operate with speckled beams. Two-wave coupling via dynamic hologram recorded in a photorefractive (PR) crystal is the simplest and efficient technique for demodulation of a transient phase shift buried in a speckled wave. PR crystal acts as a self-adjusted beam combiner providing holographic adaptation of an arbitrary object-beam wave front with that of the reference beam. Besides the wave front adaptation, the crystal also automatically stabilizes an average path difference between the interfering beams thus diminishing noise caused by random optical path difference fluctuations. Here we present a novel modification of the two-wave mixing technique based on the vectorial wave coupling in PR crystals of cubic symmetry such as semiconductors and sillenites. The linear regime of phase demodulation is achieved applying an alternating external field to the crystal. It allows us to design an adaptive interferometer with sensitivity approaching to the classical homodyne detection limit.
TPC and Non-TPC Based Topology Control Approaches for QoS Improvement in MR-WMN

A wireless mesh network (WMN) is a networking paradigm, which enables inexpensive peer wireless network nodes to relay frames from one node to another by leveraging the broadcast nature of wireless medium. Essentially, WMN facilitates to cost-effectively and quickly extend a wired network by creating multiple topologically diversified wireless connections between peer nodes. This feature ABSTRACT
User model elicitation and enrichment for context-sensitive personalization in a multiplatform tv environment

With the rising integration of more and more online data sets with various hardware platforms, such as set-top boxes, mobile phones, it becomes increasingly crucial to have intelligent systems guiding the user through the maze of data. A necessity in such systems is a comprehensive user model which allows the system to know how and what the user might expect. In iFanzy, a context-sensitive personalized TV guide, we amass such a user model by monitoring the user's actions and behavior and extensively making use of Semantic Web techniques to interpret these activities and offer in the right moment the right content to the user. We focus on solving the 'cold start' problem by importing user data from external to iFanzy online applications. This is realized by exploiting background ontological knowledge to map the imported concepts, so that iFanzy can minimize the effort in accumulating a complete user model.
Flex-Pass-Gate SRAM Design for Static Noise Margin Enhancement Using FinFET-Based Technology

We propose a flex-pass-gate SRAM (Flex-PG SRAM), i.e., a FinFET-based SRAM to enhance both the read and write static noise margins (SNMs) independently. The flip-flop in the Flex-PG SRAM consists of usual FinFETs while its pass gates consist of double-"independent"-gate FinFETs, four-terminal-FinFETs. A TCAD simulation revealed that the Flex-PG SRAM increases the read SNM by 70 mV even when its 6-sigma tolerance is ensured, without the cell size penalty and decrease in the write SNM.
A Sharp Sufficient Condition for B-Spline Vector Field Invertibility. Application to Diffeomorphic Registration and Interslice Interpolation

In this paper, a new sufficient condition for the invertibility of a B-spline vector field as well as its extension to spatio-temporal vector fields are presented. The new condition, while guaranteeing that the vector field is diffeomorphic, is sharp enough to allow large deformations. The complexity of the constraint is also discussed. A new diffeomorphic registration algorithm using this condition and its application to interslice interpolation are presented and evaluated on synthetic images and in vivo magnetic resonance $T_2$ images of the brain. The registration method has also been compared to some state-of-the-art registration methods.