Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hypopituitarism and atherosclerosis

In the last decade, retrospective cohort data has provided evidence of premature atherosclerosis in patients with hypopituitarism which may account for the recently observed increased death rate from vascular events in these patients. The exact mechanism(s) for such propensity to atherosclerotic vascular disease is not yet completely clear. It is possible that hormonal factors may be the initiating mechanisms with subsequent secondary metabolic abnormalities acting as risk factors for development of atherosclerosis. This seems to be more evident in female hypopituitary patients compared with their male counterparts. Female patients have higher frequency and more pronounced abnormalities of various risk factors as well as surrogate markers of early vascular disease. This may explain why morbidity and mortality in women is in excess of men in retrospective epidemiological studies. Addressing abnormal hormonal factors, especially in females, is a primary objective in managing these patients both in the clinical arena as well as in trials designed to reduce the risk of atherosclerotic vascular disease in these patients. While short-term growth hormone treatment may ameliorate some of the vascular risk factors and improve endothelial function, it remains to be shown whether this translates into long-term reduction in morbidity and mortality from vascular, especially cerebrovascular, disease.
Effect of Different Mineral Admixtures on Sulfate Attack to Mortars

Corrosion resistance coefficient of mortars incorporating different mineral admixtures were tested according to GB2420, and the expansion ratio of mortar bar immersed in 5% Na2SO4 solution was measured according to ASTM C1012. It is shown that all the mineral admixtures, including ground granulated blast furnace slag (SL) fly ash (FA), natural zeolite (NZ) and metakaolin (MK) were effective in decreasing the 15-week expansion and increasing the corrosion resistance coefficient of the specimens immersed in Na2SO4 solution as well.
Use of a Simplified Maximum Likelihood Function in a WLAN-Based Location Estimation

In a location estimation with the received signal strength indication (RSSI) of a wireless signal in an area, the maximum likelihood (ML) function should match the real statistical property of the RSSI in the area. For a wireless local area network (WLAN)-based RSSI location estimation with a wideband signal in an office environment, the wideband signal experiences frequency selectively Rayleigh fading, so a complicated ML function containing several channel parameters needs to be derived in the environment. This paper shows that a simplified ML function containing only two channel parameters, which is optimum for a narrowband signal, is also applicable to an IEEE 802.11g WLAN-based location estimation with a wideband signal. Computer simulation and experimental results show that the use of the simplified ML function introduces almost no degradation in the location estimation performance in typical office environments, as compared with the use of an exact ML function.
A Taxonomy and a First Study of Design Pattern Defects

Design patterns propose “good” solutions to recurring design problems in object-oriented architectures. Design patterns have been quickly adopted by the Software Engineering community and are now widely spread. We define design pattern defects as occurring errors in the design of a software that come from the absence or the bad use of design patterns. Design pattern defects are software defects at the architectural level that must be detected and corrected to improve software quality. Automatic detection and correction of these software architectural defects, which suffer of a lack of tools, are important to improve object-oriented architectures and, thus, to ease maintenance. We propose a first taxonomy of design pattern defects and presents techniques and tools to detect these defects in source code.
Apolipoprotein ϵ4 status is associated with behavioral symptoms in nursing home residents with dementia

ABSTRACT Background: While the relationship of apolipoprotein E (APOE) to behavioral symptoms of dementia (BSD) has been studied in community-dwelling persons with AD, it has received limited attention within the nursing home (NH) population. The aim of this study was to examine the association between APOE genotype and BSD in NH residents using direct observation. Methods: Thirty-six participants, aged 71–102 years, were compared using a non-randomized two-group design with continuous measures. APOE genotype was obtained by buccal swab. BSD, including restlessness, escape restraint, tapping and banging, searching and wandering, pacing and walking, and vocalization, were measured using the Modified Agitated Behavior Rating Scale. Participants were observed every 20 minutes for 12 hours per day for five days. Each participant's mean behavior scores were compared according to the presence or absence of the APOE ϵ4 allele. Results: Resident characteristics included a mean MMSE of 10.44 indicating moderate to severe dementia and a mean of 3.44 medical co-morbidities. Fifty-six percent of the participants had one ϵ4 allele. A significant difference was found between APOE ϵ4+/4− and mean behavioral scores (F1,31 = 4.40, p = 0.04). Restlessness was significantly inversely correlated with MMSE (r = −0.367, p = 0.03), but not APOE genotype. There was no significant correlation between proxy reporting and direct observation (r = 0.257, p = 0.13). Conclusion: Findings indicate that the presence of the APOE ϵ4+ genotype increases the risk for BSD in NH residents with dementia. Direct observation proved a more accurate estimate of BSD than proxy report.
Three-dimensional flow field of a rectangular array of practical air jets

A number of recent investigators have examined the flow fields of practical nozzles used in industry. Past investigators considered only single nozzles. This present paper concerns the velocity field below an array of practical nozzles. A common industrial use of such an array is the production of fine polymeric fibers by the process known as melt blowing. The velocity field was measured below a rectangular array of 165 air nozzles. The array was arranged in a rectangular pattern with three side-by-side columns. All nozzles were identical. Each nozzle had a sharp-edged inlet, and each nozzle discharged air through an area that approximated an annulus. Based on momentum conservation considerations, a single equation was developed that fits the data well and can be used to predict the velocity at any position below the nozzle array. At large distances from the array, the velocity field can be approximated as the field of a two-dimensional jet.
A Tree-Structured Blind Algorithm for Joint Parametric Channel Estimation and Non-coherent Data Detection in an OFDM-CDMA Wireless System with Antenna Arrays

A blind joint parametric channel estimation and non-coherent data detection algorithm is proposed for the downlink of an orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplexing code-division-multiple-access (OFDM-CDMA) system with multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna arrays. To reduce the computational complexity, we first develop a tree-structured algorithm to estimate high dimensional parameters predominantly describing the involved multipath channels by employing several stages of low dimensional parameter estimation algorithms. In the tree structure, to exploit the space-time distribution of the receive multipath signals, spatial beamformers and spectral filters are adopted for clustered-multipath grouping and path isolation. In conjunction with the multiple access interference (MAI) suppression techniques, the proposed tree architecture algorithm jointly estimates the direction of arrivals, propagation delays, carrier frequency offsets and fading amplitudes of the downlink wireless channels in a MIMO OFDM-CDMA system. With the outputs of the tree architecture, the signals of interest can then be naturally detected with a path-wise maximum ratio combining scheme.
Canarypox virus expressing infectious bursal disease VP2 protein as immunogen for chickens

Canarypox viruses (CNPV) carrying the coding sequence of VP2 protein from infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) were obtained. These viruses were able to express VP2 protein in vitro and to induce IBDV-neutralizing antibodies when inoculated in specific pathogen-free chickens demonstrating that CNPV platform is usefulness to develop immunogens for chickens.
Exploring plasmonics for monitoring applications within the built and natural environment

Plasmonics is an area of nanophotonic research involving the interactions of electromagnetic radiation and conduction electrons on a metallic surface, resulting in enhanced optical properties. Plasmonics is the mechanism behind Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR.) Developing a sensor using SPR to monitor conditions within the built and natural environment is explored in this paper. A plasmonic sensor involves exciting surface plasmon polaritons (SPP's) present at the sensor interface by polarized light. SPP's have sensitivities that respond rapidly to changes at the interface through the presence of analytes, compounds or contaminants; this provides a real time label free detection method. This renders plasmonic sensors ideal as condition monitors. Possible applications include, microbial loading within airtight buildings, soil, water and air pollutant monitoring and structural deterioration monitoring. The advances and learning curves in the development of a new novel sensor for deployment within the built and natural environment are presented along with initial research findings.
An update on the Application of Nanotechnology in Bone Tissue Engineering

Background: Natural bone is a complex and hierarchical structure. Bone possesses an extracellular matrix that has a precise nano-sized environment to encourage osteoblasts to lay down bone by directing them through physical and chemical cues. For bone tissue regeneration, it is crucial for the scaffolds to mimic the native bone structure. Nanomaterials, with features on the nanoscale have shown the ability to provide the appropriate matrix environment to guide cell adhesion, migration and differentiation. Methods: This review summarises the new developments in bone tissue engineering using nanobiomaterials. The design and selection of fabrication methods and biomaterial types for bone tissue engineering will be reviewed. The interactions of cells with different nanostructured scaffolds will be discussed including nanocomposites, nanofibres and nanoparticles. Results: Several composite nanomaterials have been able to mimic the architecture of natural bone. Bioceramics biomaterials have shown to be very useful biomaterials for bone tissue engineering as they have osteoconductive and osteoinductive properties. Nanofibrous scaffolds have the ability to provide the appropriate matrix environment as they can mimic the extracellular matrix structure of bone. Nanoparticles have been used to deliver bioactive molecules and label and track stem cells. Conclusion: Future studies to improve the application of nanomaterials for bone tissue engineering are needed.
Addressing Parental Smoking in Pediatric Settings of Chinese Hospitals: A Qualitative Study of Parents

This study explored factors associated with SHS exposure from parental smoking in Chinese families and assessed nature of antismoking discussions parents had with their children's pediatricians and how pediatricians might best engage with parents in an effort to reduce children's exposure to SHS. Six focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted among 33 Chinese parents attending six major hospitals in Guangxi province, China. Most participants (32/33) had family members who smoke, and only 21% had strict restriction on smoking at home. Some parents did not know about health consequences of smoking and effects of SHS exposure on children. Situations that made it especially hard to avoid the child's SHS exposure were having an elderly smoker at home and having a visitor who smoked. Only few parents were asked by pediatricians about child's exposure to SHS at home, but only when child's illness was related to smoking. Parents believed that suggestions coming from pediatricians about smoke-free home and parental quitting would be acceptable to parents and other household members. The findings provide insight into SHS exposure reduction effort among Chinese parents and underscore the demand for pediatrician's engagement in addressing parental tobacco use.
Uneven distribution of HPV 16 E6 prototype and variant (L83V) oncoprotein in cervical neoplastic lesions

A previous Swedish study revealed that both prototype and variant HPV16 E6 oncoprotein, occur in about equal numbers in high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (HCIN), whereas variant HPV16 predominates in invasive cervical squamous carcinoma. Most of the malignant HPV16 variants contain a common mutation, L83V, in the E6 oncoprotein. In the present investigation, 28 HPV16 positive, invasive cervical adenocarcinomas were collected from a total number of 131 adenocarcinomas. These HPV16-positive cases were evaluated with analysis of the E6 gene, using a recently described PCR-SSCP method for identification of the specific mutation (L83V) in the E6 gene. The results obtained were correlated to findings in 103 preinvasive, HCIN, and 31 invasive cervical squamous carcinomas also infected with HPV16. The HPV16 E6 variant L83V was present in 40% of the HCIN lesions, in 54% of the invasive adenocarcinomas, in comparison to 81% of the invasive squamous carcinomas. The difference between HCIN and squamous carcinomas was statistically significant, P< 0.001, whereas the difference between HCIN and invasive adenocarcinomas was not statistically significant, P = 0.604. Prototype HPV16 and its E6 variant L83V are both prevalent in preinvasive and invasive cervical lesions in Swedish women. However, the obvious predominance of HPV16 variant in squamous carcinomas was not seen in adenocarcinomas. A single amino-acid shift in the HPV16 E6 gene appears to result in a different transforming potential in squamous and glandular cervical lesions. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign
Synthesis and Photocatalytic Activity of Yb Doped TiO2 Nanoparticles under Visible Light

Developing new semiconductor materials with improved photocatalytic activity is a promising technology for the remedy of environmental pollution. Here we report on the synthesis of Yb containing TiO2 nanoparticles and their catalytic activity under visible light. Highly monodispersed, spherical TiO2 and TiO2 :Yb nanoparticles of 27- 40 nm size range were prepared through controlled hydrolysis of titanium tetrabutoxide (TTB) and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersion spectroscopy (EDS), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), high angle annular dark field (HAADF), and ultraviolet-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis DRS) techniques. Average size of the nanoparticles was found to decrease with the increase of Yb doping concentration. The photocatalytic activity of Yb doped TiO2 was evaluated by measuring the degradation rates of methylene blue (MB) under UV and visible lights. Doping with ytterbium ions enhanced significantly the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanoparticles for MB oxidation under visible light.
Online Internet Traffic Measurement and Monitoring Using Spark Streaming

Due to the explosive growth of Internet traffic, network operators must be able to monitor the whole network situations and manage their network resources in an efficient way. Traditional network analysis method that works on a single machine are no longer suitable for this huge traffic data due to its poor processing ability. Some big data frameworks, such as Hadoop and Spark, can handle such analysis job even for large network traffic, but they are inherently designed for offline data analysis. In this paper, we treat the online network analysis as a stream analysis problem and use Spark Streaming to cope with the high-speed Internet traffic data in real time. The system consists of two parts, collector and stream processor. Firstly, several collectors capture network traffic data from switches through mirrored ports and send the packet information to a central stream processor which is a cluster running Spark Streaming. Then, the stream processor analyzes the input data streams and calculates Internet performance metrics. We take TCP performance monitoring as an example to show how network measurement can be done using the stream processing platform. Finally, we conducted typical experiments in a cluster of 3 computers with the standalone mode, showing that our system performs well in huge Internet traffic measurement and monitoring.
Improving ns-3 Emulation Performance for Fast Prototyping of Network Protocols

A common problem in networking research and development is the duplicate effort of writing simulation and implementation code of network protocols. This duplication can be avoided through the use of fast prototyping development processes, which enable reusing simulation code in real prototyping and in production environments. Although this functionality is already available by using ns-3 emulation, there are still limitations regarding the additional packet processing that emulation introduces, which degrades the node's performance and limits the amount of network traffic that can be processed. In this paper we propose an approach to reduce the performance problem associated with fast prototyping that consists in migrating data plane operations processing to outside of ns-3. In a well-designed network, most of the traffic should be data. By moving the data plane operations outside of ns-3 the overhead associated with this kind of traffic is greatly reduced, while control plane protocols may still be reused. In order to validate our proposed solution, we extended the Wireless Metropolitan Routing Protocol (WMRP) and Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocols to use the developed architecture, tested their performance in real environments, and verified the amount of code reuse between the simulator and the real system.
Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Classifying Body Constitution Based on Face Image

Body constitution classification is the basis and core content of traditional Chinese medicine constitution research. It is to extract the relevant laws from the complex constitution phenomenon and finally build the constitution classification system. Traditional identification methods have the disadvantages of inefficiency and low accuracy, for instance, questionnaires. This paper proposed a body constitution recognition algorithm based on deep convolutional neural network, which can classify individual constitution types according to face images. The proposed model first uses the convolutional neural network to extract the features of face image and then combines the extracted features with the color features. Finally, the fusion features are input to the Softmax classifier to get the classification result. Different comparison experiments show that the algorithm proposed in this paper can achieve the accuracy of 65.29% about the constitution classification. And its performance was accepted by Chinese medicine practitioners.
Preparation of poly(NIPAAm)-Pluronic F68 as a thermosensitive surfactant for a controlled drug release

This paper describes the synthesis of thermosensitive surfactants by polymerizing N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) into the Pluronic F68 surfactant and their application for a controlled drug release. Poly(NIPAAm)-Pluronic surfactants with different lengths of the NIPAAm block were synthesized by activating two hydroxyl groups of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) at the end of Pluronic F68 using cerium ammonium nitrate (CAN, redox initiator), followed by adding the NIPAAm monomer into a reactor. The resultant poly(NIPAAm)-Pluronic surfactants were characterized by FT-IR and gel filtration chromatography (GPC). It was observed that their critical micellar concentrations increased with an increase in the length of the poly(NIPAAm) block. In addition, poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) microparticles was prepared by an oil-in-water emulsion and solvent evaporation method using the poly(NIPAAm)-Pluronic surfactants in an aqueous continuous phase. At 37°C, nile red (model dye) was released from the PLGA microparticles in a more sustained manner when the length of poly(NIPAAm) was longer due to a thicker layer of shrunken poly(NIPAAm) at the surface of the microparticles.
Osteoclastogenic Activity during Mandibular Distraction Osteogenesis

Mandibular distraction osteogenesis is a well-developed clinical modality for the treatment of craniofacial deformities and dental arch discrepancies, in combination with orthodontic treatment. However, in our previous study, orthodontic tooth movement into the distraction gap caused severe root resorption. The present study aimed to clarify the osteoclastogenic activity of cells in the distraction gap. We hypothesized that the gene expression of osteoclastogenic- and osteoclast-supporting molecules in osteoblasts and stromal cells would increase at distraction sites during the consolidation period. An animal model experiment involving rabbits was designed for mandibular distraction osteogenesis and subjected to in situ hybridization analysis. The number of osteoclasts was larger in the distraction gap during the early consolidation period than in normal controls, due to an increase of gene expression for osteoclastogenic cytokines in osteoblasts. It was concluded that osteoclastogenic and osteoclastic activities are stimulated at distraction sites during the early consolidation period.
Neuro OIs: developed and developing countries

Purpose of reviewTo review recent studies that address the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of HIV positive patients with cryptococcal and tuberculous meningitis and progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy in resource-different settings. Recent findingsCentral nervous system opportunistic infections remain globally prevalent in HIV+ populations. Several recent papers have highlighted the urgent need for rapid point of care tests in low-income settings for cryptococcal and tuberculous meningitis, better access to antifungal therapy for cryptococcal meningitis and better treatment strategies for tuberculous meningitis. In one recent study of 299 HIV+ patients with cryptococcal meningitis, amphotericin plus flucytosine was associated with less mortality and disability compared to amphotericin alone. In a study of patients with tuberculous meningitis in Indonesia, short-term, high dose rifampicin and moxifloxacin, designed to achieve higher levels of anti-TB drugs in the brain, saw significantly reduced patient mortality at 6 months. The timing of ART initiation in patients with central nervous system opportunistic infections remains challenging and a recent study reported that deferred vs early antiretroviral therapy was associated with better survival outcomes in patients diagnosed with cryptococcal meningitis. Recent studies have reported on predictors of immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome for patients with central nervous system opportunistic infections, but require validation in resource-different settings. SummaryRecent studies related to the diagnosis and treatment of central nervous system opportunistic infections in HIV+ populations show promising findings. Increased funding and research commitment are required to maintain this positive momentum and to achieve improved global outcomes for people who develop central nervous system opportunistic infections.