Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation in a Child with Joubert Syndrome

Objective Joubert syndrome (JS) is a rare autosomal recessive genetic disorder characterized by brain malformation, hypotonia, breathing abnormalities, ataxia, oculomotor apraxia, and developmental delay. The purpose of this study was to report the efficiency of the physiotherapy and rehabilitation program in a child with JS. Materials and Methods Our case is a 19-month-old female child with mild clinical signs of JS. The pretreatment and posttreatment motor functioning level of the case was evaluated through the Gross Motor Function Measure (GMFM), whereas the independence level was evaluated through the Pediatric Functional Independence Measure (WeeFIM). The case was included in the rehabilitation program by the physiotherapist for one hour for five days a week throughout the period of 13 months in accordance with the neurodevelopmental treatment principles. Results The case was able to turn around from the supine position to the reverse direction by oneself, and she was able to rise on her forearms facedown and was able to sit, crawl, and walk independently. The GMFM score was 210, whereas WeeFIM score was 65. Discussion In the direction of those findings, in Joubert Syndrome, physiotherapy and rehabilitation can be effective in coping with the symptoms causing developmental delay.
Effects of Plantain (Plantago lanceolata L.) Herb and Heat Exposure on Plasma Glucose Metabolism in Sheep

ABSTRACT : An experiment was conducted using a [6, 6- 2 H]glucose isotope dilution method to determine the effects of plantain ( Plantago lanceolata L.) on plasma glucose metabolism in sheep taken from a thermoneutral environment and exposed to a hot environment. The sheep were fed either mixed hay (MH) of orchardgrass ( Dactylis glomerata L.) and reed canarygrass ( Phalaris arundinacea L.) at a 60:40 ratio or MH and plantain (PL) at a 9:1 ratio in a crossover design for each 23-day period. In both dietary treatments the metabolizable energy (ME) and crude protein intake were designed to be isoenergetic and isoproteinous at around maintenance level. The sheep were taken from a thermoneutral environment (20°C, 70% RH) and exposed to a hot environment (28-30°C, 70% RH) for 5 days. The isotope dilution method using a single injection of [6, 6- 2 H]glucose was performed on the 18 th day of the thermoneutral environment and on the 5 th day of heat exposure. Plasma glucose pool size was numerically lower (p = 0.26) during heat exposure on both dietary treatments, and numerically higher (p = 0.13) on the MH diet irrespective of environmental temperature. Plasma NEFA concentration (p = 0.01) and glucose turnover rate (p = 0.03) were decreased during heat exposure, but remained similar between diets. It could be concluded that, although no positive impact of plantain on glucose metabolism was found under the present experimental conditions (plantain constituted only 10% of basal diet), plantain herb is an alternative to MH for rearing sheep in both thermoneutral and hot environments. (
Effects of a single bout of strenuous exercise on platelet activation in female ApoE/LDLR−/− mice

Abstract Strenuous physical exercise leads to platelet activation that is normally counterbalanced by the production of endothelium-derived anti-platelet mediators, including prostacyclin (PGI2) and nitric oxide (NO). However, in the case of endothelial dysfunction, e.g. in atherosclerosis, there exists an increased risk for intravascular thrombosis during exercise that might be due to an impairment in endothelial anti-platelet mechanisms. In the present work, we evaluated platelet activation at rest and following a single bout of strenuous treadmill exercise in female ApoE/LDLR−/− mice with early (3-month-old) and advanced (7-month-old) atherosclerosis compared to female age-matched WT mice. In sedentary and post-exercise groups of animals, we analyzed TXB2 generation and the expression of platelet activation markers in the whole blood ex vivo assay. We also measured pre- and post-exercise plasma concentration of 6-keto-PGF1α, nitrite/nitrate, lipid profile, and blood cell count. Sedentary 3- and 7-month-old ApoE/LDLR−/− mice displayed significantly higher activation of platelets compared to age-matched wild-type (WT) mice, as evidenced by increased TXB2 production, expression of P-selectin, and activation of GPIIb/IIIa receptors, as well as increased fibrinogen and von Willebrand factor (vWf) binding. Interestingly, in ApoE/LDLR−/− but not in WT mice, strenuous exercise partially inhibited TXB2 production, the expression of activated GPIIb/IIIa receptors, and fibrinogen binding, with no effect on the P-selectin expression and vWf binding. Post-exercise down-regulation of the activated GPIIb/IIIa receptor expression and fibrinogen binding was not significantly different between 3- and 7-month-old ApoE/LDLR−/− mice; however, only 7-month-old ApoE/LDLR−/− mice showed lower TXB2 production after exercise. In female 4–6-month-old ApoE/LDLR−/− but not in WT mice, an elevated pre- and post-exercise plasma concentration of 6-keto-PGF1α was observed. In turn, the pre- and post-exercise plasma concentrations of nitrite (NO2−) and nitrate (NO3−) were decreased in ApoE/LDLR−/− as compared to that in age-matched WT mice. In conclusion, we demonstrated overactivation of platelets in ApoE/LDLR−/− as compared to WT mice. However, platelet activation in ApoE/LDLR−/− mice was not further increased by strenuous exercise, but was instead attenuated, a phenomenon not observed in WT mice. This phenomenon could be linked to compensatory up-regulation of PGI2-dependent anti-platelet mechanisms in ApoE/LDLR−/− mice.
Safety and function of a prototype microprocessor-controlled knee prosthesis for low active transfemoral amputees switching from a mechanic knee prosthesis: a pilot study

Abstract Purpose: Aim of this pilot study was to assess safety and functioning of a microprocessor-controlled knee prosthesis (MPK) after a short familiarization time and no structured physical therapy. Materials and methods: Five elderly, low-active transfemoral amputees who were fitted with a standard non-microprocessor controlled knee prosthesis (NMPK) performed a baseline measurement consisting of a 3 D gait analysis, functional tests and questionnaires. The first follow-up consisted of the same test procedure and was performed with the MPK after 4 to 6 weeks of familiarization. After being refitted to their standard NMPK again, the subjects undertook the second follow-up which consisted of solely questionnaires 4 weeks later. Results: Questionnaires and functional tests showed an increase in the perception of safety. Moreover, gait analysis revealed more physiologic knee and hip extension/flexion patterns when using the MPK. Conclusion: Our results showed that although the Genium with Cenior-Leg ruleset-MPK (GCL-MPK) might help to improve several safety-related outcomes as well as gait biomechanics the functional potential of the GCL-MPK may have been limited without specific training and a sufficient acclimation period. Implications for Rehabilitation Elderly transfemoral amputees are often limited in their activity by safety issues as well as insufficient functioning regarding the non microprocessor-controlled knee prostheses (NMPK), thing that could be eliminated with the use of suitable microprocessor-controlled prostheses (MPK). The safety and functioning of a prototype MPK (GCL-MPK) specifically designed for the needs of older and low-active transfemoral amputees was assessed in this pilot study. The GCL-MPK showed indicators of increased safety and more natural walking patterns in older and low-active transfemoral amputees in comparison to the standard NMPK already after a short acclimatisation time and no structured physical therapy. Regarding functional performance it seems as if providing older and low-active transfemoral amputees with the GCL-MPK alone without prescribing structured prosthesis training might be insufficient to achieve improvements over the standard NMPKs.
A phylogenetic potpourri: computational methods for analysing genome scale data

Since the dawn of evolutionary biology, it was the dream of scientists to obtain a meaningful genealogy of species, a “tree of life”. The term “phylogenetics” was coined by Ernst Haeckel for that area of research, meaning the history of the evolutionary relationships between species. First phylogenetic approaches focused on morphological differences between species. However, the analysis of the phylogeny of microbial organisms is hindered due to the limited number of observable morphological differences. With the discovery of the structure of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson, and the development of the Sanger sequencing technology, it became feasible to use genetic information for phylogenetic inference. Regarding the prokaryotic universe (Bacteria and Archaea), a main question of phylogenetics is whether there exists a prokaryotic “tree of life” actually. Those organisms exhibit mechanisms for the direct exchange of genetic material between cells that can belong to different species (called horizontal gene transfer). Accordingly, genes can be derived from different organisms rather than via clonal reproduction, as expressed by a phylogenetic tree. In this thesis, we introduce the GBDP (“Genome BLAST distance phylogeny”) framework for inferring phylogenies based on whole genomes, and we compare the results with a current taxonomic tree based on single genes. Furthermore, we investigate the amount of horizontal gene transfer in a common set of prokaryotic genes by using a state-of-the-art method, as well as two newly developed approaches. Additionally, a new method for species delineation is proposed that is based on the GBDP method for deriving whole genome phylogenies. In the last part of the thesis, several software packages are presented. CopyCat, together with AxParafit and AxPcoords, represents the first Gridenabled software package that is optimized for large-scale cophylogenetic studies. With these tools, large host and parasite phylogenies can be screened for correlations. Furthermore, MEGAN, a user-friendly software application for the analysis of metagenomic datasets is presented. Metagenomics is the study of microorganismal communities by direct extraction of DNA from environmental samples. To aid the development and testing of metagenomic software, we developed MetaSim, a tool to generate simulated metagenomic datasets.
Multiscale adaptive regularisation Savitzky-Golay method for speckle noise reduction in ultrasound images

Speckle noise is one of the major artefacts in ultrasound images. The denoising faces the trade-off between noise suppression and structural preservation. In this study, multiscale adaptive regularisation Savitzky-Golay (MARSG) method, the new filter for removing speckle noise, is proposed. The proposed method combines the benefit of the multiscale analysis and the outstanding noise removing capability of Savitzky-Golay (SG) filter. The Laplacian pyramid is employed to separate an image into the noise, texture and object layers. Adaptive regularisation Savitzky-Golay (ARSG) filter is developed as the denoising filter in the noise and the texture layers. The denoising of the ARSG filter is adaptively adjusted in order to preserve the edges of objects in the image. The experiments on the synthetic and ultrasound images demonstrated that MARSG method offered better balance between noise removal and structural preservation than non-linear multiscale wavelet diffusion, feature-enhanced speckle reduction and regularised SG filter.
An Empirical Analysis of Post‐Merger Organizational Integration

We study post‐merger organizational integration using linked employer–employee data. Integration is implemented by reassigning a small number of high‐skilled workers, especially in R&D and management. Workforce mixing is concentrated to establishments set up after merger, rather than to previously existing establishments. Worker turnover is high after merger, but new hiring yields stable total employment. Target employees have higher turnover and reassignment, particularly if the target firm is small relative to the acquiring firm. These findings might suggest that integration is costly, but can be achieved by focusing on key employees. Alternatively, the reassignment of a few key employees is sufficient for achieving integration.
Vertebral metastases from giant cell carcinoma of lung: Images in cytopathology

Address for correspondence: Dr. Madhu Kumar, Department of Pathology, King George’s Medical University, Shameena Road, Lucknow 226 003, Uttar Pradesh, India. E-mail: k_madhu2010@rediffmail.com Giant cell carcinoma of the lung (GCCL) is a histological type of nonsmall cell lung cancer and now classified as one of the five subtypes of sarcomatoid carcinoma of the lung. GCCL is characterized by the presence of pleomorphic multinucleated giant cells. The reported incidence of pure GCCL is 0.1-0.4% of all lung cancers.
Response Inhibition and Binge Drinking During Transition to University: An fMRI Study

Background Binge Drinking (BD), a highly prevalent drinking pattern among youth, has been linked with anomalies in inhibitory control. However, it is still not well characterized whether the neural mechanisms involved in this process are compromised in binge drinkers (BDs). Furthermore, recent findings suggest that exerting inhibitory control to alcohol-related stimuli requires an increased effort in BDs, relative to controls, but the brain regions subserving these effects have also been scarcely investigated. Here we explored the impact of BD on the pattern of neural activity mediating response inhibition and its modulation by the motivational salience of stimuli (alcohol-related content). Methods Sixty-seven (36 females) first-year university students, classified as BDs (n = 32) or controls (n = 35), underwent fMRI as they performed an alcohol-cued Go/NoGo task in which pictures of alcoholic or non-alcoholic beverages were presented as Go or NoGo stimuli. Results During successful inhibition trials, BDs relative to controls showed greater activity in the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), extending to the anterior insula, a brain region usually involved in response inhibition tasks, despite the lack of behavioral differences between groups. Moreover, BDs displayed increased activity in this region restricted to the right hemisphere when inhibiting a prepotent response to alcohol-related stimuli. Conclusions The increased neural activity in the IFG/insula during response inhibition in BDs, in the absence of behavioral impairments, could reflect a compensatory mechanism. The findings suggest that response inhibition-related activity in the right IFG/insula is modulated by the motivational salience of stimuli and highlight the role of this brain region in suppressing responses to substance-associated cues.
Indoor high-resolution channel characterization

Future communication systems will utilize multiple antennas and beamforming to a larger extent than what has been done before. Design and evaluation of systems with many antennas and large bandwidth requires channel models with good accuracy in angle and delay. An angular resolution down to one degree, and bandwidths of several GHz, are foreseen for the future 5G wireless systems. For this purpose, an indoor channel measurement campaign has been conducted at 58.7 GHz providing reliable and accurate direction information by massive spatial channel sampling and offline FFT processing.
Men’s Health in Northern British Columbia: Analysis and Reporting of Early Intervention Screening Program Data Related to Cardiovascular Health

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a well-established risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Higher rates of T2D are attributable to unhealthy lifestyle factors and a number of clinical and metabolic risk factors. There is paucity of research which investigated the association of lifestyle risk factors and metabolic markers amongst adult men in northern British Columbia (BC). Using a face-to-face screening questionnaire, we assessed the relationships between age, body mass index (BMI), and a number of CVD risk factors in a convenience sample of 123 eligible men recruited from communities across northern BC in February of 2011. In regards to the metabolic risk factors measured through screening blood tests (lipid profiles; blood glucose) responses to the questionnaire were dichotomized into high and low risk categories. These dichotomized variables were subsequently used to determine if significant associations existed with each of the age category variable and a standard BMI categorical variable. There were significant linear relationships between the categorical BMI variable and a number of metabolic risk factors, as well as smoking history. Older age (40+ years) was associated with higher BMI status (overweight/obese). Our findings provide compelling evidence that northern BC men possess a number of clinical, metabolic, and lifestyle risk factors associated with high CV risk. Future studies should examine other sociodemographic variables including occupation status, education attainment, and ethnicity, and other psychosocial determinants which include knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions (KAP) related to T2D and CV risk profile in adult men working and living in northern BC, Canada.
Shirts vs. Skins: Clothing as an Indicator of Gender Role Stereotyping in Video Games

This research uses content analysis to examine the portrayal of women in 47 randomly selected games from the Nintendo 64 and Sony PlayStation console gaming systems. We suggest that video games, similar to other media forms, are sources of information that children and young adults may use to determine what behaviors and attitudes are considered appropriately masculine and feminine. This analysis revealed a significant sex bias in the number of male versus female characters found in the games and among the way in which the male and female characters were dressed. Of the 597 characters coded, only 82 (13.74%) were women. The Nintendo 64 games had the fewest number of female characters, and the majority of the female characters wore clothing that exposed more skin than the male characters.
The influence of bacteria and irritation in the initiation of periodontal disease in germfree and conventional rats.

Within the conditions of the experimental design, this study has provided laboratory evidence that microorganisms were necessary for the occurrence of inflammatory periodontal disease. Furthermore, this investigation has shown that the presence of both local irritation and microorganisms was necessary to produce periodontal inflammation. However, neither factor alone was capable of producing the inflammation. The results of this study have shown that a type of dental calculus may be formed in the absence of microorganisms. However, the same results have demonstrated that the presence of microorganisms greatly facilitates the formation of calculus. The presence of polymorphonuclear leukocytes in the gingival crevices and tissues could not be explained on the basis of bacteria and/or irritation. It was postulated that these cells are a normal component of the gingival tissues of these animals and that their presence does not constitute a pathologic process. The findings of the present study were considered with those of other studies. From this comparison it was suggested that differences in animal species and strains should be considered when evaluations and extrapolations of experimental results are made.
Metabolic compensation of the clock by RAS 2 1 The small G protein RAS 2 is involved in the metabolic compensation of the circadian clock in the circadian model Neurospora crassa

Accumulating evidence from both experimental and clinical investigations indicate a tight interaction between metabolism and circadian timekeeping; however, knowledge of the underlying mechanism is still incomplete. Metabolic compensation allows circadian oscillators to run with a constant speed at different substrate levels and therefore is a substantial criterion of a robust rhythm in a changing environment. Because previous data have suggested a central role of RAS2-mediated signaling in the adaptation of yeast to different nutritional environments, we examined the involvement of RAS2 in the metabolic regulation of the clock in the circadian model organism Neurospora crassa. We show that in a ras2-deficient strain, the period is longer than in the control. Moreover, unlike in wild type (wt), in ras2 operation of the circadian clock was affected by glucose: compared with starvation conditions, the period was longer and the oscillation of expression of the frequency (frq) gene was dampened. In constant darkness the delayed phosphorylation of the FRQ protein and the long-lasting accumulation of FRQ in the nucleus were in accordance with the longer period and the less robust rhythm in the mutant. Whereas glucose did not affect the subcellular distribution of FRQ in wt, highly elevated FRQ levels were detected in the nucleus in ras2. RAS2 interacted with the RAS-binding domain of the adenylate cyclase in vitro, and the cAMP analogue 8-Br-cAMP partially rescued the circadian phenotype in vivo. We propose therefore that RAS2 acts via a cAMP-dependent pathway and exerts significant metabolic control on the Neurospora
Quaternion Gradient and Hessian

The optimization of real scalar functions of quaternion variables, such as the mean square error or array output power, underpins many practical applications. Solutions often require the calculation of the gradient and Hessian, however, real functions of quaternion variables are essentially non-analytic. To address this issue, we propose new definitions of quaternion gradient and Hessian, based on the novel generalized HR (GHR) calculus, thus making possible efficient derivation of optimization algorithms directly in the quaternion field, rather than transforming the problem to the real domain, as is current practice. In addition, unlike the existing quaternion gradients, the GHR calculus allows for the product and chain rule, and for a one-to-one correspondence of the proposed quaternion gradient and Hessian with their real counterparts. Properties of the quaternion gradient and Hessian relevant to numerical applications are elaborated, and the results illuminate the usefulness of the GHR calculus in greatly simplifying the derivation of the quaternion least mean squares, and in quaternion least square and Newton algorithm. The proposed gradient and Hessian are also shown to enable the same generic forms as the corresponding realand complex-valued algorithms, further illustrating the advantages in algorithm design and evaluation. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.61301202), by the Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No.20122304120028), and by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. ∗Corresponding author. Tel: +44 2075946271, Fax: +44 2075946302 Email addresses: dongpoxu@gmail.com (Dongpo Xu), d.mandic@imperial.ac. uk (Danilo P. Mandic) Preprint submitted to Elsevier June 16, 2014