Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DESIA

Interlocking assemblies have a long history in the design of puzzles, furniture, architecture, and other complex geometric structures. The key defining property of interlocking assemblies is that all component parts are immobilized by their geometric arrangement, preventing the assembly from falling apart. Computer graphics research has recently contributed design tools that allow creating new interlocking assemblies. However, these tools focus on specific kinds of assemblies and explore only a limited space of interlocking configurations, which restricts their applicability for design. In this paper, we propose a new general framework for designing interlocking assemblies. The core idea is to represent part relationships with a family of base Directional Blocking Graphs and leverage efficient graph analysis tools to compute an interlocking arrangement of parts. This avoids the exponential complexity of brute-force search. Our algorithm iteratively constructs the geometry of assembly components, taking advantage of all existing blocking relations for constructing successive parts. As a result, our approach supports a wider range of assembly forms compared to previous methods and provides significantly more design flexibility. We show that our framework facilitates efficient design of complex interlocking assemblies, including new solutions that cannot be achieved by state of the art approaches.
Adult NZ Chinese comparative study of body composition measured by DEXA

xiv ABBREVIATIONS . xvi GLOSSARY . xviii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 The problem . 1 1.1.1 Ethnic diversity . 1 1.1.2 Measurement of body fat . 3 1.2 Literature review . 8 1.2.1 Human body composition and health . 8 1.2.2 Factors that influence body composition . 12 1.2.3 Cut-off points for obesity and the association of BMI with body fat . 16 1.2.4 Ethnic differences in fat distribution . 22 1.2.5 Ethnic differences in bone mineral density . 23 1.2. 6 New Zealand Chinese and the need for ethnic specific information . 25 1.3 Aims . 30 1.4 Hypotheses . 30 1.5 Significance . 31 CHAPTER 2: DESIGN AND METHODS . 32 2.1 Design . 32 2.1.1 Brief overview . 32 2.1.2 Participants . 33 2.2 Measurements . 34 iii 2.2.1 Anthropometry . 34 2.2.2 Sagittal diameter. 36 2.2.3 Body composition and fat distribution measurements . 36 2.2.4 Resting blood pressure and pulse . 39 2.2.5 Point of care testing . 40 2.2. 6 Questionnaire . 40 2.3 Data processing . 41 2.4 Statistical analysis . 41 2.5 Feedback to participants . 42 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS . 43 3.1 Section A: Main data collected. 43 3.1.1 Demographic details. 43 3.1.2 Anthropometric measurements . 44 3.1.3 Body Composition by DEXA . 47 3.1.4 Health screening results . 52 3.1.5 Geographical origin . 56 3.1. 6 Birth weight . 58 3.1. 7 Maternal smoking. 59 3.2 Section B: Comparison to other ethnic groups . 60 3.2.1 Total body fat . 64 3.2.2 BMI and body fatness . 64 3.2.3 Fat distribution . 69 3.2.4 Fat free mass and appendicular skeletal muscle mass . 73 3.2.5 Bone mineral density . 75 3.2. 6 Bone length . 75 3.2. 7 Summary of ethnic differences . 79 3.3 Section C: Other data collected by the questionnaire . 80 3.3.1 Diet . 80 3.3.2 Self-reported physical activity level and sleeping hours. 81 3.3.3 Tobacco and alcohol consumption . 83 3.3. 4 Awareness of nutrition messages . 84 CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION . 85
Las motivaciones hacia el Sexting de los y las adolescentes gallegos/as

El objetivo de esta investigacion es evaluar las motivaciones de los/as adolescentes para llevar a cabo comportamientos de Sexting; asi como, analizar su percepcion sobre los motivos mas frecuentes que la gente de su edad alude para sextear, analizando las diferencias segun el genero y la localizacion. Participaron un total de 1286 estudiantes de la Provincia de Ourense, con una media de edad de 15.63 (DT: 1.35). Los resultados apuntan motivos muy diversos y variados, identificando a los chicos como mas sexters en relacion al envio de textos erotico sexuales.
LncRNA OIP5‐AS1 predicts poor prognosis and regulates cell proliferation and apoptosis in bladder cancer

Opa‐interacting protein 5 antisense RNA 1 (OIP5‐AS1) is a long intergenic noncoding RNA, which has been suggested to be dysregulated in human cancers and served as tumor suppressor or promoter depending on tumor types. However, the role of OIP5‐AS1 in bladder cancer was still unknown. In our study, OIP5‐AS1 was overexpressed in bladder cancer, and associated with clinical progression and short overall survival. The loss‐of‐function studies suggested downregulation of OIP5‐AS1 expression decreased cell viability, induced cell‐cycle arrest and promoted cell apoptosis in bladder cancer. There was a positive association between OIP5‐AS1 expression and OIP5 expression in bladder cancer tissues. Moreover, downregulation of OIP5‐AS1 expression reduced messenger RNA and protein levels of OIP5 in bladder cancer cell lines. In conclusion, OIP5‐AS1 is a useful biomarker for predicting clinical progression and poor prognosis and promotes cell proliferation through modulating OIP5 expression.
A Survey of TCP over Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) was designed to provide reliable end-to-end delivery of data over unreliable networks. In practice, most TCP deployments have been carefully optimized in the context of wired networks. Ignoring the properties of wireless Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) can lead to TCP implementations with poor performance. In order to adapt TCP to MANET environment, improvements have been proposed in the literature to help TCP to differentiate between the different types of losses. Indeed, in MANETs losses are not always due to network congestion, as it is mostly the case in wired networks. In this report, we present an overview of this issue and a detailed analysis of the major factors involved. In particular, we show how TCP can be affected by mobility and lower layers protocols. In addition, we review the main proposals which aim at adapting TCP to MANET environment.
Keeping Up-to-date: Regular Online Multiple-choice Quizzes and Post-graduate Students’ Performance

This article argues that, while not without their limitations, multiple choice quizzes (MCQs) have a place in innovative pedagogical practice. It evaluates how the introduction of a series of online MCQs affected students’ performance in a post-graduate introductory economics subject in 2016. The authors also explore students’ engagement with and attitudes toward MCQs through surveys and focus groups. Drawing on an econometric analysis, the authors demonstrate that regular practice multiple choice questions that provide high-quality feedback can have a significant positive effect on students’ performance. This analysis also revealed that some demographic characteristics – namely, ability, mathematics skills, and region of origin – had a strong effect on students’ outcomes. While focus groups indicated that MCQs helped students to self-regulate their learning, there was some negative feedback, especially about perceived prevalence of cheating. The paper concludes by providing suggestions for how some of the limitations of MCQs can be overcome. Aus. Aca. Busi & Eco. Rev Vol 4(3), July 2018, P 201-213
The Prevalence and the Calcidiol Levels of Vitamin D Deficiency in the Elderly Thai Women in municipality of Khon Kaen Province, Thailand

Background : Secondary hyperparathyroidism usually occurs when patients are vitamin D deficient, which in turn is the main cause of femoral osteoporosis. The skin is the organ of ultraviolet stimulated vitamin D production and studies have shown that elderly women with inadequate exposure to sunlight are vitamin D deficient. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in the West is 38 to 57%. Thai doctors do not believe Thais, whether elderly or osteoporotic, require vitamin D supplements because Thailand is located in the tropics. Objectives : Primary : to determine the prevalence and the calcidiol level of vitamin D deficiency in elderly Thai women. Secondary : to estimate the prevalence of osteoporosis and the correlation to serum calcidiol and serum PTH levels in elderly Thai women. Design : Cross-sectional descriptive study. Setting : Municipality of Khon Kaen, Khon Kaen province, Thailand. Outcome Measurements: Serum calcidiol and PTH levels and bone mineral density of the femoral neck. Result s: The mean (±SD) of age, BMI, serum calcidiol and PTH in the elderly Thai women were: 69.26 (6.58) years, 24.18 (6.7) kg/m 2 , 33.24 (7.12) ng/mL, 32.34 (18.04) pg/mL, respectively. The prevalence of osteoporosis was 38.8%. There was significant inverted linear relationship between the serum calcidiol and PTH levels (r=-0.421, p<0.001). The serum calcidiol level of vitamin D deficiency was £ 35 ng/mL, prevalence 66.3%. Conclusion : The belief that Thais are not vitamin D deficient should be reconsidered, especially in elderly women. And the multicenter study to find out the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in Thai population should be performed. Vitamin D supplements are necessary for elderly women especially with osteoporosis. KEY WORDS: Prevalence, vitamin D deficiency, calcidiol level, elderly women.
An auto-invertible neural network for image halftoning and restoration

In this paper, we apply the so-called Q'tron NN (neural network) paradigm to perform image halftoning and the 'associated' image restoration. These processes are considered to be located at the different sides of the same process. On one side, the process converts a grey-tone image into a binary image, i.e., halftoning. On the other side, the process just performs the inverse, i.e., it restores a binary image to a grey-tone image. One will see that such an auto-associativity regarding the two tightly correlated images is one of the important features of a Q'tron NN. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate that the resulting quality of images is quite satisfactory.
Creativity and involvement in art in different types of synaesthesia

The aim of the present study was to test the relationship between different types of synaesthesia and their involvement in art, creative, and visual abilities. We tested 20 grapheme‐colour, 18 sound‐colour, 19 grapheme‐colour‐and‐sound‐colour, 20 sequence‐space synaesthetes, and the same number of controls matched by age, gender, and education. We assessed the number of artistic professions, involvement in art, and the performance in psychometric tests of divergent and convergent creativity, as well as visual and visuo‐spatial abilities. Results show a higher prevalence of artists among synaesthetes, especially sound‐colour synaesthetes. Sound‐colour synaesthetes also showed a higher involvement in artistic activities overall while sequence‐space synaesthetes showed higher involvement in visual art. Only grapheme‐colour‐and‐sound‐colour synaesthetes showed significantly higher divergent creativity compared to matched controls. Additionally, overall, synaesthetes scored higher in visuo‐spatial abilities (i.e., mental rotation). For synaesthetes and controls, visuo‐spatial abilities correlated with divergent creativity. We discuss that synaesthetes’ higher involvement in art is not necessarily reflected in their basic creative abilities.
Intermediate Data Scheduling in Cloud Environment with Efficient Privacy Preserving

— Distributed computing shows another approach to supplement the present utilization and conveyance show for It administrations dependent upon the Internet, by accommodating progressively versatile and regularly virtualized assets as an administration over the Internet. Information taking care of might be outsourced by the immediate Cloud Service Provider (Csp) to different elements in the cloud and propositions substances can likewise appoint the assignments to others et cetera. The utilization of distributed computing has expanded quickly in numerous associations. Commonly little and medium organizations utilize distributed computing administrations for different views, incorporating since these administrations give quick access to their requisitions and diminish their framework costs. Cloud suppliers might as well address protection and security issues as a matter of high and earnest necessity. Protecting the security of moderate datasets turns into a testing issue since foes might recoup protection touchy data by dissecting numerous halfway datasets. Encoding All datasets in cloud is generally received in existing methodologies to address this test. Different in which moderate datasets need to be encoded and which don't, so protection safeguarding cost might be spared while the security prerequisites of information holders can in any case be fulfilled. Protection safeguarding cost lessens heuristic calculation utilized for security spillage demands and Sensitive Intermediate information set tree/graph (Sit/sig) techniques are utilized.
Novel Thulium Fiber Laser for Enucleation of Prostate: A Retrospective Comparison with Open Simple Prostatectomy.

INTRODUCTION The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of novel thulium fiber laser enucleation of the prostate (ThuFLEP) vs conventional open simple retropubic prostatectomy (OP) for large volume benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). METHODS We performed a retrospective review of patients who underwent surgical treatment for large volume BPH (>80 cc) from 2015 to 2017. Preoperative patient examination included the assessment of functional parameters: International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), quality of life (QoL), maximum urine flow rate (Qmax), and postvoid residual urine volume. The hemoglobin level was measured before and after the operation. RESULTS A total of 130 patients were included in the study. Of these, 40 patients underwent OP, and 90 patients underwent ThuFLEP. Groups were similar in terms of preoperative functional parameters (IPSS, QoL, and Qmax). The mean operative time was comparable for both procedures (p = 0.285) as well as the mass of adenomatous tissue resected (p = 0.412). Resection speed was comparable (OP-0.9 vs ThuFLEP-1.0 g/min, p = 0.52). Patients in OP had significantly longer catheterization time and length of hospital stay (9.0 days vs 3.3 days, p < 0.001). At 6 months, stress urinary incontinence rate were 1.1% after ThuFLEP and 2.5% after OP. CONCLUSIONS Despite the equally high efficacy of both modalities for infravesical obstruction due to BPH, ThuFLEP is a minimally invasive modality that is associated with a shorter hospital stay, a significantly greater return to normal activities, and a considerable reduction in rehabilitation time. Our results demonstrated that the ThuFLEP is a highly efficacious, minimally invasive modality for the management of BPH in large volume glands (>80 cc).
Pseudogradient Flows of Geometric Energies

For differentiable functions on Riemannian manifolds, the gradient vector field and its inducedgradient flowarewell-definedandwell-understood concepts.Unfortunately, many nonquadratic, infinite-dimensional optimization problems cannot be formulated on Riemannianmanifolds in a convenient way.We introduce a category of infinite-dimensional Banachmanifolds that allows us to define a generalized gradient. Moreover, we show short-time existence of the induced flows and apply their discretizations to the numerical minimization of various geometric energies of immersed curves and surfaces.
FKBP8 Enhances Protein Stability of the CLC-1 Chloride Channel at the Plasma Membrane

Mutations in the skeletal muscle-specific CLC-1 chloride channel are associated with the human hereditary disease myotonia congenita. The molecular pathophysiology underlying some of the disease-causing mutations can be ascribed to defective human CLC-1 protein biosynthesis. CLC-1 protein folding is assisted by several molecular chaperones and co-chaperones, including FK506-binding protein 8 (FKBP8). FKBP8 is generally considered an endoplasmic reticulum- and mitochondrion-resident membrane protein, but is not thought to contribute to protein quality control at the cell surface. Herein, we aim to test the hypothesis that FKBP8 may regulate CLC-1 protein at the plasma membrane. Surface biotinylation and subcellular fractionation analyses reveal that a portion of FKBP8 is present at the plasma membrane, and that co-expression with CLC-1 enhances surface localization of FKBP8. Immunoblotting analyses of plasma membrane proteins purified from skeletal muscle further confirm surface localization of FKBP8. Importantly, FKBP8 promotes CLC-1 protein stability at the plasma membrane. Together, our data underscore the importance of FKBP8 in the peripheral quality control of CLC-1 channel.
Fødepræference og græsningshøjde på vedplanter om sommeren hos udsatte krondyr og elge i Lille Vildmose

Lille Vildmose er udpeget som Natura 2000 område, som er et netværk af beskyttede naturområder i EU. Områderne skal bevare og beskytte naturtyper og vilde dyreog plantearter, som er sjældne, truede eller karakteristiske for EU-landene (Miljøog Fødevareministeriet 2016). Der er igangsat et større naturgenopretningsprojekt der skal genoprette højmosen i Mellemområdet, som er et 2100 ha stort naturområde mellem Tofte Mose og Høstemark Skov, hvor der tidligere har været gravet tørv (Naturstyrelsen 2016). Genopretningen er dog udfordret pga. tilgroning med birk og pil (Betula sp. og Salix sp.), som ikke kan holdes nede af de naturligt forekommende bestande af rådyr (Capreolus capreolus). Traditionelle naturplejescenarier er omkostningstunge, fx vurderes det at maskinel og manuel fjernelse af opvæksten ville koste op mod én million kroner om året (Lille Vildmose Centret 2016). I tråd med et øget fokus på naturlige processer i naturforvaltningen og mere selvforvaltende natur er der i Mellemområdet udsat elge (Alces alces) og krondyr (Cervus elaphus), som igennem deres bid skal bidrage til at holde opvæksten nede. Der blev udsat 22 krondyr i januar samt 5 elgkalve i juni 2016 i det indhegnede Mellemområde (Jacob Skriver, pers. comm. 2017). Efterfølgende er der født to elgkalve og udsat yderligere 5 elge, som dog ikke indgår i dette studie.
Selenoprotein S protects against high glucose‐induced vascular endothelial apoptosis through the PKCβII/JNK/Bcl‐2 pathway

Vascular endothelial apoptosis is closely associated with the pathogenesis and progression of diabetic macrovascular diseases. Selenoprotein S (SelS) participates in the protection of vascular endothelial and smooth muscle cells from oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stress‐induced injury. However, whether SelS can protect vascular endothelium from high glucose (HG)‐induced apoptosis and the underlying mechanism remains unclear. The present study preliminarily analyzed aortic endothelial apoptosis and SelS expression in diabetic rats in vivo and the effects of HG on human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) apoptosis and SelS expression in vitro. Subsequently, SelS expression was up‐ or downregulated in HUVECs using the pcDNA3.1‐SelS recombinant plasmid and SelS‐specific small interfering RNAs, and the effects of high/low SelS expression on HG‐induced HUVEC apoptosis and a possible molecular mechanism were analyzed. As expected, HG induced vascular endothelial apoptosis and upregulated endothelial SelS expression in vivo and in vitro. SelS overexpression in HUVECs suppressed HG‐induced increase in apoptosis and cleaved caspase3 level, accompanied by reduced protein kinase CβII (PKCβII), c‐JUN N‐terminal kinase (JNK), and B‐cell lymphoma/leukemia‐2 (Bcl‐2) phosphorylation. In contrast, inhibiting SelS expression in HUVECs further aggravated HG‐induced increase in apoptosis and cleaved caspase3 level, which was accompanied by increased PKCβII, JNK, and Bcl‐2 phosphorylation. Pretreatment with PKC activators blocked the protective effects of SelS and increased the apoptosis and cleaved caspase3 level in HUVECs. In summary, SelS protects vascular endothelium from HG‐induced apoptosis, and this was achieved through the inhibition of PKCβII/JNK/Bcl‐2 pathway to eventually inhibit caspase3 activation. SelS may be a promising target for the prevention and treatment of diabetic macrovascular complications.
Types and Effects Towards the Integration of Functional and Imperative Programming.

Abstract : We propose a new class of programming languages in which every expression has both a type and an effect: the type describes what sort of value the expression may return, and the effect describes what sort of side-effects the expression may have. Effects are described in terms of regions, which describe what part of the state of the computation may be affected. We show how the type system of the second-order lambda-calculus can be generalized to incorporate effect and region specifications. This leads to polymorphism with respect to types, effects, and regions. Our type and effect system makes it possible to embed functional program fragments within imperative programs, and vice versa, while retaining the benefits of the chosen programming style in each program fragment. The type and effect system can also be used to verify the encapsulation invariant of a monitored data type. It also offers a clean solution to the problem of first-class polymorphism in an imperative language. To test our ideas, we have designed a small imperative higher-order language called MFX, and we have implemented a compiler that analyzes MFX programs and translates them into dataflow graphs. Our long-term objective is the integration of functional and imperative programming into a single programming model that retains the benefits of both programming styles. Keywords: Semantics; Syntax; Multiprocessing; Compilers.
Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction and Heart Failure

Aims to provide clinicians and researchers with an indepth understanding of the role of diastolic dysfunction in heart failure. The book provides a comprehensive overview of the diastolic properties of the left ventricle in health and disease. The editors incorporate pathophysiologic considerations and provide a broad yet detailed view of the clinical consequences of diastolic dysfunction. The book is intended for internists and cardiologists who treat hypertensive and ischemic heart disease and heart failure.
Neural network based generation of fundamental frequency contours

Although a number of algorithms exist for the generation of the fundamental frequency contour in automatic text-to-speech conversion systems, the absence of a general theory of intonation still prevents the correct derivation of this important feature in unrestricted text applications. A parallel distributed approach is presented in which two neural networks were designed to learn the F0 values for each phoneme and the F0 fluctuations within each phoneme for words that correspond to a small training set. The neural networks used for this task have demonstrated the ability to generalize their properties on new text, and their level of success depends on the composition and size of the training corpus. <<ETX>>