Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of adolescents' weight status with life satisfaction: role of self, peers, family and school perception; the CASPIAN-IV Study.

BACKGROUND Although many public health programs have focused on prevention and control of obesity, their efficacy mostly depends on personal factors including perception of weight and personal understanding of the concept of being overweight. This study aims to investigate the association of adolescent's weight status with life satisfaction and explore the role of self, peers, family and school perception in this association. METHODS Data were obtained from the fourth school-based survey entitled "Childhood and Adolescence Surveillance and Prevention of Adult Non-communicable Disease" (CASPIAN) Study. This survey was conducted among 14,880 urban and rural students aged 6-18 years. Two sets of valid and reliable questionnaire obtained from Global School Health Survey (GSHS) were completed by students and their parents. The students' questionnaire had several questions including life satisfaction and the perception of weight, peers, family and school. RESULTS The study had a participation rate of 90.6% including 50.8% boys and 76% urban residents. Significant differences existed in Body Mass Index (BMI) and in perception of weight among girls and boys. Moreover, the prevalence of depression and being bullied were higher among girls and boys, respectively. Significant association was documented between life satisfaction and all variables including perception of weight, peers, family and school; the only exception was for BMI (P<0.05). In addition, students with normal weight had significantly higher life satisfaction in comparison with their obese counterparts (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The present study documented significant association between life satisfaction and perception of self, peer, family and school with the exception of BMI in both genders.
TREATMENT OF PAINT MANUFACTURING WASTEWATER BY THE COMBINATION OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES

This work studied the combination of a chemical coagulation/flocculation step with an aerobic biological process, using feed-batch operation, to treat real paint manufacturing wastewater (PMW). The results indicate that the combination of coagulation flocculation and biological process is an efficient alternative in the treatment of PMW. For initials COD of 18590 mg/L, BOD of 1492 mg/L and colour of 0.9 absorbency, coagulation flocculation using iron chloride and chimec 5161 allows 92% of COD, 97% of colour and 44.5% of BOD removals, and residuals COD and BOD of 1553 and 828 mg/L, respectively. However, the combination of chemical and biological process generates a clear effluent with residuals COD and BOD of 680 and 112 mg/L, corresponding to 96 and 92.5% removal rates, respectively. Aerobic biological treatment using feed batch operation permits a COD removal rate of rCOD = 873 mg/L, and an average growth yield coefficient of 0.3 g of biomass / g COD.
Within-region diversity in the Southern Vowel Shift: Production and perception

In this paper, we attempt to refine our understanding of the relationship between Southern Vowel Shift (SVS) norms and Southern orientation in the U.S. We ask to what degree Southerners from three different states (TN, NC, VA) show evidence of these shifts acoustically. Most crucially, we examine how much the different locales vary in terms of how much they align with traditional Southern features such as /ay/ monophthongization and /e/-/ɛ/ reversal. Then, through a perception study, we investigate whether differences exist in how the same speakers identify vowel categories in a perception task, looking particularly at how subjects across our three Southern sites compare.
Oxidized Low-density Lipoprotein Decreases the Expression of Endothelial Nitric Oxide Synthase (*)

The atherogenic effects of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) may be mediated, in part, by its effect(s) on endothelial-derived nitric oxide (NO). To determine whether LDL can modulate NO production by changing NO synthase expression, we treated human saphenous vein endothelial cells with increasing concentrations of native or oxidized LDL (0-100 μg/ml) for various durations (0-72 h). Oxidized, but not native LDL caused a time-dependent decrease in steady-state NO synthase mRNA levels. This coincided with a maximal 56% decrease in NOS activity as determined by [3H]arginine to [3H]citrulline conversion. In the presence of actinomycin D, treatment with oxidized LDL reduced the half-life of NO synthase mRNA from 36 to 10 h. This decrease in NO synthase mRNA correlated with the degree of LDL oxidation and was attenuated by pretreatment with cycloheximide. Nuclear run-off studies showed a biphasic transcriptional pattern of NO synthase gene with an initial 25% decrease during the first 6 h followed by a maximal 2.2-fold increase over baseline during the subsequent 18 h. These results indicate that oxidized LDL regulates endothelial NOS expression through a combination of early transcriptional inhibition and post-transcriptional mRNA destabilization.
Los límites de la significación en la identidad visual corporativa (ivc)

El boom de la identidad visual corporativa en los pasados anos ha llegado a un agotamiento que manifiesta los abusos generados por la falta de reflexion teorica. El origen pragmatico de la comunicacion global ha querido que la llamada "filosofia de la empresa" se reflejase con nitidez en los signos graficos. Sin embargo la ambiguedad de la imagen no conoce de la precision convencional de los lenguajes naturales. Una pequena investigacion basada en el posible significado de imagenes elementales pretende una aproximacion a los propios limites de estas, adoptando para ello el metodo del diferencial semantico de Osgood.
Smoking and prostate cancer.

Considering the high prevalence of smoking and the high prostate cancer morbidity this paper examines the relation between smoking and the risks of prostate cancer. In this regard a Medline search was conducted covering the period from 1966 to March 2000. Most of the prospective cohort studies and all case-control studies that used incident cases as the outcome found no association between current smoking and prostate cancer. On the other hand contrasting results were observed among majority of prospective cohort studies that used prostate cancer mortality as outcome. Findings from these studies found a positive association between current smoking and prostate cancer. Population-based case-control studies meanwhile produced null results which were attributed to differential measurement errors in mortality cohorts. However there were methodological shortcomings noted that affect the prostate cancer-smoking estimate of effect such as the surveillance bias misclassification of smoking status and uncontrolled confounding factors. Hence prospective studies should obtain detailed information on the clinical stage and histologic grade of prostate cancer and on the subjects smoking history.
Wolbachia-Induced Neutrophil Activation in a Mouse Model of Ocular Onchocerciasis (River Blindness)

ABSTRACT Endosymbiotic Wolbachia bacteria are abundant in the filarial nematodes that cause onchocerciasis (river blindness), including the larvae (microfilariae) that migrate into the cornea. Using a mouse model of ocular onchocerciasis, we recently demonstrated that it is these endosymbiotic bacteria rather than the nematodes per se that induce neutrophil infiltration to the corneal stroma and loss of corneal clarity (Saint Andre et al., Science 295:1892-1895, 2002). To better understand the role of Wolbachia organisms in the pathogenesis of this disease, we examined the fate of these bacteria in the cornea by immunoelectron microscopy. Microfilariae harboring Wolbachia organisms were injected into mouse corneas, and bacteria were detected with antibody to Wolbachia surface protein. Within 18 h of injection, neutrophils completely surrounded the nematodes and were in close proximity to Wolbachia organisms. Wolbachia surface protein labeling was also prominent in neutrophil phagosomes, indicating neutrophil ingestion of Wolbachia organisms. Furthermore, the presence of numerous electron-dense granules around the phagosomes indicated that neutrophils were activated. To determine if Wolbachia organisms directly activate neutrophils, peritoneal neutrophils were incubated with either parasite extracts containing Wolbachia organisms, parasite extracts depleted of Wolbachia organisms (by antibiotic treatment of worms), or Wolbachia organisms isolated from filarial nematodes. After 18 h of incubation, we found that isolated Wolbachia organisms stimulated production of tumor necrosis factor alpha and CXC chemokines macrophage inflammatory protein 2 and KC by neutrophils in a dose-dependent manner. Similarly, these cytokines were induced by filarial extracts containing Wolbachia organisms but not by Wolbachia-depleted extracts. Taken together, these findings indicate that neutrophil activation is an important mechanism by which Wolbachia organisms contribute to the pathogenesis of ocular onchocerciasis.
Tetrodotoxin: Chemistry, Toxicity, Source, Distribution and Detection

Tetrodotoxin (TTX) is a naturally occurring toxin that has been responsible for human intoxications and fatalities. Its usual route of toxicity is via the ingestion of contaminated puffer fish which are a culinary delicacy, especially in Japan. TTX was believed to be confined to regions of South East Asia, but recent studies have demonstrated that the toxin has spread to regions in the Pacific and the Mediterranean. There is no known antidote to TTX which is a powerful sodium channel inhibitor. This review aims to collect pertinent information available to date on TTX and its analogues with a special emphasis on the structure, aetiology, distribution, effects and the analytical methods employed for its detection.
Voice Systems and the Syntax/Morphology Interface

The topic of this paper is the manner in which syntactic voice alternations (and syntactic configurations more generally) relate to voice morphology, and the implications of this for theories of voice and theories of morphology/syntax interactions. I argue based on the voice system of Modern Greek for three primary points: first, that treatments taking voice morphology as corresponding to a syntactic argument of the verb (see references below) will not work for voice systems like Greek; second, that voice morphology in Greek must be analyzed as related to a morphological feature which is added post-syntactically in specific syntactic configurations; and, third, that this analysis has consequences for the study of syntax/morphology interactions more generally. These points and their implications are discussed within the context of the theory of Distributed Morphology (Halle and Marantz (1993) and related work. ) In order to establish these points certain sets of theoretical background assumptions must be highlighted; in the following paragraphs I review the major points of this discussion and provide an overview of previous theoretical treatments.
Characterization of Scrapie Agent Isolated from Sheep in Japan

A pathogenic agent isolated in mice from the brain of a sheep affected by scrapie‐like disease was characterized. The incubation period of the disease in the primary transmission from the sheep to mice was longer than in the secondary and the tertiary transmission in the same strain of mice. Progressive dilution of the inoculum caused prolongation of the incubation period. The infectivity of the agent in a 10% brain homogenate persisted, but decreased about 103 to 104 times after heating at 100 C for 30 min. Histological changes in the diseased mouse brains consisted of vacuolation of the nerve cells and spongiform degeneration in the gray matter of the central nervous system. Fine rod‐shaped granulae with a length of 3 to 5 nm were observed within the swollen neuropil, axon, and perivascular astrocytic process. No serum antibodies against available mouse viruses, parainfluenza type 1 virus, lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, and mouse reovirus type 3, were detected in any mice used in the experiments. These findings demonstrate that the disease of the sheep was the first case of scrapie in Japan.
Mobility and migration in the Early Neolithic of the Mediterranean: questions of motivation and mechanism

Abstract The spread of the Neolithic throughout Mediterranean Europe involved, at least to some degree, the physical movement of farmers westwards. This mobility has often been attributed to demographic or climatic factors, and long-term environmental changes of this type surely provided the backdrop against which subsistence practices and behavioral strategies developed. However, changing environmental parameters, while posing challenges to established Early Neolithic farming regimes, did not in and of themselves establish mobility and migration as self-selecting solutions to increased social pressure; we do not fully understand how these pressures were experienced at the level of the individual, the family or the village. This article suggests that embedded Early Neolithic cultural attitudes to subsistence and surplus – and in particular the tension between incentives to hoard and imperatives to share – rendered Early Neolithic communities fragile, with tendencies to fission. It is further argued that oscillations in drought frequency during the seventh millennium bc may have made mobility an increasingly attractive adaptive strategy in the face of intra-community tensions. Throughout, emphasis is placed on human responses to change as mediated through culturally specific circumstances.
Internet Mail Transfer and Check System Based on Intelligence Mobile Agents

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) based E-mail system is the most popular application in today’s Internet world, but there are many dark clouds at the edge of the sunshiny sky. The most well known two threats are the “ mail SPAM” and the “ mail flooding attack . ” Mobile agents (MAs) are software agents that can transport themselves from a client computer to various servers for remote execution. Their mobility, autonomy and distributed intelligence are very friendly to today and tomorrow’s Internet computation. In this paper, we introduce a prototype of the Internet mail transfer and check system based on intelligence mobile agents. This new system model can improve the current simple mail transfer protocol model to defend the mail SPAM and the mail flooding attack. Compatible with the traditionary SMTP is the most important feature of our new model. Finally, we summarize some difficulties for turning this prototype model into practical software.
Influence of isradipine and spirapril on left ventricular hypertrophy and resistance arteries.

Left ventricular hypertrophy is a common clinical feature in hypertensive patients and may be associated with structural changes in vessel morphology. In an open prospective trial, we evaluated 14 patients with previously untreated hypertension (163 +/- 2/104 +/- 2 mm Hg) and an echocardiographically determined left ventricular mass index of 141.6 +/- 5.2 g/m2, indicating left ventricular hypertrophy. We obtained a gluteal skin biopsy sample before starting treatment to investigate subcutaneous small-artery (approximately 200 to 400 microns diameter) morphology and function. Patients then received antihypertensive treatment with a combination of spirapril (3 or 6 mg) and isradipine (2.5 or 5 mg). Echocardiographic recordings were made after 6 months and 1 year, and a final biopsy was taken after 1 year. After 1 year, blood pressure was significantly reduced to 142 +/- 3/ 90 +/- 1 mm Hg (P < .001), and left ventricular mass index decreased significantly to 105.3 +/- 5.8 g/m2 (P < .001). Baseline media-lumen ratio (7.64 +/- 0.48%) was not markedly reduced (7.21 +/- 0.55%), although a decrease occurred in 7 of 12 evaluable patients. Norepinephrine-induced vasoconstriction was markedly reduced after 1 year. In conclusion, a significant regression of left ventricular hypertrophy was obtained after 1 year of treatment with spirapril and isradipine, whereas a similar reduction in medial thickness relative to lumen diameter of subcutaneous small arteries could not be observed in all patients. Reversal of structural changes in resistance vessels may require a longer treatment period in patients with proven left ventricular hypertrophy.
Independência do Banco Central

Apresenta-se um modelo estilizado, em que o banco central, o atual governo e o eleitor mediano interagem estrategica e repetidamente. No caso de independencia total, o banco central sempre consegue implementar um equilibrio em que a politica monetaria e austera e benefica a longo prazo. Em contrapartida, no caso em que o banco central dispoe apenas de autonomia operacional, uma populacao suficientemente impaciente pode impor um equilibrio perverso, no qual o governo e o banco central coordenam suas acoes de forma a conduzir uma politica economica que induz um aquecimento economico de curto prazo as custas de maior inflacao e desemprego a longo prazo.
Mechanism of Lymphocyte‐Mediated Cytolysis The LMC Cycle and Its Role in Transplantation Immunity

The monograph in which this article appears is devoted to considerations of cellular immunity. We wish to restrict our contribution to a discussion of our own findings in both in vivo and in vitro studies and how we believe our observations contribute to an understanding of the mechanism of action of the sensitized lymphocyte against its target. We also wish to discuss some theoretical concepts of lymphocyte receptors and to introduce a new hypothesis to account for the cytotoxic mechanism(s) in lymphocyte-mediated cytolysis (LMC).
Decomposition instead of self-composition for proving the absence of timing channels

We present a novel approach to proving the absence of timing channels. The idea is to partition the program's execution traces in such a way that each partition component is checked for timing attack resilience by a time complexity analysis and that per-component resilience implies the resilience of the whole program. We construct a partition by splitting the program traces at secret-independent branches. This ensures that any pair of traces with the same public input has a component containing both traces. Crucially, the per-component checks can be normal safety properties expressed in terms of a single execution. Our approach is thus in contrast to prior approaches, such as self-composition, that aim to reason about multiple (k≥ 2) executions at once. We formalize the above as an approach called quotient partitioning, generalized to any k-safety property, and prove it to be sound. A key feature of our approach is a demand-driven partitioning strategy that uses a regex-like notion called trails to identify sets of execution traces, particularly those influenced by tainted (or secret) data. We have applied our technique in a prototype implementation tool called Blazer, based on WALA, PPL, and the brics automaton library. We have proved timing-channel freedom of (or synthesized an attack specification for) 24 programs written in Java bytecode, including 6 classic examples from the literature and 6 examples extracted from the DARPA STAC challenge problems.
Anteromedial tibial tubercle transfer without bone graft

We followed 30 patients for more than 2 years after anteromedial tibial tubercle transfer for persistent pa tellofemoral pain associated with patellar articular de generation. Twelve of these patients were followed more than 5 years. We report 93% good and excellent results subjectively and 89% good and excellent results objectively. The quality of improvement was sustained in all 12 of the patients who were evaluated again after more than 5 years from surgery. When examined sep arately, 75% of those patients with advanced patellar arthrosis achieved a good result; none of these patients achieved an excellent result. Postoperative continuous passive motion has markedly reduced the incidence of stiffness. Serious complications such as compartment syndrome, infection, and skin slough were avoided completely in 51 consecutive cases. Patellofemoral contact pressure studies in five cadaver knees have shown that anteromedial tibial tubercle transfer can provide substantial reduction of patellofemoral contact stress while helping to balance medial and lateral facet pressures. This surgical procedure is mechanically and clinically successful for alleviating intractable pain re lated to patellar malalignment and articular degenera tion. This procedure enables the majority of appropri ately selected patients with malalignment and patellar articular degeneration to resume increased levels of activity with substantially diminished pain.
Loss of GDF10/BMP3b as a prognostic marker collaborates with TGFBR3 to enhance chemotherapy resistance and epithelial‐mesenchymal transition in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Growth differentiation factor‐10 (GDF10), commonly referred as BMP3b, is a member of the transforming growth factor‐β (TGF‐β) superfamily. GDF10/BMP3b has been considered as a tumor suppressor, however, little is known about the molecular mechanism of its roles in tumor suppression in oral cancer. Clinical significance of GDF10 downregulation in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) was evaluated using three independent cohorts of OSCC patients. The molecular mechanisms of GDF10 in the suppression of cell survival, cell migration/invasion and epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) were investigated by using oral cancer cell lines. The present study shows that GDF10 is downregulated during oral carcinogenesis, and GDF10 expression is also an independent risk factor for overall survival of OSCC patients. Overexpression of GDF10 attenuates cell proliferation, transformation, migration/invasion, and EMT. GDF10‐inhibited EMT is mediated by ERK signaling but not by typical TGF‐β signaling. In addition, overexpression of GDF10 promotes DNA damage‐induced apoptosis and sensitizes the response to all‐trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and camptothecin (CPT). Intriguingly, the expression of GDF10 is induced by type III TGF‐β receptor (TGFBR3) through TGF‐β‐SMAD2/3 signaling. Our findings suggest that TGFBR3 is an upstream activator of GDF10 expression and they share the same signaling to inhibit EMT and migration/invasion. These results support that GDF10 acts as a hinge to collaborate with TGFBR3 in the transition of EMT‐MET program. Taken together, we illustrated the clinical significance and the molecular mechanisms of tumor‐suppressive GDF10 in OSCC. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Variantes esqueléticas menores en niños y adolescentes de estratos bajos de Caracas

Se consideran variantes esqueleticas menores (VEM) a las pseudoepifisis (PE), braquimesofalanges (BMP), epifisis en cono (EC), epifisis supernumerarias (ES) y la fusion osea (FO). El objetivo de esta investigacion fue evaluar en 3.596 radiografias de la mano y muneca izquierda de un grupo de ninos y adolescentes entre 2 a 15 anos, la presencia de VEM analizando la frecuencia de estas y su asociacion (chi-cuadrado) con el sexo, edad cronologica, edad gestacional, estado nutricional al nacer, la presencia de deficit primarios del crecimiento y con maduracion osea. Se encontro que la prevalencia general de VEM fue de 27,7 por ciento; PE: 23,9 por ciento mas frecuentes en varones; EC: 3,3 por ciento mas frecuentes en ninas; BMF: 3,1 por ciento; ES: 0,08 por ciento y FO: 0,2 por ciento. Solo 2,5 por ciento de los sujetos con VEM presentaron algun deficit primario de crecimiento. No se encontro asociacion entre VEM y prematuridad, talla baja al nacer, estadio de maduracion osea, aunque si entre pequeno simetrico para la edad gestacional con PE, BMF y EC, y retardo del crecimiento intrauterino con PE, BMF. La prevalencia de las VEM encontradas corresponde fundamentalmente a poblacion sin deficit primario de crecimiento de comienzo prenatal y se encuentra dentro de los rangos que reporta la literatura internacional, asi como tambien, la frecuencia de las localizaciones y las tendencias en uno u otro sexo. En aquellos ninos con retardo del de crecimiento al nacer, se encontro asociacion con PE, BMF y EC(AU)