Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validity of diurnal sleep recording in the diagnosis of sleep apnea syndrome.

Two polysomnographic studies were performed in 35 subjects who had a clinical suspicion of sleep apnea syndrome: one study was done at night (N) (from 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m.) and the other during the day (D) starting after lunch (from noon to 5:00 p.m.). N and D sleep studies were performed in random order at a minimal interval of 36 h. No treatment (drug, CPAP) was initiated between the two studies. Both studies included the recording of sleep stages (EEG, EOG, EMG), nasal and mouth flows, thoracoabdominal movements, electrocardiogram, and SaO2 (ear oximetry). D sleep was present in all but one subject. As expected, the total sleep time (TST) was significantly shorter during the D than during the N study (2.6 +/- 0.2 and 6.2 +/- 0.2 h, respectively, mean +/- SEM, p less than 0.001, Wilcoxon's signed-rank test). Stages III-IV and REM were significantly less represented during the D (13.1 +/- 2.4 and 7.7 +/- 1.3%, respectively) than during the N study (18.5 +/- 1.7 and 15.3 +/- 0.8%, p less than or equal to 0.005). From the results of the N study, the diagnosis of sleep apnea syndrome (apnea index greater than 5 and/or apnea + hypopnea index greater than 10) was made in 25 patients, and it was confirmed by the same criteria in 22 by the D sleep recording. There was a significant correlation between the N and D values for these indices (r greater than or equal to 0.9, p less than 0.0001). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Consumers’ Preference Mapping and Their Behavior with Regard to Traditional Halwa Using a Structured Survey Questionnaire

In this study, a structured survey questionnaire was used to determine consumers’ preferences and their behavior with regard to halwa. Five types of consumer groups were identified thorough hierarchical cluster analysis based on ranked attributes. Color was ranked within the top three attributes for all the groups. In general, color, sweetness, appearance, and solubility were found to be the most important attributes for selecting the halwa. Five types of groups were identified based on their preference levels (i.e., intensity) of attributes. These could be recognized in terms of preferences for halwa with (1) black with high sweetness, (2) dark-brown with high-medium sweetness, (3) dark with low-medium sweetness, (4) brown with medium sweetness, and (5) dark with high-medium sweetness preferred consumers. The consumer segmentations identified could be used to develop retail marketing strategies and to develop store brands of diversified Arabian sweets and intermediate moisture fruit snacks, such as dates.
Repellency of anethole- and estragole-type fennel essential oils against stored grain pests: the different twins

Aromatic plants essential oils (EOs) are promising alternatives to chemical insecticides and insect repellent for the post-harvest protection of crops. Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare Mill.) is a highly aromatic plant, cultivated worldwide of which several chemotypes can be distinguished on the basis of the relative content of its main compounds (E)-anethole and estragole. Fennel is well known for its pharmacological, antioxidant antimicrobial and acaricidal activities, and several studies showed its effectiveness as insecticidal and repellent against insects. In this study the repellency of the EOs extracted from two chemotypes, anetholeand estragole-type of F. vulgare fruits, against Rhyzopertha dominica (F.), Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky and Tribolium confusum Jaqcquelin du Val, three of the major worldwide post-harvest grains insects was assessed by in vitro bioassays. Along with the EOs, we also tested the repellency of their major chemical components (E)-anethole, estragole, limonene and, fenchone and we evaluated the co-repellency effect of (E)-anethole and estragole. Finally, the repellence of the fennel EOs in the presence of maize was tested by a two-choice pitfall bioassay. (E)-anethole and estragole content in the anethole-type was 78.4 and 8.0%, respectively while in the estragole-type fennel EO anethole and estragole content was 0.9 and 85.5%, respectively. RD50 values showed that the estragole-type EO was the most effective repellent against the three insect species with values of 0.007, 0.051 and 1.124 mg cm for R. dominica, T. confusum and S. zeamais, respectively. Consistently, relative median potency analysis showed that estragole was significantly more repellent to the three pest insect species than (E)-anethole. Interestingly, in the EOs, (E)-anethole and estragole showed a synergistic co-repellent effect. The strongest synergy was observed against R. dominica (CRC = 634.51). The repellency of fennel EOs also in the presence of maize was confirmed by a two-choice bioassay. Also in this case, the most overall effective EO resulted to be the estragole-type. The results highlight the importance of a chemical standardization based on the bioactivity of the fennel EOs and indicate the estragole-type fennel EO as suitable for the development of eco-friendly repellents for the post-harvest protection of grain crops.
Computer-assisted colour fundus image analysis

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Left atrial size after cardioversion for atrial fibrillation: effect of external direct current shock.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of external direct current (DC) shock on left atrial (LA) dimension and volumes after cardioversion for atrial fibrillation, and the relation between LA size and atrial function. METHODS We evaluated 180 patients who were randomly cardioverted with DC shock (90 patients) or drugs (90 patients). Echocardiographic evaluations included LA size and volumes. LA passive and active emptying volumes were calculated, and LA function was measured as atrial ejection force. Changes in LA diameters and volumes were correlate with atrial systolic function. RESULTS The LA was dilated in all patients during arrhythmia and decreased after the restoration of sinus rhythm. The entity of reduction was different in the 2 groups of patients. LA maximal and minimal volumes were increased after DC shock as compared with patients treated with drugs (LA maximal volume 34 +/- 4 vs 31 +/- 5; P <.01; LA minimal volume 18 +/- 2.6 vs 15 +/- 3.6; P <.01). The atrial function was also depressed after DC shock and the delay in the recovery of atrial contractility was related to LA dilation. Patients treated with drugs had a higher atrial ejection force that was associated with a more marked reduction in LA maximal volume after the restoration of in sinus rhythm. A relationship between LA volumes and atrial ejection force was observed in the group of patients with depressed atrial mechanic function (r = -0.78; P <.001). The active emptying fraction was lower, although not significantly, in this group, whereas the conduit volume was increased. CONCLUSION External DC shock induced a depressed atrial mechanic function in many patients and this was associated with a persistence of LA dilation.
Experimental assessment and evolution perspectives of the Epi.q mobile robot architecture

Experimental assessment and evolution perspectives of the Epi.q mobile robot architecture / Bruzzone L. ; Oderio R. ; Quaglia G. ; Razzoli R. ELETTRONICO. (2011). ((Intervento presentato al convegno XX Congresso dell’Associazione Italiana di Meccanica Teorica e Applicata AIMETA 2011 tenutosi a Bologna nel settembre 2011. Original Experimental assessment and evolution perspectives of the Epi.q mobile robot architecture
Organizational determinants of the industrial salesman's role conflict and ambiguity.

T HE IMPORTANCE of the field salesman in the successful marketing of industrial goods has long been appreciated. Only recently, however, has attention been given to the fact that the nature of the field salesman's job can produce some perplexing problems for marketing and sales managers, as well as for salesmen themselves. Specifically, several characteristics of the industrial salesman's job make him particularly susceptible to role conflict and role ambiguity.1 Role conflict occurs when the salesman faces two or more incompatible job demands from his organizational superiors, customers, family members, or other role partners. The salesman experiences role ambiguity when he is uncertain about how he is expected to perform his job. The high potential for role conflict poses a problem for the individual salesman because of the negative psychological reactions people often experience in conflict situations. A wide variety of empirical studies have found positive relationships between high levels of perceived role conflict and high levels of job-related tension and anxiety, on the one hand, and low levels of job satisfaction, on the other.2 There is also evidence that prolonged exposure to high levels of role conflict can have physical consequences, such as an increased incidence of coronary disease.3 Similarly, when an individual experiences a great deal of uncertainty about how he is expected to perform his job (role ambiguity), he may experience more mental anxiety and tension and less job satisfaction.4 The potential for high levels of perceived role conflict and ambiguity among field salesmen also presents some major problems for sales and marketing managers. To the extent that conflict and ambiguity reduce the job satisfaction of salesmen, for example, they are likely to produce higher levels of turnover within the sales force and accompanying recruitment and training costs.5 The amount of conflict and ambiguity the salesman experiences may also affect his job performance, although the relationships between conflict, am-
Specific membrane receptors: pathogenetic and therapeutic implications in infectious diseases.

In the past decade, the level of our understanding of the basic nature of infectious disease processes has changed dramatically. The central idea underlying this change is the realization that there is what might be loosely termed a sociology of infectious diseases, in which host-pathogen interactions of many sorts occur, along with transfer of messages between the interacting cells. Consequently, we must face two of the most fundamental questions being asked in biology today: "What is the nature of specific cellular recognition mechanisms? " and "What is the nature of
Influence of short circuit conditions on IGBT short circuit current in motor drives

Protecting the IGBTs against short circuit conditions is a critical aspect of the Industrial motor drive design. The SC (short circuit) conditions can occur in a variety of ways in an industrial environment. The SC applied across the motor drive terminals result in a different fault current profile than a SC that happens at the motor terminals or between inter winding coils. The packaging parameters such as number of wire bond contacts, thermal impedance of the package also have significant impact on the short circuit current profile and the robustness of the system. The voltage spike suppression methods and gate driver response to the over current shut down conditions influence the robustness of the system. This paper studies the influence of the inductance of the short circuit on the saturation current of the IGBT and its effects on the device robustness. The paper also briefly discusses the transient suppression methods and soft shut down methods for the gate drive circuit to improve the robustness.
Quantitative Electroencephalography-Guided Versus Scott / Peniston Neurofeedback With Substance Use Disorder Outpatients : A Pilot Study

The present study evaluated quantitative electroencephalogram (QEEG)-guided and Scott/Peniston neurofeedback compared with a wait-list control in the treatment of substance abuse in an outpatient setting. Participants completed an intake assessment, 40 neurofeedback sessions, and a posttraining assessment. Change scores of the clinical scales of the Personality Assessment Inventory were used for outcomes. Compared with controls, QEEG-guided neurofeedback resulted in improvement on three scales, whereas Scott/Peniston training resulted in improvement on two scales. Findings showed significantly decreased symptoms of anxiety, schizophrenia, alcohol problems, and drug problems. The changes in outcome scores related more strongly to the participants’ diagnoses and predominant drugs of abuse than to the type of neurofeedback intervention. Due to the small numbers in this study, efficacy differences between the two neurofeedback approaches were inconclusive.
An Efficient Service Broker Policy for Cloud Computing Environment

all the applications are being provided over the internet, the need for computing resources is shifting from the user's location to the service provider. The concept of services has gained popularity with the widespread use of the term "cloud computing", which is a new paradigm that has been defined to address user requests on a pay-per-use basis. With the greatest benefit being elasticity in terms of increase or decrease of computing resources like computation power, storage and bandwidth, cloud is providing better computing solutions to the users of its services. But the success of these solutions lies in the use of efficient policies and algorithms that govern the underlying concept of cloud computing. These policies involve service brokerage, load balancing, virtual machine management and service level agreements. The broker is an intermediary between the client and the cloud service provider and hence the role of a broker is quite significant. Service broker policies are used by a service broker of a cloud solution in order to decide the data center to which the requests have to be routed. Testing such policies in different situations is very necessary for the best results. But carrying out this analysis for a large architectural setup in a real environment is not feasible. Therefore, we make use of simulation tools, which provide a modeling environment and provisioning facilities for analyzing the new algorithms in a successful manner. Cloud Analyst is a graphical cloud simulation tool that provides the necessary simulation environment for executing and analyzing various cloud scenarios. It also provides facilities to implement new policies and algorithms. The proposed broker policy makes use of a proportion weight to decide which data center has to be selected for servicing a particular user request. The hardware configuration of the data centers remains the same; only the number of machines available is different in each of the data centers. Therefore, the use of a proportion that tells how much workload that particular data center can handle is used to assign a comparable proportion of cloudlets to that data center. Keywords:- Cloud computing, Software as a Service, Platform as a Service, Hardware as a Service, Hypervisor, Service proximity, Performance optimized routing, Dynamically reconfigurable routing, Round Robin, Throttled, Active monitoring.
A Multicriterion Decision Support Methodology For Audit Opinions: The Case Of Audit Reports Of Distressed Firms In Turkey

The audit report represents the most important part of the audit process and it is the sole communication medium between the auditor and the users of the financial statements. After accounting scandals, auditors’ responsibility for assessing the appropriateness of audit opinions has become the subject of much debate in the auditing profession and considerable research by academics. This increased attention is due to the fact that auditors appear to be reluctant to disclose audit opinions other than unqualified. Indeed, many companies in the year prior to bankruptcy receive an audit report in which going concern uncertainty is not disclosed. The research of this paper is designed to examine the relationship between the type of audit reports and firm failure. Logistic regression analysis is applied to test the model of audit opinion decision with a sample of financially distressed firms operating in manufacturing sector in Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) between the period of 1998-2006. The results reveal that the audit opinions of distressed firms indicate the auditors fail to issue appropriate audit opinions one year prior to failure.
Virtual Proctoring In Distance Education: An Open-Source Solution

Students will cheat during exams, that is nothing new, but now that the Higher Education Act requires the proctoring of exams, distance education institutions now find that both they and their students have a major problem. Exams have to be proctored, but requiring distance education students to search out a reliable proctor and travel to a specific location perhaps multiple times per term imposes an undue burden on the students. But schools now have to ensure the integrity of the exam-taking process and this will require creative solutions since many distance education institutions have no physical campus and perhaps will never actually see any of their students. Virtual proctoring, whereby the student can be at their home or office and can be viewed, recorded and supervised is one solution and this will become an increasingly important part of the educational experience since the proctoring of exams is now mandatory.
Comparison of Coaxial Magnetic Gears With Different Topologies

This paper quantitatively compares two coaxial magnetic gears (CMGs) with different topologies, namely, the CMG installed with radially magnetized permanent magnets (CMGRM) and the CMG installed with Halbach magnetized permanent magnets (CMGHM). By using the 3D finite element method, the end-effect and the performances of both CMGs are investigated. Analysis results show that the CMGHM can offer higher pull-out torque, lower torque ripple and lower iron losses than the CMGRM. Experimental results are also given for verification.
A 12-week intramuscular toxicity study of risperidone-loaded microspheres in Beagle dogs

Long-acting formulations of antipsychotics are important treatment options to increase the compliance of schizophrenic patients. Risperidone, a 5-HT2 and dopaminergic D2 receptor antagonist, was developed as long-acting sustained-release microspheres with poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) as a drug carrier for the treatment of schizophrenia. In the present study, the main objective is to determine the nonclinical safety profile of risperidone-loaded microspheres (RM) in Beagle dogs after intramuscular administration for 3 months, once in 2 weeks, followed by 8-week recovery phase. No animal death was found and no special toxicological findings were observed. The findings, such as hypoactivity, ptosis, increased heart rate, and elevated serum and pituitary prolactin levels, were observed and related to the pharmacological effects of risperidone. The changes in the reproductive system (uterus, ovary, vagina, cervix, and mammary gland) were considered secondary to the prolactin elevation, and the congestion of spleen was related to risperidone. The foreign body granulomas at injection sites might be caused by PLGA. At the end of recovery phase, the above changes mostly recovered to normal, and on administering 3 mg/kg dose level once in 2 weeks on Beagle dogs showed no observed adverse effect. Taken together, RM had exhibited the acceptable safety.
Quantitative determination of bovine serum Haptoglobin and its elevation in some inflammatory diseases.

A modification of the method of Tarukoski was employed for the determination of bovine serum haptoglobin (Hp). A mixture of serum sample and diluted methemoglobin (Hb+) solution (30 mg/100 ml) was incubated with o-dianisidine reagent, pH 4.1, at 37°C for 45 min. Peroxidase activity of free Hb was found almost lost in the mixture, in which HpHb complex activity was well maintained. Relatively reliable values were obtained even in hemolyzed serum samples as long as the contaminating Hb was less than 150 mg/100 ml. The Hp values determined by this method were quite parallel to the results obtained by polyacrylamide gel disc electrophoresis. They were small or none in normal cattle, but remarkably large (80-130mg% HbBC) in cattle suffering from severe inflammatory diseases, such as mastitis, pyometra and traumatic reticulitis.
Consumers' true brand loyalty: the central role of commitment

In current highly competitive environments, improving consumers' loyalty to brands allows firms to secure a comfortable long-term position in the market-place. This article aims at placing the issue of brand loyalty within a larger perspective than a set of repetitive discrete transactions between consumers and brands. Two different approaches for analysing brand loyalty are then discussed: the downstream one, based on observing consistent purchases of a brand over a period of time and the upstream approach, which focuses on the motives that are behind a repeat purchasing of a brand. The relevance of the latter approach is then shown by highlighting the crucial role of the consumers' commitment to the brand in better understanding the loyalty phenomenon. Therefore, our article proposes an integrative conceptual framework of true brand loyalty including its main cognitive and affective causes and effects.
A MEANS FOR TARGETING THERAPEUTICS TO PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM NEURONS WITH AXONAL DAMAGE

OBJECTIVEDelivery of biological therapeutics to motor and dorsal root ganglion neurons remains a major hurdle in the development of treatments for a variety of neurological processes, including peripheral nerve injury, pain, and motor neuron diseases. Because nerve cell bodies are important in initiating and controlling axonal regeneration, targeted delivery is an appealing strategy to deliver therapeutic proteins after peripheral nerve injury. METHODSTet1 is a 12-aa peptide, isolated through phage display that is selected for tetanus toxin C fragment-like binding properties. In this study, we surveyed its uptake and retrograde transport using compartmented cultures and sciatic nerve injections. We then characterized the time course of this delivery. Finally, to confirm the retrograde transport involvement, a colchicine pretreatment was performed. We also performed competitive binding studies between Tet1 and a recombinant tetanus toxin C fragment using recombinant tetanus toxin C fragment enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTSWe were able to demonstrate efficient uptake and retrograde axonal transport of the Tet1 peptide in vitro and in vivo. Intraneural colchicine pretreatment partially blocked fluorescence detection in the spinal cord, revealing a retrograde axonal transport mechanism. Finally, a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay experiment revealed Tet1-specific binding to the recombinant tetanus toxin C fragment axon terminal trisialogangliosides receptor. CONCLUSIONThese properties of Tet1 can be applied to the development of therapeutic viral vectors and fusion proteins for neuronal targeting and enhanced spinal cord delivery in the treatment of nerve regeneration, neuroprotection, analgesia, and spasticity. Small peptides can be easily fused to larger proteins without significantly modifying their function and can be used to alter the binding and uptake properties of these proteins.