Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beclin-1 and LC3A expression in cutaneous malignant melanomas: a biphasic survival pattern for beclin-1

Autophagy is an intracellular pathway for the degradation of long-lived proteins and damaged organelles. It is, in essence, a recycling process allowing cells to survive oxygen and nutrient depletion. The expression of two autophagy-related proteins, beclin 1 and light chain 3A (LC3A) was investigated in 79 nodular cutaneous melanomas. The results were correlated with histopathological factors, vascular density, and hypoxia-related proteins [hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF1&agr; and HIF2&agr;) and lactate dehydrogenase 5]. The reactivity of both autophagy-related proteins was uniformly cytoplasmically diffused. High beclin 1 and LC3A reactivity was related to tumor hypoxia, as this was inferred from the intense expression of HIF1&agr; and lactate dehydrogenase 5, whereas low beclin 1 and LC3A expression was linked with an increased vascular density. In addition, beclin 1 was related to disease-specific survival which, however, exposed a biphasic pattern. A strong beclin 1 expression extending over a tumor area of more than 50% (high) was associated with an increased rate of early deaths, whereas a similarly strong, but less-extensive cytoplasmic reactivity (<10% tumor area; low) defined a sharp fall in the survival 5 years after surgery. Furthermore, the low beclin 1 expression was associated with high Breslow's depth, high Clark's level, and ulceration. Low LC3A expression was also related to ulceration, but not to other histopathological features nor prognosis. In multivariate analysis, beclin 1 was an independent prognostic variable. It is concluded that extensive autophagic activity is generated by tumor hypoxia and anaerobic glycolysis, whereas angiogenesis maintains low autophagic activity. Atg6/beclin 1 was proved to be capable of deciphering the prognosis in cutaneous malignant melanoma, but the matter requires further investigation.
Biochemical Markers of Bone Turnover, Endogenous Hormones and the Risk of Fractures in Postmenopausal Women: The OFELY Study

The mechanisms leading to increased bone loss and skeletal fragility in women with postmenopausal osteoporosis are still poorly understood. Increased bone resorption, low serum estradiol and high serum sex‐hormone‐binding globulin (SHBG) recently have been reported as predictors of vertebral and hip fractures in elderly women. In a cohort of healthy untreated younger postmenopausal women aged 50–89 years (mean, 64 years), we compared baseline levels of bone markers and endogenous hormones in 55 women who subsequently had a fracture (20 vertebral and 35 peripheral fractures) with levels in the 380 women who did not fracture during a mean 5 years of follow‐up. Women with levels in the highest quartile of four bone resorption markers including urinary‐free deoxypyridinoline (D‐Pyr), urinary type I collagen N‐telopeptides (NTX), and urinary and serum type I collagen C‐telopeptides (CTX) had about a 2‐fold increased risk of fractures compared with women with levels in the three lowest quartiles with relative risk (RR) and 95% CI of 1.8 (1.0‐3.4) for free D‐Pyr, 1.7 (0.9‐3.2) for urinary NTX, 2.3 (1.3‐4.1) for urinary CTX, and 2.1 (1.2‐3.8) for serum CTX. Serum levels of bone alkaline phosphatase (BAP) in the highest quartile were associated with an RR of fracture of 2.4 (1.3‐4.2). Women with serum levels of estradiol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) sulfate in the lowest quartile had an RR of fracture of 2.2 (1.2‐4.0) and 2.1 (1.2‐3.8), respectively. Increased levels of SHBG and intact parathyroid hormone (PTH) were moderately associated with an increased risk of fracture. Similar results were obtained when the analysis was restricted to symptomatic vertebral and nonvertebral fractures. Adjustment of biochemical markers by hormone levels did not significantly alter the results. Women with both high bone resorption markers and low estradiol (or low DHEA sulfate) had a higher risk of fracture with RRs of 3.0‐3.3 (p < 0.001). After adjustment for bone mineral density (BMD) of the hip, spine, radius, or total body, bone markers and hormones were still predictive of fracture risk with similar RRs. We conclude that high levels of some biochemical markers of bone turnover, low serum estradiol, low DHEA sulfate, high SHBG, and high PTH are associated with increased risk of osteoporotic fracture in postmenopausal women, independently of each other and of BMD. The mechanism by which some postmenopausal women have an increased rate of bone turnover leading to an increased risk of fracture remains to be elucidated.
Humid tropical forest clearing from 2000 to 2005 quantified by using multitemporal and multiresolution remotely sensed data

Forest cover is an important input variable for assessing changes to carbon stocks, climate and hydrological systems, biodiversity richness, and other sustainability science disciplines. Despite incremental improvements in our ability to quantify rates of forest clearing, there is still no definitive understanding on global trends. Without timely and accurate forest monitoring methods, policy responses will be uninformed concerning the most basic facts of forest cover change. Results of a feasible and cost-effective monitoring strategy are presented that enable timely, precise, and internally consistent estimates of forest clearing within the humid tropics. A probability-based sampling approach that synergistically employs low and high spatial resolution satellite datasets was used to quantify humid tropical forest clearing from 2000 to 2005. Forest clearing is estimated to be 1.39% (SE 0.084%) of the total biome area. This translates to an estimated forest area cleared of 27.2 million hectares (SE 2.28 million hectares), and represents a 2.36% reduction in area of humid tropical forest. Fifty-five percent of total biome clearing occurs within only 6% of the biome area, emphasizing the presence of forest clearing “hotspots. ” Forest loss in Brazil accounts for 47.8% of total biome clearing, nearly four times that of the next highest country, Indonesia, which accounts for 12.8%. Over three-fifths of clearing occurs in Latin America and over one-third in Asia. Africa contributes 5.4% to the estimated loss of humid tropical forest cover, reflecting the absence of current agro-industrial scale clearing in humid tropical Africa.
A Depressing Internet Tale: Empirical Analysis of the Internet's Impact on Suicide

Has widespread diffusion of the internet influenced suicide, and if so, how? To answer this important question, we examined the association between internet access and suicide in the United States between 2009 and 2013. The empirical evidence shows that the association varies depending on the type of internet services accessed, and that the spread of mobile access is positively associated with an increase in suicide. We did not, however, find evidence that fixed internet use has any effect on suicide. We also examined the conditions under which a positive association with mobile internet access is greater. We find that a positive impact of mobile internet on suicide is most evident in communities with low social capital, low ethnic density level, and high urbanization level. By demonstrating that access to the mobile internet is positively associated with suicide, we contribute to the literature addressing the dark side of internet proliferation. According to our analysis, the positive association does not appear in areas with high levels of social capital and high levels of ethnic density. These results imply that the impact of mobile internet on suicidal behaviors may be alleviated by increasing social capital and ensuring positive social interactions. These results once again underscore that suicide is not an individual issue but a public health issue that is influenced by technology, the surrounding environment, and social structures. Our study has several limitations, which provide several opportunities for future research. First, we use aggregated data for suicide and internet at the county level. Further research is needed to examine how internet access can lead to suicidal behaviors at the individual level. We invite future research that may address individual-level heterogeneity, such as ways to obtain information on the internet, frequency of exposures to suicide-related information, and vulnerability to suicide-related contents. Second, we used telephone availability as an instrument variable in our IV regressions. Although we believe telephone availability is an appropriate instrument variable, other potential instruments might be used in future research.
Integrating Apache Airavata with Docker, Marathon, and Mesos

Science Gateways provide scientists with tools for creating, executing, and monitoring scientific experiments on multiple resource infrastructures. Apache Airavata abstracts interactions between gateways and distributed computing infrastructures like Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, international grids, and campus clusters. Airavata consists of several component services such as the API server, Orchestrator, Workflow Interpreter, Credential Store, and Application Factory. In addition, Airavata uses third party software, including RabbbitMQ for messaging, MySQL for production database management, and Apache Zookeeper for internal communications. In this paper, we discuss our initial experiences with leveraging open source technologies to manage Airavata and its dependent components to deploy, detect, and restart failed components in an auto‐scaling platform. Such capabilities will allow Airavata services to be deployed in a wide area, large Virtual Machine (VM) based cluster, and a developer's laptop. The emerging technologies in cloud computing and Big Data that address these needs are the following: Docker, Marathon, and Apache Mesos. Docker is a Linux‐based lightweight container that allows different applications to run isolated from each other but safely share the machine's resources. Docker images of applications can be published in registries and retrieved for execution in the target infrastructures. Marathon provides a cluster‐wide init and control system for services, including Docker containers. Mesos provides a cluster‐wide framework to schedule tasks based on fine‐grained resource needs. Mesosphere provides the packages, scripts, and web interface to ease the use of these technologies. We present the design, experience, and lessons learned from integrating Mesos, Docker, and Marathon with Apache Airavata. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Improving gain bandwidth product using negative resistance and DTMOS technique

In this paper we report a low voltage differential amplifier based on self-cascode topology which is suitable for low voltage and high speed operation. A negative conductance is used that will cancel the positive output conductance of an amplifier. As a result the total equivalent output conductance is reduced and thereby the overall voltage gain of the amplifier is increased. Using this technique we have achieved an increment in gain by a factor of 1.45 times. In bulk CMOS technology the body of the transistor can be used as a fourth terminal to enhance the performance of low-voltage analog circuits. Modeling the body effect will increase the overall transconductance of the MOS transistor. The use of Dynamic Threshold technique will enhance the gain-bandwidth product of the amplifier. The gain bandwidth product has increased by 52.63%. Also the DTMOS technique is compatible with the standard bulk CMOS technique and hence there is no requirement for the additional area. Simulations are carried out using 180nm CMOS technology at 1V to validate the proposed idea.
Choques macroeconómicos y crisis financieras. Alguna evidencia para la economía argentina (1977-2004)

Las turbulencias ocurridas en los mercados asiaticos en los anos noventa y la crisis Argentina de fines del ano 2001 mostraron la rapidez y la fuerza con que pueden surgir las crisis financieras y la dificultad para establecer la evolucion y las ramificaciones de estos eventos. Este trabajo examina las crisis financieras ocurridas en la economia argentina durante el periodo 1977-2004 (posterior a la reforma financiera). A tal efecto, se utilizan diversas herramientas econometricas, con el fin de determinar el comportamiento del sistema financiero frente a determinados shocks macroeconomicos. Asimismo, se trata de establecer si los periodos de caidas en los niveles de actividad economica determinan las crisis en el sector financiero o viceversa. Las estimaciones realizadas muestran que las crisis financieras (caidas en la relacion depositos/circulante en poder del publico) estarian asociadas con reversiones en los influjos de capital, con contracciones en el PIB real, con depreciaciones en el tipo de cambio real, con aumentos en la relacion M2/reservas internacionales, con alzas en las tasas de interes reales domesticas y con shocks adversos en los terminos de intercambios externos. Los resultados reflejan tambien que los periodos de recesion economica anticipan las crisis en el sistema financiero en el corto plazo, mientras que en el largo plazo ambas variables podrian considerarse debilmente exogenas (asi, el PIB real se comportaria como una variable exogena fuerte).
Cystic fibrosis Delta F508 heterozygotes, smoking, and reproduction: studies of 9141 individuals from a general population sample.

Cystic fibrosis is the most common fatal autosomal recessive disease affecting Caucasian populations. It remains a puzzle how this disease is maintained at such a remarkably high incidence, however, it could be due to a reproductive advantage in cystic fibrosis heterozygotes. We tested this hypothesis. An adult Danish general population sample of 9141 individuals was screened for cystic fibrosis DeltaF508 heterozygotes; 250 carriers of this mutation were identified (2.7%). In the total sample DeltaF508 heterozygotes did not have more children than noncarriers; however, smoking interacted with genotype in predicting number of children (ANOVA: P < 0.001). Among nonsmokers, heterozygotes had more children than noncarriers (Wilcoxon: P = 0.03). Among smokers, the opposite was found: heterozygotes had fewer children than noncarriers (Wilcoxon: P = 0. 001). These findings remained significant after allowing for gender and the potential confounders of age, income, and education. Finally, after allowing for these covariates, number of children in DeltaF508 heterozygotes decreased with increasing extent of smoking (trend test: P = 0.003), while the opposite was true for noncarriers (trend test: P < 0.001). In conclusion, overall these results do not support a reproductive advantage for cystic fibrosis DeltaF508 heterozygotes. However, the data cannot totally exclude the possibility that nonsmoking DeltaF508 heterozygotes experience a reproductive advantage while smoking DeltaF508 heterozygotes experience the opposite, a reproductive disadvantage. Accordingly, the data suggest a previously undocumented role of smoking on fecundity among cystic fibrosis heterozygotes.
Klinische Studie über die Akzeptanz des Phonak-Hörgerätes "Supero 412"

Das Horen ist eine der faszinierendsten Sinnesleistungen des Menschen, deren Bedeutung fur die zwischenmenschliche Kommunikation wesentlich ist. Um horbehinderten Menschen das Horen trotzdem zu ermoglichen, greift man auf Hilfsmittel wie z.B. Horgerate zuruck. In einer prospektiv angelegten klinischen Studie wurde im Rahmen einer routinemasigen Horgerateanpassung siebzehn meist hochgradig schwerhorigen Patienten das von der Schweizer Firma Phonak entwickelte, volldigitale Horgerat Supero 412 angepasst, das sich zum Zeitpunkt der Studie noch nicht auf dem Markt befand, von der Firma jedoch bereits im Vorfeld als bahnbrechendes Gerat insbesondere fur die Kinderversorgung empfohlen wurde. Um den Eindruck des neuen Supero 412-Horgerates auf die Patienten im Alltag subjektiv zu erfassen, wurden drei fur jeweils unterschiedliche Altersgruppen ausgelegte Fragebogen verwendet, in denen die Zufriedenheit der Patienten, die fast alle Erfahrung mit dem Tragen von Horgeraten hatten, jeweils zu den Vorgeraten und den neuen Supero 412-Geraten festgehalten wurde. Durch apparative audiometrische Untersuchungsverfahren wurden die subjektiven Fragebogenergebnisse anschliesend gepruft. Zusammenfassend lasst sich sagen, dass das neue Horgerat Supero 412 von der Mehrheit der Studienteilnehmer im Vergleich mit ihrem bereits getragenen Horgerat abgelehnt wurde. Die Grunde fur die Ablehnung waren hauptsachlich das Auftreten von unbeherrschbaren Ruckkopplungen - obwohl das neue Horgerat uber ein spezielles Ruckkopplungskontrollsystem verfugt -, das mangelhafte Sprachverstehen durch verstarkte Nebengerausche, die Grose des Horgerates, die Klangqualitat sowie die schwierige Handhabung und Bedienung der digitalen Gerate. Programmierungsschwierigkeiten und technische Probleme traten bei der Anpassung auf, die damit zusammenhingen, dass die Gerate noch den Status der Prototypen hatten und erst im Laufe der Studienzeit fur den Markt zugelassen wurden. Von den Patienten positiv beurteilt wurden die Fortschritte im alltaglichen Verstehen und das verbesserte Richtungshoren. Ebenso wurden die Flexibilitat durch die Moglichkeit, verschiedene Programme fur unterschiedliche Horsituationen einzustellen, sowie die Widerstandsfahigkeit des Horgerates gelobt. Im Endeffekt wurde das Gerat nur von vier der siebzehn Patienten, wobei es sich um drei Kinder und einen Erwachsenen handelte, akzeptiert. Da in der Zwischenzeit hochwertige digitale Horgerate mit besserer Technik, kleinem Gehause und ohne Ruckkopplungspfeifen auch von der Firma Phonak auf den Markt gekommen sind, die in der Kinderversorgung sogar ohne Zuzahlung angeboten werden, kann nach den Ergebnissen unserer Studie das Supero 412-Gerat nicht empfohlen werden.
Functional Properties of Potato Flour and its Role in Product Development – A Review

Potato flour is a viable value added product due to its versatility in function as a thickener and color or flavor improver. It is used in bakery products, sauces, gravy, extruded products or fabricated snacks and also in dry soup mixes. Potato flour is prepared by drying the peeled slices in a hot air drier or by drying the cooked mash in a drum drier into flakes followed by grinding and sieving. The severity of heat treatment during the drying process influences the changes/degradations of starch and properties of flour. Flour properties can also be modified by chemical and enzymatic treatments and the properties such as paste viscosity, dough rheology, gel forming properties, swelling ability are important in determining suitability of flour in food formulations. The high stability of drum dried and hot air dried flours during heating and cooling processes demonstrates their possible use in products requiring sterilization such as baby food. Enzyme modified flours with high paste viscosities act as good thickeners. The functional properties of potato flour made by different processes involving physical, chemical or enzymatic treatments are discussed. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Audioscan® RM500 Real-Ear Hearing Aid Analyzer: Measuring for a Successful Fit

The population older than age 65 is increasing and is expected to increase even more in the next 50 years. In the more developed regions of the world, current life expectancy is approximately 76 years, 10 years longer than life expectancy in 1950. By the year 2050, the projected life expectancy will be 82 years. In 1950, the age group older than 65 years represented only 8% of the population. By 2000, a little more than 14% of the population were older than 65, and by 2050, it is projected that this age group will comprise almost 26% of the population (United Nations Secretariat, 2004). It is well known that physiologic and cognitive changes occur with age. Years ago, the stereotypical person older than 65 was retired from work, physically infirm, and possibly cognitively impaired. Today, a large number of people in the over-65 age group continue to be healthy and active. Gerontologists have considered the question of the attributes that contribute to “successful aging” and have determined that key factors are physical, mental, and social health. The audiologist can play an important role in helping the senior citizen remain socially and mentally active through appropriate aural rehabilitation. Untreated hearing loss in the elderly interferes with communication and may interact negatively with cognitive changes that are due to aging. This issue of Trends in Amplification is devoted to the topic of aging and its influence on auditory communication. The issue provides up-to-date information about aging, hearing loss, cognition, and audiologic intervention in older adults. In the first paper, Patricia Kricos provides a review of the research relevant to understanding the impact of age on hearing and cognitive function and their interactions as they relate to the aural rehabilitation of the elderly person with hearing loss. This information provides the foundation for an evidence-based clinical model for assessment and for audiologic intervention in this group. The second paper, by M. Kathleen Pichora-Fuller and Gurjit Singh, provides a comprehensive review of theoretic approaches to auditory and cognitive processes in aging and argues for an integrated approach to understanding the interaction between auditory and cognitive processing in the elderly. The authors summarize and synthesize several areas of research that are not usually considered in traditional clinical approaches to understanding hearing in the elderly. Their paper provides an introduction to many new concepts and a broad context for approaching the aural rehabilitation of the geriatric population.
Fine-Grained Access Control with Attribute Based Cache Coherency for IoT with application to Healthcare

The Internet of Things (IoT) is getting popular everyday around the world. Given the endless opportunities it promises to provide, IoT is adopted by various organizations belonging to diverse domains. However, IoT’s “access by anybody from anywhere” concept makes it prone to numerous security challenges. Although data security is studied at various levels of IoT architecture, breach of data security due to internal parties has not received as much attention as that caused by external parties. When an organization with people spread across multiple levels of hierarchies with multiple roles adopts IoT, it is not fair to provide uniform access of the data to everyone. Past research has extensively investigated various Access Control Techniques like Role Based Access Control (RBAC), Identity Based Access Control (IBAC), Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) and other variations to address the above issue. While ABAC meets the needs of the growing amount of subjects and objects in an IoT Environment, when implemented as an encryption algorithm (ABE) it does not cater to the IoT RDBMS applications. Also, given the query processing over huge encrypted dataset on the Cloud and the distance between the Cloud and the end-user, Latency issues are highly prevalent in IoT applications. Various Client Side caching and Server Side caching Techniques have been proposed to meet the Latency issues in a Client-Server Environment. Client Side caching is more appropriate for an IoT Environment given the dynamic connections and the large volume of requests to the Cloud per unit time. However, an IoT Cloud has mixed critical data to every user and conventional Client Side caching Techniques do not exploit this property of IoT data. In this work, we develop (i) an Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC) mechanism for the IoT data on the Cloud in order to provide a fine-grained access control in an organization and