Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diet, lifestyle, and the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in women.

BACKGROUND Previous studies have examined individual dietary and lifestyle factors in relation to type 2 diabetes, but the combined effects of these factors are largely unknown. METHODS We followed 84,941 female nurses from 1980 to 1996; these women were free of diagnosed cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer at base line. Information about their diet and lifestyle was updated periodically. A low-risk group was defined according to a combination of five variables: a bodymass index (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) of less than 25; a diet high in cereal fiber and polyunsaturated fat and low in trans fat and glycemic load (which reflects the effect of diet on the blood glucose level); engagement in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity for at least half an hour per day; no current smoking; and the consumption of an average of at least half a drink of an alcoholic beverage per day. RESULTS During 16 years of follow-up, we documented 3300 new cases of type 2 diabetes. Overweight or obesity was the single most important predictor of diabetes. Lack of exercise, a poor diet, current smoking, and abstinence from alcohol use were all associated with a significantly increased risk of diabetes, even after adjustment for the body-mass index. As compared with the rest of the cohort, women in the low-risk group (3.4 percent of the women) had a relative risk of diabetes of 0.09 (95 percent confidence interval, 0.05 to 0.17). A total of 91 percent of the cases of diabetes in this cohort (95 percent confidence interval, 83 to 95) could be attributed to habits and forms of behavior that did not conform to the low-risk pattern. CONCLUSIONS Our findings support the hypothesis that the vast majority of cases of type 2 diabetes could be prevented by the adoption of a healthier lifestyle.
Cognitive impairment and composition of drinking water in women: findings of the EPIDOS Study 1–3

Background: The concentration of aluminum or silica in drinking water may be a potential environmental risk factor for Alzheimer disease (AD). Objectives: The objective was to investigate at baseline the potential association between the composition of drinking water and the levelofcognitivefunctioninwomentakingpartintheEpidemiologyofOsteoporosis(EPIDOS)Studyandtodetermineduringfollow-uptheeffectsofthecompositionofdrinkingwaterontheriskofAD. Design: Women aged (cid:1) 75 y ( n (cid:2) 7598) were recruited between 1992and1994in5geographicareasofFrance.Theparticipantsfromonecenter( n (cid:2) 1462) were followed for (cid:3) 7 y; during this time, an active search for incident cases of AD was conducted. The initial questionnaire comprised a food consumption survey with specific questions about the daily consumption of tap and mineral water. The evaluation of cognitive function was based on the Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire. During follow-up , the diagnosis of dementia was made by a geriatrician and a neurologist. Results: A low silica concentration was associated with low cognitive performance at baseline. Compared with the nondemented subjects, the women with a diagnosis of AD during follow-up were older at inclusion, had a lower financial status and educational level, had a poorer perception of their own health, and had a more difficult time performing activities of daily living. A multivariate analysis including potential confounding factors showed that women with AD appeared to have been exposed to lower amounts of silica at baseline. Conclusions: Silica in drinking water may reduce the risk of devel-opingADinelderlywomen.TheresultscorroboratethoseofanotherepidemiologicstudycarriedoutinFrance. Thepotentialeffectofsilicaneedstobeconfirmedinadditionalinvestigations. accident and ischemic heart disease, thyroid dysfunction, impairment of sight and hear-ing,Parkinsondisease,diabetes,depression). Tobaccoconsump-tionwasalsonoted,whetherpastorcurrent.Functionalstatuswasassessedonthebasisof3itemsrelatingtobasicactivitiesofdailyliving(dressing,toileting,mobility)andbyLawton’sIn-strumentalActivityofDailyLivingscale(IADL),whichcom-prises8items:abilitytousethetelephone,dotheshopping,preparemeals,dohousework,dothewashing,usetransport,managemedication,andmanagefinance(21). Every4mofor5y,allparticipantswerequestionedaboutintercurrentdisorders.Anywithdrawalsandthereasonsforsuchwererecorded. Informationonthevariousmedicationscon-sumedwascollectedyearlyonafullquestionnaire.
Characterization of a Neocallimastix patriciarum cellulase cDNA (celA) homologous to Trichoderma reesei cellobiohydrolase II

The nucleotide sequence of a cellulase cDNA (celA) from the rumen fungus Neocallimastix patriciarum and the primary structure of the protein which it encodes were characterized. The celA cDNA was 1.95 kb long and had an open reading frame of 1,284 bp, which encoded a polypeptide having 428 amino acid residues. A sequence alignment showed that cellulase A (CELA) exhibited substantial homology with family B cellulases (family 6 glycosyl hydrolases), particularly cellobiohydrolase II from the aerobic fungus Trichoderma reesei. In contrast to previously characterized N. patriciarum glycosyl hydrolases, CELA did not exhibit homology with any other rumen microbial cellulases described previously. Primary structure and function studies in which deletion analysis and a sequence comparison with other well-characterized cellulases were used revealed that CELA consisted of a cellulose-binding domain at the N terminus and a catalytic domain at the C terminus. These two domains were separated by an extremely Asn-rich linker. Deletion of the cellulose-binding domain resulted in a marked decrease in the cellulose-binding ability and activity toward crystalline cellulose. When CELA was expressed in Escherichia coli, it was located predominantly in the periplasmic space, indicating that the signal sequence of CELA was functional in E.coli. Enzymatic studies showed that CELA had an optimal pH of 5.0 and an optimal temperature of 40 degrees C. The specific activity of immunoaffinity-purified CELA against Avicel was 9.7 U/mg of protein, and CELA appeared to be a relatively active cellobiohydrolase compared with the specific activities reported for other cellobiohydrolases, such as T. reesei cellobiohydrolases I and II.
Population-Based Impact of Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine in Young Children

Objective. To determine the population impact of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) on pneumococcal-related diseases, including pneumonia and otitis media. Methods. Using administrative data from Tennessee Medicaid and 3 commercial insurance plans in upstate New York, we measured annual rates of medical visits for pneumococcal-related diseases (pneumococcal and nonspecific pneumonia and invasive disease; otitis media) and pneumococcal-unrelated diseases (other acute respiratory illnesses). Disease rates before (1995–2000 in Tennessee; 1998–2000 in New York) and after (2000–2002) PCV licensure were calculated for children aged <2 years (eligible for PCV) and those 3 to 5 years (not routinely given PCV). Because annual variations should affect both age groups similarly and vaccine-related outcomes should preferentially decline in younger children, ratios (<2:3–5 years) of disease rates before and after PCV licensure were compared. Expected disease rates were calculated for children aged <2 years in each postvaccine year. The difference between observed and expected disease rates was the estimated vaccine effect. Results. In 2001–2002, there were 67 380 and 9485 child-years of observation for Tennessee and New York children aged <2 years, respectively. We observed fewer visits for pneumonia and invasive disease per 1000 children than expected in both regions: 20 fewer emergency department or outpatient visits in Tennessee and 33 fewer outpatient visits in New York. Otitis media visits declined by 118 and 430 per 1000 children in Tennessee and New York, respectively. Conclusions. Adding PCV to the childhood immunization schedule was associated with a 10-fold greater reduction in pneumonia and a 100-fold greater reduction in otitis media than the previously reported reduction in culture-confirmed invasive pneumococcal diseases of 1.3 episodes per 1000 children aged <2 years. Although additional studies are needed to confirm the impact of routine immunization with PCV on pneumococcal-related disease, these results suggest that its impact is substantially greater than the effects on invasive disease alone.
Preparation Programs for Special Education Administrators

To create a true profession of special education, as distinct from a loose confederation of educators of various exceptionalities, has been the dream of leaders in the special education field. While a few colleges and universities endeavor to fashion a preparation program for teachers which cuts across traditional handicapping areas, a method is proposed through the preparation of special education administrators, rather than administrators of any one exceptionality area. Based upon a baccalaureate program outside the special education field and a master's degree stressing teaching experience in one area of exceptionality, the suggested minimum program of preparation for administrators in special education is three years of successful teaching experience and 30 graduate semester hours beyond the master's degree. The doctorate in administration of special education remains the most desirable goal.
Upgrading the precision of face recognition using the gradient of a facet function

One of the most difficult limitations in face recognition by computer vision process is to treat the shadows on human face which vary according to the direction of the light. To enhance the rate of correct recognition overcoming this problem, we apply a facet function on each local surface of the face image. If the image is appropriately divided into the same size of the local surfaces, the gradient of the facet function representing each local surface can be calculated. The set of magnitude and direction of the gradient reflects the inherent shapes of a face image. The size of the local surface that we used for the computation of gradient is 5 /spl times/ 5. The recognition rate of face using this method for our sample images is computed to be 96.5 and it is shown that this rate is the best comparing to the ones produced by the existent methods.
Consumer Innovation in the Poor Versus Rich World – Some Differences and Similarities

Innovative, distinct products and no cheaper copies of the rich world are essential in order to succeed at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). However, this type of innovation requires more, in-depth information on the BoP and solution spaces, which are both difficult to access. Literature proposes to generate innovations bottom up through user involvement but remains silent on how to identify and integrate BoP consumers into the innovation process. One obvious solution is to connect up with and cooperate with innovating consumers of the BoP. However, this raises the questions whether 1) user innovation exists at the BoP at what levels of quality and 2) how firms can support the innovators to implement them into real world solutions. In this paper we specifically address the first question and analyze patterns and characteristics of a large sample of innovations developed by people living at the Indian BoP collected by the Indian National Innovation Foundation (NIF). We compare these innovations to consumer innovations in the developed world and examine effects of demographic, knowledge and context factors on innovation activity and the outcome. We find similarities with consumer innovation in the developed world and at the same time adaptations to the BoP context, e.g. fulfillment of rather basic necessities than hobby-related needs. Innovation quality is mostly driven by the innovator's knowledge and market recognition is highest for creative innovations developed for others. The paper further shows that consumer innovations are a good starting point for firms seeking solutions for BoP markets. Product needs can be systematically deducted and provide insights on how to identify promising consumer innovators at the BoP. Finally, this research contributes to better understand user innovation behavior in a specific context and by that enriches innovation research.
Improving desktop as a Service in OpenStack

OpenStack is one of the major open-source solutions for creating and managing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud providers. In this paper, we explore how the Horizon dashboard allows us to access virtual machines via a web-based remote desktop client. Besides the default remote desktop clients (based on the noVNC software), we propose to integrate in the OpenStack dashboard other alternative solutions testing both audio and video redirection feature. We consider different protocols including Virtual Network Computing (VNC) and Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), while our experiments aim to evaluate which the best solution currently available on the market is, also providing indications to developers on how to extend the OpenStack dashboard in order to provide the best user experience from an objective point of view.
Primary Prevention and Delay of Onset of AD/Dementia

Prevention in Alzheimer's disease and other dementias (AD/dementia) is defined on the basis of clinical states and their expressed symptoms. Primary prevention refers to delaying the development of the full-blown state of clinically expressed disease in normal individuals. Current primary prevention research is driven by evidence of AD/dementia protective factors that have emerged from epidemiological studies. The first randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of primary AD/dementia prevention have been designed to test the efficacy and safety of NSAIDs, hormonal therapy, antihypertensive drugs and antioxidants. The experience of these trials has indicated safety concerns as a key issue and highlighted significant design challenges in this type of research. These trials have required large sample sizes and unsustainable costs. There should be consideration given in future trials to enriching study samples with risk factors to increase progression rates to AD/dementia. Innovative strategies will also be needed to recruit and retain subjects given the long follow-up periods, modest perceived benefit and the potential for the risk-benefit ratio to change during the trial. It is foreseeable that regulatory authorities will be presented with primary prevention RCTs for approval and labelling, and that criteria to evaluate such evidence still need to be developed.
Performance evaluation of correlated-fading space-diversity FSO links

In order to analyze the performance of space-diversity free-space optical (FSO) systems over arbitrarily correlated Gamma-Gamma (ΓΓ) fading channels, we approximate the sum of correlated ΓΓ random variables (RVs) by an α-μ RV. We evaluate the bit error rate (BER) performance of a triple-aperture system based on the proposed method and show that there is a good match between the performances obtained by Monte-Carlo simulations using the ΓΓ channel model and via the proposed analytical method based on the approximate α-μ distribution.
Analysis of Outgrowth of Bacillus subtilis Spores Lacking Penicillin-Binding Protein 2a

ABSTRACT The loss of Bacillus subtilis penicillin-binding protein (PBP) 2a, encoded by pbpA, was previously shown to slow spore outgrowth and result in an increased diameter of the outgrowing spore. Further analyses to define the defect inpbpA spore outgrowth have shown that (i) outgrowingpbpA spores exhibited only a slight defect in the rate of peptidoglycan (PG) synthesis compared to wild-type spores, but PG turnover was significantly slowed during outgrowth of pbpAspores; (ii) there was no difference in the location of PG synthesis in outgrowing wild-type and pbpA spores once cell elongation had been initiated; (iii) outgrowth and elongation of pbpAspores were dramatically affected by the levels of monovalent or divalent cations in the medium; (iv) there was a partial redundancy of function between PBP2a and PBP1 or -4 during spore outgrowth; and (v) there was no difference in the structure of PG from outgrowing wild-type spores or spores lacking PBP2a or PBP2a and -4; but also (vi) PG from outgrowing spores lacking PBP1 and -2a had transiently decreased cross-linking compared to PG from outgrowing wild-type spores, possibly due to the loss of transpeptidase activity.
Acute inflammatory proteins constitute the organic matrix of prostatic corpora amylacea and calculi in men with prostate cancer

Corpora amylacea (CA) are a frequent microscopic finding in radical prostatectomy specimens from men undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Although often observed histologically to be associated with inflammation, the contribution of CA to prostatitis-related symptoms of unknown etiology or to prostate carcinogenesis remains unclear. Prostatic calculi (PC), which potentially represent calcified forms of CA, are less common but can cause urological disease including urinary retention and prostatitis. We conducted a comprehensive compositional analysis of CA/PC to gain insight into their biogenesis. Infrared spectroscopy analysis of calculi collected from 23 patients confirmed a prevalence of calcium phosphate in the form of hydroxyapatite. This result sets PC apart from most urinary stones, which largely are composed of calcium oxalate. Tandem mass spectrometry-based proteomic analysis of CA/PC revealed that lactoferrin is the predominant protein component, a result that was confirmed by Western blot analysis. Other proteins identified, including calprotectin, myeloperoxidase, and α-defensins, are proteins contained in neutrophil granules. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) suggested the source of lactoferrin to be prostate-infiltrating neutrophils as well as inflamed prostate epithelium; however, IHC for calprotectin suggested prostate-infiltrating neutrophils as a major source of the protein, because it was absent from other prostate compartments. This study represents a definitive analysis of the protein composition of prostatic CA and calculi and suggests that acute inflammation has a role in their biogenesis—an intriguing finding, given the prevalence of CA in prostatectomy specimens and the hypothesized role for inflammation in prostate carcinogenesis.
Electromagnetic modeling of shielding enclosure for chip structures

Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) design for chip structures requires an accurate electromagnetic (EM) modeling and analysis for involved shielding enclosures which are usually made of conductors. The shielding effectiveness of the enclosure can be evaluated through solving for the electric field inside the enclosure. Traditionally, the problem can be solved by the method of moments (MoM) in integral equation approach, but we propose a Nyström scheme to solve it. The Nyström scheme has several merits compared to the MoM, but it has not been used to analyze the EMC problems with very thin conductors. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the scheme and good results have been obtained.
Temporal distributions of seizure occurrence from various epileptogenic regions

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine whether seizure occurrence in partial epilepsy is under the influence of circadian rhythms and rhythmic exogenous factors, and how this influence varies according to cortical brain region. For these ends, we determined and analyzed detailed temporal distributions of seizures arising from the frontal, parietal, occipital, neocortical temporal, and mesial temporal lobes. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed intracranial EEG recordings from 131 consecutive adult subjects whose partial epilepsy was sufficiently localized for surgical resection. In all, 669 seizures were analyzed: 132 frontal, 77 parietal, 83 occipital, 217 mesial temporal, and 160 neocortical temporal. Results: Seizure distribution was dependent on brain region (p < 10−9). Nonuniform seizure distributions were observed in the parietal (p < 10−4), occipital (p < 10−7), mesial temporal (p < 0.02), and neocortical temporal lobes (p < 0.04). Occipital and parietal seizures occurred in strong gaussian-like distributions, 180° out of phase relative to each other; occipital seizure occurrence peaked between 16:00 and 19:00, whereas parietal seizures peaked between 4:00 and 7:00. Frontal lobe seizures followed a unimodal distribution, peaking between 4:00 and 7:00. Seizures from the mesial temporal lobe were distributed bimodally, with the primary peak in the late afternoon between 16:00 and 19:00 and secondary peak in the morning between 7:00 and 10:00. Neocortical temporal seizures peaked slightly before the primary peak observed in the mesial temporal lobe; however, these distributions did not differ significantly. Conclusions: Seizure occurrence in partial epilepsy is not random. Endogenous circadian rhythms and rhythmic exogenous factors likely play substantial roles in seizure occurrence. These roles vary considerably according to brain region. Frontal and parietal lobe seizures seem most likely to occur nocturnally, whereas occipital and temporal lobe seizures seem to have strong afternoon preferences.
Effect of source of cattle and distance transported to a commercial slaughter facility on carcass bruises in mature beef cows.

OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of source of cattle and distance cattle were transported to a commercial slaughter facility on prevalence and severity of carcass bruises in mature beef cows. DESIGN Epidemiologic investigation. SAMPLE POPULATION Carcasses from 3,955 beef cows from 11 states assembled in 89 procurement lots. PROCEDURE Each carcass was scored for bruise severity and location. Source of cattle was categorized. Distance from source to slaughter facility was determined. An ANCOVA was used to determine effects of variables on carcass bruises. RESULTS Mature beef cows marketed through livestock auctions conducting first-point testing for brucellosis, especially when transported longer distances (> 325 km) to slaughter facilities, had a greater number and severity of carcass bruises than cows originating from ranches or livestock auctions not conducting first-point testing. There was an increase in number of rib bruises in cows originating from livestock auctions not conducting first-point testing. Prevalence and severity of bruises were not significantly affected by transportation distance between cows originating from auctions not conducting first-point testing and cows originating from ranches. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS A strong association existed between handling for brucellosis testing prior to sale for slaughter and distance transported to slaughter facility with carcass bruises in mature beef cows. Bruises are major quality defects that decrease carcass value and slaughter-cow prices. Repeated handling and restraint as well as long-distance transport are issues to consider regarding the responsibility of the livestock industry to provide for the safety and well-being of cattle sold for slaughter.