Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Longitudinal analysis of physical activity and symptoms as predictors of change in functional limitations and disability in multiple sclerosis.

OBJECTIVE This longitudinal, observational study examined changes in physical activity and symptoms as correlates of changes in functional limitations and disability across a 6-month period among individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). METHOD Individuals with MS wore an accelerometer for a 7-day period and completed a battery of measures including the Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire (Godin & Shephard, 1985), Symptom Inventory (Schwartz, Vollmer, & Lee, 1999), MS-Related Symptom Checklist (Gulick, 1989), and abbreviated Late-Life Function and Disability Inventory (McAuley, Konopack, Motl, Rosengren, & Morris, 2005) at baseline (n = 292) and 6-month follow-up (n = 276). The data were analyzed using panel analysis with latent variables in AMOS 16.0. RESULTS The standardized coefficients indicated that (a) change in physical activity was associated with residual change in function (beta = .22), (b) change in symptoms was associated with residual changes in both function (beta = -.29) and disability (gamma = -.15), and (c) change in function was associated with residual change in disability (beta = .20). CONCLUSION Our findings indicate that change in physical activity is associated with change in disability through a pathway that is consistent with Nagi's (1976) Disablement Model and its extension in individuals with MS.
The cosmetic appearance of the biceps muscle after long-head tenotomy versus tenodesis.

PURPOSE This study evaluates the cosmetic appearance of the biceps muscle after arthroscopic, intra-articular biceps tenotomy versus tenodesis by presenting subjective outcome results in patients with refractive bicipital pain. TYPE OF STUDY Retrospective study evaluating clinical follow-up of patients with refractive and chronic bicipital pain. METHODS Five consecutive years of patients receiving biceps tenotomy (80 patients; 40 males, 40 females; average age, 58 years) or tenodesis (80 patients; 51 males, 29 females; average age, 54 years) procedures were retrospectively followed-up by grading anterior shoulder pain, muscle spasms in the biceps, and cosmetic deformity of the biceps muscle. Statistics were done by chi(2) analysis. RESULTS When assessing the follow-up questions, no statistical significance was found between the biceps tenotomy and biceps tenodesis groups. There was also no statistical significance when comparing the biceps tenotomy and biceps tenodesis groups when evaluating only the men, women, and men versus women with respect to the questions assessed. CONCLUSIONS In the majority of patients in which a biceps tenotomy is performed, we note that the cosmetic appearance of the biceps muscle, the grade of muscle spasms of the biceps, and the level of anterior shoulder pain would present with little difference than if a tenodesis had been performed. Therefore, a biceps tenotomy may be a reasonable alternative to a biceps tenodesis in patients with refractive and chronic bicipital pain.
A load feedback based resource scheduling algorithm for IaaS cloud platform

In this paper, we integrate Hadoop onto IaaS cloud platform and propose a new Dynamic Hadoop Cluster on IaaS (DHCI) architecture. In DHCI architecture, three key modules are designed, they are monitoring module, virtual machine management module and scheduling module. The load information of both physical hosts and virtual machines are collected by the monitoring module, and can be used for designing a load feedback based resource scheduling algorithm. The basic idea of the solution is to dynamically balance the load of physical hosts and virtual machines by differentiated service. Simulation results show that our solution can balance workload and improve system performance.
HIV Protease Inhibitor Induces Fatty Acid and Sterol Biosynthesis in Liver and Adipose Tissues Due to the Accumulation of Activated Sterol Regulatory Element-binding Proteins in the Nucleus*

The mechanism by which human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) protease inhibitor therapy adversely induces lipodystrophy and hyperlipidemia has not been defined. This study explored the mechanism associated with the adverse effects of the prototype protease inhibitor ritonavir in mice. Ritonavir treatment increased plasma triglyceride and cholesterol levels through increased fatty acid and cholesterol biosynthesis in adipose and liver. Ritonavir treatment also resulted in hepatic steatosis and hepatomegaly. These abnormalities, which were especially pronounced after feeding a Western type high fat diet, were due to ritonavir-induced accumulation of the activated forms of sterol regulatory binding protein (SREBP)-1 and -2 in the nucleus of liver and adipose, resulting in elevated expression of lipid metabolism genes. Interestingly, protease inhibitor treatment did not alter SREBP mRNA levels in these tissues. Thus, the adverse lipid abnormalities associated with protease inhibitor therapy are caused by the constitutive induction of lipid biosynthesis in liver and adipose tissues due to the accumulation of activated SREBP in the nucleus.
B Cell Antigen Receptor and CD40 Differentially Regulate CD22 Tyrosine Phosphorylation1

Cell surface molecules on lymphocytes positively or negatively modulate the Ag receptor signaling, and thus regulate the fate of the cell. CD22 is a B cell-specific cell surface protein that contains multiple ITIMs in the cytoplasmic tail, and critically regulates B cell activation and survival. CD22 regulation on B cell signaling is complex because CD22 can have both positive and negative roles in various contexts. We generated phosphospecific polyclonal Abs reacting four major CD22 tyrosine motifs (Y762, Y807, Y822, and Y842) and analyzed the pattern and intensity of phosphorylation of these tyrosine residues. The tyrosine motifs, Y762, Y822, and Y842, are considered as ITIM, whereas the other, Y807, is suggested to be important for Grb2 recruitment. Approximately 10% of the four tyrosine residues were constitutively phosphorylated. Upon anti-IgM ligation, CD22 Y762 underwent most rapid phosphorylation, whereas all four tyrosine residues were eventually phosphorylated equally at ∼35% of all CD22 molecules in the cell. By contrast, anti-CD40 stimulation specifically up-regulated anti-IgM-induced phosphorylation of tyrosines within two ITIM motifs, Y762 and Y842, which was consistent with in vivo finding of the negative role of CD22 in CD40 signaling. Thus, CD22 phosphorylation is not only quantitatively but also qualitatively regulated by different stimulations, which may determine the outcome of B cell signaling.
Deep belief networks for sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis is a highly popular issue both in academic and engineering fields. Nowadays there is an increasingly large amount of online opinion resources, so people are inclined to develop some systems that can automatically determine the polarities of opinions, especially in the decision-making process of a company. On the other hand, deep learning is a recently developed popular topic and has received much attention in machine learning area. Deep belief network (DBN) is one important deep learning model, which has proved powerful in many domains including natural language processing. However, there still exist some big challenges for DBNs in sentiment analysis because of the complexity to express opinions. Therefore, this study tries to improve DBNs in sentiment analysis area from the following three aspects: (1) The neuron models are investigated in DBNs for sentiment prediction. We perform various experiments and apply both total accuracy and F-measure to evaluate the performance, which proves that Gaussian neuron model with specific parameter setting has better effect. (2) In addition
Spherical harmonic molecular surfaces

Starlike surfaces can be defined in spherical coordinates by a function r( theta , phi ) on the unit sphere, which can be expanded in spherical harmonics to give a consequence of smooth approximations to the surface. This method has been used to approximate the solvent-accessible surface of a molecule. The coefficients in the expansion provide a small collection of numbers that characterize the molecular shape. The resulting smooth surfaces can be rendered with random dots or smooth shading. These spherical harmonic surfaces have advantages for modeling overall molecular shape, particularly time-averaged shapes relevant to electrostatic and other intermolecular interactions. <<ETX>>
Results of urgent thrombolysis in patients with major stroke and atherothrombotic occlusion of the cervical internal carotid artery.

PURPOSE Atherothrombotic occlusion of the cervical internal carotid artery (ICA) without collateral flow is one of the most critical forms of acute ischemia. We report the results of urgent thrombolytic treatment of patients with major stroke in this clinical category. METHODS Clinical findings and outcome in 33 patients were investigated. All patients had suffered a major stroke, with a score of 24 or higher on the NIH Stroke Scale on admission. Ischemic abnormalities were not detected on initial CT studies. Diagnoses were made at angiography, and patients were treated by intravenous or intraarterial local thrombolysis within 6 hours of stroke onset. RESULTS Recanalization was accomplished in eight patients with intraarterial local thrombolysis; four of these patients had a good clinical outcome. Two factors characteristic of those whose treatment was successful were dramatic improvement of symptoms after partial recanalization achieved within 3 hours of onset and stabilized improvement after subsequent percutaneous transluminal angioplasty or carotid endarterectomy for residual atherosclerotic stenosis at the ICA origin. CONCLUSION The results of this study suggest that urgent intraarterial local thrombolysis may be a successful treatment method for some patients in this critical clinical category if the treatment can be accomplished within 3 hours of ictus and followed by either angioplasty or endarterectomy for residual stenosis.
The missing link: How university managers mediate the impact of a performance-based research funding system

The impact of Performance-based Research Funding System (PRFS) has received increasing attention in recent years. However, the literature has focused on individual-level or country-level effects, mostly ignoring the ‘missing link’ between PRFSs and their effects: university managers. Drawing upon the sociology of numbers and theories of organizational translation, this article uses the concepts of actionability and legitimacy to analyse how and why managers at two Danish universities undertook local translations of a new Bibliometric Research Indicator (BRI). While scholars have emphasized how research evaluation systems can be either strong or weak by design, this study demonstrates how local managers to some extent make national systems strong or weak. The study also finds though that managers’ translations are conditioned by a range of background factors. These factors are identified as financial incentives, problem definitions, indicator competition, and identity and culture.
Comparison of Thiafenantil-Xylazine and Carfentanil-Xylazine for Immobilization of Gemsbok (Oryx gazella)

Abstract This study compared immobilization of gemsbok (Oryx gazella) using thiafentanil-xylazine (TX) versus carfentanil-xylazine (CX). Twelve adult gemsboks were divided into two groups, TX and CX. Each group received either 6 mg thiafentanil (0.036 µg/kg (0.032–0.040 µg/kg) and 20 mg xylazine (TX) or 3.6 mg carfentanil (0.021 µg/kg (0.017–0.024 µg/kg) and 20 mg xylazine (CX). Once handled, physiologic measurements were taken every 5 min for 20 min. There were few physiologic differences between the groups, although TX gemsboks were more hypertensive. Quality of induction, quality of recovery, depth of anesthesia, and muscle relaxation were subjectively assessed. Although TX gemsboks showed a trend for more-rapid induction and recovery postantagonist administration, this difference was not statistically significant. Similarly, there was a trend for TX animals to have smoother inductions and improved immobilization quality, but only the quality of induction was significantly different. These trends suggest that TX is preferable to CX when anesthetizing adult gemsboks.
A study of dropout behavior in the Portuguese Higher Education System, with an application to Masters Programs in Economics

Despite continued efforts towards improving higher education, not much has been written on dropout behavior in Portugal. This work aims to fill this gap by studying dropout behavior in the Portuguese higher education system. An extensive review of the existing literature is presented, tacking the subject matter of this dissertation from various perspectives. It is accompanied by a brief history of the Portuguese higher education, which helps understand the current landscape of the system. Both of these aid in understanding dropout behavior and contribute towards the selection of the determinants included. Using these select determinants of dropout, we analyze how this behavior relates to Portuguese students. Three different regressions were calculated, with the first regarding the entire student population, the second focusing in master’s degrees in general and the third on 2 nd degrees in the field of Economics. We employ a Negative Binomial Regression Model on the chosen database, in order to measure the impact of the selected variables on dropout in Portuguese tertiary education. Finally, we formulate and answer a set of research questions related with dropout behavior. This allows us to reach several conclusions regarding dropout in Portuguese higher education, paying particular attention to master’s degrees in Economics.
Losartan protects the heart against ischemia reperfusion injury: sirtuin3 involvement.

PURPOSE Sirtuin-3 (SIRT3) deacetylase protects the heart against oxidative stress via survival factors upregulation. Clinical and experimental studies have demonstrated that activation of systemic and local renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is implicated in ischemia-induced cardiac injury. However, the relation between RAS and SIRT3 in pathophysiology of myocardial ischemia reperfusion is unknown. In this study, the cardiac transcription and expression of SIRT3 levels was examined in response to ischemia reperfusion in untreated and losartan treated rats. METHODS Rats were divided into control group, losartan group (L), and ischemia reperfusion (IR) groups with (L+IR) or without losatran pretreatment. Some rats were included as sham-operated and saline groups. IR was induced by left anterior descending artery occlusion. SIRT3 protein levels were determined by Western blot technique. The genes expression was specified by real-time RT-PCR. Arrhythmias were assessed according to the Lambeth conventions. RESULTS In L+IR group a significant reduction was noted in the number of ventricular ectopic beats (VEBs) and episodes of ventricular tachycardia (VT) (VEBs: P<0.001; VT: P<0.01 vs. IR). In IR group, SIRT3 protein level was decreased in the ischemic tissue by 26.7±5.9% (P<0.01 vs. Control). However, in the non-ischemic tissue the changes of SIRT3 protein content were not significant. In L+IR group SIRT3 protein levels in the ischemic part of Left ventricle were significantly different from IR group (P<0.001). SIRT3 mRNA level did not change significantly among the experimental groups. Thioredoxin-1 and catalase transcription level was increased in L+IR group compared to IR group (P<0.01). CONCLUSION A decreased SIRT3 protein levels subsequent to IR might be a novel signaling mechanism involved in IR injury. Losartan at non-hypotensive dose exerts anti-ischemic effects in part by normalizing the SIRT3 protein level and upregulating the survival factors encoding genes transcription in ischemic tissue of the heart.
Effect of Exercise on Cognitive Performance in Community‐Dwelling Older Adults: Review of Intervention Trials and Recommendations for Public Health Practice and Research

There is evidence from observational studies that increasing physical activity may reduce the risk of cognitive decline in older adults. Exercise intervention trials have found conflicting results. A systematic review of physical activity and exercise intervention trials on cognition in older adults was conducted. Six scientific databases and reference lists of previous reviews were searched. Thirty studies were eligible for inclusion. Articles were grouped into intervention–outcome pairings. Interventions were grouped as cardiorespiratory, strength, and multicomponent exercises. Cognitive outcomes were general cognition, executive function, memory, reaction time, attention, cognitive processing, visuospatial, and language. An eight‐member multidisciplinary panel rated the quality and effectiveness of each pairing. Although there were some positive studies, the panel did not find sufficient evidence that physical activity or exercise improved cognition in older adults. Future research should report exercise adherence, use longer study durations, and determine the clinical relevance of measures used.
Eye tracking for assessment of workload: a pilot study in an anaesthesia simulator environment.

BACKGROUND Workload assessment is an important tool for improving patient safety in anaesthesia. We tested the hypothesis that heart rate, pupil size, and duration of fixation increase, whereas saccade amplitude decreases with increased workload during simulated critical incidents. METHODS Fifteen trainee anaesthetists participated in this randomized cross-over trial. Each participant used a head-mounted eye-tracking device (EyeSeeCam) during induction of general anaesthesia in a full-scale simulation during three different sessions. No critical incident was simulated in the first session. In a randomized order, workload was increased by simulation of a critical incident in the second or third session. Pupil size, duration of fixations, saccadic amplitude, and heart rate of each participant and the simulator conditions were recorded continuously and synchronized. The data were analysed by paired sample t-tests and mixed-effects regression analysis. RESULTS The findings of the second and third sessions of 11 participants were analysed. Pupil diameter and heart rate increased simultaneously as the severity of the simulated critical incident increased. Allowing for individual effects, the simulator conditions explained 92.6% of the variance in pupil diameter and 93.6% of the variance in heart rate (both P<0.001). The duration of fixation decreased with increased workload. The saccadic amplitude remained unaffected by workload changes. CONCLUSIONS Pupil size and heart rate reflect workload increase within simulator sessions, but they do not permit overall workload comparisons between individuals or sessions. Contrary to our assumption, the duration of fixation decreased with increased workload. Saccade amplitude did not reflect workload fluctuations.
Flash flood warning system using SCADA system: Laboratory level

Flash flood is one of the natural disasters that cause severe damage in many parts around the world. The large numbers of villager who reside along the stream side suffer by losing their accommodations, properties, and life. The reason that made flash flood very dangerous is abruptly happening with no proper warning. The flash flood and landslide warning system are developed to forecast and warn the citizens who live in the risky area. Various criteria are selected under the Meteorology theory. This research focuses on measuring the varying of the water level and flow rate of the stream. Sets of sensors are going to be installed along the stream located from the upper stream to the village area. The sensors node has been developed to measure the interesting data. It able to work as a standalone self-powered by photovoltaic cell and as a remote terminal of sensor network system. Each node consists of local controller which is able to process the raw data and the communication module which is functioned to send the information to the server. The industrial control system SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system is selected to work as a central control program of the warning system. The HMI (Human Machine Interface) is designed based on the contour map of the interest area. The developed system has been tested in two phrases the standalone sensor node and the network test. The laboratory results show that the system able to measure the level precisely and real-time. Each of remote terminals can utilize the power generated by photovoltaic cell sufficiently. The SCADA system can retrieve the information from each sensor nodes correctly.
The Database ‘Revolution’

In this article, I counter persistent claims of big data revolutionising managerial decision making, by tracing the technological and cultural origins of data-based management in the United States back to the 1970s and 1980s using historical source materials from the trade magazine Datamation. I argue that innovations in database technology within this period – database management systems and the relational database model – shaped and reinforced a data-based mindset. This mindset, I demonstrate, is manifested in four interlinked concepts of data: data as asset, data as raw, data as reality, and data as relatable. These concepts, I argue, provide a basis for current associations of big data with ideological values of objectivity and truthfulness. The article contributes to a growing body of work in media and communication studies that deconstructs the ideological discourses facilitating big data’s unquestioned integration in the business world.
Accuracy Performance of a Time-of-Flight CMOS Range Image Sensor System

This paper analyzes the performance of an indirect time-of-flight (ITOF) complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) range image sensor. A number of experiments were performed to measure the actual performance of the system under test and to highlight its strength and weak points, with a focus on which limits are related to the design and which are intrinsic in the operating principle. The evaluated system allows fast and accurate measurements, but pixel-level calibration is needed to achieve high accuracy over the whole image. Simple temporal or spatial filtering allows a significant reduction in the measurement uncertainty.
The prepare pilot RCT of home-based progressive resistance exercises for venous leg ulcers.

OBJECTIVE To establish the feasibility of conducting a home-based progressive resistance exercise programme to improve calf muscle pump function in community-based patients with venous leg ulcers. METHOD Participants were randomised to receive a 12-week progressive resistance exercise programme using heel raises in addition to compression. The control was usual care in addition to compression. Randomisation was stratified by ulcer duration and ulcer size. Air plethysmography was used to determine changes in calf muscle pump function from baseline. Changes in ulcer parameters were measured using the SilhouetteMobile device. RESULTS Forty participants were randomised. There were significantly greater improvements in ejection fraction of the calf muscle in the exercise group compared with the control (usual care) group (mean difference 18.5%, 95% CI 0.03 to 36.6%, p<0.05). Other parameters improved in the exercise group but the mean differences were not significant. Adherence with prescribed exercises was 81% and there was no significant difference in the numbers reporting adverse events. There were also no significant differences in ulcer healing parameters (change in area, percentage change in area, number healed at 12 weeks, time to healing). CONCLUSION A community-based randomised trial of progressive resistance exercise is feasible. The prescribed exercises appeared to increase ejection fraction, but the effect of exercise on ulcer healing requires further investigation.