Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
THID, the next step of chipless RFID

This paper discusses recent advances in chipless RFID technology. It describes coding methods and storage capacity in RF domain, where the information is coded on the surface of the tags (conductive portion printed on the support constitutes the tag). It extends the concept of chipless RFID to THz domain where the information is coded into the volume of the tag, i.e. in the stack of different dielectric layers. Encoding of 16 bits is explained as an example. Several examples of RF and THz tags are reported and their design and performance are carried out and discussed. Many remarkable results are obtained. Tag fabrication on paper substrate using flexographic technique is also incorporated.
Adiponectin and its receptors in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis

Background: Adiponectin, an adipocyte derived polypeptide, has been shown to alleviate steatosis and inflammation in mice with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Aim: In the present study, we wished to define liver expression of adiponectin and its receptors in morbidly obese patients undergoing bariatric surgery. Patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) or simple steatosis were investigated to test whether dysregulation of this system might be involved in these disorders. Patients and methods: Liver mRNA expression of adiponectin and its recently cloned receptors RI and RII (adipoRI and adipoRII) were analysed by fluorescence based real time polymerase chain reaction in 13 patients with NASH and nine with simple steatosis. Adiponectin and adipoRII protein expression were assessed by immunohistochemistry in a subgroup of patients. Results: Adiponectin and adipoRII mRNA expression were significantly reduced in liver biopsies of patients with NASH compared with simple steatosis while no difference was found in adipoRI mRNA expression. In NASH, adipoRII mRNA expression was negatively correlated with serum aspartate aminotransferase levels, serum alanine aminotransferase levels, and grade of fibrosis. Liver adiponectin protein expression was mainly found in endothelial cells of portal vessels and liver sinusoids whereas adipoRII expression was seen in hepatocytes only. Adiponectin and adipoRII staining were lower in biopsies of subjects with NASH compared with simple steatosis. Conclusion: Reduced hepatic expression of adiponectin and adipoRII might be of pathophysiological relevance in non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases.
Nursing Care of Patients With Gastrointestinal Cancer: A Staff Development Approach

This article discusses how staff development educators can conduct an innovative class for nurses caring for patients with gastrointestinal cancer. The nurse’s role in caring for these patients includes knowledge of the pathophysiology, risk factors, detection methods, signs and symptoms, treatments, conventional and integrative holistic nursing interventions, and community resources. However, consideration should be given to the total learning experience rather than technical skills alone.
Traditional Chinese Exercises for Pulmonary Rehabilitation: EVIDENCE FROM A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

BACKGROUND: Qigong (QG) and tai chi (TC), alternative forms of exercise based on traditional Chinese medicine, are reported to be beneficial to patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). This systematic review analyzed the evidence and made recommendations for clinical applications and future research. METHODS: Key words “qigong,” “tai chi,” “COPD,” and “randomized controlled trial” or corresponding terms in Chinese were searched using MEDLINE, EMBASE, and 3 Chinese databases. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on QG and/or TC for patients with COPD were included. The quality of each RCT was appraised using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. Outcome variables that were reported by greater than one-third of the RCTs were pooled for analysis. RESULTS: A total of 37 RCTs were identified, with 12 matching the inclusion criteria. The average PEDro score was 5.25, indicating that limitations were noted in the methodology. Only forced expiratory volume in the first second of expiration/forced vital capacity ratio and the 6-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) distance were common outcome measures in greater than one-third of the RCTs. The weighted mean differences and the 95% CI estimation for mean gains in forced expiratory volume in the first second of expiration/forced vital capacity ratio and mean gains in 6MWT distance between QG/TC and conventional exercise groups were 0.62 (95% CI, 0.30-0.93) and 12.18 (95% CI, 10.32-14.05) m, respectively. The corresponding values between QG/TC and no exercise groups were 2.90 (95% CI, 2.37-3.43) and 37.77 (95% CI, 35.42-40.12) m, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: This systematic review supports the therapeutic value of QG/TC in patients with COPD and highlights areas for future research.
Prevention of benzo(a)pyrene‐induced mutagenicity by homogeneous epoxide hydratase

Benzo(a)pyrene and benz(a)anthrancene which, in contrast to the K‐region epoxides benzo(a)pyrene 4,5‐oxide and benz(a)anthracene 5,6‐oxide, are not mutagenic to Salmonella typhimurium TA 1537 in the absence of mammalian enzyme preparations, were activated by liver microsomes from C3H mice, which had not received any pretreatment, to mutagens reverting this tester strain to histidine prototrophy. Addition of epoxide hydratase inhibitors greatly increased this mutagenicity and addition of pure epoxide hydratase reduced it by more than 95% down to the range of spontaneous mutations as observed in absence of any added mutagen. This demonstrates that the metabolic pathway responsible for the mutagenicity of both polycyclic hydrocarbons observed in this system proceeds entirely via an epoxidation pathway and that the responsible metabolites are epoxides or species arising from them. Moreover, further metabolism by epoxide hydratase does not lead to products contributing to the mutagenicity observed with the tester strain used. Finally, the epoxides relevant for the observed mutagenicity are substrates for epoxide hydratase; indeed, modest amounts of the pure enzyme can prevent the mutagenic effect.
User-Centric Heterogeneity-Aware MapReduce Job Provisioning in the Public Cloud

Cloud datacenters are becoming increasingly heterogeneous with respect to the hardware on which virtual machine (VM) instances are hosted. As a result, ostensibly identical instances in the cloud show significant performance variability depending on the physical machines that host them. In our case study on Amazon’s EC2 public cloud, we observe that the average execution time of Hadoop MapReduce jobs vary by up to 30% in spite of using identical VM instances for the Hadoop cluster. In this paper, we propose and develop U-CHAMPION, a user-centric middleware that automates job provisioning and configuration of the Hadoop MapReduce framework in a public cloud to improve job performance and reduce the cost of leasing VM instances. It addresses the unique challenges of hardware heterogeneity-aware job provisioning in the public cloud through a novel selective-instance-reacquisition technique. It applies a collaborative filtering technique based on UV Decomposition for online estimation of ad-hoc job execution time. We have implemented U-CHAMPION on Amazon EC2 and compared it with a representative automatedMapReduce job provisioning system. Experimental results with the PUMA benchmarks show that U-CHAMPION improves MapReduce job performance and reduces the cost of leasing VM instances by as much as 21%.
Myosin Regulatory Light Chain Phosphorylation Attenuates Cardiac Hypertrophy*

Hyperphosphorylation of myosin regulatory light chain (RLC) in cardiac muscle is proposed to cause compensatory hypertrophy. We therefore investigated potential mechanisms in genetically modified mice. Transgenic (TG) mice were generated to overexpress Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent myosin light chain kinase specifically in cardiomyocytes. Phosphorylation of sarcomeric cardiac RLC and cytoplasmic nonmuscle RLC increased markedly in hearts from TG mice compared with hearts from wild-type (WT) mice. Quantitative measures of RLC phosphorylation revealed no spatial gradients. No significant hypertrophy or structural abnormalities were observed up to 6 months of age in hearts of TG mice compared with WT animals. Hearts and cardiomyocytes from WT animals subjected to voluntary running exercise and isoproterenol treatment showed hypertrophic cardiac responses, but the responses for TG mice were attenuated. Additional biochemical measurements indicated that overexpression of the Ca2+/calmodulin-binding kinase did not perturb other Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent processes involving Ca2+/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II or the protein phosphatase calcineurin. Thus, increased myosin RLC phosphorylation per se does not cause cardiac hypertrophy and probably inhibits physiological and pathophysiological hypertrophy by contributing to enhanced contractile performance and efficiency.
AIDS, mobility and commercial sex in Ethiopia: Implications for policy

Abstract Since the emergence of the AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, male mobility has been highlighted as one of the reasons for the spread of the disease with men employing the services of commercial sex workers while away from home. However, sex workers’ mobility and the implications of this for their access to prevention services, has largely been ignored. This paper, based on multi-method qualitative research with 60 young sex workers in two Ethiopian towns, reveals that sex workers are highly mobile, moving in order to attract a wider or different client base, for adventure and to conceal illnesses which might be associated with AIDS. In addition, sex workers are affected by restrictions on their movements, with girls working in bars and red-light areas having little free time to access projects. This paper advocates that policy approaches need to take account of this mobility in three ways: first, by exploring ways for girls to access information and maintain contact with support structures while moving between places of work; second, by building the capacity of sex workers to take greater control over decision-making in their day-to-day lives and third, by developing outreach strategies for taking services into bars and red-light areas.
Evaluating cluster configurations for big data processing: an exploratory study

As data continues to grow rapidly, NoSQL clusters have been increasingly adopted to address the storage and processing demands of these large amounts of data. In parallel, cloud computing is also increasingly being adopted due to its flexibility, cost efficiency and scalability. However, evaluating and modelling NoSQL clusters present many challenges. In this work, we explore these challenges by performing a series of experiments with various configurations. The intuition is that this process is laborious and expensive and the goal of our experiments is to confirm this intuition and to identify the factors that impact the performance of a Big Data cluster. Our experiments mostly focus on three factors: data compression, data schema and cluster topology. We performed a number of experiments based on these factors and measured and compared the response times of the resulting configurations. Eventually, the outcomes of our study are encapsulated in a performance model that predicts the cluster's response time as a function of the incoming workload and evaluates the cluster's performance less costly and faster. This systematic and effortless evaluation method will facilitate the selection and migration to a better cluster as the performance and budget goals change. We use HBase as the large data processing cluster and we conduct our experiments on traffic data from a large city and on a distributed community cloud infrastructure.
Circadian variation of aqueous humor dynamics in older healthy adults.

PURPOSE Intraocular pressure in the sitting position changes minimally during sleep, although aqueous humor flow decreases by 50% or more at night. The explanation for this apparent discrepancy has been unclear. This study investigated the roles of outflow facility, episcleral venous pressure (EVP), and uveoscleral outflow in maintaining IOP at night. METHODS Forty-two eyes of 21 healthy subjects (age 47-76 years, mean 59 years) were studied. Aqueous humor flow rate, IOP in the sitting position, outflow facility, and EVP were measured in each eye during the middiurnal period (2:00-4:00 PM). Uveoscleral flow was calculated from the other variables by using the modified Goldmann equation. These variables were remeasured during the midnocturnal period (2:00-4:00 AM) and compared with those measured during the diurnal period by using generalized estimating equation models. RESULTS Intraocular pressure did not change from the middiurnal period (13.9 ± 3.0 mm Hg) to the midnocturnal period (13.0 ± 1.8 mm Hg, mean ± SD, P = 0.07), although aqueous humor flow rate decreased from 2.48 ± 0.96 μL/min to 1.27 ± 0.63 μL/min (P < 0.001). Outflow facility decreased from 0.23 ± 0.06 μL/min/mm Hg to 0.20 ± 0.06 μL/min/mm Hg (P = 0.004), and EVP was unchanged from the middiurnal period (7.4 ± 1.8 mm Hg) to the midnocturnal period (7.4 ± 2.2 mm Hg, P = 0.95). Uveoscleral outflow decreased 93%, from 0.94 ± 1.26 μL/min during the middiurnal period to 0.07 ± 0.78 μL/min (P = 0.008) during the midnocturnal period. CONCLUSIONS The nocturnal decrease in aqueous humor flow rate in older, healthy subjects is compensated by a small decrease in outflow facility and a large decrease in uveoscleral outflow to maintain a stable IOP.
ANÁLISE MULTIVARIADA E IDENTIFICAÇÃO DOS PADRÕES DE DESFLORESTAMENTO NO ESTADO DO PARÁ-AMAZÔNIA-BRASIL, 2000 Á 2009

As consideracoes sobre desflorestamento na Amazonia e em particular no estado do Para tem rotulado a pecuaria como a principal atividade responsavel pela conversao de florestas primarias e na abertura de novas fronteiras de producao. Este estudo avalia a veracidade destas assertivas e assumi a presenca de fortes interacoes entre as atividades como pressuposto teorico. Em termos gerais investiga a variabilidade comum que dimensiona a dinâmica de desflorestamento e estima um indice de desmatamento para o estado – IDE, especificamente identifica as cargas fatoriais que revelam padroes de desflorestamento segundo as principais atividades produtivas. A utilizacao das tecnicas de multivariada pelo Metodo de Componentes Principais – MCP revelou um elevado peso da atividade agropecuaria na explicacao do desflorestamento e permitiu localizar espacialmente a concentracao de outras atividades que respondem pelo mesmo problema descaracterizando a pecuaria como a unica causa do desflorestamento no estado.
Measurement of NO in biological samples

Although the physiological regulatory function of the gasotransmitter NO (a diatomic free radical) was discovered decades ago, NO is still in the frontline research in biomedicine. NO has been implicated in a variety of physiological and pathological processes; therefore, pharmacological modulation of NO levels in various tissues may have significant therapeutic value. NO is generated by NOS in most of cell types and by non‐enzymatic reactions. Measurement of NO is technically difficult due to its rapid chemical reactions with a wide range of molecules, such as, for example, free radicals, metals, thiols, etc. Therefore, there are still several contradictory findings on the role of NO in different biological processes. In this review, we briefly discuss the major techniques suitable for measurement of NO (electron paramagnetic resonance, electrochemistry, fluorometry) and its derivatives in biological samples (nitrite/nitrate, NOS, cGMP, nitrosothiols) and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each method. We conclude that to obtain a meaningful insight into the role of NO and NO modulator compounds in physiological or pathological processes, concomitant assessment of NO synthesis, NO content, as well as molecular targets and reaction products of NO is recommended.
Blind separation of noisy images using finite Ridgelet Transform and wavelet de-noising

This paper deals with the problem of blind separation of digital images from noisy mixtures. It proposes the application of a blind separation algorithm on Ridgelet Transform (RT) of the mixed images, instead of performing the separation on the mixtures in the time domain. Soft Wavelet thresholding denoising of the noisy mixtures is recommended in this paper as a preprocessing step for noise reduction. Ridgelet transform is a new directional multi-resolution transform and is more suitable for describing the signals with high dimensional singularities. Finite Ridgelet Transform (FRIT) is a discrete version of ridgelet transform, which is a numerical precision as the continuous ridgelet transform and has low computational complexity. Comparing with time domain, ridgelets find more application on image separation, hence it represents smooth and edge parts of image with sparsity. In addition, the representation of ridgelets contains more directional information. The mixtures images are extracted using ICA which is based on blind source separation technique. The simulation results reveal that the performance of ridgelet transform is better when compared to time domain in digital images separation. The Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Segmental Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNRseg) are used to evaluate the quality of the separated images.
Impact of oral probiotics on neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants

Abstract Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the neurodevelopment outcomes of very low birth weight (VLBW) preterm infants supplemented with oral probiotics for the prevention of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Methods: A prospective follow-up study was performed in a cohort of VLBW preterm infants enrolled in a single center randomized controlled clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of oral probiotics for the prevention of NEC. Cognitive and neuromotor developments were assessed by using the Bayley scales of infant development II. Sensory and neurological performance was evaluated by standard techniques. The primary outcome was neurodevelopmental impairment at 18–24 months’ corrected age. Results: A total of 400 infants completed the trial protocol. Of the 370 infants eligible for follow-up, 249 infants (124 in the probiotics group and 125 in the control group) were evaluated. There was no significant difference in any of the neurodevelopmental and sensory outcomes between the two groups. Conclusion: Oral probiotic given to VLBW infants to reduce the incidense and severity of NEC started with the first feed did not affect neuromotor, neurosensory and cognitive outcomes at 18–24 months’ corrected age.
Conduite de la psychothérapie d'inspiration psychanalytique auprès de la personne âgée hospitalisée au long cours

Le patient âge hospitalise, confronte a la maladie, a la perte de son autonomie, eloigne de son milieu de vie habituel, doit, dans le meme temps, faire face a l’experience de la vie en institution et en collectivite. Si l’institution hospitaliere accueille, soigne et prend en charge le sujet âge, elle est aussi source de desarroi, de desorientation, et engendre une prise de conscience douloureuse du declin de soi. On peut se demander quelle forme de psychotherapie est appropriee a cette situation particuliere du malade âge. I1 s’avere determinant de permettre tout d’abord a la personne âgee hospitalisee de retrouver sa dimension psychique, restaurer dans la mesure du possible son identite vacillante et, par la parole, l’encourager a tisser des liens entre son monde interne, ses experiences et l’environnement. Neutralite bienveillante, distance transferentielle sont discutees, et une approche plus intervenante est proposee, dont les poles determinants s’appuient sur une ecoute chaleureuse, une stimulation de l’appetence relationnelle, l’etablissement d’une relation etayante et une relance de la vie psychique.
Values and Beliefs of Vegetarians and Omnivores

Abstract Following the claim by some anthropologists and sociologists that 1 symbolic meaning of meat is a preference for hierarchical domination (C. J. Adams, 1990; N. Fiddes, 1989; D. D. Heisley, 1990; J. Twigg, 1983), the authors compared the values and beliefs of vegetarians and omnivores in 2 studies conducted in New Zealand. They compared the full range of vegetarians and omnivores on right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, human values, and consumption values. The participants tending toward omnivorism differed from those leaning toward veganism and vegetarianism in 2 principal ways: The omnivores (a) were more likely to endorse hierarchical domination and (b) placed less importance on emotional states. Accordingly, the acceptance or rejection of meat co-varied with the acceptance or rejection of the values associated with meat; that finding suggests that individuals consume meat and embrace its symbolism in ways consistent with their self-definitions.
An Alternative Method to Niskin Sampling for More Accurate Metatranscriptomic Analysis of the Marine Environment

The development of low-cost, open-source Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) systems has provided almost unrestricted access for researchers looking to monitor the marine environment in ever greater resolution. Sampling microbial communities from the marine environment, however, still usually relies on Niskin-bottle sampling (ROV or CTD based), a method which introduces an inaccuracy and variability that is incompatible with metatranscriptomic analysis. Here, we describe a versatile, easily-replicated platform which achieves in situ mRNA preservation, via the addition of RNAlater to filtered microbial cells, to enhance ROV or CTD functionality.
An ellipsoid constrained quadratic programming perspective to discriminative training of HMMs

In this paper, we reformulate the optimization in discriminative training (DT) of HMMs as an ellipsoid constrained quadratic programming (ECQP) problem, where a second order of the non-linear space is adopted. We show that the unique optimal solution of ECQP can be obtained by an efﬁcient line search and no relaxation is needed as in a general quadratically constrained quadratic programming (QCQP). Moreover, a subspace combination condition is introduced to further simplify it under certain cases. The concrete ECQP form of DT of HMMs is given based on a locality constraint and reasonable assumptions, and the algorithm can be conducted to update Gaussians jointly or separately in either sequential or batch mode. Under the perspective of ECQP, relationships between various popular DT optimization algorithms are discussed. Experimental results on two recognition tasks show that ECQP considerably outperforms other popular algorithms in terms of ﬁnal recognition accuracy and convergence speed in iterations.
Studies on the Toxic Interaction Mechanism between 2‐Naphthylamine and Herring Sperm DNA

The toxic interaction between 2‐naphthylamine (2‐NA) and herring sperm deoxyribonucleic acid (hs‐DNA) has been thoroughly investigated by UV absorption, fluorescence, and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopic methods. UV absorption result indicates that 2‐NA may intercalate into the stack base pairs of DNA during the toxic interaction of 2‐NA with DNA. A fluorescence quenching study shows that DNA quenches the intrinsic fluorescence of 2‐NA via a static pathway. The studies on effects of ionic strength and anionic quenching rule out electrostatic and groove bindings as the dominant binding modes. Further studies on denatured DNA fluorescence quenching and thermal melting studies confirm that the dominant binding mode of 2‐NA‐DNA is intercalative binding. A CD spectral study shows that the binding interaction of 2‐NA with DNA leads to the disorganization of the neat double‐helical structure of hs‐DNA. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J BiochemMol Toxicol 27:279‐285, 2013; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/jbt.21488