Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modified Six-Minute Walk Test: Number of Steps per Second

The 6-min walk test (6MWT) has been used to examine subjective dyspnea, predict mortality and measure clinical outcomes in studies of patients with chronic pulmonary or heart disease. Although the 6MWT is useful to assess the general ability to perform daily physical activity, it is difficult to evaluate time-dependent responses. To improve the 6MWT, we devised a new index, which is the number of steps walked per second (NSPS). We performed the 6MWT in 11 healthy subjects and 7 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and calculated the NSPS. The mean NSPS was significantly higher in the healthy subjects than in the COPD patients, while the coefficient of variation of the NSPS was significantly smaller in healthy subjects compared with COPD patients. Calculation of the NSPS was useful to evaluate the walking pattern. This modified 6MWT may be helpful for assessing the efficacy of rehabilitation and drug therapy for COPD.
Lumbar disc degeneration is an equally important risk factor as lumbar fusion for causing adjacent segment disc disease

Treatment of degenerative spinal disorders by fusion produces abnormal mechanical conditions at mobile segments above or below the site of spinal disorders and is clinically referred to as adjacent segments disc disease (ASDD) or transition syndrome in the case of a previous surgical treatment. The aim of the current study is to understand with the help of poro‐elastic finite element models how single or two level degeneration of lower lumbar levels influences motions at adjacent levels and compare the findings to motions produced by single or two level fusions when the adjacent disk has varying degree of degeneration. Validated grade‐specific finite element models including varying grades of disc degeneration at lower lumbar levels with and without fusion were developed and used to determine motions at all levels of the lumbar spine due to applied moment loads. Results showed that adjacent disc motions do depend on severity of disc degeneration, number of disc degenerated or fused, and level at which degeneration or fusion occurred. Furthermore, single level degeneration and single level fusion produced similar amount of adjacent disc motions. The pattern of increase in adjacent segment motions due to disc degeneration and increase in motions at segment adjacent to fusion was similar. Based on the current study, it can be concluded that disc degeneration should also be considered as a risk factor in addition to fusion for generating adjacent disc degeneration. © 2016 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 35:123–130, 2017.
Seeking information, seeking connections, seeking meaning: genealogists and family historians

Genealogy and family history are examples of everyday life information seeking and provide a unique example of intensive and extensive use of libraries and archives over time. In spite of the ongoing nature of this activity, genealogists and family historians have rarely been the subject of study in the information seeking literature and therefore the nature of their information problems have not been explored. This article discusses findings from a qualitative study based on twenty-nine in-depth, semistructured interviews with genealogists and family historians and observations of their personal information management practices. Results indicated that the search for factual information often led to one for orienting information. Finding ancestors in the past was also a means of finding one's own identity in the present. Family history is also an activity without a clear end goal; after the ancestry chart is filled in the search continues for more information about the lives of one's forebears. Thus, family history should be viewed as an ongoing process of seeking meaning. The ultimate need is not a fact or date, but to create a larger narrative, connect with others in the past and in the present, and to find coherence in one's own life.
Late transport of vitamin B 12 by transcobalamin II.

Abstract Current concepts of plasma transport of vitamin B 12 (B-12) hold that transcobalamin II (TC II) carries B-12 as it is absorbed from the intestine while transcobalamin I (TC I) carries it subsequently. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether TC II had a role in late B-12 transport by measuring it through its native B-12 label as detected by bioassay with Euglena gracilis . The basic procedure was the fractionation of serum by gel filtration and the subsequent assay of the native B-12 associated with the B-12-binding proteins. The identity of TC II was confirmed by bath carboxymethyl cellulose chromatography and analytic gel filtration. In 6 normal persons on typical diets nearly 30 per cent of the total native serum B-12 was bound to TC II. Neither a one week or a one month B-12-free diet significantly changed the amount of plasma B-12 bound to TC II. Three gastrectomized patients whose B-12 intake had been eliminated for 2.5 to 12 weeks also had detectable native B-12 bound to TC II. The demonstration of significant amounts of native B-12 bound to TC II, even after extended periods free of B-12 intake, suggest that TC II carries B-12 in stages of transport later than postabsorption.
3D Shape measurement system based on structure light and polarization analysis

The problem of 3D shape acquisition has received increasing attention in recent years. Recently the structure light measurements system based on digital light projection supported by processing allow to rapid acquisition of data about 3D real objects. Obtaining 3D shape of objects in optically scattering media presents a challenging set of problems. Many applications for 3D imaging through fog, dust, mist, rain and turbid water require improving the quality of data obtained in scattered media. Presented 3D shape measurement system is supported by polarization image analysis. Enhancement of image quality is realized using the detector unit with special liquid crystal filter.
Defending shilling attacks in recommender systems using soft co-clustering

Shilling attacks have been a significant vulnerability to collaborative filtering based recommender systems recently. There are various studies focusing on detecting shilling attack users and developing robust recommendation algorithms against shilling attacks. Although many studies have been devoted in this area, few of them use soft co-clustering and consider both labelled and unlabelled user profiles. In this work, the authors explore the benefits of combining soft co-clustering algorithm with user propensity similarity method and present a soft co-clustering with propensity similarity model or CCPS for short, to detect shilling attacks. Then they perform experiments using MovieLens dataset and Jester dataset to analyse it with respect to shilling attack detection to demonstrate the effectiveness of CCPS model in detecting traditional and hybrid shilling attacks and enhance the robustness of recommender systems.
Weighted Fitness Model in Complex Networks

Systems as diverse as genetic networks or the World Wide Web are best described as networks with complex topology. A common property of many large networks is that the vertex connectivities follow a scale-free power-law distribution. This feature was found to be a consequence of three generic mechanisms: (i) networks expand continuously by the addition of new vertices, (ii) new vertex with different number edges of weighted selected that connected to different vertices in the system, and (iii) by the fitness probability Πi that a new vertices attach preferentially to sites that are already well connected. Uncovering this fitter-gets-richer phenomenon can help us understand in quantitative terms the evolution of many competitive systems in nature and society and Internet.
Rupture of tibialis anterior associated with a closed midshaft tibial fracture.

Correspondence to: Mr Robert Din, 11 Southcote Road, Tufnell Park, London N19 5BJ. A 41 year old man presented after a road traffic accident. He was a motorcyclist travelling at 30 mph and was thrown from his motorcycle. Physical examination was unremarkable apart from a painful deformed right lower limb, with neurovascular structures intact. Radiography revealed a midshaft oblique fracture of the right tibia and fibula, with normal knee and ankle joints, as shown in fig 1. The midshaft tibia fracture was subsequently treated with a Russel Taylor interlock-
Single-channel conductances of NMDA receptors expressed from cloned cDNAs: comparison with native receptors

To cast light on the subunit composition of native NMDA-type glutamate receptors, four cloned subunits of the NMDA receptor have been expressed, in pairs, in Xenopus oocytes, and their single-channel properties have been measured. The conductances of the channels, and their characteristic patterns of sublevel transitions, turn out to be useful diagnostic criteria for subunit composition. The NR1—NR2A and NR1-NR2B combinations (which have identical TM2 sequences) are very similar to each other. Both have 50 pS openings and brief 40 pS sublevels (in 1 mM external Ca2+), with similar mean lifetimes and frequencies. They also show close quantitative resemblance to the channels of hippocampal CA1 and dentate gyrus cells and of cerebellar granule cells, except that the NR1—NR2A combination has a lower glycine sensitivity than the native channels. In contrast, the NR1-NR2C combination produces a channel with 36 pS and 19 pS conductances of similar (brief) duration; these closely resemble the 38-18 pS channels that have previously been observed in large cerebellar neurons in culture (together with 50 pS channels).
Adaptation for multiple cue integration

Many classification tasks can be carried out by casting a domain-specific problem to general graph representation (with objects to be organized as graph nodes and pairwise similarities as graph edges) followed by a graph partition. In this paper, an adaptation scheme is proposed to integrate multiple graphs from various cues to a single graph, such that the distance between the ideal transition probability matrix to the one derived from cue integration is minimized. Four different distance measures, i.e., the Frobenius norm, the Kullback-Leibler directed divergence, the Jeffrey divergence and the cross entropy, are investigated to minimize the discrepancy. It is shown that the minimization leads to a closed-form nonlinear optimization that can be solved by the Levenberg-Marguardt method. Domain and task-specific knowledge is explored to facilitate the generic pattern classification task. Experimental results are demonstrated for image content description by multiple cue integration.
Nature and distribution of feline sarcoma virus nucleotide sequences

The genomes of three independent isolates of feline sarcoma virus (FeSV) were compared by molecular hybridization techniques. Using complementary DNAs prepared from two strains, SM- and ST-FeSV, common complementary DNA'S were selected by sequential hybridization to FeSV and feline leukemia virus RNAs. These DNAs were shown to be highly related among the three independent sarcoma virus isolates. FeSV-specific complementary DNAs were prepared by selection for hybridization by the homologous FeSV RNA and against hybridization by fline leukemia virus RNA. Sarcoma virus-specific sequences of SM-FeSV were shown to differ from those of either ST- or GA-FeSV strains, whereas ST-FeSV-specific DNA shared extensive sequence homology with GA-FeSV. By molecular hybridization, each set of FeSV-specific sequences was demonstrated to be present in normal cat cellular DNA in approximately one copy per haploid genome and was conserved throughout Felidae. In contrast, FeSV-common sequences were present in multiple DNA copies and were found only in Mediterranean cats. The present results are consistent with the concept that each FeSV strain has arisen by a mechanism involving recombination between feline leukemia virus and cat cellular DNA sequences, the latter represented within the cat genome in a manner analogous to that of a cellular gene.
Lehren und Lernen : Einfuehrung in die Instruktionspsychologie

Es wird ein Lehr-Lern-Konzept vorgestellt, das die vorhandenen Phaenomene im Bereich Lehren und Lernen erklaert, und es wird gezeigt, wie man die Lehr-Lern-Prozesse moeglichst guenstig steuern kann. Die Darstellungen beruhen auf der Grundlage der kognitivistisch orientierten Psychologie mit ihren Modellen der Informationsverarbeitung. - Inhalt: (1) Grundlagen der Lehr-Lern-Forschung. (2) Starten mit der Definition des Lehrziels. (3) Curriculumkonstruktion. (4) Das Lehr-Lern-Prozessmodell. (5) Steuerungs- und Motivierungsfunktion. (6) Informationsfunktion. (7) Informationsverarbeitungsfunktion. (8) Speicher- und Abruffunktion. (9) Transferfunktion. (10) Darbietendes oder entdeckenlassendes Lehren? (11) Sozialformen des Unterrichts. (12) Das Lernen lehren. (13) Individuelle Unterschiede beruecksichtigen. (14) Lernen mit neuen Medien. (15) Lernerfolg: Feststellung und Bewertung.
Solar Particle Events in the QinetiQ Atmospheric Radiation Model

Models have been embodied within the QinetiQ atmospheric radiation model (QARM) to compute enhancements during major solar particle events and the influence of any concurrent geomagnetic storms that lower the cut-off rigidity. Predictions are compared with available in-flight measurements and extended to give worst case estimates for a number of aircraft routes. It is found that during solar particle events the gradients of particle fluxes with respect to altitude and geomagnetic latitude are so steep that doses and fluences are extremely sensitive to both geomagnetic conditions and the exact route.
EUS-guided Choledochoduodenostomy Versus Hepaticogastrostomy: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background and Aims: Endoscopic ultrasound-guided biliary drainage (EUS-BD) has emerged as an alternative in cases of endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) failure. Two types of EUS-BD methods for achieving biliary drainage when ERCP fails are choledochoduodenostomy (CDS) or hepaticogastrostomy (HGS). However, there is no consensus if one approach is better than the other. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate these 2 main EUS-BD methods. Methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane database, LILACS from inception through April 8, 2017, using the following search terms in various combinations: biliary drainage, biliary stent, transluminal biliary drainage, choledochoduodenostomy, hepaticogastrostomy, endoscopic ultrasound-guided biliary drainage. We selected studies comparing CDS and HGS in patients with malignant biliary obstruction with ERCP failure. Pooled odds ratio (OR) were calculated for technical success, clinical success, and adverse events and difference of means calculated for duration of procedure and survival after procedure. Results: A total of 10 studies with 434 patients were included in the meta-analysis: 208 underwent biliary drainage via HGS and the remaining 226 via CDS. The technical success for CDS and HGS was 94.1% and 93.7%, respectively, pooled OR=0.96 [95% confidence interval (CI)=0.39-2.33, I2=0%]. Clinical success was 88.5% in CDS and 84.5% in HGS, pooled OR=0.76 (95% CI=0.42-1.35, I2=17%). There was no difference for adverse events OR=0.97 (95% CI=0.60-1.56), I2=37%. CDS was about 2 minutes faster with a pooled difference in means of was −2.69 (95% CI=−4.44 to −0.95). Conclusion: EUS-CDS and EUS-HGS have equal efficacy and safety, and are both associated with a very high technical and clinical success. The choice of approach may be selected based on patient anatomy.
Planar endfire circularly polarized antenna with unidirectional radiation

A single-layer single-fed endfire antenna with circular polarization and unidirectional radiation for X-band applications is proposed. The design is based upon two complementary Yagi-Uda arrays and the series feeding technique. Simulated results confirm a usable bandwidth (the common overlapped bandwidth limited by the 3-dB AR and −10-dB |S11|) of 1.0% can be achieved. At 10 GHz, the gain is 7.23 dBic and the front-to-back ratio is 14.45 dB. The overall antenna size is 1.05λ<inf>0</inf>×0. 65λ<inf>0</inf> while the profile is only 0. 026λ<inf>0</inf>.
Deuterium-labeled phylloquinone fed to α-tocopherol-injected rats demonstrates sensitivity of low phylloquinone-containing tissues to menaquinone-4 depletion.

SCOPE The influence of excess α-tocopherol (α-T) on tissue depletion of phylloquinone (PK) and menaquinone-4 (MK-4) was evaluated. METHODS AND RESULTS Rats (n = 5 per group) were fed deuterium-labeled PK (2 μmol/kg diet) for 17 days, thereby labeling the conversion from deuterium-labeled PK to d₄-MK-4. Then they were injected subcutaneously daily for the last 7 days with saline, vehicle, or α-T (100 mg/kg body weight). α-T injections (i) increased α-T concentrations by tenfold in liver, doubled them in plasma and most tissues, but they were unchanged in brain; (ii) increased the α-T metabolite, carboxyethyl hydroxychromanol (α-CEHC) concentrations: >25-fold in liver and kidney, tenfold in plasma and lung, and 50-fold in heart; brain contained detectable α-CEHC (0.26 ± 0.03 nmol/g) only in α-T-injected animals; and (iii) depleted most tissues' vitamin K. Compared with vehicle-injected rats, brains from α-T rats contained half the total vitamin K (10.3 ± 0.5 versus 21 ± 2 pmol/g, p = 0.0002) and one-third the d₄-MK-4 (5.8 ± 0.5 versus 14.6 ± 1.7 pmol/g, p = 0.0002). Tissues with high PK concentrations (liver, 21-30 pmol/g and heart, 28-50 pmol/g) were resistant to K depletion. CONCLUSION We propose that α-T-dependent vitamin K depletion is likely mediated at an intermediate step in MK-4 production; thus, tissues with high PK are unaffected.
Selective TNF-α inhibitor-induced injection site reactions

Introduction: During the last decade, many new biological immune modulators entered the market as new therapeutic principles. TNF-α is a pro-inflammatory cytokine known to a have a key role in the pathogenic mechanisms of various immune-mediated or inflammatory diseases. TNF-α blockers have demonstrated efficacy in large, randomized controlled clinical trials either as monotherapy or in combination with other anti-inflammatory or disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs. Areas covered: Although generally well tolerated and safe, potential adverse events may be associated with TNF-α inhibitor treatment. The authors will briefly review the potential adverse drug reactions and the immunological mechanisms of injection site reactions (ISRs) in patients treated with etanercept and adalimumab. Expert opinion: Patients treated with TNF-α inhibitors can develop ISR around the sites of injections. ‘Type IV delayed type reaction' or ‘recall ISRs'. Eosinophilic cellulitis or ‘Wells syndrome', ‘Type III' and ‘Type I' reactions are reported. Long-term studies are necessary to determine the durability of response and the real risk of ISRs with golimumab and certolizumab pegol. Further studies are also necessary to evaluate the immunogenicity of these drugs.
Mitochondrial haplotype does not affect sperm velocity in the zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation has been suggested as a possible cause of variation in male fertility because sperm activity is tightly coupled to mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and ATP production, both of which are sensitive to mtDNA mutations. Since male‐specific phenotypes such as sperm have no fitness consequences for mitochondria due to maternal mitochondrial (and mtDNA) inheritance, mtDNA mutations that are deleterious in males but which have negligible or no fitness effect in females can persist in populations. How often such mutations arise and persist is virtually unknown. To test whether there were associations between mtDNA variation and sperm performance, we haplotyped 250 zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata from a large pedigreed‐population and measured sperm velocity using computer‐assisted sperm analysis. Using quantitative genetic ‘animal’ models, we found no effect of mtDNA haplotype on sperm velocity. Therefore, there is no evidence that in this system mitochondrial mutations have asymmetric fitness effects on males and females, leading to genetic variation in male fertility that is blind to natural selection.
High transverse momentum triggered correlations over a large pseudorapidity acceptance in Au+Au collisions at s(NN)**1/2 = 200 GeV

A measurement of two-particle correlations with a high transverse momentum trigger particle (p{sub T}{sup trig}>2.5 GeV/c) is presented for Au+Au collisions at sq root(s{sub NN})=200 GeV over the uniquely broad longitudinal acceptance of the PHOBOS detector (-4<{Delta}{eta}<2). A broadening of the away-side azimuthal correlation compared to elementary collisions is observed at all {Delta}{eta}. As in p+p collisions, the near side is characterized by a peak of correlated partners at small angle relative to the trigger particle. However, in central Au+Au collisions an additional correlation extended in {Delta}{eta} and known as the 'ridge' is found to reach at least |{Delta}{eta}|approx =4. The ridge yield is largely independent of {Delta}{eta} over the measured range, and it decreases towards more peripheral collisions. For the chosen p{sub T}{sup trig} cut, the ridge yield is consistent with zero for events with less than roughly 100 participating nucleons.
Probabilistic uncertainty quantification and experiment design for nonlinear models: Applications in systems biology

Dinh, Vu Cao Duy Thien Ph.D., Purdue University, December 2014. Probabilistic Uncertainty Quantification and Experiment design for nonlinear models: applications in systems biology. Major Professors: Gregery T. Buzzard. Despite the ever-increasing interest in understanding biology at the system level, there are several factors that hinder studies and analyses of biological systems. First, unlike systems from other applied fields whose parameters can be effectively identified, biological systems are usually unidentifiable, even in the ideal case when all possible system outputs are known with high accuracy. Second, the presence of multivariate bifurcations often leads the system to behaviors that are completely different in nature. In such cases, system outputs (as function of parameters/inputs) are usually discontinuous or have sharp transitions across domains with different behaviors. Finally, models from systems biology are usually strongly nonlinear with large numbers of parameters and complex interactions. This results in high computational costs of model simulations that are required to study the systems, an issue that becomes more and more problematic when the dimensionality of the system increases. Similarly, wet-lab experiments to gather information about the biological model of interest are usually strictly constrained by research budget and experimental settings. The choice of experiments/simulations for inference, therefore, needs to be carefully addressed. The work presented in this dissertation develops strategies to address theoretical and practical limitations in uncertainty quantification and experimental design of non-linear mathematical models, applied in the context of systems biology. This work resolves those issues by focusing on three separate but related approaches: (i) the use of probabilistic frameworks for uncertainty quantification in the face of unidentifiability