Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Top 10 Research Questions Related to Physical Activity in Preschool Children

The purpose of this article was to highlight important research needs related to physical activity in 3- to 5-year-old children. We identified research needs in 3 major categories: health effects, patterns of physical activity, and interventions and policies. The top research needs include identifying the health effects of physical activity, the effects of physical activity on the development of healthy weight, the effects of physical activity on learning and behavior, and the health implications of sedentary behavior. Research questions concerning patterns of physical activity include determining the prevalence of 3- to 5-year-olds meeting the current physical activity guidelines; the social and environmental factors that influence physical activity in home, preschool, and community settings; and how physical activity tracks into later childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Research questions about interventions and policies include identifying the most effective strategies to promote physical activity in home, child care, and community settings and to reach diverse populations of young children, identifying effective intervention implementation and dissemination strategies, and determining the effectiveness of national, state, local, and institutional policies for increasing physical activity. In conclusion, research is needed to establish a full understanding of the health implications of physical activity in 3- to 5-year-old children, to better understand the nature of physical activity behavior in this group, and to learn how to promote physical activity in young children.
Hand-held dynamometry: reliability of lower extremity muscle testing in healthy, physically active,young adults.

CONTEXT Hand-held dynamometry (HHD) has been shown to be a reliable, objective way to obtain strength measurements in elderly and physically impaired subjects. OBJECTIVE To estimate the intratester, intertester, and intersession reliability of HHD testing of lower extremity movements in young, healthy subjects. DESIGN Repeated measures. SETTING Sports medicine laboratory. PARTICIPANTS Nine males and eleven females (Mean age = 26 years). MEASUREMENTS Strength measures of 11 right lower extremity movements were taken by 3 different testers on 2 separate days using a HHD. RESULTS Intratester ICC range was . 77 to . 97 with SEM range of . 01 to . 44 kg. Mean intertester ICC range was . 65 to . 87 with SEM range of . 11 to 1.05 kg. Mean intersession ICC range was . 62 to . 92 with SEM range of . 01 to . 83 kg. CONCLUSIONS HHD has the potential to be a reliable tool for strength measurements in healthy, strong subjects; however, there are noteworthy limitations with movements where subjects can overpower the testers.
Research on Catastrophe Insurance in China: Government, Public and Private Partnership

This paper is intended to explore the mechanism of catastrophic insurance in China. First, we examined the causes of catastrophic insurance market failure. Inadequate insurance demand and supply are the main reasons. A new management mode, government, market, and public partnership (GMPP), is put forward and its characteristics, objectives, principles and strategies are discussed This new mode emphasizes the leading role of government, which drives the market into full play through public-private partnership, and induces the public initiatives through public participation. It is emphasized that government, the public, and market should be united to manage risks. The model also suggests that partnerships among government, the public, and market would be maintained. Finally the feasibility of catastrophe insurance program based on GMPP is analyzed.
Moyamoya disease

Moyamoya disease is a specific chronic cerebrovascular occlusive disease first reported by Japanese surgeons in 1957. The disease is characterized by stenosis or occlusion of the terminal portions of the bilateral internal carotid arteries and abnormal vascular network in the vicinity of the arterial occlusion. It may cause ischemic attacks or cerebral infarction, which is more frequent in children than in adults. In adults, cerebral hemorrhage may occur. The disease is distributed in all age groups, but the highest peak is in childhood at less than 10 years of age. The characteristic histopathologic features of the steno‐occlusive arteries are fibrocellular thickening of the intima containing proliferated smooth muscle cells and prominently tortuous and often duplicated internal elastic lamina. There is usually no atheromatous plaque in the arterial wall. Etiology of the disease is still unknown; however, multifactorial inheritance is considered possible because of a higher incidence of the disease in Japanese and Koreans and approximately 10% of familial occurrence among the Japanese. Recent genetic studies suggest some responsible genetic foci in chromosomes 3, 6 and 17.
Automatic region of interest extraction and tracking in coded video sequence

Region of Interest (ROI) plays an important role in many video-based applications such as video monitoring, object tracking, object-based video coding, etc. However, it is still hard to define, extract and track the ROI in a video sequence. A combined scheme is proposed to automatically determine, extract and track the ROI in a coded video sequence. Both the visual attention model in human vision system (HVS) and the temporal motion cues in a video sequence are incorporated to generate the saliency maps and to determine the ROI. The identified ROI is tracked frame to frame in the compressed domain, using only the motion vectors. This idea can be applied to ROI based video coding, adaptation and content delivery, etc.
Aggressive Voltage Scaling Through Fast Correction of Multiple Errors With Seamless Pipeline Operation

Aggressive reduction of timing margins, called timing speculation, is an effective way of reducing the supply voltage for a pipeline circuit and thereby its power consumption. However, probability of timing error increases with the voltage scaling and hence, the errors must be corrected with small cycle penalty. We introduce an improved Razor flip-flop which makes more effective use of its shadow latch, so that a pipeline stage can correct an error while continuing to receive data. This avoids the need for repeated clock gating when timing errors happen simultaneously at different stages, or when an error persists. The new flip-flop also facilitates time-borrowing. Our technique uses less energy than the state-of-the art technique, and the energy saving increases with pipeline length: with 10 stages, 4-9% smaller energy is used.
Changes in the Intraocular Cytokine Levels after Intravitreal Bevacizumab in Uveitic Macular Edema

Purpose: To evaluate the changes in intraocular cytokine after intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) for uveiticcystoid macular edema (CME). Methods: The authors evaluated 9 eyes of 8 patients who underwent IVB for uveitic CME. The aqueous humorlevels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β2were measured using suspension array technology at baseline and 1 month after IVB. Results: The VEGF level was decreased to insignificant level (p = .008). TGF-β2 and TNF-α levels increased significantly (p = .008 and .021, respectively). IL-6 and IL-8 showed no significant change (p = .051 and.110, respectively). Conclusion: IVB resulted in a significant decrease of VEGF levels, which was associated with anatomical improvement of CME at 1 month. Compensatory elevations of proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6 and IL-8) after selective VEGF inhibition were not observed. Marked elevation of TGF-β2 after IVB seems to play an immunosuppressive role.
Utilizing the Assets Acquired from Illegal Conducts A Study of Fiqh Maqâshid of Yûsuf al-Qaradlâwî

Harta merupakan kebutuhan setiap orang yang di dalam Islam mesti didapatkan sesuai dengan aturan-aturan yang benar. Menurut Yusuf al-Qaradlâwi apabila seseorang sudah terlanjur mendapatkan harta dengan cara maksiat, maka yang bersangkutan tidak boleh memanfaatkan harta itu untuk dirinya, sebaliknya harta itu boleh dipergunakan untuk kepentingan umum. Pemikiran hukum ini beranjak dari adanya pertentangan antara konsep larangan memanfaatkan harta haram secara dharuriyah dan konsep larangan menyia-nyiakan harta yang juga berada dalam tingkat dharuriyah. Dengan pendekatan fiqh maqâshid al-Qaradlâwi menyimpulkan bahwa pertentangan antara dua dharuriyah yang berhubungan dengan pemanfaatan harta harus diprioritaskan kepada mafsadah yang lebih kecil dan maslaẖah yang lebih besar. Sehingga dengan demikian harta hasil maksiat tidak boleh dimanfaatkan oleh si pelaku maksiat karena menimbulkan mafsadah yang lebih besar pada dirinya dan tidak ada celah maslaẖah yang didapatkannya. Sebaliknya harta itu boleh dimanfaatkan untuk kepentingan umum, karena terhindar dari mafsadah dan menghasilkan maslaẖah. (An asset is the basic need of every human being, but in Islam, it should be acquired through proper ways according to the rules. Yusuf al-Qaradlâwi argued that if someone has already acquired an asset through immoral acts, then he is forbidden to utilize the asset for himself. On the contrary, the assets could still be utilized for the public benefit. This legal concept is based on the contradiction between the concept of prohibiting the use of illegal assets in dlaruriyah state and the concept of prohibiting the misuse of assets which is also in the dlaruriyah state. With the approach of fiqh maqâshid , al-Qaradlâwi concluded that the conflict between the two dlaruriyah states regarding the utilization of the asset should prioritize less on the mafsadah and more on the masla ẖ ah . Thus, the illegal assets are forbidden to be exploited by immoral act offenders because it generates more mafsadah for him and there are only a few masla ẖ ah he could get. On the contrary, the assets are allowed to be utilized for public benefit since the assets will be protected from mafsadah and will result in masla ẖ ah) .
Distinguishing Representation Deficits and Processing Deficits in a Case of Acquired Dysgraphia

The same acquired disorder of spelling may be due to deficits affecting lexical representations of word spelling or deficits affecting the mechanisms that process those representations. This study sought to distinguish these possibilities in a dysgraphic patient. The integrity of the patient's lexical orthographic representations was assessed by having him decide whether or not pairs of words presented auditorily rhymed. Although the patient was impaired on a variety of spelling tasks and with all types of stimulus material, he showed a normal effect of spelling on the rhyme task. Like normal subjects, he was faster at deciding that words rhymed when they were spelled similarly (e.g. tool-cool) than when they were spelled dissimilarly (e.g. rule-cool) and slower at deciding that words did not rhyme when they were spelled similarly (e.g. toad-broad) than when they were spelled dissimilarly (e.g. code-broad). Therefore, as the patient's lexical representations of word spelling seemed to be generally intact, his spelling problems were probably due to difficulty in processing those representations.
Infectious Entry Pathway Mediated by the Human Endogenous Retrovirus K Envelope Protein

ABSTRACT Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), the majority of which exist as degraded remnants of ancient viruses, comprise approximately 8% of the human genome. The youngest human ERVs (HERVs) belong to the HERV-K(HML-2) subgroup and were endogenized within the past 1 million years. The viral envelope protein (ENV) facilitates the earliest events of endogenization (cellular attachment and entry), and here, we characterize the requirements for HERV-K ENV to mediate infectious cell entry. Cell-cell fusion assays indicate that a minimum of two events are required for fusion, proteolytic processing by furin-like proteases and exposure to acidic pH. We generated an infectious autonomously replicating recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) in which the glycoprotein was replaced by HERV-K ENV. HERV-K ENV imparts an endocytic entry pathway that requires dynamin-mediated membrane scission and endosomal acidification but is distinct from clathrin-dependent or macropinocytic uptake pathways. The lack of impediments to the replication of the VSV core in eukaryotic cells allowed us to broadly survey the HERV-K ENV-dictated tropism. Unlike extant betaretroviral envelopes, which impart a narrow species tropism, we found that HERV-K ENV mediates broad tropism encompassing cells from multiple mammalian and nonmammalian species. We conclude that HERV-K ENV dictates an evolutionarily conserved entry pathway and that the restriction of HERV-K to primate genomes reflects downstream stages of the viral replication cycle. IMPORTANCE Approximately 8% of the human genome is of retroviral origin. While many of those viral genomes have become inactivated, some copies of the most recently endogenized human retrovirus, HERV-K, can encode individual functional proteins. Here, we characterize the envelope protein (ENV) of the virus to define how it mediates infection of cells. We demonstrate that HERV-K ENV undergoes a proteolytic processing step and triggers membrane fusion in response to acidic pH—a strategy common to many viral fusogens. Our data suggest that the infectious entry pathway mediated by this ENV requires endosomal acidification and the GTPase dynamin but does not require clathrin-dependent uptake. In marked contrast to other betaretroviruses, HERV-K ENV imparts broad species tropism in cultured cells. This work provides new insights into the entry pathway of an extinct human virus and provides a powerful tool to further probe the endocytic route by which HERV-K infects cells.
Long Noncoding RNA PVT1 as a Potent Predictor of Prognosis in Cancers: a Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND Plasmacytoma variant translocation 1 (PVT1), an oncogenic long noncoding RNA located in a recognized cancer-risk gene region-8q24, is significantly overexpressed in various cancers. Many studies have found that high expression of PVT1 was correlated with poor prognosis. METHODS This meta-analysis was performed by searching electronic databases Pubmed, Web of Science, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, WanFang, and ChongQing VIP for eligible papers on the prognostic impact and clinicopathological characteristics of PVT1 expression in cancer from inception to January 31, 2017. The hazard ratio (HR) and odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) were computed to estimate the pooled effect of PVT1 on prognosis of cancers using Stata 12.0 version software. RESULTS Thirteen studies were finally included in this review with a total of 1559 patients. The pooled result indicated that overexpressed PVT1 predicts a poorer prognosis of cancerous patients for overall survival (HR = 1.91, 95% CI: 1.61 - 2.26, p < 0.001) and disease-free survival (HR = 1.90, 95% CI: 1.46 - 2.48, p < 0.001) or recurrencefree survival (HR = 1.77, 95% CI: 1.24 - 2.52, p = 0.002) or progression-free survival (HR = 2.84, 95% CI: 1.67 - 4.82, p < 0.001). High expression of PVT1 was closely associated with tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (III/IV vs. I/II: OR = 3.19, 95% CI: 2.43 - 4.18, p < 0.001), and the significant correlation between PVT1 expression and TNM stage is found in T classification (T3/4 vs. T1/2: OR = 6.48, 95% CI: 2.93 - 14.31, p < 0.001) and lymph node metastasis (present vs. absent: OR = 2.56, 95% CI:1.36 - 4.80, p = 0.003), but not in distant metastasis of patients with cancers (yes vs. no: OR = 2.50, 95% CI: 0.72 - 8.66, p = 0.15). Furthermore, the cancerous patients with high PVT1 expression had a worse histological differentiation than those with low PVT1 expression (undifferentiated/poorly vs. moderately/well: OR = 1.48, 95% CI: 1.02 - 2.14, p = 0.039). CONCLUSIONS PVT1 could serve as a potent predicator of prognosis in different types of cancers.
A reusable verification environment for NoC platforms using UVM

Network on Chip (NoC) has emerged as an interconnection solution for the modern digital systems, especially for System on Chip (SoC), due to the large number of IPs in the system that need to communicate. Various systems and routers have been introduced; hence the need to make a reusable verification environment to test both single routers and networks. In this paper, we propose a reusable verification environment for NoC platforms using the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) that tests and verifies both routers and networks in an easily modifiable manner to fit various routers and networks. The environment also evaluates performance parameters such as injection rate, throughput and latency.
Mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// design for a decentralized discrete variable structure control with application to mobile robots

In this paper, a decentralized discrete variable structure control via mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// design was developed. In the beginning, the H/sub 2/-norm of output error and weighted control input was minimized to obtain a control such that smaller energy consumption with bounded tracking error was assured. In addition, a suitable selection of this weighted function (connected with frequency) could reduce the effect of disturbance on the control input. However, an output disturbance caused by the interactions among subsystems, modeling error, and external load deteriorated system performance or even brought about instability. In this situation, the H/sub /spl infin//-norm of weighted sensitivity between output disturbance and output error was minimized to attenuate the effect of output disturbance. Moreover, an appropriate selection of this weighted function (related to frequency) could reject the corresponding output disturbance. No solution of Diophantine equation was required; the computational advantage was especially dominated for low-order system. For further improving system performance, a switching control for every subsystem was designed. The proposed control (mixed H/sub 2//H/sub /spl infin// DDVSC) was a three-step design method. The stability of the overall system was verified by Lyapunov stability criterion. The simulations and experiments of mobile robot were carried out to evaluate the usefulness of the proposed method.
Novel Mechanisms of Trafficking Defect Caused by KCNQ1 Mutations Found in Long QT Syndrome*

Long QT syndrome (LQTS) is a hereditary arrhythmia caused by mutations in genes for cardiac ion channels, including a potassium channel, KvLQT1. Inheritance of LQTS is usually autosomal-dominant, but autosomal-recessive inheritance can be observed in patients with LQTS accompanied by hearing loss. In this study, we investigated the functional alterations caused by KCNQ1 mutations, a deletion (delV595) and a frameshift (P631fs/19), which were identified in compound heterozygous state in two patients with autosomal-recessive LQTS not accompanied by hearing loss. Functional analyses showed that both mutations impaired cell surface expression due to trafficking defects. The mutations severely affected outward potassium currents without apparent dominant negative effects. It was found that delV595 impaired subunit binding, whereas P631fs/19 was retained in endoplasmic reticulum due to the newly added 19-amino acid sequence containing two retention motifs (R633GR and R646LR). This is the first report of novel mechanisms for trafficking abnormality of cardiac ion channels, providing us new insights into the molecular mechanisms of LQTS.
A Thiolase of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Is Required for Virulence and Production of Androstenedione and Androstadienedione from Cholesterol

ABSTRACT Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, is an intracellular pathogen that shifts to a lipid-based metabolism in the host. Moreover, metabolism of the host lipid cholesterol plays an important role in M. tuberculosis infection. We used transcriptional profiling to identify genes transcriptionally regulated by cholesterol and KstR (Rv3574), a TetR-like repressor. The fadA5 (Rv3546) gene, annotated as a lipid-metabolizing thiolase, the expression of which is upregulated by cholesterol and repressed by KstR, was deleted in M. tuberculosis H37Rv. We demonstrated that fadA5 is required for utilization of cholesterol as a sole carbon source in vitro and for full virulence of M. tuberculosis in the chronic stage of mouse lung infection. Cholesterol is not toxic to the fadA5 mutant strain, and, therefore, toxicity does not account for its attenuation. We show that the wild-type strain, H37Rv, metabolizes cholesterol to androst-4-ene-3,17-dione (AD) and androsta-1,4-diene-3,17-dione (ADD) and exports these metabolites into the medium, whereas the fadA5 mutant strain is defective for this activity. We demonstrate that FadA5 catalyzes the thiolysis of acetoacetyl-coenzyme A (CoA). This catalytic activity is consistent with a β-ketoacyl-CoA thiolase function in cholesterol β-oxidation that is required for the production of androsterones. We conclude that the attenuated phenotype of the fadA5 mutant is a consequence of disrupted cholesterol metabolism that is essential only in the persistent stage of M. tuberculosis infection and may be caused by the inability to produce AD/ADD from cholesterol.
Disc Degeneration/Back Pain and Calcification of the Abdominal Aorta: A 25‐Year Follow‐Up Study in Framingham

Study Design. A 25‐year follow‐up study of 606 members of the population‐based Framingham cohort, who had received lateral lumbar radiographs in 1967‐1968 and 1992‐1993, and completed an interview on back symptoms at the second examination. Objectives. To evaluate whether calcific lesions in the posterior wall of the abdominal aorta, the source of the feeding arteries of the lumbar spine, are associated with disc degeneration or back pain, which would suggest that ischemia of the lumbar spine leads to disc degeneration. Methods. The presence of radiographic aortic calcification was ascertained in front of each lumbar segment from L1 through L4, and disc degeneration at intervertebral spaces from L1‐L2 through L4‐L5. The associations between aortic calcification, disc degeneration, and back pain were tested using logistic regression with adjustment for age and sex. Results. At the baseline examination, aortic calcification was significantly associated with general disc degeneration, that is, disc space narrowing or endplate sclerosis at any lumbar level (odds ratio 1.6; 95% confidence interval 1.0‐2.5; P = 0.034). In longitudinal, level‐specific analyses, comparing local aortic calcifications with disc degeneration at the matching level, aortic calcifications predicted disc deterioration, that is, a decrease in disc space or appearance of endplate sclerosis, between the examinations (odds ratio 1.5; 95% confidence interval 1.3‐1.8; P < 0.001). Furthermore, subjects in whom aortic calcifications developed between the examinations had disc deterioration twice as frequently as those in whom aortic calcifications did not develop (odds ratio 2.0; 95% confidence interval 1.2‐3.5; P = 0.013). Also, individuals with severe (Grade 3) posterior aortic calcification in front of any lumbar segment were more likely than others to report back pain during adult life (odds ratio 1.6; 95% confidence interval 1.1‐2.2; P = 0.014). Conclusions. Advanced aortic atherosclerosis, presenting as calcific deposits in the posterior wall of the aorta, increases a person's risk for development of disc degeneration and is associated with the occurrence of back pain.