Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
“Dropped head syndrome” in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A case report

Introduction: The dropped head syndrome (DHS), also called slack head syndrome, was first detailed in 1986. This condition was recognized in 12 patients with various neuromuscular disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). It is characterized by asthenia of the extensor musculature of the neck, with or without asthenia of the flexor musculature of the neck, causing an inability to condition the head support and leading patients to the typical aspect of the flexed head with the chin in contact with the thoracic region. Case Report: We report the case of a 68-year-old female who diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) about two years ago and reported limitations in her daily activities as the disease progressed. In her last visit, dated 03/30/2021, she presented great difficulty in sustaining her head in an anti-gravity position and, when asked to “bend” this region, she was unsuccessful in reerecting it. Need of concentration to maintain the cervical in neutral position and, after minutes, presented extreme fatigue with melting. Jacqueline Fernandes do Nascimento1, Marco Orsini2, Angélica Sabino Pereira Rodrigues1, Roberto Monteiro Leitão1, Nicolle dos Santos Moraes Nunes1, Antônio Marcos da Silva Catharino3 Affiliations: 1Medical Student and Member of the Editorial Team of the Journal of Biological and Health Sciences of the Universidade Iguaçu, Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro, Brazill; 2Physician, Post-Doctorate in Health Sciences, Doctor in Neurology, Master in Collective Health, Professor and Coordinator of the Master's Degree Program in Neurology at the University of Vassouras and Adjunct Professor at the Medical School of the Iguaçu University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; 3Iguaçu University – UNIG – Hospital Geral de Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Corresponding Author: Antônio Marcos da Silva Catharino, Rua Gavião Peixoto 70, Room 811, CEP 24.2230-100, Icaraí, Niterói-RJ, Brazil; Email: neurocurso@globo.com Received: 25 July 2021 Accepted: 16 November 2021 Published: 03 December 2021 Conclusion: Despite being uncommon in ALS, the dropped head syndrome may occur in early or late stages and cause severe consequences to the individual, increasing his dependence and limiting his social interaction and quality of life. Given its numerous etiologies, patients with DHS without an established diagnosis should be investigated for the possible diagnosis of ALS. Measures are essential to prevent the installation of fixed deformities and the early designation of the best therapeutic approach for the patient becomes crucial.
Formulation Strategies for Improving the Stability and Bioavailability of Vitamin D-Fortified Beverages: A Review

Vitamin D is a lipophilic bioactive that plays an important role in bone health. Fortification of beverages, such as milk, fruit juices, teas, and vegetable drinks, could be an efficient strategy to prevent vitamin D deficiency and its associated effects on health. This review summarizes the current understanding of beverage fortification strategies with vitamin D and the resulting effects on the stability, bioaccessibility, and sensory properties of the formulated products. The direct addition technique has been the conventional approach to fortifying beverages. In addition, encapsulation has been pointed out as a desirable delivery approach to increase stability, preserve bioactivity, and enhance the absorption of vitamin D in beverage systems. The literature reports the potential applicability of several methods for encapsulating vitamin D in beverages, including spray drying, micro/nanoemulsions, nanostructured lipid carriers, liposomes, and complexation to polymers. Some of these delivery systems have been assessed regarding vitamin D stability, but there is a lack of kinetic data that allow for the prediction of its stability under industrial processing conditions. Moreover, in some cases, the applicability of some of these delivery systems to real beverages as well as the in vivo efficacy were not evaluated; thus, fortification strategies with a global outreach are lacking.
A Study of China’s Hybrid Monetary Policy on the Stock Market

China's monetary policy has been progressively modified and transformed. In this study, the correlation between Chinese monetary policy and the stock market is investigated. The CSI 300 index, the trading volume of constituent stocks of the CSI 300 index, and M2 and R007 were selected to represent the stock market, quantitative monetary policy and price monetary policy, respectively. The transmission mechanism and regulatory effects of China's hybrid monetary policy on the stock market were studied. Stock prices and trading volume will rise when the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) puts money into the market; if the central bank raises interest rates, stock prices and trading volume will decline, and the regulatory effect of price-based monetary policy will be more significant than that arising from quantitative monetary policy. China's hybrid monetary policy has a dampening effect on stock prices and trading volume and effectively restrains the bubble of the financial market.
Monetary Policy, External Shocks and Economic Growth Dynamics in East Africa: An S-VAR Model

Resulting from the incessant political and economic uncertainty that bedevils the EAC region in the recent past, the various governments have used monetary policy changes in response to shocks from macroeconomic variables. However, the available literature shows a non-agreement by scholars as far as the dynamics in monetary policy, external shocks and macroeconomic activity connections are concerned, for both country-by-country analyses and regional assessments. This article widens the frontiers of knowledge about how the dynamics of monetary policy, external shocks and macroeconomic performance interact within the EAC economic region. We adopted the S-VAR method because of its contemporary nature as far as a transmission of monetary policy approach is concerned. The interconnectivity among the countries of EAC is an indication that any shock to the price of commodities (non-oil commodities) has significant implication on the exchange rate, which will be channelled through the supply of money and monetary policy to the GDP. The need to diversify the productive and export base of member countries, compared to the continuous dependence on one or a few products as the major source of income, is hereby advocated.
Space Syntax in Analysing Bicycle Commuting Routes in Inner Metropolitan Adelaide

Cycling is a particularly favoured for short urban trips because it is a healthy and environmentally benign activity. As a result, urban mobility, quality of life, and public health are enhanced, while traffic congestion and pollution are decreased. In looking beyond the street network in terms of how it affects cyclists’ behavior choices, Bill Hillier’s (1984) outstanding legacy research on spatial space syntax is investigated in this study. The goal of this study is to determine if an urban area’s street network morphology influences commuters’ inclination to ride their bicycles to work. To further understand the nonlinear consequences of street network geometry on the estimation of cycling to work, a logarithmic-transformed regression model that includes base socioeconomic components, urban form, and street network variables represented by space syntax measure factors is developed. In conclusion, this model determined that bike commuting choice is significantly associated with the centrality index of Connectivity, although this is in combination with socioeconomic factors (age, gender, affluence, housing type, and housing price) and built environment factors (share of commercial, educational activities and distance to the CBD) factors. The findings of this study would be of value to planners and policy makers in support of evidence-based policy formulation to improve the design of bicycle networks in suburban regions.
Puerarin mitigates symptoms of depression in ovariectomized female rats by regulating hippocampal cAMP-CREB-BDNF signaling pathway

Purpose: To investigate the effect of puerarin on the symptoms of depression in ovariectomized female rat model, and the mechanism of action involved. Methods: Ninety healthy female Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were assigned to five groups: sham, model, low-dose puerarin, medium-dose puerarin, and high-dose puerarin groups, with 18 rats per group. Changes in the levels of dopamine (DA), norepinephrine (NA), 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT), and apoptosis-related proteins were determined and compared. Results: Compared with the sham group, vertical and horizontal scores, and levels of DA, NA, 5-HT, Bcl-2, p-CREB and BDNF in the model group were significantly decreased. On the other hand, duration of immobility in forced swimming was prolonged, while the concentrations of caspase-1 and ASC increased significantly (p < 0.05). Compared with the model group, with increase in pueraria dose, vertical and horizontal scores, and expression levels of DA, NA, 5-HT, Bcl-2, p-CREB and BDNF of rats were gradually increased, duration of immobility in forced swimming was gradually shortened, and the expression levels of Caspase-1 and ASC w decreased gradually, relative to model group (p < 0.05). Conclusion: Puerarin mitigates depression-like behavior of ovariectomized-depression rats by activating cAMP-CREB-BDNF signaling pathway. Thus, this compound is a potential new lead in the development of drugs for the treatment of depression in ovariectomized women.
Effects of Shoot Apex Removal on Growth and Yield Attributes of Cotton

The current study was designed to investigate the effect of shoot apex removal on the growth and yield attributes of the cotton crop. A field experiment was conducted in the cotton-growing season (2020-2021) at Muzaffargarh, district of South Punjab. The field trial was comprised of two acres of land where one acre of land was considered as treatment (cotton plants with shoot apex removal) and the other acre of land served as a control plot (cotton plants without shoot apex removal). The data were collected fortnightly (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th times) from the randomly selected cotton plants (n=50) from the treated and control plot after fifteen days of treatment (shoot apex removal). The data were comprised of vegetative parameters (i.e., plant height, no. of nodes and leaves), reproductive parameters (i.e., no. of squares, flowers, immature/mature bolls, the opening of bolls and boll weight) and cotton fiber quality parameters [i.e., fiber length, strength, finesse and GOT (ginning outturn)]. Descriptive analysis was employed on all data recorded through an independent two-sample t-test to evaluate the positive effect of shoot apex removal in cotton production. Our results indicated that after removing the top shoot of the cotton plants, greater effects had started to occur in the treated plants such as vegetative growth had become significantly (at p≤0.001) slow down and reproductive growth considerably (at p≤0.01) enhanced. Besides, removal of the shoot apex in cotton plants has developed resistance against the sucking pest i.e., pink bollworm infestation significantly reduced by 50% and whitefly population has lessened by 11%. The results also indicated that this treatment significantly augmented (at p≤0.01) the boll weight by 12%, as well as improved the cotton fiber length, strength and fineness by 7% as compared to the normal cotton plant. It was concluded that shoot apex removal caused cotton plants to produce numerous lateral shoots to develop more branches to carry more cotton bolls on them eventually significantly enhancing the cotton yield by 13% (18 monds acre-1) as compared to the control plot. It can be suggested that the practical implementation of removing the shoot apex of the cotton plant would act as a promising technique to enhance the cotton yield.
Stable carbon isotopic characterization of rice vinegar protein as an intrinsic reference for discriminating the authenticity of brewed rice vinegar

Rice vinegar plays an important role in daily life. However, some unscrupulous manufacturers may deliberately add synthetic acetic acid in vinegar products to reduce fermentation time and save production costs. To protect the rights and health of consumers, vinegar authenticity must be controlled. The rice vinegar protein was used as an intrinsic reference and its stable carbon isotope ratio (δ13Cprotein) was analyzed by elemental analyzer-isotope ratio mass spectrometry. The stable carbon isotope ratio difference between the acetic acid and the rice vinegar protein (Δδ13Cacetic acid-protein) was calculated to evaluate vinegar authenticity. Sixteen rice vinegar samples were analyzed and a stable carbon isotopic pattern of rice vinegar was established by the 95% confidence interval for Δδ13Cacetic acid-protein (0.27‰–2.10‰). An acetic acid adulteration curve of Δδ13Cacetic acid-protein was also assumed according to the data from rice vinegar samples, and its validity was confirmed by rice vinegar deliberately blended with acetic acid at different ratios (25, 50, and 75%). The Δδ13Cacetic acid-protein values of the adulterated vinegars decreased with increasing amounts blended acetic acid, but the δ13Cprotein values did not, showing that rice vinegar protein could be used as an intrinsic reference for identifying the adulterated rice vinegar. The rice vinegar adulterated with acetic acid at higher than approximately 10% could be detected.
A Novel Potential-Flow Boundary Integral Formulation for Helicopter Rotors in BVI Conditions

A direct panel method based on a novel boundary integral formulation for the velocity potential is presented and applied to helicopter rotors experiencing blade-vortex interaction (BVI). It avoids the numerical instabilities arising in the standard direct panel method in case of blade/wake impingement. This aerodynamic solver yields a unified approach for the calculation of free-wake evolution and blade pressure field. It is fully 3D, includes body thickness eects, and can be applied to blades with arbitrary shape and motion. Blade pressure predictions and the corresponding acoustic fields correlate well with wind tunnel test data for helicopter rotors in descent flight, where severe BVI occurs.
Global integrability and weak Harnack estimates for elliptic PDEs in divergence form

This paper is devoted to global estimates for nonnegative supersolutions of divergence-form uniformly elliptic PDE in a given domain. We study bounds in terms of the distance to the boundary, as well as integrability and Lestimates up to the boundary, of supersolutions and their gradients. A fundamental property of superharmonic functions is that positivity entails a quantitative version of itself. Specifically, if u > 0 is superharmonic in a bounded C-domain Ω ⊂ R, then
Developing A Model of News Literacy in Early Adolescents: A Survey Study

ABSTRACT Early adolescents’ insufficient critical engagement with (online) news demands increased application of news literacy, but it remains unclear which factors increase news literacy application. To provide more insights, this survey study develops and tests a model of news literacy application in early adolescents (12‒15 y/o, N = 492). The more comprehensive model looks at the relationship between the application of news literacy and news consumption, knowledge of news media production, news literacy skills, value for (news) media literacy, news literacy and news consumption motivation, social norms, and demographics. Most importantly, the model shows the interconnectedness of news literacy application and news consumption. Furthermore, it shows the importance of early adolescents’ value for (news) media literacy, skills, and motivation to increase their news literacy application, and the lesser importance of news production knowledge. To stimulate the application of news literacy in early adolescents, researchers and practitioners could take a stepwise approach: (1) stimulate intrinsic news consumption motivation and, with that, news consumption, and then (2) build value for (news) media literacy, skills, and peer social norms to stimulate the application of news literacy. In precisely targeting these factors of news literacy application, interventions can empower early adolescents to become more critical news consumers.
The Association between the Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages and Metabolic Syndrome Components in Young Rural Adults in South Africa

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is the key risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) development. However, lifestyle habits including high consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) contribute to its onset. The current study was aimed at investigating the association between SSBs consumption and MetS components among young adults aged 22 to 30 years. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study where a total of 596 young adults (307 females and 287 males) participated. Blood pressure, biochemical assessment, and anthropometric measurements were taken following protocols. A validated 24 h recall questionnaire and food manuals were used to collect SSBs data. Binary logistic regression was applied to determine the association between SSBs consumption and MetS components. Results: In males, high SSBs consumption increased the risk of high fasting blood glucose (FBG) (p < 0.05). In females, high and low SSBs consumption decreased the risk of reduced high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), whereas only high SSBs consumption was associated with decreased risk of high triglycerides (TG) (p < 0.05). In conclusion, high TG, reduced HDL-C and high FBG was significantly associated with high consumption of SSBs. Longitudinal studies are recommended to further investigate the extent to which SSBs influences components of MetS.
Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution

From the Publisher: Videogames first came on the market 30 years ago as a marginal technological curiosity. Now they are virtually everywhere. Videogame sales have equaled movie sales. They are played my more adults than children, and game design can even be studied in college. Yet videogames are still often viewed as a minor form of entertainment, at best shallow, or at worst harmful. Now, Steven Poole argues that videogames are a nascent art form on track to supersede movies as the most popular and innovative form of entertainment in the new century.
Sensors and Instruments for Brix Measurement: A Review

Quality assessment of fruits, vegetables, or beverages involves classifying the products according to the quality traits such as, appearance, texture, flavor, sugar content. The measurement of sugar content, or Brix, as it is commonly known, is an essential part of the quality analysis of the agricultural products and alcoholic beverages. The Brix monitoring of fruit and vegetables by destructive methods includes sensory assessment involving sensory panels, instruments such as refractometer, hydrometer, and liquid chromatography. However, these techniques are manual, time-consuming, and most importantly, the fruits or vegetables are damaged during testing. On the other hand, the traditional sample-based methods involve manual sample collection of the liquid from the tank in fruit/vegetable juice making and in wineries or breweries. Labour ineffectiveness can be a significant drawback of such methods. This review presents recent developments in different destructive and nondestructive Brix measurement techniques focused on fruits, vegetables, and beverages. It is concluded that while there exist a variety of methods and instruments for Brix measurement, traits such as promptness and low cost of analysis, minimal sample preparation, and environmental friendliness are still among the prime requirements of the industry.
Near-Optimal Decentralized Diagnosis via Structural Analysis

Health monitoring of current complex systems significantly impacts the total cost of the system. Centralized fault diagnosis architectures are sometimes prohibitive for large-scale interconnected systems, such as distribution systems, telecommunication networks, water distribution networks, or fluid power systems. Confidentiality constraints are also an issue. This article presents a decentralized fault diagnosis method that only requires the knowledge of local models and limited knowledge of their neighboring subsystems. The method, implemented in the decentralized diagnoser design (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$D^{3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) algorithm, is based on structural analysis and can advantageously be applied to high-dimensional systems, linear or nonlinear. Using the concept of isolation on request, a hierarchy is built according to diagnostic objectives. The resulting diagnoser is based on analytical redundancy relations (ARRs) generated along the hierarchy. Their number is optimized via binary integer linear programming (BILP) while still guaranteeing maximal diagnosability at each level. <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$D^{3}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> proves of lower time complexity than its centralized equivalent. It is successfully applied to a nonlinear combined cycle gas-turbine power plant.
Generalised normal mode expansion method for open and lossy periodic structures

We describe and demonstrate the extension of permittivity mode expansion, which is also know as generalized normal mode expansion (GENOME), to open and lossy periodic structures. The resulting expansion gives a complete spatial characterization of any open periodic structure, via the quasi-periodic Green’s tensor, by a complete, discrete set of modes rather than a continuum. The method has been validated by comparing our expansion of an open waveguide array with a direct scattering calculation. Good agreement was obtained regardless of the source
Current Incorporation and Impact of Computational Biology in Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (Senile Dementia) is a neurological disorder that slowly destroys memory and disseminates thinking skills. Approximately 5 million people are already affected by this disease in the United States. It shows that, up to 2060, the number of patients will increase threefold. With advances in computational biology and next-generation sequence, multiple experimentation are undergoing in exploring the novel and functional role of genes during Alzheimer’s disease. Recently development of next-generation sequence machine and bioinformatics has started to investigate the placement of genetics within the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease, collectively with the consequences of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that have implicated a number of the unconventional genes as risk factors. In this review we discuss the current scenario and advances in computational biology towards Alzheimer’s disease research. Key words: Alzheimer’s disease, next-generation sequence, GWAS, computational modelling, bioinformatics.
Positioning Theory for English-Medium Instruction (EMI) praxis: Insights and implications for teaching and research

Developed as a socio-constructivist theory with the aim of understanding discursive construction of selves, Positioning Theory has been applied to the analysis of conversations and narratives across disciplines. This paper provides an overview of Positioning Theory developed by Rom Harré and his colleagues and describes the basic concepts and principles of the theory. By illustrating how it has been applied to studies in contexts that involve English language learners or teachers, the paper identifies ways that Positioning Theory may positively impact classroom practice and outlines areas for further research that EMI classroom practitioners can carry out. A number of practical guidelines for conducting positioning analysis are also offered.