jimnoneill/paper-to-field-training huggingface dataset:
Is Neuropsychological Development Related to Maternal Hypothyroidism or to Maternal Hypothyroxinemia?

Several recent publications have drawn attention to the role of the thyroid hormone status of the mother on the future neuropsychological development of the child.The screening of pregnant women for clinical or subclinical hypothyroidism based on second trimester elevated maternal TSH values has been proposed.Here, we have summarized present epidemiological and experimental evidence strongly suggesting that conditions resulting in first trimester hypothyroxinemia (a low for gestational age circulating maternal free T 4 , whether or not TSH is increased) pose an increased risk for poor neuropsychological development of the fetus.This would be a consequence of decreased availability of maternal T 4 to the developing brain, its only source of thyroid hormone during the first trimester; T 4 is the required substrate for the ontogenically regulated generation of T 3 in the amounts needed for optimal development in different brain structures, both temporally and spatially.Normal maternal T 3

Topic: Thyroid Disorders and Treatments
Subfield: Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Practical Speech Re-use Prevention in Voice-driven Services

Voice-driven services (VDS) are being used in a variety of applications ranging from smart home control to payments using digital assistants. The input to such services is often captured via an open voice channel, e.g., using a microphone, in an unsupervised setting. One of the key operational security requirements in such setting is the freshness of the input speech. We present AEOLUS, a security overlay that proactively embeds a dynamic acoustic nonce at the time of user interaction, and detects the presence of the embedded nonce in the recorded speech to ensure freshness. We demonstrate that acoustic nonce can (i) be reliably embedded and retrieved, and (ii) be non-disruptive (and even imperceptible) to a VDS user. Optimal parameters (acoustic nonce's operating frequency, amplitude, and bitrate) are determined for (i) and (ii) from a practical perspective. Experimental results show that AEOLUS yields 0.5% FRR at 0% FAR for speech re-use prevention upto a distance of 4 meters in three real-world environments with different background noise levels. We also conduct a user study with 120 participants, which shows that the acoustic nonce does not degrade overall user experience for 94.16% of speech samples, on average, in these environments. AEOLUS can therefore be used in practice to prevent speech re-use and ensure the freshness of speech input.

Topic: Speech and Audio Processing
Subfield: Signal Processing
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Theologians as persons in Dante's Commedia

This thesis examines the roles of four major theologians in Dante’s Commedia: Augustine (354-430), Gregory the Great (c. 540-604), Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275), and asks what their appearances as persons in the poem can tell us about Dante’s conception of theology. Dante chooses to represent theology through a series of personal encounters with individuals and individual theologians: the project asks how he transforms or incorporates these perceptions in the Commedia. My claim is that the character of Beatrice should be understood as a theologian within the poem, even though her claim to such status relies not on an established historical authority—on written treatises, sermons, works or reputation—but purely on the nature of the particular person which Dante constructed in his poetic career.

Topic: Renaissance and Early Modern Studies
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Excited-State Dynamics of Melamine and Its Lysine Derivative Investigated by Femtosecond Transient Absorption Spectroscopy

Melamine may have been an important prebiotic information carrier, but its excited-state dynamics, which determine its stability under UV radiation, have never been characterized. The ability of melamine to withstand the strong UV radiation present on the surface of the early Earth is likely to have affected its abundance in the primordial soup. Here, we studied the excited-state dynamics of melamine (a proto-nucleobase) and its lysine derivative (a proto-nucleoside) using the transient absorption technique with a UV pump, and UV and infrared probe pulses. For melamine, the excited-state population decays by internal conversion with a lifetime of 13 ps without coupling significantly to any photochemical channels. The excited-state lifetime of the lysine derivative is slightly longer (18 ps), but the dominant deactivation pathway is otherwise the same as for melamine. In both cases, the vast majority of excited molecules return to the electronic ground state on the aforementioned time scales, but a minor population is trapped in a long-lived triplet state.

Topic: Photoreceptor and optogenetics research
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Global Corporations, Bribery and Corrupt Practices - Anti-Bribery Laws and the Limits of State Action

The regulation and control of bribery and corrupt practices by globally active corporations has become a matter of increasing concern in recent years. For many years the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (1977) has stood as a model for other countries. Other countries have been slow to introduce improved anti-bribery laws and have often only been prompted to review their laws and practices in this area as a result of major corporate scandals. The passage of the UK Bribery Act (2010) has now provided a more broad-ranging model that has built upon prior experiences, such as in the USA, as well as upon advances in regulatory theory. Multilateral efforts, such as by the G20, have also become more important in encouraging countries to enhance global anti-bribery mechanisms. This paper critically examines this national and multilateral regulatory experience and discusses difficulties that individual states, such as Australia, have had in responding to the need for more effective anti-bribery laws and enforcement mechanisms.

Topic: Corruption and Economic Development
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Discrete-time Direct Pole Placement for Stability Enhancement of LCL-Filtered Inverters in the Synchronous-Reference Frame

For LCL-filtered grid-tied inverters, direct pole-placement techniques can combine the fundamental-frequency current regulation and resonance damping simultaneously. As known, for state-space-based direct pole-placement, to purse sensorless operations, state observers have to be employed, which means heavy computation burden and might limit the switching and sampling frequencies. While for transfer-function-based one, the number of necessary variables decreases and meanwhile it saves the computation load from observers. Therefore, the latter is more suitable in practice. Based on this, this paper extends and summarizes this approach for better accessibility, and it shows that, compared to previous applications in the stationary frame, the transfer-function-based discrete-time domain (z-domain) direct pole placement in the synchronous frame presents better robustness against grid impedance variations, improved phase and gain margins, and simplified feed-forward compensation, presuming the cross coupling is ignored. Simulations have verified the analysis and design.

Topic: Microgrid Control and Optimization
Subfield: Control and Systems Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Landscape‐scale deforestation decreases gene flow distance of a keystone tropical palm, <i>Euterpe edulis</i> Mart (Arecaceae)

Abstract Habitat loss represents one of the main threats to tropical forests, which have reached extremely high rates of species extinction. Forest loss negatively impacts biodiversity, affecting ecological (e.g., seed dispersal) and genetic (e.g., genetic diversity and structure) processes. Therefore, understanding how deforestation influences genetic resources is strategic for conservation. Our aim was to empirically evaluate the effects of landscape‐scale forest reduction on the spatial genetic structure and gene flow of Euterpe edulis Mart (Arecaceae), a palm tree considered a keystone resource for many vertebrate species. This study was carried out in nine forest remnants in the Atlantic Forest, northeastern Brazil, located in landscapes within a gradient of forest cover (19–83%). We collected leaves of 246 adults and 271 seedlings and performed genotyping using microsatellite markers. Our results showed that the palm populations had low spatial genetic structure, indicating that forest reduction did not influence this genetic parameter for neither seedlings nor adults. However, forest loss decreased the gene flow distance, which may negatively affect the genetic diversity of future generations by increasing the risk of local extinction of this keystone palm. For efficient strategies of genetic variability conservation and maintenance of gene flow in E. edulis , we recommend the maintenance of landscapes with intermediary to high levels of forest cover, that is, forest cover above 40%.

Topic: Genetic diversity and population structure
Subfield: Genetics
Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Association between Serum Calcium Level and Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) Stages in Term Neonate with Perinatal Asphyxia

Background: Perinatal asphyxia (PNA) is a devastating clinical condition because it causes permanent brain damage, even death of the newborn. Perinatal asphyxia is a common neonatal problem in our context. There is a need to identify neonates with PNA who will be at high risk for hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy and multi-organ dysfunction. Objective: To evaluate the association between serum calcium level and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) stages in term neonate with perinatal asphyxia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Paediatrics, Comilla Medical College Hospital, Comilla from January 2016 to July 2016. A total of 60 neonates of perinatal asphyxia with HIE of different stages were selected as cases. The gestational age was determined by regular last maternal menstrual date and New Ballard Scoring System. The perinatal asphyxia was diagnosed by using APGAR score and hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy was defined by Sarnat and Sarnat staging. Serum calcium was measured by photometric colorimetric test (OCPC method, orthocresol-phthalacin-complex) using Anatron Analyte 100 Electrolyte Analyzer. Chi-square test and ANOVA test was used to see the correlation between serum calcium and different stages of HIE. Results: Total 60 patients were included in this study, out of them 13.3 % had HIE stage I, 75% HIE stage II , 11.7% HIE stage III. Among the pt. with HIE staging in stage I, stage II and stage III had 37.5%, 71.1% and 100% of low calcium level respectively which was statistically significant. The study also showed mean ± SD serum calcium level was 9.17 ± 1.04; 8.32 ± 1.09 and 7.73 ± 0.86 in stage I, stage II and stage III respectively. There was statistically significant lower mean level of serum calcium levels observed with severity of different HIE stages (p&lt; 0.05). Conclusion: The degree of lower serum calcium is associated with the severity of the Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy (HIE) stages in neonates with perinatal asphyxia and may be used as a good, simple screening test for the early assessment of HIE stages. J Com Med Col Teachers Asso July 2024; 28(2): 87-91

Topic: Metabolism and Genetic Disorders
Subfield: Clinical Biochemistry
Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Distribution of Glycosaminoglycans in Rheumatoid Cultures and Effects of Cortisol on It

AbstractThe generation times and synthesis of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) of three normal and five rheumatoid synovial fibroblast strains were studied. Wide variations were observed between strains in their growth and synthesis rates. In general, the normal strains grew more rapidly than the rheumatoid ones and their GAG synthesis, studied by a 3H-glucosamine labelling technique, was also more active. The distribution of newly synthesized hyaluronic acid and sulphated GAGs was studied in incubation media, pericellular matrix and the cells. The rheumatoid cells seemed to retain less newly synthesized GAGs in their pericellular matrix than did the normal cells. The effects of cortisol on GAG synthesis were studied in these strains at cortisol concentrations ranging from 1 × 10−8 M to 1 × 10−5 M. Attention was also paid to the distribution of newly synthesized GAGs among the three fractions mentioned above. Cortisol inhibited the synthesis of GAGs by both normal and rheumatoid cells even at 1 × 10−7 M, normal cells being the more sensitive. The inhibiting activity of the steroid on GAG synthesis was not linear. A cortisol concentration of 1 × 10−6 M was just as inhibitory as 1 × 10−5 M. However, even though overall hyaluronic acid synthesis was reduced at 1 × 10−6 M cortisol the relative amount of newly synthesized hyaluronic acid in the pericellular matrix of rheumatoid cells increased.

Topic: Proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans research
Subfield: Cell Biology
Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Abnormal peripheral vascular response to occlusion provocation in normal tension glaucoma patients

Abstract Purpose: To assess peripheral vascular reactive hyperemia in response to occlusion provocation test, using two‐channels laser Doppler probe in patients with normal tension glaucoma (NTG) and normal subjects. Methods: 15 patients with NTG (12 women and 4 men), mean aged 58,9 and 15 control subjects (13 women and 2 men), mean aged 60,6 were subjected to an occlusion test. The experiment comprised following steps: 1/ a 5‐minute baseline‐period 2/ a 2‐minute occlusion of the left hand using a 15 cm wide cuff located directly over the elbow (the pressure in the cuff was 50 mmHg higher than the systolic pressure measured on the arm 3/ a 15‐ minute final recovery period after occlusion. Finger hyperemia was assessed by two‐channels laser‐Doppler flowmeter MBF‐3d, Moor Instruments, Ltd., continuously during the experiment. For measurements of hyperemia two surface probes were attached to the pulp of the second finger (mean probe) and third finger (basic probe) of the left hand. The following hyperemia parameters were measured: RF (rest flow), BZ (biological zero), TM (time to peak flow), TH (half‐time of hyperemia), MAX (maximum of hyperemia) and hyperemia amplitude (MAX‐RF)/RF 100% was calculated. Kruskal‐Wallis test analysis was used to test the differences between the group of patients and normal subjects for TM1,MXF1 (basic probe) and TM2, MXF2 (mean probe) parameters. Results: In NTG patients, TM1 was significantly higher comparing with healthy subjects whereas MAX was significantly lower as compared to the control group. Conclusions: Occlusion provocation test elicits a different systemic hyperemia response in patients with NTG compared with healthy subjects.

Topic: Glaucoma and retinal disorders
Subfield: Ophthalmology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Additional file 2 of Fatty liver index and development of cardiovascular disease in Koreans without pre-existing myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke: a large population-based study

Additional file 2. Hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals of cardiovascular disease mortality according to the fatty liver index quartiles, estimated by Fine-Gray regression.

Topic: Liver Disease Diagnosis and Treatment
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
An Efficient Teager Energy Operator-Based Automated QRS Complex Detection

Database . The efficiency and robustness of the proposed method has been tested on Fantasia Database (FTD), MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database (MIT-AD), and MIT-BIH Normal Sinus Rhythm Database (MIT-NSD). Aim . Because of the importance of QRS complex in the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases, improvement in accuracy of its measurement has been set as a target. The present study provides an algorithm for automatic detection of QRS complex on the ECG signal, with the benefit of energy and reduced impact of noise on the ECG signal. Method . The method is basically based on the Teager energy operator (TEO), which facilitates the detection of the baseline threshold and extracts QRS complex from the ECG signal. Results . The testing of the undertaken method on the Fanatasia Database showed the following results: sensitivity (Se) = 99.971%, positive prediction (P+) = 99.973%, detection error rate (DER) = 0.056%, and accuracy (Acc) = 99.944%. On MIT-AD involvement, Se = 99.74%, P+ = 99.97%, DER = 0.291%, and Acc = 99.71%. On MIT-NSD involvement, Se = 99.878%, P+ = 99.989%, DER = 0.134%, and Acc = 99.867%. Conclusion . Despite the closeness of the recorded peaks which inflicts a constraint in detection of the two consecutive QRS complexes, the proposed method, by applying 4 simple and quick steps, has effectively and reliably detected the QRS complexes which make it suitable for practical purposes and applications.

Topic: ECG Monitoring and Analysis
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Reducing the rate of teenage conception, an international review of the evidence: data from Europe

This document summarises the findings of this review, identifying European trends in birth and abortion rates. It also highlights key factors thought to be important in influencing variations in conception rates between countries. Finally, the conclusions and recommendations made by the review are presented.

Topic: Birth, Development, and Health
Subfield: Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Illegitimate trade in Luxury Supply chain: main issues and countering strategies

The aim of this paper is to provide a supply chain view of counterfeiting and illegitimate trade phenomena, such as factory overruns, gray market, supply chain infiltrations, product diversion, retail service counterfeiting and sale of stolen goods, to define and illuminate the interaction of the legitimate and the illegitimate supply chains in the fashion industry. We reviewed the literature on illegitimate trade and we used the LISC model to represent and include all the illegitimate trade phenomena under analysis, introducing the notion of perspective. We present preliminary findings from several companies that we have gathered data, using a case study research approach.

Topic: Supply Chain Resilience and Risk Management
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Field: Business, Management and Accounting
Domain: Social Sciences
Effect of Zn addition on steady state creep characteristics of Sn–3·3Ag solder alloy

The materials used in the present study are Sn–3·3 wt-%Ag and Sn–3·3Ag–1Zn (wt-%) alloys. Effect of stress σ, aging temperature T a and aging time t a , on the creep resistance of the alloys under investigation had been studied. Creep tests were performed at room temperature (300 K) under the effect of different constant loads ranged from 2·5 to 4 N on specimens pre-aged at the temperatures 353, 373, 393 and 413 K. At each aging temperature the specimens were heated for the different periods of time 1, 20 and 50 h. The steady state creep rate of the present alloys was found to be related to the applied stress with exponent n. This exponent was found to be decreased with increasing aging temperature T a and/or time of aging t a . Addition of 1 wt-%Zn to the binary Sn–3·3 wt-%Ag solder alloy affected its creep resistance. It was found to decrease with increasing both T a and/or t a . This was attributed to coalesce and enhancement of the particle sizes of the intermetallic compound Ag 3 Sn during aging at high temperatures (0·6–0·7 T m ) which subsequently led to the decrease in the pinning action of these particles and consequently leading to decreasing the creep resistance in the aged alloy. Moreover, increasing T a and/or t a increases the coarsening rate of grain sizes in both solder alloys from which it can be considered as another reason for the softening effect of increasing T a and/or t a . Microstructural changes were investigated by optical, electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements.

Topic: Electronic Packaging and Soldering Technologies
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Yarsley offers cut price route to BS5750

Elucidating the genomic features influencing prokaryotic growth rates has always been a study of interest. Previously, it was observed that overlapping genes (OGs) play a crucial role in the prokaryotic genome size reduction. This study is focused to explore whether OGs act as a potential correlate of prokaryotic growth rates. For this purpose, we compiled a dataset of 25 archaeal and 117 eubacterial genomes and analyzed the inter-correlation between the proportion of overlapping regions in these genomes with their growth rates. Here, we observed that the proportion of overlapping region holds a significant negative correlation with generation time in archaeal domain, whereas no correlation was observed in the eubacterial domain. However, after masking the effect of tRNA, rRNA multiplicity and environmental diversity, OGs show an independent effect over growth rates in the eubacterial domain as well as in the archaeal domain. Moreover, the influence of OGs on prokaryotic growth rates provides different delineations in archaeal and eubacterial domains. In archaea, both long overlap frequency (LOF) and short overlap frequency (SOF) influence the growth rates by increasing the degree of operonization. On the contrary, in the case of bacteria, neither SOF nor LOF plays any significant role in achieving faster growth rates.

Topic: RNA modifications and cancer
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences