LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Systematic review of high-intensity progressive resistance strength training of the lower limb compared with other intensities of strength training in older adults.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the effect of high-intensity progressive resistance strength training (HIPRST) on strength, function, mood, quality of life, and adverse events compared with other intensities in older adults.


DATA SOURCES
Online databases were searched from their inception to July 2012.


STUDY SELECTION
Randomized controlled trials of HIPRST of the lower limb compared with other intensities of progressive resistance strength training (PRST) in older adults (mean age ≥ 65y) were identified.


DATA EXTRACTION
Two reviewers independently completed quality assessment using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale and data extraction using a prepared checklist.


DATA SYNTHESIS
Twenty-one trials were included. Study quality was fair to moderate (PEDro scale range, 3-7). Studies had small sample sizes (18-84), and participants were generally healthy. Meta-analyses revealed HIPRST improved lower-limb strength greater than moderate- and low-intensity PRST (standardized mean difference [SMD]=.79; 95% confidence interval [CI], .40 to 1.17 and SMD=.83; 95% CI, -.02 to 1.68, respectively). Studies where groups performed equivalent training volumes resulted in similar improvements in leg strength, regardless of training intensity. Similar improvements were found across intensities for functional performance and disability. The effect of intensity of PRST on mood was inconsistent across studies. Adverse events were poorly reported, however, no correlation was found between training intensity and severity of adverse events.


CONCLUSIONS
HIPRST improves lower-limb strength more than lesser training intensities, although it may not be required to improve functional performance. Training volume is also an important variable. HIPRST appears to be a safe mode of exercise in older adults. Further research into its effects on older adults with chronic health conditions across the care continuum is required.
Modeling documents with Generative Adversarial Networks

This paper describes a method for using Generative Adversarial Networks to learn distributed representations of natural language documents. We propose a model that is based on the recently proposed Energy-Based GAN, but instead uses a Denoising Autoencoder as the discriminator network. Document representations are extracted from the hidden layer of the discriminator and evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively.
A randomized study of contingency management and spirometric lung age for motivating smoking cessation among injection drug users

BACKGROUND
Even after quitting illicit drugs, tobacco abuse remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality in former injection drug users. An important unmet need in this population is to have effective interventions that can be used in the context of community based care. Contingency management, where a patient receives a monetary incentive for healthy behavior choices, and incorporation of individual counseling regarding spirometric "lung age" (the age of an average healthy individual with similar spirometry) have been shown to improve cessation rates in some populations. The efficacy of these interventions on improving smoking cessation rates has not been studied among current and former injection drug users.


METHODS
In a randomized, factorial design study, we recruited 100 active smokers from an ongoing cohort study of current and former injection drug users to assess the impact of contingency management and spirometric lung age on smoking cessation. The primary outcome was 6-month biologically-confirmed smoking cessation comparing contingency management, spirometric lung age or both to usual care. Secondary outcomes included differences in self-reported and biologically-confirmed cessation at interim visits, number of visits attended and quit attempts, smoking rates at interim visits, and changes in Fagerstrom score and self-efficacy.


RESULTS
Six-month biologically-confirmed smoking cessations rates were 4% usual care, 0% lung age, 14% contingency management and 0% for combined lung age and contingency management (p = 0.13). There were no differences in secondary endpoints comparing the four interventions or when pooling the lung age groups. Comparing contingency management to non-contingency management, 6-month cessation rates were not different (7% vs. 2%; p = 0.36), but total number of visits with exhaled carbon monoxide-confirmed abstinence were higher for contingency management than non-contingency management participants (0.38 vs. 0.06; p = 0.03), and more contingency management participants showed reduction in their Fagerstrom score from baseline to follow-up (39% vs. 18%; p = 0.03).


CONCLUSIONS
While lung age appeared ineffective, contingency management was associated with more short-term abstinence and lowered nicotine addiction. Contingency management may be a useful tool in development of effective tobacco cessation strategies among current and former injection drug users.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01334736 (April 12, 2011).
Piezoelectric ultrasonic micromotors

This thesis describes development of a new actuator technology for integrated machines of the future: piezoelectric ultrasonic micromotors. Ultrasonic motors o er the advantages of low speed, high torque operation without the need for gears. They can be made compact and lightweight and provide a holding torque in the absence of applied power due to the traveling wave frictional coupling mechanism between the rotor and the stator. Whereas ultrasonic motors would typically be made from a bulk ferroelectric ceramic such as lead zirconate titanate, or PZT, this thesis describes the implementation of a new idea { that of using PZT in a sol-gel form deposited directly onto silicon to create high-torque motors compatible with silicon integration technologies. Due to large dielectric constants and increased breakdown strengths of thinlm PZT, ultrasonic micromotors o er a factor of 1000 improvement in energy density over electrostatic micromotors. In a joint project with the Penn State Materials Research Laboratory and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, 2 mm and 5 mm diameter stator structures were fabricated on 1 m thick silicon nitride membranes. Small glass lenses placed down on top spun at 100-300rpm with 4V excitation at 90 kHz. While generation of appropriate traveling bending waves in the stator is fairly well understood, less is known about how the frictional coupling and surface properties at the rotor-stator interface a ect mechanical power output performance. This thesis proposes models for production of torque in rotary ultrasonic motors. Models of line contact, Hertzian contact and linear spring contact for Coulomb and viscous friction have been derived and simulations are presented which predict speed-torque curves, e ciencies and overall output power for various conditions of operating voltage and normal force. To validate these models, a set of 8 mm diameter 3mm tall motors, in a designed experiment, has been fabricated. These devices have demonstrated maximum stall torques of 10 Nm, maximum no-load speeds of 1710 rpm and peak power outputs of 27mW. The resulting peak power density is 108 W kg , more than double that of human muscle. This thesis further describes a laser-etching process which has been developed to fabricate more practical piezoelectric ultrasonic micromotors. This laser-based process produces thinlm PZT-on-silicon stators without the need for mask alignment, wet-etching or fragile membranes. The large power densities and stall torques of these piezoelectric ultrasonic motors o er tremendous promise for integrated machines: complete intelligent, electro-mechanical autonomous systems mass-produced in a single fabrication process.
Mitochondrial Reactive Oxygen Species in Lipotoxic Hearts Induce Post-Translational Modifications of AKAP121, DRP1, and OPA1 That Promote Mitochondrial Fission.

RATIONALE
Cardiac lipotoxicity, characterized by increased uptake, oxidation, and accumulation of lipid intermediates, contributes to cardiac dysfunction in obesity and diabetes mellitus. However, mechanisms linking lipid overload and mitochondrial dysfunction are incompletely understood.


OBJECTIVE
To elucidate the mechanisms for mitochondrial adaptations to lipid overload in postnatal hearts in vivo.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Using a transgenic mouse model of cardiac lipotoxicity overexpressing ACSL1 (long-chain acyl-CoA synthetase 1) in cardiomyocytes, we show that modestly increased myocardial fatty acid uptake leads to mitochondrial structural remodeling with significant reduction in minimum diameter. This is associated with increased palmitoyl-carnitine oxidation and increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation in isolated mitochondria. Mitochondrial morphological changes and elevated ROS generation are also observed in palmitate-treated neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes. Palmitate exposure to neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes initially activates mitochondrial respiration, coupled with increased mitochondrial polarization and ATP synthesis. However, long-term exposure to palmitate (>8 hours) enhances ROS generation, which is accompanied by loss of the mitochondrial reticulum and a pattern suggesting increased mitochondrial fission. Mechanistically, lipid-induced changes in mitochondrial redox status increased mitochondrial fission by increased ubiquitination of AKAP121 (A-kinase anchor protein 121) leading to reduced phosphorylation of DRP1 (dynamin-related protein 1) at Ser637 and altered proteolytic processing of OPA1 (optic atrophy 1). Scavenging mitochondrial ROS restored mitochondrial morphology in vivo and in vitro.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results reveal a molecular mechanism by which lipid overload-induced mitochondrial ROS generation causes mitochondrial dysfunction by inducing post-translational modifications of mitochondrial proteins that regulate mitochondrial dynamics. These findings provide a novel mechanism for mitochondrial dysfunction in lipotoxic cardiomyopathy.
Polymorphisms of ACE2 are associated with blood pressure response to cold pressor test: the GenSalt study.

BACKGROUND
Increased blood pressure (BP) reactivity to cold pressor test (CPT) is a risk factor for hypertension. Genetic factors may influence the variation of BP response to CPT among individuals. We explored the association of genetic variants in the apelin system genes (APLN, APLNR and ACE2) and BP response to CPT in a Chinese population.


METHODS
A total of 1,998 Han Chinese participants from the Genetic Epidemiology Network of Salt Sensitivity completed a CPT. The percentage changes of BP right after the end of ice-water immersion were used as the measurement of BP responses to CPT. Twenty-two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected and genotyped, including both tag and potential functional SNPs of the APLN, APLNR, and ACE2 genes. A mixed-effect linear model was used to assess the association between SNPs and BP responses to CPT.


RESULTS
In women, three SNPs (rs1514283, rs4646176, and rs879922) of the ACE2 gene were significantly associated with the diastolic BP (DBP) response to CPT in the general and recessive genetic models after adjustment for multiple testing (all false discovery rate q < 0.05). There were no significant associations of polymorphisms in APLN and APLNR genes with BP responses to CPT.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study identified genetic variants in the ACE2 gene that were significantly associated with DBP responses to cold stress in the Chinese female population. Future studies are warranted to confirm these findings.
Three-dimensional ultrasound of massive macroglossia in a fetus with Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome

We present the prenatal ultrasound findings of massive macroglossia in a fetus with prenatally diagnosed Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. Three-dimensional surface mode ultrasound was utilized for enhanced visualization of the macroglossia.
What should be taught first: the emotional expression or the face?

We are interested in knowing how a robot head can learn to recognize facial expressions without supervision. Our starting point is a mathematical model showing that a sensory-motor architecture is able to express its emotions and to recognize the facial expression of a caregiver online if this latter naturally tends to imitate the system or to resonate with it. Interestingly, our work also shows that learning autonomously the face/non face discrimination is more complex than recognizing a facial expression. We propose an architecture using the interaction rhythm to allow first a robust learning of the facial expression without face tracking and next to perform the learning of the face/non face discrimination. Finally we emphasize the importance of emotions as a mechanism ensuring the dynamical coupling between individuals in order to learn more and more complex behaviors. Using the cognitive system algebra (Gaussier et al., 2004), we showed that a simple sensory-motor architecture based on a classical conditioning paradigm (Schmajuk, 1991, Balkenius and Moren, 2000) can learn to recognize facial expressions online. Furthermore, the dynamics of the human-robot interaction bring important non explicit signals, such as the interaction rhythm that helps the system to perform the face/non face discrimination. We describe here a neural network architecture which is able to learn the facial expressions and then the face/non face discrimination. We adopt the following experimental protocol: the facial expressions of the robotic head are calibrated by FACS experts (Ekman and Friesen, 1978). In the first phase of interaction, the robot produces a random facial expression during 2s (among the following: sadness, happiness, anger, surprise), then returns to a neutral face during 2s to avoid human misinterpretations of the robot facial expression (same procedure as in psychological experiments). The human subject is explicitely asked to mimic the robot head (even without any instruction, the human subject resonates with the facial expressions of the robot head (Nadel et al., 2006)). This first phase lasts between 5 and 10 min depending on the subject ”patience”. Then, in the second phase, the random emotional states generator is stopped. After the N.N has learned, the robot mimics the human partner facial expressions. This architecture (see fig.1) allows to recognize the subjects visual features and to learn if these features are correlated with its own facial expressions. Moreover, another sub network learns to predict the interaction rhythm allowing to detect if an interacting agent (a human) faces the robot head. In this case, the facial expression recog-
Development of a coax-to-microstrip transition over the range of 1–15GHz

In this paper, a coax-to-microstrip transition incorporating a miniature coaxial connector with glass bead is developed. The transition is firstly simulated with the aid of HFSS and then measured in the frequency range of 1-15 GHz. The simulated and measured results are found in good agreement.
Divergent structural brain abnormalities between different genetic subtypes of children with Prader–Willi syndrome

Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS) is a complex neurogenetic disorder with symptoms that indicate not only hypothalamic, but also a global, central nervous system (CNS) dysfunction. However, little is known about developmental differences in brain structure in children with PWS. Thus, our aim was to investigate global brain morphology in children with PWS, including the comparison between different genetic subtypes of PWS. In addition, we performed exploratory cortical and subcortical focal analyses. High resolution structural magnetic resonance images were acquired in 20 children with genetically confirmed PWS (11 children carrying a deletion (DEL), 9 children with maternal uniparental disomy (mUPD)), and compared with 11 age- and gender-matched typically developing siblings as controls. Brain morphology measures were obtained using the FreeSurfer software suite. Both children with DEL and mUPD showed smaller brainstem volume, and a trend towards smaller cortical surface area and white matter volume. Children with mUPD had enlarged lateral ventricles and larger cortical cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) volume. Further, a trend towards increased cortical thickness was found in children with mUPD. Children with DEL had a smaller cerebellum, and smaller cortical and subcortical grey matter volumes. Focal analyses revealed smaller white matter volumes in left superior and bilateral inferior frontal gyri, right cingulate cortex, and bilateral precuneus areas associated with the default mode network (DMN) in children with mUPD. Children with PWS show signs of impaired brain growth. Those with mUPD show signs of early brain atrophy. In contrast, children with DEL show signs of fundamentally arrested, although not deviant brain development and presented few signs of cortical atrophy. Our results of global brain measurements suggest divergent neurodevelopmental patterns in children with DEL and mUPD.
Storing RDF as a Graph

RDF is the first W3C standard for enriching information resources of the Web with detailed meta data. The semantics of RDF data is defined using a RDF schema. The most expressive language for querying RDF is RQL, which enables querying of semantics. In order to support RQL, a RDF storage system has to map the RDF graph model onto its storage structure. Several storage systems for RDF data have been developed, which store the RDF data as triples in a relational database. To evaluate an RQL query on those triple structures, the graph model has to be rebuilt from the triples. In this paper, we presented a new approach to store RDF data as a graph in a object-oriented database. Our approach avoids the costly rebuilding of the graph and efficiently queries the storage structure directly. The advantages of our approach have been shown by performance test on our prototype implementation OO-Store.
Power-Normalized Cepstral Coefficients (PNCC) for Robust Speech Recognition

This paper presents a new feature extraction algorithm called power normalized Cepstral coefficients (PNCC) that is motivated by auditory processing. Major new features of PNCC processing include the use of a power-law nonlinearity that replaces the traditional log nonlinearity used in MFCC coefficients, a noise-suppression algorithm based on asymmetric filtering that suppresses background excitation, and a module that accomplishes temporal masking. We also propose the use of medium-time power analysis in which environmental parameters are estimated over a longer duration than is commonly used for speech, as well as frequency smoothing. Experimental results demonstrate that PNCC processing provides substantial improvements in recognition accuracy compared to MFCC and PLP processing for speech in the presence of various types of additive noise and in reverberant environments, with only slightly greater computational cost than conventional MFCC processing, and without degrading the recognition accuracy that is observed while training and testing using clean speech. PNCC processing also provides better recognition accuracy in noisy environments than techniques such as vector Taylor series (VTS) and the ETSI advanced front end (AFE) while requiring much less computation. We describe an implementation of PNCC using "online processing" that does not require future knowledge of the input.
Computing a visibility polygon using few variables

We present several algorithms for computing the visibility polygon of a simple polygon P from a viewpoint inside the polygon, when the polygon resides in read-only memory and only few working variables can be used. The first algorithm uses a constant number of variables, and outputs the vertices of the visibility polygon in O(nr̄) time, where r̄ denotes the number of reflex vertices of P that are part of the output. The next two algorithms use O(log r) variables, and output the visibility polygon in O(n log r) randomized expected time or O(n log r) deterministic time, where r is the number of reflex vertices of P.
Self-Awareness and the Left Hemisphere: The Dark Side of Selectively Reviewing the Literature

and were modestly acknowledged by the team in Platek et al. (2004b). In the target article, Keenan et al. (2005) present their latest version of the hypothesis, which in my view carries over the exact same problems identified in the past. In this commentary I examine conceptual and empirical difficulties pertaining to the notion of right hemispheric superiority for self-related processes. I will suggest that two main misconceptions lie at the heart of the controversy. (1) At a conceptual level, one cannot equate either self-recognition or Theory-of-Mind (TOM) abilities with genuine self-awareness. (2) At an empirical level, the review of literature presented by Keenan et al. tends to favor studies that support their hypothesis. In actuality, quite a few brain-imaging experiments show bilateral and left hemisphere activity during self and other judgment tasks. SELF-RECOGNITION AND SELF-AWARENESS " Self-awareness involves being aware of one's own thoughts, or mental state. It includes having the ability to reflect on one's own cognitions. Further, self-awareness includes the ability to think about oneself as an entity in the third person, allowing for imagining oneself in the future or in the past " (p. 695). After presenting Gallup's work on self-recognition in primates (e.g., Gallup, 1970; Gallup et al., 2002), and related research, Keenan et al. ask: " Does self-recognition equal self-awareness? " (p. 696). Their answer is a confident " yes " , which lead them to suggest that " ... the self-face may be an ideal stimulus to begin the investigations of higher-order consciousness and the brain " (p. 697). The group then reviews several studies that have examined selective brain activation during self-face recognition tasks as well as other forms of self-recognition (e.g., one's voice), and neuropsychological reports of right hemisphere damage. The body of research presented in Keenan et al.'s paper largely supports right hemisphere superiority for self-recognition, which motivates the conclusion that " ... along numerous dimensions, the right hemisphere appears dominant for self-awareness " (p. 700). The overall rationale put forward by Keenan and his collaborators is simple and elegant: (1) self-recognition equals self-awareness; (2) self-recognition is correlated with activity in the right hemisphere, especially the prefrontal lobe; (3) thus, self-awareness per se is also linked to right hemisphere activity. I hope to show that the first two statements (1) and (2) are most likely inaccurate, which obviously will make statement (3) incorrect. The proposition that self-recognition is equivalent to …
Some Preconditions of Universal Philosophical Dialogue

Posted with the kind permission of Malgorzata Czarnocka, Deputy Editor of the Dialogue & Universalism journal.