Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An exploration of the perceived health, life skill and academic benefits of dinghy sailing for 9–13-year-old school children

ABSTRACT Research evidence suggests that outdoor education offers significant potential in priming healthy physical activity behaviors, developing life skills, enhancing self-esteem and promoting improved academic performance. The aim of the current study was to explore from a cross-sectional perspective the perceived benefits of a dinghy sailing program on 9–13-year-old school children. Participants (n = 38) were drawn from a diverse range of relevant participation and stakeholder groups, including school children, teachers and sailing instructors. Semi-structured interviews (adults) and focus groups (children) were used to collect data, with inductive data analysis methods applied. Six superordinate themes arose from the data highlighting physical and mental health benefits as well as the potential to development key life skills, self-esteem and the possible interaction with other aspects of the school curriculum to enhance student learning.
Dysfunctional Muscle and Liver Glycogen Metabolism in mdx Dystrophic Mice

Background Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe, genetic muscle wasting disorder characterised by progressive muscle weakness. DMD is caused by mutations in the dystrophin (dmd) gene resulting in very low levels or a complete absence of the dystrophin protein, a key structural element of muscle fibres which is responsible for the proper transmission of force. In the absence of dystrophin, muscle fibres become damaged easily during contraction resulting in their degeneration. DMD patients and mdx mice (an animal model of DMD) exhibit altered metabolic disturbances that cannot be attributed to the loss of dystrophin directly. We tested the hypothesis that glycogen metabolism is defective in mdx dystrophic mice. Results Dystrophic mdx mice had increased skeletal muscle glycogen (79%, (P<0.01)). Skeletal muscle glycogen synthesis is initiated by glycogenin, the expression of which was increased by 50% in mdx mice (P<0.0001). Glycogen synthase activity was 12% higher (P<0.05) but glycogen branching enzyme activity was 70% lower (P<0.01) in mdx compared with wild-type mice. The rate-limiting enzyme for glycogen breakdown, glycogen phosphorylase, had 62% lower activity (P<0.01) in mdx mice resulting from a 24% reduction in PKA activity (P<0.01). In mdx mice glycogen debranching enzyme expression was 50% higher (P<0.001) together with starch-binding domain protein 1 (219% higher; P<0.01). In addition, mdx mice were glucose intolerant (P<0.01) and had 30% less liver glycogen (P<0.05) compared with control mice. Subsequent analysis of the enzymes dysregulated in skeletal muscle glycogen metabolism in mdx mice identified reduced glycogenin protein expression (46% less; P<0.05) as a possible cause of this phenotype. Conclusion We identified that mdx mice were glucose intolerant, and had increased skeletal muscle glycogen but reduced amounts of liver glycogen.
An Alternate Path: The Experience of High-Potential Individuals Who Left School

Dropping out of school represents the culmination of a process that begins long before a student enters high school. It is estimated that a quarter of students with high potential leave school without a high school diploma; however, research on how high-potential students uniquely experience dropping out of school is in its beginning stages. This study sought to acquire a rich understanding of how 14 gifted individuals who did not complete high school interpreted this experience and the meaning they attributed to it. Six major themes emerged from the data: (a) significant external circumstances, (b) need for support, (c) social influences, (d) outlets, (e) an alternate path, and (f) reflecting on the path. This exploratory study enhances our understanding of why gifted students choose to leave school and supports the validity of alternate paths to success.
CEP Discussion Paper No 1082 September 2011 A Many-Country Model of Industrialization

We draw attention to the role of economic geography in explaining important cross-sectional facts which are difficult to account for in existing models of industrialization. By construction, closed-economy models that stress the role of local demand in generating sufficient expenditure on manufacturing goods are not suited to explain the strong and negative correlation between distance to the world’s main markets and levels of manufacturing activity in the developing world. Secondly, open-economy models that emphasize the importance of comparative advantage are at odds with a positive correlation between the ratio of agricultural to manufacturing productivity and shares of manufacturing in GDP. This paper provides a potential explanation for these puzzles by nesting the above theories in a multi-location model with trade costs. Using a number of simple analytical examples and a full-scale multi-country calibration, we show that the model can replicate the above stylized facts.
A new hybrid evolutionary algorithm for the huge k-cardinality tree problem

In recent years it has been shown that an intelligent combination of metaheuristics with other optimization techniques can significantly improve over the application of a pure metaheuristic. In this paper, we combine the evolutionary computation paradigm with dynamic programming for the application to the NP-hard k-cardinality tree problem. Given an undirected graph G with node and edge weights, this problem consists of finding a tree in G with exactly k edges such that the sum of the weights is minimal. The genetic operators of our algorithm are based on an existing dynamic programming algorithm from the literature for finding optimal subtrees in a given tree. The simulation results show that our algorithm is able to improve the best known results for benchmark problems from the literature in 60 cases.
Diagnostic value of procalcitonin for acute complicated appendicitis

ABSTRACT A rapid and reliable test for detection of complicated appendicitis would be useful when deciding whether emergency surgery is required. We investigated the clinical usefulness of procalcitonin for identifying acute complicated appendicitis. We retrospectively analyzed 63 patients aged ≥15 years who underwent appendectomy without receiving antibiotics before admission and had preoperative data on the plasma procalcitonin level (PCT), body temperature (BT), white blood cell count (WBC), neutrophil / lymphocyte ratio (N/L ratio), and C-reactive protein level (CRP). Patients were classified into 3 groups: group A (inflammatory cell infiltration of the appendix with intact mural architecture), group B (inflammatory cell infiltration with destruction of mural architecture, but without abscess or perforation), and group C (macroscopic abscess and/or perforation). For identifying destruction of mural architecture, the diagnostic accuracy of PCT was similar to that of BT or CRP. However, the diagnostic accuracy of PCT was highest among the five inflammatory indices for identifying abscess and/or perforation, with the positive predictive value of PCT for abscess and/or perforation being higher than that of CRP (73% vs. 48%). Univariate analysis of the predictors of abscess and/or perforation revealed that a plasma PCT level ≥0.46 ng/mL had the highest odds ratio (30.3 [95% confidence interval: 6.5–140.5] versus PCT <0.46 ng/mL). These findings indicate that procalcitonin is a useful marker of acute appendicitis with abscess and/or perforation.
The effects of training by virtual reality or gym ball on pelvic floor muscle strength in postmenopausal women: a randomized controlled trial

ABSTRACT Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of abdominopelvic training by virtual reality compared to pelvic floor muscle training (PFMT) using a gym ball (a previously tested and efficient protocol) on postmenopausal women’s pelvic floor muscle (PFM) strength. Method A randomized controlled trial was conducted with 60 postmenopausal women, randomly allocated into two groups: Abdominopelvic training by virtual reality – APT_VR (n=30) and PFMT using a gym ball – PFMT_GB (n=30). Both types of training were supervised by the same physical therapist, during 10 sessions each, for 30 minutes. The participants’ PFM strength was evaluated by digital palpation and vaginal dynamometry, considering three different parameters: maximum strength, average strength and endurance. An intention-to-treat approach was used to analyze the participants according to original groups. Results No significant between-group differences were observed in most analyzed parameters. The outcome endurance was higher in the APT_VR group (p=0.003; effect size=0.89; mean difference=1.37; 95% CI=0.46 to 2.28). Conclusion Both protocols have improved the overall PFM strength, suggesting that both are equally beneficial and can be used in clinical practice. Muscle endurance was higher in patients who trained using virtual reality.
A survey of signal processing algorithms in brain–computer interfaces based on electrical brain signals

Brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) aim at providing a non-muscular channel for sending commands to the external world using the electroencephalographic activity or other electrophysiological measures of the brain function. An essential factor in the successful operation of BCI systems is the methods used to process the brain signals. In the BCI literature, however, there is no comprehensive review of the signal processing techniques used. This work presents the first such comprehensive survey of all BCI designs using electrical signal recordings published prior to January 2006. Detailed results from this survey are presented and discussed. The following key research questions are addressed: (1) what are the key signal processing components of a BCI, (2) what signal processing algorithms have been used in BCIs and (3) which signal processing techniques have received more attention?
Norepinephrine spillover to plasma in patients with congestive heart failure: evidence of increased overall and cardiorenal sympathetic nervous activity.

The analysis of plasma kinetics of the sympathetic neurotransmitter norepinephrine can be used to estimate sympathetic nervous "activity" (integrated nerve firing rate) for the body as a whole and for individual organs. In 12 patients with cardiac failure (left ventricular ejection fraction 10% to 39%), the mean arterial plasma norepinephrine concentration was 557 +/- 68 pg/ml (mean +/- SE) compared with 211 +/- 21 pg/ml in 15 subjects without heart failure (p less than .002). The difference was due to both increased release of norepinephrine to plasma (indicating increased "total" sympathetic activity) and reduced clearance of norepinephrine from plasma. The increase in sympathetic activity did not involve all organs equally. Cardiac (32 +/- 9 vs 5 +/- 1 ng/min; p less than .002) and renal (202 +/- 45 vs 66 +/- 9 ng/min; p = .002) norepinephrine spillover were increased by 540% and 206%, respectively, but norepinephrine spillover from the lungs was normal. Adrenomedullary activity was also increased in the patients with heart failure, whose mean arterial plasma epinephrine concentration was 181 +/- 38 pg/ml compared with 71 +/- 12 pg/ml in control subjects (p less than .02). There is marked regional variation, inapparent from measurements of plasma norepinephrine concentration, in sympathetic nerve activity in patients with congestive heart failure. The finding of increased cardiorenal norepinephrine spillover has important pathophysiologic and therapeutic implications.
SRA: A Web-based Research Tool for Spectral and Roughness Analysis of Sound Signals

SRA is a web-based tool that performs Spectral and Roughness Analysis on user-submitted sound files (.wav and .aif formats). Spectral analysis incorporates an improved Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) algorithm (1-2) and automates spectral peak-picking using Loris open- source C++ class library components. Users can set three spectral analysis/peak-picking parameters: analysis bandwidth, spectral-amplitude normalization, and spectral- amplitude threshold. These are described in detail within the tool, including suggestions on settings appropriate to the submitted files and research questions of interest. The spectral values obtained from the analysis enter a roughness calculation model (3-4), outputting roughness values at user- specified points within a file or roughness profiles at user- specified time intervals. The tool offers research background on spectral analysis, auditory roughness, and the algorithms used, including links to relevant publications. Spectral and roughness analysis of sound signals finds applications in music cognition, musical analysis, speech processing, and music teaching research, as well as in medicine and other areas. Presentation of the spectral analysis technique, the roughness estimation model, and the online tool is followed by a discussion of research studies employing the tool and an outline of future possible applications.
A Survey on the Economics of Behaviour-Based Price Discrimination

Economists have long been interested in understanding the profit, consumer surplus and welfare effects of an ancient marketing strategy: Price Discrimination. While it is not new that firms try frequently to segment customers in order to price discriminate, what has dramatically changed, with recent advances in information technologies, is the quality of consumer-specific data now available in many markets and how this information has been used by firms for price discrimination purposes. Specifically, thanks to information technology it is nowadays increasingly feasible for sellers to segment customers on the basis of their purchasing histories and to price discriminate accordingly. This form of price discrimination has been named in the literature as Behaviour-Based Price Discrimination (BBPD). For a long time economists have been concerned in understanding the economic effects of price discrimination in monopolistic markets. However, because imperfect competition is undoubtedly the most common economic setting, recent research on the field has been concerned with the following issues. Firstly, how are profit, consumer surplus and welfare affected when firms practice some form of price discrimination in imperfectly competitive markets? Secondly, in which circumstances may competitive firms have an incentive to price discriminate or rather to avoid it? As we will see, conclusions regarding the profit and welfare effects of price discrimination are strongly dependent upon the form of price discrimination, which in turn depends upon the form of consumer heterogeneity and the different instruments available for price discrimination. Basically, the aim of this survey is to clarify the two aforementioned issues in imperfectly competitive markets.
To Whom Is Contact Use Beneficial? The Impacts of Self-Selected Contact Use on Gender Income Differentials in the Transitional Economy of Urban China

In this study, we examined the effect of contact use on the gender earnings gap in urban China, by taking into account the existence of self-selection effect. We theorised two sources of individuals’ self-selected job obtainment behaviour; namely, the structuralised gender-segregated employment environment and one’s internalisation of the structural constraints. Based on data collected from the highly marketized Chinese city Xiamen, our estimations from the Endogenous Switching Regression model show that there is indeed a significant tendency, in which women with marketable qualifications use social contacts to find jobs, even though their obtained income would have increased significantly had they chosen not to rely on contacts to find jobs. Men enjoyed premiums from their job search strategies, whether they relied on contact use or not.
Reconnection of colliding cosmic strings

For vortex strings in the abelian Higgs model and D-strings in superstring theory, both of which can be regarded as cosmic strings, we give analytical study of reconnection (recombination, inter-commutation) when they collide, by using effective field theories on the strings. First, for the vortex strings, via a string sigma model, we verify analytically that the reconnection is classically inevitable for small collision velocity and small relative angle. Evolution of the shape of the reconnected strings provides an upper bound on the collision velocity in order for the reconnection to occur. These analytical results are in agreement with previous numerical results. On the other hand, reconnection of the D-strings is not classical but probabilistic. We show that a quantum calculation of the reconnection probability using a D-string action reproduces the nonperturbative nature of the worldsheet results by Jackson, Jones and Polchinski. The difference on the reconnection ? classically inevitable for the vortex strings while quantum mechanical for the D-strings ? is suggested to originate from the difference between the effective field theories on the strings.
ADAPTIVELY REFINED LARGE EDDY SIMULATIONS OF A GALAXY CLUSTER: TURBULENCE MODELING AND THE PHYSICS OF THE INTRACLUSTER MEDIUM

We present a numerical scheme for modeling unresolved turbulence in cosmological adaptive mesh refinement codes. As a first application, we study the evolution of turbulence in the intracluster medium (ICM) and in the core of a galaxy cluster. Simulations with and without subgrid scale (SGS) model are compared in detail. Since the flow in the ICM is subsonic, the global turbulent energy contribution at the unresolved length scales is smaller than 1% of the internal energy. We find that the production of turbulence is closely correlated with merger events occurring in the cluster environment, and its dissipation locally affects the cluster energy budget. Because of this additional source of dissipation, the core temperature is larger and the density is smaller in the presence of SGS turbulence than in the standard adiabatic run, resulting in a higher entropy core value.
Optimized Segmental Rotor Switched Reluctance Machines With a Greater Number of Rotor Segments Than Stator Slots

Segmental rotor switched reluctance machines have been demonstrated to produce significantly more torque than conventional switched reluctance machines because each coil is able to link more magnetic flux. In previous work, the range of topologies studied has been relatively restricted; there has been no consideration of the range of stator tooth and rotor segment number options, and the designs have not been formally optimized in any way. This paper seeks to address this: Using finite-element toolsets for optimization, it describes the resulting machines-uniquely featuring a greater number of rotor segments than stator teeth. This paper assesses the credible tooth and segment options, with each option optimized to maximize torque capability. From this assessment, conclusions are drawn, which contrast each machine's performance based on criteria including torque production and loss. In order to validate this optimization process, a prototype machine is built, and its performance is compared with these predictions.
THE HIGH-ORDER MULTIPLICITY OF UNUSUALLY WIDE M DWARF BINARIES: ELEVEN NEW TRIPLE AND QUADRUPLE SYSTEMS

M dwarfs in extremely wide-binary systems are very rare, and may thus have different formation processes from those found as single stars or close binaries in the field. In this paper, we search for close companions to a new sample of 36 extremely wide M dwarf binaries covering a spectral type range of M1–M5 and a separation range of 600–6500 AU. We discover 10 new triple systems and one new quadruple system. We carefully account for selection effects including proper motion, magnitude limits, the detection of close binaries in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and other sample biases. The bias-corrected total high-order-multiple fraction is 45+18−16% and the bias-corrected incidence of quadruple systems is <5%, both statistically compatible with that found for the more common close M dwarf multiple systems. Almost all the detected companions have similar masses to their primaries, although two very low mass companions, including a candidate brown dwarf, are found at relatively large separations. We find that the close-binary separation distribution is strongly peaked toward <30 AU separations. There is marginally significant evidence for a change in high-order M dwarf multiplicity with binding energy and total mass. We also find 2σ evidence of an unexpected increased high-order-multiple fraction for the widest targets in our survey, with a high-order-multiple fraction of 21+17−7% for systems with separations up to 2000 AU, compared to 77+9−22% for systems with separations >4000 AU. These results suggest that the very widest M dwarf binary systems need higher masses to form or to survive.
Complexity analysis, uncertainty management and fuzzy dynamical systems

In this paper, we present a brief study on various paradigms to tackle complexity or in other words manage uncertainty in the context of understanding science, society and nature. Fuzzy real numbers, fuzzy logic, possibility theory, probability theory, Dempster‐Shafer theory, artificial neural nets, neuro‐fuzzy, fractals and multifractals, etc. are some of the paradigms to help us to understand complex systems. We present a very detailed discussion on the mathematical theory of fuzzy dynamical system (FDS), which is the most fundamental theory from the point of view of evolution of any fuzzy system. We have made considerable extension of FDS in this paper, which has great practical value in studying some of the very complex systems in society and nature. The theories of fuzzy controllers, fuzzy pattern recognition and fuzzy computer vision are but some of the most prominent subclasses of FDS. We enunciate the concept of fuzzy differential inclusion (not equation) and fuzzy attractor. We attempt to present this theoretical framework to give an interpretation of cyclogenesis in atmospheric cybernetics as a case study. We also have presented a Dempster‐Shafer's evidence theoretic analysis and a classical probability theoretic analysis (from general system theoretic outlook) of carcinogenesis as other interesting case studies of bio‐cybernetics.
Visual reactions in a case of long-lasting cortical blindness

A case is described of long-lasting cortical blindness in a 71 year old man showing no other visual reactions than pupillary narrowing to light and (only after some months) optokinetic nystagmus of the `passive' type. Necropsy demonstrated total bilateral destruction of the striate area of the cortex caused by bilateral softening in the territory of the posterior cerebral artery, and nearly total loss of ganglion cells in both lateral geniculate bodies.