Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Study on the hydraulic conductivity by constant and falling head methods for pervious concrete Estudo da condutividade hidráulica com carga constante e variável em concretos permeáveis

Resumo The main goal of this paper is to show the analysis of the permeability characteristics of three different mixes of pervious concrete produced with the variation of the coarse aggregate size. Two different test methods were used to achieve the hydraulic conductivity of the samples: falling head and constant head permeability tests. Based on test results it is concluded that the pervious concrete mixes have shown to be good drainable materials. Besides, it was found that the permeability of the mixtures does not seem to depend on the size and gradation of the coarse aggregate.
Repeated restraint stress produces acute and chronic changes in hemodynamic parameters in rats

Abstract Noninvasive hemodynamic measurements in rats require placing animals in restrainers. To minimize restraint stress-induced artifacts several habituation protocols have been proposed, however, the results are inconclusive. Here, we evaluated if a four-week habituation is superior to a shorter habituation, or no habituation. This is the first study comparing different habituation protocols with the use of four-week continuous telemetry measurements. We did the experiments on male, 16-week old, Sprague–Dawley rats. Continuous recordings of mean arterial blood pressure (MABP) and heart rate (HR) were made before and during habituation protocols. Rats were subjected either to control (four weeks of restraint-free recordings, n = 5) or two-week (seven restraints, n = 6) or four-week (14 restraints, n = 6) restraint sessions. The restraint protocols included placement of rats in the middle of the dark phase into plastic restrainers as used for tail-cuff measurements. Restraint lasted for 60 min, and was repeated every second day. Each restraint significantly increased MABP (by 15–25 mmHg) and HR (by 40–120 beats/min). Exposure to the restraint protocols decreased diurnal variation in MABP. There was no hemodynamic adaptation to repeated restraint, and no significant difference in hemodynamic response to restraint among controls, the two-week and the four-week groups. In conclusion, our study indicates that measurements in restrained rats are not likely being made without stress-induced changes in MABP. Moreover, in hemodynamic studies in repeatedly restrained rats longer habituation is not superior to shorter habituation.
Evaluation of the Properties and Clothing Comfort of the Scandinavian Ski Dress in Wear Trials

Wear trials of a woven and a knitted Scandinavian cross-country ski dress with identical underwear and other garments were performed in a climatic chamber on 5 subjects who walked at -9°C on a treadmill with a 5% grade for a total of 2 hr, changing the velocity of the walk every 20 mins from 4.1 to 6.7 km/hr. The energy output corresponded to 200, and 350 kcal/m2hr, respectively. One-half of the produced sweat did not evaporate during the experiments and remained trapped in the clolh ing. Though the dress proper and its underwear covered two-thirds of the body surface area (trunk, arms, thighs), more than one-half of the not evaporated sweat was found in the garments of the peripheral area (head, hands, legs, feet). The vest contained a high amount of water, and the same partial pressure of water vapor was recorded in the spaces on either side of it, indicating that the beginning of the effective diffusion gradient through the clothing was shifted from the skin to the outer side of the vest. In the absence of wind in the trials, the clinging knitted dress assembly had a higher thermal resistance than the loosely cut woven one. But, subjectively, the woven assembly was felt to be warmer than the knitted which contained more trapped sweat. The rectal and skin temperature, the temperature and humidity in the spaces between the clothing, and the subjective thermal and humidity sensations reflected well, by regular oscillations, the cyclic changes in the intensity of metabolism. The general thermal sensations correlated better with the weighted average of the rectal and mean skin temperature than with either temperature alone. However, in the quick walking periods, the general thermal sensations were the same as the sensations in the peripheral body area, while the rating of the sensations in the central area under the dress proper was distinctly lower. Special attention should be paid to the role of the peripheral parts of the body in the evalua tion of clothing comfort.
The Mediating Effect of Distress Caused by Constipation on Predictors of Quality of Life of Hospice Patients with Cancer.

v Chapter One: Introduction Statement of the Problem Research Questions Conceptual Framework Definition of Variables Significance of the Study 1 4 5 5 6 8 Chapter Two: Review of Literature Predictors of Quality of Life in Cancer Patients Near the End of Life Symptom Severity, Distress and Quality of Life Constipation and Cancer Constipation and QOL Among Cancer Patients Summary 10 10 13 15 16 17 Chapter Three: Methods Research Design Sample and Setting Instruments The Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS) The Hospice QOL Index-14 (HQLI-14) Palliative Performance Scale (PPS) Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) Demographic Data Form Procedures Data Analysis 18 18 18 19 19 19 20 20 21 21 21
Design and Implementation of Scalable and Load-Balanced Virtual Machine Clusters

Server clustering is a cost-effective solution to increase the service capacity and system reliability. It also gives greater scalability for handling the growing and huge amount of service demands. Nowadays, cloud platforms take advantage of virtualization technology and make their actual hosts virtualized. In this study, we explore the issues of implementing server clusters based on virtual machines (VM), including architectures and load distribution algorithms. We utilize Linux Virtual Server (LVS) to design several kinds of VM-based server clusters with different architectures, i.e. Single VM Cluster (SVMC), Hierarchical Multiple VM Clusters (HVMC), and Distributed Multiple VM Clusters (MVMC). In order to provide better load balance among real servers in the cluster, load distribution algorithms originally developed for the server clusters should be redesigned or adapted to VM-based clusters. Therefore, we further propose two kinds of load distribution algorithms named Virtual Machine Least Connections (VMLC) and Virtual Machine Weighted Least Connections (VMWLC). These algorithms not only consider the server loading, but also take into account the difference between physical machines (PMs) and VMs to balance the server loads. Practical implementation on Linux and experimental results show that VM clusters with the single architecture (i.e. SVMC) or the hierarchical architecture (i.e. HVMC) obtain significantly higher performance than the distributed VM cluster (i.e. MVMC) that consists of multiple VM clusters with a DNS to spread the load to VM clusters. The proposed load distribution algorithms outperform the Weighted Least Connections (WLC) which does not distinguish PMs from VMs.
Oral Nutritional Supplementation Accelerates Skin Wound Healing: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Double-Arm, Crossover Study

Nutritional therapy is critical for wound healing in people with severe malnutrition or specific metabolic deficiencies. Medical claims from manufacturers of many oral supplements are marketed to surgical patients for decreasing edema, bruising, and discomfort. The effect of supplementing nutrients on soft-tissue wound healing in otherwise normal, healthy adults is an area of clinical importance, but little information is available. Proteolytic enzymes have been reported to moderate the inflammatory cycle and may up-regulate the healing process. The goal of this study was to perform a clinical trial in normal, healthy adults that examined the effects of an oral nutritional supplement (InflammEnz, Enzymes, Inc., Parkville, Mo.) on soft-tissue healing times. Twenty-six normal, healthy volunteers were recruited into a randomized, crossover, placebo-controlled, clinical trial consisting of two phases, each lasting 21 days. In phase I, subjects were subjected to a 3-mm forearm skin biopsy and randomly received a placebo or oral supplement (four capsules per day for 7 days). After a 2-week washout period, a second biopsy was performed to start phase II, with each subject receiving the respective placebo or supplement capsules. Digital photographs were taken during wound healing in both phases and analyzed for wound areas (in square millimeters) and perimeters (in millimeters). Twenty-two subjects completed the clinical trial. On the basis of wound surface areas, 17 subjects had improved wound healing and five subjects did not respond or responded only slightly to the supplement treatment. The mean ± SD healing time of the subjects responding to supplement-treated wounds was 15 ± 2.2 days, compared with 18 ± 2.5 days for the placebo group. The 17 percent acceleration of wound-healing time was significant (p < 0.005). In subjects responding to oral supplements, less redness in the wounds was observed that may have been associated with less inflammation. The authors’ results demonstrate that InflammEnz oral supplementation accelerated soft-tissue wound healing in 77 percent of normal, healthy subjects studied. The authors’ study validates observations made that this supplement modulates the wound-healing process and suggests that many patients with minor soft-tissue wounds may benefit from treatment.
Real-time human action recognition by luminance field trajectory analysis

The explosive growth of video content in recent years fueled by the technological leaps in computing and communication has created new challenges for video content analysis that can serve applications in video surveillance, video searching and mining. Human action detection and recognition is one of the important tasks in this effort. In this paper, we present a luminance field manifold trajectory analysis based solution for human activity recognition, without explicit object level information extraction and understanding. This approach is computationally efficient and can operate in real time. The recognition performance is also comparable with the state of art in comparable set ups.
The State-of-the-Art in Twitter Sentiment Analysis

Twitter has emerged as a major social media platform and generated great interest from sentiment analysis researchers. Despite this attention, state-of-the-art Twitter sentiment analysis approaches perform relatively poorly with reported classification accuracies often below 70%, adversely impacting applications of the derived sentiment information. In this research, we investigate the unique challenges presented by Twitter sentiment analysis and review the literature to determine how the devised approaches have addressed these challenges. To assess the state-of-the-art in Twitter sentiment analysis, we conduct a benchmark evaluation of 28 top academic and commercial systems in tweet sentiment classification across five distinctive data sets. We perform an error analysis to uncover the causes of commonly occurring classification errors. To further the evaluation, we apply select systems in an event detection case study. Finally, we summarize the key trends and takeaways from the review and benchmark evaluation and provide suggestions to guide the design of the next generation of approaches.
Gaussian Interference Channel With Intermittent Feedback

We investigate how to exploit intermittent feedback for interference management by studying the two-user Gaussian interference channel (IC). We approximately characterize (within a universal constant) the capacity region for the Gaussian IC with intermittent feedback. We exactly characterize the capacity region of the linear deterministic version of the problem, which gives us insight into the Gaussian problem. We find that the characterization only depends on the forward channel parameters and the marginal probability distribution of each feedback link. The result shows that passive and unreliable feedback can be harnessed to provide multiplicative capacity gain in Gaussian ICs. We find that when the feedback links are active with sufficiently large probabilities, the perfect feedback sum-capacity is achieved to within a constant gap. In contrast to other schemes developed for IC with feedback, our achievable scheme makes use of quantize-map-and-forward to relay the information obtained through feedback, performs forward decoding, and does not use structured codes. We also develop new outer bounds enabling us to obtain the (approximate) characterization of the capacity region.
The Glycosyltransferase ST6Gal-I Protects Tumor Cells against Serum Growth Factor Withdrawal by Enhancing Survival Signaling and Proliferative Potential*

A hallmark of cancer cells is the ability to survive and proliferate when challenged with stressors such as growth factor insufficiency. In this study, we report a novel glycosylation-dependent mechanism that protects tumor cells from serum growth factor withdrawal. Our results suggest that the β-galactoside α-2,6-sialyltransferase 1 (ST6Gal-I) sialyltransferase, which is up-regulated in numerous cancers, promotes the survival of serum-starved cells. Using ovarian and pancreatic cancer cell models with ST6Gal-I overexpression or knockdown, we find that serum-starved cells with high ST6Gal-I levels exhibit increased activation of prosurvival signaling molecules, including pAkt, p-p70S6K, and pNFκB. Correspondingly, ST6Gal-I activity augments the expression of tumor-promoting pNFκB transcriptional targets such as IL-6, IL-8, and the apoptosis inhibitor cIAP2. ST6Gal-I also potentiates expression of the cell cycle regulator cyclin D2, leading to increased phosphorylation and inactivation of the cell cycle inhibitor pRb. Consistent with these results, serum-starved cells with high ST6Gal-I expression maintain a greater number of S phase cells compared with low ST6Gal-I expressors, reflecting enhanced proliferation. Finally, selective enrichment in clonal variants with high ST6Gal-I expression is observed upon prolonged serum deprivation, supporting the concept that ST6Gal-I confers a survival advantage. Collectively, these results implicate a functional role for ST6Gal-I in fostering tumor cell survival within the serum-depleted tumor microenvironment.
Blocking of cytokines signalling attenuates evoked and spontaneous neuropathic pain behaviours in the paclitaxel rat model of chemotherapy‐induced neuropathy

Chemotherapy‐induced peripheral neuropathic pain (CIPNP) is a serious dose‐limiting neurotoxic effect of cancer drug treatment. The underlying mechanism(s) of this debilitating condition, which lacks effective drug treatment, is incompletely understood. However, neural–immune interactions, involving increased expression and release of cytokines, are believed to be involved. Here, we examined, in the paclitaxel rat model of CIPNP, whether plasma levels of 24 cytokines/chemokines change after paclitaxel treatment, and whether blocking of signalling of some of those cytokines would reverse/attenuate behavioural signs of CIPNP.
New techniques to characterise the vaginal microbiome in pregnancy

Understanding of the vaginal microbiome in health and disease is essential to screen, detect and manage complications in pregnancy. One of the major complications of pregnancy is preterm birth, which is the leading world-wide cause of death and disability in children under five years of age. The aetiology of preterm birth is multifactorial, but a causal link has been established with infection. Despite the importance of understanding the vaginal microbiome in pregnancy in order to evaluate strategies to prevent and manage PTB, currently used culture based techniques provide limited information as not all pathogens are able to be cultured. The implementation of culture-independent high-throughput techniques and bioinformatics tools are advancing our understanding of the vaginal microbiome. New methods employing 16S rRNA and metagenomics analyses make possible a more comprehensive description of the bacteria of the human microbiome. Several studies on the vaginal microbiota of pregnant women have identified a large number of taxa. Studies also suggest reduced diversity of the microbiota in pregnancy compared to non-pregnant women, with a relative enrichment of the overall abundance of Lactobacillus species, and significant differences in the diversity of Lactobacillus spp. A number of advantages and disadvantages of these techniques are discussed briefly. The potential clinical importance of the new techniques is illustrated through recent reports where traditional culture-based techniques failed to identify pathogens in high risk complicated pregnancies whose presence subsequently was established using culture-independent, high-throughput analyses.
Functional Dual Control for Slowly Time Variant Stochastic Systems

A functional dual adaptive control for slowly time variant nonlinear stochastic multivariable systems is presented. A nonlinear system is modelled by a MultiLayer Perceptron (MLP) neural network. Parameters of the model are estimated by the extended Kalman fllter (EKF). Controller design is based on bicriterial dual approach that uses two separate criteria to introduce opposing aspects between estimation and control; caution and probing. The proposed approach is compared with adaptive non-dual controller based on certainty equivalence principle. The quality of the proposed functional adaptive controller is illustrated in two numerical examples.
The Fas/Fap-1/Cav-1 complex regulates IL-1RA secretion in mesenchymal stem cells to accelerate wound healing

Mesenchymal stem cells use the Fas/Fap-1/Cav-1 axis to control vesicle and cytokine secretion to accelerate wound healing in mice. Secreting cytokines to correct cuts Wound healing is a multi-phase process encompassing inflammation, cell proliferation, and the deposition and remodeling of extracellular matrix. To understand the molecular signaling pathways contributing to this process, Kou et al. studied cytokine secretion during wound healing. They found that mesenchymal stem cells secrete extracellular vesicles via a caveolin-1–mediated exocytotic process and produce interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1RA) during gingival and cutaneous wound healing in mice. Treating wounds with recombinant IL-1RA or small extracellular vesicles expressing IL-1RA accelerated wound healing. This signaling pathway could be targeted to develop wound healing therapies. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are capable of secreting exosomes, extracellular vesicles, and cytokines to regulate cell and tissue homeostasis. However, it is unknown whether MSCs use a specific exocytotic fusion mechanism to secrete exosomes and cytokines. We show that Fas binds with Fas-associated phosphatase–1 (Fap-1) and caveolin-1 (Cav-1) to activate a common soluble N-ethylmaleimide–sensitive factor (NSF) attachment protein receptor (SNARE)–mediated membrane fusion mechanism to release small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) in MSCs. Moreover, we reveal that MSCs produce and secrete interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1RA) associated with sEVs to maintain rapid wound healing in the gingiva via the Fas/Fap-1/Cav-1 cascade. Tumor necrosis factor–α (TNF-α) serves as an activator to up-regulate Fas and Fap-1 expression via the nuclear factor κB pathway to promote IL-1RA release. This study identifies a previously unknown Fas/Fap-1/Cav-1 axis that regulates SNARE-mediated sEV and IL-1RA secretion in stem cells, which contributes to accelerated wound healing.
Converging on the Divergent: The History (and Future) of the International Joint Workshops in Computational Creativity

We survey the history of studies of Computational Creativity, following the development of the International Conference on Computational Creativity from its beginnings, a decade ago, in two parallel workshop series. We give a brief outline of key issues, and a summary of the various different approaches taken by participants in the research field. The outlook is optimistic: a lot has been achieved in 10 years.
What are psychological constructs? On the nature and statistical modelling of emotions, intelligence, personality traits and mental disorders

Many scholars have raised two related questions: what are psychological constructs (PCs) such as cognitions, emotions, attitudes, personality characteristics and intelligence? And how are they best modelled statistically? This commentary provides (1) an overview of common theories and statistical models, (2) connects these two domains and (3) discusses how the recently proposed framework pragmatic nihilism fits in. For this overview, I use an inclusive definition of the term ‘psychological construct’ that also encompasses mental disorders. This is consistent with recent efforts such as the research domain criteria (RDoC) that aim to refine such constructs, and is relevant given many recent discussions on the nature of psychopathology.
Implementation of a Standardized Transfusion Protocol for Cardiac Patients Treated With Venoarterial Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Is Associated With Decreased Blood Component Utilization and May Improve Clinical Outcome

BACKGROUND: Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation supplies oxygenated blood to the body supporting the heart and lungs. Survival rates of 20% to 50% are reported among patients receiving ECMO for cardiac arrest, severe cardiogenic shock, or failure to wean from cardiopulmonary bypass following cardiac surgery. Bleeding is one of the most common complications in ECMO patients due to coagulopathy, systemic anticoagulation, and the presence of large bore cannulas at systemic pressure. Absence of a standardized transfusion protocol in this population leads to inconsistent transfusion practices. Here, we assess a newly developed dedicated transfusion protocol in this clinical setting. METHODS: Data were retrospectively reviewed for the first 30 consecutive cardiac ECMO patients prior and post implementation of the ECMO transfusion protocol. Diagnoses, laboratory results, blood component utilization, and outcomes were collected and analyzed. RESULTS: Comorbidities were similar between the 2 eras, as well as the pre-ECMO ejection fraction (P = .568) and duration on ECMO (P = .278). Transfusion utilization data revealed statistically significant decreases in almost all blood components and a savings in blood component acquisition costs of 51% ($175, 970). In addition, an almost 2-fold increase in survival rate was observed in the post-ECMO transfusion protocol era (63% vs 33%; relative risk = 1.82; 95% confidence interval, 1.07–3.10; P = .028). CONCLUSIONS: Our data indicate that implementation of a standardized transfusion protocol, using more restrictive transfusion indications in cardiac ECMO patients, was associated with reduced blood product utilization, decreased complications, and improved survival. This multidepartmental approach facilitates better communication and adherence to consensus clinical decision making between intensive care unit, surgery, and transfusion service and optimizes care of complicated and acutely ill patients.
Delayed radiation myelopathy: Differential diagnosis with positron emission tomography/computed tomography examination

Myelopathy is a rare but serious complication of radiation therapy (RT). Radiation myelopathy is white matter damage to the spinal cord developed after a certain period of application of ionizing radiation. Factors such as radiation dose and time between applications affect the occurrence as well as the severity of myelopathy. In those patients, positron emission tomography/computed tomography examination has a very important role both in the diagnosis and in the differential diagnosis of lesions. In this case report, the case of progressive paraparesis, developed in a 52-year-old female patient operated with pulmonary mucinous cystadenocarcinoma diagnosis and who received chemotherapy and RT following surgery, has been reported.