Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A comparison of the effectiveness of physical activity and sedentary behaviour interventions in reducing sedentary time in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled trials

The objective of this study was to systematically review the literature and compare the effectiveness of controlled interventions with a focus on physical activity (PA) and/or sedentary behaviours (SBs) for reducing sedentary time in adults. Six electronic databases were searched to identify all studies that examined the effects of interventions that targeted PA and/or SBs and that reported on changes in SBs (sedentary, sitting or television time). A qualitative synthesis was performed for all studies, and meta‐analyses conducted among studies with mean differences (min/d) of sedentary time. PROSPERO: CRD42014006535. Sixty‐five controlled studies met inclusion criteria; 33 were used in the meta‐analyses. Interventions with a focus on PA or that included a PA and SB component produced less consistent findings and generally resulted in modest reductions in sedentary time (PA: standardized mean differences [SMD] = −0.22 [95% confidence interval {CI}: −0.35, −0.10], PA + SB: SMD = −0.37 [95% CI: −0.69, −0.05]). Moderate quality evidence from the randomized controlled trial meta‐analysis coupled with the qualitative synthesis provides consistent evidence that large and clinically meaningful reductions in sedentary time can be expected from interventions with a focus on reducing SBs (SMD = −1.28 [95% CI: −1.68, −0.87] ). There is evidence to support the need for interventions to include a component focused on reducing SBs in order to generate clinically meaningful reductions in sedentary time.
Studying the Nucleated Mammalian Cell Membrane by Single Molecule Approaches

The cell membrane plays a key role in compartmentalization, nutrient transportation and signal transduction, while the pattern of protein distribution at both cytoplasmic and ectoplasmic sides of the cell membrane remains elusive. Using a combination of single-molecule techniques, including atomic force microscopy (AFM), single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) and stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM), to study the structure of nucleated cell membranes, we found that (1) proteins at the ectoplasmic side of the cell membrane form a dense protein layer (4 nm) on top of a lipid bilayer; (2) proteins aggregate to form islands evenly dispersed at the cytoplasmic side of the cell membrane with a height of about 10–12 nm; (3) cholesterol-enriched domains exist within the cell membrane; (4) carbohydrates stay in microdomains at the ectoplasmic side; and (5) exposed amino groups are asymmetrically distributed on both sides. Based on these observations, we proposed a Protein Layer-Lipid-Protein Island (PLLPI) model, to provide a better understanding of cell membrane structure, membrane trafficking and viral fusion mechanisms.
Oxidative stress in mature rat testis and its developmental changes

Active oxygen causes various problems including male infertility through the oxidation of DNA, proteins, and lipids. In the present study, we examined the immunohistochemical localization of molecules involved in oxidative stress including 8‐hydroxy‐2‐deoxyguanosine (8‐OHdG), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) in mature and developing rat testes. In mature rat testes, 8‐OHdG was detected in leptotene, zygotene, and early pachytene spermatocytes, while its expression was weak in late pachytene stage spermatocytes. On the other hand, SOD was detected in late pachytene spermatocytes but not in early pachytene and former spermatocytes, suggesting the efficient removal of active oxygen by SOD in late pachytene spermatocytes. In developing rat testes, 8‐OHdG expression peaked at 4 weeks when spermatocytes started to differentiate to the late pachytene stage, while SOD started to be expressed at 4 weeks after birth. These findings suggest that the defense system against oxidative stress by SOD is developed in late pachytene stage spermatocytes at 4 weeks after birth. The present findings aid our understanding of the defensive mechanism against oxidative stress in developing and mature testes.
Pooling and Leveraging Scarce Resources: The Smart eCity Gov Alliance

While the term "Smart City" had been used in academia and practice rather casually as a summary label for all types of technology-supported innovation in urban spaces and City governments for quite some time, more recent research rigorously delineated the concept of a Smart City via an eight-category framework, which was developed by several research teams from different parts of the world as a joint initiative. Meanwhile a number of studies have appeared, which used the framework to systematically further explore the phenomenon. This case study on the eCity Gov Alliance also employed the Smart City Framework in its design to investigate the Smart City approach that a number of small and mid-size municipalities near Seattle in the Pacific Northwest of the United States have taken. The case is unique and critical since it exemplifies how smaller and less resourceful local governments can pool and leverage their resources in ways that no single participant city could have accomplished on its own when pursuing the objective of creating a smart urban space supported by a smart municipal government. The eCity Gov Alliance was found a model for successful intergovernmental collaboration although challenges with regard to long-term sustainability were also identified.
Ijca Special Issue on " Recent Trends in Image Processing and Pattern Recognition " Rtippr, 2010. Representation and Classification of Text Documents: a Brief Review

Text classification is one of the important research issues in the field of text mining, where the documents are classified with supervised knowledge. In literature we can find many text representation schemes and classifiers/learning algorithms used to classify text documents to the predefined categories. In this paper, we present various text representation schemes and compare different classifiers used to classify text documents to the predefined classes. The existing methods are compared and contrasted based on qualitative parameters viz., criteria used for classification, algorithms adopted and classification time complexities.
Transmit covariance for spatially-correlated multiple-antenna Ricean fading channels with channel distribution side information at transmitter

In this paper, we cast the problem of finding the capacity-achieving transmit covariance of correlated Ricean MIMO fading channels as an equivalent problem as for uncorrelated Ricean MIMO channels. Perfect channel information is assumed to be available at the receiver, while the transmitter only has channel distribution side information. An iterative algorithm based on Newton method to compute the capacity-achieving transmit covariance for the general case of double-ended correlated MIMO channels is proposed in this paper as well. Additionally, we provide a reduced complexity technique to attain a suboptimal transmit covariance. One of the main contributions in this paper is the characterization of the eigenstructure of the suboptimal transmit covariance. Moreover, Sufficient condition is derived for the optimality of this suboptimal solution.
The Gating Mechanism of the Human Aquaporin 5 Revealed by Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Aquaporins are protein channels located across the cell membrane with the role of conducting water or other small sugar alcohol molecules (aquaglyceroporins). The high-resolution X-ray structure of the human aquaporin 5 (HsAQP5) shows that HsAQP5, as all the other known aquaporins, exhibits tetrameric structure. By means of molecular dynamics simulations we analyzed the role of spontaneous fluctuations on the structural behavior of the human AQP5. We found that different conformations within the tetramer lead to a distribution of monomeric channel structures, which can be characterized as open or closed. The switch between the two states of a channel is a tap-like mechanism at the cytoplasmic end which regulates the water passage through the pore. The channel is closed by a translation of the His67 residue inside the pore. Moreover, water permeation rate calculations revealed that the selectivity filter, located at the other end of the channel, regulates the flow rate of water molecules when the channel is open, by locally modifying the orientation of His173. Furthermore, the calculated permeation rates of a fully open channel are in good agreement with the reported experimental value.
Automatic Coronary Calcium Scoring in Non-Contrast-Enhanced ECG-Triggered Cardiac CT With Ambiguity Detection

The amount of coronary artery calcification (CAC) is a strong and independent predictor of cardiovascular events. We present a system that automatically quantifies total patient and per coronary artery CAC in non-contrast-enhanced, ECG-triggered cardiac CT. The system identifies candidate calcifications that cannot be automatically labeled with high certainty and optionally presents these to an expert for review. Candidates were extracted by intensity-based thresholding and described by location features derived from estimated coronary artery positions, as well as size, shape and intensity features. Next, a two-class classifier distinguished between coronary calcifications and negatives or a multiclass classifier labeled CAC per coronary artery. Candidates that could not be labeled with high certainty were identified by entropy-based ambiguity detection and presented to an expert for review and possible relabeling. The system was evaluated with 530 test images. Using the two-class classifier, the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) between reference and automatically determined total patient CAC volume was 0.95. Using the multiclass classifier, the ICC between reference and automatically determined per artery CAC volume was 0.98 (LAD), 0.69 (LCX), and 0.95 (RCA). In 49% of CTs, no ambiguous candidates were identified, while review of the remaining CTs increased the ICC for total patient CAC volume to 1.00, and per artery CAC volume to 1.00 (LAD), 0.95 (LCX), and 0.99 (RCA). In conclusion, CAC can be automatically identified in non-contrast-enhanced ECG-triggered cardiac CT. Ambiguity detection with expert review may enable the application of automatic CAC scoring in the clinic with a performance comparable to that of a human expert.
TRAIL‐ and TNF‐induced signaling complexes—so similar yet so different

TNF receptor‐1 (TNFR1) and TRAIL death receptors preferentially induce pro‐inflammatory or cytotoxic signaling, respectively, via distinct plasma membrane and cytosolic complexes. New studies identifying the pro‐inflammatory factors TRAF2, RIP, and LUBAC in TRAIL death receptor complexes suggest that the latter are more “TNFR1‐like” than anticipated and argue for revision of prevailing models of spatio‐hierarchical TRAIL‐induced signaling complex assembly.
Energy loss of a heavy quark produced in a finite size medium

We study the medium-induced energy loss –ΔE0(Lp) suffered by a heavy quark produced at initial time in a quark-gluon plasma, and escaping the plasma after travelling the distance Lp. The heavy quark is treated classically, and within the same framework –ΔE0(Lp) consistently includes: the loss from standard collisional processes, initial bremsstrahlung due to the sudden acceleration of the quark, and transition radiation. The radiative loss induced by rescatterings –ΔErad(Lp) is not included in our study. For a ultrarelativistic heavy quark with momentum p 10 GeV, and for a finite plasma with Lp 5 fm, the loss –ΔE0(Lp) is strongly suppressed compared to the stationary collisional contribution –ΔEcoll(Lp) ∝ Lp. Our results support that –ΔErad is the dominant contribution to the heavy quark energy loss (at least for Lp 5 fm), as indeed assumed in most of jet-quenching analyses. However they might raise some question concerning the RHIC data on large p⊥ electron spectra.
The cutting properties and wear of the knives with DLC and W-DLC coatings, deposited by PVD methods, applied for wood and wood-based materials machining

Purpose: Performance of DLC and W-DLC coated woodworking knives was investigated. The results of testing DLC and W-DLC coating properties as well as the results of life-time tests in the form of wear of HSS and HM knives with these coatings is presents. Design/methodology/approach: DLC coating was deposited by MCVA method, and W-DLC coating was deposited by pulsed RMS. Tests of knives coated with DLC and W-DLC as uncoated ones was made by machining: MDF board, pinewood slats and floorboard - using a typical industrial milling machine. Findings: DLC coating is significantly harder (33-40 GPa) than W-DLC coating (19 GPa). From Rockwell test it can be concluded that both coatings display high adhesion (HF1), whereas in the scratch methods, significantly lower adhesion of DLC coating can be observed (LC2 = 17-21 N) in comparison to W-DLC coating (LC2 = 54 N). Influence of the hardness and adhesion of coatings on wear resistance of coated tools is discussed. Practical implications: Wear resistance of planer knives coated with DLC is by approx. 20%, and W-DLC by approx. 30% higher in comparison with uncoated knives during MDF milling. Wear of planer knives with W-DLC coating is approx. by 10%, and DLC by approx. 25% lower in comparison to uncoated HSS knives during pinewood milling. Lifetime of HM shape tools coated DLC and W-DLC is considerably higher (200-300 %) during floorboard milling. Originality/value: The industrial tests of cutting wood and wood-based materials indicate that the carbon coatings deposited on the tool generally improve its performance and all wear indexes for the tools are lower than for uncoated. The DLC and W-DLC coatings show good antiwear properties required in industry application.
Laparoscopic donor nephrectomy in the presence of vascular anomalies: evaluation of outcome.

PURPOSE In this study we show the outcome of laparoscopic kidney donation for donors and recipients in cases of donors with vascular anomalies. MATERIAL AND METHODS We consider donors to have vascular anomalies if they have multiple arteries or venous abnormalities. Fifty-six cases had double renal arteries (left side n = 52, right side n = 4). Three patients had triple renal arteries. Eighteen cases had venous anomalies (retro-aortic renal vein n = 11, double renal vein n = 4, circum-aortic renal vein n = 2, atrophic proximal renal vein, n = 1). Two donors had multiple abnormalities (double renal arteries, double renal veins, and a retro-aortic renal vein in one case, and double renal artery and double renal vein in one case). Donor surgery was done transperitoneally in all cases, using three trocars on the left side and four on the right side. Outcome in these cases is compared to the outcome in cases with no vascular abnormalities (n = 321) performed in our institution. RESULTS The total number of patients with vascular anomalies in our series is 79 (19.7%). All cases were completed laparoscopically. The mean operative time was 161 +/- 35 minutes. The mean blood loss was 65 +/- 38 mL, and no donor required blood transfusion. Mean warm ischemia time was 2.6 +/- 0.4 minutes, mean renal artery length was 3.1 +/- 0.4 cm, and mean renal vein length was 3.5 +/- 1.2 cm. Donors were discharged on the second postoperative day, and no donor required readmission. Kidneys were transplanted successfully and mean creatinine of the recipients on discharge was 1.3 +/- 0.3 mg/dL. Five patients had acute tubular necrosis; however, only one of them required dialysis (delayed graft function). Kidney function recovered thereafter in all patients. There were no significant differences in blood loss, warm ischemia time, donor hospital stay, or patient creatinine on discharge, between patients with vascular abnormalities in donors and those without vascular abnormalities in donors. However, operative time was significantly longer in donors with vascular abnormalities. CONCLUSION Laparoscopic donor nephrectomy is safe for donors with vascular anomalies. Donors benefit from a less morbid procedure with no effect on functional outcome.
Universal centers in the cubic trigonometric Abel equation

We study the center problem for the trigonometric Abel equation dr/dq = a1(q)r 2 + a2(q)r 3 , where a1(q) and a2(q) are cubic trigonometric polynomials in q. This problem is closely connected with the classical Poincare center problem for planar poly- nomial vector fields. A particular class of centers, the so-called universal centers or composition centers, is taken into account. An example of non-universal center and a characterization of all the universal centers for such equation are provided.
Prenatal Exposure to Traffic-Related Air Pollution and Ultrasound Measures of Fetal Growth in the INMA Sabadell Cohort

Background Few studies have used longitudinal ultrasound measurements to assess the effect of traffic-related air pollution on fetal growth. Objective We examined the relationship between exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and aromatic hydrocarbons [benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, m/p-xylene, and o-xylene (BTEX)] on fetal growth assessed by 1,692 ultrasound measurements among 562 pregnant women from the Sabadell cohort of the Spanish INMA (Environment and Childhood) study. Methods We used temporally adjusted land-use regression models to estimate exposures to NO2 and BTEX. We fitted mixed-effects models to estimate longitudinal growth curves for femur length (FL), head circumference (HC), abdominal circumference (AC), biparietal diameter (BPD), and estimated fetal weight (EFW). Unconditional and conditional SD scores were calculated at 12, 20, and 32 weeks of gestation. Sensitivity analyses were performed considering time–activity patterns during pregnancy. Results Exposure to BTEX from early pregnancy was negatively associated with growth in BPD during weeks 20–32. None of the other fetal growth parameters were associated with exposure to air pollution during pregnancy. When considering only women who spent < 2 hr/day in nonresidential outdoor locations, effect estimates were stronger and statistically significant for the association between NO2 and growth in HC during weeks 12–20 and growth in AC, BPD, and EFW during weeks 20–32. Conclusions Our results lend some support to an effect of exposure to traffic-related air pollutants from early pregnancy on fetal growth during mid-pregnancy.
Suitability of Different Quench Protection Methods for a 16 T Block-Type Nb3Sn Accelerator Dipole Magnet

Within the future circular collider study, a 100-km long circular hadron collider is being designed for 100 TeV center-of-mass collision energies. The design of the 16 T Nb3Sn bending dipole magnets is carried out within the EuroCirCol collaboration. Three different type of dipole designs have been developed, each aiming to be as compact as possible, accounting for the design criteria. Quench protection a critical aspect of the magnet design and potentially limits the magnet compactness. The EuroCirCol magnets were designed assuming a protection system with significantly improved efficiency compared to the present LHC dipole protection. In this paper, we consider present state-of-the-art quench protection technologies, such as quench heaters and CLIQ, and apply them into the designed 16 T Block-type dipole. Two different simulation models are used to estimate the magnet hotspot temperature and voltages after a quench and consequently estimate the suitability of the different methods.
Continuous Relaxations for Discrete Hamiltonian Monte Carlo

Continuous relaxations play an important role in discrete optimization, but have not seen much use in approximate probabilistic inference. Here we show that a general form of the Gaussian Integral Trick makes it possible to transform a wide class of discrete variable undirected models into fully continuous systems. The continuous representation allows the use of gradient-based Hamiltonian Monte Carlo for inference, results in new ways of estimating normalization constants (partition functions), and in general opens up a number of new avenues for inference in difficult discrete systems. We demonstrate some of these continuous relaxation inference algorithms on a number of illustrative problems.
Entanglement of approximate quantum strategies in XOR games

We characterize the amount of entanglement that is sufficient to play any XOR game near-optimally. We show that for any XOR game G and \eps>0 there is an \eps-optimal strategy for G using \lceil \eps^{-1} \rceil ebits of entanglement, irrespective of the number of questions in the game. By considering the family of XOR games CHSH(n) introduced by Slofstra (Jour. Math. Phys. 2011), we show that this bound is nearly tight: for any \eps>0 there is an n=\Theta(\eps^{-1/5}) such that \Omega(\eps^{-1/5}) ebits are required for any strategy achieving bias that is at least a multiplicative factor (1-\eps) from optimal in CHSH(n).
Morphology and physical properties of polyethylene/silicate nanocomposite prepared by melt intercalation

Maleated polyethylene (PEMA)/silicate nanocomposites with a different aspect ratio of silicate and maleated PEMA/SiO 2 composite were prepared by melt intercalation. The nanocomposites with a high aspect ratio silicate (montmorillonite) showed a faster decrease in the terminal slope of the storage modulus and a steeper increase in complex viscosity than those with a low aspect ratio silicate (laponite) and SiO 2 . The addition of montmorillonite increases the crystallization and the melting temperature of PEMA but decreases above 3 vol % of the silicate content because of the increased viscosity. The nanocomposite with montmorillonite showed the highest yield strength and secant modulus among the composites because of the highest aspect ratio of the filler. It also revealed strong interfacial adhesion with the matrix and orientation during tensile deformation.
Racial/ethnic differences in midlife women's attitudes toward physical activity.

INTRODUCTION Women's racial/ethnic-specific attitudes toward physical activity have been pointed out as a plausible reason for their low participation rates in physical activity. However, very little is actually known about racial/ethnic commonalities and differences in midlife women's attitudes toward physical activity. The purpose of this study was to explore commonalities and differences in midlife women's attitudes toward physical activity among 4 major racial/ethnic groups in the United States (whites, Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians). METHODS This was a secondary analysis of the qualitative data from a larger study that explored midlife women's attitudes toward physical activity. Qualitative data from 4 racial/ethnic-specific online forums among 90 midlife women were used for this study. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis, and themes reflecting commonalties and differences in the women's attitudes toward physical activity across the racial/ethnic groups were extracted. RESULTS The themes reflecting the commonalities were: 1) physical activity is good for health, 2) not as active as I could be, 3) physical activity was not encouraged, 4) inherited diseases motivated participation in physical activity, and 5) lack of accessibility to physical activity. The themes reflecting the differences were: 1) physical activity as necessity or luxury, 2) organized versus natural physical activity, 3) individual versus family-oriented physical activity, and 4) beauty ideal or culturally accepted physical appearance. DISCUSSION Developing an intervention that could change the social influences and environmental factors and address the women's racial/ethnic-specific attitudes would be a priority in increasing physical activity of racial/ethnic minority midlife women.