Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PGC-1 is downregulated by training in human skeletal muscle: no effect of training twice every second day vs. once daily on expression of the PGC-1 family

We hypothesized that the PGC-1 family of transcriptional co-activators (PGC-1, PGC-1, and PRC) is differentially regulated by training once daily vs. training twice daily every second day and that this difference might be observed in the acute response to endurance exercise. Furthermore, we hypothesized that expression levels of the PGC-1 family differ with muscular fiber type composition. Thus, before and after 10 weeks of knee extensor endurance training, training one leg once daily and the other leg twice daily every second day, keeping the total amount of training for the legs equal, skeletal muscle mRNA expression levels of PGC-1, PGC-1 and PRC were determined in young healthy men (n=7) in response to 3 hours of acute exercise. No significant difference was found between the two legs, suggesting that regulation of the PGC-1 family is independent of training protocol. Training decreased PGC-1 in both legs, while PGC-1 was increased, but not significantly in the leg training once daily. PRC did not change with training. Both PGC-1 and PRC were increased by acute exercise both before and after endurance training, while PGC-1 did not change. The mRNA levels of the PGC-1 family were examined in different types of human skeletal muscle (triceps, soleus and vastus lateralis) (n=7). Only the expression level of PGC-1 differed and correlated inversely with percentage of Type I fibers. In conclusion, there was no difference between training protocols upon the acute exercise and training response of the PGC-1 family. However, training caused a decrease in PGC-1 mRNA levels.
Prenatal Cocaine Disrupts Serotonin Signaling-Dependent Behaviors: Implications for Sex Differences, Early Stress and Prenatal SSRI Exposure

Prenatal cocaine (PC) exposure negatively impacts the developing nervous system, including numerous changes in serotonergic signaling. Cocaine, a competitive antagonist of the serotonin transporter, similar to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), also blocks dopamine and norepinephrine transporters, leaving the direct mechanism through which cocaine disrupts the developing serotonin system unclear. In order to understand the role of the serotonin transporter in cocaine’s effect on the serotonergic system, we compare reports concerning PC and prenatal antidepressant exposure and conclude that PC exposure affects many facets of serotonergic signaling (serotonin levels, receptors, transporters) and that these effects differ significantly from what is observed following prenatal SSRI exposure. Alterations in serotonergic signaling are dependent on timing of exposure, test regimens, and sex. Following PC exposure, behavioral disturbances are observed in attention, emotional behavior and stress response, aggression, social behavior, communication, and like changes in serotonergic signaling, these effects depend on sex, age and developmental exposure. Vulnerability to the effects of PC exposure can be mediated by several factors, including allelic variance in serotonergic signaling genes, being male (although fewer studies have investigated female offspring), and experiencing the adverse early environments that are commonly coincident with maternal drug use. Early environmental stress results in disruptions in serotonergic signaling analogous to those observed with PC exposure and these may interact to produce greater behavioral effects observed in children of drug-abusing mothers. We conclude that based on past evidence, future studies should put a greater emphasis on including females and monitoring environmental factors when studying the impact of PC exposure.
Blood Pressure Measurement: A New Frontier?

In this issue of The Journal of Clinical Hypertension, a respected group in Taipei, Taiwan, linked with the US National Institute on Aging at Johns Hopkins in the United States, described indices of arterial stiffness in a group of 57 hypertensive patients treated to current guidelines with three or more antihypertensive agents and compared with a group of 57 ageand sex-matched normotensive patients from a community survey. Findings were of higher residual aortic stiffness (as carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity [PWV]) and of early-wave reflection (augmentation index [AIx]) in the treated hypertensive than in the normotensive group. The question that arises is how we can better manage such patients who are already treated to guidelines, in a center that has available methods, which are discussed in the recent American Heart Association Scientific Statement, to measure aortic stiffness, wave reflection, and central aortic pressure (CAP). The Taiwan group has developed such instruments, with a commercial sponsor, and evaluated them over a period of 25 years. They have shown that indices of aortic stiffness, including PWV, AIx, and reflection magnitude, are associated with higher risk of morbidity and mortality. The group of 114 patients is too small to measure conventional outcomes, and there is no direct evidence that further reduction of PWV or AIx will improve outcome, but there is increasing acceptance that treatment of aortic stiffness from middle age can reduce cerebrovascular lesions and delay development of intellectual deterioration and onset of dementia. There is evidence that such indices can predict reduction of left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy with relatively small patient numbers. This question is likely to become more relevant in clinical practice, with better knowledge and acceptance of aortic stiffness and pressure AIx as targets of therapy and pending Medicare reimbursement for measurement of CAP. A more aggressive approach to the management of systolic blood pressure (BP) will likely arise from the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial (SPRINT), which has been terminated by the supervising ethics committee on the basis of better results from reduction of systolic pressure to a target of <120 mm Hg than to <140 mm Hg. During the past 25 years, our group in Sydney has been working on the same issues as our colleagues in Taiwan and Baltimore and, having developed the almost identical transfer function as Chen and colleagues, has used this in our clinical practice. Our approach is set out below.
ServerSwitch: A Programmable and High Performance Platform for Data Center Networks

As one of the fundamental infrastructures for cloud computing, data center networks (DCN) have recently been studied extensively. We currently use pure software-based systems, FPGA based platforms, e.g., NetFPGA, or OpenFlow switches, to implement and evaluate various DCN designs including topology design, control plane and routing, and congestion control. However, software-based approaches suffer from high CPU overhead and processing latency; FPGA based platforms are difficult to program and incur high cost; and OpenFlow focuses on control plane functions at present. In this paper, we design a ServerSwitch to address the above problems. ServerSwitch is motivated by the observation that commodity Ethernet switching chips are becoming programmable and that the PCI-E interface provides high throughput and low latency between the server CPU and I/O subsystem. ServerSwitch uses a commodity switching chip for various customized packet forwarding, and leverages the server CPU for control and data plane packet processing, due to the low latency and high throughput between the switching chip and server CPU. We have built our ServerSwitch at low cost. Our experiments demonstrate that ServerSwitch is fully programmable and achieves high performance. Specifically, we have implemented various forwarding schemes including source routing in hardware. Our in-network caching experiment showed high throughput and flexible data processing. Our QCN (Quantized Congestion Notification) implementation further demonstrated that ServerSwitch can react to network congestions in 23us.
Falls, injuries due to falls, and the risk of admission to a nursing home.

BACKGROUND Falls warrant investigation as a risk factor for nursing home admission because falls are common and are associated with functional disability and because they may be preventable. METHODS We conducted a prospective study of a probability sample of 1103 people over 71 years of age who were living in the community. Data on demographic and medical characteristics, use of health care, and cognitive, functional, psychological, and social functioning were obtained at base line and one year later during assessments in the participants' homes. The primary outcome studied was the number of days from the initial assessment to a first long-term admission to a skilled-nursing facility during three years of follow-up. Patients were assigned to four categories during follow-up: those who had no falls, those who had one fall without serious injury, those who had two or more falls without serious injury, and those who had at least one fall causing serious injury. RESULTS A total of 133 participants (12.1 percent) had long-term admissions to nursing homes. In an unadjusted model, the risk of admission increased progressively, as compared with that for the patients with no falls, for those with a single noninjurious fall (relative risk, 4.9; 95 percent confidence interval, 3.2 to 7.5), those with multiple noninjurious falls (relative risk, 8.5; 95 percent confidence interval, 3.4 to 21.2), and those with at least one fall causing serious injury (relative risk, 19.9; 95 percent confidence interval, 12.2 to 32.6). Adjustment for other risk factors lowered these ratios to 3.1 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.9 to 4.9) for one noninjurious fall, 5.5 (95 percent confidence interval, 2.1 to 14.2) for two or more noninjurious falls, and 10.2 (95 percent confidence interval, 5.8 to 17.9) for at least one fall causing serious injury, but the association between falls and admission to a nursing home remained strong and significant. The population attributable risk of long-term admission to a nursing home for these three groups (the proportion of admissions directly attributable to the three categories of falls) was 13 percent, 3 percent, and 10 percent, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Among older people living in the community falls are a strong predictor of placement in a skilled-nursing facility; interventions that prevent falls and their sequelae may therefore delay or reduce the frequency of nursing home admissions.
Age differences in somatotypes of Garhwali males 17–60 years of age

Changes in somatotype with age were investigated in a cross‐sectional sample of 400 Garhwali men from northwest India. The subjects, 17‐60 years of age, were somatotyped with the Heath‐Carter anthropometric protocol. The overall mean somatotype was 3.0‐3.7‐3.1. A one‐way MANOVA indicated significant differences among the nine age groups. Pairwise comparisons using Hotelling's T2 showed significant differences between men up to 29 years and those over 30 years. Garhwali men 30+ years of age were more endomorphic and less ectomorphic than younger men. The mean somatotype for men 30+ years was 3.3‐3.9‐2.7 and for men <30 years was 2.8‐3.3‐3.9. Endomorphy and mesomorphy increased with age with a reciprocal decrease in ectomorphy up to 55 years; the trend was somewhat reversed thereafter. The somatotype categories mesomorphic ectomorph and mesomorph‐ectomorph included the greatest proportion of Garhwali men <30 years; maximum percentages of men 30+ years belonged to the mesomorph‐endomorph, endomorphic mesomorph and mesomorphic endomorph categories. Garhwali men were more ectomorphic and less endomorphic and mesomorphic than Canadians. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 9:285–290, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A Generic Framework for Replicated Software Transactional Memories

Software Transactional Memory (STM) has emerged a powerful abstraction for managing access to shared data. Therefore, it is no surprise that a handful of different STM replication schemes have been proposed in the last recent years. In this context, we propose an architecture that facilitates the integration and execution of multiple replication techniques in a single, coherent, middleware infrastructure. This paves the way towards the development of autonomic mechanisms, able to select in runtime the most appropriate replication technique for the workload at hand.
The influence of the tonsillar gag on efficacy of seal, anatomic position, airway patency, and airway protection with the flexible laryngeal mask airway: a randomized, cross-over study of fresh adult cadavers.

UNLABELLED We conducted a randomized, controlled, cross-over cadaver study to test the hypothesis that the efficacy of seal for ventilation and airway protection, anatomic position, and airway patency with the flexible laryngeal mask airway (FLMA) are altered by the application of a Boyle Davis (B-D) gag. We also determined the airway sealing pressure (ASP) at which the FLMA prevents aspiration when large volumes of fluid are placed above the cuff. We studied 20 adult cadavers (6-24 h postmortem). Efficacy of seal for ventilation and airway protection, anatomic position, and airway patency were determined with and without a B-D gag (two blade sizes: 8 and 10 cm) for the size 3, 4, and 5 FLMA in random order. Efficacy of seal for ventilation was determined by measuring the ASP at an intracuff pressure of 60 cm H2O. Efficacy of seal for airway protection was determined by flooding the mouth with 55-135 mL of water, reducing intracuff pressure until aspiration was detected fiberoptically and measuring ASP at this intracuff pressure. Anatomic position and airway patency were determined with a fiberoptic scope at an intracuff pressure of 60 cm H2O. In addition, in vivo compliance and ASP for the FLMA were measured in 10 cadavers and 10 paralyzed, anesthetized patients. Efficacy of seal for ventilation and airway protection, anatomic position, and airway patency did not change with the application of a gag for any mask size. The mean (range) ASP at which aspiration occurred when large volumes of fluid were placed above the cuff was 11 (7-15) cm H2O. The ASP for ventilation was always higher than the ASP for airway protection (P<0.0001). The FLMA had similar in vivo compliance and ASP in cadavers and anesthetized patients. We conclude that efficacy of seal for ventilation and airway protection, anatomic position and airway patency for the FLMA are unaffected by the application of a B-D gag in adults. ASP should be >15 cm H2O if there is a maximal risk of aspiration from above the cuff. IMPLICATIONS The flexible laryngeal mask airway forms an effective seal for ventilation and protection of the airway that is unaffected by the application of a mouth gag that provides surgical access to the oropharynx. The efficacy of the seal should be >15 cm H2O if there is a maximal risk of aspiration from above the cuff.
Comparison of pain models to detect opioid-induced hyperalgesia

Objective Chronic opioid therapy may be associated with hyperalgesia. Our objective was to determine if opioid-induced hyperalgesia detection sensitivity is dependent on the stimulus used to detect it. Methods This open design study compared the detection of hyperalgesia in opioid-dependent subjects (n = 16) and healthy control subjects (n = 16) using the following pain stimuli: cold pain, electrical stimulation, mechanical pressure, and ischemic pain. The opioid-dependent subjects were maintained on either methadone (n = 8) or buprenorphine (n = 8) for at least 3 months. None of the controls was dependent on opioids or other drugs of abuse. Results The opioid-dependent subjects were markedly more sensitive than controls to the cold pain test. Compared with the control group, the hazard ratio for ceasing the test due to intolerable pain was 7.7 (95% confidence interval [CI] 2.6–23.3) in the buprenorphine group and 4.5 (95% CI 1.7–15.6) in the methadone group, with similar data for the cold pain threshold. Of the remaining tests, there were differences only for the electrical pain threshold between treatment groups, with the geometric mean threshold in the buprenorphine group being 1.5 (95% CI 1.1–1.9)-fold higher (ie, less sensitive) than that of the controls; the geometric mean for the methadone group was 1.3 (95% CI 1.04–1.7)-fold higher than that of the controls. There were no significant differences between buprenorphine and methadone patients in test responses. Women were more sensitive to the cold pain (hazard ratio for tolerance, 3.1 [95% CI 1.4–7.3]) and ischemic tests (hazard ratio for tolerance, 2.7 [95% CI 1.2–6.1]). There were significant correlations between cold and ischemic tolerances (r = 0.50; P = 0.003) and between electrical and mechanical pain tolerances (r = 0.52; P = 0.002). Conclusion These findings indicate that cold pain is the most suitable of the methods tested to detect opioid-induced hyperalgesia. This is consistent with its sensitivity to detect opioid analgesia.
Morphogenesis, Flowering, and Gene Expression of Dendranthema grandiflorum in Response to Shift in Light Quality of Night Interruption

The impact of shifts in the spectral quality of light on morphogenesis, flowering, and photoperiodic gene expression during exposure to light quality of night interruption (NI) was investigated in Dendranthema grandiflorum. The circadian rhythms of plants grown in a closed walk-in growth chamber were interrupted at night for a total of 4 h, using light-emitting diodes with an intensity of 10 μmol·m−2·s−1 PPF. The light quality of the NI was shifted from one wavelength to another after the first 2 h. Light treatments consisting of all possible pairings of blue (B), red (R), far-red (Fr), and white (W) light were tested. Plants in the NI treatment groups exposed to Fr light grew larger than plants in other treatment groups. Of plants in NI treatment groups, those in the NI-WB treatment grew the least. In addition, the impact of shifts in the light quality of NI on leaf expansion was greater in treatment groups exposed to a combination of either B and R or R and W light, regardless of their order of supply. Flowering was observed in the NI-RB, NI-FrR, NI-BFr, NI-FrB, NI-WB, NI-FrW, NI-WFr, NI-WR, and SD (short-day) treatments, and was especially promoted in the NI-BFr and NI-FrB treatments. In a combined shift treatment of B and R or B and W light, the NI concluded with B light (NI-RB and NI-WB) treatment induced flowering. The transcriptional factors phyA, cry1 and FTL (FLOWERING LOCUS T) were positively affected, while phyB and AFT were negatively affected. In conclusion, morphogenesis, flowering, and transcriptional factors were all significantly affected either positively or negatively by shifts in the light quality of NI. The light quality of the first 2 h of NI affected neither morphogenesis nor flowering, while the light quality of the last 2 h of NI significantly affected both morphogenesis and flowering.
Learning Coupled Dynamical Systems from human demonstration for robotic eye-arm-hand coordination

Efficient, adaptive and reliable visuomotor control system is crucial to enable robots to display flexibility in the face of changes in the environment. This paper takes inspiration in human eye-arm-hand coordination pattern to develop an equivalently robust robot controller. We recorded gaze, arm, hand, and trunk data from human subjects in reaching and grasping scenarios with/without obstacle in the workspace. An eye-arm-hand controller is developed, based on our extension of Coupled Dynamical Systems (CDS). We exploit the time-invariant properties of the CDS to allow fast adaptation to spatial and temporal perturbations during task completion. CDS global stability guarantees that the eye, the arm and the hand will reach the target in retinal, operational and grasp space respectively. When facing perturbations, the system can re-plan its actions almost instantly, without the need for an additional planning module. Coupling profiles for eye-arm and arm-hand systems can be modulated allowing to adjust the behavior of each slave system with respect to control signals flowing from the corresponding master system. We show how the CDS eye-arm-hand control framework can be used to handle the presence of obstacles in the workspace. The eye-arm-hand controller is validated in a series of experiments conducted with the iCub robot.
Analysis on the Accuracy of a Decision Support System for Hypertension Monitoring

In this paper, we propose a novel method to estimate the accuracy of a decision support system for hypertension monitoring. The decision support system is designed building on a diagnosis standard in medicine, and one decision made by this system depends on both the blood pressure data gathered by medical sensors and some contexts that are manually entered by clinicians. When analyzing the system accuracy, we take into account both the potential sensors' errors and the errors of entering context. In addition, we propose a novel method for the estimation of system accuracy; this method is motivated by the fact that the traditional method to estimate system accuracy would overestimate the system accuracy (the details would be presented in Section III.C.). Finally, we compare the system accuracy estimated by the proposed method and that estimated by the traditional method. Our study shows that our proposed method can well estimate the system accuracy.
Prioritized Metric Structures and Embedding

Metric data structures (distance oracles, distance labeling schemes, routing schemes) and low-distortion embeddings provide a powerful algorithmic methodology, which has been successfully applied for approximation algorithms [21], online algorithms [7], distributed algorithms [19] and for computing sparsifiers [28]. However, this methodology appears to have a limitation: the worst-case performance inherently depends on the cardinality of the metric, and one could not specify in advance which vertices/points should enjoy a better service (i.e., stretch/distortion, label size/dimension) than that given by the worst-case guarantee. In this paper we alleviate this limitation by devising a suit of prioritized metric data structures and embeddings. We show that given a priority ranking (x1,x2,.,xn) of the graph vertices (respectively, metric points) one can devise a metric data structure (respectively, embedding) in which the stretch (resp., distortion) incurred by any pair containing a vertex xj will depend on the rank j of the vertex. We also show that other important parameters, such as the label size and (in some sense) the dimension, may depend only on j. In some of our metric data structures (resp., embeddings) we achieve both prioritized stretch (resp., distortion) and label size (resp., dimension) simultaneously. The worst-case performance of our metric data structures and embeddings is typically asymptotically no worse than of their non-prioritized counterparts.