Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Muscle glucose uptake does not increase when only local arterial glucose concentration is increased.

Published models of mammalian whole-body glucose metabolism generally assume that glucose uptake is proportional to circulating glucose concentration at constant insulin concentration. One widely used model labels the increased whole-body glucose uptake seen with increased venous glucose concentration as "glucose effectiveness. " In 1956 and 1957, we found on average no change in forearm glucose uptake when we doubled, or more than doubled, local forearm arterial glucose concentration by close arterial infusion so that pancreatic arterial glucose concentration did not change. These experiments are being reported in extenso for the first time. Since that time, two other groups have found in glucose/insulin clamp experiments that whole-body glucose uptake was not proportional to hyperglycemic concentrations, although uptake did increase. It was hypothesized that perhaps some organs and tissues do increase uptake proportionally and other tissues not at all. Our results show that skeletal muscle is a tissue in which glucose uptake, at constant insulin, is not changed acutely by hyperglycemia; there is no forearm glucose effectiveness. We suppose that this constancy occurs because there are so few GLUTs on the sarcolemma surface in the basal state and that they are saturated even at euglycemia. We also report earlier experiments from 1954 to 1955 in which comparable hyperglycemia was reached by a large oral dose of glucose, with a 10-fold increase in glucose uptake. The arterial glucose time curve during hyperglycemia was 20-30 mg/dl higher than the forearm venous curve.
Working Out What to Wear in Papua New Guinea: The Politics of Fashion in Stella

In this article I discuss Stella, a new women’s magazine in Papua New Guinea. Noting that Stella provides a context for celebrating new Pacific femininities, I argue that the magazine’s representations of fashion are a crucial way in which this refiguring of the feminine occurs. Discussing the significance of what women wear through reference to anthropological insights about the relationship between clothing, gender, and status, I suggest that in PNG, clothing is a focal point of cultural debate. Through its playful politics, Stella intervenes in this debate, thus smuggling a deeply political message between its glossy pages. In addition, I demonstrate that through its selective aestheticization of the “local” and the “traditional,” the magazine acknowledges educated, young Papua New Guinean women’s desire to reconfigure “culture” in more inclusive ways.
Preschool Participation and BMI at Kindergarten Entry: The Case for Early Behavioral Intervention

Preschool years (ages 3–5) are a critical period in growth and development. Emerging studies suggest that preschool attendance may be linked to future weight, and perhaps obesity. This study examined relationships between public preschool attendance, demographic variables, and weight at kindergarten entry. Participants included 2,400 children entering kindergarten in 2006. Height and weight were used to calculate a child's BMI category based on CDC norms. At kindergarten entry, 17% of participants were overweight, and 18% were obese. Children attending a public preschool were at an increased risk for overweight (OR = 1.06) and obesity (OR = 1.34) at kindergarten entry, χ2(2) = 6.81, P = . 03 relative to children who did not attend preschool. No significant trends relationships between demographics and weight status were found, but demographic variables are summarized descriptively. Policy and clinical implications are provided.
Influence of auditory and visual feedback for perceiving walking over bumps and holes in desktop VR

In this paper, we present an experiment whose goal is to investigate the role of sound and vision in the recognition of different surface profiles in a walking scenario. Fifteen subjects participated to two within-subjects experiments where they were asked to interact with a desktop system simulating bumps, holes and flat surfaces by means of audio, visual and audio-visual cues. Results of the first experiment show that participants are able to successfully identify the surface profiles provided through the proposed audio-visual techniques. Results of a second experiment in which conflictual audiovisual stimuli were presented, reveal that for some of the proposed visual effects the visual feedback is dominant on the auditory one, while for the others the role of dominance is inverted.
The Role of the Task and Reward Structure in Cooperative Learning

In cooperative learning both the task structure and the reward structure affect the quality of learning. How to optimise the effectiveness of cooperative learning by manipulating the task and reward structure is the central question in this paper. Two conflicting approaches are considered. In the developmental approach the task structure is seen as the key element in explaining why cooperative learning works or not. In the motivational approach the reward structure is seen as the core element. Evidence is presented that shows that cooperative learning cannot be effective unless the task and the reward structure are compatible. With simple tasks the reward structure hardly needs special attention. Feedback on task accomplishment is sufficient. With more complex tasks the reward structure needs more fine tuning with the task.
A Blind Watermarking Algorithm Based On DCT-DWT and ARNOLD Transform

With the rapid development of information technology piracy is more prominent. Digital watermarking is a new technology to protect the legal owner’s copyrights. In this paper, we introduce a blind watermarking algorithm based on DCT and DWT. Using middle frequency band of DCT and 2levels DWT provides better imperceptibility. Furthermore by using ARNOLD transformation the robustness and security of watermark image is increased. The results show that the proposed method have better performance with respect to DWT-Only method. Therefore, the proposed method has enhanced imperceptibility of watermarked image and robustness of watermark image against image processing attacks.
An Analysis of Discourses of Writing and Writing Instruction in Curricula Across Canada

AbstractThis article presents a deductive content analysis of the grade 6 specific and general objectives in the writing curricula across Canada’s 10 provinces and two of its three territories. The analysis uses Ivanic’s six discourses of writing and learning to write: skills discourse, creativity discourse, process discourse, genre discourse, social practices discourse, and sociopolitical discourse. Phrases within each of the curriculum objectives that had some relevance to writing were coded to determine the relative emphases of the discourses within each province’s and territory’s curriculum. The analysis showed that the process discourse predominates in all writing curricula. Elements of the skills, creativity and genre discourses are present with varying emphases across the provincial and territorial curricula. However, there is minimal to no evidence of the social practices and sociopolitical discourses. Implications for curriculum developers endeavouring to create more comprehensive writing curricu.
Role of proteolysis in polyglutamine disorders

To date, nine polyglutamine disorders have been characterised, including Huntington's disease (HD), spinobulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA), dentatorubral‐pallidoluysian atrophy (DRPLA), and spinocerebellar ataxias 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 17 (SCAs). Although knockout and transgenic mouse experiments suggest that a toxic gain of function is central to neuronal death in these diseases (with the probable exception of SCA6), the exact mechanisms of neurotoxicity remain contentious. A further conundrum is the characteristic distribution of neuronal damage in each disease, despite ubiquitous expression of the abnormal proteins. One mechanism that could possibly underlie the specific distribution of neuronal toxicity is proteolytic cleavage of the full‐length expanded polyglutamine tract‐containing proteins. There is evidence found in vitro or in vivo (or both) of proteolytic cleavage in HD, SBMA, DRPLA, and SCAs 2, 3, and 7. In HD, cleavage has been demonstrated to be regionally specific, occurring as a result of caspase activation. These diseases are also characterised by development of intraneuronal aggregates of the abnormal protein that co‐localise with components of the ubiquitin‐proteasome pathway. It remains unclear whether these aggregates are pathogenic or merely disease markers; however, at least in the case of ataxin‐3, cleavage promotes aggregation. Inhibition of specific proteases constitutes a potential therapeutic approach in these diseases. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Comparing Direct Costs of Facility-Based Shang Ring Provision Versus a Standard Surgical Technique for Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision in Zambia

Background:Rapid scale-up of voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) is needed to realize potential reductions in HIV incidence in sub-Saharan Africa. New disposable VMMC devices such as the Shang Ring may offer several advantages over standard surgery, including lower costs. Methods:We compared direct costs of the Shang Ring and dorsal slit techniques for delivery of VMMC in the context of a randomized-controlled trial carried out in Zambia in 2011. Information on direct costs of clinician time, disposable supplies, and reusable medical instruments were collected by study staff. Results:During the trial, the direct cost of 1 VMMC procedure using the Shang Ring device was US $18.21, whereas the direct cost of using dorsal slit was US $17.67. Higher costs of clinician time related to dorsal slit VMMC were offset by higher costs of disposable supplies with the Shang Ring approach. Discussion:Although direct costs were roughly equivalent during this small-scale trial, with the increased demand from scaling up VMMC, a Shang Ring team could provide services at a substantially lower average total cost due to the potential for more intensive use of staff and other fixed resources.
Stability of the determination of a coefficient for the wave equation in an infinite wave guide

We consider the stability in the inverse problem consisting in the determination of an electric potential $q$, appearing in a Dirichlet initial-boundary value problem for the wave equation $\partial_t^2u-\Delta u+q(x)u=0$ in an unbounded wave guide $\Omega=\omega\times\mathbb R$ with $\omega$ a bounded smooth domain of $\mathbb R^2$, from boundary observations. The observation is given by the Dirichlet to Neumann map associated to a wave equation. We prove a H\"older stability estimate in the determination of $q$ from the Dirichlet to Neumann map. Moreover, provided that the gap between two electric potentials rich its maximum in a fixed bounded subset of $\bar{\Omega}$, we extend this result to the same inverse problem with measurements on a bounded subset of the lateral boundary $(0,T)\times\partial\Omega$.
Heart-Rate Variability in the Apolipoprotein E Knockout Transgenic Mouse Following Exposure to Seattle Particulate Matter

Epidemiological studies show that the elderly and/or people with preexisting cardiovascular disease (CVD) are more susceptible to the adverse effects of ambient air pollution. Heart-rate variability (HRV) measured through electrocardiogram (ECG) is a sensitive and effective tool for monitoring the adverse effects of particulate matter (PM). Common HRV parameters used include the standard deviation of the interval between normal beats (SDNN), square root of the mean of the squared differences between normal beats (rMSSD), and distinct high, low, and very low components of frequency. Aged apolipoprotein E knockout transgenic mice, a model of CVD, were implanted with miniaturized ECG telemetry devices and intranasally exposed to saline, 50 μg Seattle PM2.5 (PM having a mean aerodynamic diameter of ≤2.5 μm), or silica. They were monitored for a 1‐d baseline prior to and for 4 d following exposure. After an initial increase in both heart rate and activity in all groups, there was delayed bradycardia with no change in activity of the animals in the PM- and silica-exposed groups. In addition, with PM and silica exposure there was a decrease in HRV parameters, suggesting a decrease in parasympathetic tone, which may lead to cardiac arrhythmia and mortality. Seattle PM is a toxic species that modulates the autonomic nervous system in a mouse model of CVD. This work is supported by U.S. EPA grant R-827355-01-0 and NIEHS grant P30 ES07033.
Homophilic interaction of NTBA, a member of the CD2 molecular family: induction of cytotoxicity and cytokine release in human NK cells

NK‐T‐B antigen (NTBA) is a CD2 family member that functions as a coreceptor in human NK cell activation. Several receptor/ligand interactions occur between different members of this molecular family. In this study, in order to identify the natural ligand of NTBA, we produced a chimeric protein formed by the NTBA extracellular region fused with the Fc portion of human IgG1 (termed NTBA‐Fc*). NTBA‐Fc* specifically binds to NTBA cell transfectants but not to cells transfected with other CD2 family members including CD2, CD48, CD84, CD150, CD229, and CD244. Moreover, NTBA‐Fc* also binds to NTBA+ but not to NTBA– T cell lines. Enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays, plasmon resonance analysis, as well as NTBA‐Fc*‐mediated down‐regulation of NTBA surface expression further confirmed the occurrence of NTBA/NTBA homophilic interaction. Functionally, in NK cells, NTBA‐Fc* promoted a strong production of IFN‐γ and TNF‐α. Moreover, NTBA‐transfected targets displayed increased susceptibility to NK‐mediated killing as compared to untransfected cells and this effect was specifically inhibited by anti‐NTBA mAb. Altogether our data indicate that NTBA is characterized by self recognition.
Breast cancer classification of mammographic masses using improved shape features

Breast cancer classification technique divides breast cancer into two categories, benign tumors and malignant tumors. The main purpose of breast cancer classification is to classify abnormalities into benign or malignant classes and thus help physicians with further analysis by minimizing the possible errors that can be done because of fatigued or inexperienced physician. In this paper, we propose three new shape features to classify mammographic images into benign and malignant class. SVM is used as a machine learning tool for training and classification purpose. In order to evaluate the improved performance of the proposed shape features, convexity, circularity and a modified global shape feature of compactness was used. The result shows that the proposed shape features can improve measure of performances such as MCC, specificity, sensitivity and accuracy and can be a promising tool to provide preliminary decision support information to physicians for further diagnosis.
Electrical and mechanical responses of coronary artery smooth muscle to catecholamines.

1. Electrical and mechanical responses to catecholamines were studied in isolated ring muscle strips of the coronary artery of the dog.2. Adrenaline and noradrenaline caused various responses of large coronary artery and relaxation of the small coronary artery. Isoprenaline caused relaxation of both large and small coronary artery.3. Catecholamine-induced relaxation or contraction was blocked by beta or alpha adrenergic blockade respectively.4. The mean, resting membrane potential of small coronary artery recorded intracellularly was -47 mV.5. Adrenaline caused relaxation without changes in the membrane potential and in the absence of action potentials.6. Increase in extracellular potassium initiated depolarization of cell membrane.7. Dissociation in smooth muscle between relaxation and membrane potential change were discussed.
Effects of dorsal root section on spinocervical tract neurones in the cat

1. In nine cats, dorsal roots L6 and L7 were sectioned under pentobarbitone anaesthesia using strict aseptic precautions. In two cats all lumbosacral roots except L6 were sectioned under similar conditions. 27‐75 days after the dorsal rhizotomies, under chloralose anaesthesia, neurones of the spinocervical tract (s.c.t.) were recorded electrophysiologically both extracellularly and intracellularly, their response properties and receptive fields were analysed, and they were injected with horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Twenty‐five cells were recorded extracellularly and twenty were recorded intracellularly and stained with the enzyme.
Prognostic significance of the Medical Research Council cytogenetic classification compared with the European LeukaemiaNet risk classification system in acute myeloid leukaemia

Patients with newly diagnosed, non-M3 acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) treated between 1993 and 2012 with available cytogenetic data were analysed based on the European Leukaemia Net (ELN-C) and UK Medical Research Council classification (MRC-C) systems (Dohner, et al 2010, Grimwade, et al 2010). Patients 60 years with non-favourable cytogenetics were treated with lower- intensity programmes utilizing azacitidine, decitabine and novel agents. All protocols were approved by the Institutional Review Board and patients signed informed consents in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.
Fusing the complete linear discriminant features by fuzzy integral for face recognition

A complete linear discriminant analysis (CLDA) algorithm is proposed in this paper, which can extract the discriminant features both in the null space and the range space. Based on CLDA, a three-phase framework is proposed for face recognition. A face image is firstly decomposed by wavelet transform and its global and local information is obtained. Secondly, CLDA is used to extract the complete discriminant features contained in the global and local information. Finally, These different kinds of information are fused by fuzzy integral for the purpose of classification. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method yields better classification performance in comparison to the results obtained by other methods, such as Eigenface, Fisherface, KPCA or KFD methods
Using Pattern Languages in Participatory Design

In this paper, we examine the contribution that pattern languages could make to user participation in the design of interactive systems, and we report on our experiences of using pattern languages in this way. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of patterns and pattern languages in the design of interactive systems. Pattern languages were originally developed by the architect, Christopher Alexander, both as a way of understanding the nature of building designs that promote a 'humane' or living built environment; and as a practical tool to aid in participatory design of buildings. Our experience suggests that pattern languages do have considerable potential to support participatory design in HCI, but that many pragmatic issues remain to be resolved.
MARRIAGE-RELATED DECISION-MAKING AND YOUNG WOMEN'S MARITAL RELATIONS AND AGENCY

There is little research that has explored how marriage arrangements, i.e., family-arranged, semi-arranged marriages with some say in spouse selection and self-arranged marriages, affect young women's married life in settings traditionally characterised by arranged marriage. Using data from 13,912 married young women aged 15–24 in India, we explore associations between marriage arrangements and young women's marital relations and agency. Logistic regression analysis shows that women experiencing semi- and self-arranged marriages were more likely than those in family-arranged marriages to communicate and interact with their husband (OR, 1.3–2.8), and exhibit agency in their life (OR, 1.2–2.3); those in semi-arranged marriages were less likely to experience marital violence. These associations were, however, stronger and more consistent among women from southern and western states than in northern and eastern states. Findings call for expanding the discourse on marriage to ensure young people's right to free and full consent in spouse selection.
The Role of Sampling in Strategic Management Research on Performance: A Two-Study Analysis

Strategic management researchers often note the inability of many phenomena to consistently explain organizational performance. Using a two-study format, we examine the possibility that sampling practices may contribute to this inability. We chronicle sampling practices within 437 studies investigating the determinants of organizational performance published between 1980 and 1999 in the Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Management, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. Our results reveal that fewer than one in five studies rely on a random sample and that researchers offer little a priori acknowledgement of sample limitations. Although the first study suggests that sampling issues have been problematic, it cannot offer direct evidence. Thus, in the second study, we examine the effect of sample selection on empirical results by testing one popular relationship from the strategy literature (chief executive officer duality and performance) using four different samples. Whereas a stratified random sample offers some evidence of a positive relationship, a purposive sample detects a negative relationship and an available sample and simple random sample detect no relationship. Taken together, the studies suggest that sampling practices must improve if strategic management is to approach its objective of explaining performance. Accordingly, several exemplar studies are described and recommendations are offered to guide future sampling practices.
Systemic metabolism in frontotemporal dementia

Objective: To document the metabolic changes in frontotemporal dementia, including serum cholesterol and insulin levels, and compare and contrast these changes to motor neuron disease, where metabolism is proposed to affect disease progression. Methods: A cohort of 90 patients with dementia (31 behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia [bvFTD], 30 semantic dementia [SD], and 29 Alzheimer disease [AD]) underwent fasting blood cholesterol, glucose, and peripheral insulin level analysis. Insulin resistance was calculated using the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). These results were compared with a cohort of 19 control subjects. Results: The bvFTD cohort had lower high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels compared with control and AD groups, and increased total cholesterol/HDL ratio and triglyceride levels compared with the control group. The SD cohort had increased triglyceride levels compared with control subjects. Both FTD groups had increased fasting insulin levels and HOMA-IR index compared with the control group, and this remained increased in the subjects with bvFTD compared to subjects with AD. Conclusion: Both patients with bvFTD and those with SD have increased triglyceride and insulin levels and lower HDL cholesterol levels compared with controls, suggesting a state of peripheral insulin resistance. These factors have been found to affect prognosis in motor neuron disease favorably, although insulin resistance has been proposed as a mechanism promoting neurodegeneration. We discuss the potential role of metabolism in FTD pathophysiology and progression.