Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Waste pine cones as a source of reinforcing fillers for thermoplastic composites

In this study, we evaluated some physical and mechanical properties of polypropylene (PP) composites reinforced with pine-cone flour and wood flour. Five types of wood-plastic composites (WPCs) were prepared from mixtures of cone flour, wood flour, PP, and a coupling agent. The water resistance and flexural properties of the composites were negatively affected by an increase in cone-flour content. Extractives in the cone flour had a significant effect on the flexural properties of the WPCs. However, the flexural properties and water resistance of the WPC samples were not significantly affected by the addition of 10 wt % of the cone flour when compared to the WPC samples made from wood flour. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 117: 2324-2330, 2010.
Serum Growth Hormone Measurements in Clinical Practice: An Audit of Performance from the UK National External Quality Assessment Scheme

The replacement of growth hormone (GH) radioimmunoassays with a variety of more specific immunometric methods in diagnostic service laboratories has led to a worsening of between-laboratory agreement, reflecting differences in method bias. Incorrect calibration and differences in specificity are important causes of method bias, but the impact of this on interpretation is not clear. In order to maximize the diagnostic reliability of GH testing for small stature, manufacturers should carefully calibrate their methods against the appropriate GH International Standard, and should use antibodies of broadly agreed specificity. Laboratories performing GH tests should participate in a reliable External Quality Assessment (EQA) scheme and guidelines for investigation that incorporate normal GH responses should be agreed.
Black Hole Demographics

The purpose of this contribution is to review the current status of black hole demographics in light of recent advances in the study of high redshift QSOs (section 2), local AGNs (section 3) and local quiescent galaxies (section 4). I will then outline the prospects for future progress (section 5), and discuss what I believe will be the challenges for the years to come [ABRIDGED].
Eigenfunction expansions of ultradifferentiable functions and ultradistributions

In this paper we give a global characterisation of classes of ultradifferentiable functions and corresponding ultradistributions on a compact manifold X. The characterisation is given in terms of the eigenfunction expansion of an elliptic operator on X. This extends the result for analytic functions on compact manifolds by Seeley in 1969, and the characterisation of Gevrey functions and Gevrey ultradistributions on compact Lie groups and homogeneous spaces by the authors (2014).
Nitric oxide impacts on angiotensin AT2 receptor modulation of high-pressure baroreflex control of renal sympathetic nerve activity in anaesthetized rats

Nitric oxide (NO) interacts with the local brain renin‐angiotensin system to modulate sympathetic outflow and cardiovascular homoeostasis. This study investigated whether NO influenced the ability of angiotensin AT2 receptor activation to modify the high‐pressure baroreceptor regulation of renal sympathetic nerve activity (RSNA) and heart rate (HR).
Thyroxine 5-deiodinase in human brain tumors.

To determine whether human brains contain deiodinating pathways, we studied the activity of T4 5-monodeiodinase (5-D) in 20 human brain tumors obtained intraoperatively, including astrocytoma (10), meningioma (4), oligodendroglioma (2), glioblastoma (2), medulloblastoma (1), and malignant lymphoma (1). Mitochondrial-microsomal fractions prepared from these tumor tissues were used as the source of T4 5-D. Each sample was incubated with 32.2 nmol/L T4 and 30 mmol/L dithiothreitol at 37 C for 90 min. T4 5-D activity was measured by the production of rT3 from T4 with a RIA. T4 5-D activity was found in 6 of 10 astrocytomas, 2 oligodendrogliomas, 1 of 2 glioblastomas, and 1 malignant lymphoma. This activity depended on protein concentration, incubation time, incubation temperature, and pH of the incubation mixture. It was also heat labile. T4 5-D was not inhibited by 1 mmol/L propylthiouracil, but was inhibited by iopanoic acid and aurothioglucose in a dose-dependent manner. The apparent Km and maximum velocity for T4 5-D at 30 mmol/L dithiothreitol were 106.6 nmol/L and 22.7 pmol/mg protein.h, respectively. These data suggest that human gliomas (and probably malignant lymphomas) contain T4 5-D activity, which is similar to type III enzyme activity in the rat. T4 5-D may regulate the intracellular concentration of thyroid hormone in gliomas.
Helping Chinese Fathers Quit Smoking through Educating Their Nonsmoking Spouses: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Purpose. Assess the effectiveness of a two-step health education program by nurses delivered through nonsmoking mothers to help fathers of sick children quit smoking. Design. Randomized, controlled trial. Setting. General pediatric wards of four major hospitals in Hong Kong. Subjects. Nonsmoking mothers who had a live-in smoking spouse were recruited when they brought sick children to the hospital. A total of 752 mothers were randomized into the intervention arm and 731 into the control arm. Intervention. The intervention group received standardized health advice, behavior modification booklets, and a 1–week telephone reminder. The control group received usual care. Measurements. The main outcome measure was the quit rate (7–day point prevalence) of smoking fathers as determined by telephone follow-up with mothers at 3 and 12 months. Quit attempts and smoking reduction were secondary outcome measures. Results. At 3 months, more fathers in the intervention group had quit smoking (7.4% vs. 4.8%; p = .03), reduced daily cigarette consumption by 50% or more (30.6% vs. 22.6%; p < .001), and reported quit attempts (6.5% vs. 3.6%; p = .01). The differences were not statistically significant by 12 months. Conclusion. A simple health education intervention provided by nurses to mothers of sick children has a short-term effect in helping smoking fathers quit, reduce consumption, and trigger quit attempts. Future studies should confirm the longer-term sustainability of the effect.
On the Normal Stress Effect in Grease-Lubricated Bearing Seals

The film formation in lip seals, due to the non-Newtonian rheology of the lubricant, has been a topic of speculation. Earlier work suggests that normal stresses in grease would be favorable for the film buildup between the seal lip and shaft or bearing ring. In the current article, we evaluate this earlier work and our earlier theoretical seal lip model with a series of experiments. We use a modified concentric cylinder geometry and a model fluid to study the fluid pressure distribution in the seal-type geometry. The results are then related to grease-lubricated seals and our earlier theoretical predictions. The present analysis shows that this earlier work and our earlier predictions are not correct and indicate that normal stresses in the grease pull the seal lip toward the shaft, increasing the contact pressure. However, normal stresses also ensure the presence of grease on the shaft or bearing inner ring, which enhances replenishment of the sealing contact.
Attentive processes, blood lactate and CrossFit®

ABSTRACT Objectives: To analyze the influences of blood lactate produced during a specific session of CrossFit® on intensity and selectivity of attention. The first was evaluated by measuring the reaction time and the second by analyzing divided attention with a dual task. Methods: Fifteen male professionals of CrossFit® volunteered in the study. The training session was the Workout Of the Day (WOD) called 15.5, marked as: 27–21–15–9 repetitions (without recovery) in term of calories measured by using a rowing ergometer (e.g. 27 rowed calories) and in term of barbell full squats (raising a weight of 43 kg for men and of 29.5 kg for women). Blood lactate, blood glucose, reaction time, execution time of a dual task, number of errors and number of omissions were measured at rest, at the conclusion of the session and 15 minutes after its end. Results: The levels of the blood lactate before the start of the session were considerably higher than those which normally occur at rest (<2 mmol /L), with a mean value of 4.5 mmol /l (± 1.99 SD). At the end of the workout session the blood lactate exhibited a significant increase, reaching a mean value of 13.8 mmol /l (± 1.18 SD) and then returning to values similar to the initial ones after 15 minutes. Blood glucose did not exhibit any statistically significant differences during the session. Reaction time, execution time, number of errors and number of omissions exhibited a significant worsening concomitantly with the increase in blood lactate. Conclusion: Athletes practicing CrossFit®, with high levels of blood lactate even at rest, should consequently have attentional performances somewhat limited.
Functionally distinct phospho-forms underlie incremental activation of protein kinase-regulated Cl- conductance in mammalian heart

The regulation of cardiac Cl- conductance by cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) and cellular phosphatases was studied in isolated guinea pig ventricular myocytes by using wide-tipped, perfused pipettes to record whole-cell currents. Exposure to forskolin (Fsk) or isoproterenol (Iso) elicits a Cl- conductance that results exclusively from PKA-dependent phosphorylation because it can be completely abolished, or its activation fully prevented, by switching to pipette solution containing PKI, a synthetic peptide inhibitor of PKA. The Cl- conductance activated by micromolar concentrations of either agonist reached its steady-state amplitude in 1-2 min and was deactivated promptly and entirely, usually within 2 min, upon washing out the agonist, implying a continuous high level of activity of endogenous protein phosphatases. Accordingly, intracellular application of okadaic acid or microcystin, both potent inhibitors of protein phosphatases 1 and 2A, during exposure to Fsk enhanced the steady-state Cl- conductance and slowed its deactivation after washing out the Fsk. Maximal potentiation of the conductance, by approximately 60%, was obtained with pipette concentrations of approximately 10 microM okadaic acid (or approximately 5 microM microcystin) and did not result from an increase in the apparent affinity for Fsk. In the presence of maximally effective concentrations of okadaic acid and/or microcystin, deactivation of the enhanced Cl- conductance upon washout of agonist was incomplete, with about half of the conductance persisting indefinitely. That residual conductance did not reflect continued action of PKA because it was insensitive to PKI, but was identified as a fraction of the activated Cl- conductance by its biophysical characteristics. The results suggest that complete deactivation of the PKA-regulated cardiac Cl- conductance requires dephosphorylation by a type 1 and/or 2A phosphatase, but that partial deactivation can be accomplished by activity of some other phosphatase(s). These findings are consistent with sequential phosphorylation of a protein, probably the Cl- channel itself, at two different kinds of sites. The resulting phosphoproteins can be distinguished on the basis of their different contributions to whole-cell Cl- conductance.
Bayesian modelling of compositional heterogeneity in molecular phylogenetics

Abstract In molecular phylogenetics, standard models of sequence evolution generally assume that sequence composition remains constant over evolutionary time. However, this assumption is violated in many datasets which show substantial heterogeneity in sequence composition across taxa. We propose a model which allows compositional heterogeneity across branches, and formulate the model in a Bayesian framework. Specifically, the root and each branch of the tree is associated with its own composition vector whilst a global matrix of exchangeability parameters applies everywhere on the tree. We encourage borrowing of strength between branches by developing two possible priors for the composition vectors: one in which information can be exchanged equally amongst all branches of the tree and another in which more information is exchanged between neighbouring branches than between distant branches. We also propose a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm for posterior inference which uses data augmentation of substitutional histories to yield a simple complete data likelihood function that factorises over branches and allows Gibbs updates for most parameters. Standard phylogenetic models are not informative about the root position. Therefore a significant advantage of the proposed model is that it allows inference about rooted trees. The position of the root is fundamental to the biological interpretation of trees, both for polarising trait evolution and for establishing the order of divergence among lineages. Furthermore, unlike some other related models from the literature, inference in the model we propose can be carried out through a simple MCMC scheme which does not require problematic dimension-changing moves. We investigate the performance of the model and priors in analyses of two alignments for which there is strong biological opinion about the tree topology and root position.
Silhouette-based 3-D model reconstruction from multiple images

The goal of this study is to investigate the reconstruction of three-dimensional (3-D) graphical models of real objects in a controlled imaging environment and present the work done in our group based on silhouette-based reconstruction. Although many parts of the whole system have been well-known in the literature and in practice, the main contribution of the paper is that it describes a complete, end-to-end system explained in detail. Based on a multi-image calibration method, an algorithm to extract the rotation axis of a turn-table has been developed. Furthermore, this can be extended to estimate robustly the initial bounding volume of the object to be modeled. The disadvantages of the silhouette-based reconstruction can be removed by an algorithm using photoconsistency. This algorithm has a simpler visibility check, and it eliminates the selection of threshold existing in similar algorithms. Besides, in order to construct the appearance, we use the concept of particles. The reconstruction results are shown both on real world and synthetic objects.
Model Evaluation in Generalized Structured Component Analysis Using Confirmatory Tetrad Analysis

Generalized structured component analysis (GSCA) is a component-based approach to structural equation modeling (SEM). GSCA regards weighted composites or components of indicators as proxies for latent variables and estimates model parameter via least squares without resorting to a distributional assumption such as multivariate normality of indicators. As with other SEM approaches, model evaluation is a crucial procedure in GSCA that is used to examine whether a hypothesized model is consistent with the data in hand. However, the few descriptive measures of model evaluation available for GSCA are limited to evaluating models in a more confirmatory manner. This study integrates confirmatory tetrad analysis (CTA) into GSCA for model evaluation or comparison. Although CTA has been used in factor-based SEM as an inferential statistic, CTA is actually more compatible with GSCA because it is completely free of the multivariate normality assumption. Utilizing empirical data collected for 18,174 students' social skills in an early childhood longitudinal study of 2010–11 kindergarten cohort, we demonstrate the capability and applicability of CTA in GSCA and compare its performance with existing measures for GSCA.
Health and the Political Agency of Women

We investigate whether politician gender influences policy outcomes in India. We focus upon antenatal and postnatal public health provision since the costs of poor services in this domain are disproportionately borne by women. Accounting for potential endogeneity of politician gender and the sample composition of births, we find that a one standard deviation increase in women's political representation results in a 1.5 percentage point reduction in neonatal mortality. Women politicians are more likely to build public health facilities and encourage antenatal care, institutional delivery and immunization. The results are topical given that a bill proposing quotas for women in state assemblies is currently pending in the Indian Parliament.
Task-Specific Effect of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Motor Learning

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a relatively new non-invasive brain stimulation technique that modulates neural processes. When applied to the human primary motor cortex (M1), tDCS has beneficial effects on motor skill learning and consolidation in healthy controls and in patients. However, it remains unclear whether tDCS improves motor learning in a general manner or whether these effects depend on which motor task is acquired. Here we compare whether the effect of tDCS differs when the same individual acquires (1) a Sequential Finger Tapping Task (SEQTAP) and (2) a Visual Isometric Pinch Force Task (FORCE). Both tasks have been shown to be sensitive to tDCS applied over M1, however, the underlying processes mediating learning and memory formation might benefit differently from anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (anodal-tDCS). Thirty healthy subjects were randomly assigned to an anodal-tDCS group or sham-group. Using a double-blind, sham-controlled cross-over design, tDCS was applied over M1 while subjects acquired each of the motor tasks over three consecutive days, with the order being randomized across subjects. We found that anodal-tDCS affected each task differently: the SEQTAP task benefited from anodal-tDCS during learning, whereas the FORCE task showed improvements only at retention. These findings suggest that anodal-tDCS applied over M1 appears to have a task-dependent effect on learning and memory formation.
The vocabulary problem in human-system communication

In almost all computer applications, users must enter correct words for the desired objects or actions. For success without extensive training, or in first-tries for new targets, the system must recognize terms that will be chosen spontaneously. We studied spontaneous word choice for objects in five application-related domains, and found the variability to be surprisingly large. In every case two people favored the same term with probability <0.20. Simulations show how this fundamental property of language limits the success of various design methodologies for vocabulary-driven interaction. For example, the popular approach in which access is via one designer's favorite single word will result in 80-90 percent failure rates in many common situations. An optimal strategy, unlimited aliasing, is derived and shown to be capable of several-fold improvements.
Hypoxia and adipose-derived stem cell-based tissue regeneration and engineering

Introduction: Realization that oxygen is one of the key regulators of development and differentiation has a profound significance on how current cell-based and tissue engineering applications using adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) can be further improved. Areas covered: The article provides an overview of mechanisms of hypoxic responses during physiological adaptations and development. Furthermore, a synopsis of the hypoxic responses of ASCs is provided, and this information is presented in context of their utility as a major source of stem cells across the regenerative applications explored to date. Expert opinion: The reader will obtain insight into a highly specific area of stem cell research focusing on ASCs and hypoxia. In order to enhance the level of comprehension, a broader context with other stem cell and experimental systems is provided. It is emphasized that the pericellular oxygen tension is a critical regulatory factor that should be taken into account when devising novel stem cell-based therapeutic applications along with other parameters, such as biochemical soluble factors and the growth substrates.
Global Weak Solutions to Compressible Navier-Stokes Equations for Quantum Fluids

The global-in-time existence of weak solutions to the barotropic compressible quantum Navier–Stokes equations in a three-dimensional torus for large data is proved. The model consists of the mass conservation equation and a momentum balance equation, including a nonlinear third-order differential operator, with the quantum Bohm potential, and a density-dependent viscosity. The system has been derived by Brull and Mehats [Derivation of viscous correction terms for the isothermal quantum Euler model, 2009, submitted] from a Wigner equation using a moment method and a Chapman–Enskog expansion around the quantum equilibrium. The main idea of the existence analysis is to reformulate the quantum Navier–Stokes equations by means of a so-called effective velocity involving a density gradient, leading to a viscous quantum Euler system. The advantage of the new formulation is that there exists a new energy estimate which implies bounds on the second derivative of the particle density. The global existence of weak s.
A Comparative Study of Mammalian Diversification Pattern

Although mammals have long been regarded as a successful radiation, the diversification pattern among the clades is still poorly known. Higher-level phylogenies are conflicting and comprehensive comparative analyses are still lacking. Using a recently published supermatrix encompassing nearly all extant mammalian families and a novel comparative likelihood approach (MEDUSA), the diversification pattern of mammalian groups was examined. Both order- and family-level phylogenetic analyses revealed the rapid radiation of Boreoeutheria and Euaustralidelphia in the early mammalian history. The observation of a diversification burst within Boreoeutheria at approximately 100 My supports the Long Fuse model in elucidating placental diversification progress, and the rapid radiation of Euaustralidelphia suggests an important role of biogeographic dispersal events in triggering early Australian marsupial rapid radiation. Diversification analyses based on family-level diversity tree revealed seven additional clades with exceptional diversification rate shifts, six of which represent accelerations in net diversification rate as compared to the background pattern. The shifts gave origin to the clades Muridae+Cricetidae, Bovidae+Moschidae+Cervidae, Simiiformes, Echimyidae, Odontoceti (excluding Physeteridae+Kogiidae+Platanistidae), Macropodidae, and Vespertilionidae. Moderate to high extinction rates from background and boreoeutherian diversification patterns indicate the important role of turnovers in shaping the heterogeneous taxonomic richness observed among extant mammalian groups. Furthermore, the present results emphasize the key role of extinction on erasing unusual diversification signals, and suggest that further studies are needed to clarify the historical radiation of some mammalian groups for which MEDUSA did not detect exceptional diversification rates.
Clinical and molecular classification of very early arthritis patients

Om de juiste behandeling te kiezen voor patienten met reumatoide artritis (RA) is het van belang tijdig een diagnose te stellen en het risico op gewrichtsschade in te schatten. Marleen van de Sande deed onderzoek naar het weefsel dat de gewrichten bekleedt (synovium) in de fase voor het ontstaan van artritis. Het synovium toont dan geen tekenen van ontsteking. Waarschijnlijk begint de afweerrespons elders in het lichaam, waarna een andere factor een vervolgreactie uitlokt die resulteert in pijn en zwelling van de gewrichten. Daarnaast onderzocht Van de Sande eiwitten die geassocieerd zijn met RA en het ontstaan van gewrichtsschade. Dit opent wegen voor nieuwe therapieen en mogelijk voor een methode om de ziekte vroeg op te sporen.