Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A DIFFERENTIAL MODEL OF CONTROLLED CARDIAC PACEMAKER CELL

A differential model of a cardiac pacemaker cell with only ten state variables is proposed. It is intended for 0D or 3D simulation of the heart under the vagal control of the autonomous nervous system. Three variables are used to describe the membrane (membrane potential and two gate variables of ionic channels), taking into account the dynamics of the main ionic currents (inward sodium, L-type calcium and outward potassium), Na+/Ca2+ exchangers and Na+/K+ pumps. The remaining seven variables are associated with the fluid compartment model that includes Ca2+ binding by myoplasmic proteins, and the intracellular concentrations of free Calcium, Sodium and Potassium. Despite its moderate number of state variables, this model includes the main processes thought to be important in pacemaking on the cell scale and predicts the experimentally observed ionic concentration of calcium, sodium and potassium, action potential and membrane currents. The control by the calcium of the pacemaking activity is also considered.
Compact SiGe HBT low noise amplifiers for 3.1-10.6 GHz ultra-wideband applications

Two compact SiGe HBT low noise amplifiers for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications are presented. The measured noise figure of the first approach is 2.4dB at 7GHz and below 2.9dB in the UWB bandwidth from 3.1GHz up to 10.6GHz. The circuit delivers 17.3dB peak gain with gain variations of less than 1.6dB within the entire band. The measured input 1-dB compression point at 7GHz is -13.5dBm with 16.6mA total current consumption from a 3.3V supply. The second approach exhibits noise figures between 2.8dB and 3.2dB within the UWB band. Measurements show 23.5dB of gain with 0.6dB variation over the full bandwidth. The measured input 1-dB compression point at 7GHz is -19.5dBm with a 18.2mA bias current at a 3.0V supply. The first and second design occupy a chip size of 0.39mm times 0.38mm and 0.44mm times 0.38 mm, respectively
Patients as Partners: A Qualitative Study of Patients’ Engagement in Their Health Care

To advocate for patients to be more actively involved with the healthcare services they receive, particularly patients living with chronic illness, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal and its affiliated hospitals developed the Patients as Partners concept where the patient is considered a full-fledged partner of the health care delivery team and the patient’s experiential knowledge is recognized. This study aims to show how patients view their engagement with healthcare professionals regarding their direct care. Using theoretical sampling, 16 semi-structured interviews were conducted with patients with chronic illness who were familiar with the concept of Patients as Partners. Data analysis followed a constructivist grounded theory approach. Patients describe themselves as proactively engaging in three types of practice, regardless of health professionals’ openness to their role as partners. The first is a process of continuous learning that allows them to acquire experiential knowledge about their health, as well as scientific information and technical know-how. The second involves their assessment of the healthcare they receive, in terms of its quality and how it aligns with their personal preferences. It includes their assessment of the quality of their relationship with the health professional and of the latter’s scientific knowledge and technical know-how. The third type, adaptation practices, builds on patients’ learning and assessments to compensate for and adapt to what has been perceived as optimal or non-optimal health or healthcare circumstances. Patients appear to play a more active and less docile role in their own direct care than suggested so far in the literature, regardless of the degree of reciprocity of the partnership or the degree to which the health professional seeks to encourage patient engagement.
Incorporating evolutionary principles into environmental management and policy

As policymakers and managers work to mitigate the effects of rapid anthropogenic environmental changes, they need to consider organisms’ responses. In light of recent evidence that evolution can be quite rapid, this now includes evolutionary responses. Evolutionary principles have a long history in conservation biology, and the necessary next step for the field is to consider ways in which conservation policy makers and managers can proactively manipulate evolutionary processes to achieve their goals. In this review, we aim to illustrate the potential conservation benefits of an increased understanding of evolutionary history and prescriptive manipulation of three basic evolutionary factors: selection, variation, and gene flow. For each, we review and propose ways that policy makers and managers can use evolutionary thinking to preserve threatened species, combat pest species, or reduce undesirable evolutionary changes. Such evolution‐based management has potential to be a highly efficient and consistent way to create greater ecological resilience to widespread, rapid, and multifaceted environmental change.
Missing Photos, Suffering Withdrawal, or Finding Freedom? How Experiences of Social Media Non-Use Influence the Likelihood of Reversion

This article examines social media reversion, when a user intentionally ceases using a social media site but then later resumes use of the site. We analyze a convenience sample of survey data from people who volunteered to stay off Facebook for 99 days but, in some cases, returned before that time. We conduct three separate analyses to triangulate on the phenomenon of reversion: simple quantitative predictors of reversion, factor analysis of adjectives used by respondents to describe their experiences of not using Facebook, and statistical topic analysis of free-text responses. Significant factors predicting either increased or decreased likelihood of reversion include, among others, prior use of Facebook, experiences associated with perceived addiction, issues of social boundary negotiation such as privacy and surveillance, use of other social media, and friends’ reactions to non-use. These findings contribute to the growing literature on technology non-use by demonstrating how social media users negotiate, both with each other and with themselves, among types and degrees of use and non-use.
Monotonic and Cyclic Behavior of DIN 34CrNiMo6 Tempered Alloy Steel

This paper aims at studying the monotonic and cyclic plastic deformation behavior of DIN 34CrNiMo6 high strength steel. Monotonic and low-cycle fatigue tests are conducted in ambient air, at room temperature, using standard 8-mm diameter specimens. The former tests are carried out under position control with constant displacement rate. The latter are performed under fully-reversed strain-controlled conditions, using the single-step test method, with strain amplitudes lying between ±0.4% and ±2.0%. After the tests, the fracture surfaces are examined by scanning electron microscopy in order to characterize the surface morphologies and identify the main failure mechanisms. Regardless of the strain amplitude, a softening behavior was observed throughout the entire life. Total strain energy density, defined as the sum of both tensile elastic and plastic strain energies, was revealed to be an adequate fatigue damage parameter for short and long lives.
Does Foreign Direct Investment Replace Home Country Investment? The Effect of European Integration on the Location of Swedish Investment

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of European integration on the location of investments by Swedish multinational corporations (MNCs). Evidence is presented about the extent to which European integration has attracted investment by Swedish MNCs, and whether foreign direct investment is being undertaken at the expense of home country investment. In the empirical analysis, involving both OLS and iterative SUR techniques, a significant difference across industries has been confirmed. A substitutionary relationship between foreign and home country investment is found for more R&D-intensive production, whereas the opposite pattern seems to prevail for production based on traditional comparative advantage. The results of this study emphasize the importance of using disaggregated industry-level data when analysing the effects of foreign direct investment on home country investment.
Danger is my middle name: experimenting with SSL vulnerabilities in Android apps

This paper presents a measurement study of information leakage and SSL vulnerabilities in popular Android apps. We perform static and dynamic analysis on 100 apps, downloaded at least 10M times, that request full network access. Our experiments show that, although prior work has drawn a lot of attention to SSL implementations on mobile platforms, several popular apps (32/100) accept all certificates and all hostnames, and four actually transmit sensitive data unencrypted. We set up an experimental testbed simulating man-in-the-middle attacks and find that many apps (up to 91% when the adversary has a certificate installed on the victim's device) are vulnerable, allowing the attacker to access sensitive information, including credentials, files, personal details, and credit card numbers. Finally, we provide a few recommendations to app developers and highlight several open research problems.
North American /l/ both darkens and lightens depending on morphological constituency and segmental context

It is uncontroversial that, in many varieties of English, the realization of /l/ varies depending on whether /l/ occurs word-initially or word-finally. The nature of this effect, however, remains controversial. Previous analyses alternately analyzed the variation as darkening or lightening, and alternately found evidence that the variation involves a categorical distinction between allophones or a gradient scale conditioned by phonetic factors. We argue that these diverging conclusions are a result of the numerous factors influencing /l/ darkness and differences between studies in terms of which factors are considered. By controlling for a range of factors, our study demonstrates a pattern of variability that has not been shown in previous work. We find evidence of morpheme-final darkening and morpheme-initial lightening when compared to a baseline of morpheme-internal /l/. We also find segmental effects such that, in segmental contexts which independently darken /l/, one can observe /l/ lightening, and contexts which independently lighten /l/ can make lightening effects undetectable. Morphological and prosodic effects are hence sometimes trumped by segmental context. Once contextual effects are controlled for, there is evidence both for morphologically-conditioned /l/-darkening and for morphologically-conditioned /l/-lightening, both of which can be understood as a result of prosodic differences reflecting morphological junctures.
HUBUNGAN POSTUR KERJA DENGAN KELELAHAN KERJA PADA AKTIVITAS PENGAMPLASAN BAGIAN FINISHING PT EBAKO NUSANTARA SEMARANG

Fatigue is a body protection mechanism so that body will be spared from further damage until recovery occurs after the rest. Work posture is a description about body, head and limb position. Incompatibility work posture will cause fatigue and grievance which lead to work accident. The purpose of this research was to analyze the correlation of work posture with fatigue in sanding activity of finishing section at PT. Ebako Nusantara Semarang. This was an analytical observational study with cross sectional design. Total samples of the research were 26 workers. Work posture was measured using REBA and fatigue was measured using DLRT. Data was analyzed using Fisher Probability Exact Test. The results showed that majority of the respondents were having fatigue (69.2%). The 88.5% workers were having whole work postures scores in moderate category. Statistical analysis results showed that there were correlations of whole work postures (p= 0.02), back posture (p=0.02), and neck posture (p= 0.01) with fatigue and there were no correlations of legs posture (p=0.38), upper arm posture (p=0.67), forearm posture (p=1.00) and wrist posture (p=0.09) with fatigue in sanding activity of finishing section at PT. Ebako Nusantara Semarang. It was suggested for the company to use wheeled work desk to elevate the work field of the object that would be sanded, so the workers did not have to bend over. Workers were recommended to do stretching before working, when the body felt tired, on the sidelines of the work and changed the body position periodically when reached out the surface side of the sanded object.
Preparation, Characterization, and Enhanced Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Epoxy-Titania Composites

This paper presents the synthesis and thermal and mechanical properties of epoxy-titania composites. First, submicron titania particles are prepared via surfactant-free sol-gel method using TiCl4 as precursor. These particles are subsequently used as inorganic fillers (or reinforcement) for thermally cured epoxy polymers. Epoxy-titania composites are prepared via mechanical mixing of titania particles with liquid epoxy resin and subsequently curing the mixture with an aliphatic diamine. The amount of titania particles integrated into epoxy matrix is varied between 2.5 and 10.0 wt. % to investigate the effect of sub-micron titania particles on thermal and mechanical properties of epoxy-titania composites. These composites are characterized by X-ray photoelectron (XPS) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric (TG), and mechanical analyses. It is found that sub-micron titania particles significantly enhance the glass transition temperature (>6.7%), thermal oxidative stability (>12.0%), tensile strength (>21.8%), and Young's modulus (>16.8%) of epoxy polymers. Epoxy-titania composites with 5.0 wt. % sub-micron titania particles perform best at elevated temperatures as well as under high stress.
Molecullar and biochemical effect of alcohlic extract of Alpinia galanga on rat spermatogenesis process

Background: Alpinia galanga (A. galanga) belongs to the Zingiberaceae family has anti-oxidant effects in animals and humans body and often is used as medicament or part of medicaments in Asian folk medicine for various applications. Objective: The objective of this study was to investigate the molecular and biochemical influence of alcoholic extract from the rhizomes of A. galangal on the spermatogenesis process in male rat. Materials and Methods: Forty five Wistar male rats were divided into three groups, control (n=15) and two tested groups (n=30). Alcoholic extract (5%) of plant was given by oral route at doses of 100 and 300 mg/day for 56 days and spermatogenesis parameters, hormone changes and expression level of the cAMP-responsive element modulator (CREM) gene were assessed. Results: Methanol extract of A. galanga increased serum testosterones level significantly in both treated groups in comparison with control group (p<0.05). Besides, the percentage of sperm viability and motility in both tested groups were significantly increased. Follicle stimulating hormone FSH hormone, morphology and weight were affected in both treated groups. With 300 mg/day an increase in sperm count was observed. Sperm motility was increased in two treated groups whereas testis weight was decreased in treated groups. Real time analysis of treated cells of testis showed increase level of mRNA related to CREM gene involved in spermatogenesis process after 56 days induction. Conclusion: It is concluded that application of ethanolic extract of A. galanga significantly increased sperm percentage, viability, motility and testosterone hormone. This suggested that this plant may be promising in enhancing sperm healthy parameters.
Predicting the location and number of faults in large software systems

Advance knowledge of which files in the next release of a large software system are most likely to contain the largest numbers of faults can be a very valuable asset. To accomplish this, a negative binomial regression model has been developed and used to predict the expected number of faults in each file of the next release of a system. The predictions are based on the code of the file in the current release, and fault and modification history of the file from previous releases. The model has been applied to two large industrial systems, one with a history of 17 consecutive quarterly releases over 4 years, and the other with nine releases over 2 years. The predictions were quite accurate: for each release of the two systems, the 20 percent of the files with the highest predicted number of faults contained between 71 percent and 92 percent of the faults that were actually detected, with the overall average being 83 percent. The same model was also used to predict which files of the first system were likely to have the highest fault densities (faults per KLOC). In this case, the 20 percent of the files with the highest predicted fault densities contained an average of 62 percent of the system's detected faults. However, the identified files contained a much smaller percentage of the code mass than the files selected to maximize the numbers of faults. The model was also used to make predictions from a much smaller input set that only contained fault data from integration testing and later. The prediction was again very accurate, identifying files that contained from 71 percent to 93 percent of the faults, with the average being 84 percent. Finally, a highly simplified version of the predictor selected files containing, on average, 73 percent and 74 percent of the faults for the two systems.
Tattoos yesterday and today in the Polish population in the decade 2004–2014

participants and procedure The participants were individuals of Polish ethnicity aged 16-67 years, having at least one tattoo. The first survey, conducted in 2004, encompassed 100 subjects, while the second one, in 2014, involved 200 subjects. Both groups of respondents answered questions about the functions of tattoos and the factors motivating them to obtain a tattoo, as well as expressing their opinions about individuals with body art. results In the studied decade we found a rise in the number of tattooed women, with tattoos being primarily perceived as an art form and a way to express one’s personality, aid self-enhancement, and improve one’s sexual attractiveness. Currently, tattooing more seldom serves as a provocation, self-identification, a mark of subculture affiliation, or a way to enhance self-esteem.
MRI assessment of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder or tics associated with streptococcal infection.

OBJECTIVE The authors assessed selective basal ganglia involvement in a subgroup of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and/or tics believed to be associated with streptococcal infection. METHOD Using computer-assisted morphometric techniques, they analyzed the cerebral magnetic resonance images of 34 children with presumed streptococcus-associated OCD and/or tics and 82 healthy comparison children who were matched for age and sex. RESULTS The average sizes of the caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus, but not of the thalamus or total cerebrum, were significantly greater in the group of children with streptococcus-associated OCD and/or tics than in the healthy children. The differences were similar to those found previously for subjects with Sydenham's chorea compared with normal subjects. CONCLUSIONS These results support the hypothesis that there is a distinct subgroup of subjects with OCD and/or tics who have enlarged basal ganglia. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis of an autoimmune response to streptococcal infection.
Confirmation of Multiple Risk Loci and Genetic Impacts by a Genome-Wide Association Study of Type 2 Diabetes in the Japanese Population

OBJECTIVE To identify novel type 2 diabetes gene variants and confirm previously identified ones, a three-staged genome-wide association study was performed in the Japanese population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In the stage 1 scan, we genotyped 519 case and 503 control subjects with 482,625 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers; in the stage 2 panel comprising 1,110 case subjects and 1,014 control subjects, we assessed 1,456 SNPs (P < 0.0025, stage 1); additionally to direct genotyping, 964 healthy control subjects formed the in silico control panel. Along with genome-wide exploration, we aimed to replicate the disease association of 17 SNPs from 16 candidate loci previously identified in Europeans. The associated and/or replicated loci (23 SNPs; P < 7 × 10–5 for genome-wide exploration and P < 0.05 for replication) were examined in the stage 3 panel comprising 4,000 case subjects and 12,569 population-based samples, from which 4,889 nondiabetic control subjects were preselected. The 12,569 subjects were used for overall risk assessment in the general population. RESULTS Four loci—1 novel with suggestive evidence (PEPD on 19q13, P = 1.4 × 10–5) and three previously reported—were identified; the association of CDKAL1, CDKN2A/CDKN2B, and KCNQ1 were confirmed (P < 10–19). Moreover, significant associations were replicated in five other candidate loci: TCF7L2, IGF2BP2, SLC30A8, HHEX, and KCNJ11. There was substantial overlap of type 2 diabetes susceptibility genes between the two populations, whereas effect size and explained variance tended to be higher in the Japanese population. CONCLUSIONS The strength of association was more prominent in the Japanese population than in Europeans for more than half of the confirmed type 2 diabetes loci.
Hyperthermia in Human Ischemic and Hemorrhagic Stroke: Similar Outcome, Different Mechanisms

Hyperthermia is a predictor of poor outcome in ischemic (IS) and intracerebral hemorrhagic (ICH) stroke. Our aim was to study the plausible mechanisms involved in the poor outcome associated to hyperthermia in stroke. We conducted a case-control study including patients with IS (n = 100) and ICH (n = 100) within the first 12 hours from symptom onset. Specifically, IS and ICH patients were consecutively included into 2 subgroups, according to the highest body temperature within the first 24 hours: Tmax <37.5°C and Tmax ≥37.5°C, up to reach 50 patients per subgroup of temperature for both IS and ICH patients. Body temperature was determined at admission and every 4 hours during the first 48 hours. Main outcome variable was poor functional outcome (modified Rankin scale score >2) at 3 months. Serum levels of glutamate and active MMP-9 were measured at admission. Our results showed that Tmax ≥37.5°C within the first 24 hours was independently associated with poor outcome in both IS (OR, 12.43; 95% CI, 3.73–41.48; p<0.0001) and ICH (OR, 4.29; 95% CI, 1.32–13.91; p = 0.015) after adjusting for variables with a proven biological relevance for outcome. However, when molecular markers levels were included in the logistic regression model, we observed that glutamate (OR, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00–1.02; p = 0.001) and infarct volume (OR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.01–1.10; p = 0.015) were the only variables independently associated to poor outcome in IS, and active MMP-9 (OR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.00–1.08; p = 0.002) and National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) at admission (OR, 1.29; 95% CI, 1.13–1.49; p<0.0001) in ICH. In conclusion, these results suggest that although the outcome associated to hyperthermia is similar in human IS and ICH, the underlying mechanisms may be different.
An Improved Neighbourhood for the Traveling Tournament Problem

The Traveling Tournament Problem (TTP) is a challenging combinatorial optimization problem that has attracted the interest of researchers around the world. This paper proposes an improved search neighbourhood for the TTP that has been tested in a simulated annealing context. The neighbourhood encompasses both feasible and infeasible schedules, and can be generated efficiently. For the largest TTP challenge problems with up to 40 teams, solutions found using this neighbourhood are the best currently known, and for smaller problems with 10 teams, three solutions found were subsequently proven optimal.