Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Standing and mortality in a prospective cohort of Canadian adults.

PURPOSE Several studies have documented significant associations between sedentary behaviors such as sitting or television viewing and premature mortality. However, the associations between mortality and other low-energy-expenditure activities such as standing have not been explored. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between daily standing time and mortality among 16,586 Canadian adults 18-90 yr of age. METHODS Information on self-reported time spent standing as well as several covariates including smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity readiness, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity was collected at baseline in the 1981 Canada Fitness Survey. Participants were followed for an average of 12.0 yr for the ascertainment of mortality status. RESULTS There were 1785 deaths (743 from cardiovascular disease [CVD], 530 from cancer, and 512 from other causes) in the cohort. After adjusting for age, sex, and additional covariates, time spent standing was negatively related to mortality rates from all causes, CVD, and other causes. Across successively higher categories of daily standing, the multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios were 1.00, 0.79, 0.79, 0.73, and 0.67 for all-cause mortality (P for trend <0.0001); 1.00, 0.82, 0.84, 0.68, and 0.75 for CVD mortality (P for trend 0.02); and 1.00, 0.76, 0.63, 0.67, and 0.65 for other mortality (P for trend <0.001). There was no association between standing and cancer mortality. There was a significant interaction between physical activity and standing (P < 0.05), and the association between standing and mortality was significant only among the physically inactive (<7.5 MET·h·wk). CONCLUSIONS The results suggest that standing may not be a hazardous form of behavior. Given that mortality rates declined at higher levels of standing, standing may be a healthier alternative to excessive periods of sitting.
The role of blood loss and diet in the aetiology of mild iron deficiency in premenopausal adult New Zealand women

Abstract Objective To investigate the role of blood loss and diet in the aetiology of mild iron deficiency (MID) in premenopausal New Zealand women. Mild iron deficiency was defined as low, but not necessarily exhausted, iron stores (i.e. serum ferritin <20 μg/L) in the absence of anaemia (i.e. haemoglobin ≥120 g/L). Design Cross-sectional study of a volunteer sample of premenopausal adult women. Information on habitual dietary intakes (using a specially designed and validated computerised iron food frequency questionnaire), health and demographic status, sources of blood loss (including menstrual blood loss estimated using a validated menstrual recall method), contraceptive use, height and weight, haemoglobin, serum ferritin and C-reactive protein were collected. Setting Dunedin, New Zealand during 1996/1997. Participants Three hundred and eighty-four women aged 18–40 years. Results The characteristics that were associated with an increased risk of MID were: low meat/fish/poultry intake, high menstrual blood loss, recent blood donation, nose bleeds, and low body mass index. The protective factors included shorter duration of menstrual bleeding, and multivitamin–mineral supplement use in the past year. Conclusions There are a number of potentially modifiable factors that appear to influence risk of MID. Women with low menstrual blood loss may be able to decrease their risk of MID by increasing their meat/fish/poultry intake, while those with a higher menstrual blood loss may be able to decrease their risk by decreasing their menstrual blood loss, perhaps by changing their method of contraception. Women should be encouraged to maintain a healthy body weight, and those who choose to donate blood, or who experience nose bleeds, should have their iron stores monitored.
Response of base suction and vortex shedding from rectangular prisms to transverse forcing

In previous experiments, the vortex-shedding frequency in the flow around rectangular prisms has been found to follow a stepwise variation with chord-to-thickness ratio for two different situations: the natural shedding at low Reynolds number and the excitation of a resonant transverse acoustic mode of a duct for flows at moderate Reynolds numbers. This stepwise variation disappears for natural shedding at Reynolds number higher than approximately 2000; however, it is present at the higher Reynolds numbers for the acoustically perturbed case. The present experimental study shows that if the flow is forced by small transverse oscillations, similar in form to the resonant transverse acoustic mode, the leading-edge and trailing-edge vortex shedding are locked over a wide range of forcing frequencies. However, a stepwise variation in the frequency at which peak base drag occurs is found even at these higher Reynolds numbers. The stepwise frequency variation of vortex shedding in the natural shedding case and the acoustic resonance case are then explained in terms of preference of the flow to shed trailing-edge vortices at peak base drag.
1 TN United Kingdom SEPARATION OF POWERS AND THE TAX LEVEL IN THE U . S . STATES

We estimate a non-linear and discontinuous relationship between the tax level and the degree of alignment between the legislature and the governor, measured as the number of seats in the legislature that belong to the governor’s party. In the states with the line-item veto, there is a jump in the tax level at the point where the government switches from divided to unified. With a regression discontinuity design, we show that this jump can be interpreted as a causal effect. We propose a simple model to account for this non-linear relationship. The sequential nature of the budget bargaining game, i.e. the legislature proposes and the governor cuts with the line-item veto, implies that the tax level is determined by the overlap between the supporters of the governor and the supporters of the legislative majority. Changes in the size of the overlap determine the tax level. JEL: H00, H11, H20, H30, H71. ∗We would like to thank Guido Tabellini and Antonio Merlo for their extensive help during the early drafts of this paper. We would also like to thank seminar participants in Bocconi, Bristol, at the Political Science department at Washington University at St. Louis, at the EPSA meeting in Dublin 2011, and at the Public Choice meeting in Miami in 2012. †leandro.demagalhaes@bristol.ac. uk ‡lferrero@eco.unne. edu.ar
Prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder among disaster bereaved survivors: A longitudinal study after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake

Aim: To study the effectiveness of platelet rich plasma (PRP) for clinical use. Methods: Blood collected from a peripheral vein of the patients with chronic wounds of various etiologies was used as a biological material. PRP was obtained by separating blood with the use of BTI equipment. Whole blood platelets were stained with vital fluorochrome dye for further morphofunctional analysis on a fluorescence microscope. Concentration of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) in blood serum was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) using reagents «Qantikine, Human PDGF-BB Immunoassay» and system «Multiskan ascent». Proliferative activity of human fibroblast culture M-22 was assessed in the wells containing different amount of serum PDGF and also using fluorochrome vital dyes. In a clinical study analysis of the treatment outcomes of 81 patients with chronic wounds (CW) of various etiologies was performed. For the treatment of the 44 patients (experimental group: 17 males, 27 females, the mean age-56.0±3.1; trophic venous ulcers (TVU) 3, ulcers of combined etiology (CEU) 8, related to diabetic foot syndrome (DFS) 12, scar-trophic ulcer (STU)-14 and bedsores (BU)-7, the mean CW area was 90.2±14.1 cm2), we used PRP flat clot therapy starting from phase II of wound healing process. Frequency of dressing changes once in 7 days, which allows patient transfers to outpatient care. All procedures were carried out for qualified nurse. For the treatment of the 37 patients (control group: 17 males, 20 females, mean age was 69.5±2.2; TVU-5, CEU-12, DFS-8, STU–5, BU-7; 79.6±12.3 cm2), traditional topical agents were used. Results: A direct correlation between concentration and morphofunctional parameters of whole blood platelets and concentration of PDGF in the serum has been observed. Degranulation of platelets is associated with the massive release of PDGF. The study finding was that the content of PDGF in one well equal to150 pg is associated with the maximum gain of proliferative activity of fibroblasts with their viability being preserved; at the higher PDGF concentrations fibroblasts viability decreased and cells death was observed. In a clinical study 85.4% patients achieved complete CW epithelialization within 46.4±4.3 days (experimental group). In the control group only 11.8% patients achieved wound epithelialization within 3 months. Mean duration of hospital stay was 11.0±2.5 days in the experimental group and 23.1±1.5 days in the control. Conclusions: These data allow recommending the clinical use of PRP for stimulation of the regenerative processes.
Characterization of the Lsi1 Homologs in Cucurbita moschata and C. ficifolia for Breeding of Stock Cultivars Used for Bloomless Cucumber Production

Bloomless cucumber fruits are commercially produced by grafting onto the pumpkin stocks (Cucurbita moschata ) to restricted silicon (SiO₂) absorption. Inhibition of silicon absorption in bloomless stocks is conferred by a mutant allele of the CmLsi1 homologous to Lsi1 in rice. In this study, we characterized the Lsi1 homologs in pumpkin (C. moschata ) and its coldtolerant wild relative C. ficifolia (‘Heukjong’) in order to develop a DNA marker for selecting a bloomless trait and to establish the molecular basis for breeding bloomless stock cultivars of C. ficifolia . A Cleaved amplified polymorphic sequence (CAPS) marker (CM1-CAPS) was designed based on a non-sysnonymous single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, C＞T) of the CmLsi1 mutant-type allele, and its applicability for Marker-assisted selection (MAS) was confirmed by evaluating three bloom and five bloomless pumpkin stock cultivars. Quantitative RT-PCR of the CmLsi1 for these stock cultivers implied that expression level of the CmLsi1 gene does not appear to be associated with the bloom/bloomless trait and may differ depending on plant species and tissues. A full length cDNA of the Lsi1 homolog [named CfLsi1 (B⁺)] of ‘Heukjong’ (C. ficifolia ), was cloned and sequence comparison between CmLsi1 (B⁺) and CfLsi1 (B⁺) revealed that there exists total 24 SNPs, of which three were non-synonymous. Phylogenetic analysis of CfLsi1 (B⁺) and Lsi1 homologs further revealed that CfLsi1 (B⁺) is closesly related to Nodulin 26-like intrinsic proteins (NIPs) and most similar to CpNIP1 of C. pepo than C. moschata.
Epoxy resin nanocomposites reinforced with ionized liquid stabilized carbon nanotubes

Epoxy resin nanocomposites reinforced with three different ionic liquid functionalized carbon nanotubes (f-CNTs) were fabricated by an in situpolymerization method. The influence of the anions on the curing process was studied through differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and normalized Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. The composition of the nanocomposites was analyzed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. Two different mechanisms are proposed to explain the curing process of the neat epoxy and its composites. The electric conductivity and mechanical properties of the nanocomposites are also reported. The tensile strength was increased dramatically due to the insertion of f-CNTs. Scanning electron microsopy fracture surface analysis indicates a strong interfacial bonding between the carbon nanotubes and the polymer matrix.
ADAR1 attenuates allogeneic graft rejection by suppressing miR‐21 biogenesis in macrophages and promoting M2 polarization

ADAR1 (adenosine deaminase acting on double‐stranded RNA 1) is an RNA‐editing enzyme that me‐diates adenosine‐to‐inosine RNA editing events, an important post‐transcriptional modification mechanism that can alter the coding properties of mRNA or regulate microRNA biogenesis. ADAR1 also regulates the innate immune response. Here, we have demonstrated that ADAR1 expression increased in LPS‐stimulated macrophages. Silencing ADAR1 by using small interfering RNA in macrophages resulted in the pronounced polarization of macrophages to M1, whereas ADAR1 overexpression promoted M2 polarization, which indicated that ADAR1 can inhibit macrophage hyperpolarization and prevent immune hyperactivity. The RNA‐RNP immunoprecipitation binding assay demonstrated a direct interaction between ADAR1 and miR‐21 precursor. Significant up‐regulation in IL‐10 and down‐regulation in miR‐21 were observed in ADAR1‐overexpressing macrophages. We evaluated miR‐21 target mRNAs and macrophage polarization signaling pathways and found that forkhead box protein O1 (Foxo1) was up‐regulated in cells that overexpressed ADAR1. In a mouse allogeneic skin transplantation model, grafts in the ADAR1‐overexpressed group survived longer and suffered less immune cell infiltration. In ADAR1‐overexpressed recipients, splenic macrophages were significantly polarized to M2, and levels of sera IL‐10 were markedly higher than those in the control group. In summary, ADAR1 modulates macrophage M2 polarization via the ADAR1‐miR‐21‐Foxo1‐IL‐10 axis, thereby suppressing allogeneic graft rejection. —Li, J., Xie, J., Liu, S. , Li, X. , Zhang, D. , Wang, X. , Jiang, J., Hu, W. , Zhang, Y. , Jin, B. , Zhuang, R. , Yin, W. ADAR1 attenuates allogeneic graft rejection by suppressing miR‐21 biogenesis in macrophages and promoting M2 polarization. FASEB J. 32, 5162–5173 (2018). www.fasebj. org
Bacterial hydrodynamics

Bacteria predate plants and animals by billions of years. Today, they are the world’s smallest cells yet they represent the bulk of the world’s biomass, and the main reservoir of nutrients for higher organisms. Most bacteria can move on their own, and the majority of motile bacteria are able to swim in viscous fluids using slender helical appendages called flagella. Low-Reynoldsnumber hydrodynamics is at the heart of the ability of flagella to generate propulsion at the micron scale. In fact, fluid dynamic forces impact many aspects of bacteriology, ranging from the ability of cells to reorient and search their surroundings to their interactions within mechanically and chemically-complex environments. Using hydrodynamics as an organizing framework, we review the biomechanics of bacterial motility and look ahead to future challenges.
Bayesian Dynamical Systems Modelling in the Social Sciences

Data arising from social systems is often highly complex, involving non-linear relationships between the macro-level variables that characterize these systems. We present a method for analyzing this type of longitudinal or panel data using differential equations. We identify the best non-linear functions that capture interactions between variables, employing Bayes factor to decide how many interaction terms should be included in the model. This method punishes overly complicated models and identifies models with the most explanatory power. We illustrate our approach on the classic example of relating democracy and economic growth, identifying non-linear relationships between these two variables. We show how multiple variables and variable lags can be accounted for and provide a toolbox in R to implement our approach.
Staff Practices and Social Skill Outcomes in a Sport-Based Youth Program

Staff are key contributors to quality sport-based youth programming. Specific practices leading to positive youth outcomes warrant further investigation. This study examined social skill outcomes resulting from participation in a sport-based youth program, LiFEsports. In addition, relationships among emotional and autonomy supportive staff practices and outcomes were examined. Results pointed to the value of sport-based youth programs for promoting self-control among youth from vulnerable backgrounds and indicated that youth-perceived emotional and autonomy supportive staff practices predicted improvements in perceived self-control but not perceived externalizing behaviors.
Modeling and simulation of protein–surface interactions: achievements and challenges

Abstract Understanding protein–inorganic surface interactions is central to the rational design of new tools in biomaterial sciences, nanobiotechnology and nanomedicine. Although a significant amount of experimental research on protein adsorption onto solid substrates has been reported, many aspects of the recognition and interaction mechanisms of biomolecules and inorganic surfaces are still unclear. Theoretical modeling and simulations provide complementary approaches for experimental studies, and they have been applied for exploring protein–surface binding mechanisms, the determinants of binding specificity towards different surfaces, as well as the thermodynamics and kinetics of adsorption. Although the general computational approaches employed to study the dynamics of proteins and materials are similar, the models and force-fields (FFs) used for describing the physical properties and interactions of material surfaces and biological molecules differ. In particular, FF and water models designed for use in biomolecular simulations are often not directly transferable to surface simulations and vice versa. The adsorption events span a wide range of time- and length-scales that vary from nanoseconds to days, and from nanometers to micrometers, respectively, rendering the use of multi-scale approaches unavoidable. Further, changes in the atomic structure of material surfaces that can lead to surface reconstruction, and in the structure of proteins that can result in complete denaturation of the adsorbed molecules, can create many intermediate structural and energetic states that complicate sampling. In this review, we address the challenges posed to theoretical and computational methods in achieving accurate descriptions of the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of protein-surface systems. In this context, we discuss the applicability of different modeling and simulation techniques ranging from quantum mechanics through all-atom molecular mechanics to coarse-grained approaches. We examine uses of different sampling methods, as well as free energy calculations. Furthermore, we review computational studies of protein–surface interactions and discuss the successes and limitations of current approaches.
Does Knowing What a Word Means Influence How Easily Its Decoding is Learned?

ABSTRACT Theoretical models of word recognition suggest that knowing what a word means makes it easier to learn how to decode it. We tested this hypothesis with at-risk young students, a group that often responds poorly to conventional decoding instruction in which word meaning is not addressed systematically. A total of 53 first graders received explicit instruction on how to decode 32 words. Researchers also taught them the meanings of a random selection of these words. Overall, decoding instruction seems to have been effective: Students read words more accurately and more quickly at posttest than at pretest. They were also able to learn the meanings of many words when this aspect was addressed in instruction. However, accuracy or fluency of word decoding did not vary according to whether word meaning was known. We examine theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
Effect of the Milky Way on Magellanic Cloud Structure

A combination of analytic models and n-body simulations implies that the structural evolution of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is dominated by its dynamical interaction with the Milky Way. Although expected at some level, the scope of the involvement has significant observational consequences. First, LMC disk orbits are torqued out of the disk plane, thickening the disk and populating a spheroid. The torque results from direct forcing by the Milky Way tide and, indirectly, from the drag between the LMC disk and its halo resulting from the induced precession of the LMC disk. The latter is a newly reported mechanism that can affect all satellite interactions. However, the overall torque does not isotropize the stellar orbits, and their kinematics remains disklike. Such a kinematic signature is observed for nearly all LMC populations. The extended disk distribution is predicted to increase the microlensing toward the LMC. Second, the disk's binding energy slowly decreases during this process, puffing up and priming the outer regions for subsequent tidal stripping. Because the tidally stripped debris will be spatially extended, the distribution of stripped stars is much more extended than the H I Magellanic Stream. This is consistent with upper limits to stellar densities in the gas stream and suggests a different strategy for detecting the stripped stars. Finally, the mass loss over several LMC orbits is predicted by n-body simulation, and the debris extends to tens of kiloparsecs from the tidal boundary. Although the overall space density of the stripped stars is low, the possible existence of such intervening populations has recently been reported and may be detectable using 2MASS.
The Effect of Scheduling on Link Capacity in Multi-hopWireless Networks

Existing models of Multi-Hop Wireless Networks (MHWNs) assume that interference estimators of link quality such as observed busy time predict the capacity of the links. We show that these estimators do not capture the intricate interactions that occur at the scheduling level, which have a large impact on effective link capacity under contention based MAC protocols. We observe that scheduling problems arise only among those interfering sources whose concurrent transmissions cannot be prevented by the MAC protocol's collision management mechanisms; other interfering sources can arbitrate the medium and coexist successfully. Based on this observation, we propose a methodology for rating links and show that it achieves high correlation with observed behavior in simulation. We then use this rating as part of a branch-and-bound framework based on a linear programming formulation for traffic engineering in static MHWNs and show that it achieves considerable improvement in performance relative to interference based models.
Glycogen synthase kinase-3β mediates convergence of protection signaling to inhibit the mitochondrial permeability transition pore

Environmental stresses converge on the mitochondria that can trigger or inhibit cell death. Excitable, postmitotic cells, in response to sublethal noxious stress, engage mechanisms that afford protection from subsequent insults. We show that reoxygenation after prolonged hypoxia reduces the reactive oxygen species (ROS) threshold for the mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) in cardiomyocytes and that cell survival is steeply negatively correlated with the fraction of depolarized mitochondria. Cell protection that exhibits a memory (preconditioning) results from triggered mitochondrial swelling that causes enhanced substrate oxidation and ROS production, leading to redox activation of PKC, which inhibits glycogen synthase kinase-3beta (GSK-3beta). Alternatively, receptor tyrosine kinase or certain G protein-coupled receptor activation elicits cell protection (without mitochondrial swelling or durable memory) by inhibiting GSK-3beta, via protein kinase B/Akt and mTOR/p70(s6k) pathways, PKC pathways, or protein kinase A pathways. The convergence of these pathways via inhibition of GSK-3beta on the end effector, the permeability transition pore complex, to limit MPT induction is the general mechanism of cardiomyocyte protection.