Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Biomechanical and Histologic Effects of Platelet-Rich Plasma on Rat Rotator Cuff Repairs

Background: Rotator cuff tears are common injuries that are often treated with surgical repair. Because of the high concentration of growth factors within platelets, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has the potential to enhance healing in rotator cuff repairs. Hypothesis: Platelet-rich plasma would alter the biomechanical and histologic properties of rotator cuff repair during an acute injury response. Study Design: Controlled laboratory study. Methods: Platelet-rich plasma was produced from inbred donor rats. A tendon-from-bone supraspinatus tear was created surgically and an immediate transosseous repair performed. The control group underwent repair only. The PRP group underwent a repair with PRP augmentation. Rats in each group were sacrificed at 7, 14, and 21 days. The surgically repaired tendons underwent biomechanical testing, including failure load, stiffness, failure strain, and stress relaxation characteristics. Histological analysis evaluated the cellular characteristics of the repair tissue. Results: At 7- and 21-day periods, augmentation with PRP showed statistically significant effects on the biomechanical properties of the repaired rat supraspinatus tear, but failure load was not increased at the 7-, 14-, or 21-day periods (P = .688, .209, and .477, respectively). The control group had significantly higher stiffness at 21 days (P = .006). The control group had higher failure strain at 7 days (P = .02), whereas the PRP group had higher failure strain at 21 days (P = .008). Histologically, the PRP group showed increased fibroblastic response and vascular proliferation at each time point. At 21 days, the collagen fibers in the PRP group were oriented in a more linear fashion toward the tendon footprint. Conclusion: In this controlled, rat model study, PRP altered the tissue properties of the supraspinatus tendon without affecting the construct’s failure load. Clinical Relevance: The decreased tendon tissue stiffness acutely and failure to enhance tendon-to-bone healing of repairs should be considered before augmenting rotator cuff repairs with PRP. Further studies will be necessary to determine the role of PRP in clinical practice.
All-Metal Beam Steering Lens Antenna for High Power Microwave Applications

All-metal beam steering antenna based on the concept of Risley prism is presented in this communication. The antenna is composed of a feed antenna and two metal lenses. Mechanically rotate two lenses along the same axis independently can steer the radiation beam in both azimuth and elevation planes. Simulations and measurements were carried out in X-band to verify its performance, and the results agree each other well, which are also in agreement with the theoretical results. Furthermore, the power handling capability of the lens antenna with a dimension of $1~\text {m} \,\, \times \,\, 1 \,\, \text {m}$ is estimated about 4 GW, which indicates the all-metal beam steering antenna has the application potentials for high-power microwave applications.
Therapeutic activities and psychological interventions by cognitive behavioural and psychodynamic therapists working with medically unexplained symptoms: A qualitative study

Abstract Aim: To explore therapeutic activities and psychological interventions used by experienced cognitive behavioural and psychodynamic therapists to treat clients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). Method: Twelve in-depth, semi-structured, qualitative interviews with psychotherapists, recruited from two British National Health Service (NHS) Departments were conducted. Interview transcripts were analysed using grounded theory. Findings: Therapists from two modalities share the following therapeutic activities and psychological interventions in their work with MUS clients: working together with clients, sensitive, empathic responding and building trust, being flexible with techniques, keeping an open mind and multi-disciplinary cooperation. They also use modality specific interventions discussed in this paper. Even though participants experienced difficulties in forming alliances with MUS clients early on in their work, they expressed the importance of nurturing hope, empowering and engaging cl.
The development of dance attitude scales

This research report describes the development of dance attitude scales which were 'grounded' in the opinions of groups of 11-16-year-old pupils in six schools throughout England. Factor analyses involving an initial sample of 368 male and female secondary school pupils produced four embryonic scales which were then tested with a sample of 1,668 adolescents. Satisfactory internal reliability coefficients were achieved and scale intercorrelations provided evidence of the scales as distinct measures. Further analyses undertaken to test validity employing data from the larger sample indicated that two of the proposed scales, Ballet and Male Dancers, may be valid measures of attitude, although less confidence can be placed in the third and fourth scales. Suggestions are made for the development and application of the inventory.
Are international journals of human geography really international?

The aim of this article is to research the extent to which ‘international journals’ of human geography are really international. The analysis is based on the affiliation data (work centre) of the authors of articles and of members of editorial boards of a group of international journals; the results so obtained are related to the impact factors of these journals. The indicators used show that human geography journals in general have still not attained a high degree of internationalization. This may be interpreted as a sign of fragmentation within the discipline: human geographers do not constitute a proper international scientific community or, rather, a global community that makes use of certain common media of expression (international journals) but are fragmented into national or regional (linguistic) communities.
Genome-Wide Analysis of Protein-Protein Interactions and Involvement of Viral Proteins in SARS-CoV Replication

Analyses of viral protein-protein interactions are an important step to understand viral protein functions and their underlying molecular mechanisms. In this study, we adopted a mammalian two-hybrid system to screen the genome-wide intraviral protein-protein interactions of SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and therefrom revealed a number of novel interactions which could be partly confirmed by in vitro biochemical assays. Three pairs of the interactions identified were detected in both directions: non-structural protein (nsp) 10 and nsp14, nsp10 and nsp16, and nsp7 and nsp8. The interactions between the multifunctional nsp10 and nsp14 or nsp16, which are the unique proteins found in the members of Nidovirales with large RNA genomes including coronaviruses and toroviruses, may have important implication for the mechanisms of replication/transcription complex assembly and functions of these viruses. Using a SARS-CoV replicon expressing a luciferase reporter under the control of a transcription regulating sequence, it has been shown that several viral proteins (N, X and SUD domains of nsp3, and nsp12) provided in trans stimulated the replicon reporter activity, indicating that these proteins may regulate coronavirus replication and transcription. Collectively, our findings provide a basis and platform for further characterization of the functions and mechanisms of coronavirus proteins.
Evaluation of Sample Handling in Relation to Levels of Tissue Inhibitor of Metalloproteinases-1 Measured in Blood by Immunoassay

Background The possible effect of preanalytical conditions such as blood sample preparation and handling on TIMP-1 levels in blood needs thorough investigation. Materials and Methods Blood was collected in dry tubes and tubes containing EDTA and kept at 4°C or 20°C for 1, 3, 8, 24 or 72 hours before processing into serum or EDTA plasma. In addition, serum and EDTA plasma samples were frozen and thawed 1–8 times. TIMP-1 was measured by ELISA. Results Time to processing for up to 72 hours did not significantly affect TIMP-1 levels in serum. In EDTA plasma, TIMP-1 levels were stable for up to eight hours; however, if samples were kept for 24 hours or longer the TIMP-1 levels increased (p<0.0001). Repeated freezing and thawing had a significant effect on TIMP-1 levels in serum (p=0.04). In plasma, repeated freezing and thawing for up to six times did not influence TIMP-1. However, in plasma samples exposed to seven or eight freeze/thaw cycles TIMP-1 levels decreased, although not significantly (p=0.23). Conclusions Handling and processing of blood samples is crucial for TIMP-1 measurement by immunoassay. In serum, TIMP-1 levels are unaffected by time to processing. Plasma samples should be processed within eight hours to avoid a TIMP-1 increase. For the measurement of TIMP-1 in archival material, serum should not be used because TIMP-1 levels are significantly affected by repeated freezing and thawing; archival plasma can readily be used provided that samples have not been frozen and thawed more than six times.
Security of Cyber-Physical Systems in the Presence of Transient Sensor Faults

This article is concerned with the security of modern Cyber-Physical Systems in the presence of transient sensor faults. We consider a system with multiple sensors measuring the same physical variable, where each sensor provides an interval with all possible values of the true state. We note that some sensors might output faulty readings and others may be controlled by a malicious attacker. Differing from previous works, in this article, we aim to distinguish between faults and attacks and develop an attack detection algorithm for the latter only. To do this, we note that there are two kinds of faults—transient and permanent; the former are benign and short-lived, whereas the latter may have dangerous consequences on system performance. We argue that sensors have an underlying transient fault model that quantifies the amount of time in which transient faults can occur. In addition, we provide a framework for developing such a model if it is not provided by manufacturers. Attacks can manifest as either transient or permanent faults depending on the attacker’s goal. We provide different techniques for handling each kind. For the former, we analyze the worst-case performance of sensor fusion over time given each sensor’s transient fault model and develop a filtered fusion interval that is guaranteed to contain the true value and is bounded in size. To deal with attacks that do not comply with sensors’ transient fault models, we propose a sound attack detection algorithm based on pairwise inconsistencies between sensor measurements. Finally, we provide a real-data case study on an unmanned ground vehicle to evaluate the various aspects of this article.
Physical education teachers in motion: an account of attrition and area transfer

Background: Teacher turnover has been identified as a major problem that represents instability in teaching. Teacher turnover can be divided into three components: attrition means that the teacher is leaving the profession; area transfer means that the teacher is changing his/her subject area and migration means that the teacher is moving from one school to another. The single most important concern is teacher attrition. Attrition is particularly high among teachers in their first five years of service. Although extensive research has been carried out on teacher attrition, no single study exists which comprehensively analyses the attrition of physical education (PE) teachers. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to establish the attrition and area transfer rates of PE teachers in Finland. This paper also focuses on the reasons behind why PE teachers are leaving the profession. Key findings: A total of 230 (23%) of 994 PE teachers who graduated between the years 1980 and 2006 moved out of PE teaching. Of the 23%, the attrition rate was 13% and the area transfer rate was 10%. The reasons for leaving the profession could be divided into six different categories: pupils, administration, working conditions, colleagues, respect and rewards and workload. Those who moved outside of schools (i.e. leavers) were mainly younger teachers, while those who changed from PE to another subject area (i.e. movers) were mainly older teachers. It was also found that men left earlier than women and leavers earlier than movers.
The Roots of Social Dominance: Aggression, Prosocial Behavior, and Social Interdependence

ABSTRACT The authors examined the nature of dominant students in Grades 3–5 in a midwestern school system in the United States. Previous research has indicated 2 ways a student may gain dominance—through bullying and prosocial behaviors. A cluster analysis for dominant children was conducted using social interdependence attitude scores, children's self-reports of bullying and prosocial behaviors, and teacher reports of bullying and prosocial behaviors. Dominant children were clustered into cooperative-prosocial, competitive-aggressive, and individualistic groups. Competitive-aggressive children received higher teacher ratings of dominance than did cooperative-prosocial children, there was no significant among the clusters on perceived leadership by peers, and cooperative-prosocial children tended to have teachers who used more cooperative learning in their classroom.
Patch-based multi-resolution real-time texture synthesis in wavelet domain

Texture synthesis has been studied for many years, but it is still difficult to achieve real-time implementation and high quality simultaneously. We present a discrete-wavelet-transform (DWT) based multi-resolution technique for synthesizing high quality textures in real-time. In the wavelet domain, our algorithm first generates randomly an initial texture patch from the input texture picture and subsequently all other texture patches are assigned by measuring the similarity in a defined overlapped region. A final texture is synthesized by the inverse DWT. We demonstrate that the developed algorithm works well for a wide range of texture images (including regular to stochastic), especially for natural texture images that include quasi-repeating patterns consisting of small similar objects of different sizes.
Differentiation of Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells into Endoderm without Embryoid Body Formation

Pluripotent embryonic stem cells hold a great promise as an unlimited source of tissue for treatment of chronic diseases such as Type 1 diabetes. Herein, we describe a protocol using all-trans-retinoic acid, basic fibroblast growth factor and dibutyryl cAMP (DBcAMP) in the absence of embryoid body formation, for differentiation of murine embryonic stem cells into definitive endoderm that may serve as pancreatic precursors. The produced cells were analyzed by quantitative PCR, immunohistochemistry and static insulin release assay for markers of trilaminar embryo, and pancreas. Differentiated cells displayed increased Sox17 and Foxa2 expression consistent with definitive endoderm production. There was minimal production of Sox7, an extraembryonic endoderm marker, and Oct4, a marker of pluripotency. There was minimal mesoderm or neuroectoderm formation based on expression levels of the markers brachyury and Sox1, respectively. Various assays revealed that the cell clusters generated by this protocol express markers of the pancreatic lineage including insulin I, insulin II, C-peptide, PDX-1, carboxypeptidase E, pan-cytokeratin, amylase, glucagon, PAX6, Ngn3 and Nkx6.1. This protocol using all-trans-retinoic acid, DBcAMP, in the absence of embryoid bodies, generated cells that have features of definitive endoderm that may serve as pancreatic endocrine precursors.
Personality in sport: a comprehensive review

This review addresses personality in organised sport. We describe the extant literature that has explored personality effects on athletic success and population-based differences before hypothesising how sport participation may contribute to personality development. We then outline the role of personality in athletic interactions and group processes before considering the practical applications of personality research and avenues for future study. Our review shows that personality is an important determinant of long-term success in sport and identifies clear personality differences between individuals that participate in organised sport and individuals that do not participate in organised sport. We also observe important personality differences between sub-samples of athletes and outline the contribution of personality to intragroup relationships and team effectiveness in team sport. The interaction of genetic and environmental influences is presented as a promising avenue of inquiry that can strengthen our understanding of personality effects on sport and exercise participation and athletic success. We conclude by outlining implications for applied sport psychology.
Inversion of Time domain 3 D Electromagnetic data

Inversion of 3D time-domain electromagnetic data is a challenging problem due to its size and nonlinearity. In this paper we present a general formulation for inverting time domain electromagnetic data. To overcome the difficulties we combine and develop many computational tools including: Quasi-Newton methods and preconditioners, artificial time stepping and source terms. This combination allows us to deal with realistic geophysical problems. keywords: Electromagnetic, Time-Domain, Inversion
Segregation and Urban Unrest in Sweden

In 2009, Sweden experienced a wave of urban unrest concentrated in areas with large foreign-born populations. This episode was seen by many as reflecting a trend towards increased ethnically based residential segregation, in line with scholarly literatures that correlate inequality and rising segregation with increases in unrest or rebellion. In this paper, we analyze the empirical connection between ethnic residential segregation and episodes of urban unrest in Sweden. Unrest is measured by the number of car burnings reported to police between 2002 and 2009. We find a positive and statistically significant link between residential segregation and car burnings at the scale of municipalities and metropolitan districts. Unrest/rebellion is also correlated with high proportion of young adults and social welfare assistance.
Incidence of pleural mesothelioma in a community exposed to fibres with fluoro-edenitic composition in Biancavilla (Sicily, Italy).

INTRODUCTION Amphibolic fibres with fluoro-edenitic composition characterize Biancavilla soil, including the major quarry from which building materials have been extensively extracted. These fibres induce mesothelioma in experimental animals and their in vitro biological action is similar to that of crocidolite. MATERIALS AND METHODS Malignant mesothelioma case series and incidence were examined to evaluate the disease burden on Biancavilla inhabitants. RESULTS The incidence of pleural mesothelioma in Biancavilla is steadily higher than in the Sicilian Region, risk estimates are more elevated in women than in men, the most affected age class is constituted by subjects aged less than 50. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS Environmental exposure to fibres with fluoro-edenitic composition appears to be causally related to the elevated mesothelioma occurrence in Biancavilla. In this frame, environmental clean-up is the main goal to be pursued in public health terms. A contribution of scientific research to public health decision making with respect to priority setting for environmental clean-up can derive from some further selected epidemiological investigations.
Glucose-Induced Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 Secretion Is Deficient in Patients with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Background & Aims The incretins glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) are gastrointestinal peptide hormones regulating postprandial insulin release from pancreatic β-cells. GLP-1 agonism is a treatment strategy in Type 2 diabetes and is evaluated in Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, the role of incretins in its pathophysiology is insufficiently understood. Studies in mice suggest improvement of hepatic steatosis by GLP-1 agonism. We determined the secretion of incretins after oral glucose administration in non-diabetic NAFLD patients. Methods N = 52 patients (n = 16 NAFLD and n = 36 Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) patients) and n = 50 matched healthy controls were included. Standardized oral glucose tolerance test was performed. Glucose, insulin, glucagon, GLP-1 and GIP plasma levels were measured sequentially for 120 minutes after glucose administration. Results Glucose induced GLP-1 secretion was significantly decreased in patients compared to controls (p<0.001). In contrast, GIP secretion was unchanged. There was no difference in GLP-1 and GIP secretion between NAFLD and NASH subgroups. All patients were insulin resistant, however HOMA2-IR was highest in the NASH subgroup. Fasting and glucose-induced insulin secretion was higher in NAFLD and NASH compared to controls, while the glucose lowering effect was diminished. Concomitantly, fasting glucagon secretion was significantly elevated in NAFLD and NASH. Conclusions Glucose-induced GLP-1 secretion is deficient in patients with NAFLD and NASH. GIP secretion is contrarily preserved. Insulin resistance, with hyperinsulinemia and hyperglucagonemia, is present in all patients, and is more severe in NASH compared to NAFLD. These pathophysiologic findings endorse the current evaluation of GLP-1 agonism for the treatment of NAFLD.
Role of Angiotensin Receptor Subtypes in the Response of Rabbit Brain Arterioles to Angiotensin

Background and Purpose Angiotensin II has been reported to induce either constriction or dilation in the cerebral microcirculation. The goal of this study was to determine whether binding to different angiotensin II receptor subtypes may account for the divergent responses. Methods Pial arterioles ranging in diameter from 28 to 136 &mgr;m were observed through a microscope in a closed cranial window preparation in anesthetized rabbits. Arteriolar responses to topical application of 10−5 mol/L angiotensin II or the vasoactive angiotensin II degradation products l‐arginine/angiotensin‐(3‐8) were measured by videometry. The effect of the subtype 1 receptor antagonist losartan and the subtype 2 antagonist PD 123319 on these responses was examined in separate groups of animals. Results Topical coapplication of 10−5 mol/L losartan or 10−5 mol/L PD 123319 produced 55% and 62% inhibition of the dilator response to 10−5 mol/L angiotensin II, respectively. Combined application of the antagonists caused 79% inhibition. Each of the antagonists almost completely blocked the response to l‐arginine/angiotensin‐(3‐8). Acetylcholine‐induced dilation of rabbit brain arterioles was unaffected by the antagonists. Conclusions Both of the known angiotensin II receptor subtypes appear to be involved in angiotensin II‐induced dilation of rabbit cerebral arterioles. These results argue against the assumption that vasodilation is a specific function of one of these receptor subtypes, which might have explained the equivocal effects of angiotensin II by predominance of a certain receptor subtype in a given vascular bed. (Stroke. 1994;25:1476‐1480.)