Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
RHEINISCH-WESTFÄLISCHE TECHNISCHE HOCHSCHULE AACHEN

We give a detailed construction of an ambient isotopy to prove that for any embedded closed curveη ∈ C1(S1,R3) there is anε∗ > 0, such that allξ ∈ C1(S1,R3) with ‖ξ̇ − η̇‖C0 ≤ ε∗ are ambient isotopic to η. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000) 53A04, 57M25 A fundamental aim of knot theory is to decide whether two given knots “have the same knot type”, i. e. can continuously be deformed into each other avoiding self-intersections and contractions of knotted arcs to points, which can arise even in the case of uniform convergence. An admissible deformation of this kind is called ambient isotopyand is defined as follows. Definition (Isotopies). • Two homeomorphisms f0, f1 : Sn → Sn are said to beisotopic, if there exists a level preserving embedding H : Sn × [0,1] → Sn × [0,1] joining them, i. e.H is an embedding satisfying H(Sn, t) ⊂ Sn × {t} for all t ∈ [0,1] and H(·, i) = ( fi(·), i), i = 0,1. • Two embedded curves γ1, γ2 : X → S3 will be calledambient isotopic , if there is a homeomorphismh : S3→ S3 isotopic to the identityidS3 such thatγ2 = h ◦ γ1. Remark. Of course,h is orientation preserving. In [Fis60, p. 210, Theorem 16] G. M. F showed, using deep results of R. H. B andE. E. M, that, forn = 1,2,3, two homeomorphismsf ,g : Sn → Sn are isotopic if and only if they are homotopic. Therefore any orientation preserving homeomorphism h : S3 → S3 is isotopic to the identity. Consequentlyγ1, γ2 are ambient isotopic if and only if there is an orientation preserving homeomorphismh : S3→ S3 satisfyingγ2 = h◦ γ1. A proof in the piecewise-linear setting can be found in [BZ03, p. 6, Proposition 1.10]. Lemma. Let η ∈ C1(S1,R3) be a regular simple closed curve (i. e.̇ η(t) , 0 for any t ∈ S1 andη is injective). Then there exists a constant ε∗ > 0 depending onη, such that all ξ ∈ C1(S1,R3) with ‖ξ̇ − η̇‖C0(S1,R3) ≤ ε∗ are ambient isotopic toη. At first sight this result does not seem particularly relevant in traditional knot theory where one often considers piecewise linear representatives of knot classes. In geometric knot theory, however, one searches for distinguished representatives in a given knot class, e. g. by minimizing self-avoidance energies or maximizing thickness; see the various contributions in [SKK98], [CMRS05].
Researching Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Christians and Muslims: Some Thematic Reflections

This paper highlights some thematic reflections primarily based on two empirical research projects on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) Christians and Muslims. It begins by discussing reflexivity by way of contextualising the subsequent exploration of specific themes. This is followed by a discussion of the plight of LGB Christians and Muslims which renders research on this population highly sensitive. The paper then explores the theme of researching meanings and lived experiences sensitively, focusing on the importance of being theoretically and culturally sensitive; and the relevance of methodological pragmatism and pluralism. It then proceeds to a detailed discussion of accessing ‘hidden’ populations and trust building; and the dynamics of the insider/outsider status. The paper concludes with a call for LGB research to take seriously intersectionality of contemporary LGB identity (e.g. sexual, religious, cultural, ethnic), and the role of religion/spirituality in LGB lives and politics.
Genetic complexity in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy revealed by high-throughput sequencing

Background Clinical interpretation of the large number of rare variants identified by high throughput sequencing (HTS) technologies is challenging. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical implications of a HTS strategy for patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) using a targeted HTS methodology and workflow developed for patients with a range of inherited cardiovascular diseases. By comparing the sequencing results with published findings and with sequence data from a large-scale exome sequencing screen of UK individuals, we sought to quantify the strength of the evidence supporting causality for detected candidate variants. Methods and results 223 unrelated patients with HCM (46±15 years at diagnosis, 74% males) were studied. In order to analyse coding, intronic and regulatory regions of 41 cardiovascular genes, we used solution-based sequence capture followed by massive parallel resequencing on Illumina GAIIx. Average read-depth in the 2.1 Mb target region was 120. Rare (frequency<0.5%) non-synonymous, loss-of-function and splice-site variants were defined as candidates. Excluding titin, we identified 152 distinct candidate variants in sarcomeric or associated genes (89 novel) in 143 patients (64%). Four sarcomeric genes (MYH7, MYBPC3, TNNI3, TNNT2) showed an excess of rare single non-synonymous single-nucleotide polymorphisms (nsSNPs) in cases compared to controls. The estimated probability that a nsSNP in these genes is pathogenic varied between 57% and near certainty depending on the location. We detected an additional 94 candidate variants (73 novel) in desmosomal, and ion-channel genes in 96 patients (43%). Conclusions This study provides the first large-scale quantitative analysis of the prevalence of sarcomere protein gene variants in patients with HCM using HTS technology. Inclusion of other genes implicated in inherited cardiac disease identifies a large number of non-synonymous rare variants of unknown clinical significance.
Maggots as potential vector for pathogen transmission and consequences for infection control in waste management

Background and aims: Debridement therapy with sterile bred larvae in non-healing wounds is a widely accepted safe and efficient treatment modality. However, during application in the contaminated wound bed microbial contamination with potential microbial pathogen spread after escape from the wound or after unreliable disposal procedure may happen, particularly in the case of not using bio-bags. The aims of this work were first to investigate the release of ingested bacteria into the environment by maggots and second to examine the common practice of freezing the maggots after use and/or disposal in trash-bags. Potential methods for hygienic safe disposal of used maggots should be deduced. Methods: First, Maggots were contaminated with S. aureus by allowing them to crawl over an agar surface completely covered with bacterial growth over 24 h at 37°C. After external disinfection maggots were transferred onto sterile Columbia agar plates and shedding of S. aureus was visualized. Second, maggots were frozen at –20°C for 1, 2, 5, 10, 30, and 60 min. After exposure, the larvae were transferred onto Columbia blood agar with consecutive incubation at 37°C over 48 h. The larvae were analyzed visually for mobility and eating activities. The frozen bodies of dead larvae were examined for viable bacteria. Results: We could demonstrate that maggots release formerly ingested pathogens (S. aureus). Freezing at –20°C for at least 60 min was able to kill all maggots, however the contaminant bacteria inside could survive. Conclusion: Since freezing is apparently able to kill maggots but not to reliabely inactivate the ingested bacterial pathogens, we recommend the disposal of free-range larvae in screw cap vials after use to achieve full hygienic control.
Nutritional status of institutionalized elderly Brazilians: a study with the Mini Nutritional Assessment.

OBJECTIVE To assess the nutritional status of elderly living in nursing homes in the city of Salvador, Brazil and associated factors. METHODS Cross-sectional study performed with 359 individuals of both sexes, ages equal or over 60 years old, located in Nursing Homes in the urban area of the city of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. RESULTS Regarding nutritional status according to Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA), 66.3% of the evaluated elderly were malnourished and at risk of malnutrition. When comparing sexes, it has been observed that among men the prevalence of this condition (76.6%) was higher than in women (62.4%). It has been observed, as a result of the multivariate analysis, that only the variable functional capacity for Activities of Daily Living (ADL) was statistically significant. There was moderate correlation between MNA and Mini-Mental State Examination (r=0.454; p<0.0001), as well as between MNA and the ADL scale (r=0.569; p<0.0001). There was weak negative correlation between MNA total score and age (r=0.159; p=0.002). CONCLUSION Malnutrition and malnutrition risk were conditions of remarkable importance, with almost two-thirds of the elderly in this situation. ADL functional capacity must be monitored given their close relationship with the nutritional status of the elderly. An interdisciplinary approach in the context of institutionalization is needed due to the association between nutritional status and variables of different dimensions.
Psychiatric disorders in youth in juvenile detention.

BACKGROUND Given the growth of juvenile detainee populations, epidemiologic data on their psychiatric disorders are increasingly important. Yet, there are few empirical studies. Until we have better epidemiologic data, we cannot know how best to use the system's scarce mental health resources. METHODS Using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children version 2.3, interviewers assessed a randomly selected, stratified sample of 1829 African American, non-Hispanic white, and Hispanic youth (1172 males, 657 females, ages 10-18 years) who were arrested and detained in Cook County, Illinois (which includes Chicago and surrounding suburbs). We present 6-month prevalence estimates by demographic subgroups (sex, race/ethnicity, and age) for the following disorders: affective disorders (major depressive episode, dysthymia, manic episode), anxiety (panic, separation anxiety, overanxious, generalized anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorders), psychosis, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, disruptive behavior disorders (oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder), and substance use disorders (alcohol and other drugs). RESULTS Nearly two thirds of males and nearly three quarters of females met diagnostic criteria for one or more psychiatric disorders. Excluding conduct disorder (common among detained youth), nearly 60% of males and more than two thirds of females met diagnostic criteria and had diagnosis-specific impairment for one or more psychiatric disorders. Half of males and almost half of females had a substance use disorder, and more than 40% of males and females met criteria for disruptive behavior disorders. Affective disorders were also prevalent, especially among females; more than 20% of females met criteria for a major depressive episode. Rates of many disorders were higher among females, non-Hispanic whites, and older adolescents. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest substantial psychiatric morbidity among juvenile detainees. Youth with psychiatric disorders pose a challenge for the juvenile justice system and, after their release, for the larger mental health system.
Reliability Analysis and Cost Optimization of Parallel-Inverter System

As the penetration of renewable energy resources proliferate, inverters have been employed as interface in distributed power systems. To achieve expanded power level and system redundancy, parallel connection of inverters has been widely used. This paper derives mathematical models to quantitatively evaluate the reliability of parallel inverters under different topologies and control strategies. A framework to determine the number of inverters in parallel in terms of reliability and cost optimization is proposed. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify the impact of parameter variation on system reliability and total cost. At last, power densities of different structures are analyzed for a fair comparison.
Identification of human balance control in standing

The goal was to identify the contribution of intrinsic mechanical properties of the muscular-skeletal system and the reflex gains in controlling balance during standing. The combination of balance perturbations experiments and closed loop identification schemes made it possible to identify the reflex loop gains and intrinsic mechanical properties in various environmental conditions. Human balance responses were studied by placing subjects on a movable support base while keeping their eyes open or closed. EMG, body motion and the ground reaction forces were recorded. From the platform perturbation data the frequency response functions of the controller dynamics and the admittance of the balance control system were estimated with a non-parametric closed loop identification technique. Using a parametric model of balance control and a fitting procedure the sum of the intrinsic stiffness and neural position feedback gain, the neural time delay, the neural velocity feedback gain and the intrinsic damping were uniquely identified. The results show that subjects balancing on a randomly moving platform in the forward-backward direction applied a minimal stiffness strategy. The required damping to avoid oscillations was mainly due to neural velocity feedback rather than to intrinsic damping.
Right–Left Asymmetries in the Whisking Behavior of Rats Anticipate Head Movements

Rats use rhythmic movements of their vibrissae (whiskers) to tactually explore their environment. This “whisking” behavior has generally been reported to be strictly synchronous and symmetric about the snout, and it is thought to be controlled by a brainstem central pattern generator. Because the vibrissae can move independently of the head, however, maintaining a stable perception of the world would seem to require that rats adjust the bilateral symmetry of whisker movements in response to head movements. The present study used high-speed videography to reveal dramatic bilateral asymmetries and asynchronies in free-air whisking during head rotations. Kinematic analysis suggested that these asymmetric movements did not serve to maintain any fixed temporal relationship between right and left arrays, but rather to redirect the whiskers to a different region of space. More specifically, spatial asymmetry was found to be strongly correlated with rotational head velocity, ensuring a “look-ahead” distance of almost exactly one whisk. In contrast, bilateral asynchrony and velocity asymmetry were only weakly dependent on head velocity. Bilateral phase difference was found to be independent of the whisking frequency, suggesting the presence of two distinct left and right central pattern generators, connected as coupled oscillators. We suggest that the spatial asymmetries are analogous to the saccade that occurs during the initial portion of a combined head–eye gaze shift, and we begin to develop the rat vibrissal system as a new model for studying vestibular and proprioceptive contributions to the acquisition of sensory data.
Condensative Stream Query Language for Data Streams

In contrast to traditional database queries, a query on stream data is continuous in that it is periodically evaluated over fractions (sliding windows) of the data stream. This introduces challenges beyond those encountered when processing traditional queries. Over a traditional DBMS (Database Management System), the answer to an aggregate query is usually much smaller than the answer to a similar non-aggregate query making query processing condensative. Current proposals for declarative query languages over data streams do not support such condensative processing. Nor is it yet well understood what query constructs and what semantics should be adopted for continuous query languages. In order to make existing stream query languages more expressive, a novel stream query language CSQL (Condensative Stream Query Language) are proposed over a sequence-based stream model (Ma & Nutt 2005). It is shown that the sequence model supports a precise tuple-based semantics that is lacking in previous time-based models, and thereby provides a formal semantics to understand and reason about continuous queries. CSQL supports sliding window operators found in previous languages and processes a declarative semantics that allows one to specify and reason about the different meanings of the frequency by which a query returns answer tuples, which are beyond previous query languages over streams. In addition, a novel condensative stream algebra is defined by extending an existing stream algebra with a new frequency operator, to capture the condensative property. It is shown that a condensative stream algebra enables the generation of efficient continuous query plans, and can be used to validate query optimisation. Finally, it is shown via an experimental study that the proposed operators are effective and efficient in practice.
Hydro-climatic and ecological behaviour of the drought of Amazonia in 2005

In 2005, southwestern Amazonia experienced the effects of an intense drought that affected life and biodiversity. Several major tributaries as well as parts of the main river itself contained only a fraction of their normal volumes of water, and lakes were drying up. The consequences for local people, animals and the forest itself are impossible to estimate now, but they are likely to be serious. The analyses indicate that the drought was manifested as weak peak river season during autumn to winter as a consequence of a weak summertime season in southwestern Amazonia; the winter season was also accompanied by rainfall that sometimes reached 25% of the climatic value, being anomalously warm and dry and helping in the propagation of fires. Analyses of climatic and hydrological records in Amazonia suggest a broad consensus that the 2005 drought was linked not to El Niño as with most previous droughts in the Amazon, but to warming sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean.
Large lepton mixing and supernova 1987A

We reconsider the impact of e↔μ,τ neutrino oscillations on the observed e signal of supernova SN 1987A. Performing a maximum-likelihood analysis using as fit parameters the released binding energy Eb and the average neutrino energy Ee, we find as previous analyses that e↔μ,τ oscillations with large mixing angles have lower best-fit values for Ee than small-mixing angle (SMA) oscillations. Moreover, the inferred value of Ee is already in the SMA case lower than those found in simulations. This apparent conflict has been interpreted as evidence against the large mixing oscillation solutions to the solar neutrino problem. In order to quantify the degree to which the experimental data favour the SMA over the large mixing solutions we use their likelihood ratios as well as a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. We find within the range of SN parameters predicted by simulations regions in which the LMA-MSW solution is either only marginally disfavoured or favoured compared to the SMA-MSW solution. We conclude therefore that the LMA-MSW solution is not in conflict with the current understanding of SN physics. In contrast, the vacuum oscillation and the LOW solutions to the solar neutrino problem can be excluded at the 4σ level for most of the SN parameter ranges found in simulations. Only a marginal region with low values of Ee, Eμ,τ and Eb is left over, in which these oscillation solutions can be reconciled with the neutrino signal of SN 1987A.
Factors influencing users to use unsecured wi-fi networks: evidence in the wild

Security experts often question why some users take actions that could expose them to security and privacy risks. Using unsecured Wi-Fi networks is one common example. Even though mobile data is now a more secure means to connect to the Internet, and is becoming faster and more affordable, many users continue to use unsecured Wi-Fi. To identify risk mitigating strategies, the research community first needs to understand the underlying factors driving users' decisions. Previous studies examined stated preferences --- what people said they have done or think they would do --- but that may not truly reflect real-life behavior. This study is the first to examine revealed preferences --- what people actually do in naturalistic settings. Specifically, we investigated how users' desire to save mobile data and battery power influenced their decisions at the time when they connected to open unsecured Wi-Fi in the wild. We also examined whether the decision to use unsecured Wi-Fi networks could be driven by demographic factors and the user's perception of the risk associated with using these networks. We recruited 71 participants in the UK to install My Wi-Fi Choices, our own Android app, on their mobile device, and run it for three months in the background. The app captured details of mobile data allowance and battery power on participants' devices whenever they used open unsecured Wi-Fi networks. We found that depleting mobile data significantly drove participants to use these networks, especially when their remaining allowance reached approximately 30%. Battery level, however, did not play a significant role. The perceived risks of unsecured Wi-Fi did not affect the decision-making either. Age, education, and income level were also correlated with increased use of unsecured Wi-Fi.
The Effect of Message Valence on e-WoM Spread: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

This study aims to examine the effect of e-WoM message on the intention level of consumers to spread the word to other consumers in the presence of a moderated mediation interaction effect between risk perception and uncertainty avoidance levels of consumers. An experimental design was implemented, and the manipulated experimental condition was e-WoM message represented in two levels, negative and positive. The results indicate that, compared to negative ones, positive e-WoM messages lead to higher intention to share the message with other consumers. However, in the presence of perceived risk, the positive direct effect of positive messages turns into a negative indirect effect when perceived risk mediates this relationship. Moreover, this negative indirect effect stabilizes with the uncertainty avoidance moderated relationship between e-WoM message and perceived risk. In the light of these findings, a two levels e-WoM communication strategy was proposed to maximize the benefits of positive customer feedbacks: Construction of a strong pool of positive e-WoM messages generated by existing satisfied customers and the use of negative framing in the marketing communication messages targeted to prospect customers.
Functional Assessment of Pancreatic β-Cell Area in Humans

OBJECTIVE β-Cell mass declines progressively during the course of diabetes, and various antidiabetic treatment regimens have been suggested to modulate β-cell mass. However, imaging methods allowing the monitoring of changes in β-cell mass in vivo have not yet become available. We address whether pancreatic β-cell area can be assessed by functional test of insulin secretion in humans. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A total of 33 patients with chronic pancreatitis (n = 17), benign pancreatic adenomas (n = 13), and tumors of the ampulla of Vater (n = 3) at various stages of glucose tolerance were examined with an oral glucose load before undergoing pancreatic surgery. Indexes of insulin secretion were calculated and compared with the fractional β-cell area of the pancreas. RESULTS β-Cell area was related to fasting glucose concentrations in an inverse linear fashion (r = −0.53, P = 0.0014) and to 120-min postchallenge glycemia in an inverse exponential fashion (r = −0.89). β-Cell area was best predicted by a C-peptide–to–glucose ratio determined 15 min after the glucose drink (r = 0.72, P < 0.0001). However, a fasting C-peptide–to–glucose ratio already yielded a reasonably close correlation (r = 0.63, P < 0.0001). Homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) β-cell function was unrelated to β-cell area. CONCLUSIONS Glucose control is closely related to pancreatic β-cell area in humans. A C-peptide–to–glucose ratio after oral glucose ingestion appears to better predict β-cell area than fasting measures, such as the HOMA index.