Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validation of a Ramp Running Protocol for Determination of the True VO2max in Mice

In the field of comparative physiology, it remains to be established whether the concept of VO2max is valid in the mouse and, if so, how this value can be accurately determined. In humans, VO2max is generally considered to correspond to the plateau observed when VO2 no longer rises with an increase in workload. In contrast, the concept of VO2peak tends to be used in murine studies. The objectives of the present study were to determine whether (i) a continuous ramp protocol yielded a higher VO2peak than a stepwise, incremental protocol, and (ii) the VO2peak measured in the ramp protocol corresponded to VO2max. The three protocols (based on intensity-controlled treadmill running until exhaustion with eight female FVB/N mice) were performed in random order: (a) an incremental protocol that begins at 10 m.min−1 speed and increases by 3 m.min−1 every 3 min. (b) a ramp protocol with slow acceleration (3 m.min−2), and (c) a ramp protocol with fast acceleration (12 m.min−2). Each protocol was performed with two slopes (0 and 25°). Hence, each mouse performed six exercise tests. We found that the value of VO2peak was protocol-dependent (p < 0.05) and was highest (59.0 ml.kg 0.75.min−1) for the 3 m.min−2 0° ramp protocol. In the latter, the presence of a VO2max plateau was associated with the fulfillment of two secondary criteria (a blood lactate concentration >8 mmol.l−1 and a respiratory exchange ratio >1). The total duration of the 3 m.min−2 0° ramp protocol was shorter than that of the incremental protocol. Taken as a whole, our results suggest that VO2max in the mouse is best determined by applying a ramp exercise protocol with slow acceleration and no treadmill slope.
Genetic Algorithm Rule Definition for Denial of Services Network Intrusion Detection

Many previous Genetic Algorithm methods can get much better example results in KDD cup 99 dataset. In the real intrusion detection system, the software needs update the rule even everyday. In this paper, we expand previous work and present a fitness function, propose an efficient rule generator for denial of services of network intrusion detection. We use more chromosomes with relevant features and more rule generator. As such, the rules generated by our algorithm are suitable to continuously changing misuse detection. In order to verify our approach, we tested our proposal with KDD Cup99 dataset, The experimental results show that the proposed approach is an efficient way in network intrusion detection.
Explicit formulas for the average density of conformal repellers

We obtain explicit formulas for the average density, also called order-two density, of an arbitrary conformal repeller of a $C^{1+\epsilon}$ transformation. We note that unlike with the pointwise densities, the average densities exist almost everywhere on each repeller, and are in fact constant almost everywhere. Thus, they are natural parameters to describe the geometric structure of the corresponding invariant sets, and as such it is of interest to obtain explicit formulas for their almost constant value. We obtain simultaneously formulas without using symbolic dynamics, and formulas based on the symbolic dynamics generated by a given Markov partition. The proofs strongly depend on the use of appropriate Markov partitions, and are also based on methods of Falconer and of Zähle.
Executive functions, emotion regulation and mental health problems in children and adolescents

3 EF and emotion regulation strategies could be improved, and reduce emotional and behavioural problems. Results revealed a reduction in emotional difficulties, and maladaptive ER strategies catastrophising and other blame; however no significant improvements were found for hot EF and behavioural difficulties, suggesting that an alternative or rigorous programme would be beneficial in improving hot EF. Overall the present studies indicate that there is a relationship between EF and distinct emotion regulation strategies in different age groups and how this is implicated in behavioural and emotional problems. Secondly the intervention study showed that the Super Skills Programme was successful in reducing maladaptive ER and improving cool EF. This research highlights the need for examining EF and ER further in clinical populations and the effectiveness of this intervention in a larger sample.
Effects of Exchange Rates on Employment in Canada

Under a flexible exchange rate regime, the Canadian economy is constantly affected by fluctuations in exchange rates. This paper focuses on the effect of the exchange rate on employment in Canada. We find that appreciation of the Canadian dollar has significant effects on employment in manufacturing industries; such effects are mostly associated with the export-weighted exchange rate, but not the import-weighted exchange rate. Meanwhile, the exchange rate has little effect on jobs in non-manufacturing industries. Because the manufacturing sector accounts for only about 10 percent of employment in Canada, the overall effect of the exchange rate on employment is small. In addition, we quantify the loss of manufacturing employment associated with a commodity market boom, during which the Canadian dollar tends to appreciate. Our estimates suggest that when commodity prices increase by 15.77 percent (one standard deviation of annual change in commodity prices between 1994 and 2010), manufacturing employment in Canada decreases by 0.8 percent, which is about 0.08 percent of the total employment.
The Microbiome and Occurrence of Methanotrophy in Carnivorous Sponges

As shown by recent studies, filter-feeding sponges are known to host a wide variety of microorganisms. However, the microbial community of the non-filtering carnivorous sponges (Porifera, Cladorhizidae) has been the subject of less scrutiny. Here, we present the results from a comparative study of the methanotrophic carnivorous sponge Cladorhiza methanophila from a mud volcano-rich area at the Barbados Accretionary Prism, and five carnivorous species from the Jan Mayen Vent Field (JMVF) at the Arctic Mid-Ocean Ridge. Results from 16S rRNA microbiome data indicate the presence of a diverse assemblage of associated microorganisms in carnivorous sponges mainly from the Gamma- and Alphaproteobacteria, Flavobacteriaceae, and Thaumarchaeota. While the abundance of particular groups varied throughout the dataset, we found interesting similarities to previous microbiome results from non-carnivorous deep sea sponges, suggesting that the carnivorous sponges share characteristics of a previously hypothesized putative deep-sea sponge microbial community. Chemolithoautotrophic symbiosis was confirmed for C. methanophila through a microbial community with a high abundance of Methylococcales and very light isotopic δ13C and δ15N ratios (-60 to -66‰/3.5 to 5.2‰) compared to the other cladorhizid species (-22 to -24‰/8.5 to 10.5‰). We provide evidence for the presence of putative sulfur-oxidizing Gammaproteobacteria in the arctic cladorhizids; however, δ13C and δ15N signatures did not provide evidence for significant chemoautotrophic symbiosis in this case, and the slightly higher abundance of cladorhizids at the JMVF site compared to the nearby deep sea likely stem from an increased abundance of prey rather than a more direct vent association. The phylogenetic position of C. methanophila in relation to other carnivorous sponges was established using a three-gene phylogenetic analysis, and it was found to be closely related to other non-methanotrophic Cladorhiza species with a similar morphology included in the dataset, suggesting a recent origin for methanotrophy in this species. C. methanophila remains the only known carnivorous sponge with a strong, chemolithoautotrophic symbiont association, and methanotrophic symbiosis does not seem to be a widespread property within the Cladorhizidae.
Unveiling systematic biases in the 1D LTE excitation-ionization balance of Fe for FGK stars: a novel approach to determination of stellar parameters

We present a comprehensive analysis of different techniques available for the spectroscopic analysis of FGK stars and provide a recommended methodology which efficiently estimates accurate stellar atmospheric parameters for large samples of stars. Our analysis includes a simultaneous equivalent width analysis of Fe I and Fe II spectral lines, and for the first time, utilizes on-the-fly non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE) corrections of individual Fe I lines. We further investigate several temperature scales, finding that estimates from Balmer line measurements provide the most accurate effective temperatures at all metallicities. We apply our analysis to a large sample of both dwarf and giant stars selected from the Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) survey. We then show that the difference between parameters determined by our method and that by the standard 1D LTE excitation-ionization balance of Fe reveals substantial systematic biases: up to 400 K in effective temperature, 1.0 dex in surface gravity and 0.4 dex in metallicity for stars with [Fe/H] similar to -2.5. This has large implications for the study of the stellar populations in the Milky Way. (Less)
Weak feature size and persistent homology: computing homology of solids in Rn from noisy data samples

In this work, one proves that under quite general assumptions one can deduce the topology of a bounded open set in Rn from a Hausdorff distance approximation of it. For this, one introduces the weak feature size (wfs) that generalizes the notion of local feature size. Our results apply to open sets with positive wfs, which include many sets whose boundaries are not smooth and even nowhere smooth. This class includes also the piecewise analytic open sets which cover many cases encountered in practical applications. The proofs are based on the study of distance functions to closed sets and their critical points. As an application, one gives an algorithmic way, thanks to persistent homology techniques, to compute the homology groups of open sets from noisy samples of points on their boundary.
CREMA-D: Crowd-Sourced Emotional Multimodal Actors Dataset

People convey their emotional state in their face and voice. We present an audio-visual dataset uniquely suited for the study of multi-modal emotion expression and perception. The dataset consists of facial and vocal emotional expressions in sentences spoken in a range of basic emotional states (happy, sad, anger, fear, disgust, and neutral). 7,442 clips of 91 actors with diverse ethnic backgrounds were rated by multiple raters in three modalities: audio, visual, and audio-visual. Categorical emotion labels and real-value intensity values for the perceived emotion were collected using crowd-sourcing from 2,443 raters. The human recognition of intended emotion for the audio-only, visual-only, and audio-visual data are 40.9, 58.2 and 63.6 percent respectively. Recognition rates are highest for neutral, followed by happy, anger, disgust, fear, and sad. Average intensity levels of emotion are rated highest for visual-only perception. The accurate recognition of disgust and fear requires simultaneous audio-visual cues, while anger and happiness can be well recognized based on evidence from a single modality. The large dataset we introduce can be used to probe other questions concerning the audio-visual perception of emotion.
The Effect of Knot Modifications on the Shape of B-spline Curves

This paper is devoted to the shape control of B-spline curves achieved by the modification of one of its knot values. At first those curves are described along which the points of a B-spline curve move under the modification of a knot value. Then we show that the one-parameter family of k order B-spline curves obtained by modifying a knot value has an envelope which is also a B-spline curve of order k − 1.
ROLES OF DHA IN PROMOTING HIPPOCAMPAL NEURITE GROWTH ASSOCIATED WITH IMPROVEMENT OF LEARNING TASKS. By THONG CHEE SIANG

Declaration 1. I confirm that I understand what plagiarism entails and am aware of the College's policy in this regard. 2. I confirm that I have not committed plagiarism when completing the attached piece of work. 3. I did not make use of another student's previous work and submitted it as my own. 4. I did not allow and will not allow anyone to copy my work with the intention of presenting it as his or her own work. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my final year project supervisor, Ms. Lim Ah Kee who has spent time to guide and support me in the preparation and completion of this project. Besides, much of the credits would probably go to the library and CITC center of Tunku Abdul Rahman College which provided the facilities for the literature sources and information that were related to my review. I have greatly benefited in the progress of writing my project report which is related to the roles of DHA in promoting hippocampal neurons and improving performance in learning tasks. Last but not least, I would like to thank my fellow friends and family members most gratefully for their kindness in helping me as well as giving me support all the way through the progress of this final year project.
Safety and Efficacy of CT-Guided Transforaminal Cervical Epidural Steroid Injections Using a Posterior Approach

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Image-guided cervical transforaminal epidural injections play an important role in the management of cervical radicular pain syndromes. The safety and efficacy of these injections via an anterolateral approach has been well-studied. The goal of this retrospective review was to determine the safety and efficacy of CT-guided transforaminal epidural injections by using a posterior approach. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Retrospective review of patient records was used to define VNPS and RMDI of patients undergoing CT-guided transforaminal cervical epidural injections between 2006 and 2010. Pain scores were recorded preprocedure, immediately postprocedure, at 2 weeks, and at 2 months. The RMDI was recorded preprocedure, at 2 weeks, and at 2 months. Data analysis of 247 patients was completed. Differences in VNPS scores and the RMDI were then compared on the basis of a CT-guided approach (anterolateral versus posterior). RESULTS: There was no statistical difference in the degree of pain relief and improvement in the RMDI between the CT-guided transforaminal anterolateral approach and the posterior approach at 2 weeks and at 2 months. Both groups demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in pain scores and the RMDI. Approximately 35% of patients in both groups demonstrated >50% pain relief at 2 months. There were no serious complications in either group. CONCLUSIONS: CT-guided transforaminal cervical epidural injections by using a posterior approach are safe and effective.
Summarizing Similar Questions for Chinese Community Question Answering Portals

As online community question answering (cQA) portals like Yahoo! Answers1 and Baidu Zhidao2 have attracted over hundreds of millions of questions, how to utilize these questions and accordant answers becomes increasingly important for cQA websites. Prior approaches focus on using information retrieval techniques to provide a ranked list of questions based on their similarities to the query. Due to the high variance of question quality and answer quality, users have to spend lots of time on finding the truly best answers from retrieved results. In this paper, we develop an answer retrieval and summarization system which directly provides an accurate and comprehensive answer summary instead of a list of similar questions to user’s query. To fully explore the information of relations between queries and questions, between questions and answers, and between answers and sentences, we propose a new probabilistic scoring model to distinguish high-quality answers from low-quality answers. By fully exploiting these relations, we summarize answers using a maximum coverage model. Experiment results on the data extracted from Chinese cQA websites demonstrate the efficacy of our proposed method.
Determination of coenzyme Q10 status in blood mononuclear cells, skeletal muscle, and plasma by HPLC with di-propoxy-coenzyme Q10 as an internal standard.

Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10), the predominant ubiquinone species in humans, functions as an electron carrier in the mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) and as an intracellular antioxidant (1). Although primary CoQ10 deficiency is rare, a profound deficiency in skeletal muscle CoQ10 has been reported in patients with multisystem mitochondrial encephalomyopathies (2)(3). Cardiovascular disease has been associated with a CoQ10 deficiency (4)(5), and it is becoming increasingly apparent that other groups of patients may become CoQ10 deficient, particularly individuals with ataxia (6) and some patients receiving statins (7). When assessing tissue CoQ10 status, we have found that the lack of a commercially available nonphysiologic internal standard (IS) is a major difficulty. Although naturally occurring ubiquinones have been used as ISs in this determination, they are not free from the influence of ubiquinones that might be present in human tissue as the result of dietary contamination (8) or synthesis by microorganisms (9)(10). There is a need, therefore, for an alternative IS that is not influenced by exogenous/endogenous ubiquinones. Di-ethoxy-CoQ10 has been suggested as a nonphysiologic IS to determine CoQ10 (11). In this study we evaluated this IS along with di-propoxy-CoQ10 for their suitability to determine tissue CoQ10. Reference intervals were established for the CoQ10 concentration of skeletal muscle, blood mononuclear cells (MNCs), and plasma. A patient with a suspected CoQ10 deficiency was subsequently identified. Reference intervals were established for the following: (a) , skeletal muscle from 26 patients [mean (SE) age, 24.5 (3.9) years; range, 0.5–59 years; ratio of males to females, 7:6] with no evidence of an ETC deficiency detected in their skeletal muscle biopsies; (b) , MNCs from 17 healthy volunteers and 13 disease controls with no clinical evidence of …
Deaf Mothers and Breastfeeding

Background: Deaf mothers who use American Sign Language (ASL) consider themselves a linguistic minority group, with specific cultural practices. Rarely has this group been engaged in infant-feeding research. Objectives: To understand how Deaf mothers who use ASL learn about infant feeding and to identify their breastfeeding challenges. Methods: Using a community-based participatory research approach, we conducted 4 focus groups with Deaf mothers who had at least 1 child 0-5 years old. A script was developed using a social ecological model (SEM) to capture multiple levels of influence. All groups were conducted in ASL, filmed, and transcribed into English. Deaf and hearing researchers analyzed data by coding themes within each SEM level. Results: Fifteen mothers participated. All had initiated breastfeeding with their most recent child. Breastfeeding duration for 8 of the mothers was 3 weeks to 12 months. Seven of the mothers were still breastfeeding, the longest for 19 months. Those mothers who breastfed longer described a supportive social environment and the ability to surmount challenges. Participants described characteristics of Deaf culture such as direct communication, sharing information, use of technology, language access through interpreters and ASL-using providers, and strong self-advocacy skills. Finally, mothers used the sign for “struggle” to describe their breastfeeding experience. The sign implies a sustained effort over time that leads to success. Conclusion: In a setting with a large population of Deaf women and ASL-using providers, we identified several aspects of Deaf culture and language that support breastfeeding mothers across institutional, community, and interpersonal levels of the SEM.
Worldwide Mycotoxins Exposure in Pig and Poultry Feed Formulations

The purpose of this review is to present information about raw materials that can be used in pig and poultry diets and the factors responsible for variations in their mycotoxin contents. The levels of mycotoxins in pig and poultry feeds are calculated based on mycotoxin contamination levels of the raw materials with different diet formulations, to highlight the important role the stage of production and the raw materials used can have on mycotoxins levels in diets. Our analysis focuses on mycotoxins for which maximum tolerated levels or regulatory guidelines exist, and for which sufficient contamination data are available. Raw materials used in feed formulation vary considerably depending on the species of animal, and the stage of production. Mycotoxins are secondary fungal metabolites whose frequency and levels also vary considerably depending on the raw materials used and on the geographic location where they were produced. Although several reviews of existing data and of the literature on worldwide mycotoxin contamination of food and feed are available, the impact of the different raw materials used on feed formulation has not been widely studied.
Making the Virtual Rounds: The Use of Blogs by Health-Care Professionals

In the “Health 2.0” era, digital media has altered how health care is conducted and how patients consume medical information. This article explores the reasons why health-care professionals create their own blogs and how they use blogging as a component of their work. We examine interviews with medical bloggers (n = 83) featured on “Grand Rounds,” a weekly medical blog forum or “carnival,” to interpret the ways in which blogging is incorporated into their everyday lives. In performing a qualitative thematic analysis, we develop five themes that help capture what blogs mean to these health-care practitioners. The uses of blogs speak to articulating and reestablishing a professional reputation, connecting with patients informally, writing for therapeutic reasons, negotiating institutional constraints, and promoting community and health-care reform.
Upgrading Bridge Rails on Low-Volume Roads in Iowa

Building on previous research, the goal of this project was to identify significant influencing factors for the Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) to consider in future updates of its Instructional Memorandum (I.M.) 3.213, which provides guidelines for determining the need for traffic barriers (guardrail and bridge rail) at secondary roadway bridges—specifically, factors that might be significant for the bridge rail rating system component of I.M. 3.213. A literature review was conducted of policies and guidelines in other states and, specifically, of studies related to traffic barrier safety countermeasures at bridges in several states. In addition, a safety impact study was conducted to evaluate possible non-driver-related behavior characteristics of crashes on secondary road structures in Iowa using road data, structure data, and crash data from 2004 to 2013. Statistical models (negative binomial regression) were used to determine which factors were significant in terms of crash volume and crash severity. The study found that crashes are somewhat more frequent on or at bridges possessing certain characteristics—traffic volume greater than 400 vehicles per day (vpd) (paved) or greater than 50 vpd (unpaved), bridge length greater than 150 ft (paved) or greater than 35 ft (unpaved), bridge width narrower than its approach (paved) or narrower than 20 ft (unpaved), and bridges older than 25 years (both paved and unpaved). No specific roadway or bridge characteristic was found to contribute to more serious crashes. The study also confirmed previous research findings that crashes with bridges on secondary roads are rare, low-severity events. Although the findings of the study support the need for appropriate use of bridge rails, it concludes that prescriptive guidelines for bridge rail use on secondary roads may not be necessary, given the limited crash expectancy and lack of differences in crash expectancy among the various combinations of explanatory characteristics.