Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Monitoring strength training: neuromuscular and hormonal profile.

PURPOSE This study investigated changes induced by a single heavy resistance training session on neuromuscular and endocrine systems in trained athletes, using the same exercises for training and testing. METHODS Five different groups volunteered: track and field male sprinters (MS, N = 6), track and field female sprinters (FS, N = 6), body builders (BB, N = 6), and weight lifters performing low-repetition exercise (WLL, N = 4) and high-repetition exercise (WLH, N = 4). In training, the work performed during half and full squat exercise was monitored for mechanical power output as well as EMG analysis on leg extensor muscles of the subjects belonging to the MS, FS, and BB groups. Just before and immediately after the training session, venous blood samples were obtained for RIA determination of testosterone (T), cortisol (C), lutropin (LH), human prolactin (PRL), and follitropin (FSH) in FS and MS. In the other three groups (BB, WLH, and WLL), the hormonal profile was limited to T and human growth hormone (hGH) only. RESULTS After training the power developed in full squat demonstrated a statistically significant decrease (P < 0.01) in MS and no changes in FS. The EMG activity remained constant during the training session. Consequently, the EMG/Power ratio increased in both MS and FS, although only in MS a statistical significance was noted (P < 0.05). In MS immediately after the session the levels of C, T, and LH were significantly lower (P < 0.05). No changes were found in FS. In both groups and in BB significant negative correlation was found between changes in T level and EMG/Power ratio in half squat performance. CONCLUSIONS It is likely that adequate T level may compensate the effect of fatigue in FT fibers by ensuring a better neuromuscular efficiency.
Risk of Occupational Exposure to Cytotoxic Drugs: The Role of Handling Procedures of Hospital Workers

In order to study environmental contamination by cytostatic drugs in Portugal hospitals, sampling campaigns were conducted in three hospitals in 2015 (112 samples). Platinum containing drugs and fluorouracil were chosen because both were administered in high amounts. The detection limit was 0.01 pg/cm2 for platinum and 0.1 pg/cm2 for fluorouracil. The results show that spills occur mainly on the patient`s chair, while the most referenced occurrence is due to an inadequately closed wrapper. Day hospitals facilities were detected as having the largest number of contaminated samples and with higher levels of contamination. Keywords—Antineoplastic, drugs, exposure, surface.
Modelling the Role of Trust in Social Relationships

A social trust model is presented for investigating social relationships and social networks in the real world and in social media. The results demonstrate that multilevel social structures, with a few strong relationships, more medium ties, and large numbers of weak ties, emerge in an evolutionary simulation when well-being and alliances are rewarded with high levels of social interaction. ‘Favour-the-few’ trust strategies were more competitive than others under a wide range of fitness conditions, suggesting that the development of complex, multilevel social structures depends on capacity for high investment in social time and preferential social interaction strategies.
Self-reported mate preferences and b feminist Q attitudes regarding marital relations

Despite huge interest in human mate choice in the last two decades, intraspecific variation in human mate preferences has received relatively little attention. We investigated individual variation in mate preferences in a group of university students (n =292) relative to perceptions of equality and autonomy. If the constraints of societal role occupancy strongly influence sex differences in the ranking of mate preferences, then we predict that these sex differences should diminish with increasing endorsement of gender equality and autonomy. Women’s mate preferences did not emulate men’s with increasing endorsement of gender equality. The importance placed on bearning potentialQ in a potential mate decreased with increasing bfeministQ attitude score, however, feminist attitude was not related to the importance of bphysical attractiveness.Q Findings reflect the variation in women’s mate preferences and are discussed in terms of evolved conditional strategies. D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Penrose limits of orbifolds and orientifolds

We study the Penrose limit of various AdS_p X S^q orbifolds. The limiting spaces are waves with parallel rays and singular wave fronts. In particular, we consider the orbifolds AdS_3 X S^3/\Gamma, AdS_5 X S^5/\Gamma and AdS_{4,7} X S^{7,4}/\Gamma where \Gamma acts on the sphere and/or the AdS factor. In the pp-wave limit, the wave fronts are the orbifolds C^2/\Gamma, C^4/\Gamma and R XC^4/\Gamma, respectively. When desingularization is possible, we get asymptotically locally pp-wave backgrounds (ALpp). The Penrose limit of orientifolds are also discussed. In the AdS_5 X RP^5 case, the limiting singularity can be resolved by an Eguchi-Hanson gravitational instanton. The pp-wave limit of D3-branes near singularities in F-theory is also presented. Finally, we give the embedding of D-dimensional pp-waves in flat M^{2,D} space.
Linkk Oping Electronic Articles in This Work Has Beensubmitted for Publication Elsewhere. Contingent Durations in Temporal Csps: from Consistency to Controllabilities

A Temporal CSP is a network of time(cid:6)points related by binary constraints expressing maximal and minimal durations between them(cid:3) This formalism has proven to be useful in many di(cid:7)erent research areas(cid:4) but it has also proven to be limited in the sense that it does not take into account the contingent nature of some constraints(cid:8) in many real applications(cid:4) we cannot decide some e(cid:7)ective durations that are not under our control but will be provided by the external world(cid:3) This paper aims at proposing an extension of TCSP that enables the expression of such con(cid:6) straints(cid:3) Here indeed the classical consistency property must be rede(cid:9)ned in terms of controllability of the network (cid:8) in outline(cid:4) a network is controllable i(cid:7) it is consistent in the classical sense in any situation that could arise in the external world(cid:4) i(cid:3)e(cid:3) whatever the actual durations of the contingent intervals are(cid:3) A more in(cid:6) depth analysis leads to the identi(cid:9)cation of three di(cid:7)erent levels of controllability(cid:4) the Strongs(cid:4) the Weak and the Dynamic one(cid:3) The paper will focus on the representation and concept issues(cid:4) with some hints on their relevance in di(cid:7)erent domains(cid:3) The rea(cid:6) soning aspects (cid:10)complexity and algorithms(cid:11) will only be sketched in this preliminary report(cid:3) This paper is under submission to TIME(cid:2)(cid:3)(cid:4) workshop(cid:5)
Can preoperative CEA and CA19-9 serum concentrations suggest metastatic disease in colorectal cancer patients?

OBJECTIVE This study was designed to investigate the efficiency of preoperative serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate cancer antigen (CA19-9) levels for diagnosing synchronous liver metastases and lymph node in colorectal carcinoma (CRC) patients. SUBJECTS AND METHODS A total of 300 patients with histologically diagnosed CRC were included in this study between May 2014 and March 2015. The data were obtained prospectively from patient's medical records: medical history, demographics, tumor location, differentiation (grade), depth of the tumor (T), lymph node metastases (N), distant metastases (M), lymphatics, venous and perineural invasion, and disease stage. Tumor markers were measured with an electrochemiluminescent assay and the reference value was 5ng/ml for CEA and for Ca19-9, 37u/ml. RESULTS There was A high statistically significant difference in the levels of serum CEA and CA19-9 between different disease stages of CRC (P<0.001). Regarding different T stages of CRC, We noticed a significant statistical difference in CEA (stage I 3.76±8.73; II 5.68±17.27, III 7.56±14.81, and IV 70.90±253.23) and CA 19-9 levels (stage I 9.65±11.03, II 9.83±11.09; III 19.58±36.91, and IV 228.9±985.38, respectively). The mean CEA and CA19-9 serum levels were significantly higher in patients with regional lymph nodes involvement (CEA 37.21±177.85 vs 4.79±9.90, CA19-9 119.51±687.71 VS 12.24±17.69, respectively, P<0.05) and in liver metastases (CEA 86.56±277.65 vs. 5.98±12.98, and CA19-9 273.27±1073.46 vs. 4.98±3142, respectively, with P<0.001) in comparison to patients without lymph node involvement and liver metastases. We noticed a cut-off value for lymph nodes involvement, for CEA and CA 19-9, 3.5 ng/mL and 7.5 U/mL, respectively. While, a cut-off value for the presence of synchronous liver metastases of these two markers was 3.5ng/mL AND 5.5 U/mL. CONCLUSION Our study showed that tumor makers, CEA and CA19-9, can be used as diagnostic factors regarding the severity of CRC specifically to suggest metastatic disease in CRC.
Extended anterolateral approach for treatment of posterolateral tibial plateau fractures improves operative procedure and patient prognosis.

PURPOSE The treatment of posterolateral tibial plateau fracture remains controversial and challenging. Several approaches for this fracture have been applied for direct exposure and support plate fixation. However, several structures are to be at risk via posterior approach, which may affect exposure and plate application. To solve this problem, an extended anterolateral approach was developed and reported. METHODS 15 patients with posterolateral tibial plateau fractures treated with this approach were reviewed. The primary outcomes, such as Rasmussen functional score, and the secondary outcomes, such as knee deformity, postoperative infection, as well as complications were evaluated. RESULTS All 15 cases have been followed up for 12 to 30 months (19.7 months at average). Rasmussen functional score after surgeries was 25.0 ± 2.8 points. A score ≥ 27 points was considered as excellent (ten patients), a score of 20-26 points (four patients) was considered as good; and a score of 10-19 points (one patient) was considered as fair. Anatomic reductions were obtained in 14 patients, but a 3 mm gap was found in one patient. For all patients, there were no wound complications, nonunion, valgus knee deformities, plate loosening or breakages, or fracture re-displacements. No vascular or neural injuries occurred in any patient. CONCLUSION The extended anterolateral approach provides excellent visualization, which can facilitate the internal fixation and reduction of posterolateral tibial plateau fractures, and shows encouraging results.
Relationship of Treg/Th17 balance with HBeAg change in HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B patients receiving telbivudine antiviral treatment

Abstract Telbivudine (LdT) is an orally L-nucleoside with potent and specific antihepatitis B virus (HBV) activity. The higher rate of hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) seroconversion of LdT treatment than other anti-HBV agents suggests a potential immunomodulatory effect. The aim of the study was to investigate the changes of regulatory T cell (Treg)/interleukin (IL)-17-producing CD4+T helper (Th17) balance during LdT treatment and to discuss the relationship of Treg/Th17 balance with HBeAg change in HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients receiving LdT antiviral treatment. Twenty-seven HBeAg-positive CHB patients received LdT for 24 weeks and the percentages of Tregs and cells (Th17 cells) in peripheral blood as well as the serum TGF-&bgr;1 and IL-17 levels in these patients were longitudinally analyzed. We found that the frequencies of Tregs and Th17 cells in peripheral blood as well as the serum TGF-&bgr;1 and IL-17 levels increased significantly in CHB patients compared with healthy controls. During the LdT treatment, the Tregs frequency and TGF-&bgr;1 level tended to decrease, and Th17 cells frequency and IL-17 level showed a reverse “V”-type change. The frequency of Tregs and the ratio of Treg/Th17 were significantly lower in the HBeAg loss group than those in the HBeAg no-loss group at the baseline. More important, the Tregs frequency and TGF-&bgr;1 level were both positively correlated with HBeAg level during the LdT treatment for 24 weeks. Our data suggest that the lower Tregs frequency and Treg/Th17 ratio at the baseline of LdT treatment, the more likely to get the HBeAg loss. HBeAg negative can be predicted using changes in Tregs frequency and TGF-&bgr;1 level during LdT treatment in CHB patients. Maybe we could provide the immunology marker for exploring the mechanism of the higher HBeAg seroconversion rate of LdT therapy.
Kaolin Affects Blueberry Maggot Behavior on Fruit

Abstract This study assessed the effects of Surround (kaolin) on several behavioral parameters of female blueberry maggot, Rhagoletis mendax Curran (Diptera: Tephritidae). First fruit visited, walking, cleaning, and oviposition behavior were quantified in two-choice and no-choice assays where females encountered Surround-treated and untreated fruit of highbush blueberries (Vaccinium spp.). In two-choice assays, females had a propensity (68%) to first visit untreated blueberries. In two-choice and no-choice tests, number of walking bouts and duration of walking bouts were significantly shorter on the Surround-treated than on untreated fruit. Few oviposition attempts on fruit were observed, irrespective of treatments and assays. Chromameter measurements showed significant modification of the blueberry skin color parameters lightness, hue, and saturation between untreated fruit compared with fruit dipped once or twice in a suspension of Surround. Oviposition trials with field-treated fruit showed that blueberries treated with Surround had fewer oviposition scars than the control, and this was more pronounced with weekly applications of Surround. Uneven coating of the fruit by Surround in field applications may have resulted in higher acceptance rates by flies than in blueberries individually dipped and used in laboratory trials.
Point-of-care measurement of blood lactate in children admitted with febrile illness to an African District Hospital.

BACKGROUND Lactic acidosis is a consistent predictor of mortality owing to severe infectious disease, but its detection in low-income settings is limited to the clinical sign of "deep breathing" because of the lack of accessible technology for its measurement. We evaluated the use of a point-of-care (POC) diagnostic device for blood lactate measurement to assess the severity of illness in children admitted to a district hospital in Tanzania. METHODS Children between the ages of 2 months and 13 years with a history of fever were enrolled in the study during a period of 1 year. A full clinical history and examination were undertaken, and blood was collected for culture, microscopy, complete blood cell count, and POC measurement of blood lactate and glucose. RESULTS The study included 3248 children, of whom 164 (5.0%) died; 45 (27.4%) of these had raised levels of blood lactate (>5 mmol/L) but no deep breathing. Compared with mortality in children with lactate levels of ≤ 3 mmol/L, the unadjusted odds of dying were 1.6 (95% confidence interval [CI].8-3.0), 3.4 (95% CI, 1.5-7.5), and 8.9 (95% CI, 4.7-16.8) in children with blood lactate levels of 3.1-5.0, 5.1-8.0, or >8.0 mmol/L, respectively. The prevalence of raised lactate levels (>5 mmol/L) was greater in children with malaria than in children with nonmalarial febrile illness (P < .001) although the associated mortality was greater in slide-negative children. CONCLUSIONS POC lactate measurement can contribute to the assessment of children admitted to hospital with febrile illness and can also create an opportunity for more hospitals in resource-poor settings to participate in clinical trials of interventions to reduce mortality associated with hyperlactatemia.
Epistemic agency in an environmental sciences watershed investigation fostered by digital photography

ABSTRACT This collective case study investigates the role of digital photography to support high school students’ engagement in science inquiry practices during a three-week environmental sciences unit. The study’s theoretical framework brings together research from digital photography, participation in environmental science practices, and epistemic agency. Data analysed include field notes and video transcripts from two groups of learners (n = 19) that focus on how high school students used digital photography during their participation in two distinct environmental monitoring practices: stream mapping and macroinvertebrate identification. Our study resulted in two findings related to the role of digital photography where students developed knowledge as they engaged in environmental monitoring inquiry practices. First, we found that digital photography was integral to the youths’ epistemic agency (defined as their confidence that they could build knowledge related to science in their community) as they engaged in data collection, documenting environmental monitoring procedures, and sharing data in the classroom. Based this finding, an implication of our work is a refined view of the role of digital photography in environmental sciences education where the use of photography enhances epistemic agency in inquiry-based activities. Second, we found that the youths innovated a use of digital photography to foster a recognition that they were capable and competent in scientific procedures during a streamside study. Based on this finding, we offer a theoretical implication that expands the construct of epistemic agency; we posit that epistemic agency includes a subcomponent where the students purposefully formulate an external recognition as producers of scientific knowledge.
Involvement of FvSet1 in Fumonisin B1 Biosynthesis, Vegetative Growth, Fungal Virulence, and Environmental Stress Responses in Fusarium verticillioides

Fusarium verticillioides (teleomorph, Gibberella moniliformis) is an important plant pathogen that causes seedling blight, stalk rot, and ear rot in maize (Zea mays). During infection, F. verticillioides produce fumonsins B1 (FB1) that pose a serious threat to human and animal health. Recent studies showed that Set1, a methyltransferase of H3K4, was responsible for toxin biosynthesis in filamentous fungi. However, to date, the regulation of FvSet1 on FB1 biosynthesis remains unclear. In the current study, we identified only one Set1 ortholog in F. verticillioides (FvSet1) and found that the deletion of FvSET1 led to various defects in fungal growth and pathogenicity. More interestingly, the FvSET1 deletion mutant (ΔFvSet1) showed a significant defect in FB1 biosynthesis and lower expression levels of FUM genes. FvSet1 was also found to play an important role in the responses of F. verticillioides to multiple environmental stresses via regulating the phosphorylation of FvMgv1 and FvHog1. Taken together, these results indicate that FvSet1 plays essential roles in the regulation of FB1 biosynthesis, fungal growth and virulence, as well as various stress responses in F. verticillioides.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Highly plastic genome of Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 , a ubiquitous toxic freshwater cyanobacterium

Background: The colonial cyanobacterium Microcystis proliferates in a wide range of freshwater ecosystems and is exposed to changing environmental factors during its life cycle. Microcystis blooms are often toxic, potentially fatal to animals and humans, and may cause environmental problems. There has been little investigation of the genomics of these cyanobacteria. Results: Deciphering the 5,172,804 bp sequence of Microcystis aeruginosa PCC 7806 has revealed the high plasticity of its genome: 11.7% DNA repeats containing more than 1,000 bases, 6.8% putative transposases and 21 putative restriction enzymes. Compared to the genomes of other cyanobacterial lineages, strain PCC 7806 contains a large number of atypical genes that may have been acquired by lateral transfers. Metabolic pathways, such as fermentation and a methionine salvage pathway, have been identified, as have genes for programmed cell death that may be related to the rapid disappearance of Microcystis blooms in nature. Analysis of the PCC 7806 genome also reveals striking novel biosynthetic features that might help to elucidate the ecological impact of secondary metabolites and lead to the discovery of novel metabolites for new biotechnological Published: 5 June 2008 BMC Genomics 2008, 9:274 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-9-274 Received: 7 March 2008 Accepted: 5 June 2008 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral. com/1471-2164/9/274 © 2008 Frangeul et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
A degree theory for a class of perturbed Fredholm maps

We define a notion of degree for a class of perturbations of nonlinear Fredholm maps of index zero between infinite-dimensional real Banach spaces. Our notion extends the degree introduced by Nussbaum for locally -contractive perturbations of the identity, as well as the recent degree for locally compact perturbations of Fredholm maps of index zero defined by the first and third authors.
mclust 5: Clustering, Classification and Density Estimation Using Gaussian Finite Mixture Models

Finite mixture models are being used increasingly to model a wide variety of random phenomena for clustering, classification and density estimation. mclust is a powerful and popular package which allows modelling of data as a Gaussian finite mixture with different covariance structures and different numbers of mixture components, for a variety of purposes of analysis. Recently, version 5 of the package has been made available on CRAN. This updated version adds new covariance structures, dimension reduction capabilities for visualisation, model selection criteria, initialisation strategies for the EM algorithm, and bootstrap-based inference, making it a full-featured R package for data analysis via finite mixture modelling.
Local Global Tradeoffs in Metric Embeddings

Suppose that every k points in a metric space X are D-distortion embeddable into lscr 1. We give upper and lower bounds on the distortion required to embed the entire space X into lscr 1. This is a natural mathematical question and is also motivated by the study of relaxations obtained by lift-and-project methods for graph partitioning problems. In this setting, we show that X can be embedded into lscr 1 with distortion O(D times log(|X|/k)). Moreover, we give a lower bound showing that this result is tight if D is bounded away from I. For D = 1 + delta we give a lower bound of Omega(log(|X|/k/ log( 1/delta)); and for D = 1, we give a lower bound of Omega( log |X|/(log k +log log | X|)). Our bounds significantly improve on the results of Arora, Jjovdsz, Newman, Rabani, Rabinovich and Vempala, who initiated a study of these questions.