Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Delayed voluntary exercise does not enhance cognitive performance after hippocampal injury: an investigation of differentially distributed exercise protocols

Voluntary exercise has previously been shown to enhance cognitive recovery after acquired brain injury (ABI). The present study evaluated effects of two differentially distributed protocols of delayed, voluntary exercise on cognitive recovery using an allocentric place learning task in an 8-arm radial maze. Fifty-four Wistar rats were subjected to either bilateral transection of the fimbria-fornix (FF) or to sham surgery. Twenty-one days postinjury, the animals started exercising in running wheels either for 14 consecutive days (FF/exercise daily [ExD], sham/ExD) or every other day for 14 days (FF/exercise every second day [ExS], sham/ExS). Additional groups were given no exercise treatment (FF/not exercise [NE], sham/NE). Regardless of how exercise was distributed, we found no cognitively enhancing effects of exercise in the brain injured animals. Design and protocol factors possibly affecting the efficacy of post-ABI exercise are discussed.
Exogenous and Endogenous Determinants of Blood Trihalomethane Levels after Showering

Background We previously conducted a study to assess whether household exposures to tap water increased an individual’s internal dose of trihalomethanes (THMs). Increases in blood THM levels among subjects who showered or bathed were variable, with increased levels tending to cluster in two groups. Objectives Our goal was to assess the importance of personal characteristics, previous exposures, genetic polymorphisms, and environmental exposures in determining THM concentrations in blood after showering. Methods One hundred study participants completed a health symptom questionnaire, a 48-hr food and water consumption diary, and took a 10-min shower in a controlled setting. We examined THM levels in blood samples collected at baseline and 10 and 30 min after the shower. We assessed the significance of personal characteristics, previous exposures to THMs, and specific gene polymorphisms in predicting postshower blood THM concentrations. Results We did not observe the clustering of blood THM concentrations observed in our earlier study. We found that environmental THM concentrations were important predictors of blood THM concentrations immediately after showering. For example, the chloroform concentration in the shower stall air was the most important predictor of blood chloroform levels 10 min after the shower (p < 0.001). Personal characteristics, previous exposures to THMs, and specific polymorphisms in CYP2D6 and GSTT1 genes were significant predictors of both baseline and postshowering blood THM concentrations as well as of changes in THM concentrations associated with showering. Conclusion The inclusion of information about individual physiologic characteristics and environmental measurements would be valuable in future studies to assess human health effects from exposures to THMs in tap water.
Transaction Costs of Policies to Reduce Agricultural Phosphorous Pollution in the Minnesota River

This study measured the magnitude of transaction costs associated with policies to reduce agricultural nonpoint source pollution. Interviews with staff from governmental agencies were conducted to estimate transaction costs associated with four policies to reduce agricultural phosphorous pollution in the Minnesota River. The tax on phosphate fertilizers had the lowest transaction costs ($0.94 million), followed by educational programs on best management practices ($3.11 million), the requirement for conservation tillage on all cropped land ($7.85 million), and expansion of a permanent conservation easement program ($9.37 million). Taxes, thus, may have advantages with respect to transaction costs and abatement costs.
Determinants of Business Cycle Convergence in Euro Area. The Romanian Case

In the OCA theory, the higher economic openness and closer economic cooperation automatically lead to the convergence of business cycles. Krugman (1993) presented and alternative view on this issue. In his opinion, closer trade ties result in better allocation of resources and higher output specialization of individual countries. As the industrial production in individual countries is becoming narrowly specialized, economies of such countries become more vulnerable and more predisposed to respond to shocks asymmetrically. The probability that shocks will be asymmetric or have asymmetric impact depends on the structure of the economy. If the structure of the economy is significantly different from the euro area, even the same shocks may have a different impact on a country and lead to asynchronous business cycle.
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT AND TRAVEL: EVIDENCE FROM THE UNITED STATES

US studies of land-use and travel have focused on three issues relating to the built environment: density, diversity and design. Travel demands were compared among two similar neighbourhoods: Rockridge and Lafayette in California. A criticism of matched-pair comparisons of neighbourhood prototypes is that dimensions of built environment are commingled. Studies have attempted to separate these dimensions are reviewed. Studies investigating the effects of road network designs on travel choice are described. The relevancy of empirical findings to contemporary urban transportation policy themes in the USA is considered with reference to implementation tools and travel model refinements.
Bringing the State Back In: Bringing the State Back In: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research

A sudden upsurge of interest in “the state” has occurred in comparative social science in the past decade. Whether as an object of investigation or as something invoked to explain outcomes of interest, the state as an actor or an institution has been highlighted in an extraordinary outpouring of studies by scholars of diverse theoretical proclivities from all of the major disciplines. The range of topics explored has been very wide. Students of Latin America, Africa, and Asia have examined the roles of states in instituting comprehensive political reforms, helping to shape national economic development, and bargaining with multinational corporations. Scholars interested in the advanced industrial democracies of Europe, North America, and Japan have probed the involvements of states in developing social programs and in managing domestic and international economic problems. Comparative-historical investigators have examined the formation of national states, the disintegration and rebuilding of states in social revolutions, and the impact of states on class formation, ethnic relations, women's rights, and modes of social protest. Economic historians and political economists have theorized about states as institutors of property rights and as regulators and distorters of markets. And cultural anthropologists have explored the special meanings and activities of “states” in non-Western settings. No explicitly shared research agenda or general theory has tied such diverse studies together. Yet I shall argue in this essay that many of them have implicitly converged on complementary arguments and strategies of analysis.
Evidence of the Innate Antiviral and Neuroprotective Properties of Progranulin

Background Compelling data exist that show that normal levels of progranulin (PGRN) are required for successful CNS aging. PGRN production is also modulated by inflammation and infection, but no data are available on the production and role of PGRN during CNS HIV infection. Methods To determine the relationships between PGRN and HIV disease, neurocognition, and inflammation, we analyzed 107 matched CSF and plasma samples from CHARTER, a well-characterized HIV cohort. Levels of PGRN were determined by ELISA and compared to levels of several inflammatory mediators (IFNγ, IL-6, IL-10, IP-10, MCP-1, TNFα, IL-1β, IL-4 and IL-13), as well as clinical, virologic and demographic parameters. The relationship between HIV infection and PGRN was also examined in HIV-infected primary human microglial cultures. Results In plasma, PGRN levels correlated with the viral load (VL, p<0.001). In the CSF of subjects with undetectable VL, lower PGRN was associated with neurocognitive impairment (p = 0.046). CSF PGRN correlated with CSF IP-10, TNFα and IL-10, and plasma PGRN correlated with plasma IP-10. In vitro, microglial HIV infection increased PGRN production and PGRN knockdown increased HIV replication, demonstrating that PGRN is an innate antiviral protein. Conclusions We propose that PGRN plays dual roles in people living with HIV disease. With active HIV replication, PGRN is induced in infected macrophages and microglia and functions as an antiviral protein. In individuals without active viral replication, decreased PGRN production contributes to neurocognitive dysfunction, probably through a diminution of its neurotrophic functions. Our results have implications for the pathogenesis, biomarker studies and therapy for HIV diseases including HIV-associated neurocognitive dysfunction (HAND).
An OSPF enhancement for energy saving in IP networks

This paper deals with a strategy to save energy in an IP network during low traffic hours allowing a subset of IP router interfaces to be put in sleep mode by means of an Energy Aware Routing (EAR) strategy. The EAR is fully compatible with OSPF and is based on the “Shortest Path Tree (SPT) exportation” mechanism, consisting in sharing the SPTs among couple of routers. The EAR strategy is able to control the set of links to be put in sleep mode through the concept of “move”. This approach gives the network operator the possibility to control the network performance and allows a smoothed QoS degradation strategy to be implemented. A formulation of the EAR problem is presented and will be demonstrated that this problem can be traced back to the well-known problem of the maximum clique search in an undirected weighted graph. A heuristics, called Max Compatibility, is presented and, as shown in the performance evaluation study, it allows to save about 30% of network links with a negligible increase of network path lengths and link loads.
A constructive and implementation-aware proof of the existence of Viterbi processes

Since the early days of digital communication, hidden Markov models (HMMs) have now been also routinely used in speech recognition, processing of natural languages, images, and in bioinformatics. In an HMM (Xt, Yt)t≥1, observations X1, X2, . are assumed to be conditionally independent given an “explanatory” Markov process Y1, Y2, . , which itself is not observed; moreover, the conditional distribution of Xt depends solely on Yt. Central to the theory and applications of HMM is the Viterbi algorithm to find a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimate v(x1:T ) = (v1, v2, . . . , vT ) of Y1:T given observed data x1:T . Maximum a posteriori paths are also known as Viterbi paths, or alignments. Recently, attempts have been made to study the behavior of Viterbi alignments when T → ∞. Thus, it has been shown that in some special cases a well-defined limiting Viterbi alignment exists. While innovative, these attempts have relied on rather strong assumptions and involved proofs which are existential. This work proves the existence of infinite Viterbi alignments in a more constructive manner and for a very general class of HMMs.
Developing Pedotransfer Functions for Estimating Some Soil Properties using Artificial Neural Network and Multivariate Regression Approaches

Study of soil properties like field capacity (F.C.) and permanent wilting point (P.W.P.) plays importa nt roles in study of soil moisture retention curve. Although th ese parameters can be measured directly, their meas urement is difficult and expensive. Pedotransfer functions (PT Fs) provide an alternative by estimating soil param eters from more readily available soil data. In this investigation, 70 soil samples were collected from different hori zons of 15 soil profiles located in the Ziaran region, Qazvin provi nce, Iran. The data set was divided into two subset s for calibration (80%) and testing (20%) of the models and their nor mality were tested by Kolmogorov-Smirnov method. Both multivariate regression and artificial neural netwo rk (ANN) techniques were employed to develop the appropriate PTFs for predicting soil parameters using easily measura ble characteristics of clay, silt, O.C, S.P, B.D an d CaCO 3. The performance of the multivariate regression and ANN models was evaluated using an independent test data set. In order to evaluate the models, root mean square error (RMSE) and R 2 were used. The comparison of RMSE for two mentioned models showed that the ANN model gives better estimates of F.C and P.W. P than the multivariate regress ion model. The value of RMSE and R 2 derived by ANN model for F.C and P.W. P were (2.35, 0.77) and (2.83, 0.72), respectively. The corresponding values for multivariate regressio n model were (4.46, 0.68) and (5.21, 0.64), respect ively. Results showed that ANN with five neurons in hidden layer had better performance in predicting soil properties than multivariate regression.
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Endovascular Coiling versus Neurosurgical Clipping for Intracranial Aneurysms in Republic of Korea

Purpose The International Subarachnoid Aneurysm Trial (ISAT) revealed that in ruptured intracranial aneurysms (RA), endovascular coiling (EC) yields better clinical outcomes than neurosurgical clipping (NC) at 1 year. In unruptured aneurysms (UIA), EC is being increasingly used as an alternative to NC due to patients' preference. There is a lot of difference in treatment cost (EC vs. NC) between countries. There is one recently published study dealing with the comparative cost analysis only in UIAs in South Korea. But it is a hospital-based study. So, the authors performed a nation-wide cost effective comparison in our country. Materials and Methods This study was a retrospective analysis of healthcare big data open systems in Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA). Hospital cost data of the recent 5 years (from January 2010 to December 2014) were analyzed according to patients' age and sex and the presence of subarachnoid hemorrhage. Results When comparing the total hospital costs for NC of a UIA (n=13,756) and EC of a UIA (n=17,666), NC [mean±standard deviation (SD): ￦7,987,179±3,855,029] resulted in significantly lower total hospital costs than EC [￦10,201,645±5,001,626, p<0.0001], although a shorter hospital stay with EC of a UIA [8.6 ±7.4 days] vs. NC [15.0 ±8.3 days, p<0.0001]. When comparing the total hospital costs for NC of a RA (n=7,293) and EC of a RA (n=6,954), NC [￦13,914,993±6,247,914] resulted in significantly lower total hospital costs than EC [￦16,702,446±7,841,141, p<0.0001], although shorter hospital stays for EC of a RA [19.8 ±11.4] vs. NC [23.0 ±10.3, p<0.0001]. Conclusion The total hospital costs for the NC of both UIAs and RAs were found to be lower than those for EC in South Korea.
The Onset of Cluster Formation around Intermediate Mass Stars

We present the results of a recent near-infrared survey of the fields surrounding a large sample of intermediate-mass pre-main-sequence (Herbig Ae/Be) stars. While late-type Be and Ae stars are never associated with conspicuous groups of young lower mass stars, early-type Be stars are usually found within rich clusters. This finding has been tested against possible biases due to different mass sensitivity of the observations or dynamical dissipation of the clusters around older stars. Our results suggest that massive stars are preferentially produced in dense stellar clusters, possibly by dynamical interaction rather than by standard gas accretion as in the case of lower mass stars. The possibility that the observed correlation between maximum stellar mass and cluster richness could be the results of random sampling the cluster size spectrum and the stellar IMF is also discussed. Future observational tests capable of discriminating between these two competitive models are outlined.
Labor Market Competition and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment: Occupations as Contexts

This paper explores the impact of labor market competition measured within occupations on attitudes toward immigrants in the U.S. including perceived group threat and policy preferences. Multilevel analyses of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, O*NET, and the General Social Survey demonstrate that labor market competition accounts for threat perceptions – threat is lower in occupations with greater expected employment growth. Individual-level characteristics also explain differences across occupations. Perceived group threat is higher in some occupations because job incumbents have less education. Occupational differences in threat perceptions account for all occupational differences in policy attitudes.
Design, characterization, and clinical evaluation of argan oil nanostructured lipid carriers to improve skin hydration

Given its advantages in skin application (eg, hydration, antiaging, and protection), argan oil could be used in both dermatological and cosmetic formulations. Therefore, the preparation of nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) using argan oil as a liquid lipid is a promising technique, since the former constitute well-established systems for dermal delivery. The aim of this work was to develop a topical formulation of argan oil NLCs to improve skin hydration. Firstly an NLC dispersion was developed and characterized, and afterward an NLC-based hydrogel was prepared. The in vivo evaluation of the suitability of the prepared formulation for the proposed application was assessed in volunteers, by measuring different skin-surface parameters for 1 month. An argan oil NLC-based hydrogel formulation was successfully prepared and characterized. Moreover, the entrapment of the NLCs in the hydrogel net did not affect their colloidal sizes. Additionally, it was observed that this formulation precipitated an increase in skin hydration of healthy volunteers. Therefore, we concluded that the preparation of NLC systems using argan oil as the liquid lipid is a promising strategy, since a synergistic effect on the skin hydration was obtained (ie, NLC occlusion plus argan oil hydration).
A Note on the Asymptotic Normality of the Kernel Deconvolution Density Estimator with Logarithmic Chi-Square Noise

This paper studies the asymptotic normality for the kernel deconvolution estimator when the noise distribution is logarithmic chi-square; both identical and independently distributed observations and strong mixing observations are considered. The dependent case of the result is applied to obtain the pointwise asymptotic distribution of the deconvolution volatility density estimator in discrete-time stochastic volatility models.
Multi‐vehicle coordination for double‐integrator dynamics under fixed undirected/directed interaction in a sampled‐data setting

This paper studies the convergence of two coordination algorithms for double‐integrator dynamics under fixed undirected/ directed interaction in a sampled‐data setting. The first algorithm guarantees that a team of vehicles achieves coordination on their positions with a zero final velocity while the second algorithm guarantees that a team of vehicles achieves coordination on their positions with a constant final velocity. We show necessary and sufficient conditions on the sampling period, the control gain, and the communication graph such that coordination is achieved using these two algorithms under, respectively, an undirected interaction topology and a directed interaction topology. Tools like matrix theory, bilinear transformation, and Cauchy theorem are used for convergence analysis. Coordination equilibria for both algorithms are also given. Simulation results are presented as a proof of concept. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A Frequency Reconfigurable Stacked Patch Microstrip Antenna (FRSPMA) with aperture coupler technique

This paper presents a novel design of a Frequency Reconfigurable Stacked Patch Microstrip Antenna (FRSPMA) by using an aperture coupler as the feeding technique and stacked technology. The proposed antenna was capable to accommodate at S/X band separately by using the same antenna. Two patches at different substrate are activated sequentially by changing the switch mode at the feedline to achieve frequency reconfigurability. Both patches and feedline are electromagnetically coupled through two small electrical apertures in the ground plane. The design was simulated using CST Microwave Studio at operating 2 GHz to 8 GHz. The effect of aperture slots and the switch configuration either at ON or OFF state were studied. The simulation and measured results were analyzed and discussed of return loss, gain, bandwidth and radiation pattern.
Biokleisli: a Digital Library for Biomedical Researchers ? Medline Journal Title Abbreviation Iso Journal Title Abbreviation

Data of interest to biomedical researchers associated with the Human Genome Project (HGP) is stored all over the world in a number of di erent electronic data formats and accessible through a variety of interfaces and retrieval languages. These data sources include conventional relational databases with SQL interfaces, formatted text les on top of which indexing is provided for e cient retrieval (ASN.1-Entrez), and binary les that can be interpreted textually or graphically via special purpose interfaces (ACeDB). Researchers within the HGP want to combine data from these di erent data sources, add value through sophisticated data analysis techniques (such as the biosequence comparison software BLAST and FASTA), and view it using special purpose scienti c visualization tools. However, currently there are no commercial tools for enabling such an integrated digital library, and a fundamental barrier to developing such tools appears to be one of language design and optimization: The data formats and software packages found throughout the HGP contain a number of data types not available in conventional databases, such as lists, variants and arrays; furthermore, these types may be deeply nested. We present in this paper a framework for providing read access to multiple data sources with complex structured data, and illustrate its use in an application called BioKleisli which accesses data sources critical to the HGP. The three primary components of this framework are: (1) a powerful language for querying and transforming complex structured data; (2) an extensible architecture for implementing the query primitives; and (3) optimization techniques that extend many known techniques to these more complex data types.
Price Transmission Subject to Security‐based Trade Barriers in the Context of the Israeli‐Palestinian Conflict

Israel’s imposition of military security measures in the Palestinian territories as a consequence of the long-lasting violent conflict yields depressing economic effects to all parties involved. One crucial implication is the limited ability to carry out trade which brings about welfare losses. This paper assesses the consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on price dynamics of agricultural trade between Israel and the West Bank by analyzing daily wholesale prices subject to movement restrictions. An exogenous regime switching cointegration model is estimated using a novel extension of the Johansen estimation method. We find Hebron and Tel Aviv wholesale markets to be integrated for the main trading products. Deviations from price equilibrium are quickly adjusted for. The model suggests that the movement restrictions temporarily cut off both markets from each other. Welfare implications of the closures depend on the direction of trade, harming both Palestinian and Israeli consumers.