Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-intensity interval training induces a modest systemic inflammatory response in active, young men

The purpose of this study was to determine: 1) the extent to which an acute session of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) increases systemic inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, and 2) whether 2 weeks of HIIT training alters the inflammatory response. Eight recreationally active males (aged 22±2 years) performed 2 weeks of HIIT on a cycle ergometer (six HIIT sessions at 8–12 intervals; 60-second intervals, 75-second active rest) at a power output equivalent to 100% of their predetermined peak oxygen uptake (VO2max). Serum samples were collected during the first and sixth HIIT sessions at rest and immediately, 15, 30, and 45 minutes post-exercise. An acute session of HIIT induced significant increases in interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, IL-10, tumor necrosis factor-α, and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 compared with rest. The concentrations of interferon-γ, granulocyte macrophage-colony-stimulating factor, and IL-1β were unaltered with an acute session of HIIT Two weeks of training did not alter the inflammatory response to an acute bout of HIIT exercise. Maximal power achieved during a VO2max test significantly increased 4.6%, despite no improvements in VO2max after 2 weeks of HIIT. These data suggest that HIIT exercise induces a small inflammatory response in young, recreationally active men; however, 2 weeks of HIIT does not alter this response.
Automatic Seizure Detection in an In-Vivo Model of Epilepsy

The goal of our research is to find patterns of EEG activity that will allow us to correctly identify seizures in living rats using machine learning techniques. Features are extracted from the EEG to characterize the signal over time. We perform model selection to reduce the set of features, as the goal is to have the algorithm running on a small personal device. The chosen features are used within a supervised classifier, based on randomized forests, in order to separate the different brain states. One of the challenges of this research is to detect all seizures, while preserving a low false positive rate, and low detection latency. We present results showing we can achieve this using data from three separate animals. The long-term goal of this research is to use this seizure detection method as part of a closed-loop adaptive neuro-stimulation device to reduce the incidence and duration of seizures.
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Technical Note: Coupling of Chemical Processes with the Modular Earth Submodel System (messy) Submodel Tracer

The implementation of processes related to chemistry into Earth System Models and their coupling within such systems requires the consistent description of the chemical species involved. We provide a tool (written in For-tran95) to structure and manage information about constituents , hereinafter referred to as tracers, namely the Modular Earth Submodel System (MESSy) generic (i.e., infrastructure) submodel TRACER. With TRACER it is possible to define a multitude of tracer sets, depending on the spatio-temporal representation (i.e., the grid structure) of the model. The required information about a specific chemical species is split into the static meta-information about the characteristics of the species, and its (generally in time and space variable) abundance in the corresponding representation. TRACER moreover includes two submodels. One is TRACER FAMILY, an implementation of the tracer family concept. It distinguishes between two types: type-1 families are usually applied to handle strongly related tracers (e.g., fast equilibrating species) for a specific process (e.g., advection). In contrast to this, type-2 families are applied for tagging techniques. Tagging means the artificial decomposition of one or more species into parts, which are additionally labelled (e.g., by the region of their primary emission) and then processed as the species itself. The type-2 family concept is designed to conserve the linear relationship between the family and its members. The second submodel is TRACER PDEF, which corrects and budgets numerical negative overshoots that arise in many process implementations due to the numerical limitations (e.g., rounding errors). The submodel therefore guarantees the positive definiteness of the tracers and stabilises the integration scheme. As a by-product, it further provides a global tracer mass diagnostic. Last but not least, we present the submodel PTRAC, which allows the definition of tracers via a Fortran95 namelist, as a complement to the standard tracer definition by application of the TRACER interface routines in the code. TRACER with its submodels and PTRAC can readily be applied to a variety of models without further requirements. The code and a documentation are included in the electronic supplement .
Gamma interferon-dependent clearance of cytomegalovirus infection in salivary glands

Cytomegalovirus (CMV), similar to other members of the Herpesviridae family, can establish both persistent and latent infections. Each of the CMVs that are found in many animal species replicates in the salivary gland, and oral secretion represents a source of horizontal transmission. Locally restricted replication characterizes the immunocompetent individual, whereas in the immunocompromised host, protean disease manifestations occur due to virus dissemination. The virus is cleared by immune surveillance, and CD8+ T lymphocytes play a major role. Remarkably, certain cell types of salivary gland tissues are exempt from CD8+ T-lymphocyte control of murine CMV infection and require the activity of CD4+ T lymphocytes. The results presented here suggest that this activity is a function of Th1 cells. Neutralization of endogenous gamma interferon abrogated the antiviral activity of Th1 cells but not that of CD8+ T lymphocytes in other tissues. Neutralization of endogenous gamma interferon did not interfere with the induction of the cellular and humoral immune response but acted during the effector phase. Recombinant gamma interferon could not replace the function of Th1 cells in vivo and had limited direct antiviral activity in vitro. The results therefore suggest that gamma interferon represents one, but not the only, essential factor involved in salivary gland clearance, establishment of CMV latency, and, eventually, the control of horizontal transmission.
Trigonometric Regressive Spectral Analysis Reliably Maps Dynamic Changes in Baroreflex Sensitivity and Autonomic Tone: The Effect of Gender and Age

Background The assessment of baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) has emerged as prognostic tool in cardiology. Although available computer-assisted methods, measuring spontaneous fluctuations of heart rate and blood pressure in the time and frequency domain are easily applicable, they do not allow for quantification of BRS during cardiovascular adaption processes. This, however, seems an essential criterion for clinical application. We evaluated a novel algorithm based on trigonometric regression regarding its ability to map dynamic changes in BRS and autonomic tone during cardiovascular provocation in relation to gender and age. Methodology/Principal Findings We continuously recorded systemic arterial pressure, electrocardiogram and respiration in 23 young subjects (25±2 years) and 22 middle-aged subjects (56±4 years) during cardiovascular autonomic testing (metronomic breathing, Valsalva manoeuvre, head-up tilt). Baroreflex- and spectral analysis was performed using the algorithm of trigonometric regressive spectral analysis. There was an age-related decline in spontaneous BRS and high frequency oscillations of RR intervals. Changes in autonomic tone evoked by cardiovascular provocation were observed as shifts in the ratio of low to high frequency oscillations of RR intervals and blood pressure. Respiration at 0.1 Hz elicited an increase in BRS while head-up tilt and Valsalva manoeuvre resulted in a downregulation of BRS. The extent of autonomic adaption was in general more pronounced in young individuals and declined stronger with age in women than in men. Conclusions/Significance The trigonometric regressive spectral analysis reliably maps age- and gender-related differences in baroreflex- and autonomic function and is able to describe adaption processes of baroreceptor circuit during cardiovascular stimulation. Hence, this novel algorithm may be a useful screening tool to detect abnormalities in cardiovascular adaption processes even when resting values appear to be normal.
Exploratory Usage of Enterprise Systems: The Joint Effects of Intrinsic Motivation and Psychological Empowerment

Users’ exploratory usage of enterprise systems plays a critical role in determining the extent to which an adopting organization can materialize the purported benefits of the system. As such, examining the antecedents of exploratory usage of ES is of great interest to researchers. In this study, we intend to explore how different components of intrinsic motivation (i.e., intrinsic hedonic and normative motivation) and what users experience in their system exploration process (i.e., psychological empowerment) jointly affect exploratory usage. Drawing upon motivation theories and the Regulatory Engagement Theory, we develop a research model that will be tested by survey data. Possible theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed.
Trading Complex Assets

We perform an experimental study of complexity to assess its effect on trading behavior, price volatility, liquidity, and trade efficiency. Subjects were asked to deduce the value of a particular asset from information they were given about the composition and price of several portfolios. Following that, subjects traded with each other anonymously in a well-defined, simple bargaining process. Portfolio problems ranged from requiring simple analysis to more complicated computation. Complexity altered subjects' bidding strategies, decreased liquidity, increased price volatility, and decreased trade efficiency. Female subjects were affected more by complexity (e.g., lower trade frequency), although they achieved higher payoffs in the complex treatment. Our analysis suggests that complexity may be a driver of volatility and liquidity in financial markets and provides novel testable empirical predictions.
Voces del Capitolio: Spanish-Language Media in the Statehouse

This dissertation examines the role of the U.S. Spanish-language media environment in connecting state lawmakers to the interests and preferences held by their Hispanic constituents. The presence and absence of Spanish-language media affects levels of political knowledge among U.S. Hispanics, and the degree to which state legislators engage in the media entrepreneurial activities that link them to their constituents and to other policymakers. As a representational link between lawmakers and U.S. Latinos, the Spanish-language media facilitate a home style of representation of U.S. Hispanics that contributes to the development of Hispanic policy agendas in the U.S. states.
How Does Parental Involvement Affect Children's Academic Development from A Core Literacy Perspective?

This study explores the influence of parental involvement on children’s academic development, and comprehensively defines the indicators of children’s academic development from the perspective of core literacy. Based on urban and rural household registration status and regional migration, children in China are divided into four categories. Three main findings are as follows. First, parents’ direct learning participation can hardly benefit children’s academic development, regardless of what type of children. Specifically, this type of parental participation has a significant negative impact not only on academic test score of all children, but also on all academic development dimensions of children who have rural to urban migrant experience. Second, parents’ emotional participation behavior can effectively promote the academic development of children, regardless of migration type. Third, parents’ cultural participation has a positive effect on local urban children’s academic development, while it has a negative effect on the learning willpower and curiosity of urban-urban migrant children who move from one urban area to another in different provinces/districts. Under the background of mass internal migration and rapid urbanization, our findings provide implications for parents to better participate in their children’s education in the context of rapid population movements and urbanization. Best Evid Chin Edu 2019; 1(2):109-130. Doi: 10.15354/bece.19. ar1026
Strategies for distributed sensor selection using convex optimization

Consider the estimation of an unknown parameter vector in a linear measurement model. Centralized sensor selection consists in selecting a set of ks sensor measurements, from a total number of m potential measurements. The performance of the corresponding selection is measured by the volume of an estimation error covariance matrix. In this work, we consider the problem of selecting these sensors in a distributed or decentralized fashion. In particular, we study the case of two leader nodes that perform naive decentralized selections. We demonstrate that this can degrade the performance severely. Therefore, two heuristics based on convex optimization methods are introduced, where we first allow one leader to make a selection, and then to share a modest amount of information about his selection with the remaining node. We will show that both heuristics clearly outperform the naive decentralized selection, and achieve a performance close to the centralized selection.
Effects of Restructuring at Regional Level and Approaches to Dealing with the Consequences

While restructuring and structural change are increasingly acknowledged as inherent characteristics of economic development and receive much policy attention at European and Member State level, the topic is rarely discussed from a regional perspective. However, most large-scale restructurings have effects on the regions and employment areas in which they take place. Specific information on the effects of restructuring at regional level and approaches to tackle its potential consequences for the local economy, labour market and society is scarce. This report aims to help close the knowledge gap. Based on secondary data analysis, a literature review and five in-depth case studies, it identifies and discusses the effects of large-scale restructuring outside the firm undergoing restructuring. It also seeks to illustrate success stories of positive regional management directed towards maintaining and improving labour markets following an important restructuring event.
Control of quadrotor aerial vehicles equipped with a robotic arm

In this paper a novel hierarchical motion control scheme for quadrotor aerial vehicles equipped with a manipulator is proposed. The controller is organized into two layers: in the top layer, an inverse kinematics algorithm computes the motion references for the actuated variables; in the bottom layer, a motion control algorithm is in charge of tracking the motion references computed by the top layer. A simulation case study is developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in the presence of disturbances and unmodeled dynamics.
Malondialdehyde can predict survival in hemodialysis patients

Background and aims Cardiovascular (CV) disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in hemodialysis (HD) patients. Kidney disease is associated with increased oxidative stress (OS), a nontraditional CV risk factor. Few studies evaluate the effect of OS markers on CV events (CVE) and survival in HD patients. The aim of this study is to examine potential determinants of OS markers and their predictive role on survival and CV morbidity and mortality in HD patients during a long-term follow-up (108 months). Methods We conducted an analytical cross-sectional prospective observational study, carried on a cohort of randomly selected HD patients. We registered in 44 HD patients baseline characteristics, OS markers, mortality and CVE over a period of 108 months and we used statistical analysis (descriptive, Kaplan-Meier, univariate and multivariate Cox model) for interpretation. Results Bound malondialdehyde (bMDA) was positively correlated with serum calcium, protein carbonyls (PC) were inversely correlated with diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and directly correlated with ferritin, NOx was directly correlated with ceruloplasmin) and serum albumin. Of the measured OS markers only bMDA was related to survival (HR=3.29 95% CI (1.28–8.44), p=0.01), and approached statistical significance in the effect on CV mortality (HR=2.85 95% CI (0.88–9.22), p=0.07). None of the measured OS markers was associated with CVE. Conclusions bMDA has a strong predictive value on survival in HD patients in a long-term follow-up (9 years). Its value is correlated with CV mortality but is not a predictor of CV events. Regular assessment of MDA in HD patients and the development of strategies aimed at reducing oxidative stress in these patients might be beneficial.
Analyzing local government financial performance: evidence from Brazilian municipalities 2005-2008

Municipality size has become an issue since the New Public Management doctrine of disaggregating structures into manageable units. In some countries, this doctrine led to the creation of small-scale agencies relying heavily upon transfers from upper-level governments. This paper aims to contribute to performance management literature by providing empirical evidence about some determinant factors that are likely to endow local governments with superior financial performance. Data came from a sample of Brazilian municipalities and refers to the period 2005-2008. The main conclusion of this investigation is that larger cities are more likely to manage revenue and expenditure better than are smaller cities, which aligns with the discussion of amalgamation versus fragmentation. This conclusion stems from the findings that in small municipalities mayors have fewer conditions to improve financial performance due to the difficulty of raising and collecting taxes and of reducing expenditures, which makes their administrations far more dependent upon external sources of money. Therefore, this dependent relationship can be seen as the cause of poor financial performance to the extent that it lowers mayoral discretion when making decisions. Another contribution this paper proposes to theory and practice relates to the fact that in the strong-mayor form of local government, mayoral qualification is likely to have little effect upon performance.
Xpath on steroids: exploiting relational engines for xpath performance

A lot of research has been conducted by the database community on methods and techniques for efficient XPath processing, with great success. Despite the progress made, significant opportunities for optimization of XPath still exist. One key to further improvements is to utilize more effectively existing facilities of relational RDBSes for the processing of XPath queries. After taking a comprehensive look at such facilities, we present techniques for XPath processing that work by identifying the best relational join algorithms, indices and file organization strategies for XPath queries. Our techniques both reduce the latency of the resulting SQL translations and guarantee their pipelined execution. We also propose a new technique for XML reconstruction from relations-mapped XML that "splits the difference" between schema-aware and schema-oblivious XML-to-relational mapping for a significant performance improvement. An extensive experimental study confirms the performance benefits of our optimization techniques and shows that a system implementing these techniques on top of a commercial RDBMS is competitive with respect to query performance with other native and relational-based state-of-the-art XPath processing systems, commercial as well as research prototypes.
AN ANALYSIS OF TURKISH PROSPECTIVE EFL TEACHERS VIEWS ON THE INTEGRATION OF TARGET CULTURE INTO THE LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

The association of culture and language, though relatively a new perspective, seems to be apparent and continuous as both concepts accentuate the same basic properties such as attitudes, beliefs, knowledge and perception. This association has caught the interest of many researchers particularly in the last decades. The aim of this research is to reveal the attitudes of prospective EFL teachers at the English Language Teaching (ELT) Department towards culture and its integration into language teaching and their cultural awareness. Data are collected from 146 participants through a questionnaire consisting of three parts (i.e. demographic information, multiple-choice questions, and 5-point Likert-type scale). For data analysis, descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage and means), one-way ANOVA and T-test are conducted via SPSS. The findings of the study reflect the positive outlook of a considerable number of ELT students towards culture and its incorporation in language learning and teaching. The results of the analysis reveal that the primary target of the participants for learning culture is to improve their cultural awareness and communicate satisfactorily with people from distinctive cultures. The urgent inclusion of culture with its all components into the text books, curriculums and language materials is also underlined by the participants who feel the non-presence of those items in language learning and teaching environments. In the final section, necessary implications are presented to teaching professionals, teacher trainers and teacher trainees on cultural awareness and its integrity into foreign language learning and teaching fields.
Relaxation labeling networks for the maximum clique problem

Relaxation labeling networks are a class of parallel distributed computational models extremely popular in computer vision and pattern recognition. Despite their original heuristic derivation, they possess interesting dynamical properties and learning abilities, and exhibit also a certain biological plausibility. In this paper, it is shown how to take advantage of the properties of these models to approximately solve the maximum clique problem, a well-known intractable optimization problem which has practical applications in various elds. The approach is based on a result by Motzkin and Straus which naturally leads to formulate the problem in a manner that is readily mapped onto a relaxation labeling network. Extensive simulations have demonstrated the validity of the proposed model, both in terms of quality of solutions and speed.
The Ionization of the Local Interstellar Medium as Revealed by Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer Observations of N, O, and Ar toward White Dwarf Stars

Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer spectra of the white dwarf stars G191-B2B, GD 394, WD 2211-495, and WD 2331-475 cover the absorption features out of the ground electronic states of N I, N II, N III, O I, and Ar I in the far-ultraviolet, providing new insights on the origin of the partial ionization of the local interstellar medium (LISM) and, for the case of G191-B2B, the interstellar cloud that immediately surrounds the solar system. Toward these targets the interstellar abundances of Ar I, and sometimes N I, are significantly below their cosmic abundances relative to H I. In the diffuse interstellar medium, these elements are not likely to be depleted onto dust grains. Generally, we expect that Ar should be more strongly ionized than H (and also O and N, whose ionizations are coupled to that of H via charge-exchange reactions) because the cross section for the photoionization of Ar I is very high. Our finding that Ar I/H I is low may help to explain the surprisingly high ionization of He in the LISM found by other investigators. Our result favors the interpretation that the ionization of the local medium is maintained by a strong extreme-ultraviolet flux from nearby stars and hot gases, rather than an incomplete recovery from a past, more highly ionized condition.