Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Multiscale Approach to Blast Neurotrauma Modeling: Part I – Development of Novel Test Devices for in vivo and in vitro Blast Injury Models

The loading conditions used in some current in vivo and in vitro blast-induced neurotrauma models may not be representative of real-world blast conditions. To address these limitations, we developed a compressed-gas driven shock tube with different driven lengths that can generate Friedlander-type blasts. The shock tube can generate overpressures up to 650 kPa with durations between 0.3 and 1.1 ms using compressed helium driver gas, and peak overpressures up to 450 kPa with durations between 0.6 and 3 ms using compressed nitrogen. This device is used for short-duration blast overpressure loading for small animal in vivo injury models, and contrasts the more frequently used long duration/high impulse blast overpressures in the literature. We also developed a new apparatus that is used with the shock tube to recreate the in vivo intracranial overpressure response for loading in vitro culture preparations. The receiver device surrounds the culture with materials of similar impedance to facilitate the propagation of a single overpressure pulse through the tissue. This method prevents pressure waves reflecting off the tissue that can cause unrealistic deformation and injury. The receiver performance was characterized using the longest helium-driven shock tube, and produced in-fluid overpressures up to 1500 kPa at the location where a culture would be placed. This response was well correlated with the overpressure conditions from the shock tube (R2 = 0.97). Finite element models of the shock tube and receiver were developed and validated to better elucidate the mechanics of this methodology. A demonstration exposing a culture to the loading conditions created by this system suggest tissue strains less than 5% for all pressure levels simulated, which was well below functional deficit thresholds for strain rates less than 50 s−1. This novel system is not limited to a specific type of culture model and can be modified to reproduce more complex pressure pulses.
Classification of Routing Algorithms in Volatile Environment of Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

The planet earth is basically a planet of water with less than 30% land mass available for humans to live on. However, the areas covered with water are important to mankind for the various resources which have been proven to be valuable. Such resources are gas, oil, marine products which can be used as food, and other minerals. In view of the vast area in which these resources can be found, a network of sensors is necessary so that they can be explored. However, sensor networks may not be helpful in the exploration of these resources if they do not have a sufficiently good routing mechanism. Over the past few decades, several methods for routing have been suggested to address the volatile environment in underwater communications. These continue researches; have enhanced the performance along with time. Meanwhile, there are still challenges to deal with for a better and efficient routing of data packets. Large end-to-end delays, high error channel rates, limited bandwidth, and the consumption of energy in sensor network are some such challenges. A comprehensive survey of the various routing methods for the partially connected underwater communication environment are presented in this paper.
Detection of the Abnormal Isoform of the Prion Protein Associated With Chronic Wasting Disease in the Optic Pathways of the Brain and Retina of Rocky Mountain Elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni)

Eyes and nuclei of the visual pathways in the brain were examined in 30 Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) representing 3 genotypes of the prion protein gene PRNP (codon 132: MM, ML, or LL). Tissues were examined for the presence of the abnormal isoform of the prion protein associated with chronic wasting disease (PrPCWD). Nuclei and axonal tracts from a single section of brain stem at the level of the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus nerve were scored for intensity and distribution of PrPCWD immunoreactivity and degree of spongiform degeneration. This obex scoring ranged from 0 (elk with no PrPCWD in the brain stem) to 10 (representing elk in terminal stage of disease). PrPCWD was detected in the retina of 16 of 18 (89%) elk with an obex score of > 7. PrPCWD was not detected in the retina of the 3 chronic wasting disease–negative elk and 9 elk with an obex score of < 6. PrPCWD was found in the nuclei of the visual pathways in the brain before it was found in the retina. Within the retina, PrPCWD was first found in the inner plexiform layer, followed by the outer plexiform layer. Intracytoplasmic accumulation of PrPCWD was found in a few neurons in the ganglion cell layer in the PRNP 132ML elk but was a prominent feature in the PRNP 132LL elk. Small aggregates of PrPCWD were present on the inner surface of the outer limiting membrane in PRNP 132LL elk but not in PRNP 132MM or 132ML elk. This study demonstrates PrPCWD accumulation in nuclei of the visual pathways of the brain, followed by PrPCWD in the retina.
Primary skeletal muscle cells cultured on gelatin bead microcarriers develop structural and biochemical features characteristic of adult skeletal muscle

A primary skeletal muscle cell culture, in which myoblasts derived from newborn rabbit hindlimb muscles grow on gelatin bead microcarriers in suspension and differentiate into myotubes, has been established previously. In the course of differentiation and beginning spontaneous contractions, these multinucleated myotubes do not detach from their support. Here, we describe the development of the primary myotubes with respect to their ultrastructural differentiation. Scanning electron microscopy reveals that myotubes not only grow around the surface of one carrier bead but also attach themselves to neighboring carriers, forming bridges between carriers. Transmission electron microscopy demonstrates highly ordered myofibrils, T‐tubules, and sarcoplasmic reticulum. The functionality of the contractile apparatus is evidenced by contractile activity that occurs spontaneously or can be elicited by electrostimulation. Creatine kinase activity increases steadily until day 20 of culture. Regarding the expression of isoforms of myosin heavy chains (MHC), we could demonstrate that from day 16 on, no non‐adult MHC isoform mRNAs are present. Instead, on day 28 the myotubes express predominantly adult fast MHCIId/x mRNA and protein. This MHC pattern resembles that of fast muscles of adult rabbits. In contrast, primary myotubes grown on matrigel‐covered culture dishes express substantial amounts of non‐adult MHC protein even on day 21. To conclude, primary myotubes grown on microcarriers in their later stages exhibit many features of adult skeletal muscle and characteristics of fast type II fibers. Thus, the culture represents an excellent model of adult fast skeletal muscle, for example, when investigating molecular mechanisms of fast‐to‐slow fiber‐type transformation.
Ultrasonographic features of parathyroid carcinoma.

Although several authors have reported single cases illustrative of some ultrasonographic characteristic of parathyroid carcinoma, the value of ultrasonography for diagnosing this entity remains to be determined. The purpose of our study was to investigate the ultrasonographic features of parathyroid carcinoma in a large number of cases. We assessed the shape, contour, echogenicity, and depth-width (DW) ratio of 16 parathyroid carcinomas and 61 parathyroid adenomas. Ultrasonography showed that parathyroid carcinomas tend to be large, inhomogeneous, hypoechoic masses with lobulated contours. In contrast, parathyroid adenomas were small, homogeneous, hypoechoic masses with smooth borders. The mean (range) DW ratios for parathyroid carcinomas were 1.21 (0.91-2.5) and 0.64 (0.33-1.47) for adenomas; the difference was statistically significant (p<0.0001). The DW ratio was > or =1 in 15 (94%) of the 16 cases of carcinoma, whereas only 3 (5%) of the 61 adenomas had a similar ratio. Ultrasonographic examination is useful not only for preoperative localization but also for differentiating parathyroid carcinoma from adenoma. Parathyroid tumors with irregular margins, inhomogeneous echogenicity, and a DW ratio > or =1 are likely to be malignant.
A Co-Creation Tool in Walk-in Virtual Environment: Making Prospective Work Visible

The focus of this paper is on user participation in product design process. Ours is a human-centred approach in which users’ expertise is acknowledged and which addresses the development of future products, rather than the current situation in users’ work. This type of user participation applied to co-creation is possible when the users’ prospective work is made visible. This paper presents a tool with which product users’ can experiment working with the product under design. As the product designers can observe the users’ actions with the tool, their understanding of the users’ work practice increases and their discussions with the users improve. The tool, VIP2M, is a virtual environment for prototyping a mobile working machine and constructing it in a walk-in virtual environment. We built it following the tradition of design science research and evaluated it by user tests. The study shows that virtual environment is a useful base for constructing appropriate tools for product users’ participation in the product design.
Retinotomy with retinal turnover to remove subretinal membranes under direct visualization for proliferative vitreoretinopathy

Purpose The purpose of the study was to report the outcomes for cases of proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR) that received retinotomy and removal of subretinal proliferative tissue under direct visualization using retinal turnover. Methods Nineteen eyes with posterior and/or anterior grade C1–12 PVR that had undergone retinotomy and retinal turnover were reviewed. Main outcomes included the retinal reattachment rate, final best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), postoperative intraocular pressure, extent of retinotomy, and complications. Results Final retinal reattachment rates with silicone oil tamponade were 100%. The mean logarithm of the minimal angle of resolution (logMAR) BCVA was significantly improved (P = 0.001). Positive correlation was found between the extent of retinotomy and both preoperative logMAR BCVA (r = 0.663, P = 0.002) and postoperative logMAR BCVA (r = 0.619, P = 0.005). There was no correlation between the extent of retinotomy and the change in preoperative and postoperative logMAR BCVA (r = −0.267, P = 0.268). Negative correlation was found between preoperative logMAR BCVA and the change in logMAR BCVA (r = −0.587, P = 0.008). There was no correlation between the extent of retinotomy and the intraocular pressure at the final visit (r = −0.316, P = 0.188). Corneal decompensation due to silicone oil in the anterior chamber occurred in one eye. Conclusion Removal of subretinal proliferative tissue with retinal turnover seems to be an effective procedure.
Pension Funding Constraints and Corporate Expenditures

This paper examines the impact of a company's pension contributions (PCs) on its dividend and investment policies. The effects of shocks to cash flows on these corporate expenditures are identified by changes to pension funding regulations. Using a sample of DB pension schemes in FTSE350 UK-listed firms we find a strong negative relation between PCs and corporate dividends even after controlling for the correlation between funding status and unobserved investment opportunities. We find that the more stringent funding requirements under the Pensions Act 2004 had a more pronounced effect on both dividend and investment sensitivities to PCs.
ESTIMATION OF GENETIC AND PHENOTYPIC PARAMETERS OF BODY MEASUREMENTS AND CONFORMATION IN ARABIAN HORSES

SUMMARY Data of eleven body measurements and eight body conformation indices on 280 purebred Arabian horses ranging from 1 month to 298 months old. These horses were progeny of 60 stallions and 176 mars. A multiple trait animal model was used to estimate heritability genetic and phenotypic correlations for the measurements and indices under investigation. Heritability estimates were 0.35, 0.51, 0.53, 0.33, 0.27, 0.29, 0.28 0.22, 0.14, 0.18 and 0.55 for neck girth, chest girth, fore cannon bone circumference , hind cannon bone circumference , back line length, body length, chest width, croup width, chest depth, wither height and croup height, respectively. For body conformation indices, heritability estimates were 0.11, 0.09, 0.15, 0.23, 0.27, 0.29, 0.16 and 0.25 for format, compactness, rib cage, chest depth, chest girth, boniness, body length and height, respectively. Genetic correlation coefficients between body measurements were all positive, and ranged from 0.12 to 0.96, except that between the chest depth and body length (0.03). Genetic correlation coefficients between body conformation indices were low to moderate and some were negative. Phenotypic correlation coefficients for body measurements were all positive and ranged from 0.08 to 0.86. For conformation indices, some of the estimates were positive and some others were negative. Therefore, body measurements and/or body conformation indices can be efficiently used to accomplish certain breeding program goals that are related to body measurements and conformation of the Arabian horse.
LISABETH: automated content-based signature generator for zero-day polymorphic worms

Modern worms can spread so quickly that any countermeasure based on human reaction might not be fast enough. Recent research has focused on devising algorithms to automatically produce signature for polymorphic worms, required by Intrusion Detection Systems. However, polymorphic worms are more complex than non-mutating ones as they also require the identification of mutated instances. To this end, we propose Lisabeth, our improved version of Hamsa, an automated content-based signature generation system for polymorphic worms that uses invariant bytes analysis of network traffic content. We show an unknown attack to Hamsa's signature generator that is contrasted by Lisabeth. Moreover, we show that our approach is able to generally improve the resilience to poisoning attacks as supported by our experiments with synthetic polymorphic worms.
Effects of pair programming at the development team level: an experiment

We studied the effects of pair programming in a team context on productivity, defects, design quality, knowledge transfer and enjoyment of work. Randomly formed three pair programming and two solo programming teams performed the same 400-hour fixed-effort project. Pair programming increased the development effort of the first tasks considerably compared to solo programming, but later the differences were small. Due to this learning time the pair programming teams had worse overall project productivity. Task complexity did not affect the effort differences between solo and pair programming. The pair programming teams wrote code with fewer defects, but were less careful in system testing, and therefore delivered systems with more defects. They may have relied too much on the peer review taking place during programming. Knowledge transfer seemed to be higher within the pair programming teams. Finally, we also found weak support for higher enjoyment of work in the pair programming teams.
Ascl1 defines sequentially generated lineage-restricted neuronal and oligodendrocyte precursor cells in the spinal cord

The neural basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor Ascl1 (previously Mash1) is present in ventricular zone cells in restricted domains throughout the developing nervous system. This study uses genetic fate mapping to define the stage and neural lineages in the developing spinal cord that are derived from Ascl1-expressing cells. We find that Ascl1 is present in progenitors to both neurons and oligodendrocytes, but not astrocytes. Temporal control of the fate-mapping paradigm reveals rapid cell-cycle exit and differentiation of Ascl1-expressing cells. At embryonic day 11, Ascl1 identifies neuronal-restricted precursor cells that become dorsal horn neurons in the superficial laminae. By contrast, at embryonic day 16, Ascl1 identifies oligodendrocyte-restricted precursor cells that distribute throughout the spinal cord. These data demonstrate that sequentially generated Ascl1-expressing progenitors give rise first to dorsal horn interneurons and subsequently to late-born oligodendrocytes. Furthermore, Ascl1-null cells in the spinal cord have a diminished capacity to undergo neuronal differentiation, with a subset of these cells retaining characteristics of immature glial cells.
Energy Model of Networks-on-Chip and a Bus

A network-on-chip (NoC) is an energy-efficient on-chip communication architecture for multi-processor system-on-chip (MPSoC) architectures. In earlier papers we proposed two network-on-chip architectures based on packet-switching and circuit-switching. In this paper we derive an energy model for both NoC architectures to predict their energy consumption per transported bit. Both architectures are also compared with a traditional bus architecture. The energy model is primarily needed to find a near optimal run-time mapping (from an energy point of view) of inter-process communication to NoC links.
Identification and validation of reference genes for expression studies in human keratinocyte cell lines treated with and without interferon‐γ – a method for qRT‐PCR reference gene determination

Based on the exquisite sensitivity, reproducibility and wide dynamic range of quantitative reverse‐transcription real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR), it is currently the gold standard for gene expression studies. Target gene expression is calculated relative to a stably expressed reference gene. An ideal reference should be uniformly expressed during all experimental conditions within the given experimental system. However, no commonly applicable ‘best’ reference gene has been identified. Thus, endogenous controls must be determined for every experimental system. As no appropriate reference genes have been reported for immunological studies in keratinocytes, we aimed at identifying and validating a set of endogenous controls for these settings. An extensive validation of sixteen possible endogenous controls in a panel of 8 normal and transformed keratinocyte cell lines in experimental conditions with and without interferon‐γ was performed. RNA and cDNA quality was stringently controlled. Candidate reference genes were assessed by TaqMan® qRT‐PCR. Two different statistical algorithms were used to determine the most stably and reproducibly expressed housekeeping genes. mRNA abundance was compared and reference genes with widely different ranges of expression than possible target genes were excluded. Subsequent geNorm and NormFinder analyses identified GAPDH, PGK1, IPO8 and PPIA as the most stably expressed genes in the keratinocyte panel under the given experimental conditions. We conclude that the geometric means of expression values of these four genes represents a robust normalization factor for qRT‐PCR analyses in interferon‐γ‐dependent gene expression studies in keratinocytes. The methodology and results herein may help other researchers by facilitating their choice of reference genes.
Assessment of the psychometric performance of the WHOQOL-BREF instrument in a sample of Brazilian older adults

Background: There has been increasing interest in the measurement of quality of life in cross-sectional investigations and in the assessment of intervention outcomes in elderly adults. Several instruments used in this measurement have not yet been adequately tested. Objective: To describe the psychometric properties of the World Health Organization's Quality of Life Instrument–Short Version (WHOQOL-BREF) in a sample of Brazilian elderly. Method: A total of 424 elderly adults selected through convenience sampling completed the instruments WHOQOL-BREF, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) and a sociodemographic data form. Discriminant validity, concurrent validity, criterion validity and internal consistency were analyzed. Results: The sample comprised predominantly women (64.2%), community-dwelling subjects (84.4%) and subjects who consider themselves healthy (67.5%). All domains in the instrument showed the ability to discriminate levels of depressive symptoms and hopelessness, as well as different perceptions of health status. The correlation coefficients among the domains and the BDI and BHS scores were statistically significant. The reliability coefficients present scores ranging from 0.614 to 0.925. Conclusion: The WHOQOL-BREF instrument shows suitable psychometric performance in a sample of Brazilian older adults, becoming a useful alternative in the measurement of quality of life in this population.
Multistage interference cancellation with diversity reception for QPSK asynchronous DS/CDMA system over multipath fading channels

A multistage interference cancellation (MIC) technique with RAKE diversity (MIC-RAKE) for QPSK asynchronous direct sequence code division multiple access (DS/CDMA) system over frequency selective multipath Rayleigh fading channels is presented. Unlike the conventional MIC, which tries to subtract the lump sum of the multiple access interference (MAI) and the self-interference (SI), the MIC-RAKE attempts to cancel the MAI and the partial SI, and to treat the residual SI as useful signal for symbol decision. The RAKE combining is employed to collect signal replicas over multiple fading paths. The upper and lower bounds on the bit error probability are derived by using a Gaussian approximation. Furthermore, the effect of the channel estimation error is studied. Analysis and simulation show that the MIC-RAKE can provide a performance close to the ideal performance of single-user system, and outperforms the conventional MIC even in the presence of channel estimation error.
High genetic diversity and low-population differentiation in the Patagonian sprat (Sprattus fuegensis) based on mitochondrial DNA

Abstract The Patagonian sprat, Sprattus fuegensis, is a small pelagic marine fish that inhabits the continental shelf along the coasts of Chilean Patagonian and Argentina, a distribution that was highly impacted during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). In order to identify how the LGM played a role on the current observed genetic diversity and population structure of S. fuegensis, we analyzed 1438 nucleotide positions from the control region of 335 individuals collected at 12 sites across its distribution. Genetic diversity and differentiation indices were calculated to identify population structure, and a Bayesian skyride plot (BSRP) reconstruction was carried out to infer the historic population dynamics. Extremely high genetic diversity was found at all locations analyzed, non-population structure was found across its distribution, and the BSRP showed two increases in effective population size over time. Our outcomes suggest that the current genetic diversity, population structure and population expansion may have occurred during the medium and late Pleistocene.