Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of T’ai Chi Exercise on Fibromyalgia Symptoms and Health-Related Quality of Life

Background Fibromyalgia (FM), one of the most common musculoskeletal disorders, is associated with high levels of impaired health and inadequate or limited symptom relief. The cause of this complex syndrome is unknown, and there is no known cure. Numerous research results indicate that a combination of physical exercise and mind-body therapy is effective in symptom management. T’ai Chi, an ancient Chinese exercise, combines physical exercise with mind-body therapy. Purpose To investigate the effects of T’ai Chi exercise on FM symptoms and health-related quality of life. Design Pilot study, one group pre-to-post posttest design. Methods Participants with FM (n = 39) formed a single group for 6 weeks of 1-hour, twice weekly T’ai Chi exercise classes. FM symptoms and health-related quality of life were measured before and after exercise. Findings Twenty-one participants completed at least 10 of the 12 exercise sessions. Although the dropout rate was higher than expected, measurements on both the Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) (Buckhardt, Clark, & Bennett, 1991) and the Short Form-36 (SF-36) (Ware & Sherbourne, 1992) revealed statistically significant improvement in symptom management and health-related quality of life. Implications for Nursing Research Knowledge of interventions to enhance health for the patient with musculoskeletal problems is a National Association of Orthopaedic Nurses priority. T’ai Chi is potentially beneficial to patients with FM. Further research is needed to support evidence-based practice.
Multidimensional Grid Aware Address Prediction for GPGPU

GPGPUs are predominantly being used as accelerators for general purpose data parallel applications. Most GPU applications are likely to exhibit regular memory access patterns. It has been observed that warps within a thread block show striding behavior in their memory accesses corresponding to the same load instruction. However, determination of this inter warp stride at thread block boundaries is not trivial. We observed that thread blocks along different dimensions have different stride values. Leveraging this observation, we characterize the relationship between memory address references of warps from different thread blocks. Based on this relationship, we propose a multidimensional grid aware address predictor that takes the advantage of SM level concurrency to correctly predict the memory address references for future thread blocks well in advance. Our technique provides a cooperative approach where information once learned is shared with all the SMs. When compared with the CTA-aware technique, our predictor enhances average prediction coverage by 36% while showing almost similar prediction accuracy.
Real-Time Anomalous Branch Behavior Inference with a GPU-inspired Engine for Machine Learning Models

Attacks on embedded devices are likely to occur any time in unexpected manners. Thus, the defense systems based on fixed sets of rules will easily be subverted by such unexpected, unknown attacks. Learning-based anomaly detection may potentially prevent new unknown zero-day attacks by leveraging the capability of machine learning (ML) to learn the intricate true nature of software hidden within raw information. This paper introduces our work to develop an MPSoC, called RTAD, which can efficiently support in hardware various ML models that run to detect anomalous behaviors on embedded devices in a real-time fashion, and thus enable the devices to counteract the anomalies in the field. In the IoT era, the importance of security for embedded devices cannot be exaggerated because they will become an enticing target for adversaries as they are being integrated into everyday life to provide users with various services. The above-mentioned potential of learning-based detection is believed to benefit those deployed devices under attacks occurring any time during their field operations in unexpected manners. We hereby assume that ML models are trained with runtime branch information as their data features since a sequence of branches serves as a record of control flow transfers during program execution. In fact, there have been numerous ML studies that examine various types of branches in order to infer (or detect) anomaly in branch behaviors that may be induced by diverse attacks that can cause deviant control flow in software. Our goal of real-time anomalous branch behavior inference poses two challenges to our development of RTAD. Firstly, RTAD must collect and transfer in a timely fashion a sequence of branches as the input to the ML model. Secondly, RTAD must be able to promptly process the delivered branch data with the ML model. To tackle these challenges, we have implemented in RTAD two core components: an input generation module and a GPU-inspired ML processing engine. According to our experiments, RTAD enables various ML models to infer anomaly instantly after the victim program behaves aberrantly as the result of attacks being injected into the system.
Local peroperative treatment with a bisphosphonate improves the fixation of total knee prostheses: A randomized, double-blind radiostereometric study of 50 patients

Background Postoperative migration of a joint prosthesis is related to the risk of late loosening. We have previously reported that oral treatment with clodronate reduced migration of the cemented NexGen total knee prosthesis during the first postoperative year, as measured by radiostereometry (RSA). Oral bisphosphonate treatment is sometimes unpleasant, and local treatment will enable higher local concentrations. We now report the results of local peroperative treatment with another bisphosphonate, ibandronate, with the same prosthesis. Methods This is a double-blind, randomized study of 50 patients using RSA with maximal total point motion (MTPM) as primary effect variable. 1 mg ibandronate (1 mL) or 1 mL saline was applied to the tibial bone surface 1 min before cementation. RSA examination was done on the first postoperative day, and at 6, 12, and 24 months. Results One ibandronate-treated patient died of unrelated causes, and 1 control patient refused to come for follow-up, leaving 24 patients in each group for analysis. There were no cases of aseptic loosening. By repeated measures ANOVA, migration (MTPM) was reduced by local application of ibandronate (p = 0.006). The effect was most pronounced at 6 months, with a reduction from 0.45 to 0.32 mm (95% CI for reduction: 0.04–0.21 mm). At 12 months, the migration from the postoperative examination was reduced from 0.47 to 0.36 mm (95% CI for reduction: 0.02–0.20 mm). At 24 months, the reduction was from 0.47 to 0.40 mm (95% CI: -0.01–0.16 mm). Interpretation This is the first study to show improvement of prosthesis fixation by local pharmacological treatment in humans. The treatment appears to be safe, cheap, and easy to perform. However, the improvement in postoperative stability was not greater than with systemic clodronate treatment.
Purification by Ni2+ Affinity Chromatography, and Functional Reconstitution of the Transporter for N-Acetylglucosamine of Escherichia coli*

The N-acetyl-D-glucosamine transporter (IIGlcNAc) of the bacterial phosphotransferase system couples vectorial translocation to phosphorylation of the transported GlcNAc. IIGlcNAc of Escherichia coli containing a carboxyl-terminal affinity tag of six histidines was purified by Ni2+ chelate affinity chromatography. 4 mg of purified protein was obtained from 10 g (wet weight) of cells. Purified IIGlcNAc was reconstituted into phospholipid vesicles by detergent dialysis and freeze/thaw sonication. IIGlcNAc was oriented randomly in the vesicles as inferred from protein phosphorylation studies. Import and subsequent phosphorylation of GlcNAc were measured with proteoliposomes preloaded with enzyme I, histidine-containing phosphocarrier protein, and phosphoenolpyruvate. Uptake and phosphorylation occurred in a 1:1 ratio. Active extrusion of GlcNAc entrapped in vesicles was also measured by the addition of enzyme I, histidine-containing phosphocarrier protein, and phosphoenolpyruvate to the outside of the vesicles. The Km for vectorial phosphorylation and non-vectorial phosphorylation were 66.6 ± 8.2 μM and 750 ± 19.6 μM, respectively. Non-vectorial phosphorylation was faster than vectorial phosphorylation with kcat 15.8 ± 0.9 s−1 and 6.2 ± 0.7 s−1, respectively. Using exactly the same conditions, the purified transporters for mannose (IIABMan, IICMan, IIDMan) and glucose (IICBGlc, IIAGlc) were also reconstituted for comparison. Although the vectorial transport activities of IICBAGlcNAc and IICBGlc· IIAGlc are inhibited by non-vectorial phosphorylation, no such effect was observed with the IIABMan· IICMan·IIDMan complex. This suggests that the molecular mechanisms underlying solute transport and phosphorylation are different for different transporters of the phosphotransferase system.
Agent-Based Model of Negative Outgroup Stereotype in Intergroup Conflict Setting

Intergroup conflict induces individuals to hold negative prejudice and discriminate against others from different groups. Individual's anti-social attitudes on intergroup conflict setting are based on an individual's belief on negative outgroup stereotype. Some theories based on social identity theory have been proposed to explain the emergence of this belief but their explanatory power is limited. An agent-based model is proposed to clarify the process of negative outgroup stereotype development and to reproduce key findings. The model explains how negative outgroup stereotype belief emerges as the outcome of an intergroup conflict situation. Not only that, it also explains how an individual's position in the social network affects his/her perception of outgroup stereotype.
The Use of Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) Software to Create a Database of Librarian-Mediated Literature Searches

Expert-mediated literature searching, a keystone service in biomedical librarianship, would benefit significantly from regular methodical review. This article describes the novel use of Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) software to create a database of literature searches conducted at a large academic health sciences library. An archive of paper search requests was entered into REDCap, and librarians now prospectively enter records for current searches. Having search data readily available allows librarians to reuse search strategies and track their workload. In aggregate, this data can help guide practice and determine priorities by identifying users’ needs, tracking librarian effort, and focusing librarians’ continuing education.
Novel Randomized & Biased Placement for FPGA Based Robust Random Number Generator with Enhanced Uniqueness

The physical unclonable functions (PUF) have widely been used to provide software as well as hardware security for the cyber-physical systems. They are used for performing significant cryptography tasks such as generating keys, device authentication and securing against IP piracy. They have also been used to produce the root of trust. However, they lack in reliability metric. We present a novel approach for improving the uniqueness as well as the reliability of field programmable gated arrays (FPGAs) based ring oscillator PUF and derive a random number, consuming a very small area concerning look up tables (LUTs). We use profiling method for observing frequency variations in ring oscillators (RO), spatially placed across the FPGA floor, and are able to spot the suitable locations for RO mapping, which leads to enhanced ROPUF reliability. We have implemented proposed methodology on Xilinx -7 series FPGAs and tested the robustness against environmental variations e.g. temperature and supply voltage variations. The proposed approach achieves 6% higher uniqueness of 49.83% along with the reliability of 99.35%, which as a group of PUF characteristics, is a significant improvement as compared to characteristics provided by existing ROPUF methods. The random number generator so realized passes all applicable nine tests of NIST uniformity statistical test suite.
Natural history of hepatitis B in perinatally infected carriers

Objectives: To establish natural seroconversion rates and incidence of hepatic pathology in perinatally infected hepatitis B carriers. Methods: Seventy three perinatally infected hepatitis B carriers identified through maternal screening were evaluated. Fifty three were born to parents from the Indian subcontinent, nine were Oriental, six were Afro-Caribbean, and five were white. Median follow up was 10.24 (range 2.02–20.16) years. Results: Only three of the children followed up had cleared hepatitis B surface antigen during this period, and 30% of the children had seroconverted to anti-HBe. Seroconversions to anti-HBe were observed in Asian (18/50) and white (4/5) children, but not in Oriental or Afro-Caribbean children. More girls (40%) than boys (23%) had seroconverted, but the difference was not significant. All children were asymptomatic with normal physical examination, growth, and development. Almost half (48%) of the hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) positive children had normal hepatic transaminases and liver function. Thirty five liver biopsies were performed in children with active virus replication (HBeAg or hepatitis B virus DNA positive) who were being considered for antiviral treatment as part of a clinical trial and were scored using the Ishak method. Two thirds (62%) of the children had mild hepatitis, 60% had mild fibrosis, and 18% had moderate to severe fibrosis. There was a weak correlation between histological evidence of hepatitis and hepatic transaminase activity, implying that biochemical monitoring of hepatic disease activity may be ineffective. Conclusions: These asymptomatic hepatitis B virus carrier children remain infectious in the medium to long term with notable liver pathology. They should receive antiviral treatment to reduce infectivity and to prevent further progression of liver disease. Hepatic transaminases alone are not a reliable marker of liver pathology, and liver histology is essential before consideration for antiviral treatment.
Characterization of native corticotropin‐releasing factor receptor type 1 (cRFR1) in the rat and mouse central nervous system

Corticotropin releasing factor (CRF), the most important regulator of various responses to stress, acts through CRF receptors (CRFR). For their characterization in brain tissue of Sprague–Dawley rats and C57BL/ 6J mice, a recently described polyclonal antibody directed against the N‐terminus of rat CRFR1 (rCRFR1) was used. The molecular weights of rat and mouse brain receptors were determined by Western blot analysis to be 80,000–76,000 and 83,000–79,000, respectively, whereas molecular weights of 72,000–59,000 were observed for CRFR1 from rat and mouse pituitary. Immunohistochemical analysis was performed with brain sections of naive rats and mice. Strong CRFR1 staining was detected in the cortex, cerebellum, mesencephalon and pons of both species, whereas weak staining was observed in amygdala and hippocampus. The striatum did not show immunoreactivity. The density of immunostaining was significantly lower in murine than in rat cortex. In contrast, in the pons and mesencephalon of mice, higher density of immunostaining was observed than in the same brain structures of rats. On the basis of the observed differences, it is suggested that CRFR1 is differentially processed in rats and mice. In addition, the density of CRFR1 staining differed between both species. J. Neurosci. Res. 54:507–521, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Exploiting LabVIEW FPGA in Implementation of DCT-based Wireless Image Transmission for Wildlife Surveillance System

In the development of wildlife surveillance system technology, images are important input data that allow real situations in the field to be viewed and analysed. This project proposed a compressed and wireless image transmission system for current system improvements. Image compression is intended to ensure that the proposed system is efficient in terms of processing, transmission and storage. The compressed images are transmitted wirelessly to provide real-time data to authorities. In this study, LabVIEW 2017 software and NI myRIO (as image transmitter) and computer (as image receiver) hardware were used for the architectural design of compression systems by using discrete cosine transform (DCT) method and wireless transmission using Wi-Fi. The implementation of DCT on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) platform, allowing the image to be compressed by 44% and minimise time consumption for transmission process, whilst the value of peak to signal noise ratio (PSNR) are considered good, between 27dB to 40dB.
Complement receptor 1 (CD35) on human reticulocytes: normal expression in systemic lupus erythematosus and HIV-infected patients.

The low levels of complement receptor 1 (CR1) on erythrocytes in autoimmune diseases and AIDS may be due to accelerated loss in the circulation, or to a diminished expression of CR1 on the red cell lineage. Therefore, we analyzed the expression of CR1 on reticulocytes (R) vs erythrocytes (E). Healthy subjects had a significant higher CR1 number per cell on R (919 +/- 99 CR1/cell) than on E (279 +/- 30 CR1/cell, n = 23), which corresponded to a 3. 5- +/- 1.3-fold loss of CR1. This intravascular loss was confirmed by FACS analysis, which showed that all R expressed CR1, whereas a large fraction of E was negative. The systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), HIV-infected, and cold hemolytic Ab disease (CHAD) patients had a CR1 number on R identical to the healthy subjects, contrasting with a lower CR1 on their E. The data indicated a significantly higher loss of CR1 in the three diseases, i.e., 7.0- +/- 3.8-, 6.1- +/- 2.9-, and 9.6- +/- 5.6-fold, respectively. The intravascular loss was best exemplified in a patient with factor I deficiency whose CR1 dropped from 520 CR1/R to 28 CR1/E, i.e., 18.6-fold loss. In one SLE patient and in the factor I-deficient patient, the FACS data were consistent with a loss of CR1 already on some R. In conclusion, CR1 is lost progressively from normal E during in vivo aging so that old E are almost devoid of CR1. The low CR1 of RBC in autoimmune diseases and HIV-infection is due to a loss occurring in the circulation by an active process that remains to be defined.
STOCHASTIC VOLATILITY MODELS AND THE PRICING OF VIX OPTIONS

In this paper, we examine and compare the performance of a variety of continuous‐time volatility models in their ability to capture the behavior of the VIX. The “3/2‐ model” with a diffusion structure which allows the volatility of volatility changes to be highly sensitive to the actual level of volatility is found to outperform all other popular models tested. Analytic solutions for option prices on the VIX under the 3/2‐model are developed and then used to calibrate at‐the‐money market option prices.
A Land Plant-Specific Transcription Factor Directly Enhances Transcription of a Pathogenic Noncoding RNA Template by DNA-Dependent RNA Polymerase II[OPEN]

A eukaryotic transcription factor guides DNA-dependent RNA polymerase II to recognize and transcribe RNA templates from a viroid pathogen. Some DNA-dependent RNA polymerases (DdRPs) possess RNA-dependent RNA polymerase activity, as was first discovered in the replication of Potato spindle tuber viroid (PSTVd) RNA genome in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). Recent studies revealed that this activity in bacteria and mammals is important for transcriptional and posttranscriptional regulatory mechanisms. Here, we used PSTVd as a model to uncover auxiliary factors essential for RNA-templated transcription by DdRP. PSTVd replication in the nucleoplasm generates (−)-PSTVd intermediates and (+)-PSTVd copies. We found that the Nicotiana benthamiana canonical 9-zinc finger (ZF) Transcription Factor IIIA (TFIIIA-9ZF) as well as its variant TFIIIA-7ZF interacted with (+)-PSTVd, but only TFIIIA-7ZF interacted with (−)-PSTVd. Suppression of TFIIIA-7ZF reduced PSTVd replication, and overexpression of TFIIIA-7ZF enhanced PSTVd replication in planta. Consistent with the locale of PSTVd replication, TFIIIA-7ZF was found in the nucleoplasm and nucleolus, in contrast to the strictly nucleolar localization of TFIIIA-9ZF. Footprinting assays revealed that only TFIIIA-7ZF bound to a region of PSTVd critical for initiating transcription. Furthermore, TFIIIA-7ZF strongly enhanced the in vitro transcription of circular (+)-PSTVd by partially purified Pol II. Together, our results identify TFIIIA-7ZF as a dedicated cellular transcription factor that acts in DdRP-catalyzed RNA-templated transcription, highlighting both the extraordinary evolutionary adaptation of viroids and the potential of DdRPs for a broader role in cellular processes.
Resource Allocation in Heterogeneous Cognitive Radio Network With Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access

In this paper, we study resource allocation problems for a two-tier cognitive heterogeneous network in interweave spectrum sharing mode. Secondary users (SUs) in small cells (SCs) opportunistically access the licensed spectrum resources. Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is used to boost the number of accessible SUs sharing the limited and dynamic licensed spectrum holes. Practically, there exists a tradeoff: an SC can increase its instantaneous sum throughput by accessing more idle bandwidth, which creates higher liability due to the dynamics of licensed spectrum and contention among the multiple SCs. Aiming to maximize the sum throughput of second-tier SCs network, we formulate a mixed integer non-linear programming problem with the constraints of the available idle bandwidth, the successive interference cancellation complexity, the transmission power budget, and the minimum data requirements. To efficiently solve this problem, we decompose the original optimization problem into bandwidth resource allocation subproblem, SUs clustering subproblem, and power allocation subproblem. Based on the scale of SCs network and the activities of licensed spectrum, we introduce an optimal bandwidth configuration to maximize the average sum throughput of SCs. By analyzing the derivation of the achievable rate expression of a NOMA-enabled SU, we develop a novel SUs clustering algorithm which can improve the throughput of a cluster by grouping SUs with more distinctive channel conditions. With the results of SUs clustering, we propose power allocation within a NOMA cluster by using Karush-Kuhn-Tucker optimality conditions. Furthermore, we perform power allocation across NOMA clusters by using the difference of convex programming. The simulation results validate the performance of the proposed resource allocation algorithms.
Spur Gear Fault Diagnosis Using a Multilayer Gated Recurrent Unit Approach With Vibration Signal

The fault diagnosis of the gearbox is a complex and important work. In this paper, a multilayer gated recurrent unit (MGRU) method is proposed for spur gear fault diagnosis, that is, three-layer gated recurrent unit (GRU). The vibration signals are firstly monitored on the test bench, and then extracted in both time domain and time-frequency domain. Finally, MGRU is used to learn representation and classification. The MGRU can improve the representation of information and identify the features of fault types more precisely with the increasing number of layers. The proposed method was tested by two spur gears with 10 state modes. To evaluate the method’s classification accuracy, four methods were utilized for comparison, i.e., the GRU, long short-term memory (LSTM), multilayer LSTM (MLSTM), and support vector machine (SVM), respectively. In addition, the separability and robustness analysis are also discussed for the proposed MGRU performance. All of the results exhibited that the proposed MGRU approach is effective for spur gear fault diagnosis.