Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wellness: A New Mode of tourism

Abstract Like all other sectors of the world economy, tourism is also feeling the pinch of the crisis that has resulted from the global economic turmoil. World economic situation since 2007/2008 has put an extra pressure on people’s psycho-physical state of health. People are increasingly looking forward to new ways of relaxation and re-energizing themselves. Some modes of tourism, globally, due to the economic downturn, have slowed down, but the tourism sector itself has done remarkably well during the last two-three years by offering the new model i.e. facility generally called Wellness. Within tourism, wellness is relatively a new trend that has registered an impressive growth rate. World-wide more and more people are traveling to destinations that provide wellness facilities. The rise of ‘wellness’ concept can be attributed to two factors. First, the WHO has now long been pushing forward an integrated concept of «well-being» and «fitness» into its global health policy. Second, the overall education of people has increased the human awareness of personal health. Tourism service providers, especially the luxury hotels were quick to cash upon these facts and created a palette of wellness services such as spa and health treatments, occupational health therapy, beauty treatments, sports’ facilities, spiritual activities, massages, and rehabilitation programs, etc. Since sufficient data on the subject have not yet emerged, the paper basically discusses some conceptual aspects of wellness tourism only.
Prevalence and genetic and environmental influences on anxiety disorders in 6-year-old twins

Background. Prevalence of childhood anxiety disorders at specific ages and genetic etiological influences on anxiety disorders in young children have been little studied. The present study reports prevalence estimates in a community sample of 6-year-old twins, and patterns of genetic and environmental influences on these early-onset anxiety disorders. Method. Using a two-phase design 4662 twin-pairs were sampled and 854 pairs were assessed in the second phase by maternal-informant diagnostic interview using DSM-IV criteria. Results. The most common conditions were separation anxiety disorder (SAD) [2·8%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2·1–3·8, for current disorder] and specific phobia (10·8%, 95% CI 8·4–13·6, for current disorder). Behavioral genetic modeling was feasible for these two conditions, applied to two phenotypes: symptom syndrome (regardless of impairment) and the narrower one of diagnostic status (symptom syndrome with associated impairment). The heritability estimate for SAD diagnostic status was high, 73%, with remaining variance attributed to non-shared environment. The heritability estimates for specific phobia were also high, 80% for the symptom syndrome and 60% for diagnostic status, with remaining variance attributed in both cases to non-shared environment. Conclusions. Compared with previous epidemiological surveys of children and adolescents in wide age-bands, the current estimates suggest that rates of anxiety disorders assessed in young childhood are generally at least as high and perhaps higher compared with those found in older children. The heritability estimates suggest that the genetic effects on these early-onset anxiety disorders are substantial and more significant than environmental effects, whether shared or non-shared.
Active and passive tension interact to promote Akt signaling with muscle contraction.

PURPOSE The extent to which factors associated with muscle contraction activate Akt remains unclear. This study examined the influences of mechanical (active and passive tension), neural (activation frequency), and metabolic (glycogen depletion) factors on Akt activation during in situ contractions. METHODS Muscle length was modified to produce comparable active contractile forces in three protocols, despite a twofold difference in stimulation frequency (15 vs 30 Hz); a fourth protocol used 30-Hz stimulation at optimal length to produce greater active forces. Two protocols were performed at optimal length, using 15- or 30-Hz stimulation (15 Hz opt and 30 H zopt, respectively). Two other protocols used 30-Hz stimulation at shortened or lengthened positions (30 Hz sub and 30 Hz supra, respectively). RESULTS The principal finding was that the 30-Hz opt protocol induced significantly greater Akt phosphorylation (approximately threefold relative to control) than did the other protocols, suggesting that activation of this signaling pathway is most sensitive to active tension. This result could not be attributed to differences in glycogen depletion, stimulation frequency, or fatigue. Despite producing the lowest force-time integral, the 30-Hz supra protocol, which had the greatest passive tension, exhibited a greater degree of Akt phosphorylation than did the 15-Hz opt and 30-Hz sub protocols. Although these differences were not significant, they suggest a possible secondary role for passive tension, which may interact with active tension in activating the Akt signaling pathway. CONCLUSION Akt activation seems more sensitive to active contractile tension than to passive tension. Activation frequency seems to play no role in the phosphorylation of Akt.
Routing in Modular Fault-Tolerant Multiprocessor Systems

In this paper, we consider a class of modular multiprocessor architectures in which spares are added to each module to cover for faulty nodes within that module, thus forming a fault-tolerant basic block (FTBB). In contrast to reconfiguration techniques that preserve the physical adjacency between active nodes in the system, our goal is to preserve the logical adjacency between active nodes by means of a routing algorithm which delivers messages successfully to their destinations. We introduce two-phase routing strategies that route messages first to their destination FTBB, and then to the destination nodes within the destination FTBB. Such a strategy may be applied to a variety of architectures including binary hypercubes and three-dimensional tori. In the presence of f faults in hypercubes and tori, we show that the worst case length of the message route is min {/spl sigma/+f, (K+1)/spl sigma/}+c where /spl sigma/ is the shortest path in the absence of faults, K is the number of spare nodes in an FTBB, and c is a small constant. The average routing overhead is much lower than the worst case overhead.
Reliable Detection of Loci Responsible for Local Adaptation: Inference of a Null Model through Trimming the Distribution of FST*

Loci responsible for local adaptation are likely to have more genetic differentiation among populations than neutral loci. However, neutral loci can vary widely in their amount of genetic differentiation, even over the same geographic range. Unfortunately, the distribution of differentiation—as measured by an index such as FST—depends on the details of the demographic history of the populations in question, even without spatially heterogeneous selection. Many methods designed to detect FST outliers assume a specific model of demographic history, which can result in extremely high false positive rates for detecting loci under selection. We develop a new method that infers the distribution of FST for loci unlikely to be strongly affected by spatially diversifying selection, using data on a large set of loci with unknown selective properties. Compared to previous methods, this approach, called OutFLANK, has much lower false positive rates and comparable power, as shown by simulation.
ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SERUM CARBOXYMETHYL‐LYSINE, A DOMINANT ADVANCED GLYCATION END PRODUCT, AND ANEMIA IN ADULTS: THE BALTIMORE LONGITUDINAL STUDY OF AGING

To the Editor: The pathophysiology of anemia in older adults is incompletely understood, and a substantial proportion of anemia in this population remains unexplained.1 The factors that play a role in anemia in adults are incompletely identified. Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are a heterogeneous group of bioactive molecules formed by the nonenzymatic glycation of proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids.2 AGEs have been widely implicated in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular and renal disease, and diabetes.2,3
Chloroplast DNA phylogeography of European ashes, Fraxinus sp. (Oleaceae): roles of hybridization and life history traits

We investigated range‐wide phylogeographic variation in three European ash species (Fraxinus sp., Oleaceae). Chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) microsatellites were typed in the thermophilous Fraxinus angustifolia and Fraxinus ornus and the observed haplotypes and the geographic distribution of diversity were compared to cpDNA data previously obtained in the more cold‐tolerant Fraxinus excelsior. We found wide‐ranging haplotype sharing between the phylogenetically close F. angustifolia and F. excelsior, suggesting hybridization (i) in common glacial refuges in the Iberian Peninsula, northern Italy, the eastern and/or Dinaric Alps and the Balkan Peninsula, and/or (ii) during postglacial recolonization. The data allowed us to propose additional glacial refuges for F. angustifolia in southern Italy and in Turkey, and populations from the latter region were particularly polymorphic. There was evidence for refuge areas in Italy, the Balkan Peninsula and Turkey for F. ornus, which did not share any single chloroplast haplotype with the other species. In both F. angustifolia and F. ornus, cpDNA diversity (hS = 0.027 and hS = 0.009, respectively) was lower and fixation levels (GST = 0.964 and GST = 0.983, respectively) higher than in sympatric F. excelsior (hS = 0.096, GST = 0.870). These diversity patterns could be due to temperature tolerance or the demographic history.
Inhibition of lateral wall elongation by mecillinam stimulates cell division in certain cell division conditional mutants of Escherichia coli

The effect of mecillinam, a beta-lactam antibiotic that specifically binds penicillin-binding protein 2 of Escherichia coli, causes transition from rod to coccal shape, and inhibits cell division in sensitive cells, has been tested on three different E. coli temperature-sensitive cell division mutants. At the nonpermissive temperature, the antibiotic allows an increase in cell number for strains BUG6 and AX655 but not for AX621. In strain AX655, the cell division stimulation was observed only if the antibiotic was added immediately after shifting to the nonpermissive temperature, whereas in BUG6, the rise in cell number was observed also when mecillinam was added after 90 min of incubation at the nonpermissive temperature. In all cases, cell division began occurring 30 min after addition of the antibiotic. Mecillinam had no effect on division of dnaA, dnaB temperature-sensitive mutants or on division of BUG6 derivatives made resistant to this antibiotic. Other beta-lactam antibiotics such as penicillin, ampicillin, cephalexin, and piperacillin and non beta-lactam antibiotics such as fosfomycin, teichomycin, and vancomycin that inhibit cell wall synthesis did not show any effect on cell division for any of the mutants. The response of the three cell division mutants to mecillinam is interpreted in terms of a recently proposed model for shape regulation in bacteria.
Capitalizing on the Demographic Transition: Tackling Noncommunicable Diseases in South Asia

This book looks primarily at Cardio Vascular Disease (CVD) and tobacco use because they account for a disproportionate amount of the Non Communicable Disease (NCD) burden the focus is strategic rather than comprehensive. It considers both country and regional level approaches for tackling NCDs, as many of the issues and challenges of mounting an effective response are common to most South Asian countries. The prevention and control of NCDs constitute a development issue that low-income countries in South Asia are already facing. Both country and regional-level strategies are important because many of the issues and challenges of mounting an effective response to NCDs are common to most South Asian countries, even though their disease burden profiles vary. Hence, the rationale for this book is that strategic decisions for prevention and treatment of NCDs can effectively address the future burden of disease, promote healthy aging, and increase the potential benefit from the demographic transition, thus contributing to economic development. This book's goal is to encourage countries to develop, adopt, and implement effective and timely country and regional responses that reduce the population-level risk factors and NCD disease burden.
Heritage and Agglomeration: The Akron Tyre Cluster Revisited

We use new data on the location and background of entrants into the U.S. tire industry to analyze the factors that caused the industry to be so regionally concentrated around Akron, Ohio, a small city with no particular advantages for tire production. We analyze the states where firms entered and for the Ohio entrants the counties where they originated and entered, and we conduct various analyses of how proximity to other tire firms and to demanders affected the longevity of tire producers. We also examine how the heritage of the Ohio entrants influenced their longevity. Our findings suggest that the Akron tire cluster grew primarily through a process of organizational reproduction and heredity rather than through agglomeration economies, as has been commonly posited by scholars of the industry.
Explicit construction of massive spin-two fields in Kaluza-Klein theory.

We show how spontaneous breaking of the Virasoro group in the 5-dimensional Kaluza-Klein theory generates an infinite tower of massive spin-two fields. In particular we show explicitly how the massive spin-two fields can be expressed in terms of the helicity {plus minus}2,{plus minus}1,0 states. Moreover we prove that the effective Lagrangian reduces exactly to the Pauli-Fierz Lagrangian in the lowest order of the perturbation around the vacuum, when expressed exclusively by the massive spin-two fields.
Subthalamic responses to amphetamine and apomorphine in the behaving rat with a unilateral 6‐OHDA lesion in the substantia nigra

The activity of neurons in the subthalamic nucleus (STN) of the behaving rat, before and after a unilateral 6‐OHDA lesion of the substantia nigra, was recorded with the extracellular technique to determine whether it was altered following systemic amphetamine, 5 mg/kg, apomorphine, 3 mg/kg, and apomorphine, 0.3 mg/kg, and whether in cases of altered activity, it was related to the drug‐induced motor response expressed concurrently. Activity in the STN of intact rats increased dramatically after amphetamine, 5 mg/kg. This excitatory response had the same latency, similar magnitude, and the same duration as the motor response expressed in terms of locomotion and oral stereotypy. Motor and unit responses were also induced by amphetamine after the lesion with 6‐hydroxydopamine (6‐OHDA), but now the excitatory response was attenuated while the motor response was not. The effects of the 6‐OHDA lesion were the same in all animals with loss of the nigra dopamine neurons, regardless of whether they were rotators or non‐rotators. Activity in the STN of intact rats also increased after apomorphine, 3 mg/kg, and again, this increase was correlated with the increase in motor behavior, but both responses were of shorter duration than the responses to amphetamine. The increases in unit activity and motor behavior induced by apomorphine in the 6‐OHDA‐lesioned rats had the same magnitude but lasted longer than in the intact rats. Treatment with apomorphine, 0.3 mg/kg, of the intact rats produced small and very brief increases in the activity of the STN and in motor behavior. The same treatment given the 6‐OHDA‐lesioned rats produced responses of larger magnitude but no change in duration. These findings demonstrate a role for STN neurons in the mediation of the motor behaviors induced by stimulation of the dopamine receptor. The results also show that a unilateral lesion of the substantia nigra with 6‐OHDA did not block these responses but altered them in a manner consistent with a dopaminergic deafferentation of the basal ganglia. The increased activity in the STN during the expression of dopamine‐dependent motor behavior conflicts with the current model of basal ganglia function that assumes prejudicial effects of excessive STN activity on the expression of motor behavior. An explanation for this conflict suggests that it is more apparent than real. Synapse 34:228–240, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Visualizing the solvent‐inaccessible core of a group II intron ribozyme

Group II introns are well recognized for their remarkable catalytic capabilities, but little is known about their three‐dimensional structures. In order to obtain a global view of an active enzyme, hydroxyl radical cleavage was used to define the solvent accessibility along the backbone of a ribozyme derived from group II intron ai5γ. These studies show that a highly homogeneous ribozyme population folds into a catalytically compact structure with an extensively internalized catalytic core. In parallel, a model of the intron core was built based on known tertiary contacts. Although constructed independently of the footprinting data, the model implicates the same elements for involvement in the catalytic core of the intron.
Nitrogen removal by tubular gel containing Nitrosomonas europaea and Paracoccus denitrificans

A new bioreactor for the removal of nitrogen from wastewater is described which consists of a tubular polymeric gel containing Nitrosomonas europaea and Paracoccus denitrificans. The outer surface of the tube is in aerobic contact with wastewater containing ammonia, while the inside of the tube is in anaerobic contact with ethanol flowing through the tube. N. europaea oxidizes ammonia to nitrite in the gel, and then P. denitrificans reduces the nitrite to nitrogen gas in the same gel. This concept would be effective for simplifying nitrogen removal systems requiring aerobic and anaerobic operations.
Ibuprofen may abrogate the benefits of aspirin when used for secondary prevention of myocardial infarction.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether patients taking aspirin for secondary prevention of myocardial infarction are at increased risk of recurrent disease when they take concomitant ibuprofen. METHODS In this population based, retrospective cohort study using governmental databases, patients > or = 66 years of age, hospitalized for an index acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between January 1992 and March 1999 and taking ASA throughout the period of followup were identified. The main exposure was the concomitant use of ibuprofen and ASA after the index AMI. The outcome of interest was recurrent AMI. Subjects were followed to one year after the index AMI. RESULTS A total of 18,503 patients met the study entry criteria. Of these, 372 patients were dispensed a prescription for ibuprofen (exposed) and 14,424 patients were not dispensed a prescription for any nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug (NSAID) (unexposed). Patients dispensed prescriptions for any NSAID (n = 4079), naproxen (n = 1239), and diclofenac (n = 1474) were analyzed separately. There was a trend to an increase in the rate of recurrent AMI in patients taking ibuprofen and ASA compared to those taking ASA alone as the duration of exposure increased [hazard ratios for ever, > or = 30 days, and > or = 60 days exposed were 1.01 (95% CI 0.58-1.76), 1.13 (95% CI 0.54-2.39), and 1.83 (95% CI 0.76-4.42), respectively]. In contrast, subjects taking prolonged naproxen and ASA had a trend toward a lower rate of recurrent AMI compared to those taking ASA alone. CONCLUSION The results are consistent with data that suggest that regular, but not intermittent, ibuprofen may abrogate the benefits of aspirin when used for the secondary prevention of AMI. There may be differences in the risk of heart disease with various NSAID.
Overexpression and amplification of c-myc in the Syrian hamster kidney during estrogen carcinogenesis: a probable critical role in neoplastic transformation.

An estrogen receptor-driven, multistep process for estrogen carcinogenesis in the Syrian hamster kidney is proposed. Because in this species the reproductive and urogenital tracts arise from the same embryonic germinal ridge, it is evident that the kidney has carried over genes that are responsive to estrogens. Using in situ hybridization, overexpression of early estrogen-response genes, i.e., c-myc and c-fos, has been shown to be localized preferentially in early renal tumor foci after 3.5-4.0 months of estrogen treatment. This event coincides with an increased number of S-phase proliferating cell nuclear antigen-labeled cells in these tumor foci, along with a rapid rise in aneuploid frequency in the kidney. Western blot analyses of c-MYC and c-FOS protein products support the overexpression of these genes. Amplification of c-myc, 2.4-3.6-fold, but not of c-fos, was detected in 67% of the primary renal tumors examined, by Southern blot analyses. Consistent chromosomal gains, common to both diethylstilbestrol- and estradiol-induced renal neoplasms, were observed in chromosomes 1, 2, 3, (6), 11, (13), 16, 20, and 21 (chromosome number alterations are indicated in parentheses). Using fluorescence in situ hybridization, the c-myc gene was localized to hamster chromosome 6qb. Chromosome 6 exhibited a high frequency of trisomies and tetrasomies in the kidney after 5.0 months of estrogen treatment and in primary renal tumors. The data presented indicate that estrogen-induced genomic instability may be a key element in carcinogenic processes induced by estrogens.
Efficient heuristic algorithms for finding multi-constrained paths

Quality of service routing, namely, finding multi-constrained paths is a real problem arising in multimedia applications, which has been proven to be NP-complete. The paper presents three polynomial-time scalable algorithms for finding a path subject to two additive constraints: one to be a randomized algorithm and two to be limited path heuristic algorithms. To our best knowledge, so far, the best heuristic algorithm among the existing algorithms is Korkmaz's algorithm. However, from our simulations, our algorithms may achieve not only better performance than Korkmaz's algorithm, but also as good performance as the exact algorithm which searches exhaustively all possible paths in the graph to determine whether there exists a solution or not.
Neurocognitive Functioning in Subjects at Risk for a First Episode of Psychosis Compared with First- and Multiple-episode Schizophrenia

Evidence from neurobiological studies suggests that schizophrenia arises from an early abnormality in brain development and possibly further progressive developmental mechanisms. Despite a delay between the acquisition of neuropathology and the triggering of psychosis, neurobiological susceptibility is likely to be expressed subclinically by biobehavioral markers in the premorbid stage. The exploratory study aims at identifying potential neurocognitive risk factors and investigating the unfolding of the illness within a cross-sectional design by comparing neurocognitive profiles in 179 healthy controls, 38 clinically identified subjects in an early initial prodromal state (EIPS) for psychosis, 90 subjects in a late initial prodromal state (LIPS), 86 first-episode patients with schizophrenia, and 88 multiple-episode patients. Subjects at risk were substantially impaired in verbal executive and verbal memory functions. Compared to EIPS subjects, LIPS subjects demonstrated additional attentional deficits. Both EIPS and LIPS subjects were superior to first-episode patients who presented a generalized neuropsychological deficit profile, and to multiple-episode patients who showed evidence for further decline. Although results were influenced by general intellectual abilities and demographic and clinical characteristics, they could not account for total group differences. Results support a neurodevelopmental model of psychosis with further progressive mechanisms and are consistent with a primary involvement of left frontotemporal networks in the prodromal phase.