Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ethnicity, place, and communication technology: Effects of ethnicity on multi-dimensional internet connectedness

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the unique effect of ethnicity on people's internet connectedness. Internet connectedness is a multi‐dimensional relationship that individuals form with the internet.Design/methodology/approach – Survey findings from a study of four ethnic groups living in seven residential areas within ten miles from the Los Angeles Civic Center indicate that ethnicity has a significant unique effect not only on the rate of people's internet access, but also on the three dimensions of the internet connectedness index: context and history; scope and intensity; and centrality, after controlling for individual socio‐economic factors.Findings – The results indicated that African‐Americans lagged behind other ethnic groups in all three dimensions of their internet connectedness. This suggests that the ways in which the internet is incorporated into people's everyday lives are likely to differ by geo‐ethnic areas.Originality/value – Implications of these results are discussed f.
Qualitative Stability in Model Ecosystems

We discuss deductions that can be made as to the stability of multispecies communities, knowing only the structure of the food web, i.e., knowing only the signs of the elements in the interation matrix. Systems which are stable in these circumstances are called qualitatively stable and have been treated in economic and other contexts. The discussion touches upon general aspects of the relation between complexity and stability in multispecies systems, and in particular suggests that on stability grounds predator—prey bonds should be more common than mutualistic ones. This result is not intuitively obvious, but is a feature of many real—world ecosystems.
Organizational and media stress among professional football players: testing an achievement goal theory model

The purpose of this study was to investigate media and coach–athlete stress experienced by professional football players and their relationship to motivational variables by testing an achievement goal theory (AGT) stress model. In order to do so, we developed scales specifically designed to assess media and coach–athlete stress. Eighty‐two elite football players (Mage=25.17 years, SD=5.19) completed a series of questionnaires. Correlations and bootstrapping were used as primary statistical analyses, supplemented by LISREL, to test the hypotheses. Results revealed that a mastery climate was directly and negatively associated with coach–athlete stress, while a performance climate was directly and positively associated with coach–athlete stress. In addition, an indirect positive path between the performance climate and media stress was revealed through ego orientation. These findings support some of the key postulates of AGT; a mastery climate reduces the perception of stress among athletes, and the converse is true for a performance climate. Coaches of elite footballers are advised to try to reduce the emphasis on performance criteria because of its stress‐reducing effects.
Review of phosphodiesterases in the urogenital system: new directions for therapeutic intervention.

INTRODUCTION With the success of Phosphodiesterase (PDE) type 5 inhibitors (i.e., sildenafil, tadalafil, vardenafil) in the treatment of erectile dysfunction (ED), PDEs are considered attractive targets for drug intervention in the urogenital tract. AIM To review the role of PDEs, which exist as a superfamily of enzymes comprising 11 distinct families, in the urogenital system, focusing on anatomical locations, functions and dysfunctions, potential disorders that could be treated, and any promising new selective PDE inhibitors under development. METHODS Included are (i) abstracts from 2001, 2002, and 2003; (ii) a MEDLINE search from 1996 through December 2003; and (iii) a pipeline search for therapeutics in development. Data from animal experiments are presented when there is a paucity of human data, but with the caveat that the distribution of PDE isozymes in a specific tissue can vary between species. RESULTS PDE mRNA and protein have been localized throughout the normal human urogenital tract. Double-blind, placebo-controlled studies suggest possible new clinical roles for sildenafil, including prophylaxis to preserve penile smooth muscle and erectile function after radical prostatectomy, and treatment of ejaculatory delay secondary to serotonergic reuptake inhibitor antidepressant therapy. Open-label studies suggest a potential clinical role for: vinpocetine (a PDE1 inhibitor) in the treatment of incontinence and low-compliance bladder; and sildenafil in the treatment of premature ejaculation, prostate-related lower urinary tract symptoms, and in women who have had unsuccessful in vitro fertilization. Several new orally administered PDE5 inhibitors are in early clinical development for the treatment of ED. Potential indications for PDE inhibitors that are suggested by preclinical data include Peyronie's disease, ureteral colic, male and female birth control, and prevention of preterm labor. CONCLUSIONS Drug selectivity and differential PDE tissue distribution allow for potential targeted intervention for numerous disorders related to the urogenital tract.
Reduction of infarct size and postischemic inflammation from ATL-146e, a highly selective adenosine A2A receptor agonist, in reperfused canine myocardium.

Adenosine and adenosine A(2A) receptor agonists have been shown to limit myocardial infarct size when given at vasodilatory doses during reperfusion. This beneficial effect is thought to be due, in part, to stimulation of adenosine A(2A) receptors on inflammatory cells. The specific aims of this study were to determine whether the anti-inflammatory and cardioprotective properties of a novel adenosine A(2A) receptor agonist, ATL-146e (ATL), alone or in combination with the phosphodiesterase IV inhibitor rolipram would occur using very low, nonvasodilating doses. In a canine model of reperfused myocardial infarction, low-dose ATL given alone reduced infarct size by 45% (P < 0.05 vs. control). When ATL was combined with a very low dose of rolipram (0.001 microg.kg(-1). min(-1)), a marked reduction in P-selectin expression and neutrophil infiltration (51% lower; P < 0.001 vs. control) was seen and the infarct size reduction (58% lower; P < 0.01 vs. control) was greater than observed with ATL (45% lower; P < 0.05) or rolipram (33% lower; P < 0.05) alone. In conclusion, a low, nonvasodilating dose of ATL, a highly selective adenosine A(2A) receptor agonist, reduced infarct size after reperfusion. Furthermore, combining ATL and the phosphodiesterase IV inhibitor rolipram reduced infarct size even more than either agent alone. Such combination therapy may be beneficial clinically by potentiating cardioprotection after coronary reperfusion at doses far below those producing vasodilatation or side effects.
Investigating Critical Frequency Bands and Channels for EEG-Based Emotion Recognition with Deep Neural Networks

To investigate critical frequency bands and channels, this paper introduces deep belief networks (DBNs) to constructing EEG-based emotion recognition models for three emotions: positive, neutral and negative. We develop an EEG dataset acquired from 15 subjects. Each subject performs the experiments twice at the interval of a few days. DBNs are trained with differential entropy features extracted from multichannel EEG data. We examine the weights of the trained DBNs and investigate the critical frequency bands and channels. Four different profiles of 4, 6, 9, and 12 channels are selected. The recognition accuracies of these four profiles are relatively stable with the best accuracy of 86.65%, which is even better than that of the original 62 channels. The critical frequency bands and channels determined by using the weights of trained DBNs are consistent with the existing observations. In addition, our experiment results show that neural signatures associated with different emotions do exist and they share commonality across sessions and individuals. We compare the performance of deep models with shallow models. The average accuracies of DBN, SVM, LR, and KNN are 86.08%, 83.99%, 82.70%, and 72.60%, respectively.
The State of Theoretical Diversity

Theory provides the medium for organizing and communicating knowledge that enables scientific collaboration. Review of five years of published work in two major IS journals, Management Information Systems Quarterly and Journal of Management Information Systems, describes the nature of this theoretical diversity in IS research. Two-hundred-seventy-three articles were evaluated for theoretical citations to identify the range of theories in Information Systems. Approximately half of the papers explicitly cited one of the 111 theories identified. Thirty of the theories were cited multiple times, representing 55% of the citations. The large number of theories used and the small number used more than once indicate that theoretical diversity clearly exists in information systems research. Based on the results, no theory emerged as a potential candidate for the role of grand/unified theory of information systems.
A New Efficient RNS Reverse Converter for the 4-Moduli Set

—In this paper, we propose a new efﬁcient reverse converter for the 4-moduli set (cid:4) 2 n , 2 n + 1 , 2 n − 1 , 2 2 n +1 − 1 (cid:5) based on a modiﬁed Chinese Remainder Theorem and Mixed Radix Conversion. Additionally, the resulting architecture is further reduced to obtain a reverse converter that utilizes only carry save adders, a multiplexer and carry propagate adders. The proposed converter has an area cost of (12 n + 2) FAs and (5 n + 1) HAs with a delay of (9 n + 6) t FA + t MUX . When compared with state of the art, our proposal demonstrates to be faster, at the expense of slightly more hardware resources. Further, the Area-Time square metric was computed which indicated that our proposed scheme outperforms the state of the art reverse converter.
Phosphorylation-Dependent Desensitization by Anandamide of Vanilloid Receptor-1 (TRPV1) Function in Rat Skeletal Muscle Arterioles and in Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells Expressing TRPV1

It has been proposed that activation of vanilloid receptor-1 (TRPV1) affects the vasotone of resistance arteries. One of the endogenous activators of TRPV1 is anandamide. The effects of anandamide on TRPV1 responsiveness were tested on isolated, pressurized (80 mm Hg) skeletal muscle (m. gracilis) arterioles (179 ± 33 μm in diameter). We found that the TRPV1 agonist capsaicin (1 μM) elicited a substantial constriction in isolated arterioles (51 ± 12%). In contrast, anandamide (0-100 μM) did not affect arteriolar diameter significantly (3 ± 5%). Isolated vessels were also preincubated with anandamide (30 μM for 20 min). This anandamide pretreatment completely blocked capsaicin-induced arteriolar constriction (response decreased to 1 ± 0.6%), and this inhibition was reversed by a protein phosphatase-2B inhibitor (cyclosporin-A; 100 nM, 5 min) treatment (constriction, 31 ± 1%). An exogenous TRPV1-expressing cell line [Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)-TRPV1] was used to specifically evaluate TRPV1-mediated effects of anandamide. The efficacy of anandamide in this system, as determined by 45Ca2+ uptake, was 65 ± 8% of that of capsaicin. Upon treatment of the cells with cyclosporin-A or the protein kinase C activator phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA), anandamide was transformed to a full agonist. Anandamide treatment caused an acute desensitization in these cells as measured by intracellular Ca2+ imaging. Application of cyclosporin-A or PMA reversed this desensitization. Our data suggest that anandamide may cause a complete (albeit phosphorylation-dependent) desensitization of TRPV1 in skeletal muscle arterioles and in CHO-TRPV1 cells, which apparently transforms the ligand-gated TRPV1 into a phosphorylationgated channel. This property of anandamide may provide a new therapeutic strategy to manipulate TRPV1 activity.
Ridge-trench interactions and the Neogene tectonic evolution of the Magdalena shelf and southern Gulf of California: Insights from detrital zircon U-Pb ages from the Magdalena fan and adjacent areas

ABSTRACTThe Magdalena fan is an apparently beheaded submarine depocenter that has ﬁ g-ured prominently in reconstructions of mid-dle to late Miocene Paciﬁ c–North American plate interactions. The deposit accumulated rapidly at the base of the continental slope on top of newly formed oceanic crust of the Magdalena microplate from 14.5 to 13 Ma. Subduction of this crust ceased as the Paciﬁ c-Magdalena spreading center encountered the trench. The widely accepted two-phase kine-matic model for the formation of the Gulf of California holds that ~300 km of dextral shear between the Paciﬁ c and North Ameri-can plates occurred along faults west of Baja California prior to the onset of dextral-trans-tensional shearing in the gulf ca. 6 Ma. We measured 1796 detrital zircon U-Pb ages from 65 samples in an effort to character-ize the provenance of the fan, determine its source region, and deﬁ ne the cumulative dextral slip along faults offshore of south-western Baja California. Zircons from the fan are dominantly 120–65 Ma with subor-dinate 15–35 Ma grains. Excellent matches to the fan can be obtained by mixing Magda-lena shelf strata and/or adding detritus from the west-draining portion of the Los Cabos block. The same cannot be accomplished with zir cons from the east-draining portion of the Los Cabos block and mainland Mex-ico. Our results favor a western Baja source region for the fan and suggest that cumula-tive dextral slip along faults west of Baja was <150 km, much less than previously believed. We propose that the fan was fed by erosional denudation of the Magdalena shelf produced by increased mantle buoyancy due to the ridge-trench juxtaposition. The fan’s source was cut off when faults west of Baja Califor-nia began to accommodate transtensional shearing and form rift basins that captured detritus that previously reached the trench.Keywords:
Parkin attenuates manganese‐induced dopaminergic cell death

Manganese as environmental factor is considered to cause parkinsonism and induce endoplasmic reticulum stress‐mediated dopaminergic cell death. We examined the effects of manganese on parkin, identified as the gene responsible for familial Parkinson's disease, and the role of parkin in manganese‐induced neuronal cell death. Manganese dose‐dependently induced cell death of dopaminergic SH‐SY5Y and CATH.a cells and cholinergic Neuro‐2a cells, and that the former two cell types were more sensitive to manganese toxicity than Neuro‐2a cells. Moreover, manganese increased the expression of endoplasmic reticulum stress‐associated genes, including parkin, in SH‐SY5Y cells and CATH.a cells, but not in Neuro‐2a cells. Treatment with manganese resulted in accumulation of parkin protein in SH‐SY5Y cells and its redistribution to the perinuclear region, especially aggregated Golgi complex, while in Neuro‐2a cells neither expression nor redistribution of parkin was noted. Manganese showed no changes in proteasome activities in either cell. Transient transfection of parkin gene inhibited manganese‐ or manganese plus dopamine‐induced cell death of SH‐SY5Y cells, but not of Neuro‐2a cells. Our results suggest that the attenuating effects of parkin against manganese‐ or manganese plus dopamine‐induced cell death are dopaminergic cell‐specific compensatory reactions associated with its accumulation and redistribution to perinuclear regions but not with proteasome system.
Early impairment of calcium handling and altered expression of junctin in hearts of mice overexpressing the β1−adrenergic receptor

Chronic stimulation of cardiac β1‐adrenergic receptors contributes to disease progression and mortality in patients and animal models of heart failure. To search for the mechanism of adrenergic impairment of cardiac function in vivo, we studied transgenic mice with cardiac‐specific overexpression of β1‐adrenergic receptors. Transgenic mice with cardiac overexpression of β1‐adrenergic receptors showed progressive left ventricular fibrosis starting at 4 months of age. Left ventricular catheterization revealed a modest enhancement of contractility and relaxation at 2 months of age, followed by progressive dysfunction in both parameters and ultimately cardiac failure. When the effects of endogenous catecholamines were blocked by the β‐receptor antagonist propranolol, maximal rate of contractility (dp/dtmax) and maximal rate of relaxation (dp/dtmin) were significantly blunted in 2‐month‐old β1‐receptor transgenic mice. Isolated cardiomyocytes from these animals displayed markedly altered calcium transients with significant prolongation of the intracellular calcium transient compared with nontransgenic littermates. We determined the expression of sarcoplasmic reticulum proteins involved in calcium handling by RNase protection assay and by immunoblotting. Although the expression of calsequestrin, triadin, and phospholamban was not altered, we observed a progressive decrease in junctin abundance in β1‐receptor transgenic mice (P < 0.001 TG vs. WT). Altered expression of the sarcoplasmic reticulum protein junctin may be involved in the pathogenesis of cardiac failure after chronic stimulation of β1‐adrenergic receptors.
Two-Dimensional Precoding for 3-D Massive MIMO

A 2-D precoding scheme is proposed for 3-D massive multiple-input multiple-output (MMIMO) systems for efficiently exploiting the 2-D antenna array of the base station. Specifically, by exploiting the Kronecker structure of the 3-D MIMO channel matrix, the transmit precoding operation is divided into elevation-domain precoding and azimuth-domain precoding. Explicitly, in contrast to the existing beamforming schemes, precoding is also performed in the vertical dimension. Consequently, the proposed scheme is capable of fully exploiting the extra degrees of freedom provided by the vertical dimension for avoiding the interuser interference to improve the attainable system performance. Compared to the conventional scheme relying on the equivalent 1-D precoding, the proposed 2-D precoding scheme offers an improved performance in severe intercell interference-contaminated environments, despite its lower complexity.
Conservation Goals and the Relative Importance of Costs and Benefits in Reserve Selection

Abstract: Including both economic costs and biological benefits of sites in systematic reserve selection greatly increases cost‐efficiency. Nevertheless, limited funding generally forces conservation planners to choose which data to focus the most resources on; therefore, the relative importance of different types of data must be carefully assessed. We investigated the relative importance of including information about costs and benefits for 3 different commonly used conservation goals: 2 in which biological benefits were measured per site (species number and conservation value scores) and 1 in which benefits were measured on the basis of site complementarity (total species number in the reserve network). For each goal, we used site‐selection models with data on benefits only, costs only, and benefits and costs together, and we compared the efficiency of each model. Costs were more important to include than benefits for the goals in which benefits were measured per site. By contrast, for the complementarity‐based goal, benefits were more important to include. To understand this pattern, we compared the variability in benefits and in costs for each goal. By comparing the best and the worst possible selection of sites with regard to costs alone and benefits alone for each conservation goal, we introduced a simple and consistent variability measure that is applicable to all kinds of reserve‐selection situations. In our study, benefit variability depended strongly on how the conservation goal was formulated and was largest for the complementarity‐based conservation goal. We argue that from a cost‐efficiency point of view, most resources should be spent on collecting the most variable type of data for the conservation goal at hand.
Influence of adiposity on the thermic effect of food and exercise in lean and obese adolescents.

To determine the effect of adiposity on adolescent energy expenditure compartments, basal energy expenditure (BEE) together with the thermic effect of food at rest and during post-exercise recovery were compared in eight lean (BMI < 25 kg/m2) and eight obese (BMI > 27 kg/m2) 15-year-old adolescent males at the same stage of pubertal development. Both groups were of equivalent fat-free mass. Continuous energy expenditure was measured by open circuit indirect calorimetry for periods of up to three hours following: (i) an overnight fast; (ii) a test meal; and (iii) moderate exercise after a further serving of the test meal. Repeat baseline measurements were taken on the following day. Absolute basal energy expenditure was higher in obese than in lean subjects. No significant differences were observed between groups in relation to BEE per kg total fat free-mass. Thermogenesis was significantly greater in the lean relative to the obese group under resting conditions (61.1 +/- 8.9 vs. 41.4 +/- 5.1 kcal/3h; P < 0.05) and in the post-exercise period (69.4 +/- 6.3 vs. 49.0 +/- 5.6 kcal/3h; P < 0.05). Of the body composition parameters, percentage fat mass was the best predictor of the thermic effect of food at rest (R = -0.53; P = 0.03) and post-exercise recovery (R = -0.61; P = 0.012). The results indicated that: (i) even when lean and obese adolescents are comparable with respect to fat-free mass, thermogenesis is blunted in obese subjects; and (ii) the best body composition predictor of thermogenesis in adolescents is percentage fat mass.
Time patterns in multiple acute cerebral infarcts

Background Multiple acute cerebral infarcts in different arterial territories may be caused by several emboli concurrently or successively. Aim and/or hypothesis We hypothesized that the time from stroke onset to magnetic resonance imaging may shed light on underlying mechanisms of multiple acute cerebral infarcts. Methods This is a prospective observational cohort study involving 2697 ischemic stroke patients conducted at Haukeland University Hospital between February 2006 and October 2013. Only patients with diffusion-weighted imaging lesions in more than one arterial territory (left or right anterior circulation or posterior circulation) were included. The time from stroke onset to magnetic resonance imaging was registered and correlated with the etiology of multiple acute cerebral infarcts in each patient. Results We reviewed 2697 consecutive patients and 2220 (82%) underwent magnetic resonance imaging. Among these 2125 (96%) had diffusion-weighted imaging lesions. We found 187 multiple acute cerebral infarct patients who were then included in the study. There was positive correlation (0.20; p < .001) between time to magnetic resonance imaging and frequency of multiple acute cerebral infarcts caused by internal carotid stenosis. There was no correlation (−.02) between time to magnetic resonance imaging and frequency of multiple acute cerebral infarcts caused by cardiogenic embolism. Conclusions Multiple acute cerebral infarcts associated with cardiogenic embolism seem to happen concurrently as a shower of emboli whereas multiple acute cerebral infarcts associated with internal carotid artery stenosis seem to occur successively separated by hours or days.