Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An improved method of sperm selection by glass wool filtration

Summary. An improved method of sperm selection by glass wool filtration is introduced. After incubation of glass wool filtrates for 30 min at 37 °C in a conical‐shaped 1.5‐ml tube, an enrichment of highly motile spermatozoa was found in the bottom layer of the tube. The effect turned out to be dependent on the conical shape of the tube, as it was not observed in flat‐bottomed tubes. Native ejaculates (obtained from 30 men) and their glass wool filtrates were analysed by cell counter, computer‐assisted sperm‐motility analysis, morphological differentiation and supravital staining of spermatozoa. When 400 µl of ejaculate, diluted with 800 µl of medium, was applied to the top of a column consisting of a 1‐ml disposable syringe barrel gently packed with 15 mg of glass wool to a depth of 6 mm, an enrichment of viable spermatozoa was found in the first three 100‐μl fractions taken from the bottom of the tube. It is the simplicity of this technique that makes it so easily applicable.
Measurements of joint moment and knee flexion angle of patients with anterior cruciate ligament deficiency during level walking and on one leg hop.

There are several kinds of evaluating methods of joint function for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injured knees: some are based on mainly subjective assessment [11,12] and others are those combining subjective assessment, and instrumented measurements of knee stability and muscle strength recovery [8]. Functional testing including various sort of runs and hops are occasionally used for evaluating higher athletic ability of patients with ACL injuries [2,20]. More detailed analysis using floor reaction force measurements, electromyography (EMG) and three-dimensional position sensor system are undertaken to clarify motion and function that could not be analyzed only by such clinical functional assesments [1, 23]. Those systematic instrumented analyses have been used for assessing more useful training programs [9,23], evaluating usefulness of bracing [6], and clarifying gait characteristics in patients of varus leg deformity with ACL injuries [19]. Each evaluating method has its own features and limitations, and they are selected depending on usefullness, time and cost efficacy or equipments and time availability. Gait is fundamental motion for human beings. Gait analysis has been used for analyzing the functional impairment of patients with the ACL deficiencies. Berchuck et al. reported that 75% of patients with ACL deficiency have “quadriceps avoidance gait” which has been recognized as a characteristic gait pattern of patients with ACL deficiency [4]. They showed that there were no clear differences between injured and uninjured limbs in joint moment analysis, and the joint moment of the uninjured limb was also abnormal. A “quadriceps avoidance gait” has been reaffirmed as a characteristic gait pattern using EMG [7]. In the report, the differences between the injured and uninjured limbs were also shown. Changes of knee extension angles [16] and synovial reaction after ACL injuries [17] suggested that every patient with the same ACL injuries would differ from each other with regard to joint stiffness and fuctional condition depending on the period after injuries, even if the recovery course after the injury has a common trend. Furthermore, there are possibilities that leg function of every patient will differ
Magnetic Field Coil Measurements of the Accuracy of Extreme Gaze Ocular Fixation

Purpose. (1) To assess the adequacy of the magnetic field coil method (MFCM) for measures of extreme gaze ocular fixation; and (2) to measure the accuracy of ocular fixation for a short duration at gaze angles of 10 to 40°. Methods. Seven subjects participated. Two experiments were performed on the same day. In both experiments, the head and eye were rotated in opposite directions. In the first experiment, search coil slippage was assessed using photographs of a scleral search coil worn on one eye. These photographs were taken with a slitlamp biomicroscope equipped with a digital photography system as subjects rotated the eyes through nasal angles up to 40°. In the second experiment, measures of ocular position were made using the MFCM as the eye was rotated through nasal angles up to 40° to fixate a light-emitting diode target under two conditions. In one condition, subjects simply aimed the eye at the target. In the other, subjects placed a foveal afterimage on the target as the target was viewed through a pinhole. Results. Temporal search coil slippage >10 arc min was noted for three subjects. For one subject, this slippage occurred at gaze angles ≥20°, whereas for the other subjects, the slippage appeared at gaze angles of ≥30°. Ocular fixation had to be assessed from the differences in fixation position between the two conditions in the second experiment because of search coil slippage and because the relationship between the anterior and posterior portions of the eyes changed for some individuals as the gaze angle changed. Fixation was usually accurate (within 10 arc min). There were occasional instances where fixation errors >15 arc min occurred, but we believe that all but one of these cases were attributable to poor localization of the afterimage. Conclusion. Scleral search coils can slip on some individuals in extreme gaze. Search coils may also be inadequate to indicate the direction of the fovea in extreme gaze for some individuals because the relationship between the anterior and posterior portions can change with gaze angle. Once artifacts associated with the MFCM and localization of the afterimage are accounted for, ocular fixation is almost always within 10 arc min of the fixation target at gaze angles of 10 to 40°.
Imputation of Single-Nucleotide Polymorphisms in Inbred Mice Using Local Phylogeny

We present full-genome genotype imputations for 100 classical laboratory mouse strains, using a novel method. Using genotypes at 549,683 SNP loci obtained with the Mouse Diversity Array, we partitioned the genome of 100 mouse strains into 40,647 intervals that exhibit no evidence of historical recombination. For each of these intervals we inferred a local phylogenetic tree. We combined these data with 12 million loci with sequence variations recently discovered by whole-genome sequencing in a common subset of 12 classical laboratory strains. For each phylogenetic tree we identified strains sharing a leaf node with one or more of the sequenced strains. We then imputed high- and medium-confidence genotypes for each of 88 nonsequenced genomes. Among inbred strains, we imputed 92% of SNPs genome-wide, with 71% in high-confidence regions. Our method produced 977 million new genotypes with an estimated per-SNP error rate of 0.083% in high-confidence regions and 0.37% genome-wide. Our analysis identified which of the 88 nonsequenced strains would be the most informative for improving full-genome imputation, as well as which additional strain sequences will reveal more new genetic variants. Imputed sequences and quality scores can be downloaded and visualized online.
Cloning of mRNA Sequences for Two Antibacterial Peptides in a Hemipteran Insect, Riptortus clavatus

Abstract Escherichia coli injection rapidly induced bactericidal activity in the hemolymph of a hemipteran insect, Riptortus clavatus. This activity reached its maximum at 9 hr after injection and thereafter declined slowly. Two types of cDNA clones involved in this response were isolated by differential screening. The predominant type encoded for an open reading frame of 678 amino acids, which consisted of fourteen tandem repeats. Each repeat was rich in charged residues and had a proline-rich region which had striking sequence similarities to proline-rich antibacterial peptides from other insect species, indicating these clones encode a multipeptide precursor of antibacterial peptides. The other type encoded for a glycine-rich peptide similar to a known antibacterial peptide as well. Northern blot analyses revealed rapid induction of mRNAs corresponding to these clones after the injection. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the mRNA sequences of antibacterial peptides of hemimetabolous insects, and the second report on the occurrence of multipeptide precursor structure in insect antibacterial peptides.
Nonlinear Methods to Assess Changes in Heart Rate Variability in Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Background Heart rate variability (HRV) is an important indicator of autonomic modulation of cardiovascular function. Diabetes can alter cardiac autonomic modulation by damaging afferent inputs, thereby increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease. We applied nonlinear analytical methods to identify parameters associated with HRV that are indicative of changes in autonomic modulation of heart function in diabetic patients. Objective We analyzed differences in HRV patterns between diabetic and age-matched healthy control subjects using nonlinear methods. Methods Lagged Poincaré plot, autocorrelation, and detrended fluctuation analysis were applied to analyze HRV in electrocardiography (ECG) recordings. Results Lagged Poincare plot analysis revealed significant changes in some parameters, suggestive of decreased parasympathetic modulation. The detrended fluctuation exponent derived from long-term fitting was higher than the short-term one in the diabetic population, which was also consistent with decreased parasympathetic input. The autocorrelation function of the deviation of inter-beat intervals exhibited a highly correlated pattern in the diabetic group compared with the control group. Conclusion The HRV pattern significantly differs between diabetic patients and healthy subjects. All three statistical methods employed in the study may prove useful to detect the onset and extent of autonomic neuropathy in diabetic patients.
SWINE INFECTIOUS AGENTS IN TAYASSU PECARI AND PECARI TAJACU TISSUE SAMPLES FROM BRAZIL

Abstract Peccaries and pigs, Tayassuidae and Suidae respectively, diverged approximately one million years ago from a common ancestor. Because these families share some pathogens, peccaries can act as reservoirs of infectious pathogens for domestic and wild swine. We evaluated the presence of swine infectious agents in the spleen and lung tissues of white-lipped peccaries (WLP; Tayassu pecari) and collared peccaries (CP; Pecari tajacu) in Brazil. Samples from 10 adult CP and three WLP, which had been hunted by locals or hit by motor vehicles, were obtained from two free-ranging Brazilian populations. The samples were tested by PCR for Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae, Bordetella bronchiseptica, Pasteurella multocida, porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2), Suid herpesvirus 1 (SuHV-1), and porcine parvovirus (PPV). Positive samples were sequenced. Both species were negative for PPV and B. bronchiseptica and positive for PCV2 and SuHV-1. The lungs of two animals were positive for M. hyopneumoniae and P. multocida. This report is the first demonstration of PCV2 and SuHV-1 swine viruses and of M. hyopneumoniae and P. multocida bacteria in peccaries. One factor contributing to this detection was access to tissue samples, which is uncommon. The role of these infectious agents in peccaries is unknown and further epidemiologic studies should be performed. This study identified several infectious agents in peccaries and highlighted the importance of the tissue type used to detect pathogens.
Students’ Perceptions of Safety at School After Sandy Hook

Abstract High profile school shootings have served as pivotal events for developing policies to promote student safety. Although previous studies indicate that exposure to violence is associated with feeling unsafe at school and poorer academic and psychosocial outcomes, research on the relationship between widely publicized acts of school violence and students’ perceptions of safety is scant. This study examines this relationship utilizing data from 66,511 high school students from a single state by comparing survey responses from students who completed surveys before and after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Although several models indicated a statistically significant relationship between Sandy Hook and perceptions of safety, the sizes of the effects were not meaningful. Implications for policy and research are discussed.
Anesthesia for Research on Reconstructive Facial Surgery in Rats

Anesthesia for maxillofacial surgery requires as specialized a technique in rats as in humans because the surgical site is close to the airway. However, no reports can be found that provide a detailed description of effective anesthesia in rats. This study describes an anesthesia technique for the maxillofacial region. Intraperitoneal anesthesia with pentobarbital is the most common type of anesthesia for rats. 1 However, this procedure frequently causes hyperalgesia and postoperative death, and it does not allow a lengthy operation such as reconstructive surgery. Inhalation anesthesia using iso ﬂ urane with an inhalation device would be the safest anesthesia procedure for rats. However, it is not possible to use this device for surgery on the oral and maxillofacial region, as the anesthesia connector covers the entire face of the rat. There-fore, a simple nasal mask is required. This study attempted to make a nasal mask from a 50-mm balloon (internal diameter: 15 mm), 40 mm of plastic tubing cut
Music and Suicidality

In recent years, the question whether personal suicidality is reflected in individual music preferences has been discussed. We assessed associations of preferred music genres and cumulative exposure to and rating of 50 preselected songs, including 25 suicide-related songs, with suicide risk factors in an online survey with 943 participants. Preferences for sad music were associated with high psychoticism, while fanship of music genres with predominantly joyful contents was linked to low psychoticism. There was a dose-response relationship of positive rating of suicide songs with high life satisfaction and low hopelessness. Music preferences partly reflect suicide risk factors, but enjoyment of suicide songs is negatively associated with risk factors of suicide, which may indicate a psychological defense mechanism against suicidal impulses.
Evaluation of smart video for transit event detection

Transit agencies are increasingly using video cameras to fight crime and terrorism. As the volume of video data increases, the existing digital video surveillance systems provide the infrastructure only to capture, store and distribute video, while leaving the task of threat detection exclusively to human operators. The objective of this research project was to study and develop an evaluation framework for commercial video analytics systems. A state-of-the-art research literature survey was conducted. Identified strengths, weaknesses, future directions of research and state-of-the-art commercial video analytics products were surveyed. Product capabilities were identified by working together with vendors and analyzing the available literature offered by the providers. Use of analytic technology in transit agencies in Florida was analyzed. A technology survey among the largest agencies in the state indicates very low use of video analytics, significant skepticism, and poor general knowledge of the technology and its capabilities. Based on existing general evaluation frameworks, an evaluation framework for video analytics technology was developed, including annotation guidelines, scoring metrics, and implementation of the scoring metrics in the scoring software.
Network-aware migration control and scheduling of differentiated virtual machine workloads

Server virtualization enables dynamic workload management for data centers. However, especially live migrations of virtual machines (VM) induce significant overheads on physical hosts and the shared network infrastructure possibly leading to host overloads and SLA violations of co-hosted applications. While some recent work addresses the impact of live migrations on CPUs of physical hosts, little attention has been given to the control and optimization of migration algorithms and migration-related network bandwidth consumption. In this paper we introduce network topology aware scheduling models for VM live migrations. We propose a scheme for classifying VMs based on their workload characteristics and propose adequate resource and migration scheduling models for each class, taking network bandwidth requirements of migrations and network topologies into account. We also underline the necessity for additional migration control parameters for efficient migration scheduling.
School and Community Characteristics Related to Dating Violence Victimization Among High School Youth

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine how school (e.g., school poverty rate) and community (e.g., county population density) characteristics relate to DV victimization and DV victim outcomes among high school youth. Method: The data used in this paper come from the 2013 New Hampshire Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). Participants included in this study were 24,976 high school students from 71 public schools who completed the YRBS, ranged in age from 13 and to 18+ years old, and reported dating during the past year. Results: Physical DV victimization was related to higher school-level poverty rates and youth feeling low levels of community mattering. Sexual DV victimization was related to youth feeling low levels of community mattering and participating in community groups. Population density was unrelated to both physical and sexual DV victimization. Among DV victims, higher perceptions of community mattering was related to lower levels of depression and poor academics. DV victims not involved in community group participation had poorer academics than DV victims involved in community groups. Binge drinking was unrelated to school and community characteristics. Conclusions: Initiatives that focus on reducing poverty and improving youths’ perceptions of community mattering could be important components of more comprehensive efforts to reduce DV incidence.
Automatic Generation of RDF Metadata

The Resource Description Framework (RDF[9]) has bee n developed to fulfil the need for a mechanism for re source description within the Web's architecture. With ove r 320 million[10] individually accessible objects on the Web, the ability to describe each one so that it can be conceptualiz ed without being accessed and analyzed is increasingly importa nt. This paper describes how an automatic classifier[8], that clas sifies Web pages according to Dewey Decimal Classification[6], can b e used to automatically extract various metadata elements in addition to the classification classmarks. This metadata is then p r sented in RDF format. The classifier is written in Java and has been developed to form part of a distributed automated search engi ne. The use of automatic classification is intended to combine the well organized, intuitive to use, accurate features of c lassified directories with the comprehensive coverage and spe ed of automated search engines. An appropriate metadata element set for use within an automated search engine is define d which is an interoperable subset of the Dublin Core[14] element s. An RDF data model[9] and schema[1] are defined along with examples of automatically generated RDF for a range of resource s. Automatically generated metadata of this kind has c onsiderable potential for describing shared resources between s ubject gateways and could also encourage information shari ng between automated search engines. Resource descriptions are also important for content rating and authentication and s such the automatic generation of RDF metadata is arguably an essential prerequisite for a comprehensive 'Web of Trust'.
Eating habits, health status and health behaviour of young Austrian men aged 17 to 20 in context to their lifestyles

• The assessment of nutritional behavior was carried out by FFQ. • The physical activity was measured by IPAQ 2005 [2] • The lifestyle was determined by indicators having a negative impact on health like diet, smoking, alcohol, physical activity and BMI [3.4] • The health status was determined on the basis of nutrition-related biochemical parameters (sub sample 2011) and was compared with those of men investigated ten years ago (sub sample 2001).
CAC-live: Centralized assisted cloud P2P live streaming

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) live video streaming over the Internet is a developing technology that recently has gained more attention. The use of P2P network with leveraging of local resources of peers, increases scalability and reduces costs. One of the limitations of P2P live video streaming systems is the lack of adequate resources such as available upload bandwidth, both at video source and inside P2P overlay network that lead to reduce the quality of service (QoS) experienced by the users. One solution for this problem is to employ additional on-demand resources such as virtual machines (VM) that are rented from a cloud provider to increase the amount of total available bandwidth. In this paper, we propose an architecture for improving the QoS of the peers by using virtual machines (VMs) dynamically are rented from cloud providers. Estimation of required VMs is performed through a central-based method and the number of VMs is calculated periodically. Our simulation based performance evaluation shows the efficiency of the proposed method.
There's more to a model than code: understanding and formalizing in silico modeling experience

Mapping biology into computation has both a domain specific aspect -- biological theory -- and a methodological aspect -- model development. Computational modelers have implicit knowledge that guides modeling in many ways but this knowledge is rarely communicated. We review the challenge of biological complexity and current practices in modeling genetic regulatory networks with the aim of understanding characteristics of the in silico modeling process and proposing directions for future improvements. Specifically, we contend that the modeling of complex biological systems can be made more efficient and more effective by the use of structured methodologies incorporating experience about modeling algorithms and implementation. We suggest that an appropriate formalism is Complex Systems Patterns, adopted from Design Patterns in software engineering. First steps towards building community resources for such patterns are described.
Attelia: sensing user's attention status on smart phones

In progressing ubiquitous computing where number of devices, applications and the web services are ever increasing, human user's attention is a new bottleneck in computing. This paper proposes Attelia, a novel middleware that senses user's attention status on user's smart phones in real-time, without any dedicated psycho-physiological sensors. To find better delivery timings of interruptive notifications from various applications and services to mobile users, Attelia detects breakpoint[16] of user's activity on the smart phones, with our novel "Application as a Sensor"(AsaS) approach and machine learning technique. Our initial evaluation of Attelia shows it can detect breakpoints of users with accuracy of 80--90%.
Toward a Model of Organizational Cultural Identification in Chinese Context

Organizational culture is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms which are believed and followed by most employees in business. Therefore, cultural identification is a critical issue because business culture could not have any effect without the belief and identification by employees. Studies about organizational cultural identification, however, are very limited and lacking of reliably empirical process. This research reviewed recent studies about cultural identity, and tried to propose an exploratory model of organizational cultural identification. Through qualitative and quantitative studies, the paper proposed that organizational cultural identification has four dimensions: cognitive, affective, behavioral, and social. The Organizational Cultural Identification Scale (OCIS) developed by the study has also been proved to be reliable and valid for future researches.