Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Murine Model of Robotic Training to Evaluate Skeletal Muscle Recovery after Injury

Purpose In vivo studies have suggested that motor exercise can improve muscle regeneration after injury. Nevertheless, preclinical investigations still lack reliable tools to monitor motor performance over time and to deliver optimal training protocols to maximize force recovery. Here, we evaluated the utility of a murine robotic platform (i) to detect early impairment and longitudinal recovery after acute skeletal muscle injury and (ii) to administer varying intensity training protocols to enhance forelimb motor performance. Methods A custom-designed robotic platform was used to train mice to perform a forelimb retraction task. After an acute injury to bilateral biceps brachii muscles, animals performed a daily training protocol in the platform at high (HL) or low (LL) loading levels over the course of 3 wk. Control animals were not trained (NT). Motor performance was assessed by quantifying force, time, submovement count, and number of movement attempts to accomplish the task. Myofiber number and cross-sectional area at the injury site were quantified histologically. Results Two days after injury, significant differences in the time, submovement count, number of movement attempts, and exerted force were observed in all mice, as compared with baseline values. Interestingly, the recovery time of muscle force production differed significantly between intervention groups, with HL group showing a significantly accelerated recovery. Three weeks after injury, all groups showed motor performance comparable with baseline values. Accordingly, there were no differences in the number of myofibers or average cross-sectional area among groups after 3 wk. Conclusion Our findings demonstrate the utility of our custom-designed robotic device for the quantitative assessment of skeletal muscle function in preclinical murine studies. Moreover, we demonstrate that this device may be used to apply varying levels of resistance longitudinally as a means manipulate physiological muscle responses.
A pattern reconfigurable printed patch antenna

The purpose of this paper is to present the design, operation and fabrication of a pattern reconfigurable patch antenna. Two rectangular patches which are placed perpendicularly to each other are fed with a common feed line. These patches are fed from the corners so that the exact impedance matching could be obtained for both elements. Switching between the patches is achieved using PIN diodes, connected between the feed line and the patches. The biasing of the PIN diode 1 excites Patch 1, resulting in a broadside radiation pattern at 30° to the right side of the yz-plane with a gain of 5.85 dBi. The pattern is reconfigured by switching to Patch 2 using PIN diode 2, which gives a broadside radiation pattern at -30° to the left side of the yz-plane with a gain of 5.9 dBi. A good agreement between simulated and measured results is obtained at the 2.43 GHz resonating frequency. The antenna is printed on a low loss 1.524 thick Rogers TMM4 laminate (εr = 4.5, tanδ = 0.002). The antenna has an overall size of (58 × 100 mm2).
Compressed sense sigma delta modulators for bio-medical image acquisition

The emerging theory of Compressed Sensing has paved way for many technological advancements in the high frequency band which were earlier limited by the Nyquist rate. The theory, among its myriad of applications, enables direct analog to digital conversion of compressible signals, at sub-Nyquist acquisition rates. This paper presents a compressed sense sigma delta modulator architecture for bio medical image acquisition, which are inherently highly sparse. Analog to Digital conversion is performed at the RF frequency. System level simulations of various architectures like the CIFF, CIFB, CRFF and CRFB have been tested and results reported.
Feasibility and effectiveness of psychosocial resilience training: A pilot study of the READY program

Despite many studies on the characteristics associated with resilience, there is little research on interventions to promote resilience in adults. The aims of this study were to gather preliminary information regarding the feasibility of implementing a group psychosocial resilience training program (REsilience and Activity for every DaY, READY) in a workplace setting, and to assess if program would potentially promote well-being. The program targets five protective factors identified from empirical evidence: Positive emotions, cognitive flexibility, social support, life meaning, and active coping. Resilience enhancement strategies reflect core acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) processes and cognitive behavior therapy strategies. Sessions involve psychoeducation, discussions, experiential exercises, and home assignments. Sixteen participants completed 11 × two h group sessions over 13 weeks. Baseline and post-intervention assessment included self-administered questionnaires, pedometer step counts, and physical and hematological measures. Data were analyzed using standardized mean differences and paired t-tests. There was a significant improvement between baseline and post intervention scores on measures of mastery (p = 0.001), positive emotions (p = 0.002), personal growth (p = 0.004), mindfulness (p = 0.004), acceptance (p = 0.012), stress (p = 0.013), self acceptance (p = 0.016), valued living (p = 0.022), autonomy (p = 0.032) and total cholesterol (p = 0.025). Participants rated the program and materials very highly. These results indicate that the READY program is feasible to implement as a group training program in a workplace setting to promote psychosocial well-being.
Nanotechnology in environmental remediation: degradation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) over visible-light-active nanostructured materials

Abstract Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are major pollutants and are considered to be one of the most important contaminants generated by human beings living in urban and industrial areas. Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) is a VOC that has been widely used as a gasoline additive to reduce VOC emissions from motor vehicles. However, new gasoline additives like MTBE are having negative environmental impacts. Recent survey reports clearly show that groundwater is often polluted owing to leakage of petroleum products from underground storage tanks. MTBE is highly soluble in water (e.g., 0.35–0.71 M) and has been detected at high concentrations in groundwater. The presence of MTBE in groundwater poses a potential health problem. The documented effects of MTBE exposure are headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, cough, muscle aches, sleepiness, disorientation, dizziness, and skin and eye irritation. To address these problems, photocatalytic treatment is the preferred treatment for polluted water. In the present work, a simple and template-free solution phase synthesis method has been developed for the preparation of novel cadmium sulfide (CdS) hollow microspheres using cadmium nitrate and thioacetamide precursors. The synthesized products have been characterized by a variety of methods, including X-ray powder diffraction, high-resolution scanning electron microscopy (HR-SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and UV-visible diffused reflectance spectroscopy. The HR-SEM measurements revealed the spherical morphology of the CdS microspheres, which evolved by the oriented aggregation of the primary CdS nanocrystals. Furthermore, studies of photocatalytic activity revealed that the synthesized CdS hollow microspheres exhibit an excellent photocatalytic performance in rapidly degrading MTBE in aqueous solution under visible light illumination. These results suggest that CdS microspheres will be an interesting candidate for photocatalytic detoxification studies under visible light radiation.
The Case‐Only Odds Ratio as a Causal Parameter

Summary. In the simplest case‐only design, cases of a disease are cross‐classified into a 2 × 2 table describing a genotype attribute and exposure to some environmental agent. In some instances, the genetic attribute has described inherited genes; in other instances, it has described mutations, for instance, damage to proto‐oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes leading to cancer. Here, the population case‐only odds ratio is written as a causal parameter in terms of potential outcomes with and without exposure to the agent. It is shown that the case‐only odds ratio makes sense as a causal parameter with inherited genes, but its magnitude does not have a causal interpretation with mutations, although deviations from 1 do provide information. The difference is that the environmental agent certainly did not cause an individual to inherit particular genes, but it may have caused the mutation.
Physical models of the vocal tract with a flapping tongue for flap and liquid sounds

Certain sounds are difficult for children to produce, even if the sounds are in their native language. For example, Japanese /r/ can be difficult for Japanese children to learn. Second language learners can also have difficulty acquiring certain sounds. For example, Japanese speakers learning English often have difficulty with English /r/ and /l/. To address this problem, we have developed two new physical models of the vocal tract: one for flap sounds (Model A) and another for liquid sounds (Model B). Each of them has a flapping tongue, and for Model B, the length of the tongue is variable. When the tongue is short, we can produce alveolar/retroflex approximants, and when the tongue is long we can produce lateral approximants. We recorded several sets of sounds produced by these models, analyzed the speech data, and used them for perceptual experiments. From the acoustic analysis and the perceptual experiments, we confirmed that the sounds produced by Model A were heard as Japanese /r/, and the sounds produced by Model B were heard as English /r/ and /l/. Furthermore, the models are helpful for practicing pronunciation because learners can see the tongue, alter tongue position manually, and hear the output sounds. Index Terms: speech production, physical models of the human vocal tract, tongue, flap/liquid sounds
Cysteine cathepsins and their potential in clinical therapy and biomarker discovery

Since their discovery, cysteine cathepsins were generally considered to be involved mainly in the nonspecific bulk protein degradation that takes place within the lysosomes. However, it has become clear that their proteolytical activity can also influence various specific pathological processes such as cancer, arthritis, and atherosclerosis. Furthermore, their localization was found not to be limited strictly to the lysosomes. In the light of those findings, it is not surprising that cysteine cathepsins are currently considered as highly relevant clinical targets. Moreover, recent development of proteomic‐based methods for identification of novel physiological substrates of proteases provides a major opportunity also in the field of cysteine cathepsins. In this review, we will therefore present cysteine cathepsin roles in disease progression and discuss their potential relevance as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers.
RECYCLED MATERIALS IN EUROPEAN HIGHWAY ENVIRONMENTS: USES, TECHNOLOGIES, AND POLICIES

The objective of this scanning tour was to review and document innovative policies, programs, and techniques that promote the use of recycled materials in the highway environment. The U.S. delegation met with more than 100 representatives from transportation and environmental ministries, research organizations, and industries in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. The European countries visited all had recycling policies promoting sustainability as well as a pervasive public culture about recycling. Many of the countries use an effective stakeholder process to develop engineering and environmental specifications. Generally, recycling occurs when it is economical to do so. Factors in the marketplace are dominant, but are supported by government policies and regulations such as bans on landfilling, landfill taxes, natural aggregate taxes, and, in some cases, subsidies to assist recycling efforts. The U.S. delegation made a number of recommendations to encourage increased awareness of the benefits of using recycled materials in road construction, and the report includes specific actions for transferring findings from the scanning tour to various stakeholders. The delegation believes it is particularly important to adopt aspects of the Dutch sustainability model.
SPEC CPU2006 benchmark tools

The benchmarks that make up the SPEC CPU2006 benchmark suite are set-up, run, timed, and scored by the CPU tools harness. The tools have evolved over time from a collection of edit-it-yourself makefiles, scripts, and an Excel spreadsheet to the current Perl-based suite. The basic purpose of the tools is to make life easier for the benchmarker; they make it easier to tweak compilation settings, easier to keep track of those settings, and most importantly, they make it easier to follow the run and reporting rules.
Scrapie-like prion protein is translocated to the nuclei of infected cells independently of proteasome inhibition and interacts with chromatin

Prion diseases are fatal transmissible neurodegenerative disorders characterized by the accumulation of an abnormally folded isoform of the cellular prion protein (PrPC) denoted PrPSc. Recently, wild-type and pathogenic PrP mutants have been shown to be degraded by the endoplasmic reticulum-associated degradation proteasome pathway after translocation into the cytosol. We show here that a protease resistant form of PrP accumulated in the nuclei of prion-infected cells independently of proteasome activity, and that this nuclear translocation required an intact microtubule network. Moreover, our results show for the first time that nuclear PrP interacts with chromatin in vivo, which may have physiopathological consequences in prion diseases
Appraisals of Internal States and their Consequences: Relationship to Adolescent Analogue Bipolar Symptoms

Background: Extreme appraisals of internal states correlate with and prospectively predict mood symptoms in adults, and discriminate individuals with bipolar disorder from individuals with unipolar depression and non-clinical controls. Aims: These findings required replication in adolescents. This study sought to investigate the relationships between appraisals of internal states, mood symptoms and risk for bipolar disorder in an adolescent sample. Method: A non-clinical sample (n = 98) of adolescents completed measures of mood symptoms, appraisals, and mania risk, alongside covariates. Results: Appraisals of internal states were associated with analogue bipolar symptoms, independently of impulsivity and responses to positive affect. Positive appraisals of activated mood states were uniquely associated with hypomania, whilst negative appraisals were uniquely associated with depression and irritability symptoms. Individuals who appraised activated states as both extremely positive and extremely negative were more likely to score at high or moderate risk for future mania. Conclusions: This study is the first to demonstrate associations between appraisals of internal states, analogue mood symptoms and mania risk in adolescents. Clinical implications are discussed.
In vivo evaluation of an ultra-thin polycaprolactone film as a wound dressing

The use of ultra-thin films as dressings for cutaneous wounds could prove advantageous in terms of better conformity to wound topography and improved vapour transmission. For this purpose, ultra-thin poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) films of 5–15 μm thickness were fabricated via a biaxial stretching technique. To evaluate their in vivo biocompatibility and feasibility as an external wound dressing, PCL films were applied over full and partial-thickness wounds in rat and pig models. Different groups of PCL films were used: untreated, NaOH-treated, untreated with fibrin, NaOH-treated with perforations, and NaOH-treated with fibrin and S-nitrosoglutathione. Wounds with no external dressings were used as controls. Wound contraction rate, histology and biomechanical analyses were carried out. Wounds re-epithelialized completely at a comparable rate. Formation of a neo-dermal layer and re-epithelialization were observed in all the wounds. A lower level of fibrosis was observed when PCL films were used, compared to the control wounds. Ultimate tensile strength of the regenerated tissue in rats reached 50–60% of that in native rat skin. Results indicated that biaxially-stretched PCL films did not induce inflammatory reactions when used in vivo as a wound dressing and supported the normal wound healing process in full and partial-thickness wounds.
Inferring User Interests from Relevance Feedback with High Similarity Sequence Data-Driven Clustering

Relevance feedback is an important source of information about a user and often used for usage and user modeling for further personalization of user-system interactions. In this paper we present a method to infer the userpsilas interests from his/her relevance feedback using an online incremental clustering method. For inference of a new interest (concept) and concept update the method uses the similarity characteristics of uniform user relevance feedback. It is fast, easy to implement and gives reasonable clustering results. We evaluate the method against two different data sets, demonstrate and discuss the outcomes.
Determination of bacterial and fungal loads and antibiotic susceptibility testing of bacteria isolated from public toilet door handles in Vellore district , Tamilnadu , India

The main aim of this work is to portray the prevalence of both the pathogenic and nonpathogenic microorganisms on fomites such as public toilet door handles in Vellore district, India which may pose a risk to the community through transmission of infection. Swabs were collected from the door handles of different public toilets and it was found that the toilet door handles of hospital, bus station and railway station had a higher rate of contamination compared to schools and college. Majority of the bacterial isolates were coliforms and Gram negative bacteria. The following bacterial species were isolated such as Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella sp, Escherichia coli, Salmonella sp, Shigella sp, Micrococcus sp, Bacillus sp, Pseudomonas sp and Proteus sp. Fungus such as Rhodotorula sp, Candida sp and Rhizopus sp were found. Among Gram positive bacteria, Micrococcus sp (58%) showed highest resistance to antibiotics followed by Staphylococcus sp (50%) and Bacillus sp (42%). Among Gram negative bacteria, Pseudomonas sp (83%) showed highest resistance and Proteus sp (58%) showed the least resistance to antibiotics. To summarize the contamination of public toilet door handles largely go unnoticed but can cause serious infections and measures should be undertaken to control it.
Withdrawal of therapy in patients with proliferative lupus nephritis: long-term follow-up.

BACKGROUND Whether corticosteroid and immunosuppressive therapy may be safely withdrawn in patients with proliferative lupus nephritis is still unclear. METHODS In 32 patients with biopsy-proven proliferative lupus nephritis previously put into remission, therapy was gradually tapered off. RESULTS When immunosuppressive therapy was stopped (median: 38 months; 25th-75th percentile: 24-81 months, after biopsy), 24 patients were in complete remission and eight had a median proteinuria of 1.05 g/24 h (25th-75th percentile: 0.91-1.1 g/24 h) with normal renal function. After stopping therapy, patients were followed for a median of 203 months (25th-75th percentile: 116-230 months). Fifteen patients (Group 1) never developed lupus activity. The other 17 patients (Group 2) developed lupus exacerbations in a median of 34 months (25th-75th percentile: 29-52 months) after stopping therapy and were re-treated. The only significant differences between the two groups were the longer median durations of treatment, 57 months (25th-75th percentile: 41.5-113.5 months) vs 30 months (25th-75th percentile: 18-41 months; P<0.009), and remission, 24 months (25th-75th percentile: 18-41) vs 12 months (25th-75th percentile: 7-20 months; P<0.02), before stopping therapy in Group 1 than in Group 2. At last follow-up, 12 patients of Group 1 were in complete remission, two had mild proteinuria and one had died. In Group 2, one patient died, 14 were in complete remission, one had mild proteinuria and in another patient serum creatinine doubled. CONCLUSIONS Some patients with severe lupus nephritis who enter stable remission can be maintained without any specific treatment for many years. Those patients who have new flares can again go into remission with an appropriate treatment. The longer the treatment and remission before withdrawal, the lower the risk of relapse.
Some Signal Processing Techniques for Wireless Cooperative Localization and Tracking. (Contributions aux techniques de traitement du signal pour la géolocalisation coopérative dans le contexte des systèmes sans fil et le suivi de trajectoires)

Advancements in information technology and communication systems enabled the development of a wide variety of location based applications and services. The global navigation satellite systems are among the fundamental localization solutions. In harsh environments (e.g., urban canyons and indoor areas), these solutions do not provide a good accuracy or even become unavailable. In order to offer accurate and ubiquitous localization solutions, wireless communication systems have been considered, where several location dependent parameters of the transmitted signals can be measured and exploited (e.g., the time-of-arrival (ToA), the received signal strength (RSS)). In this work, the topic of wireless localization is explored from a statistical signal processing perspective with a focus on two axes. The first axis is cooperative localization applied to ad-hoc networks, where the nodes perform pair-wise ranging measurements (i.e., ToA or RSS) between each other in order to simultaneously estimate their positions. The unique solvability conditions are studied based on the two approaches of graph rigidity and semidefinite programming, and the identifiability conditions are derived. Location estimation solutions are considered with a focus on probabilistic estimation and its application in Markov random fields using the nonparametric belief propagation (NBP) algorithm. The second axis is mobile terminals tracking based on RSS measurements. These measurements are affected by a shadowing phenomenon. The improvement brought by the knowledge of the shadowing maps to the position estimation accuracy is studied. The classical solution for obtaining these maps is fingerprinting, which can be costly in time and effort. Solutions are developed to overcome these difficulties. Several solutions are proposed and investigated via Monte Carlo simulations in different deployment and application scenarios, and several theoretical and practical results are derived.
Physical layout design optimization of integrated spiral inductors for silicon-based RFIC applications

A new test structure layout technique and design methodology are used to investigate quantitatively how geometrical layout parameters such as core diameter, conductor spacing, and width would affect the performance of spiral inductors. For the 0.18-/spl mu/m RFCMOS technology, experimental results in this paper reveal that inductors' core diameters must be adequately large, more than 100 /spl mu/m, to ensure high quality factor characteristics and their conductor spacing should be minimal to obtain larger per unit area inductance value. A novel design methodology which optimizes the conductor width of inductors allows alignment of their peak quality factor to the circuit's operating frequency, enhancing the gain, input/output matching characteristics and noise figure of a giga-hertz amplifier.