Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impaired response of human motoneurones to corticospinal stimulation after voluntary exercise

1 Activation of descending corticospinal tracts with transmastoid electrical stimuli has been used to assess changes in the behaviour of motoneurones after voluntary contractions. Stimuli were delivered before and after maximal voluntary isometric contractions (MVCs) of the elbow flexor muscles. 2 Following a sustained MVC of the elbow flexors lasting 5–120 s there was an immediate reduction of the response to transmastoid stimulation to about half of the control value. The response recovered to control levels after about 2 min. This was evident even when the size of the responses was adjusted to accommodate changes in the maximal muscle action potential (assessed with supramaximal stimuli at the brachial plexus). 3 To determine whether the post‐contraction depression required activity in descending motor paths, motoneurones were activated by supramaximal tetanic stimulation of the musculocutaneous nerve for 10 s. This did not depress the response to transmastoid stimulation. 4 Following a sustained MVC of 120 s duration, the response to transcranial magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex gradually declined to a minimal level by about 2 min and remained depressed for more than 10 min. 5 Additional studies were performed to check that the activation of descending tracts by transmastoid stimulation was likely to involve excitation of direct corticospinal paths. When magnetic cortical stimuli and transmastoid stimuli were timed appropriately, the response to magnetic cortical stimulation could be largely occluded. 6 This study describes a novel depression of effectiveness of corticospinal actions on human motoneurones. This depression may involve the corticomotoneuronal synapse.
Using Metrics to Improve Maintenance Testing

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Software Metrics can aid in improving your organizations Testing Process by (1) providing insight and early visibility into the "real" status of the testing effort, and (2) aid in making assessments as to whether progress, productivity and quality goals are being met. This tutorial presents a practical guide on how to start taking advantage of these new tools/techniques to aid in improving the testing process. These metric based tools and techniques have successfully been used by (1) software maintenance test teams, (2) software developers and, (3) SQA/IV&V staffs.
P1-Nonconforming Finite Elements on Triangulations into Triangles and Quadrilaterals

The $P_1$-nonconforming finite element is introduced for arbitrary triangulations into quadrilaterals and triangles of multiple connected Lipschitz domains. An explicit a priori analysis for the combination of the Park-Sheen and the Crouzeix-Raviart nonconforming finite element methods is given for second-order elliptic PDEs with inhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions.
Notch-GATA synergy promotes endoderm-specific expression of ref-1 in C. elegans

The Notch signaling pathway is involved in a wide variety of cell-fate decisions during development. The diverse behavior of Notch-activated cells is thought to depend on tissue- or cell-type-specific transcription factors, yet the identities of such factors and the mechanism of cooperation with the Notch pathway are largely unknown. We identify here an enhancer in the promoter of ref-1, a C. elegans Notch target, which promotes Notch-dependent expression in mesodermal and endodermal cells. The enhancer contains predicted binding sites for the Notch transcriptional effector LAG-1/CSL that are essential for expression, a non-CSL site required for mesodermal expression, and four predicted binding sites for GATA transcription factors that are required for endodermal expression. We show that endodermal expression involves the GATA transcription factor ELT-2, and that ELT-2 can bind LAG-1/CSL in vitro. In many types of Notch-activated embryonic cells, ectopic ELT-2 is sufficient to drive expression of reporters containing the enhancer.
Identifying Application Key Knowledge through System Operations Modeling

One of the problems associated with complex systems engineering is identifying the system knowledge relevant to build system implementation. System operations are an essential part of this knowledge. Software and system engineering standards highlight the importance of system operations; templates for a concept of operations document are available from different standard bodies in the context of requirements engineering and specification. However, specific guidelines for operations modeling are not usually provided. This paper introduces an approach to systematically model system operations. The cornerstone for this is an operations metamodel; this metamodel is presented within this paper and has been defined using UML 2.x. The baseline for the metamodel is a schema, also introduced within the paper, which formalizes system operations in terms of commands acting on systems, inputs to the system, and different kinds of outputs classified into responses, notifications and alarms. Operations models, as presented here, comprise system knowledge essentials from a functional point of view but reduced in size compared to the whole system specification. They can be deployed in several ways; this paper presents their use as drivers for system development and validation from early lifecycle stages.
Management of patients with newly diagnosed malignant primary brain tumors with a focus on the evolving role of temozolomide

The prognosis for patients with newly diagnosed malignant gliomas remains poor; however there have been some recent advances in treatment that have generated optimism. Medical management usually includes administration of corticosteroids to control peritumoral edema. Anticonvulsants are indicated for patients with established tumor-related seizures; however, the prophylactic use of anticonvulsants remains controversial. Advances in neurosurgical techniques have improved the safety of tumor resection and most patients undergo the maximal safe surgical debulking of tumor. The tissue sample obtained provides conclusive pathologic diagnosis and tumor classification and extensive tumor resection may impact patient outcome. For glioblastoma, external beam radiation had been the conventional first line treatment; however a recent international phase III trial has provided level 1 evidence that a chemoradiation regimen using external beam radiation plus the oral chemotherapy agent temozolomide provides a survival advantage over radiation alone. Correlative studies were also performed that demonstrated better outcomes for patients with tumors demonstrating methylation (inactivation) of the promoter region of methyl guanine methyltransferase (MGMT) gene. Additional studies are in progress building on the clinical trial results using different dosing schedules of temozolomide and combination regimens. Studies are also underway to develop molecular markers, such as expression of MGMT that may help select the patients most likely to benefit from this treatment.
Prior knowledge in recalling arguments in bioethical dilemmas

Prior knowledge is known to facilitate learning new information. Normally in studies confirming this outcome the relationship between prior knowledge and the topic to be learned is obvious: the information to be acquired is part of the domain or topic to which the prior knowledge belongs. This raises the question as to whether prior knowledge of various domains facilitates recalling information. In this study 79 eleventh-grade students completed a questionnaire on their prior knowledge of seven different domains related to the bioethical dilemma of prenatal diagnostics. The students read a text containing arguments for and arguments against prenatal diagnostics. After 1 week and again 12 weeks later they were asked to write down all the arguments they remembered. Prior knowledge helped them recall the arguments 1 week (r = 0.350) and 12 weeks (r = 0.316) later. Prior knowledge of three of the seven domains significantly helped them recall the arguments 1 week later (correlations between r = 0.194 and 0.394). Partial correlations with interest as a control item revealed that interest did not explain the relationship between prior knowledge and recall. Prior knowledge of different domains jointly supports the recall of arguments related to bioethical topics.
Solving difficult LR parsing conflicts by postponing them

Though yacc-like LR parser generators provide ways to solve shift-reduce conflicts using token precedences, no mechanisms are provided for the resolution of difficult shift-reduce or reduce-reduce conflicts. To solve this kind of conflicts the language designer has to modify the grammar. All the solutions for dealing with these difficult conflicts branch at each alternative, leading to the exploration of the whole search tree. These strategies differ in the way the tree is explored: GLR, Backtracking LR, Backtracking LR with priorities, etc. This paper explores an entirely different path: to extend the yacc conflict resolution sublanguage with new constructs allowing the programmers to explicit the way the conflict must be solved. These extensions supply ways to resolve any kind of conflicts, including those that can not be solved using static precedences. The method makes also feasible the parsing of grammars whose ambiguity must be solved in terms of the semantic context. Besides, it brings to LR-parsing a common LL-parsing feature: the advantage of providing full control over the specific trees the user wants to build.
DYNAMIC BEHAVIOR AND EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF CELL NUCLEATION AND GROWING MECHANISM IN MICROCELLULAR INJECTION MOLDING PROCESS

We present the recent development of threedimensional prediction of dynamic behavior of cell nucleation and growing mechanism, and the effect of nucleation-growing competition in microcellular injection molding process. Simulations of microcellular foaming process of injection molding are carried out for polyolefins with supercritical fluids (SCFs) carbon dioxide and nitrogen. In addition, we validate simulation results with experimental results to prove the capability of 3D prediction of microcellular foaming process and further compare simulations of microcellular injection molding and conventional molding to provide insights and economic guidance into design and manufacturing of injection molding products.
A Lysine Desert Protects a Novel Domain in the Slx5-Slx8 SUMO Targeted Ub Ligase To Maintain Sumoylation Levels in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Sumoylation is required to repair protein-linked DNA damage, but its presence can limit the use of alternative repair pathways. Through a suppressor. Protein modification by the small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) plays important roles in genome maintenance. In Saccharomyces cerevisiae, proper regulation of sumoylation is known to be essential for viability in certain DNA repair mutants. Here, we find the opposite result; proper regulation of sumoylation is lethal in certain DNA repair mutants. Yeast cells lacking the repair factors TDP1 and WSS1 are synthetically lethal due to their redundant roles in removing Top1-DNA covalent complexes (Top1ccs). A screen for suppressors of tdp1∆ wss1∆ synthetic lethality isolated mutations in genes known to control global sumoylation levels including ULP1, ULP2, SIZ2, and SLX5. The results suggest that alternative pathways of repair become available when sumoylation levels are altered. Curiously, both suppressor mutations that were isolated in the Slx5 subunit of the SUMO-targeted Ub ligase created new lysine residues. These “slx5-K” mutations localize to a 398 amino acid domain that is completely free of lysine, and they result in the auto-ubiquitination and partial proteolysis of Slx5. The decrease in Slx5-K protein leads to the accumulation of high molecular weight SUMO conjugates, and the residual Ub ligase activity is needed to suppress inviability presumably by targeting polysumoylated Top1ccs. This “lysine desert” is found in the subset of large fungal Slx5 proteins, but not its smaller orthologs such as RNF4. The lysine desert solves a problem that Ub ligases encounter when evolving novel functional domains.
Testing Tuberculosis Drug Efficacy in a Zebrafish High-Throughput Translational Medicine Screen

ABSTRACT The translational value of zebrafish high-throughput screens can be improved when more knowledge is available on uptake characteristics of potential drugs. We investigated reference antibiotics and 15 preclinical compounds in a translational zebrafish-rodent screening system for tuberculosis. As a major advance, we have developed a new tool for testing drug uptake in the zebrafish model. This is important, because despite the many applications of assessing drug efficacy in zebrafish research, the current methods for measuring uptake using mass spectrometry do not take into account the possible adherence of drugs to the larval surface. Our approach combines nanoliter sampling from the yolk using a microneedle, followed by mass spectrometric analysis. To date, no single physicochemical property has been identified to accurately predict compound uptake; our method offers a great possibility to monitor how any novel compound behaves within the system. We have correlated the uptake data with high-throughput drug-screening data from Mycobacterium marinum-infected zebrafish larvae. As a result, we present an improved zebrafish larva drug-screening platform which offers new insights into drug efficacy and identifies potential false negatives and drugs that are effective in zebrafish and rodents. We demonstrate that this improved zebrafish drug-screening platform can complement conventional models of in vivo Mycobacterium tuberculosis-infected rodent assays. The detailed comparison of two vertebrate systems, fish and rodent, may give more predictive value for efficacy of drugs in humans.
Carbon Film Coating of Abutment Surfaces: Effect on the Abutment Screw Removal Torque

Purpose:To evaluate the effect of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating of prefabricated implant abutment on screw removal torque (RT) before and after mechanical cycling (MC). Materials and Methods:Fifty-four abutments for external-hex implants were divided among 6 groups (n = 9): S, straight abutment (control); SC, straight coated abutment; SCy, straight abutment and MC; SCCy, straight coated abutment and MC; ACy, angled abutment and MC; and ACCy, angled coated abutment and MC. The abutments were attached to the implants by a titanium screw. RT values were measured and registered. Data (in Newton centimeter) were analyzed with analysis of variance and Dunnet test (&agr; = 0.05). Results:RT values were significantly affected by MC (P = 0.001) and the interaction between DLC coating and MC (P = 0.038). SCy and ACy showed the lowest RT values, statistically different from the control. The abutment coated groups had no statistical difference compared with the control. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed DLC film with a thickness of 3 &mgr;m uniformly coating the hexagonal abutment. Conclusion:DLC film deposited on the abutment can be used as an alternative procedure to reduce abutment screw loosening.
An evaluation of the length-tension relationship in elderly human plantarflexor muscles.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of aging on the muscle length-tension relationship in the plantarflexor muscles of 10 subjects aged 20-30 yr (Mean = 23; 5 males, 5 females), 10 subjects aged 60-80 yr (Mean = 72.3; 5 males, 5 females), and 10 subjects over 80 yr (Mean = 84.1, 5 males, 5 females). Isometric twitch properties, maximum voluntary strength, passive tension, and range of motion were measured at five different joint angles [20 degrees dorsiflexion (DF), 10 degrees DF, 0 degree, 10 degrees plantarflexion (PF), and 20 degrees PF]. Active (evoked and voluntary) and passive torque production were maximal when the ankle was rotated into the DF positions for all three age groups, whereas the lowest values were recorded when the ankle was rotated into 20 degrees PF. Males were stronger than females at all joint angles (p < .01). Also, young adults were stronger than both elderly adult groups (p < .01). These results illustrate that despite the considerable age-associated loss in both voluntary and evoked strength in the plantarflexors, the optimal angle for torque production remains the same for younger and older adults.
Dynamic Multi-Valued Network Models for Predicting Face-to-Face Conversations

We introduce a new probabilistic framework for collectively modeling people’s social behavior from local sensor observations. Our approach extends curved exponential random graph models to (1) include features that account for multivalued edges, and (2) model the change in edge values over time. We present empirical results on a real world dataset of face-to-face conversations collected from 24 individuals using wearable sensors over the course of 9 months. The results demonstrate that the model is capable of predicting not just whether but also for how long two people will converse and that the ordinality of discretized observations can be exploited to reduce the number of parameters.
Biochemical, biophysical, and genetic changes of porcine trophoblast‐derived stem‐like cells during differentiation as evaluated using Raman microspectroscopy, Atomic force microscopy, and quantitative polymerase chain reaction

Porcine trophoblast‐derived stem‐like cells grown into serum medium start to differentiate and become senescent within 30 days. However, trophoblast‐derived cells, cultured in vitro in a defined and non‐serum medium, have the regenerative properties, such as indefinite passage and foreign DNA receptivity, similar to stem cells. To evaluate the biochemical, biophysical, and genetic changes of the terminal differentiation of trophoblast derived cells, Raman microspectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and qPCR were applied. It was found that Raman spectral intensities of characteristic peaks, cell morphology, and Young's modulus can be used to distinguish differentiated and undifferentiated trophoblast cells. In addition, 17 cytoskeleton and extracellular matrix‐related genes were significantly impacted by medium type (non‐serum versus serum). Our findings suggest that Raman microspectroscopy and atomic force microscopy—both considered as label‐free, non‐invasive techniques—can be applied to distinguish differentiated trophoblast cells, and cellular biochemical information and biophysical properties can be indicative of cellular differences during cell differentiation. In addition, most of cytoskeleton‐related genes exhibit similar pattern to that of Young's modulus during trophoblast cell differentiation, indicating the potential connection between cytoskeleton‐related genes and cellular stiffness. genesis 53:749–761, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Cost Sensitive and Class-Imbalance Classification Method Based on Neural Network for Disease Diagnosis

The automation of disease diagnosis is confronted with three important problems which are class imbalance, sampling bias and cost sensitivity. In order to make a reasonable representation of the imbalance state, class distribution histogram and likelihood are devoted to measuring degree of its imbalance. A cost optimization model for disease diagnosis is proposed, which be successfully used in disease diagnosis and significantly reduce the negative effects of the above three factors.
Bandwidth-efficient content-based routing on software-defined networks

With the vision of Internet of Things gaining popularity at a global level, efficient publish/subscribe middleware for communication within and across datacenters is extremely desirable. In this respect, the very popular Software-defined Networking (SDN), which enables publish/subscribe middleware to perform line-rate filtering of events directly on hardware, can prove to be very useful. While deploying content filters directly on switches of a software-defined network allows optimized paths, high throughput rates, and low end-to-end latency, it suffers from certain inherent limitations w.r. t. no. of bits available on hardware switches to represent these filters. Such a limitation affects expressiveness of filters, resulting in unnecessary traffic in the network. In this paper, we explore various techniques to represent content filters expressively while being limited by hardware. We implement and evaluate techniques that i) use workload, in terms of events and subscriptions, to represent content, and ii) efficiently select attributes to reduce redundancy in content. Moreover, these techniques complement each other and can be combined together to further enhance performance. Our detailed performance evaluations show the potential of these techniques in reducing unnecessary traffic when subjected to different workloads.
Improving File System Reliability and Availability with Continuous Checker and Repair

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Force-velocity relationship of myogenically active arterioles.

We compared the shortening velocity of smooth muscle in arterioles that had low or high levels of myogenic tone or norepinephrine (NE)-induced tone. We hypothesized that enhanced myogenic tone of arterioles reflects an enhanced maximum velocity of shortening of arteriolar smooth muscle in a way that is different from that produced by NE. These concepts are untested assumptions of arteriolar mechanics. Second-order arterioles from hamster cheek pouch (passive diameter at 40 mmHg = 42 microm) were isolated and cannulated for in vitro study. In the absence of flow, pressure was controlled by hydraulic pumps so that servo control of wall tension could be achieved from measurement of internal diameter and pressure. Isotonic quick-release protocols were used to measure the initial velocity of shortening following release from control wall tension (afterload) to a series of fractional afterloads. After release, the initial rates of shortening were fit to the Hill equation to obtain coefficients for a hyperbolic fit of the velocity-afterload relationship. The maximal unloaded shortening velocity for partially activated arterioles (V'(max)) was determined from the y-intercept of each plot. Using this procedure, we compared V'(max) from two groups of arterioles equilibrated at low or high pressure, i.e., with low or high myogenic tone. Arterioles with higher myogenic tone had higher values of V'(max) than arterioles with lower myogenic tone. V'(max) for arterioles partially activated with NE at low pressure was comparable to V'(max) for arterioles with high myogenic tone, but NE produced high velocities at low force, whereas enhanced myogenic tone produced roughly parallel shifts in velocity and force. The results suggest that increased myogenic tone does indeed reflect enhanced activation of arteriolar smooth muscle, and this effect is mechanically different from that produced by NE.