Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of contact area and surface curvature on biomechanical behavior of articular cartilage

Understanding the mechanical behavior of contact mechanics in human joints is crucial in order to characterize its biomechanical properties. In previous studies, cartilage surface of axisymmetric models was assumed to be flat in order to investigate the cartilage behavior. However, this assumption was inappropriate since the synovial joint possessed curvature geometrical shape and may lead to the inaccurate results. Thus, the aim this study is to investigate the effects of contact area and surface curvature on the cartilage contact stress and pore pressure using finite element analysis. Axisymmetric biphasic poroelastic finite element model was developed in order to investigate possible effect of contact area and surface curvature to the contact stress and pore pressure of the cartilage. The results show that the smaller cartilage surface of 40 mm radius produced 65% and 68% difference of pore pressure and contact pressure respectively compared to the flat surface. The effects of the cartilage curvature became more crucial when the radius was decreased. Based on these results, it could indicate that contact pressure and pore pressure give the affect on the cartilage behavior characterization.
Exploring the Mechanisms of Exercise-Induced Hypoalgesia Using Somatosensory and Laser Evoked Potentials

Exercise-induced hypoalgesia is well described, but the underlying mechanisms are unclear. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of exercise on somatosensory evoked potentials, laser evoked potentials, pressure pain thresholds and heat pain thresholds. These were recorded before and after 3-min of isometric elbow flexion exercise at 40% of the participant's maximal voluntary force, or an equivalent period of rest. Exercise-induced hypoalgesia was confirmed in two experiments (Experiment 1–SEPs; Experiment 2–LEPs) by increased pressure pain thresholds at biceps brachii (24.3 and 20.6% increase in Experiment 1 and 2, respectively; both d > 0.84 and p < 0.001) and first dorsal interosseous (18.8 and 21.5% increase in Experiment 1 and 2, respectively; both d > 0.57 and p < 0.001). In contrast, heat pain thresholds were not significantly different after exercise (forearm: 10.8% increase, d = 0.35, p = 0.10; hand: 3.6% increase, d = 0.06, p = 0.74). Contrasting effects of exercise on the amplitude of laser evoked potentials (14.6% decrease, d = −0.42, p = 0.004) and somatosensory evoked potentials (10.9% increase, d = −0.02, p = 1) were also observed, while an equivalent period of rest showed similar habituation (laser evoked potential: 7.3% decrease, d = −0.25, p = 0.14; somatosensory evoked potential: 20.7% decrease, d = −0.32, p = 0.006). The differential response of pressure pain thresholds and heat pain thresholds to exercise is consistent with relative insensitivity of thermal nociception to the acute hypoalgesic effects of exercise. Conflicting effects of exercise on somatosensory evoked potentials and laser evoked potentials were observed. This may reflect non-nociceptive contributions to the somatosensory evoked potential, but could also indicate that peripheral nociceptors contribute to exercise-induced hypoalgesia.
Fragments from an ethnographer’s field guide: Skepticism, thick minimalism, and big theory

This article challenges Isaac Reed’s discussion of interpretation in the social sciences by honing in on the unique properties of ethnographic research and the relationship between ethnography and theory. What are the practicalities of using theory to structure ethnographic engagement and of developing maximal theoretical explanations from participant observation? This article first advocates establishing skepticism by searching out evidence to counteract our claims and identifying how our conclusions could have turned out otherwise. Second, ethnographers should specify thick minimal matches between what our concepts are and how they manifest themselves in thick description (often in a reformulated forms) in our field sites; and third, thick minimal matches can be made to facilitate big theory by re-signifying the evidence within a body of existing significations and within a community of scholars.
An Address-Event Vision Sensor for Multiple Transient Object Detection

We present a vision sensor chip designed to detect multiple transient objects - objects that either move or change in light intensity - and output their locations using address-event representation. The sensor uses a novel onset detector to detect transient objects and a dynamically-wired winner-takes-all circuit to group pixels and select the brightest pixel in each object. This paper describes the circuits and also presents measurements that characterize the performance of the sensor chip.
Characterization of NOL7 Gene Point Mutations, Promoter Methylation, and Protein Expression in Cervical Cancer

NOL7 is a putative tumor suppressor gene localized to 6p23, a region with frequent loss of heterozygosity in a number of cancers, including cervical cancer (CC). We have previously demonstrated that reintroduction of NOL7 into CC cells altered the angiogenic phenotype and suppressed tumor growth in vivo by 95%. Therefore, to understand its mechanism of inactivation in CC, we investigated the genetic and epigenetic regulation of NOL7. NOL7 mRNA and protein levels were assessed in 13 CC cell lines and 23 consecutive CC specimens by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, western blotting, and immunohistochemistry. Methylation of the NOL7 promoter was analyzed by bisulfite sequencing and mutations were identified through direct sequencing. A CpG island with multiple CpG dinucleotides spanned the 5′ untranslated region and first exon of NOL7. However, bisulfite sequencing failed to identify persistent sites of methylation. Mutational sequencing revealed that 40% of the CC specimens and 31% of the CC cell lines harbored somatic mutations that may affect the in vivo function of NOL7. Endogenous NOL7 mRNA and protein expression in CC cell lines were significantly decreased in 46% of the CC cell lines. Finally, immunohistochemistry demonstrated strong NOL7 nucleolar staining in normal tissues that decreased with histologic progression toward CC. NOL7 is inactivated in CC in accordance with the Knudson 2-hit hypothesis through loss of heterozygosity and mutation. Together with evidence of its in vivo tumor suppression, these data support the hypothesis that NOL7 is the legitimate tumor suppressor gene located on 6p23.
A Unified Approach Combining Photometric and Geometric Information for Pose Estimation

In this paper, we present a novel approach for the relative pose estimation problem from point correspondences extracted from image pairs. Unlike classical algorithms, such as the Gold Standard algorithm, the proposed approach ensures that the matched points are photo-consistent throughout the pose estimation process. In fact, common algorithms use the photometric information to extract the feature points and to establish the 2D point correspondences. Then, they focus on minimizing, in a non-linear scheme, geometric distances between the projection of reconstructed 3D points and the coordinates of the extracted image points without taking the photometric information into account. The approach we propose in this paper merges geometric and photometric information in a unified cost function for the final non-linear minimization. This allows us to achieve results with higher precision and also with higher convergence frequency. Extensive experiments with ground truth on synthetic data show the superiority of the proposed approach in terms of robustness and precision. The simulation results have been confirmed by several tests on real image data.
Rapid communication: nucleotide sequence of bovine C/EBP alpha gene.

1This work was supported in part by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research ( B ) (no. 06454126) and Developmental Scientific Research ( B ) (no. 07556022) from the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan. Received March 15, 1996. Accepted July 11, 1996. Figure 1. Nucleotide and deduced amino acid sequence of the bovine C/EBPa gene. TATA box, stop codon, and bZIP domain are marked with double underline, asterisk, and underline, respectively. Rapid Communication: Nucleotide Sequence of Bovine C/EBPa Gene1
The Role of Lexical Phonology in Reading

In this study we examined phonological encoding during reading by investigating whether different types of verbal and nonverbal material and an articulatory suppression task interfered with reading comprehension and with a nonword rhyme judgment task. Neither the presence of an auditory interference task nor the articulatory suppression task had any effect on accuracy of comprehension or on judging if nonwords rhymed. It took longer to read prose passages simultaneously with verbal auditory interference and under conditions of articulatory suppression, but not with simultaneous nonverbal auditory interference. There was a significant difference in reading speed between passages read simultaneously with syntactically and semantically complex verbal material, presented aurally, and passages read while the subject simultaneously performed an articulatory suppression task. We argue that an auditory interference task is more suitable than an articulatory suppression task for investigations of phonological encoding during reading. The results were interpreted within a neuro-cognitive model.
Patterns of Association of Health Problems with Sleep- Wake Timing and Duration

Patterns of Association of Health Problems with Sleep- Wake Timing and Duration Health problems show a linear relationship with preferred (earlylate) sleep timing and a U-shaped with habitual (short-long) sleep duration. The reasons for the dissimilarity between the patterns of association of health problems with sleep timing and duration remain unknown. Self-scorings of depression, anxiety, somatization, and general health status were compared in 2103 respondents typed in accord with preferred sleep timing, habitual sleep duration, and preferred (short-long) wake duration. The strongest linear associations with health self-scorings was showed by preferred wake duration, and, after accounting for it, none of the associations between health and preferred sleep timing remained statistically significant. It seems that a medical condition can lead to either short sleep durations or short wake duration, and that short wake duration can lead, in turn, to long sleep duration and late sleep timing.
Crowd-answering system via microblogging

Most crowdsourcing systems leverage the public platforms, such as Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT), to publish their jobs and collect the results. They are charged for using the platform's service and they are also required to pay the workers for each successful job. Although the average wage of the online human worker is not high, for a 24×7 running service, the crowdsourcing system becomes very expensive to maintain. We observe that there are, in fact, many sources that can provide free online human volunteers. Microblogging system is one of the most promising human resources. In this paper, we present our CrowdAnswer system, which is built on top of Weibo, the largest microblogging system in China. CrowdAnswer is a question-answering system, which distributes various questions to different groups of microblogging users adaptively. The answers are then collected from those users' tweets and visualized for the question originator. CrowdAnswer maintains a virtual credit system. The users need credits to publish questions and they can gain credits by answering the questions. A novel algorithm is proposed to route the questions to the interested users, which tries to maximize the probability of successfully answering a question.
Principles and a Preliminary Design for ML2000

We describe the methodology and current features for ML2000, a new-generation design of ML. ML2000 adds a number of features to Standard ML and Caml, providing better support for extensibility and code reuse, while also fixing latent problems. Although none of the features is particularly novel on its own, the combination of features and design methodology are.
Genetic analysis and functional characterization of polymorphisms in the human concentrative nucleoside transporter, CNT2

The concentrative nucleoside transporter CNT2 (SPNT1; SLC28A2) plays a role in the absorption and disposition of naturally occurring nucleosides, as well as nucleoside analog drugs. The aim of the present study was to characterize genetic variation in SLC28A2, the gene encoding CNT2, and to functionally analyse non-synonymous variants of CNT2, as a first step towards understanding whether genetic variation in this nucleoside transporter contributes to variation in response to nucleoside analogs. As part of a larger study, DNA samples from an ethnically diverse population (100 African-Americans, 100 European-Americans, 30 Asians, 10 Mexicans and seven Pacific Islanders) were screened and 10 coding region variants of CNT2 were identified. The non-synonymous variants were then constructed and characterized in Xenopus laevis oocytes. Six non-synonymous variants were identified, and all were able to transport guanosine. The four common variants (>1% in the sample population) were further characterized with the anti-viral nucleoside analog drug ribavirin. No differences were observed among the four common variants in the uptake kinetics of 3H-ribavirin (Km in μM: 35.6±9.27 for CNT2-reference, 40.7±6.47 for CNT2-P22 l, 31.2±15.8 for CNT2-S75R, 26.7±6.13 for CNT2-S245T and 49.9±14.6 for CNT2-F355S). The variant CNT2-F355S exhibited a change in specificity for the naturally occurring nucleosides, inosine and uridine. All non-synonymous variants of CNT2 took up guanosine, and the four variants examined showed no significant difference in ribavirin kinetics. However, CNT2-F355S (3% allele frequency in the African-American sample) was found to alter specificity for naturally occurring nucleosides, which may have implications for nucleoside homeostasis.
Attention and salience in lexically-guided perceptual learning

Psychophysical studies of perceptual learning find that perceivers only improve the accuracy of their perception on stimuli similar to what they were trained on. In contrast, speech perception studies of perceptual learning find generalization to novel contexts when words contain a modified ambiguous sound. This dissertation seeks to resolve the apparent conflict between these findings by framing the results in terms of attentional sets. Attention can be oriented towards comprehension of the speaker’s intended meaning or towards perception of a speaker’s pronunciation. Attention is proposed to affect perceptual learning as follows. When attention is oriented towards comprehension, more abstract and less context-dependent representations are updated and the perceiver shows generalized perceptual learning, as seen in the speech perception literature. When attention is oriented towards perception, more finely detailed and more context-dependent representations are updated and the perceiver shows less generalized perceptual learning, similar to what is seen in the psychophysics literature. This proposal is supported by three experiments. The first two implement a standard paradigm for perceptual learning in speech perception. In these experiments, promoting a more perception-oriented attentional set causes less generalized perceptual learning. The final experiment uses a novel paradigm where modified sounds are embedded in sentences during exposure. Perceptual learning is found only when the modified sound is embedded in words that are not predictable from the sentence. When modified sounds are in predictable words, no perceptual learning is observed. To account for this lack of perceptual learning, I hypothesize that sounds in predictable sentences are less reliable than sounds in words in isolation or unpredictable sentences. In the cases where perceptual learning is present, contexts which support comprehension-
Towards Optimized Data Fetching for Service Discovery

The advent of Service Oriented Architecture makes services the most flexible, platform-independent choice for exposing and integrating business functionality across a network. However, the lack of service discovery mechanisms, that go beyond simple keyword search to enable automated late-binding of service requesters to providers, remains a major problem. Realistic late-binding involves matchmaking of client requests with service descriptions, based on frequently changing fine-grained client requests, and dynamically changing service functionality. The intricacies of service functionality cannot be specified by generic static descriptions since the functionality offered by the service may depend on the client at hand, their specific request and the service's current capabilities. In this paper, we propose a semantic framework supporting dynamic data fetching from services during the discovery phase on service instance level entailing a communication overhead which we aim to minimize.
Tensile Properties and Fracture Behavior of Aluminum Alloy Foam Fabricated from Die Castings without Using Blowing Agent by Friction Stir Processing Route

Al foam has been used in a wide range of applications owing to its light weight, high energy absorption and high sound insulation. One of the promising processes for fabricating Al foam involves the use of a foamable precursor. In this study, ADC12 Al foams with porosities of 67%–78% were fabricated from Al alloy die castings without using a blowing agent by the friction stir processing route. The pore structure and tensile properties of the ADC12 foams were investigated and compared with those of commercially available ALPORAS. From X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) observations of the pore structure of ADC12 foams, it was found that they have smaller pores with a narrower distribution than those in ALPORAS. Tensile tests on the ADC12 foams indicated that as their porosity increased, the tensile strength and tensile strain decreased, with strong relation between the porosity, tensile strength, and tensile strain. ADC12 foams exhibited brittle fracture, whereas ALPORAS exhibited ductile fracture, which is due to the nature of the Al alloy used as the base material of the foams. By image-based finite element (FE) analysis using X-ray CT images corresponding to the tensile tests on ADC12 foams, it was shown that the fracture path of ADC12 foams observed in tensile tests and the regions of high stress obtained from FE analysis correspond to each other. Therefore, it is considered that the fracture behavior of ADC12 foams in relation to their pore structure distribution can be investigated by image-based FE analysis.
N-Ethylmaleimide-sensitive Factor (NSF) and α-Soluble NSF Attachment Proteins (SNAP) Mediate Dissociation of GS28-Syntaxin 5 Golgi SNAP Receptors (SNARE) Complex*

Golgi solubleN-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor attachment protein receptors (SNAREs) GS28 and syntaxin 5 can be reciprocally coimmunoprecipitated from Golgi extracts, suggesting that they exist in a protein complex. When Golgi extract is preincubated with soluble NSF attachment proteins (α-SNAP) andN-ethylmaleimide-sensitive factor (NSF) under conditions that allow ATP hydrolysis by NSF, GS28 and syntaxin 5 become dissociated. GS28 and syntaxin 5 remain in a protein complex when Golgi extract is preincubated with similar amounts of α-SNAP and NSF under conditions that prevent ATP hydrolysis by NSF, suggesting that ATP hydrolysis by NSF is necessary for dissociating the GS28-syntaxin 5 complex. Since preincubation of Golgi extract with either α-SNAP or NSF alone has no effect on the GS28-syntaxin 5 complex, a concerted action of α-SNAP and NSF therefore mediates the dissociation of the GS28-syntaxin 5 complex. Furthermore, GS28 but not syntaxin 5 is capable of binding to immobilized α-SNAP when the GS28-syntaxin 5 complex is dissociated.
Type 2 diabetes: a cohort study of treatment, ethnic and social group influences on glycated haemoglobin

Objectives To assess whether in people with poorly controlled type 2 diabetes (HbA1c>7.5%) improvement in HbA1c varies by ethnic and social group. Design Prospective 2-year cohort of type 2 diabetes treated in general practice. Setting and participants All patients with type 2 diabetes in 100 of the 101 general practices in two London boroughs. The sample consisted of an ethnically diverse group with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes aged 37–71 years in 2007 and with HbA1c recording in 2008–2009. Outcome measure Change from baseline HbA1c in 2007 and achievement of HbA1c control in 2008 and 2009 were estimated for each ethnic, social and treatment group using multilevel modelling. Results The sample consisted of 6104 people; 18% were white, 63% south Asian, 16% black African/Caribbean and 3% other ethnic groups. HbA1c was lower after 1 and 2 years in all ethnic groups but south Asian people received significantly less benefit from each diabetes treatment. After adjustment, south Asian people were found to have 0.14% less reduction in HbA1c compared to white people (95% CI 0.04% to 0.24%) and white people were 1.6 (95% CI 1.2 to 2.0) times more likely to achieve HbA1c controlled to 7.5% or less relative to south Asian people. HbA1c reduction and control in black African/Caribbean and white people did not differ significantly. There was no evidence that social deprivation influenced HbA1c reduction or control in this cohort. Conclusions In all treatment groups, south Asian people with poorly controlled diabetes are less likely to achieve controlled HbA1c, with less reduction in mean HbA1c than white or black African/Caribbean people.
Sonographically guided ethanol sclerotherapy for benign thyroid cysts: results in 22 patients.

OBJECTIVE We evaluate the efficacy and safety of sonographically guided ethanol sclerotherapy for benign thyroid cysts. SUBJECTS AND METHODS We examined 22 patients with benign thyroid cysts (13 complex cysts and nine pure cysts) confirmed by fine-needle aspiration biopsy. Sonographically guided aspiration of the cystic fluid was followed by instillation of absolute ethanol (99.9%) into the cystic cavity: the injected volume of ethanol was 40-100% of the volume of fluid aspirated. The procedure was performed every 1 or 3 months for one or two sessions (mean, 1.2 sessions). Follow-up sonography was performed 1-10 months after the final session, and we observed patients after ethanol sclerotherapy for complications. RESULTS The initial volume of the cysts ranged from 3.5 to 42 ml. In 21 patients, the volume of the cyst decreased or the cyst was obliterated. The volume of the cyst was reduced by 50-99% in 13 patients and by 1-49% in six patients, and the cyst was obliterated in two patients. In one patient, the volume of the cyst increased. The volume of ethanol instilled was significantly correlated with the volume reduction rate of the cyst. There was a difference in the volume reduction rate between patients in whom 10 ml or more of initial volume was used and those in whom less than 10 ml of initial volume was used; that is, the volume reduction rate of the group with the initial cyst volume of more than 10 ml was higher than that of the other group. Important long-standing and severe complications were not observed. CONCLUSION Sonographically guided ethanol sclerotherapy is a safe and effective tool for the therapy of benign thyroid cysts.