Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationship Between Training Load, Fitness, and Injury Over an Australian Rules Football Preseason

Abstract Harrison, PW and Johnston, RD. Relationship between training load, fitness, and injury over an Australian rules football preseason. J Strength Cond Res 31(10): 2686–2693, 2017—Recent research identifies that certain training load (TL) patterns increase the injury risk to athletes. However, physical fitness must also be considered to establish optimal TL patterns. The aim of this study was to identify TL patterns optimal for injury and aerobic fitness by exploring the TL-injury and TL-fitness relationship concurrently over an Australian rules football (ARF) preseason. Individual TL, aerobic fitness, and injury data were collected over a 14-week preseason in 60 subelite ARF players (age = 21.3 ± 2.9 years). Individual TL, assessed through session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE), was compared with noncontact, lower limb soft tissue injury to examine the TL-injury relationship. A 2-km time trial was used as the measure of aerobic fitness to examine the optimal TL for aerobic fitness improvement. Aerobic fitness improved by 4.10 ± 2.20% (range = −7.35–19.05%) over the preseason. Training load between 1,600 and 2,000 AU per week was associated with the greatest aerobic fitness improvement (effect size [ES] = 0.47–1.01). Players with preseason TL <1,250 AU per week had the highest injury rate (ES = 0.52–0.62). Large 2-week TL (>4,000 AU, odds ratio [OR] = 2.80) and spikes in weekly TL (15–49%, OR = 3.76) significantly increased injury risk the following week. Performing small amounts of training seems to be the most detrimental to changes in aerobic fitness and injury rate. High TL is not responsible for injuries and is required to maximize improvements in aerobic fitness. However, TL exceeding 2,000 AU over several weeks may attenuate aerobic fitness improvements and increase injury risk. In addition, large increments in weekly TL increase injury risk.
A Synthetic Form of Frizzled 8-Associated Antiproliferative Factor Enhances p53 Stability through USP2a and MDM2

Frizzled 8-associated Antiproliferative Factor (APF) is a sialoglycopeptide urinary biomarker of interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome (IC/PBS), a chronic condition of unknown etiology with variable symptoms that generally include pelvic and/or perineal pain, urinary frequency, and urgency. We previously reported that native human APF suppresses the proliferation of normal bladder epithelial cells through a mechanism that involves increased levels of p53. The goal of this study was to delineate the regulatory mechanism whereby p53 expression is regulated by APF. Two APF-responsive cell lines (T24 bladder carcinoma cells and the immortalized human bladder epithelial cell line, TRT-HU1) were treated with asialo-APF (as-APF), a chemically synthesized form of APF. Biochemical analysis revealed that as-APF increased p53 levels in two ways: by decreasing ubiquitin specific protease 2a (USP2a) expression leading to enhanced ubiquitination of murine double minute 2 E3 ubiquitin ligase (MDM2), and by suppressing association of p53 with MDM2, thus impairing p53 ubiquitination. Biological responses to as-APF were suppressed by increased expression of wild type, but not mutant USP2a, which enhanced cell growth via upregulation of a cell cycle mediator, cyclin D1, at both transcription and protein levels. Consistent with this, gene silencing of USP2a with siRNA arrested cell proliferation. Our findings suggest that APF upregulates cellular p53 levels via functional attenuation of the USP2a-MDM2 pathway, resulting in p53 accumulation and growth arrest. These data also imply that targeting USP2a, MDM2, p53 and/or complex formation by these molecules may be relevant in the development of novel therapeutic approaches to IC/PBS.
Thermoplastic-Guayule Rubber Blends—Compositions and Mechanical Properties

Abstract An experimental study of the mixing and final mechanical properties of blends of guayule rubber with polyolefins was carried out. It was found that (1) variation in total mixing time during blend preparation produced only minor differences in maximum tensile properties; (2) tensile properties of the blends approach those of the plastic at GR concentrations of 50% and lower, those of the rubber at GR concentrations of 70% and higher; (3) tensile properties of partially crosslinked blends improve if the addition of DCP is effected after partial mixing of the pure homopolymers; (4) the partial cross-linking of the blend exerts a strong beneficial influence on the mechanical properties; (5) the addition of carbon black exerts little influence on the mechanical properties of the blend. It can be suggested that, at 60% GR, both polymers (GR and HDPE) show the same tendency to form the continuous or dominant phase. Above 60%, the rubber tends to be the dominant phase, and below 60% the plastic tends to .
Decreased Basal Ganglia Activation in Subjects with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Association with Symptoms of Fatigue

Reduced basal ganglia function has been associated with fatigue in neurologic disorders, as well as in patients exposed to chronic immune stimulation. Patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) have been shown to exhibit symptoms suggestive of decreased basal ganglia function including psychomotor slowing, which in turn was correlated with fatigue. In addition, CFS patients have been found to exhibit increased markers of immune activation. In order to directly test the hypothesis of decreased basal ganglia function in CFS, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine neural activation in the basal ganglia to a reward-processing (monetary gambling) task in a community sample of 59 male and female subjects, including 18 patients diagnosed with CFS according to 1994 CDC criteria and 41 non-fatigued healthy controls. For each subject, the average effect of winning vs. losing during the gambling task in regions of interest (ROI) corresponding to the caudate nucleus, putamen, and globus pallidus was extracted for group comparisons and correlational analyses. Compared to non-fatigued controls, patients with CFS exhibited significantly decreased activation in the right caudate (p = 0.01) and right globus pallidus (p = 0.02). Decreased activation in the right globus pallidus was significantly correlated with increased mental fatigue (r2 = 0.49, p = 0.001), general fatigue (r2 = 0.34, p = 0.01) and reduced activity (r2 = 0.29, p = 0.02) as measured by the Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory. No such relationships were found in control subjects. These data suggest that symptoms of fatigue in CFS subjects were associated with reduced responsivity of the basal ganglia, possibly involving the disruption of projections from the globus pallidus to thalamic and cortical networks.
A Molecular Perspective on Procedures and Outcomes with Assisted Reproductive Technologies.

The emerging association of assisted reproductive technologies with adverse perinatal outcomes has prompted the in-depth examination of clinical and laboratory protocols and procedures and their possible effects on epigenetic regulatory mechanism(s). The application of various approaches to study epigenetic regulation to problems in reproductive medicine has the potential to identify relative risk indicators for particular conditions, diagnostic biomarkers of disease state, and prognostic indicators of outcome. Moreover, when applied genome-wide, these techniques are likely to find novel pathways of disease pathogenesis and identify new targets for intervention. The analysis of DNA methylation, histone modifications, transcription factors, enhancer binding and other chromatin proteins, DNase-hypersensitivity and, micro- and other noncoding RNAs all provide overlapping and often complementary snapshots of chromatin structure and resultant "gene activity. " In terms of clinical application, the predictive power and utility of epigenetic information will depend on the power of individual techniques to discriminate normal levels of interindividual variation from variation linked to a disease state. At present, quantitative analysis of DNA methylation at multiple loci seems likely to hold the greatest promise for achieving the level of precision, reproducibility, and throughput demanded in a clinical setting.
Evolution of Anolis Lizard Dewlap Diversity

Background The dewlaps of Anolis lizards provide a classic example of a complex signaling system whose function and evolution is poorly understood. Dewlaps are flaps of skin beneath the chin that are extended and combined with head and body movements for visual signals and displays. They exhibit extensive morphological variation and are one of two cladistic features uniting anoles, yet little is known regarding their function and evolution. We quantified the diversity of anole dewlaps, investigated whether dewlap morphology was informative regarding phylogenetic relationships, and tested two separate hypotheses: (A) similar Anolis habitat specialists possess similar dewlap configurations (Ecomorph Convergence hypothesis), and (B) sympatric species differ in their dewlap morphologies to a greater extent than expected by chance (Species Recognition hypothesis). Methodology/Principal Findings We found that dewlap configurations (sizes, patterns and colors) exhibit substantial diversity, but that most are easily categorized into six patterns that incorporate one to three of 13 recognizable colors. Dewlap morphology is not phylogenetically informative and, like other features of anoles, exhibits convergence in configurations. We found no support for the Ecomorph Convergence hypothesis; species using the same structural habitat were no more similar in dewlap configuration than expected by chance. With one exception, all sympatric species in four communities differ in dewlap configuration. However, this provides only weak support for the Species Recognition hypothesis because, due to the great diversity in dewlap configurations observed across each island, few cases of sympatric species with identical dewlaps would be expected to co-occur by chance alone. Conclusions/Significance Despite previous thought, most dewlaps exhibit easily characterizable patterns and colorations. Nevertheless, dewlap variation is extensive and explanations for the origin and evolution of this diversity are lacking. Our data do not support two hypothesized explanations for this diversity, but others such as sexual selection remain to be tested.
Diagnosis of dry eye disease and emerging technologies

Dry eye is one of the most commonly encountered problems in ophthalmology. Signs can include punctate epithelial erosions, hyperemia, low tear lakes, rapid tear break-up time, and meibomian gland disease. Current methods of diagnosis include a slit-lamp examination with and without different stains, including fluorescein, rose bengal, and lissamine green. Other methods are the Schirmer test, tear function index, tear break-up time, and functional visual acuity. Emerging technologies include meniscometry, optical coherence tomography, tear film stability analysis, interferometry, tear osmolarity, the tear film normalization test, ocular surface thermography, and tear biomarkers. Patient-specific considerations involve relevant history of autoimmune disease, refractive surgery or use of oral medications, and allergies or rosacea. Other patient considerations include clinical examination for lid margin disease and presence of lagophthalmos or blink abnormalities. Given a complex presentation and a variety of signs and symptoms, it would be beneficial if there was an inexpensive, readily available, and reproducible diagnostic test for dry eye.
β-carotene protects the gastric mucosa against ischemia-reperfusion injury in rats.

BACKGROUND/AIM The aim of the present study was to investigate the protective effect of β-carotene on gastric mucosal lesions caused by ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury in rat. Forty male rats were randomly divided into sham, control (I/R injury) and three β-carotene-pretreated groups. To induce the I/R lesions, the celiac artery was clamped for 30 min. The clamp was then removed to allow reperfusion for three hours. Pretreated-rats received β-carotene (15, 30 or 60 mg/kg daily, i.p.) or vehicle for five days before the induction of the I/R injury. Samples of gastric mucosa were collected to measure the mRNA expression of IL-1β, TNF-α and TGF-β by quantitative, real-time PCR. Pretreatment with β-carotene decreased the total area of gastric ulcer and mRNA expression, as well as plasma levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, IL-1β and TNF-α, in a dose-dependent manner. The gene expression and plasma levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine, TGF-β, were significantly increased in β-carotene-pretreated groups compared with the control. Our findings showed that the protective effect of β-carotene may be mediated partly by reducing mRNA expression and plasma levels of IL-1β and TNF-α, and concurrently, by increasing gene expression and plasma levels of the anti-inflammatory cytokine TGF-β. These findings suggest that β-carotene has a protective role in gastric mucosa. Further clinical and in vivo studies need to be undertaken to support this hypothesis.
Relationship of Algae to Water Pollution and Waste Water Treatment

Pollution of surface water has become one of the most important environmental problems. Two types of large and long-lasting pollution threats can be recognized at the global level: on the one hand, organic pollution leading to high organic content in aquatic ecosystems and, in the long term, to eutrophication. It is a well-known fact that polluted water can reduce water quality thus restricting use of water bodies for many purposes.
SELF- EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN TURKEY

The relationship between the rates of self-employment and unemployment has been extensively studied in the literature. The results of the existing studies are varied. The aim of this paper is to investigate the dynamic relationship between these variables in Turkey. The results indicate that there is a long-run relationship between the rates of self-employment and unemployment. Changes in self-employment rates have a negative effect on subsequent unemployment rates. There is evidence for the existence of causality running from self-employment rate to unemployment rate. The results reveal the existence of an entrepreneurial effect. However, it is not possible to assess the exact entrepreneurial effect due to the restraint in the coverage of selfemployment data. Involvement of unpaid workers in self-employment probably disguises the exact entrepreneurial effect.
Treatment Technologies for Organic Wastewater

There are several contaminants in wastewater, with organic pollutants playing the major role. Many kinds of organic compounds, such as PCBs, pesticides, herbicides, phenols, polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), aliphatic and hetercyclic compounds are included in the wastewater, and industrial and agricultural production as well as the people living could be the source of organic wastewater endangering the safety of the water resource [1]. The wastewater of the farmland may contain high concentration of pesticides or herbicides; the wastewater of the coke plant may contain various PAHs; the wastewater of the chemical industry may contain various heterogeneity compounds, such as PCB, PBDE; the wastewater discharged by the food industry contains complex organic pollutants with high concentration of SS and BOD; and the municipal sewage contains different type of organic pollutants, such as oil, food, some dissolved organics and some surfactants. These organic pollutants in water can harm the environment and also pose health risks for humans.
Investigating developmental cardiovascular biomechanics and the origins of congenital heart defects

Innovative research on the interactions between biomechanical load and cardiovascular (CV) morphogenesis by multiple investigators over the past 3 decades, including the application of bioengineering approaches, has shown that the embryonic heart adapts both structure and function in order to maintain cardiac output to the rapidly growing embryo. Acute adaptive hemodynamic mechanisms in the embryo include the redistribution of blood flow within the heart, dynamic adjustments in heart rate and developed pressure, and beat to beat variations in blood flow and vascular resistance. These biomechanically relevant events occur coincident with adaptive changes in gene expression and trigger adaptive mechanisms that include alterations in myocardial cell growth and death, regional and global changes in myocardial architecture, and alterations in central vascular morphogenesis and remodeling. These adaptive mechanisms allow the embryo to survive these biomechanical stresses (environmental, maternal) and to compensate for developmental errors (genetic). Recent work from numerous laboratories shows that a subset of these adaptive mechanisms is present in every developing multicellular organism with a “heart” equivalent structure. This chapter will provide the reader with an overview of some of the approaches used to quantify embryonic CV functional maturation and performance, provide several illustrations of experimental interventions that explore the role of biomechanics in the regulation of CV morphogenesis including the role of computational modeling, and identify several critical areas for future investigation as available experimental models and methods expand.
Implicit active contours for ultrasound images segmentation driven by phase information and local maximum likelihood

This paper presents a new method in a variational level set framework for ultrasound images segmentation. The conventional intensity gradient based methods have had limited success on ultrasound images. Phase based methods, which are theoretically intensity-invariant, offer a good alternative. The proposed approach uses a speed term based on local phase derived from the monogenic signal. In order to confront more the speckle noise and local changes of intensity, the proposed phase based geodesic active contours term is combined with a new local maximum likelihood region term. A Rayleigh probability distribution is considered to model the B-mode ultrasound images intensities. Preliminary results show that the proposed model is robust to attenuation and captures well the low contrast boundaries.
Elastic-BPM: the Design, Deployment, and Evaluation of a Cloud-Based Architecture for Enterprise Business-Process-as-a-Service

Business processes are part of every company’s daily business. In the past hundreds of years, almost every aspect in the operation of businesses has seen a two-pronged transformation: first, toward defining and then following processes, and second, toward making the processes efficient through the use of technology. In this work, we define a technology-driven approach to business processes: Business Process as a Service. Starting from the current technological possibilities and architectural trends, we define BPaaS, and list requirements for a functional BPaaS system in enterprise settings. Key to our requirements, we consider (1) business process creation, execution, and monitoring, (2) the pay-per-use business model, and (3) useful trade-offs in the cost-scalability space. Using these requirements, we design a reference architecture for BPaaS. We implement the reference architecture as a prototype BPaaS solution, Elastic-BPM. The key feature of Elastic-BPM is efficient operation, which it achieves by enabling the elastic use of infrastructure. Key components of our reference architecture are (1) the user dashboard and process manager, responsible for the creation, execution, and monitoring of business processes, (2) the virtual infrastructure making use of small, preemptable components, to enable the pay-per-use business model, and (3) the scheduler, responsible for the trade-offs in the cost-scalability space. The implementation is based on and makes use of state-of-the-art cloud components, such as Angular for the dashboard, Elasticsearch for the scheduler input, and Docker for the virtual infrastructure. We further equip the scheduling component of Elastic-BPM with three different dynamic provisioning algorithms; Static, OnDemand, and Learning, which cover conceptually one static and two dynamic approaches to provisioning infrastructure, respectively. We validate Elastic-BPM by deploying it both locally and in the Microsoft Azure cloud, and by running over 50 experiments using a synthetic but diverse workload. We find not only optimal setting for the cloud components in the system, but also for scheduling the human resources partaking in the business process.
Surface plasmon resonance for the characterization of bacterial polysaccharide antigens: a review

Carbohydrates, in the form of oligosaccharides, polysaccharides and lipopolysaccharides, are ubiquitous components of the cell surface of bacteria. In the last 30 years polysaccharide-based vaccines have proven to be highly safe and efficacious against bacterial infections like meningitis and pneumonia. Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) analysers have emerged as powerful tools for the characterization of label-free biomolecular interactions, enabling the dynamics of complex formation and dissociation to be monitored in real-time. A wide variety of sensor chips are currently available for many applications. Nevertheless, biosensors with nucleophilic functionalities, such as amino groups, could be useful to extend the SPR applicability. Using selected examples, this review gives an overview of significant applications of conventional flow SPR to investigate the specific interactions of bacterial polysaccharide antigens. SPR has made significant progress in the last two decades and is now becoming a relevant technology for developing immunological assays for in-depth characterization of carbohydrate antigens.
Integration of Population-Level Genotype Data with Functional Annotation Reveals Over-Representation of Long Noncoding RNAs at Ovarian Cancer Susceptibility Loci

Background: Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified multiple loci associated with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) susceptibility, but further progress requires integration of epidemiology and biology to illuminate true risk loci below genome-wide significance levels (P < 5 × 10−8). Most risk SNPs lie within non–protein-encoding regions, and we hypothesize that long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) genes are enriched at EOC risk regions and represent biologically relevant functional targets. Methods: Using imputed GWAS data from about 18,000 invasive EOC cases and 34,000 controls of European ancestry, the GENCODE (v19) lncRNA database was used to annotate SNPs from 13,442 lncRNAs for permutation-based enrichment analysis. Tumor expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis was performed for sub-genome-wide regions (1 × 10−5 > P > 5 × 10−8) overlapping lncRNAs. Results: Of 5,294 EOC-associated SNPs (P < 1.0 × 10−5), 1,464 (28%) mapped within 53 unique lncRNAs and an additional 3,484 (66%) SNPs were correlated (r2 > 0.2) with SNPs within 115 lncRNAs. EOC-associated SNPs comprised 130 independent regions, of which 72 (55%) overlapped with lncRNAs, representing a significant enrichment (P = 5.0 × 10−4) that was more pronounced among a subset of 5,401 lncRNAs with active epigenetic regulation in normal ovarian tissue. EOC-associated lncRNAs and their putative promoters and transcription factors were enriched for biologically relevant pathways and eQTL analysis identified five novel putative risk regions with allele-specific effects on lncRNA gene expression. Conclusions: lncRNAs are significantly enriched at EOC risk regions, suggesting a mechanistic role for lncRNAs in driving predisposition to EOC. Impact: lncRNAs represent key candidates for integrative epidemiologic and functional studies. Further research on their biologic role in ovarian cancer is indicated. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(1); 116–25. ©2016 AACR.