Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The microrheological behavior of young and old red blood cells in athletes.

Previous studies have shown a difference in rheological properties of young versus senescent RBCs. There are data that the athletes blood has more young RBCs than untrained people. Our research was a comparative study of the microrheological properties of young and old RBCs in athletes and in untrained people that was as control group. In athletes (men, n=24) and group of the control (men, n=20) the following parameters were measured: RBC aggregation (ARBC; Myrenne aggregometer) and deformability, RBC suspension and plasma viscosity as well as osmolarity, albumin, globulin and fibrinogen concentration, MCHC. Red cells were density (i.e., age) fractionated by the method of Murphy. After centrifugation the top 10% of the packed cell column (RBCtop, relatively young cells) and the bottom 10% (RBCbot, relatively old cells) were resuspended at 40.0+/-0.4% (in plasma) for aggregation, deformation and suspension viscosity measurements. It was found significant difference in aggregation and rigidity of the all RBC subpopulations between athletes and control group. The difference in aggregation was associated with reduced fibrinogen and increased ratio albumin/globulin in athletes. Besides, the correlation between aggregation RBCtop and RBCbot with fibrinogen was decreased in athletes. It was one of the cause of high fluidity of the RBCtop- and RBCbot suspensions and whole blood in athletes and more effective oxygen transport than in untrained people.
Two-Year Follow-up of the Competitive Employment Status of Graduates with Developmental Disabilities

RECENT REPORTS ON employment for individuals with developmental disabilities have emphasized teaching methods (Hughes & Rusch, 1989), potential job opportunities (Wehman, 1988), philosophic rationale (Rusch & Hughes, 1989), program design (Goldberg, Mclean, Lavigne, Fratolillo, & Sullivan, 1990; Rusch & Hughes, 1988), intervention component evaluation (Wacker, Fromm-Steege, Berg, & Flynn, 1989), and the development of guidelines to evaluate the quality of each individual’s work experience or work study program (Wisniewski, Alper, & Schloss, 1991). These reports, and others preceding them, have spurred changes in both special education curricula and programs. According to one model described by McDonnell, Hardman, and Hightower (1989), an adequate program is viewed as one which supports successful transition from the school to the job environment by employing several components, including matching student interests with job opportunities, sampling job opportunities, job placement, specific job training, employment training sites, and support on the job. An example of such a multicomponent program is the Career and Vocational Services Program offered by the Grossmont Union High School District’s Special Education Department in La Mesa, California. This program consists of these four components: work study; job skills training in a sheltered workshop; work adjustment services that combine workshop and classroom activities to teach interview and job procure-
Age‐Dependent Changes in Long‐Term Seizure Susceptibility and Behavior After Hypoxia in Rats

Summary: We showed that hypoxia is acutely epileptogenic in immature but not in adult rats. In the present study, we evaluated whether hypoxia results in an in‐crease in long‐term seizure susceptibility to flurothyl and whether this is associated with impaired performance on behavioral tests. We also determined whether these long‐term outcomes are dependent on age at time of O2, deprivation. Long Evans hooded rats were rendered hypoxic on either postnatal day (P)5, P10, or P60. Sixty to 75 days after hypoxia, rats were tested for performance in water maze, open field, and handling tests and for seizure susceptibility to flurothyl. Hypoxia at P10 significantly in‐creased seizure susceptibility to fluorothyl, whereas hypoxia at P5 and P60 induced no long‐term changes in seizure threshold. At P10, greater seizure severity during hypoxia and more prolonged exposure to hypoxia significantly increased long‐term seizure susceptibility. This long‐term change in seizure susceptibility appeared to be dissociated from any long‐term neurobehavioral consequences, because only animals rendered hypoxic as adults (P60) had impaired behavioral performance. The results suggest that hypoxia‐induced seizures can alter long‐term seizure susceptibility and that this long‐term effect is dependent on age and on severity of seizure activity at the time of previous hypoxia.
A unified language for anthropomorphic arm motion

When abundant humanoid robots are springing up in many application fields, the anthropomorphic arm, which is the most important part of the humanoid robot, is facing numerous complicated manipulation tasks. In order to address two diversity issues of anthropomorphic arm platforms and manipulation tasks, a unified "language", a novel task-motion planning method, for different anthropomorphic arms is developed to describe and plan their motion in this paper for the first time. Firstly, six principal rules of human arm motion are extracted from a lot of literature in Neurophysiology. According to these rules, a general library of movement primitives and a well-defined set of motion grammar rules are designed to form a complete motion language for anthropomorphic arms. The movement primitives in the library can be divided into two categories in terms of different spaces: movement primitives described in the operational space to control the position and orientation of the wrist and primitives described in the human arm triangle space to control the configuration of the whole anthropomorphic arm. Movement primitives are the fundamental motion elements of the motion language. Then, according to the motion grammar, goal tasks can be constituted by some movement primitives and movements in terms of a " movement primitive-movement-task" three-level structure. As the operational space and the human arm triangle space are independent of the structure and dimension of the anthropomorphic arm, the designed primitives in the two spaces exist in all anthropomorphic arms. An interface between the motion language and the anthropomorphic arm is developed to solve for joint trajectories of every movement primitive for a specific arm. Finally, by comparing with a traditional method, the proposed motion language is demonstrated to have several advantages including comprehensive control of motion process, replication of motion, and large range of motion planning.
Searching musical audio datasets by a batch of multi-variant tracks

Multi-variant music tracks are those audio tracks of a particular song which are sung and recorded by different people (i.e., cover songs). As music social clubs grow on the Internet, more and more people like to upload music recordings onto such music social sites to share their own home-produced albums and participate in Internet singing contests. Therefore it is very important to explore a computer-assisted evaluation tool to detect these audio-based multi-variant tracks. In this paper we investigate such a task: the original track of a song is embedded in datasets, with a batch of multi-variant audio tracks of this song as input, our retrieval system returns an ordered list by similarity and indicates the position of relevant audio track. To help process multi-variant audio tracks, we suggest a semantic indexing framework and propose the Federated Features (FF) scheme to generate the semantic summarization of audio feature sequences. The conjunction of federated features with three typical similarity searching schemes, K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Locality Sensitive Hashing (LSH), and Exact Euclidian LSH (E2LSH), is evaluated. From these findings, a computer-assisted evaluation tool for searching multi-variant audio tracks was developed to search over large musical audio datasets.
De-linkage processes and grassroots movements in transitional justice

Transitional justice literature has highlighted a negative relationship between enforced disappearances and reconciliation in post-conflict settings. Little attention has been paid to how human rights issues can become stepping-stones to reconciliation. The article explains the transformation of the Cypriot Committee on Missing Persons (CMP) from an inoperative body into a successful humanitarian forum, paving the way for the pro-rapprochement bi-communal grassroots mobilization of the relatives of the missing. By juxtaposing the experience of Cyprus with other societies confronting similar problems, the article shows how the issue of the missing can become a driving force for reconciliation. The findings indicate that a policy delinking humanitarian exhumations from the prospect of a wider political settlement facilitates positive transformation in protracted human rights problems and opens up a window of opportunity to grassroots actors.
Inhibition of choroidal neovascularization by adenovirus-mediated delivery of short hairpin RNAs targeting VEGF as a potential therapy for AMD.

PURPOSE Choroidal neovascularization (CNV) is the leading cause of blindness in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Several lines of evidence implicate increased levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) from patients with AMD. Current approaches to attenuate VEGF or its receptors, including the use of small interfering (si)RNA, show significant promise, but still have limited efficacy and require repeat administrations, using procedures associated with multiple complications. The goal of this study was to develop an approach for long-term endogenous expression of short hairpin (sh)RNA that would significantly attenuate VEGF and hence act as a potential therapy for AMD. METHODS Several shRNAs expressed from recombinant adenovirus were developed. These shRNAs were expressed in human RPE cells in the presence of adenovirus vectors overexpressing VEGF, and the amount of VEGF attenuation was evaluated. Adenovirus vectors expressing VEGF were subsequently injected into the subretinal space of mice, and induction of CNV was measured in the presence of adenovirus vectors expressing shRNA targeting VEGF. RESULTS Potent shRNA sequences were identified that were able to silence VEGF in human RPE cells. When expressed from adenovirus backbones, these shRNA constructs silenced VEGF by 94% at a 1:5 molar ratio (VEGF to shRNA) and 64% at a 1:0.05 molar ratio. Adenovirus vectors expressing high levels of VEGF could induce CNV in mice within 5 days. Co-injection of VEGF-expressing viruses into mice with shRNA targeting VEGF led to a substantial (84%) reduction in CNV. CONCLUSIONS shRNA targeting VEGF from adenovirus vectors allows potent attenuation of VEGF and prevents CNV. This approach shows promise as a therapy for AMD.
A Method of Detecting Heartbeat Locations in the Ballistocardiographic Signal From the Fiber-Optic Vital Signs Sensor

We present a flexible, easy-to-expand digital signal processing method for detecting heart rate (HR) for cardiac vibration signals of fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor. The FBG-based method of measuring HR is possible to use during the magnetic resonance imaging procedure, which is its unique advantage. Our goal was to design a detection method with plurality of parameters and to subject these parameters to genetic algorithm optimization technique. In effect, we arrived at a method that is well able to deal with much distorted signals with low SNR. We proved that the method we developed allows automatic adjustment to the shape of the waves of signal carrying useful information about the moments of heartbeat. Thus, we can easily adapt our technique to the analysis of signals, which contains information on HR, from sensors employing different techniques of strain detection. The proposed method has the capabilities of analyzing signals in semi-real-time (online) with beat-to-beat resolution, significantly low delay, and negligible computational power requirements. We verified our method on recordings in a group of seven subjects. Verification included over 6000 heartbeats (82 min 47 s of recordings). The root-mean-square error of our method does not exceed 6.0 bpm.
Corporate social responsibility in South Africa: emerging trends

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine aspects of corporate social investment (CSI) in the Southern African context.Design/methodology/approach – The paper looks at current practice in Southern Africa against the historical development of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and CSI. It looks at the impact of new legislation in South Africa.Findings – The paper concludes by reflecting on the contribution that African public relations practice may have on the development challenges of Africa.Originality/value – The paper adds insights into CSR in South Africa, focusing for energising trends.
A Test of a Personality-Based View of Intrinsic Motivation *

The majority of research on intrinsic motivation has examined the impact of environmental factors that aroused people’s needs for competence and self-determination and their influence on behavior. Relatively less attention, however, has been paid to the identification of psychological individual differences in intrinsic motivation. The present study tested a model in which a personality-based view of intrinsic motivation is prominent. Specifically, we investigated whether two of the Big-5 personality dimensions, conscientiousness and openness to experience, would affect intrinsic motivation. The results indicated that those two personality traits could be significant predictors of intrinsic motivation with the effects of taskrelated motivators (e.g., ability utilization, achievement, task variety, etc.) controlled for. The meaning of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.
Negative Health Comparisons Decrease Affective and Cognitive Well-Being in Older Adults. Evidence from a Population-Based Longitudinal Study in Germany

Purpose: To examine the effect of health comparisons on affective (AWB) and cognitive well-being (CWB) in older adults longitudinally. Methods: Data were derived from the third and fourth wave of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS) which is a population-based prospective cohort study of community-dwelling subjects in Germany aged 40 and above (with 8,277 observations in fixed effects regressions). Health comparisons were assessed by the question “How would you rate your health compared with other people your age” (Much better; somewhat better; the same; somewhat worse, much worse). While AWB was quantified by using the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS), CWB was assessed by using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). Fixed effects regressions were used to analyze the effect of health comparisons on AWB and CWB. Results: While positive health comparisons only slightly increased CWB (total sample), negative health comparisons markedly decreased CWB (total sample and women), and negative affects (women). Neither positive nor negative health comparisons affected positive affects. Conclusions: Our findings stress the importance of negative health comparisons for CWB and negative affects in women. Comparison effects are asymmetric and in most cases upwards. Consequently, designing interventions to avoid upwards health comparisons might be a fruitful approach in order to maintain AWB and CWB.
An O(n) Residue Number System to Mixed Radix Conversion technique

This paper investigates the conversion of Residue Number System (RNS) operands to decimal, which is an important issue concerning the utilization of RNS numbers in digital signal processing applications. In this line of reasoning, we introduce an RNS to Mixed Radix Conversion (MRC) technique, which addresses the computation of Mixed Radix (MR) digits in such a way that enables the MRC parallelization. Given an RNS with the set of relatively prime integer moduli {mi}i=1;n, the key idea behind the proposed technique is to maximize the utilization of the modulo-mi adders and multipliers present in the RNS processor functional units. For an n-digit RNS number X = (x1; x2; x3; …; xn) the method requires n iterations. However, at iteration i, the modulo-mi units are utilized for the calculation of the MR digit ai, while the other modulo units are calculating intermediate results required in further iterations. Our approach results in an RNS to MRC with an asymptotic complexity, in terms of arithmetic operations, in the order of O(n), while state of the art MRCs exhibit an asymptotic complexity in the order of O(n2). More in particular, when compared with the best state of the art MRC, our technique reduces the number of arithmetic operations by 5:26% and 38:64% for moduli set of length four and ten, respectively.
A network for learning kinematics with application to human reaching models

A model for self-organization of the coordinate transformations required for spatial reaching is presented. During a motor babbling phase, a mapping from spatial coordinate directions to joint motion directions is learned. After learning, the model is able to produce straight-line spatial trajectories with characteristic bell-shaped spatial velocity profiles, as observed in human reaches. Simulation results are presented for transverse plane reaching using a two degree-of-freedom arm. <<ETX>>
Socioeconomic inequalities in dental caries and their determinants in adolescents in New Delhi, India

Objectives To determine whether socioeconomic inequalities are correlated to dental caries experience and decayed teeth of Indian adolescents, and assess whether behavioural and psychosocial factors mediate this association. Methods Cross-sectional study of 1386 adolescents living in three diverse areas of New Delhi. Caries experience and number of decayed teeth were assessed clinically and a questionnaire was used to gather sociodemographic and psychosocial data. Zero Inflated Negative Binomial regression models were used to assess the relationship between the outcomes (caries experience and decayed teeth) and area of residence, adjusting for covariates. Results Significant inequalities in caries experience and number of decayed teeth were observed. Odds of an adolescent being caries free decreased by 66% (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.23 to 0.49) and 70% (OR 0.30, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.43) in adolescents living in resettlement communities or urban slums, respectively, when compared with the middle class group. No difference was observed among those with caries experience/decayed teeth. Adjusting for covariates did not affect the inequalities. Conclusions Area of residence appears to be a very strong and significant determinant for an adolescent to be caries/decay free in India. Psychosocial and behavioural factors do not mediate the association between area of residence and oral health.
FaceRubbing: Input Technique by Rubbing Face using Optical Sensors on Smart Eyewear for Facial Expression Recognition

With the emergence of the wearable devices, the method to make use of the limited input space is required. This paper presents an input technique to a computer by rubbing face using optical sensors on smart eyewear. Since rubbing gesture occurs in daily life, our system enables a subtle interaction between the user and a computer. We used the smart eyewear based on the work by [5]. Although the device is developed for facial expression recognition, our method can recognize rubbing gesture independent from facial expression recognition. The embedded optical sensors measure the skin deformation caused by rubbing on the face. We detect the gestures using principal component analysis (PCA) and peak detection. we classify the area of the gesture with a random forest classifier. The accuracy of detecting rubbing gesture is 97.5%. The classification accuracy of 10 gesture area is 88.7% with user-independent training. The system can open up a new interaction method for smart glasses.
Stereoselective Reduction of Prochiral Ketones by Plant and Microbial Biocatalysts

Chiral alcohols are the key chiral building blocks to many enantiomerically pure pharmaceuticals. The biocatalytic approach in asymmetric reduction of corresponding prochiral ketones to the preparation of these optically pure substances is one of the most promising routes. The stereoselective reduction of different kinds of prochiral ketones catalyzed by various plants and microorganisms was studied in this work. Benzyl acetoacetate, methyl 3-oxopentanoate, ethyl 3-oxopentanoate, and ethyl butyryl acetate were chosen as the model substrates for β-ketoesters. Benzoyl acetonitrile, 3-chloro propiophenone, and 1-acetyl naphthalene were chosen as aromatic aliphatic ketones. Finally, 2-methyl benzophenone and 4-chloro benzophenone were selected as diaryl ketones. Plant catalysis was conducted by Daucus carota, Brassica rapa, Brassica oleracea, Pastinaca sativa, and Raphnus sativus. For microbial catalysis, Aspergillus foetidus, Penicillum citrinum, Saccharomyces carlbergensis, Pichia fermentans, and Rhodotrula glutinis were chosen. Chiral alcohols were obtained in high yields and with optical purity. A superiority in the microorganisms' performance in the bioreduction of prochiral ketones was detected. Among microorganisms, Rhodotrula glutinis showed remarkable results with nearly all substrates and is proposed for future studies.
FlexVol: Flexible, Efficient File Volume Virtualization in WAFL

Virtualization is a well-known method of abstracting physical resources and of separating the manipulation and use of logical resources from their underlying implementation. We have used this technique to virtualize file volumes in the WAFL® file system, adding a level of indirection between client-visible volumes and the underlying physical storage. The resulting virtual file volumes, or FlexVol® volumes, are managed independent of lower storage layers. Multiple volumes can be dynamically created, deleted, resized, and reconfigured within the same physical storage container. We also exploit this new virtualization layer to provide several powerful new capabilities. We have enhanced SnapMirror®, a tool for replicating volumes between storage systems, to remap storage allocation during transfer, thus optimizing disk layout for the destination storage system. FlexClone® volumes provide writable Snapshot® copies, using a FlexVol volume backed by a Snapshot copy of a different volume. FlexVol volumes also support thin provisioning; a FlexVol volume can have a logical size that exceeds the available physical storage. FlexClone volumes and thin provisioning are a powerful combination, as they allow the creation of light-weight copies of live data sets while consuming minimal storage resources. We present the basic architecture of FlexVol volumes, including performance optimizations that decrease the overhead of our new virtualization layer. We also describe the new features enabled by this architecture. Our evaluation of FlexVol performance shows that it incurs only a minor performance degradation compared with traditional, nonvirtualized WAFL volumes. On the industry-standard SPEC SFS benchmark, FlexVol volumes exhibit less than 4% performance overhead, while providing all the benefits of virtualization.
Tissue characterization in intravascular ultrasound images

Intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) imaging permits direct visualization of vascular pathology. It has been used to evaluate lumen and plaque in coronary arteries and its clinical significance for guidance of coronary interventions is increasingly recognized. Conventional manual evaluation is tedious and time consuming. This paper describes a highly automated approach to segmentation of coronary wall and plaque, and determination of plaque composition in individual IVUS images and pullback image sequences. The determined regions of plaque were classified in one of three classes: soft plaque, hard plaque, or hard plaque shadow. The method's performance was assessed in vitro and in vivo in comparison with observer-defined independent standards. In the analyzed images and image sequences, the mean border positioning error of the wall and plaque borders ranged from 0.13-0.17 mm. Plaque classification correctness was 90%,.