Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Virtual Reality Serves as a Support Technology in Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing

The purpose of this study was to develop a virtual cycling system and examine the influence of virtual reality (VR) on test performance during clinical exercise testing. We aimed to compare the physiological responses of the cardiovascular and ventilatory systems during incremental exercise testing with or without VR, and to measure VR effects on the ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) and cycling duration throughout the test. Twelve healthy senior citizens (ten men and two women) with a mean age of 74.5-4.7 years participated in the study. The codes of behavior for this study included a maximum graded exercise tolerance test, a submaximal endurance VR exercise, and a submaximal endurance non-VR exercise. A friction-braked cycle ergometer was used to conduct the exercise tests. For the subject's movement speed to create an appropriate environment flow on the display screen, the bike was connected to a personal computer. The cardiorespiratory and hemodynamic parameters were evaluated at both peak and submaximal exertion. The results show that the VR versus non-VR programs did not differ on submaximal and peak exercise responses during the cycling test. However, significant differences were observed between the mean values for cycling duration, distance, and energy consumption. The difference between RPE curves for VR and non-VR protocols revealed promising results within 45 min. of cycling (Breslow test, p = .06); however, no statistical significance was achieved at the test termination (log rank test, p =.17). In conclusion, this study found that the maintenance of endurance, the increase in target intensity, and total energy consumption in exercise programs may be assisted by introducing VR technology. In addition, the activities taking place in virtual environments can be performed in complete safety.
Doctor Switching Costs in Health Insurance

We exploit a targeted change in the health insurance offerings of a large employer to evaluate whether individuals are willing to pay more to keep their existing primary care doctor. Beginning in 2011, employees in one of the health insurance plans were given the option of choosing a new plan which had a lower premium in exchange for a more limited network of doctors. For individuals whose doctors were covered under both the old and new plans, we argue this new option strictly dominated, since all other aspects of insurance coverage remained identical and the option value of the larger network was close to zero. We use the choices of these employees to estimate the amount of non-switching due to inertia. Employees whose existing doctors were not covered under the new option had to decide whether to pay more to keep their current doctor. This setting allows us to identify the costs that individuals associate with switching doctors separately from inertia. We estimate that 22% of employees are initially inattentive and that 16% are inattentive a year later, even though they could save between $638 and $1,851 annually by switching to the new plan. A substantial fraction of individuals are willing to pay higher premiums to keep their doctor, even after controlling for inertia, with 35% of employees choosing to pay an average of over $100 extra per month to retain their doctors. These inertia and doctor switching costs vary by income, age, gender, family composition and prior health care utilization patterns. Our findings have important implications for the design of public and private health insurance offerings.
Bacterial Protection of Beetle-Fungus Mutualism

Host-microbe symbioses play a critical role in the evolution of biological diversity and complexity. In a notably intricate system, southern pine beetles use symbiotic fungi to help overcome host-tree defenses and to provide nutrition for their larvae. We show that this beetle-fungal mutualism is chemically mediated by a bacterially produced polyunsaturated peroxide. The molecule's selective toxicity toward the beetle's fungal antagonist, combined with the prevalence and localization of its bacterial source, indicates an insect-microbe association that is both mutualistic and coevolved. This unexpected finding in a well-studied system indicates that mutualistic associations between insects and antibiotic-producing bacteria are more common than currently recognized and that identifying their small-molecule mediators can provide a powerful search strategy for therapeutically useful antimicrobial compounds.
Determination of neurotransmitters in PC 12 cells by microchip electrophoresis with fluorescence detection

A sensitive fluorescence detection system with an Hg‐lamp as the excitation source and a photon counter as the detector for microchip CE (MCE) has been developed. O‐Phthaldialdehyde (OPA, λex = 340 nm) was employed to label the catecholamine neurotransmitters such as dopamine (DA), norepinephrine (NE), and amino acid neurotransmitters including alanine (Ala), taurine (Tau), glycine (Gly), glutamic acid (Glu), and aspartic acid (Asp). The separation of seven derivatized neurotransmitters was successfully performed in MCE and the detection limits (S/N = 3) for DA, NE, Ala, Tau, Gly, Glu, and Asp were 0.85, 0.49, 0.23, 0.15, 0.13, 0.18, and 0.29 fmol, respectively. The system was then successfully applied for separation and determination of neurotransmitters in rat pheochromocytoma (PC 12) cells, and the average amounts of analyte per cell from a cell population were 2.5 fmol for DA, 3.3 fmol for Ala, 8.2 fmol for Tau, 4.0 fmol for Gly, and 1.9 fmol for Glu, respectively. By single‐cell injection mode, electrophoresis separation and quantitative measurement of Glu in individual PC 12 cells was obtained. The average value of Glu per cell from single PC 12 cells analysis was found to be 3.5 ± 3.1 fmol.
Response of mollusc assemblages to climate variability and anthropogenic activities: a 4000‐year record from a shallow bar‐built lagoon system

With their position at the interface between land and ocean and their fragile nature, lagoons are sensitive to environmental change, and it is reasonable to expect these changes would be recorded in well‐preserved taxa such as molluscs. To test this, the 4000‐year history of molluscs in Great South Bay, a bar‐built lagoon, was reconstructed from 24 vibracores. Using x‐radiography to identify shell layers, faunal counts, shell condition, organic content, and sediment type were measured in 325 samples. Sample age was estimated by interpolating 40 radiocarbon dates. K‐means cluster analysis identified three molluscan assemblages, corresponding to sand‐associated and mud‐associated groups, and the third associated with inlet areas. Redundancy and regression tree analyses indicated that significant transitions from the sand‐associated to mud‐associated assemblage occurred over large portions of the bay about 650 and 294 years bp. The first date corresponds to the transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age; this change in climate reduced the frequency of strong storms, likely leading to reduced barrier island breaching, greater bay enclosure, and fine‐grained sediment accumulation. The second date marks the initiation of clear cutting by European settlers, an activity that would have increased runoff of fine‐grained material. The occurrence of the inlet assemblage in the western and eastern ends of the bay is consistent with a history of inlets in these areas, even though prior to Hurricane Sandy in 2012, no inlet was present in the eastern bay in almost 200 years. The mud dominant, Mulinia lateralis, is a bivalve often associated with environmental disturbances. Its increased frequency over the past 300 years suggests that disturbances are more common in the bay than in the past. Management activities maintaining the current barrier island state may be contributing to the sand‐mud transition and to the bay's susceptibility to disturbances.
Transmitter optimization, widely-linear detection, and power control for energy-efficient networks: A game-theoretic approach

The issue of cross-layer spreading code optimization, widely-linear receiver choice and transmit power control for non-cooperative energy-efficiency maximization in CDMA-based wireless data networks is considered in this paper. While previous work in this area has focused on a simple real signal model, in this paper a baseband complex representation of the data is used, so as to properly take into account the I and Q components of the received signal. For the case in which the received signal is improper, a widely-linear reception structure, processing separately the data and their complex conjugates, is considered. Several non-cooperative games are considered, all of which are shown to admit Nash equilibria. Interestingly, it is found that spreading code optimization coupled with widely-linear filtering permits supporting, with no multiuser interference, a number of users that is twice the processing gain. Numerical results corroborate the validity of the theoretical analysis, and show that widely-linear filtering in the presence of improper data brings remarkable performance improvements with respect to conventional linear receivers.
Low Power Transceiver Design Parameters for Wireless Sensor Networks

Designing low power sensor networks has been the general goal of design engineers, scientist and end users. It is desired to have a wireless sensor network (WSN) that will run on little power (if possible, none at all) thereby saving cost, and the inconveniences of having to replace batteries in some difficult to access areas of usage. Previous researches on WSN energy models have focused less on the aggregate transceiver energy consumption models as compared to studies on other components of the node, hence a large portion of energy in a WSN still get depleted through data transmission. By studying the energy consumption map of the transceiver of a WSN node in different states and within state transitions, we propose in this paper the energy consumption model of the transceiver unit of a typical sensor node and the transceiver design parameters that significantly influences this energy consumption. The contribution of this paper is an innovative energy consumption model based on simple finite automata which reveals the relationship between the aggregate energy consumption and important power parameters that characterize the energy consumption map of the transceiver in a WSN; an ideal tool to design low power WSN.
A passivity-based perspective for distributed optimization and integration of communication delays

In this paper, we present a perspective that a solution process for a class of distributed optimization is passive. After formulating the intended distributed optimization problem, we design a distributed optimization dynamics based on so-called PI consensus algorithm. The dynamical system is then shown to be regarded as a feedback interconnection of passive systems and hence to preserve passivity. As a benefit of the passivity-based perspective, we then integrate interagent communication delays using passivity-based output synchronization techniques together with so-called scattering transformation.
Proposed reference sequences for hepatitis E virus subtypes.

The nomenclature of hepatitis E virus (HEV) subtypes is inconsistent and makes comparison of different studies problematic. We have provided a table of proposed complete genome reference sequences for each subtype. The criteria for subtype assignment vary between different genotypes and methodologies, and so a conservative pragmatic approach has been favoured. Updates to this table will be posted on the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses website (http://talk.ictvonline.org/r.ashx? C). The use of common reference sequences will facilitate communication between researchers and help clarify the epidemiology of this important human pathogen. This subtyping procedure might be adopted for other taxa of the genus Orthohepevirus.
Mediating effect of quality-differentiated auditor on the relationship between managerial ownership and monitoring mechanisms

Over the past decade, most studies in corporate governance and audit market have emphasised the importance of monitoring mechanisms (MM), especially after the global economic meltdown resulting from the Enron saga. The literature on MM continues growing as many countries especially the Sub-Saharan Africa are still struggling to come out of the effect of the economic meltdown and businesses continues to fail or merge. This paper, therefore, examines the relationship between Managerial Ownership (MO) and MMs with quality-differentiated auditors (QDA) as the channel for the relationship. The study used data from non-financial listed companies in Nigeria providing empirical supports that MO significantly associates with MMs in the right direction. Likewise, QDA also influences the MMs in the right direction suggesting that QDA is necessarily required to enhance adequate MMs. The findings of this study provide support for the association of MO and MMs with the intervention of QDA for solutions to agency problems. Companies should, therefore, motivate the management to own shares within the reasonable range that aligns the interest of the management with that of the shareholders. This paper adds to knowledge especially in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa by examining a mediating effect to depict the relationship between MO and MM, which are not evident in prior studies.
Exploring the Benefits of Peer to Peer Helping Relationships

would be advantageous to market future Peer Support programmes to highlight the potential personal benefits of the 30-hour training programme as well as its potential application after training. It is also possible that students may prefer more informal peer support delivered through existing friendship networks and the skills that Peer Supporters acquire may enhance their relationships with others and by implication, the institutional climate of the university.
Distribution of dark and baryonic matter in clusters of galaxies

We present the analysis of baryonic and non-baryonic matter distribution in a sample of ten nearby clusters (0.03 < z < 0.09) with temperatures between 4.7 and 9.4 keV. These galaxy clusters are studied in detail using X-ray data and global physical properties are determined. Correlations between these quantities are analysed and compared with the results for distant clusters. We find an interesting correlation between the extent of the intra-cluster gas relative to the dark matter distribution. The extent of the gas relative to the extent of the dark matter tends to be larger in less massive clusters. This correlation might give us some hints on non-gravitational processes in clusters. We do not see evolution in the gas mass fraction out to a redshift of unity. Within r(500), the mean gas mass fraction obtained is (0.16 +/- 0.02) h(50)(-3/2).
Reforms for sustainable productivity growth in Ireland

The Irish economy has experienced a decline in productivity growth over the past decade. This has mostly reflected the poor performance of local firms, with the large productivity gap between foreign-owned and local enterprises having widened. Given the mobility of foreign-owned firms, achieving sustainable productivity growth requires addressing productivity stagnation in the local business sector. Government policy should ensure high-potential businesses can enter markets and expand unimpeded, and that the most productive firms thrive in the market. To achieve this, some aspects of the regulatory environment for businesses need to be reformed and the quality of Irish infrastructure improved. Access to finance for high-performing firms must be broadened as well, through restoring credit supply in the banking sector, developing equity finance and improving public financial support. It needs to be assured that government policy is also calibrated to encourage productivity-enhancing knowledge spillovers from frontier firms. Trade linkages and research collaboration between foreign-owned and local firms can be better promoted. However, the ability for local firms to absorb new knowledge relies on their investment in knowledge based capital and managerial skills. These can be promoted by greater direct government funding of business R&D, supporting labour mobility across firms, and worker participation in lifelong learning activities.
Residential Units of Comparison - A Common Denominator

The common denominator refers to the units of comparison that are used to compare a sale property to the subject and to compare sale properties to each other. In order to provide an accurate analysis, evidence must be developed to indicate what units of comparison best reflect the actions of residential buyers and sellers in a given market. Participants in different markets will not depend on the same units of comparison when making value decisions. Determining which units of comparison are most appropriate for a given market is basic to making effective price comparisons that are the result of applying a reliable common denominator.
A Survey and Taxonomy Aimed at the Detection and Measurement of Covert Channels

New viewpoints of covert channels are presented in this work. First, the origin of covert channels is traced back to acc ess control and a new class of covert channel, air-gap covert channels, is presented. Second, we study the design of covert channels and provide novel insights that differentiate the research area of undetectable communication from that of covert channels. Third, we argue that secure systems can be characterized as fixed-source systems or continuous-source systems, i.e., systems whose security is compromised if their design allows a covert channel to communicate a small, fixed amount of information or communicate information at a sufficiently high, continuous rate, respectively. Consequently, we challenge the traditional method for measuring covert channels, which is based on Shannon capacity, and propose that a new measure, steganographic capacity, be used to accurately assess the risk posed by covert channels, particularly those affecting fixed-source systems. Additionally, our comprehensive review of covert channels has led us to the conclusion that important properties of covert channels have not been captured in previous taxonomies. We, therefore, present novel extensions to existing taxonomies to more accurately characterize covert channels.
The VC dimension of k‐uniform random hypergraphs

A set of vertices is shattered in a hypergraph if any of its subsets is obtained as the intersection of an edge with the set. The VC dimension is the size of the largest shattered subset. Under the binomial model of k‐uniform random hypergraphs, the threshold function for the VC dimension to be larger than a given integer is obtained. The same is done for the testing dimension, which is the largest integer d such that all sets of cardinality d are shattered. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg. , 2007
Perception of High Alcohol Use of Peers Is Associated With High Personal Alcohol Use in First-Year University Students in Three Central and Eastern European Countries

ABSTRACT Objectives: The objectives of this study were to assess discrepancies between estimated peer and personal drinking behavior and to determine associations between perceptions of peer and personal drinking behavior among university students from Hungary (HU), Lithuania (LT), and the Slovak Republic (SK). Methods: 2,554 freshman university students completed an online questionnaire on the frequency of their personal alcohol use, the number of heavy drinking occasions and on their perception concerning the corresponding drinking behavior of a typical student. Associations between perceived peer and personal use were analyzed by means of logistic regression, adjusting for sex. Results: The majority of students across all countries thought their peers drink more frequently and are more often involved in heavy drinking occasions than themselves. Students who perceived the frequency of peer alcohol use to be higher were more likely to drink alcohol twice a week or more often (SR: OR = 3.81, 95% CI = 2.51–5.79; LT: OR = 3.16, 95% CI = 2.11–4.75; HU: OR = 2.10, 95% CI = 1.53–2.87) compared with students who drink alcohol monthly or less. Those who perceived the number of peer heavy drinking occasions as high were more likely to report heavy drinking weekly or more often (SR: OR = 3.16, 95% CI = 1.92–5.20; LT:OR = 3.56, 95% CI = 2.14–5.94; HU:OR = 1.41, 95% CI = 0.79–2.51) compared with students who report heavy drinking less than monthly. Conclusions/Importance: University students perceived peer alcohol use to be higher than their personal use. Given the association between perceptions and personal alcohol use, future research should investigate if targeting perceptions in the surveyed countries may have an impact on alcohol use.
Collection of magnetic particles from synovial fluid using Nd-Fe-B micromagnets

In this paper, the collection of magnetic particles from synovial fluid using Nd-Fe-B micromagnets is quantitatively studied to determine the influence of fluid viscosity and magnet geometry on the velocity distribution and collection rate. Magnetic capture is validated in highly viscous fluids, such as bovine synovial fluid (η~ 1 Pa·s). A first-order theoretical model has been developed to predict the particle motion, as well as a numerical multiphysics model. Both models exhibit good agreement with in vitro experimental magnetic collection results. The velocity of the magnetic particles is shown to be inversely proportional to fluid viscosity, and two magnetic structures are compared in term of collection efficiency: a cylindrical Nd-Fe-B permanent magnet and a laser-machined conical Nd-Fe-B permanent magnet.
Simultaneous prediction of two independent chaotic time series using semiconductor ring lasers with optical feedback

We demonstrate simultaneous prediction of two independent Santa-Fe time series using a single-longitudinal mode semiconductor ring laser with optical feedback. Our results indicate that a prediction with errors comparable to the state-ofthe-art can be achieved for each time series despite the two tasks are computed simultaneously. I by the way that the brain processes the information, computational approaches have been developed for tasks such as pattern recognition, time series prediction and classification [1], [2]. These approaches typically make use of a large number of randomly connected nonlinear nodes. With 10 − 10 nodes, such hard tasks have been solved with acceptable errors. In a recently introduced approach, this large number of nodes has been successulfully replaced by a single nonlinear node with delay, yielding comparable performance [3]–[7]. In this contribution, we attempt to mimic another ability of the brain consisting in processing simultaneously several independent tasks. We identify semiconductor ring lasers (SRLs) as suitable devices for this purpose thanks to their capability of lasing simultaneously in two directional modes. Thus, we simultaneously predict the next sample of two independent chaotic time series. In terms of the mean-field slowly varying complex amplitudes of the electric field associated with the two counterpropagating modes Ecw and Eccw, and the carrier number N , the theoretical model of the SRL-based system used is : Ėcw = κ (1 + iα) [GcwN − 1]Ecw − (kd + ikc)Eccw + ηcwFcw(t) + √ Dcwξcw(t) + k1E1(t), (1) Ėccw = κ (1 + iα) [GccwN − 1]Eccw − (kd + ikc)Ecw + ηccwFccw(t) + √ Dccwξccw(t) + k2E2(t), (2)