Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Echocardiographic findings in kidney transplant patients with autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease

Objective. Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is a systemic disorder with a tendency for aneurysm formation which may also affect the heart. ADPKD kidney transplant patients were studied by echocardiography. Material and methods. The case–control study consisted of 21 kidney transplant recipients and a group of 21 transplant patients with other diagnoses. They were in a stable phase a median of 3 years (range 1–10) after transplantation. M-mode and two-dimensional echocardiography were performed. Results. Age, haemoglobin and renal function were not different between the groups but ADPKD patients had significantly lower systolic blood pressure (p=0.004). There were no abnormalities in the aortic or mitral valve in either group. The diameter of the left ventricular outflow tract, the bulb or the ascending aorta did not differ between the groups. The diameters of the left ventricle or atrium were also similar. The left ventricular mass index was 132±36 in ADPKD patients versus 163±63 g/m2 in the controls (p=0.11). The left ventricular ejection fraction was 69±9.0 versus 70±8.9%. Early and atrial filling waves were equal. Conclusion. Valvular anomalies were infrequent. Aneurysm formation in the aorta and signs of dilated cardiomyopathy were not increased in patients with ADPKD.
Soil moisture retrieval with S-band SAR data

In June 2014 an airborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) flight campaign was run in the south UK in order to acquire S-band datasets on several scenarios and for different applications in preparation for the launch of the first UK SAR mission NovaSAR-S. On request, X-band data could be acquired concurrently. This paper shows some of the results of the research project AS14-12 aimed at assessing S-band performance in retrieving soil moisture in bare or poorly vegetated areas. Comparison with X-band dataset was also among the objectives and, at this purpose, the Integral Equation Model (IEM) Inversion through an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was considered a suitable technique at both frequencies and applied. Retrieval results at both frequencies are here presented against ground truth collected on the site concurrently with the airborne datasets. They show that, for the application considered, the retrieval from S-band data is more accurate than that from X-band with an average error smaller than 4%.
The Influence of Cervical Spine Flexion-Rotation Range-of-Motion Asymmetry on Postural Stability in Older Adults

Study Design. Cross-sectional design. Objective. The purpose of this study was to isolate the contribution of cervical spine range-of-motion (ROM) asymmetry to postural control in a group of older adults with neck pain. Summary of Background Data. Previous research has suggested that the upper cervical spine plays an important role in postural stability. However, it remains unclear whether the upper cervical spine rotation ROM asymmetry is associated with postural stability. Methods. Using the cervical range-of-motion device to assess upper cervical spine ROM via the cervical flexion-rotation test, we classified 54 older adults with neck pain (30 females; mean [standard deviation] age, 66 [5] yr) into the (1) symmetrical group (SYM; n = 20; ⩽5° side-to-side difference) or (2) asymmetrical group (ASYM; n = 34; >5°difference). Standing postural control was characterized by the center-of-pressure (CoP) movements measured using a Balance Board. Other measures included habitual, fast-paced gait speed and neck pain. Both groups were compared on the various measures using Welch t tests. Results. Although the ASYM group had 26% greater anteroposterior postural sway than the SYM (P < 0.01), both groups did not differ on postural sway velocity, gait speed, and neck pain intensity. Analyzing the frequency content of the postural sway using wavelet analysis (a modern, nonlinear signal processing method) shed further light: the standing postural sway in the ASYM group was skewed toward lower frequency movement (ultralow [< 0.10Hz] frequency content, anteroposterior: 6.7% in ASYM, 4.7% in SYM, P = 0.01; medial-lateral: 4.2% in ASYM, 3.4% in SYM, P = 0.045). Conclusion. The ASYM group seemed to have compensated for their altered somatosensory input to achieve similar functional levels as the SYM group. Given what is known about the association between ultralow frequency postural sway and visual input, we speculated that the postural strategy adopted by the ASYM group was adaptive and that this group may be relying on the visual system to achieve these compensations. Level of Evidence: 3
Resolution of cutaneous leishmaniasis: interleukin 12 initiates a protective T helper type 1 immune response

Resistance to Leishmania major in mice is associated with the appearance of distinct T helper type 1 (Th1) and Th2 subsets. T cells from lymph nodes draining cutaneous lesions of resistant mice are primarily interferon gamma (IFN-gamma)-producing Th1 cells. In contrast, T cells from susceptible mice are principally Th2 cells that generate interleukin 4 (IL-4). Although existing evidence is supportive of a role for IFN-gamma in the generation of Th1 cells, additional factors may be required for a protective response to be maintained. A potential candidate is IL-12, a heterodimeric cytokine produced by monocytes and B cells that has multiple effects on T and natural killer cell function, including inducing IFN-gamma production. Using an experimental leishmanial model we have observed that daily intraperitoneal administration at the time of parasite challenge of either 0.33 micrograms IL-12 (a consecutive 5 d/wk for 5 wk) or 1.0 micrograms IL-12 per mouse (only a consecutive 5 d) caused a > 75% reduction in parasite burden at the site of infection, in highly susceptible BALB/c mice. Delay of treatment by 1 wk had less of a protective effect. Concomitant with these protective effects was an increase in IFN-gamma and a decrease in IL-4 production, as measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay of supernatants generated from popliteal lymph node cells stimulated with leishmanial antigen in vitro. The reduction in parasite numbers induced by IL-12 therapy was still apparent at 10 wk postinfection. In addition, we observed that the administration of a rabbit anti-recombinant murine IL-12 polyclonal antibody (200 micrograms i.p. every other day for 25 d) at the time of infection to resistant C57Bl/6 mice exacerbated disease. These effects were accompanied by a shift in IFN-gamma production in vitro by antigen- stimulated lymph node cells indicative of a Th2-like response. These findings suggest that IL-12 has an important role in initiating a Th1 response and protective immunity.
The effects of training on fatigue and twitch potentiationin human skeletal muscle

Twitch postactivation potentiation (PAP) in skeletal muscle is a well recognized and accepted phenomenon. However, the mechanisms responsible for potentiation are not understood in detail, and the possible role of potentiation in normal human movement has remained unclear. It is known that potentiation is increased in fatigued compared to rested muscle. We hypothesized that if fatigue and potentiation were directly linked, a training program should increase PAP and reduce fatigue in parallel. Six subjects underwent a muscle stimulation protocol in which twitch contractions were elicited in the knee extensor muscles before and after a 10-s maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) to detect the degree of PAP. This was done before and after subjects underwent a protocol designated to induce low-frequency fatigue (knee extensions at 180 · s −1, organized in three repetitions of 60-s bouts, separated by 3 min). This whole protocol was done before and after a 4-week period of isokinetic training, consisting of two sets (5-min interval) of 10 single MVCs (10-s intervals), at 90° · s −1. In non-fatigued muscles, PAP was greater after training (51.2 ± 4.8%) than before training (44.4 ± 2.4%). In fatigued muscles, PAP was similar before and after training (59.9 ± 2.8% and 60.2 ± 2.6%, respectively). Low-frequency fatigue was observed before training, as twitch force decreased to 66.8 ± 3.1% of the pre-fatigue value. After the training period, low-frequency fatigue was attenuated, as force decreased only to 81.8 ± 2.6% of the pre-fatigue value. Therefore, it appears that training decreases low-frequency fatigue and increases PAP. Therefore, the hypothesis that potentiation is partially linked to fatigue in voluntary contracting human skeletal muscles was confirmed.
Religion, Public Policy, and the Academy: Brokering Public Faith in a Context of Ambivalence?

This article considers the growing range of religiously oriented policy demands on higher education institutions in the UK and the responses universities make to them. It sets this in the context of public anxiety and ambivalence about faith, taking the higher education sector in Britain as emblematic of wider concerns about religious faith and its place in the public sphere. Specifically, the article looks at four key policy ‘arenas’: equalities and diversity; widening participation and social mobility; student experience; and fostering good campus relations. Drawing on interviews with university Vice-Chancellors, Pro-Vice Chancellors, operational staff and students, we explore how these policies are viewed, how they have been responded to, and how religion and belief are engaged with. We consider what this means for perceptions of religion in the academy—and beyond. We conclude that the quality of conversation about religious faith is generally poor, although different parts of the higher education sector respond to it differently. We outline these differences and argue that universities are well placed to encourage a better quality of conversation about religion, inside and outside the academy, which helps unpick public anxiety and ambivalence, supporting a more intellectually rooted, informed, and helpful engagement with religious belief in the public realm.
Getting a measure of nature: cultures and values in an ecosystem services approach

Abstract We explore the concept of 'ecosystem services' as a way of understanding how particular relations between nature and society can be established and studied and as a potential integrating approach for interdisciplinary research. Given that something only becomes a 'service' within a particular, economically minded framework, the shift from thinking about 'ecosystems' to understanding 'ecosystem services' requires shifts in the form and content of scientific knowledge about perceived services. For those interested in the process of knowledge production, the rise in prominence of an ecosystem services approach affords the opportunity to ask questions about who will generate this knowledge and how it might relate to wider issues of sustainability decision-making. Thus, the concept is used here as an example of how we might move towards research that aims to understand the world from an integrated perspective and at the same time situates that research process in a sociopolitical context.
The legitimation of OECD's global educational governance: examining PISA and AHELO test production

Although international student assessments and the role of international organisations (IOs) in governing education via an evidence-based educational policy discourse are of growing interest to educational researchers, few have explored the complex ways in which an IO, such as the OECD, gains considerable influence in governing education during the early stages of test production. Drawing on a comparative analysis of the production of two international tests – the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) – we show how the OECD legitimises its power, and expertise, and defines ‘what counts’ in education. The OECD deploys three mechanisms of educational governance: (1) building on past OECD successes; (2) assembling knowledge capacity; and (3) deploying bureaucratic resources. We argue that the early stages of test production by IOs are significant sites in which the global governance of education is legitimated and enacted.
The key genes underlying pathophysiology association between the type 2‐diabetic and colorectal cancer

Although diabetes mellitus (DM) is reported as an independent risk factor for colorectal cancer (CRC) in many researches, the underlying pathophysiology is still unclear. We investigated the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) for the diabetes and CRC to reveal the underlying pathophysiological association between the type 2‐diabetic (T2D) and CRC. Gene expression profiles for T2D (GSE55650), CRC (GSE8671), and Metformin treated cell lines (GSE67342) were downloaded from GEO database. The DEGs between T2D samples and their control samples were identified with t‐test and variance analysis. After cluster analysis and functional enrichment analysis, protein‐protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed to find potential genes for diabetes and CRC in Metformin's treatment. Totally, we identified 583 overlapped genes, 169 common DEGs, and 414 independent DEGs between T2D and CRC samples. The common genes contained 89 up‐regulated (DEGs1) and 80 down‐regulated genes (DEGs3); and independent DEGs contained 270 down‐regulated genes (DEGs4) in diabetes and 144 down‐regulated genes (DEGs2) in CRC. In enrichment analysis, the Ribosome pathway was significantly enriched by the independent DEGs. The common genes were mainly enriched in some inflammatory related pathways. Two target genes of Metformin were significantly interacted with six hub genes (HADHB, NDUFS3, TAF1, MYC, HNFF4A, and MAX) with significant changes in expression values (P < 0.05, t‐test). To summary, it is suggested that the six hub genes might play important roles in the process of Metformin treatment for diabetes and CRC. However, specific pathology remains to be further studied.
DEVELOPING RESEARCH QUESTIONS THROUGH GRANT PROPOSAL DEVELOPMENT

Developing good research ideas is both a science and an art. Teaching students how to select and then conceptualize the research idea requires both tools and practice. This paper discusses the identification of an appropriate research question and the refinement of it into a working research plan in the format of a grant proposal. The author has used the development of a grant proposal to demonstrate the linkages between theoretical models of aging policy and aging policy research in a master's level Aging and Public Policy Course. In this course students choose, develop, and refine a research statement in response to a request for proposal from an independent foundation. The theoretical knowledge cycle is used to discuss how these students learn over time to refine and reformulate their ideas into workable research questions. Students report that writing for a real funding entity allows them to develop both proficiency with the construction of a research question and research plan and develop expertise with aging policy.
Sampling and sampled-data models

Physical systems typically evolve continuously whereas modern controllers and signal processing devices invariably operate in discrete time. Hence sampling arises as a cornerstone problem in essentially all aspects of modern systems science. This paper reviews various aspects of sampling of signals and systems. We argue that careful consideration must be given to sampling to obtain meaningful results when interconnecting a physical system to a computer for the purpose of data storage, signal processing, or control. We also take the opportunity to dispel several common misconceptions about sampling and sampled-data systems.
Network Analysis Applied to a Bibliographic Network

In this paper we study the ILPnet2 co-authorship network. The ILPnet2 on-line library (www.cs.bris.ac.uk/ILPnet2/Tools/Reports/) is a repository of more than 1,000 ILP-related articles by well over 500 authors, published between 1970 and 2003. Co-authorship networks constitute a specific view on bibliographic data, in which scientific publications are modeled as vertices, and two vertices are connected by an undirected edge whenever the two corresponding papers share at least one author. We investigate the largest connected component in this network, which contains 816 papers by 526 different authors. Properties of interest include degree distribution and degree centrality, eigenvector centrality, and PageRank. We furthermore study the community structure in this network by applying the Newman-Girvan algorithm. Our main conclusion is that, even with restricted information based purely on co-authorship, bibliographic network analysis can reveal useful and interesting patterns.
An Adaptive MAC Scheme to Achieve Throughput Optimization and Airtime Fairness for IEEE 802.11 Multirate Networks

In an IEEE 802.11 multirate network, the aggregate system throughput is unfavorably dominated by stations with the lowest data rate. To improve the performance, it is required to provide airtime fairness for stations regardless of their data rates. Unfortunately, the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol DCF (Distributed Coordination Function) fails to satisfy this requirement. In this paper, we propose an adaptive MAC scheme, named Time Fairness Transmission Control (TFTC), to maximize the system throughput while maintaining airtime fairness among the competing stations. Specifically, making use of the information provided to each station by the carrier sensing mechanism, TFTC dynamically adjusts the transmission probabilities for stations transmitting at each data rate. As opposed to the previous works, our proposed scheme has strong ability to lead the network to work under near optimal state without the requirement of estimating the number of active stations in the network. Performance evaluation results show that the scheme is effective in achieving near to the theoretical maximum system throughput and providing time fair channel allocation among stations with different data rates.
The Effect of Marriage and Divorce on Women's Economic Well-Being

Some social commentators and social scientists have called for the strengthening of divorce laws, a call based, in part, on the apparently strong economic advantage marriage holds for women and their children. We focus on the question of whether divorced women would experience the same absolute levels of economic well-being by staying married as women who remain married experience. We also examine the argument that all women are economically vulnerable once marriage ends by examining whether the average married woman would, if she were to divorce, experience the same low levels of economic well-being as divorced women do. Using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households, we estimate endogenous switching regression models that simultaneously predict the odds of divorce and subsequent economic well-being for women who divorce and for those who remain married. Our calculations show that if divorced women were to remain married, their economic well-being would improve substantially but would not attain the level of women who remain married. We also find that if married women were to divorce, their average level of economic well-being would be about the same as that of divorced women, supporting the view that women's economic vulnerability outside of marriage is ubiquitous.
Model Predictive Controller as Power System Stabilizer

A robust feedback-control algorithm is proposed to control an unknown nonlinear system such as the power system. The design process is based on the model predictive control theory where only the past input-output observations of the system are available. This design approach consists of three steps: in step one, using the available time-series data the system dynamics is identified to form a model from the system; in step two, the obtained model is used to calculate the controller by the H∞ optimal control theory; and finally, in step three, the real-time implementation of the feedback controller is performed. The system identification is the central part of the controller design since the controller can only be as good as the model that is used to design it. In order to improve the performance and robustness of the system identification, this paper proposes expert system supervised multiple system identifications. The role of the expert system is to periodically evaluate the estimated models and to propose one for the controller design. The conceptual framework behind this approach lies in the fact that it is impossible to define the best identification method because for different implementations the criterion for the “best” changes with the particular requirements for identification speed, expected noise level in the observation, and disturbances affecting the system. A system identification that uses many different models simultaneously dismisses the task of evaluating the best identification method for a particular implementation. Instead, an expert system is designed which, in real-time, selects the best identification method from a pool of methods running in parallel. Simulation results using a power system model demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the H∞ model predictive controller.
Comparison between spontaneous and kainate‐induced gamma oscillations in the mouse hippocampus in vitro

Neuronal synchronization at gamma frequency, implicated in cognition, can be evoked in hippocampal slices by pharmacological activation. We characterized spontaneous small‐amplitude gamma oscillations (SγO) recorded in area CA3 of mouse hippocampal slices and compared it with kainate‐induced gamma oscillations (KγO). SγO had a lower peak frequency, a more sinusoidal waveform and was spatially less coherent than KγO, irrespective of oscillation amplitude. CA3a had the smallest oscillation power, phase‐led CA3c by ∼4 ms and had the highest SγO frequency in isolated subslices. During SγO CA3c neurons fired at the rebound of inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) that were associated with a current source in stratum lucidum, whereas CA3a neurons often fired from spikelets, 3–4 ms earlier in the cycle, and had smaller IPSPs. Kainate induced faster/larger IPSPs that were associated with an earlier current source in stratum pyramidale. SγO and KγO power were dependent on α‐amino‐3‐hydroxy‐5‐methyl‐4‐isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA) receptors, gap junctions and γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)A receptors. SγO was suppressed by elevating extracellular KCl, blocking N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate (NMDA) receptors or muscarinic receptors, or activating GluR5‐containing kainate receptors. SγO was not affected by blocking metabotropic glutamate receptors or hyperpolarization‐activated currents. The adenosine A1 receptor antagonist 8‐cyclopentyl‐1,3‐dimethoxyxanthine (8‐CPT) and the CB1 cannabinoid receptor antagonist N‐(piperidin‐1‐yl)‐5‐(4‐iodophenyl)‐1‐(2,4‐dichlorophenyl)‐4‐methyl‐1H‐pyrazole‐3‐carboxamide (AM251) increased SγO power, indicating that endogenous adenosine and/or endocannabinoids suppress or prevent SγO in vitro. SγO emerges from a similar basic network as KγO, but differs in involvement of somatically projecting interneurons and pharmacological modulation profile. These observations advocate the use of SγO as a natural model for hippocampal gamma oscillations, particularly during less activated behavioural states.