Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Contralateral Submaximal Contraction on the Development of Biceps Brachii Muscle Fatigue

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine if a submaximal contraction in the contralateral limb affected the fatigability of the dominant limb. Background: Muscle fatigue is a known risk factor for musculoskeletal injury; however, it is unknown whether a submaximal contraction in the nondominant limb, such as for stabilizing a tool or load, affects the rate of development of fatigue, potentially increasing risk of injury. Current ergonomic assessments of injury risk do not involve consideration of submaximal contralateral demands. It was hypothesized that increased neuromuscular drive and active muscle mass during bilateral contractions would increase fatigability. Method: Twelve males isometrically maintained a 30% unilateral contraction and a 30% dominant + 15% nondominant bilateral contraction until failure on two different collection days, separated by 7 days. Results: No statistically significant differences were found for time to task failure (p = .6204), decrease in maximal force (p = .1698), or alterations in electromyography amplitude (p = .7223) or frequency (p = .3292) between unilateral and bilateral conditions. Conclusion: The hypothesis that the addition of a lesser submaximal isometric contraction would increase fatigability was rejected. Application: These findings indicate that in ergonomic settings, muscle fatigability can be estimated by the more demanding task and do not need to be complicated by lesser submaximal contractions in the opposing limb.
Clients' perception of the therapeutic alliance: A qualitative analysis.

This study examined the therapeutic alliance from the perspective of the involved client, using 66 descriptive accounts provided by 34 clients over 3 phases of therapy. Through phenomenological analysis, 3 relatively distinct types of perceived alliance were identified across therapy, which were labeled nurturant (46% of reports), insight-oriented (39%), and collaborative (15%) to emphasize therapist facilitative attitudes, client improved self-understanding, and client involvement, respectively. A 2nd method of content analysis provided a list of the individual characteristics representative of clients' perceptions and their prevalence within and across the 3 types of alliance. Findings suggest that theoretician-defined alliance variables are not equally relevant for clients and that some crucial features of the perceived working relationship are not accounted for in current alliance theory.
Stimulation of catecholamine secretion from cultured chromaffin cells by an ionophore-mediated rise in intracellular sodium

The significance of intracellular Na+ concentration in catecholamine secretion of cultured bovine adrenal chromaffin cells was investigated using the monovalent carboxylic ionophore monensin. This ionophore, which is known to mediate a one-for-one exchange of intracellular K+ for extracellular Na+, induces a slow, prolonged release of catecholamines which, at 6 h, amounts of 75-90% of the total catecholamines; carbachol induces a rapid pulse of catecholamine secretion of 25-35%. Although secretory granule numbers appear to be qualitatively reduced after carbachol, multiple carbachol, or Ba2+ stimulation, overall granule distribution remains similar to that in untreated cells. Monensin-stimulated catecholamine release requires extracellular Na+ but not Ca2+ whereas carbachol-stimulated catecholamine release requires extracellular Ca2+ and is partially dependent on extracellular Na+. Despite its high selectivity for monovalent ions, monensin is considerably more effective in promoting catecholamine secretion than the divalent ionophores, A23187 and ionomycin, which mediate a more direct entry of extracellular Ca2+ into the cell. We propose that the monensin-stimulated increase in intracellular Na+ levels causes an increase in the availability of intracellular Ca2+ which, in turn, stimulates exocytosis. This hypothesis is supported by the comparable stimulation of catecholamine release by ouabain which inhibits the outwardly directed Na+ pump and thus permits intracellular Na+ to accumulate. The relative magnitudes of the secretion elicited by monensin, carbachol, and the calcium ionophores, are most consistent with the hypothesis that, under normal physiological conditions, Na+ acts by decreasing the propensity of Ca2+- sequestering sites to bind the Ca2+ that enters the cell as a result of acetylcholine stimulation.
Key-Insulated Group Signature Scheme with Verifier-Local Revocation

In group signature schemes, the user's group secret key is often stored on insecure devices e.g. mobile phones that are likely to be compromised by an adversary. To mitigate the damage of key exposure in group signature schemes, we proposed a key-insulated group signature scheme. The group secret key stored on an insecure device is refreshed at discrete time periods via interaction with a physically-secure device that stores a "master key". Our scheme has secure and random-access key updates. The exposure of up to t of the T time periods, chosen adoptively by the adversary, still keeps any period that was not exposed secure. Our scheme also adopts method of verifier-local revocation (VLR) and supports backward unlinkability, i.e. previously signed signatures remain valid, anonymous and unlinkable even after the signer is revoked.
Exosomes and their role in the micro-/macro-environment: a comprehensive review

The importance of extracellular vesicles (EVs) in cell-cell communication has long been recognized due to their ability to transfer important cellular cargoes such as DNA, mRNA, miRNAs, and proteins to target cells. Compelling evidence supports the role of EVs in the horizontal transfer of cellular material which has the potential to influence normal cellular physiology and promote various disease states. Of the different types of EVs, exosomes have garnered much attention in the past decade due to their abundance in various biological fluids and ability to affect multiple organ systems. The main focus of this review will be on cancer and how cancer-derived exosomes are important mediators of metastasis, angiogenesis, immune modulation, and the tumor macro-/microenvironment. We will also discuss exosomes as potential biomarkers for cancers due to their abundance in biological fluids, ease of uptake, and cellular content. Exosome use in diagnosis, prognosis, and in establishing treatment regimens has enormous potential to revolutionize patient care.
Beyond the Binding Site: The Role of the β2 – β3 Loop and Extra-Domain Structures in PDZ Domains

A general paradigm to understand protein function is to look at properties of isolated well conserved domains, such as SH3 or PDZ domains. While common features of domain families are well understood, the role of subtle differences among members of these families is less clear. Here, molecular dynamics simulations indicate that the binding mechanism in PSD95-PDZ3 is critically regulated via interactions outside the canonical binding site, involving both the poorly conserved loop and an extra-domain helix. Using the CRIPT peptide as a prototypical ligand, our simulations suggest that a network of salt-bridges between the ligand and this loop is necessary for binding. These contacts interconvert between each other on a time scale of a few tens of nanoseconds, making them elusive to X-ray crystallography. The loop is stabilized by an extra-domain helix. The latter influences the global dynamics of the domain, considerably increasing binding affinity. We found that two key contacts between the helix and the domain, one involving the loop, provide an atomistic interpretation of the increased affinity. Our analysis indicates that both extra-domain segments and loosely conserved regions play critical roles in PDZ binding affinity and specificity.
Online Presence in Social Networks

Social Networks (SN) emerged as a form of online communities during the outbreak of Social Web. Their purposes vary from maintaining professional contacts to having fun with friends, and their user-base continues to increase. The use of a SN represents a form of being present online (on an online service) and naturally incites users to leave some traces about the nature of their online presence. In this paper we talk about all that data describing a user’s presence in the online world, gathered under the notion of Online Presence, and identify the perspectives for future work in this field.
Light-activated DNA binding in a designed allosteric protein

An understanding of how allostery, the conformational coupling of distant functional sites, arises in highly evolvable systems is of considerable interest in areas ranging from cell biology to protein design and signaling networks. We reasoned that the rigidity and defined geometry of an α-helical domain linker would make it effective as a conduit for allosteric signals. To test this idea, we rationally designed 12 fusions between the naturally photoactive LOV2 domain from Avena sativa phototropin 1 and the Escherichia coli trp repressor. When illuminated, one of the fusions selectively binds operator DNA and protects it from nuclease digestion. The ready success of our rational design strategy suggests that the helical “allosteric lever arm” is a general scheme for coupling the function of two proteins.
Excitability and isometric contractile properties of mammalian skeletal muscle constructs engineered in vitro

SummaryOur purpose was to engineer three-dimensional skeletal muscle tissue constructs from primary cultures of adult rat myogenic precursor cells, and to measure their excitability and isometric contractile properties. The constructs, termed myooids, were muscle-like in appearance, excitability, and contractile function. The myooids were 12 mm long and ranged in diameter from 0.1 to 1 mm. The myooids were engineered with synthetic tendons at each end to permit the measurement of isometric contractile properties. Within each myooid the myotubes and fibroblasts were supported by an extracellular matrix generated by the cells themselves, and did not require a preexisting scaffold to define the size, shape, and general mechanical properties of the resulting structure. Once formed, the myooids contracted spontaneously at approximately 1 Hz, with peak-to-peak force amplitudes ranging from 3 to 30 μN. When stimulated electrically the myooids contracted to produce force. The myooids (n=14) had the following mean values: diameter of 0.49 mm, rheobase of 1.0 V/mm, chronaxie of 0.45 ms, twitch force of 215 μN, maximum isometric force of 440 μN, resting baseline force of 181 μN, and specific force of 2.9kN/m2. The mean specific force was approximately 1% of the specific force generated by control adult rat muscle. Based on the functional data, the myotubes in the myooids appear to remain arrested in an early developmental state due to the absence of signals to promote expression of adult myosin isoforms.
Advection patterns and aerosol optical and microphysical properties by AERONET over south-east Italy in the central Mediterranean

Aerosol products by AERONET sun-sky radiome- ter measurements combined with air-mass backtrajectories were analyzed to identify source regions and pathways of air masses carrying aerosols to south-east Italy, and to determine the dependence of aerosol mean optical properties on advec- tion patterns. Aerosol optical depth (AOD), fine mode frac- tion () , single scattering albedo (SSA), asymmetry factor (g), and lidar ratio (Lr) at 440 nm were used to character- ize aerosol properties. The analysis of 5-day-backtrajectories ending in Lecce on south-east Italy and referring to 240 mea- surement days of the 2003-2004 years revealed that 32% of the measurement days were characterized by air masses coming from all continental European sources with the ex- ception of Spain. 3% of the measurement days were char- acterized by air masses coming from both the Southern Mediterranean Sea and the Africa continent, and the West- ern Mediterranean, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Atlantic Ocean. 62% of the measurement days were characterized by mixed advection patterns. We found that AOD, SSA and g average values were not significantly dependent on air mass source regions. In contrast, and Lr average values were quite affected by the air mass source region. AOD, , SSA, g, and Lr average values, which were equal to 0.29±0.15, 0.93±0.03, 0.93±0.03, 0.67±0.03, and 72±20 sr, respec- tively indicated that the aerosol advected from all con- tinental European sources with the exception of Spain, could be considered representative of "continental average aerosol", mostly made of water soluble and a small amount of soot and insoluble components. Polluted-desert dust particles characterized by AOD=0.29±0.05, =0.72±0.05, SSA=0.94±0.03, g=0.69±0.02, Lr=56±13 sr, were ad- vected over south-east Italy from the Southern Mediterranean Sea and the Africa continent. The Western Mediterranean, the Iberian Peninsula, and the Atlantic Ocean were instead responsible of the advection of maritime-polluted particles, which were characterized by AOD=0.27±0.17, =0.8±0.1, SSA=0.94±0.03, g=0.67±0.03, Lr=58±24 sr. Hence, we found that the aerosol load over south-east Italy was domi- nated by moderately-absorbing, fine-mode particles even if it was also affected by the minor contribution of desert and maritime type aerosol. The application of an aerosol mask to the data points retrieved on measurement days characterized by mixed advection patterns, supported last comment
Automatic depression discrimination on FNIRS by using general linear model and SVM

A method is proposed to distinguish patients with depression from healthy persons using data measured by Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (FNIRS) during a cognitive task. Firstly, General Linear Model (GLM) is used to extract features from 52-channel FNIRS data of patients with depression and normal healthy persons. Then a Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier is designed for classification. The results of experiment show that the method can achieve a satisfactory classification with the accuracy 89.71% for total and 92.59% for patients. Also, the results suggest that FNIRS is a promising clinical technique in the diagnosis and therapy of depression.
Os processos de formação de palavra na libras

Este artigo apresenta uma pesquisa sobre os processos de formacao de palavra na LIBRAS. Os parâmetros (configuracao de mao, direcionalidade, ponto de articulacao movimento, localizacao, expressoes faciais e corporais), que tambem podem ser morfemas, compoem sistemas complexos de desinencias que estabelecem tipos de flexao verbais: concordância para genero, para pessoa do discurso e para locativo, ou sao afixos que se justapoem a raiz verbal ou nominal. Portanto, em relacao aos seus processos de formacao de palavra, a Libras e uma lingua flexional, embora tenha tambem caracteristicas de lingua aglutinante, que podem ser percebidas a partir da formacao de sinais pelos processos de composicao e incorporacao. Palavras-chave Linguistica; Linguas de Sinais; Libras; Formacao de palavras Abstract This paper presents a research on the word formation processes in Brazilian Sign Language - Libras. The parameters (hand configuration, location, hand arrangement contact and non-manual features) that also can be morphemes, compose a complex inflection systems. These systems involve verbal agreement for the category of person, gender and locative and modal cases, or affix patterns that added to the verbal or nominal stems to produce new words or meanings. So, on the basis of research on word formation processes, it will be described the Brazilian Sign Language as an inflectional language. Keywords Linguistics; Sign Languages; Brazilian Sign Language; Word formation processes
Does Mass Media Fuel, and Easy Credit Facilitate, Impulse Buys?

This paper studies whether exposure to mass media and liking advertising are associated with an increased impulse buy tendency, and whether the availability of a credit card acts as a facilitating stimulus. It is found that impulse buys are positively associated with exposure to commercial television, but not to other forms of mass media. For females, liking advertising in general is positively associated with impulse buying; for males, having a preference for informative advertising is negatively associated with impulse buying. For both, credit card use facilitates the behavior. Besides being robust and statistically significant, these effects are qualitatively quite large.
Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB): utility and validation

Discusses CANTAB, a set of computerized neuropsychological test batteries with three main interactive, menu-driven components. Firstly visual memory: consisting of short pattern and spatial recognition memory tests, a simultaneous and delayed matching to sample test, and a test of paired associate, conditional learning of pattern-location associations. Secondly attention: consisting of tests of intradimensional and extradimensional set-shifting and a reaction time based visual search task for conjunctive features, according to the Sternberg paradigm. Thirdly spatial working memory and planning: consisting of tests of spatial span, a self-ordered test of spatial working memory and a computerized version of the Tower of London task, which includes separate measures of thinking and movement time, parallel forms contains four parallel versions of the main tests from the visual memory and attention batteries. < >
Localization by Exploiting Deep Convolutional Networks

Deep convolutional neural networks have shown an amazing ability to learn object category models from large-scale data. In this paper, we present a novel approach for part discovery and detection with a pre-trained convolutional neural network. It is based on analyzing gradients of intermediate layer outputs and locating areas containing large gradients. By comparing these with ground-truth part locations, channels in the network related to semantic object parts are identiﬁed. On the Caltech Birds CUB200-2011 dataset, our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance in part localization as well as image categorization. An important advantage is that it can be also applied if no bounding box annotation is given during testing.
Dual band bandpass filter with individual tuning of band pass frequencies

A dual band bandpass filter is presented with individual tuning of each bandpass center frequency. This feature offers a significant improvement over previous designs. The two center frequencies are 1.1 GHz and 2.3 GHz and the tuning ranges are 60 MHz and 90 MHz and the insertion loss of the lower and upper center frequencies are better than 2.1 dB and 3.5 dB respectively.
Free flaps for type III complex pharyngoesophageal defects after enlarged ablative surgery for advanced cancer of larynx and hypopharynx

Free tissue transfer has become a useful technique for reconstruction of type III complex pharyngoesophageal defects after enlarged laryngectomy and partial or total pharyngoesophageal resection. We present a retrospective analysis of our experience with 36 patients who received free flaps for reconstruction of complex pharyngoesophageal defects associated with skin and soft‐tissue defects. Free fasciocutaneous flaps and jejunum combined with a deltopectoral flap and musculocutaneous pectoralis major flap, gastro‐omental flap, and combined latissimus dorsi musculocutaneous and cutaneous scapular flaps were used for reconstruction. Adjuvant therapy included preoperative or postoperative radiotherapy. Free flap failure occurred in 2 of 36 patients. Twenty‐eight patients had good swallowing function. Better results with fewer complications in reconstruction of type III complex pharyngoesophageal defects were obtained with the use of a combined latissimus dorsi and scapular flap. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc. MICROSURGERY 23:189–193 2003
ROMA: a climbing robot for inspection operations

There has been an increasing interest in developing and employing special robots in construction in order to assist the human operator as well as to limit the damage caused to him. For this end, the ROMA robot, a specially developed self-supported robot has been built. The robot is designed to perform 3D complex movements and navigate through metallic structures using the "caterpillar" concept. The control and monitoring of the robot is achieved through an advanced graphical user interface (GUI), to allow an effective and user friendly operation of the robot with a minimum operator training. The GUI has been designed with an open and modular structure allowing future reusability and scalability when necessary. This paper describes the design of the ROMA robot with a special emphasis on its GUI.
Electrically Unexcitable Scar Mapping Based on Pacing Threshold for Identification of the Reentry Circuit Isthmus: Feasibility for Guiding Ventricular Tachycardia Ablation

Background—We hypothesized that delineating electrically unexcitable scar (EUS) within low-voltage infarct regions will locate reentry circuit isthmuses by defining their borders. The pacing threshold and electrogram amplitude that best determines EUS is unknown. Methods and Results—The change in dimension of the virtual electrode was estimated in 11 patients and observed to increase by 4.4±2.5 mm as stimulus strength increases from threshold (2.9±1.8 mA) to 10 mA. EUS was defined as a threshold >10 mA. In 14 consecutive patients, mapping and ablation of ventricular tachycardia (VT) were performed using an electroanatomic mapping system. During sinus rhythm, unipolar pacing was performed at sites with bipolar electrogram amplitude <1.5 mV. EUS regions were marked on the maps. Reentry circuit isthmuses were identified by entrainment mapping or pace mapping, and ablation was performed. EUS was identified in the infarct in all 14 patients (11.8±13.9 cm2). All 20 VT circuit isthmuses identified were adjacent to EUS. Although electrogram amplitude correlated with pacing threshold (r =0.64, P <0.0001), many isthmuses had very low-amplitude electrograms, and EUS could not be identified from electrogram amplitude alone. RF ablation lines connecting selected EUS regions abolished all inducible VTs in 10 patients (71%); spontaneous VT was markedly reduced during follow-up (from 142±360 to 0.9±2.0 episodes per month, P =0.002). Conclusions—This new method of identifying EUS provides complimentary information to the electrogram amplitude in delineating potential reentry circuit paths, potentially facilitating ablation during sinus rhythm.
Application of Spatial Data Mining for Agriculture

research of spatial data is in its infancy stage and there is a need for an accurate method for rule mining. Association rule mining searches for interesting relationships among items in a given data set. This paper enables us to extract pattern from spatial database using k-means algorithm which refers to patterns not explicitly stored in spatial databases. Since spatial association mining needs to evaluate multiple spatial relationships among a large number of spatial objects, the process could be quite costly. An interesting mining optimization method called progressive refinement can be adopted in spatial association analysis. The method first mines large data sets roughly using a fast algorithm and then improves the quality of mining in a pruned data set. The k-means algorithm randomly selects k number of objects, each of which initially represents a cluster mean or center. For each of the remaining objects, an object is assigned to the cluster to which it is most similar, based on the distance between the object and the cluster mean. Then it computes new mean for each cluster. This process iterates until the criterion function converges. The above concept is applied in the area of agriculture where giving the temperature and the rainfall as the initial spatial data and then by analyzing the agricultural meteorology for the enhancement of crop yields and also reduce the crop losses.