Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exercise interventions for the treatment of chronic low back pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials

Objective: To determine, for adults with chronic low back pain, which exercise interventions are the most effective at reducing pain compared to other treatments. Data sources: A search of MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, SPORTDiscus, PsycINFO and The Cochrane Library was conducted up to October 2014. Review methods: Databases were searched for published reports of randomised trials that investigated the treatment of chronic low back pain of non-specific origin with an exercise intervention. Two authors independently reviewed and selected relevant trials. Methodological quality was evaluated using the Downs and Black tool. Results: Forty-five trials met the inclusion criteria and thirty-nine were included in the meta-analysis. Combined meta-analysis revealed significantly lower chronic low back pain with intervention groups using exercise compared to a control group or other treatment group (Standard Mean Deviation (SMD) =-0.32, CI 95% -0.44 to -0.19, P<0.01). Separate exploratory subgroup analysis showed a significant effect for strength/resistance and coordination/stabilisation programs. Conclusions: Our results found a beneficial effect for strength/resistance and coordination/stabilisation exercise programs over other interventions in the treatment of chronic low back pain and that cardiorespiratory and combined exercise programs are ineffective.
Large-amplitude vibration of imperfect angle-ply laminated rectangular plates for various materials

This paper deals with the solution of modified-Duffing ordinary differential equation for large-amplitude vibration of imperfect angle-ply rectangular composite plates. The boundary condition is simply supported and in-plane movable. The initial condition for the vibration is an initial vibration amplitude. This vibration problem is solved numerically by Runge-Kutta method. The effect of plate imperfection is studied and proved that a typical backbone curve will show up in case of a relatively large imperfection. Three different composite materials are then chosen to reveal the influence of young’s modulus ratio. Four fiber volumes are assumed to study its effect on the vibration mode. It turns out that either increasing the fiber strength or increasing the fiber volume in a composite will lead to an increase of its overall strength. And this will further trigger the plate vibration to behave more nonlinearly.
Microstructure and piezoelectric properties of <001> fiber textured Pb(Mg/sub 1/3/Nb/sub 2/3/)O/sub 3/-34.5PbTiO/sub 3/ ceramics

Textured PMN-PT ceramics were synthesized by homo-template grain growth (HTGG) using PMN-PT nano-particles and cubic single crystal templates (50 /spl mu/m). Samples are prepared using doctor Blade method and sintered in PbO controlled atmosphere. Orientation of the templates was obtained during tape casting. Textured tape cast ceramics display quasi complete [001] texture (f=0.99) in the cubic phase. The (111) pole figure reveals [001] fiber texture in accordance with optical observation. The texture was obtained in all the volume and only small orientation distribution (<6/spl deg/) was observed. Smart Raman imaging shows that the final composition is very close to that of the matrix. Piezoelectric properties measured at low level using RIE method show that coupling efficiency of tape cast textured ceramics (k/sub p/ =0.69, d/sub 33/= 600pC/N) are about twice of tape cast random ceramics but only /spl sim/20% better than random optimized disk ceramic. Regarding low orientation distribution of the high textured ceramics, we conclude that poling process and ferroelectric domain reorganization have to be extensively studied to clarify behavior of textured ceramics.
The Role of Root-Produced Volatile Secondary Metabolites in Mediating Soil Interactions

Since Darwin’s suggestion that natural selection accounts for the diversity of plant morphological and chemical attributes, thousands of papers have been devoted to the ecology and evolution of plant secondary metabolites. Indeed, it is estimated that plants may produce over 200, 000 different compounds, the majority of which are classified as secondary metabolites (Pichersky and Gang 2000). The incredible diversity of particular classes of secondary metabolites is stunning. Terpenes, for example, comprise more than 30’000 described compounds (Hartmann 2007). Such incredible diversity of forms can be originated from various enzymes catalyzing the binding of different precursors (Wojciechowski 2003), promiscuity of enzymes (including multiple product and substrate enzyme specificity), changes in cellular compartmentalization patterns (Pichersky and Gang 2000; Bauer et al. 2010), or the matrix-like structure of pathways where natural products are formed by elaborate arrays of enzymes, concertedly controlled by the expression of their respective genes (Lewinsohn and Gijzen 2009).
A drug repositioning approach identifies tricyclic antidepressants as inhibitors of small cell lung cancer and other neuroendocrine tumors.

UNLABELLED Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive neuroendocrine subtype of lung cancer with high mortality. We used a systematic drug repositioning bioinformatics approach querying a large compendium of gene expression profiles to identify candidate U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs to treat SCLC. We found that tricyclic antidepressants and related molecules potently induce apoptosis in both chemonaïve and chemoresistant SCLC cells in culture, in mouse and human SCLC tumors transplanted into immunocompromised mice, and in endogenous tumors from a mouse model for human SCLC. The candidate drugs activate stress pathways and induce cell death in SCLC cells, at least in part by disrupting autocrine survival signals involving neurotransmitters and their G protein-coupled receptors. The candidate drugs inhibit the growth of other neuroendocrine tumors, including pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and Merkel cell carcinoma. These experiments identify novel targeted strategies that can be rapidly evaluated in patients with neuroendocrine tumors through the repurposing of approved drugs. SIGNIFICANCE Our work shows the power of bioinformatics-based drug approaches to rapidly repurpose FDA-approved drugs and identifies a novel class of molecules to treat patients with SCLC, a cancer for which no effective novel systemic treatments have been identified in several decades. In addition, our experiments highlight the importance of novel autocrine mechanisms in promoting the growth of neuroendocrine tumor cells.
Fine Filament Formation Behavior of Polymethylpentene and Polypropylene near Spinneret in Melt Blowing Process

Abstract Formation behavior of fine fibers of polymethylpentene (PMP) and polypropylene (PP) in the melt blowing process was investigated through the observation of the spin-line near the spinning nozzle using a high speed camera. Reduction of the polymer throughput rate and increase of the air flow rate were necessary to achieve fine diameter fibers, however these conditions generally cause the instability in the spinning process. Observation of the spin-line at the melt blowing die revealed the periodic accumulation of polymer flow near the spinning nozzle followed by the quick pulling down of the accumulated polymer by the air flow. This behavior caused the periodic fluctuation of fiber diameter as well as the intermittent breakage of the spin-line under extreme conditions. Because of high extrusion viscosity, PMP showed more stable spinning behavior than PP. Frequency of diameter fluctuation became higher with the increases of air flow rate and throughput rate, and the maximum frequency of about 60 Hz was observed for PP spinning with the throughput rate of 0.18 g/min. Diameter distribution of the fibers in the prepared web was also analyzed to compare with the spinning behavior. Fiber diameter distributions were narrow and symmetric under stable spinning conditions, whereas skewed diameter profiles with a maximum at low value and a long tail to the larger diameter region were observed under unstable conditions. Intermittent spin-line breakage caused flaws of “shot” and/or “fly”, and the skewed fiber diameter distribution with the presence of a small amount of fiber of extremely large diameter was confirmed.
Oxidation Phenomena and Processes in Opalinus Clay: Evidence From the Excavation-Disturbed Zones in Hauenstein and Mt. Terri Tunnels and Siblingen Open Clay Pit

Constraints on oxidation phenomena and processes in Opalinus Clay are derived from studies at three localities: the 140-year old Hauenstein tunnel, the six-year old Mt. Terri tunnel, and an open clay pit at Siblingen that documents processes active over thousands of years. The excavationdisturbed zone (EDZ) in both tunnels is characterized by an extensive fracture network that extends to at least 1.6 m. The network consists of saturated fractures as well as some air-filled fractures with apertures up to several mm that contain effervescent gypsum. At Hauenstein, the fracture network displays regularly developed brownish oxidation zones extending 3-15 mm into matrix rock. Such oxidation zones are absent at Mt. Terri. Siblingen displays a remarkable decrease of both fracturing and oxidation phenomena with depth below surface. Microscopic observations, mass balance constraints, and estimated diffusion coefficients of oxygen indicate a minor extent of pyrite oxidation at Hauenstein possibly controlled by diffusionlimited oxygen transport into water saturated rock. Oxidation of siderite is quantitatively dominating over pyrite oxidation at Siblingen. There is evidence at Hauenstein and Siblingen that rock alteration penetrated deeper than the visible alteration zone. During the operational phase (20-100 years) of a deep repository at least the major EDZ fractures are expected to become unsaturated, and gypsum to be precipitated. Fracture apertures reach locally several millimeters within a few years, which enhances hydraulic and gas conductivities. Oxidation rims bordering fractures in the EDZ develop over timescales of 10-100 years, but mass transfers are quantitatively minor.
TRIDENT : Infield Connectivity Assessment for Wireless Sensor Networks

Real-world deployments of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are notoriously difficult to get right, partly due to the fact that their low-power wireless communication is greatly affected by the characteristics of the target environment. An early in-field connectivity assessment of the latter provides fundamental input to the WSN development. Unfortunately, state-of-the-art tools require a secondary networking infrastructure (e.g., USB cables) for gathering experimental data—a luxury one can rarely afford in-field. We present TRIDENT, a tool expressly designed to support infield connectivity assessment by relying only on the WSN nodes, without additional infrastructure. The tool is also designed to be easy to use, enabling domain experts (instead of WSN experts) to directly configure connectivity assessment towards their specific needs, without requiring coding. The tool is provided in two variants, targeting TMote Sky motes running TinyOS, and Waspmotes running the standard ZigBee stack, covering popular platforms in research and industry, respectively.
Wavelet-based statistical features for distinguishing mitotic and non-mitotic cells in breast cancer histopathology

To diagnose breast cancer (BCa), the number of mitotic cells present in tissue sections is an important parameter to examine and grade breast biopsy specimen. The differentiation of mitotic from non-mitotic cells in breast histopathological images is a crucial step for automatical mitosis detection. This work aims at improving the accuracy of mitosis classification by characterizing objects of interest (tissue cells) in wavelet based multi-resolution representations that better capture the statistical features having mitosis discrimination. A dual-tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT) is performed to decompose the image patches into multi-scale forms. Five commonly-used statistical features are extracted on each wavelet subband. Since both mitotic and non-mitotic cells appear as small objects with a large variety of shapes in the images, characterization of mitosis is a challenging problem. The inter-scale dependencies of wavelet coefficients allow extraction of important texture features within the cells that are more likely to appear at all different scales. The wavelet-based statistical features were evaluated on a dataset containing 327 mitotic and 406 non-mitotic cells via a support vector machine classifier in iterative cross-validation. The quantitative results showed that our DT-CWT based approach achieved superior classification performance with the accuracy of 87.94%, sensitivity of 86.80%, specificity of 89.89%, and the area under the curve (AUC) value of 0.94.
Beetle Exoskeleton May Facilitate Body Heat Acting Differentially across the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Exoskeletons of beetles and their associated morphological characteristics can serve many different functions, including thermoregulation. We study the thermal role of the exoskeleton in 13 Geotrupidae dung beetle species using heating experiments under controlled conditions. The main purpose was to measure the influence of heating sources (solar radiance vs. infrared), animal position (dorsal exposure vs. ventral exposure), species identity, and phylogenetic relationships on internal asymptotic temperatures and heating rates. The thermal response was significantly influenced by phylogenetic relatedness, although it was not affected by the apterous condition. The asymptotic internal temperature of specimens was not affected by the thoracic volume but was significantly higher under simulated sunlight conditions than under infrared radiation and when exposed dorsally as opposed to ventrally. There was thus a significant interaction between heating source and body position. Heating rate was negatively and significantly influenced by thoracic volume, and, although insignificantly slower under simulated sunlight, it was significantly affected by body position, being faster under dorsal exposure. The results constitute the first evidence supporting the hypothesis that the beetle exoskeleton acts differentially across the electromagnetic spectrum determining internal body temperatures. This interesting finding suggests the existence of a kind of passive physiology imposed by the exoskeleton and body size, where interspecific relationships play a minor role.
Clinicopathologic and prognostic significance of C-reactive protein/albumin ratio in patients with solid tumors: an updated systemic review and meta-analysis

C-reactive protein/albumin ratio (CAR) was originally used as a novel inflammation-based prognostic score in predicting outcomes in septic patients. Recently, more and more studies have reported the prognostic value of pretreatment CAR in solid tumors. However, the results remain controversial rather than conclusive. We conducted a meta-analysis based on 24 studies with 10203 patients to explore the relationship between CAR and survival outcomes in patients with solid tumors. The correlation between CAR and clinicopathological parameters was also assessed. Hazard ratio (HR) or odds ratio (OR) with its 95% confidence interval (CI) was applied to be the effect size estimate. The overall results showed that elevated CAR was associated with shorter overall survival (OS) (including 23 studies and 10067 patients) and poorer disease-free survival (DFS) (including 6 studies and 2904 patients). Significant associations between high CAR level and poor OS were also found in the subgroup analyses of study region, cancer type, primary treatment, clinical stage, cut-off selection, sample size, and cut-off value. Moreover, subgroup analyses demonstrated that study region, primary treatment, clinical stage, sample size, and cut-off value did not alter the prognostic value of CAR for DFS. Furthermore, elevated CAR was correlated with certain phenotypes of tumor aggressiveness, such as poor histological grade, serious clinical stage, advanced tumor depth, positive lymph node metastasis, and positive distant metastasis. Together, our meta-analysis suggests that elevated level of serum CAR predicts worse survival and unfavorable clinical characteristics in cancer patients, and CAR may serve as an effective prognostic factor for solid tumors.
Stability , Accuracy , and Risk Assessment of a Novel Subcutaneous Glucose Sensor

Background: Users of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems are concerned with the frequency of inserting and calibrating new sensors, with sensor accuracy and reliability throughout the sensor’s functional life, and with the risks associated with inaccurate sensor readings. Methods: A sensor for our next-generation CGM system was tested for accuracy by comparison with selfmonitored blood glucose (SMBG) values throughout 10 days of wear. Fifty subjects (49 with type 1 diabetes, 1 with type 2 diabetes, 20 male, mean – standard deviation [SD] age 32.5 – 18.7 years) enrolled. Subjects wore one sensor each, calibrated it once per day, and obtained multiple daily SMBG values for comparison. A total of 2739 paired CGM-SMBG values were analyzed to arrive at standard accuracy statistics and plotted on the surveillance error grid (SEG) to estimate the risk of SMBG-CGM discrepancies. Results: The overall mean and median absolute relative difference (ARD) values were 9.6% and 7.2%, respectively. The median ARD values ranged from 8.9% on Day 1 to 6.5% on Day 10. SEG analysis categorized 2727 points (99.6%) as ‘‘no’’ or ‘‘slight’’ risk and 12 points (0.4%) as ‘‘moderate’’ or ‘‘great’’ risk. Thirty-nine (79.6%) of the 49 systems worked through the end of Day 10. Sensors and adhesives were well tolerated, with minimal erythema and induration. Conclusions: This new CGM system’s accuracy throughout its 10-day functional life, the convenience associated with once-daily calibrations, and the high proportion of measurements in the ‘‘no risk’’ zone of the SEG support its nonadjunctive use in diabetes management and closed-loop insulin delivery systems.
Experimental and Finite Element Modal Analysis of a Pliant Membrane for Micro Air Vehicles Wings

Pliant membrane materials have significant interest for applications in micro air vehicles flexible wings. This paper presents an experimental characterization of a latex hyperelastic membrane in static and dynamic conditions as a validation tool for finite element analysis (FEA) models. The membranes are attached to a circular steel ring and set at different pre-tension levels and loaded using steel spheres of different sizes placed at the center of the membrane. The pre-strain elastic energy and the deformation at the center of the membrane are measured by visual image correlation, a non-contact measurement system. A good correlation is found among the deflection and strain energy of the membrane computed by experimental and FEA models, although discrepancy is expected among experimental and FEA model results within reasonable limits due to the variation of the thickness of the membrane. The membrane structural dynamics characteristics are analyzed performing experimental modal analysis imposing a structural excitation to the ring in ambient pressure conditions and in reduced pressure in a vacuum chamber. The three-dimensional shape of the membranes during a burst-chirp excitation at different pre-tension levels is dynamically measured and recorded and the natural frequencies are computed by performing the fast Fourier transform of the out-of-plane displacement at several points of the circular membrane. Experimental results show that the natural frequencies increase with mode and pre-tension of the membrane, but decrease at higher ambient pressure. The natural frequencies of the membrane at different pre-tension levels are computed at vacuum by the preliminary FEA model.
Editorial: Virus Discovery by Metagenomics: The (Im)possibilities

1 Theoretical Biology and Bioinformatics, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands, Centre for Molecular and Biomolecular Informatics, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, Netherlands, Department of Biological Sciences, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, Max Planck Tandem Group in Computational Biology, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology, Washington University in Saint Louis, St Louis, MO, United States, 6 Animal Health Laboratory, Ministry for Primary Industries, Upper Hutt, New Zealand, Department of Molecular
Landing Force Controller for a Humanoid Robot: Time-Domain Passivity Approach

For the purpose of a humanoid robot's stable walking or running, it is important to absorb landing force or ground reaction force which is generated when the robot's foot lands on the ground surface. The force can make the robot unstable, and the problem becomes serious if the robot runs. This paper proposes a control system, which can absorb the landing force of a humanoid robot. Time-domain passivity control approach is applied for this purpose. Ground and the robot's foot are modeled as two one-port network systems, which are connected and exchange energy with each other. The time-domain passivity controller has the landing force as input and controls the foot's position to reduce the force. The proposed controller can guarantee the stability of the robot system without need of any dynamic model information or control parameters. Using small sized humanoid robot, dynamic walking experiments are performed to verify the proposed scheme, and its efficiency is shown from the comparison with the other scheme.
Study on Rapid Startup of Expanded Granular Sludge Bed Reactor

It is observed that the startup of Expanded Granular Sludge Bed(EGSB) reactor can be accelerated by inoculating granular sludge which contains anaerobic granular sludge germ and suitable flocculent anaerobic granular sludge in experimental studies on treatment of simulated domestic wastewater based on practice.Formation of granular sludge and rapid startup of EGSB reactor can be achieved using a three-stage operation manner with the constant concentration and the increase of influent organic loading combined with the addition of trace metal elements into the reactor.It demonstrates that biofilm generated on the wall of the reactor during enrichment process is responsible for enhancing and assisting the formation of granular sludge.Moreover,the biofilm increases the capacity against shocking organic loading of the reactor.The results are to have the important function of directing the production practice of the reactor of EGSB,as well as which can provide the reference for the reactor operation.
Paradigmatic Treatment of Arabic Morphology

This paper presents a language to express morphological processes, concatenative or non-concatenative. The language allows the definition of two kinds of paradigms: helping paradigms, which define partial morphological forms, and main paradigms, which combine two or more helping paradigms to define fully specified forms.