Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Age-Related Decrease in Heat Shock 70-kDa Protein 8 in Cerebrospinal Fluid Is Associated with Increased Oxidative Stress

Age-associated declines in protein homeostasis mechanisms (“proteostasis”) are thought to contribute to age-related neurodegenerative disorders. The increased oxidative stress which occurs with aging can activate a key proteostatic process, chaperone-mediated autophagy. This study investigated age-related alteration in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of heat shock 70-kDa protein 8 (HSPA8), a molecular chaperone involved in proteostatic mechanisms including chaperone-mediated autophagy, and its associations with indicators of oxidative stress (8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine [8-OHdG] and 8-isoprostane) and total anti-oxidant capacity. We examined correlations between age, HSPA8, 8-OHdG, 8-isoprostane, and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in CSF samples from 34 healthy subjects ranging from 20 to 75 years of age. Age was negatively associated with HSPA8 (ρ = –0.47; p = 0.005). An age-related increase in oxidative stress was indicated by a positive association between age and 8-OHdG (ρ = 0.61; p = 0.0001). HSPA8 was moderately negatively associated with 8-OHdG (ρ = –0.58; p = 0.0004). Age and HSPA8 were weakly associated with 8-isoprostane and TAC (range of ρ values: –0.15 to 0.16). Our findings in this exploratory study suggest that during healthy aging, CSF HSPA8 may decrease, perhaps due in part to an increase in oxidative stress. Our results also suggest that 8-OHdG may be more sensitive than 8-isoprostane for measuring oxidative stress in CSF. Further studies are indicated to determine if our findings can be replicated with a larger cohort, and if the age-related decrease in HSPA8 in CSF is reflected by a similar change in the brain.
Human Muscle Protein Synthetic Responses during Weight-Bearing and Non-Weight-Bearing Exercise: A Comparative Study of Exercise Modes and Recovery Nutrition

Effects of conventional endurance (CE) exercise and essential amino acid (EAA) supplementation on protein turnover are well described. Protein turnover responses to weighted endurance exercise (i.e., load carriage, LC) and EAA may differ from CE, because the mechanical forces and contractile properties of LC and CE likely differ. This study examined muscle protein synthesis (MPS) and whole-body protein turnover in response to LC and CE, with and without EAA supplementation, using stable isotope amino acid tracer infusions. Forty adults (mean ± SD, 22 ± 4 y, 80 ± 10 kg, VO2peak 4.0 ± 0.5 L∙min-1) were randomly assigned to perform 90 min, absolute intensity-matched (2.2 ± 0.1 VO2 L∙m-1) LC (performed on a treadmill wearing a vest equal to 30% of individual body mass, mean ± SD load carried 24 ± 3 kg) or CE (cycle ergometry performed at the same absolute VO2 as LC) exercise, during which EAA (10 g EAA, 3.6 g leucine) or control (CON, non-nutritive) drinks were consumed. Mixed-muscle and myofibrillar MPS were higher during exercise for LC than CE (mode main effect, P < 0.05), independent of dietary treatment. EAA enhanced mixed-muscle and sarcoplasmic MPS during exercise, regardless of mode (drink main effect, P < 0.05). Mixed-muscle and sarcoplasmic MPS were higher in recovery for LC than CE (mode main effect, P < 0.05). No other differences or interactions (mode x drink) were observed. However, EAA attenuated whole-body protein breakdown, increased amino acid oxidation, and enhanced net protein balance in recovery compared to CON, regardless of exercise mode (P < 0.05). These data show that, although whole-body protein turnover responses to absolute VO2-matched LC and CE are the same, LC elicited a greater muscle protein synthetic response than CE.
Peer review and expert panels as techniques for evaluating the quality of academic research

As this volume demonstrates, a wide variety of methodologies exist to evaluate particularly the objectives and outcomes of research and development programs. These include surveys, statistical and econometric estimations, patent analyses, bibliometrics, scientometrics, network analyses, case studies, and historical tracings. Contributors divide these and other methods and applications into four categories – economic, non-economic, hybrid and data-driven – in order to discuss the many factors that affect the utility of each technique and how that impacts the technological, economic and societal forecasts of the programs in question.
Brainstem sources of cardiac vagal tone and respiratory sinus arrhythmia

Cardiac vagal tone is a strong predictor of health, although its central origins are unknown. Respiratory‐linked fluctuations in cardiac vagal tone give rise to respiratory sinus arryhthmia (RSA), with maximum tone in the post‐inspiratory phase of respiration. In the present study, we investigated whether respiratory modulation of cardiac vagal tone is intrinsically linked to post‐inspiratory respiratory control using the unanaesthetized working heart‐brainstem preparation of the rat. Abolition of post‐inspiration, achieved by inhibition of the pontine Kolliker‐Fuse nucleus, removed post‐inspiratory peaks in efferent cardiac vagal activity and suppressed RSA, whereas substantial cardiac vagal tone persisted. After transection of the caudal pons, part of the remaining tone was removed by inhibition of nucleus of the solitary tract. We conclude that cardiac vagal tone depends upon at least 3 sites of the pontomedullary brainstem and that a significant proportion arises independently of RSA.
Borph: an operating system for fpga-based reconfigurable computers

Reconfigurable computing is a promising technology to meet future computational demand by leveraging flexibilities and the high degree of parallelism found in reconfigurable hardware fabrics, such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). However, despite their promising performance researchers have demonstrated, reconfigurable computers are yet to be widely adopted. One reason is the lack of a common and intuitive operating system for these platforms. This dissertation work explores the design and implementation trade-offs of an operating system for FPGA-based reconfigurable computers, BORPH, the Berkeley Operating system for ReProgrammable Hardware. The goal of this work is to explore and demonstrate the feasibility of providing a systematic and easy to understand view into reconfigurable computers through OS support without incurring significant performance penalties. BORPH provides kernel support for FPGA applications by extending a standard Linux operating system. It establishes the notion of hardware process for executing user FPGA applications. Users therefore compile and execute hardware designs on FPGA resources the same way they run software programs on conventional processor-based systems. BORPH offers run-time general file system support to hardware processes as if they were software. The unified file interface allows hardware and software processes to communicate via standard UNIX file pipes. Furthermore, a virtual file system is built to allow access to memories and registers defined in the FPGA, providing communication links between hardware and software. The functions of BORPH are demonstrated on a BEE2 compute module. Performances of BORPH are measured to identify bottlenecks of our system. The clean OS kernel/user separation of BORPH has allowed us to improve overall system performance without affecting existing user designs. Furthermore, BORPH's unified runtime environment has enabled designers to make fair and end-to-end comparisons among software/hardware implementations of the same application. Most importantly, since the introduction of BORPH to our FPGA-based platform, we have observed increased productivity among high-level application developers who have little experience in FPGA application design.
Manifesting Thai conceptual scenarios through Thai FrameNet

This paper presents the current status and caveat of the Thai FrameNet project. Through four modules, a combination approach: the expand and the merge, is implemented. The alignment of the original FrameNet is made by way of the former whilst the latter manifests the indigenous Thai conceptual scenarios. Currently, 1,339 frames, 22,708 lexical units, and 2,333 annotated sentences are obtained as a result. Frames are organised in the Thai FrameNet database and connected by seven frame-to-frame relations.
User's Perceived IS Slack Resources and their Effects on Innovating with IT

While adaptation research significantly extends our understanding of how users adapt in reacting to new technology, scant attention has been given to the phenomenon of second-wave, proactive innovations, following the implementation of a disruptive information technology (IT). A proactive user behavior with IT voluntarily steps out of the defined job requirements and creates a new application of IT in the work. This paper conceptualizes a concept called innovating with IT (IwIT) as a post-implementation behavior which refers to user innovations that are proactively conducted with IT in one’s work process or deliverables. The paper draws on proactivity literature and takes a novel “slack” respective to understand what could facilitate IwIT. An integrative model that explores the relationship between user’s perceived IS slack resources and IwIT has been developed. This project contributes to existing IS research by presenting a new and complementary approach to existing research on adaptive behaviors.
A study on frequency correlation characteristics over multipath channels

This paper presents a simple multipath channel model to investigates the frequency correlation characteristics first, then analyzes the fading correlation coefficient between frequency difference Δf with the respect to transmission distance and radio carrier frequency. This work would provide a valuable reference for designing the wireless communication systems with high spectral efficiency and high tolerance to multipath fading.
A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial of Lamotrigine for Pathological Skin Picking: Treatment Efficacy and Neurocognitive Predictors of Response

Although a relatively common behavior, treatment data for pathological skin picking (PSP) are limited. The current study sought to examine the efficacy and tolerability of lamotrigine in adults with PSP and to examine neurocognitive predictors of treatment response. Thirty-two subjects (29 female subjects [90.6%]; mean age, 32.8 ± 13.3 years) with PSP were treated in a 12-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of lamotrigine as monotherapy. Baseline cognitive assessment comprised the stop signal and intradimensional/extradimensional set shift tasks. Lamotrigine dosing ranged from 12.5 to 300 mg/d. The primary outcome measure was picking symptoms measured by the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive scale Modified for Neurotic Excoriation. Subjects also were assessed with measures of psychosocial functioning. No significant overall differences were noted between lamotrigine and placebo on the primary or secondary end points. Seven subjects assigned to lamotrigine (43.8%) were considered responders (defined as ≥35% n the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive scale Modified for Neurotic Excoriation) compared with 5 (31.3%) assigned to placebo. Those who ultimately responded to lamotrigine exhibited impaired cognitive flexibility (extradimensional shifting) at baseline compared with lamotrigine nonresponders. These findings suggest that, although safe and well tolerated, lamotrigine treatment may not be efficacious in patients with PSP as a whole, compared with placebo. However, these neurocognitive data suggest that lamotrigine may be valuable in a subset of patients who exhibit relatively impaired cognitive flexibility.
Data-Transfer-Aware Memory Allocation for Dynamically Reconfigurable Accelerators in Heterogeneous Multicore Processors

Accelerator cores in low-power heterogeneous multicore processors have multiple memory modules to enable parallel data access. Recent low-power processors contain address generation units (AGUs) for fast address generation. To reduce the core-area, small functional units such as adders and counters are used in AGUs. Such small functional units make it difficult to implement complex addressing patterns without duplicating the data among multiple memory modules. The data-duplication wastes the memory capacity and increases the data transfer time significantly. This paper proposes a method to remove the memory duplication and to increase the degree of parallelism. To verify the effectiveness of this method, we use window-based media processing which is widely used in many applications. According to the evaluation, the proposed method reduces the total processing time by 14% to more than 85% compared to the previous works.
Measuring the effect of think aloud protocols on workload using fNIRS

The Think Aloud Protocol (TAP) is a verbalisation technique widely employed in HCI user studies to give insight into user experience, yet little work has explored the impact that TAPs have on participants during user studies. This paper utilises a brain sensing technique, fNIRS, to observe the effect that TAPs have on participants. Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a brain sensing technology that offers the potential to provide continuous, detailed insight into brain activity, enabling an objective view of cognitive processes during complex tasks. Participants were asked to perform a mathematical task under 4 conditions: nonsense verbalisations, passive concurrent think aloud protocol, invasive concurrent think aloud protocol, and a baseline of silence. Subjective ratings and performance measures were collected during the study. Our results provide a novel view into the effect that different forms of verbalisation have on workload during tasks. Further, the results provide a means for estimating the effect of spoken artefacts when measuring workload, which is another step towards our goal of proactively involving fNIRS analysis in ecologically valid user studies.
The structure of demand for electricity in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries

Electricity is a vital ingredient for the economic and social advancement of all developing nations. The members of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) offer no exception. The quantity of electricity consumed in these countries has grown consistently since the 1970s. If past trends are extrapolated to the year 2000, the electricity consumption at the turn of the century will be at least 10-fold the level prevailing the 1970s.
Expanded Genetic Codes in Next Generation Sequencing Enable Decontamination and Mitochondrial Enrichment

We have developed a PCR method, coined Déjà vu PCR, that utilizes six nucleotides in PCR with two methyl specific restriction enzymes that respectively digest these additional nucleotides. Use of this enzyme-and-nucleotide combination enables what we term a “DNA diode”, where DNA can advance in a laboratory in only one direction and cannot feedback into upstream assays. Here we describe aspects of this method that enable consecutive amplification with the introduction of a 5th and 6th base while simultaneously providing methylation dependent mitochondrial DNA enrichment. These additional nucleotides enable a novel DNA decontamination technique that generates ephemeral and easy to decontaminate DNA.
CD24 (heat stable antigen, nectadrin), a novel keratinocyte differentiation marker, is preferentially expressed in areas of the hair follicle containing the colony-forming cells.

We have isolated, by subtractive and differential hybridization from a library constructed from keratinocyte colony-forming cells (K-CFCs), a cDNA coding for the rat CD24 (nectadrin, heat stable antigen). CD24, a glycoprotein thought to be involved in cell-cell adhesion and signalling, is highly expressed in keratinocytes located in the bulge area of the rat vibrissa which contains the most K-CFCs. CD24 is also expressed in the outer epithelial sheath of human hair follicles and in glabrous epidermis. However, its expression is not restricted to K-CFCs as demonstrated by cell sorting experiments, and it is thus not a specific marker of clonogenic keratinocytes. Rather, its preferential distribution in keratinocytes located in the most innervated area of the rat vibrissal follicle, i.e., the bulge, suggests that is function could be related to the tactile role of the hair follicle.
A Key Transcription Cofactor on the Nascent Sex Chromosomes of European Tree Frogs (Hyla arborea)

We show that MED15, a key component of the transcription complex Mediator, lies within the nonrecombining segment of nascent sex chromosomes in the male-heterogametic Hyla arborea. Both X and Y alleles are expressed during embryonic development and differ by three frame-preserving indels (eight amino acids in total) within their glutamine-rich central part. These changes have the potential to affect the conformation of the Mediator complex and to activate genes in a sex-specific way and might thus represent the first steps toward the acquisition of a male-specific function. Alternatively, they might result from an ancestral neutral polymorphism, with different alleles picked by chance on the X and Y chromosomes when MED15 was trapped in the nonrecombining segment.
Resource allocation and empowerment practices

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of empowerment practices within the disability support service (DSS) sector in New Zealand. The DSS framework is designed as part of the public sector reform process to promote empowerment for people with disabilities so that they can lead independent lives in their communities.Design/methodology/approach – Taking a qualitative and interpretive approach to fieldwork, this research seeks the actual lived experiences of the disabled as recipients of services offer by the state.Findings – The empirical evidence suggests that a concept such as empowerment can be problematic, because it can be perceived as a manipulative strategy where empowerment principles may be only notionally applied when services are offered by following managerialist principles.Originality/value – This paper adds to the understanding on relationships between service design, resources, and empowerment practices. Implementation of empowerment principles, however, depends o.
Performance of the Double Tunneling with Handoff Prediction in Mobile IP Network

Mobile IP protocols allow a mobile host to send and receive packets addressed with its home IP address, regardless of the IP address of its current point of attachment in the Internet. Four routing schemes, home, optimal, hierarchical and pointer forwarding approaches are discussed with regard to the handoffs. In the existing methods packets are delayed and lost during the change of the care-of-address from an old foreign agent to a new agent. To handle the packet loss and delay problem we propose a double tunneling method in which received packets at an agent are copied and sent to both the old and new foreign agents. The method is backed up by the predicted handoffs. Computational results show that the double tunneling method outperforms existing handoff procedure in view of lost and delayed packets.
Comparison of Modulation Methods for Three-Phase Multi-Level Voltage-Source Inverter from Conduction and Switching Losses Aspect

The designer of static power converters must model the losses of converter switches to optimize the performance of the system. This paper applies functional simulation model for analysis and comparison of conduction and switching losses in a multi-level voltage-source inverter using alternative modulation methods. This concept is based on semiconductor device characteristics modeling and is implemented with the help of MATLAB/Simulink. The method is fairly accurate and simple and takes a short run-time of simulation without any convergence problem
SPECTROSCOPIC CONFIRMATION OF FAINT LYMAN BREAK GALAXIES NEAR REDSHIFT FIVE IN THE HUBBLE ULTRA DEEP FIELD

We present the faintest spectroscopically confirmed sample of z ∼ 5 Lyman break galaxies (LBGs) to date. The sample is based on slitless grism spectra of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field region from the Grism ACS Program for Extragalactic Science (GRAPES) and Probing Evolution and Reionization Spectroscopically (PEARS) projects, using the G800L grism on the Hubble Space Telescope Advanced Camera for Surveys. We report here confirmations of 39 galaxies, preselected as candidate LBGs using photometric selection criteria. We compare a “traditional” V-dropout selection, based on the work of Giavalisco et al., to a more liberal one (with V − i > 0.9), and find that the traditional criteria are about 64% complete and 81% reliable. We also study the Lyα emission properties of our sample. We find that Lyα emission is detected in ∼1/4 of the sample, and that the liberal V-dropout color selection includes ∼55% of previously published line-selected Lyα sources. Finally, we examine our stacked two-dimensional spectra. We demonstrate that strong, spatially extended (∼1″) Lyα emission is not a generic property of these LBGs, but that a modest extension of the Lyα photosphere (compared to the starlight) may be present in those galaxies with prominent Lyα emission.
Multi-Agent Heterogeneous Intrusion Detection System

Multi-agent heterogeneous intrusion detection system (MAHIDS) is a prototype proposed to detect untrusted and unusual network behaviour. The main contribution of the system is the integration of several anomaly detection techniques and machinery of multi-agent temporal logic with hybrid argumentation. Every detection technique is represented by featuring a specific detection autonomous agent. In this stage, every agent determines the flow trustfulness from aggregated connection. The anomalies are used as an input for machinery of multiagent temporal logic which is represented by the logical agent. The logical agent is one of the system’s advantages because it has huge capabilities for making a right decision about intrusions from detected anomalies. Another significant advantage of M-AHIDS is a new innovative agent – Web agent. The Web agent is capable to detect trusted host from his activity on web pages. The system M-AHIDS is based on traffic statistics in sFlow format acquired by network device with sFlow agent and is able to perform a real-time surveillance of the 10 Gb networks.
Application of the Lattice-Boltzmann method in flow acoustics

The Lattice-Boltzmann method for simulation of low Mach number flows is evaluated for the application in flow acoustics. By Linearization and von-Neumann analysis quantitative measures for the accuracy of phase speed and attenuation of linearly propagating sound waves in presence of a mean flow are derived. It is shown that phase errors are the only relevant problem when simulating sound waves in the audible range in air. The deviations in phase speed are below 1% as long as the wave is resolved with at least 12 points per wavelength. The LBM is applied to the problem of a Helmholtz resonator under a grazing flow and to the trailing edge noise generation problem. The results, though preliminary, clearly demonstrate the ability to reproduce relevant flow acoustic effects.