Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Use of the Fitbit to Measure Adherence to a Physical Activity Intervention Among Overweight or Obese, Postmenopausal Women: Self-Monitoring Trajectory During 16 Weeks

Background Direct-to-consumer trackers and devices have potential to enhance theory-based physical activity interventions by offering a simple and pleasant way to help participants self-monitor their behavior. A secondary benefit of these devices is the opportunity for investigators to objectively track adherence to physical activity goals across weeks or even months, rather than relying on self-report or a small number of accelerometry wear periods. The use of consumer trackers for continuous monitoring of adherence has considerable potential to enhance physical activity research, but few studies have been published in this rapidly developing area. Objective The objective of the study was to assess the trajectory of physical activity adherence across a 16-week self-monitoring intervention, as measured by the Fitbit tracker. Methods Participants were 25 overweight or obese, postmenopausal women enrolled in the intervention arm of a randomized controlled physical activity intervention trial. Each participant received a 16-week technology-based intervention that used the Fitbit physical activity tracker and website. The overall study goal was 150 minutes/week of moderate to vigorous intensity physical activity (MVPA) and 10,000 steps/day; however, goals were set individually for each participant and updated at Week 4 based on progress. Adherence data were collected by the Fitbit and aggregated by Fitabase. Participants also wore an ActiGraph GT3X+ accelerometer for 7 days prior to the intervention and again during Week 16. Results The median participant logged 10 hours or more/day of Fitbit wear on 95% of the 112 intervention days, with no significant decline in wear over the study period. Participants averaged 7540 (SD 2373) steps/day and 82 minutes/week (SD 43) of accumulated “fairly active” and “very active” minutes during the intervention. At Week 4, 80% (20/25) of women chose to maintain/increase their individual MVPA goal and 72% (18/25) of participants chose to maintain/increase their step goal. Physical activity levels were relatively stable after peaking at 3 weeks, with only small declines of 8% for steps (P=.06) and 14% for MVPA (P=.05) by 16 weeks. Conclusions These data indicate that a sophisticated, direct-to-consumer activity tracker encouraged high levels of self-monitoring that were sustained over 16 weeks. Further study is needed to determine how to motivate additional gains in physical activity and evaluate the long-term utility of the Fitbit tracker as part of a strategy for chronic disease prevention. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01837147; http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01837147 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/6d0VeQpvB)
UV resonance Raman spectroscopy monitors polyglutamine backbone and side chain hydrogen bonding and fibrillization.

We utilize 198 and 204 nm excited UV resonance Raman spectroscopy (UVRR) and circular dichroism spectroscopy (CD) to monitor the backbone conformation and the Gln side chain hydrogen bonding (HB) of a short, mainly polyGln peptide with a D(2)Q(10)K(2) sequence (Q10). We measured the UVRR spectra of valeramide to determine the dependence of the primary amide vibrations on amide HB. We observe that a nondisaggregated Q10 (NDQ10) solution (prepared by directly dissolving the original synthesized peptide in pure water) exists in a β-sheet conformation, where the Gln side chains form hydrogen bonds to either the backbone or other Gln side chains. At 60 °C, these solutions readily form amyloid fibrils. We used the polyGln disaggregation protocol of Wetzel et al. [Wetzel, R. , et al. (2006) Methods Enzymol.413, 34-74] to dissolve the Q10 β-sheet aggregates. We observe that the disaggregated Q10 (DQ10) solutions adopt PPII-like and 2.5(1)-helix conformations where the Gln side chains form hydrogen bonds with water. In contrast, these samples do not form fibrils. The NDQ10 β-sheet solution structure is essentially identical to that found in the NDQ10 solid formed upon evaporation of the solution. The DQ10 PPII and 2.5(1)-helix solution structure is essentially identical to that in the DQ10 solid. Although the NDQ10 solution readily forms fibrils when heated, the DQ10 solution does not form fibrils unless seeded with the NDQ10 solution. This result demonstrates very high activation barriers between these solution conformations. The NDQ10 fibril secondary structure is essentially identical to that of the NDQ10 solution, except that the NDQ10 fibril backbone conformational distribution is narrower than in the dissolved species. The NDQ10 fibril Gln side chain geometry is more constrained than when NDQ10 is in solution. The NDQ10 fibril structure is identical to that of the DQ10 fibril seeded by the NDQ10 solution.
Study on Pores in Ultrasonic‐Assisted TIG Weld of Aluminum Alloy

Ultrasonic‐assisted tungsten inert gas welding was carried out on a thin plate of 2195 Al‐Li alloy, and the characteristics of the weld pores were analyzed in terms of their size and porosity. The effects of welding speed and ultrasonic power on the porosity and size of the pores were investigated. The pores were found to occur primarily adjacent to the surface of the weld. The porosity decreased and the size increased with a decrease in welding speed. The effect of ultrasonic power on the characteristics of the pores was different from that of the welding speed. The porosity and size of the pores decreased and then increased with an increase in ultrasonic power. A relationship was found between the transient cavitation intensity and the characteristics of pores. An increasing transient cavitation intensity results in a decrease in the porosity and size of pores when the transient cavitation intensity is lower. However, it can result in an increase in the porosity and pore size when the transient cavitation intensity further increases. Finally, the influencing mechanism of cavitation on welding pores was discussed.
Teleseismic P Wave Attenuation in the Upper Mantle Beneath the United States

Using Mw>6, deep earthquakes that occurred between 2006 and 2015 and were recorded by EarthScope’s Transportable Array, the P wave amplitude spectra were analyzed to examine seismic attenuation patterns in the upper mantle. 2.5 million interstation P wave spectral ratios were inverted for maps of relative t* variations across the United States in multiple frequency bands between 0.08 and 2 Hz. Broader frequency bands are associated with lower magnitude variations; however, the geographic pattern of attenuation is similar across all frequency bands, and the correlation values were >0.8. The dt* maps from this study were compared with long period surface wave Q models [Dalton et al., 2008] and upper mantle P wave velocity tomography [Schmandt and Lin, 2014]. The magnitude of t* variations inverted from P wave spectra near 1 Hz is ~10x greater than predicted by long-period surface wave studies of upper mantle attenuation. This is caused by the influence of scattering for higher frequency P wave amplitude spectra. Ratios of transverse-to-vertical component spectra are used as a proxy for P wave
Azteca Breed Horse Epididymal Sperm Evaluation: A Comparison of Head, Corpus and Cauda Sperm Quality

The main objective of this study was to determine differences in sperm recovered from the three segments of the epididymis, i.e., head, corpus and cauda, using routine measurements of sperm quality and DNA fragmentation assessment. There was a larger sperm concentration (P < 0.05) in the head (3.34 × 106 sperm/mL) compared with the corpus and cauda. The percentage of normal morphology was higher in the cauda but had lower motility (P < 0.05). The DNA fragmentation index was higher for sperm obtained from the head and body of the epididymis (P < 0.01) compared with the cauda. The DNA fragmentation index values were 12% higher (P < 0.01) using Wright stain compared with DAPI stain in sperm from the head and corpus of the epididymis, but similar in the cauda. Spermatobioscopy parameters match the maturation changes that occur in the epididymal tract with higher quality sperm being from the cauda, but with a lower concentration compared to sperm found in the head.
Comparative Study of Ropivacaine 0.5% and Levobupivacaine 0.33% in Axillary Brachial Plexus Block

Background: The aim of this prospective, randomized, double-blind study was to compare the block induced by ropivacaine 0.5% with levobupivacaine 0.33% at the recommended dose range in upper limb surgery. These concentrations have provided equivalent block after epidural analgesia. We hypothesized that the block induced by both local anesthetics at clinical equipotent dose would be similar in axillary block. Methods: Eighty-six patients received 30 mL of ropivacaine 0.5% (150 mg) or 30 mL of levobupivacaine 0.33% (99 mg) by axillary approach. Sensory and motor blocks were assessed in the 5 main nerve territories of the arm at 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 mins and every 6 hrs for the first 24 hrs. We used the Student t test and &khgr;2 test for comparison between groups and an analysis of survival. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Onset of motor block was 9.0 mins (SD, 5.3 mins) for ropivacaine and 12.4 mins (SD, 7.8 mins) for levobupivacaine (P = 0.02). Time to be considered ready for surgery was similar in both groups: ropivacaine, 25.2 mins (SD, 5.1 mins); and levobupivacaine, 25.3 mins (SD, 6.4 mins) (t = −0.09, P = 0.93). Sensory block was 9.2 hrs (SD, 3.1 hrs) for ropivacaine and 11.3 hrs (SD, 4.1 hrs) for levobupivacaine (P = 0.01). Conclusions: Onset of motor block was significantly faster for ropivacaine than levobupivacaine (P = 0.02), but the time to be ready for surgery was similar with both drugs. Duration of sensory block was prolonged with levobupivacaine (P = 0.01).
Synthesis of a Red Fluorescent Dye-Conjugated Ag@SiO2 Nanocomposite for Cell Immunofluorescence

In this work we describe a one-step approach for incorporating a red fluorophore (2SBPO) into core-shell nanoparticles for metal-enhanced fluorescence immunolabels. The 2SBPO-MEF nanoparticles are particularly attractive as cell labels because their ∼ 670 nm emission has minimal overlap with cell autofluorescence and from overlap with many conventional probes. 2SBPO was incorporated through physical entrapment during the Stöber process. Antibody-based cell labels were then synthesized using covalent linkage. The nanoparticle fluorescence was 7.5-fold higher than control nanoparticles lacking a metal core. We demonstrated labeling of CD4 + HuT 78 T lymphocytes using anti-CD4-conjugated nanoparticle labels. Cells labeled with anti-CD4 nanoparticles showed a 35-fold fluorescence signal compared to anti-CD4 coreless controls. This simple synthesis protocol can be applied to a variety of hydrophilic fluorophore types and has broad potential in bioanalytical and biosensing applications.
Right-lateralized neural activity during inner speech repeated by cues

Neural activity during inner speech of meaningless syllable sequences was measured with MEG and fMRI from eight right-handed subjects who executed a delayed-response task. An fMRI-constrained MEG multi-dipole analysis showed that active neural sources were detected at latencies of about 200–300 ms after cues near the posterior superior temporal sulcus and were more numerous in the right hemisphere than in the left hemisphere. Since the subjects were cued to repeat inner speech of meaningless sequences stored in verbal working memory, the activity in the right (language-nondominant) hemisphere suggested that the task required processing of more prosodic features such as pitch and rhythm than phonemic features.
High performance control of PMSM

This paper proposed a new switching scheme for controlling permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM). The voltage source inverter (VSI) is represented as event driven system with 23 modes of operation. The switching among these modes is governed by the supervisory control approach. The salient future of the switching control is system order reduction, decoupling in the design procedure, insensitivity in plant parameter changes and disturbance rejection. Simple implementation makes concept of switching control very attractive in power electronic and electrical drives. The high performance hybrid control algorithm designed by proposed approach can be easily implemented on modern FPGA platforms.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with bipolar depression: a double blind, controlled study.

Dolberg OT, Dannon PN, Schreiber S, Grunhaus L. Transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with bipolar depression: a double blind, controlled study. Bipolar Disord 2002: 4(Suppl. 1): 94–95. © Blackwell Munksgaard, 2002
A Bayesian approach to analysing the cost-effectiveness of two primary care interventions aimed at improving attendance for breast screening.

AIMS To assess the cost-effectiveness of two primary care interventions, a letter and a flag, aimed at improving attendance for breast screening among (i) all women invited for breast screening and (ii) non-attenders. METHODS A probabilistic decision analytic model was developed using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation implemented in WinBUGS. The model was populated using economic and effectiveness data collected alongside two randomised controlled trials. RESULTS For all women invited, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) for the letter compared with no intervention is 27 pounds per additional attendance, and the ICER for the combined letter and flag intervention compared to the letter alone is 171 pounds. The corresponding ICERs for non-attenders are 41 pounds and 90 pounds. The flag intervention is an inefficient option in both settings. A large proportion of the costs fall on the practices (25-67%), depending on the intervention and target population. The total costs incurred do not, however, seem prohibitive. Expected value of perfect information suggests that there is greater value in carrying out further research on the intervention implemented among all women invited for breast screening rather than on non-attenders. CONCLUSIONS The flag intervention alone does not appear to be an efficient option. The choice between the letter and both interventions combined is subjective, depending on the willingness to pay for an additional screening attendance.
CHILDREN INTERACTION PATTERNS EXHIBITED DURING LEARNING ACTIVITIES: A CASE STUDY AT A SELECTED PUBLIC KINDERGARTEN IN MALAYSIA

This qualitative research aims to explore the nature of children interaction patterns during their learning activities. This study involved six 6-year old children (4 boys and 2 girls) from a selected public kindergarten in Malaysia. Employing the case study design method, data was collected using non-participant observation techniques. The findings of this study revealed that there were two types of children interaction during learning activities: children-adult interaction and children-peers interaction. The patterns of children interaction in children-adults interaction comprised; constructive-dialogic and explicit correction while in children-peers interaction, children engaged in three patterns of interaction namely; sociable, creative and non-verbal. Finally, implications of this study for preschool education in particular will be discussed.
Blur Invariant Block based Copy-Move Forgery Detection Technique using FWHT Features

Copy-move forgery detection has become a prominent research area. In this paper, an efficient block based copy-move forgery detection algorithm based on Fast Walsh Hadamard Transform is presented with an objective to reduce processing time in identifying the duplicated regions in an image. Forged regions are detected using lexicographical sorting and efficient shift vector mechanism. Proposed system is tested on different attacked images of the CoMoFoD dataset. Attacks are blur movement, brightness changes, color reduction and contrast adjustment, etc. Performance of proposed system is quite good across all the attacks. Also, it is more robust to blur movement. Experimental results show the ability of the proposed method to accurately detect the tampered regions as well as reducing the time complexity.
Resistant Pest Management Newsletter

The study aimed to evaluate the susceptibility of Anopheles species to DDT 4% and deltamethrin 0.05%. Mosquitoes were tested for their susceptibility to both insecticides following WHO standards and using test kit provided by WHO. The study indicated that Anopheles mosquito was found tolerant to DDT 4% and deltamethrin 0.05% in Juba County in all mosquitoes collected from the sentinel sites. However, the mosquito species was found tolerant according to WHO criteria where the mortality rate during 24 hrs is less than 98%. The results of the present study showed that the DDT 4% KDT50 to Anopheles species exposure for 1 hr was found 6.7, 1.6, 1.4 and 0.9 minute in Northern Bari payam, Katour payam, Juba payam and Munuki payam respectively. The results of the study showed that the mortality rate after 24 hrs in the sentinel sites selected in Northern Bari payam, Munuki payam, Katour payam and Juba payam was found 98%, 96%, 96% and 97.6% for DDT 4% and 74.7%, 90.4%, 88% and 88.8 respectively, therefore according to Spring 2010 Resistant Pest Management Newsletter Vol. 19, No. 2 3 the WHO criteria all the Anopheline mosquito species found in Juba County seemingly tolerant to DDT 4% and deltamethrin 0.05%.
Contributions to the study of resource-bounded measure

LA TESIS PRESENTA EXTENSIONES Y NUEVAS APLICACIONES DE LA TEORIA DE LA MEDIDA CON RECURSOS ACOTADOS INTRODUCIDA POR JACK LUTZ, ESTA TEORIA REDEFINE CONCEPTOS CLASICOS DE MEDIDA Y CATEGORIA Y LOS REFORMULA DE MANERA QUE PUEDAN APLICARSE A CLASES DE COMPLEJIDAD DE PROBLEMAS COMPUTACIONALES. EN EL CAPITULO 2, SE EXTIENDEN LAS DEFINICIONES DE LUTZ Y SE OBTIENE UNA NOCION VALIDA DE MEDIDA DENTRO DE LA CLASE DE PROBLEMAS RESOLUBLES EN ESPACIO POLINOMICO (LA DEFINICION DE LUTZ SOLO TENIA SENTIDO PARA CLASES EN TIEMPO EXPONENCIAL O MAYORES). CON ESTA DEFINICION, SE DEMUESTRA QUE LOS CONJUNTOS AUTO-REDUCIBLES SON UN CONJUNTO DE MEDIDA O EN ESPACIO POLINOMICO. EN EL CAPITULO 3, SE APLICAN TECNICAS SIMILARES PARA DEMOSTRAR QUE LOS CONJUNTOS BI-INMUNES TIENEN MEDIDA 1 EN TIEMPO EXPONENCIAL, EXTENDIENDO RESULTADOS ANTERIORES PURAMENTE EXISTENCIALES. EN EL CAPITULO 4 SE UTILIZA EL CONCEPTO DE MEDIDA Y ESTOCASTICIDAD DEBIL PARA DEMOSTRAR QUE TODO CONJUNTO "HARD" PARA TIEMPO EXPONENCIAL BAJO UN TIPO ESPECIFICO DE REDUCIBILIDAD ES DENSO; EL RESULTADO OBTENIDO ES EL MAS FUERTE CONOCIDO EN LA ACTUALIDAD. EL CAPITULO 5 ESTUDIA LAS CONSECUENCIAS DE LA HIPOTESIS QUE LA CLASE NP NO TIENE MEDIDA O EN TIEMPO EXPONENCIAL, DERIVANDO NUMEROSAS CONSECUENCIAS ESTRUCTURALES. FINALMENTE, EL CAPITULO 6 RELACIONA NOCIONES COMO LA " -RANDOMNESS" CON LA TEORIA DE LA MEDIDA.
Neurobiology of the Sleep-Wake Cycle: Sleep Architecture, Circadian Regulation, and Regulatory Feedback

This mini-review article presents the remarkable progress that has been made in the past decade in our understanding of the neural circuitry underlying the regulation of sleep-wake states and circadian control of behaviors. Following a brief introduction to sleep architecture and physiology, the authors describe the neural circuitry and neurotransmitters that regulate sleep and cortical arousal (i.e., wakefulness). They next examine how sleep and wakefulness are regulated by mutual inhibition between sleep-and arousal-promoting circuitry and how this interaction functions analogously to an electronic “flip-flop” switch that ensures behavioral state stability. The authors then discuss the role of circadian and homeostatic processes in the consolidation of sleep, including the physiologic basis of homeostatic sleep drive (i.e., wake-dependent increase in sleep propensity) and the role of the SCN in the circadian regulation of sleep-wake cycles. Finally, they describe the hypothalamic circuitry for the integration of photic and nonphotic environmental time cues and how this integration allows organisms to sculpt patterns of rest-activity and sleep-wake cycles that are optimally adaptive.
PANDORA : AN OPEN SYSTEM OF COGNITIVE AGENTS USING PARACONSISTENT LOGIC

AB STRACT This work is part of the Multicheck1 Project that defines an architecture of cognitive and independents agents for the automatic treatment of handwritten Brazilian bank checks. The concept of autonomous agents allows us to organize the application knowledge and brings from this approach several own benefits. The choice of this approach is supported in a triple hypothesis. First, the nature of the problem in question allows decomposition in well-defined tasks, and each of them can be encapsulated in an independent agent. Second, the natural capability of interaction of the agents makes the check treatment process more robust, solving situations apparently difficult. Third, the natural parallelism between the agents can contribute to implement an application with high performance. K eywor ds: Autonomous Agent, Paraconsistent Logic, Task Distribution.
Optimization of Vehicular Trajectories under Gaussian Noise Disturbances

Nowadays, research on Vehicular Technology aims at automating every single mechanical element of vehicles, in order to increase passengers’ safety, reduce human driving intervention and provide entertainment services on board. Automatic trajectory tracing for vehicles under especially risky circumstances is a field of research that is currently gaining enormous attention. In this paper, we show some results on how to develop useful policies to execute maneuvers by a vehicle at high speeds with the mathematical optimization of some already established mobility conditions of the car. We also study how the presence of Gaussian noise on measurement sensors while maneuvering can disturb motion and affect the final trajectories. Different performance criteria for the optimization of such maneuvers are presented, and an analysis is shown on how path deviations can be minimized by using trajectory smoothing techniques like the Kalman Filter. We finalize the paper with a discussion on how communications can be used to implement these schemes.
Identification and characterization of a new mammalian mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase, MKK2

Mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinases are serine/threonine protein kinases activated by dual phosphorylation on threonine and tyrosine residues. A MAP kinase kinase (MKK1 or MEK1) has been identified as a dual-specificity protein kinase that is sufficient to phosphorylate MAP kinases p42mapk and p44mapk on the regulatory threonine and tyrosine residues. Because of the multiplicity of MAP kinase isoforms and the diverse circumstances and agonists leading to their activation, we thought it unlikely that a single MKK could accommodate this complexity. Indeed, two protein bands with MKK activity have previously been identified after renaturation following sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. We now report the molecular cloning and characterization of a second rat MAP kinase kinase cDNA, MKK2. MKK2 cDNA contains an open reading frame encoding a protein of 400 amino acids, 7 residues longer than MKK1 (MEK1). The amino acid sequence of MKK2 is 81% identical to that of MKK1, but nucleotide sequence differences occur throughout the aligned MKK2 and MKK1 cDNAs, indicating that MKK2 is the product of a distinct gene. MKK1 and MKK2 mRNAs are expressed differently in rat tissues. Both cDNAs when expressed in COS cells displayed the ability to phosphorylate and activate p42mapk and p44mapk, both MKK1 and MKK2 were activated in vivo in response to serum, and both could be phosphorylated and activated by the v-Raf protein in vitro. However, differences between MKK1 and MKK2 in sites of phosphorylation by proline-directed protein kinases predict differences in feedback regulation.