Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Explicit Solution of a General Consumption/Investment Problem

This paper solves a general consumption and investment decision problem in closed form. An investor seeks to maximize total expected discounted utility of consumption. There are N distinct risky investments, modelled by dependent geometric Brownian motion processes, and one riskless deterministic investment. The analysis allows for a general utility function and general rates of return. The model and analysis take into consideration the inherent nonnegativity of consumption and consider bankruptcy, so this paper generalizes many of the results of Lehoczky, Sethi, and Shreve Lehoczky, J., S. Sethi, S. Shreva. 1983. Optimal consumption and investment policies allowing consumption constraints and bankruptcy. Math. Oper. Res.8 613--636. The value function is determined explicitly, as are the optimal consumption and investment policies. The analysis is extended to consider more general risky investments. Under certain conditions, the value functions derived for geometric Brownian motion are shown to provide upper and lower bounds on the value functions in the more general context.
Effect of Core Stability Training on Throwing Velocity in Female Handball Players

Saeterbakken, AH, van den Tillaar, R, and Seiler, S. Effect of core stability training on throwing velocity in female handball players. J Strength Cond Res 25(3): 712-718, 2011-The purpose was to study the effect of a sling exercise training (SET)-based core stability program on maximal throwing velocity among female handball players. Twenty-four female high-school handball players (16.6 ± 0.3 years, 63 ± 6 kg, and 169 ± 7 cm) participated and were initially divided into a SET training group (n = 14) and a control group (CON, n = 10). Both groups performed their regular handball training for 6 weeks. In addition, twice a week, the SET group performed a progressive core stability-training program consisting of 6 unstable closed kinetic chain exercises. Maximal throwing velocity was measured before and after the training period using photocells. Maximal throwing velocity significantly increased 4.9% from 17.9 ± 0.5 to 18.8 ± 0.4 m·s−1 in the SET group after the training period (p < 0.01), but was unchanged in the control group (17.1 ± 0.4 vs. 16.9 ± 0.4 m·s−1). These results suggest that core stability training using unstable, closed kinetic chain movements can significantly improve maximal throwing velocity. A stronger and more stable lumbopelvic-hip complex may contribute to higher rotational velocity in multisegmental movements. Strength coaches can incorporate exercises exposing the joints for destabilization force during training in closed kinetic chain exercises. This may encourage an effective neuromuscular pattern and increase force production and can improve a highly specific performance task such as throwing.
Synaptic Mitochondria Are More Susceptible to Ca2+Overload than Nonsynaptic Mitochondria*

Mitochondria in nerve terminals are subjected to extensive Ca2+fluxes and high energy demands, but the extent to which the synaptic mitochondria buffer Ca2+ is unclear. In this study, we identified a difference in the Ca2+ clearance ability of nonsynaptic versus synaptic mitochondrial populations enriched from rat cerebral cortex. Mitochondria were isolated using Percoll discontinuous gradients in combination with high pressure nitrogen cell disruption. Mitochondria in the nonsynaptic fraction originate from neurons and other cell types including glia, whereas mitochondria enriched from a synaptosomal fraction are predominantly neuronal and presynaptic in origin. There were no differences in respiration or initial Ca2+ loads between nonsynaptic and synaptic mitochondrial populations. Following both bolus and infusion Ca2+ addition, nonsynaptic mitochondria were able to accumulate significantly more exogenously added Ca 2+ than the synaptic mitochondria before undergoing mitochondrial permeability transition, observed as a loss in mitochondrial membrane potential and decreased Ca2+ uptake. The limited ability of synaptic mitochondria to accumulate Ca2+ could result from several factors including a primary function of ATP production to support the high energy demand of presynaptic terminals, their relative isolation in comparison with the threads or clusters of mitochondria found in the soma of neurons and glia, or the older age and increased exposure to oxidative damage of synaptic versus nonsynaptic mitochondria. By more readily undergoing permeability transition, synaptic mitochondria may initiate neuron death in response to insults that elevate synaptic levels of intracellular Ca2+, consistent with the early degeneration of distal axon segments in neurodegenerative disorders.
Non-Lambertian Reflective Back Scattering and Its Impact on Device Performance of Ultrathin GaAs Single-Junction Solar Cells

This paper studies non-Lambertian scattering and its impacts on the optical properties and device performance of the ultrathin GaAs single-junction solar cell with a reflective back scattering layer. The Phong distribution is used to quantify the scattering effectiveness of the textured back surface, as well as its impacts on device absorptance, emittance, photon extraction and recycling factor, short-circuit current density (Jsc), external quantum efficiency (EQE), and power conversion efficiency. Both a general GaAs cell design and the ultrathin cell design are carefully investigated. A Phong exponent m of ~12 is determined by fitting both simulated Jsc and EQE to their experimental values, with a more accurate averaged reflectivity of the textured Al0.52In0. 48P/Au interface taken into account. Additionally, the measured open-circuit voltage (Voc) is lower than the best achievable value due to the nonradiative recombination in the device, and a limited lifetime of ~130 ns is determined by fitting the simulated and measured Voc; a specific series resistivity of 1.2 Ω·cm2 is determined to account for the 77.8% fill factor.
Mobile location sharing: an energy consumption study

The use of a mobile device's battery for frequent transmissions of position data in a location sharing application can be more expensive than the location retrieval itself. This is in part due to energy-agnostic application development and in part dependent on choice of protocols. This paper studies the lightweight Message Queuing Telemetry Transport protocol (MQTT) as an application layer protocol on top of the third generation cellular communication. The energy efficiency and amount of data generated by the public/subscribe MQTT protocol is experimentally compared against the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is currently used in typical location sharing applications. The evaluation results indicate that MQTT is a good candidate as a protocol for location sharing. At comparable bandwidth and energy expenses MQTT offers better quality of user experience, since the subscribers are notified at once when the location of some interesting client has changed. Our measurements show that MQTT is more energy-efficient than HTTP in the idle state and when the number of other users with whom the client shares location is low. When the number of users increases beyond 3, HTTP becomes the preferred option in terms of energy efficiency at the cost of a higher notification delay.
Analysis of Variations and Factors of Water Use Amount per Ten Thousand Yuan GDP in China Based on a Complete Decomposition Model

Water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP is an important macro criterion for water resources. Our goal is to lower it at the next stage. It is necessary to fully understand change characteristics and influencing factors of China’s water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP to achieve the goal. The total change in water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP should be decomposed to separate out effects of each factor on it. Based on the Laspeyres index and complete decomposition theory, a complete decomposition model of water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP was built. Variations and factors of water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP for the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries in 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities for the period 1997-2009 were analyzed from the perspective of industry and region. Results show that: 1) there was a significant decrease in water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP in China between 1997 and 2009. 2) It is the primary factor of water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP of China that an improvement in water use efficiency of all industries and regions caused by technological advancement has been made. At industrial levels, the main contribution was made by that improvement in efficiency at regional levels made by the primary and tertiary industries and east, middle, and west China was remarkable. 3) At industrial levels, the structure change in the tertiary industry was also the important reason for lowering water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP. 4) At regional levels, compared with the prominent contribution made by the improvement in efficiency, the effect was not noteworthy that the magnitude of the regional structure change was relatively small. But the contribution rate made by regional structure change between 2007 and 2009 cannot be negligible. The reason is that in west and middle areas where water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP is relatively high, the ratio of economy is increasing. But at the same time in east areas where water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP is relatively low, the ratio of economy has begun to decline. This demonstrates that reasonable use of water resources may be ignored during the process of regional structure changes in recent years. Consequently, evolution and popularization of water-saving techniques serve as an essential approach to boosting industrial and regional water utilization efficiency and reducing water use amount per ten thousand Yuan GDP.
Reliable motion artifact detection for ECG monitoring systems with dry electrodes

Reliable signals are the basic prerequisite for most mobile ECG monitoring applications. Especially when signals are analyzed automatically, capable motion artifact detection algorithms are of great importance. This article presents different artifact detection algorithms for ECG systems with dry electrodes. The algorithms are based on the measurement of additional parameters that are correlated with the artifacts. We describe a mobile measurement system and the procedure used for the evaluation of these algorithms. The algorithms are assessed based upon their effect on QRS detection. The best algorithm improved sensitivity (Se) from 98.7% to 99.8% and positive predictive value (+P) from 98.3% to 99.9%, while 15% of the signal was marked as artifact. This corresponds to a decrease in false positive and false negative detected beats by 89.9%. Different metrics to evaluate the performance of an artifact detection algorithm are presented.
A likelihood-based distributed particle filter for asynchronous sensor networks

This paper focuses on addressing the data fusion problems in asynchronous sensor networks using distribute particle filter (DPF). Generally, the type of the local information communicated between sensors and the time synchronization of the local information are two major issues for DPF algorithms, which have significant influence on fusion accuracy and communication requirements. To address these issues, in this paper, a likelihood-based asynchronous batch estimation (ABE) scheme is developed, wherein local likelihood function is regarded as the local information to ensure a high fusion accuracy, and the asynchronous likelihood functions of the multiple sensors during a predefined update period are fused to jointly estimate the target states. Then, to implement this framework distributively using particle filter, a likelihood-based ABE DPF (LB-ABE-DPF) algorithm is proposed. In addition, to achieve low communication requirements, the likelihood function is parametrically represented by polynomial approximation and least square (LS) approximation strategies. Numerical results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Interactions between murine alveolar macrophages and Mycoplasma pulmonis in vitro

In comparison to syngeneic fibroblasts, alveolar macrophages collected from Fischer 344 rats demonstrated a significant ability to decrease the growth rate of cell-associated Mycoplasma pulmonis, even in the absence of specific actimycoplasmal antibodies. However, when exposed to thallium acetate (a cytotoxic heavy metal), macrophages supported growth of mycoplasmas almost as well as did untreated fibroblasts. This suggests an active antimycoplasmal process operative in untreated macrophages. In contrast, mouse alveolar macrophages were not capable of exerting an antimycoplasmal effect unless rabbit anti-M. pulmonis antibodies were present. Paradoxically, mouse anti-M. pulmonis antibodies did not promote this effect.
Pancreatic hormone and glutamic acid decarboxylase expression in the mouse thymus: a real-time PCR study.

We devised a real-time RT-PCR method for the quantification of preproinsulin 1 and 2, proglucagon, prosomatostatin, and GAD 65 and 67 mRNAs in the thymus, using specific primers and internal probes. Corresponding standard cRNA synthesis and normalization to 18S ribosomal RNA allowed direct quantification. Then, during the first month of life, the expression of each substance of interest was measured in the thymus of NOD mice (a spontaneous model of type 1 diabetes), C57BL/6, BALB/c and lymphocyte-deficient mice (NODscid, NODrag, BALB/cscid and C57BL/6rag). In all mouse thymuses, preproinsulin 1 and GAD 65 were undetectable, preproinsulin 2 and proglucagon showed low expression, whereas that of GAD 67 and somatostatin were high. In 7-day-old mice, GAD 67 and prosomatostatin thymic expressions were lower in NOD than in C57BL/6, and at the same age, the scid mutation but not the rag mutation induced higher expression of all investigated genes compared to control mice. In conclusion, our data allowed the quantification of the expression of pancreatic factors in the mouse thymus. Investigations are underway to quantify, at the cellular level, i.e., in thymic dendritic/macrophage cells, the RNA expression of potential autoantigens, such as preproinsulin 2 and GAD 67.
Decreased O-Linked GlcNAcylation Protects from Cytotoxicity Mediated by Huntingtin Exon1 Protein Fragment*

Background: Earlier reports indicate that O-GlcNAcylation might be protective in neurodegenerative disorders. Results: Suppressing O-GlcNAcylation modulates autophagy to enhance the viability of neuronal cells expressing cytotoxic mutant huntingtin exon 1 protein (mHtt). Conclusion: O-GlcNAcylation regulates the clearance of mHtt by modulating the fusion of autophagosomes with lysosomes. Significance: This regulatory mechanism emerges as a novel therapeutic strategy for Huntington disease. O-GlcNAcylation is an important post-translational modification of proteins and is known to regulate a number of pathways involved in cellular homeostasis. This involves dynamic and reversible modification of serine/threonine residues of different cellular proteins catalyzed by O-linked N-acetylglucosaminyltransferase and O-linked N-acetylglucosaminidase in an antagonistic manner. We report here that decreasing O-GlcNAcylation enhances the viability of neuronal cells expressing polyglutamine-expanded huntingtin exon 1 protein fragment (mHtt). We further show that O-GlcNAcylation regulates the basal autophagic process and that suppression of O-GlcNAcylation significantly increases autophagic flux by enhancing the fusion of autophagosome with lysosome. This regulation considerably reduces toxic mHtt aggregates in eye imaginal discs and partially restores rhabdomere morphology and vision in a fly model for Huntington disease. This study is significant in unraveling O-GlcNAcylation-dependent regulation of an autophagic process in mediating mHtt toxicity. Therefore, targeting the autophagic process through the suppression of O-GlcNAcylation may prove to be an important therapeutic approach in Huntington disease.
Psychological and Work Stress Assessment of Patients following Angioplasty or Heart Surgery: Results of 1-year Follow-up Study.

The aim of this study was to explore changes in subjective psychological health and perceived work stress among patients who returned to work (RTW) after a multidisciplinary cardiac rehabilitation (CR) following cardiac interventions. A total of 108 patients were evaluated at the beginning of their CR, at 6 and 12 months after discharge. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess depression, anxiety, illness perception and work stress at each time stage. Results showed reports of depressive symptoms significantly decreased (p < 0.05) and subjective mental (p = 0.001) and physical health (p < 0.001) improved over time. Patients revealed a decrease in Type A behaviour pattern (p < 0.001) and in job satisfaction levels (p = 0.01), greater internal locus of control (p < 0.01) and increased use of the coping strategy 'Involvement' (p < 0.01). Major findings are that cardiac patients had an improvement in subjective psychological health and did not perceive increased work stress after their RTW. Patients' psychological health and work stress need to be assessed during the CR and should be also carefully monitored after the RTW in order to identify patients' psychological and work-related barriers and facilitate a safe and successful work reintegration.
Candida-Elicited Murine Th17 Cells Express High CTLA-4 Compared with Th1 Cells and Are Resistant to Costimulation Blockade

Effector and memory T cells may cross-react with allogeneic Ags to mediate graft rejection. Whereas the costimulation properties of Th1 cells are well studied, relatively little is known about the costimulation requirements of microbe-elicited Th17 cells. The costimulation blocker CTLA-4 Ig has been ineffective in the treatment of several Th17-driven autoimmune diseases and is associated with severe acute rejection following renal transplantation, leading us to investigate whether Th17 cells play a role in CD28/CTLA-4 blockade-resistant alloreactivity. We established an Ag-specific model in which Th1 and Th17 cells were elicited via Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Candida albicans immunization, respectively. C. albicans immunization elicited a higher frequency of Th17 cells and conferred resistance to costimulation blockade following transplantation. Compared with the M. tuberculosis group, C. albicans–elicited Th17 cells contained a higher frequency of IL-17+IFN-γ+ producers and a lower frequency of IL-10+ and IL-10+IL-17+ cells. Importantly, Th17 cells differentially regulated the CD28/CTLA-4 pathway, expressing similarly high CD28 but significantly greater amounts of CTLA-4 compared with Th1 cells. Ex vivo blockade experiments demonstrated that Th17 cells are more sensitive to CTLA-4 coinhibition and therefore less susceptible to CTLA-4 Ig. These novel insights into the differential regulation of CTLA-4 coinhibition on CD4+ T cells have implications for the immunomodulation of pathologic T cell responses during transplantation and autoimmunity.
A semi‐implicit solvent model for the simulation of peptides and proteins

We present a new model of biomolecules hydration based on macroscopic electrostatic theory, that can both describe the microscopic details of solvent–solute interactions and allow for an efficient evaluation of the electrostatic hydration free energy. This semi‐implicit model considers the solvent as an ensemble of polarizable pseudoparticles whose induced dipole describe both the electronic and orientational solvent polarization. In the presented version of the model, there is no mutual dipolar interaction between the particles, and they only interact through short‐ranged Lennard–Jones interactions. The model has been integrated into a molecular dynamics code, and offers the possibility to simulate efficiently the conformational evolution of biomolecules. It is able to provide estimations of the electrostatic solvation free energy within short time windows during the simulation. It has been applied to the study of two small peptides, the octaalanine and the N‐terminal helix of ribonuclease A, and two proteins, the bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor and the B1 immunoglobin‐binding domain of streptococcal protein G. Molecular dynamics simulations of these biomolecules, using a slightly modified Amber force field, provide stable and meaningful trajectories in overall agreement with experiments and all‐atom simulations. Correlations with respect to Poisson–Boltzmann electrostatic solvation free energies are also presented to discuss the parameterization of the model and its consequences. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 25: 1015–1029, 2004
Aligning Multiple Protein Structures by Deterministic Annealing

Protein structure alignment plays a key role in protein structure prediction and fold family classification. An efficient method for multiple protein structure alignment in a mathematical manner is presented, based on deterministic annealing technique. The alignment problem is mapped onto a nonlinear continuous optimization problem (NCOP) with common consensus chain, matching assignment matrices and atomic coordinates as variables. At each step in the annealing procedure, the NCOP is decomposed into as many sub-problems as the number of protein chains, each of which is actually an independent pairwise structure alignment between a protein chain and the consensus chain and hence can be efficiently solved by the parallel computation technique. The proposed method is robust with respect to choice of iteration parameters for a wide range of proteins, and performs well in both multiple and pairwise structure alignment cases, compared with existing alignment methods.
Stereotype Reactance at the Bargaining Table: The Effect of Stereotype Activation and Power on Claiming and Creating Value

Two experiments explored the hypothesis that the impact of activating gender stereotypes on negotiated agreements in mixed-gender negotiations depends on the manner in which the stereo-type is activated (explicitly vs. implicitly) and the content of the stereotype (linking negotiation performance to stereotypically male vs. stereotypically female traits). Specifically, two experiments investigated the generality and limits of stereotype reactance. The results of Experiment 1 suggest that negotiated outcomes become more one-sided in favor of the high power negotiator when masculine traits are explicitly linked to negotiator effectiveness. In contrast, the results of Experiment 2 suggest that negotiated outcomes are more integrative (win-win) when feminine traits are explicitly linked to negotiator effectiveness. In total, performance in mixed-gender negotiations is strongly affected by the cognitions and motivations that negotiators bring to the bargaining table.