Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Trigger Points and Pressure Pain Hypersensitivity in People With Postmeniscectomy Pain

Objectives:The objectives of this study are (1) to assess the presence of myofascial trigger points (TrPs) and widespread pressure hyperalgesia; and (2) to assess the relationship between the presence of active TrPs, pain intensity, and widespread pressure hypersensitivity in individuals with postmeniscectomy pain. Methods:Thirty-three patients with postmeniscectomy pain, 46 to 60 years of age, and 33 matched controls participated. TrPs were explored bilaterally within the tensor fasciae latae, rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, adductor magnus, adductor longus, semitendinosus, biceps femoris, and gastrocnemius muscles in a blinded manner. TrPs were considered active if the referred pain reproduced knee symptoms. Pressure pain thresholds (PPT) were also assessed bilaterally over the vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, patellar tendon, second metacarpal, and tibialis anterior. Pain was collected with a numerical pain rate scale (0 to 10). Results:Patients with postmeniscectomy pain showed a greater (P<0.001) number of active TrPs (mean: 2±1) and a similar number (P=0.611) of latent TrPs (mean: 4±4) than pain-free controls (mean latent TrP: 4±1). A greater number of active TrPs was associated with higher pain intensity (r=0.352; P=0.045). Patients also exhibited reduced PPT over the affected vastus medialis and patellar tendon (P<0.05) and bilaterally over the tibialis anterior muscle (P=0.001). A greater the number of active muscle TrPs was also associated with widespread pressure pain hyperalgesia. Conclusions:The referred pain elicited by active TrPs reproduced knee symptoms in patients with postmeniscectomy pain. Patients also showed localized reduction of PPT. The number of TrPs was associated with the intensity of pain and pressure hyperalgesia. Our findings suggest the presence of peripheral sensitization in patients with postmeniscectomy pain could be associated with the presence of active TrPs.
Primary and bacterial production processes in the lower Itajaí-Açú estuary, Santa Catarina, Brazil

Primary and bacterial productivity (PP and BP, respectively) were measured in the lower Itajai-Acu estuary and in the adjacent shelf, under low river discharge conditions. The experiment was carried out in April, 2000, when physical, chemical and biological variables were recorded in five stations: three in the estuary and two in the inner shelf. Salinity, temperature, turbidity and light intensity were determined in vertical profiles; dissolved oxygen, nutrients, chlorophyll-a, primary (PP) and bacterial production (BP) were sampled at surface and near the bottom. The BP ranged from 0.5 to 11.3 mg C.m-3 . h-1 , and the highest values were recorded at the inner stations of the estuary, associated with lower salinity and light intensity and higher dissolved nutrients concentration. On the other hand, PP was higher in the inner shelf, with PP increasing from 2.0 to 30 mg C.m-3 . h-1 . The phytoplankton biomass showed the same trend, increasing from 0.2 to 8.4 µg/L at the surface. The PP was limited by light in the inner estuary and by the PO4 concentration in the inner shelf. The higher productivity zone was formed in front of the estuarine mouth, as expected, since water transparency increases leading the consumption of the rich-nutrient waters from the estuary by autotrophic organisms. The data indicated that the ecosystem metabolism shift from heterotrophic to autotrophic in a very small length scale (few kilometers) during the sampled conditions.
Measurement Invariance Testing with Many Groups: A Comparison of Five Approaches

With the increasing use of international survey data especially in cross-cultural and multinational studies, establishing measurement invariance (MI) across a large number of groups in a study is essential. Testing MI over many groups is methodologically challenging, however. We identified 5 methods for MI testing across many groups (multiple group confirmatory factor analysis, multilevel confirmatory factor analysis, multilevel factor mixture modeling, Bayesian approximate MI testing, and alignment optimization) and explicated the similarities and differences of these approaches in terms of their conceptual models and statistical procedures. A Monte Carlo study was conducted to investigate the efficacy of the 5 methods in detecting measurement noninvariance across many groups using various fit criteria. Generally, the 5 methods showed reasonable performance in identifying the level of invariance if an appropriate fit criterion was used (e.g., Bayesian information criteron with multilevel factor mixture modeling). Finally, general guidelines in selecting an appropriate method are provided.
Dogmatism, Defense Mechanisms, and Social Desirability Responding

The influence of social desirability responding on the correlation between the Dogmatism and Repression-Sensitization Scales was examined. A positive relationship was found between these two scales (r = .44, p < .001). This relationship decreased only slightly when a partial correlation was used to remove the influence of social desirability responding (r = .40, p < .001). In addition, correcting for attenuation in the controlled variable still resulted in a significant relationship between these two variables (r = .39, p < .001). Thus social desirability responding does not have an undue influence on the relationship between the Dogmatism Scale and the Repression-Sensitization Scale.
Methylation pattern at the KvDMR in a child with Beckwith–Wiedemann syndrome conceived by ICSI

M.V. Gomes,* C.C. Gomes, W. Pinto Jr, and E.S. Ramos Department of Genetics, School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo, Brazil Santa Brigida Maternal-Fetal Medicine Centre, CEMMEF Santa Brigida, Curitiba, Brazil Specialized Medical Centre, CEMESP, Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil Departments of Gynecology and Obstetrics and Genetics, School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Sao Paulo, Brazil
X-ray transitions in highly charged neonlike ions.

Wavelength measurements of n = 3 to n = 2 transitions in neonlike Xe/sup 44 +/, La/sup 47 +/, Nd/sup 50 +/, and Eu/sup 53 +/ have been made using a high-resolution Bragg-crystal spectrometer on the Princeton Large Torus tokamak. The measurements cover the wavelength regions 2.00--3.00 A and include the electric dipole and the electric and magnetic quadrupole transitions. The measured wavelengths are compared to energy levels obtained from a multiconfigurational Dirac-Fock calculation. Systematic differences between the experimental and theoretical values are found, which vary smoothly with atomic number. The magnitude of the differences depends on the particular type of transition and ranges from -2.8 eV to +2.2 eV. Inclusion of electron correlation corrections due to ground-state correlations and (super-) Coster-Kronig-type fluctuations in the theoretical energies is shown to reduce the differences for some but not all types of transitions.
Application of remote sensing techniques for the identification of biotic stress in plum trees caused by the Plum pox virus

Abstract Two hyperspectral remote sensing techniques, spectral reflectance and chlorophyll fluorescence, were used for the identification of biotic stress (sharka disease) in plum trees at an early stage without visible symptoms on the leaves. The research was focused on cultivars that are widely spread in Bulgaria: ‘Angelina’, ‘Black Diamond’ and ‘Mirabelle’. Hyperspectral reflectance and fluorescence data were collected by means of a portable multichannel fibre-optics spectrometer in the visible and near infrared spectral ranges (400-1000 nm). Statistical and deterministic analyses were applied for assessing the significance of the differences between the spectral data of healthy (control) and infected plum leaves. Comparative analyses were performed with complementary serological test DAS-ELISA, broadly implemented in plant virology. The strong relationship that was found between the results from the two remote sensing techniques and serological analysis indicates the applicability of hyperspectral reflectance and fluorescence techniques for conducting health condition assessments of vegetation easily and without damage before the appearance of visible symptoms.
Fish detection and movement tracking

Fish Detection and Tracking is an important step in studying oceanography, especially for forecasting changes in the quality of water and the increasing or decreasing number of fish in a population. In this paper, combination of Gaussian Mixture Model and Frame-Differencing algorithm (CGMMFD) is proposed to improve tracking performance in different scenarios. Also, four other techniques, namely Mean Background, Gaussian Mixture Model, Mean Shift Tracking and Particle Filter are also investigated. In this study, we use the self-built database with some typical tracking situations such as appearance of illusions, different swimming velocities of the fish and qualities of water. Mean square error and Variance are used to assess the performance of each technique for different scenarios. The experimental results indicate that our proposed algorithm gives higher tracking accuracy. While other techniques have difficulties to track the fish location or the fish centroid in some certain scenarios, the proposed algorithm can perform well in different situations.
DPF Workbench: a multi-level language workbench for MDE

This paper presents the DPF Workbench, a language workbench for (meta)modelling and code generation. The DPF Workbench includes a graphical specification editor for the Diagram Predicate Framework (DPF), which provides a graph-based formalization of (meta)modelling and model transformation. The tool offers functionality for fully diagrammatic specifications of domain-specific modelling languages. Moreover, the DPF Workbench supports the development of metamodelling hierarchies with an arbitrary number of metalevels; i.e. each model at a metalevel can be used as a metamodel for the metalevel below. The DPF Workbench facilitates the generation of domain-specific diagrammatic editors out of these metamodels. The conformance relations between adjacent metalevels are checked using typing morphisms and validation of diagrammatic constraints. In addition, the DPF Workbench provides a signature editor for the definition of software constraints and their corresponding validators. The code generator is a newly added component that facilitates the generation of software from models defined in the DPF Workbench. The features of the DPF Workbench are illustrated by a running example presenting a metamodelling hierarchy for business process modelling and sketching how these models can be transformed to programs by the code generation facility.
BIOREMEDIATION OF CONTAMINATED WATER SOURCES WITH SULPHATE-REDUCING BACTERIA

s of the International Mine Water Conference 19 – 23 October 2009 Proceedings ISBN Number: 978-0-9802623-5-3 Pretoria, South Africa Produced by: Document Transformation Technologies cc Conference organised by: Cilla Taylor Conferences BIOREMEDIATION OF CONTAMINATED WATER SOURCES WITH SULPHATE-REDUCING BACTERIA D.G. TECLU, M.D. LAING and F.M. WALLIS Discipline of Microbiology, University of KwaZulul-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; E-mail: daniel2003g@yahoo.com Plant Pathology, University of KwaZulul-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Artificial Curiosity Emerging Human-like Behaviour - A Fundation for Fully Autonomous Cognitive Machines

This paper is devoted to autonomous cognitive machines by mean of the design of an artificial curiosity based cognitive system for autonomous high-level knowledge acquisition from visual information. Playing a chief role as well in visual attention as in interactive high-level knowledge construction, the artificial curiosity (e.g. perceptual and epistemic curiosities) is realized through combining visual saliency detection and Machine-Learning based approaches. Experimental results validating the deployment of the investigated system have been obtained using a humanoid robot acquiring visually knowledge about its surrounding environment interacting with a human tutor. As show the reported results and experiments, the proposed cognitive system allows the machine to discover autonomously the surrounding world in which it may evolve, to learn new knowledge about it and to describe it using human-like natural utterances.
Mechanical aspects of rowing.

CELENTANO, F. , G. CORTILI, P. E. DI PRAMPERO, AND P. CERRETELLI. Mechanical aspects of rowing. J. Appl. Physiol. 36(6): 642-647. 1974. -A simplified theoretical analysis of the oar movement as a consequence of the applied external forces has been made. This allows the interpretation of the measurements of axial and transverse forces acting on the oarlock pin. Resistance to progression increases with the square of the mean speed. The ratio between transverse and axial force, the latter being the component actually useful for progression, is 0.22, instead of the maximal theoretical value of 0.11, indicating that the rowing performance can, theoretically, be improved. At a given mean speed the work required to cover a given distance decreases slightly with decreasing the speed oscillation at each stroke. It is therefore convenient to increase the rowing frequency, within the limits set by the efficiency of muscular contraction.
The mirror illusion’s effects on body state estimation

ABSTRACT The mirror illusion uses a standard mirror to create a compelling illusion in which movements of one limb seem to be made by the other hidden limb. In this paper we adapt a motor control framework to examine which estimates of the body’s configuration are affected by the illusion. We propose that the illusion primarily alters estimates related to upcoming states of the body (the desired state and the predicted state), with smaller effects on the estimate of the body state prior to movement initiation. Support for this proposal is provided both by behavioural effects of the illusion and by neuroimaging evidence from one neural region, V6A, that is critically involved in the mirror illusion and limb state estimation more generally.
Green‐Ampt infiltration model for sloping surfaces

This work quantifies and explains the direct physical effects of slope angle on infiltration and runoff generation by extending the Green‐Ampt equation onto sloping surfaces. A new extended solution using identical precipitation hydrographs was compared to the original formulation and then used to calculate the infiltration and runoff generation for different slope angles but for identical horizontal projection lengths. Homogeneous and isotropic soil is assumed, and two different boundary conditions for vertical rainfall are studied: ponded infiltration and infiltration under steady rainfall. Infiltration under unsteady rainfall was found to be similar to cases with steady rainfall. Both theoretical and numerical results show that infiltration increases with increasing slope angle. For cases with ponded infiltration the slope effect was generally not significant for mild to moderate slopes, but the slope effect became more important for low‐intensity and short‐duration rainfall events, especially as it delayed the time for ponding. It was also found that the cumulative vertical infiltration depth (Ihp) at ponding (or the initial loss) increases with increasing slope angle. The model was compared to Richards' equation on horizontal and sloping surfaces and found to perform well. The model's applicability for nonuniform slopes was discussed, and it was found that the model is generally applicable for isotropic and mildly anisotropic soils except for some small‐scale topographic elements. Finally, the occurrence of nonvertical rainfall could increase runoff with increasing slope angle when rainfall deflects a large angle to upslope.
Effects of experimental diabetes on biochemical and functional characteristics of bladder muscarinic receptors.

Bladder dysfunction is a common complication of diabetes mellitus and is attributed in part to peripheral neuropathy. We investigated the effects of experimental diabetes on muscarinic receptors in rat bladder smooth muscle, 2, 4 and 8 weeks after i.v. injection of 65 mg/kg of streptozotocin. At all time points, diabetic animals had a lower body weight, higher serum glucose levels and reduced serum insulin levels than age-matched controls. Diabetic animals had a markedly increased urine output and significant enlargement of the bladder dome. The amount of muscarinic receptor labeled with [3H]quinuclidinyl benzylate (QNB) was higher in the bladder dome of diabetic animals than control animals, whereas the affinity of the labeled antagonist for its binding sites was similar in both groups. Muscarinic agonists and antagonists inhibited [3H]QNB binding with similar inhibitory constants (Ki) in control and diabetic dome. The rank order of Ki values in inhibition of [3H]QNB binding by muscarinic agonists and antagonists: atropine less than acetylcholine less than carbachol less than AF-DX 116 = pirenzepine less than bethanechol, is consistent with the presence of M2 muscarinic receptors in the bladder dome. In functional studies, muscarinic agonists induced a larger contractile response in bladder dome muscle strips from 8-week-diabetic animals than from controls. ED50 values were similar in control and treated groups, with the rank order of ED50 values being in good agreement with the Ki values obtained from receptor binding studies, i.e., acetylcholine less than carbachol less than bethanechol. These data show a direct correlation between the diabetes-induced biochemical and functional alterations in muscarinic receptor properties of rat bladder.
High‐resolution DTI of a localized volume using 3D single‐shot diffusion‐weighted STimulated echo‐planar imaging (3D ss‐DWSTEPI)

Diffusion tensor MRI (DTI) using conventional single‐shot (SS) 2D diffusion‐weighted (DW)‐EPI is subject to severe susceptibility artifacts. Multishot DW imaging (DWI) techniques can reduce these distortions, but they generally suffer from artifacts caused by motion‐induced phase errors. Parallel imaging can also reduce the distortions if the sensitivity profiles of the receiver coils allow a sufficiently high reduction factor for the desired field of view (FOV). A novel 3D DTI technique, termed 3D single‐shot STimulated EPI (3D ss‐STEPI), was developed to acquire high‐resolution DW images of a localized region. The new technique completes k‐space acquisition of a limited 3D volume after a single diffusion preparation. Because the DW magnetization is stored in the longitudinal direction until readout, it undergoes T1 rather than T2 decay. Inner volume imaging (IVI) is used to limit the imaging volume. This reduces the time required for EPI readout of each complete kx‐ky plane, and hence reduces T 2* decay during the readout and T1 decay between the readout of each kz. 3D ss‐STEPI images appear to be free of severe susceptibility and motion artifacts. 3D ss‐STEPI allows high‐resolution DTI of limited volumes of interest, such as localized brain regions, cervical spinal cord, optic nerve, and other extracranial organs. Magn Reson Med, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
77 GHz Radar Transmitter With PLL Based on a Sub-Harmonic Gilbert Frequency Doubler

This contribution highlights the usage of a high-quality voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) at 19.25 GHz fundamental frequency with a succeeding times four frequency multiplication scheme facilitating a 77 GHz output frequency. Signal tapping at the VCO's common emitter node allows obtaining the second-order harmonic tone that drives a single Gilbert frequency doubler. Beneficial to the PLL implementation is a reduced overall prescaler ratio allowing faster frequency ramps.
North Sea saithe Pollachius virens growth in relation to food availability, density dependence and temperature

North Sea saithe Pollachius virens, a major top predator in the area, supports the fishery economy of several European countries. However, recent stock assessments suggested a decrease in spawning stock biomass along with a decline in saithe mean weight-at-ages. In this context, we investigated North Sea saithe growth characteristics at the population level. First, saithe annual weight increments and age-length relationships were studied. Modelling of saithe age-length relationships was carried out using (1) the traditional von Bertalanffy growth function model, (2) the Verhulst logistic model and (3) an empirical linear model. Second, the effects of environmental factors on saithe growth were investigated. Explanatory environmental factors included food availability, represented by the total biomass of Norway pout Trisopterus esmarkii; intraspecific competition, i.e. density dependence, represented by saithe abundance; and temperature. This study revealed that the Verhulst logistic model was the best descriptor of saithe growth and that density dependence and food availability had significant effects on the saithe growth coefficient, while no effect of temperature was shown. We suggest that reduced food availability and increased competition may explain the recent decrease in the saithe growth coefficient.
Network Security Configurations: A Nonzero-Sum Stochastic Game Approach

In this paper, we study a network security configuration problem. More specifically, we consider distributed intrusion detection systems in a network subject to possible simultaneous attacks launched by a number of attackers. We formulate an N + M-person nonzero-sum stochastic game to capture the interactions among detection systems in the network as well as their interactions against exogenous intruders. We show the existence of stationary Nash equilibrium of the game and a value iteration method to attain an ∈-Nash equilibrium. Mimicking the concept of Shannon's capacity in information theory, we propose the notion of security capacity as the largest achievable payoff to an agent at an equilibrium to yield performance limits on the network security. Furthermore, we discuss a mathematical programming approach to characterize the equilibrium as well as the feasibility of a given security target.
A Hybrid Technique of Energy Harvesting from Mechanical Vibration and Ambient Illumination

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