Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anthropometric, Functional, and Metabolic Profiles of Soccer Players

Araujo SS, Mesquita TRR, Santos RM, Oliveira JEL, Alves ARA. Anthropometric, Functional, and Metabolic Profiles of Soccer Players. JEPonline 2012;15(6):37-48. The purpose of th is study was to evaluate the functional, anthropometric, and metabolic profiles of 24 soccer players in pre-season Northeast Brazil 2nd division. The metabolic profile was determined from blood samples collected during fasting. Although the anthropometric data are consistent with that of the national players, a erobic power (VO2 max 51.2 mL·kg -1 ·min -1 ± 6.8) was lower. Anaerobic power (9.5 W·kg -1 ± 2.8) was close to the national mean, but anaerobic endurance was not. Urea, creatinine, albumin, and total protein were adequate when compared to similar athletes. The values for tissue injury enzymes, AST and ALT, were relatively high. The lipid profile values were consistent with the population references, but the athletes with an elevated lipid profile showed normal percent body fat (BF%). We concluded that the BF% is not a strong predictor of health alone.
Receptor flexibility in molecular cross-docking

Molecular docking is an efficient method to predict the conformations adopted by the ligand within the target binding site. Usually, standard docking protocol involves only one structure to represent the receptor, overlooking the changes in the binding pocket geometry induced by ligand binding. In our previous work, we observed that different conformations of the same target show different volume and shape of the internal cavities (Sessa et al., 2016). Different ligands may stabilize different receptor conformations with different internal cavities. Consequently, the crystallographic data represent the adaptation of a protein to a particular ligand. Cross-docking is a validation procedure consisting in docking a series of ligands into different conformation of the same receptor. Since the structures of the same receptor can be rather different, the cross-docking analyses are typically very poor. In these cases the internal cavity of the buried binding pocket does not have space enough to accommodate all ligands and this can radically affect the outcome and alter the cross-docking results. The changes of the cavity volume might explain the failure of traditional docking method and support the hypothesis that a single representative structure for the receptor is not enough. Keeping target proteins flexible during the docking has a high computational cost. To overcome this limit, our docking strategy is to represent receptor flexibility through an inexpensive method that generates a series of target structures. Starting from a known target structure, we used the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to explore the conformational changes induced by ligand binding and to collect several snapshots of receptor structures to perform the cross-docking studies. To validate the accuracy of our flexible protocol in docking, we used a set of 10 crystallographic conformations of Androgen Receptor with the same target but with a different ligand. We performed two parallel experiments of docking, one with a rigid protein target and one considering flexible receptor structures. In addition, we compared the results for both experiments in the re-docking and in the cross-docking analysis.
Frequency Variations of Strength Training Sessions Triggered by the Phases of the Menstrual Cycle

The aim of the study was to compare the effects of two different models of altering the frequency of strength training sessions of females. The "regular training" (RT) consisted of one training unit every third day over the whole menstrual cycle. The "menstrual cycle triggered training" (MCTT) was characterized by workouts every second day in the follicular and about once per week during the luteal phase. In order to increase maximal strength (MS) the participants performed 3 sets with 12 reps each. Endogenous processes were controlled by measurements of body-temperature, control of the luteinizing-hormone peak, and by analysing serum hormone (estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and cortisol) and sexual hormone binding globulin (SHBG) levels. MS and muscle cross-sectional area (MCA) of the quadriceps femoris were investigated. The result of the MCTT showed a clear increase in the MS of 32.6% compared to 13.1% by the RT. Significant MCTT-induced MS increase was observed during the second menstrual cycle. The ratio of MS/MCA increased by 10.5% (RT) and 27.6% (MCTT). Despite a wide interindividual variability, all subjects showed higher strength adaptations by MCTT. Additionally, we found significant correlations between different force parameters and the accumulation of estradiol. It was concluded that the MCTT seems to be more efficient compared to RT.
The domains of protein S from Myxococcus xanthus: structure, stability and interactions.

Protein S from Myxococcus xanthus is a member of the beta gamma-crystallin superfamily. Its N and C-terminal domains (NPS and CPS, respectively) show a high degree of structural similarity and possess the capacity to bind two calcium ions per domain. For NPS, their positions were determined by X-ray diffraction at 1.8 A resolution, making use of molecular replacement with the NMR structure as search model. The overall topology of NPS is found to be practically the same as in complete protein S. In natural protein S, the domains fold independently, with a significant increase in stability and cooperativity of folding in the presence of Ca2+. The recombinant isolated domains are stable monomers which do not show any tendency to combine to "nicked" full-length protein S. In order to investigate the stability and folding of natural protein S and its isolated domains, spectroscopic techniques were applied, measuring the reversible urea and temperature-induced unfolding transitions at varying pH. The increment of Ca2+ to the free energy of stabilization amounts to -10 and -5 kJ/mol for NPS and CPS, respectively. For both NPS and CPS, in the absence and in the presence of 3 mM CaCl2, the two-state model is valid. Comparing DeltaGU-->N for CPS (-21 kJ/mol at pH 7, liganded with Ca2+) with its increment in the intact two-domain protein, the stability of the isolated domain turns out to be decreased in a pH-dependent manner. In contrast, the stability of Ca2+-loaded NPS (DeltaGU-->N=-31 kJ/mol, pH 7) is nearly unchanged down to pH 2 where Ca2+ is released (DeltaGU-->N=-26 kJ/mol, pH 2). In intact protein S, the N-terminal domain is destabilized relative to NPS. Evidently, apart from Ca2+ binding, well-defined domain interactions contribute significantly to the overall stability of intact protein S.
Stochastic Simulation of the Cell Cycle Model for Budding Yeast

We use the recently proposed Nested Stochastic Simulation Algorithm (Nested SSA) to simulate the cell cycle model for budding yeast. The results show that Nested SSA is able to significantly reduce the computational cost while capturing the essential dynamical features of the system. AMS subject classifications: 65C05, 60G17, 74A25, 92C42
Comparing the Health Status of VA and Non‐VA Ambulatory Patients: The Veterans' Health and Medical Outcomes Studies

Abstract:The purpose of this study was to compare health status and disease profiles of ambulatory patients in specific Veterans Administration (VA) and civilian healthcare settings. A random sample of 2425 male veterans seeking care at 4 Boston-area VA outpatient clinics, who took part in the Veterans Health Study (VHS) in 1993–1995, were compared to 1318 male patients seeking civilian outpatient care in 3 major metropolitan areas covered in the Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) in 1986. The MOS sampled patients who had 1 of 5 conditions—hypertension, non–insulin-dependent diabetes, recent myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, or depression. These 2 samples were age adjusted and compared in terms of the SF-36 Health Status/Quality of Life measures, and a list of 100 clinical variables (diagnostic, symptom, and medical event reports) collected with comparable instruments by a trained clinical observer. Individual odds ratios (VHS to MOS) were calculated for each measure and clinical variables. SF-36 measures of patient health in the VHS were lower than those in the MOS by more than one half of a standard deviation (SD) on 4 of 8 scales, by more than one quarter of a SD on the other 4, by 58% of a SD on the physical health summary scale, and by 37% of a SD on the mental health summary scale (P < .0001 in all cases). The median odds ratio was 2.2 among the SF-36 scales and 1.9 among clinical variables. Outpatients in the 4 VA clinics had more than twice the illness burden than did patients in the MOS. Current economic condition and service-connected disability explain most, if not all, of the differences. The differences were clinically and socially meaningful and would be consistent with substantially higher expected healthcare use.
Silicon gel sheeting for preventing and treating hypertrophic and keloid scars.

BACKGROUND Keloid and hypertrophic scars are common and are caused by a proliferation of dermal tissue following skin injury. They cause functional and psychological problems for patients, and their management can be difficult. The use of silicon gel sheeting to prevent and treat hypertrophic scarring is still relatively new, and started in 1981 with treatment of burn scars. OBJECTIVES To determine the effectiveness of silicon gel sheeting for: (1) prevention of hypertrophic or keloid scarring in people with newly healed wounds (e.g. post surgery); (2) treatment of established scarring in people with existing keloid or hypertrophic scars. SEARCH STRATEGY Trials were identified from searches of the Cochrane Wounds Group Specialised Register (searched September 2005), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library Issue 3, 2005); MEDLINE (1989 to June 2002); EMBASE (1988 to May 2002); CINAHL (1982 to May 2002) and reference lists of articles and relevant reviews. The major supplier of silicon gel sheeting (Smith and Nephew) was approached for details of unpublished, ongoing and recently published trials. SELECTION CRITERIA Any randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials, or controlled clinical trials comparing silicon gel sheeting for prevention or treatment of hypertrophic or keloid scars against no treatment, placebo, or any other treatment type except surgery. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS All relevant trials were assessed for methodological quality. Data were extracted independently by both reviewers using a standardized form, and the results cross-checked. All trials, meeting the selection criteria were assessed for methodological quality. MAIN RESULTS Thirteen trials, involving 559 people, ranging in age from 2 to 81 years, were included in the review. The trials compared adhesive silicon gel sheeting with control; non-silicon gel sheeting; silicon gel plates with added Vitamin E; laser therapy; triamcinolone acetonide injection, and non-adhesive silicon gel sheeting. In the prevention studies, when compared with a no treatment option; whilst silicon gel sheeting reduced the incidence of hypertrophic scarring in people prone to scarring, (RR 0.46, 95% CI 0.21 to 0.98) these studies were highly susceptible to bias. Silicon gel sheeting produced a statistically significant improvement in scar elasticity, (RR 8.60, 95% CI 2.55 to 29.02), but again these studies were highly susceptible to bias. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS Trials evaluating silicon gel sheeting as a treatment for hypertrophic and keloid scarring are of poor quality and highly susceptible to bias. There is weak evidence of a benefit of silicon gel sheeting as a prevention for abnormal scarring in high risk individuals but the poor quality of research means a great deal of uncertainty prevails.
Tropical cyclones and the ecohydrology of Australia's recent continental‐scale drought

The Big Dry, a recent drought over southeast Australia, began around 1997 and continued until 2011. We show that between 2002–2010, instead of a localized drought, there was a continent‐wide reduction in water storage, vegetation and rainfall, spanning the northwest to the southeast of Australia. Trends in water storage and vegetation were assessed using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data. Water storage and NDVI are shown to be significantly correlated across the continent and the greatest losses of water storage occurred over northwest Australia. The frequency of tropical cyclones over northwest Australia peaked just prior to the launch of the GRACE mission in 2002. Indeed, since 1981, decade‐scale fluctuations in tropical cyclone numbers coincide with similar variation in rainfall and vegetation over northwest Australia. Rainfall and vegetation in southeast Australia trended oppositely to the northwest prior to 2001. Despite differences between the northwest and southeast droughts, there is reason to believe that continental droughts may occur when the respective climate drivers align.
Real-time Image Style Transfer

Artistic style transfer has long been an interesting topic in computer vision research. Recently several methods for style transfer based on convolutional neural networks have been proposed. This project aims at understanding and implementing some of the existing methods. More specifically we succeed in implementing the optimization based neural algorithm as well as the real-time style transfer by training an image transformation network. We demonstrate similar results can be generated using both methods.
3-D finite-element analysis of skewed squirrel-cage induction motor

We have developed a new three-dimensional (3-D) finite-element mesh modification method for skewed motors. In our method, the auto-mesh generator is used for only creating the initial mesh, and the computational cost is very small. In this paper, the method is investigated and is applied to the 3-D magnetic field analysis of a skewed squirrel-cage induction motor.
Test characterization of a high performance fault tolerant permanenet magnet machine

It is well understood that an electric machine's output performance is limited by its losses and thermal behavior. For novel prototype machines, hardware testing processes are an important part of quantifying these parameters. For some machines, effective characterization may be accomplished using a series of static and simple prime-mover tests. The resulting data permits calibration of loss- and thermal-models. These can then be used to predict on-load performance. Fault-tolerant machines based on single layer winding arrangements are designed to minimize interaction between windings or module-groups. This paper demonstrates that, for such a machine, the losses measured during simple DC and primer-mover tests may be used to infer performance during both ‘healthy’ and ‘faulted’ operating modes. Under faulted conditions the total machine loss is expected to be a combination of module-specific and common losses, which can be directly deduced from hardware tests. This paper discusses the accuracy of loss superposition when applied to a 180 kW multi-channel, fault-tolerant aerospace machine. From observations following faulted and healthy dynamometry tests, there exists close correlation between full-load performance and estimates made from the superposition of losses under discrete operating modes.
A locomotion control method for autonomous vehicles

The authors present a locomotion control method for autonomous vehicles. The main difficulties in controlling an autonomous vehicle lie in the fact that vehicles usually have three degrees of freedom in position and orientation in spite of having only two degrees of freedom for motion control. To use any find of path for vehicle navigation, the authors control a vehicle in a tracking mode. Decomposition of error between the reference posture and the current posture makes control of speed and steering possible. The locomotion control system works as a flexible interface between the path planner and the motor-wheel system. <<ETX>>
Measurement of regional cerebral plasma pool and hematocrit with copper-62-labeled HSA-DTS.

UNLABELLED We developed copper-62-labeled human serum albumin-dithiosemicarbazone (62Cu-HSA-DTS) as a blood-pool imaging agent for PET. To evaluate 62Cu-HSA-DTS for plasma-pool imaging and to measure the regional cerebral hematocrit, 12 normal volunteers and 7 patients with cerebrovascular disease underwent PET studies with 62Cu-HSA-DTS and 15O-labeled carbon monoxide (C15O). METHODS The normal subjects were studied with both C15O and 62Cu-HSA-DTS. All patients were examined by 15O-gas studies to measure cerebral perfusion and oxygen metabolism, followed by measurement of plasma volume with 62Cu-HSA-DTS for analysis of regional cerebral hematocrit. Regional cerebral hematocrit was calculated from regional cerebral red cell volume (rCRCV) measured by C15O and regional plasma volume (rCPV) measured by 62Cu-HSA-DTS in each subject, and the regional cerebral/large-vessel hematocrit ratio was obtained for both cerebral hemispheres in each subject. RESULTS Mean regional cerebral hematocrit and mean cerebral/large-vessel hematocrit ratio in the 12 normal volunteers were 38.3 +/- 3.45% and 0.88 +/- 0.06, respectively. In the seven patients with cerebrovascular disease, regional cerebral hematocrit was significantly lower on the hypoperfused side than the normal hemisphere. The images of rCPV and rCRCV from these patients demonstrated a greater increase in rCPV than rCRCV in the hypoperfused area. CONCLUSION These results suggest that 62Cu-HSA-DTS can be used for measurement of plasma volume and that regional cerebral hematocrit may provide valuable information regarding the microcirculation in the brain.
Automatic handwriting gestures recognition using hidden Markov models

Hidden Markov models have been successfully employed in speech recognition and, more recently, in sign language interpretation. They seem adequate for visual recognition of gestures. In this paper, two problems often eluded are considered. We propose to use the Bayesian information criterion in order to determine the optimal number of model states. We describe the contribution of continuous models in opposition to symbolic ones. Experiments on handwriting gestures show recognition rate between 88% and 100%.
Microbacterium radiodurans sp. nov., a UV radiation-resistant bacterium isolated from soil.

Strain GIMN 1.002(T), a UV radiation-tolerant bacterium, was isolated from the upper sand layers of the Gobi desert, Xinjiang, China and characterized in order to determine its taxonomic position. Cells were Gram-reaction-positive, heterotrophic, strictly aerobic, short rods. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain GIMN 1.002(T) belonged to the genus Microbacterium and was closely related to Microbacterium arborescens DSM 20754(T) (98.8 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity) and Microbacterium imperiale DSM 20530(T) (98.7 %). However, strain GIMN 1.002(T) had low DNA-DNA relatedness with M. arborescens DSM 20754(T) (17.1 %) and M. imperiale DSM 20530(T) (12.89 %). Strain GIMN 1.002(T) possessed chemotaxonomic markers that were consistent with its classification in the genus Microbacterium, i.e. MK-11, MK-12 and MK-10 as major menaquinones and anteiso-C(15 : 0) (38.67 %), iso-C(16 : 0) (18.16 %) and iso-C(15 : 0) (17.46 %) as predominant cellular fatty acids. The DNA G+C content was 67.74 mol%. The cell-wall sugar was rhamnose. On the basis of the data from this study, strain GIMN 1.002(T) represents a novel species of the genus Microbacterium, for which the name Microbacterium radiodurans sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is GIMN 1.002(T) (=CCTCC M208212(T) =NRRL B-24799(T)).
Effects of the customs union with the European Union on the market structure and pricing behaviour of the Turkish manufacturing industry

Turkey established a Customs Union with the European Union in 1996. This study aims to analyse the effect of that Customs Union on the market structure and the pricing behaviour of the Turkish manufacturing industry for the period 1994 to 2000. To that end, the price cost mark-up equation of 12 manufacturing industry sectors is estimated using the import and export ratios with European Union countries together with control variables. A second equation is also estimated for the concentration ratio index, taking the trade ratios with European Union countries as explanatory variables. The estimation method is panel data covering eight years and 12 cross-section units. Estimation outcomes indicate that the export and import ratios of trade with European Union countries have a negative relation with the price cost mark-up in the manufacturing sector. It is concluded that increased imports with union countries have created a positive wealth and efficiency effect upon the Turkish manufacturing industry, due to falling price cost mark-ups. Similarly, the concentration ratio equation estimation outcomes indicate that increased imports with union countries have induced a decline in the concentration ratio for the manufacturing industry during the period in question.
Usability Evaluation Methods for a Scientific Internet Information Portal

Sharing information is important for the scientific community. Over the years the internet became the main information source due to its actuality, interactivity and flexibility. While the amount of available data grows, especially non-profit scientific internet pages often lack the user friendliness known from commercial offers, sometimes they also fail to focus on the users' needs. To analyze and improve the attractiveness of internet pages it became common to apply methods of usability engineering. But as it requires a certain amount of work it is usually done in 'big scale' for commercial offers. In this paper we would like to demonstrate the evaluation of a non-commercial scientific information internet portal using methods of usability engineering. For this an online User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ) in combination with web traffic analysis was used. We also would like to outline the experience made during the evaluation process, as well as some of the results.
A hierarchical modeling framework for on-chip communication architectures [SOC]

The communication sub-system of complex IC systems is increasingly critical for achieving system performance. Given this, it is important that the on-chip communication architecture should be included in any quantitative evaluation of system design during design space exploration. While there are several mature methodologies for the modeling and evaluation of architectures of processing elements, there is relatively little work done in modeling of an extensive range of on-chip communication architectures, and integrating this into a single modeling and simulation environment combining processing element and on-chip communication architectures. This paper describes a modeling framework with accompanying simulation tools that attempts to fill this gap. Based on an analysis of a wide range of on-chip communication architectures, we describe how a specific hierarchical class library can be used to develop new on-chip communication architectures, or variants of existing ones with relatively little incremental effort. We demonstrate this through three case studies including two commercial on-chip bus systems and an on-chip packet switching network.