Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Neural Tissue Mobilization and Muscle Energy Technique on Hamstring Tightness in Chronic Low Back Pain

Introduction: Low back pain is one of the most common musculoskeletal problem in a general populationand affecting both male and female population equally. Many therapeutic interventions are used to treatthe symptoms of low back pain. Today the main aim lies at faster recovery rate so the present study wasconducted with the aim to find out the effect of neural tissue mobilization and muscle energy technique onhamstring tightness in chronic low back pain.Material and Method: In this comparative study 52 subjects were treated for hamstring tightness on chroniclow back pain between the age group of 25-40 years. The pre and post test was measure by visual analogscale, Oswestry Disability Index Questionnaire, Straight leg raising test.Results: The statistical analysis for neural tissue mobilization was Visual analog scale (p =,0.0001),Oswestry Disability Index Questionnaire (p = <0.0001, Straight leg raising test (p = <0.0001) showedsignificant improvement. The statistical analysis for muscle energy technique was Visual analog scale (p=,0.0001), Oswestry Disability Index Questionnaire (p = <0.0001, Straight leg raising test (p = <0.0001)showed significant improvement. The study had found that neural tissue mobilization and muscle energytechnique shows equally improvement on hamstring tightness in chronic low back pain.Conclusion: The study concluded that there was no significant difference between neural tissue mobilizationand muscle energy technique on hamstring tightness in chronic low back pain. Both the technique showedthe equally improvement on hamstring tightness in chronic low back pain.
Robust Device-Free Intrusion Detection Using Physical Layer Information of WiFi Signals

WiFi infrastructures are widely deployed in both public and private buildings. They make the connection to the internet more convenient. Recently, researchers find that WiFi signals have the ability to sense the changes in the environment that can detect human motion and even identify human activities and his identity in a device-free manner, and has many potential security applications in a smart home. Previous human detection systems can only detect human motion of regular moving patterns. However, they may have a significant detection performance degradation when used in intrusion detection. In this study, we propose Robust Device-Free Intrusion Detection (RDFID) system leveraging fine-grained Channel State Information (CSI). The noises in the signals are removed by a Principle Component Analysis (PCA) and a low pass filter. We extract a robust feature of frequency domain utilizing Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) from all subcarriers. RDFID captures the changes from the whole wireless channel, and a threshold is obtained self-adaptively, which is calibration-free in different environments, and can be deployed in smart home scenarios. We implement RDFID using commodity WiFi devices and evaluate it in three typical office rooms with different moving patterns. The results show that our system can accurately detect intrusion of different moving patterns and different environments without re-calibration.
Sustainable Development of Water Resources: Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Water Stress in South Korea

The development of South Korean water resources has been heavily concentrated in a few areas, corresponding to regions that have experienced economic growth. The resulting competition for the resource is leading to calls for more equitable water distribution. The objective of this study is to evaluate water stress areas for sustainable water resources management. For this, a spatially distributed water stress index that accounts for climate variability at intra- and inter-annual time scales is developed and applied to South Korea to better understand the water allocations, and the subsequent water stress. Water demand (household water, industrial water, agricultural water, and livestock water) and water supply (precipitation use, reservoir use, stream use, and underground water use) estimates based on the period 1973–2009 were used to compute the normalized deficit index (NDI) and normalized deficit cumulative (NDC) for each hydrologic basin. Water stress was assessed for each of the four decades (1973–1982; 1983–1991; 1992–2000; 2001–2009). The overall water stress has decreased in 2000–2009 compared to 1973–1982 because of water infrastructure development. However, while the risk of water stress was low in the Han River basin, the Nakdong River was found to be very vulnerable to water stress. It was possible to investigate where water management strategies are needed for the sustainable development of South Korean water resources.
Farmers’ and Consumers’ Preferences for Drinking Water Quality Improvement through Land Management Practices: The Case Study of the Soyang Watershed in South Korea

The drinking water quality along the Soyang watershed has been affected negatively by the intensive agricultural practices in the upstream area. Our study used a choice experiment method in order to estimate the values that the upstream water providers (i.e., farmers) and downstream water users (i.e., consumers) attach to the following attributes, namely, the agricultural profits, water quality, and biodiversity level of the Soyang watershed in South Korea. The preferences of the upstream water providers and downstream water users were presented by a conditional logit model and with interactions. The results from the conditional logit model specifications revealed that water quality is the most important attribute that is preferred by the downstream water users and upstream farmers. Both the upstream farmers and downstream water users have put substantial values on the protection of water bodies in the Soyang watershed, and are concerned about the consequences of water usage on the environment and human health. The respondents in each income group and in different local communities with income levels seemed to have different implicit costs for the water quality improvement in the Soyang watershed. Our study has provided robust results regarding the benefits of water improvement using sustainable land management and can be considered as a fundamental input for aiding the sustainable water–land nexus policies. We suggest that the government carefully designs a policy so as to compensate the highland farmers for their income losses as a result of the changing farming practices.
A Comparative Study of Bulk Parameterization Schemes for Estimating Cloudy-Sky Surface Downward Longwave Radiation

Parameterization schemes (bulk formulae) are widely used to estimate all-sky surface downward longwave radiation (SDLR) due to the simple, readily available inputs and acceptable accuracy from local to regional scales. Seven widely used bulk formulae are evaluated using the ground measurements collected from 44 globally distributed flux measurement sites of five networks. The Bayesian model averaging (BMA) method is introduced to integrate multiple bulk formulae to obtain an estimate of cloudy-sky SDLR for the first time. The second multiple linear regression model of Carmona et al. (2014) performs the best, with BIAS, RMSE, and R2 of zero, 20.13 W·m−2 and 0.87, respectively. The BMA method can achieve balanced results that are close to the accuracy of the second multiple linear regression model of Carmona et al. (2014) and better than the average accuracy of seven bulk formulae, with BIAS, RMSE, and R2 of −1.08 W·m−2, 21.99 W·m−2 and 0.87, respectively. In addition, the bulk formula of Crawford and Duchon (1999) is preferred if there is insufficient data to calibrate the bulk formulae because it does not need local calibration and has an acceptable accuracy, with BIAS, RMSE, and R2 of 0.96 W·m−2, 26.58 W·m−2 and 0.82, respectively. The effects of climate type, land cover type, and surface elevation are also investigated to fully assess the applicability of each bulk formula and BMA. In general, there is no cloudy-sky bulk parametrization scheme that can be successfully applied everywhere.
Harmonised households: ménages à ménager (HHMM)

The project is concerned with how the household is defined, and how this definition is used in censuses and surveys in each of the five study countries. The project team explored how household-level data were collected and used along the chain of production – from commissioners of studies to fieldworkers, through to analysts or other users of data – and the extent to which definitions of the household represented the lived experience of being in a ‘household’. Intergenerational relationships were a lens used to examine whether household-level survey data were able to capture exchanges of intergenerational care, including care that occurs outside the household. Against a background of increasing life expectancy, changing lifestyles and living arrangements (recomposed families, transnational movements, the nuclear family becoming less common), and reductions in public spending on welfare, the topic was chosen to reflect the need to explore how older people are cared for and to provide insights into the adequacy of data collected at the household level in taking account of these exchanges. Analysing the diverse contexts in which care is provided, and understanding the (in)adequacy of household surveys to capture current trends, has implications for policies that are informed by household-level data.
Effects of Green Manure (Hairy Vetch) Management Ways on Corn Growth and Grain Yield

Corn is one of the three major cereals and the output has followed that wheat through the word. Especially in developing countries, corn grain is quite important as a food. Although corn production has been rapidly increased by the breeding, there are many cases in which the yield is low because of insufficient use of fertilizes in these countries, under such background, the practice of a crop rotation including leguminous green manure crop seems to be desirable. In this study nitrogen supplying capacity form hairy vetch (Vicia villosa Roth. HV) to corn was examined. The experiment was carried out from 2017-2018 at the Research Farm of Faculty of Agriculture Kabul University, Kabul Afghanistan. Four treatments; incorporation of HV residue (B), mulching of HV residue on the inter-rows of corn (C), chemical fertilizer (D), and control (A), were set with three replications. 180 Mohammad Zarif Sharifi, Mohammad Shoaib Ahmadi, Zabihullah Jalali Incorporation of HV residue may be able to supply inorganic nitrogen of 130 ͠ 150 kg N ha -1 to the succeeding corn, since it was reported that 40 ͠ 50 % of HV nitrogen was mineralized in soil within 3 months after the incorporation. Above-ground dry matter (AGB) of the corn has always reached at 20 mg even in control, which was due to rather high soil fertility of the field, but it become significantly higher in both HV treatments, B and C, after the silky stage corresponding to the D plot. It was estimated that HV residue could supply 40% of nitrogen demand by corn. These results designate that the nitrogen balance for corn production well be drastically improved by using HV cultivation in winter season.
Fibrin Facilitates Mesenchymal Stem Cells to Ameliorate Rats with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) is a ubiquitous hormonal disorder and induces female infertility and heterogeneous syndromes, for which there is still no effective treatment. Thanks to the properties of immunomodulatory and endocrine regulation, mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been widely used in various disease types. There were few reports for MSCs injected to ovaries due to the size limitation and complicated vascular network. Here, we develop one simple and efficient approach to deliver and stabilize MSCs in the outside of the ovary without blood leaking through the fibrin gelation, which also possesses excellent biocompatibility to support MSC survival. Notably, the transplantation of MSCs, encapsulated in fibrin hydrogel, could rescue ovarian function more efficiently compared to only MSC control in terms of elevated estradiol (E2) and progesterone (P) levels, diminished gonadotropins (LH/FSH), testosterone (T), and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) levels, regular estrous cycles, enhanced number of granulosa cells, and reduced number of immature cystic follicles. The size and weight of the ovary increased for MSCs both within and without fibrin in PCOS rat models in two weeks. Moreover, we have shown the versatility of fibrin hydrogel as a cell-compatible platform for advanced stem cell translation, including identifying novel mechanisms of cell survival support, tissue development, and regenerative medicine.
A binary-compatible unikernel

Unikernels are minimal single-purpose virtual machines. They are highly popular in the research domain due to the benefits they provide. A barrier to their widespread adoption is the difficulty/impossibility to port existing applications to current unikernels. HermiTux is the first unikernel providing binary-compatibility with Linux applications. It is composed of a hypervisor and lightweight kernel layer emulating OS interfaces at load- and runtime in accordance with the Linux ABI. HermiTux relieves application developers from the burden of porting software, while providing unikernel benefits such as security through hardware-assisted virtualized isolation, swift boot time, and low disk/memory footprint. Fast system calls and kernel modularity are enabled through binary rewriting and analysis techniques, as well as shared library substitution. Compared to other unikernels, HermiTux boots faster and has a lower memory/disk footprint. We demonstrate that over a range of native C/C++/Fortran/Python Linux applications, HermiTux performs similarly to Linux in most cases: its performance overhead averages 3% in memory- and compute-bound scenarios.
Data clustering based on Langevin annealing with a self-consistent potential

This paper introduces a novel data clustering algorithm based on Langevin dynamics, where the associated potential is constructed directly from the data. To introduce a self-consistent potential, we adopt the potential model from the established Quantum Clustering method. The first step is to use a radial basis function to construct a density distribution from the data. A potential function is then constructed such that this density distribution is the ground state solution to the time-independent Schrödinger equation. The second step is to use this potential function with the Langevin dynamics at subcritical temperature to avoid ergodicity. The Langevin equations take a classical Gibbs distribution as the invariant measure, where the peaks of the distribution coincide with minima of the potential surface. The time dynamics of individual data points lead to different metastable states, which are interpreted as cluster centers. Clustering is therefore achieved when subsets of the data aggregate—as a result of the Langevin dynamics for a moderate period of time—in the neighborhood of a particular potential minimum. While the data points are pushed towards potential minima by the potential gradient, Brownian motion allows them to effectively tunnel through local potential barriers and escape saddle points into locations of the potential surface otherwise forbidden. The algorithm’s feasibility is first established based on several illustrating examples and theoretical analyses, followed by a stricter evaluation using a standard benchmark dataset.
ARE THERE MOONLETS NEAR THE URANIAN α AND β RINGS?

The Voyager 2 Radio Science Subsystem occultations of the Uranian α and β rings exhibit quasi-periodic optical depth variations with radial wavelengths that vary with longitude. These patterns may be wakes from small moonlets orbiting exterior to these rings. Based on the observed structures in the rings, we estimate that the moonlets would need to be located ∼100 km exterior to the rings’ semimajor axes ( km for α and km for β) and be 2–7 km in radius. Such moonlets could help keep the rings confined. Due to their small radii and presumed low albedo, the expected brightness of these moonlets is on the order of the noise in Voyager 2 images.
Title Bioactivity-guided identification and cell signaling technology to delineate the immunomodulatory effects of Panax ginseng on human promonocytic U 937 cells

Background: Ginseng is believed to have beneficial effects against human diseases, and its active components, ginsenosides, may play critical roles in its diverse physiological actions. However, the mechanisms underlying ginseng's effects remain to be investigated. We hypothesize some biological effects of ginseng are due to its anti-inflammatory effects. Methods: Human promonocytic U937 cells were used to investigate the immunomodulatory effects of ginseng following TNF-α treatment. A global gene expression profile was obtained by using genechip analysis, and specific cytokine expression was measured by quantitative RT-PCR and ELISA. HPLC was used to define the composition of ginsenosides in 70% ethanol-water extracts of ginseng. Activation of signalling kinases was examined by Western blot analysis. Results: Seventy percent ethanol-water extracts of ginseng significantly inhibited the transcription and secretion of CXCL-10 following TNF-α stimulation. Nine ginsenosides including Rb1, Rb2, Rc, Rd, Re, Rf, Rg1, Rg3 and Rh1 were identified in our extract by HPLC. Seven out of nine ginsenosides could significantly inhibit TNF-α-induced CXCL-10 expression in U937 cells and give comparable inhibition of CXCL-10 transcription to those with the extract. However, the CXCL-10 suppressive effect of individual ginsenosides was less than that of the crude extract or the mixture of ginsenosides. The CXCL-10 suppression can be correlated with the inactivation of ERK1/2 pathways by ginseng. Conclusion: We showed ginseng suppressed part of the TNF-α-inducible cytokines and signalling proteins in promonocytic cells, suggesting that it exerts its anti-inflammatory property targeting at different levels of TNF-α activity. The anti-inflammatory role of ginseng may be due to the combined effects of ginsenosides, contributing in part to the diverse actions of ginseng in humans. Published: 14 May 2009 Journal of Translational Medicine 2009, 7:34 doi:10.1186/1479-5876-7-34 Received: 3 February 2009 Accepted: 14 May 2009 This article is available from: http://www.translational-medicine.com/content/7/1/34 © 2009 Lee et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Retina A Novel Achromatopsia Mouse Model Resulting From a Naturally Occurring Missense Change in Cngb 3

Citation: Hassall MM, Barnard AR, Orlans HO, et al. A novel achromatopsia mouse model resulting from a naturally occurring missense change in Cngb3. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci. 2018;59:6102–6110. https://doi.org/ 10.1167/iovs.18-24328 PURPOSE. A local colony of inbred mice (129S6/SvEvTac origin), in isolation for over a decade, were found to have absent light-adapted electroretinogram (ERG) responses. We investigated the inheritance and genetic basis of this phenotype of cone photoreceptor function loss.
PRACTICES, PATTERNS AND PRAGMATICS RESEARCH: STRENGTHENING SOCIAL INNOVATION

Social innovation aims at changing practices to address wicked problems involving many stakeholders, but this turns out to be hard “in practice”. In this paper, we first draw on the practice theory literature for a better understanding of what practices are and come up with an original conceptualization. Secondly, we investigate the relationship between practices and patterns, and argue that patterns can be a useful vehicle for practice transfer. We apply our conceptualization in a social innovation example in sustainable agriculture.
Dominant Factors Influencing the Concentrations of Particulate Matters inside Train Carriages Traveling in Different Environments in the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit System

Air quality inside metro systems is a critical issue for commuters and metro employees because of the considerable time they spend traveling or working in such systems. This study measured the PM10, PM2.5, particle number (PN), and CO2 levels and particle mass size distributions inside operating trains to reveal the factors influencing the concentrations and size distributions of particulate matter (PM) inside metro train carriages traveling in different environments. The measurement results demonstrated that the CO2 level was associated with ridership and that the PM levels and particle mass size distributions were highly affected by the immediate surroundings of the train, such as whether it was journeying through underground tunnels or on ground-level tracks as well as its direction of travel. Furthermore, the particle mass size distributions inside the metro train carriages exhibited a clear triple-mode pattern, whereas those for the ground-level and underground routes differed considerably due to different particle sources.
Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Kailash Sacred Landscape of China

Land use and land cover change (LUCC) is an important driver of ecosystem function and services. Thus, LUCC analysis may lay foundation for landscape planning, conservation and management. It is especially true for alpine landscapes, which are more susceptible to climate changes and human activities. However, the information on LUCC in sacred landscape is limited, which will hinder the landscape conservation and development. We chose Kailash Sacred Landscape in China (KSL-China) to investigate the patterns and dynamics of LUCC and the driving forces using remote sensing data and meteorological data from 1990 to 2008. A supervised classification of land use and land cover was established based on field survey. Rangelands presented marked fluctuations due to climatic warming and its induced drought, for example, dramatic decreases were found in high- and medium-cover rangelands over the period 2000–2008. And recession of most glaciers was also observed in the study period. Instead, an increase of anthropogenic activities accelerated intensive alteration of land use, such as conversion of cropland to built-up land. We found that the change of vegetation cover was positively correlated with growing season precipitation (GSP). In addition, vegetation cover was substantially reduced along the pilgrimage routes particularly within 5 km of the routes. The findings of the study suggest that climatic warming and human disturbance are interacted to cause remarkable LUCC. Tourism development was responsible land use change in urban and pilgrimage routes. This study has important implications for landscape conservation and ecosystem management. The reduction of rangeland cover may decrease the rangeland quality and pose pressure for the carrying capacity of rangelands in the KSL-China. With the increasing risk of climate warming, rangeland conservation is imperative. The future development should shift from livestock-focus animal husbandry to service-based ecotourism in the sacred landscape.