Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On-field low-frequency fatigue measurement after repeated drop jumps

Purpose: Monitoring fatigue is now commonly performed in athletes as it can directly impact performance and may further increase the risk of injury or overtraining syndrome. Among the exercise-induced peripheral alterations, low-frequency fatigue (LFF) assessment is commonly restricted to in-lab studies. Measuring LFF on-field would allow athletes and coaches to assess muscle fatigability on a regular basis. The aim of the present study was therefore to validate a new portable device allowing quadriceps LFF assessment in the field. Methods: LFF was assessed in 15 active and healthy participants before (PRE) and after (POST) a series of drop jumps. LFF was assessed, thanks to a dedicated device recording evoked force to muscle submaximal electrical low- and high-frequency stimulation. Changes in the low- to high-frequency force ratio (further referred to as Powerdex® value) were compared to the changes in the ratio of evoked force induced by paired-pulse femoral nerve electrical stimulation at 10 and 100 Hz (i.e., DB10/DB100 ratio). Maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) and voluntary activation (VA) were also measured. Results: MVC decreased (p < 0.001), whereas VA was not affected by the fatiguing task (p = 0.14). There was a decrease in the DB10/DB100 ratio (from 96.4% to 67.3%, p < 0.001) as well as in the Powerdex value (from 74.0% to 55.7%, p < 0.001). There was no significant difference between POST values (expressed in percentage of PRE values) of the DB10/DB100 ratio and Powerdex (p = 0.44), and there was a significant correlation between the changes in Powerdex® and DB10/DB100 (r = 0.82, p < 0.001). Conclusion: The on-field device we tested is a valid tool to assess LFF after a strenuous exercise consisting of repeated drop jumps as it evidences the presence of LFF similarly to a lab technique. Such a device can be used to monitor muscle fatigability related to excitation–contraction in athletes.
Outcomes of Single Incision Anchored Anterior Vaginal Mesh Repair for Recurrent Vaginal Prolapse

Objective: To report the safety and efficacy of single incision anchored anterior vaginal mesh repair for women with recurrent anterior vaginal prolapse. Methods: Retrospective study of women with recurrent anterior vaginal prolapse, Stage 2 or beyond, who underwent single incision anchored vaginal mesh repair with Anterior Elevate (American Medical Systems, Minnetonka, USA) between June 2012 and October 2016. Pre-operatively, the Prolapse Quality-of-Life questionnaire (P-QOL) and Pelvic Organ Prolapse/Urinary Incontinence Sexual Function Questionnaire-12 (PISQ-12) were completed. Post-operatively, women completed the P-QOL, PISQ-12 and the global impression of improvement questionnaire (PGI-I). Preoperative POP-Q and post operative POP-Q examination at up to 24 months follow up were recorded. At average follow up of 36 months, participants were interviewed via telephone using questions from the P-QOL, PISQ and PGI-I. Results: 45 women had single incision anterior vaginal mesh kit repair for recurrent prolapse. Postoperatively, 85% of women reported cure of their prolapse symptoms. At 24 months, 80.0% had POP-Q stage 0 or 1 in the anterior compartment, and 93.8% achieved anatomical cure of apical prolapse (point C above 0). During structured telephone interview at mean follow up of 36 months, on PGI-I, 70% reported feeling ‘much better’ or ‘very much better’. Conclusion: Vaginal surgery using single incision lightweight mesh kits can be an effective approach for women with recurrent anterior vaginal prolapse, resulting in subjective and objective cure rates of over 80% with reasonable safety profile up to 60 months postoperatively.
ITRAQ-Based Proteomics Analysis Reveals the Effect of Neoliensinine on KCl-Induced Vascular Smooth Muscle Contraction by Inhibiting Regulatory Light Chain Phosphorylation

Smooth muscle (SM) contraction is one of the important physiological functions of the human body, and SM abnormal contraction will induce many diseases. The phosphorylated regulatory light chains (p-RLC) play a decisive role in SM contraction, and dephosphorylation of p-RLC is an effective way to relax SM. Our previous study showed that the novel benzylisoquinoline alkaloid, neoliensinine (Neo), could relax microvascular SM contracted by KCl hyperpolarization. In this study, mesenteric capillaries isolated from 45 mice were divided into normal tension group (Control), 124 mM KCl induced contraction model group (Model), and KCl and Neo-treatment group (Drug). The dephosphorylation levels of RLC in the three groups were measured. Compared with the model group, the phosphorylation of RLC in the drug group was decreased dramatically as expected, suggesting that the relaxation effect of Neo was caused by downregulating p-RLC of microvessel SM. In order to fully understand its fundamental mechanism, our research focused on the identification of target proteins in mice with KCl-induced contractile mesenteric capillary. Isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (ITRAQ) tagging was carried out by nanospray liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. The results allowed the upregulation of 164 differential abundance proteins (DAPs) among the 3,474 protein abundance disturbances identified from the model/control samples. Further comparison showed that there were 16 DAP convergences associated with vascular SM contraction between the drug/model and the drug/control samples. Among them, two proteins with known function, PLCβ and RhoGEF12, were selected as target proteins of the relaxation effect of Neo. The two selective target DAPs were verified by Western blot at protein level. The results suggested that changes of the two proteins were consistent with that of the iTRAQ results. Our present work reveals that Neo relaxes vascular smooth muscle via inhibition of RLC phosphorylation, and PLCβ and RhoGEF12 may be potential biomarkers for evaluating the effects mediated by Neo.
Clinical profile and maternal depression and anxiety in children and adolescents with intellectual disability: A study from outpatient child psychiatry

Background: With prevalence between 1% and 3%, intellectual disability (ID) not only affects the children and adolescents with this disability but also the caregivers, particularly the mothers. Aims: The aim was to study the clinical profile of children and adolescents with ID along with the prevalence of depressive and anxiety disorders in their mothers. Settings and Design: Cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in Outpatient child psychiatry clinic. Methodology: Children and adolescents diagnosed with ID by a psychiatrist and clinical psychologist where subjected to a semi-structured questionnaire to record the sociodemographic status, antenatal history, perinatal history, and developmental history, presenting complaints, current behavioral problems, and medical history. Psychiatric comorbidity in the study participants and depression and anxiety disorders in their mothers was also assessed. Results: With the mean age of 8.68 years ± 2.63, majority (81.2%) belonged to the age group of 6–12 years with predominance of boys (60%). Antenatal factors were present in about 18%, whereas perinatal factors were present in about 48%. Delayed developmental history was present in 75%. Psychiatric comorbidity was present in about 32%, whereas current behavioral problems were present in about 47%. Majority (about 71%) had mild ID. Maternal depression and anxiety disorders were present in about 70%. Statistical Analysis: Descriptive analysis was performed with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Conclusion: High rates of antenatal and perinatal factors with a history of developmental delay in a significant number of children and adolescents with ID were found. Mild ID predominated. Behavioral problems, psychiatric comorbidity, and medical comorbidity were frequently observed. Maternal depression and anxiety were also very high.
Mastering Visual Basic .NET

From the Publisher: Complete and authoritative coverage of Microsoft's dramatically upgraded version of Visual Basic The perfect single-volume reference for novice to advanced programmers. Not sure where you got this information]The CD includes all the example code used in the book, valuable third-party utilities, and an electronic version of the entire book!
Effect of semantic distance on learning structured query language: An empirical study

Students of database courses usually encounter difficulties in learning structured query language (SQL). Numerous studies have been conducted to improve how students learn SQL. However, learning SQL remains difficult. This study analyzed the difficulties in learning SQL from the viewpoint of semantic distance by using semantic network theory. An experiment involving a database course was performed to assess the influence of semantic distance on learners’ understanding of SQL. The participants were requested to perform a query-writing task at the end of the course to investigate their understanding of SQL. The data analysis results indicated that the participants developed a better understanding of the formulation-to-planning transformation than the planning-to-coding transformation. This implies that the semantic distance of the planning-to-coding transformation is greater than that of the formulation-to-planning transformation, and the semantic distance of the planning-to-coding transformation is attributable to the semantic transformation from natural language to SQL, which are two essentially different languages and belong to different knowledge categories. Accordingly, this study concludes that SQL learning difficulties can mainly be ascribed to the planning-to-coding transformation because the large semantic distance. The findings suggest that SQL instructions should emphasize the semantic mapping of the planning-to-coding transformation by incorporating materials related to the transformation and should shorten the semantic distance involved in learning SQL. These two principles can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of SQL teaching methods in assisting SQL learning, and motivate researchers to develop more effective teaching methods from the viewpoint of semantic distance.
Developmental stage variation in the gut microbiome of South China tigers

South China tigers (Panthera tigris amoyensis, SC) are the most threatened tiger subspecies in the world. All the living SCs are captive in zoos or reserves and depend on artificial feeding. The composition of the gut microbiome plays an important role in sustaining the health of the host. A comprehensive understanding of the composition and development of the microbial community of SC is helpful to improve the feeding of captive SC. In this study, we collected 47 fecal samples, 37 of which were from SC of three developmental stages, 5 from adult Amur tigers (Am), and 5 from adult Bengal tigers (Bg), which were all housed in the same zoo. We investigated the diversity, richness, and composition of the bacterial microbiomes and we found that the gut microbiome of SC is strongly affected by host aging. The composition of the gut microbiome of juvenile SC experienced dramatic changes from 5 months old to 1 year old, and it showed much less difference when compared to the samples of 1 year old and the subadult. No significant differences were observed between the samples of subadult and the adult groups. The predominant phylum of 5-month-old SC is Fusobacteriota (33.99%) when the juvenile tigers were older than 5 months, and Firmicutes, but not Fusobacteriota, became the predominant phylum of bacteria in their gut. The gut microbiome of SC, Am, and Bg is possibly affected by their genetic variation; however, the core microbiome of these three subspecies is the same. Our data suggest that the gut microbiome of SC undergoes a developmental progression: a developmental phase (cub), a transitional phase (subadult), and a stable phase (adult). These results expand our understanding of the role of age in the development of the gut microbiome of SC.
Text Classification to Inform Suicide Risk Assessment in Electronic Health Records

Assessing a patient's risk of an impending suicide attempt has been hampered by limited information about dynamic factors that change rapidly in the days leading up to an attempt. The storage of patient data in electronic health records (EHRs) has facilitated population-level risk assessment studies using machine learning techniques. Until recently, most such work has used only structured EHR data and excluded the unstructured text of clinical notes. In this article, we describe our experiments on suicide risk assessment, modelling the problem as a classification task. Given the wealth of text data in mental health EHRs, we aimed to assess the impact of using this data in distinguishing periods prior to a suicide attempt from those not preceding such an attempt. We compare three different feature sets, one structured and two text-based, and show that inclusion of text features significantly improves classification accuracy in suicide risk assessment.
Role of EphA2-PI3K signaling in vasculogenic mimicry induced by cancer-associated fibroblasts in gastric cancer cells

Although erythropoietin-producing human hepatocellular receptor A2 (EphA2) signaling serves an important role in the tumor microenvironment, its contribution to vasculogenic mimicry (VM) formation in gastric cancer cells remains unclear. The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of EphA2 in VM formation induced by cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs). The conditioned medium of CAFs (CAF-CM) was prepared from 12 patients with gastric adenocarcinoma. VM was evaluated by the number of tubules and intersections in gastric cancer cells following CAF-CM treatment. The role of EphA2-phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) in VM was investigated using EphA2-targeted small interfering (si)RNAs (siEphA2), EphA2 inhibitors and PI3K-inhibitors. CAF-CM-induced VM formation was significantly associated with high protein expression levels of EphA2. EphA2 inhibitor and siEphA2 manipulation significantly decreased VM formation by CAF-CM. In siEphA2 cells, decreased expression levels of VM-associated proteins were observed. CAF-CM-induced VM formation was blocked by the PI3K-inhibitor. In conclusion, CAFs facilitate VM formation via EphA2-PI3K signaling in gastric cancer cells. Thus, EphA2-PI3K signaling may be required for CAF-promoted VM formation during gastric tumorigenesis.
Radiation therapy induces immunosenescence mediated by p90RSK

Radiation therapy (RT) to the chest increases the patients’ risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). A complete understanding of the mechanisms by which RT induces CVD could lead to specific preventive, therapeutic approaches. It is becoming evident that both genotoxic chemotherapy agents and radiation induce mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular senescence. Notably, one of the common phenotypes observed in cancer survivors is accelerated senescence, and immunosenescence is closely related to both cancer risk and CVD development. Therefore, suppression of immunosenescence can be an ideal target to prevent cancer treatment-induced CVD. However, the mechanism(s) by which cancer treatments induce immunosenescence are incompletely characterized. We isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) before and 3 months after RT from 16 thoracic cancer patients. We characterized human immune cell lineages and markers of senescence, DNA damage response (DDR), efferocytosis, and determinants of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminant potential (CHIP), using mass cytometry (CyTOF). We found that the frequency of the B cell subtype was decreased after RT. Unsupervised clustering of the CyTOF data identified 138 functional subsets of PBMCs. Compared with baseline, RT increased TBX21 (T-bet) expression in the largest B cell subset of Ki67–/DNMT3a+naïve B cells, and T-bet expression was correlated with phosphorylation of p90RSK expression. CD38 expression was also increased in naïve B cells (CD27–) and CD8+ effector memory CD45RA T cells (TEMRA). In vitro, we found the critical role of p90RSK activation in upregulating (1) CD38+/T-bet+ memory and naïve B, and myeloid cells, (2) senescence-associated β-gal staining, and (3) mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) after ionizing radiation (IR). These data suggest the crucial role of p90RSK activation in immunosenescence. The critical role of p90RSK activation in immune cells and T-bet induction in upregulating atherosclerosis formation has been reported. Furthermore, T-bet directly binds to the CD38 promoter region and upregulates CD38 expression. Since both T-bet and CD38 play a significant role in the process of immunosenescence, our data provide a cellular and molecular mechanism that links RT-induced p90RSK activation and the immunosenescence with T-bet and CD38 induction observed in thoracic cancer patients treated by RT and suggests that targeting the p90RSK/T-bet/CD38 pathway could play a role in preventing the radiation-associated CVD and improving cancer prognosis by inhibiting immunosenescence.
Independent lung ventilation: Implementation strategies and review of literature

Independent lung ventilation, though infrequently used in the critical care setting, has been reported as a rescue strategy for patients in respiratory failure resulting from severe unilateral lung pathology. This involves isolating and ventilating the right and left lung differently, using separate ventilators. Here, we describe our experience with independent lung ventilation in a patient with unilateral diffuse alveolar hemorrhage, who presented with severe hypoxemic respiratory failure despite maximal ventilatory support. Conventional ventilation in this scenario leads to preferential distribution of tidal volume to the non-diseased lung causing over distension and inadvertent volume trauma. Since each lung has a different compliance and respiratory mechanics, instituting separate ventilation strategies to each lung could potentially minimize lung injury. Based on review of literature, we provide a detailed description of indications and procedures for establishing independent lung ventilation, and also provide an algorithm for management and weaning a patient from independent lung ventilation.
HIGH PERFORMANCE AND SCALABLE SOFT SHARED STATE FOR NEXT-GENERATION DATACENTERS

In the past decade, with the increasing adoption of Internet as the primary means of electronic interaction and communication, web-based datacenters have become a central requirement for providing online services. Today, several applications and services have been deployed in such datacenters in a variety of environments including e-commerce, medical informatics, genomics, etc. Most of these applications and services share significant state information that are critical for the efficient functioning of the datacenter. However, existing mechanisms for sharing the state information are both inefficient in terms of performance and scalability, and non-resilient to loaded conditions in the datacenter. In addition, existing mechanisms do not take complete advantage of the features of emerging technologies which are gaining momentum in current datacenters. This dissertation presents an efficient soft state sharing substrate that leverages the features of emerging technologies such as high-speed networks, Intel’s I/OAT and multicore architectures to address the limitations mentioned above. Specifically, the dissertation targets three important aspects: (i) designing efficient state sharing components using the features of emerging technologies, (ii) understanding the interactions between the proposed components and (iii) analyzing the impact of the proposed components and their interactions with datacenter applications and services in terms of performance, scalability and resiliency. ii Our evaluations with the soft state sharing substrate not only show an order of magnitude performance improvement over traditional implementations but also demonstrate the resiliency to loaded conditions in the datacenter. Evaluations with several datacenter applications also suggest that the substrate is scalable and has a low-overhead. The proposed substrate is portable across multiple modern interconnects such as InfiniBand, iWARP-capable networks like 10-Gigabit Ethernet both in LAN and WAN environments. In addition, our designs provide advanced capabilities such as one-sided communication, asynchronous memory copy operations, etc., even on systems without high-speed networks and I/OAT. Thus, our proposed designs, optimizations and evaluations demonstrate that the substrate is quite promising in tackling the state sharing issues with current and next-generation datacenters.
Design and performance analysis of a charge controller for solar system using MATLAB/SIMULINK

The energy utilization of a Photovoltaic (PV) module is determined by the maximum power the module harnesses from the sun. A static PV module can only harness maximum power from the sun at a particular time in a day as the sun revolves. This simply means that if the PV module can be designed to move in such a direction to harness maximum power from the sun, then its energy utilization efficiency will be highly improved over the period the Sun is available. This design can be achieved by employing Perturb and Observe (P and O) algorithm for maximum power point tracking (MPPT). In this study, Propotional and Integral (PI) controller along with P and O is proposed to solve the problem of low efficiency and irregular output oscillations. The simulation is carried out in the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and the result shows that by incorporating the PI controller into the system, the efficiency of 99.96% at the maximum power point was attained.
Follicular fluid steroid and gonadotropic hormone levels and mitochondrial function from exosomes predict embryonic development

Purpose Human follicular fluid (FF) is a complex biological fluid that contributes to the micro-environment of oocyte development. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of steroid and gonadotropic hormones levels and mitochondrial function in embryo development during in vitro fertilization cycles. Methods This was a cohort study of 138 women receiving IVF/ICSI, including 136 FF samples from 109 infertile women. FF steroid and gonadotropic hormones levels were tested by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) and immunoassays. The mRNA expression levels of mitochondrial electron transport chain (ETC) complex genes from FF exosomes were detected by qPCR. Results Analysis of these individual FF concentrations revealed that LH and FSH concentrations were higher in follicles in which the oocyte developed into a top quality (TQ) blastocyst (LH: 9.44 ± 2.32mIU/ml, FSH: 9.32 ± 1.01mIU/ml) than those in which there was a failure of fertilization (LH: 5.30 ± 0.84mIU/ml, FSH: 6.91 ± 0.62mIU/ml). In contrast, follicular cortisone concentrations were lower for oocytes that resulted in a TQ blastocyst (12.20 ± 0.82mIU/ml). The receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that FF LH and FSH levels predicted TQ blastocyst with excellent AUC value of 0.711 and 0.747. Mitochondrial ETC complex I and III mRNA levels were increased in the FF exosomes of TQ blastocyst. Correlation analysis showed that mRNA levels of ETC complex I was positively correlated with LH and FSH levels in FF. Conclusion The levels of FF steroid and gonadotropic hormones from single follicle can predetermine subsequent embryo development to some extent. Furthermore, impaired exosome mitochondrial dysfunction is a potiential event that causes hormone change in embryo development.