Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Impact of Aging on Human Sexual Activity and Sexual Desire

This article empirically studies how much aging modifies human sexual activity and sexual desire, and what the most important determinants in this change are. The analyses are based on 2 representative national sex surveys conducted in Finland in the 1990s. As a result of female widowhood, aging men had a higher incidence of sexual intercourse compared with aging women; and in relationships, women were more likely than men to report lack of sexual desire. In regression analysis, age was a predictor of sexual activity but not of sexual desire, when controlling for the impact of other factors. Relationship duration did not play an important role in sexual activity or sexual desire when controlling for a number of other variables. Sexual desire, valuing sexuality, and a healthy partner were important to female sexual activity; and high sexual self-esteem, good health, and active sexual history were important to male sexual activity. To keep up their sexual desire, both men and women needed good health, good sexual functioning, positive sexual self-esteem, and a sexually skilful partner.
Post-routing timing optimization with routing characterization

Wire delay estimation has been a problem in designs of Very Deep Submicron(VDSM) technologies with feature size under 0.25 um. Conventional back-annotation approach does not guarantee timing convergence due to di erent estimation techniques for pre-layout and postlayoout timing. To solve the problem, a tight integration of logic synthesis with placement have been proposed recently. However, timing discrepancies between pre-routing and post-routing still exists due to unpredictable routing and cross coupling e ects. In this paper, a post-routing timing optimization algorithm is presented. Experimental results show that this algorithm provides better result after detail routing is completed.
Nomarski images for learning the anatomy, with tips for mosaic analysis.

Copyright: © 2006 John Yochem. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: yoche001@umn.edu Nomarski images for learning the anatomy, with tips for mosaic analysis* John Yochem, Department of Genetics, Cell Biology, and Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 55455 USA
Kinetics in Signal Transduction Pathways Involving Promiscuous Oligomerizing Receptors Can Be Determined by Receptor Specificity: Apoptosis Induction by TRAIL*

Here we show by computer modeling that kinetics and outcome of signal transduction in case of hetero-oligomerizing receptors of a promiscuous ligand largely depend on the relative amounts of its receptors. Promiscuous ligands can trigger the formation of nonproductive receptor complexes, which slows down the formation of active receptor complexes and thus can block signal transduction. Our model predicts that increasing the receptor specificity of the ligand without changing its binding parameters should result in faster receptor activation and enhanced signaling. We experimentally validated this hypothesis using the cytokine tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) and its four membrane-bound receptors as an example. Bypassing ligand-induced receptor hetero-oligomerization by receptor-selective TRAIL variants enhanced the kinetics of receptor activation and augmented apoptosis. Our results suggest that control of signaling pathways by promiscuous ligands could result in apparent slow biological kinetics and blocking signal transmission. By modulating the relative amount of the different receptors for the ligand, signaling processes like apoptosis can be accelerated or decelerated and even inhibited. It also implies that more effective treatments using protein therapeutics could be achieved simply by altering specificity
Activation of store‐operated calcium influx at resting InsP3 levels by sensitization of the InsP3 receptor in rat basophilic leukaemia cells.

1. Patch clamp and fura‐2 AM measurements were performed to study the effects of sensitizing the inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate (InsP3) receptor to InsP3 on the activation of Ca2+ release‐activated Ca2+ current (ICRAC) in rat basophilic leukaemia (RBL) cells. 2. The sensitizing agent thimerosal (1 microM) triggered Ca2+ release, and this was followed by Ca2+ influx. With no added InsP3 in the patch pipette, thimerosal activated ICRAC; this was prevented by heparin. ICRAC activated by thimerosal was very similar to that evoked by InsP3 or ionomycin. 3. Dialysing cells either for short (30 s) or long (600 s) periods of time prior to application of thimerosal did not affect the subsequent activation of ICRAC, even though no InsP3 was included in the patch pipette. 4. These results suggest that sensitizing the InsP3 receptor can result in large Ca2+ influx in the presence of resting InsP3, and that stores closer to the membrane may contribute more to activation of ICRAC than stores further away.
A C. elegans Model for Mitochondrial Fatty Acid Synthase II: The Longevity-Associated Gene W09H1.5/mecr-1 Encodes a 2-trans-Enoyl-Thioester Reductase

Our recognition of the mitochondria as being important sites of fatty acid biosynthesis is continuously unfolding, especially in light of new data becoming available on compromised fatty acid synthase type 2 (FASII) in mammals. For example, perturbed regulation of murine 17β-HSD8 encoding a component of the mitochondrial FASII enzyme 3-oxoacyl-thioester reductase is implicated in polycystic kidney disease. In addition, over-expression in mice of the Mecr gene coding for 2-trans-enoyl-thioester reductase, also of mitochondrial FASII, leads to impaired heart function. However, mouse knockouts for mitochondrial FASII have hitherto not been reported and, hence, there is a need to develop alternate metazoan models such as nematodes or fruit flies. Here, the identification of Caenorhabditis elegans W09H1.5/MECR-1 as a 2-trans-enoyl-thioester reductase of mitochondrial FASII is reported. To identify MECR-1, Saccharomyces cerevisiae etr1Δ mutant cells were employed that are devoid of mitochondrial 2-trans-enoyl-thioester reductase Etr1p. These yeast mutants fail to synthesize sufficient levels of lipoic acid or form cytochrome complexes, and cannot respire or grow on non-fermentable carbon sources. A mutant yeast strain ectopically expressing nematode mecr-1 was shown to contain reductase activity and resemble the self-complemented mutant strain for these phenotype characteristics. Since MECR-1 was not intentionally targeted for compartmentalization using a yeast mitochondrial leader sequence, this inferred that the protein represented a physiologically functional mitochondrial 2-trans-enoyl-thioester reductase. In accordance with published findings, RNAi-mediated knockdown of mecr-1 in C. elegans resulted in life span extension, presumably due to mitochondrial dysfunction. Moreover, old mecr-1(RNAi) worms had better internal organ appearance and were more mobile than control worms, indicating a reduced physiological age. This is the first report on RNAi work dedicated specifically to curtailing mitochondrial FASII in metazoans. The availability of affected survivors will help to position C. elegans as an excellent model for future pursuits in the emerging field of mitochondrial FASII research.
The high-risk patient: a challenge to be overcome.

Dipartimento di Emergenza e Accettazione, Facoltà di Medicina e Chirurgia, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Policlinico A. Gemelli, Rome, Dipartimento di Anestesia, Rianimazione (Intensiva e Subintensiva) e Terapia el Dolore, Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda – Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico and Dipartimento di Fisiopatologia MedicoChirurgica e dei Trapianti, Università degli Studi di Milano, Milan, Italy
A novel design of chipless RFID tags based on alphabets

This paper presents an approach for the design of chipless RFID tags by using standard alphabets. To illustrate this approach, the paper considers the alphabet letters (a, b and c) that are realized using copper etching on 0.5mm thick Taconic TLX-8, with a relative permittivity of 2.55 and loss tangent of 0.0019. As expected, simulation results demonstrate that the exploitation of resonant frequencies visible in the backscatter signal can be used for purpose of identification. These simulation results are validated by the experimental measurement.
What are the Productive Units of Natural Language Grammar? A DOP Approach to the Automatic Identification of Constructions.

We explore a novel computational approach to identifying "constructions" or "multi-word expressions" (MWEs) in an annotated corpus. In this approach, MWEs have no special status, but emerge in a general procedure for finding the best statistical grammar to describe the training corpus. The statistical grammar formalism used is that of stochastic tree substitution grammars (STSGs), such as used in Data-Oriented Parsing. We present an algorithm for calculating the expected frequencies of arbitrary subtrees given the parameters of an STSG, and a method for estimating the parameters of an STSG given observed frequencies in a tree bank. We report quantitative results on the ATIS corpus of phrase-structure annotated sentences, and give examples of the MWEs extracted from this corpus.
Experimental detection of vowel pronunciation variants in Amharic

The pronunciation lexicon is a fundamental element in an automatic speech transcription system. It associates each lexical entry (usually a grapheme), with one or more phonemic or phone-like forms, the pronunciation variants. Thorough knowledge of the target language is a priori necessary to establish the pronunciation baseforms and variants. The reliance on human expertise can pose difficulties in developing a system for a language where such knowledge may not be readily available. In this article a speech recognizer is used to help select pronunciation variants in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, focusing on alternate choices for vowels. This study is carried out using an audio corpus composed of 37 hours of speech from radio broadcasts which were orthographically transcribed by native speakers. Since the corpus is relatively small for estimating pronunciation variants, a first set of studies were carried out at a syllabic level. Word lexica were then constructed based on the observed syllable occurences. Automatic alignments were compared for lexica containing different vowel variants, with both context-independent and context-dependent acoustic models sets. The variant2+ measure proposed in (Adda-Decker and Lamel, 1999) is used to assess the potential need for pronunciation variants.
Physical and Chemical Effects of Deicers on Concrete Pavement: Literature Review

The purpose of this research was to conduct a review of the literature and summarize the effects of several commonly used deicers on concrete pavement. Sodium chloride, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, and calcium magnesium acetate (CMA) and the effects of their respective ions are specifically discussed, and 10 different studies published between 1995 and 2012 are summarized. Deicers can affect concrete both physically and chemically. Physical effects are typically manifested as cracking and salt scaling, while chemical effects can result from reactions involving cement hydration products, aggregates, or reinforcing steel. Most strategies used by researchers to directly compare the effects of various deicers on concrete involve freeze-thaw cycling, wet-dry cycling, and/or soaking mortar or concrete specimens. Regardless of variations in testing methods and specimen characteristics, the results from nine of the ten studies summarized in this research indicate that specimens exposed to sodium chloride experienced only minor, if any, adverse effects, while specimens exposed to calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, or CMA experienced significant deterioration, including scaling, cracking, mass loss, and compressive strength loss.
Dendritic Cells in the Cancer Microenvironment

The complexity of the tumor immunoenvironment is underscored by the emergence and discovery of different subsets of immune effectors and regulatory cells. Tumor-induced polarization of immune cell differentiation and function makes this unique environment even more intricate and variable. Dendritic cells (DCs) represent a special group of cells that display different phenotype and activity at the tumor site and exhibit differential pro-tumorigenic and anti-tumorigenic functions. DCs play a key role in inducing and maintaining the antitumor immunity, but in the tumor environment their antigen-presenting function may be lost or inefficient. DCs might be also polarized into immunosuppressive/tolerogenic regulatory DCs, which limit activity of effector T cells and support tumor growth and progression. Although various factors and signaling pathways have been described to be responsible for abnormal functioning of DCs in cancer, there are still no feasible therapeutic modalities available for preventing or reversing DC malfunction in tumor-bearing hosts. Thus, better understanding of DC immunobiology in cancer is pivotal for designing novel or improved therapeutic approaches that will allow proper functioning of DCs in patients with cancer.
Calcium Leak Through Ryanodine Receptors Leads to Atrial Fibrillation in 3 Mouse Models of Catecholaminergic Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia

Rationale: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, however the mechanism(s) causing AF remain poorly understood and therapy is suboptimal. The ryanodine receptor (RyR2) is the major calcium (Ca2+) release channel on the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) required for excitation-contraction coupling in cardiac muscle. Objective: In the present study, we sought to determine whether intracellular diastolic SR Ca2+ leak via RyR2 plays a role in triggering AF and whether inhibiting this leak can prevent AF. Methods and Results: We generated 3 knock-in mice with mutations introduced into RyR2 that result in leaky channels and cause exercise induced polymorphic ventricular tachycardia in humans [catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT)]. We examined AF susceptibility in these three CPVT mouse models harboring RyR2 mutations to explore the role of diastolic SR Ca2+ leak in AF. AF was stimulated with an intra-esophageal burst pacing protocol in the 3 CPVT mouse models (RyR2-R2474S+/−, 70%; RyR2-N2386I+/−, 60%; RyR2-L433P+/−, 35.71%) but not in wild-type (WT) mice (P<0.05). Consistent with these in vivo results, there was a significant diastolic SR Ca2+ leak in atrial myocytes isolated from the CPVT mouse models. Calstabin2 (FKBP12.6) is an RyR2 subunit that stabilizes the closed state of RyR2 and prevents a Ca2+ leak through the channel. Atrial RyR2 from RyR2-R2474S+/− mice were oxidized, and the RyR2 macromolecular complex was depleted of calstabin2. The Rycal drug S107 stabilizes the closed state of RyR2 by inhibiting the oxidation/phosphorylation induced dissociation of calstabin2 from the channel. S107 reduced the diastolic SR Ca2+ leak in atrial myocytes and decreased burst pacing–induced AF in vivo. S107 did not reduce the increased prevalence of burst pacing–induced AF in calstabin2-deficient mice, confirming that calstabin2 is required for the mechanism of action of the drug. Conclusions: The present study demonstrates that RyR2-mediated diastolic SR Ca2+ leak in atrial myocytes is associated with AF in CPVT mice. Moreover, the Rycal S107 inhibited diastolic SR Ca2+ leak through RyR2 and pacing-induced AF associated with CPVT mutations.
Efficient Generation of H2 by Splitting Water with an Isothermal Redox Cycle

Isothermal Water Splitting Solar concentrators can create extremely high temperatures that can drive chemical reactions, including the thermal splitting of water to provide hydrogen. A metal oxide catalyst is needed that is usually cycled between hotter conditions where it is reduced and cooler conditions where it is reoxidized by water. This cycling can limit catalyst lifetime, which can be costly. Muhich et al. (p. 540; see the Perspective by Roeb and Sattler) developed an approach that allowed the redox cycle to be driven isothermally, using pressure swings. A thermal process for generating H2 from water uses pressure changes to recycle between catalyst redox states. [Also see Perspective by Roeb and Sattler] Solar thermal water-splitting (STWS) cycles have long been recognized as a desirable means of generating hydrogen gas (H2) from water and sunlight. Two-step, metal oxide–based STWS cycles generate H2 by sequential high-temperature reduction and water reoxidation of a metal oxide. The temperature swings between reduction and oxidation steps long thought necessary for STWS have stifled STWS’s overall efficiency because of thermal and time losses that occur during the frequent heating and cooling of the metal oxide. We show that these temperature swings are unnecessary and that isothermal water splitting (ITWS) at 1350°C using the “hercynite cycle” exhibits H2 production capacity >3 and >12 times that of hercynite and ceria, respectively, per mass of active material when reduced at 1350°C and reoxidized at 1000°C.
Text enhancement method based on soft morphological filters

Soft morphological filters are robustly behaving extensions of standard flat morphological filters which include, as an extreme case, the weighted median filter. Soft morphological filters can take into account the geometrical shape of the processed objects and, at the same time, they are robust to additive noise and small variations in the shapes of the objects to be filtered. For suitable parameters they also have a good ability for preserving details. Thus, they provide a robust method for text enhancement. In this paper, an enhancement method based on soft morphological filters is demonstrated.
Silica Coated Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes

Single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have been coated with silica by the addition of a silica/H2SiF6 solution to a surfactant-stabilized solution of SWNTs. The thickness of the coating is controlled by reaction time, while the coating of individual SWNTs versus small ropes is controlled by the choice of surfactant. Individual nanotubes encased by a silica coating show retention of the characteristic Raman fluorescence. Selective etching of the silica coating allows for the exposure of either one end of the tubes or the central section. Exposure of the ends results in the formation of spontaneous interconnects between isolated SWNTs.
Sizes of Halting Testers for Programs of Bounded Size

It is known that for every programming language satisfying some reasonable conditions, there is a constant c such that for every n, a halting tester of size no more than n + c exists that correctly halt-tests all programs of size up to n with the empty input. In this submission Busy Beaver techniques are used to show that there is a constant d such that each halting tester of the above kind is at least of size n− log 2 n− d. For halt-testing programs with non-empty input, similar results hold with n being the sum of the size of the program and the input. The results are compared to known results obtained with Chaitin’s Ω.
Boundary form factors of the sinh-Gordon model with Dirichlet boundary conditions at the self-dual point

In this paper we present a detailed investigation of the form factors of boundary fields of the sinh-Gordon model with a particular type of Dirichlet boundary condition, corresponding to zero value of the sinh-Gordon field at the boundary, at the self-dual point. We follow for this the boundary form factor program recently proposed by Z Bajnok, L Palla and G Takacs (2006 On the boundary form factor program Preprint hep-th/0603171), extending the analysis of the boundary sinh-Gordon model initiated there. The main result of the paper is a conjecture for the structure of all n-particle form factors of the boundary operators ∂x and (∂x)2 in terms of elementary symmetric polynomials in certain functions of the rapidity variables. In addition, form factors of boundary 'descendant' fields have been constructed.
Upper limits to the water abundance in starburst galaxies

Aims. We have searched for emission from the 557 GHz ortho-water line in the interstellar medium of six nearby starburst galaxies. Methods. We used the Odin satellite to observe the l 10- l 01 transition of o-H 2 O in the galaxies NGC 253, IC 342, M 82, NGC 4258, CenA, and M 51. None of the galaxies in our sample was detected. Results. We derive three sigma upper limits to the H 2 O abundance relative to H 2 ranging from 2 x 10 -9 to l x 10 -8 . The best of these upper limits are comparable to the measured abundance of H 2 O in the Galactic star forming region W3. However, if only 10% of the molecular gas is in very dense cores, then the water abundance limits in the cores themselves would be larger by a factor of 10 i.e. 2 x 10 -8 to l x 10 -7 . Conclusions. These observations suggest that detections of H 2 O emission in galaxies with the upcoming Herschel Space Observatory are likely to require on-source integration times of an hour or more except in the very brightest extragalactic targets such as M 82 and NGC 253.
SaNDVis: visual social network analytics for the enterprise

In this paper, we demonstrate SaNDVis, a novel visual analytics tool that supports people-centric tasks like expertise location, team building, and team coordination in the enterprise. SaNDVis has been deployed in a global multinational company for over 12 months with over 1,800 users. The interface integrates social position, evidence, and facets which allows users to reflect on existing relationships as well as build new relationships in an enterprise setting.
Design strategy for tri-band Doherty power amplifier

This paper presents design of a tri-band Doherty power amplifier operating at frequencies of 1.6 GHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.2 GHz. The circuit utilizes two 10 W GaN HEMT transistors in a symmetric Doherty power amplifier configuration. A peak drain efficiency of more than 60% is achieved in measurement at each frequency of operation. At 6 dB output power back-off, the measured drain efficiency is more than 45% at 1.6 GHz, 2.2 GHz and better than 38.2% at 1.9 GHz. In comparison to the balanced mode operation, this corresponds to an improvement of 19.7%, 10.4 % and 16.7% in the drain efficiency achieved at 1.6 GHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.2 GHz respectively. The ratio of Carrier to third order intermodulation distortion is better that 18 dBc at saturation for all three frequencies of operation.
A Pictorial View of the Physical Activity Socialization of Young Adolescents Outside of School

Childhood obesity prevention has fallen short of anticipated impact. Therefore, intervention programs need to be redirected to other potential settings to increase youth physical activity. This qualitative study, using autodriven interview techniques, was conducted to identify out-of-school settings that youth perceive as important for physical activity. Sixty-six children took photographs involving their physical activity involvement. A subsample completed follow-up focus groups. Salient themes included types of physical activities related to free play, fitness, organized sports, and chores. Most photographs included multiple children of similar age and were taken outdoors. Data suggest children associate chores with physical activity and engage in fitness-related activities. In addition, friends and family, the outdoors, and importantly, the home emerged as natural intervention components that may prove useful towards decreasing the physical inactivity and obesity of youth.