Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potassium blocks barium permeation through a calcium-activated potassium channel

Single high-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels from rat skeletal muscle were inserted into planar lipid bilayers, and discrete blocking by the Ba2+ ion was studied. Specifically, the ability of external K+ to reduce the Ba2+ dissociation rate was investigated. In the presence of 150 mM internal K+, 1-5 microM internal Ba2+, and 150 mM external Na+, Ba2+ dissociation is rapid (5 s-1) in external solutions that are kept rigorously K+ free. The addition of external K+ in the low millimolar range reduces the Ba2+ off-rate 20-fold. Other permeant ions, such as Tl+, Rb+, and NH4+ show a similar effect. The half- inhibition constants rise in the order: Tl+ (0.08 mM) less than Rb+ (0.1 mM) less than K+ (0.3 mM) less than Cs+ (0.5 mM) less than NH4+ (3 mM). When external Na+ is replaced by 150 mM N-methyl glucamine, the Ba2+ off-rate is even higher, 20 s-1. External K+ and other permeant ions reduce this rate by approximately 100-fold in the micromolar range of concentrations. Na+ also reduces the Ba2+ off-rate, but at much higher concentrations. The half-inhibition concentrations rise in the order: Rb+ (4 microM) less than K+ (19 microM) much less than Na+ (27 mM) less than Li+ (greater than 50 mM). The results require that the conduction pore of this channel contains at least three sites that may all be occupied simultaneously by conducting ions.
Efficacy of pharmacological methods used for treating tobacco dependence: meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES The present study summarizes available evidence describing efficacy of pharmacological methods used in smoking cessation and presents the results of new meta-analyses examining their 12-month efficacy. This work represents part of a larger program examining the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of different methods used in smoking cessation. PATIENTS AND METHODS The first part of the study included systematic review of literature to identify methods used in smoking cessation with efficacy confirmed on the basis of existing reliable systematic reviews or meta-analyses. In the second stage of the process, for the interventions judged both available in Poland (on the basis of literature search and interviews with healthcare providers) and efficacious, we have performed new meta-analyses designed to establish their 12-month efficacy (continuous or prolonged abstinence). RESULTS We found that the most comprehensive and up-to-date data were available in Cochrane reviews. Meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials performed in the second part of the work showed that adding pharmacological methods of smoking cessation available in Poland, such as nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and bupropion, to nonpharmacological methods increased the probability of smoking cessation and smoking abstinence for > or =12 months by over 1.5 to about 3 times and the number needed to treat to have one patient stop smoking ranged from 8 to 21. CONCLUSIONS We confirmed that pharmacological methods of smoking cessation available in Poland, such as NRT and bupropion, added to nonpharmacological methods increase the probability of smoking abstinence and we quantified 12-month effects of these interventions.
Multiagent supervisory control for antifault propagation in serial production systems

In this paper, a multiagent supervisory control methodology is proposed for antifault propagation in serial production systems by incorporating the idea of multiagent control within the fault-tolerant supervisory control scheme. Especially, the concept of antifault propagation between cascaded processes is established and the synthesis of agent supervisors is investigated based on this concept. A case study of a polypropylene polymerization process in the petrochemical industry is provided to illustrate the proposed control policy.
The role of frequency in the effects of long‐term intermittent stimulation of denervated slow‐twitch muscle in the rat.

1. Rat soleus muscle was denervated by sciatic transection and electrically stimulated for periods of between 3 and 9 weeks with intermittent 1 s bursts of pulses. Most of the bursts were either repeated every 90 s and pulses within them had frequencies between 10 and 100 Hz, or had a frequency of 50 Hz and were repeated at intervals between 60 and 600 s. Comparisons were made with continuous stimulation at 10 Hz. 2. At the end of the period of stimulation, isometric twitches and tetani were measured and, in a proportion, also isotonic shortening velocity. 3. Isometric twitch duration (contraction and relaxation) decreased with time of stimulation. Very similar effects were seen in all animals in which intermittent stimulation had been used. There was a significant relationship between the change in twitch duration and the frequency used within the bursts of chronic stimulation, with slightly larger effects at frequencies of 40 and 60 Hz. The lowest burst repetition rate produced the largest effects. 4. It was confirmed that similar changes were found in denervated muscles that were not stimulated, although these changes were smaller and developed more slowly. 5. The extreme loss of tetanic tension induced in the muscle by denervation was reduced by chronic stimulation, with no significant difference between different regimes, although there were small differences which showed the same patterns of effectiveness described for twitch durations. 6. Continuous stimulation at 10 Hz maintained the twitch contraction and relaxation phases at the values found 3 weeks after denervation, that is it prevented secondary shortening of the twitch. Continuous stimulation reduced tension loss but was, perhaps, less effective than intermittent stimulation. 7. Twitch‐tetanus ratio increased with denervation with little spontaneous reversal later. Stimulation at all frequencies reduced the ratio, but it did not reach normal values. 8. Isotonic shortening velocity was measured in many of the muscles. Maximum velocity was estimated and normalized by muscle length. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
The challenge of motion planning for humanoid robots playing soccer

Motion planning for humanoids suffers from the high dimensionality of the configuration space. Moreover, the need to satisfy dynamic and static constraints increases the overall difficulty. While the above challenges hold for any humanoid robot, the soccer scenario adds difficulties narrowly addressed in humanoids motion planning research. Dynamic environments with active opponents, the requirement to perform short and long term plans to perform soccer relevant actions, and the necessity to plan also movements purposely terminating with a collision with the ball open a completely new scene for researchers. This paper surveys state of the art research in motion planning for humanoids robots playing soccer, outlining connections, differences, and identifying the key aspects that ought to be addressed in order to develop effective soccer players.
Developing CSR in professional football clubs: drivers and phases

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to advance the understanding of how corporate social responsibility (CSR) develops within professional football clubs, along with its organizational implications, phases, drivers and barriers for corporate governance, given that professional football organizations have become particularly strong socio-political business institutions, often home to numerous social and business relationships. Additionally it aims to consider CSR development generally drawing specifically on examples from Scottish professional football while answering two key research questions: what kind of drivers do clubs identify as reasons to develop CSR? and Can developmental phases be identified during this process? Design/methodology/approach – The paper builds on a qualitative case study methodology that draws on primary and secondary data collected across 12 Scottish Premier League (SPL) football clubs. Three stages of data collection were set out including interviews, Web content analysis and.
Univer sity of Amsterdam Programming Research Group Instruction Sequences and Non-uniform Complexity Theory

We develop theory concerning non-uniform complexity in a setting in which the notion of single-pass instruction sequence considered in program algebra is the central notion. We define counterparts of the complexity classes P/poly and NP/poly and formulate a counterpart of the complexity theoretic conjecture that NP 6⊆ P/poly. In addition, we define a notion of completeness for the counterpart of NP/poly using a non-uniform reducibility relation and formulate complexity hypotheses which concern restrictions on the instruction sequences used for computation. We think that the theory developed opens up an additional way of investigating issues concerning non-uniform complexity.
Pregnancy and thrombotic risk

Pregnancy increases the risk of thrombosis three-fold to four-fold. The main reason for the increased risk is hypercoagulability, which has likely evolved to protect women against the bleeding challenges associated with miscarriage and childbirth. The hypercoagulability of pregnancy is present as early as the first trimester and so is the increased risk of thrombosis. Factors that further increase the risk of thromboembolism in pregnancy include a history of thrombosis, inherited and acquired thrombophilia, certain medical conditions, and complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Candidates for anticoagulation are women with a current thrombosis, a history of thrombosis, thrombophilia, and a history of poor pregnancy outcome, or risk factors for postpartum thrombosis. For fetal reasons, the preferred agents for anticoagulation in pregnancy are heparins. There are no large trials of anticoagulation in pregnancy and recommendations are based on case series and the opinion of experts. Nonetheless, anticoagulation is believed to improve the outcome of pregnancy for women at risk.
Crossmodal Interaction in Humans

Since different senses are attuned to the different aspects of the environment, crossmodal interactions can reduce perceptual ambiguity which may result from relying on a single sensory modality. While many studies have shown that visual information affects perception in the other modalities, little is known about how auditory and tactile information affect visual perception. The present thesis explores how the human perceptual system synthesizes visual event perception by using an ambiguous visual motion display: Two identical visual targets moving across each other can be perceived either to bounce off or to stream through each other. A brief sound at the moment the targets coincide biases perception toward bouncing. Extensive psychophysical investigations on this bounce-inducing effect show that: (1) A salient sensory transient biases visual perception toward bouncing, irrespective of the modality in which such a transient is presented. (2) The magnitude of the bounce-inducing effect depends on both the saliency of a sensory transient and the timing of a sensory transient relative to the visual coincidence. (3) The magnitude of the bounce-inducing effect increases as the sensory saliency of bounce-inducing transients increases. (4) The interaction window during which a sensory transient can bias visual perception is fixed in time. (5) Auditory and tactile transients have much larger temporal interaction windows than visual transients. (6) Auditory and tactile transients presented before the visual coincidence tend to have a stronger bounce-inducing effect than those presented after the visual coincidence; visual transients do not show this asymmetry. (7) The lack of attention to the visual moving targets in the streaming/bouncing motion display increases the likelihood of the bouncing percept. Based on these results, I conclude that the streaming percept arises when amodal attentional resource is available for moving stimuli around the moment of the visual coincidence and that the bouncing percept results from the lack of attentional resource. The role of salient sensory transients in the bounce-inducing effect is to distract attention from the coinciding moving stimuli. Thus, this thesis shows that dynamics of attentional resource allocation, not simply associative learning, can be the cause of amodal event perception in humans.
Droplet motion on inclined heterogeneous substrates

Abstract We consider the static and dynamic behaviour of two-dimensional droplets on inclined heterogeneous substrates. We utilize an evolution equation for the droplet thickness based on the long-wave approximation of the Stokes equations in the presence of slip. Through a singular perturbation procedure, evolution equations for the location of the two moving fronts are obtained under the assumption of quasi-static dynamics. The deduced equations, which are verified by direct comparisons with numerical solutions to the governing equation, are scrutinized in a variety of dynamic and equilibrium settings. For example, we demonstrate the possibility for stick–slip dynamics, substrate-induced hysteresis, the uphill motion of the droplet for sufficiently strong chemical gradients and the existence of a critical inclination angle beyond which the droplet can no longer be supported at equilibrium. Where possible, analytical expressions are obtained for various quantities of interest, which are also verified by appropriate numerical experiments.
A Method for PRI Estimation of Multicomponent LFM Signals from MIMO Radars

A Pulse Recurrence Interval (PRI) estimation algorithm for multicomponent linear frequency modulation (M-LFM) signals transmitted from multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) radars is proposed in this paper. Firstly, based on single antenna reconnaissance receiver, the signal model of the intercepted M-LFM signals and problems of PRI estimation are analyzed. Then, PRI estimation algorithm is proposed which is based on locating the maximal value of signal amplitude. Finally, numerical simulations verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. PRI are precisely estimated when signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is greater than 0dB.
Cloud Hooks: Security and Privacy Issues in Cloud Computing

In meteorology, the most destructive extratropical cyclones evolve with the formation of a bent-back front and cloud head separated from the main polar-front, creating a hook that completely encircles a pocket of warm air with colder air. The most damaging winds occur near the tip of the hook. The cloud hook formation provides a useful analogy for cloud computing, in which the most acute obstacles with outsourced services (i.e., the cloud hook) are security and privacy issues. This paper identifies key issues, which are believed to have long-term significance in cloud computing security and privacy, based on documented problems and exhibited weaknesses.
Parenting of adolescents: Action or reaction?

In this chapter, the authors take a different approach from those of other researchers in this volume. They start with a robust set of correlational findings that researchers have virtually always attributed to parent effects, and they present empirical evidence that those particular findings might have been child effects. The study tested the possibility that parenting behaviors might be reactions to youths' delinquency, using data from a short-term longitudinal study of 1,283 youths in mid-adolescence. Measures of delinquency, child disclosure, parental solicitation, parental control, parental support, and parents' bad reactions to disclosure were used. While parental monitoring and parental styles literature concluded that parents' direct control of adolescents' activities and associations works protectively to keep youths away from bad friends and out of trouble, the study found that parents' behaviors were reactions to the youth's problem behavior rather than causes of it. Reasons for why these findings contradict so much previous literature are discussed.
Relaciones entre el autoconcepto y el estilo de vida saludable en la adolescencia media: un modelo exploratorio

The relationship between self-concept and a healthy lifestyle in adolescence: an exploratory model. A gender-based model has been designed to study the relationships that exist among self-concept dimensions and some health-promoting behaviours (consumption of healthy food and participation in sports) and health-risk behaviours (consumption of tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and unhealthy food). The model was employed on a representative sample of 1,038 adolescents from the Valencian Community, aged between 15 and 18 years old (528 girls and 510 boys, M age= 16.3; SD= .92). Path analysis with the Lisrel VIII program maximum likelihood method was used. The results show the model's good fit to the data with regard to both the boys (χ2/gl= 2.57; RMSR= .04; RMSEA= 0.5; GFI= .98; NNFI= .91; CFI= .97; CN= 350.10) and the girls (χ2/gl= 3.28; RMSR= .04; RMSEA= 0.6; GFI= .98; NNFI= .87; CFI= .95; CN= 284.42). For the two sexes, behavioural conduct, social acceptance and close friendship emerged as good predictors of health-risk behaviours. Athletic competence had an indirect influence on health behaviours, with participation in sports being a mediating variable in that relationship.
Daily Low-dose Tacrolimus Is a Safe and Effective Immunosuppressive Regimen During Telaprevir-based Triple Therapy for Hepatitis C Virus Recurrence After Liver Transplant

Background Graft loss because of hepatitis C virus recurrence is a serious problem after liver transplantation (LT), and the response to pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN) and ribavirin (RBV) is poor. The significantly better response rates achieved with telaprevir (TVR)-based triple therapy have led to better graft and patient survival rates, but severe drug interactions may limit the usefulness of this therapy for LT patients. We report our single-center experience with a specially developed protocol that involved administering a low daily dose of tacrolimus (TAC) to a cohort of 17 patients with a recurrence of hepatitis C virus genotype 1 after LT. Methods Patients were treated with TVR, PEG-IFN, and RBV for 12 weeks, followed by 12 or 36 weeks of dual therapy with PEG-IFN and RBV. After TVR administration was initiated, the TAC dosage was skipped until trough levels began to decline; it was then administered at a dose of 0.1 mg once or twice daily. Tacrolimus trough levels and laboratory values were closely monitored during the TVR phase. Results Deviations in trough levels were avoided, thus preventing any clinically evident renal toxicity related to TAC. In addition, histologic studies performed at the end of therapy showed that no rejection episodes had occurred. All patients tolerated the medication. Sustained virologic response was documented for 10 of 17 patients (58%) 24 weeks after end of treatment. Conclusion In conclusion, substantial dose reduction and daily administration of low doses of TAC compose a safe and efficient immunosuppressive regimen during TVR-based triple therapy.
Patterns of pharmacotherapy and health care utilization and costs prior to total hip or total knee replacement in patients with osteoarthritis.

OBJECTIVE To examine patterns of pharmacotherapy and health care utilization and costs prior to total knee replacement (TKR) or total hip replacement (THR) in patients with osteoarthritis (OA). METHODS Using a large US health insurance claims database, we identified all patients with OA who were ages ≥40 years and had undergone TKR or THR between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2007. Patients with <2 years of complete data prior to TKR or THR were excluded, as were those with evidence of other conditions for which TKR or THR may be performed (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis). We then examined patterns of health care utilization and costs over the 2-year period preceding surgery. RESULTS A total of 16,527 patients met all study entry criteria. Their mean ± SD age was 56.6 ± 6.1 years, and 56% of them were women. In the 2 years preceding surgery, 55% of patients received prescription nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, 58% received opioids, and 50% received injections of corticosteroids. The numbers of patients receiving these drugs increased steadily during the presurgery period. The mean ± SD total health care costs in the 2 years preceding surgery were $19,466 ± 29,869, of which outpatient care, inpatient care, and pharmacotherapy represented 45%, 20%, and 20%, respectively. Costs increased from $2,094 in the eighth calendar quarter prior to surgery to $3,100 in the final quarter. CONCLUSION Patients with OA who undergo THR or TKR have relatively high levels of use of pain-related pharmacotherapy and high total health care costs in the 2-year period preceding surgery. Levels of utilization and cost increase as the date of surgery approaches.
Anthocyanins attenuate alcohol-induced hepatic injury by inhibiting pro-inflammation signalling

We assessed phytochemical components of anthocyanins from purple sweet potato (PSP) and purple potato (PP) with UPLC-MS/MS, and investigated their inhibitory effect on inflammatory response in alcoholic liver disease (ALD). Results showed that serum AST and ALT levels in PP anthocyanins (PPAs) and PSP anthocyanins (PSPAs) treatments were lower than those of alcohol-treated group. PPAs and PSPAs could inhibit mRNA expressions of inflammatory factors (TNF-α, VCAM-1, IFN-γ and CXCL-1). The mRNA levels of NF-κB, STAT, and TLR in PPAs and PSPAs treatment groups were lower than in alcohol treatment group. Our results indicate that PP and PSP are good source of anti-inflammatory anthocyanins to prevent ALD.
Wind power simulation model for reliability evaluation

The rapidly increasing contribution of wind power to electric power generation around the world has motivated a need to develop more widely applicable methodologies for evaluating the actual benefits of adding wind turbines to traditional power generating systems. Reliability and cost evaluation of wind generation systems requires simulation of long-term chronological wind speed data for specified geographical wind farm sites. The main steps to construct the wind speed simulation model are presented in this paper. It is important that the developed models maintain the main statistical characteristics of the wind farm locations. Wind speed data from two wind sites are used to illustrate the model. The results of wind data simulation, power output profile, and power system risk evaluation are presented and compared using different types of wind models at different wind farm sites. The objective is to derive a general and appropriate model for reliability evaluation of power systems containing wind sources
Speech–language acquisition in children adopted from China: a longitudinal investigation of two children

The English speech – language development of two toddlers adopted from China by US families was followed longitudinally for several months after their arrival in the US. MX, adopted at 13½ months, exhibited a faster rate of lexical and phonological development than GY, adopted at 20 months. Both girls were also given a thorough speech – language assessment at approximately two years post-adoption. Differences in performance were still apparent, with MX scoring higher than GY on all measures. However, all but one of GY's scores were within normal limits. Age at time of adoption (and correspondingly less time spent in an institution), quality and quantity of prelinguistic vocalizations, and general cognitive abilities are discussed as possible factors contributing to observed differences in rate of early English acquisition and later language skills in preschool.