Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Injuries in female collegiate swimmers due to swimming and cross training.

OBJECTIVE To identify and compare the nature and frequency of training and cross-training injuries incurred by members of a women's collegiate swim team. DESIGN A longitudinal survey of training-room and medical records for 7 years, classifying injuries by diagnosis and time lost from participation. SETTING Division I women's collegiate swimming program, United States. PARTICIPANTS All swimmers in a Division I women's collegiate swimming program over 7 years, for a total of 68 swimmers. ASSESSMENT OF RISK FACTOR: Not applicable. INTERVENTION Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES "Injury" was defined as any contact with a trainer or physician that resulted in evaluation or treatment. Each injury was categorized with respect to (a) activity during which injury was incurred; (b) diagnosis, including body part injured; (c) time lost from participation in practice or competition; and (d) severity, i.e., minor (< or = 7 days), moderate (7-21 days), and major (> 21 days). An "Exposure" was defined as participation in one practice session or competition. MAIN RESULTS The overall injury rate per 1,000 exposures per athlete was 2.12; 44% of injuries were due to swimming, 44% to cross training, and 11% to activities unrelated to athletics. Cross-training injuries occurred primarily in the lower extremities, while swimming injuries occurred more commonly in the upper extremities. The ratio of upper to lower extremity injuries due to swimming was 3:1, whereas the ratio for cross training was 1:4. CONCLUSIONS Injuries to swimmers occur at a lower rate per exposure than to other collegiate athletic populations. Swimming injuries occurred primarily in the upper extremities, especially the shoulder. Lower extremity injuries occurred primarily due to cross training. We conclude that swimming is relatively safe compared to other collegiate sports, but special care should be used in designing injury-avoiding cross-training programs.
Changes in some endocrine glands of white-tailed deer as affectd by season, sex and age.

A total of 187 male and female white-tailed deer of various ages, collected during the several months of the year, provided data on changes in body-organ weights and other measurements as they are affected by season, sex and age. All animals showed a loss of weight during the late winter. Lens weights increased progressively in a straight line from age 4 months through 12 months. This curve of lens weight from all-aged animals was parabolic in shape. Minimal width of the zona glomerulosa, zonae fasciculata/reticularis, minimal weights of the body, adrenal and thyroid glands, maximal thyroidal colloid and minimal thyroid cell height were all found to occur in mid or late winter. These data are discussed in relation to food supplies, the environmental factors of light and temperature and the sexual activity which occurs at this time. Maximal weights and activity of the various endocrine glands did not appear to be synchronized with any major environmental factor or physiological activity.
Trade liberalization , Agglomeration of Firms , and Unemployment ∗

We construct a two-country model with search friction in the labor market to investigate the effect of trade liberalization on the unemployment rates in both countries. In this model, there are two sectors: homogenous good sector and differentiated products sector. We assume that in the homogenous good sector there is no labor market friction and trade costs whereas in the differentiated products sector, there is labor market friction and trade costs between countries. In both short-run, trade liberalization increases the number of firms and lowers the unemployment rates in the larger country whereas decreases the number of firms and increases the unemployment rates in the smaller countries. On the other hand, in the long-run, trade liberalization increases (decreases) the unemployment rates in the larger (smaller) country. JEL Classification: F10, J64, R10.
Gender and race/ethnicity differences in lead dose biomarkers.

OBJECTIVES We sought to identify predictors of lead concentrations in the blood, tibias, and patellae of older adults and to describe differences by gender, race/ethnicity, and other factors that can influence lead toxicokinetics and, thus modify health effects. METHODS Participants aged 50 to 70 years (N=1140) were randomly identified from selected neighborhoods in Baltimore, Maryland. We measured lead concentrations by anodic stripping voltammetry (in blood) and (109)Cd-induced K-shell x-ray fluorescence (in bone). We used multiple linear regression to identify predictors of lead concentrations. RESULTS Mean (SD) lead concentrations in blood, tibias, and patellae were 3.5 (2.4) mug/dL, 18.9 (12.5) mug/g, and 6.8 (18.1) mug/g, respectively. Tibia concentrations were 29% higher in African Americans than in Whites (P < .01). We observed effect modification by race/ethnicity on the association of gender and physical activity to blood lead concentrations and by gender on the association of age to tibia lead concentrations. Patella lead concentrations differed by gender; apolipoprotein E genotype modified this relation. CONCLUSIONS African Americans evidenced a prominent disparity in lifetime lead dose. Women may be at higher risk of release of lead from bone and consequent health effects because of increased bone demineralization with aging.
A Parallel Distributed Genetic Algorithm for the Prize Collecting Steiner Tree Problem

Combinatorial optimization problems are commonly tackled through the use of metaheuristics aimed to improve the way the search space is explored (diversification) and how promising areas are exploited (intensification), in order to obtain good-quality solutions. We present a distributed genetic algorithm to solve the Prize Collecting Steiner Tree Problem, a classical combinatorial optimization problem. The proposed algorithm improves the quality of the solutions by asynchronously combining distributed populations that evolve in parallel, starting from initial heterogeneous configurations. To show the effectiveness of this approach an empirical study that considers both execution time and solution quality is presented. Results show that better solutions are reached when initial populations combine configurations with high and low fitness.
Exploring recognition network representations for efficient speech inference on highly parallel platforms

The emergence of highly parallel computing platforms is enabling new trade-offs in algorithm design for automatic speech recognition. It naturally motivates the following investigation: do the most computationally efficient sequential algorithms lead to the most computationally efficient parallel algorithms? In this paper we explore two contending recognition network representations for speech inference engines: the linear lexical model (LLM) and the weighted finite state transducer (WFST). We demonstrate that while an inference engine using the simpler LLM representation evaluates 22× more transitions per second than the advanced WFST representation, the simple structure of the LLM representation allows 4.7-6.4× faster evaluation and 53-65× faster operands gathering for each state transition. We use the 5k Wall Street Journal corpus to experiment on the NVIDIA GTX480 (Fermi) and the NVIDIA GTX285 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), and illustrate that the performance of a speech inference engine based on the LLM representation is competitive with the WFST representation on highly parallel computing platforms.
The Copenhagen Interpretation : A struggle to relate observation to the mathematical representation of quantum mechanics November

Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy prying eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies, Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing? Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car? And driven the Hamadryad from the wood To seek a shelter in some happier star? Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, The elfin from the green grass, and from me The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
Complex-disease networks of trait-associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) unveiled by information theory

Objective Thousands of complex-disease single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been discovered in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). However, these intragenic SNPs have not been collectively mined to unveil the genetic architecture between complex clinical traits. The authors hypothesize that biological annotations of host genes of trait-associated SNPs may reveal the biomolecular modularity across complex-disease traits and offer insights for drug repositioning. Methods Trait-to-polymorphism (SNPs) associations confirmed in GWAS were used. A novel method to quantify trait–trait similarity anchored in Gene Ontology annotations of human proteins and information theory was developed. The results were then validated with the shortest paths of physical protein interactions between biologically similar traits. Results A network was constructed consisting of 280 significant intertrait similarities among 177 disease traits, which covered 1438 well-validated disease-associated SNPs. Thirty-nine percent of intertrait connections were confirmed by curators, and the following additional studies demonstrated the validity of a proportion of the remainder. On a phenotypic trait level, higher Gene Ontology similarity between proteins correlated with smaller ‘shortest distance’ in protein interaction networks of complexly inherited diseases (Spearman p<2.2×10−16). Further, ‘cancer traits’ were similar to one another, as were ‘metabolic syndrome traits’ (Fisher's exact test p=0.001 and 3.5×10−7, respectively). Conclusion An imputed disease network by information-anchored functional similarity from GWAS trait-associated SNPs is reported. It is also demonstrated that small shortest paths of protein interactions correlate with complex-disease function. Taken together, these findings provide the framework for investigating drug targets with unbiased functional biomolecular networks rather than worn-out single-gene and subjective canonical pathway approaches.
Combination therapy with insulin glargine and exenatide: real-world outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes

Abstract Objective: To investigate the real-world use of combination insulin glargine/exenatide therapy for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and associated treatment persistence and glycemic control. Methods: In this retrospective study, data were extracted from a national US insurance claims database for patients with T2DM for whom insulin glargine and exenatide were co-prescribed in differing order: insulin glargine added after exenatide (EXE+); exenatide added after insulin glargine (GLA+); glargine and exenatide initiated together (GLA + EXE). Patients had continuous health plan coverage for 6 months pre- (baseline) and 1-year post-index (follow-up). Results: A total of 453 patients were eligible for analysis: 141 patients were included in the EXE+ cohort, 281 in the GLA+ cohort, and 31 in the GLA + EXE cohort. There were significant differences between the groups at baseline, including a significantly lower A1C in the GLA+ versus the EXE+ cohort (p = 0.0023). Around one third of patients stayed on both drugs up until the end of the follow-up period (GLA+: 30.2%; EXE+: 29.0%; GLA + EXE: 29.0%). However, more patients stayed on insulin glargine than on exenatide in each cohort. Significant A1C reductions were observed in each of the cohorts at follow-up: GLA+: −0.4%; EXE+: −0.9%; GLA + EXE: −1.2%; p < 0.01, and were significantly higher in the GLA + EXE and EXE+ cohorts than in the GLA+ cohort (p = 0.03 and p = 0.002, respectively). The mean number of hypoglycemic events increased slightly from baseline but remained low in each of the cohorts (GLA+: 0.12 to 1.42; EXE+: 0.09 to 1.04; GLA + EXE: 0.23 to 1.87 per patient, all p > 0.1). Conclusions: Combined therapy with insulin glargine and exenatide resulted in A1C reductions in T2DM patients with poor glycemic control without a significantly increased risk of hypoglycemia irrespective of treatment order. Limitations of this study are the between-cohort differences at baseline, lack of a comparator group, and small n number, particularly in the GLA + EXE cohort.
Architectures for low power ultra-wideband radio receivers in the 3.1-5GHz band for data rates < 10Mbps

This paper compares different receiver architectures for UWB radio communication in the 3.1-5GHz band, targeting data rates up to 10Mbps, in terms of their BER performance and power consumption. A receiver, in which some correlations are carried out in the analog domain seems to outperform a fully digital receiver, commonly suggested for baseband UWB. This paper proves that for equal processing gain requirements the partially analog receiver consumes 7 times less power per received bit than the fully digital one.
Cryptographic puzzles and distance-bounding protocols: Practical tools for RFID security

Widespread adoption of RFID technology is being slowed down because of increasing public concerns about associated security threats. This paper shows that it is possible to enhance the security of RFID systems by requiring readers to perform a computational effort test. Readers must solve a cryptographic puzzle - one of the components of the Weakly Secret Bit Commitment (WSBC) sent by tags - to obtain the static identifier of the interrogated tag. The method we present is based on a simple concept already used in security applications such as anti-spam or TCP SYN flooding protection, yet original in the RFID context until now. The scheme provides privacy protection while being an effective countermeasure against the indiscriminate disclosure of the whole contents of a large number of tags. Then, we scrutinize the combined use of cryptographic puzzles and distance-bounding protocols. First, a classical and relatively straight-forward solution is presented. Secondly, we introduce a protocol named Noent, that follows a new approach that reduces drawbacks associated with WSBC such as key delegation, whilst gaining all the advantages of employing distance-bounding protocols such as the certainty on the distance between a tag and reader.
Underactuated 3-finger robotic gripper for grasping fabrics

In apparel industries, the handling of fabrics still remains a manual work and its automation is a real challenge. In this paper, a three finger gripper is developed for grasping (pinching and clamping) fabrics under different ways. It is inspired by the human fingers movements in order to grasp a piece of fabric that is laid on a table. The conceptualization, the design and the prototype of the gripper are presented, along with the kinematic and static analysis of its mechanism. The proposed versatile gripper is based on a simple mechanism, where the two of the three fingers (pointer and middle) are underactuated by a tendon. Also, the plan for the sequence and the synchronization of the movements of the fingers is defined according to the grasping task. A prototype of the gripper is produced using 3D printing technique, which keeps the total cost very low. The prototype has been tested experimentally under several grasping tasks, where its agility is demonstrated.
Measuring Discrimination in Socially-Sensitive Decision Records

Discrimination in social sense (e.g., against minorities and disadvantaged groups) is the subject of many laws worldwide, and it has been extensively studied in the social and economic sciences. We tackle the problem of determining, given a dataset of historical decision records, a precise measure of the degree of discrimination suffered by a given group (e.g., an etnic minority) in a given context (e.g., a geographic area) with respect to the decision (e.g. credit denial). In our approach, this problem is rephrased in a classification rule based setting, and a collection of quantitative measures of discrimination is introduced, on the basis of existing norms and regulations. The measures are defined as functions of the contingency table of a classification rule, and their statistical significance is assessed, relying on a large body of statistical inference methods for proportions. Based on this basic method, we are then able to address the more general problems of: (1) unveiling all discriminatory decision patterns hidden in the historical data, combining discrimination analysis with association rule mining, (2) unveiling discrimination in classifiers that learn over training data biased by discriminatory decisions, and (3) in the case of rule-based classifiers, sanitizing discriminatory rules by correcting their confidence. Our approach is validated on the German credit dataset and on the CPAR classifier.
Helicobacter pylori FlgR Is an Enhancer-Independent Activator of σ54-RNA Polymerase Holoenzyme

ABSTRACT Helicobacter pylori FlgR activates transcription with σ54-RNA polymerase holoenzyme (σ54-holoenzyme) from at least five flagellar operons. Activators of σ54-holoenzyme generally bind enhancer sequences located >70 bp upstream of the promoter and contact σ54-holoenzyme bound at the promoter through DNA looping to activate transcription. H. pylori FlgR lacks the carboxy-terminal DNA-binding domain present in most σ54-dependent activators. As little as 42 bp of DNA upstream of the flaB promoter and 26 bp of DNA sequence downstream of the transcriptional start site were sufficient for efficient FlgR-mediated expression from a flaB′-′xylE reporter gene in H. pylori, indicating that FlgR does not use an enhancer to activate transcription. Other examples of σ54-dependent activators that lack a DNA-binding domain include Chlamydia trachomatis CtcC and activators from the other Chlamydia spp. whose genomes have been sequenced. FlgR from Helicobacter hepaticus and Campylobacter jejuni, which are closely related to H. pylori, appear to have carboxy-terminal DNA-binding domains, suggesting that the loss of the DNA-binding domain from H. pylori FlgR occurred after the divergence of these bacterial species. Removal of the amino-terminal regulatory domain of FlgR resulted in a constitutively active form of the protein that activated transcription from σ54-dependent genes in Escherichia coli. The truncated FlgR protein also activated transcription with E. coli σ54-holoenzyme in an in vitro transcription assay.
RETROSPECTIVE: Evaluation of the RAW Microprocessor: An Exposed-Wire-Delay Architecture for ILP and Streams

This paper, published in 2004, was an evaluation of our prototype of a scalable general-purpose tiled multicore processor called Raw. Original Proposal. An early vision of Raw was proposed in the famous Sept 1997 IEEE Computer “Billion Transistor Microprocessor” issue [O48], where a number of leading architecture groups proposed how to productively put to use a billion transistors in a single chip processor. At the time, computer architecture researchers were very wedded to the promise of single-threaded performance, which was advancing rapidly due to Dennard Scaling, circuit design techniques refined in the GHz frequency wars, and the rapid development of out-of-order superscalar technology. The idea of parallelizing programs by hand had become unpalatable to the architectural community (and indeed, program committees). As a result, most of the “Billion Transistor“ proposals focused on hiding resources behind the microarchitecture. Our 1997 paper proposed that limits due to wire delay, rapidly declining efficiency due to microarchitectural overheads, and complexity would ultimately require a shift to tiled multicore architectures that exposed parallel VLSI resources to software in a physically scalable way (i.e. cores). The paper further proposed the use of what we later termed scalar operand networks [O45], a class of networks optimized for minimal latency of ordered communication of scalars between cores, and compiler technology for automatically parallelizing programs across cores using this network. Finally, it proposed an idea which we internally called “all-software hardware“, which was to try to implement many traditional hardware mechanisms in software, to reduce hardware area and allow more parallelism to be exposed.
Molecular Markers of Tumor Progression in Melanoma

Malignant melanoma represents one of the most aggressive malignancies but outcome is highly variable with early tumor lesions having an excellent prognosis following resection. We review here the data on identification of genes involved in the progression of melanoma as a result of expression array studies, genomic profiling, and genetic models. We focus on the role of tumor suppressors involved in cell cycle function, DNA repair, and genome maintenance. Highlighted are the roles of loss of p16 in promoting neoplasia in cooperation with deregulated MAPK signaling, and the role of loss of the RASSF1A protein in promoting chromosomal instability. The interactions between point mutation in growth signaling molecules and epigenetic changes in genes involved in DNA repair and cell division are discussed.
Analysis of Flexural Strength and Monotonic Load to Failure Following Simulated Chairside Adjustments and Repair in a Lithium Disilicate Glass-Ceramic

ANALYSIS OF FLEXURAL STRENGTH AND MONOTONIC LOAD TO FALIURE FOLLOWING SIMULATED CHAIRSIDE ADJUSTMENTS IN LITHIUM DISILICATE GLASS-CERAMIC Ali H Ramadhan, DDS Marquette University, 2017 Introduction: There are no studies regarding e.max Press that evaluate post-adjustment healing protocols and their effect on the load to failure in a clinically relevant test. It is essential to find the ultimate treatment protocol which will help clinicians preserve the physical properties of the ceramic restoration after adjustment. Material and Methods: The total number of samples used in this study was 440 IPS e.max press discs. The discs were 15 mm in diameter and 1 mm of thickness. The material was tested for flexural strength and monotonic load to failure. The test was done in two parts and with the same tests. The flexural strength contained 40 specimens per group while the load to failure group had 20 specimens per group. In the biaxial flexural test, the specimens were loaded at 0.5 mm/min until failure using a ring on ring arrangement and the biaxial strength was recorded. The monotonic load to failure specimens were cemented with a resin cement on epoxy resin blocks, and loaded with a 50-mm hemisphere at a cross head speed of 0.5 mm/min. The tests were performed on a universal testing machine (Instron). Weibull statistics determined intergroup differences. Results: In Part I: regarding the flexural strength tests, the Weibull plot and likelihood ratio contour plot revealed a significant difference between the control group and the other groups. Regarding the monotonic load to failure tests, the Weibull plot and likelihood ratio contour plot revealed no significant difference between the control and glazed groups. The diamond adjusted group was significantly different from the control group and the glazed group. In Part II: Regarding the monotonic load to failure, the Weibull plot and likelihood ratio contour plot revealed no significant difference between the tested groups. The strength of all the groups when subjected to glaze treatment after divesting increased in comparison with groups in Part I. Conclusions: Glazing treatment improved the physical properties of adjusted IPS e.max Press discs when subjected to biaxial flexural test and monotonic load to failure. When clinical adjustments are made on the IPS e.max Press intaglio surface, a subsequent glazing treatment is recommended.