Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Substance use and misuse in a mountain ultramarathon: new insight into ultrarunners population?

ABSTRACT Endurance and ultra-endurance events have become increasingly popular. The aim of our study was to explore the use of medication among endurance runners participating in the 2014 Infernal Trail des Vosges. Among the 389 runners engaged, 297 (76.3%) completed a specific questionnaire dealing with substance use/misuse. Our results show a 27% (before the race) and 18% (during the race) prevalence of substance use. The two major classes of substances used were non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs; 9.8%) and painkillers (6.7%), principally because of osteo-articular pain (29.6%) or to prevent pain (28.2%). A positive correlation was found between substance consumption before (past month) and during the race (overall medication: p < 0.0001; NSAIDs: p = 0.008). Our results could be explained by the specific characteristics of ultrarunners predominantly motivated by personal achievement and general health (recreational approach). However, education interventions should further be delivered regarding the risks of substance use in ultra-endurance events.
Triple arthrodesis in adults with non-paralytic disease. A minimum ten-year follow-up study.

BACKGROUND The triple arthrodesis was developed to treat sequelae of neurologic disorders affecting the hindfoot. Today, the typical adult patient undergoing this procedure has degenerative disease, usually not related to a neurologic disorder. The purpose of this study was to investigate the long-term outcome of triple arthrodesis in this patient population. METHODS Twenty-seven adult patients (thirty-one feet) who had undergone triple arthrodesis for the treatment of chronic hindfoot pain and had been followed for a minimum of ten years completed an outcomes questionnaire, and twenty-two patients (twenty-six feet) were available for physical examination, radiographs, and functional testing. The mean age of the patients who were examined was forty-five years at the time of the surgery, and the mean duration of follow-up of those patients was fourteen years (range, eleven to eighteen years). RESULTS Twenty-five (93%) of the patients were satisfied with the result of the treatment. However, only eleven (41%) reported that they could perform moderate activity with mild or no pain in the foot and ankle. Twenty patients (74%) reported moderate-to-severe difficulty with, or an inability to negotiate, uneven surfaces. The mean Short Form-36 (SF-36) physical component outcomes score was 35.2 points, well below the mean of 50 points for the United States population. The SF-36 score was significantly lower for patients with systemic inflammatory disease (primarily rheumatoid arthritis). There was an average 12 degrees (27%) loss of plantar flexion but no significant loss of dorsiflexion compared with the untreated foot. Severe arthrosis developed in seven of the twenty-six ankles, in seven naviculocuneiform joints, and in six tarsometatarsal joints. Some patients had severe arthrosis at more than one level, and three patients later required an ankle arthrodesis. There were no nonunions or revisions of the triple arthrodeses. The average patient performances on the six-minute walk and the 3-m up-and-go functional tests were well below the age-controlled means. CONCLUSIONS Triple arthrodesis may provide patients with substantial long-term relief of preoperative symptoms. However, there may also be adverse consequences, particularly degenerative changes in adjacent joints, that may be reasons for orthopaedic surgeons to consider alternatives to triple arthrodesis when feasible. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Therapeutic study, Level IV (case series [no, or historical, control group]). See Instructions to Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Low Protein Diets Improve Survival from Peritonitis in Guinea Pigs

Enteral diets with different protein content were tested to determine their effect on outcome in a model of protracted bacterial peritonitis. Hartley guinea pigs were provided with gastrostomies, and 1 week later, osmotic pumps were implanted into the peritoneal cavity to allow for continuous release of live bacteria over the course of 1 week. Three days after pump implantation, the animals began receiving isocaloric enteral diets that contained 5%, 10%, 15%, or 20% of total calories as protein. After 2 weeks of observation, the survivors were killed. All animals lost weight during the 2-weeks period, but there was no difference in weight lost. Nitrogen balance correlated with dietary protein. The mortality rate was significantly higher in the groups that received 15% and 20% of total calories compared with the group that received 5% (p less than 0.05). Although dietary protein in the 5% group was insufficient for meeting the nutritional needs of the animal, survival was best in this group. Possible explanations are that protein restriction in this model may either augment host defence or impair bacterial virulence.
Characteristics of Pattern Formation and Evolution in Approximations of Physarum Transport Networks

Most studies of pattern formation place particular emphasis on its role in the development of complex multicellular body plans. In simpler organisms, however, pattern formation is intrinsic to growth and behavior. Inspired by one such organism, the true slime mold Physarum polycephalum, we present examples of complex emergent pattern formation and evolution formed by a population of simple particle-like agents. Using simple local behaviors based on chemotaxis, the mobile agent population spontaneously forms complex and dynamic transport networks. By adjusting simple model parameters, maps of characteristic patterning are obtained. Certain areas of the parameter mapping yield particularly complex long term behaviors, including the circular contraction of network lacunae and bifurcation of network paths to maintain network connectivity. We demonstrate the formation of irregular spots and labyrinthine and reticulated patterns by chemoattraction. Other Turing-like patterning schemes were obtained by using chemorepulsion behaviors, including the self-organization of regular periodic arrays of spots, and striped patterns. We show that complex pattern types can be produced without resorting to the hierarchical coupling of reaction-diffusion mechanisms. We also present network behaviors arising from simple pre-patterning cues, giving simple examples of how the emergent pattern formation processes evolve into networks with functional and quasi-physical properties including tensionlike effects, network minimization behavior, and repair to network damage. The results are interpreted in relation to classical theories of biological pattern formation in natural systems, and we suggest mechanisms by which emergent pattern formation processes may be used as a method for spatially represented unconventional computation.
Evaluation of Safe Kids Week 2001: prevention of scald and burn injuries in young children

Objective: To evaluate Safe Kids Week 2001—a national public awareness campaign on scald and burn prevention—run by Safe Kids Canada. Design: Random digit dial telephone survey. Setting: Canada. Subjects: Parents or guardians of children under 9 years. Two groups of parents were compared, those “exposed” to the campaign (defined as having “seen, heard, or read anything about scald and burn prevention during the period 28 May to 3 June 2001”) and those “unexposed” to the campaign. Intervention: Burn safety information was disseminated via the media, 5000 retail stores, and 348 community partners across Canada. The campaign emphasized four key messages: (1) Lower your water temperature, hot tap water could burn your child! (2) Make sure your child is safe in the kitchen. (3) Keep hot drinks away from your child. (4) Check your smoke alarms regularly. Outcome measures: Change in parental knowledge and behavior. Results: A total of 29 871 telephone numbers were called, with a household refusal rate of 27%. Nationally, 14% of parents were exposed to the campaign and 504 parents were interviewed, 251 in the “exposed” group and 253 in the “unexposed” group. Parents exposed to Safe Kids Week 2001 were 1.5–5 times more likely to be aware of key campaign messages, and 2–3 times more likely to test and lower the water heater temperature, compared with unexposed parents. Conclusion: Safe Kids Week 2001 reached a significant proportion of parents of young children. In addition, the campaign appeared to increase burn safety knowledge and lead to behavior changes among exposed parents, compared with unexposed parents.
Accelerating GOR Algorithm Using CUDA

Protein secondary structure prediction is very important for its molecular structure. GOR algorithm is one of the most successful computational methods and has been widely used as an efficient analysis tool to predict secondary structure from protein sequence. However, the running time is unbearable with sharp growth in protein database. Fortunately, CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) provides a promising approach to accelerate secondary structure prediction. Therefore, we propose a fine-grained parallel implementation to parallelize GOR-IV package for accelerating protein secondary structure prediction, in which each amino acid would be assigned to one single CUDA thread, hence protein secondary structure prediction would be parallelized by many CUDA threads simultaneously, and constant cache is resorted to cache parameter table. Experimental results show a speedup factor is more than 173X over original GOR-IV version.
WatchMI: applications of watch movement input on unmodified smartwatches

In this demo, we show that it is possible to enhance touch interaction on unmodified smartwatch to support continuous pressure touch, twist and pan gestures, by only analyzing the real-time data of Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). Our evaluation results show that the three proposed input interfaces are accurate, noise-resistant, easy to use and can be deployed to a variety of smartwatches. We then showcase the potential of this work with seven example applications. During the demo session, users can try the prototype.
THE MISCONCEPTION OF ONLINE COMMENT THREADS

Web 2.0 has opened the gates to journalism for online audiences which increasingly participate in the production, dissemination and response processes of news. Comment threads in particular have grown exponentially in recent years as readers have embraced the opportunity to bypass the Letters' Editor and publish their opinions directly to a newspaper website. This rise in participatory journalism has led to new challenges for journalists as they have strived to negotiate the often murky waters of user-generated content. To date, research in this field has been mostly limited to national and international news websites despite local news providers having a close connection and engagement with their communities. This paper therefore seeks to fill this gap partially by analysing the content of comment threads on two British local newspaper websites via a content analysis, while also exploring the experiences of journalists via news room observation and interviews. A contradictory picture emerges whereby journalists accept with some reluctance that comment threads possess a democratic function but one which is potentially damaging to the brand as well as resource intensive. This is juxtaposed by more positive findings that reveal buoyant levels of interactivity between readers in comment threads together with a thirst for engagement in public affairs.
Mobile Semantic Query Distribution with Graph-Based Outsourcing of Subqueries

While mobile computing domains have illustrated the usefulness of mobile semantic data, improvements in mobile hardware are paving the way for local semantic data access. To support this, a number of tools have been developed for storing, querying and reasoning over local semantic data. However, recent benchmarks have shown that mobile hardware still imposes limitations on efficient local data querying. Additionally, mobile scenarios pose unique challenges due to their dynamic nature; making it difficult to replicate semantic data a priori for local querying. In this paper, we propose a graphbased query distribution approach, which efficiently distributes query execution across configured remote datasets. Importantly, our approach aims to identify subqueries that can be outsourced to remote datasets, thus reducing local joining work.
Coding of Shape Features in the Macaque Anterior Intraparietal Area

The exquisite ability of primates to grasp and manipulate objects relies on the transformation of visual information into motor commands. To this end, the visual system extracts object affordances that can be used to program and execute the appropriate grip. The macaque anterior intraparietal (AIP) area has been implicated in the extraction of affordances for the purpose of grasping. Neurons in the AIP area respond during visually guided grasping and to the visual presentation of objects. A subset of AIP neurons is also activated by two-dimensional images of objects and even by outline contours defining the object shape, but it is unknown how AIP neurons actually represent object shape. In this study, we used a stimulus reduction approach to determine the minimum effective shape feature evoking AIP responses. AIP neurons responding to outline shapes also responded selectively to very small fragment stimuli measuring only 1–2°. This fragment selectivity could not be explained by differences in eye movements or simple orientation selectivity, but proved to be highly dependent on the relative position of the stimulus in the receptive field. Our findings challenge the current understanding of the AIP area as a critical stage in the dorsal stream for the extraction of object affordances.
Common and specific amygdala-function perturbations in 2 depressed versus anxious adolescents

41 Context: Few studies directly compare amygdala function in depressive and anxiety disorders. 42 Data from longitudinal research emphasize the need for such studies in adolescents. 43 Objective: To compare amygdala response to varying attention and emotion conditions among 44 adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) or anxiety disorders, relative to adolescents 45 with no psychopathology. 46 Design: Case-Control-Study. 47 Setting: Government Clinical Research Institute. 48 Participants: Eighty-seven adolescents matched on age, gender, intelligence, and social class: 26 49 with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD; 14 with and 12 without anxiety disorders), 16 with 50 anxiety disorders but no depression, and 45 with no psychopathology. 51 Main Outcome Measures: Blood oxygenated level dependent signal in the amygdala, measured 52 using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging. During imaging, participants viewed 53 facial expressions (neutral, fearful, angry, happy) while attention was constrained (afraid, 54 hostility, nose width ratings) or unconstrained (passive-viewing). 55 Results: Left and right amygdala activation differed as a function of diagnosis, facial expression, 56 and attention-condition both when comorbid MDD/anxiety patients were included and excluded 57 (group-by-emotion-by-attention interactions: p-values≤.03). Focusing on fearful-face-viewing 58 events, anxiety and MDD patients both differed in amygdala responses from healthy participants 59 and from each other during passive-viewing. However, both MDD and anxiety patients, relative 60 to healthy participants, exhibited similar signs of amygdala hyper-activation to fearful faces when 61 rating subjectively experienced fear. 62 Conclusions: Adolescent MDD and anxiety disorders exhibit common and distinct functional 63 neural correlates during face processing. Attention modulates the degree to which common or 64 distinct amygdala perturbations manifest in these patient groups, relative to healthy peers. 65 66
A Temperature-Stable Film Bulk Acoustic Wave Oscillator

This letter reports a passively temperature-compensated CMOS oscillator utilizing a film bulk acoustic resonator. The resonator exhibiting an f ldr Q product of 2-4 X 1012 s-1 is composed of molybdenum, aluminum nitride, and a compensation material that has a positive temperature coefficient of Young's modulus. The 604-MHz oscillator consumes 5.3 mW from a 3.3-V supply and achieves excellent phase noise performances of -102, -130, and -149 dBc/Hz at 1, 10, and 100 kHz carrier offsets, respectively. The oscillator's temperature-dependent frequency drift is less than 80 ppm over a temperature range of -35degC to +85degC.
Matrix Approximation and Projective Clustering via Iterative Sampling

We present two new results for the problem of approximating a given real m × n matrix A by a rank-k matrix D, where k < min{m,n}, so as to minimize ||A−D||F . It is known that by sampling O(k/ ) rows of the matrix, one can find a low-rank approximation with additive error ||A||F . Our first result shows that with adaptive sampling in t rounds and O(k/ ) samples in each round, the additive error drops exponentially as ; the computation time is nearly linear in the number of nonzero entries. This demonstrates that multiple passes can be highly beneficial for a natural (and widely studied) algorithmic problem. Our second result is that there exists a subset of O(k/ ) rows such that their span contains a rank-k approximation with multiplicative (1 + ) error (i.e., the sum of squares distance has a small “core-set” whose span determines a good approximation). This existence theorem leads to a PTAS for the following projective clustering problem: Given a set of points P in R, and integers k, j, find a set of j subspaces F1, . , Fj , each of dimension at most k, that minimize ∑ p∈P mini d(p, Fi) .
A virtual decomposition control based communication network for modular robots applications

Modular (re-configurable) robots have been studied and developed over two decades. Compared to common industrial robot manipulators, modular robots usually end up showing relatively poorer control performance. This is mainly because most of modular robots' designs typically concentrate on mechatronic interfaces, packaging and re-configurable features, leaving little space for dynamics and control considerations. In our current research frame, we are looking at "virtual decomposition control" (VDC) to significantly improve modular robots dynamics and control performance. A key element to successful implementation of the related algorithms has to do with the inter-modules communication link capabilities. Presented here is the first 2 DOF prototype built to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing VDC on a real system, including the Spacewire Bus based communication protocol used.
Nitric Oxide Regulates Local Arterial Distensibility In Vivo

Background—Arterial stiffness is an important determinant of cardiovascular risk. Several lines of evidence support a role for the endothelium in regulating arterial stiffness by release of vasoactive mediators. We hypothesized that nitric oxide (NO) acting locally regulates arterial stiffness in vivo, and the aim of this experiment was to test this hypothesis in an ovine hind-limb preparation. Methods and Results—All studies were conducted in anesthetized sheep. Pulse wave velocity (PWV) was calculated by the foot-to-foot methodology from 2 pressure waveforms recorded simultaneously with a high-fidelity dual pressure-sensing catheter placed in the common iliac artery. Intra-arterial infusion of NG-monomethyl-l-arginine (L-NMMA) increased iliac PWV significantly, by 3±2% (P <0.01). Infusion of acetylcholine and glyceryl trinitrate reduced PWV significantly, by 6±4% (P =0.03) and 5±2% (P <0.01), respectively. Only the effect of acetylcholine, however, was significantly inhibited during coinfusion of L-NMMA (P =0.03). There was no change in systemic arterial pressure throughout the studies. Importantly, infusion of L-NMMA or acetylcholine distal to the common iliac artery (via the sheath) did not affect PWV. Conclusions—These results demonstrate, for the first time, that basal NO production influences large-artery distensibility. In addition, exogenous acetylcholine and glyceryl trinitrate both increase arterial distensibility, the former mainly through NO production. This may help explain why conditions that exhibit endothelial dysfunction are also associated with increased arterial stiffness. Therefore, reversal of endothelial dysfunction or drugs that are large-artery vasorelaxants may be effective in reducing large-artery stiffness in humans, and thus cardiovascular risk.
Matched-Routing Common-Centroid 3-D MOM Capacitors for Low-Power Data Converters

As technology advances, smaller feature size enables layout precision in the lateral direction. In contrast to traditional metal–insulator–metal capacitors, metal–oxide–metal (MOM) capacitors are generally of higher density and consume less area, because they adopt a 3-D topology over several metal layers to use lateral field capacitance. To achieve little area consumption, MOM capacitors require new layout methods with routing even before placement. Since the routing wires are of comparable size to unit capacitors in MOM design, routing-induced parasitic capacitance must also be considered. To obtain a higher yield, common-centroid layout style and high dispersion of cells are desired. This paper introduces a new vertical bars structure for binary weighted MOM capacitor arrays and presents a new method to generate common-centroid regular-structured layouts with mismatch reduction and routing-parasitic-matching consideration. Experimental results show that the presented approach generates high-density, low-powered, and highly accurate ratioed capacitors.
Kinetics of formation of fibrin oligomers. I. Theory

The course of formation of fibrin oligomers is treated theoretically for the condition that self‐assembly of fibrin monomers is rapid compared with the loss of A peptides by the enzymatic action of thrombin. The rate constant for removal of the second A peptide is taken to be larger than that for the first by an arbitrary factor q; the association of activated A sites with their complementary a sites is assumed to be random and independent of oligomer size. Two types of oligomers are considered: noncovalently bonded protofibrils formed by the staggered overlap of thrombin‐activated monomers and covalently bonded linear oligomers formed by factor XIIIa‐mediated end‐to‐end ligation of adjacent monomers within protofibrils. Oligomers of the first type, if ligated, are dissociated to oligomers of the second type by solubilization in SDS–urea. Theoretical curves are presented for xw and x′w (weight‐average degree of polymerization of staggered overlap and linear ligated oligomers, respectively) and for the weight fractions of monomer, dimer, and decamer of both ligated and unligated species as functions of y, the fraction of A peptide removed; and also for wx and w′x, the weight fractions of x‐mer of the respective oligomer types, as a function of x at y = 0.5. With increasing q, the maximum wx or w′x that a low oligomer will reach during the reaction decreases and the size distribution is broadened toward larger oligomers. Comparison with experiment is made in a companion paper.