Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Some Medicolegally Important Aspects of Symphyseal Injuries Due to Trauma

A total of 58 cases of fatal trauma (forensic autopsies) were investigated for lesions of the pelvic girdle, the pubic symphysis, and for injuries distant from the pelvis. Traumata of the pubic symphysis were present in 30% (n = 17) of the cases. The symphyses were examined by x-ray and macroscopically related to the main violence (Abbreviated Injury Scale [AIS]). A correlation between the latter and the severity of the resulting injuries could be deducted. Characteristic patterns of symphyseal injuries included small hemorrhages, partial and complete ruptures, and also ruptures of the ligamentary insertions, which have not yet been described. The kind and severity of these lesions related to the intensity/direction of the violence are demonstrated and discussed.
Accounting for MeXicana feminisms

In this article, I interrogate the iconic Mexican mother–wife image and practices of feminism of primarily U. S. -born, Mexicanas–Chicanas (MeXicanas). I anchor disempowering discourses about MeXicana motherhood as subordinate and problematic outside the family, but I look closely within the family context to see how the mother–wife image appears, becomes sustained, and is subverted. I argue for more than the fact of resistance to this image: for a range of practices (“differential movidas”) that, in an ethnographic context, are used to dismantle it. I conclude that, through differential movidas, MeXicanas rework stereotypical ideas despite moments that seem to sustain them. [Chicana, Mexican American, feminism, stereotypes, subjectivity, differential movidas]
Informing Optimal Environmental Influenza Interventions: How the Host, Agent, and Environment Alter Dominant Routes of Transmission

Influenza can be transmitted through respirable (small airborne particles), inspirable (intermediate size), direct-droplet-spray, and contact modes. How these modes are affected by features of the virus strain (infectivity, survivability, transferability, or shedding profiles), host population (behavior, susceptibility, or shedding profiles), and environment (host density, surface area to volume ratios, or host movement patterns) have only recently come under investigation. A discrete-event, continuous-time, stochastic transmission model was constructed to analyze the environmental processes through which a virus passes from one person to another via different transmission modes, and explore which factors increase or decrease different modes of transmission. With the exception of the inspiratory route, each route on its own can cause high transmission in isolation of other modes. Mode-specific transmission was highly sensitive to parameter values. For example, droplet and respirable transmission usually required high host density, while the contact route had no such requirement. Depending on the specific context, one or more modes may be sufficient to cause high transmission, while in other contexts no transmission may result. Because of this, when making intervention decisions that involve blocking environmental pathways, generic recommendations applied indiscriminately may be ineffective; instead intervention choice should be contextualized, depending on the specific features of people, virus strain, or venue in question.
On Resourcing a Concern for Collaboration Within Peer Interactions

Although peer-based work is encouraged by theories in developmental psychology and although classroom interventions suggest it is effective, there are grounds for recognizing that young pupils find collaborative learning hard to sustain. Interpretations of this observation are discussed; it is suggested that these interpretations have been preoccupied with possible discontinuities in collaborative skill during development. Consequently, theory and research have neglected situational continuities between formal and (more successful) informal collaborations. An argument is developed for attending more carefully to the environments of joint problem solving and how they may be fashioned to resource the interactions of collaborators. The place of new educational technology within this enterprise is considered.
Considering music production and culture management as an emerging digital ecosystem

Digital music production processes trace a great amount of processes and objects. The important flow of these traces calls for a system to support their interpretation. We have studied and developed such a system in the digital music production context -- within the Gamelan research project -- towards musical object and process reconstitution. We present the results we obtained from combining trace engineering, knowledge modeling and knowledge engineering, based on the differential elaboration of a strongly-committed ontology, standard formats and common knowledge management tools. We conclude by discussing some hypotheses about trace-based knowledge management, digital music preservation and reconstitution, opening on to some considerations about artistic style and digital humanities aspects.
The Correlation between Osteoporosis Occurrences in Both Schizophrenia and Parkinson’s Disease

Osteoporosis disease is a metabolic disorder in which bone mineral density (BMD) is lower than the normal threshold. Based on literature, it is known that schizophrenic patients due to consuming anti-psychotic drugs and Parkinson’s disease patients due to vitamin D deficiency and decrease in mobility are at the high risk of osteoporosis (1–4). On the other hand, it is observed that adenosine 5′-monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity, which is regulating cellular energy homeostasis, is reduced in schizophrenia diseases (5). In addition, it is known that there is mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease that can be treated by AMPK, which is identified as a mitochondrial biogenesis (6–8). Recently, some findings show that AMPK plays an important role in bone metabolism. Besides, some in vitro studies revealing that AMPK modulators regulate bone cell function (9–13). Also, some studies show that deficiency of AMPK α and β subunits in mice causes bone loss in vivo (14). Based on the above mentioned points, it can be referred that AMPK deficiency in Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia may lead to osteoporosis. This can be used as a goal in treatment of osteoporosis in those disorders. In another word, nowadays there are some drugs available for both diseases but they have some side effect, which may lead to osteoporosis; by considering the fact that AMPK deficiency may cause osteoporosis, new drugs can be provided with AMPK supplement to reduce the osteoporosis symptoms. Surely, experimental trials are needed to validate our hypothesis.
Regulation of miRNA-29c and its downstream pathways in preneoplastic progression of triple-negative breast cancer

Little is understood about the early molecular drivers of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), making the identification of women at risk and development of targeted therapy for prevention significant challenges. By sequencing a TNBC cell line-based breast cancer progression model we have found that miRNA-29c is progressively lost during TNBC tumorigenesis. In support of the tumor suppressive role of miRNA 29c, we found that low levels predict poor overall patient survival and, conversely, that ectopic expression of miRNA-29c in preneoplastic cell models inhibits growth. miRNA-29c exerts its growth inhibitory effects through direct binding and regulation of TGFB-induced factor homeobox 2 (TGIF2), CAMP-responsive element binding protein 5 (CREB5), and V-Akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homolog 3 (AKT3). miRNA-29c regulation of these gene targets seems to be functionally relevant, as TGIF2, CREB5, and AKT3 were able to rescue the inhibition of cell proliferation and colony formation caused by ectopic expression of miRNA-29c in preneoplastic cells. AKT3 is an oncogene of known relevance in breast cancer, and as a proof of principle we show that inhibition of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) activity, a protein upstream of AKT3, suppressed proliferation in TNBC preneoplastic cells. We explored additional opportunities for prevention of TNBC by studying the regulation of miRNA-29c and identified DNA methylation to have a role in the inhibition of miRNA-29c during TNBC tumorigenesis. Consistent with these observations, we found 5 aza-cytadine to relieve the suppression of miRNA-29c. Together, these results demonstrate that miRNA-29c loss plays a key role in the early development of TNBC.
Problem-driven Research in Regional Science

This article, based on the inaugural Andrew Isserman lecture, explores whether regional science has lived up to its founder’s aspirations to create an interdisciplinary and international field to tackle key societal problems with reasoning, evidence, and sound policy recommendations. I distinguish methods-driven research from problem-driven research and illustrate the pitfalls of the former with the emergence and use of economic base multipliers from export base theory. Then, beginning with Walter Isard’s bold vision in the first issue of the International Regional Science Review, I follow the evolution of the Review under Andrew Isserman’s three decades of editorship, exploring the difference between methods-driven and descriptive research articles and those addressed to regional problem solving. Editor Isserman actively sought out scholars and special issue editors with an interest in policy and a willingness to work across disciplines and borders. He raised funding for themed conferences that would yield exciting new articles, a practice his coeditors and successors have continued. In his own research, despite his love of methods and facility with them, Isserman often chose to work on important regional problems such as whether the Appalachian program had produced real personal income gains, how the Soviet Union should pursue regional development under perestroika, and in recent years, rural poverty and agriculture and biotechnology. From work on deindustrialization and military industrial conversion, I argue that exposure to the intricacies of real-world policy making strengthens both theory and empirical research.
INTERFACE: a new tool for building emotive/expressive talking heads

In order to speed-up the procedure for building an emotive/expressive talking head such as LUCIA, an integrated software called INTERFACE was designed and implemented in Matlab©. INTERFACE simplifies and automates many of the operations needed for that purpose. A set of processing tools, focusing mainly on dynamic articulatory data physically extracted by an automatic optotracking 3D movement analyzer, was implemented in order to build up the animation engine, that is based on the Cohen-Massaro coarticulation model, and also to create the correct WAV and FAP files needed for the animation. LUCIA, our animated MPEG-4 talking face, in fact, can copy a real human by reproducing the movements of some markers positioned on his face and recorded by an optoelectronic device, or can be directly driven by an emotional XML tagged input text, thus realizing a true audio visual emotive/expressive synthesis. LUCIA’s voice is based on an Italian version of FESTIVAL MBROLA packages, modified for expressive/emotive synthesis by means of an appropriate APML/VSML tagged language.
Federal Reserve policy and inflation dynamics in the U.S.: Racial inequalities in unemployment outcomes

This paper explores the relationships behind previous findings that Federal Reserve interest rate policies have a larger impact on black unemployment compared to white unemployment. Most earlier studies employ a VAR methodology, which does not, however, permit a structural analysis of key relationships. This paper accounts for the endogeneity of unemployment, inflation, and the federal funds rate by estimating a system of structural equations with quarterly data from 1973 to 2008. We find that the higher the black/white unemployment rate ratio, the less responsive interest rate policy is to unemployment. Further, our evidence indicates that a higher relative black unemployment rate reduces the economy-wide 'sacrifice' ratio.
Design and Development of Stream Processor and Texture Filtering Unit for Graphics Processor Architecture IP

Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) have become an integral part of today’s mainstream computing systems. They are also being used as reprogrammable General Purpose GPUs (GP-GPUs) to perform complex scientific computations. Reconfigurability is an attractive approach to embedded systems allowing hardware level modification. Hence, there is a high demand for GPU designs based on reconfigurable hardware. This paper presents the architectural design, modelling and simulation of reconfigurable stream processor and texture filtering unit of a GPU. Stream processor consists of clusters of functional units which provide a bandwidth hierarchy, supporting hundreds of arithmetic units. The arithmetic cluster units are designed to exploit instruction level parallelism and subword parallelism within a cluster and data parallelism across the clusters. The texture filter unit is designed to process geometric data like vertices and convert these into pixels on the screen. This process involves number of operations, like circle and cube generation, rotator, and scaling. The texture filter unit is designed with all necessary hardware to deal with all the different filtering operations. For decreasing the area and power, a single controller is used to control data flow between clusters and between host processor and GPU. The designed architecture provides a high degree of scalability and flexibility to allow customization for unique applications. The designed stream processor and texture filtering unit are modelled in Verilog on Altera Quartus II and simulated using ModelSim tools. The functionality of the modelled blocks is verified using test inputs in the simulator. The simulated execution time of 8-bit pipelined multiplier is 60 ps and 100 ns for 8-bit pipelined adder while operating at 90 MHz. Circle and cube coordinates are generated for circle and cube generation. The work can form the basis for designing a complete reconfigurable GPU.
Local uniqueness in the global village : heritage tourism in Singapore

It is commonly assumed that the development of tourist attractions, the formulation of tourism policies, and the marketing of destination areas are dictated by the needs and interests of foreign visitors. What is ignored is the role that local factors and agencies play in these processes. This paper explores the way local and non-local factors are responsible for shaping the form and function of tourism development. Drawing upon the case of Singapore, I examine the country's heritage tourism phenomenon as the outcome of “local” and “global” forces. This argument is elaborated along three lines of enquiry. They include: (a) a study of the government's tourism policies; (b) an examination of marketing and promotional strategies; and (c) a look at a particular urban landscape—the Little India Historic District. To conceptualize the global-local nexus, the paper embraces two bodies of theory. They are the “locality concept” advanced by industrial geographers in the 1980s, and writings on “globalism/localism” .
A double-blind trial of a nicotine inhaler for smoking cessation.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy of a new nicotine inhaler system for smoking cessation. DESIGN A 1-year, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. SETTING Medical outpatient clinic with physicians experienced in smoking cessation assistance. SUBJECTS A total of 286 volunteers who smoked at least 10 cigarettes daily recruited through a local newspaper. INTERVENTION Subjects were randomly allocated to nicotine inhalers (n = 145) or placebo (n = 141) to be used for 3 months followed by tapering for 3 months in the context of minimal levels of advice and support. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Continuous smoking abstinence at weeks 6, 12, 24, and 52, verified by measurements of carbon monoxide in expired air. RESULTS Continuous smoking abstinence was significantly higher for the active nicotine inhaler group compared with the placebo inhaler group. The respective success rates were 28% and 12% after 6 weeks, 21% and 9% after 12 weeks, 17% and 8% after 6 months, and 15% and 5% after 1 year (P = .02 to .001). The mean nicotine substitution based on cotinine determinations after 2 weeks was 43% (SD, 45%) of smoking levels. The treatment was well tolerated, and no serious adverse events were reported. CONCLUSIONS In this setting the nicotine inhaler appeared safe to use and increased success rates of smoking cessation attempts.
Variability in annual Mini-Mental State Examination score in patients with probable Alzheimer disease: a clinical perspective of data from the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease.

OBJECTIVE To determine the variability in annual Mini-Mental State Examination scores of patients with Alzheimer disease enrolled in the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD). PATIENTS A total of 372 patients with probable Alzheimer disease with 1 or more years of follow-up. SETTING Twenty-one CERAD clinical sites throughout the United States. RESULTS An average annual decline of 3.4 points in CERAD patients returning for longitudinal reassessments was close to the SD of the measurement error of 2.8 points for the Mini-Mental State Examination. There was wide variability in individual rates of decline. Even with 4 years of follow-up, 15.8% of the patients had no clinically meaningful decline in Mini-Mental State Examination score (defined as a change in initial score >3, ie, 1 SD of measurement error). Validity of measurements of the rate of change in Mini-Mental State Examination scores improved with longer observation intervals and was reliable for most patients when observations were separated by 3 or more years. CONCLUSIONS Although the Mini-Mental State Examination is a useful screening instrument to assess level of cognitive function, it has limited value in measuring the progression of Alzheimer disease in individual patients for periods less than 3 years because of a large measurement error and substantial variation in change in annual score.
Are there any stable magnetic fields in barotropic stars

We construct barotropic stellar equilibria, containing magnetic fields with both poloidal and toroidal field components. We extend earlier results by exploring the effect of different magnetic field and current distributions. Our results suggest that the boundary treatment plays a major role in determining whether the poloidal or toroidal field component is globally dominant. Using time evolutions we provide the first stability test for mixed poloidal–toroidal fields in barotropic stars, finding that all these fields suffer instabilities due to one of the field components: these are localized around the pole for toroidal-dominated equilibria and in the closed-field line region for poloidal-dominated equilibria. Rotation provides only partial stabilization. There appears to be very limited scope for the existence of stable magnetic fields in barotropic stars. We discuss what additional physics from real stars may allow for stable fields
Impact of decline-board squat exercises and knee joint angles on the muscle activity of the lower limbs

[Purpose] This study aims to investigate how squat exercises on a decline board and how the knee joint angles affect the muscle activity of the lower limbs. [Subjects] The subjects were 26 normal adults. [Methods] A Tumble Forms wedge device was used as the decline board, and the knee joint angles were measured with a goniometer. To examine the muscle activity of the biceps femoris, rectus femoris, gastrocnemius lateralis, and tibialis anterior of the lower limbs, a comparison analysis with electromyography was conducted. [Results] The muscle activity of the biceps femoris, rectus femoris, gastrocnemius lateralis, and tibialis anterior increased with increased knee joint angles, both for squat exercises on the decline board and on a flat floor. When the knee joint angle was 45°, 60°, and 90°, the muscle activity of the rectus femoris was significantly higher and that of the tibialis anterior was significantly lower during squat exercises on the decline board than on the flat floor. When the knee joint angle was 90°, the muscle activity of the gastrocnemius lateralis was significantly lower. [Conclusion] Squat exercises on a decline board are an effective intervention to increase the muscle activity of the rectus femoris with increased knee joint angles.
A note on the estimation of the body fat, protein and energy content of lactating Holstein-Friesian cows by measurement of condition score and live weight

The relationships between body composition, live weight (LW) and subjective condition score (CS) were examined in an experiment in which 54, second to fourth parity, lactating autumn-calving Holstein-Friesian dairy cows were slaughtered at 0, 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 19, 24 and 29 weeks post partum. Multiple regression analyses showed the weight of fat and the quantity of energy within the body were significantly correlated with both LW and CS. The weight of crude protein showed a linear correlation with LW. These results are discussed and compared with previously published investigations with non-lactating dairy cows.
Variations in the MHC Region Confer Risk to Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma on the Subjects from High-Incidence Area in Northern China

Background The human major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is the most important region in vertebrate genome, and is crucial in innate immunity. Recent studies have demonstrated the possible role of polymorphisms in the MHC region to high risk for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Our previous genome-wide association study (GWAS) has indicated that the MHC region may confer important risk loci for ESCC, but without further fine mapping. The aim of this study is to further identify the risk loci in the MHC region for ESCC in Chinese population. Methods Conditional logistic regression analysis (CLRA) was performed on 24 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the MHC region, which were obtained from the genetically matched 937 cases and 692 controls of Chinese Han population. The identified promising SNPs were further correlated with clinical and clinicopathology characteristics. Immunohistochemistry was performed to explore the protein expression pattern of the related genes in ESCC and neighboring normal tissues. Results Of the 24 promising SNPs analyzed, we identified three independent SNPs in the MHC region associated with ESCC: rs35399661 (P = 6.07E-06, OR = 1.71, 95%CI = 1.36–2.17), rs3763338 (P = 1.62E-05, OR = 0.63, 95%CI = 0.50–0.78) and rs2844695 (P = 7.60E-05, OR = 0.74, 95%CI = 0.64–0.86). These three SNPs were located at the genes of HLA-DQA1, TRIM27, and DPCR1, respectively. Further analyses showed that rs2844695 was preferentially associated with younger ESCC cases (P = 0.009). The positive immunostaining rates both for HLA-DQA1 and TRIM27 were much higher in ESCC tissues than in neighboring normal tissues (69.4% vs. 26.8% for HLA-DQA1 and 77.6% vs. 47.8% for TRIM27, P<0.001). Furthermore, the overexpression of HLA-DQA1 is correlated significantly with age (P = 0.001) and family history (P<0.001). Conclusion This study for the first time provides evidence that multiple genetic factors within the MHC region confer risk to ESCC on the subjects from high-risk area in northern China.