Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Anticipation and fusimotor activity in preparation for a voluntary contraction.

1. Multi‐unit and single‐unit recordings were made of muscle spindle afferent activity from the pretibial muscles of human subjects who were initially relaxed. The muscles were subjected to a stretching perturbation of 1 s duration, occurring irregularly, on average once every 5 s. In test sequences, an auditory or visual warning was provided 1 . 06 s before some of the perturbations. Subjects were required to oppose every perturbation by contracting the receptor‐bearing muscle as rapidly as possible. 2. Following the warning all subjects sometimes tensed the receptor‐bearing muscle unintentionally in preparation for the perturbation. In these contractions, the discharge of a spindle ending accelerated only if the contraction strength exceeded the ending's threshold for activation, established in control voluntary contractions performed under isometric conditions. 3. When the receptor‐bearing muscle did not contract in the interval between warning and perturbation, there was no detectable change in the multi‐unit recordings of spindle activity or in recordings from twelve of thirteen single spindle afferents. The thirteenth spindle afferent discharged prior to the perturbation in the absence of detectable e.m. g. in response to (only) three of twenty‐three warning stimuli. However, this ending had been so responsive during isometric voluntary contractions that a contraction level at which it did not respond could not be established, and it is suggested that the findings with this ending resulted from its low threshold rather than from selective activation of the fusimotor system. 4. When subjects were warned of the perturbations, the dynamic response of spindle endings to the perturbations was not increased in size or altered in latency. 5. The motor response to perturbations without warning generally contained only long‐latency (volitional) e.m. g. activity occurring 107‐‐200 ms after the onset of the perturbation. When a warning was given, short‐latency (reflex) e.m. g. activity was also recorded, beginning 46‐‐76 ms after the onset of the perturbation. 6. It is concluded that anticipation of the need to contract a muscle does not result in selective activation of fusimotor neurones in preparation for the contraction. The change in stretch reflex gain that occurs as a result of ‘anticipation’ occurs through a central process which does not involve the fusimotor system.
Incidence and risk factors for radiographic knee osteoarthritis in middle-aged women: the Chingford Study.

OBJECTIVE To examine the natural history, role of risk factors, and incidence of knee osteoarthritis (OA) in a prospective study of women from a population cohort. METHODS Women from the Chingford Study who had been recruited in 1989 were followed up with knee radiographs 4 years later. A total of 715 paired radiographs (71% of the original sample) were graded for osteophytes and 644 for joint space narrowing (JSN). Women whose radiographs had been graded as 0 in 1989 and as > or =14 years later were classified as having incident disease. Incident cases were compared with controls for associations with a number of risk factors. RESULTS Eighty-one women (12.6%) developed JSN of the knee, equating to an incidence of 3.1% per year. No clear risk factors for JSN were identified. Reproducibility of measures of joint space is poor, however, leading to inaccuracy of definition. Incident knee osteophytes developed in 95 women (133%), equating to an incidence of 3.3% per year. Compared with controls, women with incident knee osteophytes were older, heavier, and had more hand OA and knee symptoms. Women in the top tertile of obesity (body mass index >26.4) had a significantly increased risk of incident knee osteophytes (odds ratio [OR] 2.38, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.29-4.39). Incident knee osteophytes increased by 20% per 5-year age increase. A nonsignificant protective effect for incident knee osteophytes was seen with current estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) (OR 0.41, 95% CI 0.12-1.42). No effect was associated with smoking, physical activity, hysterectomy, or previous knee injury. CONCLUSION Obesity and aging are associated with a high risk of new knee OA developing in women. Evidence of a protective effect of ERT was seen. No clear association was found for incident JSN, suggesting that different etiologic mechanisms are operating or that standard radiographs are an inaccurate measure of incident narrowing.
Using Thermal Stimuli to Enhance Photo-Sharing in Social Media

Limited work has been undertaken to show how the emotive ability of thermal stimuli can be used for interaction purposes. One potential application area is using thermal stimuli to influence emotions in images shared online such as social media platforms. This paper presents a two-part study, which examines how the documented emotive property of thermal stimuli can be applied to enhance social media images. Participants in part-one supplied images from their personal collection or social media profiles, and were asked to augment each image with thermal stimuli based on the emotions they wanted to enhance or reduce. Part-one participants were interviewed to understand the effects they wanted augmented images to have. In part-two, these augmented images were perceived by a different set of participants in a simulated social media interface. Results showed strong agreement between the emotions augmented images were designed to evoke and the emotions they actually evoked as perceived by part-two participants. Participants in part-one selected thermal stimuli augmentation intended to modulate valence and arousal in images as a way of enhancing the realism of the images augmented. Part-two results indicate this was achieved as participants perceived thermal stimuli augmentation reduced valence in negative images and modulated valence and arousal in positive images.
An implementation of an OSPF-TE to support GMPLS-controlled all-optical WDM networks

GMPLS-controlled all-optical networks are the promise to handle the increasing volume of IP traffic. The GMPLS routing and signaling protocols, mainly OSPF and RSVP, work in such a way that the route calculation for optical circuits does not take into account the label (lambda) availability. This is not optimal in terms of network usage and blocking probability of new circuits. To deal with this scenario, more efficient RWA algorithms could be used to calculate the route and the wavelength assignment at one time. These RWA engines need to know the optical topology in a way that is not described by the current OSPF standards. This paper proposes Traffic Engineering extensions to the OSPF protocol to enable the GMPLS control plane to take advantage of the most effective RWA classes. A prototype was developed and deployed in an optical-simulated copper-based network to verify its feasibility based on the bandwidth overhead generated in the control plane.
Cloning and Expression of the Chicken Type 2 Iodothyronine 5′-Deiodinase*

The type 2 iodothyronine deiodinase (D2) is critical for the intracellular production of 3,5,3′-triiodothyronine from thyroxine. The D2 mRNA of higher vertebrates is over 6 kilobases (kb), and no complete cDNA clones have been reported. Using 5′- and 3′-rapid amplification of cDNA ends and two cDNA libraries, we have cloned the 6094-base pair full-length chicken D2 cDNA. The deduced protein is ∼31 kDa and contains two in-frame UGA codons presumably encoding selenocysteine. One of these is in the highly conserved active catalytic center; the other is near the carboxyl terminus. Unusual features of the cDNA include a selenocysteine insertion sequence element ∼4.8 kb 3′ to the UGA codon in the active center and three short open reading frames in the 5′-untranslated region. The K m of D2 is ∼1.0 nm for thyroxine, and the reaction is insensitive to inhibition by 6-n-propylthiouracil. Chicken D2 is expressed as a single transcript of ∼6 kb in different brain regions and in the thyroid and lung. Hypothyroidism increases D2 mRNA in the telencephalon. Unlike in mammals, D2 mRNA and activity are expressed in the liver of the chicken, suggesting a role for D2 in the generation of plasma 3,5,3′-triiodothyronine in this species.
On the application of the variational iteration method to a prey and predator model with variable coefficients

INIFTA (UNLP,CCT La Plata-CONICET), Divisio´n Qu´imica Teo´rica,Diag. 113 y 64 (S/N), Sucursal 4, Casilla de Correo 16,1900 La Plata, ArgentinaAbstractWe discuss an amazing prey–predator model with variable coeﬃcients, analyze itspredictions and the accuracy of the variational iteration method used to solve thenonlinear equations.
Méthodologie pour une représentation multi-dimensionnelle des documents

La representation des documents et questions en Recherche d’Information (RI) est restee une representation majoritairement uni-dimensionnelle (i.e., vecteur). Cette representation a des limites : Comment par exemple representer un document qui traite de plusieurs themes ou une question ambigue ? Ces problemes sont importants pour developper des systemes de RI interactifs ou cherchant a diversifier les resultats. Les modeles actuels sont soit bases sur des heuristiques, soit sur des modeles latents qui pre-supposent un nombre limite de themes pour decrire les documents. L’approche basee sur les probabilites dites “quantiques” permet d’etablir des bases formelles pour une representation multi-dimensionnelle des documents (ou plus generalement, des objets d’information) qui depasse les limites evoquees plus haut. Cet article decrit la methodologie QIA (Quantum Information Access) pour la representation des documents, resume les resultats experimentaux obtenus et decrit les perspectives.
Evolution of disconnected components in social networks: Patterns and a generative model

The majority of previous studies have focused on the analyses of an entire graph (network) or the giant connected component in a graph. Here we study the disconnected components (non-giant connected components) in real social networks, and reporting some interesting discoveries on how these disconnected components evolve over time. We study six diverse, real networks (citation networks, online social networks, academic collaboration networks, and others), and make the following major contributions: (a) we make empirical observations of the longevity distribution of disconnected components, and find that the curve of the distribution demonstrates a decaying trend; (b) we find that the distributions of final size of disconnected components that merge with one another or get absorbed by the giant connected component both follow power laws; (c) we find that the majority of mergings are between disconnected components and the giant connected component. The mergings that happen among disconnected components are small in scale (involve only a few components). The longevity distributions of the disconnected components in those mergings are similar, where the shortest-lived disconnected components are the most in number; and (d) we propose an empirical generative model that can produce the networks with our observed patterns.
Mining Low-Support Discriminative Patterns from Dense and High-Dimensional Data

Discriminative patterns can provide valuable insights into data sets with class labels, that may not be available from the individual features or the predictive models built using them. Most existing approaches work efficiently for sparse or low-dimensional data sets. However, for dense and high-dimensional data sets, they have to use high thresholds to produce the complete results within limited time, and thus, may miss interesting low-support patterns. In this paper, we address the necessity of trading off the completeness of discriminative pattern discovery with the efficient discovery of low-support discriminative patterns from such data sets. We propose a family of antimonotonic measures named SupMaxKthat organize the set of discriminative patterns into nested layers of subsets, which are progressively more complete in their coverage, but require increasingly more computation. In particular, the member of SupMaxK with K = 2, named SupMaxPair, is suitable for dense and high-dimensional data sets. Experiments on both synthetic data sets and a cancer gene expression data set demonstrate that there are low-support patterns that can be discovered using SupMaxPair but not by existing approaches. Furthermore, we show that the low-support discriminative patterns that are only discovered using SupMaxPair from the cancer gene expression data set are statistically significant and biologically relevant. This illustrates the complementarity of SupMaxPairXo existing approaches for discriminative pattern discovery. The codes and data set for this paper are available at http://vk.cs. umn.edu/SMP/.
Swelling‐induced Cl− current in guinea‐pig atrial myocytes: inhibition by glibenclamide

1 Whole‐cell currents were recorded from guinea‐pig atrial myocytes using the patch‐clamp technique under conditions designed to block K+ channels, Ca2+ channels and electrogenic transporters. 2 Exposure of atrial myocytes to the hyposmotic external solution (Na+ reduction to about 70% of control) resulted in hyposmotic cell swelling which was associated with activation of an outwardly rectifying Cl− current (ICl,swell). 3 Whereas the activation of ICl,swell was not significantly affected by replacement of ATP in the pipette solution with the non‐hydrolysable ATP analogue 5′‐adenylyl‐imidodiphosphate (AMP‐PNP), its activation was greatly reduced in cells dialysed with an ATP‐free pipette solution, thus indicating that the activation process of ICl,swell requires the presence of intra‐cellular ATP, but not its hydrolysis. 4 Bath application of glibenclamide produced a concentration‐dependent block of ICl,swell with a half‐maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 60.0 μm and a Hill coefficient of 2.1. The maximal effect (100% inhibition) was obtained with 500 μm glibenclamide. The steady‐state inhibition showed little voltage dependence, while glibenclamide at concentrations of more than 100 μm inhibited the outward ICl,swell more rapidly than the inward ICl,swell. The glibenclamide inhibition was fully reversible after removal of the drug, even when a maximal effect (full inhibition) was achieved at a high drug concentration (500 μm). 5 These results show that (i) glibenclamide is one of the most potent inhibitors of guinea‐pig atrial ICl,swell and (ii) atrial ICl,swell and the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) Cl− currents are almost equally sensitive to inhibition by glibenclamide.
La suréducation en France : vers une dévalorisation des diplômes du Supérieur ?

En utilisant les enquêtes du Céreq, sur les sortants de l'enseignement supérieur en 1984 et 1996, nous analysons l’évolution des déterminants et de l’incidence de la suréducation. En privilégiant une modélisation endogène de la suréducation dans la détermination des salaires, nous tenons compte du biais de sélection induit par les diplômés sans emploi. Suivant nos résultats, le phénomène de suréducation est loin d’être marginal, la proportion de salariés déclassés double en douze ans. Le lien «diplôme-accès à l’emploi» s’est renforcé pour les sortants de l’enseignement supérieur mais paradoxalement les probabilités d’accès aux postes élevés de la hiérarchie professionnelle se sont largement dégradées.
Cyst–theca relationship of the arctic dinoflagellate cyst Islandinium minutum (Dinophyceae) and phylogenetic position based on SSU rDNA and LSU rDNA

Round brown spiny cysts constitute a morphological group common in high latitude dinoflagellate cyst assemblages. The dinoflagellate cyst Islandinium minutum (Harland et Reid) Head, Harland et Matthiessen is the main paleoecological indicator of seasonal sea‐ice cover in the Arctic. Despite the importance of this cyst in paleoceanographical studies, its biological affinity has so far been unknown. The biological affinity of the species I. minutum and its phylogenetic position based on the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene (SSU rDNA) and the large subunit ribosomal RNA gene (LSU rDNA) were established from cyst incubation experiments in controlled conditions, optical and scanning electron microscopy, and single‐cell PCR. The thecal motile cell obtained was undescribed. Although the motile cell was similar to Archaeperidinium minutum (Kofoid) Jörgensen, the motile cell of I. minutum lacked a transitional plate in the cingular series, which is present in Archaeperidinium spp. Islandinium minutum and Archaeperidinium spp. were paraphyletic in all phylogenetic analyses. Furthermore, Protoperidinium tricingulatum, which also lacks a transitional plate, was closely related to I. minutum and transfered to the genus Islandinium. Based on available data, it is clear that Islandinium is distinct from Archaeperidinium. Therefore, we considered Islandinium Head, Harland et Matthiessen as a non‐fossil genus and emend its description, as well as the species I. minutum. This is the first description of a cyst–theca relationship and the first study that reports molecular data based on SSU rDNA and LSU rDNA on a species assigned to the genus Islandinium.
Comparison of Rapid Quantitative PCR-Based and Conventional Culture-Based Methods for Enumeration of Enterococcus spp. and Escherichia coli in Recreational Waters

ABSTRACT Recreational water quality is currently monitored using culture-based methods that require 18 to 96 h for results. Quantitative PCR (QPCR) methods that can be completed in less than 2 h have been developed, but they could yield different results than the conventional methods. We present two studies in which samples were processed simultaneously for Enterococcus spp. and Escherichia coli using two culture-based methods (EPA method 1600 and Enterolert/Colilert-18) and QPCR. The proprietary QPCR assays targeted the 23S rRNA (Enterococcus spp.) and uidA (E. coli) genes and were conducted using lyophilized beads containing all reagents. In the first study, the QPCR method developers processed 54 blind samples that were inoculated with sewage or pure cultures or were ambient beach samples. The second study involved 163 samples processed by water quality personnel. The correlation between results of QPCR and EPA 1600 during the first study (r2) was 0.69 for Enterococcus spp. , which was less than that observed between the culture-based methods (r2, 0.87). During the second study, the correlations were similar. No false positives occurred in either study when QPCR-based assays were used with blank samples. Levels of reproducibility measured through coefficients of variation were similar for results by Enterococcus QPCR and culture-based methods during both studies but were higher for E. coli QPCR results in the first study. Regarding the concentration at which beach management decisions are issued in the State of California, the agreement between results of Enterococcus QPCR and EPA method 1600 was 88%, compared to 94% agreement between EPA method 1600 and Enterolert. The beach management decision agreement between E. coli QPCR and Colilert-18 was 94%. The samples showing disagreement suggested an underestimation bias for QPCR.
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THREE FACTORS THAT DETERMINE HUMAN LEARNING IN TWO DIFFERENT STAGES OF CHANGE

In this work, a pilot project for losing weight was carried out with a sample composed of 50 patients selected from the health zone of the Health Centre in Calaceite (Spain). A comparative study of the scores self-given by the patients to three learning factors (motivation, reward and difficulty) at the contemplative and action stage phases of change was carried out, in order to elucidate whether correlations could be found between the three factors. When the patients changed from the contemplative to the action stage, a significant increase in the scores corresponding to the motivation and the reward items could be found, whilst no differences were encountered for the difficulty item. The results revealed a positive bilateral correlation between the motivation and the reward items for the results of the scores self-given by the patients to these items. The self-evaluation made by the patient assigning scores to these three could constitute a valuable tool for the professional, in order to propose changes in the routines, habits or activities of the patient that could lead to a greater probability of success in the therapeutic diet treatment.
Implementation of a 2 by 2 MIMO-GFDM transceiver for robust 5G networks

The fifth generation (5G) of mobile cellular systems will demand an unprecedented flexibility of the physical layer (PHY). Several approaches are being proposed based on theoretical and simulation analyses, but there is a lack of implementations that allow for performance evaluation under real channel conditions and front-end impairments. In this paper we show that that a 2×2 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) Generalized Frequency Division Multiplexing (GFDM) transceiver can be implemented using the new National Instruments USRP-RIO, which proves that today's technology is ready to afford the complexity of modern waveforms. In this implementation we explore the flexibility of the USRP combined with LabVIEW, allowing for an easy integration between software host processing and real-time processing based on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). This implementation allows to evaluate different GFDM characteristics, such as reduced latency, low out-of-band (OOB) emission and increased robustness in real-world environment.
Small Victories But Slow Progress

Abstract Between 1994 and 2006, Malawi experienced some gains in women's political participation and increased representation in Parliament. However, Malawi has not fared as well as many of its African neighbours in its efforts to promote women in leadership positions. In this article I examine the factors that contribute to Malawi's weak performance in this regard, including a political history of patriarchal rule, a political culture of neopatrimonialism, limited opportunities for women to demand access to positions of power (including no significant political transformation creating space for women's participation) and a social and cultural context which discourages women from entering politics. I examine these challenges to the political participation of women by drawing on feminist literature, as well as quantitative and qualitative data from a 2001 Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (CHRR) study and twenty interviews with women in Malawi conducted in 2005.