Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effects of partial sleep restriction on biomechanical, physiological, and perceptual responses during an early morning treadmill run

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate whether a single night of partial sleep restriction would affect biomechanical, physiological, and perceptual factors during a fixed early morning treadmill running protocol.Method: Eight recreationally active males performed two 6-minute early morning, fixed-pace, flat runs, set at 60% of their maximal treadmill running speed. Each run was preceded by one of two sleep conditions – a sleep- restricted night where participants’ sleep was limited to 4 hours in bed, and a control night where participants were allowed a normal night’s sleep at home. Stride length, cadence, heart rate, energy expenditure, and ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were recorded during both protocols.Results: There were no significant differences observed between the two conditions with respect to stride length, cadence, heart rate, energy expenditure, or RPE.Conclusion: Sleep restriction of 4 hours does not affect biomechanical, physiological, or perceptual responses to early morning fixed treadmill running.
On fallback disks and magnetars

The discovery of a disk around the anomalous X-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61, has rekindled the interest in fallback disks around magnetars. We briefly review the assumptions of fallback disk models and magnetar models. Earlier data in optical and near IR bands combined with new Spitzer data in the mid-IR range are compatible with a gas disk. Higher multipole fields with magnetar strengths together with a dipole field of 1012-1013 G on the neutron star surface are compatible with the presence of a disk around the neutron star. The possible presence and properties of a fallback disk after the supernova explosion is a likely initial condition to complement the initial rotation period and initial dipole field in determining the evolutionary paths and different types of isolated neutron stars.
A comparative study of the value of immunohistochemistry and the polymerase chain reaction in the diagnosis of follicular lymphoma

We have compared the value of immunohistochemical and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques in distinguishing follicular hymphoma from follicular hyperplasia in formalin‐fixed paraffin‐embedded tissues of 41 follicular lymphomas, 15 reactive lymph nodes and 5 reactive tonsils. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated bcl‐2 protein in the follicle centre cells of 97% of follicular lymphomas whereas monoclonal immunoglobulin light chain was detected in 83% of cases. Assessing the lowest proliferating follicle of each case by MIB‐1 immunostaining, proliferation fractions in the lymphomas varied from 0.5% to 59% (mean 15.6%). Over 80% of lymphomas had proliferation fractions of less than 25%. PCR detected gene rearrangement either at the bcl‐2 locus, or at the IgH locus, or at both loci in 32%, 44% and 61% of lymphomas, respectively. The follicle centre cells of the reactive lymph nodes and tonsils were all bcl‐2 protein negative and polytypic for kappa and lambda light chains. Proliferation fractions of the lowest proliferating follicle in each reactive case ranged from 30.5% to 86.8% (mean 64.9%). Rearrangements of the bcl‐2 or IgH loci were not detected in any reactive case. This study demonstrates that bcl‐2 and light chain immunostaining are the most consistently helpful aids to diagnosing follicular lymphoma. A low proliferation fraction also indicates lymphoma but a high proliferation fraction does not exclude the diagnosis. Immunostaining with a combination of anti bcl‐2 and MIB 1 antibodies is a sensitive and specific method for identifying follicular lymphoma, is technically simple to perform and easy to interpret. In occasional cases, where immunostaining gives equivocal results, PCR analysis can confirm lymphoma, but a negative result does not exclude the diagnosis.
Expression and Analysis of Emotions: Survey and Experiment

Emotions are everywhere in our daily interaction. Emotional interchanges among recipients involve coordinated verbal (linguistic) and non-verbal(paralinguistic) cues and kinesic actions (e.g. facial expression, sighs, laughter, nods, and gestures). The paper explores how speakers jointly achieve their emotion exchange and mutual emotion comprehension in conversation, by analyzing the linguistic features with the assistance of video annotation techniques by Anvil. The data analysis on a positive scenario, complimenting, is carried out by integrating a broader discourse analytical and sociolinguistic approach with a cognitive approach.An initial emotion labeling is also proposed. At the end,the paper views the potential of applying our results to the emerging emotion-oriented computing for perceiving and discerning emotions in conversation.
Local mean based adaptive thresholding to classify the cartilage and background superpixels

Semi-automatic segmentation is common in medical image processing because anatomical geometries demonstrated by human anatomical parts often requires manual supervision to provide desirable results. However, semi-automatic segmentation has been infamous for requiring excessive human intervention and time consuming. In order to reduce a forementioned problems, seed labels have been generated automatically using superpixels in our previous works. A fixed threshold method has been implemented to classify cartilage and background superpixels but this method is reported to lack the adaptiveness to changing image properties in 3D magnetic resonance image of knee. As a result, the coverage of background seeds are not sufficient to cover whole background area in some cases. In this work, we proposed a local mean based adaptive threshold method as a better alternative to the fixed threshold method. We calculated local mean for each block in an integral image and then use it to differentiate background superpixels from cartilage superpixels. The method is robust to illumination changes and simple to use. We tested the adaptive threshold on 35 knee images of different anatomical geometries and proved the proposed method could provide more comprehensive background seed labels distribution compared to fixed threshold method
Multiple types of skeletal muscle atrophy involve a common program of changes in gene expression

Skeletal muscle atrophy is a debilitating response to starvation and many systemic diseases including diabetes, cancer, and renal failure. We had proposed that a common set of transcriptional adaptations underlie the loss of muscle mass in these different states. To test this hypothesis, we used cDNA microarrays to compare the changes in content of specific mRNAs in muscles atrophying from different causes. We compared muscles from fasted mice, from rats with cancer cachexia, streptozotocin‐induced diabetes mellitus, uremia induced by subtotal nephrectomy, and from pair‐fed control rats. Although the content of >90% of mRNAs did not change, including those for the myofibrillar apparatus, we found a common set of genes (termed atrogins) that were induced or suppressed in muscles in these four catabolic states. Among the strongly induced genes were many involved in protein degradation, including polyubiquitins, Ub fusion proteins, the Ub ligases atrogin‐1/MAFbx and MuRF‐1, multiple but not all subunits of the 20S proteasome and its 19S regulator, and cathepsin L. Many genes required for ATP production and late steps in glycolysis were down‐regulated, as were many transcripts for extracellular matrix proteins. Some genes not previously implicated in muscle atrophy were dramatically up‐regulated (lipin, metallothionein, AMP deaminase, RNA helicase‐related protein, TG interacting factor) and several growth‐related mRNAs were down‐regulated (P311, JUN, IGF‐1‐BP5). Thus, different types of muscle atrophy share a common transcriptional program that is activated in many systemic diseases. —Lecker, S. H. , Jagoe, R. T. , Gilbert, A. , Gomes, M. , Baracos, V. , Bailey, J., Price, S. R. , Mitch, W. E. , Goldberg, A. L. Multiple types of skeletal muscle atrophy involve a common program of changes in gene expression. —Stewart H. Lecker, R. Thomas Jagoe, Alexander Gilbert, Marcelo Gomes, Vickie Baracos, James Bailey, S. Russ Price, William E. Mitch, Alfred L. Goldberg Multiple types of skeletal muscle atrophy involve a common program of changes in gene expression. FASEB J. 18, 39–51 (2004)
Changes in Intracellular Ca2+ Induced with Adrenaline in Swine Lingual Artery

Background and Objectives: Dental doctors routinely infiltrate adrenaline combined with lidocaine into the oral mucosa. However, they do not well know the physiological characteristics and mechanisms of contraction induced by adrenaline in the oral maxillofacial artery. We investigated the changes in the intracellular Ca2+ concentration by an adrenaline-induced contraction in the swine lingual artery. Materials and Methods: We prepared artery rings with denuded endothelium and simultaneously measured tension and intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i). The effects of adrenaline in the presence or absence of intracellular Ca2+ on artery rings and verapamil on Ca2+ influx activated by adrenaline were assessed. Results: In the presence of intracellular Ca2+, the application of adrenaline caused a rapid increase in tension and [Ca2+ i, which then decreased slowly. In the absence of extracellular Ca2+, adrenaline caused a transient increase in [Ca2+]i and tension. The application of adrenaline in the presence of extracellular Ca2+ after depletion of the intracellular Ca2+ store caused a slow increase in [Ca2+]i and tension, while co-treatment with verapamil inhibited the increases in [Ca2+]intracellular and tension was induced by adrenaline. The tension relationship obtained with adrenaline was located on the left of the [Ca2+]i-tension relation curve obtained with KCl. Conclusions: The induction of contraction may involve three mechanisms: (1) Release of Ca2+ from the intracellular store, (2) influx of extracellular Ca2+ through voltage-gated Ca2+ channels, and (3) the Ca2+ sensitivity of the contractile apparatus.
Combined Laplacian and Optimization-based Smoothing for Quadratic Mixed Surface Meshes

Quadratic elements place stringent requirements on a surface mesh smoother. One of the biggest challenges is that a good linear element may become invalid when mid-side nodes are introduced. To help alleviate this problem, a new objective function for optimization-based smoothing is proposed for triangular and quadrilateral elements, linear or quadratic. Unlike the current popular approaches, this objective function makes it possible for a smoothing algorithm to untangle and smooth in a single process. This objective function has higher order continuous derivatives and only one minimum, if any, that make it suitable for optimization techniques. Even though optimization-based smoothing obtains much higher quality results compared to other algorithms, such as constrained Laplacian smoothing, it is also slower than these algorithms. That said, we also present an effective way to limit the number of calls to optimization-based smoothing such that the highest quality mesh is obtained in the least amount of time.
Learning Mixed Membership Mallows Models from Pairwise Comparisons

We propose a novel parameterized family of Mixed Membership Mallows Models (M4) to account for variability in pairwise comparisons generated by a heterogeneous population of noisy and inconsistent users. M4 models individual preferences as a user-specific probabilistic mixture of shared latent Mallows components. Our key algorithmic insight for estimation is to establish a statistical connection between M4 and topic models by viewing pairwise comparisons as words, and users as documents. This key insight leads us to explore Mallows components with a separable structure and leverage recent advances in separable topic discovery. While separability appears to be overly restrictive, we nevertheless show that it is an inevitable outcome of a relatively small number of latent Mallows components in a world of large number of items. We then develop an algorithm based on robust extreme-point identification of convex polygons to learn the reference rankings, and is provably consistent with polynomial sample complexity guarantees. We demonstrate that our new model is empirically competitive with the current state-of-the-art approaches in predicting real-world preferences.
A Successful Application of Intraventricular and Intravenous Colistin for Extensively Drug-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Ventriculitis in a Neurosurgical Patient Undergoing Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

The prevalence of extensively drug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii neuroinfection has markedly increased, and this infection is now a first-line medical emergency worldwide with a mortality rate of up to 50%. Its expanding resistance to most intravenous antibiotic treatments, as well as the severity of the initiated condition, obligates practitioners to concentrate on today's most effective therapy—the combination of intravenous and intraventricular/intrathecal colistin. The specific characteristics of the intraventricular/intrathecal route are promising for patients with supportive mechanical devices, such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation or hemodiafiltration, which have significant impacts on drug pharmacokinetics in the blood. This influence is minimized when antibiotics are administered directly into cerebrospinal fluid. The case report represents a history of a 39-year-old man with nosocomial carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii ventriculitis and acute respiratory distress syndrome. His treatment with intravenous and intraventricular colistin, as well as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation therapy, managed to succeed in helping the patient's recovery.
Guaranteed Cost Control of Uncertain Singularly Perturbed Systems via Static Output Feedback

In this paper, the guaranteed cost output feedback control problem for singularly perturbed systems (SPS) with uncertainties is investigated. In order to solve this problem, we must solve a set of cross-coupled algebraic Lyapunov equations and algebraic Riccati equations (CALRE). In this paper, a new algorithm to solve the CALRE is provided which is based on Newton’s method. The quadratic local convergence of the algorithm is proved. A numerical example is solved to show a 18.4% reduction of the average CPU time compared with the existing result.
Clinacanthus nutans: a review on ethnomedicinal uses, chemical constituents and pharmacological properties

Abstract Context: Medicinal plants have attracted global attention for their hidden therapeutic potential. Clinacanthus nutans (Burm.f) Lindau (Acanthaceae) (CN) is endemic in Southeast Asia. CN contains phytochemicals common to medicinal plants, such as flavonoids. Traditionally, CN has been used for a broad range of human ailments including snake bites and cancer. Objectives: This article compiles the ethnomedicinal uses of CN and its phytochemistry, and thus provides a phytochemical library of CN. It also discusses the known pharmacological and biological effects of CN to enable better investigation of CN. Methods: This literature review was limited to articles and websites published in the English language. MEDLINE and Google Scholar databases were searched from December 2014 to September 2016 using the following keywords: "Clinacanthus nutans" and "Belalai gajah". The results were reviewed to identify relevant articles. Information from relevant selected studies was systematically analyzed from contemporary ethnopharmacological sources, evaluated against scientific literature, and extracted into tables. Results: The literature search yielded 124 articles which were then further scrutinized revealing the promising biological activities of CN, including antimicrobial, antiproliferative, antitumorigenic and anti-inflammatory effects. Few articles discussed the mechanisms for these pharmacological activities. Furthermore, CN was beneficial in small-scale clinical trials for genital Herpes and aphthous stomatitis. Conclusion: Despite the rich ethnomedicinal knowledge behind the traditional uses of CN, the current scientific evidence to support these claims remains scant. More research is still needed to validate these medicinal claims, beginning by increasing the understanding of the biological actions of this plant.
Gene rfaH, which affects lipopolysaccharide core structure in Salmonella typhimurium, is required also for expression of F-factor functions

Mutations in gene rfaH of Salmonella typhimurium at 84 units on the linkage map make lipopolysaccharide of chemotypes Ra, Rb2, Rb3, and Rc (A. A. Lindberg and C. G. Hellerqvist, J. Gen. Microbiol, 116:25--32, 1980). F-factor expression in RfaH- strains was reduced in the following properties when compared with RfaH+ strains: transfer of Flac, number of phage f2 infective centers, lysis by and propagation of phages f2 and M13, proportion of cells with visible F-pili, and formation of mating aggregates with F- cells. Inhibition of multiplication of Br60, a female-specific phage, was not reduced in RfaH- Flac strains. Plasmid transfer from RfaH- strains was reduced for Inc groups FI, FII, and T, unaffected for Inc groups beta, I alpha, L, N, P, and W. and increased for Inc group M when compared with plasmid transfer from RfaH+ strains. Reduced F-factor function in RfaH- strains was not due to defective lipopolysaccharide since strains with mutations in other rfa genes were unaffected in plasmid transfer. Gene rfaH appears to be homologous with gene sfrB in Escherichia coli K-12, which maps at the same location, influences F-factor function, and affects synthesis of lipopolysaccharide. The gene product of sfrB has been proposed to be a transcription antiterminator.
Urinary Excretion of Cortisol, Norepinephrine, Testosterone, and Melatonin in Panic Disorder

Nocturnal urinary cortisol, norepinephrine, epinephrine, testosterone, and melatonin secretion patterns were studied in male patients with DSM IV/ICD-10 panic disorder (n = 16) over two series of 5 consecutive nights each. Night-time urinary excretion of cortisol, norepinephrine, and epinephrine was significantly elevated in drug-free patients compared to normal individuals (n = 13). Measurements were repeated after 4 weeks, and the same differences were found again. There were high correlations between the first and the second series of measurements. Testosterone and melatonin levels did not differ between panic patients and controls.
THE TURBULANCE OF THE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT DURING THE TRANSITION

This paper represents a comparative analysis of seventeen case studies from Central and Eastern Europe, selected from different published sources. The analysis of these business cases is used to highlight the typical strategic responses of firms to the unstable business environment in the region. It is argued in the paper that the transition to market economy is accompanied by multiple business risks to firms, and these risks have obstructed the adjustment, re-positioning, and restructuring of firms and their business networks. Our selection of cases demonstrates the strategic attempts by firms to transform their relationships not only with buyers and suppliers, but also with foreign partners, financial institutions, and governmental bodies. As a result of our comparative analysis, a new typology of business networks is developed, including: transformed business networks, and newly established business networks.
Robotic Software Integration Using MARIE

This paper presents MARIE, a middleware framework oriented towards developing and integrating new and existing software for robotic systems. By using a generic communication framework, MARIE aims to create a flexible distributed component system that allows robotics developers to share software programs and algorithms, and design prototypes rapidly based on their own integration needs. The use of MARIE is illustrated with the design of a socially interactive autonomous mobile robot platform capable of map building, localization, navigation, tasks scheduling, sound source localization, tracking and separation, speech recognition and generation, visual tracking, message reading and graphical interaction using a touch screen interface.
1 Introduction to Mixed Membership Models and Methods

1.1 Historical Developments . 3 1.2 A General Formulation for Mixed Membership Models . 4 1.3 Advantages of Mixed Membership Models in Applied Statistics . 6 1.4 Theoretical Issues with Mixed Membership Models . 8 1.4. 1 General Issues Inherent to Mixtures . 8 References . 10
Gate Matrix Layout of Random Control Logic in a 32-bit CMOS CPU Chip Adaptable to Evolving Logic Design

Previously the gate matrix technique was used to lay out the RALU section of a CMOS 32-bit CPU chip. It took 1.2 Engineer-Years to complete the layout of the RALU that contained more than 20,000 transistors with multiple-bus structure. The average packing density was 840 μm/sup 2/ per transistor in 2.5 μm design rules. Recently we have applied the gate matrix technique to lay out the highly complex "random control logic" of the CPU. With a well-structured layout strategy, the gate matrix layout provided (1) adaptability to evolving logic design with short turnaround times, (2) compatibility with computer aids in layout verification, (3) high packing density competitive with hand layout, and (4) compatibility with a team approach to layout. It took 6.5 Engineer-Years to complete the error-free layout of over 7,000 transistors although the logic design was continuously evolving during the layout period. More than half of the layout efforts were due to logic changes. The average packing density in the final layout of the random control logic was about 1,500 μm/sup 2/ per transistor with 2.5 μm design rules.
A high precision MEMS based capacitive accelerometer for seismic measurements

In this paper, we present a capacitive, MEMS based accelerometer comprising an ultra-low noise CMOS integrated readout-IC and a high precision bulk micro machined sensing element. The resulting accelerometer reaches an acceleration equivalent noise of only 200 ng/fHz, which makes it suitable for seismic measurement that require noise levels significantly below 1 pgAjHz. The design of the sensing element and readout-IC are presented in detail and measurement results are shown which demonstrate the performance of the sensor system.