Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sport-Specific Assessment of the Effectiveness of Neuromuscular Training in Young Athletes

Neuromuscular training in young athletes improves performance and decreases the risk of injuries during sports activities. These effects are primarily ascribed to the enhancement of muscle strength and power but also balance, speed and agility. However, most studies have failed to demonstrate significant improvement in these abilities. This is probably due to the fact that traditional tests do not reflect training methods (e.g., plyometric training vs. isometric or isokinetic strength testing, dynamic balance training vs. static balance testing). The protocols utilized in laboratories only partially fulfill the current needs for testing under sport-specific conditions. Moreover, laboratory testing usually requires skilled staff and a well equipped and costly infrastructure. Nevertheless, experience demonstrates that high-technology and expensive testing is not the only way to proceed. A number of physical fitness field tests are available today. However, the low reliability and limited number of parameters retrieved from simple equipment used also limit their application in competitive sports. Thus, there is a need to develop and validate a functional assessment platform based on portable computerized systems. Variables obtained should be directly linked to specific features of particular sports and capture their complexity. This is essential for revealing weak and strong components of athlete performance and design of individually-tailored exercise programs. Therefore, identifying the drawbacks associated with the assessment of athlete performance under sport-specific conditions would provide a basis for the formation of an innovative approach to their long-term systematic testing. This study aims (i) to review the testing methods used for the evaluation of the effect of neuromuscular training on sport-specific performance in young athletes, (ii) to introduce stages within the Sport Longlife Diagnostic Model, and (iii) to propose future research in this topic. Analysis of the literature identified gaps in the current standard testing methods in terms of their low sensitivity in discriminating between athletes of varied ages and performance levels, insufficent tailoring to athlete performance level and individual needs, a lack of specificity to the requirements of particular sports and also in revealing the effect of training. In order to partly fill in these gaps, the Sport Longlife Diagnostic Model was proposed.
Privacy-Preserving Collaborative Learning for Mobile Health Monitoring

Health monitoring is an important category of mobile Health (mHealth) applications. Users generate a large volume of data during health monitoring, which can then be used by the mHealth server for constructing diagnosis or prognosis prediction models. However, these training samples contain private information of data owners, who may be reluctant to share them with the mHealth server. This paper proposes and experimentally studies a scheme that keeps the training samples private while enabling accurate construction of diagnosis and prognosis models. We specifically consider logistic regression models which are widely used in mHealth, and decompose the logistic regression model construction problem into small subproblems that can be executed by each user using their own private data. In this manner, users can keep their raw data locally and only upload encrypted parameters to the mHealth server for model construction. We show that our scheme suits well in mHealth applications by conducting experimental evaluations based on a real-world dataset and analyzing its computation overhead.
Design of a novel FBG vibration sensor

A new fiber Bragg grating(FBG) vibration sensor with a special structure of metal three-legged stand and elastic cantilever is designed for many low-frequency tests in engineering structures and mechanical systems.It can work with a wide band,amplify vibrating signal and increase sensitivity.And the mathematical model of vibration sensor was established.Furthermore,natural frequency,sensitivity,distortion factor,and horizontal anti-jamming capability of the sensor were measured.Experimental results show that the vibration detection below 75 Hz is feasible with the FBG vibration sensor designed.Its natural frequency is about 100 Hz,frequency range is 75 Hz,the resolution of amplitude is 0.3 nm/mm,and sensitivity is 28.5 pm/m·s-2.
Borrelia burgdorferi SpoVG DNA- and RNA-Binding Protein Modulates the Physiology of the Lyme Disease Spirochete

ABSTRACT The SpoVG protein of Borrelia burgdorferi, the Lyme disease spirochete, binds to specific sites of DNA and RNA. The bacterium regulates transcription of spoVG during the natural tick-mammal infectious cycle and in response to some changes in culture conditions. Bacterial levels of spoVG mRNA and SpoVG protein did not necessarily correlate, suggesting that posttranscriptional mechanisms also control protein levels. Consistent with this, SpoVG binds to its own mRNA, adjacent to the ribosome-binding site. SpoVG also binds to two DNA sites in the glpFKD operon and to two RNA sites in glpFKD mRNA; that operon encodes genes necessary for glycerol catabolism and is important for colonization in ticks. In addition, spirochetes engineered to dysregulate spoVG exhibited physiological alterations. IMPORTANCE B. burgdorferi persists in nature by cycling between ticks and vertebrates. Little is known about how the bacterium senses and adapts to each niche of the cycle. The present studies indicate that B. burgdorferi controls production of SpoVG and that this protein binds to specific sites of DNA and RNA in the genome and transcriptome, respectively. Altered expression of spoVG exerts effects on bacterial replication and other aspects of the spirochete's physiology.
Taming wild horses with Essentia Music Extractor

We overview the work done on automatic music audio description using the Essentia Music Extractor. We have successfully applied this tool to the analysis on a large scale in the AcousticBrainz project, in which we have been able to annotate over 3 million music recordings. We are challenged to constantly improve feature extraction algorithms and make our tools more useful for researchers. We reflect on the quality of our current data and identify how it can be improved in following versions to be in line with the essential goals of Music Information Retrieval of building final usable systems. We call on the community for help and contribution.
Polarization Diversity and Adaptive Beamsteering for 5G Reflectarrays: A Review

The growing demands of advanced future communication technologies require investigating the possible enhancement in the current features of a reflectarray antenna. Its design and experimental features need a thorough investigation before a plausible transition towards millimeter wave frequencies. This paper provides a detailed review covering various fundamental and advanced design tactics for polarization diversity and beamsteering in the reflectarray antenna. The diversity in the polarization has been discussed for linear and circular polarized designs in reflectarrays. The importance of electronically tunable materials and different lumped components for adaptive beamsteering in reflectarrays has also been highlighted. Each design has been critically analyzed and possibilities of its compatibility with future 5G systems have been provided.
Brain structural covariance network centrality in maltreated youth with PTSD and in maltreated youth resilient to PTSD

Abstract Child maltreatment is a major cause of pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Previous studies have not investigated potential differences in network architecture in maltreated youth with PTSD and those resilient to PTSD. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging brain scans at 3 T were completed in maltreated youth with PTSD (n = 31), without PTSD (n = 32), and nonmaltreated controls (n = 57). Structural covariance network architecture was derived from between-subject intraregional correlations in measures of cortical thickness in 148 cortical regions (nodes). Interregional positive partial correlations controlling for demographic variables were assessed, and those correlations that exceeded specified thresholds constituted connections in cortical brain networks. Four measures of network centrality characterized topology, and the importance of cortical regions (nodes) within the network architecture were calculated for each group. Permutation testing and principle component analysis method were employed to calculate between-group differences. Principle component analysis is a methodological improvement to methods used in previous brain structural covariance network studies. Differences in centrality were observed between groups. Larger centrality was found in maltreated youth with PTSD in the right posterior cingulate cortex; smaller centrality was detected in the right inferior frontal cortex compared to youth resilient to PTSD and controls, demonstrating network characteristics unique to pediatric maltreatment-related PTSD. Larger centrality was detected in right frontal pole in maltreated youth resilient to PTSD compared to youth with PTSD and controls, demonstrating structural covariance network differences in youth resilience to PTSD following maltreatment. Smaller centrality was found in the left posterior cingulate cortex and in the right inferior frontal cortex in maltreated youth compared to controls, demonstrating attributes of structural covariance network topology that is unique to experiencing maltreatment. This work is the first to identify cortical thickness-based structural covariance network differences between maltreated youth with and without PTSD. We demonstrated network differences in both networks unique to maltreated youth with PTSD and those resilient to PTSD. The networks identified are important for the successful attainment of age-appropriate social cognition, attention, emotional processing, and inhibitory control. Our findings in maltreated youth with PTSD versus those without PTSD suggest vulnerability mechanisms for developing PTSD.
Crosstalk between human endometrial stromal cells and decidual NK cells promotes decidualization in vitro by upregulating IL-25

Embryo implantation is essential for a successful pregnancy, and leads to the decidualization of endometrial stromal cells (ESCs) in the secretory phase of the menstrual cycle. It has previously been demonstrated that decidual stromal cells (DSCs) co-express interleukin (IL)-25/IL-17RB and that IL-25 further promotes the proliferation of DSCs via activating c-Jun n-terminal kinase and protein kinase B signals, therefore the present study primarily focused on the role of IL-25 in the process of decidualization in vitro. It was demonstrated that the expression of IL-25/IL-17RB in ESCs was decreased compared with DSCs. In addition, following decidualization, the expression levels of IL-25/IL-17RB in ESCs were significantly elevated. Recombinant human (rh) IL-25 promoted the decidualization of ESCs in the presence of 8-bromoadenosine 3′,5′-cyclic monophosphate sodium salt and 6α-methyl17α-acetoxyprogesterone, which was partially inhibited by anti-human IL-25 neutralizing antibody (anti-IL-25) or anti-IL-17RB. In addition, decidual natural killer (dNK) cells not only secreted IL-25, however also further accelerated the decidualization in vitro. Therefore, these findings indicated that ESCs differentiate into DSCs in the presence of ovarian hormones, resulting in the upregulation of IL-25/IL-17RB expression in ESCs. Furthermore, IL-25 secreted by ESCs and dNK cells further facilitates the decidualization of ESCs, which may form a positive feedback mechanism at the maternal-fetal interface and thus contribute to the establishment and maintenance of normal pregnancy.
Optimal Adaptive Policies for Sequential Allocation Problems

Consider the problem of sequential sampling frommstatistical populations to maximize the expected sum of outcomes in the long run. Under suitable assumptions on the unknown parametersformula, it is shown that there exists a classCRof adaptive policies with the following properties: (i) The expectednhorizon rewardformulaunder any policy Â? 0inCRis equal toformula, asnÂ? ∞, whereformulais the largest population mean andformulais a constant. (ii) Policies inCRare asymptotically optimal within a larger classCUFof “uniformly fast convergent” policies in the sense thatformula, for any Â? Â? CUFand anyformulasuch thatformula. Policies inCRare specified via easily computable indices, defined as unique solutions to dual problems that arise naturally from the functional form offormula. In addition, the assumptions are verified for populations specified by nonparametric discrete univariate distributions with finite support. In the case of normal populations with unknown means and variances, we leave as an open problem the verification of one assumption.
Impact of EGFR expression on colorectal cancer patient prognosis and survival: a response.

concerns. First, the authors affirm that previous studies did not demonstrate any influence of EGFR expression on patient survival and disease-free survival. In 2003 we published a study [2] which suggested that EGFR may be used as a marker of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) in a series of colorectal cancer patients, since EGFR persistence in blood after surgery identified a subset of patients at high risk of relapse. In that study, where we described the association between EGFR expression and tumour stage, we also found a statistically significant correlation between EGFR expression in blood and relapses. Analogous results have been obtained by our group in bladder cancer patients, where EGFR expression in blood also correlates with worse prognosis [3, 4]. Thus, it is incorrect to say that EGFR expression does not affect patient survival, but would be more correct to affirm that EGFR expression in tumoural tissues does not affect patient survival. We would like to stress that in our series of patients affected by colon or bladder cancer, we often failed to find a correlation between EGFR expression in the primary tumour and in peripheral blood. This is not surprising, and reflects the biological characteristics of tumour progression: molecular oncologists well know that the genic profile of tumoural cells in the primary tumour is different from that of cells which detach and enter blood flow. Thus, we are not surprised if EGFR expression at the tumour level does not affect prognosis, but are really interested to know if analysis of EGFR-expressing CTCs may lead authors to the same conclusions.
Reclaiming the white spaces: spectrum efficient coexistence with primary users

TV white spaces offer an exciting opportunity for increasing spectrum availability, but white space devices (WSDs) cannot interfere with primary users, including TV channels and wireless microphones (mics). Mics are particularly challenging because their use is dynamic and it is hard to avoid interference since mic receivers are receive-only devices. For this reason the FCC and other regulatory agencies have made very conservatives rules that require WSDs to vacate any TV channel that is used by a mic. However, our measurements show that mics typically require only 5% of a channel, wasting as much as 95% of the spectrum. We present SEISMIC, a systems that enables WSDs and mics to operate on the same TV channel with zero audible mic interference. SEISMIC implements a MicProtector to measure the interference at the mic receiver and a signaling protocol to notify the WSD of impending interference. This allows the WSD to optimize its transmission (e.g. through subcarrier suppression) without impacting mics. We motivate and describe SEISMIC and present a detailed performance analysis that shows that SEISMIC can regain up to 95% of the spectrum in single mic scenarios, and up to 85% in many (10+) mic environments.
Development of simple relationship between asphalt binder and mastic based on rheological tests

The relationship between the different phases of asphalt materials, from asphalt binder to mastic and mixture, has received significant interest over the years. The Shift-Homothety-Shift in time-Shift (SHStS) transformation developed by the research team of the École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l’État has been found to provide a very effective tool to relate the rheological properties of binders to those of the corresponding mixtures. In this paper, the possibility of using the SHStS transformation to link the behaviour of asphalt binder to that of mastic is investigated with the objective of proposing a simple expression of the SHStS transformation parameter, α, as function of the filler content in the mastic. First, an experimental campaign consisting of dynamic shear rheometer tests is conducted on a set of binders and mastics to obtain the material response at different temperatures and frequencies. Then, the rheological 2S2P1D (2 springs, 2 parabolic elements, 1 dashpot) model is used to evaluate the experimental measurements. Finally, a simple relationship associating the characteristic times of asphalt binder and mastic as function of the filler content is developed. The proposed expression allows to easily and efficiently predict the complex modulus of mastics from the binder complex modulus and vice versa.
Genomewide signatures of selection in Epichloë reveal candidate genes for host specialization

Host specialization is a key process in ecological divergence and speciation of plant‐associated fungi. The underlying determinants of host specialization are generally poorly understood, especially in endophytes, which constitute one of the most abundant components of the plant microbiome. We addressed the genetic basis of host specialization in two sympatric subspecies of grass‐endophytic fungi from the Epichloë typhina complex: subsp. typhina and clarkii. The life cycle of these fungi entails unrestricted dispersal of gametes and sexual reproduction before infection of a new host, implying that the host imposes a selective barrier on viability of the progeny. We aimed to detect genes under divergent selection between subspecies, experiencing restricted gene flow due to adaptation to different hosts. Using pooled whole‐genome sequencing data, we combined FST and DXY population statistics in genome scans and detected 57 outlier genes showing strong differentiation between the two subspecies. Genomewide analyses of nucleotide diversity (π), Tajima's D and dN/dS ratios indicated that these genes have evolved under positive selection. Genes encoding secreted proteins were enriched among the genes showing evidence of positive selection, suggesting that molecular plant–fungus interactions are strong drivers of endophyte divergence. We focused on five genes encoding secreted proteins, which were further sequenced in 28 additional isolates collected across Europe to assess genetic variation in a larger sample size. Signature of positive selection in these isolates and putative identification of pathogenic function supports our findings that these genes represent strong candidates for host specialization determinants in Epichloë endophytes. Our results highlight the role of secreted proteins as key determinants of host specialization.
Long-term reconstruction of foveal microstructure and visual acuity after idiopathic macular hole repair: three-year follow-up study

Aims To evaluate long-term reconstructive changes in foveal microstructures and their associations with visual improvement in eyes with surgically closed macular holes (MHs). Methods Twenty-eight eyes of 28 patients who underwent successful idiopathic MH repair were retrospectively studied. Best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and spectral-domain optical coherence tomography images were examined preoperatively and 1, 3, 6, 12, 24 and 36 months postoperatively. Correlations between postoperative BCVA and parameters relating to the reconstruction of the foveal photoreceptor layer including the external limiting membrane (ELM), ellipsoid zone (EZ) and cone interdigitation zone (CIZ) as well as changes in glial cells were evaluated. Results Logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution BCVA improved continuously during 3-year follow-up (baseline 0.70±0.27, 1 month 0.36±0.34, 3 months 0.29±0.30, 6 months 0.22±0.24, 12 months 0.18±0.25, 24 months 0.14±0.22, 36 months 0.10±0.19) (p=0.015). Continuous reconstruction of the foveal microstructure was apparent throughout the 3-year follow-up. The reconstruction process was initiated by glial proliferation, followed by ELM bridging, glial elimination with EZ reconstruction and CIZ reconstruction. Better BCVA at the 3-year time-point was significantly associated with early ELM bridging, early glial disappearance and photoreceptor integrity defined as complete reconstruction of the ELM, EZ and CIZ. Conclusions Integrity of the photoreceptor layer was correlated with better long-term visual outcomes after MH repair. Reconstruction of the foveal ELM and disappearance of glial proliferation in the early postoperative period predicted better visual recovery.
CARCINOMA OF THE BREAST

No finality has been reached on the treatment of carcinoma of the female breast, partly because of the bias which most surgeons and radiotherapists have for their own method of treatment and which tends to fiavour any concfustons they may draw from their results, and partly because of the difficulty in arranging properly controlled experiments from which an independent observer may draw unbiased conclusions. Most published results dealing with the treatment of carcinoma of the female breast (and of many other diseases) are confined to one special method. If any set of results obtained with one method of treatment is to be compared with another set obtained with a different method of treatment, it is usually necessary to assume that both sets of patients represent random samples of the' sufferers from this disease. This assumption may of course be incorrect and may introduce grave errors in any deductions made. L. Clarence Cohn' has recently published an analysis of end results obtained after five years in a series of 192 cases of carcinoma of the female breast, in which special attention was paid to pre-operative irradiation. The difficulty of comparing results with another series treated by a different method arises, but apart from this there is a noteworthy lack of bias in Cohn's conclusions. Ai; might have been expected, the results obtained five years after complete removal of the breast indicate that the end results have been largely determined by the grade of the tumour and the condition of the axillary lymph glands at the time of the operation. ' Cohn was unable to state whether the condition of the axillary lymph glands (as regards the presence of metastases) or the grade of the tumour were themselves modifiecl by pre-operative irradiation. In the cases of restricted operations on the breast Cohn found that there was some evidence that irradiation therapy beneficially infiuenced the end results. Of the 68 patients in this author's series suffering from recurrent and· inoperable carcinomata of the breast only one survived for five years. While there is no definite evidence in these results of the pre-operative value of irradiation of carcinoma of the female breast. this does not necessarily mean that irradiation is useless and that the surgeons convinced of its value are wrong. T'he results do, however, confirm the fact that irradiation is of very little permanent value in the treatment of recurrent and inoperable tumours.