Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Heart Rate Recovery After Cognitive Challenge Is Preserved With Age

Objective: To investigate the effect of age on heart rate recovery (HRR) from cognitive challenge. Background: Aging is an independent risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease. HRR from exercise is an established predictor of cardiac morbidity and mortality, and evidence suggests that HRR from cognitive challenge is predictive of cardiac morbidity as well. Aging is associated with delayed HRR from exercise stress, but little is known about the effect of aging on HRR from psychological stress. We tested the hypothesis that age would be related to delayed HRR from psychological stress. Methods: HRR post exposure to cognitive challenge (mental arithmetic and Stroop) was investigated in a sample of 436 participants aged 35 to 84 years in MIDUS II, a national study of health and well-being. HRR was measured as 1) the amount of change from the stress level; 2) time to recover; and 3) the area under the curve. The analyses were controlled for medical comorbidities and medications that influence HR, such as body mass index, smoking, sex, menopausal status, and amount of physical activity/exercise. Results: There was no effect for age on HRR as evaluated by all three recovery assessment methods. Conclusions: Contrary to expectation and in contrast to findings concerning HRR from exercise, HRR from cognitive challenge was preserved with age. These findings require further inquiry into differential mechanism(s) underlying HRR from psychological versus exercise stress, including any role for improved emotion regulation with greater age. HR = heart rate; HRR = heart rate recovery; AUC = area under the curve; ECG = electrocardiogram.
Toward an Operational Definition of Cross-Cultural Competence from the Literature

Abstract : The task documented here is part of a project to support Cultural Readiness for the Department of Defense. The purpose of this project is to derive a preliminary operational definition of cross-cultural competence and test and validate related measures in the military population. We define measurement for this purpose as establishing an understanding of the level of expertise in the target population. Cross-cultural competence (CCC) is the expertise which enables an individual in the military to perform in any number of cultures to achieve organizational goals (in contrast to more specific regional knowledge and language skills). The first part of this task, documented here, was to operationalize1 the definition of CCC by using constructs previously investigated in the literature. The second half of this task, to be documented in a subsequent report, will further develop the operational definition through the conduct of critical incident interviews conducted to examine the role of CCC within the context of mission success. Task 1 of the project, in which we identified measures of cross-cultural competence in the literature and examined their psychometric properties, addressed the first part of our conceptualization process. Here, we continue the conceptualization phase by examining the nature of existing constructs to come up with a definition of what exactly is to be measured. First and foremost in the conceptualization process, the conceptual criteria should be carefully identified to include all of the important dimensions of performance. This will involve not only theoretically based hypotheses about important constructs, but also detailed explication of what performance success looks like that can be tied to the important and relevant outcomes of mission effectiveness.
A reality check on a P2P-based IPTV system from the operator's perspective

This paper conducts a summarized reality check of a P2P-based IPTV system from the operator's perspective (NextTV) through the analysis of large-scale operational data. NextTV is an IPTV system by a leading Asia media company based in Taiwan - NextMedia, in which P2P delivery mechanism is adopted to deal with system and network scalability issues for popular videos. This paper contributes by revealing 1) the relationship between the user properties and video popularity and 2) how effective the P2P mechanism is in the IPTV system for popular videos with different user properties. The results demonstrate a successful showcase of using the P2P delivery mechanism for IPTV services by analyzing the real operational data of all users. The approach is different from many previous works which has used simulations, test-beds and traffic measurements of an incomplete collection of users. The results potentially helps the design of the next generation of the P2P delivery mechanism for IPTV services.
Direct visualization of the dystrophin network on skeletal muscle fiber membrane

Dystrophin, the protein product of the Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) gene locus, is expressed on the muscle fiber surface. One key to further understanding of the cellular function of dystrophin would be extended knowledge about its subcellular organization. We have shown that dystrophin molecules are not uniformly distributed over the humen, rat, and mouse skeletal muscle fiber surface using three independent methods. Incubation of single-teased muscle fibers with antibodies to dystrophin revealed a network of denser transversal rings (costameres) and finer longitudinal interconnections. Double staining of longitudinal semithin cryosections for dystrophin and alpha-actinin showed spatial juxtaposition of the costameres to the Z bands. Where peripheral myonuclei precluded direct contact of dystrophin to the Z bands the organization of dystrophin was altered into lacunae harboring the myonucleus. These lacunae were surrounded by a dystrophin ring and covered by a more uniform dystrophin veil. Mechanical skinning of single-teased fibers revealed tighter mechanical connection of dystrophin to the plasma membrane than to the underlying internal domain of the muscle fiber. The entire dystrophin network remained preserved in its structure on isolated muscle sarcolemma and identical in appearance to the pattern observed on teased fibers. Therefore, connection of defined areas of plasma membrane or its constituents such as ion channels to single sarcomeres might be a potential function exerted by dystrophin alone or in conjunction with other submembrane cytoskeletal proteins.
Hybrid framework for image denoising with patch prior estimation

In this paper, a hybrid framework is proposed for image denoising, in which several state-of-the-art denoising methods are efficiently incorporated with a well trade-off by using the prior of patches. In detail, unlike modeling patches with the prior in existed denoising methods, the prior estimation here is presented only to detect the attributes of patches. Then, noisy patches are clustered into several categories according to their patch attributes. Sequentially, different denoising methods are adopted on patches of different categories. The restored image is finally synthesized with the denoised patches of all categories. Experiments show that, by using the hybrid framework, the proposed algorithm is insensitive to the variation of the attributes of images, and can robustly restore images with a remarkable denoising performance.
Global and regional distribution of HIV-1 genetic subtypes and recombinants in 2004

Objective:To estimate the global and regional distribution of HIV-1 subtypes and recombinants in 2004. Design:A study was conducted in which molecular epidemiological data on HIV-1 subtype distribution in individual countries were combined with country-specific estimates of the number of people living with HIV. Methods:HIV-1 subtype data were collected for 23 874 HIV-1 samples from 70 countries, which together accounted for 89% of all people living with HIV worldwide in 2004. The proportions of HIV-1 infections due to various subtypes detected in each country were combined with the number of HIV infected people in the respective countries to generate regional and global HIV-1 subtype distribution estimates. Results:Subtype C accounted for 50% of all infections worldwide in 2004. Subtypes A, B, D and G accounted for 12%, 10%, 3% and 6%, respectively. The subtypes F, H, J and K together accounted for 0.94% of infections. The circulating recombinant forms CRF01_AE and CRF02_AG each were responsible for 5% of cases, and CRF03_AB for 0.1%. Other recombinants accounted for the remaining 8% of infections. All recombinant forms taken together were responsible for 18% of infections worldwide. Conclusion:Combining data on HIV-1 subtype distribution in individual countries with country-specific estimates of the number of people living with HIV provided a good method to generate estimates of the global and regional HIV-1 genetic diversity in 2004. The results could serve as an important resource for HIV scientists, public health officials and HIV vaccine developers.
β-cell insulin receptor deficiency during in utero development induces an islet compensatory overgrowth response

The presence of insulin receptor (IR) on β-cells suggests that insulin has an autocrine/paracrine role in the regulation of β-cell function. It has previously been reported that the β-cell specific loss of IR (βIRKO) leads to the development of impaired glycemic regulation and β-cell death in mice. However, temporally controlled βIRKO induced during the distinct transitions of fetal pancreas development has yet to be investigated. We hypothesized that the presence of IR on β-cells during the 2nd transition phase of the fetal murine pancreas is required for maintaining normal islet development. We utilized a mouse insulin 1 promoter driven tamoxifen-inducible Cre-recombinase IR knockout (MIP-βIRKO) mouse model to investigate the loss of β-cell IR during pancreatic development at embryonic day (e) 13, a phase of endocrine proliferation and β-cell fate determination. Fetal pancreata examined at e19-20 showed significantly reduced IR levels in the β-cells of MIP-βIRKO mice. Morphologically, MIP-βIRKO pancreata exhibited significantly enlarged islet size with increased β-cell area and proliferation. MIP-βIRKO pancreata also displayed significantly increased Igf-2 protein level and Akt activity with a reduction in phospho-p53 when compared to control littermates. Islet vascular formation and Vegf-a protein level was significantly increased in MIP-βIRKO pancreata. Our results demonstrate a developmental role for the β-cell IR, whereby its loss leads to an islet compensatory overgrowth, and contributes further information towards elucidating the temporally sensitive signaling during β-cell commitment.
Box Flame Detection and Image Normalization in Comic Images

In recent years, digital comic images are popular on the Internet. In general, they are scanned from comic books, but most of them are not normalized about their size, skew and margin. The normalization of comic images in preprocessing step has many advantages in automatic comic image analysis such as content-based comic image retrieval systems. The normalization in comic image can be carried out efficiently by using box frames in comic images. In this paper, we propose a comic image normalizing method using the box frames which are detected by line segments extracted by the gradient Radon transform. We applied the Radon transform using image gradients to extract line segments which are candidate line segments of the box frame sides. The final box frames are detected by cutting out regions which do not have comic image contents. By using region homogeneity, we decide whether the region has contents in comic images or not. Finally, the comic images are normalized by the homography transformation using the box frame extracted. Experimental results show that our method effectively detects the box frames and normalizes comic images.
Immediate-mode Ray-casting Immediate-mode Ray-casting

We propose a simple modiication to the classical polygon rasterization pipeline that enables exact, eecient r a ycasting of bounded implicit surfaces without the use of a global spatial data structure or bounding hierarchy. Our algorithm requires two descriptions for each object: a possibly non-convex polyhedral bounding volume, and an implicit equation including, optionally, a n um-ber of clipping planes. Unlike conventional raycasters, the modiied pipeline is unidirectional and operates in immediate mode, making hardware implementation feasible. We discuss an extension to the OpenGL state machine that enables immediate-mode raycasting while making no modiication to OpenGL's architecture for high-performance polygon rendering. A software simulation of our algorithm generates scenes of visual delity equal to those produced by a conventional raycaster, and superior to those produced by a polygon rasterizer, signiicantly faster than either existing method alone.
Parents and bereavement : a personal and professional exploration of grief

1. What happens when we grieve? 2. Secondary Losses 3. Supporting Surviving Children 4. How Grief Impacts Couples 5. Grandparents, Extended Family, and Friends 6. Anniversaries, Birthdays, Religious festivals and Other Family Celebrations Celebrations 7. Getting The Support You Need and What to Do if It Lets You Down 8. Medical Questions and Concerns 9. Planning a Funeral 10. Creating and Retaining Memories 11. Facing the Future Appendix Resource List
The Dark Side of Behaviour at Work: Understanding and avoiding employees leaving, thieving and deceiving

The Overview Theories of Dark Side Motivation Betrayal: The Unsettling Forces Counter Productive Bahaviours at Work Bad Person Theories Measuring Dark and Bright Side Attitudes, Beliefs and Bahaviours Integrity Tests The Psychology of Deception and Lying Protecting Your assets Fostering Loyalty and Commitment
Can you tell it by the prime? A study of metaphorical priming in high-functioning autism in comparison with matched controls.

BACKGROUND Problems with pragmatic aspects of language are well attested in individuals on the autism spectrum. It remains unclear, however, whether figurative language skills improve with language status and whether problems in figurative language are no longer present in highly verbal individuals with autism. AIMS To investigate whether highly verbal individuals with autism perform similarly as age-, intelligence- and verbal comprehension-matched controls on the processing of one of the most common types of figurative language, metaphors. The goal was to establish whether the participants with autism are primed similarly to controls by figurative expressions (metaphors) presented in different conditions. METHODS & PROCEDURES The experiment was designed as a cross-modal lexical-decision task where metaphors served as primes for target words related to their figurative or literal meaning. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Our findings show that both ASD and control participants made very few errors in the experimental task. However, the participants with ASD presented with problems in performance on the task, reflected in significantly slower reaction times compared with the typically developing peer groups. The similar response speed observed between the younger typical control children and the adult ASD participants suggests that the mechanisms underlying metaphor processing (e.g., selection of metaphorical versus literal interpretation) are still developing in high-functioning autism, very much like in typical children. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS These results may suggest that metaphor processing requires more than adequate language competences. The findings are also suggestive of a delay in developing sensitivity to figurative language, rather than sheer inability. This suggests that a timely training programme can be implemented to improve figurative language abilities in ASD.
“You’re Mr. Lebowski, I’m the Dude”: Inducing Address Term Formality in Signed Social Networks

We present an unsupervised model for inducing signed social networks from the content exchanged across network edges. Inference in this model solves three problems simultaneously: (1) identifying the sign of each edge; (2) characterizing the distribution over content for each edge type; (3) estimating weights for triadic features that map to theoretical models such as structural balance. We apply this model to the problem of inducing the social function of address terms, such as 'Madame', 'comrade', and 'dude'. On a dataset of movie scripts, our system obtains a coherent clustering of address terms, while at the same time making intuitively plausible judgments of the formality of social relations in each film. As an additional contribution, we provide a bootstrapping technique for identifying and tagging address terms in dialogue.
Decentralized power control scheme in femtocell networks: A game theoretic approach

We propose a new distributed power control scheme for closed access femtocell networks. Since femto APs can be deployed unpredictably in a macro cell area, interference to macro users and interference between femto APs in down-link (DL) cause a severe problem. In this paper, we describe the system model using a noncooperative game model. We formulate a payoff function to provide fairness and to minimize interference. At the same time, we prove that this function can be appeared as a supermodular type. Our power control algorithm based on the game model can be applied to the decentralized environment. This novel power control algorithm leads transmission power to reach a steady state condition, i.e. Nash Equilibrium (NE). Through mathematical analysis and numerical results, we show that our proposed power control algorithm has several good characteristics.
EGF-like growth factors as LH mediators in the human corpus luteum.

BACKGROUND This study aims to investigate the role of epidermal growth factor-like ligands, amphiregulin (Ar) and epiregulin (Ep), in regulation of apoptosis in luteinized human granulosa cells. METHODS Luteinized human granulosa cells were obtained from women undergoing IVF treatment. Ar and Ep mRNA levels were measured by real-time RT-PCR. The rate of apoptosis was measured by TUNEL. Progesterone levels were measured using radioimmunoassay. Ar- and Ep-induced activation of signaling cascades and Ar protein levels were detected by western blotting. RESULTS LH stimulation of luteinized human granulosa cells induced biosynthesis of Ar and Ep mRNA in a time-dependent manner. The blockade of MEK (by U0126) reduced the expression of LH-induced Ar and Ep biosynthesis. Incubation of the cells with Ar and Ep completely abolished the increase in apoptosis rate induced by serum starvation, and concomitantly caused a pronounced increase in progesterone production. Stimulation of the cells with Ar and Ep also activated the ERK and AKT signaling cascades. Finally, we demonstrated that the pro-survival effect of Ar and Ep is partially dependent on their ability to induce progesterone production. CONCLUSIONS Ar and Ep serve as pro-survival LH mediators in the human corpus luteum.
Characterization of Metabolically Active Bacterial Populations in Subseafloor Nankai Trough Sediments above, within, and below the Sulfate–Methane Transition Zone

A remarkable number of microbial cells have been enumerated within subseafloor sediments, suggesting a biological impact on geochemical processes in the subseafloor habitat. However, the metabolically active fraction of these populations is largely uncharacterized. In this study, an RNA-based molecular approach was used to determine the diversity and community structure of metabolically active bacterial populations in the upper sedimentary formation of the Nankai Trough seismogenic zone. Samples used in this study were collected from the slope apron sediment overlying the accretionary prism at Site C0004 during the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 316. The sediments represented microbial habitats above, within, and below the sulfate–methane transition zone (SMTZ), which was observed approximately 20 m below the seafloor (mbsf). Small subunit ribosomal RNA were extracted, quantified, amplified, and sequenced using high-throughput 454 pyrosequencing, indicating the occurrence of metabolically active bacterial populations to a depth of 57 mbsf. Transcript abundance and bacterial diversity decreased with increasing depth. The two communities below the SMTZ were similar at the phylum level, however only a 24% overlap was observed at the genus level. Active bacterial community composition was not confined to geochemically predicted redox stratification despite the deepest sample being more than 50 m below the oxic/anoxic interface. Genus-level classification suggested that the metabolically active subseafloor bacterial populations had similarities to previously cultured organisms. This allowed predictions of physiological potential, expanding understanding of the subseafloor microbial ecosystem. Unique community structures suggest very diverse active populations compared to previous DNA-based diversity estimates, providing more support for enhancing community characterizations using more advanced sequencing techniques.
Phospholamban Inhibitory Function Is Activated by Depolymerization*

Phospholamban (PLN), a homopentameric, integral membrane protein, reversibly inhibits cardiac sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase (SERCA2a) activity through intramembrane interactions. Here, alanine-scanning mutagenesis of the PLN transmembrane sequence was used to identify two functional domains on opposite faces of the transmembrane helix. Mutations in one face diminish inhibitory interactions with transmembrane sequences of SERCA2a, but have relatively little effect on the pentameric state, while mutations in the other face activate inhibitory interactions and enhance monomer formation. Double mutants are monomeric, but loss of inhibitory function is dominant over activation of inhibitory function. These observations support the proposal that the SERCA2a interaction site lies on the helical face which is not involved in pentamer formation. Four highly inhibitory mutants are effectively devoid of pentamer, suggesting that pentameric PLN represents a less active or inactive reservoir that dissociates to provide inhibitory monomeric PLN subunits. A model is presented in which the degree of PLN inhibition of SERCA2a activity is ultimately determined by the concentration of the inhibited PLN monomer·SERCA2a heterodimeric complex. The concentration of this inhibited complex is determined by the dissociation constant for the PLN pentamer (which is mutation-sensitive) and by the dissociation constant for the PLN/SERCA2a heterodimer (which is likely to be mutation-sensitive).
A Method and a Genetic Algorithm for Deriving Protocols for Distributed Applications with Minimum Communication Cost

We consider a set of rules for deriving the specification of the protocol of a distributed system from a given specification of services, and define and formulate the message exchange optimization problem using a 0-1 integer programming model. This problem is about determining the minimum number of messages to be exchanged between the physical locations of the distributed system, in order to reduce the communication cost. We then present a genetic algorithm for solving this problem. The main advantage of this algorithm, in comparison with exact algorithms, is that its complexity remains manageable for realistic large specifications. The experimental results show that the minimum number of messages to be exchanged is found in a very reasonable time. keywords protocol synthesis, service specification, protocol specification, communication cost, 0-1 integer linear programming, genetic algorithm