Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low-frequency fatigue.

Muscle fatigue has been defined as a temporary loss in force or torque-generating ability due to recent muscle contraction.1 The mechanisms underlying muscle fatigue are numerous and may have their origins anywhere from the central nervous system (CNS) to cellular-level cross-bridge cycling.2,3 The major proposed mechanisms of fatigue production are: (1) inadequate excitation of motoneurons, (2) poor action potential transmission along axonal branch points, (3) failure of the action potential to invade the synaptic bouton or failure to trigger transmitter release at the myoneural junction, (4) failure of the post-junctional membrane to be depolarized adequately, (5) failure of the action potential to propagate the full length of the sarcolemma or the action potential has too low of an amplitude, (6) failure of the action potential to invade the T-tubule system and sarcoplasmic reticulum system or failure of the action potential to trigger calcium release, (7) contractile system of the muscle, and (8) mitochondria, signifying metabolic events that sustain contraction.2 Until recently, muscle fatigue was thought to be caused by lactic acid accumulation or a lowered pH within the muscle due to a rising hydrogen ion concentration ([H+]) during anaerobic metabolism.4–6 Recent literature, however, has shown that at the cross-bridge level, [H+] may not be a major causative factor of muscle fatigue.7–18 Inorganic phosphate accumulation, on the other hand, has been implicated as a significant cause of muscle fatigue, presumably in its role at the cross-bridge level.7,19–21 During the study of muscle fatigue, a phenomenon known as low-frequency fatigue (LFF) was observed. It was first described by Edwards and colleagues22 and is characterized by a proportionately greater loss of force in response to low- versus high-frequency muscle stimulation. This form of fatigue is long-lasting, …
A precise torque and high efficiency control for induction motor vector control system taking into account iron loss

This paper presents a novel torque control method for a vector-controlled induction motor taking into account iron loss. By using a phase lag current control, both current control and parameter identification are well realized. The proposed system is simple and contains a conventional slip frequency type vector control as a special case. Furthermore, a high efficiency control method that minimizes the loss is proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed system is verified by digital simulation and experimentation.
Innovation in small and medium sized enterprises: The case of e-commerce adoption in the UK

Summary Successful small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are recognised as being an important component in the industrial development, and its consequent social benefits, of all economies. However, e-commerce has been described as altering the structure of whole industries, dampening profitability and levelling business practices. SMEs will not be immune to these effects and must therefore find a way of successfully adopting this new technology. Many SMEs are currently developing e-commerce services, however there is little systematic research into how they are doing this and what the organisational and environmental factors associated with adoption are. This study addresses this gap through an exploration of the level and sequence of adoption and the factors associated with this adoption. The research, which focuses on the particular case of the UK and was carried out by means of a mailed questionnaire, found four distinct clusters of adoption. The four clusters appeared to form a set of sequential steps or stages, through which firms passed during the adoption of e-commerce. Seven factors were found to be associated with their adoption of e-commerce. Six of these factors were consistent with factors previously identified as associated with the adoption of traditional IT systems by SMEs, whilst one new factor was identified which would appear to be unique to, or at least more significant in, the domain of e-commerce adoption. A more detailed analysis of the adoption factors over the four adoption stages demonstrated that SMEs adopting e-commerce are likely encounter the acculturation effect. Adoption of innovation studies invariably assume that the factors associated with adoption are linear in nature. This study highlights that these factors may well be more complex than currently assumed and hence forms a useful starting point for future innovation studies.
Turnover in the AFDC Population: An Event History Analysis

The control group of families with female heads, from the Denver Income Maintenance Experiment, is utilized in this analysis of AFDC turnover. This study uses event history techniques, a methodology that is more appropriate for exploring welfare dynamics than the logit approach of earlier work. Increases in age and the wage have significant, negative effects on the rate of entering AFDC. A higher guarantee raises this rate significantly. Age and the guarantee have significant effects, with opposite signs, on the exit rate. Other variables are not systematically related to turnover. The estimates are applied to projected changes in lengths of time spent on and off AFDC and in AFDC caseloads due to changes in the explanatory variables.
De Facto Privatisation of Basic Education in Africa: A Market Response to Government Failure? A Comparative Study of the Cases of Ghana and Nigeria

Low-fee private schools (LFPS) enrol a growing proportion of children in Ghana and Nigeria, including among the poor. This trend raises questions about the quality of provision in the public sector as well as in relation to equity and social justice in the distribution of educational opportunity. This paper examines the phenomenon of de facto privatisation in comparative perspective, drawing on secondary data and on purposively conducted interviews among parents and teachers in two peri-urban communities where both private and public schools are available. In both countries, up to twenty percent of pupils attend private schools at the national level, while in Lagos State, Nigeria, the figure is as high as 57%. Parents’ explanations of their choice of LFPS include reference to better examination performance and access to higher levels of education, greater attention to pupils’ welfare and progress; and to the learning of English. By contrast, many are critical of public school alternatives, despite their sometimes better resources and better trained teachers. In many cases, teachers and parents explain the differences between types of school in relation to issues of school management and accountability and their impacts on teacher motivation and practice. Although fees are reported to be relatively low, and parents most often considered LFPS to be ‘good value for money’, many make considerable sacrifices to afford this choice, and the option remains closed to many poorer parents. Some of the practices adopted by LFPS offer policy lessons for the public sector on issues including school effectiveness and accountability, while others, such as the very low pay of teaching staff are less desirable. Nonetheless, failure to address the issues driving the expansion of the LFPS sector may have the consequence of increasing inequity, as parents with the means increasingly ‘vote with their feet’.
Visual Outdoor Path Planner for Orange Groves based on Ensembles of Neural Networks

One of the most important system to deploy for a robot navigating in an outdoor scenario, as can be an orange grove, is the navigation system. In this paper, a path planner in orange groves for an autonomous robotic system is presented. This path planner is based on a previous classification of the image that the robot gets from its visual sensory system. One of the most important technique used to generate accurate classifiers is based on training an ensemble of neural networks. Here, a simple ensemble of neural networks is used to classify images from an orange grove using wavelets features. With the classification image obtained, the most important lines of the land are extracted with the Hough transform. The final path line is determined with these lines. The purpose of this paper is to determine if the ensemble approach can be useful in the procedure to design an accurate path planner for outdoor autonomous robots in orange groves. The published results show that ensembles can be considered for this type of applications.
Selfish and spiteful behaviour through parasites and pathogens

Questions: Can hosts use their parasites or pathogens to decrease the fitness of their conspecifics? Which conditions support the evolution of such harmful behaviour – expressed as spiteful or selfish behaviour? Mathematical model: I calculate the selective pressure acting on a mutant expressing harmful behaviour. The direction of selection on this social trait is given by its effect on inclusive fitness. Individuals are haploid and form a population of constant size and structured in an infinite island model with migration. Individuals harm others through their parasites or pathogens. Key assumptions: (1) An infected host may infect several other susceptible conspecifics simultaneously. (2) A variety of immunity mechanisms enables kin members to be immune to a given parasite or pathogen, a sort of kin recognition. Conclusions: By using parasites to harm non-kin hosts, the harming host may partially align its interests with those of the parasites, even when there is a fitness cost for this act. The cost is compensated by the fact that the parasite may infect several non-kin hosts within a host generation. That is, by infecting several hosts, the ratio (cost to the actor)/(cost to the recipient) becomes very low, hence facilitating the spread of the harming allele. Immunity-mediated recognition of non-kin hosts or of migrant hosts in subdivided populations further helps this trait to spread.
A Preponderance of CCR5+CXCR4+ Mononuclear Cells Enhances Gastrointestinal Mucosal Susceptibility to Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Infection

ABSTRACT The gastrointestinal mucosa harbors the majority of the body's CD4+ cells and appears to be uniquely susceptible to human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. We undertook this study to examine the role of differences in chemokine receptor expression on infection of mucosal mononuclear cells (MMCs) and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) by R5- and X4-tropic HIV-1. We performed in vitro infections of MMCs and PBMCs with R5- and X4-tropic HIV-1, engineered to express murine CD24 on the infected cell's surface, allowing for quantification of HIV-infected cells and their phenotypic characterization. A greater percentage of MMCs than PBMCs are infected by both R5- and X4-tropic HIV-1. Significant differences exist in terms of chemokine receptor expression in the blood and gastrointestinal mucosa; mucosal cells are predominantly CCR5+ CXCR4+, while these cells make up less than 20% of the peripheral blood cells. It is this cell population that is most susceptible to infection with both R5- and X4-tropic HIV-1 in both compartments. Regardless of whether viral isolates were derived from the blood or mucosa of HIV-1-infected patients, HIV-1 p24 production was greater in MMCs than in PBMCs. Further, the chemokine receptor tropism of these patient-derived viral isolates did not differ between compartments. We conclude that, based on these findings, the gastrointestinal mucosa represents a favored target for HIV-1, in part due to its large population of CXCR4+ CCR5+target cells and not to differences in the virus that it contains.
High-Dose Tranexamic Acid Is Associated with Nonischemic Clinical Seizures in Cardiac Surgical Patients

BACKGROUND: In 2 separate centers, we observed a notable increase in the incidence of postoperative convulsive seizures from 1.3% to 3.8% in patients having undergone major cardiac surgical procedures. These events were temporally coincident with the initial use of high-dose tranexamic acid (TXA) therapy after withdrawal of aprotinin from general clinical usage. The purpose of this review was to perform a retrospective analysis to examine whether there was a relation between TXA usage and seizures after cardiac surgery. METHODS: An in-depth chart review was undertaken in all 24 patients who developed perioperative seizures. Electroencephalographic activity was recorded in 11 of these patients, and all patients had a formal neurological evaluation and brain imaging studies. RESULTS: Twenty-one of the 24 patients did not have evidence of new cerebral ischemic injury, but seizures were likely due to ischemic brain injury in 3 patients. All patients with seizures did not have permanent neurological abnormalities. All 24 patients with seizures received high doses of TXA intraoperatively ranging from 61 to 259 mg/kg, had a mean age of 69.9 years, and 21 of 24 had undergone open chamber rather than coronary bypass procedures. All but one patient were managed using cardiopulmonary bypass. No evidence of brain ischemic, metabolic, or hyperthermia-induced causes for their seizures was apparent. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that use of high-dose TXA in older patients in conjunction with cardiopulmonary bypass and open-chamber cardiac surgery is associated with clinical seizures in susceptible patients.
Levels of education, growth and policy complementarities

Human capital acquired in the formal education sector is essential for knowledge creation and dissemination but the theoretical and empirical growth literature identifies other major determinants of innovation and imitation activities (R&D, international trade and FDI). This paper is an empirical investigation in a panel data framework of the effects of education and its sub-categories on economic growth emphasizing its complementarity with the other major determinants of technological change and growth. For this purpose we focus on a sample of OECD countries during the last decades of the twentieth century and use an extended and augmented version of the Benhabib and Spiegel (1994) growth specification that considers the role of education in innovation and imitation activities and that interacts education with the other major determinants of technological change. The results reveal the importance of education for growth through technology diffusion and domestic innovation activities. To fully exploit the benefits from R&D expenses in terms of growth the average OECD country needs a sufficient level of secondary and tertiary education and to benefit from the technology incorporated in imports of machinery countries need a sufficient level of overall education.
Impact of colonoscopy preparation quality on detection of suspected colonic neoplasia.

BACKGROUND Suboptimal bowel preparation for colonoscopy can lead to missed colonic lesions. The aim of this study was to describe the impact of preparation quality on detection of suspected colonic neoplasia. METHODS Data from the Clinical Outcomes Research Initiative national endoscopic database for the period January 1, 2000 to December 31, 2001, were analyzed. Patient demographics, quality of preparation, and colonoscopy findings were abstracted from the database. RESULTS Overall, 93,004 colonoscopies with adequate documentation were reviewed. Preparation was adequate for 71,501 (76.9%) of these procedures. On multivariate analysis, preparation adequacy was associated with colonic lesion detection, odds ratio (OR) 1.21: 95% CI [1.16, 1.25]. Adequate preparation demonstrated a closer association with identification of "nonsignificant" lesions (polyps <or=9 mm), OR 1.23: 95% CI [1.19, 1.28], compared with "significant" lesion detection (mass lesion, polyps >9 mm), OR 1.05: 95% CI [0.98, 1.11]. CONCLUSIONS Bowel preparation is inadequate for almost a quarter of patients undergoing colonoscopy. These results suggest that inadequate preparation quality only hinders detection of smaller lesions, while having negligible impact on detection of larger lesions. These results should be confirmed in prospective studies.
Complex Multivitamin Supplementation Improves Homocysteine and Resistance to LDL-C Oxidation

Objective: We previously reported in an open-label pilot trial that a 24-ingredient multivitamin formula favorably influenced homocysteine concentration and LDL-C oxidation indices following 24 weeks of supplementation. Our current aim was to more thoroughly examine this same formula in a randomized, placebo-controlled, clinical study. Methods: We examined 182 participants for selected plasma vitamin concentrations and clinically relevant variables including homocysteine, lipids and LDL-C oxidation indices at baseline and six months. Results: We found no significant differences between groups for any parameter at baseline. Following six months of vitamin supplementation, we observed elevations in plasma concentrations of vitamin B6 (as pyridoxal 5′-phosphate; PLP), vitamin B12, folate, vitamin C, vitamin E and β-carotene (p < 0.0001), all of which were significantly greater than respective placebo group changes (p < 0.0001). Homocysteine decreased in the treatment (8.38 ± 2.9 vs. 6.93 ± 2.5 μmol/L; p < 0.0001) and placebo group (8.17 ± 3.0 vs. 7.42 ± 2.2 μmol/L; p < 0.0001) from baseline to six months, respectively, with reductions in the treatment group being greater than placebo (p < 0.008). LDL-C oxidation indices were also improved as LDL-C oxidation rate was decreased (−0.39 μmol/min/g protein; p < 0.0003) and LDL-C lag time increased (11.3 min; p < 0.003) in supplemented participants. Further analysis also showed that LDL-C oxidation rate was lower (p < 0.0007) and LDL-C lag time longer (p < 0.0001) for the vitamin group than placebo treatment after six months. Conclusion: We conclude that a multi-ingredient vitamin formula with antioxidant properties has measurable effects on homocysteine and LDL-C oxidation indices.
Ethics and Finance: An Introduction

Preface 1. Opening case study: the financial crisis 2. Introduction 3. Ethical foundations 4. The financial system 5. Lending and borrowing: where finance meets ordinary people 6. Trading and speculation: the ethics of financial markets 7. Agency and accountability: managing other people's money 8. Products, promotion and client relationships 9. Financial reporting and corporate governance 10. Epilogue: the ethics of financial regulation.
Commensal Bacteria Influence Escherichia coli O157:H7 Persistence and Shiga Toxin Production in the Mouse Intestine

ABSTRACT The presence of commensal flora reduced colonization of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and production of Shiga toxin (Stx) in the murine intestine. Stx production was not detected in mice colonized with E. coli that were resistant to the Shiga toxin phage, but it was detected in mice colonized with phage-susceptible E. coli.
Regulating an Experience Good Produced in the Formal Sector of a Developing Country When Consumers Cannot Identify Producers

In developing countries, consumers can buy many goods either in formal markets or in informal markets and decide where to purchase based on the product's price and anticipated quality. This pape assumes consumers cannot assess quality prior to purchase and cannot, at reasonable cost, identify who produced the good they are considering. Many products (meats, fruits, vegetables, fish, grains) sold both in formal groceries and, less formally, on the street fit this description. This paper also assumes that producers can adjust quality at a cost and only firms in the formal sector are subject to government regulation. In the long run, producers migrate to the sector that is more profitable. Using this model, we demonstrate how regulations in the formal sector can lead to a quality gap between formal and informal sector goods. Moreover, the paper investigates how changes in regulation affect quality, price, aggregate production, and the number of firms in each sector.
Determinants of foreign direct investment in Sudan: an econometric perspective

The paper explores the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Sudan over the period (1970–2010). The study considers the market size, inflation rate, exchange rate, indirect taxes, trade openness, and investment incentive policy as factors influencing FDI. The study uses the cointegration and error-correction techniques to identify the short- and long-run dynamics of the FDI determinants. The Johansen cointegration test statistics indentify four cointegrating relations among the series, which implies an existence of long-run relationship among the FDI determinants. The results of the long-run FDI equation indicate that FDI flows in Sudan are influenced by the market size, inflation rate, exchange rate, and investment incentive policy. The error-correction term suggests that approximately 17% of total disequilibrium in FDI flows was being corrected each year. Moreover, Granger causality results show that there is a unidirectional causality running from each of the exchange rate, investment incentive policy, and the market size to FDI.
Influence of panic-agoraphobic spectrum symptoms on treatment response in patients with recurrent major depression.

OBJECTIVE The authors tested the hypothesis that a lifetime history of panic-agoraphobic spectrum symptoms predicts a poorer response to depression treatment. METHOD A threshold for clinically meaningful panic-agoraphobic spectrum symptoms was defined by means of receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of total scores on the Structured Clinical Interview for Panic-Agoraphobic Spectrum in a group of 88 outpatients with and without panic disorder. This threshold was then applied to a group of 61 women with recurrent major depression, who completed a self-report version of the same instrument, in order to compare treatment outcomes for patients above and below this clinical threshold. RESULTS Women with high scores (> or =35) on the Panic-Agoraphobic Spectrum Self-Report were less likely than women with low scores (<35) to respond to interpersonal psychotherapy alone (43.5% versus 68.4%, respectively). Women with high scores also took longer (18.1 versus 10.3 weeks) to respond to a sequential treatment paradigm (adding a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor when depression did not remit with interpersonal psychotherapy alone). This effect was only partially accounted for by the higher likelihood that patients with high scores required the addition of antidepressants. Although four domains from the Panic-Agoraphobic Spectrum Self-Report were individually associated with a longer time to remission, only stress sensitivity emerged as significant in multivariate regression analyses. CONCLUSIONS A lifetime burden of panic-agoraphobic spectrum symptoms predicted a poorer response to interpersonal psychotherapy and an 8-week delay in sequential treatment response among women with recurrent depression. These results lend clinical validity to the spectrum construct and highlight the need for alternate psychotherapeutic and pharmacologic strategies to treat depressed patients with panic spectrum features.