Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physical Performance and Anthropometric Characteristics of Male South African University Soccer Players

Abstract Soccer is the most popular sport worldwide. Despite its global acclaim, scientific studies of soccer have tended to focus on tactics and techniques, thereby neglecting the physical and physiological profile of the players. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine physical and anthropometric characteristics of male South African university soccer players. Twenty-seven male soccer players aged 19 to 24 (mean age: 22.1 years; s = 1.5 years) volunteered to participate in the study. The results showed that goalkeepers (77.5 ± 9.7 kg) and defenders (68.2 ± 6.5 kg) were the heaviest compared to players in other playing positions. The goalkeepers also had the highest percentage of body fat (11.3 ± 2.3%), in contrast to midfielders who had the lowest body fat content (9.1 ± 0.9%). With regard to flexibility, defenders (45.1 ± 4.9 cm) and midfielders (45.9 ± 5.4 cm) performed better than goalkeepers (37.1 ± 4.3 cm) and strikers (40.1 ± 3.4 cm). Midfielders (57.2 ± 3.1 ml1·kg−1·min1) and defenders (56.1 ± 5.1 ml1·kg−1·min1) had significantly higher values of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) than goalkeepers (47.9 ± 0.2 ml−1·kg−1·min−1) and strikers (49.8 ± 6.2 ml−1·kg−1·min−1). No significant (p > 0.05) differences were observed for all other variables, with the exception of body height, body mass, and VO2max. It was therefore concluded that sports scientists and coaches should tailor conditioning programmes in soccer according to players’ positions in view of the implications for successful performance.
Histidine‐rich glycoprotein functions cooperatively with cell surface heparan sulfate on phagocytes to promote necrotic cell uptake

Dying cells, such as apoptotic and necrotic cells, are cleared rapidly from the site of cell death to prevent the exposure of intracellular antigenic and immunostimulatory molecules that may cause tissue injury or facilitate the development of autoimmune diseases. For the immune system to recognize and remove dying cells efficiently, professional phagocytes use a variety of mechanisms that distinguish healthy cells from dying cells. HRG, a relatively abundant heparin/HS‐binding protein in human plasma, has been shown recently to tether IgG specifically to necrotic cells and aid the phagocytic uptake of necrotic cells via a FcγRI‐dependent pathway. In this study, we provide direct evidence that HRG can function cooperatively with cell surface HS on the monocytic cell line THP‐1 to promote necrotic cell removal. In addition, we found that the presence of heparin can markedly inhibit HRG‐enhanced necrotic cell clearance by THP‐1 cells, possibly by blocking the ability of HRG to interact with necrotic cells as well as THP‐1 cells. Thus, these data suggest that HRG can aid the phagocytosis of necrotic cells via a HS‐dependent pathway, and this process can be regulated by the presence of certain HRG ligands, such as heparin.
Relación entre admisiones, calidad de los estudiantes, aprovechamiento académico e "inflación de calificaciones": Evidencia de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Bayamón

El proposito de este estudio es determinar la capacidad para predecir exito academico de la actual politica de admisiones implantada por la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Bayamon en el ano academico 1995-96 y su posible relacion con el fenomeno de "inflacion de calificaciones". A tales fines, se les da seguimiento longitudinal a los 13,202 estudiantes pertenecientes a las 11 clases de nuevo ingreso que comenzaron sus estudios en la UPR-Bayamon durante el periodo de 1995-96 al 2005-06, lo que genera una muestra total de mas de 70,500 observaciones. El cambio en la politica de admisiones equiparo a los estudiantes procedentes de las escuelas publicas con los de las privadas y redujo al minimo la brecha por generos. Ademas, al asignarle ponderaciones significativamente mayores al indice de graduacion de escuela superior, en menoscabo de las pruebas estandarizadas del College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB), se redujo la “calidad de los estudiantes” de nuevo ingreso. Sin embargo, la evidencia tiende a confirmar que el mejor predictor de exito academico es la antigua formula del Indice General de Solicitud (IGS), mientras que la formula actual es el peor predictor.Por otro lado, independientemente del referente de tiempo utilizado, la ocurrencia del fenomeno de "inflacion de calificaciones"
fluorescence emission interactions by Förster resonance energy transfer-sensitized A quantitative protocol for dynamic measurements of protein Supplementary data

Rapid response http://rsif.royalsocietypublishing. org/letters/submit/royinterface;6/Suppl_1/S59 Respond to this article Subject collections (41 articles) biotechnology  Articles on similar topics can be found in the following collections Email alerting service here right-hand corner of the article or click Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article sign up in the box at the top
Thermal stability of Mo/Au bilayers for TES applications

Mo/Au bilayers are among the most suitable materials to be used as transition-edge sensors (TES) in cryogenic microcalorimeters and bolometers, developed, among other fields, for space missions. For this purpose the thermal stability of TES at temperatures below 150 °C is a critical issue. We report on the dependence of functional properties (superconducting critical temperature, residual resistance and α) as well as on microstructure, chemical composition and interface quality for optimized high quality Mo/Au bilayers on annealing temperature and time. Data show that the functional properties of the bilayers remain stable at T < 150 °C, but changes in microstructure, interface quality and functional properties were observed for layers heated at T ≥ 200 °C. Microstructural and chemical composition data suggest that the measured changes in residual resistance ratio (RRR) and TC at T ≥ 200 °C are mainly due to an increase in the average Au grain size and to Au migration along the Mo grain boundaries at the Au/Mo interface. A way to stabilize the functional properties of the Mo/Au bilayers against temperature enhancements is proposed.
STAT6 Activation Confers upon T Helper Cells Resistance to Suppression by Regulatory T Cells1

Recent studies have highlighted characteristics of T regulatory cells (Tregs) that underlie their suppressive function. However, mechanisms that override their suppressive function in the context of an adaptive immune response are not well understood. In the lungs of mice undergoing allergic inflammation, appreciable numbers of Tregs were identified that possessed suppressive function when assayed ex vivo. We investigated whether the Th2-promoting cytokine IL-4 played a permissive role that superseded Treg function, thereby allowing the development of allergic inflammation. IL-4 signaling via the IL-4Rα-STAT6 axis was required to maintain Foxp3 expression in Tregs and promote their proliferation. However, the results of both in vivo experiments involving adoptive transfer of Tregs into Ag-sensitized vs naive animals and in vitro suppression assays performed with or without exogenous IL-4 showed the ability of IL-4 to compromise Treg-mediated suppression. Use of retrovirally expressed, constitutively active STAT6 revealed that the underlying mechanism was not IL-4-mediated dysfunction of Tregs but involved the resistance of Th cells to Treg-mediated suppression that would permit the development of an adaptive immune response. Our data suggest that infectious tolerance, mediated by membrane-bound TGF-β expressed by Tregs, is compromised by the competing effects of IL4-induced signaling in naive CD4+ Th cells.
DILEMMES DANS LES STRATEGIES D'AIDE

Le debat sur l'aide aux pays en developpement s'est deplace des questions de fond (quelles strategies et politiques sont appropriees) aux questions de processus (comment aider plus efficacement). Cet article montre que dans les pays fortement assistes (ou le montant d'aide est plus de 5 % du PIB), l'aide detruit les capacites institutionnelles locales, amene a des distorsions dans les processus de decision et renforce la dependance. Les bailleurs de fonds se sont rendu compte de ces problemes, mais n'ont pu les eviter a cause des contradictions derivees de leurs procedures et surtout des conflits dans leurs objectifs. Pour sortir de ces dilemmes, les bailleurs et les PVD en question doivent negocier une date cible, disons dix ans, pour remplacer l'aide «traditionnelle» par des nouveaux arrangements. Pendant la transition, le renforcement de la capacite locale, la preparation pour une veritable «confiance en soi» devraient etre les priorites numero un, et les instruments d'aide les moins intrusifs devraient etre utilises -l'allegement de la dette, l'aide aux projets, l'utilisation des centres d'excellence regionaux et internationaux, avec un accent moindre mis sur les prets bases sur la politique et sur la conditionnalite.
Dysregulation of PRMT1 and PRMT6, Type I arginine methyltransferases, is involved in various types of human cancers

Protein arginine methylation is a novel post‐translational modification regulating a diversity of cellular processes, including histone functions, but the roles of protein arginine methyltransferases (PRMTs) in human cancer are not well investigated. To address this issue, we first examined expression levels of genes belonging to the PRMT family and found significantly higher expression of PRMT1 and PRMT6, both of which are Type I PRMTs, in cancer cells of various tissues than in non‐neoplastic cells. Abrogation of the expression of these genes with specific siRNAs significantly suppressed growth of bladder and lung cancer cells. Expression profile analysis using the cells transfected with the siRNAs indicated that PRMT1 and PRMT6 interplay in multiple pathways, supporting regulatory roles in the cell cycle, RNA processing and also DNA replication that are fundamentally important for cancer cell proliferation. Furthermore, we demonstrated that serum asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) levels of a number of cancer cases are significantly higher than those of nontumor control cases. In summary, our results suggest that dysregulation of PRMT1 and PRMT6 can be involved in human carcinogenesis and that these Type I arginine methyltransferases are good therapeutic targets for various types of cancer.
A three‐year prospective study of life events and course for adults with anorexia nervosa/bulimia nervosa.

&NA; Attempts to understand the pathogenesis and course of eating disorders have increasingly included investigation of stressful life events. We report a prospective study in which major life events were assessed 1, 2, and 3 years after the patient's initial presentation to a university hospital psychiatric department. Using a combined questionnaire and interview procedure based on items from the Psychiatric Epidemiologic Research Interview, we studied 25 adults with DSM‐III‐R anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. Evidence for an influence of life events on improvement was obtained the 1st year. Events explained a substantial 30% of the variability in follow‐up status, with analyses taking potential confounds into consideration unable to explain the finding. Also, significant correlations between events and self‐rated variables (Eating Disorder Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory) were obtained at one of the follow‐ups, but in all, the data did not consistently imply that life events affect the patients' course.
Efficient Parallel Connected Component Labeling With a Coarse-to-Fine Strategy

This paper proposes a new parallel approach to solve connected components on a 2-D binary image. The following strategies are employed to accelerate neighborhood exploration after dividing an input image into independent blocks: 1) in the local labeling stage, a coarse-labeling algorithm, including row-column connection and unification, is applied first to reduce the complexity of an initialized local label map; a refinement algorithm is then introduced to merge separated sub-regions from a single component; and 2) in the block merge stage, we scan the pixels on the block boundary instead of solving the connectivity of all the pixels. With the proposed method, the length of label-equivalence lists in both the local labeling stage and global labeling stage are compressed and the number of memory accesses is reduced. Thus, the efficiency of connected component labeling is improved. The proposed strategies are illustrated using 4-neighbor connectivity, and the case of 8-neighbor connectivity is also discussed. The YACCLAB data sets, including both synthetic and real images, are used to evaluate the new algorithm and compare it to existing algorithms. The comparative results show that the proposed new algorithm outperforms the other approaches in both the 4-neighbor connectivity and 8-neighbor connectivity cases.
Developing dynamic‐reconfigurable communication protocol stacks using Java

This paper proposes the development of a dynamic‐reconfigurable protocol stack, which allows the programmer to create, to remove, and to replace protocol modules during their operation. Moreover, this protocol stack also aims to preserve the module state, such as the data structures that manage the existing connections. To achieve these goals, a Java‐based component framework is developed so that the programmers are able to implement their components under the proposed framework. This framework can dynamically reconfigure the components at a safe period and can help the components transfer their states, and the dynamic reconfiguration is transparent to the user application running on top of the stack. To demonstrate the component framework, a TCP component is implemented. While maintaining active connections for the user application, the TCP component is able to be dynamically replaced by another version. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Force-induced formation and propagation of adhesion nanodomains in living fungal cells

Understanding how cell adhesion proteins form adhesion domains is a key challenge in cell biology. Here, we use single-molecule atomic force microscopy (AFM) to demonstrate the force-induced formation and propagation of adhesion nanodomains in living fungal cells, focusing on the covalently anchored cell-wall protein Als5p from Candida albicans. We show that pulling on single adhesins with AFM tips terminated with specific antibodies triggers the formation of adhesion domains of 100–500 nm and that the force-induced nanodomains propagate over the entire cell surface. Control experiments (with cells lacking Als5p, single-site mutation in the protein, bare tips, and tips modified with irrelevant antibodies) demonstrate that Als5p nanodomains result from protein redistribution triggered by force-induced conformational changes in the initially probed proteins, rather than from nonspecific cell-wall perturbations. Als5p remodeling is independent of cellular metabolic activity because heat-killed cells show the same behavior as live cells. Using AFM and fluorescence microscopy, we also find that nanodomains are formed within ∼30 min and migrate at a speed of ∼20 nm·min−1, indicating that domain formation and propagation are slow, time-dependent processes. These results demonstrate that mechanical stimuli can trigger adhesion nanodomains in fungal cells and suggest that the force-induced clustering of adhesins may be a mechanism for activating cell adhesion.
Update on Negative-Pressure Wound Therapy

Background: Over the last 15 years, negative-pressure wound therapy has become commonly used for treatment of a wide variety of complex wounds. There are now several systems marketed, and additional products will be available in the near future. Many clinicians have noted a dramatic response when negative-pressure wound therapy technology has been used, prompting a number of scientific investigations related to its mechanism of action and clinical trials determining its efficacy. Methods: The peer-reviewed literature within the past 5 years was reviewed, using an evidence-based approach. Results: Negative-pressure wound therapy works through mechanisms that include fluid removal, drawing the wound together, microdeformation, and moist wound healing. Several randomized clinical trials support the use of negative-pressure wound therapy in certain wound types. Serious complications, including bleeding and infection, have recently been reported by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in a small number of patients. Conclusions: Negative-pressure wound therapy has dramatically changed the way complex wounds are treated. The rapid introduction of this technology has occurred faster than large-scale randomized controlled studies or registry studies have been conducted. Further clinical studies and basic science studies will help surgeons to better understand the evidence and use this technology in the future.
Mixtures of Complete and pif1- and pif2-Deficient Genotypes Are Required for Increased Potency of an Insect Nucleopolyhedrovirus

ABSTRACT The insecticidal potency of a nucleopolyhedrovirus population (SfNIC) that infects Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera) is greater than the potency of any of the component genotypes alone. Occlusion bodies (OBs) produced in mixed infections comprising the complete genotype and a deletion genotype are as pathogenic as the natural population of genotypes from the field. To test whether this increased potency was due to the deletion or to some other characteristic of the deletion variant genome, we used the SfNIC-B genome to construct a recombinant virus (SfNIC-BΔ16K) with the same 16.4-kb deletion as that observed in SfNIC-C and another recombinant (SfNIC-BΔpifs) with a deletion encompassing two adjacent genes (pif1 and pif2) that are essential for transmission per os. Mixtures comprising SfNIC-B and SfNIC-BΔ16K in OB ratios that varied between 10:90 and 90:10 were injected into insects, and the progeny OBs were fed to larvae in an insecticidal potency assay. A densitometric analysis of PCR products indicated that SfNIC-B was generally more abundant than expected in mixtures based on the proportions of OBs used to produce the inocula. Mixtures derived from OB ratios of 10, 25, or 50% of SfNIC-BΔ16K and the corresponding SfNIC-B proportions showed a significant increase in potency compared to SfNIC-B alone. The results of potency assays with mixtures comprising various proportions of SfNIC-B plus SfNIC-BΔpifs were almost identical to the results observed with SfNIC-BΔ16K, indicating that deletion of the pif gene region was responsible for the increased potency observed in mixtures of SfNIC-B and each deletion recombinant virus. Subsequently, mixtures produced from OB ratios involving 10 or 90% of SfNIC-BΔ16K with the corresponding proportions of SfNIC-B were subjected to four rounds of per os transmission in larvae. The composition of each experimental mixture rapidly converged to a common equilibrium with a genotypic composition of ∼85% SfNIC-B plus ∼15% SfNIC-BΔ16K. Nearly identical results were observed in peroral-passage experiments involving mixtures of SfNIC-B plus SfNIC-BΔpifs. We conclude that (i) the deletion of the pif1 and pif2 region is necessary and sufficient to explain the increased potency observed in mixtures of complete and deletion genotypes and (ii) viral populations with decreased ratios of pif1- and pif2-deficient genotypes in the virus population increase the potency of genotypic mixtures and are likely to positively influence the transmission of this pathogen.
Syphacia obvelata infections and reproduction of male domestic mice Mus musculus domesticus on a sub-Antarctic Island

Abstract The reproductive activity of feral male mice on an island of the sub-Antarctic Kerguelen archipelago was influenced by biological factors depending on periods within the breeding season. After having controlled host reproductive activity indices for body size, i.e. age, and body condition effects, Syphacia obvelata prevalence did not vary with host reproductive status or age either during the beginning or the middle–end of the reproductive season. Considering the beginning of the breeding season, worm abundance was more pronounced in males the year following a strong winter crash of the population than in years when high over wintering survival occurred. During the middle–end of the breeding season, males with the highest reproductive status were more infected than males with a lower reproductive status in years when oldest individuals dominated the population. It is suggested that this situation was due to an endocrine related increased host susceptibility partly influenced by a change in the age structure of the population, and that an increase in worm transmission was not directly related to male activity concurrent with reproductive status, nor to population density.
Skewness Correction for Asset Pricing

It is shown that, for CRRA agents, the sensitivity of risk correction for any cumulant depends on the cumulant of the next order. This result is then used to derive some interesting approximations for variance and skewness correction. The first corollary is that negative skewness alone leads to higher variance swap rates since the variance swap contract provides insurance against sudden market drops. Thus, high variance swap rates are not necessarily an indication of high variance risk premia. When the results are extended to the multifactor case, we are able to disentangle the swap rate premia into their skewness and stochastic variance premia components. Finally, we contribute to the understanding of option skews by showing that only 1-u percent of excess kurtosis contributes to negative skewness correction, where u is a newly introduced statistic that normalizes skewness with kurtosis.