Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Acute Enhancement of Lower-Extremity Dynamic Strength and Flexibility with Whole-Body Vibration

Jacobs, PL and Burns, P. Acute enhancement of lower-extremity dynamic strength and flexibility with whole-body vibration. J Strength Cond Res 23(1): 51-57, 2009-The purpose of this investigation was to examine the acute effects of whole-body vibration (WBV) on muscular strength, flexibility, and heart rate (HR). Twenty adults (10 men, 10 women) untrained to WBV participated in the study. All subjects completed assessment of lower-extremity isokinetic torque, flexibility, and HR immediately before and after 6 minutes of WBV and 6 minutes of leg cycling ergometry (CYL), in randomized order. During WBV, subjects stood upright on a vibration platform for a total of 6 minutes. Vibration frequency was gradually increased during the first minute to a frequency of 26 Hz, which was maintained for the remaining 5 minutes. During CYL, power output was gradually increased to 50 W during the first minute and maintained at that power output for the remaining 5 minutes. Lower-extremity flexibility was determined using the sit-and-reach box test. Peak and average isokinetic torque of knee extension and flexion were measured by means of a motor-driven dynamometer with velocity fixed at 120°·s−1. Change scores for the outcome measures were compared between treatments using Student's paired t-tests. Analysis revealed significantly greater HR acceleration with CYL (24.7 bpm) than after WBV (15.8 bpm). The increase of sit-and-reach scores after WBV (4.7 cm) was statistically greater (p < 0.05) than after CYL (0.8 cm). After WBV, increases in peak and average isokinetic torque of knee extension, 7.7% and 9.6%, were statistically greater than after CYL (p < 0.05). Average torque of knee flexion also increased more with WBV (+7.8%) than with CYL (−1.5%) (p < 0.05). The findings of this study indicate that short-term WBV standing elicits acute enhancements of lower-extremity muscular torque and flexibility, suggesting the application of this technology as a preparatory activity before more intense exercise.
Toward a theory of variation in the organization of the word reading system

ABSTRACT The strategy underlying most computational models of word reading is to specify the organization of the reading system—its architecture and the processes and representations it employs—and to demonstrate that this organization would give rise to the behavior observed in word reading tasks. This approach fails to adequately address the variation in reading behavior observed across and within linguistic communities. Only computational models that incorporate learning can fully account for variation in organization. However, even extant learning models (e.g., the triangle model) must be extended if they are to fully account for variation in organization. The challenges associated with extending theories in this way are discussed.
The vehicle routing problem with drones: Extended models and connections

The vehicle routing problem with drones (VRPD) is inspired by the increasing interest in commercial drone delivery by companies such as Amazon, Google, DHL, and Walmart. In our model, a fleet of m homogeneous trucks each carries k drones with a speed of α times that of the truck. Each drone may dispatch from the top of the truck and carry a package to a customer location. The drone then returns to the top of its truck to recharge or swap batteries (we assume instantaneously). The truck itself is allowed to move and deliver packages, but must be stationary at a delivery location or the depot when launching or retrieving drones. The goal is to minimize the completion time to deliver all packages and return all vehicles back to the central depot. In this article, we review and extend several worst‐case results from an earlier paper and we make connections with another practical variant of the vehicle routing problem and with Amdahl's Law. We find that the VRPD model offers some important practical advantages. The drones allow the truck to parallelize tasks and they are able to take advantage of crow‐fly distances. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 70(1), 34–43 2017
Normal and frictional interactions of purified human statherin adsorbed on molecularly-smooth solid substrata

Human salivary statherin was purified from parotid saliva and adsorbed to bare hydrophilic (HP) mica and STAI-coated hydrophobic (HB) mica in a series of Surface Force Balance experiments that measured the normal (F n) and friction forces (F s*) between statherin-coated mica substrata. Readings were taken both in the presence of statherin solution (HP and HB mica) and after rinsing (HP mica). F n measurements showed, for both substrata, monotonic steric repulsion that set on at a surface separation D ∼ 20 nm, indicating an adsorbed layer whose unperturbed thickness was ca 10 nm. An additional longer-ranged repulsion, probably of electrostatic double-layer origin, was observed for rinsed surfaces under pure water. Under applied pressures of ∼ 1 MPa, each surface layer was compressed to a thickness of ca 2 nm on both types of substratum, comparable with earlier estimates of the size of the statherin molecule. Friction measurements, in contrast with F n observations, were markedly different on the two different substrata: friction coefficients, μ ≡ ∂F s*/∂F n, on the HB substratum (μ ≈ 0.88) were almost an order of magnitude higher than on the HP substratum (μ ≈ 0.09 and 0.12 for unrinsed and rinsed, respectively), and on the HB mica there was a lower dependence of friction on sliding speed than on the HP mica. The observations were attributed to statherin adsorbing to the mica in multimer aggregates, with internal re-arrangement of the protein molecules within the aggregate dependent on the substratum to which the aggregate adsorbed. This internal re-arrangement permitted aggregates to be of similar size on HP and HB mica but to have different internal molecular orientations, thus exposing different moieties to the solution in each case and accounting for the very different friction behaviour.
Autonomous and induced learning: an optimal control approach

The paper considers a production and process improvement problem of a firm in which the total manufacturing costs of a specific product depend on the output rate as well as the effects of autonomous and induced learning. Autonomous learning typically results from the repetition of a particular task, whereas induced learning is a result of explicit investments in production process improvements. The cumulative effects of the learning processes are represented by two stocks of knowledge. The stock of autonomous knowledge is built up at a rate corresponding to current output. Induced knowledge is built up by process improvement investments. Both stocks are subject to decay, due to obsolescence or forgetting knowledge. For short and long-term planning situations, we study the optimal evolution over time of the output rate, the process improvement expenditure rate and the two stocks of knowledge.
Quantitative Evaluation and Information Fusion of Road Edges for Accurate Unstructured Road Tracking

This research focuses on the problem of autonomous land vehicle (ALV) navigating on the unstructured roads which have no lane marks, may have degraded surfaces and edges, and may have shrub and weed alongside. Because of the complexity and irregularity of the road edges, the accurate and stable edges can not be obtained on the pixel level. We developed a novel sensor fusion and motion fusion parallel strategy on the feature level to model the unstructured road edges accurately. The road edges from grey images and lane cues from laser range finders (LRF) are integrated to form a consistent estimation of the edge position based on covariance intersection (CI) filter. The fused edges of consecutive frames are associated and integrated also based on CI. The quantitative evaluation method is also proposed to assess the quality of road edges. These algorithms are tested on a variety of complex unstructured roads, the autonomous navigation is successful and the average speed achieves 20 km/h. The spot navigation experiments show the effectiveness and efficiency of these algorithms to the accurate unstructured road tracking
* Following Angiogenin during Angiogenesis : a Journey from the Cell Surface to the Nucleolus

Angiogenin is a potent inducer of new blood vessel formation. It binds to high-affinity endot helial c ell-surface receptors and, with lower affinity, to extracellular matrix. Angiogenin is the only angiogenic factor k nown to exhibit ribonucleolytic activity. It belongs to the pancreatic RNase superfamily of proteins. Angiogenin is the only member of the superfamily able to stimulate angiogenesis. Although the catalytic activity of the protein i s rather weak, it is critical for its angiogenic properties. Angiogenin is specifically endo cytosed by endothelial c ells and transported to the nucleus, where it accumulates in the nucleolus. Also, the nucle ar location of the a ngiogenic factor appears to be necessary for its angiogenic activity. The mechanism of action of the protein seems to be unusual, since it does not fit into the current paradigm of how exogenous regulatory polypeptides, i ncluding other angiogenic factors, work. Here, the role of transport of angiogenin from the ce ll-surface into the nucleolus and of its intracellular/nuclear mode of action in stimulation of angiogenesis is discussed.
Conduction aphasia. A clinicopathological study.

Three patients with conduction aphasia are described; in addition to the distinctive language disorder, two of them had severe ideomotor apraxia while the other was entirely free of apraxia. Postmortem examination revealed that the two patients with apraxia had entirely suprasylvian lesions involving the white matter deep to the parietal operculum, while the nonapraxic subject had suffered total destruction of the Wernicke area. Based on these findings and a review of the literature, we would propose the following: (1) Conduction aphasia is a distinct clinical syndrome, readily separable from other varieties of aphasia. (2) Conduction aphasia can result from a pure suprasylvian or a pure subsylvian lesion as well as from a combination of the two. (3) The presence of ideomotor apraxia in conduction aphasia implicates suprasylvian pathology.
Thermally Induced Injury and Heat‐Shock Protein Expression in Cells and Tissues

Abstract: Heat‐shock proteins (HSPs) are critical components of a cell's defense mechanism against injury associated with adverse stresses. Initiating insults, such as elevated or depressed temperature, diminished oxygen, and pressure, increase HSP expression and can protect cells against subsequent, otherwise lethal, insults. Although HSPs are very beneficial to the normal cell, cancer cells can also use HSPs in response to stresses associated with various therapies (hyperthermia, chemotherapy, radiation), mitigating injury incurred by these treatments. Hyperthermia is a common treatment option for prostate cancer. HSPs can be induced in regions of the tumor where temperatures are insufficient to cause lethal thermal necrosis. Elevated HSP expression can enhance tumor cell viability and impart increased resistance to subsequent chemotherapy and radiation treatments, thereby promoting tumor recurrence. An understanding of the structure, function, and thermally stimulated HSP kinetics and cell injury for prostate cancer cells is essential to designing effective hyperthermia protocols. Measured thermally induced cellular HSP expression and injury data can be employed to develop a treatment planning model for optimization of the tissue response to therapy based on accurate prediction of the HSP expression and cell damage distribution.
Improving the Security , Scalabilit y , Manageabilit y and Performance of System Services for Network Computing

Modern virtual machines, such as Java and Inferno, are emerging as network computing platforms. While these virtual machines provide higher-level abstractions and more sophisticated services than their predecessors from twenty years ago, their architecture has essentially remained unchanged. State of the art virtual machines are still monolithic, that is, they are comprised of closely-coupled service components, which are thus replicated over all computers in an organization. This crude replication of services forms one of the weakest points in today’s networked systems, as it creates widely acknowledged and well -publicized problems of security, manageabilit y and performance. We have designed and implemented a new system architecture for network computing based on distributed virtual machines. In our system, virtual machine services that perform rule checking and code transformation are factored out of clients and are located in enterprisewide network servers. The services operate by intercepting application code and modifying it on the fly to provide additional service functionality. This architecture reduces client resource demands and the size of the trusted computing base, establishes physical isolation between virtual machine services and creates a single point of administration. We demonstrate that such a distributed virtual machine architecture can provide substantially better integrity and manageabilit y than a monolithic architecture, scales well with increasing numbers of clients, and does not entail high overhead.
Serum S-100B protein levels in young amateur soccer players after controlled heading and normal exercise.

BACKGROUND Repeated impacts by heading might lead to significant head injuries in soccer players comparable to those of patients with accidental minor traumatic brain injury (TBI). The neuroprotein S-100B released into the circulation is suggested to be a reliable marker indicating brain damage. The objective was to evaluate the neuroprotein S-100B serum levels in young amateur soccer players early after controlled heading compared to early measurements after normal exercise as well as in other patients after minor TBI. MATERIAL AND METHODS Sixty-one male amateur soccer players (median age 15.3 years) performed controlled heading aimed at the forehead for 55 minutes. Data were compared to 58 male amateur soccer players (15.9 years) performing 61 minutes of normal exercise training without head contact and 81 young male patients early after TBI who underwent computed tomography (CCT) for detection of intracranial lesions. First venous blood samples were drawn before the training sessions, second and third samples 60 and 360 minutes after heading or 64 and 355 minutes after exercise, respectively, 65 and 366 minutes after TBI. RESULTS Median S-100B serum levels of the heading group only slightly increased from 0.15 ng/ml to 0.18 ng/ml 60 minutes after end of training. Within 360 minutes S-100B values decreased again to 0.15 ng/ml reaching the initial values. S-100B serum values of the exercise group showed a similar transient increase exhibiting significant lower levels before exercise (0.10 ng/ml) as well as 64 minutes (0.11 ng/ml) and 355 minutes after exercise (0.09 ng/ml) compared to the heading group. According to age stratification in the heading group, starting median S-100B levels were significantly higher in subjects with 12-13 years (0.22 ng/ml) and 14-15 years (0.17 ng/ml) compared to those with 16-17 years of age (0.06 ng/ml). None of the subcollectives did reach median S-100B levels of the CCT+ group (n = 20) at admission (0.62 ng/ml) or 366 minutes later (0.32 ng/ml), which were significantly elevated compared to those of the CCT group (n = 61) at admission (0.10 ng/ml) or 370 minutes later (0.08 ng/ml). CONCLUSIONS Controlled repetitive heading in young amateur soccer players leads to a transient increase between 60 to 360 min after training, but does not appear to evoke a longer lasting S-100B release into serum indicating cellular brain damage. After heading S-100B levels are significantly elevated compared to normal exercise. Although soccer players with 12-13 years and 14-15 years revealed significantly higher S-100B values than with 16-17 years of age, the transient increase is independent of the age-related starting values. However, since brain damage due to abrupt heading a ball of high speed or accidental trauma during regular soccer games cannot be excluded, S-100B measurements in soccer players are initiated during video-controlled soccer games.
Treatment of chronic hepatitis C in HIV/HCV‐coinfection with interferon α‐2b+ full‐course vs. 16‐week delayed ribavirin

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)‐infected patients increasingly experience the consequences of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) coinfection. This trial randomized 107 patients coinfected with HIV and HCV to receive 48 weeks of interferon alfa‐2b (IFN) 3 million units three times weekly plus either a full course of ribavirin (RBV) at 800 mg/day (group A; n = 53) or 16 weeks of placebo, followed by RBV (group B; n = 54). The primary endpoint of sustained viral response (SVR) rate (undetectable HCV RNA at posttreatment week 24) was not different between groups A (11.3%) and B (5.6%; P = .32). Within group A, the SVR rate was lower in genotype 1 (2.5%) than in genotypes 2 through 4 (41.7%; P = .002). Fifty‐five patients discontinued therapy prematurely, mostly because of adverse events or patient decisions. At treatment week 12, the percentage of CD4+ cells rose in group A (+4.1%; P < .001), but not in group B (−0.3%). A significant proportion (22%) of patients who were HIV viremic at baseline had undetectable HIV RNA at week 12. By week 16, the hemoglobin level decreased more in group A (−2,52 g/dL) than in group B (−1.02 g/dL; P < .001). In group A, the hemoglobin decline was steeper in patients receiving zidovudine (azidothymidine [AZT], −3.64 g/dL vs. no AZT, −2.08 g/dL), and patients receiving zidovudine had more anemia‐related RBV dose reductions (AZT, 60% vs. no AZT, 16%). In conclusion, HCV therapy with IFN plus RBV is relatively safe in patients coinfected with HIV and HCV, but frequent treatment discontinuations and anemia‐related RBV dose reductions contribute to a poor SVR rate. Control of HIV infection improves rather than worsens during therapy. (HEPATOLOGY 2004;39:989–998.)
Gratings That Induce Perceptual Distortions Mask Superimposed Targets

Masking is known to depend upon the relationship between the spatial-frequency content of target and mask. This relationship has been held constant in three experiments in order to investigate the separate contribution of the spatial parameters of the mask, in this case a grating with square-wave luminance profile. Thresholds for the detection of a probe target were highest when the background grating upon which the probe was superimposed had a spatial frequency of about 4 cycles deg−1 (experiment 1) and a duty cycle of 50% (experiment 3). In experiment 2, the thresholds were strongly affected by the size of the background grating even though the size of the target was small in proportion to the grating and remained constant. The increase in threshold was linearly related to the area of visual cortex to which the grating projected. The spatial parameters of gratings that maximise masking are therefore the same as those that have been shown to be optimal for the induction of perceptual distortions, suggesting a possible physiological mechanism for both the masking and the distortions.
A Chaotic Random Bit Generator with Image Encryption Applications

Random bit generators find many critical application areas in engineering and science. In this work, coupled robust chaotic maps based random bit generation algorithms are studied for cryptosystems. Some possible coupling approaches are described for the formation of high-dimensional chaotic maps to get a strong mixing nature for use in secure applications. To extract high-quality random bits from the chaotic maps, a post-processing approach is designed. The performances of the chaotic random bit generators are assessed through different statistical methods. The effectiveness of the approaches is validated with an image encryption algorithm.
POWER FLOW OPTIMIZATION USING SEEKER OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM AND PSO VIGNESH

The objective of an Optimal Power Flow (OPF) algorithm is to find steady state operation point which minimizes generation cost, loss etc. or maximizes social welfare, loadability etc. while maintaining an acceptable system performance in terms of limits on generators’ real and reactive powers, line flow limits, output of various compensating devices etc. This paper aims to find a solution for the Optimal Power Flow (OPF) problem with security constraints by the seeker optimization algorithm (SOA). The major objective is to minimize the overall operating cost and real power losses while satisfying the power flow equations and system security. The SOA is based on the concept of simulating the act of human searching, where the search direction is based on the empirical gradient by evaluating the response to the position changes. To demonstrate its robustness, the proposed algorithm was tested on IEEE 30 Bus System and the proposed approach results were simulated using MATLAB. The performance of this algorithm is compared with the performance of PSO. Key-Words: global optimization, power system, seeker optimization algorithm
Growth hormone-binding protein directly depends on serum leptin levels in adults with different nutritional status.

The aim of this work was to assess the relationship between GH-binding protein (GHBP) and leptin. Both peptides are nutritionally regulated, but the recent implication of a role for leptin in the GH axis requires further study. To avoid the sexual dimorphism in leptin values, we performed leptin standardization according to gender (SD score-leptin). The relationship between SD score-leptin and GHBP was studied in 128 adults with different nutritional status [8 groups according to body mass index (BMI)], ranging from severely underweight anorexia nervosa to highly morbid obesity. Both GHBP and SD score-leptin significantly increased according to BMI within the range from 18-27 kg/m2, whereas no significant differences were found among underweight groups (BMI, < 18 kg/m2) or among obesity grades (BMI, > 27 kg/m2). We found a strong correlation between GHBP and SD score-leptin (r = 0.8; P < 0.0001). Multiple regression analysis revealed SD score-leptin to be a significant determinant of GHBP, accounting for 64% of the variation, whereas BMI did not contribute further to explaining changes in GHBP. This suggests a physiological pathway involving both GHBP (the soluble fraction of GH receptor) and leptin. Thus, we might speculate that leptin could be the signal that induces the related nutritional changes observed in GHBP/GH receptor expression.
Concordance of a positive tuberculin skin test and an interferon gamma release assay in bacille Calmette-Guérin vaccinated persons.

BACKGROUND False-positive tuberculin skin test (TST) results due to prior bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination may lead to unnecessary treatment of presumed latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI). Recently approved interferon-gamma release assays (IGRAs) are more specific for LTBI in this group. METHODS A total of 316 BCG-vaccinated foreign-born individuals with a positive TST had a commercially available IGRA (QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube) performed as part of a two-step procedure to determine the need for isoniazid therapy. Baseline demographic information and TST size were recorded and analyzed for characteristics associated with an increased likelihood of having a positive IGRA. RESULTS Increasing age, male sex, origin from a country with a high prevalence of tuberculosis (TB), shorter time since arrival in the United States, and increasing TST size were all independently associated with a positive IGRA. CONCLUSION Patient characteristics and TST size can help determine those at highest risk for LTBI. A two-step procedure for LTBI screening should be considered for foreign-born persons with prior BCG vaccination and a positive TST.