Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Submaximal Markers of Fatigue and Overreaching; Implications for Monitoring Athletes

Abstract The regular monitoring of athletes is important to fine-tune training and detect early symptoms of overreaching. Therefore the aim of this study was to determine if a noninvasive submaximal running test could reflect a state of overreaching. 14 trained runners completed a noninvasive Lamberts Submaximal Running Test, one week before and 2 days after finishing an ultramarathon, and delayed onset of muscle soreness and the daily analysis of life demands for athletes questionnaire were also captured. After the ultramarathon, submaximal heart rate was lower at 70% (−3 beats) and 85% of peak treadmill running speed (P<0.01). Ratings of perceived exertion were higher at 60% (2 units) and 85% (one unit) of peak treadmill running speed, while 60-second heart rate recovery was significantly faster (7 beats, P<0.001). Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness scores and the number of symptoms of stress (Daily Analysis of Life Demands for Athletes) were also higher after the ultramarathon (P<0.01). The current study shows that the Lamberts Submaximal Running Test is able to reflect early symptoms of overreaching. Responses to acute fatigue and overreaching were characterized by counterintuitive responses, such as lower submaximal heart rates and faster heart rate recovery, while ratings of perceived exertion were higher.
TypA is a virulence regulator and is present in many pathogenic bacteria

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T cell autoreactivity to proinsulin epitopes in diabetic patients and healthy subjects.

We investigated the immune response to proinsulin, a potential autoantigen in IDDM secreted exclusively by pancreatic beta-cells. A total of 2,142 short-term cell lines were generated from 19 individuals; seven IDDM patients at the disease onset and 12 control subjects. No increase in the frequency of proinsulin reactive cells was observed in the IDDM group. To define proinsulin epitopes, proliferative responses of proinsulin-specific lines were examined against 10 overlapping 15 amino acid peptides encompassing the human proinsulin sequence. The predominant immune response was directed against the proinsulin p35-50 peptide located in the (C) connecting peptide between the alpha- and beta-chain of insulin. Recognition of the proinsulin p35-50 peptide could be shown by generating specific T cell clones against the peptide. However, unlike responses to other tissue-specific autoantigens there were only low proliferative responses to proinsulin as measured by 3H-thymidine incorporation. This low reactivity may be partially explained by the location of the p35-50 peptide in the C-peptide which is released into the circulation and therefore, may induce a clonal anergy of T reactive cells. However, the significantly higher 3H-thymidine incorporation after CD3-CD28 triggering showed that peptide specific T cells were capable of a significant response with a stronger TCR signal.
A new incompressible SPH model : towards industrial applications. (Un nouveau modèle SPH incompressible : vers l'application à des cas industriels)

In this work a numerical model for fluid flow simulation was developed, based on the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. SPH is a meshless Lagrangian Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method that offers some advantages compared to mesh-based Eulerian methods. In particular, it is able to model flows presenting highly distorted free-surfaces or interfaces. This work tackles four issues concerning the SPH method: the imposition of boundary conditions, the accuracy of the pressure prediction, the modelling of buoyancy effects and the reduction of computational time. The aim is to model complex industrial flows with the SPH method, as a complement of what can be done with mesh-based methods. Typically, the targetted problems are 3-D free-surface or confined flows that may interact with moving solids and/or transport scalars, in particular active scalars (e.g. temperature). To achieve this goal, a new incompressible SPH (ISPH) model is proposed, based on semi-analytical boundary conditions. This technique for the representation of boundary conditions in SPH makes it possible to accurately prescribe consistent pressure boundary conditions, contrary to what is done with classical boundary conditions in SPH. A k-epsilon turbulence closure is included in the new ISPH model. A buoyancy model was also added, based on the Boussinesq approximation. The interactions between buoyancy and turbulence are modelled. Finally, a formulation for open boundary conditions is proposed in this framework. The 2-D validation was performed on a set of test-cases that made it possible to assess the prediction capabilities of the new model regarding isothermal and non-isothermal flows, in laminar or turbulent regime. Confined cases are presented, as well as free-surface flows (one of them including a moving rigid body in the flow). The open boundary formulation was tested on a laminar plane Poiseuille flow and on two cases of propagation of a solitary wave. Comparisons with mesh-based methods are provided with, as well as comparisons with a weakly-compressible SPH (WCSPH) model using the same kind of boundary conditions. The results show that the model is able to represent flows in complex boundary geometries, while improving the pressure prediction compared to the WCSPH method. The extension of the model to 3-D was done in a massively parallel code running on a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU). Two validation cases in 3-D are presented, as well as preliminary results on a simple 3-D application case.
Parameter Stability in Foreign Exchange Market Microstructure

Microstructure models of foreign exchange markets emphasize two different channels of pressure in pricing dynamics; these are inventory and asymmetric information effects. Past empirical studies for foreign exchange markets have found evidence supporting the existence of both effects in the Dollar/DM market. This paper tests for the presence of within sample variation in the intensity of these effects and whether these are related to market conditions external to the pricing agent (the dealer). We test for and find multiple structural changes at conventional significance level. We incorporate the parameter instability into the estimated equations of foreign exchange. The new estimates reveal a pattern in which asymmetric information effects and inventory effects on the price of foreign exchange vary in intensity with external market conditions, and are dependent on these conditions. ∗ Department of Economics, University of Maryland 20742-7311; romeu@wam.umd. edu; 301.484. 1588.
Genetic and Epigenetic Factors Affecting Blastomere Fragmentation in Two-Cell Stage Mouse Embryos1

Abstract We report here that mouse embryos can exhibit a significant incidence of blastomere fragmentation at the two-cell stage. The incidence of this is influenced by both the maternal and paternal genotype. Embryos from C57BL/6 mothers exhibit a very low incidence of fragmentation at the two-cell stage in crosses involving males of C57BL/6, DBA/2, AKR/J, or SJL strains but exhibit a significantly increased incidence of fragmentation in crosses involving C3H/HeJ males. Increased fragmentation is seen in embryos from C3H/HeJ females crossed with C57BL/6 males but not with C3H/HeJ males. Embryos obtained from reciprocal (C57BL/6 × C3H/HeJ) F1 hybrid females also exhibit an increased incidence of fragmentation at the two-cell stage when the hybrid females are mated to either C57BL/6 or C3H/HeJ males. Interestingly, the results differ significantly between reciprocal F1 hybrid females, indicating a parental origin effect, possibly a result of either genomic imprinting or differences in mitochondrial origin. We conclude that the incidence of blastomere fragmentation at the two-cell stage in the mouse is under the control of more than one genetic locus. We also conclude that blastomere fragmentation is affected by both parental genotypes. These results are relevant to understanding the genetic control blastomere fragmentation, which may contribute to evolutionary processes, affect the success of procedures such as cloning, and affect the outcome of assisted reproduction techniques.
Immunization with a Polyprotein Vaccine Consisting of the T-Cell Antigens Thiol-Specific Antioxidant, Leishmania major Stress-Inducible Protein 1, and Leishmania Elongation Initiation Factor Protects against Leishmaniasis

ABSTRACT Development of an effective vaccine against Leishmania infection is a priority of tropical disease research. We have recently demonstrated protection against Leishmania major in the murine and nonhuman primate models with individual or combinations of purified leishmanial recombinant antigens delivered as plasmid DNA constructs or formulated with recombinant interleukin-12 (IL-12) as adjuvant. In the present study, we immunized BALB/c mice with a recombinant polyprotein comprising a tandem fusion of the leishmanial antigens thiol-specific antioxidant, L. major stress-inducible protein 1 (LmSTI1), and Leishmania elongation initiation factor (LeIF) delivered with adjuvants suitable for human use. Aspects of the safety, immunogenicity, and vaccine efficacy of formulations with each individual component, as well as the polyprotein referred to as Leish-111f, were assessed by using the L. major challenge model with BALB/c mice. No adverse reactions were observed when three subcutaneous injections of the Leish-111f polyprotein formulated with either MPL-squalene (SE) or Ribi 529-SE were given to BALB/c mice. A predominant Th1 immune response characterized by in vitro lymphocyte proliferation, gamma interferon production, and immunoglobulin G2A antibodies was observed with little, if any, IL-4. Moreover, Leish-111f formulated with MPL-SE conferred immunity to leishmaniasis for at least 3 months. These data demonstrate success at designing and developing a prophylactic leishmaniasis vaccine that proved effective in a preclinical model using multiple leishmanial antigens produced as a single protein delivered with a powerful Th1 adjuvant suitable for human use.
Probability of Causation for Space Radiation Carcinogenesis Following International Space Station, Near Earth Asteroid, and Mars Missions

Cancer risk is an important concern for International Space Station (ISS) missions and future exploration missions. An important question concerns the likelihood of a causal association between a crew members radiation exposure and the occurrence of cancer. The probability of causation (PC), also denoted as attributable risk, is used to make such an estimate. This report summarizes the NASA model of space radiation cancer risks and uncertainties, including improvements to represent uncertainties in tissue-specific cancer incidence models for never-smokers and the U.S. average population. We report on tissue-specific cancer incidence estimates and PC for different post-mission times for ISS and exploration missions. An important conclusion from our analysis is that the NASA policy to limit the risk of exposure-induced death to 3% at the 95% confidence level largely ensures that estimates of the PC for most cancer types would not reach a level of significance. Reducing uncertainties through radiobiological research remains the most efficient method to extend mission length and establish effective mitigators for cancer risks. Efforts to establish biomarkers of space radiation-induced tumors and to estimate PC for rarer tumor types are briefly discussed.
A Partially Order-Preserving Index Scheme

It has become advantageous in certain scenarios for a database owner to outsource hosting and management of his database to a third party. This approach is known as database as a service or DAS. However, in the case of highly sensitive data, it may be necessary to protect it even from the third party database administrator. As a result, several methods have been proposed that allow for encryption of the relational data in such a way as to permit some limited set of queries to be executed directly on the encrypted data. Most encryption methods, like hashing techniques, tend to diffuse the data, such that two nearby plaintext values may have completely dissimilar ciphertext values. As a result, performing range queries on the encrypted data is particularly challenging. We here propose a new partially order-preserving indexing scheme that permits efficient range queries on encrypted data. This work is largely derived from prior work done by Agrawal et al. on fully order preserving encryption [1] and work by Hore et al. on a bucketization approach for range queries [2]. Our method resembles the bucketization technique used in [2], but enforces an ordering of the ciphertext buckets that correlates with the ordering of the plaintext buckets. A plaintext value may still end up in one of several buckets (diffusion), but instead of selecting the target buckets randomly, they will be selected based on their proximity to the ciphertext bucket corresponding to the plaintext value. (See section 2) This imposes a partial ordering on the ciphertext values, allowing large range queries to yield fewer false positives than they do in [2], while at the same time preserving some of the privacy lost to the total ordering seen in [1].
Performance Comparison of Learning to Rank Algorithms for Information Retrieval

Learning to rank is the problem of ranking objects by using machine learning techniques. One of the applications of learning to rank is for ranking document of search results. In this research, we compare the performance of three learning to rank algorithms: RankSVM, LambdaMART, and Additive Groves. RankSVM, which is ranking variant of the classical SVM algorithm, is commonly used as a baseline in learning to rank experiments. LambdaMART and Additive Groves is both tree ensembles algorithm. They belong to the class of algorithms that yield top results in the recent Yahoo! Learning to Rank Challenge. The comparison is performed by evaluating the results algorithms to a standard dataset. We also study the outcome of performing feature selection for final algorithm performance. Two feature selection techniques based on the filter and wrapper approaches are implemented. The experiment is conducted with the LETOR 4.0 dataset. This dataset consists of 46 features, such as: TF, BM25, LMIR, PageRank scores, etc. Parameter tuning is performed beforehand in order to find the best parameters for reliable comparison. The evaluation metric is Normalized Discounted Cumulative Gain (NDCG), a graded relevance measure for ranking results. The experimental results reveal that Learning to Rank algorithms outperform the conventional algorithms. In addition, applying feature selections improves the algorithm performances. Keywords—AAAZ learning to rank algorithms; RankSVM; Lambda MART; Additive Group; Feature Selection.
Should Astigmatism be Corrected until the Age of Three ? Results of a Six-year Study of Refraction in Children

The state of refraction in young children is important to be examined in order to prevent different eye diseases (amblyopia, strabismus, hordeolosis, blepharitis etc.). Part of these diseases may interfere with the normal development of a child, as well as they may affect the process of socialization. AIM: The aim of this study is to determine and follow-up aspheric refraction dynamics in children up to age three. Patients and Methods: The study covers 324 children (648 eyes) from Sofia city and Sofia district (Bulgaria), aged between 6 and 12 months at their first visit and refraction examination. 159 of them are girls (318 eyes) and 165boys (330 eyes). The children are followed up in time. They are grouped in four age groups and divided by gender. The methods used are: photorefractometry with PlusoptiX S04; cycloplegia, retinoscopy and optical correction if needed; statistics. Results: Astigmatism changes with age (towards reducing); Diopters of astigmatism are most decreased in age between 12 and 18 months; There is no statistically significant difference in aspheric refraction between genders. Conclusion: PlusoptiX S04 photorefractometer is operational for children aged at least 5 months. This is a quite accurate method for determining the aspheric refraction in children without cycloplegia. It allows us to state that astigmatism reduces considerably with age.
Physical and Functional Interaction between the Mini-chromosome Maintenance-like DNA Helicase and the Single-stranded DNA Binding Protein from the Crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus *

Mini-chromosome Maintenance (MCM) proteins play an essential role in both initiation and elongation phases of DNA replication in Eukarya. Genes encoding MCM homologs are present also in the genomic sequence of Archaea and the MCM-like protein from the euryarchaeon Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum(Mth MCM) was shown to possess a robust ATP-dependent 3′-5′ DNA helicase activity in vitro. Herein, we report the first biochemical characterization of a MCM homolog from a crenarchaeon, the thermoacidophileSulfolobus solfataricus (Sso MCM). Gel filtration and glycerol gradient centrifugation experiments indicate that the Sso MCM forms single hexamers (470 kDa) in solution, whereas the Mth MCM assembles into double hexamers. The Sso MCM has NTPase and DNA helicase activity, which preferentially acts on DNA duplexes containing a 5′-tail and is stimulated by the single-stranded DNA binding protein from S. solfataricus (Sso SSB). In support of this functional interaction, we demonstrated by immunological methods that theSso MCM and SSB form protein·protein complexes. These findings provide the first in vitro biochemical evidence of a physical/functional interaction between a MCM complex and another replication factor and suggest that the two proteins may function together in vivo in important DNA metabolic pathways.
Fraudulent AIDS: a variant of Munchausen's syndrome.

To the Editor. — In a recent issue ofJAMA, Zumwalt and others1described a man with factitious acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). The purpose of the man's deception as perceived by the authors, who were also the medical examiners, was to obtain narcotics and defraud the government. Furthermore, they discovered the man died from an overdose of medications that were obtained by his successfully posing as an AIDS victim at multiple hospitals—a feat that may seem difficult to comprehend, since human immunodeficiency virus infection is usually easily and quickly confirmed. We would like to suggest an alternative explanation for the victim's deception. More importantly, we would also like to offer some comments on the role of physicians in providing the means for this man's death. First of all, another diagnosis could perhaps better account for the man's actions and motives: chronic factitious disorder with physical symptoms (DSM-III301.51), more commonly
An Adaptive Clustering Scheme for Improving the Scalability in Intelligent Transportation Systems

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSs) aim at making the vehicle users be safer, comfortable, and better informed. Internet-enabled ITS applications get increasingly attractive recently. In this context, gateway is the portal of accessing the Internet. The efficiency of gateway management in ITSs thus profoundly affects the applicability of Internet-enabled applications. When the number of vehicles on the road greatly increased, the effectiveness of gateway requisition challenges the usage of the ITS services. To remedy the scalability problem in accessing the Internet in ITSs, an adaptive clustering scheme for gateway management is proposed in this paper. In the proposed scheme, the gateways are organized as a two-level cluster architecture. The gateways are dynamically employed according to the QoS requirements of the applications and current networking conditions. As shown in the simulation results, the proposed scheme is able to achieve the QoS requirements with fair gateway deployment cost.
Expression of Pax-8, p53 and bcl-2 in human benign and malignant thyroid diseases.

BACKGROUND Immunohistochemical expression of the transcription factor Pax-8 in human thyroid diseases has never been investigated. The relationship between Pax-8, bcl-2 and p53 in thyroid neoplasms is also matter of interest. MATERIALS AND METHODS Seventy-three thyroid tissue samples were evaluated for the expression of Pax-8, p53 and bcl-2 using the immunoperoxidase technique. The series included 11 follicular adenomas, 11 goitres, 23 papillary carcinomas, 16 follicular carcinomas, 6 undifferentiated carcinomas and 6 medullary carcinomas. RESULTS The percentage of Pax-8 positive cells ranged from 14.9 to 27.1% and 10.1 to 39% in goitres and follicular adenomas, respectively. Among differentiated carcinomas, follicular histotype showed a Pax-8 immunoreactivity ranging from 0 to 26.5% of the neoplastic cells whereas in papillary carcinomas the percentage of positive cells ranged from 0 to 16.8%. None out of the six undifferentiated carcinomas showed Pax-8 immunoreactivity. The same negative pattern was noticed in medullary carcinomas. A statistically significant difference in Pax-8 expression was observed between non-malignant and malignant diseases (p < 0.0001). A different reactivity for Pax-8 was also noticed between differentiated carcinomas and undifferentiated carcinomas (p = 0.07). None of the benign tissues stained for p53 whereas among malignant specimens different percentages of p53 expression were observed with all undifferentiated carcinomas expressing the highest positivity (range 24.1-88.6%). Finally, when a combined analysis of bcl-2 and Pax-8 reactivity was carried out, some carcinomas proved to be Pax-8 negative and bcl-2 positive whereas others showed a similar immunoreactive pattern for both Pax-8 and bcl-2. CONCLUSIONS Pax-8 is mainly expressed in benign rather than in malignant thyroid diseases and, among neoplasms, differentiated carcinomas express Pax-8 more frequently than undifferentiated carcinomas. An inverse pattern was observed for p53. Bcl-2 seems to be partially related to Pax-8 expression. However, a Pax-8 independent bcl-2 expression is also evident.