Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interface stability influences torso muscle recruitment and spinal load during pushing tasks

Handle or interface design can influence torso muscle recruitment and spinal load during pushing tasks. The objective of the study was to provide insight into the role of interface stability with regard to torso muscle recruitment and biomechanical loads on the spine. Fourteen subjects generated voluntary isometric trunk flexion force against a rigid interface and similar flexion exertions against an unstable interface, which simulated handle design in a cart pushing task. Normalized electromyographic (EMG) activity in the rectus abdominus, external oblique and internal oblique muscles increased with exertion effort. When using the unstable interface, EMG activity in the internal and external oblique muscle groups was greater than when using the rigid interface. Results agreed with trends from a biomechanical model implemented to predict the muscle activation necessary to generate isometric pushing forces and maintain spinal stability when using the two different interface designs. The co-contraction contributed to increased spinal load when using the unstable interface. It was concluded that handle or interface design and stability may influence spinal load and associated risk of musculoskeletal injury during manual materials tasks that involve pushing exertions.
CD8+ T Effector Memory Cells Protect against Liver-Stage Malaria

Identification of correlates of protection for infectious diseases including malaria is a major challenge and has become one of the main obstacles in developing effective vaccines. We investigated protection against liver-stage malaria conferred by vaccination with adenoviral (Ad) and modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vectors expressing pre-erythrocytic malaria Ags. By classifying CD8+ T cells into effector, effector memory (TEM), and central memory subsets using CD62L and CD127 markers, we found striking differences in T cell memory generation. Although MVA induced accelerated central memory T cell generation, which could be efficiently boosted by subsequent Ad administration, it failed to protect against malaria. In contrast, Ad vectors, which permit persistent Ag delivery, elicit a prolonged effector T cell and TEM response that requires long intervals for an efficient boost. A preferential TEM phenotype was maintained in liver, blood, and spleen after Ad/MVA prime–boost regimens, and animals were protected against malaria sporozoite challenge. Blood CD8+ TEM cells correlated with protection against malaria liver-stage infection, assessed by estimation of number of parasites emerging from the liver into the blood. The protective ability of Ag-specific TEM cells was confirmed by transfer experiments into naive recipient mice. Thus, we identify persistent CD8 TEM populations as essential for vaccine-induced pre-erythrocytic protection against malaria, a finding that has important implications for vaccine design.
Friction Characteristics of Ultrathin Perfluoropolyether Boundary Lubricant Films Subjected to Laser Irradiation Heating in Heat-Assisted Magnetic Recording

We investigated the laser-heating-temperature dependence of the friction characteristics of magnetic disks coated with boundary lubricant films by using a pin-on-disk tester and discussed the fundamental characteristics observed. In the contact area of the glass pin and disk, we observed the area that showed a buildup and depletion of the lubricant film thickness. The amount of buildup and depletion increased with increasing heating temperature. It was found that the friction coefficient of each lubricant film initially decreased as the temperature increased. Thereafter, the minimum value of the friction coefficient of each test lubricant occurred at a specific temperature, resulting in an increase in the friction coefficient inversely as the temperature further increased. It was suggested that the specific temperature corresponds to the transition temperature at which the test lubricant film evaporates. In addition, it was also suggested that the thermal durability of the lubricant film improved because of ultraviolet treatment.
Optimal pricing when rational consumers anticipate monitoring cost

ABSTRACT This article considers a monopolistic firm’s optimal pricing decision over two periods among dynamic pricing, preannounced pricing and single pricing. In the models, consumers rationally determine whether to exhibit strategic waiting by weighing their costs against prospectively lower price. Our analysis yields three main results. First, single pricing that completely eliminates strategic waiting surely would be dominated by intertemporal pricing when facing rational consumers. Second, preannounced pricing may actually yield lower revenue than dynamic pricing when considering its effect on the reduction of consumer monitoring cost. Only when monitoring costs under dynamic pricing and under preannounced pricing are equal, is firm revenue weakly greater under preannounced pricing than under dynamic pricing. Third, in dynamic pricing equilibrium, increasing monitoring cost may increase firm revenue, consumer surplus and social welfare simultaneously.
A Prospective Study of Psychological Predictors of Body Fat Gain Among Children at High Risk for Adult Obesity

OBJECTIVE. Limited data suggest that psychological factors, including binge eating, dieting, and depressive symptoms, may predispose children to excessive weight gain. We investigated the relationship between baseline psychological measures and changes in body fat (measured with dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry) over time among children thought to be at high risk for adult obesity. METHODS. A cohort study of a convenience sample of children (age: 6–12 years) recruited from Washington, DC, and its suburbs was performed. Subjects were selected to be at increased risk for adult obesity, either because they were overweight when first examined or because their parents were overweight. Children completed questionnaires at baseline that assessed dieting, binge eating, disordered eating attitudes, and depressive symptoms; they underwent measurements of body fat mass at baseline and annually for an average of 4.2 years (SD: 1.8 years). RESULTS. Five hundred sixty-eight measurements were obtained between July 1996 and December 2004, for 146 children. Both binge eating and dieting predicted increases in body fat. Neither depressive symptoms nor disturbed eating attitudes served as significant predictors. Children who reported binge eating gained, on average, 15% more fat mass, compared with children who did not report binge eating. CONCLUSIONS. Children’s reports of binge eating and dieting were salient predictors of gains in fat mass during middle childhood among children at high risk for adult obesity. Interventions targeting disordered eating behaviors may be useful in preventing excessive fat gain in this high-risk group.
User requirements of social media for the elderly: a case study in Taiwan

Numerous researchers have proposed website design norms that are suitable for the elderly. However, in the design of community platforms, elderly users were not considered in social media usage. Young and middle-aged people are the main targets in several social media platforms. To co-ordinate the digital lives of elderly users, the emphasis in this study was to determine the problems and to search for solutions. The real requirements and proper solutions for the elderly were integrated by analysing possible factors. This study is an anthropological user centred approach, to explore the verbal behaviour of senior citizens while they accessed Facebook. Facebook, which is a social media platform with a multilingual language interface, is currently used worldwide and served the purpose of an experimental base for this research. By determining the user environments that are suitable for the elderly, including web page accessibility, interface design and real social life transformation, this article proposes the factors for a social media website, the factors for the elderly to use social media platforms, a social media platform design that can be easily used by the elderly and design factors suitable for the elderly.
ICP22 and the UL13 Protein Kinase Are both Required for Herpes Simplex Virus-Induced Modification of the Large Subunit of RNA Polymerase II

ABSTRACT Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) infection alters the phosphorylation of the large subunit of RNA polymerase II (RNAP II), resulting in the depletion of the hypophosphorylated and hyperphosphorylated forms of this polypeptide (known as IIa and IIo, respectively) and induction of a novel, alternatively phosphorylated form (designated IIi). We previously showed that the HSV-1 immediate-early protein ICP22 is involved in this phenomenon, since induction of IIi and depletion of IIa are deficient in cells infected with 22/n199, an HSV-1 ICP22 nonsense mutant (S. A. Rice, M. C. Long, V. Lam, P. A. Schaffer, and C. A. Spencer, J. Virol. 69:5550–5559, 1995). However, depletion of IIo still occurs in 22/n199-infected cells. This suggests either that another viral gene product affects the RNAP II large subunit or that the truncated ICP22 polypeptide encoded by 22/n199 retains residual activity which leads to IIo depletion. To distinguish between these possibilities, we engineered an HSV-1 ICP22 null mutant, d22-lacZ, and compared it to 22/n199. The two mutants are indistinguishable in their effects on the RNAP II large subunit, suggesting that an additional viral gene product is involved in altering RNAP II. Two candidates are UL13, a protein kinase which has been implicated in ICP22 phosphorylation, and the virion host shutoff (Vhs) factor, the expression of which is positively regulated by ICP22 and UL13. To test whether UL13 is involved, a UL13-deficient viral mutant,d13-lacZ, was engineered. This mutant was defective in IIi induction and IIa depletion, displaying a phenotype very similar to that of d22-lacZ. In contrast, a Vhs mutant had effects that were indistinguishable from wild-type HSV-1. Therefore, UL13 but not the Vhs function plays a role in modifying the RNAP II large subunit. To study the potential role of UL13 in viral transcription, we carried out nuclear run-on transcription analyses in infected human embryonic lung cells. Infections with either UL13 or ICP22 mutants led to significantly reduced amounts of viral genome transcription at late times after infection. Together, our results suggest that ICP22 and UL13 are involved in a common pathway that alters RNAP II phosphorylation and that in some cell lines this change promotes viral late transcription.
Thyroid hormone specifically regulates skeletal muscle Na(+)-K(+)-ATPase alpha 2- and beta 2-isoforms.

The purpose of this study was to determine the pattern of thyroid hormone (triiodothyronine, T3) regulation of the Na(+)-K(+)-adenosinetriphosphatase (Na(+)-K(+)-ATPase) alpha- and beta-subunit expression in skeletal muscle, which expresses alpha 1-, alpha 2-, beta 1-, and beta 2-subunits, and compare it with that seen in kidney, which expresses only alpha 1 and beta 1. Three steady states were studied: hypothyroid, euthyroid, and hyperthyroid (hypothyroids injected daily with 1 microgram T3/g body wt for 2-16 days). Protein and mRNA abundance, determined by Western and Northern analysis, were normalized to a constant amount of homogenate protein and total RNA, respectively. In skeletal muscle, there was no change in alpha 1- or beta 1-mRNA or protein levels in the transition from hypothyroid to hyperthyroid. However, alpha 2 was highly regulated; mRNA reached a new steady-state level of fivefold over hypothyroid by 8 days of T3 treatment and protein abundance increased threefold. In addition, beta 2-mRNA and protein were detected in skeletal muscle and were also highly regulated by T3; beta 2-mRNA increased nearly fourfold over hypothyroid level, and beta 2-protein abundance increased over twofold. In kidney in the transition from hypothyroid to hyperthyroid, there were coordinate 1.6-fold increases in both alpha 1- and beta 1-mRNA abundance that predicted the observed changes in alpha 1- and beta 1-protein levels and Na(+)-K(+)-ATPase activity. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Control of Resources for Economic Development in Food Networks

The challenge of economic development in the 21st century is linked to innovation. Enabling innovation contains a wide span from the new idea to learning how to provide value through the new idea and continuing to how to control resources to perform at prime. The focus in this paper is set on how to control resources for innovation to add value and economic development. This paper reveals how crossing dynamic composite underlying boundaries can have an impact on control of resources for economic development in food networking SMEs . The analyses in this paper shows the broad and significant impact of preferences on the control of resources, the significant benefit of oral instructions and the significant negative impact from supervising product quality on economic development in the context of the food networking SMEs. Previous level of knowledge has no significant influence on their economic development. Connections are revealed to have no significant influence on the internal control of resources but a significant direct influence on economic development through value chain activities. Through the analyses in this paper the notion of ‘boundary utility’ is elaborated as the crossing and transformation of the dynamic composite underlying boundaries to enable innovation for positive impact on economic development.
Diagnostic values of IgG4 in human gnathostomiasis

The diagnostic values of immunoglobulin G subclass antibodies from patients with gnathostomiasis were assessed by immunoblot technique. Antigen was prepared from crude extracts of Gnathostoma spinigerum advanced third‐stage larvae obtained from naturally infected eels. The sera were obtained from 14 parasite‐confirmed gnathostomiasis cases, 63 patients with other helminthic infections and 13 healthy controls. Nine prominent IgG4 reactive bands appeared with molecular weights of 94, 51, 47, 43, 38, 24, 21, 20 and 15 kDa. The diagnostic sensitivity of each of the nine reactive bands ranged from 100% to 64.3% in 14 parasite‐confirmed gnathostomiasis cases. All (100%) confirmed cases recognized the 21 kDa antigenic band, but not other helminthic infections or parasite‐free control. Recognition of 21 kDa antigen in G. spinigerum advanced third‐stage larvae crude extracts is the most specific diagnostic marker for human gnathostomiasis, with 100% sensitivity and specificity. The 20 and 24 kDa protein bands were additional diagnostic bands for confirming diagnosis of infection where the 21 kDa band was faint. No specific binding of IgG1, IgG2, or IgG3 antibodies was observed in any sera from confirmed gnathostomiasis cases.
Microdosimetric Analysis of Various Mammography Spectra: Lineal Energy Distributions and Ionization Cluster Analysis

Abstract Verhaegen, F. and Reniers, B. Microdosimetric Analysis of Various Mammography Spectra: Lineal Energy Distributions and Ionization Cluster Analysis. Radiat. Res. 162, 592–599 (2004). In view of recent recommendations on the frequency and the starting age of mammography screening in healthy women, it is desirable to quantify the enhanced relative biological effectiveness (RBE) of mammography X rays compared to hard X rays. While there is little doubt that the former are more potent in inducing biological damage than the latter, the magnitude of the effect is still hotly debated in the literature. We used Monte Carlo simulations and track structure analysis in micrometer and nanometer volumes to investigate differences in distributions of lineal energy and ionization clusters for a range of mammography X-ray qualities. Dose-averaged lineal energies, ⟨yD⟩, in breast tissue for various mammography qualities were found to result in quality factors about 40% higher than unity. Among the various mammography qualities studied, the popular molybdenum/molybdenum target/filter combination was found to have the highest ⟨yD⟩ in 1-μm spheres (about 5.0 keV/μm near the entrance surface of breast tissue). In 10-nm radius spheres, the mean ionization cluster order was found to be about 35% higher in mammography X rays compared to 300 keV electrons (roughly representing 60Co or 192Ir photon radiation). In even smaller spheres (2 nm radius), no significant differences were observed for the mean ionization cluster order between mammography X rays and 300 keV electrons. We conclude that the potential of mammography X rays to induce biological damage is probably not much higher than a factor of two compared to hard X rays.
Role of IFN regulatory factor 5 transcription factor in antiviral immunity and tumor suppression

Host defense consists of two main aspects, namely, immune response to invading pathogens and suppression of tumor development. A family of transcription factors, IFN regulatory factors (IRFs), has recently gained much attention in terms of its critical role in linking these two aspects of host defense, wherein IRF5 was previously shown to play a critical role in the induction of proinflammatory cytokines by activation of Toll-like receptors. In the present study, using IRF5 gene-targeted mice (Irf5−/− mice), we demonstrate another facet of the IRF5 function in the regulation of immune response and tumor suppression. We show that IRF5 is critical for antiviral immunity by showing that Irf5−/− mice are highly vulnerable to viral infections, accompanied by a decrease in type I IFN induction in the sera. Furthermore, we show that Irf5−/− fibroblasts are resistant to apoptosis upon viral infection, resulting in an enhanced viral propagation. Finally, we provide evidence that IRF5 is critical for the induction of apoptosis, but not in cell cycle arrest, in response to DNA damage and that IRF5 functions as a tumor suppressor by acting on a pathway that may be distinct from that for p53. These results, together with the dual regulation of IRF5 gene expression by IFN signaling and p53, may provide a new link in the transcriptional network underlying antiviral immunity and tumor suppression.
Variations in use of cardiology services in a health authority: comparison of coronary artery revascularisation rates with prevalence of angina and coronary mortality

Abstract Objective: To explore the relation between rates of coronary artery revascularisation and prevalence of angina to assess whether use of health services reflects need. Design: Prevalence of angina symptoms determined by postal questionnaire on 16 750 subjects (18 to 94 years). Comparison of data on use of coronary artery revascularisation with prevalence of symptoms and mortality from coronary heart disease. Setting: Health authority with population of 530 000. Subjects: Patients admitted to hospital for coronary heart disease; patients who died; and patients undergoing angiography, angioplasty, or coronary artery bypass graft. Cohort of 491 people with symptoms from survey. Main outcome measures: Pearson's product moment correlation coefficients for relation between variables. Results: Overall, 4.0% (95% confidence interval 3.7% to 4.4%) of subjects had symptoms. Prevalences varied widely between electoral wards and were positively associated with Townsend score (r =0.79; P<0.001), as was mortality, but the correlation between admission rates and Townsend score was less clear (r =0.47; P<0.01). Revascularisation rate and Townsend score were not associated. The ratio of revascularisation to number experiencing symptoms was inversely related to Townsend score (r =-0.67; P<0.001). The most deprived wards had only about half the number of revascularisations per head of population with angina than did the more affluent wards. In affluent wards 11% (13/116) of those with symptoms had coronary angiograms compared with only 4% (9/216) in poorer wards (χ2=4.96; P=0.026). Townsend score also inversely correlated with revascularisations per premature death from coronary heart disease (r =-0.55; P<0.01) and revascularisations per admission for myocardial infarction (r =-0.47; P<0.01). Conclusion: The use of interventional cardiology services is not commensurate with need, thus exhibiting the inverse care law. Key messages There is a large local variation in mortality from coronary heart disease and in the prevalence of angina symptoms and both of these are strongly correlated with material deprivation Morbidity, as prevalence of angina symptoms, shows the same relation as mortality The use of coronary artery revascularisation services is not commensurate with need and exhibits the inverse care law even though the supply of care is the same Further work is required to ensure that the use of and access to facilities ensures that health care is targeted where it will have the greatest effect
Suppression of Postoperative Pain by Preoperative Administration of Ibuprofen in Comparison to Placebo, Acetaminophen, and Acetaminophen Plus Codeine

Abstract: The analgesic effect of preoperatively administered ibuprofen was evaluated in 107 dental outpatients undergoing the removal of impacted third molars. Subjects were given 800 mg ibuprofen prior to the procedure and 400 mg ibuprofen 4 and 8 hours later. Comparison was made to groups receiving either placebo at all three doses, 600 mg acetaminophen administered on the same schedule, or preoperatively administered placebo followed by two doses of postoperatively administered 600 mg acetaminophen plus 60 mg codeine. Ibuprofen pretreatment resulted in significantly less pain than placebo or acetaminophen pretreatment as the local anesthetic wore off. Ibuprofen also resulted in less postoperative pain than acetaminophen plus codeine following the second dose. Side effects were similar across drug teatments and placebo with the exception of greater reports of drowsiness following the opiate—analgesic combination. These findings indicate that pretreatment with a nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drug, such as ibuprofen, results in a suppression of postoperative pain when compared to standard therapy without an increase in side effects.
Heterogeneity of tumour response to combined radiotherapy and EGFR inhibitors: Differences between antibodies and TK inhibitors

Purpose: Clinical and preclinical data show a wide variability of tumour response to combined inhibition of the Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) and radiotherapy or chemotherapy. Differences are obvious not only between different tumour entities, but also between different combination schedules and different classes of drugs. The underlying reasons are currently not well understood. Conclusions: In light of the disappointing results of some phase III trials on combined EGFR tyrosine kinase (TK) inhibition and chemotherapy in non-small-cell lung cancer, but also of some early clinical trials on the triple combination of EGFR inhibitors and radio-chemotherapy, negative interactions between the components of the treatment cannot be ruled out. Also, there is increasing evidence for a differential activity of anti-EGFR antibodies and EGFR-TK inhibitors. Potential reasons are an immunogenic component of the cytotoxic effect of chimeric antibodies, alternative signal transduction pathways leading to acquired resistance against the drugs, different effects on tumour micromilieu or nutritional supply, differences in pharmacokinetics and intratumoural distribution or different effects on cancer stem cells. Clarifying these potential mechanisms will require further preclinical and clinical research effort but could in future enable us to individually tailor the use of molecular targeted drugs in order to fully utilise their high potential in cancer therapy.