Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Respiratory changes in Parkinson's disease may be unrelated to dopaminergic dysfunction.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the maximal inspiratory pressure (MIP) and maximal expiratory pressure (MEP) in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) during the on and off periods of levodopa and to compare with healthy controls. METHODS Twenty-six patients were analyzed with Hoehn and Yahr scores (2-3) and 26 age and gender matched-controls. Statistical analysis was performed with Student's t-test for paired and independent samples. RESULTS MIP and MEP values in patients were significantly lower than the values obtained in controls both for off and on stages -excepted for MIP in women (p=0.28). For patients with PD, the studied parameters did not differ between stages on and off, with the exception of MEP in women (p=0.00). CONCLUSIONS Patients with PD have respiratory pressure lower than controls, even in early stages of the disease, and dopamine replacement has little impact over these respiratory pressures. These findings suggest that respiratory changes in PD may be unrelated to dopaminergic dysfunction.
Contribution of the Public Sector to the Development of Innovation: Position of Estonia

Under conditions of regional competition the authors discuss the role of the public sector in developing innovation activities and the ways to encourage innovation in the private and the public sector. Innovation policy gets linked to modern stage theories of development that focus on innovation. Estonia has reached the investment driven stage. With respect to several innovation indexes and measures of innovation policy a statistical comparison between Estonia and European Union member countries shows whether Estonia belongs to the group of leaders, renegades from leader role, losers or to that of aspirers. The indexes and indicators applied refer to the Community Innovation Survey, Summary Innovation Index, and Global Competitive Index. Although public higher education and R&D expenditures and co-operation of firms are above EU levels the analysis demonstrates that total R&D expenses are below European average. Co-operation between Universities and private firms is low and the number of patents as well. The knowledge creation and the ability to apply innovations enabled Estonia to reach an “aspirer position” whereas with respect to global competition Estonia possesses a “looser” position partly due to the lack of scientists, engineers, etc. Estonian public sector should develop and promote actively the necessary and promising fields of innovation analysed.
A large silent earthquake in the Guerrero seismic gap, Mexico

Geodetic measurements from a network of permanent GPS stations along the Pacific coast of Mexico reveal a large “silent earthquake” along the segment of the Cocos‐North American plate interface identified as the Guerrero seismic gap. The event began in October of 2001 and lasted for 6–7 months. Average slip of ∼10 cm produced measurable displacements over an area of ∼550 × 250 km2. The equivalent moment magnitude of the event was Mw ∼ 7.5. Recognition of this and previous slow event here indicate that the seismogenic portion of the plate interface is not loading steadily, as hitherto believed, but is rather partitioning the stress buildup with episodic, as opposed to steady‐state or periodic, slip downdip of the seismogenic zone. This process increases the stress at the base of the seismogenic zone, bringing it closer to failure. These results call for a reassessment of the seismic potential of Guerrero and other seismic gaps in Mexico.
Short- and midterm follow-up results of valvuloplasty with balloon catheter for congenital aortic stenosis.

OBJECTIVE To report short and midtem follow-up results of balloon aortic valvuloplasty to treat congenital aortic stenosis. METHODS Seventy-five patients (median age: 8 years) underwent the procedure through the retrograde femoral or carotid route. RESULTS The procedure was completed in 74 patients (98.6%). The peak-to-peak systolic gradient dropped from 79.6 27.7 to 22.3 17.8 mmHg (P<0.001), the left ventricular systolic pressure dropped from 164 39.1 to 110 24.8 mmHg (P<0.001), and the left ventricular end diastolic pressure dropped from 13.3 5.5 to 8.5 8.3 mmHg (P< 0.01). Four patients (5.3%) died due to the procedure. Aortic regurgitation (AoR) appeared or worsened in 27/71 (38%) patients, and no immediate surgical intervention was required. A mean follow-up of 50 38 months was obtained in 37 patients. Restenosis and significant AoR were observed in 16.6% of the patients. The estimates for being restenosis-free and for having significant AoR in 90 months were 60% and 50%, respectively. CONCLUSION Aortic valvuloplasty was considered the initial palliative method of choice in managing congenital aortic stenosis, with satisfactory short- and midterm results.
Chordal bipartite graphs of bounded tree-and clique-width

A bipartite graph is chordal bipartite if every cycle of length at least six has a chord. In the class of chordal bipartite graphs the tree-width and the clique-width are unbounded. Our main results are that chordal bipartite graphs of bounded vertex degree have bounded tree-width and that k-fork-free chordal bipartite graphs have bounded clique-width, where a k-fork is the graph arising from a K1; k+1 by subdividing one edge once. (Note that a bipartite graph has vertex degree at most k if and only if it is K1; k+1-free.) This implies polynomial-time solvability for a variety of algorithmical problems for these graphs. c © 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Limitation of antiplatelet therapy after percutaneous coronary intervention

Platelet activation markers such as soluble P-selectin and platelet-derived microparticle have been detected in patients with coronary artery diseases [1, 2]. Furthermore, activated platelets are implicated in thrombosis after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) [1–3]. On the other hand, the activation of leukocytes and endothelial cells by PCI represents possible inflammatory triggers. In particular, leukocyte activation induces their adhesion to endothelial cells, and this mechanism may involve cell adhesion molecules, such as L-selectin, which finally causes vascular complications. Thus, it is believed that the inflammatory events induced by leukocytes may play a pathogenic role in restenosis development after PCI [4]. A number of cytokines can induce leukocyte procoagulant activity [5]. A proinflammatory member of the C-C chemokine family, termed regulated on activation normally T-cell expressed and secreted (RANTES), is a potent chemoattractant of memory T lymphocytes, monocytes, eosinophils, and basophils. RANTES may also activate specific effector cell populations of these cells [6]. Recently, Kraaijeveld et al. [7] found that RANTES and pulmonary and activation-regulated chemokine (PARC) were transiently raised during episodes of unstable angina pectoris (UAP), and peak levels of both chemokines were indicative of refractory symptoms. They suggested that RANTES/PARC may play a role in the pathophysiology of UAP and/or post-UAP responses. UAP results from the erosion or rupture of a vulnerable atherosclerotic plaque superimposed by occlusive thrombus formation and distal ischemia [8]. Inflammatory processes such as leukocyte recruitment to sites of injury and platelet activation are important to the pathophysiology of UAP. Several previous studies have suggested that RANTES is an inflammatory mediator in cardiovascular disease [1, 2, 9]. Kraaijeveld et al. [7] clarified that elevated RANTES levels during UAP could arise from activated T lymphocytes, in addition to secretion by activated platelets, but there have been few investigations into the origin of RANTES during episodes of UAP. However, we are concerned by this statement since it is plausible that the origin of RANTES depends on the type of coronary event. We previously reported that elevation of RANTES may be a sign of restenosis after PCI in patients with stable angina [10]. The patients without restenosis exhibited a significant and time-dependent decrease in RANTES levels, but patients with restenosis did not. Thus, we concluded that platelet-derived RANTES played an important role in restenosis. Several reports have shown that levels of several chemokines are altered in UAP or myocardial infarction and are thought to contribute to the coronary event. However, in acute coronary syndrome the expression of chemokine receptors in
The Impact of a Creativity‐supporting Work Environment on a Firm's Product Innovation Performance

Many scholars and practitioners have suggested that a creativity-supporting work environment contributes to a firm's product innovation performance. Although there is evidence that such an environment enhances innovative behavior at individual level, very few studies address the effect of a creativity-supporting work environment on product innovation performance at firm level, and the results are inconsistent. This paper examines the relationship between a firm's creativity-supporting work environment and a firm's product innovation performance in a sample of 103 firms. For measuring a firm's creativity-supporting work environment, a comprehensive and creativity-focused framework is used. The framework consists of 9 social-organizational and 12 physical work environment characteristics that are likely to enhance employee creativity. These characteristics contribute to the firm's overall work environment that supports creativity. The firm's product innovation performance is defined by two distinct concepts: new product productivity (NP productivity), which is the extent to which the firm introduces new products to the market, and new product success (NP success), which is the percentage of the firm's sales from new products. In most firms, different knowledgeable informants provided the data for the variables. The results show that firms with creativity-supporting work environments introduce more new products to the market (NP productivity), and have more NP success in terms of new product sales (NP success). NP productivity partly mediates the relationship between creativity-supporting work environment and NP success. The mediation model shows that the two paths from a creativity-supporting work environment to NP success are about equally important: the direct path between creativity-supporting work environment and NP success has a coefficient of . 22, and the coefficient of the indirect path via NP productivity is . 23. The creativity-supporting work environment framework can be used in managerial practice to enhance employee creativity for product innovation. It allows applying a flexible and broad approach by influencing both social-organizational and physical characteristics of the work environment.
SMEs’ PROCESS MANAGEMENT DIFFERENCES WITHIN VARIOUS BUSINESS SECTORS

World economy is continuously driven by changes that influenced also small and medium sized enterprises management. These business types represent the vast majority of economy all over the world and simultaneously, are the fundamental driving force for European Union economy. The current business trend is to be focused on planning and monitoring so called process management. The systematic approach is to make an organization’s workflow more effective, more efficient and more capable of adapting to a variable and unstable environment. The aim of the paper is to analytically describe process management in practice of small and medium sized enterprises in South Bohemia region in the Czech Republic within various business sectors. On the examined sample was performed quantitative-qualitative research funded by grant project GAJU 068/2010/S. The obtained data were statistically analysed within core business sectors. Furthermore, based on results were suggested certain advices for more effective process management.
Identification and Partial Characterization of Viral Agent of Lettuce Big Vein in Tehran Province

Background and Aims: The causal agents of viral lettuce big vein disease are two viruse, Lettuce big vein associated virus (Varicosavirus) and Mirafiori lettuce virus (Ophiovirus). These viruses have coat proteins of similar size but have different morphologies and serologically unrelated.The purpose of this study was to distinguish and detect LBVaV and MiLV in lettuce fields in Tehran Province. Patients and Methods: A total 344 samples with mosaic and big vein, head stunt, leaf deformation and motteling symptoms were collected from lettuce fields in Tehran Province.Using DAS – ELISA and specific antiserum for MiLV (DSMZ, AS-0798) and RTPCR for LBVaV. Positive samples in ELISA and RT-PCR were inoculated on index plants,including Chenopodium quinoa, Chenopodium amaranticolor, Lactuca sativa and Nicotiana occidentalis p1. Results: The results of ELISA and RT-PCR about MiLV showed that, virus is transmitted on C.quinoa and produced chlorotic local lesion but about LBVaV, RT-PCR showed that C.quinoa and C.amaranticolor were infected and the virus caused chlorotic local lesion. Extraction of total RNA with three methods using RNAWIZ buffer, Guanidium isothiosianat buffer and Qiagen kit showed that exteraction with RNeasy plant minikit (Qiagen company) is better for RT-PCR. RT-PCR with LBVaV and MiLV specific primer pairs (were designed with Navaro et al. 2004) were performed and the fragment length were amplified for LBVaV and MiLV respectively 296bp and 469bp. The sequence nucleotides of CP of LBVaV was determined and had high similarity with other isolates in gene bank. Conclusion: This is the first report of occurrence of these viral diseases in lettuce in Iran (Tehran Province).
A high-Q spiral inductor with dual-layer patterned floating shield in a class-B VCO achieving a 190.5-dBc/Hz FoM

This paper proposes a dual-layer patterned floating shield (DL-PFS) technique for Silicon-based on-chip spiral inductors. By optimally utilizing the two lowest metal layer strips to shield the inductor from the substrate, electromagnetic (EM) simulations show 40% improvement of the Q factor when compared with the conventional approach. Designed and simulated in 0.13-μm CMOS, the DL-PFS inductor in a class-B VCO achieves 6.6-dB lower phase noise, and 34% power savings. The VCO also exhibits 9.7-to-10.93 GHz tunability, and -123-dBc/Hz phase noise at a 3 MHz offset. The power consumption is 1.64 mW at 0.6 V, leading to a state-of-the-art FoM of 190.5 dBc/Hz.
Multicloud architecture for augmenting security in clouds

Cloud computing is an important paradigm in this computing era which promises to reduce the initial capital investment as well as operational expenditures for hardware and software that are needed for an organization. The main obstacle that stands as a barrier for opting clouds, despite its benefits are its security challenges. Multicloud architecture is a solution that assures better security and performance at a nominal cost. There are different approaches used for storing and processing data in a multicloud environment, this paper is a study on the different multicloud architectures and their benefits and limitations.
Amplifier placements optimization for enhanced energy efficiency in optical transport networks

We propose an optimization on the amplifier placement to enhance the energy efficiency of the future optical transport networks based on WDM with mixed line rate transmissions. Simulation results show significant energy efficiency per GHz improvements of up to 74% thanks to the deployment of additional amplifiers, allowing for the utilization of more energy and spectral efficient modulation formats.
Mossy cell axonal projections to the dentate gyrus molecular layer in the rat hippocampal slice

The ipsilateral associational pathway connects different septotemporal levels of the dentate gyrus. Neurons of the dentate hilus project hundreds of micrometers from the cells of origin to the inner molecular layer. The authors hypothesized that mossy cells, the major cell type of the hilus, also project locally to the inner molecular layer. Within a 400 μm slice, mossy cells were (1) recorded intracellularly while the inner molecular layer was stimulated to test for antidromic responses, and (2) labeled with biocytin and examined with light and electron microscopy for axonal projections into the molecular layer. The authors found that mossy cells can be antidromically activated by inner molecular layer stimulation and that axonal projections to the molecular layer can be visualized within a 400 μm hippocampal slice. In 13 of 19 intracellularly labeled and electrophysiologically characterized mossy cells, collaterals could be traced into the molecular layer. These results suggest that mossy cells contribute to the ipsilateral associational pathway and also participate in local recurrent circuitry to influence granule cell activity.
Active touch and robot perception

Psychologists distinguish between active and passive touch. The latter arises when objects are brought into contact with a passive tactile surface, such as the palm of the band. Active touch describes a dynamic exploration of objects involving receptors located in both the skin (cutaneous) and the joints (kinesthetic). Research in the area of robotic tactile perception has focussed on passive touch, developing cutaneous grids with increasingly improved resolution. A robot developed at the University of Pennsylvania, however, suggests that the most efficient way to achieve tactile recognition is to process kinesthetic information gained from active exploration. The results may be of interest to researchers in both psychology and robotics.
Insulin or Glucagon Choleresis in the Isolated Perfused Guinea Pig Liver

Abstract Insulin and glucagon choleresis was studied in an in situ, isolated perfused guinea pig liver system. Glucagon caused a small, significant increase in bile salt independent flow (1.83 ± 0.19 to 2.02 ± 0.23 μ1 g-1 min-1), and dose-related increments over 2-16 μg were observed. Insulin alone had no choleretic effect. However, the combination of insulin and glucagon caused a response (1.89 ± 0.15 to 2.42 ± 0.19) greater than glucagon alone, and insulin stimulated choleresis when glucagon was present in substimulatory amounts. These observations demonstrate direct effects of glucagon and insulin upon the bile secretory apparatus. Glucagon directly stimulates choleresis, while insulin acts more subtly by potentiation with glucagon.
Positive animal welfare states and encouraging environment-focused and animal-to-animal interactive behaviours

Abstract Affective neuroscience, incorporating neurophysiology and neuropsychology, is providing increasing evidence that certain behaviours of animals may be interpreted in terms of what they are intending to achieve, i.e. their goals. It is also providing evidence that allows inferences to be made about the affective contents of some goal-directed behaviours. These neuroscience-supported inferences are aligned with recommendations based on prior behaviour-based investigations of animals' preferences, aversions and priorities, and these observations together support the cautious use of particular behaviours to infer what the accompanying affects may be. In this review, therefore, some attention is given to negative affects and their relationships to poor animal welfare, but the primary focus is the positive affects animals may experience when they successfully engage in rewarding goal-directed behaviours, encapsulated in the concept of positive affective engagement. The review draws together reports of environment-focused and animal-to-animal interactive behaviours observed in a range of species and under diverse circumstances in order to illustrate the likely widespread occurrence of the positive affects that may accompany them. Particular consideration is given to affects that are potentially associated with some aspects of exploration and food acquisition in stimulus rich or impoverished environments, and to those that may be associated with aspects of the affiliative interactions of bonding or bond affirmation, maternal care, play and sexual activity. It is concluded that animals given the opportunity to engage in such activities may experience some positive affects. However, the intensity of an animal's experience of particular positive affects is likely to range from zero to very high because the associated behaviours occur intermittently, variation may occur during different phases of a goal-directed behaviour, and other positive or negative affects experienced at the same time may have greater impact. As good welfare is achieved both by minimising negative affects and promoting positive ones and as conscious sentient animals may be expected to have an interest in experiencing as little pain and as much pleasure as possible, it is argued that there is an ethical obligation to take practical steps to help them to achieve these outcomes. Such steps would include providing them with opportunities to express more behaviours that are associated with rewarding or satisfying experiences understood in terms of positive affective engagement.
Introducing touchstroke: keystroke-based authentication system for smartphones

Keystroke dynamics is a well-investigated behavioural biometric based on the way and rhythm in which someone interacts with a keyboard or keypad when typing characters. This paper explores the potential of this modality but for touchscreen-equipped smartphones. The main research question posed is whether 'touchstroking' can be effective in building the biometric profile of a user, in terms of typing pattern, for future authentication. To reach this goal, we implemented a touchstroke system in the Android platform and executed different scenarios under disparate methodologies to estimate its effectiveness in authenticating the end-user. Apart from typical classification features used in legacy keystroke systems, we introduce two novel ones, namely, speed and distance. From the experiments, it can be argued that touchstroke dynamics can be quite competitive, at least when compared to similar results obtained from keystroke evaluation studies. As far as we are aware of, this is the first time this newly arisen behavioural trait is put into focus. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Is HbA1c a risk factor for type 2 diabetic subjects without macro and micro vascular complications?

Objective: Our study attempted to evaluate the diagnostic value of HbA1c in predicting diabetic dyslipidemia and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). Methods: Study comprised 229 subjects (156 males and 73 females) with diabetic dyslipidemia without any micro and macro vascular disorders. Fasting blood samples were taken to analyse biochemical parameters like HbA1c, sugar and lipid profile. Results: The HbA1c levels did not differ much between males (6.96 ± 1.11) and females (7.01 ± 1.19). HbA1c demonstrated a positive significant correlation with cholesterol, LDL and a negative significant correlation with HDL. Patients with HbA1c >7.0% had significantly higher value of cholesterol, LDL when compared with <7.0%. Conclusions: The findings of this study clearly suggest that HbA1c endures the ability of predicting CVD risk in the diabetic patients without any micro and macro vascular disorder. Therefore study recommends using HbA1c as a marker for predicting the risk of developing CVD.