Feasibility and tolerability of whole-body, low-intensity vibration and its effects on muscle function and bone in patients with dystrophinopathies: a pilot study.

IntroductionDystrophinopathies are X-linked muscle degenerative disorders that result in progressive muscle weakness complicated by bone loss. This study's goal was to evaluate feasibility and tolerability of whole-body, low-intensity vibration (WBLIV) and its potential effects on muscle and bone in patients with Duchenne or Becker muscular dystrophy.MethodsThis 12-month pilot study included 5 patients (age 5.9-21.7 years) who used a low-intensity Marodyne LivMD plate vibrating at 30-90 Hz for 10 min/day for the first 6 months. Timed motor function tests, myometry, and peripheral quantitative computed tomography were performed at baseline and at 6 and 12 months.ResultsMotor function and lower extremity muscle strength remained either unchanged or improved during the intervention phase, followed by deterioration after WBLIV discontinuation. Indices of bone density and geometry remained stable in the tibia.ConclusionsWBLIV was well tolerated and appeared to have a stabilizing effect on lower extremity muscle function and bone measures. Muscle Nerve 55: 875-883, 2017

Mathematical modeling of extraction process for biporous medium and analyze of pressure in particles and extraparticle space

Обґрунтовано математичну модель процесу відтиску матеріалів рослинного походження у одновимірній постановці. Середовище, що піддається відтиску, представляється у вигляді біпористої системи, системою міжчастинкових та внутрішньочастинкових просторів. Сформульовано рівняння фільтрації-консолідації з відповідними початковими та крайовими умовами як для міжчастинкового, так і внутрішньочастинкового просторів у припущенні, що для матеріалів рослинного походження, міжчастинковий шар пор володіє малою місткістю, а пори в частинках – високою. Проведено числове моделювання профілів тисків в мікро- та макро порах біпористого середовища для двох матеріалів з різними степенями попередньої деформованості внутрішньої структури. Отримані результати вказують на відтермінування падіння значення тиску в частинці та уповільнення процесу консолідації для менш деформованого середовища.During solid-liquid expression, the porous layer formed by a whole fruit or fragmentized material is subjected to unidirectional or complex compression in industrial presses. Such compression can be carried out under constant or variable parameters (pressure, deformation rate). Physical model of solid-liquid expression from liquid containing materials is presented in one-dimensional formulation. The layer of sliced cellular material is conceptualized as a double porosity system with extraparticle and intraparticle networks for liquid flowing. The liquid flowing occurs inside the particles (intraparticle space), outside the particles (extraparticle space) and between these two spaces. The sliced particles are rectangular parallelepipeds separated by the porous network. The extraparticles network forms the first porosity with low storage capacity and high hydraulic permeability. The sliced liquid containing particles form a second porosity with high storage capacity and low hydraulic permeability. The filtration-consolidation equations with corresponding initial and boundary conditions were formulated for both extraparticle and intraparticle networks. The extraparticle network was supposed to form the first porosity level, while the intraparticle network forms a second porosity. Using obtained numerical solutions, the liquid pressure distributions inside of porous particles and in the extraparticle space were calculated. The pressure distribution curves are presented in function of time and dimensionless geometrical coordinates. Computational modeling of pressure profiles in macro- and micropores versus time for different layer sections was done for plant material with two different compressibility-permeability characteristics corresponding different degrees of tissue destroying. Results show the delayed pressure drop in the intraparticle network and retardation of consolidation kinetics for the less destroyed plant tissue due to the lower value of consolidation coefficient. Therefore, the degree of destroying of cellular tissue can influence importantly on the pressure profiles and retardation of pressure drops inside the porous particles

CLAIR: Evaluating Image Captions with Large Language Models

The evaluation of machine-generated image captions poses an interesting yet persistent challenge. Effective evaluation measures must consider numerous dimensions of similarity, including semantic relevance, visual structure, object interactions, caption diversity, and specificity. Existing highly-engineered measures attempt to capture specific aspects, but fall short in providing a holistic score that aligns closely with human judgments. Here, we propose CLAIR, a novel method that leverages the zero-shot language modeling capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to evaluate candidate captions. In our evaluations, CLAIR demonstrates a stronger correlation with human judgments of caption quality compared to existing measures. Notably, on Flickr8K-Expert, CLAIR achieves relative correlation improvements over SPICE of 39.6% and over image-augmented methods such as RefCLIP-S of 18.3%. Moreover, CLAIR provides noisily interpretable results by allowing the language model to identify the underlying reasoning behind its assigned score. Code is available at https://davidmchan.github.io/clair/Comment: To Appear at EMNLP 202

Conditional probabilities in Ponzano-Regge minisuperspace

We examine the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary initial state for the Ponzano-Regge formulation of gravity in three dimensions. We consider the behavior of conditional probabilities and expectation values for geometrical quantities in this initial state for a simple minisuperspace model consisting of a two-parameter set of anisotropic geometries on a 2-sphere boundary. We find dependence on the cutoff used in the construction of Ponzano-Regge amplitudes for expectation values of edge lengths. However, these expectation values are cutoff independent when computed in certain, but not all, conditional probability distributions. Conditions that yield cutoff independent expectation values are those that constrain the boundary geometry to a finite range of edge lengths. We argue that such conditions have a correspondence to fixing a range of local time, as classically associated with the area of a surface for spatially closed cosmologies. Thus these results may hint at how classical spacetime emerges from quantum amplitudes.Comment: 26 pages including 10 figures, some reorganization in the presentation of results, expanded discussion of results in the context of 2+1 gravity in the Witten variables, 3 new reference

Determinants of Catch-Up Growth in International Adoptees from Eastern Europe

Children raised in orphanages frequently experience growth suppression due to multiple risk factors. Placing such children in more nurturing environments through adoption leads to significant catch-up growth (CUG), the determinants of which are not entirely understood. The goal of this study was to perform an auxological evaluation and examine the degree and correlates of CUG in international adoptees. Children adopted from Eastern Europe, (n = 148, 71 males), 7 to 59 months of age, were recruited within 3 weeks of their arrival to the US. At baseline, mean height SDS was −1.2 ± 1.1 and 22% were <−2 SDS for height. IGF-1 and/or IGFBP-3 levels <−2 SDS were present in 32%. CUG, defined as a gain of >+0.5 in height SDS, was seen in 62% of adoptees at 6 months after adoption; 7% of children remained <−2 SDS for height (two had growth hormone deficiency). Growth factors improved in the majority of children. Younger age, greater degree of initial growth failure, and higher caloric intake were significantly associated with improved linear growth in multiple regression models. In summary, most adoptees demonstrate excellent CUG within six months after adoption. If growth failure persists after 6 months of appropriate caloric intake, nutrition-independent causes should be considered

Towards the Final Fate of an Unstable Black String

Black strings, one class of higher dimensional analogues of black holes, were shown to be unstable to long wavelength perturbations by Gregory and Laflamme in 1992, via a linear analysis. We revisit the problem through numerical solution of the full equations of motion, and focus on trying to determine the end-state of a perturbed, unstable black string. Our preliminary results show that such a spacetime tends towards a solution resembling a sequence of spherical black holes connected by thin black strings, at least at intermediate times. However, our code fails then, primarily due to large gradients that develop in metric functions, as the coordinate system we use is not well adapted to the nature of the unfolding solution. We are thus unable to determine how close the solution we see is to the final end-state, though we do observe rich dynamical behavior of the system in the intermediate stages.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure