Development of a method to identify foot strike on an arena surface: application to jump landing

Foot strike can be difficult to determine using kinematics alone, particularly when studying equine activities on more compliant surfaces, so this study was done with the aim of developing and validating a method to determine foot strike on an arena surface that can be used in conjunction with kinematics alone, and of applying the method in the context of measuring foot strike during jump landing on an arena surface. A low-cost contact mat was developed. The timing of the contact mat switching ‘on’ was compared to the timing of a force platform onset of 20 N, load and loading rate at foot strike. Two groups of 25 participants were used in two separate studies to validate the contact mat: the first measured the difference in timing with respect to two different activities (running and stepping down from a box), and the second measured the difference in timing with respect to 1- and 2-cm depths of an arena surface during running. In a third study, the mat was used to measure leading limb foot strike of six horses during jump landing, and these data were compared to kinematics from a palmar marker on the hoof wall. All data were recorded at 500 Hz. A consistent difference in delay was found between the mat and force platform onset, and as a result, no significant differences (P>0.05) in timing delay between different loading rates or depths were found. During jump landing, foot strike (determined from the mat) occurred after the vertical velocity minima and the acceleration maxima for the hoof marker, but it occurred before the point where the rate of vertical displacement began to reduce. In conclusion, further work is needed to enhance these techniques, but these preliminary results indicate that this method may be effective in determining foot strike for field-based applications

Inverse molecular design from first principles: Tailoring organic chromophore spectra for optoelectronic applications

The discovery of molecules with tailored optoelectronic properties, such as specific frequency and intensity of absorption or emission, is a major challenge in creating next-generation organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and photovoltaics. This raises the following question: How can we predict a potential chemical structure from these properties? Approaches that attempt to tackle this inverse design problem include virtual screening, active machine learning, and genetic algorithms. However, these approaches rely on a molecular database or many electronic structure calculations, and significant computational savings could be achieved if there was prior knowledge of (i) whether the optoelectronic properties of a parent molecule could easily be improved and (ii) what morphing operations on a parent molecule could improve these properties. In this Perspective, we address both of these challenges from first principles. We first adapt the Thomas-Reiche-Kuhn sum rule to organic chromophores and show how this indicates how easily the absorption and emission of a molecule can be improved. We then show how by combining electronic structure theory and intensity borrowing perturbation theory we can predict whether or not the proposed morphing operations will achieve the desired spectral alteration, and thereby derive widely applicable design rules. We go on to provide proof-of-concept illustrations of this approach to optimizing the visible absorption of acenes and the emission of radical OLEDs. We believe that this approach can be integrated into genetic algorithms by biasing morphing operations in favor of those that are likely to be successful, leading to faster molecular discovery and greener chemistry

Ensemble Sales Forecasting Study in Semiconductor Industry

Sales forecasting plays a prominent role in business planning and business strategy. The value and importance of advance information is a cornerstone of planning activity, and a well-set forecast goal can guide sale-force more efficiently. In this paper CPU sales forecasting of Intel Corporation, a multinational semiconductor industry, was considered. Past sale, future booking, exchange rates, Gross domestic product (GDP) forecasting, seasonality and other indicators were innovatively incorporated into the quantitative modeling. Benefit from the recent advances in computation power and software development, millions of models built upon multiple regressions, time series analysis, random forest and boosting tree were executed in parallel. The models with smaller validation errors were selected to form the ensemble model. To better capture the distinct characteristics, forecasting models were implemented at lead time and lines of business level. The moving windows validation process automatically selected the models which closely represent current market condition. The weekly cadence forecasting schema allowed the model to response effectively to market fluctuation. Generic variable importance analysis was also developed to increase the model interpretability. Rather than assuming fixed distribution, this non-parametric permutation variable importance analysis provided a general framework across methods to evaluate the variable importance. This variable importance framework can further extend to classification problem by modifying the mean absolute percentage error(MAPE) into misclassify error. Please find the demo code at : https://github.com/qx0731/ensemble_forecast_methodsComment: 14 pages, Industrial Conference on Data Mining 2017 (ICDM 2017

Effects of a Tailored Follow-Up Intervention on Health Behaviors, Beliefs, and Attitudes

Background: The high rates of relapse that tend to occur after short-term behavioral interventions indicate the need for maintenance programs that promote long-term adherence to new behavior patterns. Computer-tailored health messages that are mailed to participants or given in brief telephone calls offer an innovative and time-efficient alternative to ongoing face-to-face contact with healthcare providers. Methods: Following a 1-year behavior change program, 22 North Carolina health departments were randomly assigned to a follow-up intervention or control condition. Data were collected from 1999 to 2001 by telephone-administered surveys at preintervention and postintervention for 511 low-income, midlife adult women enrolled in the Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for Women Across the Nation (WISEWOMAN) program at local North Carolina health departments. During the year after the behavior change program, intervention participants were mailed six sets of computer-tailored health messages and received two computer-tailored telephone counseling sessions. Main outcomes of dietary and physical activity behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes were measured. Results: Intervention participants were more likely to move forward into more advanced stages of physical activity change (p = 0.02); control participants were more likely to increase their level of dietary social support at follow-up (p = 0.05). Both groups maintained low levels of reported saturated fat and cholesterol intake at follow-up. No changes were seen in physical activity in either group. Conclusions: Mailed computer-tailored health messages and telephone counseling calls favorably modified forward physical activity stage movement but did not appreciably affect any other psychosocial or behavioral outcomes

Heroes and villains of world history across cultures

© 2015 Hanke et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedEmergent properties of global political culture were examined using data from the World History Survey (WHS) involving 6,902 university students in 37 countries evaluating 40 figures from world history. Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis techniques found only limited forms of universality in evaluations across Western, Catholic/Orthodox, Muslim, and Asian country clusters. The highest consensus across cultures involved scientific innovators, with Einstein having the most positive evaluation overall. Peaceful humanitarians like Mother Theresa and Gandhi followed. There was much less cross-cultural consistency in the evaluation of negative figures, led by Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein. After more traditional empirical methods (e.g., factor analysis) failed to identify meaningful cross-cultural patterns, Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was used to identify four global representational profiles: Secular and Religious Idealists were overwhelmingly prevalent in Christian countries, and Political Realists were common in Muslim and Asian countries. We discuss possible consequences and interpretations of these different representational profiles.This research was supported by grant RG016-P-10 from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (http://www.cckf.org.tw/). Religion Culture Entropy China Democracy Economic histor

KANDUNGAN KARBON (C) SERASAH MANGROVE DI DESA PONTO KECAMATAN WORI KABUPATEN MINAHASA UTARA

Mangrove forests have a role as an absorber of carbon dioxide (CO2) from air and sea therefore they play an important role in mitigating climate change. The problems that exist today are the decline in the area of mangrove forests due to the conversion of land functions into ponds, and development in coastal areas. Decrease of mangrove forest areas can lead to reduced its ability to absorb and storage carbon dioxide (CO2). The purposes of this study were to analyze litter carbon content of mangrove leaf litter in the mangrove forest of Pontoh Village, Wori District, North Minahasa Regency and estimate the carbon content (C) in mangrove litter per hectare per year. Based on the results of the analysis, the total average percentage of carbon content in mangrove litter in Ponto Village, Wori District, North Minahasa Regency was 29.71% C/day, and from the estimation results, the average carbon content (C) in mangrove litter is 3.68 tons/ha/year.  Key Word: mangrove, litter, carbon conten

Service evaluation of weight outcomes as a function of initial BMI in 34,271 adults referred to a primary care/commercial weight management partnership scheme

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

MARCH6 and TRC8 facilitate the quality control of cytosolic and tail-anchored proteins.

Misfolded or damaged proteins are typically targeted for destruction by proteasome-mediated degradation, but the mammalian ubiquitin machinery involved is incompletely understood. Here, using forward genetic screens in human cells, we find that the proteasome-mediated degradation of the soluble misfolded reporter, mCherry-CL1, involves two ER-resident E3 ligases, MARCH6 and TRC8. mCherry-CL1 degradation is routed via the ER membrane and dependent on the hydrophobicity of the substrate, with complete stabilisation only observed in double knockout MARCH6/TRC8 cells. To identify a more physiological correlate, we used quantitative mass spectrometry and found that TRC8 and MARCH6 depletion altered the turnover of the tail-anchored protein heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1). These E3 ligases associate with the intramembrane cleaving signal peptide peptidase (SPP) and facilitate the degradation of HO-1 following intramembrane proteolysis. Our results highlight how ER-resident ligases may target the same substrates, but work independently of each other, to optimise the protein quality control of selected soluble and tail-anchored proteins

Clinical and molecular genetic features of pulmonary hypertension in patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia

BACKGROUND: Most patients with familial primary pulmonary hypertension have defects in the gene for bone morphogenetic protein receptor II (BMPR2), a member of the transforming growth factor beta (TGF-beta) superfamily of receptors. Because patients with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia may have lung disease that is indistinguishable from primary pulmonary hypertension, we investigated the genetic basis of lung disease in these patients. METHODS: We evaluated members of five kindreds plus one individual patient with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and identified 10 cases of pulmonary hypertension. In the two largest families, we used microsatellite markers to test for linkage to genes encoding TGF-beta-receptor proteins, including endoglin and activin-receptor-like kinase 1 (ALK1), and BMPR2. In subjects with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and pulmonary hypertension, we also scanned ALK1 and BMPR2 for mutations. RESULTS: We identified suggestive linkage of pulmonary hypertension with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia on chromosome 12q13, a region that includes ALK1. We identified amino acid changes in activin-receptor-like kinase 1 that were inherited in subjects who had a disorder with clinical and histologic features indistinguishable from those of primary pulmonary hypertension. Immunohistochemical analysis in four subjects and one control showed pulmonary vascular endothelial expression of activin-receptor-like kinase 1 in normal and diseased pulmonary arteries. CONCLUSIONS: Pulmonary hypertension in association with hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia can involve mutations in ALK1. These mutations are associated with diverse effects, including the vascular dilatation characteristic of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and the occlusion of small pulmonary arteries that is typical of primary pulmonary hypertension