Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The South Swedish Dome: a key structure for identification of peneplains and conclusions on Phanerozoic tectonics of an ancient shield

Abstract The relationships between different denudation surfaces/peneplains formed across crystalline basement rocks give valuable information to the tectonic development of ancient shields. The denudation surfaces can be identified by the aid of their landforms, tilt and remnant weathering mantles in relation to cover rocks. Three types of denudation surfaces are identified across south Sweden (1) a tilted flat plain, (2) a tilted hilly surface with relative relief below 150 m and (3) stepped horizontal plains with residual hills. All three types of denudation surfaces are peneplains, denudation surfaces graded to specific base levels. The re-exposed parts of the inclined flat sub-Cambrian peneplain (SCP) extend as a landscape feature from below cover rocks in the north and east and reaches up on the highest summits of the South Swedish Uplands. The SCP (the exact unconformity) is encountered again below Cambrian covers outside the west coast. Thus south Sweden is a geological dome, the South Swedish Dome (SSD), in relation to the Cambrian cover. The southern and western low flanks of the exposed part of the dome are instead characterized by a hilly peneplain, the inclined sub-Cretaceous denudation surface, with remnants of thick, kaolinitic, clayey saprolites. This sub-Cretaceous peneplain is cut off at a distinct level in the south and west by the almost horizontal South Småland Peneplain, a never covered, epigene, peneplain. The uplift history of the SSD aids to the understanding on the development of late Tertiary drainage systems of the Baltic Basin by the Eridano River.
Effect of toe-joint Bending on biped gait performance

Walking like human might be considered as the most important objective for humanoid robots. Toe-joint is perhaps one of the most important missing parts of the structure of humanoid, which can play essential role in natural walking. Regarding this fact, the effect of toe-joint in improving performance of motion is studied in this paper. To this end, a nine-link biped is studied and compared with a similar toe-less seven-link biped. Three indices of energy consumption, joint torque demand, power consumption, are compared during a complete step of both bipeds. Both single support and double support phases are considered in this study.
Contribution of dfrA and inhA Mutations to the Detection of Isoniazid-Resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis Isolates

ABSTRACT Screening of 127 isoniazid (INH)-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from Singapore for mutations within the dfrA and inhA genes revealed mutations in 0 and 5 (3.9%) isolates respectively, implying that mutations in dfrA do not contribute to the detection of INH-resistant M. tuberculosis and that mutations within inhA are rare. Thirty-seven (29%) of the 127 isolates had no mutations in any of the genes implicated in INH resistance (katG, kasA, and ndh; inhA and ahpC promoters), suggesting that there are new INH targets yet to be discovered.
Extracellular and intracellular volume variations during postural change measured by segmental and wrist-ankle bioimpedance spectroscopy

Extracellular (ECW) and intracellular (ICW) volumes were measured using both segmental and wrist-ankle (W-A) bioimpedance spectroscopy (5-1000 kHz) in 15 healthy subjects (7 men, 8 women). In the 1st protocol, the subject, after sitting for 30 min, laid supine for at least 30 min. In the second protocol, the subject, who had been supine for 1 hr, sat up in bed for 10 min and returned to supine position for another hour. Segmental ECW and ICW resistances of legs, arms and trunk were measured by placing four voltage electrodes on wrist, shoulder, top of thigh and ankle and using Hanai's conductivity theory. W-A resistances were found to be very close to the sum of segmental resistances. When switching from sitting to supine (protocol 1), the mean ECW leg resistance increased by 18.2%, that of arm and W-A by 12.4%. Trunk resistance also increased but not significantly by 4.8%. Corresponding increases in ICW resistance were smaller for legs (3.7%) and arm (-0.7%) but larger for the trunk (21.4%). Total body ECW volumes from segmental measurements were in good agreement with W-A and Watson anthropomorphic correlation. The decrease in total ECW volume (when supine) calculated from segmental resistances was at 0.79 l less than the W-A one (1.12 l). Total ICW volume reductions were 3.4% (segmental) and 3.8% (W-A). Tests of protocol 2 confirmed that resistance and fluid volume values were not affected by a temporary position change.
Evaluation of procalcitonin for predicting septic multiorgan failure and overall prognosis in secondary peritonitis: a prospective, international multicenter study.

HYPOTHESIS Infections and sepsis are major complications in secondary peritonitis and still represent a diagnostic challenge. We hypothesized that the laboratory marker procalcitonin would provide an early and reliable assessment of septic complications. DESIGN Prospective, international, multicenter inception cohort study. SETTING Five European surgical referral centers. PATIENTS Eighty-two patients with intraoperatively proven secondary peritonitis were enrolled within 96 hours of symptom onset. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Procalcitonin and the laboratory routine marker C-reactive protein (CRP) were prospectively assessed and monitored for a maximum of 21 consecutive days. RESULTS Procalcitonin concentrations were most closely correlated with the development of septic multiorgan dysfunction syndrome (MODS), with peak levels occurring early after symptom onset or during the immediate postoperative course. No such correlation was observed for CRP. According to receiver operating characteristic analysis, a procalcitonin value of 10.0 ng/mL or greater on 2 consecutive days was superior to a CRP level of 210 mg/L or greater for predicting septic MODS, with sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values of 65%, 92%, 83%, and 81% for procalcitonin and 67%, 58%, 49%, and 74% for CRP, respectively (P<.001). Assessment of septic MODS was already possible on the first 2 postoperative days, with similar sensitivity and specificity. Persisting procalcitonin levels greater than 1.0 ng/mL beyond the first week after disease onset strongly indicated nonsurvival and were significantly better than CRP in assessing overall prognosis (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS Procalcitonin monitoring is a fast and reliable approach to assessing septic MODS and overall prognosis in secondary peritonitis. This single-test marker improves stratification of patients who will develop clinically relevant complications.
A dynamical attractor governs beach response to storms

Sandbars are ubiquitous, yet not well understood beach features that change their position and shape in response to changing wave conditions. We propose and test a simple empirical model consisting of two coupled linear differential equations that represents bar dynamics in terms of wave forcing and two other state variables: (1) the mean cross‐shore bar position and (2) the alongshore variability about that mean. Model coefficients are constrained by fitting to a 2‐month data set, and the modeled behavior is examined with a stability analysis. The system is found to be stable and, hence, predictable. Rates of change of the bar position and its alongshore variability are found to be significantly coupled, such that prediction of one variable requires information about the other. The system response time is slow compared to the storm wave cycle such that the bar response continually orbits time‐varying equilibrium points in the state variable phase plane.
Complex First? On the Evolutionary and Developmental Priority of Semantically Thick Words

The Complex-First Paradox consists in a set of collectively incompatible but individually well-confirmed propositions that regard the evolution, development, and cortical realization of the meanings of concrete nouns. Although these meanings are acquired earlier than those of other word classes, they are semantically more complex and their cortical realizations more widely distributed. For a neurally implemented syntax-semantics interface, it should thus take more effort to establish a link between a concept and its lexical expression. However, in ontogeny and phylogeny, capabilities demanding more effort, ceteris paribus, develop and evolve later than those demanding less effort. The paradox points to an explanatory deficit in linguistic theory.
Older Adults' Health Information Wants in the Internet Age: Implications for Patient–Provider Relationships

A qualitative, exploratory study was conducted in the summer of 2007 to investigate older adults' preferences for health information and participation in decision making. The study involved in-depth individual and focus group interviewing with a total of 20 older Internet users and nonusers. Grounded theory was used to conduct the data analysis and construct the theory that best explains the data. The concept of health information wants (HIW), or health information that one would like to have and use to make important health decisions that may or may not be directly related to diagnosis or standard treatment, emerged from the data analysis and led to the development of the HIW framework. This framework encompasses four types of HIW that have varying properties and positions on the decision-making spectrum. While Internet use has not changed these older adults' reliance on medical professionals for diagnostic or standard treatment decisions (and reliance on professionals for information needed to make those decisions), it has opened up new venues for obtaining information to make decisions in broader scopes. Thus, both the Internet and the perpetuating influence of the provider–dependent model are at play in the patient–provider relationships of these older adults.
Safety of Parametrized Asynchronous Shared-Memory Systems is Almost Always Decidable

Verification of concurrent systems is a difficult problem in general, and this is the case even more in a parametrized setting where unboundedly many concurrent components are considered. Recently, Hague proposed an architecture with a leader process and unboundedly many copies of a contributor process interacting over a shared memory for which safety properties can be effectively verified. All processes in Hague's setting are pushdown automata. Here, we extend it by considering other formal models and, as a main contribution, find very liberal conditions on the individual processes under which the safety problem is decidable: the only substantial condition we require is the effective computability of the downward closure for the class of the leader processes. Furthermore, our result allows for a hierarchical approach to constructing models of concurrent systems with decidable safety problem: networks with tree-like architecture, where each process shares a register with its children processes (and another register with its parent). Nodes in such networks can be for instance pushdown automata, Petri nets, or multi-pushdown systems with decidable reachability problem.
New methods and tools for 3D-modeling using range and intensity images

New methods and tools for 3D-modeling using range and intensity images Alejandro J. Troccoli Systems for the creation of photorealistic models using range scans and digital photographs are becoming increasingly popular in a wide range of fields, from reverse engineering to cultural heritage preservation. These systems typically employ a range finder to acquire the geometry information and a digital camera to measure color detail. But bringing together a set of range scans and color images to produce an accurate and usable model is still an area of research with many unsolved problems. In this dissertation we present new tools and methods for creating digital models from range and color images, with emphasis in large-scale outdoor scenes. First, we address the problem of range and color image registration. In this area, we introduce a semi-automatic tool for range and color image registration that makes use of line-features to solve for the position and orientation of the digital camera. This allows us to efficiently register images of urban scenery. Secondly, we present a registration technique that uses the shadows cast by the sun as cues find the correct camera pose, which we have successfully applied in the creation of a digital model of an archaeological excavation in Monte Polizzo, Sicily. We also address the problem of how to build seamless integrated texture maps from images that were taken under different illumination conditions. To achieve this we present two different solutions. The first one is to align all the images to the same illumination. For this, we present a technique that computes a relighting operator over the area of overlap of a pair of images, which we then use to relight the entire image. Our proposed method can handle images with shadows and can effectively remove the shadows from the image, if required. The second technique we developed for the creation of integrated seamless texture maps uses the ratio of two images to factor out the diffuse reflectance of an image from its illumination. We achieve this without any light measuring device. When computing the actual reflectance we remove from the images any effects of the illumination. This allows us to create new renderings of the scene under novel illumination conditions.
A randomized trial of a proactive cellular telephone intervention for smokers living with HIV/AIDS

Objective:To assess the efficacy of an innovative smoking cessation intervention targeted to a multiethnic, economically disadvantaged HIV-positive population. Design:A two-group randomized clinical trial compared a smoking cessation intervention delivered by cellular telephone with usual care approach. Methods:Current smokers from a large, inner city HIV/AIDS care center were recruited and randomized to receive either usual care or a cellular telephone intervention. The usual care group received brief physician advice to quit smoking, targeted self-help written materials and nicotine replacement therapy. The cellular telephone intervention received eight counseling sessions delivered via cellular telephone in addition to the usual care components. Smoking-related outcomes were assessed at a 3-month follow-up. Results:The trial had 95 participants and 77 (81.0%) completed the 3-month follow-up assessment. Analyses indicated biochemically verified point prevalence smoking abstinence rates of 10.3% for the usual care group and 36.8% for the cellular telephone group; participants who received the cellular telephone intervention were 3.6 times (95% confidence interval, 1.3-9.9) more likely to quit smoking compared with participants who received usual care (P = 0.0059). Conclusions:These results suggest that individuals living with HIV/AIDS are receptive to, and can be helped by, smoking cessation treatment. In addition, smoking cessation treatment tailored to the special needs of individuals living with HIV/AIDS, such as counseling delivered by cellular telephone, can significantly increase smoking abstinence rates over that achieved by usual care.
Tryptophan Levels during Grape Ripening: Effects of Cultural Practices

Some cultural practices that are carried out during the grape ripening period are associated with vine stress, including leaf removal, grape bunch removal, and vegetable cover crops. Additionally, several nitrogen and sulfur supplements have also been used directly on leaves during the last stage of the ripening period. In the work described here, five different cultural practices and the reference were applied in three replicates in the same vineyard. The evolution of tryptophan levels was evaluated from just after grape veraison until the harvest date. In some cases, certain specific treatments were also evaluated after the regular harvest date. The cultural techniques that involved the application of nitrogen led to higher levels of tryptophan at the harvest day when compared to other cultural techniques. It was also found that the application of nitrogen without sulfur had a faster effect on the level of tryptophan. It was established that a period of around 20 days is needed for the grapes to show clear differences in tryptophan levels after the application of nitrogen.
Theory of phase-ordering kinetics

The theory of phase-ordering dynamics that is the growth of order through domain coarsening when a system is quenched from the homogeneous phase into a broken-symmetry phase, is reviewed, with the emphasis on recent developments. Interest will focus on the scaling regime that develops at long times after the quench. How can one determine the growth laws that describe the time dependence of characteristic length scales, and what can be said about the form of the associated scaling functions? Particular attention will be paid to systems described by more complicated order parameters than the simple scalars usually considered, for example vector and tensor fields. The latter are needed, for example, to describe phase ordering in nematic liquid crystals, on which there have been a number of recent experiments. The study of topological defects (domain walls, vortices, strings and monopoles) provides a unifying framework for discussing coarsening in these different systems.
Quasi Microstrip Leaky-Wave Antenna With a Two-Dimensional Beam-Scanning Capability

A quasi microstrip leaky-wave antenna (QMLWA) with a two-dimensional (2-D) beam-scanning capability is presented in this paper. QMLWA consists of two half-width microstrip leaky-wave antennas with a phase-shifter. This new type of microstrip leaky-wave antenna has the advantages of reducing size, 2-D beam-scanning and suppressing back lobes. The main lobe scanning in H-plane (y-z plane) is achieved through varying the operating frequency. When the operating frequency increases from 4.4-6 GHz, the main lobe scans from 84deg to 26deg in H-plane continuously. The main lobe steers in quasi-E-plane with varying the phase difference between two half-width microstrip leaky-wave antennas. The lobe scans from 78deg to 103deg in quasi-E-plane at 5.4 GHz. The experimental results show this short QMLWA (about 2 wavelengths) leaks power effectively. The back lobe in H-plane of QMLWA is suppressed 13 dB as compared with the conventional whole width MLWA at 5.4 GHz as example. The H-plane radiation characteristics of QMLWA are mainly determined by the width s of half-width MLWA and the distance D between two half-width MLWA together. This size-reduced QMLWA is useful in the automotive radar system and air traffic control.
Cervical myelopathy caused by C3-C4 spondylosis in elderly patients: a radiographic analysis of pathogenesis.

STUDY DESIGN A radiographic analysis of elderly patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy, particularly those with involvement of the C3-C4 level. OBJECTIVES To elucidate the potential contributors to the higher incidence of pathology at C3-C4 in the elderly. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA In this study, the elder patients showed a greater predilection for involvement of the C3-C4 lesion compared with their younger counterparts. No previous study has addressed C3-C4 pathology in elderly patients. METHODS This study included 18 patients, 10 men and 8 women, with cervical spondylotic myelopathy caused by C3-C4 disorders (group I). For the purpose of comparison, 18 younger patients (less than 50 years of age) with myelopathy (group II) and 30 volunteers over the age of 65 (group III) were also investigated. Mean age at admission was 73.5 years for group I, 42.4 years for group II, and 73.4 years for group III. Radiographic analysis, using static and dynamic radiographs, was performed to evaluate the morphologic features. RESULTS The mean spinal canal diameter for groups I and II was significantly smaller than that for group III. Group I exhibited greater C2-C7 lordosis. The aged population, group I and group III, showed greater C3-C4 angulation associated with C4 forward inclination in neutral standing position as compared with younger patients. Regarding dynamic factors, group I showed the largest segmental motion at C3-C4, and, conversely, the smallest mobility at the lower segments, with significant differences. CONCLUSIONS Using radiographic analysis, morphologic features that predispose patients to disorders of the C3-C4 motion segment were evaluated. These features included 1) greater C3-C4 angulation associated with age-related postural change and 2) hypermobility at the C3-C4 segment compensating for decreased mobility at the lower segments.
Discretion in Hiring Mitch

This paper examines whether and how firms should adopt job testing technologies. If hiring managers have other sources of information about a worker’s quality (e.g. interviews), then firms may want to allow managers to overrule test recommendations for candidates they believe show promise. Yet if firms are concerned that managers are biased or have misaligned objectives, it may be optimal to impose hiring rules even if this means ignoring potentially valuable soft information. We evaluate the staggered introduction of a job test across 130 locations of 15 firms employing service sector workers. We show that testing improves the match-quality of hired workers, as measured by their completed tenure, by about 14%. These gains largely come from managers who follow test recommendations, as opposed to those who frequently make exceptions to test recommendations. That is, when faced with similar applicant pools, managers who make more exceptions systematically end up with workers with lower tenure. In this setting, our results suggest that firms can improve productivity by taking advantage of the verifiability of test scores to limit managerial discretion.
The Information Flow and Capacity of Channels with Noisy Feedback

In this paper, we consider some long-standing problems in communication systems with access to noisy feedback. We introduce a new notion, the residual directed information, to capture the effective information flow (i.e. mutual information between the message and the channel outputs) in the forward channel. In light of this new concept, we investigate discrete memoryless channels (DMC) with noisy feedback and prove that the noisy feedback capacity is not achievable by using any typical closed-loop encoder (non-trivially taking feedback information to produce channel inputs). We then show that the residual directed information can be used to characterize the capacity of channels with noisy feedback. Finally, we provide computable bounds on the noisy feedback capacity, which are characterized by the causal conditional directed information.