Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
George Price ’ s Contributions to Evolutionary Genetics

George Price studied evolutionary genetics for approximately seven years between 1967 and 1974. During that brief period Price made three lasting contributions to evolutionary theory; these were: (i) the Price Equation, a profound insight into the nature of selection and the basis for the modern theories of kin and group selection; (ii) the theory of games and animal behavior, based on the concept of the evolutionarily stable strategy; and (iii) the modern interpretation of Fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection, Fisher’s theorem being perhaps the most cited and least understood idea in the history of evolutionary genetics. This paper summarizes Price’s contributions and briefly outlines why, toward the end of his painful intellectual journey, he chose to focus his deep humanistic feelings and sharp, analytical mind on abstract problems in evolutionary theory. 7 1995 Academic Press Limited
Twentieth-Century Droughts and Their Impacts on Terrestrial Carbon Cycling in China

Abstract Midlatitude regions experienced frequent droughts during the twentieth century, but their impacts on terrestrial carbon balance are unclear. This paper presents a century-scale study of drought effects on the carbon balance of terrestrial ecosystems in China. The authors first characterized the severe extended droughts over the period 1901–2002 using the Palmer drought severity index and then examined how these droughts affected the terrestrial carbon dynamics using tree-ring width chronologies and a process-based biogeochemistry model, the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM). It is found that China suffered from a series of severe extended droughts during the twentieth century. The major drought periods included 1920–30, 1939–47, 1956–58, 1960–63, 1965–68, 1978–80, and 1999–2002. Most droughts generally reduced net primary productivity (NPP) and net ecosystem productivity (NEP) in large parts of drought-affected areas. Moreover, some of the droughts substantially reduced the countrywide annual NPP.
Does adjuvant fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy provide a benefit for patients with resected rectal cancer who have already received neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy? A systematic review of randomised trials.

BACKGROUND The results of the recently published large European randomised study in rectal cancer (European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer 22921 trial) do not support current guidelines recommending postoperative chemotherapy for patients who have previously undergone preoperative radiochemotherapy or radiotherapy [radio(chemo)therapy]. To evaluate this discrepancy further, a systematic review of relevant randomised trials was undertaken. MATERIALS AND METHODS A systematic literature search was carried out in order to identify randomised studies exploring adjuvant chemotherapy against observation in patients with rectal cancer previously treated with preoperative radio(chemo)therapy. RESULTS A statistically significant benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy was not found in any of the four relevant randomised trials. Non-protocolised subgroup analysis of one study indicated a beneficial effect of adjuvant chemotherapy for high rectal tumours and for patients downstaged to ypT0-2N0 but no effect for low-lying rectal tumours. However, the body of evidence indicates that patients downstaged after radio(chemo)therapy to ypT0-2N0 disease are not candidates for testing adjuvant chemotherapy in future trials due to the considerable over-treatment anticipated by this manoeuvre. CONCLUSIONS To resolve the issue in question, a meta-analysis of relevant studies is required, and new trials should be launched to explore new drug combinations against observation. Currently, delivery of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients undergoing preoperative radio(chemo)therapy is not evidence based.
A case for relative differentiated services and the proportional differentiation model

Internet applications and users have very diverse quality of service expectations, making the same-service-to-all model of the current Internet inadequate and limiting. There is a widespread consensus today that the Internet architecture has to extended with service differentiation mechanisms so that certain users and applications can get better service than others at a higher cost. One approach, referred to as absolute differentiated services, is based on sophisticated admission control and resource reservation mechanisms in order to provide guarantees or statistical assurances for absolute performance measures, such as a minimum service rate or maximum end-to-end delay. Another approach, which is simpler in terms of implementation, deployment, and network manageability, is to offer relative differentiated services between a small number of service classes. These classes are ordered based on their packet forwarding quality, in terms of per-hop metrics for the queuing delays and packet losses, giving the assurance that higher classes are better than lower classes. The applications and users, in this context, can dynamically select the class that best meets their quality and pricing constraints, without a priori guarantees for the actual performance level of each class. The relative differentiation approach can be further refined and quantified using the proportional differentiation model. This model aims to provide the network operator with the "tuning knobs" for adjusting the quality spacing between classes, independent of the class loads. When this spacing is feasible in short timescales, it can lead to predictable and controllable class differentiation, which ore two important features for any relative differentiation model. The proportional differentiation model can be approximated in practice with simple forwarding mechanisms (packet scheduling and buffer management) that we describe.
ITS-2 sequences-based identification of Trichogramma species in South America

ITS2 (Internal transcribed spacer 2) sequences have been used in systematic studies and proved to be useful in providing a reliable identification of Trichogramma species. DNAr sequences ranged in size from 379 to 632 bp. In eleven T. pretiosum lines Wolbachia-induced parthenogenesis was found for the first time. These thelytokous lines were collected in Peru (9), Colombia (1) and USA (1). A dichotomous key for species identification was built based on the size of the ITS2 PCR product and restriction analysis using three endonucleases (EcoRI, MseI and MaeI). This molecular technique was successfully used to distinguish among seventeen native/introduced Trichogramma species collected in South America.
Tissue Factor-Mediated Activation of the Prothrombin Complex Concentrate (PCC) is Differently Inhibited by Dabigatran, Rivaroxaban, and Apixaban

Currently, several newer oral anticoagulants namely dabigatran (anti-IIa), rivaroxaban (anti-Xa), and apixaban are available for various clinical implications. Another oral anti-Xa edoxaban is under development. A parenteral anti-Xa drug namely otamixaban is also under development for cardiovascular interventions. Bleeding complications have been reported in the new oral anticoagulants and have been managed by conventional approaches with limited success. Prothrombin complex concentrates (PCCs) are reported to neutralize the anticoagulant activity of these agents. The PCCs are also able to generate endogenous factor Xa and IIa along with other proteases that are capable of neutralizing the circulating anti-Xa or anti-IIa activities of the newer anticoagulants. The generation of Xa and IIa is also dependent on the type of tissue factor available for their activation. These reported studies suggest that different tissue factors differentially activate a PCC namely Profilnine SD. Furthermore, dabigatran differs from rivaroxaban and other factor Xa inhibitors in its inhibitory profile.
Acceptability and patterns of endometrial bleeding in estradiol-based HRT regimens: a comparative study of cyclical sequential combinations of trimegestone or norethisterone acetate

Objective This randomized, double-blind, multicenter study was planned to compare the efficacy and tolerance of a novel oral regimen containing estradiol (2.0 mg) sequentially combined with trimegestone, at a daily dose of either 0.25 mg or 0.5 mg, with a standard hormone replacement therapy containing estradiol and norethisterone acetate (E2 + NETA) in the treatment of climacteric symptoms. Methods The study was conducted over 13 cycles, each of 28 days, and involved 487 subjects, of whom 349 completed the study. Results All three treatments were equally effective in alleviating hot flushes and showed a progressive and significant reduction in the value of the Kupperman index. The treatments diminished equally effectively urogenital signs and symptoms. All treatments were well tolerated and the incidences of adverse events associated with each treatment were similar across the treatment groups. The duration of expected withdrawal bleeding was shorter in the estradiol + trimegestone 0.5 mg group than in the estradiol + trimegestone 0.25 mg or E2 + NETA group. Conclusion All treatments were effective and well tolerated, providing significant relief from climacteric symptoms. Treatment with estradiol + trimegestone 0.5 mg provided the most favorable bleeding pattern.
Gaze Patterns during Face-to-Face Interaction

We present here the analysis of multimodal data gathered during realistic face-to-face interaction of a target speaker with a number of interlocutors. Videos and gaze of both interlocutors were monitored with an experimental setup using coupled cameras and screens equipped with eye trackers. With the aim to understand the functions of gaze in social interaction and to develop a gaze control model for our talking heads we investigate the influence of cognitive state and social role on the observed gaze behaviour.
On Algebraic Structure of Neighborhoods of Cellular AutomataHorse Power Problem

In a previous paper we formulated and analyzed the structure of neighborhoods of cellular automata in an algebraic setting such that the cellular space S is represented by the Cayley graph of a finitely generated group and the neighbors are defined as a semigroup generated by the neighborhood N as a subset of S, Nishio and Margenstern 2004 [14,15]. Particularly we discussed the horse power problem whether the motion of a horse (knight) fills the infinite chess board or Z$^2$ - that is, an algebraic problem whether a subset of a group generates it or not. Among others we proved that a horse fills Z$^2$ even when its move is restricted to properly chosen 3 directions and gave a necessary and sufficient condition for a generalized 3-horse to fill Z$^2$. This paper gives further developments of the horse power problem, say, on the higher dimensional Euclidean grid, the hexagonal grid and the hyperbolic plane.
Energy efficient sensor network routing (EESNR) protocol for large distributed environmental monitoring applications

Due to climate change and scarcity of water reservoirs, monitoring and control of irrigation systems is now becoming a major focal area for researchers in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are rapidly finding their way in the field of irrigation and play the key role as data gathering technology in the domain of IoT and CPS. They are efficient for reliable monitoring, giving farmers an edge to take precautionary measures. However, designing an energy-efficient WSN system requires a cross-layer effort and energy-aware routing protocols play a vital role in the overall energy optimization of a WSN. In this paper, we propose a new hierarchical routing protocol suitable for large area environmental monitoring such as large-scale irrigation network existing in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The proposed protocol resolves the issues faced by traditional multi-hop routing protocols such as LEACH, M-LEACH and I-LEACH, and enhances the lifespan of each WSN node that results in an increased lifespan of the whole network. We used the open-source NS3 simulator for simulation purposes and results indicate that our proposed modifications result in an average 27.8% increase in lifespan of the overall WSN when compared to the existing protocols.
A Narrative Review of Current and Emerging Trends in the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder

Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a significant contributor to morbidity and mortality in the United States. It contributes to over 140,000 annual deaths, to over 200 related diseases and health conditions globally, and accounts for 5.1% of the global disease burden. Despite its substantial impact, AUD remains undertreated, marked by a scarcity of approved medications. This paper explores the current treatment landscape and novel strategies for both alcohol withdrawal syndrome and AUD. Promising results, including the use of psychedelics alongside psychotherapy, noninvasive neural-circuit-based interventions, phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitors, and GLP-1 receptor agonists, have emerged from recent studies. While these advancements show potential, further research is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of their effectiveness. The clear shortage of approved medications and other treatment modalities underscores the pressing need for ongoing research.
Recent volcanic accretion at 9°N–10°N East Pacific Rise as resolved by combined geochemical and geological observations

The ridge crest at 9°N–10°N East Pacific Rise (EPR) is dominated by overlapping lava flows that have overflowed the axial summit trough and flowed off‐axis, forming a shingle‐patterned terrain up to ∼2–4 km on either side of the axial summit trough. In this study, we employ 230Th‐226Ra dating methods, in conjunction with geochemistry and seafloor geological observations, in an effort to discern the stratigraphic relationships between adjacent flows. We measured major and trace elements and 87Sr/86Sr, 143Nd/144Nd, 176Hf/177Hf, and 238U‐230Th‐226Ra for lava glass samples collected from several flow units up to ∼2 km away from the axial summit trough on the ridge crest at 9°50′N EPR. Statistical analysis of the 238U‐230Th‐226Ra data indicates that all but one measured sample from these flows cannot be resolved from the zero‐age population; thus, we cannot confidently assign model ages to samples for discerning stratigraphic relationships among flows. However, because groups of samples can be distinguished based on similarities in geochemical compositions, particularly incompatible element abundances with high precision‐normalized variability such as U and Th, and because the range of compositions is much greater than that represented by samples from the 1991–1992 and 2005–2006 eruptions, we suggest that the dive samples represent 6–10 eruptive units despite indistinguishable model ages. Geochemical variability between individual flows with similar ages requires relatively rapid changes in parental melt composition over the past ∼2 ka, and this likely reflects variations in the relative mixing proportions of depleted and enriched melts derived from a heterogeneous mantle source.
COMT Val158Met moderation of cannabis‐induced psychosis: a momentary assessment study of ‘switching on’ hallucinations in the flow of daily life

Objective: A functional polymorphism in the catechol‐o‐methyltransferase gene (COMT Val158Met) may moderate the psychosis‐inducing effects of cannabis. In order to extend this finding to dynamic effects in the flow of daily life, a momentary assessment study of psychotic symptoms in response to cannabis use was conducted.
Voice of the Customers: Mining Online Customer Reviews for Product Feature-based Ranking

Increasingly large numbers of customers are choosing online shopping because of its convenience, reliability, and cost. As the number of products being sold online increases, it is becoming increasingly difficult for customers to make purchasing decisions based on only pictures and short product descriptions. On the other hand, customer reviews, particularly the text describing the features, comparisons and experiences of using a particular product provide a rich source of information to compare products and make purchasing decisions. Online retailers like Amazon.com1 allow customers to add reviews of products they have purchased. These reviews have become a diverse and reliable source to aid other customers. Traditionally, many customers have used expert rankings which rate limited a number of products. Existing automated ranking mechanisms typically rank products based on their overall quality. However, a product usually has multiple product features, each of which plays a different role. Different customers may be interested in different features of a product, and their preferences may vary accordingly. In this paper, we present a feature-based product ranking technique that mines thousands of customer reviews. We first identify product features within a product category and analyze their frequencies and relative usage. For each feature, we identify subjective and comparative sentences in reviews. We then assign sentiment orientations to these sentences. By using the information obtained from customer reviews, we model the relationships among products by constructing a weighted and directed graph. We then mine this graph to determine the relative quality of products. Experiments on Digital Camera and Television reviews from real-world data on Amazon.com are presented to demonstrate the results of the proposed techniques.
Auditory processing of the acoustic patterns of speech.

The auditory processing of the acoustic patterns of speech relevant for the perception of phonetic units is discussed in terms of a three-stage generic model of phonetic perception. It is argued that the auditory system analyzes each brief segment of the acoustic waveform of speech for tonal components and the shape of the "spectral envelope. " The presence and pattern of tonal components is used in the perception of voicing and pitch. The shapes of spectral envelopes and their dynamics induce the perception of phonetic units. The important attributes of the spectral-envelope patterns are identified.
Estimating River Discharge With Swath Altimetry: A Proof of Concept Using AirSWOT Observations

The forthcoming Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite mission will provide global measurements of the free surface of large rivers, providing new opportunities for remote sensing‐derived estimates of river discharge in gaged and ungaged basins. SWOT discharge algorithms have been developed and benchmarked using synthetic data but remain untested on real‐world swath altimetry observations. We present the first discharge estimates from AirSWOT, a SWOT‐like airborne Ka‐band radar, using 6 days of measurements over a 40‐km segment of the Willamette River in Oregon, USA. The three evaluated discharge algorithms estimated discharge with normalized root‐mean‐square errors of 10–31% when compared with in situ gage data but were sensitive to an initial estimate of mean annual discharge. Our results show that these discharge algorithms provide reliable discharge estimates on remotely sensed data at SWOT‐like spatial scales while highlighting the need for further algorithm sensitivity tests.
Family perspectives on end-of-life care at the last place of care.

CONTEXT Over the past century, nursing homes and hospitals increasingly have become the site of death, yet no national studies have examined the adequacy or quality of end-of-life care in institutional settings compared with deaths at home. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the US dying experience at home and in institutional settings. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Mortality follow-back survey of family members or other knowledgeable informants representing 1578 decedents, with a 2-stage probability sample used to estimate end-of-life care outcomes for 1.97 million deaths from chronic illness in the United States in 2000. Informants were asked via telephone about the patient's experience at the last place of care at which the patient spent more than 48 hours. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Patient- and family-centered end-of-life care outcomes, including whether health care workers (1) provided the desired physical comfort and emotional support to the dying person, (2) supported shared decision making, (3) treated the dying person with respect, (4) attended to the emotional needs of the family, and (5) provided coordinated care. RESULTS For 1059 of 1578 decedents (67.1%), the last place of care was an institution. Of 519 (32.9%) patients dying at home represented by this sample, 198 (38.2%) did not receive nursing services; 65 (12.5%) had home nursing services, and 256 (49.3%) had home hospice services. About one quarter of all patients with pain or dyspnea did not receive adequate treatment, and one quarter reported concerns with physician communication. More than one third of respondents cared for by a home health agency, nursing home, or hospital reported insufficient emotional support for the patient and/or 1 or more concerns with family emotional support, compared with about one fifth of those receiving home hospice services. Nursing home residents were less likely than those cared for in a hospital or by home hospice services to always have been treated with respect at the end of life (68.2% vs 79.6% and 96.2%, respectively). Family members of patients receiving hospice services were more satisfied with overall quality of care: 70.7% rated care as "excellent" compared with less than 50% of those dying in an institutional setting or with home health services (P<.001). CONCLUSIONS Many people dying in institutions have unmet needs for symptom amelioration, physician communication, emotional support, and being treated with respect. Family members of decedents who received care at home with hospice services were more likely to report a favorable dying experience.
Name entity recognition using inductive logic programming

Named entity recognition (NER) is the process of seeking to locate atomic elements in text into predefined categories such as the names of persons, organizations, locations, expressions of times, quantities, and percentages. It is useful in applying NER to other natural language tasks such as question-answering, text summarization, building semantic web, etc. This paper presents a system, called BKIE, that uses SRV -- an inductive logic program - to extract name entities in Vietnamese text. New predicates and features are added to SRV to deal with characteristics of Vietnamese language. Also, several strategies are proposed in this paper to improve the efficiency of the SRV algorithm. The data set using in experiments is 80 homepages of scientists in Vietnamese language that were tagged manually. The experiments give us the best F-score of 83% for extracting the "name" entity. It shows that SRV is an efficient NER algorithm given its advantages of generality and flexibility. In order to increase the system's performance, our future work includes (i) building a larger set of training data to improve system's performance; (ii) implementing BKIE using parallel programming to increase system efficiency; and (iii) testing BKIE with other application domains to get a more accurate evaluation of the system.
Theory for a Hanbury Brown Twiss experiment with a ballistically expanding cloud of cold atoms

We have studied one-body and two-body correlation functions in a ballistically expanding, noninteracting atomic cloud in the presence of gravity. We find that the correlation functions are equivalent to those at thermal equilibrium in the trap with an appropriate rescaling of the coordinates. We derive simple expressions for the correlation lengths and give some physical interpretations. Finally a simple model to take into account finite detector resolution is discussed.