Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dexmedetomidine and Meperidine Additively Reduce the Shivering Threshold in Humans

Background and Purpose— Hypothermia might prove to be therapeutically beneficial in stroke victims; however, even mild hypothermia provokes vigorous shivering. Meperidine and dexmedetomidine each linearly reduce the shivering threshold (triggering core temperature) with minimal sedation. We tested the hypothesis that meperidine and dexmedetomidine synergistically reduce the shivering threshold without producing substantial sedation or respiratory depression. Methods— We studied 10 healthy male volunteers (18 to 40 years) on 4 days: (1) control (no drug); (2) meperidine (target plasma level 0.3 &mgr;g/mL); (3) dexmedetomidine (target plasma level 0.4 ng/mL); and (4) meperidine plus dexmedetomidine (target plasma levels of 0.3 &mgr;g/mL and 0.4 ng/mL, respectively). Lactated Ringer’s solution (≈4°C) was infused through a central venous catheter to decrease tympanic membrane temperature by ≈2.5°C/h; mean skin temperature was maintained at 31°C. An increase in oxygen consumption >25% of baseline identified the shivering threshold. Sedation was evaluated by using the Observer’s Assessment of Sedation/Alertness scale. Two-way repeated-measures ANOVA was used to identify interactions between drugs. Data are presented as mean±SD;P <0.05 was statistically significant. Results— The shivering thresholds on the study days were as follows: control, 36.7±0.3°C; dexmedetomidine, 36.0±0.5°C (P <0.001 from control); meperidine, 35.5±0.6°C (P <0.001); and meperidine plus dexmedetomidine, 34.7±0.6°C (P <0.001). Although meperidine and dexmedetomidine each reduced the shivering threshold, their interaction was not synergistic but additive (P =0.19). There was trivial sedation with either drug alone or in combination. Respiratory rate and end-tidal Pco2 were well preserved on all days. Conclusions— Dexmedetomidine and meperidine additively reduce the shivering threshold; in the small doses tested, the combination produced only mild sedation and no respiratory toxicity.
Search for Sc-K Line Emission from RX J0852.0$-$4622 Supernova Remnant with Suzaku

We searched for evidence of line emission around 4keV from the northwestern rim of the supernova remnant RX J0852.0-4622 using Suzaku XIS data. Several papers have reported the detection of an emission line around 4.1keV from this region of the sky. This line would arise from K-band fluorescence by Sc, the immediate decay product of 44Ti. We performed spectral analysis for the entire portion of the NW rim of the remnant within the XIS field of view, as well as various regions corresponding to regions of published claims of line emission. We found no line emission around 4.1keV anywhere, and are able to set a restrictive upper limit to the X-ray flux: 1.1x10^-6 s^-1 cm^-2 for the entire field. For every region, our flux upper limit falls below that of the previously claimed detection. Therefore, we conclude that, to date, no definite X-ray line feature from Sc-K emission has been detected in the NW rim of RX J0852.0-4622. Our negative-detection supports the recent claim that RX J0852-4622 is neither young (1700--4000 yr) nor nearby(~750 pc).
Canonical correlation analysis on social support and quality of life among migrant workers in Guiyang

Objective To analyze the relationship between social support and quality of life(QOL)among migrant workers in Guiyang.Methods Overall 522 migrant workers in Guiyang were rendomly investigated with stratiefied cluster sampling method.Results There were two canonical correlation coefficients significantly different in canonical correlation analysis and their cumulative contribution rate was 74.66%. For the first pair canonical correlation variables,V1 was decided by objective support,subjective support and gender and W1 was influenced by vitality,mental health and general health.For the second pair canonical correlaton variables,V2 was decided by gender,age,flowing-out province and education and W2 was influenced by bodily pain and vitality.Conclusion The level of social support among migrant workers in Guiyang could obviously influence their QOL and gender had an important effect on QOL.
New Indicators for AGN Power: The Correlation between [O IV] 25.89 μm and Hard X-Ray Luminosity for Nearby Seyfert Galaxies

We have studied the relationship between the [O IV] 25.89 μm emission-line luminosities, obtained from Spitzer spectra, the X-ray continua in the 2-10 keV band, primarily from ASCA, and the 14-195 keV band obtained with the SWIFT Burst Alert Telescope (BAT), for a sample of nearby (z < 0.08) Seyfert galaxies. For comparison, we have examined the relationship between the [O III] λ5007, the 2-10 keV, and the 14-195 keV luminosities for the same set of objects. We find that both the [O IV] and [O III] luminosities are well correlated with the BAT luminosities. When comparing [O IV] and [O III] luminosities for the different types of galaxies, we find that the Seyfert 2s have significantly lower [O III] to [O IV] ratios than the Seyfert 1s. We suggest that this is due to more reddening of the narrow-line region (NLR) of the Seyfert 2s, since the [O IV] 25.89 μm emission line is much less affected by extinction. The combined effects of reddening and the X-ray absorption is the probable reason why the [O III] versus 2-10 keV correlation is better than the [O IV] versus 2-10 kev correlation. Based on photoionization models, we find that the [O IV] comes from higher ionization states and lower density regions than previous studies had determined for [O III]. Overall, we find the [O IV] to be an accurate indicator of the power of the AGN.
Unlike Physical Exercise, Modified Environment Increases the Lifespan of SOD1G93A Mice However Both Conditions Induce Cellular Changes

Background Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by a gradual muscular paralysis resulting from progressive motoneurons death. ALS etiology remains unknown although it has been demonstrated to be a multifactorial disease involving several cellular partners. There is currently no effective treatment. Even if the effect of exercise is under investigation for many years, whether physical exercise is beneficial or harmful is still under debate. Methods and Findings We investigated the effect of three different intensities of running exercises on the survival of SOD1G93A mice. At the early-symptomatic stage (P60), males were isolated and randomly assigned to 5 conditions: 2 sedentary groups (“sedentary” and “sedentary treadmill” placed on the inert treadmill), and 3 different training intensity groups (5 cm/s, 10 cm/s and 21 cm/s; 15 min/day, 5days/week). We first demonstrated that an appropriate “control” of the environment is of the utmost importance since comparison of the two sedentary groups evidenced an 11.6% increase in survival in the “sedentary treadmill” group. Moreover, we showed by immunohistochemistry that this increased lifespan is accompanied with motoneurons survival and increased glial reactivity in the spinal cord. In a second step, we showed that when compared with the proper control, all three running-based training did not modify lifespan of the animals, but result in motoneurons preservation and changes in glial cells activation. Conclusions/Significance We demonstrate that increase in survival induced by a slight daily modification of the environment is associated with motoneurons preservation and strong glial modifications in the lumbar spinal cord of SOD1G93A. Using the appropriate control, we then demonstrate that all running intensities have no effect on the survival of ALS mice but induce cellular modifications. Our results highlight the critical importance of the control of the environment in ALS studies and may explain discrepancy in the literature regarding the effect of exercise in ALS.
Phase Transitions Without Thermodynamic Limit,The Crucial R\^ole of Possible and Impossible Fluctuations, The Treatment of Inhomogeneous Scenaria in the Microcanonical Ensemble

Microcanonical statistics can be well applied to non-extensive systems like nuclei, atomic clusters and systems at phase transitions of first order with inhomogeneous configurations like phase separation. No thermodynamic limit has to be invoked. It allows to determine the transition temperature, latent heat and surface entropy. In the present paper this is demonstrated for systems of 200 - 3000 Na-, K-, and Fe-atoms at 1 atmosphere. As the energy is an exactly conserved quantity it is a usefull control parameter to tune through the development of the transition from the liquid side of the coexistence region over the evaporation, multifragmentation towards the final gas side. Microcanonical thermodynamics thus resolves details of the mechanism leading to the phase transition.
Example-Based Treebank Querying with GrETEL–Now Also for Spoken Dutch

Although several syntactically annotated corpora (or treebanks) exist for Dutch, they are seldomly used for descriptive linguistic research because there are no easy-to-use exploitation tools available. This demonstration paper describes GrETEL, a linguistic search engine ( ) that enables non-technical users to consult treebanks in a user-friendly way. Instead of a formal search expression, a natural language example is used as input to the system, allowing users to search for similar constructions as the example they provide. In the first version of GrETEL, only written Dutch (LASSY) was included. Based on user requests we have now included the Spoken Dutch Corpus (CGN) as well.
Aggression in Adolescents: Strategies for Parents and Educators

Childhood aggression is an important focus for educators and parents owing to its relative stability over time and consistent link to a variety of negative outcomes later in adolescence, including delinquency, substance use, conduct problems, poor adjustment, and academic difficulties (poor grades, suspension, expulsion, and dropping out of school). In addition, verbal and physical aggression often are the first signs, as well as later defining symptoms, of several childhood psychiatric disorders. These include Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder, both of which have prevalence rates ranging from 6 to 10% in the general population and even higher among males, according to the American Psychiatric Association. This further highlights the need to recognize and treat aggressive behaviors early.
Using real-time stereoscopic 3D for remote training on complex assembling/disassembling sequences

This paper describes the results of the collaboration between our research group and a large mechanical industry exploring the potential of VR for training purposes. The outcome is a distributed, industry oriented system used for remote training on maintenance operations, developed with the purpose of facilitating the instruction phases, reduction of travel costs, and introduction of more appealing, realistic visualization methodologies. Disassembling sequences and off-line content creation are the main features of the proposed system. Stereoscopic visualization enhances the perception of examined objects, allowing thus for a better comprehension and analysis. Compression techniques and simple network packages are employed to maintain synchronization between the communicating parts. This allows reduced bandwidth consumption and unique, non-distributed copies of manipulated data.
Automatic verification of pointer programs using monadic second-order logic

We present a technique for automatic verification of pointer programs based on a decision procedure for the monadic second-order logic on finite strings.We are concerned with a while-fragment of Pascal, which includes recursively-defined pointer structures but excludes pointer arithmetic.We define a logic of stores with interesting basic predicates such as pointer equality, tests for nil pointers, and garbage cells, as well as reachability along pointers.We present a complete decision procedure for Hoare triples based on this logic over loop-free code. Combined with explicit loop invariants, the decision procedure allows us to answer surprisingly detailed questions about small but non-trivial programs. If a program fails to satisfy a certain property, then we can automatically supply an initial store that provides a counterexample.Our technique had been fully and efficiently implemented for linear linked lists, and it extends in principle to tree structures. The resulting system can be used to verify extensive properties of smaller pointer programs and could be particularly useful in a teaching environment.
A Converged Algorithm for Tikhonov Regularized Nonnegative Matrix Factorization with Automatic Regularization Parameters Determination

We present a converged algorithm for Tikhonov regularized nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF). We specially choose this regularization because it is known that Tikhonov regularized least square (LS) is the more preferable form in solving linear inverse problems than the conventional LS. Because an NMF problem can be decomposed into LS subproblems, it can be expected that Tikhonov regularized NMF will be the more appropriate approach in solving NMF problems. The algorithm is derived using additive update rules which have been shown to have convergence guarantee. We equip the algorithm with a mechanism to automatically determine the regularization parameters based on the L-curve, a well-known concept in the inverse problems community, but is rather unknown in the NMF research. The introduction of this algorithm thus solves two inherent problems in Tikhonov regularized NMF algorithm research, i.e., convergence guarantee and regularization parameters determination.
Trophic signatures of marine organisms in the Mediterranean as compared with other ecosystems

We compared several large marine ecosystems in terms of species numbers of fishes, sea birds, marine mammals, and cephalopods. We examined how these numbers were distributed by trophic level, from herbivores to top predators. We created group-specific trophic signatures as plots of number of species by trophic level, and used these to identify similarities and discrepancies between taxonomic groups and ecosystems. Preliminary results suggested that trophic signatures are similar for ecosystems previously known to share major features, and different for dissimilar ecosystems. In the Mediterranean, as well as in the other large marine ecosystems, fish clearly dominate the predatory trophic levels above 3.0. Preliminary signatures for cephalopods, marine mammals, and sea birds in the Mediterranean and in the North Sea indicate that these groups are restricted to trophic levels above 3.0, and are represented by many fewer species than are predatory fish. Notably, cephalopods are the only invertebrates present at higher trophic levels (>= 4). Invertebrates other than cephalopods are restricted to trophic levels below 3, with very few exceptions. Trophic signatures appear to be useful tools for better understanding of the roles that different groups of organisms play in different ecosystems. We also applied free-scale network theory to analyse the food web created by trophic links of fishes. Our preliminary results indicated that Mediterranean fishes are, on average, only two trophic links away from each other.
Ursodeoxycholic Acid Attenuates Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress-Related Retinal Pericyte Loss in Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Mice

Loss of pericytes, an early hallmark of diabetic retinopathy (DR), results in breakdown of the blood-retinal barrier. Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress may be involved in this process. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA), a known ameliorator of ER stress, on pericyte loss in DR of streptozotocin- (STZ-) induced diabetic mice. To assess the extent of DR, the integrity of retinal vessels and density of retinal capillaries in STZ-induced diabetic mice were evaluated. Additionally, induction of ER stress and the unfolded protein response (UPR) were assessed in diabetic mice and human retinal pericytes exposed to advanced glycation end products (AGE) or modified low-density lipoprotein (mLDL). Fluorescein dye leakage during angiography and retinal capillary density were improved in UDCA-treated diabetic mice, compared to the nontreated diabetic group. Among the UPR markers, those involved in the protein kinase-like ER kinase (PERK) pathway were increased, while UDCA attenuated UPR in STZ-induced diabetic mice as well as AGE- or mLDL-exposed retinal pericytes in culture. Consequently, vascular integrity was improved and pericyte loss reduced in the retina of STZ-induced diabetic mice. Our findings suggest that UDCA might be effective in protecting against DR.
A comparative study on mental healty state of the rural and the urban middle-school students in Guizhou province

This research aims to explore the mental healty state and find the difference between the rural and urban middle-school students of Guizhou province by using the scaling of mental health test (MHT-CR) The results show that the mental healty degree of the rural middleschool students is lower than that in the urban:The mental healty degree of female students is lower than that of male and the students of senior grade one have more mental problems among the other grades.According to the results,we put forward the suggestions as how to improve the mental health degree of middle-school students.
Effect of Fludrocortisone Acetate on Chronic Unexplained Nausea and Abdominal Pain in Children With Orthostatic Intolerance

Background: We hypothesized that orthostatic intolerance (OI) is associated with gastric dysrhythmias, nausea, and abdominal pain, which improves using fludrocortisone to treat OI. Methods: Patients (n = 16, girls) with OI completed questionnaires before and after fludrocortisone treatment (age 14.8 ± 2.8 years). Ten patients underwent electrogastrograms (EGGs) before fludrocortisone. Results: All EGGs showed gastric dysrhythmias. Fludrocortisone reduced mean scores as follows: nausea, 3.1 ± 0.8 to 2.1 ± 1.1 (P = 0.016); dizziness, 3.0 ± 1.0 to 2.2 ± 1.1 (P = 0.0371); abdominal pain, 2.8 ± 1.3 to 1.9 ± 1.4 (P = 0.0063); flushing, 2.3 ± 1.2 to 1.5 ± 1.4 (P = 0.0476); and missing school, 2.2 ± 1.5 to 1.2 ± 1.5 (P = 0.0078). Conclusions: Chronic nausea and abdominal pain accompany OI and improve with OI treatment.
Plants: Emerging as Nanofactories towards Facile Route in Synthesis of Nanoparticles

Plant mediated nanoparticles’ synthesis has led to a remarkable progress via unfolding a green synthesis protocol towards nanoparticles’ synthesis. It seems to have drawn quite an unequivocal attention with a view of reformulating the novel strategies as alternatives for popular conventional methods. Hence, the present review summarizes the literature reported thus far and envisions towards plants as emerging sources of nanofactories.
Learning to Segment Images Using Dynamic Feature Binding

Despite the fact that complex visual scenes contain multiple, overlapping objects, people perform object recognition with ease and accuracy. One operation that facilitates recognition is an early segmentation process in which features of objects are grouped and labeled according to which object they belong. Current computational systems that perform this operation are based on predefined grouping heuristics. We describe a system called MAGIC that learns how to group features based on a set of presegmented examples. In many cases, MAGIC discovers grouping heuristics similar to those previously proposed, but it also has the capability of finding nonintuitive structural regularities in images. Grouping is performed by a relaxation network that attempts to dynamically bind related features. Features transmit a complex-valued signal (amplitude and phase) to one another; binding can thus be represented by phase locking related features. MAGIC's training procedure is a generalization of recurrent backpropagation to complex-valued units.
Stroop-Type Interference : Congruity Effects in Color Naming With Typewritten Responses

Four experiments examined the Stroop effect with typewritten responses. Experiment 1 compared vocal, arbitrary-keypress, and typewritten responses and found the largest Stroop effect for typewritten responses. The effect appeared in the latency to type the first keystroke and not in the duration of the typing response. Experiment 2 compared normal (name the color) and reverse (name the word) Stroop effects with typewritten responses and found that the normal Stroop effect was much larger than the reverse Stroop effect Experiment 3 compared typing the entire color name with typing its first letter and found equivalent Stroop effects in the 2 conditions. Experiment 4 varied the relative frequency of congruent and incongruent trials and found that the typewritten Stroop effect was larger when congruent trials outnumbered incongruent trials. The results are related to theories of the Stroop effect and theories of language production.
The Paradox of Middle-Class Attitudes in China: Democracy, Social Stability, and Reform

This article explores the seemingly paradoxical attitudes of the Chinese middle class towards democracy, social stability, and reform. Using fieldwork data from Ningbo, this article shows that a group of objective, middle-class individuals can concurrently display high levels of support for democratic principles and low levels of participation in real-life socio-political events. Being generally confident in China's social stability, these individuals have little to no desire for significant democratic reform, or indeed any reform that occurs outside the purview of the state, as it is considered destabilising. By highlighting the distinction between how these members of the middle class respond to generic democratic concepts, real-life sociopolitical affairs, and the idea of democratic reform, this article argues that the Chinese middle class are aware of what “should be,” what “could be,” and what “is,” which lends their socio-political attitudes a paradoxical appearance.
X-Ray Measurements of the Gravitational Potential Profile in the Central Region of the Abell 1060 Cluster of Galaxies

X-ray spectral and imaging data from ASCA and ROSAT were used to measure the total mass profile in the central region of Abell 1060, a nearby and relatively poor cluster of galaxies. The ASCA X-ray spectra, after being corrected for the spatial response of the X-ray telescope, show an isothermal distribution of the intracluster medium (ICM) within at least ~12′ (or 160 h kpc; H0 = 70 h70 km s-1 Mpc-1) in radius of the cluster center. The azimuthally averaged surface brightness profile from the ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) exhibits a central excess above an isothermal β model. The ring-sorted ASCA Gas Imaging Spectrometer spectra and the radial surface brightness distribution from the ROSAT PSPC were simultaneously utilized to constrain the gravitational potential profile. Some analytic models of the total mass density profile were examined. The ICM density profile was also specified by analytic forms. The ICM temperature distribution was constrained to satisfy the hydrostatic equilibrium and to be consistent with the data. Then, the total mass distribution was found to be described better by the universal dark halo profile recently proposed by Navarro, Frenk, & White than by a King-type model with a flat density core. A profile with a central cusp together with a logarithmic radial slope of ~1.5 was also consistent with the data. Discussions are presented concerning the estimated dark matter distribution around the cluster center.