Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Constraining the Timing of Metamorphism: U‐Pb and Sm‐Nd Ages from a Transect across the Northern Torngat Orogen, Labrador, Canada

The Paleoproterozoic Torngat Orogen of northern Labrador, a segment of the Trans‐Hudson Orogen, records the consequences of the convergence and collision of the Rae and Nain cratons and the intervening Burwell Domain. To better characterize the ages of the main lithologies and the timing of metamorphism, multiple samples were collected at sites along a transect across northern Torngat Orogen and analyzed for U‐Pb and Sm‐Nd. The results support previous models in which the Burwell Domain is an eastern extension of the Nain Province proper and experienced protracted exhumation between 1877 and 1800 Ma above an east‐dipping Abloviak Shear Zone. The steep Kormaktorvik Shear Zone to the east, which separates the Nain Province proper and the Burwell Domain, facilitated late, rapid exhumation of the Nain Province. Ages from multiple samples, phases, and localities indicate that metamorphism traversed similar PT paths diachronously from west to east and at different rates. The data also demonstrate that metamorphic zircon forms by composition‐dependent reactions over a range of temperature conditions, including below the closure temperature of zircon. This affirms that in deeply exposed orogenic belts, metamorphic zircon ages do not inherently represent the time of peak or near‐peak temperatures, and that a range of ages across a region cannot be assumed to signal diachronous peak conditions. Furthermore, rocks may experience granulite‐facies metamorphism without forming metamorphic zircon. Once formed, zircon may survive subsequent granulite‐grade metamorphism and preclude formation of zircon during later thermal events. Sm‐Nd analyses of minerals from units precisely dated by U‐Pb geochronology show that Nd closes in different minerals over a range of temperatures. In particular, Nd in garnet, monazite, and apatite closes at lower temperatures than in pyroxenes (and perhaps titanite). The use of garnet to derive Sm‐Nd isochrons will, therefore, generally derive an age younger than the true age of mineral formation and peak conditions. Exceptions are predicted in rapidly cooled domains (where all phases close within the time resolution of the chronometer) and in rocks without a second, rare earth element–bearing phase that closes at low temperature.
Pediatric parotid masses.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the incidence, types, and treatment outcomes of pediatric parotid lesions. DESIGN Retrospective case review, histological tissue review, and literature review. SETTING Tertiary care center. PATIENTS All patients aged 18 years and younger with parotid masses evaluated and treated at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn, from January 1, 1970, to December 31, 1997. RESULTS Parotid masses were identified in 118 children (60 boys and 58 girls). At diagnosis, the ages of patients were from birth through 18 years, and 72 (61.0%) were aged 10 years and older. An asymptomatic mass was the most common presentation. Forty-three patients (36.4%) had infectious or inflammatory lesions, 56 (47.5%) had benign lesions, and 19 (16.1%) had malignant lesions. The most common benign lesions were pleomorphic adenoma (22.9%) and hemangioma (10.2%). The most common malignant lesions were mucoepidermoid carcinoma (6.8%) and acinic cell carcinoma (3.4%). The most common treatment was total parotidectomy (40.7%). Surgical complications included temporary facial nerve weakness in 22 (18.6%) patients, permanent facial weakness in 11 (9.3%), and permanent paralysis in 2 (1.7%). Pleomorphic adenoma recurred in 4 (14.8%) of 28 patients and mucoepidermoid carcinoma in 3 (37.5%) of 8 patients. One patient with adenoid cystic carcinoma died of the tumor. CONCLUSIONS Although pediatric parotid masses are unusual, they can represent a variety of pathological diagnoses, including malignancy. We advocate prompt evaluation and treatment of these masses, and suggest guidelines for their management, based on diagnosis.
Multivariate Negative Binomial Models for Insurance Claim Counts

It is no longer uncommon these days to find the need in actuarial practice to model claim counts from multiple types of coverage, such as the ratemaking process for bundled insurance contracts. Since different types of claims are conceivably correlated with each other, the multivariate count regression models that emphasize the dependency among claim types are more helpful for inference and prediction purposes. Motivated by the characteristics of an insurance dataset, we investigate alternative approaches to constructing multivariate count models based on the negative binomial distribution. A classical approach to induce correlation is to employ common shock variables. However, this formulation relies on the NB-I distribution which is restrictive for dispersion modeling. To address these issues, we consider two different methods of modeling multivariate claim counts using copulas. The first one works with the discrete count data directly using a mixture of max-id copulas that allows for flexible pair-wise association as well as tail and global dependence. The second one employs elliptical copulas to join continuitized data while preserving the dependence structure of the original counts. The empirical analysis examines a portfolio of auto insurance policies from a Singapore insurer where claim frequency of three types of claims (third party property damage, own damage, and third party bodily injury) are considered. The results demonstrate the superiority of the copula-based approaches over the common shock model. Finally, we implemented the various models in loss predictive applications.
Multichannel Cochlear Implantation in Radical Mastoidectomy Cavities

OBJECTIVE: We report on our experience in cochlear implantation in patients with radical mastoidectomy cavities. STUDY DESIGN, SETTING, AND METHODS: Retrospectively, records of patients from the Department of Otolaryngology, University of Parma between December 1991 and March 2000 were reviewed, and 6 postlingually deafened adults who received a cochlear implant in a radical cavity were identified. Speech performances were evaluated in terms of bisyllabic word and sentence recognition and common phrase comprehension. RESULTS: To date, with a follow-up of 1 to 9 years, no patient has experienced extrusion of electrodes or other local or intracranial complications. Mean bisyllabic word and sentence recognition scores were 74% and 80%, respectively. Mean comprehension score for common phrases was 86%. CONCLUSION: By obliterating and isolating the radical mastoidectomy cavity from the outer environment, patients who previously had undergone radical surgery of the middle ear can be safely implanted with satisfactory hearing results. Multichannel cochlear implantation (CI) is a treatment accepted worldwide for patients with total or profound deafness. In the presence of normal temporal bone anatomy, CI surgery is a safe and relatively simple procedure with a low complication rate. 1–3 However, some conditions, such as malformations of the middle or inner ear, cochlear ossification, chronic otitis media, and previous middle ear surgery, represent a technical challenge to CI surgeons. Patients with a bilateral radical mastoidectomy cavity who are otherwise suitable for implantation represent a certainly more problematic group to manage than the “standard” CI patients. Under these circumstances, various potential problems must be considered: extrusion of the electrode array by breakdown of the thin epithelial lining of the mastoid cavity, risk of recurrent cholesteatoma, and possibility of spreading of inflammation to the implant with potential labyrinthitis and meningitis. During recent years various surgical strategies have been proposed in the literature to avoid such complications. Many surgeons suggested overcoming these problems by performing an obliterative technique, 4–6 whereas others preferred to maintain the benefits of an open technique 7 or to rehabilitate the cavity 8 ; it has also been suggested that the cavity be bypassed via a middle cranial fossa approach. 9 We describe the experience at the CI Center of the University of Parma in managing 6 CI patients with radical mastoidectomy cavities.
Pan-sharpening high spatial resolution ratio images using optimization

Among most of current Pan-sharpening methods, resampling is generally required to make panchromatic (Pan) and multispectral (MS) images matched correctly pixel by pixel. However, few methods have focused on spectral distortions caused by shape distortions of real features during resampling. This paper proposes a new Pan-sharpening algorithm based on the gray and spectral relationships between Pan, MS and the fused images. In the algorithm, Pan-sharpening is defined as an optimization of a linear overdetermined system. It takes Pan and original MS images as input datasets without resampling. The Least square technique is applied to calculate the optimum values (quality fused images). QuickBird image datasets are tested, and the results are compared with the fused images of IHS, PCA and Gram-Schmidt using interpolated MS image. The result shows that the proposed method is more efficient than IHS, PCA and Gram-Schmidt in preserving spectral characteristics and increasing spatial resolution, especially for high spatial resolution ratio (SRR > 4:1, spatial resolution ratio is the ratio of the spatial resolution of MS image to that of Pan image.) images.
A Novel Computerized Tool to Stratify Risk in Carotid Atherosclerosis Using Kinematic Features of the Arterial Wall

Valid characterization of carotid atherosclerosis (CA) is a crucial public health issue, which would limit the major risks held by CA for both patient safety and state economies. This paper investigated the unexplored potential of kinematic features in assisting the diagnostic decision for CA in the framework of a computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) tool. To this end, 15 CAD schemes were designed and were fed with a wide variety of kinematic features of the atherosclerotic plaque and the arterial wall adjacent to the plaque for 56 patients from two different hospitals. The CAD schemes were benchmarked in terms of their ability to discriminate between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients and the combination of the Fisher discriminant ratio, as a feature-selection strategy, and support vector machines, in the classification module, was revealed as the optimal motion-based CAD tool. The particular CAD tool was evaluated with several cross-validation strategies and yielded higher than 88% classification accuracy; the texture-based CAD performance in the same dataset was 80%. The incorporation of kinematic features of the arterial wall in CAD seems to have a particularly favorable impact on the performance of image-data-driven diagnosis for CA, which remains to be further elucidated in future prospective studies on large datasets.
K-Band Galaxy Counts in the South Galactic Pole Region

We present new K-band galaxy number counts from K = 13 to 20.5 obtained from K'-band surveys in the south galactic pole region, which cover 180.8 arcmin2 to a limiting magnitude of K = 19 and 2.21 arcmin2 to K = 21. These are currently the most precise K-band galaxy counts at 17.5 < K < 19.0 because the area of coverage is largest among the existing surveys for this magnitude range. The completeness and photometry corrections are estimated from the recovery of simulated galaxy and stellar profiles added to the obtained field image. Many simulations were carried out to construct a probability matrix that corrects the galaxy counts at the faint-end magnitudes of the surveys so the corrected counts can be compared with other observations. The K-band star counts in the south galactic pole region to K = 17.25 are also presented for use to constrain the vertical structure of the Galaxy.
Undrained strength-deformation characteristics of Bangkok Clay under general stress condition

This paper presents an experimental study on the influence of principal stress direction and magnitude of intermediate principal stress on the undrained stress-strain-strength behaviors of Bangkok Clay. The results of torsional shear hollow cylinder and advanced triaxial tests with various principal stress directions and magnitudes of intermediate principal stress on undisturbed Bangkok Clay specimens are presented. The analysis of testing results include: (i) stress-strain and pore pressure behaviors, (ii) stiffness characteristics, and (iii) strength characteristics. The results assert clear evidences of anisotropic characteristics of Bangkok Clay at pre-failure and failure conditions. The magnitude of intermediate principal stress for plane-strain condition is also investigated. Both failure surface and plastic potential in deviatoric plane of Bangkok Clay are demonstrated to be isotropic and of circular shape which implies an associated flow rule. It is also observed that the shape of failure surface in deviatoric plane changes its size, while retaining its circular shape, with the change in direction of major principal stress. Concerning the behavior of Bangkok Clay found from this study, the discussions on the effects of employed constitutive modeling approach on the resulting numerical analysis are made.
Herpesvirus infection alters the steady-state levels of cellular polyadenylated RNA in polyoma virus-transformed BHK cells

Polyoma-transformed BHK cells are permissive for the replication of herpes simplex virus type 1. The effect of herpes infection on the steady-state levels of bulk mRNA sequences in these cells was studied by using cDNA to polyadenylated cytoplasmic RNA from uninfected cells. The principal findings were: (i) herpes simplex virus type 1 infection caused a pronounced reduction in the cytoplasmic levels of moderately abundant mRNAs' (ii) after infection, increased amounts of RNA complementary to the cDNA were isolated as part of the nonadenylated cytoplasmic RNA fraction.
cological site classification of semiarid rangelands : Synergistic use of andsat and Hyperion imagery

Ecological sites are the basic entity used in rangeland health assessment. This study evaluates the synergistic use of multiand hyper-spectral satellite imagery for sub-pixel classification of ecological sites in semiarid rangelands. Hyperion and Landsat enhanced thematic mapper (ETM) data are included in a two-step procedure to mapping ecological sites in Patagonian rangelands of Argentina. Firstly, mixture tuned matched filtering and logistic regression analyses are used for Hyperion data processing to obtain ecological site probability images in the area covered by hyperspectral imagery. Secondly, artificial neural networks are applied to model the relationships between the spectral response patterns of Landsat and the probability images from Hyperion, and used to map ecological sites over the entire study area. Overall classification accuracy was 81% (kappa = 0.77) with relatively high accuracies for all ecological sites demonstrating that their spectral signatures are sufficiently distinct to be detectable. Better accuracies were obtained for shrub steppes with desert pavement (producer’s and user’s accuracies of 89% and 84%, respectively), and shrub-grass steppes associated to tertiary calcareous outcrops (producer’s and user’s accuracies of 100% and 86%, respectively), while poorer accuracies resulted for shrub-grass steppes on old alluvial plains (producer’s and user’s accuracies of 75% and 56%, respectively). Fuzzy maps of ecological sites as presented in this research can provide rangeland managers with a tool to stratify the landscape and organize ecological information for rangeland health assessment and monitoring, prioritizing and selecting appropriate management actions, and promoting the recovery of areas degraded in
Modeling of the Beaufort ice-ocean climatology change

Abstract A coupled ice-ocean model is used to study the sensitivity of the Beaufort Sea climatology to representation of sub-grid-scale eddies; to hypothetically not present and double Mackenzie River discharge; and to approximate climate warming specified through a surface air-temperature increase of 3° C. The eddy effect is considered in two ways: as eddy interaction with sea-floor topography yielding a driving force ("neptune" parameterization) and as eddy diffusion and viscosity. The model with neptune parameterization reproduces surface layer circulation, as well as the bathymetrically steered Beaufort Undercurrent, while the model with usual damping does not simulate the Beaufort Undercurrent. The absence of the strong boundary Beaufort Undercurrent affects the thermohaline structure of the Beaufort Sea which becomes less consistent with observational data. The increase of the Mackenzie River discharge causes more northward transport of sea ice, resulting in sea-ice thinning in Mackenzie Bay, while the absence of the Mackenzie River discharge induces southward sea-ice drift and sea-ice thickening in Mackenzie Bay. The sensitivity study of surface air-temperature warming shows a shrinkage of sea ice by 6% in area and 15% in volume, causing the freshening and warming of the surface ocean layer. The sensitivity studies of river discharge and surface air temperature use the neptune parameterization.
SHAKKIL: An Automatic Diacritization System for Modern Standard Arabic Texts

This paper sheds light on a system that would be able to diacritize Arabic texts automatically (SHAKKIL). In this system, the diacritization problem will be handled through two levels; morphological and syntactic processing levels. The adopted morphological disambiguation algorithm depends on four layers; Uni-morphological form layer, rule-based morphological disambiguation layer, statistical-based disambiguation layer and Out Of Vocabulary (OOV) layer. The adopted syntactic disambiguation algorithms is concerned with detecting the case ending diacritics depending on a rule based approach simulating the shallow parsing technique. This will be achieved using an annotated corpus for extracting the Arabic linguistic rules, building the language models and testing the system output. This system is considered as a good trial of the interaction between rule-based approach and statistical approach, where the rules can help the statistics in detecting the right diacritization and vice versa. At this point, the morphological Word Error Rate (WER) is 4.56% while the morphological Diacritic Error Rate (DER) is 1.88% and the syntactic WER is 9.36%. The best WER is 14.78% compared to the best-published results, of (Abandah, 2015); 11.68%, (Rashwan, et al., 2015); 12.90% and (Metwally, Rashwan, & Atiya, 2016); 13.70%.
A New Method of Identifying the Posterior Inferior Nasal Nerve: Implications for Posterior Nasal Neurectomy

Introduction:Posterior nasal neurectomy is an effective way of treating recalcitrant rhinitis. The aim of this study is to describe the anatomic relationship between the posterior inferior nasal nerve (PINN) and the structures that might be important for posterior nasal neurectomy. Materials and Methods:An anatomic study was conducted in a university hospital dissection laboratory with 15 formalin-fixed, sagittally cut adult cadaver heads. The distance between PINN and (1) nasal sill, (2) maxillary sinus ostium, (3) posterior fontanel, (4) torus tubarius, and (5) crista ethmoidalis was measured and the location of PINN with respect to the sphenopalatine artery was assessed to define the exact location of PINN. Results:The mean distance between PINN and nasal sill (56.4 mm), maxillary sinus ostium (27 mm), posterior fontanel (12.5 mm), torus tubarius (13 mm), and crista ethmoidalis (8 mm) was determined. PINN was found consistently posterior to the sphenopalatine artery where the inferior turbinate attaches to the lateral nasal wall. Conclusion:Instead of finding PINN around the sphenopalatine foramen, PINN can be located more easily posterior to the sphenopalatine artery where the inferior turbinate attaches to the lateral nasal wall without cauterizing the sphenopalatine artery.
Neurofilaments of aged rats: The strengthened interneurofilament interaction and the reduced amount of NF‐M

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is an age‐related neurological disease, characterized by neurofilament (NF) accumulation in primary axons followed by degeneration of motor neurons. To elucidate age‐related factors that might lead to pathological NF accumulation, NFs were compared between young and aged rats. Electron microscopic examination of sciatic nerve axons revealed that NFs were more than twice as densely packed in aged rat axons (542 ± 180 NFs/mm2) as in young adult rat axons (211 ± 73 NFs/mm2). The NFs isolated from aged rats also appeared to be more aggregated than those from young rats. Phosphorylation at the head or tail domains was studied as a possible candidate affecting NF organization. Western blotting with phosphorylation‐dependent antibodies showed higher phosphorylation of NF‐H in the tail domains of aged rat spinal cord NFs, but dephosphorylation did not diminish the differences in aggregation between aged and young rat NFs. On the other hand, when NFs were phosphorylated by A‐kinase on their head domains, the extent of phosphorylation in NF‐M of aged rat NFs was only one‐third of young rat NFs. We found that aged rat NFs contained only 60% of the NF‐M of young rat NFs in molar ratio compared to NF‐L. These results raise a possibility that the decreased amount of NF‐M induces the aggregates of isolated NFs and the higher packing density of NF in aged rat axons. J. Neurosci. Res. 58:337–348, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Generation of subsurface cyclonic eddies in the southeast Baltic Sea: Observations and numerical experiments

[1] Closely spaced CTD transects performed in the summertime reveal simultaneous downward/upward bendings of temperature/salinity contours in the seasonal thermocline/ permanent halocline of the Stolpe Channel and the Gulf of Gdansk, which may be interpreted as geostrophically balanced cyclonic eddies in the intermediate layer. To examine processes capable of forming the observed cyclonic eddies, a numerical simulation based on the Princeton Ocean Model (POM) has been initiated. The subsurface cyclones in the Stolpe Channel were satisfactory simulated in model runs under easterly/ northerly wind conditions. Their formation was shown to result from the adjustment of the high potential vorticity (PV) outflow (from the Bornholm Basin via the Stolpe Sill) to low potential vorticity environment by vortex stretching (so-called the PV outflow hypothesis by Spall and Price [1998]). In accordance with the real wind conditions, a cyclonic eddy observed in the intermediate layer of the Gulf of Gdansk was satisfactorily reproduced in a model run with the westerly wind shutdown, which implies westward transport throughout the Stolpe Channel and thereby excludes the PV outflow hypothesis. The subsurface cyclone simulated in the Gulf of Gdansk was traced to form in the course of relaxation of the coastal downwelling baroclinic jet.
Furrowed outcrops of Eocene chalk on the lower continental slope offshore New Jersey

A sea bottom of middle Eocene calcareous claystone cut by downslope-trending furrows was observed during an Alvin dive to the mouth of Berkeley Canyon on the continental slope off New Jersey. The furrows are 10 to 50 m apart, 4 to 13 m deep, linear, and nearly parallel in water depths of 2,000 m. They have steep walls and flat floors 3 to 5 m wide, of fine-grained sediment. Mid-range sidescan-sonar images show that similarly furrowed surfaces are found on nearby areas of the lower continental slope, not associated with canyons. The furrows are overlain in places by Pleistocene sediments. Although they show evidence of erosional origin, they do not appear to be related to observed structures, and their straight, parallel pattern is not well understood. A general cover of flocky unconsolidated sediments implies that bottom-current erosion is not active now.