Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of early resource limitation and compensatory growth on lifetime fitness in the ladybird beetle (Harmonia axyridis)

Acceleration of growth following a period of diet restriction may result in either complete or partial catch‐up in size. The existence of such compensatory growth indicates that organisms commonly grow at rates below their physiological maxima and this implies a cost for accelerated growth. We examined patterns of accelerated growth in response to temporary resource limitation, and assayed both short and long‐term costs of this growth in the ladybird beetle Harmonia axyridis. Subsequent to the period of food restriction, accelerated growth resulted in complete compensation for body sizes, although we observed greater larval mortality during the period of compensation. There were no effects on female fecundity or survivorship within 3 months of maturation. Females did not discriminate against males that had undergone compensatory growth, nor did we observe effects on male mating behaviour. However, individuals that underwent compensatory growth died significantly sooner when deprived of food late in adult life, suggesting that longer‐term costs of compensatory growth may be quite mild and detectable only under stressful conditions.
Bifurcations of Periodic Orbits in Axisymmetric Scalefree Potentials a

ABSTRACT: We study orbits in potentials with central cusps, emphasizing the spheriodal equidensity (SED) potentials generated by mass distributions with spheroidal equidensity surfaces. The most prominent bifurcations are those related to 1:1 and 4:3 resonances between radial motions and motions perpendicular to the central plane. We find that 1:1 resonances can cause the thin tube orbit, as well as the equatorial plane orbit, to become unstable. We concentrate on period‐tripling bifurcations because they appear to be the least understood. We study them via a class of analytic maps. This study suggests that stable period‐three orbits generally arise de novo in stable and unstable pairs via a turning‐point bifurcation, and not through a bifurcation from the thin tube at a 120° rotation angle. The stable period‐three orbits typically have only a short span of existence before becoming unstable to a period‐doubling instability through a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation.
Expression of HMGB1 and HMGN2 in gingival tissues, GCF and PICF of periodontitis patients and peri-implantitis

High mobility group chromosomal protein B1 (HMGB1) and N2 (HMGN2), two members of High mobility group (HMG) family, play important role in inflammation. The purposes of this study were to investigate the expression of HMGB1 and HMGN2 in periodontistis. The expression of HMGB1 and HMGN2 mRNA in gingival tissues and gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) in chronic periodontitis (CP), generalized aggressive periodontitis (G-AgP) patients and healthy subjects was detected by real-time PCR. The protein level of HMGB1 and HMGN2 in peri-implant crevicular fluid (PICF), peri-implant crevicular fluid of peri-implantitis (PI-PICF) and normal patients was determined by Western blotting. Furthermore, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α and HMGB1 levels in GCF, PI-PICF and healthy -PICF samples from different groups were determined by ELISA. HMGN2 expression was increased in inflamed gingival tissues and GCF from CP and G-ApG groups compared to control group. HMGB1 expression was the highest in the gingival tissues and GCF from CP patients and was accompanied by increased concentrations of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-8 proinflammaory cytokines. To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting that the expression of HMGB1 and HMGN2 was increased in the gingival tissues and GCF in CP and G-AgP and the PICF in PICF. Our data suggest that HMGB1 may be a potential target for the therapy of periodontitis and PI.
Bagpipe : Verified BGP Configuration Checking

To reliably and securely route traffic across the Internet, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) must configure their Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routers to implement policies restricting how routing information can be exchanged with other ISPs. Correctly implementing these policies in lowlevel router configuration languages, with configuration code distributed across all of an ISP’s routers, has proven challenging in practice, and misconfiguration has led to extended worldwide outages and traffic hijacks. We present Bagpipe, a system that enables ISPs to concisely express their policies and automatically check that router configurations adhere to these policies. To check policies efficiently, Bagpipe introduces the initial network reduction, exploits modern satisfiability solvers by building on the Rosette framework for solver-aided tools, and parallelizes configuration checking across many nodes. To ensure Bagpipe correctly checks configurations, we verified its implementation in Coq, which required developing both a new framework for verifying solver-aided tools and also the first formal semantics for BGP based on RFC 4271. To validate the effectiveness of our verified checker, we ran it on the router configurations of Internet2, a nationwide ISP. Bagpipe revealed 19 violations of standard BGP router policies without issuing any false positives. To validate our BGP semantics, we performed random differential testing against C-BGP, a popular BGP simulator. We found no bugs in our semantics and one bug in C-BGP.
Change in genetic size of small-closed populations: Lessons from a domestic mammal population

The aim of this study was to monitor changes in genetic size of a small-closed population of Iranian Zandi sheep, by using pedigree information from animals born between 1991 and 2005. The genetic size was assessed by using measures based on the probability of identity-by-descend of genes (coancestry, f, and effective population size, Ne ), as well as measures based on probability of gene origin (effective number of founders, fe , effective number of founder genomes, fg , and effective number of non-founder genomes, fne ). Average coancestry, or the degree of genetic similarity of individuals, increased from 0.81% to 1.44% during the period 1993 to 2005, at the same time that Ne decreased from 263 to 93. The observed trend for fe was irregular throughout the experiment in a way that fe was 68, 87, 77, 92, and 80 in 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, and 2005, respectively. Simultaneously, fg , the most informative effective number, decreased from 61 to 35. The index of genetic diversity (GD) which was obtained from estimates of fg , decreased about 2% throughout the period studied. In addition, a noticeable reduction was observed in the estimates of fne from 595 in 1993 to 61 in 2005. The higher than 1 ratio of fe to fg indicated the presence of bottlenecks and genetic drift in the development of this population of Zandi sheep. From 1993 to 1999, fne was much higher than fe , thereby indicating that with respect to loss of genetic diversity, the unequal contribution of founders was more important than the random genetic drift in non-founder generations. Subsequently, random genetic drift in non-founder generations was the major reason for fe > fne . The minimization of average coancestry in new reproductive individuals was recommended as a means of preserving the population against a further loss in genetic diversity.
Scenario-Based Analysis of Software Architecture

Despite advances in clarifying high level design needs, analyzing a system's ability to meet desired quality criteria is still difficult. The authors propose using scenarios to make analysis more straightforward. In their case study report, they analyze lessons learned with this approach. They developed the Software Architecture Analysis Method, an approach that uses scenarios to gain information about a system's ability to meet desired quality attributes. Scenarios are brief narratives of expected or anticipated system uses from both user and developer views and they provide a look at how the system satisfies quality attributes in various use contexts.
Lumbosacral plexus delineation, dose distribution, and its correlation with radiation-induced lumbosacral plexopathy in cervical cancer patients

Background To evaluate the dose distribution to the lumbosacral plexus (LSP) and its correlation with radiation-induced lumbosacral plexopathy (RILSP) in patients with cervical cancer treated with intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and high-dose-rate brachytherapy. Materials and methods After meeting eligibility criteria, 50 patients with cervical cancer were selected who were treated with IMRT and high-dose-rate brachytherapy, and the LSP was contoured. Mean volume; percentages of LSP volume absorbing 40, 50, 55, and 60 Gy (V30, V40, V50, V55, and V60) and point doses (P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7, P8, P9, and P10); and RILSP incidence were calculated. Results At 60 months of follow-up, four patients (8%) were found to have grade 2/3 RILSP. The mean maximal LSP dose in patients with RILSP was 59.6 Gy compared with 53.9 Gy in patients without RILSP (control; P=0.04). The mean values of V40, V50, V55, and V60 in patients with RILSP versus control were 61.8% versus 52.8%, 44.4% versus 27.7%, 8.0% versus 0.3% and 1.8% versus 0%, respectively (P=0.01, 0.001, 0.001, and 0.001, respectively). Conclusion The delineation of the LSP during IMRT planning may reduce the risk for RILSP. The mean values of V40, V50, V55, and V60 for LSP should be less than 55%, 30%, 5%, and 0.5%, respectively; however, further studies are warranted.
Estimation of Actual and Potential Adoption Rates and Determinants of Improved Rice Variety Among Rice Farmers in Nigeria: The Case of NERICAs

The article used the ATE estimation framework to derive consistent semi-parametric estimators of population adoption rates and their determinants of the NERICA (New Rice for Africa) rice varieties in Nigeria. Empirical evidence shows that the observed sample adoption rate does not consistently estimate the population adoption rate even if the sample is random. NERICA awareness was found to be a major constraint to NERICA adoption in Nigeria. Several socioeconomic/demographic characteristics were found to be important determinants of NERICA awareness and adoption. Among those factors are age, gender, major occupation, year of experience and vocational training. In particular, we have found that the NERICA adoption rate in Nigeria would have been up to 76% in 2008 instead of the actually observed 20% joint exposure and adoption rate, if the whole population were exposed to the NERICAs in 2008 or before. This justifies investing in the dissemination of the NERICA varieties; considering that the 76% is bound to increase significantly in the future as farmers learn more about the characteristics of the NERICAs and become comfortable with their performances.
A Source Analysis of the Late Human Auditory Evoked Potentials

The intracerebral generators of the human auditory evoked potentials were estimated using dipole source analysis of 14-channel scalp recordings. The response to a 400-msec toneburst presented every 0.9 sec could be explained by three major dipole sources in each temporal lobe. The first was a vertically oriented dipole located on the supratemporal plane in or near the auditory koniocortex. This contributed to the scalp-recorded N1 wave at 100 msec. The second was a vertically oriented dipole source located on the supratemporal plane somewhat anterior to the first. This contributed to both the Nl and the sustained potential (SP). The third was a laterally oriented dipole source that perhaps originated in the magnopyramidal temporal field. This contributed a negative wave to the lateral scalp recordings at the latency of 145 msec. A change in the frequency of the toneburst elicited an additional negativity in the scalp-recording the mismatch negativity (MMN). When the frequency change was large, the mismatch negativity was composed of two distinct sources with sequential but partially overlapping activities. The earlier corresponded to the Nl dipole sources and the later to a more anteriorly located dipole with an orientation more lateral than Nl. Only the later source was active when the frequency change was small. MMN source activities peaked about 15 msec earlier in the contralateral hemisphere, while this difference was only 4 msec for the sources of the Nl.
An Immunohistochemical Study on the Expression of Sex Steroid Receptors in Canine Mammary Tumors

Steroid hormones are found to play a major role in the genesis and progression of mammary tumors. The aim of this study was to immunohistochemically detect the presence of estrogen receptor alpha (ERα), estrogen receptor beta (ERβ), and progesterone receptor (PR) and also to study the association between these markers in 29 cases of benign (11) and malignant (18) canine mammary tumors. ERα immunostaining was noticed in only one case of carcinosarcoma specifically in the nuclei of epithelial and a few myoepithelial cells. ERβ immunostaining was noticed in the nuclei and cytoplasm of epithelial cells and smooth muscles lining the blood vessels. Immunoexpression of ERβ was 82% in benign tumors and 78% in malignant tumors. PR immunostaining was expressed in the nuclei of epithelial cells in both benign and malignant tumors. Among the 15 PR+ cases, 6 (55%) were of benign type, and 9 (50%) were of malignant type. The most common group of hormone receptor was the ERα−/PR+/ERβ+ (46%) in benign tumors and ERα−/PR−/ERβ+ (38%) in malignant tumors. Although there was no significant association between ERα and PR with ERβ, the findings indicated that ERβ was consistently expressed in both benign and malignant tumors, irrespective of ERα and PR status.
Preliminary experience with lumbar facet distraction and fixation as treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis

Objectives: To assess the properties of facet fixation with the Facet Wedge system in patients affected by lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS). Summary of Background Data: Implant of intra-articular spacers is an emerging technique for lumbar degenerative disease. Methods: This study included forty patients (Group 1) with symptomatic LSS in whom intra-articular spacers have been implanted along with microdecompression (MD) of the neural structures. Group 1 has been compared with a homogeneous group of patients with LSS treated with MD without intra-articular spacers implant (Group 2). Clinical findings have been observed preoperatively and 3, 6, 12 months postoperatively using dedicated questionnaires (Zurich Claudication Questionnaire, visual analog scale, and Oswestry disability index). Results: One year following surgical treatment, 87% of the patients presented with good improvement of symptoms and 97% referred satisfaction for surgery. Overall, patients of Group 1 presented with significantly better clinical outcome when compared with the control group (P < 0.01). Conclusions: Intra-articular spacers showed significant and clinically meaningful improvements in pain and disability for up to 1 year. These findings need further studies and a longer follow-up.
Facial alveolar bone wall width - a cone-beam computed tomography study in Asians.

BACKGROUND The width of the facial alveolar bone wall is crucial for long-term successful esthetic outcomes of implants immediately placed into extraction sockets. A threshold of 2 mm is recommended to minimize buccal vertical bone resorption. AIM To assess the width of the facial alveolar bone wall using cone-beam computed tomography images (CBCT). MATERIAL AND METHODS Retrospective CBCT images were acquired from a representative sample of Asians using the i-CAT classic system with a 0.4-mm voxel size. At random, 200 CBCT images were selected according to predefined criteria. The DICOM file was imported into the i-CAT Vision software. In the panoramic screen, the middle of each tooth was selected, and in the sagittal window, the middle cross section was selected for performing the measurements using a computer. The vertical distance from the alveolar crest (BC) - cemento-enamel junction (CEJ) was measured. The width of the facial alveolar bone wall was measured at three locations: 1, 3, and 5 mm apical to BC. Descriptive statistics, frequency analyses, and multi-level comparisons were performed. RESULTS The sample consisted of 74 men and 126 women (mean age of 37.2 years; range 17-82 years). A total of 3618 teeth were assessed. There was no significant difference between the values of right and left sides, or between genders. However, statistically significant differences were observed between age groups at all levels. The distance from CEJ to BC varied from 0.4 to 4 mm, with an overall tendency to increase with age. The mean width of the facial alveolar bone wall at anterior teeth was 0.9 mm and increased toward posterior regions. Rarely, a width of 2 mm was yielded (0.6-1.8% for anterior teeth, 0.7-30.8% for posterior teeth). At a 5-mm distance from BC, minimal widths of facial alveolar bone were identified for the anterior teeth. The frequency of dehiscence ranged from 9.9% to 51.6% for anterior and 3.1% to 53.6% for posterior teeth, respectively. CONCLUSION A thin facial alveolar bone wall was usually present in both jaws. Hence, for most patients, adjunctive bone augmentation may be needed when installing implants in areas of esthetic concern.
An Item Response Theory Analysis of the Problem Gambling Severity Index

Increases in the availability of gambling heighten the need for a short screening measure of problem gambling. The Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) is a brief measure that allows for the assessment of characteristics of gambling behavior and severity and its consequences. The authors evaluate the psychometric properties of the PGSI using item response theory methods in a representative sample of the urban adult population in South Africa (N = 3,000). The PGSI items were evaluated for differential item functioning (DIF) due to language translation. DIF was not detected. The PGSI was found to be unidimensional, and use of the nominal categories model provided additional information at higher values of the underlying construct relative to a simpler binary model. This study contributes to the growing literature supporting the PGSI as the screen of choice for assessing gambling problems in the general population.
Muscle Fatigue Affects Mental Simulation of Action

Several studies suggest that when subjects mentally rehearse or execute a familiar action, they engage similar neural and cognitive operations. Here, we examined whether muscle fatigue could influence mental movements. Participants mentally and actually performed a sequence of vertical arm movements (rotation around the shoulder joint) before and after a fatiguing exercise involving the right arm. We found similar durations for actual and mental movements before fatigue, but significant temporal discrepancies after fatigue. Specifically, mental simulation was accelerated immediately after fatigue, while the opposite was observed for actual execution. Furthermore, actual movements showed faster adaptation (i.e., return to prefatigue values) than mental movements. The EMG analysis showed that postfatigue participants programmed larger, compared to prefatigue, neural drives. Therefore, immediately after fatigue, the forward model received dramatically greater efferent copies and predicted faster, compared to prefatigue, arm movements. During actual movements, the discrepancy between estimated (forward model output) and actual state (sensory feedback) of the arm guided motor adaptation; i.e., durations returned rapidly to prefatigue values. Since during mental movements there is no sensory information and state estimation derives from the forward model alone, mental durations remained faster after fatigue and their adaptation was longer than those of actual movements. This effect was specific to the fatigued arm because actual and mental movements of the left nonfatigued arm were unaffected. The current results underline the interdependence of motor and cognitive states and suggest that mental actions integrate the current state of the motor system.
The Effect of Elevated Partial Pressures of CO2 on the Relationship between Photosynthetic Capacity and N Content in Rice Leaves

The effects of growth CO2 levels on the photosynthetic rates; the amounts of ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco), chlorophyll (Chl), and cytochrome f; sucrose phosphate synthase activity; and total N content were examined in young, fully expanded leaves of rice (Oryza sativa L.). The plants were grown hydroponically under two CO2 partial pressures of 36 and 100 Pa at three N concentrations. The light-saturated photosynthesis at 36 Pa CO2 was lower in the plants grown in 100 Pa CO2 than those grown in 36 Pa CO2. Similarly, the amounts of Rubisco, Chl, and total N were decreased in the leaves of the plants grown in 100 Pa CO2. However, regression analysis showed no differences between the two CO2 treatments in the relationship between photosynthesis and total N or in the relationship between Rubisco and Chl and total N. Although a relative decrease in Rubisco to cytochrome f or sucrose phosphate synthase was found in the plants grown in 100 Pa CO2, this was the result of a decrease in total N content by CO2 enrichment. The activation state of Rubisco was also unaffected by growth CO2 levels. Thus, decreases in the photosynthetic capacity of the plants grown in 100 Pa CO2 could be simply accounted for by a decrease in the absolute amount of leaf N.
Iterative Recovery of Dense Signals from Incomplete Measurements

Within the framework of compressed sensing, we consider dense signals, which contain both discrete as well as continuous-amplitude components. We demonstrate by a comprehensive numerical study-to the best of our knowledge the first of its kind in the literature-that dense signals can be recovered from noisy, incomplete linear measurements by simple iterative algorithms that are inspired by or are implementations of approximate message passing. Those iterative algorithms are shown to significantly outperform all other algorithms presented so far, when they use a novel noise-adaptive thresholding function that is proposed in this contribution.
Using TILCO for specifying real-time systems

The Temporal Interval Logic with Compositional Operators (TILCO) has been especially designed for the specification and validation of real-time systems. TILCO extends the classical temporal logics based on the operators eventually, and henceforth by using time intervals in order to allow the specification of both qualitative and quantitative temporal relationships. The use of time intervals also supports an abstract and synthetic style for specifying real-time systems. The validation of TILCO specifications is supported by means of property proving; direct execution of specifications and model-checking of system histories are also possible. Therefore, the TILCO model can be considered as a dual approach. This paper describes TILCO and shows with an example its application for the specification and validation of real-time systems. Highlights about the TILCO axiomatization are given and the tools available for proving properties of specifications and for specifications execution are discussed.