Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of coexisting NH4- and K-micas in very low-grade metapelites

Abstract Organic-rich Carboniferous shales with associated coal seams, from the Bacia Carbonífera do Douro-Beira (north Portugal), have been studied by TEM as well as by a variety of other methods. NH4 and K micas and berthierine form small subparallel packets of a few layers separated by lowangle boundaries. One- and two-layer ordered polytypes, with some spot enlargement typical of minor disorder, occur in the NH4 micas (i.e., metamorphism tobelites). They exhibit all the characteristics commonly described for sub-greenschist-facies, including a lack of textural and chemical equilibrium. The compositions of the 2:1 layers vary considerably for both K- and NH4-micas, and except for Ti, exhibit similar compositional ranges. The most significant compositional variations are explained by phengitic substitution (Si from 3 to 3.25, Fe + Mg from 0.1 to 0.3), but no evidence of an illitic substitution has been found. NH4 in tobelites was determined by analysis of NH3 using Nessler’s reagent, basal spacing, and 1-(K + Na). The resulting values indicate NH4 contents ranging from 30 to 59% of the interlayer site occupancy. At very low temperatures of metamorphism (e.g., North Sea), the intergrowths of NH4 and K in micas is on the nanometer-scale. With an increase in temperature (e.g., Pennsylvania), NH4- and K-micas are present as different minerals. The Douro- Beira samples represent a still higher-temperature case and, therefore, NH4 and K can be present in the same interlayer sheet but with one cation being dominant. NH4- and K-dominated micas have segregated into well-separated packets with scarce intergrowths and almost no mixed-layers. Hence they show a solvus relationship.
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care Access and Utilization Under the Affordable Care Act

Objective:To examine racial and ethnic disparities in health care access and utilization after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance mandate was fully implemented in 2014. Research Design:Using the 2011–2014 National Health Interview Survey, we examine changes in health care access and utilization for the nonelderly US adult population. Multivariate linear probability models are estimated to adjust for demographic and sociodemographic factors. Results:The implementation of the ACA (year indicator 2014) is associated with significant reductions in the probabilities of being uninsured (coef=−0.03, P<0.001), delaying any necessary care (coef=−0.03, P<0.001), forgoing any necessary care (coef=−0.02, P<0.001), and a significant increase in the probability of having any physician visits (coef=0.02, P<0.001), compared with the reference year 2011. Interaction terms between the 2014 year indicator and race/ethnicity demonstrate that uninsured rates decreased more substantially among non-Latino African Americans (African Americans) (coef=−0.04, P<0.001) and Latinos (coef=−0.03, P<0.001) compared with non-Latino whites (whites). Latinos were less likely than whites to delay (coef=−0.02, P<0.001) or forgo (coef=−0.02, P<0.001) any necessary care and were more likely to have physician visits (coef=0.03, P<0.005) in 2014. The association between year indicator of 2014 and the probability of having any emergency department visits is not significant. Conclusions:Health care access and insurance coverage are major factors that contributed to racial and ethnic disparities before the ACA implementation. Our results demonstrate that racial and ethnic disparities in access have been reduced significantly during the initial years of the ACA implementation that expanded access and mandated that individuals obtain health insurance.
Nailfold digital capillaroscopic findings in patients with diffuse and limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis

Background Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic disease with microvascular damage. Nailfold capillaroscopy is a non-invasive method used for evaluating capillaries in SSc. Its findings could be related to the internal organ involvement and SSc course. In this study, we aimed to determine the association of the capillaroscopic patterns of nailfold capillaries with the disease subtypes of SSc, disease duration, and clinical manifestations. Material and methods Seventy patients with SSc (15 cases with diffuse cutaneous SSc [DcSSc] and 55 patients with limited SSc [LcSSc]) were studied. The patients were classified into early and intermediate/late DcSSc and LcSSc regarding their disease duration. The capillaroscopy findings were classified into normal, ‘early’, ‘active’ and ‘late’ scleroderma patterns, and ‘non-specific’ changes. The association of the nailfold capillaroscopy changes and their components with clinical manifestations was also studied. Results We studied 15 DcSSc and 55 LcSSc patients. No association was found between the patterns of capillaroscopic changes and these subtypes. There were 8 early DcSSc, 7 intermediate/late DcSSc, 34 early LcSSc, and 21 intermediate/late LcSSc patients. In patients with LcSSc, the ‘early’ scleroderma pattern of capillaroscopy was associated with early disease based on duration. We found a direct association between some capillary components and some clinical findings. Also, some capillaroscopic components had an inverse association with some clinical manifestations. Conclusions We found no association between the patterns of capillaroscopy and SSc subtypes; early scleroderma pattern of capillaroscopy was significantly associated with early LcSSc, compatible with the slower course of the disease in LcSSc. Subtle changes, capillary elongation, and capillary tortuosity had an inverse association with clinical manifestations and might be considered as good prognostic factors.
Maintaining Psycho-Social Health on the Way to Mars and Back

In future long duration Mars exploration missions, network limitations and the lack of real-time communication capabilities will impact various aspects of space crew performance as well as behavioral health. Studies in ground-based analogs of Isolated and Confined Environments (ICE) such as Antarctica have identified sensory and social monotony as threats to crew psychological well-being. Given the importance of behavioral health to mission success and the extreme conditions of space travel, new methods of maintaining psycho-social health and social connections to support systems are critical. We describe ANSIBLE -- A Network of Social Interactions for Bilateral Life Enhancement. ANSIBLE leverages Virtual Environments (VEs) to deliver evidence based wellness promoting strategies and socially intelligent Virtual Agents (VAs) as tools to facilitate asynchronous human-human communication, and counteract behavioral health challenges associated with prolonged isolation and deep space exploration.
Phenology of Asian Citrus Psyllid (Hemiptera: Liviidae) and Associated Parasitoids on Two Species of Citrus, Kinnow Mandarin and Sweet Orange, in Punjab Pakistan

ABSTRACT The population phenology of Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri Kuwayama, was monitored weekly for 110 wk on two species of Citrus, kinnow mandarin and sweet orange, at two different research sites in Faisalabad, Punjab Pakistan. Citrus flush growth patterns were monitored and natural enemy surveys were conducted weekly. Flush patterns were similar for kinnow and sweet orange. However, flush on sweet orange was consistently more heavily infested with Asian citrus psyllid than kinnow flush; densities of Asian citrus psyllid eggs, nymphs, and adults were higher on sweet orange when compared with kinnow. When measured in terms of mean cumulative insect or Asian citrus psyllid days, eggs, nymphs, and adults were significantly higher on sweet orange than kinnow. Two parasitoids were recorded attacking Asian citrus psyllid nymphs, Tamarixia radiata (Waterston) and Diaphorencyrtus aligarhensis (Shafee, Alam and Agarwal). The dominant parasitoid species attacking Asian citrus psyllid nymphs on kinnow and sweet orange was T. radiata, with parasitism averaging 26%. D. aligarhensis parasitism averaged 17%. Generalist predators such as coccinellids and chrysopids were collected infrequently and were likely not important natural enemies at these study sites. Immature spiders, in particular, salticids and yellow sac spiders, were common and may be important predators of all Asian citrus psyllid life stages. Low year round Asian citrus psyllid densities on kinnow and possibly high summer temperatures, may, in part, contribute to the success of this cultivar in Punjab where Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, the putative causative agent of huanglongbing, a debilitating citrus disease, is widespread and vectored by Asian citrus psyllid.
The role of conceptual hydrologic model calibration in climate change impact on water resources assessment

Assessment of climate change (CC) impact on hydrologic regime requires a calibrated rainfall-runoff model, defined by its structure and parameters. The parameter values depend, inter alia, on the calibration period. This paper investigates influence of the calibration period on parameter values, model efficiency and streamflow projections under CC. To this end, a conceptual HBV-light model of the Kolubara River catchment in Serbia is calibrated against flows observed within 5 consecutive wettest, driest, warmest and coldest years and in the complete record period. The optimised parameters reveal high sensitivity towards calibration period. Hydrologic projections under climate change are developed by employing (1) five hydrologic models with outputs of one GCM–RCM chain (Global and Regional Climate Models) and (2) one hydrologic model with five GCM–RCM outputs. Sign and magnitude of change in projected variables, compared to the corresponding values simulated over the baseline period, vary with the hydrologic model used. This variability is comparable in magnitude to variability stemming from climate models. Models calibrated over periods with similar precipitation as the projected ones may result in less uncertain projections, while warmer climate is not expected to contribute to the uncertainty in flow projections. Simulations over prolonged dry periods are expected to be uncertain.
Global Banking and the Balance Sheet Channel of Monetary Transmission

The literature typically finds that the development of financial markets has decreased the ability of central banks to affect the real economy. This paper shows that this negative relationship does not hold between the balance sheet channel of monetary transmission and bank globalization-one aspect of financial development. The reason is that global banks are more sensitive to their borrowers’ leverage. By affecting this leverage, monetary policy has a larger impact on global banks’ lending and aggregate economic activity. We use bank-level Call Report data to find this disparity between more and less global banks.
A Social Formalism and Survey for Recommender Systems

This paper presents a general formalism for Recommender Systems based on Social Network Analysis. After introducing the classical categories of recommender systems, we present our Social Filtering formalism and show that it extends association rules, classical Collaborative Filtering and Social Recommendation, while providing additional possibilities. This allows us to survey the literature and illustrate the versatility of our approach on various publicly available datasets, comparing our results with the literature.
Non-Synonymous and Synonymous Coding SNPs Show Similar Likelihood and Effect Size of Human Disease Association

Many DNA variants have been identified on more than 300 diseases and traits using Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWASs). Some have been validated using deep sequencing, but many fewer have been validated functionally, primarily focused on non-synonymous coding SNPs (nsSNPs). It is an open question whether synonymous coding SNPs (sSNPs) and other non-coding SNPs can lead to as high odds ratios as nsSNPs. We conducted a broad survey across 21,429 disease-SNP associations curated from 2,113 publications studying human genetic association, and found that nsSNPs and sSNPs shared similar likelihood and effect size for disease association. The enrichment of disease-associated SNPs around the 80th base in the first introns might provide an effective way to prioritize intronic SNPs for functional studies. We further found that the likelihood of disease association was positively associated with the effect size across different types of SNPs, and SNPs in the 3′untranslated regions, such as the microRNA binding sites, might be under-investigated. Our results suggest that sSNPs are just as likely to be involved in disease mechanisms, so we recommend that sSNPs discovered from GWAS should also be examined with functional studies.
Empirical Comparisons and Implied Recovery Rates kkk

Exploiting the Japanese banking crisis of the 1990s as a laboratory, we investigate the effects of bank bailouts on the supply of credit and on the valuations and the real performance of banks’ clients. Consistent with recent theories, our findings indicate that the size of the capital injections relative to the banks’ initial financial conditions is crucial for the success of bank bailouts. Capital injections that are sufficiently large to reestablish bank capital requirements increase the supply of credit and spur investment. In contrast, not only do capital injections that are too small fail to increase the supply of credit, but they also encourage the evergreening of non-performing loans and favor investment by unviable “zombie” firms.
Pediatric Nasopharyngeal Cancer: Case Report and Review of the Literature

Pediatric nasopharyngeal carcinoma, also referred to as cavum carcinoma, is a rare pediatric disease with an infrequent incidence rate. We present the case of a pediatric patient with nasopharyngeal cancer who received an adult schedule of concomitant chemotherapy and conformal radiotherapy with a brachytherapy boost. Adult protocols with high radiotherapy doses are not commonly used in pediatric patients due to the high comorbidity associated with this practice. In this case, the patient displayed excellent overall survival, a longer disease-free period, and fewer side effects and comorbidities, even in the absence of interferon therapy, which is not easily available in low-income countries. In addition, this case shows that conformal radiotherapy and brachytherapy are options that can be used to escalate the radiotherapy dose and decrease side effects. A 12-year-old female pediatric patient presented to our outpatient clinic with an eight-month history of moderate-to-severe otalgia, intermittent hyaline rhinorrhea, asthenia, adynamia, nasal congestion, epistaxis in the previous months, and local pruritus. Upon physical examination, a 60x60 mm mass was detected at level II of the neck, and a biopsy of the lesion confirmed a histopathological diagnosis of undifferentiated carcinoma compatible with nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The patient was considered to have clinical Stage III cancer, and she received an adult Al-Sarraf protocol with chemoradiotherapy and an intracavitary brachytherapy boost. The patient had a complete response, and she remains without local or distance relapse. Treating pediatric nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients with the Al-Sarraf protocol could be a feasible modality, as observed in this clinical case, despite the elevated cost of using interferon-beta in low-income countries when using more advanced radiotherapy techniques such as conformal radiotherapy and now, modulated intensity radiotherapy. It should be noted that brachytherapy boosts should be used with caution in pediatric patients; the potential side effects should be weighed against improved local control.
Regulating speed and generating large speed transitions in a neuromuscular human walking model

Although current humanoid controllers can rely on inverse kinematics or dynamics of the full humanoid system, powered prosthetic legs or assistive devices cannot, because they do not have access to the full states of the human system. This limitation creates the need for alternative control strategies. One strategy is to embed fundamental knowledge about legged dynamics and control in local feedback. In a previous paper, we have developed a control model of human locomotion which relies mostly on local feedback. The model can robustly walk at normal walking speeds. Here we extend this model to adapt to a wide range of walking speeds and to generate corresponding speed transitions. We use optimization of the model's control parameters and find key parameters responsible for steady walking between 0.8ms-1 and 1.8ms-1, covering the range of speed at which humans normally walk. Using these parameters, we demonstrate speed transitions between slow and fast walking. In addition, we discuss how the speed-dependent changes of the identified control parameters connect to biped walking dynamics, and suggest how these changes can be integrated in local feedback control.
Adherence to dietary guideline and 15-year risk of all-cause mortality

Past investigation of diet in relation to disease or mortality has tended to focus on individual nutrients. However, there has been a recent shift to now focus on overall patterns of food intake. The present study aims to investigate the relationship between diet quality reflecting adherence to dietary guidelines and mortality in a sample of older Australians, and to report on the relationship between core food groups and diet quality. This was a population-based cohort study of persons aged 49 years or older at baseline, living in two postcode areas west of Sydney, Australia. Baseline dietary data were collected during 1992–4, from 2897 people using a 145-item Willett-derived FFQ. A modified version of the Healthy Eating Index for Australians was developed to determine diet quality scores. The Australian National Death Index provided 15-year mortality data using multiple data linkage steps. Hazard risk (HR) ratios and 95 % CI for mortality were assessed for diet quality. Subjects in quintile 5 (highest) of the Total Diet Score had a 21 % reduced risk of all-cause mortality (HR 0·79, 95 % CI 0·63, 0·98, Ptrend = 0·04) compared with those in quintile 1 (lowest) after multivariate adjustment. The present study provides longitudinal support for a reduced risk of all-cause mortality in an older population who have greater compliance with published dietary guidelines.
Variants of ribonuclease inhibitor that resist oxidation

Human ribonuclease inhibitor (hRI) is a cytosolic protein that protects cells from the adventitious invasion of pancreatic‐type ribonucleases. hRI has 32 cysteine residues. The oxidation of these cysteine residues to form disulfide bonds is a rapid, cooperative process that inactivates hRI. The most proximal cysteine residues in native hRI are two pairs that are adjacent in sequence: Cys94 and Cys95, and Cys328 and Cys329. A cystine formed from such adjacent cysteine residues would likely contain a perturbing cis peptide bond within its eight‐membered ring, which would disrupt the structure of hRI and could facilitate further oxidation. We find that replacing Cys328 and Cys329 with alanine residues has little effect on the affinity of hRI for bovine pancreatic ribonuclease A (RNase A), but increases its resistance to oxidation by 10‐to 15‐fold. Similar effects are observed for the single variants, C328A hRI and C329A hRI, suggesting that oxidation resistance arises from the inability to form a Cys328–Cys329 disulfide bond. Replacing Cys94 and Cys95 with alanine residues increases oxidation resistance to a lesser extent, and decreases the affinity of hRI for RNase A. The C328A, C329A, and C328A/C329A variants are likely to be more useful than wild‐type hRI for inhibiting pancreatic‐type ribonucleases in vitro and in vivo. We conclude that replacing adjacent cysteine residues can confer oxidation resistance in a protein.
Prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus and Impaired Fasting Glucose in the Adult Population of Iran : The National Survey of Risk Factors for Non-Communicable Diseases of Iran

Despite concerns of a diabetes epidemic in the Middle East, internationally published data on national estimates of prevalent type 2 diabetes in Iran do not exist. In this article we document a dramatically high prevalence of diabetes in Iran based on the results of the first Survey of Risk Factors of Non-Communicable Diseases (SURFNCD) of Iran, 2005. In this national cross-sectional survey recruiting 70,981 Iranian citizens aged 25 to 64 years, we found that 7.7% of adults aged 25-64, or 2 million adults, have diabetes, among whom half are undiagnosed. An additional 16.8%, or 4.4 million, of Iranian adults have impaired fasting glucose. This high prevalence of diabetes in working aged adults is an ominous sign for this developing nation. As the relatively young Iranian population ages in the future, and urbanization continues or accelerates, the prevalence of diabetes will likely escalate.
Why are trade agreements more attractive in the presence of foreign direct investment

This paper argues that interests of nationals and owners of home-based foreign capital in the formation of a Trade Agreements (TA) are not antagonistic, except under rather particular assumptions on initial tariffs among potential members. Further, if initial tariffs are endogenously determined through an industry-lobbying process, then TA that would have been immiserising in the absence of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), may be welfare-enhancing in the presence of foreign-owned firms. The rationale is linked to the effect that the entry of FDI has on the pre-TA tariff, through contributions to the incumbent government. These results may help explain recent integration programs between developed and developing countries.
Bluetooth Receiver and Bandwidth-extension Algorithms for Telephone-assistive Applications Approved by Supervisory Committee: Bluetooth Receiver and Bandwidth-extension Algorithms for Telephone-assistive Applications Bluetooth Receiver and Bandwidth-extension Algorithms for Telephone-assistive Appli

iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my adviser, Dr. Philipos Loizou, for his guidance in my research. He has offered me many helpful suggestions throughout my two-year graduate study. Thanks also go to my coworkers in the Speech Processing Lab, for their cooperation and friendship. It has been my pleasure to work with them. Dr. Oguz Poroy, a former member of the lab, helped me with the hardware building in this thesis. This thesis addresses the problem of helping hearing-impaired people to use telephones. There are two aspects of this work: a Bluetooth-based wireless phone adapter and a bandwidth-extension algorithm. Built upon the Bluetooth technology, the proposed phone adapter routes the telephone audio signal to the hearing aid or the CI processor wirelessly, and hence disables environmental noise and interference. The proposed bandwidth-extension algorithm has the potential to increase speech intelligibility for the hearing-impaired people by estimating a wide-band signal from the narrow-band telephone signal. This is done by a piecewise linear estimation based on line spectral frequencies, and a statistical speech-frame classification technique based on Hidden Markov Models integrated to overcome the drawback of conventional bandwidth extension algorithms. The phone adapter was tested by CI users, and the proposed algorithm was evaluated by objective measures. Both results showed good performance.