Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Insecticidal efficacy of fipronil against four stored-product insect pests: influence of commodity, dose, exposure interval, relative humidity and temperature.

BACKGROUND Fipronil is an insecticidal pyrazole that is commonly used as an insecticide in field crops, urban pesticide and veterinary medicine, but there are no reports of its evaluation against stored-product insects. Three series of laboratory bioassays were conducted to assess fipronil as a potential grain protectant against adults of Sitophilus oryzae (L.), Tribolium confusum Jacquelin du Val, Rhyzopertha dominica (F.) and Prostephanus truncatus (Horn). Factors such as dose (0.01, 0.1, 1 and 10 mg fipronil kg(-1) grain), exposure interval (24 h, 48 h, 7 days and 14 days), temperature (20, 25 and 30 degrees C), relative humidity (RH; 55 and 65%) and commodity (wheat, maize, barley and paddy rice) were evaluated with regard to their impact on the insecticidal activity of fipronil. Progeny production was assessed after 64 days of exposure. RESULTS At doses of < 1 mg fipronil kg(-1) grain, efficacy of fipronil was enhanced by an increase in temperature from 20 to 25 degrees C against S. oryzae or R. dominica for exposures of > 48 h and against T. confusum or P. truncatus for exposures of > 24 h. A further increase in temperature from 25 to 30 degrees C, although it enhanced efficacy at doses of < 1 mg fipronil kg(-1) grain against S. oryzae at all exposure intervals and against T. confusum after 7 days of exposure, it was negatively associated with efficacy against R. dominica or P. truncatus for exposures of > 24 h. By contrast, increase in RH did not have a significant impact on efficacy of fipronil. Although the performance of fipronil among the tested commodities was species dependent, this substance appeared to be less effective in paddy rice than in barley, maize and wheat. Regardless of the treated commodity, progeny production of all the tested species was almost suppressed with doses higher than 0.1 mg fipronil kg(-1) grain. CONCLUSIONS Fipronil appeared to be a very effective alternative to the existing substances in stored-grain protection at doses equal to or higher than 1 mg fipronil kg(-1) grain, and thus these doses require further evaluation in terms of safety for the consumer and residues on stored products.
Pertussis toxin inhibits migration of B and T lymphocytes into splenic white pulp cords

The normal migration route of B cells into follicular areas of spleen and lymph nodes is altered in the case of autoreactive cells that have bound self-antigen. To begin characterizing the molecular requirements for B cell migration into follicles, cells were treated with pertussis toxin (PTX), an inhibitor of signaling by many G protein-coupled chemokine receptors. Lymphocyte accumulation in the spleen is not inhibited by PTX and, therefore, the distribution of transferred cells was examined in this tissue. In contrast to untreated cells that localized predominantly in follicular areas within white pulp cords, PTX-treated B cells failed to enter white pulp areas altogether and accumulated in the splenic red pulp. T cells were also excluded from white pulp cords and in the case of both cell types, the adenosine diphosphate-ribosylating subunit of the toxin was required to block white pulp entry. These findings implicate a G protein-coupled receptor in lymphocyte migration into splenic white pulp cords. Exclusion of PTX- treated cells from all organized areas of secondary lymphoid tissues raises the possibility that the association observed between PTX treatment and predisposition to autoimmune disease results from inhibition of tolerance mechanisms that normally operate within secondary lymphoid tissues.
Long-term trends of foE and geomagnetic activity variations

Abstract. A relationship between foE trends and geomagnetic activity long-term variations has been revealed for the first time. By analogy with earlier obtained results on the foF2 trends it is possible to speak about the geomagnetic control of the foE long-term trends as well. Periods of increasing geomagnetic activity correspond to negative foE trends, while these trends are positive for the decreasing phase of geomagnetic activity. This "natural" relationship breaks down around 1970 (on some stations later) when pronounced positive foE trends have appeared on most of the stations considered. The dependence of foE trends on geomagnetic activity can be related with nitric oxide variations at the E-layer heights. The positive foE trends that appeared after the "break down" effect may also be explained by the [NO] decrease which is not related to geomagnetic activity variations. But negative trends or irregular foE variations on some stations for the same time period require some different mechanism. Chemical pollution of the lower thermosphere due to the anthropogenic activity may be responsible for such abnormal foE behavior after the end of the 1960s. Key words. Ionosphere (ionosphere-atmosphere interactions; ionospheric disturbances)
Understanding primate brain evolution

We present a detailed reanalysis of the comparative brain data for primates, and develop a model using path analysis that seeks to present the coevolution of primate brain (neocortex) and sociality within a broader ecological and life-history framework. We show that body size, basal metabolic rate and life history act as constraints on brain evolution and through this influence the coevolution of neocortex size and group size. However, they do not determine either of these variables, which appear to be locked in a tight coevolutionary system. We show that, within primates, this relationship is specific to the neocortex. Nonetheless, there are important constraints on brain evolution; we use path analysis to show that, in order to evolve a large neocortex, a species must first evolve a large brain to support that neocortex and this in turn requires adjustments in diet (to provide the energy needed) and life history (to allow sufficient time both for brain growth and for ‘software’ programming). We review a wider literature demonstrating a tight coevolutionary relationship between brain size and sociality in a range of mammalian taxa, but emphasize that the social brain hypothesis is not about the relationship between brain/neocortex size and group size per se; rather, it is about social complexity and we adduce evidence to support this. Finally, we consider the wider issue of how mammalian (and primate) brains evolve in order to localize the social effects.
Topographic Organization in and near Human Visual Area V4

The existence and location of a human counterpart of macaque visual area V4 are disputed. To resolve this issue, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to obtain topographic maps from human subjects, using visual stimuli and tasks designed to maximize accuracy of topographic maps of the fovea and parafovea and to measure the effects of attention on topographic maps. We identified multiple topographic transitions, each clearly visible in ≥75% of the maps, that we interpret as boundaries of distinct cortical regions. We call two of these regions dorsal V4 and ventral V4 (together comprising human area V4) because they share several defining characteristics with the macaque regions V4d and V4v (which together comprise macaque area V4). Ventral V4 is adjacent to V3v, and dorsal V4 is adjacent to parafoveal V3d. Ventral V4 and dorsal V4 meet in the foveal confluence shared by V1, V2, and V3. Ventral V4 and dorsal V4 represent complementary regions of the visual field, because ventral V4 represents the upper field and a subregion of the lower field, whereas dorsal V4 represents lower-field locations that are not represented by ventral V4. Finally, attentional modulation of spatial tuning is similar across dorsal and ventral V4, but attention has a smaller effect in V3d and V3v and a larger effect in a neighboring lateral occipital region.
Analysis of human liver disease using a cluster of differentiation (CD) antibody microarray

A CD antibody microarray has been previously developed allowing semi‐quantitative identification of greater than 80 CD antigens on circulating leucocytes from peripheral blood samples. This assay, which uses a live cell‐capture technique, enables an extensive leucocyte immunophenotype determination in a single analysis and to date this has been used successfully to characterise diseases including human leukaemias and HIV infection.
Breastfeeding and Bone Mass at the Ages of 18 and 30: Prospective Analysis of Live Births from the Pelotas (Brazil) 1982 and 1993 Cohorts

Objective To evaluate the effect of total breastfeeding, breastfeeding duration and type of breastfeeding at 3 months of age on bone mass at 18 and 30 years. Study Design A prospective, longitudinal study was conducted with two birth cohorts (1982 and 1993) in Pelotas, Southern Brazil. Measurements of bone mineral content (BMC) and bone mineral density (BMD) at 18 and 30 years of age were obtained by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Information on breastfeeding was collected during the first 4 years of life. Analyses were performed by linear regression and stratified by sex. Results A total of 1109 and 3226 participants provided complete information on breastfeeding in early life and bone mass at 18 and 30 years, respectively. No association between breastfeeding and bone mass was observed in women at both ages nor among men at age 30. Among men at the age of 18, BMC and BMD were higher among those breastfed regardless of duration (p=0.032 and p=0.043, respectively). Conclusions Despite a very weak positive effect of breastfeeding (yes/no) on BMC and BMD at age 18 in men, most findings pointed to a lack of association between breastfeeding and bone mass until young adulthood.
Supporting Transparent Snapshot for Bare-metal Malware Analysis on Mobile Devices

The increasing growth of cybercrimes targeting mobile devices urges an efficient malware analysis platform. With the emergence of evasive malware, which is capable of detecting that it is being analyzed in virtualized environments, bare-metal analysis has become the definitive resort. Existing works mainly focus on extracting the malicious behaviors exposed during bare-metal analysis. However, after malware analysis, it is equally important to quickly restore the system to a clean state to examine the next sample. Unfortunately, state-of-the-art solutions on mobile platforms can only restore the disk, and require a time-consuming system reboot. In addition, all of the existing works require some in-guest components to assist the restoration. Therefore, a kernel-level malware is still able to detect the presence of the in-guest components. We propose Bolt, a transparent restoration mechanism for bare-metal analysis on mobile platform without rebooting. Bolt achieves a reboot-less restoration by simultaneously making a snapshot for both the physical memory and the disk. Memory snapshot is enabled by an isolated operating system (BoltOS) in the ARM TrustZone secure world, and disk snapshot is accomplished by a piece of customized firmware (BoltFTL) for flash-based block devices. Because both the BoltOS and the BoltFTL are isolated from the guest system, even kernel-level malware cannot interfere with the restoration. More importantly, Bolt does not require any modifications into the guest system. As such, Bolt is the first that simultaneously achieves efficiency, isolation, and stealthiness to recover from infection due to malware execution. We have implemented a Bolt prototype working with the Android OS. Experimental results show that Bolt can restore the guest system to a clean state in only 2.80 seconds.
Sausage oscillations in loops with a non-uniform cross-section

Context. Flaring coronal loops are often observed in microwave and sometimes in soft X-rays, as extended structures of variable cross-section or width. The quasi-periodic pulsations associated with flaring coronal loops have been interpreted in terms of standing, fast sausage magnetoacoustic modes and suggested for the diagnostics of the magnetic field outside the oscillating loop. Aims. We investigate the effects of a non-uniform cross-section on a coronal loop with respect to the standing sausage modes it supports. Methods. Numerical simulations of standing sausage modes are performed for a straight, zero-β coronal loop with a varying crosssection. The global sausage mode and higher harmonics are considered, and simulations were performed for a range of density contrast ratios and loop divergence parameter. We consider modifications of the period of oscillation and the spatial profile of the standing modes. Results. As the loop divergence parameter increases, the period of the standing modes decreases. The fractional change period is independent of the density contrast ratio. The spatial profiles of the standing modes are modified by the cross-section inhomogeneity,but this effect is too weak to be observable by modern instruments. For the global sausage mode, the cross-section radius divergence by a factor of 2 is found to cause the decrease in the period of about 5%.
Open Access Research Article the Association between Subchondral Bone Cysts and Tibial Cartilage Volume and Risk of Joint Replacement in People with Knee Osteoarthritis: a Longitudinal Study

Introduction: To examine the natural history of subchondral bone cysts and to determine whether knee cartilage loss and risk of joint replacement is higher in knees with cysts, compared with those with bone marrow lesions (BMLs) only or those with neither BMLs nor cysts. Methods: The symptomatic knee in 132 subjects with knee osteoarthritis (OA) was imaged by using magnetic resonance imaging at baseline and 2 years later. Tibial cartilage volume, subchondral bone cysts, and BMLs were measured by using validated methods. Knee arthroplasty over a 4-year period was ascertained. Results: Bone cysts were present in 47.7% of subjects, 98.1% of whom also had BMLs. Over a 2-year period, 23.9% of subjects had cysts progress, 13.0% developed new cysts, and 11.4% had cysts regress. Bone cysts at baseline were associated with lower medial and lateral tibial cartilage volume compared with those with BMLs only or those with neither (P for trend 0.004 and <0.001, respectively). Annual medial cartilage volume loss was greatest in those with bone cysts compared with those with BMLs only or those with neither (9.3%, 6.3%, and 2.6%, respectively; P for trend, <0.001). As the severity of bone abnormality in the medial compartment increased from no BMLs or cysts present, to BMLs only, to subchondral bone cysts present, the risk of knee replacement was increased Conclusions: When cysts are present, cartilage loss and risk of knee replacement are higher than if only BMLs are present, suggesting that cysts identify those most likely to benefit from prevention of disease progression. As cysts can regress, they may also provide therapeutic targets in knee OA. Introduction Subchondral bone cyst formation is often encountered in osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee, particularly in advanced OA [1]. Visualised by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), subchondral bone cysts occur where the overlying cartilage has largely been eroded [2]. Two main theories are proposed about cyst formation: the synovial breach theory [3,4] and the bony contusion theory [1,5].
Palaeomagnetic study of Cenozoic sediments in North Sea boreholes: an example of a magnetostratigraphic conundrum in a hydrocarbonproducing area

Abstract Palaeomagnetic measurements from a southern North Sea borehole that penetrated 13 m of Holocene, 189 m of Plio-Pleistocene and 4 m of Oligocene sediments have yielded six polarity changes. One polarity boundary coincides with a regional mid-Tertiary unconformity and a second occurs at the base of the Holocene section. The other four boundaries are interpreted as the Kaena-Gauss and the Gauss-Matuyama polarity transitions, and the base and top of the Olduvai subchron. The borehole results provide a chronological framework for interpreting nearby seismic sections and for assessing the sedimentation rates as a major Plio-Pleistocene delta complex approached and then overwhelmed the borehold site. Rock magnetic and X-ray diffraction work show that the iron sulphide greigite is an important magnetic mineral in the prodelta and delta front marine clays and lagoonal delta top clays, whereas magnetite is the dominant magnetic mineral in the fluvio-deltaic sands and in the Holocene and Oligocene marine deposits. Thermal demagnetization studies demonstrate that the greigite carries a stable natural remanent magnetization. It may have formed through sulphide diagenesis induced by hydrocarbon seepage or in a reducing sedimentary environment. Greigite is surprisingly difficult to detect through the standard palaeomagnetic method of alternating field demagnetization and may be of much greater palaeomagnetic importance in hydrocarbon-producing areas than previously supposed.
TECHNICALREPORTS:METHODS Water and entrapped air redistribution in heterogeneous sand sample: Quantitative neutron imaging of the process

Saturated ﬂow in soil with the occurrence of preferential ﬂow often exhibits temporal changes of saturated hydraulic conductivity even during the time scale of a single inﬁltration event. These effects, observed in a number of experiments done mainly on heterogeneous soils, are often attributed to the changing distribution of water and air in the sample. We have measured the variation of the ﬂow rates during the steady state stage of the constant head ponded inﬁltration experiment conducted on a packed sample composed of three different grades of sand. The experiment was moni-tored by quantitative neutron imaging, which provided information about the spatial distribution of water in the sample. Measurements were taken during (i) the initial stages of inﬁltration by neutron radiography and (ii) during the steady state ﬂow by neutron tomography. A gradual decrease of the hydraulic conductivity has been observed during the ﬁrst 4 h of the inﬁltration event. A series of neutron tomography images taken during the quasi-steady state stage showed the trapping of air bubbles in coarser sand. Furthermore, the water content in the coarse sand decreased even more while the water content in the embedded ﬁne sand blocks gradually increased. The experimental results support the hypothesis that the effect of the gradual hydraulic conductivity decrease is caused by entrapped air redistribution and the build up of bubbles in preferential pathways. The trapped air thus restricts the preferential ﬂow pathways and causes lower hydraulic conductivity.
Nondestructive measurements of fracture aperture in crystalline rock cores using X ray computed tomography

This study used X ray computed tomography (CT) to investigate the variability in the aperture field of natural fractures in two granitic cores; one core, 57 mm in diameter and 146 mm in length, was studied with a medical CT scanner, whereas the other core, 87 mm in diameter and 245 mm long, was characterized by means of an industrial CT scanner. A quantitative methodology for measuring the fracture-aperture thickness from CT images was developed and applied to images of cores to reconstruct the distribution of fracture aperture in the cores, with a spatial resolution of 1.4 mm by 1.4 mm by 5 mm. The CT images of the natural fractures revealed that the aperture thickness (1) is not constant within the fracture plane, (2) varies over several orders of magnitude, and (3) approximately followed a lognormal distribution for one of the cores. The CT method, when applied to monitor the movement of contrast agents injected into the cores, demonstrated fingering of the flow. Higher contrast agent concentrations and earlier contrast agent arrivals correlated with larger aperture regions of the core. The results of this study demonstrate that CT can be used to characterize fractures nondestructively and to detect the movement of contrast agents in granitic cores.
Immediate revision in patients with bilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve palsy after thyroid and parathyroid surgery. How worthy is it?

SUMMARY The aim of the present study was to determine whether immediate revision surgery has benefits for patients with iatrogenic bilateral recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) palsy. From January 1, 2004 to January 30, 2011, 29 consecutive patients underwent immediate revision after total thyroidectomy. The cohort comprised 29 patients, 2 males and 27 females, aged 23 to 76 years (median 52 years). Identification of the type and extent of injury of each branch was reported in the protocol, and reconstruction was performed whenever possible. A complete transection of the nerve or one of its branches was found in 14 and 5 nerves, respectively. In three patients, the nerve was completely or partially transected on both sides. Seven anatomically intact nerves were injured by loaded ligature, in one case there was a sign of thermal damage and four nerves showed signs of excessive manipulation (thinning of the nerve trunk). Primary end-to-end anastomosis was performed in seven completely transected RLN and four transected anterior branches of RLN. None of the reconstructed nerve trunks or its branches regained function, although good muscle tone was observed. 23 of 38 intact nerves (61%) regained function, and normal vocalcord mobility on both sides was restored in only four patients. In all cases with regained vocal-cord mobility, functional recovery occurred within 3 months after primary surgery. In conclusion, immediate revision after thyroidectomy may help to indicate the type of RLN damage, which is a predictor of functional recovery and one of major factors influencing future therapeutic management.
PupilNet: Convolutional Neural Networks for Robust Pupil Detection

Real-time, accurate, and robust pupil detection is an essential prerequisite for pervasive video-based eye-tracking. However, automated pupil detection in real-world scenarios has proven to be an intricate challenge due to fast illumination changes, pupil occlusion, non centered and off-axis eye recording, and physiological eye characteristics. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a method based on a novel dual convolutional neural network pipeline. In its first stage the pipeline performs coarse pupil position identification using a convolutional neural network and subregions from a downscaled input image to decrease computational costs. Using subregions derived from a small window around the initial pupil position estimate, the second pipeline stage employs another convolutional neural network to refine this position, resulting in an increased pupil detection rate up to 25% in comparison with the best performing state-of-the-art algorithm. Annotated data sets can be made available upon request.
[Phenomenology on the lived experience of Korean women with spinal cord injuries].

PURPOSE The purpose of the study was to understand and explain the essences and structures of the experience of Korean women who have had a spinal cord injury. METHODS The data were collected in 2010 through individual in-depth interviews using open-ended questions. A total of 9 women with spinal cord injuries participated in the study. Each interview lasted about 2 hours. Verbatim transcripts were analyzed using phenomenological analysis. RESULTS Five theme clusters emerged from the analysis using Colaizzi's method: frozen mind with rigid body; shame due to restrictions of physical function and dependency; struggle to go back to the previous normal body; disabilities that are noticeable in everyday family life; rebirth by discarding the obsessions of the past. These theme clusters illustrate that although most participants faced very strange and unbearable situations in most aspects of life after the injury, they were empowered finally by finding their hope and by giving new meanings to the current existence. CONCLUSION This study provides deep understanding of women with spinal cord injuries who are relatively alienated from society. Based on the results of the study, health professionals could develop effective nursing interventions to improve quality of life of these women.