Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Forest Biodiversity Assessment in Relic Ecosystem: Monitoring and Management Practice Implications

The remnants of old-growth cedar forests in Lebanon are currently protected since they are taken to represent relic ecosystems sheltering many endemic, rare and endangered species. However, it is not always obvious how “natural” these forest relics are, and how the past use, conservation and management history have affected their current structural properties and species community composition. Even though Integrated Monitoring Programs have been initiated and developed, they are not being implemented effectively. The present research studied the effect of forest stand structure and the impacts of the anthropogenic activities effects on forest composition and floristic richness in four cedar forests in Lebanon. Horizontal and vertical structure was assessed by relying on the measurement of the physical characteristics and status of cedar trees including diversity and similarity indices. Two hundred and seventeen flora species were identified, among which 51 species were found to have biogeographical specificity and peculiar traits. The species composition seems not to be correlated with stand age structure; however, the occurrence of multiple age cedar stands favors floristic richness and variability in species composition as observed in one of the stands where the variation in diversity indices was high. In conclusion; to conserve biodiversity across landscapes, it is necessary to maintain a collection of stands of different vertical structure; an effect produced both by natural and anthropogenic disturbances since they both create a mosaic of different aged succession stands.
Compact modeling approach for microchannel cooling aimed at high-level thermal analysis of 3D packaged ICs

This paper presents a new compact modeling technique to describe the convective heat transfer realized by a flow of coolant in integrated microchannels used for thermal management of IC chips. This model works only in case of laminar flow and straight microchannels. The compact model represents the convective heat transfer with alternating resistors in the flow path. The implementation of this model in a successive node reduction (SUNRED) algorithm based thermal filed solver is also presented. A simulation example for a simplified geometry with one channel situated in the center of a pyramidal stack of silicon dice is presented, though, the final target application is in the thermal simulation engine of a logi-thermal simulation system. The errors have been calculated as the difference of the results of the alternating resistor and modified SUNRED model and the result of a detailed CFD simulation. The error of our new compact model was below 2 % for both modeling techniques.
9 Deficiency of Adult Neurogenesis in the Ts 65 Dn Mouse Model of Down Syndrome

Neurogenesis in the mammalian adult brain is a well established phenomenon (for the recent reviews see Carpentier & Palmer, 2009; Kaneko & Sawamoto, 2009; Rodriguez & Verkhratsky, 2011) that is important in both young and aging brain (Galvan & Jin, 2007; Rao et al., 2006). The subventricular zone, subgranular layer of the dentate gyrus (DG), and cortex are the main sites of adult neurogenesis (Gould et al., 1999; Luskin & Boone, 1994; Palmer et al., 2000; Seki et al., 2007; Yoneyama et al., 2011). Newly-born neurons during adult neurogenesis have the ability to integrate into previously established neuronal networks (Kee et al., 2007; Markakis & Gage, 1999; Sandoval et al., 2011). Alteration of neurogenesis under different experimental and pathological conditions has been described to a great extent (Rodriguez & Verkhratsky, 2011; Sandoval et al., 2011; Winner et al., 2011; Yoneyama et al., 2011; Yu et al., 2009). Significant decreases of neurogenesis have been found in neurodevelopmental (Contestabile et al., 2007; Guidi et al., 2008, 2010) and in neurodegenerative diseases (Rodriguez & Verkhratsky, 2011). Numerous studies provide evidence that a lack of neurogenesis significantly diminishes plasticity in the adult brain and interferes with learning and memory (reviewed in Koehl & Abrous, 2011; Mongiat & Schinder, 2011). Different mechanisms have been proposed to regulate neurogenesis in the adult brain, including brain injury (Kernie & Parent, 2010; Moriyama et al., 2011), ischemia (Kernie & Parent, 2010; Kreuzberg et al., 2010), and inflammation (Voloboueva et al., 2010). One of the least studied factors that affects neurogenesis are chromosomal aberrations. Down syndrome (DS) results from the extra copy of chromosome 21 occurring with a prevalence of 1 in 733 live births (Canfield et al., 2006). Subjects with DS show developmental regression, diminished cognitive ability, and autonomic dysfunction (Antonarakis & Epstein, 2006; Chapman & Hesketh, 2000). The DS brain is severely affected showing a reduction in both overall size and of particular areas (frontal cortex, hippocampus, cerebellum, and brainstem) due to a reduced number of neurons (Aylward et al., 1997, 1999; Kesslak et al., 1994; Pinter et al., 2001; Raz et al., 1995; Wisniewski et al., 1984).
Safety assessment of breast cancer detection via ultrawideband microwave radar operating in pulsed‐radiation mode

We conduct an finite‐difference time‐domain computational electromagnetic analysis of the safety of ultrawideband microwave breast cancer detection techniques. Pulses are transmitted into anatomically realistic MRI‐derived numerical breast phantoms with different levels of tissue heterogeneity as well as foreign entities such as implants and surgical clips, and the specific absorption is computed. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 49: 221–225, 2007; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.22089
Endophyte Microbiome Diversity in Micropropagated Atriplex canescens and Atriplex torreyi var griffithsii

Microbial diversity associated with micropropagated Atriplex species was assessed using microscopy, isolate culturing, and sequencing. Light, electron, and confocal microscopy revealed microbial cells in aseptically regenerated leaves and roots. Clone libraries and tag-encoded FLX amplicon pyrosequencing (TEFAP) analysis amplified sequences from callus homologous to diverse fungal and bacterial taxa. Culturing isolated some seed borne endophyte taxa which could be readily propagated apart from the host. Microbial cells were observed within biofilm-like residues associated with plant cell surfaces and intercellular spaces. Various universal primers amplified both plant and microbial sequences, with different primers revealing different patterns of fungal diversity. Bacterial and fungal TEFAP followed by alignment with sequences from curated databases revealed 7 bacterial and 17 ascomycete taxa in A. canescens, and 5 bacterial taxa in A. torreyi. Additional diversity was observed among isolates and clone libraries. Micropropagated Atriplex retains a complex, intimately associated microbiome which includes diverse strains well poised to interact in manners that influence host physiology. Microbiome analysis was facilitated by high throughput sequencing methods, but primer biases continue to limit recovery of diverse sequences from even moderately complex communities.
MorphCore: An Energy-Efficient Microarchitecture for High Performance ILP and High Throughput TLP

Several researchers have recognized in recent years that today's workloads require a micro architecture that can handle single-threaded code at high performance, and multi-threaded code at high throughput, while consuming no more energy than is necessary. This paper proposes Morph Core, a unique approach to satisfying these competing requirements, by starting with a traditional high performance out-of-order core and making minimal changes that can transform it into a highly-threaded in-order SMT core when necessary. The result is a micro architecture that outperforms an aggressive 4-way SMT out-of-order core, "medium" out-of-order cores, small in-order cores, and Core Fusion. Compared to a 2-way SMT out-of-order core, Morph Core increases performance by 10% and reduces energy-delay-squared product by 22%.
Directionlets Using In-Phase Lifting for Image Representation

Directionlets allow a construction of perfect reconstruction and critically sampled multidirectional anisotropic basis, yet retaining the separable filtering of standard wavelet transform. However, due to the spatially varying filtering and downsampling direction, it is forced to apply spatial segmentation and process each segment independently. Because of this independent processing of the image segments, directionlets suffer from the following two major limitations when applied to, say, image coding. First, failure to exploit the correlation across block boundaries degrades the coding performance and also induces blocking artifacts, thus making it mandatory to use de-blocking filter at low bit rates. Second, spatial scalability, i.e., minimum segment size or the number of levels of the transform, is limited due to independent processing of segments. We show that, with simple modifications in the block boundaries, we can overcome these limitations by, what we call, in-phase lifting implementation of directionlets. In the context of directionlets using in-phase lifting, we identify different possible groups of downsampling matrices that would allow the construction of a multilevel transform without forcing independent processing of segments both with and without any modifications in the segment boundary. Experimental results in image coding show objective and subjective improvements when compared with the directionlets applied independently on each image segment. As an application, using both the in-phase lifting implementation of directionlets and the adaptive directional lifting, we have constructed an adaptive directional wavelet transform, which has shown improved image coding performance over these adaptive directional wavelet transforms.
Effects of Electromyostimulation Training and Volleyball Practice on Jumping Ability

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of a 4-week electromyostimulation (EMS) training program on the vertical jump performance of 12 volleyball players. EMS sessions were incorporated into volleyball sessions 3 times weekly. EMS consisted of 20–22 concomitant stimulations of the knee extensor and plantar flexor muscles and lasted ∼12 minutes. No significant changes were observed after EMS training for squat jump (SJ) and counter movement jump (CMJ) performance, while the mean height and the mean power maintained during 15 seconds of consecutive CMJs significantly increased by ∼4% (p < 0.05). Ten days after the end of EMS training, the jumping height significantly (p < 0.05) increased compared with baseline also for single jumps (SJ +6.5%, CMJ +5.4%). When the aim of EMS resistance training is to enhance vertical jump ability, sport-specific workouts following EMS would enable the central nervous system to optimize the control to neuromuscular properties.
A Massive Core in Jupiter Predicted from First-Principles Simulations

Hydrogen-helium mixtures at conditions of Jupiter’s interior are studied with first-principles computer simulations. The resulting equation of state (EOS) implies that Jupiter possesses a central core of 14-18 Earth masses of heavier elements, a result that supports core accretion as the standard model for the formation of hydrogen-rich giant planets. Our nominal model has about 4 Earth masses of planetary ices in the H-He-rich mantle, a result that is, within a modeling uncertainty of 6 Earth masses, consistent with abundances measured by the 1995 Galileo entry probe mission, suggesting that the composition found by the probe may be representative of the entire planet. Interior models derived from this first-principles EOS do not give a match to Jupiter’s gravity moment J4 unless one invokes interior differential rotation, implying that Jovian interior dynamics has an observable effect on the high-order gravity field.
Musculoskeletal pain and injury in professional orchestral musicians in Australia.

UNLABELLED This paper reports on the major findings from the questionnaire component of a cross-sectional survey of the musicians in Australia's eight fulltime professional symphonic and pit orchestras, focusing on performance-related musculoskeletal disorders (PRMDs). METHODS All musician members of the orchestras participating in this project were invited to complete a self-report survey. The overall response rate was about 70% (n = 377). In addition to general health and experience questions, respondents who reported a current or previous PRMD were asked to report on a range of associated factors. RESULTS Of the participants, 84% had experienced pain or injuries that had interfered either with playing their instrument or participating in normal orchestral rehearsals and performances. Fifty percent reported having such pain or injury at the time of the survey, mostly with disorders perceived by the musicians to be work-related. Twenty-eight percent had taken at least 1 day off from work for such pain in the previous 18 months. The most common broad sites affected were the trunk (primarily the back), the right upper limb and neck, the left upper limb and neck, and the neck alone, but the relative proportions varied by instrument. Of those musicians who reported at least one episode of pain or injury in the past, less than 50% reported that they had completely recovered. The most commonly cited performance-related factors that had contributed to injury or pain all related to training and playing load (including practice and performance). CONCLUSION This study provides strong evidence that PRMDs are a common complaint in professional orchestral musicians and identifies a range of factors suggested as contributing to the occurrence or persistence of these disorders.
Active learning for clinical text classification: is it better than random sampling?

OBJECTIVE This study explores active learning algorithms as a way to reduce the requirements for large training sets in medical text classification tasks. DESIGN Three existing active learning algorithms (distance-based (DIST), diversity-based (DIV), and a combination of both (CMB)) were used to classify text from five datasets. The performance of these algorithms was compared to that of passive learning on the five datasets. We then conducted a novel investigation of the interaction between dataset characteristics and the performance results. MEASUREMENTS Classification accuracy and area under receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves for each algorithm at different sample sizes were generated. The performance of active learning algorithms was compared with that of passive learning using a weighted mean of paired differences. To determine why the performance varies on different datasets, we measured the diversity and uncertainty of each dataset using relative entropy and correlated the results with the performance differences. RESULTS The DIST and CMB algorithms performed better than passive learning. With a statistical significance level set at 0.05, DIST outperformed passive learning in all five datasets, while CMB was found to be better than passive learning in four datasets. We found strong correlations between the dataset diversity and the DIV performance, as well as the dataset uncertainty and the performance of the DIST algorithm. CONCLUSION For medical text classification, appropriate active learning algorithms can yield performance comparable to that of passive learning with considerably smaller training sets. In particular, our results suggest that DIV performs better on data with higher diversity and DIST on data with lower uncertainty.
Clinicopathologic Profile of Hypopigmented Mycosis Fungoides in India

Background Hypopigmented mycosis fungoides (HMF) is an under recognized disease in India, which is often mistaken for Hansen disease or vitiligo, resulting in delayed diagnosis and treatment. Aim To describe the clinical, histopathologic and immunohistochemical features of HMF in Indian patients. Materials and methods All cases presenting as hypopigmented lesions that were signed out as MF between 2001 and 2009 (15 cases) were included. Clinical data and histopathology slides were reviewed. Immunostains for CD4, CD8, and CD1a were done, where tissue was available. Results The age ranged from 14 to 38 years with a male preponderance. The commonest presentation was multiple hypopigmented patches on limbs and trunk with the duration of the lesions varying from 4 months to 14 years. All cases showed a psoriasiform/lichenoid epidermal pattern, disproportionate epidermotropism, basilar tagging of lymphocytes, monomorphous lymphocytes, haloed lymphocytes, and wiry dermal collagen. Other important findings were infiltration of hair follicles, larger epidermal lymphocytes, atypia of dermal lymphocytes, and stuffed dermal papillae. Dermal edema was absent in all cases. Immunohistochemistry done on 10 cases showed a CD8 phenotype in 6 cases and CD4 phenotype in the remaining 4 cases. Conclusions Histopathology supplemented by immunohistochemistry is reliable in making a diagnosis of HMF. It is important to be aware of this uncommon, yet significant disease.
The Anatomy of Star Formation in NGC 300

The Spitzer Space Telescope was used to study the mid- to far-infrared properties of NGC 300 and to compare dust emission to Hα to elucidate the heating of the interstellar medium (ISM) and the star formation cycle at scales smaller than 100 pc. The new data allow us to discern clear differences in the spatial distribution of 8 μm dust emission with respect to 24 μm dust and to H II regions traced by Hα light. The 8 μm emission highlights the rims of H II regions, and the 24 μm emission is more strongly peaked in star-forming regions than 8 μm. We confirm the existence and approximate amplitude of interstellar dust emission at 4.5 μm, detected statistically in Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) data, and conclude it arises in star-forming regions. When averaging over regions larger than ∼1 kpc, the ratio of Hα to aromatic feature emission in NGC 300 is consistent with the values observed in disks of spiral galaxies. The mid- to far-infrared spectral energy distribution of dust emission is generally consistent with pre-Spitzer models.
Location and Gender Analysis of Sandwich Admissions: A Case Study of Mid-Western Nigeria Universities

University education is a veritable instrument for national development. That is why governments at all levels and individuals invest heavily on it. Some obtain it through the full-time outlet and others through the part-time basis. The sandwich is specially designed for up-skills of education workforce. Four universities located in Mid-Western States of Nigeria formed the population of the study while two of them where isolated for study which covered 2001/02 to 2009/10 academic sessions. The variables of interest which were location and gender were examined. It was found that there was spatial variation in the supply of admission places in the part-time programmes. Growth was recorded though more females were supplied admission places in the sandwich programmes during the period covered by the study. Suggestions were made for improvement
Nuclear history of a pre‐mRNA determines the translational activity of cytoplasmic mRNA

The pathways of synthesis and maturation of pre‐messenger RNA in the nucleus have a direct effect on the translational efficiency of mRNA in the cytoplasm. The transcription of intron‐less mRNA in vivo directs this mRNA towards translational silencing. The presence of an intron at the 5′ end of the transcript relieves this silencing, whereas an intron at the 3′ end further represses translation. These regulatory events are strongly dependent on the transcription of pre‐mRNA in the nucleus. The impact of nuclear history on regulatory events in the cytoplasm provides a novel mechanism for the control of gene expression.
Switching of metabolic–rate scaling between allometry and isometry in colonial ascidians

The metabolic rate and its scaling relationship to colony size were studied in the colonial ascidian Botrylloides simodensis. The colonial metabolic rate, measured by the oxygen consumption rate (Vo2 in millilitres of O2 per hour) and the colony mass (wet weight Mw in grams) showed the allometric relationship (Vo2 = 0.0412 Mw0.799. The power coefficient was statistically not different from 0.75, the value for unitary organisms. The size of the zooids and the tunic volume fraction in a colony were kept constant irrespective of the colonial size. These results, together with the two–dimensional colonial shape, excluded shape factors and colonial composition as possible causes of allometry. Botryllid ascidians show a takeover state in which all the zooids of the parent generation in a colony degenerate and zooids of a new generation develop in unison. The media for connection between zooids such as a common drainage system and connecting vessels to the common vascular system experienced reconstruction. The metabolic rate during the takeover state was halved and was directly proportional to the colonial mass. The scaling thus changed from being allometric to isometric. The alteration in the scaling that was associated with the loss of the connection between the zooids strongly support the hypothesis that the allometry was derived from mutual interaction among the zooids. The applicability of this hypothesis to unitary organisms is discussed.
Antihyperglycemic and antihyperlipidemic effects of guar gum on streptozotocin-induced diabetes in male rats

Background: Herbal medicine is widely used in the treatment of diseases like diabetes mellitus. We investigated the effects of guar gum in diabetic rats for the reduction of the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Dietary pattern emphasizing foods high in complex carbohydrates and fiber are associated with low blood glucose and cholesterol levels. Materials and Methods: Diet containing 0%, 5%, 10% and 20% (w/w) guar gum was fed to diabetic rats for 28 days. Blood serum glucose, triglycerides, cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels, atherogenic index levels, body weights and food intake were monitored at 0, 7.14 and 28 days after induction of diabetes. Results: In spite of the fact that diabetes elevated blood lipids in all rats after 14 days, the guar gum diet significantly decreased the serum concentration of cholesterol, triacylglicerols and LDL-C and atherogenic index. The most significant result in this study was the reduction of blood glucose in diabetic rats treated with the guar gum diet after 28 days versus non- and glibenclamide-treated rats. The gum promoted a general improvement in the condition of the diabetic rats in body weight and food intake in comparison with nontreated rats. Conclusion: The results of this research suggest that guar gum was significantly effective in comparison with glibenclamide in the treatment of hyperlipidemia and hyperglycemia in diabetes rats. Therefore, it may be suggested as a reliable fiber in diabetic regimes in diabetic patients.