Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-resolution leaf wax carbon and hydrogen isotopic record of the late Holocene paleoclimate in arid Central Asia

Abstract. Central Asia is located at the confluence of large-scale atmospheric circulation systems. It is thus likely to be highly susceptible to changes in the dynamics of those systems; however, little is still known about the regional paleoclimate history. Here we present carbon and hydrogen isotopic compositions of n-alkanoic acids from a late Holocene sediment core from Lake Karakuli (eastern Pamir, Xinjiang Province, China). Instrumental evidence and isotope-enabled climate model experiments with the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique Zoom model version 4 (LMDZ4) demonstrate that δ D values of precipitation in the region are influenced by both temperature and precipitation amount. We find that these parameters are inversely correlated on an annual scale, i.e., the climate has varied between relatively cool and wet and more warm and dry over the last 50 years. Since the isotopic signals of these changes are in the same direction and therefore additive, isotopes in precipitation are sensitive recorders of climatic changes in the region. Additionally, we infer that plants use year-round precipitation (including snowmelt), and thus leaf wax δ D values must also respond to shifts in the proportion of moisture derived from westerly storms during late winter and early spring. Downcore results give evidence for a gradual shift to cooler and wetter climates between 3.5 and 2.5 cal kyr BP, interrupted by a warm and dry episode between 3.0 and 2.7 kyr BP. Further cool and wet episodes occur between 1.9 and 1.5 and between 0.6 and 0.1 kyr BP, the latter coeval with the Little Ice Age. Warm and dry episodes from 2.5 to 1.9 and 1.5 to 0.6 kyr BP coincide with the Roman Warm Period and Medieval Climate Anomaly, respectively. Finally, we find a drying tend in recent decades. Regional comparisons lead us to infer that the strength and position of the westerlies, and wider northern hemispheric climate dynamics, control climatic shifts in arid Central Asia, leading to complex local responses. Our new archive from Lake Karakuli provides a detailed record of the local signatures of these climate transitions in the eastern Pamir.
Semantifying Triples from Open Information Extraction Systems

The last few years have witnessed some remarkable success of the stateof- the art unsupervised knowledge extraction systems like NELL and REVERB. These systems are gifted with typically web-scale coverage but are often plagued with ambiguity due to lack of proper schema or unique identifiers for the instances. This classifies them apart from extraction systems like DBPEDIA, YAGO or FREEBASE which have precise information content but have smaller coverage. In this work we bring together the former to enrich the later with high precision novel facts and present a statistical approach to discover new knowledge. In particular, we semantify NELL triples using DBPEDIA.
Multiple pathways of inhibition shape bipolar cell responses in the retina

Abstract Bipolar cells (BCs) are critical relay neurons in the retina that are organized into parallel signaling pathways. The three main signaling pathways in the mammalian retina are the rod, ON cone, and OFF cone BCs. Rod BCs mediate incrementing dim light signals from rods, and ON cone and OFF cone BCs mediate incrementing and decrementing brighter light signals from cones, respectively. The outputs of BCs are shaped by inhibitory inputs from GABAergic and glycinergic amacrine cells in the inner plexiform layer, mediated by three distinct types of inhibitory receptors: GABAA, GABAC, and glycine receptors. The three main BC pathways receive distinct forms of inhibition from these three receptors that shape their light-evoked inhibitory signals. Rod BC inhibition is dominated by slow GABAC receptor inhibition, while OFF cone BCs are dominated by glycinergic inhibition. The inhibitory inputs to BCs are also shaped by serial inhibitory connections between GABAergic amacrine cells that limit the spatial profile of BC inhibition. We discuss our recent studies on how inhibitory inputs to BCs are shaped by receptor expression, receptor properties, and neurotransmitter release properties and how these affect the output of BCs.
FUNDAMENTAL ASPECTS OF EPISODIC ACCRETION CHEMISTRY EXPLORED WITH SINGLE-POINT MODELS

We explore a set of single-point chemical models to study the fundamental chemical aspects of episodic accretion in low-mass embedded protostars. Our goal is twofold: (1) to understand how the repeated heating and cooling of the envelope affects the abundances of CO and related species; and (2) to identify chemical tracers that can be used as a novel probe of the timescales and other physical aspects of episodic accretion. We develop a set of single-point models that serve as a general prescription for how the chemical composition of a protostellar envelope is altered by episodic accretion. The main effect of each accretion burst is to drive CO ice off the grains in part of the envelope. The duration of the subsequent quiescent stage (before the next burst hits) is similar to or shorter than the freeze-out timescale of CO, allowing the chemical effects of a burst to linger long after the burst has ended. We predict that the resulting excess of gas-phase CO can be observed with single-dish or interferometer facilities as evidence of an accretion burst in the past 103–104 yr.
Use of Natural Antimicrobial Peptides and Bacterial Biopolymers for Cultured Pearl Production

Cultured pearls are the product of grafting and rearing of Pinctada margaritifera pearl oysters in their natural environment. Nucleus rejections and oyster mortality appear to result from bacterial infections or from an inappropriate grafting practice. To reduce the impact of bacterial infections, synthetic antibiotics have been applied during the grafting practice. However, the use of such antibiotics presents a number of problems associated with their incomplete biodegradability, limited efficacy in some cases, and an increased risk of selecting for antimicrobial resistant bacteria. We investigated the application of a marine antimicrobial peptide, tachyplesin, which is present in the Japanese horseshoe crab Tachypleus tridentatus, in combination with two marine bacterial exopolymers as alternative treatment agents. In field studies, the combination treatment resulted in a significant reduction in graft failures vs. untreated controls. The combination of tachyplesin (73 mg/L) with two bacterial exopolysaccharides (0.5% w/w) acting as filming agents, reduces graft-associated bacterial contamination. The survival data were similar to that reported for antibiotic treatments. These data suggest that non-antibiotic treatments of pearl oysters may provide an effective means of improving oyster survival following grafting procedures.
Prevalence and clinical profile of fungal rhinosinusitis

Background There are only a few landmark studies from the Indian subcontinent on fungal rhinosinusitis. The lack of awareness among clinicians regarding the varying clinical presentations of fungal rhinosinusitis prompted us to undertake this study. Objective To determine the prevalence, etiologic basis, clinical features, radiologic features, and microscopic features of fungal rhinosinusitis, and to evaluate the various treatment modalities available. Methods This was a prospective study in which evaluation of 100 patients with chronic rhinosinusitis was done. Specimens collected were subjected to both microbiology and pathologic examination; data collected, including clinical and radiologic features, were analyzed by the Pearson χ2 test and Fisher's exact test. Results The prevalence of fungal rhinosinusitis in our study was 30% (n = 30). Mucor was the most commonly isolated species (n = 15 [50%]) of fungus. Pathologic examination had a higher sensitivity (76.67%) compared with microbiology tests (50%) in the diagnosis of fungal rhinosinusitis. Fungus ball (n = 14 [46.6%]) was the most prevalent entity in the spectrum of fungal rhinosinusitis. Forty percent of cases (n = 12) were of invasive fungal rhinosinusitis. The prevalence of fungal rhinosinusitis was higher among individuals who were immunocompetent (n = 17 [56.6%]). Of patients who were immunocompromised, 84.6% (n = 11) had mucormycosis. Conclusions Unilateral involvement of paranasal sinuses was more in favor of fungal etiology. Complications were more common in fungal rhinosinusitis caused by Mucor species. Mucormycosis, a rare clinical entity, in subjects who were immunocompetent, had a high prevalence in our study.
Analyzing appearance and contour based methods for object categorization

Object recognition has reached a level where we can identify a large number of previously seen and known objects. However, the more challenging and important task of categorizing previously unseen objects remains largely unsolved. Traditionally, contour and shape based methods are regarded most adequate for handling the generalization requirements needed for this task. Appearance based methods, on the other hand, have been successful in object identification and detection scenarios. Today little work is done to systematically compare existing methods and characterize their relative capabilities for categorizing objects. In order to compare different methods we present a new database specifically tailored to the task of object categorization. It contains high-resolution color images of 80 objects from 8 different categories, for a total of 3280 images. It is used to analyze the performance of several appearance and contour based methods. The best categorization result is obtained by an appropriate combination of different methods.
Screening for left ventricular systolic dysfunction using GP-reported ECGs.

BACKGROUND Diagnostic echocardiography has poor access for patients with suspected heart failure. Pre-echocardiography screening with electrocardiograms (ECGs) is recommended as a means of targeting this scarce resource. There are data to support this policy when ECGs are interpreted by cardiologists but not by GPs. AIM To assess the value of GP-reported ECGs as a pre-echocardiography screening test for left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD). DESIGN OF STUDY Cross-sectional study of GPs' ECG reporting skills. SETTING General practice, NHS in Scotland. METHOD A randomly selected, stratified sample of 123 Scottish GPs reviewed 180 ECGs (100 abnormal, 50 normal and 30 duplicate) from 150 patients with suspected heart failure. Forty-one patients had LVSD on echocardiography. GPs were required to categorise ECGs as normal or abnormal. RESULTS Mean sensitivity was 0.94 (95% CI = 0.92 to 0.95). Mean specificity 0.58 (95% CI = 0.56 to 0.60). Mean positive predictive value (PPV) was 0.47 (95% CI = 0.46 to 0.48). Mean negative predictive value (NPV) was 0.96 (95% CI = 0.95 to 0.97). Mean likelihood ratio was 2.39 (95% CI = 2.28 to 2.50). Seventy of 123 (57%) GPs achieved sensitivity of 0.9 and specificity of 0.5 for the detection of LVSD. CONCLUSION Most Scottish GPs have the skills to perform pre-echocardiography screening ECGs in patients with suspected LVSD. However, differences in ECG reporting performance between individual GPs will result in widely varying referral rates for echocardiography and differences in the detection rate of LVSD. The implications of these findings need to be considered when heart failure diagnostic services are being developed.
Self-organized traffic control

In this paper we propose and present preliminary results on the migration of traffic lights as roadside-based infrastructures to in-vehicle virtual signs supported only by vehicle- to-vehicle communications. We design a virtual traffic light protocol that can dynamically optimize the flow of traffic in road intersections without requiring any roadside infrastructure. Elected vehicles act as temporary road junction infrastructures and broadcast traffic light messages that are shown to drivers through in-vehicle displays. This approach renders signalized control of intersections truly ubiquitous, which significantly increases the overall traffic flow. We pro- vide compelling evidence that our proposal is a scalable and cost-effective solution to urban traffic control.
Therapeutic monitoring of aripiprazole by HPLC with column-switching and spectrophotometric detection.

Aripiprazole is a novel atypical antipsychotic drug for the treatment of schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders (1)(2)(3). The drug is metabolized by the cytochrome P450 isoenzymes 3A4 and 2D6 (4). Because of high interindividual variability in the expression of these enzymes, the aripiprazole concentration varies among healthy individuals after administration of the drug (5). In patients, insufficient response or side effects, such as somnolence, akathisia, or nausea, may result from too low or too high drug concentrations. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM), which is established practice for many antipsychotic drugs (6)(7), may be helpful for patients treated with aripiprazole. We measured aripiprazole by HPLC with column-switching and ultraviolet detection, based on a previously reported method for TDM of the antidepressant reboxetine (8). Pure drug was not available; we therefore incubated tablets containing 15 mg of aripiprazole base (Abilify®; Bristol-Myers Squibb/Otsuka Pharmaceuticals) for several days in the dark at room temperature in 15 mL per tablet of methanol (LiChrosolve; Merck) or ultrapure water adjusted to pH 2 with 0.1 mol/L HCl. Before chromatographic analysis, suspensions were shaken and cleared by centrifugation (3000 g for 5 min). Maximum solution was attained within the first 24 h. Because the mean drug concentrations in samples diluted to concentrations of 100, 200, or 500 μg/L differed little (2.7%; range, −7% to 10%) between methanol and water solutions, complete solution by methanol was assumed. Methanolic solutions were used for the preparation of calibrator samples with 6 concentrations between 50 and 500 μg/L and quality-control samples containing 50, 250, or 400 μg/L, prepared by supplementing drug-free plasma with aripiprazole. Perphenazine base from Sigma was used as internal standard in a final concentration of 0.0615 g/L. Blood for serum preparation was collected from 27 schizophrenic patients who had been treated with aripiprazole. The …
Impact of rubber surface interactions on the morphology of clusters

ABSTRACT We studied the influence of the adhesion strength of rubber chains and silica surfaces on the morphology of clusters by means of small-angle X-ray scattering experiments. We used mono- and bifunctional silanes and compare the results to untreated silica in different rubbers. We demonstrate a universal impact of the concentration on the cluster size and number of particles in agglomerates. The magnitude of the effects depends on the strength of the interactions between chains and particle surfaces. Best dispersion is obtained for bifunctional silanization.
The velocity-scalar cross spectrum of stretched spiral vortices

The stretched-spiral vortex model is used to calculate the velocity-scalar cross spectrum for homogeneous, isotropic turbulence in the presence of a mean scalar gradient. The only nonzero component of the cospectrum is that contributed by the velocity component in the direction of the imposed scalar gradient while the quadrature spectrum is identically zero, in agreement with experiment. For the velocity field provided by the stretched-spiral vortex, the velocity-scalar spectrum can be divided into two additive components contributed by the velocity components along the vortex axis, and in the plane normal to this axis, respectively. For the axial velocity field, a new exact solution of the scalar convection-diffusion equation is found exhibiting scalar variation in the direction of the vortex tube axis. An asymptotic expression was found for the cospectrum contributed by this solution and the axial velocity, with the leading order term showing a k–5/3 range. This term is produced by the winding of the initial axial velocity field by the axisymmetric vortex core. The next order term gives a k–7/3 range, and arises from the lowest order effect of the nonaxisymmetric vorticity on the evolution of the axial velocity. Its coefficient can be of either sign or zero depending on the initial conditions. The contribution to the cospectrum from the velocity in the plane of the vortex is also calculated, but no universal high wave number asymptotic form is found. The integrals are evaluated numerically and it is found that the resulting cospectrum does not remain of one sign. Its form depends on the choice of the vortex core velocity profile and time cutoff in the spectral integrals. The one-dimensional cospectrum contributed by the axial velocity is compared with the experimental data of Mydlarski and Warhaft [J. Fluid Mech. 358, 135–175 (1998)].
Multi-Cell Processing with Limited Cooperation: A Novel Framework to Timely Designs and Reduced Feedback with General Inputs

We investigate the optimal power allocation and optimal precoding for a multi-cell-processing (MCP) framework with limited cooperation. In particular, we consider two base stations(BSs) which maximize the achievable rate for two users connecting to each BS and sharing channel state information (CSI). We propose a two way channel estimation or prediction process. Such framework has promising outcomes in terms of feedback reduction and acheivable rates moving the system from one with unkown CSI at the transmitter to a system with instantanous CSI at both sides of the communication. We derive new extentions of the fundamental relation between the gradient of the mutual information and the MMSE for the conditional and non-conditional mutual information. Capitalizing on such relations, we provide the optimal power allocation and optimal precoding designs with respect to the estimated channel and MMSE. The designs introduced are optimal for multiple access (MAC) Gaussian coherent time-varying fading channels with general inputs and can be specialized to multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channels by decoding interference. The impact of interference on the capacity is quantified by the gradient of the mutual information with respect to the power, channel, and error covariance of the interferer. We provide two novel distributed MCP algorithms that provide the solutions for the optimal power allocation and optimal precoding for the UL and DL with a two way channel estimation to keep track of the channel variations over blocks of data transmission. Therefore, we provide a novel solution that allows with limited cooperation: a significant reduction in the CSI feedback from the receiver to the transmitter, and timely optimal designs of the precoding and power allocation.
Evidence on E-Banking Customer Satisfaction in the China Commercial Bank Sector

The goal of the study is to analyze factors of website quality that could influence e-banking customer satisfaction in the Chinese commercial banking industry. Moreover, the paper also tries to explain the relationship between website quality and customer satisfaction, and to find some major variables for keeping high level e-banking customer satisfaction. The data demonstrated that website quality have direct and significant effect to e-banking quality in the Chinese commercial banking industry. Besides this, the authors found that website quality is positively related to e-banking customer satisfaction. Finally, it is observed that efficiency, interactivity, security, information, ease of use and content are key factors to affect customer satisfaction in the e-banking service. After the validation of measurement scales, the hypothesis is contrasted through structural modeling. The authors validate the hypothesis and a measurement model. The paper proposes a model for analyzing empirically the link between website quality and e-banking customer satisfaction in Chinese e-banking industry.
ERP Evidence of Morphological Analysis from Orthography: A Masked Priming Study

There is broad consensus that the visual word recognition system is sensitive to morphological structure (e.g., hunter = hunt + er). Moreover, it has been assumed that the analysis of morphologically complex words (e.g., hunter) occurs only if the meaning of the complex form can be derived from the meanings of its constituents (e.g., hunt and er). However, recent behavioral work using masked priming has suggested that morphological analysis can occur at an early, orthographic level, with little influence from semantics. The present investigation examined the neurophysiological correlates of masked priming in conditions of a genuine morphological relationship (e.g., hunter-HUNT), an apparent morphological relationship (corner-CORN), and no morphological relationship (brothel-BROTH). Neural priming was indexed by the reduction of the N400 ERP component associated with targets preceded by related primes, as compared to targets preceded by unrelated primes. The mere appearance of morphological structure (corner-CORN) resulted in robust behavioral and neural priming, whose magnitude was similar to that observed in pairs with genuine morphological relationship and greater than that in the nonmorphological pairs. The results support a purely structural morphemic segmentation procedure operating in the early stages of visual word perception.
Comparison of Short-Term Postoperative Outcomes in Totally Laparoscopic Distal Gastrectomy Versus Laparoscopy-Assisted Distal Gastrectomy

Purpose The advantages of totally laparoscopic surgery in early gastric cancer (EGC) are unproven, and some concerns remain regarding the oncologic safety and technical difficulty. This study aimed to evaluate the technical feasibility and clinical benefits of totally laparoscopic distal gastrectomy (TLDG) for the treatment of gastric cancer compared with laparoscopy-assisted distal gastrectomy (LADG). Materials and Methods A retrospective review of 211 patients who underwent either TLDG (n=134; 63.5%) or LADG (n=77; 36.5%) for EGC between April 2005 and October 2013 was performed. Clinicopathologic features and surgical outcomes were analyzed and compared between the groups. Results The operative time in the TLDG group was significantly shorter than that in the LADG group (193 [range, 160~230] vs. 215 minutes [range, 170~255]) (P=0.021). The amount of blood loss during TLDG was estimated at 200 ml (range, 100~350 ml), which was significantly less than that during LADG, which was estimated at 400 ml (range, 400~700 ml) (P<0.001). The hospital stay in the TLDG group was shorter than that in the LADG group (7 vs. 8 days, P<0.001). One patient from each group underwent laparotomic conversion. Two patients in the TLDG group required reoperation: one for hemostasis after intraabdominal bleeding and 1 for repair of wound dehiscence at the umbilical port site. Conclusions TLDG for distal EGC is a technically feasible and safe procedure when performed by a surgeon with sufficient experience in laparoscopic gastrectomy and might provide the benefits of reduced operating time and intraoperative blood lossand shorter convalescence compared with LADG.