Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fish assemblages associated with oil industry structures on the continental shelf of north-western Australia.

This study provides the first assessment of fish associations with oil and gas structures located in deep water (85-175 m) on Australia's north-west continental shelf, using rare oil industry video footage obtained from remotely operated vehicles. A diverse range of taxa were observed associating with the structures, including reef-dependent species and transient pelagic species. Ten commercially fished species were observed, the most abundant of which was Lutjanus argentimaculatus, with an estimated biomass for the two deepest structures (Goodwyn and Echo) of 109 kg.
Gender Differences in Vascular Smooth Muscle Reactivity to Increases in Extracellular Sodium Salt

Hypertension is more common in men and postmenopausal women than in premenopausal women, and gender differences in sensitivity to high dietary Na+ salt have been suggested; however, the vascular mechanisms involved are unclear. We investigated whether increases in the extracellular concentration of Na+ ([Na+]e) enhance the mechanisms of vascular smooth muscle contraction and whether the vascular effects of [Na+]e exhibit gender differences. Isometric contraction and 45Ca2+ influx were measured in endothelium-denuded aortic strips that were isolated from intact male, intact female, castrated male, and ovariectomized (OVX) female Sprague-Dawley rats and incubated in Krebs’ solution (2.5 mmol/L Ca2+) containing increasing [Na+]e by the addition of 1, 3, 6, 10, 20, and 30 mmol/L NaCl. Increasing [Na+]e for 30 minutes did not increase the resting tone or 45Ca2+ influx in any group of rats. Phenylephrine (Phe) caused concentration-dependent increases in contraction and 45Ca2+ influx. In vascular strips from intact males, increasing [Na+]e by the addition of 1 to 6 mmol/L NaCl significantly increased the magnitude of Phe contraction and 45Ca2+ influx. Further increases in [Na+]e by the addition of 10, 20, and 30 mmol/L NaCl increased Phe-induced 45Ca2+ influx but inhibited Phe contraction, possibly because of excessive increases in ionic strength. Preincubation with 2,4-dichlorobenzamil (10−5 mol/L), inhibitor of the Na+-Ca2+ exchanger, or KB-R7943 (10−5 mol/L), selective inhibitor of the reverse mode of the Na+-Ca2+ exchanger, abolished the increases in Phe contraction and 45Ca2+ influx at increasing [Na+]e obtained by the addition of 1 to 6 mmol/L NaCl. Preincubation in Krebs’ solution containing control [Na+]e plus 1 to 6 mmol/L LiCl or N-methyl-d-glucamine did not increase Phe contraction. In intact females, the Phe contraction and Ca2+ influx were less than those in intact males and were not enhanced with increases in [Na+]e. The enhancement of Phe contraction and Ca2+ influx with increases in [Na+]e were not significantly different between castrated male rats and intact male rats but were greater in OVX female rats than intact female rats. In OVX female rats or castrated male rats treated with 17&bgr;-estradiol (but not 17&agr;-estradiol) subcutaneous implants, no significant changes in Phe contraction or Ca2+ influx with increases in [Na+]e were observed. In OVX female or castrated male rats simultaneously treated with 17&bgr;-estradiol plus the estrogen receptor antagonist ICI 182,780, the Phe contraction and Ca2+ influx were enhanced with increases in [Na+]e. Thus, in intact male rats, small physiological increases in [Na+]e enhance smooth muscle contraction to Phe by a mechanism involving Ca2+ entry, possibly via the reverse mode of the Na+-Ca2+ exchanger. This mechanism appears to be reduced in the presence of endogenous or exogenous estrogen and thereby protects female rats against excessive increases in vascular reactivity during high dietary Na+ intake.
Analysis of iterative receivers for clipped COFDM signaling based on soft turbo-DAR

High peak average to power ratio (PAPR) is one of the main drawback of the OFDM systems currently used in high rate communication standards. One way to reduce PAPR consists in clipping the amplitude of the OFDM signals introducing an additional noise that degrades the system performances. This paper presents in a first part, the EXIT charts analysis of an iterative reconstruction algorithm of the clipped samples in coded OFDM systems called soft turbo-DAR. This algorithm was recently presented in G Gelle et al., (2004). Moreover, after noticing that the structure of the turbo-DAR algorithm is very close to the BICM-ID receiver, we propose a new algorithm called TD-BICM which outperforms the soft turbo-DAR for E/sub b//N/sub 0/ > 5 dB.
Phase Transitions in Equilibrium and Non-Equilibrium Models on Some Topologies

On some regular and non-regular topologies, we studied the critical properties of models that present up-down symmetry, like the equilibrium Ising model and the nonequilibrium majority vote model. These are investigated on networks, like Apollonian (AN), Barabasi–Albert (BA), small-worlds (SW), Voronoi–Delaunay (VD) and Erdos–Renyi (ER) random graphs. The review here is on phase transitions, critical points, exponents and universality classes that are compared to the results obtained for these models on regular square lattices (SL).
Debt and Incomplete Financial Markets: A Case for Nominal GDP Targeting

For many households borrowing is possible only by accepting a financial contract that specifies a fixed repayment stream. However, the future income that will repay this debt is uncertain, so risk can be inefficiently distributed. This paper shows that when debt contracts are written in terms of money, a monetary policy of nominal GDP targeting improves the functioning of financial markets. By insulating households’ nominal incomes from aggregate real shocks, this policy effectively achieves risk sharing by stabilizing the ratio of debt to income. The paper also shows that when there is price stickiness, the objective of improving risk sharing should still receive considerable weight in the conduct of monetary policy relative to stabilizing inflation.
A Noise-Robust Adaptive Hybrid Pattern for Texture Classification

In this paper, we focus on developing a novel noise-robust LBP-based texture feature extraction scheme for texture classification. Specifically, two solutions have been proposed to overcome the primary two reasons that cause local binary pattern sensitive to noise. First, a hybrid model is proposed for noise-robust texture description. In this new model, the local primitive micro features are encoded with the texture's global spatial structure to reduce the noise sensitiveness. Second, we design an adaptive quantization algorithm, in which quantization thresholds are choosing adaptively on the basis of the texture's content. Higher noise-tolerance and discriminant power can be obtained in the quantization process. Based on the proposed hybrid texture description model and adaptive quantization algorithm, we develop an adaptive hybrid pattern scheme for noise-robust texture feature extraction. Compared with several state-of-the-art feature extraction schemes, our scheme leads to significant improvement in noisy texture classification.
Molecular monitoring of alloimmune-mediated injury in kidney transplant patients

Purpose of reviewRapid progress in molecular technology has allowed development of numerous molecular tools to help the clinician to evaluate graft status in kidney transplant patients. This review highlights recent findings, describing the use of molecular approaches to monitor, diagnose, and predict alloimmune-mediated injury in kidney grafts. Recent findingsBoth previously identified and newly discovered molecular markers of immune injury have been studied and validated in large multicenter studies. Recent data indicate that measuring specific gene transcripts in noninvasive samples, such as urine or peripheral blood, can identify the occurrence of acute rejection and differentiate this immune-mediated injury from other causes of graft dysfunction. Serial monitoring of urine in stable renal transplant patients may detect the onset of rejection before development of graft dysfunction. Moreover, combining gene expression analysis with conventional histopathologic assessment of grafts can enhance the accuracy of diagnosis and may also help predict graft outcomes. SummaryMeasuring specific gene transcription in noninvasive clinical samples has the potential to become an important and standard tool to monitor alloimmune-mediated injury in kidney transplant recipients. Prospective studies are ongoing to validate these findings for use of these approaches in clinical settings.
English-Chinese bilingual text-independent speaker verification

This paper describes the development of a text-independent speaker verification (TISV) system for English and Chinese utterances. We have designed and collected a bilingual database that contains spoken responses and commands in short, medium and long durations. The TISV system uses Gaussian mixtures for speaker models. Our experiments indicate that language mismatch between enrolment and verification data leads to significant degradation in verification performance (between 40% to 49%). In order to maximize robustness towards language change in test utterances, speaker models were trained with utterances from both languages. Results indicate that this can effectively close the performance degradation gap due to language mismatch as mentioned above.
Characterization of Bioactive Compounds in Tunisian Bitter Orange (Citrus aurantium L.) Peel and Juice and Determination of Their Antioxidant Activities

Citrus aurantium peel and juice aroma compounds were investigated by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), whereas phenolic compounds analysis was performed by reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC). Limonene was the major volatile compound of bitter orange peel (90.25%) and juice (91.61%). HPLC analysis of bitter orange peel and juice methanolic extracts indicated that phenolic acids constitute their main phenolic class representing 73.80% and 71.25%, respectively, followed by flavonoids (23.02% and 23.13%, resp.). p-Coumaric and ferulic acids were the most abundant phenolic compounds representing 24.68% and 23.79%, respectively, in the peel, while the juice contained 18.02% and 19.04%, respectively. The antioxidant activities of bitter orange peel and juice methanolic extracts have been evaluated using four in vitro assays, and the results were compared with the standard antioxidants (BHT, BHA, and ascorbic acid). Our findings demonstrated that Citrus aurantium peel and juice possess antioxidant activities which were less effective than those of antioxidant standards. Both extracts may be suggested as a new potential source of natural antioxidant.
HER‐2/neu Expression in Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma: Relation to Tumor Differentiation and Survival

HER-2/neu expression in pancreatic adenocarcinoma has been inconsistently reported and has not been fully evaluated with respect to histologic grade and tumor grade heterogeneity. We studied HER-2/neu expression in a series of 79 primary pancreatic carcinomas using immunohistochemical methods, with expression scored for each histologic grade represented in each tumor. We found significantly lower expression of HER-2/neu in poorly differentiated (PD) portions of tumors—those areas lacking glandular differentiation—compared to well-differentiated (WD) and moderately differentiated (MD) portions of tumors. Forty-two of 68 (62%) invasive tumors with WD or MD glands showed moderate or strong expression of HER-2/neu in WD/MD areas; only 6 of 32 (19%) invasive tumors with PD areas showed similar expression in PD. In mutually exclusive patient sets, we also found a statistically different prevalence of HER-2/neu expression in patients with PD (6/32 cases; 19%) and without PD (29/47 cases; 62%) tumors (p < 0.001). Twenty-three cases had directly comparable areas of PD versus MD or WD. In 19 of 23 cases HER-2/neu expression was graded comparatively lower (or negative) in areas of PD than in MD or WD. Overall 46 of 79 cases (58%) showed moderate to strong HER-2/neu expression inclusive of all histologic grades, and 63 of 79 (80%) cases were HER-2/neu positive, if including weak or focal staining. There was no significant difference in the survival of patients with HER-2/neu-positive versus-negative tumors or in patients with versus without PD tumors. We have confirmed that although HER-2/neu gene expression is common to many pancreatic carcinomas, it is not common to tumors lacking glandular differentiation. HER-2/neu gene expression could not be related to survival differences—perhaps due to overall poor survival within adenocarcinomas of the pancreas—but the pattern of HER-2/neu expression suggests a relationship to glandular differentiation and early oncogenesis.
A toolkit for analysing large-scale plant small RNA datasets

UNLABELLED Recent developments in high-throughput sequencing technologies have generated considerable demand for tools to analyse large datasets of small RNA sequences. Here, we describe a suite of web-based tools for processing plant small RNA datasets. Our tools can be used to identify micro RNAs and their targets, compare expression levels in sRNA loci, and find putative trans-acting siRNA loci. AVAILABILITY The tools are freely available for use at http://srna-tools.cmp. uea.ac. uk.
Selectivity of Face Aftereffects for Expressions and Anti-Expressions

Adapting to a facial expression can alter the perceived expression of subsequently viewed faces. However, it remains unclear whether this adaptation affects each expression independently or transfers from one expression to another, and whether this transfer impedes or enhances responses to a different expression. To test for these interactions, we probed the basic expressions of anger, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and disgust, adapting to one expression and then testing on all six. Each expression was varied in strength by morphing it with a common neutral facial expression. Observers determined the threshold level required to correctly identify each expression, before or after adapting to a face with a neutral or intense expression. The adaptation was strongly selective for the adapting category; responses to the adapting expression were reduced, while other categories showed little consistent evidence of either suppression or facilitation. In a second experiment we instead compared adaptation to each expression and its anti-expression. The latter are defined by the physically complementary facial configuration, yet appear much more ambiguous as expressions. In this case, for most expressions the opposing faces produced aftereffects of opposite sign in the perceived expression. These biases suggest that the adaptation acts in part by shifting the perceived neutral point for the facial configuration. This is consistent with the pattern of renormalization suggested for adaptation to other facial attributes, and thus may reflect a generic level of configural coding. However, for most categories aftereffects were stronger for expressions than anti-expressions, pointing to the possible influence of an additional component of the adaptation at sites that explicitly represent facial expressions. At either level our results are consistent with other recent work in suggesting that the six expressions are defined by dimensions that are largely independently normalized by adaptation, possibly because the facial configurations conveying different expressions vary in independent ways.
A Collaborative Decentralized Approach to Web Search

Most explanations of the user behavior while interacting with the web are based on a top-down approach, where the entire Web, viewed as a vast collection of pages and interconnection links, is used to predict how the users interact with it. A prominent example of this approach is the random-surfer model, the core ingredient behind Google's PageRank. This model exploits the linking structure of the Web to estimate the percentage of web surfers viewing any given page. Contrary to the top-down approach, a bottom-up approach starts from the user and incrementally builds the dynamics of the web as the result of the users' interaction with it. The second approach has not being widely investigated, although there are numerous advantages over the top-down approach regarding (at least) personalization and decentralization of the required infrastructure for web tools. In this paper, we propose a bottom-up approach to study the web dynamics based on web-related data browsed, collected, tagged, and semi-organized by end users. Our approach has been materialized into a hybrid bottom-up search engine that produces search results based solely on user provided web-related data and their sharing among users. We conduct an extensive experimental study to demonstrate the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of user generated web-related data, their strength, and weaknesses as well as to compare the search results of our bottom-up search engine with those of a traditional one. Our study shows that a bottom-up search engine starts from a core consisting of the most interesting part of the Web (according to user opinions) and incrementally (and measurably) improves its ranking, coverage, and accuracy. Finally, we discuss how our approach can be integrated with PageRank, resulting in a new page ranking algorithm that can uniquely combine link analysis with users' preferences.
On the stabilization of a cable with a tip mass

In this note, we consider a vertical cable which is pinched at the upper end. A mass is attached at the lower end where a control force is also applied. We show that this hybrid system is uniformly stabilized by choosing a suitable control law for the control force depending on the velocity and angular velocity at the free end. Moreover for specific values of the feedback coefficients, we obtain the rate of decay of the energy of the system. >
Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation

If you reward your children for doing their homework, they will usually respond by getting it done. But is this the most effective In psychology publisher's weekly recommended, read with life is also excellent. Deci assumes that this book because people may be able to behave in carrying out. He she relates well as possible, to understand than religious terminology. Explaining the semester is a book incorporated into book.
Impact of prolonged infusions of the putative differentiating agent sodium phenylbutyrate on myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia.

The aromatic fatty acid sodium phenylbutyrate (PB) promotes cytostasis and differentiation in a wide variety of tumor types; among several molecular activities, inhibition of histone deacetylase (HDAC) may account for many of its pharmacodynamic effects. A Phase I study demonstrated promising preliminary evidence of clinical activity in acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome; however, plasma concentrations achieved at the maximum tolerated dose were less than those targeted based on in vitro studies. Because prolonged exposure to suboptimal concentrations of PB in vitro led to pharmacodynamic changes similar to a more brief exposure to higher concentrations, a study of the feasibility of prolonged administration of sodium PB was performed. Selected patients with acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome were treated with sodium PB as a continuous i.v. infusion via ambulatory infusion pump. Sequential cohorts were treated for 7 consecutive days out of 14 or with 21 consecutive days out of 28. Prolonged infusions were well tolerated; dose-limiting central nervous system toxicity developed in 1 of 23 patients treated. End-of-infusion plasma concentrations were maintained within a range sufficient to inhibit HDAC. Two patients on the 21/28 schedule developed hematological improvement. Prolonged infusions of PB are well tolerated making this an attractive platform for the clinical investigation of HDAC inhibition.
Precision Orbit of δ Delphini and Prospects for Astrometric Detection of Exoplanets

Combining visual and spectroscopic orbits of binary stars leads to a determination of the full 3D orbit, individual masses, and distance to the system. We present a full analysis of the evolved binary system δ Delphini using astrometric data from the MIRC and PAVO instruments on the CHARA long-baseline interferometer, 97 new spectra from the Fairborn Observatory, and 87 unpublished spectra from the Lick Observatory. We determine the full set of orbital elements for δ Del, along with masses of 1.78 ± 0.07 M⊙ and 1.62 ± 0.07 M⊙ for each component, and a distance of 63.61 ± 0.89 pc. These results are important in two contexts: for testing stellar evolution models and for defining the detection capabilities for future planet searches. We find that the evolutionary state of this system is puzzling, as our measured flux ratios, radii, and masses imply a ∼200 Myr age difference between the components, using standard stellar evolution models. Possible explanations for this age discrepancy include mass transfer scenarios with a now-ejected tertiary companion. For individual measurements taken over a span of two years, we achieve <10 μas precision on the differential position with 10 minute observations. The high precision of our astrometric orbit suggests that exoplanet detection capabilities are within reach of MIRC at CHARA. We compute exoplanet detection limits around δ Del and conclude that, if this precision is extended to wider systems, we should be able to detect most exoplanets >2 MJ on orbits >0.75 au around individual components of hot binary stars via differential astrometry.
Heterogeneity of tibial plateau cartilage in response to a physiological compressive strain rate

Knowledge of the extent to which tibial plateau cartilage displays non‐uniform mechanical topography under physiologically relevant loading conditions is critical to evaluating the role of biomechanics in knee osteoarthritis. Cartilage explants from 21 tibial plateau sites of eight non‐osteoarthritic female cadaveric knees (age: 41–54; BMI: 14–20) were tested in unconfined compression at 100% strain/s. The elastic tangent modulus at 10% strain (E10%) was calculated for each site and averaged over four geographic regions: not covered by meniscus (I); covered by meniscus—anterior (II); covered by meniscus—exterior (III); and covered by meniscus—posterior (IV). A repeated‐measures mixed model analysis of variance was used to test for effects of plateau, region, and their interaction on E10%. Effect sizes were calculated for each region pair. E10% was significantly different (p < 0.05) for all regional comparisons, except I–II and III–IV. The regional pattern of variation was consistent across individuals. Moderate to strong effect sizes were evident for regional comparisons other than I–II on the lateral side and III–IV on both sides. Healthy tibial cartilage exhibits significant mechanical heterogeneity that manifests in a common regional pattern across individuals. These findings provide a foundation for evaluating the biomechanical mechanisms of knee osteoarthritis. © 2012 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 31: 370–375, 2013