Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bone indicators of grasping hands in lizards

Grasping is one of a few adaptive mechanisms that, in conjunction with clinging, hooking, arm swinging, adhering, and flying, allowed for incursion into the arboreal eco-space. Little research has been done that addresses grasping as an enhanced manual ability in non-mammalian tetrapods, with the exception of studies comparing the anatomy of muscle and tendon structure. Previous studies showed that grasping abilities allow exploitation for narrow branch habitats and that this adaptation has clear osteological consequences. The objective of this work is to ascertain the existence of morphometric descriptors in the hand skeleton of lizards related to grasping functionality. A morphological matrix was constructed using 51 morphometric variables in 278 specimens, from 24 genera and 13 families of Squamata. To reduce the dimensions of the dataset and to organize the original variables into a simpler system, three PCAs (Principal Component Analyses) were performed using the subsets of (1) carpal variables, (2) metacarpal variables, and (3) phalanges variables. The variables that demonstrated the most significant contributions to the construction of the PCA synthetic variables were then used in subsequent analyses. To explore which morphological variables better explain the variations in the functional setting, we ran Generalized Linear Models for the three different sets. This method allows us to model the morphology that enables a particular functional trait. Grasping was considered the only response variable, taking the value of 0 or 1, while the original variables retained by the PCAs were considered predictor variables. Our analyses yielded six variables associated with grasping abilities: two belong to the carpal bones, two belong to the metacarpals and two belong to the phalanges. Grasping in lizards can be performed with hands exhibiting at least two different independently originated combinations of bones. The first is a combination of a highly elongated centrale bone, reduced palmar sesamoid, divergence angles above 90°, and slender metacarpal V and phalanges, such as exhibited by Anolis sp. and Tropidurus sp. The second includes an elongated centrale bone, lack of a palmar sesamoid, divergence angles above 90°, and narrow metacarpal V and phalanges, as exhibited by geckos. Our data suggest that the morphological distinction between graspers and non-graspers is demonstrating the existence of ranges along the morphological continuum within which a new ability is generated. Our results support the hypothesis of the nested origin of grasping abilities within arboreality. Thus, the manifestation of grasping abilities as a response to locomotive selective pressure in the context of narrow-branch eco-spaces could also enable other grasping-dependent biological roles, such as prey handling.
Superquakes and Supercycles

Online Material: Additional site maps, plots and correlation fits. The recent 2011 M w 9.0 Tohoku, Japan, and the 2004 M w 9.15 Sumatra–Andaman superquakes have humbled many in earthquake research. Neither region was thought capable of earthquakes exceeding M w∼8.4. Appealing proposed relationships to predict the size of earthquakes in subduction zones, such as that between earthquake magnitude and parameters such as lower plate age and convergence rate (Ruff and Kanamori, 1980) and plate coupling based on anchored slabs (Scholz and Campos, 1995), at least have many exceptions and may not be valid. Both earthquakes occurred where the subducting plate edge was quite old, ∼50–130 Ma. The role of thick sediments smoothing the plate interface and maximizing rupture area has been considered a contributing factor, and it seems to influence many recent great earthquakes (Ruff, 1989). The Tohoku event is also contrary to this hypothesis. Clearly, much remains to be learned about these great events, so much so that most previous estimates of maximum earthquake size in subduction plate boundaries should be considered suspect, and perhaps other fault systems as well (McCaffrey, 2007, 2008). Our perspective on this issue is clearly hampered by short historical and even shorter instrumental records. The examples noted earlier indicate that basing estimations of maximum earthquake size or models of earthquake recurrence on such short‐term records alone clearly cannot encompass the range of fault behavior, even when historical records may be >1000 years long as in Japan. Here, we present several examples of areas where long geologic and paleoseismic records can illuminate a much wider range of seismic behaviors compared with those deduced from historical and instrumental data, and speculate on models of long‐term fault behavior based …
Method for yielding a database of location fingerprints in WLAN

Location fingerprinting in wireless LAN positioning has received much attention recently. One of the key issues of this technique is generating the database of fingerprints. The conventional method does not utilise the spatial correlation of measurements sampled at adjacent reference points, and the training process is not an easy task. A new method based on kriging is presented which can not only achieve more accurate estimation, but can also greatly reduce the workload and save training time. This can make the fingerprinting technique more flexible and easier to implement.
Profile of Immune Cells in Axillary Lymph Nodes Predicts Disease-Free Survival in Breast Cancer

Background While lymph node metastasis is among the strongest predictors of disease-free and overall survival for patients with breast cancer, the immunological nature of tumor-draining lymph nodes is often ignored, and may provide additional prognostic information on clinical outcome. Methods and Findings We performed immunohistochemical analysis of 47 sentinel and 104 axillary (nonsentinel) nodes from 77 breast cancer patients with 5 y of follow-up to determine if alterations in CD4, CD8, and CD1a cell populations predict nodal metastasis or disease-free survival. Sentinel and axillary node CD4 and CD8 T cells were decreased in breast cancer patients compared to control nodes. CD1a dendritic cells were also diminished in sentinel and tumor-involved axillary nodes, but increased in tumor-free axillary nodes. Axillary node, but not sentinel node, CD4 T cell and dendritic cell populations were highly correlated with disease-free survival, independent of axillary metastasis. Immune profiling of ALN from a test set of 48 patients, applying CD4 T cell and CD1a dendritic cell population thresholds of CD4 ≥ 7.0% and CD1a ≥ 0.6%, determined from analysis of a learning set of 29 patients, provided significant risk stratification into favorable and unfavorable prognostic groups superior to clinicopathologic characteristics including tumor size, extent or size of nodal metastasis (CD4, p < 0.001 and CD1a, p < 0.001). Moreover, axillary node CD4 T cell and CD1a dendritic cell populations allowed more significant stratification of disease-free survival of patients with T1 (primary tumor size 2 cm or less) and T2 (5 cm or larger) tumors than all other patient characteristics. Finally, sentinel node immune profiles correlated primarily with the presence of infiltrating tumor cells, while axillary node immune profiles appeared largely independent of nodal metastases, raising the possibility that, within axillary lymph nodes, immune profile changes and nodal metastases represent independent processes. Conclusion These findings demonstrate that the immune profile of tumor-draining lymph nodes is of novel biologic and clinical importance for patients with early stage breast cancer.
A Balanced Digital Phase Shifter by a Novel Switching-Mode Topology

A balanced digital phase shifter by a novel switching-mode topology is proposed. A 3-bit balanced digital phase shifter is given as an example, the working bandwidth of which is from 2.3 to 2.7 GHz. The proposed 3-bit balanced phase shifter comprises two balanced loaded-line phase shifters (90<sup>°</sup> and 45<sup>°</sup>) and six twist-line broadband 180<sup>°</sup> phase shifters. The balanced loaded-line digital phase shifter changes phases while the even- or odd-mode signal is excited. The 180<sup>°</sup> phase shifter controls the balanced signal to be even or odd mode. The commensurate transmission line filter is used as the biasing circuit.
Effects of intrathecal bupivacaine and bupivacaine plus sufentanil in elderly patients undergoing transurethral resection.

INTRODUCTION The present study compared the effect of bupivacaine and bupivacaine + sufentanil on hemodynamic parameters and characteristics of spinal anesthesia in elderly patients undergoing transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) under spinal anesthesia. TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS The study included 40 American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) I-III patients scheduled to undergo TURP. Patients were blindly and randomly divided into two groups. Group B (n = 20) received 10 mg of intrathecal bupivacaine and group BS (n = 20) received 7.5 mg of bupivacaine + 5 μg of sufentanil. Sensory and motor block characteristics, hemodynamic changes, side effects, and time to first analgesic requirement were recorded. No differences in mean arterial pressure or heart rate, time for sensory blockade to reach the T10 level, and maximum sensory level were observed between the two groups. The time to first analgesic request was longer in group BS (P < 0.05). Motor block was significantly higher in group B (P < 0.05). In terms of side effects, no statistically significant differences occurred between the groups. CONCLUSIONS Similar hemodynamic stability and sufficient level of sensory blockade were provided by bupivacaine and bupivacaine + sufentanil used for spinal anesthesia in patients undergoing TUR. Due to the fact that less motor block was observed and the time to first analgesic request was longer, the combination of bupivacaine + sufentanil might be appropriate for patients undergoing TUR.
The Lisbon Treaty: Law, Politics, and Treaty Reform

1. Reform, Process, and Architecture 2. Legislation, Regulation, and Participation 3. Executive Power, Contestation, and Resolution 4. The Courts, Continuity, and Change 5. Competence, Categories, and Control 6. Rights, Legality, and Legitimacy 7. Legal Acts, Hierarchy, and Simplification 8. The Treaty, the Economic, and the Social 9. Freedom, Security, and Justice 10. Foreign Policy, Security, and Defence 11. Conclusion Epilogue: Economic Crisis, the Euro, and the Future
On Certain Exponential Sums and the Distribution of Diffie–Hellman Triples

Let g be a primitive root modulo a prime p. It is proved that the triples (gx, gy, gxy), x, y = 1, …, p−1, are uniformly distributed modulo p in the sense of H. Weyl. This result is based on the following upper bound for double exponential sums. Let ε>0 be fixed. Then ∑x,y=1p‐1exp(2πiagx+bgx+cgxp)=O(p31/16+ε)
Cracking the Language Code: Neural Mechanisms Underlying Speech Parsing

Word segmentation, detecting word boundaries in continuous speech, is a critical aspect of language learning. Previous research in infants and adults demonstrated that a stream of speech can be readily segmented based solely on the statistical and speech cues afforded by the input. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the neural substrate of word segmentation was examined on-line as participants listened to three streams of concatenated syllables, containing either statistical regularities alone, statistical regularities and speech cues, or no cues. Despite the participants’ inability to explicitly detect differences between the speech streams, neural activity differed significantly across conditions, with left-lateralized signal increases in temporal cortices observed only when participants listened to streams containing statistical regularities, particularly the stream containing speech cues. In a second fMRI study, designed to verify that word segmentation had implicitly taken place, participants listened to trisyllabic combinations that occurred with different frequencies in the streams of speech they just heard (“words,” 45 times; “partwords,” 15 times; “nonwords,” once). Reliably greater activity in left inferior and middle frontal gyri was observed when comparing words with partwords and, to a lesser extent, when comparing partwords with nonwords. Activity in these regions, taken to index the implicit detection of word boundaries, was positively correlated with participants’ rapid auditory processing skills. These findings provide a neural signature of on-line word segmentation in the mature brain and an initial model with which to study developmental changes in the neural architecture involved in processing speech cues during language learning.
Zooplankton density increases in an irrigation reservoir during drought conditions

Harlan County Reservoir, located in south-central Nebraska, entered a drought in 2003, providing an opportunity to monitor the effects of drought on the zooplankton community in this irrigation reservoir. We sampled the zooplankton community at 15 standardized locations every other week from April through the third week of October from 2003-2011. Total zooplankton densities were higher (131.8 ±13.1 L -1 ) in drought reservoir conditions (2003-2006) than under normal conditions (66.6 ± 9.0 L -1 ) (2007-2011). The zooplankton community was dominated by copepods throughout the study, with adult and immature (nauplii) copepods contributing 86.5% of the total zooplankton, while Daphnia spp. made up only 9.9%. Correlational analyses showed a positive relationship between total zooplankton, copepods and copepod nauplii and chlorophyll a and turbidity during normal reservoir conditions. Daphnia species showed a negative relationship with chlorophyll a during normal conditions and a negative relationship with turbidity in drought conditions. Our results document the dynamics of lower trophic levels during fluctuating water availability; such information will likely improve conservation and management of aquatic ecosystems during future episodes of changing environmental conditions.
Credit Assignment for Pole Balancing with Learning Classifier Systems. In

(1994). Implicit niching in a learning classifier system: na-ture's way. A network that learns to recognize three-dimensional objects.40 quality of learning need not be high. However, as research moves on to tackle more complex environments , increased examination of other concepts of classifier fitness is surely in order.
VWA domain of S5a restricts the ability to bind ubiquitin and Ubl to the 26S proteasome

The only stoichiometric proteasomal subunit found to reside outside the proteasome is the ubiquitin receptor S5a. S5a-dependent binding of substrates and shuttle factors is restricted to occur only on the proteasome, thus increasing efficiency of substrate degradation by the 26S proteasome.
A conservative real-time garbage collector for C/C++ running on top of RTEMS

Software is getting larger and more complex. To simplify programming, languages with automatic memory management are used. In embedded systems the languages C/C++ are commonly used, which do not provide such functionalities. This paper addresses real-time garbage collection for embedded systems. We developed a conservative collector, which supports C/C++. The collector uses the mark-sweep algorithm and an installation barrier. Synchronisation points ensure termination. Memory fragmentation is avoided by memory partitioning. Compared to existing approaches, our collector provides realtime support without restrictions on the compiler, programming language or to need special hardware. We only use common hardware functionalities normally used by an operating system to avoid compiler modifications and increase performance.
Neutral-independent geometric features for facial expression recognition

Improving Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) necessitates building an efficient human emotion recognition approach that involves various modalities such as facial expressions, hand gestures, acoustic data, and biophysiological data. In this paper, we address the perception of the universal human emotions (happy, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness) from facial expressions. In our companion-based assistant system, facial expression is considered as complementary aspect to the hand gestures. Unlike many other approaches, we do not rely on prior knowledge of the neutral state to infer the emotion because annotating the neutral state usually involves human intervention. We use features extracted from just eight fiducial facial points. Our results are in a good agreement with those of a state-of-the-art approach that exploits features derived from 68 facial points and requires prior knowledge of the neutral state. Then, we evaluate our approach on two databases. Finally, we investigate the influence of the facial points detection error on our emotion recognition approach.
Keck Spectroscopy of Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies in the Virgo Cluster

Keck spectroscopy is presented for four dwarf elliptical galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. At this distance, the mean velocity and velocity dispersion are well resolved as a function of radius between 100 to 1000 pc, allowing a clear separation between nuclear and surrounding galaxy light. We find a variety of dispersion profiles for the inner regions of these objects, and show that none of these galaxies is rotationally flattened.
The Decline of the Welfare State: Demography and Globalization

In The Decline of the Welfare State, Assaf Razin and Efraim Sadka use a political economy framework to analyze the effects of aging populations, migration, and globalization on the deteriorating system of financing welfare state benefits as we know them. Their timely analysis, supported by a unified theoretical framework and empirical findings, demonstrates how the combined forces of demographic change and globalization will make it impossible for the welfare state to maintain itself on its present scale. In much of the developed world, the proportion of the population aged 60 and over is expected to rise dramatically over the coming years -- from 35 percent in 2000 to a projected 66 percent in 2050 in the European Union and from 27 percent to 47 percent in the United States -- which may necessitate higher tax burdens and greater public debt to maintain national pension systems at current levels. Low-skill migration produces additional strains on welfare-state financing because such migrants typically receive benefits that exceed what they pay in taxes. Higher capital taxation, which could potentially be used to finance welfare benefits, is made unlikely by international tax competition brought about by globalization of the capital market. Applying a political economy model and drawing on empirical data from the EU and the United States, the authors draw an unconventional and provocative conclusion from these developments. They argue that the political pressure from both aging and migrant populations indirectly generates political processes that favor trimming rather than expanding the welfare state. The combined pressures of aging, migration, and globalization will shift the balance of political power and generate public support from the majority of the voting population for cutting back traditional welfare state benefits.
A novel tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) polymorphism associated with asthma in Australian women

Background: Airway remodelling is a characteristic feature of chronic asthma and there is evidence that an airway imbalance between levels of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1) is associated with airway remodelling. On this basis, we hypothesised that polymorphisms in the MMP-9 and TIMP-1 genes were associated with the disease process. Methods: A number of MMP-9 and TIMP-1 gene polymorphisms were examined in an adult white Australian population of mild (n = 259), moderate (n = 213) and severe (n = 71) asthmatics and non-asthmatic controls (n = 406) using PCR-RFLP and PCR-SSCP analyses. Results: MMP-9 –1562C>T and 836G>A (Arg279Gln) were not associated with asthma (p⩾0.15) or asthma severity (p⩾0.13), and TIMP-1 434T>C (Phe124Phe) was not associated with asthma in women (p = 0.094) or men (p = 0.207). In this population, MMP-9 −861C>T and TIMP-1 323C>T (Pro87Pro) were not informative (with minor allele frequencies of <1%), and MMP-9 –1702T>A and TIMP-1 595C>T (Ser178Phe) were not detectable. However, a novel polymorphism was detected in the TIMP-1 gene 536C>T (Ile158Ile) which was significantly associated with asthma in women (p = 0.011; OR = 5.54, 95% CI 1.66 to 34.4) but not in men (p = 1.0). 536C>T was found to be in linkage disequilibrium with 434T>C, and haplotype analysis supported an association with asthma (p = 0.014). Conclusions: This is the first reported association between a polymorphism in the TIMP-1 gene and asthma, and supports the hypothesis that the protease/antiprotease balance has an important role in this common disease.
Model-comparison study of quasi-ballistic electron transport in nanoscale semiconductor devices

We compare two relaxation time approximation (RTA) models of the 1-D Boltzmann transport equation, one of Sano and the other of Gnani et ah. Using an asymmetric parabola to approximate the potential-energy profile, we determine semi-analytically the distribution function at the virtual source (VS). We consider three different forms of energy dependence of the relaxation time (RT). The backscattering coefficient and ballistic efficiency are calculated and compared for each RTA model. We find that the VS model is strictly applicable only to the case of a constant mean-free-path.
Mechanical Systems: Symmetry and Reduction

Reduction theory is concerned with mechanical systems with symmetries. It constructs a lower dimensional reduced space in which associated conservation laws are taken out and symmetries are \factored out" and studies the relation between the dynamics of the given system with the dynamics on the reduced space. This subject is important in many areas, such as stability of relative equilibria, geometric phases and integrable systems.
Diagnosing Malaria Cases Referred to the Malaria Reference Laboratory in Tehran University of Medical Science, Iran

Background: The number of malaria cases is declining worldwide; however, it remains as a serious health problem. Diagnosing unusual cases is the most important issue to manage the problem. This study designed to describe the number of falciparum and vivax malaria infected patients referred to Malaria Reference Laboratory in Tehran University of Medical Science from 2000 to 2012. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted based on the collected questionnaires from each patient referred to the laboratory. Diagnosing results and demographic information for positive cases were analyzed using SPSS software. Problematic cases were evaluated for any difficulties in diagnosis or in clinical signs. Scanning and molecular methods were performed whenever there was an atypical case referred to the laboratory. Some of the samples had various difficulties for diagnosing such as presence of fussed gametocytes and schizonts of Plasmodium falciparum in peripheral blood and CCHF like hemoragic disorders. Results: Plasmodium vivax caused a large proportion of the cases (76.1%) in contrast with P. falciparum that included smaller proportion (22.8%) and the rest (1.1) belonged to mixed infection. Most of the positive cases (69.6%) were belonged to Afghani people. Men (94.6%) showed more infection than women (5.4%), moreover the most infection (44.5%) was seen at a range of 21–30 yr. Conclusion: In the case of existing atypical issues to diagnose, it is needed to perform more precise microscopical examination beyond the current standard conditions. Sometimes molecular method is required to verify the exact agent of the disease.