Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Substitution of germanium for boron in plant growth.

The observation was confirmed that the addition of germanium dioxide (soluble form) to the nutrient solution can delay for a short time the appearance of boron deficiency symptoms on the shoots of sunflower plants (Helianthus annuus L.). This appeared to be true, however, only under growing conditions in which the plants had a low boron requirement. The delay in the appearance of boron deficiency symptoms by administering germanium was demonstrated in sunflower plants ranging in age from 7 to 20 days. This effect was noted whether the germanium was administered prior to or at the time the plants were transferred to minus-boron nutrient solution.It is proposed that germanium does not truly substitute for boron in metabolic processes of the plant but rather functions through increasing the mobility of soluble boron within the plant and in binding nonmetabolic polyhydroxyl sites thus serving in a sparing role for the limited quantity of soluble boron in the growth centers.
Antiviral Activity of Antiserum Specific for an Influenza Virus Neuraminidase

Antiserum specific for influenza A2 neuraminidase was produced by immunization of rabbits with the purified enzyme which had been isolated by electrophoresis from the proteins of a detergent-disrupted A0A2 influenza virus recombinant [X-7 (F1)]. This recombinant contained hemagglutinin of the A0 subtype and A2 neuraminidase. Antiserum to the isolated A2 neuraminidase did not react in any of four serological tests with A0 or A2 subtype viruses that lacked the A2 enzyme. In contrast, the antiserum inhibited the neuraminidase activity only of wild-type and recombinant viruses containing the A2 enzyme, regardless of the nature of their hemagglutinin proteins. The antiserum caused hemagglutination-inhibition of some, but not all, viruses bearing the A2 enzyme, and it reduced the plaque size or plaque number of all viruses tested that contained A2 neuraminidase. In the chick embryo and in cell culture, low dilutions of antiserum reduced the yield of virus. True neutralization of virus in the chick embryo did not occur. We conclude that an antiserum specific for A2 neuraminidase influenced the yield and release of virus from influenza virus-infected cells.
Toward Personalized Context Recognition for Mobile Users: A Semisupervised Bayesian HMM Approach

The problem of mobile context recognition targets the identification of semantic meaning of context in a mobile environment. This plays an important role in understanding mobile user behaviors and thus provides the opportunity for the development of better intelligent context-aware services. A key step of context recognition is to model the personalized contextual information of mobile users. Although many studies have been devoted to mobile context modeling, limited efforts have been made on the exploitation of the sequential and dependency characteristics of mobile contextual information. Also, the latent semantics behind mobile context are often ambiguous and poorly understood. Indeed, a promising direction is to incorporate some domain knowledge of common contexts, such as “waiting for a bus” or “having dinner,” by modeling both labeled and unlabeled context data from mobile users because there are often few labeled contexts available in practice. To this end, in this article, we propose a sequence-based semisupervised approach to modeling personalized context for mobile users. Specifically, we first exploit the Bayesian Hidden Markov Model (B-HMM) for modeling context in the form of probabilistic distributions and transitions of raw context data. Also, we propose a sequential model by extending B-HMM with the prior knowledge of contextual features to model context more accurately. Then, to efficiently learn the parameters and initial values of the proposed models, we develop a novel approach for parameter estimation by integrating the Dirichlet Process Mixture (DPM) model and the Mixture Unigram (MU) model. Furthermore, by incorporating both user-labeled and unlabeled data, we propose a semisupervised learning-based algorithm to identify and model the latent semantics of context. Finally, experimental results on real-world data clearly validate both the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approaches for recognizing personalized context of mobile users.
The effect of visual and auditory enhancement on excitability of the primary motor 2 cortex during motor imagery : a pilot study 3 ( Revised version ) 4 5

22 The effect of visual (VIS) and auditory (AUD) enhancement of finger movement on corticospinal 23 excitability during motor imagery (MI) was investigated using transcranial magnetic stimulation 24 (TMS) technique. Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were elicited from the abductor digit minimi 25 muscle during MI with information of AUD, VIS, AUD and VIS (AUD+VIS), and no information 26 (NI). Ten healthy subjects were instructed to imagine repetitive abduction and adduction of the fifth 27 finger. After each condition, the extent of vividness of MI was rated using a visual analogue scale 28 (VAS). The results showed that mean VAS score and MEP amplitude for the AUD+VIS condition 29 were higher than those of other conditions, indicating enhanced excitability of the primary motor 30 cortex with a clearer image of motor action during MI.
Negative Absolute Temperatures: "Hot" Spins in Spontaneous Magnetic Order

Depending on the sign of the spin temperature in the picokelvin range, antiferromagnetic nuclear and ferromagnetic nuclear orders in silver are caused by the same interactions. In rhodium, the antiferromagnetic state is preferred both at temperatures greater than and temperatures less than zero. The lowest and "highest" temperatures ever produced on this scale and measured, 280 and –750 picokelvin, respectively, have been reached in the course of these experiments. The results on silver, in particular, show that negative temperatures are real, not fictitious, quantities.
Australia's oldest human remains: age of the Lake Mungo 3 skeleton.

We have carried out a comprehensive ESR and U-series dating study on the Lake Mungo 3 (LM3) human skeleton. The isotopic Th/U and Pa/U ratios indicate that some minor uranium mobilization may have occurred in the past. Taking such effects into account, the best age estimate for the human skeleton is obtained through the combination of U-series and ESR analyses yielding 62,000+/-6000 years. This age is in close agreement with OSL age estimates on the sediment into which the skeleton was buried of 61,000+/-2000 years. Furthermore, we obtained a U-series age of 81,000+/-21,000 years for the calcitic matrix that was precipitated on the bones after burial. All age results are considerably older than the previously assumed age of LM3 and demonstrate the necessity for directly dating hominid remains. We conclude that the Lake Mungo 3 burial documents the earliest known human presence on the Australian continent. The age implies that people who were skeletally within the range of the present Australian indigenous population colonized the continent during or before oxygen isotope stage 4 (57,000-71,000 years).
The morphosyntax of negation in Zargulla

[Extract] Zargulla is the name by which the language examined in the present study is known among linguists and in official documents in Ethiopia. The 1994 national census, for instance, reports that there are 7800 mother tongue speakers of Zargulla. The speakers refer to themselves as Gamo and to their language as Gamotsoto. They use 'Zargulla' to refer to the area where they live and in reference to their ritual chief (senior sacrificer) whom they call Zargulla kaati (chief/king). Confusing to the outsider, there is another dominant linguistic group (700,000 people in the 1994 census) who also refer to themselves as Gamo and to their language as Gamotsoto and are known officially by this name. The Zargulla people, however, identify this group as Zeege or ɗaac'e and they refer to the language of these people as Zeegetso or ɗaac'etso. The Zargulla and the 'official' Gamo (i.e., Zeegetso or ɗaac'etso) languages are not mutually intelligible. However, some of the members of the two language groups live in the same villages and are bilingual in Zargulla and Gamo. The two groups are agriculturalists in a similar ecological setting but, according to the British social anthropologist Dena Freeman, who did extensive field work in the area, they have different social structures, oral traditions and rituals (cf. Freeman 2006).
Probabilistic prediction of asphalt pavement performance

Variability of pavement design parameters has always been a concern to pavement designers and highway agencies. A robust pavement design should take into account the variability of the design inputs and its impact on the reliability of the design. In this study, the variability effect of thickness and stiffness of pavement layers was investigated. The variability of these parameters was described by their mean values, standard deviations and probability distribution functions. Monte Carlo Simulation method was utilised to incorporate variability of the design parameters and to construct the probability distribution function of the outputs. KENLAYER software was used to calculate pavement response at predetermined critical locations; pavement reponse was then used to predict pavement performance regarding permanent deformation, bottom-up and top-down fatigue cracking by using the mechanistic empirical pavement design guide (MEPDG) models. A Matlab code was developed to run that analysis and obtain the probability distribution function of pavement performance indicators over time. It was found that the variability of pavement layer thickness and stiffness has a significant impact on pavement performance. Also, it was found that not only the mean of the predicted performance indicators is increasing over time, but the variance of these indicators is also increasing. This means that pavement condition cannot be described by the mean values of the indicators but by the probability distribution function which can describe pavement condition at any reliability level.
Twenty-four-hour pattern of intraocular pressure in young adults with moderate to severe myopia.

PURPOSE To characterize the 24-hour change of intraocular pressure (IOP) in young adults with moderate to severe myopia. METHODS Nineteen young adults, ages 18 to 25 years, with moderate to severe myopia (myopia group) and 17 age-matched volunteers with emmetropia or mild myopia (control group) were housed for 1 day in a sleep laboratory. An 8-hour accustomed sleep period was assigned to each volunteer. Twelve measurements of IOP, axial length, blood pressure, and heart rate were taken at 2-hour intervals. In the wake period, blood pressure and heart rate were measured after a 5-minute bed rest. Axial length and IOP were measured in supine volunteers. Volunteers then sat for 5 minutes, after which IOP was measured. In the sleep period, measurements were taken in supine volunteers in bed. RESULTS In both the myopia and control groups, the average supine IOP in the sleep period was higher than the average sitting IOP in the wake period. However, the magnitude of this IOP elevation at night was significantly less in the myopia group. In the sleep period, IOP was less in the myopia group than in the control group. When only the 24-hour supine IOP data were considered, the trough occurred at 1:30 AM, and the peak occurred around noon in the myopia group. In the control group, the trough was at 9:30 PM, and the peak at 5:30 AM. Least-square cosine fits showed 24-hour rhythms of supine IOP in both groups, but their phase timings were different. Axial length remained unchanged throughout the day and night in both groups. There was no difference in the 24-hour rhythms of mean blood pressure and heart rate between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS Considering habitual body positions, IOP increases at night in young adults with moderate to severe myopia, but the magnitude of the increase is significantly less than that in the age-matched control subjects. There is a 24-hour rhythm of supine IOP in the myopic group, but the phase timing is different from that in the control subjects. These variations of IOP in young adults with moderate to severe myopia are not related to changes in cardiovascular parameters.
The Effect of Organizational Climate on Counterproductive Behaviors: An Empirical Study on the Employees of Manufacturing Enterprises

This study investigates the impact of organizational climate on counterproductive behaviors. In organizational behavior studies, organizational climate is suggested as an important determinant or precursor of counterproductive behaviors. However, in the literature, there are limited studies on the relationship between counterproductive behaviors and organizational climate. In this respect, significant findings have been collected as a result of a research conducted on 204 employees of two enterprises in the field of metal and solar energy. Based on the findings, significant and negative relationships have been observed between counterproductive behaviors and dimensions of organizational climate such as reward, warmth, support/commitment, organizational structure and organizational standards. Moreover, warmth relationship environment, support/commitment and organizational standards dimensions are found out to have effect on counterproductive behaviors.
New Decomposition Theorems on Majority Logic for Low-Delay Adder Designs in Quantum Dot Cellular Automata

The design of low-delay multibit adders in quantum dot cellular automata is considered in this brief. We present a general approach for delay reduction based on two new theorems called decomposition theorems. We consider the carry-lookahead adder (CLA) and the carry-flow adder (CFA) as specific applications of the theorems. For 16-bit CLA and 16-bit CFA, the decomposition theorems yield reductions in delay for the leading carry of approximately 60% and 25%, respectively, when compared to the best existing designs. In addition, the decomposition theorems lead to designs with low area-delay product. Simulations in QCADesigner are also presented.
Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) head tissues: physical properties and CT imaging

SUMMARY Tissue physical properties from a Cuvier's beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris) neonate head are reported and compared with computed tomography (CT) X-ray imaging. Physical properties measured include longitudinal sound velocity, density, elastic modulus and hysteresis. Tissues were classified by type as follows: mandibular acoustic fat, mandibular blubber, forehead acoustic fat (melon), forehead blubber, muscle and connective tissue. Results show that each class of tissues has unique, co-varying physical properties. The mandibular acoustic fats had minimal values for sound speed (1350±10.6 m s–1) and mass density (890±23 kg m–3). These values increased through mandibular blubber (1376±13 m s–1, 919±13 kg m–3), melon (1382±23 m s–1, 937±17 kg m–3), forehead blubber (1401±7.8 m s–1, 935±25 kg m–3) and muscle (1517±46.8 m s–1, 993±58 kg m–3). Connective tissue had the greatest mean sound speed and density (1628±48.7 m s–1, 1087±41 kg m–3). The melon formed a low-density, low-sound-speed core, supporting its function as a sound focusing organ. Hounsfield unit (HU) values from CT X-ray imaging are correlated with density and sound speed values, allowing HU values to be used to predict these physical properties. Blubber and connective tissues have a higher elastic modulus than acoustic fats and melon, suggesting more collagen structure in blubber and connective tissues. Blubber tissue elastic modulus is nonlinear with varying stress, becoming more incompressible as stress is increased. These data provide important physical properties required to construct models of the sound generation and reception mechanisms in Ziphius cavirostris heads, as well as models of their interaction with anthropogenic sound.
Fate and Effect of Intravenously Infused Mesenchymal Stem Cells in a Mouse Model of Hepatic Ischemia Reperfusion Injury and Resection

Liver ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI) is inevitable during transplantation and resection and is characterized by hepatocellular injury. Therapeutic strategies to reduce IRI and accelerate regeneration could offer major benefits. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) are reported to have anti-inflammatory and regeneration promoting properties. We investigated the effect of MSC in a model of combined IRI and partial resection in the mouse. Hepatic IRI was induced by occlusion of 70% of the blood flow during 60 minutes, followed by 30% hepatectomy. 2 × 105 MSC or PBS were infused 2 hours before or 1 hour after IRI. Six, 48, and 120 hours postoperatively mice were sacrificed. Liver damage was evaluated by liver enzymes, histology, and inflammatory markers. Regeneration was determined by liver/body weight ratio, proliferating hepatocytes, and TGF-β levels. Fate of MSC was visualized with 3D cryoimaging. Infusion of 2 × 105 MSC 2 hours before or 1 hour after IRI and resection showed no beneficial effects. Tracking revealed that MSC were trapped in the lungs and did not migrate to the site of injury and many cells had already disappeared 2 hours after infusion. Based on these findings we conclude that intravenously infused MSC disappear rapidly and were unable to induce beneficial effects in a clinically relevant model of IRI and resection.
Pacemaker interference and low-frequency electric induction in humans by external fields and electrodes

The possibility of interference by low-frequency external electric fields with cardiac pacemakers is a matter of practical concern. For pragmatic reasons, experimental investigations into such interference have used contact electrode current sources. However, the applicability to the external electric field problem remains unclear. The recent development of anatomically based electromagnetic models of the human body, together with progress in computational electromagnetics, enable the use of numerical modeling to quantify the relationship between external field and contact electrode excitation. This paper presents a comparison between the computed fields induced in a 3.6-mm-resolution conductivity model of the human body by an external electric field and by several electrode source configurations involving the feet and either the head or shoulders. The application to cardiac pacemaker interference is also indicated.
Using Galois Ideals for Computing Relative Resolvents

In this paper we show that some ideals which occur in Galois theory are generated by triangular sets of polynomials. This geometric property seems important for the development of symbolic methods in Galois theory. It may and should be exploited in order to obtain more efficient algorithms, and it enables us to present a new algebraic method for computing relative resolvents which works with any polynomial invariant.
Asymptomatic myocardial ischaemia in HIV-infected adults

Background:Asymptomatic ischaemic heart disease (IHD) in HIV-infected patients has not been studied. Methods:Resting, 12-lead electrocardiograms (ECG) were evaluated for asymptomatic IHD (Q-wave and/or ST segment depression) at baseline from HIV-infected participants with no known IHD enrolling in the SMART study. The ECG recordings were standardized and centrally analysed. Factors associated with asymptomatic IHD were identified by logistic regression, sequentially adjusted for demographics, clinical history, metabolic risk factors and type and duration of antiretroviral therapy (ART). Results:Of 4831 participants with an evaluable, baseline ECG and no prior IHD, mean age was 44 years (SD, 9.3); 28.4% were female; 6.6% had diabetes; 16.5% were receiving antihypertensive therapy; and 95.4% were ART experienced. ECG evidence of IHD was detected in 526 (10.9%) [Q-wave in 283 (5.9%), ST segment depression in 264 (5.5%)]; 16.7% in those 60 years or older. Variables independently associated with these abnormalities were older age [age ≥ 60 versus < 40 years: odds ratio (OR), 2.2; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.5–3.2; P < 0.001], current antihypertensive therapy (OR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1–1.9; P = 0.003) and recruitment in Europe (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1–1.7; P = 0.004) or Asia (OR, 1.6; 95% CI, 1.0–2.6; P = 0.05), both compared with North America. Diabetes was borderline significant (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.0–2.0; P = 0.06). Conclusions:ECG evidence of asymptomatic IHD was common in this large cohort of HIV-infected adults and more common than a history of symptomatic IHD. Traditional factors were the predominant determinants of risk. No clear association between ART type or duration and asymptomatic IHD was noted.
Identification of a new plasma biomarker of Alzheimer's disease using metabolomics technology[S]

We performed unbiased analysis of steroid-related compounds to identify novel Alzheimer's disease (AD) plasma biomarkers using liquid chromatography-atmospheric pressure chemical ionization-mass spectroscopy. The analysis revealed that desmosterol was found to be decreased in AD plasma versus controls. To precisely quantify variations in desmosterol, we established an analytical method to measure desmosterol and cholesterol. Using this LC-based method, we discovered that desmosterol and the desmosterol/cholesterol ratio are significantly decreased in AD. Finally, the validation of this assay using 109 clinical samples confirmed the decrease of desmosterol in AD as well as a change in the desmosterol/cholesterol ratio in AD. Interestingly, we could also observe a difference between mild cognitive impairment and control. In addition, the decrease of desmosterol was somewhat more significant in females. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis between controls and AD, using plasma desmosterol shows a score of 0.80, indicating a good discrimination power for this marker in the two reference populations and confirms the potential usefulness of measuring plasma desmosterol levels for diagnosing AD. Further analysis showed a significant correlation of plasma desmosterol with Mini-Mental State Examination scores. Although larger sample populations will be needed to confirm this diagnostic marker sensitivity, our studies demonstrate a sensitive and accurate method of detecting plasma desmosterol concentration and suggest that plasma desmosterol could become a powerful new specific biomarker for early and easy AD diagnosis.