Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predictable Patterns of the Atmospheric Low-Level Circulation over the Indo-Pacific Region in Project Minerva: Seasonal Dependence and Intraensemble Variability

The predictable patterns and intraensemble variability of monthly 850-hPa zonal wind over the tropical Indo-Pacific region are investigated using 7-month hindcasts for 1983–2009 from Project Minerva. When applied to the ensemble hindcasts initialized on 1 May and 1 November, a maximum signal-to-noise empirical orthogonal function analysis identifies the patterns of high predictability as the hindcasts progress. For both initial months, the most predictable patterns are associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The second predictable patterns with May initialization reflect the anomalous evolution of the western North Pacific (WNP) monsoon, characterized by a northward shift of the WNP anomalous anticyclone/cyclone in summer and a southward shift in fall. The intraensemble variability shows a strong seasonality that affects different predictable patterns in different seasons. For May initialization, the dominant patterns of the ensemble spread bear some resemblance to the predictable WNP patterns in summer and ENSO patterns in fall, which reflect the noise-induced differences in the evolution of the predictable signals among ensemble members. On the other hand, the noise patterns with November initialization are dominated by the northern extratropical atmospheric perturbations from winter to early spring, which expand southward through the coupled footprinting mechanism to perturb the ENSO evolution in different ensemble members. In comparison, the extratropical perturbations in the Southern Hemisphere, most significant in early months with May-initialized predictions, are less effective in affecting the tropical circulation.
Continuous passive motion as an adjunct to active exercises in early rehabilitation following total knee arthroplasty – a randomized controlled trial

Purpose. Continuous passive motion is frequently used post-operatively to increase knee range of motion after total knee arthroplasty in spite of little conclusive evidence. The aim of this study was to examine whether continuous passive motion (CPM) as an adjunct to active exercises had any short time effects (after one week and three months) on pain, range of motion, timed walking and stair climbing. Method. A randomized controlled trial was conducted. A total of 63 patients undergoing primary TKA were randomly assigned into an experimental group receiving CPM and active exercises and a control group receiving active exercises only. Outcomes were assessed by goniometer, visual analogue scale (VAS), timed ‘Up and Go’ test (TUG), timed 40 m walking distance and timed stair climbing. Results. There were no statistical differences between the treatment groups for any outcome measures either at one week or after three months. For the whole group, a significant and 50% reduction in pain score was found after three months (p < 0.01). Compared with before surgery, a significantly impaired knee flexion range of motion (p < 0.01) and a significantly decreased number of patients able to climb stairs were found after three months (p < 0.01). Conclusion. CPM was not found to have an additional short-time effect compared with active physiotherapy. After three months considerable pain relief was obtained for the whole group, the patients preoperative ROM was not restored and the number of patients able to climb stairs had decreased.
Phenolic Compounds Protect Cultured Hippocampal Neurons against Ethanol-Withdrawal Induced Oxidative Stress

Ethanol withdrawal is linked to elevated oxidative damage to neurons. Here we report our findings on the contribution of phenolic antioxidants (17β-estradiol, p-octyl-phenol and 2,6-di-tert-butyl-4-methylphenol) to counterbalance sudden ethanol withdrawal-initiated oxidative events in hippocampus-derived cultured HT-22 cells. We showed that ethanol withdrawal for 4 h after 24-h ethanol treatment provoked greater levels of oxidative damage than the preceding ethanol exposure. Phenolic antioxidant treatment either during ethanol exposure or ethanol withdrawal only, however, dose-dependently reversed cellular oxidative damage, as demonstrated by the significantly enhanced cell viability, reduced malondialdehyde production and protein carbonylation, compared to untreated cells. Interestingly, the antioxidant treatment schedule had no significant impact on the observed neuroprotection. In addition, the efficacy of the three phenolic compounds was practically equipotent in protecting HT-22 cells in spite of predictions based on an in silico study and a cell free assay of lipid peroxidation. This finding implies that free-radical scavenging may not be the sole factor responsible for the observed neuroprotection and warrants further studies to establish, whether the HT-22 line is indeed a suitable model for in vitro screening of antioxidants against EW-related neuronal damage.
A New Catalog of Photometric Redshifts in the Hubble Deep Field

Using the newly available infrared images of the Hubble Deep Field in the J, H, and K bands and an optimal photometric method, we have refined a technique to estimate the redshifts of 1067 galaxies. A detailed comparison of our results with the spectroscopic redshifts in those cases where the latter are available shows that this technique gives very good results for bright enough objects [AB(8140)<26.0]. From a study of the distribution of residuals [Δzrms/(1+z)≈0.1 at all redshifts], we conclude that the observed errors are mainly due to cosmic variance. This very important result allows for the assessment of errors in quantities to be directly or indirectly measured from the catalog. We present some of the statistical properties of the ensemble of galaxies in the catalog, and we finish by presenting a list of bright high-redshift (z≈5) candidates extracted from our catalog together with recent spectroscopic redshift determinations confirming that two of them are at z=5.34 and z=5.60.
Use of Menopausal Hormone Therapy and Bioidentical Hormone Therapy in Australian Women 50 to 69 Years of Age: Results from a National, Cross-Sectional Study

Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT) use in Australia fell by 55% from 2001 to 2005, following the release of large-scale findings on its risks and benefits. Comprehensive national data, including information on overall prevalence of MHT use as well as information on duration of use in Australia have not been reported since the 2004–5 National Health Survey, when 11% of women aged 45+ years were estimated to be current MHT users. No national data are available on prevalence of use of “bioidentical” hormone therapy (BHT). The objective of this study was to determine recent prevalence of MHT and BHT use. A cross-sectional, national, age-stratified, population survey was conducted in 2013. Eligible women, aged 50–69 years, resident in Australia were randomly sampled in 5-year age groups from the Medicare enrolment database (Australia’s universal health scheme). The response rate was 22% based on return of completed questionnaires, and analyses were restricted to 4,389 women within the specified age range. The estimated population-weighted prevalence of current use of MHT was 13% (95%CI 12–14), which was broadly similar to the previously reported national figures in 2004–5, suggesting that the use of MHT in Australia has largely stabilised over the past decade. A total of 39% and 20% of current-users with an intact uterus reported use of oestrogen-progestagen MHT and oestrogen-only MHT, respectively, whereas 77% of hysterectomised current-users used oestrogen-only MHT. Almost three-quarters of current-users [population-weighted prevalence 9% (95%CI 8–10)] had used MHT for ≥5 years. In regard to BHT, estimated population-weighted prevalence of ever use was 6% (95%CI 6–7) and 2% (95%CI 2–3) for current use. The population-weighted prevalence of MHT and BHT combined, in current users in their fifties and sixties was 15% (95%CI 14–16). These data provide a recent national “snapshot” of Australian women’s use of both conventional MHT and of BHT.
The contribution of nurse practitioners and physician assistants to generalist care in Washington State.

OBJECTIVE To quantify the total contribution to generalist care made by nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) in Washington State. DATA SOURCES State professional licensure renewal survey data from 1998-1999. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional. Data on medical specialty, place of practice, and outpatient visits performed were used to estimate productivity of generalist physicians, NPs, and PAs. Provider head counts were adjusted for missing specialty and productivity data and converted into family physician full-time equivalents (FTEs) to facilitate estimation of total contribution to generalist care made by each provider type. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Nurse practitioners and physician assistants make up 23.4 percent of the generalist provider population and provide 21.0 percent of the generalist outpatient visits in Washington State. The NP/PA contribution to generalist care is higher in rural areas (24.7 percent of total visits compared to 20.1 percent in urban areas). The PAs and NPs provide 50.3 percent of generalist visits provided by women in rural areas, 36.5 percent in urban areas. When productivity data were converted into family physician FTEs, the productivity adjustments were large. A total of 4,189 generalist physicians produced only 2,760 family physician FTEs (1 FTE = 105 outpatient visits per week). The NP and PA productivity adjustments were also quite large. CONCLUSIONS Accurate estimates of available generalist care must take into account the contributions of NPs and PAs. Additionally, simple head counts of licensed providers are likely to result in substantial overestimates of available care. Actual productivity data or empirically derived adjustment factors must be used for accurate estimation of provider shortages.
Disease gene mapping in isolated human populations: the example of Finland.

The recent surge of interest in isolated human populations can be attributed largely to the advances in molecular genetics that now appear to produce an endless array of new data. However, the organised study of inherited traits and disorders in isolated populations started several decades ago. For example, at the beginning of the second half of this century several enthusiastic investigators at the Department of Paediatrics, University of Helsinki began to document rare diseases in Finns that either had not been previously described or were very rare elsewhere. The 'flagship' disease was congenital nephrosis described by Hallman et all and established as an autosomal recessive disorder by Norio.2 These were the heydays of biochemical genetics. Rapidly, as many as a dozen rare disorders, many of which were 'metabolic', were found with a high frequency in Finns. A landmark paper by Norio et aP carrying the title Hereditary diseases in Finland; rare flora in rare soil was published in 1973; it described 10 'Finnish' disorders. Another landmark paper had appeared a year earlier describing extensive blood group and serum marker studies in conjunction with genealogical features of the Finnish population.4 Further studies by Nevanlinna and his group have characterised the Finnish gene pool and offered interpretations regarding the Finnish population history and structure.5 8 The following is a brief review of 'Finnish' disease genes and the lessons that have been gained so far from their molecular study.
Evaluation of a Behavioral-medical Inpatient Rehabilitation Treatment Including Booster Sessions: A Randomized Controlled Study

ObjectivesThe aim of this randomized controlled study was to investigate whether additional psychologic interventions in the context of multidisciplinary inpatient pain treatment increases treatment efficacy compared with normal orthopedic rehabilitation. In addition, we aimed to demonstrate the additional benefit of a subsequent maintenance program in further stabilizing treatment successes. MethodsWe randomly assigned 363 chronic back pain patients to 1 of 3 treatment conditions: traditional orthopedic rehabilitation, multidisciplinary (behavioral-medical) rehabilitation alone, and multidisciplinary rehabilitation with subsequent booster sessions. Pain disability, depression, self-efficacy, health status, life satisfaction, and coping strategies were assessed at admission, discharge, and 12 months follow-up. The completion rate was 94%. ResultsAll 3 treatment conditions were effective in improving core outcome measures in chronic back pain patients in the short term. The results were almost maintained at follow-up (small-to-medium within-group effect sizes). Significant advantages in favor of behavioral-medical interventions were found on almost all pain coping strategies and depression compared with traditional orthopedic rehabilitation. We found only slight advantages for the behavioral-medical treatment with subsequent booster sessions compared with the condition without a further maintenance program. DiscussionThe results concerning the efficacy of the multidisciplinary treatment are in accordance with former meta-analyses. Surprisingly, the findings suggest that the presented traditional orthopedic treatment was inherently very effective. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the benefit of additional psychologic interventions and the benefit of aftercare approaches for chronic pain patients.
Towards Autonomous Agriculture: Automatic Ground Detection Using Trinocular Stereovision

Autonomous driving is a challenging problem, particularly when the domain is unstructured, as in an outdoor agricultural setting. Thus, advanced perception systems are primarily required to sense and understand the surrounding environment recognizing artificial and natural structures, topology, vegetation and paths. In this paper, a self-learning framework is proposed to automatically train a ground classifier for scene interpretation and autonomous navigation based on multi-baseline stereovision. The use of rich 3D data is emphasized where the sensor output includes range and color information of the surrounding environment. Two distinct classifiers are presented, one based on geometric data that can detect the broad class of ground and one based on color data that can further segment ground into subclasses. The geometry-based classifier features two main stages: an adaptive training stage and a classification stage. During the training stage, the system automatically learns to associate geometric appearance of 3D stereo-generated data with class labels. Then, it makes predictions based on past observations. It serves as well to provide training labels to the color-based classifier. Once trained, the color-based classifier is able to recognize similar terrain classes in stereo imagery. The system is continuously updated online using the latest stereo readings, thus making it feasible for long range and long duration navigation, over changing environments. Experimental results, obtained with a tractor test platform operating in a rural environment, are presented to validate this approach, showing an average classification precision and recall of 91.0% and 77.3%, respectively.
MIMO fingerprinting-based particle filter for mobile positioning systems

This paper presents a particle filter processor for mobile positioning systems. The proposed particle filter employs a selective sampling scheme to reduce the required iteration of particle filtering and improve positioning accuracy. Moreover, a threshold IMH resampling algorithm is also proposed to enhance the hardware utilization rate and processing latency. This study also designs and implements the particle filtering processor with a flexible particle number and sampling threshold according different channel conditions. The proposed threshold IMH resampling not only improves the hardware utilization to more than 95% but also reduces the processing latency of the conventional IMH resampling algorithm. The chip implementation results show that the particle filter, when deployed in base-station, can track the location of 100 mobile users at 180 km/hr speed with less than 10-meter root-mean-square (RMS) error.
Case report.

Background: Fetal cardiac rhabdomyoma is a rare condition. Case: We report a case with cardiac mass discovered in utero by prenatal ultrasonography at 33 weeks of gestational age. An echogenic round-oval shape mass at the interventricular septum protrudes to left ventricle was observed. Results: After birth, the baby was followed up for 7 months with echocardiography, physical examination, and computerized tomography scan, to rule out anything related to tuberous sclerosis. The prognosis depends on the size, site, number of tumors, and coexisting congenital abnormalities. Management highly depends on the presence of outflow tract obstruction of the heart. However, some cases may regress after birth.
STRALE: Mobility-aware PHY rate and frame aggregation length adaptation in WLANs

IEEE 802.11n/ac wireless local area network (WLAN) supports frame aggregation, called aggregate medium access control (MAC) protocol data unit (A-MPDU), to enhance MAC efficiency by reducing protocol overhead. However, the current channel estimation process conducted only once during the preamble reception is known to be insufficient to ensure robust delivery of long A-MPDU frames in mobile environments. To cope with this problem, we first build a model which represents the impact of mobility with a noise vector in the I-Q plane, and then analyze how the mobility affects the A-MPDU reception performance. Based on our analysis, we develop STRALE, a standard-compliant and mobility-aware PHY rate and A-MPDU length adaptation scheme with ease of implementation. Through extensive simulations with 802.11ac using ns-3 and prototype implementation with commercial 802.11n devices, we demonstrate that STRALE achieves up to 2.9x higher throughput, compared to a fixed duration setting according to IEEE 802.11 standard.
Alternaria and Cladosporium Spores in the Atmosphere of Konya and Their Relationship with Meteorological Factors

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the meteorological factors (temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction, rainfall) affecting Alternaria and Cladosporium spores in the atmosphere of Konya, Turkey. Materials and Methods: Measurement of Alternaria and Cladosporium spores were carried out between January 1st 2008 and December 31st 2009, with a Burkard Volumetric 7-Days Spore Trap. Microscope counts were converted into atmospheric concentrations and expressed as spore/m3. Results: While Alternaria spores were identified as 424 (19.2%) and 3977 (8.6%) spores/m3; Cladosporium spores were detected as 1784 (80.8%) and 42158 (91.4%) spores/m3 in 2008 and 2009 years, respectively. The daily concentrations of Cladosporium spore in 2008 were positively correlated with daily mean temperature (r= 0.181, p= 0.045), maximum temperature (r= 0.193, p= 0.033) and wind speed (r= 0.242, p= 0.007) and whereas they were negatively correlated with relative humidity (r = -0.215, p = 0.017). The daily concentrations of Alternaria and Cladosporium spore in 2009 were found to be positively correlated with the daily mean temperature (r= 0.44, p< 0.001; r= 0.44, p< 0.001), the minimum temperature (r= 0.46, p< 0.001; r= 0.44, p< 0.001) and the maximum temperature (r= 0.40, p< 0.001; r= 0.43, p< 0.001) whereas they were negatively correlated with the relative humidity (r= -0.29, p< 0.001; r= -0.37, p< 0.001), respectively. Conclusion: These findings showed that the concentrations of Alternaria and Cladosporium spores in Konya were affected from meteorological factors. Cladosporium spores were detected higher than Alternaria spores.
Specificity of the Cyanobacterial Orange Carotenoid Protein: Influences of Orange Carotenoid Protein and Phycobilisome Structures1[C][W]

In cyanobacteria, the binding properties of a carotenoid energy quencher and the structure of the core of phycobilisome antenna determine the amplitude of photoprotection and the specificity of the mechanism. Cyanobacteria have developed a photoprotective mechanism that decreases the energy arriving at the reaction centers by increasing thermal energy dissipation at the level of the phycobilisome (PB), the extramembranous light-harvesting antenna. This mechanism is triggered by the photoactive Orange Carotenoid Protein (OCP), which acts both as the photosensor and the energy quencher. The OCP binds the core of the PB. The structure of this core differs in diverse cyanobacterial strains. Here, using two isolated OCPs and four classes of PBs, we demonstrated that differences exist between OCPs related to PB binding, photoactivity, and carotenoid binding. Synechocystis PCC 6803 (hereafter Synechocystis) OCP, but not Arthrospira platensis PCC 7345 (hereafter Arthrospira) OCP, can attach echinenone in addition to hydroxyechinenone. Arthrospira OCP binds more strongly than Synechocystis OCP to all types of PBs. Synechocystis OCP can strongly bind only its own PB in 0.8 m potassium phosphate. However, if the Synechocystis OCP binds to the PB at very high phosphate concentrations (approximately 1.4 m), it is able to quench the fluorescence of any type of PB, even those isolated from strains that lack the OCP-mediated photoprotective mechanism. Thus, the determining step for the induction of photoprotection is the binding of the OCP to PBs. Our results also indicated that the structure of PBs, at least in vitro, significantly influences OCP binding and the stabilization of OCP-PB complexes. Finally, the fact that the OCP induced large fluorescence quenching even in the two-cylinder core of Synechococcus elongatus PBs strongly suggested that OCP binds to one of the basal allophycocyanin cylinders.
A comparative study of restoration schemes and spare capacity assignments in mesh networks

This paper presents the results of a comparative study of spare capacity assignment for original quasipath restoration (OQPR), improved quasipath restoration (IQPR), link restoration (LR), path restoration (PR) and link-disjoint path restoration (LDPR) schemes. Numerical results indicate that the restoration schemes studied can be sorted from most expensive to least expensive (spare capacity assignment cost) in the following order: LR, OQPR, IQPR, LDPR and PR. Since IQPR is computationally very efficient, simpler than PR, scalable, and economical in spare capacity assignment, it provides a good alternative to PR when quick restoration is desired. However, due to the potential difficulty in rapid failure isolation coupled with the increasing importance of restoration speed and simplicity, LDPR is an attractive scheme. A number of networks with different topologies and projected traffic demand patterns are used in the experiments to study the effect of various network parameters on spare capacity assignment cost. The experimental analysis shows that network topology, demand patterns and the average number of hops per primary route have a significant impact on the spare capacity assignment cost savings offered by one scheme over the other.