Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A critique of Emanuel's hurricane model and potential intensity theory

We present a critique of Emanuel's steady‐state hurricane model, which is a precursor to his theory for hurricane potential intensity (PI). We show that a major deficiency of the theory is the tacit assumption of gradient wind balance in the boundary layer, a layer that owes its existence to gradient wind imbalance in the radial momentum equation. If a more complete boundary‐layer formulation is included using the gradient wind profiles obtained from Emanuel's theory, the tangential wind speed in the boundary layer becomes supergradient, invalidating the assumption of gradient wind balance. We show that the degree to which the tangential wind is supergradient depends on the assumed boundary‐layer depth. The full boundary‐layer solutions require a knowledge of the tangential wind profile above the boundary layer in the outer region where there is subsidence into the layer and they depend on the breadth of this profile. This effect is not considered in Emanuel's theory. We argue that a more complete theory for the steady‐state hurricane would require the radial pressure gradient above the boundary layer to be prescribed or determined independently of the boundary layer.
Transcriptomic Study Reveals Widespread Spliced Leader Trans-Splicing, Short 5′-UTRs and Potential Complex Carbon Fixation Mechanisms in the Euglenoid Alga Eutreptiella sp.

Eutreptiella are an evolutionarily unique and ecologically important genus of microalgae, but they are poorly understood with regard to their genomic make-up and expression profiles. Through the analysis of the full-length cDNAs from a Eutreptiella species, we found a conserved 28-nt spliced leader sequence (Eut-SL, ACACUUUCUGAGUGUCUAUUUUUUUUCG) was trans-spliced to the mRNAs of Eutreptiella sp. Using a primer derived from Eut-SL, we constructed four cDNA libraries under contrasting physiological conditions for 454 pyrosequencing. Clustering analysis of the ∼1.9×106 original reads (average length 382 bp) yielded 36,643 unique transcripts. Although only 28% of the transcripts matched documented genes, this fraction represents a functionally very diverse gene set, suggesting that SL trans-splicing is likely ubiquitous in this alga’s transcriptome. The mRNAs of Eutreptiella sp. seemed to have short 5′- untranslated regions, estimated to be 21 nucleotides on average. Among the diverse biochemical pathways represented in the transcriptome we obtained, carbonic anhydrase and genes known to function in the C4 pathway and heterotrophic carbon fixation were found, posing a question whether Eutreptiella sp. employs multifaceted strategies to acquire and fix carbon efficiently. This first large-scale transcriptomic dataset for a euglenoid uncovers many potential novel genes and overall offers a valuable genetic resource for research on euglenoid algae.
From n-gram-based to CRF-based Translation Models

A major weakness of extant statistical machine translation (SMT) systems is their lack of a proper training procedure. Phrase extraction and scoring processes rely on a chain of crude heuristics, a situation judged problematic by many. In this paper, we recast the machine translation problem in the familiar terms of a sequence labeling task, thereby enabling the use of enriched feature sets and exact training and inference procedures. The tractability of the whole enterprise is achieved through an efficient implementation of the conditional random fields (CRFs) model using a weighted finite-state transducers library. This approach is experimentally contrasted with several conventional phrase-based systems.
Dysregulation of the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis in Postpartum Depression

Postpartum depression (PPD) affects at least 10% to 15% of postpartum women, including more than 600,000 American mothers in 2003 alone. Dramatic changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) system in the transition from pregnancy to postpartum coupled with research on the psychobiology of depression provided the foundation for this study. The purpose of this study was to compare the reactivity and regulation of the HPA axis components, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol, in depressed and nondepressed postpartum women. A comparative, longitudinal study design was used with 22 normal, healthy, nondepressed pregnant women. Physiologic and postpartum depression data were collected at 6 and 12 weeks postpartum at a university clinical research center. Maximal treadmill exercise stimulated plasma ACTH and serum cortisol levels which were measured before, during, and after 20 min of exercise. Postpartum depression was measured with the Postpartum Depression Screening Scale. Lag within-subject ACTH levels predicting cortisol regression slopes were significantly different between the depressed and nondepressed groups at both 6 and 12 weeks. The depressed group showed no relationship between their ACTH and cortisol levels, with higher ACTH and lower cortisol levels when compared with the nondepressed group. The expected regulated relationship with cortisol levels rising in response to rising ACTH levels was found in the non-depressed group. These findings indicate that the HPA axis was dysregulated in the depressed group, but regulated in the nondepressed group at 6 and 12 weeks postpartum. This pattern of higher ACTH levels to stimulate less cortisol is similar to patterns found in women with early life stresses.
Growth and hepatic in vitro metabolism of ergotamine in mice divergently selected for response to endophyte toxicity

This study investigated if genetic differences exhibited in endophyte-resistant and -susceptible mouse lines had persisted after 13 generations in which the integrity of lines was maintained yet selection ceased. Experimental groups were mouse lines fed an endophyte-free (E−) or -infected (E+) diet. The in vitro metabolism of the ergot alkaloid ergotamine in mouse liver microsomes was characterized by LC-MS/MS and compared between both lines before and after exposure to E+ feed. No difference in the average daily weight gain of pups between resistant and susceptible mice was observed on the E+ diet. Thus, for the weight gain selection criterion under study, the difference established between the two lines appears not to have persisted over the extended period of relaxed selection. Microsomal incubations produced nine predominate peaks in the HPLC assay. The peaks were confirmed by LC-MS/MS to be ergotamine, ergotamine epimer, monohydroxylated metabolites (M1, M2, M1e, M2e) and dihydroxylated metabolites (M3–5). A gender difference for metabolite formation was observed on the E− diet, in that females produced a greater amount of M1, M1e and M3–5 than males. When challenged with the E+ diet, mice showed differences in concentration of M3 for line (resistant > susceptible) and gender (female > male) and of M4 and M5 for gender (female > male). Gender differences in the metabolism of ergotamine have not been shown before in these lines of mice or other species used to study ergot alkaloid metabolism. This adds a potential source of variation in the susceptibility to fescue toxicity not explored previously and would be of value to investigate further.
Automatic Extraction of Causal Relations from Natural Language Texts: A Comprehensive Survey

Automatic extraction of cause-effect relationships from natural language texts is a challenging open problem in Artificial Intelligence. Most of the early attempts at its solution used manually constructed linguistic and syntactic rules on small and domain-specific data sets. However, with the advent of big data, the availability of affordable computing power and the recent popularization of machine learning, the paradigm to tackle this problem has slowly shifted. Machines are now expected to learn generic causal extraction rules from labelled data with minimal supervision, in a domain independent-manner. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of causal relation extraction techniques from both paradigms, and analyse their relative strengths and weaknesses, with recommendations for future work.
Attenuation of Brain Damage and Cognitive Impairment by Direct Renin Inhibition in Mice With Chronic Cerebral Hypoperfusion

The role of the renin-angiotensin system in cognitive impairment is unclear. This work was undertaken to test our hypothesis that renin-angiotensin system may contribute to cognitive decline and brain damage caused by chronic cerebral ischemia. C57BL/6J mice were subjected to bilateral common carotid artery stenosis with microcoil to prepare mice with chronic cerebral hypoperfusion, a model of subcortical vascular dementia. The effects of aliskiren, a direct renin inhibitor, or Tempol, a superoxide scavenger, on brain damage and working memory in these mice were examined. Chronic cerebral hypoperfusion significantly increased brain renin activity and angiotensinogen expression in C57BL/6J mice, which was attributed to the increased renin in activated astrocytes and microvessels and the increased angiotensinogen in activated astrocytes in white matter. Aliskiren pretreatment significantly inhibited brain renin activity and ameliorated brain p67phox-related NADPH oxidase activity, oxidative stress, glial activation, white matter lesion, and spatial working memory deficits in C57BL/6J mice with bilateral common carotid artery stenosis. To elucidate the role of oxidative stress in brain protective effects of aliskiren, we also examined the effect of Tempol in the same mice with bilateral common carotid artery stenosis. Tempol pretreatment mimicked the brain protective effects of aliskiren in this mouse model. Posttreatment of mice with aliskiren or Tempol after bilateral common carotid artery stenosis also prevented cognitive decline. In conclusion, chronic cerebral hypoperfusion induced the activation of the brain renin-angiotensin system. Aliskiren ameliorated brain damage and working memory deficits in the model of chronic cerebral ischemia through the attenuation of oxidative stress. Thus, direct renin inhibition seems to be a promising therapeutic strategy for subcortical vascular dementia.
Public School–Based Interventions for Adolescents and Young Adults With an Autism Spectrum Disorder

This article reviews research on the effectiveness of four categories of intervention when implemented in public schools with adolescents and young adults diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. The study’s inclusionary criteria include a setting of public schools, participants aged between 12 and 22 years, and the investigation of an antecedent-, consequence-, self-management-, or video-based intervention strategy to influence skills or behaviors in students. A total of 34 studies met these criteria. The procedures of the What Works Clearinghouse Standards for Single-Case Designs and Evidence are used to evaluate whether sufficient high-quality research in using antecedent-, consequence-, self-management-, and video-based strategies exists to consider these evidence-based practices. Intervention effectiveness is estimated using PAND scores and phi coefficients. The results suggest that sufficient research exists to consider antecedent-, video-, and consequence-based interventions evidence-based practices for adolescents and young adults in public schools. The need for more applied research with adolescents and young adults is highlighted.
Simulation results on combined automatic lane keeping and driver's maneuvers

In this paper we address the problem of combining automatic lane keeping and driver's steering for either obstacle avoidance or lane change maneuvers for passing purpose or any other desired maneuvers, through a closed loop control strategy. The automatic lane keeping control loop is never opened, and no on/off switching strategy is used. During the driver's maneuver, the vehicle lateral dynamics is controlled by the driver himself through the vehicle steering system. When there is no driver's steering action, the vehicle center of gravity tracks the center of the travelling lane thanks to the automatic lane keeping system. At the beginning (end) of the maneuver, the lane keeping task is released (resumed) safely and smoothly. The performance of the proposed closed loop structure is shown by means of simulations.
Brain‐adrenal axis hormones are altered in the CSF of infants with massive infantile spasms

Massive infantile spasms (MIS), a seizure disorder unique to infants, is considered an age-dependent response of the immature brain to various insults and stressors. The seizures improve with ACTH and glucocorticoids, both major components of the brain-adrenal axis. We hypothesized that CNS levels of these hormones are abnormal in infants with MIS and studied CSF from 14 infants with MIS and 13 age-matched controls by analysis for corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), ACTH, cortisol, and interleukin-1-beta. ACTH levels in CSF of patients were significantly lower than those of controls, but differences in cortisol levels between patients and controls were not statistically significant. CRH levels in both groups were similar and fluctuated diurnally. These results indicate an alteration of specific CNS components of the brain-adrenal axis in MIS.
Explicit Semantic Analysis for Enriching Content-Based User Profiles

A content-based recommender system suggests items similar to those previously liked by a user, therefore the recommendation process consists of matching up the features stored in a user profile with those of a content object (item). Usually a content-based user profile stores keywords that are more meaningful for that specific user. Common-sense knowledge could positively enrich that profile and content of items, thus helping to introduce more informative features than simple keywords. The idea of this work is to represent content objects, and consequentially user profiles, in terms of Wikipedia-based concepts.
Semi-analytic predictions for statistical properties of X-ray clusters of galaxies in cold dark matter universes

Temperature and luminosity functions of X-ray clusters are computed semi-analytically, combining a simple model for the cluster gas properties with the distribution functions of halo formation epochs proposed by Lacey & Cole (1993) and Kitayama & Suto (1996). In contrast to several previous approaches which apply the Press--Schechter mass function in a straightforward manner, our method can explicitly take into account the temperature and luminosity evolution of clusters. In order to make quantitative predictions in a specific cosmological context, we adopt cold dark matter (CDM) universes. Assuming the baryon density parameter $\Omega_{\rm B}=0.0125 h^{-2}$ ($h$ is the Hubble constant in units of 100 km$\cdot$sec$^{-1}\cdot$Mpc$^{-1}$) and the {\it COBE} normalization of matter fluctuations, temperature and luminosity functions of X-ray clusters depend sensitively on the density parameter $\Omega_0$. Allowing for several uncertainties in observational data as well as in our simplified assumptions, we conclude that $\Omega_0 \sim 0.2-0.5$ and $h\sim 0.7$ CDM models with/without the cosmological constant reproduce simultaneously the observed temperature and luminosity functions of X-ray clusters at redshift $z\sim0$.
Visual Area Classification for Article Identification in Web Documents

In the World Wide Web, the news and other articles are usually published in complex HTML documents containing many types of additional information that is not explicitly marked. In this paper, we propose a visual information analysis approach to the article discovery in complex HTML documents. We use a classification approach for the identification the important parts of the article within the page and we propose an algorithm for the detection of the article bounds within the page. Finally, we provide the results of an experimental evaluation.
Encoding Shape and Spatial Relations: The Role of Receptive Field Size in Coordinating Complementary Representations

An effective functional architecture facilitates interactions among subsystems that are often used together. Computer simulations showed that differences in receptive field sizes con promote such organization. When input was filtered through relatively small nonoverlapping receptive fields, artificial neural networks learned to categorize shapes relatively quickly: in contrast, when input wets filtered through relatively large overlapping receptive fields, networks learned to encode specific shape exemplars or metric spatial relations relatively quickly. Moreover, when the receptive field sizes were allowed to adapt during learning, networks developed smaller receptive fields when they were trained to categorize shapes or spatial relations, and developed larger receptive fields when they were trained to encode specific exemplars or metric distances. In addition, when pairs of networks were constrained to use input from the same type of receptive fields, networks learned a task faster when they were paired with networks that were trained to perform a compatible type of task. Finally, using a novel modular architecture, networks were not preassigned a task, but rather competed to perform the different tasks. Networks with small nonoverlapping receptive fields tended to win the competition for categorical tasks whereas networks with large overlapping receptive fields tended to win the competition for exemplar/metric tasks.
The Construction of Knowledge in Classroom Talk

Social interaction is important for the development of knowledge (M. Chapman, 1991). Social interaction, however, takes many forms, and J. Piaget (1977/1995) proposed that the construction of knowledge is facilitated in cooperative as opposed to constraining relationships. These views of knowledge development were drawn on in a study of classroom talk in higher education, namely in 2 first- and 2 fourth-year college and university psychology classes. Classroom talk was recorded, transcribed, and analyzed following conversation analytic (H. Sacks, 1992) and social pragmatic (W. Turnbull, 2003) approaches. Examination of how cooperation and constraint were constituted in the corpus was based on N. Mercer's (1995, 2000) categorization of different ways of making reasoning manifest, namely exploratory talk, or the joint negotiation of ideas; disputational talk, or the competitive negotiation of knowledge claims; and cumulative talk, or the uncritical addition of knowledge claims. Analysis focused on the sequential structures of classroom talk in and through which reasoning is achieved. Analysis revealed that most fourth-year talk was exploratory, whereas most first-year talk was disputational or cumulative.
Increase in facility-based deliveries associated with a maternal health voucher programme in informal settlements in Nairobi, Kenya

Objective To measure whether there was an association between the introduction of an output-based voucher programme and the odds of a facility-based delivery in two Nairobi informal settlements. Data sources Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System (NUHDSS) and two cross-sectional household surveys in Korogocho and Viwandani informal settlements in 2004–05 and 2006–08. Methods Odds of facility-based delivery were estimated before and after introduction of an output-based voucher. Supporting NUHDSS data were used to determine whether any trend in maternal health care was coincident with immunizations, a non-voucher outpatient service. As part of NUHDSS, households in Korogocho and Viwandani reported place of delivery and the presence of a skilled birth attendant (2003–10) and vaccination coverage (2003–09). A detailed maternal and child health (MCH) tool was added to NUHDSS (September 2006–10). Prospective enrolment in NUHDSS-MCH was conditional on having a newborn after September 2006. In addition to recording mother’s place of delivery, NUHDSS-MCH recorded the use of the voucher. Findings There were significantly greater odds of a facility-based delivery among respondents during the voucher programme compared with similar respondents prior to voucher launch. Testing whether unrelated outpatient care also increased, a falsification exercise found no significant increase in immunizations for children 12–23 months of age in the same period. Although the proportion completing any antenatal care (ANC) visit remained above 95% of all reported pregnancies and there was a significant increase in facility-based deliveries, the proportion of women completing 4+ ANC visits was significantly lower during the voucher programme. Conclusions A positive association was observed between vouchers and facility-based deliveries in Nairobi. Although there is a need for higher quality evidence and validation in future studies, this statistically significant and policy relevant finding suggests that increases in facility-based deliveries can be achieved through output-based finance models that target subsidies to underserved populations.
The Value of HRCT in Stapes Fixations Corresponding to Hearing Thresholds and Histologic Findings

Objective To estimate the correlations between high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) scans, preoperative audiometric findings and histopathologic results in stapes ankylosis. Study Design Retrospective case review. Setting Tertiary referral center. Patients A total of 57 patients with stapes ankylosis, who underwent unilateral stapedectomies were analyzed. Interventions Diagnostic and therapeutic. Main Outcome Measures Preoperative HRCT examinations were performed in all cases. Findings of HRCT were categorized according to Marshall’s grading system. Preoperative air-bone gaps (ABGs) and bone conduction (BC) thresholds were determined. Stapes footplates removed surgically were processed using hematoxylin and eosin staining. Results Active otosclerosis (n = 29) was demonstrated by HRCT with a sensitivity of 76.31%, whereas its sensitivity to establish inactive otosclerosis (n = 13, 61.9%) and nonotosclerotic stapes fixations (n = 15, 51.7%) was much lower. Nonotosclerotic stapes fixations were characterized by pure conductive hearing loss that was not associated with HRCT findings. HRCT grades showed statistically significant association with BC levels at the averages of 0.5-1-2 kHz frequencies in the group of ears with inactive otosclerosis, exclusively (p < 0.05). Conclusion HRCT is a reliable imaging method in the preoperative diagnosis of different types of stapes fixations. Imaging findings should be evaluated together with clinical history and audiometric data for obtaining as precise diagnosis for stapes fixation as possible.