Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Occurrence of adventitious sprouting in short-lived monocarpic herbs: a field study of 22 weedy species.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Adventitious sprouting from the hypocotyle and roots in monocarpic herbs has been confirmed in previous experimental studies as a means to avoid bud limitation after severe injury in annual and biennial plants. Data regarding the role of adventitious sprouting in natural populations, however, were lacking. The aim of the present study was to assess whether adventitious sprouting occurs in natural populations and how it is affected by plant size, plant injury, plant cover and environmental characteristics. METHODS Data were sampled from 14 037 individual plants from 389 populations belonging to 22 annual and biennial species. Growth parameters were measured in individual plants, species composition and plant cover in communities were evaluated, and environmental characteristics were estimated using Ellenberg indicator values. KEY RESULTS It was confirmed that adventitious sprouting occurs in natural populations of all but five species examined. Adventitious sprouting was positively affected by plant size and plant injury. Environmental factors including availability of soil nitrogen were not shown to affect adventitious sprouting. Annual and biennial plants did not differ in sprouting, but upright annuals had a lower number of and longer adventitious shoots than prostrate annuals. CONCLUSIONS Adventitious bud formation is used to overcome meristem limitation when stem parts are lost due to injury, and thus resprouting in short-lived monocarps should not be overlooked.
Long-term biochemical response after bisphosphonate therapy in Paget's disease of bone. Proposed intervals for monitoring treatment.

OBJECTIVES To monitor the long-term evolution of Paget's disease activity after treatment with tiludronate by using serum total alkaline phosphatase (TAP) and more sensitive markers such as bone alkaline phosphatase (BAP), procollagen type I N propeptide (PINP) and urinary N-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type I collagen (NTX); to analyse the predictors of long-term response to therapy; and to study the most appropriate intervals of time for monitoring the response to therapy. METHODS Thirty-two patients with Paget's disease were included in the study. All received 400 mg of oral tiludronate daily for 3 months. A total of 21 patients completed the study. In these patients, serum TAP, BAP and PINP and urinary NTX were measured at baseline and at 1, 6, 12 and 24 months after discontinuation of therapy. Quantitative bone scintigraphy was performed at baseline and at 6 and 24 months after the end of treatment, obtaining a scintigraphic activity index (SAI). Patients were classified into two groups depending on the long-term response to treatment: Group 1, patients who presented a persistent and significant decrease in disease activity at this time, n = 12 (57%) and Group 2, patients who presented a relapse in the activity of the disease at 24 months after treatment, n = 9 (43%). The relapse of disease activity was defined as a significant increase of SAI (>13%) between 6 and 24 months after the end of treatment, whereas the response to therapy was defined as a significant reduction in SAI (>13%) at 6 months after the end of treatment. In addition, these results were compared with the biochemical evolution of bone markers. RESULTS Biochemical markers and SAI decreased significantly after therapy and the nadir response was observed at 6 months. At this time 100% of patients responded to therapy. The persistent long-term response was associated with lower baseline indices of bone turnover (serum BAP<60 ng/ml or TAP<600 IU/l). The intervals of time for monitoring depended on the marker used: no patient from Group 1 presented a biochemical relapse in serum TAP at 1 and 2 yr after the end of treatment whereas 33 and 45% of these patients showed relapsed serum BAP at these time points. Moreover, all patients from Group 2 presented a biochemical relapse of serum BAP at 2 yr whereas in only 33% of these patients did serum TAP relapse at this time. CONCLUSION Most of the Pagetic patients treated with tiludronate presented a long-term response, which persisted 2 yr after the end of treatment. The nadir response to treatment was observed 6 months after discontinuation of therapy whereas the relapse of disease activity was already observed 1 yr after the end of therapy and depended on both the baseline disease activity and the bone marker used in the evaluation.
Rate-Distortion-Authentication Optimized Streaming of Authenticated Video

We define authenticated video as decoded video that results from those received packets whose authenticities have been verified. Generic data stream authentication methods usually impose overhead and dependency among packets for verification. Therefore, the conventional rate-distortion (R-D) optimized video streaming techniques produce highly sub-optimal R-D performance for authenticated video, since they do not account for the overhead and additional dependencies for authentication. In this paper, we study this practical problem and propose an Rate-Distortion-Authentication (R-D-A) optimized streaming technique for authenticated video. Based on packets' importance in terms of both video quality and authentication dependencies, the proposed technique computes a packet transmission schedule that minimizes the expected end-to-end distortion of the authenticated video at the receiver subject to a constraint on the average transmission rate. Simulation results based on H.264 JM 10.2 and NS-2 demonstrate that our proposed R-D-A optimized streaming technique substantially outperforms both prior (authentication-unaware) R-D optimized streaming techniques and data stream authentication techniques. In particular, when the channel capacity is below the source rate, the PSNR of authenticated video quickly drops to unacceptable levels using conventional R-D optimized streaming techniques, while the proposed R-D-A Optimization technique still maintains optimized video quality. Furthermore, we examine a low-complexity version of the proposed algorithm, and also an enhanced version which accounts for the multiple deadlines associated with each packet, which is introduced by stream authentication
Electronic transmission of prescriptions: towards realising the dream

The UK National Health Service (NHS) is about to commence upon major computerisation of its processes as part of a government plan of modernisation. One of these is the Electronic Transmission of Prescription (ETP). To achieve success it is important to know what benefits are expected from the new system and what barriers to adoption the systems will face. This paper reviews substantial ETP published material, and identifies 17 issues that need to be addressed. These issues are categorised under four major headings of stakeholders, cost, technology, and current process and practice, and are then further classified as positive or negative influences on the project's success. Many of these influences will be common to most of the computerisation projects to be undertaken by the NHS, and therefore this paper has wider applicability than ETP.
A neurobiological approach to the cognitive deficits of psychiatric disorders

Deficits in brain networks that support cognitive regulatory functions are prevalent in many psychiatric disorders. Findings across neuropsychology and neuroimaging point to broad-based impairments that cross traditional diagnostic boundaries. These dysfunctions are largely separate from the classical symptoms of the disorders, and manifest in regulatory problems in both traditional cognitive and emotional domains. As such, they relate to the capacity of patients to engage effectively in their daily lives and activity, often persist even in the face of symptomatically effective treatment, and are poorly targeted by current treatments. Advances in cognitive neuroscience now allow us to ground an understanding of these cognitive regulatory deficits in the function and interaction of key brain networks. This emerging neurobiological understanding furthermore points to several promising routes for novel neuroscience-informed treatments targeted more specifically at improving cognitive function in a range of psychiatric disorders.
Amplification of Trial-to-Trial Response Variability by Neurons in Visual Cortex

The visual cortex responds to repeated presentations of the same stimulus with high variability. Because the firing mechanism is remarkably noiseless, the source of this variability is thought to lie in the membrane potential fluctuations that result from summated synaptic input. Here this hypothesis is tested through measurements of membrane potential during visual stimulation. Surprisingly, trial-to-trial variability of membrane potential is found to be low. The ratio of variance to mean is much lower for membrane potential than for firing rate. The high variability of firing rate is explained by the threshold present in the function that converts inputs into firing rates. Given an input with small, constant noise, this function produces a firing rate with a large variance that grows with the mean. This model is validated on responses recorded both intracellularly and extracellularly. In neurons of visual cortex, thus, a simple deterministic mechanism amplifies the low variability of summated synaptic inputs into the large variability of firing rate. The computational advantages provided by this amplification are not known.
Health Care.

In order to avoid unnecessary costs when you seek health care services, it’s important to be familiar with your health insurance policy. Read your health insurance policy carefully so that you know what your plan covers and does not cover, and which doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies are in your insurance plan’s network. If you are enrolled in U-M’s International Student/Scholar Health Insurance Plan (Blue Care Network), visit the U-M International Center's Health Insurance [1] section for more information. Review the Benefits and Wellness section of the U-M Human Resources website if you are enrolled in GradCare [2] or in one of U-M’s faculty/staff health insurance plans [3]. If you have a different insurance plan, consult that plan’s website.
Fecal calprotectin concentration predicts outcome in inflammatory bowel disease after induction therapy with TNF&agr; blocking agents

Background: Fecal calprotectin (FC) concentration is a useful surrogate marker for mucosal healing (MH) during tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF&agr;)‐blocking therapy for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Our aim was to evaluate whether a normal FC after induction therapy with TNF&agr; antagonist predicts the outcome of IBD patients during maintenance therapy. Methods: Sixty IBD patients (34 Crohn's disease [CD], 26 ulcerative colitis [UC]), treated with TNF&agr; antagonists, either infliximab (n = 42) or adalimumab (n = 18), and having a documented FC level at baseline and after induction therapy were included. Disease activity was evaluated by partial Mayo score without endoscopy or Harvey–Bradshaw index at baseline, after induction, and at 12 months during maintenance therapy. Results: After induction, FC was normalized (≤100 &mgr;g/g) in 31 patients (52%, median 42 &mgr;g/g, range 0–97), whereas the level remained elevated in 29 patients (48%, median 424 &mgr;g/g, range 116–5859). At ≈12 months, 26/31 (84%, 18 CD, 8 UC) of the patients with normal FC after induction were in clinical remission, whereas only 11/29 (38%, 9 CD, 2 UC) of those with an elevated (≥100 &mgr;g/g) postinduction FC were in clinical remission, P < 0.0001. After induction therapy with TNF&agr; antagonists, a cutoff concentration of 139 &mgr;g/g for FC had a sensitivity of 72% and a specificity of 80% to predict a risk of clinically active disease after 1 year. Conclusions: A normal FC after induction therapy with TNF&agr; antagonists predicts sustained clinical remission in the majority of patients on scheduled therapy with active luminal disease. (Inflamm Bowel Dis 2012;)
Period of the power generator and small values of Carmichael's function

Consider the pseudorandom number generator u n ≡ u e n-1 (mod m), 0 ≤ u n ≤ m - 1, n = 1,2,. , where we are given the modulus m, the initial value u 0 = and the exponent e. One case of particular interest is when the modulus m is of the form pl, where p, I are different primes of the same magnitude. It is known from work of the first and third authors that for moduli m = pl, if the period of the sequence (u n ) exceeds m 3/4+e , then the sequence is uniformly distributed. We show rigorously that for almost all choices of p, l it is the case that for almost all choices of , e, the period of the power generator exceeds (pl) 1-e . And so, in this case, the power generator is uniformly distributed. We also give some other cryptographic applications, namely, to ruling-out the cycling attack on the RSA cryptosystem and to so-called time-release crypto. The principal tool is an estimate related to the Carmichael function λ(m), the size of the largest cyclic subgroup of the multiplicative group of residues modulo m. In particular, we show that for any Δ ≥ (log log N) 3 , we have λ(m) ≥ N exp(-Δ) for all integers m with l ≤ m ≤ N, apart from at most N exp (-0.69(Δ log Δ) 1/3 ) exceptions.
Terminals and Ports

This article presents some basic concepts for electrical circuits. A port is defined as a set of terminals that satisfies the port-Kirchhoff current law. Transfer of energy occurs when a set of terminals forms a port. For a connected RLC circuit the only port is the one that consists of all the terminals. It is explained that in order to formalize the architecture of an electrical circuit it is convenient to use a digraph with leaves. The leaves correspond to the external terminals of a circuit, the edges to the circuit elements, and the vertices to the connections.
Systematic yet flexible discovery: guiding domain experts through exploratory data analysis

During exploratory data analysis, visualizations are often useful for making sense of complex data sets. However, as data sets increase in size and complexity, static information visualizations decrease in comprehensibility. Interactive techniques can yield valuable discoveries, but current data analysis tools typically support only opportunistic exploration that may be inefficient and incomplete. We present a refined architecture that uses systematic yet flexible (SYF) design goals to guide domain expert users through complex exploration of data over days, weeks and months. The SYF system aims to support exploratory data analysis with some of the simplicity of an e-commerce check-out while providing added flexibility to pursue insights. The SYF system provides an overview of the analysis process, suggests unexplored states, allows users to annotate useful states, supports collaboration, and enables reuse of successful strategies. The affordances of the SYF system are demonstrated by integrating it into a social network analysis tool employed by social scientists and intelligence analysts. The SYF system is a tool-independent component and can be incorporated into other data analysis tools.
Clostridium perfringens Beta-Toxin Forms Potential-Dependent, Cation-Selective Channels in Lipid Bilayers

ABSTRACT Recombinant beta-toxin from Clostridium perfringenstype C was found to increase the conductance of bilayer lipid membranes (BLMs) by inducing channel activity. The channels exhibited a distribution of conductances within the range of 10 to 380 pS, with the majority of the channels falling into two categories of conductance at 110 and 60 pS. The radii of beta-toxin pores found for the conductance states of 110 and 60 pS were 12.7 and 11.1 Å, respectively. The single channels and the steady-state currents induced by beta-toxin across the BLMs exhibited ideal monovalent cation selectivity. Addition of divalent cations (Zn2+, Cd2+, or Mg2+) at a concentration of 2 mM increased the rate of beta-toxin insertion into BLMs and the single-channel conductance, while application of 5 mM Zn2+ to a beta-toxin-induced steady-state current decreased the inward current by approximately 45%. The mutation of arginine 212 of beta-toxin to aspartate, previously shown to increase the 50% lethal dose of beta-toxin for mice nearly 13-fold, significantly reduced the ability of beta-toxin to form channels. These data support the hypothesis that the lethal action of beta-toxin is based on the formation of cation-selective pores in susceptible cells.
Differential Impacts of Soybean and Fish Oils on Hepatocyte Lipid Droplet Accumulation and Endoplasmic Reticulum Stress in Primary Rabbit Hepatocytes

Parenteral nutrition-associated liver disease (PNALD) is a severe ailment associated with long-term parenteral nutrition. Soybean oil-based lipid emulsions (SOLE) are thought to promote PNALD development, whereas fish oil-based lipid emulsions (FOLE) are thought to protect against PNALD. This study aimed to investigate the effects of SOLE and FOLE on primary rabbit hepatocytes. The results reveal that SOLE caused significant endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondrial damage, ultimately resulting in lipid droplets accumulation and ER stress. While these deleterious events induce hepatocyte injury, FOLE at high doses cause only minor ER and mitochondrial damage, which has no effect on hepatic function. SOLE also significantly upregulated glucose-regulated protein 94 mRNA and protein expression. These data indicate that SOLE, but not FOLE, damage the ER and mitochondria, resulting in lipid droplets accumulation and ER stress and, finally, hepatocyte injury. This likely contributes to the differential impacts of SOLE and FOLE on PNALD development and progression.
Acquiring Planning Knowledge via Crowdsourcing

Plan synthesis often requires complete domain models and initial states as input. In many real world applications, it is difficult to build domain models and provide complete initial state beforehand. In this paper we propose to turn to the crowd for help before planning. We assume there are annotators available to provide information needed for building domain models and initial states. However, there might be a substantial amount of discrepancy within the inputs from the crowd. It is thus challenging to address the planning problem with possibly noisy information provided by the crowd. We address the problem by two phases. We first build a set of Human Intelligence Tasks (HITs), and collect values from the crowd. We then estimate the actual values of variables and feed the values to a planner to solve the problem.
Obesity, orbitofrontal structure and function are associated with food choice: a cross-sectional study

Objectives Obesity is on the rise in the US and is linked to the development of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Emerging evidence over the last decade suggests that obesity may also adversely affect executive function and brain structure. Although a great deal of research focuses on how diet affects the brain and cognitive performance, no study focuses on how food choice may be associated with brain integrity. Here we investigated how lean and overweight/obese (o/o) adults differed in their food choices and how brain structure and cognition may be associated with those choices. Design As part of an ongoing study on diabetes and the brain, participants had routine blood work and a research MRI, received a battery of neurocognitive tests, and were instructed to keep a 3-day food diary. Results and conclusions The lean group ate more high quality foods and less low quality foods compared to the o/o group. In the o/o group, high quality food choices were associated with orbitofrontal cortex volume. The lean group performed better than the o/o group on neurocognitive measures of executive function, such as the Stroop Interference Test, the Wisconsin Card Sort Test and the Trail Making Test B-A, and on attention and concentration tasks such as the Digit Symbol Substitution Test. Taken together, these preliminary data suggest that in obesity poor food choices may be associated with frontal cognitive impairments that may be the result of, or contribute to, decreases in orbitofrontal cortex volume. Therefore, longitudinal studies are warranted to investigate a causal link between food choice and executive functioning.
Effect of 980-nm diode laser-aided circumferential supracrestal fiberotomy on fluorosed root surfaces.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate and compare the root surface morphological changes after 980-nm diode laser-aided circumferential supracrestal fiberotomy (CSF) on fluorosed and non-fluorosed teeth. MATERIALS AND METHODS The sample comprised 27 orthodontic patients (14 males and 13 females; mean age = 17.3 years) with and without fluorosis, from whom 40 fluorosed and 40 non-fluorosed premolar teeth were extracted for orthodontic reasons. Conventional (control group) and laser-aided (experimental group) CSF was performed on fluorosed and non-fluorosed teeth indicated for orthodontic extraction, using a scalpel and a 980-nm diode laser at 2.5 W power, respectively. Subsequently, teeth were extracted, sectioned, and examined by scanning electron microscope to assess the ultrastructural changes. RESULTS There were differences in surface morphology among fluorosed and non-fluorosed roots in the control group. The root specimens of both fluorosed and non-fluorosed teeth irradiated by diode laser exhibited no evidence of smear layer, laser-induced pitting or cavitation, linear cuts/markings, carbonization of surface, and heat-induced surface cracking. However, a glazed or slightly melted appearance was observed in root specimens of fluorosed teeth after diode laser irradiation. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that the diode laser-aided CSF procedure is free from thermal hazard on non-fluorosed root surfaces but may provoke some thermal changes on fluorosed root surfaces.
An Assessment of Prison-Based Drug Treatment: Texas' In-Prison Therapeutic Community Program

ABSTRACT In response to increasing problems associated with drug-abusing offenders, the 1991 Texas Legislature provided a statutory foundation for the development of a comprehensive drug treatment program within the state's criminal justice system. In an effort to assess the impact of the prison-based treatment component of this legislative mandate, the Texas Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse funded the Institute of Behavioral Research at Texas Christian University to conduct a comprehensive prison-based treatment assessment (PTA) including studies of the In-prison Therapeutic Community (ITC) treatment process and posttreatment outcomes. This article provides an overview of the research project and findings from the 6-month follow-up study. Preprison and during-treatment information was collected from 293 ITC program participants. Six-month follow-up interviews were completed with 222 ITC program graduates and compared with a comparison sample of 75 parolees who were eligible but not sent to ITC treatm.