Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Raman Spectral Features of Pyroxene - Application to Martian Meteorites Zagami & EETA79001

Raman spectroscopic patterns and peak positions of the pyroxenes in lunar KREEP basalt fragment 15273, 7039 [1] were used previously to distinguish orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene, and pyroxenoid structures. These spectra were calibrated with electron microprobe analyses (EMPA) to correlate major Raman peak positions with the Mg’ (Mg/(Mg+Fe)) and Wo content of the pyroxenes. In anticipation of the 2003 and 2005 Mars Surveyor lander missions, we are testing these correlations for their applicability to pyroxene spectra from a more diverse suite of pyroxenes, including those from the Zagami and EETA79001 Martian meteorites using the calibrated lunar pyroxene curve. The major Raman peaks of pyroxene occur in five spectral regions: (1) near 1000 cm; (2) near 670 cm; (3) near 530 cm; (4) between 300–400 cm; and (5) below 300 cm. These peaks arise from various vibrational modes in the pyroxene structure, and the correlation can be complicated. We focus on the peaks near 1000 cm, 670 cm, and 320 cm because they are the most commonly observed peaks on unprepared rock surfaces and in spectra where multiple phases are sampled (e.g., pyroxene + olivine, plagioclase, or phosphates). The following table lists the correlation coefficients found between these three peak positions, Mg’, and the Wo content for the pyroxenes in the 15273,7039 lunar rock fragment.
Nonlinear analysis and control of a reaction wheel-based 3D inverted pendulum

This paper presents the nonlinear analysis and control design of the Cubli, a reaction wheel-based 3D inverted pendulum. Using the concept of generalized momenta, the key properties of a reaction wheel-based 3D inverted pendulum are compared to the properties of a 1D case in order to come up with a relatively simple and intuitive nonlinear controller. Finally, the proposed controller is implemented on the Cubli, and the experimental results are presented.
The myth of the team captain as principal leader: extending the athlete leadership classification within sport teams

Abstract Although coaches and players recognise the importance of leaders within the team, research on athlete leadership is sparse. The present study expands knowledge of athlete leadership by extending the current leadership classification and exploring the importance of the team captain as formal leader of the team. An online survey was completed by 4,451 participants (31% females and 69% males) within nine different team sports in Flanders (Belgium). Players (N = 3,193) and coaches (N = 1,258) participated on all different levels in their sports. Results revealed that the proposed additional role of motivational leader was perceived as clearly distinct from the already established roles (task, social and external leader). Furthermore, almost half of the participants (44%) did not perceive their captain as the principal leader on any of the four roles. These findings underline the fact that the leadership qualities attributed to the captain as the team’s formal leader are overrated. It can be concluded that leadership is spread throughout the team; informal leaders rather than the captain take the lead, both on and off the field.
Quality Assessment and In Vitro Anti-diabetic Activity of Thunbergia laurifolia Stems and Leaves

The study aimed to evaluate pharmacognostic parameters for standardization of raw materials, Thunbergia laurifolia Lindl. (family: Thunbergiaceae) stems and leaves, as well as their active phytochemical (rosmarinic acid) contents. The antidiabetic potential was evaluated by yeast α-glucosidase inhibitory activity using p-nitrophenyl-α-D-glucopyranoside as substrate. Dried stems and leaves of Thunbergia laurifolia were collected from 15 different locations in Thailand. The microscopic anatomical and histological characteristics of stem and leaf were illustrated. The physico-chemical contents, including loss on drying, acid-insoluble ash, total ash, ethanol-soluble extractives, water-soluble extractives, and moisture of dried stems and leaves, were established. TLC-densitometry of rosmarinic acid in dried T. laurifolia stems and leaves were developed and revealed contents of 0.120 ± 0.079 and 0.291 ± 0.150 g per 100 g, respectively. Similarly, TLC-image analysis by ImageJ showed contents of 0.127 ± 0.094 and 0.303 ± 0.162 g per 100 g respectively (p > 0.05). Both quantitative TLC demonstrated their validity due to specificity, accuracy, repeatability, intermediate precision, limit of detection, limit of quantitation, and robustness. The antidiabetic potential of rosmarinic acid, T. laurifolia leaf and stem ethanolic extracts, and acarbose (positive control) exhibited IC50 of 0.31, 0.80, 5.89, and 1.48 mg/ml, respectively.
Citizens' electronic participation: a systematic review of their challenges and how to overcome them

The evolution of the internet and the popularity of the social media have brought new possibilities for citizens' participation into government decision-making. Laws, in democratic countries, have enforced government's data and process transparency. Nevertheless, the e-government research has demonstrated that citizen's participation is still very low. This paper presents a systematic literature review of e-participation research addressing three questions: 1) what are the reasons for the low citizens' participation? ; 2) what is the role of the government in e-participation? ; 3) what are the current approaches to promote e-participation? Although participation is a right for which the citizens should be fighting for, they have been neglecting to act. Researchers have indicated the government still plays a central role since information and opportunities flow through the government-controlled technological platforms. Nonetheless, there is hope, to initiate a virtuous cycle in which citizens control and expand popular participation, leading to a greater demand for government action.
The effect of adjuvant chemotherapy in male breast cancer: 134 cases from a retrospective study

Background Male breast cancer (BC) is a kind of rare tumour. There were few researches concerning the effect of chemotherapy for it. The purpose of this study is to estimate the value of chemotherapy on prognosis in male BC. Patients and methods Complete clinical and pathological information of male BC were collected from January 1990 to January 2008 in Zhejiang Cancer Hospital in China. 134 cases of male BC were included for analysis and separated into two groups based on receiving chemotherapy or not receiving chemotherapy. The disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) between chemotherapy group and non-chemotherapy group were compared with Kaplan-Meier survival curve. Stratified analysis was used to evaluate the strength of the association between chemotherapy and each risk factor. Multivariate analysis was conducted by using COX proportional hazard regression model. Results There were 58.21% (78/134) cases who underwent chemotherapy and 41.79% (56/134) cases without chemotherapy. There were 20 cases (25.64%) with recurrence/metastasis in patients with chemotherapy and six cases (10.71%) in patients without chemotherapy. The mean DFS time of male BC with chemotherapy and non-chemotherapy is 150.87 and 154.13 months, respectively (χ2=3.825, p=0.050). The mean OS time of male BC with chemotherapy and non-chemotherapy is 155.33 and 154.26 months, respectively (χ2=2.542, p=0.111). COX proportional hazard regression model showed that the two groups had similar DFS (HR=0.386, p=0.165), while chemotherapy might be a protective fact on OS (HR=0.140, p=0.026). Conclusion The utility of chemotherapy should be considered in the high risk level of recurrence/metastasis in male BC.
Computing the Largest Eigenvalue Distribution for Non-central Wishart Matrices

Eigenvalues of the Gram matrix formed from received data frequently appear in sufficient detection statistics for multi-channel detection with Generalized Likelihood Ratio (GLRT) and Bayesian tests. In a frequently presented model for passive radar, in which the null hypothesis is that the channels contain only complex white Gaussian noise and the alternative hypothesis is that the channels contain a common rank-one signal in the mean, the GLRT statistic is the largest eigenvalue λ1 of the Gram matrix formed from data, which has a Wishart distribution. Although exact expressions for the distribution of λ1 are known under both hypotheses, numerically calculating values of these distribution functions presents difficulties in cases where the dimension of the data vectors is large. Following on recent work addressing this issue under the null hypothesis, this paper presents a method to calculate values of this distribution under the alternative hypothesis, allowing tractable computation of receiver operating characteristic curves.
Precise object-relative positioning for car-like robots

In this paper, we present a method for increasing the object-relative positioning precision of a car-like robot. In an outdoor environment and on an electric vehicle retrofitted with commercially available actuators, we achieve sub-centimeter and sub-degree accuracy, longitudinally and in heading, respectively. Most noteworthy, this is higher precision than RTK-GPS - which is often assumed ground truth - can realistically measure. In order to get to this level of precision, the whole control chain, i.e., sensing, planning, high- and low-level control, needs to be tightly tuned. However, the biggest contribution to the final precision and hence the contribution of this paper, is the usage of object-relative coordinates for the final approach. The proposed algorithms were extensively tested using an autonomous docking maneuver at multiple sites. For the docking to be physically possible, errors of less than 1cm (longitudinally) and 1 degree (in heading) were necessary and reliably achieved.
Single-Patch Low-Rank Prior for Non-pointwise Impulse Noise Removal

This paper introduces a `low-rank prior' for small oriented noise-free image patches: considering an oriented patch as a matrix, a low-rank matrix approximation is enough to preserve the texture details in the properly oriented patch. Based on this prior, we propose a single-patch method within a generalized joint low-rank and sparse matrix recovery framework to simultaneously detect and remove non-point wise random-valued impulse noise (e.g., very small blobs). A weighting matrix is incorporated in the framework to encode an initial estimate of the spatial noise distribution. An accelerated proximal gradient method is adapted to estimate the optimal noise-free image patches. Experiments show the effectiveness of our framework in removing non-point wise random-valued impulse noise.
Nonsurgical Management of Parapharyngeal Space Infections: A Prospective Study

Objective/Hypothesis Parapharyngeal infections, which can potentially cause life‐threatening complications, may, in certain cases, be treated conservatively with no need for surgical drainage. A review of the literature reveals that the most recommended treatment of parapharyngeal infection is surgical drainage combined with intravenous antibiotic therapy. Several retrospective reports recommend conservative treatment with no surgical drainage.
Long-term tacrine (Cognex) treatment

Objective: To assess the possible association between tacrine (Cognex, manufactured by Parke-Davis, Morris Plains, NJ) dose and likelihood of nursing home placement (NHP) or death in patients with AD. Design: A 30-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group multicenter clinical trial involving 663 patients, after which patients were treated openly and followed up a minimum of 2 years later. Patients: At baseline, outpatients were at least 50 years of age, met criteria for probable AD, with baseline Mini-Mental State Examination scores between 10 and 26 (inclusive), were otherwise healthy, and had a caregiver who could provide assessments and ensure medication compliance. Interventions: Randomized assignment to placebo or one of three ascending dosage regimens of tacrine over 30 weeks, followed by open label treatment for all patients who began the double-blind trial. Outcome Measures: NHP and death were examined using logistic regression. Results: Patients who remained on tacrine and were receiving doses > 80 mg/d or > 120 mg/d were less likely to have entered a nursing home than patients on lower doses (odds ratios > 2.7, 2.8, respectively.) There was a trend for lower mortality for patients receiving > 120 mg/d (p = 0.063). Conclusions: Treatment with tacrine at doses > 80 mg/d was associated with a reduced likelihood of NHP. These data demonstrate that tacrine's 30-week effects on cognitive function and clinicians' global ratings may generalize to effects on a major milestone of AD. Future studies should attempt to replicate these findings prospectively. NEUROLOGY 1996;47: 166-177
A dual-rate LDPC decoder for china multimedia mobile broadcasting systems

This paper presents an efficient VLSI architecture and implementation for LDPC decoder used in China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) systems. An area-efficient layered decoding architecture based on min-sum algorithm is incorporated in the design. A novel split-memory architecture is developed to efficiently handle the weight-2 submatrices that are rarely seen in conventional LDPC decoders. In addition, the check-node processing unit is highly optimized to minimize complexity and computing latency while facilitating a reconfigurable decoding core. The proposed design is implemented using 90 nm CMOS technology with the core area of approximately 4.4 mm2 and the standard supply voltage 1.0 V. The decoder can achieve the maximum throughput of 228 Mb/s for rate 1/2 and 342 Mb/s for rate 3/4 at 15 iterations of layered decoding. Therefore, it can be deployed on the CMMB mobile platform.
The Anthraquinone Derivatives from the Fungus Alternaria sp. XZSBG-1 from the Saline Lake in Bange, Tibet, China

Four new anthraquinone derivatives 1–4 were obtained along with seven known compounds 5–11 from the extracts of the fungal strain Alternaria sp. XZSBG-1 which was isolated from the sediments of the carbonate saline lake in Bange, Tibet, China. Their structures were determined by spectroscopic methods, mainly by 2D NMR spectra. Compound 1 is a novel tetrahydroanthraquinone with an epoxy ether bond between C-4a and C-9a. In the primary bioassays, compound 3 (alterporriol T) exhibited inhibition of a-glucosidase with a IC50 value 7.2 μM, and compound 9 showed good inhibitory activity against the HCT-116 and HeLa cell lines, with IC50 values of 3.03 and 8.09 μM, respectively.
Modeled Ground Water Age Distributions

The age of ground water in any given sample is a distributed quantity representing distributed provenance (in space and time) of the water. Conventional analysis of tracers such as unstable isotopes or anthropogenic chemical species gives discrete or binary measures of the presence of water of a given age. Modeled ground water age distributions provide a continuous measure of contributions from different recharge sources to aquifers. A numerical solution of the ground water age equation of Ginn (1999) was tested both on a hypothetical simplified one‐dimensional flow system and under real world conditions. Results from these simulations yield the first continuous distributions of ground water age using this model. Complete age distributions as a function of one and two space dimensions were obtained from both numerical experiments. Simulations in the test problem produced mean ages that were consistent with the expected value at the end of the model domain for all dispersivity values tested, although the mean ages for the two highest dispersivity values deviated slightly from the expected value. Mean ages in the dispersionless case also were consistent with the expected mean ages throughout the physical model domain. Simulations under real world conditions for three dispersivity values resulted in decreasing mean age with increasing dispersivity. This likely is a consequence of an edge effect. However, simulations for all three dispersivity values tested were mass balanced and stable demonstrating that the solution of the ground water age equation can provide estimates of water mass density distributions over age under real world conditions.
Adult survivors of childhood cancer and unemployment

W e read with interest the report of de Boer et al describing the risk of unemployment of adult survivors of childhood cancer compared with healthy controls. We are currently evaluating the quality of life in survivors of bone tumors in the Pediatric Department at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Preliminary information on 250 patients reveals the following occupations in 15 long-term survivors: physicians (7), accountants (2), lawyers (2), banker (1), architect (1), travel agency manager (1), and radio disc jockey (1). While 1 swallow does not make a summer, it is important to emphasize that the outcome may not be as gloomy as perceived in the de Boer et al report and that such patients have the potential to become respected members of society. Of interest also is that 1 of the authors of this communication (G.O.) is a former patient and now a physician and has written articles describing the outcome and complications of her condition. An attempt was made to treat with chemotherapy only and to abrogate surgery, but the attempt was unsuccessful and she subsequently underwent several operative procedures that have been published. The above examples could be cited to patients and parents who are about to undergo treatment for bone tumors. Not only should the potential for cure and late effects of treatment be discussed, but also the finding that patients may successfully enter the workforce. It is also supportive of the findings of Eiser et al, who could not demonstrate increased deficits in measures of anxiety, depression, or self-esteem in long-term survivors when compared with matched controls.
E-selectin ligand-1 controls circulating prostate cancer cell rolling/adhesion and metastasis

Circulating prostate cancer (PCa) cells preferentially roll and adhere on bone marrow vascular endothelial cells, where abundant E-selectin and stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF-1) are expressed, subsequently initiating a cascade of activation events that eventually lead to the development of metastases. To elucidate the roles of circulating PCa cells' rolling and adhesion behaviors in cancer metastases, we applied a dynamic cylindrical flow-based microchannel device that is coated with E-selectin and SDF-1, mimicking capillary endothelium. Using this device we captured a small fraction of rolling PCa cells. These rolling cells display higher static adhesion ability, more aggressive cancer phenotypes and stem-like properties. Importantly, mice received rolling PCa cells, but not floating PCa cells, developed cancer metastases. Genes coding for E-selectin ligands and genes associated with cancer stem cells and metastasis were elevated in rolling PCa cells. Knock down of E-selectin ligand 1(ESL-1), significantly impaired PCa cells' rolling capacity and reduced cancer aggressiveness. Moreover, ESL-1 activates RAS and MAP kinase signal cascade, consequently inducing the downstream targets. In summary, circulating PCa cells' rolling capacity contributes to PCa metastasis, and that is in part controlled by ESL-1.
Validity, internal consistency, and test/retest reliability of a localization disabilities and handicaps questionnaire.

Psychometric evaluations were performed on a self-perceived localization disabilities and handicaps questionnaire. Twenty individuals with normal hearing bilaterally, twenty with profound unilateral hearing impairment (UHI), and ten with any degree of bilateral hearing impairment participated. Each subject completed the questionnaire. Comparisons of the responses of the subjects with normal hearing and those with UHI revealed significant differences among the groups for both disabilities and handicaps, establishing construct validity. Cronbach's Alpha correlational analyses of the responses of all subjects with hearing impairment revealed correlations of . 900 (disabilities) and . 800 (handicaps), establishing internal consistency. Each participant with hearing impairment was asked to complete the questionnaire again after three weeks. Pearson's correlational analyses of the responses at time one versus time two revealed correlations of . 900 (disabilities) and . 700 (handicaps), establishing test/retest reliability. This questionnaire is an appropriate tool for investigating the self-perceived localization disabilities and handicaps of individuals with hearing impairment.
Maze Learning by Adult Rats after Inhibition of Neuronal Multiplication in Utero

Extract: Rats whose mothers received hydroxyurea (HU, 1 or 2 g/kg) at 14 days of gestation had a 30% deficit in both brain and body weight at birth, when compared with controls. Number of brain cells at birth (mainly neurons) was reduced by 33–34%. A severe reduction in postnatal whole brain growth (31–33% in adulthood) was observed, but the cerebellum was relatively spared. In the Hebb-Williams maze text in adulthood HU animals made 28% more errors than controls over 12 problems. The differences were much more marked on certain problems and for HU animals with particularly small brains. In a T-maze spatial discrimination test in adulthood HU rats learned the initial response normally but, when required to reverse this response, showed a significant tendency to make more perseverative errors than controls.Speculation: Rats exposed to an inhibitor of cell division at the beginning of the major period of brain neurogenesis showed deficits in learning ability in adulthood. The large number of mentally retarded human children whose handicap is without known etiology may have suffered a similar early loss of neurons, and if so, this preparation could provide a useful animal model.
Fitness testing of tennis players: How valuable is it?

In tennis, sport-specific technical skills are predominant factors, although a complex profile of physical performance factors is also required. The fitness test batteries assist in examining tennis players’ capabilities for performance at different levels in the laboratory as well as in the field, in the junior or elite level. While laboratory tests can be, and are, used to evaluate basic performance characteristics of athletes in most individual sports, in a more specific approach, field-based methods are better suited to the demands of complex intermittent sports like tennis. A regular test battery performed at different periods of the year allows to obtain an individual's performance profile, as well as the ability to prescribe individual training interventions. Thus, the aim of the present review was to describe and evaluate the different physical tests recommended and used by practitioners, sports scientists and institutions (national tennis federations).