Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bulge Evolution in Face-On Spiral and Low Surface Brightness Galaxies

It is an observational fact that bulges of spiral galaxies contain a high fraction of old and metal-rich stars. Following this observational fact, we have investigated the colors of 21 bulges hosted by a selected sample of high surface brightness spiral galaxies and low surface brightness galaxies observed in the B and R optical bands and the J and Ks near-IR bands. Using structural parameters derived from these observations, we obtain evidence that bulges could be formed by pure disk evolution (secular evolution), in agreement with suggestions by some authors. The color profiles, especially the near-IR ones, show null or almost null color gradients, supporting the hypothesis that the disk stellar populations are similar to those present in the bulge and/or that some bulges can be understood as disks with enhanced stellar density (or pseudobulges). In the optical, half of the galaxies present an inverse color gradient, giving additional evidence in favor of secular evolution for the sample investigated. The comparison of the observed colors with those obtained from spectrophotometric models of galaxy evolution suggests that bulges of the selected sample have solar and subsolar metallicities and are independent of the current stellar formation rate. Also, we obtain evidence suggesting that galaxies hosting small bulges tend to be systematically metal-poor compared to those with larger bulges. These results are being checked more carefully with high signal-to-noise ratio spectroscopy.
A large deviations approach to asymptotically optimal control of crisscross network in heavy traffic

In this work we study the problem of asymptotically optimal control of a well known multi-class queuing network, referred to as the \crisscross network", in heavy tra‐c. We consider exponential inter-arrival and service times, linear holding cost and an inflnite horizon discounted cost criterion. In a suitable parameter regime, this problem has been studied in detail by Martins, Shreve and Soner [11] using viscosity solution methods. In this work, using the pathwise solution of the Brownian Control Problem, we present an elementary and transparent treatment of the problem (with the identical parameter regime as in [11]) using large deviation ideas introduced in [5, 1]. We obtain an asymptotically optimal scheduling policy which is of threshold type. The proof is of independent interest since it is one of the few results which gives the asymptotic optimality of a control policy for a network with a more than one dimensional workload process.
Community structure of ectomycorrhizal fungi in a Pinus muricata forest: minimal overlap between the mature forest and resistant propagule communities

We have investigated colonization strategies by comparing the abundance and frequency of ectomycorrhizal fungal species on roots in a mature Pinus muricata forest with those present as resistant propagules colonizing potted seedlings grown in the same soil samples. Thirty‐seven fungal species were distinguished by internal transcribed spacer (ITS) restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs); most were identified to species level by sporocarp RFLP matches or to genus/family level by using sequence databases for the mitochondrial and nuclear large‐subunit rRNA genes. The below‐ground fungal community found in the mature forest contrasted markedly with the resistant propagule community, as only four species were found in both communities. The dominant species in the mature forest were members of the Russulaceae, Thelephorales and Amanitaceae. In contrast, the resistant propagule community was dominated by Rhizopogon species and by species of the Ascomycota. Only one species, Tomentella sublilacina (Thelephorales), was common in both communities. The spatial distribution of mycorrhizae on mature roots and propagules in the soil differed among the dominant species. For example, T. sublilacina mycorrhizae exhibited a unique bias toward the organic horizons, Russula brevipes mycorrhizae were denser and more clumped than those of other species and Cenococcum propagules were localized, whereas R. subcaerulescens propagules were evenly distributed. We suggest that species differences in resource preferences and colonization strategies, such as those documented here, contribute to the maintenance of species richness in the ectomycorrhizal community.
Skeletal Muscle Triglyceride Levels Are Inversely Related to Insulin Action

In animal studies, increased amounts of triglyceride associated with skeletal muscle (mTG) correlate with reduced skeletal muscle and whole body insulin action. The aim of this study was to test this relationship in humans. Subjects were 38 nondiabetic male Pima Indians (mean age 28 ± 1 years). Insulin sensitivity at physiological (M) and supraphysiological (MZ) insulin levels was assessed by the euglycemic clamp. Lipid and carbohydrate oxidation were determined by indirect calorimetry before and during insulin administration. mTG was determined in vastus lateralis muscles obtained by percutaneous biopsy. Percentage of body fat (mean 29 ± 1%, range 14–44%) was measured by underwater weighing. In simple regressions, negative relationships were found between mTG (mean 5.4 ± 0.3 μmol/g, range 1.3–1.9 μmol/g) and log10M (r = −0.53, P ≤ 0.001), MZ (r = −0.44, P = 0.006), and nonoxidative glucose disposal (r = −0.48 and −0.47 at physiological and supraphysiological insulin levels, respectively, both P = 0.005) but not glucose or lipid oxidation. mTG was not related to any measure of adiposity. In multiple regressions, measures of insulin resistance (log10M, MZ, log10[fasting insulin]) were significantly related to mTG independent of all measures of obesity (percentage of body fat, BMI, waist-to-thigh ratio). In turn, all measures of obesity were related to the insulin resistance measures independent of mTG. The obesity measures and mTG accounted for similar proportions of the variance in insulin resistance in these relationships. The results suggest that in this human population, as in animal models, skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity is strongly influenced by local supplies of triglycerides, as well as by remote depots and circulating lipids. The mechanism(s) underlying the relationship between mTG and insulin action on skeletal muscle glycogen synthesis may be central to an understanding of insulin resistance.
Chromatin Remodeling BAF (SWI/SNF) Complexes in Neural Development and Disorders

The ATP-dependent BRG1/BRM associated factor (BAF) chromatin remodeling complexes are crucial in regulating gene expression by controlling chromatin dynamics. Over the last decade, it has become increasingly clear that during neural development in mammals, distinct ontogenetic stage-specific BAF complexes derived from combinatorial assembly of their subunits are formed in neural progenitors and post-mitotic neural cells. Proper functioning of the BAF complexes plays critical roles in neural development, including the establishment and maintenance of neural fates and functionality. Indeed, recent human exome sequencing and genome-wide association studies have revealed that mutations in BAF complex subunits are linked to neurodevelopmental disorders such as Coffin-Siris syndrome, Nicolaides-Baraitser syndrome, Kleefstra's syndrome spectrum, Hirschsprung's disease, autism spectrum disorder, and schizophrenia. In this review, we focus on the latest insights into the functions of BAF complexes during neural development and the plausible mechanistic basis of how mutations in known BAF subunits are associated with certain neurodevelopmental disorders.
Enhancing Bowel Preparation for Colonoscopy: An Integrative Review

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer and second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Currently, colonoscopy is considered the gold standard to detect colorectal cancer. Poor bowel preparation in patients undergoing colonoscopy compromises the quality and efficacy of this procedure, affecting patient outcomes and increasing overall costs. With up to 25% of patients undergoing colonoscopy having poor bowel preparation, interventions to enhance the quality of bowel preparations are vital to improving clinical practice. Through an extensive review of the current literature, split-dose bowel preparation regimens appear to be the most well-supported and plausible intervention for meaningful change in efforts to enhance bowel preparation. Several studies of high quality and strength have drawn consistent conclusions that split-dose bowel preparations result in significantly better bowel cleansing than traditional day-prior bowel preparation regimens. Strengths, limitations, gaps in the current literature, and areas for future research are identified, which can help to direct future studies needed to strengthen the evidence and determine further practice initiatives to address the problem of poor bowel preparation for colonoscopy.
Detecting selective forwarding attacks in wireless sensor networks

Selective forwarding attacks may corrupt some mission-critical applications such as military surveillance and forest fire monitoring. In these attacks, malicious nodes behave like normal nodes in most time but selectively drop sensitive packets, such as a packet reporting the movement of the opposing forces. Such selective dropping is hard to detect. In this paper, we propose a lightweight security scheme for detecting selective forwarding attacks. The detection scheme uses a multi-hop acknowledgement technique to launch alarms by obtaining responses from intermediate nodes. This scheme is efficient and reliable in the sense that an intermediate node reports any abnormal packet loss and suspect nodes to both the base station and the source node. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that presents a detailed scheme for detecting selective forwarding attacks in the environment of sensor networks. The simulation results show that even when the channel error rate is 15%, simulating very harsh radio conditions, the detection accuracy of the proposed scheme is over 95%.
Rotation, Scaling and Translation Analysis of Biometric Signature Templates

Biometric authentication systems that make use of signature verification methods often render optimum performance only under limited and restricted conditions. Such methods utilize several training samples so as to achieve high accuracy. Moreover, several constraints are imposed on the end-user so that the system may work optimally, and as expected. For example, the user is made to sign within a small box, in order to limit their signature to a predefined set of dimensions, thus eliminating scaling. Moreover, the angular rotation with respect to the referenced signature that will be inadvertently introduced as human error, hampers performance of biometric signature verification systems. To eliminate this, traditionally, a user is asked to sign exactly on top of a reference line. In this paper, we propose a robust system that optimizes the signature obtained from the user for a large range of variation in Rotation-Scaling-Translation (RST) and resolves these error parameters in the user signature according to the reference signature stored in the database.
Specific immunotherapy with mugwort pollen allergoid reduce bradykinin release into the nasal fluid

Introduction A pathomechanism of allergic rhinitis is complex. A neurogenic mechanism seems to play a significant role in this phenomenon. Aim The evaluation of influence of specific immunotherapy of mugwort pollen allergic patients on the bradykinin concentration in the nasal lavage fluid. Material and methods The study included 22 seasonal allergic rhinitis patients. Thirty persons with monovalent allergy to mugwort pollen, confirmed with skin prick tests and allergen-specific immunoglobulin E, underwent a 3-year-long allergen immunotherapy with the mugwort extract (Allergovit, Allergopharma, Germany). The control group was composed of 9 persons with polyvalent sensitivity to pollen, who were treated with pharmacotherapy. Before the allergen-specific immunotherapy (AIT) and in subsequent years before the pollen seasons, a provocation allergen test with the mugwort extract was performed, together with collection of nasal fluids, where bradykinin concentration was determined according to Proud method. Results There were similar levels of bradykinin in both groups at baseline prior to therapy (AIT group: 584.0 ±87.2 vs. controls 606.3 ±106.5 pg/ml) and changes after allergen challenge 1112.4 ±334.8 vs. 1013.3 ±305.9 pg/ml as well. The bradykinin concentration in nasal lavage fluid after mugwort challenge in 1 year was lower in the AIT group (824.1 ±184.2 pg/ml vs. 1000.4 ±411.5 pg/l; p < 005) with a further significant decrease after the 2nd and 3rd year of specific immunotherapy. Significant reduction of symptoms and medications use was observed in hyposensitized patients. Conclusions A decreased level of bradykinin as a result of AIT suggests that some of the symptomatic benefits of AIT may be related to the reduced release of bradykinin into nasal secretions. These values correlate with clinical improvement within the course of treatment.
The Systematic Development and Pilot Randomized Evaluation of Counselling for Alcohol Problems, a Lay Counselor‐Delivered Psychological Treatment for Harmful Drinking in Primary Care in India: The PREMIUM Study

Background Despite harmful drinking causing a significant burden on global health, there is a large treatment gap, especially in low‐ and middle‐income countries. A major barrier to care is the lack of adequately skilled human resources to deliver contextually appropriate treatments. This paper describes the systematic process used to develop Counselling for Alcohol Problems (CAP), a brief psychological treatment (PT) for delivery by lay counselors in routine primary care settings to men with harmful drinking in India. Methods CAP was developed using a methodology involving 3 sequential steps: (i) identifying potential treatment strategies; (ii) developing a theoretical framework for the treatment; and (iii) evaluating the acceptability and feasibility of the treatment. Results CAP is a 3‐phase treatment delivered over 1 to 4 sessions based on a motivational interviewing (MI) stance and involves the following strategies: assessment and personalized feedback, family engagement, drink refusal skills, skills to address drinking urges, problem‐solving skills and handling difficult emotions, and relapse prevention and management. Data from a case series were used to inform several adaptations to enhance the acceptability of CAP to the recipients and feasibility of delivery by lay counselors of the treatment, for example expansion of the target group to include alcohol‐dependent patients and the extension of the delivery settings to include home‐based delivery. There was preliminary evidence of the effectiveness of CAP. Conclusions CAP is an acceptable brief PT for harmful drinking delivered by lay counselors in primary care whose effectiveness is currently being tested in a randomized controlled trial based in primary care in Goa, India.
Etiology, Pathophysiology, and Treatment of Atrial Fibrillation: Part 1

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with a higher incidence of mortality, stroke, and coronary events than is sinus rhythm. AF with a rapid ventricular rate may cause a tachycardia-related cardiomyopathy. Immediate direct-current cardioversion should be performed in patients with AF and acute myocardial infarction, chest pain due to myocardial ischemia, hypotension, severe heart failure, or syncope. Intravenous beta blockers, verapamil, or diltiazem may be given to immediately slow a very rapid ventricular rate in AF. An oral beta blocker, verapamil, or diltiazem should be used in persons with AF if a fast ventricular rate occurs at rest or during exercise despite digoxin. Amiodarone may be used in selected patients with symptomatic life-threatening AF refractory to other drugs. Digoxin should not be used to treat patients with paroxysmal AF. Nonpharmacologic therapies should be used in patients with symptomatic AF in whom a rapid ventricular rate cannot be slowed by drugs. This is part 1 of a 2-part review of the etiology, pathophysiology, and treatment of atrial fibrillation. The second part will be published in the subsequent issue of Cardiology in Review.
Simple Canonical Views

This paper demonstrates how to determine canonical views of objects in a way that is simple, robust and versatile. Common parlance loosely defines canonical views as the “front”, “side”, and “top” views of an object. Our approach determines these views for objects whether represented by images or three-dimensional points; neither image segmentation nor model analysis is required. It is easy to introduce constraints so that other views can be determined, as desired. We explain our method and compare it qualitatively to alternatives.
Prospective randomized clinical trial of hydrophilic tapered implant placement at maxillary posterior area: 6 weeks and 12 weeks loading

PURPOSE Early loading of implant can be determined by excellent primary stability and characteristic of implant surface. The implant system with recently improved surface can have load application 4-6 weeks after installing in maxilla and mandible. This study evaluated the effect of healing period to the stability of hydrophilic tapered-type implant at maxillary posterior area. MATERIALS AND METHODS This study included 30 patients treated by hydrophilic tapered-type implants (total 41 implants at maxilla) and classified by two groups depending on healing period. Group 1 (11 patients, 15 implants) was a control group and the healing period was 12 weeks, and Group 2 (19 patients, 26 implants) was test group and the healing period was 6 weeks. Immediately after implant placement, at the first impression taking, implant stability was measured using Osstell Mentor. The patients also took periapical radiographs after restoration delivery, 12 months after restoration and final followup period. The marginal bone loss around the implants was measured using the periapical radiographs. RESULTS All implants were survived and success rate was 97.56%. The marginal bone loss was less than 1mm after 1 year postoperatively except the one implant. The stabilities of the implants were not correlated with age, healing period until loading, insertion torque (IT), the diameter of fixture and the location of implant. Only the quality of bone in group 2 (6 week) was correlated with the stability of implant. CONCLUSION Healing period of 6 weeks can make the similar clinical prognosis of implants to that of healing period of 12 weeks if bone quality is carefully considered in case of early loading.
Neuronal CaV1.3α1 L-Type Channels Activate at Relatively Hyperpolarized Membrane Potentials and Are Incompletely Inhibited by Dihydropyridines

L-type calcium channels regulate a diverse array of cellular functions within excitable cells. Of the four molecularly defined subclasses of L-type Ca channels, two are expressed ubiquitously in the mammalian nervous system (CaV1.2α1 and CaV1.3α1). Despite diversity at the molecular level, neuronal L-type channels are generally assumed to be functionally and pharmacologically similar, i.e., high-voltage activated and highly sensitive to dihydropyridines. We now show that CaV1. 3α1 L-type channels activate at membrane potentials ∼25 mV more hyperpolarized, compared with CaV1. 2α1. This unusually negative activation threshold for CaV1. 3α1 channels is independent of the specific auxiliary subunits coexpressed, of alternative splicing in domains I–II, IVS3–IVS4, and the C terminus, and of the expression system. The use of high concentrations of extracellular divalent cations has possibly obscured the unique voltage-dependent properties of CaV1. 3α1 in certain previous studies. We also demonstrate that CaV1. 3α1 channels are pharmacologically distinct from CaV1. 2α1. The IC50for nimodipine block of CaV1. 3α1 L-type calcium channel currents is 2.7 ± 0.3 μm, a value 20-fold higher than the concentration required to block CaV1. 2α1. The relatively low sensitivity of the CaV1. 3α1 subunit to inhibition by dihydropyridine is unaffected by alternative splicing in the IVS3–IVS4 linker. Our results suggest that functional and pharmacological criteria used commonly to distinguish among different Ca currents greatly underestimate the biological importance of L-type channels in cells expressing Cav1. 3α1.
The metabolism of p-fluorobenzoic acid by a Pseudomonas sp.

A species of Pseudomonas previously used to study the degradation of p-fluorophenylacetic acid was used to investigate the degradation of p-fluorobenzoic acid. During growth on the latter substrate all organic fluorine was released into the culture medium as fluoride. Several metabolic intermediates were isolated from the culture medium of resting cells. The major compounds have been identified as 4-fluorocatechol, β-acetylacrylic acid, (+)-4-carboxymethyl-4-fiuorobut-2-enolide, (−)-4-carboxymethyl-but-2-enolide, and β-ketoadipic acid. A small quantity of a compound tentatively identified as β-fiuoroacrylic acid was also isolated. On the basis of these findings, together with respiratory studies on p-fluorobenzoic acid grown cells with various substrates, two metabolic pathways are proposed which involve elimination of fluorine at either of two alternative stages in the breakdown of p-fluorobenzoic acid.
A Bayesian Approach for Selective Image-Based Rendering Using Superpixels

Image-Based Rendering (IBR) algorithms generate high quality photo-realistic imagery without the burden of detailed modeling and expensive realistic rendering. Recent methods have different strengths and weaknesses, depending on 3D reconstruction quality and scene content. Each algorithm operates with a set of hypotheses about the scene and the novel views, resulting in different quality/speed trade-offs in different image regions. We present a principled approach to select the algorithm with the best quality/speed trade-off in each region. To do this, we propose a Bayesian approach, modeling the rendering quality, the rendering process and the validity of the assumptions of each algorithm. We then choose the algorithm to use with Maximum a Posteriori estimation. We demonstrate the utility of our approach on recent IBR algorithms which use over segmentation and are based on planar reprojection and shape-preserving warps respectively. Our algorithm selects the best rendering algorithm for each super pixel in a preprocessing step, at runtime our selective IBR uses this choice to achieve significant speedup at equivalent or better quality compared to previous algorithms.