Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Route to thermalization in the α-Fermi–Pasta–Ulam system

Significance Despite the fact that more than 60 years have passed, the α-Fermi–Pasta–Ulam (FPU) system has not yet been fully understood. Their seminal work stimulated many interdisciplinary research topics in mathematics and physics like integrable systems, soliton theory, ergodic theory, and chaos. In this article, we theoretically investigate the original problem by applying the wave–wave interaction theory. By using this mathematical approach, we are able to explain why the emergence of equipartition requires very long times (inaccessible when the original numerical experiments were performed but nowadays recently observed using computer power). Our approach is general and can be used to attack other problems of weakly nonlinear dispersive waves. We study the original α-Fermi–Pasta–Ulam (FPU) system with N = 16, 32, and 64 masses connected by a nonlinear quadratic spring. Our approach is based on resonant wave–wave interaction theory; i.e., we assume that, in the weakly nonlinear regime (the one in which Fermi was originally interested), the large time dynamics is ruled by exact resonances. After a detailed analysis of the α-FPU equation of motion, we find that the first nontrivial resonances correspond to six-wave interactions. Those are precisely the interactions responsible for the thermalization of the energy in the spectrum. We predict that, for small-amplitude random waves, the timescale of such interactions is extremely large and it is of the order of 1/ϵ8, where ϵ is the small parameter in the system. The wave–wave interaction theory is not based on any threshold: Equipartition is predicted for arbitrary small nonlinearity. Our results are supported by extensive numerical simulations. A key role in our finding is played by the Umklapp (flip-over) resonant interactions, typical of discrete systems. The thermodynamic limit is also briefly discussed.
Vagal afferent innervation of the proximal gastrointestinal tract mucosa: Chemoreceptor and mechanoreceptor architecture

The vagus nerve supplies low‐threshold chemo‐ and mechanosensitive afferents to the mucosa of the proximal gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The absence of a full characterization of the morphology and distributions of these projections has hampered comprehensive functional analyses. In the present experiment, dextran (10K) conjugated with tetramethylrhodamine and biotin was injected into the nodose ganglion and used to label the terminal arbors of individual vagal afferents of both rats and mice. Series of serial 100‐μm thick sections of the initial segment of the duodenum as well as the pyloric antrum were collected and processed with diaminobenzidine for permanent tracer labeling. Examination of over 400 isolated afferent fibers, more than 200 from each species, indicated that three vagal afferent specializations, each distinct in morphology and in targets, innervate the mucosa of the proximal GI tract. One population of fibers, the villus afferents, supplies plates of varicose endings to the apical tips of intestinal villi, immediately subjacent to the epithelial wall. A second type of afferent, the crypt afferent, forms subepithelial rings of varicose processes encircling the intestinal glands or crypts, immediately below the crypt‐villus junction. Statistical assessment of the isolated fibers indicated that the villus arbors and the crypt endings are independent, issued by different vagal afferents. A third vagal afferent specialization, the antral gland afferent, arborizes along the gastric antral glands and forms terminal concentrations immediately below the luminal epithelial wall. The terminal locations, morphological features, and regional distributions of these three specializations provide inferences about the sensitivities of the afferents. J. Comp. Neurol. 519:644–660, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Baby Boomer Retirement Security: The Roles of Planning, Financial Literacy, and Housing Wealth

We compare wealth holdings across two cohorts of the Health and Retirement Study: the early Baby Boomers in 2004, and individuals in the same age group in 1992. Levels and patterns of total net worth have changed relatively little over time, though Boomers rely more on housing equity than their predecessors. Most important, planners in both cohorts arrive close to retirement with much higher wealth levels and display higher financial literacy than non-planners. Instrumental variables estimates show that planning behavior can explain the differences in savings and why some people arrive close to retirement with very little or no wealth.
Efficacy of biological agents administered as monotherapy in rheumatoid arthritis: a Bayesian mixed-treatment comparison analysis

Background Biological agents provide an important therapeutic alternative for rheumatoid arthritis patients refractory to conventional disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs. Few head-to-head comparative trials are available. Purpose The aim of this meta-analysis was to compare the relative efficacy of different biologic agents indicated for use as monotherapy in rheumatoid arthritis. Methods A systemic literature search was performed on electronic databases to identify articles reporting double-blind randomized controlled trials investigating the efficacy of biologic agents indicated for monotherapy. Efficacy was assessed using American College of Rheumatology (ACR) 20, 50, and 70 criteria at 16–24 weeks. Relative efficacy was estimated using Bayesian mixed-treatment comparison models. Outcome measures were expressed as odds ratio and 95% credible intervals. Results Ten randomized controlled trials were selected for data extraction and analysis. Mixed-treatment comparison analysis revealed that tocilizumab offered 100% probability of being the best treatment for inducing an ACR20 response versus placebo, methotrexate, adalimumab, or etanercept. Likewise, for ACR50 and ACR70 outcome responses, tocilizumab had a 99.8% or 98.7% probability of being the best treatment, respectively, compared to other treatments or placebo. Tocilizumab increased the relative probability of being the best treatment (vs methotrexate) by 3.2-fold (odds ratio: 2.1–3.89) for all ACR outcomes. Conclusion Tocilizumab offered the greatest possibility of obtaining an ACR20, ACR50, and ACR70 outcome vs other monotherapies or placebo.
1064 nm injection mode-locked Nd:YAG laser optimized for guide star applications.

In recent years, the emergence of powerful, sodium-resonant laser sources has led to a dramatic improvement in resolution at many of the world’s large aperture observatories. The lasers are used to create artificial beacons (or guide stars) by fluorescing atmospheric sodium. Light from the beacon, returning from altitude, probes the intervening turbulence and the phase distortions detected are subsequently corrected using adaptive optics. Near-diffraction limited imaging has now been achieved on observatories with diameters up to 8 m using this technique. Future 30-100 m diameter telescopes will require new laser sources having higher average powers and innovative pulse formats to implement new forms of atmospheric tomography and correction. In this thesis I present the design and development of a new laser system for this purpose. The laser design that I describe uses sum frequency generation (SFG) of 1064 nm and 1319 nm Nd:YAG lasers to produce the sodium wavelength, and introduces the novel application of injection mode-locking as a robust method to control the lasers wavelength and bandwidth. The high peak power and low timing jitter of the mode-locked (micro) pulses allows for efficient SFG of the 1064 and 1319 nm beams. Each slave laser is Qswitched and the duration of the Q-switched (macro) pulses are optimised to reduce star elongation and bleaching of the sodium. The experimental work presented in this thesis is focused on the realization of a 1064 nm injection mode-locked slave laser, whose performance is optimised for use in the SFG guide star system. The work can be roughly divided into two sections. Firstly, results are presented from a low average power proof of principle laser which was used for risk reduction experiments, then secondly, a higher average power laser using a new laser head design is presented. With the proof of concept laser it is shown that the injection mode-locking technique is robust and can be used to generate an ideal pulse burst with both wavelength and bandwidth control. A new method of Q-switched pulse stretching was implemented and the results show that the Q-switched pulses can be extended by a factor of 4.5 without a reduction in pulse energy. The later part of the experimental work consists of a description of the design, construction and testing of a new high average power laser head used to generate the power levels required for the final guide star system. The laser head uses a zigzag Nd:YAG slab, pumped from each side by high average power laser diode arrays. This laser is shown to be capable of generating one of the highest average powers reported in the literature for an electro-optically Q-switched, diffraction limited Nd:YAG laser in a stable cavity.
Critical success factors for international projects

This paper highlights importance of success factors in international projects and shows the need to study them especially in international environments. It identifies critical success factors from literature. It then groups them into four dimensions i.e. project, people, organization and national factors. The grouping is done to confirm evidently the impact of national factors on success. Finally it presents a model which illustrates that national factors can greatly influence the success of international projects and they also influence other three dimensions of success factors i.e. project, people and organization. A proposal for further research work is given.
Short-Term Effects of Fine Particulate Air Pollution on Emergency Room Visits for Cardiac Arrhythmias: A Case-Crossover Study in Taipei

This study was undertaken to determine whether there was an association between fine particles (PM2.5) levels and number of emergency room (ER) visits for cardiac arrhythmias in Taipei, Taiwan. ER visits for cardiac arrhythmias and ambient air pollution data for Taipei were obtained for the period 2006–2010. The relative risk (RR) of ER visits was estimated using a case-crossover approach, controlling for weather variables, day of the week, seasonality, and long-term time trends. For the single-pollutant model (without adjustment for other pollutants), increased numbers of ER cardiac arrhythmia visits were significantly associated with PM2.5 on both warm days (>23°C) and cool days (< 23°C), with an interquartile range rise associated with a 10% (95% CI = –15%) and 4% (95% CI = 0–8%) elevation in number of ER visits for cardiac arrhythmias, respectively. In the two-pollutant models, PM2.5 levels remained significant after inclusion of sulfur dioxide (SO2) or ozone (O3) on both warm and cool days. This study provides evidence that higher levels of PM2.5 increase the risk of number of ER visits for cardiac arrhythmias.
Fractional Change in Apparent Diffusion Coefficient as an Imaging Biomarker for Predicting Treatment Response in Head and Neck Cancer Treated with Chemoradiotherapy

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: ADC provides a measure of water molecule diffusion in tissue. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the fractional change in ADC during therapy can be used as a valid predictive indicator of treatment response in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma treated with chemoradiotherapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Forty patients underwent DWI at pretreatment and 3 weeks after the start of treatment. The pretreatment ADC, fractional change in ADC, tumor regression rate, and other clinical variables were compared with locoregional control and locoregional failure and were analyzed by using logistic regression analysis and receiver operating characteristic analysis. Furthermore, progression-free survival curves divided by the corresponding threshold value were compared by means of the log-rank test. RESULTS: The fractional change in ADCprimary, the fractional change in ADCnode, primary tumor volume, nodal volume, tumor regression ratenode, N stage, and tumor location revealed significant differences between locoregional failure and locoregional control (P < .05). In univariate analysis, the fractional change in ADCprimary, fractional change in ADCnode, tumor regression ratenode, N stage, and tumor location showed significant association with locoregional control (P < .05). In multivariate analysis, however, only the fractional change in ADCprimary was identified as a significant and independent predictor of locoregional control (P = .04). A threshold fractional change in ADCprimary of 0.24 revealed a sensitivity of 100%, specificity of 78.7%, and overall accuracy of 84.8% for the prediction of locoregional control. Progression-free survival of the 2 groups divided by the fractional change in ADCprimary at 0.24 showed a significant difference (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that the fractional change in ADCprimary is a valid imaging biomarker for predicting treatment response in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma treated with chemoradiotherapy.
Early Epidemic Dynamics of the West African 2014 Ebola Outbreak: Estimates Derived with a Simple Two-Parameter Model

The 2014 West African Ebola virus outbreak, now more correctly referred to as an epidemic, is the largest ever to occur. As of August 28, 2014, concerns have been raised that control efforts, particularly in Liberia, have been ineffective, as reported case counts continue to increase. Limited data are available on the epidemiology of the outbreak. However, reported cumulative incidence data as well as death counts are available for Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. We utilized a simple, two parameter mathematical model of epidemic growth and control, to characterize epidemic growth patterns in West Africa, to evaluate the degree to which the epidemic is being controlled, and to assess the potential implications of growth patterns for epidemic size. Models demonstrated good fits to data. Overall basic reproductive number (R0) for the epidemic was estimated to be between 1.6 and 2.0, consistent with prior outbreaks. However, we identified only weak evidence for the occurrence of epidemic control in West Africa as a whole, and essentially no evidence for control in Liberia (though slowing of growth was seen in Guinea and Sierra Leone). It is projected that small reductions in transmission would prevent tens of thousands of future infections. These findings suggest that there is an extraordinary need for improved control measures for the 2014 Ebola epidemic, especially in Liberia, if catastrophe is to be averted.
UMBmark: a benchmark test for measuring odometry errors in mobile robots

This paper introduces a method for measuring odometry errors in mobile robots and for expressing these errors quantitatively. When measuring odometry errors, one must distinguish between (1) systematic errors, which are caused by kinematic imperfections of the mobile robot (for example, unequal wheel-diameters), and (2) non-systematic errors, which may be caused by wheel slippage or irregularities of the floor. Systematic errors are a property of the robot itself, and they stay almost constant over prolonged periods of time, while non- systematic errors are a function of the properties of the floor. Our method, called the University of Michigan benchmark test (UMBmark), is especially designed to uncover certain systematic errors that are likely to compensate for each other (and thus, remain undetected) in less rigorous tests. This paper explains the rationale for the UMBmark procedure and explains the procedure in detail. Experimental results from different mobile robots are also presented and discussed. Furthermore, the paper proposes a method for measuring non-systematic errors, called extended UMBmark. Although the measurement of non-systematic errors is less useful because it depends strongly on the floor characteristics, one can use the extended UMBmark test for comparison of different robots under similar conditions.
Modeling Lyman Continuum Emission from Young Galaxies

Based on cosmological simulations, we model Lyman continuum emission from a sample of 11 high-redshift star-forming galaxies spanning a mass range of a factor 20. Each of the 11 galaxies has been simulated both with a Salpeter and a Kroupa initial mass function (IMF). We find that the Lyman continuum luminosity of an average star-forming galaxy in our sample declines from z = 3.6 to 2.4 due to the steady gas infall and higher gas clumping at lower redshifts, increasingly hampering the escape of ionizing radiation. The galaxy-to-galaxy variation of apparent Lyman continuum emission at a fixed redshift is caused in approximately equal parts by the intrinsic variations in the Lyman continuum emission and by orientation effects. The combined scatter of an order of magnitude can explain the variance in the far-UV spectra of high-redshift galaxies detected by Shapley and coworkers. Our results imply that the cosmic galactic ionizing UV luminosity is monotonically decreasing from z = 3.6 to 2.4, curiously anticorrelated with the star formation rate in the smaller galaxies, which on average rises during this redshift interval.
Skylight—A Window on Shingled Disk Operation

We introduce Skylight, a novel methodology that combines software and hardware techniques to reverse engineer key properties of drive-managed Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) drives. The software part of Skylight measures the latency of controlled I/O operations to infer important properties of drive-managed SMR, including type, structure, and size of the persistent cache; type of cleaning algorithm; type of block mapping; and size of bands. The hardware part of Skylight tracks drive head movements during these tests, using a high-speed camera through an observation window drilled through the cover of the drive. These observations not only confirm inferences from measurements, but resolve ambiguities that arise from the use of latency measurements alone. We show the generality and efficacy of our techniques by running them on top of three emulated and two real SMR drives, discovering valuable performance-relevant details of the behavior of the real SMR drives.
Inhibition of oxytocin release and milk let-down in postpartum primiparous cows is not abolished by naloxone

About 10% of primiparous cows have no milk ejection during the first milkings after delivery. Therefore, 17 Brown Swiss dairy cows in their first lactation were used to evaluate the extent of disturbed milk let-down and the corresponding oxytocin (OT) plasma values in the 1st 5 days after delivery. The first milking was 9–22 h after parturition and served for classification of the cows to groups with inhibited (INH), bimodal (BIMO) or normal (NOR) milk let-down. The OT plasma levels before the start of manual teat stimulation and machine milking were comparably high during the first milking especially in NOR and BIMO cows. Ten minutes before the second milking (M2), 300 mg of the opioid antagonist naloxone was injected to test whether the disturbance was affected by the action of endogenous opioids on the neurohypophysis. The milk yield was not influenced by the naloxone treatment, and the INH cows had milk ejection only after a vaginal stimulation. Afterwards, the cows were milked twice every day, until the milk let-down and the OT release were unaffected (equal to control milking). Then, at the next milking, the cows were injected with 300 mg morphine 10 min before milking. The central OT release in response to manual teat stimulation and machine milking was completely blocked in all cows, but a vaginal stimulation was able to abolish this block, at least partially, in 16 cows. Thus, morphine produced a milk let-down characteristic as in the INH cows during the first three milkings. For the following milking, the cows were pre-treated with 300 mg naloxone (−15 min) plus 300 mg morphine (−10 min) before milking. The OT release and the milk yields were unaffected when compared with the control milking. This experiment demonstrates that exogenous opioids can affect the central release of OT in a naloxone-reversible manner even very soon after parturition. However, endogenous opioids are probably not the main mediators of disturbed central OT release and alveolar milk ejection in post-partum primiparous cows.
Synapse Loss and Dendrite Remodeling in a Mouse Model of Glaucoma

It has been hypothesized that synaptic pruning precedes retinal ganglion cell degeneration in glaucoma, causing early dysfunction to retinal ganglion cells. To begin to assess this, we studied the excitatory synaptic inputs to individual ganglion cells in normal mouse retinas and in retinas with ganglion cell degeneration from glaucoma (DBA/2J), or following an optic nerve crush. Excitatory synapses were labeled by AAV2-mediated transfection of ganglion cells with PSD-95-GFP. After both insults the linear density of synaptic inputs to ganglion cells decreased. In parallel, the dendritic arbors lost complexity. We did not observe any cells that had lost dendritic synaptic input while preserving a normal or near-normal morphology. Within the temporal limits of these observations, dendritic remodeling and synapse pruning thus appear to occur near-simultaneously.
RACK1, a New ADAM12 Interacting Protein

ADAM12 belongs to a disintegrin-like and metalloproteinase-containing protein family that possesses multidomain structures composed of a pro-domain, a metalloprotease, disintegrin-like, cysteine-rich, epidermal growth factor-like, and transmembrane domains, and a cytoplasmic tail. Overexpression of several ADAMs has been reported in human cancer, and we recently described the involvement of ADAM12 in liver injury (Le Pabic, H., Bonnier, D., Wewer, U. M., Coutand, A., Musso, O., Baffet, G., Clement, B., and Theret, N. (2003) Hepatology 37, 1056–1066). In this study, we used a yeast two-hybrid screening of a cDNA library from human hepatocellular carcinoma to analyze binding partners of ADAM12. We identify RACK1, a receptor for activated protein kinase C (PKC), as a new ADAM12 interacting protein. RACK1 is up-regulated in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and is highly expressed by activated hepatic stellate cells. We demonstrate the involvement of RACK1 in mediating the PKC-dependent translocation of ADAM12 to membranes of activated hepatic stellate cells. In particular, treatment of cells with phorbol esters enhances ADAM12 immunostaining in the membrane fractions and the co-immunoprecipitation of ternary complexes containing RACK1, ADAM12, and PKC. By using RNA interference, we demonstrate that inhibition of RACK1 expression diminishes the phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate-dependent translocation of ADAM12 to membranes of hepatic stellate cells. Finally, hepatic stellate cells cultured on coated type I collagen induces relocalization of ADAM12 in the membrane, suggesting that this major matrix component in liver cancer and fibrogenesis might stimulate ADAM12 translocation to the cell membrane where its shedding activity takes place.