Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Community assemblage patterns of odonates inhabiting a wetland complex influenced by anthropogenic disturbance

Abstract. 1 Many wetland complexes around the world are highly influenced by human activity (chiefly land conversion for agriculture). Measuring the impact of such activity hinges not only upon using appropriate wetland indicator taxa but also upon metrics that are sensitive enough to capture subtle effects. 2 Over a 5‐year period, we quantified the distribution and community structure of odonates (dragonflies and damselflies) occupying a wetland complex in Texas. When using traditional community metrics, there were no significant differences in diversity or evenness in the odonate assemblages in wetlands surrounded by the two dominant regional forms of land use (tilled cropland and grassland). Similarity analyses likewise failed to detect any significant differences in odonate community composition with land use. 3 Discriminant function analysis, however, revealed that species co‐occurrences could be distinguished on the basis of surrounding land use, which indicates that odonate assemblages in these wetlands are structured in a manner that typical community metrics fail to adequately describe. 4 Differences between the approaches are discussed, particularly with regard to the use of presence–absence data.
Analysis of Optimal Dynamic Withdrawal Policies in Withdrawal Guarantees Products

Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefits (GMWB) are popular riders in variable annuities with withdrawal guarantees. With withdrawals spread over the life of the annuities contract, the benefit promises to return the entire initial annuitization amount irrespective of the market performance of the underlying fund portfolio. Treating the dynamic withdrawal rate as the control variable, the earlier works on GMWB have considered the construction of a continuous singular stochastic control model and the numerical solution of the resulting pricing model. This paper presents a more detailed characterization of the pricing properties of the GMWB and performs a full mathematical analysis of the optimal dynamic withdrawal policies under the competing factors of time value of fund, optionality value provided by the guarantee and penalty charge on excessive withdrawal. When a proportional penalty charge is applied on any withdrawal amount, we can reduce the pricing formulation to an optimal stopping problem with lower and upper obstacles. We then derive the integral equations for the determination of a pair of optimal withdrawal boundaries. When a proportional penalty charge is applied on the amount that is above the contractual withdrawal rate, we manage to characterize the behavior of the optimal withdrawal boundaries that separate the domain of the pricing models into three regions: no withdrawal, continuous withdrawal at the contractual rate and an immediate withdrawal of a finite amount. Under certain limiting scenarios such as a high policy fund value, the time close to expiry, or a low value of guarantee account, we manage to obtain analytical approximate solution to the singular stochastic control model of dynamic withdrawals.
Hyaluronan production increases the malignant properties of mesothelioma cells

Malignant pleural mesotheliomas is in most cases associated with elevated amounts of hyaluronan. To investigate the importance of hyaluronan for the malignant properties of mesotheliomas, we have expressed murine hyaluronan synthase 2 (HAS2) in the non-hyaluronan producing mesothelioma cell line, Mero-25. We found that upon hyaluronan overproduction the mesothelioma cells changed their epitheloid character to a fibroblastic phenotype and were surrounded by pericellular matrices, the size of which correlated to the amount of synthesized hyaluronan. HAS2-transfected cells with the ability to synthesize about 520 ng hyaluronan/5 × 104cells/24 h exhibited about a 2-fold increase in the expression of the cell surface hyaluronan receptor CD44 and their locomotion increased compared to that of mock-transfected Mero-25 cells. Furthermore, the malignant properties of mesothelioma cell clones as determined by the ability to grow in a soft agar assay correlated to their hyaluronan production. These results provide evidence for an important role of hyaluronan in the aggressive spread of mesotheliomas in adjacent non-cancerous stromal tissues. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer. com
Performance of Natural I / O Applications Stevan Vlaovic and Rich Uhlig

In this paper we investigate the properties of Natural I/O applications and compare them to five SPEC95 integer benchmarks. Natural I/ O is a type of input into the system; unlike the standard keyboard or some digitized form, the input can be composed of a user’ s handwriting, speech, gestures, etc. We selected representative applications from the field of speech recognition ( Dragon Systems NaturallySpeaking), handwriting recognition ( ParaScript Demo), natural language processing ( PowerTranslator 6.0), and optical character recognition ( OmniPagePro). Our characterization environment consists of a fully functional x86 simulator that models all aspects of the hardware required for complete PC system simulation and a released build of Windows NT 4.0 that provides the operating system e vironment. In addition to the four natural I/O applications, five integer SPEC95 benchmarks for comparison: go, gcc, perl, compress, and vortex. A wide range of experiments were performed on these applications: memory performance, TLB performance, and branch prediction performance. Although as a rule, the two classes of applications, natural I/O and SPEC95, cannot be directly compared, we can draw some general conclusions. As a group, the natural I/O applications outperformed the SPEC95 benchmarks when it comes to ove rall branch predictor performance. The performance impact of memory hierarchy on the speech recognition is especially important. Even for large sizes of unified L2 caches, the resulting mpi for all of the speech recognition workloads is problematic.
Molecular Epidemiology of a Hepatitis C Virus Outbreak in a Hemodialysis Unit

ABSTRACT We analyzed a hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission case in the hemodialysis unit of a private clinic by sequencing two genome regions of virus isolates from a number of patients attending this unit and some external controls. The analysis of 337 nucleotides (nt) in the NS5B region did not provide enough resolution to ascertain which patients were actually involved in the outbreak and the potential source. Nevertheless, this region allowed the exclusion of several patients as putative sources of the transmission case based on their genotypes and phylogenetic relationships. On the other hand, the analysis of several 472-nt-long clone sequences per sample in a more rapidly evolving region of the HCV genome, coding for the envelope proteins and encompassing hypervariable region 1, allowed us to establish the existence of at least two independent transmission events involving two different source patients and three recipients. The direction of the transmissions was further corroborated by different measures of genetic variability within and among samples.
Semi‐empirical analysis of Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies – III. How to distinguish AGN hosts

This paper considers the techniques to distinguish normal star-forming (NSF) galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) hosts using optical spectra. The observational data base is a set of 20000 galaxies extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, for which we have determined the emission-line intensities after subtracting the stellar continuum obtained from spectral synthesis. Our analysis is based on photoionization models computed using the stellar ionizing radiation predicted by population synthesis codes (essentially STARBURST99) and, for the AGNs, a broken power-law spectrum. We explain why, among the four classical emission-line diagnostic diagrams, ([O III]/Hβ versus [O II]/Hβ, [O III]/Hβ versus [N II]/Hα (the BPT diagram), [O III]/Hβ versus [S II]/Hα and [O III]/Hβ versus [O I]/Hα), the BPT one works best. We show, however, that none of these diagrams is efficient in detecting AGNs in metal-poor galaxies, should such cases exist. We propose a new divisory line between 'pure' NSF galaxies and AGN hosts: y = (-30.787 + 1.1358x + 0.27297x 2 ) tanh (5.7409x) - 31.093, where y = log([O III]/Hβ), and x = log([N II]/Hα). According to our models, the divisory line drawn empirically by Kauffmann et al. includes among NSF galaxies objects that may have an AGN contribution to Hβ of up to 3 per cent. The Kewley et al. line allows for an AGN contribution of roughly 20 per cent. About 20 per cent of the galaxies in our entire sample that can be represented in the BTP diagram are found between our divisory line and the Kauffmann et al. line, meaning that the local Universe contains a fair proportion of galaxies with a very low-level nuclear activity, in agreement with the statistics from observations of nuclei of nearby galaxies. We also show that a classification into NSF and AGN galaxies using only [N II]/Hα is feasible and useful. Finally, we propose a new classification diagram, the DEW diagram, plotting D n (4000) versus max(EW[O II], EW[Ne III]). This diagram can be used with optical spectra for galaxies with redshifts up to z = 1.3, meaning an important progress over classifications proposed up to now. Since the DEW diagram requires only a small range in wavelength, it can also be used at even larger redshifts in suitable atmospheric windows. It also has the advantage of not requiring stellar synthesis analysis to subtract the stars and of allowing one to see all the galaxies in the same diagram, including passive galaxies.
Regulation of Bacterial RecA Protein Function

ABSTRACT The RecA protein is a recombinase functioning in recombinational DNA repair in bacteria. RecA is regulated at many levels. The expression of the recA gene is regulated within the SOS response. The activity of the RecA protein itself is autoregulated by its own C-terminus. RecA is also regulated by the action of other proteins. To date, these include the RecF, RecO, RecR, DinI, RecX, RdgC, PsiB, and UvrD proteins. The SSB protein also indirectly affects RecA function by competing for ssDNA binding sites. The RecO and RecR, and possibly the RecF proteins, all facilitate RecA loading onto SSB-coated ssDNA. The RecX protein blocks RecA filament extension, and may have other effects on RecA activity. The DinI protein stabilizes RecA filaments. The RdgC protein binds to dsDNA and blocks RecA access to dsDNA. The PsiB protein, encoded by F plasmids, is uncharacterized, but may inhibit RecA in some manner. The UvrD helicase removes RecA filaments from RecA. All of these proteins function in a network that determines where and how RecA functions. Additional regulatory proteins may remain to be discovered. The elaborate regulatory pattern is likely to be reprised for RecA homologues in archaeans and eukaryotes.
Caprylic Triglyceride as a Novel Therapeutic Approach to Effectively Improve the Performance and Attenuate the Symptoms Due to the Motor Neuron Loss in ALS Disease

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disorder causing progressive muscle weakness and ultimately death. ALS patients have impaired energy balance linked to lower activity of mitochondrial electron transport chain enzymes in ALS spinal cord, suggesting that improving mitochondrial function may present a therapeutic approach for ALS. When fed a ketogenic diet, the G93A ALS mouse shows significant increase in serum ketones as well as significantly slower progression of weakness and lower mortality rate. In this study, we treated SOD1‐G93A mice with caprylic triglyceride, a medium chain triglyceride that is metabolized into ketone bodies and can serve as an alternate energy substrate for neuronal metabolism. Treatment with caprylic triglyceride attenuated progression of weakness and protected spinal cord motor neuron loss in the transgenic mice, significantly improving their performance even though there was no significant benefit regarding survival. Our results demonstrate that caprylic triglyceride alleviates ALS‐type motor impairment through restoration of energy metabolism, indicating feasibility of using it as a treatment with a high impact on quality of life of ALS patients.
The role of L1 durational correlates in L2 acquisition: A production study of Japanese geminates by Italian, French and English L2 learners

This study explores experimentally some of the characteristics of durational production cues in nonnative pronunciation of the Japanese consonantal length contrast for three learner groups: Italian, French and English native speakers, based on the different phonological properties of their L1 regarding the presence/absence of such a contrast. Specifically, this paper investigates whether the phonetic implementation of this contrast is based on the same cues as native speakers, or on their L1 production cues. Previous studies have pointed out the crucial role of the presence of a consonantal length contrast in the learner’s L1 in L2 acquisition of a similar contrast. However, the present results suggest that although this might be the case when building separate phonemic categories for short and long consonants, in terms of phonetic implementation, the presence of a consonantal length contrast in the L1 might hinder the acquisition of a native-like timing control.
High Levels of Genetic Differentiation between Ugandan Glossina fuscipes fuscipes Populations Separated by Lake Kyoga

Background Glossina fuscipes fuscipes is the major vector of human African trypanosomiasis, commonly referred to as sleeping sickness, in Uganda. In western and eastern Africa, the disease has distinct clinical manifestations and is caused by two different parasites: Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense and T. b. gambiense. Uganda is exceptional in that it harbors both parasites, which are separated by a narrow 160-km belt. This separation is puzzling considering there are no restrictions on the movement of people and animals across this region. Methodology and Results We investigated whether genetic heterogeneity of G. f. fuscipes vector populations can provide an explanation for this disjunct distribution of the Trypanosoma parasites. Therefore, we examined genetic structuring of G. f. fuscipes populations across Uganda using newly developed microsatellite markers, as well as mtDNA. Our data show that G. f. fuscipes populations are highly structured, with two clearly defined clusters that are separated by Lake Kyoga, located in central Uganda. Interestingly, we did not find a correlation between genetic heterogeneity and the type of Trypanosoma parasite transmitted. Conclusions The lack of a correlation between genetic structuring of G. f. fuscipes populations and the distribution of T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense indicates that it is unlikely that genetic heterogeneity of G. f. fuscipes populations explains the disjunct distribution of the parasites. These results have important epidemiological implications, suggesting that a fusion of the two disease distributions is unlikely to be prevented by an incompatibility between vector populations and parasite.
Music education in junior high school: Perception of emotions conveyed by music and mental imagery in students who attend the standard or musical curriculum

The ability to perceive emotions conveyed by music and recognize multiple and mixed emotions improves with age. Several studies have found that mental imagery is one of the mechanisms that underlie emotional reactivity to music, and music has a facilitating effect on mental imagery. In particular, researchers have hypothesized a relationship between the perception of emotions expressed by music, visual imagery, and musical training. However, the results of previous studies are not homogenous. This study investigated the ability to perceive emotions in music in 130 students in their final year of junior high school and analyzed the contribution of musical training in visual imagery performances. Each student listened to one of two musical tracks, which were arranged to convey positive and negative emotions, respectively. After listening, the students reported the emotions they perceived and completed a visual imagery test. The results showed that the students could recognize simple, multiple and mixed emotions conveyed by the music. Moreover, the musically-trained students showed higher visual imagery ability.
Robust Synthesis of Ciprofloxacin-Capped Metallic Nanoparticles and Their Urease Inhibitory Assay

The fluoroquinolone antibacterial drug ciprofloxacin (cip) has been used to cap metallic (silver and gold) nanoparticles by a robust one pot synthetic method under optimized conditions, using NaBH4 as a mild reducing agent. Metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) showed constancy against variations in pH, table salt (NaCl) solution, and heat. Capping with metal ions (Ag/Au-cip) has significant implications for the solubility, pharmacokinetics and bioavailability of fluoroquinolone molecules. The metallic nanoparticles were characterized by several techniques such as ultraviolet visible spectroscopy (UV), atomic force microscopy (AFM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) methods. The nanoparticles synthesized using silver and gold were subjected to energy dispersive X-ray tests in order to show their metallic composition. The NH moiety of the piperazine group capped the Ag/Au surfaces, as revealed by spectroscopic studies. The synthesized nanoparticles were also assessed for urease inhibition potential. Fascinatingly, both Ag-cip and Au-cip NPs exhibited significant urease enzyme inhibitory potential, with IC50 = 1.181 ± 0.02 µg/mL and 52.55 ± 2.3 µg/mL, compared to ciprofloxacin (IC50 = 82.95 ± 1.62 µg/mL). MNPs also exhibited significant antibacterial activity against selected bacterial strains.
Observed and Modeled Warm Rainfall Occurrence and Its Relationships with Cloud Macrophysical Properties

AbstractObserved and modeled rainfall occurrence from shallow (warm) maritime clouds and their composite statistical relationships with cloud macrophysical properties are analyzed and directly compared. Rain falls from ~25% of warm, single-layered, maritime clouds observed by CloudSat and from ~27% of the analogous warm clouds simulated within a large-domain, fine-resolution radiative–convective equilibrium experiment performed using the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS), with its sophisticated bin-emulating bulk microphysical scheme. While the fractional occurrence of observed and simulated warm rainfall is found to increase with both increasing column-integrated liquid water and cloud depth, calculations of rainfall occurrence as a joint function of these two macrophysical quantities suggest that the modeled bulk cloud-to-rainwater conversion process is more efficient than observations indicate—in agreement with previous research. Unexpectedly and in opposition to the model-derived relationshi.
Audiovisual Delay as a Novel Cue to Visual Distance

For audiovisual sensory events, sound arrives with a delay relative to light that increases with event distance. It is unknown, however, whether humans can use these ubiquitous sound delays as an information source for distance computation. Here, we tested the hypothesis that audiovisual delays can both bias and improve human perceptual distance discrimination, such that visual stimuli paired with auditory delays are perceived as more distant and are thereby an ordinal distance cue. In two experiments, participants judged the relative distance of two repetitively displayed three-dimensional dot clusters, both presented with sounds of varying delays. In the first experiment, dot clusters presented with a sound delay were judged to be more distant than dot clusters paired with equivalent sound leads. In the second experiment, we confirmed that the presence of a sound delay was sufficient to cause stimuli to appear as more distant. Additionally, we found that ecologically congruent pairing of more distant events with a sound delay resulted in an increase in the precision of distance judgments. A control experiment determined that the sound delay duration influencing these distance judgments was not detectable, thereby eliminating decision-level influence. In sum, we present evidence that audiovisual delays can be an ordinal cue to visual distance.
INTEGRAL IGR J18135–1751 = HESS J1813–178: A New Cosmic High-Energy Accelerator from keV to TeV Energies

We report the discovery of a soft gamma-ray source, namely, IGR J18135-1751, detected with IBIS, the Imager on Board the INTEGRAL Satellite. The source is persistent and has a 20-100 keV luminosity of ~5.7 × 1034 ergs s-1 (assuming a distance of 4 kpc). This source is coincident with one of the eight unidentified objects recently reported by the HESS collaboration as part of the first TeV survey of the inner part of the Galaxy. Two of these new sources found along the Galactic plane, HESS J1813-178 and HESS J1614-518, have no obvious lower energy counterparts, a fact that motivated the suggestion that they might be dark cosmic ray accelerators. HESS J1813-178 has a strongly absorbed X-ray counterpart, the ASCA source AGPS 273.4-17.8, showing a power-law spectrum with photon index ~1.8 and a total (Galactic plus intrinsic) absorption corresponding to NH ~ 5 × 1022 cm-2. We hypothesize that the source is a pulsar wind nebula embedded in its supernova remnant. The lack of X-ray or gamma-ray variability, the radio morphology, and the ASCA spectrum are all compatible with this interpretation. In any case we rule out the hypothesis that HESS J1813-178 belongs to a new class of TeV objects or that it is a cosmic "dark particle" accelerator.
Urinary functional outcomes and toxicity five years after proton therapy for low- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer: Results of two prospective trials

Abstract Background. To assess genitourinary (GU) function and toxicity in patients treated with image-guided proton therapy (PT) for early- and intermediate-risk prostate cancer and to analyze the impact of pretreatment urinary obstructive symptoms on urinary function after PT. Material and methods. Two prospective trials accrued 171 prostate cancer patients from August 2006 to September 2007. Low-risk patients received 78 cobalt gray equivalent (CGE) in 39 fractions and intermediate-risk patients received 78–82 CGE. Median follow-up was five years. The International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) and GU toxicities (per CTCAE v3.0 and v4.0) were documented prospectively. Results. Five transient GU events were scored Gr 3 per CTCAE v4.0, for a cumulative late GU toxicity rate of 2.9% at five years. There were no Gr 4 or 5 events. On multivariate analysis (MVA), the only factor predictive of Gr 2 + GU toxicity was pretreatment GU symptom management (p = 0.0058). Patients with pretreatment IPSS of 15–25 had a decline (clinical improvement) in median IPSS from 18 before treatment to 10 at their 60-month follow-up. At last follow-up, 18 (54.5%) patients had a > 5-point decline, 14 (42.5%) remained stable, and two patients (3%) had a > 5-point rise (deterioration) in IPSS. Patients with IPSS < 15 had a stable median IPSS of 6 before treatment and at 60 months. Conclusion. Urologic toxicity at five years with image-guided PT has been uncommon and transient. Patients with pretreatment IPSS of < 15 had stable urinary function five years after PT, but patients with 15–25 showed substantial improvement (decline) in median IPSS, a finding not explained by initiation or dose adjustment of alpha blockers. This suggests that PT provides a minimally toxic and effective treatment for low and intermediate prostate cancer patients, including those with significant pretreatment GU dysfunction (IPSS 15–25).