Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dispersing male Parnassius smintheus butterflies are more strongly affected by forest matrix than are females

Dispersal is a central aspect of the ecology, evolution, and conservation of species. Predicting how species will respond to changing environmental conditions requires understanding factors that produce variation in dispersal. We explore one source of variation, differences between sexes within a spatial population network. Here, we compare the dispersal patterns of male and female Parnassius smintheus among 18 subpopulations over 8 years using the Virtual Migration Model. Estimated dispersal parameters differed between males and females, particularly with respect to movement through meadow and forest matrix habitat. The estimated dispersal distances of males through forest were much less than for females. Observations of female movement showed that, unlike males, females do not avoid forest nor does forest exert an edge effect. We explored whether further forest encroachment in this system would have different effects for males and females by fitting mean parameter estimates to the landscape configuration seen in 1993 and 2012. Despite differences in their dispersal due presumably to both habitat and physiological differences, males and females are predicted to respond in similar ways to reduced meadow area and increased forest isolation.
Chemical treatments of bamboo to modify its moisture absorption and adhesion to vinyl ester resin in humid environment

Moisture absorption is a major concern in the case of natural fibers used as reinforcement in structural composites. Bamboo strip as a kind of natural material has been used to reinforce vinyl ester resin, in this study. The moisture absorption behavior of the bamboo strips and their adhesion to vinyl ester resin at different levels of relative humidity (RH) during specimen fabrication are investigated. To improve moisture resistance and the adhesion to vinyl ester resin under high RH conditions, the bamboo strips are subject to different chemical treatments, that is with alkaline, pre-alkaline and acetic anhydride, pre-alkaline and potassium permanganate, and pre-alkaline and silane. The study of the equilibrium moisture content of modified bamboo strips shows that it is slightly increased by alkaline treatment, while it is reduced by the other three methods, especially by acetylation due to its well-known esterification. The interfacial shear strength (IFSS) by pull-out test is greatly improved after th.
Deployment characteristics and long-term PTSD symptoms.

OBJECTIVE The impact of number, length, and time between (i.e., "dwell time") deployments on long-term Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms was examined in post-9/11 U.S. veterans. METHOD This cross-sectional design includes data from 278 veterans participating in a larger longitudinal research program of postdeployment recovery. Measures included self-report questionnaires and the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale. RESULTS Hierarchical regression was used to evaluate the independent contributions of deployment characteristics on long-term PTSD symptoms after controlling for demographics and combat exposure. As expected, dwell time was a significant predictor of long-term PTSD symptoms (β = - 0.17, p = .042; F5,108 = 8.21, ∆R2 = 0.03, p < .001). Follow-up analyses indicated that dwell time of less than 12 months was associated with significantly greater long-term PTSD symptoms than those deployed once or with dwell time greater than 12 months. CONCLUSION In addition to combat exposure, time between deployments warrants clinical attention as an important deployment characteristic for predicting long-term PTSD symptoms.
Cost-Effective and Anonymous Access Control for Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area networks (WBANs) are expected to play an important role in monitoring the health information and creating a smart, reliable, and ubiquitous healthcare system. Only authorized users can access the network since the collected data by the WBANs are used to diagnosed and treated. However, it is still a challenging task to design a cost-effective and secure access control scheme because of inherent characteristics of the WBANs, such as open medium channel, limited resources of sensor nodes, and the absence of fixed infrastructure. In this paper, we first propose a novel certificateless signcryption scheme, and then, design a cost-effective and anonymous access control scheme for the WBANs using the novel signcryption. The proposed access control scheme achieves anonymity, confidentiality, authentication, integrity, and nonrepudiation. Compared with existing three access control schemes for the WBANs, our proposed scheme has the least computational cost and total energy consumption for the controller.
The Effect of Laser Texturing of GCr15 Steel Surfaces on Their Tribological Properties

The surface textures on GCr15 steel were produced with a solid-state pulse Nd:YAG laser.The effects of laser texturing parameters on tribological performance were investigated.The wear scars were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy.The results show that laser-textured specimens exhibited higher friction coefficients but excellent antiwear properties compared with untextured specimens in dry friction.Under poor lubricated condition,the friction coefficients and wear of textured surfaces were lower than those of untextured surfaces.The friction coefficients of the surface with smaller dimples were lower than those of others under low load at low velocity.However,with the increasing of load the surfaces with larger dimples exhibited lower friction coefficients.Lubrication mechanism was investigated by stribeck curve.It was found that textured surfaces maintained in hydrodynamic regime for all applied loads under poor lubrication.
Pollination drop in Juniperus communis: response to deposited material.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The pollination drop is a liquid secretion produced by the ovule and exposed outside the micropyle. In many gymnosperms, pollen lands on the surface of the pollination drop, rehydrates and enters the ovule as the drop retracts. The objective of this work was to study the formation of the pollination drop in Juniperus communis, its carbohydrate composition and the response to deposition of conspecific pollen, foreign pollen and other particulate material, in an attempt to clarify the mechanism of pollination drop retraction. METHODS Branches with female cones close to pollination drop secretion were collected. On the first day of pollination drop exposure, an eyelash mounted on a wooden stick with paraffin was used to collect pollen or silica gel particles, which were then deposited by contact with the drop. Volume changes in pollination drops were measured by using a stereomicroscope with a micrometer eyepiece 3 h after deposition. The volume of non-pollinated control drops was also recorded. On the first day of secretion, drops were also collected for sugar analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography. KEY RESULTS The pollination drop persisted for about 12 d if not pollinated, and formed again after removal for up to four consecutive days. After pollination with viable conspecific pollen, the drop retracted quickly and did not form again. Partial withdrawal occurred after deposition of other biological and non-biological material. Fructose was the dominant sugar; glucose was also present but at a much lower percentage. CONCLUSIONS Sugar analysis confirmed the general trend of fructose dominance in gymnosperm pollination drops. Complete pollination drop withdrawal appears to be triggered by a biochemical mechanism resulting from interaction between pollen and drop constituents. The results of particle deposition suggest the existence of a non-specific, particle-size-dependent mechanism that induces partial pollination drop withdrawal. These results suggest that the non-specific response may decrease the probability of pollen landing on the drop, reducing pollination efficiency.
High cholesterol in lipid rafts reduces the sensitivity to EGFR‐TKI therapy in non‐small cell lung cancer

Overcoming EGFR‐TKI resistant which has the initial enthusiasm over substantial clinical responses is a formidable challenge on nowadays. In this study, we showed that cholesterol level in lipid rafts in gefitinib resistant non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines was remarkably higher than gefitinib sensitive cell line, and depletion of cholesterol increased gefitinib sensitivity. Furthermore, cholesterol‐depleted enhanced gefitinib inhibit phosphorylation of EGFR, Akt‐1, MEK1/2, and ERK1/2 and these were reversed in cholesterol add‐back experiments. Gefitinib resistant cell lines showed high affinity of gefitinib and EGFR when cholesterol was depleted. Therefore, targeting cholesterol combined with EGFR‐TKI is potentially a novel therapeutic strategy for gefitinib resistant treatment.
The effects of magnesium upon adenosine triphosphate‐sensitive potassium channels in a rat insulin‐secreting cell line.

1. The patch‐clamp method of single‐channel recording was applied to K+ channels which are inhibited by intracellular adenosine 5'‐triphosphate (ATP: K+‐ATP channels) in membrane patches obtained from the insulin‐secreting cloned cell line RINm5F. 2. The magnitude of K+ currents flowing outwards through these K+‐ATP channels was reduced by internal Mg2+ ions in a dose‐dependent manner. Currents flowing inwards through the channels were not affected by Mg2+. Internal Na+ ions had similar effects. 3. Divalent cations (Mg2+, Sr2+ and Ca2+) applied to the internal surface of the patch membrane inhibited the opening of K+‐ATP channels in a dose‐dependent manner. Internal Na+ ions had no effect. 4. K+‐ATP channel activity was stimulated by adenosine 5'‐diphosphate (ADP), guanosine 5'‐triphosphate (GTP), guanosine 5'‐diphosphate (GDP), guanosine 5'‐o‐(3‐thiotriphosphate) (GTP gamma S) and guanosine 5'‐o‐(2‐thiodiphosphate) (GDP beta S) when millimolar Mg2+ bathed the internal surface of the patch membrane. In the virtual absence of internal Mg2+ ions ADP, GTP, and GTP gamma S inhibited K+‐ATP channels and GDP and GDP beta S were without effect. Adenosine 5'‐o‐(2‐thiodiphosphate) (ADP beta S) inhibited K+‐ATP channel activity in the presence and absence of Mg2+. 5. K+‐ATP channel openings could be evoked by either ADP or GDP in the presence of an inhibitory concentration of ATP. These openings were abolished in the absence of internal Mg2+. 6. Run‐down K+‐ATP channels could be reactivated by ATP in the presence of internal Mg2+, but not in its absence. Analogues of ATP were unable to reactivate K+‐ATP channels even in the presence of Mg2+. 7. It is concluded that internal Mg2+ ions (i) cause the rectification of the K+‐ATP channel current‐voltage relationship, (ii) are required for K+‐ATP channel activity to be maintained by a phosphorylation process and (iii) are required for K+‐ATP channel activity evoked by ADP, GTP and GDP.
Mapping End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD): Spatial Variations on Small Area Level in Northern France, and Association with Deprivation

Background Strong geographic variations in the incidence of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are observed in developed countries. The reasons for these variations are unknown. They may reflect regional inequalities in the population's sociodemographic characteristics, related diseases, or medical practice patterns. In France, at the district level, the highest incidence rates have been found in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. This area, with a high population density and homogeneous healthcare provision, represents a geographic situation which is quite suitable for the study, over small areas, of spatial disparities in the incidence of ESRD, together with their correlation with a deprivation index and other risk factors. Methods The Renal Epidemiology and Information Network is a national registry, which lists all ESRD patients in France. All cases included in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais registry between 2005 and 2011 were extracted. Adjusted and smoothed standardized incidence ratio (SIR) was calculated for each of the 170 cantons, thanks to a hierarchical Bayesian model. The correlation between ESRD incidence and deprivation was assessed using the quintiles of Townsend index. Relative risk (RR) and credible intervals (CI) were estimated for each quintile. Results Significant spatial disparities in ESRD incidence were found within the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. The sex- and age-adjusted, smoothed SIRs varied from 0.66 to 1.64. Although no correlation is found with diabetic or vascular nephropathy, the smoothed SIRs are correlated with the Townsend index (RR: 1.18, 95% CI [1.00–1.34] for Q2; 1.28, 95% CI [1.11–1.47] for Q3; 1.30, 95% CI [1.14–1.51] for Q4; 1.44, 95% CI [1.32–1.74] for Q5). Conclusion For the first time at this aggregation level in France, this study reveals significant geographic differences in ESRD incidence. Unlike the time of renal replacement care, deprivation is certainly a determinant in this phenomenon. This association is probably independent of the patients' financial ability to gain access to healthcare.
Seroprevalence of Respiratory Syncytial Virus IgG among Healthy Young Adults in Basic Training for the Republic of Korea Air Force

This investigation enrolled 570 healthy young males gathered from all over the country for military service at the Republic of Korea Air Force boot camp. It confirmed RSV IgG seroprevalence by utilizing the enzyme immunoassay method just prior to undergoing basic training. The mean age of this study was 20.25±1.34 yr old. The results of their immunoassay seroprofiles showed that 561 men (98.4%) were positive, 2 (0.4%) were negative and 7 (1.2%) were equivocal belonging to the grey zone. It was confirmed that RSV is a common respiratory virus and RSV infection was encountered by almost all people before reaching adulthood in Korea. Nine basic trainees belonging to the RSV IgG negative and equivocal grey zone categories were prospectively observed for any particular vulnerability to respiratory infection during the training period of two months. However, these nine men completed their basic training without developing any specific respiratory illness. Graphical Abstract
Influential Node Tracking on Dynamic Social Network: An Interchange Greedy Approach

As both social network structure and strength of influence between individuals evolve constantly, it requires tracking the influential nodes under a dynamic setting. To address this problem, we explore the Influential Node Tracking (INT) problem as an extension to the traditional Influence Maximization problem (IM) under dynamic social networks. While the Influence Maximization problem aims at identifying a set of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$k$</tex-math><alternatives><inline-graphic xlink:href="li-ieq1-2620141.gif"/></alternatives> </inline-formula> nodes to maximize the joint influence under one static network, the INT problem focuses on tracking a set of influential nodes that keeps maximizing the influence as the network evolves. Utilizing the smoothness of the evolution of the network structure, we propose an efficient algorithm, Upper Bound Interchange Greedy (UBI) and a variant, UBI+. Instead of constructing the seed set from the ground, we start from the influential seed set we found previously and implement node replacement to improve the influence coverage. Furthermore, by using a fast update method by calculating the marginal gain of nodes, our algorithm can scale to dynamic social networks with millions of nodes. Empirical experiments on three real large-scale dynamic social networks show that our UBI and its variants, UBI+ achieves better performance in terms of both influence coverage and running time.
Task Scheduling and Lightpath Establishment in Optical Grids

Data-intensive Grid applications require huge data transferring between multiple geographically separated computing nodes where computing tasks are executed. For a future WDM network to efficiently support this type of emerging applications, traditional approaches to establishing lightpaths between given source destination pairs are not sufficient because a computing task may be executed on any one of several computing nodes having the necessary resources. Therefore, lightpath establishment has to be considered jointly with task scheduling to achieve best performance. In this paper, we study the optimization problems of jointly scheduling both computing resources and network resources. We first present the formulation of two optimization problems with the objectives being the minimization of the completion time of a job and minimization of the resource usage/cost to satisfy a job with a deadline respectively. When the objective is to minimize the completion time, we devise an optimal algorithm for a special type of applications. Furthermore, we propose efficient heuristics to deal with general applications with either optimization objective and demonstrate their good performances via simulation.
Perchlorate and the relationship between charge movement and contractile activation in frog skeletal muscle fibres.

1. The effects of perchlorate ions (1‐8 mM) on intramembrane charge movement, myoplasmic Antipyrylazo III Ca2+ transients and contractile activation were examined in voltage‐clamped cut skeletal muscle fibres of the frog. 2. Perchlorate shifted both the voltage dependence of charge movement and the rheobase of the strength‐duration relation for contraction threshold towards more negative membrane potentials. 3. Both charge movements and myoplasmic Ca2+ transients were much slower at the new rheobase in the presence of perchlorate than in the control solution but there was no change in the threshold amount of charge or in the calculated peak binding of Ca2+ to troponin C. 4. The peak release rate had a steeper voltage dependence than the non‐linear charge, but a lower concentration (2 mM) of perchlorate shifted both voltage dependences equally without altering the maxima in the amount of charge and in the rate of Ca2+ release. 5. The voltage dependence of the difference between total charge and charge at the threshold of Ca2+ transients agreed well with the voltage dependence of the rate of Ca2+ release in both the presence and absence of perchlorate. 6. It is concluded that the effect of perchlorate on contractile activation can be accounted for by its action on the intramembrane charge movement responsible for contraction, without significant effects on subsequent Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum or on Ca2+ binding to regulatory sites of troponin C.
CLAMP – a toolkit for efficiently building customized clinical natural language processing pipelines

Abstract Existing general clinical natural language processing (NLP) systems such as MetaMap and Clinical Text Analysis and Knowledge Extraction System have been successfully applied to information extraction from clinical text. However, end users often have to customize existing systems for their individual tasks, which can require substantial NLP skills. Here we present CLAMP (Clinical Language Annotation, Modeling, and Processing), a newly developed clinical NLP toolkit that provides not only state-of-the-art NLP components, but also a user-friendly graphic user interface that can help users quickly build customized NLP pipelines for their individual applications. Our evaluation shows that the CLAMP default pipeline achieved good performance on named entity recognition and concept encoding. We also demonstrate the efficiency of the CLAMP graphic user interface in building customized, high-performance NLP pipelines with 2 use cases, extracting smoking status and lab test values. CLAMP is publicly available for research use, and we believe it is a unique asset for the clinical NLP community.
A multi‐institutional study of the perceived barriers and facilitators to implementing evidence‐based practice

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To examine perceived barriers and facilitators to implementing evidence-based practice among nurses working in psychiatric, geriatric, hospital and community settings in The Bahamas. BACKGROUND It is evident from previous studies that a number of factors exist which either obstruct or promote the utilisation of research evidence in nursing practice. Identifying these factors is vital to the successful uptake of evidence-based practice in nursing. DESIGN Descriptive, comparative study. METHOD Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires. A stratified random sample (n = 100) of registered nurses participated; 5-point Likert-like scales were used to examine nurses' perceptions of barriers and facilitators of evidence-based practice. Descriptive statistics were used to describe demographic characteristics and to compare responses of nurses. RESULTS Participants were predominantly female (98.4%), in the 25 to <35 years age group (45.9%). Of nurses surveyed, 72.1% had never tried to implement evidence-based practice previously. The greatest barriers identified were as follows: "Inadequate resources for implementing research findings" (85.2%; n = 52) and "Inadequate training in research methods" (83.6%; n = 51). The top facilitators identified were as follows: "Training in research methods" (88.5%; n = 54) and "Organisational policies and protocols that are evidence-based" (86.9%; n = 53). CONCLUSIONS Nurses generally expressed that they required additional training in research and evidence-based practice concepts. Although some nurses had a desire to implement evidence-based practice to provide quality care and improve patient outcomes, many expressed that they lacked the required resources. The study draws attention to the need for prioritisation of evidence-based practice both at institutional and governmental levels. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Successful adoption of evidence-based practice implies combined efforts of nurses, healthcare providers and policymakers. Further research is needed to determine the best method for successfully incorporating evidence-based practice into nursing practice in The Bahamas.
Characterization of mechanical properties and bioactivity of hydroxyapatite/β-tricalcium phosphate composites

Bioactive ceramics attracts much attention as materials for bone implants, because of their high biocompatibility. For example, hydroxyapatite (HA) has bone-bonding ability through a bone-like apatite layer in body environment and β-tricalcium phosphate (β-TCP) has a high bioresorbability in body environment. In this study, HA/β-TCP composites with different β-TCP content (0, 10, 20, and 30 wt.%) were prepared by wet mixing of HA and β-TCP powders, compaction of the powder mixture and sintering. Bending strength of HA/β-TCP composites was measured before and after soaking in simulated body fluid (SBF). The bioactivity of HA/β-TCP composites was also evaluated by soaking in SBF. To improve mechanical properties of HA/β-TCP composites, effects of additive of SiO2 and MgO were also investigated. It was found that the several mechanical properties and ability of apatite formation decreased with β-TCP content. It was also found that the change in bending strength after soaking depended on its surface reaction in SBF and porosity. Addition of SiO2 did not improve mechanical properties and bioactivity. On the other hand, additive of MgO improved several mechanical properties, but lowered the bioactivity in SBF.