Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hierarchical Sensor Placement Using Joint Entropy and the Effect of Modeling Error

Good prediction of the behavior of wind around buildings improves designs for natural ventilation in warm climates. However wind modeling is complex, predictions are often inaccurate due to the large uncertainties in parameter values. The goal of this work is to enhance wind prediction around buildings using measurements through implementing a multiple-model system-identification approach. The success of system-identification approaches depends directly upon the location and number of sensors. Therefore, this research proposes a methodology for optimal sensor configuration based on hierarchical sensor placement involving calculations of prediction-value joint entropy. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models are generated to create a discrete population of possible wind-flow predictions, which are then used to identify optimal sensor locations. Optimal sensor configurations are revealed using the proposed methodology and considering the effect of systematic and spatially distributed modeling errors, as well as the common information between sensor locations. The methodology is applied to a full-scale case study and optimum configurations are evaluated for their ability to falsify models and improve predictions at locations where no measurements have been taken. It is concluded that a sensor placement strategy using joint entropy is able to lead to predictions of wind characteristics around buildings and capture short-term wind variability more effectively than sequential strategies, which maximize entropy.
Entomopathogenic nematodes against foliage feeding crucifer pests in the tropics

Use of entomopathogenic nematodes against foliage pests is commonly perceived to be limited by their tolerance to temperature, desiccation and UV radiation. The effect of these abiotic factors on the infective juveniles (ijs) of two isolates of Steinernema spp. (SSL85), two isolates of Steinernema spp. (M87), Heterorhabditis n.sp. and H. indicus recovered from selected sites within Peninsular Malaysia was examined. Infectivity at different temperatures was found to differ both within and between species, with optimal infection generally at 25 °C. Desiccation studies revealed more marked differences between the isolates. For example, at 80% relative humidity, survival of approximately 51% of ijs of Steinernema spp. (SSL85/25) was observed, compared with 13% for Steinernema spp. (M87/45). Prior exposure of ijs suspended in water droplets to simulated solar radiation resulted in a general decline in % mortality of Plutella xylostella larvae in subsequent bioassays but no marked reduction in mean infection. These preliminary studies are encouraging as they suggest that entomopathogenic nematodes can tolerate, within defined limits, the major abiotic factors faced in the foliar environment. The results are discussed in terms of application under foliar conditions.
Infections of Helicobacter spp. in the biliary system are associated with biliary tract cancer: a meta-analysis

Objective As Helicobacter spp. have been successfully isolated from the biliary system, a hypothetical question was raised about the role of these organisms in the development of biliary tract cancer. This meta-analysis has been carried out to explore the association between Helicobacter spp. infection and biliary tract cancer. Methods A systematic literature search was carried out to identify all eligible articles. Meta-analysis used odds ratio and a random-effect model, and 95% confidence intervals for odds ratios were calculated. Heterogeneity was quantitatively assessed using the &khgr;2-test, with significance set at a P-value of 0.01, and was measured using the I2-statistic. Results Ten studies published between 2002 and 2011 were finally included for meta-analysis. Helicobacter pylori, Helicobacter bilis, Helicobacter hepaticus, and Helicobacter ganmani were studied. With heterogeneity (I2=0%, P=0.685), a significantly higher pooled infection rate of Helicobacter spp. was observed in the biliary tract cancer group compared with the normal group (P=0.0001) and the benign biliary disease group, respectively (P=0.0001). Studies from East Asia and South Asia showed a higher prevalence of Helicobacter spp. in the malignant group. Evidence supporting the higher presence of Helicobacter spp. in the cancer group was obtained using PCR and immunohistochemical analysis of specimens from bile and biliary tissues. Conclusion Our meta-analysis suggests a trend of a higher presence of Helicobacter spp. in patients with biliary tract cancers compared with normal controls or those with benign biliary diseases.
Development of thermotolerance during fractionated hyperthermia in a solid tumor in vivo.

The effect of 43.5 degrees water bath heating on a C3H mammary carcinoma inoculated into the foot of BALB/c x DBA F1 (hereafter called CD2F1 mice was investigated. A single heat treatment resulted in a linear dose-response relationship between heating time and tumor growth time (i.e., the time for tumors to reach 5 times the initial volume of the first treatment day). Recovery from hyperthermic damage, demonstrated by two-dose fractionation experiments (30 min + 60 min at 43.5 degrees), increased with increasing fractionation interval and reached its maximum at a 16-hr interval. Preheating for 30 min at 43.5 degrees induced thermal resistance to a second heat treatment at 43.5 degrees (thermotolerance) which was evidenced by a decrease in the slope of the dose-response curves. This thermotolerance gradually increased with increasing interval and reached a maximum at a 16-hr interval with a thermotolerance ratio of 5.2. Subsequently, the thermotolerance gradually decayed and completely disappeared at a 120-hr interval. No detectable repair of hyperthermic damage was found in this tumor. In principle, there data confirm the observations on thermotolerance reported previously for cell cultures in vitro and for several normal tissues in vivo.
Primary rejection of skin allografts in the anterior chamber of the rabbit eye.

The survival of primary skin allografts placed within the anterior chamber of rabbits was examined in temporal sequence following transplantation to normal and x-irradiated recipients. Initial “take” was successful in all instances as judged by vascularization of graft stroma and hyperplasia of skin epithelium. Starting on day 6, and thereafter to an increasing degree, mononuclear cells infiltrated the graft and graft bed, eventually obscuring this border completely. Rejection of the irisimplanted tissue was complete by day 14, though graft epithelium which had extended to cover the undersurface of the cornea persisted for a few days longer before its ultimate rejection. The present study offers direct evidence that primary full-thickness skin allografts placed within the anterior chamber succumb to a rejection process temporally and histologically similar to rejection of orthotopic skin grafts. The immunologic nature of this reaction is supported by the finding that whole body irradiation abrogates this response, and further that similarly transplanted autologous skin or lymph node fragments survive intact for at least 120 days. It is concluded that the anterior chamber is not a generally privileged site for allograft survival.
Identifying Time Measurement Tampering in the Traversal Time and Hop Count Analysis (TTHCA) Wormhole Detection Algorithm

Traversal time and hop count analysis (TTHCA) is a recent wormhole detection algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks (MANET) which provides enhanced detection performance against all wormhole attack variants and network types. TTHCA involves each node measuring the processing time of routing packets during the route discovery process and then delivering the measurements to the source node. In a participation mode (PM) wormhole where malicious nodes appear in the routing tables as legitimate nodes, the time measurements can potentially be altered so preventing TTHCA from successfully detecting the wormhole. This paper analyses the prevailing conditions for time tampering attacks to succeed for PM wormholes, before introducing an extension to the TTHCA detection algorithm called ΔT Vector which is designed to identify time tampering, while preserving low false positive rates. Simulation results confirm that the ΔT Vector extension is able to effectively detect time tampering attacks, thereby providing an important security enhancement to the TTHCA algorithm.
Influence of Industrialization and Urbanization on China’s Energy Consumption

By taking energy consumption as the dependent variable, urbanization and industrialization and energy prices as independent variables, a model of multivariate linear regression is built to estimate the influence of urbanization and industrialization on energy consumption. The results show that GDP, proportion of industrial added value in GDP, and the proportion of urban residents will increase China's energy consumption; the proportion of tertiary industry in GDP will reduce the energy consumption; and there is a negative time trend of energy consumption because of the influence of technological progress and energy policy. China’s energy consumption in 2015 is predicted by the regression equation with some goals of urbanization and industrialization in the 12th Five-Year Plan of China. The prediction shows that energy consumption will maintain an average growth rate of about 6% during the period of 12th Five-Year. At last, China’s energy policies are analyzed from the industrial structure, energy price and energy saving technology and so on according to the results of linear regression model.
Ultrastructural defects of collagen VI filaments in an Ullrich syndrome patient with loss of the α3(VI) N10‐N7 domains

Ultrastructural alterations of collagen VI in cultured fibroblasts and reduced collagen VI immunostaining in the papillary dermis and endomysium were detected in a patient with a mild form of Ullrich congenital muscular dystrophy caused by a COL6A3 gene mutation. The patient had been previously demonstrated to express an α3(VI) chain shorter than normal due to skipping of the mutated exon. We show that collagen VI filaments are not organized in a normal network in the extracellular matrix secreted by patient's cultured fibroblasts. Moreover, we demonstrate that in this patient the α3(VI) chain is produced in lower amounts and it is almost exclusively represented by the shorter, alternatively spliced N6‐C5 isoform. These results suggest that different α3(VI) chain isoforms, containing also domains of the N10‐N7 region, are required for assembling a proper collagen VI network in the extracellular matrix. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Responses of Isolated Dog Cerebral and Peripheral Arteries to Prostaglandins after Application of Aspirin and Polyphloretin Phosphate

In helically cut strips of dog cerebral, coronary, mesenteric and femoral arteries, the contractile response to prostaglandin (PG) F2(, and E2, relative to contractions induced by 30 mM K+, did not appreciably differ, whereas relaxations induced by PGE, relative to those induced by 10 μM papaverine were significantly different; the least in cerebral arteries and the greatest in mesenteric arteries. The relaxation of human cerebral arteries in response to PGE, was similar to that of dog cerebral arteries. Treatment for 60 min with polyphloretin phosphate (3 × 10″ and 10′ g/ml) suppressed the contractile response to PGF2(, and E2 but did not alter the response to 25 mM K+. The relaxing effect of PGE, was not influenced. Aspirin (5 × 10″ and 2 × 10′ M) significantly potentiated the contractile response to PGFto and E2 but did not alter the relaxation induced by PGE,. In contrast, contractions induced by serotonin were attenuated. It is concluded that dog cerebral, coronary, mesenteric and femoral arteries relaxed differently in response to PGE,. It appears that arterial responses to vasoconstricting PCs, but not to the vasodilating PG, are significantly attenuated by polyphloretin phosphate and potentiated by aspirin.
Interferon in oncological practice: review of interferon biology, clinical applications, and toxicities.

UNLABELLED For the past 40 years, various forms of interferon (IFN) have been evaluated as therapy in a number of malignant and non-malignant diseases. With the advent of gene cloning, large quantities of pure IFN became available for clinical study. This paper reviews the biology, pharmacology, and clinical applications of IFN formulations most commonly used in oncology. It then reviews the most common side effects seen in patients treated with IFN, and makes recommendations for the management of IFN-induced toxicity. The major oncological indications for IFN include melanoma, renal cell carcinoma, AIDS-related Kaposi's sarcoma, follicular lymphoma, hairy cell leukemia, and chronic myelogenous leukemia. Unfortunately, IFN therapy is associated with significant toxicity, which can be divided into constitutional, neuropsychiatric, hematologic, and hepatic effects. These toxicities have a major impact on the patient's quality of life, and on the physician's ability to optimally treat the patient. Careful attention to all aspects of patient care can result in improved tolerability of this difficult but promising therapy. CONCLUSION a better understanding of IFN biology, indications, side effect profiles, and toxicity management will aid in optimizing its use in the treatment of patients with cancer.
Hepatitis C virus infection and bone marrow transplantation: A cohort study with 10‐year follow‐up

Before the introduction of routine blood donor screening in 1991, marrow transplant recipients were at significant transfusion‐associated risk for infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV). We followed a cohort of 355 patients undergoing transplant in Seattle during 1987 to 1988 to determine (1) the impact of pretransplant HCV infection on the occurrence and severity of venocclusive disease (VOD); (2) the impact of HCV infection on liver dysfunction, other than VOD, occurring between 21 and 60 days after transplantation; and (3) the natural history of post‐transplant HCV liver disease with a 10‐year follow‐up. HCV‐RNA status was determined on serum stored before transplant and at day 100 post‐transplant. Sixty‐two (17%) patients were HCV‐RNA positive before transplant, and 113 (32%) were HCV‐RNA positive by day 100 post‐transplant (or before death). Severe VOD developed in 22 of 46 (48%) evaluable patients with pretransplant HCV infection and in 150 of 229 (14%) evaluable patients without HCV (P < .0001). In multivariable analysis of risk factors for developing VOD, pretransplant HCV infection associated with elevated serum aspartate transaminase (AST) levels predicted the development of severe VOD (relative risk, 9.6; P = .0001). The presence of HCV with normal AST levels before transplant was not a risk factor for severe VOD. Between 21 and 60 days after transplant, HCV‐RNA positive–patients had higher AST levels (median 101 U/L), but similar alkaline phosphatase and total bilirubin levels compared with HCV‐negative patients, suggesting that cholestatic liver disease (particularly graft‐versus‐host disease [GVHD]) was not related to HCV infection. An acute flare of hepatitis (AST >10 times the upper limit of normal) developed at a mean of 136 ± 58 days in 31% of HCV‐positive patients; no patients developed fulminant hepatitis. Between 5 and 10 years after transplant, 57% of HCV‐positive and 6% of HCV‐negative patients had mild to moderate elevations of AST (P < .0001), but HCV infection was not associated with excess mortality between 3 and 10 years after bone marrow transplantation. In summary, HCV infection with elevated AST levels is a significant risk factor for severe VOD after marrow transplant. However, the decision to proceed to transplantation in HCV‐positive patients must balance the absolute risk of death from VOD against the risks of the underlying disease. In long‐term survivors, HCV infection is not associated with excess mortality over 10 years of follow‐up.
Past tense production by English second language learners with and without language impairment.

PURPOSE This study investigated whether past tense use could differentiate children with language impairment (LI) from their typically developing (TD) peers when English is children's second language (L2) and whether L2 children's past tense profiles followed the predictions of Bybee's (2007) usage-based network model. METHOD A group of L2 children with LI (L2-LI) and a matched group of L2-TD peers were administered the past tense probe from the Test of Early Grammatical Impairment (Rice & Wexler, 2001) and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn & Dunn, 1997). A representative input corpus provided distributional information for each verb used. Background information was obtained via parent questionnaire. RESULTS The L2-LI group used fewer tense-marked verbs than did the L2-TD group. In both groups, vocabulary size and word frequency predicted accuracy with regular and irregular verbs. Children omitted regular past tense marking most often after alveolar stops, dropping the allomorph /Id/; L2-TD children omitted /t/ more often than /d/. Finally, first language typology predicted past tense accuracy. CONCLUSIONS Past tense use could potentially differentiate between English L2 children with and without LI. The impact of vocabulary, frequency, and phonological factors supported the network model and indicated profile differences between L2-LI and L2-TD children.
Rats Fed Diets with Different Energy Contribution from Fat Do Not Differ in Adiposity

Objective: To determine whether rats reaching the same body mass, having been fed either a low-fat (LFD) or a high-fat diet (HFD), differ in white adipose tissue (WAT) deposition. Methods: In experiment 1, 22 Sprague-Dawley rats of the same age were divided into 11 rats with body mass below the batch median and fed a HFD, and 11 above the median and fed a LFD. In experiment 2, 20 Sprague-Dawley rats of the same age and starting body mass were randomised to either a HFD or LFD. When all groups reached similar final body mass, WAT was quantified using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), dissection, and plasma leptin. Results: In experiment 1, both groups reached similar final body mass at the same age; in experiment 2 the HFD group reached similar final body mass earlier than the LFD group. There were no significant differences in WAT as assessed by MRI or leptin between the HFD and LFD groups in both experiments. Dissection revealed a trend for higher retroperitoneal and epididymal adiposity in the HFD groups in both experiments. Conclusions: We conclude that at similar body mass, adiposity is independent of the macronutrient composition of the feeding regimen used to achieve it.
Stimulus artifact compensation using biphasic stimulation

The feasibility of using biphasic stimulation as a method of reducing stimulus artifact was explored in several different circumstances. Sensory and muscle evoked potentials were compared using monophasic and biphasic constant‐current stimuli. The monophasic stimulus was a negative rectangular pulse with a duration of 0.1–0.2 msec. The biphasic stimulus was a negative rectangular pulse of 0.1–0.2 msec duration followed, after a variable delay, by a positive rectangular pulse of the same duration and variable amplitude. When the conducting distances were long, stimulus artifact did not disturb either monophasically or biphasically evoked potentials. When the conducting distances were short, stimulus artifact occurred with monophasic stimulation but could be diminished readily using biphasic stimulation. The method can be accomplished easily using standard instruments with dual stimulators.
Don't follow me: Spam detection in Twitter

The rapidly growing social network Twitter has been infiltrated by large amount of spam. In this paper, a spam detection prototype system is proposed to identify suspicious users on Twitter. A directed social graph model is proposed to explore the “follower” and “friend” relationships among Twitter. Based on Twitter's spam policy, novel content-based features and graph-based features are also proposed to facilitate spam detection. A Web crawler is developed relying on API methods provided by Twitter. Around 25K users, 500K tweets, and 49M follower/friend relationships in total are collected from public available data on Twitter. Bayesian classification algorithm is applied to distinguish the suspicious behaviors from normal ones. I analyze the data set and evaluate the performance of the detection system. Classic evaluation metrics are used to compare the performance of various traditional classification methods. Experiment results show that the Bayesian classifier has the best overall performance in term of F-measure. The trained classifier is also applied to the entire data set. The result shows that the spam detection system can achieve 89% precision.
The Dynamics of Spatiotemporal Response Integration in the Somatosensory Cortex of the Vibrissa System

Spatiotemporal response integration across the neural receptive field (RF) is a general feature of sensory coding and has an important role in shaping responses to naturalistic stimuli. In the primary somatosensory cortex of the rat vibrissa pathway, such integration across the vibrissa array strongly shapes the coding of spatiotemporally distributed deflections. Using a spatiotemporal paired-pulse paradigm, this study revealed that fundamentally different types of pairwise interactions have similar qualitative behavior but that the magnitude, latency, and precision of the neural responses depend on the specific RF components being engaged. In all cases, however, increase in the suppression of response magnitude accompanied a lengthening of latency and a decrease in response precision. Furthermore, nonlinear interactions evoked by stimulation of multiple RF subregions strongly influence both response magnitude and timing to more complex sequences. Despite their complexity, such response interactions are highly predictable from elementary pairwise interactions. To understand the functional role of spatiotemporal interactions in coding, we developed a response model that incorporated the experimentally measured modulations in response magnitude, latency, and precision induced by cross-vibrissa interactions. Simulations of a simplified textural discrimination task indicate that spatiotemporal interactions enhance discrimination under certain stimulus time scales. This improvement follows from a nonlinear response property that acts to restore the neural response in the face of suppression. Together, the present findings highlight the role of response integration in shaping single-cell responses and provide predictions about how changes in response parameters influence coding accuracy.
Algebraic Helmholtz inversion in planar magnetic resonance elastography

Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is an increasingly used noninvasive modality for diagnosing diseases using the response of soft tissue to harmonic shear waves. We present a study on the algebraic Helmholtz inversion (AHI) applied to planar MRE, demonstrating that the deduced phase speed of shear waves depends strongly on the relative orientations of actuator polarization, motion encoding direction and image plane as well as on the actuator plate size, signal-to-noise ratio and discretization of the wave image. Results from the numerical calculation of harmonic elastic waves due to different excitation directions and simulated plate sizes are compared to experiments on a gel phantom. The results suggest that correct phase speed can be obtained despite these largely uncontrollable influences, if AHI is based on out-of-plane displacements and the actuator is driven at an optimal frequency yielding an optimal pixel per wavelength resolution in the wave image. Assuming plane waves, the required number of pixels per wavelength depends only on the degree of noise.