Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of drainage divides versus arid corridors on genetic structure and demography of a widespread freshwater turtle, Emydura macquarii krefftii, from Australia

The influence of Pleistocene climatic cycles on Southern Hemisphere biotas is not yet well understood. Australia's eastern coastal margin provides an ideal setting for examining the relative influence of landscape development, sea level fluctuation, and cyclic climatic aridity on the evolution of freshwater biodiversity. We examined the impact of climatic oscillations and physical biogeographic barriers on the evolutionary history of the wide-ranging Krefft's river turtle (Emydura macquarii krefftii), using range-wide sampling (649 individuals representing 18 locations across 11 drainages) and analysis of mitochondrial sequences (∼1.3-kb control region and ND4) and nuclear microsatellites (12 polymorphic loci). A range of phylogeographic (haplotype networks, molecular dating), demographic (neutrality tests, mismatch distributions), and population genetic analyses (pairwise FST, analysis of molecular variance, Bayesian clustering analysis) were implemented to differentiate between competing demographic (local persistence vs. range expansion) and biogeographic (arid corridor vs. drainage divide) scenarios. Genetic data reveal population genetic structure in Krefft's river turtles primarily reflects isolation across drainage divides. Striking north-south regional divergence (2.2% ND4 p-distance; c. 4.73 Ma, 95% higher posterior density (HPD) 2.08–8.16 Ma) was consistent with long-term isolation across a major drainage divide, not an adjacent arid corridor. Ancient divergence among regional lineages implies persistence of northern Krefft's populations despite the recurrent phases of severe local aridity, but with very low contemporary genetic diversity. Stable demography and high levels of genetic diversity are inferred for southern populations, where aridity was less extreme. Range-wide genetic structure in Krefft's river turtles reflects contemporary and historical drainage architecture, although regional differences in the extent of Plio–Pleistocene climatic aridity may be reflected in current levels of genetic diversity.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Expression levels of MHC class I molecules are inversely correlated with promiscuity of peptide binding

Highly polymorphic major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules are at the heart of adaptive immune responses, playing crucial roles in many kinds of disease and in vaccination. We report that breadth of peptide presentation and level of cell surface expression of class I molecules are inversely correlated in both chickens and humans. This relationship correlates with protective responses against infectious pathogens including Marek’s disease virus leading to lethal tumours in chickens and human immunodeficiency virus infection progressing to AIDS in humans. We propose that differences in peptide binding repertoire define two groups of MHC class I molecules strategically evolved as generalists and specialists for different modes of pathogen resistance. We suggest that differences in cell surface expression level ensure the development of optimal peripheral T cell responses. The inverse relationship of peptide repertoire and expression is evidently a fundamental property of MHC molecules, with ramifications extending beyond immunology and medicine to evolutionary biology and conservation.
Visual servoing of an under-actuated dynamic rigid-body system: an image-based approach

A new image-based control strategy for visual servoing of a class of under-actuated rigid body systems is presented. The proposed control design applies to "eye-in-hand" systems where the camera is fixed to a rigid body with actuated dynamics. The control design is motivated by a theoretical analysis of the dynamic equations of motion of a rigid body and exploits passivity-like properties of these dynamics to derive a Lyapunov control algorithm using robust backstepping techniques. The proposed control is novel in considering the full dynamic system incorporating all degrees of freedom (albeit for a restricted class of dynamics) and in not requiring measurement of the relative depths of the observed image points. A motivating application is the stabilization of a scale model autonomous helicopter over a marked landing pad.
Ovarian preservation improves overall survival in young patients with early-stage endometrial cancer

We searched Medline, Embase, Cochrane library, the Chinese Biomedicine Literature Database, the Chinese Scientific Journal Full-text Database, the Chinese Journal Full-text Database, and the Wanfang Database to collect observational studies on the effects of ovary-saving surgery in comparison to bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy (BSO) in young patients with early-stage endometrial cancer (EC). The literature search included studies up to March 2017, and 10 retrospective cohort studies met our selection criteria. Random and fixed effect models revealed that ovarian preservation (OP) was associated with better overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio [HR] 0.75, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.57–0.99, P = 0.044), and was not associated with reduced recurrence-free survival (RFS) in pre-menopausal patients with early-stage endometrial cancer (HR 1.22, 95% CI 0.32–4.72, P = 0.648; risk ratio [RR] 1.11, 95% CI 0.59–2.10, P = 0.745). Preservation of the ovaries appears to be a safe option with significant benefit for this low risk population after a thorough preoperative evaluation and extensive intraoperative exploration.
Dual-Routes and the Cost of Determining Least-Costs

Theories of cognition that posit complementary dual-route processes afford better fits to the data when each route explains a part of the data not explained by the other route. However, such theories must also explain why each route is invoked, lest one can fit any data set with enough alternatives. One possible explanation is that route selection is based on a least-cost principle: the route that requires fewer cognitive resources (including time) relative to the goal at hand. We investigated this explanation with a dual-display version of visual search, where the target could be identified via opposing (easy or hard forms of) feature and conjunction search conditions. The data support a contextualized version of the least-cost principle in that the cost of computing least-cost also influences route selection: participants assessed alternatives, but only when the cost of that assessment was relatively low.
Impaired lung epithelial permeability in hepatitis C virus antibody positive patients detected by 99mTc-DTPA aerosol scintigraphy

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been recently identified as an aetiological agent in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The present study was designed to determine the pulmonary clearance rate of 99mTc-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (99mTc-DTPA) in asymptomatic HCV antibody positive (HCV Ab+) patients and the role of 99mTc-DTPA aerosol scintigraphy in the early detection of lung involvement. Twenty-six non-smoker HCV Ab+ and HCV-RNA (+) patients (20 female, six male; aged 43±11 years), with no clinical pulmonary symptoms, and normal radiological findings, were studied. Thirty-one healthy non-smoker volunteers (24 female, seven male; aged 40±10 years) were taken as a control group. 99mTc-DTPA aerosol inhalation scintigraphy and pulmonary function tests were performed in all patients and in controls. On the basis of the scintigrams the percentage decline in activity per minute (Kep) was evaluated, which represented an accurate parameter of lung membrane permeability. The mean Kep values of healthy controls (0.78±0.13 for left lung, 0.79±0.14 for right lung) were significantly lower than HCV Ab+ patients (1.10±0.31 for left lung, 1.11±0.34 for right lung, P<0.001). But no significant change was observed in PFT (P>0.05). We conclude that subclinical alveolitis and/or interstitial lung disease may be present in patients with HCV Ab+, since it is known that an increase in the epithelial permeability of the lung is an early manifestation of interstitial disease.
Health-Care-Seeking Patterns in the Emerging Private Sector in Burkina Faso: A Population-Based Study of Urban Adult Residents in Ouagadougou

Background The private medical care sector is expanding in urban cities in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, people’s health-care-seeking behaviors in this new landscape remain poorly understood; furthermore, distinguishing between public and private providers and among various types of private providers is critical in this investigation. This study assessed, by type, the healthcare providers urban residents in Burkina Faso visit, and their choice determinants. Method We conducted a population-based survey of a representative sample of 1,600 households in Ouagadougou from July to November 2011, consisting of 5,820 adults. We assessed the types of providers people typically sought for severe and non-severe conditions. We applied generalized estimating equations in this study. Results Among those surveyed, 97.7% and 53.1% indicated that they seek a formal provider for treating severe and non-severe conditions, respectively. Among the formal provider seekers, 20.5% and 17.0% chose for-profit (FP) providers for treating severe and non-severe conditions, respectively. Insurance coverage was held by 2.0% of those surveyed. Possessing insurance was the strongest predictor for seeking FP, for both severe (odds ratio [OR] = 1.15, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.04–1.28), and non-severe conditions (OR = 1.22, 95% CI = 1.07–1.39). Other predictors included being a formal jobholder and holding a higher level education. By contrast, we observed no significant difference in predisposing, enabling, or need characteristics between not-for-profit (NFP) provider seekers and public provider seekers. Proximity was the primary reason for choosing a provider. Conclusion The results suggested that FP providers play a crucial role in the urban healthcare market in SSA. Socioeconomic status and insurance status are significant predictors of provider choice. The findings can serve as a crucial reference for policymakers in response to the emergence of FP providers in SSA.
Escherichia coli RIC Is Able to Donate Iron to Iron-Sulfur Clusters

Escherichia coli RIC (Repair of Iron Centers) is a diiron protein previously reported to be involved in the repair of iron-sulfur proteins damaged by oxidative or nitrosative stresses, and proposed to act as an iron donor. This possible role of RIC was now examined specifically by evaluating its ability to donate iron ions to apo-iron-sulfur proteins, determining the iron binding constants and assessing the lability of its iron ions. We show, by UV-visible, EPR and resonance Raman spectroscopies that RIC may participate in the synthesis of an iron-sulfur cluster in the apo-forms of the spinach ferredoxin and IscU when in the presence of the sulfide donating system IscS and L-cysteine. Iron binding assays allowed determining the as-isolated and fully reduced RIC dissociation constants for the ferric and ferrous iron of 10−27 M and 10−13 M, respectively. Mössbauer studies revealed that the RIC iron ions are labile, namely when the center is in the mixed-valence redox form as compared with the (μ-oxo) diferric one. Altogether, these results suggest that RIC is capable of delivering iron for the formation of iron-sulfur clusters.
Serum osteocalcin levels in rheumatoid arthritis: a marker for accelerated bone turnover in late onset rheumatoid arthritis.

Levels of serum osteocalcin (OC) are increased in diseases with high bone turnover. We determined OC levels in (1) 15 patients with definite rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in early stages according to Steinbrocker's functional class FC I-II, (2) 40 patients at advanced stages (FC III-IV) and (3) 17 patients with late RA (onset at age of 65 or more). Sixty-two healthy volunteers, divided into 3 subgroups corresponding to the patients, and 19 patients with primary fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) served as controls. All patients were included in a short term as well as a longitudinal study over one year. Mean OC levels were significantly elevated in patients with late onset RA compared with healthy controls (p = 0.037), while the OC values in early RA FC I-II and advanced RA FC III-IV did not differ significantly from the corresponding control group and the patients with FMS. The late RA group showed a positive correlation between OC and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) (r = 0.641, p = 0.007) with a significant decrease of OC (p less than 0.01) as well as ESR (p = 0.047) over one year. We conclude increased OC levels correlate with disease activity in older patients with active RA, suggesting impaired bone turnover. This finding supports the picture of heterogeneity in RA with more late onset patients displaying "high bone turnover. "
Equal coefficients and tolerance in coloured Tverberg partitions

The coloured Tverberg theorem was conjectured by Bárány, Lovász and Füredi [4] and asks whether for any d+1 sets (considered as colour classes) of k points each in ℝd there is a partition of them into k colourful sets whose convex hulls intersect. This is known when d=1;2 [5] or k+1 is prime [7]. In this paper we show that (k−1)d+1 colour classes are necessary and sufficient if the coefficients in the convex combination in the colourful sets are required to be the same in each class. This result is actually a generalisation of Tverberg’s classic theorem on the intersection of convex hulls [27]. We also examine what happens if we want the convex hulls of the colourful sets to intersect even if we remove any r of the colour classes, and its relation to other colourful variants of Tverberg’s theorem. We investigate the relation of the case k=2 and the Gale transform, obtaining a variation of the coloured Radon theorem. We then show applications of these results to purely combinatorial problems.
Insulin-like growth factor-I enhances immune response in dexamethasone-treated or surgically stressed rats maintained with total parenteral nutrition.

BACKGROUND New evidence suggests that insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) is an important regulator of immune response. Our objective was to determine the effects of IGF-I on immune response during total parenteral nutrition (TPN) using two stress models. METHODS Male, Sprague-Dawley rats (230 to 250 g) were given TPN with or without coinfusion of recombinant human IGF-I (800 micrograms/d for 6 days) and subjected to either dexamethasone, a synthetic glucocorticoid, or surgical stress, in the form of a midline abdominal incision. In the dexamethasone model, immune response was assessed by total cellularity of the thymus and spleen, in vitro assays of lymphocyte proliferation, and interleukin 6 (IL-6) production, and concentrations of IL-6 and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) in serum. In the surgical model, flow cytometry was used to identify and quantify splenic populations of T and B lymphocytes and macrophages. RESULTS In rats immunosuppressed by dexamethasone, IGF-I infusion increased mitogen-induced proliferation of thymocytes, but did not alter cellularity in the thymus; enhanced proliferation and IL-6 production in peripheral blood mononuclear cells following treatment with concanavalin A or lipopolysaccharide; and reduced the serum concentration of IL-6, but not TNF-alpha. In surgically stressed rats, IGF-I infusion restored the splenic populations of immature and mature B lymphocytes, which were decreased by TPN. CONCLUSIONS our data demonstrate that IGF-1 enhances immune response during TPN in rats.
Cold Tolerance of Mountain Pine Beetle (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Eggs from the Historic and Expanded Ranges

Abstract Winter mortality is expected to be a key factor determining the ability of mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), to expand its range in Canada. We determined the mortality rate and supercooling points of eggs from the beetle's historic range in southern British Columbia as well as the recently expanded range in north-central Alberta and tested if eggs require an extended period of chilling to reach their maximum cold tolerance. We found no effect of population source or acclimation time on egg cold tolerance. Although 50% of eggs can survive brief exposure to –20.5 °C (LT50), storage at 0.3 °C and –7.5 °C for 59 d resulted in 50% and 100% mortality, respectively. Our results indicate that eggs suffer significant prefreeze mortality and are not well-adapted to overwintering: eggs are unlikely to survive winter throughout much of the beetle's range. Our results provide information that can be used to help model the climatic suitability of mountain pine beetle, including how changes in seasonality associated with new or changing climates may affect winter survival. In addition to lower lethal temperatures, it is critical that the duration of exposure to sublethal cold temperatures are considered in a comprehensive index of cold tolerance and incorporated into survival and population models.
Explosive spreading on complex networks: the role of synergy

In spite of the vast literature on spreading dynamics on complex networks, the role of local synergy, i.e., the interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect greater than the sum of the individual elements, has been studied but only for irreversible spreading dynamics. Reversible spreading dynamics are ubiquitous but their interplay with synergy has remained unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, we articulate a model to incorporate local synergistic effect into the classical susceptible-infected-susceptible process, in which the probability for a susceptible node to become infected through an infected neighbor is enhanced when the neighborhood of the latter contains a number of infected nodes. We derive master equations incorporating the synergistic effect, with predictions that agree well with the numerical results. A striking finding is that when a parameter characterizing the strength of the synergy reinforcement effect is above a critical value, the steady-state density of the infected nodes versus the basic transmission rate exhibits an explosively increasing behavior and a hysteresis loop emerges. In fact, increasing the synergy strength can promote the spreading and reduce the invasion and persistence thresholds of the hysteresis loop. A physical understanding of the synergy promoting explosive spreading and the associated hysteresis behavior can be obtained through a mean-field analysis.
The pneumatic tourniquet: mechanical, ischaemia–reperfusion and systemic effects

The pneumatic tourniquet is frequently used for upper and lower limb surgery to reduce bleeding, improve visualisation of important structures and expedite surgical procedures. Despite advances in technology, localised tissue damage secondary to cuff compression, ischaemia–reperfusion injuries and systemic complications still occur. The combination of these problems may affect outcome and contribute to prolonged hospitalisation. Use of the correct pneumatic tourniquet cuff size and a patient-specific cuff pressure with careful control of the duration of inflation may help reduce the incidence of these injuries. The efficacy of ischaemic preconditioning or postconditioning, and experimental treatments such as free radical scavenging, and use of nitric oxide synthetase inhibitors on endothelial dysfunction, systemic neutrophil activation and coagulation reactions needs to be established.
Cohen's kappa coefficient as a performance measure for feature selection

Measuring the performance of a given classifier is not a straightforward or easy task. Depending on the application, the overall classification rate may not be sufficient if one, or more, of the classes fail in prediction. This problem is also reflected in the feature selection process, especially when a wrapper method is used. Cohen's kappa coefficient is a statistical measure of inter-rater agreement for qualitative items. It is generally thought to be a more robust measure than simple percent agreement calculation, since it takes into account the agreement occurring by chance. Considering that kappa is a more conservative measure, then its use in wrapper feature selection is suitable to test the performance of the models. This paper proposes the use of the kappa measure as an evaluation measure in a feature selection wrapper approach. In the proposed approach, fuzzy models are used to test the feature subsets and fuzzy criteria are used to formulate the feature selection problem. Results show that using the kappa measure leads to more accurate classifiers, and therefore it leads to feature subset solutions with more relevant features.
Automatic segmentation for medical image with the optimized tree structured part model

Organ disease, such as liver and spleen, is the common disease with high morbidity worldwide, and the operative therapy is one of the major method for the organ disease therapy. The computer assisted surgery before the operation has the instructive effect on the clinical therapy, disease diagnosis, and surgical planning. This paper presents the optimized tree structured part model for automatic organ segmentation. The Optimized Tree Structured Part model (OTSPM) contains two parts. The first part uses the structure to discriminatively capture the topological shape variation. The other part is used to get the local part feature. For liver segmentation, the paper propose a convex concave point (CCP) method to automatically choose the most salient point to represent the local part feature, which explicitly describes the partial structure. Compared with the traditional shape model method, this improved method can get better organ segmentation effect. The model can be effectively applied to organ segmentation and it also can get high accuracy than traditional model.
Accurate Floating Point Summation

We present and analyze several simple algorithms for accurately summing n floating point numbers, independent of how much cancellation occurs in the sum. Let f be the number of significant bits in the data. We assume a register is available with F = 33. If double extended is used, then n can be as large as 65537. We also show how sorting may be avoided while retaining accuracy.
An optimized design of reversible magnitude and signed comparators

Reversible logic has gained significant prominence in recent years due to its wide spread application in quantum computing. The major advantage of reversible logic circuit over conventional logic circuits is reduced heat losses during computation. Comparators are widely used in digital communication devices, encryption devices, sorting networks, data converters, address decoding circuitry in computers etc., This paper proposes designs of magnitude and signed comparators designed using standard reversible gates such as Fredkin, Feynman and Peres gates. Multiple performance parameters are optimized with emphasis given to delay optimization. The generalized design methodologies for N bit comparators are also proposed and design metrics are compared with existing state-of-the-art work. The proposed designs shows improved performance in comparison with the existing designs in literature.
Projection Bias in Predicting Future Utility

People underappreciate how their own behavior and exogenous factors affect their future utility, and thus exaggerate the degree to which their future preferences resemble their current preferences. We present evidence which demonstrates the prevalence of such projection bias, and develop a formal model that draws out both descriptive and welfare implications of the bias. The model helps interpret established behavioral anomalies such as the endowment effect, and helps to explain commonly observed suboptimal patterns of behavior such as addiction and excessive pursuit of a high material standard of living. The model also suggests potentially welfare-improving policies, such as mandatory cooling-off periods for certain types of consumer decisions.