Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The graft copolymerisation of acrylamide onto cellulose using enhanced Fe 2+ / H 2 O 2 redox initiator system

Graft copolymers of acrylamide onto holocellulose derived from cocoa (Theobroma cacao) wood meal have been produced using hydroquinone enhanced Fe 2+ /H 2 O 2 redox system. The addition of hydroquinone to the redox system affected the effectiveness of the redox system to initiate graft copolymer formation. The effects of time, monomer concentration, initiator concentration, and temperature were studied to determine the optimum condition for graft copolymer formation. Journal of Applied Sciences and Environmental Management Vol. 10(3) 2006: 151-155
On existence of good self-dual quasicyclic codes

For a long time, asymptotically good self-dual codes have been known to exist. Asymptotically good 2-quasicyclic codes of rate 1/2 have also been known to exist for a long time. Recently, it was proved that there are binary self-dual n/3-quasicyclic codes of length n asymptotically meeting the Gilbert-Varshamov bound. Unlike 2-quasicyclic codes, which are defined to have a cyclic group of order n/2 as a subgroup of their permutation group, the n/3-quasicyclic c codes are defined with a permutation group of fixed order of 3. So, from the decoding point of view, 2-quasicyclic c codes are preferable to n/3-quasicyclic c codes. In this correspondence, with the assumption that there are infinite primes p with respect to (w r t.) which 2 is primitive, we prove that there exist classes of self-dual 2p-quasicyclic c codes and Type II 8p-quasicyclic c codes of length respectively 2p/sup 2/ and 8p/sup 2/ which asymptotically meet the Gilbert-Varshamov bound. When compared with the order of the defining permutation groups, these classes of codes lie between the 2-quasicyclic c codes and the n/3-quasicyclic c codes of length n, considered in previous works.
Staphylococcus aureus golden pigment impairs neutrophil killing and promotes virulence through its antioxidant activity

Golden color imparted by carotenoid pigments is the eponymous feature of the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. Here we demonstrate a role of this hallmark phenotype in virulence. Compared with the wild-type (WT) bacterium, a S. aureus mutant with disrupted carotenoid biosynthesis is more susceptible to oxidant killing, has impaired neutrophil survival, and is less pathogenic in a mouse subcutaneous abscess model. The survival advantage of WT S. aureus over the carotenoid-deficient mutant is lost upon inhibition of neutrophil oxidative burst or in human or murine nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase–deficient hosts. Conversely, heterologous expression of the S. aureus carotenoid in the nonpigmented Streptococcus pyogenes confers enhanced oxidant and neutrophil resistance and increased animal virulence. Blocking S. aureus carotenogenesis increases oxidant sensitivity and decreases whole-blood survival, suggesting a novel target for antibiotic therapy.
Left ventricular twist is impaired in acromegaly: Insights from the three‐dimensional speckle tracking echocardiographic MAGYAR‐Path Study

Acromegaly is a rare, chronic, disfiguring, and debilitating disease caused, in 90% of cases, by a benign monoclonal growth hormone–secreting pituitary adenoma. The present study aimed to assess left ventricular (LV) rotational and twist mechanics in acromegalic patients and to compare their results to age‐ and gender‐matched healthy controls.
Transcatheter versus surgical aortic-valve replacement in high-risk patients.

BACKGROUND The use of transcatheter aortic-valve replacement has been shown to reduce mortality among high-risk patients with aortic stenosis who are not candidates for surgical replacement. However, the two procedures have not been compared in a randomized trial involving high-risk patients who are still candidates for surgical replacement. METHODS At 25 centers, we randomly assigned 699 high-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis to undergo either transcatheter aortic-valve replacement with a balloon-expandable bovine pericardial valve (either a transfemoral or a transapical approach) or surgical replacement. The primary end point was death from any cause at 1 year. The primary hypothesis was that transcatheter replacement is not inferior to surgical replacement. RESULTS The rates of death from any cause were 3.4% in the transcatheter group and 6.5% in the surgical group at 30 days (P=0.07) and 24.2% and 26.8%, respectively, at 1 year (P=0.44), a reduction of 2.6 percentage points in the transcatheter group (upper limit of the 95% confidence interval, 3.0 percentage points; predefined margin, 7.5 percentage points; P=0.001 for noninferiority). The rates of major stroke were 3.8% in the transcatheter group and 2.1% in the surgical group at 30 days (P=0.20) and 5.1% and 2.4%, respectively, at 1 year (P=0.07). At 30 days, major vascular complications were significantly more frequent with transcatheter replacement (11.0% vs. 3.2%, P<0.001); adverse events that were more frequent after surgical replacement included major bleeding (9.3% vs. 19.5%, P<0.001) and new-onset atrial fibrillation (8.6% vs. 16.0%, P=0.006). More patients undergoing transcatheter replacement had an improvement in symptoms at 30 days, but by 1 year, there was not a significant between-group difference. CONCLUSIONS In high-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis, transcatheter and surgical procedures for aortic-valve replacement were associated with similar rates of survival at 1 year, although there were important differences in periprocedural risks. (Funded by Edwards Lifesciences; Clinical Trials.gov number, NCT00530894.).
Condensin II Alleviates DNA Damage and Is Essential for Tolerance of Boron Overload Stress in Arabidopsis[W]

This work presents insight into how boron (B) toxicity develops at the molecular level in plants and suggests a role of condenisn II genes in tolerance to B toxicity. Experiments show that excess B induces DNA damage, and condensin II is involved in the amelioration of this damage. Although excess boron (B) is known to negatively affect plant growth, its molecular mechanism of toxicity is unknown. We previously isolated two Arabidopsis thaliana mutants, hypersensitive to excess B (heb1-1 and heb2-1). In this study, we found that HEB1 and HEB2 encode the CAP-G2 and CAP-H2 subunits, respectively, of the condensin II protein complex, which functions in the maintenance of chromosome structure. Growth of Arabidopsis seedlings in medium containing excess B induced expression of condensin II subunit genes. Simultaneous treatment with zeocin, which induces DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs), and aphidicolin, which blocks DNA replication, mimicked the effect of excess B on root growth in the heb mutants. Both excess B and the heb mutations upregulated DSBs and DSB-inducible gene transcription, suggesting that DSBs are a cause of B toxicity and that condensin II reduces the incidence of DSBs. The Arabidopsis T-DNA insertion mutant atr-2, which is sensitive to replication-blocking reagents, was also sensitive to excess B. Taken together, these data suggest that the B toxicity mechanism in plants involves DSBs and possibly replication blocks and that plant condensin II plays a role in DNA damage repair or in protecting the genome from certain genotoxic stressors, particularly excess B.
Effects of Polyol Molecular Weight on Properties of Benzoxazine-Urethane Polymer Alloys

Recently, a new thermoset resin namely benzoxazine (BA) resin has been developed. The polymer possesses several outstanding properties, such as, ease of synthesis, low viscosity, near-zero shrinkage, lack of by-product upon curing, high thermal stability, and high mechanical property. Moreover, the benzoxazine resins can be alloyed with various types of resins because of the various function groups in their structure. In this work, urethane elastomer (PU) is used to enhance toughness of the polybenzoxazine. The effects of polyol molecular weights on the properties of BA: PU polymer alloys are investigated. The experiment reveals that the similar curing peaks of the matrices at various polyol molecular weights, with the same urethane mass fraction, in the resin mixtures are obtained. The glass transition temperature increases from 160°C of polybenzoxazine to 240–245°C in the 70:30 BA:PU system. In addition, the char yield increases when the higher molecular weight of polyol is added. The flexural modulus of polybenzoxazine decreases from 6.2 GPa to be in the range of 2.2–2.8 GPa when 30 wt% of PU is presented in the alloys. Furthermore, the synergism with ultimate flexural strength is observed in the 90:10 BA:PU alloy for all molecular weights of the polyol used. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2008. © 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers
A Comparative Review of Thermography as a Breast Cancer Screening Technique

Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer of women in North America. Despite advances in treatment that have reduced mortality, breast cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer induced death. Several well established tools are used to screen for breast cancer including clinical breast exams, mammograms, and ultrasound. Thermography was first introduced as a screening tool in 1956 and was initially well accepted. However, after a 1977 study found thermography to lag behind other screening tools, the medical community lost interest in this diagnostic approach. This review discusses each screening tool with a focus brought to thermography. No single tool provides excellent predictability; however, a combination that incorporates thermography may boost both sensitivity and specificity. In light of technological advances and maturation of the thermographic industry, additional research is required to confirm the potential of this technology to provide an effective non-invasive, low risk adjunctive tool for the early detection of breast cancer.
A Survey of Object-Oriented Concepts

The object-oriented paradigm has gained popularity in various guises not only in programming languages, but in user interfaces, operating systems, databases, and other areas. We argue that the fundamental object-oriented concept is en apsulation, and that all object-oriented mechanisms and approaches exploit this idea to various ends. We introduce the most important of these mechanisms as they are manifested in existing object-oriented systems, and we discuss their relevance i the context of modern application development. *. In Object-Oriented Concepts, Databases and Applications , ed. W. Kim and F. Lochovsky, pp. 3-21, ACM Press and AddisonWesley, 1989. †. Author’s address: Centre Universitaire d’Informatique, 24 rue Général Dufour, CH-1211 Genève 4, Switzerland. E-mail: oscar@cui.unige. ch. Tel: +41 (22) 705.7664. Fax: +41 (22) 320.2927.
Findings on AGSD Architectural Knowledge Sharing

Agile Software Development (ASD) is increasingly common in globally distributed teams -- it is known as AGSD. However, while in ASD face-to-face interactions are preferred over document-based communications, in global software development document-based communication is preferred. These differences affect Architectural Knowledge Management. AGSD workers preferably convey architectural knowledge (AK) by frequent interactions across sites through unstructured and textual electronic media (UTEM) (chats, emails, forums, etc.), i.e., AK is articulated in these media. UTEM leave unstructured logs of shared AK. We present an empirical study to understand AK articulation through UTEM in AGSD teams. Our results are an ontological model about AK articulation through UTEM in AGSD teams, and 11 categories of UTEM interactions across sites, where requirements and coding themes were prominent. Also, we found that AK in UTEM is perceived as important, regardless of the interaction frequency.
ANESTHETIC AND CALCIUM ACTION IN THE VOLTAGE CLAMPED SQUID GIANT AXON

Changes in spike configuration and in the inward and outward currents of voltage-clamped axons agree in indicating that the increases in permeability to sodium and potassium ions during activity are depressed by procaine and cocaine and augmented by calcium. At low levels of depolarization, the effect of the multivalent ion is similar to that of the local anesthetics, in keeping with their similar effects on the threshold of excitability. The reduction of membrane conductance at rest requires a higher concentration of the drugs than that needed to affect the increase in permeability with activity.
Jet characterization in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS): applications to climatology and transport studies

Abstract. A method of classifying the upper tropospheric/lower stratospheric (UTLS) jets has been developed that allows satellite and aircraft trace gas data and meteorological fields to be efficiently mapped in a jet coordinate view. A detailed characterization of multiple tropopauses accompanies the jet characterization. Jet climatologies show the well-known high altitude subtropical and lower altitude polar jets in the upper troposphere, as well as a pattern of concentric polar and subtropical jets in the Southern Hemisphere, and shifts of the primary jet to high latitudes associated with blocking ridges in Northern Hemisphere winter. The jet-coordinate view segregates air masses differently than the commonly-used equivalent latitude (EqL) coordinate throughout the lowermost stratosphere and in the upper troposphere. Mapping O 3 data from the Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) satellite and the Winter Storms aircraft datasets in jet coordinates thus emphasizes different aspects of the circulation compared to an EqL-coordinate framework: the jet coordinate reorders the data geometrically, thus highlighting the strong PV, tropopause height and trace gas gradients across the subtropical jet, whereas EqL is a dynamical coordinate that may blur these spatial relationships but provides information on irreversible transport. The jet coordinate view identifies the concentration of stratospheric ozone well below the tropopause in the region poleward of and below the jet core, as well as other transport features associated with the upper tropospheric jets. Using the jet information in EqL coordinates allows us to study trace gas distributions in regions of weak versus strong jets, and demonstrates weaker transport barriers in regions with less jet influence. MLS and Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment-Fourier Transform Spectrometer trace gas fields for spring 2008 in jet coordinates show very strong, closely correlated, PV, tropopause height and trace gas gradients across the jet, and evidence of intrusions of stratospheric air below the tropopause below and poleward of the subtropical jet; these features are consistent between instruments and among multiple trace gases. Our characterization of the jets is facilitating studies that will improve our understanding of upper tropospheric trace gas evolution.
Robust Consensus Analysis and Design Under Relative State Constraints or Uncertainties

This paper proposes a novel approach to analyze and design distributed robust consensus control algorithms for general linear leaderless multiagent systems (MASs) subjected to relative-state constraints or uncertainties represented by a locally or a globally sector-bounded condition. First, we show that the MAS robust consensus design under relative-state constraints or uncertainties is equivalent to the robust stability design under state constraints or uncertainties of a transformed MAS, which has lower dimensions. Next, the transformed MAS under state constraints or uncertainties is reformulated as a networked Lur’e system. By employing the S-procedure and Lyapunov theory, sufficient conditions for robust consensus and the designs of robust consensus controller gain are derived from solutions of distributed linear matrix inequality (LMI) convex problems. Finally, numerical examples are introduced to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical approach.
Special Lagrangians, stable bundles and mean curvature flow

We make a conjecture about mean curvature flow of Lagrangian submanifolds of Calabi-Yau manifolds, expanding on \cite{Th}. We give new results about the stability condition, and propose a Jordan-Holder-type decomposition of (special) Lagrangians. The main results are the uniqueness of special Lagrangians in hamiltonian deformation classes of Lagrangians, under mild conditions, and a proof of the conjecture in some cases with symmetry: mean curvature flow converging to Shapere-Vafa's examples of SLags.
Analysis of retinotopic maps in extrastriate cortex.

Two new techniques for analyzing retinotopic maps--arrow diagrams and visual field sign maps--are demonstrated with a large electrophysiological mapping data set from owl monkey extrastriate visual cortex. An arrow diagram (vectors indicating receptive field centers placed at cortical coordinates) provides a more compact and understandable representation of retinotopy than does a standard receptive field chart (accompanied by a penetration map) or a double contour map (e.g., isoeccentricity and isopolar angle as a function of cortical x, y-coordinates). None of these three representational techniques, however, make separate areas easily visible, especially in data sets containing numerous areas with partial, distorted representations of the visual hemifield. Therefore, we computed visual field sign maps (non-mirror-image vs mirror-image visual field representation) from the angle between the direction of the cortical gradient in receptive field eccentricity and the cortical gradient in receptive field angle for each small region of the cortex. Visual field sign is a local measure invariant to cortical map orientation and distortion but also to choice of receptive field coordinate system. To estimate the gradients, we first interpolated the eccentricity and polar angle data onto regular grids using a distance-weighted smoothing algorithm. The visual field sign technique provides a more objective method for using retinotopy to outline multiple visual areas. In order to relate these arrow and visual field sign maps accurately to architectonic features visualized in the stained, flattened cortex, we also developed a deformable template algorithm for warping the photograph-derived penetration map using the final observed location of a set of marking lesions.
Estimates of lightning NO x production from GOME satellite observations

Abstract. Tropospheric NO2 column retrievals from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) satellite spectrometer are used to quantify the source strength and 3-D distribution of lightning produced nitrogen oxides (NOx=NO+NO2). A sharp increase of NO2 is observed at convective cloud tops with increasing cloud top height, consistent with a power-law behaviour with power 5±2. Convective production of clouds with the same cloud height are found to produce NO2 with a ratio 1.6/1 for continents compared to oceans. This relation between cloud properties and NO2 is used to construct a 10:30 local time global lightning NO2 production map for 1997. An extensive statistical comparison is conducted to investigate the capability of the TM3 chemistry transport model to reproduce observed patterns of lightning NO2 in time and space. This comparison uses the averaging kernel to relate modelled profiles of NO2 to observed NO2 columns. It exploits a masking scheme to minimise the interference of other NOx sources on the observed total columns. Simulations are performed with two lightning parameterizations, one relating convective preciptation (CP scheme) to lightning flash distributions, and the other relating the fifth power of the cloud top height (H5 scheme) to lightning distributions. The satellite-retrieved NO2 fields show significant correlations with the simulated lightning contribution to the NO2 concentrations for both parameterizations. Over tropical continents modelled lightning NO2 shows remarkable quantitative agreement with observations. Over the oceans however, the two model lightning parameterizations overestimate the retrieved NO2 attributed to lightning. Possible explanations for these overestimations are discussed. The ratio between satellite-retrieved NO2 and modelled lightning NO2 is used to rescale the original modelled lightning NOx production. Eight estimates of the lightning NOx production in 1997 are obtained from spatial and temporal correlation methods, from cloud-free and cloud-covered observations, and from two different lightning parameterizations. Accounting for a wide variety of random and possible systematic errors, we estimate the global NOx production from lightning to be in the range 1.1–6.4 Tg N in 1997.
Parameterisation of a stochastic model for human face identification

Recent work on face identification using continuous density Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) has shown that stochastic modelling can be used successfully to encode feature information. When frontal images of faces are sampled using top-bottom scanning, there is a natural order in which the features appear and this can be conveniently modelled using a top-bottom HMM. However, a top-bottom HMM is characterised by different parameters, the choice of which has so far been based on subjective intuition. This paper presents a set of experimental results in which various HMM parameterisations are analysed. <<ETX>>
Percutaneous transilial pinning for treatment of seventh lumbar vertebral body fracture

Summary Objective: To evaluate outcomes after percutaneous application of transilial pinning in dogs with seventh lumbar vertebral body fracture with concurrent lumbosacral luxation. Methods: We reviewed the medical records of dogs with seventh lumbar vertebral body fracture stabilized with percutaneous transilial pinning that were treated at our hospital between January 2000 and March 2014. Radiographic measurements were used for comparing craniocaudal and ventrodorsal displacement pre- and postoperatively. Results: Seventeen dogs met the inclusion criteria. The neurological status of the majority of treated dogs improved quickly, with immediate pain reduction after surgery. Implants were well tolerated throughout the application period and were removed at a mean time of 54.4 ± 9.2 days. One dog experienced a major complication (implant failure) and required surgical revision a week after the initial procedure. Minor complications included pin-tract inflammation, signs of back pain lasting five weeks and acute lameness after implant removal. Postoperative radiographic measurements showed shortening of the vertebral body and residual dorsoventral dislocation. Otherwise, functional recovery was good (5 of 17 dogs) to excellent (10 of 17 dogs) in the majority of the patients. Clinical relevance: The use of two percutaneous transilial pins can be considered as treatment for the management of seventh lumbar fracture-luxation in dogs. Our modified stabilization technique is relatively easy to perform; less invasive on the soft tissues; and uses implants that are versatile, modifiable, and easily removable.