Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantifying and mapping land use changes and regulating ecosystem service potentials in a data-scarce peri-urban region in Kenya

ABSTRACT Recent scientific developments are advancing to link land use and land cover (LULC) change with ecosystem service (ES) potentials. Such links within peri-urban ecosystems are scanty due to methodological and expertise challenge, and data limitation. The study applies the ‘ES matrix approach’ to spatially display potentials for regulating ES in mainly overlooked data-scarce peri-urban areas, whereby LULC classes and qualitative ES values are the main data inputs. The LULC maps are based on LANDSAT satellite images from the years 1990, 2000 and 2010. ES potentials were assessed qualitatively on a relative scale ranging between 0 and 5 by use of interview data from local people. Results show that with exception of settlements, the area for all LULC classes decreased between 1990 and 2010. The ‘matrix approach’ successfully generated ES potential maps for the different LULC classes. Grasslands, forests and wetlands have comparatively high potentials for regulating ES, whereas settlements and ‘otherlands’ showed lower potentials. The main uncertainties of the study relate to study area selection, data accuracy and reliability, and ‘matrix approach’ adaptability. Results indicate that the potential of the area to provide regulating ES is declining over time. To realize suitable and reliable results, it is necessary to conduct data accuracy-check during and after the fieldwork exercise.
The effect of sperm morphology on IUI outcome in cases with unexplained and male factor infertility

Background: Although intrauterine insemination (IUI) is one of the most common methods which is used for male factor and unexplained infertility, the relative influence of various semen parameters on the likelihood of a successful outcome is controversial. Several semen parameters have been evaluated as predictors of a successful outcome with intrauterine insemination. Objective: To evaluate the effects of sperm morphology on the success rate of IUI. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective study of 200 couples who underwent IUI cycles of ovarian stimulation in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. The patients were chosen in 2 groups, group A: 100 patients with ≤20% normal sperm morphology and group B: 100 patients with >20% normal sperm morphology (unexplained infertility). The other semen parameters were normal in both groups. Results: Total clinical pregnancies were 10.5% (pregnancy rate / cycle). There was not any difference between two groups in rate of pregnancy and also pregnancy outcome. Conclusion: Intrauterine insemination used for treating male factor infertility has not shown excessive advantage when normal sperm morphology in semen analysis is more than 20% in comparison with ≤ 20%.
Finding Flicker: Critical Differences in Temporal Frequency Capture Attention

Rapid visual flicker is known to capture attention. Here we show slow flicker can also capture attention under reciprocal temporal conditions. Observers searched for a target line (vertical or horizontal) among tilted distractors. Distractor lines were surrounded by luminance modulating annuli, all flickering sinusoidally at 1.3 or 12.1 Hz, while the target’s annulus flickered at frequencies within this range. Search times improved with increasing target/distractor frequency differences. For target–distractor frequency separations >5 Hz reaction times were minimal with high-frequency targets correctly identified more rapidly than low frequency targets (~400 ms). Critically, however, at these optimal frequency separations search times for low and high-frequency targets were unaffected by set size (slow flicker popped out from high flicker, and vice versa), indicating parallel and symmetric search performance when searching for high or low frequency targets. In a “cost” experiment using 1.3 and 12.1 Hz flicker, the unique flickering annulus sometimes surrounded a distractor and, on other trials, surrounded the target. When centered on a distractor, the unique frequency produced a clear and symmetrical search cost. Together, these symmetric pop-out and search costs demonstrate that temporal frequency is a pre-attentive visual feature capable of capturing attention, and that it is relative rather than absolute frequencies that are critical. The shape of the search functions strongly suggest that early visual temporal frequency filters underlie these effects.
Effects of an Epitope-Specific CD8+ T-Cell Response on Murine Coronavirus Central Nervous System Disease: Protection from Virus Replication and Antigen Spread and Selection of Epitope Escape Mutants

ABSTRACT Both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells are required for clearance of the murine coronavirus mouse hepatitis virus (MHV) during acute infection. We investigated the effects of an epitope-specific CD8+ T-cell response on acute infection of MHV, strain A59, in the murine CNS. Mice with CD8+ T cells specific for gp33-41 (an H-2Db-restricted CD8+ T-cell epitope derived from lymphocytic choriomeningitis glycoprotein) were infected with a recombinant MHV-A59, also expressing gp33-41, as a fusion protein with enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP). By 5 days postinfection, these mice showed significantly (approximately 20-fold) lower titers of infectious virus in the brain compared to control mice. Furthermore mice with gp33-41-specific CD8+ cells exhibited much reduced levels of viral antigen in the brain as measured by immunohistochemistry using an antibody directed against viral nucleocapsid. More than 90% of the viruses recovered from brain lysates of such protected mice, at 5 days postinfection, had lost the ability to express EGFP and had deletions in their genomes encompassing EGFP and gp33-41. In addition, genomes of viruses from about half the plaques that retained the EGFP gene had mutations within the gp33-41 epitope. On the other hand, gp33-41-specific cells failed to protect perforin-deficient mice from infection by the recombinant MHV expressing gp33, indicating that perforin-mediated mechanisms were needed. Virus recovered from perforin-deficient mice did not exhibit loss of EGFP expression and the gp33-41 epitope. These observations suggest that the cytotoxic T-cell response to gp33-41 exerts a strong immune pressure that quickly selects epitope escape mutants to gp33-41.
EDAT: Efficient data aggregation without TTP for privacy-assured smart metering

Smart meters are integral to power dispatch in the emerging smart grid, by periodically collecting and reporting the electricity consumption of users to the control center to satisfy practical requirements. However, the real-time electricity measurements of individual households may contain plenty of users' privacy, e.g., activities and habits. To resist the privacy exposure from the individual measurements, we propose an Efficient Data AggregaTion (EDAT) scheme, in which every smart meter in the residential area uses a random noise to protect the concrete reading from being exposed to the attackers and the local gateway aggregates the individual measurements into a compact report before forwarding to the control center. In EDAT scheme, we remove the trusted third party and allow the smart meters to negotiate and generate the sum of the noise using polynomials, by which the control center can recover the power consumption of a residential area, other than a specific household. The security of the EDAT scheme can be reduced to the Decisional Diffie-Hellman assumption, and both the computational and communication overhead of each smart meter are small.
Fatigue Mechanisms Determining Exercise Performance Impaired calcium release during fatigue

[PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , August , 2011; 111 (2): 358-366. J Appl Physiol D. G. Allen, E. Clugston, Y. Petersen, I. V. Röder, B. Chapman and R. Rudolf fatigue Interactions between intracellular calcium and phosphate in intact mouse muscle during [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , November , 2011; 111 (5): 1372-1379. J Appl Physiol Magni Mohr, Jens Jung Nielsen and Jens Bangsbo interstitial potassium accumulation Caffeine intake improves intense intermittent exercise performance and reduces muscle [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , September 15, 2012; 303 (6): C682-C697. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol Julio A. Copello Maura Porta, Paula L. Diaz-Sylvester, Jake T. Neumann, Ariel L. Escobar, Sidney Fleischer and ATP , and 2+ , Mg 2+ Coupled gating of skeletal muscle ryanodine receptors is modulated by Ca [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , July 15, 2013; 305 (2): R118-R125. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol Leonardo Nogueira, Amy A. Shiah, Paulo G. Gandra and Michael C. Hogan role of cross-bridge cycling -pumping impairment during repetitive fatiguing contractions in single myofibers: 2+ Ca [PDF] [Full Text] [Abstract] , September 15, 2013; 305 (6): R610-R618. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol David C. Poole and Yutaka Kano Hiroaki Eshima, Yoshinori Tanaka, Takashi Sonobe, Tadakatsu Inagaki, Toshiaki Nakajima, in rat skeletal muscle in diabetes injection 2+ after muscle contractions and direct Ca 2+ In vivo imaging of intracellular Ca
Reduced Corneal Nerve Fiber Density in Type 2 Diabetes by Wide-Area Mosaic Analysis.

Purpose To determine if corneal subbasal nerve plexus (SBP) parameters derived from wide-area depth-corrected mosaic images are associated with type 2 diabetes. Methods One hundred sixty-three mosaics were produced from eyes of 82 subjects by laser-scanning in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM). Subjects were of the same age, without (43 subjects) or with type 2 diabetes (39 subjects). Mosaic corneal nerve fiber length density (mCNFL) and apical whorl corneal nerve fiber length density (wCNFL) were quantified and related to the presence and duration of diabetes (short duration < 10 years and long duration ≥ 10 years). Results In mosaics with a mean size of 6 mm2 in subjects aged 69.1 ± 1.2 years, mCNFL in type 2 diabetes was reduced relative to nondiabetic subjects (13.1 ± 4.2 vs. 15.0 ± 3.2 mm/mm2, P = 0.018). Also reduced relative to nondiabetic subjects was mCNFL in both short-duration (14.0 ± 4.0 mm/mm2, 3.2 ± 3.9 years since diagnosis) and long-duration diabetes (12.7 ± 4.2 mm/mm2, 15.4 ± 4.2 years since diagnosis; ANOVA P = 0.023). Lower mCNFL was associated with presence of diabetes (P = 0.032) and increased hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels (P = 0.047). By contrast, wCNFL was unaffected by diabetes or HbA1c (P > 0.05). Global SBP patterns revealed marked degeneration of secondary nerve fiber branches outside the whorl region in long-duration diabetes. Conclusions Wide-area mosaic images provide reference values for mCNFL and wCNFL and reveal a progressive degeneration of the SBP with increasing duration of type 2 diabetes.
Measurement and analysis of online social networks

Online social networking sites like Orkut, YouTube, and Flickr are among the most popular sites on the Internet. Users of these sites form a social network, which provides a powerful means of sharing, organizing, and finding content and contacts. The popularity of these sites provides an opportunity to study the characteristics of online social network graphs at large scale. Understanding these graphs is important, both to improve current systems and to design new applications of online social networks. This paper presents a large-scale measurement study and analysis of the structure of multiple online social networks. We examine data gathered from four popular online social networks: Flickr, YouTube, LiveJournal, and Orkut. We crawled the publicly accessible user links on each site, obtaining a large portion of each social network's graph. Our data set contains over 11.3 million users and 328 million links. We believe that this is the first study to examine multiple online social networks at scale. Our results confirm the power-law, small-world, and scale-free properties of online social networks. We observe that the indegree of user nodes tends to match the outdegree; that the networks contain a densely connected core of high-degree nodes; and that this core links small groups of strongly clustered, low-degree nodes at the fringes of the network. Finally, we discuss the implications of these structural properties for the design of social network based systems.
Predictive value of a simple asthma morbidity index in a general practice population.

BACKGROUND There is a need in primary care for simple asthma outcome measures that are valid in terms of their relationship with lung function and capable of predicting those patients for whom additional management is indicated. AIM To assess the predictive validity of a revised asthma morbidity index in United Kingdom (UK) general practice. METHOD Morbidity index and peak flow rate data were gathered from nine general practices over a three-month period. Two postal questionnaire surveys, one year apart, were conducted in one Tyneside general practice. Morbidity index data from 570 asthmatic patients were gathered in the first survey and used to predict morbidity over the next year. RESULTS For 120 responders with low morbidity, mean peak flow as a percentage of the predicted value was 91% (SD = 21%); for 91 responders with medium morbidity, the percentage was 77% (SD = 21%); and for 90 responders with high morbidity, it was 63% (SD = 29%). Fifty-seven per cent of the morbidity index categories remained unchanged after 12 months. The relative risks of high morbidity for having any acute asthma attacks, more than four attacks, and needing oral steroids during a one year period were 2.88 (CI = 1.87 to 4.43), 2.52 (CI = 1.84 to 3.44) and 2.38 (CI = 1.70 to 3.33) respectively. CONCLUSION The revised morbidity index is a simple and valid tool for the opportunistic surveillance of asthma in primary care.
Prolonged Outbreak of Mycobacterium chimaera Infection After Open-Chest Heart Surgery.

BACKGROUND Invasive Mycobacterium chimaera infections were diagnosed in 2012 in 2 heart surgery patients on extracorporeal circulation. We launched an outbreak investigation to identify the source and extent of the potential outbreak and to implement preventive measures. METHODS We collected water samples from operating theaters, intensive care units, and wards, including air samples from operating theaters. Mycobacterium chimaera strains were characterized by randomly amplified polymorphic DNA polymerase chain reaction (RAPD-PCR). Case detection was performed based on archived histopathology samples and M. chimaera isolates since 2006, and the patient population at risk was prospectively surveyed. RESULTS We identified 6 male patients aged between 49 and 64 years with prosthetic valve endocarditis or vascular graft infection due to M. chimaera, which became clinically manifest with a latency of between 1.5 and 3.6 years after surgery. Mycobacterium chimaera was isolated from cardiac tissue specimens, blood cultures, or other biopsy specimens. We were able also to culture M. chimaera from water circuits of heater-cooler units connected to the cardiopulmonary bypass, and air samples collected when the units were in use. RAPD-PCR demonstrated identical patterns among M. chimaera strains from heater-cooler unit water circuits and air samples, and strains in 2 patient clusters. CONCLUSIONS The epidemiological and microbiological features of this prolonged outbreak provided evidence for the airborne transmission of M. chimaera from contaminated heater-cooler unit water tanks to patients during open-heart surgery.
Risk factors and the prevalence of anorexia nervosa among female students in Serbia.

BACKGROUND/AIM The widespread symptoms of anorexia netvosa (AN) in young women require to draw professional attention to this problem in Serbia. In previous research on AN, insecure attachment styles, perfectionism and concerns about body shape were identified as notable risk factors. The aim of this study was to identify the prevalence of AN among female students and assess the importance of these factors in its development. METHODS The Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-40), the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale (ECR), the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (FMPS) and the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ) were applied to a sample of 500 randomly selected female students of the University of Belgrade, the mean age of 22.44 years (min 18, max 35). In addition, Body Mass Index (BMI) was also calculated. RESULTS Although 38 (7.6%) female students displayed symptoms of AN (EAT > 30) and 13 (2.6%) had BMI indicating anorexia nervosa syndrome (B4I < or = 17.50 kg/m2), only 1 (0.2%) student fulfilled both criteria. The majority of female students (60.4%) had some type of insecure attachment style. There is a significant influence of attachment styles on symptoms of AN: female students with insecure attachment styles have a significantly higher mean score on the EAT compared to those with secure attachment style (F = 7.873; p < 0.01). There was a positive correlation between scores on the EAT and FMPS (r = 0.217;p < 0.01), and scores on the EAT and BSQ (r = 0.388; p < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS The obtained results show the prevalence of AN of 0.2% among female students and indicate the importance of insecure attachment styles, perfectionism and concern about body shape as risk factors. Activities for the prevention of AN in this subpopulation should include internet-based therapy and special counseling services with specific programs focusing on emotion-regulation skills through mindfulness, acceptance and commitment techniques, as well as specific cognitive-behavioral techniques.
Lung function after preterm birth: development from mid-childhood to adulthood

Background As a result of advances in perinatal care, more small preterm infants survive. There are concerns that preterm birth and its treatments may harm pulmonary development and thereby lead to chronic airway obstruction in adulthood. Objective To assess the development of spirometric lung function variables from mid-childhood to adulthood after extreme preterm birth. Methods Two population-based cohorts born at gestational age ≤28 weeks or with birth weight ≤1000 g performed lung function tests at 10 and 18 and at 18 and 25 years of age, respectively, together with matched term-born controls. The results are presented as z scores, normalised for age, sex and height. Longitudinal development was compared for groups born at term and preterm, split by a history of absence (n=20), mild (n=38) or moderate/severe (n=25) neonatal bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). Results The preterm-born cohorts, particularly those with neonatal BPD, had significantly lower forced expiratory volume in 1 s and mid-expiratory flow than those born at term at all assessments (z scores in the range −0.40 to −1.84). Within each of the subgroups the mean z scores obtained over the study period were largely similar, coefficients of determination ranging from 0.64 to 0.82. The pattern of development for the BPD subgroups did not differ from each other or from the groups born at term (tests of interaction). Conclusions Airway obstruction was present from mid-childhood to adulthood after extreme preterm birth, most evident after neonatal BPD. Lung function indices were tracking similarly in the preterm and term-born groups.
Severe Childhood Malaria Syndromes Defined by Plasma Proteome Profiles

Background Cerebral malaria (CM) and severe malarial anemia (SMA) are the most serious life-threatening clinical syndromes of Plasmodium falciparum infection in childhood. Therefore it is important to understand the pathology underlying the development of CM and SMA, as opposed to uncomplicated malaria (UM). Different host responses to infection are likely to be reflected in plasma proteome-patterns that associate with clinical status and therefore provide indicators of the pathogenesis of these syndromes. Methods and Findings Plasma and comprehensive clinical data for discovery and validation cohorts were obtained as part of a prospective case-control study of severe childhood malaria at the main tertiary hospital of the city of Ibadan, an urban and densely populated holoendemic malaria area in Nigeria. A total of 946 children participated in this study. Plasma was subjected to high-throughput proteomic profiling. Statistical pattern-recognition methods were used to find proteome-patterns that defined disease groups. Plasma proteome-patterns accurately distinguished children with CM and with SMA from those with UM, and from healthy or severely ill malaria-negative children. Conclusions We report that an accurate definition of the major childhood malaria syndromes can be achieved using plasma proteome-patterns. Our proteomic data can be exploited to understand the pathogenesis of the different childhood severe malaria syndromes.
Performance Evaluation of the Markov Chain Monte Carlo MIMO Detector based on Mutual Information

Recently, MIMO detectors which are based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation techniques have been proposed as alternatives to, e.g., the well-known sphere detector. In this paper, we present a systematic analysis of the performance of MCMC detectors. We study the impact of several parameters such as the list size and the number of independently running chains. As a performance criterion, our analysis is based on the mutual information over an equivalent modulation channel, rather than on coded bit error rates, because this metric is independent of the outer channel code and provides valuable insights over the whole SNR range of interest. Furthermore, we show that combining the MCMC detector with a hard-output sphere detector removes the error floor at high SNR, which is a well-known problem of the MCMC principle.
Spontaneous mentalizing captures variability in the cortical thickness of social brain regions.

Theory of mind (ToM)--or thinking about the mental states of others--is a cornerstone of successful everyday social interaction. However, the brain bases of ToM are most frequently measured via explicit laboratory tasks that pose direct questions about mental states (e.g. "In this story, what does Steve think Julia believes? "). Neuroanatomical measures may provide a way to explore the brain bases of individual differences in more naturalistic everyday mentalizing. In the current study, we examined the relation between cortical thickness and spontaneous ToM using the novel Spontaneous Theory of Mind Protocol (STOMP), which measures participants' spontaneous descriptions of the beliefs, emotions and goals of characters in naturalistic videos. We administered standard ToM tasks and the STOMP to young adults (aged 18-26 years) and collected structural magnetic resonance imaging data from a subset of these participants. The STOMP produced robust individual variability and was correlated with performance on traditional ToM tasks. Further, unlike the traditional ToM tasks, STOMP performance was related to cortical thickness for a set of brain regions that have been functionally linked to ToM processing. These findings offer novel insight into the brain bases of variability in naturalistic mentalizing performance, with implications for both typical and atypical populations.