Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Supplemental Material for: Multi-site evaluation of APEX for water quality: II. Regional parameterization

Nelson, Nathan O. ; Baffaut, Claire; Lory, John A. ; Anomaa Senaviratne, G.M.M. M. ; Bhandari, Ammar B. ; Udawatta, Ranjith P.; Sweeney, Daniel W. ; Helmers, Matt J.; Van Liew, Mike W. ; Mallarino, Antonio P.; and Wortmann, Charles S. , "Supplemental Material for: Multi-site evaluation of APEX for water quality: II. Regional parameterization" (2017). Agronomy & Horticulture -Faculty Publications. 1081. https://digitalcommons.unl. edu/agronomyfacpub/1081
Dose–Response Association Between Physical Activity and Cognitive Function in a National Sample of Older Adults

Purpose: Previous research demonstrates a favorable effect of physical activity on cognitive function among older adults. The potential dose–response relationship between physical activity and cognitive function in this population is less understood, which was the purpose of this study. Setting: Data from the 1999 to 2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were employed. Participants: A total of 2157 older adults aged 60 to 85 years. Measures: Cognitive function was assessed from the Digit Symbol Substitution Test. Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), expressed as metabolic equivalent of task (MET)-min-month (MET-min-month = days × duration × MET level), was assessed via self-report, with 5 MVPA categories evaluated: (1) <2000 MVPA MET-min-month, (2) 2000 to 3999 MVPA MET-min-month, (3) 4000 to 5999 MVPA MET-min-month, (4) 6000 to 7999 MVPA MET-min-month, and (5) 8000+ MVPA MET-min-month. Analysis: Weighted multivariable linear regression. Results: An inverted U-shaped relationship was observed. Consistent across several adjusted models, those who engaged in 6000 to 7999 MVPA MET-min-month had the highest cognitive function score. Conclusion: The results suggest an optimal amount of physical activity to prevent the cognitive decline associated with aging.
Updated evaluation of the migration of styrene monomer and oligomers from polystyrene food contact materials to foods and food simulants

Due to the 2011 labelling of styrene monomer as “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” by the National Institutes of Health’s National Toxicology Program (NTP) and the controversy over whether styrene oligomers mimic the physiological effects of estrogen, an updated review of styrene monomer and oligomers in food and food contact materials (FCMs) was performed. The concentrations of styrene monomer and oligomers were determined in 24 polystyrene (PS) products and ranged from 9.3 to 3100 mg kg–1 for the styrene monomer, 130–2900 mg kg–1 for the sum of three styrene dimers, and 220–16,000 mg kg–1 for the sum of six styrene trimers. Foods in contact with PS packaging had styrene monomer concentrations ranging from 2.6 to 163 ng g–1; dimer concentrations from the limit of quantitation (LOQ) to 4.8 ng g–1 and trimer concentrations were all below the LOQ (2 ng g–1). Diffusion coefficients (Dp) and partition coefficients (K) were also calculated for styrene dimers and trimers. The results presented here indicate that styrene monomer concentrations in foods have not significantly changed since the 1980s and monomer concentrations in food packaging quantified in this study were all below USFDA limits. Although styrene dimers and trimers are present in higher concentrations in PS FCMs than the monomer, their migration to food is limited because of their high K values (4 × 102 to 2 × 106) and their low diffusion coefficients in PS products. Additionally, diffusion coefficients calculated using USFDA-recommended food simulants and Arrhenius plots describing the temperature dependence of styrene dimers and trimers can be used in future calculations of dietary intake of the styrene oligomers. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Complexity, coordination, and health: avoiding pitfalls and erroneous interpretations in fractal analyses.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE The analysis of fractal fluctuation has become very popular because of the close relationships between health, adaptability, and long-range correlations. 1/f noise is considered a "magical" threshold, characterizing optimal functioning, and a decrease or conversely and increase of serial correlations, with respect to 1/f noise, is supposed to sign a kind of disadaptation of the system. Empirical results, however, should be interpreted with caution. In experimental series, serial correlations often present a complex pattern, resulting from the combination of long-range and short-term correlated processes. We show, in the present paper, that an increase in serial correlations cannot be directly interpreted as an increase in long-range correlations. MATERIAL AND METHODS Eleven participants performed four walking bouts following 4 individually determined velocities (slow, comfortable, high, and critical). Series of 512 stride intervals were collected under each condition. The strength of serial correlation was measured by the detrended fluctuation analysis. The effective presence of 1/f fluctuation was tested through ARFIMA modeling. RESULTS The strength of serial correlations tended to increase with walking velocity. However, the ARFIMA modeling showed that long-range correlations were significantly present only at slow and comfortable velocities. CONCLUSIONS The strength of correlations, as measured by classical methods, cannot be considered as predictive of the genuine presence of long-range correlations. Sometimes systems can present the moderate levels of effective long-range correlations, whereas in others cases, series can present high correlation levels without being long-range correlated.
Gametic isolation in guppies (Poecilia reticulata)

Post-mating reproductive isolating mechanisms may be among the earliest reproductive barriers to emerge among incipient species. Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata, populations in the Caroni and Oropouche drainages in Northern Trinidad exhibit marked genetic divergence and provide an ideal system in which to search for these barriers. We inseminated virgin females with equal amounts of sperm from two males, a ‘native’ male from the female's own population and a ‘foreign’ male from the other drainage. Artificial insemination ensured that mating order and mate choice did not affect the outcome. Paternities were assigned to the resulting broods using microsatellite markers. As predicted, sperm from native males had precedence over foreign sperm. Moreover, this effect was symmetrical for both drainages. In contrast, we detected no native sperm precedence in controls, in which females received sperm from the same and another population within the same drainage. Our results show that gametic isolation can arise between geographically proximate, though genetically divergent, populations of a single species and highlight the potential role of this process in speciation.
The change in suicide rates between 2002 and 2011 in China.

Chinese suicide rates have been reported in various studies in the past two decades, but few of them were based on national data. The most recent mortality data (2002-2011) provided by the China Ministry of Health and the detailed census data provided by the National Population Census were used in this study. We calculated the age-, gender-, and region-specific suicide rates and their trends in the past 10 years between 2002 and 2011. The overall suicide rates in China decreased during the study period. The rural/urban ratio of the suicide rates has been significantly reduced from the ratio in the 1990s, and male suicide rates have exceeded those of females. Age was positively associated with suicide rates without the two peaks found in the suicide rates over 20 years ago. The Chinese suicide rates have significantly declined in the past decade, with withering of the unique suicide rate patterns previously found in Chinese suicides about 20 years ago.
Activation of Akt/GSK-3beta/beta-catenin signaling pathway is involved in survival of neurons after traumatic brain injury in rats

Abstract Objective: Apoptotic cell death is an important factor influencing the prognosis after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Akt/GSK-3beta/beta-catenin signaling plays a critical role in the apoptosis of neurons in several models of neurodegeneration. The goal of this study was to determine if the mechanism of cell survival mediated by the Akt/GSK-3beta/beta-catenin pathway is involved in a rat model of TBI. Methods: TBI was performed by a controlled cortical impact device. Expression of Akt, phospho-Akt, GSK-3beta, phospho-GSK-3beta, beta-catenin, phospho-beta-catenin were examined by immunohistochemistry and Western blot analysis. Double immunofluorenscent staining was used to observe the neuronal expression of the aforementioned subtrates. Terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated uridine 5’-triphosphate-biotin nick end-labeling (TUNEL) staining was performed to identify apoptosis. Results: Western blot analysis showed that phospho-Akt significantly increased at 4 hours post-TBI, but decreased after 72 hours post-TBI. Phospho-GSK-3beta – phosphorylated by phospho-Akt – slightly increased at 4 hours post-TBI and peaked at 72 hours post-TBI. These changes in Phospho-GSK-3beta expression were accompanied by a marked increase in expression of phospho-beta-catenin at 4 hours post-TBI which was sustained until 7 days post-TBI. Double staining of phospho-Akt and NeuN revealed the colocalization of phospho-Akt positive cells and neuronal cells. In addition, double staining of phospho-Akt and TUNEL showed no colocalization of phospho-Akt cells and TUNEL-positive cells. Conclusion: Phosphorylation of Akt (Ser473) and GSK3beta (Ser9) was accelerated in the injured cortex, and involved in the neuronal survival after TBI. Moreover, neuroprotection of beta-catenin against ischemia was partly mediated by enhanced and persistent activation of the Akt/GSK3beta signaling pathway.
Adaptive smoothing based on Gaussian processes regression increases the sensitivity and specificity of fMRI data

Temporal and spatial filtering of fMRI data is often used to improve statistical power. However, conventional methods, such as smoothing with fixed‐width Gaussian filters, remove fine‐scale structure in the data, necessitating a tradeoff between sensitivity and specificity. Specifically, smoothing may increase sensitivity (reduce noise and increase statistical power) but at the cost loss of specificity in that fine‐scale structure in neural activity patterns is lost. Here, we propose an alternative smoothing method based on Gaussian processes (GP) regression for single subjects fMRI experiments. This method adapts the level of smoothing on a voxel by voxel basis according to the characteristics of the local neural activity patterns. GP‐based fMRI analysis has been heretofore impractical owing to computational demands. Here, we demonstrate a new implementation of GP that makes it possible to handle the massive data dimensionality of the typical fMRI experiment. We demonstrate how GP can be used as a drop‐in replacement to conventional preprocessing steps for temporal and spatial smoothing in a standard fMRI pipeline. We present simulated and experimental results that show the increased sensitivity and specificity compared to conventional smoothing strategies. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1438–1459, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Saddlepoint tests for quantile regression

Quantile regression is a flexible and powerful technique which allows us to model the quantiles of the conditional distribution of a response variable given a set of covariates. Regression quantile estimators can be viewed as M‐estimators and standard asymptotic inference is readily available based on likelihood‐ratio, Wald, and score‐type test statistics. However these statistics require the estimation of the sparsity function s(α)=[g(G−1(α))]−1, where G and g are the cumulative distribution function and the density of the regression errors, respectively, and this can lead to nonparametric density estimation. Moreover the asymptotic χ2 distribution for these statistics can provide an inaccurate approximation of tail probabilities and this can lead to inaccurate P‐values, especially for moderate sample sizes. Alternative methods which do not require the estimation of the sparsity function include rank techniques and resampling methods to obtain confidence intervals, which can be inverted to test hypotheses. These are typically more accurate than the standard M‐tests. In this article we show how accurate tests can be obtained by using a nonparametric saddlepoint test statistic. The proposed statistic is asymptotically χ2 distributed, does not require the specification of the error distribution, and does not require the estimation of the sparsity function. The validity of the method is demonstrated through a simulation study, which shows both the robustness and the accuracy of the new test compared to the best available alternatives. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 44: 271–299; 2016 © 2016 Statistical Society of Canada
Effects of Lectures with PowerPoint or Prezi Presentations on Cognitive Load, Recall, and Conceptual Learning

Article History: Received 17.02. 2016 Received in revised form 12.07. 2016 Accepted 07.08. 2016 Available online Tarih girmek için burayı tıklatın. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare the effects of two types of presentations as created by PowerPoint or Prezi, which are used during lectures at the higher education level, on the students' cognitive load, the level of recall of the learning and conceptual learning. Presentations prepared by PowerPoint have linear slides with a limited canvas, while Prezi allows for non-linear, multiple paths and unlimited canvas design. This study is of a quasi-experimental design. The participants were 50 university students enrolled in a Computer Programming program at a vocational school. Data were collected using the Cognitive Load Scale, achievement tests and concept maps. According to the results, students lectured by presentations created by Prezi had more conceptual learning and less cognitive load whilst teaching computer network systems’ content. Recall the level of learning was measured by an achievement test which did not significantly differ across the groups. Prezi may be a better alternative for more conceptual learning and to reduce the cognitive load. © 2016 IOJES. All rights reserved
In vitro ability of mastitis causing pathogens to form biofilms

This Research Communication describes the study of in vitro biofilm formation of mastitis causing pathogens. Biofilms are communities of bacteria that are attached to a surface and to each other and are embedded in a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substances. Biofilm formation is an important virulence factor that may result in recurrent or persistent udder infections and treatment failure through increased resistance to antibiotics and protection against host defences. In the present study 252 bacterial isolates from milk samples from bovine udder quarters with intramammary infections were examined with Congo Red agar (CRA) method and tube method (TM) for their ability to form biofilms. Both tests revealed a high number of biofilm-positive strains. Literature reports that the cure rates for Staphylococcus aureus infected udders are lower (27%) in comparison to cure rates of Streptococcus uberis (64–81%) or coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) mastitis (80–90%). The findings of the present study suggest that biofilm formation is not the main factor for the differences in cure rates of the various bacteria genera, because all tested pathogen groups showed a similarly high proportion of biofilm formation. Further research is needed to detect microbial biofilms on bovine udder epithelia.
Independence of verbal and visual codes of the same stimuli.

This study determines the relation between accuracy of visual recognition of previously exposed object drawings and probability of correct verbal recognition of the object names on a multiple-choice test. The results indicate that performance on the visual and verbal tests is uncorrelated. It is concluded that organizational class characteristics of visual storage do mediate verbal recognition, but that retention of these class characteristics is uncorrelated with retention of the item-specific aspects of visual storage needed for accurate visual recognition. Information presented in visual form is often recoded verbally, and vice versa, and one code may serve to improve retention of the other. Thus, Bower (1970) has shown that visual imagery instructions during learning can improve recall performance of verbal material. Little is known, however, regarding the nature of the interrelations between visual and verbal codes during acquisition and retention. For example, the two codes may be maintained in storage independently, with one acting as a retrieval cue for the other; or the verbal code may be partially or completely lost and verbal retention depend upon receding of certain aspects of visual storage at the time of recall. Visual and verbal memory have frequently been compared, but the data are rarely based upon retention of the same stimuli by the same 5s. In an earlier investigation (Bahrick & Boucher, 1968), probability of free recall of the names of object drawings was found to be independent of the accuracy of subsequent visual recognition of these same drawings. The 5s were as likely to recall the object name of drawings they misidentified by committing large visual recognition errors as of drawings they subsequently correctly identified on a visual recognition test. Despite this lack of correlation of verbal and visual retention performance, it was concluded that 5s used recoded visual storage to aid verbal recall. This interpretation was based on the assumption that recall of a verbal label for visual storage depends only upon the preservation of certain aspects of the visual code and that preservation of these critical aspects may be uncorrelated with the preservation of other aspects necessary for accurate visual recognition. Thus, 5 may be able to recall that he saw a drawing of a cup by retaining a general image of a cup, but retention of this general form may be uncorrelated with retention of other visual details such as the design on the cup or the shape of the handle. An alternative interpretation of the observed independence of the two indicants of retention is based on the fact that the verbal test involved recall while the
Critical analysis of antimicrobial and respiratory fixed dose combinations available in Indian market

Objective: To analyze the rationality of antimicrobial (AM) and respiratory (RP) fixed dose combinations (FDCs) available in Indian market. Materials and Methods: Antimicrobial and RP FDCs enlisted in Indian Drug Review 2010 and 2013 respectively were analyzed by a pretested validated 8 point criteria tool. Each FDC was assessed for number of active pharmacological ingredients, approval by regulatory authority, listing in World Health Organization (WHO) essential medicine list (EML) or National List of Essential Medicine. While efficacy, safety, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic interactions and advantages of each FDC were analyzed by evidence based literature search. Each criterion was scored one for positive and minus one for negative or unfavorable observation. The total score for the tool was 12 and score ≥7 was considered rational. Results: Of 209 FDCs, 108 were AMs and 101 were RPs. The mean rationality score was 5.41 ± 1.63 (95% CI, 2.15-8.67). Majority of FDCs were irrational (174) while 35 were rational, and only 12 of these were listed in WHO EML 2013. Out of 108 AM FDCs, 21 (19%) were rational while 87 (81%) were irrational. Out of 101 RP FDCs, 14 (14%) were rational while 87 (86%) were irrational and 24 (24%) with unfavorable pharmacodynamic interactions. Majority of the rational AM FDCs were antiretroviral (6) agents while RP FDCs were indicated for chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. While majority of irrational FDCs were AM plus steroids, β 2 agonists plus antihistaminics/expectorants/anticholinergics/mast cell stabilizers/leukotriene receptor antagonists. Conclusion: Rationality assessment of AM and RP FDCs reveals that a substantial number of these FDCs in Indian market are irrational. This calls for a close scrutiny of marketed FDCs and educating prescribers to use them with great care and caution. This also indicates a serious review of the regulatory framework for drug manufacturing and marketing.
Digital nonlinearity compensation in high-capacity optical fibre communication systems: Performance and optimisation

Meeting the ever-growing information rate demands has become of utmost importance for optical communication systems. However, it has proven to be a challenging task due to the presence of Kerr effects, which have largely been regarded as a major bottleneck for enhancing the achievable information rates in modern optical communications. In this work, the optimisation and performance of digital nonlinearity compensation are discussed for maximising the achievable information rates in spectrally-efficient optical fibre communication systems. It is found that, for any given target information rate, there exists a trade-off between modulation format and compensated bandwidth to reduce the computational complexity requirement of digital nonlinearity compensation.
A neural network based predictor of filtering efficiency for image enhancement

Image filtering is widely used in remote sensing applications to improve object visibility or for other purposes. However, filtering does not always occur efficient enough and serving image enhancement purposes well. Thus, it is reasonable to have a simple but rather accurate predictor of filtering efficiency. Such a predictor can be based on statistics of DCT coefficients in image blocks. For improved prediction, we propose to apply several local statistics aggregated by a trained neural network. This way allows providing high accuracy prediction of image enhancement not only in terms of standard quality criteria but also in terms of metrics of image visual quality.
Canthaxanthin: From molecule to function

The aim of this review is to summarize the relevant literature about the use of canthaxanthin in food science and nutrition research. Canthaxanthin is a red-orange carotenoid that belongs to the xanthophyll group. This naturally occurring pigment is present in bacteria, algae and some fungi. Canthaxanthin is also responsible for the color of flamingo feathers, koi carp skin and crustacean shells. Canthaxanthin is widely used in poultry (broiler, laying hens) as a feed additive. Canthaxanthin can be obtained by total synthesis. The canthaxanthin-mediated color of foods is an important quality criterion for consumers. Recently, the potential health-promoting effects of canthaxanthin have been discussed. Canthaxanthin enrichment of LDL has the potential to protect cholesterol from oxidation. In addition to its free radical scavenging and antioxidant properties (e.g., the induction of catalase and superoxide dismutase), canthaxanthin's immunomodulatory activity (e.g., enhancing the proliferation and function of immune competent cells) and its important role in gap junction communication (e.g., induction of the transmembrane protein connexin 43) have been reported. Many studies regarding the potential health benefits of canthaxanthin have been conducted in vitro and should be validated in appropriate in vivo models.
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) from the patient's perspective

This is a response to Dr Charlotte Rosalind Blease's paper ‘Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), the Placebo Effect and Informed Consent’, written by Julie K. Hersh who has had ECT. Hersh argues that placebo effect is impossible to prove without endangering the lives of participants in the study. In addition, informing potential ECT patients of unproven placebo effect could discourage patients from using a procedure that from experience has proven highly effective.