Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Retrieval of Snow Water Equivalent, Liquid Water Content, and Snow Height of Dry and Wet Snow by Combining GPS Signal Attenuation and Time Delay

For numerous hydrological applications, information on snow water equivalent (SWE) and snow liquid water content (LWC) are fundamental. In situ data are much needed for the validation of model and remote sensing products; however, they are often scarce, invasive, expensive, or labor‐intense. We developed a novel nondestructive approach based on Global Positioning System (GPS) signals to derive SWE, snow height (HS), and LWC simultaneously using one sensor setup only. We installed two low‐cost GPS sensors at the high‐alpine site Weissfluhjoch (Switzerland) and processed data for three entire winter seasons between October 2015 and July 2018. One antenna was mounted on a pole, being permanently snow‐free; the other one was placed on the ground and hence seasonally covered by snow. While SWE can be derived by exploiting GPS carrier phases for dry‐snow conditions, the GPS signals are increasingly delayed and attenuated under wet snow. Therefore, we combined carrier phase and signal strength information, dielectric models, and simple snow densification approaches to jointly derive SWE, HS, and LWC. The agreement with the validation measurements was very good, even for large values of SWE (>1,000 mm) and HS (> 3 m). Regarding SWE, the agreement (root‐mean‐square error (RMSE); coefficient of determination (R2)) for dry snow (41 mm; 0.99) was very high and slightly better than for wet snow (73 mm; 0.93). Regarding HS, the agreement was even better and almost equally good for dry (0.13 m; 0.98) and wet snow (0.14 m; 0.95). The approach presented is suited to establish sensor networks that may improve the spatial and temporal resolution of snow data in remote areas.
Isotype‐specific detection of ABO blood group antibodies using a novel flow cytometric method

Several methods to detect anti‐A/B antibodies based on haemagglutination and haemolysis have been described. These methods measure predominantly anti‐A/B immunoglobulin (Ig)M, whereas anti‐A/B IgG and IgG subclasses are less well examined. We established a flow cytometry method (ABO‐fluorescence‐activated cell sorting; ABO‐FACS) to quantify binding of anti‐A/B IgM, IgG and IgG subclasses to human A or B red blood cells. Anti‐A/B IgM were present in the majority of 120 blood donors, as expected from blood group typing. The sensitivity and specificity of anti‐A/B IgM to predict the blood group was 93% and 96% respectively. Anti‐A/B IgG was found in 34/38 blood group O samples (89%). Anti‐B IgG in blood group A or anti‐A IgG in blood group B was present in 4/28 (14%) and 1/28 (4%) samples, respectively, and absent in 26 AB sera. IgG2 was the predominant IgG subclass. The correlation of anti‐A/B IgM and IgG in the ABO‐FACS with haemagglutination titres was 0·870 and 0·783, respectively (n = 240; P < 0·001) whereas the comparison of ABO‐FACS with ABO‐enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay was less significant. In conclusion, ABO‐FACS is a valid method to quantify anti‐A/B IgM, IgG and IgG subclasses. It opens the possibility of isotype‐specific monitoring of anti‐A/B antibodies levels after ABO‐incompatible solid organ and stem cell transplantation.
Assessment of thiamin (vitamin B1) and riboflavin (vitamin B2) status in an adult Mediterranean population

The aim of the present study was to assess the nutritional status for thiamin (vitamin B1) and riboflavin (vitamin B2) in an adult Mediterranean population, in order to identify patterns of intake, groups at risk for deficiency and factors that might influence this risk. A cross-sectional survey was carried out in Andalusia, a western Mediterranean region in southern Spain. Nutrient intakes were studied in a random sample of 3390 subjects (1746 men, 1644 women) who were between 25 and 60 years of age. Blood samples were obtained for biochemical assays in a random subsample of 372 subjects (181 men, 191 women). Food consumption was assessed by 48 h recall. Vitamin B1 and B2 were measured as erythrocyte transketolase and as erythrocyte glutathione reductase activation coefficients, respectively. Energy and vitamin intakes were significantly higher in men than in women. Intakes were below two-thirds of the recommended dietary allowance for vitamin B1 in 7·80% of the men and 4·50% of the woman, and were below this level for vitamin B2 in 18·00% of the men and 11·70 % of the women. Age, educational level, alcohol use and smoking were also associated with differences in the intake of these nutrients. Biochemical analyses showed that vitamin B1 and B2 status was deficient in 6·40 and 5·30% of the population, respectively. Although factors such as gender, age, level of education, drinking and smoking can have an effect on the risk of inadequate intake of these nutrients, these factors did not affect biochemical indices of nutritional status in the present study.
Experiences of Adults with Developmental Disability and Teacher in an Applied Mathematics Based Money Club.

In my experiences, students with Developmental Disability (DD) are routinely excluded from Algebra and other high-level mathematics courses. People with DD do not have the opportunity to learn Algebra, which may support the understanding and provide purpose for learning money and budgeting skills that, perhaps, could help them avoid financial difficulties as adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of young adults with DD and me, their teacher researcher, about mathematics, finance, and self within a 6 week program of instruction titled the Money Club. This includes how adults with DD reason, apply, perceive, and solve applied mathematics problems in finance. Most of the mathematics research published in peer-reviewed journals has involved students without disabilities. Very few research articles focus on individuals with DD and mathematics. When students with disabilities are included, the focus splits primarily in two places: Students with “mild” disabilities and their access to general education curriculum and students with “severe” disabilities and their access to concrete operational mathematics or viii basic, remedial, mathematics. The experiences of people with DD learning applied finance using algebra, as a support for understanding is a new frontier for study. Access to general education curriculum is not only a federally mandated law, but also a core interest to me as an educator. I want my students to learn what everyone else is learning, go places everyone else is going, and do things side by side with other people. Many people with DD do not learn algebra (even if the course title is Algebra). They will focus on basic skills, life skills, and non-skilled labor-intensive processes. I wanted people with DD to have access to higher mathematics and extend their life skills to include it. In high school, people with DD learn basic mathematics and life skills, which consist of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers; or as my peer teachers say, “working on their mathematics skills. ” They are taught many of the things I offered in the Money Club at a topical level: saving money, overspending, balancing their personal budgets, and avoiding people who take advantage of them. The Money Club’s difference is that we used algebraic ways of thinking to accomplish these goals: Use of variables, function tables, graphs, matrices, and other higher order mathematics concepts and skills. We demonstrated exactly what happens mathematically when they do not balance their budget, spend too much, take out a bad loan, use a high interest credit card, go to the pawnshop, or invest their money. The Money Club provided a gateway to higher mathematics through an immediately interesting subject: Money.
Structure of the Aqua Ions and Fluoride Complexes of Uranium(IV) and Thorium(IV) in Aqueous Solution an EXAFS Study.

The structures of aqueous M(4+)(aq) and MF(3+)(aq), where M is uranium(IV) or thorium(IV), have been determined by L(III) edge EXAFS using data from solutions of 1.5 M HClO(4) in which the M(IV) concentrations ranged from 0.03 to 0.3 M. A least-squares refinement of the data for the aqua ions indicated 10.8 +/- 0.5 water molecules in the first hydration sphere of both ions and M-O bond distances for U(IV) and Th(IV) of 2.42 +/- 0.01 and 2.45 +/- 0.01 Å, respectively. By considering both previous structure information and the EXAFS data, we selected N = 10 +/- 1 as the most likely coordination number of both M(IV) aqua ions. EXAFS measurements from acidic aqueous uranium(IV) and thorium(IV) solutions containing fluoride show that large changes in the first coordination sphere occur. The experimental data indicates an asymmetrical distribution of the distances, probably as a result of differing M-F and M-O bond lengths. These can be described by a model that contains two different bond distances, one M-F distance at 2.10 Å and one M-O distance at 2.45 Å for U(IV); for Th(IV), the corresponding distances are 2.14 and 2.48 Å. The total coordination number in this model is unchanged from the aqua ions, i.e., 10 +/- 1.
Evolution of gene expression after whole-genome duplication: new insights from the spotted gar genome

Whole genome duplications (WGD) are important evolutionary events. Our understanding of underlying mechanisms, including the evolution of duplicated genes after WGD, however remains incomplete. Teleost fish experienced a common WGD (teleost-specific genome duplication, or TGD) followed by a dramatic adaptive radiation leading to more than half of all vertebrate species. The analysis of gene expression patterns following TGD at the genome level has been limited by the lack of suitable genomic resources. The recent concomitant release of the genome sequence of spotted gar (a representative of holosteans, the closest lineage of teleosts that lacks the TGD) and the tissue-specific gene expression repertoires of over 20 holostean and teleostean fish species, including spotted gar, zebrafish and medaka (the PhyloFish project), offered a unique opportunity to study the evolution of gene expression following TGD in teleosts. We show that most TGD duplicates gained their current status (loss of one duplicate gene or retention of both duplicates) relatively rapidly after TGD (i.e. prior to the divergence of medaka and zebrafish lineages). The loss of one duplicate is the most common fate after TGD with a probability of approximately 80%. In addition, the fate of duplicate genes after TGD, including subfunctionalization, neofunctionalization, or retention of two ‘similar’ copies occurred not only before, but also after the radiation of species tested, in consistency with a role of the TGD in speciation and/or evolution of gene function. Finally, we report novel cases of TGD ohnolog subfunctionalization and neofunctionalization that further illustrate the importance of these processes.
Simulation scenarios of employment on the Romanian labor market

In this paper, we have investigated the impact of various macroeconomic variables, such as labor cost, Gross Domestic Product and net investments upon employment in Romania. In order to do that, we first estimated a fixed effects panel data model over the period 2000-2009, for the main Romanian economic activities, leading to a set of results consistent with the empirical evidence. The estimation was then followed by a Monte Carlo simulation which allowed forecasting the total number of employed population in Romania for the horizon 2010-2011.
Detection of transient ST segment episodes during ambulatory ECG monitoring.

Using the European Society of Cardiology ST-T Database, we have developed a Karhunen-Loève transform-based algorithm for robust automated detection of transient ST segment episodes during ambulatory ECG monitoring. We review current approaches and systems to detect transient ST segment changes and describe the architecture of our algorithm and its development. The algorithm incorporates a single-scan trajectory-recognition technique in feature space using the Mahalanobis distance function between the feature vectors. The main characteristics of the algorithm are detection of noisy beats, correction of the reference ST segment level to correct for slow ST level drift, detection of sudden significant shifts of ST deviation due to shifts of the mean electrical axis of the heart, detection of transient ST episodes, and, by tracking the QRS complex morphology, differentiation between ischemic and nonischemic ST episodes as a result of axis shifts. We compared the algorithm's performance to other recently developed algorithms and estimated its real-world performance.
Experimental Investigation of 14C in the Primary Coolant of the 10 MW High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor

ABSTRACT The very high temperature reactor (VHTR) is a development of the high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGRs) and one of the six proposed Generation IV reactor concept candidates. The 10 MW high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTR-10) is the first pebble-bed gas-cooled test reactor in China. A sampling system for the measurement of carbon-14 (14C) was established in the helium purification system of the HTR-10 primary loop, which could sample 14C from the coolant at three locations. The results showed that activity concentration of 14C in the HTR-10 primary coolant was 1.2(1) × 102 Bq/m3 (STP). The production mechanisms, distribution characteristics, reduction routes, and release types of 14C in HTR-10 were analyzed and discussed. A theoretical model was built to calculate the amount of 14C in the core of HTR-10 and its concentration in the primary coolant. The activation reaction of 13C has been identified to be the dominant 14C source in the core, whereas in the primary coolant, it is the activation of 14N. These results can supplement important information for the source term analysis of 14C in HTR-10 and promote the study of 14C in HTGRs.
Will Global Imbalances Persist as the Recession Ends?

The past two years have seen the worst post-war global recession on record, coupled with a dramatic dislocation in financial markets that is unprecedented. While governments around the world have stepped in to shore up their banking sectors, and central banks have cut interest rates to record lows and even experimented with aggressive quantitative easing, the global imbalances that were a feature of the world economy prior to the crisis have also made their presence felt. With the recession now abating, this paper examines whether the foundations have been laid for the global economy to rebalance over the coming years. In particular, it presents estimates of the necessary re-pricing of exchange rates that would need to ensue for the imbalances to unwind completely – and, perhaps more realistically, the impact on the global imbalances if exchange rates do not adjust in the required fashion, but remain close to their current levels.
Is Idiosyncratic Risk a Source of Momentum?

Recent studies reject the notion that momentum profits are compensation for risk by showing that momentum profits are mostly comprised of idiosyncratic components that cannot be risk (which, according to standard theory, must entail non-diversifiable systematic variation). Recent theoretical papers, however, show that idiosyncratic components of returns (in particular idiosyncratic risk) may affect risk premia. Using EGARCH-M, this paper estimates idiosyncratic risk and idiosyncratic risk premia at the individual security level and shows that idiosyncratic risk premia are responsible for between 70 and 90 percent of momentum profits. A closer examination shows that, although securities in the loser portfolio have higher levels of idiosyncratic risk than those in the winner portfolio (confirming other studies), the idiosyncratic risk premia in the loser portfolio are significantly less than those in the winner portfolio. Further supporting a link between idiosyncratic risk premia and momentum profits, we show that momentum portfolios formed by sorting on past idiosyncratic risk premia (rather than raw returns) generate significantly positive profits.
Adam Smith's Rejection of Hume's Price-Specie-Flow Mechanism: A Minor Mystery Resolved

One of the mysteries of the history of economic thought is that Adam Smith, although he was intimately acquainted with Hume and with his writings, should have made no reference in the Wealth of Nations to the self-regulating mechanism in terms of price levels and trade balances, and should have been content with an exposition of the international distribution of specie in the already obsolete terms of the requirement by each country, . What adds to the mystery is that Smith in his earlier Lectures presented approvingly a good summary of Hume's analysis. '
Phospholipase Cγ in Distinct Regions of the Ventral Tegmental Area Differentially Modulates Mood-Related Behaviors

Neurotrophic factor signaling pathways modulate cellular and behavioral responses to drugs of abuse. In addition, chronic exposure to morphine increases expression of phospholipase Cγ1 (PLCγ1) (a protein involved in neurotrophic signaling) in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a neural substrate for many drugs of abuse. Using viral-mediated gene transfer to locally alter the activity of PLCγ1, we show that overexpression of PLCγ1 in rostral portions of the VTA (R-VTA) results in increased morphine place preference, whereas PLCγ1 overexpression in the caudal VTA (C-VTA) results in avoidance of morphine-paired compartments. In addition, overexpression of PLCγ1 in R-VTA causes increased preference for sucrose and increased anxiety-like behavior but does not affect responses to stress or nociceptive stimuli. In contrast, overexpression of PLCγ1 in C-VTA decreases preference for sucrose and increases sensitivity to stress and nociceptive stimuli, although there was a tendency for increased anxiety-like behavior as seen for the R-VTA. These results show that levels of PLCγ1 in the VTA regulate responsiveness to drugs of abuse, natural rewards, and aversive stimuli and point to the possibility that distinct topographical regions within the VTA mediate generally positive versus negative responses to emotional stimuli. Moreover, these data also support a role for drug-induced elevations in PLCγ1 expression in the VTA in mediating long-term adaptations to drugs of abuse and aversive stimuli.
Clopidogrel pretreatment of patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction does not affect platelet reactivity after subsequent prasugrel-loading: Platelet reactivity in an observational study

Current guidelines recommend prasugrel or ticagrelor for patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Whereas available data support ticagrelor independent of pretreatment with clopidogrel, corresponding data for prasugrel are missing. Here, we investigated platelet reactivity after loading with prasugrel in clopidogrel-naïve vs. clopidogrel-pretreated patients. Forty-seven consecutive patients with STEMI referred for primary PCI were enrolled. Use of GPIIb/IIIa inhibitors and known contraindications to prasugrel served as exclusion criteria. A total of 31 patients were already treated with a loading dose of clopidogrel 600 mg by the emergency medical system before admission, while 16 patients were P2Y12 antagonist naïve. All patients received a loading dose of prasugrel 60 mg immediately before PCI. Adenosine diphosphate (ADP) induced platelet reactivity was determined by VerifyNow™ P2Y12 assay, by light transmission aggregometry (LTA) and by multiple electrode impedance aggregometry (MEIA; Multiplate™ analyser). No differences in platelet reactivity were observed at day 1 after PCI between the bolus-on-bolus treatment regimen and single prasugrel loading. Platelet reactivity was profoundly decreased to 10 [8–31] platelet reactivity unit (PRU; median [interquartile range]) in patients on clopidogrel + prasugrel vs. 9 [6–60] PRU in patients on prasugrel only (p = 0.916). Consistent results were obtained by LTA and MEIA. The proportion of patients reaching a MEIA associated with increased risk bleeding (<188 AU*min) was also similar between the two study groups. The level of platelet reactivity at day 1 after the 60 mg loading dose of prasugrel was independent of pretreatment with clopidogrel. Our results do not support withholding prasugrel in patients pretreated with clopidogrel who undergo PCI for STEMI.
The effect of product presentation mode on the perceived content and continent quality of web sites

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of different product presentation modes on consumers' perceptions of web site quality. Specifically the paper identifies the perceived degree of usability as the continent quality and the perceived quality of the information as the content quality of the web site.Design/methodology/approach – An experiment was conducted with a sample of 86 individuals. Changes in the presentation of the information were made in terms of mode (paragraph or schema) and arrangement (list or grid). Findings – Users perceived a higher degree of usability and a higher quality of information when the information was presented in a schematic way than when it was presented as a paragraph. However, no significant effects were found regarding the spatial arrangement of the products. Regarding the possible interaction effect, the combination of schematic information displayed in a list produced the greatest effects on users' perceptions.Research limitations/implications – Co.
Isolation and characterization of rcsB mutations that affect colanic acid capsule synthesis in Escherichia coli K-12

Regulation of colanic acid polysaccharide capsule synthesis in Escherichia coli requires the proteins RcsC and RcsB, in addition to several other proteins. By sequence similarity, these two proteins appear to be members of the two-component sensor-effector regulatory family found in bacteria. The present study characterizes the functional domains of RcsB. We have isolated mutations in rcsB that are able to suppress an rcsC "up" mutation (i.e., leading to increase in cps transcription) that normally results in constitutive expression of the capsule. In addition, constitutive capsule mutations in rcsB have been isolated. From the characterization of the mutants and by analogy to the three-dimensional structure of CheY, we have begun to define different domains of RcsB and to assign functions to them. A few of the constitutive capsule mutations were localized in an acidic pocket that has been proposed to play a crucial role in phosphorylation of RcsB. As seen in other two-component systems, an aspartate-to-glutamate substitution at the presumed site of phosphorylation of RcsB resulted in constitutive capsule expression. Lastly, several of our rcsB mutants were found to be allele specific (rcsC137 specific) for rcsC, suggesting a physical as well as functional interaction between RcsC and RcsB proteins.