Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chlorophyll Content and Chlorophyll Fluorescence in Tomato Leaves Infested with an Invasive Mealybug, Phenacoccus solenopsis (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae)

ABSTRACT Herbivore injury has indirect effects on the growth and performance of host plants through photosynthetic suppression. It causes uncertain reduction in photosynthesis, which likely depends on the degree of infestation. Rapid light curves provide detailed information on the saturation characteristics of electron transport as well as the overall photosynthetic performance of a plant. We examined the effects of different intensities of infestation of the invasive mealybug, Phenacoccus solenopsis Tinsley (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae), on the relative chlorophyll content and rapid light curves of tomato Solanum lycopersicum L. leaves using a chlorophyll meter and chlorophyll fluorescence measurement system, respectively, under greenhouse conditions. After 38 d of P. solenopsis feeding, relative chlorophyll content of tomato plants with initial high of P. solenopsis was reduced by 57.3%. Light utilization efficiency (&agr;) for the initial high-density treatment was reduced by 42.4%. However, no significant difference between initial low-density treatment and uninfested control was found. The values of the maximum electron transport rate and minimum saturating irradiance for initial high-density treatment were reduced by 82.0 and 69.7%, respectively, whereas the corresponding values for low-density treatment were reduced by 55.9 and 58.1%, respectively. These data indicated that changes were induced by P. solenopsis feeding in the relative chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence of infested tomato plants. The results indicating that low initial infestation by P. solenopsis caused no change in relative leaf chlorophyll content or light utilization efficiency could have been because the plants rapidly adapted to P. solenopsis feeding or because of compensatory photosynthesis.
MAZINDOL ANOREXIA IS MEDIATED BY ACTIVATION OF DOPAMINERGIC MECHANISMS

1 Anorexia in rats following injections of mazindol (0.1–8 mg/kg i.p.) could be antagonized by pretreatment with a dopamine receptor blocker (pimozide) but not by pretreatment with an α‐adrenoceptor blocker (phenoxybenzamine), a β‐adrenoceptor blocker ((‐)‐propranolol), or a 5‐hydroxytryptamine receptor blocker (methergoline). 2 In rats with a unilateral lesion in the substantia nigra made by stereotaxic injection of 6‐hydroxydopamine, mazindol caused a dose‐dependent turning towards the lesioned side, indicating an indirect mechanism of action. This effect could be antagonized by pretreatment with a dopamine receptor blocker. 3 In rats pretreated with reserpine and α‐methyl‐p‐tyrosine, mazindol did not have any motor stimulant action. 4 In vitro studies with synaptosomes prepared from rat brain, indicated that mazindol blocks uptake and causes release of dopamine. 5 It is concluded that the anorectic action of mazindol is mediated by a dopaminergic mechanism.
Multiple metrics quantify and differentiate responses of vegetation to composition B

ABSTRACT Quantifying vegetation response to explosive compounds has focused predominantly on morphological impacts and uptake efficiency. A more comprehensive understanding of the total impacts of explosives on vegetation can be gained using a multivariate approach. We hypothesized that multiple variables representing morphological and physiological responses will more clearly differentiate species and treatments than any single variable. Individuals of three plant species were placed in soils contaminated with Composition B, which comprises 60% hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) and 40% 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT), and grown for 2 months. Response metrics used included photosynthetic operation, water relations, growth characteristics, as well as nitrogen and carbon concentrations and isotopic compositions. Individual metrics showed high variability in response across the three species tested. Water relations and nitrogen isotopic composition exhibited the most consistent response across species. By comparing multiple variables simultaneously, better separation of both species and exposure was observed. The inclusion of novel metrics can reinforce previously established concepts and provide a new perspective. Additionally, the inclusion of various other metrics can greatly increase the ability to identify and differentiate particular groups. By using multivariate analyses and standard vegetation metrics, new aspects of the vegetation response to explosive compounds can be identified.
Perception boundary between /s/ and /ts/ in Japanese at various speaking rates

To examine effects of speaking rate on a perception boundary between voiceless fricative /s/ and affricate /ts/ in Japanese, a stimulus continuum of /s/-/ts/ at various speaking rates was constructed by changing rise and steady+decay durations of these phonemes. The stimuli in the continuum were presented to 33 Japanese native speakers, and their response ratio to /ts/ was measured. Logistic regression analysis of the response ratio revealed that the perception boundaries systematically differed as a function of speaking rate. However, when the rise and steady+decay durations were normalized by a logarithm of the averaged mora duration, the boundaries at different speaking rates nearly coincided. These results suggest that the speech perception system discriminates /s/ and /ts/ at various speaking rates with reference to a single boundary calculated with the normalized variables.
Automated Construction of Robotic Manipulation Programs

Society is becoming more automated with robots beginning to perform most tasks in factories and starting to help out in home and office environments. One of the most important functions of robots is the ability to manipulate objects in their environment. Because the space of possible robot designs, sensor modalities, and target tasks is huge, researchers end up having to manually create many models, databases, and programs for their specific task, an effort that is repeated whenever the task changes. Given a specification for a robot and a task, the presented framework automatically constructs the necessary databases and programs required for the robot to reliably execute manipulation tasks. It includes contributions in three major components that are critical for manipulation tasks. The first is a geometric-based planning system that analyzes all necessary modalities of manipulation planning and offers efficient algorithms to formulate and solve them. This allows identification of the necessary information needed from the task and robot specifications. Using this set of analyses, we build a planning knowledge-base that allows informative geometric reasoning about the structure of the scene and the robot's goals. We show how to efficiently generate and query the information for planners. The second is a set of efficient algorithms considering the visibility of objects in cameras when choosing manipulation goals. We show results with several robot platforms using grippers cameras to boost accuracy of the detected objects and to reliably complete the tasks. Furthermore, we use the presented planning and visibility infrastructure to develop a completely automated extrinsic camera calibration method and a method for detecting insufficient calibration data. The third is a vision-centric database that can analyze a rigid object's surface for stable and discriminable features to be used in pose extraction programs. Furthermore, we show work towards a new voting-based object pose extraction algorithm that does not rely on 2D/3D feature correspondences and thus reduces the early-commitment problem plaguing the generality of traditional vision-based pose extraction algorithms. In order to reinforce our theoric contributions with a solid implementation basis, we discuss the open-source planning environment OpenRAVE, which began and evolved as a result of the work done in this thesis. We present an analysis of its architecture and provide insight for successful robotics software environments.
TRIM28 repression of retrotransposon-based enhancers is necessary to preserve transcriptional dynamics in embryonic stem cells

TRIM28 is critical for the silencing of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) in embryonic stem (ES) cells. Here, we reveal that an essential impact of this process is the protection of cellular gene expression in early embryos from perturbation by cis-acting activators contained within these retroelements. In TRIM28-depleted ES cells, repressive chromatin marks at ERVs are replaced by histone modifications typical of active enhancers, stimulating transcription of nearby cellular genes, notably those harboring bivalent promoters. Correspondingly, ERV-derived sequences can repress or enhance expression from an adjacent promoter in transgenic embryos depending on their TRIM28 sensitivity in ES cells. TRIM28-mediated control of ERVs is therefore crucial not just to prevent retrotransposition, but more broadly to safeguard the transcriptional dynamics of early embryos.
Microvascular decompression for hemifacial spasm: analyses of operative findings and results in 310 patients.

: The operative findings and results of microvascular decompression (MVD) on 310 Chinese patients with hemifacial spasm are analyzed in this report. The operations were performed at the Neurological Institute of the Veterans General Hospital-Taipei between January 1983 and June 1990. The length of follow-up ranged from 6 months to 8 years (mean, 4.3 years); 273 patients (88%) had complete relief of spasm within 3 days after one MVD, and the remaining 37 patients (12%) showed no immediate postoperative improvement. Sixteen (5.2%) of these 37 initially unresponsive patients subsequently experienced complete relief, which occurred from 4 days to 22 months (median, 21 days) after one MVD; 13 others (4.2%) had complete relief immediately after the second MVD; another 3 (1%) had delayed complete relief 6, 9, and 11 months after the second MVD, respectively; and the remaining 5 (1.6%) only had delayed partial relief, which occurred 2 to 9 weeks after one MVD. Late recurrence occurred in three patients (1%). These immediate and long-term results lend support to the conclusion that the timing of reoperation can be postponed for a period of 3 to 4 weeks in the event of an initial failure to get improvement, and that a second MVD may be of value.
Subcellular localization of neural‐specific NPDC‐1 protein

NPDC‐1 is a gene specifically expressed in neural cells when they stop to divide and begin to differentiate. Immunocytochemical study analysis of differentiated PC12 cells transfected with NPDC‐tag vectors showed that NPDC‐1 is transported in vesicles from the Golgi apparatus to the cell membrane and is then likely internalized into endosomes. The protein colocalized, at least partially, with synaptic vesicle proteins: synaptophysin, synaptobrevin 2, and Rab3 GEP (Rab3 GTP/GDP exchange protein). Moreover, subcellular fractionation of rat brain showed that crude synaptic membrane and crude synaptic vesicle fractions were enriched in NPDC‐1. Although NPDC‐1 bound Rab3 GEP in vitro, it seems unlikely to be involved in Ca2+‐dependent exocytosis and, thus, in synaptic vesicle trafficking. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Business Practices on the World Wide Web: A Comparison of Japanese and U.S. Web Sites

Abstract Rapid developments in the area of telecommunications and information technologies have brought about dramatic changes in the way organizations conduct business and have influenced the way organizations seek to gain competitive advantages in their industries. Among the most prominent of these developments is the World Wide Web (WWW or "web ") and its impact on how business - in this case, electronic commerce (EC) - is conducted. One question that arises is: "Is the web's impact on electronic commerce uniform around the world? " This paper reports on a research study that sought insight into this question by comparing the web-based business practices of both Japanese and the U.S. The results of content analysis and statistical data analysis provide support for country differences between Japan and the U.S. on several web site characteristics.
A comparison of dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry, air displacement plethysmography and A‐mode ultrasound to assess body composition in college‐age adults

There is currently a dearth of scientific literature exploring the agreement of A‐mode ultrasound (US) body composition analysis with dual‐energy X‐ray absorptiometry (DXA) and air displacement plethysmography (ADP). Objective: To investigate the agreement of US with DXA and ADP for estimating fat mass (FM) and fat‐free mass (FFM).
Predictors of discontinuation of tumor necrosis factor inhibitors in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) inhibitors have transformed management of rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however, many patients discontinue TNF inhibitors. Our goal was to determine the discontinuation rate of TNF inhibitors and identify predictors associated with discontinuation. METHODS Enrollees in the Brigham RA Sequential Study (BRASS) formed the eligible cohort. Patients reporting use of a TNF inhibitor with at least 6 months of followup were followed until reporting TNF inhibitor discontinuation or their last study visit if they continued therapy. Potential predictor variables, including demographic and clinical data assessed at baseline and 6 months prior to study endpoint, were identified using a Cox proportional regression. RESULTS Among 961 patients in BRASS, 503 were using a TNF inhibitor with at least 6 months of followup in BRASS (mean length of followup 39 mo, SD 13). Two hundred ten patients (42%) reported discontinuation of TNF inhibitor. Higher physician global scores (hazard ratio 1.27, 95% CI 1.18-1.38) and RA Disease Activity Index scores (HR 1.13, 95% CI 1.05-1.22) 6 months prior to stopping the TNF inhibitor and higher number of TNF inhibitors used previously (HR 1.30, 95% CI 1.03-1.66) were associated with discontinuation of TNF inhibitor. Prior use of synthetic disease modifying antirheumatic drugs (HR 0.50, 95% CI 0.34-0.72) and more years of cumulative methotrexate use (HR 0.24, 95% CI 0.12-0.47) were inversely associated with discontinuation of TNF inhibitor. CONCLUSION These data demonstrate that a significant number of patients with RA discontinue TNF inhibitors. Several easily characterized clinical variables have a modest predictive association with reduced probability of TNF inhibitor discontinuation.
Diagnostic value of d‐dimer in patients with a moderate pretest probability of deep venous thrombosis

Summary. The negative predictive value (NPV) of d‐dimer (DD) for the exclusion of venous thromboembolism is, overall, high and tends to increase as clinical pretest probability decreases. We have assessed the accuracy of a diagnostic protocol including clinical evaluation and DD in 134 outpatients presenting with a moderate pretest probability of proximal deep venous thrombosis (DVT). In these patients, a negative DD value safely excluded DVT (NPV 100%, 95% CI 85–100) In our experience, these results are equivalent to those found for low‐pretest probability patients and therefore the same diagnostic strategy can be used for both risk groups.
Dietary fat intake and risk of skin cancer: A prospective study in Australian adults

Although intakes of dietary fat have been associated with both basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the skin, the evidence is sparse and inconsistent. This study prospectively investigated the association between total dietary fat; saturated, polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids; and percent energy from fat in relation to BCC and SCC of the skin. At baseline in 1992, total fat intake and intake of fatty acids were assessed in an Australian community‐based longitudinal study, using a validated semi‐quantitative food frequency questionnaire in 1,057 adult residents (aged 25–75 years) in Nambour, Queensland. Information on demography, sun‐sensitivity history and sun exposure factors were obtained using self‐administered questionnaires. Associations with BCC and SCC in terms of persons newly affected and of tumor counts were assessed using Poisson and negative binomial regression models, respectively, based on incident, histologically‐confirmed tumors occurring between 1992 and 2002. No significant linear trends were observed in overall risk of BCC or SCC of the skin with increasing total fat intake. However, in participants with a history of skin cancer, total fat intake (multivariable adjusted RR = 2.42, 95% CI = 1.20–4.88; p for trend = 0.01) was associated with increased numbers of SCC tumors comparing the highest to lowest tertile. In conclusion, SCC tumor risk increased as total fat intake increased in people with a history of skin cancer. Dietary fats were not associated with BCC occurrence. © 2009 UICC
Multi-Antenna SWIPT Relaying Systems: Impact of Antenna Correlation and Channel State Information

This paper investigates the impact of antenna correlation on wireless powered dual-hop multi-antenna relaying systems with instantaneous channel state information (CSI) or statistical CSI at the relay. Considering the power-splitting architecture, we study the outage probability as well as the achievable diversity order of the system for amplify-and-forward protocol. Our results show that, antenna correlation itself does not affect the achievable diversity order, the availability of CSI at the relay determines the achievable diversity order. Full diversity order can be achieved with instantaneous CSI, while only unit diversity order can be achieved with statistical CSI. In addition, with instantaneous CSI, antenna correlation is detrimental in the moderate and high SNR regime while it results in a better performance when the operating SNR is low. On the contrary, antenna correlation is always beneficial with only statistical CSI.
Low Profile, Broadside Radiating, Electrically Small Huygens Source Antennas

It is demonstrated numerically that a metamaterial-inspired, low profile (height approximately λ/80), electrically small (ka = 0.45) Huygens source antenna can be designed to radiate at 300 MHz in its broadside direction with a high radiation efficiency and a large front-to-back ratio. Two electrically small, near-field resonant parasitic (NFRP) antennas are first designed. Both are based on a coax-fed dipole antenna. An electric dipole response is obtained by combining it with a tunable Egyptian axe dipole (EAD) NFRP element. A magnetic dipole response is obtained by spatially loading the driven dipole with tunable, extruded capacitively loaded loop (CLL) NFRP elements. The driven dipole and the EAD and CLL NFRP elements are combined together and retuned to achieve a broadside radiating Huygens source antenna. Two different designs, one with two CLL elements and one with four, are obtained, and their performance characteristics are compared.
Acute compartment syndrome of the forearm in association with ulnar shortening osteotomy: a case report.

A 41-year-old man experienced severe pain in the forearm after undergoing ulnar shortening osteotomy to treat positive ulnar variance, a complication of a fracture of the distal end of the radius. The patient had compartment syndrome with compartment pressure of 55 mm Hg. A decompressive fasciotomy of the volar compartment provided total relief of pain and, subsequently, full recovery of all functions. We report the case and discuss the serious nature of compartment syndrome, its associated complications, and methods of diagnosis and management.
Decrease in serum levels of vitamin A and zeaxanthin in patients with colorectal polyp.

OBJECTIVE Several retrospective and prospective epidemiological investigations have demonstrated that a diet rich in carotenoids could prevent the development of pre-cancerous and neoplastic lesions of the digestive tract. The aim of this examination was to analyse the correlation between colorectal polyps with different histological classifications and serum carotenoid levels. DESIGN AND METHODS A 10 ml blood sample was taken from all of the patients after the colonoscopic diagnosis. The serum levels of vitamin A, lutein, zeaxanthin, alpha- and beta-cryptoxanthin, alpha- and beta-carotene were measured in patients with adenomatous colorectal polyp (n = 59, 35 males, 24 females) by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and compared with those in healthy subjects (n = 20, 10 males, 10 females). The patients were separated into four groups depending on their histological findings. RESULTS The serum levels of vitamin A and zeaxanthin were significantly lower in all patients with polyps (vitamin A: 0.913 +/- 0.112 micromol/l, zeaxanthin: 0.071 +/- 0.012 micromol/l) than in the control healthy group (vitamin A: 2.036 +/- 0.354 micromol/l, zeaxanthin: 0.138 +/- 0.048 micromol/l). The lowest levels were found in patients with focal adenocarcinoma in the polyp. There were no significant differences in the serum levels of other carotenoids. The serum levels of cholesterol, haemoglobin, total protein and albumin were normal in these patients. CONCLUSIONS There are close and inverse correlations between the serum level of carotenoids and colorectal polyps with different histological grades. The low mean carotenoid levels in patients with adenocarcinoma in the polyp indicate that deficiency of carotenoids may be an important factor in the development of colorectal cancer.
Are Three Contact Efforts Really Reflective of a Repeated High-Intensity Effort Bout?

Abstract Johnston, RD, Gabbett, TJ, Walker, S, Walker, B, and Jenkins, DG. Are three contact efforts really reflective of a repeated high-intensity effort bout? J Strength Cond Res 29(3): 816–821, 2015—The use of 3 or more efforts (running and contact), separated by short recovery periods, is widely used to define a “repeated high-intensity effort” (RHIE) bout in rugby league. It has been suggested that due to fatigue, players become less effective after RHIE bouts; however, there is little evidence to support this. This study determined whether physical performance is reduced after performing 1, 2, or 3 efforts with minimal recovery. Twelve semiprofessional rugby league players (age: 24.5 ± 2.9 years) competed in 3 “off-side” small-sided games (2 × 10-minute halves) with a contact bout performed every 2 minutes. The rules of each game were identical except for the number of contact efforts performed in each bout. Players performed 1, 2, or 3 × 5-second wrestling bouts in the single-, double- and triple-contact game, respectively. Movement demands of each game were monitored using global positioning system units. From the first to the second half, there were trivial reductions in relative distance during the single-contact game (ES = −0.13 ± 0.12), small reductions during the double-contact game (ES = −0.47 ± 0.24), and moderate reductions during the triple-contact game (ES = −0.74 ± 0.27). These data show that running intensity is progressively reduced as the number of contact efforts per bout is increased. Targeting defensive players and forcing them to perform 2 or more consecutive contact efforts is likely to lead to greater reductions in running intensity. Conditioning performing multiple contact efforts while maintaining running intensity should therefore be incorporated into training for contact team sports.