Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measurement and Simulation of Soil Water Contents in an Experimental Field in Delta Plain

Variation in soil water content in the delta plain has its own particularity and is significant for agricultural improvement, the utilization of water resources and flood risk mitigation. In this study, experimental data collected from a plot of farmland located in the Taihu Basin were used to investigate the temporal and vertical variation of soil water content, as well as the effects of individual rainfall on soil water and shallow groundwater and their interaction. The results showed that the variation of soil water content is dependent on the comprehensive influence of soil hydraulic properties, meteorological factors and shallow groundwater and the correlation to the groundwater table is the strongest due to the significant capillary action in the delta plain. A saturated-unsaturated three-dimensional soil water numerical model was developed for the study area in response to rainfall and evapotranspiration. Scenario simulations were performed with different soil depths for soil water content and the error source was analyzed to improve the model. The average RMSE, RE and R2 values of the soil water content at the five depths between the measured and simulated results were 0.0192 cm3·cm−3, 2.09% and 0.8119, respectively. The results indicated that the developed model could estimate vertical soil water content and its dynamics over time at the study site at an acceptable level. Moreover, further research and application to other sites in delta plains are necessary to verify and improve the model.
The Impact of Organizational and National Cultural Differences on Social Conflict and Knowledge Transfer in International Acquisitions

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the effects of organizational and national cultural differences on international acquisitions. We argue that cultural differences prompt social identity building that leads to ‘us versus them’ thinking and thereby creates the potential for social conflict. We also maintain that the same cultural differences can contribute to learning in terms of knowledge transfer. We develop a structural equation model to test these hypothesized effects on a sample of related international acquisitions. Our analysis shows that cultural differences at the organizational level are positively associated with social conflict, but that national cultural differences can decrease social conflict. Furthermore, both organizational and national cultural differences are positively associated with knowledge transfer. This analysis shows the importance of disentangling the various effects that cultural differences have on international acquisitions. It also suggests that national cultural differences are less of a problem in international acquisitions than is usually assumed.
Vitrification Technique - New Possibilities for Male Gamete Low-Temperature Storage

The method is cheap and quick. Due to lowering the temperature of solution's glass transition the permeable cryoprotectants prevents the actual freezing of solution and allows to maintain its some flexibility in a glassy phase. Vitrification without permeable cryoprotectants allows to avoid the cryoprotectants toxicity and osmotic stress; the damage of plasmatic and mitochondrial membrane during equilibration with cryoprotectants; protects of plasmatic and mitochondrial membrane against lipid peroxidation and formation of reactive oxygen species and DNA damage.
Vitamin B-6 deficiency is common and associated with poor long-term outcome in renal transplant recipients.

Background: Previous studies have reported low circulating concentrations of pyridoxal-5-phospate (PLP) in renal transplant recipients (RTRs). It is unknown whether this is because of low intake or altered handling, and it is also unknown whether variation in circulating concentrations of PLP influences long-term outcome.Objective: We compared vitamin B-6 intake and circulating PLP concentrations of RTRs with those of healthy controls and investigated long-term clinical implications of vitamin B-6 deficiency in stable outpatient RTRs.Design: In a longitudinal cohort of 687 stable RTRs (57% male; mean ± SD age: 53 ± 13 y) with a median (IQR) follow-up of 5.3 y (4.8-6.1 y) and 357 healthy controls (47% male; age 54 ± 11 y), baseline vitamin B-6 was measured as plasma PLP by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Vitamin B-6 deficiency was defined as PLP <20 nmol/L, and insufficiency as PLP 20-30 nmol/L. Dietary intake was assessed by validated food-frequency questionnaires.Results: At inclusion [5.3 y (1.8-12.1 y) after transplantation], the mean vitamin B-6 intakes in RTRs and healthy controls were 1.77 ± 0.49 and 1.85 ± 0.56 mg/d, respectively (P = 0.23). In these groups, the median plasma PLP concentrations were 29 nmol/L (17-50 nmol/L) and 41 nmol/L (29-60 nmol/L), respectively (P < 0.001). Accordingly, deficiency was present in 30% of RTRs compared with 11% of healthy controls. PLP concentrations were inversely associated with glucose homeostasis variables and inflammation variables (all P < 0.01). During follow-up, 149 (21%) RTRs died and 82 (12%) developed graft failure. In RTRs, vitamin B-6 deficiency was associated with considerably higher mortality risk (HR 2.14; 95% CI: 1.48, 3.08) than a sufficient vitamin B-6 status, independent of potential confounders. No associations were observed for graft failure (P = 0.18). Conclusions: Vitamin B-6 deficiency is common in RTRs and does not seem to be a consequence of inadequate intake. In addition, this deficient state is clinically relevant and independently associated with an increased risk of mortality in RTRs. The cohort on which the study was based [TransplantLines Food and Nutrition Biobank and Cohort Study (TxL-FN)] was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02811835.
Ethnomedical knowledge of plants and healthcare practices among the Kalanguya tribe in Tinoc, Ifugao, Luzon, Philippines

Tinoc, Ifugao is located within the Cordillera Central Range, Northern Luzon, Philippines. It is inhabited by the Kalanguya, one of the indigenous societies in the Cordillera, who have a long tradition of using medicinal plants. The paper describes ethnomedicinal importance of 125 plant species, and healthcare practices as cited by 150 informers ranging between 16-90 yrs. Various ailments that are treated by the identified medicinal plants vary from common diseases such as headache, stomachache, toothache, cough and colds, and skin diseases to more serious ailments which includes urinary tract infection, dysentery, and chicken pox. There are different modes of preparation of these medicinal plants. For instance, immediate treatment for cuts was demonstrated by using crushed leaves of Eupatorium adenophorum L. An increased efficacy was noted by creating mixtures from combining certain plants. The medicinal plants are summarized by giving their scientific name, family, vernacular name and utilization.
Perfil clínico-epidemiológico dos casos de hanseníase atendidos no hospital universitário em campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, de janeiro de 1994 a julho de 2005.

Estudo descritivo, realizado a partir da coleta de dados de 192 fichas de notificação e controle da hanseníase, do total de pacientes atendidos no período de janeiro de 1994 a julho de 2005, no Ambulatório do Hospital Universitário da Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, com o objetivo de traçar o perfil epidemiológico da hanseníase no grupo de pacientes estudados e gerar subsídios à política de controle da hanseníase. As variáveis estudadas constam da ficha de notificação e controle da hanseníase. Observou-se a predominância de casos no sexo masculino (62,5%); na faixa etária de 40 a 59 anos (45,8%); multibacilares (67,2%); da forma clinica dimorfa (35,9%) e virchowiana (27,6%). Setenta e três (73%) por cento dos casos foram avaliados em relação à incapacidade ao inicio do tratamento, encontrando-se 66,7% desses casos sem nenhum problema com as mãos, pés ou olhos e 33,3% com incapacidade ou deformidade ao início do tratamento.
Inconsistency of emergency department triage. Emergency Department Operations Research Working Group.

STUDY OBJECTIVE To measure the interrater and intrarater agreement of existing emergency department triage systems. METHODS This 2-phase experimental study of triage nurses' and EMTs ratings for 5 scripted patient scenarios used in-person interviews and follow-up written surveys. RESULTS Eighty-seven participants (> 90% of those eligible) with 55 (63%) completed both phases of the study. Interrater agreement on triage category was poor (kappa = .347 overall). Only 13 of 55 (24%) participants rated the 5 cases the same severity in both phases; Kendall correlation (iota-B) comparing phases 1 and 2 varied from . 145 to . 554. Estimates of admission probability varied widely. Estimates of the appropriate time to physician evaluation (from immediate to 24 hours) was often incongruous with severity ratings (e.g., 54% of those participants rating a case the lowest severity recommended evaluation within 8 hours). There was good agreement on estimated need for an ED monitored bed or diagnostic studies. CONCLUSION Triage assessments (both interrater and intrarater) by experienced personnel are inconsistent using these 5 standardized patient scenarios. These results challenge the reliability of current ED triage practice.
On the Mechanism of Tree Initiation

Although the dc-tree-initiation voltage at a needle electrode in a plastic is very high, a tree can be formed by grounding the needle after charging it with a much lower dc voltage than the tree-initiation voltage. The tree formed by grounding will be called "a grounding tree". Since the formation of a tree under ac voltages is considered to be due to the repetition of charging and discharing, some relationship may exist between the ac tree and the grounding tree. The tree-initiation observed with a voltage composed of dc and ac shows that it is caused by a nearly constant value of the ac component, irrespective of the magnitude of the dc component. This also indicates that the mechanism of the intiation of an ac tree and that of a grounding tree are similar. An explanation is also given as to why the tree shape is branch-like or bush-like with ac voltages.
[Evaluation of congenital infection risk on the basic of cytokines Il-1 beta, Il-6 and TNF alpha levels in blood serum and amniotic liquid in pregnant women and in umbilical blood of neonates].

OBJECTIVE The aim of the study was to evaluate congenital infection risk on the basic of cytokines IL-1 beta, IL-6 and TNF alpha levels in blood serum and amniotic liquid in pregnant women and in umbilical blood of neonates. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study was carried out on 37 women in labor including 17 mothers with normal pregnancy (group A-test) and 20 suspected of intrauterine infection (group C). There have been indicated cytokines IL-1 beta, IL-6 and TNF alpha in amniotic liquid and in blood serum collected in the second stage of labor and in umbilical blood serum. The accepted procedure used in our study resulted from the assumption that the analysis of cytokines in amniotic liquid collected without amniocentesis was beneficial. RESULTS It has been proved that among women in labor from group C there is a high concentration of IL-6 and TNF alpha in amniotic liquid that has statistic significance as far as markers for women with normal pregnancy are concerned (group A). Lower levels of IL-6 than in amniotic liquid but statistically meaningful in relation to the markers in group A have been detected in serum collected from pregnant women and in the umbilical blood of the neonates. Among 18 neonates delivered by mothers from group C the symptoms of congenital infection have appeared. CONCLUSION Extending diagnostics of congenital infection on the basis of the analyzed cytokines, mainly IL-6 in the second stage of labor, is of prognostic significance.
Assessing the Role of Inhibition in Stabilizing Neocortical Networks Requires Large-Scale Perturbation of the Inhibitory Population

Neurons within cortical microcircuits are interconnected with recurrent excitatory synaptic connections that are thought to amplify signals (Douglas and Martin, 2007), form selective subnetworks (Ko et al., 2011), and aid feature discrimination. Strong inhibition (Haider et al., 2013) counterbalances excitation, enabling sensory features to be sharpened and represented by sparse codes (Willmore et al., 2011). This balance between excitation and inhibition makes it difficult to assess the strength, or gain, of recurrent excitatory connections within cortical networks, which is key to understanding their operational regime and the computations that they perform. Networks that combine an unstable high-gain excitatory population with stabilizing inhibitory feedback are known as inhibition-stabilized networks (ISNs) (Tsodyks et al., 1997). Theoretical studies using reduced network models predict that ISNs produce paradoxical responses to perturbation, but experimental perturbations failed to find evidence for ISNs in cortex (Atallah et al., 2012). Here, we reexamined this question by investigating how cortical network models consisting of many neurons behave after perturbations and found that results obtained from reduced network models fail to predict responses to perturbations in more realistic networks. Our models predict that a large proportion of the inhibitory network must be perturbed to reliably detect an ISN regime robustly in cortex. We propose that wide-field optogenetic suppression of inhibition under promoters targeting a large fraction of inhibitory neurons may provide a perturbation of sufficient strength to reveal the operating regime of cortex. Our results suggest that detailed computational models of optogenetic perturbations are necessary to interpret the results of experimental paradigms. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Many useful computational mechanisms proposed for cortex require local excitatory recurrence to be very strong, such that local inhibitory feedback is necessary to avoid epileptiform runaway activity (an “inhibition-stabilized network” or “ISN” regime). However, recent experimental results suggest that this regime may not exist in cortex. We simulated activity perturbations in cortical networks of increasing realism and found that, to detect ISN-like properties in cortex, large proportions of the inhibitory population must be perturbed. Current experimental methods for inhibitory perturbation are unlikely to satisfy this requirement, implying that existing experimental observations are inconclusive about the computational regime of cortex. Our results suggest that new experimental designs targeting a majority of inhibitory neurons may be able to resolve this question.
Transcriptional control of the yeast acetyl‐CoA synthetase gene, ACS1, by the positive regulators CAT8 and ADR1 and the pleiotropic repressor UME6

The ACS1 gene, encoding one out of two acetyl‐CoA synthetase isoenzymes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, is strictly regulated at the transcriptional level by the carbon source of the medium. While ACS1 is poorly expressed in the presence of a high glucose concentration, a several hundred‐fold derepression occurs with ethanol as the sole carbon source or under conditions of sugar limitation. The molecular mechanism responsible for the carbon source control of ACS1 turned out to be highly complex. A carbon source‐responsive element (CSRE), previously identified upstream of gluconeogenic structural genes, and a binding site of the alcohol dehydrogenase regulator, Adr1p, together mediate about 80% of the derepressed gene activity. Binding of Adr1p synthesized by Escherichia coli to the ACS1 control region was shown by an electrophoretic mobility shift assay. In addition to these activating elements, two URS1 motifs confer negative control on the ACS1 promoter. The URS1 element was found to be a constitutive repression site, which is most effective from a downstream position with respect to an upstream activation site (UAS). In a mutant lacking the URS1‐binding factor, Ume6p, ACS1 expression was partially glucose insensitive. Ume6p must counteract transcription factors that are constitutively active. Site‐directed mutagenesis of Abf1p binding sites in the ACS1 promoter significantly reduced gene expression in the ume6 mutant, grown under repressing conditions. Thus, a functional balance of the pleiotropic positive factor Abf1p and the negative factor Ume6p is in part responsible for glucose repression of ACS1. The combined influence of the regulated UAS elements, CSRE and Adr1p binding site, mediates a strong increase in ACS1 expression under derepressing conditions.
The volatility of the amygdala response to masked fearful eyes

Recently, it has been suggested that backwardly masked, and thus subliminally presented, fearful eyes are processed by the amygdala. Here, we investigated in four functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments whether the amygdala responds to subliminally presented fearful eyes per se or whether an interaction of masked eyes with the masks or with parts of the masks used for backward masking might be responsible for the amygdala activation. In these experiments, we varied the mask as well as the position of the target eyes. The results show that the amygdala does not respond to masked fearful eyes per se but to an interaction between masked fearful eyes and the eyes of neutral faces used for masking. This finding questions the hypothesis that the amygdala processes context‐free parts of the human face without awareness. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
An efficient approach for calculating the dispersions of photonic-crystal fibers: design of the nearly zero ultra-flattened dispersion

A novel and efficient approach is proposed to calculate the dispersions of the guided modes of the photonic-crystal fibers (PCFs). Based on the vector boundary-element method (VBEM), the surface integral equations for the first and second derivatives of the propagation constants with respect to the wavelength are explicitly derived. Compared with the three-point finite-difference approach, which needs to solve and search three effective indexes near the interested wavelength, this approach can determine the dispersions of the PCFs by only solving one effective index at this wavelength based on the derived formulations. This novel approach saves over 60% computing time without losing the accuracy. Based on this approach, a novel four-ring PCF is designed by optimizing only three geometrical parameters to achieve the nearly zero ultra-flattened dispersion property. Compared with previously presented dispersion-flattened PCFs, the design procedure for the four-ring structure could be more efficient and easier because relatively lesser parameters need to be optimized.
The Effect of Topical Anaesthesia on Pressure Pain Thresholds in symptom-free subjects

Palpation, a standard procedure in the diagnostic process of muscular pain conditions – myalgia, aims to provoke a muscular pain response. The origin of pain elicited by palpation is not fully understood. There is also a possibility that the pressure elicit response from mechanoreceptors in skin, sub mucosal tissue or periosteum, which may affect the validity of the method.The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of topical anesthesia on pressure pain thresholds at masseter, temporal and thumb muscle sites in healthy individuals.Twenty symptom-free subjects (ten males/ ten females) mean age 24.6 years (SD 2.6) participated in this double blind randomized experimental trial. An algometer (Somedic AB) was used to measure Pressure Pain Thresholds (PPT), on the masseter, temporal and thumb before and after topical application of EMLA or a placebo cream.There was no statistically significant change in PPTs at any of the tested sites between the baseline and after application of EMLA and placebo cream. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in PPTs between sexes. There was no significant difference in PPTs between the different muscle sites, apart from a higher PPT for the thumb site compared to the masseter muscle.In conclusion, PPT was not affected by topical anaesthesia in symptom-free subjects. This indicates that palpation pain is not dermal. Furthermore did PPT not differ between the masseter and temporal muscles. The study indicates that the same palpation pressure may be used for extra-oral palpation of the temporal and masseter muscle for both sexes.
Nonoperative Treatment of Midshaft Clavicle Fractures in Adults

Clavicle fractures are among the most common skeletal injuries accounting for 2-5% of all adult fractures. Historically, nonoperative treatment of midshaft clavicular fractures was considered the gold standard of care. Furthermore, nonoperative treatment has been challenged by an increasing popularity and rate of surgical fixations in recent years despite a lack of clear evidence in the current literature. Most fractures are suitable for conservative treatment. There is solid evidence in favour of nonoperative treatment for fractures with a displacement of less than 2cm and remaining contact of the bone fragments. Clear indications for conservative treatment versus surgical fixation of displaced midshaft fractures have not finally been established yet, leaving some questions and problems unanswered. Furthermore, there are no evidence-based recommendations concerning the kind and duration of shoulder immobilisation with no clear advantage for any treatment modality.