Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prosthesis-patient mismatch and left ventricle systolic strain in patients with severe degenerative aortic stenosis, who are undergoing surgical valve replacement

Background: Prosthesis-patient mismatch (PPM) is an independent predictor of post-operative mortality after aortic valve replacement (AVR), particularly when it is associated with a left ventricle (LV) dysfunction. Two-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (2D-STE) could be useful in assessing LV function in patients with PPM. Aim: To evaluate the impact of PPM on myocardial multidirectional LV systolic strain in patients who are undergoing AVR for severe degenerative aortic stenosis (AS). Methods: Sixty-five patients (38 females, 27 males, age: 69.9 ± 9.1 years) with severe degenerative AS and preserved LV ejection fraction were enrolled into the study. Preand three-month postoperative 2D-STE was performed to assess LV peak systolic longitudinal strain (LV PSLS), circumferential strain, and LV rotation. The indexed prosthesis effective orifice area (iEOAprosth) was used to define PPM (≤ 0.65 cm2/m2), and it was used to distinguish the study groups: PPM (+) (n = 35) and PPM (–) (n = 30). Results: A significant association of LV PSLS and interaction in the groups [PPM (+) vs. PPM (–)] and intervention (before vs. after AVR; p = 0.019) was observed — the lowest value of LV PSLS was in the PPM (+) group (–14.9 ± 3.5%) after AVR. A significant difference in the mean delta (before/after AVR) values of LV PSLS (0.7 ± 3.1% vs. –1.2 ± 3.6%; p = 0.04) in the PPM (+) vs. the PPM (–) groups was found. LV PSLS correlated with iEOAprosth (r = –0.520, p < 0.001) that was obtained three months after AVR. Conclusions: The occurrence of PPM in patients undergoing AVR for severe degenerative AS was associated with reduced LV PSLS in a three-month observation.
[Characteristics of Sleep Electroencephalographic Power in Chronic Insomnia Patients].

Objective To study the sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) power features of patients with chronic insomnia. Methods Retrospective analysis was performed with patients who met the ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for chronic insomnia, using polysomnography (PSG) to examine the overnight sleep EEG. The sleep architectures and relative EEG power across five frequency bands during overnight sleep were compared to study the differences between the insomnia and control groups. Furthermore, the correlation between EEG power and various PSG measures was also analyzed. Results Forty-five subjects were enrolled in the study, including 25 chronic insomniacs (18 females, aged [36.2±10.7] years) and 20 controls (18 females, aged [36.1±7.6] years). Compared to those of the control group, insomnia patients had significantly lower value of delta power ([38.0±6.1] vs. [43.2±5.8], P<0.05) in the NREM1 stage, and increased value of beta power during total NREM, NREM1 and NREM2 (NREM sleep [5.4±2.3] vs. [3.8±1.4], NREM1 [11.3±3.5] vs. [8.7±2.8], and NREM2 [5.7±2.3] vs. [4.4±1.4], all P<0.05). For correlation analyses, in the insomnia group, a significantly positive correlation was found between the delta value during NREM sleep and the duration of NREM3 sleep ( r=0.527). The beta value during NREM sleep was found to be negatively correlated to the duration of NREM3 sleep ( r=－0.767). A positive correlation was found between the beta value during NREM sleep and the duration of NREM1 and NREM2 sleep ( r=0.486 and 0.589, respectively). Conclusion The results suggest that patients with chronic insomnia have decreased low-frequency EEG power, but increased high-frequency EEG power during NREM sleep. The findings indicate that cortex arousal level is elevated in chronic insomniacs during NREM sleep.
Function of Agricultural Terraces in Mediterranean Conditions - Selected Examples From the Island of Ikaria (The Southern Sporades, Greece)

Function of Agricultural Terraces in Mediterranean Conditions - Selected Examples From the Island of Ikaria (The Southern Sporades, Greece) The aim of the research was to define the influence of agricultural terraces on slope erosion. There have been selected three plots located on the Greek island Ikaria. On the plots detailed geomorphological mapping was done, spatial relief models were created based on the measurements taken using GPS RTK, georadar profiles were made using RAMAC/GPR and the extent of destruction of terrace resistance walls was evaluated. In comparison with similar forms on other Aegean islands, Ikarian terraces are narrow and high. Their stability depends on: lihtology, slope gradient, height and spatial arrangement of particular terrace steps and the current way of their usage. It was acknowledged that the most stable are the forms created on crystalline schists and gneisses, whereas the slopes, which erode the easiest, are the terraced ones consisting of carbonate rocks. The obtained results indicate that on Ikaria similarly to numerous other regions the most significant factor facilitating erosion on the terraced slopes is the cessation of their agricultural usage.
Refining the Relationship between Personality and Subjective Well-Being

Understanding subjective well-being (SWB) has historically been a core human endeavor and presently spans fields from management to mental health. Previous meta-analyses indicated that personality traits are one of the best predictors. Still, the results previously obtained indicate only a moderate relationship, weaker than several lines of reasoning suggests. This may be because of the commensurability problem, where researchers have grouped together substantively disparate measures in their analyses. We review and address this problem directly, focusing on individual measures of personality (e.g., the NEO) and categories of SWB (e.g., Life Satisfaction). In addition, we take a multivariate approaching, assessing how much variance personality traits account for individually as well as together. Results indicate that different personality and SWB scales can be substantively different and that the relationship between the two is typically much larger (e.g., four times) than previous meta-analyses indicate. Total SWB variance accounted for by personality can reach as high as 41% or 63% unattenuated. These results also speak metaanalysis in general and the need to account for scale differences once a sufficient research base has been generated. Words: 180 of 180
Addis Ababa University

The television landscape in Ethiopia is getting more diversified in terms of global media reception whereas its local dimension is not developing so much as the country has only one state-owned television with scant component of entertainment. The sole prevalence of state television stands against legal provisions which allow other forms of ownership for commercial, public and community broadcasting services. Mapping the Ethiopian Television Landscape: Legal and Audience Perspectives attempts to describe the television landscape in Ethiopia focusing more on the legal provisions pertinent to television ownership and programming and the reception of global and local television programmes. The research analysed relevant legal documents to show the potentials and limitations of provisions for television broadcasting, thereby exploring the extent to which the legal framework is enabling. Moreover, the interplay between the reception of global and local television programming was examined through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews facilitated for college/university students so as to explore how audiences make meaning out of particularly Western cultural products. The findings of the study show that young audiences have significantly sidelined local television and developed an increasing interest towards global television products. Given the perceived irrelevance of local television to their needs, the appreciation of Western cultural values by young audiences who have accesses to transnational television outlets is evident. Under the circumstances, young audiences’ appreciation of their own values may come from the social environment they live in but not that much from the local television they rarely watch. The legal provisions allow the issuance of license to commercial, public and community broadcasting services. However, these provisions also somehow determine what programmes broadcasters should design. Since the regulator is highly governmentaffiliated, some of the restrictions and obligations for the regulator’s inspection can create inconvenience for broadcasters to get in to the business.
Collapse‐induced fluidization structures in the Lower Cretaceous Athabasca Oil Sands Deposit, Western Canada

Unique vertical fluidization structures from the Lower Cretaceous Athabasca Oil Sands Deposit in Western Canada are described. The multi‐metre long structures resulted from ascending Devonian karst aquifer waters injected into the overlying unconsolidated sands of the McMurray Formation (Aptian). The dissolution removal of 100–200 m of Middle Devonian salt beds caused the collapse and fragmentation of the 200 m of Upper Devonian limestones underlying the Cretaceous sands. Hypogene karst aquifer waters fingered upwards along the faults and fractures. Disintegrated muddy wall rock sourced hydroplastic mud flows along fractures in the limestone beds below the floor of the central Bitumount Trough. These dykes widened and lengthened collapse‐induced Upper Devonian fault blocks that differentially subsided due to salt dissolution. Conduits plugged by these mud flows diverted over‐pressured aquifer waters upwards along remaining open pipes, some of which vented on the trough floor. Aquifer waters injected into the McMurray sand and mud beds accumulated on the trough floor generated several types of collapse‐induced fluidization structures: (1) stronger aquifer flows mobilized sands into tens‐of‐metres high sand dykes consisting of multiple vertical pipes of fluidized sand contorted around and intertwined with fragmented muddy wall rock; (2) smaller aquifer jets resulted in 1–2 m high sand‐rich pillars on the trough floor; and (3) narrower high‐pressure jets flowed muddy waters along multi‐metre long, 3–5 cm wide, vertical pipes that cross‐cut and wrapped around fragmented in situ beds. The velocity gradient between these narrow but multi‐metre long water pipe flows and the ambient velocity in the surrounding sediments caused water infiltration to radiate outwards. This plugged porosity along the outer wall of the pipe, diminished drainage into the wall rock, and stabilized concentric growth ring depositions along the length of the pipe. These pipe fills appear as unique striped ribbon fabrics when viewed in longitudinal section.
The Halaf Environment and Human Activities in the Khabur Drainage, Syria

AbstractArchaeobotanical studies frequently focus on single site economies; as a result, relatively few such studies in the Near East use plant remains to develop regional perspectives. By comparing fanning practices and evidence for plant resources in the vicinities of two contemporary Halaf sites in different environments, this paper offers a first attempt to examine how peoples of the 5th millennium B.C., linked by their material culture, differed in their adaptation to local environments.
An upward moving thin layer in the equatorial F region observed by a digisonde

[i] This study presents an observation of a thin layer motion in the equatorial F region for the first time. The thin layer is detected by the Jicamarca Digisonde from 1000 to 1230 LT (1500 to 1730 UT) on 14 October 1996. We apply the inversion and fitting processes to derive the parameters (peak density, peak height, scale heights) of a thin layer. Results show that the thin layer has a constant total content of 2.48 × 10 6 el/cm 2 that might be formed by the long-lived metallic ions. From 1000 to 1200 LT, the layer is lifted upward from 164.6 to 275.9 km height with a velocity of 15.5 m/s, where the topside and bottomside scale heights are 2.8-5.0 and 1.2-2.4 km, respectively. In addition to the characteristics of the thin layer, this observation further provides evidence for the vertical transport of metallic ions in the equatorial F region.
New K-Ar dates from basalts and the evolution of the southern Rio Grande rift

In the southern Rio Grande rift, two extensional regimes of different origin (but transitional with each other through the Miocene) can be interpreted from structures and rocks formed within the past 28 to 29 m.y. The earlier regime, which began about 28 to 29 m.y. B.P., is characterized by emplacement of “basaltic andesite” flows with relatively high strontium isotope ratios; formation of broad, relatively deep, northwest-trending basins; and incipient uplift of some of the region9s fault-block mountains. This regime appears to have developed in a back-arc setting, perhaps behind a rapidly steepening slab and a westward-sweeping arc system. The younger episode seemingly represents a renewal or acceleration of block faulting and volcanism during the latest Miocene and Pliocene, 9 to 3 m.y. B.P., after a long transitional period during the early and mid-Miocene when volcanism was absent and tectonism was less vigorous. The latest Miocene-Pliocene episode produced the modern northerly-trending rift basins and uplifts, regional uplift of the rift 1 to 2 km above sea level, and renewal of volcanism, this time dominated by relatively primitive alkali-olivine basalt. New basalt dates reveal that in the southern rift, modern ranges and basins were almost fully developed and that near-modern drainage ways were established across uplifts into bolsons by about 5.0 m.y. B.P. An ancestral Rio Grande had extended itself southward into the southern rift by 3 to 4 m.y. B.P., and the river entrenched itself into its modern valley between 0.7 and 0.5 m.y. B.P. Horst-graben development of the southern Basin and Range province, as well as associated basaltic volcanism, swept progressively eastward from southeastern California in the past 20 m.y. , culminating in formation of the Rio Grande rift and other fault-block terrane in west Texas, New Mexico, and northern Chihuahua in the latest Miocene and Pliocene. Late Quaternary Basin and Range fault scarps increase in density eastward, which also suggests that more easterly parts of the province are youngest. These relationships support a previous model of an eastward-expanding, slab-free triangle (related to growth of the San Andreas transform), through which mantle upwelling triggers eastward-younging patterns of tectonism, volcanism, and uplift and promotes lithospheric thinning and increased heat flow. Across most of the southern Basin and Range and Rio Grande rift, the horst-graben structures related to growth of this triangle are superimposed on somewhat older (late Oligocene-middle Miocene) extensional terrane that appears to have formed in a back-arc or arc setting.
Uncertainty quantification of TMS simulations considering MRI segmentation errors

Objective. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation method that is used to study brain function and conduct neuropsychiatric therapy. Computational methods that are commonly used for electric field (E-field) dosimetry of TMS are limited in accuracy and precision because of possible geometric errors introduced in the generation of head models by segmenting medical images into tissue types. This paper studies E-field prediction fidelity as a function of segmentation accuracy. Approach.The errors in the segmentation of medical images into tissue types are modeled as geometric uncertainty in the shape of the boundary between tissue types. For each tissue boundary realization, we then use an in-house boundary element method to perform a forward propagation analysis and quantify the impact of tissue boundary uncertainties on the induced cortical E-field. Main results. Our results indicate that predictions of E-field induced in the brain are negligibly sensitive to segmentation errors in scalp, skull and white matter (WM), compartments. In contrast, E-field predictions are highly sensitive to possible cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) segmentation errors. Specifically, the segmentation errors on the CSF and gray matter interface lead to higher E-field uncertainties in the gyral crowns, and the segmentation errors on CSF and WM interface lead to higher uncertainties in the sulci. Furthermore, the uncertainty of the average cortical E-fields over a region exhibits lower uncertainty relative to point-wise estimates. Significance. The accuracy of current cortical E-field simulations is limited by the accuracy of CSF segmentation accuracy. Other quantities of interest like the average of the E-field over a cortical region could provide a dose quantity that is robust to possible segmentation errors.
On the wave number spectrum of oceanic mesoscale variability observed by the SEASAT altimeter

Variations of sea surface height measured by the SEASAT altimeter in nearly repeat orbits during the last 24 days of the mission are used to compute the wave number spectrum of mesoscale variability in various parts of the oceans. The instrument noise level ( ∼150 cm2/cycles/km) has limited the resulting oceanic spectrum to wavelengths longer than 100 km. We found that the characteristics of the oceanic spectrum are dependent on the energy level of the mesoscale variability. In the high-energy areas close to major current systems, most of the energy is contained at wavelengths longer than 250 km. At wavelengths shorter than 250 km the spectrum basically follows a k−5 (k is wave number) dependence. In the low-energy areas remote from major current systems the spectrum follows a k−1 dependence at wave-lengths from 100 to 1000 km. Based on the assumption of horizontal isotropy of mesoscale variability, scalar-wave number spectra of sea surface height and geostrophic kinetic energy are also presented. Dynamical implications of these spectra are discussed. The effects of residual geoid and atmospheric water vapor on the computed oceanic spectra have been rigorously examined; it was found that the general characteristics of the oceanic spectra were not significantly affected by them.
Guided Self-Help for Eating Disorders: A Systematic Review and Meta-Regression

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Traviss-Turner, G. D. , West, R. M. , and Hill, A. J. (2017) Guided Self-help for Eating Disorders: A Systematic Review and Metaregression. Eur. Eat. Disorders Rev; which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/erv.2507. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with the Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
Climate-model evaluation of the contribution of sea-surface temperature and carbon dioxide to the Middle Miocene Climate Optimum as a possible analogue of future climate change

The Middle Miocene Climate Optimum (MMCO), which occurred at about 15 Ma, is the most recent global warming episode. Given the fact that no dramatic tectonic movement had taken place, this historical warming episode mirrors the present warming event induced mostly by human activities. Proxy data indicate that the MMCO had a global mean surface temperature of ∼3–4°C higher than the present, equivalent to the warming predicted for the next century by the mid-range scenarios of the IPCC Fourth Report (AR4). With this comparable magnitude of warming, it is therefore of scientific interest to examine whether or not the present warming is similar to the MMCO warming. Since the MMCO boundary conditions such as paleogeography and paleobathymetry were not greatly different from today, contentious scientific issues on possible forcing mechanisms can be assessed. The MMCO climate was simulated using the latest National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Community Atmosphere Model CAM3.1 and Land Model CLM3.0 coupled to a slab ocean model. Two simulations were conducted, the MG700 with a near-present equator–pole meridional sea-surface temperature (SST) gradient and a CO2 level of 700 ppmv and the HG350 with a higher equator–pole meridional SST gradient and a CO2 level of 350 ppmv. These two simulations give the closest proxy global mean surface temperature of 18.4°C with a difference of ±0.6°C. This study analyses these two simulations and provides an insight into possible mechanisms of the MMCO. Results show that the north and south poles respond differently to a 50% reduction in CO2 from the upper bound value of 700 ppmv (an approximate doubling of the present CO2) and a change in equator–pole meridional SST gradient. The Arctic response to a 50% reduction in CO2 is balanced by a 50% decrease in surface temperature but shows no response to the increase in equator–pole meridional SST gradient. The Antarctic situation is opposite to the Arctic: the western Antarctic's response to the increase in the equator–pole meridional SST gradient is nearly balanced by a doubling of the maximum surface temperature, but shows no response to a 50% reduction in CO2; the eastern Antarctic shows a weak response to either a 50% reduction in CO2 or to an increase in the equator–pole meridional SST gradient. This may explain why the Arctic warms much more than the Antarctic in the MMCO and the decoupling of CO2 with temperature as determined by the proxy SST.
Local spring warming drives earlier river‐ice breakup in a large Arctic delta

Pan‐Arctic rivers strongly affect the Arctic Ocean and their vast lake‐rich deltas. Their discharges may be increasing because of an intensifying hydrological cycle driven by warming climate. We show that a previously unexplained trend toward earlier ice breakup in the Mackenzie River Delta is little affected by winter warming during the period of river‐ice growth and is unaffected by river discharge, but unexpectedly is strongly related to local spring warming during the period of river‐ice melt. These results are statistically linked to declining winter snowfall that was not expected because of an intensifying Arctic hydrological cycle. Earlier ice breakup is expected to cause declining water level peaks that will reduce off‐channel flows through the lake‐rich delta before river waters enter the ocean. Thus, local spring warming with unexpected snowfall declines, rather than warmer winters, can drive earlier ice breakup in large Arctic rivers and biogeochemical changes in their river‐ocean interface.
Cryostructures in permafrost, Tuktoyaktuk coastlands, western arctic Canada

The shape and distribution of ice and sediment within frozen ground constitute its cryostructure. Observations on perennially frozen sediments in the Tuktoyaktuk coastlands enable six cryostructures to be identified: (1) structureless, (2) lenticular, (3) layered, (4) reticulate, (5) crustal, and (6) suspended. These cryostructures can be transitional or composite. Five cryofacies types can also be identified according to volumetric ice content and grain size. They can be grouped into cryofacies assemblages. The utility of the descriptive classification of ice-rich sediments is illustrated from a palaeothaw layer at Crumbling Point.