Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of 1988 Fires on Ecology of Coyotes in Yellowstone National Park: Baseline Preceding Possible Wolf Recovery

Fifty-four healthy coyotes (Canis latrans) and 32, 8-12 week old pups captured at dens were radiotagged in the Lamar Valley and Blacktail Plateau areas of the northern range of Yellowstone National Park. Seven of the 40 captured in the fall were 6 month-old pups which suggest slow population productivity. Adults range in age from 1 to 12 years and averaged nearly 4 years old. Territorial packs in both study areas are adjacent, non-overlapping, contiguous, and averaged 15 km/ We estimate that 85 to 90% of coyotes on the northern range belong to packs. A territorial group or pack during the winter consists of 2 alpha individuals, 2 or 3 beta adults, and 2 or 3 adult-sized pups (average pack size = 7). Nine adults were killed (2 mountain lion [Felis concolar], 2 road-kill, 2 shot, and 3 unknown) which equates to a 15% annual mortality rate. Eleven of 36 pups have died between the ages of 3 and 9 months old. Population productivity ranges from 2. 0 to 2. 7 pups recruited per territory. The reproductive failure rate among breeding groups averaged 15% during 1990 and 1991. Initial coyote density estimates are 0.09 per km• Intensive foraging observations were conducted from January through June 1991. In 353 houis of focal observations 427 capture attempts were made on small mammal prey with 162 (38%) successfuL Habitat type played a key role in the · success rate. Mesic meadows had the highest capture rates followed by willow/meadow habitats and sage habitat. Small mammals, especially vol~ (Microtus spp.), dominate the diet with ungulate remains becoming important in May through July, presumably elk (Cervus elaphus) calves and late winter, mostly scavenging. We have observed numerous successful and unsuccessful predation attempts on ungulates in our study areas. Coyotes appear to impact ungulate numbers in 3 ~ays: predation on calves and fawns shortly after birth (up to 8 weeks), predation on short-yearlings and adults during winter, and indirect impact from harassment of other predators at ungulate-kills. Coyotes may be the major ungulate predator on the northern range due to cooperative social and foraging behavior, their ability to take advantage of vulnerable ungulates, and their high population levels. Wolf(Canis lupus) extirpation has probably resulted in high coyote population densities.
Segmentation of Blood Vessels in Subtraction Angiographic Images

Digital radiology leads to a growing amount of medical im- ages which impose severe demands on networking and storage resources. These requirements can be met using content-orientated image compres- sion which reduces the amount of data while preserving the diagnostic information. This paper presents a new method for automated vessel segmentation which can be used for both, decision support systems and content-orientated image compression of angiograms.
“Testing the limits” — an interesting record of the exotic banded greenhouse thrips Hercinothrips femoralis (Thysanoptera: Thripidae: Panchaetothripinae) at high Carpathian mountain altitudes

This study deals with an interesting record of exotic pest thrips Hercinothrips femoralis (Reuter, 1891) small population in the Carpathian mountain area (Vysoké Tatry Mts, N Slovakia) during the extensive research on high altitude forest succession. Hercinothrips femoralis is a well-known African pest species that has been introduced into the temperate regions of Europe, surviving only in glasshouses. The record in the coldest altitudes ever published (more than 1,000 m a.s.l.) indicates a role of passive migration and an effort of insects to taste ecological and environmental limits in their distribution.
A real-time volume rendering architecture using an adaptive resampling scheme for parallel and perspective projections

The paper describes an object order real time volume rendering architecture using an adaptive resampling scheme to perform resampling operations in a unified parallel pipeline manner for both parallel and perspective projections. Unlike parallel projections, perspective projections require a variable resampling structure due to diverging perspective rays. In order to address this issue, we propose an adaptive pipelined convolution block for resampling operations using the level of resolution to keep the parallel pipeline structure regular. We also propose to use multi resolution datasets prepared for different levels of grid resolution to bound the convolution operations. The proposed convolution block is organized using a systolic array structure, which works well with a distributed skewed memory for conflict free accesses of voxels. We present the results of some experiments with our software simulators of the proposed architecture and discuss important technical issues.
Nonlinear temporal dynamics of the cerebral blood flow response

The linearity of the cerebral perfusion response relative to stimulus duration is an important consideration in the characterization of the relationship between regional cerebral blood flow (CBF), cerebral metabolism, and the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal. It is also a critical component in the design and analysis of functional neuroimaging studies. To study the linearity of the CBF response to different duration stimuli, the perfusion response in primary motor and visual cortices was measured during stimulation using an arterial spin labeling technique with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that allows simultaneous measurement of CBF and BOLD changes. In each study, the perfusion response was measured for stimuli lasting 2, 6, and 18 sec. The CBF response was found in general to be nonlinearly related to stimulus duration, although the strength of nonlinearity varied between the motor and visual cortices. In contrast, the BOLD response was found to be strongly nonlinear in both regions studied, in agreement with previous findings. The observed nonlinearities are consistent with a model with a nonlinear step from stimulus to neural activity, a linear step from neural activity to CBF change, and a nonlinear step from CBF change to BOLD signal change. Hum. Brain Mapping 13:1–12, 2001. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Dysregulated serum response factor triggers formation of hepatocellular carcinoma

The ubiquitously expressed transcriptional regulator serum response factor (SRF) is controlled by both Ras/MAPK (mitogen‐activated protein kinase) and Rho/actin signaling pathways, which are frequently activated in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We generated SRF‐VP16iHep mice, which conditionally express constitutively active SRF‐VP16 in hepatocytes, thereby controlling subsets of both Ras/MAPK‐ and Rho/actin‐stimulated target genes. All SRF‐VP16iHep mice develop hyperproliferative liver nodules that progresses to lethal HCC. Some murine (m)HCCs acquire Ctnnb1 mutations equivalent to those in human (h)HCC. The resulting transcript signatures mirror those of a distinct subgroup of hHCCs, with shared activation of oncofetal genes including Igf2, correlating with CpG hypomethylation at the imprinted Igf2/H19 locus. Conclusion: SRF‐VP16iHep mHCC reveal convergent Ras/MAPK and Rho/actin signaling as a highly oncogenic driver mechanism for hepatocarcinogenesis. This suggests simultaneous inhibition of Ras/MAPK and Rho/actin signaling as a treatment strategy in hHCC therapy. (Hepatology 2015;61:979–989)
Cholesterol Influences Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels and BK-Type Potassium Channels in Auditory Hair Cells

The influence of membrane cholesterol content on a variety of ion channel conductances in numerous cell models has been shown, but studies exploring its role in auditory hair cell physiology are scarce. Recent evidence shows that cholesterol depletion affects outer hair cell electromotility and the voltage-gated potassium currents underlying tall hair cell development, but the effects of cholesterol on the major ionic currents governing auditory hair cell excitabilityare unknown. We investigated the effects of a cholesterol-depleting agent (methyl beta cyclodextrin, MβCD) on ion channels necessary for the early stages of sound processing. Large-conductance BK-type potassium channels underlie temporal processing and open in a voltage- and calcium-dependent manner. Voltage-gated calcium channels (VGCCs) are responsible for calcium-dependent exocytosis and synaptic transmission to the auditory nerve. Our results demonstrate that cholesterol depletion reduced peak steady-state calcium-sensitive (BK-type) potassiumcurrent by 50% in chick cochlear hair cells. In contrast, MβCD treatment increased peak inward calcium current (∼30%), ruling out loss of calcium channel expression or function as a cause of reduced calcium-sensitive outward current. Changes in maximal conductance indicated a direct impact of cholesterol on channel number or unitary conductance. Immunoblotting following sucrose-gradient ultracentrifugation revealed BK expression in cholesterol-enriched microdomains. Both direct impacts of cholesterol on channel biophysics, as well as channel localization in the membrane, may contribute to the influence of cholesterol on hair cell physiology. Our results reveal a new role for cholesterol in the regulation of auditory calcium and calcium-activated potassium channels and add to the growing evidence that cholesterol is a key determinant in auditory physiology.
Modulating and attending the source image during encoding improves Multimodal Translation

We propose a new and fully end-to-end approach for multimodal translation where the source text encoder modulates the entire visual input processing using conditional batch normalization, in order to compute the most informative image features for our task. Additionally, we propose a new attention mechanism derived from this original idea, where the attention model for the visual input is conditioned on the source text encoder representations. In the paper, we detail our models as well as the image analysis pipeline. Finally, we report experimental results. They are, as far as we know, the new state of the art on three different test sets.
Diagnosing ventilator-associated pneumonia in critically ill patients with sepsis.

BACKGROUND Timely diagnosis and prognostic assessment of ventilator-associated pneumonia remain major challenges in critical care. OBJECTIVE To explore the value of soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 1, procalcitonin, and the Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score in the diagnosis and prognostic assessment of ventilator-associated pneumonia. METHODS For 92 patients, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was cultured for detection of microorganisms, serum levels of the receptor and procalcitonin and levels of the receptor in exhaled ventilator condensate were measured, and the Clinical Pulmonary Infection Score was calculated. RESULTS On the day of diagnosis, patients who had pneumonia had higher serum levels of the receptor, procalcitonin, and C-reactive protein; higher white blood cell counts; and higher pulmonary infection and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment scores than did patients without pneumonia. White blood cell count (odds ratio, 1.118; 95% CI, 1.139-1.204) and serum levels of the receptor (odds ratio, 1.002; 95% CI, 1.000-1.005) may be risk factors for VAP. Serum levels of the receptor plus the pulmonary infection score were the most reliable for diagnosis; the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.972 (95% CI, 0.945-0.999), sensitivity was 0.875, and specificity was 0.95. For 28-day survival, procalcitonin level combined with pulmonary infection score was the most reliable for prognostic assessment (area under the curve, 0.848; 95% CI, 0.672-1.025). CONCLUSIONS In patients with ventilator-associated pneumonia, serum levels of the receptor plus the pulmonary infection score are useful for diagnosis, and procalcitonin levels plus the pulmonary infection score are useful for prognostic assessment.
Modelling Hydrogen Bond Stability by Regression Trees

Hydrogen bonds (H-bonds) play a key role in both the formation and stabilization of protein structures. However, H-bonds greatly vary in stability. Different local interactions may reinforce or weaken an H-bond. This paper describes inductive learning methods to train a protein-independent probabilistic model of H-bond stability from molecular dynamics (MD) simulation trajectories. The training data describes H-bond occurrences at successive times along these trajectories by the values of 32 attributes. A trained model is constructed in the form of a regression tree. Experimental results demonstrate that such models can predict H-bond stability quite well. In particular, their performance is roughly 20% better than that of models based on H-bond energy alone. In addition, they can accurately identify a large fraction of the least stable H-bonds in a given conformation. The paper discusses several extensions that may yield further improvements.
MANAGEMENT OF DISC HERNIATION AT THE LUMBAR REGION THAT IS COMPLICATED WITH SPINAL STENOSIS USING SMALL INCISION FENESTRATION

Objectives: The objective of the current study was to compare the alternative approach of smaller incision fenestration in managing lumbar disc herniation with spinal stenosis to previous conventional laminectomy procedures. Patients and methods: The current case-control study included a total of 290 patients who were represented by two groups. Those patients were complaining of herniation of the lumbar disc with a complication of stenosis of the lumbar segments. Patients in the study group were treated by a small incision fenestration approach, whereas patients in the control group were treated by posterior laminectomy and decompression. Those patients were selected retrospectively from the pool of patients visiting the orthopedic units of Adiwaniyah Teaching Hospital, Adiwaniyah province, Iraq. Results: Mean hospital stay of patients in the study group was lower in a significant way in comparison with that of patients in the control group, 6.03 ±2.08 days versus 8.07 ±3.13 days, separately (p< 0.001). Added to that, mean operative loss was significantly lower in a group of intervention in comparison with the control group, 52.12 ±5.17 ml versus 65.48 ±5.08 ml, respectively (p< 0.001). Added to that, mean operative time was lower in a significant way in the group of intervention in comparison with patients in the group of control, 62.62 ±3.09 minutes versus 87.09 ±3.47 minutes, respectively (p< 0.001). The mean“visual analogue score (VAS)” was significantly lower in the study group in comparison with the control group, 3.09 ±1.15 versus 6.08 ±2.17, respectively (p<0.001). A comparison of the mean “Japanese orthopedic association (JOA) score” for nerve function between the study group and the control group is shown in Figure 2. The mean “Japanese orthopedic association (JOA) score” was higher in a significant manner in the group of an intervention study in comparison with the control group, 27.15 ±3.07 versus 20.18 ±4.81, respectively (p< 0.001). Conclusion: Small incision fenestration techniques are associated with significantly less hospital stay, less duration of operation, less blood loss, less visual pain score and better nerve function in comparison with conventional laminectomy procedure. Keywords: smaller incision fenestration, lumbar disc herniation, spinal stenosis
Science and Reconnaissance from the Europa Clipper Mission Concept: Exploring Europa’s Habitability

Europa is recognized by the Planetary Science De-cadal Survey as a prime candidate to search for a pre-sent-day habitable environment in our solar system. As such, NASA has pursued a series of studies, facilitated by a Europa Science Definition Team (SDT), to define a strategy to best advance our scientific understanding of this icy world with the science goal: Explore Europa to investigate its habitability. (In June of 2014, the SDT completed its task of identifying the overarching science objectives and investigations.) Working in concert with a technical team, a set of mission archi-tectures were evaluated to determine the best way to achieve the SDT defined science objectives. The fa-vored architecture would consist of a spacecraft in Ju-piter orbit making many close flybys of Europa, con-centrating on remote sensing to explore the moon. In-novative mission design would use gravitational per-turbations of the spacecraft trajectory to permit flybys at a wide variety of latitudes and longitudes, enabling globally distributed regional coverage of Europa’s sur-face, with nominally 45 close flybys, typically at alti-tudes from 25 to 100 km. This concept has become known as the Europa Clipper.
A Framework for Automated and Controlled Floating-Point Accuracy Reduction in Graphics Applications on GPUs

Reducing the precision of floating-point values can improve performance and/or reduce energy expenditure in computer graphics, among other, applications. However, reducing the precision level of floating-point values in a controlled fashion needs support both at the compiler and at the microarchitecture level. At the compiler level, a method is needed to automate the reduction of precision of each floating-point value. At the microarchitecture level, a lower precision of each floating-point register can allow more floating-point values to be packed into a register file. This, however, calls for new register file organizations. This article proposes an automated precision-selection method and a novel GPU register file organization that can store floating-point register values at arbitrary precisions densely. The automated precision-selection method uses a data-driven approach for setting the precision level of floating-point values, given a quality threshold and a representative set of input data. By allowing a small, but acceptable, degradation in output quality, our method can remove a significant amount of the bits needed to represent floating-point values in the investigated kernels (between 28% and 60%). Our proposed register file organization exploits these lower-precision floating-point values by packing several of them into the same physical register. This reduces the register pressure per thread by up to 48%, and by 27% on average, for a negligible output-quality degradation. This can enable GPUs to keep up to twice as many threads in flight simultaneously.
A NOVEL APPROACH OF AODV FOR STABILITY AND ENERGY EFFICIENT ROUTING FOR MANET USING IPV 6 Shival Chadda

--In a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), the topology of the network may change rapidly and unexpectedly due to mobility of nodes. Thus, setting up routes that meet high reliability is a very challenging issue. Another important problem in the MANETs is the energy consumption of nodes. This paper presents experiments on the performance and stability of the AODV protocol (Ad hoc On-demand Distance Vector protocol) in multi-hop ad hoc networks. We study the network performance such as throughput, delivery ratio, and end-to end delay. After this experimental study of the problems that may arise in this type of communication and its origins, we conclude that better performance is possible with the modification of some of the protocol ́s parameters, without modifying the protocol algorithm. Applying these changes, experimental tests show an improvement in the performance of the protocol. Keywords----Mobile Ad-hoc Networks, Routing Protocols, Energy efficiency, Stability, AODV, IPv6.
The altered TBI fecal microbiome is stable and functionally distinct

Introduction Patients who suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) often experience chronic and sometimes debilitating sequelae. Recent reports have illustrated both acute and long-term dysbiosis of the gastrointestinal microbiome with significant alterations in composition and predicted functional consequences. Methods Working with participants from past research, metagenomic stability of the TBI- associated fecal microbiome (FMB) was evaluated by custom qPCR array comparing a fecal sample from 2015 to one collected in 2020. Metatranscriptomics identified differently expressed bacterial genes and biochemical pathways in the TBI FMB. Microbiota that contributed the largest RNA amounts identified a set of core bacteria most responsible for functional consequences of the TBI FMB. Results A remarkably stable FMB metagenome with significant similarity (two-tail Spearman nonparametric correlation p < 0.001) was observed between 2015 and 2020 fecal samples from subjects with TBI. Comparing the 2020 TBI FMB metagenome to FMBs from healthy controls confirmed and extended the dysbiotic genera and species. Abundance differences between average TBI and healthy FMBs revealed Bacteroides caccae, B. uniformis, Blautia spp. , Collinsella spp. , Dialister spp. , and Ordoribacter spp. were significantly different. Functionally, the Parabacteroides genus contributed the highest percentage of RNA sequences in control FMBs followed by the Bacteroides genus as the second highest contributor. In the TBI FMB, the Corynebacterium genus contributed the most RNA followed by the Alistipes genus. Corynebacterium and Pseudomonas were distinct in the top 10 contributing genera in the TBI FMB while Parabacteroides and Ruminococcus were unique to the top 10 in controls. Comparing RNA profiles, TBI samples had ∼1.5 fold more expressed genes with almost 700 differently expressed genes (DEGs) mapped to over 100 bacterial species. Bioinformatic analysis associated DEGs with pathways led identifying 311 functions in the average TBI FMB profile and 264 in the controls. By average profile comparison, 30 pathways had significantly different abundance (p < 0.05, t-test) or were detected in >80% of the samples in only one of the cohorts (binary distinction). Discussion Functional differences between TBI and healthy control FMBs included amino acid metabolism, energy and carbon source usage, fatty acid metabolism, bacterial cell wall component production and nucleic acid synthesis and processing pathways. Together these data shed light on the functional consequences of the dysbiotic TBI FMB decades after injury.
A survey on the state-of-the-art superpixel segmentation

In contrast to the rapid progress of superpixel segmentation, their methods are often compared only with classical approaches. Also, the previous superpixel methods categorizations are insufficient to cover the recent literature. In addition, although the inner color similarity usually underlies superpixel methods, both color homogeneity measures have important drawbacks. In this work, we fill these gaps by providing a new taxonomy for superpixel segmentation, a new color homogeneity measure, and an extensive comparison among 20 superpixel methods. Experiments show that the proposed measure, named Similarity between Image and Reconstruction from Superpixels (SIRS), is more robust to slight color variations than Explained Variation. Using SIRS and the commonly used superpixel metrics, we evaluated 20 superpixel segmentation methods and provided insights into the different approaches based on the clustering categories in our taxonomy.