Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the Climate Impacts of Upper Tropospheric and Lower Stratospheric Ozone

The global warming simulations of the general circulation models (GCMs) are generally performed with different ozone prescriptions. We find that the differences in ozone distribution, especially in the upper tropospheric and lower stratospheric (UTLS) region, account for important model discrepancies shown in the ozone‐only historical experiment of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5). These discrepancies include global high cloud fraction, stratospheric temperature, and stratospheric water vapor. Through a set of experiments conducted by an atmospheric GCM with contrasting UTLS ozone prescriptions, we verify that UTLS ozone not only directly radiatively heats the UTLS region and cools the upper parts of the stratosphere but also strongly influences the high clouds due to its impact on relative humidity and static stability in the UTLS region and the stratospheric water vapor due to its impact on the tropical tropopause temperature. These consequences strongly affect the global mean effective radiative forcing of ozone, as noted in previous studies. Our findings suggest that special attention should be paid to the UTLS ozone when evaluating the climate effects of ozone depletion in the 20th century and recovery in the 21st century. UTLS ozone difference may also be important for understanding the intermodel discrepancy in the climate projections of the CMIP6 GCMs in which either prescribed or interactive ozone is used.
Projet RhizoDia : essais en protection du cassis par Rhyzobius lophantae contre la cochenille blanche du mûrier

La culture de cassis en France represente une surface faible (2500 hectares), mais qui alimente toute une filiere basee majoritairement sur la transformation. Depuis les annees 2000, tous les bassins de production de cassis en France sont infestes par Pseudaulacaspis pentagona (Targioni Tozzetti 1886), une cochenille diaspine tres polyphage a la repartition cosmopolite. Son impact sur le cassissier est important, au point de menacer toute la filiere. Face a l’inefficacite des traitements chimiques actuels, le projet RhizoDia a ete mis en place en 2016, afin de trouver une alternative viable a ces pesticides. Les acteurs impliques dans ce projet comprennent la station experimentale de La Moriniere, l’Institut Agrobiotech (INRA PACA), le CTIFL, l’entreprise Koppert et la Chambre d’Agriculture de Bourgogne. La Coccinellidae Rhyzobius lophantae (Blaisdell 1892) a ete retenue pour etre testee en tant qu’auxiliaire dans le cadre d’essais en lutte biologique. De 2016 a 2018, des essais et des mesures ont ete realises dans les parcelles de 4 producteurs pour mesurer l’efficacite de predation de R . lophantae sur P. pentagona. Les donnees cumulees des 3 ans d’experimentation revelent que les lâchers de R. lophantae assainissent les parcelles infestees plus efficacement que les traitements utilisant du chlorpyriphos-methyl. Il a aussi ete constate que cette Coccinellidae est hautement mobile et quitte les parcelles ne presentant pas suffisamment de proies. Certains aspects dont l'ecologie restent a eclaircir. En 2018, les methodes employees pour ce projet ne peuvent directement etre appliquees chez les producteurs, principalement a cause du cout financier des lâchers. Des pistes presentees ici permettront d’utiliser R. lophantae de facon abordable dans un futur proche, ou de lancer d’autres experimentations plus pratiques.
A long noncoding RNA AB073614 promotes tumorigenesis and predicts poor prognosis in ovarian cancer

Long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) profiles in ovarian cancer (OC) remain largely unknown. In the present study, we screened AB073614 as a new candidate lncRNA which promotes development of OC, in two independent datasets (GSE18521 and GSE38666) from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). The level of AB073614 was then detected in 75 paired OC tissues and adjacent normal tissues by qRT-PCR. Results showed that AB073614 expression was significantly up-regulated in 85.3% (64/75) cancerous tissues compared with normal counterparts (P < 0.01). Further, the 5-year overall survival (OS) in OC patients with high expression of AB073614 was inferior to that with low expression (17.2 months vs 30.0 months, P = 0.0025). To investigate the functional role of AB073614, AB073614 siRNA was transfected into OC cell lines. Knockdown of AB073614 expression significantly inhibited cell proliferation and invasion, resulted in cell arrest in G1 phase of cell cycle and a dramatic increase of apoptosis, both in HO-8910 and OVCAR3 cells. In vivo experiment also revealed that knockdown AB073614 inhibited OVCAR3 cells proliferation. Finally, western blot assays indicated that lncRNA AB073614 may exert its function by targeting ERK1/2 and AKT-mediated signaling pathway. In conclusion, our study suggests that lncRNA AB073614 acts as a functional oncogene in OC development.
Frequency of disordered calcium metabolism in sarcoidosis

A prospective study of total and ultrafiltrable serum calcium levels in 121 patients with sarcoidosis and thirty-eight control subjects revealed no significant differences. Two patients had hypercalcaemia (11·6 and 12·2 mg%) at the time of initial sampling; one spontaneously returned to normal. Retrospective analysis of 318 cases previously studied demonstrated persistent hypercalcaemia in eight of 262 negroes and two of fifty-six whites, with a male to female ratio of seven to three. Serial calcium measurements in thirty-four patients and single determinations in eighty-seven patients taken during the course of 1 year failed to show seasonal fluctuation. These observations suggest that calcium metabolism is normal in most patients with sarcoidosis. When persistent hypercalcaemia is found in a patient with sarcoidosis, careful study for associated hyperparathyroidism is essential, especially if the sarcoidosis is otherwise asymptomatic or inactive.
An English and Spanish quality of life measure for rheumatoid arthritis.

OBJECTIVE To develop a rheumatoid arthritis-specific health-related quality of life instrument, translate the English instrument into Spanish, and test the scaling assumptions, reliability, validity, and feasibility of both the English and Spanish versions. METHODS The development of the Quality of Life-Rheumatoid Arthritis Scale (QOL-RA Scale) involved literature review, consultations with experts, 40 face-to-face interviews, and 5 focus group discussions with multiethnic and multilingual women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Translation design facilitated conceptual and linguistic equivalence. Data for the psychometrics came from telephone interviews of a sample of 107 Caucasian/English and 80 Hispanic/Spanish women with RA. The instruments were (a) the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales 2 (AIMS2), (b) the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS), (c) the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D), and (d) the QOL-RA Scale. Descriptive statistics, significance tests, Cronbach's alpha technique, correlation, and factor analysis were used. RESULTS The QOL-RA Scale, an 8-item scale, took 2 to 3 minutes to administer. Psychometric analysis revealed that the psychometric attributes and constructs of both English and Spanish questionnaires are comparable (i.e., equivalent). Both versions demonstrated the following: (a) normal distribution of the QOL-RA Scale, roughly symmetrical distributions of the items, equivalent means and standard deviations across items, and less than 10% floor and ceiling effects, (b) Cronbach's alpha coefficients of 0.87-0.90, (c) significant correlations of the QOL-RA Scale with the AIMS2 subscales, LSNS, and CES-D, ranging from 0.25 to 0.66 (P < or = 0.01), and (d) extraction of 2 factors, namely physio-psychological and socio-psychological, that explained 65% to 73% of the variance in the scale scores. CONCLUSION The QOL-RA Scale, in both English and Spanish versions, appears to meet the assumptions of a summated rating scale and the criteria of relevance, reliability, validity, feasibility, and adaptability to several languages.
Memory Accuracy for Emotional and Neutral Narratives: Investigating the Influence of Suggestive Misinformation on the Frequency of False Memories

Memory is a reconstructive process, impressionable and not always vigilant in detecting devices working against its accuracy. False memory occurs when memory for an event is infiltrated by new information or alterations are made to the information that was previously stored. The present study investigated the effect of emotional valence on false memory occurrence through the misinformation effect – memory errors that arise as a consequence of exposure to misleading information - by presenting participants with narratives in one of three valence conditions (negative, positive, neutral) and subjecting them to suggestive questions providing credulous misinformation following a one-hour delay. Results revealed that when collapsing across negative and positive conditions, overall false memory occurrences were significantly reduced for these narratives compared to the neutral condition. Some of the effects of emotion on memory accuracy were more pronounced for negative information than for positive or neutral information; response rates in the negative condition, as compared to the two other valence conditions, revealed an increase in hits and a decrease in false alarms suggesting negative valence enhances discriminability.
Realization of Discourse Relations by Other Means: Alternative Lexicalizations

Studies of discourse relations have not, in the past, attempted to characterize what serves as evidence for them, beyond lists of frozen expressions, or markers, drawn from a few well-defined syntactic classes. In this paper, we describe how the lexicalized discourse relation annotations of the Penn Discourse Treebank (PDTB) led to the discovery of a wide range of additional expressions, annotated as AltLex (alternative lexicalizations) in the PDTB 2.0. Further analysis of AltLex annotation suggests that the set of markers is open-ended, and drawn from a wider variety of syntactic types than currently assumed. As a first attempt towards automatically identifying discourse relation markers, we propose the use of syntactic paraphrase methods.
Signal Processing

Due to the light absorption and scattering, captured underwater images usually contain severe color distortion and contrast reduction. To address the above problems, we combine the merits of deep learning and conventional image enhancement technology to improve the underwater image quality. We first propose a two-branch network to compensate the global distorted color and local reduced contrast, respectively. Adopting this global–local network can greatly ease the learning problem, so that it can be handled by using a lightweight network architecture. To cope with the complex and changeable underwater environment, we then design a compressed-histogram equalization to complement the data-driven deep learning, in which the parameters are fixed after training. The proposed compression strategy is able to generate vivid results without introducing over-enhancement and extra computing burden. Experiments demonstrate that our method significantly outperforms several state-of-the-arts in both qualitative and quantitative qualities.
Landmark and route knowledge in children’s spatial representation of a virtual environment

This study investigates the development of landmark and route knowledge in complex wayfinding situations. It focuses on how children (aged 6, 8, and 10 years) and young adults (n = 79) indicate, recognize, and bind landmarks and directions in both verbal and visuo-spatial tasks after learning a virtual route. Performance in these tasks is also related to general verbal and visuo-spatial abilities as assessed by independent standardized tests (attention, working memory, perception of direction, production and comprehension of spatial terms, sentences and stories). The results first show that the quantity and quality of landmarks and directions produced and recognized by participants in both verbal and visuo-spatial tasks increased with age. In addition, an increase with age was observed in participants’ selection of decisional landmarks (i.e., landmarks associated with a change of direction), as well as in their capacity to bind landmarks and directions. Our results support the view that children first acquire landmark knowledge, then route knowledge, as shown by their late developing ability to bind knowledge of directions and landmarks. Overall, the quality of verbal and visuo-spatial information in participants’ spatial representations was found to vary mostly with their visuo-spatial abilities (attention and perception of directions) and not with their verbal abilities. Interestingly, however, when asked to recognize landmarks encountered during the route, participants show an increasing bias with age toward choosing a related landmark of the same category, regardless of its visual characteristics, i.e., they incorrectly choose the picture of another fountain. The discussion highlights the need for further studies to determine more precisely the role of verbal and visuo-spatial knowledge and the nature of how children learn to represent and memorize routes.
PEDESTRIAN DETECTION BASED ON HYBRID FEATURES USING NEAR INFRARED IMAGES

This paper explores a hybrid-based method to fuse multi-slit features and Histograms of Oriented Gradients (HOG) features for pedestrian detection from Near Infrared (NIR) images. The fused feature set utilizes both the multi-slit method’s capability of accurately capturing the local spatial layout of body parts (head, torso and legs) in individual frames and the HOG’s capability in region information relevant to higher frequency components. The hybrid feature vector describing various types of poses is then constructed and used for detecting the pedestrians. The part based pattern matching analysis indicates that the fused features have much higher feature space separation than the pure features. Experiments with a database of NIR images show that the proposed method achieves a substantial improvement in tackling some difficult cases such as side view, back view which the conventional HOG method cannot handle. Detection and recognition performance is less computationally expensive than existing approaches.
Inhibitors of nitric oxide promote microvascular thrombosis.

BACKGROUND Microvascular free tissue transfer is a widely utilized method of head and neck reconstruction. Despite advances in the field, reports of experienced microvascular surgeons on large series of free flap procedures reveal that the incidence of free flap failure varies between 5% and 9%. Most cases of free flap failure are initiated by platelet-mediated events that result in thrombosis at the microvascular anastomoses. Recent evidence indicates that nitric oxide (NO) plays a critical role in preventing thrombosis by inhibiting platelet adhesion and aggregation. The role of NO in microvascular anastomotic thrombosis has not been studied. OBJECTIVE To determine the role of NO in microvascular thrombosis using an in vivo rabbit model. METHODS An arterial inversion graft (AIG)-induced microvascular thrombosis model was utilized in New Zealand white rabbits. The femoral arteries were used bilaterally to create 3-mm AIGs. Intravenous NO donor, NO inhibitor, or isotonic sodium chloride solution (control) was administered for 1 hour following the completion of the AIG, and vessel patency was then checked using a direct "milking test. " Sixteen rabbits (32 AIGs) were used as controls. A potent NO inhibitor, N(w)-nitro-L-arginine methylester (L-NAME), was administered to 13 rabbits (26 AIGs) and L-arginine, a NO precursor/donor, was given to 10 rabbits (20 AIGs). RESULTS The control animals had a thrombosis rate of 46.9%. The rate of thrombosis in animals exposed to an NO inhibitor (L-NAME) was significantly higher, at 76.9% (P<.05, chi( 2) = 4.23). The L-arginine group did not show a statistical difference with the control in the rate of thrombosis (50.0%). CONCLUSIONS Nitric oxide plays a role in microvascular anastamotic thrombosis. Intravenous NO inhibitors appear to increase the short-term rate of microvascular thrombosis. L-arginine, an NO precursor, does not appear to produce the opposite effect. Further studies using local NO donors and antagonists as well as more potent NO precursors are needed to further evaluate NO's role in microvascular thrombosis. The results of this study may have applications to human microvascular surgery.
Correspondence between Community Structure and Function during Succession in Phenol- and Phenol-plus-Trichloroethene-Fed Sequencing Batch Reactors

ABSTRACT The effects of more than 2 years of trichloroethene (TCE) application on community succession and function were studied in two aerobic sequencing batch reactors. One reactor was fed phenol, and the second reactor was fed both phenol and TCE in sequence twice per day. After initiation of TCE loading in the second reactor, the TCE transformation rates initially decreased, but they stabilized with an average second-order rate coefficient of 0.044 liter mg−1 day−1 for 2 years. In contrast, the phenol-fed reactor showed higher and unstable TCE transformation rates, with an average rate coefficient of 0.093 liter mg−1 day−1. Community analysis by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis of the 16S rRNA genes showed that the phenol-plus-TCE-fed reactor had marked changes in community structure during the first 100 days and remained relatively stable afterwards, corresponding to the period of stable function. In contrast, the community structure of the phenol-fed reactor changed periodically, and the changes coincided with the periodicity observed in the TCE transformation rates. Correspondence analysis of each reactor community showed that different community structures corresponded with function (TCE degradation rate). Furthermore, the phenol hydroxylase genotypes, as determined by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis, corresponded to community structure patterns identified by T-RFLP analysis and to periods when the TCE transformation rates were high. Long-term TCE stress appeared to select for a different and stable community structure, with lower but stable TCE degradation rates. In contrast, the community under no stress exhibited a dynamic structure and dynamic function.
Drug Effect Prediction by Polypharmacology-Based Interaction Profiling

Most drugs exert their effects via multitarget interactions, as hypothesized by polypharmacology. While these multitarget interactions are responsible for the clinical effect profiles of drugs, current methods have failed to uncover the complex relationships between them. Here, we introduce an approach which is able to relate complex drug-protein interaction profiles with effect profiles. Structural data and registered effect profiles of all small-molecule drugs were collected, and interactions to a series of nontarget protein binding sites of each drug were calculated. Statistical analyses confirmed a close relationship between the studied 177 major effect categories and interaction profiles of ca. 1200 FDA-approved small-molecule drugs. On the basis of this relationship, the effect profiles of drugs were revealed in their entirety, and hitherto uncovered effects could be predicted in a systematic manner. Our results show that the prediction power is independent of the composition of the protein set used for interaction profile generation.
Neural correlates of spontaneous percept switches in ambiguous stimuli: an event‐related functional magnetic resonance imaging study

When ambiguous visual stimuli are being looked at, perception alternates spontaneously between two competing interpretations of the same sensory input. One major issue in understanding the underlying neural process is whether spontaneous percept switches result from fluctuations at the level of sensory processes or whether they are initiated by higher‐order areas. To further study this question, we developed an ambiguous apparent motion paradigm that specifically focused on the generation of percept switches. The percept switches occurred either spontaneously or were experimentally triggered. The differential analysis of spontaneous and triggered percept switches was aimed at disentangling the causes and effects of percept switches. Spontaneous percept switches were associated with stronger activations at the right occipitotemporal junction, whereas prefrontal, superior temporal and inferior parietal regions showed greater activations during experimentally triggered percept switches. We propose that complex networks including both sensory and higher‐order areas are involved in percept switches, whereas stimulus‐specific sensory processes are crucial for the initiation of spontaneous percept switches.
Differential Ability of Genotypes of 2,4-Diacetylphloroglucinol-Producing Pseudomonas fluorescens Strains To Colonize the Roots of Pea Plants

ABSTRACT Indigenous populations of 2,4-diacetylphloroglucinol (2,4-DAPG)-producing fluorescent Pseudomonas spp. that occur naturally in suppressive soils are an enormous resource for improving biological control of plant diseases. Over 300 isolates of 2,4-DAPG-producing fluorescent Pseudomonas spp. were isolated from the rhizosphere of pea plants grown in soils that had undergone pea or wheat monoculture and were suppressive to Fusarium wilt or take-all, respectively. Representatives of seven genotypes, A, D, E, L, O, P, and Q, were isolated from both soils and identified by whole-cell repetitive sequence-based PCR (rep-PCR) with the BOXA1R primer, increasing by three (O, P, and Q) the number of genotypes identified previously among a worldwide collection of 2,4-DAPG producers. Fourteen isolates representing eight different genotypes were tested for their ability to colonize the rhizosphere of pea plants. Population densities of strains belonging to genotypes D and P were significantly greater than the densities of other genotypes and remained above log 6.0 CFU (g of root)−1 over the entire 15-week experiment. Genetic profiles generated by rep-PCR or restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis of the 2,4-DAPG biosynthetic gene phlD were predictive of the rhizosphere competence of the introduced 2,4-DAPG-producing strains.
Effective Feature Extraction and Data Reduction in Remote Sensing Using Hyperspectral Imaging [Applications Corner]

With numerous and contiguous spectral bands acquired from visible light (400- 1,000 nm) to (near) infrared (1,000-1,700 nm and over), hyperspectral imaging (HSI) can potentially identify different objects by detecting minor changes in temperature, moisture, and chemical content. As a result, HSI has been widely applied in a number of application areas, including remote sensing. HSI data contains two-dimensional (2-D) spatial and one-dimensional spectral information, and naturally forms a three-dimensional (3-D) hypercube with a high spectral resolution in nanometers that enables robust discrimination of ground features. This article discusses several variations and extensions of conventional PCA to address the aforementioned challenges. These variations and extensions include slicing the HSI data for efficient computation of the covariance matrix similarly done in 2-D-PCA analysis and grouping the spectral data to preserve the local structures and further speedup the process to determine the covariance matrix. In addition, we also discuss some non-PCA-based approaches for feature extraction and data reduction, based on techniques such as band selection, random projection, singular value decomposition, and machine-learning approaches such as the support vector machine (SVM).