Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The 2018 fire season in North America as seen by TROPOMI: aerosol layer height intercomparisons and evaluation of model-derived plume heights

Abstract. Before the launch of the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), only two other satellite instruments were able to observe aerosol plume heights globally, the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) and Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP). The TROPOMI aerosol layer height is a potential game changer, since it has daily global coverage, and the aerosol layer height retrieval is available in near real time. The aerosol layer height can be useful for aviation and air quality alerts, as well as for improving air quality forecasting related to wildfires. Here, TROPOMI's aerosol layer height product is evaluated with MISR and CALIOP observations for wildfire plumes in North America for the 2018 fire season (June to August). Further, observing system simulation experiments were performed to interpret the fundamental differences between the different products. The results show that MISR and TROPOMI are, in theory, very close for aerosol profiles with single plumes. For more complex profiles with multiple plumes, however, different plume heights are retrieved; the MISR plume height represents the top layer, and the plume height retrieved with TROPOMI tends to have an average altitude of several plume layers. The comparison between TROPOMI and MISR plume heights shows that, on average, the TROPOMI aerosol layer heights are lower, by approximately 600 m, compared to MISR, which is likely due to the different measurement techniques. From the comparison to CALIOP, our results show that the TROPOMI aerosol layer height is more accurate over dark surfaces, for thicker plumes, and plumes between approximately 1 and 4.5 km. MISR and TROPOMI are further used to evaluate the plume height of Environment and Climate Change Canada's operational forecasting system FireWork with fire plume injection height estimates from the Canadian Forest Fire Emissions Prediction System (CFFEPS). The modelled plume heights are similar compared to the satellite observations but tend to be slightly higher with average differences of 270–580 and 60–320 m compared to TROPOMI and MISR, respectively.
Hypo Vitaminosis D in Chronic Muscular Skeletal Pain

There is a well-established link between the low serum vitamin D and musculoskeletal pain, and it's one of the consequence of hypovitaminosis D (Sanjay Prakash et al., 2013). Vitamin D is a fat-soluble steroid hormone ingested in the diet and produced in the skin following exposure to ultraviolet rays in sunlight, and conversion to active forms of vitamin D occurs in the liver and kidneys (McCarty et al., 2013). It modulates a wide range of molecular and cellular functions, most readily recognized are its beneficial effects on musculoskeletal parameters (Darina Bassil et al., 2013).
Gaussian process modelling in approximate Bayesian computation to estimate horizontal gene transfer in bacteria

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) can be used for model fitting when the likelihood function is intractable but simulating from the model is feasible. However, even a single evaluation of a complex model may take several hours, limiting the number of model evaluations available. Modelling the discrepancy between the simulated and observed data using a Gaussian process (GP) can be used to reduce the number of model evaluations required by ABC, but the sensitivity of this approach to a specific GP formulation has not yet been thoroughly investigated. We begin with a comprehensive empirical evaluation of using GPs in ABC, including various transformations of the discrepancies and two novel GP formulations. Our results indicate the choice of GP may significantly affect the accuracy of the estimated posterior distribution. Selection of an appropriate GP model is thus important. We formulate expected utility to measure the accuracy of classifying discrepancies below or above the ABC threshold, and show that it can be used to automate the GP model selection step. Finally, based on the understanding gained with toy examples, we fit a population genetic model for bacteria, providing insight into horizontal gene transfer events within the population and from external origins.
Alternative Techniques for Alfaxalone Anesthesia Induction in Dogs and Cats

vii Chapter One. Introduction . 1 Chapter Two. Literature Review . 4 2.1 Alfaxalone . 4 2.2 Co-induction of Anesthesia . 17 2.3 Priming Principle . 20 2.4 Up-and-down Method . 25 Chapter Three. Determination of Midazolam Dose for Co-induction with Low Dose of Alfaxalone in Cats . 31 3.
Scarring Body and Mind: The Long-Term Belief-Scarring Effects of Covid-19

The largest economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic could arise from changes in behavior long after the immediate health crisis is resolved. A potential source of such a long-lived change is scarring of beliefs, a persistent change in the perceived probability of an extreme, negative shock in the future. We show how to quantify the extent of such belief changes and determine their impact on future economic outcomes. We find that the long-run costs for the U.S. economy from this channel is many times higher than the estimates of the short-run losses in output. This suggests that, even if a vaccine cures everyone in a year, the COVID-19 crisis will leave its mark on the US economy for many years to come.
Effects of aflatoxin B1 on growth performance, health indices, phagocytic activity and histopathological alteration in Fenneropenaeus indicus

Mycotoxins contamination of feedstuff for aquatic animals is common in regions with humid tropical conditions. In this study Indian white shrimp, Fenneropenaeus indicus , (11.79 ± 1.76 g) were fed with diets containing 0, 20, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1600 ppb levels of aflatoxin B 1 (AFLB1) for 8 weeks. Final weight, aflatoxin B 1 residue (2-week intervals), Total Hemocyte Count (THC), Total Plasma Protein (TPP), Phagocytic Activity (PA), Survival rate (4-week intervals) were determined. Histopathological alterations in hepatopancreas, midgut and muscle tissues were studied at the end of 4 and 8 weeks. Shrimps fed with the 1600, 800 and 400 ppb concentrations of AFLB 1 exhibited slow growth, and more reddish discoloration disseminated over the body at 4 th week. Growth parameters, survival rate and health indices (THC, TPP) of F. indicus , are affected by the different doses of AFLB 1 in diets. At the end of 8 th week, doses of AFLB 1 in the diets showed negative correlation to final weight, survival rate, THC and TPP (r = - 0.312, -0.603, -0.237 and - 0.649 at P<0.001, respectively). Moreover, significant histopathological alterations in the hepatopancreas, midgut and muscle tissues of exposed shrimps to different levels of AFLB 1 were observed and these alterations are obviously indicated by changes in the health indexes (THC and TPP).
Quantitative Effects of Differential Tobin and Withholding Taxes on Global Financial Markets

We investigate the effects of investment taxes and Tobin tax on capital flows in global markets. An optimization model is proposed to maximize the expected net Sharpe ratio and find the optimal risky portfolio across tax jurisdictions (namely, source only, residence only, mixed with credit, and mixed with double taxation). The experimental results show that a source only tax union has more capital transits in global markets than a residence only tax union, and its optimal market portfolio is more sensitive to regional tax policy. Tobin tax can reduce market volatility but the effect varies with its rate, certain market specifications,and investment tax rules. This effect does not depend on which side of the capital flow (inflow or outflow) is subject to Tobin tax. Finally, an agreement between countries on a Tobin tax rate (policy) can significantly reduce the negative effect of Tobin tax on capital flows.
Sparse Solvers for Poisson Seamless Cloning

In image processing applications, a common problem entails merging a region from a source image into a corresponding portion of a destination image without producing visual artifacts at the edges of the cloned region. Poisson image editing is one recent technique that accomplishes this seamless cloning. It uses a Poisson formulation that equates the Laplacian of the source and destination images in the region of interest in order to smoothly transition from the destination image pixel values at the border to the source pixel values on the interior. The interior pixel values must satisfy a sparse system of equations with nonhomogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions. This work describes the implementation of and explores the relative performance for several different iterative sparse solvers as applied to an instance of the Poisson seamless cloning problem at various scales. The solvers for comparison include successive over-relaxation, preconditioned conjugate gradient, and a multigrid V-cycle solver.
Searching for Actions on the Hyperbole

In this paper, we introduce hierarchical action search. Starting from the observation that hierarchies are mostly ignored in the action literature, we retrieve not only individual actions but also relevant and related actions, given an action name or video example as input. We propose a hyperbolic action network, which is centered around a hyperbolic space shared by action hierarchies and videos. Our discriminative hyperbolic embedding projects actions on the shared space while jointly optimizing hypernym-hyponym relations between action pairs and a large margin separation between all actions. The projected actions serve as hyperbolic prototypes that we match with projected video representations. The result is a learned space where videos are positioned in entailment cones formed by different subtrees. To perform search in this space, we start from a query and increasingly enlarge its entailment cone to retrieve hierarchically relevant action videos. Experiments on three action datasets with new hierarchy annotations show the effectiveness of our approach for hierarchical action search by name and by video example, regardless of whether queried actions have been seen or not during training. Our implementation is available at https://github.com/Tenglon/hyperbolic_action
A New Cosmological Model of a Spatial and Time-Reversal Couple Universe of Symmetrical Relativity

This study investigates the possibility of applying a new four-dimensional and positively curved model of a spatial and time-reversal Couple Universe to predict the expansion rate and the speed of stars. The model assumes the universe as matter and antimatter dominated halves with opposite time arrow directions in agreement with the fundamental Charge, Parity, and Time-reversal symmetry (CPT). General Relativity was used to derive the model where gravity is considered as the only force governing the universe. The model was utilised to predict the spatial and temporal evolution of the universe over the conformal time. The results revealed that cosmic evolution might experience three distinct stages. Firstly, a decelerated spatial expansion stage of both halves away from the Big Bounce (non-singular Big Bang) in opposite directions until they reach their critical spatial radius. Secondly, an accelerated stage of a reverse spatial expansion, which might occur due to gravitation attraction between cosmic matter and antimatter at the critical radius of both halves. Finally, a time-reversal drifting stage of a spatial contraction, which might be precipitated as a result of a high concentration of the matter and antimatter in both halves that can produce a strong gravitational attraction around the Big Crunch. Regarding the speed of stars, the curved spacetime fabric of both halves may drive stars located at a lesser curved spacetime fabric to move faster than their counterparts that are located within a highly curved fabric. This reasoning was assessed by performing fluid simulation, which demonstrated the plausibility of this interpretation. This model predicts a possible flow of the whole observable matter universe towards the antimatter dominated half where both halves could be currently expanding under free-fall gravitational acceleration.
Influence of water stress on phenological development, biomass production and yield of Malaysian aerobic and lowland rice

This experiment was conducted to examine the comparative growth performance and yield of the first Malaysian aerobic rice variety, MARDI Aerob 1 (MA1) along with local lowland rice, MR 253 grown under water stress condition at selected growth stages. The experiment consisted of four treatments with three replications arranged in a randomized complete block design. The four treatments consisted of the control with no water stress throughout (T1), and water stress imposition at panicle initiation (T2), flowering (T3) and ripening (T4) stages. Water stress treatments were terminated when water deficit symptoms such as leaf rolling and wilting were detected. The effects of stress were assessed using parameters related to phenology, biomass and yield components. Results showed that both varieties were significantly affected, when water stress was imposed at the panicle initiation stage. At this stage, the water stress delayed the phenological development, reduced the panicle dry mass, and severely caused grain yield reduction for both varieties. The MR 253 variety had higher grain yield than MA1 under normal aerobic condition but not under water stress, while MA1 still was able to maintain reasonable high yield even under water stress condition, except when the water stress occurred at the panicle initiation stage. Panicle initiation stage was the most sensitive period for both varieties as water stress at this stage greatly affected the overall growth performance and grain yield for both varieties.
PePS2: A single-arm phase II trial of pembrolizumab in patients with non-small cell lung cancer and a performance status of 2

Background Therapeutic blockade of the PD-1/PD-L1 axis has transformed the management of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Clinical trials with pembrolizumab have enrolled patients with performance status (PS) 0-1. However, around 18% of NSCLC patients have a PS of 2 and the activity and safety of pembrolizumab in these patients is unclear. The aim of this trial was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of pembrolizumab in these patients. Methods PePS2 is a UK multi-centre, single arm, phase II trial in which NSCLC patients with a rigorous ascription of PS2 were treated with pembrolizumab 200mg q3weekly. The trial is designed to stratify the treatment evaluation by TPS and line of therapy and co-primary outcomes were: i) durable clinical benefit (DCB), defined as the occurrence of complete response, partial response or stable disease that continues until at least the second CT scan scheduled at 18 weeks; and ii) toxicity (TOX), defined as the occurrence at any time of treatment-related dose delay or treatment discontinuation due to adverse event. Analysis included all patients who had any pembrolizumab. As well as reporting simple observed rates for the co-primary outcomes, DCB and TOX rates are estimated by a model-based method for correlated binary outcomes. The most common grade 3-4 adverse events were dyspnea (affecting n=9 patients), hyponatremia (n=5) and anorexia (n=4). There were 10 SAE felt to be related to treatment. PePS2 is now closed to recruitment and we present final results of the trial. The trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02733159), EudraCT (2015-002241-55) and ISRCTN (10047797). Results 60 patients were evaluable for the co-primary outcomes. The observed rate for DCB was 38% (95% CI 21-57%) in first-line patients (n=24) and 36% (95% CI 22-52%) in subsequent-line patients (n=36), and it was 22% (95% CI 11-41%) in patients with TPS<1% (n=27), 47% (95% CI 25-70%) in TPS 1-49% (n=15) and 53% (95% CI 30-75%) in TPS ≥50% (n=15). An increase in DCB rates with TPS was also demonstrated in model-based estimates. TOX was observed in 28% (95% CI 19-41%) of patients, 18% due to dose delay and 10% due to drug discontinuation. There were no G5 treatment-related adverse events and no early deaths attributed to hyperprogression. Lancet Respiratory Medicine Manuscript Reference: THELANCETRM-D-19-00698R1 Original Manuscript Reference: THELANCETONCOLOGY-D-19-01571 Conclusions NSCLC patients of PS2 are a group of patients of unmet therapeutic need. The PePS2 trial shows that pembrolizumab can be safely administered to PS2 lung cancer patients, with no increase in the risk of immune-related or other toxicities. Efficacy outcomes are at least as good as those in PS0-1 patients and the data provides clinicians with the confidence to incorporate pembrolizumab into the treatment pathway of PS2 NSCLC patients. This trial was funded by Merck, Sharp and Dohme.
Exposure of Pharmacy Technicians to Antineoplastic Agents: Reevaluation after Additional Protective Measures

Abstract In the past, special guidelines and protective measures have been introduced to protect hospital workers during the handling of antineoplastic agents; nevertheless, it was found that they did not prevent the uptake of these toxic compounds. In response, additional protective measures were introduced, including adaptations of the laminar downflow hood, use of special masks, use of double pairs of gloves, and replacement of ampules with vials. In the current study, the authors compared the effects in these additional measures with results of a previous study. Cyclophosphamide, 5-fluorouracil, and methotrexate constituted 81% of the antineoplastic agents prepared; therefore, the investigators monitored these compounds again by personal air sampling and by determining the levels of contamination on masks and gloves. Cyclophosphamide in the urine of workers was also measured. During preparation, investigators concluded that there were lower concentrations of cyclophosphamide in the air than had occurr.
Global city locations and the geographical dispersion of knowledge networks: evidence from the Chinese Pharmaceutical Industry

Firms often establish knowledge linkages to geographically dispersed locations in order to source diversified knowledge. Yet, not all locations offer the same opportunities for knowledge sourcing. This study investigates the relationship between global city locations and the spatial distribution of knowledge networks linked to China. Building on previous literature suggesting that global cities exhibit both properties of local clustering and global bridging, we investigate whether the leverage of global city locations is associated with lower or higher spatial distribution of knowledge networks. Using data on the full sample of USPTO pharmaceutical patents granted between 1975 and 2010 and linked to China, our results show that, consistent with the idea of a prevailing agglomeration mechanism, global city locations are associated with a lower geographical dispersion of inventor networks. However, this relationship is contingent on both the global city profile and the characteristics of the innovative organization that coordinates the knowledge network.
THE HEALTH AND LIFESTYLE SURVEY

A rapidly-foamable, fast setting phenolic resin liquid plywood glue for use particularly in a plywood production line including an in-line continuous foaming unit comprises an aqueous alkaline solution of a fast setting, highly advanced, phenol aldehyde resin and a dried animal blood foaming agent. Glyoxal or other aldehyde is included to control the viscosity of the glue. Upon agitation in air or other gas the resulting glue is uniformly foamable to a density of the order of 0.2 gm/cc in a time of the order of two seconds.
Nineteen-year retrospective evaluation of pemphigus in a single dermatology centre in Istanbul, Turkey

Introduction Pemphigus is an autoimmune intra-epidermal bullous disease of the skin and mucosae. Aim To retrospectively evaluate the course, prognosis and clinical features of pemphigus. Material and methods The files of 196 pemphigus patients admitted to our clinic between December 1995 and December 2014 were collected and analysed. Results The male to female ratio among patients was 1 : 1.88. Pemphigus vulgaris (PV) was the most common clinical variant observed in 175 (89.3%) of the patients, followed by pemphigus foliaceus (PF) in 14 (7.1%) of the patients. The mean patient age at disease onset was 50 years. PV presented itself as skin lesions in 55 (31.4%) of the patients and as oral mucosa lesions in 120 (68.6%) of the patients. Complete remission and treatment withdrawal were obtained in 112 (57.1%) of the patients, for a mean period of 2.91 ±2.66 years (range: 4 months to 13 years). The mortality rate was 6%, and relapse occurred in 16 (14.3%) of the patients for a mean relapse period of 2.15 ±1.88 years (range: 6 months to 7 years). Mucocutaneous pemphigus (MCP) was the major clinical pattern observed in 96 (49%) of the patients. Conclusions Within our study population, pemphigus predominately affected females, and the most common clinical variant was PV, a subtype that frequently occurs in middle-aged individuals. MCP was the most common clinical pattern. Although MCP and higher doses of corticosteroids were needed to control pemphigus, they did not seem to influence the prognosis.
Optimism, pessimism and depression in school aged students: A longitudinal study

The tendency for students to view the world from an optimistic or pessimistic framework has been linked with their achievement in school. Likewise, the incidence of depression in school aged students has implications for educational outcomes. A study was therefore undertaken to investigate the development of students' optimism and pessimism over a three year period and the relationship between this development and students' year level, gender and self-reported depression. At the commencement of the study all students in the sample were in primary schools, but by the third year almost half had moved into lower secondary schools. Significant relationships were found between the students' optimism, pessimism, depression, year level and gender. These findings are discussed in terms of their educational implications, and suggestions made for future studies.
Maintenance of behavior change in cadiorespiratory risk reduction: A clinical perspective from the Ornish Program for reversing coronary heart disease.

: This article is an edited version of extemporaneous remarks invited by the organizers of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-sponsored conference "Maintenance of Behavior Change in Cardiorespiratory Risk Reduction" (July 1998). The request for this author was an "outside-the-box" reaction from a clinical perspective to the working groups on the reports presented at the conference. The specific clinical perspective is one gained from 15 years of experience in the Ornish Heart Disease Reversal Program. The Ornish Program was of interest to conference organizers because of its success in reducing cardiac risk factors, altering the progression of coronary artery disease, and maintaining long-term adherence to lifestyle change (K. L. Gould et al., 1992, 1995; D. M. Ornish et al., 1979, 1983, 1990, 1998; D. Ornish & Multicenter Lifestyle Demonstration Project Study Group, 1998).