Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changes in Terrestrial Water Storage During 2003–2014 and Possible Causes in Tibetan Plateau

The spatial‐temporal changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and six selected basins during 2003–2014 were analyzed by applying the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment data and the extended Variable Infiltration Capacity‐glacier model, including the upstream of Yangtze (UYA), Yellow (UYE), Brahmaputra (UB), and Indus river basins and the Inner TP and the Qaidam Basin. The possible causes of TWS changes were investigated from the perspective of surface water balance and TWS components through multisource data and the Variable Infiltration Capacity‐glacier model. There was a strong spatial heterogeneity in changes of Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment TWS in the TP—with apparent mass accumulation in central and northern TP and a sharp decreasing trend in southern and northwestern TP. The TWS changes in the TP were mostly attributed to variations in precipitation and evapotranspiration from the perspective of land‐surface water balance. Precipitation played a dominant role on the TWS accumulation in the UYA and UYE, while evapotranspiration had a more important role than precipitation in TWS depletion in the UB. From the perspective of TWS components, the TWS increase in the UYA and UYE was mainly caused by an increase in soil moisture, whereas the decrease in TWS in the UB was mostly due to glacier mass loss. TWS was accumulating from March through August in southeastern TP while from November to April/May in northwestern TP. The seasonal variations of TWS are highly modulated by the large‐scale climate system, atmospheric moisture flux, and precipitation regime over the TP.
Confirmation of Novel Noninvasive High-Density Electrocardiographic Mapping With Electrophysiology Study: Implications for Therapy

Background—Twelve lead ECGs have limited value in precisely identifying atrial and ventricular activation during arrhythmias, including accessory atrioventricular conduction activation. The aim of this study was to report a single center’s clinical experience validating a novel, noninvasive, whole heart, beat-by-beat, 3-dimensional mapping technology with invasive electrophysiological studies, including ablation, where applicable. Methods and Results—Using an electrocardiographic mapping (ECM) system in 27 patients, 3-dimensional epicardial activation maps were generated from >250 body surface ECGs using heart–torso geometry obtained from computed tomographic images. ECM activation maps were compared with clinical diagnoses, and confirmed with standard invasive electrophysiological studies mapping. (1) In 6 cases of Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, ECM accurately identified the ventricular insertion site of an accessory atrioventricular connection. (2) In 10 patients with premature ventricular complexes, ECM accurately identified their ventricular site of origin in 8 patients. In 2 of 10 patients transient premature ventricular complex suppression was observed during ablation at the site predicted by ECM as the earliest. (3) In 10 cases of atrial tachycardia/atrial flutter, ECM accurately identified the chamber of origin in all 10, and distinguished isthmus from nonisthmus dependent atrial flutter. (4) In 1 patient with sustained exercise induced ventricular tachycardia, ECM accurately identified the focal origin in the left ventricular outflow tract. Conclusions—ECM successfully provided valid activation sequence maps obtained noninvasively in a variety of rhythm disorders that correlated well with invasive electrophysiological studies.
The Leaf Essential Oils of Five Vietnamese Desmos Species (Annonaceae)

The leaf essential oils of five Desmos species from Vietnam have been extracted by steam distillation and subjected to GC and GC-MS analyses. The plant samples were Desmos cochinchinensis Lour. , D. penduculosus (A. DC.) Ban, D. penducolosus var. tonkinensis Ban, D. chinensis Lour. , and D. dumosus (Roxb.) Saff. The oils were rich in sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (65.9%-88.9%) and monoterpene hydrocarbons (6.3%-30.9%). The oxygenated counterparts were less common. The quantitatively significant constituents of the oils were α-pinene (2.4%-12.1%), β-elemene (2.2-39.5%), β-caryophyllene (13.9-26.3%), germacrene D (9.9-15.5%), bicyclogermacrene (2.0-11.4%) and α-humulene (3.8-7.5%). The studied oils could be classified into two chemical forms: oils with abundance of β-caryophyllene, germacrene D and α-pinene (D. cochinchinensis, D. penducolosus var. tonkinensis, D. chinensis and D. Dumosus) and oil with high amounts of β-elemene, β-caryophyllene and germacrene D (D. penduculosus).
Design and Development of GRF Aqua Silencer by E-Glass Composite for Reduction of Noise and Particulate Matter in Automotive Diesel Engine

As per the recent statistical data, the consumption of fuel has increased from 1965 to 2012 at a very high rate. Earlier, we used to relay mostly on coal for running steam engines, and with the advancement of technology, this switched over to gasoline, diesel, natural gas and alternative fuels. Most of the emission coming from automotive engines was the main contributor to air pollution. An Aqua silencer composed of E glass-based composite was introduced to avoid the release of such gases directly into the atmosphere from diesel engines. It was manufactured using core moulding and vacuum bagging technology and was fitted to the exhaust pipe of the diesel engine to treat the toxic gasses before releasing to the atmosphere. Other than reducing the regulated emission, it also reduced particulate matter significantly. The particulate matter was reduced using an activated charcoal layer. The noise and particulate level were found to be less by 40 and 93% respectively when compared with the conventional silencer. Besides this, it has ease of installation. The current paper discussed the utilisation of this innovative mechanism in automobiles and its contribution to various fields such as refineries and chemical processing units.
Using Statistical Discriminators and Cluster Analysis to P2P and Attack Traffic Monitoring

In the last few years, we have seen that the attack and P2P traffic has increased significantly. Currently, P2P traffic represents a significant portion of Internet traffic and the attacks represent a serious threat to computer systems. The approach presented here uses a small number of statistical discriminators and cluster analysis to identify such kind of traffics, obtaining results that are better than the results found into previous papers. We perform an empirical test using real traces.
The Swimming Performance of Nine Species of Common California Inshore Fishes

The swimming performance of nine species of Southern California fish was tested in a flume at velocities of 42 to 117 cmlsecond. Genyonmus lineatus demonstrated the fastest continuous swimming ability of 61 crn/second, Hypsum cayi the slowest, 4 2 cdsecond. Five embiotocids tested demonstrated similar continuous swimming speeds ranging from 42 to 52 cmhecond. Burst swimming abilities were in excess of 100 cmlsecond for four of five species tested; G. lineatw attained 137 cmlsecond. Chrmispunctipinnis was the best swimmer relative to body length (BL), reaching 5.9 BLIsecond continuous and 1 I . 1 BLIsecond burst swimming speeds. Gravid Hypsurus cayi had a lesser swimming ability than nongravid and male individuals of the species. Substantial literature exists on the laboratory swimming performance of fish, including reviews by Bainbridge (l958), Blaxter (1969), and Webb (1975). However, it is difficult to use these results to predict specific capabilities of yet unstudied fish. Problems arise not only from interspecific variations, but from other factors known to influence swimming performance: size (Bainbridge 1958; Blaxter and Dickson 1959; Beamish 1966; Hunter and Zweifel 197 1 ; Brett 1973), reproductive state (Blaxter 1969), test methods (Bainbridge 1958; Blaxter 1969), feeding (Ware 1978), time and velocity increments (Farlinger and Bcamish 1977), and temperature (Rulifson 1977). The objective of the present study was to determine the swimming abilities of several species entrapped by offshore water intakes of electric generating stations in Southern California, and to examine whether or not swimming ability can be considered a causative factor of entrapment.
Toll-Like Receptor Agonist Augments Virus-Like Particle-Mediated Protection from Ebola Virus with Transient Immune Activation

Identifying safe and effective adjuvants is critical for the advanced development of protein-based vaccines. Pattern recognition receptor (PRR) agonists are increasingly being explored as potential adjuvants, but there is concern that the efficacy of these molecules may be dependent on potentially dangerous levels of non-specific immune activation. The filovirus virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine protects mice, guinea pigs, and nonhuman primates from viral challenge. In this study, we explored the impact of a stabilized dsRNA mimic, polyICLC, on VLP vaccination of C57BL/6 mice and Hartley guinea pigs. We show that at dose levels as low as 100 ng, the adjuvant increased the efficacy of the vaccine in mice. Antigen-specific, polyfunctional CD4 and CD8 T cell responses and antibody responses increased significantly upon inclusion of adjuvant. To determine whether the efficacy of polyICLC correlated with systemic immune activation, we examined serum cytokine levels and cellular activation in the draining lymph node. PolyICLC administration was associated with increases in TNFα, IL6, MCP1, MIP1α, KC, and MIP1β levels in the periphery and with the activation of dendritic cells (DCs), NK cells, and B cells. However, this activation resolved within 24 to 72 hours at efficacious adjuvant dose levels. These studies are the first to examine the polyICLC-induced enhancement of antigen-specific immune responses in the context of non-specific immune activation, and they provide a framework from which to consider adjuvant dose levels.
Evidence on the distribution of values of travel time savings from a six-week diary

This paper presents the results of a series of MNL and mixed logit models focusing on the distribution of the values of travel time savings. The full model, which also incorporates a number of time budget related variables, indicates that a small, but relevant share of the respondents does not value time savings, or would rather extend the journey. This 10% share is consistent with results from other studies. A series of models employing only time and costs to explain choices indicate even higher shares depending on the a-priori assumptions about the distributions of the parameters (normal, log-normal, normal, but censored at zero). The RP data used is derived from the six week travel diary Mobidrive. The observations from Karlsruhe are summarised at the level of the tour.
Origin and formation of the first two distinct cell types of the inner cell mass in the mouse embryo

A crucial question in mammalian development is how cells of the early embryo differentiate into distinct cell types. The first decision is taken when cells undertake waves of asymmetric division that generate one daughter on the inside and one on the outside of the embryo. After this division, some cells on the inside remain pluripotent and give rise to the epiblast, and hence the future body, whereas others develop into the primitive endoderm, an extraembryonic tissue. How the fate of these inside cells is decided is unknown: Is the process random, or is it related to their developmental origins? To address this question, we traced all cells by live-cell imaging in intact, unmanipulated embryos until the epiblast and primitive endoderm became distinct. This analysis revealed that inner cell mass (ICM) cells have unrestricted developmental potential. However, cells internalized by the first wave of asymmetric divisions are biased toward forming pluripotent epiblast, whereas cells internalized in the next two waves of divisions are strongly biased toward forming primitive endoderm. Moreover, we show that cells internalized by the second wave up-regulate expression of Gata6 and Sox17, and changing the expression of these genes determines whether the cells become primitive endoderm. Finally, with our ability to determine the origin of cells, we find that inside cells that are mispositioned when they are born can sort into the correct layer. In conclusion, we propose a model in which the timing of cell internalization, cell position, and cell sorting combine to determine distinct lineages of the preimplantation mouse embryo.
A new muscle fatigue and recovery model and its ergonomics application in human simulation

Although automatic techniques have been employed in manufacturing industries to increase productivity and efficiency, there are still lots of manual handling operations, especially for assembly and maintenance operations. In these operations, musculoskeletal disorder (MSD) is one of the major health problems due to overload and cumulative physical fatigue. With combination of conventional posture analysis techniques, digital human modeling and simulation (DHM) techniques have been developed and commercialized to evaluate the potential physical exposures. However, those ergonomic analysis tools are mainly based on posture analysis techniques, and until now there is still no fatigue index available in commercial software to evaluate the physical fatigue effectively. In this paper, a new muscle fatigue and recovery model is used to evaluate joint fatigue level in manual handling operations. The physical fatigue in a special application case is described and analyzed using digital human simulation techniques.
Paris I Dysfibrinogenemia: A Point Mutation in Intron 8 Results in Insertion of a 15 Amino Acid Sequence in the Fibrinogen γ-Chain

Summary Paris I dysfibrinogenemia results in the production of a fibrinogen molecule containing a functionally abnormal γ-chain. We determined the basis of the molecular defect using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify the γ-chain region of the Paris I subject’s genomic DNA. Comparative sequence analysis of cloned PCR segments of normal and Paris I genomic DNA revealed only an A→G point mutation occurring at nucleotide position 6588 within intron 8 of the Paris I γ-chain gene. We examined six normal individuals and found only normal sequence in this region, indicating that this change is not likely to represent a normal polymorphism. This nucleotide change leads to a 45 bp fragment being inserted between exons 8 and 9 in the mature γparis I chain mRNA, and encodes a 15 amino acid insert after γ350 [M-C-G-E-A-L-P-M-L-K-D-P-C-Y]. Alternative splicing of this region from intron 8 into the mature Paris I γ-chain mRNA also results after translation into a substitution of S for G at position γ351. Biochemical studies of 14C-iodoacetamide incorporation into disulfide-reduced Paris I and normal fibrinogen corroborated the molecular biologic predictions that two additional cysteine residues exist within the γpariS I chain. We conclude that the insertion of this amino acid sequence leads to a conformationallyaltered, and dysfunctional γ-chain in Paris I fibrinogen.
Exploiting Directional Asymmetry in Phrase-table Generation for Statistical Machine Translation

This paper presents a method that can improve the translation quality of a phrase-based statistical machine translation system without the need for additional training data. The technique exploits the asymmetry of the phrase-table generation process during training. In our experiments we use the GIZA++ toolkit for alignment, and the phrase extraction utilities that are provided with the MOSES decoder. These tools are commonly used in the field, and serve as the benchmark by which other techniques are measured. Our experiments show that if the corpus’s word order (both source and target) is reversed during the word alignment/phrase extraction phase of the training, the resulting phrase table is significantly different to that generated from the un-reordered corpus. Typically only about 30-60% of the phrase-pairs are shared between the forwardand reverse-generated phrase tables. Our approach attempts to exploit this asymmetry by integrating these phrase-tables into a single larger table, and use this integrated phrase table for decoding. The phrase-table integration is done by linearly interpolation. The benefits of this approach are two-fold. Firstly, the larger number of phrases present in the integrated phrase-table allows for greater coverage of the test data. Secondly, phrases that occur in both tables receive contributions to their probability mass from both entries in the tables during the interpolation process. This effectively boosts the probability of the more reliable phrases that occur in both tables relative to less reliable phrases that occur in only one of the tables. To evaluate our approach we ran a total of 272 experiments on all languagepairings from a set of 17 languages, and evaluated using a set of seven machine translation evaluation metrics. Our training data consisted of approximately 160,000 sentence pairs from the ATR BTEC1 corpus. The test set was 5000 single-reference sentences drawn from the same sample. We show consistent gains in over 95% of our experiments, over baseline systems trained in the usual manner on unreversed training data.
Margin-maximized redundancy-minimized SVM-RFE for diagnostic classification of mammograms

Classification techniques for digital mammography play an instrumental role in the diagnosis of breast cancer. Recent developments in the derivatives of support vector machines have shown to provide superior classification accuracy rates in comparison with other competing techniques. In this paper, we propose a new classification technique that is based on support vector machines with the additional properties of margin-maximization and redundancy-minimization in order to further increase the accuracy. We have conducted experiments on publicly available data set of mammograms and the empirical results indicated that our proposed technique performs superior to other previously proposed support vector machines-based techniques.
MuSeSe - A multisensor armchair for unobtrusive vital sign estimation and motion artifact analysis

Unobtrusive vital sign estimation with sensors integrated into objects of everyday living can substantially advance the field of remote monitoring. At the same time, motion artifacts cause severe problems and have to be dealt with. Here, the fusion of multimodal sensor data is a promising approach. In this paper, we present an armchair equipped with capacitively coupled electrocardiogram, two types of ballistocardiographic sensors, photoplethysmographic and two high-frequency impedance sensors. In addition, a video-based sensor for motion analysis is integrated. Using a defined motion protocol, the feasibility of the system is demonstrated in a self-experimentation. Moreover, the influence of different movements on different modalities is analyzed. Finally, robust beat-to-beat interval estimation demonstrates the benefits of multimodal sensor fusion for vital sign estimation in the presence of motion artifacts.
IMPACT OF RAINFALL TEMPORAL VARIABILITY ON RAINFED MAJOR FOOD CROPS AND AGRONOMIC PRACTICES IN THE NORTH WESTERN COASTAL ZONE OF EGYPT

igh variability in rainfall amount and occurrence are the main constraints for crop production in rainfed arid and semi-arid areas. Precipitation data analysis focusing on rainfall amount, distribution and dry spells is of a great importance to mitigate the drought impact on crop production. In this study, we used the very, easily accessed daily data from the National Center for Environmental Prediction; Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (NCEP/CFSR) for a period of 35 years (1979-2014) over the North Western Coast (NWCZ) of Egypt at four locations: Ras El Hekma, Matrouh, El Neguilla and Barrani. The data of total annual rainfall, maximum daily data and the number of rainy days based on 0.1,5,10,15 mm of rain, long and short dry spells and the start of the rainy season were presented. The analysis of the dry spells showed that there are at least 6 to 7 dry spells of 10 days or longer each year with a probability exceeding 20% in all the locations studied. Data also showed that Barrani has the highest total annual precipitation and maximum daily precipitation of 182 mm and 45 mm, respectively. A number of the rainy days of the four examined thresholds of 0.1,5,10 and 15 mm were higher in Barrani as compared to the other three locations. It is quite clear that the productivity of wheat, barley and other crops in the NWCZ is highly dependent on the amount and distribution of rainfall as well as the dry spells distribution. Therefore, available water management practices such as supplemental irrigation and water harvesting techniques should be implemented to reduce the potential drought developed for dry spells and to improve the productivity of the cultivated crops.
Microbicidal effects of α- and θ-defensins against antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens threaten public health. Because many antibiotics target specific bacterial enzymes or reactions, corresponding genes may mutate under selection and lead to antibiotic resistance. Accordingly, antimicrobials that selectively target overall microbial cell integrity may offer alternative approaches to therapeutic design. Naturally occurring mammalian α- and θ-defensins are potent, non-toxic microbicides that may be useful for treating infections by antibiotic-resistant pathogens because certain defensin peptides disrupt bacterial, but not mammalian, cell membranes. To test this concept, clinical isolates of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), including vancomycin heteroresistant strains, and ciprofloxacin-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (CipR-PA) were tested for sensitivity to α-defensins Crp-4, RMAD-4 and HNPs 1-3, and to RTD-1, macaque θ-defensin-1. In vitro, 3 μM Crp-4, RMAD-4 and RTD-1 reduced MRSA cell survival by 99%, regardless of vancomycin susceptibility. For PA clinical isolates that differ in fluoroquinolone resistance and virulence phenotype, peptide efficacy was independent of strain ciprofloxacin resistance, site of isolation or virulence factor expression. Thus, Crp-4, RMAD-4 and RTD-1 are effective in vitro antimicrobials against clinical isolates of MRSA and CipR-PA, perhaps providing templates for development of α- and θ-defensin-based microbicides against antibiotic resistant or virulent infectious agents.