Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Metabolic Effects of FGF-21: Thermoregulation and Beyond

Fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-21, a member of the FGF family, is a novel hormone involved in the control of metabolism by modulating glucose homeostasis, insulin sensitivity, ketogenesis, and promoting adipose tissue “browning. ” Recent studies demonstrated that brown adipose tissue is not only a target for FGF-21, but is also a potentially important source of systemic FGF-21. These findings support the hypothesis that FGF-21 plays a physiologic role in thermogenesis and thermogenic recruitment of white adipose tissue by an autocrine–paracrine axis. This review examines the role of FGF-21 in thermogenesis from the perspective of cell-based, animal model, and human studies. We also present recent advances in the characterization of FGF-21’s regulation of metabolism.
Outcome of patients who refuse transfusion after cardiac surgery: a natural experiment with severe blood conservation.

BACKGROUND Jehovah's Witness patients (Witnesses) who undergo cardiac surgery provide a unique natural experiment in severe blood conservation because anemia, transfusion, erythropoietin, and antifibrinolytics have attendant risks. Our objective was to compare morbidity and long-term survival of Witnesses undergoing cardiac surgery with a similarly matched group of patients who received transfusions. METHODS A total of 322 Witnesses and 87 453 non-Witnesses underwent cardiac surgery at our center from January 1, 1983, to January 1, 2011. All Witnesses prospectively refused blood transfusions. Among non-Witnesses, 38 467 did not receive blood transfusions and 48 986 did. We used propensity methods to match patient groups and parametric multiphase hazard methods to assess long-term survival. Our main outcome measures were postoperative morbidity complications, in-hospital mortality, and long-term survival. RESULTS Witnesses had fewer acute complications and shorter length of stay than matched patients who received transfusions: myocardial infarction, 0.31% vs 2.8% (P = . 01); additional operation for bleeding, 3.7% vs 7.1% (P = . 03); prolonged ventilation, 6% vs 16% (P < . 001); intensive care unit length of stay (15th, 50th, and 85th percentiles), 24, 25, and 72 vs 24, 48, and 162 hours (P < . 001); and hospital length of stay (15th, 50th, and 85th percentiles), 5, 7, and 11 vs 6, 8, and 16 days (P < . 001). Witnesses had better 1-year survival (95%; 95% CI, 93%-96%; vs 89%; 95% CI, 87%-90%; P = . 007) but similar 20-year survival (34%; 95% CI, 31%-38%; vs 32% 95% CI, 28%-35%; P = . 90). CONCLUSIONS Witnesses do not appear to be at increased risk for surgical complications or long-term mortality when comparisons are properly made by transfusion status. Thus, current extreme blood management strategies do not appear to place patients at heightened risk for reduced long-term survival.
The functional role of the hyporheos

All ecosystems have boundaries or contact wnes between their components. Across a range of scales, these boundaries delimit patches or provide the interfaces between two or more regions where different ecological processes occur. MAR.GALEF (1997) suggests that the term frontier "conveys better the idea o f tension, where the action is" (p. 59), and indeed, in aquatic ecosystems, much of the 'action' does take place at these locations. One of the best-known frontiers is the land-water interface where production and metabolism of the biota is generally so great that their effects frequendy comrol biogeochemical and energetic fluxes in standing o r running waters (WETZEL 1990). Nor as obvious is the interface between the groundwater and the surface water. This has attracted less interest for several reasons including a tardiness to recognise its significance, difficulries in its definition and delimitation, logistic problems of sampling, taxonomic limitations, and great inherent complexity (cf. FRECKMAN et al. 1997). Nonetheless, increasing numbers of scientists are addressing these challenges as the ecological significance of this frontier becomes evident (GIBERT et al. 1997a, BüULTON et al. 1998, WARD et al. 1998). Groundwater/surface water interfaces (GSis) are si tes of hydrologic exchange, where the products of intensive biogeochemical activity may be carried to less-productive adjacent systems. The transfer rates of these pathways hinge on the permeability of the interface while their effects are dictated by the connectivity among compartments. The boundaries of GSis are elastic, fluctuating with changes in surface discharge, water table elevation, and variations in permeabiliry. Possession of these features have led some authors to describe GSis as dynamic transition wnes that regulate fluxes of energy and nutrients between surface and groundwater companments (e.g. GIBERT et al. 1990, 1994, VERVIER et al. 1992), ~n ac~io,? -filled definition wonhy of MARGALEF's fronner status. GIBERT et al. (1990) recognised three broad types of GSI: soil-karstic aquifer interface, springs in karstic and porous aquifers, and the interface between streams and groundwater (the "hyporheic wne" sensu ÜRGHIDAN 1959). This final interface has attracted the greatest anention from stream ecologists, and there have recendy been several reviews of this GSI, integrating geomorphology, hydrology, chemistry and biology at a range of scales (BRUNKE & GONSER 1997, BouLTON et al. 1998, WARD et al. 1998). In the present paper, I wish to focus on the functional ro le o f invertebrates in the hyporheic zone (HZ), and how they affect the characteristics of this ecotone, especially its permeability and connectivity. Responses of the hyporheos to natural and human disturbances are briefly reviewed, and I conclude by identifying some of the future research challenges in this discipline.
Intra-task scheduling for storage-less and converter-less solar-powered nonvolatile sensor nodes

Solar-powered sensor nodes without specific energy maintenance have shown great promise in many applications, but they suffer from large energy storage and power converter loss. The storage-less and converter-less architecture with nonvolatile processing units has been proposed to reduce the energy loss. However, the architecture is sensitive to solar variations, since there is no energy buffering. Traditional inter-task scheduling methods may not work well due to large variations of task execution time. To tackle the challenge, we develop an algorithm for intra-task scheduling to achieve better quality of service. The experimental results show that the intra-task scheduling algorithm reduces deadline miss rate by as much as 35% and improves energy utilization by close to 20%.
Predictable multiple site root coverage using an acellular dermal matrix allograft.

BACKGROUND The primary aim of this randomized, controlled, blinded clinical investigation was to determine if orientation of an acellular dermal matrix (ADM) allograft, basement membrane side against the tooth or connective tissue side against the tooth, affected the percent root coverage. Additional aims were to: 1) compare results of this study with results obtained from other root coverage studies; 2) determine if multiple additional sites could be successfully covered with the same surgery; 3) determine the effect of the procedure on keratinized tissue; and 4) evaluate the amount of creeping attachment obtained. METHODS Ten patients with 2 Miller Class I or II buccal recession defects > or =3 mm were treated with a coronally positioned flap plus ADM and followed for 12 months. Test sites received ADM with the basement membrane side against the root (AB), while the control sites received the connective tissue side against the root (AC). Multiple additional recession sites were treated with the same flap procedure. RESULTS Mean baseline recession for the AB sites was 4.2 mm and for the AC sites, 3.7 mm. Mean root coverage of 95% was obtained for both AB and AC sites. Sixty-eight additional Class I or II AB and AC sites obtained about 93% root coverage. The mean increase in keratinized tissue for both treatments was 0.80 mm. No additional root coverage was gained due to creeping attachment between 2 and 12 months. CONCLUSIONS Treatment with ADM was an effective and predictable procedure for root coverage. The orientation of the material did not affect the treatment outcome for any of the parameters tested.
Predicting and preventing inconsistencies in deployed distributed systems

We propose a new approach for developing and deploying distributed systems, in which nodes predict distributed consequences of their actions and use this information to detect and avoid errors. Each node continuously runs a state exploration algorithm on a recent consistent snapshot of its neighborhood and predicts possible future violations of specified safety properties. We describe a new state exploration algorithm, consequence prediction, which explores causally related chains of events that lead to property violation. This article describes the design and implementation of this approach, termed CrystalBall. We evaluate CrystalBall on RandTree, BulletPrime, Paxos, and Chord distributed system implementations. We identified new bugs in mature Mace implementations of three systems. Furthermore, we show that if the bug is not corrected during system development, CrystalBall is effective in steering the execution away from inconsistent states at runtime.
Conceptual Application Domain Modelling

Application domain description precedes requirements engineering, and is the basis for the development of a software or information system that satisfies all expectations of its users. The greatest challenge in this area is the evolution of the application domain itself. In this paper we address this problem by explicit consideration of application cases that are defined by user profiles and intentions and the system environment, i.e. scope and context. User profiles and intentions are captured through the concept of persona. We show how the application domain description can be mapped to requirements and discuss engineering of application domain descriptions.
Opinion retrieval in Twitter: is proximity effective?

Twitter has become an important communication tool for people to share information and opinions. Although Twitter contains a large amount of opinions on various topics, it is very difficult to extract useful information from the vast amount of available data. The aim of this study is twofold. First, we make an analysis of the topical distribution of tweets with the aim to investigate if an individual tweet deals with a single or multiple topics. This information is very useful for addressing Twitter opinion retrieval. Second, we examine if proximity-based opinion retrieval is effective when it is applied in Twitter. The result of our study shows that the majority of tweets deal with a single topic, which is reasonable considering the short length of a tweet. Also, we show that proximity-based method for Twitter opinion retrieval is not so effective as in blogs since it performs similarly to less sophisticated opinion retrieval methods.
Is the job satisfaction of primary care team members associated with patient satisfaction?

Background Previous research has shown a correlation between physician job satisfaction and patient satisfaction with quality of care, but the connection between job satisfaction of other primary care team members and patient satisfaction is yet unclear. Objective To evaluate whether there is an association between patient satisfaction and job satisfaction of the members of patient care teams. Design The study was based on data from the European Practice Assessment and used an observational design. Setting 676 primary care practices in Germany. Participants 47 168 patients, 676 general practitioners (practice principals), 305 physician colleagues (trainees and permanently employed physicians) and 3011 non-physician practice members (nurses, secretaries). Main outcome measures Patient evaluation was measured using the 23-item EUROPEP questionnaire. Job satisfaction was measured using the 10-item Warr–Cook–Wall job satisfaction scale and further items relating to practice structure. Bivariate correlations were applied in which factors of patient satisfaction and practice structure were compared with physicians and non-physicians satisfaction. Results Patient satisfaction correlates positively with the general job satisfaction of the non-physician (r=0.25, p<0.01) and no significant correlation was found for the general job satisfaction of practice principals and physician colleagues. Patients' satisfaction with the practice organisation correlates positively with the general job satisfaction of the non-physicians (r=0.30, p<0.01) and their view of practice structure (r=0.29, p<0.01). Conclusions The correlation between non-physician team member satisfaction and patient satisfaction was higher than the correlation between satisfaction of physicians and patients. Patients seem to be sensitive to aspects of practice structure.
Single-View Hair Modeling Based on Orientation and Helix Fitting

Hair is one of the most recognizable parts of a human body, which is essential for the digitization of compelling virtual avatars but also one of the most challenging to create. In this paper, we present a single-view hair modeling technique for generating visually plausible strand-based 3D hair models. This is made possible by an effective high-precision 2D strand tracing algorithm, which explicitly models uncertainty and local layering during tracing. The depth of the traced strands is solved through an optimization that combines the base shape and 3D helical hair prior. We fit a parametric morphable face model to the input photo and construct a base shape in the face and hair regions using occlusion and silhouette constraints. Then we introduce a 3D helical hair prior that captures the geometric structure of hair, and show that it can be robustly recovered from the 2D strands in an automatic manner. We demonstrate that our method can reconstruct a wide variety of hair styles ranging from short to long and from straight to messy.
Structural Changes in Cuticles on Violin Bow Hair Caused by Wear

A bow with horse tail hair is used to play the violin. New and worn-out bow hairs were observed by atomic force microscopy. The cuticles of the new bow hair were already damaged by bleach and delipidation, however the worn-out bow hairs were much more damaged and broken off by force, which relates to wearing out.
Neisseria spp. and AIDS

Neisseria meningitidis from various serogroups and two commensal neisseriae (N. sicca and N. perflava) were isolated from 15 patients at various stages of human immunodeficiency virus infection in this clinical and bacteriological study. The cases were grouped into the following three classes: (i) infections with an N. meningitidis strain of a serogroup known to be pathogenic (A, B, or C) and apparently independent of the human immunodeficiency virus infection, (ii) infections with a N. meningitidis strain of a serogroup which is normally either commensal or poorly pathogenic (serogroups Y, X, Z, and Z,29E), (iii) pulmonary and disseminated infections occurring in the course of the clinical evolutionary stage of AIDS, in two cases of which commensal neisseriae (N. sicca and N. perflava) were isolated from blood cultures.
A data modeling approach for office information systems

A data model for representing the structure and semantics of office objects is proposed. The model contains features for modeling forms, documents, and other complex objects; these features include a constraint mechanism based on triggers, templates for presenting objects in different media, and unformatted data types such as text and audio. The representation of common office objects is described. User-level commands may be translated to operations within the model.
FEC Performance Analysis for the under-11GHz 802.16 SC Specifications

Our analysis is performed in the context of a study of adaptive radio techniques, in the attempt to improve link availability and transmission quality of broadband wireless systems, and to achieve an efficient use of radio resources. We have implemented and analysed the IEEE 802.16 a WirelessMAN-SCa PHY. The paper is focused on the BER performance of the 802.16 a FEC (forward error correction) block. The implementations, simulation and evaluation have been performed using System View (by Elanix). In the end, we identify six evaluation criteria for an adaptive FEC scheme that would improve the performance in terms of throughput in an 802.16 a system.
Match running performance fluctuations in elite soccer: Indicative of fatigue, pacing or situational influences?

Abstract The aims of this study were to: (1) quantify match running performance in 5-min periods to determine if players fatigue or modulate high-intensity running according to a pacing strategy, and (2) examine factors impacting high-intensity running such as score line, match importance and the introduction of substitutes. All players were analysed using a computerised tracking system. Maintaining ‘high’ levels of activity in the first half resulted in a 12% reduction (P < 0.01) in the second half for high-intensity running (effect size [ES]: 0.8), while no changes were observed in ‘moderate’ and ‘low’ groups (ES: 0.0–0.2). The ‘high’ group covered less (P < 0.01) high-intensity running in the initial 10-min of the second versus first half (ES: 0.6–0.7), but this was not observed in ‘moderate’ and ‘low’ groups (ES: 0.2–0.4). After the most intense periods, players demonstrated an 8% drop in high-intensity running (P < 0.05) compared to the match average (ES: 0.2) and this persisted for 5-min before recovering. Players covered similar high-intensity running distances in matches with differing score lines but position-specific trends indicated central defenders covered 17% less (P < 0.01) and attackers 15% more high-intensity running during matches that were heavily won versus lost (ES: 0.9). High-intensity running distances were comparable in matches of differing importance, but between-half trends indicated that only declines (P < 0.01) occurred in the second half of critical matches (ES: 0.2). Substitutes covered 15% more (P < 0.01) high-intensity running versus the same time period when completing a full match (ES: 0.5). The data demonstrate that high-intensity running in the second half is impacted by the activity of the first half and is reduced for 5-min after intense periods. High-intensity running is also influenced by score line and substitutions but not match importance. More research is warranted to establish if fluctuations in match running performance are primarily a consequence of fatigue, pacing or tactical and situational influences.
Effects of Dietary Alkylglycerols in Lactating Rats on Immune Responses in Pups

ABSTRACT: Alkylglycerols (AG) are glyceryl ether lipids and are present in human and cow's milk and the hematopoietic organs such as bone marrow, spleen, and liver. The bio-logic effects of AG include stimulation of blood leukocyte and thrombocyte production and activation of macrophage and anti-tumor activity. The present study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary AG in lactating rats on AG levels in milk and development of certain immune responses in the pups. Lactating rats were fed diets supplemented with various levels of AG. Milk samples were expressed from the dams and blood was collected from the pups on postpartum d 8, 16, and 24. Concentrations of AG in milk from the dams fed AG were significantly greater than those of the controls (p < 0.05). Peripheral blood granulocytes were significantly elevated in pups from the dams fed AG, but there were no differences in peripheral blood lymphocyte numbers. Plasma levels of immunoglobulins were significantly greater for IgG (p < 0.01) and IgM (p < 0.001) in pups from the dams fed AG than in the control pups. The supplementation of AG in the diets of lactating dams significantly elevated AG levels in the milk, and the increased AG in the milk subsequently stimulated certain immune responses in the pups.
Geoengineering impact of open ocean dissolution of olivine on atmospheric CO2, surface ocean pH and marine biology

Ongoing global warming induced by anthropogenic emissions has opened the debate as to whether geoengineering is a ‘quick fix’ option. Here we analyse the intended and unintended effects of one specific geoengineering approach, which is enhanced weathering via the open ocean dissolution of the silicate-containing mineral olivine. This approach would not only reduce atmospheric CO2 and oppose surface ocean acidification, but would also impact on marine biology. If dissolved in the surface ocean, olivine sequesters 0.28 g carbon per g of olivine dissolved, similar to land-based enhanced weathering. Silicic acid input, a byproduct of the olivine dissolution, alters marine biology because silicate is in certain areas the limiting nutrient for diatoms. As a consequence, our model predicts a shift in phytoplankton species composition towards diatoms, altering the biological carbon pumps. Enhanced olivine dissolution, both on land and in the ocean, therefore needs to be considered as ocean fertilization. From dissolution kinetics we calculate that only olivine particles with a grain size of the order of 1 μm sink slowly enough to enable a nearly complete dissolution. The energy consumption for grinding to this small size might reduce the carbon sequestration efficiency by ∼30%.
Characterizing Brazilian climate zones for up-scaling the simulated crop yield potential.

ABSTRACT: Crop models are written as sets of different equations which are solved numerically. They require time series of local environmental drivers like weather conditions and constant parameters that determine sensitivity of processes to both crop state and environment. There is a hamper on the model upscaling from point to region, and the quantification of model output uncertainity at the regional scale. This paper aimed to perform a conceptual analysis of the Brazilian climate zones based on long-term uniform weather data series (air temperature, soil water deficit, rainfall and global solar radiation), were each climatic variable were spatially organized and the maps for each one were generated by a kriging interpolation. The proposed zonation seems coherent with the agroecologycal conditions observed around Brazil, and based on the biomes, there is an agreement with the main Brazilian potential vegetation types and even with the cropping systems spatial distributions. The final map might be used for ? bottom-up? upscaling approach in order to extrapolate the location specific data to a broader scale. Further work should focus in the inclusion of soil data to reach a robust zone map to support crop model outputs up-scaling, as well as in the zones validation.
Evolution of growth in Gulf of St Lawrence cod?

Fishing is often size selective such that the likelihood of capture increases with body size. It has therefore been postulated that fishing could favour evolution of slower growth because smaller size would reduce exposure to fishing gear (e.g. [Ricker 1981][1]). A recent study by Swain et al . ([