Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Alterations in T2 Relaxation Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Ovine Intervertebral Disc Due to Nonenzymatic Glycation

Study Design. An in vitro study using ovine intervertebral discs to correlate the effects of increasing advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) with disc hydration evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Objective. To determine the relationship between the level of AGEs and tissue water content in intervertebral discs using T2 relaxation MRI. Summary of Background Data. AGEs result from nonenzymatic glycation, and AGEs have been shown to accumulate in the intervertebral disc tissue with aging and degeneration. AGEs can alter biochemical properties, including the hydrophobicity of the extracellular matrix. Because one of the degenerative signs of the intervertebral disc (IVD) is reduced hydration, we hypothesized that increased levels of tissue AGEs contribute to disc hydration. T2 relaxation MRI has been shown to be sensitive to the hydration status of the disc and may be valuable in detecting the changes in the IVD mediated by the increase of AGEs. Methods. Thirty-eight IVDs were obtained from 4 ovine spines, and the annulus fibrosis (AF) and nucleus pulposus (NP) tissues were isolated from these discs. The tissues were incubated in either a ribosylation or control solution for up to 8 days to induce the formation of AGEs. T2 relaxation times were obtained from these tissues after ribosylation. These tissues were subsequently analyzed for hydration, proteoglycan, collagen, and AGEs content. Results. In vitro ribosylation led to the increased accumulation of AGEs and reduced water content in both the AF and NP in a dose-dependent manner, but did not affect the proteoglycan and collagen composition. When analyzed by MRI, ribosylation significantly altered the mean T2 relaxation times in the NP (P = 0.001), but not in the AF (P = 0.912). Furthermore, the mean T2 values in the NP significantly decreased with increasing periods of incubation time (P < 0.001). Conclusion. This study demonstrates that levels of AGEs in the IVD may affect the tissue water content. Moreover, these ribosylation-mediated changes in tissue hydration were detectable using T2 relaxation MRI. T2 relaxation MRI may provide a noninvasive tool to measure in vivo changes in disc hydration that are negatively correlated with the accumulation of AGEs.
A Survey of the S-Lemma

In this survey we review the many faces of the S-lemma, a result about the correctness of the S-procedure. The basic idea of this widely used method came from control theory but it has important consequences in quadratic and semidefinite optimization, convex geometry, and linear algebra as well. These were all active research areas, but as there was little interaction between researchers in these different areas, their results remained mainly isolated. Here we give a unified analysis of the theory by providing three different proofs for the S-lemma and revealing hidden connections with various areas of mathematics. We prove some new duality results and present applications from control theory, error estimation, and computational geometry.
Toward a Scalable Heterogeneous Runtime System for the Convey MX Architecture

Given the recent advent of the multicore era [1], research efforts in the area of high performance, low latency runtime systems have increased significantly. This research has given birth to new techniques in low-overhead scheduling techniques, small-memory footprint parallel execution units and kernel-free contextual environments. This paper presents a framework and runtime system for a truly heterogeneous approach to low-latency, high performance runtime techniques on the Convey MX-100 platform and CHOMP micro-architecture [14]. This framework, deemed the Convey Lightweight Runtime [CLR], is designed to provide high performance, programming-model agnostic parallel library support to the massively parallel CHOMP infrastructure. This work explores the fundamental design requirements and implementation details behind constructing the CLR system as a truly heterogeneous low-level runtime system for a wide array of parallel programming model targets.
Vegetation and environmental changes at the Middle Stone Age site of Wonderkrater, Limpopo, South Africa

Abstract Wonderkrater, a Middle Stone Age site in the interior of South Africa, is a spring and peat mound featuring both paleoclimatic and archaeological records. The site preserves three small MSA lithic assemblages with age estimates of 30 ka, >45 ka and 138.01±7.7 ka. Here we present results of the pollen analysis of a core retrieved from the middle of the peat mound, which covers, with hiatuses, the timespan between ca. 70±10 ka and 30 ka. Pollen percentages of terrestrial, local aquatic, and semi-aquatic plants reveal changes in the regional climate and in the water table of the spring. Results identify regional wet conditions at ca. 70±10 ka, followed by a dry and a wet period between 60 ka and 30 ka. Superimposed on these three phases, recurring changes in the size and depth of the water table are observed between >45 ka and 30 ka. Wet conditions at 70 ka and 30 ka are tentatively correlated here with Marine Isotope Stage 4 and Heinrich Stadial 3, respectively. A warm and dry savanna landscape was present during human occupation older than 45 ka, and a wet phase was contemporaneous with the final occupation, dated at ~30 ka.
Tagging and Chunking with Bigrams

In this paper we present an integrated system for tagging and chunking texts from a certain language. The approach is based on stochastic finite-state models that are learnt automatically. This includes biagram models or finite-state automata learnt using grammatical inference techniques. As the models involved in our system are learnt automatically, this is a very flexible and portable system.In order to show the viability of our approach we present results for tagging and chunking using bigram models on the Wall Street Journal corpus. We have achieved an accuracy rate for tagging of 96.8%, and a precision rate for NP chunks of 94.6% with a recall rate of 93.6%.
A keyword query method for uncertain database

This paper applies keyword query technology to the tuple-level uncertain database. We process single-table and the multi-table uncertain data problem with keyword search method, and optimize the ranking function by assigning different weights for each relation in uncertain database. According to the keywords and k value, this paper calculates and returns top-k query results which have maximum rank scores, depending on its correlation with query keywords and its possibility under the possible world semantics. The experimental results indicate the performance of the method is efficient and effective.
Geometry-preserving topological landscapes

We propose a novel technique for building geometry-preserving topological landscapes. Our technique creates a direct correlation between a scalar function and its topological landscape. This correlation is accomplished by introducing the notion of geometric proximity into the topological landscapes, reflecting the distance of topological features within the function domain. Furthermore, this technique enables direct comparative analysis between scalar functions, as long as they are defined on the same domain. We describe a construction technique that consists of three stages: contour tree computation, contour tree layout, and landscape construction. We provide a detailed description for the latter two steps. For the contour tree layout stage, we discuss dimension reduction and edge routing techniques that produce a drawing of the contour tree on the plane that preserves the geometric proximity. For the landscape construction stage, we develop a contour construction algorithm that takes the contour tree layout as an input, adds contours at heights that correspond to saddles of the contour tree, and produces a contour map. After an additional triangulation step, this construction method results in the landscape that has the same contour tree as the original function.
Cloning and Sequencing of a Candida albicans Catalase Gene and Effects of Disruption of This Gene

ABSTRACT Catalase plays a key role as an antioxidant, protecting aerobic organisms from the toxic effects of hydrogen peroxide, and in some cases has been postulated to be a virulence factor. To help elucidate the function of catalase in Candida albicans, a singleC. albicans-derived catalase gene, designatedCAT1, was isolated and cloned. Degenerate PCR primers based on highly conserved areas of other fungal catalase genes were used to amplify a 411-bp product from genomic DNA of C. albicansATCC 10261. By using this product as a probe, catalase clones were isolated from genomic libraries of C. albicans. Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed an open reading frame encoding a protein of 487 amino acid residues. Construction of a CAT1-deficient mutant was achieved by using the Ura-blaster technique for sequential disruption of multiple alleles by integrative transformation usingURA3 as a selectable marker. Resulting mutants exhibited normal morphology and comparable growth rates of both yeast and mycelial forms. Enzymatic analysis revealed an abundance of catalase in the wild-type strain but decreasing catalase activity in heterozygous mutants and no detectable catalase in a homozygous null mutant. In vitro assays showed the mutant strains to be more sensitive to damage by both neutrophils and concentrations of exogenous peroxide that were sublethal for the parental strain. Compared to the parental strain, the homozygous null mutant strain was far less virulent for mice in an intravenous infection model of disseminated candidiasis. Definitive linkage of CAT1 with virulence would require restoration of activity by reintroduction of the gene into mutants. However, initial results in mice, taken together with the enhanced susceptibility of catalase-deficient hyphae to damage by human neutrophils, suggest that catalase may enhance the pathogenicity of C. albicans.
The Complex Systems Approach: Rhetoric or Revolution

The complex systems approach (CSA) to characterizing cognitive function is purported to underlie a conceptual and methodological revolution by its proponents. I examine one central claim from each of the contributed papers and argue that the provided examples do not justify calls for radical change in how we do cognitive science. Instead, I note how currently available approaches in ''standard'' cognitive science are adequate (or even more appropriate) for understanding the CSA provided examples.
On Separability of Ontological Constraints

When data schemata are enriched with expressive constraints that aim at representing the domain of interest, in order to answer queries one needs to consider the logical theory consisting of both the data and the constraints. Query answering in such a context is called ontological query answering. Commonly adopted database constraints in this field are tuple-generating dependencies (TGDs) and equality- generating dependencies (EGDs). It is well known that their interaction leads to intractability or undecidability of query answering even in the case of simple subclasses. Several conditions have been found to guarantee separability, that is lack of interaction, between TGDs and EGDs. Separability makes EGDs (mostly) irrelevant for query answering and therefore often guarantees tractability, as long as the theory is satisfiable. In this paper we review the two notions of separability found in the literature, as well as several syntactic conditions that are sufficient to prove them. We then shed light on the issue of satisfiability checking, showing that under a sufficient condition called deep separability it can be done by considering the TGDs only. We show that, fortunately, in the case of TGDs and EGDs, separability implies deep separability. This result generalizes several analogous ones, proved ad hoc for particular classes of constraints. Applications include the class of sticky TGDs and EGDs, for which we provide a syntactic separability condition which extends the analogous one for linear TGDs; preliminary experiments show the feasibility of query answering in this case.
A Water Footprint Based Hydro-Economic Model for Minimizing the Blue Water to Green Water Ratio in the Zarrinehrud River-Basin in Iran

The efficient use of water should involve decisions for balancing green water (GW) and blue water (BW) use for sustainable development. More specifically, the focus of irrigation water management should be redirected from a BW perspective toward considering the full water balance, including GW flow. This study presents a modelling approach in a system dynamic platform for minimizing the BW to GW ratio in a water basin while maximizing total agricultural profit. The paper considers the compromise between any reduction in the GW to BW ratio and the possible changes in the economic achievement of the region through varying land use and cropping patterns. This paper explores and presents the possibilities of reducing the BW to GW ratio in the Zarrinehrud River-basin for moderate, dry, and wet years using the water footprint concept. Results show that under all combinations of economic objective and BW to GW ratio addressed by water footprint measures, the hydro-economic performance of the river basin may substantially be improved as compared with the current practice. Either weights may systematically be changed or multiple objective optimization algorithms may be employed if a more precise tradeoff between the objectives is needed.
Morphologic and Pharmacological Investigations in the Epicatechin Gastroprotective Effect

Previous studies of the gastroprotective activity of plants have highlighted the importance of the polyphenolic compound epicatechin (EC) in the treatment of gastric ulcers. This paper aimed to evaluate and characterize the gastroprotective mechanism of action of EC using male rats. The gastroprotective action of EC was analyzed in gastric ulcers induced by ethanol or indomethacin. The involvement of sulfhydryl (SH) groups, K+ ATP channels, α 2 adrenoceptors, gastric antisecretory activity, and the amount of mucus in the development of gastric ulcers were investigated. The lowest effective dose of EC providing gastroprotective effects was 50 mg/kg in the ethanol-induced gastric ulcers and 25 mg/kg in the indomethacin-induced gastric ulcers. The gastroprotection seen upon treatment with EC was significantly decreased in rats pretreated with a SH compound reagent or an α 2-receptor antagonist, but not with a K+ ATP channel blocker. Furthermore, oral treatment with EC increased mucus production and decreased H+ secretion. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated the involvement of superoxide dismutase (SOD), nitric oxide (NO), and heat shock protein-70 (HSP-70) in the gastroprotection. These results demonstrate that EC provides gastroprotection through reinforcement of the mucus barrier and neutralization of gastric juice and this protection occurs through the involvement of SH compounds, α 2-adrenoceptors, NO, SOD, and HSP-70.
Monitoring regional blockade

This review attempts to draw on the published literature to address three practical clinical questions. First, what means of testing the degree of regional blockade pre‐operatively are available, and can eventual success or failure be determined soon after injection? Second, is it possible to predict if a block inserted after the induction of general anaesthesia will be effective when the patient wakes? Third, what features, and what duration, should cause concern when a block does not resolve as expected after surgery? Although the relevant literature is limited, we recommend testing of multiple sensory modalities before surgery commences; temperature and thermographic changes may offer additional early warning of success or failure. There are a number of existing methods of assessing nociception under general anaesthesia, but none has yet been applied to gauge the onset of a regional block. Finally, criteria for further investigation and neurological referral when block symptoms persist postoperatively are presented.
Nurses' Perception of Feedback on Quality Measurements: Development and Validation of a Measure

Increasingly, hospitals use the data from their quality measurement activities, as feedback information for their nurses. It is argued that feedback on quality measurements can result in quality improvement at the expense of or for the benefit of nurses' wellbeing. The proposed relationship is assumed to be mediated by (1) nurses' attribution about management's purpose in providing feedback, and (2) nurses' perception of feedback as a job demand versus a job resource. This contribution describes the development and validation of an instrument to measure these constructs, based on research on HR attributions (Nishii et al., 2008) and the Job Demands-Resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). The measure has been discussed with several experts and practitioners, and pilot-tested among 55 nurses. Our pilot study reveals promising results regarding the content, construct and predictive validity of our measure
Analysis of Hashrate-Based Double Spending

Bitcoin is the world's first decentralized digital currency. Its main technical innovation is the use of a blockchain and hash-based proof of work to synchronize transactions and prevent double-spending the currency. While the qualitative nature of this system is well understood, there is widespread confusion about its quantitative aspects and how they relate to attack vectors and their countermeasures. In this paper we take a look at the stochastic processes underlying typical attacks and their resulting probabilities of success.
TrustRank: Inducing Trust in Automatic Translations via Ranking

The adoption of Machine Translation technology for commercial applications is hampered by the lack of trust associated with machine-translated output. In this paper, we describe TrustRank, an MT system enhanced with a capability to rank the quality of translation outputs from good to bad. This enables the user to set a quality threshold, granting the user control over the quality of the translations. We quantify the gains we obtain in translation quality, and show that our solution works on a wide variety of domains and language pairs.
Content-based video retrieval integrating human perception

Content-based video retrieval system is one of the important design issues of multimedia, mainly depending on its visual and spatio-temporal characteristic. But until now, well- defined model for video retrieval is still at rudimentary stage. We propose a unified video retrieval model to simulate human perception. Given an arbitrary video, considering all the factors existing in human vision perception, we can find similar ones from large video repository within time limitation. This kind of measurement simulates the rules in human being's judgement, so it can be close to the real need. Furthermore, integrating with feedback, the results can be adjusted according to user's preference. This learning strategy can emphasize the aspect user cares about, and embodies int in the next iteration of similarity computing. In this way, retrieval results can be optimized greatly.
N-(2,6-Diisopropylphenyl)-N-{3-[(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)imino]butan-2-yl}azanide trichloridostannate(II)

In the title compound, (C28H43N2)[SnCl3], two pairs of molecular species are present in the asymmetric unit. The employed α-diimine opens up, forming a highly asymmetric ammonium that has its protons at one of the N atoms [N—C= 1.264 (4) and 1.516 (4) Å]. One of the C=N double bonds was oxidized to C—N, which is consistent with the bond length of 1.516 (4) Å. Meanwhile SnIV was reduced to SnII. The (SnCl)3 − anion is trigonal–pyramidal. In the crystal, molecules are linked by C—H⋯Cl, N—H⋯Cl, N—H⋯N and C—H⋯N bonds. The crystal studied was twinned by pseudo-merohedry.
The Complexity of Multiterminal Cuts

In the multiterminal cut problem one is given an edge-weighted graph and a subset of the vertices called terminals, and is asked for a minimum weight set of edges that separates each terminal from all the others. When the number $k$ of terminals is two, this is simply the mincut, max-flow problem, and can be solved in polynomial time. It is shown that the problem becomes NP-hard as soon as $k=3$, but can be solved in polynomial time for planar graphs for any fixed $k$. The planar problem is NP-hard, however, if $k$ is not fixed. A simple approximation algorithm for arbitrary graphs that is guaranteed to come within a factor of $2-2/k$ of the optimal cut weight is also described.
The Herpes Simplex Virus Type 2 R1 Protein Kinase (ICP10 PK) Blocks Apoptosis in Hippocampal Neurons, Involving Activation of the MEK/MAPK Survival Pathway

ABSTRACT Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) and HSV-2 trigger or counteract apoptosis by a cell-specific mechanism. Our studies are based on previous findings that the protein kinase (PK) domain of the large subunit of HSV-2 ribonucleotide reductase (ICP10) activates the Ras/MEK/MAPK pathway (Smith et al., J. Virol. 74:10417, 2000). Because survival pathways can modulate apoptosis, we used cells that are stably or transiently transfected with ICP10 PK, an HSV-2 mutant deleted in ICP10 PK (ICP10ΔPK) and the MEK-specific inhibitor U0126 to examine the role of ICP10 PK in apoptosis. Apoptosis was induced by staurosporine or d-mannitol in human (HEK293) cells or HEK293 cells stably transfected with the ICP10 PK-negative mutant p139 (JHL15), as determined by morphology, DNA fragmentation, terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling (TUNEL), caspase-3 activation, and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) cleavage. HEK293 cells stably transfected with ICP10 (JHLa1) were protected from apoptosis. ICP10 but not p139 protected neuronally differentiated PC12 cells from death due to nerve growth factor withdrawal, and apoptosis (determined by TUNEL) and caspase-3 activation were seen in primary hippocampal cultures infected with ICP10ΔPK but not with HSV-2 or a revertant virus [HSV-2(R)]. The data indicate that ICP10 has antiapoptotic activity under both paradigms and that it requires a functional PK activity. The apoptotic cells in primary hippocampal cultures were neurons, as determined by double immunofluorescence with fluorescein-labeled dUTP (TUNEL) and phycoerythrin-labeled antibodies specific for neuronal proteins (TuJ1 and NF-160). Protection from apoptosis was associated with MEK/MAPK activation, as evidenced by (i) increased levels of activated (phosphorylated) MAPK in HSV-2- but not ICP10ΔPK-infected cultures and (ii) inhibition of MAPK activation by the MEK-specific inhibitor U0126. MEK and MAPK were activated by infection with UV-inactivated but not antibody-neutralized HSV-2, suggesting that activation requires cellular penetration but is independent of de novo viral protein synthesis.
Ramsar and World Heritage Conventions : converging towards success

Fringing some 30% of the Atlantic coast of Mauritania, the park comprises a mosaic of sand-dunes, coastal swamps, small islands, mangroves, sea grass beds and shallow coastal waters. Stretching for some 150km from Cap Blanc in the north to Cap Timiris in the south, the Park is the largest coastal park in Africa with a surface area of 12,000 km. The site is a stunning example of the juxtaposition of the harsh desert environment and the vibrancy of the marine zone. The boundaries of the Ramsar Site and the World Heritage property overlap and follow the National Park boundary.