Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Characterization of Physicochemical and Thermal Properties of Chitosan And Sodium Alginate after Biofield Treatment

Chitosan (CS) and sodium alginate (SA) are two widely popular biopolymers which are used for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications from many years. The objective of present study was to study the effect of biofield treatment on physical, chemical and thermal properties of CS and SA. The study was performed in two groups (control and treated). The control group remained as untreated, and biofield treatment was given to treated group. The control and treated polymers were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, CHNSO analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), particle size analysis, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). FT-IR of treated chitosan showed increase in frequency of –CH stretching (2925→2979 cm- 1) vibrations with respect to control. However, the treated SA showed increase in frequency of –OH stretching (3182→3284 cm-1) which may be correlated to increase in force constant or bond strength with respect to control. CHNSO results showed significant increase in percentage of oxygen and hydrogen of treated polymers (CS and SA) with respect to control. XRD studies revealed that crystallinity was improved in treated CS as compared to control. The percentage crystallite size was increased significantly by 69.59% in treated CS with respect to control. However, treated SA showed decrease in crystallite size by 41.04% as compared to control sample. The treated SA showed significant reduction in particle size (d50 and d99) with respect to control SA. DSC study showed changes in decomposition temperature in treated CS with respect to control. A significant change in enthalpy was observed in treated polymers (CS and CA) with respect to control. TGA results of treated CS showed decrease in Tmax with respect to control. Likewise, the treated SA also showed decrease in Tmax which could be correlated to reduction in thermal stability after biofield treatment. Overall, the results showed that biofield treatment has significantly changed the physical, chemical and thermal properties of CS and SA.
Reply to ‘Comment on ‘Invariants of differential equations defined by vector fields’’

We undertook the determination of fundamental sets of invariants for differential equations defined by vector fields in a recent paper. Using the equivariant moving frame method, a more exhaustive list for these invariants was found in a subsequent comment by Francis Valiquette. We reply to that paper and point out some essential inconsistencies in the comment.
Operationalization of Norms in Aircraft Approach/Departure Decision Support

This work is focused on norm operationalization in aviation domain. The investigated paradigm can be described as: from legal norms to technical rules in the artifact. Normative requirements (norms) for the aircraft trajectories are extracted from the flight rules and airport procedures, and operationalized in a decision support system (DSS). The decision support is based on evaluation of risk to violate the normative requirement. The following risks are modeled: trajectories' conformance with the flight rules, safe distance between aircraft, wake turbulence separation and avoidance of volcanic ash. The DSS is for the air traffic controller (not pilot) and must respond in real time. It provides surveillance, evaluates and recommends, whereas the human controller takes a decision.
Recovery and tracking of continuous 3D surfaces from stereo data using a deformable dual-mesh

We propose a novel method for continuous 3D depth recovery and tracking using calibrated stereo. The method integrates stereo correspondence, surface reconstruction and tracking by using a new single deformable dual mesh optimization, resulting in simplicity, robustness and efficiency. In order to combine stereo correspondence and structure recovery, the method introduces an external energy function defined for a 3D volume based on cross-correlation between the stereo pairs. The internal energy functional of the deformable dual mesh imposes smoothness on the surfaces and it serves as a communication tool between the two meshes. Under the forces produced by the energy terms, the dual mesh deforms to recover and track the 3D surface. The newly introduced dual-mesh model, which is one of the main contributions of this paper, makes the system robust against local minima and yet it is efficient. A coarse-to-fine minimization approach makes the system even more efficient. Tracking is achieved by using the recovered surface as an initial position for the next time frame. Although the system can effectively utilize initial surface positions and disparity data, they are not needed for a successful operation, which makes this system applicable to a wide range of areas. We present the results of a number of experiments on stereo human face and cloud images, which proves that our new method is very effective.
Topographies of Japanese Modernism

Introduction: Fissures of Japanese Modernity1. Disintegrating Mechanisms of Subjectivity: Akutagawa Ryunosuke's Last Writings2. Topographies of Empire: Yokomitsu Riichi's Shanghai3. Mapping the Space of Mass Culture: Kawabata Yasunari's Scarlet Gang of Asakusa4. Negations of Genre: Hayashi Fumiko's Nomadic Writing5. A Phantasmatic Return: Yokomitsu Riichi's Melancholic Nationalism
Software Vulnerability Disclosure and its Impact on Exploitation: An Empirical Study

In a networked world, computer systems are highly exposed to the attacks of worms / viruses. Many of these attacks stem from the vulnerabilities in the software code. One of the issues that plagues the information security area is the publicly available information about the vulnerabilities in popular software applications. This information has been put to good as well as bad use by people in the technical community. Software vendors and the anti-virus companies develop patches to resolve the software vulnerability. Hackers and virus writers make use of the same information to write malicious code to exploit the vulnerability. This exploratory study analyzes whether the information availability has an impact on the exploitation of the vulnerability. This study also considers some of the characteristics of the vulnerability information and its impact on the exploitation. Two of the factors thus considered, namely, the criticality, and cumulativeness of the vulnerability was found to have a significant impact on the actual exploitation.
Transient ischaemic attacks are associated with increased rates of global cerebral atrophy

Objectives: To determine whether patients presenting with a first transient ischaemic attack (TIA) subsequently show increased rates of brain atrophy compared with age matched controls; and to assess potential risk factors for brain atrophy in this group. Methods: 60 patients with a first, isolated TIA and 26 age and sex matched controls were recruited. None had evidence of cognitive impairment. Vascular risk factors were treated appropriately. All subjects had volumetric imaging at the start of the study and one year later, when they were clinically reassessed. TIA patients also had serial dual echo brain imaging. Rates of whole brain atrophy were calculated from the registered volumetric scans, as was the incidence of new ischaemic lesions. In the TIA group, the degree of white matter disease was assessed. Atrophy rates and blood pressure were compared between patients and controls. Results: 22 patients (37%) developed new “clinically silent” infarcts during follow up. The mean (SD) annualised percentage atrophy rate in the TIA group was significantly higher than in the controls, at 0.82 (0.39)% v 0.33 (0.3)% (p < 0.0001). In the TIA group, diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.004) and white matter disease severity (p < 0.001) were correlated with cerebral atrophy rate. Increased white matter disease was found in patients in whom new ischaemic lesions developed (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Patients presenting with a first TIA have excess global brain atrophy compared with age matched controls over the subsequent year. Increased atrophy rates following a TIA may be directly or indirectly related to increasing white matter disease and diastolic hypertension. Future studies should assess whether this atrophy inevitably leads to cognitive decline, and whether aggressive treatment of risk factors for cerebrovascular disease (particularly hypertension) after a TIA can influence outcome.
The axonally secreted protein axonin-1 is a potent substratum for neurite growth

Axonin-1 is a neuronal glycoprotein occurring both as a membrane-bound and a secreted form. Membrane-bound axonin-1 is predominantly located in membranes of developing nerve fiber tracts and has recently been characterized as a cell adhesion molecule; the soluble form is secreted from axons and accumulates in the cerebrospinal fluid and the vitreous fluid of the eye. In the present study, we addressed the question as to whether secreted axonin-1 was released in a functionally competent form and we found that it strongly promotes neurite outgrowth when presented to neurons as an immobilized substratum. Neurite lengths elaborated by embryonic dorsal root ganglia neurons on axonin-1 were similar to those on the established neurite-promoting substrata L1 and laminin. Fab fragments of axonin-1 antibodies completely inhibited neurite growth on axonin-1, but not on other substrata. In soluble form, axonin-1 had an anti-adhesive effect, as revealed by perturbation of neurite fasciculation. In view of their structural similarity, we conclude that secreted and membrane-bound axonin-1 interact with the same growth- promoting neuritic receptor. The fact that secreted axonin-1 is functionally active, together with our previous findings that it is secreted from an internal cellular pool, suggests a functional dualism between membrane-bound and secreted axonin-1 at the site of secretion, which is most likely the growth cone. The secretion of adhesion molecules could represent a powerful and rapidly acting regulatory element of growth cone-neurite interactions in the control of neurite elongation, pathway selection, and possibly target recognition.
Inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior: The role of psychological empowerment

Abstract In this article, we explored the relationship between inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior with the mediating role of psychological empowerment. We collected data from employees in the information technology and cargo sectors within the United Kingdom and Canada. The results revealed that inclusive leadership was positively related to innovative work behavior both directly and indirectly through psychological empowerment. Cognitive evaluation theory was used to support the findings. Implications of the study were discussed.
Recommending Scientific Papers: Investigating the User Curriculum

In this paper, we propose a Personalized Paper Recommender System, a new user-paper based approach that takes into consideration the user academic curriculum vitae. To build the user profiles, we use a Brazilian academic platform called CV-Lattes. Furthermore, we examine some issues related to user profiling, such as (i) we define and compare different strategies to build and represent the user profiles, using terms and using concepts; (ii) we verify how much past information of a user is required to provide good recommendations; (iii) we compare our approaches with the state-of-art in paper recommendation using the CV-Lattes. To validate our strategies, we conduct a user study experiment involving 30 users in the Computer Science domain. Our results show that (i) our approaches outperform the state-of-art in CV-Lattes; (ii) concepts profiles are comparable with the terms profiles; (iii) analyzing the content of the past four years for terms profiles and five years for concepts profiles achieved the best results; and (iv) terms profiles provide better results but they are slower than concepts profiles, thus, if the system needs real time recommendations, concepts profiles are better.
TaxoLearn: A Semantic Approach to Domain Taxonomy Learning

Building domain taxonomies is a crucial task in the domain of ontology construction. Domain taxonomy learning keeps getting more important as a form of automatically obtaining a knowledge representation of a certain domain. The alternative of manually developing domain taxonomies is not trivial. The main issues encountered when manually developing a taxonomy are the non-availability of a domain knowledge expert and the considerable amount of effort needed for this task. This paper proposes Taxo Learn, an approach to automatic construction of domain taxonomies. Taxo Learn is a new methodology that combines aspects from existing approaches, but also contains new steps in order to improve the quality of the resulted domain taxonomy. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we employ a word sense disambiguation step when detecting concepts in the text. Second, we show the use of semantics-based hierarchical clustering for the purpose of taxonomy learning. Third, we propose a novel dynamic labeling procedure for the concept clusters. We evaluate our approach by comparing the machine generated taxonomy with a manually constructed golden taxonomy. Based on a corpus of documents in the field of financial economics, Taxo Learn shows a high precision for the learned taxonomic concept relationships.
Interspecies Insertion Polymorphism Analysis Reveals Recent Activity of Transposable Elements in Extant Coelacanths

Coelacanths are lobe-finned fish represented by two extant species, Latimeria chalumnae in South Africa and Comoros and L. menadoensis in Indonesia. Due to their intermediate phylogenetic position between ray-finned fish and tetrapods in the vertebrate lineage, they are of great interest from an evolutionary point of view. In addition, extant specimens look similar to 300 million-year-old fossils; because of their apparent slowly evolving morphology, coelacanths have been often described as « living fossils ». As an underlying cause of such a morphological stasis, several authors have proposed a slow evolution of the coelacanth genome. Accordingly, sequencing of the L. chalumnae genome has revealed a globally low substitution rate for protein-coding regions compared to other vertebrates. However, genome and gene evolution can also be influenced by transposable elements, which form a major and dynamic part of vertebrate genomes through their ability to move, duplicate and recombine. In this work, we have searched for evidence of transposition activity in coelacanth genomes through the comparative analysis of orthologous genomic regions from both Latimeria species. Comparison of 5.7 Mb (0.2%) of the L. chalumnae genome with orthologous Bacterial Artificial Chromosome clones from L. menadoensis allowed the identification of 27 species-specific transposable element insertions, with a strong relative contribution of CR1 non-LTR retrotransposons. Species-specific homologous recombination between the long terminal repeats of a new coelacanth endogenous retrovirus was also detected. Our analysis suggests that transposon activity is responsible for at least 0.6% of genome divergence between both Latimeria species. Taken together, this study demonstrates that coelacanth genomes are not evolutionary inert: they contain recently active transposable elements, which have significantly contributed to post-speciation genome divergence in Latimeria.
Use of reperfusion therapy for acute myocardial infarction in the United States: data from the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction 2.

BACKGROUND There is clear evidence that reperfusion therapy improves survival in selected patients with an acute myocardial infarction. However, several studies have suggested that many patients with an acute myocardial infarction do not receive this therapy. Whether this underutilization occurs in patients appropriate for such therapy remains unclear. METHODS AND RESULTS We examined the use of reperfusion therapy in patients with an acute myocardial infarction hospitalized at 1470 hospitals participating in the National Registry of Myocardial Infarction 2. We identified 84 663 patients who were eligible for reperfusion therapy as defined by diagnostic changes on the initial 12-lead ECG, presentation to the hospital within 6 hours from symptom onset, and no contraindications to thrombolytic therapy. Twenty-four percent of these eligible patients did not receive any form of reperfusion therapy (7.5% of all patients). When multivariate analyses were used, left bundle-branch block (odds ratio [OR]=0.22; 95% CI=0.20 to 0.24), lack of chest pain at presentation (OR=0.22; 95% CI=0.21 to 0.24), age >75 years (OR=0.40, 95% CI=0.36 to 0.43), female sex (OR=0.88, 95% CI=0.83 to 0.92), and various preexisting cardiovascular conditions were independent predictors that the patient would not receive reperfusion therapy. CONCLUSIONS Reperfusion therapy may be underutilized in the United States. Increased use of reperfusion therapy could potentially reduce the unnecessarily high mortality rates observed in women, the elderly, and other patient groups with the highest risk of death from an acute myocardial infarction.
Jet and accretion power in the most powerful Fermi blazars

Among the blazars detected by the Fermi satellite, we have selected the 23 blazars that in the 3 months of survey had an average γ-ray luminosity above 10 48 erg s -1 . For 17 out of the 23 sources we found and analysed X-ray and optical-ultraviolet data taken by the Swift satellite. With these data, implemented by archival and not simultaneous data, we construct the spectral energy distributions, and interpreted them with a simple one-zone, leptonic, synchrotron and inverse Compton model. When possible, we also compare different high-energy states of single sources, like 0528+134 and 3C 454.3, for which multiple good sets of multiwavelength data are available. In our powerful blazars the high energy emission always dominates the electromagnetic output, and the relatively low level of the synchrotron radiation often does not hide the accretion disc emission. We can then constrain the black hole mass and the disc luminosity. Both are large (i.e. masses equal or greater than 10 9 M ☉ and disc luminosities above 10 per cent of Eddington). By modelling the non-thermal continuum we derive the power that the jet carries in the form of bulk motion of particles and fields. On average, the jet power is found to be slightly larger than the disc luminosity, and proportional to the mass accretion rate.
Stochastic two-delay differential model of delayed visual feedback effects on postural dynamics

We report on experiments and modelling involving the ‘visuo-postural control loop’ in the upright stance. We experimentally manipulated an artificial delay to the visual feedback during standing, presented at delays ranging from 0 to 1 s in increments of 250 ms. Using stochastic delay differential equations, we explicitly modelled the centre-of-pressure (COP) and centre-of-mass (COM) dynamics with two independent delay terms for vision and proprioception. A novel ‘drifting fixed point’ hypothesis was used to describe the fluctuations of the COM with the COP being modelled as a faster, corrective process of the COM. The model was in good agreement with the data in terms of probability density functions, power spectral densities, short- and long-term correlations (Hurst exponents) as well the critical time between the two ranges.
Hepatocyte-Targeted Expression by Integrase-Defective Lentiviral Vectors Induces Antigen-Specific Tolerance in Mice with Low Genotoxic Risk

Lentiviral vectors are attractive tools for liver‐directed gene therapy because of their capacity for stable gene expression and the lack of preexisting immunity in most human subjects. However, the use of integrating vectors may raise some concerns about the potential risk of insertional mutagenesis. Here we investigated liver gene transfer by integrase‐defective lentiviral vectors (IDLVs) containing an inactivating mutation in the integrase (D64V). Hepatocyte‐targeted expression using IDLVs resulted in the sustained and robust induction of immune tolerance to both intracellular and secreted proteins, despite the reduced transgene expression levels in comparison with their integrase‐competent vector counterparts. IDLV‐mediated and hepatocyte‐targeted coagulation factor IX (FIX) expression prevented the induction of neutralizing antibodies to FIX even after antigen rechallenge in hemophilia B mice and accounted for relatively prolonged therapeutic FIX expression levels. Upon the delivery of intracellular model antigens, hepatocyte‐targeted IDLVs induced transgene‐specific regulatory T cells that contributed to the observed immune tolerance. Deep sequencing of IDLV‐transduced livers showed only rare genomic integrations that had no preference for gene coding regions and occurred mostly by a mechanism inconsistent with residual integrase activity. Conclusion: IDLVs provide an attractive platform for the tolerogenic expression of intracellular or secreted proteins in the liver with a substantially reduced risk of insertional mutagenesis. (HEPATOLOGY 2011;)
Depth Compression of 3D Object Represented by Layered Depth Image

A Layered Depth Image (LDI) is one of the popular representation and rendering methods for 3D objects with complex geometries. In this paper, we propose the new compression algorithm for depth information of a 3D object represented by LDI. For the purpose, we introduce the concept of partial surfaces to seek highly correlated depth data irrespective of their layer and derive a depth compression algorithm by using them. Partial surfaces are approximated by a Bézier patch and residual information is encoded by a shape-adaptive transform. Experimental results show that our proposed compression method achieves a better compression performance than any other previous methods.
The Neuromodulatory Effects of Sex Hormones on Functional Cerebral Asymmetries and Cognitive Control

Abstract. Nearly 20 years ago, Hausmann and Güntürkün (2000a, 2000b) published a review article in the Journal of Neuropsychology/Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie on the influences of sex hormones on functional cerebral asymmetries (FCAs). They further presented a neuroendocrinological model (Hausmann & Güntürkün, 2000c) that could potentially explain how sex hormones modulate FCAs. Their model proposed that high levels of progesterone reduce the synaptic efficiency of cortico-cortical transmission, leading to a reduction of FCAs. However, empirical data testing their hypothesis directly were missing. Using various approaches, we have now gathered behavioral, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging data that partly support the original idea, while also pointing toward estradiol-modulating FCAs. The current review provides an update on this fascinating topic and briefly explores clinical applications.