Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gravitational Waves From Cosmic Strings

Gravitational waves from cosmic strings are generated in the first fractions of a second after the Big Bang, potentially providing a unprecedented probe of the early universe. We discuss the key dynamical processes underlying calculations of the stochasti c background produced by a string network and we detail the parameter dependencies of the resulting spectral density $\Omega_{gr}(f)$. The present constraints on the cosmic string mass scale $\mu$ arising from the millisecond pulsar timings and primor dial nucleosynthesis are discussed, justifying our present conservative bound $G\mu/c^2 < 5.4(\pm 1.1)\times 10^{-6}$. We then discuss the strong prospect of detecting (or ruling out) cosmic string background with the next generation of gravitational wave experiments. Comparison is also made with alternative cosmological sources of gravitational waves such as inflation and hybrid topological defects.
The Relative Importance of Spatial and Local Environmental Factors in Determining Beetle Assemblages in the Inner Mongolia Grassland

The aim of this paper is to increase understanding of the relative importance of the input of geographic and local environmental factors on richness and composition of epigaeic steppe beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae and Tenebrionidae) along a geographic (longitudinal/precipitation) gradient in the Inner Mongolia grassland. Specifically, we evaluate the associations of environmental variables representing climate and environmental heterogeneity with beetle assemblages. Beetles were sampled using pitfall traps at 25 sites scattered across the full geographic extent of the study biome in 2011–2012. We used variance partitioning techniques and multi-model selection based on the Akaike information criterion to assess the relative importance of the spatial and environmental variables on beetle assemblages. Species richness and abundance showed unimodal patterns along the geographic gradient. Together with space, climate variables associated with precipitation, water-energy balance and harshness of climate had strong explanatory power in richness pattern. Abundance pattern showed strongest association with variation in temperature and environmental heterogeneity. Climatic factors associated with temperature and precipitation variables and the interaction between climate with space were able to explain a substantial amount of variation in community structure. In addition, the turnover of species increased significantly as geographic distances increased. We confirmed that spatial and local environmental factors worked together to shape epigaeic beetle communities along the geographic gradient in the Inner Mongolia grassland. Moreover, the climate features, especially precipitation, water-energy balance and temperature, and the interaction between climate with space and environmental heterogeneity appeared to play important roles on controlling richness and abundance, and species compositions of epigaeic beetles.
Homeostasis model assessment is a reliable indicator of insulin resistance during follow-up of patients with type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the usefulness of the homeostasis model assessment as an index of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) for evaluating the clinical course of patients with type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The usefulness of HOMA-IR and its relationship with insulin resistance assessed by the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp study (clamp IR) were evaluated in 55 Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes before and after treatment. The patients were subjected to diet (approximately 1,440-1,720 kcal/day) and exercise therapy (walking 10,000 steps daily) for 6 weeks during their hospitalization. RESULTS Univariate regression analysis disclosed a significant correlation between log-transformed HOMA-IR and log-transformed clamp IR before (r = -0.613, P < 0.0001) and after ( = -0.734, P < 0.0001) treatment. Neither the slopes (-0.71 +/- 0.12 vs. -0.79 +/- 0.09, F = 0.25, P = 0.61) nor the intercepts (y-intercept = 1.67 vs. 1.70, x-intercept = 2.36 vs. 2.15, F = 0.02, P = 0.88) of the regression lines between HOMA-IR and clamp IR were significantly different before and after treatment. There was a significant correlation between the decrease in log-transformed HOMA-IR and the increase in clamp IR during treatment (r = -0.617, P < 0.0001). CONCLUSIONS HOMA-IR may constitute a useful method not only for diagnosing insulin resistance, but also for follow-up during the treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes.
The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale ( WEMWBS ) : development of clinical cut-off scores

Background: The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (WEMWBS) is a 14-item self-report measure of mental well-being. It was developed because of the importance of mental well-being in leading to positive outcomes in term of health and social costs and of preventive programmes in the community. In this study we examine its performance in screening subjects at risk of Major Depressive Disorder considering the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD) as gold standard. Methods: A self-selected adult sample (3117 subjects) drawn from a general sample of internet users accessing a health portal (NHS National Health Service) was involved in a previous study aimed to investigate whether an online CBT-based training programme could improve mental well-being of the general adult population (T. Hamborg & N. Stallard, 2011). Data from this research were used and WEMWBS scores were compared with CES-D scores in the present study. Receiver Operating Characteristic curves (ROC curves) were used to investigate the screening properties of the WEMWBS. Pearson’s correlation coefficient between WEMWBS and CESD scores at each time point was evaluated. Results: Based on the CES-D cut-off score chosen, a WEMWBS cut-off score of 43.5 seemed to perform best in screening depressive symptomatology in the three times, maximizing the Area Under the Curve (AUC>0.910) with sensitivity and specificity values of at least 83%. Scatter plot graphs showed high negative correlations between WEMWBS and CES-D scores; these correlations were confirmed by Pearson’s r value (of at least -.80). Conclusions: The WEMWBS may be a useful and accurate tool for the assessment of depressive symptoms or for the screening of depressive disorders in the context of epidemiological studies in the general adult population.
Content-adaptive robust error concealment for packet-lossy H.264 video streaming *

In this paper, we present a spatio-temporal post-processing error concealment (EC) algorithm designed initially for a H.264 video-streaming scheme over packet-lossy networks. It aims at optimizing the subjective quality of the restored video under the constraints of low delay and computational complexity, which are critical to real-time applications and portable devices having limited resources. Specifically, it takes into consideration the physical property of motion field in order to achieve more meaningful perceptual video quality, in addition to the improved objective PSNR. Further, a simple bilinear spatial interpolation approach is combined with the improved boundary-match (B-M) based temporal EC approach according to texture and motion activity analysis. Finally, we propose a low complexity temporal EC method based on motion vector interpolation as a replacement of the B-M based approach in the scheme under low-computation requirement, or as a complement to further improve the scheme’s performance in applications having enough computation resources. Extensive experiments demonstrated that the proposal features not only better reconstruction, objectively and subjectively, than JM benchmark, but also robustness to different video sequences.
Sea‐surface temperatures and tropical cyclones in the Atlantic basin

Whereas there is a significant relationship between overall sea‐surface temperature (SST) and tropical cyclone intensity, the relationship is much less clear in the upper range of SST normally associated with these storms. There, we find a step‐like, rather than a continuous, influence of SST on cyclone strength, suggesting that there exists a SST threshold that must be exceeded before tropical cyclones develop into major hurricanes. Further, we show that the SST influence varies markedly over time, thereby indicating that other aspects of the tropical environment are also critically important for tropical cyclone intensification. These findings highlight the complex nature of hurricane development and weaken the notion of a simple cause‐and‐effect relationship between rising SST and stronger Atlantic hurricanes.
Red ginseng extract protects against carbon tetrachloride-induced liver fibrosis

Korean red ginseng, the processed root of Panax ginseng Meyer, has been frequently used for various therapeutic purposes in oriental medicine. The present study investigated the possible effect of Korean red ginseng extract (RGE) for the treatment of liver fibrosis in mice injected with carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) for 4 wk. Liver injuries were assessed by blood biochemistry and histopathology in mice treated with CCl4 alone or CCl4+ RGE (30, 100, and 300 mg/kg). Concomitant treatment with RGE and CCl4 (three times/wk for 4 wk) effectively inhibited liver fibrosis as evidenced by decreases in plasma alanine and aspartate aminotransferases, as well as by the percentages of degenerative regions, numbers of degenerative hepatocytes, and collagen accumulation in hepatic parenchyma. Treatment with CCl4 for 4 wk increased mRNA levels of transforming growth factor β1 and plasminogen activator inhibitor 1 in fibrogenic liver, whereas RGE (30, 100, and 300 mg/kg) significantly blocked the induction of fibrogenic genes by CCl4. Similarly, RGE also prevented transforming growth factor β1-mediated induction of fibrogenic genes in human hepatic stellate cell lines. More importantly, RGE markedly reduced the number of α-smooth muscle actin-positive cells in liver tissue. This study implies that RGE efficaciously protects against the liver fibrosis induced by chronic CCl4 treatment, and may therefore have potential to treat liver disease.
Differences in Chemical Composition of Soil Organic Carbon Resulting From Long-Term Fertilization Strategies

Chemical composition of soil organic carbon (SOC) is central to soil fertility. We hypothesize that change in SOC content resulting from various long-term fertilization strategies accompanies the shift in SOC chemical structure. This study examined the effect of fertilization strategies along with the time of fertilizer application on the SOC composition by 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The soils (Aquic Inceptisol) subjected to seven fertilizer treatments were collected in 1989, 1999 and 2009, representing 0, 10 and 20 years of fertilization, respectively. The seven fertilizer treatments were (1–3) balanced fertilization with application of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) including organic compost (OM), half organic compost plus half chemical fertilizer (1/2OM), and pure chemical NPK fertilizer (NPK); (4–6) unbalanced chemical fertilization without application of one of the major elements including NP fertilizer (NP), PK fertilizer (PK), and NK fertilizer (NK); and (7) an unamended control (CK). The SOC content in the balanced fertilization treatments were 2.3–52.6% and 9.4–64.6% higher than in the unbalanced fertilization/CK treatments in 1999 and 2009, respectively, indicating significant differences in SOC content with time of fertilizer application between the two treatment groups. There was a significantly greater proportion of O-alkyl C and a lower proportion of aromatic C in the balanced fertilization than in unbalanced fertilization/CK treatments in 1999, but not in 2009, because their proportions in the former treatments approached the latter in 2009. Principal component analysis further showed that the C functional groups from various fertilization strategies tended to become compositionally similar with time. The results suggest that a shift in SOC chemical composition may be firstly dominated by fertilization strategies, followed by fertilization duration.
Topical Clustering of MRD Senses Based on Information Retrieval Techniques

This paper describes a heuristic approach capable of automatically clustering senses in a machine-readable dictionary (MRD). Including these clusters in the MRD-based lexical database offers several positive benefits for word sense disambiguation (WSD). First, the clusters can be used as a coarser sense division, so unnecessarily fine sense distinction can be avoided. The clustered entries in the MRD can also be used as materials for supervised training to develop a WSD system. Furthermore, if the algorithm is run on several MRDs, the clusters also provide a means of linking different senses across multiple MRDs to create an integrated lexical database. An implementation of the method for clustering definition sentences in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE) is described. To this end, the topical word lists and topical cross-references in the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English (LLOCE) are used. Nearly half of the senses in the LDOCE can be linked precisely to a relevant LLOCE topic using a simple heuristic. With the definitions of senses linked to the same topic viewed as a document, topical clustering of the MRD senses bears a striking resemblance to retrieval of relevant documents for a given query in information retrieval (IR) research. Relatively well-established IR techniques of weighting terms and ranking document relevancy are applied to find the topical clusters that are most relevant to the definition of each MRD sense. Finally, we describe an implemented version of the algorithms for the LDOCE and the LLOCE and assess the performance of the proposed approach in a series of experiments and evaluations.
Implantable CPW fed tapered antenna at ISM band for biomedical applications

In this work, an implantable coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed tapered monopole antenna for industrial scientific and medical (ISM) band (2.4 - 2.48 GHz) biomedical applications is proposed. This proposed design has an overall dimension of 44mm × 44mm × 0.5mm. The designed antenna is made compatible for implantation on human tissues like skin, fat or muscles by embedding it on RT Duroid substrate and the 10dB return loss bandwidth is 6.12% ranging from 2.35 to 2.5GHz. This proposed antenna can be significantly used in implantable medical devices and RF, because of its merits like conformability, flexibility in design and shape, biocompatibility, patient safety, miniaturization, power consumption etc.
On the Modes of the Independence Polynomial of the Centipede

The independence polynomial of the graph called the centipede has only real zeros. It follows that this polynomial is log-concave, and hence unimodal. Levit and Mandrescu gave a conjecture about the mode of this polynomial. In this paper, the exact value of the mode is determined, and some central limit theorems for the sequence of the coefficients are established.
Functional analysis of the microtubule-interacting transcriptome

A combination of bioinformatic and RNA interference analysis of Xenopus tropicalis RNA-seq data shows that the identification of microtubule-associated (MT) mRNAs can be used for discovering novel factors in the processes of spindle pole organization and centrosome structure. MT-RNAs are likely to contribute to spindle-localized mitotic translation.
Effects of compensatory growth on milk protein gene expression and mammary differentiation

This experiment was conducted to develop an understanding of mechanisms responsible for effects of a compensatory (stair‐step) growth pattern on the expression of milk protein genes and mammary differentiation. One hundred thirty weanling female rats were randomly assigned to either a control or a test group (compensatory growth). Early lactating mammary tissues from the compensatory growth group showed an increase in the RNA:DNA ratio, protein:DNA ratio, DNA, RNA, and protein while exhibiting a decrease in the lipid content as compared with those of the control group (2.2, 1.6, 1.7, 3.8, 2.8, and 0.5 times, respectively). Mammary tissues from the compensatory growth group contained about 1.1‐ to 1.4‐fold more total cytoplasmic mRNA for caseins and whey acidic protein than those of the control group. The compensatory growth pattern increased β‐casein mRNA accumulation, milk protein secretion, and amino acid uptake in mammary acinar culture (1.3, 1.3, and 1.1 times, respectively) compared with those of the control group. These results indicate that the compensatory growth pattern increases milk protein mRNA transcripts and may contribute to an increase in the functional activity of the mammary gland. —Park, C. S. ; Choi, Y. J.; Keller, W. L. ; Harrold, R. L. Effects of compensatory growth on milk protein gene expression and mammary differentiation. FASEB J. 2: 2619‐2624; 1988.
Multiple roles of Pseudomonas aeruginosa TBCF10839 PilY1 in motility, transport and infection

Polymorphonuclear neutrophils are the most important mammalian host defence cells against infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Screening of a signature tagged mutagenesis library of the non‐piliated P. aeruginosa strain TBCF10839 uncovered that transposon inactivation of its pilY1 gene rendered the bacterium more resistant against killing by neutrophils than the wild type and any other of the more than 3000 tested mutants. Inactivation of pilY1 led to the loss of twitching motility in twitching‐proficient wild‐type PA14 and PAO1 strains, predisposed to autolysis and impaired the secretion of quinolones and pyocyanin, but on the other hand promoted growth in stationary phase and bacterial survival in murine airway infection models. The PilY1 population consisted of a major full‐length and a minor shorter PilY1* isoform. PilY1* was detectable in small extracellular quinolone‐positive aggregates, but not in the pilus. P. aeruginosa PilY1 is not an adhesin on the pilus tip, but assists in pilus biogenesis, twitching motility, secretion of secondary metabolites and in the control of cell density in the bacterial population.
A Couple of White Guys Sitting around Talking

At a small, independently owned cigar shop in a moderate-sized southern city, approximately thirty customers regularly gather at what has become a de facto men's smoking club to discuss sports, politics, religion, and the joys of cigar smoking. Of all the conversations to take place at Tullio's, however, none are as passionate or as recurring as the discussions on the health risks associated with cigar smoking. During these encounters, the “regulars” collectively create a linguistic defense shield that, ironically, protects them from the anxiety produced by antismoking messages. Specifically, the regulars at the shop collectively craft and share five prosmoking arguments that (1) refute the findings of the medical establishment, (2) anesthetize them from the impact of antismoking messages, and (3) relieve their cognitive dissonance and anxiety created by the act of smoking.
Main Memory Commit Protocols for Multiple Backups

Atomic commitment protocols are needed to preserve ACID properties of distributed transactional systems. The performance of such protocols is essential to avoid adding too much overhead to transaction processing. Also, many applications require levels of availability, which cannot be met by using only one backup source (disk or process). Combining these two requirements, this paper presents protocols for use with main memory primary-backup systems, where there are multiple backup processes for each primary. These protocols are evaluated by simulation and verified by statistical analysis. The results show that the best choice of protocol is not static, but varies with the transactional load of the system.
Dynamics of State Price Densities

State price densities (SPD) are an important element in applied quantitative finance. In a Black-Scholes model they are lognormal distributions with constant volatility parameter. In practice volatility changes and the distribution deviates from log-normality. We estimate SPDs using EUREX option data on the DAX index via a nonparametric estimator of the second derivative of the (European) call price function. The estimator is constrained so as to satisfy no-arbitrage constraints and it corrects for intraday covariance structure. Given a low dimensional representation of this SPD we study its dynamic for the years 1995–2003. We calculate a prediction corridor for the DAX for a 45 day forecast. The proposed algorithm is simple, it allows calculation of future volatility and can be applied to hedging exotic options.
Packet Forwarding Using OpenFlow

OpenFlow is a network virtualization platform that separates the network control function from the forwarding function. OpenFlow defines a centralized element, called OpenFlow controller, that controls and programs shared forwarding tables in forwarding elements, called OpenFlow switches. The forwarding structure is highly flexible, because a packet is forwarded based not only on the destination IP address, but on user-defined header fields. This paper presents a performance evaluation of OpenFlow switches acting as a virtual network element in a personal computer.
Comparison of buckwheat, red clover, and purple tansy as potential surrogate plants for use in semi-field pesticide risk assessments with Bombus impatiens

Background. Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are important wild and managed pollinators. There is increased interest in incorporating data on bumble bees into risk assessments for pesticides, but standardized methods for assessing hazards of pesticides in semi-field and field settings have not yet been established for bumble bees. During semi-field studies, colonies are caged with pesticide-treated flowering surrogate plants, which must be attractive to foragers to ensure colony exposure to the test compound, and must produce an ample nectar and pollen to sustain colonies during testing. However, it is not known which plant(s) are suitable for use in semi-field studies with bumble bees. Materials and Methods. We compared B. impatiens foraging activity and colony development on small plots of flowering buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum, var. common), red clover (Trifolium pratense), and purple tansy (Phacelia tanacetifolia) under semi-field conditions to assess their suitability as surrogate plants for pesticide risk assessment studies with bumble bees. We also compared the growth characteristics and input requirements of each plant type. Results. All three plant types generally established and grew well. Red clover and purple tansy experienced significant weed pressure and/or insect pest damage. In contrast, pest pressure was extremely low in buckwheat. Overall, B. impatiens foraging activity was significantly greater on buckwheat plots than red clover or purple tansy, but plant type had no effect on number of individuals produced per colony or colony weight. Discussion. Because of the consistently high foraging activity and successful colony development observed on buckwheat plots, combined with its favourable growth characteristics and low maintenance requirements, we recommend buckwheat as a surrogate plant for use in semi-field pesticide toxicity assessments with B. impatiens.