Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A CATALOG OF MIPSGAL DISK AND RING SOURCES

We present a catalog of 416 extended, resolved, disk and ringlike objects as detected in the MIPSGAL 24 μm survey of the Galactic plane. This catalog is the result of a search in the MIPSGAL image data for generally circularly symmetric, extended “bubbles” without prior knowledge or expectation of their physical nature. Most of the objects have no extended counterpart at 8 μm or 70 μm, with less than 20% detections at each wavelength. For the 54 objects with central point sources, the sources are nearly always seen in all Infrared Array Camera bands. About 70 objects (16%) have been previously identified, with another 35 listed as Infrared Astronomical Satellite sources. Among the identified objects, those with central sources are mostly listed as emission-line stars, but with other source types including supernova remnants (SNRs), luminous blue variables, and planetary nebulae (PNe). The 57 identified objects (of 362) without central sources are nearly all PNe (∼90%), which suggests that a large fraction of the 300+ unidentified objects in this category are also PNe. These identifications suggest that this is primarily a catalog of evolved stars. Also included in the catalog are two filamentary objects that are almost certainly SNRs, and 10 unusual compact extended objects discovered in the search. Two of these show remarkable spiral structure at both 8 μm and 24 μm. These are likely background galaxies previously hidden by the intervening Galactic plane.
Payment of wages

No fy employees in wri ng at the me of hire: 1. Rate of Pay 2. Day, hour and place of payment 3. Employer's fringe benefits policies No fy employees in wri ng of any reduc ons in the rate of pay, and any changes in the day, hour or place of payment or benefits. Furnish each employee with a pay statement showing: 1. Amount of wages due; 2. Pay period covered by the payment; 3. Amounts of deduc ons (separately specified) which have been made from the wages; 4. Total number of hours worked in pay period (for employees who are paid at an hourly rate).
Coping with multiple sclerosis: a 5‐year follow‐up study

Lode K, Bru E, Klevan G, Myhr KM, Nyland H, Larsen JP. Coping with multiple sclerosis: a 5‐year follow‐up study. Acta Neurol Scand: 2010: 122: 336–342. © 2009 The Authors Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Munksgaard.
Systemic Immunological Tolerance to Ocular Antigens Is Mediated by TRAIL-Expressing CD8+ T Cells

Systemic immunological tolerance to Ag encountered in the eye restricts the formation of potentially damaging immune responses that would otherwise be initiated at other anatomical locations. We previously demonstrated that tolerance to Ag administered via the anterior chamber (AC) of the eye required Fas ligand-mediated apoptotic death of inflammatory cells that enter the eye in response to the antigenic challenge. Moreover, the systemic tolerance induced after AC injection of Ag was mediated by CD8+ regulatory T cells. This study examined the mechanism by which these CD8+ regulatory T cells mediate tolerance after AC injection of Ag. AC injection of Ag did not prime CD4+ T cells and led to increased TRAIL expression by splenic CD8+ T cells. Unlike wild-type mice, Trail−/− or Dr5−/− mice did not develop tolerance to Ag injected into the eye, even though responding lymphocytes underwent apoptosis in the AC of the eyes of these mice. CD8+ T cells from Trail−/− mice that were first injected via the AC with Ag were unable to transfer tolerance to naive recipient wild-type mice, but CD8+ T cells from AC-injected wild-type or Dr5−/− mice could transfer tolerance. Importantly, the transferred wild-type (Trail+/+) CD8+ T cells were also able to decrease the number of infiltrating inflammatory cells into the eye; however, Trail−/− CD8+ T cells were unable to limit the inflammatory cell ingress. Together, our data suggest that “helpless” CD8+ regulatory T cells generated after AC injection of Ag enforce systemic tolerance in a TRAIL-dependent manner to inhibit inflammation in the eye.
Effects of gravel augmentation on macroinvertebrate assemblages in a regulated California River

Enhancement projects within anadromous salmonid rivers of California have increased in recent years. Much of this work is intended as mitigation in regulated streams where salmon and steelhead spawning habitat is inaccessible or degraded due to dams, water diversions and channelization. Little research has been done to assess the benefits of spawning habitat enhancement to stream organisms other than salmon. We monitored benthic macroinvertebrates at seven spawning gravel augmentation sites in the lower Mokelumne River, a regulated stream in the Central Valley of California. Placement of cleaned floodplain gravel decreased depths and increased stream velocities. Benthic organisms colonized new gravels quickly, equalling densities and biomass of unenhanced spawning sites within 4 weeks. Macroinvertebrate species richness equalled that of unenhanced sites within 4 weeks and diversity within 2 weeks. Standing crop, as indicated by densities and dry biomass, was significantly higher in enhancement sites after 12 weeks than in unenhanced sites and remained so over the following 10 weeks. Although mobile collector/browsers initially dominated new gravels, sedentary collectors were the most common feeding category after 4 weeks, similar to unenhanced sites. These data suggest that cleaned gravels from adjacent floodplain materials, used to enhance salmonid spawning sites, are quickly incorporated into the stream ecosystem, benefiting benthic macroinvertebrate densities and dry biomass. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Near and far-field focusing with holographic two-dimensional tapered leaky-wave spiral antennas

The design of two near and far-field printed-slots spiral antennas working at 10GHz is reported in this work. By properly modulating the radial separation between the slots and its width, it is shown how the TM0 leaky-mode pointing angle and leakage rate can be adequately tapered to efficiently synthesize focused near and far-field patterns, while keeping a flat single-layer low-profile planar antenna design which is simply fed by a vertical coaxial probe. The far-field operation has been reached using the split condition in which the alpha and beta constants are equal. The two designs are based on an Archimedean-spiral shaped modulated slot to offer circular transverse polarization of the focused fields. An analysis in frequency shows that the near-field antenna has the ability to generate frequency steerable near-field focusing patterns. Simulation results are reported in this paper, showing that high radiation (more than 75%), illumination and focusing efficiency (more than 70% and 25% for near and far-field respectively) can be achieved and agree with the theoretical values.
The art of rendering sounds from emergent behaviour: cellular automata granular synthesis

The author introduces Chaosynth, an innovative sound synthesis system that employs a granular synthesis method coupled with cellular automata modelling. The system is capable of producing sounds that cannot be realised with physical acoustic instruments and yet the results sound pleasing and musical. After a short introduction to granular synthesis, we demonstrate how we employed cellular automata to control the parameters of the synthesiser and justify the reasons for doing so. Next, we propose an alternative taxonomy for Chaosynth's sounds. The paper is illustrated with auditory examples and the results are backed up by a prize winning piece of electroacoustic music composed using Chaosynth sounds.
Effect of Hyperglycemia on Purinergic and Nitrergic Inhibitory Neuromuscular Transmission in the Antrum of the Stomach: Implications for Fast Gastric Emptying

Background Hyperglycemia has been reported to enhance vagovagal reflex that causes the release of inhibitory neurotransmitter, nitric oxide (NO), at the neuromuscular junction in the antrum to relax the antrum and slow gastric emptying by stimulating glucose-sensitive afferent neurons. However, hyperglycemia has also been reported to cause fast gastric emptying that may be due to suppression of the inhibitory motor neurons. Aims The purpose of the present study was to investigate changes in inhibitory neuromuscular transmission in the gastric antrum due to hyperglycemia. Methods Inhibitory electrical junction potentials were recorded from gastric antral muscle strips, using intracellular electrodes under non-adrenergic, non-cholinergic conditions. Studies were performed in non-hyperglycemic NOD (NH-NOD), NOD mice as they develop hyperglycemia (H-NOD) and their age-matched controls. The purinergic inhibitory junction potential (pIJP) and nitrergic IJP (nIJP) were isolated pharmacologically. Results The control pIJP was large, around −18 mV and nIJP was small, around −9 mV. In NH-NOD the IJPs were not affected, but in H-NOD pIJP was nearly abolished and nIJP was significantly reduced. In H-NOD mice, membrane hyperpolarization caused by exogenous α,β-MeATP or diethylenetriamine NO adduct was similar to that in wild-type controls (P > 0.05). H-NOD smooth muscles were significantly depolarized as compared to NH-NOD smooth muscles. Conclusion These observations show that hyperglycemia causes suppression of purinergic and nitrergic transmission by acting on the motor neurons that form the last neuron in the vagovagal circuit. Moreover, the loss the neurotransmission is due to a defect in neurotransmitter release rather than a defect in signal transduction. Hyperglycemia also causes depolarization of smooth muscles that may increase their excitability.
Uncertain aims and tacit negotiation: birth control practices in Britain, 1925-50.

Evidence from oral history interviews is used to suggest the need to reevaluate our understanding of the dynamics of fertility decisions and behavior in the first half of the twentieth century. Those interviewed stressed their vague and haphazard approach to contraceptive use, in sharp contrast to the dominant depiction in studies of fertility decline that emphasize the degree to which individuals made deliberate and calculated choices about family size based on an assessment of the costs and benefits of childrearing. Details of individual contraceptive strategies elucidate the complexities of birth control behavior: couples, lacking explicit aims for family limitation, adopted diverse methods of birth control, using them for different reasons, at different times, with varying degrees of determination and confidence and frequently with very little direct discussion or planning. Explicit articulation of aims was not a necessary prerequisite of the spread of birth control; accepted gender roles meant that responsibilities and obligations emerged gradually and tacitly. As a result, nevertheless, low fertility was effectively achieved.
Hospital use, institutionalisation and mortality associated with delirium.

BACKGROUND Delirium is a disorder affecting consciousness, which gives rise to core clinical features and associated symptoms. Older patients are particularly prone, owing to higher rates of pre-existing cognitive impairment, frailty, co-morbidity and polypharmacy. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to investigate the hypotheses that delirium affects the most vulnerable older adults and is associated with long-term adverse health outcome. METHODS This prospective cohort study evaluated 278 medical patients aged > or = 75 years admitted acutely to a district general hospital in South Wales. Patients were screened for delirium at presentation and on alternate days throughout their hospital stay. Assessments also included illness severity, preadmission cognition, co-morbidity and functional status. Patients were followed for 5 years to determine rates of institutionalisation and mortality. Number of days in hospital in the 4 years prior to and 5 years after index admission were recorded. RESULTS Delirium was detected in 103 patients and excluded in 175. Median time to death was 162 days (interquartile range 21-556) for those with delirium compared with 1,444 days (25% mortality 435 days, 75% mortality>5 years) for those without (P < 0.001). After adjusting for multiple confounders, delirium was associated with an increased risk of death (hazard ratio range 2.0-3.5; P < or = 0.002). Institutionalisation was higher in the first year following delirium (P = 0.03). While those with delirium tended to be older with more preadmission cognitive impairment, greater functional dependency and more co-morbidity, they did not spend more days in hospital in the 4 years prior to index admission. CONCLUSIONS Delirium is associated with high rates of institutionalisation and an increased risk of death up to 5 years after index event. Prior to delirium, individuals seem to compensate for their vulnerability. The impact of delirium itself, directly or indirectly, may convert vulnerability into adverse outcome.
Cognitive/affective and somatic/affective symptoms of depression in patients with heart disease and their association with cardiovascular prognosis: a meta-analysis

Background Several prospective longitudinal studies have suggested that somatic/affective depressive symptoms, but not cognitive/affective depressive symptoms, are related to prognosis in patients with heart disease, but findings have been inconsistent. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of cognitive/affective and somatic/affective symptoms of depression with cardiovascular prognosis in patients with heart disease using a meta-analytic perspective. Method A systematic search was performed in PubMed, EMBASE and PsycInfo. Thirteen prospective studies on symptom dimensions of depression and cardiovascular prognosis fulfilled the inclusion criteria, providing data on a total of 11 128 subjects. The risk estimates for each dimension of depressive symptoms, demographic and methodological variables were extracted from the included articles. Results In least-adjusted analyses, both the somatic/affective [hazard ratio (HR) 1.30, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19–1.41, p < 0.001] and cognitive/affective (HR 1.07, 95% CI 1.00–1.15, p = 0.05) dimensions of depressive symptoms were associated with cardiovascular prognosis. In fully adjusted analyses, somatic/affective symptoms were significantly associated with adverse prognosis (HR 1.19, 95% CI 1.10–1.29, p < 0.001) but cognitive/affective symptoms were not (HR 1.04, 95% CI 0.97–1.12, p = 0.25). An increase of one standard deviation (±1 s.d.) in the scores of the somatic/affective dimension was associated with a 32% increased risk of adverse outcomes (HR 1.32, 95% CI 1.17–1.48, p < 0.001). Conclusions Somatic/affective depressive symptoms were more strongly and consistently associated with mortality and cardiovascular events in patients with heart disease compared with cognitive/affective symptoms. Future research should focus on the mechanisms by which somatic/affective depressive symptoms may affect cardiovascular prognosis.
Rihamark: perceptual image hash benchmarking

We identify which hash function has the best characteristics for various applications. In some of those the computation speed may be the most important, in others the ability to distinguish similar images, and sometimes the robustness of the hash against attacks is the primary goal. We compare the hash functions and provide test results. The block mean value based image hash function outperforms the other hash functions in terms of speed. The discrete cosine transform (DCT) based image hash function is the slowest. Although the Marr- Hildreth operator based image hash function is neither the fastest nor the most robust, it offers by far the best discriminative abilities. Interestingly enough, the performance in terms of discriminative ability does not depend on the content of the images. That is, no matter whether the visual appearance of the images compared was very similar or not, the performance of the particular hash function did not change significantly. Different image operations, like horizontal flipping, rotating or resizing, were used to test the robustness of the image hash functions. An interesting result is that none of the tested image hash function is robust against flipping an image horizontally.
An active contour model for measuring the area of leg ulcers

Leg ulcers are chronic skin a wounds that affect many people and take a long time to heal. The progress of wound healing and the effect of clinical treatments can he monitored partly by measuring the area of the wound. Measurements taken via manually based methods, such as using a computer pointing device to delineate the wound boundary in a digitized image, suffer from variations due to manual dexterity and differences of opinion between observers. An active contour model is presented that models the contour using piecewise B-spline arcs and uses the minimax principle to adaptively regularize the contour according to the local conditions in the wound image. The model makes use of the existing manual delineation process in order to initialize the solution and is shown to reduce the effect of the inherent variations upon the repeatability and consistency of area measurements in many cases.
A Geometry Deformation Model for Braided Continuum Manipulators

Continuum manipulators have gained significant attention in the robotic community due to their high dexterity, deformability and reachability. Modeling of such manipulators has been shown to be very complex and challenging. Despite many research attempts, a general and comprehensive modeling method is yet to be established. In this paper, for the first time, we introduce the bending effect in the model of a braided extensile pneumatic actuator with both stiff and bendable threads. Then, the effect of the manipulator cross section deformation on the constant curvature and variable curvature models is investigated using simple analytical results from a novel geometry deformation method and is compared to experimental results. We achieve 24% simulation accuracy using our constant curvature model for a braided continuum manipulator in presence of body load and 10% error using our variable curvature model in presence of extensive external loads. With proper model assumptions and taking to account the cross section deformation, an 8-20% increase in the simulation accuracy is achieved compared to a fixed cross section model. The presented models can be used for the exact modeling and design optimization of compound continuum manipulators by providing an analytical tool for the sensitivity analysis of the manipulator performance. Our main aim is the application in minimal invasive manipulation with limited workspaces and manipulators with regional tuneable stiffness in their cross section.
The Cochrane Collaboration: pain, palliative and supportive care

The Cochrane Collaboration is an international organization that aims to help people make well-informed decisions about healthcare by preparing, maintaining and promoting the accessibility of systematic reviews of the effects of healthcare interventions. It is a not-for-profit organization, registered as a charity in the UK. The collaboration was named after the prominent clinician `Dr Archie Cochrane’. Archie Cochrane, who had a profound influence on the practice of medicine and on the evaluation of medical interventions, was probably the first to set out clearly the vital importance of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in assessing the effectiveness of treatments, and the importance of systematic reviews in identifying and analysing RCTs for a specific intervention. Cochrane was familiar with issues in palliative care as this extract from his autobiography illustrates
Low-temperature protein dynamics studied by the long-lived stimulated photon echo

The spectral diffusion of Zn-substituted cytochrome c in a glycerol/water host glass has been investigated on a time scale from picoseconds to milliseconds using photon echoes. The results are interpreted within the two-level system model and by using the concept of conformational protein substates. The experiments reveal a gap in the distribution function of two-level system relaxation rates between 1 MHz and 10 kHz. Evidence is provided for the existence of two distinct types of two-level systems.
Improving Robustness of Speaker Recognition to New Conditions Using Unlabeled Data

Unsupervised techniques for the adaptation of speaker recognition are important due to the problem of condition mismatch that is prevalent when applying speaker recognition technology to new conditions and the general scarcity of labeled ‘in-domain’ data. In the recent NIST 2016 Speaker Recognition Evaluation (SRE), symmetric score normalization (Snorm) and calibration using unlabeled in-domain data were shown to be beneficial. Because calibration requires speaker labels for training, speaker-clustering techniques were used to generate pseudo-speakers for learning calibration parameters in those cases where only unlabeled in-domain data was available. These methods performed well in the SRE16. It is unclear, however, whether those techniques generalize well to other data sources. In this work, we benchmark these approaches on several distinctly different databases, after we describe our SRICON-UAM team system submission for the NIST 2016 SRE. Our analysis shows that while the benefit of S-norm is also observed across other datasets, applying speaker-clustered calibration provides considerably greater benefit to the system in the context of new acoustic conditions.
Tranexamic acid: from trauma to routine perioperative use

Purpose of review Optimizing hemostasis with antifibrinolytics is becoming a common surgical practice. Large clinical studies have demonstrated efficacy and safety of tranexamic acid (TXA) in the trauma population to reduce blood loss and transfusions. Its use in patients without pre-existing coagulopathies is debated, as thromboembolic events are a concern. In this review, perioperative administration of TXA is examined in nontrauma surgical populations. Additionally, risk of thromboembolism, dosing regimens, and timing of dosing are assessed. Recent findings Perioperative use of TXA is associated with reduced blood loss and transfusions. Thromboembolic effects do not appear to be increased. However, optimal dosing and timing of TXA administration is still under investigation for nontrauma surgical populations. Summary As part of a perioperative blood management programme, TXA can be used to help reduce blood loss and mitigate exposure to blood transfusion.
Buchberger's Algorithm and the Two-Locus, Two-Allele Model

The present paper uses results from algebraic geometry to study the classical model describing the equilibrium frequencies of the four gametic types in the two-locus, two-allele genetic model under the assumption that the fitnesses are constant and that the cis- and trans- fitnesses are equal. It shows that there is a finite process for determining an upper bound on the maximum number of equilibrium frequencies for almost all choices of recombination and fitness parameters, and that this number is finite. It also shows that the solutions are locally continuous for almost all choices of parameters. The paper studies the equilibrium frequencies as functions of the recombination parameter, with attention to the cases when the recombination becomes infinite and when one of the equilibrium frequencies becomes infinite.
DNA repair in competent cells of Bacillus subtilis

A series of isogenic transformable strains of Bacillus subtilis carrying the uvr-19 or rec-43 mutation or both were constructed. Both mutations made competent cells defective in repairing UV-irradiated cellular or transforming DNA, and their effects were additive in a doubly deficient strain, suggesting that two repair processes, requiring uvr-19+ and rec-43+ gene products, are independently functional in competent cells of B. subtilis.