Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SRUD: A simple non‐destructive method for accurate quantification of plant diversity dynamics

Predicting changes in plant diversity in response to human activities represents one of the major challenges facing ecologists and land managers striving for sustainable ecosystem management. Classical field studies have emphasized the importance of community primary productivity in regulating changes in plant species richness. However, experimental studies have yielded inconsistent empirical evidence, suggesting that primary productivity is not the sole determinant of plant diversity. Recent work has shown that more accurate predictions of changes in species diversity can be achieved by combining measures of species’ cover and height into an index of space resource utilization (SRU). While the SRU approach provides reliable predictions, it is time‐consuming and requires extensive taxonomic expertise. Ecosystem processes and plant community structure are likely driven primarily by dominant species (mass ratio effect). Within communities, it is likely that dominant and rare species have opposite contributions to overall biodiversity trends. We, therefore, suggest that better species richness predictions can be achieved by utilizing SRU assessments of only the dominant species (SRUD), as compared to SRU or biomass of the entire community. Here, we assess the ability of these measures to predict changes in plant diversity as driven by nutrient addition and herbivore exclusion. First, we tested our hypotheses by carrying out a detailed analysis in an alpine grassland that measured all species within the community. Next, we assessed the broader applicability of our approach by measuring the first three dominant species for five additional experimental grassland sites across a wide geographic and habitat range. We show that SRUD outperforms community biomass, as well as community SRU, in predicting biodiversity dynamics in response to nutrients and herbivores in an alpine grassland. Across our additional sites, SRUD yielded far better predictions of changes in species richness than community biomass, demonstrating the robustness and generalizable nature of this approach. Synthesis. The SRUD approach provides a simple, non‐destructive and more accurate means to monitor and predict the impact of global change drivers and management interventions on plant communities, thereby facilitating efforts to maintain and recover plant diversity.
Study of hydroxyapatite behaviour during sintering of 316L steel

316L stainless steel – hydroxyapatite composite biomaterials with different hydroxyapatite weight fraction in the composite were investigated. Hydroxyapatite (HAp – Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) is well known biomaterial. HAp reveals excellent chemical and biological affinity with bony tissues. On the other hand hydroxyapatite shows low mechanical properties. The combination of very good biocompatibility of hydroxyapatite and high mechanical properties of stainless steel seems to be a good solution. In presented research natural origin hydroxyapatite and 316L austenitic stainless steel were used. In this work, metal-ceramics composites were fabricated by the powder metallurgy technology (involving pressing and sintering process). Sintering was carried out at 1250C in hydrogen atmosphere. The density, porosity and hardness were investigated. Metallographic microscope and SEM were carried out in order to investigate the microstructure. The horizontal NETZSCH DIL 402E dilatometer was used to evaluate the dimensional changes and phenomena occurring during sintering. The research displayed that physical properties of sintered 316L-HAp composites decrease with increase of hydroxyapatite content. Microstructure of investigated composites consists of austenitic and probably inclusions of hydroxyapatite and heterogeneous eutectic occurring on the grain boundaries. It was shown that amount of hydroxyapatite in the powder mixtures influence the dimensional changes occurring during sintering.
Induced defences alter the strength and direction of natural selection on reproductive traits in common milkweed

Evolutionary biologists have long sought to understand the ecological processes that generate plant reproductive diversity. Recent evidence indicates that constitutive antiherbivore defences can alter natural selection on reproductive traits, but it is unclear whether induced defences will have the same effect and whether reduced foliar damage in defended plants is the cause of this pattern. In a factorial field experiment using common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca L. , we induced plant defences using jasmonic acid (JA) and imposed foliar damage using scissors. We found that JA‐induced plants experienced selection for more inflorescences that were smaller in size (fewer flowers), whereas control plants only experienced a trend towards selection for larger inflorescences (more flowers); all effects were independent of foliar damage. Our results demonstrate that induced defences can alter both the strength and direction of selection on reproductive traits, and suggest that antiherbivore defences may promote the evolution of plant reproductive diversity.
Cost of specific emergency general surgery diseases and factors associated with high-cost patients

BACKGROUND We have previously shown that overall cost of hospitalization for emergency general surgery (EGS) diseases is more than $28 billion annually and rising. The purposes of this study were to estimate the costs associated with specific EGS diseases and to identify factors associated with high-cost hospitalizations. METHODS The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma definition was used to identify hospitalizations of adult EGS patients in the 2010 National Inpatient Sample data. Cost of each hospitalization was obtained using cost-to-charge ratio in National Inpatient Sample. Regression analysis was used to estimate the cost for each EGS disease adjusted for patient and hospital characteristics. Hospitalizations with cost exceeding 75th percentile for each EGS disease were compared with lower-cost hospitalizations to identify factors associated with high cost. RESULTS Thirty-one EGS diseases resulted in 2,602,074 hospitalizations nationwide in 2010 at an average adjusted cost of $10,110 (95% confidence interval, $10,086–$10,134) per hospitalization. Of these, only nine diseases constituted 80% of the total volume and 74% of the total cost. Empyema chest, colorectal cancer, and small intestine cancer were the most expensive EGS diseases with adjusted mean cost per hospitalization exceeding $20,000, while breast infection, abdominal pain, and soft tissue infection were the least expensive, with mean adjusted costs of less than $7,000 per hospitalization. The most important factors associated with high-cost hospitalizations were the number and type of procedures performed (76.2% of variance), but a region in Western United States (11.3%), Medicare and Medicaid payors (2.6%), and hospital ownership by public or not-for-profit entities (5.6%) were also associated with high-cost hospitalizations. CONCLUSION A small number of diseases constitute a vast majority of EGS hospitalizations and their cost. Attempts at reducing the cost of EGS hospitalization will require controlling the cost of procedures. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Economic analysis, level IV.
Human Ear Localization: A Template-Based Approach

We propose a simple and yet effective technique for shape-based ear localization. The idea is based on using a predefined binary ear template that is matched to ear contours in a given edge image. To cope with changes in ear shapes and sizes, the template is allowed to deform. Deformation is achieved by dividing the template into segments. The dynamic programming search algorithm is used to accomplish the matching process, achieving very robust localization results in various cluttered and noisy setups. 
Elevated creatinine after ingestion of model aviation fuel: Interference with the Jaffe reaction by nitromethane

Abstract: A 2 years 9 month‐old‐boy who ingested model aviation fuel was found to have an elevated serum creatinine concentration of 0.53 mmol/L (normal range 0.02–0.05 mmol/L) by the Jaffe (alkaline picrate) reaction. However, when the creatinine concentration was measured using a specific enzymatic assay, it was within the normal range. It was shown that nitromethane, a constituent of aviation fuel, interferes with the Jaffe reaction, leading to a falsely elevated creatinine reading. This phenomenon has been reported only once previously and, despite its potential clinical importance, nitromethane does not appear in published lists of substances that interfere with the Jaffe reaction.
Spectral efficiency of the multipair two-way relay channel with massive arrays

We consider a multipair two-way relay channel where multiple communication pairs share the same time-frequency resource and a common relay node. We assume that all users have a single antenna, while the relay node is equipped with a very large antenna array. We consider two transmission schemes: (I) separate-training zero-forcing (ZF) and (II) a new proposed coupled-training ZF. For both schemes, the channels are estimated at the relay by using training sequences, assuming time-division duplex operation. The relay processes the received signals using ZF. With the separate-training ZF, the channels from all users are estimated separately. By contrast, with the coupledtraining ZF, the relay estimates the sum of the channels from two users of a given communication pair. This reduces the amount of resources spent in the training phase. Self-interference reduction is also proposed for these schemes. When the number of relay antennas grows large, the effects of interpair interference and self-interference can be neglected. The transmit power of each user and of the relay can be made inversely proportional to the square root of the number of relay antennas while maintaining a given quality-of-service. We derive a lower bound on the capacity which enables us to evaluate the spectral efficiency. The coupled-training ZF scheme is preferable for the high-mobility environment, while the separate-training ZF scheme is preferable for the low-mobility environment.
The Development of Intra-House Mobility, Logistics and Transfer Solutions in PASSAge

In-house mobility is a major contributor to active and healthy ageing. However, to date, many assistive technologies have focused only on individual activities and activity areas (kitchen, bathroom, etc.) and the “interconnection” between them (requiring transfer and mobility solutions) has been neglected. Therefore, the authors looked to develop such solutions within the research project PASSAge (Personalized Mobility, Assistance and Service Systems in an Ageing Society). The research method follows an iterative design and engineering approach over three years in which three periodical cyclic solutions were developed, tested (with real, elderly test persons) and optimized [1]. A test apartment (Fig. 1) was built where typical mobility obstacles could be embedded, e.g., stairs, swinging doors etc., which the elderly test persons had to navigate using existing supporting devices such as the StairWalker from Thyssenkrupp Encasa, or a door opening device from Dorma. To develop a seamless mobility chain, a mobile robot acts as a supporting system. Voice recognition or a touchscreen software, displayed on a tablet PC controls the mobile robot. Adding an automated platform to the StairWalker allows the robot to navigate the stairs completely autonomously, in order to carry the luggage in or out of the house. Through a rollator-robot-adapter, the mobile robot is able to connect to a rollator (Fig. 2, left) in order to carry this walking aid to the human user. This platform allows the user to carry a rollator automatically with the mobile robot, or at the same time when the user is using the StairWalker in order to climb the stairs (Fig. 2, right). A master PC controls the mobile robot, which can also be controlled by the tablet-PC, and is linked to the door opening system, as well as the remote controller of the StairWalker through Arduino, as shown in Fig. 3. Fig. 1. A fully functional test apartment was built at TUM to simulate and optimize the robot-assisted mobility chain.
Fully MHC-Disparate Mixed Hemopoietic Chimeras Show Specific Defects in the Control of Chronic Viral Infections1

The establishment of mixed allogeneic chimerism can induce donor-specific transplantation tolerance across full MHC barriers. However, a theoretical disadvantage of this approach is the possibility that the state of mixed chimerism might negatively affect the recipient’s immune competence to control pathogens. Previous studies using murine models have not supported this hypothesis, because they indicate that acute viral infections are cleared by chimeric animals with similar kinetics to that of unmanipulated controls. However, chronic or persistent viral infections often require a more complex and sustained response with cooperation between CD4 Th cells, CTL, and B cells for effective control. The current study indicates that profound defects become manifest in the control of chronic pathogenic infections in MHC-disparate mixed allogeneic chimeric mice. Furthermore, we show that ineffective priming of the donor-restricted CTL response leads to virus persistence, as well as severe T cell exhaustion. Our results further suggest that either T cell adoptive immunotherapy or selected MHC haplotype matching partially restore immune competence. These approaches may facilitate the translation of mixed chimerism therapeutic regimens.
Noun Sense Induction and Disambiguation using Graph-Based Distributional Semantics

We introduce an approach to unsupervised word sense induction and disam-biguation: sense representations for ambiguous words are learned from distributional evidence and subsequently used to disambiguate word instances in context. These sense representations obtained by clustering dependency-parse-based second-order similarity networks as a pivot. We then add features for disambiguation from heterogeneous sources such as window-based and sentence-wide co-occurrences, and explore various schemes to combine these complementary context clues. Our method reaches a performance comparable to the state-of-the-art unsupervised word sense disambiguation systems including top participants of the SemEval 2013 word sense induction task and a more recent state-of-the-art neural word sense induction system.
Spatial and Depth‐Dependent Variations in Magma Volume Addition and Addition Rates to Continental Arcs: Application to Global CO2 Fluxes since 750 Ma

Magma transfer from the mantle to the crust in arcs is an important step in the global cycling of elements and volatiles from Earth's interior to the atmosphere. Arc intrusive rocks dominate the total magma mass budget over extrusive rocks. However, their total volume and rate of addition is still poorly constrained, especially in continental arcs. We present lateral (forearc to backarc) and depth‐dependent (volcanics to deep crust) magma volume additions and arc‐wide magma addition rates (MARs) calculated from three continental arc crustal sections preserving magma flare‐up periods. We observe an increase in volume addition with depth and less magma added in the forearc (~15%) and backarc (~10% to 30%) compared to the main arc. Crustal‐wide MARs for each section are remarkably similar and around 0.7–0.9 km3/km2/Ma. MARs can be used to estimate CO2 fluxes from continental arcs. With initial magma CO2 contents of 1.5 wt. %, global continental arc lengths, and MARs, we calculate changes in C (Mt/year) released from continental arcs since 750 Ma. Calculated present‐day global C fluxes are similar to values constrained by other methods. Throughout the Phanerozoic, assuming equal durations of flare‐up and lull magmatism, calculated continental CO2 flux rates vary between 4 and 18 Mt C/year with highest values in the Mesozoic. These fluxes are considered minima since the intake of mantle and/or crustal carbon is not considered. Magmatic episodicity in continental arcs and changes in arc thickness and width are critical to consider when calculating MARs through time.
Genotyping‐by‐Sequencing on Pooled Samples and its Use in Measuring Segregation Bias during the Course of Androgenesis in Barley

Estimation of allelic frequencies is often required in breeding but genotyping many individuals at many loci can be expensive. We have developed a genotyping‐by‐sequencing (GBS) approach for estimating allelic frequencies on pooled samples (Pool‐GBS) and used it to examine segregation distortion in doubled haploid (DH) populations of barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). In the first phase, we genotyped each line individually and exploited these data to explore a strategy to call single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on pooled reads. We measured both the number of SNPs called and the variance of the estimated allelic frequencies at various depths of coverage on a subset of reads containing 5 to 25 million reads. We show that allelic frequencies could be cost‐effectively and accurately estimated at a depth of 50 reads per SNP using 15 million reads. This Pool‐GBS approach yielded 1984 SNPs whose allelic frequency estimates were highly reproducible (CV = 10.4%) and correlated (r = 0.9167) with the “true” frequency derived from analysis of individual lines. In a second phase, we used Pool‐GBS to investigate segregation bias throughout androgenesis from microspores to a population of regenerated plants. No strong bias was detected among the microspores resulting from the meiotic divisions, whereas significant biases could be shown to arise during embryo formation and plant regeneration. In summary, this methodology provides an approach to estimate allelic frequencies more efficiently and on materials that are unsuitable for individual analysis. In addition, it allowed us to shed light on the process of androgenesis in barley.
Degradation of Bacteria Using Pulse Plasma Discharge in Liquid Medium

The paper reports on the study of an underwater electrical pulse plasma discharge operating under relatively low discharge voltages (below 1 kV) and its utilization for degradation of bacteria contained in the liquid medium. For this purpose, a system based on wire-to-wire electrode configuration was designed. Results show the ability of the system to generate active species, observed by optical emission spectroscopy and also revealed from the change in pH of treated solution. Effective generation of these species then results in a relatively fast decomposition rate of tested organic dyes. Consequent treatment process with two types of bacteria also exhibits positive results showing successful and very fast decrease in bacteria population
Prognostic significance of Ki-67 antigen expression in non-Hodgkin's lymphomas.

BACKGROUND Non-Hodgkin's lymphomas (NHLs) are malignant tumours of the lymphoid system. Various risk factors have been described which are helpful in diagnosing, monitoring of the clinical course and predicting survival time of the patients. Proliferative activity of the tumour, measured by expression of Ki-67 antigen, is linked to the tumour proliferation rate and represents a recognised prognostic index in various tumours. In this study, the prognostic and predictive value of Ki-67 expression in NHL was evaluated. PATIENTS AND METHODS Expression of Ki-67 was examined using an immunohistochemical technique in archival paraffin-embedded sections taken from 56 previously untreated patients with diagnosed primary NHL. An attempt was made to test correlation between Ki-67 expression on one hand and clinical parameters of the patients and their survival on the other. RESULTS Expression of Ki-67 antigen was noted in 75% of the tumour cases. In the group manifesting higher Ki-67 indices, survival of the patients was significantly shorter (p = 0.03). No significant correlation could be detected between Ki-67 antigen expression and clinical or pathological parameters of the patients. CONCLUSION The results demonstrate that the most cases of NHL display the expression of Ki-67. Moreover, shortened survival was noted in patients with high expression of Ki-67.
Trabecular Bone Structure Obtained From Multislice Spiral Computed Tomography of the Calcaneus Predicts Osteoporotic Vertebral Deformities

Purpose: To compare multislice computed tomography (MSCT)-derived parameters of the trabecular bone structure of the calcaneus with bone mineral density (BMD) in their ability to differentiate between donors with and without osteoporotic fractures of the spine and to optimize CT scan protocols. Methods: Forty-two postmortem calcanei (81.2 ± 10 years) were imaged with a 16-detector row MSCT system using 4 different scan protocols varying spatial resolution (12-24 lp/cm) and radiation dose. Structural parameters of trabecular bone were derived from these images, and BMDs of the calcanei were determined using dual x-ray absorptiometry. Vertebral deformities of the spine were radiographically classified using the Spinal Fracture Index. Diagnostic performance in differentiation between donors with and without vertebral fractures was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results: There were significant case-control differences for many of the structural parameters measured (P < 0.05). The highest ROC values were found for apparent trabecular thickness using the high-resolution and high-dose protocols. Statistically significant correlations were found between most structure parameters and BMD (up to r = 0.85, P < 0.01). Conclusion: Structural parameters of trabecular bone as obtained from high-resolution MSCT images of the calcaneus can be used to differentiate between donors with and without osteoporotic vertebral fractures, using a high-resolution and high-dose CT protocol.
Orbital Cisticercosis. A Challenger for Neurologists, Ophthalmologists, Neuro-Opthalmologists, and General Practitioners

© 2013 Foyaca Sibat et al., licensee InTech. This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Orbital Cisticercosis. A Challenger for Neurologists, Ophthalmologists, NeuroOpthalmologists, and General Practitioners