Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation of Destruction Mechanisms for Heat-Resistant Coatings in Hypersonic Flows of Air Plasma

The authors present the results of investigations of degradation processes that occur in the structure of heat-resistant coating of the Si-TiSi2-MoSi2-B-Y system in hypersonic flows of air plasma. It is found that coating operating capacity at surface temperatures Tw ≤ 1820÷1830°C is provided by the structural-phase state of its microcomposite main layer and formation on the coating surface of a heterogeneous passivating protective film. It is based on borosilicate glass reinforced by rutile microneedles. The mechanism of coating destruction at Tw ≥ 1850÷1860°C is erosion loss of oxide film as well as generation and growth of gas-filled cavities at the "coating main layer–oxide film" interface. As the pressure of saturated vapor of gaseous oxidation products (SiO, CO, MoO3 and B2O3) exceeds that of the ambient, the oxide film integrity is disrupted and oxidation process becomes active. The rates of erosion loss and sublimation grow as operating temperature increases and ambient pressure decreases.
Preoperative diagnosis of benign thyroid nodules with indeterminate cytology.

BACKGROUND Approximately 15 to 30% of thyroid nodules evaluated by means of fine-needle aspiration are not clearly benign or malignant. Patients with cytologically indeterminate nodules are often referred for diagnostic surgery, though most of these nodules prove to be benign. A novel diagnostic test that measures the expression of 167 genes has shown promise in improving preoperative risk assessment. METHODS We performed a 19-month, prospective, multicenter validation study involving 49 clinical sites, 3789 patients, and 4812 fine-needle aspirates from thyroid nodules 1 cm or larger that required evaluation. We obtained 577 cytologically indeterminate aspirates, 413 of which had corresponding histopathological specimens from excised lesions. Results of a central, blinded histopathological review served as the reference standard. After inclusion criteria were met, a gene-expression classifier was used to test 265 indeterminate nodules in this analysis, and its performance was assessed. RESULTS Of the 265 indeterminate nodules, 85 were malignant. The gene-expression classifier correctly identified 78 of the 85 nodules as suspicious (92% sensitivity; 95% confidence interval [CI], 84 to 97), with a specificity of 52% (95% CI, 44 to 59). The negative predictive values for "atypia (or follicular lesion) of undetermined clinical significance," "follicular neoplasm or lesion suspicious for follicular neoplasm," or "suspicious cytologic findings" were 95%, 94%, and 85%, respectively. Analysis of 7 aspirates with false negative results revealed that 6 had a paucity of thyroid follicular cells, suggesting insufficient sampling of the nodule. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest consideration of a more conservative approach for most patients with thyroid nodules that are cytologically indeterminate on fine-needle aspiration and benign according to gene-expression classifier results. (Funded by Veracyte.).
Older Adults with Weaker Muscle Strength Stand up from a Sitting Position with More Dynamic Trunk Use

The ability to stand up from a sitting position is essential for older adults to live independently. Body-fixed inertial sensors may provide an approach for quantifying the sit-to-stand (STS) in clinical settings. The aim of this study was to determine whether measurements of STS movements using body-fixed sensors yield parameters that are informative regarding changes in STS performance in older adults with reduced muscle strength. In twenty-seven healthy older adults, handgrip strength was assessed as a proxy for overall muscle strength. Subjects were asked to stand up from a chair placed at three heights. Trunk movements were measured using an inertial sensor fixed to the back. Duration, angular range, and maximum angular velocity of STS phases, as well as the vertical velocity of the extension phase, were calculated. Backwards elimination using Generalized Estimating Equations was used to determine if handgrip strength predicted the STS durations and trunk kinematics. Weaker subjects (i.e., with lower handgrip strength) were slower during the STS and showed a larger flexion angular range and a larger extension angular range. In addition, weaker subjects showed a greater maximum angular velocity, which increased with lower seat heights. Measurements with a single inertial sensor did reveal that older adults with lower handgrip strength employed a different strategy to stand up from a sitting position, involving more dynamic use of the trunk. This effect was greatest when elevating body mass. Trunk kinematic parameters were more sensitive to reduced muscle strength than durations.
Using DNA metabarcoding for simultaneous inference of common vampire bat diet and population structure

Metabarcoding diet analysis has become a valuable tool in animal ecology; however, co‐amplified predator sequences are not generally used for anything other than to validate predator identity. Exemplified by the common vampire bat, we demonstrate the use of metabarcoding to infer predator population structure alongside diet assessments. Growing populations of common vampire bats impact human, livestock and wildlife health in Latin America through transmission of pathogens, such as lethal rabies viruses. Techniques to determine large‐scale variation in vampire bat diet and bat population structure would empower locality‐ and species‐specific projections of disease transmission risks. However, previously used methods are not cost‐effective and efficient for large‐scale applications. Using bloodmeal and faecal samples from common vampire bats from coastal, Andean and Amazonian regions of Peru, we showcase metabarcoding as a scalable tool to assess vampire bat population structure and feeding preferences. Dietary metabarcoding was highly effective, detecting vertebrate prey in 93.2% of the samples. Bats predominantly preyed on domestic animals, but fed on tapirs at one Amazonian site. In addition, we identified arthropods in 9.3% of samples, likely reflecting consumption of ectoparasites. Using the same data, we document mitochondrial geographic population structure in the common vampire bat in Peru. Such simultaneous inference of vampire bat diet and population structure can enable new insights into the interplay between vampire bat ecology and disease transmission risks. Importantly, the methodology can be incorporated into metabarcoding diet studies of other animals to couple information on diet and population structure.
Ribosomal DNA copy loss and repeat instability in ATRX-mutated cancers

Significance We demonstrate that ATRX maintains ribosomal DNA (rDNA) heterochromatin formation and stability. ATRX-depleted cells suffer extensive rDNA copy loss, resulting in a reduced ribosomal RNA transcription output and an increased sensitivity to RNA polymerase I (Pol I) inhibition. Supporting these data, we have also detected reduced rDNA copy in ATRX mutated ALT-positive human primary tumor samples and increased sensitivity of human ALT cancer cell lines to RNA Pol I transcription inhibitor. Our study highlights the therapeutic potential of Pol I transcription inhibitors for the treatment of ATRX-mutated cancers. ATRX (alpha thalassemia/mental retardation X-linked) complexes with DAXX to deposit histone variant H3.3 into repetitive heterochromatin. Recent genome sequencing studies in cancers have revealed mutations in ATRX and their association with ALT (alternative lengthening of telomeres) activation. Here we report depletion of ATRX in mouse ES cells leads to selective loss in ribosomal RNA gene (rDNA) copy number. Supporting this, ATRX-mutated human ALT-positive tumors also show a substantially lower rDNA copy than ALT-negative tumors. Further investigation shows that the rDNA copy loss and repeat instability are caused by a disruption in H3.3 deposition and thus a failure in heterochromatin formation at rDNA repeats in the absence of ATRX. We also find that ATRX-depleted cells are reduced in ribosomal RNA transcription output and show increased sensitivity to RNA polymerase I (Pol I) transcription inhibitor CX5461. In addition, human ALT-positive cancer cell lines are also more sensitive to CX5461 treatment. Our study provides insights into the contribution of ATRX loss of function to tumorigenesis through the loss of rDNA stability and suggests the therapeutic potential of targeting Pol I transcription in ALT cancers.
Phylogeny of urate oxidase producing bacteria: on the basis of gene sequences of 16S rRNA and uricase protein

Uricase or Urate oxidase (urate:oxygen oxidoreductase, EC 1.7.3.3), a peroxisomal enzyme which is found in many bacteria, catalyzes the oxidative opening of the purine ring of urate to yield allantoin, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen peroxide. In this study, the phylogeny of urate oxidase (uricase) producing bacteria was studied based on gene sequences of 16S rRNA and uricase protein. Representative and type strains (52 strains total) of most of the known species were analyzed. The acquired sequences (rDNA sequences of the 16S rRNA genes and the amino acid sequences of uricase) were aligned with the Clustal W program using MEGA software version 4.0. Phylogenetic trees were constructed with the neighbor-joining method, and were bootstrapped with 500 replications of each sequence. The large congruence of phylogenetic relationship between the uricase gene and of 16S rRNA gives considerable support to the phylogeny of urate oxidase producing bacteria which was previously suggested on the basis of 16S rRNA sequences. The observed consistency promotes the idea that each of these genes shared a common evolutionary history in uricase producing bacteria we have analyzed.
Application of global methods in parallel shooting

A new divide and conquer method is proposed. It employs a coarse grid discretization like multiple shooting does, but solves the local problems in a “BVP-way,” i.e., by some global method. A sophisticated error control is developed to combine local and global convergence of the Newton updating. An implementation based on using the collocation code COLNEW is briefly discussed and a number of examples are given to illustrate the success of the method, in particular for singular perturbation problems.
Probiotic supplementation in trained trotter horses: effect on blood clinical pathology data and urine metabolomic assessed in field

The attention of sports community toward probiotic supplementation as a way to promote exercise and training performance, together with good health, has increased in recent years. This has applied also to horses, with promising results. Here, for the first time, we tested a probiotic mix of several strains of live bacteria typically employed for humans to improve the training performance of Standardbred horses in athletic activity. To evaluate its effects on the horse performance, we measured lactate concentration in blood, a translational outcome largely employed for the purpose, combined with the study of hematological and biochemical parameters, together with urine from a metabolomics perspective. The results showed that the probiotic supplementation significantly reduced postexercise blood lactate concentration. The hematological and biochemical parameters, together with urine molecular profile, suggested that a likely mechanism underlying this positive effect was connected to a switch of energy source in muscle from carbohydrates to short-chain fatty acids. Three sulfur-containing molecules differently concentrated in urines in connection to probiotics administration suggested that such switch was linked to sulfur metabolism. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Probiotic supplementation could reduce postexercise blood lactate concentration in Standardbred horses in athletic activity. Blood parameters, together with urine molecular profile, suggest the mechanism underlying this positive effect is connected to a switch of energy source in muscle from carbohydrates to short-chain fatty acids. Sulfur-containing molecules found in urines in connection to probiotics administration suggested that such switch was linked to sulfur metabolism.
UV-vis in situ spectrometry data mining through linear and non linear analysis methods

UV-visible spectrometers are instruments that register the absorbance of emitted light by particles suspended in water for several wavelengths and deliver continuous measurements that can be interpreted as concentrations of parameters commonly used to evaluate physico-chemical status of water bodies. Classical parameters that indicate presence of pollutants are total suspended solids (TSS) and chemical demand of oxygen (CDO). Flexible and efficient methods to relate the instruments’s multivariate registers and classical measurements are needed in order to extract useful information for management and monitoring. Analysis methods such as Partial Least Squares (PLS) are used in order to calibrate an instrument for a water matrix taking into account cross-sensitivity. Several authors have shown that it is necessary to undertake specific instrument calibrations for the studied hydro-system and explore linear and non-linear statistical methods for the UV-visible data analysis and its relationship with chemical and physical parameters. In this work we apply classical linear multivariate data analysis and nonlinear kernel methods in order to mine UV-vis high dimensional data, which turn out to be useful for detecting relationships between UV-vis data and classical parameters and outliers, as well as revealing non-linear data structures.
Impact of a Fast Track in the Emergency Department of Martin Army Community Hospital

Abstract : This paper evaluates the impact of the recent implementation of a Fast Track system in the Emergency Department (ED) of Martin Army Community Hospital. A study was conducted to determine if a Fast Track system would reduce the Length of Stay (LOS) in the ED, reduce the number of patients who Left Without Being Seen (LWOBS), and improve patient satisfaction between December 2004 and December 2005. Data collected for the six months prior to and after the implementation of the Fast Track in June 2005 determined length of stay (LOS) were reduced by a mean of 48 minutes for non-urgent patients and 42 minutes for urgent patients. The number of LWOBS were reduced by an average of 0.85 patients per day. Patient satisfaction improved slightly during the period of investigation by 6 percent. Statistical analysis determined these results were significant for non-urgent patients.
Pruning the Search Space in Path-Based Test Generation

Recent advances in path-based test (data) generation open the way to the systematic testing of large scale programs. However, these technologies are still suffering from two major bottlenecks: efficient constraint solving and the path explosion phenomenon. We focus in this paper on the second issue and propose three complementary heuristics geared toward lowering path explosion. All these heuristics areboth easy to implement and lightweight, and each one deals with a distinct source of path explosion. We provide theoretical and experimental evidence that they can achieve a significant reduction in the search space.
CD44-mediated activation of α5β1-integrin, cortactin and paxillin signaling underpins adhesion of basal-like breast cancer cells to endothelium and Fibronectin-enriched matrices

CD44 expression is elevated in basal-like breast cancer (BLBC) tissue, and correlates with increased efficiency of distant metastasis in patients and experimental models. We sought to characterize mechanisms underpinning CD44-promoted adhesion of BLBC cells to vascular endothelial monolayers and extracellular matrix (ECM) substrates. Stimulation with hyaluronan (HA), the native ligand for CD44, increased expression and activation of β1-integrin receptors, and increased α5-integrin subunit expression. Adhesion assays confirmed that CD44-signalling potentiated BLBC cell adhesion to endothelium and Fibronectin in an α5B1-integrin-dependent mechanism. Co-immunoprecipitation experiments confirmed HA-promoted association of CD44 with talin and the β1-integrin chain in BLBC cells. Knockdown of talin inhibited CD44 complexing with β1-integrin and repressed HA-induced, CD44-mediated activation of β1-integrin receptors. Immunoblotting confirmed that HA induced rapid phosphorylation of cortactin and paxillin, through a CD44-dependent and β1-integrin-dependent mechanism. Knockdown of CD44, cortactin or paxillin independently attenuated the adhesion of BL-BCa cells to endothelial monolayers and Fibronectin. Accordingly, we conclude that CD44 induced, integrin-mediated signaling not only underpins efficient adhesion of BLBC cells to BMECs to facilitate extravasation but initiates their adhesion to Fibronectin, enabling penetrant cancer cells to adhere more efficiently to underlying Fibronectin-enriched matrix present within the metastatic niche.
Assessing the Risk of Orthorexia in Dietetic and Physiotherapy Students Using the BOT (Bratman Test for Orthorexia).

INTRODUCTION Orthorexia nervosa is an obsessive-compulsive focus on a "healthy" diet, which manifests as extreme concern about food content. This research was carried out in order to identify highly sensitive behaviours associated with eating a healthy diet. AIM Assessment of risk of orthorexia nervosa among dietetics students compared to physiotherapy students. MATERIAL AND METHODS Presented research was conducted among 229 dietetic students and 201 physiotherapy students. It was based on general personal characteristics, the Bratman Test for Orthorexia (BOT) and questions posed by the authors. RESULTS 26.6% of the dietetics students and only 14.9% of physiotherapy students were recognised as health food fanatics. The students of both dietetics (88.2%) and physiotherapy (52%) declared that they noticed changes in their attitude towards food after they had become students. CONCLUSIONS It has been observed that these highly sensitive behaviours towards healthy eating are very common in both surveyed groups, however with a stronger tendency among the students of dietetics.
Neural network language models for low resource languages

For resource rich languages, recent works have shown Neural Network based Language Models (NNLMs) to be an effective modeling technique for Automatic Speech Recognition, out performing standard n-gram language models (LMs). For low resource languages, however, the performance of NNLMs has not been well explored. In this paper, we evaluate the effectiveness of NNLMs for low resource languages and show that NNLMs learn better word probabilities than state-of-theart n-gram models even when the amount of training data is severely limited. We show that interpolated NNLMs obtain a lower WER than standard n-gram models, no mater the amount of training data. Additionally, we observe that with small amounts of data (approx. 100k training tokens), feed-forward NNLMs obtain lower perplexity than recurrent NNLMs, while for the larger data condition (500k-1M training tokens), recurrent NNLMs can obtain lower perplexity than feed-forward models.
N . 311 September 2011 Policymakers ’ Horizon and Trade Reforms

Does policymakers’ horizon affect their willingness to support economic reforms? Voting in the U.S. Congress provides an ideal setting to address this question. Differences between the House and Senate, in which members serve two-year and six-year mandates respectively, allow to examine the role of term length; the staggered structure of the Senate allows to compare the behavior of different “generations” of senators and study the impact of election proximity. Considering all major trade liberalization reforms undertaken by the U.S. since the early 1970’s, we find that Senate members are more likely to support them than House members. However, inter-cameral differences disappear for third-generation senators, who face re-election at the same time as House members. Considering Senate votes alone, we find that the last generation is more protectionist than the previous two and this result holds both when comparing different senators voting on the same bill, as well as individual senators voting on different bills. Inter-generational differences disappear instead for senators who hold safe seats or have announced their retirement, indicating that the protectionist effect of election proximity is driven by legislators’ fear of losing office. JEL classifications: D72, F10
Identification, Expression Analysis of the Hsf Family, and Characterization of Class A4 in Sedum Alfredii Hance under Cadmium Stress

Sedum alfredii Hance, a cadmium (Cd)/zinc (Zn)/lead (Pb) co-hyperaccumulating species, is a promising phytoremediation candidate because it accumulates substantial amounts of heavy metal ions without showing any obvious signs of poisoning. The heat shock transcription factor (Hsf) family plays crucial roles in plant growth, development, and stress responses. Although the roles of some Hsfs in abiotic stress have been well studied in model plants, the Hsf family has not been systematically investigated in heavy metal hyperaccumulators. Here, we comprehensively analyzed the Hsf gene family in S. alfredii based on a transcriptome under Cd stress. There were 22 Hsf members that were identified and phylogenetically clustered into three classes, namely, SaHsfA, SaHsfB, and SaHsfC. All of the three classes shared similar motifs. The expression profiles of the 22 Hsf members showed significant differences: 18 SaHsfs were responsive to Cd stress, as were multiple SaHsp genes, including SaHsp18.1, SaHsp22, SaHsp26.5, SaHsp70, SaHsp90, and SaHsp101. Two class A4 members, SaHsfA4a and SaHsfA4c, exhibited transcriptional activation activities. Overexpression of SaHsfA4a and SaHsfA4c in transgenic yeast indicated an improved tolerance to Cd stress and Cd accumulation. Our results suggest SaHsfs play important regulatory roles in heavy metal stress responses, and provide a reference for further studies on the mechanism of heavy metal stress regulation by SaHsfs.
Frailty in a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of middle-aged Americans in Baltimore

Frailty is a risk factor for disability and mortality, and is more prevalent among African American (AA) elderly than whites. We examine frailty in middle-aged racially and economically diverse adults, and investigate how race, poverty and frailty are associated with mortality. Data were from 2541 participants in the Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span study in Baltimore, Maryland; 35–64 years old at initial assessment (56% women; 58% AA). Frailty was assessed using a modified FRAIL scale of fatigue, resistance, ambulation, illness and weight loss, and compared with difficulties in physical functioning and daily activities. Frailty prevalence was calculated across race and age groups, and associations with survival were assessed by Cox Regression. 278 participants were frail (11%); 924 pre-frail (36%); 1339 not frail (53%). For those aged 45–54, a higher proportion of whites (13%) than AAs (8%) were frail; while the proportions were similar for those 55–64 (14%,16%). Frailty was associated with overall survival with an average follow-up of 6.6 years, independent of race, sex and poverty status (HR = 2.30; 95%CI 1.67–3.18). In this sample of economically and racially diverse older adults, the known association of frailty prevalence and age differed across race with whites having higher prevalence at younger ages. Frailty was associated with survival beyond the risk factors of race and poverty status in this middle-aged group. Early recognition of frailty at these younger ages may provide an effective method for preventing or delaying disabilities.