Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interactive effects of altered rainfall and simulated nitrogen deposition on seedling establishment in a global biodiversity hotspot

Understanding the interactive effects of global change drivers on vegetation is critical for ecosystem management and restoration, particularly in the Mediterranean-climate biodiversity hotspots of the world. Climate change, habitat loss and nitrogen deposition have been identified as the key threats to biodiversity loss in these regions, yet their combined effects are poorly understood. We measured the interactive effects of rainfall manipulation (reduction, control, addition) and nitrogen deposition (N addition, N 1 P addition, and unfertilised) on the establishment of 19 Banksia-woodland species planted at three sites in southwestern Australia. Seedling survival and aboveground biomass was increased with water addition but was not affected by rainfall reduction. N addition alone did not impact seedling survival and growth, but interacted with rainfall manipulation and site in unpredictable ways. Treatment effects were context dependent, which we attributed to historic nutrient enrichment and competitive exotic species that prevented seedling establishment. Plant species (n 5 6) varied greatly in their water-use efficiency and nitrogen-use efficiency responses to the imposed treatments, which underscores the difficulty of generalising results to larger numbers of species. Despite our finding that rainfall manipulation and nutrient addition have complex, and in some cases antagonistic effects on seedling survival and growth in Banksia woodlands, our results suggest that local context (i.e. invasive species, land-use history) will have as much influence on seedling establishment as global changes in climate and nitrogen deposition. We call for more field experiments and predictive models to explore further the importance of ecological context in determining the interactive effects of multiple global change drivers on ecosystems. Finally, to realize effective biodiversity conservation, local management interventions that address invasive species and associated habitat degradation will be as critical in the future as they are now.
A Secure Symmetric Image Encryption Based on Bit-wise Operation

This paper shows a symmetric image encryption based on bit-wise operation (XORing and Shifting). The basic idea is block ciphering (size of each block is 4 bytes) technique to cipher the secret bytes, after that ciphered bytes are again shuffled among N positions (N is the size of secret file). The scheme is combination of substitution as well as transposition techniques which provides additional protection of the secret data. The substitution and transposition are done using dynamic substitution box (SBOX) and transposition box (TBOX) which are generated using the secret key and made to vary for each block during ciphering. The size of encrypted data is same as the size of secret data and the proposed scheme has been tested using different images. We have also presented the security analysis such as key sensitivity analysis, statistical analysis, and differential analysis to prove the strength of our algorithm against crypto analysis.
The Prevalence Of Cervical Regulatory T Cells in HPV‐Related Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN) Correlates Inversely with Spontaneous Regression of CIN

Local adaptive cervical regulatory T cells (Tregs) are the most likely direct suppressors of the immune eradication of cervical intraepithelial lesion (CIN). PD‐1 expression on T cells induces Tregs. No studies have quantitatively analyzed the Tregs and PD‐1+ cells residing in CIN lesions.
Neuroprotective Effect of Memantine in Different Retinal Injury Models in Rats

PurposeTo evaluate the neuroprotective effect of memantine, an NMDA receptor channel blocker, in two retinal ganglion cell (RGC) injury models in rats. MethodsNeuroprotective effect of memantine was tested in partial optic nerve injury and chronic ocular hypertensive models. In the optic nerve injury model, memantine (0.1 – 30 mg/kg) was injected intraperitoneally immediately after injury. Two weeks later, optic nerve function was determined by measuring compound action potential and surviving RGC was determined by retrograde labeling with dextran tetramethyl rhodamine. Chronic ocular hypertension was attained by laser photocoagulation of episcleral and limbal veins. Memantine (5 or 10 mg/kg) was administered continuously each day with an osmotic pump, either immediately after or 10 days after first laser photocoagulation, for 3 weeks, after which RGC survival was determined. ResultsTwo weeks after partial optic nerve injury, there was ≈80% reduction in RGC number. Memantine (5 mg/kg) caused a twofold increase in compound action potential amplitude and a 1.7-fold increase in survival of RGCs, respectively. In the chronic ocular hypertension model there was 37% decrease in RGCs after 3 weeks of elevated intraocular pressure. Memantine (10 mg/kg daily) reduced ganglion cell loss to 12% when applied immediately after first laser photocoagulation, and prevented any further loss when applied 10 days after first laser photocoagulation. ConclusionThe protective effect of memantine suggests that excessive stimulation of NMDA receptors by glutamate is involved in causing cell damage in these RGC injury models.
Analytical expression for temporal width characterization of radiation-induced pulse noises in SOI CMOS logic gates

Radiation-induced pulse noises called single-event transients, SETs, are becoming a serious soft-error source for logic VLSIs. Analytical models explicitly expressing the relationship between the pulse width and radiation/device/circuit parameters are desired as guidelines to develop optimized countermeasures. A simple mathematical expression is devised for characterizing SET pulse widths in SOI CMOS technologies. It is based on the physical mechanisms of the SETs and on the idea of Moll's storage time. Device simulations demonstrate that the expression explains pulse-width trends properly for large radiation-induced noise charges.
Feeding the Future ’ s Cities : Challenges in an Uncertain World

Many areas of the developing world are experiencing a massive inflow of people from rural areas into urban areas. In some countries, this is giving rise to “megacities,” cities with 10 million inhabitants or more. The growth of some of the megacities is not in response to economic opportunity (i.e., a surplus of jobs), rather, it is a matter of basic survival prospects and often results in people merely swapping rural poverty for urban poverty. One of the biggest challenges facing these megacities will be providing access to sufficient and nutritious food. We present a paper in response to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s topic of “Understanding complex food systems meeting urban food needs – methodological approaches and disciplinary contributions. ” Specifically, we will (1) briefly examine the rise of megacities and compare and contrast some of the challenges facing them in developed and developing countries, (2) examine the connection between food systems and community resilience, (3) examine how external events such as climate change and political conflict can impact the food and community nexus, and (4) discuss approaches on how decision support tools can be used to assess the system issues associated with meeting food needs and how vulnerabilities in the food production and distribution networks can be assessed in order to support the food and community resilience cycle.
Modulation of Murine Macrophage Metabolism by Glycolipids: Inhibition of LPS‐Induced Metabolism by Specific Gangliosides

We have investigated the ability of gangliosides isolated from murine brain to modulate macrophage metabolism. LPS elicits a profound increase in glucose consumption by cultured resident macrophages. When highly purified mouse brain gangliosides are added to macrophage cultures, a modest inhibition of baseline glucose utilization occurs. Both disialogangliosides and trisialogangliosides mediate this effect. In the absence of serum, these gangliosides may be toxic to cultured macrophages. GT1b is the only brain ganglioside tested that specifically inhibited LPS‐induced macrophage metabolism. Sialic acid appears to be a necessary component of the gangliosides, although it is not sufficient to induce inhibition. Asialoganglioside and free sialic acid have no effect on macrophage metabolism in comparison with intact gangliosides. The inhibition of LPS‐induced metabolism may be explained by the ability of LPS to form stable molecular complexes with both disialogangliosides and trisialogangliosides. These experiments also suggest that the ganglioside content of macrophages may influence functional responses of macrophages to exogenous stimuli.
Self-adhesive microculture system for extended live cell imaging

Abstract Gas permeable and biocompatible soft polymers are convenient for biological applications. Using the soft polymer poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), we established a straightforward technique for in-house production of self-adhesive and optical grade microculture devices. A gas permeable PDMS layer effectively protects against medium evaporation, changes in osmolarity, contamination and drug diffusion. These chip-based devices can be used effectively for long term mammalian cell culture and support a range of bioassays used in pharmacological profiling of anti-cancer drugs. Results obtained on a panel of hematopoietic and solid tumor cell lines during screening of investigative anti-cancer agents corresponded well to those obtained in a conventional cell culture on polystyrene plates. The cumulative correlation analysis of multiple cell lines and anti-cancer drugs showed no adverse effects on cell viability or cell growth retardation during microscale static cell culture. PDMS devices also can be custom modified for many bio-analytical purposes and are interfaced easily with both inverted and upright cell imaging platforms. Moreover, PDMS microculture devices are suitable for extended real time cell imaging. Data from the multicolor, real time analysis of apoptosis on human breast cancer MCF-7 cells provided further evidence that elimination of redundant centrifugation/washing achieved during microscale real time analysis facilitates preservation of fragile apoptotic cells and provides dynamic cellular information at high resolution. Because only small reaction volumes are required, such devices offer reduced use of consumables as well as simplified manipulations during all stages of live cell imaging.
A variable-bandwidth, power-scalable optical receiver front-end in 65 nm

This work presents the design and simulated performance of a variable bandwidth, power-scalable optical receiver front-end in 65 nm CMOS technology. The proposed receiver front-end includes a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and 3-stage post-amplifier with an offset compensation loop. The proposed TIA is based on the shunt feedback topology while the post amplifier and the offset-compensation loop use the Cherry-Hooper inverter-based topology. In order to make the receiver power and bandwidth scalable a binary-weighted current-controlled MOSFET array and a tunable resistance bank are also proposed. The receiver front-end can vary the supported data rate from 1.25 Gb/s to 20 Gb/s with proportional power dissipation with a constant gain of ~75 dBΩ. The overall power dissipation varies from 0.32 mW to 13.5 mW as the data rate scales maintaining an energy per bit lower than 700 fJ at all data rates. The variable 3 dB bandwidth is from 0.85 GHz to 13.5 GHz with input referred noise density from 8.46 pA/√(Hz) to 18 pA/√(Hz). With the offset-compensation loop active, the dc operating point of the receiver front-end requires 140 ps to settle when the data rate is reconfigured from 1.25 Gb/s to 20 Gb/s.
Research on sentiment analysis of financial texts

With the rapid development of Internet technology, online documents on the Internet have become an important source of information. In particular, web financial texts have become vital source of financial information. As a result of the large amount of financial information on the Internet, ordinary users are unable to easily filter out v 1 aluable financial information in a short time, and relying solely on human resources cannot maximize the abundant information resources. To meet the various search requirements of users; reduce the time for collecting, filtering, and processing information; and improve user search efficiency, this study aims to employ two new non-subject dimensions of financial texts, namely, genre and sentiment, according to financial information retrieval habits and the different demands of users. Financial texts are divided into genres on the basis of the characteristics of financial texts to produce various characteristic items and provide effective text feature representation. Support vector machine is adopted to classify financial texts according to genre. With regard to the sentient analysis of texts, a financial text attribute extraction algorithm based on the Apriori algorithm is proposed to extract textual attributes and construct a financial sentiment lexicon. A financial text sentiment analysis algorithm is designed on the basis of the calculation rules of sentiment intensity to analyze affective disposition and the sentiment intensity of texts.
Evaluation of a clinical skills orientation program for residents.

OBJECTIVE Our purpose was to implement and evaluate an orientation program for residents, focusing on outpatient clinical skills. STUDY DESIGN Eleven of 12 residents participated in a clinical skills orientation program immediately preceding the academic year. The skill stations included evaluation of abnormal uterine bleeding, intrauterine device insertion, basic infertility evaluation, endometrial and vulvar biopsies, pelvic organ prolapse quantification examination, hysterosalpingography and office hysteroscopy, ultrasound scanning, labor and delivery triage, and clinic administrative responsibilities. Before test, after test, and anonymous resident evaluations were used to evaluate the program. RESULTS First-year residents demonstrated a statistically significant increase in posttest scores compared to pretest scores (42.5% vs 71.3%, P=.003). Only first-year resident posttest scores for the labor and delivery triage and basic infertility evaluation stations demonstrated statistically significant increases over pretest scores (14.3% vs 46.4%, P=.009; and 41.7% vs 83.3%, P=.049, respectively). Sixty-four percent of the residents rated the program as "very helpful. " Most residents felt that the program was well organized and that the facilities were conducive to learning; all of the participants recommended an annual clinical orientation program. CONCLUSION A clinical skills orientation program was well received and strongly desired by residents. First-year residents appeared to benefit the most from this orientation.
A Comprehensive Retinal Image Dataset for the Assessment of Glaucoma from the Optic Nerve Head Analysis

Optic nerve head (ONH) segmentation problem is of interest for automated glaucoma assessment. Although various segmentation methods have been proposed in the recent past, it is difficult to evaluate and compare the performance of individual methods due to a lack of a benchmark dataset. The assessment involves segmentation of optic disk and cup region within the ONH. In this paper, we present a comprehensive dataset of retinal images of both normal and glaucomatous eyes with manual segmentations from multiple human experts. The dataset also provides expert opinion on an image representing a normal or glaucomatous eye and on the presence of notching in an image. Several state of the art methods are assessed against this dataset using cup to disc diameter ratio (CDR), area and boundary-based evaluation measures. These are presented to aid benchmarking of new methods. A supervised, notch detection method based on the segmentation results is also proposed and its assessment results are included for benchmarking.
Human Lactoferricin Is Partially Folded in Aqueous Solution and Is Better Stabilized in a Membrane Mimetic Solvent

ABSTRACT Lactoferricins are highly basic bioactive peptides that are released in the stomach through proteolytic cleavage of various lactoferrin proteins. Here we have determined the solution structure of human lactoferricin (LfcinH) by conventional two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance methods in both aqueous solution and a membrane mimetic solvent. Unlike the 25-residue bovine lactoferricin (LfcinB), which adopts a somewhat distorted antiparallel β sheet, the longer LfcinH peptide shows a helical content from Gln14 to Lys29 in the membrane mimetic solvent but a nonexistent β-sheet character in either the N- or C-terminal regions of the peptide. The helical characteristic of the LfcinH peptide resembles the conformation that this region adopts in the crystal structure of the intact protein. The LfcinH structure determined in aqueous solution displays a nascent helix in the form of a coiled conformation in the region from Gln14 to Lys29. Numerous hydrophobic interactions create the basis for the better-defined overall structure observed in the membrane mimetic solvent. The 49-residue LfcinH peptide isolated for these studies was found to be slightly longer than previously reported peptide preparations and was found to have an intact peptide bond between residues Ala11 and Val12. The distinct solution structures of LfcinH and LfcinB represent a novel difference in the physical properties of these two peptides, which contributes to their unique physiological activities.
Characterization and quantification of curvature using independent coordinates method in the human left ventricle by magnetic resonance imaging to identify the morphology subtype of hypertrophy cardiomyopathy

The patterns of ventricular hypertrophy are critical determinants of blood flow and function, but are variable. Therefore, it is clinically relevant to assess the hypertrophic shape patterns to better characterize and identify the morphological subtypes. We proposed and developed an independent coordinates method (ICM) to quantify the regional shape of the left ventricle in terms of curvature. 19 normal subjects and 5 HCM (hypertrophic cardiomyopathy) patients with different morphological subtype (i.e., septal hypertrophy, mid-ventricular hypertrophy, reverse curvature septum hypertrophy and sig-moid septum hypertrophy) were recruited and underwent magnetic resonance scans. The curvature along the endocardial and epicardial surface was computed using ICM method and was compared in HCM patients against normal subjects. The results showed that curvature plots are variable in different morphological subtype. The curvature pattern demonstrated the utilities in delineating different subtype. In conclusion, ICM method to quantify regional curvature of the left ventricle from magnetic resonance imaging are feasible in normal subjects and those with hypertrophy cardiomyopathy, which may serve as a novel approach to depict local shape of the left ventricle and to assess the morphological subtype in clinical practice.
Automated Algorithm Selection on Continuous Black-Box Problems by Combining Exploratory Landscape Analysis and Machine Learning

In this article, we build upon previous work on designing informative and efficient Exploratory Landscape Analysis features for characterizing problems' landscapes and show their effectiveness in automatically constructing algorithm selection models in continuous black-box optimization problems. Focusing on algorithm performance results of the COCO platform of several years, we construct a representative set of high-performing complementary solvers and present an algorithm selection model that, compared to the portfolio's single best solver, on average requires less than half of the resources for solving a given problem. Therefore, there is a huge gain in efficiency compared to classical ensemble methods combined with an increased insight into problem characteristics and algorithm properties by using informative features. The model acts on the assumption that the function set of the Black-Box Optimization Benchmark is representative enough for practical applications. The model allows for selecting the best suited optimization algorithm within the considered set for unseen problems prior to the optimization itself based on a small sample of function evaluations. Note that such a sample can even be reused for the initial population of an evolutionary (optimization) algorithm so that even the feature costs become negligible.
Analysis of Engagement and User Experience with a Laughter Responsive Social Robot

We explore the effect of laughter perception and response in terms of engagement in human-robot interaction. We designed two distinct experiments in which the robot has two modes: laughter responsive and laughter non-responsive. In responsive mode, the robot detects laughter using a multimodal real-time laughter detection module and invokes laughter as a backchannel to users accordingly. In non-responsive mode, robot has no utilization of detection, thus provides no feedback. In the experimental design, we use a straightforward question-answer based interaction scenario using a back-projected robot head. We evaluate the interactions with objective and subjective measurements of engagement and user experience.
An evaluation of numerical integration algorithms for the estimation of the area under the curve (AUC) in pharmacokinetic studies

Six numerical integration algorithms based on linear and log trapezoidal methods as well as four cubic‐spline methods were proposed for estimation of area under the curve (AUC). These six different algorithms were implemented using IMSL/IDLTM command language and evaluated using data simulated under five different dosing conditions and two different sampling conditions. Comparisons between AUC estimations using these six different algorithms and the theoretical results were made in terms of both overall AUC values and the superimposability of the concentration‐time profiles. In well designed studies with ample data points, the algorithm based on IMSL/IDLTM function CSSHAPE with concavity preservation gave the best performance. In contrast, when the frequency of blood collection was limited, the algorithm based on the log trapezoidal rule proved to be stable with reasonable accuracy, and is recommended as the practical method for numerical interpolation and integration in pharmacokinetic studies. Algorithms based on the combination of the log trapezoidal rule and cubic‐spline methods using IMSL/IDLTM function CSSHAPE can be developed to enhance overall performance.