Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Near-Infrared Reflectance Spectroscopy–Principal Components Regression Analyses of Soil Properties

A fast and convenient soil analytical technique is needed for soil quality assessment and precision soil management. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) to predict diverse soil properties. Near-infrared reflectance spectra, obtained from a Perstrop NIR Systems 6500 scanning monochromator (Foss NIRSystems, Silver Spring, MD), and 33 chemical, physical, and biochemical properties were studied for 802 soil samples collected from four Major Land Resource Areas (MLRAs). Calibrations were based on principal component regression (PCR) using the first derivatives of optical density [log(1/R)] for the 1300- to 2500-nm spectral range. Total C, total N, moisture, cation-exchange capacity (CEC), 1.5 MPa water, basal respiration rate, sand, silt, and Mehlich III extractable Ca were successfully predicted by NIRS (r 2 > 0.80). Some Mehlich III extractable metals (Fe, K, Mg, Mn) and exchangeable cations (Ca, Mg, and K), sum of exchangeable bases, exchangeable acidity, clay, potentially mineralizable N, total respiration rate, biomass C, and pH were also estimated by NIRS but with less accuracy (r 2 = 0.80∼0.50). The predicted results for aggregation (wt% > 2, 1, 0.5, 0.25 mm, and macroaggregation) were not reliable (r 2 = 0.46∼0.60). Mehlich III extractable Cu, P, and Zn, and exchangeable Na could not be predicted using the NIRS-PCR technique (r 2 < 0.50). The results indicate that NIRS can be used as a rapid analytical technique to simultaneously estimate several soil properties with acceptable accuracy in a very short time.
A Non-invasive Method for the Determination of Liquid Injectables by Raman Spectroscopy

AbstractDrug safety has become a very important subject, and more countries have joined in the fight against counterfeit drugs. This study demonstrated a non-invasive Raman spectroscopy method that could be utilized for screening liquid injectable drugs for spurious/falsely-labeled/falsified/counterfeit medical products (SFFCs). Two problems were solved to remove the blocks in identification and quantitation: one problem was the weak API signal extraction from the non-invasive Raman spectra and the other was the problem of Raman absolute measurement. Principal component analysis (PCA) and classical least square (CLS) algorithms were performed to establish the models. Water was chosen as the “internal standard” to normalize the spectra to solve the problem of Raman absolute measurement. The results showed that the 11 positive samples and 66 negative samples were all well identified with a threshold of 0.95. One of the positive samples contained the excipient propylene glycol, which was identified successfully at the same time. The accuracy of quantitative results was approximately 5% for doxofylline liquid injectables and about 10% for the low-concentration and big glass bottle-containers of Levofloxacin Lactate and Sodium Chloride Injections as compared to the results using an HPLC method, this is satisfactory for fast screening of SFFCs. In conclusion, with the development of a database of identification and quantitation models, this method may determine liquid injectable drugs in a fast and non-invasive way and become one of the most powerful weapons against SFFCs. Graphical Abstractᅟ
Effects of Lycopene and Sodium Valproate on Pentylenetetrazol-Induced Kindling in Mice

Sodium valproate and tomato extract have been studied in different experimental models of epilepsy individually. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of lycopene on the antiepileptic effects of sodium valproate against pentylenetetrazol-induced kindling in mice. Swiss albino mice of either sex were randomly divided into 5 groups, with each group containing 8 mice. These groups were treated with pentylenetetrazol (45 mg/kg on days 8, 10, and 12 and 70 mg/kg on day 14 day, i.p.); sodium valproate (200 mg/kg, p.o.) + pentylenetetrazol; lycopene (2 mg/kg, p.o.) + sodium valproate (200 mg/kg, p.o.) + pentylenetetrazol; and lycopene (4 mg/kg, p.o.) + sodium valproate (200 mg/kg, p.o.) + pentylenetetrazol, for 14 days, respectively. After treatment, the animals were observed for 30 minutes for behavioral analysis. Subsequently, the animals were sacrificed, and their brain was removed for the biochemical estimations of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, catalase, superoxide dismutase activity, reduced glutathione, and gamma-aminobutyric acid. Significant pentylenetetrazol-induced seizure was characterized by alteration in the seizure score and latency as well as a significant increase in the levels of brain thiobarbituric acid reactive substances and a significant decrease in reduced glutathione, catalase, superoxide dismutase, and gamma-aminobutyric acid levels. Treatment with sodium valproate and lycopene significantly restored the seizure score, latency, thiobarbituric acid reactive substance, reduced glutathione, catalase, superoxide dismutase, and gamma-aminobutyric acid levels near to normal compared to pentylenetetrazol. The present study provides experimental evidence that a combination therapy of lycopene along with sodium valproate attenuated seizure and oxidative stress against pentylenetetrazol-induced kindling in mice.
Is the Comet Assay a Sensitive Procedure for Detecting Genotoxicity?

Although the Comet assay, a procedure for quantitating DNA damage in mammalian cells, is considered sensitive, it has never been ascertained that its sensitivity is higher than the sensitivity of other genotoxicity assays in mammalian cells. To determine whether the power of the Comet assay to detect a low level of genotoxic potential is superior to those of other genotoxicity assays in mammalian cells, we compared the results of Comet assay with those of micronucleus test (MN test). WTK1 human lymphoblastoid cells were exposed to methyl nitrosourea (MNU), ethyl nitrosourea (ENU), methyl methanesulfonate (MMS), ethyl methanesulfonate (EMS), bleomycin (BLM), or UVC. In Comet assay, cells were exposed to each mutagen with (Comet assay/araC) and without (Comet assay) DNA repair inhibitors (araC and hydroxyurea). Furthermore, acellular Comet assay (acellular assay) was performed to determine how single-strand breaks (SSBs) as the initial damage contributes to DNA migration and/or to micronucleus formation. The lowest genotoxic dose (LGD), which is defined as the lowest dose at which each mutagen causes a positive response on each genotoxicity assay, was used to compare the power of the Comet assay to detect a low level of genotoxic potential and that of MN test; that is, a low LGD indicates a high power. Results are summarized as follows: (1) for all mutagens studied, LGDs were MN test ≦ Comet assay; (2) except for BLM, LGDs were Comet assay/araC ≦ MN test; (3) except for UVC and MNU, LGDs were acellular assay ≦ Comet assay/araC ≦ MN test ≦ Comet assay. The following is suggested by the present findings: (1) LGD in the Comet assay is higher than that in MN test, which suggests that the power of the MN test to detect a low level of genotoxic potential is superior to that of the Comet assay; (2) for the studied mutagens, all assays were able to detect all mutagens correctly, which suggests that the sensitivity of the Comet assay and that of the MN test were exactly identical; (3) the power of the Comet assay to detect a low level of genotoxic potential can be elevated to a level higher than that of MN test by using DNA resynthesis inhibitors, such as araC and HU.
Prevalence of primary and revision total hip and knee arthroplasty in the United States from 1990 through 2002.

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to quantify the procedural rate and revision burden of total hip and knee arthroplasty in the United States and to determine if the age or gender-based procedural rates and overall revision burden are changing over time. METHODS The National Hospital Discharge Survey (NHDS) for 1990 through 2002 was used in conjunction with United States Census data to quantify the rates of primary and revision arthroplasty as a function of age and gender within the United States with use of methodology published by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Poisson regression analysis was used to evaluate the procedural rate and to determine year-to-year trends in primary and revision arthroplasty rates as a function of both age and gender. RESULTS Both the number and the rate of total hip and knee arthroplasties (particularly knee arthroplasties) increased steadily between 1990 and 2002. Over the thirteen years, the rate of primary total hip arthroplasties per 100,000 persons increased by approximately 50%, whereas the corresponding rate of primary total knee arthroplasties almost tripled. The rate of revision total hip arthroplasties increased by 3.7 procedures per 100,000 persons per decade, and that of revision total knee arthroplasties, by 5.4 procedures per 100,000 persons per decade. However, the mean revision burden of 17.5% for total hip arthroplasty was more than twice that for total knee arthroplasty (8.2%), and this did not change substantially over time. CONCLUSIONS The number and prevalence of primary hip and knee replacements increased substantially in the United States between 1990 and 2002, but the trend was considerably more pronounced for primary total knee arthroplasty. CLINICAL RELEVANCE The reported prevalence trends have important ramifications with regard to the number of joint replacements expected to be performed by orthopaedic surgeons in the future. Because the revision burden has been relatively constant over time, we can expect that a greater number of primary replacements will result in a greater number of revisions unless some limiting mechanism can be successfully implemented to reduce the future revision burden.
A Two-Constraint Approach to Risky Cybersecurity Experiment Management

— Cybersecurity research demands extensive experimentation to be validated. This experimentation is inherently risky: it may involve any combination of live malicious code, disruptive actions and connectivity to the active Internet. Previously, risky experiments were heavily contained to reduce danger to the experimental infrastructure and the Internet. We argue that such an approach unnecessarily stifles research. In this paper we explore a collaborative two-tiered risky experiment management model. It incorporates input from both experimenters and testbed operators; each party specifies constraints on their component's behavior. Experiment constraints limit behavior in ways that do not affect an experiment's validity, thus meeting usability goals. Testbed constraints build on experiment constraints to meet required safety goals. When combined, experiment and testbed constraints ensure that experiments are both useful to researchers and safe for the testbed and the Internet.
Efficient Processing of k Nearest Neighbor Joins using MapReduce

k nearest neighbor join (kNN join), designed to find k nearest neighbors from a dataset S for every object in another dataset R, is a primitive operation widely adopted by many data mining applications. As a combination of the k nearest neighbor query and the join operation, kNN join is an expensive operation. Given the increasing volume of data, it is difficult to perform a kNN join on a centralized machine efficiently. In this paper, we investigate how to perform kNN join using MapReduce which is a well-accepted framework for data-intensive applications over clusters of computers. In brief, the mappers cluster objects into groups; the reducers perform the kNN join on each group of objects separately. We design an effective mapping mechanism that exploits pruning rules for distance filtering, and hence reduces both the shuffling and computational costs. To reduce the shuffling cost, we propose two approximate algorithms to minimize the number of replicas. Extensive experiments on our in-house cluster demonstrate that our proposed methods are efficient, robust and scalable.
The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance Inflation Forecasts and Core Inflation Measures: Where Is the Information on Future Inflation?

This paper uses the forecast from a random walk model of inflation as a benchmark to test and compare the forecast performance of several alternatives of future inflation, including the Greenbook forecast by the Fed staff, the Survey of Professional Forecasters median forecast, CPI inflation minus food and energy, CPI weighted median inflation, and CPI trimmed mean inflation. The Greenbook forecast was found in previous literature to be a better forecast than other private sector forecasts. Our results indicate that both the Greenbook and the Survey of Professional Forecasters median forecasts of inflation and core inflation measures may contain better information than forecasts from a random walk model. The Greenbook's superiority appears to have declined against other forecasts and core inflation measures.
How is the Quality of Teacher Discourse Linked to Interest for Middle Years Students

My research focuses on problems of interest and engagement in science education at the junior secondary level where the literature indicates they begin to become problematic for the majority of students (Goodrum, Hackling and Rennie 2001; Osborne, Simon and Collins 2003). While major curricular reforms designed to arrest and reverse the declining interest in (school) science in recent years seemed to have generally failed to make much impression (cf. Lyons 2003), my research indicates that some science teachers are successful in engaging and motivating a diverse range of students at this level of schooling (Hanrahan 2002). Based on a cross-disciplinary model of literacy teaching (Hanrahan 1999), I suggest that this has as much to do with the implicit messages these teachers convey to their students as with their explicit handling of the disciplinary content of the curriculum. Using increasingly discourse-focused methods, I have found that these teachers break free of the restrictive communicative norms of the secondary science classrooms (cf. Lemke, 1990) to communicate positive and empowering messages to their students about science, about who and what is valued in the science classroom, and about their students’ roles as learners (Hanrahan 1999, 2002). Findings from learning environment studies of both teacher and student perceptions also strongly suggest that student outcomes (including attitudes) are related to teacher-student relationships (e.g., Wubbels 1993). Finding out how successful teachers create engaging learning environments has been the goal of my most recent research project. In particular, I have attempted to describe teacher talk that is related to positive attitudes towards science held by a diverse range of students in middle years’ classrooms. For the research related to this paper I used critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyse the teacher talk in a junior secondary classroom, looking particularly at the way the teacher combined a range of genres, discourses and styles to make science more accessible to her students. A short excerpt of text will be used to illustrate some of the findings.
Incidental Gallbladder Cancer at Cholecystectomy: When Should the Surgeon Be Suspicious?

Background:Preoperative predictors of incidental gallbladder cancer (iGBC) have been poorly defined despite the frequency with which cholecystectomy is performed. The objective of this study was to define the incidence of and consider risk factors for iGBC at cholecystectomy. Methods:The American College of Surgeons-National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) database (2005–2009) was used to identify all patients who underwent cholecystectomy (N = 91,260). Patients with an International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, diagnosis of gallbladder malignancy who underwent a laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC; n = 80,924) or open cholecystectomy (OC; n = 10,336) alone were included. Results:The incidence of iGBC was 0.19% (n = 170) for all cholecystectomy cases, but 0.05% at LC, 0.60% at LC converted to OC (P < 0.001 vs LC), and 1.13% at OC (P < 0.001 vs others). Patients undergoing OC were 17.3 times more likely to have iGBC than LC patients. Age 65 years or older, Asian or African American race, ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists) class 3 or more, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, weight loss more than 10%, alkaline phosphatase levels 120 units/L or more, and albumin levels 3.6 g/dL or less were associated with iGBC. Multiple logistic regression identified having an OC, age 65 years or older, Asian or African American race, an elevated alkaline phosphatase level, and female sex as independent risk factors. Patients with 1, 2, 3, and 4 of these factors had a 6.3-, 16.7-, 30.0-, and 47.4-fold risk of iGBC, respectively, from a zero-risk factor baseline of 0.03%. Conclusions:Surgeons' suspicion for GBC should be heightened when they are performing or converting from LC to OC and when patients are older, Asian or African American, female, and have an elevated alkaline phosphatase level.
Offline trapping of 221Fr in a magneto-optical trap from implantation of an 225Ac ion beam

We demonstrate a new technique to prepare an offline source of francium for trapping in a magneto-optical trap. Implanting a radioactive beam of 225Ac, t1/2 = 9.920(3) days, in a foil, allows use of the decay products, i.e. 221Fr, t1/2 = 288.0(4) s. 221Fr is ejected from the foil by the α decay of 225Ac. This technique is compatible with the online accumulation of a laser-cooled atomic francium sample for a series of planned parity non-conservation measurements at TRIUMF. We obtain a 34 % release efficiency for 221Fr from the recoil source based on particle detector measurements. We find that laser cooling operation with the source is 8+10-5 times less efficient than from a mass-separated ion beam of 221Fr in the current geometry. While the flux of this source is two to three orders of magnitude lower than typical francium beams from ISOL facilities, the source provides a longer-term supply of francium for offline studies.
Characterization of Hepatocellular Tumors: Value of Mangafodipir-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Purpose: To assess the value of mangafodipir trisodium-enhanced MR imaging for characterization of hepatocellular lesions. Materials and Methods: Magnetic resonance images of 41 patients with 48 histopathologically proven hepatocellular lesions (20 cases of focal nodular hyperplasia [FNH], 4 adenomas, 15 hepatocellular carcinomas [HCCs], 7 regenerative nodules, and 2 others) were retrospectively studied. Magnetic resonance imaging was performed on a 1.5-T unit (Vision, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany; ACS-NT, Philips, Best, The Netherlands) using T2-weighted, fat-saturation, turbo spin echo imaging and T1-weighted gradient echo imaging before and 20 minutes after infusion of 5 μmol/kg mangafodipir (Amersham Health, Oslo, Norway). Qualitative analysis by 4 blinded independent readers included assessment of unenhanced images and, in a second step, assessment of unenhanced and contrast-enhanced images together. Lesions were classified as benign or malignant using a 5-point scale, and readers made a specific diagnosis. Results: For characterization of hepatocellular lesions, mangafodipir-enhanced imaging was significantly superior to unenhanced imaging (P < 0.05). On receiver operating characteristic analysis, the area under the curve was 0.768 (95% confidence interval: 0.633-0.903) for unenhanced images and 0.866 (95% confidence interval: 0.767-0.966) for evaluation of unenhanced and contrast-enhanced images together (P < 0.05). Analysis of enhancement patterns aided in characterization and classification of tumors. Conclusion: Administration of mangafodipir improves the differentiation between adenoma or HCC and “nonsurgical” lesions (FNH or regenerative nodules). The accuracy for arriving at a specific diagnosis is higher when unenhanced and mangafodipir-enhanced images are considered together than for unenhanced MR images alone.
HyLog: A High Performance Approach to Managing Disk Layout

Our objective is to improve disk I/O performance in multi-disk systems supporting multiple concurrent users, such as file servers, database servers, and email servers. In such systems, many disk reads are absorbed by large in-memory buffers, and so disk writes comprise a large portion of the disk I/O traffic. LFS (Log-structured File System) has the potential to achieve superior write performance by accumulating small writes into large blocks and writing them to new places, rather than overwriting on top of their old copies (called Overwrite). Although it is commonly believed that the high segment cleaning overhead of LFS makes it a poor choice for workloads with random updates, in this paper we find that because of the fast improvement of disk technologies, LFS significantly outperforms Overwrite in a wide range of system configurations and workloads (including the random update workload) under modern and future disks. LFS performs worse than Overwrite, however, when the disk space utilization is very high due to the high cleaning cost. In this paper, we propose a new approach, the Hybrid Log-structured (Hy-Log) disk layout, to overcome this problem. Hy-Log uses a log-structured approach for hot pages to achieve high write performance, and Overwrite for cold pages to reduce the cleaning cost. We compare the performance of HyLog to that of Overwrite, LFS and WOLF (the latest improvement on LFS) under various system configurations and workloads. Our results show that, in most cases, Hylog performs comparably to the best of the other three approaches.
Task-Related Changes in Functional Properties of the Human Brain Network Underlying Attentional Control

Previous studies have demonstrated task-related changes in brain activation and inter-regional connectivity but the temporal dynamics of functional properties of the brain during task execution is still unclear. In the present study, we investigated task-related changes in functional properties of the human brain network by applying graph-theoretical analysis to magnetoencephalography (MEG). Subjects performed a cue-target attention task in which a visual cue informed them of the direction of focus for incoming auditory or tactile target stimuli, but not the sensory modality. We analyzed the MEG signal in the cue-target interval to examine network properties during attentional control. Cluster-based non-parametric permutation tests with the Monte-Carlo method showed that in the cue-target interval, beta activity was desynchronized in the sensori-motor region including premotor and posterior parietal regions in the hemisphere contralateral to the attended side. Graph-theoretical analysis revealed that, in beta frequency, global hubs were found around the sensori-motor and prefrontal regions, and functional segregation over the entire network was decreased during attentional control compared to the baseline. Thus, network measures revealed task-related temporal changes in functional properties of the human brain network, leading to the understanding of how the brain dynamically responds to task execution as a network.