Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does Prey Capture Induce Area‐Restricted Search? A Fine‐Scale Study Using GPS in a Marine Predator, the Wandering Albatross

In a patchy environment, predators are expected to increase turning rate and start an area‐restricted search (ARS) when prey have been encountered, but few empirical data exist for large predators. By using GPS loggers with devices measuring prey capture, we studied how a marine predator adjusts foraging movements at various scales in relation to prey capture. Wandering albatrosses use two tactics, sit and wait and foraging in flight, the former tactic being three times less efficient than the latter. During flight foraging, birds caught large isolated prey and used ARS at scales varying from 5 to 90 km, with large‐scale ARS being used only by young animals. Birds did not show strong responses to prey capture at a large scale, few ARS events occurred after prey capture, and birds did not have high rates of prey capture in ARS. Only at small scales did birds increase sinuosity after prey captures for a limited time period, and this occurred only after they had caught a large prey item within an ARS zone. When this species searches over a large scale, the most effective search rule was to follow a nearly straight path. ARS may be used to restrict search to a particular environment where prey capture is more predictable and profitable.
Emerging drugs for diabetic retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is prevalent even among “well controlled” diabetics, and remains the commonest cause of visual loss in working age adults. Current evidence based treatments, including intensive glycemic and hypertensive control and laser photocoagulation, rarely improves visual outcomes in those with established DR. There has been an increasing focus on the underlying molecular mechanisms involved in DR, and targeted therapeutic interventions to temper their damaging effects. Methods: We review potential targets and emerging therapies for DR, including treatments currently in clinical trials. Results: Emerging therapies including inhibition of aldose reductase/polyol pathway, non-enzymatic glycation/advanced glycated end products inhibitors, protein kinase C inhibitors, and reduction of oxidative stress/superoxide induced damage. Newer drugs modulating growth factor and cytokine production (including VEGF, TNF and cytokines such as NF-kB) and newer targeted therapeutics utilising antisense oligonucleotides, and small interfering RNAs are also currently in clinical trials. Conclusions: Emerging treatments, possibly used in combination with standard therapy, offer the hope of effective and safe treatment that may allow us to improve visual outcomes and prevent the damaging consequences of DR.
AN INVESTIGATION OF DIFFERENT VIDEO WATERMARKING TECHNIQUES

Abstract Watermarking is an advanced technology that identifies to solve the problem of illegal manipulation and distribution of digital data. It is the art of hiding the copyright information into host such that the embedded data is imperceptible. The covers in the forms of digital multimedia object, namely image, audio and video. The extensive literature collected related to the performance improvement of video watermarking techniques is critically reviewed and presented in this paper. Also, comprehensive review of the literature on the evolution of various video watermarking techniques to achieve robustness and to maintain the quality of watermarked video sequences.
Subject doubling in spoken French : A sociolinguistic approach

The canonical sentence pattern is rivaled in informal French by Subject Doubling. This article reviews attitudes to doubling, and examines the frequency of the two structures in speech. Previous frequency estimates have varied greatly, partly because they have not always compared like with like. The question of "what to count" is addressed explicitly here, leading to the exclusion of the moi + je pattern. Analysis of a corpus of northern French suggests that doubling is less common than has sometimes been supposed, but younger adults use it more than older speakers, a pattern found previously for the variable omission of ne.
Ocupaciones Prehispánicas En Isla Pedro González, Archipiélago De Las Perlas, Panamá: Aproximación A Una Cronología Con Comentarios Sobre Las Conexiones Externas

Resumen Entre los años 2007 y 2010 se desarrollaron reconocimientos pedestres acompañados de sondeos y pequeñas excavaciones en el Archipiélago de Las Perlas, Panamá. Las investigaciones más intensivas se realizaron en Isla Pedro González. Esta breve síntesis preliminar de la cronología de la ocupación prehispánica de esta isla se basa en dataciones radiocarbónicas. También incluye comparaciones tipológicas y cronométricas con dos regiones culturales: Gran Coclé hacia el Oeste, donde floreció una tradición de policromía particular entre 2500 y 450 cal a.P. y el área que se constituyó como la región cultural de Gran Darién a partir de 1200–800 cal a.P. El yacimiento más antiguo en Pedro González es precerámico (6200–5600 cal a.P.). Después de un largo hiato, esta isla fue colonizada por grupos alfareros para el 2350 cal a.P. Se plantea la existencia de cinco fases cerámicas basadas en los rangos a 2σ de las dataciones radiocarbónicas, las que se traslapan entre sí. Entre 2350 y 1450 a.P. la alfarería isleña refleja la trayectoria diacrónica de la cerámica en Gran Coclé con características propias que se extienden a zonas de tierra firme hacia el Norte, así como a islas cercanas a la costa como Taboguilla. Sin embargo, entre 1450 y 1200 cal a.P., las similitudes tipológicas con la Península de Azuero, Coclé y Playa Venado (en la costa Sur del área canalera) son tan marcadas que se asume que este área comprendió brevemente una misma zona de interacción cuya homogeneidad cultural pudo estar vinculada al comercio marítimo estimulado por la importancia de las conchas de arrecife, como Spondylus. La alfarería cambia abruptamente entre 1200 y 800 cal a.P., aludiendo a una nueva población o a un reajuste en las conexiones con tierra firme con un énfasis en el litoral Este de la Bahía de Panamá y el noroeste de Colombia.
Comparison of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and Mini Mental State Examination Performance in Patients with Parkinson's Disease with w Low Educational Background

Recognition of early cognitive impairment in Parkinsons disease (PD) is important since it represents a risk factor for developing Parkinson's disease dementia and psychosis. The Mini- Mental State Examination (MMSE) remains the most commonly used screening instrument for global cognition, even though it has not been specifically validated for use in PD subjects. More recently, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test has been recommended as a better screening tool in PD. Most of these studies have been done in countries with a highly-educated population. The objective of the study is to compare the performance between the MMSE and the MoCA to screen for mild cognitive impairment in subjects with Parkinson's disease and a low education background. The MMSE and MoCA were applied to 128 subjects using a cut-off score of 26 points for cognitive impairment. Fifty-five percent were classified with cognitive impairment according to the MoCA. Forty-one percent of subjects with a normal MMSE were classified with cognitive impairment by MoCA. Results from our analysis could be directly applied to other populations with a high proportion of poorly educated subjects.
Strategies for image visualisation and browsing

Strategies for image visualisation and browsing The exploration of large information spaces has remained a challenging task even though the proliferation of database management systems and the state-of-the art retrieval algorithms is becoming pervasive. Significant research attention in the multimedia domain is focused on finding automatic algorithms for organising digital image collections into meaningful structures and providing high-semantic image indices. On the other hand, utilisation of graphical and interactive methods from information visualisation domain, provide promising direction for creating effcient user-oriented systems for image management. Methods such as exploratory browsing and query, as well as intuitive visual overviews of image collection, can assist the users in finding patterns and developing the understanding of structures and content in complex image data-sets. The focus of the thesis is combining the features of automatic data processing algorithms with information visualisation. The first part of this thesis focuses on the layout method for displaying the collection of images indexed by low-level visual descriptors. The proposed solution generates graphical overview of the data-set as a combination of similarity based visualisation and random layout approach. Second part of the thesis deals with problem of visualisation and exploration for hierarchical organisation of images. Due to the absence of the semantic information, images are considered the only source of high-level information. The content preview and display of hierarchical structure are combined in order to support image retrieval. In addition to this, novel exploration and navigation methods are proposed to enable the user to find the way through database structure and retrieve the content. On the other hand, semantic information is available in cases where automatic or semi-automatic image classifiers are employed. The automatic annotation of image items provides what is referred to as higher-level information. This type of information is a cornerstone of multi-concept visualisation framework which is developed as a third part of this thesis. This solution enables dynamic generation of user-queries by combining semantic concepts, supported by content overview and information filtering. Comparative analysis and user tests, performed for the evaluation of the proposed solutions, focus on the ways information visualisation affects the image content exploration and retrieval; how efficient and comfortable are the users when using different interaction methods and the ways users seek for information through different types of database organisation.
Health conditions, health symptoms and driving difficulties in older adults.

OBJECTIVES Previous research has indicated that age-related medical or health conditions can affect driving performance in older adults but little, if any, research has examined the mechanisms through which health conditions affect driving difficulties in older adults. DESIGN Cross-sectional, correlational study. SETTING Random sample from the community. We examined the nature of the relations among health conditions, health-related symptoms, physical fitness levels and specific types of self-reported driving difficulties in a random sample of older adults. PARTICIPANTS Three hundred eighteen adults 60 years of age or older. INTERVENTION None. MEASUREMENTS General health, health-related symptoms, driving-related difficulties and physical activity. RESULTS Our findings support the position that health-related symptoms are more clearly associated with driving difficulties than are health conditions, and mediate the relations between health conditions and driving difficulties. Health-related symptoms involving the spine and lower body appeared to be particularly relevant to difficulties with driving experienced in those body areas (i.e. spine and lower body). CONCLUSION These findings are encouraging, in that the most frequently reported symptoms are in areas highly amenable to modification and, in that most of our respondents indicated a willingness to engage in exercise if an association between fitness and driving was demonstrated.
Methyl‐accepting taxis proteins in Halobacterium halobium.

Methyl‐accepting taxis proteins were identified and characterized in Halobacterium halobium, an archaebacterial species that is both chemotactic and phototactic. The data suggest direct involvement of methylation and demethylation in mechanisms of both chemotaxis and phototaxis and identify adaptation as the sensory process in which those reactions are likely to be involved. Analysis by electrophoresis and fluorography revealed methyl‐accepting species, of apparent Mr between 90,000 and 135,000, that exhibited characteristics of sensory components. Those methyl‐3H‐labeled species were absent in a mutant blocked in taxis. Methylation of specific bands increased after positive chemostimuli and decreased after negative stimuli. Other methyl‐3H‐labeled bands, from 17 to 29 kd, exhibited features of biosynthetic intermediates, not of sensory components. Assay of rates of demethylation by measuring release of volatile forms of radiolabeled methyl groups revealed transient changes following chemo‐ or photostimuli that persisted for periods roughly equivalent to adaptation times. Negative chemostimuli induced increased rates of demethylation, as expected from fluorographic analysis, but positive chemostimuli also resulted in an increase. Photostimuli of either sign were followed by increases in rates of demethylation of shorter duration and lesser magnitude than chemostimuli‐induced increases, a relationship that corresponded to differences in adaptation time.
Use of statins and breast cancer: a meta-analysis of seven randomized clinical trials and nine observational studies.

PURPOSE A growing body of evidence suggests that statins may have chemopreventive potential against breast cancer. Laboratory studies demonstrate that statins induce apoptosis and reduce cell invasiveness in various cell lines, including breast carcinoma cells. However, the clinical relevance of these data remains unclear. The nonconclusive nature of the epidemiologic data prompted us to conduct a detailed meta-analysis of the studies published on the subject in peer-reviewed literature. PATIENTS AND METHODS A comprehensive search for articles published up until 2005 was performed; reviews of each study were conducted; and data were abstracted. Before meta-analysis, the studies were evaluated for publication bias and heterogeneity. Pooled relative risk (RR) estimates and 95% CIs were calculated using the random and the fixed-effects models. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were also performed. RESULTS Seven large randomized trials and nine observational studies (five case-control and four cohort studies) contributed to the analysis. We found no evidence of publication bias or heterogeneity among the studies. Statin use did not significantly affect breast cancer risk (fixed effects model: RR = 1.03; 95% CI, 0.93 to 1.14; random effects model: RR = 1.02; 95% CI, 0.89 to 1.18). When the analyses were stratified into subgroups, there was no evidence that study design substantially influenced the estimate of effects. Furthermore, the sensitivity analysis confirmed the stability of our results. CONCLUSION Our meta-analysis findings do not support a protective effect of statins against breast cancer. However, this conclusion is limited by the relatively short follow-up times of the studies analyzed. Further studies are required to investigate the potential decrease in breast cancer risk among long-term statin users.
Craniospinal Irradiation Using Helical Tomotherapy: Evaluation of Acute Toxicity and Dose Distribution

The purpose of this study was to evaluate acute toxicity of craniospinal irradiation (CSI) using helical tomotherapy (HT) and compare its dose distribution with that of conventional linac-based plans. Twelve patients with various brain tumors were treated with HT-CSI. Median patient age was 14 years (range: 4–37 years). Median CSI dose was 30.6 Gy in 18 fractions (range: 23.4–40 Gy in 13–25 fractions). Toxicities were assessed according to the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events version 4.0. Before CSI, 11 patients (92%) received neoadjuvant chemotherapy, so acute toxicity was evaluated by comparing patient status before and after CSI. HT-CSI plans were compared with linac-based CSI plans made using Pinnacle3 planning system in 9 patients. All patients completed planned CSI without interruption. Grade 3 or higher toxicities were leukopenia seen in 11 patients (92%), anorexia in 6 (50%), anemia in 5 (42%), and thrombopenia in 5 (42%). Administration of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, platelet transfusion and total parenteral nutrition were required in 8 (67%), 5 (42%) and 5 (42%) patients, respectively. HT plans were superior to linac-based plans in terms of homogeneity and conformality in planning target volume (PTV). For most organs at risk (OARs), volumes receiving more than 10 Gy (V10 Gy) or 20 Gy (V20 Gy) were lower in HT plans. However, HT plans significantly increased mean doses to the lung, kidneys and liver, and V5 Gy of 6 OARs including the lung. Despite intensive neoadjuvant chemotherapy, acute toxicity of HT-CSI was acceptable. HT provided better dose distribution in PTV than conventional linac. In most OARs, smaller volumes received >10–20 Gy in HT plans, although larger volumes received 5–10 Gy.
JUSTGrid : a pure Java HPCC grid architecture for multi-physics solvers using complex geometries

After the Earth Simulator, built by NEC at the Japan Marine Science and Technology Centre (JAMSTEC) on an area of 3,250 m2 (50mx65m), began it's work in March 2002 with the outstanding performance of 35,860 Gflops (40 TFIops peak) [TRIOO], numerous scientists opted in favour of such a high-performance computation and communications (HPCC) approach, suggesting to build again Cray type vector supercomputers that dominated scientific computing in the mid seventies. Today (2009) the extended Earth Simulator has a peak performance of 131 TFIops but it was outperformed by several other systems with multi-core 1 architectures. Top 1 in June 2009 is the RoadRunner build by IBM for the DOE/NNSA/LANL with a peak performance of 1456 TFIops. Multi-core processors are now build in every PC for the consumer market and not only for HPC systems. It should be remembered that the computer games industry is responsible for the revolution in high end 3D graphics cards that convert any PC into a most powerful graphics workstation. It should be obvious, despite the computational power of the Earth Simulator, that this definitely is not the road of HPCC for general scientific and engineering computation. "I hope to concentrate my attention on my research rather then how to program", says Hitoshi Sakagami, a researcher at Japan's Himeji Institute of Technology and a Gordon Bell Prize finalist for work using the Earth Simulator [TRIOO]. I fully agree with this statement, and this is one of the major reasons that I have chosen Java as high performance computing language. Programming vector computers is a difficult task, and to obtain acceptable results with regard to announced peak performance has been notoriously cumbersome. On the other hand, multi-core systems with many processors on a single chip need to be programmed in a different, namely a multi threaded way. Threads are a substantial part of the Java programming language. Java is the only general programming language that does not need external libraries for parallel programming, because everything needed is built into the language. In addition, there are major additional advantages of the Java language (object oriented, parallelization, readability, maintainability, programmer productivity, platform independence, code safety and reliability, database connectivity, internet capability, multimedia capability, GUI (graphics user interfaces), 3D graphics (Java 3D) and portability etc.) which were discussed in this thesis. The objective of this work is to build an easy to use software framework for high performance computing dealing with complex 3D geometries. The framework should also take care of all the advantages and behaviours of modern multi-core/multi-threaded hardware architectures. In view of the increasing complexity of modern hardware, working on solutions of multi-physical problems demands for software, that makes the solving process mostly independent of the available machinery.
Nordihydroguairetic Acid, a Lignin, Prevents Oxidative Stress and the Development of Diabetic Nephropathy in Rats

Recent evidences indicate a pivotal role of reactive oxygen species in etiology of diabetic nephropathy, an important microvascular complication of diabetes mellitus. Moreover, oxidative stress leads to an increased production of lipoxygenase derivatives which also play a role in diabetic nephropathy. The present study was thus designed to examine the effect of an antioxidant and a lipoxygenase inhibitor, nordihydroguairetic acid (NDGA), on renal function and oxidative stress in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (65 mg/kg) in rats. After the 4th week of STZ injection, NDGA (5 and 10 mg/kg) was given subcutaneously (s.c.) for another 4 weeks to both control and diabetic rats. At the end of the 8th week, diabetic rats exhibited renal dysfunction as evidenced by reduced creatinine and urea clearance along with enhanced albumin excretion rate as compared with control rats. Biochemical analysis of kidneys revealed a marked increase in oxidative stress demonstrated by increased lipid peroxidation and decreased activities of key antioxidant enzymes, glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase in diabetic rats. Chronic treatment with NDGA in diabetic rats significantly prevented both renal dysfunction and oxidative stress as compared with vehicle-treated diabetic rats. The kidneys of diabetic rats showed morphological changes such as hyaline casts, glomerular thickening and moderate interstitial fibrosis and arteriolopathy, whereas NDGA administration in diabetic rats markedly prevented renal morphological alterations. These results emphasize the role of oxidative stress in the pathophysiology of diabetic nephropathy and point towards the potential of NDGA as a complementary therapy for the prevention/treatment of diabetic nephropathy.
Semi-Blind Cancellation of IQ-Imbalances

The technical realization of modern wireless receivers yields significant interfering IQ-imbalances, which have to be compensated digitally. To cancel these IQ-imbalances, we propose an algorithm using iterative blind source separation (IBSS) as well as information about the modulation scheme used (hence the term semi-blind). The novelty of our approach lies in the fact that we match the nonlinearity involved in the IBSS algorithm to the probability density function of the source signals. Moreover, we use approximations of the ideal non-linearity to achieve low computational complexity. For severe IQ-mismatch, the algorithm leads to 0.2 dB insertion loss in an AWGN channel and with 16-QAM modulation.