Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Paleogene deepwater mass composition of the tropical Pacific and implications for thermohaline circulation in a greenhouse world

The Pacific Ocean likely exerted the greatest marine influence on climate during the greenhouse interval of the Paleogene. The first step toward assessing the role of Pacific deepwater circulation in global heat transport is a comprehensive reconstruction of deepwater mass composition and circulation patterns. We present new deepwater mass Nd isotope data from ODP Leg 199 Sites 1215, 1217, 1219, and 1221 to augment the existing coverage provided by ferromanganese crust and fossil fish debris data. The new data corroborate the notion that the Pacific Ocean operated in a bimodal pattern with deepwater sources in both the Southern Ocean and North Pacific for much of the early to middle Paleogene. In addition, the data indicate that there was little to no influence of Atlantic waters on the deepwater composition of the tropical Pacific. The available deepwater Nd isotope data provide refined constraints on the geographic and depth range of influence of both a Southern Ocean and North Pacific deepwater mass. From ∼65 to ∼45 Ma, the deep tropical Pacific was the mixing location of deep waters sourced from the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific. The Southern Ocean deepwater mass extended from ∼1800 m to abyssal depths. Until 53.6 Ma it circulated northward in the western Pacific at least as far as the paleolocation of Fe‐Mn Crust CLD01 (∼5°N paleolatitude) and in the eastern portion of the Pacific as far as Site 1215 (∼10°N paleolatitude). A North Pacific deepwater mass extended from at least ∼2400 m to 2900 m water depth from ∼65 to 54 Ma, south to Shatsky Rise (paleolatitude ∼10–15°N), and possibly as far as Site 1215, 700 km to the south of Shatsky Rise Sites 1209 and 1211.
Overexpression of DNA Polymerase Zeta Reduces the Mitochondrial Mutability Caused by Pathological Mutations in DNA Polymerase Gamma in Yeast

In yeast, DNA polymerase zeta (Rev3 and Rev7) and Rev1, involved in the error-prone translesion synthesis during replication of nuclear DNA, localize also in mitochondria. We show that overexpression of Rev3 reduced the mtDNA extended mutability caused by a subclass of pathological mutations in Mip1, the yeast mitochondrial DNA polymerase orthologous to human Pol gamma. This beneficial effect was synergistic with the effect achieved by increasing the dNTPs pools. Since overexpression of Rev3 is detrimental for nuclear DNA mutability, we constructed a mutant Rev3 isoform unable to migrate into the nucleus: its overexpression reduced mtDNA mutability without increasing the nuclear one.
Nurse-led multidisciplinary programme for patients with COPD in primary health care: a controlled trial.

AIM To investigate the effects of a nurse-led multidisciplinary programme (NMP) of pulmonary rehabilitation in primary health care with regard to functional capacity, quality of life (QoL), and exacerbations among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). METHOD A 1-year longitudinal study with a quasi-experimental design was undertaken in patients with COPD, 49 in the intervention group and 54 in the control group. Functional capacity was assessed using the 6-minute walking test, and quality of life (QoL) was assessed using the Clinical COPD Questionnaire. Exacerbations were calculated by examination of patient records. RESULTS No significant differences were found between the groups in functional capacity and QoL after 1 year. The exacerbations decreased in the intervention group (n = -0.2) and increased in the control group (n = 0.3) during the year after NMP. The mean difference of change in exacerbation frequency between the groups was statistically significant after one year (p=0.009). CONCLUSIONS The NMP in primary care produced a significant reduction in exacerbation frequency, but functional capacity and QoL were unchanged. More and larger studies are needed to evaluate potential benefits in functional capacity and QoL.
Expression of Peroxisome Proliferator–Activated Receptor Gamma in Salivary Duct Carcinoma: Immunohistochemical Analysis of 15 Cases

Salivary duct carcinoma is a rare but highly aggressive tumor of the salivary glands that has poor prognosis. There is no effective cure for this tumor. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is a member of the nuclear receptor family with diverse biological functions that include mediation of adipocyte differentiation, regulation of the monocyte–macrophage anti-inflammatory activity, and inhibition of tumor cell proliferation. Natural (prostaglandin J2, PG-J2) and synthetic (thiazolinediones) PPARγ ligands with anti-proliferative agonist activity have been identified. The expression of PPARγ has been demonstrated in human colorectal, pancreas, breast, and prostate cancers but has never been explored in salivary duct carcinoma. The aim of our study was to investigate the expression patterns of PPARγ in salivary duct carcinoma, a finding that may provide a mechanism for treating patients with this highly aggressive tumor. Archival formalin-fixed tissues from 15 salivary duct carcinoma cases were analyzed for PPARγ expression by an immunohistochemical staining method using a monoclonal antibody against the PPARγ. The tissue sections were subjected to antigen retrieval by a steam heat method. All the cases of salivary duct carcinoma originated from the parotid gland. Immunohistochemistry analyses showed positive expression of PPARγ in 12 (80%) cases, whereas 3 (20%) were negative. Of the positive cases, 9 (75%), 2 (17%) and 1 (8%) showed strong, moderate, and weak staining, respectively. All staining was cytoplasmic. Nuclear staining was not observed. We conclude that PPARγ is frequently (80%) expressed in salivary duct carcinoma, often at high levels, and is topographically located in the cytoplasm. The high-level expression of PPARγ may provide a potential molecular target for the treatment of salivary duct carcinoma using agonist ligands.
Systematic vs. Non-Systematic Search for 3D Aircraft Conflict Resolution

A conflict is an event in which two or more aircraft experience a loss of minimum separation. In this paper, we formulate the problem of solving conflicts arising among several aircraft moving in a shared airspace as a Constraint Satisfaction Problem (CSP). The constraint satisfaction problem being NP-complete, the algorithms developed to solve it have been of two types: non-systematic and systematic search methods. In this paper, we have considered a breakout algorithm as an example of non-systematic search methods and a backtracking procedure that maintains Arc Consistency (MAC) as an example of systematic search methods. The performance of these algorithms was compared experimentally and the Breakout algorithm is shown to be clearly superior.
Network bandwidth requirements for scalable on-demand streaming

Recently proposed streaming protocols are able to deliver multimedia files on-demand with the required server bandwidth growing only logarithmically with the file request rate. The same efficiencies are achieved for network bandwidth if delivery is over a true broadcast channel. This paper considers the required network bandwidth for on-demand streaming over multicast delivery trees. We consider both simple canonical delivery trees, and more complex cases in which delivery trees are constructed using both existing and new algorithms for various randomly generated network topologies and client site locations. Our results quantify the potential savings from the use of multicast trees that are configured to minimize network bandwidth rather than the latency to the content server. Further, we show that it is possible to achieve reasonably close to the minimum possible bandwidth usage for both network and server simultaneously, with a practical on-demand streaming protocol.
Active Perceptual Similarity Modeling with Auxiliary Information

Learning a model of perceptual similarity from a collection of objects is a fundamental task in machine learning underlying numerous applications. A common way to learn such a model is from relative comparisons in the form of triplets: responses to queries of the form "Is object a more similar to b than it is to c? ". If no consideration is made in the determination of which queries to ask, existing similarity learning methods can require a prohibitively large number of responses. In this work, we consider the problem of actively learning from triplets -finding which queries are most useful for learning. Different from previous active triplet learning approaches, we incorporate auxiliary information into our similarity model and introduce an active learning scheme to find queries that are informative for quickly learning both the relevant aspects of auxiliary data and the directly-learned similarity components. Compared to prior approaches, we show that we can learn just as effectively with much fewer queries. For evaluation, we introduce a new dataset of exhaustive triplet comparisons obtained from humans and demonstrate improved performance for different types of auxiliary information.
Differential modulations of ipsilateral and contralateral beta (de)synchronization during unimanual force production

Unilateral movement is usually accompanied by ipsilateral activity in the primary motor cortex (M1). It is still largely unclear whether this activity reflects interhemispheric ‘cross‐talk’ of contralateral M1 that facilitates movement, or results from processes that inhibit motor output. We investigated the role of beta power in ipsilateral M1 during unimanual force production. Significant ipsilateral beta desynchronization occurred during continuous dynamic but not during static force production. Moreover, event‐related time–frequency analysis revealed bilateral desynchronization patterns, whereas post‐movement synchronization was confined to the contralateral hemisphere. Our findings indicate that ipsilateral activation is not merely the result of interhemispheric cross‐talk but involves additional processes. Given observations of differential blood oxygen level‐dependent responses in ipsilateral and contralateral M1, and the correlation between beta desynchronization and the firing rate of pyramidal tract neurons in contralateral M1 during movement, we speculate that beta desynchronization in contra‐ and ipsilateral M1 arises from distinct neural activation patterns.
Cepstral smoothing of spectral masks for acoustic vector-sensor based convolutive speech separation

A novel algorithm, which based on the combination of binary time-frequency (T-F) mask and a cepstral smoothing approach, is proposed to separate the convolutive speech sources. The direction-of-arrival (DOA) is estimated from a single acoustic vector-sensor (AVS), and is used as a cue to estimate the T-F masks. The smoothing approach is employed in the cepstral domain to reduce the musical noise caused by the binary T-F masking process. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by generating the mixtures of three speech sources with the simulated room models. The signal to distortion ratio (SDR) results in dB is calculated to quantify the separation performance. In the comparison with the baseline method which based on the binary mask without smoothing, the separation performance of the proposed method are consistently better under various reverberation levels and angular difference of sources.
Waveforms design for modern and MIMO radar

One of the main focus of the research in modern radar systems, as MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) radar and multifunction/multistatic radar, is the waveforms design and optimization in order to get a low degradation in the main lobe (low Signal to Noise Ratio loss), a low Peak Side-Lobe Ratio (PSLR) and good orthogonality properties. In MIMO applications typically M different waveforms, or codes, are required, where M is the number of the transmit elements. In reception the orthogonal property of the M transmitted waveforms permits their separation. Orthogonality may be imposed in time domain, in frequency domain or in signals space. In most radar applications, obtaining the orthogonality in the signals domain is the best choice. Good candidates to design deterministic signals that satisfy the orthogonality requirements are the well-known “up” and “down” chirp (Linear-FM and Non-LFM), the Costas codes, the Alltop sequences and the OFDM signals. Another important class of orthogonal signals are the random signals such as the noise waveforms. In this paper we present the main characteristics of these signals and their comparison through a characterization, including an analysis of the auto and cross correlation functions, and of the spectral properties, with recommendations for practical use.
Update on Signals Regulating Starch Biosynthesis Regulation of Starch Biosynthesis in Response to a Fluctuating Environment

Starch is the major storage carbohydrate in higher plants, with many important functions. In photosynthesizing leaves, starch accumulates during the day and is remobilized at night to support continued respiration, Suc export, and growth in the dark (Geiger and Servaites, 1994). In this context, starch has been identified as a major integrator in the regulation of plant growth to cope with continual changes in carbon availability (Sulpice et al., 2009). Its importance is demonstrated by the phenotype of starch-deficient mutants, which grow poorly or even die in short-day conditions (Caspar et al., 1986). In heterotrophic storage organs such as potato (Solanum tuberosum) tubers or developing seeds, starch serves as a longer term carbon store, which is remobilized later in development to support phases of reproductive growth. Since Suc supply to these tissues is fluctuating, regulatory mechanisms are required to stimulate starch synthesis when carbon availability increases (Geigenberger et al., 2004). In addition to its central role in plant physiology, starch is also of great economical importance (Zeeman et al., 2010). It is the secondmost abundant biopolymer on earth, after cellulose, and the most important carbohydrate used for food and feed purposes. Therefore, it represents the major resource of our diet and feedstock for many industrial applications, including bioethanol production (Smith, 2008). Understanding starch biosynthesis in plants could pave the way to new strategies to improve crop yield via the use of reverse genetics or marker-assisted breeding (Geigenberger and Fernie, 2006). Starch metabolism has been the subject of intense research in the past, leading to a sound knowledge of the pathways and the enzymes involved. However, there are many open questions concerning the signals and mechanisms regulating starch metabolism. This review summarizes the current understanding of the regulation of the pathway of starch synthesis in higher plants. The first part will focus on the structure of the pathway, which is an important prerequisite for understanding its regulation. The second part is primarily concerned with signals and mechanisms regulating starch synthesis in response to fluctuations in the carbon and energy status of the plant. The pathway of starch remobilization has recently been reviewed extensively in the literature (Kötting et al., 2010; Zeeman et al., 2010) and will not be covered in any detail here.
The REX corpora: A collection of multimodal corpora of referring expressions in collaborative problem solving dialogues

This paper describes a collection of multimodal corpora of referring expressions, the REX corpora. The corpora have two notable features, namely (1) they include time-aligned extra-linguistic information such as participant actions and eye-gaze on top of linguistic information, (2) dialogues were collected with various configurations in terms of the puzzle type, hinting and language. After describing how the corpora were constructed and sketching out each, we present an analysis of various statistics for the corpora with respect to the various configurations mentioned above. The analysis showed that the corpora have different characteristics in the number of utterances and referring expressions in a dialogue, the task completion time and the attributes used in the referring expressions. In this respect, we succeeded in constructing a collection of corpora that included a variety of characteristics by changing the configurations for each set of dialogues, as originally planned. The corpora are now under preparation for publication, to be used for research on human reference behaviour.
Establishment and serial passage of cell cultures derived from LuCaP xenografts

LuCaP serially transplantable xenografts derived from primary and metastatic human prostate cancer encompass the molecular and cellular heterogeneity of the disease and are an invaluable resource for in vivo preclinical studies. A limitation of this model, however, has been the inability to establish and passage cell cultures derived from the xenografts. Here, we describe a novel spheroid culture system that supports long‐term growth of LuCaP cells in vitro.
A Highly Scalable and Efficient Parallel Design of N-Body Simulation on FPGA

N-Body simulation simulates the evolution of a system that is composed of N particles, where each element receives a force that is due to the interaction with all the other elements within the system. Usually, the influence of external physical forces, such as gravity, is involved too. This methodology is widely used in different fields that range from astrophysics, where it is used to study the interaction of celestial objects, to molecular dynamics, where the bodies are represented by molecules. Although its wide range of applicability, the algorithm presents a high computational complexity that requires the usage of powerful and high power consuming computers. An acceleration on a reconfigurable device, such as an FPGA, would benefit both in term of performance and power consumption. In this work we presents a scalable, high performance and highly efficient implementation of an N-Body simulation algorithm on FPGA. The final design is able to outperform both CPU and FPGA works in the state of the art in terms of pure performance of a factor up to 10x, and high-end GPUs in terms of performance per watt by a factor of 1.84x.
Special conformal symmetry of worldvolume actions

Kappa-symmetric worldvolume actions of the D3-, M5-, and M2-branes can be coupled consistently to their near horizon bosonic geometry background. We study the gauge-fixed action in the approximation in which only the transverse radial direction of the brane is allowed to fluctuate. The generalized special conformal symmetry of these self-interacting actions is established. This opens up the possibility to find out if the full superconformal symmetry of the free actions of these branes survives in the presence of coupling defined by the size of the anti{endash}de Sitter throat. {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society}
Parallel programming through configurable interconnectable objects

This paper presents P-RIO, a parallel programming environment that supports an object based software configuration methodology. It promotes a clear separation of the individual sequential computation components from the interconnection structure used for the interaction between these components. This makes the data and control interactions explicit, simplifying program visualization and understanding. P-RIO includes a graphical tool that helps to configure, monitor and debug parallel programs.
Low acetylcholine during slow-wave sleep is critical for declarative memory consolidation

The neurotransmitter acetylcholine is considered essential for proper functioning of the hippocampus-dependent declarative memory system, and it represents a major neuropharmacological target for the treatment of memory deficits, such as those in Alzheimer's disease. During slow-wave sleep (SWS), however, declarative memory consolidation is particularly strong, while acetylcholine levels in the hippocampus drop to a minimum. Observations in rats led to the hypothesis that the low cholinergic tone during SWS is necessary for the replay of new memories in the hippocampus and their long-term storage in neocortical networks. However, this low tone should not affect nondeclarative memory systems. In this study, increasing central nervous cholinergic activation during SWS-rich sleep by posttrial infusion of 0.75 mg of the cholinesterase inhibitor physostigmine completely blocked SWS-related consolidation of declarative memories for word pairs in human subjects. The treatment did not interfere with consolidation of a nondeclarative mirror tracing task. Also, physostigmine did not alter memory consolidation during waking, when the endogenous central nervous cholinergic tone is maximal. These findings are in line with predictions that a low cholinergic tone during SWS is essential for declarative memory consolidation.
Detecting walking pedestrians from leg motion in driving video

Pedestrian detection in the driving video is an important function for accident avoidance. Different from the detection method based on human shape analysis, this paper introduces a new method to detect walking people from their motion in the driving video. Motion profiles of the driving video are acquired where we found walking people showing their leg moving trajectories as twisted chains. These chains are very different from the moving traces of background and other vehicles appearing as smooth curves according to the vehicle motion mechanism. Thus we design a method to recognize chains uniquely at leg crossing by using HOG features and confirmed with template matching. This method can detect a person in two walking steps. The results show a promising detection rate in the reduced data dimension of video.
Exogenous 5-Aminolevulenic Acid Promotes Seed Germination in Elymus nutans against Oxidative Damage Induced by Cold Stress

The protective effects of 5-aminolevulenic acid (ALA) on germination of Elymus nutans Griseb. seeds under cold stress were investigated. Seeds of E. nutans (Damxung, DX and Zhengdao, ZD) were pre-soaked with various concentrations (0, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 5, 10 and 25 mg l−1) of ALA for 24 h before germination under cold stress (5°C). Seeds of ZD were more susceptible to cold stress than DX seeds. Both seeds treated with ALA at low concentrations (0.1–1 mg l−1) had higher final germination percentage (FGP) and dry weight at 5°C than non-ALA-treated seeds, whereas exposure to higher ALA concentrations (5–25 mg l−1) brought about a dose dependent decrease. The highest FGP and dry weight of germinating seeds were obtained from seeds pre-soaked with 1 mg l−1 ALA. After 5 d of cold stress, pretreatment with ALA provided significant protection against cold stress in the germinating seeds, significantly enhancing seed respiration rate and ATP synthesis. ALA pre-treatment also increased reduced glutathione (GSH), ascorbic acid (AsA), total glutathione, and total ascorbate concentrations, and the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and glutathione reductase (GR), whereas decreased the contents of malondialdehyde (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and superoxide radical (O2 •−) release in both germinating seeds under cold stress. In addition, application of ALA increased H+-ATPase activity and endogenous ALA concentration compared with cold stress alone. Results indicate that ALA considered as an endogenous plant growth regulator could effectively protect E. nutans seeds from cold-induced oxidative damage during germination without any adverse effect.