Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Choriocapillaris and Choroidal Microvasculature Imaging with Ultrahigh Speed OCT Angiography

We demonstrate in vivo choriocapillaris and choroidal microvasculature imaging in normal human subjects using optical coherence tomography (OCT). An ultrahigh speed swept source OCT prototype at 1060 nm wavelengths with a 400 kHz A-scan rate is developed for three-dimensional ultrahigh speed imaging of the posterior eye. OCT angiography is used to image three-dimensional vascular structure without the need for exogenous fluorophores by detecting erythrocyte motion contrast between OCT intensity cross-sectional images acquired rapidly and repeatedly from the same location on the retina. En face OCT angiograms of the choriocapillaris and choroidal vasculature are visualized by acquiring cross-sectional OCT angiograms volumetrically via raster scanning and segmenting the three-dimensional angiographic data at multiple depths below the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE). Fine microvasculature of the choriocapillaris, as well as tightly packed networks of feeding arterioles and draining venules, can be visualized at different en face depths. Panoramic ultra-wide field stitched OCT angiograms of the choriocapillaris spanning ∼32 mm on the retina show distinct vascular structures at different fundus locations. Isolated smaller fields at the central fovea and ∼6 mm nasal to the fovea at the depths of the choriocapillaris and Sattler's layer show vasculature structures consistent with established architectural morphology from histological and electron micrograph corrosion casting studies. Choriocapillaris imaging was performed in eight healthy volunteers with OCT angiograms successfully acquired from all subjects. These results demonstrate the feasibility of ultrahigh speed OCT for in vivo dye-free choriocapillaris and choroidal vasculature imaging, in addition to conventional structural imaging.
Is there a link between adult neurogenesis and learning?

During the past several years, evidence has accumulated suggesting a relationship between newly born cells in the hippocampus and various types of learning and memory. However, most of the evidence is correlational and some of it does not agree. This review discusses both sides of this issue, considering the effects of learning on the production of new neurons in the dentate gyrus and the question of whether newly born cells participate in learning and memory. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Thermodynamic Modeling of Poorly Complexing Metals in Concentrated Electrolyte Solutions: An X-Ray Absorption and UV-Vis Spectroscopic Study of Ni(II) in the NiCl2-MgCl2-H2O System

Knowledge of the structure and speciation of aqueous Ni(II)-chloride complexes is important for understanding Ni behavior in hydrometallurgical extraction. The effect of concentration on the first-shell structure of Ni(II) in aqueous NiCl2 and NiCl2-MgCl2 solutions was investigated by Ni K edge X-ray absorption (XAS) and UV-Vis spectroscopy at ambient conditions. Both techniques show that no large structural change (e.g., transition from octahedral to tetrahedral-like configuration) occurs. Both methods confirm that the Ni(II) aqua ion (with six coordinated water molecules at R Ni-O = 2.07(2) Å) is the dominant species over the whole NiCl2 concentration range. However, XANES, EXAFS and UV-Vis data show subtle changes at high salinity (> 2 mol∙kg-1 NiCl2), which are consistent with the formation of small amounts of the NiCl+ complex (up to 0.44(23) Cl at a Ni-Cl distance of 2.35(2) Å in 5.05 mol∙kg-1 NiCl2) in the pure NiCl2 solutions. At high Cl:Ni ratio in the NiCl2-MgCl2-H2O solutions, small amounts of [NiCl2]0 are also present. We developed a speciation-based mixed-solvent electrolyte (MSE) model to describe activity-composition relationships in NiCl2-MgCl2-H2O solutions, and at the same time predict Ni(II) speciation that is consistent with our XAS and UV-Vis data and with existing literature data up to the solubility limit, resolving a long-standing uncertainty about the role of chloride complexing in this system.
CATEGORICAL SEMANTICS OF REFERENCE DATA TYPE

Reference types are very useful structures enabling handling with dynamic memory. In this paper we extend categorical model of type system with reference data type. We illustrate our approach on simple functional programming language T-NBL extended with reference type. After constructing parametric algebraic specification we construct categorical model of reference type and we show how our results can be implemented in functional programming language Ocaml.
A Novel Model-Based 3D ${+}$Time Left Ventricular Segmentation Technique

A common approach to model-based segmentation is to assume a top-down modelling strategy. However, this is not feasible for complex 3D +time structures, such as the cardiac left ventricle, due to increased training requirements, aligning difficulties and local minima in resulting models. As our main contribution, we present an alternate bottom-up modelling approach. By combining the variation captured in multiple dimensionally-targeted models at segmentation-time we create a scalable segmentation framework that does not suffer from the “curse of dimensionality. ” Our second contribution involves a flexible contour coupling technique that allows our segmentation method to adapt to unseen contour configurations outside the training set. This is used to identify the endo- and epicardium contours of the left ventricle by coupling them at segmentation-time, instead of at model-time. We apply our approach to 33 3D+time cardiac MRI datasets and perform comprehensive evaluation against several state-of-the-art works. Quantitative evaluation illustrates that our method requires significantly less training than state-of-the-art model-based methods, while maintaining or improving segmentation accuracy.
Dynamics limited shaping for fast digital transmission

A new combined precoding/shaping technique for fast digital transmission is proposed. Major advantages of this "dynamics shaping" are: dynamics of the signal at the input of the decision device are reduced by a great amount. Thereby, A/D-conversion, adaptive equalization, and symbol timing are rather facilitated. A trade-off between signal dynamics at the transmitter output, decision device input and the SNR-gain by noise whitening is offered. For dynamics limitation relevant in practice, gains up to 6 dB are achieved. Nevertheless, system complexity is lower than in other precoding/shaping techniques. Numerical results are presented for a HDSL application in the German Telekom subscriber network.
Going, going, gone: the impact of white-nose syndrome on the summer activity of the little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus)

Since its discovery in the winter of 2005–2006, white-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed over one million little brown bats (Myotis lucifugus) in the American northeast. Although many studies have reported die-offs of bats at winter hibernacula, it is important to understand how bat mortality linked to WNS at winter hibernacula affects bat activity levels in their summer ranges. In the summer (May–August) of 2007, 2008 and 2009, we recorded echolocation calls to determine bat activity at sites along the Hudson River, NY (within approx. 100 km of where WNS was first reported). We documented a 78 per cent decline in the summer activity of M. lucifugus, coinciding with the arrival and spread of WNS. We suggest that mortality of M. lucifugus in winter hibernacula is reflected by reduced levels of activity in the summer and that WNS affects the entire bat population of an area, and not only individual hibernacula.
Discovering Salience in Textual Elements using Graph Mutual Reinforcemnt SI 508 Project

The problem of identifying the most salient terms and/or sentences from a set of documents has gained great interest in recent years. Identifying the set of the most salient terms is a set of documents is usually called automatic keyword extraction or terminology extraction. Extracting the most salient set of sentences from a document or a set of documents is used for extractive summarization where a summary is generated by selecting a smaller set sentences that best represent the information content in the documents. In this work, we utilize the duality of the important term extraction and important sentence extraction problems. This duality allows us to present a single graph based method for the automatic extraction of both salient terms and salient sentences from a collection of documents. The approach employs graph mutual reinforcement to rank terms and sentences according to their importance with respect to the main topic of the documents collection.
Reliable mode changes in real-time systems with fixed priority or EDF scheduling

Many application domains require adaptive real-time embedded systems that can change their functionality over time. In such systems it is not only necessary to guarantee timing constraints in every operating mode, but also during the transition between different modes. Known approaches that address the problem of timing analysis over mode changes are restricted to fixed priority scheduling policies. In addition, most of them are also limited to simple periodic event stream models and therefore, they can not faithfully abstract the bursty timing behavior which can be observed in embedded systems. In this paper, we propose a new method for the design and analysis of adaptive multi-mode systems that supports any event stream model and can handle earliest deadline first (EDF) as well as fixed priority (FP) scheduling of tasks. We embed the analysis method into a well-established modular performance analysis framework based on Real-Time Calculus and prove its applicability by analyzing a case study.
Empathy and Affective Orientation as Predictors of Identification with Television Characters

This study examined the relationships between television viewers’ empathy and affective orientation and their identification with their favorite television characters. Results showed that viewers’ perspective taking and affective orientation positively predicted cognitive-emotional identification and group identification, and affective orientation positively predicted similarity identification. Similarity in viewer and favorite character sex and the genre in which the favorite character appeared also predicted identification.
Evaluation of Health-related Quality of Life in Paediatric Patients with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.

Objective Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measurement is used for assessing the impact of diseases and medical treatments on physical, psychological and social aspects of an individual's health and life. The Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ (PedsQL™) is a widely used instrument to measure paediatric HRQOL in children. The aim of this study is to investigate the HRQOL in paediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and determine the precautions for improving the quality of their life. Methods Paediatric Quality of Life Inventory™ 4.0 was administered to 75 paediatric patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, and 50 healthy age- and gender-matched children. Results Health-related quality of life scores were significantly lower in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia than in healthy controls in this study. Conclusions It is thought that determination of the psychosocial, as well as the physical impacts of the disease on the child, will positively influence the treatment given by improving the quality of life of both the child and the family.
Cloning two full-length beta-tubulin isotype cDNAs from Cooperia oncophora, and screening for benzimidazole resistance-associated mutations in two isolates

Two full-length beta-tubulin cDNAs, representing isotypes 1 and 2, were cloned from the cattle nematode Cooperia oncophora. The predicted protein sequences span 448 amino acids, and show a high degree of identity to beta-tubulins from other nematodes. While C. oncophora isotype 1 sequence had the highest identity to Haemonchus contortus isotype 1 and Teladorsagia circumcincta sequences (95% identity), the C. oncophora isotype 2 sequence was most similar to H. contortus isotype 2 and Trichostrongylus colubriformis (92% identity). Alignment of the two C. oncophora sequences with other trichostrongylid beta-tubulins deposited in GenBank showed a clear distinction between isotype 1 and 2 beta-tubulin classes. The two classes differed at 19 amino acid positions, most notably at the carboxy terminus. These isotype-defining residues were conserved among different trichostrongylid species within a class. Analysis of fragments of both genes revealed a high degree of genetic variability in coding and non-coding regions. However, all nucleotide differences detected in the coding region were silent, as they did not result in any amino acid substitution. Analysis of 2 groups of worms for the codon 200 polymorphism associated with benzimidazole resistance revealed a proportion of worms in 1 of the groups bearing a tyrosine at this position.
Mining Massive Relational Databases

There is a large and growing mismatch between the size of the relational data sets available for mining and the amount of data our relational learning systems can process. In particular, most relational learning systems can operate on data sets containing thousands to tens of thousands of objects, while many real-world data sets grow at a rate of millions of objects a day. In this paper we explore the challenges that prevent relational learning systems from operating on massive data sets, and develop a learning system that overcomes some of them. Our system uses sampling, is efficient with disk accesses, and is able to learn from an order of magnitude more relational data than existing algorithms. We evaluate our system by using it to mine a collection of massive Web crawls, each containing millions of pages.
A Process Model of Internal Corporate Venturing in the Diversified Major Firm

Examines how major firms utilize R&D activities to create new businesses through internal corporate venturing (ICV). Using a qualitative method, this analysis was done for one large, U.S.-based high-technology firm. This firm has a new venture division, which was formed in the early 1970s. Data were obtained from the study of six major projects that were ongoing at the time of the research. This data collection included interviews with 61 firm employees involved in the projects. The key and peripheral managerial activities of the grounded process model of ICV and the flow of these activities through four venture stages are presented. The four major processes in the model are definition, impetus, strategic context determination, and structural context determination. Among the findings: It is usually the autonomous strategic initiatives of individuals at the operational level that provide the ideas for much of corporate entrepreneurship. As a result of the very autonomous nature of these initiatives, management has difficulty deciding how to deal with the new initiatives and often ignores administrative issues through the entrepreneurial process. Middle-level managers are found to play a key role in linking these autonomous initiatives to the corporate strategy of these diversified major firms. (SRD)
The Protein Information Resource: an integrated public resource of functional annotation of proteins

The Protein Information Resource (PIR) serves as an integrated public resource of functional annotation of protein data to support genomic/proteomic research and scientific discovery. The PIR, in collaboration with the Munich Information Center for Protein Sequences (MIPS) and the Japan International Protein Information Database (JIPID), produces the PIR-International Protein Sequence Database (PSD), the major annotated protein sequence database in the public domain, containing about 250 000 proteins. To improve protein annotation and the coverage of experimentally validated data, a bibliography submission system is developed for scientists to submit, categorize and retrieve literature information. Comprehensive protein information is available from iProClass, which includes family classification at the superfamily, domain and motif levels, structural and functional features of proteins, as well as cross-references to over 40 biological databases. To provide timely and comprehensive protein data with source attribution, we have introduced a non-redundant reference protein database, PIR-NREF. The database consists of about 800 000 proteins collected from PIR-PSD, SWISS-PROT, TrEMBL, GenPept, RefSeq and PDB, with composite protein names and literature data. To promote database interoperability, we provide XML data distribution and open database schema, and adopt common ontologies. The PIR web site (http://pir.georgetown.edu/) features data mining and sequence analysis tools for information retrieval and functional identification of proteins based on both sequence and annotation information. The PIR databases and other files are also available by FTP (ftp://nbrfa.georgetown.edu/pir_databases).
Optimism and Coping with Unemployment among Hong Kong Chinese Women

Abstract The effects of dispositional optimism and coping on the link between unemployment and psychological health were studied among 79 employed and 104 unemployed Hong Kong Chinese women. Results indicated that optimism, indexed by the Chinese version of the Revised Life Orientation Test (C-RLOT), moderated the effect of unemployment on psychological health. The less optimistic women were more psychologically impaired by losing their jobs. Among the unemployed women, the more optimistic ones and those who were more able to distance themselves from job loss fared better. Nevertheless, coping did not mediate the connection between optimism and psychological outcomes. These findings suggest that optimism is an important personal resource for coping with unemployment in Hong Kong Chinese, but whether coping mediates the effects of optimism on psychological health or not depends on other contextual factors. Ways to ensure more reliable prediction regarding the connections between optimism, coping and psychological health in future research were discussed.
Elastic energy storage in the mantis shrimp's fast predatory strike

SUMMARY Storage of elastic energy is key to increasing the power output of many biological systems. Mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda) must store considerable elastic energy prior to their rapid raptorial strikes; however, little is known about the dynamics and location of elastic energy storage structures in this system. We used computed tomography (CT) to visualize the mineralization patterns in Gonodactylaceus falcatus and high speed videography of Odontodactylus scyllarus to observe the dynamics of spring loading. Using a materials testing apparatus, we measured the force and work required to contract the elastic structures in G. falcatus. There was a positive linear correlation between contraction force and contraction distance; alternative model tests further supported the use of a linear model. Therefore, we modeled the system as a Hookean spring. The force required to fully compress the spring was positively correlated with body mass and appendage size, but the spring constant did not scale with body size, suggesting a possible role of muscle constraints in the scaling of this system. One hypothesized elastic storage structure, the saddle, only contributed approximately 11% of the total measured force, thus suggesting that primary site of elastic energy storage is in the mineralized ventral bars found in the merus segment of the raptorial appendages. Furthermore, the intact system exhibited 81% resilience and severing the saddle resulted in a non-significant reduction to 77% resilience. The remarkable shapes and mineralization patterns that characterize the mantis shrimp's raptorial appendage further reveal a highly integrated mechanical power amplification system based on exoskeletal elastic energy storage.
Alcohol Use and Risk of Ischemic Stroke Among Older Adults: The Cardiovascular Health Study

Background and Purpose— The association of light to moderate alcohol consumption with risk of ischemic stroke remains uncertain, as are the roles of potentially mediating factors and modification by apolipoprotein E (apoE) genotype. Methods— We studied the prospective association of alcohol consumption and risk of ischemic stroke among 4410 participants free of cardiovascular disease at baseline in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a population-based cohort study of older adults from 4 US communities. Participants reported their consumption of alcoholic beverages yearly. Results— During an average follow-up period of 9.2 years, 434 cases of incident ischemic stroke occurred. Compared with long-term abstainers, the multivariate relative risks of ischemic stroke were 0.85 (95% CI, 0.63 to 1.13), 0.75 (95% CI, 0.53 to 1.06), 0.82 (95% CI, 0.51 to 1.30), and 1.03 (95% CI, 0.68 to 1.57) among consumers of <1, 1 to 6, 7 to 13, and ≥14 drinks per week (P quadratic trend 0.06). ApoE genotype appeared to modify the alcohol–ischemic stroke relationship (P interaction 0.08), with generally lower risks among drinkers than abstainers in apoE4-negative participants but higher risks among drinkers than abstainers among apoE4-positive participants. We could not identify candidate mediators among lipid, inflammatory, and prothrombotic factors. Conclusions— In this study of older adults, the association of alcohol use and risk of ischemic stroke was U-shaped, with modestly lower risk among consumers of 1 to 6 drinks per week. However, apoE genotype may modify this association, and even moderate alcohol intake may be associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke among apoE4-positive older adults.
Primary rectus abdominis myocutaneous flap for repair of perineal and vaginal defects after extended abdominoperineal resection

Significant morbidity can result from perineal wounds, particularly after radiotherapy and extensive resection for cancer. Myocutaneous flaps have been used to improve healing. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the morbidity and results of primary rectus abdominis myocutaneous flap reconstruction of the vagina and perineum after extended abdominoperineal resection.
Salt induces myocardial and renal fibrosis in normotensive and hypertensive rats.

BACKGROUND The detrimental effects of high dietary salt intake may not only involve effects on blood pressure and organ hypertrophy but also lead to tissue fibrosis independently of these factors. METHODS AND RESULTS The effect of a normal (1%) or high (8%) sodium chloride diet on myocardial and renal fibrosis was assessed by quantitative histomorphometry in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and normotensive Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKYs). The effect of salt on transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) gene expression was assessed by Northern blot hybridization. A high-salt diet from 8 to 16 weeks of age resulted in increased blood pressure and left ventricular and renal hypertrophy in both WKYs and SHRs. Marked interstitial fibrosis was demonstrated in the left ventricle (LV), glomeruli, and renal tubules and in intramyocardial arteries and arterioles but not in the right ventricle. The collagen volume fraction increased significantly after high-salt diet in the LV, intramyocardial arteries and arterioles, glomeruli, and peritubular areas in both WKYs and SHRs. In the kidneys, glomerular and peritubular type IV collagen was also increased. There was overexpression of TGF-beta1 mRNA in the LV and kidneys in both rat strains after a high-salt diet (all P<0.001). CONCLUSIONS High dietary salt led to widespread fibrosis and increased TGF-beta1 in the heart and kidney in normotensive and hypertensive rats. These results suggest a specific effect of dietary salt on fibrosis, possibly via TGF-beta1-dependent pathways, and further suggest that excessive salt intake may be an important direct pathogenic factor for cardiovascular disease.