Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ultrasonographic assessment of change in abomasal position during the last three months of gestation and first three months of lactation in Holstein-Friesian cows.

OBJECTIVE To determine changes in abomasal position and dimensions during the last 3 months of gestation and first 3 months of lactation via transabdominal ultrasonography and determine whether surgical correction of left-displaced abomasum (LDA) by right flank omentopexy alters abomasal position within the abdomen in Holstein-Friesian cows. DESIGN Observational study. ANIMALS 20 heifers and 20 cows with no history of an LDA and 7 cows that had been treated for LDA via right flank omentopexy during an earlier lactation. Procedure-Ultrasonographic measurements were obtained 8 times during the last 3 months of gestation and first 3 months of lactation. Abomasal length, width, and volume were calculated from these measurements. RESULTS The abomasum was always wider than it was long and located predominantly to the right of the midline. The presence of a right flank omentopexy had no effect on the measured parameters. Abomasal length decreased and width increased during the last 3 months of gestation, resulting in a more transverse orientation of the abomasum within the abdomen. These changes appeared to be in response to cranial expansion of the gravid uterus. The abomasum returned to a more caudal and right sagittal position within 14 days after parturition. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Abomasal dimensions, position, and volume change markedly during the last 3 months of gestation and first 3 months of lactation. Results permit detection of abnormal abomasal position in ill cows and indicate that the preferred location for abomasopexy is 20 cm caudal to the xiphoid process and 5 to 10 cm to the right of the ventral mid-line.
Greenspan: The Man Behind Money

The first definitive account of the life and times of Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan is one of the most powerful and enigmatic men in the world. Although endlessly pursued by the press and ceaselessly present in the public spotlight, very little about his private life has ever been revealed. Greenspan: The Man Behind Money presents the celebrated Fed Chairman as few know him. It spans his hardscrabble childhood in Depression-era New York City, his fascinating decades-long friendship with controversial author Ayn Rand, his Juilliard education and days spent touring with Henry Jerome's jazz band, as well as his two marriages, dynamic D.C. social life, and service to five U.S. presidents. Artfully crafted, this biography paints an astonishing and enthralling portrait. Based on unprecedented access to Greenspan's family members and to such peers as Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, and Milton Friedman, Greenspan: The Man Behind Money makes news and breaks new ground. It also provides fresh insight into Greenspan's reign at the Fed--from the stomach-churning crash of 1987 to today's rollicking markets--and a glimpse at what's next for the famous Chairman.
Research of Probability Symmetric Allocation Storage in Distributed Storage System

The goal of optimal allocation is to increase the stored data availability subject to minimize the storage budget. The symmetric allocation based on the network coding is proved to be optimal without considering the nodes availability in distributed storage system. Because of network conditions and node inherent property, each node has different availability. This paper focuses on the optimization distributed data storage problem with nodes availability. Based on probability model of storage system, we re-define the symmetric allocation as the probability symmetric allocation, and proposed probability symmetric allocation model and strategy which are proved to be optimal in the general condition based on SVM. Comparing to the symmetric allocation proposed by Leong D. et al., The proposed probability symmetric allocation scheme improves the data availability, and is more practical method for distributed storage system. DOI : http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/telkomnika.v12i5. 5100
Modelling the loss of metabolic capacities of cultured hepatocytes: application to measurement of Michaelis-Menten kinetic parameters in in vitro systems

1. The loss of metabolic capacities during culture time constitutes a major limitation for the use of hepatocyte primary cultures in in vitro metabolism measurements. A new strategy is presented that permits one to calculate the Michaelis-Menten parameters Vmax and Km from extended experiments, by modelling Vmax as a variable dependent on time using exponential or sigmoidal equations. 2. This method was tested with cortisol depletion in cultured rat hepatocytes. Vmax and Km were used to calculate intrinsic clearance, and comparisons were made with methods already described in the literature. Intrinsic clearances given by our method were scaled to in vivo hepatic clearances that were close to those reported in the literature. 3. Our method could quantify the Vmax decrease with culture time from estimates of time parameters, t1/2 or t50. In our system, this Vmax decrease was in agreement with P450 cytochrome inactivation rates published for the rat liver. 4. In conclusion, we propose a convenient, simple and useful general method for both Michaelis-Menten parameter estimation and modelling of variations in the metabolic capacities observed in in vitro systems. Such an approach should improve the usefulness of hepatocytes in primary cultures for long-term metabolism experiments.
Relevancy in schema agnostic environment

Relevance scoring and estimation deals with both finding the relevant set of answers and ordering them according to the degree of their relevance to the user-intent. The traditional information retrieval (IR) systems successfully find and order the relevant documents and leave them to the users, who then have to locate the relevant information embedded somewhere within the document. In contrast, estimating relevance in semi-structured retrieval means not only retrieving and ordering the relevant documents but also locating the relevant information within the document as well. When it comes to semi-structured retrieval, the traditional IR style retrieval is simply insufficient. The main focus of this thesis is estimating relevance in a schema-agnostic environment. Here, “schema-agnostic” means that the schema or the structure exists explicitly within the documents but the user does not or need not know that schema. In such an environment, the structure is generally defined loosely, which means: (a) it can evolve over time, (b) it can constitute a large part of the data, and (c) it might exist seamlessly within the document. The natural question that comes into mind is, why is such a structure there at all? The structure in a schemaagnostic environment is there to be used by retrieval systems for several useful tasks. This thesis is about unveiling the capabilities of the structural constructs within semi-structured documents in schema-agnostic settings. Structural constructs can form what we call the structural context of the relevant item. A structural context builds up the internal and external contextual features of a semi-structured document. These contextual features help with a series of tasks. The work presented in this thesis contributes towards understanding and utilizing the contextual features in the retrieval of focused information in schema-agnostic settings. During the course of this study we have identified, implemented and experimented with several intuitive types of contextual features in semi-structured retrieval settings. Contextualization is the generic process of utilizing features in the structural context of the retrievable units in relevance scoring. The proposed retrieval approaches, based mainly on contextual features, exhibited notable improvements in retrieval effectiveness, during empirical analyses. The evaluations and empirical analyses are performed in several tasks, spread across different phases of this study. The tasks are performed by looking at different aspects and challenges of the semi-structured retrieval domain. The following tasks are performed at different phases of this study: ad-hoc tasks, granulation tasks, and standard tasks offered by INitiative for the Evaluation of Xml retrieval (INEX). The contributions of this thesis are also grouped by these tasks.
Genomic selection in multi-breed dairy cattle populations

Genomic selection has been a valuable tool for increasing the rate of genetic improvement in purebred dairy cattle populations. However, there also are many large populations of crossbred dairy cattle in the world, and multi-breed genomic evaluations may be a valuable tool for improving rates of genetic gain in those populations. Multi-breed models are an extension of single-breed genomic models in which a genomic relationship matrix is used to account for the breed origin of alleles in the population, as well as allele frequency differences between breeds. Most studies have found little benefit from multi-breed evaluations for pure breeds that have large reference populations. However, breeds with small reference populations may benefit from inclusion in a multi-breed evaluation without adversely affecting evaluations for purebred performance. Most research has been conducted in taurine breeds, so additional research is needed to determine the value of multi-breed reference populations for composite and synthetic breeds that include both indicine and taurine cattle adapted to tropical climates.
Kompleksdannere under våtkjemisk syntese av oksider

Effekten av ulike komplekseringsmidler i den modifiserte Pechini-metoden har blitt studert ved a benytte malon-, eple- og vinsyre under syntesen CuAlO2 med delafossittstruktur og eple- og vi .
Post-translational Modifications of Three Members of the Human MAP1LC3 Family and Detection of a Novel Type of Modification for MAP1LC3B*

The molecular machinery required for autophagy is highly conserved in all eukaryotes as seen by the high degree of conservation of proteins involved in the formation of the autophagosome membranes. Recently, both yeast Apg8p and its rat homologue Map1lc3 were identified as essential constituents of autophagosome membrane as a processed form. In addition, both the yeast and human proteins exist in two modified forms produced by a series of post-translational modifications including a critical C-terminal cleavage after a conserved Gly residue, and the smaller processed form is associated with the autophagosome membranes. Herein, we report the identification and characterization of three human orthologs of the rat Map1LC3, named MAP1LC3A, MAP1LC3B, and MAP1LC3C. We show that the three isoforms of human MAP1LC3 exhibit distinct expression patterns in different human tissues. Importantly, we found that the three isoforms of MAP1LC3 differ in their post-translation modifications. Although MAP1LC3A and MAP1LC3C are produced by the proteolytic cleavage after the conserved C-terminal Gly residue, like their rat counterpart, MAP1LC3B does not undergo C-terminal cleavage and exists in a single modified form. The essential site for the distinct post-translation modification of MAP1LC3B is Lys-122 rather than the conserved Gly-120. Subcellular localization by cell fractionation and immunofluorescence revealed that three human isoforms are associated with membranes involved in the autophagic pathway. These results revealed different regulation of the three human isoforms of MAP1LC3 and implicate that the three isoforms may have different physiological functions.
OpenE2EQoS: Meter-based method for end-to-end QoS of multimedia services over SDN

IP multicast is a technique to save bandwidth when sending multimedia traffic to multiple users. However, to provide end-to-end quality of service (QoS) for multicast applications is still a challenging problem. The recently emerging technique, software defined network(SDN), provides a flexible network management capability by decoupling the data plane and the control plane. The control plane can be programmable to intelligently allocate network resources based on the information collected from the data plane. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end QoS multicast mechanism in SDN environments. We design an algorithm which adaptively provides the bandwidth provision via a learning mechanism for the multimedia traffic. Thus, QoS of multimedia flows could be guaranteed effectively and efficiently even under heavy-loaded scenarios. In addition, the learning approach is to utilize the link bandwidth efficiently by predicting the required QoS bandwidth. Furthermore, low priority packets are forwarded statistically among N different routes to mitigate the congesting link problem. Such a design could prevent the oscillation problem which could exist in traditional approaches which are to reroute the multimedia traffic to other routes. Our design leverages the flexible functions provided by SDN protocols. The performance is evaluated in a real SDN environment. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Treatment of Mandibular Symphyseal Fracture Combined With Dislocated Intracapsular Condylar Fractures

ObjectivesTo evaluate the treatment methods of mandibular symphyseal fracture combined with dislocated intracapsular condylar fractures (MSF&DICF) and to compare the effect of different treatment methods of condylar fractures. MethodsTwenty-eight patients with MSF&DICF were included in this study. Twenty-two sites were treated by open reduction, and all the medial condylar fragments were fixed with titanium screws; whereas the other 22 sites underwent close treatment. The surgical effect between these 2 groups was compared based on clinical examination and radiographic examination results. ResultsSeventeen of 22 condyle fractures were repositioned in the surgery group, whereas 4 of 22 condyle fractures were repositioned in the close treatment group. Statistical difference was observed between these 2 groups (P < 0.01). Functional outcomes of the patients treated in the surgical treatment group also were better than those in the close treatment group. ConclusionsThe dislocated intracapsular condyle fractures should be treated by surgical reduction with the maintenance of the attachment of lateral pterygoid muscle, which is beneficial to repositioning the dislocated condyle to its original physiological position, to closure of the mandibular lingual gap, to restore the mandibular width.
Perveance and sheath plasma expansion characteristics in high power cylindrical diode

Perveance and sheath plasma expansion characteristics for high power electron beams have been experimentally investigated in a cylindrical diode. An experimental scaling law for perveance in high power cylindrical diodes have been obtained in terms of anode-cathode (A-K) gap distance, d. It is found that the diode perveance in a high power cylindrical diode has a scaling law of /spl sim/d/sup -1.83/ in terms of the A-K gap distance, d, which is in close agreement with that of /spl sim/d/sup -2/ for infinite planar diode. It is also noted in high power cylindrical diode that the sheath plasma expansion speed is about 7 cm//spl mu/s at A-K gap distance of 4 mm, which is about two times faster than that in high power axial diode, in this experiment.
Examining Reports and Policies on Cognitive Enhancement: Approaches, Rationale, and Recommendations

The phenomenon of cognitive enhancement is attracting attention in bioethics literature and beyond, in public policy. In response, three bodies—the British Medical Association (BMA); the Commission de l'éthique de la Science et de la technologie (CEST) du Québec; the American Academy of Neurology (AAN)—have produced reports and guidance on this topic. To gain insights into different public policy approaches, rationales, and recommendations on the topic, we analyzed these reports in depth. We found convergence on the definition (with the exception of the CEST) of cognitive enhancement. However, we noted a lack of critical reflection with respect to the underlying rationale for developing these reports, i.e., that cognitive enhancement practices are rampant and represent major social changes. As it currently stands, cognitive enhancement is constituted in a way that challenges the creation of coherent and effective policy recommendations. However, policy makers should not simply wait for definitional consensus and hope that on balance the benefits turn out to be greater than the risks. Some components of cognitive enhancement could be reduced down to clearly identified policy targets to be further examined. Then, if appropriate, policy should be created that is, amongst other criteria, beneficial to the majority of the population.
Cryptosporidium Propidium Monoazide-PCR, a Molecular Biology-Based Technique for Genotyping of Viable Cryptosporidium Oocysts

ABSTRACT Cryptosporidium is an important waterborne protozoan parasite that can cause severe diarrhea and death in the immunocompromised. The current methods used to monitor for Cryptosporidium oocysts in water are the microscopy-based USEPA methods 1622 and 1623. These methods assess total levels of oocysts in source waters, but do not determine oocyst viability or genotype. Recently, propidium monoazide (PMA) has been used in conjunction with molecular diagnostic tools to identify species and assess the viability of bacteria. The goal of this study was the development of a Cryptosporidium PMA-PCR (CryptoPMA-PCR) assay that includes PMA treatment prior to PCR analysis in order to prevent the amplification of DNA from dead oocysts. The results demonstrated that PMA penetrates only dead oocysts and blocks amplification of their DNA. The CryptoPMA-PCR assay can also specifically detect live oocysts within a mixed population of live and dead oocysts. More importantly, live oocysts, not dead oocysts, were detected in raw waste or surface water samples spiked with Cryptosporidium oocysts. This proof-of-concept study is the first to demonstrate the use of PMA for pre-PCR treatment of Cryptosporidium oocysts. The CryptoPMA-PCR assay is an attractive approach to specifically detect and genotype viable Cryptosporidium oocysts in the water, which is critical for human health risk assessment.
Solanezumab for the treatment of mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease

Solanezumab (LY2062430) is a humanized monoclonal antibody that binds to the central region of β-amyloid, a peptide believed to play a key role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Eli Lilly & Co is developing an intravenous formulation of solanezumab for the treatment of mild-to-moderate AD. Acute and subchronic treatment with solanezumab of transgenic mice attenuated or reversed memory deficits with no effects on incidence or severity of cerebral amyloid angiopathy-associated microhemorrhages, a severe side effect associated with bapineuzumab, another monoclonal antibody. Phase II studies in AD patients have shown a good safety profile with encouraging indications on cerebrospinal and plasma biomarkers. The drug is currently being investigated in Phase III trials. While there is a strong hope that solanezumab may represent the first effective passive vaccine for AD treatment, skepticism still exists on the ability of the drug to slow the rate of deterioration in patients with fully established disease.
DVB-T Signal Ambiguity Function Control for Passive Radars

The use of digital video broadcasting-terrestrial (DVB-T) signals as waveform of opportunity for passive coherent location (PCL) is addressed here. The ambiguity function (AF) of the considered waveform of opportunity has been shown to yield regularly spaced undesired peaks which might strongly limit the target detection capability of a DVB-based PCL system. A new technique for DVB-T AF control is proposed, able to overcome the limitations of previously proposed approaches in terms of achievable performance, system requirements, and computational burden. The performance analysis against simulated and real data shows that the proposed technique yields an effective removal of the undesired peaks in the AF thus making the considered waveform more attractive for PCL surveillance.
A Bi-Objective Evolutionary Approach to Robust Scheduling

The production and delivery of rapidly perishable goods in distributed supply networks involves a number of tightly coupled decision and optimisation problems regarding the just-in-time production scheduling and the routing of the delivery vehicles in order to satisfy strict customer specified time-windows. Besides dealing with the typical combinatorial complexity related to activity assignment and synchronisation, effective methods must also provide robust schedules, coping with the stochastic perturbations (typically transportation delays) affecting the distribution process. In this paper, we propose a novel bi-objective meta-heuristic approach for robust scheduling. The proposed algorithm returns a set of solutions with different cost and risk tradeoffs, allowing the analyst to adapt the planning depending on the attitude to risk. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated by a real-world case concerning the production and distribution of ready-mixed concrete.
Human Cytomegalovirus gH/gL/gO Promotes the Fusion Step of Entry into All Cell Types, whereas gH/gL/UL128-131 Broadens Virus Tropism through a Distinct Mechanism

ABSTRACT Interaction between gH/gL and the fusion protein gB is likely a conserved feature of the entry mechanism for all herpesviruses. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) gH/gL can be bound by gO or by the set of proteins UL128, UL130, and UL131, forming gH/gL/gO and gH/gL/UL128-131. The mechanisms by which these complexes facilitate entry are poorly understood. Mutants lacking UL128-131 replicate well on fibroblasts but fail to enter epithelial/endothelial cells, and this has led to the general assumption that gH/gL/UL128-131 promotes gB-mediated fusion on epithelial/endothelial cells whereas gH/gL/gO provides this function on fibroblasts. This was challenged by observations that gO-null mutants were defective on all of these cell types, suggesting that entry into epithelial/endothelial cells requires both of the gH/gL complexes, but the severe replication defect of the gO mutants precluded detailed analysis. We previously reported that the ratio of gH/gL/gO and gH/gL/UL128-131 in the virion envelope varied dramatically among HCMV strains. Here, we show that strains not only differ in the ratio, but also vary in the total amount of gH/gL in the virion. Cell-type-specific particle-to-PFU ratios of HCMV strains that contained different amounts of gH/gL/gO and gH/gL/UL128-131 were determined. Infection of both fibroblasts and epithelial cells was generally correlated with the abundance of gH/gL/gO, but not with that of gH/gL/UL128-131. The low infectivity of virions rich in gH/gL/UL128-131 but low in gH/gL/gO could be overcome by treatment with the chemical fusogen polyethylene glycol (PEG), strongly arguing that gH/gL/gO provides the conserved herpesvirus gH/gL entry function of promoting gB-mediated fusion for entry into all cell types, whereas gH/gL/UL128-131 acts through a distinct mechanism to allow infection of select cell types. IMPORTANCE The functions of HCMV gH/gL complexes in entry are unclear. Unlike the well-studied Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), where gH/gL and gH/gL/gp42 complexes both seem capable of promoting gB fusion during entry into different cell types, our studies here suggest that for HCMV, gH/gL/gO promotes gB fusion on all cell types, whereas gH/gL/UL128-131 broadens virus tropism through a distinct, as yet unknown mechanism. To our knowledge, this is the first suggestion of a herpesvirus gH/gL that does not act by promoting gB fusion, which might make HCMV a useful model to study the fundamental mechanisms by which herpesvirus gH/gL regulates gB fusion. Moreover, gH/gL/UL128-131 is a candidate vaccine target. Our findings help to explain the cell-type-dependent virus neutralization exhibited by anti-gH/gL/UL128-131 antibodies and underscore the importance of gH/gL/gO as another important part of vaccine or therapeutic strategies.