Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of plasma skin regeneration technology in low-energy full-facial rejuvenation.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the use of multiple, low-energy, full-face plasma skin regeneration treatments. DESIGN Plasma skin regeneration delivers energy to the skin through plasma pulses induced by passing radiofrequency into nitrogen gas. Single-treatment, high-energy, 1-pass treatments have been demonstrated to achieve good results with an excellent safety profile. Eight volunteers underwent full-face treatments every 3 weeks, for a total of 3 treatments, using energy settings of 1.2 to 1.8 J. Before each subsequent treatment, the quality of regenerated epidermis, the degree of downtime, and erythema were recorded. Full-thickness skin biopsy specimens were obtained from 6 patients before treatment and 90 days following the last treatment. Patients were seen for follow-up 4 days after each treatment and 30 and 90 days after the third treatment. RESULTS Three months after treatment, investigators found a 37% reduction in facial rhytids and study participants noted a 68% improvement in overall facial appearance. Reepithelialization was complete in 4 days. Patients assessed erythema to persist an average of 6 days after treatment. Epidermal regeneration from the first treatment was longer than from the following treatments (9 vs 4 and 5 days, respectively). One patient developed localized hyperpigmentation after the first treatment, which resolved by follow-up at day 30. No scarring or hypopigmentation occurred. A histologic evaluation 3 months after treatment revealed a band of new collagen at the dermoepidermal junction with less dense elastin in the upper dermis. The mean depth of new collagen was 72.3 mum. CONCLUSIONS Plasma skin regeneration using the multiple low-energy treatment technique allows significant successful treatment of photodamaged facial skin with minimal downtime. Results are comparable to a single high-energy treatment, but with less healing time.
Nonlinear estimation with Perron-Frobenius operator and Karhunen-Loève expansion

In this paper, a novel methodology for state estimation of stochastic dynamical systems is proposed. In this formulation, finite-term Karhunen-Loève (KL) expansion is used to approximate the process noise, resulting in a nonautonomous deterministic approximation (with parametric uncertainty) of the original stochastic nonlinear system. It is proved that the solutions of the approximate dynamical system asymptotically converge to the true solutions in a mean-square sense. The evolution of uncertainty for the KL-approximated system is predicted via the Perron-Frobenius (PF) operator. Furthermore, a nonlinear estimation algorithm, using the proposed uncertainty propagation scheme, is developed. It is found that for finite-dimensional linear and nonlinear filters, the evolving posterior densities obtained from the KLPF-based estimator are closer than those obtained from the particle filter to the true posterior densities. The methodology is then applied to estimate states of a hypersonic reentry vehicle. It is observed that the KLPF-based estimator outperformed the particle filter in terms of capturing localization of uncertainty through posterior densities and reduction of uncertainty.
A genome wide linkage scan for dizygotic twinning in 525 families of mothers of dizygotic twins.

BACKGROUND The tendency to conceive dizygotic (DZ) twins is a complex trait influenced by genetic and environmental factors. To search for new candidate loci for twinning, we conducted a genome-wide linkage scan in 525 families using microsatellite and single nucleotide polymorphism marker panels. METHODS AND RESULTS Non-parametric linkage analyses, including 523 families containing a total of 1115 mothers of DZ twins (MODZT) from Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) and The Netherlands (NL), produced four linkage peaks above the threshold for suggestive linkage, including a highly suggestive peak at the extreme telomeric end of chromosome 6 with an exponential logarithm of odds [(exp)LOD] score of 2.813 (P = 0.0002). Since the DZ twinning rate increases steeply with maternal age independent of genetic effects, we also investigated linkage including only families where at least one MODZT gave birth to her first set of twins before the age of 30. These analyses produced a maximum expLOD score of 2.718 (P = 0.0002), largely due to linkage signal from the ANZ cohort, however, ordered subset analyses indicated this result is most likely a chance finding in the combined dataset. Linkage analyses were also performed for two large DZ twinning families from the USA, one of which produced a peak on chromosome 2 in the region of two potential candidate genes. Sequencing of FSHR and FIGLA, along with INHBB in MODZTs from two large NL families with family specific linkage peaks directly over this gene, revealed a potentially functional variant in the 5' untranslated region of FSHR that segregated with the DZ twinning phenotype in the Utah family. CONCLUSION Our data provide further evidence for complex inheritance of familial DZ twinning.
Genetic Distance and International Migrant Selection

This paper looks at the effect of the relatedness of two countries, measured by their genetic distance, on educational migrant selection. We analyze bilateral country-level education-specific migration stocks from 85 sending countries to the 15 main destination countries in 2000 and show that country pairs with larger genetic distances exhibit more selected migrant stocks compared to country pairs with smaller genetic distances on average. The effect is driven by country pairs with genetic distances above the median, suggesting that genetic distance must be sufficiently large to constitute a barrier to migration for low-skilled migrants. Results are robust to the inclusion of sending and destination country fixed effects, bilateral control variables, and an instrumental variables approach that exploits exogenous variation in genetic distances in the year 1500.
3D-LIN: A configurable low-latency interconnect for multi-core clusters with 3D stacked L1 memory

Shared L1 memories are of interest for tightly-coupled processor clusters in programmable accelerators as they provide a convenient shared memory abstraction while avoiding cache coherence overheads. The performance of a shared-L1 memory critically depends on the architecture of the low-latency interconnect between processors and memory banks, which needs to provide ultra-fast access to the largest possible L1 working set. The advent of 3D technology provides new opportunities to improve the interconnect delay and the form factor. In this paper we propose a network architecture, 3D-LIN, based on 3D integration technology. The network can be configured based on user specifications and technology constraints to provide fast access to L1 memories on multiple stacked dies. The extracted results from the physical synthesis of 3D-LIN permit to explore trade-offs between memory size and network latency from a planar design to multiple memory layers stacked on top of logic. In the case where the system memory requirements lead to a memory area that occupies 60% of the chip, the form factor can be reduced by more than 60% by stacking 2 memory layers on the logic. Latency reduction is also promising: the network itself, configured for connecting 16 processing elements to 128 memory banks on 2 memory layers is 24% faster than the planar system.
Class imbalance handling using wrapper-based random oversampling

We propose a novel algorithm for handling class imbalance. Class imbalance is a problem occurring in some valuable data such as medical diagnosis, fraud detection, oil spills, etc. The problem influences all supervised classification algorithms therefore a large amount of research is being done. The problem is tackled by preprocessing the data using wrapper-based random oversampling. Wrapper is a preprocessing approach that makes use of system (classifier) feedback to guide preprocessing. The wrapper approach is used to find regions suitable for sampling. Genetic algorithm is used as the basis of the wrapper approach to evolve the optimal regions. After specifying the optimal region random oversampling is performed to generate synthetic data. We evaluate our method using real world datasets with different imbalance ratios. We use two different classifiers that are Fisher and k-NN. The proposed algorithm is compared with two other oversampling methods namely SMOTE and random oversampling. The results show that the proposed algorithm is a suitable preprocessing method for handling class imbalance.
Antenatal lifestyle advice for women who are overweight or obese: LIMIT randomised trial

Objective To determine the effect of antenatal dietary and lifestyle interventions on health outcomes in overweight and obese pregnant women. Design Multicentre randomised trial. We utilised a central telephone randomisation server, with computer generated schedule, balanced variable blocks, and stratification for parity, body mass index (BMI) category, and hospital. Setting Three public maternity hospitals across South Australia. Participants 2212 women with a singleton pregnancy, between 10+0 and 20+0 weeks’ gestation, and BMI ≥25. Interventions 1108 women were randomised to a comprehensive dietary and lifestyle intervention delivered by research staff; 1104 were randomised to standard care and received pregnancy care according to local guidelines, which did not include such information. Main outcome measures Incidence of infants born large for gestational age (birth weight ≥90th centile for gestation and sex). Prespecified secondary outcomes included birth weight >4000 g, hypertension, pre-eclampsia, and gestational diabetes. Analyses used intention to treat principles. Results 2152 women and 2142 liveborn infants were included in the analyses. The risk of the infant being large for gestational age was not significantly different in the two groups (lifestyle advice 203/1075 (19%) v standard care 224/1067 (21%); adjusted relative risk 0.90, 95% confidence interval 0.77 to 1.07; P=0.24). Infants born to women after lifestyle advice were significantly less likely to have birth weight above 4000 g (lifestyle advice 164/1075 (15%) v standard care 201/1067 (19%); 0.82, 0.68 to 0.99; number needed to treat (NNT) 28, 15 to 263; P=0.04). There were no differences in maternal pregnancy and birth outcomes between the two treatment groups. Conclusions For women who were overweight or obese, the antenatal lifestyle advice used in this study did not reduce the risk delivering a baby weighing above the 90th centile for gestational age and sex or improve maternal pregnancy and birth outcomes. Trial registration Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12607000161426).
Evaluation of organochlorine compounds in peregrine falcon (falco peregrinus) and their main prey (columba livia) inhabiting central spain

The population of peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus sbs. brookei) inhabiting the Regional Park of southeastern Madrid (RPSM), Spain, has experienced an increase of unsuccessful pairs (from 15% among a total of 20 pairs in 1995 to 55% among a total of 18 pairs in 2001). Traditionally, this area has been known to be contaminated with organochlorine compounds and toxic metals, which are known to be deleterious to the reproductive system of birds. During the breeding seasons of 2000 and 2001, contaminant residues were measured in unhatched eggs of peregrine falcons and liver of their main prey, to determine if they could be affecting the survival of the population. The most abundant contaminants were ortho‐polychlorinated biphenyls (ortho‐PCBs), ranging from 202.56 to 3,335.16 ng/g (wet wt) in falcon eggs and from 10.25 to 53.51 ng/g (wet wt) in pigeon livers. In all samples, the 2,3,7,8‐substituted polychlorinated dibenzo‐p‐dioxins (PCDDs) and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) were detected, although these levels never exceeded 20 pg/g (wet wt). The major contributor to total toxic equivalent quantities (TEQs) were non‐ortho‐PCBs. Organochlorine levels found in this study may contribute to the entire suite of stressors that are negatively affecting the peregrine population.
Analysis of Vegetation Cover Fraction on Landsat OLI using NDVI

The Vegetation cover is a significant factor to comprehend characteristics of the ground surface for meterological and hydrological models, which measure energy in the atmosphere or predict the runoff of ground surface. Deardorff introduced vegetation cover fraction to quantitatively comprehend the vegetation cover in 1978. After Deardorff, most of previous researches were conducted on low-resolution or high-resolution images, but only few researches on Landsat that are in medium-resolution images. Therefore, this study aims to investigate a way of calculating the vegetation cover fraction by using NDVI of Landsat images, which were hardly handled previously. For accurate vegetation cover fraction, we compared the evaluated parameters from this study with past vegetation cover fraction parameters that have been calculated for using NDVI of Landsat OLI images. The result of research was shown that NDVI is quite correlated with the vegetation fraction cover in the previous researches. In fact, RMSE of vegetation cover fraction values that obtained through the suggested parameters on this study showed the highest accuracy of 7.3% among all the cases.
Towards a Dependency Parser for Basque

We present the Dependency Parser, called Maxuxta, for the linguistic processing of Basque, which can serve as a representative of agglutinative languages that are also characterized by the free order of its constituents. The Dependency syntactic model is applied to establish the dependency-based grammatical relations between the components within the clause. Such a deep analysis is used to improve the output of the shallow parsing where syntactic structure ambiguity is not fully and explicitly resolved. Previous to the completion of the grammar for the dependency parsing, the design of the Dependency Structure-based Scheme had to be accomplished; we concentrated on issues that must be resolved by any practical system that uses such models. This scheme was used both to the manual tagging of the corpus and to develop the parser. The manually tagged corpus has been used to evaluate the accuracy of the parser. We have evaluated the application of the grammar to corpus, measuring the linking of the verb with its dependents, with satisfactory results.
EFFECTS OF WATERSHED BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON HABITAT AND FISH IN WISCONSIN STREAMS 1

ABSTRACT: We evaluated the effectiveness of watershed‐scale implementations of best‐management practices (BMPs) for improving habitat and fish attributes in two coldwater stream systems in Wisconsin. We sampled physical habitat, water temperature, and fish communities in multiple paired treatment and reference streams before and after upland (barnyard runoff controls, manure storage, contour plowing, reduced tillage) and riparian (stream bank fencing, sloping, limited rip‐rapping) BMP installation in the treatment subwatersheds. In Spring Creek, BMPs significantly improved overall stream habitat quality, bank stability, instream cover for fish, abundance of cool‐ and coldwater fishes, and abundance of all fishes. Improvements were most pronounced at sites with riparian BMPs. Water temperatures were consistently cold enough to support coldwater fishes such as trout (Salmonidae) and sculpins (Cottidae) even before BMP installation. We observed the first‐time occurrence of naturally reproduced brown trout (Salmo trutta) in Spring Creek, indicating that the stream condition had been improved to be able to partially sustain a trout population. In Eagle Creek and its tributary Joos Creek, limited riparian BMPs led to localized gains in overall habitat quality, bank stability, and water depth. However, because few upland BMPs were installed in the subwatershed there were no improvements in water temperature or the quality of the fish community. Temperatures remained marginal for coldwater fish throughout the study. Our results demonstrate that riparian BMPs can improve habitat conditions in Wisconsin streams, but cannot restore coldwater fish communities if there is insufficient upland BMP implementation. Our approach of studying multiple paired treatment and reference streams before and after BMP implementation proved effective in detecting the response of stream ecosystems to watershed management activities.
Tree-ring responses to the 1978 earthquake at Stephens Pass, northeastern California

The 1978 earthquake at Stephens Pass, northeastern California, dropped a series of grabens that average 4.5 m in width, extend up to 1 m in depth, and are found intermittently along a 2-km-long rupture zone. The formation of this graben series killed or otherwise affected many trees growing in or immediately adjacent to the rupture zone. Nine trees responded to the 1978 earthquake with anomalously narrow ring widths, beginning in 1979 and continuing for several years. One tree responded with anomalously wide latewood relative to total ring width. This example of tree-ring responses to a normal-fault earthquake complements other cases of tree-growth responses to earthquakes of thrust and strike-slip tectonic settings. The 1978 earthquake at Stephens Pass was unique in that it caused tree-ring responses even though it was only moderate (magnitude 4.6). This study serves as a specific calibration example for dendrochronologically studying prehistoric earthquakes, as well as eruptions, at the nearby Medicine Lake Highlands. Medicine Lake has been seismically and volcanically active during the past 1000 yr, and it supports a forest of several coniferous tree species that can be used for dendrochronologically studying geomorphological processes.
Studies Of Earthquakes Stress Drops, Seismic Scattering, And Dynamic Triggering In North America

I use the Relative Source Time Function (RSTF) method to determine the source properties of earthquakes within southeastern Alaska-northwestern Canada in a first part of the project, and earthquakes within the Denali fault in a second part. I deconvolve a small event P-arrival signal from a larger event by the following method: select arrivals with a tapered cosine window, fast fourier transform to obtain the spectrum, apply water level deconvolution technique, and bandpass filter before inverse transforming the result to obtain the RSTF. I compare the source processes of earthquakes within the area to determine stress drop differences to determine their relation with the tectonic setting of the earthquakes location. Results show an consistency with previous results, stress drop independent of moment implying self-similarity, correlation of stress drop with tectonic regime, stress drop independent of depth, stress drop depends of focal mechanism where strike-slip present larger stress drops, and decreasing stress drop as function of time. I determine seismic wave attenuation in the central western United States using coda waves. I select approximately 40 moderate earthquakes (magnitude between 5.5 and 6.5) located alocated along the California-Baja California, California-Nevada, Eastern Idaho, Gulf of California, Hebgen Lake, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, off coast of Northern California, off coast of Oregon, southern California, southern Illinois, Vancouver Island, Washington, and Wyoming regions. These events were recorded by the EarthScope transportable array (TA) network from 2005 to 2009. We obtain the data from the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). In this study we implement a method based on the assumption that coda waves are single backscattered waves from randomly distributed heterogeneities to calculate the coda Q. The frequencies studied lie between 1 and 15 Hz. The scattering attenuation is calculated for frequency bands centered at 1.5, 3, 5, 7.5, 10.5, and 13.5 Hz. Coda Q present a great correlation with tectonic and geology setting, as well as the crustal thickness. I analyze global and Middle American Subduction Zone (MASZ) seismicity from 1998 to 2008 to quantify
Land Surface Model Development for the GISS GCM: Effects of Improved Canopy Physiology on Simulated Climate

Abstract A new physiology-based model of canopy stomatal conductance and photosynthesis is described and included in the latest version of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) GCM, ModelE1. The submodel includes responses to atmospheric humidity and CO2 concentration, responses missing from previous GISS GCM land surface schemes. Measurements of moisture, energy, and CO2 fluxes over four vegetation types are used to test and calibrate the submodel. Photosynthetic leaf N is calibrated for each vegetation type from the flux measurements. The new submodel results in surface cooling over many regions previously too warm. Some warm biases of over 2°C are cooled by more than 0.5°C, including over central Eurasia, South America, the western United States, and Australia. In addition, some regions that were previously too cool are warmed, such as northern Eurasia and the Tibetan Plateau. A number of precipitation biases are also reduced, particularly over South America (by up to 1 mm day−1) and the ocean.
Bandwidth control of reconfigurable bandpass filter by automatic coupling adjustment techniques

Reconfigurable bandpass filters that can adapt to many frequency bands will be one of the key parts in the future mobile terminals. A multi-bit reconfigurable resonator using tapped transmission line and RF Switches has been proposed and two-stage bandpass filters (BPF) have been developed. However, bandwidth control of the reconfigurable BPF remains as an important issue from the application point of view. This paper proposes reconfigurable coupling methods that automatically adjust coupling between two resonators in the BPF synchronized to the change of center frequency. Two-bit reconfigurable BPFs were fabricated according to the proposed design principle and their performances are compared with traditional capacitance coupling method. It is shown that the proposed methods can reduce the bandwidth change among four center frequencies to 30 to 36 % of the traditional capacitance coupling method.
Nurse and Client Perceptions of Home Health Wound Care Effectiveness After a Change in Medicare Reimbursement

The purpose of this study was to begin to explore client and nurse perceptions related to how a change in a Medicare reimbursement, Prospective Payment System (PPS), affects home health care. The target population included home health clients with stage III or greater decubitus ulcers, age 65 years or older. Six Virginia home health agencies were randomly selected. From those sites, all 39 charts that met population criteria were accessed and analyzed, and then 16 care recipients were purposely selected. In addition, 26 home health nurses with pre- and post-PPS experience were purposefully selected. Semistructured, audiotaped interviews were conducted, transcribed, and analyzed using thematic content analysis. Results demonstrated PPS adaptive behavior and an increase in use of education and family caregivers related to wound care. Themes that emerged included professional competence, caregiver as key, and sense of support. Perceptions emphasize the necessity for resource management, collaboration, and patient advocacy.