Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ecology and Pathology of Novel Plaque-Like Growth Anomalies Affecting a Reef-Building Coral on the Great Barrier Reef

Here we identify ecological and structural characteristics of a novel plaque-like growth anomaly (GA) at outbreak levels in a population of the staghorn coral, Acropora muricata, on the Great Barrier Reef. The smooth appearance of the plaques results from thickening of skeletal structures comprising the coenosteum, leading to infilling of spaces between corallites, and was associated with hyperplasia and hypertrophy of calicodermal cells. This resulted in a 2-fold reduction in corallite height, a 1.6-fold increase in corallite width, and a 2.3-fold increase in the thickness of the calicodermal layer compared to healthy corallites. Plaque-like GAs affected ~67% of corals surveyed, and on average, encased 50% of the surface area of diseased branches. Progression rates along branches averaged 0.22mm day-1 over a 2.5-month period. GAs spread throughout colonies but their presence did not affect the linear extension rates of branches. Reproductive products were absent in 55% of GA tissues, and when present, mean oocyte and spermary numbers were reduced by 50%. However, when present, mean sizes of oocytes and spermaries did not differ between healthy and GA tissues. Symbiodinium densities were also reduced by 50% in polyps within GA tissues, which were characterized by an absence of polyp structure and chaotic arrangement of gastrovascular canals, compromising host nutrition. A 3-fold increase in stores of the immune-related precursor, prophenoloxidase, within GA tissues compared to healthy tissue suggests a primed immune response. Concomitantly, only 35% of prophenoloxidase was converted to the active enzyme phenoloxidase compared to 81% in healthy tissues, consistent with inhibition of immune-related enzymatic reactions by an unknown causative agent. The increasing frequency of emerging disease hotspots highlights the importance of understanding sublethal effects of diseases that have important implications for the fitness and long-term resilience of coral populations.
Modeling inductive coupling for Wireless Power Transfer to integrated circuits

With the trend of portable electronics to go battery-less, Inductive Coupling Wireless Power Transfer (ICW Power Transfer) is becoming commonplace. Inductive Coupling has shown to be a good technique for proximity and wireless power transfer in general, because it permits the easy use of impedance matching and resonance circuits. An important potential application is powering Integrated Circuits (ICs) from a PCB (Printed Circuit Board) without using conductive pins. While using ferromagnetic core materials improves coupling, conductive non-ferromagnetic ones like most IC's substrates, decrease coupling and ICW Power Transfer performance. In this paper we developed a simple theoretical model for ICW power transfer and compared it with 3D Electromagnetic simulations of an inductive link system to ICs. The results show that enough power can be supplied to very low power consumption ICs. As this technique can be also used to perform wireless communications, it opens the possibility to design ICs without pins at all.
Targeted expression of the inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate receptor (IP3R) ligand-binding domain releases Ca2+ via endogenous IP3R channels

Virtually all functions of a cell are influenced by cytoplasmic [Ca2+] increases. Inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP3R) channels, located in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), release Ca2+ in response to binding of the second messenger, IP3.IP3Rs thus are part of the information chain interpreting external signals and transforming them into cytoplasmic Ca2+ transients. IP3Rs function as tetramers, each unit comprising an N-terminal ligand-binding domain (LBD) and a C-terminal channel domain linked by a long regulatory region. It is not yet understood how the binding of IP3 to the LBD regulates the gating properties of the channel. Here, we use the expression of IP3 binding protein domains tethered to the surface of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to show that the all-helical domain of the IP3R LBD is capable of depleting the ER Ca2+ pools by opening the endogenous IP3Rs, even without IP3 binding. This effect requires the domain to be within 50 Å of the ER membrane and is impaired by the presence of the N-terminal inhibitory segment on the LBD. These findings raise the possibility that the helical domain of the LBD functions as an effector module possibly interacting with the channel domain, thereby being part of the gating mechanisms by which the IP3-induced conformational change within the LBD regulates Ca2+ release.
A new minor diketopiperazine from the sponge-derived fungus Simplicillium sp. YZ-11

Chemical investigation of the cultures of a sponge-derived fungus Simplicillium sp. YZ-11 led to the isolation of a new minor diketopiperazine alkaloid cyclo-(2-hydroxy-Pro-Gly) (1) and a natural lactone (S)-dihydro-5-[(S)- hydroxyphenylmethyl]-2(3H)-furanone (2), together with five known ergostane-type sterols (3–7). Their structures were established based on extensive spectroscopic methods (1H and 13C NMR, 1H-1H COSY, HSQC and HMBC) and optical rotation analysis.
PACAP Promotes Matrix-Driven Adhesion of Cultured Adult Murine Neural Progenitors

New neurons are born throughout the life of mammals in germinal zones of the brain known as neurogenic niches: the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricles and the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. These niches contain a subpopulation of cells known as adult neural progenitor cells (aNPCs), which self-renew and give rise to new neurons and glia. aNPCs are regulated by many factors present in the niche, including the extracellular matrix (ECM). We show that the neuropeptide PACAP (pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide) affects subventricular zone-derived aNPCs by increasing their surface adhesion. Gene array and reconstitution assays indicate that this effect can be attributed to the regulation of ECM components and ECM-modifying enzymes in aNPCs by PACAP. Our work suggests that PACAP regulates a bidirectional interaction between the aNPCs and their niche: PACAP modifies ECM production and remodeling, in turn the ECM regulates progenitor cell adherence. We speculate that PACAP may in this manner help restrict adult neural progenitors to the stem cell niche in vivo, with potential significance for aNPC function in physiological and pathological states.
Single-dose pharmacokinetics of oral fleroxacin in bacteremic patients

Fleroxacin is a new broad-spectrum quinolone which can be given by the oral route. The present study was designed to assess the influence of bacteremia on the pharmacokinetics of a single oral dose of fleroxacin. Thirteen patients with proven bacteremia (one or more pairs of positive blood cultures, no hypotension) were given a single 400-mg fleroxacin dose orally on two occasions while also receiving standard antibiotic therapy. The first dose was administered 12 to 36 h after the last positive blood culture was drawn (day 1), and a second dose was administered 7 days later (day 7 +/- 2) to compare the pharmacokinetics between the acute and the convalescent phases of the disease. Following each administration of fleroxacin, serial plasma samples were collected for up to 72 h and were analyzed for unchanged drug by a reversed phase high-pressure liquid chromatography technique. There were no significant changes in the following pharmacokinetic parameters (mean standard deviation) the maximum concentration of drug in serum (6.4 +/- 1.5 versus 6.7 +/- 1.9 mg/liter), the minimum concentration of drug in serum, defined as the concentration of drug in serum at 24 h postdose (3.0 +/- 1.7 versus 2.5 +/- 1.2 mg/liter), the time to the maximum concentration of drug in serum (2.3 +/- 1.4 versus 2.0 +/- 1.2 h), and the elimination half-life (19.7 +/- 8.0 versus 17.9 +/- 6.9 h). Fleroxacin clearances were compared for each individual patient. A positive correlation (R2 = 0.787) was found between the values measured on day 1 and day 7. Oral clearance of fleroxacin (CL = CL/F, where F is bioavailability was slightly, but not significantly, reduced during the bacteremic phase (oral clearance, 43.8+/- 23.5 versus 48.5 +/- 17.5 ml/min.). When compared with previous results obtained in healthy young subjects, longer times to the maximum concentration of drug in serum and elimination half-lives and higher areas under the curve were observed. This could be due to the bacteremic state, the old age of the patients (mean, 66 years), and the low renal clearance (mean calculated creatinine clearance, 71.1 ml/min). A single oral dose of 400 mg of fleroxacin provides sufficient levels in serum to cover susceptible microorganisms for at least 24 h in bacteremic patients. Renal function appeared to be the key element that had to be taken into consideration to adapt fleroxacin dosage profiles in our patient population. Bacteremia itself appeared to amplify that phenomenon, but to a much lesser extent than renal function did.
A POLYNOMIAL TIME ALGORITHM FOR LOCAL TESTABILITY AND ITS LEVEL

A locally testable semigroup S is a semigroup with the property that for some non-negative integer k, called the order or level of local testability, two words u and v in some set of generators for S are equal in the semigroup if (1) the prefix and suffix of the words of length k coincide, and (2) the set of intermediate substrings of length k of the words coincide. The local testability problem for semigroups is, given a finite semigroup, to decide, if the semigroup is locally testable or not. Recently, we introduced a polynomial time algorithm for the local testability problem and to find the level of local testability for semigroups based on our previous description of identities of k-testable semigroups and the structure of locally testable semigroups. The first part of the algorithm we introduce solves the local testability problem. The second part of the algorithm finds the order of local testability of a semigroup. The algorithm is of order n2, where n is the order of the semigroup.
Identification of current density distribution in electrically conducting subject with anisotropic conductivity distribution

Current density imaging (CDI) is able to visualize a three-dimensional current density distribution J inside an electrically conducting subject caused by an externally applied current. CDI may use a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner to measure the induced magnetic flux density B and compute J via the Ampere law . However, measuring all three components of B = (Bx, By, Bz) has a technical difficulty due to the requirement of orthogonal rotations of the subject inside the MRI scanner. In this work, we propose a new method of reconstructing a current density image using only Bz data so that we can avoid the subject rotation procedure. The method utilizes an auxiliary injection current to compensate the missing information of Bx and By. The major advantage of the method is its applicability to a subject with an anisotropic conductivity distribution. Numerical experiments show the feasibility of the new technique.
Secrecy Rate of Time Switched Transmit Diversity System

Time switched transmit diversity (TSTD) system uses only one out of several transmit antennas at a time in order to exploit the benefit of transmit diversity while keeping the system simple by having only one RF chain. We show that while average rate of such a system remains similar to the capacity of the single transmit antenna, outage secrecy capacity is greatly improved. In particular, as the number of transmit antenna is increased or outage probability decreased, the gains over single antenna system improve significantly - gains of over 20 dB with respect to the single antenna system are achieved for 1% outage rate. Furthermore, the probability of existence of secrecy capacity is improved as well for cases when the main channel has higher SNR than the eavesdropper channel.
The closteroviruses, capilloviruses and other similar viruses: a short review.

Introduction. The closteroviruses and capilloviruses are diverse groups of structurally similar, flexuous, filamentous plant viruses. However, because of a lack of information of other than a morphological nature the taxonomy of these virus groups and of other similar elongated viruses has been somewhat confused, and to some extent is likely to remain so for some time. The closterovirus group is characterized by extremely flexuous particles ranging in modal length from 600 to 2000 nm, depending on the virus; the clostero- prefix is derived from the Greek kloster, meaning thread or spindle. Closterovirus particles are uniformly about 12 nm in width and have an easily recognized ‘open’ structure (closterovirus structure and morphology have been reviewed by Tollin & Wilson, 1988). The unipartite ssRNA genome is wound much less tightly in closterovirus particles than in other filamentous plant viruses, with a variability in helical pitch for individual virions suggesting relatively weak interactions between the particle subunits, possibly explaining their extreme flexibility.
Evidence of lower toxicity during thyroxine suppression after a single 3-mg L-thyroxine dose: comparison to the classical L-triiodothyronine test for thyroid suppressibility.

ABSTRACT Thyroidal suppressibility after oral administration of a single dose of 3 mg l-T4 and after multiple daily doses of l-T3 proved to be equivalent. There were no clinical disturbances during the l-T4 suppression test. Radioimmunoassay of T3 and T4 showed extreme elevations of serum T3 up to 10.05 ng/ml during the classical T3 suppression test, while in the l-T4 test initial serum T4 peaks of 220–390 ng/ml were correlated with only minor serum T3 elevations of about 1.00 ng/ml above baseline levels. It seems evident that this practicable T4 suppression test is less hazardous than the usual T3 suppression test.
Hypothesis Testing Based Model for Fingerprinting Localization Algorithms

Despite the popularity of Fingerprinting Localization Algorithms (FPS), general theoretical frameworks for their performance studies have rarely been discussed in the literature. In this work, after setting up an abstract model for the FPS, we show that a fingerprinting-based localization problem can be cast as a Hypothesis Testing (HT) problem and therefore various results from the HT literature can be used to provide insights, guidelines, and performance bounds for the FPS. This includes the scaling limits of error probability in terms of the number of measurements and the precise characterization of localization error. The provided results hold for the general FPS. Additionally, Received Signal Strength (RSS)-based fingerprinting algorithms are particularly considered from the theoretical viewpoint due to their widespread practical usage. Simulations and experimental results characterize numerically the findings of the theoretical framework and demonstrate its consistency with realistic localization scenarios.
EHBP-1 Functions with RAB-10 during Endocytic Recycling in Caenorhabditis elegans

Caenorhabditis elegans RAB-10 functions in endocytic recycling in polarized cells, regulating basolateral cargo transport in the intestinal epithelia and postsynaptic cargo transport in interneurons. Here we show binding of RAB-10 to EHBP-1, a CH-domain protein, and demonstrate a requirement for EHBP-1 in RAB-10–regulated transport in both of these tissues.
Genic evidence that gnetophytes are sister to all other seed plants

Gnetophytes, comprising three relict genera, Gnetum, Welwitchia and Ephedra, are a morphologically diverse and enigmatic assemblage among seed plants. Despite recent progress on phylogenomic analyses or the insights from the recently decoded Gnetum genome, the relationship between gnetophytes and other seed plant lineages is still one of the outstanding, unresolved questions in plant sciences. Here, we showed that phylogenetic studies from nuclear genes support the hypothesis that places gnetophytes as sister to all other extant seed plants and so this hypothesis should not be ruled out according to phylogenetic inference based on nuclear genes. However, this extraordinarily difficult phylogenetic problem might never be solved by phylogenetic inference based gene tree under various artificial selection. Hence, we adopted a novel approach, comparing gene divergence among different lineages, to solve the conflicts by showing that gnetophytes actually did not gained a set of genes like the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of other seed plants. This distinct gene evolution pattern could not be explained by random gene lost as in other seed plants but should be interpreted by the early divergence of gnetophytes from rest of seed plants. With such a placement, the gymnosperms are paraphyletic and there should be three distinct groups of living seed plants: gnetophytes, non-gnetophytes gymnosperms and angiosperms.
A specific deficit of dorsal stream function in Williams' syndrome

WILLIAMS' syndrome (WS) is a rare, genetically based disorder of cognitive development. Affected individuals show a severe deficit of spatial cognition but a relative sparing of language and face recognition. To examine the possible neural basis of the spatial deficit, we tested a group of WS children, aged 4–14 years, on two measures specific to dorsal cortical stream function: global motion coherence thresholds, in comparison with an analogous form-coherence test, and visuo-manual accuracy in posting a card through a slot, compared with matching the slot orientation. Deficits in these tasks provide the first evidence of specific involvement in WS of the dorsal stream, the cortical system believed to encode information about spatial relationships and the visual control of action.
Multispectral data classification based on spectral indices and cascaded fuzzy C-mean classifiers

Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) are characterized by a large variety of spectrally distinct LULC classes. The diagnostic and evaluation of the spectral separability measure yields the potential for automated identification and mapping of these classes. This study proposes a new cascaded fuzzy C-mean classification method for a rough classification of (LULC) classes. The method is based on the use of spectral indices as innovative features to provide a coarse classification of remotely sensed data. The robustness and accuracy of the defined classification schema is performed based on the computation of confusion matrices and Kappa coefficient. The Kappa statistic ranges from 0.90 to 0.98 for the set of the evaluated images which infer the good accuracy of the new rough classification scheme.
Optimal joint rate and power allocation in a multicell multimedia CDMA network

Optimal joint rate and power allocations of a multimedia CDMA system are presented in a multicell network. The optimal data rate and power allocations are for both links (uplink and downlink) while assuring each user's QoS requirements, i.e., data rate requirement and application's BER constraint. The purpose of the resource allocation is to minimize the total transmission power for both link directions; this gives rise to maximum capacity since the capacity of a CDMA system is interference-limited. We show, through strict theoretical deduction, that the proposed allocation provides the optimal joint data rate and power allocation for both the uplink and the downlink in multicell multimedia CDMA systems.
A method for mining the empirical formula based on Apriori algorithm

Objective: Based on the Apriori algorithm, we develop a method for mining traditional Chinese medicine herb prescriptions. Procedures and Methods: input the 1,632 medical records of Chen Shouqiang, Associate Chief Physician, into the electronic medical records management system; mine the high-frequency combination of traditional Chinese medicine for treatment of coronary heart disease via the Apriori algorithm; take the combination with most kinds of herbal medicines as the motherboard, and then add Chinese medicine different from what included in the top N groups of high-frequency combinations of traditional Chinese medicine; thus we can sum up the empirical formula. Results: the empirical formula mined consists of 12 herbs (i.e. rhizome of Ligusticum wallichii, salvia miltiorrhiza, tuber of dwarf lilyturf, Costustoot, licorice Roots Northwest Origin, Schisandra chinensis, Coptis chinensis, Scutellaria baicalensis, charred triplet, fructus forsythiae, cuttlebone and radix astragali), which is similar with the chest stuffiness No. 2 formula commonly used in clinic. Conclusion: This method has some significance in the experience heritage of distinguished veteran doctors of TCM, and it is worth promoting.
Enhanced ridge preservation by bone mineral bound with collagen-binding synthetic oligopeptide: a clinical and histologic study in humans.

BACKGROUND The ridge-preservation technique has been applied with membrane alone or membrane plus graft. Synthetic peptides, mimicking bioactive growth factor or extracellular matrix protein, have been attempted to provide an active surface of the biomaterials in inducing bone formation while alleviating the limitations of whole protein such as short half-life, immunologic responses. The aim of the present clinical study is to examine the osteogenic effect of synthetic oligopeptide-coated bone mineral compared to bone graft without peptide when applied with collagen membrane in a ridge-preservation technique. METHODS Synthetic oligopeptide from the collagen-binding domain of osteopontin was chemically synthesized and coated onto the surface of bone mineral particulates. Ridge preservations were performed at 44 extraction sites in 42 patients (20 males and 22 females). Analyses of clinical parameters and histomorphometric evaluations were conducted to compare the osteogenic effects of the grafts between baseline and 6 months. RESULTS In the bone grafts of the control group treated without synthetic peptide, new bone formation was only seen around borders and basal areas. However, new bone was observed broadly in the defects of the test group treated with synthetic peptide-coated bone mineral, as seen not only at peripheries but also in the central and coronal parts of bone cores in the defects. The average percentage of new bone formation was significantly higher in the test group (5.3% ± 8.3% versus 10.4% ± 4.6%). The contact percentages between the graft particles and the new bone were 8.2% ± 11.3% for the control group and 20.4% ± 7.5% for the test group (P <0.05). CONCLUSIONS The ridge-preservation approach using synthetic oligopeptide-coated bone mineral with collagen membrane effectively prevented the resorption of hard tissue with higher bone-to-graft contact, and the oligopeptide-coated bone may be a choice for ridge-preservation procedures while assuring new bone formation.
A Clipping-Noise Compression Method to Reduce PAPR of OFDM Signals

Iterative clipping and filtering (ICF) is widely employed in the orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) systems to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). However, the conventional ICF-based methods usually involve numerous transformations between the frequency domain and the time domain and run into numbers of iteration. This letter proposes a clipping-noise compression method, in which the transmitted OFDM signal is modified in the time domain by clipping and noise compression. The computational complexity is greatly reduced owing to the fact that only one fast Fourier transform is needed in the approach. Furthermore, the proposed method exhibits better PAPR reduction and bit error rate (BER) performance in the simulations compared with the conventional ICF-based methods.