Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High-resolution IR and radio observations of AGB stars

Aims. We present the results of observations with interferometers of a sample of pulsating asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in the infrared and at radio wavelengths. The goal of these observations is to explore the extended stellar atmospheres and to establish links between the spatial scales of molecular envelopes and of the dust shell. This is the key to better understand the process of dust formation and therefore of mass loss. Methods. We used the ESO VLTI/MIDI interferometer in the N band, the Keck Interferometer in the K band, and NRAO VLBA observations of SiO masers at 7 mm wavelength of a sample of AGB stars: U Ari, W Cnc, RX Tau, RT Tau, RT Aql, S Ser, and V Mon. The various instruments probe different altitudes of the atmosphere of the AGB stars. They are sensitive to regions below the silicate dust condensation distance and provide the opportunity of finding hints about how dust and its precursors form in the extended atmosphere of an AGB star. The K-band observations are sensitive to water and carbon-monoxyde vapors. Unfortunately, we were only able to observe S Ser in this wavelength range. Results. We find a ratio of 2.2 between the molecular envelope radius and the photospheric size, which is consistent with previous results. The N-band observations are mostly sensitive to vapors of SiO and water and to dust (alumina and silicate). The silicate dust shell is fully resolved, and no precise parameters can be deduced from the N-band observations other than a spatial extension of at least 12–16 R⋆ for our sample. The sizes found for the SiO region are consistent with the radii of the SiO maser rings provided by the VLBA observations. The sizes of the alumina and water vapor regions are systematically found to be larger. There is clear evidence that SiO is absent from regions farther from the star where silicate dust condenses. Conclusions. These observations support a possible scenario in which SiO is adsorbed by species such as corundum. An alternative explanation could be that SiO has chemically disappeared at this range of distances.
The spermatogonial stem cell population in adult rats. I. Their morphology, proliferation and maturation

Whole mounted segments of seminiferous tubules from rat testes have been used to investigate the morphology and proliferative activity of the undifferentiated type A spermatogonial population. This has led to the formulation of a new model for spermatogonial stem cell renewal. Three groups of undifferentiated A spermatogonia were classified according to their topographical arrangements as isolated, paired, and aligned spermatogonia. It was proposed that the isolated (as well as a few paired) spermatogonia, which were always present throughout the seminiferous epithelium, are the functional stem cells and should therefore be designated as As. Through sporadic divisions, the As spermatogonia both maintain their own numbers and give rise to pairs of cells which are destined to eventually differentiate. The latter undergo several synchronous divisions in succession, thereby forming increasingly longer chains of aligned spermatogonia. The proliferation of these chains, primarily in stages I–V, leads to a gradual expansion in the size of the undifferentiated type A population. When the population attains its maximal size in stage V, mitotic activity among the aligned cells ceases, and all of these cells morphologically transform without further division into typical A1 spermatogonia. Subsequently, the cohort of A1 cells synchronously divides in stage IX to begin the long process of spermatogonial maturation. The isolated (and a few paired) cells, which do not undergo this transformation and remain quiescent during the stage IX peak of mitosis, form a residual stock of stem cells, that, during the course of another cycle, rebuild the population of aligned A spermatogonia. In this way, a continual supply of type A1 spermatogonia which will cyclically differentiate is insured.
Characterizing a Heterogeneous System for Person Detection in Video Using Histograms of Oriented Gradients: Power Versus Speed Versus Accuracy

This paper presents a new implementation, with complete analysis, of the processing operations required in a widely-used pedestrian detection algorithm (the histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) detector) when run in various configurations on a heterogeneous platform suitable for use as an embedded system. The platform consists of field-programmable gate array (FPGA), graphics processing unit (GPU), and central processing unit (CPU) and we detail the advantages of such an image processing system for real-time performance. We thoroughly analyze the consequent tradeoffs made between power consumption, latency and accuracy for each possible configuration. We thus demonstrate that prioritization of each of these factors can be made by selecting a specific configuration. These separate configurations may then be changed dynamically to respond to changing priorities of a real-time system, e.g., on a moving vehicle. We compare the performance of real-time implementations of linear and kernel support vector machines in HOG and evaluate the entire system against the state-of-the-art in real-time person detection. We also show that our FPGA implementation detects pedestrians more accurately than existing implementations, and that a heterogeneous configuration which performs image scaling on the GPU, and histogram extraction and classification on the FPGA, produces a good compromise between power and speed.
Application of Single‐Cell Microfluorimetry to Neurotoxicology Assays

Intracellular signaling events play fundamental roles in regulating physiological function. In neurons, these include inducing growth and differentiation, secretion, gene expression, and controlling processes associated with learning and memory. All of these processes have in common the vital dependence on changes in intracellular Ca2+ [Ca2+]i. Numerous toxicants, including metals, polychlorinated biphenyls, and biological neurotoxins, can disrupt [Ca2+]i. Understanding how toxicants disrupt Ca2+‐dependent neuronal signaling, and thus induce neuronal death or dysfunction, requires the ability to monitor [Ca2+]i at the level of individual cells. A series of fluorophores that can report on changes in [Ca2+]i has been pivotal in this process. This section describes how to use these fluorophores to study effects of neurotoxicants on two types of processes: changes in [Ca2+]i in individual cells and changes in mitochondrial membrane potential. Similar techniques using distinct fluorophores can be applied to other physiological processes. Curr. Protoc. Toxicol. 42:12.15. 1‐12.15. 13. © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Metabolomics: Unraveling the chemical individuality of common human diseases

Sir Archibald Garrod is often referred to in recent perspectives on metabolomics because he was the first to recognize ‘inborn errors of metabolism’. For decades, the determination of metabolites was the domain of those involved in the diagnosis of this class of inherited disorders. With the development of metabolomics, these methods to determine and analyze metabolites have been taken an exciting step forward and are now used to understand common human disease. This concept of looking at metabolites to solve the pathogenesis of human disease touches upon another concept developed by Garrod, known as ‘chemical individuality’. Garrod proposed that each person is biochemically unique due to inherited differences in enzymes, which is reflected in disease predisposition. In a more contemporary perspective, this concept may be extended to chemical individuality of a human disease. This is the domain of metabolomics, which aims to determine as many metabolites as possible in samples from a cohort of individuals. Analysis of the results will identify changes in metabolites that correlate with the presence of certain afflictions. The next challenging step is then to determine whether these metabolites are only biomarkers for the presence of a disease or new leads to an unknown etiology.
FFLUX: Transferability of polarizable machine‐learned electrostatics in peptide chains

The fully polarizable, multipolar, and atomistic force field protein FFLUX is being built from machine learning (i.e., kriging) models, each of which predicts an atomic property. Each atom of a given protein geometry needs to be assigned such a kriging model. Such a knowledgeable atom needs to be informed about a sufficiently large environment around it. The resulting complexity can be tackled by collecting the 20 natural amino acids into a few groups. Using substituted deca‐alanines, we present the proof‐of‐concept that a given atom's charge can be modeled by a few kriging models only. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Cat And Dog Bites. What To Do?

Abstract Inroduction: Domestic animal bites are quite common, but mostly cause minor lesions, for which no medical help is sought. The objective of this study is to define the complications resulting from cat and dog bites that lead to hospital admission. This analysis led to updated guidelines for the treatment of dog and cat bites in humans. Patients and methods: The emergency department (ED) data of our hospital for the year 2004 were retrospectively analysed, seeking patients that presented with bite wounds from either cat or dog. The patient files were reviewed. Results: 34 patients, bitten by cats or dogs, presented to our ED in 2004. 73.5% of them (n = 25) consulted within 24 hours after the bite. In 11 of these patients (44.0%), primary closure of the wound was performed after thorough rinsing and evaluation of the dead space. All these patients were given prophylactic antibiotics. In none of these did the wounds need to be reopened afterwards. Nine patients (26.5%) did not present to the ED until after the day they were bitten. In all these patients, the bite wounds were located on the hand (n = 6) or forearm (n = 3). They all consulted because of complications. The main symptoms were limited and there was painful mobilisation of fingers and wrist, and swelling and redness in the area of the bite wound. Their wounds were thoroughly explored and in 6 of these nine late-presenting patients, a tendon lesion or a purulent flexor tenosynovitis was diagnosed. These six patients needed admission for further management. The mean admission duration was 6 days (range 4 to 10 days). None of the admitted patients showed any signs of limited mobility or disability during follow-up after discharge. Conclusion: While cat and dog bites often cause minor lesions that can be treated by thorough wound care if presented early, the importance of possible late complications should not be overlooked. Patients that present with the symptoms of tissue infection due to a cat or dog bite should be examined adequately and may need admission. Due to aggressive treatment, we had no serious or disabling complications in our population after discharge.
Association rules in the prediction of recall from free-association matrices.

Abstract : Correlations within methods (SR or FR) between criteria 28 days apart are substantially higher than correlations between methods at 2 min. or at 28 days. Stimulation, then, imposes its own particular alignment of items during recall. A substantial number of associative predictors can be computed by reference to free-association norms, many of which, but not all, are interrelated. These predictors suggest processes which may be responsible for recall. A great many of the predictors correlated well with stimulated recall. Thus, there are several ways of using free-association data other than in one, simple, direct way. None of these ways seemed relevant to the free recall data which remain unexplained. (Author)
Interculturalidad en pediatría: creencias tradicionales en la salud infantil en un área rural

Esta investigacion tuvo como proposito establecer el sentido de las creencias tradicionales en madres jovenes y cuidadores y su relacion con la salud infantil en un area rural de la Sabana de Bogota, Colombia. Metodologia: estudio cualitativo de caso. Se utilizo la tecnica de grupos focales, con una entrevista semi- estructurada previo consentimiento informado. Se realizaron siete grupos focales en la consulta externa de pediatria de los municipios de Guasca y Guatavita. Para la seleccion de participantes se uso un muestreo no probabilistico, intencional por conveniencia, de casos homogeneos. Para el analisis de la informacion se realizo un analisis cualitativo manual con una codificacion abierta. Resultados: se encontro que la creencia tradicional mas significativa para la poblacion participante es la de “mal de ojo”, una entidad que produce sintomas fisicos en los ninos; sin embargo, tiene un origen mistico, una prevencion y tratamiento en el ambito de lo religioso, energetico y espiritual. Con respecto a este, existe poco conocimiento y confianza por parte del personal de salud. Conclusiones: las creencias son fenomenos dentro de una poblacion que generan actitudes y acciones a gran escala, son base de vital importancia para la crianza de sus hijos y son una tradicion. El personal de salud no percibe este fenomeno como algo real, por lo que ignora las creencias y cultura de la poblacion, lo que se convierte en una barrera que afecta la comunicacion. Lo anterior demuestra la importancia de la generacion de un puente que permita la union de las creencias y la ciencia.
Spectroscopy of Ultra-steep-Spectrum Radio Sources

We present optical spectroscopy of 62 objects selected from several samples of ultra–steep-spectrum radio sources. Forty-six of these are from our primary catalog, consisting of 669 sources with radio spectral indices α < -1.30 (Sν ∝ να); this first spectroscopic subsample was selected on the basis of their faint optical and near-IR identifications. Most are identified as narrow-lined radio galaxies with redshifts ranging from z = 0.25 to z = 5.19. Ten objects are at z > 3, nearly doubling the number of such sources known to date. Four of the USS radio sources are identified with quasars, of which at least three have very red spectral energy distributions. The source TN J0936-2242 is identified with an extremely red object (ERO, R-K > 5); both it and a close companion are at z = 1.479. The spectrum of the ERO closely resembles that of previously discovered radio galaxies at z ∼ 1.5. Five sources show continuum emission, but fail to show any clear emission or absorption features, despite integrations of ∼1 hr with the Keck telescope. We suggest that these objects could be (1) radio galaxies with faint emission lines in the "redshift desert" at 1.5 ≲ z ≲ 2.3, (2) radio galaxies with an obscured active galactic nucleus, which are dominated by a stellar continuum observed with an insufficient signal-to-noise ratio, or (3) pulsars. Three radio sources identified with faint objects in the K-band images remain undetected in 50–90 minute spectroscopic integrations with the Keck telescope, and are possible z > 7 candidates.
Inhibition of macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) tautomerase and biological activities by acetaminophen metabolites

The cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) has emerged to be an important regulator of the inflammatory response and is critically involved in the development of septic shock, arthritis, and glomerulonephritis. Although the biological activities of MIF are presumed to require a receptor-based mechanism of action, the protein is also a tautomerase and has a catalytically active N-terminal proline that is invariant in structurally homologous bacterial isomerases. This observation raises the possibility that MIF may exert its biological action via an enzymatic reaction. Physiologically relevant substrates for MIF have not been identified, nor have site-directed mutagenesis studies consistently supported the requirement for a functional catalytic site. Small molecule inhibitors of MIF's isomerase activity also have been developed, but none have been shown yet to inhibit MIF biological activity. We report herein that the iminoquinone metabolite of acetaminophen, N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine (NAPQI), inhibits both the isomerase and the biological activities of MIF. The reaction between NAPQI and MIF is covalent and produces a NAPQI-modified MIF species with diminished cell binding activity and decreased recognition by anti-MIF mAb. These data are consistent with a model by which the NAPQI reacts with the catalytic Pro-1 of MIF to disrupt the integrity of epitope(s) critical to MIF's biological activity and point to the importance of the catalytic domain, but not the catalytic activity per se, in MIF function. These results also point to a powerful approach for the design of small molecule inhibitors of MIF based on interaction with its catalytic site and constitute an example of a pharmacophore capable of irreversibly inhibiting the action of a proinflammatory cytokine.
A smoothing inexact Newton method for variational inequality problems

In this paper, we reformulate the variational inequality problem as an equivalent smooth non-linear equation system by introducing the Chen–Harker–Kanzow–Smale smoothing function. A new smoothing inexact Newton algorithm is proposed to solve the smooth equations. In each iteration, the corresponding linear system is solved approximately. We prove that the proposed algorithm converges globally and superlinearly under mild conditions. Preliminary numerical results indicate that the method is effective.
A cognitive based spectrum sharing scheme for LTE advanced systems

In LTE-Advanced system, spectrum scarcity is an inevitable issue due to wider bandwidth requirement for downlink peak throughput up to 1Gbps. One of the solutions to this problem is that LTE-Advanced system can opportunistically use the spectrum of DVB system by using spectrum sensing and sharing method. But, the tradeoff problem between complexity and detection probability always exists in spectrum sensing schemes. Most existing spectrum sharing methods for LTE-Advanced system are not optimal enough.
DEVELOPMENT OF STABILITY INDICATING RP-HPLC METHOD FOR THE SIMULTANEOUS ESTIMATION OF AMBROXOL HYDROCHLORIDE AND LEVOCETIRIZINE DIHYDROCHLORIDE

A simple, precise and accurate method has been developed for simultaneous estimation of Ambroxol hydrochloride and Levocetirizine dihydrochloride. The proposed RP-HPLC method utilises Enable C18 G column (250 x 4.6mm, 5m), mobile phase consisting of Phosphate buffer pH 3.0: Methanol in the ratio of 20:80 (v/v) and UV detection at 236nm using a photodiode array detector. ambroxol hydrochloride and levocetirizine dihydrochloride were exposed to acidic, alkali, oxidative, thermal and photolytic stress conditions and the stressed samples were analysed by the proposed method. Peak homogeneity data of ambroxol hydrochloride and levocetirizine dihydrochloride in the stressed samples demonstrated the specificity of the method for their estimation in presence of degradants. The described method was linear over a range of 15 45 g/mL for ambroxol hydrochloride and 1 3 g/mL for levocetirizine dihydrochloride respectively. The method validation data showed excellent results for accuracy, precision, linearity, specificity, limit of detection, limit of quantification and robustness. The present method can be successfully used for routine quality control and stability studies.
Integración vertical y causas de aparición de la franquicia

Las cadenas de franquicia estan adquiriendo gran relevancia economica en Espana ya que, siguiendo la tendencia internacional, han duplicado su presencia en el mercado en los ultimos cinco anos. En esta trabajo se analizan las causas que motivan su desarrollo y al grado de integracion de las cadenas. Para ello, se ha examinado cual as la mayor ventaja que al franquiciador obtiene de la relacion, ya sea financiacion o bien, como sostiene la teoria contractual, gestion del negocio a bajo costa. Dichas hipotesis se han contrastado sobra una muestra da 270 empresas que operaban en Espana en 1996. Los resultados apoyan la segunda hipotesis mostrando que las dificultadas de control de los agentes favorecen al desarrollo da las franquicias. Sin embargo, no se pueda descartar totalmente la influencia de las motivaciones financiaras sobre esta decision.
Detection of newborn EEG seizure using optimal features based on discrete wavelet transform

A new automated method is proposed to detect seizure events in newborns from electroencephalogram (EEG) data. The detection scheme is based on observing the changing behavior of the wavelet coefficients (WCs) of the EEG signal at different scales. An optimal feature subset is obtained using the mutual information evaluation function (MIEF). The MIEF algorithm evaluates a set of candidate features extracted from WCs to select an informative feature subset. The subset is then fed to an artificial neural network (ANN) classifier that organizes the EEG signal into seizure or non-seizure activity. The performance of the proposed features is compared with that of the features obtained using a mutual information feature selection (MIFS) algorithm. The training and test sets are obtained from EEG data acquired from 5 neonates with ages ranging from 2 days to 2 weeks.
Prolexbase et LMF : vers un standard pour les ressources lexicales sur les noms propres [Prolexbase and LMF: towards a standard for Proper Name lexical resources]

Nous presentons dans cet article l'expression de Prolexbase dans le cadre defini par le projet de norme LMF (Language resource management - Lexical Markup Framework). Prolexbase est une ressource lexicale de noms propres, organisee suivant une approche onomasiologique, regroupant les entrees sous le concept multilingue de nom propre conceptuel, mais qui met egalement l'accent sur la description morphologique des noms propres. Nous montrons qu'il est possible, sans perte d'information, d'exprimer Prolexbase selon une approche semasiologique, conforme a LMF.
Direct observation of the energetics at a semiconductor/liquid junction by operando X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells based on semiconductor/liquid interfaces provide a method of converting solar energy to electricity or fuels. Currently, the understanding of semiconductor/liquid interfaces is inferred from experiments and models. Operando ambient-pressure X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (AP-XPS) has been used herein to directly characterize the semiconductor/liquid junction at room temperature under real-time electrochemical control. X-ray synchrotron radiation in conjunction with AP-XPS has enabled simultaneous monitoring of the solid surface, the solid/electrolyte interface, and the bulk electrolyte of a PEC cell as a function of the applied potential, U. The observed shifts in binding energy with respect to the applied potential have directly revealed ohmic and rectifying junction behavior on metallized and semiconducting samples, respectively. Additionally, the non-linear response of the core level binding energies to changes in the applied electrode potential has revealed the influence of defect-derived electronic states on the Galvani potential across the complete cell.