Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intermittent Feeding in a Migratory Omnivore: Digestion and Body Composition of American Black Duck during Autumn

Birds fast intermittently during weather disturbances and migration. We tested responses of black duck to lost feeding days during autumn mass gain. Nine adult males were fed a pelleted diet (1.5% fat, 15.8% protein, and 18.3% neutral detergent fiber) and caged indoors during September and October (12 h light; 17°–24°C) to measure balances over 14 d when fed ad lib. each day and fasted intermittently for 2 d wk−1 (short fast) or 4 d wk−1 (long fast). Body mass (1,081 g), body water content, and metabolizable intakes of energy and protein were maintained as daily intakes of dry matter increased to 1.65 (short fast) and 2.35 (long fast) times the unfasted level. Intermittent feeding reduced metabolizability of dry matter, energy, protein, and acid detergent fiber. Concentrations of Mn provided similar estimates of metabolizability to direct measures in unfasted birds but underestimated measures of birds on long fasts. Fasting regimes continued outdoors for 9 wk when temperatures declined to −9°C. Birds on short fasts were heavier (1,373 vs. 1,241 g) and fatter (159 vs. 58 g) than those on long fasts, while body water (894 g) and protein (316 g) were similar between groups after 5 wk. Birds on long fasts subsequently gained mass when fed daily, but those on short fasts lost mass when fed each day. Omnivorous waterfowl combine ingestive and digestive flexibility with plasticity of body lipid to contend with uncertain food availability.
Prediction on turbine supercharger speed of diesel engines based on projection pursuit regression

In the plateau environment with low pressure, turbine supercharger speed is an important parameter to supervise working condition of diesel engines. In view of the problems of installation difficulty and low measurement accuracy in measurement of turbine supercharger speed in vehicles, this paper sets up a projection pursuit regression (PPR) model to predict turbine supercharger speed. The calculation result indicates that the fitting effect of this model is obviously superior to that of any other regression models, which has great significance to prediction on turbine supercharger speed of diesel engines in a low pressure environment.
Determining Fault Geometry from the Distribution of Coseismic Fault Slip Related to the 2006 Taitung Earthquake, Eastern Taiwan

On 1 April 2006, the Taitung earthquake ( M w 6.1) occurred in Taiwan at the boundary between the Philippine Sea and Eurasian plates, where high convergence rates contributed to the development of Plio‐Pleistocene orogeny in the region. From the joint inversion of seismic and geodetic data, we identified the event’s fault geometry and reconstructed the distribution of coseismic fault slip. We modeled fault geometries with increasing complexity and selected the model that best reproduced all datasets, simultaneously. Even though the earthquake magnitude was moderate, rupturing occurred in two steps. The initial rupture was generated on a listric, north–south‐trending fault (for which dip decreases with increasing depth), and was immediately followed by movement along a perpendicular structure that cross‐cuts the main fault at 5 km south of the earthquake hypocenter. The average slip along the rupture was 30 cm, with a maximum of 87 cm. Oblique‐reverse fault movement was characterized by a predominant left‐lateral component. The amount of slip is well constrained for offsets of more than 5 cm, with an associated uncertainty of 32%. For slip amounts greater than 5 cm, uncertainties on rake and rupture time are 11° and 0.54 s, respectively. The rupture propagated from the hypocenter bilaterally, moving slightly faster toward the south (2.5±0.4 km/s) than to the north (1.7±0.1 km/s). To the south, the rupture was rapidly transmitted upward at the junction with the cross‐cutting east–west segment, whereas in the north, the rupture remained confined to the lower segment of the main fault. From Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and seismic data (time window <1 min), we infer that the cross‐cutting segment was activated following coseismic rupture on the main north–south fault, yet close enough in time to be associated with coseismic movement acquired by GPS (daily solutions).
MRI of five patients with mitochondrial neurogastrointestinal encephalomyopathy.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to retrospectively review MR images of the brain in five patients diagnosed with mitochondrial neurogastrointestinal encephalomyopathy. CONCLUSION Our research supports previously reported findings of confluent abnormal cerebral white matter in patients with mitochondrial neurogastrointestinal encephalomyopathy. In contrast to prior studies, our cohort of five patients showed that involvement of the corpus callosum as well as the capsular white matter, basal ganglia, thalami, midbrain, pons, and cerebellar white matter is not rare and does not preclude the diagnosis of mitochondrial neurogastrointestinal encephalomyopathy.
Telephone Support to Improve Antiretroviral Medication Adherence: A Multisite, Randomized Controlled Trial

Objective:To determine whether proactive telephone support improves adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and clinical outcomes when compared to standard care. Methods:A multisite, randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted with 109 ART-naive subjects coenrolled in AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) 384. Subjects received standard clinic-based patient education (SC) or SC plus structured proactive telephone calls. The customized calls were conducted from a central site over 16 weeks by trained registered nurses. Outcome measures (collected over 64 weeks) included an ACTG adherence questionnaire and 384 study endpoints. Results:For the primary endpoint, self-reported adherence, a significantly better overall treatment effect was observed in the telephone group (P = 0.023). In a post hoc analysis, composite adherence scores, taken as the first 2 factor scores from a principal components analysis, also found significant intervention benefit (P = 0.023 and 0.019 respectively). For the 384 primary study endpoint, time to regimen failure, the Kaplan-Meier survival curve for the telephone group remained above the SC group at weeks 20 to 64; a Cox proportional hazard model that controlled for baseline RNA stratification, CD4, gender, age, race/ethnicity, and randomized ART treatment arm suggested the telephone group tended to have a lower risk for failure (hazard ratio = 0.68; 95% confidence interval: 0.38 to 1.23). Conclusions:Findings indicate that customized, proactive telephone calls have good potential to improve long-term adherence behavior and clinical outcomes.
Using English Songs: an Enjoyable and Effective Approach to ELTUsing English Songs: an Enjoyable and Effective Approach to ELT

How can ELT be made enjoyable and effective? One feasible pedagogical application is to integrate English songs into ELT. Song, a combination of music and lyrics, possesses many intrinsic merits, such as a kaleidoscope of culture, expressiveness, recitability and therapeutic functions, which render it an invaluable source for language teaching. This paper provides theoretical arguments and practical support for using English songs in ELT.
Community services portal based on the campus of Technical University of Lodz. Using Ajax technology

The theme of the work is to design a web portal that integrates community services and the practical implementation that uses Ajax technology to build intuitive, user-friendly interface. To solve the problem contained in the topic was not purely theoretical, it will be presented on the example of site built to the needs of the VII Student House of Technical University of Lodz. The application will be the central point of access to services offered by the computer network in the dorm, will enable the use of the services available in the campus of TUL, and will serve as a source of current information. In addition, it is designed to support communication between the administration and residents as well as communication between users.
Toward Handheld Diagnostics of Cancer Biomarkers in Breath: Micro Preconcentration of Trace Levels of Volatiles in Human Breath

This paper introduces, for the first time, Maltese-cross pillar design implemented in a 7 mm × 7 mm × 0.35 mm cavity for high-performance microfabricated preconcentrators (μPCs). This high-aspect ratio design provides more surface area over the previously reported basic geometric shapes. Results showed that Maltese-cross provided a 27% increase in performance. Moreover, reducing the pillar spacing from 100 μm to 10 μm and arranging the pillars in staggered fashion have resulted in 145% and 85% increase in performance, respectively. Therefore, it was concluded that both surface area and flow pattern contribute significantly to the device performance. These μPCs achieved high adsorption capacity making them suitable for handheld breath analyzers to concentrate and identify trace-level (low ppb) volatile compounds (cancer biomarkers) found in human breath.
Effect of species-specific sound stimulation on the development and hatching of broiler chicks

Abstract 1. Previous research has reported that chicken embryos develop a functionary auditory system during incubation and that prenatal sound may play an important role in embryo development and alter the hatch time. In this study the effects of prenatal auditory stimulation on hatch process, hatch performance, the development of embryo and blood parameters were investigated. 2. Four batches of Ross 308 broiler breeder eggs were incubated either in control or in sound-stimulated groups. The sound-stimulated embryos were exposed to a discontinuous sound of species-specific calls by means of a speaker at 72 dB for 16 h a day: maternal calls from d 10 to d 19 of incubation time and embryo/chick calls from d 19 until hatching. The species-specific sound was excluded from the control group. 3. The onset of hatch was delayed in the sound-stimulated group compared to the controls. This was also supported by comparison of the exact hatching time of individual focal chicks within the two groups. However, the sound-stimulated embryos had a lower hatchability than the control group, mainly due to significantly increased numbers of late deaths. 4. The embryos exhibited a similar growth pattern between the sound-stimulated group and the control group. Although sound exposure decreased body weight at d 16, no consistent effect of sound on body weight at incubation stage was observed. Species-specific sound stimulation also had no impact on chick quality, blood values and plasma corticosterone concentrations during hatch.
Synergistic action of the glucocorticoid receptor with transcription factors.

Steroid responsive elements (SRE) have been mapped at variable positions relative to the transcription start site and are often adjacent to binding sites of transcription regulatory proteins. In order to define the role of these transcriptional control sequences in the induction process, we inserted the previously defined 15‐bp glucocorticoid response element (GRE) or 15‐bp estrogen response element (ERE) immediately upstream of the TATA box of the thymidine kinase promoter, deleting all distal promoter elements. Both ERE and GRE confer inducibility by the respective hormone to the truncated promoter. These data suggest that the steroid receptor protein, possibly in conjunction with the TATA box binding protein, is able to form an active transcription complex. In contrast, the GRE when inserted 351 bp upstream of the start site of transcription of the tyrosine aminotransferase gene (TAT) is not capable of mediating hormone inducibility. Inducibility can be attained at this position by either two GREs or a single GRE in combination with a CCAAT motif. A cluster of point mutations in the CCAAT box abolishes hormone inducibility, strongly suggesting a synergistic action between the glucocorticoid receptor and the factor recognizing the CCAAT motif. The CCAAT box can be replaced by a CACCC box, an NF I and an SP1 binding site, thus demonstrating that synergistic action is not restricted to the CCAAT box binding protein. These combinations of a GRE with different transcription factor binding sites show a pronounced cell‐type‐dependent glucocorticoid induction of expression.
Web-based data collection for the analysis of hidden relationships (Web mining of hypertext links)

Web mining is a very hot research topic which combines two of the activated research areas: Data Mining and World Wide Web. The Web mining research relates to several research communities such as Database, Information Retrieval and Artificial Intelligence. Although there exists quite some confusion about the Web mining, the most recognized approach is to categorize Web mining into three areas: Web content mining, Web structure mining, and Web usage mining. Web content mining focuses on the discovery/retrieval of the useful information from the Web contents/data/documents, while the Web structure mining emphasizes to the discovery of how to model the underlying link structures of the Web. The distinction between these two categories isn't a very clear sometimes. Web usage mining is relative independent, but not isolated, category, which mainly describes the techniques that discover the user's usage pattern and try to predict the user's behaviors. This paper is a survey based on the recently published research papers. Besides providing an overall view of Web mining, this paper will focus on Web usage mining. Generally speaking, Web usage mining consists of three phases: Pre-processing, Pattern discovery and Pattern analysis. A detailed description will be given for each part of them, however, special attention will be paid to the user navigation patterns discovery and analysis. The user privacy is another important issue in this paper. An example of a prototypical Web usage mining system, WebSIFT, will be introduced to make it easier to understand the methodology of how to apply data mining techniques to large Web data repositories in order to extract usage patterns. Finally, along with some other interested research issues, a brief overview of the current research work in the area of Web usage mining is included.
Gastrointestinal , Hepatobiliary , and Pancreatic Pathology Probiotic Bacteria Induce Maturation of Intestinal Claudin 3 Expression and Barrier Function

An immature intestinal epithelial barrier may predispose infants and children to many intestinal inflammatory diseases, such as infectious enteritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and necrotizing enterocolitis. Understanding the factors that regulate gut barrier maturation may yield insight into strategies to prevent these intestinal diseases. The claudin family of tight junction proteins plays an important role in regulating epithelial paracellular permeability. Previous reports demonstrate that rodent intestinal barrier function matures during the first 3 weeks of life. We show that murine paracellular permeability markedly decreases during postnatal maturation, with the most significant change occurring between 2 and 3 weeks. Here we report for the first time that commensal bacterial colonization induces intestinal barrier function maturation by promoting claudin 3 expression. Neonatal mice raised on antibiotics or lacking the toll-like receptor adaptor protein MyD88 exhibit impaired barrier function and decreased claudin 3 expression. Furthermore, enteral administration of either live or heat-killed preparations of the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG accelerates intestinal barrier maturation and induces claudin 3 expression. However, live Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG increases mortality. Taken together, these results support a vital role for intestinal flora in the maturation of intestinal barrier function. Probiotics may prevent intestinal inflammatory diseases by regulating intestinal tight junction protein expression and barrier function. The use of heat-killed probiotics may provide therapeutic benefit while minimizing adverse effects. (Am J Pathol 2012, 180:626–635; DOI: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2011.10.025)
Evaluating the effectiveness of air quality regulations: A review of accountability studies and frameworks

ABSTRACT Assessments of past environmental policies—termed accountability studies—contribute important information to the decision-making process used to review the efficacy of past policies, and subsequently aid in the development of effective new policies. These studies have used a variety of methods that have achieved varying levels of success at linking improvements in air quality and/or health to regulations. The Health Effects Institute defines the air pollution accountability framework as a chain of events that includes the regulation of interest, air quality, exposure/dose, and health outcomes, and suggests that accountability research should address impacts for each of these linkages. Early accountability studies investigated short-term, local regulatory actions (for example, coal use banned city-wide on a specific date or traffic pattern changes made for Olympic Games). Recent studies assessed regulations implemented over longer time and larger spatial scales. Studies on broader scales require accountability research methods that account for effects of confounding factors that increase over time and space. Improved estimates of appropriate baseline levels (sometimes termed “counterfactual”—the expected state in a scenario without an intervention) that account for confounders and uncertainties at each link in the accountability chain will help estimate causality with greater certainty. In the direct accountability framework, researchers link outcomes with regulations using statistical methods that bypass the link-by-link approach of classical accountability. Direct accountability results and methods complement the classical approach. New studies should take advantage of advanced planning for accountability studies, new data sources (such as satellite measurements), and new statistical methods. Evaluation of new methods and data sources is necessary to improve investigations of long-term regulations, and associated uncertainty should be accounted for at each link to provide a confidence estimate of air quality regulation effectiveness. The final step in any accountability is the comparison of results with the proposed benefits of an air quality policy. Implications: The field of air pollution accountability continues to grow in importance to a number of stakeholders. Two frameworks, the classical accountability chain and direct accountability, have been used to estimate impacts of regulatory actions, and both require careful attention to confounders and uncertainties. Researchers should continue to develop and evaluate both methods as they investigate current and future air pollution regulations.
Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy to evaluate spinal cord axonal injury in cervical spondylotic myelopathy.

OBJECT Magnetic resonance spectroscopy is commonly used to provide cellular and metabolic information in the management of a variety of pathological processes that affect the brain, and its application recently has been expanded to the cervical spine. The majority of radiographic investigations into the pathophysiology of cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) have been focused on the spinal cord macrostructure. The authors sought to determine the feasibility of using MR spectroscopy to analyze spinal cord biochemical function in patients with CSM. METHODS Twenty-one patients with clinical and radiographic evidence of CSM were prospectively enrolled in this study. The patients underwent preoperative neurological examination, functional assessment, and cervical spine MR spectroscopy. Voxels were placed at the C-2 level, and the MR spectroscopy spectra peaks for N-acetylaspartate (NAA), choline, lactate (Lac), and creatine (Cr) were measured. Thirteen age-matched healthy volunteers served as controls. RESULTS The NAA/Cr ratio was significantly lower in patients with CSM than in controls (1.27 vs 1.83, respectively, p < 0.0001). The choline/Cr ratio was not significantly different between the 2 groups. Seven of the patients with CSM had a Lac peak, whereas no peaks were noted in the control group (p < 0.05). There was no correlation between the severity of myelopathy and the NAA/Cr ratio in the CSM cohort. CONCLUSIONS Data in this study demonstrated the feasibility of using MR spectroscopy to evaluate the cellular biochemistry of the spinal cord in patients with CSM. Patients with CSM had a significantly lower NAA/Cr ratio than healthy controls, likely because of axonal and neuronal loss. The presence of Lac peaks in one-third of the patients in the CSM cohort further supports the role of ischemia in the pathophysiology of CSM.
Medium Access Control and Adaptive Transmission Techniques in Wireless Networks

Efficient utilization of the limited wireless spectrum while satisfying applications' quality of service requirements is an essential design goal of forthcoming wireless networks and a key to their successful deployment. The need for spectrally efficient systems has motivated the development of adaptive transmission techniques. Enabling this adaptation requires protocols for information exchange as well as mathematical tools to optimize the controllable parameters. In this dissertation, we provide insights into such protocols and mathematical tools that target efficient utilization of the wireless spectrum. First, we propose a distributed CDMA-based medium access protocol for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). Our approach accounts for multiple access interference at the protocol level, thereby addressing the notorious near-far problem that undermines the throughput performance in MANETs. Second, we present a novel power-controlled MAC protocol, called POWMAC, which enjoys the same single-channel, single-transceiver design of the IEEE 802.11 Ad Hoc MAC protocol; but which achieves a significant throughput improvement over the 802.11 protocol. Third, we consider joint power/rate optimization in the context of orthogonal modulation (OM) and investigate the performance gains achieved through adaptation of the OM order using recently developed optimization techniques. We show that such adaptation can significantly increase network throughput while simultaneously reducing the per-bit energy consumption relative to fixed-order modulation systems. Finally, we determine the maximum achievable "performance" of a wireless CDMA network that employs a conventional matched filter receiver and that operates under optimal link-layer adaptation where each user individually achieves the Shannon capacity. The derived bounds serve as benchmarks against which adaptive CDMA systems can be compared.
Finite element numerical experiments on the absorption of the EMF radiation in 3D human head models

Intesive usage of cellular phones has increased the public concern about their possible health hazards. Experimental as well as numerical approaches has been used in order to evaluate the biological effects. Most of the papers used the finite diference time domain(FDTD) and the MoM (method of moments) numerical methods . This paper deals with the computation of the local peak SAR and absorbed power values using the finite element method . Three spherical models have been taken into account: homogenous and layered. They were exposed to a dipole antenna operating at different frequenciesand different distances . The results were compared with those from the literature and a good agreement was obtained.