Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multimodal in situ datalogging quantifies inter-individual variation in thermal experience and persistent origin effects on gaping behavior among intertidal mussels (Mytilus californianus)

ABSTRACT In complex habitats, environmental variation over small spatial scales can equal or exceed larger-scale gradients. This small-scale variation may allow motile organisms to mitigate stressful conditions by choosing benign microhabitats, whereas sessile organisms may rely on other behaviors to cope with environmental stresses in these variable environments. We developed a monitoring system to track body temperature, valve gaping behavior and posture of individual mussels (Mytilus californianus) in field conditions in the rocky intertidal zone. Neighboring mussels' body temperatures varied by up to 14°C during low tides. Valve gaping during low tide and postural adjustments, which could theoretically lower body temperature, were not commonly observed. Rather, gaping behavior followed a tidal rhythm at a warm, high intertidal site; this rhythm shifted to a circadian period at a low intertidal site and for mussels continuously submerged in a tidepool. However, individuals within a site varied considerably in time spent gaping when submerged. This behavioral variation could be attributed in part to persistent effects of the mussels' developmental environment. Mussels originating from a wave-protected, warm site gaped more widely, and remained open for longer periods during high tide than mussels from a wave-exposed, cool site. Variation in behavior was modulated further by recent wave heights and body temperatures during the preceding low tide. These large ranges in body temperatures and durations of valve closure events – which coincide with anaerobic metabolism – support the conclusion that individuals experience ‘homogeneous’ aggregations such as mussel beds in dramatically different fashion, ultimately contributing to physiological variation among neighbors. Summary: Biologging of mussels in the rocky intertidal zone reveals substantial temperature differences over the scale of centimeters, while environmental conditions and mussel origin underlie variation in shell gaping behavior.
Self-reported stress and its effects on nurses.

AIM The primary aim of this study was to examine the relationship between job satisfaction and self-reported stress levels among nurses working in a children's hospital in Belfast. The secondary aim was to identify the main causes of stress. METHOD The study was descriptive and analytical. A random sample of 72 nurses completed the Nurse Stress Index questionnaire. The data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The respondents' stress scores were correlated with job satisfaction scores using bivariate correlation and multivariate linear regression. RESULTS The results of the bivariate analysis showed that a negative relationship existed between the subscales of the NSI and job satisfaction--as stress levels rise, job satisfaction falls. The multivariate analysis revealed that the only significant contribution to job satisfaction scores was stress resulting from a perceived lack of organisational support and involvement. The top scoring variables from each subscale were ranked to reveal the six main causes of stress for the sample. CONCLUSION Job satisfaction is negatively affected by stress. The main sources of stress were job context variables, such as shortage of resources, time, management's lack of appreciation and initiating change.
Intravital Imaging of Neutrophil Recruitment in Hepatic Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury in Mice

Background Neutrophils are considered responsible for the pathophysiologic changes during hepatic ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury; however, few studies have examined real-time intravital neutrophil recruitment. Here, we show a method for imaging the neutrophil recruitment in hepatic I/R injury using two-photon laser scanning microscopy (TPLSM). Methods LysM-eGFP mice were subjected to 45 min of partial warm hepatic ischemia followed by reperfusion. Mice received an intravenous injection of tetramethylrhodamine isothiocyanate–labeled albumin to visualize the microvasculature. Using time-lapse TPLSM technique, we directly observed the behavior of neutrophils in I/R injury. Results At low magnification, four to six hepatic lobules could be visualized. The number of adherent neutrophils continued to increase for 4 hr after reperfusion, whereas their crawling velocity reached a maximum of 2 hr after reperfusion and then decreased gradually. High-magnification images revealed the presence or absence of blood circulation in sinusoids. Six hours after control operation or reperfusion, circulation was maintained in all sinusoids in the control group, whereas spotty nonperfused areas accompanied by neutrophil infiltration could be observed in the I/R group. Adherent neutrophils in perfused areas in the I/R group had more elongated shapes and moved more quickly than those in nonperfused areas and in the control group. Some hepatocytes affected by I/R injury showed the changes in their size and fluorescent intensity, which could attract neutrophils. Conclusions TPLSM was successfully used for intravital imaging of hepatic I/R injury in mice and has potential for a wide range of applications to investigate the mechanism of I/R injury.
Antibodies to Cathepsin G in Crohn's disease

Abstract. Antibodies directed against antigens in human neutrophils have proved to be of great diagnostic value in certain systemic vasculitides. Recent reports have focused the attention on these antigens as targets of antibodies in sera of patients with inflammatory bowel disease. We investigated the sera drawn from 60 patients suffering from biopsy proven Crohn's disease and 15 patients with active ulcerative colitis. Using sensitive enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays with purified antigens and Western blotting the following antibodies could be demonstrated: cathepsin G (cat‐G) antibodies IgG 38.3%, IgM 13.3%, IgA 23.3% and antibodies against human leucocyte elastase (HLE) IgG, IgA, IgM 3.3%. Low but significant correlations could be found for cat‐G antibodies (IgG) and the van HEES index of activity. 73.9% of the cat‐G (IgG) positive patients had colon involvement. In the sera of patients with ulcerative colitis no antibodies to cat‐G or HLE were detectable. Only 8.3% of the patients with Crohn's disease had antibodies against proteinase 3 (C‐ANCA). Our data indicate that cat‐G among other myeloid lysosomal enzymes seems to be an important target antigen of antibodies in sera of patients with Crohn's disease. Cat‐G antibodies might be helpful to distinguish Crohn's disease from ulcerative colitis.
CD4+ T-cell percentage is an independent predictor of clinical progression in AIDS-free antiretroviral-naive patients with CD4+ T-cell counts >200 cells/mm3

Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical prognostic value of the CD4+ T-cell percentage (%CD4), the CD4+/CD8+ T-cell ratio or the CD8+ T-cell count, in addition to the CD4+ T-cell count and viral load (VL) in antiretroviral-naive HIV- infected patients with CD4+ T-cell counts >200 cells/ mm3. Methods Antiretroviral-naive patients (n=9,740) who were AIDS-free and had a CD4+ T-cell count >200 cells/ mm3 at their first visit after January 1997 were followed-up until treatment initiation or clinical progression (mean follow- up 17 months and 13,660 person-years). Poisson regression was used for statistical analyses. Results Progression to AIDS-defining events (ADEs), serious ADEs and death occurred in 228 patients (crude rate 1.69 per 100 person-years), 105 patients (0.77 per 100 person-years) and 67 patients (0.49 per 100 person-years), respectively. Regarding progression to ADE, the data fit was improved when the model also included the %CD4 (Akaike's information criteria [AIC] 2,049) and, to a lesser extent, the CD4+/CD8+ T-cell ratio (AIC 2,053), in addition to CD4+ T-cell count and VL (AIC 2,056). After adjustment for VL and baseline characteristics, patients with CD4+ T-cell counts of 350–500 cells/mm3 and %CD4<15% had an estimated incidence of ADE of 3 per 100 person-years, similar to that in patients with CD4+ T-cell counts of 200–350 cells/mm3 and %CD4>15%. The %CD4 was also significantly associated with the risk of serious ADE. By contrast, %CD4, CD4+/CD8+ T-cell ratio or CD8+ T-cell count had no additional prognostic value for the risk of death. Conclusions In antiretroviral-naive HIV-infected patients with CD4+ T-cell counts >200 cells/mm3, the %CD4 was predictive of the risk of clinical progression independently of CD4+ T-cell count and VL.
Acculturation: Adaptation or Development?

Schonpflug. W. (1993). Applied psychology: Newcomer with a long tradition. Applied Psychology: An lnrernarional Review. 42. 5-66. Wagner, F. L6pez. A. Castillo. V. Aldaz. E. Collado. M.E. Diaz. B. Oviedo, M. , Garcia. M. , & Gallegos. R. (1991) Consumo de drogas en el medio rural [Drug consumption in the rural environment]. Project financed by Consejo Asesor en Epidemiologia, Centros de lntegraci6n Juvenil. Mexico City.
Physical Mechanisms Regulating Summertime Rainfall over Northwestern Australia

Summertime (December‐February) rainfall over northwestern Australia has increased significantly since the middle of the twentieth century. As a prerequisite to understanding the observed trend, this investigation examines the broad characteristics of rainfall and identifies the physical mechanisms by which rainfall in the region is initiated. This is achieved using a combination of in situ, spaceborne, and numerical reanalysis datasets. Hourly pluviograph data and the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM)-3B42 dataset show distinctly different diurnal cycles of rainfall in different geographical subregions; near the coast, rainfall rates peak in the midafternoon, whereas inland (near the maximum rainfall trend) the rainfall rate is largest overnight. These data also indicate that most of the summertime rain falls in events lasting 2‐5 days. Analysis of the ECMWF Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) demonstrates that convergence into the continental heat low controls the diurnal cycle of rainfall but cannot explain the synoptic variability. Composites of wet and dry conditions from ERA-Interim expose synoptic-scale differences in the environmental flow. Prior to rain falling in the interior of northwestern Australia, there is a distinct shift in the origins of low-level air parcels, such that air with high convective available potential energy is advected from the tropical maritime regions, rather than from over the continent. Preliminary analysis suggests that these flowchangesmaybelinkedtotransientsynopticdisturbancessuchasmidlatitudecyclonesandmonsoonlows. Rather than reflectinga large-scalechange in the oceanstate, these results imply that the observed increase in rainfall may be linked more closely to changes in the synoptic weather systems.
Therapist empathy, homework compliance, and outcome in cognitive behavioral therapy for generalized anxiety disorder: partitioning within- and between-therapist effects

Abstract Although client-perceived therapist empathy relates to positive therapy outcomes, including in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), little is known about how empathy exerts its ameliorative effect. One possible way is by promoting clients’ subsequent homework compliance, a variable that also predicts positive outcomes in CBT. The present study sought to investigate simultaneously, in the context of 43 therapist–client dyads receiving 15 sessions of CBT for generalized anxiety disorder, (1) the association of early client-perceived therapist empathy (averaged over sessions 1, 3, 5) with mid-treatment client homework compliance (averaged over sessions 6, 8, 10); (2) the association of mid-treatment homework compliance on client posttreatment worry severity; and (3) the indirect effect of early perceived therapist empathy on posttreatment worry through mid-treatment homework compliance. Given that clients were nested within therapists, we examined both within- and between-therapist differences in clients’ ratings of therapist empathy and homework compliance, and tested both of these indices as predictors of the relevant dependent variables in a multilevel model. At the within-therapist level (i.e., differences between clients within a given therapist’s caseload), greater early empathy was associated with greater mid-treatment homework compliance. At the between-therapist level (i.e., differences between therapists across all of their cases), greater between-therapist homework compliance was related to lower posttreatment worry. Finally, homework compliance was not found to mediate the relationship between empathy and posttreatment outcome. The results underscore the importance of parsing client and therapist effects, and are discussed with regard to their training and research implications.
Use of Neural Nets For Dynamic Modeling and Control of Chemical Process Systems

Neural nets are inherently parallel and they hold great promise because of their ability to "learn" nonlinear relationships. This paper discusses the use of backpropagation neural nets for dynamic modeling and control of chemical process systems. The backpropagation algorithm and its rationale are reviewed. The algorithm is applied succesfully to model the dynamic response of pH in a CSTR. The use of backpropagation models for control is briefly discussed.
Image super-resolution based on locality-constrained linear coding

This paper presents a learning-based method called image super-resolution (SR) for generating a high-resolution (HR) image from a single low-resolution (LR) image. Recent research investigated the image SR problem using sparse coding, which is based on good reconstruction of any image local patch by a sparse linear combination of atoms from an overcomplete dictionary. However, sparse-coding-based SR (ScSR) generally takes a significant amount of computational time to compute an HR image. Further, it can yield only a global dictionary D = [Dh;Dl] by jointly training the concatenated HR and LR image local patches, which results in no accurate correspondence between the HR and LR dictionaries. Therefore, we propose the generation of an HR image using a linear combination of several anchor points (codes) for a local patch based on locality-constrained linear coding (LLC), which is a fast implementation of local coordinate coding (LCC). In the proposed LLC-based strategy, each local patch is represented by a weighted linear combination of its nearer codes in a predefined codebook, and the linear weights become its local coordinate coding. Experimental results show that the recovered HR images with our proposed approach can achieve comparable performance at a processing time much shorter than those of conventional methods.
Proliferative and Migratory Potentials of Human Cord Blood—Derived CD34- Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Repopulating Cells That Retain Secondary Reconstituting Capacity

Using the intra—bone marrow injection (IBMI) technique, we recently identified human cord blood—derived CD34-severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID)-repopulating cells (SRCs) with extensive lymphomyeloid reconstituting ability. In this study, we further investigated the hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) characteristics of these cells in terms of proliferative and migratory potentials. The absolute numbers of CD45+ and CD34+ cells generated by 1 CD34-SRC are significantly higher than those generated by 1 CD34+ SRC. It is interesting that CD34-SRCs have significantly higher migratory and proliferative abilities than CD34+ SRCs. Moreover, only 2 CD34- SRCs transplanted to primary recipients consistently showed secondary reconstituting capacity. This finding suggested the more homogenous nature of CD34- SRCs than that of the population of CD34+ SRCs. These results provided further evidence that CD34-SRCs are functionally different from CD34+ SRCs and that they are a distinct class of primitive HSCs.
SOME PROBLEMS IN ESTIMATING POPULATION SIZES FROM CATCH-ATAGE DATA

A new method for estimating population sizes from catch-at-age data is given. The method treats the observed population sizes as missing data and uses a combination of the Kalman filter and the EM algorithm to derive maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters and minimum mean square error estimates of the population sizes. The algorithm does not assume that the observation errors and the errors in the population dynamics are uncorrelated with equal variances, which is a common assumption of existing techniques. A new parameterization for both recruitment and fishing mortality is given, based on smoothness priors. Recruitment (or fishing mortality) is estimated as a nonparametric function of time by calculating an “optimal” tradeoff between goodness-of-fit and smoothness of the function. The algorithm allows for multiple sources of observations (fishing, surveys, etc.) and allows for missing data in the observations, which can arise if the different sources of the observations occur on different time scales. An example suggests that the new algorithm may better capture variation that is important when using the population estimates to study the role of the environment (or other exogenous variables) on the population dynamics.
Viable but nonculturable bacteria in drinking water

Klebsiella pneumoniae, Enterobacter aerogenes, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, Streptococcus faecalis, Micrococcus flavus, Bacillus subtilis, and Pseudomonas strains L2 and 719 were tested for the ability to grow and maintain viability in drinking water. Microcosms were employed in the study to monitor growth and survival by plate counts, acridine orange direct counts (AODC), and direct viable counts (DVC). Plate counts dropped below the detection limit within 7 days for all strains except those of Bacillus and Pseudomonas. In all cases, the AODC did not change. The DVC also did not change except that the DVC, on average, were ca. 10-fold lower than the AODC.
Control of Exponentially Damped Sinusoidal Signals

An internal model based adaptive algorithm for canceling disturbances composed of sums of exponentially damped sinusoidal (EDS) signals is presented. The time varying state variables of an internal model principle controller in a feedback loop can provide estimates of the EDS signal parameters, the frequency and the damping factor. By using additional integral controllers, the estimation errors can be eliminated to achieve perfect cancellation. The convergence of the proposed adaptive algorithm and the stability of the feedback control system including the algorithm are justified using singular perturbation theory and averaging theory. Simulation results demonstrate the validity of the convergence and stability analysis.
Effect of Common Driving Sources to the Feedback Analysis of Heart Rate Variability

Summary Objectives : This paper examines the operational characteristics of the multivariate autoregressive analysis applied to the simultaneous recordings of the instantaneous heart rate (IHR) and the change in systolic blood pressure (SBP). Methods : The multivariate autoregressive model has been utilized to reveal the feedback characteristics between IHR and SBP. The model assumes the presence of independent set of driving forces to activate the system. However, it is likely that the driving forces may have correlation due to the presence of a common fluctuation source. This paper examines the effect of the presence of correlated components in the driving forces to the estimation accuracy of impulse responses characterizing the feedback properties. The twodimensional autoregressive model driven bytwo correlated 1/f noises was chosen for the analysis of operational characteristics. The driving force was generated by a moving average system which simulates non-integer order integration. Results : Computer simulation revealed that the mean square estimation errors of impulse responses sharply increase as relative power of common driving force exceeds 50%. However, the estimation accuracy and bias are found to be in permissible range in practice. Conclusions : These findings ensure the practical validity of utilizing multivariate autoregressive models for the feedback analysis between IHR and SBP where both signals have the common driving force.
Data-reduction method for simultaneous measurement of permittivity and permeability with a short-circuited transmission line

Based on nonlinear least-squares optimization techniques and interpolation techniques, a data-reduction method for determining the complex electromagnetic parameters of materials with a short-circuited transmission line is presented in this paper, which takes frequency as an independent variable in order to establish independent reflection equations for the determination. After only one frequency-sweeping measurement, reflection equations are constructed by interpolation techniques and solved by nonlinear least-squares optimization techniques. With the help of this method, the short-circuited transmission line method can simultaneously measure the complex permittivity and permeability on a single sample at a single position in the shorted line. The optimization procedure is enough robust to converge to the correct value because of its less dependence on an initial guess.
Two Essays on Managerial Behaviors in the Mutual Fund Industry Essay 1: A Life-Cycle Analysis of Performance and Growth in U.S. Mutual Funds Essay 2: Can Mutual Fund Window-Dressing Promote Fund Flows?

We investigate the effectiveness of window-dressing as a potential strategy to be used by mutual fund managers to promote fund flows. Using a rank gap measure as a proxy for the likelihood that window-dressing has occurred, we find that fund investors as whole punish those managers who are suspected to have engaged in window-dressing. That is, we find a negative relation between the window-dressing measure and net fund flows in subsequent quarters after controlling for fund performance, size, expense ratio, and other pertinent characteristics. We also find that window-dressing leads to higher trading activities and lower fund performance. JEL Classification: G11; G20
Realization of a compact antenna with reconfigurable pattern for multiple antenna systems

A pattern reconfigurable antenna for a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system is presented in this paper. For this antenna a feeding structure, consisting of back-to-back balun, that supports realization of different radiation patterns is proposed. Thanks to novel application of this feeding structure any wanted switchable directivity patterns can be realized. Presented antenna generates two switchable patterns, which are optimized for automotive case. As a proof of concept a prototype of this antenna has been fabricated and measured. In this case p-i-n diodes are used as switching elements. The maximal gain achieved is about 6.5 dBi. The measurement results correspond well with the simulation results in terms of S-parameter and radiation.