Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fossil mammals resolve regional patterns of Eurasian climate change over 20 million years

Fossil teeth of terrestrial plant-eating mammals offer a new, quasi-quantitative proxy for environmental aridity that resolves previously unseen regional features across the Eurasian continent from 24 to 2 million years ago. The pattern seen prior to 11 million years ago are quite different from today’s. Thereafter, a progressively modern rainfall distribution developed at about 7 to 5 million years ago when East Asia remained unexpectedly humid while Europe experienced a transient phase of strong aridity. Mean hypsodonty is a geographically extensive and stratigraphically well-resolved palaeoprecipitation proxy that can be used to constrain the regional details of vegetation and climate models.
Novice nurse practitioner workforce transition and turnover intention in primary care

PURPOSE Little is known about the workforce transition and turnover intention of novice nurse practitioners (NPs) in primary care (PC). This research aimed to describe the individual characteristics, role acquisition and job satisfaction of novice NPs, and identify factors associated with their successful transition and turnover intention in the first year of PC practice. DATA SOURCES A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted via online survey administered to a national sample of 177 NPs who graduated from an accredited NP program and were practicing in a PC setting for 3-12 months. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated that greater professional autonomy in the workplace is a critical factor in turnover intention in novice NPs in the PC setting. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Further research is needed regarding the novice NP workforce transition to provide adequate professional autonomy and support during this critical period.
NMR Identification of the Formic Acid‐Modified Residue in Alzheimer's Amyloid Protein

Abstract: The β/A4‐amyloid protein (β/A4) and many synthetic fragments of this protein have proved to be very difficult to solubilize, leading to the use of relatively harsh chemical methods, most notably, formic acid. This treatment has previously been shown to cause a covalent modification of this peptide. In this study, one‐ and two‐dimensional NMR techniques are used to show that the nature of this covalent modification is formation of a formate ester to a serine residue. This finding is consistent with our previously reported kinetic studies of formic acid‐induced modification ofβ/A4 and further illustrates the potential danger of solubilizing fragments of β/A4 in formic acid. Alternative methods of solubilization are discussed.
Measuring the perceived aesthetic quality of photographic images

There have been few studies that empirically assess the perception of aesthetics in photography. This study addressed a few image attributes that were hypothesized to be important to the perception of aesthetics. Thirty consumer photographers evaluated 450 images in a repeated measures factorial experiment and provided artistic quality ratings on a 0 to 100-point scale. The image set balanced main subject size, images with people and without people, and the type of perspective cue. Three first-party scenes supplied by each observer were evaluated by all observers in the study. Study results indicate that aesthetic preferences were mediated by all three of the study variables as a significant threeway interaction. Principal component and cluster analyses provided further insight into other features that impact aesthetic preference. Images in this study formed a continuum of quality ranging from low aesthetic and low technical quality to high aesthetic and high technical quality.
Should a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet be recommended for everyone? Beyond low-fat diets.

Low-fat diets are often advocated for weight reduction and to lower the risk of coronary heart disease and certain forms of cancer. However, there is no universal agreement about the value of low-fat diets. In this Clinical Debate, Connor and Connor argue in favor of the public health benefits of low-fat diets, whereas Katan, Grundy, and Willett present a different point of view.
The impact of human capital on regional labor productivity in Europe

The focus of this paper is on the role of human capital in explaining labor productivity variation among 198 European regions within a regression framework. Human capital is measured in terms of educational attainment using data for the active population aged 15 years and older that obtained tertiary education. The existence of unobserved human capital excluded from the model but likely to exhibit spatial dependence and non-zero covariance with the educational attainment variable, motivates the use of a spatial regression relationship that is known as spatial Durbin model.The paper outlines the model along with the associated methodology for estimating the impact of human capital on regional labor productivity, based upon LeSage and Pace’s approach to calculating scalar summary measures of impacts. A simulation approach with 10,000 draws is used to produce an empirical distribution of the model parameters needed for computing measures of dispersion for the impact estimates. The results obtained shed some interesting light on the contribution of human capital to labor productivity differences among European regions. A ceteris paribus increase in the level of human capital is found to have a significant and positive direct impact. But this positive direct impact is offset by a significant and negative indirect (spillover) impact leading to a total impact that is not significantly different from zero.
Temporal Regulation of Intracellular Organelle Homeostasis in T Lymphocytes by Autophagy

The highly conserved self-degradation pathway known as autophagy plays important roles in regulating T lymphocyte homeostasis. Recently, we found that T lymphocytes lacking the autophagy-related gene Atg5 or Atg7 have defective survival and contain expanded mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum (ER); however, whether these defects are caused by impaired autophagy or by defects in their autophagy-independent signaling capacity of Atg5 or Atg7 in T lymphocytes remains unknown. Furthermore, the function of the microtubule-associated protein L chain 3 (LC3) conjugation system in T lymphocytes remains unclear. To address these questions, we generated conditional knockout mice with specific deletion of Atg3, a ubiquitin enzyme E2-like molecule involved in the LC3 conjugation system, in T lymphocytes. Atg3-deficient T lymphocytes displayed a phenotype similar to those of Atg7- and Atg5-deficient T cells. The survival of Atg3-deficient naive CD4+ and CD8+ T cells was defective. Furthermore, the mitochondria and ER were expanded in Atg3-deficient T cells. Interestingly, mitochondrial and ER content did not change instantly upon inducible deletion of Atg3 in mature T lymphocytes in vitro. Instead, it began to expand 10 d after inducible deletion of Atg3 in mature T lymphocytes, and mitochondrial content continued to increase on day 18. Cell death began to increase 24 d after inducible deletion of Atg3. These data show that the LC3 conjugation system is essential for autophagy in T lymphocytes. Our data suggest that autophagy promotes T lymphocyte survival by regulating organelle homeostasis and that the decreased survival of autophagy-deficient T cells is due to the temporal accumulation of these autophagy-related defects.
Dosimetric and radiobiological comparison of CyberKnife M6™ InCise multileaf collimator over IRIS™ variable collimator in prostate stereotactic body radiation therapy

The impetus behind our study was to establish a quantitative comparison between the IRIS collimator and the InCise multileaf collimator (MLC) (Accuray Inc. Synnyvale, CA) for prostate stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT). Treatment plans for ten prostate cancer patients were performed on MultiPlan™ 5.1. 2 treatment planning system utilizing MLC and IRIS for 36.25 Gy in five fractions. To reduce the magnitude of variations between cases, the planning tumor volume (PTV) was defined and outlined for treating prostate gland only, assuming no seminal vesicle or ex-capsule involvement. Evaluation indices of each plan include PTV coverage, conformity index (CI), Paddick's new CI, homogeneity index, and gradient index. Organ at risk (OAR) dose sparing was analyzed by the bladder wall Dmaxand V37Gy, rectum Dmaxand V36Gy. The radiobiological response was evaluated by tumor control probability and normal tissue complication probability based on equivalent uniform dose. The dose delivery efficiency was evaluated on the basis of planned monitor units (MUs) and the reported treatment time per fraction. Statistical significance was tested using the Wilcoxon signed rank test. The studies indicated that CyberKnife M6™ IRIS and InCise™ MLC produce equivalent SBRT prostate treatment plans in terms of dosimetry, radiobiology, and OAR sparing, except that the MLC plans offer improvement of the dose fall-off gradient by 29% over IRIS. The main advantage of replacing the IRIS collimator with MLC is the improved efficiency, determined from the reduction of MUs by 42%, and a 36% faster delivery time.
Secure Knowledge Management

INTRODUCTION As the world is getting more and more technology savvy, the collection and distribution of information and knowledge need special attention. Progress has been made on the languages and tools needed for effective knowledge management and on the legal issues concerning the consumption and dissemination of critical knowledge. From a business perspective, a knowledge-management system (KMS) within a firm generally strives to maximize the human-capital utilization and profitability of the firm. However, security is becoming a major issue revolving around KMS; for instance, the KMS must incorporate adequate security features to prevent any unauthorized access or unauthorized dissemination of information. Acquiring the information that one needs to remain competitive while safeguarding the information one already has is a complicated task. Firms must balance the advantages of openness against its inevitable risks, and maximize the efficiency of electronic communication without making it a magnet for intruders. One must integrate offense and defense into a comprehensive strategy, and scholars have suggested that it is time to integrate intelligence and security imperatives with other knowledge-management strategies and processes (Barth, 2001). Since the widely reported attacks on knowledge repositories in 2001 (e.g., Amazon was hit by denial-of-service attacks and the NIMDA virus hit financial markets), many organizations, especially the U.S. government, have increased 3097 Secure Knowledge Management their concern about KMSs. With the advent of intranets and Web access, it is even more crucial to protect critical corporate knowledge as numerous individuals now have access to the assets of a corporation. Therefore, we need effective mechanisms for securing data, information, and knowledge as well as the applications (Thurais-ingham, 2003, 2004). Security methods for knowledge-management systems may include authentication or passwords, cryptography programs, intrusion-detection systems , or access-control systems. Issues include insider threat (protecting from malicious insiders), infrastructure protection (securing against subversion attacks), and establishing correct policies , refinement, and enforcement. KMS content is much more sensitive than raw data stored in databases, and issues of privacy also become Asllani and Luthans (2003) surveyed over 300 knowledge managers about their job roles and found little or no evidence of security issues being considered in their jobs; their primary role was focused on communication within the organization. This article about secure knowledge management raises a number of issues in this critical area of research that need to be tackled by knowledge-management practitioners. The following sections focus on three important aspects of secure knowledge management: secure …
Use of modified clays for retention and supply of water and nutrients

B. B. Basak, Sharmistha Pal and S. C. Datta* Division of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110 012, India Present address: Directorate of Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Research, Boriavi, Anand 387 310, India Present address: Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute, Research Centre, Madhya Marg, Chandigarh 160 019, India
Process analysis of different synoptic patterns of O 3 episodes in Hong Kong

Hong Kong is situated at the southeastern coast of China and adjoining the rapidlydeveloping Pearl River Delta (PRD) of China. The rapid urbanization and industrial development have resulted in a remarkable increase of anthropogenic emissions in the PRD region over the past two decades. Between 1990 and 1995, NOx emissions increased by 21% over the PRD region, and are anticipated to increase by 100~160% between 1995 and 2020 (Streets and Waldhoff, 2000). As a result, the PRD region and adjoining Hong Kong have been suffering from more frequent and serious air pollution events including episodic levels of surface O3 and fine particles (e.g., Huang et al., 2005a, b). For instance, 50 high air pollution days occurred in Hong Kong in 2004 (a pollution day is referred as to a day with the air pollution index, API, higher than 100, compared with 31 days in 2003. The days of air pollutant episodes (API ≥ 100) increase significantly in Hong Kong from 1999 to 2004, as shown in Figure 1. High levels of O3 are found to be the most important contributor to the occurrence of air pollutant episode events in all general monitoring stations over the region. Thus, episodic levels of O3 will continue to represent one of major challenges in controlling air quality in Hong Kong and the PRD
Investigating the Applicability of EFQM and KAIIAE in Jordanian Healthcare Organizations : A Case Study

This research is set out to analyze the applicability of KAIIAE and EFQM in the Jordanian healthcare organizations. Until 2011, only four Jordanian hospitals applied for the award and only one hospital won it. We chose an elite private Jordanian hospital as a candidate for this research and trained some of its employees on the award's requirements. We then translated the requirements of the award to Arabic and tabulated them into simple Excel sheets. Self-assessment was performed on the entire hospital and the result was a score of 32 out of 100. The score, while seems to be low, is actually high for an organization never considered the award before. The research team put together an action plan that raised the score to 45 or 50 within one year, which is a great score, compared with elite healthcare organizations world wide. This research proves that when simplifying the EFQM requirements and training the hospital personnel, excellence models become very applicable in Jordanian hospitals. © 2013 Jordan Journal of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. All rights reserved
Addresses for graphs

The problem of labeling the vertices of an undirected, connected graph with binary n -tuple addresses is considered. These addresses are to have the property that if two vertices are a distance k apart in the graph then the Hamming distance between the corresponding addresses must be kd where d is a positive integer which is constant for the graph. Not all graphs may be so addressed. A weak characterization of addressable graphs in terms of the eigenvalues of a certain matrix associated with the graph is given. It is shown that any addressable bipartite graph may always be addressed with d = 1 . For nonbipartite addressable graphs, d must be even, and it is shown that there exist graphs requiring an arbitrarily large d for addressing. An addressing algorithm is given which is guaranteed to address any addressable graph.
Chemokine control of lymphocyte trafficking: a general overview

Chemokines are a large family of small, generally secreted polypeptides which guide lymphocyte movement throughout the body by controlling integrin avidity and inducing migration. Here, we look at recent, exciting findings on chemokine function throughout lymphocyte development and co‐ordinated T and B cell migration during immune responses. Finally, we will review data on the regional control of immunity by tissue‐specific chemokine receptors on effector/memory lymphocytes.
Coupling Laser Diode Thermal Desorption with Acoustic Sample Deposition to Improve Throughput of Mass Spectrometry–Based Screening

The move toward label-free screening in drug discovery has increased the demand for mass spectrometry (MS)–based analysis. Here we investigated the approach of coupling acoustic sample deposition (ASD) with laser diode thermal desorption (LDTD)–tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). We assessed its use in a cytochrome P450 (CYP) inhibition assay, where a decrease in metabolite formation signifies CYP inhibition. Metabolite levels for 3 CYP isoforms were measured as CYP3A4-1′-OH-midazolam, CYP2D6-dextrorphan, and CYP2C9-4′-OH-diclofenac. After incubation, samples (100 nL) were acoustically deposited onto a stainless steel 384-LazWell plate, then desorbed by an infrared laser directly from the plate surface into the gas phase, ionized by atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI), and analyzed by MS/MS. Using this method, we achieved a sample analysis speed of 2.14 s/well, with bioanalytical performance comparable to the current online solid-phase extraction (SPE)–based MS method. An even faster readout speed was achieved when postreaction sample multiplexing was applied, where three reaction samples, one for each CYP, were transferred into the same well of the LazWell plate. In summary, LDTD coupled with acoustic sample deposition and multiplexing significantly decreased analysis time to 0.7 s/sample, making this MS-based approach feasible to support high-throughput screening (HTS) assays.
GUI code tracing through direct program interaction

A significant part of a developer's activity is spent on maintenance tasks, which might involve dealing with unfamiliar code. Especially in these cases, a maintenance task is likely to imply a considerable amount of time locating the relevant source code that needs to be changed, a problem often referred to as feature location. This paper proposes a navigation mechanism for tracing user interface elements of a running program to their representation in the source code. The mechanism realization relies on instrumenting the program in order to enable navigation from user interface elements to locations in the source code. We developed a prototype implementation of the proposed mechanism that implies an acceptable instrumentation overhead, suitable for being used on industrial‐scale programs. We performed a user study and observed that the proposed mechanism enables fast code location and that the time spent to accomplish similar tasks does not change significantly as program size increases. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The management of obesity

Obesity should be considered a chronic disease, not just a social stigma. It is a definite hazard to health and is one of the most important medical and public health problems of our time. In discussion, most now express obesity in terms of the Body Mass Index (BMI: weight (kg)/height2 (metres) and apply a graded structure, namely, Grades 1 (BMI 25-29.9, ‘overweight’), 2 (BMI 30-40, ‘conventional obese’) and 3 (BMI >40, ‘morbid obesity’). The prevalence of obesity in the UK has increased in the last decade, especially in women where 12% are now in grades 2 and 3 compared with 8% in 1980; this increase is less marked in males (8% compared to 6%) (Gregory er al., 1990). The prevalence of morbid obesity (Grade 3) is considerably smaller, 0.1 % in males and 0.3% in females, whereas 37% of males and 24% offemales arein the overweight category (Grade I). Hence 45% of males and 36% of females in the UK have a weight which is a hazard to health. Certain diseases such as diabetes mellitus show a much higher prevalence of obesity. A recent survey of 1799 patients from the diabetic clinic at Ninewells Hospital indicated that 21.6% of males and 31.5% of females are in obesity Grades 2 and 3,83 and 75% respectively having noninsulin-dependent diabetes (Table I). These figures are not surprising when one considers that the incidence of diabetes increases with adiposity, one survey indicating that of those more than 25% overweight, 23% develop diabetes (Westlund & Nicolayson, 1972). Whereas it is well known that there is an increasing morbidity and mortality risk with a BMI greater than 30 for such diseases as diabetes, hypertension, cholelithiasis, hypercholesterolaemia, certain cancers, respiratory, coronary heart and cardiovascular problems, there is less awareness of the definite increased morbidity from cardiovascular and musculo-skeletal diseases of being ‘just’ overweight (Grade 1) (Rissanen et al., 1990). Also, the distribution of adipose tissue is important especially in those who are overweight or mildly obese, for abdominal fat distribution is a more significant predictor of cardiovascular disease than the BMI
Proteomics and the Analysis of Proteomic Data: 2013 Overview of Current Protein‐Profiling Technologies

Mass spectrometry has become a major tool in the study of proteomes. The analysis of proteolytic peptides and their fragment ions by this technique enables the identification and quantitation of the precursor proteins in a mixture. However, deducing chemical structures and then protein sequences from mass‐to‐charge ratios is a challenging computational task. Software tools incorporating powerful algorithms and statistical methods improved our ability to process the large quantities of proteomics data. Repositories of spectral data make both data analysis and experimental design more efficient. New approaches in quantitative and statistical proteomics make possible a greater coverage of the proteome, the identification of more post‐translational modifications, and a greater sensitivity in the quantitation of targeted proteins. Curr. Protoc. Bioinform. 41:13.21. 1‐13.21. 17. © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
A high-pressure Raman spectroscopic study of hafnon , HfSiO

Raman spectra of synthetic HfSiO4 were determined to pressures of 38.2 GPa. Changes in the spectra indicate that HfSiO4 undergoes a room-temperature phase transition from the hafnon structure (I41/amd space group) to the scheelite structure (I41/a space group) at a pressure of ~19.6 GPa. Upon release of pressure to ambient conditions, the spectra indicate that the sample retains the scheelite structure. Zircon has been classiÞ ed previously as the least compressible tetrahedrally coordinated silicate known. However, pressure derivatives of the peak positions in hafnon are smaller than those in zircon, and suggest that hafnon is more incompressible than zircon. Furthermore, the pressure derivatives also suggest that the high-pressure, scheelite-structured HfSiO4 phase is more incompressible than the scheelite-structured ZrSiO4 (reidite). Thus, the post-hafnon phase appears to be even more incompressible than hafnon, which would make it the least compressible tetrahedrally coordinated silicate known to date.