Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Experimental evidence for self-affine roughening in a micromodel of geomorphological evolution.

An experimental evidence for kinetic roughening in a micromodel of mountain ranges is presented. We have observed that during the watering of an initially smooth ridge made of a mixture of silica sand and earthy soil the surface evolves into a shape analogous to actual mountain profiles with self-affine geometry. For the exponents describing respectively the temporal and the spatial scaling of the surface width β≃0.9 and a=0.78±0.05 have been obtained. The latter value is in very good agreement with a=0.8=0.1 we have calculated for genuine transect profiles
Sensitivity of the conductance of a disordered metal to the motion of a single atom: Implications for 1/f noise.

We show that the conductance of metals is sensitive to the motion of a single scattering center. At zero temperature and in two dimensions, the motion of one strong scattering center induces changes of the conductance of order $\frac{{e}^{2}}{h}$, independent of sample size. We discuss the implications of this result for room-temperature $\frac{1}{f}$ noise in disordered metals and we predict an anomalous low-temperature $\frac{1}{f}$ noise in metallic glasses, due to two-level systems.
Algae from aquatic, peat bog and aerial biotopes in the catchment area of the river Křemelná in Šumava National Park

The paper reports on algae found in the catchment area of the river Křemelna. In total, 100 species were determined. The main attention was paid to silica scaled chrysophytes, xanthophytes, and some genera of green algae. Morphological and ecological remarks to some species are included.
STABILITY ANALYSIS FOR THE HARTMANN FLOW WITH INTERFACIAL SLIP

Abstract: In the present research we study the effect of the slip length on the stability of the Hartmann flow by modifying the Orr-Sommerfeld problem to account for the slip effect. A MATLAB code based on Chebyshev collocation method is modified to solve the eigenvalue problem for the reference slip flow. The analysis is carried out for both symmetric and asymmetric slip conditions. It has been found that the interfacial slip significantly increases the critical Reynolds number even for very small slip lengths compared to the thickness of the Hartmann layer.
Rethinking Neuroprotection in Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: Toward Bedside Neuroprotection

Neuroprotection after traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an important goal pursued strenuously in the last 30 years. The acute cerebral injury triggers a cascade of biochemical events that may worsen the integrity, function, and connectivity of the brain cells and decrease the chance of functional recovery. A number of molecules acting against this deleterious cascade have been tested in the experimental setting, often with preliminary encouraging results. Unfortunately, clinical trials using those candidate neuroprotectants molecules have consistently produced disappointing results, highlighting the necessity of improving the research standards. Despite repeated failures in pharmacological neuroprotection, TBI treatment in neurointensive care units has achieved outcome improvement. It is likely that intensive treatment has contributed to this progress offering a different kind of neuroprotection, based on a careful prevention and limitations of intracranial and systemic threats. The natural course of acute brain damage, in fact, is often complicated by additional adverse events, like the development of intracranial hypertension, brain hypoxia, or hypoperfusion. All these events may lead to additional brain damage and worsen outcome. An approach designed for early identification and prompt correction of insults may, therefore, limit brain damage and improve results.
A model of beta-cell mass, insulin, and glucose kinetics: pathways to diabetes.

Diabetes is a disease of the glucose regulatory system that is associated with increased morbidity and early mortality. The primary variables of this system are beta-cell mass, plasma insulin concentrations, and plasma glucose concentrations. Existing mathematical models of glucose regulation incorporate only glucose and/or insulin dynamics. Here we develop a novel model of beta -cell mass, insulin, and glucose dynamics, which consists of a system of three nonlinear ordinary differential equations, where glucose and insulin dynamics are fast relative to beta-cell mass dynamics. For normal parameter values, the model has two stable fixed points (representing physiological and pathological steady states), separated on a slow manifold by a saddle point. Mild hyperglycemia leads to the growth of the beta -cell mass (negative feedback) while extreme hyperglycemia leads to the reduction of the beta-cell mass (positive feedback). The model predicts that there are three pathways in prolonged hyperglycemia: (1) the physiological fixed point can be shifted to a hyperglycemic level (regulated hyperglycemia), (2) the physiological and saddle points can be eliminated (bifurcation), and (3) progressive defects in glucose and/or insulin dynamics can drive glucose levels up at a rate faster than the adaptation of the beta -cell mass which can drive glucose levels down (dynamical hyperglycemia).
Combining Functional and Diffusion Tensor MRI

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the perceptual, motor, and cognitive capacities in humans is of increasing importance for basic and clinical neurosciences. The explanatory power of current fMRI techniques could be greatly expanded, however, if the pattern of the neuronal connections between the active cortical areas could likewise be visualized. In this study, we acquired blood‐oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) fMRI signals during the stimulation of subjects with a set of localizer stimuli for cortical visual areas. Subsequently, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data from the same subjects were obtained, and the activation areas identified through fMRI were utilized as seeding points for 3D DTI fiber reconstruction algorithms. The methods developed in this study have the potential to lay a foundation for in vivo neuroanatomy and the ability for noninvasive longitudinal studies of brain development.
Reliability of hip range of motion using goniometry in pediatric femur shaft fractures.

INTRODUCTION The purpose of this study was to determine the interrater reliability of the assessment of range of motion of the hip joint through goniometry. METHODS We included children aged 4 to 10 years with a femoral shaft fracture, from 4 study sites, who had had either an early hip spica cast or an external fixator. An assessor blind to treatment received at each site measured range of hip joints motion, using a standardized goniometric technique at 15 and 24 months postfracture. RESULTS The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was used to quantify concordance or agreement. Most ICCs for the different aspects of hip range were between 0.2 and 0.5, indicating only slight agreement. The most reliable measure was hip flexion, with an ICC of 0.48 (95% confidence interval 0.29-0.63). CONCLUSION Goniometric measurement, using standardized protocols for the hip, has low reliability. Only when differences in rotation exceed at least 30 degrees and in flexion-extension exceed 50 degrees should clinicians conclude that true change has occurred.
Green Medicine: An Integral Approach That Benefits Physicians, Patients, Communities, and the Environment

Healthcare in the United States continues to face numerous challenges, including inaccessibility of services, rising costs, and medical pollution, as well as an increase in environmentally related illness. 1,2 In fact, the World Health Organization’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005 found that 25% of the world’s burden of disease comes from poor environmental quality and that 60% of the benefits we receive from environmental resources are being degraded rapidly because of unsustainable management. 3 Simply put, the world in which we live is losing its capacity to keep us well. My belief is that the field of medicine and healthcare can provide the leadership necessary to foster a healthier environment, one that will allow us to live well today while letting others live well tomorrow. While this task is often left to environmental activists, I believe health professionals have the opportunity to play a leading role in shaping the environmental health of our future. The concept of “green healthcare” offers us the means to realize this vision. What, you may ask, is green healthcare? This term describes practices that facilitate a sustainable future for medicine, physicians, patients, and the environment. Practically speaking, green healthcare has 3 components: 1) working in a healthy facility (or green clinic), 2) advocating for a healthy environment, and 3) practicing medicine in a sustainable manner. To be clear, the word sustainability means living in a way that also lets others live well, both now and in the future. Green healthcare allows medicine as a practice to promote health for people, communities, and the environment. But how does one go about incorporating the principles of green healthcare into a busy medical practice? The guidelines offered in this article are intended to help you take the first steps. Green Healthcare as an Integral Approach
An A-stable improved Taylor series method for power system dynamic-stability simulation

Based on the original implicit Taylor series method, by setting the proper positions and values of the parameters, the Taylor series method is improved to be both A-stable and with high accuracy. The simulation method of power system dynamic stability has the characteristics of the explicit Taylor series method such as accuracy, nicety, ability to recurrence and programming simplicity, and the merits of the implicit integration such as numerical stability, the longer time step and the ability for long time dynamic stability simulation. KeywordsPower system Dynamic stability calculation, Implicit integration, Taylor series method, stable region
ModifiedFAST: A New Optimal Feature Subset Selection Algorithm

Feature subset selection is as a pre-processing step in learning algorithms. In this paper, we propose an efficient algorithm, ModifiedFAST, for feature subset selection. This algorithm is suitable for text datasets, and uses the concept of information gain to remove irrelevant and redundant features. A new optimal value of the threshold for symmetric uncertainty, used to identify relevant features, is found. The thresholds used by previous feature selection algorithms such as FAST, Relief, and CFS were not optimal. It has been proven that the threshold value greatly affects the percentage of selected features and the classification accuracy. A new performance unified metric that combines accuracy and the number of features selected has been proposed and applied in the proposed algorithm. It was experimentally shown that the percentage of selected features obtained by the proposed algorithm was lower than that obtained using existing algorithms in most of the datasets. The effectiveness of our algorithm on th optimal threshold was statistically validated with other algorithms.
The diagnostic potential of maternal plasma in detecting fetal diseases by DNA test

Conventionally, DNA based investigations for fetal diseases are done by chorionic villous sampling and amniocentesis. Both are invasive techniques. Recently, molecular diagnosis has also been made possible in early pregnancy from maternal blood which is noninvasive and advantageous. Most of the researches have tried to identify the Y chromosome marker(s) to detect a male fetus and paternally inherited allele. This is currently helpful to detect a very few genetic disorders including Rh D status in Rh negative women in early pregnancy and preeclampsia a few weeks preceding the clinical onset. This is a potential area for prenatal diagnosis in future.
Huygens File Service and Storage Architecture

The Huygens file server is a high-performance file server which is able to deliver multi-media data in a timely manner while also providing clients with ordinary "Unix" like file I/O. The file server integrates client machines, file servers and tertiary storage servers in the same storage architecture. The client''s view on the storage system is a very large file system, while in practice it is built out of a hierarchy of storage devices with a single site semantics protocol.
Reliability analysis and life testing of semiconductor devices for in-wheel motor drive system

This paper presents a reliability analysis and life testing of semiconductor devices for in-wheel motor (IWM) drive system in automotive applications. Considering practical factors such as vehicle lifetime requirements, a novel drive cycle is proposed to examine and assess the semiconductor reliability of a two IWM-driven vehicle. Based on the evaluated thermal profile of the device junction, the classical rain-flow counting approach is utilized to assess the thermal stress induced during the drive cycle. Coffin-Manson approximation equation is applied to evaluate the corresponding experimental test cycle for fulfilling the expected lifetime requirement.
Leaving Home and the Chances of Being Poor: The Case of Young People in Southern European Countries

This paper analyses, for Southern European countries, the link between the poverty status of young people who leave home and the economic status of their family of origin. First we model the poverty status of those who leave home while also accounting for the fact that youths from better-off households are more likely to leave home (a sample selection model). Second we address the time at risk of leaving home using a competing risks duration model. Estimates from both approaches suggest that young people delay leaving home because it may increase their chances of being poor. Moreover both approaches indicate that young people who have left home are more likely to be poor if their family of origin is poor and that differences across countries are not statistically significant.
Sugar uptake as a function of cell volume in human erythrocytes

Two main theories have been proposed to explain the specificity of uptake of sugars by human erythrocytes. The membrane theory (see for example, Bowyer & Widdas, 1956; LeFevre, 1954) suggests that the main barrier to diffusion is the cell membrane and that transfer across this barrier can occur only as a result of binding of the penetrant by a specific agent or carrier located in the membrane. Once inside the cell, however, the sugar is free to diffuse throughout the aqueous phase of the protoplasm. The 'sorption' theory (Troshin, 1961) on the other hand suggests that all the water within the protoplasm is bound, so that the solubility of the sugar in the aqueous phase of the cell is less than in free water. Specific binding of various compounds by the cell colloids is supposed to occur, however, and to account for at least part of the sugar appearing in the cell. The present work seeks to determine the amount of binding of sugars occurring in human erythrocytes. To this end measurements were made of the amount of sugar entering cells whose volume was adjusted by varying the tonicity of the medium in which they were suspended. It would be expected that if all the sugar in the cells were bound the amount taken up by a given number of cells would be independent of their volume, since the amount of cell protein and hence the number of binding sites should be constant. On the other hand if the sugar was in solution within the cell the amount taken up would be proportional to the volume of free (or solvent) water present in the cell. It was also the purpose of the present work to measure the kinetics of sugar uptake by cells of different volumes in an attempt to decide whether the greater resistance to diffusion occurs in the membrane or within the protoplasm. Since the surface area of erythrocytes remains constant as the cell volume is varied, the rate of sugar uptake should be independent of the volume if the membrane provides the greater resistance.
Persistent visual impairment in multiple sclerosis: prevalence, mechanisms and resulting disability

Objective: The objective of this article is to evaluate in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients the prevalence of persistent complaints of visual disturbances and the mechanisms and resulting functional disability of persistent visual complaints (PVCs). Methods: Firstly, the prevalence of PVCs was calculated in 303 MS patients. MS-related data of patients with or without PVCs were compared. Secondly, 70 patients with PVCs performed an extensive neuro-ophthalmologic assessment and a vision-related quality of life questionnaire, the National Eye Institute Visual Functionary Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ-25). Results: PVCs were reported in 105 MS patients (34.6%). Patients with PVCs had more frequently primary progressive MS (30.5% vs 13.6%) and more neuro-ophthalmologic relapses (1.97 vs 1.36) than patients without PVCs. In the mechanisms/disability study, an afferent visual and an ocular-motor pathways dysfunction were respectively diagnosed in 41 and 59 patients, mostly related to bilateral optic neuropathy and bilateral internuclear ophthalmoplegia. The NEI-VFQ 25 score was poor and significantly correlated with the number of impaired neuro-ophthalmologic tests. Conclusion: Our study emphasizes the high prevalence of PVC in MS patients. Regarding the nature of neuro-ophthalmologic deficit, our results suggest that persistent optic neuropathy, as part of the progressive evolution of the disease, is not rare. We also demonstrate that isolated ocular motor dysfunctions induce visual disability in daily life.
Implementation of an interleaved ZVS forward converter

A parallel zero voltage switching (ZVS) forward converter with half-bridge topology is presented in this paper. Two converter modules are connected in parallel in the output side to share the load current. In the primary side, two converter modules use the same power switches so that the semiconductor devices are reduced in the proposed converter compared with the conventional interleaved half-bridge converter. The asymmetrical pulse-width modulation (APWM) is used to regulate the output voltage and realize the ZVS turn-on of switches at the transition interval. The voltage stress of switches is clamped at the input source voltage. The system analysis, operation principle and design consideration of the proposed converter are presented. Finally experimental results based on a laboratory prototype are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed converter.
Joint formation in the middle ear: Lessons from the mouse and guinea pig

The malleus, incus and stapes form an ossicle chain in the mammalian middle ear. These ossicles are articulated by joints that link the chain together. In humans and mice, fusion of the ossicles leads to hearing loss. However, in the adult guinea pig the malleus and incus are normally found as a single complex. In this report, we investigate how the malleus and incus form during mouse and guinea pig development. The murine malleus and incus develop from a single condensation that splits to form the two ossicles. Even before a morphological split, we show that the ossicles have distinct genetic identities and joint markers are expressed. In the guinea pig embryo, joint formation is initiated but no cavitation is observed, resulting in a single complex divided by a thin suture. The malleal‐incudo complex in the guinea pig is, therefore, not caused by a defect in joint initiation. Developmental Dynamics 235:1326–1333, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Thailand tourism forecasting based on a hybrid of discrete wavelet decomposition and NARX neural network

Purpose – Accurate forecast of tourist arrivals is crucial for Thailand since the tourism industry is a major economic factor of the country. However, a nonstationarity, normally consisted in nonlinear tourism time series can seriously ruin the forecasting computation. The purpose of this paper is to propose a hybrid forecasting method, namely discrete wavelet decomposition (DWD)-NARX, which combines DWD and the nonlinear autoregressive neural network with exogenous input (NARX) to cope with such nonstationarity, as a consequence, improve the effectiveness of the demand-side management activities. Design/methodology/approach – According to DWD-NARX, wavelet decomposition is executed for efficiently extracting the hidden significant, temporal features contained in the nonstationary time series. Then, each extracted feature set at a particular resolution level along with a relative price as an exogenous input factor are fed into NARX for further forecasting. Finally, the forecasting results are reconstructe.
Clinical Practice Guideline on management of older patients with chronic kidney disease stage 3b or higher (eGFR <45 mL/min/1.73 m2).

The population of patients with moderate and severe CKD is growing. Frail and older patients comprise an increasing proportion. Many studies still exclude this group, so the evidence base is limited. In 2013 the advisory board of ERBP initiated, in collaboration with European Union of Geriatric Medicine Societies (EUGMS), the development of a guideline on the management of older patients with CKD stage 3b or higher (eGFR >45 mL/min/1.73 m2). The full guideline has recently been published and is freely available online and on the website of ERBP (www.european-renal-best-practice.org). This paper summarises main recommendations of the guideline and their underlying rationales.
Examining a Therapeutic Yoga Program for Prostate Cancer Survivors

Background. In the earlier stages of prostate cancer, effective treatments have created a need for research to focus on practices that may improve quality of life throughout survivorship. Physical activity is a significant supportive care management strategy for prostate cancer survivors, though the optimal modality is not yet understood. Hypotheses. The authors hypothesized that yoga would be a feasible physical activity option for prostate cancer survivors and their support persons and that the incorporation of social support would increase physical activity adherence. Methods. This 14-week feasibility study involved a 7-week class-based yoga program (adherence phase), followed by 7 weeks of self-selected physical activity (maintenance phase). Demographic information, physical activity behavior, quality of life, fatigue, stress, mood, and fitness variables were assessed at 3 time points. Prostate cancer survivors’ perceived social support was rated during yoga and after yoga. Results. Class attendance was 6.1 and 5.8 for prostate cancer survivors (n = 15) and their support persons (n = 10), respectively, for the 7 classes. Levels of perceived social support were higher for those who brought a support person. Significant improvements with regard to stress, fatigue, and mood before and after yoga class (all Ps < .05) were reported by all participants. No clinically significant changes were noted on prostate cancer survivor’s quality of life or fatigue over the course of the 14-week study. Conclusions. Yoga is a feasible physical activity option for prostate cancer survivors. The program had a promising uptake rate, high program adherence rate, and there were acute program benefits with regard to stress, fatigue, and mood for all participants. Future examination is warranted with regard to chronic benefits and group cohesion influences on levels of perceived social support.