Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Morphological and Geochemical Evidence of Eumelanin Preservation in the Feathers of the Early Cretaceous Bird, Gansus yumenensis

Recent studies have shown evidence for the preservation of colour in fossilized soft tissues by imaging melanosomes, melanin pigment containing organelles. This study combines geochemical analyses with morphological observations to investigate the preservation of melanosomes and melanin within feathers of the Early Cretaceous bird, Gansus yumenensis. Scanning electron microscopy reveals structures concordant with those previously identified as eumelanosomes within visually dark areas of the feathers but not in lighter areas or sedimentary matrices. Fourier transform infrared analyses show different spectra for the feathers and their matrices; melanic functional groups appear in the feather including carboxylic acid and ketone groups that are not seen in the matrix. When mapped, the carboxylic acid group absorption faithfully replicates the visually dark areas of the feathers. Electron Paramagnetic Resonance spectroscopy of one specimen demonstrates the presence of organic signals but proved too insensitive to resolve melanin. Pyrolysis gas chromatography mass spectrometry shows a similar distribution of aliphatic material within both feathers that are different from those of their respective matrices. In combination, these techniques strongly suggest that not only do the feathers contain endogenous organic material, but that both geochemical and morphological evidence supports the preservation of original eumelanic pigment residue.
CMS oversight, OPOs and transplant centers and the law of unintended consequences

Abstract: The Health Resources and Services Administration launched collaboratives with the goals of increasing donation rates, increasing the number of organs transplanted, eliminating deaths on the waiting list and improving outcomes. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently published requirements for organ procurement organizations (OPOs) and transplant centers. Failure to meet CMS performance measures could result in OPOs losing their service area or transplant centers losing their CMS certification. CMS uses analyses by the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) to evaluate a transplant center’s performance based on risk‐adjusted outcomes. However, CMS also uses a more liberal (one‐sided) statistical test rendering more centers likely to qualify as low performing. Furthermore, the SRTR model does not incorporate some important patient variables in its statistical model which may result in biased determinations of quality of care. Cumulatively, there is much unexplained variation for transplant outcomes as suggested by the low predictive ability of survival models compared to other disease contexts. OPOs and transplant centers are unlikely to quietly accept their elimination. They may take certain steps that can result in exclusion of candidates who might otherwise benefit from transplantation and/or result in fewer transplants through restricted use of organs thought to carry higher risk of failure. CMS should join with transplant organizations to ensure that the goals of the collaborative are not inhibited by their performance measures.
Restoration of intensity and depth images constructed using sparse single-photon data

This paper presents a new algorithm for the joint restoration of depth and intensity images constructed from the time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) measurement in the limit of very few photon counts [1]. Under some justified approximations, the restoration problem (regularized likelihood) reduces to a convex formulation with respect to the parameters of interest. The first advantage of this formulation is that it only processes the corrupted depth and intensity images obtained from preliminary estimation, without the need for the use of full TCSPC waveforms. The second advantage is its flexibility in being able to use different convex regularization terms such as: total variation (TV); and sparsity of the discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients. The estimation problems are efficiently solved using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) that presents good convergence properties and thus a reduced computational cost. Results on single photon depth data from field trials show the benefit of the proposed strategy that improves the quality of the estimated depth and intensity images.
Purpuric adult T‐cell leukaemia/lymphoma: expansion of unusual CD4/CD8 double‐negative malignant T cells expressing CCR4 but bearing the cytotoxic molecule granzyme B

A 78‐year‐old Japanese woman with adult T‐cell leukaemia/lymphoma (ATL) presented with an unusual purpuric and erythematous eruption on the face and trunk. Immunohistochemical and flow cytometric analyses showed that the tumour cells were CD4/CD8 double‐negative, and expressed CCR4 T‐helper (Th) 2 chemokine receptors. Despite these features, the cells aberrantly produced granzyme B, which is a cytotoxic molecule usually produced by CD8+ cytotoxic T cells, natural killer cells, or occasionally by Th1 cells. In a purpuric lesion, extravasation of erythrocytes was associated with an infiltrate of these cytotoxic tumour cells. Our case suggests phenotypical and functional heterogeneity of tumour cells in ATL, which may be closely related to the clinical appearance of the skin eruption.
Modeling System Integrity Of A Security CriticalSystem Using Colored Petri Nets

Recently, the need for techniques for quantification of security attributes of IKT systems has been raised. This relates both to security requirements in QoS architectures, as well as input to trade-off analysis regarding the design and choice of security mechanisms to comply with an established security policy. Early research in this area has focused on state transition models, such as Markov or semi-Markov models. In the dependability domain these techniques are used to measure values such as mean time between failures (MTBF), and to quantify frequency and consequences of risks. The dynamics of security attacks makes it intractable to use, due to the problems with state explosions. To be able to express the complete state space of a security critical system, one needs to consider not only hardware, operating system. And application/services faults, but also the survivability of the system in terms of intentional and accidental security breaches. This paper builds a stochastic prediction system to estimate the system integrity of a security critical system. The paper makes use of Colored Petri Nets (CPN), a higher-level formalism for stochastic modeling, analysis, and simulation. The prediction system is implemented as a generic and hierarchic CPN model.
Chemical profile and antihyperlipidemic effect of Portulaca oleracea L. seeds in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats

Abstract Hypolipidemic effect of Portulaca oleracea L. seed extract and its fractions have been studied on streptozotocin (STZ) at dose 75 mg/kg b.wt. After fractionation of the alcoholic extract; petroleum ether fraction was the most active fraction that decreased different hyperlipidemia biochemical parameters. After chromatographic analysis; oleamide, ethylpalmitate, β-amyrin, stigmasterol and β-sitosterol were identified. The GLC analysis of unsaponifiable matter revealed the presence of; lignoceric acid as a major constituent in the most bioactive fraction. In conclusion, petroleum ether fraction possessed a hypolipidemic effect in STZ-induced diabetic rats, which may be attributed to its phytosterols, fatty acid and amide compounds. The finding of the present investigation strongly demonstrates the potential of non-polar fraction of P. oleracea L. seed in combating hyperlipidemia in diabetic condition. So the petroleum ether fractions and its constituents can be used as hypolipdemic supplement in the developing countries towards the development of new therapeutic agents.
Ferromagnetism in Zn1–xMnxO Nanoparticles Prepared by Ball Milling

Previous studies pointed out that ferromagnetism in Mn-doped ZnO was related to exchange interactions between Mn ions mediated by lattice defects. This means that it is possible to modify a Mn-doped ZnO paramagnet to a ferromagnet by creating lattice defects in it. The present work starts from a paramagnetic Zn0.98Mn0. 02O sample prepared by solid-state reaction and then creates more defects upon mechanical milling. By changing the milling time (tm) from 0.5 to 20 h, we produced nanocrystalline (NC) samples with average crystallite sizes (d) ranging from 30 to 157 nm. The d decrease generated lattice strain and defects. This broadens and blurs the lines of Raman scattering and electron spin resonance (ESR) spectra. Interestingly, magnetization studies versus magnetic field revealed the samples with d ≤ 150 nm exhibiting room-temperature ferromagnetic (FM) order. The FM order became largest as d = 72 nm, corresponding to a saturation magnetization of Ms ≈ 0.006 emu/g. Apart from this d value, Ms would be gradually decreased. X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectra revealed a coexistence of Mn2+ and Mn3+ ions in the samples. Their concentration ratio was slightly changed with decreasing d, due to the slight shift of the absorption edge. With the features of Fourier-transformed XAFS and ESR spectra, we believe that ferromagnetism in the NC samples is related to oxygen vacancies residing on the surface of nanoparticles. Local lattice distortions can lead to zinc interstitials for the samples d <; 72 nm, which decreases Ms.
A clustering-based sampling approach for refreshing search engine's database

Due to resource constraints, search engines usually have difficulties keeping the local database completely synchronized with the Web. To detect as many changes as possible, the crawler used by a search engine should be able to predict the change behavior of webpages so that it can use the limited resource to download those webpages that are most likely to change. Towards this goal, we propose using sampling approach at the level of a cluster. We first group all the local webpages into different clusters such that each cluster contains webpages with similar change patterns. We then sample webpages from each cluster to estimate the change frequency of all the webpages in that cluster, and the cluster containing webpages with higher change frequency will be revisited more often by our crawler. We run extensive experiments on a real Web data set of about 300,000 distinct URLs distributed among 210 websites. The results show that by applying our clustering algorithm, pages with similar change patterns are effectively clustered together. Our proposal significantly outperforms the comparators by improving the average freshness of the local database.
What Determines Seasonal and Interannual Variability of Phytoplankton and Zooplankton in Strongly Estuarine Systems

Abstract A coupled biological–physical box model is developed to investigate the seasonal and interannual variability of marine plankton in strongly estuarine systems such as the semi-enclosed estuary of the Strait of Georgia and Juan de Fuca Strait on the west coast of Canada. The estuarine circulation not only supplies nutrients to the euphotic layer but also transports plankton between the straits, causing an asymmetrical distribution of plankton biomass in the estuary. A specific set of biological parameters can be chosen so that the model predicts a large spring bloom and nutrient limitation in the Strait of Georgia but high nutrient levels and no spring bloom in the Juan de Fuca Strait, in agreement with observations. However, as the plankton growth and mortality rate parameters are varied over a realistic range, the plankton also exhibit two other ecosystem behaviours: one with a large spring bloom in the Juan de Fuca Strait and one with a low zooplankton stock in the Strait of Georgia. To determine possible causes for observed interannual variability of the planktonic ecosystem, we have run the coupled biophysical model with stochastic variation of the Fraser River runoff and the shelf salinity. The plankton populations are found to be insensitive to the interannual variability in the estuarine circulation. It is suggested that marine phytoplankton and zooplankton might respond more significantly to climate variability (or change) through changes in their biological rate parameters.
Tumor invasiveness and prognosis in resected hepatocellular carcinoma. Clinical and pathogenetic implications

In order to elucidate the biologic behavior of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the long‐term prognostic impact of the pathologic features of 143 surgically resected HCC were studied. Seventy‐four were smaller than 5 cm in diameter (small HCC), and 69 were larger (large HCC). This study confirmed that tumor size was an important but not the only determining prognostic factor in HCC. Although cirrhosis could cause hepatic failure, patient mortality was mainly attributable to tumor recurrence, which, in turn, was strongly correlated with the invasive nature of HCC. Tumor invasion to the liver and the intraportal spread were very frequent and particularly extensive in large HCC. In both small and large HCC the noninvasive groups not only had high 4‐year actuarial survival (84.6% and 90%, respectively), but there was also no patient mortality from intrahepatic tumor recurrence. Therefore, it was concluded that invasiveness of an HCC is the most crucial factor in determining the long‐term outcome for the patient, and that the clinical course of resected HCC is predictable in a great majority of the cases. In our small HCC series only 2.4% of HCC were regarded as having true multicentric origin. These findings suggest that the majority of HCC occur unicentrically, and that multiplicity and tumor recurrence result mostly from intrahepatic dissemination. In both small and large HCCs invasive tumors were accompanied by high patient mortality from tumor recurrence even when the tumor was small, indicating that intrahepatic spread may start very early during the growth of HCC.
Defense Mechanisms and Psychological Adjustment in Childhood

The association between maturity of defense use and psychological functioning was assessed in a group of 95 elementary school children. Defense mechanisms were measured using a valid and reliable storytelling task, and psychological adjustment was assessed through a combination of parent and self-report questionnaires. Correlational analyses indicated that children who relied on the developmentally immature defense of denial reported higher levels of self-rated social anxiety and depression and received higher ratings of parent-reported internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. However, children who made use of the developmentally mature defense of identification exhibited higher scores on perceived competence in social, academic, conduct, athletic, and global domains. Significantly, there was no relationship between children’s use of denial and their level of perceived competence or between children’s use of identification and their degree of maladjustment.
Protein/Peptide Aggregation and Amyloidosis on Biointerfaces

Recently, studies of protein/peptide aggregation, particularly the amyloidosis, have attracted considerable attention in discussions of the pathological mechanisms of most neurodegenerative diseases. The protein/peptide aggregation processes often occur at the membrane–cytochylema interface in vivo and behave differently from those occurring in bulk solution, which raises great interest to investigate how the interfacial properties of artificial biomaterials impact on protein aggregation. From the perspective of bionics, current progress in this field has been obtained mainly from four aspects: (1) hydrophobic–hydrophilic interfaces; (2) charged surface; (3) chiral surface; and (4) biomolecule-related interfaces. The specific physical and chemical environment provided by these interfaces is reported to strongly affect the adsorption of proteins, transition of protein conformation, and diffusion of proteins on the biointerface, all of which are ultimately related to protein assembly. Meanwhile, these compelling results of in vitro experiments can greatly promote the development of early diagnostics and therapeutics for the relevant neurodegenerative diseases. This paper presents a brief review of these appealing studies, and particular interests are placed on weak interactions (i.e., hydrogen bonding and stereoselective interactions) that are also non-negligible in driving amyloid aggregation at the interfaces. Moreover, this paper also proposes the future perspectives, including the great opportunities and challenges in this field as well.
Dual Blockade of the Renin-Angiotensin System in Diabetic Nephropathy

The accelerated progression of atherosclerosis in diabetes is most probably the end result of the cumulative impact of the major risk factors that are more prevalent in diabetic subjects, namely obesity and dyslipidemia, the derangement in carbohydrate metabolism (hyperglycemic environment, hyperinsulinism, and insulin resistance), a prothrombotic tendency, and, perhaps most important, microalbuminuria and hypertension (1–5). At least two additional cardiovascular risk factors are probably more pronounced in diabetes; they are endothelial dysfunction (6) and an inflammatory reaction in the affected blood vessels mediated by the proinflammatory interleukins and expressed by elevated levels of C-reactive protein (7). Microalbuminuria is often the first clinical manifestation of early microvascular derangement. In type 2 diabetes, it is the hallmark of subsequent diabetic nephropathy and a surrogate marker of cardiovascular disease and increased cardiovascular mortality (8). Furthermore, the presence of microalbuminuria predicts a worse outcome after percutaneous coronary intervention. The 2-year mortality after percutaneous coronary intervention in diabetic patients with microalbuminuria was increased by 85% compared with individuals with normal urinary albumin excretion (9). Microalbuminuria is associated with echocardiographic evidence of left ventricular hypertrophy and identifies overall cardiovascular risk also in hypertensive nondiabetic patients (10,11). It is therefore mandatory to screen all diabetic as well as nondiabetic hypertensive patients for the presence of microalbuminuria. Indeed, all the relevant professional associations have included annual screening for microalbuminuria in their recommendations (12,13). Treatment strategies aimed at reducing urinary albumin excretion were found to be effective in retarding the progression of renal disease, as manifested by prolongation of the time to doubling of serum creatinine and postponement of end-stage renal disease and the need to renal replacement therapy (14–17). Furthermore, the magnitude of early decline in albuminuria in response to a given therapeutic intervention is a reliable predictor …
Exploration of cryptographic ASIP designs for wireless sensor nodes

We present the design of 4 Application Specific Instruction Set Processors (8-bit, 32-bit, 64-bit and 128-bit ASIP) which provide typical 16-bit general instructions and accelerate a common cryptographic domain. The ASIPs support the following security services: data confidentiality, data authentication, data integrity and replay attack protection and their design is appropriate for wireless sensor networks. The corresponding software for each ASIP has been optimized in terms of clock cycles and memory accesses. We evaluate the 4 ASIPs in terms of performance, power consumption, energy dissipation and area occupation. When our most energy efficient design (128-bit ASIP) operates on AES-CCM-32 security mode at a clock frequency of 100 MHz, it dissipates 41.86 nJ achieving a maximum throughput of 21.76 Mbps, while at a lower clock frequency of 4.61 MHz, it achieves a throughput of 1 Mbps, a typical value in the WSN, and dissipates energy of 35.20 nJ. The corresponding area overhead, for 90nm technology, excluding the memories, is 34.3K NAND2 equivalents. Comparisons with other works are given.
Browsing while reading: effects of instructional design and learners’ prior knowledge

One of the key reasons that multimedia, and particularly hypertext systems, are gaining in importance is that they inspire hopes of optimizing learners’ processes of knowledge construction. The present study is concerned with the respective influence of individual learner variables (i.e. particularly domain-specific prior knowledge) on the use of different design attributes. Thirty-six university students worked through a hierarchically structured two-part hypertext about the psychology of memory under two experimental browsing conditions (reduced versus free browsing). Results show that deeper-level comprehension (i.e. structural knowledge) was predicted by the interaction of experimental condition and prior knowledge, but that simply retaining facts was not. Participants with low prior knowledge performed better on the comprehension test if they had worked on the version with reduced access. Moreover, the version with reduced access helped to reduce feelings of disorientation. The measure of disorientation also appeared to be closely linked with the individual’s computer experience, self-concept of computer ability and subject-related interest. The main implications for educational practice relate to the design of an adaptive multimedia and hypertext learning system and the successful learning with it. DOI: 10.1080/09687760600668602
A unified approach to protocol test sequence generation

The authors present an approach that combines control flow and data flow analysis techniques to generate unified test sequences (UTSs) for testing protocols modeled as an extended finite-state machine (EFSM). The UTS has the same fault detection capability as the characterizing sequence (UIO, DS, or W) methods for the control part, and at the same time covers all paths that connect variable definitions and uses (all du-paths) for data flow testing. A transition dependence graph is proposed to represent the dependence relations between transitions needed to construct the test sequences. The executable UTS is then selected using constraint satisfaction problem (CSP) solution techniques and transition loop analysis. <<ETX>>
Haptic Recognition of Familiar Objects: Examining Lateralization of Specificity Effects

Previous research has found evidence in favor of two subsystems underlying object recognition: an abstract-category subsystem that mainly works in the left hemisphere (LH) and a specific-exemplar subsystem that mainly works in the right hemisphere (RH). This asymmetry has been observed in both the visual and auditory domains by means of long-term repetition priming experiments. This study explored whether this asymmetrical pattern extends to the haptic domain through an experiment in which 30 right-handed participants (24 women) ages 18 to 38 years could identify familiar objects with a single hand. The procedure included two blocks of trials, the study (presentation of primes) and the test phase (presentation of targets), separated by a short distractor task. Of interest was if repetition of the same exemplar object (e.g., the same cigarette lighter) produced more priming than repetition of a different exemplar of the same object category (e.g., a different cigarette lighter), and, crucially, if this hypothetical same-exemplar advantage (specificity) was larger when objects were identified with the left hand (RH). An ANOVA was performed on RTs with priming type (same-exemplar primed, different-exemplar primed and unprimed) and hand (left, right) as within-participants factors. Results showed a main effect of priming type due to a same-exemplar advantage (shorter RTs) both for the left and the right hand, but a non-significant interaction between specificity effects and hands.