Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Starcounts Redivivus. III. A Possible Detection of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy at b = −40°

As part of the Selected Areas Starcounts Survey, a CCD survey to V > 21, we have obtained VI photometry of two fields at b = ±40° aligned roughly with an extrapolation of the major axis of the Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy. Comparison of the color-magnitude diagram (CMD) for some of these fields with the CMDs of fields reflected about the Galactic l = 0° meridian reveals an excess of stars at V0 = 17.85 and 0.9 < (V-I)0 < 1.1 in the (l, b) = (11°, -40°) field. The excess stars have colors consistent with the Sgr red clump, and deeper CMD imaging in these locations shows evidence of a main-sequence turnoff (MSTO) at V = 21, with the main sequence extending to the limit of our data (V = 24). The surface brightnesses we derive from either the potential excess of red clump stars or the apparent excess of MSTO stars are consistent with each other and with the results of other surveys at this latitude. No similar excess appears in our northern Galactic hemisphere fields near the (l, b) = (353°, +41°) field. We have obtained spectroscopy of all 30 candidate red clump stars in the range 0.9 < (V-I)0 < 1.1and 17.75 < V0 < 17.95. The radial velocity distribution of the stars, while dissimilar from expectations of Galactic structure models, does not show a contribution by stars near the Galactocentric radial velocity seen in other studies near the Sgr core. It is difficult to reconcile a photometric result that is consistent with other explorations of the Sagittarius stream with a radial velocity distribution that is apparently inconsistent. In a companion paper, we discuss how some of the discrepancies are resolved if our potential Sgr detection corresponds to a different Sgr tidal streamer than that detected by most other surveys.
An advanced multichip module (MCM) for high-performance UNIX servers

In 2001, IBM delivered to the marketplace a high-performance UNIX? ®-class eServer based on a four-chip multichip module (MCM) code named Regatta. This MCM supports four POWER4 chips, each with 170 million transistors, which utilize the IBM advanced copper back-end interconnect technology. Each chip is attached to the MCM through 7018 flip-chip solder connections. The MCM, fabricated using the IBM high-performance glass-ceramic technology, features 1.7 million internal copper vias and high-density top-surface contact pad arrays with 100-? µm pads on 200-? µm centers. Interconnections between chips on the MCM and interconnections to the board for power distribution and MCM-to-MCM communication are provided by 190 meters of co-sintered copper wiring. Additionally, the 5100 off-module connections on the bottom side of the MCM are fabricated at a 1-mm pitch and connected to the board through the use of a novel land grid array technology, thus enabling a compact 85-mm ? 85-mm module footprint that enables 8- to 32-way systems with processors operating at 1.1 GHz or 1.3 GHz. The MCM also incorporates advanced thermal solutions that enable 156 W of cooling per chip. This paper presents a detailed overview of the fabrication, assembly, testing, and reliability qualification of this advanced MCM technology.
Tracking multiple particles in fluorescence microscopy images via probabilistic data association

Tracking subcellular structures displayed as ‘particles’ in fluorescence microscopy images yields quantitative descriptions of the underlying dynamical processes. We have developed an approach for tracking multiple fluorescent particles. Our approach includes a localization scheme using probabilistic data association that combines a top-down strategy driven by the Kalman filter and a bottom-up strategy using standard localization algorithms for fluorescent particles. The combined scheme yields multiple positions that are incorporated to the filter via a combined innovation. To track objects in close proximity, we introduce a support map that adjusts the association probabilities. By using the combined localization scheme in conjunction with the Kalman filter we integrate localization and position estimation. The approach has been successfully applied to synthetic images as well as to real microscopy image sequences and the performance has been quantified.
Assessing attitude toward Hinduism: The Santosh–Francis Scale

The Santosh–Francis Scale of Attitude toward Hinduism has been designed to facilitate research concerning the psychological correlates of religiosity among young people growing up within the Hindu tradition, and in a way that allows findings from such research to be compared with similar studies conducted within other religious traditions using the Francis Scale of Attitude toward Christianity, the Katz–Francis Scale of Attitude toward Judaism, and the Sahin–Francis Scale of Attitude toward Islam. Data provided by 330 individuals between the ages of 12 and 35 attending a Hindu youth festival support the reliability and validity of this instrument and commend it for further use in studies conducted within the Hindu community.
Who Cares About Your Big Day? Impact of Life Events on Dynamics of Social Networks

With online social networking having revolutionized the way in which individuals communicate and interact with each other, there is heightened research interest in the dynamics of social networks. This article seeks to contribute to this stream of research by addressing the key question of the impact of major life events, such as getting married or graduating from college, on social network evolution. Consistent with prior studies on the evolution of individuals’ social networks, we specifically focus on two key attributes of an individual's network: indegree of ties and relational embeddedness. By longitudinally analyzing the network activities of a large-scale online social network, we find that the indegree of ties increased significantly following a major life event, and that this impact was stronger for more active users in the network. Interestingly, we also find that the broadcast of major life events served to revive dormant ties as reflected by a decrease in embeddedness following a life event. We also found that one-time life events such as weddings had a greater impact than recurring life events such as birthdays on the evolution of a user's social network. From a research perspective, our study contributes to existing research by focusing on a user's communication network as opposed to friendship network and by emphasizing how exogenous life events add a different dimension to user communication patterns. The importance of life events on social network evolution has important implications for practice as well by providing insights to advertisers as well as to social networking sites.
Schools and the Stratification Process

The influence of socioeconomic origins on three outcomes of secondary schooling (academic achievement, course marks, and aspirations) is interpreted using path analysis and covariance analysis for six grade-cohorts of students in the Nashville Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA). While we have had some success in constructing recursive interpretations of background influences on educational outcomes, the proposed models do not account for the common content of similarly determined outcomes. Intelligence plays a key role in mediating the influence of social origins on educational outcomes. Further, there is little evidence that teachers discriminate by socioeconomic origin. School differences in educational outcomes are small and may be artifactual consequences of differences in student-body composition. High school quality is less persistent over time than student-body composition, and plays a minor role in the determination of ultimate educational attainment.
Analysis of the Transcript of the Herpes Simplex Virus DNA Polymerase Gene Provides Evidence that Polymerase Expression Is Inefficient at the Level of Translation

We have mapped the termini and determined the relative abundance and ribosome density of the major cytoplasmic transcript of the DNA polymerase (pol) gene of herpes simplex virus type 1. Nuclease protection and primer extension analyses located the 5' end of the major pol transcript at two closely spaced sites 51 and 57 nucleotides to the left of a BamHI site at map position 0.413. S1-sensitive sites corresponding to additional minor transcripts were found to map further upstream within a palindromic sequence that contains a viral replication origin. The major 3' end was found to map 90 nucleotides upstream of a KpnI site at map position 0.439. Quantitative S1 nuclease assays revealed that pol transcripts were nearly as abundant as transcripts encoded by the viral thymidine kinase gene. However, relatively few pol transcripts were found on large polysomes at 5.5 h after infection, when pol transcripts were most abundant. This was in marked contrast to the polyribosome distribution of transcripts from the thymidine kinase gene and the major DNA-binding protein gene. These results and sequence features of the pol transcript suggest that pol expression is regulated, in part, at the level of translation.
Natural antibodies to cell‐surface antigens of human astrocytoma

Sera of 200 non‐transfused healthy male blood donors were tested for antibody reactivity to cell‐surface antigens of cultured astrocytoma cells. Positive reactions were observed only rarely by protein‐A assay (PA), in about half the cases by immune adherence assay (IA) and in nearly all cases by anti‐C3 mixed hemadsorption assay (C3‐MHA). In general, titers were low and only seven sera showed reactivity at 1:1,000. Serum 537 showed the strongest reaction. The anti‐astrocytoma reactivity in this serum was due to an IgG antibody. Extensive absorption analysis with a panel of cell lines and fresh cells of both benign and malignant origin, as well al fetal cells, revealed that this serum detected an anigen that was present on most neural‐crest‐derived tumors (astrocytomas, melanomas and neuroblastomas), on very few other malignant tumors and on fetal brain. The antigen detected by serum 537 shows close relationship to the astrocytoma antigen Aj which had been defined by the serum of a patient with astrocytoma. Both antigens appear to be differentiation antigens present predominantly on non‐epithelial neoplasms. The antigen detected by serum 537 is heat‐stable and pronase‐resistant. The sera of two other healthy donors apparently had a similar specificity, whereas the four other high‐titered sera and all other sera detected class‐III antigens which were non‐specific and not tumorrestricted.
Development and characterization of human monoclonal antibodies that neutralize multiple TGFβ isoforms

ABSTRACT Transforming growth factor (TGF)β levels are elevated in, and drive the progression of, numerous disease states such as advanced metastatic cancer and systemic and ocular fibrosis. There are 3 main isoforms, TGFβ1, 2, and 3. As multiple TGFβ isoforms are involved in disease processes, maximal therapeutic efficacy may require neutralization of 2 or more of the TGFβ isoforms. Fully human antibody phage display libraries were used to discover a number of antibodies that bind and neutralize various combinations of TGFβ1, 2 or 3. The primary panning did not yield any uniformly potent pan-isoform neutralizing antibodies; therefore, an antibody that displayed potent TGFβ 1, 2 inhibition, but more modest affinity versus TGFβ3, was affinity matured by shuffling with a light chain sub-library and further screening. This process yielded a high affinity pan-isoform neutralizing clone. Antibodies were analyzed and compared by binding affinity, as well as receptor and epitope competition by surface plasmon resonance methods. The antibodies were also shown to neutralize TGFβ effects in vitro in 3 assays: 1) interleukin (IL)-4 induced HT-2 cell proliferation; 2) TGFβ-mediated IL-11 release by A549 cells; and 3) decreasing SMAD2 phosphorylation in Detroit 562 cells. The antibodies’ potency in these in vitro assays correlated well with their isoform-specific affinities. Furthermore, the ability of the affinity-matured clone to decrease tumor burden in a Detroit 562 xenograft study was superior to that of the parent clone. This affinity-matured antibody acts as a very potent inhibitor of all 3 main isoforms of TGFβ and may have utility for therapeutic intervention in human disease.
Developmental trajectories of body mass index throughout the life course: an application of Latent Class Growth (Mixture) Modelling

The aims of this study are 1) to analyse developmental trajectories of body fatness from adolescence into adulthood, thereby determining the number and characteristics of distinct body fatness trajectories, and 2) to relate these distinct subgroups to indicators of cardiovascular disease risk, revealing subgroups specifically at risk. This paper will illustrate in more detail the application of Latent Class Growth (Mixture) Modelling (LCGMM) on longitudinal, observational data. Data were obtained from the Amsterdam Growth and Health Longitudinal Study, an ongoing observational study of apparently healthy participants (n=336). Participants were followed up from 13-42 years of age. Body Mass Index was used as a marker for body fatness and cardiovascular diseases (CVD)-risk factors included Mean Arterial Pressure and HDL-Cholesterol. LCGMM was used for the identification of developmental trajectories of body fatness, and linear regression analyses were used for the associations between the trajectories and CVD-risk. Analyses revealed three distinct trajectories; a "normative" trajectory (88.4%), a progressively overweight trajectory (4.5%) and a progressively overweight but stabilising trajectory (7.1%). Significant differences in CVD-risk between these trajectories appeared. These results show that body fatness development throughout life is heterogeneous, showing differences in CVD-risk. This paper also demonstrates that LCGMM is a promising technique to distinguish between subjects with different developmental trajectories.
Physical activity and sedentary behaviors associated with risk of progression from gestational diabetes mellitus to type 2 diabetes mellitus: a prospective cohort study.

IMPORTANCE Women with a history of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are at substantially increased risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The identification of important modifiable factors could help prevent T2DM in this high-risk population. OBJECTIVE To examine the role of physical activity and television watching and other sedentary behaviors, and changes in these behaviors in the progression from GDM to T2DM. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective cohort study of 4554 women from the Nurses' Health Study II who had a history of GDM, as part of the ongoing Diabetes & Women's Health Study. These women were followed up from 1991 to 2007. EXPOSURES Physical activity and television watching and other sedentary behaviors were assessed in 1991, 1997, 2001, and 2005. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURE Incident T2DM identified through self-report and confirmed by supplemental questionnaires. RESULTS We documented 635 incident T2DM cases during 59,287 person-years of follow-up. Each 5-metabolic equivalent hours per week (MET-h/wk) increment of total physical activity, which is equivalent to 100 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity, was related to a 9% lower risk of T2DM (adjusted relative risk [RR], 0.91; 95% CI, 0.88-0.94); this inverse association remained significant after additional adjustment for body mass index (BMI). Moreover, an increase in physical activity was associated with a lower risk of developing T2DM. Compared with women who maintained their total physical activity levels, women who increased their total physical activity levels by 7.5 MET-h/wk or more (equivalent to 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity) had a 47% lower risk of T2DM (RR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.38-0.75); the association remained significant after additional adjustment for BMI. The multivariable adjusted RRs (95% CIs) for T2DM associated with television watching of 0 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 20, and 20 or more hours per week were 1 (reference), 1.28 (1.04-1.59), 1.41 (1.11-1.79), and 1.77 (1.28-2.45), respectively (P value for trend <.001); additional adjustment for BMI attenuated the association. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Increasing physical activity may lower the risk of progression from GDM to T2DM. These findings suggest a hopeful message to women with a history of GDM, although they are at exceptionally high risk for T2DM, promoting an active lifestyle may lower the risk.
Health Effects of Lesion Localization in Multiple Sclerosis: Spatial Registration and Confounding Adjustment

Brain lesion localization in multiple sclerosis (MS) is thought to be associated with the type and severity of adverse health effects. However, several factors hinder statistical analyses of such associations using large MRI datasets: 1) spatial registration algorithms developed for healthy individuals may be less effective on diseased brains and lead to different spatial distributions of lesions; 2) interpretation of results requires the careful selection of confounders; and 3) most approaches have focused on voxel-wise regression approaches. In this paper, we evaluated the performance of five registration algorithms and observed that conclusions regarding lesion localization can vary substantially with the choice of registration algorithm. Methods for dealing with confounding factors due to differences in disease duration and local lesion volume are introduced. Voxel-wise regression is then extended by the introduction of a metric that measures the distance between a patient-specific lesion mask and the population prevalence map.
On Predicting Twitter Trend : Important Factors and Models

Trend prediction for social media has become an important problem that can find wide applications in economics, social studies, etc. In this paper, we investigate two basic issues in trend prediction, i.e., what are the important factors and what may be the appropriate models. To address the first issue, we consider different content and context factors by designing features from tweet messages, network topology, and user behavior, etc. To address the second issue, we investigate several prediction models that have different combination of the two basic model properties, i.e. (non)linearity and (non-)state-space modeling. Our study is based on the hashtag trend of a large Twitter dataset with more than 16M tweets and 660k users. We report some insightful findings from comparative experiments. In particular, it is found that the most relevant factors are derived from user behavior on information trend and that non-linear state-space models are more effective for trend prediction.
On the nature of pre-freeze mortality in insects: water balance, ion homeostasis and energy charge in the adults of Pyrrhocoris apterus

SUMMARY Three acclimation groups [i.e. non-diapause (LD), diapause (SD) and diapause, cold-acclimated (SDA)] of the adult bugs Pyrrhocoris apterus differed markedly in their levels of chill tolerance. Survival time at a sub-zero, but non-freezing, temperature of –5°C (Lt50) extended from 7.6 days, through 35.6 days, to >60 days in the LD, SD and SDA insects, respectively. The time necessary for recovery after chill-coma increased linearly with the increasing time of exposure to –5°C, and the steepness of the slope of linear regression decreased in the order LD>SD>SDA. The capacity to prevent/counteract leakage of Na+ down the electrochemical gradient (from haemolymph to tissues) during the exposure to –5°C increased in the order LD<SD<SDA. As a result, the rates of counteractive outward movement of K+, and of the EK dissipation, decreased in the same order. The least chill-tolerant insects (LD) showed the highest rate of body-water loss. Most of the water was lost from the haemolymph compartment. The ability to regulate a certain fraction of ion pools into the hindgut fluid was the highest in the SDA group, medium in the SD group and missing in the LD group. The adenylate energy charge in the fat body cells was constant in all three groups. The total pools of ATP, ADP and AMP, however, decreased in the SD and SDA groups but remained constant in the LD group. The inability of insects to maintain ion gradients at sub-zero temperature is discussed as an important cause of pre-freeze mortality.
Omnidirectional vision scan matching for robot localization in dynamic environments

The localization problem for an autonomous robot moving in a known environment is a well-studied problem which has seen many elegant solutions. Robot localization in a dynamic environment populated by several moving obstacles, however, is still a challenge for research. In this paper, we use an omnidirectional camera mounted on a mobile robot to perform a sort of scan matching. The omnidirectional vision system finds the distances of the closest color transitions in the environment, mimicking the way laser rangefinders detect the closest obstacles. The similarity of our sensor with classical rangefinders allows the use of practically unmodified Monte Carlo algorithms, with the additional advantage of being able to easily detect occlusions caused by moving obstacles. The proposed system was initially implemented in the RoboCup Middle-Size domain, but the experiments we present in this paper prove it to be valid in a general indoor environment with natural color transitions. We present localization experiments both in the RoboCup environment and in an unmodified office environment. In addition, we assessed the robustness of the system to sensor occlusions caused by other moving robots. The localization system runs in real-time on low-cost hardware.
Combined Equalization and Channel Estimation for MC-IDMA Uplink Transmissions

Combined equalization based on combination of pre and post equalizations in a multicarrier interleave division multiple access (MC-IDMA) system, is described. The channel pre-equalization is constrained to keep transmitted power unchanged. Combined-equalization requires explicit channel state information (CSI) both at the mobile station and the base station. A low complexity uplink channel estimation strategy is developed at the base station for post-equalization. CSI at the mobile is made available for pre-equalization, by exploiting channel reciprocity between down and uplinks in time division duplex (TDD) mode. It is shown that system with combined equalization improves the bit error rate (BER) significantly as compared to the corresponding systems with pre and post equalizations alone.
Sociodemographic, Delinquency-Abuse History, and Psychosocial Functioning Differences among Juvenile Offenders of Various Ages.

ABSTRACT A study was completed comparing the sociodemographic characteristics, delinquency and dependency referral histories and psychosocial functioning of 856 eight to twelve year-old, 2,512 thirteen and fourteen year-old and 6,215 fifteen to twenty year-old youths processed at the Hillsborough County Juvenile Assessment Center between May 5, 1993 and December 31, 1995. The results indicate that, compared to older aged youths, the 8 to 12 year-old youngsters tend to be ethnic minor*ities, live in mother-headed households of low economic status, and have a relatively severe lag between their actual age and school grade. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.