Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On controlling light transport in poor visibility environments

Poor visibility conditions due to murky water, bad weather, dust and smoke severely impede the performance of vision systems. Passive methods have been used to restore scene contrast under moderate visibility by digital post-processing. However, these methods are ineffective when the quality of acquired images is poor to begin with. In this work, we design active lighting and sensing systems for controlling light transport before image formation, and hence obtain higher quality data. First, we present a technique of polarized light striping based on combining polarization imaging and structured light striping. We show that this technique out-performs different existing illumination and sensing methodologies. Second, we present a numerical approach for computing the optimal relative sensor-source position, which results in the best quality image. Our analysis accounts for the limits imposed by sensor noise.
An empirical study on farmers' consumer intention for agriculture machinery operations demand in Shanxi province

With questionnaire survey, the paper analyze the farmers' consumer intention of agriculture machinery operation, provide objective recommendations for farmers' consume behavior, scientific management inspiration for agricultural machinery owners and provide scientific guidance for government departments from the perspective of consumer psychology. On the basis of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the paper put designs a model to analyze the farmers' consumer intention of agriculture machinery operation, through the investigated data in Shanxi Province, by adopting Logistic regression to authenticate the model. The empirical results show the key factors which influence farmers' consumer intention of agriculture machinery operation is family income, arable land area, largest land area, cognitive component, convenience etc and different factors have different effects, while the other factors have weak influence.
RESPIRATORY CONSEQUENCES OF OBESITY – AN OVERVIEW

Abstract At the beginning of the 21st century obesity has become the leading chronic disease in the world. It is a major cause of morbidity mainly in the metabolic and cardiovascular areas. Moreover, it has progressively emerged as an important risk factor for respiratory diseases, a field that is often neglected. In this article, we reviewed the current understanding of the influence of obesity in adulthood on respiratory function, obstructive sleep apnoea- hypopnoea, obesity hypoventilation syndrome and asthma.
Coffee consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus among middle-aged Finnish men and women.

CONTEXT Only a few studies of coffee consumption and diabetes mellitus (DM) have been reported, even though coffee is the most consumed beverage in the world. OBJECTIVE To determine the relationship between coffee consumption and the incidence of type 2 DM among Finnish individuals, who have the highest coffee consumption in the world. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A prospective study from combined surveys conducted in 1982, 1987, and 1992 of 6974 Finnish men and 7655 women aged 35 to 64 years without history of stroke, coronary heart disease, or DM at baseline, with 175 682 person-years of follow-up. Coffee consumption and other study parameters were determined at baseline using standardized measurements. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Hazard ratios (HRs) for the incidence of type 2 DM were estimated for different levels of daily coffee consumption. RESULTS During a mean follow-up of 12 years, there were 381 incident cases of type 2 DM. After adjustment for confounding factors (age, study year, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, education, occupational, commuting and leisure-time physical activity, alcohol and tea consumption, and smoking), the HRs of DM associated with the amount of coffee consumed daily (0-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-9, > or =10 cups) were 1.00, 0.71 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.48-1.05), 0.39 (95% CI, 0.25-0.60), 0.39 (95% CI, 0.20-0.74), and 0.21 (95% CI, 0.06-0.69) (P for trend<.001) in women, and 1.00, 0.73 (95% CI, 0.47-1.13), 0.70 (95% CI, 0.45-1.05), 0.67 (95% CI, 0.40-1.12), and 0.45 (95% CI, 0.25-0.81) (P for trend =.12) in men, respectively. In both sexes combined, the multivariate-adjusted inverse association was significant (P for trend <.001) and persisted when stratified by younger and older than 50 years; smokers and never smokers; healthy weight, overweight, and obese participants; alcohol drinker and nondrinker; and participants drinking filtered and nonfiltered coffee. CONCLUSION Coffee drinking has a graded inverse association with the risk of type 2 DM; however, the reasons for this risk reduction associated with coffee remain unclear.
Investigation on Degradation of Power Transformer Solid Insulation Material

Power transformers are vital parts of electric energy transmission and generation systems. Numerous power transformers in the European power grid have reached an age of 30 years or even more and are possibly close to their end of life. Because of economic reasons it is demanded to keep current assets as long as possible in service without taking the risk of a failure. The DP (degree of polymerization) value is an indicator for the mechanical stability of Kraft paper insulation. The ageing process depends on the transformer's operation temperature and is accelerated by the presence of moisture and acids in the insulation system. During the decomposition reaction of cellulose chains furanic compounds and water is generated. In this paper investigation results from samplings of solid insulation material and their correlation to the concentration of furfurals in oil are presented. These investigations have been carried out during scraping of power transformers that have been put out of service due to failure or replacement. The distribution of the DP value over the insulation system shows a non-uniform ageing of the paper material.
Functional Modules and Structural Basis of Conformational Coupling in Mitochondrial Complex I

Complex I Under Scrutiny Mitochondrial complex I is a large macromolecular membrane complex that couples electron transfer to proton pumping across the mitochondrial membrane and helps to drive adenosine 5′-triphosphate synthesis. Hunte et al. (p. 448, published online 1 July) now describe the structure of complex 1 from the aerobic yeast, Yarrowia lipolytica. The sites involved in redox chemistry are distant from those that pump protons, and the structure suggests that a 60-angstrom-long helix is involved in transducing energy to the proton-pumping elements. A long helix transduces conformational energy to the proton-pumping elements in complex I. Proton-pumping respiratory complex I is one of the largest and most complicated membrane protein complexes. Its function is critical for efficient energy supply in aerobic cells, and malfunctions are implicated in many neurodegenerative disorders. Here, we report an x-ray crystallographic analysis of mitochondrial complex I. The positions of all iron-sulfur clusters relative to the membrane arm were determined in the complete enzyme complex. The ubiquinone reduction site resides close to 30 angstroms above the membrane domain. The arrangement of functional modules suggests conformational coupling of redox chemistry with proton pumping and essentially excludes direct mechanisms. We suggest that a ~60-angstrom-long helical transmission element is critical for transducing conformational energy to proton-pumping elements in the distal module of the membrane arm.
Mineralocorticoid Receptor–Mediated Vascular Insulin Resistance

Two-thirds of adults in the U.S. are overweight or obese, and another 26 million have type 2 diabetes (T2D). Patients with diabetes and/or the metabolic syndrome have a significantly increased risk of heart attack and stroke compared with people with normal insulin sensitivity. Decreased insulin sensitivity in cardiovascular tissues as well as in traditional targets of insulin metabolic signaling, such as skeletal muscle, is an underlying abnormality in obesity, hypertension, and T2D. In the vasculature, insulin signaling plays a critical role in normal vascular function via endothelial cell nitric oxide production and modulation of Ca2+ handling and sensitivity in vascular smooth muscle cells. Available evidence suggests that impaired vascular insulin sensitivity may be an early, perhaps principal, defect of vascular function and contributor to the pathogenesis of vascular disease in persons with obesity, hypertension, and T2D. In the overweight and obese individual, as well as in persons with hypertension, systemic and vascular insulin resistance often occur in concert with elevations in plasma aldosterone. Indeed, basic and clinical studies have demonstrated that elevated plasma aldosterone levels predict the development of insulin resistance and that aldosterone directly interferes with insulin signaling in vascular tissues. Furthermore, elevated plasma aldosterone levels are associated with increased heart attack and stroke risk. Conversely, renin–angiotensin–aldosterone system and mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) antagonism reduces cardiovascular risk in these patient populations. Recent and accumulating evidence in this area has implicated excessive Ser phosphorylation and proteosomal degradation of the docking protein, insulin receptor substrate, and enhanced signaling through hybrid insulin/IGF-1 receptor as important mechanisms underlying aldosterone-mediated interruption of downstream vascular insulin signaling. Prevention or restoration of these changes via blockade of aldosterone action in the vascular wall with MR antagonists (i.e., spironolactone, eplerenone) may therefore account for the clinical benefit of these compounds in obese and diabetic patients with cardiovascular disease. This review will highlight recent evidence supporting the hypothesis that aldosterone and MR signaling represent an ideal candidate pathway linking early promoters of diabetes, especially overnutrition and obesity, to vascular insulin resistance, dysfunction, and disease.
Climate Change Impact Assessment of Food- and Waterborne Diseases

The PubMed and ScienceDirect bibliographic databases were searched for the period of 1998–2009 to evaluate the impact of climatic and environmental determinants on food- and waterborne diseases. The authors assessed 1,642 short and concise sentences (key facts), which were extracted from 722 relevant articles and stored in a climate change knowledge base. Key facts pertaining to temperature, precipitation, water, and food for 6 selected pathogens were scrutinized, evaluated, and compiled according to exposure pathways. These key facts (corresponding to approximately 50,000 words) were mapped to 275 terminology terms identified in the literature, which generated 6,341 connections. These relationships were plotted on semantic network maps to examine the interconnections between variables. The risk of campylobacteriosis is associated with mean weekly temperatures, although this link is shown more strongly in the literature relating to salmonellosis. Irregular and severe rain events are associated with Cryptosporidium sp. outbreaks, while noncholera Vibrio sp. displays increased growth rates in coastal waters during hot summers. In contrast, for Norovirus and Listeria sp. the association with climatic variables was relatively weak, but much stronger for food determinants. Electronic data mining to assess the impact of climate change on food- and waterborne diseases assured a methodical appraisal of the field. This climate change knowledge base can support national climate change vulnerability, impact, and adaptation assessments and facilitate the management of future threats from infectious diseases. In the light of diminishing resources for public health this approach can help balance different climate change adaptation options.
Challenges: a rich selection of ideas and experiences

We are delighted to be writing our first editorial as the new incoming editors of this journal and wish first and foremost to thank the outgoing editors for their good wishes (Editorial, vol. 27, no. 1, March 2013) and to acknowledge their sustained work over many years which has resulted in them being able to hand on a firmly established, widely recognised and highly regarded journal. We are looking forward to working together along with editorial board members in the UK and overseas, our colleagues in GAPS and at Taylor and Francis to sustain and enhance the reputation of the journal. Aswe begin this new editorial era, what are the issues that the social work profession is facing? Globally, the impact of economic austerity and high levels of unemployment, particularly amongst young people, is reverberating across national boundaries, manifested in increasingly prescriptive, bureaucratic and austere social and emotional responses to human distress. International conflict and unrest, most acutely active, as we write, in Syria, afford indisputable evidence of the profound capacity of human beings to inflict pain and to act sadistically towards each other. Our international editors identify the impact of the ideology and enactment of policies of neo-liberalism in North America, Norway and Europe that have challenged the role of social work within the state and the extent of service user–provider relationships. Of course the practice of social work takes places not only in public agencies but also in voluntary, not-for-profit and private profit making settings. But for many vulnerable people, it has brought about the need to compete for scarce resources and worse to make them feel bad about even requesting help. No wonder that the focus on ‘what works’ as a child of neo-liberalism and the commodification of care brings with them themarginalisation of therapeutic practice and diminishes the importance of the therapeutic relationship. In the UK, the pace of change within the social work profession continues unabated. In England, recommendations and reforms from earlier reviews of social work education and the change of regulatory body are only now being realised in the revalidation of qualifying social work programme curriculums and recalibration of the training bursary scheme. Despite the fact that these initiatives have yet to be firmly embedded, a further Government commissioned review is currently seeking views on the quality of education and training for children’s social workers. Coinciding with these developments, the announcement of Frontline, a new initiative to ‘fast track’ able graduates through a Masters level social work programme, represents a potentially seismic shift in the configuration of social work education and has generated considerable debate within the social work academy about the appropriate constituents and location of qualifying programmes. Within the workplace, the pressures and shortcomings of highly bureaucratised professional practices continue to prevail with
8. Do we access object manipulability while we categorize? Evidence from reaction time studies

In two experiments we investigate whether different decision tasks were influenced by object manipulability. In Experiment 1, participants had to categorize objects represented by drawings or by words into artefacts or natural kinds. Natural objects received faster responses than artefacts, probably because the latter activate functional information that interferes with task responses. In Experiment 2, manipulability was made relevant to the task by asking participants to categorize items into two categories depending on whether or not they could be picked up and put inside a backpack. The disadvantage of artefacts over natural kinds was still found. Intriguingly, now an effect of manipulability was also found, but only with natural kinds, probably due to the fact that they convey information associated both with action (“how”) and function (“what for”). The same pattern of results found with drawings and words suggests that also words activate motor information on how to grasp objects.
Monensin and FCCP inhibit the intracellular transport of alphavirus membrane glycoproteins

Temperature-sensitive mutants of semliki forest virus (SFV) and sindbis virus (SIN) were used to study the intracellular transport of virus membrane glycoproteins in infected chicken embryo fibroblasts. When antisera against purified glycoproteins and (125)I- labeled protein A from staphylococcus aureus were used only small amounts of virus glycoproteins were detected at the surface of SFV ts-1 and SIN Ts-10 infected cells incubated at the restrictive temperature (39 degrees C). When the mutant-infected cells were shifted to the permissive temperature (28 degrees C), in the presence of cycloheximide, increasing amounts of virus glycoproteins appeared at the cell surface from 20 to 80 min after the shift. Both monensin (10muM) and carbonylcyanide-p- trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone (FCCP; 10-20 muM) inhibited the appearance of virus membrane glycoproteins at the cell surface. Vinblastine sulfate (10 μg/ml) inhibited the transport by approximately 50 percent, whereas cytochalasin B (1 μg/ml) had only a marginal effect. Intracellular distribution of virus glycoproteins in the mutant-infected cells was visualized in double-fluorescence studies using lectins as markers for endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus. At 39 degrees C, the virus membrane glycoproteins were located at the endoplasmic reticulum, whereas after shift to 28 degrees C, a bright juxtanuclear reticular fluorescence was seen in the location of the Golgi apparatus. In the presence of monensin, the virus glycoproteins could migrate to the Golgi apparatus, although transport to the cell surface did not take place. When the shift was carried out in the presence of FCCP, negligible fluorescence was seen in the Golgi apparatus and the glycoproteins apparently remained in the rough endoplasmic reticulum. A rapid inhibition in the accumulation of virus glycoproteins at the cell surface was obtained when FCCP was added during the active transport period, whereas with monensin there was a delay of approximately 10 min. These results suggest a similar intracellular pathway in the maturation of both plasma membrane and secretory glycoproteins.
The effect of Plasmodium falciparum malaria on peripheral and placental HIV-1 RNA concentrations in pregnant Malawian women

Objective: To investigate the effect of placental Plasmodium falciparum malaria infection on peripheral and/or placental HIV-1 viral load. Design: A cross-sectional study of HIV-infected pregnant women, with and without placental malaria, delivering at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Malawi. Methods: Peripheral blood samples were collected from consenting women and tested for HIV. HIV-infected women received nevirapine at the onset of labor. At delivery, placental blood and tissue specimens were collected. HIV-1 RNA concentrations were measured in peripheral and placental plasma samples, and malaria infection was determined by placental histopathology. Results: Of the 480 HIV-infected women enrolled, 304 had placental histopathology performed, of whom 74 (24.3%) had placental malaria. Compared with women without placental malaria, those with placental malaria had a 2.5-fold higher geometric mean peripheral HIV-1 RNA concentration (62 359 versus 24 814 copies/ml; P = 0.0007) and a 2.4-fold higher geometric mean placental HIV-1 RNA concentration (11 733 versus 4919 copies/ml; P = 0.008). In multivariate analyses, after adjusting for CD4 cell count and other covariates, placental malaria was associated with a 1.7-fold increase in geometric mean peripheral HIV-1 RNA concentration (47 747 versus 27 317 copies/ml; P = 0.02) and a 2.0-fold increase in geometric mean placental HIV-1 RNA concentration (9670 versus 4874 copies/ml; P = 0.03). Conclusion: Placental malaria infection is associated with an increase in peripheral and placental HIV-1 viral load, which might increase the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Induction and prevention of chondrocyte hypertrophy in culture

Primary chondrocytes from whole chick embryo sterna can be maintained in suspension culture stabilized with agarose for extended periods of time. In the absence of FBS, the cells remain viable only when seeded at high densities. They do not proliferate at a high rate but they deposit extracellular matrix with fibrils resembling those of authentic embryonic cartilage in their appearance and collagen composition. The cells exhibit many morphological and biochemical characteristics of resting chondrocytes and they do not produce collagen X, a marker for hypertrophic cartilage undergoing endochondral ossification. At low density, cells survive in culture without FBS when the media are conditioned by chondrocytes grown at high density. Thus, resting cartilage cells in agarose cultures can produce factors required for their own viability. Addition of FBS to the culture media leads to profound changes in the phenotype of chondrocytes seeded at low density. Cells form colonies at a high rate and assume properties of hypertrophic cells, including the synthesis of collagen X. They extensively deposit extracellular matrix resembling more closely that of adult rather than embryonic cartilage.
Ethnicity in Myanmar and its Importance to the Success of Democracy

Abstract The article examines the historically rooted conflicts between the Myanmar government and ethnic minorities with reference to the case of Kachin and Karen ethnic groups. Since the country's independence in 1948, the central government in Rangoon (now Yangon) has attempted unsuccessfully to suppress the minorities' political movement. The Karen began armed movement against the central government as early as 1949, while the Kachin took up arms in 1961. The armed groups initially demanded independence from the Union of Burma but later opted for autonomy. The 17-year-old ceasefire between the Kachin armed group and the Myanmar military ended in June 2011, while the Karen armed group signed a ceasefire agreement with the government in January 2012. The article argues that accommodating the interests of minorities by the majority group and cooperation among the different ethnic groups are essential for national reconciliation and for the success of democracy in the Union of Myanmar.
Rehabilitation After Total Knee Arthroplasty: A Comparison of 2 Rehabilitation Techniques

This study was conducted to compare postoperative total knee arthroplasty rehabilitation protocols. The hypothesis of this study was that patients undergoing total knee arthroplasty could achieve range of motion and hospital discharge in the same period using a postoperative rehabilitation protocol that did not use a continuous passive motion machine. This randomized prospective study compared 46 total knee arthroplasties in which a continuous passive motion machine was used with 37 total knees that were rehabilitated with early passive flexion of the knee (named drop and dangle protocol). Postoperative physical therapy regimens were otherwise the same for both groups. Surgical technique was the same for both groups except for closure which was performed in the drop and dangle group with the knee at 90 ° to 95 ° flexion. Only patients with osteoarthritis were included in the study, and in both groups of patients received the same prosthetic components. Patients in the drop and dangle group were discharged from the hospital 1 day earlier (p = 0.01) and had a statistically better extension range of 2.8 ° at 6 months (p = 0.03). Knees in the drop and dangle group had less drainage (p = 0.06). Range of motion and hospital discharge can be achieved in a similar time interval with the drop and dangle technique as with using a continuous passive motion device, and that such a device is not required for postoperative knee rehabilitation.