Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Plantar fasciitis: Outcome evaluation of plantar fasciitis treated with PRP against

Plantar fasciitis is the most common cause of heel pain which seems difficult to treat in its most chronic and severe forms. Earlier treatments, including orthoses, non drugs, and steroid injections are paucity of supportive cli serious complication and permanent disability. Platelet demonstrated to be helpful in managi failed. The purpose of this study was to assess the safety and preliminary clinical rich plasma injections for treating chronic plantar fasciitis. plantar fasciitis receiving injections of PRP and 158 patients for steroi fascia were assessed 12 months after the procedure. The visual analogue scale (VAS) for pain was used to evaluate the clinical results. results were rated as excellen patients. In PRP injection, VAS (m to 0.3 at the last follow-up. PRP injection with no side effects and complications.
Vulnerability and feedbacks of permafrost to climate change

[1] The effects of permafrost degradation on terrestrial and offshore environments in polar regions and on the Earth's atmosphere are significant. Field-based observations, remote sensing, and modeling document regional warming and thawing of permafrost. However, major research questions regarding vulnerability of permafrost to thawing, the projected decline in permafrost extent during coming decades, resulting ecosystem feedbacks, and the possibly global consequences to climate change due to remobilization of carbon pools from thawing permafrost still require answers.
Linkage Disequilibrium in Wild Mice

Crosses between laboratory strains of mice provide a powerful way of detecting quantitative trait loci for complex traits related to human disease. Hundreds of these loci have been detected, but only a small number of the underlying causative genes have been identified. The main difficulty is the extensive linkage disequilibrium (LD) in intercross progeny and the slow process of fine-scale mapping by traditional methods. Recently, new approaches have been introduced, such as association studies with inbred lines and multigenerational crosses. These approaches are very useful for interval reduction, but generally do not provide single-gene resolution because of strong LD extending over one to several megabases. Here, we investigate the genetic structure of a natural population of mice in Arizona to determine its suitability for fine-scale LD mapping and association studies. There are three main findings: (1) Arizona mice have a high level of genetic variation, which includes a large fraction of the sequence variation present in classical strains of laboratory mice; (2) they show clear evidence of local inbreeding but appear to lack stable population structure across the study area; and (3) LD decays with distance at a rate similar to human populations, which is considerably more rapid than in laboratory populations of mice. Strong associations in Arizona mice are limited primarily to markers less than 100 kb apart, which provides the possibility of fine-scale association mapping at the level of one or a few genes. Although other considerations, such as sample size requirements and marker discovery, are serious issues in the implementation of association studies, the genetic variation and LD results indicate that wild mice could provide a useful tool for identifying genes that cause variation in complex traits.
Direct Aerosol Radiative Forcing Uncertainty Based on a Radiative Perturbation Analysis

To provide a lower bound for theuncertaintyin measurement-based clear- and all-skydirectaerosolradiative forcing (DARF), a radiative perturbation analysis is performed for the ideal case in which the perturbations in global mean aerosol properties are given by published values of systematic uncertainty in Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) aerosol measurements. DARF calculations for base-state climatological cloud and aerosol properties over ocean and land are performed, and then repeated after perturbing individual aerosol optical properties (aerosol optical depth, single-scattering albedo, asymmetry parameter, scale height, and anthropogenic fraction) from their base values, keeping all other parameters fixed. The total DARF uncertainty from all aerosol parameters combined is 0.5‐1.0 W m 22 , a factor of 2‐4 greater than the value cited in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Fourth Assessment Report. Most of the total DARF uncertaintyinthisanalysisisassociatedwithsingle-scatteringalbedouncertainty.Owingtothegreatersensitivity tosingle-scatteringalbedoincloudycolumns,DARFuncertaintyinall-skyconditionsisgreaterthaninclear-sky conditions, even though the global mean clear-sky DARF is more than twice as large as the all-sky DARF.
A drone with insect-inspired folding wings

Flying robots are increasingly adopted in search and rescue missions because of their capability to quickly collect and stream information from remote and dangerous areas. To further enhance their use, we are investigating the development of a new class of drones, foldable sensorized hubs that can quickly take off from rescuers' hands as soon as they are taken out of a pocket or a backpack. With this aim, this paper presents the development of a foldable wing inspired by insects. The wing can be packaged for transportation or deployed for flight in half a second with a simple action from the user. The wing is manufactured as a thick origami structure with a foldable multi-layer material. The prototype of the foldable wing is experimentally characterized and validated in flight on a mini-drone.
Cost-Benefit Analysis of Drip Irrigation in Cotton Production in Northwestern China

The extremely arid climate of the Tarim Basin in Northwestern China offers ideal production conditions for cotton, making the region one of the nation’s major cotton production bases. However, in the last decades the overuse of water resources for agricultural production led to severe ecological degradation and increasing competition for water among farmers. Still the majority of farmers in the region use flood irrigation to provide water to their crops. Drip irrigation under plastic mulch constitutes a new technology that generally features increased water use efficiency, however at higher production costs. The present study assesses the costs and benefits of applying drip irrigation based on a primary household dataset collected in the region. The results show, that application of drip irrigation is only beneficial in economic terms, if farmers manage to increase their yield levels at the same time. Therefore it is recommended to improve the agricultural extension service, and cover a substantial share of the additional cost for the farmer through providing subsidy for advanced irrigation technology.
Properties of permafrost soils on the Northern Seward Peninsula, Northwest Alaska

Soil processes in permafrost regions differ markedly from those of the mid and low latitudes. Permafrost soils are cold during the short growing season and frozen the rest of the year. This study was conducted to describe permafrost soils on the tundra coastal plain of northern Seward Peninsula with emphasis on soil characteristics below the active layer and cryogenic structures, both aspects which were widely neglected in previous studies of permafrost soils. We used cryogenic structures to determine active layer depths. In describing these soils, we applied the previous soil taxonomy and tested the utility of the new Gelisol order. Seven pedons were excavated and described in different topographic positions. Most pedons are influenced by frost action, as evidenced by irregular and broken horizons and weakly developed soils. Mineral horizons have predominantly reduced colors. Organic horizons of 7- to 50-cm thickness occur in the study area. All soils contain segregated ice and ice wedges. Segregated ice includes ice lenses, ice nets, and ataxitic ice concentrations at the base of the active layer. With the identification of these cryogenic features, it was possible to determine active layer depths independently of thaw season. For describing the properties of permafrost soils, the new Gelisol order is shown to he a significant improvement on the previous soil taxonomy.
Introduction: Why Should We Care about Organic Chemicals and Human Health?

Background: The last several decades have seen an enormous increase in the development and manufacture of different organic chemicals that have proven useful for many aspects of contemporary life. The question is the degree to which some of these chemicals cause harm to human beings. Objective: This book is directed at the goal of identifying organic chemicals that, while useful in many regards, pose risks to human health because of their biological activity and often their persistence. Discussion: The various chapters in this book are directed at the effects of organic chemicals on the various organ systems. Conclusions: While recognizing the wonderful benefi ts that have come from the development and use of many organic chemicals, serious adverse human health effects have occurred because of inadequate testing prior to use and ineffective steps to prevent release of the chemicals into air, food, water, and the environment, resulting in exposure and disease in humans. It is urgent that more effective ways be found to ensure the safety of organic chemicals, no matter how useful they may be, before they are produced and released into the environment. COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
Antibody production and protection against influenza virus in immunodeficient mice

The roles of T and B cells in the immune response to influenza virus were studied by using mice deficient in either T cells (athymic nude) or immunoglobulin production (CBA/N). The serological responses of these mice to either whole or disrupted A/Aichi/2/68 influenza virus vaccines were examined, and the protective effect of these inoculations was tested by challenge infection with mouse-adapted A/Aichi/2/68 influenza virus. In contrast to normal mice, neither strain of immunodeficient mouse produced detectable serum antibody after inoculation with either type of vaccine. CBA/N mice immunized with intact virus vaccine were protected, however, against subsequent lethal challenge. CBA/N mice inoculated with disrupted virus vaccine and nude mice inoculated with either disrupted or whole virus vaccine were not protected against viral challenge. Evidence of immunological memory was observed in CBA/N and nude mice that had survived live virus challenge after immunization with inactivated vaccine.
Robust decoding of variable-length encoded Markov sources using a three-dimensional trellis

In this letter, we present an improved index-based a-posteriori probability (APP) decoding approach for the error-resilient transmission of packetized variable-length encoded Markov sources. The proposed algorithm is based on a novel two-dimensional (2D) state representation which leads to a three-dimensional trellis with unique state transitions. APP decoding on this trellis is realized by employing a 2D version of the BCJR algorithm where all available source statistics can be fully exploited in the source decoder. For an additional use of channel codes the proposed approach leads to an increased error-correction performance compared to a one-dimensional state representation.
A Randomized Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study to Establish the Effects of Spirulina in Elderly Koreans

Aims: This study was conducted to determine the antioxidant capacity, immunomodulatory and lipid-lowering effects of spirulina in healthy elderly subjects and to document the effectiveness of spirulina as a functional food for the elderly. Methods: A randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study was performed. The subjects were 78 individuals aged 60–87 years and were randomly assigned in a blinded fashion to receive either spirulina or placebo. The elderly were instructed to consume the spirulina or placebo at home, 8 g/day, for 16 consecutive weeks. Results: In male subjects, a significant plasma cholesterol-lowering effect was observed after the spirulina intervention (p < 0.05). Spirulina supplementation resulted in a significant rise in plasma interleukin (IL)-2 concentration, and a significant reduction in IL-6 concentration. A significant time-by-treatment intervention for total antioxidant status was observed between spirulina and placebo groups (p < 0.05). In female subjects, significant increases in IL-2 level and superoxide dismutase activity were observed (p < 0.05) after spirulina supplementation. There were significant reductions in total cholesterol in female subjects. Conclusions: The results demonstrate that spirulina has favorable effects on lipid profiles, immune variables, and antioxidant capacity in healthy, elderly male and female subjects and is suitable as a functional food.
Automatic Tooth Region Separation for Dental CT Images

In this paper we focus on the technique to construct and visualize the individual tooth model from CT image sequences for dental diagnosis and treatment. For CT images the teeth are touched with each other in some slices. We have to find the individual region for each tooth and separate two teeth if they are touched together. We propose method based on the distinguish feature of oral cavity structure. We utilize the full 3D data instead of 2D projections which may lose some information. We firstly separate upper and lower tooth regions and then fit the dental arch using fourth order polynomial curves after a series of morphological operations. We assume that there exists a plane separating two adjacent teeth in 3D space. In this plane the integral intensity value reaches minimum. Along each arch point we obtain a plane and calculate the integral intensity. We use these values to draw a profile and by analyzing all the local minima we get the separating point and the position of the separating plane. The information for the tooth region can guide us to segment the individual both tooth contours in 2D and tooth surface in 3D space. Experiments for both separation and visualization of each tooth verify our method is automatic and robust.
Traffic Adaptive Optimum Updating Scheme for Search Engines

The increasing complexity, heterogeneity and dynamism of Web and its applications have made Web information retrieval less recent, less relevant and unmanageable. The search engines face the problem of keeping the contents of its repository consistent with the pages present in the global database using optimum resource utilization. This paper proposes a traffic adaptive optimum updating scheme (TAOS) to eliminate the needless requests of Web crawlers in updating the search engine repository. The scheme also incorporates partial upload of the updated document to the search engine repository. A self-managing autonomic computing architecture is proposed to regulate the load on network bandwidth and Web servers. The proposed updating scheme is compared for the freshness of search engine repository with the page refresh policies used by Web crawlers. The load on network bandwidth and Web servers are also analysed for effective resource utilization and is compared with the one consumed during crawler updating.
An Effective Pruning based Outlier Detection Method to Quantify the Outliers

Outliers are the data objects that do not conform to the normal behaviour and usually deviates from the remaining data objects may be due to some outlying property which distinguishes them from the whole dataset. Usually, the detection of outliers is followed by the clustering of the dataset which sometimes ignores the prominency of outliers. In this study, we have tried to detect the outliers and pruned the clustering elements initially so that the outliers can be prominently highlighted. We have proposed an algorithm which effectively prunes the similar data objects from the large datasets and its experimental results compare the neighbouring points and show the better performance than the existing methods.
Seismic Anisotropy and Mantle Deformation in the Western United States and Southwestern Canada

Strain aligns highly anisotropic olivine crystals in the mantle, and thus measurements of anisotropy can be used to examine deformation in the mantle. Western North America is one of the best-studied regions for anisotropy. Comprised of present subduction, strike-slip transform faulting, extension regions, and a hotspot, it includes most types of tectonic settings, and should serve as a model for the rest of the world. Yet the interpretation of the anisotropy in the region is enigmatic, with numerous competing hypotheses, some of which use the same datasets. Theoretical considerations and results from much of the world suggest that strike-slip faulting should provide the clearest manifestation of anisotropy, with the fast "direction" parallel to the plate boundary. This theory has been invoked to explain the maxim that anisotropy in mountain ranges usually has the fast direction parallel to the ranges. Yet shear-wave polarizations near the San Andreas fault are mostly E-W, at 45° from the boundary. The same orientation is found for stations within the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Only a few stations directly over the fault exhibit the expected fast direction, and then only when a two-layer model of anisotropy is invoked, with the lower-layer anisotropy yielding an E-W fast direction. This layer has recently been modeled as caused by deep mantle flow at the bottom of the asthenosphere in response to the passage of the subducted portion of the former Farallon plate. Spreading regions were initially expected to yield anisotropy with fast directions parallel to the spreading direction, whereas results from the Basin and Range suggest that such directions may only be present in a thin upper layer, and the Rio Grande Rift has fast directions in between rift-parallel and perpendicular. These results have been explained in some studies as resulting from asthenospheric flow rather than lithospheric deformation. Other papers suggest that the asthenosphere is deep or does not produce measurable anisotropy. Finally, results above the Juan de Fuca slab provide one of the few regions in which the fast direction of anisotropy follows the expected flow of the mantle in response to subduction.
Changes in active layer thickness over the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau from 1995 to 2007

[1] The active layer over permafrost plays a significant role in surface energy balance, hydrologic cycle, carbon fluxes, ecosystem, and landscape processes and on the human infrastructure in cold regions. Over a period from 1995 to 2007, a systematic soil temperature measurement network of 10 sites was established along the Qinghai-Tibetan Highway. Soil temperatures up to 12 m depth were continuously measured semimonthly. In this study, we investigate spatial variations of active layer thickness (ALT) and its change over the period of record. We found that ALT can be estimated with confidence using semimonthly soil temperature profiles compared to those determined from available daily soil temperature profiles over the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The primary results demonstrate that long-term and spatially averaged ALT is ∼2.41 m with a range of 1.32–4.57 m along the Qinghai-Tibetan Highway. All monitoring sites show an increase in ALT over the period of their records. The mean increasing rate of ALT is ∼7.5 cm/yr. ALT shows a closely positive correlation with the thawing index of air temperature on the plateau. We estimated ALT using the thawing index over a period from 1956 to 2005 near the Wudaoliang Meteorological Station in the northern plateau. ALT had no or very limited change from 1956 to 1983 and a sharp increase of ∼39 cm from 1983 to 2005. The magnitude of ALT increase is greater in the warm permafrost region than in the cold permafrost region. The primary control of increase in ALT is caused by an increase in summer air temperature, whereas changes in the winter air temperature and snow cover condition play no or a very limited role.
Associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms in multiple candidate genes and body weight in rabbits

Aim: In this study, we examined parts of six growth genes (growth hormone [GH], melanocortin 4 receptor [MC4R], growth hormone receptor [GHR], phosphorglycerate mutase [PGAM], myostatin [MSTN], and fibroblast growth factor [FGF]) as specific primers for two rabbit lines (V-line, Alexandria) using nucleotide sequence analysis, to investigate association between detecting single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of these genes and body weight (BW) at market. Materials and Methods: Each line kits were grouped into high and low weight rabbits to identify DNA markers useful for association studies with high BW. DNA from blood samples of each group was extracted to amplify the six growth genes. SNP technique was used to study the associate polymorphism in the six growth genes and marketing BW (at 63 days) in the two rabbit lines. The purified polymerase chain reaction products were sequenced in those had the highest and lowest BW in each line. Results: Alignment of sequence data from each group revealed the following SNPs: At nucleotide 23 (A-C) and nucleotide 35 (T-G) in MC4R gene (sense mutation) of Alexandria and V-line high BW. Furthermore, we detected the following SNPs variation between the two lines: A SNP (T-C) at nucleotide 27 was identified by MC4R gene (sense mutation) and another one (A-C) at nucleotide 14 was identified by GHR gene (nonsense mutation) of Alexandria line. The results of individual BW at market (63 days) indicated that Alexandria rabbits had significantly higher BW compared with V-line rabbits. MC4R polymorphism showed significant association with high BW in rabbits. Conclusion: The results of polymorphism demonstrate the possibility to detect an association between BW in rabbits and the efficiency of the used primers to predict through the genetic specificity using the SNP of MC4R.
Shallow Radar (SHARAD) investigations over Sinus Meridiani

Mars equatorial region Sinus Meridiani has been investigated by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) onboard the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) revealing the presence of gray hematite. Laboratory measurements on magnetic minerals including gray hematite have been performed afterwards suggesting that the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) should be capable to reveal the reflectivity contrast, the influence on the penetration depth and the temperature dependence effect on the received echoes. The proposed wok suggests a possible study aimed to evaluate such considerations including both theoretical models as well as experimental data analysis.
Apparent effect of management on the hour of parturition in mares

catabolised glucose well and was shown to be a mycoplasma by the use of digitonin and 'Liquoid' (ICN Biomedicals) solution, both of which inhibit sterol uptake. The mycoplasma showed phosphatase activity but did not digest casein. Conventional serological tests were negative for all commonly occurring ruminant mycoplasmas. Nucleic acid was then extracted from the isolate and part of the 16S rRNA gene, corresponding to the variable segments between the universal regions U2 to U5, was sequenced by the technique described by Pettersson and others (1996). The sequence of about 500 nucleotides was compared to other sequences deposited in the GenBank (National Centre for Biotechnology Information, Bethesda, Maryland, USA) and showed 100 per cent similarity to the corresponding segment of the 16S rRNA sequence of M fermentans. The identity value was 99.3 per cent because of four unresolved nucleotides in the deposited M fermentans sequence. Using this information the identity of the isolate was confirmed by the growth inhibition test with specific hyperim-