Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluating the eclogical condition in Shenzhen city, China, using a quantitative model

To evaluate the urban ecosystem condition quantitatively is still a big issue remaining to be solved. This contribution developed a quantitative method, called Ecoservice Radiance Model (ERM), to evaluate ecological condition in built area. As the evaluation index, ecoservice which was provided by eco-land was considered distance attenuated and can be radiated to the around built area according to distance. Through a case study in Bujiriver basin in Shenzhen, China, it could be concluded that the ecoservice can be allocated to built area efficiently and the allocation result can reflect the role of small eco-land in improving the ecological condition of built area.
A control-theoretic approach to the design of an explicit rate controller for ABR service

We present a control-theoretic approach to the design of closed-loop rate-based flow control in high-speed networks. The proposed control uses a dual proportional-plus-derivative controller, where the control parameters can be designed to ensure the stability of the traffic patterns and propagation delays. We show how the control mechanism can be used to design a controller to support ABR service based on feedback of explicit rates (ERs). We demonstrate the excellent transient and steady-state performance of the controller through a number of examples. We also show experimental results that have been obtained from our asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) testbed, which consists of two interconnected ATM LANs, one located in Princeton, NJ, and the other in Berlin, Germany, with an all-software ER-controller implementation.
The relationship between blood lipid profile and performance of broilers fed two types of finisher diets

A study was conducted to evaluate the effect of two types of finisher diets differed in metabolizable energy (ME) level, but formulated to be iso-nitrogenous, on certain blood lipid profile and some productive traits of broiler chickens from 3 to 7 wks of age. The relationship, as correlation coefficients, among these traits were studied. Birds fed high (ME) diet showed heavier body weight (BW), better feed conversion ratio (FCR), higher dressing and fat pad percentages with more observed fat depots. Serum biochemical parameters for the birds of the two dietary treatments showed that birds fed high (ME) diet, 3200 Kcal / Kg, had higher values of total triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), and high density lipoprotein – cholesterol (HDL-C) than their counterparts fed lower (ME) diet, 3070 Kcal / Kg. However low density lipoprotein – cholesterol (LDL-C) and very low density lipoprotein – cholesterol (VLDL-C) values were relatively similar in the two treatment groups. Regarding the relationship analysis among some productive traits, a significant (P≤0.05) positive correlation coefficient was found between (BW) and fat pad percentage at 49-days of age for both groups. Moderate relationship values were found between (BW) and (TG). On the other hand, fat pad percentage and (TG) correlation values were 0.721 and 0.297 for the high (ME) and the low (ME) dietary treatments, respectively. (VLDL-C) value was shown to be so consistent in both groups of birds with a significant (P≤0.05) positive correlation with (TG).
Inhibitory Control, but Not Prolonged Object-Related Experience Appears to Affect Physical Problem-Solving Performance of Pet Dogs

Human infants develop an understanding of their physical environment through playful interactions with objects. Similar processes may influence also the performance of non-human animals in physical problem-solving tasks, but to date there is little empirical data to evaluate this hypothesis. In addition or alternatively to prior experiences, inhibitory control has been suggested as a factor underlying the considerable individual differences in performance reported for many species. Here we report a study in which we manipulated the extent of object-related experience for a cohort of dogs (Canis familiaris) of the breed Border Collie over a period of 18 months, and assessed their level of inhibitory control, prior to testing them in a series of four physical problem-solving tasks. We found no evidence that differences in object-related experience explain variability in performance in these tasks. It thus appears that dogs do not transfer knowledge about physical rules from one physical problem-solving task to another, but rather approach each task as a novel problem. Our results, however, suggest that individual performance in these tasks is influenced in a complex way by the subject’s level of inhibitory control. Depending on the task, inhibitory control had a positive or a negative effect on performance and different aspects of inhibitory control turned out to be the best predictors of individual performance in the different tasks. Therefore, studying the interplay between inhibitory control and problem-solving performance will make an important contribution to our understanding of individual and species differences in physical problem-solving performance.
Contribution of von Willebrand Factor to Thrombus Formation on Neointima of Rabbit Stenotic Iliac Artery Under High Blood-Flow Velocity

Objective—It has become clear that von Willebrand factor (vWF) plays important roles in platelet adhesion and aggregation under high blood-flow velocity conditions observed in stenotic atherosclerotic arteries. However, its roles in thrombus formation in vivo on diseased arteries have not been fully understood. We examined the contribution of vWF to thrombus formation and subsequent intimal growth by using a repeated balloon-injury model in rabbits. Methods and Results—Rabbit iliac arteries 4 weeks after a first balloon injury showed 37% luminal stenosis by neointimal growth, and blood velocity increased by 2.1 times compared with that of uninjured arteries. The second balloon injury induced fibrin-rich thrombus formation on the injured neointima. Intravenous administration of a monoclonal antibody against vWF (AJW200, 1.0 mg/kg body weight) remarkably prevented botrocetin-induced platelet aggregation ex vivo for 2 days; moreover, thrombus formation, cell proliferation, and subsequent neointimal growth were significantly reduced at 30 minutes, 5 days, and 4 weeks, respectively, after the second balloon injury. Conclusions—These results indicate that vWF plays a potent role in fibrin-rich thrombus formation on the neointima under high blood-flow velocity conditions. Inhibition of plasma vWF activity might be effective for the reduction of thrombus formation and/or subsequent neointimal development after coronary interventions.
Modeling and simulation of the fuzzy relay type controller for solving the double integrator control problems

In this paper, we present the modeling and simulation results of the fuzzy relay type controllers for solving the double integrator control problems. We also give the comparative analysis of determined and fuzzy relay type controllers with leading hysteresis. Unlike determined controller, the fuzzy relay type law does not use the derivative of an input signal. Therefore, the performance of the fuzzy relay type controller with the noisy input is much high. On the other hand, fuzzy system with the fuzzy relay type controller is more robust than classical one - this is the main advantage of the fuzzy controllers. Simulation of the fuzzy relay type controller is executed by using tools in MATLAB.
Experimental colonization of pigs with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA): insights into the colonization and transmission of livestock-associated MRSA

SUMMARY Two models were used for colonizing pigs under experimental conditions. In the first model, six 5-week old piglets were challenged by nasal and gastrointestinal inoculation with a mixture of four strains representing the most prevalent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) sequence types (ST398, ST9) and spa types (t08, t011, t034, t899) associated with pig farming. In the second model, the vagina of a pregnant sow was inoculated with the same MRSA mixture shortly before farrowing. While MRSA carriage was unstable following nasal-gastrointestinal inoculation of piglets, vaginal inoculation of the sow resulted in persistent carriage of t011-ST398 and t899-ST9 in all newborn piglets. The results from the two models provide evidence that livestock-associated MRSA can efficiently spread by vertical perinatal transmission and that direct colonization of weaned piglets is hampered by unknown host, bacterial or environmental factors. The vaginal inoculation model described in this study represents a useful tool for studying MRSA–host interactions in pigs having the same genetic background.
Incorporating germination‐induction into decontamination strategies for bacterial spores

Bacterial spores resist environmental extremes and protect key spore macromolecules until more supportive conditions arise. Spores germinate upon sensing specific molecules, such as nutrients. Germination is regulated by specialized mechanisms or structural features of the spore that limit contact with germinants and enzymes that regulate germination. Importantly, germination renders spores more susceptible to inactivating processes such as heat, desiccation, and ultraviolet radiation, to which they are normally refractory. Thus, germination can be intentionally induced through a process called germination‐induction and subsequent treatment of these germinated spores with common disinfectants or gentle heat will inactivate them. However, while the principle of germination‐induction has been shown effective in the laboratory, this strategy has not yet been fully implemented in real‐word scenarios. Here, we briefly review the mechanisms of bacterial spore germination and discuss the evolution of germination‐induction as a decontamination strategy. Finally, we examine progress towards implementing germination‐induction in three contexts: biodefense, hospital settings and food manufacture.
Influence of Cellulose Nanofillers on the Rheological Properties of Polymer Electrolytes

In this study, nanocomposite polymer electrolytes, based on high molecular weight PEO were prepared from high aspect ratio natural cellulosic nanofillers. The thermomechanical behaviour of the resulting nanocomposites was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic mechanical analysis and rheometrical measurements. The influence of entanglements versus percolation mechanism on the determination of the mechanical properties of the composite was also investigated. Shear rheometry of the unfilled PEO and related nanocomposites shows that the shear viscosity first decreases when the concentration in cellulose increases. Then typical suspension behaviour is obtained and the viscosity increases with the concentration. This observation is in agreement with DSC and DMA results and is explained in terms of polymer‐filler interactions. Interactions between cellulose fillers, are responsible for the reinforcing effect above the melting temperature of the matrix, through the formation of a stiff net.
Matching and retrieval based on the vocabulary and grammar of color patterns

While it is recognized that images are described through color, texture and shapes of objects in the scene, general image understanding is still difficult. Thus, to perform image retrieval in a human-like manner one has to choose a specific domain, understand how users achieve similarity within that domain and then build a system that duplicates human performance. Since color and texture are fundamental aspects of human perception we propose a set of techniques for retrieval of color patterns. To determine how humans judge similarity of color patterns we performed a subjective study. Based on the results of the study five most relevant visual categories for the perception of pattern similarity were identified. We also determined the hierarchy of rules governing the use of these categories. Based on these results we designed a system which accepts one or more texture images as input, and depending on the query, produces a set of choices that follow human behavior in pattern matching. Processing steps in our model follow those of the human visual system, resulting in perceptually based features and distance measures. As expected, search results closely correlate with human choices.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, hiv infection and cervical cancer in Tanzania, East Africa

The presence of HPV‐DNA was determined in tumor biopsies of cervical‐cancer patients and in cervical swabs of non‐cancer patients from Tanzania, East Africa, by Southern blot hybridization and/or PCR. HPV types 16 and 18 were detected in 38% and 32%, respectively, of 50 cervical‐carcinoma biopsies. A consensus primer PCR capable of detecting a broad spectrum of HPV types revealed the presence of HPV‐DNA in 59% of 359 cervical swabs of non‐cancer patients. Type‐specific PCR showed that types 16 and 18 accounted for 13.2% and 17.5%, respectively, of all HPV infections. Therefore we concluded that HPV 18 is more prevalent in Tanzania than in any other geographical location so far reported. The strongest risk factors for the presence of any HPV‐DNA in the 359 female non‐cancer patients were young age and HIV infection. The epidemiology of HPV types 16 and 18 was found to differ from that of other HPV types, being associated in univariate analysis with trichomonas vaginalis infection, marital status (single/divorced), age at first intercourse, and young age at menarche. However, young age at menarche accounted for most of the effects of all other variables in multivariate analysis. Of the non‐cancer patients, 12.8% had antibodies against HIV I (no patient being severely symptomatic), and HIV infection was highly correlated with the presence of HPV‐DNA, especially types 16 and 18. While HPV‐DNA of any type was detectable 1.4‐fold more often in HIV‐positive patients than in HIV‐negative patients, evidence of an infection with HPV types 16 or 18 was found 2.2‐fold more often in the HIV‐positive patients. The HIV‐positive women did not show an increased rate of cervical cytological abnormalities as assessed by PAP staining of a single cervical smear, the overall rate of abnormalities being 2.8%. Furthermore, the age‐adjusted prevalence of HIV antibodies was found to be considerably lower in 270 cervical‐carcinoma patients (3% HIV‐positive) in comparison with non‐cancer patients. Thus there was no association observable between the prevalence of HIV infections and the frequency of cervical cytological abnormalities or cervical cancer in the setting of this cross‐sectional study.
Mobile Gamification for Experiment Data Collection: Leveraging the Freemium Model

Classic ways of gathering data on human behaviour are time-consuming, costly, and are subject to limited participant pools. Gamification provides a motivation to participate, but also requires the development of specialized, research-question specific games that can be costly to produce. Our solution leverages the popular Freemium model of play to motivate voluntary participation by rewarding players for participation in microexperiments with in-game powerups, using a robust framework to study multiple unrelated research questions within the same system. We deployed our game on the Android store and compared it to a gamified laboratory version and a non-gamified laboratory version, and found that players who used powerups were motivated to do the microexperiments.
Human 5–HT4 and 5–HT7 Receptor Splice Variants: Are they Important?

G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are encoded by >300 genes in the human genome, are by far the largest class of targets for modern drugs. These macromolecules display inherent adaptability of function, which is partly due to the production of different forms of the receptor protein. These are commonly called ‘isoforms’ or ‘splice variants’ denoting the molecular process of their production/assembly. Not all GPCRs are expressed as splice variants, but certain subclasses of 5–HT receptors are for example, the 5–HT4 and 5–HT7 receptors. There are at least 11 human 5–HT4 and three h5–HT7 receptor splice variants. This review describestheir discoveries, nomenclature and structures. The discovery that particular splice variants are tissue specific (or prominent) has highlighted their potential as future drug targets. In particular, this review examines the functional relevance of different 5–HT4 and 5–HT7 receptor splice variants. Examples are given to illustrate that splice variants have differential modulatory influences on signalling processes. Differences in agonist potency and efficacies and also differences in desensitisation rates to 5–HT occur with both 5–HT4 and 5–HT7 receptor splice variants. The known and candidate signalling systems that allow for splice variant specific responses include GPCR interacting proteins (GIPs) and GPCR receptor kinases (GRKs) which are examined.Finally, the relevance of 5–HT receptor splice variants to clinical medicine and to the pharmaceutical industry is discussed.
Transport Activity of the Sodium Bicarbonate Cotransporter NBCe1 Is Enhanced by Different Isoforms of Carbonic Anhydrase

Transport metabolons have been discussed between carbonic anhydrase II (CAII) and several membrane transporters. We have now studied different CA isoforms, expressed in Xenopus oocytes alone and together with the electrogenic sodium bicarbonate cotransporter 1 (NBCe1), to determine their catalytic activity and their ability to enhance NBCe1 transport activity. pH measurements in intact oocytes indicated similar activity of CAI, CAII and CAIII, while in vitro CAIII had no measurable activity and CAI only 30% of the activity of CAII. All three CA isoforms increased transport activity of NBCe1, as measured by the transport current and the rate of intracellular sodium rise in oocytes. Two CAII mutants, altered in their intramolecular proton pathway, CAII-H64A and CAII-Y7F, showed significant catalytic activity and also enhanced NBCe1 transport activity. The effect of CAI, CAII, and CAII mutants on NBCe1 activity could be reversed by blocking CA activity with ethoxyzolamide (EZA, 10 µM), while the effect of the less EZA-sensitive CAIII was not reversed. Our results indicate that different CA isoforms and mutants, even if they show little enzymatic activity in vitro, may display significant catalytic activity in intact cells, and that the ability of CA to enhance NBCe1 transport appears to depend primarily on its catalytic activity.
Yet Rapid ICA: Applications to un-indexed image-to-image retrieval

A faster algorithm of ICA is devised. This method utilizes multi-step past information with the existing fixed-point method. The use of past information comes from the idea of surrogate optimization. The speed and implemented software are checked for both simulated and read data. The presented ICA, named Rapid ICA, is applied to image-to-image retrieval without indices. Images judged to be similar reflected user's opinion well.
Jyväskylä Studies in Computing 56 Supervised Learning in Knowledge Discovery Systems Feature Extraction for Feature Extraction for Supervised Learning in Knowledge Discovery Systems Feature Extraction for University of Jyväskylä Mykola Pechenizkiy Supervised Learning in Knowledge Discovery Systems

Pechenizkiy, Mykola Feature Extraction for Supervised Learning in Knowledge Discovery Systems Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2005, 86 p. (+ included articles) (Jyväskylä Studies in Computing, ISSN 1456-5390; 56) ISBN 951-39-2299-5 Finnish summary Diss. Knowledge discovery or data mining is the process of finding previously unknown and potentially interesting patterns and relations in large databases. The so-called “curse of dimensionality” pertinent to many learning algorithms, denotes the drastic increase in computational complexity and classification error with data having a great number of dimensions. Beside this problem, some individual features, being irrelevant or indirectly relevant for the learning concepts, form poor problem representation space. The purpose of this study is to develop theoretical background and practical aspects of feature extraction (FE) as means of (1) dimensionality reduction, and (2) representation space improvement, for supervised learning (SL) in knowledge discovery systems. The focus is on applying conventional Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and two class-conditional approaches for two targets: (1) for a base level classifier construction, and (2) for dynamic integration of the base level classifiers. Theoretical bases are derived from classical studies in data mining, machine learning and pattern recognition. The software prototype for the experimental study is built within WEKA open-source machine-learning library in Java. The different aspects of the experimental study on a number of benchmark and real-world data sets include analyses of (1) importance of class information use in the FE process; (2) (dis-)advantages of using either extracted features or both original and extracted features for SL; (3) applying FE globally to the whole data and locally within natural clusters; (4) the effect of sampling reduction on FE for SL; and (5) the problems of FE techniques selection for SL for a problem at consideration. The hypothesis and detailed results of the many-sided experimental research process are reported in the corresponding papers included in the thesis. The main contributions of the thesis can be divided into contribution (1) to current theoretical knowledge and (2) to development of practical suggestion on applying FE for SL.
Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2–Independent Action of Presumed Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 Activators: Studies In Vivo, Ex Vivo, and In Vitro

Angiotensin (Ang)-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a key enzyme in the metabolism of Ang II. XNT (1-[(2-dimethylamino)ethylamino]-4-(hydroxymethyl)-7-[(4-methylphenyl) sulfonyl oxy]-9H-xanthene-9-one) and diminazene have been reported to exert various organ-protective effects, which are attributed to the activation of ACE2. To test the effect of these compounds, we studied Ang II degradation in vivo and in vitro as well as their effect on ACE2 activity in vivo and in vitro. In a model of Ang II–induced acute hypertension, blood pressure (BP) recovery was markedly enhanced by XNT (slope with XNT, −3.26±0.2 versus −1.6±0.2 mm Hg/min without XNT; P<0.01). After Ang II infusion, neither plasma nor kidney ACE2 activity was affected by XNT. Plasma Ang II and Ang (1–7) levels also were not significantly affected by XNT. The BP-lowering effect of XNT seen in wild-type animals was also observed in ACE2 knockout mice (slope with XNT, −3.09±0.30 versus −1.28±0.22 mm Hg/min without XNT; P<0.001). These findings show that the BP-lowering effect of XNT in Ang II–induced hypertension cannot be because of the activation of ACE2. In vitro and ex vivo experiments in both mice and rat kidney confirmed a lack of enhancement of ACE2 enzymatic activity by XNT and diminazene. Moreover, Ang II degradation in vitro and ex vivo was unaffected by XNT and diminazene. We conclude that the biological effects of these compounds are ACE2-independent and should not be attributed to the activation of this enzyme.