Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Morphological and functional changes in urinary bladder of multiparous female rats submitted to resistance exercise

Objective: investigate whether resistance exercise can induce morphological and functional alterations in urinary bladder (UB) in multiparous rats. Methods: we used 40 adults female Wistar rats of which 20 were nulliparous and 20 were multiparous submitted to different volumes of moderate resistance exercise (one, three or ten weeks). Animals were submitted to the functional evaluation of UB. At the end of the protocol, the UB was removed, weighed and stained with hematoxylin and eosin for structural evaluation, and picrosirius red for collagen fibers. Results: we observed that multiparity promoted increase in body mass, reduction in UB layers, decrease in volume densities of collagen fibers I and III. However, 10-weeks of training was able to reverse the negative effects of multiparity. Conclusion: the intervention of physical exercise in 10 weeks times seems to cause greater benefit in UB of multiparous animals by preventing morphofunctional changes that trigger lower urinary tract symptoms, such as urinary loss.
Sea-ice freeboard retrieval using digital photon-counting laser altimetry

Abstract Airborne and spaceborne altimeters provide measurements of sea-ice elevation, from which sea-ice freeboard and thickness may be derived. Observations of the Arctic ice pack by satellite altimeters indicate a significant decline in ice thickness, and volume, over the last decade. NASA’s Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) is a next-generation laser altimeter designed to continue key sea-ice observations through the end of this decade. An airborne simulator for ICESat-2, the Multiple Altimeter Beam Experimental Lidar (MABEL), has been deployed to gather pre-launch data for mission development. We present an analysis of MABEL data gathered over sea ice in the Greenland Sea and assess the capabilities of photon-counting techniques for sea-ice freeboard retrieval. We compare freeboard estimates in the marginal ice zone derived from MABEL photon-counting data with coincident data collected by a conventional airborne laser altimeter. We find that freeboard estimates agree to within 0.03 m in the areas where sea-ice floes were interspersed with wide leads, and to within 0.07 m elsewhere. MABEL data may also be used to infer sea-ice thickness, and when compared with coincident but independent ice thickness estimates, MABEL ice thicknesses agreed to within 0.65 m or better.
Long‐Term Effects of Nitrogen Fertilization on Nitrogen Availability in Coastal Douglas‐Fir Forest Floors

years after a single N application of 470 kg ha 2 1 to a Douglas-fir stand in southeastern Washington (Binkley It has been suggested that a long-term increase in N availability and Reid, 1985; Strader and Binkley, 1989). Prescott et could be achieved by repeated N fertilization of forests, and that the increase in N availability would be greatest at initially N-rich sites. al. (1995a) also found higher N availability in forest The aim of this study was to determine if N availability was elevated floors of jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lambert) 20 yr 8 to 12 yr after repeated N fertilization, and if the effects of N fertiliza- after they received 672 kg N ha 21 in six applications. tion were related to the soil N capital. Rates of N cycling in control Conversely, Prescott et al. (1993b) found no evidence and fertilized plots of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) of more rapid turnover of N in litter in coastal Douglas- Franco) were compared by measuring net N mineralization rates in fir forests that received repeated applications of N fertil- forest floors and by estimating rates of N turnover from the litterfall/ izer or sewage sludge equivalent to one-half and twice forest floor ratio. Litterfall N contents, litter N concentrations, and the estimated soil capital of N. This was attributed to rates of N turnover increased along the gradient in soil N capital in the poor site, so presumably most of the added N was both control and fertilized stands. Fertilization did not affect litterfall immobilized in the soil. They hypothesized that a long- N content, but C/N ratios of litter and forest floors were significantly lower in fertilized stands along the gradient. Turnover rates of N in term enhancement of N cycling might occur on sites the forest floors were not higher in fertilized plots than in control initially richer in N, where less of the added N would plots, nor were rates of net N mineralization affected by fertilization. be immobilized in the soil. Feger (1992) added N to Net nitrification rates were higher in some of the plots that received Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst. ) forests on a site 1120 kg N ha2 1 than in control plots. We conclude that N fertilization rich in N and a site poor in N, and found that most of did not result in a sustained increase in N cycling and N availability the N was immobilized in soil on the poor site, whereas analogous to a higher site N capital, and that the effect of N fertilization on the rich site much was converted to NO 3 and leached. was not related to the initial soil N capital of these sites. In Rocky Mountain forests, greater rates of N mineral- ization were found 4 yr after addition of N, but only on sites that were initially relatively rich in N (Prescott et
Advanced Algorithm Design Lecture 14 : SVD , Power method , and Planted Graph problems ( + eigenvalues of random matrices )

Recall this theorem from last time. Theorem 1 (Singular Value Decomposition and best rank-k-approximation) An m × n real matrix has t ≤ min {m,n} nonnegative real numbers σ1, σ2, . , σt (called singular values) and two sets of unit vectors U = {u1, u2, . , ut} which are in <m and V = v1, v2, . , vt ∈ <n (all vectors are column vectors) where U, V are orthogonormal sets and ui M = σivi and Mvi = σiu T i . (1) (When M is symmetric, each ui = vi and the σi’s are eigenvalues and can be negative.) Furthermore, M can be represented as
There’s an App for That: Content Analysis of Paid Health and Fitness Apps

Background The introduction of Apple’s iPhone provided a platform for developers to design third-party apps, which greatly expanded the functionality and utility of mobile devices for public health. Objective This study provides an overview of the developers’ written descriptions of health and fitness apps and appraises each app’s potential for influencing behavior change. Methods Data for this study came from a content analysis of health and fitness app descriptions available on iTunes during February 2011. The Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT) and the Precede-Proceed Model (PPM) were used as frameworks to guide the coding of 3336 paid apps. Results Compared to apps with a cost less than US $0.99, apps exceeding US $0.99 were more likely to be scored as intending to promote health or prevent disease (92.55%, 1925/3336 vs 83.59%, 1411/3336; P<.001), to be credible or trustworthy (91.11%, 1895/3336 vs 86.14%, 1454/3349; P<.001), and more likely to be used personally or recommended to a health care client (72.93%, 1517/2644 vs 66.77%, 1127/2644; P<.001). Apps related to healthy eating, physical activity, and personal health and wellness were more common than apps for substance abuse, mental and emotional health, violence prevention and safety, and sexual and reproductive health. Reinforcing apps were less common than predisposing and enabling apps. Only 1.86% (62/3336) of apps included all 3 factors (ie, predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing). Conclusions Development efforts could target public health behaviors for which few apps currently exist. Furthermore, practitioners should be cautious when promoting the use of apps as it appears most provide health-related information (predisposing) or make attempts at enabling behavior, with almost none including all theoretical factors recommended for behavior change.
Intelligent Collaborative Assessment for Cyberspace eLearning Environments

As the demand for more effective and efficient eLearning assessment systems continues to rise, there is a growing need for innovative approaches. This paper introduces the Intelligent Collaborative Assessment Framework (ICAF), which is a novel ontology-based framework that integrates Artificial Intelligence (AI) and collaborative tools to enhance assessment activities in cyberspace eLearning environments. Our research approach involved developing a specific ontology to capture essential concepts related to collaborative eLearning assessment, guiding the creation of the ICAF. The architecture of the ICAF consists of interconnected components that work in synergy to support assessment activities in cyberspace eLearning environments. One of its key features is the integration of collaborative learning techniques, which fosters a more engaging and effective learning experience. Additionally, the framework incorporates learning analytics and machine learning algorithms to analyze group learning patterns and deliver precise and valuable feedback. By presenting the viability and potential benefits of the ICAF, we demonstrate how the ICAF has the potential to significantly enhance assessment practices and facilitate collaborative learning in cyberspace eLearning environments.
CRISPR / Cas 9 : a breakthrough in generating mouse models for endocrinologists

CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing technology is a genuine technological breakthrough. Based on an immune defense mechanism discovered in bacteria (Terns & Terns 2011), the method was adapted and first used in mammalian cells in 2013 (Cong et al. 2013, Mali et al. 2013b). These initial studies opened a field of very intense investigation and technological development making genome editing very efficient in a number of animal species. The method also raises new hopes for human gene therapy (Xue et al. 2016). As endocrinologists need animal models forc in vivo integrated studies and make an intensive use of genetic manipulations in mice to study physiology and pathology, the advent of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing is expected to deeply impact the discipline. This review focuses on the achievements and potential of this technology in the field of mouse genetics and the general benefit that it should bring to research in endocrinology. Principle of CRISPR/Cas genome editing
Evaporation in a Warming World

Loss of water through evaporation is a major consideration for water resources engineers, and water supply managers in particular are interested in the potential impacts of climate change on future yields. Trends of decreasing pan evaporation around the world over the last forty years have led to increased interest in the expected effects of climate change on evaporation. If evaporation may have been decreasing, despite increasing temperatures, what will happen in the future? Will radiative increases due to a warming world dominate evaporation? And will wind speed or relative humidity changes offset or enhance radiative changes? The outputs from NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data and five general circulation models (GCMs) have been used to predict open water body evaporation for the present and future climates. Three time periods were examined for the future climate - 2030s, 2050s and 2070s. Evaporation was estimated using the Penman equation, with parameters set for an open water body. It was found that the bias corrected GCM outputs predicted mean evaporation reasonably well for the current climate. Trends in evaporation between 1960 and 1999 were more variable across the models, although the predictions generally fell within the range of trends recorded for pan evaporation by Jovanovic et al. (2007). For future climates, variability in the predictions is generally introduced by the aerodynamic component of evaporation. The models show fairly good agreement for the radiative component predictions, with increases for all locations and scenarios. For some models, the decreases in the aerodynamic component of radiation are sufficient to offset the increasing evaporation due to radiative energy, leading to reductions in total evaporation. We therefore conclude that, as for the current climate, evaporation changes are not straightforward. Commonly held beliefs of increasing evaporation increases due to rising temperatures may need to be reassessed if possible wind speed or vapour pressure deficit changes are also considered.
Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: A Rare Case with 47, XXY/46, XY Mosaic Karyotype and Literature Review

Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is an X-linked recessive genetic disease caused by the absence or defects of androgen receptor (AR). Due to the insensitivity to androgen, clinically, patients often manifest as sexual development disorder. According to the grade of the remaining AR function, AIS is classified as complete (CAIS), partial (PAIS) or mild (MAIS). A 14-year-old Chinese child, raised as female, presents with primary amenorrhea. Physical examination revealed female appearance and a short vagina with blind-ended pouch. Laboratory examination showed high levels of testosterone; uterus and ovaries were absent. Karyotype confirmed a 47, XXY (12)/46, XY (88) mosaicism. She underwent gonadectomy and the postoperative pathology identified bilateral testicular tissue with atrophic seminiferous tubules and no signs of malignancy. She started on hormonal therapy after surgery. The clinical manifestations of CAIS are relatively insidious. Clinicians should master the characteristics of this disease, identify carefully, make a clear diagnosis, and then develop an individualized treatment plan, so as to improve the life quality of patients and reduce the occurrence of tumors as much as possible.
Israel Brucellosis : an Overview

Address for correspondence: National Institute of Biological Standards and Control, Blanche Lane, South Mimms, Potters Bar, Hertfordshire EN6 3QG, United Kingdom; fax: 44-1-707646-730; e-mail: mcorbel@nibsc.ac. uk. Brucellosis remains a major zoonosis worldwide. Although many countries have eradicated Brucella abortus from cattle, in some areas Brucella melitensis has emerged as a cause of infection in this species as well as in sheep and goats. Despite vaccination campaigns with the Rev 1 strain, B. melitensis remains the principal cause of human brucellosis. Brucella suis is also emerging as an agent of infection in cattle, thus extending its opportunities to infect humans. The recent isolation of distinctive strains of Brucella from marine mammals has extended its ecologic range. Molecular genetic studies have demonstrated the phylogenetic affiliation to Agrobacterium, Phyllobacterium, Ochrobactrum, and Rhizobium. Polymerase chain reaction and gene probe development may provide more effective typing methods. Pathogenicity is related to production of lipopolysaccharides containing a poly N-formyl perosamine O chain, CuZn superoxide dismutase, erythrulose phosphate dehydrogenase, stress-induced proteins related to intracellular survival, and adenine and guanine monophosphate inhibitors of phagocyte functions. Protective immunity is conferred by antibody to lipopolysaccharide and T-cell-mediated macrophage activation triggered by protein antigens. Diagnosis still centers on isolation of the organism and serologic test results, especially enzyme immunoassay, which is replacing other methods. Polymerase chain reaction is also under evaluation. Therapy is based on tetracyclines with or without rifampicin, aminoglycosides, or quinolones. No satisfactory vaccines against human brucellosis are available, although attenuated purE mutants appear promising.
Scientific Research of Škocjanske Jame Caves (UNESCO World Heritage) - since Antiquity to Modern Times

Posidonius (135-50 BC) studied springs of the Timavus River and he was the first to state, to be later repeated by Strabo, the hydrological connection between Skocjanske Jame Caves and ? karst springs. One of the earliest water tracings that proved the mentioned connection was published by F. Imperato in 1599. Valvasor only mentions the caves but due to heavy access he did not make any research. In the middle of the 19th century modern exploration of caves started with purpose to find out where the underground river is flowing. The task was fulfilled at the end of the century. When the members of the cave department of the DOAV Section Kustenland took over the exploration they already have scientific observations in mind. They regularly measured temperatures outside and in the caves. Meteorological (speleometeorological) research continues through the 20 th century and turned out to regular monitoring. Different methods of water tracing were carried out from the beginning of the 20th century. Skocjanske Jame hydrology was the topic of the first doctoral thesis in 1924 already. Its attraction for doctoral studies continued and still today there are advanced-degree candidates working on the caves. Regarding the fact that caves are near the border, they were object of some bilateral research projects too. Partly published bibliography of Skocjanske Jame contains 399 works and many of them are results and reports of scientific research. As for the conclusion it can be said that more research and scientific data are gathered, more interest and need for new and deepened researches occur.
28-way vertebrate alignment and conservation track in the UCSC Genome Browser.

This article describes a set of alignments of 28 vertebrate genome sequences that is provided by the UCSC Genome Browser. The alignments can be viewed on the Human Genome Browser (March 2006 assembly) at http://genome.ucsc.edu, downloaded in bulk by anonymous FTP from http://hgdownload.cse. ucsc.edu/goldenPath/hg18/multiz28way, or analyzed with the Galaxy server at http://g2.bx. psu.edu. This article illustrates the power of this resource for exploring vertebrate and mammalian evolution, using three examples. First, we present several vignettes involving insertions and deletions within protein-coding regions, including a look at some human-specific indels. Then we study the extent to which start codons and stop codons in the human sequence are conserved in other species, showing that start codons are in general more poorly conserved than stop codons. Finally, an investigation of the phylogenetic depth of conservation for several classes of functional elements in the human genome reveals striking differences in the rates and modes of decay in alignability. Each functional class has a distinctive period of stringent constraint, followed by decays that allow (for the case of regulatory regions) or reject (for coding regions and ultraconserved elements) insertions and deletions.
Supplementary Materials for: Unsupervised Object Class Discovery via Saliency-Guided Multiple Class Learning

1. Proof for Theorems Now we will do discriminative learning with the presence of hidden variables. Our step is similar to standard EM[3] while the primary difference is that we are given labels Y = {y1, . , yn} in addition to observations X = {x1, . , xn}, and we want to estimate the model θ that minimizes the negative log-likelihood function L(θ;Y,X) = − log Pr(Y |X; θ). We proceed by integrating H out:
Supplementary materials for : bicycle : a bioinformatics pipeline to analyze bisulfite sequencing data

Bioinformatics Unit, Structural Biology and Biocomputing Programme, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), 3rd Melchor Fernández Almagro St. 28029, Madrid, Spain, ESEI-Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Informática, Edificio Politécnico, Campus Universitario As Lagoas S/N, Universidade de Vigo, 32004, Ourense, Spain, Centro de Investigaciones Biomédicas (Centro Singular de Investigación de Galicia), Vigo, Spain, UCIBIO-REQUIMTE, Departamento de Química, Facultade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516, Portugal.
Supplementary Materials for : “ f-GAN : Training Generative Neural Samplers using Variational Divergence Minimization ”

We provide additional material to support the content presented in the paper. The text is structured as follows. In Section 2 we present an extended list of f-divergences, corresponding generator functions and their convex conjugates. In Section 3 we provide the proof of Theorem 1 from Section 3. In Section 5 we discuss the differences between current (to our knowledge) GAN optimisation algorithms. Section 6 provides a proof of concept of our approach by fitting a Gaussian to a mixture of Gaussians using various divergence measures. Finally, in Section 7 we present the details of the network architectures used in Section 4 of the main text.
Supplementary materials for : Stolt ’ s fk migration for plane wave ultrasound imaging

Ultrafast ultrasound is an emerging modality that offers new perspectives and opportunities in medical imaging. Plane wave imaging (PWI) allows one to attain very high frame rates by transmission of planar ultrasound wavefronts. As a plane wave reaches a given scatterer, the latter becomes a secondary source emitting upward spherical waves and creating a diffraction hyperbola in the received RF signals. To produce an image of the scatterers, all the hyperbolas must be migrated back to their apexes. To perform beamforming of plane wave echo RFs and return high-quality images at high frame rates, we propose a new migration method carried out in the frequency-wavenumber (f-k) domain. The f-k migration for PWI has been adapted from the Stolt migration for seismic imaging. This migration technique is based on the exploding reflector model (ERM), which consists in assuming that all the scatterers explode in concert and become acoustic sources. The classical ERM model, however, is not appropriate for PWI. We showed that the ERM can be made suitable for PWI by a spatial transformation of the hyperbolic traces present in the RF data. In vitro experiments were performed to outline the advantages of PWI with Stolt’s f-k migration over the conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) approach. The Stolt’s f-k migration was also compared with the Fourier-based method developed by J.-Y. Lu. Our findings show that multi-angle compounded f-k migrated images are of quality similar to those obtained with a stateof-the-art dynamic focusing mode. This remained true even with a very small number of steering angles, thus ensuring a highly competitive frame rate. In addition, the new FFT-based f-k migration provides comparable or better contrast-to-noise ratio and lateral resolution than the Lu’s and DAS migration schemes. Matlab codes for the Stolt’s f-k migration for PWI