Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Average and local atomic-scale structure in BaZrxTi1−xO3 (x = 0.10, 0.20, 0.40) ceramics by high-energy x-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy

High-resolution x-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy and total scattering XRD coupled to atomic pair distribution function (PDF) analysis studies of the atomic-scale structure of archetypal BaZrxTi1−xO3 (x = 0.10, 0.20, 0.40) ceramics are presented over a wide temperature range (100–450 K). For x = 0.1 and 0.2 the results reveal, well above the Curie temperature, the presence of Ti-rich polar clusters which are precursors of a long-range ferroelectric order observed below TC. Polar nanoregions (PNRs) and relaxor behaviour are observed over the whole temperature range for x = 0.4. Irrespective of ceramic composition, the polar clusters are due to locally correlated off-centre displacement of Zr/Ti cations compatible with local rhombohedral symmetry. Formation of Zr-rich clusters is indicated by Raman spectroscopy for all compositions. Considering the isovalent substitution of Ti with Zr in BaZrxTi1−xO3, the mechanism of formation and growth of the PNRs is not due to charge ordering and random fields, but rather to a reduction of the local strain promoted by the large difference in ion size between Zr4+ and Ti4+. As a result, non-polar or weakly polar Zr-rich clusters and polar Ti-rich clusters are randomly distributed in a paraelectric lattice and the long-range ferroelectric order is disrupted with increasing Zr concentration.
Telomeres, lifestyle, cancer, and aging

Purpose of reviewThere has been growing evidence that lifestyle factors may affect the health and lifespan of an individual by affecting telomere length. The purpose of this review was to highlight the importance of telomeres in human health and aging and to summarize possible lifestyle factors that may affect health and longevity by altering the rate of telomere shortening. Recent findingsRecent studies indicate that telomere length, which can be affected by various lifestyle factors, can affect the pace of aging and onset of age-associated diseases. SummaryTelomere length shortens with age. Progressive shortening of telomeres leads to senescence, apoptosis, or oncogenic transformation of somatic cells, affecting the health and lifespan of an individual. Shorter telomeres have been associated with increased incidence of diseases and poor survival. The rate of telomere shortening can be either increased or decreased by specific lifestyle factors. Better choice of diet and activities has great potential to reduce the rate of telomere shortening or at least prevent excessive telomere attrition, leading to delayed onset of age-associated diseases and increased lifespan. This review highlights the role of telomeres in aging and describes the lifestyle factors which may affect telomeres, human health, and aging.
Evidence for the regulation of alternative splicing via complementary DNA sequence repeats

MOTIVATION While the mechanism for regulating alternative splicing is poorly understood, secondary structure has been shown to be integral to this process. Due to their propensity for forming complementary hairpin loops and their elevated mutation rates, tandem repeated sequences have the potential to influence splicing regulation. RESULTS An analysis of human intronic sequences reveals a strong correlation between alternative splicing and the prevalence of mono- through hexanucleotide tandem repeats that may engage in complementary pairing in introns that flank alternatively spliced exons. While only 44% of the 18 173 genes in the Human Alternative Splicing Database are known to be alternatively spliced, they contain 84% of the 694 237 intronic complementary repeat pairs. Significantly, the normalized frequency and distribution of repeat sequences, independent of their potential for pairing, are indistinguishable between alternatively spliced and non-alternatively spliced genes. Thus, the increased prevalence of repeats with pairing potential in alternatively spliced genes is not merely a consequence of more repeats or repeat composition bias. These results suggest that complementary repeats may play a role in the regulation of alternative splicing. CONTACT harold.garner@utsouthwestern.edu.
Green Space as Classroom: Outdoor School Teachers’ Use, Preferences and Ecostrategies

Abstract More and more Danish teachers have started introducing curriculum-based outdoor learning as a weekly or biweekly ‘outdoor school’ day for school children. This move towards schooling in non-classroom spaces presents a challenge for green space managers. Basic managerial knowledge related to what, who, when and where has thus far only been supported by anecdotal evidence, but seems fundamental to the decision-making of a range of green space providers. The present study aims to describe, characterise and discuss outdoor teachers’ use, preferences and ecostrategies in relation to green space. A nationwide survey was conducted among Danish teachers practising outdoor teaching (107 respondents), and it showed that a majority used and preferred forest areas. The outdoor teachers used mainly school grounds and local green space for their outdoor teaching with a majority using the same place or mostly the same place and preferring natural environments with easy access. We recommend that green space managers try to accommodate the ecostrategy preferred by outdoor teachers, i.e. visits to local and well-known places.
A Method for Reducing the Complexity in the Reconstruction of a Blurred Signal

The regularized least squares methods for the solution of ill-posed inverse problems are summarized, and appropriate references are stated. Additionally, an adap-tive multi-scale algorithm is proposed to solve highly ill-posed inverse problems with fewer degrees of freedom and comparable performance. The algorithm controls the level of detail in the reconstruction by distributing the ¯ne scale information to the appropriate intervals in the overall estimation interval. The method is applied to a linear inverse problem, namely the reconstruction of a signal from its blurred and noisy version. The results are stated, compared with the regular ¯ne scale approach and the relevant properties are explained. This treatment is seen as a step for the application of the algorithm to the nonlinear inverse problems where it is forseen to provide a decrease in the complexity of the inversion as well as better convergence in the solution space than the regular approach. 1 Inroduction Least-squares estimation methods are commonly used in solving linear inverse problems. A linear inverse problem can be expressed as the problem of estimating the vector x based on the knowledge of a data vector b which is related to x as b = Ax + n. Here A is a known linear transformation matrix and n is a random noise vector. Inverse problems are typically ill-posed, meaning that small perturbations in the data can lead to large amplitude, non-physical artifacts in the reconstruction. Linear ill-posed problems arise in a variety of applications: astronomy [1], computerized tomography [2], electrocardiography [3], early vision [5] and meteorology [4] are just a few of these. Vast amount of literature on ill-posed problems exist in the setting of Hilbert spaces and other in¯nite dimensional spaces. See for example [6], [7],
The Internet and Public Relations: Investigating Practitioners' Roles and World Wide Web Use

A national e-mail survey of public relations practitioners investigated how use of the World Wide Web and practitioners' roles and status are linked. Cluster analysis partially replicated and refined Leichty and Springston's 1996 roles typology, further challenging the traditional manager-technician dichotomy that has driven twenty-five years of roles research. Managers used the Web more than technicians for research and evaluation and more than internals for issues communication. Managers and internals use the Web more than technicians for productivity and efficiency. In general, practitioners are no longer laggards in new technology, and women have caught up with men in use of new technology, such as the Web.
From Cronkite to Colbert: The Evolution of Broadcast News

Caught between a loss of market share and a bad economy, today’s TV news is in flux and under threat. In From Cronkite to Colbert: The Evolution of Broadcast News, media studies professor Geoffrey Baym recounts the history of televised journalism and suggests that our best hope for its future is embodied in two Comedy Central entertainment programs: The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Despite the subtitle, Baym portrays the last half century of TV journalism as less evolution than devolution, a process through which institutions that once served to ‘‘ensure political accountability’’ have become little more than purveyors of ‘‘emotional theater’’ and ‘‘subjective engagement’’ (p. 58). He blames this state of affairs squarely on capitalism and corporate greed—forces that generate ever increasing institutional hunger for ratings and advertising revenue. In the work of comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Baym sees a return to the audience service implicitly provided by journalistic traditions of the past. Like Walter Cronkite and William Paley before them, Stewart and Colbert shine the harsh light of scrutiny on both politicians and their partners in crime—conventional journalists who have abandoned serious political coverage. According to Baym, today’s journalists must embrace practices used to such effect by Stewart and Colbert, in order to ‘‘reinvent the Fourth Estate and reinvigorate the conversation of democracy’’ (p. 176). The bulk of From Cronkite to Colbert traces changes in broadcast news across three distinct ‘‘eras’’ that delineate separate approaches to televised journalism: (1) a high modern ‘‘network age,’’ epitomized by the exemplary network coverage of Watergate; (2) a post-modern ‘‘multichannel era,’’ featuring the superficial reporting seen during the Clinton sex scandal and impeachment; and (3) today’s neo-modern ‘‘post-network age,’’ in which the best political journalism comes from comedians.
Pathways to Top Corporate Management

With college attendance approaching universality among senior managers in large American corporations, the issue of the impact of distinctions within the system of higher education in providing access to these positions has become increasingly salient. This study, based on data on the education, social backgrounds, and careers of 2,729 senior managers associated with 208 major corporations, analyzes the relationship between stratification within higher education (as measured by institutional status and level of credential) and stratification within the ranks of top corporate management. Findings reveal that: (1) Corporate ascent is facilitated by the possession of a bachelor's degree from a top-ranked college, a master's degree in business administration from a prominent program, or a degree in law from a leading institution. (2) Controlling for educational credentials, an upper-class background increases the likelihood of rising to the top ranks of corporate management. (3) The impact of a law degree and an upper-class origin are most pronounced for successful movement beyond the firm into formal and informal inter-corporate networks.
Automatic Association of Web Directories with Word Senses

We describe an algorithm that combines lexical information (from WordNet 1.7) with Web directories (from the Open Directory Project) to associate word senses with such directories. Such associations can be used as rich characterizations to acquire sense-tagged corpora automatically, cluster topically related senses, and detect sense specializations. The algorithm is evaluated for the 29 nouns (147 senses) used in the Senseval 2 competition, obtaining 148 (word sense, Web directory) associations covering 88 of the domain-specific word senses in the test data with 86 accuracy. The richness of Web directories as sense characterizations is evaluated in a supervised word sense disambiguation task using the Senseval 2 test suite. The results indicate that, when the directory/word sense association is correct, the samples automatically acquired from the Web directories are nearly as valid for training as the original Senseval 2 training instances. The results support our hypothesis that Web directories are a rich source of lexical information: cleaner, more reliable, and more structured than the full Web as a corpus.
A Taxonomy of Web Effort Predictors

Web engineering as a field has emerged to address challenges associated with developing Web applications. It is known that the development of Web applications differs from the development of non-Web applications, especially regarding some aspects such as Web size metrics. The classification of existing Web engineering knowledge would be beneficial for both practitioners and researchers in many different ways, such as finding research gaps and supporting decision making. In the context of Web effort estimation, a taxonomy was proposed to classify the existing size metrics, and more recently a systematic literature review was conducted to identify aspects related to Web resource/effort estimation. However, there is no study that classifies Web predictors (both size metrics and cost drivers). The main objective of this study is to organize the body of knowledge on Web effort predictors by designing and using a taxonomy, aiming at supporting both research and practice in Web effort estimation. To design our taxonomy, we used a recently proposed taxonomy design method. As input, we used the results of a previously conducted systematic literature review (updated in this study), an existing taxonomy of Web size metrics and expert knowledge. We identified 165 unique Web effort predictors from a final set of 98 primary studies; they were used as one of the basis to design our hierarchical taxonomy. The taxonomy has three levels, organized into 13 categories. We demonstrated the utility of the taxonomy and body of knowledge by using examples. The proposed taxonomy can be beneficial in the following ways: i) It can help to identify research gaps and some literature of interest and ii) it can support the selection of predictors for Web effort estimation. We also intend to extend the taxonomy presented to also include effort estimation techniques and accuracy metrics.
Trans-Synaptic Spread of Tau Pathology In Vivo

Tauopathy in the brain of patients with Alzheimer's disease starts in the entorhinal cortex (EC) and spreads anatomically in a defined pattern. To test whether pathology initiating in the EC spreads through the brain along synaptically connected circuits, we have generated a transgenic mouse model that differentially expresses pathological human tau in the EC and we have examined the distribution of tau pathology at different timepoints. In relatively young mice (10–11 months old), human tau was present in some cell bodies, but it was mostly observed in axons within the superficial layers of the medial and lateral EC, and at the terminal zones of the perforant pathway. In old mice (>22 months old), intense human tau immunoreactivity was readily detected not only in neurons in the superficial layers of the EC, but also in the subiculum, a substantial number of hippocampal pyramidal neurons especially in CA1, and in dentate gyrus granule cells. Scattered immunoreactive neurons were also seen in the deeper layers of the EC and in perirhinal and secondary somatosensory cortex. Immunoreactivity with the conformation-specific tau antibody MC1 correlated with the accumulation of argyrophilic material seen in old, but not young mice. In old mice, axonal human tau immunoreactivity, especially at the endzones of the perforant pathway, was greatly reduced. Relocalization of tau from axons to somatodendritic compartments and propagation of tauopathy to regions outside of the EC correlated with mature tangle formation in neurons in the EC as revealed by thioflavin-S staining. Our data demonstrate propagation of pathology from the EC and support a trans-synaptic mechanism of spread along anatomically connected networks, between connected and vulnerable neurons. In general, the mouse recapitulates the tauopathy that defines the early stages of AD and provides a model for testing mechanisms and functional outcomes associated with disease progression.
Unsupervised Word Sense Disambiguation with Multilingual Representations

In this paper we investigate the role of multilingual features in improving word sense disambiguation. In particular, we explore the use of semantic clues derived from context translation to enrich the intended sense and therefore reduce ambiguity. Our experiments demonstrate up to 26% increase in disambiguation accuracy by utilizing multilingual features as compared to the monolingual baseline.
An 11b Pipeline ADC With Parallel-Sampling Technique for Converting Multi-Carrier Signals

This paper presents a parallel sampling technique for analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) to convert multi-carrier signals efficiently by exploiting the statistical properties of these signals. With this technique, the input signal power of an ADC can be boosted without getting excessive clipping distortion and the ADC can have a higher resolution over the critical small amplitude region. Hence the overall signal to noise and clipping distortion ratio is improved. This technique allows reducing power dissipation and area in comparison to conventional solutions for converting multi-carrier signals. As an example, an 11b switched-capacitor pipeline ADC with the parallel sampling technique applied to its first stage is implemented in CMOS 65 nm technology. It achieves a full-scale input signal range of 2 V differentially with a 1.2 V supply voltage. Simulations show an improvement of more than 5 dB in signal-to-noise-and-clipping-distortion ratio (SNCDR) and around 8 dB in dynamic range (DR) compared to a conventional 11b ADC for converting multi-carrier signals and achieve a comparable SNCDR and noise power ratio (NPR) as a conventional 12b pipeline for converting multi-carrier signals with less than half the power and area.
Utilization of individual cellodextrins by three predominant ruminal cellulolytic bacteria

Growth of the ruminal bacteria Fibrobacter succinogenes S85, Ruminococcus flavefaciens FD-1, and R. albus 7 followed Monod kinetics with respect to concentrations of individual pure cellodextrins (cellobiose, cellotriose, cellotetraose, cellopentaose, and cellohexaose). Under the conditions tested, R. flavefaciens FD-1 possesses the greatest capacity to compete for low concentrations of these cellodextrins.
Facilitating Stroke Management using Modern Information Technology

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Information technology and mobile devices may be beneficial and useful in many aspects of stroke management, including recognition of stroke, transport and triage of patients, emergent stroke evaluation at the hospital, and rehabilitation. In this review, we address the contributions of information technology and mobile health to stroke management. SUMMARY OF ISSUES Rapid detection and triage are essential for effective thrombolytic treatment. Awareness of stroke warning signs and responses to stroke could be enhanced by using mobile applications. Furthermore, prehospital assessment and notification could be streamlined for use in telemedicine and teleradiology. A mobile telemedicine system for assessing the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale scores has shown higher correlation and fast assessment comparing with face-to-face method. Because the benefits of thrombolytic treatment are time-dependent, treatment should be initiated as quickly as possible. In-hospital communication between multidisciplinary team members can be enhanced using information technology. A computerized in-hospital alert system using computerized physician-order entry was shown to be effective in reducing the time intervals from hospital arrival to medical evaluations and thrombolytic treatment. Mobile devices can also be used as supplementary tools for neurologic examination and clinical decision-making. In post-stroke rehabilitation, virtual reality and telerehabilitation are helpful. Mobile applications might be useful for public awareness, lifestyle modification, and education/training of healthcare professionals. CONCLUSIONS Information technology and mobile health are useful tools for management of stroke patients from the acute period to rehabilitation. Further improvement of technology will change and enhance stroke prevention and treatment.
In vitro evaluation of antioxidant activity of Cordia dichotoma (Forst f.) bark

Cordia dichotoma Forst. f. bark, identified as botanical source of Shleshmataka in Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia. Present investigation was undertaken to evaluate possible antioxidant potential of methanolic and butanol extract of C. dichotoma bark. In vitro antioxidant activity of methanolic and butanol extract was determined by 1,1, diphenyl-2, picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical scavenging assay. The extracts were also evaluated for their phenolic contents and antioxidant activity. Phenolic content was measured using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent and was calculated as Gallic acid equivalents. Antiradical activity of methanolic extract was measured by DPPH assay and was compared to ascorbic acid and ferric reducing power of the extract was evaluated by Oyaizu method. In the present study three in vitro models were used to evaluate antioxidant activity. The first two methods were for direct measurement of radical scavenging activity and remaining one method evaluated the reducing power. The present study revealed that the C. dichotoma bark has significant radical scavenging activity.
Aggressive behavior in the free-ranging rhesus monkeys of kathmandu, nepal

We preseni a composile sample of Ihe aggressive behavior of free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulalla). recorded at Iwo temples in Kalhmandu, Nepal. We analyze Ihe lolal number and Ihe rate per monkey of threats, chases, attacks, fights, and aggressive acts directed at other species (principally humans), in order to elucidale social dynamics of Ihe troop as a whole. Our 1,5()6 hours of observation were divided among Ihe four seasons; between a.m. and p.m. ; and among a temple yard, two parklands, and a forested garden. We found seasonal patterns to be the most important correlates of aggressive behavior. Hahitat was a modulating influence, and time of day was the least important factor. Kates of aggression were generally higher per male monkey than per female. In terms of total aggression recorded, however, females instigated significantly more than males, hoth in enconnlers between monkeys and in aggression against other species. This finding is consistent with Ihc females' greater numhers in the troop and with their lifelong membership in the troop. Analysis of hehavior hy social groups, rather than hy individual rates, points up the iomporlance of adult females and their social slahiiity in troop behavior.