Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Regional differences in the manifestation of gastrointestinal motor disorders in type 1 diabetic patients with autonomic neuropathy.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this work was to establish the prevalence and severity of different gastrointestinal symptoms and their relationships to esophageal, gastric and recto-anal motor disturbances by manometry in patients with Type 1 diabetes mellitus and autonomic neuropathy. PATIENTS AND METHODS Sixteen patients (mean age: 53.4 +/- 14.9 years) with long standing type 1 diabetes mellitus (mean diabetes duration: 22.1 +/- 14.7 years) and autonomic neuropathy (mean Ewing score: 5.73 +/- 2.34) were investigated. The gastrointestinal symptom scores were established by using the Talley dyspepsia questionnaire. The motor function of the digestive tract was tested in the esophagus, in the stomach, and in the ano-rectum by perfusion manometry. RESULTS Manometric evaluation of the esophagus did not reveal significant abnormalities in the region of the upper sphincter in patients with diabetes mellitus. In contrast, diabetic patients had decreased peristaltic wave amplitude, prolonged duration, decreased wave propagation velocity, and increased number of simultaneous contractions in the esophageal body, and decreased lower esophageal sphincter pressures with prolonged relaxation compared to the age- and sex-matched controls. Symptom analysis showed correlations between reflux symptoms and LES relaxation times, and between dysphagia scores and esophageal body peristaltic wave duration, propagation velocity and the rate of simultaneous contractions. In the gastric antrum, frequent, and often severe, fasting motility disorders were observed, which had no correlation with dyspeptic symptoms. In the ano-rectal region the diabetic patients had a lower squeezing-resting pressure difference, and impaired fecal expulsive function. Motility disorders were simultaneously present at multiple parts of the gastrointestinal tract in 13/16 cases. CONCLUSIONS In patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus and autonomic neuropathy gastrointestinal motility disorders were observed frequently, and in most of the cases simultaneously. While esophageal and ano-rectal symptoms correlated better with the manometric abnormalities, the lack of correlation between the impaired fasting gastric motility and dyspeptic symptoms shows that, on the basis of the clinical symptom analysis, the prevalence of such motor disorders could be underestimated. The early recognition of gastrointestinal motility disorders may be important for the better long-term management of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus.
Loblolly Pine Productivity and Water Relations in Response to Throughfall Reduction and Fertilizer Application on a Poorly Drained Site in Northern Florida

Loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) forests are of great ecological and economic value in the southeastern United States, where nutrient availability frequently limits productivity. The impact of fertilizer application on the growth and water relations of loblolly pine has been investigated by numerous studies; however, few field experiments have examined the effects of drought. Drought is of particular interest due to the potential for climate change to alter soil water availability. In this study, we investigated the impact of fertilizer application and a 30% reduction in throughfall on loblolly pine productivity, transpiration, hydraulic conductance, and stomatal conductance. The study was installed in a ten-year-old loblolly pine plantation on a somewhat poorly drained site in northern Florida. Throughfall reduction did not impact tree productivity or water relations of the trees. This lack of response was attributed to abundant rainfall and the ability of trees to access the shallow water table at this site. Fertilizer application increased basal area production by 20% and maximum leaf area index by 0.5 m2∙m−2, but it did not affect whole-tree hydraulic conductance or the sensitivity of stomatal conductance to vapor pressure deficit. During the spring, when leaf area and vapor pressure deficit were high, the fertilizer-only treatment increased monthly transpiration by 17% when compared to the control. This relationship, however, was not significant during the rest of the year.
Review : Material Aspects of Electrorheological Systems

This paper provides a summary of the current state of electrorheological (ER) material research and development. In particular, a description of the electrorheological effect, a defini tion of observed behavior, a critique of the proposed mechanisms for the ER phenomenon, correlations among the properties exhib ited by ER materials, an overview of the various test methodolo gies for characterizing ER materials, and a discussion of the re quirements imposed by specific applications is presented. Inherent throughout this paper are references to the properties exhibited by currently available, state-of-the-art ER materials. In order to facili tate the design of devices and to evaluate the effectiveness of a par ticular ER material in a specific application, it is necessary that experimental data reported for each material be consistent in terminology and test methodology. A recommendation as to the minimum amount of mechanical/electrical property information needed to adequately evaluate an ER material is provided.
Reprints Available Directly from the Publisher Photocopying Permitted by License Only Phenotypic Characterization of Chicken Bursal Stromal Elements

Many, if not all, of the different phases of intrabursal B-cell maturation are controlled by the stromal components. We have used an extensive panel of mAb to provide a detailed phenotypic profile of these cells. Antigenic specificities were defined for the entire surface epithelium, interfollicular surface epithelium, follicle-associated epithelium, basement membrane , basement membrane-associated epithelium. Several mAb were specific for the medulla, including those reactive with the stellate network of epithelial cells, isolated macro-phages, and granular, apparently secreted antigens. One of these, MUI-92, appears to be bursa-specific. Two mAb reacted strongly with stellate cortical macrophages, one of which weakly stained similar cells in the medulla. MHC-class II antigens were expressed on endo-thelium of the corticomedullary junction, macrophagelike cells in the cortex, and medulla and B lymphocytes predominantly in the cortex. Collectively, these mAb have demonstrated the antigenically distinct nature of discrete regions in the bursa, but also the continuity of the surface epithelium with the corticomedullary junction and medulla. They represent excellent reagents for defining the stromal cell contribution to B-cell development.
Cosmic core-collapse supernovae from upcoming sky surveys

Large synoptic (repeated scan) imaging sky surveys are poised to observe enormous numbers of core-collapse supernovae. We quantify the discovery potential of such surveys, and apply our results to upcoming projects, including DES, Pan-STARRS, and LSST. The latter two will harvest core-collapse supernovae in numbers orders of magnitude greater than have ever been observed to date. These surveys will map out the cosmic core-collapse supernova redshift distribution via direct counting, with very small statistical uncertainties out to a redshift depth which is a strong function of the survey limiting magnitude. This supernova redshift history encodes rich information about cosmology, star formation, and supernova astrophysics and phenomenology; the large statistics of the supernova sample will be crucial to disentangle possible degeneracies among these issues. For example, the cosmic supernova rate can be measured to high precision out to z ~ 0.5 for all core-collapse types, and out to redshift z ~ 1 for Type IIn events if their intrinsic properties remain the same as those measured locally. A precision knowledge of the cosmic supernova rate would remove the cosmological uncertainties in the study of the wealth of observable properties of the cosmic supernova populations and their evolution with environment and redshift. Because of the tight link between supernovae and star formation, synoptic sky surveys will also provide precision measurements of the normalization and z 1 history of cosmic star-formation rate in a manner independent of and complementary to than current data based on UV and other proxies for massive star formation. Furthermore, Type II supernovae can serve as distance indicators and would independently cross-check Type Ia distances measured in the same surveys. Arguably the largest and least-controlled uncertainty in all of these efforts comes from the poorly-understood evolution of dust obscuration of supernovae in their host galaxies; we outline a strategy to determine empirically the obscuration properties by leveraging the large supernova samples over a broad range of redshift. We conclude with recommendations on how best to use (and to tailor) these galaxy surveys to fully extract unique new probes on the physics, astrophysics, and cosmology of core-collapse explosions.
Non-redundant random generation from weighted context-free languages

We address the non-redundant random generation of k words of length n from a context-free language. Additionally, we want to avoid a predefined set of words. We study the limits of a rejection-based approach, whose time complexity is shown to grow exponentially in k in some cases. We propose an alternative recursive algorithm, whose careful implementation allows for a non-redundant generation of k words of size n in O(kn log n) arithmetic operations after the precomputation of O(n) numbers. The overall complexity is therefore dominated by the generation of k words, and the non-redundancy comes at a negligible cost.
Effect of Rotation of a High Altitude Platform on Handover

High altitude platform station (HAPs) system is a novel and promising communication infrastructure, providing various wireless mobile services in Third Generation (3G) even Forth Generation (4G) communication. Because of the wind, variation of temperature and some other complexity conditions in the layer of stratosphere, HAPs might inevitably encounter relative movement to the ground. In this paper, two rotation models rotate around z-axis and x or y-axis respectively are constructed to illustrate the effects on handover. Computer simulation shows that the average possibility of handover is definitely determined by the rotation direction, cell’s position and rotation angle; the critical rotation angle of handover is also calculated when the cell’s position and the altitude of platform are fixed.
Modified Elman neural network and its application to network traffic prediction

The predictability of network traffic is of significant interest in many domains, including adaptive applications, congestion control, admission control, wireless and network management. An accurate traffic prediction model should have the ability to capture the prominent traffic characteristics, e.g. short and long dependence, self similarity in large-time scale and multifractal in small-time scale. For these reasons time series models are introduced in network traffic simulation and prediction. Accurate traffic prediction may be used to optimally smooth delay sensitive traffic or dynamically allocate bandwidth to traffic streams. A modified Elman neural network model is proposed for the network system in this paper. Compared to the traditional Elman neural network model, the proposed model is nonlinear, multivariable and time-varying and has higher accuracy and better adaptability. By the model, a abnormal behavior of network traffic can be found on time through the test of adaptive boundary value. The experimental results show the model is effective and feasible for Network traffic prediction.
Isolated galaxies in hierarchical galaxy formation models - present-day properties and environmental histories

In this study, we have carried out a detailed, statistical analysis of isolated model galaxies, taking advantage of publicly available hierarchical galaxy formation models. To select isolated galaxies, we employ 2D methods widely used in the observational literature, as well as a more stringent 3D isolation criterion that uses the full 3D-real space information. In qualitative agreement with observational results, isolated model galaxies have larger fractions of late-type, star forming galaxies with respect to randomly selected samples of galaxies with the same mass distribution. We also find that the samples of isolated model galaxies typically contain a fraction of less than 15 per cent of satellite galaxies, that reside at the outskirts of their parent haloes where the galaxy number density is low. Projection effects cause a contamination of 2D samples of about 18 per cent, while we estimate a typical completeness of 65 per cent. Our model isolated samples also include a very small (few per cent) fraction of bulge dominated galaxies (B/T > 0.8) whose bulges have been built mainly by minor mergers. Our study demonstrates that about 65-70 per cent of 2D isolated galaxies that are classified as isolated at z = 0 have indeed been completely isolated since z = 1 and only 7 per cent have had more than 3 neighbours within a comoving radius of 1 Mpc. Irrespectively of the isolation criteria, roughly 45 per cent of isolated galaxies have experienced at least one merger event in the past (most of the mergers are minor, with mass ratios between 1:4 and 1:10). The latter point validates the approximation that isolated galaxies have been mainly influenced by internal processes.
TGF‐Beta Signaling in Breast Cancer

Abstract: The antiestrogen tamoxifen is one of the most successful drugs in the endocrine treatment of breast cancer and significantly reduces the risk of recurrence and death. Antiestrogens act by inhibiting the production of growth‐stimulatory factors as well as by activating peptides with growth‐inhibitory effects like transforming growth factor‐ beta (TGF‐β). In hormone‐responsive breast cancer cells treatment with antiestrogens leads to the conversion of TGF‐β1 into a biologically active form. Expression of TGF‐β2 and TGF‐β receptor (TβR) II is induced via a transcriptional mechanism involving p38 MAP kinase. Inhibition of p38 abolishes antiestrogen‐dependent growth inhibition. However, the role of TGF‐β in breast cancer progression is ambiguous, as it was shown to display both tumor‐suppressing and ‐enhancing effects. A polymorphism in the promoter of TGF‐β2 that enhances expression of the protein was associated with lymph node metastasis in breast cancer patients, pointing to a role of TGF‐β2 in the process of invasion. An immunohistochemical study on TβRI and TβRII expression in breast cancer tissues indicates that the estrogen receptor (ER) status of a tumor is an important marker and a potential mediator of the transition of TGF‐β from tumor suppressor to tumor promoter. In ER‐negative tumors, expression of TβRII was associated with a subset of tumors that appeared to be highly aggressive, leading to strongly reduced overall survival times. Further characterization of the influence of ER expression on TGF‐β signal transduction shows that ER‐α plays a crucial role in TGF‐β signaling.
Effect of Particle Size and Shape on the Reinforcing Efficiency of Nanoparticles in Polymer Nanocomposites

The effect of particle characteristics such as size and shape on the reinforcing efficiency of nano-particles is investigated. Nanocomposites based on ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer containing five different nano-particles including clay, multiwall carbon nanotube (CNT), CaCO3, talc, and nano-crystalline cellulose (NCC) were produced. The analyses are performed in the melt and solid states. The highest property changes were obtained for clay and CNT, followed by talc, NCC, and CaCO3. By using morphological analyses, mechanical properties, and rheological data, the results were correlated to the amount of available surface area between the particles and polymer. Finally, the particles were compared using a material cost over mechanical performance ratio where the optimum was obtained for talc followed by clay, NCC, CNT and CaCO3.
The effect of retinoic acid on mouse mandibular molar development in vitro, using alkaline phosphatase as a molecular indicator of differentiation.

INTRODUCTION An excellent model system that links evolutionary biology and developmental biology in seeking to understand evolutionary diversity is the study of tooth development in mammals. These studies reflect the diversity of mammalian radiations which bear on the interpretation of South African fossil hominids. Tooth development occurs via epithelio-mesenchymal interactions and involves the production of many substances, including alkaline phosphatase, which is necessary for dentine and enamel formation. Retinoic acid is a known morphogen and is important in tooth development. In excess, retinoic acid has been found to alter the formation of teeth. OBJECTIVES In order to determine whether retinoic acid has any effect on tooth morphology, exogenous retinoic acid was administered to developing mouse molar teeth in vitro, and alkaline phosphatase was utilized as an indicator of differentiation. METHODS Molars were microdissected from 15.5 day mouse embryo mandibles and cultured at the air: medium interface with or without retinoic acid for seven days. Following fixation and embedding, the explants were sectioned for morphological analysis. Alkaline phosphatase activity was detected using a modified Gomori's histochemical method. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION Retinoic acid appeared to retard the growth and differentiation of the molar explants. This was coincident with reduced alkaline phosphatase.
A new humanlike facial attractiveness predictor with cascaded fine-tuning deep learning model

This paper proposes a deep leaning method to address the challenging facial attractiveness prediction problem. The method constructs a convolutional neural network of facial beauty prediction using a new deep cascaded fine-turning scheme with various face inputting channels, such as the original RGB face image, the detail layer image, and the lighting layer image. With a carefully designed CNN model of deep structure, large input size and small convolutional kernels, we have achieved a high prediction correlation of 0.88. This result convinces us that the problem of facial attractiveness prediction can be solved by deep learning approach, and it also shows the important roles of the facial smoothness, lightness, and color information that were involved in facial beauty perception, which is consistent with the result of recent psychology studies. Furthermore, we analyze the high-level features learnt by CNN through visualization of its hidden layers, and some interesting phenomena were observed. It is found that the contours and appearance of facial features, especially eyes and moth, are the most significant facial attributes for facial attractiveness prediction, which is also consistent with the visual perception intuition of human.
Topography Influences Adherent Cell Regulation of Osteoclastogenesis

The importance of osteoclast-mediated bone resorption in the process of osseointegration has not been widely considered. In this study, cell culture was used to investigate the hypothesis that the function of implant-adherent bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs) in osteoclastogenesis is influenced by surface topography. BMSCs isolated from femur and tibia of Sprague-Dawley rats were seeded onto 3 types of titanium surfaces (smooth, micro, and nano) and a control surface (tissue culture plastic) with or without osteogenic supplements. After 3 to 14 d, conditioned medium (CM) was collected. Subsequently, rat bone marrow–derived macrophages (BMMs) were cultured in media supplemented with soluble receptor activator of NF-κB ligand (RANKL) and macrophage colony-stimulating factor (M-CSF) as well as BMSC CM from each of the 4 surfaces. Gene expression levels of soluble RANKL, osteoprotegerin, tumor necrosis factor α, and M-CSF in cultured BMSCs at different time points were measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction. The number of differentiated osteoclastic cells was determined after tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase staining. Analysis of variance and t test were used for statistical analysis. The expression of prominent osteoclast-promoting factors tumor necrosis factor α and M-CSF was increased by BMSCs cultured on both micro- and nanoscale titanium topographies (P < 0.01). BMSC CM contained a heat-labile factor that increased BMMs osteoclastogenesis. CM from both micro- and nanoscale surface-adherent BMSCs increased the osteoclast number (P < 0.01). Difference in surface topography altered BMSC phenotype and influenced BMM osteoclastogenesis. Local signaling by implant-adherent cells at the implant-bone interface may indirectly control osteoclastogenesis and bone accrual around endosseous implants.
Dielectric Properties of Low‐Firing Bi2Mo2O9 Thick Films Screen Printed on Al Foils and Alumina Substrates

Low-firing Bi2Mo2O9 thick films with a thickness of 15–20 μm were screen printed on Al foils and alumina substrates by screen-printing technology. The phase evolution, morphologies, and dielectric properties of the thick films were investigated. The thick films showed a pure Bi2Mo2O9 phase at temperatures below 610°C. A mixture of Bi2MoO6, Bi2Mo3O12, and Bi2Mo2O9 phases was found in the thick films sintered at 610°C and higher temperatures. The Bi2Mo2O9 thick films on Al foils sintered at 645°C showed excellent dielectric properties with a relative permittivity of 38 and a dielectric loss of 0.7% at 5 MHz. At the microwave frequency range from 5 to 19 GHz, the Bi2Mo2O9 thick films on alumina substrates sintered at 645°C had a relative permittivity of ∼35 and Q×f of ∼12 500 GHz. It indicates that the Bi2Mo2O9 composition as potentially useful for low-temperature cofired ceramic using Al electrode.
Automated detection of pulmonary nodules in helical CT images based on an improved template-matching technique

The purpose of this study is to develop a technique for computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems to detect lung nodules in helical X-ray pulmonary computed tomography (CT) images. The authors propose a novel template-matching technique based on a genetic algorithm (GA) template matching (GATM) for detecting nodules existing within the lung area; the GA was used to determine the target position in the observed image efficiently and to select an adequate template image from several reference patterns for quick template matching. In addition, a conventional template matching was employed to detect nodules existing on the lung wall area, lung wall template matching (LWTM), where semicircular models were used as reference patterns; the semicircular models were rotated according to the angle of the target point on the contour of the lung wall. After initial detecting candidates using the two template-matching methods, the authors extracted a total of 13 feature values and used them to eliminate false-positive findings. Twenty clinical cases involving a total of 557 sectional images were used in this study. 71 nodules out of 98 were correctly detected by the authors' scheme (i.e., a detection rate of about 72%), with the number of false positives at approximately 1.1/sectional image. The authors' present results show that their scheme can be regarded as a technique for CAD systems to detect nodules in helical CT pulmonary images.
Joint localization and activity recognition from ambient FM broadcast signals

Due to spatial diversity, RF signals derived from a FM broadcast station differ when they arrive at the receivers placed in various locations. Also, the FM signals will be altered by the change of ambient environment. Previous works focuse either the FM-based localization or activity recognition. In this study, we propose to simultaneously classify and localize activities conducted in proximity of an FM receiver. We conducted experiments and demonstrated that the location and activities of an individual can be distinguishable with a reasonable overall accuracy in a typical indoor environment from FM broadcast signals.