Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Potassium chloride improves the thermotolerance of chickens exposed to acute heat stress.

Experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that chicks that drank an electrolyte solution containing K prior to and during an acute exposure to heat would have greater thermotolerance than chicks that consumed only water. In three experiments, 5- or 7-wk-old male chickens drank distilled water (control), or . 3, . 6, or . 9% KCl solutions (Experiments 1 and 2), and . 6 or . 9% KCl or . 8% KHCO3 solutions (Experiment 3) for 48 h before acute heat stress (HS) and during HS. Body temperature (Tb), blood pH, partial pressure of blood carbon dioxide (pCO2), ionized Ca (Ca2+), plasma Na, K, Cl, total Ca, inorganic P (Pi), and osmolality (Osm), and water consumption were determined. Water intake increased with the concentration of KCl. Before HS, . 6% KCl increased plasma K and Ca2+, whereas . 9% KCl resulted in a marked increase in K, Ca2+, Na, Cl, and Osm and a decrease in pH. During HS, . 6% KCl-birds had lower hyperthermic Tb and pH values and higher Ca2+ and K concentrations than controls. Plasma Na and Osm of . 6% KCl birds decreased whereas those of the control birds remained unchanged. Providing K as KHCO3 aggravated respiratory alkalosis and failed to influence either Tb or plasma electrolytes, suggesting that the beneficial effect of . 6% KCl may in part be attributed to the accompanying Cl. Hyperthermic Tb and Ca2+ values were highly correlated. The results showed that . 6% KCl solution reduced HS-related responses and indicated a relationship among supplemental KCl, blood Ca2+, and Tb.
Transparent conducting materials: overview and recent results

An overview of different transparent conductors is given. In addition, atmospheric pressure CVD of ZnO resulted in conductivities below 1 mΩ cm for a temperature of 480°C, whereas at a process temperature of 200°C a value of 2 mΩ cm was obtained. Also atmospheric pressure spatial ALD was used to make conductive ZnO. Furthermore, the properties of transparent conductive oxides (TCO) can be enhanced by application of metallic grids. This way, sheet resistances of below 0.1 Ω/sq and transmittances above 85 % can be achieved. Modeling indicates that the performance of thin film cells can be enhanced by18% using a grid/TCO combination. Light scattering is a vital element of thin film solar cells and both texturization and multimaterial approaches for advanced light management such as plasmonics are discussed.
Pulmonary Arterial Compliance in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: Clinical Determinants and Association With Outcome From the Fluid and Catheter Treatment Trial Cohort*

Objectives: Pulmonary vascular dysfunction is associated with adverse prognosis in patients with the acute respiratory distress syndrome; however, the prognostic impact of pulmonary arterial compliance in acute respiratory distress syndrome is not established. Design, Setting, Patients: We performed a retrospective analysis of 363 subjects with acute respiratory distress syndrome who had complete baseline right heart catheterization data from the Fluid and Catheter Treatment Trial to test whether pulmonary arterial compliance at baseline and over the course of treatment predicted mortality. Main Results: Baseline pulmonary arterial compliance (hazard ratio, 1.18 per interquartile range of 1/pulmonary arterial compliance; 95% CI, 1.02–1.37; p = 0.03) and pulmonary vascular resistance (hazard ratio, 1.28 per interquartile range; 95% CI, 1.07–1.53; p = 0.006) both modestly predicted 60-day mortality. Baseline pulmonary arterial compliance remained predictive of mortality when pulmonary vascular resistance was in the normal range (p = 0.02). Between day 0 and day 3, pulmonary arterial compliance increased in acute respiratory distress syndrome survivors and remained unchanged in nonsurvivors, whereas pulmonary vascular resistance did not change in either group. The resistance-compliance product (resistance-compliance time) increased in survivors compared with nonsurvivors, suggesting improvements in right ventricular load. Conclusions: Baseline measures of pulmonary arterial compliance and pulmonary vascular resistance predict mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome, and pulmonary arterial compliance remains predictive even when pulmonary vascular resistance is normal. Pulmonary arterial compliance and right ventricular load improve over time in acute respiratory distress syndrome survivors. Future studies should assess the impact of right ventricular protective acute respiratory distress syndrome treatment on right ventricular afterload and outcome.
Replication Unreliability in Psychology: Elusive Phenomena or “Elusive” Statistical Power?

The focus of this paper is to analyze whether the unreliability of results related to certain controversial psychological phenomena may be a consequence of their low statistical power. Applying the Null Hypothesis Statistical Testing (NHST), still the widest used statistical approach, unreliability derives from the failure to refute the null hypothesis, in particular when exact or quasi-exact replications of experiments are carried out. Taking as example the results of meta-analyses related to four different controversial phenomena, subliminal semantic priming, incubation effect for problem solving, unconscious thought theory, and non-local perception, it was found that, except for semantic priming on categorization, the statistical power to detect the expected effect size (ES) of the typical study, is low or very low. The low power in most studies undermines the use of NHST to study phenomena with moderate or low ESs. We conclude by providing some suggestions on how to increase the statistical power or use different statistical approaches to help discriminate whether the results obtained may or may not be used to support or to refute the reality of a phenomenon with small ES.
A Parallel Network Community Detection Algorithm Based on Distance Dynamics

In recent years, community detection has drawn more and more researchers’ attention. With the development of Internet, the scale of network data is growing fast. It is necessary to find an effective parallel community detection algorithm for large-scale network. In this paper, we propose a novel and parallel community detection algorithm, PCDU algorithm, based on distance dynamics. We send distances information to nodes and update distances of edges constantly, based on previous values and the unified model, which is introduced to quantify different influences from nodes and edges. It ends until the distances are stable. Then we remove some special edges from the original graph and get all subgraphs, which are the community partitions. It still inherits the advantage of uncovering small communities and outliers. Experiments based on synthetic networks and real world networks, show that our algorithm execute more efficient than stand-alone version. Since it is based on the Spark platform and designed in parallelization, the algorithm is very suitable for large datasets. We also provide a novel method taking use of double summation to calculate the NMI value of community partition result and the embedded community structure. Compared with the traditional way, it is not only as accurate as the traditional way and more efficient, but also has less space complexity. Experiments show that it is suitable for evaluating community division results in large-scale network.
Granulation techniques and technologies: recent progresses

Granulation, the process of particle enlargement by agglomeration technique, is one of the most significant unit operations in the production of pharmaceutical dosage forms, mostly tablets and capsules. Granulation process transforms fine powders into free-flowing, dust-free granules that are easy to compress. Nevertheless, granulation poses numerous challenges due to high quality requirement of the formed granules in terms of content uniformity and physicochemical properties such as granule size, bulk density, porosity, hardness, moisture, compressibility, etc. together with physical and chemical stability of the drug. Granulation process can be divided into two types: wet granulation that utilize a liquid in the process and dry granulation that requires no liquid. The type of process selection requires thorough knowledge of physicochemical properties of the drug, excipients, required flow and release properties, to name a few. Among currently available technologies, spray drying, roller compaction, high shear mixing, and fluid bed granulation are worth of note. Like any other scientific field, pharmaceutical granulation technology also continues to change, and arrival of novel and innovative technologies are inevitable. This review focuses on the recent progress in the granulation techniques and technologies such as pneumatic dry granulation, reverse wet granulation, steam granulation, moisture-activated dry granulation, thermal adhesion granulation, freeze granulation, and foamed binder or foam granulation. This review gives an overview of these with a short description about each development along with its significance and limitations.
A survey of tools for analysing DNA fingerprints

DNA fingerprinting is a genetic typing technique that allows the analysis of the genomic relatedness between samples, and the comparison of DNA patterns. This technique has multiple applications in different fields (medical diagnosis, forensic science, parentage testing, food industry, agriculture and many others). An important task in molecular epidemiology of infectious diseases is the analysis and comparison of pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns. This is applied to determine the clonal diversity of bacteria in the follow-up of outbreaks or for tracking specific clones of special relevance. The resulting images produced by DNA fingerprinting are sometimes difficult to interpret, and multiple tools have been developed to simplify this task. In this article, we present a survey of tools for analysing DNA fingerprints. In particular, we compare 33 tools using a set of predefined criteria. The comparison was carried out by hands-on experiences-whenever possible-and inspecting the documentation of the tools. As no system is preferred in all the possible scenarios, we have created a spreadsheet that can be customized by researchers to determine the best system for their needs.
LCR-Net++: Multi-Person 2D and 3D Pose Detection in Natural Images

We propose an end-to-end architecture for joint 2D and 3D human pose estimation in natural images. Key to our approach is the generation and scoring of a number of pose proposals per image, which allows us to predict 2D and 3D poses of multiple people simultaneously. Hence, our approach does not require an approximate localization of the humans for initialization. Our Localization-Classification-Regression architecture, named LCR-Net, contains 3 main components: 1) the pose proposal generator that suggests candidate poses at different locations in the image; 2) a classifier that scores the different pose proposals; and 3) a regressor that refines pose proposals both in 2D and 3D. All three stages share the convolutional feature layers and are trained jointly. The final pose estimation is obtained by integrating over neighboring pose hypotheses, which is shown to improve over a standard non maximum suppression algorithm. Our method recovers full-body 2D and 3D poses, hallucinating plausible body parts when the persons are partially occluded or truncated by the image boundary. Our approach significantly outperforms the state of the art in 3D pose estimation on Human3.6M, a controlled environment. Moreover, it shows promising results on real images for both single and multi-person subsets of the MPII 2D pose benchmark and demonstrates satisfying 3D pose results even for multi-person images.
The Relationship Between Worry and Dimensions of Anxiety Symptoms in Children and Adolescents

Background: Worry is a common feature across many anxiety disorders. It is important to understand how and when worry presents from childhood to adolescence to prevent long-term negative outcomes. However, most of the existing studies that examine the relationship between worry and anxiety disorders utilize adult samples. Aims: The present study aimed to assess the level of worry in children and adolescents and how relationships between worry and symptoms of separation anxiety disorder (SAD) and social anxiety disorder (Soc) may present differently at different ages. Method: 127 children (age 8–12 years) and adolescents (age 13–18 years), diagnosed with any anxiety disorder, presenting at a child anxiety out-patient clinic, completed measures of worry, anxiety and depression. Results: Worry scores did not differ by age group. Soc symptoms were significantly correlated with worry in both age groups; however, SAD symptoms were only significantly correlated with worry in younger participants. After the inclusion of covariates, SAD symptoms but not Soc symptoms remained significant in the regression model with younger children, and Soc symptoms remained significant in the regression model with older children. Conclusions: The finding that worry was comparable in both groups lends support for worry as a stable construct associated with anxiety disorders throughout late childhood and early adolescence.
Cochlear Implants as a Treatment Option for Unilateral Hearing Loss, Severe Tinnitus and Hyperacusis

Tinnitus is an incapacitating condition commonly affecting cochlear implant (CI) candidates. The aim of this clinical study is to assess the long-term effects of CI treatment in patients with severe-to-profound, sensorineural, unilateral hearing loss (UHL) and incapacitating tinnitus. We performed a prospective Cochlear™ company-sponsored multicentre study in five Spanish centres. Sixteen patients with UHL and incapacitating tinnitus, which was indicated by a Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) score >58%, received a Nucleus® CI in their deaf ear. The study design includes repeated within-subject measures on hearing, tinnitus, hyperacusis and quality of life up to 12 months after initial CI fitting. In addition to hearing loss and tinnitus, all patients suffered from hyperacusis. Most patients had a sudden hearing loss and received a CI within 2 years after their hearing loss. Preliminary 6-month, post-CI activation data of 13 subjects showed that the majority of patients perceived a subjective benefit from CI treatment, which was assessed using the THI, a Visual Analogue Scale of tinnitus loudness/annoyance and the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale. Preliminary 12-month data of 7 subjects showed that most patients also perceived a degree of relief from their hyperacusis. One patient showed no improvements in any of the applied scales, which could be explained by partial insertion of the electrode due to obstruction of the cochlea by otosclerosis. In conclusion, CI can successfully be used in the treatment of UHL patients with accompanying severe tinnitus and hyperacusis. Implantation resulted in hearing benefits and a durable relief from tinnitus and hyperacusis in the majority of patients. These findings support the hypothesis that pathophysiological mechanisms after peripheral sensorineural hearing loss are at least partly reversible when hearing is restored with a CI.
The neuroprotective role of melatonin in neurological disorders

Melatonin is a neurohormone secreted from the pineal gland and has a wide‐ranging regulatory and neuroprotective role. It has been reported that melatonin level is disturbed in some neurological conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease, which indicates its involvement in the pathophysiology of these diseases. Its properties qualify it to be a promising potential therapeutic neuroprotective agent, with no side effects, for some neurological disorders. This review discusses and localizes the effect of melatonin in the pathophysiology of some diseases.
Inference of Functionally-Relevant N-acetyltransferase Residues Based on Statistical Correlations

Over evolutionary time, members of a superfamily of homologous proteins sharing a common structural core diverge into subgroups filling various functional niches. At the sequence level, such divergence appears as correlations that arise from residue patterns distinct to each subgroup. Such a superfamily may be viewed as a population of sequences corresponding to a complex, high-dimensional probability distribution. Here we model this distribution as hierarchical interrelated hidden Markov models (hiHMMs), which describe these sequence correlations implicitly. By characterizing such correlations one may hope to obtain information regarding functionally-relevant properties that have thus far evaded detection. To do so, we infer a hiHMM distribution from sequence data using Bayes’ theorem and Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling, which is widely recognized as the most effective approach for characterizing a complex, high dimensional distribution. Other routines then map correlated residue patterns to available structures with a view to hypothesis generation. When applied to N-acetyltransferases, this reveals sequence and structural features indicative of functionally important, yet generally unknown biochemical properties. Even for sets of proteins for which nothing is known beyond unannotated sequences and structures, this can lead to helpful insights. We describe, for example, a putative coenzyme-A-induced-fit substrate binding mechanism mediated by arginine residue switching between salt bridge and π-π stacking interactions. A suite of programs implementing this approach is available (psed.igs.umaryland.edu).
A case-control comparison of direct healthcare-provider medical costs of chronic idiopathic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome with constipation in a community-based cohort

Abstract Objective: Patients with constipation account for 3.1 million US physician visits a year, but care costs for patients with irritable bowel syndrome with constipation (IBS-C) or chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) compared to the general public have received little study. The study aim was to describe healthcare utilization and compare medical costs for patients with IBS-C or CIC vs matched controls from a community-based sample. Methods: A nested case-control sample (IBS-C and CIC cases) and matched controls (1:2) for each case group were selected from Olmsted County, MN, individuals responding to a community-based survey of gastrointestinal symptoms (2008) who received healthcare from a participating Rochester Epidemiology Project (REP) provider. Using REP healthcare utilization data, unadjusted and adjusted standardized costs were compared for the 2- and 10-year periods prior to the survey for 115 IBS-C patients and 230 controls and 365 CIC patients and 730 controls. Two time periods were chosen as these conditions are episodic, but long-term. Results: Outpatient costs for IBS-C ($6,800) and CIC ($6,284) patients over a 2-year period prior to the survey were significantly higher than controls ($4,242 and $5,254, respectively) after adjusting for co-morbidities, age, and sex. IBS-C outpatient costs ($25,448) and emergency room costs ($6,892) were significantly higher than controls ($21,024 and $3,962, respectively) for the 10-year period prior. Unadjusted data analyses of cases compared to controls demonstrated significantly higher imaging costs for IBS-C cases and procedure costs for CIC cases over the 10-year period. Limitations: Data were collected from a random community sample primarily receiving care from a limited number of providers in that area. Conclusions: Patients with IBS-C and CIC had significantly higher outpatient costs for the 2-year period compared with controls. IBS-C patients also had higher ER costs than the general population.
High chronic ambient temperature stress effects on broiler acid-base balance and their response to supplemental ammonium chloride, potassium chloride, and potassium carbonate.

Four experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of heat stress on acid-base status and the birds' response to supplemental KCl and KCO3. The corn-soybean meal fish-meal basal ration (.73% K+) contained more K+ and Cl- than is recommended by the National Academy of Sciences for chicks reared under near optimal conditions (24 C and 55% relative humidity). Chicks reared under continuous thermostress (35 C, 70% relative humidity) exhibited panting phase blood alkalosis (pH of 7.46). Supplementing drinking water with . 2% NH4Cl reduced panting phase blood pH to normal values and increased live weight gain (23%) and feed efficiency (7.7%). Supplementing drinking water with . 15% KCl also increased (P less than .05) live weight gain (46%) and feed efficiency (15.4%) but did not affect (P less than .46) blood pH. A significant (P less than .01) interaction existed between NH4Cl and KCl for body weight gain. Adding . 2% NH4Cl to broiler drinking water reduced the level of KCl required in drinking water to optimize weight gain to . 1% KCl. Potassium chloride alone, or with NH4Cl, can alleviate some consequences of heat stress, but supplementing drinking water with a high level of NH4Cl (.5%) decreased (P less than .05) blood pH to acidotic levels and reduced body weight gain. Potassium chloride supplementation exacerbated NH4Cl toxicity. Potassium carbonate reduced (P less than .05) body weight gain indicating that the response may not be attributed to K+ alone. Beneficial effects of NH4Cl therapy for heat stressed broilers are speculative.
Effects of dietary citrinin and aflatoxin on leg problems of broilers growtn on wire floors.

Dietary levels of citrinin of 62.5, 125 and 500 mug. /g. diet or aflatoxin at a dietary level of 2.5 mug. /g. of diet fed from 1-21 days of age did not inccrease the incidence of leg problems compared to control groups receiving no dietary nycotoxins. These data indicate that dietary contamination with these toxins does not account for the incidence of occasionally observed leg probelms in younger broiler chicks.
Comparative Genomics of Mycoplasma bovis Strains Reveals That Decreased Virulence with Increasing Passages Might Correlate with Potential Virulence-Related Factors

Mycoplasma bovis is an important cause of bovine respiratory disease worldwide. To understand its virulence mechanisms, we sequenced three attenuated M. bovis strains, P115, P150, and P180, which were passaged in vitro 115, 150, and 180 times, respectively, and exhibited progressively decreasing virulence. Comparative genomics was performed among the wild-type M. bovis HB0801 (P1) strain and the P115, P150, and P180 strains, and one 14.2-kb deleted region covering 14 genes was detected in the passaged strains. Additionally, 46 non-sense single-nucleotide polymorphisms and indels were detected, which confirmed that more passages result in more mutations. A subsequent collective bioinformatics analysis of paralogs, metabolic pathways, protein-protein interactions, secretory proteins, functionally conserved domains, and virulence-related factors identified 11 genes that likely contributed to the increased attenuation in the passaged strains. These genes encode ascorbate-specific phosphotransferase system enzyme IIB and IIA components, enolase, L-lactate dehydrogenase, pyruvate kinase, glycerol, and multiple sugar ATP-binding cassette transporters, ATP binding proteins, NADH dehydrogenase, phosphate acetyltransferase, transketolase, and a variable surface protein. Fifteen genes were shown to be enriched in 15 metabolic pathways, and they included the aforementioned genes encoding pyruvate kinase, transketolase, enolase, and L-lactate dehydrogenase. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) production in M. bovis strains representing seven passages from P1 to P180 decreased progressively with increasing numbers of passages and increased attenuation. However, eight mutants specific to eight individual genes within the 14.2-kb deleted region did not exhibit altered H2O2 production. These results enrich the M. bovis genomics database, and they increase our understanding of the mechanisms underlying M. bovis virulence.