Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spectroscopy Using Quantum Logic

We present a general technique for precision spectroscopy of atoms that lack suitable transitions for efficient laser cooling, internal state preparation, and detection. In our implementation with trapped atomic ions, an auxiliary “logic” ion provides sympathetic laser cooling, state initialization, and detection for a simultaneously trapped “spectroscopy” ion. Detection is achieved by applying a mapping operation to each ion, which results in a coherent transfer of the spectroscopy ion's internal state onto the logic ion, where it is then measured with high efficiency. Experimental realization, by using 9Be+ as the logic ion and 27Al+ as the spectroscopy ion, indicates the feasibility of applying this technique to make accurate optical clocks based on single ions.
A phylogenetic estimation of trophic transition networks for ascomycetous fungi: are lichens cradles of symbiotrophic fungal diversification?

Fungi associated with photosynthetic organisms are major determinants of terrestrial biomass, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem productivity from the poles to the equator. Whereas most fungi are known because of their fruit bodies (e.g., saprotrophs), symptoms (e.g., pathogens), or emergent properties as symbionts (e.g., lichens), the majority of fungal diversity is thought to occur among species that rarely manifest their presence with visual cues on their substrate (e.g., the apparently hyperdiverse fungal endophytes associated with foliage of plants). Fungal endophytes are ubiquitous among all lineages of land plants and live within overtly healthy tissues without causing disease, but the evolutionary origins of these highly diverse symbionts have not been explored. Here, we show that a key to understanding both the evolution of endophytism and the diversification of the most species-rich phylum of Fungi (Ascomycota) lies in endophyte-like fungi that can be isolated from the interior of apparently healthy lichens. These "endolichenic" fungi are distinct from lichen mycobionts or any other previously recognized fungal associates of lichens, represent the same major lineages of Ascomycota as do endophytes, largely parallel the high diversity of endophytes from the arctic to the tropics, and preferentially associate with green algal photobionts in lichen thalli. Using phylogenetic analyses that incorporate these newly recovered fungi and ancestral state reconstructions that take into account phylogenetic uncertainty, we show that endolichenism is an incubator for the evolution of endophytism. In turn, endophytism is evolutionarily transient, with endophytic lineages frequently transitioning to and from pathogenicity. Although symbiotrophic lineages frequently give rise to free-living saprotrophs, reversions to symbiosis are rare. Together, these results provide the basis for estimating trophic transition networks in the Ascomycota and provide a first set of hypotheses regarding the evolution of symbiotrophy and saprotrophy in the most species-rich fungal phylum. [Ancestral state reconstruction; Ascomycota; Bayesian analysis; endolichenic fungi; fungal endophytes; lichens; pathogens; phylogeny; saprotrophy; symbiotrophy; trophic transition network. ].
Transcutaneous absorption of topically massaged oil in neonates.

OBJECTIVE To study the transcutaneous absorption of traditionally massaged oil in newborns and to specifically compare the effects of (i) essential fatty acid (EFA) rich - safflower oil and (ii) saturated fat rich coconut oil, on fatty acid profiles of massaged babies. DESIGN A short term randomised controlled study. SETTING Tertiary care NICU of a large teaching hospital and a research laboratory of a University complex. METHODS 120 study babies were randomly assigned to three oil groups (i) safflower oil (n = 40) (ii) coconut oil (n = 40) and (iii) no oil controls (n = 40). In each group, babies were selected in three subsets as per their gestational ages viz (a) less than 34 weeks, (b) 34-37 weeks, (c) greater than 37 weeks. 5 mL of the designated oil was massaged four times a day for five days under controlled conditions of temperature and feeding. Pre and post oil massage samples of blood were analysed for triglycerides and fatty acid profiles using gas chromatography. RESULTS Post oil triglyceride values were significantly raised in both the oil groups and also in controls. However, the quantum of rise was significantly higher in oil groups as compared to controls. Fatty acid profiles (gas chromatography) showed significant rise in EFAs (linolenic acid and arachidonic acid) in safflower oil group and saturated fats in coconut oil group. Changes were more evident in term babies. There were no side effects associated with the massage. CONCLUSIONS This study shows that topically applied oil can be absorbed in neonates and is probably available for nutritional purposes. The fatty acid constituents of the oil can influence the changes in the fatty acid profiles of the massaged babies.
Scale dependent effects of productivity and disturbance on diversity in streams

The effects of productivity and disturbance on diversity vary widely with the spatial scale at which they are examined. Not only do productivity and disturbance have strong influences on diversity patterns at local and regional scales but they can affect the way in which communities assemble and in turn alter beta diversity or community dissimilarity. We assessed whether the form of both the productivityand disturbance-diversity relationships differed between the spatial scale at which they were examined using experimental stream channels in three Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand streams. In place of true local and regional richness, we used the proxies withinand between-stream richness, as well as assessing between-stream community dissimilarity (similar to beta diversity). Our results indicate that productivity and disturbance both affect diversity but at individual scales and in different forms. At the within-stream scale, richness was a u shaped function of productivity whereas at the between-stream scale richness increased monotonically with increasing productivity. Community dissimilarity on the other hand, increased monotonically with increasing rate of disturbance. Rather than a greater role of deterministic assembly with increasing disturbance, our results indicate the opposite, but it appears that communities are simply converging on those found in the surrounding streambed with time since disturbance. Specifically, communities were more similar within individual streams than within disturbance treatments and animals colonizing post-disturbance were simply a subset of taxa present at each site regardless of perceived colonizing ability, rather than a suite of specialist colonizing taxa. These results demonstrate that without a distinction between early and late colonizers, a greater rate of deterministic assembly at high disturbance will not occur.
Charge Variant Analysis of Therapeutic Monoclonal Antibodies Using a pH Gradient Generated by Auto • Blend Plus

IN T RO DU C T IO N Charge-based separation methods play an important role in characterization studies and quality control strategies for biotherapeutics. For the analysis of charged species of antibodies, ion exchange chromatography (IEX) has a widespread use in the biopharmaceutical industry for its ability to resolve species related to protein conformation, size, sequence variants, glycosylation, and post-translational modifications. The capability to perform protein characterization under non-denaturing conditions combined with the ability to isolate charge variants easily has both contributed to the popularity of IEX in charge variant analysis of biotherapeutics.
IPO Pricing with Bookbuilding and a When-Issued Market

Abstract We study IPO pricing in Germany to determine whether when-issued trading provides information that is useful for setting IPO offer prices, and whether such trading supplants bookbuilding as a source of information. We find that when-issued trading reveals relevant information for pricing IPOs, and that, once when-issued trading has begun, bookbuilding is not a source of costly information for pricing. But bookbuilding does not appear to be fully supplanted as a source of pricing information. We find evidence consistent with bookbuilding being used to gather information prior to the onset of when-issued trading.
SES Health Gradients During the Epidemiological Transition: The Case of China

The epidemiological transition, which has already passed the developed world, is still progressing in many developing countries. A particular problem associated with this transition is the under-diagnosis and lack of treatment of chronic diseases, and these may exhibit SES gradients and exacerbate social inequality. Using hypertension as an example and data from China (CHNS), we find that the prevalence of hypertension in China is already close to levels in developed countries, under-diagnosis is pervasive, treatment is rare, and failure to control is widespread. Consistent with the literature, we find no income and education gradients in the prevalence of hypertension. However, there are strong education gradients in diagnosis and treatment in urban areas. The income gradients in all aspects of hypertension are relatively weak and sometimes nonexistent. Interestingly, we find that access to health care does not contribute to the diagnosis of hypertension, nor does it aid much in the treatment and control of hypertension. Our results suggest that the epidemiological transition has indeed occurred, but both the Chinese public and its health care system are ill-prepared. There is an urgent need to educate the public on chronic illnesses, and to raise the quality of health care so that patients receive proper diagnoses and guidance on how to treat and control those chronic illnesses.
E-village: a virtual solution for real relationships

Demographic change and ageing of the population is one of the socioeconomic challenges European societies have to face in the 21 st century. Loneliness and fear are common among elderly people. Both variables seem to be related to each other and were both found to be "threats" to a good life in old age. The automation of a domotic house shouldn't risk to take away the few social contacts an old user still has with human beings. This paper proposes a network architecture oriented to improve the quality of life of elderly people and their caregivers. The final goal is facilitating an independent and not isolated social life, inside one's home as long as possible . Contextually this architecture tries to facilitate the job of the caregivers allowing the communication with the elders and supplying the attendance with a smaller workload. A Virtual Call Centre (VC2) and a Village Network can give human support helpful for both user and caregiver.
Classification of Topic Evolutions in Scientific Conferences

Abstract—The number of scientific publications have been increasing explosively in recent years. Although scholar searching engines and recommendation systems help to find relevant papers, neither of them can build overviews of a certain scientific conference, which is more meaningful and important for researchers to keep up with academic trends. In this paper, we propose the concepts of topic trend and positive topic trend, and then declare the formal and quantitative definitions of topic categories, including hot topic, sunrise topic, sunset topic and emerging topic. We design an LDA-based framework to classify research topics of papers in a scientific conference into topic categories. Experiments are then constructed to study the best parameters for detecting different topic categories.
Quality of life among Swedish patients after stroke: psychometric evaluation of SF-36.

OBJECTIVE Few studies have evaluated the scale assumptions of the Medical Outcomes Study 36-item Short-Form (SF-36) with stroke survivors. The aims of this study were to evaluate the scale assumptions of SF-36 using Swedish patients after stroke and to compare patients' quality of life with that of a healthy population. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SUBJECTS SF-36 was tested in 188 patients (mean age 74 years) with acute stroke consecutively enrolled from a stroke unit in southern Sweden during 2003-05. METHODS Data were collected by interview during a home visit 2-3 weeks after discharge. Psychometric analyses were conducted, and stroke survivors' quality of life was compared with a Swedish normal population. RESULTS The internal consistency reliability was >0.70 for all scales. There were notable floor and/or ceiling effects for 3 scales. For 7 scales, there was the expected association with the 2 summary scales. Compared with a normal Swedish population, stroke has a negative effect on health-related quality of life, especially for patients aged 45-54 years. CONCLUSION SF-36 functions well as a measure of health-related quality of life in Swedish patients after stroke, but the 2 summary scales have shortcomings. Our findings support good divergent validity of SF-36 for discriminating health-related quality of life of stroke groups and normal populations.
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences Introducing a Rainfall Compound Distribution Model Based on Weather Patterns Sub-sampling

This paper presents a probabilistic model for daily rainfall, using sub-sampling based on meteorological circulation. We classified eight typical but contrasted synoptic situations (weather patterns) for France and surrounding areas , using a " bottom-up " approach, i.e. from the shape of the rain field to the synoptic situations described by geopotential fields. These weather patterns (WP) provide a discriminating variable that is consistent with French climatology, and allows seasonal rainfall records to be split into more homogeneous sub-samples, in term of meteorological genesis. First results show how the combination of seasonal and WP sub-sampling strongly influences the identification of the asymptotic behaviour of rainfall probabilistic models. Furthermore , with this level of stratification, an asymptotic exponential behaviour of each sub-sample appears as a reasonable hypothesis. This first part is illustrated with two daily rainfall records from SE of France. The distribution of the multi-exponential weather patterns (MEWP) is then defined as the composition, for a given season , of all WP sub-sample marginal distributions, weighted by the relative frequency of occurrence of each WP. This model is finally compared to Exponential and Generalized Pareto distributions, showing good features in terms of ro-bustness and accuracy. These final statistical results are computed from a wide dataset of 478 rainfall chronicles spread on the southern half of France. All these data cover the 1953– 2005 period.
Interspecies comparison of probiotics isolated from different animals

Aim: The aim of the current study was to isolate and identify naturally occurring probiotic Lactobacillus species in different animals with the different environmental background including fish, and farm animals to investigate interspecies differences in probiotics on the species level. Materials and Methods: A total of 44 fecal and milk samples were collected under aseptic conditions from cattle, buffalo, camel, sheep, goats, and fish. The samples were cultured, and the isolated strains were confirmed biochemically and molecularly using 16S rRNA multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis following DNA extraction from the bacterial isolates. Results: A total of 31 isolates identified as lactobacilli were isolated from cattle milk, goat feces, sheep feces, fish feces, buffalo milk, camel milk, and goats’ milk. Lactobacillus species were identified based on the size of the PCR product. The results showed that different species were different in their lactobacilli content. At the same time, there were some differences between individuals of the same species. Conclusion: The diversity of probiotic strains isolated from different animal species implies different types of benefits to the host. Although it would be both money - and time-consuming research, discovering the benefit of each of these strains may provide very important information for the health of both human and animal. Furthermore, transferring these beneficial effects either to individuals within the same species or between different species would be of great importance.
Loss of Actin-Based Motility Impairs Ectromelia Virus Release In Vitro but Is Not Critical to Spread In Vivo

Ectromelia virus (ECTV) is an orthopoxvirus and the causative agent of mousepox. Like other poxviruses such as variola virus (agent of smallpox), monkeypox virus and vaccinia virus (the live vaccine for smallpox), ECTV promotes actin-nucleation at the surface of infected cells during virus release. Homologs of the viral protein A36 mediate this function through phosphorylation of one or two tyrosine residues that ultimately recruit the cellular Arp2/3 actin-nucleating complex. A36 also functions in the intracellular trafficking of virus mediated by kinesin-1. Here, we describe the generation of a recombinant ECTV that is specifically disrupted in actin-based motility allowing us to examine the role of this transport step in vivo for the first time. We show that actin-based motility has a critical role in promoting the release of virus from infected cells in vitro but plays a minor role in virus spread in vivo. It is likely that loss of microtubule-dependent transport is a major factor for the attenuation observed when A36R is deleted.
B-Tree Algorithm Complexity Analysis to Evaluate the Feasibility of its Application in the University Course Timetabling Problem

This paper presents a comparative analysis of complexity between the B-TREE and the Binary Search Algorithms, both theoretically and experimentally, to evaluate their efficiency in finding overlap of classes for students and teachers in the University Course Timetabling Problem (UCTP). According to the theory, B-TREE Search complexity is lower than Binary Search. The performed experimental tests showed the B-TREE Search Algorithm is more efficient than Binary Search, but only using a dataset larger than 75 students per classroom.
Multi-agent Event Detection: Localization and Role Assignment

We present a joint estimation technique of event localization and role assignment when the target video event is described by a scenario. Specifically, to detect multi-agent events from video, our algorithm identifies agents involved in an event and assigns roles to the participating agents. Instead of iterating through all possible agent-role combinations, we formulate the joint optimization problem as two efficient sub problems-quadratic programming for role assignment followed by linear programming for event localization. Additionally, we reduce the computational complexity significantly by applying role-specific event detectors to each agent independently. We test the performance of our algorithm in natural videos, which contain multiple target events and nonparticipating agents.
Antibacterial and Catalytic Efficacy of Biosynthesized Silver Nanoparticles Using Marine Seaweed Padina Tetrasromatica

Utilization of renewable marine resources for the biosynthesis of metal nanoparticles is an innovative area in the current nanotechnology research. The present article reports a simple environmentally benign method for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles using aqueous extract of marine brown seaweed Padina Tetrastromatica, which act as both the reducing and stabilising agent. The formation, morphology and crystalline nature of the synthesised silver nanoparticles were determined using UVVisible Spectroscopy, Transmission electron microscopy, Selected area electron diffraction and X-ray diffraction techniques. The surface plasmon resonance peak at 424 nm in the UV-Visible spectrum confirmed the formation of silver nanoparticles. The biosynthesised silver nanoparticles were almost spherical with an average size of 15 nm. Crystalline nature of silver nanoparticles is evident from the characteristic peaks in the X-ray diffraction pattern, bright circular spots in the selected area electron diffraction pattern and clear lattice fringes in the High resolution Transmission electron microscopy images. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic analysis revealed the presence of functional bio active metabolites in seaweed extract which is responsible for the formation and efficient stabilization of the nanoparticles. The biosynthesised silver nanoparticles show excellent antimicrobial activity against Escherichia coli and Aeromonas hydrophila. They also show very good catalytic activity for the reduction of methylene blue in the presence of NaBH4 in aqueous medium. Thus the green synthesised nanoparticles are expected to be a promising candidate for the application in diverse fields.
MERGE AGENT MEMORIES Merge All Memories Categorize Memories Pair Start And End Events Estimate Missing Memories NARRATIVE VALIDATION Calculate Start State Check Narrative Consistency NARRATIVE EXPLORATION Find Plans For Inconsistency For Each Inconsistency BEHAVIOR

Just as completed jigsaw puzzles are the product of the correct union of its pieces, stories are the result of the organized assembly of the experiences of its participants. This paper introduces a novel approach to reconstruct and generate complete narratives, from the analysis and processing of the memories and experiences of its participating actors. We propose a framework capable of representing and persisting each virtual agent’s perceptive memories and experiences. For each agent, said information is expressed as a collection of behaviors, interactions, and perceived events. Once collected, each agent’s memory is treated as a partial narrative. The architecture employs novel merging, validation, and extrapolation mechanisms to generate coherent and complete narratives as the product of the organized intersection of the partial narratives. In addition, alternative narratives can be generated by altering past behaviors and events and constraints. We demonstrate the efficacy of this implementation by constructing consistent narratives based on the extrapolation of data generated from running pre-scripted virtual simulations. It is worth noting that despite of the fact that we test the system in a controlled environment, the former does not have access to any information besides its main expected input, the participants memories.
Effectiveness of E-Self-help Interventions for Curbing Adult Problem Drinking: A Meta-analysis

Background Self-help interventions without professional contact to curb adult problem drinking in the community are increasingly being delivered via the Internet. Objective The objective of this meta-analysis was to assess the overall effectiveness of these eHealth interventions. Methods In all, 9 randomized controlled trials (RCTs), all from high-income countries, with 9 comparison conditions and a total of 1553 participants, were identified, and their combined effectiveness in reducing alcohol consumption was evaluated by means of a meta-analysis. Results An overall medium effect size (g = 0.44, 95% CI 0.17-0.71, random effect model) was found for the 9 studies, all of which compared no-contact interventions to control conditions. The medium effect was maintained (g = 0.39; 95% CI 0.23-0.57, random effect model) after exclusion of two outliers. Type of control group, treatment location, type of analysis, and sample size did not have differential impacts on treatment outcome. A significant difference (P = .04) emerged between single-session personalized normative feedback interventions (g = 0.27, 95% CI 0.11-0.43) and more extended e- self-help (g = 0.61, 95% CI 0.33-0.90). Conclusion E-self-help interventions without professional contact are effective in curbing adult problem drinking in high-income countries. In view of the easy scalability and low dissemination costs of such interventions, we recommend exploration of whether these could broaden the scope of effective public health interventions in low- and middle-income countries as well.