Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An overview of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP)

The Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP) was designed to determine robust climate system model responses to solar geoengineering. GeoMIP currently consists of four standardized simulations involving reduction of insolation or increased amounts of stratospheric sulfate aerosols. Three more experiments involving marine cloud brightening are planned. This project has improved confidence in the expected climate effects of geoengineering in several key areas, such as the effects of geoengineering on spatial patterns of temperature and the spatial distribution of precipitation, especially extreme precipitation events. However, GeoMIP has also highlighted several important research gaps, such as the effects on terrestrial net primary productivity and the importance of the CO2 physiological effect in determining the hydrologic cycle response to geoengineering. Future efforts will endeavor to address these gaps, as well as encourage cooperation with the chemistry modeling communities, the impact assessment communities, and other groups interested in model output.
Predator preference for brightly colored males in the guppy: a viability cost for a sexually selected trait

Although conspicuous visual sexual signals, such as bright colors, in males serve to attract females in numerous species, they may also attract the attention of potential predators and thus may be costly in terms of increasing individual risk of mortality to predation. Most models of the evolution of extravagant male sexual traits and female preferences for them assume that the sexually preferred male trait is costly to produce and maintain. However, there is surprisingly little empirical evidence for direct fitness costs associated with sexually selected visual traits that enhance male mating success. In the present study, we report a direct fitness cost for sexually selected, bright body-color patterns in males in the form of an associated greater risk of mortality to predation. By using the guppy (Poecilia reticulata) and the blue acara cichlid fish (Aequidens pulcher) as a model prey--predator system, we demonstrate experimentally that individual cichlids preferentially and consistently approached, attacked, and captured the more brightly colored of two size-matched male guppies presented simultaneously in staged encounters. This resulted in the brightly colored male incurring, on average, a significantly higher risk of mortality given an encounter with the predator than with the drabber male in matched pairs. Our results constitute strong behavioral evidence for a direct viability cost associated with bright coloration in male guppies, and they corroborate the generally accepted paradigm that directional predation by visual fish predators against brightly colored, adult male guppies underlies the evolution of the known divergent color patterns in natural guppy populations that experience different intensities of predation. The viability cost associated with bright conspicuous coloration in male guppies potentially reinforces for females the reliability of this sexually selected trait as an indicator trait of male quality. Copyright 2003.
Distinctive effects of G-CSF, GM-CSF and TNFalpha on neutrophil apoptosis in systemic lupus erythematosus.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the influence of culture with G-CSF GM-CSF and TNFalpha on neutrophil apoptosis, comparing neutrophils from SLE patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and healthy control subjects. METHODS Neutrophils were isolated from SLE (n= 10), RA (n= 10) and healthy control subjects (n= 10), and cultured with two different concentrations of G-CSF, GM-CSF and TNFalpha. Proportion of apoptotic neutrophils at T=0, T=2hrs and T=24hrs was measured using FITC-labelled annexinV and flow cytometry. RESULTS Significantly more neutrophils were apoptotic at T=0 in the SLE subjects than in the other groups (median, range--Control 3.5% (0.3-7.9) SLE 9.5% (2.9-29.1) RA 3.0% (0.4-23.0) p<0.05). Following culture for 24 hours with 1ng/ml G-CSF the proportion of apoptotic neutrophils from SLE subjects was significantly increased (median, range = 51.6% (27.0-84.0) without G-CSF v 66.8% (31.8-89.2) with G-CSF p<0.05). This was not observed with RA or control subjects, in whom the trend was towards inhibition of apoptosis. Similar trends were seen with GM-CSF There was significant induction of apoptosis in SLE neutrophils after 2 hr culture with 1ng/ml TNFalpha (median, range = 2.3% (0.1-8.0) without TNFalpha v 5.2% (1.0-22.4) with TNFalpha). No significant change was seen in the other groups. There was an inverse correlation between total neutrophil count and the degree of induction of apoptosis by G-CSF and GM-CSF, determined at a range of time-points and cytokine concentrations CONCLUSIONS Neutrophils from SLE patients display resistance to the apoptosis-inhibiting effects of G-CSF and possibly GM-CSF, and appear more susceptible to the apoptosis-inducing action of TNFalpha, the greatest resistance being observed in the more neutropenic patients.
Education under China’s Market Economy: A Case Study of Urban and Rural Teachers in Hunan Province

The purpose of this article is to investigate the working and living conditions of teachers under China’s market economy, with a focus on urban and rural schools disparities. This paper is a case study of teachers in Hunan province, representing Central China. A total of eighteen teachers in seven different schools participated in the study. The analysis of data shows that teachers experience change of teaching as reflected in the shift to learnercentred approaches, as well as changes of curriculum, textbooks and teacher evaluation. Under a market economy, the Chinese educational system still possesses urban rural inequalities, for the same or different reasons. The urban rural gap is reflected in teachers’ salary, pensions, workload as well as their living working conditions. Resume L’objectif principal de cet article est d’etudier les conditions de vie et de travail des professeurs chinois sous l’ere de l’economie de marche, et plus specifiquement, d’etudier les ecoles urbaines et rurales. Cet article est une etude de cas de professeurs de la province de Hunan, en Chine centrale. Dix huit professeurs issus de sept ecoles differentes ont participe a cette etude. Les resultats montrent que les professeurs ressentent des changements lies aux nouvelles approches pedagogiques orientees vers les apprenants, aux changements de curriculum, de livres, ainsi que des changements lies a l’evaluation des professeurs. Sous l’ere de l’economie de marche, le systeme d’education chinois montre toujours des inegalites entre le monde rural et le monde urbain. Les raisons peuvent etre les memes ou peuvent etre differentes. Les inegalites entre rural et urbain s’observent surtout au niveau des salaires, de la retraite, de la quantite de travail ainsi qu’au niveau des conditions de vie et de travail. Introduction Urban and rural disparity in China has long been a topic of interest among Western and Chinese scholars. An earlier study (Knight & Shi, 1996), published in the UK, has demonstrated that rural urban differences are reflected in funding, ethnic and gender discrimination, among other issues. Rural schools, compared to their urban counterparts, have significantly less funding as well as more decentralized funding. More recent research (Wu, 2007; Yang, 2006) published in China has pointed to similar urban rural inequalities such as funding, resources, and average years of education. However, China has experienced drastic changes in the last three decades. Data from 1978-2001 indicated that the rural net income per capita
Online force control of a shape-memory-alloy-based 2 degree-of-freedom human finger via inverse model and proportional–integral–derivative compensator

In this work, a model-based controller is developed to track the force at fingertip of an artificial hand. To do so, shape-memory-alloy wires are implemented as an actuator in the finger. Besides, different aspects of modeling, including force relations, kinematics, and heat transfer analysis, are investigated. A modified version of Brinson’s model is used to capture thermomechanical behavior of shape-memory-alloy wires. A controller is designed to control the applied potential difference between shape-memory-alloy wires and consequently control the electrical current in these wires based on the shape-memory-alloy wires model. The main goal of the proposed controller is force controlling of a 2-degree-of-freedom hand finger. This controller contains shape-memory-alloy constitutive model used for compensating system uncertainties. Furthermore, a proportional–integral–derivative controller/compensator is included in the closed-loop system. The compensator acts only on the derivative-type states, and this is one of the differences of this work compared to that of similar literature. The results of three arbitrary reference input signals are reported confirming the model prediction and simulation results are in good agreement with experimental tests. The analysis of the relative tracking error for an arbitrary reference signal is 11% in experimental test and 4% in the simulation.
A Tool to Detect Performance Problems of Multi-threaded Programs on NUMA Systems

The multi-core architectures are nowadays characterized by Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA). Efficiently exploiting such architectures is extremely complicated for programmers. Multi-threaded programs may encounter high memory access latency if the mapping of data and computing is not considered carefully on such systems. Programmers need tools to detect performance problems if high memory access latency occurs. To address this need, we present a profiling tool called LaProf, which uses memory access latency information to detect performance problems on NUMA systems. This tool can be used to detect three performance problems of multi-threaded programs, which are: 1) data sharing. Shared data will cause remote memory access if threads which access the shared data are not allocated on the same node of NUMA systems, 2) shared resource contention. High memory access latency will influence the performance severely if contention happens on shared resources, such as last-level caches, inter-connect links and memory controllers, 3) remote access imbalance. The thread which has the most number of remote data access becomes the critical thread which lags down the overall performance of multi-threaded program. After the detection done by LaProf, using simple and general NUMA optimization techniques, the performance improvement for each problem is 88%, 32%, 99% respectively.
Hepatic Encephalopathy: From the Pathogenesis to the New Treatments

Hepatic encephalopathy is a frequent and serious complication of liver cirrhosis; the pathophysiology of this complication is not fully understood although great efforts have been made during the last years. There are few prospective studies on the epidemiology of this complication; however, it is known that it confers with high short-term mortality. Hepatic encephalopathy has been classified into different groups depending on the degree of hepatic dysfunction, the presence of portal-systemic shunts, and the number of episodes. Due to the large clinical spectra of overt EH and the complexity of cirrhotic patients, it is very difficult to perform quality clinical trials for assessing the efficacy of the treatments proposed. The physiopathology, clinical manifestation, and the treatment of HE is a challenge because of the multiple factors that converge and coexist in an episode of overt HE.
Auditory Verbal Hallucinations in Persons With and Without a Need for Care

Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) are complex experiences that occur in the context of various clinical disorders. AVH also occur in individuals from the general population who have no identifiable psychiatric or neurological diagnoses. This article reviews research on AVH in nonclinical individuals and provides a cross-disciplinary view of the clinical relevance of these experiences in defining the risk of mental illness and need for care. Prevalence rates of AVH vary according to measurement tool and indicate a continuum of experience in the general population. Cross-sectional comparisons of individuals with AVH with and without need for care reveal similarities in phenomenology and some underlying mechanisms but also highlight key differences in emotional valence of AVH, appraisals, and behavioral response. Longitudinal studies suggest that AVH are an antecedent of clinical disorders when combined with negative emotional states, specific cognitive difficulties and poor coping, plus family history of psychosis, and environmental exposures such as childhood adversity. However, their predictive value for specific psychiatric disorders is not entirely clear. The theoretical and clinical implications of the reviewed findings are discussed, together with directions for future research.
Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism Effects of Lactacidosis on Glial Cell Volume and Viability

Effects of severe lactacidosis were analyzed in vitro by employment of C6 glioma cells and astrocytes from primary culture. The cells were suspended in a physiological medium, which was rendered acidotic by addition of lactic acid in rising concentrations. A pH range of 7.4-4.2 was studied under maintenance of isoto­ nicity and a normal electrolyte concentration of the me­ dium. Cell swelling was quantified by flow cytometry us­ ing an advanced Coulter system with hydrodynamic fo­ cusing. The method was also utilized for assessment of cell viability by exclusion of the fluorescent dye propid­ ium iodide. The volume of C6 glioma cells was found to increase if the pH was titrated to pH 6.8 or below. From this level downward, the extent of cell swelling depended on the degree of acidosis and the duration of exposure. For example, lactacidosis of pH 6.2 for 60 min led to an increase in cell size to 124.5% of normal, while pH 5.0 or 4.2 led to a cell size of 151.1 or 190.9%, respectively. A comparative analysis of the acidosis-induced cell swelling was made by using sulfuric acid. Swelling of C6 glioma at a given pH was only half of what was found when using lactic acid. This indicates specific swelling-inducing prop­ erties of lactic acid, while cell viability was not differently affected by both acids. Of the C6 glioma cells, 89.1 % were viable under control conditions at pH 7.4. The via­ bility remained unchanged down to pH 6.2. At pH 5.6, viability remained normal for 30 min, but it decreased to 73.4% after 60 min. Further lowering of pH to 5.0 or 4.6 respectively, decreased the number of viable cells to 47.8 Cerebral ischemia, seizures, and severe head in­ jury are associated with an enhancement of anaer­ obic metabolism resulting in intra-and extracellular lactacidosis (Siesj6, 198 1, 1988). Lactacidosis may be involved in the formation of cytotoxic brain edema and irreversible damage of nerve and glial 866 or 40.3%. At pH 4.2 only 21.1% of the cells were surviv­ ing 1 h of lactacidosis. Cell swelling from lactacidosis could be largely inhibited by replacement of Na + and bicarbonate ions in the medium by choline chloride and N-2-hydroxyethylpiperazine-N'-2-ethanesulfonic acid buffer, suggesting an involvement of the N a + IH + and CI-/HC03-antiporters in the swelling process. Omis­ sion of Na + and bicarbonate was, however, associated with reduced viability of the …
The N-Best Algorithm: Efficient Procedure for Finding Top N Sentence Hypotheses

In this paper we introduce a new search algorithm that provides a simple, clean, and efficient interface between the speech and natural language components of a spoken language system. The N-Best algorithm is a time-synchronous Viterbi-style beam search algorithm that can be made to find the most likely N whole sentence alternatives that are within a given a "beam" of the most likely sentence. The algorithm can be shown to be exact under some reasonable constraints. That is, it guarantees that the answers it finds are, in fact, the most likely sentence hypotheses. The computation is linear with the length of the utterance, and faster than linear in N. When used together with a first-order statistical grammar, the correct sentence is usually within the first few sentence choices. The output of the algorithm, which is an ordered set of sentence hypotheses with acoustic and language model scores can easily be processed by natural language knowledge sources. Thus, this method of integrating speech recognition and natural language avoids the huge expansion of the search space that would be needed to include all possible knowledge sources in a top-down search. The algorithm has also been used to generate alternative sentence hypotheses for discriminative training. Finally, the alternative sentences generated are useful for testing overgeneration of syntax and semantics.
Physiological properties of neurons in the optic layer of the rat's superior colliculus.

We made intracellular recordings from 74 neurons in the optic layer of the rat superior colliculus (SC). Resting membrane potentials were -62.3 +/- 6.2 (SD) mV, and input resistances were 37.9 +/- 10.1 MOmega. Optic layer neurons had large sodium spikes (74.2 +/- 12.3 mV) with an overshoot of 12 mV and a half-amplitude duration of 0.75 +/- 0.2 ms. Each sodium spike was followed by two afterhyperpolarizations (AHPs), one of short duration and one of longer duration, which were mediated by tetraethylammonium (TEA)-sensitive (IC) or apamin-sensitive (IAHP) calcium-activated potassium currents, respectively. Sodium spikes were also followed by an afterdepolarization (ADP), which was only revealed when the AHPs were blocked by TEA or apamin. In response to hyperpolarizing current pulses, optic layer neurons showed an inward rectification mediated by H channels. At the break of the current pulse, there was a rebound low-threshold spike (LTS) with a short duration of <25 ms. The LTS usually induced two sodium spikes (doublet). Most optic layer neurons (84%) behaved as intrinsically bursting cells. They responded to suprathreshold depolarization with an initial burst (or doublet) followed by a train of regular single spikes. The remaining 16% of cells acted as chattering cells with high-frequency gamma (20-80 Hz) rhythmic burst firing within a narrow range of depolarized potentials. The interburst frequency was voltage dependent and also time dependent, i.e., showed frequency adaptation. Unmasking the ADP with either TEA or apamin converted all of the tested intrinsically bursting cells into chattering cells, indicating that the ADP played a crucial role in the generation of rhythmic burst firing. Optic layer neurons receive direct retinal excitation mediated by both N-methyl--aspartate (NMDA) and non-NMDA receptors. Optic tract (OT) stimulation also led to gamma-aminobutyric acid-A (GABAA) receptor-mediated inhibition, the main effect of which was to curtail the excitatory response to retinal inputs by shunting the excitatory postsynaptic current. Intracellular staining with biocytin showed that the optic layer neurons that we recorded from were mostly either wide-field vertical neurons or other cells with predominately superficially projecting dendrites. These cells were similar to calbindin immunoreactive cells seen in the optic layer. The characteristics of these optic layer neurons, such as prominent AHPs, strong shunting effect of inhibition, and short-lasting LTS, suggest that they respond transiently to retinal inputs. This is consistent with a function for these cells as the first relay station in the extrageniculate visual pathway.
Modes de lancement de nouveaux produits et performance. Le cas de l'industrie de la construction aéronautique (1944-2000)

L'objectif de cette recherche est d'examiner l'influence des formes organisationnelles utilisees par les entreprises sur leur capacite a prosperer durablement sur un secteur d'activite donne. En particulier, nous etudions si lancer des produits par l'intermediaire de developpements internes, d'alliances ou d'accords de licence influence la capacite des entreprises a obtenir des moyens permettant d'occuper durablement une position concurrentielle solide dans un secteur d'activite donne. Nous avons alors mobilise la theorie de la ressource (Penrose, 1959), la theorie evolutionniste (Nelson et Winter, 1982) et l'approche par les competences dynamiques (Teece, Pisano et Shuen, 1997) pour formuler plusieurs series d'hypotheses, portant d'une part sur les determinants des modes de lancement de produits et d'autre part sur les consequences de ces choix de mode d'expansion sur la position concurrentielle des entreprises. En analysant 437 lancements de modeles d'avion realises depuis 1944, nous avons verifie que les modes de lancement de produits utilises par les entreprises ont une influence significative et durable sur leur capacite a obtenir les moyens permettant d'occuper une position concurrentielle solide dans un secteur d activite donne. Le developpement interne semble ainsi etre le mode le plus efficace pour prosperer durablement. Toutefois, a la difference des accords de licence, les alliances semblent parfois permettre de concurrencer les entreprises qui n'ont pas besoin de recourir a des apports externes. Il faut toutefois parvenir a utiliser le developpement interne le plus tot possible, ce qui ne peut se faire qu'a un certain prix et dans des conditions precises.
Evolution of muscle phenotype for extreme high altitude flight in the bar-headed goose

Bar-headed geese migrate over the Himalayas at up to 9000 m elevation, but it is unclear how they sustain the high metabolic rates needed for flight in the severe hypoxia at these altitudes. To better understand the basis for this physiological feat, we compared the flight muscle phenotype of bar-headed geese with that of low altitude birds (barnacle geese, pink-footed geese, greylag geese and mallard ducks). Bar-headed goose muscle had a higher proportion of oxidative fibres. This increased muscle aerobic capacity, because the mitochondrial volume densities of each fibre type were similar between species. However, bar-headed geese had more capillaries per muscle fibre than expected from this increase in aerobic capacity, as well as higher capillary densities and more homogeneous capillary spacing. Their mitochondria were also redistributed towards the subsarcolemma (cell membrane) and adjacent to capillaries. These alterations should improve O2 diffusion capacity from the blood and reduce intracellular O2 diffusion distances, respectively. The unique differences in bar-headed geese were much greater than the minor variation between low altitude species and existed without prior exercise or hypoxia exposure, and the correlation of these traits to flight altitude was independent of phylogeny. In contrast, isolated mitochondria had similar respiratory capacities, O2 kinetics and phosphorylation efficiencies across species. Bar-headed geese have therefore evolved for exercise in hypoxia by enhancing the O2 supply to flight muscle.
Histopathology and evaluation of potentiation of morphine‐induced antinociception by intrathecal droperidol in the rat

Clinical studies have indicated that a low dos of the dopamine DP‐receptor antagonistdroperidol given epidurally potentiate the antinociceptive effect of epidural morphine. The present study was conducted in order to evaluate this drug interaction in a rat model. Rats were given morphine and droperidol intrathecally in several combinations of doses. It was found that droperidol had no antinociceptive effect by itself, nor in combination with morphine. It was also shown that droperidol and morphine exert no histopathological