Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Scattering Properties of Atmospheric Aerosols over Lanzhou City and Applications Using an Integrating Nephelometer

The data, measured by a three-wavelength Integrating Nephelometer over Lanzhou City during the winters of 2001/2002 and 2002/2003 respectively, have been analyzed for investigating the scattering properties of atmospheric aerosols and exploring their relationship and the status of air pollution. The aerosol particle volume distribution is inverted with the measured spectral scattering coefficients. The results show that the daily variation of the aerosol scattering coefficients is in a tri-peak shape. The average ratio of backscattering coefficient to total scattering coefficient at 550 nm is 0.158; there exists an excellent correlation between the scattering coefficients and the concentration of PM10. The average ratio of the concentration of PM10 to the scattering coefficients is 0.37 g m-2, which is contingent on the optical parameters of aerosol particles such as the size distribution, etc.; an algorithm is developed for inverting the volume distribution of aerosol particles by using the histogram and Monte-Carlo techniques, and the test results show that the inversion is reasonable.
Using FORMOSAT-2 Satellite Data to Estimate Leaf Area Index of Rice Crop

Estimation of plant growth over a large paddy field provides the needed information for site-specific management of crop including rice. With the estimated leaf area index (LAI) as input, growth status of rice crop may be evaluated and yield production at harvest may be assessed through functioning algorithms. This study measured the near-ground hyperspectral reflectance of rice canopy periodically on the dates of plant samplings during crop development, and then established the relationship between LAI(subscript measured) (i.e. the measured LAI) and NDVI(subscript NB) (i.e. normalized difference vegetation index calculated from narrowbands of hyperspectral reflectance) from the collected data. Rice plants of different planting densities, in the range of 0.28-2.78×10^5 hills ha^(-1), were grown in the field to produce varied values (m^2 m^(-2)) of LAI along plant growth for such purpose in the first and the second cropping seasons of 2006. A total of thirty-six multi-spectral images of the study area taken by Formosat-2 satellite on days of ground samplings were also acquired to calculate the broadband values of NDVI (NDVI(subscript BB)) and input to the LAI(subscript measured)-NDVI(subscript NB) relationship to obtain the estimated LAI (LAI(subscript BB)). Results indicate that the high-temporal and high-spatial-resolution images of Formosat-2 satellite are good source for monitoring plant growth of rice crop by providing reasonable estimated values of LAI. Such a capability of Formosat-2 spectral images enables their applicability in areas of precision farming.
Resolving conflict in eutherian mammal phylogeny using phylogenomics and the multispecies coalescent model

The reconstruction of the Tree of Life has relied almost entirely on concatenation methods, which do not accommodate gene tree heterogeneity, a property that simulations and theory have identified as a likely cause of incongruent phylogenies. However, this incongruence has not yet been demonstrated in empirical studies. Several key relationships among eutherian mammals remain controversial and conflicting among previous studies, including the root of eutherian tree and the relationships within Euarchontoglires and Laurasiatheria. Both Bayesian and maximum-likelihood analysis of genome-wide data of 447 nuclear genes from 37 species show that concatenation methods indeed yield strong incongruence in the phylogeny of eutherian mammals, as revealed by subsampling analyses of loci and taxa, which produced strongly conflicting topologies. In contrast, the coalescent methods, which accommodate gene tree heterogeneity, yield a phylogeny that is robust to variable gene and taxon sampling and is congruent with geographic data. The data also demonstrate that incomplete lineage sorting, a major source of gene tree heterogeneity, is relevant to deep-level phylogenies, such as those among eutherian mammals. Our results firmly place the eutherian root between Atlantogenata and Boreoeutheria and support ungulate polyphyly and a sister-group relationship between Scandentia and Primates. This study demonstrates that the incongruence introduced by concatenation methods is a major cause of long-standing uncertainty in the phylogeny of eutherian mammals, and the same may apply to other clades. Our analyses suggest that such incongruence can be resolved using phylogenomic data and coalescent methods that deal explicitly with gene tree heterogeneity.
OI-RAID: A Two-Layer RAID Architecture towards Fast Recovery and High Reliability

A lot of inexpensive disks in modern storage systems induce frequent disk failures. It takes a long time to recover a failed disk due to its large capacity and limited I/O. This paper proposes a hierarchical architecture of erasure code, OI-RAID. OI-RAID consists of two layers of codes, outer layer code and inner layer code. The outer layer code is based on disk grouping and Balanced Incomplete Block Design (BIBD) with skewed data layout to provide efficient parallel I/O of all disks for failure recovery. Inner layer code is deployed within a group of disks. As an example, we deploy RAID5 in both layers and present detailed performance analysis. With RAID5 in both layers, OI-RAID tolerates at least three disk failures meeting practical data availability, and achieves much higher speed up of disk failure recovery than existing approaches, while keeping optimal data update complexity and practically low storage overhead.
Temporal and Spatial Diversity of Bacterial Communities in Coastal Waters of the South China Sea

Bacteria are recognized as important drivers of biogeochemical processes in all aquatic ecosystems. Temporal and geographical patterns in ocean bacterial communities have been observed in many studies, but the temporal and spatial patterns in the bacterial communities from the South China Sea remained unexplored. To determine the spatiotemporal patterns, we generated 16S rRNA datasets for 15 samples collected from the five regularly distributed sites of the South China Sea in three seasons (spring, summer, winter). A total of 491 representative sequences were analyzed by MOTHUR, yielding 282 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) grouped at 97% stringency. Significant temporal variations of bacterial diversity were observed. Richness and diversity indices indicated that summer samples were the most diverse. The main bacterial group in spring and summer samples was Alphaproteobacteria, followed by Cyanobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria, whereas Cyanobacteria dominated the winter samples. Spatial patterns in the samples were observed that samples collected from the coastal (D151, D221) waters and offshore (D157, D1512, D224) waters clustered separately, the coastal samples harbored more diverse bacterial communities. However, the temporal pattern of the coastal site D151 was contrary to that of the coastal site D221. The LIBSHUFF statistics revealed noticeable differences among the spring, summer and winter libraries collected at five sites. The UPGMA tree showed there were temporal and spatial heterogeneity of bacterial community composition in coastal waters of the South China Sea. The water salinity (P=0.001) contributed significantly to the bacteria-environment relationship. Our results revealed that bacterial community structures were influenced by environmental factors and community-level changes in 16S-based diversity were better explained by spatial patterns than by temporal patterns.
Impact of Farakka Barrage at Farakka and its Surroundings Area

The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of Farakka barrage on upstream and downstream hydro-geomorphologic conditions based on some primary and secondary information. 38 km. Long feeder canal carrying water about 40000cusec. was constructed for supplying water to the Calcutta port. This project is taken up for rejuvenation of the navigational status of the Calcutta Port. After constructions and regulation of natural flow, some noticeable impacts have identified both in up and downstream of River Ganga like- bed level of downstream river segment has been raised, total flow volume as well as river energy in the downstream has reduced, sedimentation rate of both up and downstream has excessively increased, bank erosion is increase mainly upstream, channel width has widened, flood intensity has multiplied etc.
Relationships Between Physiology, Tissue Contaminants, and Biomarker Responses in Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua L.)

It is generally assumed that there should be some relationship between tissue residues of contaminants and related biomarker responses in the same individual, with a possible additional modulation through physiological processes. The main basis for such assumptions originated from experimental studies, but it has been less easy to detect and quantify any such relationships in field‐collected material. The aim of the current study was to clarify whether the responses of selected biomarkers (cytochrome P-4501A [CYP1A], δ-aminolevulinic acid dehydratase [ALA-D], metallothionein [MT]) could be correlated with physiological parameters and/or contaminant levels. Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua L.) were sampled over a decade at a number of locations along the Norwegian coast. The locations included both polluted and reference areas. In addition to contaminant-related responses (biomarkers), physiological characteristics were registered for each individual and the contaminant load determined. There were clear relationships between responses in all three biomarkers and tissue contaminants, but additional factors such as age or size and liver lipid or liver somatic index also contributed in multiple-regression models. The results indicated that responses in all three biomarkers reflected relevant, contaminant-related processes in the cod even though none of them provided a simple separation between polluted and pristine locations.
A randomised controlled trial evaluating the use of enteral nutritional supplements postoperatively in malnourished surgical patients

BACKGROUND Patients who undergo surgery are at risk of malnutrition due to periods of starvation, the stress of surgery, and subsequent increase in metabolic rate. There are limited data on nutritional outcome of surgical patients. AIMS To investigate changes in nutritional status and the influence of oral supplements on nutritional status, morbidity, and quality of life in postoperative surgical patients. METHODS Entry was determined by the presence of malnutrition, as defined by a body mass index (BMI) ⩽20 kg/m2, anthropometric measurements ⩽15th percentile on admission, or initiation of oral diet postoperatively and/or a weight loss of 5% or more during the operative period. We studied 101 patients: 52 were randomised to the treatment group (TG) and prescribed a 1.5 kcal/ml nutritional supplement; 49 patients were randomised to the control group (CG) and continued with routine nutritional management. Nutritional status was assessed by weight, anthropometry, and grip strength, with measurements taken at two weekly intervals for 10 weeks. Complications, namely wound infection, chest infection, and antibiotic use were documented. Quality of life (QOL) was assessed using the UK SF-36 questionnaire. RESULTS Patients in the control group lost a maximum mean (SD) of 5.96 (4.21) kg in weight over a period of eight weeks while patients in group TG lost less weight overall (maximum mean (SD) 3.40 (0.89) kg (p<0.001) occurring at four weeks and progressively regained weight from week 4). Anthropometry, grip strength, and QOL were similarly significantly different between groups (p<0.001). Fewer patients in the treatment group (7/52) required antibiotic prescriptions compared with the control group (15/49). CONCLUSIONS Nutritional status declined for two months after discharge. Postoperative nutritional supplementation improved nutritional status, QOL, and morbidity in these patients.
Differential Sensitivity of Canine Cardiac Sarcolemmal and Microsomal Enzymes to Inhibition by Free Radical‐Induced Lipid Peroxidation

Sarcolemmal and microsomal membranes prepared from adult canine cardiac my-ocytes (sarcolemmal Na+,K+-ATPase = 71.8 /imol/mg per hr and microsomal rotenone-insensitive NADH cytochrome c reductase =114 μmol/mg per hr) were each preincubated at 37°C in the presence of a free radical generating system consisting of dihydroxyfumarate and Fe+++-ADP; loss of the Na+,K+-ATPase and reductase activities, as well as the associated increases in lipid peroxidation, measured by malondialdehyde formation, were temporally correlated in both systems. The ATPase was inhibited 70% when the malondialdehyde was 71 nmol/mg protein at 20 minutes and 90% when malondialdehyde was 138 nmol/mg protein at 90 minutes. Inhibition of reductase activity occurred more gradually, displaying a 27% loss of activity when malondialdehyde reached 34 nmol/mg protein at 20 minutes and 60% with a malondialdehyde value of 67 nmol/mg protein at 90 minutes. The greater susceptibility of the sarcolemma to free radical-induced membrane damage may be due to the higher content of unsaturated fatty acids in this membrane, compared to microsomes.
Scanning ion conductance microscopy: a nanotechnology for biological studies in live cells

Scanning ion-conductance microscope (SICM), which enables high-resolution imaging of cell surface topography, has been developed for over two decades. However, only recently, a unique scanning mode is increasingly used in biological studies to allow SICM to detect the surface of live cells. More recently, in combination with confocal microscopy and patch-clamp electrophysiological techniques, SICM allows investigators to localize proteins or ion channels in a specific nanostructure at the cell surface. This article will briefly review SICM nanotechnique and summarize the role of SICM in biological studies.
Dual pathways to prospective remembering

According to the multiprocess framework (McDaniel and Einstein, 2000), the cognitive system can support prospective memory (PM) retrieval through two general pathways. One pathway depends on top–down attentional control processes that maintain activation of the intention and/or monitor the environment for the triggering or target cues that indicate that the intention should be executed. A second pathway depends on (bottom–up) spontaneous retrieval processes, processes that are often triggered by a PM target cue; critically, spontaneous retrieval is assumed not to require monitoring or active maintenance of the intention. Given demand characteristics associated with experimental settings, however, participants are often inclined to monitor, thereby potentially masking discovery of bottom–up spontaneous retrieval processes. In this article, we discuss parameters of laboratory PM paradigms to discourage monitoring and review recent behavioral evidence from such paradigms that implicate spontaneous retrieval in PM. We then re-examine the neuro-imaging evidence from the lens of the multiprocess framework and suggest some critical modifications to existing neuro-cognitive interpretations of the neuro-imaging results. These modifications illuminate possible directions and refinements for further neuro-imaging investigations of PM.
Macrolane for Breast Enhancement: 12-Month Follow-Up

Background: Stabilized hyaluronic acid–based gel of nonanimal origin (NASHA-based gel) is well established for use in aesthetic facial procedures. A new formulation (Macrolane VRF30, Q-Med AB, Uppsala, Sweden) may be suitable for patients seeking breast enhancement. The aim of this study was to develop a reproducible technique for injecting NASHA-based gel posterior to the mammary gland (subglandular injection) and to assess treatment safety and efficacy. The feasibility of dual-plane submuscular injection was also explored. Methods: Nonpregnant, nonbreastfeeding women with small breasts were recruited for this open-label, noncomparative study. Patients were treated in groups of four to enable step-wise revision of the injection technique. Safety and efficacy assessments (12-month follow-up) included adverse event reporting and the Global Aesthetic Improvement Scale, respectively. Results: Twenty-four women (mean age, 37 years) were recruited, 20 of whom underwent subglandular injection. A reproducible injection technique was successfully developed that could be performed under local anesthesia. High subject improvement rates for breast appearance (38 of 46 breasts; 83 percent) were observed for at least 6 months after treatment. At 12 months, 69 percent of breasts were still considered improved. Similar trends were observed with patient satisfaction levels. NASHA-based gel was generally well tolerated, with no inflammatory reactions or serious adverse events. Capsular contracture was the most commonly reported adverse event. Conclusion: NASHA-based gel is a new option for patients who desire aesthetic improvement of the breast but who do not want to undergo surgery. Further studies to confirm these findings in larger numbers of patients are warranted.
Attenuation of Murray Valley Encephalitis Virus by Site-Directed Mutagenesis of the Hinge and Putative Receptor-Binding Regions of the Envelope Protein

ABSTRACT Molecular determinants of virulence in flaviviruses cluster in two regions on the three-dimensional structure of the envelope (E) protein; the base of domain II, believed to serve as a hinge during pH-dependent conformational change in the endosome, and the lateral face of domain III, which contains an integrin-binding motif Arg-Gly-Asp (RGD) in mosquito-borne flaviviruses and is believed to form the receptor-binding site of the protein. In an effort to better understand the nature of attenuation caused by mutations in these two regions, a full-length infectious cDNA clone of Murray Valley encephalitis virus prototype strain 1-51 (MVE-1-51) was employed to produce a panel of site-directed mutants with substitutions at amino acid positions 277 (E-277; hinge region) or 390 (E-390; RGD motif). Viruses with mutations at E-277 (Ser→Ile, Ser→Asn, Ser→Val, and Ser→Pro) showed various levels of in vitro and in vivo attenuation dependent on the level of hydrophobicity of the substituted amino acid. Altered hemagglutination activity observed for these viruses suggests that mutations in the hinge region may indirectly disrupt the receptor-ligand interaction, possibly by causing premature release of the virion from the endosomal membrane prior to fusion. Similarly, viruses with mutations at E-390 (Asp→Asn, Asp→Glu, and Asp→Tyr) were also attenuated in vitro and in vivo; however, the absorption and penetration rates of these viruses were similar to those of wild-type virus. This, coupled with the fact that E-390 mutant viruses were only moderately inhibited by soluble heparin, suggests that RGD-dependent integrin binding is not essential for entry of MVE and that multiple and/or alternate receptors may be involved in cell entry.
Analysis and cloudiness influence on UV total irradiation

Ultraviolet (UV) total solar irradiation, 290–385 nm (UVT), at ground level in Valladolid, Spain (lat. 41°40′N, long. 4°50′W and 840 m a.s.l.), has been recorded from February 2001 to June 2008. The temporal evolution of the UVT irradiation follows a sinusoidal pattern with maximums in summer and minimums in winter. A complete statistical study of hourly and daily values of UVT solar irradiation has been carried out. The results show that the stability is greater in the summer months and it can be concluded that the maximum values can be considered as representative of UVT irradiation. During an average year, the accumulated UVT solar irradiation is 244.5 MJ m−2. The relationships between UVT and global solar irradiation have been analysed finding a relationship of 4.2% between them. A potential relationship between both also provides good results. The dependence of UVT solar radiation with solar elevation and cloudiness has been studied. It can be concluded that solar elevation is the main factor to take into account for modelling the UV solar radiation. The dependence of UV/G ratio with cloudiness has been shown introducing the clearness index or global hemispherical transmittance (kt). This ratio has an increasing trend with the cloud cover and hence, it can be deduced that the presence of clouds reduces the global radiation more strongly than the UV component does. UV hemispherical transmittance (ktuv) has been evaluated. It has been found that ktuv values represent almost 70% of the global hemispherical transmittance in Valladolid city. With a potential relationship between both transmittances coefficient of determination values higher than 0.9 are also achieved. Copyright © 2010 Royal Meteorological Society
A 30 $\mu$ W Analog Signal Processor ASIC for Portable Biopotential Signal Monitoring

This paper presents the design and implementation of an analog signal processor (ASP) ASIC for portable ECG monitoring systems. The ASP ASIC performs four major functionalities: 1) ECG signal extraction with high resolution, 2) ECG signal feature extraction, 3) adaptive sampling ADC for the compression of ECG signals, 4) continuous-time electrode-tissue impedance monitoring for signal integrity monitoring. These functionalities enable the development of wireless ECG monitoring systems that have significantly lower power consumption yet that are more capable than their predecessors. The ASP has been implemented in 0.5 μm CMOS process and consumes 30 μW from a 2 V supply. The noise density of the ECG readout channel is 85 nV/√Hz and the CMRR is better that 105 dB. The adaptive sampling ADC is capable of compressing the ECG data by a factor of 7 and the heterodyne chopper readout extracts the features of the ECG signals. Combination of these two features leads to a factor 4 reduction in the power consumption of a wireless ECG monitoring system. Furthermore, the proposed continuous-time impedance monitoring circuit enables the monitoring of the signal integrity.