Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Late-Holocene paleoclimate and treeline fluctuation in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, USA

This study presents evidence for treeline advance in the central Rocky Mountains, United States, between 1800 and 800 cal. yr BP. This evidence was generated by systematic survey, sampling, and accelerator-mass spectrometer (AMS) dating of remnant Pinus albicaulis above the modern treeline ecotone of Union Peak, in the Wind River Range of western Wyoming. The survey identified 257 tree remnants, of which AMS dates were generated on 15 samples. Based on AMS results, it appears that treeline was approximately 100 m higher in elevation and covered an additional 1 km of horizontal distance for approximately a millennium, 1800–800 cal. yr BP. These findings are surprising given the tendency of remnant forests across the region to date to the middle Holocene but are consistent with regional evidence for increases in effective moisture that are contemporaneous with the Union Peak treeline advance. The age of death for most of the sampled trees occurred, however, near 800 cal. yr BP, 200 or more years prior to the onset of the type of regional and hemispheric temperature decreases that might be expected to result in treeline decline. Given the contemporaneity of the Union Peak treeline decline with a substantial regional megadrought 820–780 cal. yr BP, it is hypothesized that declining moisture availability played a fundamental role in this phenomenon. If true, the late-Holocene advance and subsequent decline of treeline on Union Peak would emphasize the role effective moisture plays in the complex interactions between temperature, precipitation, and local-scale factors conditioning treeline elevation across the central Rocky Mountain region.
ANTIPROLIFERATIVE, ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY AND TOTAL PHENOLIC CONTENT OF MITRAGYNA PARVIFOLIA (ROXB.) KORTH

Objective: In the present study bark and leaves of Mitragynaparvifolia (Roxb.) Korthwere evaluated for total phenolic content, total flavonoid content,antioxidant potential, lipid peroxidation and antiproliferative effect on HeLa cell lines. Methods: Dried bark and leaves were suspended in five different solvent systemsviz; distilled water, methanol, acetone, ethyl acetate and hexane . Total phenolic content was estimated usingFolin–Ciocalteau reagent and phenolic profiling byusing high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Antioxidant potential and flavonoids estimation were investigated usingDPPHradical scavenging activity and aluminium chloride method respectively. Further lipid peroxidation and antiproliferative effect were observed using TBARS and MTT assay, followed by cell morphology using Giemsa and Acridine orange staining. Results:The acetone extract of bark(57.08 ± 6.16 mg/mL) and leaf (60.1 ± 3.74 mg/mL)exhibited the highest phenolic content. Distilled water extractsof bark (94 ± 0.05%) and leaf (95.63 ± 0.34%) showed maximum antioxidant potential. Percent protection was observed maximum in acetone extracts of bark(19.04±0.02%) and leaf (25.11±0.09%). Total flavonoid content was found maximum in distilled water leaf extracts(0.869±0.001 mg/mL). Acetone extracts showed high cytotoxic effect on HeLa cells compared to other extracts with very minimal or no cytotoxicity contributed by the vehicle (acetone) itself in comparison to positive control of 5% ricin. Conclusion:Acetone extracts exhibited highest cytotoxic effect on HeLa cells compared to other extracts. These results also indicated that acetone extract have highest phenolic content and percent protection in lipid peroxidation. Thus Mitragynaparvifolia’s acetone extracts can attribute to one of the several bioactive compounds which can be further studied in detail.
Making Security Work for the Majority: Reflections on Two Districts in Jakarta

Global urban theory has placed increased emphasis on the ways in which residents from different walks of life have created heterogeneous spaces, livelihoods and political sensibilities. Much of this analysis deals with the importance of discernible forms of belonging, organization, and identity as the tools through which relationships among residents and spaces are managed and secured. For residents of mixed income, mixed use areas of the urban cores of megacities in the so-called Global South, securing livelihoods have also depended upon sensibilities and practices that open up multiple venues of collaboration among distinct backgrounds, capacities, and interests. They have relied upon intricate local political and social practices that that foster more diffuse and uncertain intersections—where time, effort, money, and affiliation are “untied” from their usual social anchors. Taking the phenomena of sporadic explosions of violence in Tanah Tinggi and the everyday piecing together of “nationhood” in Kramat Sentiong—two neighboring districts in central Jakarta—the article explores ways in which it is possible for localities to sustain a plurality of livelihoods and initiatives.
Spatio-Temporal Retrieval with RasDaMan

Database support for multidimensional arrays is an area of growing importance; a variety of highvolume applications such as spatio-temporal data management and statistics/OLAP become focus of academic and market interest. RasDaMan is a domain-independent array database management system with server-based query optimization and evaluation. The system is fully operational and being used in international projects. We will demonstrate spatio-temporal retrieval using the rView visual query client. Examples will encompass 1-D time series, 2-D images, 3-D and 4-D voxel data. The real-life data sets used stem from life sciences, geo sciences, numerical simulation, and climate research.
The Adaptive Labeled Multi-Bernoulli Filter

This paper proposes a new multi-Bernoulli filter called the Adaptive Labeled Multi-Bernoulli filter. It combines the relative strengths of the known δ-Generalized Labeled Multi-Bernoulli and the Labeled Multi-Bernoulli filter. The proposed filter provides a more precise target tracking in critical situations, where the Labeled Multi-Bernoulli filter looses information through the approximation error in the update step. In non-critical situations it inherits the advantage of the Labeled Multi-Bernoulli filter to reduce the computational complexity by using the LMB approximation.
Theory and applications of delayed censoring models in survival analysis

The objective of this thesis is to develop new statistical models for the analysis of censored survival data, particularly for the study of recidivism data, such as the reoffence data used in the analysis here. This has been an area of great interest in criminology in recent years. There is a growing literature on survival analysis in criminology, where interest centres on the time from an offender's conviction, or release from prison, to the first reconviction or reimprisonment. In deciding whether to release a prisoner on parole, the Parole Board is provided with a statistical score which estimates the chance that the prisoner will reoffend within the period of time that he or she would otherwise be in prison. This score is based on a survival analysis of data on a sample of releases from long-term prison sentences. To capture most reoffences which occur within 2 years of release, follow-up must continue for at least 3 years to allow for the delay between offence and conviction. We reanalyse the data by using a model which explicitly allows for this delay. We refer to this as 'delayed censoring model'. The new analysis can be applied to data with a substantially shorter length of follow-up. This means that risk scores can be constructed from more up-to-date data and at less cost. It is models of this kind that we shall be concerned with in this thesis, and this is the principal motivation of the work done. The statistical models that this thesis provides bring in a number of new ideas which are undoubtedly useful both at a theoretical level and in applications. Other major divisions of the work include: (i) Assessing the possibility of an association between the delay and reoffence times by studying truncated distributions fitted to these data, by parametric, semi-parametric and nonparametric models. With the nonparametric approach we have developed a 'backward regression model' which is similar to the Cox model. (ii) We have also discussed delayed censoring modification to the Cox model, and developed a more general semi-parametric model for all the data including both observed and censored cases. In this model the delay and reoffence times are allowed to be correlated. We refer to this as the 'generalized weighted hazards model'. (iii) Finally, we have compared the results by applying all these models to the data. Although the parametric models give a good fit to the data, the semi-parametric and nonparametric models give a slightly better fit, as expected
Evaluating the Performance of LSA for Source-code Plagiarism Detection

Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is an intelligent information retrieval technique that uses mathematical algorithms for analyzing large corpora of text and revealing the underlying semantic information of documents. LSA is a highly parameterized statistical method, and its effectiveness is driven by the setting of its parameters which are adjusted based on the task to which it is applied. This paper discusses and evaluates the importance of parameterization for LSA based similarity detection of source-code documents, and the applicability of LSA as a technique for source-code plagiarism detection when its parameters are appropriately tuned. The parameters involve preprocessing techniques, weighting approaches; and parameter tweaking inherent to LSA processing – in particular, the choice of dimensions for the step of reducing the original post-SVD matrix. The experiments revealed that the best retrieval performance is obtained after removal of in-code comments (Java comment blocks) and applying a combined weighting scheme based on term frequencies, normalized term frequencies, and a cosine-based document normalization. Furthermore, the use of similarity thresholds (instead of mere rankings) requires the use of a higher number of dimensions. Povzetek: Prispevek analizira metodo LSA posebej glede plagiarizma izvirne kode.
Pharmacological evaluation of rat dorsal root ganglion neurons as an in vitro model for diabetic neuropathy

Background: Diabetic neuropathy is a complication of diabetes mellitus that develops in about 50% of people with diabetes. Despite its widespread occurrence and devastating effects, this complication is still not fully understood, and there is no treatment available to prevent its development. Methods: In this study, immunocytochemistry for activating transcription factor 3, a marker for cell injury, was used to investigate the stress response in dorsal root ganglion neurons in both in vitro and ex vivo models of diabetic neuropathy. Results: Our findings showed increased activating transcription factor 3 expression in hyperglycemic culture conditions and in dorsal root ganglion neurons isolated from diabetic rats. Glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor, a substance with known neuroprotective properties, was able to reduce diabetes mellitus-induced neuronal stress in vitro, while gabapentin and carbamazepine, currently used to treat neuropathic pain, showed only limited effects. Conclusion: Growth factors may have a therapeutic benefit as neurotrophic agents in the treatment of diabetic peripheral neuropathy, but gabapentin and carbamazepine have no direct protective effect on sensory neurons. This research also indicates that immunocytochemistry for activating transcription factor 3 is a valuable tool for evaluation of pharmacological substances in dorsal root ganglion cultures.
Novel protective role of curcumin and taurine combination against experimental hepatocarcinogenesis

Hepatocarcinogenesis is a prerequisite to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which is one of the most common cancers among humans. Therefore, it is important to search for agents that protect against hepatocarcinogenesis. The present study aimed to investigate the protective effects of a combination of taurine and curcumin against experimental hepatocarcinogenesis induced by diethyl nitrosamine (DENA) in a rat model. A total of 100 rats were divided into eight groups. Eight weeks following DENA injection and treatment with curcumin and taurine, the rats were sacrificed to obtain blood and hepatic tissue samples for the evaluation of various markers and histopathological observations. Serum levels of interleukin-2 (IL-2), interferon-γ (IFN-γ), α-fetoprotein (AFP) and α-L-fucosidase (AFU) were determined. Rats injected with DENA for eight weeks showed a high percentage of malignant changes in hepatic tissues, as well as a significant increases in the serum levels of AFP and AFU and significant reductions in the serum levels of IL-2 and IFN-γ. Treatment with curcumin and taurine markedly reduced the extent of malignant changes in the rat liver tissues, with their liver tissues showing patterns similar to that of the normal control rats. In addition, this combination resulted in normal serum levels of IL-2, IFN-γ, AFP and AFU. The results of the present study suggested that a combination of curcumin and taurine may be a novel prophylactic agent against hepatocarcinogenesis in high-risk groups exposed to chemical hepatocarcinogens.
Serum glutamic oxalacetic transaminase/glutamic pyruvic transaminase ratios in hepatocellular carcinoma

Serum enzyme activities were studied in 131 cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), 76 cases of metastatic liver carcinomas (MLC) and 234 cases of hepatic cirrhosis. SGOT was elevated above SGPT in most of the time in these patients, SGOT/SGPT was greater in HCC compared with other groups, and that this ratio increased during the preterminal period more markedly in patients with HCC because of the significant increase of SGOT in the face of relatively stable SGPT. Preterminal rises of alkaline phosphatase and LDH activities were more pronounced in MLC. Leucine aminopeptidase activity exhibited no characteristic feature of diagnostic value. Of the five enzymes, SGOT changes were more closely correlated with the growth of HCC; SGPT reflected more of the liver parenchymal damage while SGOT was probably accounted for in part by tumor‐derived GOT. Other clinical and pathological implications are discussed. Cancer 40:319–324, 1977.
Comparative expression analysis of the murine palladin isoforms

Palladin fulfils a crucial function as a molecular scaffold in organizing and stabilizing the actin cytoskeleton. At least four major palladin isoforms exist due to different promoter usage and alternative splicing: a 200‐kDa isoform, a 140‐kDa isoform, and two isoforms with a size of 90–92 kDa. Here, we describe their expression during mouse development and in adult tissues. The 200‐kDa isoform is predominantly expressed in developing heart and skeletal muscle. The 140‐kDa isoform is expressed in various mesenchymal tissues, and also represents the major isoform of the brain. The 90–92‐kDa isoforms are almost ubiquitously expressed with the highest levels in smooth muscle‐rich tissues. Immunohistochemical and immunofluorecence staining with an anti‐200‐kDa isoform‐specific antiserum localizes the large isoform to the Z‐discs of cardiac and skeletal muscle cells. Interestingly, the expression of this isoform is initiated and increasing during in vitro differentiation and fusion of C2C12 myoblasts, suggesting that the 200‐kDa palladin isoform may play a scaffolding role during sarcomeric organization. Developmental Dynamics 237:3342–3351, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Shrinkage and Penalized Likelihood as Methods to Improve Predictive Accuracy

A review is given of shrinkage and penalization as tools to improve predictive accuracy of regression models. The James-Stein estimator is taken as starting point. Procedures covered are Pre-test Estimation, the Ridge Regression of Hoerl and Kennard, the Shrinkage Estimators of Copas and Van Houwelingen and Le Cessie, the LASSO of Tibshirani and the Garotte of Breiman. An attempt is made to place all these procedures in a unifying framework of semi-Bayesian methodology. Applications are briefly mentioned, but not amply discussed.
Adapting Social Spam Infrastructure for Political Censorship

As social networks emerge as an important tool for political engagement and dissent, services including Twitter and Facebook have become regular targets of censorship. In the past, nation states have exerted their control over Internet access to outright block connections to social media during times of political upheaval. Parties without such capabilities may however still desire to control political expression. A striking example of such manipulation recently occurred on Twitter when an unknown attacker leveraged 25,860 fraudulent accounts to send 440,793 tweets in an attempt to disrupt political conversations following the announcement of Russia's parliamentary election results. In this paper, we undertake an in-depth analysis of the infrastructure and accounts that facilitated the attack. We find that miscreants leveraged the spam-as-a-service market to acquire thousands of fraudulent accounts which they used in conjunction with compromised hosts located around the globe to flood out political messages. Our findings demonstrate how malicious parties can adapt the services and techniques traditionally used by spammers to other forms of attack, including censorship. Despite the complexity of the attack, we show how Twitter's relevance-based search helped mitigate the attack's impact on users searching for information regarding the Russian election.
Emergency control of DFIG-based wind turbines to meet new European Grid Code requirements

New regulatory requirements outlined in the European Grid Code dictate fault ride-through and reactive power support requirements for wind energy conversion systems. This paper introduces a simple emergency control scheme for DFIG-based wind turbines to comply with the grid code requirements. The proposed control design uses an enhanced phase locked loop (PLL) system to extract the synchronization signal from the three-phase grid voltage. The proposed PLL will also present an on-line estimation of the grid voltage magnitude, which is needed to detect the fault and provide the reactive power support accordingly. To increase the fault ride through capacity of DFIG, the standard PI current regulator in the rotor-side converter of DFIG is replaced with a vector-based hysteresis current regulator. The main advantages of the proposed current regulator are its very fast transient response and simple control structure. Simulation studies are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed emergency controller to comply with the new European Grid Code requirements under various network disturbances.
Omics Driven Trends in Nutrition , Disease Prevention and Better Health

“Omics” based sciences have been recently acquiring significant attraction by the scientific community. Diet and dietary constituents have shown an impact on human health and in the areas such as the nutrition, nutrient-gene interaction, nutritional biomarkers and some nonessential nutrients and bioactive food components that can alter genetic and epigenetic events in the human body. The nutrients are able to interact and modulate the physiological system of the body. Evaluating and assessing the significance of the interrelationships among bioactive food components with the physiological system of the body in the context of Omics (transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics) will be of great help in understanding the disease pattern and its prevention. This review attempts at understanding the Omics driven changes happening in the field of nutrition with focus on disease prevention and better health for all.
Resveratrol, a Polyphenolic Phytoalexin, Attenuates Diabetic Nephropathy in Rats

Diabetic nephropathy is a serious microvascular complication and one of the main causes of end-stage renal disease. Various studies have revealed that increased oxidative stress is a major pathophysiological mechanism which is involved in the etiology of diabetic nephropathy. Resveratrol, a polyphenolic phytoalexin present in red wine, is known to possess potent antioxidant properties and thus we aimed to examine its effect on renal function and oxidative stress in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of STZ (65 mg/kg) in rats. After 4 weeks of STZ injection, rats were divided into four groups: the control rats, diabetic rats and diabetic rats treated with resveratrol (5 and 10 mg/kg, orally) respectively from week 4 up till week 6. At the termination of the experiments, urine albumin excretion, urine output, serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, creatinine and urea clearance were measured. The levels of the renal oxidative stress markers malonaldehyde and glutathione and the antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase and catalase were measured in kidney homogenate. STZ-injected rats showed significant increases in blood glucose, polyuria, proteinuria and a decrease in body weight compared with age-matched control rats. After 6 weeks, diabetic rats exhibited renal dysfunction, as evidenced by reduced creatinine and urea clearance, and proteinuria along with a marked increase in oxidative stress, as determined by lipid peroxidation and activities of key antioxidant enzymes. Treatment with resveratrol significantly attenuated renal dysfunction and oxidative stress in diabetic rats. The present study reinforces the important role of oxidative stress in diabetic kidney and points towards the possible antioxidative mechanism being responsible for the renoprotective action of resveratrol.
The clinical significance of colonoscopy in hemorrhagic colitis due to enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 infection.

BACKGROUND AND STUDY AIMS Although hemorrhagic colitis due to enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 (O157) infection has recently attracted increasing attention as an important enteric infection, the colonoscopic findings associated with this disease have not been sufficiently characterized. The aim of this study is to characterize the colonoscopic features of hemorrhagic colitis due to O157 infection. PATIENTS AND METHODS The colonoscopic findings in ten patients with hemorrhagic colitis due to O157 infection were retrospectively reviewed. To assess the severity of inflammation in each part of the large intestine, colonoscopic findings were categorized into four grades: grade 1, intact mucosa; grade 2, sporadic erythema and erosion; grade 3, mostly diffuse inflammation; and grade 4, diffuse, severe inflammation. RESULTS Eight out of ten patients had grade 4 findings in the cecum and ascending colon, grade 3 in the transverse colon and descending colon, and grade 2 in the sigmoid colon. Two of these eight patients also had grade 4 inflammation in the proximal transverse colon. Five of these eight patients revealed longitudinal ulcer-like lesions in the transverse colon and/or descending colon. The remaining two patients had grade 3 findings in the cecum to the descending colon and grade 2 findings in the sigmoid colon. All patients exhibited grade 1 finding in the terminal ileum and the rectum. Based on these colonoscopic findings, the ten patients were divided into the typical group (eight patients) and the mild-type group (two patients). CONCLUSIONS The characteristic colonoscopic findings in most patients with hemorrhagic colitis due to O157 infection were as follows: 1) severe inflammation, including primarily marked edema and facile hemorrhage, and 2) inflammation predominating at the right-side colon; and 3) frequent appearance of longitudinal ulcer-like lesions.