Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The ontogenetic changes in the thermal properties of blubber from Atlantic bottlenose dolphin Tursiops truncatus

SUMMARY In Atlantic bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus, both the thickness and lipid content of blubber vary across ontogeny and across individuals of differing reproductive and nutritional status. This study investigates how these changes in blubber morphology and composition influence its thermal properties. Thermal conductivity (W m–1 deg.–1, where deg. is °C) and thermal insulation (m2 deg. W–1) of dolphin blubber were measured in individuals across an ontogenetic series (fetus through adult, N=36), pregnant females (N=4) and emaciated animals (N=5). These thermal properties were determined by the simultaneous use of two common experimental approaches, the heat flux disc method and the standard material method. Thickness, lipid and water content were measured for each blubber sample. Thermal conductivity and insulation varied significantly across ontogeny. Blubber from fetuses through sub-adults was less conductive (range=0.11–0.13±0.02 W m–1 deg.–1) than that of adults (mean=0.18 W m–1 deg.–1). The conductivity of blubber from pregnant females was similar to non-adult categories, while that of emaciated animals was significantly higher (0.24 ± 0.04 W m deg.–1) than all other categories. Blubber from sub-adults and pregnant females had the highest insulation values while fetuses and emaciated animals had the lowest. In nutritionally dependant life history categories, changes in blubber's thermal insulation were characterized by stable blubber quality (i.e. conductivity) and increased blubber quantity (i.e. thickness). In nutritionally independent animals, blubber quantity remained stable while blubber quality varied. A final, unexpected observation was that heat flux measurements at the deep blubber surface were significantly higher than that at the superficial surface, a pattern not observed in control materials. This apparent ability to absorb heat, coupled with blubber's fatty acid composition, suggest that dolphin integument may function as a phase change material.
Perception of Benefits Achieved by IT Management Accounting in the Public Sector

Information technology (IT) is of high relevance in public admin- istrations. Thus, a systematic management and control of its usage is required. IT management accounting is an instrument addressing this issue. However, public IT-managers do not perceive its supposed benefits due to the way in which it is currently implemented. This leads to a low usage of IT management accounting in public administrations. To analyze the gap between its supposed and perceived benefits, we reviewed literature and conducted a case study in a German public administration. Our findings show that - out of the various bene- fits of IT management accounting according to the literature - public IT- managers only focus on transparency and support for decision-making as bene- fits. The findings contribute to a better understanding of IT management ac- counting in public administrations and support practitioners by designing IT management accounting according to the potential benefits for departmental and cross-departmental IT-managers.
Genome Evolution in the Obligate but Environmentally Active Luminous Symbionts of Flashlight Fish

The luminous bacterial symbionts of anomalopid flashlight fish are thought to be obligately dependent on their hosts for growth and share several aspects of genome evolution with unrelated obligate symbionts, including genome reduction. However, in contrast to most obligate bacteria, anomalopid symbionts have an active environmental phase that may be important for symbiont transmission. Here we investigated patterns of evolution between anomalopid symbionts compared with patterns in free-living relatives and unrelated obligate symbionts to determine if trends common to obligate symbionts are also found in anomalopid symbionts. Two symbionts, “Candidatus Photodesmus katoptron” and “Candidatus Photodesmus blepharus,” have genomes that are highly similar in gene content and order, suggesting genome stasis similar to ancient obligate symbionts present in insect lineages. This genome stasis exists in spite of the symbiont’s inferred ability to recombine, which is frequently lacking in obligate symbionts with stable genomes. Additionally, we used genome comparisons and tests of selection to infer which genes may be particularly important for the symbiont’s ecology compared with relatives. In keeping with obligate dependence, substitution patterns suggest that most symbiont genes are experiencing relaxed purifying selection compared with relatives. However, genes involved in motility and carbon storage, which are likely to be used outside the host, appear to be under increased purifying selection. Two chemoreceptor chemotaxis genes are retained by both species and show high conservation with amino acid sensing genes, suggesting that the bacteria may actively seek out hosts using chemotaxis toward amino acids, which the symbionts are not able to synthesize.
The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems: The Revolutionary Ideas of Gibson's 1966 Book, 50 Years Later - Part 1

ABSTRACT This editorial introduces the first part of a 2-part special issue of Ecological Psychology dedicated to James J. Gibson's 1966 book, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, which presents many revolutionary ideas that are important not only for the study of perception but also for the science of psychology in general including the rejection of the mechanistic and dualistic stimulus-response formula (cf. Dewey, 1896), the rejection of sensation-based theories of perception, and the insistence that the unit of investigation and explanation is the mutual relation between people and other animals and their environments.
Proliferative and Nonproliferative Lesions of the Rat and Mouse Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems

Harmonization of diagnostic nomenclature used in the pathology analysis of tissues from rodent toxicity studies will enhance the comparability and consistency of data sets from different laboratories worldwide. The INHAND Project (International Harmonization of Nomenclature and Diagnostic Criteria for Lesions in Rats and Mice) is a joint initiative of four major societies of toxicologic pathology to develop a globally recognized nomenclature for proliferative and nonproliferative lesions in rodents. This article recommends standardized terms for classifying changes observed in tissues of the mouse and rat central (CNS) and peripheral (PNS) nervous systems. Sources of material include academic, government, and industrial histopathology databases from around the world. Covered lesions include frequent, spontaneous, and aging-related changes as well as principal toxicant-induced findings. Common artifacts that might be confused with genuine lesions are also illustrated. The neural nomenclature presented in this document is also available electronically on the Internet at the goRENI website (http://www.goreni.org/).
Fe b 20 12 The warm-start bias of Yelp ratings

Yelp ratings are often viewed as a reputation metric for local businesses. In this paper we study how Yelp ratings evolve over time. Our main finding is that on average the first ratings that businesses receive overestimate their eventual reputation. In particular, the first review that a business receives in our dataset averages 4.1 stars, while the 20th review averages just 3.69 stars. This significant warm-start bias which may be attributed to the limited exposure of a business in its first steps may mask analysis performed on ratings and reputational ramifications. Therefore, we study techniques to identify and correct for this bias. Further, we perform a case study to explore the effect of a Groupon deal on the merchant’s subsequent ratings and show both that previous research has overestimated Groupon’s effect to merchants’ reputation and that average ratings anticorrelate with the number of reviews received. Our analysis points to the importance of identifying and removing biases from Yelp reviews.
TCP Performanceover ABR and UBR Services in ATM 1

Both available bit rate (ABR) service and unspeciied bit rate (UBR) service with early packet discard (EPD) schemes have been considered for supporting data applications in ATM networks. Since transmission control protocol (TCP) is perhaps the most widely used transport layer protocol in existing data networks, the performance of TCP over ATM using ABR service and UBR service with EPD schemes is of great interest to ATM equipment vendors and service providers. In this paper, we present a simulation study of this interesting issue in a LAN environment using some benchmark network conngurations proposed in the ATM Forum. Our simulation results show the following: (1) With UBR service and EPD schemes, TCP suuers signiicant performance degradation in terms of fairness and requires relatively large switch buuer even with a small number of active virtual connections over a LAN connguration, (2) for the same set of network conngurations and with ABR service, TCP achieves good performance in terms of fairness and link utilization, and requires relatively small switch buuer, and (3) per-VC accounting and per-VC queueing techniques can be used to improve TCP and EPD performance over UBR service in terms of fairness. (EPD), per-VC accounting and queueing techniques.
Facial expression recognition via Gabor wavelet and structured sparse representation

Automatically facial expression recognition (FER) has become more and more important today, making machine understand human's emotion by expression having various potential applications, especially in the field of human machine interaction (HCI). But FER still remains a challenge problem in computer vision as the subtleness of facial expression is difficult to capture and the robustness of the recognition in various situation is also hard to guarantee. In this paper, a Gabor wavelet and structured sparse representation based classification (SSRC) are proposed aiming to solve the FER problem. The Gabor wavelet filter is used to extract the subtle facial expression, and the structured sparse representation based classification (SSRC) is used for classifying the test images robustly. Unlike sparse representation based classification (SRC), the SSRC explicitly takes structure of the dictionary into account for a better classification. Experimental results show the better performance of our proposed method compared with other traditional methods, especially more robust in case of facing corruption or occlusion.
We are different and the same: exploring Hellenic culture and identity in Aotearoa-New Zealand

Abstract The worldwide rise in migration as a result of factors such as political unrest, and an expanding globalized economy and workforce, has directed research towards understanding what enables people to settle well into other societies, which often assume or expect their eventual absorption into dominant cultures. An in-depth interpretive study of culture, identity and well-being amongst New Zealand-born and migrant Hellenes from Greece, Cyprus and their diaspora explored diasporic Hellenes’ international reputation for retaining relatively strong ethnic groups and identities (Gavriel 2004). This example of a small Hellenic community existing in another culturally dominant society reveals rationale and detail behind this phenomenon, discussing the matrix of factors and variables identified to affect ways these migrants create and maintain their culture and identity. It demonstrates the multidimensional, fluid nature of cultural identity and its impact on people’s well-being in their daily encounters, negotiating similar and diverse cultures and worldviews, challenging assumptions about dilution of culture and identity on resettlement.
Strength of Overlapped Square Hollow Sections K-Joints based on Chord Face Failure

Steel is a common structural material in construction industry. Praised for its high strength, it has been widely used in various forms of structures, such as tall buildings and bridges. Steel columns, as vertical load carrying members, are crucial structural elements in a building. Failure of such a member would result in catastrophic results, as witnessed in the collapse of the World Trade Centre, New York, where the heated steel columns failed first. Therefore a better understanding on the material properties of steel under fire is important to design engineers.
Vitamin D: An overview of vitamin D status and intake in Europe

In recent years, there have been reports suggesting a high prevalence of low vitamin D intakes and vitamin D deficiency or inadequate vitamin D status in Europe. Coupled with growing concern about the health risks associated with low vitamin D status, this has resulted in increased interest in the topic of vitamin D from healthcare professionals, the media and the public. Adequate vitamin D status has a key role in skeletal health. Prevention of the well-described vitamin D deficiency disorders of rickets and osteomalacia are clearly important, but there may also be an implication of low vitamin D status in bone loss, muscle weakness and falls and fragility fractures in older people, and these are highly significant public health issues in terms of morbidity, quality of life and costs to health services in Europe. Although there is no agreement on optimal plasma levels of vitamin D, it is apparent that blood 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels are often below recommended ranges for the general population and are particularly low in some subgroups of the population, such as those in institutions or who are housebound and non-Western immigrants. Reported estimates of vitamin D status within different European countries show large variation. However, comparison of studies across Europe is limited by their use of different methodologies. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency [often defined as plasma 25(OH)D <25 nmol/l] may be more common in populations with a higher proportion of at-risk groups, and/or that have low consumption of foods rich in vitamin D (naturally rich or fortified) and low use of vitamin D supplements. The definition of an adequate or optimal vitamin D status is key in determining recommendations for a vitamin D intake that will enable satisfactory status to be maintained all year round, including the winter months. In most European countries, there seems to be a shortfall in achieving current vitamin D recommendations. An exception is Finland, where dietary survey data indicate that recent national policies that include fortification and supplementation, coupled with a high habitual intake of oil-rich fish, have resulted in an increase in vitamin D intakes, but this may not be a suitable strategy for all European populations. The ongoing standardisation of measurements in vitamin D research will facilitate a stronger evidence base on which policies can be determined. These policies may include promotion of dietary recommendations, food fortification, vitamin D supplementation and judicious sun exposure, but should take into account national, cultural and dietary habits. For European nations with supplementation policies, it is important that relevant parties ensure satisfactory uptake of these particularly in the most vulnerable groups of the population.
THE THERMAL STABILITY OF RHODOPSIN AND OPSIN

Rhodopsin, the red photosensitive pigment of rod vision, is composed of a specific cis isomer of retinene, neo-b (11-cis), joined as chromophore to a colorless protein, opsin. We have investigated the thermal denaturation of cattle rhodopsin and opsin in aqueous digitonin solution, and in isolated rod outer limbs. Both rhodopsin and opsin are more stable in rods than in solution. In solution as well as in rods, moreover, rhodopsin is considerably more stable than opsin. The chromophore therefore protects opsin against denaturation. This is true whether rhodopsin is extracted from dark-adapted retinas, or synthesized in vitro from neo-b retinene and opsin. Excess neo-b retinene does not protect rhodopsin against denaturation. The protection involves the specific relationship between the chromophore and opsin. Similar, though somewhat less, protection is afforded opsin by the stereoisomeric iso-a (9-cis) chromophore in isorhodopsin. The Arrhenius activation energies (Ea) and entropies of activation (ΔS‡) are much greater for thermal denaturation of rhodopsin and isorhodopsin than of opsin. Furthermore, these values differ considerably for rhodopsins from different species —frog, squid, cattle—presumably due to species differences in the opsins. Heat or light bleaches rhodopsin by different mechanisms, yielding different products. Light stereoisomerizes the retinene chromophore; heat denatures the opsin. Photochemical bleaching therefore yields all-trans retinene and native opsin; thermal bleaching, neo-b retinene and denatured opsin.
The Signaling Value of Online Social Networks: Lessons from Peer-to-Peer Lending

We examine whether social networks facilitate online markets using data from a leading peer-to-peer lending website. Borrowers with social ties are consistently more likely to have their loans funded and receive lower interest rates. However, most social loans do not perform better ex post, except for loans with endorsements from friends contributing to the loan or loans with group characteristics most likely to provide screening and monitoring. We also nd evidence of gaming on borrower participation in social networks. Overall, our
Secretory production of an FAD cofactor-containing cytosolic enzyme (sorbitol–xylitol oxidase from Streptomyces coelicolor) using the twin-arginine translocation (Tat) pathway of Corynebacterium glutamicum

Carbohydrate oxidases are biotechnologically interesting enzymes that require a tightly or covalently bound cofactor for activity. Using the industrial workhorse Corynebacterium glutamicum as the expression host, successful secretion of a normally cytosolic FAD cofactor‐containing sorbitol–xylitol oxidase from Streptomyces coelicolor was achieved by using the twin‐arginine translocation (Tat) protein export machinery for protein translocation across the cytoplasmic membrane. Our results demonstrate for the first time that, also for cofactor‐containing proteins, a secretory production strategy is a feasible and promising alternative to conventional intracellular expression strategies.
DETC 2005-85608 DISTRIBUTED MODELING AND FRAMEWORK FOR COLLABORATIVE EMBEDDED SYSTEM DESIGN

* ABSTRACT In this paper, we develop distributed design models and framework for collaborative embedded system design. Based on the component-based approach, a unified design-with-modules scheme is proposed to model the embedded system design process and a web-based distributed module modeling and evaluation (WebDMME) framework is developed as a collaborative cyber-infrastructure to support distributed network-centric embedded system design. The framework intends to link distributed, heterogeneous hardware/software (HW/SW) design models and tools and assist designers in evaluating design alternatives, visualizing trade-offs, finding optimal solutions, and making decisions on the web. It also enables designers to build integrated design models using both the local and distributed resources (e.g., local and distributed HW/SW modules) and to cooperate by exchanging services. The client (browser) / knowledge server architecture allows embedded system design models to be published and connected over the web to form an integrated intelligent models/modules network. Finally, as an illustration, a model for modular microrobotic systems design is developed.
A new similarity measure for microarray data analysis

A number of clustering algorithms have been used for microarray data analysis. However, the performance of these methods is significantly degraded due to the presence of noise. In this paper, we introduce a robust clustering algorithm based on a new similarity measure. The key concept of the new similarity measure is to measure the similarity between two data points by their sub-dimensions. For example, assume that x/sub 1/, x/sub 2/ and x/sub 3/ are 10 dimensional data vectors. The data point X3 is said to be closer to x/sub 1/ than x/sub 2/ if more than half of the dimensions of x/sub 1/ and x/sub 3/ are closer to x/sub 1/ than X/sub 2/. Thus, if two patterns are very similar except a small amount of features or noise, this measure will preserve the similarity. Experimental results show that the clustering algorithm using this measure produces better results than commonly used similarity measures.
Forgetting health disparities: A one size fits all narrative

Abstract This qualitative synthesis explores a public health narrative and events in the US that may have contributed to the prominence of a one-size-fits all communications frame and public health tool that excludes the significance of social status. An analysis of past events is used to carry out a textual analysis of two communications framing studies. One central narrative is found to be more effective than other potential themes on equality, social conditions, and health inequities. The potential impacts of this narrative on disadvantaged, older communities are explored. Consequently, the current claim that the built-environment narrative is “good for everyone” is contested because of the likelihood that it could diminish the quest for health equity by ignoring social status. The findings provide insight to advocates that want to use a social justice narrative to create social change interventions targeting population health and social inequities.
Assessing Quality Improvement in Health Care: Theory for Practice

OBJECTIVES: To review the role of theory as a means to enhance the practice of quality improvement (QI) research and to propose a novel conceptual model focused on the operations of health care. METHODS: Conceptual model, informed by literature review. RESULTS: To optimize learning across QI studies requires the integration of small-scale theories (middle-range theories, theories of change) within the context of larger unifying theories. We propose that health care QI research would benefit from a theory that describes the operations of health care delivery, including the multiplicity of roles that interpersonal interactions play. The broadest constructs of the model are entry into the system, and assessment and management of the patient, with the subordinate operations of access; recognition, assessment, and diagnosis; and medical decision-making (developing a plan), coordination of care, execution of care, referral and reassessment, respectively. Interpersonal aspects of care recognize the patient/caregiver as a source of information, an individual in a cultural context, a complex human being, and a partner in their care. Impacts to any and all of these roles may impact the quality of care. CONCLUSIONS: Such a theory can promote opportunities for moving the field forward and organizing the planning and interpretation of comparable studies. The articulation of such a theory may simultaneously provide guidance for the QI researcher and an opportunity for refinement and improvement.
Thermal-aware Load-distribution for Real-time Server Farms

This invention relates to a process for trimerizing organic polyisocyanates in the presence of thermally active catalyst systems. The catalyst systems comprise (a) compounds selected from the group consisting of 1) lithium salts of aliphatic or aromatic carboxylic acids, 2) lithium salts of hydroxyl group containing compounds wherein the hydroxyl groups are directed attached to an aromatic ring, and 3) lithium hydroxide; used in conjunction with (b) an organic compound which contains at least one hydroxyl group.