Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CORRIDORS AND OLFACTORY PREDATOR CUES AFFECT SMALL MAMMAL BEHAVIOR

Abstract The behavior of prey individuals is influenced by a variety of factors including, but not limited to, habitat configuration, risk of predation, and availability of resources, and these habitat-dependent factors may have interactive effects. We studied the responses of mice to an increase in perceived predation risk in a patchy environment to understand how habitat corridors might affect interactions among species in a fragmented landscape. We used a replicated experiment to investigate corridor-mediated prey responses to predator cues in a network of open habitat patches surrounded by a matrix of planted pine forest. Some of the patches were connected by corridors. We used mark–recapture techniques and foraging trays to monitor the movement, behavior, and abundance of small mammals. Predation threat was manipulated in one-half of the replicates by applying an olfactory predator cue. Corridors synchronized small mammal foraging activity among connected patches. Foraging also was inhibited in the presence of an olfactory predator cue but apparently increased in adjacent connected patches. Small mammal abundance did not change as a result of the predator manipulation and was not influenced by the presence of corridors. This study is among the 1st to indicate combined effects of landscape configuration and predation risk on prey behavior. These changes in prey behavior may, in turn, have cascading effects on community dynamics where corridors and differential predation risk influence movement and patch use.
Adverse effects of hyperhomocysteinemia and their management by folic acid.

A moderate increase in plasma homocysteine is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Plasma homocysteine is frequently elevated in chronic renal failure and in uremic patients, and the major causes of death in these patients are cardiovascular accidents. Homocysteine metabolism and mechanisms of toxicity are reviewed. Homocysteine elevation in blood leads to the intracellular increase of its precursor, adenosylhomocysteine, a powerful inhibitor of adenosylmethionine-dependent transmethylations. In vitro evidence shows that this increase is reversible upon homocysteine removal. Membrane protein methylation levels are consistently reduced in erythrocytes of both chronic renal failure and hemodialysis patients. This widespread enzymatic methylation is a key step for the repair of molecular damage resulting from the spontaneous deamidation and isomerization reactions of susceptible residues in proteins. In agreement with these findings is the observation that the concentration of a stable side product, D-Asx, of the repair process is significantly lower in erythrocyte membrane proteins from hemodialysis patients than from controls, showing that the repair of damaged membrane proteins is actually defective. It has been shown that treatment with folates dramatically lowers plasma homocysteine, presumably by improving remethylation to methionine. This indicates that folates and/ or their active derivative, i.e., methyltetrahydrofolate, could be effective in ameliorating transmethylations as well.
Diagnosis and management of hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is estimated to have affected 148,000 people and caused 57,000 deaths during 2002 in the United States.1 The approximate cumulative lifetime risks of CRC and death from CRC are, respectively, 5% to 6% and 2.5%. 2 Most colon cancers occur in individuals over the age of 50 years and develop as the consequence of environmental carcinogen exposure, genetic factors, and/or an interaction between the two.3,4 With regard to the hereditary etiology, it is estimated, based on familial clustering studies, that 20% to 30% of colon cancers have a potentially identifiable genetic cause.5 The specific genes responsible for most of the cases of moderate-risk colon cancer remain to be characterized, but, in the high-risk cases, many of the genes have been identified. These high-risk cases account for 3% to 5% of all colon cancers and include welldefined hereditary colon cancer syndromes that carry a substantial lifetime risk of colon cancer, such as familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer (HNPCC), juvenile polyposis syndrome, and Peutz-Jeghers syndrome.6,7 Approximately 0.86% to 1.6% of the colon cancer burden in the United States is associated with HNPCC when this syndrome is characterized at a molecular level (e.g., MLH1 and MSH2 germline mutations), making it the most common of the hereditary colon cancer syndromes.6,8-10 Although HNPCC accounts for only a small percentage of all colon cancer cases, the substantial increase in the risk for colonic and extracolonic cancer in individuals with this syndrome makes it essential that practicing gastroenterologists recognize and appropriately manage members of HNPCC families. Furthermore, our understanding of HNPCC at both the molecular and the clinical level has undergone a dramatic revolution over the last decade. The discovery of the genes that cause HNPCC has ushered in an era of genetic testing, which now plays a central role in the management of these families. The appropriate use of genetic testing can confirm the diagnosis at a molecular level, which is particularly helpful in ambiguous cases, and can improve the use of surveillance strategies in at-risk individuals. However, as with any medical condition, a thorough and up-to-date understanding of HNPCC and knowledge of the recommended molecular and endoscopic testing strategies for this cancer family syndrome (CFS) are required to effectively manage these individuals. The enhanced ability to recognize HNPCC families also has led to a significant evidence base that can be used to guide optimal management. This review will summarize the current understanding of HNPCC and provide an overview of currently recommended management strategies.
Brief antecedent ischemia enhances recombinant tissue plasminogen activator-induced coronary thrombolysis by adenosine-mediated mechanism.

BACKGROUND Clinical studies have implicated preinfarct angina (brief antecedent ischemia/reperfusion [I/R]) as a predictor of more rapid thrombolysis and lower rates of reocclusion. However, the effects of antecedent ischemia on the efficacy of thrombolysis have not been rigorously assessed. Using a canine model of coronary thrombosis, we aimed to (1) reproduce these clinical findings and (2) determine whether release of adenosine (a potent inhibitor of platelet aggregation via stimulation of platelet A(2) receptors) during brief I/R contributes to this improved patency. METHODS AND RESULTS To address our first objective, we compared the time required to achieve lysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator and patency during the first 2 hours after lysis in dogs in which 1-hour thrombotic occlusion was preceded by brief I/R (10-minute coronary occlusion/10-minute reperfusion) versus 20-minute uninterrupted perfusion (controls). Time to lysis was accelerated in the I/R group versus the control group (11+/-1 versus 35+/-6 minutes, P=0.004). In addition, the duration of subsequent reocclusion was reduced (17+/-12 versus 30+/-11 minutes), and the area of the flow-time profile (normalized to baseline flow x 120 minutes) was increased (64+/-12% versus 35+/-7%, P=0.04) in the I/R cohort. The protocol was then repeated, but all dogs were pretreated with the adenosine A(2)/A(1) antagonist CGS 15943 (CGS, 1.5 mg/kg). Time to lysis (38 versus 39 minutes) and subsequent patency were comparable in the CGS+control group versus the CGS+I/R group. CONCLUSIONS Brief antecedent I/R enhances the efficacy of coronary thrombolysis in this canine model, which is due, at least in part, to an adenosine-mediated mechanism.
Low Cost Virtual Reality and its Application to Chemical Engineering - Part One

Virtual reality, ( VR ), is an important emerging technology in computer visualization. While the concept of virtual reality has been around since the early 1960s, until recently the capabilities of VR have been limited, and only available to those institutions with large computing budgets. Recent developments have greatly increased the capabilities of this technology and have brought the price to within the range of the average researcher and even home hobbyist. This paper will provide a brief overview of this rapidly growing field, with emphasis on entry-level implementations, and will finish with a discussion of how it can be and is being applied to chemical engineering.
Empirical computation of reject ratio in VLSI testing

Among significant components of testing cost are test-length, reject ratio, and lost-yield. In this paper a new approach is proposed to estimate the reject ratio. The empirical model is based on test-data properties that are believed to be invariant for a wide range of manufacturing technologies and types of tests. The analysis is carried out entirely in terms of the device test data, as might be available from a wafer probe. Experimental results demonstrate the robustness of the model.
The Cutting Plane Method Is Polynomial for Perfect Matchings

The cutting plane approach to optimal matchings has been discussed by several authors over the past decades, and its rate of convergence has been an open question. We prove that the cutting plane approach using Edmonds' blossom inequalities converges in polynomial time for the minimum-cost perfect matching problem. Our main insight is an LP-based method to select cutting planes. This cut selection procedure leads to a sequence of intermediate linear programs with a linear number of constraints whose optima are half-integral and supported by a disjoint union of odd cycles and edges. This structural property of the optima is instrumental in finding violated blossom inequalities (cuts) in linear time. Moreover, the number of cycles in the support of the half-integral optima acts as a potential function to show efficient convergence to an integral solution.
Extraction of relevant dataset for support vector machine training: A comparison

Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a popular machine learning technique for classification. SVM is computationally infeasible with large dataset due to its large training time. In this paper we compare three different methods for training time reduction of SVM. Different combination of Decision Tree (DT), Fisher Linear Discriminant (FLD), QR Decomposition (QRD) and Modified Fisher Linear Discriminant (MFLD) makes reduced dataset for SVM training. Experimental results indicates that SVM with QRD and MFLD have good classification accuracy with significantly smaller training time.
A study of 2D indoor localization and mapping using FastSLAM 2.0

FastSLAM 2.0 is a Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) framework that provides an algorithm for calculating robot's pose and map the environment concurrently. It consists of calculation that include getting data from sensor, associate the data, and update the map. SLAM is a challenging problem in Robotics because it is considered a chicken-and-egg problem. In this paper, ite will be studied the FastSLAM 2.0 algorithm that will be using RANSAC (Random Sampling Consensus) for its feature extraction.
Origin and Pathophysiological Role of Increased Plasma Endothelin-1 in Patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction

To investigate the origin and pathophysiological role of increased plasma endothelin-1 (endothelin-1) concentration in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), the authors measured plasma endothelin-1 sequentially after the onset of AMI and analyzed the origin by the simultaneously obtained blood samples from the radial artery, right atrium, and pulmonary artery in 28 patients with AMI. The data were correlated with cardiovascular hemodynamics, infarct size, and coronary arteriographic findings. Arterial endothelin-1 at twenty-four and seventy-two hours significantly correlated with mean pulmonary arterial pressure (r=0.48, r=0.46, P < 0.05, respectively), central venous pressure (r=0.42 and 0.51, P < 0.05, respectively), and pulmonary vascular resis tance (r=0.42, r=0.42, P < 0.05), and endothelin-1 at one hundred twenty hours signif icantly correlated with peak creatine kinase (r=0.53, P < 0.05) and creatine kinase isozyme MB (r=0.58, P < 0.01). Simultaneous blood samples showed no significant difference in endothelin-1 concen trations among them. However, a subgroup of patients with endothelin-1 concentration higher in the radial artery than that in the right atrium showed a significantly higher mean pulmonary arterial pressure (25.2 ±6.5 vs 17.0 ±1.6 mmHg, P < 0.05), peak creatine kinase (3594 ±1597 vs 865 ±495 IU/L, P < 0.05), and peak creatine kinase MB (214 ±91 vs 69 ±22 IU/L, P < 0.05) as compared with those in patients in whom endothelin-1 was higher in the right atrium than in the radial artery. Increased plasma endothelin-1 concentration in the early stage of AMI reflects higher pulmonary artery pressure and elevated pulmonary vascular resistance, while that in the later stage is related to the infarct size. The production of endothelin-1 in patients with severe pump failure may be accere lated in the pulmonary vascular bed, left ventricle, or systemic arterial trees, and the main origin in the later stage is possibly coronary vasculature in the infarcted area.
Sucrose-induced Receptor Kinase SIRK1 Regulates a Plasma Membrane Aquaporin in Arabidopsis*

The transmembrane receptor kinase family is the largest protein kinase family in Arabidopsis, and it contains the highest fraction of proteins with yet uncharacterized functions. Here, we present functions of SIRK1, a receptor kinase that was previously identified with rapid transient phosphorylation after sucrose resupply to sucrose-starved seedlings. SIRK1 was found to be an active kinase with increasing activity in the presence of an external sucrose supply. In sirk1 T-DNA insertional mutants, the sucrose-induced phosphorylation patterns of several membrane proteins were strongly reduced; in particular, pore-gating phosphorylation sites in aquaporins were affected. SIRK1-GFP fusions were found to directly interact with aquaporins in affinity pull-down experiments on microsomal membrane vesicles. Furthermore, protoplast swelling assays of sirk1 mutants and SIRK1-GFP expressing lines confirmed a direct functional interaction of receptor kinase SIRK1 and aquaporins as substrates for phosphorylation. A lack of SIRK1 expression resulted in the failure of mutant protoplasts to control water channel activity upon changes in external sucrose concentrations. We propose that SIRK1 is involved in the regulation of sucrose-specific osmotic responses through direct interaction with and activation of an aquaporin via phosphorylation and that the duration of this response is controlled by phosphorylation-dependent receptor internalization.
In Vitro Activities of Linezolid, Meropenem, and Quinupristin-Dalfopristin against Group C and G Streptococci, Including Vancomycin-Tolerant Isolates

ABSTRACT The in vitro activities of meropenem, linezolid, quinupristin-dalfopristin, vancomycin, and penicillin against 130 clinical isolates of group C and G streptococci, including vancomycin-tolerant isolates, were evaluated. Meropenem, linezolid, quinupristin-dalfopristin, vancomycin, and penicillin MICs at which 90% of the isolates were inhibited were 0.06, 2.0, 0.25, 0.5, and ≤0.016 μg/ml, respectively. Meropenem, linezolid, quinupristin-dalfopristin, and penicillin were active against group C and G streptococci, including vancomycin-resistant strains.
A new technique for assessing glottal dynamics in speech and singing by means of optical-flow computation

The use of high-speed videoendoscopy (HSV) in combination with image-processing techniques is the most promising approach to investigate vocal-folds vibration and laryngeal dynamics in speech and singing. The current challenge is to provide facilitative and informative playbacks for clinical and research purposes. We present three new facilitative playbacks using an optical-flow framework (OF). Optical-flow techniques are widely used in the field of computer vision for tracking unidentified moving objects in video sequences. The application of OF computation to HSV images is investigated. The advantages, drawbacks, and the complementarity to existing methods are discussed. The method has been tested on a database of 60 HSV sequences which covers different voice qualities for spoken and sung vowels. The new data representations have been compared with commonly-used facilitative playbacks. They provide additional information on the temporal dynamics of glottal vibratory movements during glottal closing and opening phases.
A hierarchical mixture of Markov models for finding biologically active metabolic paths using gene expression and protein classes

With the recent development of experimental high-throughput techniques, the type and volume of accumulating biological data have extremely increased these few years. Mining from different types of data might lead us to find new biological insights. We present a new methodology for systematically combining three different datasets to find biologically active metabolic paths/patterns. This method consists of two steps: first it synthesizes metabolic paths from a given set of chemical reactions, which are already known and whose enzymes are co-expressed, in an efficient manner. It then represents the obtained metabolic paths in a more comprehensible way through estimating parameters of a probabilistic model by using these synthesized paths. This model is built upon an assumption that an entire set of chemical reactions corresponds to a Markov state transition diagram. Furthermore, this model is a hierarchical latent variable model, containing a set of protein classes as a latent variable, for clustering input paths in terms of existing knowledge of protein classes. We tested the performance of our method using a main pathway of glycolysis, and found that our method achieved higher predictive performance for the issue of classifying gene expressions than those obtained by other unsupervised methods. We further analyzed the estimated parameters of our probabilistic models, and found that biologically active paths were clustered into only two or three patterns for each expression experiment type, and each pattern suggested some new long-range relations in the glycolysis pathway.
The research of broadband millimeter-wave Vivaldi array antenna using SIW technique

A compact millimeter wave Vivaldi antenna array printed on thick substrate and fed by a substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) structure was proposed in this paper. It consists of a compact SIW binary divider, which has minimize significantly the feed structure insertion losses and achieve a broadband performance in millimeter wave range, and four-elements printed Vivaldi array. The whole antenna array was designed, fabricated, and thoroughly investigated. The whole antenna and feed net were designed, fabricated on single substrate, which takes the advantages of small size, low profile, low cost and high performance etc. The simulation results show that the design is effective and right.
Agent-oriented approach to DNA computing

DNA computing began in 1994 when Leonard Adleman showed that DNA computing was possible by solving the Traveling Salesman Problem on a DNA (molecule or chemical) computer. Since then, Adleman has demonstrated many times how to use the massive parallelism of billions of DNA strands to solve the toughest problems. Adleman's work has greatly influenced our work, however, our approach is different. Adleman's approach was chemical-oriented, while our approach is software agent-oriented based on modeling, simulation, visualization, and animation using the programming language Easel. We have tried to elevate Adleman's work by making it more applicable and all encompassing. The work presents an agent-oriented approach to DNA computing using the Easel programming language. The Traveling Salesman Problem is used to demonstrate the idea and test the program.
Brief report: enrichment of associations in genes with fibrosis, apoptosis, and innate immunity functions with cardiac manifestations of neonatal lupus.

OBJECTIVE The proposed pathogenesis of the cardiac manifestations of neonatal lupus (cardiac-NL) involves maternal autoantibodies to the RNPs SSA/Ro and SSB/La, enhanced by as-yet-unknown factors that likely involve dysregulation of both inflammatory and fibrotic fetal responses. This study was designed to improve the power to detect specific associations in genes with candidate biologic functions. METHODS Using data from our genome-wide association study of 116 Caucasian children with cardiac-NL and 3,351 Caucasian controls, we tested for enrichment of single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) associations in genes with candidate biologic functions related to fibrosis, immune function, apoptosis, T cell function, cell infiltration, innate immune cell function, interferon, Toll-like receptors, and calcium channels. After linkage disequilibrium pruning and exclusion of the extended HLA region, a total of 15,103 SNPs in 3,068 genes remained. RESULTS A highly significant enrichment of P values was observed for genes related to fibrosis (P = 2.27 × 10(-9) ), apoptosis (P = 7.67 × 10(-7) ), and innate immune cell (P = 2.53 × 10(-6) ), immune (P = 5.01 × 10(-4) ), T cell (P = 2.23 × 10(-4) ), and interferon functions (P = 1.64 × 10(-3) ). The most significant non-HLA associations included the sialyltransferase gene ST8SIA2 (rs1487982; odds ratio 2.20 [95% confidence interval 1.52-3.19], P = 3.37 × 10(-5) ), the integrin gene ITGA1 (rs2432143; odds ratio 2.31 [95% confidence interval 1.54-3.45], P = 4.54 × 10(-5) ), and the complement regulator gene CSMD1 (rs7002001; odds ratio 2.41 [95% confidence interval 1.57-3.72], P = 6.33 × 10(-5) ). CONCLUSION This study identified novel candidate genes associated with cardiac-NL and highlights the value of studying this cohort for advancing knowledge regarding the genetic etiology of this syndrome. Identification of causal alleles is expected to provide critical insight into the molecular mechanisms responsible for linking maternal autoantibodies to cardiac scarring in these fetuses/neonates.
3D channel model in 3GPP

Multi-antenna techniques capable of exploiting the elevation dimension are anticipated to be an important air-interface enhancement targeted to handle the expected growth in mobile traffic. In order to enable the development and evaluation of such multi-antenna techniques, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has recently developed a three-dimensional (3D) channel model. The existing two-dimensional (2D) channel models do not capture the elevation channel characteristics, making them insufficient for such studies. This article describes the main components of the newly developed 3D channel model and the motivations behind introducing them. One key factor is the ability to model channels for users located on different floors of a building (at different heights). This is achieved by capturing a user height dependency in modelling some channel characteristics including pathloss, lineof- sight (LOS) probability, etc. In general, this 3D channel model follows the framework of WINNERII/WINNER+ while also extending the applicability and the accuracy of the model by introducing some height dependent and distance dependent elevation related parameters.
Optimum PI controller design in PMSM using Firefly Algorithm and Genetic Algorithm

In this paper, both Firefly Algorithm (FA) and Genetic Algorithm (GA) are used to tune the PI controller parameters in PMSM servo system. Consequently, these algorithms are involved to find the optimized proportional-integral (PI) gains by minimizing the time domain cost function. Comparing (FA) and (GA) based controllers, it can be remarked that the first one is better than the last one which allows us to conclude that (FA) is more suitable for parameters optimization of a (PI) controller.