Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High precision lattice parameter measurements by multiple Bragg reflexion diffractometry

The precision of relative lattice parameter determinations by X-ray Bragg reflexion is usually limited to a few parts in 107 by the dispersed profiles of single spectral lines. In a new technique described herein this primary limitation is removed because changes of Bragg angle are measured in a non-dispersive double crystal arrangement. As a result it is shown that lattice parameter changes of one part in 109 can be detected. Preliminary measurements of the lattice parameter difference between a highly doped silicon sample and an undoped silicon crystal are in good agreement with measurements obtained on the same material by conventional techniques. The influence of experimental parameters on the sensitivity of the technique are considered in detail and some convenient developments of the basic method are suggested.
Assessing Avian Diets Using Stable Isotopes II: Factors Influencing Diet-Tissue Fractionation

Studies using stable-isotope analysis to infer diet require a knowledge of how stable-isotope ratios in consumer tissues are related to dietary values. We determined 61'3C and 6'5N diet-tissue fractionation factors for blood, liver, muscle, bone collagen and feathers of domestic chickens (Gallus gallus), Japanese Quail (Coturnix japonica) and Ring-billed Gulls (Larus delawarensis) and for blood and feather samples of adult Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus) raised on known isotopic diets. In most cases tissues were enriched in 613C and 615N compared to diet. However, fractionation values differed among species, diets, and tissue types and this variation must be considered in isotope dietary studies. We found little evidence that isotopic fractionation factors are influenced by age in adult birds and provide fractionation factors appropriate for granivores feeding in a C-3 biome and for higher trophic-level piscivores and carnivores. American Crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) raised on a perch diet grew faster and showed lower nitrogen diet-tissue fractionation values than crows raised on a plant-based diet. We suggest that nutritional stress caused substantial increases in diet-tissue fractionation values due either to: (1) mobilization and redeposition of proteins elsewhere in the body; or (2) amino acid composition changes in tissues.
Diclofenac Prolongs Repolarization in Ventricular Muscle with Impaired Repolarization Reserve

Background The aim of the present work was to characterize the electrophysiological effects of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac and to study the possible proarrhythmic potency of the drug in ventricular muscle. Methods Ion currents were recorded using voltage clamp technique in canine single ventricular cells and action potentials were obtained from canine ventricular preparations using microelectrodes. The proarrhythmic potency of the drug was investigated in an anaesthetized rabbit proarrhythmia model. Results Action potentials were slightly lengthened in ventricular muscle but were shortened in Purkinje fibers by diclofenac (20 µM). The maximum upstroke velocity was decreased in both preparations. Larger repolarization prolongation was observed when repolarization reserve was impaired by previous BaCl2 application. Diclofenac (3 mg/kg) did not prolong while dofetilide (25 µg/kg) significantly lengthened the QTc interval in anaesthetized rabbits. The addition of diclofenac following reduction of repolarization reserve by dofetilide further prolonged QTc. Diclofenac alone did not induce Torsades de Pointes ventricular tachycardia (TdP) while TdP incidence following dofetilide was 20%. However, the combination of diclofenac and dofetilide significantly increased TdP incidence (62%). In single ventricular cells diclofenac (30 µM) decreased the amplitude of rapid (IKr) and slow (IKs) delayed rectifier currents thereby attenuating repolarization reserve. L-type calcium current (ICa) was slightly diminished, but the transient outward (Ito) and inward rectifier (IK1) potassium currents were not influenced. Conclusions Diclofenac at therapeutic concentrations and even at high dose does not prolong repolarization markedly and does not increase the risk of arrhythmia in normal heart. However, high dose diclofenac treatment may lengthen repolarization and enhance proarrhythmic risk in hearts with reduced repolarization reserve.
Safety and efficacy of gravitational shunt valves in patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus: a pragmatic, randomised, open label, multicentre trial (SVASONA)

Objectives To investigate whether gravitational valves reduce the risk of overdrainage complications compared with programmable valves in ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt surgery for idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH). Background Patients with iNPH may benefit from VP shunting but are prone to overdrainage complications during posture changes. Gravitational valves with tantalum balls are considered to reduce the risk of overdrainage but their clinical effectiveness is unclear. Methods We conducted a pragmatic, randomised, multicentre trial comparing gravitational with non-gravitational programmable valves in patients with iNPH eligible for VP shunting. The primary endpoint was any clinical or radiological sign (headache, nausea, vomiting, subdural effusion or slit ventricle) of overdrainage 6 months after randomisation. We also assessed disease specific instruments (Black and Kiefer Scale) and Physical and Mental Component Scores of the Short Form 12 (SF-12) generic health questionnaire. Results We enrolled 145 patients (mean (SD) age 71.9 (6.9) years), 137 of whom were available for endpoint analysis. After 6 months, 29 patients in the standard and five patients in the gravitational shunt group developed overdrainage (risk difference −36%, 95% CI −49% to −23%; p<0.001). This difference exceeded predetermined stopping rules and resulted in premature discontinuation of patient recruitment. Disease specific outcome scales did not differ between the groups although there was a significant advantage of the gravitational device in the SF-12 Mental Component Scores at the 6 and 12 month visits. Conclusions Implanting a gravitational rather than another type of valve will avoid one additional overdrainage complication in about every third patient undergoing VP shunting for iNPH.
Morphogenesis in the absence of integrins: mutation of both Drosophila β subunits prevents midgut migration

Two integrin β subunits are encoded in the Drosophila genome. The βPS subunit is widely expressed and heterodimers containing this subunit are required for many developmental processes. The second β subunit, βν, is a divergent integrin expressed primarily in the midgut endoderm. To elucidate its function, we generated null mutations in the gene encoding βν. We find that βν is not required for viability or fertility, and overall the mutant flies are normal in appearance. However, we could observe βν function in the absence of βPS. Consistent with its expression, removal of βν only enhanced the phenotype of βPS in the developing midgut. In embryos lacking the zygotic contribution ofβ PS, loss of βν resulted in enhanced separation between the midgut and the surrounding visceral mesoderm. In the absence of both maternal and zygotic βPS, a delay in midgut migration was observed, but removingβν as well blocked migration completely. These results demonstrate that the second β subunit can partially compensate for loss of βPS integrins, and that integrins are essential for migration of the primordial midgut cells. The two β subunits mediate midgut migration by distinct mechanisms: one that requires talin and one that does not. Other examples of developmental cell migration, such as that of the primordial germ cells, occurred normally in the absence of integrins. Having generated the tools to eliminate integrin function completely, we confirm that Drosophila integrins do not control proliferation as they do in mammals, and have identified αPS3 as a heterodimeric partner for βν.
Changes in the Sodium Content of New Zealand Processed Foods: 2003–2013

Decreasing population sodium intake has been identified as a “best buy” for reducing non-communicable disease. The aim of this study was to explore 10-year changes in the sodium content of New Zealand processed foods. Nutrient data for nine key food groups were collected in supermarkets in 2003 (n = 323) and 2013 (n = 885). Mean (SD) and median (min, max) sodium content were calculated by food group, year and label type (private/branded). Paired t-tests explored changes in sodium content for all products available for sale in both years (matched; n = 182). The mean (SD) sodium content of all foods was 436 (263) mg (100 g)−1 in 2003 and 433 (304) mg (100 g)−1 in 2013, with no significant difference in matched products over time (mean (SD) difference, −56 (122) mg (100 g)−1, 12%; p = 0.22). The largest percentage reductions in sodium (for matched products) were observed for Breakfast Cereals (28%; −123 (125) mg (100 g)−1), Canned Spaghetti (15%; −76 (111) mg (100 g)−1) and Bread (14%; −68 (69) mg (100 g)−1). The reduction in sodium was greater for matched private vs. branded foods (−69 vs. −50 mg (100 g)−1, both p < 0.001). There has been modest progress with sodium reduction in some New Zealand food categories over the past 10 years. A renewed focus across the whole food supply is needed if New Zealand is to meet its global commitment to reducing population sodium intake.
Combination methods in a Fuzzy Random Forest

When individual classifiers are combined appropriately, we usually obtain a better performance in terms of classification precision. Multi-classifiers are the result of combining several individual classifiers. In this work we propose and compare various combination methods to obtain the final decision of the multi-classifier based on a ldquoforestrdquo of randomly generated fuzzy decision trees, i.e., a Fuzzy Random Forest. We propose various forms of weighting decisions on the basis of information obtained from the FRF. We make a comparative study with several databases to show the efficiency of the various combination methods.
Morphology and properties of silane-modified montmorillonite clays and clay/PBT composites

Commercially available organoclay (Closite 30B) was modified by using 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APS) via a silylation reaction. Sodium clay (Closite Na) was treated by APS directly as a control. Such modified clays were further melt-compounded with polybutylene terephthalate (PBT). The morphology and properties of the modified organoclays were characterized with X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electrical microscopy (TEM), Infra-red spectroscopy, contact angle measurement, and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The effects of modified clays on the crystallization behavior of PBT were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry. The basal spacing of Closite Na was enlarged from 1.01 to 1.41 nm after APS treatment, indicating that the APS was intercalated into the clay intergalleries as a monolayer. The basal spacing of Closite 30B increased slightly after APS treatment, partially resulted from the reactions between the APS and hydroxyl groups on the intercalant of Closite 30B. Closite 30B was found to be exfoliated disorderly after melt-compounded with PBT. The APS-modified Closite 30B only dispersed as swollen elliptical clay aggregates, in which the silicate layers were orderly intercalated. TGA results showed that the decomposition temperature at 5% weight loss of Closite 30B was increased from 250 to 270°C after APS treatment. A significant increase in the degree of crystallinity of PBT was observed in the exfoliated PBT/30B composite.
Thin Film Microcircuit Preparation in a Diamond Anvil Cell

An effective and convenient method about molybdenum metal thin film microcircuit was developed on diamond anvil cell(DAC) under high pressure. Alumina film was used as the protective layer and sputtered on DAC. By using this method, we studied the electrical resistance variation about nanoparticles ZnS power up to 36GPa. The reversible phase transition had been reflected clearly by the electrical resistance measurements with sample.
Intelligent Browsing Assistance for Corporate Knowledge Portals

The management of knowledge, i.e. knowing what is known and the ability to exploit it is a burning issue for most organizations. Though knowledge management has a strong social perspective, information technology supports knowledge management strategies by providing tools that store codified knowledge and allow its retrieval. The value of knowledge management derives from the wide use of the stored knowledge, its annotation and refinement as well as its application in business practices. We support this issue of information browsing and retrieval by adapting and applying recommendation technology to reduce access barriers towards corporate knowledge portals. For this purpose we exploit domain heuristics to improve collaborative filtering techniques in order to cope with the problem of low numbers of users the knowledge portals have.
A comparative study of dermatoglyphics in individuals with normal occlusions and malocclusions.

INTRODUCTION Dermatoglyphics is the study on edpidermal ridges on the palmar and plantar surfaces of the feet and hand. Embryological development of orodental structures and these dermal patterns occur during the same period. The environmentally influenced genetic predisposition is found in different types of malocclusions. This malocclusion should also exhibit different dermal patterns which are unique for each class. AIM OF THE STUDY The present study was conducted to compare the Dermatoglyphics parameters of individuals with normal occlusions and various classes of malocclusions. METHODOLOGY The participants were divided into four groups; Group 1: class I ideal; Group 2: class I malocclusionl; Group 3: class II Div 1 and Div 2; Group IV: class III. The finger and palmar prints were obtained and they were analyzed for each type of pattern. The Total Finger Fridge Count (TFRC), a-b ridge count and the angle "atd" (angle formed by connecting lines from digital triradius 'a' to the axial triradius and from this triradius to the digital triradius 'd') were associated with particular groups. RESULTS The data was entered and analyzed by using Students t-test and ANOVA. CONCLUSION Particular predictive occurrence of patterns was not found to be associated with each group. However, some of the finger patterns, such as increase in twinned loops in class II malocclusions and absence of radial loops in class III malocclusions were found to be statistically significant (p<0.001). The parameters associated with palmar prints had no statistical significance. Further studies with more samples in each group should be carried out.
Two approaches-based L2-SVMs reduced to MEB problems for dialect identification

The recent progress in speech and vision has issued from the increased use of machine learning. Not only does the machine learning provides many useful tools, it also help us to understand existing algorithms and their connections in a new light. As a powerful tool in machine learning, support vector machine SVM leads to an expensive computational cost in the training phase due to the large number of original training samples, while minimal enclosing ball MEB presents limitations dealing with a large dataset. The training computation increases as data size becomes large, hence in this paper, we propose two improved approaches that handle this problem in huge dataset used in different domains. These approaches, based on L2-SVMs reduced to MEB problems result in a reduced data optimally matched to the input demands of different background of systems such as Universal Background Model architectures in language recognition and identification systems. We experiment on speech information based on acoustic shifted delta coefficient feature vectors applied in GMM-based dialect identification system where all data outer the ball defined by MEB are eliminated and the training time is reduced. Further numerical experiments on some real-world datasets show proof of the usefulness of our approaches in the field of data mining.
Quantum copying: Beyond the no-cloning theorem.

We analyze the possibility of copying ~that is, cloning! arbitrary states of a quantum-mechanical spin-1/2 system. We show that there exists a ‘‘universal quantum-copying machine’’ ~i.e., transformation! which approximately copies quantum-mechanical states such that the quality of its output does not depend on the input. We also examine a machine which combines a unitary transformation and a selective measurement to produce good copies of states in the neighborhood of a particular state. We discuss the problem of measurement of the output states. @S1050-2947~96! 08408-9#
Characteristic relational patterns

Research in relational data mining has two major directions: finding global models of a relational database and the discovery of local relational patterns within a database. While relational patterns show how attribute values co-occur in detail, their huge numbers hamper their usage in data analysis. Global models, on the other hand, only provide a summary of how different tables and their attributes relate to each other, lacking detail of what is going on at the local level. In this paper we introduce a new approach that combines the positive properties of both directions: it provides a detailed description of the complete database using a small set of patterns. More in particular, we utilise a rich pattern language and show how a database can be encoded by such patterns. Then, based on the MDLprinciple, the novel RDB-KRIMP algorithm selects the set of patterns that allows for the most succinct encoding of the database. This set, the code table, is a compact description of the database in terms of local relational patterns. We show that this resulting set is very small, both in terms of database size and in number of its local relational patterns: a reduction of up to 4 orders of magnitude is attained.
Explicit Contexts in LF (Revised)

The standard methodology for representing deductive sys- tems in LF identiﬁes the object’s language’s context with the LF context. Consequently, any variable dealt with explic- itly by any judgement or metatheorem must be last in the context. When the object language is dependently typed, this can pose a problem for establishing some metatheoretic results, since dependent hypotheses cannot be re-ordered at will.This paper presents a general technique that addresses such problems, based on representing the object language’s context as an explicit object in LF while retaining the use of higher-order representation for the object language’s syntax. A central result is that it is possible to convert between explicit and implicit contexts, which makes it feasible to use the standard methodology for most developments, but use explicit contexts where necessary. We do not propose any extensions to LF; the technique can be utilized in standard LF.
Lifting the Burden of History in Adaptive Ordering of Pipelined Stream Filters

Ordering of commutative and correlated pipelined stream filters in a dynamic environment is a problem of high interest due to its application in data stream scenarios and its relevance to many query optimization problems. Current state-of-the-art adaptive techniques continuously reoptimize filter orderings utilizing statistics that are collected during the execution of the query, however, both the up-to-date and the out-of-date collected statistical data may be considered with the consequence of not always taking effective reoptimization decisions. In this work, we propose a technique for adaptive filter ordering that tries to lift the burden of out-of-date statistical data after detecting changes in the filter drop probabilities. To this end, we propose a novel drop probability change detection algorithm. The experimental evaluation shows that the proposed technique can yield significant performance improvements while decreasing the runtime overhead.
First high speed simultaneous force feedback for multi-trap optical tweezers

Optical tweezers use a tightly focused laser beam to trap dielectric micro-object. Haptic optical tweezers integrate a robotic haptic device into the system to control trap positions and in the meantime feedback forces. This technique opens a broad reaching applications by providing direct and intuitive interactions during micromanipulation. However, 1 kHz sampling rate is required to ensure a reliable tactile sensation. A system satisfying this requirement has been presented in our previous work. This paper goes one big step further to perform real-time high speed haptic feedback on multi-trap optical tweezers. The goal of the system is to enable users to touch the microscale object the same way as using their fingers. The used force sensor is a novel event-based vision sensor that transmits output as a stream of asynchronous timestamped events that eliminates internally the redundant static information. The associated event based algorithm can thus be able to track the positions of two spheres up to 1 kHz. A contact experiment is performed demonstrating the feasibility and the efficiency of the presented method. To our knowledge, this is the first time high speed haptic feedback is performed on multiple microspheres simultaneously in a contact scenario.
Mechatronic, autonomous system for movement assessment of horses — Preliminary study

This article presents preliminary study on mechatronics, autonomous system for movement assessment of horses. The significance of providing research, where examines done in natural environment for animals to achieve a true picture of the movement and behavior of the animals is the most important factor, is discussed in details. Concept of the system and first results of tests have been presented. Results have been briefly discussed; movement asymmetry of horse's legs (diseases and healthy) have been noticed what proves that the developed system can be used for rapid detection of diseases or monitoring of progress in the horse treatment and rehabilitation.
The Sonographic Features of Papillary Thyroid Carcinomas: Pictorial Essay

Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is the most common thyroid malignancy in children and adults, with an incidence of 22,000 cases per year in the United States. Differentiating PTC from more frequently occurring benign thyroid nodules has proved challenging as there may be significant overlap in their clinical presentation and sonographic appearance. That said, high-resolution ultrasound provides a safe and affordable way of identifying and characterizing thyroid nodules and guiding percutaneous biopsies. Although no single sonographic feature is pathognomonic for PTC, certain features should raise suspicion and the combination of several features may be even more suggestive. In this pictorial essay, we describe the high-resolution sonographic features of pathologically proven PTCs. The nodule number, echo texture, internal architecture, calcifications, margins, contours, vascularity, and lymph nodes are considered. While the classic sonographic description of PTC is a solitary, hypoechoic solid nodule with microcalcifications and intrinsic vascularity, in practice, PTC may manifest with a myriad of sonographic appearances making biopsy necessary for a definitive diagnosis.