Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Synthesis, consolidation and dielectric properties of BLT ceramics processed by M-PVA gel ignition technique

Polycrystalline samples of lanthanum modified bismuth titanate ceramics with composition Bi3·25La0·75Ti3O12 (BLT) were prepared at three different sintering temperatures (1050, 1100 and 1150°C) using M-PVA gel ignition technique. The samples were characterised for structural and electrical properties. A significant amount of as burnt BLT powder was found to be crystalline in nature having a yellowish colour. Very fine BLT nanoparticles were characterised by TEM analysis. Single phase with orthorhombic crystal structure was observed for all the samples, confirmed by X-ray analysis. Dielectric properties were studied as a function of frequency and temperature. More than 95% relative density was observed for all the three sintered samples. The sample sintered at 1100°C showed highest dielectric constant and relative density and lowest loss.
Commercially Available Outbred Mice for Genome-Wide Association Studies

Genome-wide association studies using commercially available outbred mice can detect genes involved in phenotypes of biomedical interest. Useful populations need high-frequency alleles to ensure high power to detect quantitative trait loci (QTLs), low linkage disequilibrium between markers to obtain accurate mapping resolution, and an absence of population structure to prevent false positive associations. We surveyed 66 colonies for inbreeding, genetic diversity, and linkage disequilibrium, and we demonstrate that some have haplotype blocks of less than 100 Kb, enabling gene-level mapping resolution. The same alleles contribute to variation in different colonies, so that when mapping progress stalls in one, another can be used in its stead. Colonies are genetically diverse: 45% of the total genetic variation is attributable to differences between colonies. However, quantitative differences in allele frequencies, rather than the existence of private alleles, are responsible for these population differences. The colonies derive from a limited pool of ancestral haplotypes resembling those found in inbred strains: over 95% of sequence variants segregating in outbred populations are found in inbred strains. Consequently it is possible to impute the sequence of any mouse from a dense SNP map combined with inbred strain sequence data, which opens up the possibility of cataloguing and testing all variants for association, a situation that has so far eluded studies in completely outbred populations. We demonstrate the colonies' potential by identifying a deletion in the promoter of H2-Ea as the molecular change that strongly contributes to setting the ratio of CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes.
Fetal Responses during Placental Malaria Modify the Risk of Low Birth Weight

ABSTRACT Inflammation during placental malaria (PM) is associated with low birth weight (LBW), especially during the first pregnancy, but the relative contribution of maternal or fetal factors that mediate this effect remains unclear and the role of gamma interferon (IFN-γ) has been controversial. We examined the relationship of maternal and cord plasma levels of IFN-γ, tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin-10, ferritin, and leptin to birth weight for Tanzanian women delivering in an area where there is a high rate of malaria transmission. The placental levels of inflammatory cytokines, including IFN-γ, increased significantly during PM in primigravid and multigravid women but not in secundigravid women. PM also increased maternal peripheral levels of all inflammatory markers except IFN-γ but had strikingly little effect on cord levels of these proteins. In a multivariate analysis, placental IFN-γ was negatively associated (P = 0.01) and cord ferritin was positively associated (P < 0.0001) with birth weight in infected (PM-positive [PM+]) first-time mothers. This relationship was not observed in other mothers, consistent with the epidemiology of PM and disease. Cord leptin had a strong positive relationship with birth weight in offspring of PM-negative women (P = 0.02 to P < 0.0001) but not in offspring of PM+ women (all differences were not significant) in the three gravidity groups. The results confirmed that placental IFN-γ is related to LBW due to PM during first pregnancies and suggest that fetal ferritin plays a protective role. Because fetal cells are a source of placental IFN-γ and cord ferritin, the fetal response to PM may modify the risk of LBW.
Vacuum Blowing of Flexible Urethane Foams

The chemistry and reactions occurring in urethane foam manufacture are well known and the reader is referred to Saunders and Frisch (1) for further information. The aspect of flexible urethane foam manufacture which interested the authors was the extensive use made of supplementary fluorocarbon blowing agents. Commercial literature is available which shows the use of such blowing agents in quantities up to 25 p.b. w. per 100 p.b. w. resin (2). Supplementary blowing agents serve no purpose other than that of producing a less dense foam without resorting to complete CO~ blowing from the water-isocyanate reaction which also produces urea in the foam structure, the aim being to obtain
Shaping BMP morphogen gradients in the Drosophila embryo and pupal wing

In the early Drosophila embryo, BMP-type ligands act as morphogens to suppress neural induction and to specify the formation of dorsal ectoderm and amnioserosa. Likewise, during pupal wing development, BMPs help to specify vein versus intervein cell fate. Here, we review recent data suggesting that these two processes use a related set of extracellular factors, positive feedback, and BMP heterodimer formation to achieve peak levels of signaling in spatially restricted patterns. Because these signaling pathway components are all conserved, these observations should shed light on how BMP signaling is modulated in vertebrate development.
Osmotic stress sensing and signaling in fishes

In their aqueous habitats, fish are exposed to a wide range of osmotic conditions and differ in their abilities to respond adaptively to these variations in salinity. Fish species that inhabit environments characterized by significant salinity fluctuation (intertidal zone, estuaries, salt lakes, etc.) are euryhaline and able to adapt to osmotic stress. Adaptive and acclimatory responses of fish to salinity stress are based on efficient mechanisms of osmosensing and osmotic stress signaling. Multiple osmosensors, including calcium sensing receptor likely act in concert to convey information about osmolality changes to downstream signaling and effector mechanisms. The osmosensory signal transduction network in fishes is complex and includes calcium, mitogen‐activated protein kinase, 14‐3‐3 and macromolecular damage activated signaling pathways. This network controls, among other targets, osmosensitive transcription factors such as tonicity response element binding protein and osmotic stress transcription factor 1, which, in turn, regulate the expression of genes involved in osmotic stress acclimation. In addition to intracellular signaling mechanisms, the systemic response to osmotic stress in euryhaline fish is coordinated via hormone‐ and paracrine factor‐mediated extracellular signaling. Overall, current insight into osmosensing and osmotic stress‐induced signal transduction in fishes is limited. However, euryhaline fish species represent excellent models for answering critical emerging questions in this field and for elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms of osmosensory signal transduction.
On the Design and Implementation of DSM-Threads

This paper discusses design goals, design decisions, and implementation choices of DSM-Threads, a runtime system to support distributed threads with a distributed shared virtual memory (DSM). DSM-Threads provides a distributed runtime system with a kernel on each node, which relies on POSIX threads locally and a decentralized communication subsystem between nodes. Support for multiple data consistency protocols facilitates the migration from shared-memory POSIX threads to DSM-Threads in a distributed environment on one side and ooers opportunities to ne-tune the program for DSM-Threads on the other side. The overall approach enhances portability of the system and allows support for heterogeneous environments without modiications of compilers or operating systems. The paper also describes the support for higher-order distributed language features by example for Ada95. Finally, a rst evaluation of the system's performance is given. DSM-Threads is, to our knowledge, the rst runtime system to support distributed threads on top of POSIX Threads via distributed virtual shared memory.
Foxe view of lens development and disease

The recent identification of a mutation in Foxe3 that causes congenital primary aphakia in humans marks an important milestone. Congenital primary aphakia is a rare developmental disease in which the lens does not form. Previously, Foxe3 had been shown to play a crucial role in vertebrate lens formation and this gene is one of the earliest integrators of several signaling pathways that cooperate to form a lens. In this review, we highlight recent advances that have led to a better understanding of the developmental processes and gene regulatory networks involved in lens development and disease.
Leakage in nano-scale technologies: mechanisms, impact and design considerations

The high leakage current in nano-meter regimes is becoming a significant portion of power dissipation in CMOS circuits as threshold voltage, channel length, and gate oxide thickness are scaled. Consequently, the identification of different leakage components is very important for estimation and reduction of leakage. Moreover, the increasing statistical variation in the process parameters has led to significant variation in the transistor leakage current across and within different dies. Designing with the worst case leakage may cause excessive guard-banding, resulting in a lower performance. This paper explores various intrinsic leakage mechanisms including weak inversion, gateoxide tunneling and junction leakage etc. Various circuit level techniques to reduce leakage energy and their design trade-off are discussed. We also explore process variation compensating techniques to reduce delay and leakage spread, while meeting power constraint and yield.
Early childhood sector staff perceptions of child overweight and obesity: the Weight of Opinion Study.

ISSUE ADDRESSED The perceptions of staff from the early childhood sector in New South Wales (NSW) regarding issues related to childhood overweight and obesity were examined. METHODS Eight pre-schools and long day care centres were recruited from suburbs of diverse socio-economic backgrounds in three metropolitan and one rural area in NSW. Centre directors and staff participated in in-depth interviews and a thematic analysis of their responses was performed. RESULTS Early childhood staff were both aware of and concerned about overweight among children, and felt that encouraging healthy eating and active play were part of their core responsibilities. They worked closely in partnership with parents, had several programs and policies in place, and identified a range of educational resources and professional development opportunities that they would find helpful, including how to discourage parents from sending unhealthy foods with their child and whether/how to raise their concerns about a child's weight with parents. However, staff also realised that their role was constrained by external factors, including social and commercial pressures. CONCLUSIONS The development and dissemination of the suggested educational resources and professional development opportunities would support early childhood staff in promoting healthy eating and active play and working with parents. Developing national guidelines on the appropriate amount of physical activity/active play for children under five years, and resources to support those guidelines, is one important area for intervention.
Internetworking with SDN using existing BGP

The research on transiting the existing networks to SDN (Software defined networking) just starts. We propose to continue using the BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) and the legacy BGP border routers for the SDN network and connect the SDN network with legacy IP networks in this paper. The experiments we carried out preliminary proved our design.
Plasminogen detection in oocytes and plasminogen activator activities in the porcine oviduct during the estrous cycle

Plasminogen activators (PAs) are highly specific serine proteases that convert the extracellular zymogen plasminogen into the active proteinase plasmin. Plasminogen-dependent proteolytic activity was detected by zymography both in the tissue membrane fraction of oviducts and in the oviductal flushing obtained at the preovulatory (Pre-Ov), postovulatory (Post-Ov) and mid-luteal (Mid-L) stages of the estrous cycle. A main proteolytic band, with a relative mobility similar to a human melanoma cell tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA), was found in all samples. Two additional components were observed in Pre-Ov and Post-Ov oviductal flushing but not in the tissue membrane fraction. In the oviductal flushing the PA activity was significantly higher in the Post-Ov stage than in the Pre-Ov one. Both urokinase-type plasminogen activator (u-PA, 50 kDa) and t-PA (72 kDa) were detected by Western blot; they showed differences in their relative concentration between Post-Ov and Pre-Ov oviductal flushing. The main PA substrate, plasminogen, was detected by indirect immunofluorescence in the cumulus cell extracellular matrix (ECM) and oocyte zona pellucida (ZP). In denuded oocytes, plasminogen was also detected on the surface of the plasma membrane. It is possible that oviductal PAs may act on the plasminogen present in the cumulus cell ECM and ZP; consequently, the generated plasmin could be involved in the rebuilding or degradation of these oocyte structures during fertilization or early development.
Performance Comparison of Various Filters for Denoising Foggy Images

This paper compares the performance of various filters on the images degraded by the fog. Denoising is vital for the image enhancement. It is difficult to remove the noise from the images while preserving the information and the quality of the image. For analysis filters like Median, Alpha Trim, Lee, Wiener, Anisotropic Diffusion and Guided filter are used. Number of performance metrics exists already in the literature to analyze the performance of denoising filters like SNR (Signal Noise Ratio), MSE (Mean Square Error), NAE (Normalized Absolute Error) and SC (Structural Content). The result demonstrates that the results of filters are not satisfactory. So, recently proposed dark channel prior method is studied and implemented. The visual results of the dark channel method are better than the filters.
Selection in Massively Parallel Genetic Algorithms

The availability of massively parallel computers makes it possible to apply genetic algorithms to large populations and very complex applications. Among these applications are studies of natural evolution in the emerging eld of articial life, which place special demands on the genetic algorithm. In this paper, we characterize the di erence between panmictic and local selection/mating schemes in terms of diversity of alleles, diversity of genotypes, the inbreeding coe cient, and the speed and robustness of the genetic algorithm. Based on these metrics, local mating appears to not only be superior to panmictic for arti cial evolutionary simulations, but also for more traditional applications of genetic algorithms. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms. Morgan Kaufmann, 1991.
Bounds for permutation rate-distortion

We study the rate-distortion relationship in the set of permutations endowed with the Kendall t-metric and the Chebyshev metric. Our study is motivated by the application of permutation rate-distortion to the average-case and worst-case distortion analysis of algorithms for ranking with incomplete information and approximate sorting algorithms. For the Kendall τ-metric we provide bounds for small, medium, and large distortion regimes, while for the Chebyshev metric we present bounds that are valid for all distortions and are especially accurate for small distortions. In addition, for the Chebyshev metric, we provide a construction for covering codes.
STONE: a stream-based DDoS defense framework

An effective Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) defense mechanism must guarantee legitimate users access to an Internet service masking the effects of possible attacks. That is, it must be able to detect threats and discard malicious packets in a online fashion. Given that emerging data streaming technology can enable such mitigation in an effective manner, in this paper we present STONE, a stream-based DDoS defense framework, which integrates anomaly-based DDoS detection and mitigation with scalable data streaming technology. With STONE, the traffic of potential targets is analyzed via continuous data streaming queries maintaining information used for both attack detection and mitigation. STONE provides minimal degradation of legitimate users traffic during DDoS attacks and it also faces effectively flash crowds. Our preliminary evaluation based on an implemented prototype and conducted with real legitimate and malicious traffic traces shows that STONE is able to provide fast detection and precise mitigation of DDoS attacks leveraging scalable data streaming technology.
Characterization of line edge roughness and line width roughness of nano-scale typical structures

Two kinds of nano-scale typical structures were fabricated for characterizing line edge roughness(LER) and line width roughness(LWR). With Cr and Si3N4 thin films alternately deposited on a silicon substrate and electronic beam lithography employed on a positive resist ZEP520 layer, a nano-scale multiple linewidth standard and a nano-scale grating structure were processed respectively. In regard to the nano-scale multiple linewidth standards, an offline image analysis algorithm of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) image and a random error analysis method were employed to characterize its LER and LWR, including standard deviations 3 σLER and 3 σLWR. With respect to the nano-scale grating structure, sampling and evaluation length, amplitude standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis, auto-correlation function as well as power spectral density function of the nano-scale grating structure were analyzed based on stochastic process analysis to show LER characteristics. Similarly Motif parameters-based analysis also was introduced to get LER characteristics of the nano-scale grating structure.
Older adults' attitudes towards and perceptions of ‘smart home’ technologies: a pilot study

Primary objective: The study aim is to explore the perceptions and expectations of seniors in regard to ‘smart home’ technology installed and operated in their homes with the purpose of improving their quality of life and/or monitoring their health status. Research design and methods: Three focus group sessions were conducted within this pilot study to assess older adults' perceptions of the technology and ways they believe technology can improve their daily lives. Themes discussed in these groups included participants' perceptions of the usefulness of devices and sensors in health-related issues such as preventing or detecting falls, assisting with visual or hearing impairments, improving mobility, reducing isolation, managing medications, and monitoring of physiological parameters. The audiotapes were transcribed and a content analysis was performed. Results: A total of 15 older adults participated in three focus group sessions. Areas where advanced technologies would benefit older adult residents included emergency help, prevention and detection of falls, monitoring of physiological parameters, etc. Concerns were expressed about the user-friendliness of the devices, lack of human response and the need for training tailored to older learners. Conclusions: All participants had an overall positive attitude towards devices and sensors that can be installed in their homes in order to enhance their lives.
Effect of maternal mental health on infant growth in low income countries: new evidence from South Asia

Impaired infant growth, a major problem in South Asia, may require interventions to improve maternal mental health in addition to current interventions targeting infant nutrition Unicef estimates that over 220 million children aged less than 5 years in the developing world have significantly impaired growth.1 The South Asian region is perhaps worst affected, being home to more than half of all the underweight children in the world.2 This article considers the relevance of new evidence on the epidemiology and impact of postnatal depression in South Asia on poor infant growth in low income countries. This evidence shows, for the first time, that a common and potentially treatable mental health problem in mothers is one of the causes of infant failure to thrive. We use this evidence to present a case that child focused interventions, largely aiming to provide supplementary nutrition, may need to be combined with mother focused interventions that target maternal mental health. Postnatal depression is depressive disorder occurring in the postnatal period and is typically diagnosed about 4-12 weeks after childbirth (see box). Several recent studies from South Asia have documented substantial rates of postnatal depression.3–6 Patel et al's cohort study of women attending a district hospital antenatal clinic in Goa, India, reported a prevalence of 23%. 4 Chandran et al's community cohort study from Tamil Nadu, India, documented prevalence and incidence of 19.8% and 11%, respectively.3 Rahman et al's community cohort study from Pakistan reported a prevalence of 28%. 6 These studies also showed that depressed mothers had significantly higher levels of disability, and that more than half remained ill for at least six months. Consistent risk factors for postnatal depression were antenatal psychiatric morbidity, economic deprivation, low education, and marital disharmony. Education, support from extended family members, and employment were …