Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Implementation of a Marauding Insect Module (MIM, version 1.0) in the Integrated BIosphere Simulator (IBIS, version 2.6b4) dynamic vegetation–land surface model

Abstract. Insects defoliate and kill plants in many ecosystems worldwide. The consequences of these natural processes on terrestrial ecology and nutrient cycling are well established, and their potential climatic effects resulting from modified land–atmosphere exchanges of carbon, energy, and water are increasingly being recognized. We developed a Marauding Insect Module (MIM) to quantify, in the Integrated BIosphere Simulator (IBIS), the consequences of insect activity on biogeochemical and biogeophysical fluxes, also accounting for the effects of altered vegetation dynamics. MIM can simulate damage from three different insect functional types: (1) defoliators on broadleaf deciduous trees, (2) defoliators on needleleaf evergreen trees, and (3) bark beetles on needleleaf evergreen trees, with the resulting impacts being estimated by IBIS based on the new, insect-modified state of the vegetation. MIM further accounts for the physical presence and gradual fall of insect-killed dead standing trees. The design of MIM should facilitate the addition of other insect types besides the ones already included and could guide the development of similar modules for other process-based vegetation models. After describing IBIS–MIM, we illustrate the usefulness of the model by presenting results spanning daily to centennial timescales for vegetation dynamics and cycling of carbon, energy, and water in a simplified setting and for bark beetles only. More precisely, we simulated 100 % mortality events from the mountain pine beetle for three locations in western Canada. We then show that these simulated impacts agree with many previous studies based on field measurements, satellite data, or modelling. MIM and similar tools should therefore be of great value in assessing the wide array of impacts resulting from insect-induced plant damage in the Earth system.
Endurance exercise training and high-fat diet differentially affect composition of diacylglycerol molecular species in rat skeletal muscle

Insulin resistance of peripheral muscle is implicated in the etiology of metabolic syndrome in obesity. Although accumulation of glycerolipids, such as triacylglycerol and diacylglycerol (DAG), in muscle contributes to insulin resistance in obese individuals, endurance-trained athletes also have higher glycerolipid levels but normal insulin sensitivity. We hypothesized that the difference in insulin sensitivity of skeletal muscle between athletes and obese individuals stems from changes in fatty acid composition of accumulated lipids. Here, we evaluated the effects of intense endurance exercise and high-fat diet (HFD) on the accumulation and composition of lipid molecular species in rat skeletal muscle using a lipidomic approach. Sprague-Dawley female rats were randomly assigned to three groups and received either normal diet (ND) in sedentary conditions, ND plus endurance exercise training, or HFD in sedentary conditions. Rats were fed ND or HFD between 4 and 12 wk of age. Rats in the exercise group ran on a treadmill for 120 min/day, 5 days/wk, for 8 wk. Soleus muscle lipidomic profiles were obtained using liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry. Total DAG levels, particularly those of palmitoleate-containing species, were increased in muscle by exercise training. However, whereas the total DAG level in the muscle was also increased by HFD, the levels of DAG molecular species containing palmitoleate were decreased by HFD. The concentration of phosphatidylethanolamine molecular species containing palmitoleate was increased by exercise but decreased by HFD. Our results indicate that although DAG accumulation was similar levels in trained and sedentary obese rats, specific changes in molecular species containing palmitoleate were opposite.
Diurnal variation in the acute effects of estradiol and progesterone on beta-endorphin and Met-enkephalin levels in specific brain regions of ovariectomized rats.

The present investigation was conducted to evaluate the effects of estradiol and progesterone on beta-endorphin and Met-enkephalin levels in specific brain regions of ovariectomized rats. Female Sprague-Dawley rats (100-120 g) adapted to a 12-hour light, 12-hour dark illumination cycle were used in these studies. Animals were ovariectomized under pentobarbital anesthesia. After a recovery period of 10-14 days, estradiol (50 micrograms/kg in 0.2 ml olive oil) was administered subcutaneously to rats at either 8.00, 14.00 or 16.00 h, progesterone (5 mg/kg in 0.1 ml olive oil) or estradiol plus progesterone was administered subcutaneously at 16.00 h. Control rats were injected with olive oil. Animals were sacrificed 2 h later. The cerebral cortex, hypothalamus, hippocampus and midbrain were dissected, and their beta-endorphin and Met-enkephalin levels were determined by radioimmunoassay. Estradiol administration at 8.00 h resulted in a significant decline in beta-endorphin levels of the hippocampus (66% decrease) and a significant rise in Met-enkephalin levels of the hypothalamus (37.8% increase) but had no effect on other brain regions studied. When estradiol was administered at 14.00 h, it produced a significant change in beta-endorphin levels in the cerebral cortex (34.7% increase) and in the midbrain (31.3% increase), but these levels were not altered in the other brain regions. At 16.00 h estradiol and progesterone alone caused a significant increase (29 and 43%, respectively) in beta-endorphin levels of the hippocampus. Similarly, the Met-enkephalin levels in the hippocampus significantly increased following administration of estradiol (57% increase) and progesterone (54% increase) alone. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Can We Predict Psychosis Outside the Clinical High-Risk State? A Systematic Review of Non-Psychotic Risk Syndromes for Mental Disorders

Abstract Recent evidence has suggested that psychosis could develop not only in people at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P) but also in those with clinical risk syndromes for emergent nonpsychotic mental disorders. The proportion of people with these clinical risk syndromes who will develop psychosis rather than to other nonpsychotic mental disorders is undetermined. Electronic databases were searched for studies reporting on clinical risk syndromes for the development of emergent nonpsychotic mental disorders. Incidence of emerging psychotic and nonpsychotic mental disorders defined on the ICD or DSM. Of a total of 9 studies relating to 3006 nonpsychotic at-risk individuals were included. Within prospective studies (n = 4, sample = 1051), the pooled incidence of new psychotic disorders across these clinical risk syndromes was of 12.9 per 1000 person-years (95% CI: 4.3 to 38.6) and that of nonpsychotic disorders (n = 3, sample = 538) was of 43.5 per 1000 person-years (95% CI: 30.9 to 61.3). Psychotic disorders may emerge outside the CHR-P paradigm, from clinical risk syndromes for incident nonpsychotic disorders, albeit at lower rates than in the CHR-P group. The clinical risk syndromes for emerging nonpsychotic disorders may exhibit a pluripotential risk of developing several types of mental disorders compared with CHR-P. If substantiated by future research, the current findings suggest that it may be useful to move beyond the current strategy of identifying individuals meeting CHR-P criteria only.
One More Tag Enables Fine-Grained RFID Localization and Tracking

Exploiting radio frequency signals is promising for locating and tracking objects. Prior works focus on per-tag localization, in which each object is attached with one tag. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive localization and tracking scheme by attaching two RFID tags to one object. Instead of using per-tag localization pattern, adding one-more RFID tag to the object exhibits several benefits: 1) providing rich freedom in RFID reader’s antenna spacing and placement; 2) supporting accurate calibration of the reader’s antenna location and spacing, and 3) enabling fine-grained calculation on the orientation of the tags. All of these advantages ultimately improve the localization/tracking accuracy. Our extensive experimental results demonstrate that the average errors of localization and orientation of target tags are 6.415 cm and 1.330°, respectively. Our results also verify that the reader’s antenna geometry does have impact on tag positioning performance.
The shear strength of thin lubricant films

This paper describes a study of the effects of pressure and temperature on the shear strength of very thin layers of a number of lubricants. The shear strength is deduced from measurements of the tangential (frictional) force required to slide glass spheres over glass plates coated with the lubricant. It is assumed that no glass-glass contact occurs through the lubricant film and that the area of lubricant sheared is the geometrical contact area determined by the elastic constants of the sliding surfaces. Consequently by varying the radius of the sphere and the normal load the contact pressure can be varied from 107 to 5 x 109 Pa (1 Pa = 1 Nm-2). The results show that the shear strength of Langmuir-Blodgett films of calcium stearate is constant at low pressures, but at pressures greater than 5 x 107 Pa it increases approximately in proportion to the pressure. At higher temperatures the behaviour is similar but the shear strength is reduced at all pressures. Similar experiments have been carried out on retracted stearic acid films, on vapour deposited sebacic acid films and on smeared films of copper stearate and anthracene. Thin films of high density polythene and PTFE have also been studied. For these materials both the absolute value of the shear strength and its variation with pressure resemble the behaviour of calcium stearate. Experiments on the effect of temperature on the shear strength show that calcium stearate, stearic acid and high density polythene exhibit similar ‘activation energies’ for the shear process. This suggests that these materials all shear by a similar process involving the sliding of linearly orientated methylene groups over one another. PTFE behaves in a similar way although its ‘activation energy’ is a little higher. By contrast anthracene and sebacic acid have much lower activation energies suggesting that a different shear process is involved.
A Randomized Double Blind Trial of Needle‐free Injected Lidocaine Versus Topical Anesthesia for Infant Lumbar Puncture

OBJECTIVES Lumbar punctures (LPs) are commonly performed in febrile infants to evaluate for meningitis, and local anesthesia increases the likelihood of LP success. Traditional methods of local anesthesia require injection that may be painful or topical application that is not effective immediately. Recent advances in needle-free jet injection may offer a rapid alternative to these modalities. We compared a needle-free jet-injection system (J-Tip) with 1% buffered lidocaine to topical anesthetic (TA) cream for local anesthesia in infant LPs. METHODS This was a single-center randomized double-blind trial of J-Tip versus TA for infant LPs in an urban tertiary care children's hospital emergency department. A computer randomization model was used to allocate patients to either intervention. Patients aged 0 to 4 months were randomized to J-Tip syringe containing 1% lidocaine and a placebo TA cream or J-Tip syringe containing saline and TA. The primary outcome was the difference between the Neonatal Faces Coding Scale (NFCS) before the procedure and during LP needle insertion. Secondary outcomes included changes in heart rate (HR) and NFCS throughout the procedure, difficulty with LP, number of LP attempts, provider impression of pain control, additional use of lidocaine, skin changes at LP site, and LP success. RESULTS We enrolled 66 subjects; 32 were randomized to J-Tip with lidocaine and 34 to EMLA. Six participants were excluded from the final analysis due to age greater than 4 months, and the remaining 58 were analyzed in their respective groups (32 J-Tip, 34 TA). There was no difference detected in NFCS between the two treatment groups before the procedure and during needle insertion for the LP (p = 0.58, p = 0.37). Neither HR nor NCFS differed among the groups throughout the procedure. Median perception of pain control by the provider and the need for additional lidocaine were comparable across groups. LPs performed with a J-Tip were twice as likely to be successful compared to those performed using TA (relative risk = 2.0; 95% confidence interval = 1.01-3.93; p = 0.04) with no difference in level of training or number of prior LPs performed by providers. CONCLUSIONS In a randomized controlled trial of two modalities for local anesthesia in infant LPs, J-Tip was not superior to TA cream as measured by pain control or physiologic changes. Infant LPs performed with J-Tip were twice as likely to be successful.
The Design of Orally Active Iron Chelators

Abstract: It is now generally accepted that it is not possible to design iron(III)‐selective hexadentate chelators with high oral bioavailability. In order to achieve suitable levels of oral activity for the treatment of systemic iron overload either tridentate or bidentate molecules need to be investigated. There are a number of such molecules in clinical practice, including hydroxypyridin‐4‐ones, desferrithiocin analogues and bis‐hydroxyphenyltriazoles. The underlying chemistry of each group is described, together with an indication of the distribution properties, redox cycling activity, and iron scavenging activity.
Selected Grades of Steel as Rheologically Defined Liquid Bodies

In many processes liquid metal is subjected to dynamic forces, e.g. dynamics of the electric arc, dripping of pig iron in a blast furnace in counter current with reducing gas, in a continuous casting process dynamic phenomena during flow and crystallization. Values of rheological parameters in these real processes are, so far, very difficult to measure. And thus the influence of the dynamics of these factors: liquid shear rate, time of force action, its value and direction are neglected. In this work the authors analyzed, from the rheological point of view, some selected typical types of steel: 90CrV6, DHQ3, 34CrNiMo, produced in an electric arc furnace. Measurements were taken using a high temperature rheometer FRS1600 in the range of liquid and under-liquid temperatures for changing shear rates and different times of shear stress impact on the liquid system. The measured rheological characteristics allowed us to conclude that the investigated steels show relationships between shear rate and time when the liquid steel was under the influence of the dynamic forces.
A Survey on Software Bug Evaluation

The costs of erroneous software can be as of the investment in software development. Yet, the potential to improve software quality and reduce project cost is enormous. Bug tracking and fixing can be an effective means to achieve quality i.e. error free at less cost. A System guides the maintenance activities of software developer’s team who earlier, face the problem in fixing bugs. Non-availability of bug in a system in market makes fixing process difficult. Presently Bug fixing is timeconsuming and exacerbates the already high cost of software maintenance which affects scheduled performance. This paper discusses a system that evaluates bugs and assigns priority on the basis of severity to fix them efficiently.
Structural Mechanics of Jute: The Effects of Hemicellulose or Lignin Removal

The effects of the separate removal of hemicelluloses and lignin on the structural mechanics of multi-cellular jute fibre have been studied. The results show that when the content of either the hemicelluloses or lignin is reduced progressively by chemical treatment, the tensile properties of jute fibre at rupture as well as at low extension are modified. It is suggested that in the case of removal of hemicelluloses, believed to be mainly present in the inter-fibrillar regions within the ultimate cell, the deformation of the fibrillar network is mainly responsible for the stress development and relaxation In stretched jute fibre. On the other hand, in the case of the removal of lignin, believed to be located in the inter-cellular region, the behavioural change in that region plays a dominant role in determining the tensile characteristics of the jute fibre.
CCR7‐CCL19/CCL21 Axis is Essential for Effective Arteriogenesis in a Murine Model of Hindlimb Ischemia

Background In order to identify factors that stimulate arteriogenesis after ischemia, we followed gene expression profiles in two extreme models for collateral artery formation over 28 days after hindlimb ischemia, namely “good‐responding” C57BL/6 mice and “poor‐responding” BALB/c mice. Methods and Results Although BALB/c mice show very poor blood flow recovery after ischemia, most known proarteriogenic genes were upregulated more excessively and for a longer period than in C57BL/6 mice. In clear contrast, chemokine genes Ccl19, Ccl21a, and Ccl21c and the chemokine receptor CCR7 were upregulated in C57BL/6 mice 1 day after hindlimb ischemia, but not in BALB/C mice. CCL19 and CCL21 regulate migration and homing of T lymphocytes via CCR7. When subjecting CCR7−/−/LDLR −/− mice to hindlimb ischemia, we observed a 20% reduction in blood flow recovery compared with that in LDLR −/− mice. Equal numbers of α‐smooth muscle actin–positive collateral arteries were found in the adductor muscles of both mouse strains, but collateral diameters were smaller in the CCR7−/−/LDLR −/−. Fluorescence‐activated cell sorter analyses showed that numbers of CCR7+ T lymphocytes (both CD4+ and CD8+) were decreased in the spleen and increased in the blood at day 1 after hindlimb ischemia in LDLR −/− mice. At day 1 after hindlimb ischemia, however, numbers of activated CD4+ T lymphocytes were decreased in the draining lymph nodes of LDLR −/− mice compared with CCR7−/−/LDLR −/− mice. Conclusions These data show that CCR7‐CCL19/CCL21 axis facilitates retention CD4+ T lymphocytes at the site of collateral artery remodeling, which is essential for effective arteriogenesis.
Bidirectional deep-readout echo state networks

We propose a deep architecture for the classification of multivariate time series. By means of a recurrent and untrained reservoir we generate a vectorial representation that embeds temporal relationships in the data. To improve the memorization capability, we implement a bidirectional reservoir, whose last state captures also past dependencies in the input. We apply dimensionality reduction to the final reservoir states to obtain compressed fixed size representations of the time series. These are subsequently fed into a deep feedforward network trained to perform the final classification. We test our architecture on benchmark datasets and on a real-world use-case of blood samples classification. Results show that our method performs better than a standard echo state network and, at the same time, achieves results comparable to a fully-trained recurrent network, but with a faster training.
Change in Health Literacy Over 2 Years in Older Adults With Diabetes

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the stability of health literacy in adults with diabetes over time. Understanding the dynamic nature of health literacy is important when tailoring health messages, especially those targeted at the management of chronic health conditions. Method This was a descriptive longitudinal study of 751 adults with diabetes randomly selected from primary care practices in the Vermont Diabetes Information System study between July 2003 and December 2007. Participants were interviewed and completed questionnaires upon entrance into the study and again 24 months later. Health literacy was measured with the Short Test for Functional Health Literacy of Adults. Participants also completed the SF-12 and the Self-Administered Comorbidity Questionnaire and self-reported their sex, income, education, marital status, race/ethnicity, health insurance, duration of diabetes, and problems with vision. Results A significant decrease in health literacy was noted over 24 months. The largest decrease was in adults ≥65 years of age and those with higher physical function at baseline. Smaller declines were noted for women and participants who were white, higher educated, poly-pharmacy users, and with fair to excellent vision. Conclusions Health literacy exhibits decline with increasing age among adults with diabetes. Individual variability in health literacy has implications for the best timing and approach to provide self-management education and support.
A 0.1–0.6 V input range voltage boost converter with low-leakage driver for low-voltage energy harvesting

This paper proposes a fully integrated voltage boost converter (VBC) for low-voltage energy harvesting. The proposed VBC consists of three stage charge pumps (CPs) with a low-leakage driver, ring oscillator, and 4-phase clock generator. The output voltage is four times higher than an input voltage Fin. The low-leakage driver generates control signals to operate CPs with low leakage current. The amplitude of the control signals is 2VIN and does not depend on the load current. The proposed VBC achieves a wide load current, high output voltage, and high efficiency, even with a low-voltage input of the harvester. Simulation results demonstrated that the proposed VBC converted 0.1-V input to 0.362-V output and 0.6-V input to 2.38-V output, when the load current is zero. The peak efficiency was 70.3% at a 0.6-V input and 1-mA load current.
Polarization orientation effect and combination of electromechanical properties in advanced 0.67Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.33PbTiO3 single crystal/polymer composites with 2–2 connectivity

A comparative study on the effective piezoelectric properties and hydrostatic piezoelectric response is first carried out for advanced 2–2 composites based on single crystals of relaxor-ferroelectric solid solutions. Different orientations of domains and different poling directions of components are taken into consideration in the analysis of the effective longitudinal piezoelectric coefficients d33*, e33*, g33* and hydrostatic piezoelectric coefficients dh*, eh* and gh*. The important role of the polarization orientation effect and the effect of combination of the electromechanical properties in attaining the large effective parameters is shown for the parallel-connected 2–2 single-domain 0.67Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3–0.33PbTiO3/polyvinylidene fluoride composite. In particular, near extremum points of the effective parameters, this composite is characterized by the piezoelectric coefficients g33*≈500 mV m N−1, |dh*|≈400 pC N−1, |eh*|≈40 C m−2, and gh*≈400 mV m N−1. Three piezo-sums are first found to describe major contributions of the piezoelectric coefficients dij*, eij* and gij* to dh*, eh* and gh*, respectively, in the vicinity of absolute maxima (minima) of the aforementioned hydrostatic parameters. Advantages concerned with the presence of the single crystal (either single-domain or polydomain) in the studied 2–2 composites are discussed in connection with their piezoelectric activity, sensitivity and hydrostatic response.
Depth Estimation of Semi-submerged Objects Using a Light-Field Camera

We present an algorithm to estimate depth of realworld scenes containing an object semi-submerged in water using a light field camera. Existing hand-held consumer light field cameras are well-suited for automated refocusing, depth detection in out-door environment. However, when it comes to surveying marine environment and near water macro photography, all depth estimation algorithms based on traditional perspective camera model will fail because of the refracted rays. In this paper, we present a new method that explicitly accommodates the effect of refraction and resolves correct depths of underwater scene points. A semi-submerged object with opaque Lambertian surface with repeating textures is assumed. After removing the effect of refraction, the reconstructed underwater part of the semi-submerged object has consistent depth and shape with that of the above-water part.