Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Could Mammoth Cave Be Reduced to a Single Equation

Since the evolution of any cave system is largely deterministic, in theory the processes responsible for this development could be described mathematically. In a practical sense, we will never have such a model to realistically describe the evolution of the Mammoth Cave System in detail. However, the search itself can provide a framework within which to understand what processes are important. This can guide the design of rate process studies that would eventually be coupled to provide a comprehensive understanding of the cave's evolution. Data gaps, as well, are identified during this process. The geometry of a cave system depends on the individual growth rates of sequential sets of passage cross-sections. The growth of each of these cross-sections is determined by a set of coupled processes, the rates of which are related to well-defined variables. Major processes include limestone dissolution and precipitation (dependent on water and rock chemistry, flow characteristics, wetted passage perimeter, and temperature), sediment entrainment, deposition, and abrasion (dependent on flow velocity distributions and properties of the sediment supply), and breakdown processes (dependent on fracture characteristics). Our ability to model the complete picture depends on our grasp of these individual behaviors, as well as their interactions. A long-term study of the behaviors of two single active passage cross-sections is underway in the Right and Left forks of Hawkins River of Mammoth Cave, where continuous water quality data are being obtained through two 145 m deep wells. Experiments are currently underway to determine stormand seasonal-scale changes in limestone dissolution rates. Planned studies will explore sediment dynamics and the impact of sediment masking on dissolution rates, as well as potential impacts of sediment abrasion on passage growth. Complete understanding of a single cave slice is an important step to understanding cave evolution in general.
Revisiting the death of geography in the era of Big Data: the friction of distance in cyberspace and real space

ABSTRACT Many scholars have argued that the importance of geographic proximity in human interactions has been diminished by the use of the Internet, while others disagree with this argument. Studies have noted the distance decay effect in both cyberspace and real space, showing that interactions occur with an inverse relationship between the number of interactions and the distance between the locations of the interactors. However, these studies rarely provide strong evidence to show the influence of distance on interactions in cyberspace, nor do they quantify the differences in the amount of friction of distance between cyberspace and real space. To fill this gap, this study used massive amounts of social media data (Twitter) to compare the influence of distance decay on human interactions between cyberspace and real space in a quantitative manner. To estimate the distance decay effect in both cyberspace and real space, the distance decay function of interactions in each space was modeled. Estimating the distance decay in cyberspace in this study can help predict the degree of information flow across space through social media. Measuring how far ideas can be diffused through social media is useful for users of location-based services, policy advocates, public health officials, and political campaigners.
Conceptualizing and Measuring Computer and Information Literacy in Cross-National Contexts

ABSTRACT The development of information technologies has transformed the environment in which young people access, create, and share information. Many countries, having recognized the imperative of digital technology, acknowledge the need to educate young people in the use of these technologies so as to underpin economic and social benefits. This article describes the International Computer and Information Literacy Study, which was conducted under the aegis of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement in 20 education systems during 2013. It outlines the assessment framework on which the study is based, articulates the basis for developing a measure of Computer and Information Literacy. The article also provides an insight into the nature and properties of the scale based on data from more than 60,000 Grade 8 students who responded to the 83 test items. The scale is described in terms of four achievement levels that are elaborated through examples.
Task dependent patterns of muscle activation at the shoulder and elbow for unconstrained arm movements.

1. Six subjects performed three series of pointing tasks with the unconstrained arm. Series one and two required subjects to move as fast as possible with different weights attached to the wrist. The first required flexion at both shoulder and elbow joints. The second required shoulder flexion and elbow extension. The third series required flexion at both joints and subjects were intentionally instructed to vary movement speed. These three pointing tasks were selected as the simplest progression from single to multiple degree of freedom movements in which different patterns of motoneuron excitation are required depending on whether movements are made against different loads or at different intended speeds. 2. Changes in load and changes in intended speed both produced systematic but different changes in the patterns of muscle activity and joint torque in both the elbow and shoulder muscles. These patterns are the same found during constrained, single-joint elbow flexion movements. The changes are expressed in the rates of rise, durations, and latencies of the electromyographic (EMG) bursts and in the rates of rise of torque that have specific dependencies based on the force requirements of the task. 3. A consistent, almost linear relationship is observed between muscle torque at the shoulder and at the elbow for all three tasks. Similar systematic changes were not seen in the kinematic description of joint angles. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
THE EFFECT OF GALLIC ACID ON HISTOPATHOLOGICAL AND STEREOLOGICAL OVARIAN INDEX IN ANIMAL MODEL OF POLY CYSTIC OVARIES SYNDROME

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOs) is a major cause of infertility due to non-ovulation. Studies have shown effects of antioxidant gallic acid. Therefore, the aim of the present study effect of Gallic acid on histopathological and stereological ovarian index in animal model of poly cystic ovaries syndrome. In this study, 40 females Wistar rats were randomly divided into five control groups (without treatment), pco group (receiving Letrozole 1mg/kg for 28 days) and PCOS groups, (receiving 50, 100, and 150 mg/kg doses of gallic acid, respectively). The gallic acid was administered per orally for 14 days. After dissection, the rats' ovaries were removed and put in 10% formalin for fixation and slides preparation processes were carried out. Finally, the study data were entered into the SPSS statistical software (v. 22) and analyzed using the Tukey test. The present study results indicated a significant decrease in the corpus luteum diameter and number of unilamminar follicles, Antral, graffian and corpus luteum and increase number of atretic and cystic follicles in the pcos group comparison to the control group (p≤0.05) which showed improvement process in high dosage treated groups. However, no significant differences were found regarding the number of primordial follicles and oocyte diameter (p≤0.05). It seems that Gallic acid affects the returning of follicogenesis in rats with PCOS and non-ovulation, in a way it causes ovulation increment.
Hard-real-time scheduling of data-dependent tasks in embedded streaming applications

Most of the hard-real-time scheduling theory for multiprocessor systems assumes independent periodic or sporadic tasks. Such a simple task model is not directly applicable to modern embedded streaming applications. This is because a modern streaming application is typically modeled as a directed graph where nodes represent actors (i.e. tasks) and edges represent data-dependencies. The actors in such graphs have data-dependency constraints and do not necessarily conform to the periodic or sporadic task models. Therefore, in this paper we investigate the applicability of hard-real-time scheduling theory for periodic tasks to streaming applications modeled as acyclic Cyclo-Static Dataflow (CSDF) graphs. In such graphs, the actors are data-dependent, however, we analytically prove that they (i.e. the actors) can be scheduled as implicit-deadline periodic tasks. As a result, a variety of hard-real-time scheduling algorithms for periodic tasks can be applied to schedule such applications with a certain guaranteed throughput. We compare the throughput resulting from such scheduling approach to the maximum achievable throughput of an application for a set of 19 real streaming applications. We find that in more than 80% of the cases, the throughput resulting from our approach is equal to the maximum achievable throughput.
The effect of nitric oxide inhibitors and s-nitrosothiols on hemodynamic parameters in an animal model

Background: Nitric oxide (NO) is becoming an increasingly important signaling molecule implicated in a growing number of physiological and pathophysiological processes. We sought to test the hypothesis that co-administration of S-nitro-N-acetylpenicillamine (SNAP) or S-nitrosocaptopril (CapSNO) with N G -methyl- l - arginine ester ( l - NAME) or N G -methyl-l - arginine acetate ( l -NMMA) may reverse the elevated systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressures caused by the administration of l - NAME or l - NMMA only. Materials and methods: Blood pressure was measured using the CODA 6 machine. The hemodynamic parameters systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) were determined for each rat group. There was intravenous (IV) administration of the control (0.3 mL, saline) or dosage of 12.5 mg/kg body weight of SNAP or CapSNO via IV. Results: In CapSNO and l - NAME-treated rats, CapSNO significantly decreased SBP from 131.12 ± 4.29 mmHg to 121.42 ± 4.24 mmHg after 5 minutes ( P , 0.0001), and then l - NAME (administered at t = 5 min) increased SBP to 165.29 ± 6.79 mmHg at 10 minutes ( P , 0.05). In SNAP and l - NAME-treated rats, SNAP significantly decreased SBP from 135.86 ± 2.84 mmHg to 106.98 ± 1.99 mmHg ( P , 0.0001) after 5 minutes, and l - NAME increased SBP to 146.18 ± 3.19 mmHg after 25.0 minutes ( P , 0.05). In rats treated with SNAP and l - NAME, SNAP decreased DBP to 74.98 ± 2.49 mmHg ( P , 0.0001) after 5 minutes while l - NAME increased DBP to 105.01 ± 2.60 mmHg after 25 minutes ( P , 0.05). In SNAP and l - NAME treated group there was an increase in HR after the administration of SNAP (486.60 ± 30.82 at 0 minutes to 555.66 ± 32.37 beats min − 1 at 5 minutes; P , 0.0001), followed by a decrease in HR to 336.90 ± 17.48 beats min − 1 at 25 minutes ( P , 0.05) after the administration of l - NAME (at t = 5 min). Conclusion: The data suggest that the actions of l - NAME and l - NMMA reversed the effects of NO released from SNAP or CapSNO. These drugs could be beneficial in the control of blood pressure in hypertensive patients.
Speculation based Decision Support System for Efficient Resource Provisioning in Cloud Data Center

Cloud Computing is a utility model that offers everything as a service and supports dynamical resource provisioning and auto-scaling in datacenter. Cloud datacenter must envision resource allocation and reallocation to meet out the unpredictable user demand that touted gains in the model. This impact a need of adaptive and automated provisioning of resources aligned with clients SLA amidst the time variant environment in cloud. The robustness of dynamic resource provisioning is based on quick multiplexing virtual resources into physical servers. In this paper we put forward a prediction based automated resource allocation model induced by speculation mechanism. Our model guarantees dodging over/under utilization of resources and minimizes the cost economically without compromising Quality of Service. We regain the speculation concept that uses a past resource access pattern to predict future possible resource access. We introduce the confidence estimation factor to address the historical variability of the current pattern to improve the prediction accuracy. Experimental results show that our proposed model offer more adaptive resource provisioning as compared to heuristic and other machine learning algorithms.
Effect of Recombinant Human Lecithin Cholesterol Acyltransferase Infusion on Lipoprotein Metabolism in Mice

Lecithin cholesterol acyl transferase (LCAT) deficiency is associated with low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and the presence of an abnormal lipoprotein called lipoprotein X (Lp-X) that contributes to end-stage renal disease. We examined the possibility of using LCAT an as enzyme replacement therapy agent by testing the infusion of human recombinant (r)LCAT into several mouse models of LCAT deficiency. Infusion of plasma from human LCAT transgenic mice into LCAT-knockout (KO) mice rapidly increased HDL-cholesterol (C) and lowered cholesterol in fractions containing very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) and Lp-X. rLCAT was produced in a stably transfected human embryonic kidney 293f cell line and purified to homogeneity, with a specific activity of 1850 nmol/mg/h. Infusion of rLCAT intravenously, subcutaneously, or intramuscularly into human apoA-I transgenic mice showed a nearly identical effect in increasing HDL-C approximately 2-fold. When rLCAT was intravenously injected into LCAT-KO mice, it showed a similar effect as plasma from human LCAT transgenic mice in correcting the abnormal lipoprotein profile, but it had a considerably shorter half-life of approximately 1.23 ± 0.63 versus 8.29 ± 1.82 h for the plasma infusion. rLCAT intravenously injected in LCAT-KO mice crossed with human apolipoprotein (apo)A-I transgenic mice had a half-life of 7.39 ± 2.1 h and increased HDL-C more than 8-fold. rLCAT treatment of LCAT-KO mice was found to increase cholesterol efflux to HDL isolated from mice when added to cells transfected with either ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter A1 or ABCG1. In summary, rLCAT treatment rapidly restored the normal lipoprotein phenotype in LCAT-KO mice and increased cholesterol efflux, suggesting the possibility of using rLCAT as an enzyme replacement therapy agent for LCAT deficiency.
Evaluation of Lef1 transcription factor in mammalian preimplantation embryos

Title of Document: EVALUATION OF LEF1 TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR IN MAMMALIAN PREIMPLANTAITON EMBRYOS Ashley Elaine Meece, Master of Science, 2007 Directed By: Associate Professor, Dr. Carol L. Keefer Department of Animal and Avian Sciences The first lineage differentiation of cells during pre-implantation embryo development is critical for continued embryonic growth. Though several transcription factors (TFs) have been identified that are involved in this transition, a specific mechanism of regulation has yet to be determined. Previous studies in our laboratory have shown the TF Lef1 is involved in differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells into trophoblastic stem cells through the Wnt signaling pathway. Lef1 is known to be involved in lineage determination of adult skin stem cells. As we observed that two isoforms of Lef1 were expressed at different stages of pre-implantation development, we hypothesized that Lef1 was interacting with the other well-established lineage differentiation TFs, Nanog, Oct4, and Cdx2, in these early embryos. At the blastocyst stage, no significant changes in mRNA expression were seen when siRNAs, specifically designed to knockdown Lef1 expression, were injected in early embryos; however, knockdown of Lef1 did not interfere with blastocyst formation. EVALUATION OF LEF1 TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR IN MAMMALIAN PREIMPLANTION EMBRYOS
Demonstration of the Effectiveness of Augmented Reality Telesurgery in Complex Hand Reconstruction in Gaza

Summary: Augmented reality (AR) is defined as “a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. ”1 This case report describes how emerging AR telesurgery technologies may be used to facilitate international surgeon–surgeon collaboration and training. Here, we illustrate how a remote surgeon in Beirut, Lebanon, was able to offer assistance to a surgeon in Gaza, Palestine, during a complex hand reconstruction case following a bomb-blast injury in an 18-year-old male. We discuss the implications of AR technology on the future of global surgery and how it may be used to reduce structural inequities in access to safe surgical care.
Fundamental investigation of Si anode in Li-Ion cells

Silicon is a promising and attractive anode material to replace graphite for high capacity lithium ion cells since its theoretical capacity is ~10 times of graphite and it is an abundant element on earth. However, there are challenges associated with using silicon as Li-ion anode due to the significant first cycle irreversible capacity loss and subsequent rapid capacity fade during cycling. In this paper, cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy are used to build a fundamental understanding of silicon anodes. The results show that it is difficult to form the SEI film on the surface of Si anode during the first cycle, the lithium ion insertion and de-insertion kinetics for Si are sluggish, and the cell internal resistance changes with the state of lithiation after electrochemical cycling. These results are compared with those for extensively studied graphite anodes. The understanding gained from this study will help to design better Si anodes.
Code Compression and Decompression for Instruction Cell Based Reconfigurable Systems

Code compression has been applied to embedded systems to minimize the silicon area utilized for program memories, and lower the power consumption. More recently, it has become a necessity for multiple-issue architectures, such as VLIW and TTA, to permit a viable realization of these designs. In this paper, a code compression and decompression scheme suitable for newly emerging reconfigurable technologies is presented, which pose further challenges by having an order of magnitude higher memory requirement due to much wider instruction words than typical VLIW/TTA architectures. Two dictionary-based lossless compression schemes are implemented and compared for an example reconfigurable system. This paper looks at several conflicting design parameters, such as the compression ratio, silicon area and speed. Test programs for a 2D DCT, minimum error, wimax and H.264 have been evaluated with compression ratios in the range of 41% to 62% recorded with the best scheme.
Contributions of secondary fragmentation by carbon ion beams in water phantom: Monte Carlo simulation

Heavy-particle therapy such as carbon ion therapy is currently very popular because of its superior conformality in terms of dose distribution and higher Relative Biological Effectiveness (RBE). However, carbon ion beams produce a complex mixed radiation field, which needs to be fully characterised. In this study, the fragmentation of a 290 MeV/u primary carbon ion beam was studied using the Geant4 Monte Carlo Toolkit. When the primary carbon ion beam interacts with water, secondary light charged particles (H, He, Li, Be, B) and fast neutrons are produced, contributing to the dose, especially after the distal edge of the Bragg peak.
An innovative prototype to prevent accidents using eye blink sensors and accelerometer ADXL330

Driver operation can be best studied from changes in physiological signals like heartbeat, brainwave, eye blink etc. This paper describes a prototype of a driver fatigue monitor. A low cost charge-coupled-device camera equipped with active infrared illuminators which acquires video images of the driver. Image is divided into blocks by image processing technique to detect blinks and according to the condition prevailing the alarm buzz is generated and vehicle is halted by the auto-brake system. Similarly, head movement of the driver is monitored with an accelerometer headgear to detect drowsiness in the driver. On detecting so, the speed of the vehicle is controlled, alert is raised through audio speakers, and messages are sent to the driver's mobile. We, the authors want to propose the idea of implementing speed control in the car, when drowsiness is detected in the driver by the eye blink sensor, recording the blinking of eye, and accelerometer, detecting head movements of the driver.
Smart Tissue Anastomosis Robot (STAR): Accuracy evaluation for supervisory suturing using near-infrared fluorescent markers

This paper specifies and evaluates the accuracy of the Smart Tissue Anastomosis Robot (STAR). The STAR is a proof of concept vision-guided robotic system equipped with an actuated laparoscopic suturing tool and a multispectral vision system. The STAR supports image-based suturing commands and is capable of detecting near-infrared fluorescent (NIRF) markers that provide reliable visual segmentation and tracking. The paper reports the best case scenario accuracy specifications of the STAR as derived from its configuration and calibration parameters. We also evaluate experimentally the effects of overlaying NIRF markers on the accuracy of the STAR when these markers are used as the source of image-based commands and we compare these results to the accuracy of the STAR with image-based commands generated from plain color images. Our results demonstrate that the STAR is able to place sutures on a planar phantom with an average accuracy of 0.5 mm with a standard deviation of 0.2 mm and that NIRF markers have no statistically significant adverse effect on the accuracy.
Differentiated Services in 802.11e WLAN

This paper focuses on how the IEEE 802.11e standard for Quality of Service (QoS) in Wireless Local Area networks (WLANs) can interoperate with the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) architecture for end-to-end IP QoS. It explores to which extent the 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Coordinated Access (EDCA) can meet the requirements from the DiffServ Per Hop Behavior (PHB) specifications. An architecture for the use of DiffServ in an 802.11e WLAN environment is first outlined. Then, a mapping scheme from the PHBs to the 802.11e priority classes is suggested. How well 802.11e EDCA conforms to the DiffServ PHBs are finally evaluated by means of simulations.