Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vulnerabilities of Aging and Biological Effects of Physical Activity Provide New Clues for Interventions in Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a common neurodegenerative disorder resulting in motor, cognitive, psychiatric, sleep, sensory, and auto-nomic disturbances. The wide spectrum of morbidity is a major source for disability and impaired quality of life in patients with PD. A key pathological abnormality in PD is the loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra resulting in loss of dopaminergic nerve terminals in the striatum. Normal aging is also associated with substantial loss of striatal dopaminergic nerve terminal function at a rate of 5%–8% per decade of adult life (1,2). Therefore, normal aging between the ages of 25–75 years may result in about half the severity of losses as those seen in PD (3). The facts that aging is a major risk for PD and that normal aging is associated with substantial loss of striatal dopaminergic nerve terminal functions raise ques-tions about shared biological vulnerabilities. This series of aging and PD-related papers show that cellular
Discrimination of mangrove species and mudflat classes using in situ hyperspectral data: a case study of Indian Sundarbans

This study attempts to assess whether canopy spectra of mangrove species and mudflat spectra recorded under field conditions contain adequate spectral information for discerning mangroves at species rank and mudflats at the class level. This article highlights the hyperspectral characteristics of canopies of 17 tropical mangrove species, belonging to nine families, creek water and four mudflat classes found in the tidal forests of Indian Sundarbans. Hyperspectral observations were recorded using a field spectroradiometer, and pre-processed and averaged reflectance values of samples were subjected to various statistically tests such as k-means cluster analysis, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), stepwise linear discrimination and factor analysis. k-means cluster analysis showed highest Euclidean distance between Rhizophoraceae and Myrsinaceae/Plumbaginaceae. ANOVA results indicated that all the canopy spectra were statistically different at all the spectral locations except one with majority of the bands exhibiting 99% confidence level, and for the mudflat classes and creek water, all bands showed p < 0.01. Discriminant analysis was performed in different combinations/cases to identify the bands for maximum separability. Optimal Wilks' Lambda (L) were achieved with two, six, four, eight, one, four, two and three for differentiating canopies of the species of Avicennia, Sonneratia, Xylocarpus, Bruguiera, Ceriops, Bruguiera and Rhizophora, all species of Rhizophoraceae, two species of Arecaceae, respectively. For mudflat classes and creek water, the best possible Wilks' Lambda were attained with four, five and two for discriminating upper, intermediate and mud lower, mud lower and water, mud upper with and without roots, correspondingly. Factor analysis was the tool used to identify the wavelengths that were uncorrelated and contained maximum information in the combination of selected wavelengths. The most significant bands for canopy discrimination were 960, 970, 1000, 1070, 1120, 1160, 2070, 2080, 2150, 2200, 2240 and 2340 nm; for discrimination amongst mudflat classes and creek water, the bands were 540, 550, 730, 740, 770, 780, 880, 1190, 1290, 2010 and 2150 nm. Overall, hyperspectral data showed potential for discriminating between mangrove canopies of different species and for discerning mudflat classes. The outcomes of the study also indicated the efficacy of the applied statistical tools for discrimination.
Estimating wind transport of sand on vegetated surfaces

Vegetation significantly reduces the transport of sand by wind. We report a generalization of Bagnold's transport equation by finding empirical mathematical expressions to describe the relationships between projected vegetation cover, wind speed outside the area of vegetation, and transport rates. Examples of the use of the equations are given, illustrating the effect of vegetation cover on sand transport, dune encroachment and soil nutrient loss during individual wind storms and over periods of many years.
Collective Intelligence

Many systems of self-interested agents have an associated performance criterion that rates the dynamic behavior of the overall system. This paper presents an introduction to the science of such systems. Formally, this paper concerns collectives, which are defined as any system having the following two characteristics: First, the system must contain one or more agents each of which we view as trying to maximize an associated private utility. Second, the system must have an associated world utility function that rates the possible behaviors of that overall system [38, 39, 40, 37, 28, 38]. In practice collectives are often very large, distributed, and support little if any centralized communication and control, although those characteristics are not part of their formal definition.
How can a few streamflow measurements help to predict daily hydrographs at almost ungauged sites?

Abstract Available data from nearby gauging stations can provide a great source of hydrometric information that is potentially transferable to an ungauged site. Furthermore, streamflow measurements may even be available for the ungauged site. This paper explores the potential of four distance-based regionalization methods to simulate daily hydrographs at almost ungauged pollution-control sites. Two methods use only the hydrological information provided by neighbouring catchments; the other two are new regionalization methods parameterized with a limited number of streamflow data available at the site of interest. Based on a network of 149 streamgauges and 21 pollution-control sites located in the Upper Rhine-Meuse area, the comparative assessment demonstrates the benefit of making available point streamflow measurements at the location of interest for improving quantitative streamflow prediction. The advantage is moderate for the prediction of flow types (stormflow, recession flow, baseflow) and pulse shape (duration of rising limb and falling limb). Editor Z.W. Kundzewicz; Associate editor A. Viglione
Structural control on gold mineralization at Walhalla, Victoria

Gold mineralization associated with quartz reefs is related to the structural history of the Early Devonian, Walhalla Group. These reefs are situated in the Walhalla Synclinorium, developed during the Middle to Late Devonian Tabberabberan Orogeny. A pervasive north‐south‐trending axial planar cleavage and two styles of folding were produced during regional east‐west compression. The first are upright, open to close folds with sub‐horizontal fold axes. The second are plunging inclined, close to tight folds with fold axes that plunge steeply to the north and south. An extensional event is associated with the emplacement of the Woods Point Dyke swarm and a set of normal faults that offset all earlier structures. High‐angle reverse faults, which post‐date the folding and the emplacement of the dykes, were utilized as conduits for hydrothermal fluids and preferentially localize mineralization to laminated quartz veins. En echelon vein arrays formed during initial stages of reverse faulting became deformed duri.
Microscale observation and modeling of soil-structure interface behavior using particle image velocimetry

The shearing behavior of a soil-structure interface governs the response of many geotechnical systems, in particular piled foundations. The shaft resistance of piled foundations is known to degrade with cyclic loading, although the governing mechanism is not well understood. This paper presents the results of a laboratory soil-structure investigation in which internal specimen deformations were obtained using particle image velocimetry (PIV) and the normal confining stress was permitted to vary according to a constant normal stiffness (CNS) condition. The PIV measurements showed the shear deformation and volume change to be concentrated within a shear band with a thickness of 5-7 particle diameters adjacent to the interface. During a single cycle the volume change within the shear band began with an initial contraction, followed by dilation to the failure envelop. For the cycling amplitude investigated this response led to a net specimen contraction. The benefit of quantifying the thickness and contraction of the shear band using PIV is that the progressive decrease in void ratio of the shear band can be linked to the limiting value imposed by the minimum void ratio. This provides a framework in which the contraction of the specimen depends on the potential contraction expressed as the difference between the current and minimum void ratio. A model for this contraction is presented, and linked to the decay in normal stress and the limiting loss of interface friction. This framework clarifies the mechanism of friction fatigue during installation and loading of displacement piles in sand.
Statistical Modeling of Travel Time on the Motorway

Effective prediction of highway travel time is essential to many advanced traveler information and transportation management system. This thesis proposes 3 different prediction schemes to predict highway travel time in certain stretch of Denmark, using a linear model where the coefficients vary as smooth functions of the departure time, also the principle components and partial least squares regression. The methods are straightforward to implement and applicable to different circumstances.
Multi-document summarization by cluster/prole relevance and redundancy removal

We describe a sentence extraction system that produces two sorts of multi-document summaries: the rst is a general-purpose summary of a cluster of related documents while the second is an entity-based summary of documents related to a particular person. The general-purpose summary is generated by a process that ranks sentences based on their document and cluster \worthiness". The personality-based summary is constructed by a process that ranks sentences according to a metric that uses coreference and lexical information in a person prole. In both cases, a process of redundancy removal is applied to exclude repeated information.
Practice Improvement Initiative Staff Nurse Competency Evaluation

care Institute for Nursing and Workforce Outreach (Dr TharpBarrie) and Senior Vice President and SystemChief Nursing Officer (Dr Williams), Norton Healthcare, Louisville, Kentucky; Executive Associate Dean (Dr Howard), Associate Professor (Dr El-Mallakh), andAcademic-Practice Partnership ProjectManager (MsMacCallum), University of Kentucky College of Nursing, Lexington. The authors declare no conflict of interest. Correspondence: Dr Tharp-Barrie, Norton Healthcare, 9500 Ormsby Station Rd, Louisville, KY 40223 (kim.tharp-barrie@nort onhealthcare.org) with copy to Tricia MacCallum (tricia.maccallum@ uky.edu). DOI: 10.1097/NNA.0000000000000834
A 5 million year comparison of Mg/Ca and alkenone paleothermometers

Geochemical sea surface temperature (SST) proxies such as the magnesium to calcium ratio (Mg/Ca) in foraminifera and the alkenone unsaturation index (UK′37) are becoming widely used in pre‐Pleistocene climate records. This study quantitatively compares previously published Mg/Ca and UK′37 data from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) site 847 in the eastern equatorial Pacific to assess the utility of these proxies to reconstruct tropical SST over the last 5 Ma. Foraminiferal Mg/Ca–SST calibrations that include a dissolution correction are most appropriate at this location because they provide SST estimates for the youngest sample that are close to modern mean annual SST. The long‐term trends in the two records are remarkably similar and confirm a ∼3.5°C cooling trend from the early Pliocene warm period to the late Pleistocene noted in previous work. Absolute temperature estimates are similar for both proxies when errors in the dissolution correction used to estimate SST from Mg/Ca are taken into account. Comparing the two SST records at ODP site 847 to other records in the region shows that the eastern equatorial Pacific was 2–4°C warmer during the early Pliocene compared to today.
Post-Paleozoic Succession and Structure of the Southwestern African Continental Margin: Rifted Margins: Field Investigations of Margin Structure and Stratigraphy

Four seismic horizons -- T, R, P and L from bottom to top -- form major seismic sequence boundaries that range in age from Mesozoic to Cenozoic. Horizon T is regarded as the rift-onset unconformity and horizon R as the drift-onset unconformity, with the post-R succession being drift-stage deposits. Three periods of Mesozoic to Cenozoic igneous activity are represented, but, owing to extensive alteration, the few age determinations are suspect. The drift-onset unconformity R, with dipping reflections beneath it, can be traced westward to where it is juxtaposed with the top of typical reflection-free oceanic crust. We believe that this marks the position of the continent-ocean boundary and that the distinctive magnetic and gravity anomaly G, much nearer the coast, i produced by the pinchout of the T-to-R wedge with its substantial basaltic component.
Tracking the Mind's Eye

This thesis investigates, in three studies based on eye-tracking experiments, the relationship between eye movements and mental imagery. The first study is an investigation of eye movements during mental imagery elicited both visually and verbally. The use of complex stimuli and the development of a novel method where eye movements were recorded concurrently with verbal data enabled this relationship to be studied to an extent going beyond what previous research had been able to do. Eye movements were found to closely reflect content and spatial layout while participants were listening to a spoken scene description, while they were retelling the same scene from memory, and while they were describing a picture they had previously seen. This effect was equally strong in retelling from memory irrespective of whether the scene visualised had originally been inspected visually by participants or whether it was constructed whole-cloth from long-term memory (on the basis of a spoken scene description that participants had previously listened to). It was also found that eye movements to “nothing” appeared both when participants were visualising scenes looking at a blank screen and when they were doing so in complete darkness. In the second study, participants had their eye movements restricted in that they were instructed to look at a fixation cross at the centre of the display while looking at a picture or listening to a spoken scene description. Results revealed that despite this central-fixation restriction during the encoding phase, participants’ eye movements spread out and reflected content and spatial layout during recall, both for the picture and for the spoken scene description. Consequently, eye movements during recall operate independently of those during encoding. The third study explored an effect frequently observed in both the first and the second study, involving a “scaling-down” during recall of participants’ gaze patterns to an area smaller than that occupied by the stimulus encoded. It was found that this scaling effect correlated with spatial-imagery ability: those with weaker spatial-imagery ability had gaze patterns that more closely resembled the original size of the encoded scene than those stronger in spatial-imagery ability. The present thesis concludes with a discussion of the findings from these studies in the light of current theories regarding eye movements during mental imagery and in the light of mental-imagery theories in general. (Less)
4-state model for simulating kinetic and steady-state voltagedependent gating of gap junctions

Gap junction (GJ) channels, formed of connexin (Cx) proteins, provide a direct pathway for metabolic and electrical cell-to-cell communication. These specialized channels are not just passive conduits for the passage of ions and metabolites, but have been shown to gate robustly in response to transjunctional voltage, Vj, the voltage difference between two coupled cells and are regulated by various chemical factors. Voltage gating of GJs may play a physiological role, particularly in excitable cells which can exhibit large transients in membrane potential during the generation of an action potential. We present a mathematical/computational model of GJ channel voltage gating to assess properties of GJ channels that takes into account contingent gating of two series hemichannels and the distribution of Vj across each hemichannel. From electrophysiological recordings in cell cultures transfected with Cx43 and Cx45, isoforms that are expressed in cardiac tissue, data sets were fit simultaneously using global optimization. The results showed that the model is capable of describing both steady-state and kinetic properties of homotypic and heterotypic GJ channels composed of these connexins. Moreover, mathematical analyses showed that the model can be simplified to a reversible two-state system and solved analytically, using a rapid equilibrium assumption. Given that excitable cells are arranged in interconnected networks, the equilibrium assumption allows for a substantial reduction in computation time, which is useful in simulations of large clusters of coupled cells. Overall, this model can serve not just as a modeling tool, but also to provide a means of testing GJ channel gating behavior. Significance Gap junction (GJ) channels gate in response to transjunctional voltage which provides the capacity for dynamic regulation of intercellular coupling. Kinetic properties of GJs in modeling studies have been infrequently addressed and we present a computational model of voltage gating that can account for both kinetic and steady-state changes in junctional conductance, gj. Although GJs possess two gating mechanisms, our analysis indicates that changes in gj for each voltage polarity can be adequately described by a kinetic scheme describing a single mechanism in each of the hemichannels, suggesting functional dominance of one mechanism over a substantial voltage range. This property allowed for model simplification that can be applied for efficient simulation of sizeable cell clusters and analyses of electrophysiological data.
Oncological outcomes for patients with well differentiated thyroid cancer

Well differentiated thyroid cancer is increasing in incidence. Despite the fact that more patients present with disease, deaths due to disease remain stable, as this malignancy is rarely fatal. The vast majority of patients can be cured, and even those that suffer a recurrence can often still expect to be disease free following salvage therapy. This thesis analyzes the outcomes of patients who present with well differentiated thyroid cancer. We report the factors which predict outcome within this group, and the mode of death for patients who recur and die of disease. We also report the results of treatment, with a particular focus on the role of individually selective therapy. Both surgical and non surgical treatments are analyzed in an attempt to define a balanced approach to the management of patients with this generally low risk disease.
Test-re-test reliability of DSM-IV adopted criteria for 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) abuse and dependence: a cross-national study.

AIMS This study evaluated the prevalence and reliability of DSM-IV adopted criteria for 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) abuse and dependence with a purpose to determine whether it is best conceptualized within the category of hallucinogens, amphetamines or its own category. DESIGN Test-re-test study. PARTICIPANTS MDMA users (life-time use >5 times) were recruited in St Louis, Miami and Sydney (n=593). The median life-time MDMA consumption was 50 pills at the baseline. MEASUREMENTS The computerized Substance Abuse Module for Club Drug (CD-SAM) was used to assess MDMA abuse and dependence. The Discrepancy Interview Protocol (DIP) was used to determine the reasons for the discrepant responses between the two interviews. Reliability of diagnoses, individual diagnostic criteria and withdrawal symptoms was examined using the kappa coefficient (κ). findings for baseline data, 15% and 59% met MDMA abuse and dependence, respectively. Substantial test-re-test reliability of the diagnoses was observed consistently across cities (κ=0.69). 'Continued use despite knowledge of physical/psychological problems' (87%) and 'withdrawal' (68%) were the two most prevalent dependence criteria. 'Physically hazardous use' was the most prevalent abuse criterion. Six dependence criteria and all abuse criteria were reported reliably across cities (κ: 0.53-0.77). Seventeen of 19 withdrawal symptoms showed consistency in the reliability across cities. The most commonly reported reason for discrepant responses was 'interpretation of question changed'. Only a small proportion of the total discrepancies were attributed to lying or social desirability. CONCLUSION The adopted DSM-IV diagnostic classification for MDMA abuse and dependence was moderately reliable across cities. findings on MDMA withdrawal support the argument that MDMA should be separated from other hallucinogens in DSM.
Novel Bayesian transcriptome-wide association study method leveraging both cis-and trans-eQTL information through summary statistics

Transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) have been widely used to integrate gene expression and genetic data for studying complex traits. Due to the computation burden, existing TWAS methods neglect distant trans-expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) that are known to explain a significant proportion of the variation for most expression quantitative traits. To leverage both cis-and trans-eQTL information for TWAS, we propose a novel TWAS approach based on Bayesian variable selection regression model, which not only accounts for both cis-and trans-SNPs of the target gene but also enables efficient computation by using summary statistics of standard eQTL analyses and a scalable EM-MCMC algorithm. Simulation studies illustrate that our Bayesian approach achieved higher TWAS power compared to existing methods. By application studies, we identified gene ZC3H12B whose GReX is associated with both Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) (p-value= 2.15 (cid:6) 10 (cid:0)(cid:2)(cid:2) ) and a global measure of AD pathology (p-value= 2.438 (cid:6) 10 (cid:0)(cid:3) ), which is completely driven by trans-eQTL. We also identified gene KCTD12 whose GReX is associated with (cid:11) -amyloid load
Bottom pressure changes around Antarctica and wind‐driven meridional flows

Spatially‐averaged bottom pressure anomalies near Antarctica (south of 60°S) calculated from GRACE data are well correlated with those produced by the ECCO project using least‐squares optimization methods to fit an ocean model to most available data. Both GRACE and ECCO results indicate mass exchange primarily between the Southern Ocean and the Pacific and the importance of zonal wind stress to this exchange. The ECCO flow fields show that the near‐surface meridional Ekman transport, directly driven by the zonal wind stress, is nearly balanced by return flows below the shallowest topography at 60°S (∼1300 m at this Drake Passage latitude), with the return transport being slightly lagged in time relative to the Ekman transport. Such time lags, which may result from geostrophic adjustment at depth, cause the small associated net transport across 60°S to be ∼90° out of phase with the wind. This in turn can explain why zonal wind stress and bottom pressure anomalies around Antarctica tend to be anticorrelated in both GRACE and ECCO results.