Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic consequences of population decline in the European otter (Lutra lutra): an assessment of microsatellite DNA variation in Danish otters from 1883 to 1993

The European otter (Lutra lutra) was common in Denmark until the 1960s, but its present distribution encompasses only a minor part of the country. The aim of this study was to assess whether the recent population decline has resulted in loss of genetic variability and to gain further insight into the dynamics of the population decline. This was done by analysing microsatellite DNA variation in contemporary and historical samples, the latter encompassing DNA samples extracted from museum specimens covering a time–span from the 1880s to the 1960s. Tests for differences in expected heterozygosity and the numbers of alleles in contemporary versus historical samples and a test for detecting population bottlenecks provided few indications of a recent bottleneck and loss of variability. However, a procedure for detecting population expansions and declines, based on the genealogical history of microsatellite alleles, suggested that a drastic long–term population decline has taken place, which could have started more than 2000 years ago, possibly due to ancient anthropogenic pressure. Finally, assignment tests and pairwise FST values suggested weak but statistically significant genetic differentiation between the extant population and historical samples of otters from other regions in Denmark, more likely reflecting differentiation among original populations rather than recent drift.
Pharmacological Neuroprotection after Perinatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Brain Injury

Perinatal hypoxia-ischemia (HI) is an important cause of neonatal brain injury. Recent progress in the search for neuroprotective compounds has provided us with several promising drugs to reduce perinatal HI-induced brain injury. In the early stage (first 6 hours after birth) therapies are concentrated on prevention of the production of reactive oxygen species or free radicals (xanthine-oxidase-, nitric oxide synthase-, and prostaglandin inhibition), anti-inflammatory effects (erythropoietin, melatonin, Xenon) and anti-apoptotic interventions (nuclear factor kappa B- and c-jun N-terminal kinase inhibition); in a later stage stimulation of neurotrophic properties in the neonatal brain (erythropoietin, growth factors) can be targeted to promote neuronal and oligodendrocyte regeneration. Combination of pharmacological means of treatment with moderate hypothermia, which is accepted now as a meaningful therapy, is probably the next step in clinical treatment to fight post-asphyxial brain damage. Further studies should be directed at a more rational use of therapies by determining the optimal time and dose to inhibit the different potentially destructive molecular pathways or to enhance endogenous repair while at the same time avoiding adverse effects of the drugs used.
ACM Opens portal

W orks published by ACM since its inception have been built into a special online collection known as the ACM Digital Library. Nearly half a century of pioneering concepts and fundamental research have been digitized and indexed in a variety of ways in this resource. The retrospective capture for all ACM journals, magazines, and proceedings is nearly complete; filling gaps of out-of-print issues and refining the granularity of links will continue into the future. The user community has grown rapidly over the past three years. More than 36,000 individual members of ACM subscribe. Four hundred corporate and academic libraries and consortia serve an even wider community. Moreover, the level of activity has increased exponentially. In the last 18 months alone, there have been 13 million full-text downloads from the ACM Digital Library, an average of more than 200 downloads per article. This activity has forced ACM to expand its server capacity and bandwidth several times, well ahead of anticipated upgrades. Indeed, it has been an ongoing challenge to deal with the success of this resource. Thousands of users have contributed to the quality of this resource by reporting problems they encounter, spotting errors, and making suggestions for improvements. Broad community participation of this sort is not only welcomed by ACM; it is an essential factor in the evolution and enhancement of online facilities. Thousands of scholars have sent their comments to feedback@acm.org over the past few years. These have been analyzed and have resulted in the release of the ACM Portal. The fundamental components of the ACM Portal are an enhanced version of the ACM Digital Library plus an extended bibliographic database, consisting initially of more than a quarter-million citations of core works in computing. These works are of all types (journals , proceedings, books, technical reports, theses, among others), and from all the major publishers in the discipline. The ACM Portal thus provides an Online Guide to Computing Literature and a " reading room " for ACM's own literature in the ACM Digital Library. The ACM Portal has been built upon an entirely new system architecture to address primary concerns expressed by users around the globe: full-text download times, general system availability and performance, particularly the response times for searching. While ACM cannot do anything about the " last mile " of the pipeline, it has built a more robust system of parallel processors, redundant servers, vastly increased band-width, …
Adaptive reweighted compressed sensing for image compression

According to the compressed sensing (CS) theory, a signal that is sparse in a certain domain can be nearly exactly recovered from a few measurements where the sampling rate is lower than the Nyquist rate. This theory has been successfully applied to the image compression in the past few years as most image signals are highly sparse. In this paper, we apply an adaptive sampling mechanism to the reweighted block-based CS (BCS). The proposed adaptive sampling allocates the measurements to each image block according to the statistical information of the block so as to sample and recover the image more efficiently. Experimental results demonstrate that our adaptive reweighted method offers a very significant quality improvement compared with the traditional BCS schemes, including the non-reweighted and reweighted ones.
Consequences of abnormal CDK activity in S phase

ABSTRACT Cyclin Dependent Kinases (CDKs) are important regulators of DNA replication. In this work we have investigated the consequences of increasing or decreasing the CDK activity in S phase. To this end we identified S-phase regulators of the fission yeast CDK, Cdc2, and used appropriate mutants to modulate Cdc2 activity. In fission yeast Mik1 has been thought to be the main regulator of Cdc2 activity in S phase. However, we find that Wee1 has a major function in S phase and thus we used wee1 mutants to investigate the consequences of increased Cdc2 activity. These wee1 mutants display increased replication stress and, particularly in the absence of the S-phase checkpoint, accumulate DNA damage. Notably, more cells incorporate EdU in a wee1− strain as compared to wildtype, suggesting altered regulation of DNA replication. In addition, a higher number of cells contain chromatin-bound Cdc45, an indicator of active replication forks. In addition, we found that Cdc25 is required to activate Cdc2 in S phase and used a cdc25 mutant to explore a situation where Cdc2 activity is reduced. Interestingly, a cdc25 mutant has a higher tolerance for replication stress than wild-type cells, suggesting that reduced CDK activity in S phase confers resistance to at least some forms of replication stress.
Modeling Competing Infectious Pathogens From a Bayesian Perspective: Application to Influenza Studies With Incomplete Laboratory Results

In seasonal influenza epidemics, pathogens such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) often cocirculate with influenza and cause influenza-like illness (ILI) in human hosts. However, it is often impractical to test for each potential pathogen or to collect specimens for each observed ILI episode, making inference about influenza transmission difficult. In the setting of infectious diseases, missing outcomes impose a particular challenge because of the dependence among individuals. We propose a Bayesian competing-risk model for multiple cocirculating pathogens for inference on transmissibility and intervention efficacies under the assumption that missingness in the biological confirmation of the pathogen is ignorable. Simulation studies indicate a reasonable performance of the proposed model even if the number of potential pathogens is misspecified. They also show that a moderate amount of missing laboratory test results has only a small impact on inference about key parameters in the setting of close contact groups. Using the proposed model, we found that a nonpharmaceutical intervention is marginally protective against transmission of influenza A in a study conducted in elementary schools.
A centrosomal scaffold shows some self-control

The scaffolding protein AKAP350A is known to localize to the centrosome and the Golgi, but the molecular details of its function at the centrosome remain elusive. Using structure–function analyses, protein interaction assays, and super-resolution microscopy, Kolobova et al. now identify AKAP350A's specific location and protein partners at the centrosome. The authors further define an autoregulatory mechanism that likely controls AKAP350A's ability to nucleate microtubule growth.
A Rational Expectations Approach a Rational Expectations Approach

The impact of LDC loan reschedulings on the major U.S. banks and their implications for LDC financing has been of interest since the onset of the Mexican crisis. This paper presents an empirical model that calculates the unanticipated revaluation of bank assets in response to news regarding reschedulings. The model incorporates expectation formation and hence, unlike a standard event study methodology, provides a means of computing probability of default of rescheduled loans. The nine largest U.S. banks are estimated to suffer 8.2 percent of their stock returns during 1981-1983 when the default probability was approximately two percent. We also show that these loans have a significant systematically risky component.
Parameters identification of the complex impedance model of the PEM fuel cell using Matlab/Simulink

In this work, we present a new technical method for identifying the complex impedance model parameters of a Proton Exchange Membrane (pEM) Fuel Cell for on-board diagnosis in real time. The study of the PEM Fuel Cell modelling is important in order to understand the physical phenomena that occurring in this green renewable energy source. A diagnosis method is presented by analyzing the behavior of the complex impedance. For this, we present the identification method of the various complex impedance parameters; this identification is based on mathematical methods using the least squares method and the interpolation analysis method. The results are obtained using Matlab/Simulink tools and allow us to validate the electrical model of the complex impedance. These results validate a modelling method for a rapid and real-time diagnosis of the PEM Fuel Cell complex impedance.
Industry Structure Dynamics and the Nature of Technology in The Hearing Instrument Industry

The hearing instruments (hearing aids) industry is typically described as a technologically vigorous area. And yet, in the past 25 years, the structure of the hearing instrument industry has remained surprisingly stable. The article investigates the connection between industry structure and the nature of technology and applies the results on the industry. It is shown that market structure in both the industry and the supplying industries exerts strong influence on the nature of technological development, and that the technology in turn is to a large degree blocking changes in industry structure, especially entry and vertical integration.
Improved bounds on secrecy capacity in twin-code cloud storage framework

Security and reliability in cloud storage networks are important features for achieving system efficiency. An explicit construction of regenerating codes that perform reliability, availability and security of the stored data, and at the same time perform efficient node repair is already provided. Understanding and achieving the optimal tradeoff among the above listed features is of great importance for improving the functioning in all cloud storage systems. Therefore in this work, we propose a new code construction that includes an outer and an inner code in the process. The outer code, Gabidulin code, as a pre-coding step achieves improved security level in the storage system and the inner one, Twin-code framework, performs efficient distribution, reconstruction and repair process. The proposed code is resilient to an eavesdropper model and gives better results regarding the achievements when are used the minimum bandwidth regenerating (MBR) and minimum storage regenerating (MSR) codes, respectively.
Long Term Evaluation of Gas Exchange and Hydrodynamic Performance of a Heparinized Artificial Lung: Comparison of Two Different Hollow Fiber Pore Sizes

We compared the performance of a heparinized hollow fiber artificial lung (Medtronic, Minimax) featuring standard hollow fibers (Group A) and experimental hollow fibers with a smaller pore size (Group B). Four sheep in each group underwent a veno-venous bypass for 72 hours. Every 6 hours, at 3 different blood flow rates (BFr) (400, 800, 1200 ml/min), at a constant gas flow rate (Gfr = 4 L/min), and at a constant blood inlet PCO2 (45-55 mmHg), we measured the oxygenation performance (O2 transfer = VO2 and blood outlet PO2 = PO2out), CO2 removal (CO2 transfer = VCO2 and PCO2 outlet = PCO2out) and pressure drop across the device (ΔP). A total of about 50 measurement sets were obtained for each group at different time points and blood flow rates. Both groups showed a good oxygenation performance (PO2out always higher than 200 mmHg) and no differences were observed between the two groups (at 1200 ml/min BFr, the average VO2 of all time points was 47 ± 15 ml/min in group A and 44 ± 11 ml/min in group B, mean ± SD, NS). During the first 24 hours, the VCO2 was higher in Group B than in Group A at each BFr (at 1200 ml/min BFr, 81 ± 18 vs 67 ± 20 ml/min, p<0.01), while no differences were observed during the subsequent 48 hours. Throughout the entire experiment, VCO2 increased with increasing BFr in both groups, (in group B, from 43 ± 14 ml/min at 400 ml/min BFr, to 73 ± 17 ml/min at 1200 ml/min BFr, average of all time points, p<0.01). In both groups the ΔP increased with the increasing BFr, but it was lower in Group B than in Group A at BFr 800 and 1200 ml/min (at 1200 ml/min BFr, 51 ± 15 mmHg vs 65 ± 17 mmHg, p<0.01), and remained stable for the entire experimental period.
Influences of Cracks on Chloride-induced Corrosion in Reinforced Concrete Structures

Corrosion of reinforcement is a major problem for the durability of reinforced concrete structures. Generally, reinforcement corrosion is caused by carbonation or chlorides. Earlier studies have mainly been focused on the influence of carbonation or chlorides on corrosion in uncracked concrete structures. The aim of the thesis was to investigate the influence of cracks on reinforcement corrosion, especially chlorideinduced corrosion. Furthermore, a test method was developed by the authors to investigate this matter. In the first part of the report, literature studies of the corrosion process and influence of cracks on reinforcement corrosion are presented. Reinforcement corrosion process was influenced by many factors such as relative humidity, temperature. In the second part, experiments were carried out to investigate the influence of cracks on the initiation and propagation of reinforcement corrosion process. Especially, their effect on the initiation period of chloride-induced corrosion was studied. Three groups of concrete beams were cast. The beams in group A were loaded to cracking, and the load was kept during the test. The beams in group B were loaded to cracking, and thereafter unloaded. The beams in the group C were considered as a reference group which were not loaded, and thus uncracked. All the beams in the three groups were exposed to salt water. Small concrete covers (20mm) and a high concentrated salt in the solutions (10%) were used in order to get reinforcement corrosion in a limited time. Half cell potential measurements were used to investigate when corrosion of the reinforcement started. The results of the experiments show that reinforcement corrosion started already after about 2 weeks in group A and about 3-4 weeks in group B. However, reinforcement corrosion did not start after 12 weeks exposure of the specimens in group C. Thus, the results indicated that the presence of cracks strongly influences the initiation time for reinforcement corrosion, but also the width of the cracks influences initiation.
Preoxygenation with non-invasive ventilation versus high-flow nasal cannula oxygen therapy for intubation of patients with acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure in ICU: the prospective randomised controlled FLORALI-2 study protocol

Introduction Endotracheal intubation in intensive care unit (ICU) is a procedure at high risk of life-threatening complications. Among them, severe oxygen desaturation, usually defined as a drop of pulse oxymetry (SpO2) below 80%, is the most common. Preoxygenation enables delaying oxygen desaturation occurring during apnea induced by anaesthetic drugs. Data suggest that non-invasive ventilation (NIV) or high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) oxygen therapy could further increase PaO2 before intubation procedure and prevent oxygen desaturation episodes as compared with standard oxygen. However, no recommendation favours one technique rather than the other, since they have never been compared. Hence, whether a strategy of preoxygenation with NIV or HFNC is more effective than the other in patients with acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure remains to be established. Methods and analysis The FLORALI-2 study is a multicentre randomised controlled trial comparing a preoxygenation strategy with either NIV or HFNC in patients with acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure needing intubation in ICU. The 320 patients will be randomised with a ratio 1:1 in two groups according to the strategy of preoxygenation. The primary outcome is the occurrence of an episode of severe oxygen desaturation defined by a drop of SpO2 below 80% during the intubation procedure. Secondary outcomes include feasibility of the two strategies, immediate and late complications related to intubation. Ethics and dissemination The study has been approved by the central ethics committee (Ethics Committee Ouest-III, Poitiers, France) and patients will be included after informed consent. The results will be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Trial registration number NCT02668458; Pre-results.
Perception of the Threat of Terrorism

In light of the tense and ongoing security situation in Israel, one important issue that needs to be analyzed and understood is the perception of terrorism threats. Most studies focused mainly on the psychological implications of terrorist acts; this study examines the complexity of the manner in which the individual perceives the threat of terrorism. In all, 40 Israeli adults (22 women and 18 men) were interviewed using semistructured in-depth interviews. Qualitative analysis indicates that the components of the perception of terrorism that construct the evaluation and subjective perception of the participants are as follows: (a) perception of control, which is a feeling of loss of control and helplessness due to uncertainty, inability to predict threats, and the vagueness of the threat; (b) perception of vulnerability to the threat, such as a feeling of vulnerability to and potential victimization by terrorism; and (c) perception of fear of terrorism that includes responses of fear, anxiety, feeling of danger, and emotional distress. In addition, gender differences were found in the analysis. The findings of this study help gain a better understanding as to how people perceive the threat of terrorism. The findings also enable an understanding of the complexity of living under ongoing terrorism threats and may assist in understanding how citizens cope with and adjust to this threat.
MicroRNA Molecular Profiles Associated with Diagnosis, Clinicopathologic Criteria, and Overall Survival in Patients with Resectable Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma

Purpose: MicroRNAs (miRNA) have potential as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and as therapeutic targets in cancer. We sought to establish the relationship between miRNA expression and clinicopathologic parameters, including prognosis, in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Experimental Design: Global miRNA microarray expression profiling of prospectively collected fresh-frozen PDAC tissue was done on an initial test cohort of 48 patients, who had undergone pancreaticoduodenectomy between 2003 and 2008 at a single institution. We evaluated association with tumor stage, lymph node status, and site of recurrence, in addition to overall survival, using Cox regression multivariate analysis. Validation of selected potentially prognostic miRNAs was done in a separate cohort of 24 patients. Results: miRNA profiling identified expression signatures associated with PDAC, lymph node involvement, high tumor grade, and 20 miRNAs were associated with overall survival. In the initial cohort of 48 PDAC patients, high expression of miR-21 (HR = 3.22, 95% CI: 1.21–8.58) and reduced expression of miR-34a (HR = 0.15, 95% CI: 0.06–0.37) and miR-30d (HR = 0.30, 95% CI: 0.12–0.79) were associated with poor overall survival following resection independent of clinical covariates. In a further validation set of 24 patients, miR-21 and miR-34a expression again significantly correlated with overall survival (P = 0.031 and P = 0.001). Conclusion: Expression patterns of miRNAs are significantly altered in PDAC. Aberrant expression of a number of miRNAs was independently associated with reduced survival, including overexpression of miR-21 and underexpression of miR-34a. Summary: miRNA expression profiles for resected PDAC were examined to identify potentially prognostic miRNAs. miRNA microarray analysis identified statistically unique profiles, which could discriminate PDAC from paired nonmalignant pancreatic tissues as well as molecular signatures that differ according to pathologic features. miRNA expression profiles correlated with overall survival of PDAC following resection, indicating that miRNAs provide prognostic utility. Clin Cancer Res; 18(2); 534–45. ©2011 AACR.