Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ice-Sheet Response to Oceanic Forcing

Warming and Melting Mass loss from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica account for a large fraction of global sea-level rise. Part of this loss is because of the effects of warmer air temperatures, and another because of the rising ocean temperatures to which they are being exposed. Joughin et al. (p. 1172) review how ocean-ice interactions are impacting ice sheets and discuss the possible ways that exposure of floating ice shelves and grounded ice margins are subject to the influences of warming ocean currents. Estimates of the mass balance of the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have differed greatly—in some cases, not even agreeing about whether there is a net loss or a net gain—making it more difficult to project accurately future sea-level change. Shepherd et al. (p. 1183) combined data sets produced by satellite altimetry, interferometry, and gravimetry to construct a more robust ice-sheet mass balance for the period between 1992 and 2011. All major regions of the two ice sheets appear to be losing mass, except for East Antarctica. All told, mass loss from the polar ice sheets is contributing about 0.6 millimeters per year (roughly 20% of the total) to the current rate of global sea-level rise. The ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are losing ice at accelerating rates, much of which is a response to oceanic forcing, especially of the floating ice shelves. Recent observations establish a clear correspondence between the increased delivery of oceanic heat to the ice-sheet margin and increased ice loss. In Antarctica, most of these processes are reasonably well understood but have not been rigorously quantified. In Greenland, an understanding of the processes by which warmer ocean temperatures drive the observed retreat remains elusive. Experiments designed to identify the relevant processes are confounded by the logistical difficulties of instrumenting ice-choked fjords with actively calving glaciers. For both ice sheets, multiple challenges remain before the fully coupled ice-ocean-atmosphere models needed for rigorous sea-level projection are available.
Neural activity in hypothalamic and genetic obesity

The function of the hypothalamus as a site for the regulation of food intake was initially recognized from the description of clinical cases in which hyperphagia was associated with hypothalamic damage. Subsequently these observations were extended to experimental animals by the demonstration that electrolytic lesions stereotaxically placed in the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) induced hyperphagia and obesity whereas electrolytic lesions placed in the lateral hypothalamus (LH) induced temporary aphagia followed by hypophagia and resulting weight loss. It was from such observations that Stellar (1954) first proposed the ‘dual-centre’ hypothesis of a ventromedial satiety centre and LH feeding centre. The historical development of this hypothesis has been reviewed previously (Bray & York, 1971, 1979). In this paper, I shall discuss the mechanisms through which hypothalamic damage may induce obesity and the evidence that similar central defects may be responsible for the genetically inherited forms of obesity found in the obese (ob/ob) mouse and the Zucker fatty cfa/fa) rat. While there are numerous other forms of inherited obesity and other ways of inducing experimental obesity (Bray & York, 1971 ; Bray, 1984), this review will concentrate on the hypothalamic electrolytic or knife-cut form of obesity and on the ob/ob and fa/fa obesities as it is to these models that the majority of our information on nervous function in obesity pertain. of energy balance equation.
Bacteriology of diabetic foot ulcers in Benin City, Nigeria

study aimed to determine the bacteriological pattern and antimicrobial susceptibility of diabetic foot ulcer (DFU) infections seen in our practice, with a view to suggesting optimal therapy for these patients. Forty-seven persons with DFU were seen. The mean age was 56 years. Of these, 30 (64%) had wound swabs sent for bacteriological assessment and antibiotic sen- sitivity patterns. There were 20 non-gangrenous ulcers and 10 gangrenous ulcers. Proteus spp and coliform organisms were the most predominantly isolated organisms in gangrenous ulcers, while Staphylococcus aureus, coliforms, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa were commonly isolated in non-gangrenous ulcers. Gram- positive organisms were sensitive to ciprofloxacin (100%), gentamicin (100%), and perfloxacin (88%). Gram-negative organisms were sensitive to ciprofloxa- cin (74%), gentamicin (43%), and perfloxacin (39%). We conclude that ciprofloxacin and gentamicin are the most effective antibiotics against gram-positive and gram-negative organisms, and thus recommend the combination of ciprofloxacin and/or gentamicin and metronidazole as initial therapy for patients with infected DFU while awaiting culture results.
Anticoagulation therapy in Chinese patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation: a prospective, multi-center, randomized, controlled study.

BACKGROUND Non-valvular atrial fibrillation is associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke; however, the appropriate intensity of anticoagulation therapy for Chinese patients has not been determined. The purpose of this study was to compare the safety and the efficacy of standard-intensity warfarin therapy, low-intensity warfarin therapy, and aspirin therapy for the prevention of ischemic events in Chinese patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). METHODS A total of 786 patients from 75 Chinese hospitals were enrolled in this study and randomized into three therapy groups: standard-intensity warfarin (international normalized ratio (INR) 2.1 to 2.5) group, low-intensity warfarin (INR 1.6 to 2.0) group and aspirin (200 mg per day) group. All patients were evaluated by physicians at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 months after randomization to obtain a patient questionnaire, physical examination and related laboratory tests. RESULTS The annual event rates of ischemic stroke, transient ischemic attack (TIA) or systemic thromboembolism were 2.6%, 3.1% and 6.9% in the standard-intensity warfarin, low-intensity warfarin and aspirin groups, respectively (P = 0.027). Thromboembolic event rates in both warfarin groups were significantly lower than that in the aspirin group (P = 0.018, P = 0.044), and there was no significant difference between the two warfarin groups. Severe hemorrhagic events occurred in 15 patients, 7 (2.6%) in the standard-intensity warfarin group, 7 (2.4%) in the low-intensity warfarin group and 1 (0.4%) in the aspirin group. The severe hemorrhagic event rates in the warfarin groups were higher than that in the aspirin group, but the difference did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.101). The mild hemorrhagic and total hemorrhagic event rates in the warfarin groups (whether in the standard-intensity warfarin group or low-intensity warfarin group) were much higher than that in the aspirin group with the annual event rates of total hemorrhages of 10.2%, 7.6% and 2.2%, respectively, in the 3 groups (P = 0.001). Furthermore, there was no significant difference in all cause mortality among the three study groups. CONCLUSION In Chinese patients with NVAF, the warfarin therapy (INR 1.6 - 2.5) for the prevention of thromboembolic events was superior to aspirin.
Sodium calcium exchange in the heart: necessity or luxury?

See related article, pages 604–611 The sodium calcium exchange (NCX) was first discovered in cardiac muscle1 and squid axon2 and has since been found in most cell types (see reviews3,4). It accounts for the previously observed effects of sodium on cardiac contractility.5 The exchanger transports ≈3 Na+ ions per Ca2+. 6–8 This stoichiometry has three important consequences.1 Ca2+ fluxes and hence intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i) are very sensitive to intracellular Na+ concentration ([Na+]i),9 and therefore, even small changes of [Na+]i have large effects on contractility. In the case of vascular smooth muscle, the [Na+]i-dependence of NCX has been suggested to account for aspects of hypertension.10,2 The activity of NCX is affected by membrane potential with depolarization hindering Ca2+ efflux and increasing Ca2+ influx. This voltage dependence may produce net Ca2+ entry into the cell at the start of the action potential and contribute to triggering Ca2+-induced Ca2+ release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR)11 (although the NCX is a much weaker trigger of Ca2+ release than is the L-type Ca2+ current12). 3 Changes in the activity of NCX attributable to an increase in [Ca2+]i activate inward current. Specifically, (1) inward current activated by the systolic Ca2+ transient will contribute to maintaining the action potential plateau,13 and (2) current activated by abnormal Ca2+ release in diastole generates14,15 the delayed afterdepolarizations known to be a cause of triggered arrhythmias.16–18 NCX does not only control the cytoplasmic Ca2+ concentration …
Impact of psychoeducational content delivered online to a positive psychology aware community

Happiness-increasing interventions demonstrate significant variation in outcomes, suggesting that the people who use them might be as important as the interventions themselves to determine efficacy. In light of this, instructive interventions might not be necessary to increase happiness given a population with knowledge of happiness-increasing strategies. We recruited 270 participants with knowledge of positive psychology to receive six weeks of online psychoeducation. We explored participants’ use of the website, reported use of happiness strategies, and changes in well-being. Those who spent more time on the website reported smaller changes in well-being than those who spent less time on the website. Conversely, those who reported employing more happiness strategies reported greater increases in well-being than those who used fewer strategies. This shows that for those already familiar with positive psychology, information, rather than instruction, might increase well-being. This has implications for studies evaluating the efficacy of happiness-increasing interventions more broadly.
Contralateral hearing aid use in cochlear implanted patients: Multicenter study of bimodal benefit

Abstract Conclusion: The use of a hearing aid (HA) in combination with a cochlear implant (CI) significantly improved performance for speech perception in quiet, in noise, and for localization compared with monaural conditions. No significant differences in functional performance were observed following optimization of HA fitting. Objectives: To evaluate the binaural benefits derived from using a contralateral HA in conjunction with a CI in subjects with significant functional hearing in the nonimplanted ear and the effects of HA fitting optimization. Methods: Fifteen adult CI users, intra-subject controls, were enrolled in a prospective repeated-measure multicenter study. Evaluation of performance for speech understanding, localization, and subjective impressions was conducted before and following HA fitting optimization for CI alone, HA alone, and CI + HA. Results: For speech testing in quiet, bimodal scores were significantly better than for HA alone and CI alone conditions (p < 0.01). For speech and noise (S0N0) at 0° azimuth the scores were significantly better in the bimodal condition than for CI alone (p = 0.01), indicating binaural summation. When noise was presented to the HA side (S0NHA) bimodal scores were significantly better than for CI alone (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05, respectively), suggesting a significant binaural squelch effect. Sound localization ability was significantly improved in the bimodal condition compared with the CI alone condition (p = 0.002).
Measures of Global Risk: Old Versus New Methods

It is clear that atherosclerotic arterial disease has a multifactorial aetiology. Furthermore relatively modest elevations of two or more risk factors frequently coexist in individuals to produce a significant impact on the likelihood of a cardiovascular event. Nevertheless clinical practice has tended to be unifactorial, with physicians concentrating on single risk factors in isolation. Various scores using data on several risk factors have therefore been developed to help physicians assess which of their patients are most at risk and therefore most merit intervention. This global risk assessment is increasingly recognised in management guidelines as a reasonable way of guiding treatment. Indeed intervention strategies that do not target those at highest cardiovascular risk—(and currently available risk scores do this more efficiently than physicians' judgement)—are less likely to be cost effective. It must be acknowledged however that all risk scores have limitations and hence whichever method is used should be used to guide rather than rule practice.
Relationship between familiarity with mental commit robot and psychological effects to elderly people by robot assisted activity

We have been developing mental commit robots that provide psychological, physiological, and social effects to human beings through physical interaction. The appearances of these robots look like real animals such as cat and seal. The seal robot was developed especially for therapy. We have applied seal robots to assisting activity of elderly people at a health service facility for the aged. In order to investigate psychological and social effects of seal robots to the elderly people, we evaluated elderly people's moods by face scales (which express person's moods by illustration of person's faces). Moreover, we investigated familiarity with the seal robots by questionnaire. Seal robots were provided into the facility for three weeks. As the results, feelings of elderly people who liked the seal robots were improved by interaction with the seal robots.
Preparation of Hydroxyapatite Crystals and Their Behavior as Seeds for Crystal Growth

Samples of crystalline hydroxyapatite [Ca5OH(PO4)3 HA] were prepared by precipitation from aqueous media under a variety of experimental conditions (temperature, concentration of reagents, rates of addition of the reagents, and seeding). The resultant products showed a wide range of particle sizes, i.e., specific surface areas, from 6.39 to 50.1 m2/g. In these preparations, relatively large crystals were obtained with low rates of addition of the reagents or by seeding the precipitating medium. Small differences in supersaturation of the reaction medium can markedly affect the particle sizes and crystalline habits of the resulting products, possibly by altering the processes of nucleation and subsequent crystal growth. When these crystalline materials were used as seeds to study the crystal growth of HA, it was confirmed that the precipitation rate of calcium apatite on seed crystals is highly dependent on the surface areas available for growth, rather than on the particle sizes and amounts of the seed crystals. Small differences in the kinetic runs were observed between the various seed crystals, which can be attributed to differences in the surface properties of these crystals. Additionally, transmission electron microscopy of the seed crystals revealed that some projections form, possibly on the basal planes of the crystals, during crystal growth. Since the growth rate of these projections was greater than the mean growth rate calculated on the basis of changes in solution composition and total surface area, it appears that the kinetics of the growth process is determined, to some extent, by the geometry of the seeds.
A locally adaptive region growing algorithm for vascular segmentation

To segment vascular structures in 3‐D CTA/MRA images, this article presents a new region growing algorithm based on local cube tracking. In the proposed algorithm, a small local cube is segmented to detect a vessel segment, and the following local cube(s) is determined based on the segmentation result. This procedure is repeated until the segmentation is completed. By confining the segmentation inside each local cube, a robust result can be obtained even in a tubular structure of steadily changing intensity. For segmentation, a locally adaptive and competitive region growing scheme is adopted to obtain well‐defined vessel boundaries. It should be emphasized that the proposed algorithm can detect all branches with practically acceptable computational complexity. In addition, its segmentation result is represented as a tree structure having many branches so that a user may easily correct the result branch‐by‐branch, if necessary. Experimental results from real images prove that the proposed algorithm produces prospective vessel segmentation results for 3‐D CTA/MRA images and segments vessels of various sizes well, including stenoses and aneurysms. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol 13, 208–214, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ima.10059
Analysis of routing algorithms generation for irregular NoC topologies

Network-on-Chip (NoC) is the most promising communication architecture for a scalable and high parallel System-on-Chip (SoC). Recent manufacturing technologies are very close to physical limitations increasing the number of faults during fabrication and operation; as a result, NoCs designed to be regular often will become irregular. Thus, the analysis of irregular topologies derived from regular ones is an important task in the NoC design. This work uses a tool that evaluates restriction paths of irregular NoCs to ensure deadlock freedom and generates analytical metrics for assessing the quality of routing at design time. We used a fault model for generating NoC topologies with faulty links, which allows exploiting manufacturing processes scenarios with 65 nm and 22 nm CMOS technology, from the links delay variability and spatial correlation strength. We also used a segmentation algorithm to avoid deadlocks. The experimental results show that the percentage of faults significantly increases with the spatial correlation strength, while the average distance between topological faults decreases. Furthermore, the greater the fault percentage gets, the longer the routing average distance becomes.
GRO‐alpha in Human Serum: Differences Related to Age and Sex

PROBLEM: Human GRO‐alpha (GRO‐α) is a new member of the chemokine family that is supposed to play an important role in inflammatory and immune reactions. We established a sandwich enzyme‐linked immunoassay (ELISA) system with polyclonal antibodies against human GRO‐α and investigated the serum level of healthy donors to establish normal ranges for this chemokine in adults.
Appetite-enhancing Effects of trans-Cinnamaldehyde, Benzylacetone and 1-Phenyl-2-butanone by Inhalation

Abstract Fragrance in the air and odours of foods and drinks are reported to affect feeding behaviours of humans and other animals. Many previous studies focusing on the relationship between fragrance and appetite have described a reduction of food intake by fragrance administration to help prevent lifestyle diseases. Aromatic herbal medicines, such as cinnamon bark and fennel fruit, are considered to have appetite-enhancing effects and they are often blended in stomachics for relief of asitia and gastric distress in Japan. These fragrant herbal medicines contain many essential oils and their fragrances are hypothesised to be active substances. In this study, food intake and the expression of neuropeptide Y and proopiomelanocortin in the hypothalamus after inhalation of fragrant compounds or essential oils were investigated in mice. Food intake was increased 1.2-fold and the neuropeptide Y mRNA expression in the hypothalamus was increased significantly in mice that inhaled trans-cinnamaldehyde, benzylacetone or 1-phenyl-2-butanone, compared with the control group. These compounds might be effective for treating loss of appetite (anorexia) or eating disorders in elderly and infirm people via a non-invasive route of administration, namely, inhalation.
Ecohydrology: A hydrologic perspective of climate‐soil‐vegetation dynamies

The hydrologic mechanisms underlying the climate‐soil‐vegetation dynamics and thus controlling the most basic ecologic patterns and processes are described as one very exciting research frontier for the years to come. In this personal opinion I have concentrated on those processes where soil moisture is the key link between climate fluctuations and vegetation dynamics in space and time. The soil moisture balance equation at a site is shown to be the keystone of numerous fundamental questions which may be instrumental in the quantitative linkage between hydrologic dynamics and ecological patterns and processes. Some of those questions are outlined here, and possible avenues of attack are suggested. The space‐time links between climate, soil, and vegetation are also explored from the hydrologic perspective, and some exciting research perspectives are outlined.
Dairy Consumption and Gastric Cancer Risk: A Meta-Analysis of Epidemiological Studies

Studies investigating the association of dairy consumption with gastric cancer risk have reported inconsistent findings. We conducted this systematic review and meta-analysis to review and summarize the epidemiologic evidence on the relation of total dairy and milk consumption with risk of gastric cancer. We summarized the available literature on this topic using meta-analysis of relative risks (RR) associated with total dairy and milk intake. The total of 17 case-control and 6 cohort studies (3256 cases) were eligible for inclusion. When comparing the highest with the lowest category of total dairy intake, the results of cohort studies indicated that increased consumption of total dairy food was associated with a reduced risk of gastric cancer (RR = 0.76; 95% CI: 0.64–0.91), whereas case-control studies provided no association. In subgroup analysis, significantly inverse associations between total diary food consumption and gastric cancer risk were observed in Europe subgroup (RR = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.54–0.99), U.S. subgroup (RR = 0.78; 95% CI: 0.63–0.98) but not in Asia subgroup. However, milk consumption was not associated with gastric cancer risk no matter in main or subgroup analysis. The results of cohort studies, but not case-control studies, suggested that total dairy might be related to the reduction of gastric cancer risk. Milk consumption was not associated with gastric cancer risk.
UNIVERSAL SOURCE CODING FOR NON-STATIONARY PROCESSES

Universal source codes achieve the optimal performance without apriori knowledge of the source statistics. The problem of universal lossy source coding for general non-stationary processes is considered here. Fixed rate and (cid:2)xed distortion lossy source codes derived from the Lempel-Ziv scheme are shown to be universal for non-stationary processes with abstract alphabets. We de(cid:2)ne the rate distortion function for non-stationary sources. We also prove the continuity and convexity properties of the distortion rate function.
Control and development of an electrical systems evaluation platform for uninhabited autonomous vehicles

This paper describes a new control strategy for an aircraft electrical systems evaluation platform. The 100 kVA, experimental facility includes multiple generators and power electronic loads interconnected by a high-voltage dc bus, centrally controlled by a real-time computer and data logging system. The Facility is to allow electrical power management techniques to be developed for future autonomous aircraft. The control of the facility presents important challenges as it has to be flexible, facilitating future expansion, robust, safe, and yet allow the development of advanced control strategies.