Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The marketing ofLactarius deliciosus in Northern Spain

We report the harvesting of an average of 4,000 kg of saffron milk caps (Lactarius deliciosus Fr.) per day during four to six weeks between mid-October and mid-November in a village of 200 inhabitants in northern Spain. Nearly every inhabitant picks saffron milk caps, for which they receive an average of 2 ε/kg. A family of four could make a profit of 5,600–8,400 ε in a season (average annual income per family in the area is 18,727 ε). Pickers sell the harvested mushrooms either to a local middleman or directly to the buyer, who then takes the produce to the final point of sale, usually in Catalonia, where the demand for saffron milk caps is increasing yearly. This trade has occurred for 30 years, and began when saffron milk caps started to appear in the area after pine trees were introduced to replace the native oaks. This study provides evidence that the collection and marketing of wild edible fungi is a profitable task on a local and national scale.
Serum proteins profile in Comisana lambs during the first month of life

Abstract. The aim of the present study was to measure the serum total proteins and the serum protein fractions (albumin, α1-, α2-, β-, and γ- globulins) of ten newborn lambs (Comisana breed) during the first 30 days of life in order to obtain useful information for neonatal care. From each animal, blood samples were collected via jugular venipuncture at the same hour (9.00) every 3 days for 30 days starting from birth (day 0). The concentrations of serum total proteins and albumin, α1-, α2-, β-, γ- globulins, and Albumin/Globulins (A/G) ratio were determined using an automated electrophoresis system. One-way repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), followed by Bonferroni’s test, was used to determine significant differences between mean values of the studied parameters from the 1st to the 30th day of the experimental period. Data analysis of variance showed a statistical effect of days of life on total proteins, albumin, α1-globulins, β-globulins, γ-globulins and ratio A/G during the first 30 days of life (P
Homogeneous coordinates in motion correction

Prospective motion correction for MRI and other imaging modalities are commonly based on the assumption of affine motion, i.e., rotations, shearing, scaling and translations. In addition it often involves transformations between different reference frames, especially for applications with an external tracking device. The goal of this work is to develop a computational framework for motion correction based on homogeneous transforms.
When Experiments Go Wrong: The U.S. Perspective

The view that once prevailed in the U.S.--that research is no more dangerous than the activities of daily life--no longer holds in light of recent experience. Within the past few years, a number of subjects (including normal volunteers) have been seriously injured or killed in research conducted at prestigious institutions. Plainly, when we are talking about research going wrong, we're talking about something very important. We have seen that experiments can go wrong in several ways. Subjects can be injured--physically, mentally, or by having other interests violated. Investigators can commit fraud in data collection or can abuse subjects. And review mechanisms--such as IRBs--don't always work. The two major issues when research goes wrong in any of these ways are, first: What will be done for subjects who have suffered an injury or other wrong? and second: How will future problems be prevented? The present system in the U.S. is better at the second task than the first one. Part of the difficulty in addressing the first lies in knowing what "caused" an apparent injury. Moreover, since until recently the problem of research-related injuries was thought to be a small one, there was considerable resistance to setting up a non-fault compensation system, for fear that it would lead to payment in many cases where such compensation was not deserved. Now, with a further nudge from the NBAC there is renewed interest in developing a formal system to compensate for research injuries. Finally, I have tried to show that our system of local oversight is only partially effective in improving the design of experiments and the consent process in light of "unexpected (adverse) results. " As many observers, including the federal General Accounting Office (GAO), have reported, the requirement for "continuing review" of approved research projects is the weak point in the IRB system. The probable solution would be to more strictly apply the requirement that investigators report back any adverse results, de-emphasizing the "screen" introduced by the present language about "unexpected" findings. Yet, despite its weaknesses, there are good aspects to the local basis of our oversight system, and when problems become severe enough, OHRP is likely to evaluate a system and insist on local improvements. Thus, while the U.S. system is far from perfect in responding when research goes wrong, our experience may be useful to others in crafting a system appropriate to their own circumstances. One of the major tasks will be to adequately define what triggers oversight--that is, who reports what to whom and when? The setting of this trigger needs to balance appropriate incentives and penalties. Any system, including our own, will, in my opinion, work much better once an accreditation process is in place, which will offer much more current and detailed information on how each IRB is functioning and what steps are needed to help avoid "experiments going wrong. "
Association of inherited dysfibrinogenaemia and protein C deficiency in two unrelated families

Summary An inherited association of dysfibrinogenaemia and protein C deficiency was found in three members of the same family. The propositus was a 48‐year‐old man who suffered from severe and rapidly complicated atherosclerosis of the aorta and lower limbs arteries, which perhaps suggests that the association of these two molecular abnormalities may have enhanced the thrombotic process. The abnormal fibrinogen had a reduced ability to bind thrombin which may be thrombogenic.
Cell-associated plasminogen activation: regulation and physiological functions.

PLASMINOGEN ACTIVATOR INHIBITORS 104 Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor 1 104 Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor 2 106 Protease Nexin I . 108 PHYSIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF PLASMINOGEN ACTIVATION . 109 Matrix Breakdown 109 Cell Migration 111 Ovulation 113 CONCLUDING REMARKS 115
A CAE Scheme Using ECC Based Self Certified PKC

The Convertible Authentication Encryption (CAE) scheme, allows the signer to generate an authentic ciphertext signature, which can be recuperated and validated by a specific recipient only. In case of any kind of dispute the recipient is capable enough to convert the ciphertext signature as a normal signature and that can be validated publicly. The CAE schemes are used for transformation of confidential information over insecure networks, because they provide confidentiality, authenticity and integrity for the transmitted message or information. We propose a new CAE scheme by integrating the concepts of ECC- based self-certified public keys and encryption scheme. The security analysis shows that the proposed CAE scheme fulfill the basic security conditions such as indistinguishability of ciphertext signature, unforgeability and non-repudiation. The performance analysis shows that our proposed CAE scheme has little advantage over Wu and Lin scheme regarding computational complexity and timings.
Design of Photonic Crystal Resonant Cavity Using Overmoded Dielectric Photonic Band Gap Structures

An overmoded photonic crystal resonant cavity with two dimensional dielectric lattice structures is proposed and simulated. The dominant mode is a higher-order TM03-like at the frequency of 31.14GHz, the fundamental mode and most other modes are not supported by the cavity. The structure would be potential for application in accelerator, gyrotron and klystron in Ka-band. DOI: 10.2529/PIERS061007043414
Steatosis and intrahepatic hepatitis C virus in chronic hepatitis

Hepatic steatosis has been reported as one of the characteristics which discriminates hepatitis C from other forms of hepatitis, besides lymphoid follicles and bile duct damage. However, it is unclear whether or not the presence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) itself is associated with the development of steatosis. The possibility that the HCV itself is directly related to the development of steatosis was examined. The intrahepatic core protein levels, as a marker of the HCV load, were correlated with the presence of steatosis in 43 patients with chronic hepatitis C. Among 43 patients studied by Western blotting, the core protein was detected in the liver in 27 (62.8%). On the other hand, hepatic steatosis was observed in 21 (48.8%) of the 43 patients. Importantly, the core protein was detectable in 19 (90.4%) of the 21 patients with steatosis, while it was detected in only 8 (36.4%) of the 22 patients without steatosis (P = 0.008). However, serum HCV‐RNA levels as determined by the Amplicor monitor were not significantly different between patients with and without steatosis. Multivariate analysis showed that the serum alanine aminotransferase level (P = 0.013), body mass index (P = 0.038), and intrahepatic HCV core protein positivity (P = 0.038) were the independent parameters best predictive of steatosis. These results indicate a close relationship between intrahepatic HCV and the development of steatosis, and suggest a possible role of the HCV itself or core protein in the pathogenesis of steatosis in human chronic hepatitis C. J. Med. Virol. 59:141–145, 1999. © 1999 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Research of indoor localization based on inertial navigation technology

This paper presents the inertial navigation technology applied to three dimensional firefighters indoor positioning system research. The basic principle is through the inertial measurement unit to obtain three-dimensional acceleration and position information in the process of firefighter's movement. In order to improve the positioning accuracy, this paper proposes a zero velocity correction method based on Kalman filtering to suppress the accumulated error in the process of equipment movement. Finally, the method of graph theory to extract building interior network, matching inertial navigation trajectory and location information with building road network.
Scene Reconstruction And Understanding By RGB-D Sensors

This thesis investigates interactive scene reconstruction and understanding using RGB-D data only. Indeed, we believe that depth cameras will still be in the near future a cheap and low-power 3D sensing alternative suitable for mobile devices too. Therefore, our contributions build on top of state-of-the-art approaches to achieve advances in three main challenging scenarios, namely mobile mapping, large scale surface reconstruction and semantic modeling. First, we will describe an effective approach dealing with Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) on platforms with limited resources, such as a tablet device. Unlike previous methods, dense reconstruction is achieved by reprojection of RGB-D frames, while local consistency is maintained by deploying relative bundle adjustment principles. We will show quantitative results comparing our technique to the state-of-the-art as well as detailed reconstruction of various environments ranging from rooms to small apartments. Then, we will address large scale surface modeling from depth maps exploiting parallel GPU computing. We will develop a real-time camera tracking method based on the popular KinectFusion system and an online surface alignment technique capable of counteracting drift errors and closing small loops. We will show very high quality meshes outperforming existing methods on publicly available datasets as well as on data recorded with our RGB-D camera even in complete darkness. Finally, we will move to our Semantic Bundle Adjustment framework to effectively combine object detection and SLAM in a uniﬁed system. Though the mathematical framework we will describe does not restrict to a particular sensing technology, in the experimental section we will refer, again, only to RGB-D sensing. We will discuss successful implementations of our algorithm showing the beneﬁt of a joint object detection, camera tracking and environment mapping.
Evaluating the connectivity of motor area with prefrontal cortex by fNIR spectroscopy

Main objective of this work is to find the connectivity of motor action of the brain with prefrontal lobe, though motor cortex is situated at the later part of frontal lobe. Generally a question arises that is there any connectivity between prefrontal lobe and motor area. This study proposes a statistical method to examine the most prominent area of prefrontal cortex that is consistently connected with the motor action. The main challenge of this work is taking decision on prefrontal activity during motor action. So, in this study motor action is measured from prefrontal cortex by acquiring the oxygen saturation through functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The average change in concentration of Hb and HbO2 are taken into account to find the consistent change of concentration by 2 ways ANOVA. Our results show that only 4 channels of prefrontal cortex have significant (p<0.05) connectivity with motor cortex during motor action. This study will be helpful for brain computer interface for motor action.
The Internet Moderating Impact among Stakeholders in Modern Organizations: A Conceptual Analysis of Service Management Environment

The Internet has a significant impact on service organizations their way they are managed. This article examines the role of Internet in moderating the relative importance of various stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, distributors, stockholders, managers, and employees in service management environment. A detailed analysis to the stakeholders involved based on previous studies and carrying it over to the Internet age. The analysis highlights the changing role of each stakeholder in any organization and how these stakeholders influence service management decisions is examined. The article provides todayâ€™s management with a clear vision of the changing business environments and in devising a plan to lead their organizations in the Internet era.
PerAd-Service: A Middleware Service for Pervasive Advertisement in M-Business

In this paper, primarily, we delineate the numerous challenges that can arise in mobile-business (m-business) to provide the highest degree of proliferation of pervasive advertisement. Later, we demonstrate the feasibility of PerAd-Service, an integral part of, MARKS (middleware adaptability for knowledge usability, resource discovery, and self-healing) to address those challenges.
Physiognomic variation in Dotterel Charadrius morinellus Clutches

Much interest has focused on why birds lay variably marked and coloured eggs. We quantified the physiognomy of Dotterel eggs and used discriminant function analysis to compare clutches. Two background colours, feint scribbles and primary spots around the egg apex were particularly significant in discriminating between clutches. On the basis of other studies we suggest that females can be identified consistently according to these physiognomic features of their eggs. Of 109 clutches examined in the field, 6.4% had one markedly odd egg (possibly laid by a brood parasite), but none had extra eggs (only 0.8% of 657 clutches have ever had 4 eggs). As the Dotterel can be polyandrous (we suggest at least 3-5% of females), we postulate that a shortage of males, variable nest losses and an ability in some females to produce many eggs may facilitate brood parasitism. There were no convincing relationships between nest site features and clutch physiognomy, suggesting that individual females do not choose particular nest sites to match their distinctive eggs.
Effects of tumor necrosis factor‐alpha central administration on hippocampal damage in rat induced by amyloid beta‐peptide (25–35)

Male Wistar rats received unilateral intrahippocampal injections of 3 nmol (3.18 μg) aggregated Aβ(25–35), intracerebroventricular bilateral injections of 0.5 μg human recombinant TNFα or both (Aβ(25–35) + TNFα‐treated animals). Seven days after the surgery brain sections were stained with cresyl violet (Nissl), for fragmented DNA (TUNEL), glial fibrillar acidic protein (GFAP) and isolectin B4‐reactive microglia. In addition, caspase‐3 activity in brain regions was measured fluorometrically. The morphology of the hippocampus after the injection of Aβ(25–35) or both Aβ(25–35) and TNFα (but not TNFα alone) showed cell loss in the CA1 pyramidal cell layer. The extension of neuronal degeneration measured in the CA1 field was significantly larger in Aβ(25–35)‐treated groups compared to the contralateral hemisphere of both vehicle‐treated controls and animals injected with TNFα alone. TNFα augmented the Aβ(25–35)‐induced damage, significantly increasing the extension of degenerating area. Administration of Aβ(25–35) caused reactive gliosis in the ipsilateral hemisphere as demonstrated by upregulation of GFAP expression and the presence of hypertrophic astrocytes in the hippocampus. This effect was much more prominent in the hippocampi of rats treated with Aβ(25–35) + TNFα but absent after administration of TNFα alone. In both Aβ(25–35)‐treated groups, the damaged area of the hippocampal CA1 field and lateral band of dentate gyrus displayed many darkly stained round isolectin B4‐positive phagocyte‐like microglial cells. Sparse TUNEL‐positive nuclei were found in the hippocampi of rats treated with Aβ(25–35) alone or together with TNFα, but not in the control brain sections or in brain sections of TNFα‐injected animals. The activity of caspase‐3 increased significantly in the ipsilateral hippocampus after the injection of Aβ(25–35). Surprisingly, administration of TNFα into the cerebral ventricles prevented this Aβ(25–35)‐induced increase in hippocampal caspase‐3 activity. The results are discussed from the perspective of dual (neuroprotective and neurodestructive) roles of TNF in the brain. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Lessons learned from the Decision Board: a unique and evolving decision aid

One session of the conference was devoted to the presentation of different types of decision aids. This paper reports the experience and lessons learned through the development and use of the Decision Board. This is a uniquely interactive decision aid administered by the clinician during the medical consultation. The instrument has been developed in a number of clinical contexts, primarily regarding treatment options for cancer patients. Studies have shown the instrument to improve patient understanding and facilitate the shared decision‐making process. Randomized trials are ongoing, evaluating the addition of the Decision Board to the traditional medical consultation. The instrument continues to evolve to meet patients’ need for information and flexibility in presentation. Computer‐based versions of the Decision Board are currently being developed.
The impact of diversity on the quality of collective prediction

Nowadays, there appears to be sufficient evidence that a collective of uninformed individuals can outperform single individuals (even individual experts) in solving some difficult judgment and prediction problems. In some situations, the predictions given by collective members on the outcome of a future event can be modified (such as by updating or removing predictions) to reach a higher consistency level (less diversity) in a collective. The main concern of this paper is to investigate the impact of diversity on the quality of collective prediction by taking into account such modifications within a collective. Diversity is understood as the variety of individual predictions on the same problem. The simulation experiments (with different collective cardinalities and levels of diversity reduction) have revealed that such modifications are not useful in improving the quality of collective prediction. Instead, they have emphasized the important role of diversity in leading to a better collective prediction. That is the more diverse the collective, the better the collective prediction.
Application of acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of dispersed organic solvent in developing new microencapsulation process technology

The aim of this study was to evaluate a new microencapsulation technology employing an acid-catalyzed solvent extraction method in conjunction to an emulsion-based microencapsulation process. Its process consisted of emulsifying a dispersed phase of poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) and isopropyl formate in an aqueous phase. This step was followed by adding hydrochloric acid to the resulting oil-in-water emulsion, in order to initiate the hydrolysis of isopropyl formate dissolved in the aqueous phase. Its hydrolysis caused the liberation of water-soluble species, that is, isopropanol and formic acid. This event triggered continual solvent leaching out of emulsion droplets, thereby initiating microsphere solidification. This new processing worked well for encapsulation of progesterone and ketoprofen that were chosen as a nonionizable model drug and a weakly acidic one, respectively. Furthermore, the structural integrity of poly(D,L-lactide-co-glycolide) was retained during microencapsulation. The new microencapsulation technology, being conceptually different from previous approaches, might be useful in preparing various polymeric particles.
Clock Genes and Cancer

Period genes ( Per2, Per1) are essential circadian clock genes. They also function as negative growth regulators. Per2 mutant mice show de novo and radiation-induced epithelial hyperplasia, tumors, and an abnormal DNA damage response. Human tumors show Period gene mutations or decreased expression. Other murine clock gene mutations are not associated with a tumor prone phenotype. Shift work and nocturnal light exposure are associated with circadian clock disruption and with increased cancer risk. The mechanisms responsible for the connection between the circadian clock and cancer are not well defined. We propose that circadian disruption per se is not uniformly tumor promoting and the mechanisms for tumor promotion by specific circadian clock disturbances will differ dependent upon the genes and pathways involved. We propose that Period clock gene mutations promote tumorigenesis by unique molecular pathways. Per2 and Per1 modulate β-catenin and cell proliferation in colon and non-colon cancer cells. Per2 mutation increases intestinal β-catenin levels and colon polyp formation. Per2 mutation also increases ApcMin/+ -mediated intestinal and colonic polyp formation. Intestinal tumorigenesis per se may also alter clock function as a result of increased β-catenin destabilizing PER2 protein. Levels and circadian rhythm of PER2 in ApcMin/+ mouse intestine are markedly decreased, and selective abnormalities in intestinal clock gene and clock-controlled gene expression are seen. We propose that tumor promotion by loss of PERIOD clock proteins is unique to these clock genes as a result of altered β-catenin signaling and DNA damage response. PERIOD proteins may offer new targets for cancer prevention and control.