Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pollinator Behavior and Deceptive Pollination: Learning Process and Floral Evolution

Some species of flowering plants engage in nonmodel deceptive pollination, attracting pollinators by large nonmimetic floral displays and providing no reward. Pollinators can learn to avoid deceptive plants and to favor nectariferous species. The reproductive success of these species is expected to be density dependent for two opposite reasons: the commoner cheating flowers are, the easier they are to avoid and the lower the quality of the patch, making it more difficult to recognize that unrewarding flowers are not profitable. When a deceptive species is made up of multiple floral variants, pollinators' learning could decrease the reproductive success of any particularly common floral variant. Within a population of deceptive plants, mean reproductive success could, therefore, vary with the number of floral variants. We investigate these three hypotheses by modeling the behavior of pollinators foraging in communities of deceptive and rewarding flowers. Simulations revealed that the reproductive success of deceptive flowers varies in a density‐dependent manner and that floral variants can be submitted to negative frequency‐dependent selection. We compare density dependence in nonmodel deceptive species to what is expected in Batesian mimics and discuss possible selection of morphological variants. Finally, we survey how pollinators' learning capacities can make mean reproductive success depend on morphological variability within a population.
Assoziative Zuordnung und Suche von Wissen in einer thematisch strukturierten Wissensbasis

Von einer thematischen Strukturierung der Wissensbasis sind zwei Funktionen eines sprachverstehenden Systems betroffen: Bei der Wissensakquisition aus Texten konnen die gegebenen Fakten dem geeigneten Teil der Wissensbasis zugeordnet werden; fur die Bearbeitung von Anfragen kann die Suche auf thematisch eingeschrankte Teilbereiche der Wissensbasis fokussiert werden. In beiden Fallen mus vom System der fur die zu bearbeitenden Texte (und Anfragen) relevante Wissensbasis-Ausschnitt erkannt werden. In dem vorliegenden Papier werden erste Versuche mit einem subsymbolischen Klassifizierungsmodul beschrieben, das Texte aufgrund wortbezogener Merkmale Teilbereichen einer strukturierten Wissensbasis thematisch zuordnet. Ausgangspunkt war die Annahme, das das Vokabular faktenubermittelnder Informationstexte kumulativ auf den in einem Text angesprochenen Weltausschnitt hinweist. Verschiedene Typen kunstlicher neuronaler Netze wurden in einer Lernphase mit vorbereiteten Paaren von textspezifischen Merkmalskombinationen und assoziierten Wissensbereichen trainiert. In Tests mit neuen Texten wurden von einem derart trainierten Backpropagation-Netzwerk in den meisten Fallen plausible Bereichszuordnungen vorgeschlagen.
Gait Based Human Recognition with Various Classifiers Using Exhaustive Angle Calculations in Model Free Approach

Human Gait recognition is emerging as a supportive biometric technique in recent years that identifies the people through the way they walk. The gait recognition in model free approaches faces the challenges like speed variation, cloth variation, illumination changes and view angle variations which result in the reduced recognition rate. The proposed algorithm selected the exhaustive angles from head to toe of a person, and also height and width of the same subject. The experiments were conducted using silhouettes with view angle variation, and cloth variation. The recognition rate is improved to the extent of 91% using Support vector machine classifier. The proposed method is evaluated using CASIA Gait Dataset B (The institute of Automation, ChineseAcademy of Sciences), China. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed technique shows promising results using state of the art classifiers.
Genetic Differentiation among Long-Toed Salamander (Ambystoma macrodactylum) Populations

Abstract We examined the genetic population structure of Long-Toed Salamanders (Ambystoma macrodactylum) from the Bitterroot Mountains of Idaho and Montana to better understand their evolutionary history and genetic population structure. Populations show high levels of within-population genetic variation at six polymorphic allozyme loci (H̄s = 0.09 for all 18 loci examined; range 0.04–0.14). There is very little divergence among populations within basins, suggesting panmixia within basins. In contrast, genetic differentiation among all populations is high (Gst = 0.30). We used computer simulations to examine population structures that could have led to the observed distribution of genetic variation, assuming selective neutrality of the allozymes. To test the assumption of selective neutrality of the markers used in this study, we compared the observed divergence among the allozymes to that expected from simulations of independently segregating and selectively neutral markers. The observed genetic divergence among populations is compatible with that expected for neutral genetic markers sampled from panmictic populations within basins that exchange less than one migrant among basins each generation.
Frequency and risk factors of gout flares in a large population-based cohort of incident gout.

OBJECTIVE So far, few data are available to characterize the flare history of patients with gout. The objective of this study was to describe the frequency and risk factors of gout flares with special consideration of the comorbidity. METHODS A cohort study was conducted in a U.K. general practice database (The Health Improvement Network) including all patients aged 20-89 years diagnosed with incident gout between the years 2000 and 2007. RESULTS In this study, 23 857 incident gout patients (mean age 61.9 years) were included, overall incidence rate was 2.68 (95% CI 2.65, 2.72) per 1000 person-years. The proportion of patients with at least one flare during the follow-up period (mean 3.8 years) was 36.9% (n=8806). A history of ischaemic heart disease [hazard ratio (HR) 1.12 (95% CI 1.06, 1.19)], hypertension [HR 1.15 (95% CI 1.10, 1.20)] and renal failure [HR 1.33 (95% CI 1.20, 1.48)] were independently associated with a higher risk of a first gout flare. Use of allopurinol at initial gout diagnosis was associated with a lower risk [HR 0.80 (95% CI 0.75, 0.85)]. CONCLUSIONS Gout flares are relatively common among patients with gout. Some of the underlying cardiometabolic comorbid conditions are themselves independent risk factors for flares, which further contribute to the complexity of treatment of gout flares.
Life in the littoral zone: lactobacilli losing the plot

Recurrent bacterial vaginosis is a challenge for those affected by it, and their physicians. Our inability to prevent relapse after treatment, may be because of the flawed approach of using antibiotics to treat a condition that is an imbalance rather than an infection. The maintenance of a healthy lactobacillus population offers an approach to preventing relapse: the problem is how best to do this. Physiological approaches such as the use of hydrogen peroxide, lactic acid, and exogenous lactobacilli need to be explored further. The role of bacterial vaginosis as a risk factor for acquisition of HIV and other STIs is a further impetus to attempting to prevent bacterial vaginosis from recurring.
The role of the government and E-Commerce adoption in small businesses in New Zealand

This research attempted to review the E-Commerce (EC) strategy of the New Zealand (NZ) government in the light of recent EC adoption and diffusion research in Small- to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in NZ. This was an important objective in this research in order to highlight commonalities and differences between the determinants of EC adoption in SMEs and the EC strategy of the NZ government. Addressing implications arising from these comparisons was another objective in this research. The research found that the NZ EC strategy managed to address most of the impending issues concerning EC success in NZ in the long term. However, this research contended that for EC to succeed in SMEs in NZ, some of these strategies needed to be addressed and executed first.
Brentuximab vedotin (SGN-35) for relapsed CD30-positive lymphomas.

BACKGROUND Hodgkin's lymphoma and anaplastic large-cell lymphoma are the two most common tumors expressing CD30. Previous attempts to target the CD30 antigen with monoclonal-based therapies have shown minimal activity. To enhance the antitumor activity of CD30-directed therapy, the antitubulin agent monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE) was attached to a CD30-specific monoclonal antibody by an enzyme-cleavable linker, producing the antibody-drug conjugate brentuximab vedotin (SGN-35). METHODS In this phase 1, open-label, multicenter dose-escalation study, we administered brentuximab vedotin (at a dose of 0.1 to 3.6 mg per kilogram of body weight) every 3 weeks to 45 patients with relapsed or refractory CD30-positive hematologic cancers, primarily Hodgkin's lymphoma and anaplastic large-cell lymphoma. Patients had received a median of three previous chemotherapy regimens (range, one to seven), and 73% had undergone autologous stem-cell transplantation. RESULTS The maximum tolerated dose was 1.8 mg per kilogram, administered every 3 weeks. Objective responses, including 11 complete remissions, were observed in 17 patients. Of 12 patients who received the 1.8-mg-per-kilogram dose, 6 (50%) had an objective response. The median duration of response was at least 9.7 months. Tumor regression was observed in 36 of 42 patients who could be evaluated (86%). The most common adverse events were fatigue, pyrexia, diarrhea, nausea, neutropenia, and peripheral neuropathy. CONCLUSIONS Brentuximab vedotin induced durable objective responses and resulted in tumor regression for most patients with relapsed or refractory CD30-positive lymphomas in this phase 1 study. Treatment was associated primarily with grade 1 or 2 (mild-to-moderate) toxic effects. (Funded by Seattle Genetics; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00430846.).
Iron deficiency and cognitive function.

DEFINITION OF PREDICTOR AND OUTCOME VARIABLES . 522 Iron Deficiency . 522 Cognitive Variables . 523 ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN DEFICIENCY AND BEHAVIORAL ALTERATIONS 524 Infancy and Early Childhood (0-24 months) . 524 Preschool and School Children (224 months) . 526 IRON DEFICIENCY AS A CAUSE OF ALTERATIONS IN COGNITION . 528 ['! fancy and Early Childhood (0-24 months) . 528 Preschool and School-Age Children (224 months) . 530 ON THE NATURE OF THE EFFECT . 532
A randomized study of new sling exercise treatment vs traditional physiotherapy for patients with chronic whiplash-associated disorders with unsettled compensation claims.

BACKGROUND Many patients with chronic whiplash-associated disorders have reduced neuromuscular control of the neck and head. It has been proposed that a new sling exercise therapy may promote neuromuscular control of the neck. OBJECTIVES To compare the effects of traditional physiotherapy vs traditional physiotherapy combined with a new sling exercise therapy on discomfort and function in patients with chronic whiplash-associated disorders who have unsettled compensation claims; and to investigate possible additional effects of guided, long-term home training. DESIGN A randomized multi-centre trial with 4 parallel groups. METHODS A total of 214 patients were assigned randomly to 4 treatment groups, and received either traditional physiotherapy with or without home training, or new sling exercise therapy with or without home training. Outcome measures were pain, disability, psychological distress, sick leave and physical tests. RESULTS A total of 171 patients (80%) completed the study. There were no important statistical or clinical differences between the groups after 4 months of treatment. There was a small statistically significant effect at 12-month follow-up in both groups with home training regarding pain during rest (p = 0.05) and reported fatigue in the final week (p = 0.02). CONCLUSION No statistically significant differences were found between the traditional physiotherapy group and the new sling exercise group, with or without home training. Since the groups were not compared with a control group without treatment, we cannot conclude that the studied treatments are effective for patients with whiplash-associated disorder, only that they did not differ in our study.
Rare Event Simulation for Multiscale Diffusions in Random Environments

We consider systems of stochastic differential equations with multiple scales and small noise and assume that the coefficients of the equations are ergodic and stationary random fields. Our goal is to construct provably-efficient importance sampling Monte Carlo methods that allow efficient computation of rare event probabilities or expectations of functionals that can be associated with rare events. Standard Monte Carlo algorithms perform poorly in the small noise limit and hence fast simulations algorithms become relevant. The presence of multiple scales complicates the design and the analysis of efficient importance sampling schemes. An additional complication is the randomness of the environment. We construct explicit changes of measures that are proven to be logarithmic asymptotically efficient with probability one with respect to the random environment (i.e., in the quenched sense). Numerical simulations support the theoretical results.
Shared care in diabetes

Interest is increasing in the greater integration of primary and secondary health care,1 and purchasers are exerting pressure to shift patients from secondary to primary care, partly for financial reasons and often regardless of effectiveness. Examples of such integration in managing chronic diseases are schemes of “shared” or “integrated” care—for example, for patients with diabetes, asthma, or hypertension. Such schemes are loosely characterised by joint participation of hospital consultants and general practitioners in the planned delivery of care and an enhanced exchange of information over and above routine discharge and referral letters.2 Despite the growing enthusiasm for these schemes, they have not yet received sufficient critical evaluation to justify national adoption. This has been recognised by the NHS research and development initiative, which has identified shared care as a priority area for research. Most research attention has been devoted to shared care for patients with diabetes, and this has recently been the subject of an extensive literature review.3 This review identified five randomised controlled trials and several other comparative, longitudinal, and descriptive accounts …
Temporal lobe stimulation reveals anatomic distinction between auditory naming processes

Background: Language errors induced by cortical stimulation can provide insight into function(s) supported by the area stimulated. The authors observed that some stimulation-induced errors during auditory description naming were characterized by tip-of-the-tongue responses or paraphasic errors, suggesting expressive difficulty, whereas others were qualitatively different, suggesting receptive difficulty. They hypothesized that these two response types reflected disruption at different stages of auditory verbal processing and that these “subprocesses” might be supported by anatomically distinct cortical areas. Objective: To explore the topographic distribution of error types in auditory verbal processing. Methods: Twenty-one patients requiring left temporal lobe surgery underwent preresection language mapping using direct cortical stimulation. Auditory naming was tested at temporal sites extending from 1 cm from the anterior tip to the parietal operculum. Errors were dichotomized as either “expressive” or “receptive. ” The topographic distribution of error types was explored. Results: Sites associated with the two error types were topographically distinct from one another. Most receptive sites were located in the middle portion of the superior temporal gyrus (STG), whereas most expressive sites fell outside this region, scattered along lateral temporal and temporoparietal cortex. Conclusions: Results raise clinical questions regarding the inclusion of the STG in temporal lobe epilepsy surgery and suggest that more detailed cortical mapping might enable better prediction of postoperative language decline. From a theoretical perspective, results carry implications regarding the understanding of structure–function relations underlying temporal lobe mediation of auditory language processing.
BRAF mutation predicts a poorer clinical prognosis for papillary thyroid cancer.

CONTEXT Use of BRAF mutation in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) has the potential to improve risk stratification of this cancer. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to investigate the prognostic value of BRAF mutation in patients with PTC. DESIGN, SETTING, AND SUBJECTS In a multicenter study of 219 PTC patients, data on their clinicopathological characteristics and clinical courses between 1990 and 2004 were retrospectively collected, and their tumor BRAF mutation status was determined. Associations of BRAF mutation with initial tumor characteristics and subsequent recurrence were analyzed. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Relationships between the BRAF mutation status and clinicopathological outcomes, including recurrence, were measured. RESULTS We found a significant association between BRAF mutation and extrathyroidal invasion (P < 0.001), lymph node metastasis (P < 0.001), and advanced tumor stage III/IV (P = 0.007) at initial surgery. This association remained significant on multivariate analysis, adjusting for conventional clinicopathological predictors of recurrence excluding the histological PTC subtype, but was lost when the tumor subtype was included in the model. BRAF mutation was also significantly associated with tumor recurrence, 25 vs. 9% with and without mutation, respectively (P = 0.004), during a median of 15 (interquartile range, 3-29) months of follow-up. This association remained significant on multivariate analysis adjusting for conventional clinicopathological predictors of recurrence, even including the PTC subtype (odds ratio, 4.0; 95% confidence interval, 1.1-14.1; P = 0.03). BRAF mutation was even an independent predictor of recurrence in patients with stage I/II disease, 22 vs. 5% with and without BRAF mutation, respectively (P = 0.002). BRAF mutation was also more frequently associated with absence of tumor I-131 avidity and treatment failure of recurrent disease. CONCLUSIONS In patients with PTC, BRAF mutation is associated with poorer clinicopathological outcomes and independently predicts recurrence. Therefore, BRAF mutation may be a useful molecular marker to assist in risk stratification for patients with PTC.
Adaptive stream reliability modeling based on local dispersion measures for audio visual speech recognition

This paper proposes an adaptive stream reliability modeling technique for audio visual speech recognition (AVSR). As recognition conditions vary locally, we present two local measures - frame and window dispersions to depict the temporal discriminative powers and noise levels of both audio and visual streams. The dispersions are subsequently mapped to stream exponents according to the minimum classification error (MCE) criterion. Experiments on a connected-digits task show that our method consistently outperforms the popular discriminative training (DT) and grid search (GS) methods at various signal noise ratios (SNRs), improving for example word accuracy rate (WAR) from 94.7% to 96.4% at 28dB SNR.
A novel Ocular Anaesthetic Scoring System, OASS, tool to measure both motor and sensory function following local anaesthesia

Background/aims: To devise and evaluate a novel Ocular Anaesthetic Scoring System (OASS) for non-topical local anaesthesia. Methods: In OASS, a score of between 0 (poor) and 14 (excellent) was devised measuring motor (ocular motility, levator and orbicularis function) and sensory functions (digital spear pressure at limbus and topical anaesthetic sting). 40 patients were studied prospectively to analyse interobserver consistency in OASS. A further 100 patients were collected into four groups receiving either sub-Tenon or peribulbar block with 150 or 300 units of hyaluronidase. Patient satisfaction was determined using the Visual Analogue Pain Scale and Iowa Satisfaction with Anaesthesia Scale. Results: There was no significant difference in OASS scores between two independent observers (p = 0.8910). The sub-Tenon approach achieved significantly better OASS scores than the peribulbar approach (p<0.0004). 300 units of hyaluronidase gave significantly higher OASS scores in both sub-Tenon (p<0.0001) and peribulbar groups (p<0.0001). Spearman rank correlation showed that OASS correlates significantly with VAPS (−0.82, p<0.0001) and ISAS (0.70, p<0.0001). The median satisfaction score was significant in order of magnitude: sub-Tenon with 300 units of hyaluronidase>sub-Tenon with 150 units of hyaluronidase>peribulbar with 300 units of hyaluronidase>peribulbar with 150 units of hyaluronidase. Conclusion: OASS is a simple and robust system for assessing and comparing non-topical local anaesthetic techniques. Of the techniques evaluated, a sub-Tenon block with 300 units of hyaluronidase gives the best anaesthesia, analgesia and patient satisfaction results.
DIKE-HOSTED ORES OF THE BEAST DEPOSIT AND THE IMPORTANCE OF EOCENE MAGMATISM IN GOLD MINERALIZATION OF THE CARLIN TREND, NEVADA—A REPLY

We appreciate the comments of G.D. Langstaff and the opportunity to elaborate on the origin of Carlin-type gold deposits. Langstaff focuses on two of the critical issues regarding these deposits, their age and spatial association with igneous rocks. Although his comment mentions almost every known Carlin-type deposit, our reply focuses on deposits in major districts. Direct dating of hydrothermal minerals and indirect dating based on crosscutting relations with pre-, syn-, or postmineral rocks in Nevada have demonstrated that major deposits in all trends are Eocene (Emsbo et al., 1996; Leonardson and Rahn, 1996; Phinisey et al., 1996; Groff et al., 1997; Hall et al., 1997, 2000; Hofstra et al., 1999; Hofstra and Cline, 2000; Johnston, 2000; Ressel et al., 2000a, b; Tretbar et al., 2000). Although many Carlin-type deposits are not dated, we emphasize that no deposit has been demonstrated to be any other age. Preliminary 40Ar/39Ar dating of white micas from mineralized Eocene dikes at Meikle and Griffin in the Carlin trend gives Eocene ages (Ressel et al., 2000b). Any discussion of the origin, especially spatial association, of Carlin-type deposits with igneous rocks must emphasize the northern and central Carlin trend (Fig. 1). Deposits there constitute ~60 percent of the total estimated contained gold in Carlin-type deposits of Nevada and Utah (Hofstra and Cline, 2000). We interpreted the 700 km2 aeromagnetic anomaly (Fig. 1) there to reflect an underlying "composite Eocene intrusion emplaced between about 40 …