Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sparse Pre-Columbian Human Habitation in Western Amazonia

Population Limits Extensive pre-Columbian populations inhabited the central and eastern Amazon basin, as evidenced by the clearing and modification of forests. McMichael et al. (p. 1429) examined how far inland such activities may have extended by sampling soils across western Amazonia, including river bluffs, which were heavily occupied downstream. Little evidence of human disturbance across a wide region was found by looking for charcoal layers (which would suggest use of fire) and phytoliths, which trace local plants and would indicate the presence of crops. Furthermore, no ceramics or tools were found. Thus, pre-Columbian human populations seem to have been sparse in western Amazonia. Analysis of soils in western Amazonia finds little evidence for pre-Columbian human occupations there. Locally extensive pre-Columbian human occupation and modification occurred in the forests of the central and eastern Amazon Basin, but whether comparable impacts extend westward and into the vast terra firme (interfluvial) zones, remains unclear. We analyzed soils from 55 sites across central and western Amazonia to assess the history of human occupation. Sparse occurrences of charcoal and the lack of phytoliths from agricultural and disturbance species in the soils during pre-Columbian times indicated that human impacts on interfluvial forests were small, infrequent, and highly localized. No human artifacts or modified soils were found at any site surveyed. Riverine bluff areas also appeared less heavily occupied and disturbed than similar settings elsewhere. Our data indicate that human impacts on Amazonian forests were heterogeneous across this vast landscape.
Impacto da morte do filho sobre a conjugalidade dos pais

The scope of this qualitative study was to understand the experience of the couple who lost a child stricken by cancer,focusing on the impact of death on the marital relationship. The methodological strategy used in this paper was the case study, seeking to describe the process of elaboration of mourning and the impact of the son's death on the parents' marital relationship. The couple who participated in the study had been together for 39 years and had lost their youngest son three years earlier. The spouses were interviewed individually and then together. Semi-structured interview scripts were used for this purpose. It was established that the religious community to which the couple belongs has been the main source of support in dealing with the mourning process, although its precepts may prevent the free expression of their suffering, particularly in the wife's case. Although the couple has remained together, the marital relationship was shaken after their son's death. The couple had difficulty in talking about their marriage, though the wife pointed to the absence of their son as one of the reasons for the change in their marital relationship. The marital relationship and religiosity/spirituality emerged as important dimensions to be addressed by health staff in attending bereaved families.
Passive walking with leg compliance for energy efficient multilegged vehicles

We address the problem of finding an energy efficient locomotion scheme for multilegged walking vehicles. Our approach makes use of compliant actuators to store and release the kinetic and potential energy of the body and legs during each gait cycle. An evolutionary strategy algorithm is used to search the initial condition parameter space until a nearly passive cyclic gait is found. The trajectory of this gait can then be used in a specific class of hexapods to significantly reduce the energy used over each gait cycle.
Structural Biological Materials: Critical Mechanics-Materials Connections

The Building Blocks of Life Biological organisms are often limited in the resources that they can use to make structural materials. Primary building blocks may be weak or brittle materials, such as minerals and biopolymers, and processing conditions by default have to be mild. Despite this, a wide range of strong and tough structures exist, including shells, bones, quills, and fibers. Meyers et al. (p. 773) review a wide range of materials and architectures used in nature to make strong and tough materials and show how many of the design principles have also been used or are being considered for manmade materials and structures. Spider silk is extraordinarily strong, mollusk shells and bone are tough, and porcupine quills and feathers resist buckling. How are these notable properties achieved? The building blocks of the materials listed above are primarily minerals and biopolymers, mostly in combination; the first weak in tension and the second weak in compression. The intricate and ingenious hierarchical structures are responsible for the outstanding performance of each material. Toughness is conferred by the presence of controlled interfacial features (friction, hydrogen bonds, chain straightening and stretching); buckling resistance can be achieved by filling a slender column with a lightweight foam. Here, we present and interpret selected examples of these and other biological materials. Structural bio-inspired materials design makes use of the biological structures by inserting synthetic materials and processes that augment the structures' capability while retaining their essential features. In this Review, we explain this idea through some unusual concepts.
The Heliosphere’s Interstellar Interaction: No Bow Shock

No Shock Ahead of the Sun The boundary of the heliosphere is the region where the solar wind interacts with interstellar space, and it marks the edge of our solar system. Based on observations from NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer, McComas et al. (p. 1291, published online 10 May; see the Perspective by Redfield) determined values for local interstellar parameters—such as speed, direction, and temperature—and show that these and other recent constraints are not consistent with a bow shock ahead of the heliosphere, as previously believed. Observations from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer are not consistent with a bow shock ahead of the heliosphere. As the Sun moves through the local interstellar medium, its supersonic, ionized solar wind carves out a cavity called the heliosphere. Recent observations from the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) spacecraft show that the relative motion of the Sun with respect to the interstellar medium is slower and in a somewhat different direction than previously thought. Here, we provide combined consensus values for this velocity vector and show that they have important implications for the global interstellar interaction. In particular, the velocity is almost certainly slower than the fast magnetosonic speed, with no bow shock forming ahead of the heliosphere, as was widely expected in the past.
Controlling ideal turbulence in time-delayed chua's circuits and an application to communications

We try to synchronize physical models described by wave equations with nonlinear boundary conditions. These systems are distributed parameter systems in which ideal turbulence, introduced by Sharkovsky et al., occurs. The behavior of such systems can be quite intricate both in time and space. However, by using the d'Alembert's solution, the analysis of the dynamic characteristics can be reduced to that of a finite-dimensional difference equation. In this report, based on this analytical method using the d'Alembert's solution, we design a control law to stabilize an equilibrium point and to synchronize a pair of the distributed parameter systems. And then, we show that this synchronization phenomenon can be applied to multichannel spread-spectrum communications.
A TOG:αβ-tubulin Complex Structure Reveals Conformation-Based Mechanisms for a Microtubule Polymerase

All TOGether Now αβ-Tubulin is the polymerizing subunit of microtubules, which are dynamic polymers that have essential roles in cell division and intracellular organization. TOG domains are αβ-tubulin binding modules that occur in the evolutionarily conserved Stu2p/XMAP215 family of proteins and promote microtubule elongation. Ayaz et al. (p. 857) used crystallographic and biochemical experiments to reveal that the TOG1 domain interacts with guanosine triphosphate–bound αβ-tubulin in a conformation-selective manner, binding preferentially to a “curved,” microtubule-incompatible conformation. The binding mode apparently excludes analogous binding of a second TOG domain to the same heterodimer and may help to ensure polarized growth of microtubules. Conformation-selective interactions with microtubule subunits explain how assembly enzymes recognize the growing end. Stu2p/XMAP215/Dis1 family proteins are evolutionarily conserved regulatory factors that use αβ-tubulin–interacting tumor overexpressed gene (TOG) domains to catalyze fast microtubule growth. Catalysis requires that these polymerases discriminate between unpolymerized and polymerized forms of αβ-tubulin, but the mechanism by which they do so has remained unclear. Here, we report the structure of the TOG1 domain from Stu2p bound to yeast αβ-tubulin. TOG1 binds αβ-tubulin in a way that excludes equivalent binding of a second TOG domain. Furthermore, TOG1 preferentially binds a curved conformation of αβ-tubulin that cannot be incorporated into microtubules, contacting α- and β-tubulin surfaces that do not participate in microtubule assembly. Conformation-selective interactions with αβ-tubulin explain how TOG-containing polymerases discriminate between unpolymerized and polymerized forms of αβ-tubulin and how they selectively recognize the growing end of the microtubule.
An Overlapping Protein-Coding Region in Influenza A Virus Segment 3 Modulates the Host Response

Influenza's Cryptic Constraint Because of the well-known pandemic potential of influenza viruses, it is important to understand the range of molecular interactions between the virus and its host. Despite years of intensive research on the virus, Jagger et al. (p. 199, published online 28 June; see the Perspective by Yewdell and Ince) have found that the influenza A virus has been hiding a gene in its small negative-sense RNA genome. An overlapping open reading frame was found contained in the PA viral RNA polymerase gene, which is accessed by ribosomal frameshifting to produce a fusion protein containing the N-terminal messenger RNA (mRNA) endonuclease domain of PA and an alternative C-terminal X domain. The resulting polypeptide, PA-X, selectively degrades host mRNAs and, in a mouse model of infection, modulated cellular immune responses, thus limiting viral pathogenesis. A previously unidentified influenza protein, partly old and partly new, turns off the expression of host genes. Influenza A virus (IAV) infection leads to variable and imperfectly understood pathogenicity. We report that segment 3 of the virus contains a second open reading frame (“X-ORF”), accessed via ribosomal frameshifting. The frameshift product, termed PA-X, comprises the endonuclease domain of the viral PA protein with a C-terminal domain encoded by the X-ORF and functions to repress cellular gene expression. PA-X also modulates IAV virulence in a mouse infection model, acting to decrease pathogenicity. Loss of PA-X expression leads to changes in the kinetics of the global host response, which notably includes increases in inflammatory, apoptotic, and T lymphocyte–signaling pathways. Thus, we have identified a previously unknown IAV protein that modulates the host response to infection, a finding with important implications for understanding IAV pathogenesis.
The Potential for Respiratory Droplet–Transmissible A/H5N1 Influenza Virus to Evolve in a Mammalian Host

Some natural influenza viruses need only three amino acid substitutions to acquire airborne transmissibility between mammals. Avian A/H5N1 influenza viruses pose a pandemic threat. As few as five amino acid substitutions, or four with reassortment, might be sufficient for mammal-to-mammal transmission through respiratory droplets. From surveillance data, we found that two of these substitutions are common in A/H5N1 viruses, and thus, some viruses might require only three additional substitutions to become transmissible via respiratory droplets between mammals. We used a mathematical model of within-host virus evolution to study factors that could increase and decrease the probability of the remaining substitutions evolving after the virus has infected a mammalian host. These factors, combined with the presence of some of these substitutions in circulating strains, make a virus evolving in nature a potentially serious threat. These results highlight critical areas in which more data are needed for assessing, and potentially averting, this threat.
Hesperidin attenuates benzo[α] pyrene-induced testicular toxicity in rats via regulation of oxidant/antioxidant balance

Benzo[α]pyrene (BaP) is one of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which has shown carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic potentials. The reproductive toxicity of BaP in male was not well investigated. Thereby, we have addressed in the current study the testicular toxicity of BaP and the postulate whether or not the citrus flavonoid, hesperidin (HDN), could ameliorate such toxicity in male Swiss albino rats. In this sense, animals were challenged with BaP (50 mg/kg/day, orally) for 10 consecutive days. HDN (200 mg/kg/day, orally) was administered ahead of BaP challenge for 10 consecutive days. BaP induced testicular toxicity that was well characterized histologically and biochemically. It decreased the relative testis weight and induced pyknosis and necrobiotic changes as well as chromatolysis in the nuclei of the spermatocytes in the seminiferous tubules. It also markedly deteriorated epididymal function as shown by decreased sperm count, motility, and daily sperm production. The polyaromatic hydrocarbon also reduced the testicular activities of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH-X), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and glutathione-S-transferase (GST). Besides, it decreased the testicular reduced glutathione (GSH) but increased malondialdehyde (MDA) contents. Prior administration of HDN ahead of BaP challenge ameliorated all the histological and biochemical alterations induced by BaP. It improved the epididymal function and mitigated the injurious effects of BaP on the seminiferous tubules. In conclusion, HDN has proven protective effects in BaP-induced testicular toxicity paradigm, and this protection resides, at least in part, on its antioxidant properties.
The Trauma Model: A Solution to the Problem of Comorbidity in Psychiatry

Reading a book is also kind of better solution when you have no enough money or time to get your own adventure. This is one of the reasons we show the trauma model a solution to the problem of comorbidity in psychiatry as your friend in spending the time. For more representative collections, this book not only offers it's strategically book resource. It can be a good friend, really good friend with much knowledge.
Pulmonary Function in Children with Asthma

In order to evaluate the normal values of the lung volume and the ventilatory function in children, 113 healthy children of 6 to 13 years were studied. The following results were obtained. 1) The lung volume correlated most closely with the body height. The lung volume and the height showed a linear relation. The lung volume and the height: age were the heighest multiple correlation. Therefore, all regression equations of the lung volume were based on age and height. 2) RV and RV/TLC were variable in children. As shown in previous studies FRWTLC was considered a better index as compared with RV/TLC in this report. Regression equations of FVC, FEVl.0, MMF and MVV were based. on age and height 3) because these items had similar correlation with the lung volume. 4) FEVl.O/FVC was 86.7+5% in boys, 87.625% in girls. FEVS.O/FVC was 98.322% in boys and girls. 5) As the tidal volume had similar correlation with the lung volume in boys, the regression equation of the tidal volume was based on age and height, but in girls, the tidal volume correlated most closely with the body surface area. The minute ventilation had a negative correlation with the height, the body weight, the body surface area and the age. As the oxygen consumption correlated most closely with the body surface area, the regression equation was based on the body surface area in boys and girls. 6)
Image-Guided Peripheral Venous Access Catheters and Implantable Ports

Current medical treatment strategies are predicated upon reliable venous access. Traditional methods have relied on tunneled chest wall catheters and implanted chest wall ports. These devices require operative placement, with its incumbent costs. Home care nurses have pioneered alternative venous access devices termed "peripherally inserted central catheters" (P1CC lines). "2 These catheters are inexpensive alternatives to tunneled chest wall catheters. Radiologists have refined the procedure of placing these devices by applying imaging guidance. Imaging guidance extends the possibilities of venous access sites and provides precise targeting of patent veins for device placement. Imaging guidance increases the technical success rate and decreases the proce-dural-related complications. Innovative implantable ports designed to be placed in the arm are available and have equivalent durability and service intervals compared to chest wall ports. The technique of implanting a port is similar to placement of a P1CC line with the addition of creation of a subcutaneous pocket for the port's reservoir. The tbllowing is a description of the applications, techniques
Algae Under Pressure and in Hot Water

Strategies are being developed to convert algae into high-value products and fuels without expensive drying of raw biomass. Algae grow quickly, can be cultivated to have a high oil (triacylglyceride) content, and can be grown on nonarable land with brackish or salt water. These characteristics make them an attractive source of biomass for renewable biofuels. The U.S. Navy and commercial airlines have demonstrated the use of algal biofuel in ships and planes; blending algal biofuel with ultralow-sulfur diesel fuel reduced the pollutants and particulate matter and improved fuel economy during the operation of a marine vessel on the Great Lakes (1). Algae-derived fuel is very expensive, however, and most of the cost is associated with producing the biomass. The U.S. Navy has contracted to pay $12 million for 450,000 gallons (1.7 million liters) of biofuel, which works out to about $27/gallon or 10 times the U.S. cost of petroleum-derived fuel [see, for example, (2)]. Chemical reactions in hot, compressed water (hydrothermal reactions) and in supercritical fluids can provide new, potentially cheaper paths to renewable fuels from wet algal biomass (3).
Lineage Tracing Reveals Lgr5+ Stem Cell Activity in Mouse Intestinal Adenomas

Cancer Stem Cells in Color One of the liveliest debates in contemporary cancer research centers on whether cancer stem cells (CSCs) exist and, if so, how these cells are defined phenotypically. CSCs are hypothesized to be a small population of cells within a tumor that are endowed with the unique capacity to drive tumor growth—a scenario that in principle would offer important therapeutic opportunities. By studying mice expressing multicolor reporter genes, Schepers et al. (p. 730, published online 1 August) were able to visualize and monitor the fate of a candidate stem cell for intestinal adenomas, an early stage of cancer. This “lineage tracing” analysis suggests that tumor cells expressing the intestinal crypt stem cell marker Lgr5 (leucine-rich repeat containing G protein–coupled receptor 5) are the cells that fuel the growth of intestinal adenomas. Multicolor reporter genes signal the fate of stem cells that fuel the growth of intestinal tumors in mice. The concept that tumors are maintained by dedicated stem cells, the so-called cancer stem cell hypothesis, has attracted great interest but remains controversial. Studying mouse models, we provide direct, functional evidence for the presence of stem cell activity within primary intestinal adenomas, a precursor to intestinal cancer. By “lineage retracing” using the multicolor Cre-reporter R26R-Confetti, we demonstrate that the crypt stem cell marker Lgr5 (leucine-rich repeat–containing heterotrimeric guanine nucleotide–binding protein–coupled receptor 5) also marks a subpopulation of adenoma cells that fuel the growth of established intestinal adenomas. These Lgr5+ cells, which represent about 5 to 10% of the cells in the adenomas, generate additional Lgr5+ cells as well as all other adenoma cell types. The Lgr5+ cells are intermingled with Paneth cells near the adenoma base, a pattern reminiscent of the architecture of the normal crypt niche.
Force feedback-based microinstrument for measuring tissue properties and pulse in microsurgery

Miniaturized and "smart" instruments capable of characterizing the mechanical properties of tiny biological tissues are needed for research in biology, physiology and biomechanics, and can find very important clinical applications for diagnostics and minimally invasive surgery (MIS). We are developing a set of robotic microinstruments designed to augment the performance of the surgeon during MIS. These microtools are intended to restore (or even enhance) the finger palpation capabilities that the surgeon exploits to characterize tissue hardness and to measure pulsating vessels in traditional surgery, but that are substantially reduced in MIS. The paper describes the main features and the performance of a prototype miniature robotic instrument consisting of a microfabricated microgripper, instrumented with semiconductor strain-gauges as force sensors. For the (in vitro) experiments reported in the paper, the microgripper is mounted on a workstation and teleoperated. A haptic interface provides force feedback to the operator. We have demonstrated that the system can discriminate tiny skin samples based on their different elastic properties, and feel microvessels based on pulsating fluid flowing through them.
Probing the Ultimate Limits of Plasmonic Enhancement

Boundaries on Plasmonic Excitations The localization of optical fields within a metal nanostructure can achieve strengths that are orders of magnitude greater than that of the incident field. This focusing and enhancement of the optical field maybe useful in sensing, nonlinear optics, and optical scattering applications. In probing the properties of metallic nanoparticles, Ciracì et al. (p. 1072; see the cover) show that the enhancement is limited by the electronic response of the metal, which has implications for the ultimate performance of nanophotonic systems. The nonlocal dielectric response of metals places a fundamental limit on the performance of plasmonic optical devices. Metals support surface plasmons at optical wavelengths and have the ability to localize light to subwavelength regions. The field enhancements that occur in these regions set the ultimate limitations on a wide range of nonlinear and quantum optical phenomena. We found that the dominant limiting factor is not the resistive loss of the metal, but rather the intrinsic nonlocality of its dielectric response. A semiclassical model of the electronic response of a metal places strict bounds on the ultimate field enhancement. To demonstrate the accuracy of this model, we studied optical scattering from gold nanoparticles spaced a few angstroms from a gold film. The bounds derived from the models and experiments impose limitations on all nanophotonic systems.