Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Magnetic interaction and conical self-reorganization of aligned tin oxide nanowire array under field emission conditions

Magnetic interactions are induced between non-magnetic, vertically aligned tin dioxide nanowires under field-emission conditions. Vertically aligned nanowires of tin dioxide are synthesized along the [100] direction by pulsed laser deposition of an epitaxial (200) seed layer on c-cut sapphire substrates followed by vapor-liquid-solid growth using catalyst-assisted pulsed laser deposition method. Due to the dense arrangement of the vertically aligned ultra-long nanowires deposited in this study, magnetic interactions between the nanowires carrying parallel currents become significant within 1 μm radius and lead to their self-reorganization into conical tipi structures under field emission conditions. Optimization of the aerial density of the emission tips and reduction in the field screening effects upon self-reorganization of the nanowire array can account for the large field enhancement factor of 2.6 × 104 at low turn-on field of 3 V/μm.
Euphoria from Drinking Alcoholic Beverages May Be Due to Reversible Constriction of Cerebral Blood Vessels: Potential Roles of Unrecognized Ionized Hypomagnesemia, and Release of Ceramides and Platelet-Activating Factor

1Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, SUNY Downstate Medical Center 450 Clarkson Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA 2Department of Medicine, SUNY Downstate Medical Center 450 Clarkson Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA 3Center for Cardiovascular and Muscle Research, SUNY Downstate Medical Center 450 Clarkson Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11203, USA 4The School of Graduate Studies in Molecular and Cellular Science, The State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY, USA; 5Bio-Defense Systems, Inc, Rockville Centre, NY, USA
Innovative multi-site photoplethysmography measurement and analysis demonstrating increased arterial stiffness in paediatric heart transplant recipients

Objective: It has been documented that heart transplantation in children is often complicated by arterial hypertension and increased arterial stiffness. We use innovative multi-site photoplethysmography (MPPG) pulse measurement and analysis technology to assess changes in arterial stiffness in paediatric heart transplant recipients (HTRs) in comparison with healthy control (HC) children. Approach: A group of 20 HTRs (median age 13.5 years, eight male) were compared to an overall age- and gender-matched group of 161 HCs (median age 11.6 years, 74 male). Peripheral pulse was recorded bilaterally using MPPG at the ear lobe, index finger and great toe sites, along with an electrocardiogram cardiac timing reference. Segmental pulse arrival times between peripheral sites (finger–ear, PATf–e; toe–finger, PATt–f; and toe–ear PATt–e) were calculated as arterial stiffness measures, and differences between subject groups were tested using multivariate analysis. Normalised ear, finger and toe pulse shapes were also studied and compared between groups. Main results: After correction for heart rate and diastolic and mean arterial blood pressures, the HTR group was found to have significantly lower segmental PATt–e and PATt–f measurements, with median values of 150 ms versus 172 ms in the HC group (p = 0.02), and 104 ms versus 118 ms in the HC group (p = 0.01), respectively, consistent with increased arterial stiffness in the patient group. The normalised ear, finger and toe sites showed only a mild elongation in each pulse rise time for the transplant group. Significance: This study shows that innovative and easy-to-do MPPG gives further evidence for increased arterial stiffness in children who have undergone successful cardiac transplantation.
Restoration of Gypsicolous Vegetation on Quarry Slopes: Guidance for Hydroseeding under Contrasting Inclination and Aspect

The establishment of gypsicolous vegetation of high conservation value on land impacted by quarrying requires restoration measures to overcome constraints imposed by the new landforms created in the process. The aim of this study was to assess the suitability of three standard hydroseeding methods to restore gypsicolous vegetation on quarry spoil slopes under a dry Mediterranean climate. The treatments were as follows: paper cellulose mulch, paper cellulose mulch + organic blanket, and wood fibre mulch, compared against a control. These treatments were tested on two slopes (10–15% vs 60–65%) and two contrasting aspects (north vs south). We evaluated the cover of all plant species 2·8 years after treatment, assessing both target gypsicolous species and non‐target species. Our results showed strong compositional and cover differences between hydroseeded and control plots. Control plots had a low cover of target species with a vegetation composed of early‐successional species that had the potential to hinder target species establishment over time. All hydroseeding treatments improved target vegetation cover, with wood fibre performing best in most situations studied here, alternatives being the cheaper but less effective paper mulch on shallow slopes, or the more expensive paper mulch + blanket on steep slopes in case of high erosion risk. Shallow and southern‐steep slopes were more suitable for the recovery of gypsum vegetation by hydroseeding, compared to northern‐steep slopes where non‐target species developed more readily outcompeting target species. These results will help to guide management decisions to restore gypsicolous vegetation by hydroseeding in disturbed gypsum habitats. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The COLOSS BEEBOOK Volume II, Standard methods for Apis mellifera pest and pathogen research: Introduction

n recent years, declines of honey bee populations have received massive media attention worldwide, yet attempts to understand the causes have been hampered by a lack of standardisation of laboratory techniques. Published as a response to this, the COLOSS BEEBOOK is a unique collaborative venture involving 234 bee scientists from 34 countries, who have produced the definitive guide to how to carry out research on honey bees. It is hoped that these volumes will become the standards to be adopted by bee scientists worldwide. Volume II includes approximately 600 separate protocols dealing with the study of the pests and diseases of the honey bee, Apis mellifera. These cover epidemiology and surveying techniques, virus diseases, bacterial diseases such as European and American foulbrood, fungal and microsporidian diseases such as Nosema, mites such as Acarapis, Varroa and Tropilaelaps, and other pests such as the small hive beetle.
rapeseed protein-derived antioxidant peptide RAP alleviates renal fibrosis through MAPK/NF- κ B signaling pathways in diabetic nephropathy

which is the major cause of end-stage renal disease. Current therapeutic strategies slow down but cannot reverse the progression of renal dysfunction in DN. Plant-derived bioactive peptides in foodstuffs are widely used in many because of their pharmaceutical and nutraceutical benefits. However, this type of peptide has not yet been studied in renal fibrosis of DN. Previous studies have indicated that the peptide YWDHNNPQIR (named RAP), a natural peptide derived from rapeseed protein, has an antioxidative stress effect. The oxidative stress is believed to be associated with DN. The aim of this study was to evaluate the pharmacologic effects of RAP against renal fibrosis of DN and high glucose (HG)-induced mesangial dysfunction. Materials and methods: Diabetes was induced by streptozotocin and high-fat diet in C57BL/6 mice and these mice were treated by subcutaneous injection of different doses of RAP (0.1 mg/kg and 0.5 mg/kg, every other day) or PBS for 12 weeks. Later, functional and histopathologic analyses were performed. Parallel experiments verifying the molecular mechanism by which RAP alleviates DN were carried out in HG-induced mesangial cells (MCs). Results: RAP improved the renal function indices, including 24-h albuminuria, triglyceride, serum creatinine, and blood urea nitrogen levels, but did not lower blood glucose levels in DN mice. RAP also simultaneously attenuated extracellular matrix accumulation in DN mice and HG-induced MCs. Furthermore, RAP reduced HG-induced cell proliferation, but it showed no toxicity in MCs. Additionally, RAP inhibited the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and nuclear factor κ B (NF- κ B) signaling pathways. Conclusion: RAP can attenuate fibrosis in vivo and in vitro by antagonizing the MAPK and NF- κ B pathways.
Do shareholders care about corporate investment returns

This paper considers the apparent contradiction between the results of Artto (1997), who claims that shareholders in the paper industry have gained reasonable returns, and Pohjola (1996), who argues that a large shareholder value has been lost (the Artto–Pohjola Paradox). We show under fairly general conditions that the shareholders may enjoy reasonable return while the managers are simultaneously destroying value of the firm by allocating funds to bad investments. In this case the firm’s shareholders suffer an opportunity loss equal to the value that could have been created if the firm had paid the funds out to them and they had invested the funds in equivalently risky projects. The paradox occurs if the growth rate of a firm’s market value of equity is high enough to guarantee a nonnegative return for the shareholders but too low in the sense that the shareholders would have earned more had the funds invested at the return (at least) equal to the opportunity cost of capital. Our results support Jensen’s (1986) argument of the incentives of corporate managers to invest inefficiently, since here the shareholders do not necessarily challenge the management due to the fact that they may be perfectly happy and satisfied in financial terms.
Training Working Memory in Adolescents Using Serious Game Elements: Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Working memory capacity has been found to be impaired in adolescents with various psychological problems, such as addictive behaviors. Training of working memory capacity can lead to significant behavioral improvements, but it is usually long and tedious, taxing participants’ motivation to train. Objective This study aimed to evaluate whether adding game elements to the training could help improve adolescents’ motivation to train while improving cognition. Methods A total of 84 high school students were allocated to a working memory capacity training, a gamified working memory capacity training, or a placebo condition. Working memory capacity, motivation to train, and drinking habits were assessed before and after training. Results Self-reported evaluations did not show a self-reported preference for the game, but participants in the gamified working memory capacity training condition did train significantly longer. The game successfully increased motivation to train, but this effect faded over time. Working memory capacity increased equally in all conditions but did not lead to significantly lower drinking, which may be due to low drinking levels at baseline. Conclusions We recommend that future studies attempt to prolong this motivational effect, as it appeared to fade over time.
The Role of Commitment in the Financing of Status Goods Production ∗ †

We develop a dynamic model of a horizontally differentiated product duopoly with the purpose to investigate the relationship between the market niche each firm targets, the social status of its brand, and the technology each firm adopts. We provide conditions under which a firm is able to credibly offer a high status goods. We extend the model to include a firm’s financing decisions. The presence of financial markets per se does not fundamentally alter the equilibrium of the original game. We further extend the model to include the possibility of commitment to private financing. A firm that cannot credibly supply status goods in the original game might be able to do it in the game with commitment, because the discount factor required to implement the equilibrium with commitment is smaller than in the game without commitment. The present paper provides a novel link between financial and capital markets: concerns with the social status of a firm’s products.
Observation-Enhanced QoS Analysis of Component-Based Systems

We present a new method for the accurate analysis of the quality-of-service (QoS) properties of component-based systems. Our method takes as input a QoS property of interest and a high-level continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC) model of the analysed system, and refines this CTMC based on observations of the execution times of the system components. The refined CTMC can then be analysed with existing probabilistic model checkers to accurately predict the value of the QoS property. The paper describes the theoretical foundation underlying this model refinement, the tool we developed to automate it, and two case studies that apply our QoS analysis method to a service-based system implemented using public web services and to an IT support system at a large university, respectively. Our experiments show that traditional CTMC-based QoS analysis can produce highly inaccurate results and may lead to invalid engineering and business decisions. In contrast, our new method reduced QoS analysis errors by 84.4–89.6 percent for the service-based system and by 94.7–97 percent for the IT support system, significantly lowering the risk of such invalid decisions.
Application of Logistic Regression in Determining the Factors Influencing the use of Modern Contraceptive among married women in Ethiopia

The aim of the study was to investigate the determinants of use of modern contraceptive among married women in Ethiopia. Our study is based on the data taken from a nationally representative survey EDHS of 2011. The sample includes 9,438 married women aged 15-49 years. Cross tabulations were carried out at the bivariate level to assess the association between contraceptive use and each of the explanatory variables and binary multiple logistic regression analysis was used to identify the factors influencing modem contraceptive use among married women in Ethiopia. The bivariate analysis reveals statistically significant association between all explanatory variables i.e age of woman, region, religion, place of residence, education level of woman, number of living children, desire for more children, wealth status, and decision maker for modern contraception, educational level of husband, modern contraceptive knowledge and exposure to media. Results for binary multiple logistic regression analysis reveals that age of woman have a statistically significant positive effect on modern contraceptive use. Contraceptive use was highest in the age group of 15 to 19 years while it was lowest among married women aged 40-44 years compared to those married women aged 45-49 years as reference category. Furthermore, uneducated women and women not at work want no more children. The lowest wealth status women are less likely to use modern contraception compared to their corresponding reference group. The result also shows that married women who do not discuss about family planning with their husbands use modern contraception 25.6% less in comparison to those couples made decisions jointly. Generally men play a critical role in determining the size of their family. Male involvement, therefore, is an integral component of successful reproductive health programs. But binary logistic regression results do not support the hypothesis that educational levels of husband have influence on the use of modem contraceptive methods among women. Media exposure is another factor that influences modem contraceptive use. The odds of married women who were not exposed to media are 35.8 % less likely in using a modern contraception method than those who had media exposure.
Cell type-specific role of Raftlin in the regulation of endosomal TLR signaling

Clathrin-dependent endocytic pathway is crucial for cell entry of extracellular pathogens and their components. The innate immune system utilizes this pathway to detect pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) within endosomes. In the clathrin-mediated endocytosis, cargo selection depends on AP-2 adaptor and its accessory proteins, but the molecular mechanism of PAMP selection to be internalized is largely unknown. The endosomal Toll-like receptors (TLRs) 3, 7, 8, and 9 recognize viral or bacterial nucleic acids, as well as host-derived nucleic acids incorporated into the endosomal compartments, where type I interferon (IFN)-producing signals are arisen. In addition, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) receptor TLR4 transmits signals to produce IFN-b from endosomes after the clathrin-dependent endocytosis of LPS-TLR4. The cytosolic protein Raftlin that possesses membrane-anchoring motif mediates cellular uptake of TLR3/4 ligands in human cells through association with clathrin-AP-2 complex. Raftlin was first identified as a major raft protein in B cells that modulates B-cell or T-cell receptor-mediated signaling. In this review, we will focus on the Raftlin function in innate immunity and discuss the molecular mechanisms of cellular uptake and delivery of TLR ligands.
Degrees of Freedom in Regression Ensembles

Negative correlation learning is an effective approach to ensemble learning in which model diversity is encouraged through a correlation penalty term. The level of emphasis placed upon the correlation penalty term is controlled by the diversity parameter. We shall provide a degrees of freedom analysis of negative correlation learning. Our contributions are as follows: we give an exact formula for the effective degrees of freedom in a negative correlation ensemble with ﬁxed basis functions; we show that the effective degrees of freedom is a continuous, convex and monotonically increasing function of the diversity parameter; ﬁnally, we show that the degrees of freedom formula gives rise to an efﬁcient way to tune the diversity parameter on large data sets.
Interactions between insulin and diet on striatal dopamine uptake kinetics in rodent brain slices

Diet influences dopamine transmission in motor‐ and reward‐related basal ganglia circuitry. In part, this reflects diet‐dependent regulation of circulating and brain insulin levels. Activation of striatal insulin receptors amplifies axonal dopamine release in brain slices, and regulates food preference in vivo. The effect of insulin on dopamine release is indirect, and requires striatal cholinergic interneurons that express insulin receptors. However, insulin also acts directly on dopamine axons to increase dopamine uptake by promoting dopamine transporter (DAT) surface expression, counteracting enhanced dopamine release. Here, we determined the functional consequences of acute insulin exposure and chronic diet‐induced changes in insulin on DAT activity after evoked dopamine release in striatal slices from adult ad‐libitum fed (AL) rats and mice, and food‐restricted (FR) or high‐fat/high‐sugar obesogenic (OB) diet rats. Uptake kinetics were assessed by fitting evoked dopamine transients to the Michaelis‐Menten equation and extracting Cpeak and Vmax. Insulin (30 nm) increased both parameters in the caudate putamen and nucleus accumbens core of AL rats in an insulin receptor‐ and PI3‐kinase‐dependent manner. A pure effect of insulin on uptake was unmasked using mice lacking striatal acetylcholine, in which increased Vmax caused a decrease in Cpeak. Diet also influenced Vmax, which was lower in FR vs. AL. The effects of insulin on Cpeak and Vmax were amplified by FR but blunted by OB, consistent with opposite consequences of these diets on insulin levels and insulin receptor sensitivity. Overall, these data reveal acute and chronic effects of insulin and diet on dopamine release and uptake that will influence brain reward pathways.
A simple interstage matching technique for designing hybrid microwave power amplifiers

A non-50-/spl Omega/ interstage matching technique has been used for designing multistage microwave power amplifiers. The technique is especially relevant to cases where the final stage uses an LDMOS device whose dynamic input impedance is extremely low and is best matched directly (without first translating to 50 /spl Omega/) to the output of the previous stage. A specific example is presented. The concept, however, is quite general and will be of interest to the RF design community at large.
Causality in the Specialized Domain of the Environment

EcoLexicon is a multilingual terminological knowledge base (TKB) that represents environmental concepts and their relations in different formats. In this paper we show how some of the manual processes that we have developed for the extraction and representation of semantic relations can be partially automatized with the help of NLP applications such as NooJ. Focusing on the causal relation, we have designed various graph-based micro-grammars to match and annotate the corpus. This permits the extraction of causal propositions, and identifies the terms that primarily act as causes and effects in environmental contexts. Finally, these grammars can also be used to measure the prototypicality of causal propositions within four different environmental domains.
Screening and Basic Workup of a Patient with Peripheral Vascular Disease – A Primer of Physicians

Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is a prevalent condition associated with significant morbidity and mortality in a variety of patient populations. When not properly recognized and treated, it can result in complications that include myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, and cardiovascular death. In this review, we describe the risk factors, clinical presentation, diagnostic evaluation, treatment, and alternative diagnoses that can confound the diagnosis of PVD.
Impact of single nucleotide polymorphisms in ERCC 2 gene and their interaction with smoking on esophageal squamous cell carcinoma risk in Chinese Han population

Aims: To investigate the association between ERCC2 polymorphisms and ESCC risk, and impact of additional gene-smoking interaction on ESCC risk, based on a Chinese population. Methods: A total of 1162 subjects (493 men, 669 women), with a mean age of 65.0±12.8 years old, were selected, including 580 ESCC patients and 582 normal controls. Logistic regression model was used to examine the association between 3 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in ERCC2 and ESCC risk. Odds ratio (OR) and 95% confident interval (95% CI) were calculated. Generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction (GMDR) was employed to analyze the gene-smoking interaction. Results: The carriers of homozygous mutant of two SNP have higher ESCC risk than those with wild-type homozygotes, OR (95% CI) were 1.72 (1.28-2.35) and 1.58 (1.29-2.06), respectively. We employed the GMDR analysis to assess the impact of the gene-smoking interactions among three SNPs and smoking. There was a significant two-locus model (P=0.0010) involving rs13181 and smoking, indicating a potential gene-smoking interaction between rs13181 and smoking. Overall, the two-locus model had a cross-validation consistency of 10/10, and had the testing accuracy of 62.17%. We also found that smokers with AC or CC genotype have the highest ESCC risk, compared to non-smokers with AA genotype, OR (95% CI) was 3.16 (2.01-4.32). Conclusions: Our results support an important association between rs13181, rs238406 minor allele of ERCC2 and increased risk of ESCC, and additional interaction between rs13181 and smoking.