Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low-Frequency Noise in MgO Magnetic Tunnel Junctions: Hooge's Parameter Dependence on Bias Voltage

Low-frequency noise was studied in MgO magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs). The junctions were analyzed under saturating magnetic fields to minimize the noise of magnetic origin. Low-frequency noise of magnetically saturated MTJs is dominated by two different types of electrical noise: 1/f noise and random telegraph noise (RTN). 1/f noise is always present and represents the ultimate limitation for low-frequency applications. The RT noise component has a higher contribution for lower resistance area (RA) product samples and its magnitude increases with bias voltage. The 1/f noise of different MTJs can be compared using the Hooge parameter (alpha). This paper shows a systematic decrease in alpha with increasing bias voltage for MTJs with varying RA. All the MTJs studied, for both memory and sensor applications with single and double barrier, exhibit higher a variations while saturated in the anti-parallel state (AP) and no significative dependence on bias polarity was observed. Variations above one order of magnitude were observed for MTJs with RA > 10 kOmega-mum2 in the AP. For the same bias voltage, the lowest alpha's were always obtained in the parallel state (P). The lowest alpha(~ 1 E-10 mum-2) was obtained for the lower RA sample (~500 Omegaldr mum2) saturated in P, with an applied bias voltage of 600 mV.
Advancements in Transgenic Soy: From Field to Bedside

Today biotechnology and the process of genetic modification is emerging and advancing worldwide. At the forefront of this technology is soybean, which has become a popular sub‐ ject of genetic modification due to its versatility and economical importance as a crop plant. Over 15 years ago the first herbicide resistant soybeans were introduced into the market. By 1997, approximately 8% of all soybeans cultivated for commercial use in the United States were genetically modified. This trend has grown exponentially and by 2011 the percentage of genetically modified soybean rose to 94% in the United States and 81% worldwide. The technology to genetically modify soybean has not only had a huge impact on the commer‐ cial agricultural market, but has paved the way to an onset of both traditional and nontradi‐ tional uses for soybean as well as opening up many new potential applications for this important crop plant. Soybean has become a popular subject of genetic modification over the past two decades and with the advancement of plant transformation technology, it is now possible to manipulate and or add various traits to soybean.
Safety and efficacy of peripheral nerve stimulation of the occipital nerves for the management of chronic migraine: Long-term results from a randomized, multicenter, double-blinded, controlled study

Background Recent studies evaluated short-term efficacy and safety of peripheral nerve stimulation (PNS) of the occipital nerves for managing chronic migraine. We present 52-week safety and efficacy results from an open-label extension of a randomized, sham-controlled trial. Methods In this institutional review board-approved, randomized, multicenter, double-blinded study, patients were implanted with a neurostimulation system, randomized to an active or control group for 12 weeks, and received open-label treatment for an additional 40 weeks. Outcomes collected included number of headache days, pain intensity, migraine disability assessment (MIDAS), Zung Pain and Distress (PAD), direct patient reports of headache pain relief, quality of life, satisfaction and adverse events. Statistical tests assessed change from baseline to 52 weeks using paired t-tests. Intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses of all patients (N = 157) and analyses of only patients who met criteria for intractable chronic migraine (ICM; N = 125) were performed. Results Headache days were significantly reduced by 6.7 (±8.4) days in the ITT population (p < 0.001) and by 7.7 (±8.7) days in the ICM population (p < 0.001). The percentages of patients who achieved a 30% and 50% reduction in headache days and/or pain intensity were 59.5% and 47.8%, respectively. MIDAS and Zung PAD scores were significantly reduced for both populations. Excellent or good headache relief was reported by 65.4% of the ITT population and 67.9% of the ICM population. More than half the patients in both cohorts were satisfied with the headache relief provided by the device. A total of 183 device/procedure-related adverse events occurred during the study, of which 18 (8.6%) required hospitalization and 85 (40.7%) required surgical intervention; 70% of patients experienced an adverse event. Conclusion Our results support the 12-month efficacy of PNS of the occipital nerves for headache pain and disability associated with chronic migraine. More emphasis on adverse event mitigation is needed in future research. Trial registration: Clinical trials.gov (NCT00615342).
Radiation Effects on Fiber Gratings

Fiber Bragg and long period gratings are photonic components that find numerous applications in telecommunication and sensing. In some cases, such as space, high-energy physics, and nuclear industry, those applications include the presence of ionizing radiation. It is therefore essential to evaluate their radiation response. In this paper, we review radiation effects on various types of fiber gratings.
Discrete-time sliding mode control of SEPIC and Ćuk converters supplying HBLEDs

In this work, a digital control for a High-Brightness LEDs based lightning system connected to the grid is proposed. The digital control law is obtained by means of the application of the discrete-time sliding mode control theory in which the use of the discrete-time model of the converter is necessary. Two fourth order power converters have been analyzed for this application: SEPIC and Ćuk converter. In contrast to analogue sliding mode controllers, the calculated digital control law allows the operation at a constant switching frequency. This difference makes possible a comparative study between the power factor and total harmonic distortion parameters for different controllers: a conventional sliding mode control, an average current mode control in PWM and the proposed digital control.
Species or subspecies? The dilemma of taxonomic ranking of some South-East Asian hawk-eagles (genus Spizaetus)

A molecular phylogeny of the Spizaetus cirrhatus complex is presented in this study, based on two sections of the mitochondrial genome: partial sequences of the cytochrome b gene and of the control region (CR). The topologies derived from the two sequences are in agreement. Within S. cirrhatus distances are rather low (0–1.5% in cytochrome b). Among the cirrhatus subspecies the island taxa floris, vanheurni and andamanensis form distinct haplogroups in the CR trees, conforming to the earlier subspecific divisions which were based on morphological characters. On the other hand, the most widespread subspecies, limnaeetus, does not represent a monophyletic group in the gene trees and its haplogroups do not cluster according to geographic affinities. An unambiguous resolution of relationships among haplotypes and haplogroups, respectively, was not achieved, suggesting a more recent radiation of this group of hawk-eagles in the course of the last ice ages. Concerning the outgroup taxa Spizaetus philippensis and Spizaetus lanceolatus, our data indicate a clear genetic distinction between the two subspecies S. p. philippensis and S. p. pinskeri, suggesting that they should be treated as distinct species. Yet the phylogenetic relationships of the three outgroup taxa with respect to S. cirrhatus are ambiguous in our trees. The taxonomic consequences of applying different species concepts (BSC, PSC) are discussed. The species concept chosen would result in different conservation strategies.
Roles for school-based occupational therapists: past, present, future.

T he occupational therapy specialcy area of school practice was relatively unknown before 1975 when the Education ofAll Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) was enacted. School practice consisted of a few therapists working primarily in special schools for children with orthopedic impairments, mental retardation, and blindness or deafness. These facilities were usuaJly residential institutions organized on a medical model of services that focused on curing and training the residents. The educational services in these facilities were often inferior to those offered in public schools. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act provided fu nds to assist state and local educational agencies in educating students with disabilities, resulting in increased employment opportunities for occupational therapists in school systems. Now, 20 years later, approximately 18.7% of occupational therapists provide services in school settings either as salaried employees or through contractual arrangements (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTAJ, 1995). The passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act produced a diverse public school population that resulted in new conceptualizations and practices for special educators and school-based occupational therapists. As well, both professional groups faced new roles, responsibilities, and colleagues. This legislation was amended in 1990 by the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, Public Law 101-476). The first occupational therapists working in school systems brought with them the practice approaches they had used in hospitals and rehabilitation facilities. These were usual1y individual, oneJane Davis Rourk
Profiling Web Usage in the Workplace: A Behavior-Based Artificial Intelligence Approach

Employees' nonwork-related Web surfing behavior results in millions of dollars of expenditure for organizations. This paper proposes the use of a behavior-based artificial intelligence system to profile employee Web usage behavior. Two artificial neural networks (ANN) incorporating genetic algorithm techniques were developed for this purpose. The system was validated with two different data sets. The classification performance of the neural network models was compared to that of a statistical method. The results indicate that one of the ANN models, namely the simple recurrent network, was a superior classifier for this behavior-based problem. In addition, the uncertainty inherent in such classification decisions was examined with a loss matrix, and the holdout samples were reclassified using a loss matrix. The output of this intelligent system can be highly beneficial to managers in designing effective Web management policies.
Dynamic Ca2+ signalling in rat arterial smooth muscle cells under the control of local renin‐angiotensin system

1 We visualized the changes in intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i), using fluo‐3 as an indicator, in individual smooth muscle cells within intact rat tail artery preparations. 2 On average in about 45 % of the vascular smooth muscle cells we found spontaneous Ca2+ waves and oscillations (≈0.13 Hz), which we refer to here as Ca2+ ripples because the peak amplitude of [Ca2+]i was about one‐seventh of that of Ca2+ oscillations evoked by noradrenaline. 3 We also found another pattern of spontaneous Ca2+ transients often in groups of two to three cells. They were rarely observed and are referred to as Ca2+ flashes because their peak amplitude was nearly twice as large as that in noradrenaline‐evoked responses. 4 Sympathetic nerve activity was not considered responsible for the Ca2+ ripples, and they were abolished by inhibitors of either the Ca2+ pump in the sarcoplasmic reticulum (cyclopiazonic acid) or phospholipase C (U‐73122). 5 Both angiotensin antagonists ([Sar1,Ile8]‐angiotensin II and losartan) and an angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor (captopril) inhibited the Ca2+ ripples. 6 The extracellular Ca2+‐dependent tension borne by unstimulated arterial rings was reduced by the angiotensin antagonist by ≈50 %. 7 These results indicate that the Ca2+ ripples are generated via inositol 1,4,5‐trisphosphate‐induced Ca2+ release from the intracellular Ca2+ stores in response to locally produced angiotensin II, which contributes to the maintenance of vascular tone.
Smart tupperware: Active containers for kitchen automation

Smart Tupperware is an example of a personal task assistant (PTA) for kitchen automation. The system is intended to automatically maintain inventory status of kitchen foodstuffs for the purpose of updating the userpsilas shopping list. A variety of system configurations were investigated ranging from an active system with microcontroller-based kitchen containers instrumented with sensors to passive systems with only identification tagging on the containers. A base station provides network connectivity if the application warrants.
Leaving the uncanny valley behind

Say hello to Ira. His head is visible on a screen, as though he's in a videoconference. He seems to be in his early 30s, with a shaved head, a pronounced nose, and thin eyebrows. Ira seems a little goofy and maybe just a wee bit strange. But unless you knew his full name-it's "Digital Ira"-you probably wouldn't guess that he's nothing but bits. As Digital Ira affirms, graphics specialists are closing in on one of their field's longest-standing and most sought-after prizes: an interactive and photo-realistically lifelike digital human. Such a digital double will change the way we think about actors, acting, entertainment, and computer games. In movies, digital doubles already replace human actors on occasion, sometimes just for moments, sometimes for most of a feature iilm. Within a decade or so, computer game characters will be as indistinguishable from lilmed humans as their movie counterparts. And in time, this capability will help bring movies and games together, and out of the union will come entirely new forms of entertainment.
Accelerated Gene Counting for Haplotype Frequency Estimation

Current implementations of the EM algorithm for estimating haplotype frequencies from genotypes on proximal loci require computational resources that grow as nh2k, where n is the number of individuals genotyped and h is the number of haplotypes possible on k loci. For diallelic loci hk= 2k. We present an approach whose computational requirement grows as n2t where t is the largest number of loci at which an individual in the sample is heterozygous. The method is illustrated by haplotype frequency estimation from a sample of 45 individuals genotyped at 26 single nucleotide polymorphisms in the PIK3R1 gene.
Patients' Perceptions of Office Medical Practice: Judging Quality through the Patients' Eyes

With increasing pressure to measure quality, patient- based assessments of medical care are becoming increasingly important. Patients offer a unique perspec tive for evaluating the nontechnical aspects of medical care. This study reviews the importance of utilizing pa tients' perceptions to measure quality of care in office settings. It also reviews the principles required to con duct a well done survey. The concept of patient percep tions differs from the more commonly measured concept of patient satisfaction, in that perceptions measure whether a patients' needs and expectations are met, in addition to satisfaction. One of the most accurate and efficient means of measuring patients' perceptions is through the use of surveys. As with all standardized data collection, creating and performing high quality surveys of patients' perceptions can be challenging. Valid and reliable patient survey data can enable prac titioners to identify areas for improvement, and demon strate to external reviewers the quality of care they provide to their patients.
Orthographic input and phonological representations in learners of Chinese as a foreign language

This paper provides evidence that the second language orthographic input affects the mental representations of L2 phonology in instructed beginner L2 learners. Previous research has shown that orthographic representations affect monolinguals' performance in phonological awareness tasks; in instructed L2 learners such representations could also affect pronunciation. This study looked at the phonological representations of Chinese rimes in beginner learners of Chinese as a foreign language, using a phoneme counting task and a phoneme segmentation task. Results show that learners do not count or segment the main vowel in those syllables where it is not represented in the pinyin (romanisation) orthographic representations. It appears that the pinyin orthographic input is reinterpreted according to L1 phonology-orthography correspondences, and interacts with the phonological input in shaping the phonological representations of Chinese syllables in beginner learners. This explains previous findings that learners of Chinese do not pronounce the main vowel in these syllables.
Involvement of microglia–neuron interactions in the tumor necrosis factor‐α release, microglial activation, and neurodegeneration induced by trimethyltin

Trimethyltin (TMT) is a neurotoxicant known to induce early microglial activation. The present study was undertaken to investigate the role played by these microglial cells in the TMT‐induced neurotoxicity. The effects of TMT were investigated in monolayer cultures of isolated microglia or in neuron‐enriched cultures and in neuron–microglia and astrocyte–microglia cocultures. The end points used were morphological criteria; evaluation of cell death and cell proliferation; and measurements of tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α), interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), and nitric oxide (NO) release in culture supernatant. The results showed that, in cultures of microglia, TMT (10−6 M) caused, after a 5‐day treatment, an increased release of TNF‐α, without affecting microglial shape or cell viability. When microglia were cocultured with astrocytes, TNF‐α release was decreased to undetectable levels. In contrast, in neuron–microglia cocultures, TNF‐α levels were found to increase at lower concentrations of TMT (i.e., 10−8 M). Moreover, at 10−6 M of TMT, microglia displayed further morphological activation, as suggested by process retraction and by decrease in cell size. No morphological activation was observed in cultures of isolated microglial cells and in astrocyte–microglia cocultures. With regard to neurons, 10−6 M of TMT induced about 30% of cell death, when applied to neuron‐enriched cultures, whereas close to 100% of neuronal death was observed in neuron–microglia cocultures. In conclusion, whereas astrocytes may rather dampen the microglial activation by decreasing microglial TNF‐α production, neuronal–microglial interactions lead to enhanced microglial activation. This microglial activation, in turn, exacerbates the neurotoxic effects of TMT. TNF‐α may play a major role in such cell–cell communications. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Patch dynamics and environmental heterogeneity in lotic ecosystems

Abstract We reviewed concepts of patch dynamics and environmental heterogeneity and their applications to the study of fluvial ecosystems, with emphasis on research published in J-NABS. We discuss several important papers synthesizing theories and findings on this topic and reports of descriptive and experimental research. A large body of research, much of it published in J-NABS, has demonstrated how spatial and temporal variation influences population, community, and ecosystem patterns and processes in fluvial ecosystems. Conceptual models of patch dynamics can be traced to 2 basic approaches: 1) the landscape ecology perspective and 2) the metacommunity perspective. The former focuses on how spatial patterns are created and affect ecological processes over variable scales of space and time, whereas the latter emphasizes the important influence of periodic disturbances, refugia, and dispersal in maintaining nonequilibrium communities within patch mosaics. The origin of the metacommunity Patch Dynamics Concept can be traced to G. Evelyn Hutchinson's ideas about nonequilibrium communities, and a key contribution was Townsend's (19894) J-NABS review of the Patch Dynamics Concept in stream community ecology. The study of fluvial ecosystem ecology from a patch-dynamics landscape perspective is well represented by empirical studies published in J-NABS, but some emerging topics remain little studied, including: 1) experiments designed to test predictions of the Patch Dynamics Concept of metacommunities vs alternative models; 2) empirical documentation of patch dynamics and their effects on ecological processes across longitudinal, lateral, and temporal gradients; 3) the influence of species' life-history attributes on community dynamics in relation to habitat characteristics and aspects of disturbance; and 4) the manner in which landscape patterns, patch dynamics, and metacommunity dynamics affect foodweb patterns and processes.
Gata4 is required for maintenance of postnatal cardiac function and protection from pressure overload-induced heart failure

An important event in the pathogenesis of heart failure is the development of pathological cardiac hypertrophy. In cultured cardiomyocytes, the transcription factor Gata4 is required for agonist-induced hypertrophy. We hypothesized that, in the intact organism, Gata4 is an important regulator of postnatal heart function and of the hypertrophic response of the heart to pathological stress. To test this hypothesis, we studied mice heterozygous for deletion of the second exon of Gata4 (G4D). At baseline, G4D mice had mild systolic and diastolic dysfunction associated with reduced heart weight and decreased cardiomyocyte number. After transverse aortic constriction (TAC), G4D mice developed overt heart failure and eccentric cardiac hypertrophy, associated with significantly increased fibrosis and cardiomyocyte apoptosis. Inhibition of apoptosis by overexpression of the insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor prevented TAC-induced heart failure in G4D mice. Unlike WT-TAC controls, G4D-TAC cardiomyocytes hypertrophied by increasing in length more than width. Gene expression profiling revealed up-regulation of genes associated with apoptosis and fibrosis, including members of the TGF-β pathway. Our data demonstrate that Gata4 is essential for cardiac function in the postnatal heart. After pressure overload, Gata4 regulates the pattern of cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and protects the heart from load-induced failure.
Characterization of Lactobacillus, Bacillus and Saccharomyces isolated from Iranian traditional dairy products for potential sources of starter cultures

The aim of the present study was to investigate technological properties of starter strains from traditional dairy products collected from five villages of Lorestan province in Iran. Thirty five samples were cultured on selective media (MRS broth, Nutrient Broth and YGC and then typical colonies checked for morphological features and eventually eighty two strains selected for further examination. The strains were evaluated for Hydrolysis of casein, starch and citrate, growth at 15 and 45 °C, growth in 4 and 6.5% NaCl, resistance to antibiotics (ampicillin, bacitracin, chloramphenicol, erythromycin, gentamicin, penicillin, novobiocin, nalidixic acid) proteolytic and lipolytic and acidification activities. Sixteen strains chosen according to the difference in cell morphology and were identified using API galleries and ability to metabolize various carbohydrates, which consequently, led to identifying seven Lactobacillus casei, five Lactobacillus plantarum, two Saccharomyces cerevisiae and two Bacillus subtilis. In general, two strains of L. casei AKL2, DDL2, two strains of L. plantarum SYL5, ACL4 and one strain of S. cerevisiae DDy2 was demonstrated the most important technological characterization that suitable for using as starter cultures.