Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Direct Evaluation of the Ca2+-Displacement Hypothesis for Al Toxicity

One explanation for Al toxicity in plants suggests that Al displaces Ca2+ from critical sites in the apoplasm. We evaluated the Ca2+-displacement hypothesis directly using near-isogenic lines of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) that differ in Al tolerance at a single locus. We measured both the growth and total accumulation (apoplasmic plus symplasmic) of 45Ca and Al into roots that had been exposed to Al alone or to Al with other cations. Root growth in the Al-sensitive line was found to be severely inhibited by low activities of Al, even though Ca2+ accumulation was relatively unaffected. In solutions containing the same activity of the Al3+ and Ca2+ ions as above, but also including either 3.0 mM Mg2+, 3.0 mM Sr2+, or 30 mM Na+, growth improved, whereas 45Ca2+ accumulation was significantly decreased. Since most of the 45Ca2+ accumulated by roots during short-term treatments will reside in the apoplasm, these results indicate that displacement of Ca2+ from the apoplasm by Al cannot account for the Al-induced inhibition of root growth and, therefore, do not support the Ca2+-displacement hypothesis for Al toxicity. We also show that total accumulation of Al by root apices is greater in the Al-sensitive genotype than the Al-tolerant genotype and suggest that cation amelioration of Al toxicity is caused by the reduction in Al accumulation.
Lipid, lipoproteins, C-reactive protein, and hemostatic factors at baseline in the diabetes prevention program.

OBJECTIVE Individuals with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) appear to be at increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) due at least in part to an increased prevalence of risk factors. We evaluated lipid, lipoprotein, C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrinogen, and tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) levels at study entry in the largest multiethnic cohort of participants with IGT described, namely in the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Measurements were performed at the baseline visit of 3,819 randomized participants of the DPP. Among 3,622 participants who were not taking lipid-lowering medicines, cardiovascular risk factors were analyzed in relation to demographic, anthropometric, and metabolic measures. Major determinants of risk factors were assessed in multivariate analysis. RESULTS Over 40% of participants had elevated triglyceride, LDL cholesterol, and CRP levels and reduced HDL cholesterol levels. Men had higher triglyceride and tPA and lower HDL cholesterol concentrations and smaller LDL particle size than women, whereas women had higher CRP and fibrinogen levels. African Americans had less dyslipidemia but higher fibrinogen levels, and Asian Americans had lower CRP and fibrinogen levels than Caucasians and Hispanics. The surrogate measure of insulin resistance (homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance [HOMA-IR]) had the strongest association with HDL cholesterol, triglyceride, and tPA levels and LDL particle size. BMI had the greatest influence on CRP and fibrinogen levels. Using median splits of indexes of insulin resistance and insulin secretion (insulin-to-glucose ratio), participants with greater insulin resistance had a more adverse CVD risk-factor profile, whereas insulin secretion had little influence on risk factors. CONCLUSIONS The pattern of CVD risk factors in participants with IGT in the DPP exhibits substantial heterogeneity and is significantly influenced by race, sex, and age, as well as by obesity, glucose, and insulin measures. The degree of insulin resistance, as reflected by HOMA-IR, showed the greatest association with the cardiovascular risk factors.
Decentralized Iterative Learning Control to Large-Scale Industrial Processes for Nonrepetitive Trajectory Tracking

In the procedure of steady-state hierarchical optimization with feedback for a large-scale industrial process, it is usual that a sequence of step set-point changes is carried out and used by the decision-making units while searching the eventual optimum. In this case, the real process experiences a form of disturbances around its operating set-point. In order to improve the dynamic performance of transient responses for such a large-scale system driven by the set-point changes, an open-loop proportional integral derivative-type iterative learning control (ILC) strategy is explored in this paper by considering the different magnitudes of the controller's step set-point change sequence. Utilizing the Hausdorff-Young inequality of convolution integral, the convergence of the algorithm is derived in the sense of Lebesgue-P norm. Furthermore, the extended higher order ILC rule is developed, and the convergence is analyzed. Simulation results illustrate that the proposed ILC strategies can remarkably improve the dynamic performance such as decreasing the overshoot, accelerating the transient response, shortening the settling time, etc.
Exploring Naming Behavior in Personal Digital Image Collections

As non-institutional digital image collections expand into social media, independent non-professional image curators are emerging, actively constructing alternative naming conventions to suit their needs in a social collecting environment. This project considers how independent user-curators are developing particular sense-making behaviors as they actively contribute names to large, unstructured social image collections. In order to capture and explore this evolving language adaptation, Pinterest names are analyzed using a matrix composed of Panofsky’s three strata of subject matter, Rosch’s levels of categorical abstraction, Shatford Layne’s image attributes and Wittgenstein’s language game constructions. Analyzing Pinterest image names illuminates previously unnoticed behaviors by independent user-curators as they create shared collections. Exploring the various language choices which user-curators select as they apply this new curating vocabulary helps identify underlying user needs not apparent in traditionally curated collections restricted to traditional naming conventions.
Rural Health Care in Vietnam and China: Conflict between Market Reforms and Social Need

China and Vietnam have adopted market reforms in the health sector in the context of market economic reforms. Vietnam has developed a large private health sector, while in China commercialization has occurred mainly in the formal public sector, where user fees are now the main source of facility finance. As a result, the integrity of China's planned health service has been disrupted, especially in poor rural areas. In Vietnam the government has been an important financer of public health facilities and the pre-reform health service is largely intact, although user fees finance an increasing share of facility expenditure. Over-servicing of patients to generate revenue occurs in both countries, but more seriously in China. In both countries government health expenditure has declined as a share of total health expenditure and total government expenditure, while out-of-pocket health spending has become the main form of health finance. This has particularly affected the rural poor, deterring them from accessing health care. Assistance for the poor to meet public-sector user fees is more beneficial and widespread in Vietnam than China. China is now criticizing the degree of commercialization of its health system and considers its health reforms “basically unsuccessful. ” Market reforms that stimulate growth in the economy are not appropriate to reform of social sectors such as health.
2011 Vehicle Technologies Market Report

This report details the major trends in U.S. light-duty vehicle and medium/heavy truck markets as well as the underlying trends that caused them. This report is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Program (VTP), and, in accord with its mission, pays special attention to the progress of high-efficiency and alternative fuel technologies. After opening with a discussion of energy and economics, this report features a section each on the light-duty vehicle and heavy/medium truck markets, and concludes with a section each on technology and policy.
Primacy of seascape connectivity effects in structuring coral reef fish assemblages

Connectivity has fundamental consequences for the productivity, persistence and management of coral reefs. The area and position of adjacent mangroves and seagrass can affect the demography of reef fish populations and the composition of reefal assemblages. To date, no studies have attempted to partition the influences of these habitats on reef fish assemblages. We used an exploratory seascape approach to separate the effects of connectivity with mangroves and seagrass on reef fish in Moreton Bay, Australia. We then compared the performance of seascape connectivity and reef complexity (i.e. coral cover, rugosity and area) in structuring these assemblages. Our results suggest a hierarchy of seascape connectivity effects, with reef fish assemblages being primarily distinguished by isolation (i.e. separation distance) from mangroves and secondarily by proximity (an index incorporating habitat isolation and area) to seagrass. Importantly, measures of reef complexity were only useful in separating reef fish assemblages within levels of connectivity with mangroves and seagrass. We demonstrate that neighbouring mangroves and seagrasses can exert different effects on reef fish assemblages, with 25% of all species being primarily influenced by mangroves and a different 25% being affected by seagrass. These findings have important implications for the design of marine reserve networks. They show that position in the seascape can be of greater significance than reef area or complexity to the composition of reef fish assemblages and highlight the value of incorporating seascape connectivity into conservation planning.
The impact of regulatory focus on adolescents’ evaluation of targeted advertising on social networking sites

ABSTRACT This article examines whether individual differences in chronic regulatory focus (prevention vs. promotion focus) among adolescents influences the way they evaluate targeted advertising on social networking sites. Study 1 (survey) reveals that adolescents with a promotion focus (who are oriented toward achieving positive outcomes) have a more positive attitude and a higher purchase intention toward targeted advertising, as compared to prevention-focused adolescents (who are dispositioned toward avoiding negative outcomes). Study 2 (experiment) investigates how adolescents’ chronic regulatory focus can alter their attitude and purchase intention on a mock social networking site that includes a targeted advertisement. Results show that a low personalized targeted ad is better evaluated (in terms of a more positive attitude and higher purchase intention) among prevention-focused adolescents, whereas a high personalized targeted ad results in better advertising outcomes among promotion-focused adolescents. Contributions to theory and implications for advertising practice are discussed.
Mouillage et dynamique confinée de fluides complexes

Les fluides complexes tels que les gels, les pâtes ou les emulsions presentent une large gamme d'applications, tant dans la vie quotidienne que dans l'industrie. Parmi ces fluides, les fluides dits ”a seuil” se comportent soit comme des solides elastiques, soit comme des fluides nonnewtoniens selon la contrainte qu'on leur applique. Ces proprietes sont decrites par des lois phenomenologiques (telle que la loi d'Herschel Bulkley), bien que leurs origines soient encore mal comprises. Dans cette these, nous nous interessons a la question des petites echelles, ou la structure et les phenomenes interfaciaux jouent des roles preponderants dans les ecoulements. Ce travail experimental a ete essentiellement mene sur du carbopol, un microgel de polymeres et un fluide a seuil modele. L'etude se concentre essentiellement sur trois points : – La caracterisation rheologique et structurale des echantillons. L'accent est porte sur l'influence du protocole de preparation sur les proprietes des gels. – Le cas des ecoulements confines de fluides complexes. Ce travail met en evidence l'existence d'effets non-locaux aux echelles micrometriques, faisant intervenir une taille caracteristique interpretee dans le cadre du modele de fluidite. – Les ascensions capillaires de fluides complexes, aux echelles millimetriques. En revisitant l'experience classique des ascensions capillaires dans le cas des fluides complexes, cette etude propose une extension de la loi de Jurin au cas des fluides a seuil. Il est montre que cette experience simple permet de mesurer la tension de surface et quelques parametres rheologiques de fluides complexes tels que le seuil et l'exposant d'Herschel-Bulkley
Plasma Exchange Therapy in Steroid-Unresponsive Relapses in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis

Background:Plasma exchange (PE) is well established for conditions such as rapid progressive vasculitis associated with autoantibodies against neutrophil cytoplasmic antigens (ANCA), anti-glomerular basement membrane (GBM) antibody disease, or thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP). Also, several neurological disorders, such as acute worsening in myasthenia gravis, Guillan-Barré syndrome (GBS) and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), can successfully be treated with PE. Only small case series have previously shown that PE is also effective in relapses in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods:We report our experiences of PE therapy in a series of 20 patients with 21 steroid unresponsive MS relapses. Results:A marked-to-moderate clinical response with clear gain of function in 76% of patients with uni- or bilateral optic neuritis and in 87.5% of patients with relapses other than optic neuritis was observed. Conclusions:PE is an effective and well tolerated therapeutic option for steroid-unresponsive MS relapses.
Do analytically-oriented supply chains better manage risks?

Risk management has emerged as a field of operations management research due to the greater exposure of organizations to internal and external risks, as a result of globalization, outsourcing, reduction in the number of suppliers, and the need to improve cost and inventory management. Although this subject has received attention in recent years, the relationship between analytical orientation and supply chain risk management is little explored. Thus, this research verifies the impact of analytical orientation over supply chain risk management. A questionnaire was applied with micro, small and medium-sized firms of Brazilian Southeast region, obtaining 111 responses. The structural equation modeling was used for analysis and the main conclusions indicate that analytical orientation has a strong and significant impact over supply chain risk management. In this sense, those supply chains that are more analytical manage their risks better, resulting in lower perception of uncertainty.
Smoking Cessation and Counseling: Knowledge and Views of Canadian Physical Therapists

Background Physical therapists are uniquely positioned in health care to initiate or support smoking cessation (SC). Little is known, however, about their knowledge and views of SC as part of their practices. Objective The purpose of this study was to assess Canadian physical therapists' knowledge about the health effects of smoking, their views about addressing SC in practice, and their self-efficacy in enabling patients to quit smoking. Design This study was a cross-sectional survey. Methods Licensed physical therapists in Canada were surveyed with postal methods. Results A total of 738 survey questionnaires were returned. The mean age and years of clinical experience of the respondents were 41.9 (SD=10.8) years and 17.4 (SD=11.0), respectively. Most respondents (78.6%) were women. Canadian physical therapists are largely informed about the negative effects of smoking on health. Although 76.9% of the physical therapists agreed or strongly agreed that the profession should be more involved in helping people who smoke quit, only 56.8% of the physical therapists agreed or strongly agreed that they should receive training on SC. More than 70% of the physical therapists reported that they were not prepared to provide counseling and, overall, the level of self-efficacy regarding counseling about SC was low. Lack of resources and time were reported to be key barriers to counseling patients to quit smoking. Limitations The findings of this study are limited to Canadian physical therapists. Response bias and social desirability bias also are potential limiters in this study. Conclusions Overall, the majority of physical therapists expressed the view that advising people who smoke to quit is a clinical responsibility and endorsed greater involvement of the profession in helping people who smoke quit. Discordance existed, however, between these views and the physical therapists' interest in receiving training on counseling about SC. This is a benchmark study that has practical implications for targeting training consistent with the profession's mission to improve health by increasing physical therapists' preparedness and self-efficacy regarding counseling about SC.
The octave approach to EEG analysis

Abstract: A “tonal” approach to EEG spectral analysis is presented which is compatible with the concept of physical octaves, thus providing a constant resolution of partial tones over the full frequency range inherent to human brain waves, rather than for equidistant frequency steps in the spectral domain. The specific advantages of the tonal approach, however, mainly pay off in the field of EEG sleep analysis where the interesting information is predominantly located in the lower octaves. In such cases the proposed method reveals a fine structure which displays regular maxima possessing typical properties of “overtones” within the three octaves 1-2 Hz, 2-4 Hz and 4-8 Hz. Accordingly, spectral patterns derived from tonal spectral analyses are particularly suited to measure the fine gradations of mutual differences between individual EEG sleep patterns and will therefore allow a more efficient investigation of the genetically determined proportion of sleep EEGs. On the other hand, we also tested the efficiency of tonal spectral analyses on the basis of our 5-year follow-up data of 30 healthy volunteers. It turned out that 28 persons (93.3%) could be uniquely recognized after five years by means of their EEG spectral patterns. Hence, tonal spectral analysis proved to be a powerful tool also in cases where the main EEG information is typically located in the medium octave 8-16 Hz.
Nonparametric estimation of a time-variant system: An experimental study of B-splines and the regularization based smoothing

In this work linear time varying systems are nonparametrically estimated in the time domain. The key idea is that the classical -one dimensional- impulse response function (IRF) can be extended to a two dimensional form to describe the time varying behavior. Unlike linear time invariant systems where the IRF is unique, the time varying impulse response is not restricted to only one possibility for given input and output signals. To decrease this freedom, additional constraints can be imposed. In this particular case, it is imposed that the IRF and the time variations are smooth. In this paper two different smoothing techniques -B-spline and regularization- are applied in two dimensions: once over the system time (impulse response direction) and once over the global time (referring to the system memory).
Receptor-mediated peptide transport through the blood-brain barrier.

THERE are at least two incentives for investigating the mechanisms of transport of peptides through the brain capillary wall, i.e. the blood-brain barrier (BBB). First, it is important to understand how circulating peptides, such as insulin, insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), transferrin, angiotensinogen, PTH, or others affect the brain, and these effects must necessarily involve the interface between blood and brain. Second, the vast promise of peptides as neuropharmaceuticals has not been realized, and this is due, in large part, to the fact that virtually all of the potential peptide pharmaceuticals are water soluble and, thus, are substantially excluded from entry into brain by the BBB. However, a major purpose of this review is to emphasize that knowledge of the physiological mechanisms that mediate the transport of peptides through the BBB may lead to the development of new strategies for delivery of peptide pharmaceuticals to brain.
Choosing Between Adaptive Agents

Even with ample time and opportunity to use extensive data, people often make do with small samples, which increases their risk of making the wrong decision. A theoretical analysis indicates, however, that when the decision involves continually selecting among competing, adaptive agents who are eager to be selected, an error-prone evaluation may be beneficial to the decision maker. In this case, the chance of an error can motivate competitors to exert greater effort, improving their level of performance—which is the prime concern of the decision maker. This theoretical argument was tested empirically by comparing the effects of two levels of scrutiny of performance. Results show that minimal scrutiny can indeed lead to better performance than full scrutiny, and that the effect is conditional on a bridgeable difference between the competitors. We conclude by pointing out that small-sample-based, error-prone decisions may also maintain competition and diversity in the environment.
Three-hit hypothesis in astrocytoma

Astrocytoma as a primary tumour is the core item in this section in which, by considering a pedigree-based research approach, the involvement of Ataxia-Telangiectasia (AT) gene is investigated. The two-hit -hypothesis of Knudson’s model is given to clarify the process of tumourigenesis in retinoblastoma. Lack of any available data for any hit hypothesis in brain tumours was the reason why the three-hit hypothesis in astrocytoma was formulated and included in this section. ATM alterations were reported in medulloblastomas, gliomas, but not in astrocytoma. The polymorphism D1853N was only reported in healthy individuals and medulloblastomas. This polymorphism was detected in a 28 year-old femaleproband affected with astrocytoma. As the triangle initiator of the three-hit hypothesis, D1853N is the first germ line hit, IVS 3863T→A is the second hit, and IVS3830 A→G is the third hit. In addition, the D1853N polymorphism was on a different allele than from IVS 3863T→A and IVS 3830 A→G. However, these three triggers could be considered as triangle initiators for the course of evolution in astrocytoma. However, the present data could highlight the crucial role of specific intronic region of the ATM gene involved in cancer and also the importance of pedigree analysis. This polymorphism might be useful as a marker in astrocytoma. Correspondence/Reprint request: Professor Dr. Parvin Mehdipour, Department of Medical Genetics, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, P.O. Box 14155-6447, Zip code 14176-13151, Tehran Iran. E-mail: mehdipor@tums.ac. ir
Face Recognition under Difficult Lighting Conditions and Occlusions

In recent years face recognition has received substantial attention from researchers in biometrics, pattern recognition, and computer vision communities. At least two reasons account for this trend: the first is the wide range of commercial and law enforcement applications, and the second is the availability of feasible tech- nologies in recent years of research. Many existing methods in face recognition area perform well under certain conditions, but still facing challenging with illumination changes and occlusions. This paper attempts to deal with the above challenges by combining robust illumination normalization techniques with powerful feature ex- traction method.