Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Observations on the Morphology and Taxonomy of Phycopeltis hawaiiensis King (Chroolepidaceae)

ABST RAC T : Observations with light and scanning electro n microscopes indicate the foliicolous chlorophyte Pf! ycopeltis baiuaiiensis King (Chroolepid aceae) is subcut icular and polystromatic, produces steri le hairs, and induces a distinct wounding, reaction in sub tending host tissue. In comparison , similar obse rvations on Pbycopeltis epiphyton and other P~ycopeltis species reveal that, although they are also foliicolous, they are supracuticular and monostromatic. Also, they neith er pro duce sterile hairs nor induce a wo unding response in the host leaf. Because the observed characteristics of Pbycopeltis batuaiiensis are similar to those of Cepbaleuros uirescens and other Cephaleuros species, it is suggested that Pf! ycopeltis hawaiiensis is probably a Cepbaleuros species; however, th e absence of rep ro ductive structures renders the designation of a specific epithet problematic.
Prematuridad y capacidad intelectual: un estudio longitudinal hasta los 11 años en una población española

El presente trabajo forma parte de un estudio longitudinal que pretende comprobar si el nivel de riesgo perinatal de un grupo de ninos nacidos pretermino puede condicionar sus capacidades intelectuales en la etapa escolar. Metodo: Los participantes fueron distribuidos en funcion del nivel de riesgo perinatal obtenido con el PERI. La muestra definitiva fue evaluada con la Escala WISC-IV. Resultados: Los resultados indican que existen diferencias en las puntuaciones de los ninos de bajo riesgo, siendo mas altas en tres de los indices de la Escala WISC-IV, mientras que los ninos de alto riesgo obtienen puntuaciones mas bajas en todos los indices. Discusion: Estos resultados se discuten a la luz de los trabajos existentes sobre el tema.
Net mineralization nitrogen and soil chemical changes with application of organic wastes with ‘Fermented Bokashi Compost’ - doi: 10.4025/actasciagron.v35i2.15133

The use of organic wastes in agricultural soils is one of the possible ways to employ these materials. The aims of this study were to evaluate the effectiveness of organic wastes and Fermented Bokashi Compost (FBC), to establish the most efficient use of organic wastes for a soil, changing the net nitrogen mineralization and soil chemical properties. The experimental design was completely randomized in a 6 x 2 x 5 factorial, being five organic wastes plus an control (soil without waste), with or without FBC, evaluated at 0, 7, 42, 70 and 91 days of incubation, with three replicates, under laboratory conditions. The organic wastes enhanced the soil chemical properties and increased nitrogen concentration in soil. However, the net nitrogen mineralization was affected by C/N ratio of wastes and incubation time. The FBC mixed with the wastes accelerated and enhanced organic matter degradation, resulting in quickly available quantity of net nitrogen. The wastes can be considered potentially useful as organic fertilizer but their usefulness appears to depend on knowing the C/N ratio of each one. The FBC can be used when one wants a more accelerated degradation, resulting in a quicker quantity of available nutrients to the plants.
Effect of Chronic Exercise and Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibition on Rodent Thoracic Aorta

Vascular reactivity can be modulated by local physical factors as well as pharmacologic manipulations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of chronic exercise (EX) with or without the ACEI captopril (CAP) on vascular reactivity. Sixty-four Sprague-Dawley male rats were randomized into 4 groups (n = 16): group 1, control; group 2, captopril; group 3, exercise; and group 4, exercise and captopril. After 10 weeks of treatment, rats were killed, and their thoracic aortas harvested. Vascular reactivity was studied in an organ chamber (n = 12). Aortic endothelium constitutive nitric oxyde synthase (NOS3) expression was determined by Western blot analysis (n = 4). Endothelial-dependent relaxation was increased in both CAP and EX rats relative to the control group. Maximal aortic relaxations were enhanced in the CAP group, and potencies of these mediators were enhanced in the EX group (P < 0.05 versus control). Combined treatment did not result in a synergistic effect. NOS3 relative expressions were: group 1, 100%; group 2, 241%; group 3, 64%; and group 4, 108%. Exercise enhanced both potencies and efficacies of the mediators studied, whereas CAP increased mainly their efficacies. NOS3 protein expression was up-regulated in CAP-treated rats but not in exercised rats. These findings suggest different mechanisms for the observed increased vascular reactivity.
Relationship between the supply of primordial follicles and the onset of follicular growth in rats.

Primordial follicles enter a state of suspended animation when they are formed and constitute a "stockpile" from which all growing follicles are derived. The factors that release individual follicles from their quiescent state are unknown. Many investigators believe that the number of follicles in the primordial stockpile is a major factor in determining the rate at which follicles begin to grow. However, the relationship between the size of the stockpile of primordial follicles and the rate at which follicles move into the growing pool is unclear. The purpose of the present study was to attempt to clarify this relationship. The initial size of the stockpile of primordial follicles was experimentally reduced by exposing rats to various doses of busulphan (BUS) in utero. Ovaries were collected at various ages postpartum and prepared for histological analysis. A computer-controlled image analyzer was used to perform size/frequency analysis of oocytes in control and treated ovaries; onset of follicular growth was recognized by enlargement of the oocyte. There was an inverse correlation between the number of primordial follicles in the ovary at birth and the rate at which they moved into the growing pool. In rats most severely affected by the BUS, all of the remaining follicles began to grow very early in life. By the time these severely affected rats reached adulthood, the stockpile of primordial follicles had been nearly exhausted. Nevertheless, the number of large antral follicles remained at normal levels until the follicular reserve was completely depleted. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Chromosome 16 tumor‐suppressor genes in breast cancer

Loss of heterozygosity on the long arm of chromosome 16 is one of the most frequent genetic events in breast cancer, suggesting the presence of one or more classic tumor‐suppressor genes (TSGs). It has been shown that E‐cadherin is the TSG on 16q in lobular tumors. In a search for the target genes in more frequently occurring low‐grade nonlobular tumors, the smallest region of overlap (SRO) in this area of the genome has been exhaustively searched for. However, the results have demonstrated remarkable complexity, and so a clear consensus on identification of the SRO boundaries has not been reached. Several genes in the vicinity of these SROs have been scrutinized as putative TSGs in breast cancer, but so far, none has fulfilled the criteria for target genes. This review discusses the complexity of the 16q region and the different approaches that have been, are being, and will be used to detect the target genes in this area. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Evolution of genetic variability in a spatially heterogeneous environment: effects of genotype-environment interaction.

Classical population genetic models show that disruptive selection in a spatially variable environment can maintain genetic variation. We present quantitative genetic models for the effects of disruptive selection between environments on the genetic covariance structure of a polygenic trait. Our models suggest that disruptive selection usually does not alter the equilibrium genetic variance, although transient changes are predicted. We view a quantitative character as a set of character states , each expressed in one environment. The genetic correlation between character states expressed in different environments strongly affects the evolution of the genetic variability. (1) If the genetic correlation between character states is not ± 1, then the mean phenotype expressed in each environment will eventually attain the optimum value for that environment; this is the evolution of phenotypic plasticity (Via & Lande, 1985). At the joint phenotypic optimum, there is no disruptive selection between environments and thus no increase in the equilibrium genetic variability over that maintained by a balance between mutation and stabilizing selection within each environment. (2) If, however, the genetic correlation between character states is ± 1, the mean phenotype will not evolve to the joint phenotypic optimum and a persistent force of disruptive selection between environments will increase the equilibrium genetic variance. (3) Numerical analyses of the dynamic equations indicate that the mean phenotype can usually be perturbed several phenotypic standard deviations from the optimum without producing transient changes of more than a few per cent in the genetic variances or correlations. It may thus be reasonable to assume a roughly constant covariance structure during phenotypic evolution unless genetic correlations among character states are extremely high or populations are frequently perturbed. (4) Transient changes in the genetic correlations between character states resulting from disruptive selection act to constrain the evolution of the mean phenotype rather than to facilitate it.
Axonal Growth Potential of Lumbar Dorsal Root Ganglion Neurons in an Organ Culture System: Response of Nerve Growth Factor-sensitive Neurons to Neuronal Injury and an Inflammatory Cytokine

Study Design. The axonal growth potential of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons in an organ culture system was investigated. Objective. To examine the effects of neuronal injury and tumor necrosis factor-&agr; (TNF-&agr;) on the axonal growth potential of 2 types of nociceptive DRG neurons: nerve growth factor (NGF)-sensitive and glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF)-sensitive neurons. Summary of Background Data. Nerve ingrowth into the disc is recognized to be one of the causes of discogenic pain. Almost all of these disc-innervating neurons are NGF-sensitive. The axonal growth potential of NGF-sensitive neurons has not been investigated. Methods. Adult Sprague-Dawley rats were used for immunohistochemistry (n = 7) and cell viability studies (n = 6). Bilateral L3–L5 DRGs, which were successfully removed without damage, were noncultured or cultured in serum-free medium containing TNF-&agr; at 0, 0.01, 0.1, and 1 ng/mL for 48 hours (n = 5, each treatment). The DRGs were then immunostained for activating transcription factor 3 (ATF3, a marker for injured neurons) or double-stained for growth-associated protein 43 (GAP-43, a marker for axonal growth) with calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP, a marker for NGF-sensitive neurons) or isolectin B4 (IB4, a marker for GDNF-sensitive neurons). Cell viability was assessed by a lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) assay and an MTS assay (n = 6, each treatment). Results. Immunoreactive evidence of injured neurons (ATF3 positive) was frequently observed in cultured DRGs, but never in noncultured DRGs. The percentage of neurons exhibiting axonal growth potential (GAP-43 immunoreactive) was significantly higher for NGF-sensitive neurons than for GDNF-sensitive neurons at any concentration of TNF-&agr;. More than 95% of the cultured neurons were viable. Conclusions. The results suggest that the cultured DRG neurons exhibit pathologic changes similar to those found in injured neurons. NGF-sensitive neurons, which include disc-innervating neurons, may have a greater potential to extend their axons in response to neuronal injury under pathologic conditions in the presence of TNF-&agr; than GDNF-sensitive neurons.
Régimen jurídico de la actividad cinegética en España. Análisis de las disposiciones autonómicas e intervención pública

En el capitulo I se analizan los conceptos y elementos basicos del regimen juridico de la caza: accion de cazar y cazador, asi como los requisitos generales para el ejercicio de la actividad cinegetica: exigencia de edad y licencias de caza y de armas, con estudio detallado de estas dos instituciones. En el capitulo II se aborda el regimen legal de los terrenos de caza: evolucion normativa, clasificacion legal y regimen de los terrenos cinegeticos, en particular, los de regimen especial y los cotos, asi como la correlacion entre los espacios protegidos y la caza (con referencia a la "Red Natura"). En el capitulo III se analiza la normativa internacional y de la Union Europea de Proteccion de las Especies y su trasposicion al ordenamiento espanol. En el capitulo IV se estudia el regimen juridico de la especies cinegeticas (definicion, clasificacion y naturaleza juridica de las piezas de caza). Los capitulos V y VI se dedican respectivamente al analisis de las medidas de proteccion y fomento de la fauna cinegetica y la ordenacion cinegetica desde la consideracion de la caza como recurso natural renovable. Los capitulos VII y VIII se dedican al regimen de la responsabilidad en materia de caza: la civil derivada de la produccion de danos y la penal y administrativa correspondiente.
Mutant Selection Using Machine Learning Techniques

Mutation testing is an effective, but high cost approach to ensuring test suite adequacy. The issue of efficiency emerges. Thousands of mutants can be inserted in a program, and many tests may be run before the mutant is killed, if it is killed at all. This paper proposes that there is a way to reduce the cost of mutation testing employing data mining and machine learning algorithms to reduce the number of mutant operators run. Previous research in mutation testing proves that mutation test prioritization and reduction is possible without resulting in a significantly different mutation score. To our knowledge, no prior research techniques use machine learning models to perform mutant selection, specifically mutation operator selection.
Comparison of Distributions of Key Predictor Variables in CIREN and NASS-CDS Cases Meeting CIREN Inclusion Criteria

Objective: The Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network (CIREN) database contains data from occupants who are seriously injured in motor vehicle crashes. Because of the number of injured occupants and the level of detail in CIREN, a number of previous studies have attempted to use CIREN data to estimate injury risk or relative risk by comparing the frequencies of CIREN occupants with an injury of interest to those without that injury. However, these comparisons provide little useful information because CIREN case occupants cannot provide the control and exposure information that is needed to appropriately estimate injury risk. One potential source of exposure/control information for CIREN is the database established by the National Automotive Sampling System-Crashworthiness Data System (NASS-CDS). However, using NASS-CDS for this purpose requires that NASS-CDS and CIREN cases are drawn from the same source population. The objective of this article is to assess whether this requirement is met. Methods: Occupants from NASS-CDS that meet CIREN inclusion criteria, termed CIREN-eligible NASS-CDS cases, were selected to represent the source population for CIREN. These CDS cases were compared to CIREN cases on a number of key variables that are used in many analyses of crash injury data. Comparisons were evaluated using chi-square tests. Results: The comparisons indicate that CIREN cases are similar to CIREN-eligible NASS-CDS cases on most variables, with some important exceptions. First, CIREN contains more frontal crashes than CIREN-eligible NASS-CDS. Second, there are fewer CIREN cases with two or more AIS 2 injuries and no AIS 3+ injuries than would be expected based on CIREN-eligible NASS-CDS. Finally, on average, occupants in CIREN have a greater number of AIS 3+ injuries, are less often belted in the front seat, and tend to be in higher severity crashes than occupants in CIREN eligible NASS-CDS. Discussion: These differences suggest that analyses aimed at estimating either relative risk of injury by comparing CIREN cases to base rates from NASS-CDS, or estimating risk of injury using control information from NASS-CDS, should be limited to a specific crash type and injury definition, and should only be performed for AIS 3+ injuries. In addition, analyses should account for the greater overall crash and injury severity of CIREN cases, at least in interpretation of the results.
Robust Allocation of a Defensive Budget Considering an Attacker's Private Information

Attackers' private information is one of the main issues in defensive resource allocation games in homeland security. The outcome of a defense resource allocation decision critically depends on the accuracy of estimations about the attacker's attributes. However, terrorists’ goals may be unknown to the defender, necessitating robust decisions by the defender. This article develops a robust‐optimization game‐theoretical model for identifying optimal defense resource allocation strategies for a rational defender facing a strategic attacker while the attacker's valuation of targets, being the most critical attribute of the attacker, is unknown but belongs to bounded distribution‐free intervals. To our best knowledge, no previous research has applied robust optimization in homeland security resource allocation when uncertainty is defined in bounded distribution‐free intervals. The key features of our model include (1) modeling uncertainty in attackers' attributes, where uncertainty is characterized by bounded intervals; (2) finding the robust‐optimization equilibrium for the defender using concepts dealing with budget of uncertainty and price of robustness; and (3) applying the proposed model to real data.
Sub-sampled Cubic Regularization for Non-convex Optimization

We consider the minimization of non-convex functions that typically arise in machine learning. Specifically, we focus our attention on a variant of trust region methods known as cubic regularization. This approach is particularly attractive because it escapes strict saddle points and it provides stronger convergence guarantees than first- and second-order as well as classical trust region methods. However, it suffers from a high computational complexity that makes it impractical for large-scale learning. Here, we propose a novel method that uses sub-sampling to lower this computational cost. By the use of concentration inequalities we provide a sampling scheme that gives sufficiently accurate gradient and Hessian approximations to retain the strong global and local convergence guarantees of cubically regularized methods. To the best of our knowledge this is the first work that gives global convergence guarantees for a sub-sampled variant of cubic regularization on non-convex functions. Furthermore, we provide experimental results supporting our theory.
Twenty-Millimeter Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy: Fewer Ports Results in Less Pain, Shorter Hospitalization, and Faster Recovery

Improvements in technology offer the ability to refine operations without compromising safety. In this study, we determine whether a modified method of laparoscopic cholecystectomy using three ports and an aggregate incision length of 20 mm offers any advantage or poses increased risk. Using a 5-mm, 30° laparoscope, clip applier, and dissector, the gall bladder is removed through an extended umbilical incision. Standard safety principles were followed: achieving the “critical view,” lateral retraction of the fundus, double ligation of the proximal structures, and maintaining sterility for specimen removal. Forty-one consecutive standard laparoscopic cholecystectomies were used as a control group to compare complications, length of stay and surgery, pain scores, and return to work. Sixty patients have undergone the modified technique. There were no differences between the modified and standard technique with regard to cost or complications. Length of surgery was significantly shorter, as was length of stay, narcotics use, and return to work for the modified group versus the control. A modified technique for laparoscopic cholecystectomy poses no increased risk to patients but offers potential for shorter surgery and hospital stays, less need for narcotic analgesia, and faster recovery.
Krylov-Type Methods for Tensor Computations

Several Krylov-type procedures are introduced that generalize matrix Krylov methods for tensor computations. They are denoted minimal Krylov recursion, maximal Krylov recursion, contracted tensor product Krylov recursion. It is proved that the for a given tensor with low rank, the minimal Krylov recursion extracts the correct subspaces associated to the tensor within certain number of iterations. An optimized minimal Krylov procedure is described that gives a better tensor approximation for a given multilinear rank than the standard minimal recursion. The maximal Krylov recursion naturally admits a Krylov factorization of the tensor. The tensor Krylov methods are intended for the computation of low-rank approximations of large and sparse tensors, but they are also useful for certain dense and structured tensors for computing their higher order singular value decompositions or obtaining starting points for the best low-rank computations of tensors. A set of numerical experiments, using real life and synthetic data sets, illustrate some of the properties of the tensor Krylov methods.
Drotrecogin Alfa (Activated) in an Infant with Gram-Negative Septic Shock

The authors observed the effect of drotrecogin alfa (activated) in a case of pediatric severe sepsis. A 4-month-old male infant with Serratia marcescens septic shock, multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS), and consumptive coagulopathy was admitted. The safety and efficacy of drotrecogin alfa (activated) has not yet been established for patients younger than 18 years of age. This is the first published report of the use of drotrecogin alfa (activated) in an infant with severe sepsis. Within 6 hours of starting therapy, there was a significant improvement in hemodynamics, which was not maintained after the drotrecogin alfa (activated) infusion was temporarily discontinued. No significant bleeding complications occurred during the infusion. A brain MRI on day 22 after drotrecogin alfa (activated) infusion showed bilateral small occipital hemorrhages. Drotrecogin alfa (activated) in this infant was temporally related to significant improvement. It is unknown whether the MRI brain lesions are related to severe sepsis with disseminated intravascular coagulation or drotrecogin alfa (activated) infusion. The authors believe that drotrecogin alfa (activated) should be considered in select children with life-threatening severe sepsis.