Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cardiac-gated two-dimensional phase-contrast MR angiography of lower extremity occlusive disease.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to evaluate our capability to use coronally acquired, cardiac-gated two-dimensional phase-contrast MR angiography (MRA) to correctly detect and grade arteriosclerotic lesions from the aortic bifurcation to the popliteal artery. SUBJECTS AND METHODS One hundred fifteen patients with a total of 253 arteriosclerotic lesions proven by intraarterial digital subtraction angiography were examined prospectively by two-dimensional phase-contrast MRA. MRA was performed from the aortic bifurcation to the popliteal trifurcation. Imaging parameters were TR/TE, 83/9 msec; flip angle, 11 degrees; matrix, 256 x 192; acquisitions, two; slice thickness, 80 mm; and field of view, 320 mm. ECG gating was used routinely and eight to 10 phases were acquired during the cardiac cycle. Velocity encoding was set to 30 cm/sec in the iliac arteries and to 20 cm/sec in the femoral and popliteal arteries. Detected stenoses were graded in the following manner: 1% to less than 50% stenosis, group 1; 50% to less than 75% stenosis, group 2; 75% to less than 100% stenosis, group 3; and total occlusion, group 4. RESULTS All arteriosclerotic lesions were revealed by MRA. Two hundred seventeen of 253 lesions were also graded correctly. Sensitivity was 95%, specificity was 90%, positive predictive value was 90%, and negative predictive value was 96%. The weighted kappa index was (.92). Sensitivity and specificity for occlusions were both 100%; for high-grade stenoses, 94% and 91%, respectively; for moderate stenoses, 84% and 94%, respectively; and for mild stenoses, 79% and 100%, respectively. CONCLUSION Two-dimensional phase-contrast MRA can provide MR angiograms with high sensitivity and specificity for high-grade stenoses in a reasonable amount of time in patients with peripheral artery occlusive disease.
Repeat Expansion Affects Both Transcription Initiation and Elongation in Friedreich Ataxia Cells*

Expansion of a GAA·TTC repeat in the first intron of the frataxin (FXN) gene causes an mRNA deficit that results in Friedreich ataxia (FRDA). The region flanking the repeat on FRDA alleles is associated with more extensive DNA methylation than is seen on normal alleles and histone modifications typical of repressed genes. However, whether these changes are responsible for the mRNA deficit is controversial. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation and cell lines from affected and unaffected individuals, we show that certain marks of active chromatin are also reduced in the promoter region of the FXN gene in patient cells. Thus, the promoter chromatin may be less permissive for transcription initiation than it is on normal alleles. Furthermore, we show that the initiating form of RNA polymerase II and histone H3 trimethylated on lysine 4, a chromatin mark tightly linked to transcription initiation, are both present at lower levels on FRDA alleles. In addition, a mark of transcription elongation, trimethylated H3K36, shows a reduced rate of accumulation downstream of the repeat. Our data thus suggest that repeat expansion reduces both transcription initiation and elongation in FRDA cells. Our findings may have implications for understanding the mechanism responsible for FRDA as well as for therapeutic approaches to reverse the transcription deficit.
Respiration and brain neural dynamics associated with interval timing during odor fear learning in rats

In fear conditioning, where a conditioned stimulus predicts the arrival of an aversive stimulus, the animal encodes the time interval between the two stimuli. Here we monitored respiration to visualize anticipatory behavioral responses in an odor fear conditioning in rats, while recording theta (5–15 Hz) and gamma (40–80 Hz) brain oscillatory activities in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), basolateral amygdala (BLA), dorsomedial striatum (DMS) and olfactory piriform cortex (PIR). We investigated the temporal patterns of respiration frequency and of theta and gamma activity power during the odor-shock interval, comparing two interval durations. We found that akin to respiration patterns, theta temporal curves were modulated by the duration of the odor-shock interval in the four recording sites, and respected scalar property in mPFC and DMS. In contrast, gamma temporal curves were modulated by the interval duration only in the mPFC, and in a manner that did not respect scalar property. This suggests a preferential role for theta rhythm in interval timing. In addition, our data bring the novel idea that the respiratory rhythm might take part in the setting of theta activity dynamics related to timing.
Dynamic Data Operations with Deduplication in Privacy-Preserving Public Auditing for Secure Cloud Storage

Cloud storage service has been increasing in popularity as cloud computing plays an important role in the IT domain. Users can be relieved of the burden of storage and computation, by outsourcing the large data files to the cloud servers. However, from the cloud service providers' point of view, it is wise to utilize the data deduplication techniques to reduce the costs of running large storage system and energy consumption on cloud servers. Based on the dynamic nature of data in the cloud storage system, we not only need to assure the data integrity with an auditing protocol supporting dynamic data operations for users, but also consider resorting to data deduplication techniques in the dynamic data operations for cloud service providers to achieve the goal of reducing costs. Thus, in this paper, we propose a mechanism that combines data deduplication with dynamic data operations in the privacy preserving public auditing for secure cloud storage. The analysis of security and performance shows that the proposed mechanism is highly efficient and provably secure.
Green Fluorescent Protein-Marked Pseudomonas fluorescens: Localization, Viability, and Activity in the Natural Barley Rhizosphere

ABSTRACT The gfp-tagged Pseudomonas fluorescensbiocontrol strain DR54-BN14 was introduced into the barley rhizosphere. Confocal laser scanning microscopy revealed that the rhizoplane populations of DR54-BN14 on 3- to 14-day-old roots were able to form microcolonies closely associated with the indigenous bacteria and that a majority of DR54-BN14 cells appeared small and almost coccoid. Information on the viability of the inoculant was provided by a microcolony assay, while measurements of cell volume, the intensity of green fluorescent protein fluorescence, and the ratio of dividing cells to total cells were used as indicators of cellular activity. At a soil moisture close to the water-holding capacity of the soil, the activity parameters suggested that the majority of DR54-BN14 cells were starving in the rhizosphere. Nevertheless, approximately 80% of the population was either culturable or viable but nonculturable during the 3-week incubation period. No impact of root decay on viability was observed, and differences in viability or activity among DR54-BN14 cells located in different regions of the root were not apparent. In dry soil, however, the nonviable state of DR54-BN14 was predominant, suggesting that desiccation is an important abiotic regulator of cell viability.
FRAX® counseling for bone health behavior change in women 50 years of age and older

Purpose: To evaluate the use of FRAX® (Fracture risk assessment tool) for changes in bone health risk factors and treatment decision‐making. Data Sources: A convenience sample of seventeen women, 50 years and older, English‐speaking, generally healthy, with the ability to perform weight‐bearing exercise, presenting for a DXA scan in a Midwestern city between August 2009 and November 2009, and not already being treated for osteoporosis or osteopenia. Self‐administered diet and exercise questionnaires were completed by participants, followed by individual counseling related to FRAX® absolute risk and NOF guidelines. Questionnaires were repeated at approximately three months later, along with a short survey regarding the information's impact. Conclusions: FRAX® increased a participant's perception of future risk for osteoporosis and desire to change bone health habits. About 50% actually made changes in calcium and vitamin D consumption and weight‐bearing exercise. FRAX® could not be applied to those with osteopenia of the spine only; and a variety of bone health risk factors not covered by FRAX® were identified. Implications for Practice: The FRAX® risk assessment tool can be useful to motivate clients to change bone health behavior. However, it has limitations in its use as a tool for whether or not to prescribe bisphosphonates.
Hematopoietic stem cells fail to regenerate following inflammatory challenge

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are canonically defined by their capacity to maintain the HSC pool via self-renewal divisions. However, accumulating evidence suggests that HSC function is instead preserved by sustaining long-term quiescence. Here, we study the kinetics of HSC recovery in mice, following an inflammatory challenge that induces HSCs to exit dormancy. Repeated inflammatory challenge resulted in a progressive depletion of functional HSCs, with no sign of later recovery. Underlying this observation, label retention experiments demonstrated that self-renewal divisions were absent or extremely rare during challenge, as well as during any subsequent recovery period. While depletion of functional HSCs held no immediate consequences, young mice exposed to inflammatory challenge developed blood and bone marrow hypocellularity in old age, similar to elderly humans. The progressive, irreversible attrition of HSC function demonstrates that discreet instances of inflammatory stress can have an irreversible and therefore cumulative impact on HSC function, even when separated by several months. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the role of inflammation as a mediator of dysfunctional tissue maintenance and regeneration during ageing.
Investigation of platelet-rich plasma in rabbit cranial defects: A pilot study.

PURPOSE The purpose was to evaluate the effect of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) on bone healing. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifteen rabbits were included in this randomized, blinded, prospective pilot study. Four equal 8 mm diameter cranial bone defects were created and immediately grafted with autogenous bone, PRP alone, autogenous bone and PRP, and no treatment as a control. The defects were evaluated by digital subtraction radiography with step-wedge calibration, histology, and histomorphometric analysis performed at 1, 2, and 4 months. RESULTS The results showed a significant increase in histomorphometric bone area and radiographic bone density in both bone and bone and PRP samples as compared with the control and PRP alone. No significant increase in bone formation was seen with the addition of PRP to autogenous bone. No significant difference in bone formation was seen between defects treated with PRP alone and control sites. CONCLUSIONS No significant improvement, radiographically or histomorphometrically, was seen with the addition of PRP in bone formation in noncritical sized defects in the rabbit cranial model. However, bone and bone and PRP showed a histomorphometric tendency toward increased bone formation at 1, 2, and 4 months.
An efficient approach to online bot detection based on a reinforcement learning technique

In recent years, Botnets have been adopted as a popular method used to carry and spread many malicious codes on the Internet. These codes pave the way to conducting many fraudulent activities, including spam mail, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) and click fraud. While many Botnets are set up using a centralized communication architecture such as Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), peer-to-peer (P2P) Botnets can adopt a decentralized architecture using an overlay network for exchanging command and control (C&C) messages, which is a more resilient and robust communication channel infrastructure. Without a centralized point for C&C servers, P2P Botnets are more flexible to defeat countermeasures and detection procedures than traditional centralized Botnets. Several Botnet detection techniques have been proposed, but Botnet detection is still a very challenging task for the Internet security community because Botnets execute attacks stealthily in the dramatically growing volumes of network traffic. However, current Botnet detection schemes face significant problem of efficiency and adaptability. The present study combined a traffic reduction approach with reinforcement learning (RL) method in order to create an online Bot detection system. The proposed framework adopts the idea of RL to improve the system dynamically over time. In addition, the traffic reduction method is used to set up a lightweight and fast online detection method. Moreover, a host feature based on traffic at the connection-level was designed, which can identify Bot host behaviour. Therefore, the proposed technique can potentially be applied to any encrypted network traffic since it depends only on the information obtained from packets header. Therefore, it does not require Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and cannot be confused with payload encryption techniques. The network traffic reduction technique reduces packets input to the detection system, but the proposed solution achieves good a detection rate of 98.3% as well as a low false positive rate (FPR) of 0.012% in the online evaluation. Comparison with other techniques on the same dataset shows that our strategy outperforms existing methods. The proposed solution was evaluated and tested using real network traffic datasets to increase the validity of the solution.
Review on mechanism and modeling of jumping robot

Jumping robots provide an effective solution to overcome obstacles and perform locomotion in a rough and unstructured terrain. In this paper, an overview of jumping robots' principle, types, jumping and energy storage mechanism, uprighting mechanism, steering mechanism and models of kinematic and dynamic are presented. The existing technical problems and the future work are also discussed.
Mother-Infant CO-SLEEPING: Understanding the Debate and Maximizing Infant Safety

Mother-infant co-sleeping is debated fervently in the research literature. While studies abound, there is no precise answer to this conundrum, and parents continue to ask nurses for their best opinions about the safety of co-sleeping. The puzzling results of these studies have occurred partly because of: (1) retrospective study designs, (2) lack of control over covariables, (3) misclassification of infant deaths, and (4) unknown prevalence of co-sleeping practices. This article describes the salient issues nurses need to understand in the mother-infant co-sleeping debate, and suggests ways that nurses can help parents to modify risk factors and safety measures if they desire co-sleeping.
Understanding Pollinator Habitat Conservation under Current Policy Using Economic Experiments

Pollinators provide critical ecosystems services vital to the production of numerous crops in the United States’ agricultural sector. However, the U.S. is witnessing a serious decline in the abundance and diversity of domestic and wild pollinators, which threatens U.S. food security. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has created the Pollinator Habitat Initiative (CP-42) to induce landowners to create quality habitat for pollinators by planting beneficial crops and wildflowers on Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)-eligible land. Landowners’ potential conservation decisions under CP-42 and the resulting impact on land use decisions regarding crop production are not well-understood. We examine these issues by designing an economic experiment that simulates landowners’ decisions to enroll in CP-42. As our motivating example, we focus on how CP-42 might affect crop production patterns and the resulting returns in Goshen County, Wyoming. The results indicate that about 16% of CRP-eligible land would be enrolled. Based on the relatively low CP-42 payment, our subjects remove only lower value crops from production. Our results suggest that (1) all dry wheat and sunflower production and a portion of barley, corn, and dry beans could be taken out of production when transferred to pollinator habitat, and (2) that habitat fragmentation would likely occur, which would reduce the efficacy of pollination. Overall, our results suggest that there are significant limits to the overall effectiveness of the CP-42 policy.
Comparison of actions of papaverine, aspaminol and isoprenaline on isolated rat uterus.

Inhibitory responses of the isolated rat uterus to papaverine, Aspaminol and isoprenaline were potentiated by aminophylline that inhibits phosphodiesterase. The inhibitory responses to papaverine and isoprenaline were decreased by imidazole that stimulates phosphodicsterase activity, while the inhibitory response to Aspaminol was little influenced by imidazole. Papavcrine strongly inhibited phosphodiesterase from the rat uterus, but Aspaminol did not influence phosphodiesterase activity. These results indicate that papaverine and isoprenaline are mediated through an increase of the intracellular level of cyclic AMP and also indicate that the inhibitory response of the rat uterus to Aspaminol is not concerned with the amount of intracellular cyclic AMP increased by inhibiting phosphodiesterase. Further, the results support the theory that there are two mechanisms for the so-called papaverine-like antispasmodics.
Biomass allocation and nutrients balance related to the concentration of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in Salvinia auriculata ( Salviniaceae )

Aquatic plants can use differential allocation (trade-off) of carbon among their structures depending on the nutrition concentration. Given that N and P are limiting in the growth of plants, our questions were: Are the N and P concentrations in S. auriculata related to the biomass allocation to its structures? Is a differential allocation of N and P between floating and submerged leaves? We evaluated the relation between the nutrients and the biomass allocation, and the trade-off among the leaves using the Spearman correlation. Our results showed that N and P concentrations in S. auriculata are related to the biomass allocation to its structures, and that there is no trade-off of these nutrients between “shoot and root”. Thus, we can see the importance of N and P concentration in the biomass of S. auriculata, and why this plant is capable to development in different environments as a weedy.
Diagnostic Processes and Disclosure: A Survey of Practitioners Diagnosing Cognitive Impairment

The literature reports widespread variation in practitioners’ disclosure of a dementia diagnosis, though it is currently unclear what factors influence this difference in practice. 57 New Zealand based practitioners completed an online questionnaire relating to how they reach a diagnosis of cognitive impairment and under what circumstances (if any) a diagnosis might be withheld from a client. The findings indicate that a diagnosis of cognitive impairment is never completely withheld by practitioners. All qualitative responses were analysed using conventional content analysis. Practitioners noted more positive consequences associated with disclosing a diagnosis to their clients, suggesting that providing a diagnosis is perceived by practitioners as helpful for people experiencing cognitive impairment. This study adds to the field of ethics and diagnostic disclosure in that it highlights what specific factors are considered when a practitioner chooses how to relay a cognitive impairment diagnosis to their client. Such considerations include when disclosure conflicts with the clients wishes, lack of insight, and the presence of other illnesses. Ongoing research on the subject of disclosure is needed as the number of adults who will experience cognitive impairment is predicted to rise.
Continuous Size-Separation of Airborne Particles in a Microchannel for Aerosol Monitoring

The real-time monitoring of aerosols is important for protecting human health and the environment. The small size of microchannels and their potential for integration with sensing technologies suggest them as a promising tool for the next generation of aerosol sensors. To that end, we present a novel microfluidics-based system for the size-separation of aerosols using the centrifugal force exerted on each particle as it travels around a curve. We demonstrate with simulations and experiments the separation by size of mixtures of aerosolized microspheres with diameters ranging from 0.2-3.2 μm. With bidisperse particle sizes in a single-outlet channel, a separation efficiency is defined to quantify how much of each of the two sizes of particles are located in distinct regions of the channel; the separation of mixtures at up to 80% separation efficiency is demonstrated. Particles are also separated into two or three outlets, each containing a different distribution of particles by size. Both experimental particle position and separation efficiency results match well with the simulations.
Emotion perception from a componential perspective

ABSTRACT The common conceptual understanding of emotion is that they are multi-componential, including subjective feelings, appraisals, psychophysiological activation, action tendencies, and motor expressions. Emotion perception, however, has traditionally been studied in terms of emotion labels, such as “happy”, which do not clearly indicate whether one, some, or all emotion components are perceived. We examine whether emotion percepts are multi-componential and extend previous research by using more ecologically valid, dynamic, and multimodal stimuli and an alternative response measure. The results demonstrate that observers can reliably infer multiple types of information (subjective feelings, appraisals, action tendencies, and social messages) from complex emotion expressions. Furthermore, this finding appears to be robust to changes in response items. The results are discussed in light of their implications for research on emotion perception.
The Verification of Probabilistic Systems Under Memoryless Partial-Information Policies is Hard

Abstract : Several models of probabilistic systems comprise both probabilistic and nondeterministic choice. In such models, the resolution of nondeterministic choices is mediated by the concept of policies (sometimes called adversaries). A policy is a criterion for choosing among nondeterministic alternatives on the basis of the past sequence of states of the system. By fixing the resolution of nondeterministic choice, a policy reduces the system to an ordinary stochastic system, thus making it possible to reason about the probability of events of interest. A partial information policy is a policy that can observe only a portion of the system state, and that must base its choices on finite sequences of such partial observations. We argue that in order to obtain accurate estimates of the worst-case performance of a probabilistic system, it would often be desirable to consider partial-information policies. However, we show that even when considering memoryless partial-information policies, the problem of deciding whether the system can stay forever with positive probability in a given subset of states becomes NP-complete. As a consequence, many verification problems that can be solved in polynomial time under perfect-information policies, such as the model-checking of pCTL or the computation of the worst-case long-run average outcome of tasks, become NP-hard under memoryless partial-information policies. On the positive side, we show that the worst-case long-run average outcome of tasks under memoryless partial-information policies can be computed by solving a nonlinear programming problem, opening the way to the use of numerical approximation algorithms.