Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estimates of forest degradation: An algorithm based on active learning, maximum likelihood and PCA for change detection

Land use management and control of deforestation in mega cities became an important problem due to pressure of urban sprawl. In addition, green areas and fountain-heads must be preserved in these cities, for the sake of living quality. For the purpose of monitoring deforestation and non-legal use of lands, this paper presents an approach to detect changes on the remaining areas of Atlantic Forest in São Paulo. We describe an algorithm for image classification and change detection based on the active learning, which is improved by a pre-clustering task, then a change detection step based on histogram analysis of the second PCA (Principal Component Analysis) component. We applied the algorithm over 4 multispectral Landsat 5/TM images representing the years 1986, 1996, 2003, 2011 of an eastern area of São Paulo city. With the proposed active learning technique we were able to categorize the pixels used in the change detection step. We estimated that the remaining 31% of forest in 1986 reaches a minimum of 25% in 2003, but afterwards it recovered to 27% of the total area in 2011.
The normal circadian pattern of blood pressure: implications for treatment

Blood pressure fluctuates over 24 h following a circadian rhythm that reaches a peak in the morning shortly after awakening. The onset of many acute cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events shows a synchronous cyclical pattern, with the highest incidence of morbidity and mortality in the early morning hours. Strong, although circumstantial, evidence suggests that the early morning surge in blood pressure may contribute to the onset of acute cardiovascular episodes. Sustained blood pressure control that blunts the early morning blood pressure surge may help to reduce the incidence of these events. Antihypertensive agents are needed that provide smooth and sustained blood pressure control for the full 24 h, including the risky early morning hours. The angiotensin II receptor blocker telmisartan given once daily, because of its long half‐life and mechanism of action, is likely to confer benefit in terms of 24‐h blood pressure control and may reduce cardiovascular risk at the time of greatest patient vulnerability.
In-system constrained-random stimuli generation for post-silicon validation

When generating the verification stimuli in a pre-silicon environment, the primary objectives are to reduce the simulation time and the pattern count for achieving the target coverage goals. In a hardware environment, because an increase in the number of stimuli is inherently compensated by the advantage of real-time execution, the objective augments to considering hardware complexity when designing in-system stimuli generators that must operate according to user-programmable constraints. In this paper we introduce a structured methodology for porting in-system the constrained-random stimuli generation aspect from a pre-silicon verification environment.
Trafficking of interleukin 2 and transferrin in endosomal fractions of T lymphocytes.

The T lymphocyte growth factor interleukin 2 binds to surface high-affinity receptors and is rapidly internalized and degraded in acidic organelles. The alpha and beta chains of high-affinity interleukin 2 receptors are internalized together with interleukin 2. To identify the intracellular pathway followed by interleukin 2, we have compared the subcellular distribution of interleukin 2, transferrin and a fluid-phase marker, horseradish peroxidase, in the human T cell line IARC 301.5. Transferrin was used as a marker of early and recycling endosomes, and horseradish peroxidase to probe for the whole endocytic pathway. Fractionation of intracellular organelles on a discontinuous sucrose gradient showed that internalized interleukin 2 is initially mostly found in compartments with similar densities to transferrin, e.g. early and recycling endosomes. The kinetics of entry and exit of interleukin 2 from such organelles was much slower than that of transferrin. Later on, interleukin 2 is predominantly found in dense lysosome-containing fractions. Very little, if any, interleukin 2 was found in fractions corresponding to late endosomes containing horseradish peroxidase. These results suggest that, after endocytosis, interleukin 2 enters early or recycling endosomes before it reaches dense lysosomes.
Counting Chicks Before They Hatch

Here we show that demands associated with brood parasitism have favored sophisticated cognitive abilities in female brown-headed cowbirds. We discovered that cowbirds can use the rate at which eggs are added to a nest across days to assess the readiness of the nest for incubation, which would allow them to synchronize laying with the host and avoid nests where incubation has most likely commenced. In three experiments, cowbirds investigated and laid eggs in artificial nests that differed in the number of eggs they contained. Across days, we added eggs to nests at different rates to simulate differences in the timing of reproduction of the hosts. Cowbirds avoided a nest if the number of eggs that had been added was less than the number of days that had elapsed. The ability of females to remember egg number and compare changes in egg number across days allows them to select nests most suitable for parasitism.
Acute effects of different volumes of dynamic stretching on vertical jump performance, flexibility and muscular endurance

The purpose of this study was to examine the acute effects of different volumes of a dynamic stretching routine on vertical jump (VJ) performance, flexibility and muscular endurance (ME). Twenty‐six males (age 22·2 ± 1·3 years) performed three separate randomized conditions: (i) a control (CON) condition (5‐min jog + 12 min of resting), (ii) a 5‐min jog + a dynamic stretching routine (DS1; 6·7 ± 1·3 min) and (iii) a 5‐min jog + a dynamic stretching routine with twice the volume (DS2; 12·1 ± 1·6 min). The dynamic stretching routine included 11 exercises targeting the hip and thigh musculature. VJ performance (jump height and velocity) and flexibility were measured prior to and following all conditions, while ME was measured following all conditions. The DS1 and DS2 conditions increased VJ height and velocity (P<0·01), while the CON condition did not change (P>0·05). When compared to the CON condition, the DS1 condition did not improve ME (P>0·05), whereas the DS2 condition resulted in a significant (15·6%) decrease in the number of repetitions completed (P<0·05). Flexibility increased following all conditions (P<0·01), while the DS1 condition was significantly greater (P<0·01) than the CON condition at post‐testing. These results suggest that dynamic stretching routines lasting approximately 6–12 min performed following a 5‐min jog resulted in similar increases in VJ performance and flexibility. However, longer durations of dynamic stretching routines may impair repetitive high‐intensity activities.
Can Games Help Creative Writing Students to Collaborate on Story-Writing Tasks?

Copyright © 2017, IGI Global. Story writing is a complex semantic and creative task, and the difficulty of managing it is made greater by attempting to write in collaboration with others. This complication can deter students from experimenting with collaboration before mastering their own practice in relative privacy. Such reticence is in spite of the fact that there are many clear benefits to collaboration. These include peer support and feedback for the student on their practice (Leach, 2014; Vygotsky, 1978), and the development of collaborative skills and experiences that are easily transferable to a range of creative contexts in future (Ravetz et al., 2013). Specially designed games have the potential to help to facilitate collaboration, by making the difficulty of telling a story as a group part of the game's challenge.
Septic Arthritis and Tuberculosis Arthritis

Septic arthritis is an important medical emergency, with high morbidity and mortality. We review the changing epidemiology of infectious arthritis, which incidence seems to be increasing due to several factors. We discuss various different risk factors for development of septic arthritis and examine host factors, bacterial proteins and enzymes described to be essential for the pathogenesis of septic arthritis. Diagnosis of disease should be making by an experienced clinician and it is almost based on clinical symptoms, a detailed history, a careful examination and test results. Treatment of septic arthritis should include prompt removal of purulent synovial fluid and needle aspiration. There is little evidence on which to base the choice and duration of antibiotic therapy, but treatment should be based on the presence of risk factors and the likelihood of the organism involved, patient’s age and results of Gram’s stain. Furthermore, we revised joint and bone infections due to tuberculosis and atypical mycobacteria, with a special mention of tuberculosis associated with anti-TNFα and biologic agents.
Synchronisation adaptative pour une classe de systèmes hyperchaotiques: application à la cryptanalyse

Cet article propose de reunir les travaux presentes dans les references [06] et [25]. Le premier detaille un schema de communications securisees, dont l'emetteur est un systeme hyperchaotique a retard et developpe quelques points de cryptanalyse. Le second article presente la synthese d'un observateur adaptatif a grand gain pour une classe de systemes non lineaires uniformement observables, dont l'etat et l'entree sont affectes par des retards. Nous proposons ici une synthese de ces travaux afin de montrer comment l'observateur adaptatif construit dans [25] peut prolonger la cryptanalyse debutee dans [06]. De par la nature des signaux consideres, certaines hypotheses de convergence de l'observateur adaptatif peuvent etre relaxees. Notamment, aucune entree supplementaire n'est requise pour garantir la condition d'excitation persistante verifiee par le systeme lorsqu'il est en regime hyperchaotique. Des simulations numeriques illustrent la cryptanalyse a la fin de l'article.
Programmed cell death in the nervous system of an adult insect

The tobacco hornworm moth, Munducasexta, shows extensive degeneration of abdominal neurons after the adult moth emerges (ecloses) from the old pupal skin. Death of interneurons begins about 2 hours before eclosion and continues through the next 30 hours. Motorneuron degeneration starts slightly later, commencing at about 8 hours after eclosion. Analysis of the death of identified motorneurons showed that there was a precise spatial and temporal program of neuronal death. Particular cells invariably either continued to live or died and, among the latter, the time of death varied from cell to cell but for a given cell was constant. This program of cell death was somewhat flexible in that the fates of certain cells could be adaptively modified by behaviors that might naturally occur in the life of the insect.
Role of Adenosine Triphosphate, Active Mitochondria, and Microtubules in the Acquisition of Developmental Competence of Parthenogenetically Activated Pig Oocytes1

Abstract The purpose of this work was to determine the mechanisms regulating the acquisition of cytoplasmic maturation and embryonic developmental competence in pig oocytes. The presence or the absence of porcine follicular fluid (pff; 25% or 0%) in the maturation medium was used as a means to achieve complete nuclear maturation accompanied or not accompanied by cytoplasmic maturation. ATP content, active mitochondria relocation, and microtubule distribution were analyzed at different times during in vitro maturation (IVM). While nuclear maturation did not differ among the two groups, parthenogenetic embryonic development was significantly higher (41.5%) in the 25% pff group than in the 0% pff group (19.0%) with blastocysts that had a significantly higher number of blastomeres (76.1 ± 6.3, and 47.2 ± 6.5, respectively). Oocyte ATP content increased significantly during IVM, but at the end of maturation no significant differences were observed between high- and low-competence oocytes. An extensive relocation of mitochondria to the inner cytoplasm during IVM together with the formation of a well-developed mesh of cytoplasmic microtubules was observed only in the high-competence oocyte group. However, no differences in the formation of microtubules associated with the meiotic spindles were observed between high- and low-competence groups. We conclude that low developmental competence is associated with the lack of a microtubule cytoplasmic network, which prevents correct relocation of mitochondria and is likely to reflect a more generally altered compartmentalization of the ooplasm. This can be independent from the formation of the microtubule machinery required for the completion of chromosome disjunctions and does not affect the overall ATP content.
ENSO regimes: Reinterpreting the canonical and Modoki El Niño

We propose that the first two empirical orthogonal function (EOF) modes of tropical Pacific sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies do not describe different phenomena (i.e., El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and “El Niño Modoki”) but rather the nonlinear evolution of ENSO. We introduce two new uncorrelated indices (E and C), based on the leading EOFs, that respectively account for extreme warm events in the eastern and cold/moderate warm events in the central equatorial Pacific, corresponding to regimes with different evolution. Recent trends in ENSO can be described as an increase in the central Pacific (C) variability that is associated with stronger cold events, as well as a reduction in the eastern Pacific (E) variability within the cold/moderate warm regime, consistent with model projections. However, little can be said observationally with respect to the extreme warm regime.
Reconstruction of a Tissue-Engineered Cornea with Porcine Corneal Acellular Matrix as the Scaffold

Interest in developing tissue-engineered cornea has increased with the decrease in the supply of donor tissue. The aim of the present study was to investigate the feasibility and method of reconstructing corneal equivalents with porcine corneal acellular matrix as the scaffold in a dynamic culturing system. Applying the detergent Triton X-100 (1%) and a freeze-drying process, porcine corneas were decellularized and prepared as a scaffold, and hematoxylin-eosin staining and scanning electron microscopy showed no cells in the decellularized stroma. In order to measure the in vivo biocompatibility, part of the scaffold was transplanted into a pocket of rabbit corneal stroma and observed for 3 months. No sign of rejection were observed, and the acellular matrix gradually integrated in the rabbit cornea, indicating that the scaffold had good biocompatibility. To reconstruct a tissue-engineered cornea, cultured rabbit keratocytes were seeded into the scaffold. After 1 week of culture in a culturing vessel, rabbit epithelial and endothelial cells were seeded on both sides of the stroma, respectively. The reconstructed cornea consisted of three layers in histological structure: the epithelium, stoma and endothelium. Stratified epithelial cells formed on the surface, which were cytokeratin 3 positive in the cytoplasm; endothelial cell monolayers were located on the inner side, and pump-related aquaporin 1 was found in the cells. These results confirmed that the corneal acellular matrix can be used as a scaffold for tissue-engineered cornea, and a biological corneal equivalent can be reconstructed in a dynamic culturing system.
Cartografando controvérsias com as plataformas digitais: apontamentos teórico-metodológicos

Resumo Neste artigo propomos sistematizar e problematizar um conjunto de discussões sobre as especificidades teórico-metodológicas dos estudos de controvérsias em plataformas digitais. Em diálogo com autores que articulam os estudos sociais de Ciência e Tecnologia (STS, em inglês), a Teoria Ator-Rede e os estudos em internet, chamamos a atenção, entre outros aspectos, para as dimensões materiais e políticas da formação do social (LATOUR, 2012) em artefatos tecnológicos como o Twitter, Facebook e Wikipedia. Iniciamos o artigo com uma revisão do conceito de controvérsia para, em seguida, enfocar as singularidades dos momentos de disputas e conflitos que se constituem com as plataformas digitais. Em seguida, apresentamos a perspectiva dos “métodos digitais” (ROGERS, 2016) e estudos de caso que dialogam com a perspectiva do “empiricismo radical” descrita por Marres (2015). Por fim, discutimos como a cada vez mais evidente dimensão tecnopolítica da “plataformização da web” (HELMOND, 2015) traz novos desafios para as pesquisas sobre o tema.
Aberrant AKT activation drives well-differentiated liposarcoma

Well-differentiated liposarcoma (WDLPS), one of the most common human sarcomas, is poorly responsive to radiation and chemotherapy, and the lack of animal models suitable for experimental analysis has seriously impeded functional investigation of its pathobiology and development of effective targeted therapies. Here, we show that zebrafish expressing constitutively active Akt2 in mesenchymal progenitors develop WDLPS that closely resembles the human disease. Tumor incidence rates were 8% in p53 wild-type zebrafish, 6% in p53 heterozygotes, and 29% in p53-homozygous mutant zebrafish (P = 0.013), indicating that aberrant Akt activation collaborates with p53 mutation in WDLPS pathogenesis. Analysis of primary clinical specimens of WDLPS, and of the closely related dedifferentiated liposarcoma (DDLPS) subtype, revealed immunohistochemical evidence of AKT activation in 27% of cases. Western blot analysis of a panel of cell lines derived from patients with WDLPS or DDLPS revealed robust AKT phosphorylation in all cell lines examined, even when these cells were cultured in serum-free media. Moreover, BEZ235, a small molecule inhibitor of PI3K and mammalian target of rapamycin that effectively inhibits AKT activation in these cells, impaired viability at nanomolar concentrations. Our findings are unique in providing an animal model to decipher the molecular pathogenesis of WDLPS, and implicate AKT as a previously unexplored therapeutic target in this chemoresistant sarcoma.
Metabolic and physiologic responses to video game play in 7- to 10-year-old boys.

OBJECTIVE To examine the metabolic, physiologic, and hemostatic responses to action video game play in a group of young boys. DESIGN Comparison study. SETTING Laboratory of Clinical and Applied Physiology, University of Miami. PARTICIPANTS Twenty-one boys aged 7 to 10 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Blood pressure monitored before and during game play and blood glucose and lactate levels measured before and immediately after game play. Measurements were continuously recorded throughout game play. Dependent t tests were used to compare measurements recorded at baseline and during or after game play. Effect sizes using the Cohen d were examined for comparisons. RESULTS Significant increases from baseline were found for heart rate (18.8%; P<.001), systolic (22.3%; P<.001) and diastolic (5.8%; P = .006) blood pressure, ventilation (51.9%; P<.001), respiratory rate (54.8%; P<.001), oxygen consumption (49.0%; P<.001), and energy expenditure (52.9%; P<.001). Effect sizes for these comparisons were medium or large. No significant changes were found from baseline to after video game play for lactate (18.2% increase; P = .07) and glucose (0.9% decrease; P = .59) levels. CONCLUSIONS Video game play results in significant increases in various metabolic and physiologic variables in young children. Thus, it should not be combined with television viewing for the evaluation of sedentary activities. The magnitude of change, however, was lower than that observed during standard physical exercise and below national health recommendations. As such, video game play should not be considered a substitute for regular physical activities that significantly stress the metabolic pathways required for the promotion of cardiovascular conditioning.
A Design of Space-Time Codes for CPFSK Modulation over Multipath Fading Channels

In this paper, we derive space-time code design criteria for continuous phase frequency-shift keying (CPFSK) over multipath fast fading channels, aiming at maximizing the overall space-time diversity. We also propose a space-time coding scheme to meet the dominated design criterion, the rank criterion. Our encoding scheme consists of a ring convolutional encoder and a spatial encoder with an extender in it. Both the theoretical and simulation results show that with the effective code length ECL of the convolutional encoder, LT transmit antennas, LR receive antennas, and L+1 paths in the fading channel, a maximal overall diversity ECL LT LR (L+1) is achievable.
Collection and Use of Exposure Data from Human Milk Biomonitoring in the United States

Human milk is a unique biological matrix that can be used to estimate exposures in both the mother and the breastfed infant. In addition, the presence of environmental chemicals in human milk may act as a sentinel for exposures to a broader population. Several factors play a role in determining the quantity of chemicals transferred to milk and, subsequently, to the breastfeeding infant, including maternal, infant, and chemical characteristics. Exposure to certain environmental chemicals during critical periods can disrupt normal infant development, yet few data exist to quantify the hazards posed by environmental chemicals in human milk. Chemicals measured in human milk may also provide insights to agents suspect in altering breast development and breast-related disease risk. Carefully designed exposure assessment and toxicokinetic studies are needed to elucidate mechanisms and establish relationships between human milk and other biologic matrices. Data from human milk biomonitoring studies can be used to inform and validate models that integrate information about chemical properties, human metabolism, and biomarker concentrations. Additional research is needed to determine the degree to which environmental chemicals enter, are present in, and are excreted from human milk, their impact on the host (mother), and the extent of their bioavailability to breastfeeding infants. This article describes how the collection and use of exposure data from human milk biomonitoring in the United States can be designed to inform future research and policy. We thank the following organizations for generously providing support for the Workshop: the American Chemistry Council; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (C13/CCU323635-01); the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HHSH240200415021P); Health Canada (H405-03-ExSD079/4500078209); 3M; Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine; the Research Foundation for Health and Environmental Effects; and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Children’s Health (CH-83213101-0). The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and/or policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.