Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Middle aged CAMKII-Cre:Cbsfl/fl mice: a new model for studying perioperative neurocognitive disorders

Postoperative complications, such as perioperative neurocognitive disorders (PND), have become a major issue affecting surgical outcomes. However, the mechanism of PND remains unclear, and stable animal models of middle-aged PND are lacking. S-adenosylmethionine (SAM), a cystathionine beta-synthase (CBS) allosteric activator, can reduce the level of plasma homocysteine and prevent the occurrence of PND. However, the time and resource-intensive process of constructing models of PND in elderly animals have limited progress in PND research and innovative therapy development. The present study aimed to construct a stable PND model in middle-aged CAMKII-Cre:Cbsfl/fl mice whose Cbs was specifically knocked out in CAMKII positive neurons. Behavioral tests showed that these middle-aged mice displayed cognitive deficits which were aggravated by exploratory laparotomy under isoflurane anesthesia. Compared with typical PND mice which were 18-month-old, these middle-aged mice showed similar cognitive deficits after undergoing exploratory laparotomy under isoflurane anesthesia. Though there was no significant difference in the number of neurons in either the hippocampus or the cortex, a significant increase in numbers of microglia and astrocytes in the hippocampus was observed. These indicate that middle-aged CAMKII-Cre:Cbsfl/fl mice can be used as a new PND model for mechanistic studies and therapy development for PND.
Efficient testing of earthquake forecasting models

Computationally efficient alternatives are proposed to the likelihood-based tests employed by the Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability for assessing the performance of earthquake likelihood models in the earthquake forecast testing centers. For the conditional L-test, which tests the consistency of the earthquake catalogue with a model, an exact test using convolutions of distributions is available when the number of earthquakes in the test period is small, and the central limit theorem provides an approximate test when the number of earthquakes is large. Similar methods are available for the R-test, which compares the likelihoods of two competing models. However, the R-test, like the N-test and L-test, is fundamentally a test of consistency of data with a model. We propose an alternative test, based on the classical paired t-test, to more directly compare the likelihoods of two models. Although approximate and predicated on a normality assumption, this new T-test is not computer-intensive, is easier to interpret than the R-test, and becomes increasingly dependable as the number of earthquakes increases.
Omnipresent vertically coherent fluctuations in the ionosphere with a possible worldwide‐midlatitude extent

[1] Incoherent Scatter Radar power profile observations at Arecibo, Millstone Hill, and the Poker Flat AMISR have revealed the continuous presence of Coherent Omnipresent Fluctuations in the Ionosphere (COFIs) with periods ranging from roughly 30 to 60 minutes and apparent vertical wavelengths increasing with altitude from tens to hundreds of kilometers. Upon high-pass filtering of the Incoherent Scatter Radar power profile and electron concentration data, the COFIs are seen unambiguously and ubiquitously in Arecibo results from 22–23 March 2004, 5–6 June, 21–25 September, and 17–20 November 2005, as well as Millstone Hill results from 4 October to 4 November 2002. The COFIs are strong throughout the F region, often spanning altitudes of 160 km to above 500 km, and are detected day and night in the F2 layer. In fact, the COFIs are seen at every time and altitude that there is sufficient plasma to detect them. The COFIs are also observed at Poker Flat, although the poor signal-to-noise ratio over segments of the data makes it difficult to determine whether or not they are always present. The consistent detection of the COFIs, along with the longitudinal alignment and large latitudinal spread of the observation sites, suggests that these waves are always present over at least North America. This phenomenon appears to have been reported in Total Electron Concentration (TEC) maps of the ionosphere over much of North America Tsugawa et al. (2007b) as well as in airglow images from Arecibo and many other midlatitude sites around the world. These observations give us insight into the horizontal properties of the waves. While Medium-Scale Ionospheric Disturbances (MSTIDs) are generally associated with aurorally generated acoustic gravity waves, the properties of the COFIs may suggest otherwise. We present other possible source mechanisms, notably a possible link to oscillations in the solar wind and magnetosphere. We have observed consistent fluctuations with periods of about an hour observed in magnetic field measurements taken at geosynchronous altitudes by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES)-10 and -12 satellites, which may be linked to the COFIs. We give corresponding solar wind results from ACE and discuss possible coupling mechanisms.
Cretaceous felsic volcanism in New Zealand and Lord Howe Rise (Zealandia) as a precursor to final Gondwana break-up

Abstract We report new, highly precise, U–Pb and Ar/Ar ages for seven Cretaceous rhyolites, tuffs and granites from across Zealandia spanning a 30 Ma period from arc magmatism to continental break-up. Combined with previously published data, these reveal a strong episodicity in Cretaceous silicic magmatism outside the Median Batholith. 112 Ma tuffs are known only from the Eastern Province in association with a Cretaceous normal fault system. Both 101 and 97 Ma groups of rhyolites and tuffs occur across the entire width and half the length of Zealandia from near the palaeotrench to the continental interior, indicating widespread and effectively instantaneous extension. We attribute an increase in A-type character with time (112–101–97–88–82 Ma) to the progressive thinning of the Zealandia continental crust whereby, with time, there is less opportunity for crustal contamination. Extension directions associated with 101, 97 and 82 Ma magmatism and associated core complex exhumation across Zealandia are all oriented c. 30° oblique to the margin. These observations suggest Zealandia rifting was controlled by either >83 Ma capture of Zealandia by the Pacific Plate and/or <83 Ma Zealandia–West Antarctica spreading, rather than by laterally migrating triple junctions, slab windows or plume heads.
The cooling pond of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant: A groundwater remediation case history

The cooling pond of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was heavily contaminated as a result of the reactor accident in April 1986. From 1989 to 1993 the cooling pond represented one of the major sources of 90Sr migration from the Chernobyl site to the Dnieper River. Several attempts have been made to contain radioactive contamination within the pond. Overestimation of releases via groundwater pathway and design mistakes led to unsuccessful remedial actions in 1986 and in later periods. In addition, remediation criteria based solely on comparison of contaminant concentrations in groundwater with drinking water standards were not effective from the health risk perspective, because the public was not directly exposed to contaminated groundwater; the exclusion zone surrounding the site acted as an institutional control to prevent public access. In light of recent estimates of low risks due to radionuclide transport outside the exclusion zone, a “no action” approach may represent the most reasonable strategy for the near‐term management of the cooling pond.
Master Computer Science Hypervisor Isolation

Virtual machines are supposed to enforce a rigid security boundary between guest and host. Transient execution attacks have however been shown to enable virtual machines to compromise their hypervisor. This thesis explores a new defense, hypervisor isolation , for hypervisors against microarchitectural attacks from malicious guests. Hypervisor isolation guarantees that a hypervisor runs on diﬀerent physical cores than the virtual machines it manages. This eliminates the sharing of any core-local micro-architectural resources and hence all attacks that rely on them.
Strengths And Weaknesses In The Assessment OfSustainable Tourism: A Case Study Of The NabqProtected Area In Egypt

Talks over the past decade have been concerned with achieving a more sustainable form of tourism; however, the problem is that the largest sector of tourism is that of mass tourism, which continues to be the worst form of tourism in terms of sustainability. Previous studies have focused on defining the term ‘sustainable tourism’. However, these studies have not been able to agree on a single definition for the term, which has dozens of definitions. This research aims to discuss and analyze the concept of ‘sustainable mass tourism’ and its effects on the Nabq protected area. In addition, this research aims to focus on mass tourism in terms of three separate aspects for its development, which are: economic sustainability, social sustainability and environmental sustainability. Each of these aspects will be discussed separately. By dividing the concept into three different parts, each part will be studied so as to relate to or isolate from each other to determine the safest and most successful path to be used by developers of mass tourism with the aim of applying the results of this research to the Nabq protected area.
Late‐glacial glacier events in southernmost south america: a blend of ‘northern’ and 'southern’ hemispheric climatic signals?

ABSTRACT. This paper examines new geomorphological, chronological and modelling data on glacier fluctuations in southernmost South America in latitudes 46–55°S during the last glacial–interglacial transition. Establishing leads and lags between the northern and southern hemispheres and between southern mid‐latitudes and Antarctica is key to an appreciation of the mechanisms and resilience of global climate. This is particularly important in the southern hemisphere where there is a paucity of empirical data. The overall structure of the last glacial cycle in Patagonia has a northern hemisphere signal. Glaciers reached or approached their Last Glacial Maxima on two or more occasions at 25–23 ka (calendar) and there was a third less extensive advance at 17.5 ka. Deglaciation occurred in two steps at 17.5 ka and at 11.4 ka. This structure is the same as that recognized in the northern hemisphere and taking place in spite of glacier advances occurring at a time of high southern hemisphere summer insolation and deglaciation at a time of decreasing summer insolation. The implication is that at orbital time scales the‘northern’ signal dominates any southern hemisphere signal. During deglaciation, at a millennial scale, the glacier fluctuations mirror an antiphase 'southern’ climatic signal as revealed in Antarctic ice cores. There is a glacier advance coincident with the Antarctic Cold Reversal at 15.3–12.2 ka. Furthermore, deglaciation begins in the middle of the Younger Dryas. The implication is that, during the last glacial–interglacial transition, southernmost South America was under the influence of sea surface temperatures, sea ice and southern westerlies responding to conditions in the 'southern’ Antarctic domain. Such asynchrony may reflect a situation whereby, during deglaciation, the world is more sensitized to fluctuations in the oceanic thermohaline circulation, perhaps related to the bipolar seesaw, than at orbital timescales.
MODELING THE NILE BASIN UNDER CLIMATIC CHANGE

This paper presents the development and application of a monthly water balance model of the Nile River basin (WBNILE) for assessing potential climatic change impacts on Nile runoff. The WBNILE model consists of 12 Nile subcatchments, including characterization of the lakes region of equatorial Africa and the Sudd swamp. The model uses mean monthly climate variables of precipitation, temperature, relative humidity, and sunshine hours, and each basin is calibrated from observed monthly averaged discharge. Areally averaged temperature and precipitation changes from five global circulation models (GCMs) were imposed on each subbasin for assessing climate change impacts on runoff. Results showed the sensitivity of the basin to climate fluctuations, because four of five GCMs predicted significantly larger flows in equatorial Africa and the expansion of the Sudd swamps, whereas there was a range of results for the Ethiopian highlands of the Blue Nile and Atbara basins depending on the GCM scenario.
The Black Death of 1348 in Perpignan

THE great plague of 1348 remains a questionable factor in late mediaeval history. From a medical viewpoint, we are now very well placed by the work of L. Fabian Hirst, which is of great help in understanding the outbreaks that began in 1348 and recurred into early modern times. ' We are fortunate too in having the results of some work in the long-neglected field of mediaeval demography and especially the pioneering studies of Josiah Cox Russell.2 But the unanswered questions are legion, and detailed local studies in some quantity are badly needed. A number of such studies have appeared varying greatly, naturally enough, with the different types of documentary materials extant for each locality.3 The present article offers only one small addition to this total; it is an attempt to exploit the surviving documentary materials in Perpignan to trace, so far as they permit, the course and the immediate effects of the 1348 plague in that town. Perpignan has a remarkably fine run of notarial registers for the fourteenth century (about five hundred in all), along with other scattered documents. It lacks the sort of cadaster, or compoix, so effectively studied for Albi by Prat,4 or the communal records utilized by Carpentier for Orvieto and by Bowsky for Siena.5 But there is a great mass of private notarial acts that constitutes a rich potential * This article is based upon a paper read, 9 March 1965, before the ColumbiaUniversity Seminar on Mediaeval Studies. Much of the research for it was made possible by a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in 1962. I should like also to record the fact that my interest in this topic was first aroused, a good many years ago, by the late Professor Lynn Thorndike. The documentary citations in the following pages refer, unless otherwise specified, to the Departmental Archives of the Pyrenees-Orientales in Perpignan. Where only a number is cited (or a number preceded by the letters "NS" = New Series), reference is made to a notarial register in Series E. Citations to "Alart" refer to the manscripts of that scholar in the Public Library of Perpignan. I The Conquest of Plague (Oxford, 1958).
Modeling the effects of vegetation‐erosion coupling on landscape evolution

[1] From rainfall interception at the canopy to added soil cohesion within the root zone, plants play a significant role in directing local geomorphic dynamics, and vice versa. The consequences at the regional scale, however, are known in less quantitative terms. In light of this, the numerical Channel-Hillslope Integrated Landscape Development model is equipped with coupled vegetation-erosion dynamics, allowing for sensitivity analysis on the various aspects of vegetation behavior. The processes considered are plant growth, plant death, and the additional resistance imparted by plants against erosion. With each process is associated a single parameter, whose effects on the spatiotemporal nature of a 1 km2 basin is studied. Through their inhibition of erosion, plants steepened the topography and reduced drainage density, yet, in doing so, made erosive events more extreme. Plants more susceptible to erosion act to decouple neighboring cells and cause extensive and perennial network and channel adjustments.
Clay dispersion as influenced by pH and net particle charge of sodic soils

The effect of changing pH on the dispersion of clay from sodic soils was investigated in relation to changes in net charge on clay particles. A positive relationship was obtained between pH and the percentage of dispersible clay for each soil clay. The percentage increase in net negative charge was also positively correlated with pH. However, the slopes of these relationships varied between soil clays. In general, the net negative charge was the primary factor in clay dispersion and the pH affected clay dispersion by changing the net charge on clay particles. In comparing the values for pure clay minerals quoted in the literature with soil clays having similar mineralogy, it was found that soil clays had higher flocculation values. This is shown to be due to higher net negative charge on soil clays than the corresponding values for pure clay minerals found in the literature. The effect of soil organic matter in enhancing the net negative charge probably contributes to the higher charge on soil clays. The critical dispersion concentration for clay dispersion from soil aggregates was lower than the flocculation values observed for the separated soil clays. The separated soil clays had high negative charge due to exposure of surfaces which were originally bonded in the aggregates. The dispersive potential of a number of Alfisols, Oxisols, Aridisols (calcareous soils) and Vertisols collected from different parts of Australia was highly correlated with soil pH. The relationship with CEC was poor because CEC was estimated at a pH different to the natural pH of the soil. This study has brought out the importance of pH in the management of dispersive soils.
Volcanic explosion clouds - Density, temperature, and particle content estimates from cloud motion

Photographic records of 10 vulcanian eruption clouds produced during the 1978 eruption of Fuego Volcano in Guatemala have been analyzed to determine cloud velocity and acceleration at successive stages of expansion. Cloud motion is controlled by air drag (dominant during early, high-speed motion) and buoyancy (dominant during late motion when the cloud is convecting slowly). Cloud densities in the range 0.6 to 1.2 times that of the surrounding atmosphere were obtained by fitting equations of motion for two common cloud shapes (spheres and vertical cylinders) to the observed motions. Analysis of the heat budget of a cloud permits an estimate of cloud temperature and particle weight fraction to be made from the density. Model results suggest that clouds generally reached temperatures within 10 K of that of the surrounding air within 10 seconds of formation and that dense particle weight fractions were less than 2% by this time. The maximum sizes of dense particles supported by motion in the conecting clouds range from 140 to 1700 μm.
Introduction to Protein Structure Prediction

This chapter gives a graceful introduction to problem of protein three- dimensional structure prediction, and focuses on how to make structural sense out of a single input sequence with unknown structure, the 'query' or 'target' sequence. We give an overview of the different classes of modelling techniques, notably template-based and template free. We also discuss the way in which structural predictions are validated within the global com- munity, and elaborate on the extent to which predicted structures may be trusted and used in practice. Finally we discuss whether the concept of a sin- gle fold pertaining to a protein structure is sustainable given recent insights. In short, we conclude that the general protein three-dimensional structure prediction problem remains unsolved, especially if we desire quantitative predictions. However, if a homologous structural template is available in the PDB model or reasonable to high accuracy may be generated.
Mare Tranquillitatis: Basalt emplacement history and relation to lunar samples

Galileo and Clementine multispectral data of the Mare Tranquillitatis region have been analyzed to investigate the stratigraphy of basaltic units and the effects of lateral and vertical mixing processes within the mare. The distribution of compositionally distinct mare units is observed to be correlated with previous UV/VIS ratio images, although estimates of soil titanium contents are low in some areas as a result of mixing of local basalts with nonmare feldspathic materials. Basalt units identified by their spectral properties and spectral mixture analysis are compared with groups of Apollo 11 samples defined by previous workers on the basis of age and chemistry. Spectral studies presented here indicate that the Apollo 11 site lies at the edge of a localized western mare unit which includes the youngest and most titanium-rich basalts in Tranquillitatis (Apollo 11 high-K, high-Ti samples). In southern Tranquillitatis, these basalts have been contaminated by a large degree of mixing with nonmare feldspathic materials. Nonmare materials near the Apollo 11 site are attributed largely to crater rays from Theophilus (100 km in diameter), which is located approximately 300 km to the south. A more extensive and stratigraphically older unit exposed near Apollo 11 is related to the low-K, high-Ti Apollo 11 samples and appears to extend as a coherent surface unit as far north as the Apollo 17 site in southern Serenitatis. The distribution of this spectrally identified basalt unit supports petrologic and geochemical evidence for the grouping of the high-Ti, low-K Apollo 11 and 17 basalt samples into the same regional volcanic events. Multispectral analysis of Tranquillitatis deposits also identify low-titanium basalts in the northeastern and southeastern portions of the basin that are older than the high-Ti basalts and are believed to be unsampled by Apollo 11. Several lines of evidence suggest that the Cayley Formation along the western Tranquillitatis margin may indeed lie on top of an ancient mare deposit buried by Imbrium basin ejecta (e.g., a cryptomare deposit). The distribution of vertically excavated feldspathic premare material within the mare provides information on the depth of the mare units and the proximity of the underlying basin topography. Compositional stratigraphy observed in both sets of multispectral data supports an asymmetric premare-fill basin topography containing thicker basalts in the northwestern portion of the basin than previously predicted by crater flooding data.
DISTRIBUTION AND SOCIO-ECONOMICS OF TWO LEGUMINOUS TREE SPECIES IN

This study was carried out to obtain information on the distribution and socio-economics of Parkia. Biglobosa and Tamarindus indica , as well as other constraints to their production in the Sudan and Guinea savanna agro ecologies of Nigeria, using structural questionnaires that were administered to farmers and herb sellers/herbalist who are not less than 40 years of age. The data generated showed that P. biglobosa and T. indica were commonly found in and around the house-hold compound (40%), while plantation of these tree species were rarely in existence within the agro ecologies (10%). It was gathered from the findings that these tree species play great role in socio-economic (100%) and trado-medical life (50%) of the rural people. Many of the respondents (40-90%) reported insect pests and disease as major constraints to their cultivations, while some admitted that low seed germination greatly hindered the cultivation of these trees within the agro ecologies. Global Journal of Agricultural Sciences Vol.2(2) 2003: 122-126