Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Somatomedin C in dairy cows related to energy and protein supply and to milk production

Somatomedin C and other hormones, as well as blood metabolites, were measured during the dry period and during lactation in dairy cows, given different amounts of energy and protein, to study metabolic and endocrine adaptations. Somatomedin C, specifically measured by radioimmunoassay after separation from its binding protein, did not exhibit typical diurnal variations, in contrast to somatotropin and insulin, which increased particularly after concentrate intake. Somatomedin C markedly decreased at parturition and reached lowest values around the peak of lactation, while levels of somatotropin, nonesterified fatty acids and ketone bodies were high and those of glucose, insulin, thyroxine and triiodothyronine were low. Thereafter somatomedin C values slowly increased up to the 12th week of lactation and remained elevated. Low energy and protein balances were characterized by particularly low somatomedin C concentrations. An additional protein deficit at peak lactation, when cows were already provided with low amounts of energy, did not further decrease somatomedin C levels. However, when high amounts of energy were given in the form of starch or crystalline fat, somatomedin C increased. Overall, there was a positive correlation of somatomedin C primarily with energy, but also with protein balances and a negative correlation with milk yield. Conversely, somatotropin increased markedly after parturition and was positively correlated with milk production and negatively with protein and energy balances. Thus, somatomedin C levels were paradoxically low in the presence of high circulating somatotropin. Insulin most closely paralleled somatomedin C levels. Therefore the anabolic state of metabolism at the end of pregnancy was characterized by high somatomedin C and insulin and relatively low somatotropin, whereas the catabolic state of early lactation was characterized by high somatotropin, low somatomedin C, insulin and thyroid hormones.
Space Mission Analysis and Design

List of Authors. preface. 1. The Space Mission Analysis and Design Process. 2. Mission Characterization. 3. Mission Evaluation. 4. Requirements Definition. 5. Space Mission Geometry. 6. Introduction to Astrodynamics. 7. Orbit and Constellation Design. 8. The Space Environment and Survivability. 9. Space Payload Design and Sizing. 10. Spacecraft Design and Sizing. 11. Spacecraft Subsystems. 12. Space Manufacture and Test. 13. Communications Architecture. 14. Mission Operations. 15. Ground System Design and Sizing. 16. Spacecraft Computer Systems. 17. Space Propulsion Systems. 18. Launch Systems. 19. Space Manufacturing and Reliability. 20. Cost Modeling. 21. Limits on Mission Design. 22. Design of Low-Cost Spacecraft. 23. Applying the Space Mission Analysis and Design. Appendices: A: Mass Distribution for Selected Satellites. B: Astronautical and Astrophysical Data. C: Elliptical Orbit Equations. D: Spherical Geometry Formulas. E: Universal Time and Julian Dates. F: Units and Conversion Factors. Index.
Predictors for Dexmedetomidine Requirement for Sedation under Regional Anesthesia

(1) Background: This prospective observational study aimed to investigate the predictors affecting DMT requirements for sedation during regional anesthesia. (2) Method: A total of 108 patients who received regional anesthesia with intravenous DMT administration for orthopedic upper- or lower-extremity surgery were enrolled. Following successful regional anesthesia, DMT was administered at a rate of 4 µg/kg/h until reaching loss of consciousness (LOC). The administered dose of DMT per body weight until LOC (DMTLOC; µg/kg) was evaluated. The infusion was maintained at a rate of 0.2–0.7 µg/kg/h during the surgery. At the end of surgery, the elapsed time to a BIS value of 90 (TBIS90; s) was recorded. Linear regression models were used to identify potential predictors of DMTLOC and TBIS90. (3) Results: One hundred patients were analyzed. There were negative relationships between DMTLOC and age (r = −0.297, p = 0.003) and DMTLOC and body mass index (BMI) (r = −0.425, p < 0.001), respectively. Multiple linear regression models revealed that both increasing age and BMI were significantly related to DMTLOC (r2 = 0.259, p < 0.001), but those variables showed no association with TBIS90. (4) Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that initial loading of DMT should be carefully titrated to minimize risk in elderly and obese surgical populations.
Social capital and ecological sustainability: Broken Hill

A recent study into community capacity building in a remote Australian community used a social capital survey instrument. The results indicate that women, often under-represented in decision-making and unrecognised as influential and powerful, form a major plank of the social capital strength m the community and demonstrate high commitment to environmental sustainabifity. The results for older women are particularly interesting. Findings have implications for community analysis, funding decisions and planning for promotion and development of programs on environmental sustainability. In 2002 a group of volunteers, mostly women, assisted with research into social capital. The women were drawn from the community through their attendance at community roundtable gatherings and community markets where the stall about the research had been set up and brochures placed in sample bags. Most people who expressed interest in being on the research team were women. Some were employed, others were retired or unemployed. The research team was headed by Jenny Onyx from the University of Technology Sydney who with Paul Bullen developed the survey instrument now validated in Australia and being tested overseas to accurately measure social capital (2000). The research team used the Onyx and Bullen survey instrument on social capital in the community of Broken Hill. The volunteers included specific questions about life in the town. One group of questions focused on attitudes towards environmental issues. In another paper (Onyx, Osburn and Bullen 2004) the link between social capital and concern for issues of ecological sustainability has been established. That is, the way people think and act towards other people within the community and the way they think and act towards the environment seem to be connected. This paper reports on the strength of the link we found between the two concepts of social capital and ecological sustainability. Moreover, the survey found that it was women more than men who have not only higher social capital and conununity connectivity but also had stronger commitment to ecological sustainability. These links have particular relevance for women and for those people planning programs to raise environmental awareness or activities to encourage ecological sustainability. The contribution of this paper is not to theory as such, but to how the effective application of an instrument which measures social capital can lead us to uncover where to position our energies in a community. Theresults of this research indicate that in this particular town, efforts and messages to promote ecological sustainability will find fertile ground if directed towards women and women's networks of connectivity . • JennyOnyx is Directorof the Centre forAustralianCommunityOrganisationsManagementat the Universityof TechnologvSy~Y' Paul Bullen is withManagementAlternatives;CraigWood is Social WorkerinFar West AreaHealth Servicein BrokenHill and LynelleOsburn is at Charles SturtUniversity Wagga·WiIgga.
Inflammation Versus Oxidative Stress in Pathophysiology of Alzheimer's disease in rat model

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a highly debilitating neurodegenerative disorder characterized by cognitive dysfunction, inflammation and oxidative stress are thought to play major roles in pathophysiology of the AD, which of them have a principle role is unclear. Objectives: The role of brain growth factors, cytokines and oxidative biomarkers in cognitive dysfunction induced by Aluminum Chloride (AlCL 3 ) in rats with application of anti-inflammatory (cilostazol) and antioxidant (N-acetyl cysteine, NAC) were investigated to clarify the predominant pathophysiological mechanism involved. Materials and Methods: Alzheimer's model group was given AlCL 3 (100 mg/kg-) orally for 6 weeks. Alzheimer's model + NAC and Alzheimer's model + cilostazol groups were given (NAC) and cilostazol respectively one hr. before AlCL 3 for the same duration. Results: anti-inflammatory or antioxidant significantly improved memory retention which was evaluated by Morris Water Maze, passive avoidance task and eight-arm radial maze. This improvement was consistent with histological recovery and was mediated by reduction AlCL 3 concentration in the brain hippocampus and frontal cortex, interference with the cholinergic dysfunction as well as prevention of oxidative damage. In addition, anti-inflammatory agent can modulate superiorly the inflammatory response via reduction the levels of inflammatory cytokines and adjustment the levels of brain–derived neurotrophic factors and transforming growth factor B. Conclusions: These findings support the principal role of inflammation in pathophysiology of AD and suggest a potential therapeutic application of anti-inflammatory agent for this condition.
Thermoelastic Stresses in FG-Cylinders

FGM components are generally constructed to sustain elevated temperatures and severe temperature gradients. Low thermal conductivity, low coefficient of thermal expansion and core ductility have enabled the FGM material to withstand higher temperature gradients for a given heat flux. Examples of structures undergo extremely high temperature gradients are plasma facing materials, propulsion system of planes, cutting tools, engine exhaust liners, aerospace skin structures, incinerator linings, thermal barrier coatings of turbine blades, thermal resistant tiles, and directional heat flux materials. Continuously varying the volume fraction of the mixture in the FGM materials eliminates the interface problems and mitigating thermal stress concentrations and causes a more smooth stress distribution. Extensive thermal stress studies made by Noda reveal that the weakness of the fiber reinforced laminated composite materials, such as delamination, huge residual stress, and locally large plastic deformations, may be avoided or reduced in FGM materials (Noda, 1991). Tanigawa presented an extensive review that covered a wide range of topics from thermo-elastic to thermo-inelastic problems. He compiled a comprehensive list of papers on the analytical models of thermo-elastic behavior of FGM (Tanigawa, 1995). The analytical solution for the stresses of FGM in the one-dimensional case for spheres and cylinders are given by Lutz and Zimmerman (Lutz & Zimmerman, 1996 & 1999). These authors consider the non-homogeneous material properties as linear functions of radius. Obata presented the solution for thermal stresses of a thick hollow cylinder, under a two-dimensional transient temperature distribution, made of FGM (Obata et al., 1999). Sutradhar presented a Laplace transform Galerkin BEM for 3-D transient heat conduction analysis by using the Green's function approach where an exponential law for the FGMs was used (Sutradhar et al., 2002). Kim and Noda studied the unsteady-state thermal stress of FGM circular hollow cylinders by using of Green's function method (Kim & Noda, 2002). Reddy and co-workers carried out theoretical as well as finite element analyses of the thermo-mechanical behavior of FGM cylinders, plates and shells. Geometric non-linearity and effect of coupling item was considered for different thermal loading conditions (Praveen & Reddy, 1998, Reddy & Chin, 1998, Paraveen et al., 1999, Reddy, 2000, Reddy & Cheng, 2001). Shao and Wang studied the thermo-mechanical stresses of FGM hollow cylinders and cylindrical panels with the assumption that the material properties of FGM followed simple laws, e.g., exponential law,
Eurasip Journal on Applied Signal Processing Interaction between High-level and Low-level Image Analysis for Semantic Video Object Extraction

— The task of extracting a semantic video object is split into two sub-problems, namely object segmentation, and region segmentation. Object segmentation relies on a priori assumptions, whereas region segmentation is data-driven, and can be solved in an automatic manner. These two sub-problems are not mutually independent, and they can benefit from interactions with each other. In this paper a framework for such interaction is formulated. This representation scheme based on region segmentation and semantic segmentation is compatible with the view that image analysis and scene understanding problems can be decomposed into low-level and high-level tasks. Low-level tasks pertain to region oriented processing, whereas the high-level tasks are closely related to object level processing. This approach emulates the human visual system: what one 'sees' in a scene depends on the scene itself (region segmentation) as well as on the cognitive task (semantic segmentation) at hand. The higher level segmentation results in a partition corresponding to semantic video objects. Semantic video objects do not usually have invariant physical properties and the definition depends on the application. Hence, the definition incorporates complex domain specific knowledge, and is not easy to generalize. For the specific implementation used in this paper, motion is used as a clue to semantic information. In this framework, an automatic algorithm is presented for computing the semantic partition based on color change detection. The change detection strategy is designed to be immune to the sensor noise and local illumination variations. The lower level segmentation identifies the partition corresponding to perceptually uniform regions. These regions are derived by clustering in an N-dimensional feature space, composed of static as well as dynamic image attributes. We propose an interaction mechanism between the semantic and the region partitions which allows to cope with multiple simultaneous objects. Experimental results show that the proposed method extracts semantic video objects with high spatial accuracy and temporal coherence.
Java 2 Micro Edition Application Development

(NOTE: Each chapter concludes with a Summary.) Introduction. 1. Java 2 Micro Edition Overview. Historical Evolution. Micro Edition-Related Java Specification Requests. J2ME Configurations and Profiles. Sun J2ME Software Development Kits. Tools and Third-Party Products for J2ME Application Development. Developing a Simple Application. 2. The Connected Limited Device Configuration. General CLDC Limitations. CLDC Application Design. CLDC APIs. CLDC Profiles. Java Application Deployment. JAM on MIDP. JAM for PDAP. 3. MIDP Programming. MIDlets. High-Level API. Low-Level API. 4. PDAP Programming. PDAP Application Life Cycle. PDA User Interface. 5. Data Persistency. RMS Basics, Basic Functionality of the Class RecordStore. A Simple Diary Application Using RMS. Record Listeners. Storing Custom Objects. Ordered Traversal: Comparators and Record Enumerations. The Search Problem. RMS Enhancements in PDAP. 6. Networking: The Generic Connection Framework. Creating a Connection-The Connector Class. Connection Types. GCF Examples. 7. PIM: Accessing the Personal Information Manager. General PIM API Design. Addressbook API. Addressbook Sample Application. 8. Size Does Matter: Optimizing J2ME Applications. Freeing Unused Variables and Resources. Loop Condition Checking. Avoiding Recursion. Using Arrays Instead of Vectors. Using Record Stores Instead of Heap Memory. Distributing Functionality over Several Small MIDlets or PDAlets. Fragmentation Problems. User Interface Issues. 9. Advanced Application: Blood Sugar Log. Requirement Analysis. Day Log. Persistent Storage: The LogStorage Class. The User Interface. 10. Third Party Libraries. XML. Simple Object Access Protocol: SOAP. MathFP. The Bouncy Castle Crypto API. User Interface Extensions. Appendix A. Class Library: CLDC Packages. The java.io Package. The java.lang Package. The java.util Package. The javax.microedition. io Package. MIDP-Specific Packages. PDAP-Specific Packages. Appendix B. Comparison Charts. com.sun.awt. java.awt. java.awt. event. java.lang. java.lang. ref. java.lang. reflect. java.util. java.util. jar. java.util. zip. javax.pim. addressbook. javax.pim. calendar. javax.pim. database. Packages not Available in CLDC. Index.
The New Millennium Formation Flying Optical Interferometer

Spaceborne opt i ca l inte~erometry has been identified as a critical technology for many of NASA’s 21* centu~ science visions. Included in this m“sion are interferometers that can probe the orighs of stars and can ultimately study Earthlike planets around nearby stars. To accomplish this feat, separation of an interferometer’s collecting apertures by large baselines are required from hundreds of meters up to thousands of kilometers. Thus the large separations require multiple spacecraft jlying in a formation. Furthermore, optical pathlengths over these distances must be controlled to the nanometer level. This level of control demands precision spacecraft controls, active optics, metrology, and starlight detection technologies, To date, some of these technologies have been demonstrated only in ground applications with baselines of order of a hundred meters; space operation will require a significant capability enhancement. This paper describes the New Millennium formation flying optical interferometer concept and associated technologz”es. The mission is designed to provide a technology demonstration for multiple spacecraft precision formation flying and very long baseline optical interferometry. The interferometer would be distributed over three spacecraft: two spacecraft would serve as collectors, directing ——— ——— ————-— ———---— ——— ——— ——--— —— —--— Copyright@ 1997 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. The U.S. Governmertt has a royalty-free license to exercise all rights under the copyright claimed herein for governmental purposes. All other rights are reserved by the copyright owner. starlight toward a third spacecraft which would combine the light and perform the in terferometric detection. The interferometer baselines would be variable, allowing baselines of 100 m to 1 km in an equilateral formation, providing angular resolutions from 1 to 0.1 milliarcsec.
Singular Equilibria in Nonlinear Elasticity

This talk centres on discontinuous weak solutions to the equilibrium equations of nonlinear elasticity which may be interpreted as fractures forming in an initially perfect material. The approach is motivated by the fundamental work in [1] and the subsequent development in [4]. I will first give a brief introduction to the variational approach to nonlinear elasticity and review some necessary conditions for a minimiser. I will then present results on the existence and properties of singular equilibria using the distributional determinant and degree theory (see [4], [2], [5]) to characterise the set of admissible deformations. Finally, I will indicate applications of these ideas to modelling flaws in a material and propose a possible mechanism for the initiation of cracks (see [3]). (Much of the work presented is joint with S.J. Spector (S. Illinois). )
Semantic priming and reading skills among Spanish-speaking dual language learners

ABSTRACT Substantial research among bilingual adults indicates that exposure to words primes other semantically related words within and across languages, as well as the direct translation equivalents [e.g. Chen and Ng 1989. “Semantic Facilitation and Translation Priming Effects in Chinese-English Bilinguals. ” Memory & Cognition 17: 454–462]. However, there is less research on semantic and translation priming among bilingual children. The purpose of this study was to evaluate semantic priming effects as an indicator of underlying lexical quality among Spanish-speaking dual language learners (DLLs) in the U.S., including examination of whether semantic and translation priming effects were related to children’s reading-related skills. Ninety-five Spanish-speaking DLLs in second and fourth grade completed an eye-tracking semantic priming task along with measures of English and Spanish reading-related skills. Results indicated that there were consistent translation priming effects, with observed translation priming stronger from English to Spanish than from Spanish to English. Additionally, there were consistent within-English semantic priming effects. Results suggested that semantic priming effects were stronger for children with higher levels of English vocabulary and reading comprehension than they were for children with lower levels of English vocabulary and reading comprehension. Findings are discussed in the context of theoretical models of bilingual language processing, as well as the lexical quality hypothesis [e.g. Perfetti 2007. “Reading Ability: Lexical Quality to Comprehension. ” Scientific Studies of Reading 11: 357–383].
Reconstruction of Microraptor and the Evolution of Iridescent Plumage

Flashy Feathers Feather colors play key roles in the lives of birds, functioning in everything from camouflage, to thermoregulation, to sexual signaling. Much recent research has revealed that some dinosaurs also had feathers, and examination of feather components in fossil and preserved feathers has begun to reveal how feather color may have played a role in the lives of these dinosaurs. Li et al. (p. 1215) compared the characteristics of the melanosomes of the paravian dinosaur Microraptor to those found in extant birds, which suggest that its feathers were black and iridescent. The existence of this subtle color reflectance, together with morphological aspects of the feathered tail, suggests an important role for signaling in the early evolution of feathers. Iridescence in the feathers of a feathered dinosaur suggests an early role for feathers in ornamental display and signaling. Iridescent feather colors involved in displays of many extant birds are produced by nanoscale arrays of melanin-containing organelles (melanosomes). Data relevant to the evolution of these colors and the properties of melanosomes involved in their generation have been limited. A data set sampling variables of extant avian melanosomes reveals that those forming most iridescent arrays are distinctly narrow. Quantitative comparison of these data with melanosome imprints densely sampled from a previously unknown specimen of the Early Cretaceous feathered Microraptor predicts that its plumage was predominantly iridescent. The capacity for simple iridescent arrays is thus minimally inferred in paravian dinosaurs. This finding and estimation of Microraptor feathering consistent with an ornamental function for the tail suggest a centrality for signaling in early evolution of plumage and feather color.