Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sevoflurane attenuates brain damage through inhibiting autophagy and apoptosis in cerebral ischemia-reperfusion rats

The present study aimed to investigate the effects of sevoflurane post-conditioning in a rat brain cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) model and examine its possible mechanism. Rats were randomly divided into six groups: Sham control group (Sham), I/R group, sevoflurane group (Se), Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4) inhibitor group (Tak-242), nuclear factor (NF)-κB inhibitor group (QNZ) and Sevoflurane post-conditioning combined with TLR4-NF-κB signaling pathway inhibitor group (Se + Tak-242). Morris water maze test and tetrazolium chloride staining were used to investigate the I/R injury. The nerve cell apoptosis and autophagy in cortical tissue were detected by TUNEL and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. The expression of TLR4 protein in cortical tissue was observed by immunohistochemical staining. The expression of autophagy and apoptotic associated proteins in cortical tissues and the activity of TLR4-NF-κB signaling pathway were assayed by western blot analysis. Sevoflurane post-conditioning improved the learning and memory dysfunction caused by cerebral I/R injury. The cerebral infarction area, nerve cell apoptosis and formation of autophagic vacuoles were reduced after sevoflurane administration. The expression of light chain 3II/I, Beclin-1, Bad and Cleaved-Caspase-3 proteins were inhibited and the expression of Bcl-2 protein was upregulated after sevoflurane administration. Sevoflurane post-conditioning also inhibited the TLR4 protein and NF-κB phosphorylation, and increased inhibitor of kBα phosphorylation. The treatment effect of Tak-242 and QNZ groups were not significantly different compared with the Se group (P>0.05), and the Se + Tak-242 group had the best results. The present study demonstrated that sevoflurane post-conditioning could protect middle cerebral artery occlusion-induced brain injury rats by inhibiting autophagy and apoptosis, and that its mechanism is related to the TLR4-NF-κB signaling pathway.
Average plasma properties in the central plasma sheet

Using four months of tail data obtained by the three-dimensional plasma instrument on board the AMPTE/IRM satellite in 1986, we have done a statistical survey on the behavior of ion and electron moments in the central plasma sheet. Almost 80,000 spin averages of plasma density, ion bulk velocity, ion and electron temperature, and plasma β were analyzed with respect to differences between their values in the inner and outer central plasma sheet as well as their dependence on magnetic activity. The ion temperature increases with increasing magnetic activity while the ion density decreases during disturbed intervals, except in the neutral sheet neighborhood at smaller radial distances. The ion and electron temperatures in the central plasma sheet are highly correlated, with Ti/Te being constant over a wide range of temperatures and about twice as large as in the distant tail. The average ion flow speeds in the central plasma sheet are below 100 km/s and nearly identical to those found in the plasma sheet boundary layer, although the distribution functions usually are quite different. High-speed flows do occur, but in bursts of most often less than 1 min duration with intermittent intervals of nearly stagnant plasma. The distribution of flow directions strongly favors sunward flow for velocities above 300 km/s, indicating that a near-earth neutral line is rarely, if ever, located inside of XGSM = −19 RE.
Geological evidence for a global tectonic polarity

Inferences about plate motions over the past 40 Ma, based on structural and geodetic data, suggest that there is a coherent movement direction on a global scale. Moreover a ‘westward’ drift of the lithosphere relative to the asthenosphere is indicated by plate motions in the hot-spot reference frame. Independent geological observations such as the different styles of deformation in thrust belts associated with subduction following or opposing the relative ‘eastward or northeastward’ mantle flow also support this global tectonic polarity. Unfortunately most hot-spot reference frames are based on assumptions which strongly limit their validity. For example, many combine magmatic sources originating from different depths in the mantle, including hot-spots located along oceanic ridges which are not fixed relative to one another. Using a hot-spot reference frame filtered to exclude shallow hot-spots and anomalous ‘wet-spots’, we would predict a much higher relative ‘westward’ drift of the lithosphere. Plate motions are not random, rather that they are controlled by the relative motion between lithosphere and asthenosphere, and by gradients in lithospheric thickness and composition.Triangular shaped plates may experience rotations resulting from differential drag at the base of the lithosphere with respect to the asthenosphere (e.g. the clockwise rotation of South America). Plates appear to follow an undulatory pattern of motion on a global scale and their poles of rotation fall into a main cone located near the Earth’s rotation poles. Plate rotations induced by triangular shape, differential basal drag or lithospheric anisotropies along subduction zones may generate the scattered distribution of Euler poles. This might have inhibited the recognition of a coherent global tectonic pattern.
Non-stationary flow around buildings during run-up of tsunami waves on a plain beach

This paper presents an experimental investigation that focuses on some predominant flow features that arise around surface mounted vertical obstacles which are exposed to a transient flow. The flow under investigation is caused by a tsunami-like long wave that climbs up a 1:40 sloping plain beach. In this study the wave height in offshore waters is varied. A single obstacle of 10 cm width as well as side-by-side arrangement of two identical square obstacles with different spacing are considered at an approximate length scale of 1 in 100. The analysis reveals important flow features around the various obstacle configurations. Particular emphasize is laid on the spatiotemporal evolution of the wake angle that linearly increases over time irrespective of the obstacle spacing. The growth rate of the wake angle reciprocally depends on the gap ratio over the investigated range of g* = 0.0 to g* = 3.0.
a Cloud-Aerosol Discrimination Algorithm for Calipso LIDAR Observations: Algorithm Tests

An algorithm based on three-dimensional probability distribution functions (PDFs) has been developed for discriminating between clouds and aerosols in the lidar data that will be collected during the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) mission. The algorithm has been tested with a data set acquired by the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) during the THORPEX-PTOST 2003 campaign. Comparisons with feature classifications made by an existing two-dimensional algorithm have also been conducted, and in general the results obtained by the two methods are in good agreement. Dust presents a special case. Because the intrinsic scattering properties of dust layers can be very similar to those of clouds, additional tests focused on distinguishing dust from clouds are highly desirable. In this paper we briefly introduce the CALIPSO cloudaerosol discrimination algorithm. We then present a case study conducted using a layer of mixed smoke and dust observed by the CPL during the SAFARI campaign in the Southern Africa region. For this particular layer, a success rate of close to 100% is achieved.
Natalya Volchkova Does Financial-Industrial Group Membership Affect Fixed Investment: Evidence from Russia

comments and suggestions. The current research estimates the accelerator type model of fixed investment using a Russian industrial enterprise dataset. This dataset contains individual firms' accounting data for 1996 and 1997. The sample of firms was divided into three subsamples based on the ownership structure data. Registered Financial-Industrial Groups, unregistered Financial-Industrial Groups and non-group subsets were analyzed in order to compare sensitivities of investment to changes in internal liquidity in these three sets of firms. Controlling for size and investment opportunities it was found that in 1996-1997 the firms in unregistered groups invest a larger proportion of their retained earnings relative to the rest of the economy. We interpret this result as a proof of the hypothesis of better contract enforcement in unofficial groups compared to the rest of economy in the situation of lack of external financing of investment.
Part-Time Faculty: Quality Issues.

In a recent NEA study of parttime faculty, aproximately equal numbers of union members and non-members were interviewed in each of four states — California, Washington, Minnesota and Michigan. These states were chosen because they re p resent geographic diversity, have both voluntary membership and agency-fee barg a i n i n g units, and have significant numbers of part-time faculty who belong to the union.
Detection of cirrus overlapping low‐level clouds

A multispectral method is proposed to detect two-layer cloud systems with an optically thin (τ 1.0, with at least 100-mbar separation. The method uses the results from different high-resolution infrared radiometer sounder (HIRS) channel combinations assuming a single cloud layer in the CO2-Slicing technique and is valid over both land and ocean. Two months of HIRS data (July 1989 and January 1990) have been analyzed with this method. Globally (excluding regions poleward of 60°) for HIRS field of view (FOV) (about 17 km at nadir) the fraction of such two-layer cloudiness is 25.5% over land and 32.0% over ocean for July 1989 and is 17.8% over land and 25.6% over ocean for January 1990 (this is not the total fraction of two-layer systems). The global distribution patterns of two-layer cloudiness for these 2 months are also presented: the fraction of two-layer cloudiness is larger over ocean than over land; it is larger in the tropics and midlatitude storm zones and smaller in the subtropical zones and marine stratiform cloud regions; over land it is larger in the summer than in the winter at all latitudes; over ocean it is larger in the summer for the northern hemispheric eastern Pacific region while is larger in the winter for all other regions. Qualitative comparisons to surface and upper air observations are also presented and are very encouraging.
Characterization and transport of aerosols over the Bay of Bengal during the winter monsoon: a comparative study using in-situ and satellite measurements

Natural processes, such as dust storms and sea salt spray, and anthropogenic activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and biomass, introduce aerosols into the atmosphere. Their concentration, geographic distribution and particle size promote significant climatic consequences. Aerosol transport processes, from landmasses to oceans, are scarcely understood because of inadequate in-situ observations. This study reports the results of spectral aerosol optical depth (AOD) measurements using a five-channel (380, 440, 500, 675 and 870 nm) handheld MICROTOPS Sun-photometer used during a sea-truth data collection campaign conducted in the central Bay of Bengal (BOB) during the northeastern monsoon period (10 November to 13 December 2007). For the entire cruise period, the mean values of the daily average of the AODs at 500 nm and 870 nm were 0.39 ± 0.065 and 0.22 ± 0.047, respectively, the mean value of the Angstrom exponent (α) was 1.23 ± 0.2 and the turbidity parameter (β) was 0.183 ± 0.044. A smaller α value together with a larger β value suggests the presence of an abundance of smaller aerosol particles near the coast. An air mass back-trajectory analysis was undertaken to identify the potential source regions of the aerosols. Analysis of the results demonstrated the effect of the aerosol transport and source regions on the spectral behaviour of the AODs. In-situ measured AOD (550 nm) and α (550 nm, 865 nm) values were further compared with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)-derived parameters. The in-situ and MODIS-derived AOD values were found to be in good agreement, with a coefficient of determination (R 2) of 0.78 and a standard error of 0.05, while the R 2 for α was 0.68 with a standard error of 0.14.
Spatiotemporal dynamics of calcium signals during neutrophil cluster formation

Significance During tissue damage or infection, neutrophils rapidly engage into a coordinated migration to form clusters. Neutrophil clustering is believed to contribute to wound sealing or pathogen clearance. Here we investigate the signals responsible for this collective behavior. We found that calcium signals in neutrophils recognizing microbial products promote the production of the neutrophil attractant LTB4, favoring the migration of additional neutrophils toward the cluster and additional calcium signals in a self-amplifying phenomenon.
WHISTLER STUDIES OF THE PLASMAPAUSE IN THE MAGNETOSPHERE. 1. TEMPORAL VARIATIONS IN THE POSITION OF THE KNEE AND SOME EVIDENCE ON PLASMA MOTIONS NEAR THE KNEE

The position of the knee in the density of magnetospheric ionization was measured on a high time-resolution basis using whistlers recorded during July and part of August 1963. (The knee is an abrupt decrease in magnetospheric ionization density, frequently observed at field lines with an equatorial radius of about 4 RE.) The data were obtained at Eights (64°S dipole latitude) and Byrd (70°S dipole latitude) in the Antarctic. The whistler results and results from other experiments confirm that the knee is a regular feature of the magnetosphere. For conditions of steady, moderate geomagnetic agitation (Kp = 2–4), the diurnal variation in geocentric equatorial range to the knee is remarkably repeatable. It is characterized by (1) a slow inward movement of the knee on the nightside, covering about 1.5 RE in 10 hours; (2) a slight outward movement on the dayside covering about 0.5 RE and (3) a rapid outward shift in the late afternoon covering about 1 RE in 1 hour. During periods of changing magnetic activity, the knee position changes with at most a few hours' delay, moving inward with increasing magnetic activity. The results from Eights and Byrd may be generalized to describe a three-dimensional model of thermal ionization in the magnetosphere involving a dense (∼100 el/cm3) inner region and a tenuous (∼1 el/cm3) outer region separated by a sharp field-aligned boundary, the plasmapause. During the postmidnight hours, the inward motion of the knee involves a corresponding inward motion of the ionization just inside the plasmapause. The rapid outward shift of the knee near 1800 LT does not involve an outward plasma motion, but instead involves the presence of a region of ‘new’ high-density (∼100 el/cm3) plasma in the equatorial range of about 4–5 RE. Preliminary evidence shows that, at least in the period 0000–1700 LT, the ionization inside the plasmapause rotates at approximately the angular velocity of the earth.
PDSI variations at Kongtong Mountain, China, inferred from a 283‐year Pinus tabulaeformis ring width chronology

[1] Pinus tabulaeformis ring widths were used to reconstruct mean Palmer Drought Severity Indices (PDSIs) from May to July for each of the past 283 years for Kongtong Mountain, China. A calibration model for the period from 1940 to 2005 explains 66.4% (or 65.9% after adjusting for the loss of the degrees of freedom) of the actual PDSI variance. The reconstructed Kongtong Mountain PDSIs could be representative of the moisture conditions of the entire Loess Plateau. The reconstruction captures a severe 1927–1930 drought event that was widespread across all of northern China. After 11-year moving average, the reconstructed Kongtong PDSI was found to compare well with other tree ring-based temperature reconstructions from both Huanglong (in the eastern part of the Chinese Loess Plateau) and Hokkaido, Japan. This result indicates that high temperatures may be a major contributor to the severity of dryness at low frequencies. Significant 93.33-year and approximate 2-year cycles were observed in the Kongtong tree ring chronology.
Holocene gelifluction in a snow-patch environment at the Forest-Tundra Transition along the eastern Hudson Bay Coast, Canada

The Holocene chronology of gelifluction events in a snow-patch environment of the Richmond Gulf area, eastern Hudson Bay Coast (northern Quebec), has been constructed using sixty radiocarbon-dated buried organic horizons. The samples were recovered from nine soil trenches located along an altitudinal gradient associated with a chronosequence as determined by the regional land emersion curve. The most significant gelifluction activity occurred after c. 2,800 B. P. Gelifluction events occurred around 5,600, 5,000, 4,500, 3,150, 2,500, 1,550, 1,200 and 450 B.P., and at present. According to the frequency of 14C dates. gelifluction has been particularly active between 2,800-2,300, 1,700–900 and 600-300 B.P., and at present. Gelifluction occurrence seems to be closely related to well-bracketed cold episodes in northern Quebec. The increase in frequency of 14C dates associated with burial of organic matter through gelifluction after c. 2,800 B. P. substantiates the colling trend depicted elsewhere, both in northern Quebec and in the northern hemisphere.
Improved YOLOv5s for Small Ship Detection With Optical Remote Sensing Images

Ship detection is of great importance in territorial security and marine environmental protection. However, the accurate detection of small ships is a challenging task in complex environments mainly due to small ships having few features on remote sensing images. In this letter, we propose a small ship detection model based on YOLOv5s. The major features of the proposed model include: 1) a detection layer is added with a shallow feature map in the head and skip connections are employed in the neck to improve the detection accuracy of small ships; 2) a novel and effective hybrid spatial pyramid pooling (HSPP) is proposed to fuse the local and global information of feature maps; 3) a coordinate attention (CA) mechanism is employed in the backbone to augment the representations of small ships, and efficient IOU (EIOU) is used as the loss function for bounding box regression to enhance the localization accuracy of the proposed model; and 4) K-means++ algorithm is used to obtain more reasonable anchors for small ship detection. We introduce the multiscale ship dataset OSSD, which contains 10133 images. Experiments on LEVIR-Ship and OSSD validate the effectiveness of our proposed model. The code and OSSD will be available at https://github.com/wenjieo/Improved-YOLOv5s-for-small-ship-detection.
Exact and Approximate Solutions for Seepage through Semipermeable Cutoff Walls

AbstractAn explicit analytical solution is developed for the problem of steady, two-dimensional seepage in the vertical plane through a fully penetrating, semipermeable cutoff wall. The flow is driven by a head drop across an overlying dam, whose width is equal to the width of the wall. Results including the discharge beneath the dam, the differential head across the wall, the hydraulic efficiency of the wall, and the exit gradient along the bed of the downstream reservoir are presented as dimensionless charts. Rigorous comparisons are made with solutions obtained by approximate methods, which are applicable to more-general problems. The analytical solutions and approximate methods are used to estimate the discharge and the differential head at the Shikwamkwa Dam in Ontario, Canada, and to assess the need for more-detailed seepage modeling.
Chemical Composition of Pre-Cambrian Slates with Notes on the Geochemical Evolution of Lutites

The average (unweighted) chemical composition of 33 pre-Cambrian slates is (in per cent): $$SiO_{2}-56.30; TiO_{2}-0.77; Al_{2}O_{3}-17.24; Fe_{2}O_{3}-3.83; FeO-5.09; MnO-0.10; MgO-2.54; CaO-1.00; Na_{2}O-1.23; K_{2}O-3.79; P_{2}O_{5}-0.14$$; combined water-3.31; moisture-0.38; $$CO_{2}-0.84; C-1.18; SO_{3}-0.28; FeS_{2}-1.98$$. The average comprises 9 analyses by the author and 24 (21 published, 3 unpublished) by others. The geographic distribution of the samples is as follows: 4 from Ontario; 18 from Michigan and Wisconsin; and 11 from Minnesota. The stratigraphic distribution is: 5 from the Archean, 25 from the Huronian, and 3 from the Keweenawan. Comparison of the pre-Cambrian average with averages of Paleozoic and Mesozoic-Cenozoic shales (Clarke) reveals that progressively younger lutites contain successively less $$Al_{2}O_{3}, FeO$$, total iron, $$K_{2}O$$, and C, and successively more $$CaO, P_{2}O_{5}$$, moisture, $$CO_{2}$$, and $$SO_{3}$$. Substitution of a pre-Cambrian average weighted for sediment types changes none of the trends except that of carbon. The validity of the Paleozoic average (51 samples) is attested by correspondence with the average of 36 American slates (Eckel), 27 of which are Paleozoic. The Paleozoic shale and slate averages also indicate that chemical changes attending metamorphism of shale to slate are restricted to partial reduction of iron and loss of moisture and cannot account for the differences observed between the averages of the three ages. The greater abundance of $$CaO, CO_{2}, P_{2}O_{5}$$, and $$SO_{3}$$ in the averages of younger rocks may be related to the development of life, and the other consistent variations noted may be due to progressively coarser textures in the younger samples.
Property fluxes at 30°S and their implications for the Pacific‐Indian throughflow and the global heat budget

Six hydrographic basinwide sections, two in each of the three major ocean basins, are employed in a set of inverse calculations to determine the extent of exchange between the Pacific and Indian Oceans through the Indonesian Archipelago and the net global oceanic heat flux. All existing estimates of Indonesian Passage throughflow, including the largest (20 Sv), are consistent with the model constraints which combine data from the southern Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans. The models and data are unable to limit the extent of the exchange, i.e., both smaller and larger throughflows produce physically reasonable circulation patterns. Seasonal and interannual variations, which have been found by other investigators and which are not resolved, suggest that in the long-term mean an estimate of about 10 Sv for the throughflow is most reasonable. Globally, at 30°S, the estimated net oceanic heat flux is −0.7 ± 0.1 PW (1 PW = 1015 W), dominated by a large (> 1 PW), southward flux in the Indian Ocean. Large equatorward heat flux values, O(0.8 PW), in the South Atlantic Basin are not consistent with the data. Therefore although the data are consistent with some water following the “warm water” return path for North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW), the “cold water” path must play the dominant role in the maintenance of the global thermohaline cell associated with the formation process of NADW.