Ranking the whole MEDLINE database according to a large training set using text indexing

BACKGROUND: The MEDLINE database contains over 12 million references to scientific literature, with about 3/4 of recent articles including an abstract of the publication. Retrieval of entries using queries with keywords is useful for human users that need to obtain small selections. However, particular analyses of the literature or database developments may need the complete ranking of all the references in the MEDLINE database as to their relevance to a topic of interest. This report describes a method that does this ranking using the differences in word content between MEDLINE entries related to a topic and the whole of MEDLINE, in a computational time appropriate for an article search query engine. RESULTS: We tested the capabilities of our system to retrieve MEDLINE references which are relevant to the subject of stem cells. We took advantage of the existing annotation of references with terms from the MeSH hierarchical vocabulary (Medical Subject Headings, developed at the National Library of Medicine). A training set of 81,416 references was constructed by selecting entries annotated with the MeSH term stem cells or some child in its sub tree. Frequencies of all nouns, verbs, and adjectives in the training set were computed and the ratios of word frequencies in the training set to those in the entire MEDLINE were used to score references. Self-consistency of the algorithm, benchmarked with a test set containing the training set and an equal number of references randomly selected from MEDLINE was better using nouns (79%) than adjectives (73%) or verbs (70%). The evaluation of the system with 6,923 references not used for training, containing 204 articles relevant to stem cells according to a human expert, indicated a recall of 65% for a precision of 65%. CONCLUSION: This strategy appears to be useful for predicting the relevance of MEDLINE references to a given concept. The method is simple and can be used with any user-defined training set. Choice of the part of speech of the words used for classification has important effects on performance. Lists of words, scripts, and additional information are available from the web address

Examining the White Karelian textile tradition of the late nineteenth century – focus on plant fibers

Collection SU4522 in the Finno-Ugric Collections of the National Museum of Finland consists of 143 items, mainly textiles from nineteenth-century White Karelia, now part of the current Russia. Forty-one linen textiles were chosen for closer examination, with the aim of evaluating the area's textile culture and identifying the materials using microscopic methods. Flax, hemp and nettle have all been traditional materials for clothing in northern Europe. Additionally, cotton became established in the region during the nineteenth century. Previous research lacked such a deep examination of the textile materials used, leaving room for speculation. Stinging nettle has not been shown before to have been used as a textile material in the Karelian area. Our results show that it appeared commonly in ratsina-shirts and kaspaikka-towels. Against the consensus hemp was rare and appeared only in one of the items. The results are mirrored by concurrent pictorial and written material from I. K. Inha who visited the region in 1894 and collected most of the items in the collection. White Karelian textile traditions from clothing to fabrics, weaving, spinning and fiber production are discussed in the article. Nevertheless, questions concerning the origins of the materials and the effects of the peddling tradition would need further research.Peer reviewe

Wide-angle X-ray scattering studies on contemporary and ancient bast fibres used in textiles - ultrastructural studies on stinging nettle

Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) is a potential source material for industrial applications. However, systematic research on the ultrastructural properties of nettle fibres is lacking. Determining the ultrastructure of nettle and the other bast fibres also provides new insights into the studies of archaeological fibres and their usage. In this study, the nanostructure of modern and ancient nettle samples was studied using wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) and compared to other bast fibres. The culturo-historical fibre samples consisted of nettle, flax, and hemp from White Karelian textiles collected 1894 as well as of 800-900-year-old archaeological textile fragments from Ravattula Ristimaki burial site, Finland. Using WAXS, the average cellulose crystallite widths, relative crystallinities and orientational order (including microfibril angle for the modern fibres) were determined and compared. The results also revealed the suitability of the WAXS analysis for fibre identification. The crystallite widths were of the similar size for all modern fibres (3.4-4.8 nm). Subtle differences in the relative crystallinities in descending order (from flax to nettle, and finally hemp) were observed. Also, subtle differences in the mean MFAs were observed (10 +/- 1 degrees for flax, 12 +/- 1 degrees for nettle, and 14 +/- 1 degrees for hemp). For the culturo-historical fibres, the values for crystallite widths and relative crystallinities were larger compared to the corresponding modern references. In addition, features due to the presence of non-cellulosic, crystalline substances (e.g., calcium oxalates) were detected in the WAXS patterns of all the modern nettle fibres. These features could potentially be used as a tool for identification purposes.Peer reviewe

Distributed Computing in the Asynchronous LOCAL model

The LOCAL model is among the main models for studying locality in the framework of distributed network computing. This model is however subject to pertinent criticisms, including the facts that all nodes wake up simultaneously, perform in lock steps, and are failure-free. We show that relaxing these hypotheses to some extent does not hurt local computing. In particular, we show that, for any construction task $T$ associated to a locally checkable labeling (LCL), if $T$ is solvable in $t$ rounds in the LOCAL model, then $T$ remains solvable in $O(t)$ rounds in the asynchronous LOCAL model. This improves the result by Casta\~neda et al. [SSS 2016], which was restricted to 3-coloring the rings. More generally, the main contribution of this paper is to show that, perhaps surprisingly, asynchrony and failures in the computations do not restrict the power of the LOCAL model, as long as the communications remain synchronous and failure-free

Colorants Detected by HPLC-PDA in Textiles from 13th Century Lieto Ristinpelto, Finland

Organic colorants of textiles found in the female burial of Lieto Ristinpelto, SW Finland, were analyzed by HPLC-PDA. The textiles’ visible colors varied from different brownish shades to blueish, greenish, and reddish hues. The aim of the chromatographic analysis was to deepen the current understandings of the dyes used in Finland at the transition between the 12th and 13th centuries AD, i.e., at the beginning of the local Medieval period, and to contribute important new information about dyes and clothing from this less-known period of textile history of Finland. The textile finds consisted of a bronze spiral ornamented shawl, an apron tied at the waist, two tablet-woven bands, and a diagonally plaited band with plaited tassels. A unique find was a textile possibly made using the sprang technique. Other textile finds were an orange wool tabby and twill fragments. Analysis of thirty samples from fourteen different textiles indicated that woad colorants were present in most samples, accompanied with lichen compounds, and dyer’s madder was in two visually orange fragments. The visually reddish samples contained luteolin, but no red colorants

Locality of Not-So-Weak Coloring

Many graph problems are locally checkable: a solution is globally feasible if it looks valid in all constant-radius neighborhoods. This idea is formalized in the concept of locally checkable labelings (LCLs), introduced by Naor and Stockmeyer (1995). Recently, Chang et al. (2016) showed that in bounded-degree graphs, every LCL problem belongs to one of the following classes: - "Easy": solvable in $O(\log^* n)$ rounds with both deterministic and randomized distributed algorithms. - "Hard": requires at least $\Omega(\log n)$ rounds with deterministic and $\Omega(\log \log n)$ rounds with randomized distributed algorithms. Hence for any parameterized LCL problem, when we move from local problems towards global problems, there is some point at which complexity suddenly jumps from easy to hard. For example, for vertex coloring in $d$-regular graphs it is now known that this jump is at precisely $d$ colors: coloring with $d+1$ colors is easy, while coloring with $d$ colors is hard. However, it is currently poorly understood where this jump takes place when one looks at defective colorings. To study this question, we define $k$-partial $c$-coloring as follows: nodes are labeled with numbers between $1$ and $c$, and every node is incident to at least $k$ properly colored edges. It is known that $1$-partial $2$-coloring (a.k.a. weak $2$-coloring) is easy for any $d \ge 1$. As our main result, we show that $k$-partial $2$-coloring becomes hard as soon as $k \ge 2$, no matter how large a $d$ we have. We also show that this is fundamentally different from $k$-partial $3$-coloring: no matter which $k \ge 3$ we choose, the problem is always hard for $d = k$ but it becomes easy when $d \gg k$. The same was known previously for partial $c$-coloring with $c \ge 4$, but the case of $c < 4$ was open

Quantum jump model for a system with a finite-size environment

© 2016 American Physical Society. Measuring the thermodynamic properties of open quantum systems poses a major challenge. A calorimetric detection has been proposed as a feasible experimental scheme to measure work and fluctuation relations in open quantum systems. However, the detection requires a finite size for the environment, which influences the system dynamics. This process cannot be modeled with the standard stochastic approaches. We develop a quantum jump model suitable for systems coupled to a finite-size environment. We use the method to study the common fluctuation relations and prove that they are satisfied

Nikolaus Rungius : Lifestyle and Status of an Early Seventeenth-Century Northern Finnish Vicar

Vicar Nikolaus Rungius's (ca. 1560-1629) mummified remains have been the subject of research that has provided a wide variety of information on his life. This article examines the ways Rungius's health and lifestyle highlight his status as a vicar, and this status is visible in his burial and funerary clothing. He was a relatively large man for his time. CT scans even include indications of certain conditions related to being overweight. Likewise, stable-isotope analyses of his nail keratin support the hypothesis that he was consuming a rather heavy, protein-rich diet. Given his status as the vicar of Kemi parish in northern Finland, he likely made sumptuous use of the rich local natural resources of fish, game, and domestic animals as part of his regular diet. In addition to his diet and health, the vicar's high-quality clothes, while fragmentary, also open an avenue to extend the exploration of his social status and wealth.Peer reviewe

Evolution of the dust trail of comet 17P/Holmes

Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s).The massive outburst of the comet 17P/Holmes in 2007 October is the largest known outburst by a comet thus far. We present a new comprehensive model describing the evolution of the dust trail produced in this phenomenon. The model comprises of multiparticle Monte Carlo simulation including the solar radiation pressure effects, gravitational disturbance caused by Venus, Earth and Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and gravitational interaction of the dust particles with the parent comet itself. Good accuracy of computations is achieved by its implementation in Orekit, which executes Dormad-Prince numerical integration methods with higher precision. We demonstrate performance of the model by simulating particle populations with sizes from 0.001 to 1 mm with corresponding spherically symmetric ejection speed distribution, and towards the Sun outburst modelling. The model is supplemented with and validated against the observations of the dust trail in common nodes for 0.5 and 1 revolutions. In all cases, the predicted trail position showed a good match to the observations. Additionally, the hourglass pattern of the trail was observed for the first time within this work. By using variations of the outburst model in our simulations, we determine that the assumption of the spherical symmetry of the ejected particles leads to the scenario compatible with the observed hourglass pattern. Using these data, we make predictions for the two-revolution dust trail behaviour near the outburst point that should be detectable by using ground-based telescopes in 2022.Peer reviewe