Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Case study: videogame distraction reduces behavioral distress in a preschool-aged child undergoing repeated burn dressing changes: a single-subject design.

OBJECTIVE This single-subject design study evaluated the feasibility and efficacy of passive and interactive videogame distraction on behavioral distress for a preschool-aged child receiving repeated burn dressing changes. METHOD A 4-year-old girl underwent 3 baseline and 10 videogame distraction sessions (5 passive and 5 interactive) using a restricted alternating treatments design. Observed behavioral distress was coded, and parents and nurses rated the child's distress and cooperative behavior. RESULTS Relative to baseline, behavioral distress decreased and cooperative behavior increased immediately after the onset of videogame distraction. Single Case Randomization Tests revealed significantly lower behavioral distress and greater cooperation during interactive videogame distraction relative to passive videogame distraction. CONCLUSIONS Interactive videogame distraction appears to be a feasible and effective pain management strategy for a preschool-aged child undergoing repeated painful medical procedures.
The Application of a Modified Version of the SWAT Model at the Daily Temporal Scale and the Hydrological Response unit Spatial Scale: A Case Study Covering an Irrigation District in the Hei River Basin

As a well-built, distributed hydrological model, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) has rarely been evaluated at small spatial and short temporal scales. This study evaluated crop growth (specifically, the leaf area index and shoot dry matter) and daily evapotranspiration at the hydrological response unit (HRU) scale, and SWAT2009 was modified to accurately simulate crop growth processes and major hydrological processes. The parameters of the modified SWAT2009 model were calibrated using data on maize for seed from 5 HRUs and validated using data from 7 HRUs. The results show that daily evapotranspiration, shoot dry matter and leaf area index estimates from the modified SWAT2009 model were satisfactory at the HRU level, and the RMSE values associated with daily evapotranspiration, shoot dry matter, and leaf area index were reduced by 17.0%, 1.6%, and 71.2%, compared with SWAT2009. Thus, the influences of various optimal management practices on the hydrology of agricultural watersheds can be effectively assessed using the modified model.
Consistent estimators for the long-memory parameter in LARCH and fractional Brownian models

AbstractThis paper investigates several strategies for consistently estimating the so-called Hurst parameter Hresponsible for the long-memory correlations in a linear class of ARCH time series, known as LARCHmodels, as well as in the continuous-time Gaussian stochastic process named fractional Brownian motion(fBm). A LARCH model’s parameter is estimated using a conditional maximum likelihood method,which is proved to be consistent, to allow model validation via a portmanteau theorem, and to havegood stability properties. A local Whittle estimator is also discussed. By constructing the LARCH andfBm processes on a common probability space, and showing the convergence of various partial sums ofthe former to the latter in L 2 , the article is able to propose a specially designed conditional maximumlikelihood method for estimating the fBm’s Hurst parameter. In keeping with the popular nancialinterpretation of ARCH models, all estimators are based only on observation of the \returns" of themodel, not on their \volatilities".
Kinetic properties of ASC protein aggregation in epithelial cells

Apoptosis‐associated speck‐like protein with CARD domain (ASC), an adaptor protein composed of caspase recruitment and pyrin domains, can efficiently self‐associate to form a large spherical structure, called a speck. Although ASC aggregation is generally involved with both inflammatory processes and apoptosis, the detailed dynamics of speck formation have not been characterized. In this report, speck formation in HeLa cells transfected with ASC is examined by time‐lapse live‐imaging by confocal laser scanning microscopy. The results show that ASC aggregation is a very rapid and tightly regulated process. Prior to speck formation, soluble ASC aggregation is a low probability event, and the affinity of ASC subunits for one another is very low. Following a speck nucleation event, the affinity for further addition of ASC subunits increases dramatically, and aggregation is a highly energetically favorable reaction (Gibbs free energy ∼ −40 kJ/mol). This leads to a rapid depletion of soluble ASC, making it highly unlikely that a second speck will form inside the same cell and assuring that speck formation is “all or none,” with a well‐defined end point. Comparison with kinetic models of the aggregation process indicates diffusion, instead of active transport, is the dominant process for speck growth. Though speck formation and aggresome formation share some properties, we show that the two processes are distinct. J. Cell. Physiol. 222: 738–747, 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Increase in NF-κB Binding Affinity of the Variant C Allele of the Toll-Like Receptor 9 −1237T/C Polymorphism Is Associated with Helicobacter pylori-Induced Gastric Disease

ABSTRACT Colonization of the gastric mucosa by Helicobacter pylori can lead to serious clinical outcomes, including gastric cancer. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) play an important role in the host response to H. pylori through the recognition of pathogen-associated molecular patterns. TLR9, in particular, is partly responsible for initiating bacterial induced immunity by binding unmethylated CpG-DNA, which is abundant in bacteria. A well-documented single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) within the TLR9 promoter (TLR9 −1237T/C), is associated with a variety of inflammatory disorders, including allergic asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, and atopy. Analysis of the TLR9 promoter gene sequence has shown that carriage of the variant “C” allele at position −1237 creates a potential NF-κB binding site that would theoretically increase the transcriptional activity of the gene. In this study, we report that the TLR9 −1237 C allele was significantly associated with the development of H. pylori-induced premalignant gastric changes. Functional analysis of the SNP, supporting the data generated from the genetic association study, showed that carriage of the C allele increased TLR9 transcriptional activity driven mainly by activation of NF-κB. Collectively, these findings confirm that the TLR9 −1237T/C polymorphism is a risk factor for the development of H. pylori-induced premalignant gastric changes and provide a plausible mechanistic explanation.
Inhibition of Arginase Activity Enhances Inflammation in Mice with Allergic Airway Disease, in Association with Increases in Protein S-Nitrosylation and Tyrosine Nitration1

Pulmonary inflammation in asthma is orchestrated by the activity of NF-κB. NO and NO synthase (NOS) activity are important modulators of inflammation. The availability of the NOS substrate, l-arginine, is one of the mechanisms that controls the activity of NOS. Arginase also uses l-arginine as its substrate, and arginase-1 expression is highly induced in a murine model of asthma. Because we have previously described that arginase affects NOx content and interferes with the activation of NF-κB in lung epithelial cells, the goal of this study was to investigate the impact of arginase inhibition on the bioavailability of NO and the implications for NF-κB activation and inflammation in a mouse model of allergic airway disease. Administration of the arginase inhibitor BEC (S-(2-boronoethyl)-l-cysteine) decreased arginase activity and caused alterations in NO homeostasis, which were reflected by increases in S-nitrosylated and nitrated proteins in the lungs from inflamed mice. In contrast to our expectations, BEC enhanced perivascular and peribronchiolar lung inflammation, mucus metaplasia, NF-κB DNA binding, and mRNA expression of the NF-κB-driven chemokine genes CCL20 and KC, and lead to further increases in airways hyperresponsiveness. These results suggest that inhibition of arginase activity enhanced a variety of parameters relevant to allergic airways disease, possibly by altering NO homeostasis.
Investigation of drought tolerance using tolerance indexes to identify sensitiveand tolerant genotypes in wheat genotypes

In order to find the best indexes and also to determine the best of drought tolerant wheat genotypes, five genotypes of wheat in a completely randomized block design with three replications were planted and evaluated. The experiment was conducted in two separate normal irrigation and drought tension experiments and in under drought stress treatments, after flowering the irrigation was eliminated. Analysis of variance demonstrated that there is no significant difference among the studied genotypes in normal irrigation condition however there is a significant difference among the studied genotypes in drought tension condition, at 5% probability level. By analyzing to main components the seven studied indicators were reduced to two components. Analysis of correlation between the yield in two environments and indexes and graphical Biplot based on components, showed that the most appropriate indicators to identify genotypes, is the geometric mean productivity (GMP), mean productivity (MP) and stress tolerance index (STI), respectively. The genotypes of number Mv17 were located in favorable area of Biplot, each genotype has the lower performance fluctuation of environmental conditions and they have introduced as tolerant to stress genotypes.
Fowler DMO and time migration for transversely isotropic media with explicit operators

In this report, the authors devise a Fowler-type DMO algorithm for transversely isotropic media using the analytic expression for normal-moveout velocity given by Tsvankin (1995a). Alkhalifah and Tsvankin (1995) have shown that in transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry (VTI) the P-wave normal-moveout (NMO) velocity as a function of ray parameter can be fully described by just two parameters: the zero-dip NMO velocity V{sub nmo}(O) and the anisotropic parameter {eta}. In the authors extension of Fowler DMO, resampling in the frequency-wavenumber domain makes it possible to obtain the values of V{sub nmo}(O) and {eta} by inspecting zero-offset (stacked) panels for different pairs of the two parameters. The simplest way to reduce the range of solutions in this two-dimensional search is to obtain V{sub nmo}(O) from conventional NMO velocity analysis. Since most of the computing time is spent on generating constant-velocity stacks, the added computational effort due to the presence of anisotropy is relatively minor. Synthetic and field-data examples demonstrate that the isotropic Fowler DMO technique fails to generate an accurate zero-offset section and obtain the zero-dip NMO velocity for non-elliptical VTI models. In contrast, their anisotropic algorithm allows one to find the values of the parameters V{sub more » nmo}(O) and {eta}, and correct for the influence of transverse isotropy in the DMO processing. Combined with poststack F-K Stolt migration, this method represents a complete inversion-processing sequence capable of recovering the effective parameters of transversely isotropic media and producing migrated images for the best-fit homogeneous anisotropic model. Although the current implementation is limited to transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry (VTI), it can be generalized for more complicated anisotropic models. « less
Comparative study of postoperative morbidity in dental treatment under general anesthesia in pediatric patients with and without an underlying disease.

OBJECTIVES To identify and quantify the variables and their influence on postoperative morbidity in dental treatment under general anesthesia (GA) in pediatric patients with and without an underlying disease. METHODS A prospective, descriptive, and comparative analysis was conducted of healthy (n = 49) and disabled/medically compromised (n = 81) children treated under GA. Intra-/post-surgical, clinical epidemiology, technical, care-related, and pharmacologic data were gathered, as were postoperative complications. RESULTS The average age of ASA I patients (6.7 ± 4.4 years) was younger than that of ASA II-III patients (9.0 ± 4.5 years). Average hospitalization time was 4.27 ± 6.5 h in ASA I and 7.41 ± 6.8 h in ASA II-III. Significant differences were found between the two groups in fillings, pulpotomies, oral surgery, and scaling. Postoperative morbidity in ASA I and ASA II-III was similar both in frequency and severity and decreased during the first 72 h. The most common complication in both groups was toothache. CONCLUSION Postoperative morbidity is high after dental treatment under GA, but it is not higher in disabled/medically compromised patients.
Errors in Action Timing and Inhibition Facilitate Learning by Tuning Distinct Mechanisms in the Underlying Decision Process

Goal-directed behavior requires integrating action selection processes with learning systems that adapt control using environmental feedback. These functions are known to intersect at a common neural substrate with multiple known targets of plasticity (the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic network), suggesting that feedback signals have a multifaceted impact on future decisions. Using a hybrid of accumulation-to-bound decision models and reinforcement learning, we modeled the performance of humans in a stop signal task where participants (N 75: 37 males, 38 females) learned the prior distribution of the timing of a stop signal through trial-and-error feedback. Changes in the drift rate of the action execution process were driven by errors in action timing, whereas adaptation in the boundary height served to increase caution following failed stops. These findings highlight two interactive learning mechanisms for adapting the control of goal-directed actions based on dissociable dimensions of feedback error. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Many complex behavioral goals rely on the ability to regulate the timing of action execution while also maintaining enough control to cancel actions in response to “Stop” cues in the environment. Here we examined how these fundamental components of behavior become tuned to the control demands of the environment by combining principles of reinforcement learning with accumulation-to-bound models. Model fits to behavioral data in an adaptive stop signal task revealed two adaptive mechanisms: (1) timing error-related changes in the rate of the execution signal; and (2) an increase in the execution boundary after failed stops. These findings demonstrate unique effects of timing and control errors on the underlying mechanisms of control, the rate and threshold of accumulating action signals.
A novel hybrid approach of landslide susceptibility modelling using rotation forest ensemble and different base classifiers

Abstract In the present study, Rotation Forest ensemble was integrated with different base classifiers to develop different hybrid models namely Rotation Forest based Support Vector Machines (RFSVM), Rotation Forest based Artificial Neural Networks (RFANN), Rotation Forest based Decision Trees (RFDT), and Rotation Forest based Naïve Bayes (RFNB) for landslide susceptibility modelling. The validity of these models was evaluated using statistical methods such as Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Kappa index, accuracy, and the area under the success rate and predictive rate curves (AUC). Part of the landslide prone area of Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand, Himalaya, India was selected as the study area. Results indicate that the RFDT is the best model showing the highest predictive capability (AUC = 0.741) in comparison to RFANN (AUC = 0.710), RFSVM (AUC = 0.701), and RFNB (AUC = 0.640) models. The present study would be helpful in the selection of best model for landslide susceptibility mapping.
Fan Shape Model for object detection

We propose a novel shape model for object detection called Fan Shape Model (FSM). We model contour sample points as rays of final length emanating for a reference point. As in folding fan, its slats, which we call rays, are very flexible. This flexibility allows FSM to tolerate large shape variance. However, the order and the adjacency relation of the slats stay invariant during fan deformation, since the slats are connected with a thin fabric. In analogy, we enforce the order and adjacency relation of the rays to stay invariant during the deformation. Therefore, FSM preserves discriminative power while allowing for a substantial shape deformation. FSM allows also for precise scale estimation during object detection. Thus, there is not need to scale the shape model or image in order to perform object detection. Another advantage of FSM is the fact that it can be applied directly to edge images, since it does not require any linking of edge pixels to edge fragments (contours).
CAD Model-based Tracking and 3D Visual-based Control for MEMS Microassembly

This paper investigates sequential robotic microassembly for the construction of 3D micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMSs) structures using a 3D visual servoing approach. The previous solutions proposed in the literature for these kinds of problems are based on 2D visual control because of the lack of precise and robust 3D measures from the work scene. In this paper, the relevance of the real-time 3D visual tracking method and the 3D vision-based control law proposed is demonstrated. The 3D poses of the MEMSs are supplied in real-time by a computer-aided design model-based tracking algorithm. This algorithm is sufficiently accurate and robust to enable a precise regulation toward zero of the 3D error using the proposed pose-based visual servoing approach. Experiments on a microrobotic setup have been carried out to achieve assemblies of two or more 400 μm × 400 μm × 100 μm silicon micro-objects by their respective 97 μm × 97 μm × 100 μm notches with an assembly clearance from 1 μm to 5 μm. The different microassembly processes are performed with a mean error of 0.3 μm in position and 0.35×10 −2 rad in orientation.
Has Monetary Policy Become More Effective?

We investigate the implications of changes in the structure of the U.S. economy for monetary policy effectiveness. Estimating a vector autoregression over the pre- and post-1980 periods, we provide evidence of a reduced effect of monetary policy shocks in the latter period. We estimate a structural model that replicates well the economy's response in both periods, and perform counterfactual experiments to determine the source of the change in the monetary transmission mechanism and in the economy's volatility. We find that by responding more strongly to inflation expectations, monetary policy has stabilized the economy more effectively in the post-1980 period.
Cooperative Multi-Agent Planning

Cooperative multi-agent planning (MAP) is a relatively recent research field that combines technologies, algorithms, and techniques developed by the Artificial Intelligence Planning and Multi-Agent Systems communities. While planning has been generally treated as a single-agent task, MAP generalizes this concept by considering multiple intelligent agents that work cooperatively to develop a course of action that satisfies the goals of the group. This article reviews the most relevant approaches to MAP, putting the focus on the solvers that took part in the 2015 Competition of Distributed and Multi-Agent Planning, and classifies them according to their key features and relative performance.
Residual Gas and Dust around Transition Objects and Weak T Tauri Stars

Residual gas in disks around young stars can spin down stars, circularize the orbits of terrestrial planets, and whisk away the dusty debris that is expected to serve as a signpost of terrestrial planet formation. We have carried out a sensitive search for residual gas and dust in the terrestrial planet region surrounding young stars ranging in age from a few to ∼10 Myr. Using high-resolution 4.7 μm spectra of transition objects (TOs) and weak T Tauri stars, we searched for weak continuum excesses and CO fundamental emission, after making a careful correction for the stellar contribution to the observed spectrum. We find that the CO emission from TOs is weaker and located farther from the star than CO emission from nontransition T Tauri stars with similar stellar accretion rates. The difference is possibly the result of chemical and/or dynamical effects (i.e., a low CO abundance or close-in low-mass planets). The weak T Tauri stars show no CO fundamental emission down to low flux levels (5 × 10−20 to 10−18 W m−2). We illustrate how our results can be used to constrain the residual disk gas content in these systems and discuss their potential implications for star and planet formation.
Amphioxus molecular biology: insights into vertebrate evolution and developmental mechanisms

The cephalochordate amphioxus is the best available proxy for the last common invertebrate ancestor of the vertebrates. During the last decade, the developmental genetics of amphioxus have been extensively examined for insights into the evolutionary origin and early evolution of the vertebrates. Comparisons between expression domains of homologous genes in amphioxus and vertebrates have strengthened proposed homologies between specific body parts. Molecular genetic studies have also highlighted parallels in the developmental mechanisms of amphioxus and vertebrates. In both groups, a similar nested pattern of Hox gene expression is involved in rostrocaudal patterning of the neural tube, and homologous genes also appear to be involved in dorsoventral neural patterning. Studies of amphioxus molecular biology have also hinted that the protochordate ancestor of the vertebrates included cell populations that modified their developmental genetic pathways during early vertebrate evolution to yield definitive neur.
Fasting induces anti-Warburg effect that increases respiration but reduces ATP-synthesis to promote apoptosis in colon cancer models

Tumor chemoresistance is associated with high aerobic glycolysis rates and reduced oxidative phosphorylation, a phenomenon called “Warburg effect” whose reversal could impair the ability of a wide range of cancer cells to survive in the presence or absence of chemotherapy. In previous studies, Short-term-starvation (STS) was shown to protect normal cells and organs but to sensitize different cancer cell types to chemotherapy but the mechanisms responsible for these effects are poorly understood. We tested the cytotoxicity of Oxaliplatin (OXP) combined with a 48hour STS on the progression of CT26 colorectal tumors. STS potentiated the effects of OXP on the suppression of colon carcinoma growth and glucose uptake in both in vitro and in vivo models. In CT26 cells, STS down-regulated aerobic glycolysis, and glutaminolysis, while increasing oxidative phosphorylation. The STS-dependent increase in both Complex I and Complex II-dependent O2 consumption was associated with increased oxidative stress and reduced ATP synthesis. Chemotherapy caused additional toxicity, which was associated with increased succinate/Complex II-dependent O2 consumption, elevated oxidative stress and apoptosis. These findings indicate that the glucose and amino acid deficiency conditions imposed by STS promote an anti-Warburg effect characterized by increased oxygen consumption but failure to generate ATP, resulting in oxidative damage and apoptosis.