Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Societal Value of ICT : First Steps Towards an Evaluation Framework

The impact of information and communications technology (ICT) on organisations has been widely discussed in the literature. Its impact on individuals has been less extensively studied, but much good work has still been undertaken. In contrast, the impact of ICT on society as a whole has, as yet, to be examined in any detail in the academic literature. This may be because the question is highly problematic, posing many difficult conceptual and practical questions. This paper is an initial and tentative look at this issue. Starting from a discussion of what constitutes ‘the information society’, the paper uses concepts from the balanced scorecard as a potential framework for exploring the question of the societal value of ICT and proposes a number of costs and benefits that might be components of such an analysis.
CT and MRI findings of intracranial lymphoma.

Slone HW, Blake JJ, Shah R, Guttikonda S, Bourekas EC rimary CNS lymphoma is the confinement of extranodal lymphoma to the CNS. Classically, lymphomas are divided into Hodgkin’s lymphoma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, with a primary extranodal presentation in 5% and 30% of cases, respectively. With an increasing incidence in both the immunocompetent and immunocompromised populations, primary CNS lymphoma represents 1% of all lymphomas and as many as 16% of all primary brain tumors [1]. This amplified prevalence makes primary CNS lymphoma an important consideration in the differential diagnosis of brain lesions. This pictorial essay will review the varied CT and MRI appearances of intracranial lymphomas.
Chronic Life Stress Alters Sympathetic, Neuroendocrine, and Immune Responsivity to an Acute Psychological Stressor in Humans

Objective Life stress is hypothesized to alter the dynamic regulation of the autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune systems. This study examined the effects of antecedent chronic life stress on psychological and physiological responsivity after acute challenge with a psychological stressor. Method Using a within-subject mixed design, male volunteers with (N = 12) and without chronic life stress (N = 11) were administered a 12-minute laboratory stressor (mental arithmetic) vs a video control. Results Acute psychological stress induced subjective distress, increases of circulating concentrations of epinephrine, norepinephrine, beta-endorphin, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), and cortisol, and a selective redistribution of natural killer (NK) cells into the peripheral blood as compared with the video control condition. Although the two groups were almost identical at baseline in psychological, sympathetic, neuroendocrine, and immune domains, the chronic stress group showed greater subjective distress, higher peak levels of epinephrine, lower peak levels of beta-endorphin and of NK cell lysis, and a more pronounced redistribution of NK cells in response to the acute psychological challenge than the controls. Furthermore, the acute stressor induced a protracted decline in NK lysis per NK cell in the chronic stress group but had no effect in the controls. Conclusions In summary, when persons who are undergoing chronic life stress are confronted with an acute psychological challenge, an exaggerated psychologic and peak sympathomedullary reactivity occurs that is associated with decrements in individual NK cell function and is protracted beyond termination of the stressor and sympathomedullary recovery.
Extracellular Vesicles in Cardiovascular Disease: Potential Applications in Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Epidemiology

Extracellular vesicles originate from diverse subcellular compartments and are released in the extracellular space. By transferring their cargoes into target cells and tissues, they now emerge as novel regulators of intercellular communication between adjacent and remote cells. Because vesicle composition and biological content are specific signatures of cellular activation and injury, their potential as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers has raised significant interest in cardiovascular diseases. Characterization of circulating vesicles- or nonvesicles-bound nucleic acids represents a valuable tool for diagnosing and monitoring cardiovascular diseases, recently referred to as a liquid biopsy. Circulating extracellular vesicles offer a noninvasive and almost continuous access to circulating information on the disease state in epidemiological investigations. Finally, genetic engineering and cell-specific application of extracellular vesicles could display a novel therapeutic option for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge about extracellular vesicles as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers, as well as their potential applications for longitudinal epidemiological studies in cardiovascular diseases.
The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E), NASDA's contribution to the EOS for global energy and water cycle studies

The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) was developed and provided to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's EOS Aqua satellite by the National Space Development Agency of Japan, as one of the indispensable instruments for Aqua's mission. AMSR-E is a modified version of AMSR that was launched December 2002 aboard the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite-II (ADEOS-II). It is a six-frequency dual-polarized total-power passive microwave radiometer that observes water-related geophysical parameters supporting global change science and monitoring efforts. The hardware improvements over existing spaceborne microwave radiometers for Earth imaging include the largest main reflector of its kind and addition of 6.925-GHz channels. These improvements provide finer spatial resolution and the capability to retrieve sea surface temperature and soil moisture information on a global basis. This paper provides an overview of the instrument characteristics, mission objectives, and data products.
A comparisons of model based and image based surface parameters estimation from polarimetric SAR

Abstract : Surface can be characterized in terms of its material (dielectric) and geometric properties. The dielectric properties of the surface are expressed primarily by its moisture content, while the roughness describes the geometric characteristics of surface. Various techniques for information retrieval from remotely sensed data have been proposed in a number of recent studies. Some of them are based on an empirical relationship between the measured return signals and the ground truth. Because of their development from a limited number of observations, these models are generally valid only for the conditions under which those measured data were taken. These models also appear that no dependence on the roughness parameter, l-correlation length. In this work, the potential of using the polarimetric SAR data over surface scatterers in order to invert surface parameters is investigated. The model-based and image-based inversion schemes are investigated and compared; the former is doing retrieval from a dynamic learning neural network trained with the Advanced Integral Equation Model, while the latter is schemed from a decomposition of coherency matrix. In model based approach, only the surface scattering term of total return is used in order to remove the vegetation effects. The image based approach accounts for non-zero cross-polarized, backscattering as well as depolarization by three polarimetric parameters, namely the scattering entropy(H), the scattering anisotropy(A), and the alpha angle(alpha). The features of these two schemes are discussed in terms of numerical aspects and physical implications of the surface parameters being inverted by using experimental E-SAR L-band data . We also show the performances of inversion and discuss the advantages and drawbacks of both schemes.
Particle Collection Efficiency for Nylon Mesh Screens

Nylon mesh screens, unlike metal screens, are attractive as a collection substrate for nanoparticles because they can be digested or ashed prior to chemical analysis. A theoretical single-fiber efficiency expression developed for wire-mesh screens was evaluated for estimating the collection efficiency of 11–300 nm particles for nylon mesh screens. Pressure drop across the screens, the effect of particle morphology (spherical and highly fractal-like) on collection efficiency, and single-fiber efficiency were evaluated experimentally for three pore sizes (60, 100, and 180 μm) at three flow rates (2.5, 4, and 6 Lpm). The pressure drop across the screens was found to increase linearly with superficial velocity. The collection efficiency of the screens was found to vary by less than 4% regardless of particle morphology. Single-fiber efficiency calculated from experimental data was in good agreement with that estimated from theory for particles between 40 and 150 nm but deviated from theory for particles outside this size range. New coefficients for the single-fiber efficiency model were identified that minimized the sum of square error (SSE) between the values estimated with the model and those determined experimentally. Compared to the original theory, the SSE calculated using the modified theory was at least one order of magnitude lower for all screens and flow rates with the exception of the 60-μm pore screens at 2.5 Lpm, where the decrease was threefold. Copyright 2012 American Association for Aerosol Research
Cerebellar white matter pathways are associated with reading skills in children and adolescents

Reading is a critical life skill in the modern world. The neural basis of reading incorporates a distributed network of cortical areas and their white matter connections. The cerebellum has also been implicated in reading and reading disabilities. However, little is known about the contribution of cerebellar white matter pathways to major component skills of reading. We used diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) with tractography to identify the cerebellar peduncles in a group of 9‐ to 17‐year‐old children and adolescents born full term (FT, n = 19) or preterm (PT, n = 26). In this cohort, no significant differences were found between fractional anisotropy (FA) measures of the peduncles in the PT and FT groups. FA of the cerebellar peduncles correlated significantly with measures of decoding and reading comprehension in the combined sample of FT and PT subjects. Correlations were negative in the superior and inferior cerebellar peduncles and positive in the middle cerebellar peduncle. Additional analyses revealed that FT and PT groups demonstrated similar patterns of reading associations within the left superior cerebellar peduncle, middle cerebellar peduncle, and left inferior cerebellar peduncle. Partial correlation analyses showed that distinct sub‐skills of reading were associated with FA in segments of different cerebellar peduncles. Overall, the present findings are the first to document associations of microstructure of the cerebellar peduncles and the component skills of reading. Hum Brain Mapp 36:1536–1553, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The helium cryogenic system for the ATLAS experiment

The magnetic configuration of the ATLAS detector is generated by an inner superconducting solenoid and three air-core toroids (the barrel and two end-caps), each of them made of eight superconducting coils. Two separated helium refrigerators will be used to allow cool-down from ambient temperature and steady-state operation at 4.5 K of all the magnets having a total cold mass of about 600 tons. In comparison with the preliminary design, the helium distribution scheme and interface with the magnet sub-systems are simplified, resulting in a considerable improvement of the operational easiness and the overall reliability of the system at some expense of the operational flexibility. The paper presents the cryogenic layout and the basic principles for magnets cooldown, steady state operation and thermal recovery after a fast energy dump.
Effect of Metals, Metalloids and Metallic Nanoparticles on Microalgae Growth and Industrial Product Biosynthesis: A Review

Microalgae are a source of numerous compounds that can be used in many branches of industry. Synthesis of such compounds in microalgal cells can be amplified under stress conditions. Exposure to various metals can be one of methods applied to induce cell stress and synthesis of target products in microalgae cultures. In this review, the potential of producing diverse biocompounds (pigments, lipids, exopolymers, peptides, phytohormones, arsenoorganics, nanoparticles) from microalgae cultures upon exposure to various metals, is evaluated. Additionally, different methods to alter microalgae response towards metals and metal stress are described. Finally, possibilities to sustain high growth rates and productivity of microalgal cultures in the presence of metals are discussed.
Tenofovir-associated bone density loss

Clinical observations have revealed a strong correlation between loss of bone density in HIV-infected individuals, particularly in conjunction with the antiretroviral drug tenofovir, a nucleotide analog that inhibits HIV reverse transcriptase. The most compelling correlations have been observed in clinical studies involving young children and adolescents. These observations strongly suggest that bone density is being affected during active bone growth and development, implicating a role for tenofovir in bone loss. Here we discuss the literature and potential mechanisms for how tenofovir-associated bone loss may arise, which likely involves perturbation of cellular DNA synthesis and gene expression. Elucidation of the mechanism(s) involved in tenofovir-mediated bone loss will help in developing adjuvant therapies to reduce tenofovir-associated bone density loss.
Robust Semisupervised Classification for PolSAR Image With Noisy Labels

The robustness of the supervised polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) image classification is severely affected by two main aspects, namely, the quantity and quality of the labeled training pixels. Specifically, limited manually labeled pixels with respect to the large scale of PolSAR image have limited the performance of the automatic classification methods, while manually labeled training pixels shall be unfaithful with the speckle and impure cell for their low qualities. In order to address the above two fundamental problems, we propose a robust semisupervised probability graphic-based classification framework. First, a semisupervised learning scheme is implemented to simultaneously exploit both labeled and unlabeled pixels for information compensation. Moreover, structural relationship among neighboring pixels inducing from the prior information is further benefit to reduce the influence of limited labeled pixels. Second, a robust classification loss function is added in the process of training classifier to enhance the robustness to the noisy labeled pixels. Third, unfaithful limited labeled data can be settled with a hybrid generative/discriminative classification framework, where labeled and unlabeled pixels are simultaneously exploited for learning high-level feature for the low-quality pixels. The effectiveness of the proposed framework on the specific aspect is validated in experiments on real PolSAR data sets, which reveal the superiority in both visual performance and classification accuracy compared with the state-of-the-art methods. Totally speaking, our model has improved the classification accuracy by at least 20% on data set Flevoland, 10% on Oberpfaffenhofen, and 5% on Weihe River than the compared ones.
Whether the Weather Drives Patterns of Endemic Amphibian Chytridiomycosis: A Pathogen Proliferation Approach

The pandemic amphibian disease chytridiomycosis often exhibits strong seasonality in both prevalence and disease-associated mortality once it becomes endemic. One hypothesis that could explain this temporal pattern is that simple weather-driven pathogen proliferation (population growth) is a major driver of chytridiomycosis disease dynamics. Despite various elaborations of this hypothesis in the literature for explaining amphibian declines (e.g., the chytrid thermal-optimum hypothesis) it has not been formally tested on infection patterns in the wild. In this study we developed a simple process-based model to simulate the growth of the pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) under varying weather conditions to provide an a priori test of a weather-linked pathogen proliferation hypothesis for endemic chytridiomycosis. We found strong support for several predictions of the proliferation hypothesis when applied to our model species, Litoria pearsoniana, sampled across multiple sites and years: the weather-driven simulations of pathogen growth potential (represented as a growth index in the 30 days prior to sampling; GI30) were positively related to both the prevalence and intensity of Bd infections, which were themselves strongly and positively correlated. In addition, a machine-learning classifier achieved ∼72% success in classifying positive qPCR results when utilising just three informative predictors 1) GI30, 2) frog body size and 3) rain on the day of sampling. Hence, while intrinsic traits of the individuals sampled (species, size, sex) and nuisance sampling variables (rainfall when sampling) influenced infection patterns obtained when sampling via qPCR, our results also strongly suggest that weather-linked pathogen proliferation plays a key role in the infection dynamics of endemic chytridiomycosis in our study system. Predictive applications of the model include surveillance design, outbreak preparedness and response, climate change scenario modelling and the interpretation of historical patterns of amphibian decline.
Reliability and Validity Assessment of Mizaj Questionnaire: A Novel Self-report Scale in Iranian Traditional Medicine

Background In Iranian Traditional Medicine, mizaj (temperament) plays a key role in preventive, therapeutic and lifestyle recommendations. A reliable self-reported scale for mizaj identification is critically needed to introduce ITM into the official medical and health care system especially in the case of designing national preventive protocols. Objectives The present study aimed to design a preliminary self-administered mizaj questionnaire and assessed its reliability and validity in Iran. Patients and Methods In this cross-sectional study, a questionnaire with 52 items was designed based on mizaj-related indices. Subsequent to content and face validity assessment, using qualitative and quantitative method, 47 items remained. Based on the non-randomly sampling, the test-retest reliability of each question and internal consistency of the questionnaire was examined by the participation of 35 volunteers. The reliable version questionnaire was filled up by 52 volunteers wherein they were divided into warm/cold and wet/dry groups based on their mizaj which was predetermined by a team of expert practitioners. Logistic regression analysis was performed for validity process between the experts’ assessment of mizaj and each of the items in the questionnaire that resulted to the final ten-item questionnaire divided into two subscales. By using ANOVA and post Hoc with Dunnet statistics, the optimum cut-off points were defined and their sensitivity and specificity was assessed. Results The weighted kappa coefficients of the 39 items were between 0.40 and 0.82 showing their acceptable reliability and the Cronbach’s α coefficient was 0.71 showing the internal consistency. The sensitivity and specificity of the final questionnaire cut-off points were 65% and 93% for the warm group, 52% and 97% cold group, 53% and 67% dry group and finally 53% and 76% wet group. Conclusions Our results suggested that many of the designed questions according to the literature’s mizaj identification indices had satisfactory reliability and the final ten-item questionnaire could discriminate the different groups of mizaj, therefore, this can be used as the first version of a brief self-report mizaj estimating scale.
The use of the multi-model ensemble in probabilistic climate projections

Recent coordinated efforts, in which numerous climate models have been run for a common set of experiments, have produced large datasets of projections of future climate for various scenarios. Those multi-model ensembles sample initial condition, parameter as well as structural uncertainties in the model design, and they have prompted a variety of approaches to quantify uncertainty in future climate in a probabilistic way. This paper outlines the motivation for using multi-model ensembles, reviews the methodologies published so far and compares their results for regional temperature projections. The challenges in interpreting multi-model results, caused by the lack of verification of climate projections, the problem of model dependence, bias and tuning as well as the difficulty in making sense of an ‘ensemble of opportunity’, are discussed in detail.
Dispositional Contempt: A First Look at the Contemptuous Person

Contempt is a powerful emotion. Marriages fail (Gottman, 1994), coworkers are shamed (Melwani & Barsade, 2011), terrorism is tended toward (Tausch et al., 2011). Despite its importance, contempt has not been investigated at the level of personality. The present research examines how our contemptuous reactions can be conceptualized and measured as a stable individual-difference variable with a range of theoretically predicted correlates. First, we introduce a measure of dispositional contempt, the tendency to look down on, distance, and derogate others who violate our standards. We then unpack the dynamics of dispositional contempt. Across 6 studies using self-report and emotion elicitation in student and MTurk samples (Ns = 165 to 1,368), we examined its (a) nomological network, (b) personality and behavioral correlates, and (c) implications for relationship functioning. Dispositional contempt was distinguished from tendencies toward related emotions and was most associated with dispositional envy, anger, and hubristic pride. Somewhat paradoxically, dispositional contempt was related to being cold and “superior,” with associations found with narcissism, other-oriented perfectionism, and various antisocial tendencies (e.g., Disagreeableness, Machiavellianism, racism), but it was also related to being self-deprecating and emotionally fragile, with associations found with low self-esteem, insecure attachment, and feeling that others impose perfectionistic standards on oneself. Dispositional contempt predicted contemptuous reactions to eliciting film clips, particularly when targets showed low competence/power. Finally, perceiving one’s romantic partner as dispositionally contemptuous was associated with lower commitment and satisfaction. Taken together, results give a first look at the contemptuous person and provide a new organizing framework for understanding contempt.
Access of inhibitory neurosteroids to the NMDA receptor

NMDA receptors are glutamatergic ionotropic receptors involved in excitatory neurotransmission, synaptic plasticity and excitotoxic cell death. Many allosteric modulators can influence the activity of these receptors positively or negatively, with behavioural consequences. 20‐Oxo‐5β‐pregnan‐3α‐yl sulphate (pregnanolone sulphate; PA‐6) is an endogenous neurosteroid that inhibits NMDA receptors and is neuroprotective. We tested the hypothesis that the interaction of PA‐6 with the plasma membrane is critical for its inhibitory effect at NMDA receptors.