Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bidirectional Relationship between Functional Connectivity and Amyloid-β Deposition in Mouse Brain

Brain region-specific deposition of extracellular amyloid plaques principally composed of aggregated amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide is a pathological signature of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Recent human neuroimaging data suggest that resting-state functional connectivity strength is reduced in patients with AD, cognitively normal elderly harboring elevated amyloid burden, and in advanced aging. Interestingly, there exists a striking spatial correlation between functional connectivity strength in cognitively normal adults and the location of Aβ plaque deposition in AD. However, technical limitations have heretofore precluded examination of the relationship between functional connectivity, Aβ deposition, and normal aging in mouse models. Using a novel functional connectivity optical intrinsic signal (fcOIS) imaging technique, we demonstrate that Aβ deposition is associated with significantly reduced bilateral functional connectivity in multiple brain regions of older APP/PS1 transgenic mice. The amount of Aβ deposition in each brain region was associated with the degree of local, age-related bilateral functional connectivity decline. Normal aging was associated with reduced bilateral functional connectivity specifically in retrosplenial cortex. Furthermore, we found that the magnitude of regional bilateral functional correlation in young APP/PS1 mice before Aβ plaque formation was proportional to the amount of region-specific plaque deposition seen later in older APP/PS1 mice. Together, these findings suggest that Aβ deposition and normal aging are associated with region-specific disruption of functional connectivity and that the magnitude of local bilateral functional connectivity predicts regional vulnerability to subsequent Aβ deposition in mouse brain.
Perturbative quantum field theory via vertex algebras

In this paper, we explain how perturbative quantum field theory can be formulated in terms of (a version of) vertex algebras. Our starting point is the Wilson–Zimmermann operator product expansion (OPE). Following ideas of a previous paper (S. Hollands, e-print arXiv:0802.2198), we consider a consistency (essentially associativity) condition satisfied by the coefficients in this expansion. We observe that the information in the OPE coefficients can be repackaged straightforwardly into “vertex operators” and that the consistency condition then has essentially the same form as the key condition in the theory of vertex algebras. We develop a general theory of perturbations of the algebras that we encounter, similar in nature to the Hochschild cohomology describing the deformation theory of ordinary algebras. The main part of the paper is devoted to the question how one can calculate the perturbations corresponding to a given interaction Lagrangian (such as λφ4) in practice, using the consistency condition an.
High Prevalence of Pulmonary Tuberculosis but Low Sensitivity of Symptom Screening among HIV-Infected Pregnant Women in South Africa

Symptom screening is a recommended component of intensified case-finding (ICF) for pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) among HIV-infected individuals. Symptomatic individuals are further investigated to either exclude or diagnose pulmonary TB, thus reducing the number of individuals requiring costly laboratory investigation. Those with laboratory evaluations negative for pulmonary TB or who lack symptoms may be eligible for antiretroviral therapy (ART) and/or TB isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT). A four-part symptom screen has been recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for identifying TB suspects and those unlikely to have TB. A meta-analysis of studies among HIV-infected individuals calculated a sensitivity of 90.1% for the four-part symptoms screen - of any of cough, fever, night sweats, or weight loss - among patients in clinical care, making it an effective tool for identifying most patients with TB. An important population for intensified case-finding not included in that meta-analysis was HIV-infected pregnant women. We undertook a cross-sectional survey among HIV-infected pregnant women receiving prenatal care at community clinics in South Africa. We obtained a four-symptom review and sputum smear microscopy and mycobacterial culture on all participants. Among 1415 women, 226 (16%) had a positive symptom screen, and 35 (2.5%) were newly diagnosed with culture-positive TB. Twelve were on TB treatment at the time of screening, yielding 47 (3.3%) women with prevalent TB. Symptom screening among women without known TB had a sensitivity of 28% and specificity of 84%. The poor performance of symptom screening to identify women with TB suggests that other approaches may be needed for intensified case-finding to be effective for this population.
How Gender Matters for Happiness: A Serial Study in of College Students in China

Studies in the past have found that gender plays an important role in happiness. This study examines gender difference in happiness and depression in Chinese society, with regard to the Five Factor Model (FFM). Totally, 5648 students (aged between 17 and 29) were recruited from universities in China. Results indicated that women reported higher happiness and higher depression than men. The present study provides empirical data that women tend to express more emotional feelings, like gratitude and happiness. Moreover, results showed that extraversion mediated women’ experience of subjective happiness and depression whereas neuroticism mediated women’ experience of depression. The results of the present study reconfirmed that extraversion was the most reliable predictor of positive affect (e.g., happiness) while neuroticism was the most reliable predictor of negative affect (e.g., depression).
Cellular distribution of smooth muscle actins during mammalian embryogenesis: expression of the alpha-vascular but not the gamma- enteric isoform in differentiating striated myocytes

The cellular distribution of the alpha-vascular and gamma-enteric smooth muscle actin isoforms was analyzed in rat embryos from gestational day (gd) 8 through the first neonatal week by in situ antigen localization using isoactin specific monoclonal antibodies. The alpha-vascular actin isoform was first detected on gd 10 in discrete cells lining the embryonic vasculature. By gd 14, this isoform was also present in the inner layers of mesenchymal cells condensing around the developing airways and gut. The gamma-enteric actin, however, was not detected until gd 15 when cells surrounding the developing aorta, airways, and gut labeled with the gamma-enteric-specific probe. There was continued expression of these two actin isoforms in regions of developing smooth muscle through the remainder of gestation and first neonatal week at which time their distribution coincided with that found in the adult. In addition to developing smooth muscle, the alpha- vascular actin isoform was expressed in differentiating striated muscle cells. On gd 10, there was intense labeling with the alpha-vascular specific probe in developing myocardiocytes and, within 24 h, in somitic myotomal cells. Although significant levels of this smooth muscle actin were present in striated myocytes through gd 17, by the end of the first postnatal week, alpha-vascular actin was no longer detectable in either cardiac or skeletal muscle. Thus, the normal developmental sequence of striated muscle cells includes the transient expression of the alpha-vascular smooth muscle actin isoform. In contrast, the gamma-enteric smooth muscle actin was not detected at any time in embryonic striated muscle. The differential timing of appearance and distribution of these two smooth muscle isoforms indicates that their expression is independently regulated during development.
Bias wanted! Examining people’s information exposure, quality expectations and bias perceptions in the context of the refugees debate among different segments of the German population

Abstract The growing number of refugees entering Europe since 2015 has quickly ignited a heated public debate on refugees in Germany. Against the backdrop of the media’s information and opinion-forming function, this paper examines the importance of mainstream and social media among different segments of the German population. Applying cluster analysis to survey data (n = 1,579), six clusters with specific attitude-behavior combinations concerning the refugee issue were identified: Pro-Refugee Activists, Passive-Affirmative Mainstream, Directly-Involved Ambivalents, Passive-Worried Mainstream, Worried Agitators, and Anti-Refugee Activists. The results show that these clusters differ both in terms of socio-demographic and political characteristics as well as in terms of people’s issue-specific media usage, expectations, and evaluations of media coverage. Moreover, the findings indicate that social media play a problematic role in the debate as they seem to reinforce people’s pre-existing attitudes toward refugees. The implications of these findings for public debate on refugees are also discussed.
Spin and e-e interactions in quantum dots: Leading order corrections to universality and temperature effects

We study the statistics of the spacing between Coulomb blockade conductance peaks in quantum dots with large dimensionless conductance g. Our starting point is the ‘‘universal Hamiltonian’’—valid in the g! ‘ limit—which includes the charging energy, the single-electron energies ~described by random matrix theory! , and the average exchange interaction. We then calculate the magnitude of the most relevant finiteg corrections, namely, the effect of surface charge, the ‘‘gate’’ effect, and the fluctuation of the residual e-e interaction. The resulting zero-temperature peak spacing distribution has corrections of order D/Ag. For typical values of the e-e interaction ( r s;1) and simple geometries, theory predicts an asymmetric distribution with a significant even/odd effect. The width of the distribution is of order 0.3 D, and its dominant feature is a large peak for the odd case, reminiscent of the d function in the g! ‘ limit. We consider finite temperature effects next. Only after their inclusion is good agreement with the experimental results obtained. Even relatively low temperature causes large modifications in the peak spacing distribution: ~i! its peak is dominated by the even distribution at k BT;0.3 D~ at lower T a double peak appears! , ~ii! the even/odd effect is considerably weaker, ~iii! the d function is completely washed out, and ~v! fluctuation of the coupling to the leads becomes relevant. Experiments aimed at observing the T50 peak spacing distribution should therefore be done at k BT,0.1D for typical values of the e-e interaction.
Twenty-First-Century Skills of Alternative Learning System Learners

Education plays a very important role in the development and progress of a certain nation. With the advancement of science and technology, it is indeed that globalization and internalization of education are considered as challenges that every country must uphold. And one of the emphases of today’s challenges in education is the promotion of 21st-century skills among students. However, it is also a reality that a huge number of the world population are dropouts, out-of-school youth, and even individuals who do not go to formal schooling. And as a result, these individuals who do not go to formal schooling have difficulties in understanding and learning 21st-century skills which enable them to cope with and to compete in the globalized world. And to cope with these challenges given by the changing world and knowledge economy, alternatives were presented and implemented by the countries around the world such as the Philippines to help individuals attain education through nonformal and informal education such as the Alternative Learning System (ALS). This study was conducted to determine the 21st-century skills of ALS learners of Northern Philippines. In all, 150 ALS learners across five schools in Northern Philippines participated in the study through descriptive survey method. Results revealed that the ALS learners have a low level of acquisition of 21st-century skills. Furthermore, results of the independent-sample t test and one-way ANOVA test revealed that sex, age, and employment status affect the acquisition of learners on 21st-century skills.
Pricing a Protest: Forecasting the Dynamics of Civil Unrest Activity in Social Media

Online social media activity can often be a precursor to disruptive events such as protests, strikes, and “occupy” movements. We have observed that such civil unrest can galvanize supporters through social networks and help recruit activists to their cause. Understanding the dynamics of social network cascades and extrapolating their future growth will enable an analyst to detect or forecast major societal events. Existing work has primarily used structural and temporal properties of cascades to predict their future behavior. But factors like societal pressure, alignment of individual interests with broader causes, and perception of expected benefits also affect protest participation in social media. Here we develop an analysis framework using a differential game theoretic approach to characterize the cost of participating in a cascade, and demonstrate how we can combine such cost features with classical properties to forecast the future behavior of cascades. Using data from Twitter, we illustrate the effectiveness of our models on the “Brazilian Spring” and Venezuelan protests that occurred in June 2013 and November 2013, respectively. We demonstrate how our framework captures both qualitative and quantitative aspects of how these uprisings manifest through the lens of tweet volume on Twitter social media.
Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking?: The Influence of Leader Style, Distance, and Leader–Follower Mental Model Congruence on Creative Performance

Leaders have been classified as having charismatic, ideological, or pragmatic (CIP) leadership styles, each characterized by distinct patterns in cognition and interaction. Although each CIP style has been shown to facilitate certain aspects of the creative process for followers, questions remain regarding the impact of leadership style on overall follower creative performance. One factor likely to influence this relationship is leader distance, composed of the physical distance, perceived social distance, and perceived task interaction among leaders and followers. Past research has also emphasized the role of leaders’ mental models as they relate to follower performance. Less understood, however, is how the mental models of followers may affect this process. Using the CIP model of leadership, this study explores leader distance and leader–follower mental model congruence on follower creative performance. Results indicated that while leadership style does not directly influence follower creativity, it interacts with leader distance to shape creative outcomes. Results further indicated that while general mental model congruence is not predictive, alignment on specific mental model dimensions contributes to enhanced creative performance among followers. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
Reactive Oxygen Species Mediate Isoalantolactone-Induced Apoptosis in Human Prostate Cancer Cells

Isoalantolactone, a medicinal plant-derived natural compound, is known to induce apoptosis in various cancer cell lines. However, its effect on apoptosis in prostate cancer cells has not been addressed. Thus, we examined the effects of isoalantolactone on prostate cancer cells. It was found that isoalantolactone inhibits growth of both androgen-sensitive (LNCaP) as well as androgen-independent (PC3 and DU-145) prostate cancer cells in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, our results indicate that isoalantolactone-induced apoptosis in prostate cancer PC3 cells is associated with the generation of ROS and dissipation of mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm). In addition, isoalantolactone triggers apoptosis in prostate cancer cells via up-regulation of Bax, down-regulation of Bcl-2, survivin, and significant activation of caspase-3. Isoalantolactone-induced apoptosis is markedly abrogated when the cells were pretreated with N-acetylcysteine (NAC), a specific ROS inhibitor, suggesting that the apoptosis-inducing effect of isoalantolactone in prostate cancer cells is mediated by reactive oxygen species. These findings indicate that isoalantolactone induces reactive oxygen species-dependent apoptosis in prostate cancer cells via a novel mechanism involving inhibition of survivin and provide the rationale for further in vivo and preclinical investigation of isoalantolactone against human prostate cancer.
The influence of unit size on adult readers with a modified stroop and nonword reading task

The purpose of this experiment was to examine which levels of spelling-sound relations are most influential with proficient readers. Some researchers believe that small units or grapheme-tophoneme correspondences (GPC) are most influential, others believe that large units or rime units are most influential, while others argue that both are important and that the use of each is task dependent (Brown & Deavers, 1999). The current study extends on research done by Strauss (2001), which aimed to determine which size unit was most influential in early word reading with a modified Stroop task. The modified picture-word Stroop task was also utilized for this study, but with adult readers and was designed to determine whether GPC or rime units were most influential in adult automatic reading. In addition, a nonword reading task adapted from Brown & Deavers (1999) was used to determine which size unit was most influential in strategic reading.
Compressed Sensing in Resource-Constrained Environments: From Sensing Mechanism Design to Recovery Algorithms

Compressed Sensing (CS) is an emerging field based on the revelation that a small collection of linear projections of a sparse signal contains enough information for reconstruction. It is promising that CS can be utilized in environments where the signal acquisition process is extremely difficult or costly, e.g., a resource-constrained environment like the smartphone platform, or a band-limited environment like visual sensor network (VSNs). There are several challenges to perform sensing due to the characteristic of these platforms, including, for example, needing active user involvement, computational and storage limitations and lower transmission capabilities. This dissertation focuses on the study of CS in resource-constrained environments. First, we try to solve the problem on how to design sensing mechanisms that could better adapt to the resource-limited smartphone platform. We propose the compressed phone sensing (CPS) framework where two challenging issues are studied, the energy drainage issue due to continuous sensing which may impede the normal functionality of the smartphones and the requirement of active user inputs for data collection that may place a high burden on the user. Second, we propose a CS reconstruction algorithm to be used in VSNs for recovery of frames/images. An efficient algorithm, NonLocal Douglas-Rachford (NLDR), is developed. NLDR takes advantage of self-similarity in images using nonlocal means (NL) filtering. We further formulate the nonlocal estimation as the low-rank matrix approximation problem and solve the constrained optimization problem using DouglasRachford splitting method.
A Case Study and the Lessons Learned from In-House Alcohol Based Hand Sanitizer Production in a District Hospital in Rwanda

Health-care-associated infections (HCAIs) are a major global safety concern for patients, health- care professionals and public health particularly in developing countries where access to hand washing facilities is limited due to infrastructure. Alcohol-based hand sanitizer offers a viable alternative where water sources are unreliable or insufficient. However, in resource-limited settings, the introduction of alcohol-based hand sanitizer has been slow due to economic, manufacturing and procurement challenges compounded by the lack of evidence as to its acceptability in varying organizational cultures. This case study describes the process of producing, educating, distributing, scaling up and monitoring the impact of a quality improvement project to locally produce alcohol based hand sanitizer using the formula provided by the World Health Organization in a district hospital in Rwanda. During a 10-month implementation, hand sanitizer was made available to all departments of the hospital and all hospital staff received training on the proper use and ordering of the product. The overall hand hygiene compliance using any method significantly increased from 59% pre intervention to 67% post intervention (P < 0.001). Specifically, the use of hand sanitizer for hygiene significantly increased from 46% to 58% (P < 0.001). By producing hand sanitizer in-house, the hospital saved 71% when compared to purchasing commercial products. The use of hand sanitizer is not a replacement for running water in the hospital. However, with the lack of proper infrastructure, making hand sanitizer available is an acceptable alternative to improve the infection prevention and control standard. The production of hand sanitizer within a health care facility is cost effective and is feasible to integrate into existing operations. The team is working with the Rwandan Ministry of Health to introduce the program to all public hospitals as a national program.
Loss Aversion, Upset Preference, and Sports Television Viewing Audience Size

A growing body of research examines the effect of loss aversion (LA) on consumersâ€™ decisions to watch or attend sporting events. Much of this research focuses on live game attendance. In contrast to the predictions of uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH), loss-averse consumers prefer watching either potential upsets, or dominant performances by strong favorites, to events with uncertain outcomes. We test for LA vs. UOH effects in television viewing audience data for free over-the-air broadcasts of 304 Spanish football matches from 2008/09 to 2015/16. This setting generates substantial variation home team win probabilities because of the presence of Real Madrid CF and FC Barcelona. The results support the importance of LA/upset preferences: audience size for matches when home teams are large underdogs and when heavily favored are larger than for matches with uncertain outcomes, even when controlling for observable and unobservable factors affecting the number of viewers.
More to the story: how the medical humanities can learn from and enrich health communication studies

ABSTRACT The fields of communication studies and the medical humanities intersect and inform each other in interesting and important ways; and yet, these connections are rarely made explicit. As such, this special collection of articles from scholars in diverse fields such as disability studies, communication studies, the medical humanities, philosophy, and medicine discuss the ways that these fields diverge and converge and what we can learn from one another when we dissolve disciplinary divisions. In this Guest Editor’s Introduction, I explore broadly how health communication studies informs the medical humanities and medical education, as well as how embracing the philosophical, pedagogical, and methodological approaches of the medical humanities can, in turn, expand and enrich health communication studies. I make my argument by drawing on the various ways the medical humanities can inform communication studies, as illustrated by the essays included in this special issue: by offering more expansive notions of forgiveness at the end of life and what it takes to authentically engage with “difficult” patients; by taking a more critical look at how clinical, social scientific, and communication research on disability, race, gender, or socioeconomic status might reify problematic stereotypes and generalizations; and by centering medical pedagogy on the question of who we want our future clinicians to be, rather than how we want them to behave.