Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structural Insights into Aberrant Topological Patterns of Large-Scale Cortical Networks in Alzheimer's Disease

Recent research on Alzheimer's disease (AD) has shown that cognitive and memory decline in this disease is accompanied by disrupted changes in the coordination of large-scale brain functional networks. However, alterations in coordinated patterns of structural brain networks in AD are still poorly understood. Here, we used cortical thickness measurement from magnetic resonance imaging to investigate large-scale structural brain networks in 92 AD patients and 97 normal controls. Brain networks were constructed by thresholding cortical thickness correlation matrices of 54 regions and analyzed using graph theoretical approaches. Compared with controls, AD patients showed decreased cortical thickness intercorrelations between the bilateral parietal regions and increased intercorrelations in several selective regions involving the lateral temporal and parietal cortex as well as the cingulate and medial frontal cortex regions. Specially, AD patients showed abnormal small-world architecture in the structural cortical networks (increased clustering and shortest paths linking individual regions), implying a less optimal topological organization in AD. Moreover, AD patients were associated with reduced nodal centrality predominantly in the temporal and parietal heteromodal association cortex regions and increased nodal centrality in the occipital cortex regions. Finally, the brain networks of AD were about equally as robust to random failures as those of controls, but more vulnerable against targeted attacks, presumably because of the effects of pathological topological organization. Our findings suggest that the coordinated patterns of cortical morphology are widely altered in AD patients, thus providing structural evidence for disrupted integrity in large-scale brain networks that underlie cognition. This work has implications for our understanding of how functional deficits in patients are associated with their underlying structural (morphological) basis.
Hepatitis C virus therapy, hepatocyte drug metabolism, and risk for acute cellular rejection

We recently reported on a series of patients who experienced acute cellular rejection (ACR) during the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection in our posttransplantation cohort. Our hypothesis is that HCV clearance improves hepatic microsomal function, which in turn results in lower trough cyclosporine (CyA) and tacrolimus (TAC) levels, predisposing the patient to ACR. Records of all patients receiving transplants for HCV infection at our center from 1993 to June 2002 were reviewed. Two hundred three patients were identified. Thirty‐seven patients (18%) were treated with interferon‐based therapies in combination with ribavirin. Twelve patients were selected for analysis because they became HCV RNA negative during therapy, and 18 patients with no antiviral response were selected as controls (7 other patients had incomplete data or had switched from one immunosuppression [IS] therapy to the other). Baseline IS levels were compared with the first available level after documented negative HCV RNA results in the study group and the last on‐treatment IS level in the control group. We also compared frequency and percentage of change in IS levels during therapy. Mean decline in CyA trough levels in the study group was from 187.28 ng/mL at baseline to 118.14 ng/mL immediately after becoming HCV RNA negative (−36.92%; P = .018). Mean decline in TAC levels was from 7.34 ng/mL at baseline to 5.02 ng/mL immediately after becoming HCV RNA negative (−29.17%; P = .044). Overall, 6 of 12 patients who cleared HCV RNA during therapy experienced ACR; 1 patient died as a result of ACR. Using percentage of decrease from baseline IS level, we combined results for patients administered CyA and TAC and found a significant decrease from baseline IS levels in responders (−31.8% after HCV RNA clearance on treatment; P = .0001). Nonresponders experienced a 0.98% decline in IS levels while on treatment, and the difference was significant compared with the change in the responder group (P = .006). A greater proportion of antiviral therapy responders also experienced trough IS levels 20% less than baseline than nonresponder controls during therapy (P = .0006). In conclusion, IS levels decreased significantly in patients responding favorably to anti‐HCV therapy. This decrease in IS levels may have a key role in predisposing these patients to ACR.
Heterogeneity in the Association Between Social-Emotional Adjustment Profiles and Deviant Behavior Among Male and Female Serious Juvenile Offenders

This article examines the relation among gender, social-emotional adjustment, and deviant behavior among serious juvenile offenders. A sample of 105 adolescent offenders completed questionnaires assessing social-emotional characteristics and self-reported involvement in deviant behaviors. Results indicate significant associations between distress and restraint in predicting deviance, a finding that was invariant across gender. Analysis of four distinct social-emotional profiles found that membership in the reactive group was associated with the greatest amount of deviant behavior. Results also indicate that not only do serious offending girls internalize more than serious offending boys, they appear equally likely to externalize. However, although boys exhibit less distress than girls, those boys who report high rates of deviance may exhibit internalizing and externalizing problems similar to girls. The use of social-emotional measures in general, and distinct profiles in particular, may aid in targeting specific programming and treatment in an effort to provide offenders with more effective interventions.
Basal ice formation and deformation: a review

A distinction is often made between the ice which constitutes the major part of glaciers and ice sheets and a relatively thin layer of debris-rich ice which is present at their base. This ’basal ice’, which has a vertical extent of up to tens of metres, is produced at and interacts with the glacier bed, while the overlying ’glacier ice’ is a product of firnification processes occurring at or near the upper surface of the ice mass (Paterson, 1981). As a result of its different mode and environment of formation, basal ice may differ from glacier ice in terms of its overall extent and structure and in the properties of the ice, debris, solutes and gases of which it is composed. In general, basal ice sequences have a much higher debris content than glacier ice and an anisotropic structure, consisting of individual layers, lenses and pods of variable lateral extent and distinctive chemical and isotopic composition. Several workers have combined study of these characteristics with theoretical considerations to postulate mechanisms for the formation of basal ice (Weertman, 1961; 1964; Kamb and LaChapelle, 1964; Boulton, 1970; Shaw, 1977; Tison and Lorrain, 1987). Given this compositional variability, basal ice may behave in a very different way rheologically from glacier ice or polycrystalline ’laboratory’ ice. A number of recent studies have reported field observations which indicate that strain rates in debris-rich basal ice or frozen subglacial sediments may be well in excess of those expected from theoretical or laboratory-based studies. This is of signicance since, although much of the internal deformation of ice masses occurs in layers close to the bed, most models of glacier and ice-sheet behaviour are based on assumptions of the uniform deformation of isotropic, polycrystalline ice based on Glen’s (1955) power flow law (see Weertman and Birchfield, 1984). This is no less the case today than in 1967, when Theakstone called for a greater comprehension of the response to stress of ice ’such as actually exists at glacier beds’, without which he felt that ’an adequate theory of glacier sliding is unlikely to be developed’ (Theakstone, 1967). The aim of this paper is to identify some of the processes responsible for the formation of basal ice sequences and to demonstrate the links likely to exist between these processes and the characteristics of the resultant sequences. The postulated rheological consequences of these properties are also discussed in the
A novel transgenic mouse model of growth plate dysplasia reveals that decreased chondrocyte proliferation due to chronic ER stress is a key factor in reduced bone growth

SUMMARY Disease mechanisms leading to different forms of chondrodysplasia include extracellular matrix (ECM) alterations and intracellular stress resulting in abnormal changes to chondrocyte proliferation and survival. Delineating the relative contribution of these two disease mechanisms is a major challenge in understanding disease pathophysiology in genetic skeletal diseases and a prerequisite for developing effective therapies. To determine the influence of intracellular stress and changes in chondrocyte phenotype to the development of chondrodysplasia, we targeted the expression of the G2320R mutant form of thyroglobulin to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of resting and proliferating chondrocytes. Previous studies on this mutant protein have shown that it induces intracellular aggregates and causes cell stress and death in the thyroid gland. The expression and retention of this exogenous mutant protein in resting and proliferating chondrocytes resulted in a chronic cell stress response, growth plate dysplasia and reduced bone growth, without inducing any alterations to the architecture and organization of the cartilage ECM. More significantly, the decreased bone growth seemed to be the direct result of reduced chondrocyte proliferation in the proliferative zone of growth plates in transgenic mice, without transcriptional activation of a classical unfolded protein response (UPR) or apoptosis. Overall, these data show that mutant protein retention in the ER of resting and proliferative zone chondrocytes is sufficient to cause disrupted bone growth. The specific disease pathways triggered by mutant protein retention do not necessarily involve a prototypic UPR, but all pathways impact upon chondrocyte proliferation in the cartilage growth plate.
The Monte-Carlo Approach in Amazons

The game of the Amazons is a quite new game whose rules stand between the game of Go and Chess. Its main difficulty in terms of game programming is the huge branching factor. Monte-Carlo is a method used in game programming which allows us to overcome easily this problem. This paper presents how the Monte-Carlo method can be best adapted to Amazon programming to obtain a good level program, and improvements that can be added to it.
Tracing microbiota changes in yamahai-moto, the traditional Japanese sake starter

Sake is made from steamed rice, malted rice, and water. Sake production begins with the preparation of a small-scale starter (moto); the quality of moto significantly influences the flavor and richness of sake. In the traditional starter, yamahai-moto, the growth of naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria represses the putrefactive micro-organisms, whereas in the modern starter, sokujo-moto, this is achieved by adding lactic acid. In this study, the successive change in bacterial flora of yamahai-moto was analyzed by pyrosequencing 16S ribosomal RNA genes. Lactobacillus was dominant throughout the process (93–98%). Nitrate-reducing bacteria that have been generally assumed to be the first colonizers of yamahai-moto were scarcely found in the early stage, but Lactobacillus acidipiscis dominated. Lactobacillus sakei drastically increased in the middle stage. This is the first report, though one case study, to show how the early stage microbiota in Japanese yamahai-moto is varyingly controlled without nitrate-reducing bacteria using next-generation sequencing. Graphical abstract Microbiota change during the fermentation of traditional Japanese sake starter yamahai-moto.
Collision Avoidance Strategies for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Formation Flight

Collision avoidance strategies for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) based on geometry are investigated in this study. The proposed strategies allow a group of UAVs to avoid obstacles and separate if necessary through a simple algorithm with low computation by expanding the collision-cone approach to formation of UAVs. The geometric approach uses line-of-sight vectors and relative velocity vectors where dynamic constraints are included in the formation. Each UAV can determine which plane and direction are available for collision avoidance. An analysis is performed to define an envelope for collision avoidance, where angular rate limits and obstacle detection range limits are considered. Based on the collision avoidance envelope, each UAV in a formation determines whether the formation can be maintained or not while avoiding obstacles. Numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the performance of the proposed strategies.
Blind source separation based on acoustic pressure distribution and normalized relative phase using dodecahedral microphone array

We developed a small dodecahedral microphone array device and propose a sound source separation method based on frequency-domain independent component analysis with the developed device. The developed device's diameter is 8 cm and the intervals among each face are 36°. Microphones can be installed on ten faces except the top and bottom faces, and 16 holes exist on each face. Our proposed method solves the permutation problem, which is frequency-domain independent component analysis's difficult problem, with acoustic pressure distribution that was observed in the device's faces and the normalized relative phases at each microphone in the high and low frequency ranges, respectively. In our experiments, three kinds of mixture signals were used. The separation performances were evaluated by the signal-to-interference rate improvement score and compared with the conventional method and the ideal condition. The results indicate that the proposed method using the developed device is effective.
Miniaturization of Ka-Band High Power Amplifier by 0.15 µm GaN MMIC Technology

We demonstrate a compact and efficient Ka-band high power amplifier with output power of 34.5dBm at 30 GHz by using 0.15 μm GaN technology. This paper reports record compact area of 2.38 mm^2 in a Ka-band high power amplifier (HPA) class. We employed 0.15 μm GaN process on 50 μm thick SiC substrate technology to achieve high output power with high efficiency and compact design. The advantage of a GaN PA in commercial millimeter-wave market is illustrated by comparing it to similar GaAs power amplifiers.
Individual Trabeculae Segmentation (ITS)–Based Morphological Analysis of High-Resolution Peripheral Quantitative Computed Tomography Images Detects Abnormal Trabecular Plate and Rod Microarchitecture in Premenopausal Women With Idiopathic Osteoporosis

Idiopathic osteoporosis (IOP) in premenopausal women is a poorly understood entity in which otherwise healthy women have low‐trauma fracture or very low bone mineral density (BMD). In this study, we applied individual trabeculae segmentation (ITS)–based morphological analysis to high‐resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR‐pQCT) images of the distal radius and distal tibia to gain greater insight into skeletal microarchitecture in premenopausal women with IOP. HR‐pQCT scans were performed for 26 normal control individuals and 31 women with IOP. A cubic subvolume was extracted from the trabecular bone compartment and subjected to ITS‐based analysis. Three Young's moduli and three shear moduli were calculated by micro–finite element (µFE) analysis. ITS‐based morphological analysis of HR‐pQCT images detected significantly decreased trabecular plate and rod bone volume fraction and number, decreased axial bone volume fraction in the longitudinal axis, increased rod length, and decreased rod‐to‐rod, plate‐to‐rod, and plate‐to‐plate junction densities at the distal radius and distal tibia in women with IOP. However, trabecular plate and rod thickness did not differ. A more rod‐like trabecular microstructure was found in the distal radius, but not in the distal tibia. Most ITS measurements contributed significantly to the elastic moduli of trabecular bone independent of bone volume fraction (BV/TV). At a fixed BV/TV, plate‐like trabeculae contributed positively to the mechanical properties of trabecular bone. The results suggest that ITS‐based morphological analysis of HR‐pQCT images is a sensitive and promising clinical tool for the investigation of trabecular bone microstructure in human studies of osteoporosis. © 2010 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research
Transcoding characteristics of Web images

Transcoding is a technique employed by network proxies to dynamically customize multimedia objects for prevailing network conditions and individual client characteristics. Transcoding can be performed along a number of different axes and the specific transcoding technique used depends on the type of multimedia object. Our goal in this paper is to understand the nature of typical Internet images and their transcoding characteristics. We focus our attention on transcodings intended to customize an image for file size savings. Our results allow the developers of a transcoding proxy server to choose the appropriate transcoding techniques for the important classes of Internet images. We analyze the characteristics of images available on the Web through a representative trace. We show that most GIF images accessed on the Internet are small; about 80% of the GIF images are smaller than 6 KBs. JPEG images are larger than GIF images; about 40% of the JPEG images are larger than 6 KBs. We also establish the characteristics of popular image transcoding operations. We show that for JPEG images, the JPEG compression metric and a transcoding that reduces the spatial geometry are productive transcoding operations (saves at least 50% of the file size for 50% of the images). Our systematic study of image characteristics leads to some surprising results. For example, a naive spatial geometry reduction of GIF images by a factor of 2 along each axis actually causes an increase in the file size compared to the original image for 40% of the images. Thus it is important to understand the characteristics of individual images before choosing the proper transcoding operation.
City level carbon mitigation strategies: What are their true impacts?

This paper addresses the problems associated with ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emission cut-off targets set for cities in recent years. Even though many cities have adopted an active approach to sustainability issues and climate change mitigation, they often lack appropriate and effective tools for achieving the cut-off targets. The primary purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the utilisation of a consumption based GHG emission assessment model in city level carbon management. The demonstration is executed by an evaluation of four different scenarios for city level carbon mitigation, including the construction of low-emission buildings, increasing the use of renewable energy sources, restricting urban sprawl and reducing private driving together with an increase in the share of public transportation. The study shows that a life cycle assessment (LCA) model like the one utilised here can be operated effectively in city level carbon management. Furthermore, the comprehensive, consumption based assessme.
Quantitative Estimate of Synaptic Inputs to Striatal Neurons during Up and Down States In Vitro

Up states are prolonged membrane potential depolarizations critical for synaptic integration and action potential generation in cortical and striatal neurons. They commonly result from numerous concurrent synaptic inputs, whereas neurons reside in a down state when synaptic inputs are few. By quantifying the composition, frequency, and amplitude of synaptic inputs for both states, we provide important constraints for state transitions in striatal network dynamics. Up and down states occur naturally in cortex-striatum-substantia nigra cocultures, which were used as an in vitro model in the present study. Spontaneous synaptic inputs during down states were extracted automatically in spiny projection neurons and fast spiking interneurons of the striatum using a newly developed computer algorithm. Consistent with a heterogeneous population of synaptic inputs, PSPs and PSCs showed no correlation in amplitude and rise time and occurred at relatively low frequencies of 10-40 Hz during the down state. The number of synaptic inputs during up states, estimated from the up-state charge and the unitary charge of down-state PSCs, was 217 ± 44. Given the average up-state duration of 284 ± 34 msec, synaptic input frequency was ∼800 Hz during up-states for both neuronal types. Many down-state events reversed at the chloride reversal potential and were blocked by GABAA antagonists. The high correlation between up- and down-state reversal potential suggests that despite these drastic changes in synaptic input frequency, the ratio of inhibitory to excitatory currents is similar during both states.
Cystatin C-Based Renal Function Changes After Antiretroviral Initiation: A Substudy of a Randomized Trial

Background. The effects of antiretrovirals on cystatin C-based renal function estimates are unknown. Methods. We analyzed changes in renal function using creatinine and cystatin C-based estimating equations in 269 patients in A5224s, a substudy of study A5202, in which treatment-naive patients were randomized to abacavir/lamivudine or tenofovir/emtricitabine with open-label atazanavir/ritonavir or efavirenz. Results. Changes in renal function significantly improved (or declined less) with abacavir/lamivudine treatment compared with tenofovir/emtricitabine using the Cockcroft-Gault formula (P = .016) and 2009 Chronic Kidney Disease Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI; P = .030) and 2012 CKD-EPI cystatin C-creatinine (P = .025). Renal function changes significantly improved (or declined less) with efavirenz compared with atazanavir/ritonavir (P < .001 for all equations). Mean (95% confidence interval) renal function changes specifically for tenofovir/emtricitabine combined with atazanavir/ritonavir were −8.3 (−14.0, −2.6) mL/min with Cockcroft-Gault; −14.9 (−19.7, −10.1) mL/min per 1.732 with Modification of Diet in Renal Disease; −12.8 (−16.5, −9.0) mL/min per 1.732 with 2009 CKD-EPI; +8.9 (4.2, 13.7) mL/min per 1.732 with 2012 CKD-EPI cystatin C; and −1.2 (−5.1, 2.6) mL/min per 1.732 with 2012 CKD-EPI cystatin C-creatinine. Renal function changes for the other treatment arms were more favorable but similarly varied by estimating equation. Conclusions. Antiretroviral-associated changes in renal function vary in magnitude and direction based on the estimating equation used.