Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigating Affective Pathways for the Influence of Justification on Self-Control

People struggle with temptation in their everyday lives. Research often attributes failures in self-regulation to overwhelming and uncontrollable impulses. However, research also supports the idea that cognitive factors (e.g., justification) can license tempting behavior and allow individuals to behave in ways that run counter to their long-term goals. In addition, it is likely that affect plays a role in justification-based self-control failure. The current set of three studies investigated the role of affect in justification-based self-control failure. Study 1 tested the prediction that recall of past successes would result in increased positive affect. Study 2 assessed whether justification results in an increased propensity to engage in temptation following a hypothesized increase in positive affect. In addition, attention to emotion was hypothesized to facilitate self-control (i.e., resulted in the selection of a healthy food item). Study 3 tested an alternative prediction that justification increases both the subjective enjoyment of food and positive emotion experienced during food consumption. Finally, it was hypothesized that individual differences (e.g., emotional reactivity, trait self-control) may moderate the relationship between justification and self-control failure. Across the three studies, results indicated that thinking about past healthy choices did not consistently result in increased positive affect. We also found that participants who thought about past healthy choices were more likely to select a healthy, rather than unhealthy, food item compared to individuals in both a positive affect and control condition. Finally, thinking about past healthy choices did not result in increased positive affect during indulgence, nor did it increase subjective food enjoyment during imaginal consumption. Overall, results suggest recall of past healthy behavior does not consistently increase positive affect, nor does it increase the likelihood one will engage in temptation.
Your Resting Brain CAREs about Your Risky Behavior

Background Research on the neural correlates of risk-related behaviors and personality traits has provided insight into mechanisms underlying both normal and pathological decision-making. Task-based neuroimaging studies implicate a distributed network of brain regions in risky decision-making. What remains to be understood are the interactions between these regions and their relation to individual differences in personality variables associated with real-world risk-taking. Methodology/Principal Findings We employed resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (R-fMRI) and resting state functional connectivity (RSFC) methods to investigate differences in the brain's intrinsic functional architecture associated with beliefs about the consequences of risky behavior. We obtained an individual measure of expected benefit from engaging in risky behavior, indicating a risk seeking or risk-averse personality, for each of 21 participants from whom we also collected a series of R-fMRI scans. The expected benefit scores were entered in statistical models assessing the RSFC of brain regions consistently implicated in both the evaluation of risk and reward, and cognitive control (i.e., orbitofrontal cortex, nucleus accumbens, lateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate). We specifically focused on significant brain-behavior relationships that were stable across R-fMRI scans collected one year apart. Two stable expected benefit-RSFC relationships were observed: decreased expected benefit (increased risk-aversion) was associated with 1) stronger positive functional connectivity between right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and right insula, and 2) weaker negative functional connectivity between left nucleus accumbens and right parieto-occipital cortex. Conclusions/Significance Task-based activation in the IFG and insula has been associated with risk-aversion, while activation in the nucleus accumbens and parietal cortex has been associated with both risk seeking and risk-averse tendencies. Our results suggest that individual differences in attitudes toward risk-taking are reflected in the brain's functional architecture and may have implications for engaging in real-world risky behaviors.
Investor Sentiment and Use of Accounting Information

This paper relies on the characteristics of different earnings components to show that sentiment affects both investors judgments of expected cash flows and their risk preferences. As suggested in psychology theories, those two effects of sentiment work against each other in the valuation model-optimistic (pessimistic) cash flow judgments come with high (low) discount rates during high (low) sentiment periods. Hence, the combined effects of sentiment on investors reactions to different earnings components, then, depend on which effect dominates the other. Prior studies show that information uncertainty moderates the effect on judgments. For those earnings components generating future benefits with low uncertainties, I find that the effect of sentiment on risk preferences dominates its effect on judgments, because low uncertainty leaves no room for judgments. On the contrary, for earnings components generating future benefits with high uncertainty, I find that effect of sentiment on judgments dominates its effect on risk preferences. It is consistent with findings in prior literature that cash flow shocks usually overshadow discount rate shocks.
Determinants of Follow-Up Participation in the Internet-Based European Influenza Surveillance Platform Influenzanet

Bajardi, Paolo; Vespignani, Alessandro; Funk, Sebastian; Eames, Ken Td; Edmunds, W John; Turbelin, Clément; Debin, Marion; Colizza, Vittoria; Smallenburg, Ronald; Koppeschaar, Carl E; +5 more. Franco, Ana O; Faustino, Vitor; Carnahan, Annasara; Rehn, Moa; Paolotti, Daniela; (2014) Determinants of follow-up participation in the Internet-based European influenza surveillance platform Influenzanet. Journal of medical Internet research, 16 (3). e78-. ISSN 1439-4456 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2196/jmir.3010 Downloaded from: http://researchonline.lshtm. ac.uk/id/eprint/1883950/
Comparison Between Digital and Manual Marking for Toric Intraocular Lenses

AbstractTo compare the clinical outcome of digital and manual marking for toric intraocular lens (IOL) alignment.This is a prospective clinical study that included 60 eyes of 60 patients undergoing cataract surgery with coexisting corneal astigmatism more than 1 diopter (D). The eyes were randomly assigned to either digital image guidance using VERION digital marker (Alcon Laboratories, Ft. Worth, TX) or manual slitlamp-assisted preoperative marking using pendulum-attached marker. Tecnis toric IOL (Abbott Medical Optics, Inc, Santa Ana, CA) was implanted in all cases.The mean postoperative uncorrected distance visual acuity (UCDVA) for the digital-marking group was 0.12 + 0.12 logMAR, and for the manual-marking group was 0.18 + 0.14 logMAR (P = 0.104). The mean deviation from targeted induced astigmatism (TIA) for the first group was 0.10 + 0.08 D and for the second group was 0.20 + 0.14 D (P = 0.001). The mean postoperative toric IOL misalignment measured by the slitlamp was 2.4° + 1.96° for the first group and was 4.33° + 2.72° for the second group (P = 0.003). Accurate alignment of the toric IOL is important to achieve the desired astigmatism correction. VERION system has the advantage of preoperative planning and intraoperative digital guidance of the toric IOL alignment. The use of VERION system resulted in less postoperative deviation from TIA and showed less postoperative toric IOL misalignment than using manual-marking technique.
A mid-Holocene climate reconstruction for eastern South America

The mid-Holocene (6000 calibrated years before present) is a key period in palaeoclimatology because incoming summer insolation was lower than during the late Holocene in the Southern Hemisphere, whereas the opposite happened in the Northern Hemisphere. However, the effects of the decreased austral summer insolation over South American climate have been poorly discussed by palaeodata syntheses. In addition, only a few of the regional studies have characterised the mid-Holocene climate in South America through a multiproxy approach. Here, we present a multiproxy compilation of mid-Holocene palaeoclimate data for eastern South America. We compiled 120 palaeoclimatological datasets, which were published in 84 different papers. The palaeodata analysed here suggest a water deficit scenario in the majority of eastern South America during the mid-Holocene if compared to the late Holocene, with the exception of northeastern Brazil. Low mid-Holocene austral summer insolation caused a reduced land-sea temperature contrast and hence a weakened South American monsoon system circulation. This scenario is represented by a decrease in precipitation over the South Atlantic Convergence Zone area, saltier conditions along the South American continental margin, and lower lake levels.
Improved Flow Cytometric Assessment Reveals Distinct Microvesicle (Cell-Derived Microparticle) Signatures in Joint Diseases

Introduction Microvesicles (MVs), earlier referred to as microparticles, represent a major type of extracellular vesicles currently considered as novel biomarkers in various clinical settings such as autoimmune disorders. However, the analysis of MVs in body fluids has not been fully standardized yet, and there are numerous pitfalls that hinder the correct assessment of these structures. Methods In this study, we analyzed synovial fluid (SF) samples of patients with osteoarthritis (OA), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). To assess factors that may confound MV detection in joint diseases, we used electron microscopy (EM), Nanoparticle Tracking Analysis (NTA) and mass spectrometry (MS). For flow cytometry, a method commonly used for phenotyping and enumeration of MVs, we combined recent advances in the field, and used a novel approach of differential detergent lysis for the exclusion of MV-mimicking non-vesicular signals. Results EM and NTA showed that substantial amounts of particles other than MVs were present in SF samples. Beyond known MV-associated proteins, MS analysis also revealed abundant plasma- and immune complex-related proteins in MV preparations. Applying improved flow cytometric analysis, we demonstrate for the first time that CD3+ and CD8+ T-cell derived SF MVs are highly elevated in patients with RA compared to OA patients (p = 0.027 and p = 0.009, respectively, after Bonferroni corrections). In JIA, we identified reduced numbers of B cell-derived MVs (p = 0.009, after Bonferroni correction). Conclusions Our results suggest that improved flow cytometric assessment of MVs facilitates the detection of previously unrecognized disease-associated vesicular signatures.
Lymphotoxin-α Gene and Risk of Myocardial Infarction in 6,928 Cases and 2,712 Controls in the ISIS Case-Control Study

Lymphotoxin-α (LTA) is a pro-inflammatory cytokine that plays an important role in the immune system and local inflammatory response. LTA is expressed in atherosclerotic plaques and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease (CHD). Polymorphisms in the gene encoding lymphotoxin-α (LTA) on Chromosome 6p21 have been associated with susceptibility to CHD, but results in different studies appear to be conflicting. We examined the association of seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the LTA gene, and their related haplotypes, with risk of myocardial infarction (MI) in the International Study of Infarct Survival (ISIS) case-control study involving 6,928 non-fatal MI cases and 2,712 unrelated controls. The seven SNPs (including the rs909253 and rs1041981 SNPs previously implicated in the risk of CHD) were in strong linkage disequilibrium with each other and contributed to six common haplotypes. Some of the haplotypes for LTA were associated with higher plasma concentrations of C-reactive protein (p = 0.004) and lower concentrations of albumin (p = 0.023). However, none of the SNPs or related haplotypes were significantly associated with risk of MI. The results of the ISIS study were considered in the context of six previously published studies that had assessed this association, and this meta-analysis found no significant association with CHD risk using a recessive model and only a modest association using a dominant model (with narrow confidence intervals around these risk estimates). Overall, these studies provide reliable evidence that these common polymorphisms for the LTA gene are not strongly associated with susceptibility to coronary disease.
Quantitative T2 mapping of recurrent glioblastoma under bevacizumab improves monitoring for non-enhancing tumor progression and predicts overall survival.

BACKGROUND Anti-angiogenic treatment in recurrent glioblastoma patients suppresses contrast enhancement and reduces vasogenic edema while non-enhancing tumor progression is common. Thus, the importance of T2-weighted imaging is increasing. We therefore quantified T2 relaxation times, which are the basis for the image contrast on T2-weighted images. METHODS Conventional and quantitative MRI procedures were performed on 18 patients with recurrent glioblastoma before treatment with bevacizumab and every 8 weeks thereafter until further tumor progression. We segmented the tumor on conventional MRI into 3 subvolumes: enhancing tumor, non-enhancing tumor, and edema. Using coregistered quantitative maps, we followed changes in T2 relaxation time in each subvolume. Moreover, we generated differential T2 maps by a voxelwise subtraction using the first T2 map under bevacizumab as reference. RESULTS Visually segmented areas of tumor and edema did not differ in T2 relaxation times. Non-enhancing tumor volume did not decrease after commencement of bevacizumab treatment but strikingly increased at progression. Differential T2 maps clearly showed non-enhancing tumor progression in previously normal brain. T2 relaxation times decreased under bevacizumab without re-increasing at tumor progression. A decrease of <26 ms in the enhancing tumor following exposure to bevacizumab was associated with longer overall survival. CONCLUSIONS Combining quantitative MRI and tumor segmentation improves monitoring of glioblastoma patients under bevacizumab. The degree of change in T2 relaxation time under bevacizumab may be an early response parameter predictive of overall survival. The sustained decrease in T2 relaxation times toward values of healthy tissue masks progressive tumor on conventional T2-weighted images. Therefore, quantitative T2 relaxation times may detect non-enhancing progression better than conventional T2-weighted imaging.
YouTube around the world: geographic popularity of videos

One of the most popular user activities on the Web is watching videos. Services like YouTube, Vimeo, and Hulu host and stream millions of videos, providing content that is on par with TV. While some of this content is popular all over the globe, some videos might be only watched in a confined, local region. In this work we study the relationship between popularity and locality of online YouTube videos. We investigate whether YouTube videos exhibit geographic locality of interest, with views arising from a confined spatial area rather than from a global one. Our analysis is done on a corpus of more than 20 millions YouTube videos, uploaded over one year from different regions. We find that about 50% of the videos have more than 70% of their views in a single region. By relating locality to viralness we show that social sharing generally widens the geographic reach of a video. If, however, a video cannot carry its social impulse over to other means of discovery, it gets stuck in a more confined geographic region. Finally, we analyze how the geographic properties of a video's views evolve on a daily basis during its lifetime, providing new insights on how the geographic reach of a video changes as its popularity peaks and then fades away. Our results demonstrate how, despite the global nature of the Web, online video consumption appears constrained by geographic locality of interest: this has a potential impact on a wide range of systems and applications, spanning from delivery networks to recommendation and discovery engines, providing new directions for future research.
Comparing System Evaluation with User Experiments for Japanese Web Navigational Retrieval

We conducted a search experiment targeting 31 users to investigate whether the performance evaluation metrics of IR systems used in test collections, such as TREC and NTCIR, are comparable to the user performance and subjective evaluation. We selected three systems with high, medium, and low performance values in terms of nDCG, MRR and Prec@10 metrics from among the retrieval systems that participated in the NTCIR-5 WEB task, and then selected three topics. The results of the experiment showed no significant differences between these systems and topics in the completion time for each search. Furthermore, none of the results of the users’ evaluations corresponded to the results of the batch system evaluations. These results indicate a need for new evaluation metrics that correspond to the users’ evaluations.
CORYNEBACTERIAL PSEUDOTUBERCULOSIS IN MICE

Latent corynebactenai infection occurs naturally in many strains of mice. It can be evoked into the active disease, pseudotuberculosis, by a single injection of 10 mg of cortisone. The cortisone effect was tested in 21 colonies, representing 11 genetically different strains of mice. Animals of the C57B1/6, DBA/2, and RIII strains were shown to be latently infected with Corynebacterium kutscheri by the fact that they developed fatal pseudotuberculosis following cortisone treatment. Virulent C. kutscheri could not be isolated from homogenates of organs obtained from latently infected animals before cortisone administration; however, these homogenates yielded small translucent colonies of avirulent organisms. Recovery of these atypical colonies was facilitated by preincubating the organ homogenates before plating. The organisms constituting such colonies differed morphologically and immunologically from C. kutscheri, but had similar biochemical properties with the exception that they lacked urease and catalase activity. Mice treated with cortisone yielded both the avirulent bacteria and virulent C. kutscheri. The latter was the predominant organism present in the organs at the height of infection. Injection of avirulent organisms into Swiss Lynch mice, which are normally free of latent corynebacteria, occasionally established a latent infection which could be converted into corynebacterial pseudotuberculosis by cortisone. Cultures of fully virulent C. kutscheri were then obtained from the lesions. Latency was produced experimentally with a streptomycin-resistant strain of virulent C. kutscheri (CKsr) derived from the stock culture. When sublethal doses of CKsr were injected into NCS mice (Institut Pasteur colony), they induced a latent infection characterized by the presence of avirulent organisms possessing the streptomycin resistance marker. These were isolated in the form of small translucent colonies from the livers of the infected animals. Administration of cortisone to these animals subsequently evoked active infection from which virulent CKsr could be obtained. Injection of the avirulent streptomycin-resistant organisms into normal NCS mice established a latent infection which could be uniformly converted into corynebacterial pseudotuberculosis by cortisone. The virulent C. kutscheri obtained from the lesions bore the genetic marker of streptomycin resistance, thus being identical with CKsr. Except for streptomycin resistance, the avirulent organisms isolated from the experimentally induced latent infections were identical with those found in the naturally occurring latent infections. These results suggest that C. kutscheri can persist in vitro in an avirulent form which is resistant to the defense mechanisms of the host, and can thus establish a latent infection. Treatment of the animal with cortisone results in the conversion of the avirulent form into virulent C. kutscheri, and of the latent infection into active corynebacterial pseudotuberculosis. The findings are discussed with regard to their relevance to infection immunity, and to the conversion of latent infection into overt disease.
Explaining unexplained pain to fibromyalgia patients: finding a narrative that is acceptable to patients and provides a rationale for evidence based interventions

As the cause of fibromyalgia is controversial, communicating with patients can be challenging, particularly if the patient adopts the narrative ‘I am damaged and so I need a more powerful pain killer’. Research shows that providing patients with alternative narratives can be helpful, but it remains unclear what particular narratives are most acceptable to patients and at the same time provide a rationale for evidence based psychological and exercise interventions. This article described the development of a new narrative and the written comments made about the narrative by fibromyalgia patients. The narrative derives from a complexity theory model and provides an alternative to biogenic and psychogenic models. The model was presented to 15 patients whose comments about comprehensibility led to the final format of the narrative. In the final form, the body is presented as ‘a very, very clever computer’ where fibromyalgia is caused by a software rather than a hardware problem. The software problem is caused by the body adapting when people have to ‘keep going’ despite ‘stop signals’, such as pain and fatigue. The narrative provides a rationale for engaging in psychological and exercise interventions as a way of correcting the body’s software. This way of explaining fibromyalgia was evaluated by a further 25 patients attending a 7-week ‘body reprogramming’ intervention, where the therapy was presented as correcting the body’s software, and included both exercise and psychological components. Attendance at the course was 85%. Thematic analysis of written patient feedback collected after each session showed that patients found the model believable and informative, it provided hope and was empowering. Patients also indicated that they had started to implement lifestyle change with perceived benefit. Fibromyalgia patients appear to respond positively to a technology-derived narrative based on the analogy of the body as a computer.