Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation alters activation and connectivity in cortical and subcortical reward systems: A tDCS‐fMRI study

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a noninvasive brain stimulation technique used both experimentally and therapeutically to modulate regional brain function. However, few studies have directly measured the aftereffects of tDCS on brain activity or examined changes in task‐related brain activity consequent to prefrontal tDCS. To investigate the neural effects of tDCS, we collected fMRI data from 22 human subjects, both at rest and while performing the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART), before and after true or sham transcranial direct current stimulation. TDCS decreased resting blood perfusion in orbitofrontal cortex and the right caudate and increased task‐related activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in response to losses but not wins or increasing risk. Network analysis showed that whole‐brain connectivity of the right ACC correlated positively with the number of pumps subjects were willing to make on the BART, and that tDCS reduced connectivity between the right ACC and the rest of the brain. Whole‐brain connectivity of the right DLPFC also correlated negatively with pumps on the BART, as prior literature would suggest. Our results suggest that tDCS can alter activation and connectivity in regions distal to the electrodes. Hum Brain Mapp 35:3673–3686, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Note on Age , Wage and Suicide : Impacts of Wage Uncertainty on Suicide

This paper formalises an individual’s decision about suicide within a framework of lifetime-utility-maximisation models. This is in line with the literature on economic modelling of suicide. The novelty of the paper is to take into account income uncertainty. Income uncertainty reduces the expected utility of a risk-averse individual, making her/him more likely to commit suicide. On the other hand, income uncertainty creates a value to postponing suicide even when her/his income gets sufficiently low. This is because income uncertainty means that if things go well, she/he will get higher income in future. Thus, income uncertainty has two opposite effects on suicidal behaviour. The main objective of this paper is to construct an economic model of suicide for investigating net impacts of income uncertainty on suicidal behaviour. For this purpose, it is assumed that the wage evolves according to a stochastic process. Then, the threshold wage, below which an individual commits suicide, is derived as a function of the parameters of the stochastic process assumed for the wage evolution. Impacts of changes in these parameters on the threshold wage are calculated. With the result, the paper shows how income uncertainty affects suicidal behaviour.
Persistent differences between native speakers and late bilinguals: Evidence from inflectional and derivational processing in older speakers

Previous research with younger adults has revealed differences between native (L1) and non-native late-bilingual (L2) speakers with respect to how morphologically complex words are processed. This study examines whether these L1/L2 differences persist into old age. We tested masked-priming effects for derived and inflected word forms in older L1 and L2 speakers of German and compared them to results from younger L1 and L2 speakers on the same experiment (mean ages: 62 vs. 24). We found longer overall response times paired with better accuracy scores for older (L1 and L2) participants than for younger participants. The priming patterns, however, were not affected by chronological age. While both L1 and L2 speakers showed derivational priming, only the L1 speakers demonstrated inflectional priming. We argue that general performance in both L1 and L2 is affected by aging, but that the more profound differences between native and non-native processing persist into old age.
Experimental Adjustment on Drug Interactions through Intestinal CYP3A Activity in Rat: Impacts of Kampo Medicines Repeat Administered

To provide the information that is necessary for making the proper use of kampo medicines, we have proposed the adequate methodology focused on the following issues: (i) kampo medicines emphasize the effects produced by the combination of herbal drugs rather than the individual effect of any single herb and (ii) Intestinal CYP3A has become a key factor for the bioavailability of orally administrated drugs. In the present study, we investigated both the in vivo and in vitro effects of Saireito and Hochuekkito (kampo formulas) on CYP3A activities. From our study, oral pre-treatment with Saireito or Hochuekkito did not affect the pharmacokinetics of nifedipine after intravenous administration to rats. When nifedipine was administered to rat intrajejunum, a significant decrease of AUC was showed by pre-treatment with both kampo formulas. Saireito pre-treatment led to 80% decrease in C max of nifedipine. Saireito caused significant increases in both protein expression and metabolic activity of CYP3A in intestinal microsome, whereas it had no effect on CYP3A in hepatic microsome. Our result also showed that this affect of Saireito can be gone by wash-out with 1 week. These findings demonstrated that Saireito may induce CYP3A activity of intestine but not of liver in rats. When resources for research are limited, well-designed scientific studies except clinical trials also have many advantages.
On the Capacity of Generalized- $K$ Fading MIMO Channels

This correspondence explores the ergodic capacity of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems operating in generalized- K fading conditions. Using some recent results on majorization theory, we derive an analytical capacity bound which is applicable for arbitrary values of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and number of antenna elements. In addition, we deduce simple bound approximations in the high-SNR regime and demonstrate that the effects of small and large-scale fading are decoupled. A similar statistical analysis is carried out for MIMO channels under K-fading, which represents a special case of generalized-K fading that can be tackled via the Wishart matrix theory. The implications of the model parameters on the bound performance are also investigated via Monte Carlo simulations.
A survey of Monte Carlo algorithms for maximizing the likelihood of a two-stage hierarchical model

Likelihood inference with hierarchical models is often complicated by the fact that the likelihood function involves intractable integrals. Numerical integration (e.g. quadrature) is an option if the dimension of the integral is low but quickly becomes unreliable as the dimension grows. An alternative approach is to approximate the intractable integrals using Monte Carlo averages. Several different algorithms based on this idea have been proposed. In this paper we discuss the relative merits of simulated maximum likelihood, Monte Carlo EM, Monte Carlo Newton-Raphson and stochastic approximation.
Childhood Disadvantage, Social and Psychological Stress, and Substance Use Among Homeless Youth

We used a life stress framework to examine linkages between distal or primary stressors (e.g., child abuse) and proximal or secondary stressors (e.g., street victimization) and their association with substance use among 150 youth experiencing homelessness in the Midwestern United States. Results revealed that numerous primary stressors such as number of times youth ran from home and number of foster care placements were associated with secondary stressors, such as anxiety, total duration of homelessness, and street victimization. Only street physical victimization (e.g., been beaten up since leaving home) was associated with greater substance use. Our findings provide a more holistic picture of both distal and proximal life stressors that these young people experience and reveal the complexity of issues that service providers must acknowledge when working with this population.
A Continuum-Microscopic Algorithm for Modeling Fibrous, Heterogeneous Media with Dynamic Microstructures

Many materials undergo reconfiguration of microscopic structure in response to applied stress. Computing the mechanical behavior of such materials at the continuum level requires a locally valid stress-strain relation. Due to the dynamic microstructure reconfiguration, such relations are difficult to obtain analytically. Numerical simulation of the microscopic dynamics is an alternative, albeit one that is computationally expensive. Continuum-microscopic (CM) interaction algorithms seek to reduce computational cost by microscopic simulation over some small fraction of the continuum time step of interest, enough to determine the locally valid stress-strain relationship, assumed to hold over the entire continuum time step. One difficulty with this approach is the problem of recreating a valid microscopic configuration at the start of the next continuum time step. In most previous CM algorithms, the microscopic structure at the beginning of a new continuum time step is assumed to obey some predefined statist.
Neurobiological Effects of Prenatal Ethanol Exposure and Perceived Safety of Ethanol Consumption During Pregnancy

Author(s): Rohac, David John | Advisor(s): Huffman, Kelly J | Abstract: Alcohol exposure during fetal development is the leading known preventable cause of mental retardation in the western world (Abel et al., 1995; Abel et al., 1987; Stratton et al., 1996). Animal models and human studies reveal deficits in sensory-processing, behavior, motor learning, spatial functioning, and increased anxiety as a result of prenatal ethanol exposure (PrEE; Glavas et al., 2001; Kalberg et al., 2006; Hellemans et al., 2010; Carr et al., 2010; Hamilton et al., 2010). Work in the Huffman Laboratory has demonstrated how PrEE can induce abnormal neocortical gene expression, mistargeting of intraneocortical connections, changes to brain anatomy, and altered behavior in the first filial (F1, directly exposed) generation (El Shawa et al., 2013), as well as ethanol’s ability to induce epigenetic modifications (Abbott et al., 2017). If PrEE-induced epigenetic modifications contribute to the observed abnormal gene expression in PrEE animals, then it is plausible that PrEE related conditions could be heritable across generations without further exposure. By extending the metrics used to assess the first generation, we discovered stable modifications to brain anatomy, connectivity and behavior that is detectable across three generations. Many of the anatomical and connectivity related phenotypes are detectable at birth, and behavior is altered across all three generations when measured in prepubescent mice. Cataloging the effects that persist across multiple generations provides strong evidence for ethanol-induced epigenetic changes during development and provides insights into some of the mechanisms influencing heritability. The final study of this dissertation assesses the general perception of safe dietary behavior during pregnancy including alcohol. Responses demonstrated a lack of understanding about the danger of items containing teratogens like BPA, mercury and prescription pain medications and revealed a misconception about the safety of periodic wine drinking throughout pregnancy. The safety of alcohol as scored on our survey approximated CDC statistics of actual consumption during pregnancy. It is clear that increased education about the dangers of teratogen consumption, such as alcohol, during pregnancy is critical for the health and well being of future generations
Course evaluation in open and distance learning : a case of distance learning institute , University of Lagos , Nigeria

The aim of this study is to measure students’ perceptions of the courses being taken at the Distance Learning Institute of the University of Lagos. The study describes an evaluation of these courses from the students’ point of view. To achieve this, questionnaires were delivered to the students offering two major courses, Accounting and Business Administration. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that improvements are needed in some critical areas of the institute’s course planning and delivery system.
Impacts of VIIRS SDR performance on ocean color products

One of the primary goals for the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on board the Suomi National Polar‐orbiting Partnership is to provide the science and user communities with the data continuity of the Environmental Data Records (EDR) (or Level‐2 products) over global oceanic waters for various research and applications, including assessment of climatic and environmental variations. The ocean color EDR is one of the most important products derived from VIIRS. Since ocean color EDR is processed from the upstream Sensor Data Records (SDR) (or Level‐1B data), the objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of the SDR on the VIIRS ocean color EDR. The quality of the SDR relies on prelaunch sensor characterizations as well as on‐orbit radiometric calibrations, which are used to develop the sensor F‐factor lookup tables (F‐LUTs). VIIRS F‐LUTs derived from solar and lunar calibrations have been used in processing data from the VIIRS Raw Data Records (or Level‐0 data) to SDR. In this study, three sets of F‐LUTs with different generation schemes have been used to reprocess the SDR and then the ocean color EDR for product evaluations. VIIRS ocean color products are compared with in situ data from the Marine Optical Buoy and products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the satellite Aqua. It is found that the data quality of VIIRS operational ocean color products before 6 February 2012 is poor due to the inappropriate use of the at‐launch F‐LUTs for the SDR calibration, and that the recently updated VIIRS F‐LUTs have significantly improved the SDR and ocean color EDR. Using reprocessed SDR with updated F‐LUTs and including vicarious calibration, VIIRS ocean color EDR products are consistent with those from MODIS‐Aqua in global deep waters. Although there are still some significant issues with VIIRS ocean color EDR, e.g., poor data quality over coastal regions, our results demonstrate that VIIRS has great potential to provide the science and user communities with consistently high‐quality global ocean color data records that are established from heritage ocean color sensors such as MODIS‐Aqua.
Wage premia for skills: the complementarity of cognitive and non-cognitive skills

PurposeThe main purpose of this paper is to assess the degree of complementarity between cognitive skills and non-cognitive skills, and to evaluate their joint impact on individual wages.Design/methodology/approachThe author uses a survey representative of the Polish working-age population with well-established measures of cognitive and non-cognitive skills.FindingsNon-cognitive skills are important in the labour market, not only as separate factors that influence wages, but as complements to cognitive skills. Specifically, the analysis showed that the more neurotic an individual is, the lower his or her returns to cognitive skills are. Social skills were not shown to be complementary to cognitive skills in Poland unlike the recent results in the United States.Originality/valueTo the best of author's knowledge, this is the first study to provide evidence that neurotic individuals have lower returns to cognitive skills. It also tests the existence of the complementarity between social and cognitive skills.
Audio–Vision Substitution for Blind Individuals: Addressing Human Information Processing Capacity Limitations

In this contribution, we consider the factors that influence the information processing capacity of the person using sensory substitution devices, and the influence of how the translated information, here in audio, impacts performance. First, we review aspects of vision substitution by tactile and audio devices, and then we review key theory in human information processing limitations to devise and test use of an audio-vision substitution device, The vOICe, for recognizing visual objects with audio substitution for vision. Participants heard sonifications of two-dimensional (2-D) images and had to match them to alternatives presented either in visual or tactile modalities. To assess whether capacity limits constrain performance, objects were either presented with all information simultaneously (top and bottom as whole objects), or successively (top and bottom of the object one after the other). Performance was superior in the successive trials, indicative of a capacity limit in processing the auditory information. We discuss the implications for training protocols and design to provide a useful accessibility device for blind individuals.
Exploiting Text and Network Context for Geolocation of Social Media Users

Research on automatically geolocating social media users has conventionally been based on the text content of posts from a given user or the social network of the user, with very little crossover between the two, and no bench-marking of the two approaches over compara- ble datasets. We bring the two threads of research together in first proposing a text-based method based on adaptive grids, followed by a hybrid network- and text-based method. Evaluating over three Twitter datasets, we show that the empirical difference between text- and network-based methods is not great, and that hybridisation of the two is superior to the component methods, especially in contexts where the user graph is not well connected. We achieve state-of-the-art results on all three datasets.
Numerical calculation of ampacity of cable laying in ventilation tunnel based on coupled fields as well as the analysis on relevant factors

Forced ventilation of cable tunnel is one of the important ways to improve the cable ampacity which is one of important parameters to guarantee safe and reliable operation of underground cable system. According to the theory of fluid dynamics and heat transfer, the 3-D physical and mathematical models of cable tunnel ventilation system for fluid and temperature analysis were established, which were calculated numerically by using finite element method, based on some corresponding assumptions, control equations and boundary conditions. In this process, the fluid field distribution inside axial ventilation tunnel and temperature field distribution were calculated and analyzed, and the strong coupling relationship between fluid field and temperature field was proved. Based on the highest temperature of cable surface calculated above, cable ampacity was computed by using equivalent thermal circuit method and numerical iterative method. Moreover, some influences on cable ampacity were analyzed, and some valuable conclusions were obtained.
Long-term real-time measurements of aerosol particle composition in Beijing, China: seasonal variations, meteorological effects, and source analysis

Abstract. High concentrations of fine particles (PM2.5) are frequently observed during all seasons in Beijing, China, leading to severe air pollution and human health problems in this megacity. In this study, we conducted real-time measurements of non-refractory submicron aerosol (NR-PM1) species (sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, chloride, and organics) in Beijing using an Aerodyne Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor for 1 year, from July 2011 to June 2012. This is the first long-term, highly time-resolved (~ 15 min) measurement of fine particle composition in China. The seasonal average (±1σ) mass concentration of NR-PM1 ranged from 52 (±49) μg m−3 in the spring season to 62 (±49) μg m−3 in the summer season, with organics being the major fraction (40–51 %), followed by nitrate (17–25 %) and sulfate (12–17 %). Organics and chloride showed pronounced seasonal variations, with much higher concentrations in winter than in the other seasons, due to enhanced coal combustion emissions. Although the seasonal variations of secondary inorganic aerosol (SIA, i.e., sulfate + nitrate + ammonium) concentrations were not significant, higher contributions of SIA were observed in summer (57–61 %) than in winter (43–46 %), indicating that secondary aerosol production is a more important process than primary emissions in summer. Organics presented pronounced diurnal cycles that were similar among all seasons, whereas the diurnal variations of nitrate were mainly due to the competition between photochemical production and gas–particle partitioning. Our data also indicate that high concentrations of NR-PM1 (> 60 μg m−3) are usually associated with high ambient relative humidity (RH) (> 50 %) and that severe particulate pollution is characterized by different aerosol composition in different seasons. All NR-PM1 species showed evident concentration gradients as a function of wind direction, generally with higher values associated with wind from the south, southeast or east. This was consistent with their higher potential as source areas, as determined by potential source contribution function analysis. A common high potential source area, located to the southwest of Beijing along the Taihang Mountains, was observed during all seasons except winter, when smaller source areas were found. These results demonstrate a high potential impact of regional transport from surrounding regions on the formation of severe haze pollution in Beijing.
Hedging in Iranian English language teachers’ spoken language: Any differential effect for gender?

Abstract Despite the importance attached in the literature to the use of hedges, the study of hedging has been shown to target, mainly, the written corpora of various types and so remains neglected in naturally occurring speech. Moreover, the existing discussion predominantly encompass cross-cultural variation in the use of hedging devices and gender as a variable has largely been overlooked. This study was conducted to shed more light on the differences between 4 Iranian male and female English instructors’use of hedging and its different realizations in their actual speech. One teaching session of each instructor was videotaped and the instructors were asked to view their video and to recollect their reasons for resorting to different activities for teaching. Their recollections were recorded and transcribed. Based on Hyland’s classification of hedges, the frequency and realization of hedging in male and female corpus were identified. Results showed considerable differences in the overall distribution of hedges as well as certain types of hedging linguistic devices throughout the male and female corpus.
DNA-binding protein prediction using plant specific support vector machines: validation and application of a new genome annotation tool

There are currently 151 plants with draft genomes available but levels of functional annotation for putative protein products are low. Therefore, accurate computational predictions are essential to annotate genomes in the first instance, and to provide focus for the more costly and time consuming functional assays that follow. DNA-binding proteins are an important class of proteins that require annotation, but current computational methods are not applicable for genome wide predictions in plant species. Here, we explore the use of species and lineage specific models for the prediction of DNA-binding proteins in plants. We show that a species specific support vector machine model based on Arabidopsis sequence data is more accurate (accuracy 81%) than a generic model (74%), and based on this we develop a plant specific model for predicting DNA-binding proteins. We apply this model to the tomato proteome and demonstrate its ability to perform accurate high-throughput prediction of DNA-binding proteins. In doing so, we have annotated 36 currently uncharacterised proteins by assigning a putative DNA-binding function. Our model is publically available and we propose it be used in combination with existing tools to help increase annotation levels of DNA-binding proteins encoded in plant genomes.