Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do older adults have social lifestyles that place fewer demands on hearing?

BACKGROUND Listening demand, or auditory lifestyle, is an important factor that needs to be considered when selecting a hearing aid and specific amplification features. Although elderly adults often report having fewer listening demands, auditory lifestyles of people in different age groups have not been objectively quantified and compared. Although it is assumed that the social lifestyles of older adults, e.g., retirement, place fewer demands on hearing, this assumption has not been examined empirically. PURPOSE The purposes of the current study were to (1) objectively characterize and compare the auditory lifestyle of younger and older adults with hearing impairment and (2) examine the relationships between age, social lifestyle, and auditory lifestyle. RESEARCH DESIGN This is a nonexperimental study using a correlational design. STUDY SAMPLE Twenty-seven adults with bilateral hearing impairment aged 40-88 yr were recruited and served as subjects. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS To objectively quantify auditory lifestyle, participants carried noise dosimeters to measure sound levels in their daily lives for 1 wk. To help interpret the dosimeter data, participants used paper-and-pencil journals to describe their listening activities and environments. The auditory lifestyle was also subjectively quantified by the Auditory Lifestyle and Demand Questionnaire (ALDQ). Three self-report inventories were used to characterize participants' social lifestyles: Social Network Index, Welin Activity Scale, and Social Convoy Questionnaire. RESULTS A total of 1,267 journal entries covering 2,032 hr of dosimeter recordings were obtained from participants for analyses. Although younger and older participants reported spending comparable time in a given category of listening event, the dosimeter-measured sound level was higher for younger listeners. For auditory lifestyle quantified by dosimeter, correlation analyses revealed that older age was associated with lower Social Network Index scores (smaller social networks) and fewer listening demands. Regression models further indicated that the Social Network Index score more accurately predicted listening demand than age. Finally, path analysis suggested that the effect of age on listening demand was mediated by the Social Network Index score. Self-report auditory lifestyle measured by the ALDQ was not associated with age and social lifestyle. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate that older listeners tend to encounter quieter listening situations than younger listeners. The data are also consistent with the hypothesis that older adults have less active social lifestyles that place fewer demands on hearing. Therefore, the current study suggests the important role of social lifestyle in listening demand and the need to consider this factor in clinical management of hearing loss.
Marked Shifts in Offspring Size Elicited by Frequent Fusion among Siblings in an Internally Brooding Marine Invertebrate

While offspring size is a widely studied concept in evolutionary ecology, mechanisms affecting offspring phenotype in species with postzygotic parental care are incompletely understood. We examined the impact of sibling fusion on ontogenetic shifts in offspring size in the brooding sea anemone Urticina felina. Fusion occurred among brood-protected embryos in U. felina, whereas it occurred postrelease among settlers of corals studied here and previously. Two fusion products were evidenced: morphologically aberrant offspring and large homogeneous offspring coined “megalarvae. ” The frequent occurrence (∼77%) of megalarvae identifies them as the primary fusion product, which drove an increase in offspring size and within-clutch size variation before release. Lipid signatures suggest that morphologically aberrant juveniles represent by-products that do not reach adulthood. Not only were occurrences of megalarvae common in the populations studied, they increased with maternal fecundity, suggesting that sibling fusion may be a form of kin cooperation integral to the reproductive success of U. felina, warranting investigation in other live-bearing invertebrate taxa.
Ultrasensitivity and fluctuations in the Barkai-Leibler model of chemotaxis receptors in Escherichia coli

A stochastic version of the Barkai-Leibler model of chemotaxis receptors in Escherichia coli is studied here with the goal of elucidating the effects of intrinsic network noise in their conformational dynamics. The model was originally proposed to explain the robust and near-perfect adaptation of E. coli observed across a wide range of spatially uniform attractant/repellent (ligand) concentrations. In the model, a receptor is either active or inactive and can stochastically switch between the two states. The enzyme CheR methylates inactive receptors while CheB demethylates active receptors and the probability for a receptor to be active depends on its level of methylation and ligand occupation. In a simple version of the model with two methylation sites per receptor (M = 2), we show rigorously, under a quasi-steady state approximation, that the mean active fraction of receptors is an ultrasensitive function of [CheR]/[CheB] in the limit of saturating receptor concentration. Hence the model shows zero-order ultrasensitivity (ZOU), similar to the classical two-state model of covalent modification studied by Goldbeter and Koshland (GK). We also find that in the limits of extremely small and extremely large ligand concentrations, the system reduces to two different two-state GK modules. A quantitative measure of the spontaneous fluctuations in activity is provided by the variance in the active fraction, which is estimated mathematically under linear noise approximation (LNA). It is found that peaks near the ZOU transition. The variance is a non-monotonic, but weak function of ligand concentration and a decreasing function of receptor concentration. Gillespie simulations are also performed in models with M = 2, 3 and 4. For M = 2, simulations show excellent agreement with analytical results obtained under LNA. Numerical results for M = 3 and M = 4 are qualitatively similar to our mathematical results in M = 2; while all the models show ZOU in mean activity, the variance is found to be smaller for larger M. The magnitude of receptor noise deduced from available experimental data is consistent with our predictions. A simple analysis of the downstream signaling pathway shows that this noise is large enough to affect the motility of the organism, and may have a beneficial effect on it. The response of mean receptor activity to small time-dependent changes in the external ligand concentration is computed within linear response theory, and found to have a bilobe form, in agreement with earlier experimental observations.
Virtual gravity and coupling control for robotic gait synthesis

In our previous works, we have proposed "virtual passive dynamic walking" with virtual gravity for biped robots in order to realize active walking on level ground without any gait design in advance. In this paper, we discuss some control problems of a kneed biped robot and propose "modified compass-like virtual passive dynamic walking" with active knee-lock algorithms in order to avoid the "foot scuffing" problem during the single support phase. Furthermore, a virtual coupling control law is proposed which can realize a variable walking pattern with respect to the robot's energy levels. By the effect of the control law, the robot, which is a hybrid dynamical system, can be regarded as a passive system which does not include any collisions, and a variable walking pattern can be realized without loss of the properties of a virtual passive walk. The validity of the proposed methods has been examined by numerical simulations.
Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drug-activated Gene (NAG-1/GDF15) Expression Is Increased by the Histone Deacetylase Inhibitor Trichostatin A*

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug-activated gene (NAG-1) is a putative tumor suppressor whose expression can be increased by drug treatment. Glioblastoma is the most common central nervous system tumor, is associated with high morbidity and mortality, and responds poorly to surgical, chemical, and radiation therapy. The histone deacetylase inhibitors are under current consideration as therapeutic agents in treating glioblastoma. We investigated whether trichostatin A (TSA) would alter the expression of NAG-1 in glioblastoma cells. The DNA demethylating agent 5-aza-dC did not increase NAG-1 expression, but TSA up-regulated NAG-1 expression and acted synergistically with 5-aza-dC to induce NAG-1 expression. TSA indirectly increases NAG-1 promoter activity and increases NAG-1 mRNA and protein expression in the T98G human glioblastoma cell line. TSA also increases the expression of transcription factors Sp-1 and Egr-1. Small interfering RNA experiments link NAG-1 expression to apoptosis induced by TSA. Reporter gene assays, specific inhibition by small interfering RNA transfections, and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays indicate that Egr-1 and Sp-1 mediate TSA-induced NAG-1 expression. TSA also increases the stability of NAG-1 mRNA. TSA-induced NAG-1 expression involves multiple mechanisms at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels.
Access to weight reduction interventions for overweight and obese patients in UK primary care: population-based cohort study

Objectives To investigate access to weight management interventions for overweight and obese patients in primary care. Setting UK primary care electronic health records. Participants A cohort of 91 413 overweight and obese patients aged 30–100 years was sampled from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD). Patients with body mass index (BMI) values ≥25 kg/m2 recorded between 2005 and 2012 were included. BMI values were categorised using WHO criteria. Interventions Interventions for body weight management, including advice, referrals and prescription of antiobesity drugs, were evaluated. Primary and secondary outcome measures The rate of body weight management interventions and time to intervention were the main outcomes. Results Data were analysed for 91 413 patients, mean age 56 years, including 55 094 (60%) overweight and 36 319 (40%) obese, including 4099 (5%) with morbid obesity. During the study period, 90% of overweight patients had no weight management intervention recorded. Intervention was more frequent among obese patients, but 59% of patients with morbid obesity had no intervention recorded. Rates of intervention increased with BMI category. In morbid obesity, rates of intervention per 1000 patient years were: advice, 60.2 (95% CI 51.8 to 70.4); referral, 75.7 (95% CI 69.5 to 82.6) and antiobesity drugs 89.9 (95% CI 85.0 to 95.2). Weight management interventions were more often accessed by women, older patients, those with comorbidity and those in deprivation. Follow-up of body weight subsequent to interventions was infrequent. Conclusions Limited evidence of weight management interventions in primary care electronic health records may result from poor recording of advice given, but may indicate a lack of patient access to appropriate body weight management interventions in primary care.
Variations of mt1 melatonin receptor density in the rat uterus during decidualization, the estrous cycle and in response to exogenous steroid treatment

Abstract: The expression of mt1 receptor protein in the rat uterus was investigated using an anti‐mt1 polyclonal antibody against the rat mt1 receptor. A melatonin receptor protein of 37 kDa was detectable by Western blotting in the rat uterine membrane preparations. Autoradiography with the melatonin ligand, 2‐[125I]iodomelatonin, was used to localize melatonin receptors in the uterus of the estrous rats and to study the changes of melatonin receptors in pregnancy. Melatonin receptors were found to be localized in the estrous rat uterine antimesometrial stroma. As decidualization of the uterine stroma progressed during pregnancy, the melatonin binding sites were progressively reduced and became confined to the antimesometrial non‐decidualized outer stroma. 2‐[125I]Iodomelatonin binding sites were not seen in the mesometrial stromal cells during pregnancy. The role of ovarian hormones in the regulation of uterine melatonin receptors was examined by studying the binding at various phases of the estrous cycle, after ovariectomy with and without follow‐on treatment of estradiol (E2), progesterone (P4) or both. 2‐[125I]Iodomelatonin binding in the rat uterus fluctuated during the estrous cycle, being lowest during metestrus. Ovariectomy caused an almost 70% reduction of 2‐[125I]iodomelatonin binding compared with the control. Injections of ovariectomized (OVX) rats with E2 or P4 alone or in combination for 11 days induced a partial restoration of 2‐[125I]iodomelatonin binding in the OVX rats. The results show that mt1 melatonin receptors in the rat antimesometrial stroma are regulated by ovarian hormones.
Synthesis of low-complexity stabilizing piecewise affine controllers: A control-Lyapunov function approach

Explicit model predictive controllers computed exactly by multi-parametric optimization techniques often lead to piecewise affine (PWA) state feedback controllers with highly complex and irregular partitionings of the feasible set. In many cases complexity prohibits the implementation of the resulting MPC control law for fast or large-scale system. This paper presents a new approach to synthesize low-complexity PWA controllers on regular partitionings that enhance fast on-line implementation with low memory requirements. Based on a PWA control-Lyapunov function, which can be obtained as the optimal cost for a constrained linear system corresponding to a stabilizing MPC setup, the synthesis procedure for the low-complexity control law boils down to local linear programming (LP) feasibility problems, which guarantee stability, constraint satisfaction, and certain performance requirements. Initially, the PWA controllers are computed on a fixed regular partitioning. However, we also present an automatic refinement procedure to refine the partitioning where necessary in order to satisfy the design specifications. A numerical example show the effectiveness of the novel approach.
Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphomas With Plasmablastic Differentiation Represent a Heterogeneous Group of Disease Entities

Plasmablastic lymphoma was initially described as a variant of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) involving the oral cavity of HIV+ patients and characterized by immunoblastic morphology and a plasma cell phenotype. However, other lymphomas may exhibit similar morphologic and immunophenotypic features. To determine the significance of plasmablastic differentiation in DLBCL and examine the heterogeneity of lymphomas with these characteristics, we examined 50 DLBCLs with low/absent CD20/CD79a and an immunophenotype indicative of terminal B-cell differentiation (MUM1/CD38/CD138/EMA-positive). We were able to define several distinct subgroups. Twenty-three tumors were classified as plasmablastic lymphoma of the oral mucosa type and showed a monomorphic population of immunoblasts with no or minimal plasmacytic differentiation. Most patients were HIV+ and EBV was positive in 74%. Eleven (48%) cases presented in the oral mucosa, but the remaining presented in other extranodal (39%) or nodal (13%) sites. Sixteen cases were classified as plasmablastic lymphoma with plasmacytic differentiation. These were composed predominantly of immunoblasts and plasmablasts, but in addition exhibited more differentiation to mature plasma cells. Only 33% were HIV+, EBV was detected in 62%, and 44% had nodal presentation. Nine cases, morphologically indistinguishable from the previous group, were secondary extramedullary plasmablastic tumors occurring in patients with prior or synchronous plasma cell neoplasms, classified as multiple myeloma in 7 of the 9. Two additional neoplasms were an HHV-8+ extracavitary variant of primary effusion lymphoma and an ALK+ DLBCL. HHV-8 was examined in 39 additional cases, and was negative in all. In conclusion, DLBCLs with plasmablastic differentiation are a heterogeneous group of neoplasms with different clinicopathological characteristics that may correspond to different entities.
Taxation, infrastructure and endogenous trade costs in new economic geography

This paper presents a New Economic Geography model with distortionary taxation and endogenized trade costs. Tax revenues finance a public good, infrastructure. We show that the introduction of costly public investment in infrastructure increases agglomerative tendencies. With respect to the regions' sizes, in the periphery, the price-index for manufacturing goods decreases, whereas for the core, the price-index is rather high since the distortionary effect of taxes dominates. 'Free riding' - or, in terms of regional policy, externally funded infrastructure investment - is beneficial for the periphery, which can devote all its tax revenue to local demand support, generating a positive home market effect and driving the catch-up process.
Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud

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Can we predict types of code changes? An empirical analysis

There exist many approaches that help in pointing developers to the change-prone parts of a software system. Although beneficial, they mostly fall short in providing details of these changes. Fine-grained source code changes (SCC) capture such detailed code changes and their semantics on the statement level. These SCC can be condition changes, interface modifications, inserts or deletions of methods and attributes, or other kinds of statement changes. In this paper, we explore prediction models for whether a source file will be affected by a certain type of SCC. These predictions are computed on the static source code dependency graph and use social network centrality measures and object-oriented metrics. For that, we use change data of the Eclipse platform and the Azureus 3 project. The results show that Neural Network models can predict categories of SCC types. Furthermore, our models can output a list of the potentially change-prone files ranked according to their change-proneness, overall and per change type category.
Two-dimensional silicon oxidation experiments and theory

The effect of stress on the growth rate in 2-D Si oxidation has been clearly observed and characterized. It will be quantitatively demonstrated that the oxidation of curved Si surfaces is retarded by the stress associated with the nonplanar viscous deformation of the oxide, and that the retardation is more severe on concave structures than on convex structures. This result is based on an unique experimental approach in which extensive data was collected on the oxidation of cylindrical silicon structures of controlled radii of curvature. A theoretical model is developed based on the premise that the viscous stress normal to the Si surface is responsible for the retarded oxide growth, and that the stress in the bulk of the oxide is responsible for the difference between concave and convex structures.
A Comparison of Women in Nontraditional and Traditional Science Majors: Implications for Career Counsellors.

This study examines differences in the career self-efficacy, self-esteem, attitudes toward feminism, and developmental environments of 135 women in traditional (Nursing, Occupational Therapy) and nontraditional (Engineering, Computer Science) science majors. The results indicated that women in traditional and nontraditional science majors did not differ on the variables of career self-efficacy or attitudes toward feminism and self-esteem, although Nursing students reported significantly higher self-esteem than the other groups. Qualitative differences were found in types of career barriers with traditional science majors indicating self- and other-imposed barriers, while nontraditional science majors tended to cite more external barriers.
Schr\"odinger operator with periodic plus compactly supported potentials on the half-line

We consider the Schr\"odinger operator $H$ with a periodic potential $p$ plus a compactly supported potential $q$ on the half-line. We prove the following results: 1) a forbidden domain for the resonances is specified, 2) asymptotics of the resonance-counting function is determined, 3) in each nondegenerate gap $\g_n$ for $n$ large enough there is exactly an eigenvalue or an antibound state, 4) the asymptotics of eigenvalues and antibound states are determined at high energy, 5) the number of eigenvalues plus antibound states is odd $\ge 1$ in each gap, 6) between any two eigenvalues there is an odd number $\ge 1$ of antibound states, 7) for any potential $q$ and for any sequences $(\s_n)_{1}^\iy, \s_n\in \{0,1\}$ and $(\vk_n)_1^\iy\in \ell^2, \vk_n\ge 0$, there exists a potential $p$ such that each gap length $|\g_n|=\vk_n, n\ge 1$ and $H$ has exactly $\s_n$ eigenvalues and $1-\s_n$ antibound state in each gap $\g_n\ne \es$ for $n$ large enough, 8) if unperturbed operator (at $q=0$) has infinitely many virtual states, then for any sequence $(\s)_1^\iy, \s_n\in \{0,1\}$, there exists a potential $q$ such that $H$ has $\s_n$ bound states and $1-\s_n$ antibound states in each gap open $\g_n$ for $n$ large enough.
A Simple Mechanism for the Efficient Provision of Public Goods - Experimental Evidence

This paper presents an experimental examination of the Falkinger (1996) mechanism for overcoming the free-rider problem. The basic idea of the mechanism is that deviations from the mean contribution to the public good are taxed and subsidized. The mechanism has attractive properties because (i) it induces higher contributions to the public good and can implement an efficient level of contributions as a Nash equilibrium, (ii) the government budget is always balanced irrespective of the level of individual contributions, (iii) it is simple and policy makers need only little information to implement the mechanism. To examine the empirical properties of the mechanism we conducted a large series of experiments. It turns out that the introduction of the mechanism generates immediate and large efficiency gains. This result is robust throughout many different experimental settings. Moreover, in the presence of the mechanism the Nash equilibrium is a rather good predictor of behavior.