Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Decomposing Decision Components in the Stop-signal Task: A Model-based Approach to Individual Differences in Inhibitory Control

The stop-signal task, in which participants must inhibit prepotent responses, has been used to identify neural systems that vary with individual differences in inhibitory control. To explore how these differences relate to other aspects of decision making, a drift-diffusion model of simple decisions was fitted to stop-signal task data from go trials to extract measures of caution, motor execution time, and stimulus processing speed for each of 123 participants. These values were used to probe fMRI data to explore individual differences in neural activation. Faster processing of the go stimulus correlated with greater activation in the right frontal pole for both go and stop trials. On stop trials, stimulus processing speed also correlated with regions implicated in inhibitory control, including the right inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and BG. Individual differences in motor execution time correlated with activation of the right parietal cortex. These findings suggest a robust relationship between the speed of stimulus processing and inhibitory processing at the neural level. This model-based approach provides novel insight into the interrelationships among decision components involved in inhibitory control and raises interesting questions about strategic adjustments in performance and inhibitory deficits associated with psychopathology.
Endogenous Financial Constraints , Taxes , and Leverage

We quantify the relative importance of contracting frictions and taxes in shaping firms’ capital structures. We estimate a dynamic contracting model based on limited entrepreneurial commitment. In the model a firm seeks debt financing from an intermediary and is subject to taxation. Because the firm can renege on the financing contract, the optimal contract is self-enforcing, so that financial constraints arise endogenously. We estimate the model’s parameters using data from firms in several industries. We find that taxes have no effect on optimal leverage because they affect neither the lender’s discount factor nor the constraints that allow the contract to be self-enforcing. In contrast, taxes have a sharp deleterious effect on investment.
Clinical characteristics of retinal venous occlusions occurring at different sites

Aims: To identify the contributory factors associated with different sites of occlusion and the presence or absence of optic nerve head swelling (ONHS). Methods: 874 cases of retinal venous occlusion (RVO) were prospectively examined at a tertiary referral centre and classified according to three defined sites of occlusion: arteriovenous crossing RVO (AV-RVO); optic cup RVO (OC-RVO); and optic nerve sited RVO. Optic nerve sited RVOs were further divided on the basis of presence (ONHS-RVO) and absence (NONHS-RVO) of ONHS. RVOs not occurring at any of the defined sites were grouped as no-site RVO (NS-RVO). Important clinical parameters were compared among four of the five subgroups by multivariate analysis of variance and χ2 test (NS-RVO excluded). Results: The overall multivariate analysis of variance for differences in the mean age, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, body mass index, and intraocular pressure (IOP) among the four subgroups were highly significant (p <0.0001). The F ratios indicated that the differences in the mean age and IOP accounted for this statistical trend. The mean age was statistically significantly lower in the ONHS-RVO group compared to the rest of the groups (p <0.0001). The mean age was significantly higher in OC-RVO compared to the AV-RVO group (p <0.05). The mean IOP was significantly higher in OC-RVO than in the rest of the groups (p <0.01 to 0.0001), while it was also higher in the NONHS-RVO group compared to the ONHS-RVO and AV-RVO groups (p <0.0001). The prevalence of primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), sex, laterality, involvement of the fellow eye, smoking and hypertension were compared by χ2 tests. POAG was significantly more prevalent in the OC-RVO group than in the rest of the groups (p <0.0083), while it was also significantly more prevalent in the NONHS-RVO group compared to AV-RVO or ONHS-RVO (p <0.0083) groups. Smoking was significantly more prevalent in AV-RVO than in the rest of the groups (p <0.05). The proportion of male sex was significantly higher in ONHS-RVO compared to the AV-RVO group (p <0.05). Hypertension was significantly more prevalent in the AV-RVO than in the ONHS-RVO or NONHS-RVO groups (p <0.05). Conclusion: A new classification of RVO based on the site of occlusion and ONHS has been evaluated. The higher prevalence of hypertension and smoking in AV-RVO suggests a particular importance of cardiovascular risk factors in this group. The association of POAG with CRVO has been confirmed, but only for those cases without ONHS. A distinctive relation between raised IOP and OC-RVO has been demonstrated, suggesting a causal association. RVOs with ONHS tend to occur in younger people, with a higher proportion of males, and a lower prevalence of hypertension and POAG, suggesting that other causal factors may be important in this group. The new scheme resolves the confusion in the literature regarding classification of RVO, and has diagnostic, causal, prognostic, and therapeutic implications.
Procalcitonin versus interleukin-6 levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluids of trauma victims with severe lung contusion

ObjectiveTo examine whether measurement of procalcitonin (PCT) in comparison with interleukin-6 is a reliable marker to score the extent of lung contusion in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids in polytrauma patients. DesignProspective, nonrandomized, observational study. SettingTwelve-bed intensive care unit in a 1,100-bed primary care university hospital. PatientsFourteen trauma victims presenting with severe lung contusion and acute lung injury or acute respiratory distress syndrome were enrolled in the study. InterventionsBronchoscopy with collection of lavage fluid and serum blood samples. Samples were obtained on days 1 and 2 after severe chest trauma, and lung contusion was assessed by computed tomography scan. Measurements and Main Results PCT was detectable in BAL fluids of all 14 patients. A significant correlation for PCT serum and BAL levels was found on day 2 (p = .0063). For PCT, no significant correlations (Spearman rank) were found to the lung injury score (p = .93), the abbreviated injury scale–lung (p = .33), or the sepsis-related organ failure assessment score–lung (p = .38). Also, for interleukin-6 there was no significant correlation to the lung injury score (p = .62), abbreviated injury scale–lung (p = .45), or the sepsis-related organ failure assessment score–lung (p = .54). ConclusionsPCT and interleukin-6 BAL levels cannot be considered as reliable parameters to assess the extent of lung contusion.
Reliability of mid-upper arm circumference measurements taken by community health nurses

Mid upper arm circumference-based diagnosis of severe acute malnutrition is seen as very attractive because it is assumed to be simple to use in measuring the arm and also requires a single cut-off without having to compute an index or compare to a reference population. The circumference of the left upper arm measured at the mid-point between the tip of the shoulder and the tip of the elbow is referred to as mid upper arm circumference (MUAC). MUAC was originally used in emergency settings where huge populations had to be screened within a short time. However, in the past few years the development of community therapeutic care of acute malnutrition implied a need for a diagnostic tool. The general objective of the study was to assess the inter- and intra-observer variability in MUAC measurements of under-five children by community health nurses in selected communities of the Northern Region in Ghana. A community-based cohort study was conducted on a convenience sample of 120 community health nurses and nursing students from selected communities in the Northern region of Ghana. Each CHN measured MUAC for four unique children on three consecutive days to assess intra-observer variability. To assess inter-observer variability, 50 independent nursing students took MUAC measures of four children on the same day. Bland Altman plots showed a high degree of agreement of MUAC measures taken repeatedly for three days by the same observers and ICC= 0.993. MUAC measures among observers (inter-observer) and ICC =0.042 showed a considerable level of variability among different observers. This study showed that MUAC is reliable when repeated measures are taken on children by the same observers, but using different observers for the same children showed a high level of variability.
Phosphatidylinositol 3-Kinase Is a Key Mediator of Central Sensitization in Painful Inflammatory Conditions

Here, we show that phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) is a key player in the establishment of central sensitization, the spinal cord phenomenon associated with persistent afferent inputs and contributing to chronic pain states. We demonstrated electrophysiologically that PI3K is required for the full expression of spinal neuronal wind-up. In an inflammatory pain model, intrathecal administration of LY294002 [2-(4-morpholinyl)-8-phenyl-4H-1-benzopyran-4-one], a potent PI3K inhibitor, dose-dependently inhibited pain-related behavior. This effect was correlated with a reduction of the phosphorylation of ERK (extracellular signal-regulated kinase) and CaMKII (calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II). In addition, we observed a significant decrease in the phosphorylation of the NMDA receptor subunit NR2B, decreased translocation to the plasma membrane of the GluR1 (glutamate receptor 1) AMPA receptor subunit in the spinal cord, and a reduction of evoked neuronal activity as measured using c-Fos immunohistochemistry. Our study suggests that PI3K is a major factor in the expression of central sensitization after noxious inflammatory stimuli.
Antigenic alteration of influenza B virus associated with loss of a glycosylation site due to host‐cell adaptation

Effects of host‐cell adaptation of the hemagglutinin (HA) protein were evaluated by the analyses of four pairs of recent influenza B field isolates, each pair consisting of an Madin Darby canine kidney (MDCK)‐ and an embryonated chicken egg‐derived isolates from the same clinical specimen. Among the isolates examined, all of the MDCK‐derived isolates retained glycosylation site at amino acid 197 on the HA1 molecule, whereas three egg‐derived isolates lost it. Antigenic difference in the HA molecule between an MDCK‐ and an egg‐derived isolates of three of these pairs was demonstrated to be associated with the glycosylation 197. Replication of the MDCK‐derived isolates was suppressed in eggs, suggesting that the presence of the glycosylation 197 was disadvantageous to replication in eggs. Virus‐binding affinity assay revealed that the loss of carbohydrate chain did not significantly alter the preferential recognition of sialic acid linkage. Immunogenicity and vaccine efficacy of an MDCK‐ and an egg‐derived clones of B/Akita/27/2001, the former retained the glycosylation 197 and the latter lost it, were compared in a hamster model. When formalin‐inactivated whole virion vaccines prepared from the paired isolates were administered into hamsters, no significant difference between them was observed in protective ability against challenges by the homologous and heterologous clones. Implication of the egg adaptation of influenza virus to antigenic surveillance of the field isolates as well as the selection of vaccine strains, and possibility of the involvement of the viral protein(s) other than the HA in the egg adaptation were discussed. J. Med. Virol. 74:336–343, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Coding along Hermite polynomials for Gaussian noise channels

This paper shows that the capacity achieving input distribution for a fading Gaussian broadcast channel is not Gaussian in general. The construction of non-Gaussian distributions that strictly outperform Gaussian ones, for certain characterized fading distributions, is provided. The ability of analyzing non-Gaussian input distributions with closed form expressions is made possible in a local setting. It is shown that there exists a specific coordinate system, based on Hermite polynomials, which parametrizes Gaussian neighborhoods and which is particularly suitable to study the entropic operators encountered with Gaussian noise.
Preliminary exploration on actions as updates

This paper reports on the use of logic program updates to models actions that bring about changes in knowledge states describing the world and its rules. The LUPS language is employed to specify concurrent update rules to model actions that depend on, and change, rule rich world states, not described simply by propositional uents. This language and corresponding semantics, whose original stable semantics we generalize to the well-founded setting, is brieey recapitulated here. The advantages of our approach to modelling actions as updates are brought out by a number of telling examples, especially conceived for the purpose. They have been test run in our implementation of LUPS, though the latter is not described here for lack of space.
Two circadian rhythms in the human electroencephalogram during wakefulness

Aeschbach, Daniel, Jeffery R. Matthews, Teodor T. Postolache, Michael A. Jackson, Holly A. Giesen, and Thomas A. Wehr. Two circadian rhythms in the human electroencephalogram during wakefulness. Am. J. Physiol. 277 (Regulatory Integrative Comp. Physiol. 46): R1771– R1779, 1999. —The influence of the circadian pacemaker and of the duration of time awake on the electroencephalogram (EEG) was investigated in 19 humans during ,40 h of sustained wakefulness. Two circadian rhythms in spectral power density were educed. The first rhythm was centered in the theta band (4.25–8.0 Hz) and exhibited a minimum ,1 h after the onset of melatonin secretion. The second rhythm was centered in the high-frequency alpha band (10.25–13.0 Hz) and exhibited a minimum close to the body temperature minimum. The latter rhythm showed a close temporal association with the rhythms in subjective alertness, plasma melatonin, and body temperature. In addition, increasing time awake was associated with an increase of power density in the 0.25to 9.0-Hz and 13.25to 20.0-Hz ranges. It is concluded that the waking EEG undergoes changes that can be attributed to circadian and homeostatic (i.e., sleep-wake dependent) processes. The distinct circadian variations of EEG activity in the theta band and in the high-frequency alpha band may represent electrophysiological correlates of different aspects of the circadian rhythm in arousal.
Predicting Performance in an Introductory Programming Course by Logging and Analyzing Student Programming Behavior

The high failure rates of many programming courses means there is a need to identify struggling students as early as possible. Prior research has focused upon using a set of tests to assess the use of a student's demographic, psychological and cognitive traits as predictors of performance. But these traits are static in nature, and therefore fail to encapsulate changes in a student's learning progress over the duration of a course. In this paper we present a new approach for predicting a student's performance in a programming course, based upon analyzing directly logged data, describing various aspects of their ordinary programming behavior. An evaluation using data logged from a sample of 45 programming students at our University, showed that our approach was an excellent early predictor of performance, explaining 42.49% of the variance in coursework marks - double the explanatory power when compared to the closest related technique in the literature.
Relationship between blood pressure levels and bone mineral density in postmenopausal Turkish women

Introduction We investigated the association between bone mineral density (BMD) detected by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometric (DXA) method and blood pressure (BP) in a large sample of postmenopausal women. Material and methods The current study was based on a retrospective analysis of 586 postmenopausal women with a mean age of 60.8 ±8.8 years, who were screened for osteopenia or osteoporosis by DXA. Patients with hypertension (HT, n= 306) were compared with normotensive (NT, n = 290) individuals. Bone mineral density results for the femur neck and spine were classified into 3 groups according to World Health Organization criteria: normal (T score > –1.0 SD), osteopenia (T score –1.0 to –2.5 SD) and osteoporosis (T score < –2.5 SD). Patients with osteopenia or osteoporosis (T score < –1.0 SD) were grouped as having low bone mass (LBM). Results There were no significant differences in femur T score, femur BMD, femur Z score, spinal T score, spinal BMD and spinal Z score between hypertensive and normotensive groups. The group of patients with low bone mass calculated from femur T scores had higher age, systolic BP, duration of hypertension and duration of menopause, but lower BMI. Similarly, patients with low spine BMD had higher age and duration of menopause, but lower BMI. Linear regression analysis showed a significant correlation between systolic BP and femur BMD and T score values. Furthermore, logistic regression analysis revealed that hypertension is an independent predictor of spinal osteopenia and osteoporosis. Conclusions The presence of hypertension is an independent predictor of spinal low bone density in Turkish women after menopause.
Rebuttal: Adaptive Point Mutation (Rosenberg and Hastings)

The Rosenberg-Hastings paper (4) defends a model much like that of Foster (1) and argues that the observed mutagenesis contradicts predictions of the ampliﬁcation model. On the contrary, ampliﬁcation indirectly causes weak mutagenesis and allows that mutagenesis to have a detectable effect on lac reversion. However, this mutagenesis is a minor side effect that is neither sufﬁcient nor necessary to explain reversion. Mutagenesis has distracted attention from the main message of this system—a target number increase during growth under selection.
To Smooth or Not to Smooth? Bias and Efficiency in fMRI Time-Series Analysis

This paper concerns temporal filtering in fMRI time-series analysis. Whitening serially correlated data is the most efficient approach to parameter estimation. However, if there is a discrepancy between the assumed and the actual correlations, whitening can render the analysis exquisitely sensitive to bias when estimating the standard error of the ensuing parameter estimates. This bias, although not expressed in terms of the estimated responses, has profound effects on any statistic used for inference. The special constraints of fMRI analysis ensure that there will always be a misspecification of the assumed serial correlations. One resolution of this problem is to filter the data to minimize bias, while maintaining a reasonable degree of efficiency. In this paper we present expressions for efficiency (of parameter estimation) and bias (in estimating standard error) in terms of assumed and actual correlation structures in the context of the general linear model. We show that: (i) Whitening strategies can result in profound bias and are therefore probably precluded in parametric fMRI data analyses. (ii) Band-pass filtering, and implicitly smoothing, has an important role in protecting against inferential bias.
Low–normal thyroid function and the pathogenesis of common cardio‐metabolic disorders

Subclinical hypothyroidism may adversely affect the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Less is known about the role of low–normal thyroid function, that is higher thyroid‐stimulating hormone and/or lower free thyroxine levels within the euthyroid reference range, in the development of cardio‐metabolic disorders. This review is focused on the relationship of low–normal thyroid function with CVD, plasma lipids and lipoprotein function, as well as with metabolic syndrome (MetS), chronic kidney disease (CKD) and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
The role of NO in ischemia/reperfusion injury in isolated rat heart.

UNLABELLED Nitric oxide (NO) is an important regulator of myocardial function and vascular tone under physiological conditions. However, its role in the pathological situations, such as myocardial ischemia is not unequivocal, and both positive and negative effects have been demonstrated in different experimental settings including human pathology. The aim of the study was to investigate the role of NO in the rat hearts adapted and non-adapted to ischemia. Isolated Langendorff-perfused hearts were subjected to test ischemic (TI) challenge induced by 25 min global ischemia followed by 35 min reperfusion. Short-term adaptation to ischemia (ischemic preconditioning, IP) was evoked by 2 cycles of 5 min ischemia and 5 min reperfusion, before TI. Recovery of function at the end of reperfusion and reperfusion-induced arrhythmias served as the end-points of injury. Coronary flow (CF), left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP), and dP/dt(max) (index of contraction) were measured at the end of stabilization and throughout the remainder of the protocol until the end of reperfusion. The role of NO was investigated by subjecting the hearts to 15 min perfusion with NO synthase (NOS) inhibitor L-NAME (100 mmol/l), prior to sustained ischemia. At the end of reperfusion, LVDP in the controls recovered to 29.0 +/- 3.9 % of baseline value, whereas preconditioned hearts showed a significantly increased recovery (LVDP 66.4 +/- 5.7 %, p < 0.05). Recovery of both CF and dP/dt(max) after TI was also significantly higher in the adapted hearts (101.5 +/- 5.8 % and 83.64 +/- 3.92 % ) as compared with the controls (71.9 +/- 6.3 % and 35.7 +/- 4.87 %, respectively, p < 0.05). NOS inhibition improved contractile recovery in the non-adapted group (LVDP 53.8 +/- 3.1 %; dP/dt(max) 67.5 +/- 5.92 %) and increased CF to 82.4 +/- 5.2 %. In contrast, in the adapted group, it abolished the protective effect of IP (LVDP 31.8 +/- 3.1 %; CF 70.3 +/- 3.4 % and dP/dt(max) 43.25 +/- 2.19 %). Control group exhibited 100 % occurrence of ventricular tachycardia (VT), 57 % incidence of ventricular fibrillation (VF) - 21 % of them was sustained VF (SVF); application of L-NAME attenuated reperfusion arrhythmias (VT 70 %, VF 20 %, SVF 0 %). Adaptation by IP also reduced arrhythmias, however, L-NAME in the preconditioned hearts increased the incidence of arrhythmias (VT 100 %, VF 58 %, SVF 17 %). IN CONCLUSION our results indicate that administration of L-NAME might be cardioprotective in the normal hearts exposed to ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) alone, suggesting that NO contributes to low ischemic tolerance in the non-adapted hearts. On the other hand, blockade of cardioprotective effect of IP by L-NAME points out to a dual role of NO in the heart: a negative role in the non-adapted myocardium subjected to I/R, and a positive one, due to its involvement in the mechanisms of protection triggered by short-term cardiac adaptation by preconditioning.