Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neonatal Pain-Related Stress Predicts Cortical Thickness at Age 7 Years in Children Born Very Preterm

Background Altered brain development is evident in children born very preterm (24–32 weeks gestational age), including reduction in gray and white matter volumes, and thinner cortex, from infancy to adolescence compared to term-born peers. However, many questions remain regarding the etiology. Infants born very preterm are exposed to repeated procedural pain-related stress during a period of very rapid brain development. In this vulnerable population, we have previously found that neonatal pain-related stress is associated with atypical brain development from birth to term-equivalent age. Our present aim was to evaluate whether neonatal pain-related stress (adjusted for clinical confounders of prematurity) is associated with altered cortical thickness in very preterm children at school age. Methods 42 right-handed children born very preterm (24–32 weeks gestational age) followed longitudinally from birth underwent 3-D T1 MRI neuroimaging at mean age 7.9 yrs. Children with severe brain injury and major motor/sensory/cognitive impairment were excluded. Regional cortical thickness was calculated using custom developed software utilizing FreeSurfer segmentation data. The association between neonatal pain-related stress (defined as the number of skin-breaking procedures) accounting for clinical confounders (gestational age, illness severity, infection, mechanical ventilation, surgeries, and morphine exposure), was examined in relation to cortical thickness using constrained principal component analysis followed by generalized linear modeling. Results After correcting for multiple comparisons and adjusting for neonatal clinical factors, greater neonatal pain-related stress was associated with significantly thinner cortex in 21/66 cerebral regions (p-values ranged from 0.00001 to 0.014), predominately in the frontal and parietal lobes. Conclusions In very preterm children without major sensory, motor or cognitive impairments, neonatal pain-related stress appears to be associated with thinner cortex in multiple regions at school age, independent of other neonatal risk factors.
Near field enhancement by magnetized surface plasmon polaritons at THz band

The near field radiation at the tip of a magnetized InSb cylinder is enhanced by tuning the external magnetic field. Cylindrical geometries that supports magnetized surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) are proposed. In order to further enhance the near field strength at the tip of the cylinder, an improved geometry, i.e. the conical-cylinder structure, where a conical is attached at the top of the base cylinder is proposed. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations demonstrate that the near field distribution at the tip of the cylinder can be enhanced at 6THz by tuning the external magnetic field. In addition, the conical-cylinder geometry can render an even stronger EM field distribution at the tip. The proposed geometries of magnetized plasmonic cylinders are meaningful for applications like micrometer scale antennas, electronic microscopes, biosensors etc.
Morphological Variations in Maize (Zea mays L.) Under Different Levels of Nacl at Germinating Stage

Perti dishes experiments were conducted at Botany lab of University of Gujrat-Pakistan during 2010 for the study of NaCl effect on maize (Zea mays L.) at germinating stage. There were three levels of NaCl (0, 40 and 80 mol m ) applied on growth medium of germinating seeds. Two varieties of maize were used in this 3 experiment i.e. EV-1098 and Agaiti. All the growth attributes such as germination %, root and coleoptile lengths and plant fresh weight reduced with increase in salinity levels. It was concluded that salinity had adverse effect on growth of maize. NaCl concentrations at germinating stage could have much adverse effects on maize than later stages of growth.
The augmented state diagram and its application to convolutional and turbo codes

Convolutional block codes, which are commonly used as constituent codes in turbo code configurations, accept a block of information bits as input rather than a continuous stream of bits. In this paper, we propose a technique for the calculation of the transfer function of convolutional block codes, both punctured and nonpunctured. The novelty of our approach lies in the augmentation of the conventional state diagram, which allows the enumeration of all codeword sequences of a convolutional block code. In the case of a turbo code, we can readily calculate an upper bound to its bit error rate performance if the transfer function of each constituent convolutional block code has been obtained. The bound gives an accurate estimate of the error floor of the turbo code and, consequently, our method provides a useful analytical tool for determining constituent codes or identifying puncturing patterns that improve the bit error rate performance of a turbo code, at high signal-to-noise ratios.
Nearly Monodisperse Insulator Cs4PbX6 (X = Cl, Br, I) Nanocrystals, Their Mixed Halide Compositions, and Their Transformation into CsPbX3 Nanocrystals

We have developed a colloidal synthesis of nearly monodisperse nanocrystals of pure Cs4PbX6 (X = Cl, Br, I) and their mixed halide compositions with sizes ranging from 9 to 37 nm. The optical absorption spectra of these nanocrystals display a sharp, high energy peak due to transitions between states localized in individual PbX64– octahedra. These spectral features are insensitive to the size of the particles and in agreement with the features of the corresponding bulk materials. Samples with mixed halide composition exhibit absorption bands that are intermediate in spectral position between those of the pure halide compounds. Furthermore, the absorption bands of intermediate compositions broaden due to the different possible combinations of halide coordination around the Pb2+ ions. Both observations are supportive of the fact that the [PbX6]4– octahedra are electronically decoupled in these systems. Because of the large band gap of Cs4PbX6 (>3.2 eV), no excitonic emission in the visible range was observed. The Cs4PbBr6 nanocrystals can be converted into green fluorescent CsPbBr3 nanocrystals by their reaction with an excess of PbBr2 with preservation of size and size distributions. The insertion of PbX2 into Cs4PbX6 provides a means of accessing CsPbX3 nanocrystals in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and compositions, an important aspect for the development of precisely tuned perovskite nanocrystal inks.
FlexiKnobs: bridging the gap between mouse interaction and hardware controllers

Parameters in audio or video editing applications can mostly be controlled by a variety of hardware devices such as MIDI controllers. These, however, usually feature only a limited number of physical knobs arranged in a fixed layout. The hundreds of parameters offered by typical editing software across dozens of windows with distinct arrangements of on-screen controls are hard to map to such a fixed physical interface. To improve this, we have built a set of wireless, mouse-like devices enhanced with rotary controllers aiming at integrating the flexibility and transparency of mouse interaction with the benefits of physical controllers. Our software enables the simultaneous use of several of these knobs with a large variety of standard software.
Impact of a program to improve adherence to diabetes guidelines by primary care physicians.

OBJECTIVES Previous studies have shown that primary care physician (PCP) adherence to diabetes guidelines is suboptimal. We sought to determine the state of diabetes care given by independently practicing PCPs in a rural county in Indiana and whether a multifaceted intervention targeting PCPs, patients, and the health care system would improve adherence to diabetes guidelines. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Baseline audits to assess adherence to diabetes guidelines were done on charts of the seven PCPs in the county. Audits were repeated after development of local consensus guidelines and feedback of baseline performance and after implementation of various interventions (practice aids, physician detailing, patient education sessions, and implementation of computerized individual meal planning). RESULTS Before any intervention, rates of adherence to guidelines were low (15% for foot exams, 20% for HbA(1c) measurement, 23% for eye exam referrals, 33% for urine protein screening, 44% for lipid profiles, 73% for home glucose monitoring, and 78% for blood pressure measurements). One year after development of local consensus guidelines and feedback of baseline performance, significant improvements were seen in blood pressure measurements (71 vs. 83%; P = 0.002), foot exams (19 vs. 42%; P < 0.001), HbA(1c) measurements (26 vs. 37%; P = 0.012), and PCP eye exams (38 vs. 46%; P = 0.043); a trend toward improvement was seen in referral to eye specialists (25 vs. 33%; P = 0.059). After a second year of multiple interventions, only blood pressure measurements (70 vs. 92%; P < 0.001) and foot exams (22 vs. 47%; P < 0.001) remained significantly improved; all other areas returned to rates indistinguishable from baseline. CONCLUSIONS In busy primary care practices lacking organizational support and computerized tracking systems, sustained improvements in diabetes care are difficult to attain using traditional physician-targeted approaches.
Will I? Won’t I? Why do men who have sex with men present for post-exposure prophylaxis for sexual exposures?

Background: Failures of post-exposure prophylaxis following sexual exposure (PEPSE) to prevent seroconversion have been reported and are often associated with ongoing risk exposure. Understanding why men who have sex with men (MSM) access PEPSE on some occasions and not others may lead to more effective health promotion and disease prevention strategies Methods: A qualitative study design using semi-structured interviews of 15 MSM within 6 months of them initiating PEPSE treatment at an HIV outpatient service in Brighton, UK. Results: PEPSE seeking was motivated by a number of factors: an episode that related to a particular sexual partner and their behaviour; the characteristics of the venue where the risk occurred; the respondent’s state of mind and influences of alcohol and recreational drug use; and their perceived beliefs on the effectiveness of PEPSE. Help was sought in the light of a “one-off” or “unusual” event. Many respondents felt they were less likely to behave in a risky manner following PEPSE. Conclusion: If PEPSE is to be effective as a public health measure, at risk individuals need to be empowered to make improved risk calculations from an increased perception that they could be exposed to HIV if they continue their current behaviour patterns. The concern is that PEPSE was sought by a low number of MSM implying that a greater number are not using the service based on failure to make accurate risk calculations or recognise high-risk scenarios.
An E-Band Power Amplifier With Broadband Parallel-Series Power Combiner in 40-nm CMOS

This paper describes a fully integrated E-band power amplifier (PA) in 40-nm CMOS. The design and layout of the unit PA stage is optimized to achieve high output power while maintaining high power gain. A broadband parallel-series power combiner is proposed to provide the PA stage optimum load impedance across the complete E-band. The complete PA achieves a measured saturated output power of 20.9 dBm with more than 15-GHz small-signal -3-dB bandwidth and 22% power-added efficiency (PAE) at 0.9-V supply. The in-band variation of -1-dB compressed power (P1 dB) is only ±0.25 dB. This is the first reported silicon-based PA that covers both 71-76- and 81-86-GHz bands with uniform gain, output power, and PAE.
Effect of Catheter-Based Renal Denervation on Morning and Nocturnal Blood Pressure: Insights From SYMPLICITY HTN-3 and SYMPLICITY HTN-Japan.

UNLABELLED High nighttime and early morning blood pressure (BP) have been associated with greater risk for cardiovascular events than high clinic or daytime BP. BP is typically highest in the rising hours, when morning activities typically begin. We examined the effect of renal denervation on morning (6:00-8:59 AM), daytime (9:00 AM-8:59 PM), and nighttime (1:00-5:59 AM) ambulatory BP. Patient data from 2 prospective, randomized controlled trials of patients with treatment-resistant, uncontrolled hypertension, one conducted in a US population (Renal Denervation in Patients With Uncontrolled Hypertension [SYMPLICITY HTN-3]) and the other in a Japanese population (SYMPLICITY HTN-Japan [HTN-Japan]), were analyzed. Patients in SYMPLICITY HTN-3 and HTN-Japan were prescribed a similar number of baseline antihypertensive medications (5.2±1.4 versus 4.9±1.6, P=0.28), but the classes prescribed and changes in prescription varied by study. Among patients treated with renal denervation, although the number of ablation treatments were similar in both studies (11.2±2.8 versus 11.5±1.9, P=0.55), patients in SYMPLICITY HTN-3 were less likely to receive at least 1 four-quadrant ablation treatment (25% versus 82%, P<0.001). In SYMPLICITY HTN-3, compared with controls (n=159), patients treated with renal denervation (n=325) experienced a significantly greater change in morning (-7.3±19.8 mm Hg, P<0.001) and nighttime (-6.1±18.2 versus -1.6±19.7 mm Hg, P=0.02) but not daytime systolic BP (-7.2±16.2 versus -6.4±18.6 mm Hg, P=0.67). This same trend was observed in the pooled analysis with HTN-Japan. Reduction of BP during these high-risk periods might provide cardiovascular protection in drug-resistant hypertensive patients, although this will need to be proved in future randomized trials. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION URL: www.clinicaltrials. gov; Unique identifiers: NCT01418261 (SYMPLICITY HTN-3) and NCT01644604 (HTN-Japan).
Female Labor Supply Differences by Sexual Orientation: A Semi-Parametric Decomposition Approach

Using 2000 U.S. Census data we illustrate the importance of accounting for household specialization in lesbian couples when examining the sexual orientation gap in female labor supply. Specifically, we find the labor supply gap is substantially larger between married women and partnered lesbian women who specialize in market production (primary earners) than between married women and partnered lesbian women who specialize in household production (secondary earners). Using a semi-parametric decomposition approach, we further show that the role of children in explaining the mean labor supply gap by sexual orientation is greatly understated if the household division of labor between household and market production is not taken into account. Finally, we illustrate that controlling for children significantly reduces differences between married women and secondary lesbian earners both in terms of the decision to remain attached to the labor market (the extensive margin), as well as in terms of annual hours of work conditional on working (the intensive margin). Further, the effect of controlling for children is not uniform across the distribution of conditional annual hours; instead it primarily reduces the percentage of secondary lesbian earners working extremely high annual hours.
Disentangling the Effects of Social Signals

Peer recommendation is a crowdsourcing task that leverages the opinions of many to identify interesting content online, such as news, images, or videos. Peer recommendation applications often use social signals, e.g., the number of prior recommendations, to guide people to the more interesting content. How people react to social signals, in combination with content quality and its presentation order, determines the outcomes of peer recommendation, i.e., item popularity. Using Amazon Mechanical Turk, we experimentally measure the effects of social signals in peer recommendation. Specifically, after controlling for variation due to item content and its position, we find that social signals affect item popularity about half as much as position and content do. These effects are somewhat correlated, so social signals exacerbate the "rich get richer" phenomenon, which results in a wider variance of popularity. Further, social signals change individual preferences, creating a "herding" effect that biases people's judgments about the content. Despite this, we find that social signals improve the efficiency of peer recommendation by reducing the effort devoted to evaluating content while maintaining recommendation quality.
Allium Cepa Root Chromosomal Aberration Assay: A Review

Higher plants, an important material for genetic tests to monitor various pollutant present in the environment. Among the plant species, Alium cepa has been used to evaluate chromosome aberrations and disturbances in the mitotic cycle. Now days, it has been used to assess a great number of genotoxic/antigenotoxic agents, which contributes to its increasing application in environmental monitoring. The A. cepa is commonly used as a test organism because it is cheap, easily available and handled and has advantages over other short-term tests. Among the endpoints of A. cepa root chromosomal aberrations, detection of chromosomal aberration have been the most used one to detect genotoxicity/ antigenotoxicity along the years. The mitotic index and chromosomal abnormalities are used to evaluate genotoxicity and micronucleus analysis used to verify mutagenicity of different chemicals. The Allium cepa root chromosomal aberration assay is widely used to determine genotoxic and antigenotoxic effects of different plant extracts.
Modern and multidimensional approach of sleep apneea as a public health problem

The obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a highly prevalent disorder, associated with recurring episodes of partial or complete upper airway occlusion during sleep, which results in marked sleep disturbance, excessive daytime sleepiness, irritability and morning headache, among other symptoms. Sleep apnea is strongly associated with impaired neuropsychological function and reduced quality of life and social functioning. Daytime sleepiness leads to an increased risk for traffic and industrial accidents. OSAS is also independently associated with several cardiovascular complications: not only systemic hypertension but also ischaemic heart disease and stroke. Identifying patients „at risk” and treating them is very important, but at the same time it is time consuming and expensive. Nevertheless, treatment with continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) has been shown to improve symptoms and quality of life, decrease traffic accidents and may have a positive effect on cardiovascular morbidity. That is why the economic aspects of sleep apnea and the current legislation are an important issue to discuss and manage, for both the patients and the society they live in.
Exponential Convergence Of!iihetra(:king Error in Adaptive Systems Withoi-jt Persistent Excitation

Conditions are investigated for exponential convergence of the tracking error in fecdforward adaptive systems without persistent excitation. Particular attention is paid to the continuous-time LMS algorithm in the overpararnetl ized case. A main result is that for a bounded periodic regressor, the tracking error COIJVt3r&S exponentially without regard to parameter convergence or to the degree of overp~ ra,rnetrization. These results remove the persistent excitation (PE) conditions and parameter convergence conditions previously thought necessary to ensure exponential tracking crro~ convergence in this class of systems,
Impacts of tail loss and surface breadth on running stability in a tree-dwelling lizard

Tails are important for dynamic stabilization during falling and jumping in lizards. Yet, tail autotomy (the voluntary loss of an appendage) is commonly used for predator evasion. How tail autotomy affects locomotor performance and stability remains poorly understood. Here, we challenge an arboreal lizard to run along surfaces of different breadths with and without an intact tail. Results indicate that the tail appears to play a more important role during dynamic maneuvers requiring dramatic changes in whole body orientation or center of mass trajectories, rather than for general maintenance of running stability.
Cooperative Interactive Genetic Algorithm Based on User's Preference

Tungsten metal powder of controlled particle sizes is obtained in a fluid bed process by reducing particles of tungsten oxide having the formula WOX where x is from 2.5 to 3.0. The WOX powder particles are heated to and then maintained at a temperature between 650 DEG and 1000 DEG C. in a reducing atmosphere, which is maintained by passing a mixture of hydrogen gas, water and optionally nitrogen gas through a fluid bed of the tungsten oxide particles until substantially all of the powder solid is tungsten dioxide, WO2. The ratio of water partial pressure to hydrogen partial pressure in the feed gas is equal to or slightly higher than the equilibrium partial pressure ratio. The flow of water vapor is then discontinued, either gradually or instantaneously, while maintianing the flow of hydrogen gas to reduce the WO2 to tungsten metal. By maintaining the ratio of water partial pressure to hydrogen partial pressure above the equilibrium value until the original WOX is substantially reduced to WO2, a product having a narrow particle size distribution is obtained. The WOX may be obtained by decomposition of ammonium paratungstate in the same reactor.
The Beautiful and the Damned

This article examines new media production in professional climbing through the prism of the work relationships between climbers and companies. The development of new media has driven significant transformations in the production, diffusion, and consumption of professional sports, notably in the relationships between athletes, companies, fans, and organizations. However, little is known on the influence of new media on the work of professional athletes and their relationships with companies. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Europe and the United States, I show that the production and diffusion of new media content have become key for professional rock climbers wishing to build their careers, and are complexly embedded in the organization of the labor market. This supports an understanding of the production of new media acknowledging the relationships between companies, athletes, and media producers. Indeed, producing and diffusing new media content have become a central part of the job of an athlete and brand ambassador for climbing companies.
A novel cloud computing based smart farming system for early detection of borer insects in tomatoes

Every year farmers experience huge losses due to pest infestation in crops & this inturn impacts his livelihood. In this paper we discuss a novel approach to solve this problem by constantly monitoring crops using video processing, cloud computing and robotics. The paper concentrates in methodologies to detect pests in one of the most popular fruits in the world - the tomato. An insight into how the idea of the Internet of Things can also be conceptualized in this project has been elaborated.
ReBucket: A method for clustering duplicate crash reports based on call stack similarity

Software often crashes. Once a crash happens, a crash report could be sent to software developers for investigation upon user permission. To facilitate efficient handling of crashes, crash reports received by Microsoft's Windows Error Reporting (WER) system are organized into a set of “buckets”. Each bucket contains duplicate crash reports that are deemed as manifestations of the same bug. The bucket information is important for prioritizing efforts to resolve crashing bugs. To improve the accuracy of bucketing, we propose ReBucket, a method for clustering crash reports based on call stack matching. ReBucket measures the similarities of call stacks in crash reports and then assigns the reports to appropriate buckets based on the similarity values. We evaluate ReBucket using crash data collected from five widely-used Microsoft products. The results show that ReBucket achieves better overall performance than the existing methods. On average, the F-measure obtained by ReBucket is about 0.88.