Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparing metrics to evaluate performance of regression methods for decoding of neural signals

The use of regression methods for decoding of neural signals has become popular, with its main applications in the field of Brain-Machine Interfaces (BMIs) for control of prosthetic devices or in the area of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) for cursor control. When new methods for decoding are being developed or the parameters for existing methods should be optimized to increase performance, a metric is needed that gives an accurate estimate of the prediction error. In this paper, we evaluate different performance metrics regarding their robustness for assessing prediction errors. Using simulated data, we show that different kinds of prediction error (noise, scaling error, bias) have different effects on the different metrics and evaluate which methods are best to assess the overall prediction error, as well as the individual types of error. Based on the obtained results we can conclude that the most commonly used metrics correlation coefficient (CC) and normalized root-mean-squared error (NRMSE) are well suited for evaluation of cross-validated results, but should not be used as sole criterion for cross-subject or cross-session evaluations.
A Unique Mitochondrial Transcription Factor B Protein in Dictyostelium discoideum

Unlike their bacteriophage homologs, mitochondrial RNA polymerases require the assistance of transcription factors in order to transcribe mitochondrial DNA efficiently. The transcription factor A family has been shown to be important for transcription of the human mitochondrial DNA, with some of its regulatory activity located in its extended C-terminal tail. The mitochondrial transcription factor B family often has functions not only in transcription, but also in mitochondrial rRNA modification, a hallmark of its α-proteobacterial origin. We have identified and characterised a mitochondrial transcription factor B homolog in the soil dwelling cellular slime mould Dictyostelium discoideum, an organism widely established as a model for studying eukaryotic cell biology. Using in bacterio functional assays, we demonstrate that the mitochondrial transcription factor B homolog not only functions as a mitochondrial transcription factor, but that it also has a role in rRNA methylation. Additionally, we show that the transcriptional activation properties of the D. discoideum protein are located in its extended C-terminal tail, a feature not seen before in the mitochondrial transcription factor B family, but reminiscent of the human mitochondrial transcription factor A. This report contributes to our current understanding of the complexities of mitochondrial transcription, and its evolution in eukaryotes.
Use-Wear Patterns on Wild Macaque Stone Tools Reveal Their Behavioural History

Burmese long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis aurea) are one of a limited number of wild animal species to use stone tools, with their tool use focused on pounding shelled marine invertebrates foraged from intertidal habitats. These monkeys exhibit two main styles of tool use: axe hammering of oysters, and pound hammering of unattached encased foods. In this study, we examined macroscopic use-wear patterns on a sample of 60 wild macaque stone tools from Piak Nam Yai Island, Thailand, that had been collected following behavioural observation, in order to (i) quantify the wear patterns in terms of the types and distribution of use-damage on the stones, and (ii) develop a Use-Action Index (UAI) to differentiate axe hammers from pound hammers by wear patterns alone. We used the intensity of crushing damage on differing surface zones of the stones, as well as stone weight, to produce a UAI that had 92% concordance when compared to how the stones had been used by macaques, as observed independently prior to collection. Our study is the first to demonstrate that quantitative archaeological use-wear techniques can accurately reconstruct the behavioural histories of non-human primate stone tools.
Cardiovascular Disease Risk Awareness and Its Association With Preventive Health Behaviors: Evidence From a Sample of Canadian Workplaces

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine Canadian workers’ level of awareness about their cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors and the association between CVD risk awareness and health behaviors. Methods: We used cross-sectional data to compare awareness of CVD risk factors with biometric measures from a workplace screening clinic (n = 320). We assessed the association between risk factor awareness and self-reported health behaviors using logistic regression analyses. Results: Overall, 39.5% of workers did not know at least one of their CVD risk factors. These individuals were less likely to meet recommended physical activity levels and to consume three daily servings of fruits and vegetables, and more likely to report weekly fast food consumption. Conclusions: This study highlights a lack of awareness about cholesterol levels and demonstrates a negative association between low CVD awareness and preventive health behaviors.
Disentangling the Spatio-Environmental Drivers of Human Settlement: An Eigenvector Based Variation Decomposition

The relative importance of deterministic and stochastic processes driving patterns of human settlement remains controversial. A main reason for this is that disentangling the drivers of distributions and geographic clustering at different spatial scales is not straightforward and powerful analytical toolboxes able to deal with this type of data are largely deficient. Here we use a multivariate statistical framework originally developed in community ecology, to infer the relative importance of spatial and environmental drivers of human settlement. Using Moran’s eigenvector maps and a dataset of spatial variation in a set of relevant environmental variables we applied a variation partitioning procedure based on redundancy analysis models to assess the relative importance of spatial and environmental processes explaining settlement patterns. We applied this method on an archaeological dataset covering a 15 km2 area in SW Turkey spanning a time period of 8000 years from the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic up to the Byzantine period. Variation partitioning revealed both significant unique and commonly explained effects of environmental and spatial variables. Land cover and water availability were the dominant environmental determinants of human settlement throughout the study period, supporting the theory of the presence of farming communities. Spatial clustering was mainly restricted to small spatial scales. Significant spatial clustering independent of environmental gradients was also detected which can be indicative of expansion into unsuitable areas or an unexpected absence in suitable areas which could be caused by dispersal limitation. Integrating historic settlement patterns as additional predictor variables resulted in more explained variation reflecting temporal autocorrelation in settlement locations.
High strain rate properties of a polymer-bonded sugar: their dependence on applied and internal constraints

This paper describes research performed on a polymer-bonded sugar (PBS) consisting of 66% caster sugar in a hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) binder The mechanical response of the PBS and pure HTPB to applied loading at a strain rate of approximately 2000 s−1 at temperatures from −80 to +22°C is presented. The materials were also characterized using dynamic mechanical analysis, X-ray tomography and quasi-static loading. These measurements are required for the development of intermediate strain rate constitutive models of polymer-bonded explosives, for which PBSs are a commonly used mechanical simulant. The current constitutive modelling suffers from a lack of experimental data on well-characterized composites and binders, especially at intermediate strain rates. This is particularly important for understanding the effects of mixing two materials. Applications of such modelling include explosive safety and fundamental understanding of the various deformation mechanisms. In this paper, the dependences of strength and deformation mechanism on temperature, and, in particular, the glass transition temperature of the binder, are shown. Physical damage plays an important role; X-ray tomography scans support debonding as the primary form of damage during room-temperature deformation. These results are in agreement with previous investigations and are discussed in this context.
Validation of Two New Immunoassays for Sensitive Detection of a Broad Range of Shiga Toxins

Shiga Toxin (Stx) is one of the major virulence factors produced by Shiga Toxin-producing E. coli (STEC) that cause severe human intestinal diseases. Although a few commercial assays for Stxs are available, they only detect a subset of Stxs. In this study, two new immunoassays, Abraxis Stx1 and Stx2, were evaluated and compared with the widely used Premier EHEC kit using the same set of standards developed in our laboratory. The new assays were demonstrated to be highly reliable and capable of detecting all 10 subtypes of Stxs and have a limit of detection for Stx1a and Stx2a down to 25 pg/mL, a 20-fold improvement over the Premier EHEC. When applied to forty-nine bacterial isolates collected from clinic, environmental and fresh produce samples, the new assays identified all but one stx2b-producing STEC strains, while the Premier EHEC ELISA missed two stx2e- and one stx2g-STEC stains. Furthermore, the new assays were also able to identify STEC strains using single colonies on agar plates without lengthy enrichment in liquid medium. The broad crossreactivity, robustness and high reproducibility and sensitivity of the new assays will be useful in reducing product recalls due to failures of detecting rare Stxs.
CFD Investigation of Heat Exchangers with Circular and Elliptic Cross-Sectional Channels

Design of the fluid flow and heat transfer components utilizing the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is relatively new yet cheaper and accurate method that becomes popular and reliable today. In this thesis, design of a heat exchanger using CFD analysis technique is considered. A key investigation of this devise is the selection of the tubes and connection them to inlet and outlet manifolds. Correctly selected tube size and tube cross section impacts the heat exchanger performance. Thermal and hydrodynamic performance of the flow in circular and elliptic tubes connected to the inlet and outlet manifolds have been computationally investigated for maximum Figure of Merit. The tube with high Figure of Merit is the one with high heat transfer rate and low pressure drop. The tube has four different configurations of the cross section: a circular tube and three elliptic tubes with aspect ratios = 0.75, 0.50, and 0.25. All tubes are constrained to have the same wetted perimeter and the length, thus have the same heat transfer area. The tube is a smooth straight tube that has the length of 0.3048 m (12 in.) and wetted perimeter of 0.0798 m (3.1416 in.). The tube wall thickness is negligible. The contribution of the inlet and outlet manifolds is examined. A wide range of Reynolds numbers is covered, Re =100 (laminar flow), 10,000 (transitional flow), and 20,000 (turbulent flow). ANSYS FLUENT commercial code has been utilized in this investigation. The code was validated matching with experimental correlations (for
Deep Reinforcement Learning with Model Learning and Monte Carlo Tree Search in Minecraft

Deep reinforcement learning has been successfully applied to several visual-input tasks using model-free methods. In this paper, we propose a model-based approach that combines learning a DNN-based transition model with Monte Carlo tree search to solve a block-placing task in Minecraft. Our learned transition model predicts the next frame and the rewards one step ahead given the last four frames of the agent's first-person-view image and the current action. Then a Monte Carlo tree search algorithm uses this model to plan the best sequence of actions for the agent to perform. On the proposed task in Minecraft, our model-based approach reaches the performance comparable to the Deep Q-Network's, but learns faster and, thus, is more training sample efficient.
Adipofascial Anterolateral Thigh Flap Safety: Applications and Complications

Background A thinned anterolateral thigh (ALT) flap is often harvested to achieve optimal skin resurfacing. Several techniques have been described to thin an ALT flap including an adipocutaneous flap, an adipofascial flap and delayed debulking. Methods By systematically reviewing all of the available literature in English and French, the present manuscript attempts to identify the common surgical indications, complications and donor site morbidity of the adipofascial variant of the ALT flap. The studies were identified by performing a systematic search on Medline, Ovid, EMBASE, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Current Contents, PubMed, Google, and Google Scholar. Results The study selection process was adapted from the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement, and 15 articles were identified using the study inclusion criteria. These articles were then reviewed for author name(s), year of publication, flap dimensions and thickness following defatting, perforator type, type of transfer, complications, thinning technique, number of cases with a particular area of application and donor site morbidity. Conclusions The adipofascial variant of the ALT flap provides tissue to fill large defects and improve pliability. Its strong and safe blood supply permits adequate immediate or delayed debulking without vascular complications. The presence of the deep fascia makes it possible to prevent sagging by suspending and fixing the flap for functional reconstructive purposes (e.g., the intraoral cavity). Donor site morbidity is minimal, and thigh deformities can be reduced through immediate direct closure or liposuction and direct closure. A safe blood supply was confirmed by the rate of secondary flap debulking.
Resolving XML Semantic Ambiguity

XML semantic-aware processing has become a motivating and important challenge in Web data management, data processing, and information retrieval. While XML data is semi-structured, yet it remains prone to lexical ambiguity, and thus requires dedicated semantic analysis and sense disambiguation processes to assign well-defined meaning to XML elements and attributes. This becomes crucial in an array of applications ranging over semantic-aware query rewriting, semantic document clustering and classification, schema matching, as well as blog analysis and event detection in social networks and tweets. Most existing approaches in this context: i) ignore the problem of identifying ambiguous XML nodes, ii) only partially consider their structural relations/context, iii) use syntactic information in processing XML data regardless of the semantics involved, and iv) are static in adopting fixed disambiguation constraints thus limiting user involvement. In this paper, we provide a new XML Semantic Disambiguation Framework titled XSDF designed to address each of the above motivations, taking as input: an XML document and a general purpose semantic network, and then producing as output a semantically augmented XML tree made of unambiguous semantic concepts. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in comparison with alternative methods
Effect of Small-molecule Sensitizer on the Performance of Polymer Solar Cell

For improving optical absorption of organic solar cells, a small-molecule sensitizer, as a third material, is usually incorporated into binary solar cell system. In many cases, light harvesting can be improved but on the expense of charge carrier mobility of the solar cells. This obstacle can be addressed through the understanding solar cell physics. In the present work, we try to deeply understand the physics of the long-chain polymer solar cell composed of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT), as a donor polymer, and [6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), as an acceptor molecule. This understanding can be acquired through the effect of coumarin 6 dye (C6), as a small-molecule sensitizer, on optical absorption and photocurrent of the most common solar cell. From optical spectroscopy we found that, the C6 dye, as a small molecule, did not vary conjugation length of the long-chain polymer in the P3HT: PCBM: C6 solar cell. This was indicated from (1) unchanged vibronic structure of the P3HT after adding C6 dye and from (2) matching in the wavelength between absorption peaks of both pristine C6 and P3HT after adding C6 dye into blend. From photocurrent spectroscopy we found that, the incorporation of C6 dye, as a sensitizer, into P3HT: PCBM binary contributed to photocurrent and formed an additional charge carrier generation site through the C6: PCBM combination, which was individually found among with P3HT:PCBM combination in the same solar cell. In the same time, the C6 dye, as a shortchain molecule, restricted the transport of charge carriers generated by P3HT as a result of low hole mobility of the C6 short-chain molecules. Through the present study, the incorporation of a small-molecule sensitizer into polymer solar cell may acquire better understanding for the performance of the most common P3HT: PCBM solar cell. Keywords: Polymer Solar Cells; Device Physics; P3HT: PCBM Solar Cell.
Lifetime of Cs2Te Cathodes Operated at the FLASH Facility

The photoinjector of the free-electron laser facility FLASH at DESY (Hamburg, Germany) uses Cs2Te photocathodes. We give an update on lifetime and quantum efficiency of cathodes operated at FLASH during the last years. At the time of the conference, cathode 73.3 has been operated with a record of 933 days with a stable quantum efficiency of in average 8.8%.
Gender Differences in Self-Reported Posttraumatic Growth: A Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis was conducted to examine the direction and magnitude of gender differences in self-reported post-traumatic growth. Results from 70 studies (N = 16,076) revealed a small to moderate gender difference (g = .27, 95% CI = .21 -.32), with women reporting more posttraumatic growth than men. Moderator analyses were then conducted to identify possible sources of these differences. The following moderators were examined: mean age of sample, measure used, nature of the stressful event, language of the measure, and type of sample (i.e., community samples, college students, or mixed). The only significant moderator was age, with women reporting incrementally more posttraumatic growth as the mean age of the sample increased (B = .004, p < .01, SE = .001, Q = 9.13). To check for publication bias, effect sizes were compared across published and unpublished research. The size of the gender difference was not significantly different between published (g = .30, 95% CI = .23 -.38) and unpublished (g = .22, 95% CI = .12 -.31) studies. The present findings indicate that modest, but reliable gender differences exist in posttraumatic growth even when unpublished data are included in the analyses. Possible explanations for these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Eye movements in reading and information processing :

http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.jml. 2015.07. 004 0749-596X/ 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. q A comprehensive review and critical analysis of Keith Rayner’s entire body of research would require an entire monograph or book-length piece, and that is not the goal of this article. Instead, this survey, which was invited by the Editor of the Journal of Memory and Language, attempts to provide an overview of Rayner’s main areas of research to make clear how Rayner almost single-handedly created an entire field of investigation in cognitive psychology, and how he inspired countless scientists around the world to pursue the scientific study of reading and visual information processing. ⇑ Corresponding authors at: Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, United States (C. Clifton). Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, United States (F. Ferreira). E-mail addresses: cec@psych.umass. edu (C. Clifton Jr.), fferreira@ ucdavis.edu (F. Ferreira). Charles Clifton Jr. a,⇑, Fernanda Ferreira b,⇑, John M. Henderson , Albrecht W. Inhoff , Simon P. Liversedge , Erik D. Reichle , Elizabeth R. Schotter e
Open Access Research Article Predictors of Functional Outcome Vary by the Hemisphere of Involvement in Major Ischemic Stroke Treated with Intra-arterial Therapy: a Retrospective Cohort Study

article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons At-tribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Conflicting data exists regarding the effect of hemispheric lateralization on acute ischemic stroke outcome. Some of this variability may be related to heterogeneous study populations, particularly with respect to the level of arterial occlusion. Furthermore, little is known about the relationship between stroke lateralization and predictors of outcome. The purpose of this study was to characterize the impact of stroke lateralization on both functional outcome and its predictors in a well-defined population of anterior circulation proximal artery occlusions treated with IAT. Methods: Thirty-five consecutive left-and 35 consecutive right-sided stroke patients with intracranial ICA and/or MCA occlusions who underwent IAT were retrospectively analyzed. Ischemic change on pre-treatment imaging was quantified. Reperfusion success was graded using the Mori scale. Good outcome at three months was defined as an mRS ≤ 2. Left-and right-sided strokes were compared for outcome and its predictors. had a good outcome. There were 21 terminal ICA and 49 MCA occlusions. There was no difference in the rate of good outcomes between left-(n = 9) and right-sided (n = 10) strokes (p = 0.99). There were no significant differences in occlusion level, age, ischemic change on initial imaging and degree of reperfusion between left-and right-sided strokes. Left-sided strokes had higher baseline NIHSS scores (p = 0.02) and lower admission SBP (p = 0.009). Independent predictors of outcome for left-sided strokes were NIHSS (p = 0.0002) and reperfusion (p = 0.006), and for right-sided strokes were age (p = 0.002) and reperfusion (p = 0.003). In univariate analysis, pre-treatment ischemic change on NCCT was associated with outcome only for left-sided strokes (p = 0.05). Conclusions: In anterior circulation proximal artery occlusions treated with IAT, hemispheric lateralization influences the clinical and imaging predictors of outcome. Most notably, NIHSS predicts outcome only for the left-sided strokes in this population. This finding has important implications for outcome prediction in the acute setting and indicates a need for stroke severity scales more sensitive to right hemispheric deficits.