Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cost and benefit in the choice of ECT schedule

Background We compared the anti-depressant and cognitive effects of up to eight sessions of bilateral, brief pulse electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) administered twice (ECT x 2) or three times weekly (ECT x 3), to confirm that ECT x 3 acts more rapidly although the two schedules are equivalent in antidepressant outcome, and to establish whether ECT x 3 is indeed associated with more severe memory impairment. Method Patients with major depression, endogenous subtype were randomly assigned to ECT x 3 or ECT x 2 plus one simulated ECT per week, both up to a maximum of eight real ECT. Depression was evaluated by the Hamilton Depression Scale the day after each treatment and cognitive function by a test battery administered before and after the ECT series and at one month follow-up. Results Assessed categorically or parametrically, there was no significant difference in antidepressant outcome between the two schedules. Rate of response was significantly more rapid with ECT x 3 but was associated with more severe memory impairment. Conclusions Twice weekly administration is an optimum schedule for bilateral ECT unless clinical indications require the more rapid antidepressant effect of three times weekly treatment.
The influence of L1 prosodic background on the learning of Mandarin tones : patterns of tonal confusion by Cantonese and Japanese naïve listeners

Human perception of non-native sound contrasts are strongly influenced by their native (L1) phonological system (Best 1995; Flege 1995). For example, it has been well documented that Japanese speakers have difficulties discriminating English /r/ and /l/ (Goto 1971, Lively, Pisoni, Yamada, Tohkura & Yamada 1994). Likewise, English speakers have difficulty in discerning the difference between the Hindi contrasts: voiceless retroflex stop [] and voiceless dental stop [] (Werker 1991). Jamieson & Morosan (1989) also found that English consonant contrast // and // posed a problem for French learners of English. Among existing working models of L2 speech perception, such as Speech Learning Model (SLM; Flege 1995) and Perceptual Assimilation Model (PAM; Best 1995), PAM is a phonologically-based model that focuses on the effect of L1 phonological system on perception of non-native sound contrasts. It posits that listeners’ native (L1) phonology greatly affects their perception of nonnative phones, as listeners perceptually assimilate the non-native phones to their native phonemes (Best 1995; Best, McRoberts & Goodell 2001). A non-native phone may be perceptually assimilated as a Categorized exemplar for some L1 phonemes, an Uncategorized segment that falls somewhere in between two native phonemes, or a Nonassimilable nonspeech sound that has no identifiable similarity to any native phoneme. According to PAM, listeners’ abilities to discern the non-native phones are predictable and dependent on how the nonnative phones assimilate to native segments. There are a few possible types of assimilations. When two non-native phones assimilate to two phonetically similar native phones separately, Two Category assimilation (TC) occurs and leads to successful perception of the non-native phones. In contrast, when two non-native phones assimilate to a single native phone, Single Category assimilation (SC) takes place and hinders listeners’ perception of the non-native phones. In the situation that one of the non-native phones assimilates better than the other, it is termed Category Goodness difference (CG). In addition, when one non-native sound is not categorized and the other is categorized, it forms an Uncategorized-Categorized pair (UC). If both are not categorized, then they will be an Uncategorized-Uncategorized pair (UU). However, if the phone is completely dissimilar to any native phonemes, it will be perceived as a NonAssimilable (NA) nonspeech sound, and native phonology does not have any influence on it. Although PAM originally focuses on speech segments, Halle, Chang & Best (2004) suggested that PAM can be applicable to suprasegments as well. The present study will explore the possibility of their proposition.
Estradiol Sensitization of Sexual Behaviors in the Ovariectomized Rat: Mechanisms and Applications

Estradiol sensitization refers to a phenomenon whereby each subsequent injection of estradiol benzoate (EB), when administered to the ovariectomized (OVX) rat to induce sexual behavior, potentiates the occurrence of those behaviors. The goals of the current thesis were to characterize the pattern of estradiol sensitization by varying the EB dose and injection interval, to examine some behavioral, hormonal, and neural factors involved in its induction and maintenance, and to apply it as a diagnostic tool in models that have been shown in the literature to produce sexual inhibition. It was first determined that estradiol sensitization is robustly induced by 10μg EB administered SC every 4 days, and that the effect is further potentiated if EB is administered in the absence of the opportunity to copulate. Furthermore, although adrenal progesterone (P) did not play a role, chronic administration of systemic injections of the P receptor antagonist RU486 revealed that P receptors are important in the maintenance of the sensitization. The next set of experiments determined that vaginocervical stimulation (VCS) received on repeated tests attenuates the sensitization of appetitive sexual behaviors (hops, darts, solicitations), and that inhibitory mechanisms related to estrous termination may be involved, since the attenuation was mimicked by repeated infusions of the glutamate receptor agonist AMPA to the ventrolateral division of the ventromedial hypothalamus in place of copulation. Moreover, the onset of estrous termination was accelerated in estradiol-sensitized animals that were not given the opportunity to copulate. This suggests that estradiol sensitizes mechanisms of sexual excitation and inhibition. The final experimental chapter determined that prenatally androgenized females are not permanently desensitized to the activational effects of EB, since repeated hormone treatments in combination with sexual experience generally restored sexual behaviors and those females also displayed estradiol sensitization. Finally, the inhibitory effect of corncob bedding, as reported recently in the literature, did not prevent estradiol sensitization. In conclusion, the extent of estradiol sensitization, and the duration of behavioral estrus in estradiol-sensitized animals, interacts with sexual experience, particularly VCS. The data presented herein have implications for all research areas investigating the role of estradiol on physiology and behavior.
Gender Differences in Ethnic Entrepreneurship

Gender-based differences are the most important topic of discussion in female entrepreneurship studies. While the earliest studies focused on psychological and sociological characteristics of female entrepreneurs, assuming there were only a few differences between males and females, more recent studies have focused on gender-based differences in entrepreneurship from a new perspective, referred to as the “integrated perspective”, which is rooted in psychological and sociological theories. This perspective focuses on sex and gender differences in entrepreneurial characteristics and performance from the perspective of “liberal feminist” and “social feminist” theories, which attemp to explain the basis of the lower status of women in society. The aim of this paper is to investigate gender-based differences in a special field of entrepreneurship the so-called “ethnic entrepreneurship”, and to describe male and female profiles of ethnic entrepreneurs and enterprises. Our findings are based on a comparison of two case study researches; while the first was conducted among three different ethnic groups including Turkish, Indian/Pakistani and Moroccan male entrepreneurs, the second was conducted among Turkish female entrepreneurs in Amsterdam. The results of our comparison show that there are some gender-based differences in ethnic entrepreneurship similar to gender-based differences observed commonly in entrepreneurship. This similarity in trends demonstrates that “gender” as a factor has a higher importance than the “ethnicity” in the characteristics and behavioral attitudes of ethnic entrepreneurs.
Ectodysplasin and Wnt pathways are required for salivary gland branching morphogenesis

The developing submandibular salivary gland (SMG) is a well-studied model for tissue interactions and branching morphogenesis. Its development shares similar features with other ectodermal appendages such as hair and tooth. The ectodysplasin (Eda) pathway is essential for the formation and function of several ectodermal organs. Mutations in the signaling components of the Eda pathway lead to a human syndrome known as hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia (HED), which is characterized by missing and malformed teeth, sparse hair and reduced sweating. Individuals with HED suffer also from dry mouth because of reduced saliva flow. In order to understand the underlying mechanism, we analyzed salivary gland development in mouse models with altered Eda pathway activities. We have found that Eda regulates growth and branching of the SMG via transcription factor NF-κB in the epithelium, and that the hedgehog pathway is an important mediator of Eda/NF-κB. We also sought to determine whether a similar reciprocal interplay between the Eda and Wnt/β-catenin pathways, which are known to operate in other skin appendages, functions in developing SMG. Surprisingly and unlike in developing hair follicles and teeth, canonical Wnt signaling activity did not colocalize with Edar/NF-κB in salivary gland epithelium. Instead, we observed high mesenchymal Wnt activity and show that ablation of mesenchymal Wnt signaling either in vitro or in vivo compromised branching morphogenesis. We also provide evidence suggesting that the effects of mesenchymal Wnt/β-catenin signaling are mediated, at least in part, through regulation of Eda expression.
Sustainable computational science: the ReScience initiative

Computer science offers a large set of tools for prototyping, writing, running, testing, validating, sharing and reproducing results; however, computational science lags behind. In the best case, authors may provide their source code as a compressed archive and they may feel confident their research is reproducible. But this is not exactly true. James Buckheit and David Donoho proposed more than two decades ago that an article about computational results is advertising, not scholarship. The actual scholarship is the full software environment, code, and data that produced the result. This implies new workflows, in particular in peer-reviews. Existing journals have been slow to adapt: source codes are rarely requested and are hardly ever actually executed to check that they produce the results advertised in the article. ReScience is a peer-reviewed journal that targets computational research and encourages the explicit replication of already published research, promoting new and open-source implementations in order to ensure that the original research can be replicated from its description. To achieve this goal, the whole publishing chain is radically different from other traditional scientific journals. ReScience resides on GitHub where each new implementation of a computational study is made available together with comments, explanations, and software tests.
Cognitive modulations of early visual cortex activity in humans

The experiments conducted for this thesis examined the earliest stages of processing in human visual cortex. Using electroencephalographic recordings, it was observed that the first component of the visual evoked potential, the so-called C1, is affected by learning and attention. This contrasts with earlier studies which overwhelmingly reported no effects of higher cognitive processes on early visual cortex activity. It is suggested that methodological improvements such as the adaptation of stimulus parameters to the physiological characteristics of lower visual areas partly explain the new findings. Together with other recent studies, these results show that previously prevalent notions of primary visual cortex (V1) as an inflexible module for the treatment of low-level stimulus characteristics may need to be revised. The idea that V1 can act as an adaptive and flexible processor, previously based on animal studies, is thus starting to gain support from the human literature.
Modified DC-Bus Voltage Balancing Algorithm for a Three-Level Neutral-Point-Clamped PMSM Inverter Drive With Reduced Common-Mode Voltage

This paper presents an improved dc-link voltage balancing algorithm for a three-level neutral-point-clamped inverter by considering phase current direction. Detailed studies on the effects of change in load current direction on the dc-link capacitor voltages are presented. A maximum value of power factor is numerically derived, above which it affects the capacitor voltage balancing capability. Compared with the previously presented research work, the inputs to the space-vector pulsewidth-modulation block are the three phase currents and the difference between the two capacitor voltages. Depending on the states of the two dc-link capacitor voltages and phase current direction, redundant voltage vector sequences are selected. The selected vectors keep the capacitor voltage deviations within 5% of the total dc-link voltage. Two zero switching vectors (i.e., PPP and NNN) are also removed from all subsectors of the earlier proposed strategy, which one used to produce higher common-mode voltages. Detailed simulation and experimental results are presented in this paper for a 6.0-kW surface permanent-magnet synchronous machine. Both the simulation and experimental results show the required performance of the proposed system.
Random walk in a random environment

My research area is probability theory. Most of my research has been in random walks in random environments (RWRE), but I am also interested in other non-classical random walks (such as excited random walks) and other stochastic processes (in particular interacting particle systems). Below, I will highlight some of my previous research results and also mention a few areas where I plan to do some research in the future.
Prostratin Induces HIV Activation and Downregulates HIV Receptors in Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes

Induction of HIV expression through lymphocyte activation has been proposed as a strategy to purge latent reservoirs. Prostratin is a non-tumourogenic phorbol ester that delays HIV replication in vitro, but paradoxically activates HIV expression in latently infected cells. To get a better insight into the mechanisms of action of prostratin, we have analysed the effect of prostratin on HIV activation and HIV receptor and coreceptors’ surface expression in human lymphocytes. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were transfected with luciferase expression constructs under the control of wild type HIV-long terminal repeat (LTR) and consensus sequences for transcription factors involved in HIV-LTR transactivation (NF-κB, SP1, NFAT). Prostratin stimulates transactivation of LTR vectors, κB- and SP-1-driven luciferase constructs. In another set of experiments, PBMCs were transfected with a full-length infectious viral clone. Prostratin induced HIV transcription and viral expression as detected by luciferase activity in cellular extracts and p24 levels in culture supernatants, respectively. Expression of the HIV coreceptors CCR5 and CXCR4 was decreased by prostratin and, concomitantly, prostratin inhibited the infection of PBMCs with R5 and X4 strains. However, prostratin did not inhibit infection with a pseudotyped viral clone that enters into the cells independently of HIV receptors. These results help to explain the paradoxical effects of prostratin. On one hand, prostratin induces HIV activation in latently infected cells through the induction of NF-κB and Sp1. On the other hand, strong and persistent downregulation of HIV receptors decreases infection of new targets and delays HIV propagation. These data support the potential use of prostratin to activate HIV from latency and purge viral reservoirs.
Problems With Evaluation of Word Embeddings Using Word Similarity Tasks

Lacking standardized extrinsic evaluation methods for vector representations of words, the NLP community has relied heavily on word similarity tasks as a proxy for intrinsic evaluation of word vectors. Word similarity evaluation, which correlates the distance between vectors and human judgments of semantic similarity is attractive, because it is computationally inexpensive and fast. In this paper we present several problems associated with the evaluation of word vectors on word similarity datasets, and summarize existing solutions. Our study suggests that the use of word similarity tasks for evaluation of word vectors is not sustainable and calls for further research on evaluation methods.
Serum uric acid levels and multiple health outcomes: umbrella review of evidence from observational studies, randomised controlled trials, and Mendelian randomisation studies

Objective To map the diverse health outcomes associated with serum uric acid (SUA) levels. Design Umbrella review. Data sources Medline, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and screening of citations and references. Eligibility criteria Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of observational studies that examined associations between SUA level and health outcomes, meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials that investigated health outcomes related to SUA lowering treatment, and Mendelian randomisation studies that explored the causal associations of SUA level with health outcomes. Results 57 articles reporting 15 systematic reviews and144 meta-analyses of observational studies (76 unique outcomes), 8 articles reporting 31 meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials (20 unique outcomes), and 36 articles reporting 107 Mendelian randomisation studies (56 unique outcomes) met the eligibility criteria. Across all three study types, 136 unique health outcomes were reported. 16 unique outcomes in meta-analyses of observational studies had P<10-6, 8 unique outcomes in meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials had P<0.001, and 4 unique outcomes in Mendelian randomisation studies had P<0.01. Large between study heterogeneity was common (80% and 45% in meta-analyses of observational studies and of randomised controlled trials, respectively). 42 (55%) meta-analyses of observational studies and 7 (35%) meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials showed evidence of small study effects or excess significance bias. No associations from meta-analyses of observational studies were classified as convincing; five associations were classified as highly suggestive (increased risk of heart failure, hypertension, impaired fasting glucose or diabetes, chronic kidney disease, coronary heart disease mortality with high SUA levels). Only one outcome from randomised controlled trials (decreased risk of nephrolithiasis recurrence with SUA lowering treatment) had P<0.001, a 95% prediction interval excluding the null, and no large heterogeneity or bias. Only one outcome from Mendelian randomisation studies (increased risk of gout with high SUA levels) presented convincing evidence. Hypertension and chronic kidney disease showed concordant evidence in meta-analyses of observational studies, and in some (but not all) meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials with respective intermediate or surrogate outcomes, but they were not statistically significant in Mendelian randomisation studies. Conclusion Despite a few hundred systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and Mendelian randomisation studies exploring 136 unique health outcomes, convincing evidence of a clear role of SUA level only exists for gout and nephrolithiasis.
Variability and Conservation in Late Chondrichthyan Development: Ontogeny of the Winter Skate (Leucoraja ocellata)

The ontogeny of the northwestern Atlantic batoid, Leucoraja ocellata, is described with special focus on the development of skate specific morphologies and the development of the fins. The results show that the sequence of events involving the early outgrowth of the paired fins and the initial development of the pharyngeal region is remarkably constant in skates, holocephalians, and sharks. However, differences exist in timing of the reshaping of the mandibular arch region, development of branchial filaments, median fins, denticles, and the order of branchial cleft formation. Despite the similarities of early events related to development of the branchial region and initial outgrowth of the fins, later stages are increasingly characterized by taxon‐specific morphologies making a universal staging table for chondrichthyans less applicable. The staging table presented in this study represents an important resource for future studies on batoid embryology. Anat Rec, 291:1079–1087, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Challenging the Innovation Paradigm

1. Challenging the Innovation Paradigm: The Prevailing Pro-Innovation Bias Pernilla Gripenberg, Karl-Erik Sveiby and Beata Segercrantz Part 1: Problematizing Innovation 2. On the Limits of What Can Be Said About 'Innovation': Interplay and Contrasts Between Academic and Policy Discourses Martin Fougere and Nancy Harding 3. kappaalphaiotanuomicrontauomicronmu alpha: An Old Word for a New World, or the De-Contestation of a Political and Contested Concept Benoit Godin 4. The Unintended and Undesirable Consequences: Neglected by Innovation Research Karl-Erik Sveiby, Pernilla Gripenberg and Beata Segercrantz Part 2: Understanding the Systemic Nature of Innovation 5. Accelerating the Innovation Race: Do We Need Reflexive Brakes? Mervi Hasu, Karl-Heinz Leitner, Nikodemus Solitander and Urmas Varblane 6. Innovation and the Global Financial Crisis: Systemic Consequences of Incompetence Karl-Erik Sveiby 7. Weak Signals for Opting Out of the Innovation Race Karl-Heinz Leitner Part 3: Exploring Unintended Consequences of Innovation 8. Do Major Innovation Models Consider Unintended Consequences? A Review and Revised Framework Martin Lindell 9. From Autonomous Craftsmen to Compliant Resources: Implications for Undesirable Consequences of Innovation Beata Segercrantz 10. Organizational Innovations: An Exploratory Study of Negative Effects Almudena Canibano, Oihana Basilio and M. Paloma Sanchez 11. Information and Communication Technology as an Exporter of CO2 Emissions Mitsutaka Matsumoto and Kotaro Kawajiri 12. Challenging the Innovation Paradigm: Conclusions, Practical Implications and Future Research Karl-Erik Sveiby, Pernilla Gripenberg and Beata Segercrantz. List of Contributors. Index