Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Atmospheric Circulations Induced by a Midlatitude SST Front: A GCM Study

The atmospheric effects of sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over and near western boundary currents are a matter of renewed interest. The general circulation model (GCM) of the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique (LMD-Z) has a zooming capability that allows a regionally increased resolution. This GCM is used to analyze the impact of a sharp SST front in the North Atlantic Ocean: two simulations are compared, one with climatological SSTs and the other with an enhanced Gulf Stream front. The results corroborate the theory developed previously by the present team to explain the impact of oceanic fronts. In this theory, the vertical velocity at the top of the atmospheric boundary layer has two components: mechanical and thermal. It is the latter that is dominant in the tropics, while in midlatitudes both play a role in determining the wind convergence above the boundary layer. The strengthened SST front does generate the previously predicted stronger ascent above the warmer water south of the front and stronger descent above the colder waters to the north. In the GCM simulations, the ascent over the warm anomalies is deeper and more intense than the descent.
Evaluation of Social and Physical Enrichment in Modulation of Behavioural Phenotype in C57BL/6J Female Mice

Housing conditions represent an important environmental variable playing a critical role in the assessment of mouse behaviour. In the present study the effects of isolation and nesting material on the behaviour of female C57BL/6J mice were evaluated. The mice were subjected to different rearing conditions from weaning (at the age of 3 weeks). The study groups were group- and single-housed mice, divided further into groups with or without nesting material (species-specific enrichment). After 8 weeks spent in respective conditions the behavioural testing began. Both factors (social conditions and nesting material) appeared to have a significant impact on the behavioural phenotype. However, it is important to stress that the interaction between the factors was virtually absent. We established that isolation increased locomotor activity and reduced anxiety-like behaviour in several tests of exploration. In contrast, absence of nesting material increased anxiety-like behaviour. Neither factor affected rota-rod performance, nociception and prepulse inhibition. Contextual fear memory was significantly reduced in single-housed mice, and interestingly, in mice with nesting material. Cued fear memory was reduced by single-housing, but not affected by enrichment. Mice from enriched cages displayed faster and better learning and spatial search strategy in the water maze. In contrast, isolation caused significant impairment in the water maze. In conclusion, both isolation and species-specific enrichment have profound effects on mouse behaviour and should be considered in design of the experiments and in assessment of animal welfare issues.
What about Interpreting Features in Matrix Factorization-based Recommender Systems as Users?

Matrix factorization (MF) is a powerful approach used in recommender systems. One main drawback of MF is the dif- ficulty to interpret the automatically formed features. Fol- lowing the intuition that the relation between users and items can be expressed through a reduced set of users, re- ferred to as representative users, we propose a simple mod- ification of a traditional MF algorithm, that forms a set of features corresponding to these representative users. On one state of the art dataset, we show that the proposed representative users-based non-negative matrix factorization (RU-NMF) discovers interpretable features, while slightly (in some cases insignificantly) decreasing the accuracy.
Identification of a Novel Methylated Gene in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: TTC40

To further explore the epigenetic changes in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), methylation-sensitive arbitrarily primed PCR was performed on NPC biopsies and nontumor nasopharyngeal samples. We have shown mainly two DNA fragments that appeared to be differentially methylated in NPCs versus nontumors. The first, defined as hypermethylated, corresponds to a CpG island at the 5′-end of the tetratricopeptide repeat domain 40 (TTC40) gene, whereas the second, defined as hypo-methylated, is located on repetitive sequences at chromosomes 16p11.1 and 13.1. Thereafter, the epigenetic alteration on the 5′-TTC40 gene was confirmed by methylation-specific PCR, showing a significant aberrant methylation in NPCs, compared to nontumors. In addition, the bisulfite sequencing analysis has shown a very high density of methylated cytosines in C15, C17, and X666 NPC xenografts. To assess whether TTC40 gene is silenced by aberrant methylation, we examined the gene expression by reverse transcription-PCR. Our analysis showed that the mRNA expression was significantly lower in tumors than in nontumors, which is associated with 5′-TTC40 gene hypermethylation. In conclusion, we found that the 5′-TTC40 gene is frequently methylated and is associated with the loss of mRNA expression in NPCs. Hypermethylation of 5′-TTC40 gene might play a role in NPC development; nevertheless, other studies are needed.
Ultrasonic-assisted fluxless reactive bonding of Mg/Al dissimilar alloy using Zn–Al solder in air

An ultrasonic-assisted reactive brazing method, without flux and conducted in air, was developed to braze Mg/Al dissimilar alloys. By using pre-coated Zn–Al solders on the Al sheet and a short-time ultrasonic (3 s) assistance, the Mg/Al dissimilar sheets were successfully brazed at a low temperature (340°C). The effect of Al content of the solder on the shear strength was investigated based on the analysis of the microstructure and the fracture behaviour of the brazed joint. The results indicated that the microstructure and the shear strength of the ultrasonic-assisted brazed joint were significantly affected by Al content in Zn–Al solders. Increasing Al content in Zn–Al solder prevented the joint from forming the continuous brittle MgZn2 layer. The maximum shear strength of 110.5 MPa was obtained when Zn–15Al solder was used, because the joint possessed the optimum microstructure of the soft (Al, Zn) eutectoid matrix with the MgZn2 dispersed particles.
Serum Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids and Cutaneous p53 Expression in an Australian Population

Background: There is some evidence from experimental studies that long-chain n-3 and n-6 fatty acids may be able to modify early skin carcinogenesis, but whether this applies in the general population is not known. Methods: We investigated associations between serum polyunsaturated fatty acid concentrations and p53 expression in normal skin, as a biomarker of early UV-induced carcinogenesis, in an unselected sample of Australian adults. Participants in the Nambour Skin Cancer Prevention Trial provided a dorsal hand punch biopsy which was used for immunohistochemical assessment of p53 immunoreactivity. Cross-sectional associations with serum fatty acid concentrations were analyzed in 139 participants, adjusting for confounding variables including skin phenotype, past sun exposure, and smoking status. Results: There was an inverse association, showing a dose–response relationship, between total n-3 fatty acid serum concentrations and p53 immunoreactivity in the whole epidermis and the basal layer. This was particularly due to eicosapentanoic acid and docosahexanoic acid concentrations. There was no evidence for increased p53 immunoreactivity in participants with relatively high serum n-6 fatty acid concentrations. The ratio of n-3 to n-6 fatty acid concentrations was not associated with p53 immunoreactivity. Conclusion: These results add to growing evidence that long-chain fatty acids may be able to modify early skin carcinogenesis. Impact: The prospect that increased intake of n-3 fatty acids could help prevent skin cancer is attractive. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 20(3); 530–6. ©2011 AACR.
Women's Health Decision-Making Autonomy and Skilled Birth Attendance in Ghana

Delivering in health facility under the supervision of skilled birth attendant is an important way of mitigating impacts of delivery complications. Empirical evidence suggests that decision-making autonomy is aligned with holistic wellbeing especially in the aspect of maternal and child health. The objective of this paper was to examine the relationship between women's health decision-making autonomy and place of delivery in Ghana. We extracted data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey. Descriptive and logistic regression techniques were applied. The results indicated that women with health decision-making autonomy have higher tendency of health facility delivery as compared to those who are not autonomous [OR = 1.27, CI = 1.09–1.48]. However, those who have final say on household large purchases [OR = 0.71, CI = 0.59–0.84] and those having final say on visits [OR = 0.86, CI = 0.73–1.01] were less probable to deliver in health facility than those without such decision-making autonomy. Consistent with existing evidence, wealthier, urban, and highly educated women had higher inclination of health facility delivery. This study has stressed the need for interventions aimed at enhancing health facility delivery to target women without health decision-making autonomy and women with low education and wealth status, as this can play essential role in enhancing health facility delivery.
Deepening Contractions and Collateral Constraints

The skewness of the US business cycle has become increasingly negative over the last decades. This finding can be explained by the concurrent increases in the loan-to-value ratios of both households and firms. To demonstrate this point, we devise a DSGE model with collateralized borrowing and occasionally non-binding credit constraints. Easier credit access increases the likelihood that constraints become slack in the face of expansionary shocks, while contractionary shocks are further amplified due to tighter constraints. As a result, busts gradually become deeper than booms. Based on the differential impact that occasionally non-binding constraints exert on the shape of expansions and contractions, we are also able to reconcile a more negatively skewed business cycle with a moderation in its volatility. Finally, our model can account for an intrinsic feature of economic downturns preceded by private credit build-ups: Financially driven expansions lead to deeper contractions, as compared to equally-sized non-financial expansions.
Growth trajectories in the children of mothers with eating disorders: a longitudinal study

Objective The aim of this study was to examine longitudinal patterns of growth trajectories in children of women with eating disorders (ED): anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). Design Prospective longitudinal birth cohort; Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Setting South West England, UK. Participants The sample consisted of women and their children (n=10 190) from ALSPAC. Patterns of growth among children of women reporting a history of AN (n=137), BN (n=165), both AN and BN (n=68) and other psychiatric disorders (n=920) were compared with an unexposed group of children (n=8900). Main outcome measures Height and weight data, from birth to 10 years, were extracted from health visitor records, parental report from questionnaires and clinic attendances. Growth trajectories were analysed using mixed-effects models and constructed separately for male and female children. Results Between birth and 10 years, male children of women with BN were taller than children in the unexposed group. Male children of women with a history of AN and BN, and female children of women with AN, were shorter throughout childhood. Between the ages of 2 and 5, higher body mass index (BMI) was observed in male children in all maternal ED groups. Conversely, female children of women with AN had a BMI of −0.35 kg/m2 lower at 2 years compared with the unexposed group, with catch-up by age 10. Conclusions Early childhood growth has been found to predict weight gain in adolescence and adulthood, and may be a risk factor for the development of an ED. These findings therefore have public health implications in relation to the prevention of weight-related and eating-related disorders later in life.
Activized Learning: Transforming Passive to Active with Improved Label Complexity

We study the theoretical advantages of active learning over passive learning. Specifically, we prove that, in noise-free classifier learning for VC classes, any passive learning algorithm can be transformed into an active learning algorithm with asymptotically strictly superior label complexity for all nontrivial target functions and distributions. We further provide a general characterization of the magnitudes of these improvements in terms of a novel generalization of the disagreement coefficient. We also extend these results to active learning in the presence of label noise, and find that even under broad classes of noise distributions, we can typically guarantee strict improvements over the known results for passive learning.
Antigenic similarity of heat-labile enterotoxins from diverse strains of Escherichia coli

With use of the rabbit intestinal loop model, heat-labile enterotoxins from 21 Escherichia coli strains isolated from a wide spectrum of patients with diarrheal diseases were all neutralized to high titer by two antisera prepared against enterotoxins of either E. coli or Vibrio cholerae. These findings suggest marked immunological similarity among heat-labile enterotoxins from a heterogenous group of E. coli.
Bacterial Enteric Infections Detected by Culture-Independent Diagnostic Tests — FoodNet, United States, 2012–2014

The increased availability and rapid adoption of culture-independent diagnostic tests (CIDTs) is moving clinical detection of bacterial enteric infections away from culture-based methods. These new tests do not yield isolates that are currently needed for further tests to distinguish among strains or subtypes of Salmonella, Campylobacter, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli, and other organisms. Public health surveillance relies on this detailed characterization of isolates to monitor trends and rapidly detect outbreaks; consequently, the increased use of CIDTs makes prevention and control of these infections more difficult. During 2012-2013, the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet*) identified a total of 38,666 culture-confirmed cases and positive CIDT reports of Campylobacter, Salmonella, Shigella, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, Vibrio, and Yersinia. Among the 5,614 positive CIDT reports, 2,595 (46%) were not confirmed by culture. In addition, a 2014 survey of clinical laboratories serving the FoodNet surveillance area indicated that use of CIDTs by the laboratories varied by pathogen; only CIDT methods were used most often for detection of Campylobacter (10%) and STEC (19%). Maintaining surveillance of bacterial enteric infections in this period of transition will require enhanced surveillance methods and strategies for obtaining bacterial isolates.
Tumor Tissue-Derived Formaldehyde and Acidic Microenvironment Synergistically Induce Bone Cancer Pain

Background There is current interest in understanding the molecular mechanisms of tumor-induced bone pain. Accumulated evidence shows that endogenous formaldehyde concentrations are elevated in the blood or urine of patients with breast, prostate or bladder cancer. These cancers are frequently associated with cancer pain especially after bone metastasis. It is well known that transient receptor potential vanilloid receptor 1 (TRPV1) participates in cancer pain. The present study aims to demonstrate that the tumor tissue-derived endogenous formaldehyde induces bone cancer pain via TRPV1 activation under tumor acidic environment. Methodology/Principal Findings Endogenous formaldehyde concentration increased significantly in the cultured breast cancer cell lines in vitro, in the bone marrow of breast MRMT-1 bone cancer pain model in rats and in tissues from breast cancer and lung cancer patients in vivo. Low concentrations (1∼5 mM) of formaldehyde induced pain responses in rat via TRPV1 and this pain response could be significantly enhanced by pH 6.0 (mimicking the acidic tumor microenvironment). Formaldehyde at low concentrations (1 mM to 100 mM) induced a concentration-dependent increase of [Ca2+]i in the freshly isolated rat dorsal root ganglion neurons and TRPV1-transfected CHO cells. Furthermore, electrophysiological experiments showed that low concentration formaldehyde-elicited TRPV1 currents could be significantly potentiated by low pH (6.0). TRPV1 antagonists and formaldehyde scavengers attenuated bone cancer pain responses. Conclusions/Significance Our data suggest that cancer tissues directly secrete endogenous formaldehyde, and this formaldehyde at low concentration induces metastatic bone cancer pain through TRPV1 activation especially under tumor acidic environment.
All-3 d Electron-Hole Bilayers in CrN /MgO (111 ) Multilayers for Thermoelectric Applications

CrN/MgO(111) multilayers modeled via \textit{ab initio} calculations give rise to nanoscale, scalable, spatially separated two-dimensional electron and hole gases (2DEG+2DHG), each confined to its own CrN interface. Due to the Cr $3d^3$ configuration, both electron and hole gases are based on correlated transition metal layers involving bands of $3d$ character. Transport calculations predict each subsystem will have a large thermopower, on the order of 250 $\mu$$V /K$ at room temperature. These heterostructures combine a large thermoelectric efficiency with scalable nanoscale conducting sheets; for example, operating at a temperature difference of 50K, 40 bilayers could produce a 1 V voltage with a film thickness of 100 nm.
Robust Object Tracking Based on Temporal and Spatial Deep Networks

Recently deep neural networks have been widely employed to deal with the visual tracking problem. In this work, we present a new deep architecture which incorporates the temporal and spatial information to boost the tracking performance. Our deep architecture contains three networks, a Feature Net, a Temporal Net, and a Spatial Net. The Feature Net extracts general feature representations of the target. With these feature representations, the Temporal Net encodes the trajectory of the target and directly learns temporal correspondences to estimate the object state from a global perspective. Based on the learning results of the Temporal Net, the Spatial Net further refines the object tracking state using local spatial object information. Extensive experiments on four of the largest tracking benchmarks, including VOT2014, VOT2016, OTB50, and OTB100, demonstrate competing performance of the proposed tracker over a number of state-of-the-art algorithms.
Biped walking pattern generation by using preview control of zero-moment point

We introduce a new method of a biped walking pattern generation by using a preview control of the zero-moment point (ZMP). First, the dynamics of a biped robot is modeled as a running cart on a table which gives a convenient representation to treat ZMP. After reviewing conventional methods of ZMP based pattern generation, we formalize the problem as the design of a ZMP tracking servo controller. It is shown that we can realize such controller by adopting the preview control theory that uses the future reference. It is also shown that a preview controller can be used to compensate the ZMP error caused by the difference between a simple model and the precise multibody model. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by a simulation of walking on spiral stairs.
Supervised Word Mover's Distance

Recently, a new document metric called the word mover's distance (WMD) has been proposed with unprecedented results on kNN-based document classification. The WMD elevates high-quality word embeddings to a document metric by formulating the distance between two documents as an optimal transport problem between the embedded words. However, the document distances are entirely un-supervised and lack a mechanism to incorporate supervision when available. In this paper we propose an efficient technique to learn a supervised metric, which we call the Supervised-WMD (S-WMD) metric. The supervised training minimizes the stochastic leave-one-out nearest neighbor classification error on a per-document level by updating an affine transformation of the underlying word embedding space and a word-imporance weight vector. As the gradient of the original WMD distance would result in an inefficient nested optimization problem, we provide an arbitrarily close approximation that results in a practical and efficient update rule. We evaluate S-WMD on eight real-world text classification tasks on which it consistently outperforms almost all of our 26 competitive baselines.
Common Variants of Hepatocyte Nuclear Factor 1β Are Associated With Type 2 Diabetes in a Chinese Population

OBJECTIVE Hepatocyte nuclear factor 1β (HNF1β) is a transcription factor that is critical for pancreatic cell formation and glucose homeostasis. Previous studies have reported that common variants of HNF1β were associated with type 2 diabetes in Caucasians and West Africans. However, analysis in the subjects from the Botnia study and Malmö Preventive Project produced conflicting results, and the role for HNF1β in type 2 diabetes susceptibility remains unclear. We therefore investigated common variants across the HNF1β gene in a Chinese population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Fifteen tagging single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were analyzed for association with type 2 diabetes in subjects with type 2 diabetes (n = 1,859) and normal glucose regulation (n = 1,785). RESULTS Consistent with the initial study, we observed evidence that the risk G allele of rs4430796 in intron 2 was significantly associated with type 2 diabetes (odds ratio 1.16 [95% CI 1.05–1.29], P = 0.0035, empirical P = 0.0475). Furthermore, the at-risk G allele was associated with earlier age at diagnosis in the type 2 diabetic subjects (P = 0.0228). CONCLUSIONS The result of this study provides evidence that variants in the HNF1β region contribute to susceptibility to type 2 diabetes in the Chinese population.
Bayesian Interpolation

Although Bayesian analysis has been in use since Laplace, the Bayesian method of model-comparison has only recently been developed in depth. In this paper, the Bayesian approach to regularization and model-comparison is demonstrated by studying the inference problem of interpolating noisy data. The concepts and methods described are quite general and can be applied to many other data modeling problems. Regularizing constants are set by examining their posterior probability distribution. Alternative regularizers (priors) and alternative basis sets are objectively compared by evaluating the evidence for them. Occam's razor is automatically embodied by this process. The way in which Bayes infers the values of regularizing constants and noise levels has an elegant interpretation in terms of the effective number of parameters determined by the data set. This framework is due to Gull and Skilling.
Pricing Corporate Defaultable Bond Using Declared Firm Value

We study the pricing problem for corporate defaultable bond from the viewpoint of the investors outside the firm that could not exactly know about the information of the firm. We consider the problem for pricing of corporate defaultable bond in the case when the firm value is only declared in some fixed discrete time and unexpected default intensity is determined by the declared firm value. Here we provide a partial differential equation model for such a defaultable bond and give its pricing formula. Our pricing model is derived to solving problems of partial differential equations with random constants (de- fault intensity) and terminal values of binary types. Our main method is to use the solving method of a partial differential equation with a random constant in every subinterval and to take expectation to remove the random constants.