Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relationship between brain activity and peak grip force is modulated by corticospinal system integrity after subcortical stroke

In healthy human subjects, the relative contribution of cortical regions to motor performance varies with the task parameters. Additionally, after stroke, recruitment of cortical areas during a simple motor task varies with corticospinal system integrity. We investigated whether the pattern of motor system recruitment in a task involving increasingly forceful hand grips is influenced by the degree of corticospinal system damage. Nine chronic subcortical stroke patients and nine age‐matched controls underwent functional magnetic brain imaging whilst performing repetitive isometric hand grips. Target grip forces were varied between 15% and 45% of individual maximum grip force. Corticospinal system functional integrity was assessed with transcranial magnetic stimulation. Averaged across all forces, there was more task‐related activation compared with rest in the secondary motor areas of patients with greater corticospinal system damage, confirming previous reports. However, here we were primarily interested in regional brain activation, which covaried with the amount of force generated, implying a prominent executive role in force production. We found that in control subjects and patients with lesser corticospinal system damage, signal change increased linearly with increasing force output in contralateral primary motor cortex, supplementary motor area and ipsilateral cerebellum. In contrast, in patients with greater corticospinal system damage, force‐related signal changes were seen mainly in contralesional dorsolateral premotor cortex, bilateral ventrolateral premotor cortices and contralesional cerebellum, but not ipsilesional primary motor cortex. These findings suggest that the premotor cortices might play a new and functionally relevant role in controlling force production in patients with more severe corticospinal system disruption.
Gender, Socioeconomic Status, and Self-Rated Health in a Transitional Middle-Income Setting

Poor self-rated health (SRH) correlates strongly with mortality. In developed countries, women generally report worse SRH than males. Few studies have reported on SRH in developing countries. The authors report on SRH in Thailand, a middle-income developing country.The data were derived from a large nationwide cohort of 87 134 adult Open University students (54% female, median age 29 years). The authors included questions on socioeconomic and demographic factors that could influence SRH. The Thai cohort in this study mirrors patterns found in developed countries, with females reporting more frequent “poor” or “very poor” SRH (odds ratio = 1.35; 95% confidence interval = 1.26-1.44). Cohort males had better SRH than females, but levels were more sensitive to socioeconomic status. Income and education had little influence on SRH for females. Among educated Thai adults, females rate their health to be worse than males, and unlike males, this perception is relatively unaffected by socioeconomic status.
Optimal sensing matrix design with hardware friendliness

Compressed sensing, which is mainly composed of cheap sensing and costly recovery, has received much attention recently in the aspects of theoretic studies and wide applications. Prior researches reveal that the sparsity of a signal is upper bounded by the reciprocal of mutual coherence between the sensing matrix and sparsifying basis. Thus, some methods have been proposed to study the design of optimal sensing matrix from the viewpoint of reducing mutual coherence values. Nevertheless, the hardware friendliness of optimal sensing matrices is relatively ignored. In this paper, we focus on this issue and present a simple strategy to achieve optimal sensing matrix with entries of 0 and ±1 only. Extensive simulations demonstrate the usefulness of our design.
Why Small Is Beautiful: Wing Colour Is Free from Thermoregulatory Constraint in the Small Lycaenid Butterfly, Polyommatus icarus

We examined the roles of wing melanisation, weight, and basking posture in thermoregulation in Polyommatus Icarus, a phenotypically variable and protandrous member of the diverse Polyommatinae (Lycaenidae). Under controlled experimental conditions, approximating to marginal environmental conditions for activity in the field (= infrequent flight, long duration basking periods), warming rates are maximised with fully open wings and maximum body temperatures are dependent on weight. Variation in wing melanisation within and between sexes has no effect on warming rates; males and females which differ in melanisation had similar warming rates. Posture also affected cooling rates, consistent with cooling being dependent on convective heat loss. We hypothesise that for this small sized butterfly, melanisation has little or no effect on thermoregulation. This may be a factor contributing to the diversity of wing colours in the Polyommatinae. Because of the importance of size for thermoregulation in this small butterfly, requirements for attaining a suitable size to confer thermal stability in adults may also be a factor influencing larval feeding rates, development time and patterns of voltinism. Our findings indicate that commonly accepted views of the importance of melanisation, posture and size to thermoregulation, developed using medium and large sized butterflies, are not necessarily applicable to small sized butterflies.
Risk of Severe Acute Exacerbation of Chronic HBV Infection Cancer Patients Who Underwent Chemotherapy and Did Not Receive Anti-Viral Prophylaxis

Background Reactivation of HBV replication with an increase in serum HBV DNA and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity has been reported in 20–50% of hepatitis B carriers undergoing cytotoxic chemotherapy for cancer treatment. Manifestation of HBV reactivation ranges from asymptomatic self-limiting hepatitis to severe progressive hepatic failure and fatal consequences. Aim To investigate the risk of severe acute exacerbation of chronic HBV infection in HBsAg-positive cancer patients with solid tumors or hematological malignancies who underwent chemotherapy without antiviral prophylaxis. Methods A retrospective review of charts was conducted for HBsAg-positive cancer patients in our institution who underwent chemotherapy and did not receive anti-viral prophylaxis between the periods of July 2007 to January 2013. We investigate the incidence of severe acute exacerbation of chronic HBV infection if these patients with a variety of solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Results A total of 156 patients (hematological malignancies: 16; solid tumors: 140) were included. The incidence of severe acute HBV exacerbation in the patients with hematological malignancy was higher than that in solid tumors (25.0% [4/16] vs 4.3% [6/140]); P = 0.005). Additionally, patients receiving rituximab-based chemotherapy had higher acute exacerbation rate than those with non-rituximab-based chemotherapy (40.0% vs 4.1%, P = 0.001). Among the patients with solid tumors, the incidences of severe acute exacerbation of chronic HBV in hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, gynecological cancer, urological tract cancer, head/neck cancer and other solid malignancies were 2.3%, 4.0%, 7.1%, 9.0%, 16.7%, 6.7%, 0% and 0%, respectively. Conclusion Severe acute exacerbation of chronic HBV infection may occur in HBsAg-positive patients with a variety of solid tumors who received chemotherapy without adequate anti-viral prophylaxis. Hematological malignancy and rituximab-based chemotherapy are the risk factors related to severe acute exacerbation of chronic HBV infection in HBsAg-positive cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
A Time Stamped Virtual WORM System

When backup operators have to handle giga bytes of information daily, they usually find the task hard enough to leave security aside. This paper consequently intends to focus on proving documents’ authenticity regarding both content and date. In the context of WORM technology, it proposes a media independent tamper evident system - using original cryptographic hash function techniques - and secure time stamping within a given accuracy. Finally, time stamping upgrade mechanisms are proposed to extend security guarantees over years.
Bargaining in Bilateral Oligopoly: An Alternating Oers Representation of the \Nash-in-Nash" Solution

The concept of a Nash equilibrium in Nash bargains, proposed in Horn and Wolinsky (1988), has become the workhorse bargaining model for predicting and estimating the division of surplus in applied analysis of bilateral oligopoly. This paper proposes a non-cooperative foundation for this concept|in which agreements between each pair of rms maximizes their bilateral Nash product conditional on all other negotiated
Choice mechanisms for past, temporally extended outcomes

Accurate retrospection is critical in many decision scenarios ranging from investment banking to hedonic psychology. A notoriously difficult case is to integrate previously perceived values over the duration of an experience. Failure in retrospective evaluation leads to suboptimal outcome when previous experiences are under consideration for revisit. A biologically plausible mechanism underlying evaluation of temporally extended outcomes is leaky integration of evidence. The leaky integrator favours positive temporal contrasts, in turn leading to undue emphasis on recency. To investigate choice mechanisms underlying suboptimal outcome based on retrospective evaluation, we used computational and behavioural techniques to model choice between perceived extended outcomes with different temporal profiles. Second-price auctions served to establish the perceived values of virtual coins offered sequentially to humans in a rapid monetary gambling task. Results show that lesser-valued options involving successive growth were systematically preferred to better options with declining temporal profiles. The disadvantageous inclination towards persistent growth was mitigated in some individuals in whom a longer time constant of the leaky integrator resulted in fewer violations of dominance. These results demonstrate how focusing on immediate gains is less beneficial than considering longer perspectives.
Factors associated with physical activity in preschool children.

OBJECTIVE Our purpose was to identify factors associated with the physical activity in young children. STUDY DESIGN Participants were 214 children (aged 3-5 years) enrolled in 10 childcare centers who were monitored for physical activity with an accelerometer during 2 continuous days (48 hours). Mean daily activity counts, activity counts between 9 AM and 5 PM, and percentage of time spent in vigorous activity were determined. The factors investigated were age, childcare center, season, sex, body mass index (BMI), history of preterm birth, participation in organized activities, parental BMI, and parental educational level. Regression analyses were used to identify factors associated with each of the activity measures. RESULTS A statistical model including sex, history of preterm birth, childcare center, and father's BMI accounted for 22%, 37%, and 23% of the variance in total daily counts, counts between 9 AM and 5 PM, and percentage of time spent in daily vigorous activity, respectively. Childcare center was the highest individual predictor of activity. Boys were more active than girls in all activity measures except counts between 9 AM and 5 PM. Children born preterm were less active than children born at term, and high activity levels in the child were associated with a low BMI in fathers. CONCLUSION The findings indicate that sex, history of preterm birth, childcare center, and father's BMI influence the daily physical activity of young children.
Evidence for Enhanced Neurobehavioral Vulnerability to Nicotine during Periadolescence in Rats

Epidemiological studies indicate that there is an increased likelihood for the development of nicotine addiction when cigarette smoking starts early during adolescence. These observations suggest that adolescence could be a “critical” ontogenetic period, during which drugs of abuse have distinct effects responsible for the development of dependence later in life. We compared the long-term behavioral and molecular effects of repeated nicotine treatment during either periadolescence or postadolescence in rats. It was found that exposure to nicotine during periadolescence, but not a similar exposure in the postadolescent period, increased the intravenous self-administration of nicotine and the expression of distinct subunits of the ligand-gated acetylcholine receptor in adult animals. Both these changes indicated an increased sensitivity to the addictive properties of nicotine. In conclusion, adolescence seems to be a critical developmental period, characterized by enhanced neurobehavioral vulnerability to nicotine.
Monetary policy with unobservedpotential output

This paper studies some effects of real-time information on the implementation of monetary policy. We consider an economy in which several sources of uncertainty, such as measurement errors and imperfectly observable states, do not allow the policymaker to identify the true state of the economy. Optimal policy thus requires the policymaker to jointly solve a filtering and an optimisation problem. We focus in particular on the case of a non-observable measure of potential output and analyse the consequences of this assumption for the macroeconomy (policy, output and inflation). The paper provides a benchmark model to assess the claim that conditioning policy on a potential output measure using real-time data may be at the root of a biased policy stance, as recently suggested by Orphanides. More generally, it offers a rigorous framework to analyse the effects of imperfect information and to assess the role of macroeconomic indicators in alleviating information problems.
Intermittent Theta-Burst Stimulation of the Lateral Cerebellum Increases Functional Connectivity of the Default Network

Cerebral cortical intrinsic connectivity networks share topographically arranged functional connectivity with the cerebellum. However, the contribution of cerebellar nodes to distributed network organization and function remains poorly understood. In humans, we applied theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation, guided by subject-specific connectivity, to regions of the cerebellum to evaluate the functional relevance of connections between cerebellar and cerebral cortical nodes in different networks. We demonstrate that changing activity in the human lateral cerebellar Crus I/II modulates the cerebral default mode network, whereas vermal lobule VII stimulation influences the cerebral dorsal attention system. These results provide novel insights into the distributed, but anatomically specific, modulatory impact of cerebellar effects on large-scale neural network function.
RNA‐binding protein Csx1 mediates global control of gene expression in response to oxidative stress

Fission yeast Spc1 (Sty1), a stress‐activated mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) homologous to human p38, orchestrates global changes in gene expression in response to diverse forms of cytotoxic stress. This control is partly mediated through Atf1, a transcription factor homologous to human ATF2. How Spc1 controls Atf1, and how the cells tailor gene expression patterns to different forms of stress, are unknown. Here we describe Csx1, a novel protein crucial for survival of oxidative but not osmotic stress. Csx1 associates with and stabilizes atf1+ mRNA in response to oxidative stress. Csx1 controls expression of the majority of the genes induced by oxidative stress, including most of the genes regulated by Spc1 and Atf1. These studies reveal a novel mechanism controlling MAPK‐regulated transcription factors and suggest how gene expression patterns can be customized to specific forms of stress. Csx1‐like proteins in humans may perform similar tasks.
Hereditary Breast Cancer in the Han Chinese Population

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy among women and has a strong genetic background. So far, 13 breast cancer susceptibility genes of high or moderate penetrance have been identified. This review summarizes findings on these genes in Han Chinese. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are the 2 most important susceptibility genes. They have a relatively low mutation rate, and the most frequent sites of mutation are in exon 11. Frameshift mutations are the main type of mutation. Founder mutations may also exist, and BRCA-associated breast cancer has specific clinicopathologic characteristics. TP53 and PALB2 are relatively rare susceptibility genes. The relationship between the other 9 genes and breast cancer has not been fully elucidated. At present, the mutation spectrum for these susceptibility genes is not well understood in the Chinese population, and there are few reports on prognosis and clinical intervention in high-risk populations. Therefore, the true value of genetic counseling for breast cancer has yet to be realized. This article reviews studies of hereditary breast cancer in the Han Chinese population, highlights potential inadequacies, and provides a foundation for genetic counseling for breast cancer in China.
Producing things or production flows? Ontological assumptions in the thinking of managers and professionals in construction

New approaches to production management can be conceptualized as treating production as flow rather than transformation. These alternatives can in turn be regarded as reflecting opposing ontological positions, holding respectively that reality is constituted of temporal process, or atemporal substance. The new production philosophy thus arguably represents a process ontology radically different from the atemporal metaphysics underlying conventional methods and theories. Moreover, research in physics education has identified the disjunction between ontological categories of ‘substance’ and ‘process’ as a particularly acute barrier to understanding process phenomena. Studies are presented which demonstrate the possibility of specifying and classifying mental models, with regard to two important management solutions in construction. Thus, procedures typically adopted in quantity surveying and the implementation of structural engineering design are examined. Methods of measurement used in quantity surveying are designed to account primarily for physical, rather than temporal properties. In design, the emphasis is on representing properties of finished structures, rather than the construction processes. The process is then managed by treating the design and its execution as separate products. It is argued here that alternative, more effective management solutions are derived from a process ontology.
Sparse Bayesian Content-Aware Collaborative Filtering for Implicit Feedback

The popularity of social media creates a large amount of user-generated content, playing an important role in addressing cold-start problems in recommendation. Although much effort has been devoted to incorporating this information into recommendation, past work mainly targets explicit feedback. There is still no general framework tailored to implicit feedback, such as views, listens, or visits. To this end, we propose a sparse Bayesian content-aware collaborative filtering framework especially for implicit feedback, and develop a scalable optimization algorithm to jointly learn latent factors and hyperparameters. Due to the adaptive update of hyperparameters, automatic feature selection is naturally embedded in this framework. Convincing experimental results on three different implicit feedback datasets indicate the superiority of the proposed algorithm to state-of-the-art content-aware recommendation methods.
Practical performance of MIMO-OFDM-LDPC with low complexity double iterative receiver

This paper considers MIMO-OFDM transmission with low density parity check (LDPC) codes. We employ a low complexity minimum mean-square-error (MMSE) soft-interference-cancelation (SIC) based double iterative receiver (DIR). Results are presented for a real system implementation at 5.2 GHz. We achieve zero packet errors at 90% of the measured indoor locations, when transmitting at 600 Mbit/s, with 15 bit/s/Hz spectral efficiency and 26 dB signal-to-noise ratio. We show that the proposed receiver actually outperforms a list sphere detection (LSD) based single iterative receiver (SIR) at high coding rates, in practice. Investigations reveal that the LSDSIR is adversely affected by the non-Gaussian noise present at the receiver, while at the same time the MMSE-SIC-DIR is better able to handle transmitter noise present in the practical system.
Neutrophil Chemotaxis in Cord Blood of Term and Preterm Neonates Is Reduced in Preterm Neonates and Influenced by the Mode of Delivery and Anaesthesia

Bacterial infections, even without any perinatal risk factors, are common in newborns, especially in preterm neonates. The aim of this study was to evaluate possible impairment of neutrophil chemotaxis in term and preterm neonates compared with adults as well as neonates with different modes of delivery and anaesthesia. We analysed the expression of the adhesion molecule L-Selectin as well as shape change, spontaneous and N-formyl-methionyl-leucyl-phenylalanine (fMLP)-induced transmigration of neutrophils in a flow cytometric assay of chemotaxis after spontaneous delivery with Cesarian Section (CS) under spinal anaesthesia (mepivacaine, sufentanil), epidural anaesthesia (ropivacaine or bupivacaine, sufentanil) or general anaesthesia (ketamine, thiopental, succinylcholine). Chemokinesis was higher (p=0.008) in cord blood neutrophils than in the adult ones, whereas those could be more stimulated by fMLP (p=0.02). After vaginal delivery neutrophils showed a higher spontaneous and fMLP-stimulated chemotactic response compared to neonates after CS without labor. Comparing different types of anaesthesia for CS, spinal anaesthesia resulted in less impairment on chemotaxis than general anaesthesia or epidural anaesthesia. The new flow cytometric assay of neutrophil chemotaxis is an appropriate and objective method to analyse functional differences even in very small volumes of blood, essential in neonatology. Term neonates do not show reduced chemotaxis compared to adults. Preterm neonates present with reduced chemotaxis and chemokinesis, confirming the well known deficits in their neutrophil function. The side effects of maternal drugs on the neonatal immune system have to be considered especially when the immune response is already impaired, as in preterm infants.
Lesions in the anterior thalamic nuclei of rats do not disrupt acquisition of stimulus sequence learning

Sequence learning and spatial alternation were examined in rats with anterior thalamic lesions or sham surgeries. There was a lesion-induced deficit in spatial alternation but not in sequence learning. During sequence learning, rats discriminated between six different sequentially presented compounds (e.g., reinforce A before B, but not B before A), composed of audio-visual elements. The solution required rats to learn both specific stimulus sequences and the reward contingencies associated with these specific temporal relationships. The failure of anterior thalamic lesions to affect the acquisition of this sequential configural task complements the recent finding that anterior thalamic lesions also spare the acquisition of a configural task involving specific stimulus pairings and their spatial relationships. These findings suggest that such “structural” learning is more reliant on cortico-hippocampal than thalamo-hippocampal interactions.