Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The delay effect on outcome evaluation: results from an event-related potential study

Behavioral studies demonstrate that the timing of receiving gains or losses affects decision-making, a phenomenon known as temporal discounting, as participants are inclined to prefer immediate rewards over delayed ones and vice versa for losses. The present study used the event-related potential technique with a simple gambling task to investigate how delayed rewards and losses affected the brain activity in outcome evaluations made by 20 young adults. Statistical analysis revealed a larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) effect between loss and gain following immediate outcomes than following future outcomes. In addition, delay impacted FRN only in gain conditions, with delayed winning eliciting a more negative FRN than immediate winning. These results suggest that temporal discounting and sign effect could be encoded in the FRN in the early stage of outcome evaluation.
High-conductance Two-dimensional 1T'-MoTe2Synthesized by Sputtering

Among extensively researched 2D-TMDs, MoTe 2 is an emerging but understudied material because of the lack of reliable and reproducible synthesis methods. The difficulties of its synthesis originate from the weak Mo-Te bonding energy, which results in the low chemical reactivity of MoTe 2 . Additionally, compared with other TMDs, MoTe 2 is relatively unstable. It easily oxidizes and decomposes at high temperatures, which complicate the synthesis using conventional CVD. We have previously developed a PVD method capable of depositing large-area, high-crystallinity, few-layer 2D MoTe 2 without complex designs of gas-phase transport or Mo-Te chemical reaction. MoTe 2 is directly sputtered and post-annealed in a 2D encapsulation structure to improve its crystallinity. MoTe 2 can be synthesized in either homogeneous semiconducting 2H or metallic 1T’ phase by controlling the adequate thermal budget during annealing. This talk will mainly discuss the process optimization and electrical properties of 1T'-MoTe 2 , which is potentially important in several emerging research fields, including 2D interconnect, topological superconductor, and 2H-lT’ in-plane homojunction transistor.
Ribulose Diphosphate Carboxylase from Autotrophic Euglena gracilis.

Ribulose 1,5-diphosphate carboxylase (RUDPcase) from autotrophically grown Euglena gracilis was purified to homogeneity as measured by analytical ultracentrifugation, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and immunoprecipitation reactions. The enzyme represented about 9% of total protein and 24% of soluble protein in the autotrophic cell. Light-grown, heterotrophic cells seemed to contain considerably less RUDPcase. Native carboxylase from autotrophic Euglena showed an s(20, w) at low protein concentrations of 17 to 17.5, suggesting a molecular weight of >500,000 daltons. Upon denaturation, the enzyme dissociated into two subunits having different amino acid compositions and molecular weights of 59,000 and 12,000 daltons. Based upon the amino acid mass ratios, a quaternary organization of 7 to 8 large and 8 to 10 small subunits per native enzyme molecule was indicated.The phylogenetic relationship of carboxylase from Euglena and from three higher plants was investigated. In general, the size, subunit formation, and quaternary structure of RUDPcase from the various sources seemed to be similar. A partial immunochemical reaction between anti-RUDPcase serum from Euglena and the enzymes from lettuce, cucumber, and New Zealand spinach suggested that the algal and higher plant carboxylases were related but not identical. This was borne out by amino acid analyses which showed a close correspondence between the large, but not the small, subunits of Euglena and lettuce.
Development of Small-Size Window Cleaning Robot by Wall Climbing Mechanism

The objective of this research is to develop the small-size and light weight window cleaning robot. The prototype of window cleaning robot has been developed. The dimensions of prototyped robot are approximately 300mm x 300mm x 100mm and its weight is approximately 3 kg. The prototyped robot consists of two independently driven wheels and an active suction cup. The control system which includes traveling direction controller using accelerometer and traveling distance controller using rotary encoder and edge sensors ware installed for autonomous operation. This paper includes background and objectives of this research, prototyped mechanical systems, moving control system, experimental result of basic traveling control and window wiping motion by comparing to with or without of motioned control system, some discussions in each experiment and a conclusion.
Elevated Colonization of Microborers at a Volcanically Acidified Coral Reef

Experiments have demonstrated that ocean acidification (OA) conditions projected to occur by the end of the century will slow the calcification of numerous coral species and accelerate the biological erosion of reef habitats (bioerosion). Microborers, which bore holes less than 100 μm diameter, are one of the most pervasive agents of bioerosion and are present throughout all calcium carbonate substrates within the reef environment. The response of diverse reef functional groups to OA is known from real-world ecosystems, but to date our understanding of the relationship between ocean pH and carbonate dissolution by microborers is limited to controlled laboratory experiments. Here we examine the settlement of microborers to pure mineral calcium carbonate substrates (calcite) along a natural pH gradient at a volcanically acidified reef at Maug, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Colonization of pioneer microborers was higher in the lower pH waters near the vent field. Depth of microborer penetration was highly variable both among and within sites (4.2–195.5 μm) over the short duration of the study (3 mo.) and no clear relationship to increasing CO2 was observed. Calculated rates of biogenic dissolution, however, were highest at the two sites closer to the vent and were not significantly different from each other. These data represent the first evidence of OA-enhancement of microboring flora colonization in newly available substrates and provide further evidence that microborers, especially bioeroding chlorophytes, respond positively to low pH. The accelerated breakdown and dissolution of reef framework structures with OA will likely lead to declines in structural complexity and integrity, as well as possible loss of essential habitat.
NOMA: A Preventable “Scourge” of African Children

Noma is a serious orofacial gangrene originating intraorally in the gingival-oral mucosa complex before spreading extraorally to produce a visibly destructive ulcer. Although cases of noma are now rarely reported in the developed countries, it is still prevalent among children in third world countries, notably in sub-Sahara Africa, where poverty, ignorance, malnutrition, and preventable childhood infections are still common. This review summarizes historical, epidemiological, management, and research updates on noma with suggestions for its prevention and ultimate global eradication. The global annual incidence remains high at about 140,000 cases, with a mortality rate exceeding 90% for untreated diseases. Where the patients survive, noma defects result in unsightly facial disfigurement, intense scarring, trismus, oral incompetence, and social alienation. Although the etiology has long been held to be infectious, a definitive causal role between microorganisms cited, and noma has been difficult to establish. The management of noma with active disease requires antibiotics followed by reconstructive surgery. Current research efforts are focused towards a comprehensive understanding of the epidemiology, and further elucidation of the microbiology and pathogenesis of noma. Although a formidable public health challenge, noma can be prevented with a potential for subsequent global eradication. To achieve both desirable goals, detection of early disease is crucial because these early lesions respond to conventional antibiotic treatments when instituted side by side with nutritional rehabilitation, and obviates the necessity for extensive surgical reconstruction often indicated in late stage disease. The eradication of noma in the developed world in the mid 20th century bears out the notion of a similar outcome following effective preventive strategies in Africa. A fundamental and necessary step towards attaining this goal is for the international community to adopt a perception of noma as an urgent global public health challenge. Research effort toward deciphering the microbiology, molecular events, and pathogenesis of noma also should intensify.
The Effects of Hypoxemia on Myocardial Blood Flow during Exercise

ABSTRACT: We evaluated the adequacy of regional and transmural blood flow during exercise and rapid pacing after 1 wk of hypoxemia. Seven mature mongrel dogs were made hypoxemic (mean O2 saturation=72.4%) by anastomosis of left pulmonary artery to left atrial appendage. Catheters were placed in the left atrium, right atrium, pulmonary artery, and aorta. Atrial and ventricular pacing wires were placed. An aortic flow probe was placed to measure cardiac output. Ten nonshunted dogs, similarly instrumented, served as controls. Recovery time was approximately 1 wk. Cardiac output, mean aortic pressure, and oxygen saturation were measured at rest, with ventricular pacing, atrial pacing, and with treadmill exercise. Ventricular and atrial pace and exercise were at a heart rate of 200. Right ventricular free wall, left ventricular free wall, and septal blood flow were measured with radionuclide- labeled microspheres. Cardiac output, left atrial blood pressure, and aortic blood pressure were similar between the two groups of dogs in all testing states. Myocardial blood flow was significantly higher in the right and left ventricular free wall in the hypoxemic animals during resting and exercise testing states. Myocardial oxygen delivery was similar between the two groups of animals. Pacing resulted in an increase in myocardial blood flow in the control animals but not the hypoxemic animals. Myocardial blood flow increased significantly over resting flow with exercise in both groups of animals. Endocardial to epicardial flow ratio were above one and similar both within and between groups of animals for all testing states. We conclude that myocardial blood flow in hypoxemic dogs increases to supply similar oxygen delivery as the control dogs. The endocardial to epicardial ratio would indicate no exhaustion of subendocardial coronary vascular reserve with hypoxemia in any testing state.
Evaluation of beta3-adrenoceptor-mediated relaxation in intact and endotoxin-treated equine digital veins.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the functional expression of beta3-adrenoceptors (beta3-ARs) in equine digital veins (EDVs) and to examine whether beta3-AR relaxation was altered in EDVs incubated with endotoxin. SAMPLE POPULATION Forelimbs obtained from 30 horses. PROCEDURE Forelimbs were obtained from horses in an abattoir. Equine digital veins were carefully removed from distal portions of the forelimbs. Rings of dissected EDVs were mounted in 5-mL organ baths to record isometric tension in the presence of various beta3-AR agonists (SR 58611A, ZD 2079, and ZM 215001). RESULTS In intact EDVs, isoprenaline, SR 58611A, ZD 2079, and ZM 215001 induced concentration-dependent relaxation. Isoprenaline and SR 58611A-induced relaxations were reduced or unaffected by nadolol, respectively. In intact EDVs, SR 58611A-induced relaxation was significantly reduced in the presence of 2 microM ZM 215001 (used as a beta3-AR antagonist). In endothelium-denuded EDVs or intact EDVs in the presence of a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor, isoprenaline and SR 58611A-induced relaxations were significantly decreased. The endothelium-independent relaxation to SR 58611A was significantly inhibited in the presence of ZM 215001. In endotoxin-treated EDV, isoprenaline- and SR 58611A-induced relaxations were significantly reduced. In these conditions, cycloheximide (a protein synthesis inhibitor) and ibuprofen (a cyclooxygenase inhibitor) restored the relaxant response to SR 58611A. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Beta3-adrenoceptors are functionally expressed in EDVs. Incubation in the presence of endotoxin, used as an in vitro model of laminitis, induced an alteration of beta-AR-mediated relaxations in EDVs, which could be the consequence of cyclooxygenase induction and subsequent prostanoid production.
Accounting for Growth

A satisfactory account of the postwar growth experience of the United States should be able to come to terms with the following three facts: 1. Since the early 1970's there has been a slump in the advance of productivity. 2. The price of new equipment has fallen steadily over the postwar period. 3. Since the mid-1970's the skill premium has risen. Variants of Solow's (1960) vintage-capital model can go a long way toward explaining these facts, as this paper shows. In brief, the explanations are: 1. Productivity slowed down because the implementation of information technologies was both costly and slow. 2. Technological advance in the capital goods sector has lead to a decline in equipment prices. 3. The skill premium rose because the new, more efficient capital is complementary with skilled labor and/or because the use of skilled labor facilitates the adoption of new technologies.
Normal Aging Delays and Compromises Early Multifocal Visual Attention during Object Tracking

Declines in selective attention are one of the sources contributing to age-related impairments in a broad range of cognitive functions. Most previous research on mechanisms underlying older adults' selection deficits has studied the deployment of visual attention to static objects and features. Here we investigate neural correlates of age-related differences in spatial attention to multiple objects as they move. We used a multiple object tracking task, in which younger and older adults were asked to keep track of moving target objects that moved randomly in the visual field among irrelevant distractor objects. By recording the brain's electrophysiological responses during the tracking period, we were able to delineate neural processing for targets and distractors at early stages of visual processing (∼100–300 msec). Older adults showed less selective attentional modulation in the early phase of the visual P1 component (100–125 msec) than younger adults, indicating that early selection is compromised in old age. However, with a 25-msec delay relative to younger adults, older adults showed distinct processing of targets (125–150 msec), that is, a delayed yet intact attentional modulation. The magnitude of this delayed attentional modulation was related to tracking performance in older adults. The amplitude of the N1 component (175–210 msec) was smaller in older adults than in younger adults, and the target amplification effect of this component was also smaller in older relative to younger adults. Overall, these results indicate that normal aging affects the efficiency and timing of early visual processing during multiple object tracking.
Application of the Response Surface Methodology to Obtain Pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata) Powder through Spray Drying

The optimization of the process parameters was the aim of this study to obtain a powder from the pumpkin juice (Cucúrbita moschata) using the spray drying method. For the optimization of spray drying a surface response methodology was used, considering a central design composed of three factors: Maltodextrin concentration (10-25%), the temperature of the air inlet (150-170°C) and feed flow rate (4000-5000 mL/h) and the response variables evaluated to determine the optimal conditions of the process were: powder yield, humidity, hygroscopicity and solubility of the powder. The results of the statistical analysis indicate that all factors significantly affected the response variables, an increase in the addition of maltodextrin concentration to the pumpkin juice flow, generates an increase in yield, solubility and lower hygroscopicity values, the increase of the inlet temperature and the feed flow rate produced a decrease in the moisture content of the obtained powder. The optimal conditions of the process were reached with a 25% of maltodextrin concentration, 170°C for the air inlet and a flow rate of 4000 mL/h. These process parameters, allow obtaining a powder with a yield of 62.70%, humidity 3.40%, hygroscopicity 28.70% and solubility 71.5%, indicating a technological opportunity to generate and economic value to the pumpkin fruit, which allows improving the life quality of the country's farmers.
Capacity efficient distributed routing of mesh-restored lightpaths in optical networks

A mesh-restored lightpath in an optical network has a primary route and a diversely routed backup route. The wavelength channels on the primary route of a mesh-restored lightpath are dedicated for that lightpath whereas the wavelength channels on the backup route are shared among different mesh-restored lightpaths. Wavelength channels are shared in a way that ensures restoration of all lightpaths affected by any single link failure. In the centralized scenario, complete knowledge of the network state allows determination of the sharability of a backup channel during path computation. This information is not available in the distributed scenario. Use of 1+1 routing algorithms for mesh-restored lightpaths leads to inefficient capacity sharing. We propose distributed routing techniques to decrease the capacity efficiency gap between centralized routing and 1+1 routing of mesh-restored lightpaths. The algorithm uses information about the number of available and (shared) backup channels in a link, which can be disseminated through traffic engineering extensions to OSPF. A sharing database at each OXC maintains information about the lightpaths whose primary or backup paths traverse that OXC. The approach involves distributed determination of the sharability of a link on the backup path during path signaling using the sharing database at each OXC on the backup path. This, combined with a retry scheme facilitated by crankback routing extensions to CR-LDP/RSVP-TE to reduce lightpath blocking, leads to capacity efficient distributed routing of mesh-restored lightpaths.
The time and place of European admixture in Ashkenazi Jewish history

The Ashkenazi Jewish (AJ) population is important in medical genetics due to its high rate of Mendelian disorders and other unique genetic characteristics. Ashkenazi Jews have appeared in Europe in the 10th century, and their ancestry is thought to involve an admixture of European (EU) and Middle-Eastern (ME) groups. However, both the time and place of admixture in Europe are obscure and subject to intense debate. Here, we attempt to characterize the Ashkenazi admixture history using a large Ashkenazi sample and careful application of new and existing methods. Our main approach is based on local ancestry inference, assigning each Ashkenazi genomic segment as EU or ME, and comparing allele frequencies across EU segments to those of different EU populations. The contribution of each EU source was also evaluated using GLOBETROTTER and analysis of IBD sharing. The time of admixture was inferred using multiple tools, relying on statistics such as the distributions of EU segment lengths and the total EU ancestry per chromosome and the correlation of ancestries along the chromosome. Our simulations demonstrated that distinguishing EU vs ME ancestry is subject to considerable noise at the single segment level, but nevertheless, conclusions could be drawn based on chromosome-wide statistics. The predominant source of EU ancestry in AJ was found to be Southern European (≈60-80%), with the rest being likely Eastern European. The inferred admixture time was ≈35 generations ago, but multiple lines of evidence suggests that it represents an average over two or more admixture events, pre-and post-dating the founder event experienced by AJ in late medieval times, with the prebottleneck admixture event bounded between 25-55 generations ago. Author Summary The Ashkenazi Jewish population has dwelt in Europe for much of its 1000-year existence. However, the ethnic and geographic origins of Ashkenazi Jews are controversial, due to the lack of reliable historical records. Previous genetic studies have exposed links to Middle-Eastern and European ancestries, but the history of admixture in Europe has not been studied in detail yet, partly due to technical difficulties in disentangling signals from multiple admixture events. Here, we address this challenge by presenting an in-depth analysis of the sources of European gene flow and the time of admixture events, using a wide spectrum of genetic methods, extensive simulations, and a number of new approaches. Specifically, to ensure minimal confounding by the Ashkenazi Middle-Eastern ancestry, we mask out genomic regions with Middle-Eastern ancestry, and investigate the lengths and geographic sources of the remaining regions. Our results suggest a model of at least two events of European admixture. One event slightly pre-dated a late medieval founder event and was likely from a Southern European source. Another event post-dated the founder event and was likely in Eastern Europe. These results, as well as the methods introduced, will be highly valuable for geneticists and other researchers interested in Ashkenazi Jewish origins and medical genetics.
Toward a DNA Taxonomy of Alpine Rhithrogena (Ephemeroptera: Heptageniidae) Using a Mixed Yule-Coalescent Analysis of Mitochondrial and Nuclear DNA

Aquatic larvae of many Rhithrogena mayflies (Ephemeroptera) inhabit sensitive Alpine environments. A number of species are on the IUCN Red List and many recognized species have restricted distributions and are of conservation interest. Despite their ecological and conservation importance, ambiguous morphological differences among closely related species suggest that the current taxonomy may not accurately reflect the evolutionary diversity of the group. Here we examined the species status of nearly 50% of European Rhithrogena diversity using a widespread sampling scheme of Alpine species that included 22 type localities, general mixed Yule-coalescent (GMYC) model analysis of one standard mtDNA marker and one newly developed nDNA marker, and morphological identification where possible. Using sequences from 533 individuals from 144 sampling localities, we observed significant clustering of the mitochondrial (cox1) marker into 31 GMYC species. Twenty-one of these could be identified based on the presence of topotypes (expertly identified specimens from the species' type locality) or unambiguous morphology. These results strongly suggest the presence of both cryptic diversity and taxonomic oversplitting in Rhithrogena. Significant clustering was not detected with protein-coding nuclear PEPCK, although nine GMYC species were congruent with well supported terminal clusters of nDNA. Lack of greater congruence in the two data sets may be the result of incomplete sorting of ancestral polymorphism. Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of both gene regions recovered four of the six recognized Rhithrogena species groups in our samples as monophyletic. Future development of more nuclear markers would facilitate multi-locus analysis of unresolved, closely related species pairs. The DNA taxonomy developed here lays the groundwork for a future revision of the important but cryptic Rhithrogena genus in Europe.