Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cooperation across timescales between and Hebbian and homeostatic plasticity

We review a body of theoretical and experimental research on the interactions of homeostatic and Hebbian plasticity, starting from a puzzling observation: While homeostasis of synapses found in experiments is slow, homeostasis of synapses in most mathematical models is rapid, or even instantaneous. Even worse, most existing plasticity models cannot maintain stability in simulated networks with the slow homeostatic plasticity reported in experiments. To solve this paradox, we suggest that there are both fast and slow forms of homeostatic plasticity with distinct functional roles. While fast homeostatic control mechanisms interacting with Hebbian plasticity render synaptic plasticity intrinsically stable, slower forms of homeostatic plasticity are important for fine-tuning neural circuits. Taken together we suggest that learning and memory relies on an intricate interplay of diverse plasticity mechanisms on different timescales which jointly ensure stability and plasticity of neural circuits.
Cohesin SA2 is a sequence-independent DNA-binding protein that recognizes DNA replication and repair intermediates

Proper chromosome alignment and segregation during mitosis depend on cohesion between sister chromatids, mediated by the cohesin protein complex, which also plays crucial roles in diverse genome maintenance pathways. Current models attribute DNA binding by cohesin to entrapment of dsDNA by the cohesin ring subunits (SMC1, SMC3, and RAD21 in humans). However, the biophysical properties and activities of the fourth core cohesin subunit SA2 (STAG2) are largely unknown. Here, using single-molecule atomic force and fluorescence microscopy imaging as well as fluorescence anisotropy measurements, we established that SA2 binds to both dsDNA and ssDNA, albeit with a higher binding affinity for ssDNA. We observed that SA2 can switch between the 1D diffusing (search) mode on dsDNA and stable binding (recognition) mode at ssDNA gaps. Although SA2 does not specifically bind to centromeric or telomeric sequences, it does recognize DNA structures often associated with DNA replication and double-strand break repair, such as a double-stranded end, single-stranded overhang, flap, fork, and ssDNA gap. SA2 loss leads to a defect in homologous recombination–mediated DNA double-strand break repair. These results suggest that SA2 functions at intermediate DNA structures during DNA transactions in genome maintenance pathways. These findings have important implications for understanding the function of cohesin in these pathways.
Challenges in the care of familial hypercholesterolemia: a community care perspective

Familial hyperchoelsterolaemia (FH) remains under-diagnosed and under-treated in the community setting. Earlier evidence suggested a prevalence of 1:500 worldwide but newer evidence suggests it is more common. Less than 15% of FH patients are ever diagnosed, with children and young adults rarely tested despite having the most to gain given their lifetime exposure. Increasing awareness among primary care teams is critical to improve the detection profile for FH. Cascade testing in the community setting needs a sustainable approach to be developed to facilitate family tracing of index cases. The use of the Dutch Lipid Clinic Network Criteria score to facilitate a phenotypic diagnosis is the preferred approach adopted in Australia and eliminates the need to undertake genetic testing for all suspected FH cases.
New interference alignment schemes for downlink MIMO heterogeneous networks

We consider a downlink heterogeneous network (HetNet), where several picocells coexist in the same spectrum as a macrocell. For a general framework of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) network consisting of arbitrary number of picocells and macro users within the macrocell, designing a closed-form solution to achieve the degrees of freedom (DoF) of (C + K)d while guaranteeing the minimum overall antenna usage is an open problem, where C, K and d are the number of picocells, marco users within the macro cell and data streams per user, respectively. Therefore, by relaxing the minimum antenna utilization constraint, we present a zero-forcing based transceiver design at first, which outperforms the existing closed-form solution based on interference alignment (IA) in terms of antenna usage in most cases. That is to say, alignment processing is not necessary in most cases for the existing scheme because simple zero-forcing scheme with efficient antenna utilization can also attain the same DoF. Besides, we propose two IA schemes without any iterative computations, which have the same antenna configuration but different CSI feedback overhead. Also, our proposed IA schemes require lower usage of antennas compared to the zero-forcing scheme and existing IA scheme.
This is who we are: building community for HIV prevention with young gay and bisexual men in Beirut, Lebanon

Abstract Young gay men in Beirut are at significantly elevated risk of HIV infection compared with the general Lebanese population. Despite nascent HIV prevention efforts in the region, there is a need for effective community-level HIV prevention interventions tailored for young gay men. This qualitative study examined internal dynamics within Beirut’s gay community as a basis for developing community-level interventions. Peer ethnographers were trained to collect field notes on conversations between young gay men in public spaces in Beirut, and conducted follow-up focus groups with young gay men. Analyses revealed three major themes: (1) the need for safe spaces in which to socialise, (2) the importance of being able to locate and connect with other young gay men, and (3) ambivalence regarding a gay community that was supportive in some ways but also fragmented and often judgemental. Study findings also confirm the existence of external threats to community such as stigma, cultural and familial norms regarding heterosexuality and criminalisation of refugee status. Understanding such community dynamics and the environmental context is central to designing effective community-based HIV prevention programmes.
Phylogeny, ecology, and the origins of climate-richness relationships

Many studies show that species richness is correlated with climate, especially among local sites within a region. However, few studies have addressed how these climate–diversity relationships actually arise. Only a few processes can directly change species richness (i.e., speciation, extinction, dispersal), and these processes may be best studied by incorporating a phylogenetic perspective. Here, we used a phylogenetic approach to address the causes of climate–diversity relationships in plethodontid salamanders by combining data on richness, climate, and phylogeny for 250 species. Our results suggest that species richness patterns in plethodontids are explained primarily by how long each region and climatic zone has been occupied, rather than by the effects of either area, species density (i.e., ecological limits), or climate on the rates of speciation or extinction. Across regions, diversity is related to time rather than climate. Within regions, significant climate–diversity relationships are also relat.
New species and records of Nandeva Wiedenbrug, Reiss et Fittkau (Chironomidae: Chironominae)

Nandeva digitifer sp. n. from Chile is described and figured as male and female and N. verruculata sp. n. from Brazil as male. The female of N. latiloba Saether et Roque is also described and figured and new Neotropical records of N. latiloba, N. strixinorum Saether et Roque and N. tropica Wiedenbrug, Reiss et Fittkau are given. The female of N. fittkaui Cranston is re-examined. New generic diagnosis and description are given for the imagines. Some character states from previous parsimony analyses are corrected and new analyses performed indicating Nandeva as part of Tanytarsini or as part of the sister group to Tanytarsini.
Efficient decentralized visual place recognition from full-image descriptors

Visual multi-robot simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is an effective way to provide state estimation to a group of robots that operate in an unstructured and GPS-denied environment. This is a problem that can be solved in a centralized way, but in some instances it can be desirable to solve it in a decentralized way. Decentralized visual place recognition, then, becomes a key component of a decentralized visual SLAM system. Achieving it by having all robots send queries to all other robots would use vast amounts of bandwidth, and diverse approaches have been explored by the robotics community to reduce that bandwidth. In previous work, we have proposed a decentralized version of bag-of-words place recognition, which, by using a distributed inverted index, is able to reduce bandwidth requirements by a factor of n, the robot count. In this short paper, we instead propose a decentralized visual place recognition method that is based on full-image descriptors. The method consists in clustering the full-image descriptor space into several clusters and assigning each cluster to one robot. As a result, place recognition can be achieved by sending each place query to only one robot. We evaluate the performance of our new method versus a centralized implementation using the Oxford Robotcar and KITTI datasets and explore an inherent trade-off between performance and load balancing.
Does early life trauma affect how depression is experienced by Holocaust survivors in late life?

ABSTRACT Objectives: Existing research indicates that early life trauma increases the likelihood of depression in later life. This includes children who survived the Nazi Holocaust living in Israel today. For this study, we set out to examine whether early life trauma affects both levels of depression symptomatology and the relative prominence of certain facets of depression as compared to other older adults in Israel and Canada. Method: For this study we recruited 295 Holocaust survivors (HS), 205 other Israelis and 335 older Canadians each of whom completed Radloff's (1977) Center for Epidemiological Studies – Depression Scale (CES-D). The CES-D measures four distinct factors: Depressive affect, absence of well-being, somatic symptoms, and interpersonal rejection. Israeli and Canadian comparison participants were screened to ensure they had not experienced early life trauma. Results: As anticipated, levels of depressive symptoms reported by HS were significantly greater than other Israelis and older Canadians. Moreover, the latent structure of depression as measured by the CES-D differs for HS. Depressive affect and the absence of well-being appear to distinguish depression among HS. Somatic symptoms do not differ, however, and interpersonal rejection seems less germane to depression as experienced by HS compared to both comparison samples. Conclusion: Findings support our assertion that early life trauma affects not only levels of depressive symptoms but also that these survivors of genocide experience depression differently than other Israelis and older Canadians. We discuss the implications of early life trauma for mental health in later life.
Gender Differences: Examination of the 12-Item Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI-12) in an Older Brazilian Population

Objectives Although gender is often acknowledged as a determinant of health, measuring its components, other than biological sex, is uncommon. The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) quantifies self-attribution of traits, indicative of gender roles. The BSRI has been used with participants across cultures and countries, but rarely in an older population in Brazil, as we have done in this study. Our primary objective was to determine whether the BSRI-12 can be used to explore gender in an older Brazilian population. Methods The BSRI was completed by volunteer participants, all community dwelling adults aged 65+ living in Natal, Brazil. Exploratory factor analysis was performed, followed by a varimax rotation (orthogonal solution) for iteration to examine the underlying gender roles of feminine, masculine, androgynous and undifferentiated, and to validate the BSRI in older adults in Brazil. Results The 278 participants, (80 men, 198 women) were 65–99 years old (average 73.6 for men, 74.7 for women). Age difference between sexes was not significant (p = 0.22). A 12 item version of the BSRI (BSRI-12) previously validated among Spanish seniors was used and showed validity with 5 BSRI-12 items (Cronbach=0.66) loading as feminine, 6 items (Cronbach=0.51) loading onto masculine roles and neither overlapping with the category of biological sex of respondent. Conclusions Although the BSRI-12 appears to be a valid indicator of gender among elderly Brazilians, the gender role status identified with the BSRI-12 was not correlated with being male or female.
Evaluation of miR-22 and miR-20a as diagnostic biomarkers for gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND Gastric cancer (GC) is the fourth most common cancers and the second reason for cancer-related death around the world, particularly in East Asian countries. Diagnosing GC in its early stages is followed by more successful treatment. Unfortunately, there is no accurate method for GC diagnosis in its early stages. Recently, miRNAs have been investigated in the most cancer researches which have demonstrated that they have been dysregulated in many cancers. METHODS This case-control study aims to investigate the expression rate of miR-22 and miR-20a in 32 cancerous tissues as well as 32 healthy adjacent tissues. Quantitative reverse transcriptase PCR (q-RT PCR) was used for investigating the expression rate of these miRNAs. RESULTS The expression rate of miR-20a in cancerous tissues was significantly increased (8.9 times) in comparison with their healthy tissues (P<0.001), while the expression rate of miR-22 in cancerous tissues was significantly decreased (1.9 times) (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS The obtained results suggest miR-22 and miR-20a as good diagnostic biomarkers for early detection of GC. However more research is needed to investigate their efficacy.
Archetypal analysis based sparse convex sequence kernel for bird activity detection

This paper proposes a novel method based on the archetypal analysis (AA) for bird activity detection (BAD) task. The proposed method extracts a convex representation (frame-wise) by projecting a given audio signal on to a learned dictionary. The AA based dictionary is trained only on bird class signals, which makes the method robust to background noise. Further, it is shown that due to the inherent sparsity property of convex representations, non-bird class signals will have a denser representation as compared to the bird counterpart, which helps in effective discrimination. In order to detect presence/absence of bird vocalization, a fixed length representation is obtained by averaging the obtained frame wise representations of an audio signal. Classification of these fixed length representations is performed using support vector machines (SVM) with a dynamic kernel. In this work, we propose a variant of probabilistic sequence kernel called sparse convex sequence kernel (SCSK) for the BAD task. Experimental results show that the proposed method can efficiently discriminate bird from non-bird class signals.
Retinal Ganglion Cell Dendritic Atrophy in DBA/2J Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a complex disease affecting an estimated 70 million people worldwide, characterised by the progressive degeneration of retinal ganglion cells and accompanying visual field loss. The common site of damage to retinal ganglion cells is thought to be at the optic nerve head, however evidence from other optic neuropathies and neurodegenerative disorders suggests that dendritic structures undergo a prolonged period of atrophy that may accompany or even precede soma loss and neuronal cell death. Using the DBA/2J mouse model of glaucoma this investigation aims to elucidate the impact of increasing intraocular pressure on retinal ganglion cell dendrites using DBA/2J mice that express YFP throughout the retinal ganglion cells driven by Thy1 (DBA/2J.Thy1(YFP)) and DiOlistically labelled retinal ganglion cells in DBA/2J mice. Here we show retinal ganglion cell dendritic degeneration in DiOlistically labelled DBA/2J retinal ganglion cells but not in the DBA/2J.Thy1(YFP) retinal ganglion cells suggesting that a potential downregulation of Thy1 allows only ‘healthy’ retinal ganglion cells to express YFP. These data may highlight alternative pathways to retinal ganglion cell loss in DBA/2J glaucoma.
Assessing the Incidence of Ciguatera Fish Poisoning with Two Surveys Conducted in Culebra, Puerto Rico, during 2005 and 2006

Background: Although ciguatera fish poisoning (CFP) is the most common seafood intoxication worldwide, its burden has been difficult to establish because there are no biomarkers to diagnose human exposure. Objective: We explored the incidence of CFP, percentage of CFP case-patients with laboratory-confirmed ciguatoxic meal remnants, cost of CFP illness, and potential risk factors for CFP. Methods: During 2005 and again during 2006, we conducted a census of all occupied households on the island of Culebra, Puerto Rico, where locally caught fish are a staple food. We defined CFP case-patients as persons with gastrointestinal symptoms (abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea, or nausea) and neurological symptoms (extremity paresthesia, arthralgia, myalgia, malaise, pruritus, headache, dizziness, metallic taste, visual disturbance, circumoral paresthesia, temperature reversal, or toothache) or systemic symptoms (e.g., bradycardia) within 72 hr of eating fish during the previous year. Participants were asked to save fish remnants eaten by case-patients for ciguatoxin analysis at the Food and Drug Administration laboratory in Dauphin Island, Alabama (USA). Results: We surveyed 340 households during 2005 and 335 households during 2006. The estimated annual incidence of possible CFP was 4.0 per 1,000 person-years, and that of probable CFP was 7.5 per 1,000 person-years. One of three fish samples submitted by probable case-patients was positive for ciguatoxins. None of the case-patients required respiratory support. Households that typically consumed barracuda were more likely to report CFP (p = 0.02). Conclusions: Our estimates, which are consistent with previous studies using similar case findings, contribute to the overall information available to support public health decision making about CFP prevention.
Effects of Vibration on Vertical and Joint Stiffness in Ankle Instability and Healthy Subjects

Effects of Vibration on Vertical and Joint Stiffness in Ankle Instability and Healthy Subjects Mark J. Coglianese Department of Exercise Sciences, BYU Doctor of Philosophy Some have suggested acute increases in musculotendinous stiffness (k) following whole body vibration (WBV). Others propose that chronic ankle instability (CAI) may alter k of the lower extremity. Changes in proprioceptive activity and/or gamma motoneuron activation post-WBV and/or due to CAI could lead to alterations in k. However, little is known about acute effects of WBV on k and less is known about changes in k with CAI. PURPOSE: Assess differences in vertical and joint k between healthy and CAI subjects during single-limb landings and detect alterations in k measures post-vibration. METHODS: Subjects were identified as CAI via the FAAM, MAII and special testing. Thirty-five CAI subjects (17 males, 18 females; age = 22 ± 7 yr; height = 1.73 ± 0.23 m; mass = 70 ± 30 kg) and 35 matched healthy subjects (17 males, 18 females; age = 23 ± 5 yr; height = 1.73 ± 0.21 m; mass = 70 ± 35 kg) qualified for this study. Kinetic (2000 Hz) and kinematic (250 Hz) data were recorded during several jump landings preand post-WBV. Five repetitions of WBV, at 26 Hz and 4 mm amplitude, were introduced between preand post-WBV jump trials. The jump task included a double-limb jump followed by a single-limb landing and a subsequent contralateral hop. Vertical k (∆vertical GRF/center of mass vertical displacement), hip, knee and ankle joint k (∆joint moment/∆joint angle) were calculated, averaged across five successful pre-WBV and across six post-WBV trials. An ANOVA was used to detect between-group differences, while an ANCOVA was used to analyze within-group differences post-WBV using pre-measures as covariates. A pseudo-Bonferroni adjustment was performed prior to statistical analysis (p 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: It appears that WBV does acutely increase vertical k in healthy subjects. However, this treatment effect was not observed in CAI. Further research is needed to assess how k is regulated in CAI subjects and why CAI subjects responded differently to WBV.
Mechanisms of Behavior Change Within Peer-Implemented Alcohol Interventions.

OBJECTIVE Colleges continue to experience a high number of referred students because of campus alcohol violations. Subsequently, there has been a trend to use peer-implemented minimal interventions (PMIs), often using motivational interviewing (MI). However, little is known about how PMIs facilitate behavior change. This study aims to examine the mechanisms of behavior change within PMIs and their influence on alcohol reduction among mandated students. METHOD Participants (N = 146; mean age = 18.7 years; 67% male; 94% White) were college students who violated campus alcohol policy at a Northeastern liberal arts college who received a 15-minute PMI addressing their alcohol use. The Motivational Interviewing Skill Code (Miller et al., 2003) was used to identify peer counselor behaviors that were MI consistent (MICO), client change talk (CT), and client self-exploration. RESULTS MICO behaviors were positively associated with CT and self-exploration. Client CT and self-exploration were negatively associated with alcohol-related outcomes. Furthermore, mediational models examining MICO behaviors revealed effects for two paths: (a) from MICO to client CT to reduced alcohol use; and (b) from MICO to client self-exploration to reduced alcohol-related consequences and use. CONCLUSIONS These data support the primary causal chain examining the influence of MICO on in-session client behaviors and related post-session behavior change in PMIs among at-risk students.