Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PROCESSING OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS BY OLDER AND YOUNGER ADULTS

Processing of Facial Expressions by Older and Younger Adults Sarah E. Creighton Master of Science Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour McMaster University 2012 Older adults tend to show overall recognition deficits and qualitatively different patterns in the particular expressions that are most difficult to identify (Ruffman et al., 2008). In the current study, 23 younger (18-33 years old) and 23 older (60-80 years old) adults performed a 4AFC (angry, fearful, happy, sad) facial expression categorization task varying orientation (upright/inverted) and stimulus duration (100, 500, 1000 ms). For both groups, happiness was the easiest expression to identify and fear and sadness were the most difficult. Compared to younger adults, older adults were more affected by stimulus orientation, and generally benefit less from increased stimulus duration. For upright faces, there was no age difference in response accuracy but response latency was longer in older subjects. For inverted faces, older adults showed lower accuracy and longer latencies for expressions of anger, fear, and sadness. Recognition of inverted happy faces was spared in older adults for accuracy, but not response latency. These findings could not be explained by impaired detection sensitivity, as no systematic age differences were found for perceived intensity ratings. Finally, the expressions that were most to least difficult to identify was the same in each age group at both orientations. Overall, these results suggest that older individuals process expressive faces in a qualitatively similar way to their younger counterparts, but are less efficient at extracting the diagnostic information.
Auditory and visual event-related potential alterations in fragile X syndrome

We investigated early auditory and visual information processing in Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), the most common form of X-linked Intellectual Disability (ID) and the only known monogenetic cause of autism. FXS is caused by a trinucleotide repeat expansion in the FMR1 (‘Fragile X mental retardation 1’) gene, which prevents expression of the ‘fragile X mental retardation protein’ (FMRP). FMRP absence leads to altered structural and functional development of the synapse, while also preventing activity-based synapse maturation and synaptic pruning, which are essential for cerebral and cognitive development. We review the contribution of electrophysiological signal studies for the understanding of information processing in FXS and compare event-related potential (ERP) findings to those concerning other clinical populations that share symptoms with FXS. In our research project, we investigated ERPs evoked by basic auditory and visual stimulation in twelve adolescents and young adults (10-22) with FXS, as well as healthy chronologicaland developmentalage matched controls. We found an altered ERP profile in FXS, including increased auditory N1 amplitude, relative to both control groups, as well as increased auditory P2 and N2 amplitudes and increased auditory N2 latencies. Rather than being immature, sensory processing appears to be specifically disrupted in FXS. Furthermore, the auditory modality seems to be more affected than the visual modality. In combination with brain anatomical, biochemical and behavioural findings, our results suggest a hyperexcitable nervous system in FXS.
Sentence Boundary Detection: A Long Solved Problem?

We review the state of the art in automated sentence boundary detection (SBD) for English and call for a renewed research interest in this foundational first step in natural language processing. We observe severe limitations in comparability and reproducibility of earlier work and a general lack of knowledge about genre- and domain-specific variations. To overcome these barriers, we conduct a systematic empirical survey of a large number of extant approaches, across a broad range of diverse corpora. We further observe that much previous work interpreted the SBD task too narrowly, leading to overly optimistic estimates of SBD performance on running text. To better relate SBD to practical NLP use cases, we thus propose a generalized definition of the task, eliminating text- or language-specific assumptions about candidate boundary points. More specifically, we quantify degrees of variation across ‘standard’ corpora of edited, relatively formal language, as well as performance degradation when moving to less formal language, viz. various samples of user-generated Web content. For these latter types of text, we demonstrate how moderate interpretation of document structure (as is now often available more or less explicitly through mark-up) can substantially contribute to overall SBD performance.
Baseline assessment of WHO’s target for both availability and affordability of essential medicines to treat non-communicable diseases

Background WHO has set a voluntary target of 80% availability of affordable essential medicines, including generics, to treat major non-communicable diseases (NCDs), in the public and private sectors of countries by 2025. We undertook a secondary analysis of data from 30 surveys in low- and middle-income countries, conducted from 2008–2015 using the World Health Organization (WHO)/Health Action International (HAI) medicine availability and price survey methodology, to establish a baseline for this target. Methods Data for 49 medicines (lowest priced generics and originator brands) to treat cardiovascular diseases (CVD), diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD) and central nervous system (CNS) conditions were analysed to determine their availability in healthcare facilities and pharmacies, their affordability for those on low incomes (based on median patient prices of each medicine), and the percentage of medicines that were both available and affordable. Affordability was expressed as the number of days’ wages of the lowest-paid unskilled government worker needed to purchase 30 days’ supply using standard treatment regimens. Paying more than 1 days’ wages was considered unaffordable. Findings In low-income countries, 15.2% and 18.9% of lowest-priced generics met WHO’s target in the public and private sectors, respectively, and 2.6% and 5.2% of originator brands. In lower-middle income countries, 23.8% and 23.2% of lowest priced generics, and 0.8% and 1.4% of originator brands, met the target in the public and private sectors, respectively. In upper-middle income countries, the situation was better for generics but still suboptimal as 36.0% and 39.4% met the target in public and private sectors, respectively. For originator brands in upper-middle income countries, none reached the target in the public sector and 13.7% in the private sector. Across the therapeutic groups for lowest priced generics, CVD medicines in low-income countries (11.9%), and CNS medicines in lower-middle (10.2%) and upper-middle income countries (33.3%), were least available and affordable in the public sector. In the private sector for lowest priced generics, CNS medicines were least available and affordable in all three country income groups (11.4%, 5.8% and 29.3% in low-, lower-middle and upper-middle income countries respectively). Interpretation This data, which can act as a baseline for the WHO target, shows low availability and/or poor affordability is resulting in few essential NCD medicines meeting the target in low- and middle-income countries. In the era of Sustainable Development Goals, and as countries work to achieve Universal Health Coverage, increased commitments are needed by governments to improve the situation through the development of evidence-informed, nationally-contextualised interventions, with regular monitoring of NCD medicine availability, patient prices and affordability.
Verbal and nonverbal sequencing in children with specific language impairment

Specific Language Impairment (SLI) is a neurodevelopmental disorder which interferes with language expression and processing, but children with SLI show no obvious physical or neurological basis for such deficits. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain its origins. One recent approach proposes that individuals with SLI have a deficit to procedural learning. Ullman's Procedural Deficit Hypothesis (PDH) is based on anatomical differences between individuals with SLI and typically developing controls in the subcortical-cortical circuit underlying procedural learning and memory. The PDH predicts that individuals with SLI will have difficulty with any task recruiting this circuit. Previous studies have focused on difficulties that children with SLI have with learning target sequences. Based on this hypothesis and on the functions associated with the procedural learning circuit, children with SLI can be expected to also have difficulty generating new sequences. This study compares the sequence production abilities of 6-7 year olds with SLI to that of age-matched typically developing (TD) peers. Three tasks are used (picture arrangement, scripts, and biographic interviews) to explore how event sequencing, syllable sequences, and intonation may be impacted in SLI. Overall, children with SLI perform more poorly than TD children on all three tasks. They are less able to generate sequences of events, both nonverbally and verbally. They speak in shorter segments and at a slower rate in the biographic interviews. Finally, they do not use intonation comparably to TD children when communicating the end of a turn. The procedural deficit hypothesis may be able to account for the event and syllable sequencing results of this study, but cannot fully explain the intonation results. Further research is recommended to explore the relationships between sequence learning and sequence production and between verbal and nonverbal domains.
Changes over time in the quality of life, prolonged grief and family strain of family caregivers of patients in vegetative state: A pilot study

This study explored changes over time and in the internal standards of the quality of life, prolonged grief and family strain of informal caregivers of patients in vegetative state. Data obtained from 52 caregivers showed high levels of prolonged grief and family strain, and low quality of life. A decrease of caregivers’ quality of life and an increase of family strain were found by adopting a response shift procedure. Only prolonged grief did not change during time. Clinical intervention with the caregivers of vegetative state patients should be differentiated on the basis of the duration of the caring experience.
The Time Dependent Amplitude Equation for the Swift-hohenberg Problem

Precise estimates for the validity of the amplitude approximation for the Swift-Hohenberg equation are given, in a fully time dependent framework. It is shown that small solutions of order O() which are modulated like stationary solutions have an evolution which is well described in the amplitude approximation for a time of order O(? 2). For the proofs, we use techniques for nonlinear semigroups and oscillatory integrals. -2
Social Spammer and Spam Message Co-Detection in Microblogging with Social Context Regularization

The popularity of microblogging platforms, such as Twitter, makes them important for information dissemination and sharing. However, they are also recognized as ideal places by spammers to conduct social spamming. Massive social spammers and spam messages heavily hurt the user experience and hinder the healthy development of microblogging systems. Thus, effectively detecting the social spammers and spam messages in microblogging is of great value. Existing studies mainly regard social spammer detection and spam message detection as two separate tasks. However, social spammers and spam messages have strong connections, since social spammers tend to post more spam messages and spam messages have high probabilities to be posted by social spammers. Combining social spammer detection with spam message detection has the potential to boost the performance of each task. In this paper, we propose a unified framework for social spammer and spam message co-detection in microblogging. Our framework utilizes the posting relations between users and messages to combine social spammer detection with spam message detection. In addition, we extract the social relations between users as well as the connections between messages, and incorporate them into our framework as regularization terms over the prediction results. Besides, we introduce an efficient optimization method to solve our framework. Extensive experiments on a real-world microblog dataset demonstrate that our framework can significantly and consistently improve the performance of both social spammer detection and spam message detection.
Effects of malathion plus superphosphate or urea on Najdi sheep.

The effects of p.o. administration of the combination of malathion + superphosphate or urea on Najdi sheep were evaluated in sheep dosed as untreated controls, malathion-treated at 25 mg/kg/d, superphosphate-treated at 450 mg/kg/d, urea-treated at 450 mg/kg/d, malathion-treated at 25 mg/kg/d + superphosphate treated at 450 mg/kg/d, or malathion treated at 25 mg/kg/d + urea treated at 450 mg/kg/d. Oral doses of malathion alone were lethal after 6 d, and malathion + urea were fatal after 6-8 d. Malathion + superphosphate caused death after 2-3 d. Malathion, but not superphosphate or urea, inhibited serum cholinesterase activity. Hepatonephropathy correlated with changes in serum AST, ALP, cholesterol, triglyceride, bilirubin, urea, total protein and albumin. Neither malathion nor its combination with superphosphate or urea caused peripheral neuropathy.
Growth Patterns and Individual Variation in Mid‐sagittal Facial Soft Tissue Depth from Childhood to Adulthood

Previous studies have used longitudinal samples to investigate growth of the skeletal aspects of the face, although far less has been done on facial soft tissue. This study uses a larger sample than previous studies on the same data (Denver and Fels growth series) to explore covariation of bony and soft facial dimensions comprehensively from childhood to adulthood. A total of 1036 lateral cephalometric radiographs were digitized from 60 individuals, and distances between facial landmarks were measured using ImageJ. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed all bony facial landmark distances were significantly different (p > 0.05) between age groups; however, only half were significantly different between sexes. Further analysis showed the effect of age (calculated as eta‐squared) explained a greater percentage of total variation (20%) than sex (15%). Overall, soft tissue changes between 0 and 19 years of age were small (<3 mm) and only some were correlated to underlying facial skeleton dimensions.
High Genetic Variability for Resistance toBacillus thuringiensis Toxins in a Single Population of Diamondback Moth

ABSTRACT The long-term benefit of insecticidal products based on Cry toxins, either in sprays or as transgenic crops, is threatened by the development of resistance by target pests. The models used to predict evolution of resistance to Cry toxins most often are monogenic models in which two alleles are used. Moreover, the high-dose/refuge strategy recommended for implementation with transgenic crops relies on the assumption that the resistance allele is recessive. Using selection experiments, we demonstrated the occurrence in a laboratory colony of diamondback moth of two different genes (either allelic or nonallelic) that confer resistance to Cry1Ab. At the concentration tested, resistance was dominant in one selection line and partially recessive in the other. Resistant insects from the two selection lines also differed in their cross-resistance patterns. The diamondback moth colony was derived from a field population from the Philippines, which originally showed a different resistance phenotype. This is the first time that an insect population has been directly shown to carry more than one gene conferring resistance to the same Cry toxin.
Involvement of Interleukin (IL) 8 receptor in negative regulation of myeloid progenitor cells in vivo: evidence from mice lacking the murine IL-8 receptor homologue

Expansion of mature neutrophils has been observed in mice lacking the murine interleukin (IL) 8 receptor homolog [mIL-8Rh(-/-)], and human (hu) IL-8 suppresses proliferation of primitive myeloid cells in vitro and in vivo. To evaluate involvement and relevance of murine IL-8 receptor homolog (mIL-8Rh) in negative regulation of myelopoiesis, we studied mIL-8Rh(-/-) and (+/+) mice raised in a normal or germ-free environment. Immature myeloid progenitors from mIL-8Rh(+/+) mice bred under normal or germ-free conditions were significantly suppressed in vitro by recombinant huIL-8, macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)-1 alpha, platelet factor (PF) 4, interferon inducible protein (IP) 10, monocyte chemotactic peptide (MCP) 1, and H-ferritin. In contrast, progenitors from mIL-8Rh(-/-) mice were insensitive to inhibition by IL- 8, but not to these other chemokines and H-ferritin. Mouse MIP-2, a ligand for mIL-8Rh, suppressed progenitors from normal but not mIL-8Rh(- /-) mice. Under normal environmental conditions, enhanced numbers of myeloid progenitors were found in femur, spleen, and blood of mIL-8Rh(- /-) compared with mIL-8Rh(+/+) mice. Numbers of myeloid progenitors were greatly decreased in mIL-8Rh(-/-)and (+/+) mice in germ-free conditions, and were either not significantly enhanced in mIL-8Rh(-/-) mice compared with (+/+) mice or were only moderately so. Differences in progenitors/organ between a germ-free and normal environment were greater for the mIL-8Rh(-/-) mice. These results document selective insensitivity of myeloid progenitor cells from mIL-8Rh(-/-) mice to inhibition by huIL-8 and mouse MIP-2 and a large expansion of myeloid progenitors in these mice, the latter effect being environmentally inducible. This provides strong support for a negative myeloid regulatory role played by the mIL-8Rh in vivo, whose active ligand may be MIP-2.
Heparan Sulfate Proteoglycans Mediate Interstitial Flow Mechanotransduction Regulating MMP-13 Expression and Cell Motility via FAK-ERK in 3D Collagen

Background Interstitial flow directly affects cells that reside in tissues and regulates tissue physiology and pathology by modulating important cellular processes including proliferation, differentiation, and migration. However, the structures that cells utilize to sense interstitial flow in a 3-dimensional (3D) environment have not yet been elucidated. Previously, we have shown that interstitial flow upregulates matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) expression in rat vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) and fibroblasts/myofibroblasts via activation of an ERK1/2-c-Jun pathway, which in turn promotes cell migration in collagen. Herein, we focused on uncovering the flow-induced mechanotransduction mechanism in 3D. Methodology/Principal Findings Cleavage of rat vascular SMC surface glycocalyx heparan sulfate (HS) chains from proteoglycan (PG) core proteins by heparinase or disruption of HS biosynthesis by silencing N-deacetylase/N-sulfotransferase 1 (NDST1) suppressed interstitial flow-induced ERK1/2 activation, interstitial collagenase (MMP-13) expression, and SMC motility in 3D collagen. Inhibition or knockdown of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) also attenuated or blocked flow-induced ERK1/2 activation, MMP-13 expression, and cell motility. Interstitial flow induced FAK phosphorylation at Tyr925, and this activation was blocked when heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs) were disrupted. These data suggest that HSPGs mediate interstitial flow-induced mechanotransduction through FAK-ERK. In addition, we show that integrins are crucial for mechanotransduction through HSPGs as they mediate cell spreading and maintain cytoskeletal rigidity. Conclusions/Significance We propose a conceptual mechanotransduction model wherein cell surface glycocalyx HSPGs, in the presence of integrin-mediated cell-matrix adhesions and cytoskeleton organization, sense interstitial flow and activate the FAK-ERK signaling axis, leading to upregulation of MMP expression and cell motility in 3D. This is the first study to describe a flow-induced mechanotransduction mechanism via HSPG-mediated FAK activation in 3D. This study will be of interest in understanding the flow-related mechanobiology in vascular lesion formation, tissue morphogenesis, cancer cell metastasis, and stem cell differentiation in 3D, and also has implications in tissue engineering.
The discrete Douglas Problem: theory and numerics

We solve the problem of finding and justifying an optimal fully discrete finite element procedure for approximating annulus-like, possibly unstable, minimal surfaces. In this paper we introduce the general framework, some preliminary estimates, develop the ideas used for the algorithm, and give the numerical results. Similarities and differences with respect to the fully discrete finite element procedure given by G. Dziuk and J. Hutchinson in the case of the classical Plateau problem are also addressed. In a subsequent paper we prove convergence estimates.
Youth and Generation: Rethinking change and inequality in the lives of young people

Chapter 1: Continuity and Change Individualisation Generation New Life Patterns Structure of the Book Chapter 2: Global Change and Inequality Education, Urbanisation and Employment Inequality Australia in a Changing World The Failure of the Neoliberal Promise Theory in Youth Studies Chapter 3: Individualisation Understanding Changing Patterns Bringing Zombie Categories Back to Life The Creation of the Choice Biography Holding Lives Together Researching the Making of Inequality in New Times Chapter 4: Generations The Emergence and Marginalisation of the Sociology of Generations What is a Generation? Intergenerational Relationships When does a Generation Emerge? Chapter 5: Transitions Youth Transitions and Development Transition Regimes and the Making of a Generations Research and Reflexivity Chapter 6: Cultures Concepts of Subculture Post-subcultures Continuity and Change in Cultures Research Generational Change, Cultures and Divisions Blurring Boundaries Chapter 7: Time Social Change and Synchronisation Sociality and the Digital Revolution Time, Youth Cultures and Inequality The Present, Past and Future Chapter 8: Place The Invisibility of Place Theorising Young People and Place Mobilities, Cultures and Place Making Place Visible Place and Global Generations Young People Making a Place for Themselves Chapter 9: Conclusion Generations, Transitions, Cultures Time, Place and the Future