Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Transitioning from bimodal to bilateral cochlear implant listening: speech recognition and localization in four individuals.

PURPOSE The use of bilateral stimulation is becoming common for cochlear implant (CI) recipients with either (a) a CI in one ear and a hearing aid (HA) in the nonimplanted ear (CI&HA-bimodal) or (b) CIs in both ears (CI&CI-bilateral). The objective of this study was to evaluate 4 individuals who transitioned from bimodal to bilateral stimulation. METHOD Participants had completed a larger study of bimodal hearing and subsequently received a second CI. Test procedures from the bimodal study, including roaming speech recognition, localization, and a questionnaire (the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale; Gatehouse & Noble, 2004) were repeated after 6-7 months of bilateral CI experience. RESULTS Speech recognition and localization were not significantly different between bimodal and unilateral CI. In contrast, performance was significantly better with CI&CI compared with unilateral CI. Speech recognition with CI&CI was significantly better than with CI&HA for 2 of 4 participants. Localization was significantly better for all participants with CI&CI compared with CI&HA. CI&CI performance was rated as significantly better on the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale compared with CI&HA. CONCLUSIONS There was a strong preference for CI&CI for all participants. The variability in speech recognition and localization, however, suggests that performance under these stimulus conditions is individualized. Differences in hearing and/or HA history may explain performance differences.
Die fossilen Brachiopoden der Schweiz und der umliegenden Gebiete

Phanerozoic, and their wide palaeodistribution, diversity, facies sensitivity and abundance in Palaeozoic and Mesozoic deposits makes them excellent tools for biostratigraphical correlations and palaeo(bio)geographical reconstructions. From what occurred in international geosciences during the past decade, a strong impression results of a “revival” in brachiopod research. New interpretations based on these fossils have allowed a better picture of the palaeoworld (e.g., Vörös, 2016). However, brachiopod research should be “fed” permanently with factual data, which stresses the importance of basin-scale syntheses of information, including taxonomic descriptions on a modern systematic basis and well-justified schemes of species distribution in geological time and space. The second edition of this wonderful book by the famous Swiss brachiopod specialist Heinz Sulser illustrates the very idea of what such syntheses should look like. The reviewed book consists of two main parts. The first part presents detailed characteristics of brachiopods. Sulser describes their systematics (as well as historical changes), morphology, anatomy, physiology, ecology and stratigraphical importance. This information is systematised so well that it makes this book a prime source of general knowledge of this group. The importance of this source is comparable to that of a review just published by Carlson (2016). Of course, knowledge gathered in the first part of the present book also facilitates understanding the second portion. The second part comprises taxonomic descriptions of several hundreds of taxa. The majority of these are of Mesozoic age, although some Cenozoic ones are also considered. At times, it is not so easy to find descriptions of all (! ) representatives of regional faunas in the literature because many publications focus only on new discoveries. Fortunately, Sulser’s book is of a different kind. The author pays equal attention to both well-known and poorly known taxa. Wherever necessary and possible, he revised the taxonomy to match the newest classification of brachiopods. Importantly, he also presents valuable notes on the spatio-temporal distribution of taxa and supplies references to literature items (including old ones), in which these taxa were described. This part is like a well-wrought reference work that can be used also as a kind of field guide. Although the book is the outcome of the author’s life-long research, all descriptions seem to be “fresh” and ready for use in modern-day studies. There is also a very important section, in which all brachiopod species are listed by ages with indication of their occurrence in the major geologiGeologos 23, 2 (2017): 141–142 doi: 10.1515/logos-2017-0017
The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation

We exploit differences in the mortality rates faced by European colonialists to estimate the effect of institutions on economic performance. Our argument is that Europeans adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies, with different associated institutions. The choice of colonization strategy was, at least in part, determined by whether Europeans could settle in the colony. In places where Europeans faced high mortality rates, they could not settle and they were more likely to set up worse (extractive) institutions. These early institutions persisted to the present. We document evidence supporting these hypotheses. Exploiting differences in mortality rates faced by soldiers, bishops and sailors in the colonies in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries as an instrument for current institutions, we estimate large effects of institutions on income per capita. Our estimates imply that differences in institutions explain approximately three-quarters of the income per capita differences across former colonies. Once we control for the effect of institutions, we find that countries in Africa or those farther away from the equator do not have lower incomes.
Comparison of CAP and DFT-spread DMT for high speed transmission over 50m SI-POF

Over the recent years many modulation schemes were proposed for laser based high-speed short-range transmission over step-index plastic optical fiber (SI-POF). Among these schemes, CAP and DFT-Spread DMT demonstrated a good performance for intensity modulation direct-detection transmission via SI-POF. In this work, for the first time, we report on the progress and initial experimentation regarding the comparison of CAP and DFT-Spread DMT for transmission over 50m of 1-mm SI-POF. It is shown that CAP and DFT-Spread DMT achieve a comparable transmission rate for a given bit error rate over the same experimental configuration.
Alcohol use predicts sexual risk behavior with HIV-negative or partners of unknown status among young HIV-positive men who have sex with men

Abstract Although the relationship between substance use and heightened sexual risk behaviors have been documented in samples of young men who have sex with men (YMSM) and HIV-positive adult men who have sex with men (MSM), there is a dearth of research on the role of substance use in the sexual risk behaviors of HIV-positive YMSM. We examined associations between alcohol and other drug use with sexual risk behaviors among a sample of HIV-positive YMSM (N=200). There were no significant predictors of either receptive or insertive unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) with HIV-positive partners among the substance use variables. Failure to use a condom after drinking alcohol (β=2.00, p<0.01) was significantly associated with insertive UAI with HIV-negative partners or partners of unknown status. Failure to use a condom after drinking alcohol (β=1.36, p<0.05) and age (β=0.35, p<0.05) were significantly associated with receptive UAI with HIV-negative partners or partners of unknown status. Findings from this article underscore the role of alcohol in facilitating UAI among HIV-positive YMSM and their HIV-negative and status-unknown partners.
Assessment of Weighted Quantile Sum Regression for Modeling Chemical Mixtures and Cancer Risk

In evaluation of cancer risk related to environmental chemical exposures, the effect of many chemicals on disease is ultimately of interest. However, because of potentially strong correlations among chemicals that occur together, traditional regression methods suffer from collinearity effects, including regression coefficient sign reversal and variance inflation. In addition, penalized regression methods designed to remediate collinearity may have limitations in selecting the truly bad actors among many correlated components. The recently proposed method of weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression attempts to overcome these problems by estimating a body burden index, which identifies important chemicals in a mixture of correlated environmental chemicals. Our focus was on assessing through simulation studies the accuracy of WQS regression in detecting subsets of chemicals associated with health outcomes (binary and continuous) in site-specific analyses and in non-site-specific analyses. We also evaluated the performance of the penalized regression methods of lasso, adaptive lasso, and elastic net in correctly classifying chemicals as bad actors or unrelated to the outcome. We based the simulation study on data from the National Cancer Institute Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results Program (NCI-SEER) case-control study of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) to achieve realistic exposure situations. Our results showed that WQS regression had good sensitivity and specificity across a variety of conditions considered in this study. The shrinkage methods had a tendency to incorrectly identify a large number of components, especially in the case of strong association with the outcome.
Nonlinear Interactions between Excitatory and Inhibitory Retinal Synapses Control Visual Output

The visual system is highly sensitive to dynamic features in the visual scene. However, it is not known how or where this enhanced sensitivity first occurs. We investigated this phenomenon by studying interactions between excitatory and inhibitory synapses in the second synaptic layer of the mouse retina. We found that these interactions showed activity-dependent changes that enhanced signaling of dynamic stimuli. Excitatory signaling from cone bipolar cells to ganglion cells exhibited strong synaptic depression, attributable to reduced glutamate release from bipolar cells. This depression was relieved by amacrine cell inhibitory feedback that activated presynaptic GABAC receptors. We found that the balance between excitation and feedback inhibition depended on stimulus frequency; at short interstimulus intervals, excitation was enhanced, attributable to reduced inhibitory feedback. This dynamic interplay may enrich visual processing by enhancing retinal responses to closely spaced temporal events, representing rapid changes in the visual environment.
Inter‐observer variability in mammographic density assessment using Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) synoptic scales

The aim of this study was to evaluate observer variability in mammographic density assessment as measured using the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) synoptic scales. Visual assessment of mammographic density by radiologists is commonly used in clinical practice; however, these assessments have been shown to be more subjective than quantitative methods.
Effects of salinity and hardness on survival of Poblana letholepis (Atheriniformes: Atherinopsidae) larvae

Poblana letholepis is an endemic fish from crater-lake La Preciosa, Puebla, at the Mexican Plateau, Mexico. It has been a great resource for local people since pre-Hispanic times. This species is at risk of extinction due to its habitat loss in addition to the lack of knowledge about its biology. Survival and development time of P. letholepis were evaluated from hatching to metamorphosis to juvenile, with 20 free embryoL-1 reared at 0, 4, 8, 12 and 16 gL-1 salinities and 160-180, 80-100 and 40-48 mgL-1 CaCO3, 20 oC, pH 7.6 and 5 mgL-1 O2, under a bifactorial design (5 x 3 levels) with three replicates per treatment. Larvae were fed with rotifers (Brachionus plicatilis) and Artemia nauplii. Treatments showed differential effects on survival (ANOVA II, P 0.05). Salinity presented a significative effect on final survival, only. However, there was an interaction between these factors. The highest survival was observed at 4-8 gL-1 salinity and 160-180 mgL-1 CaCO3 (80-65%) and 80-100 mgL-1 CaCO3 (60-70%). Major survival of P. letholepis larvae, is probably due to physiological mechanisms such as increased excretion of sodium by chloride cells proliferation in hard water.
The Factor Graph Approach to Model-Based Signal Processing

The message-passing approach to model-based signal processing is developed with a focus on Gaussian message passing in linear state-space models, which includes recursive least squares, linear minimum-mean-squared-error estimation, and Kalman filtering algorithms. Tabulated message computation rules for the building blocks of linear models allow us to compose a variety of such algorithms without additional derivations or computations. Beyond the Gaussian case, it is emphasized that the message-passing approach encourages us to mix and match different algorithmic techniques, which is exemplified by two different approaches - steepest descent and expectation maximization - to message passing through a multiplier node.
An active power control approach for wake-induced load alleviation in a fully developed wind farm boundary layer

Abstract. This paper studies a closed-loop wind farm control framework for active power control (APC) with a simultaneous reduction of wake-induced structural loads within a fully developed wind farm flow interacting with the atmospheric boundary layer. The main focus is on a classical feedback control, which features a simple control architecture and a practical measurement system that are realizable for real-time control of large wind farms. We demonstrate that the wake-induced structural loading of the downstream turbines can be alleviated, while the wind farm power production follows a reference signal. A closed-loop APC is designed first to improve the power-tracking performance against wake-induced power losses of the downwind turbines. Then, the nonunique solution of APC for the wind farm is exploited for aggregated structural load alleviation. The axial induction factors of the individual wind turbines are considered control inputs to limit the power production of the wind farm or to switch to greedy control when the demand exceeds the power available in the wind. Furthermore, the APC solution domain is enlarged by an adjustment of the power set-points according to the locally available power at the waked wind turbines. Therefore, the controllability of the wind turbines is improved for rejecting the intensified load fluctuations inside the wake. A large-eddy simulation model is employed for resolving the turbulent flow, the wake structures, and its interaction with the atmospheric boundary layer. The applicability and key features of the controller are discussed with a wind farm example consisting of 3×4 turbines with different wake interactions for each row. The performance of the proposed APC is evaluated using the accuracy of the wind farm power tracking and the wake-induced damage equivalent fatigue loads of the towers of the individual wind turbines.
Non-homogeneous Content-driven Video-retargeting

Video retargeting is the process of transforming an existing video to fit the dimensions of an arbitrary display. A compelling retargeting aims at preserving the viewers' experience by maintaining the information content of important regions in the frame, whilst keeping their aspect ratio. An efficient algorithm for video retargeting is introduced. It consists of two stages. First, the frame is analyzed to detect the importance of each region in the frame. Then, a transformation that respects the analysis shrinks less important regions more than important ones. Our analysis is fully automatic and based on local saliency, motion detection and object detectors. The performance of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated on a variety of video sequences, and compared to the state of the art in image retargeting.
Disruption of a Nonribosomal Peptide Synthetase in Aspergillus fumigatus Eliminates Gliotoxin Production

ABSTRACT The fungal secondary metabolite gliotoxin produced by Aspergillus fumigatus has been hypothesized to be important in the development of invasive aspergillosis. In this study, we addressed this hypothesis by disrupting a nonribosomal peptide synthetase (NRPS) (encoded by gliP) predicted to be involved in gliotoxin production. Mutants with a disrupted gliP locus failed to produce gliotoxin, which confirmed the role of the NRPS encoded by gliP in gliotoxin biosynthesis. We found no morphological, developmental, or physiological defects in ΔgliP mutant strains. In addition, disruption of gliP resulted in down regulation of gene expression in the gliotoxin biosynthesis gene cluster, which was restored with addition of exogenous gliotoxin. This interesting result suggests a role for gliotoxin in regulating its own production. Culture filtrates from the ΔgliP mutant were unable to inhibit ionomycin-dependent degranulation of mast cells, suggesting a role for gliotoxin in suppressing mast cell degranulation and possibly in disease development. However, the ΔgliP mutant did not have an impact on survival or tissue burden in a murine inhalational model of invasive aspergillosis. This result suggests that gliotoxin is not required for virulence in an immunosuppressed host with an invasive pulmonary infection.
Prediction of Three-Dimensional Arm Trajectories Based on ECoG Signals Recorded from Human Sensorimotor Cortex

Brain-machine interface techniques have been applied in a number of studies to control neuromotor prostheses and for neurorehabilitation in the hopes of providing a means to restore lost motor function. Electrocorticography (ECoG) has seen recent use in this regard because it offers a higher spatiotemporal resolution than non-invasive EEG and is less invasive than intracortical microelectrodes. Although several studies have already succeeded in the inference of computer cursor trajectories and finger flexions using human ECoG signals, precise three-dimensional (3D) trajectory reconstruction for a human limb from ECoG has not yet been achieved. In this study, we predicted 3D arm trajectories in time series from ECoG signals in humans using a novel preprocessing method and a sparse linear regression. Average Pearson’s correlation coefficients and normalized root-mean-square errors between predicted and actual trajectories were 0.44∼0.73 and 0.18∼0.42, respectively, confirming the feasibility of predicting 3D arm trajectories from ECoG. We foresee this method contributing to future advancements in neuroprosthesis and neurorehabilitation technology.
Emotional Cues during Simultaneous Face and Voice Processing: Electrophysiological Insights

Both facial expression and tone of voice represent key signals of emotional communication but their brain processing correlates remain unclear. Accordingly, we constructed a novel implicit emotion recognition task consisting of simultaneously presented human faces and voices with neutral, happy, and angry valence, within the context of recognizing monkey faces and voices task. To investigate the temporal unfolding of the processing of affective information from human face-voice pairings, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) to these audiovisual test stimuli in 18 normal healthy subjects; N100, P200, N250, P300 components were observed at electrodes in the frontal-central region, while P100, N170, P270 were observed at electrodes in the parietal-occipital region. Results indicated a significant audiovisual stimulus effect on the amplitudes and latencies of components in frontal-central (P200, P300, and N250) but not the parietal occipital region (P100, N170 and P270). Specifically, P200 and P300 amplitudes were more positive for emotional relative to neutral audiovisual stimuli, irrespective of valence, whereas N250 amplitude was more negative for neutral relative to emotional stimuli. No differentiation was observed between angry and happy conditions. The results suggest that the general effect of emotion on audiovisual processing can emerge as early as 200 msec (P200 peak latency) post stimulus onset, in spite of implicit affective processing task demands, and that such effect is mainly distributed in the frontal-central region.
Relationship between serum leptin and fatty liver in Japanese male adolescent university students

Objective:The aim of this study was to elucidate the relationship between serum leptin levels and fatty liver in male adolescents.Methods:We investigated the relationship between the concentration of circulating leptin and fatty liver by measuring the serum concentration of leptin in 284 male students who received the matriculation health examination in Okayama University in 1996 (n = 197; age, 18–20 yr) or 1997 (n = 87; age, 18–20 yr). Results:Serum leptin levels correlated positively with body mass index (BMI), percent body fat (%FAT), thickness of skin fold (TSF), and serum concentration of ALT in 197 subjects. Examination of serum leptin in 67 subjects with BMI ≥24.2 but <28.6 kg/m2 showed a progressively higher levels in subjects with high serum ALT. Serum leptin levels in subjects with abnormally high serum ALT (≥37 IU/L) were significantly higher (p < 0.05) than in subjects with normal serum ALT, independent of BMI, %FAT, and TSF. Serum leptin levels were also significantly higher in subjects with fatty liver (detected by abdominal ultrasonography), independent of BMI and %FAT, compared with subjects without fatty liver. Stepwise multiple regression analysis showed that serum leptin level was an independent risk factor for fatty liver. In addition, serum leptin levels correlated with serum ALT (r = 0.518; p < 0.0005) and cholinesterase (r = 0.511; p < 0.0005) levels in 48 subjects with fatty liver.Conclusions:Our results demonstrated that serum leptin concentrations are high in male adolescents with simple obesity and are associated with high serum ALT or fatty liver, independent of BMI and %FAT, suggesting that the concentration of circulating leptin correlates with fatty liver caused by accumulation of visceral fat.
Proximal predictors of change in quality of life at older ages

Objective To investigate whether changes in health, social and economic circumstances predict change in quality of life (QoL) at older ages. Design Secondary analysis, using multiple regression analyses, of waves 1 and 3 of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Setting England, 2002–6. Participants A nationally representative sample of non-institutionalised adults aged over 50 years living in England with non-missing data for the variables of interest (N=4848). Main Outcome Measure QoL in 2006, with reference to QoL in 2002, both measured using the CASP-19 score. Results Mean QoL decreased over the 4 years, with becoming depressed (β −0.12) and developing difficulties with activities of daily living (β −0.08) contributing to this decrease. Improvements in family relationships (β 0.10), the neighbourhood (β 0.08) and perceived financial position (β 0.07) each counteracted the decline in QoL. Initial QoL strongly predicted QoL at follow-up (β 0.46). Regression models explained 59% of variation in QoL, and there were small differences between age and gender groups. Conclusions The maintenance of good QoL in older aged people is enabled by the avoidance of depression, maintenance of physical function, good neighbourhood standards, family relationships and financial circumstances.