Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Post-error slowing in sequential action: an aging study

Previous studies demonstrated significant differences in the learning and performance of discrete movement sequences across the lifespan: Young adults (18–28 years) showed more indications for the development of (implicit) motor chunks and explicit sequence knowledge than middle-aged (55–62 years; Verwey et al., 2011) and elderly participants (75–88 years; Verwey, 2010). Still, even in the absence of indications for motor chunks, the middle-aged and elderly participants showed some performance improvement too. This was attributed to a sequence learning mechanism in which individual reactions are primed by implicit sequential knowledge. The present work further examined sequential movement skill across these age groups. We explored the consequences of making an error on the execution of a subsequent sequence, and investigated whether this is modulated by aging. To that end, we re-analyzed the data from our previous studies. Results demonstrate that sequencing performance is slowed after an error has been made in the previous sequence. Importantly, for young adults and middle-aged participants the observed slowing was also accompanied by increased accuracy after an error. We suggest that slowing in these age groups involves both functional and non-functional components, while slowing in elderly participants is non-functional. Moreover, using action sequences (instead of single key-presses) may allow to better track the effects on performance of making an error.
Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Uptake After a Tailored, Online Educational Intervention for Female University Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND Educational interventions may be a strategy to increase human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among female university students, but studies to date have shown mixed results. This study evaluated the effect of MeFirst, an individually tailored, online educational intervention, on HPV vaccine-related knowledge, vaccination intention, and uptake among previously unvaccinated female university students. METHODS All female students aged 18-26 years who reported being unvaccinated against HPV at a midwestern university were invited via email to enroll. Participants completed an online survey that assessed baseline HPV vaccine-related knowledge, attitudes and vaccination intention. Participants (n = 661) were then randomized to receive either an educational website automatically tailored to their baseline survey responses (MeFirst intervention) or a standard CDC information factsheet on HPV vaccine (control). Vaccine uptake and repeat knowledge and attitude measures were assessed with online surveys 3 months following the intervention and analyzed using logistic regression models. RESULTS HPV vaccine uptake was similar in both the MeFirst and control groups at 3 months following the intervention (p = 0.98). Three months after the intervention, the proportion of participants with high knowledge regarding HPV vaccination increased from baseline (32% to 50%; p < 0.0001) but the proportion with favorable intention was unchanged. CONCLUSIONS We found that an individually tailored, online educational tool had similar effects as a nontailored factsheet on HPV-related knowledge, intention to HPV undergo vaccination, and HPV vaccine uptake among previously unvaccinated female university students.
CoRoT ? 223992193: A new, low-mass, pre-main sequence eclipsing binary with evidence of a circumbinary disk

We present the discovery of CoRoT 223992193, a double-lined, detached eclipsing binary, comprising two pre-main sequence M dwarfs, discovered by the CoRoT space mission during a 23-day observation of the 3 Myr old NGC 2264 star-forming region. Using multi-epoch optical and near-IR follow-up spectroscopy with FLAMES on the Very Large Telescope and ISIS on the William Herschel Telescope we obtain a full orbital solution and derive the fundamental parameters of both stars by modelling the light curve and radial velocity data. The orbit is circular and has a period of 3:8745745 0:0000014 days. The masses and radii of the two stars are 0:67 0:01 and 0:495 0:007 M and 1:30 0:04 and 1:11 +0:04 0:05 R , respectively. This system is a useful test of evolutionary models of young low-mass stars, as it lies in a region of parameter space where observational constraints are scarce; comparison with these models indicates an apparent age of 3.5‐6 Myr. The systemic velocity is within 1 of the cluster value which, along with the presence of lithium absorption, strongly indicates cluster membership. The CoRoT light curve also contains large-amplitude, rapidly evolving out-of-eclipse variations, which are di cult to explain using starspots alone. The system’s spectral energy distribution reveals a mid-infrared excess, which we model as thermal emission from a small amount of dust located in the inner cavity of a circumbinary disk. In turn, this opens up the possibility that some of the out-of-eclipse variability could be due to occultations of the central stars by material located at the inner edge or in the central cavity of the circumbinary disk.
Adoption of On-line Trading in the Hong Kong Financial Market

The purpose of this research is to study what issues may affect investor adoption of on-line trading in the Hong Kong financial market. The studied system is a system that provides straight-through trading for investors, rather than an order routing system that forwards orders from a broker firm to the appropriate market. One communication infrastructure for on-line trading is the Internet. However, other infrastructures, such as wireless communication channels, may also be used to support direct interaction between the investors and the stock exchange. Feasibility of changing to a new service or system can be viewed from different perspectives, technical, operational, financial, and social/organizational. This paper focuses on the social/organizational perspective by using a research model based on the Decomposed Version Theory of Planned Behavior (DTPB) to identify the factors that affect investors’ adoption of on-line trading. A correlation analysis has been performed to investigate whether the hypothesized attributes, variables, and belief structure are correlated with each other. After such analysis, the factors that influence the adoption of the proposed system have been identified, as well as the relationships between the factors. Such results can be helpful to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (SEHK) and the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) for planning the launch of Internet trading.
Air pollution and health

The haze of photochemical smog that collects over cities has been seen by most people during hot summer spells. Media reports on adverse health effects abound, and in Britain last week the environment minister asked motorists to leave their cars at home. Is this wise advice or overreaction? The fact that air pollution can be harmful has been accepted in Britain since 4000 excess deaths were recorded during the smog in December 1952.1 The public outcry that followed led to the Clean Air Act of 1957. Air quality improved to the extent that the Clean Air Council was abolished in 1979, the Medical Research Council's Air Pollution Unit was closed a year later, and the monitoring network was largely disbanded. Classic industrial air pollution was made up largely of smoke and sulphur dioxide from the burning of coal and generally occurred in winter. In Britain this has mainly been replaced by pollution from the combustion of petrol and diesel, which predominantly takes place in vehicles. Vehicle exhausts emit oxides of nitrogen (particularly nitrogen dioxide), carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulates, and lead. On hot, still days these accumulate over cities, together with low concentrations of industrial pollutants, and undergo further reactions catalysed …
Maximal switchability of centralized networks

We consider continuous time Hopfield-like recurrent networks as dynamical models for gene regulation and neural networks. We are interested in networks that contain n high-degree nodes preferably connected to a large number of Ns weakly connected satellites, a property that we call n/Ns-centrality. If the hub dynamics is slow, we obtain that the large time network dynamics is completely defined by the hub dynamics. Moreover, such networks are maximally flexible and switchable, in the sense that they can switch from a globally attractive rest state to any structurally stable dynamics when the response time of a special controller hub is changed. In particular, we show that a decrease of the controller hub response time can lead to a sharp variation in the network attractor structure: we can obtain a set of new local attractors, whose number can increase exponentially with N, the total number of nodes of the nework. These new attractors can be periodic or even chaotic. We provide an algorithm, which allows us to design networks with the desired switching properties, or to learn them from time series, by adjusting the interactions between hubs and satellites. Such switchable networks could be used as models for context dependent adaptation in functional genetics or as models for cognitive functions in neuroscience.
Novel architectural features of Bordetella pertussis fimbrial subunit promoters and their activation by the global virulence regulator BvgA

A prominent feature of the promoters of Bordetella pertussis fimbrial subunit genes fim2, fim3 and fimX is the presence of a ‘C‐stretch’, a monotonic run of C residues. The C‐stretch renders these genes capable of phase variation, through spontaneous variations in its length. For each of these we determined the length of the C‐stretch that gave maximal transcriptional activity, and found that the three optimized promoters align perfectly, with identical distances between conserved upstream sequences and the downstream −10 elements and transcriptional start sites. We also demonstrated, for Pfim3, that the conserved sequence corresponds to BvgA binding sites. The more upstream of the two binding sites is predicted to be high affinity, by comparison to a functionally derived consensus BvgA‐binding sequence. The other binding site is a fairly poor match to this consensus, with 10 of 14 bp belonging to the C‐stretch. Interestingly, the centre of this downstream site of BvgA binding coincides exactly with the centre of the expected typical location of a −35 sequence. However, the lack of a recognizable −35 element (CCCCCC versus TTGACA), and the occupation of this site by BvgA∼P suggest that activation of the fim promoters involves unusual interactions among BvgA, RNA polymerase and promoter DNA.
Paleomagnetic investigations on late Cretaceous-Cenozoic sediments from the NW part of the Pannonian Basin

The article presents results of paleomagnetic investigation of the NW part of the Pannonian Basin. More than 170 independently oriented sedimentary samples from 10 localities from Hungarian and Slovak side were subjected to the AF and thermal demagnetization. They were sandstones, siltstones, mark and limestones and their age is late Cretaceous late Miocene. The results gave counterclockwise rotation with angles of declination between an important common component to the Cenozoic movements affect ing the present NW part of the Pannonian Basin.
An efficient small signal frequency analysis method of nonlinear circuits with two frequency excitations

One of the excitations, 'carrier', is a large signal and an arbitrary T-periodic function of time. The other excitation, 'signal', is considered as a small perturbation to the periodic steady-state response driven by the carrier. To find a small signal frequency response for the 'signal', the method uses variational equations around the periodic steady-state response. These linearized time-varying differential equations are solved in the frequency domain using a time discretization method. The method can be used to compute the small signal frequency responses of nonideal switched capacitor filters, mixers, and other nonlinear circuits, if the circuit has a stable periodic response. The formulation of the problem, computational complexity of the method, error analysis, sensitivity analysis, implementation of the method, and some applications are covered. >
On survivable service provisioning in WDM optical networks under a scheduled traffic model

We study survivable service provisioning under a scheduled traffic model in wavelength convertible WDM optical mesh networks. In this model, a set of demands is given, and the setup time and teardown time of each demand are known in advance. We formulate the problem as integer linear programs that maximally exploit network resource reuse in both space and time. The objective is to minimize the total number of wavelength-links used by working paths and protection paths of all traffic demands while 100% restorability is guaranteed against any single failures. Our simulation results indicate that joint optimization of resource sharing in space and time enabled by our connection holding-time aware protection schemes can achieve significantly better resource utilization than schemes that are holding-time unaware
Reliability and validity of the Dutch version of QUEST 2.0 with users of various types of assistive devices

Purpose : In this paper, the Dutch version of the Quebec User Evaluation of Satisfaction with assistive Technology (D-QUEST) is validated in users of a large variety of assistive devices ( n =2002). Method : D-QUEST consists of a written questionnaire. The respondent rates his or her satisfaction with respect to 12 aspects on a five-point scale. Users of 10 different types of assistive devices participated. Analyses were performed for each type of assistive device. Reliability is tested by analysing internal consistency. Content validity is tested by analysing applicability of the 12 aspects. The non-applicability option for answering questions is studied. Construct validity is tested by analysing correlations with problem solving and with general satisfaction. Results : Reliability proves to be good for all types of assistive devices. Including the non-applicability option improves the feasibility of the instrument without affecting content validity. Correlations between D-QUEST scores on the one hand and problem solving and general satisfaction questions on the other are as expected, supporting validity. Conclusions : D-QUEST (and therefore also QUEST) proves itself to be a highly applicable, reliable and valid instrument to assess user-satisfaction of users of all kinds of assistive device provisions.
The Dusty Plasma Disk Around the Janus/Epimetheus Ring

We report on the electron, ion, and dust number densities and the electron temperatures obtained by the Radio and Plasma Wave Science instruments onboard Cassini during the Ring‐Grazing orbits. The numerous ring passage observations show a consistent picture as follows: (1) Beyond 0.1 RS above and below the equator the electron and ion densities are quasi‐neutral with a distribution similar to the one obtained in the plasma disk. (2) A sharp ion density enhancement occurs at |Z| < 0.1 RS, to more than 200 cm−3 at the equator, while the electron density remains low only to values of 50 cm−3. The electron/ion density ratio is ≦0.1 at the equator. (3) Micrometer‐sized dust has also been observed at the equator. However, the region of intense dust signals is significantly narrower (|Z| < 0.02 RS) than the enhanced ion density regions. (4) The electron temperature (Te) generally decreases with decreasing Z with small Te enhancements near the equator. We show that the dust size characteristics are different depending on the distance from the equator, and the large micrometer‐sized grains are more perceptible in a narrow region near the equator where the power law slope of the dust size distribution becomes less steep. As a result, different scale heights are obtained for nanometer and micrometer grains. Throughout the ring, the dominant part of the negative charges is carried by the small nanometer‐sized grains. The electron/ion density ratio is variable from orbit to orbit, suggesting changes in the dust charging over time scales of weeks.
A Generalised Spherical Harmonic Deconvolution to Obtain Cubic Texture from Ultrasonic Wave Speed

In this paper, the spherical harmonic convolution approach for HCP materials [1] is extended into a generalised form for the principal purpose of bulk texture determination in cubic polycrystals from ultrasonic wave speed measurements. It is demonstrated that the wave speed function of a general single crystal convolves with the polycrystal Orientation Distribution Function (ODF) to make the resultant polycrystal wave speed function such that when the three functions are expressed in harmonic expansions, the coefficients of any one function may be determined from the coefficients of the other two. All three Euler angles are taken in account in the description of the ODF such that the theorem applies for all general crystal systems. The forward problem of predicting polycrystal wave speed with knowledge of single crystal properties and the ODF is solved for all general cases, with validation carried out on cubic textures showing strong sensitivity to texture and excellent quantitative accuracy in predicted wave speed amplitudes. Importantly, it is also revealed by the theorem that the cubic structure is one of only two crystal systems (the other being HCP) whose orientation distributions can be inversely determined from polycrystal wave velocities by virtue of their respective crystal symmetries. Proof of principle is then established by recovering the ODFs of representative cubic textures solely from the wave velocities generated from a computational model using these texture inputs, and excellent accuracies are achieved in the recovered ODF coefficients as well as the resultant pole figures. Hence the methodology is argued to provide a powerful technique for wave propagation studies and bulk texture measurement in cubic polycrystals and beyond.
The management of acute renal failure following trauma.

Acute renal failure following trauma may be divided into two categories: incipient acute renal failure (IARF) and established acute renal failure. The first section of this paper will deal with the principles of diagnosis and reversal of incipient acute renal failure. The second section will deal with the total metabolic management of patients with acute renal failure inclusive of circulatory and respiratory problems. Since the mortality of acute renal failure still remains alarmingly high at greater than 50% in those patients aged more than 50 years (Lindsay, 1974) any improvement in the early reversal of incipient acute renal failure or of the management of established acute renal failure is highly desirable.
Neural Correlates of Threat Perception: Neural Equivalence of Conspecific and Heterospecific Mobbing Calls Is Learned

Songbird auditory areas (i.e., CMM and NCM) are preferentially activated to playback of conspecific vocalizations relative to heterospecific and arbitrary noise [1]–[2]. Here, we asked if the neural response to auditory stimulation is not simply preferential for conspecific vocalizations but also for the information conveyed by the vocalization. Black-capped chickadees use their chick-a-dee mobbing call to recruit conspecifics and other avian species to mob perched predators [3]. Mobbing calls produced in response to smaller, higher-threat predators contain more “D” notes compared to those produced in response to larger, lower-threat predators and thus convey the degree of threat of predators [4]. We specifically asked whether the neural response varies with the degree of threat conveyed by the mobbing calls of chickadees and whether the neural response is the same for actual predator calls that correspond to the degree of threat of the chickadee mobbing calls. Our results demonstrate that, as degree of threat increases in conspecific chickadee mobbing calls, there is a corresponding increase in immediate early gene (IEG) expression in telencephalic auditory areas. We also demonstrate that as the degree of threat increases for the heterospecific predator, there is a corresponding increase in IEG expression in the auditory areas. Furthermore, there was no significant difference in the amount IEG expression between conspecific mobbing calls or heterospecific predator calls that were the same degree of threat. In a second experiment, using hand-reared chickadees without predator experience, we found more IEG expression in response to mobbing calls than corresponding predator calls, indicating that degree of threat is learned. Our results demonstrate that degree of threat corresponds to neural activity in the auditory areas and that threat can be conveyed by different species signals and that these signals must be learned.
Nucleotide Excision DNA Repair Is Associated With Age-Related Vascular Dysfunction

Background Vascular dysfunction in atherosclerosis and diabetes mellitus, as observed in the aging population of developed societies, is associated with vascular DNA damage and cell senescence. We hypothesized that cumulative DNA damage during aging contributes to vascular dysfunction. Methods and Results In mice with genomic instability resulting from the defective nucleotide excision repair genes ERCC1 and XPD (Ercc1d/− and XpdTTD mice), we explored age-dependent vascular function compared with that in wild-type mice. Ercc1d/− mice showed increased vascular cell senescence, accelerated development of vasodilator dysfunction, increased vascular stiffness, and elevated blood pressure at a very young age. The vasodilator dysfunction was due to decreased endothelial nitric oxide synthase levels and impaired smooth muscle cell function, which involved phosphodiesterase activity. Similar to Ercc1d/− mice, age-related endothelium-dependent vasodilator dysfunction in XpdTTD animals was increased. To investigate the implications for human vascular disease, we explored associations between single-nucleotide polymorphisms of selected nucleotide excision repair genes and arterial stiffness within the AortaGen Consortium and found a significant association of a single-nucleotide polymorphism (rs2029298) in the putative promoter region of DDB2 gene with carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity. Conclusions Mice with genomic instability recapitulate age-dependent vascular dysfunction as observed in animal models and in humans but with an accelerated progression compared with wild-type mice. In addition, we found associations between variations in human DNA repair genes and markers for vascular stiffness, which is associated with aging. Our study supports the concept that genomic instability contributes importantly to the development of cardiovascular disease.
Mixed-mode VLSI implementation of fuzzy ART

We present an asynchronous mixed analog-digital VLSI architecture which implements the Fuzzy Adaptive Resonance Theory (Fuzzy ART) algorithm. Both classification and learning are performed on-chip in real-time. Unique features of our implementation include: an embedded refresh mechanism to overcome memory drift due to charge leakage from volatile capacitive storage; and a recoding mechanism to eliminate and reassign inactive categories. A small scale 1.2 /spl mu/m feature size CMOS prototype with 4 inputs and 8 output categories has been designed and fabricated. The unit cell which performs the fuzzy min and learning operations measures 100 /spl mu/m by 45 /spl mu/m. Experimental results are included to illustrate performance of the unit cell.