Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weekly Fluctuations in Risk Tolerance and Voting Behaviour

Risk tolerance is fundamental to decision-making and behaviour. Here we show that individuals’ tolerance of risk follows a weekly cycle. We observed this cycle directly in a behavioural experiment using the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (Lejuez et al., 2002; Study 1). We also observed it indirectly via voting intentions, gathered from 81,564 responses across 70 opinion polls ahead of the Scottish Independence Referendum of 2014 (Study 2) and 149,064 responses across 77 opinion polls ahead of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum of 2016 (Study 3). In all three studies, risk-tolerance decreased from Monday to Thursday before returning to a higher level on Friday. This pattern is politically significant because UK elections and referendums are traditionally held on a Thursday—the lowest point for risk tolerance. In particular, it raises the possibility that voting outcomes in the UK could be systematically risk-averse. In line with our analysis, the actual proportion of Yes votes in the Scottish Independence Referendum was 4% lower than forecast. Taken together, our findings reveal that the seven-day weekly cycle may have unexpected consequences for human decision-making. They also suggest that the day on which a vote is held could determine its outcome.
Impact of Hfq on the Bacillus subtilis Transcriptome

The RNA chaperone Hfq acts as a central player in post-transcriptional gene regulation in several Gram-negative Bacteria, whereas comparatively little is known about its role in Gram-positive Bacteria. Here, we studied the function of Hfq in Bacillus subtilis, and show that it confers a survival advantage. A comparative transcriptome analysis revealed mRNAs with a differential abundance that are governed by the ResD-ResE system required for aerobic and anaerobic respiration. Expression of resD was found to be up-regulated in the hfq− strain. Furthermore, several genes of the GerE and ComK regulons were de-regulated in the hfq− background. Surprisingly, only six out of >100 known and predicted small RNAs (sRNAs) showed altered abundance in the absence of Hfq. Moreover, Hfq positively affected the transcript abundance of genes encoding type I toxin-antitoxin systems. Taken the moderate effect on sRNA levels and mRNAs together, it seems rather unlikely that Hfq plays a central role in RNA transactions in Bacillus subtilis.
The safety of biological pharmacotherapy for the treatment of ulcerative colitis

ABSTRACT Introduction: Biological agents are effective in ulcerative colitis (UC). Currently, 3 anti-TNF agents (infliximab, adalimumab, and golimumab) and 1 anti-integrin agent (vedolizumab) are approved for the treatment of UC. The mechanism of action of biologic agents can also give rise to several side effects, some even serious. It remains uncertain to what extent biologic treatments may be associated with an increased rate of infections, malignancies and other adverse events Areas covered: Our aim is to review the relevant data available in the literature and briefly summarize the safety profile of biological therapy in UC. We performed a literature search using the OVID, MEDLINE, PUBMED and EMBASE databases. Also other relevant sources of safety data were also used. Expert opinion: All biological agents currently used in UC are relatively safe. Accurate prevention measures and screening prior to start such therapies, and regular surveillance programs are strongly recommend to minimize any risk of infections, malignancy and other adverse events related to the use of monoclonal antibodies in UC patients.
Dramatic decrease in streamflow from the headwater source in the central route of China's water diversion project: Climatic variation or human influence?

The Danjiangkou Reservoir is the headwater source of the central route of China's South to North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP). Average annual streamflow into the Reservoir was 40.97 km(3) from 1951 to 1989, while it was 31.64 km(3) from 1990 to 2006. Between the two periods, the average annual streamflow was reduced by 9.33 km(3), accounting for 71.8% of the proposed amount of water diversion of the central route (13 km3 per year). The sharply decreasing streamflow would inevitably have negative impacts on the implementation of the SNWDP. The reasons for the decrease in streamflow should be investigated before developing any adaption strategies. In this study, the impacts of climatic variation and human activities on streamflow were evaluated by a climate elasticity method. The results show that the impact of climatic variation (indicated by precipitation and potential evapotranspiration) was responsible for 84.1-90.1% of the streamflow reduction, while human activities or other indentified uncertainties contributed 9.9-15.9% of the streamflow reduction. The observed 69.89 mm decrease in average annual precipitation contributed 81.6-87.3% of the decrease in streamflow. According to the observed data during the study period, the planned water diversion could lead to an ecological disaster of the downstream area of the Danjiangkou Reservoir in certain years. We suggest that the water diversion from the Danjiangkou Reservoir should be conducted in an adaptive manner to avoid such an adverse consequence, instead of the current plan of a fixed annual amount of water.
Blood Brain Barrier and Neuroinflammation Are Critical Targets of IGF-1-Mediated Neuroprotection in Stroke for Middle-Aged Female Rats

Ischemia-induced cerebral infarction is more severe in older animals as compared to younger animals, and is associated with reduced availability of insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1. This study determined the effect of post-stroke IGF-1 treatment, and used microRNA profiling to identify mechanisms underlying IGF-1’s neuroprotective actions. Post-stroke ICV administration of IGF-1 to middle-aged female rats reduced infarct volume by 39% when measured 24h later. MicroRNA analyses of ischemic tissue collected at the early post-stroke phase (4h) indicated that 8 out of 168 disease-related miRNA were significantly downregulated by IGF-1. KEGG pathway analysis implicated these miRNA in PI3K-Akt signaling, cell adhesion/ECM receptor pathways and T-and B-cell signaling. Specific components of these pathways were subsequently analyzed in vehicle and IGF-1 treated middle-aged females. Phospho-Akt was reduced by ischemia at 4h, but elevated by IGF-1 treatment at 24h. IGF-1 induced Akt activation was preceded by a reduction of blood brain barrier permeability at 4h post-stroke and global suppression of cytokines including IL-6, IL-10 and TNF-α. A subset of these cytokines including IL-6 was also suppressed by IGF-1 at 24h post-stroke. These data are the first to show that the temporal and mechanistic components of post-stroke IGF-1 treatment in older animals, and that cellular components of the blood brain barrier may serve as critical targets of IGF-1 in the aging brain.
PeerFlow: Secure Load Balancing in Tor

Abstract We present PeerFlow, a system to securely load balance client traffic in Tor. Security in Tor requires that no adversary handle too much traffic. However, Tor relays are run by volunteers who cannot be trusted to report the relay bandwidths, which Tor clients use for load balancing. We show that existing methods to determine the bandwidths of Tor relays allow an adversary with little bandwidth to attack large amounts of client traffic. These methods include Tor’s current bandwidth-scanning system, TorFlow, and the peer-measurement system EigenSpeed. We present an improved design called PeerFlow that uses a peer-measurement process both to limit an adversary’s ability to increase his measured bandwidth and to improve accuracy. We show our system to be secure, fast, and efficient. We implement PeerFlow in Tor and demonstrate its speed and accuracy in large-scale network simulations.
Risk Factors for Sporadic Domestically Acquired Campylobacter Infections in Norway 2010–2011: A National Prospective Case-Control Study

Background Campylobacteriosis is the most frequently reported food- and waterborne infection in Norway. We investigated the risk factors for sporadic Campylobacter infections in Norway in order to identify areas where control and prevention measures could be improved. Methods A national prospective case-control study of factors associated with Campylobacter infection was conducted from July 2010 to September 2011. Cases were recruited from the Norwegian Surveillance System of Communicable Diseases (MSIS). Controls were randomly selected from the Norwegian Population Registry. Cases and controls were mailed a paper questionnaire with a prepaid return envelope. Univariable analyses using logistic regression were conducted for all exposures. A final parsimonious multivariable model was developed using regularized/penalized logistic regression, and adjusted odds ratios were calculated. Results A total of 995 cases and 1501 controls were included in the study (response proportion 55% and 30%, respectively). Exposures that had significant increases in odds of Campylobacter infection in multivariable analysis were drinking water directly from river, stream, or lake (OR: 2.96), drinking purchased bottled water (OR: 1.78), eating chicken (1.69), eating meat that was undercooked (OR: 1.77), eating food made on a barbecue (OR: 1.55), living on a farm with livestock (OR: 1.74), having a dog in the household (OR: 1.39), and having household water supply serving fewer than 20 houses (OR: 1.92). Conclusions Consumption of poultry and untreated water remain important sources of Campylobacter infection in Norway, despite ongoing control efforts. The results justify the need for strengthening education for consumers and food handlers about the risks of cross-contamination when preparing poultry and with consuming raw or undercooked chicken. The public should also be reminded to take precautions when drinking untreated water in nature and ensure continued vigilance in order to protect and maintain the quality of water from small-scale water supply systems.
Sexual Size Dimorphism Predicts the Frequency of Sexual Cannibalism Within and Among Species of Spiders

Sexual cannibalism varies widely among spiders, but no general evolutionary hypothesis has emerged to explain its distribution across taxa. Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) also varies widely among spiders and could affect the vulnerability of males to cannibalistic attacks by females. We tested for a relationship between SSD and sexual cannibalism within and among species of spiders, using a broad taxonomic data set. For most species, cannibalism was more likely when males were much smaller than females. In addition, using phylogenetically controlled and uncontrolled analyses, there was a strong positive relationship between average SSD of a species and the frequency of sexual cannibalism. This is the first evidence that the degree of size difference between males and females is related to the phylogenetic distribution of sexual cannibalism among a broad range of spiders.
A trouble with Hořava-Lifshitz gravity

We study the structure of the phase space in Horava-Lifshitz theory. With the constraints derived from the action, the phase space is described by five fields, thus there is a lack of canonical structure. The Poisson brackets of the Hamiltonian density do not form a closed structure, resulting in many new constraints. Taking these new constraints into account, it appears that there is no degree of freedom left, or the phase space is reduced to one with an odd number of fields.
Look what i found!: augmenting phone calls with memories of the past

Photos have an enormous capacity in cueing memories of our past and supporting collective reminiscing. Yet, despite the considerable increase in our ability to efficiently capture photos, our digital photo collections remain to a large extent invisible to our everyday interactions with the physical world. We present the design of "Look what I found! ", a mobile application that aims at supporting collective reminiscing through making photos present in our daily phone calls. We then report the field trial of "Look what I found! " that discovered unexpected and often inventive ways in which users appropriate the application in their daily lives.
Cerebral Embolization: Prospective Clinical Analysis of 42 Cases

The sites, sources, and incidence of cerebral embolization were established in an unselected series of hospitalized patients using recommended epidemiological criteria. Criteria for diagnosis of cerebral embolization as a cause of stroke are defined. Forty-two (15%) from a total of 280 patients with various forms of cerebrovascular disease were diagnosed as having cerebral embolization. The epidemiology has been altered by antibiotics and cardiac surgery, particularly the use of prosthetic heart valves. In this series, the mortality rate was 9.5%, which is lower than in previously reported series probably due to emergency medical treatment. The heart was the most common source. Prosthetic heart valves emerged as the most common source of emboli in this series. Ulcerated plaques of the carotid arteries in the neck ranked second. Seizures occurred in 42.8% of cases. The left cerebral hemisphere was involved approximately twice as frequently as the right one. Possible explanations based on the anatomy of the great vessels are described which predispose to embolization of the left carotid artery. Recommendations are suggested for preventing further embolization and for treatment of acute embolic cerebral infarction by the use of anticonvulsant drugs and hyperosmolar agents designed to reduce cerebral edema.
A dual-MST approach for clock network synthesis

In nanometer-scale VLSI physical design, clock network becomes a major concern on determining the total performance of digital circuit. Clock skew and PVT (Process, Voltage and Temperature) variations contribute a lot to its behavior. Previous works mainly focused on skew and wirelength minimization. It may lead to negative influence towards these process variation factors. In this paper, a novel clock network synthesizer is proposed and several algorithms are introduced for performance improvement. A dual-MST (DMST) geometric matching approach is proposed for topology construction. It can help balancing the tree structure to reduce the variation effect. A recursive buffer insertion technique and a blockage handling method are also presented, and they are developed for proper distribution of buffers and saving of capacitance. Experimental results show that our matching approach is better than the traditional methods, and in particular our synthesizer has better performance compared to the results of the winner in the ISPD 2009 contest.
Progressive Telomere Dysfunction Causes Cytokinesis Failure and Leads to the Accumulation of Polyploid Cells

Most cancer cells accumulate genomic abnormalities at a remarkably rapid rate, as they are unable to maintain their chromosome structure and number. Excessively short telomeres, a known source of chromosome instability, are observed in early human-cancer lesions. Besides telomere dysfunction, it has been suggested that a transient phase of polyploidization, in most cases tetraploidization, has a causative role in cancer. Proliferation of tetraploids can gradually generate subtetraploid lineages of unstable cells that might fire the carcinogenic process by promoting further aneuploidy and genomic instability. Given the significance of telomere dysfunction and tetraploidy in the early stages of carcinogenesis, we investigated whether there is a connection between these two important promoters of chromosomal instability. We report that human mammary epithelial cells exhibiting progressive telomere dysfunction, in a pRb deficient and wild-type p53 background, fail to complete the cytoplasmatic cell division due to the persistence of chromatin bridges in the midzone. Flow cytometry together with fluorescence in situ hybridization demonstrated an accumulation of binucleated polyploid cells upon serial passaging cells. Restoration of telomere function through hTERT transduction, which lessens the formation of anaphase bridges by recapping the chromosome ends, rescued the polyploid phenotype. Live-cell imaging revealed that these polyploid cells emerged after abortive cytokinesis due to the persistence of anaphase bridges with large intervening chromatin in the cleavage plane. In agreement with a primary role of anaphase bridge intermediates in the polyploidization process, treatment of HMEC-hTERT cells with bleomycin, which produces chromatin bridges through illegimitate repair, resulted in tetraploid binucleated cells. Taken together, we demonstrate that human epithelial cells exhibiting physiological telomere dysfunction engender tetraploid cells through interference of anaphase bridges with the completion of cytokinesis. These observations shed light on the mechanisms operating during the initial stages of human carcinogenesis, as they provide a link between progressive telomere dysfunction and tetraploidy.
A NEW SPECIES OF CYTAUXZOON FROM PALLAS' CATS CAUGHT IN MONGOLIA AND COMMENTS ON THE SYSTEMATICS AND TAXONOMY OF PIROPLASMIDS

DNA was extracted and the 18S ribosomal RNA gene was amplified and sequenced from the blood of 2 Pallas' cats (Otocolobus manul) infected with small intraerythrocytic piroplasms. Sequences of the parasite were found to be identical with that of a previously reported Cytauxzoon-like piroplasm from a Pallas' cat. Phylogenetic analyses of the parasite DNA sequences obtained from the 3 Pallas' cats to other piroplasms revealed a sister group relationship to C. felis. The mean corrected percent sequence divergence between the Pallas' cat parasite and C. felis was 1.490%, which is greater than that for most other piroplasms in which species status has been accepted. On the basis of the sequence variation, we propose to name the Pallas' cat parasite C. manul. Phylogenetic analyses of C. manul also revealed a close relationship with the Spanish Cytauxzoon-like isolate because they exhibited only 0.389% sequence divergence, yet these sequences exhibit a mean of 1.690% sequence divergence from the New World isolate of C. felis. Our phylogenetic analyses also revealed several taxonomic problems that have impeded the development of a classification that accurately reflects evolutionary history of piroplasms. As currently arranged, Babesia and Theileria are paraphyletic taxa and are in need of reorganization.
Lipid Extract from Hard-Shelled Mussel (Mytilus coruscus) Improves Clinical Conditions of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Studies have suggested a lipid extract from hard-shelled mussel (Mytilus coruscus) (HMLE) possessed strong anti-inflammatory activity in arthritis model of rats. This study investigated whether HMLE could improve clinical conditions of rheumatoid arthritis patients. Fifty rheumatoid arthritis patients (28–75 years) were randomly assigned to receive HMLE capsules or receive placebo capsules for 6 months. Forty-two subjects and 50 subjects were included in per-protocol and intention-to-treat analysis, respectively. Significant differences in changes on disease activity score (DAS28) and clinical disease activity index (CDAI) after 6-month intervention (p < 0.01) were observed in both analyses with more evident efficacy shown in per-protocol population (∆DAS28 = 0.47; ∆CDAI = 4.17), which favored the benefits of the HMLE group. TNF-α (tumor necrosis factor α), interleukin (IL)-1β and PGE2 (prostaglandin E2) but not IL-6, were significantly decreased in both groups, and the decrements were much larger in the HMLE group for TNF-α and PGE2 after 6 months from baseline (p < 0.05). IL-10 was significantly increased in both groups and the change was much more evident in the HMLE group (p < 0.05). In conclusion, HMLE exhibited benefits for the clinical conditions of rheumatoid patients in relation to improvement in the balance between pro- and anti-inflammatory factors, which indicated its potential to serve as adjunctive treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02173587).
How to measure success of fault prediction models

Many fault prediction models have been proposed in the software engineering literature, and their success evaluated according to various metrics that are widely used in the statistics community. To be able to make meaningful comparisons among the proposed models, it is important that the metrics assess meaningful properties of the predictions. We examine several of the more common metrics, discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each, and illustrate their application to predictions made on a large industrial system. We conclude that the most useful metrics are the percentage of faults that occur in the predicted most fault-prone files, and the Type II misclassification rate.
Multi-User Linear Precoding for Multi-Polarized Massive MIMO System Under Imperfect CSIT

The space limitation and channel acquisition prevent Massive MIMO from being easily deployed in a practical setup. Motivated by current deployments of LTE-Advanced, the use of multi-polarized antenna elements can be an efficient solution to address the space constraint. Furthermore, the dual-structured precoding, in which a preprocessing based on the spatial correlation and a subsequent linear precoding based on the short-term channel state information at the transmitter (CSIT) are concatenated, can reduce the feedback overhead efficiently. By grouping and preprocessing spatially correlated mobile stations (MSs), the dimension of the precoding signal space is reduced and the corresponding short-term CSIT dimension is reduced. In this paper, to reduce the feedback overhead further, we propose a dual-structured multi-user linear precoding, in which the subgrouping method based on co-polarization is additionally applied to the spatially grouped MSs in the preprocessing stage. Furthermore, under imperfect CSIT, the proposed scheme is asymptotically analyzed based on random matrix theory. By investigating the behavior of the asymptotic performance, we also propose a new dual-structured precoding in which the precoding mode is switched between two dual-structured precoding strategies with 1) the preprocessing based only on the spatial correlation and 2) the preprocessing based on both the spatial correlation and polarization. Finally, we extend it to 3D dual-structured precoding.
Sequential and parallel subquadratic work algorithms for constructing approximately optimal binary search trees

A sublinear time subquadratic work parallel algorithm for construction of an optimal binary search tree, in a special case of practical interest, namely where the frequencies of items to be stored are not too small, is given. A sublinear time subquadratic work parallel algorithm for construction of an approximately optimal binary search tree in the general case is also given. Sub-quadratic work and sublinear time are achieved using a fast parallel algorithm for the column minima problem for Monge matrices developed by Atallah and Kosaraju. The algorithms given in this paper take O(n{sup 0.6}) time with n processors in the CREW PRAM model. Our 29orithms work well if every subtree of the optimal binary search tree of depth {Omega}(log n) has o(n) leaves. We prove that there is a sequential algorithm with subquadratic average-case complexity, by demonstrating that the {open_quotes}small subtree{close_quotes} condition holds with very high probability for a randomly permuted weight sequence. This solves the conjecture posed in liand breaks the quadratic time {open_quotes}barrier{close_quotes} of Knuth`s algorithm. This algorithm can also be parallelized to run in average sublinear time with n processors.