Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Age of second language acquisition in multilinguals has an impact on gray matter volume in language-associated brain areas

Numerous structural studies have established that experience shapes and reshapes the brain throughout a lifetime. The impact of early development, however, is still a matter of debate. Further clues may come from studying multilinguals who acquired their second language at different ages. We investigated adult multilinguals who spoke three languages fluently, where the third language was learned in classroom settings, not before the age of 9 years. Multilinguals exposed to two languages simultaneously from birth (SiM) were contrasted with multinguals who acquired their first two languages successively (SuM). Whole brain voxel based morphometry revealed that, relative to SuM, SiM have significantly lower gray matter volume in several language-associated cortical areas in both hemispheres: bilaterally in medial and inferior frontal gyrus, in the right medial temporal gyrus and inferior posterior parietal gyrus, as well as in the left inferior temporal gyrus. Thus, as shown by others, successive language learning increases the volume of language-associated cortical areas. In brains exposed early on and simultaneously to more than one language, however, learning of additional languages seems to have less impact. We conclude that – at least with respect to language acquisition – early developmental influences are maintained and have an effect on experience-dependent plasticity well into adulthood.
White-Tailed Deer Response to Vehicle Approach: Evidence of Unclear and Present Danger

The fundamental causes of animal-vehicle collisions are unclear, particularly at the level of animal detection of approaching vehicles and decision-making. Deer-vehicle collisions (DVCs) are especially costly in terms of animal mortality, property damage, and safety. Over one year, we exposed free-ranging white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to vehicle approach under low ambient light conditions, from varying start distances, and vehicle speeds from 20 km/h to approximately 90 km/h. We modeled flight response by deer to an approaching vehicle and tested four hypotheses: 1) flight-initiation distance (FID) would correlate positively with start distance (indicating a spatial margin of safety); 2) deer would react to vehicle speed using a temporal margin of safety; 3) individuals reacting at greater FIDs would be more likely to cross the path of the vehicle; and 4) crossings would correlate positively with start distance, approach speed, and distance to concealing/refuge cover. We examined deer responses by quantiles. Median FID was 40% of start distance, irrespective of start distance or approach speed. Converting FID to time-to-collision (TTC), median TTC was 4.6 s, but uncorrelated with start distance or approach speed. The likelihood of deer crossing in front of the vehicle was not associated with greater FIDs or other explanatory variables. Because deer flight response to vehicle approach was highly variable, DVCs should be more likely with increasing vehicle speeds because of lower TTCs for a given distance. For road sections characterized by frequent DVCs, we recommend estimating TTC relative to vehicle speed and candidate line-of-sight distances adjusted downward by (1-P), where P represents our findings for the proportion of start distance by which >75% of deer had initiated flight. Where road design or conservation goals limit effectiveness of line-of-sight maintenance, we suggest incorporation of roadway obstacles that force drivers to slow vehicles, in addition to posting advisory speed limits.
Inspiratory capacity at inflation hold in ventilated newborns: A surrogate measure for static compliance of the respiratory system

Objective: To study appropriateness of respiratory system compliance calculation using an inflation hold and compare it with ventilator readouts of pressure and tidal volume as well as with measurement of compliance of the respiratory system with the single-breath–single-occlusion technique gained with a standard lung function measurement. Design: Prospective clinical trial. Setting: Level III neonatal unit of a university hospital. Subjects: Sixty-seven newborns, born prematurely or at term, ventilated for a variety of pathologic conditions. Interventions: A standardized sigh maneuver with a predefined peak inspiratory pressure of 30 cm H2O, termed inspiratory capacity at inflation hold, was applied. Using tidal volume, exhaled from inspiratory pause down to ambient pressure, as displayed by the ventilator, and predefined peak inspiratory pressure, compliance at inspiratory capacity at inflation hold conditions could be calculated as well as ratio of tidal volume and ventilator pressure using tidal volume and differential pressure at baseline ventilator settings: peak inspiratory pressure minus positive end-expiratory pressure. Measurements and Main Results: For the whole cohort, the equation for the regression between tidal volume at inspiratory capacity at inflation hold and compliance of the respiratory system was: compliance of the respiratory system = 0.052 * tidal volume at inspiratory capacity at inflation hold − 0.113, and compliance at inspiratory capacity at inflation hold conditions was closely related to the standard lung function measurement method of compliance of the respiratory system (R2 = 0.958). In contrast, ratio of tidal volume and ventilator pressure per kilogram calculated from the ventilator readouts and displayed against compliance of the respiratory system per kilogram yielded a broad scatter throughout the whole range of compliance; both were only weakly correlated (R2 = 0.309) and also the regression line was significantly different from the line of identity (p < .05). Peak inspiratory pressure at study entry did not affect the correlation between compliance at inspiratory capacity at inflation hold conditions and compliance of the respiratory system. Conclusions: After a standard sigh maneuver, inspiratory capacity at inflation hold and the derived quantity compliance at inspiratory capacity at inflation hold conditions can be regarded as a valid, accurate, and reliable surrogate measure for standard compliance of the respiratory system in contrast to ratio of tidal volume and ventilator pressure calculated from the ventilator readouts during ongoing mechanical ventilation at respective ventilator settings.
Baseline Pan-Immune-Inflammation Value is Associated with Clinical Outcome in Patients with Recurrent or Metastatic Head and Neck Cancer Treated with Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors

re-Objectives: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have played an important role in the treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer (R/M HNC). However, we lack prognostic and predictive markers of ICIs in R/M HNC. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the prognostic and predictive markers of the anticancer effect of ICIs. Methods: Fifty-seven patients with R/M HNC treated with ICIs were included in this retrospective study. The base-line pan-immune-inflammation value (PIV) was calculated as follows: (neutrophil count × platelet count × monocyte count)/lymphocyte count, with a cut off value of 940.27. Results: With a median follow-up of 12 months, the 1-year overall survival (OS) rates were significantly lower in the high PIV group compared with those in the low PIV group (OS: 40.0% vs. 73.1%, p=0.03). In the multivariate analyses, we observed that a high PIV was a significantly unfavorable predictor of OS (hazard ratio (HR) 2.52, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.09–5.81, p=0.003). Conclusion: For R/M HNC, PIV is an independent survival predictor for the efficacy of ICIs. Novel intensified treatments are needed for the subgroup of patients with R/M HNC and a high PIV.
Assessment of Five Chilling Tolerance Traits and GWAS Mapping in Rice Using the USDA Mini-Core Collection

Rice (Oryza sativa L.) is often exposed to cool temperatures during spring planting in temperate climates. A better understanding of genetic pathways regulating chilling tolerance will enable breeders to develop varieties with improved tolerance during germination and young seedling stages. To dissect chilling tolerance, five assays were developed; one assay for the germination stage, one assay for the germination and seedling stage, and three for the seedling stage. Based on these assays, five chilling tolerance indices were calculated and assessed using 202 O. sativa accessions from the Rice Mini-Core (RMC) collection. Significant differences between RMC accessions made the five indices suitable for genome-wide association study (GWAS) based quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping. For young seedling stage indices, japonica and indica subspecies clustered into chilling tolerant and chilling sensitive accessions, respectively, while both subspecies had similar low temperature germinability distributions. Indica subspecies were shown to have chilling acclimation potential. GWAS mapping uncovered 48 QTL at 39 chromosome regions distributed across all 12 rice chromosomes. Interestingly, there was no overlap between the germination and seedling stage QTL. Also, 18 QTL and 32 QTL were in regions discovered in previously reported bi-parental and GWAS based QTL mapping studies, respectively. Two novel low temperature seedling survivability (LTSS)–QTL, qLTSS3-4 and qLTSS4-1, were not in a previously reported QTL region. QTL with strong effect alleles identified in this study will be useful for marker assisted breeding efforts to improve chilling tolerance in rice cultivars and enhance gene discovery for chilling tolerance.
Recent advances in SAT-based ATPG: Non-standard fault models, multi constraints and optimization

It is well-known that in principle automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) can be solved by transforming the circuit and the fault considered into a Boolean satisfiability (SAT) instance and then calling a so-called SAT solver to compute a test. More recently, the potential of SAT-based ATPG has been significantly extended. In this paper, we first provide introductory knowledge on SAT-based ATPG and then report on latest developments enabling applications far beyond classical ATPG.
Dynamics of Heart Failure*

Nearly thirty years ago, when I was a second-year student of medicine, I first heard of Dr. George Oliver, of Harrogate, from my first teacher of physiology, Sir Edward Schafer. They had shared in the discovery of adrenaline, the tale of which has been too well told to bear repetition from me (Dale, 1948). Dr. Oliver had come under the influence of William Sharpey. Born in Arbroath in 1802, Sharpey was a graduate of Edinburgh. While a lecturer in that city he discovered ciliary motion. Later he migrated south, where he became the first British scientist to devote his entire career to physiological teaching and research. As such he was recognized as the father of British physiology, becoming the teacher of such men as Michael Foster and John BurdonSanderson. Sharpey must have been a lovable character, inspiring devoted admiration by his pupils, one of whom, Sir Edward Schafer, later added Sharpey to his own name by deed poll to ensure that his memory should not fade. Dr. Oliver, for the same purpose, endowed these lectures " to promote physiological research by observation and experiment and encourage the application of physiological knowledge to the prevention and cure of disease and prolongation of life. " It is a privilege and honour to be called on to sustain this high purpose in succession to a distinguished list of predecessors.
Mitochondrial DNA variation along an altitudinal gradient in the greater white‐toothed shrew, Crocidura russula

The distribution of mitochondrial control region‐sequence polymorphism was investigated in 15 populations of Crocidura russula along an altitudinal gradient in western Switzerland. High‐altitude populations are smaller, sparser and appear to undergo frequent bottlenecks. Accordingly, they showed a loss of rare haplotypes, but unexpectedly, were less differentiated than lowland populations. Furthermore, the major haplotypes segregated significantly with altitude. The results were inconsistent with a simple model of drift and dispersal. They suggested instead a role for historical patterns of colonization, or, alternatively, present‐day selective forces acting on one of the mitochondrial genes involved in metabolic pathways.
Good item or bad—can latent class analysis tell?: the utility of latent class analysis for the evaluation of survey questions

Summary. Latent class analysis has been used to model measurement error, to identify flawed survey questions and to estimate mode effects. Using data from a survey of University of Maryland alumni together with alumni records, we evaluate this technique to determine its usefulness for detecting bad questions in the survey context. Two sets of latent class analysis models are applied in this evaluation: latent class models with three indicators and latent class models with two indicators under different assumptions about prevalence and error rates. Our results indicated that the latent class analysis approach produced good qualitative results for the latent class models—the item that the model deemed the worst was the worst according to the true scores. However, the approach yielded weaker quantitative estimates of the error rates for a given item.
A robust and efficient video stabilization algorithm

The acquisition of digital video usually suffers from undesirable camera jitter due to unstable random camera motion, which is produced by a hand-held camera or a camera in a vehicle moving on a non-smooth road or terrain. We propose a real-time robust video stabilization algorithm to remove undesirable motion jitter and produce a stabilized video. We first compute the optical flow between successive frames, followed by estimating the camera motion by fitting the computed optical flow field to a simplified affine motion model with a trimmed least squares method. Then, the computed camera motions are smoothed temporally to reduce the motion vibrations by using a regularization method. Finally, we transform all frames of the video based on the original and smoothed motions to obtain a stabilized video. Experimental results are given to demonstrate the stabilization performance and the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
Locations of the zwf, edd, and eda genes on the Escherichia coli physical map

The 40.5-min region of the Escherichia coli map contains the zwf gene, which encodes glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, an enzyme of the pentose phosphate pathway, and the edd and eda genes, which encode 6-phosphogluconate dehydratase and 2-keto-3-deoxy-6-phosphogluconate aldolase, respectively, the key enzymes of the Entner-Doudoroff pathway (4). These three genes are tightly linked, and their order with respect to flanking genetic markers has been firmly established by fine-structure mapping (1, 3). Some time ago the zwf, edd, and eda genes were shown to be present on two plasmids from the Clarke-Carbon gene library (8). Recently, the zwf gene was subcloned from pLC3-33 and its nucleotide sequence was determined (7). Likewise, the edd and eda genes were subcloned from
Lean body mass in children with cystic fibrosis

Poor nutritional status adversely affects long term survival of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF). 1 Body composition measured by dual energy x ray absorptiometry (DXA) has been shown to correlate well with other established techniques such as bioelectric impedance analysis and total body potassium estimation.2 This study was designed to compare the whole body and regional bone mineral density of children with CF with that of controls, the results of which have been reported previously.3 Here, we present the results of post hoc comparison of DXA measured whole body lean body …
Biphasic Opening of the Blood-Brain Barrier Following Transient Focal Ischemia: Effects of Hypothermia

Objective: Tracer constants (Ki) for blood-to-brain diffusion of sucrose were measured in the rat to profile the time course of blood-brain barrier injury after temporary focal ischemia, and to determine the influence of post-ischemic hypothermia. Methods: Spontaneously hypertensive rats were subjected to transient (2 hours) clip occlusion of the right middle cerebral artery. Reperfusion times ranged from 1.5 min to 46 hours, and i.v. 3H-sucrose was circulated for 30 min prior to each time point (1h, 4h, 22h, and 46h; n=5-7 per time point). Ki was calculated from the ratio of parenchymal tracer uptake and the time-integrated plasma concentration. Additional groups of rats (n=7-8) were maintained either normothermic (37.5oC) or hypothermic (32.5oC or 28.5oC) for the first 6 hours of reperfusion, and Ki was measured at 46 hours. Results: Rats injected after 1.5 - 2 min exhibited a 10-fold increase in Ki for cortical regions supplied by the right middle cerebral artery (p<0.01). This barrier opening had closed within 1 to 4 hours post-reperfusion. By 22 hours, the blood-brain barrier had re-opened, with further opening 22 and 46 hours (p<0.01), resulting in edema. Whole body hypothermia (28oC-29oC) during the first six hours of reperfusion prevented opening, reducing Ki by over 50% (p<0.05). Conclusion: Transient middle cerebral artery occlusion evokes a marked biphasic opening of the cortical blood-brain barrier, the second phase of which causes vasogenic edema. Hypothermic treatment reduced infarct volume and the late opening of the blood-brain barrier. This opening of the blood-brain barrier may enhance delivery of low permeability neuroprotective agents.
A design for testability study on a high performance automatic gain control circuit

A comprehensive testability study on a commercial automatic gain control circuit is presented which aims to identify design for testability (DfT) modifications to both reduce production test cost and improve test quality. A fault simulation strategy based on layout extracted faults has been used to support the study. The paper proposes a number of DfT modifications at the layout, schematic and system levels together with testability. Guidelines that may well have generic applicability. Proposals for using the modifications to achieve partial self test are made and estimates of achieved fault coverage and quality levels presented.
Heteromultimers of DEG/ENaC subunits form H+-gated channels in mouse sensory neurons

Acidic extracellular solution activates transient H+-gated currents in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. The biophysical properties of three degenerin/epithelial sodium (DEG/ENaC) channel subunits (BNC1, ASIC, and DRASIC), and their expression in DRG, suggest that they might underlie these H+-gated currents and function as sensory transducers. However, it is uncertain which of these DEG/ENaC subunits generate the currents, and whether they function as homomultimers or heteromultimers. We found that the biophysical properties of transient H+-gated currents from medium to large mouse DRG neurons differed from BNC1, ASIC, or DRASIC expressed individually, but were reproduced by coexpression of the subunits together. To test the contribution of each subunit, we studied DRG from three strains of mice, each bearing a targeted disruption of BNC1, ASIC, or DRASIC. Deletion of any one subunit did not abolish H+-gated currents, but altered currents in a manner consistent with heteromultimerization of the two remaining subunits. These data indicate that combinations of two or more DEG/ENaC subunits coassemble as heteromultimers to generate transient H+-gated currents in mouse DRG neurons.
Ant colony optimization for resource-constrained project scheduling

An ant colony optimization approach (ACO) for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) is presented. Combinations of two pheromone evaluation methods are used by the ants to find new solutions. We tested our ACO algorithm on a set of large benchmark problems from the PSPLIB. Compared to several other heuristics for the RCPSP including genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, tabu search, and different sampling methods our algorithm performed best on the average. For some test instances the algorithm was able to find new best solutions.
Registration rate in the Norwegian Cruciate Ligament Register

Background and purpose The Norwegian Cruciate Ligament Register (NCLR) was founded in 2004. The purpose of the NCLR is to provide representative and reliable data for future research. In this study we evaluated the development of the registration rate in the NCLR. Methods The Norwegian Patient Register (NPR) and the electronic patient charts (EPCs) were used as reference data for public and private hospitals, respectively. Data were retrieved for all primary and revision anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery during 2008–2009 in public hospitals and during 2008 in private hospitals. The NOMESCO classification of surgical procedures was used for identification of ACL surgeries. Public hospitals were divided into subgroups according to the annual number of operations in the NPR: small hospitals (< 30 operations) and large hospitals (≥ 30 operations). Results For the 2-year data extracted from public hospitals, 2,781 and 2,393 operations met the inclusion criteria according to the NPR and the NCLR, respectively, giving an average registration rate of 86% (95% CI: 0.85–0.87). The registration rate for small public hospitals was 69% (CI: 0.65–0.73), which was significantly less than for large public hospitals (89%, CI: 0.88–0.90; p < 0.001). In 2008, private hospitals reported 548 operations to the NCLR while 637 were found in the EPCs, giving a registration rate of 86% (CI: 0.83–0.89). In that year, the registration rate for public hospitals was 86%, which was similar to that for private hospitals. Interpretation The NCLR registration rate for the period 2008–09 was similar in both 2008 and 2009, and is satisfactory for research. There is room for improvement of registration rates, particularly in hospitals with a small volume of ACL operations.
Regression Model Development for Credit Card Exposure At Default (EAD) using SAS/STAT® and SAS® Enterprise Miner™ 5.3

Over the last few decades, credit risk research has largely been focused on the estimation and validation of probability of default (PD) models in credit scoring. Only more recently, academic work has been conducted into the estimation of LGD (e.g. Bellotti and Crook, 2009, Loterman et al, 2009, Matuszyk et al, 2010). However, to date very little model development and validation has been reported on the estimation of EAD, particularly for retail lending (i.e. credit cards). Nonetheless, EAD and LGD are both important inputs to the Basel II capital calculations as they enter the capital requirement formulas in a linear way (unlike PD, which comparatively has a smaller effect on minimal capital requirements than LGD and EAD). Therefore, changes to EAD (and LGD) will have a crucial impact on the capital of a financial institution and as such also its long-term strategy. Hence it is important to develop robust models that estimate EAD as accurately as possible.