Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vestibuloocular reflex signal modulation during voluntary and passive head movements.

The vestibuloocular reflex (VOR) effectively stabilizes the visual world on the retina over the wide range of head movements generated during daily activities by producing an eye movement of equal and opposite amplitude to the motion of the head. Although an intact VOR is essential for stabilizing gaze during walking and running, it can be counterproductive during certain voluntary behaviors. For example, primates use rapid coordinated movements of the eyes and head (gaze shifts) to redirect the visual axis from one target of interest to another. During these self-generated head movements, a fully functional VOR would generate an eye-movement command in the direction opposite to that of the intended shift in gaze. Here, we have investigated how the VOR pathways process vestibular information across a wide range of behaviors in which head movements were either externally applied and/or self-generated and in which the gaze goal was systematically varied (i.e., stabilize vs. redirect). VOR interneurons [i.e., type I position-vestibular-pause (PVP) neurons] were characterized during head-restrained passive whole-body rotation, passive head-on-body rotation, active eye-head gaze shifts, active eye-head gaze pursuit, self-generated whole-body motion, and active head-on-body motion made while the monkey was passively rotated. We found that regardless of the stimulation condition, type I PVP neuron responses to head motion were comparable whenever the monkey stabilized its gaze. In contrast, whenever the monkey redirected its gaze, type I PVP neurons were significantly less responsive to head velocity. We also performed a comparable analysis of type II PVP neurons, which are likely to contribute indirectly to the VOR, and found that they generally behaved in a quantitatively similar manner. Thus our findings support the hypothesis that the activity of the VOR pathways is reduced "on-line" whenever the current behavioral goal is to redirect gaze. By characterizing neuronal responses during a variety of experimental conditions, we were also able to determine which inputs contribute to the differential processing of head-velocity information by PVP neurons. We show that neither neck proprioceptive inputs, an efference copy of neck motor commands nor the monkey's knowledge of its self-motion influence the activity of PVP neurons per se. Rather we propose that efference copies of oculomotor/gaze commands are responsible for the behaviorally dependent modulation of PVP neurons (and by extension for modulation of the status of the VOR) during gaze redirection.
Advocacy by Chinese Nonprofit Organisations: Towards a Responsive Government? (中国非营利组织的倡导性活动：趋向于促成反应式政府？)

To what extent do Chinese nonprofit organisations, through advocacy activities, engage citizens in influencing public policies and contribute to the development of a participatory policy process in China? Based on data collected through a mail survey of 203 registered nonprofit organisations, this study examines the advocacy activities of Chinese nonprofits and their contributions to a responsive government. We find that the intensity of advocacy activities by Chinese nonprofits is relatively low and varies by organizational type, by degree of professionalisation, and by dependence on government funding. We find no association between advocacy intensity and the extent to which Chinese nonprofits engage citizens at the organisational level prior to their advocacy efforts. The ineffective marshalling and integration of citizens’ interests within Chinese nonprofit organisations might be attributable to the corporatist structure of the institutional and resource environments in which Chinese nonprofit organisations operate. 中国的非营利组织通过其倡导性活动，究竟在多大的程度上能发动引导公民参与和影响公共政策，进而又能在多大程度上推动中国参与式政策过程或反应式政府的发展？ 基于对203个注册了的非营利组织邮寄调查所获得的数据，本研究考察了中国非营利组织的倡导性活动及其对中国反应式政府的影响。 研究发现表明，中国非营利组织倡导性活动的强度相对来说较弱，而其对反应式政府的影响也相当有限。 这一有限性与中国非营利组织在从事倡导性活动之前，难以有效地引导公民参与组织内部的治理与运作有关。 换句话说，中国的非营利组织在政治与社会体系中倡导公民的权益之前，未能有效地在组织内部先行整合与回应公民的权益和诉求。 这种组织内部对公民权益与诉求整合和回应的低效可以进一步归结于中国非营利组织所处的法团主义结构的制度与资源宏观外部环境。
Present-Biased Preferences and Credit Card Borrowing

Some individuals borrow extensively on their credit cards. This paper tests whether present-biased time preferences correlate with credit card borrowing. In a field study, we elicit individual time preferences with incentivized choice experiments, and match resulting time preference measures to individual credit reports and annual tax returns. The results indicate that present-biased individuals are more likely to have credit card debt, and have significantly higher amounts of credit card debt, controlling for disposable income, other socio-demographics, and credit constraints.
Depletion of norepinephrine decreases the proliferation, but does not influence the survival and differentiation, of granule cell progenitors in the adult rat hippocampus

The dentate gyrus region retains the ability to generate neurons throughout adulthood. A few studies have examined the neurotransmitter regulation of adult hippocampal neurogenesis and have shown that this process is regulated by serotonin and glutamate. Given the strong noradrenergic innervation of the adult hippocampus and the ability of norepinephrine to influence proliferation during development, we examined the influence of norepinephrine on adult hippocampal neurogenesis. Our study indicates that depletion of norepinephrine by the selective noradrenergic neurotoxin, N‐(2‐chloroethyl)‐N‐ethyl‐2‐bromo benzylamine hydrochloride (DSP‐4), results in a 63% reduction in the proliferation of dentate gyrus progenitor cells identified through 5‐bromo‐2′‐deoxyuridine (BrdU) labelling. In contrast, the survival of BrdU‐positive cells labelled prior to treatment with DSP‐4 is not influenced by norepinephrine depletion. The differentiation of BrdU labelled progenitors into neurons or glia was also not sensitive to noradrenergic depletion. These results indicate that the proliferation, but not the survival or differentiation, of adult hippocampal granule cell progenitors is affected by norepinephrine depletion.
Integrated Management of Physician-delivered Alcohol Care for Tuberculosis Patients (IMPACT): Design and Implementation

Background— While the integration of alcohol screening, treatment and referral in primary care and other medical settings in the U.S. and world-wide has been recognized as a key health care priority, it is not routinely done. In spite of the high co-occurrence and excess mortality associated with alcohol use disorders (AUDs) among individuals with tuberculosis (TB), there are no studies evaluating effectiveness of integrating alcohol care into routine treatment for this disorder. Methods— We designed and implemented a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to determine the effectiveness of integrating pharmacotherapy and behavioral treatments for AUDs into routine medical care for TB in the Tomsk Oblast Tuberculosis Service (TOTBS) in Tomsk, Russia. Eligible patients are diagnosed with alcohol abuse or dependence, are newly diagnosed with TB and initiating treatment in the TOTBS with Directly Observed Therapy-Short Course (DOTS) for TB. Utilizing a factorial design, the Integrated Management of Physician-delivered Alcohol Care for Tuberculosis Patients (IMPACT) study randomizes eligible patients who sign informed consent into one of four study arms: (1) Oral Naltrexone + Brief Behavioral Compliance Enhancement Therapy (BBCET) + treatment as usual (TAU), (2) Brief Counseling Intervention (BCI) + TAU, (3) Naltrexone + BBCET + BCI + TAU, a an assessment of attitudes and of and adaptation and and to oral naltrexone and brief counseling interventions for alcohol abuse and dependence as part of routine TB care. The study is successfully enrolling eligible subjects in the RCT to evaluate the relationship of integrating effective pharmacotherapy and brief behavioral intervention on TB and alcohol outcomes, as well as reduction in HIV risk behaviors. Conclusions— The IMPACT study utilizes an innovative approach to adapt two effective therapies for treatment of alcohol use disorders to the TB clinical services setting in the Tomsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia and to train TB physicians to deliver state of the art alcohol pharmacotherapy and behavioral treatments as an integrated part of routine TB care. The proposed treatment strategy could be applied elsewhere in Russia and in other settings where TB control is jeopardized by AUDs. If demonstrated to be effective, this model of integrating alcohol interventions into routine TB care has the potential for expanded applicability to other chronic co-occurring infectious and other medical conditions seen in medical care settings.
Presenilin Is Necessary for Efficient Proteolysis through the Autophagy–Lysosome System in a γ-Secretase-Independent Manner

Presenilins are ubiquitous, intramembrane proteins that function in Alzheimer's disease (AD) as the catalytic component of the γ-secretase complex. Familial AD mutations in presenilin are known to exacerbate lysosomal pathology. Hence, we sought to elucidate the function endogenous, wild-type presenilins play in autophagy-mediated protein degradation. We report the finding that genetic deletion or knockdown of presenilins alters many autophagy-related proteins demonstrating a buildup of autophagosomes, indicative of dysfunction in the system. Presenilin-deficient cells inefficiently clear long-lived proteins and fail to build up autophagosomes when challenged with lysosomal inhibitors. Our studies further show that γ-secretase inhibitors do not adversely impact autophagy, indicating that the role of presenilins in autophagy is independent of γ-secretase activity. Based on our findings, we conclude that endogenous, wild-type presenilins are necessary for proper protein degradation through the autophagosome–lysosome system by functioning at the lysosomal level. The role of presenilins in autophagy has many implications for its function in neurological diseases such as AD.
SIFT based view invariant watermarking for DIBR 3D image

In this paper, a view invariant watermarking scheme is proposed for depth image based rendering (DIBR) 3D image representation. To make the scheme invariant against view synthesis process, the watermark is inserted in the image locations selected by the SIFT (Scale-invariant feature transform) feature points. A novel SIFT feature based coefficient selection scheme has been implemented for watermark embedding by exploiting the shift invariance and directional property of the DIBR based view synthesis process. A coefficient partitioning based blind watermarking method has been included to make the scheme more efficient. A comprehensive set of experiments have been carried out to justify the robustness of the proposed scheme against the view synthesis attack.
Rapid Perturbation in Viremia Levels Drives Increases in Functional Avidity of HIV-specific CD8 T Cells

The factors determining the functional avidity and its relationship with the broad heterogeneity of antiviral T cell responses remain partially understood. We investigated HIV-specific CD8 T cell responses in 85 patients with primary HIV infection (PHI) or chronic (progressive and non-progressive) infection. The functional avidity of HIV-specific CD8 T cells was not different between patients with progressive and non-progressive chronic infection. However, it was significantly lower in PHI patients at the time of diagnosis of acute infection and after control of virus replication following one year of successful antiretroviral therapy. High-avidity HIV-specific CD8 T cells expressed lower levels of CD27 and CD28 and were enriched in cells with an exhausted phenotype, i.e. co-expressing PD-1/2B4/CD160. Of note, a significant increase in the functional avidity of HIV-specific CD8 T cells occurred in early-treated PHI patients experiencing a virus rebound after spontaneous treatment interruption. This increase in functional avidity was associated with the accumulation of PD-1/2B4/CD160 positive cells, loss of polyfunctionality and increased TCR renewal. The increased TCR renewal may provide the mechanistic basis for the generation of high-avidity HIV-specific CD8 T cells. These results provide insights on the relationships between functional avidity, viremia, T-cell exhaustion and TCR renewal of antiviral CD8 T cell responses.
Ageing and COPD affect different domains of nutritional status: the ECCE study

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and ageing may contribute to malnutrition. We aimed to explore whether COPD and ageing determine malnutrition in different manners. 460 stable COPD outpatients (376 males and 84 females) from the Extrapulmonary Consequences of COPD in the Elderly (ECCE) study database were investigated (age 75.0±5.9 yrs; forced expiratory volume in 1 s 54.7±18.3% predicted). Nutritional status was evaluated using the Mini Nutritional Assessment® (MNA) questionnaire. From the MNA, three scores exploring the domains of the nutritional status were calculated: body composition, energy intake and body functionality scores. Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stages were negatively correlated with five MNA items exploring mobility, patient’s perception of own nutrition and health status, and arm and calf circumferences (lowest Spearman’s rho (rs) = -0.011; highest p = 0.039). GOLD stages were independently correlated with body composition and body functionality scores (model r2 = 0.073). Age was negatively correlated with four MNA items exploring loss of appetite, fluid intake, mobility and autonomy in daily life (lowest rs = -0.013; highest p = 0.030). Age was independently correlated with body functionality score (model r2 = 0.037). Severe COPD and ageing are independent and probably concurrent conditions leading to malnutrition. The MNA questionnaire allows a valuable insight into the complexity of components of nutritional status and may provide useful clues for treatment strategies.
An Overview of Case Study

Case studies have been used in business teaching for many years but now researchers see them as a research methodology that might let them explore problems which they have not been able to address very well with their traditional quantitative methodologies. Using the case method requires a deeper understanding of it. Three topics are fundamental to appreciating the case method: the nature of case study; the role of theory in case study; and the difference between research and teaching cases. Having recognized these fundamentals, three important features of qualitative methodology are considered: how qualitative research differ from quantitative research; the “quality” of qualitative research; and the place for qualitative research. One can see from the discussion that the case method has significant scholarly merit to quantitative research and opens up new avenues to researchers. The paper concludes with references on the case method and qualitative research.
Time dependent 3-D statistical KMC simulation of high-k degradation including trap generation and electron capture/emission dynamic

A comprehensive time dependent three dimensional simulation framework for high-k degradation is developed. In this framework, the models that account for trap generation in high-k, capture/emission dynamic, and statistical variability are incorporated in the simulation. The influence of the trap generation model on distribution of traps, threshold voltage, and the amount of trapped charge is investigated in detail, thereby lay a solid foundation for predicting more accurate design margins at circuit/system level in the future.
Why I Love This Online Game: The MMORPG Stickiness Factor

With the rapid growth of the gaming industry, keeping gamers loyal is the quintessential issue. Thus, our paper focuses on loyalty towards Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). Our study incorporates the social identity theory, the theory of reason of action and gamer emotions into the equation of loyalty. An empirical study of 160 subjects was conducted to test our model. Our results demonstrated that perceived enjoyment, reputation and cohesion significantly affect loyalty. However, when all 3 are taken together, both reputation and cohesion overshadow perceived enjoyment, making the latter irrelevant in affecting loyalty.
A robust pilot-assisted equaliser for the partially loaded downlink UMTS TDD

In this paper, we propose a robust pilot-assisted equalisation strategy for the partially loaded time-division duplex (TDD) component of the universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS). In addition to training-based equalisation performed using the midamble of a data packet, some of the unused spreading codes are exploited to upload pilots in order to perform an additional semi-blind adaptation over the payload of a packet. The latter ensures continuous adaptation and better tracking performance. The affine projection concept along with the concurrent constant modulus algorithm (CMA) and decision-directed (DD) mode are implemented to update the equaliser weights. Computer simulations are used to assess the performance of the proposed adaptation strategy over various UMTS TDD time bursts.
Cortico-Cerebellar Connectivity in Autism Spectrum Disorder: What Do We Know So Far?

Although the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is renowned to be a connectivity disorder and a condition characterized by cerebellar involvement, the connectivity between the cerebellum and other cortical brain regions is particularly underexamined. Indeed, converging evidence has recently suggested that the cerebellum could play a key role in the etiopathogenesis of ASD, since cerebellar anomalies have been consistently reported in ASD from the molecular to the behavioral level, and damage to the cerebellum early in development has been linked with signs of autistic features. In addition, current data have shown that the cerebellum is a key structure not only for sensory-motor control, but also for “higher functions,” such as social cognition and emotion, through its extensive connections with cortical areas. The disruption of these circuits could be implicated in the wide range of autistic symptoms that the term “spectrum” connotes. In this review, we present and discuss the recent findings from imaging studies that investigated cortico-cerebellar connectivity in people with ASD. The literature is still too limited to allow for definitive conclusions; however, this brief review reveals substantial areas for future studies, underlining currently unmet research perspectives.
Design of a New Compliant Mechanical Amplifier

In this paper, a new topology that is a symmetric five bar profile for displacement amplification is proposed, and a compliant mechanical amplifier (CMA) based on the new topology is designed to amplify the stroke of a piezoelectric actuator. The new CMA can convert the motion generated by a PZT actuator with a large amplification ratio (24.4) in a very compact size, and it has a high natural frequency (573 Hz) and no lateral displacement. First, three existing topologies of CMA are analyzed and evaluated, which results in the new topology of CMA. After that, the new CMA is designed with different flexure hinges. The finite element analysis for the CMA shows that the double-beam symmetric five bar structure using the corner-filleted hinges can provide the best performance in terms of the displacement amplification and natural frequencies. The designed CMA is clearly better than the CMA based on the topology of a double symmetric four bar profile. Finally, the design is fine-tuned by examining critical parameters for the proposed CMA in light of a large displacement amplification ratio.
Periodontal Therapy and Systemic Inflammation in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Meta-Analysis

Aim The aim of this systematic review was to assess the effect of periodontal therapy (PT) on serum levels of inflammatory markers in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods of Study Selection A literature search was carried out using MEDLINE via Pubmed, EMBASE, LILACS and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) databases. Randomized-controlled trials (RCTs) and controlled clinical trials (CCTs) evaluating the effect of PT on systemic inflammatory markers were deemed eligible. Case series (CS), reports and pilot trials were excluded. Study quality was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration’s risk assessment tool. Meta-analysis was carried out using random effect methods. Results The search strategy identified 3,164 potential studies of which 61 were assessed for eligibility and 9 (6 RCTs and 3 CCTs) were included in this systematic review. Three RCTs were classified by the authors as being at low risk of bias and three were “unclear” and classified as uncertain risk of bias. All CCTs were considered to be at a high risk of bias. The meta-analysis showed a statistically significant mean difference (MD) for TNF- α (-1.33 pg/ml, 95% CI: -2.10; -0.56, p<0.001) and CRP (-1.28 mg/l, 95% CI: -2.07; - 0.48, p<0.001) favoring periodontal intervention versus control. Conclusion The results of this meta-analysis support the hypothesis that PT reduces serum levels of TNF- α and CRP in T2DM individuals. The decrease of inflammatory burden has important implications for metabolic control and can, in part, explain the mechanisms linking periodontitis and increased risk for complications in people with T2DM.
Organisational characteristics associated with AMT adoption - towards a contingency framework

Using data collected from 132 manufacturing companies in Australia and New Zealand, this paper assesses the differences between firms in terms of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) investment planning and implementation based on firm size and ownership. The analysis presented shows a number of differences. This is an exploratory study with the purpose of providing background data to guide future research in building up a contingency framework for AMT management. It is argued that variables such as firm size and principal ownership are useful additions to the contingency framework in addition to the infrastructure variables such as worker empowerment, quality leadership, soft integration, etc. It is concluded that organisational variables influence adoption of AMT and, hence, future research should focus on examining the relationships between the organisational context and the planning and infrastructure variables, and then relate these to the adoption process and the overall performance of AMT.
El déficit del banco de previsión social y su impacto en las finanzas del gobierno uruguayo

The Uruguayan pension system is one of the largest in Latin America relative to the country size. In 1995, the parliament passed a new pension law that introduced structural reforms in the system. The key goal of the reform was to restore intertemporal sustainability of the public budget, that was threatened by the steady growth of pension expenditure. The present paper summarizes some results from simulations designed to assess fiscal sustainability in the aftermath of the reform. In the base scenario, the deficit of the public pension program and the primary deficit of the government rise at the inception - the so-called transition deficit-, but reduce significantly in the medium to long run. Sensitivity analysis shows that the expected improvement in the control of evasion is a key variable in the projected reduction of the primary deficit.