Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of myopia in Taiwanese schoolchildren: 1983 to 2000.

INTRODUCTION To determine time trends in myopia over a 20-year period in Taiwan, we conducted 5 nationwide surveys pertaining to the ocular refraction of schoolchildren in 1983, 1986, 1990, 1995 and 2000. MATERIALS AND METHODS The sampling technique used herein involved the assessment of stratified systematic clusters, with the unweighted myopic rate being represented using data derived from different sectors of the population, such as metropolitan, city, town, and aboriginal. The mean values for the spherical equivalent of the cycloplegic refractive status and the dimension of corneal radii as determined by the autorefractometer were used for the calculation. RESULTS In our review of 5 nationwide myopia surveys, we found that the mean prevalence of myopia among 7 year olds increased from 5.8% in 1983 to 21% in 2000. At the age of 12, the prevalence of myopia was 36.7% in 1983 increasing to 61% in 2000, corresponding figures for 15-year-olds being 64.2% and 81%, respectively. The prevalence of myopia increased from 74% in 1983 to 84% in 2000 for children aged between 16 and 18 years, and, in addition, the prevalence of high myopia (over -6.0 D) increased from 10.9% in 1983 to 21% of 18-year-old students of Taiwan in 2000. The mean refractive status at the age of 12 deteriorated from -0.48 D in 1983 to -1.45 D in 2000, and from -1.49 D to -2.89 D for children aged 15, whilst for individuals aged 18, it deteriorated from -2.55 D in 1983 to -3.64 D in 2000. The mean ocular refraction began to progress to a myopic condition at the age of 11 in 1983, this becoming an age of 8 years in 2000. There appeared to be significant difference in both the prevalence and the degree of myopia between study participants residing in cities and villages. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that the cause of the relative increasing severity of myopia among the schoolchildren was due to the onset of myopia at a very young, and progressively-decreasing, age over the study period. Thus, to reduce the prevalence and severity of myopia, we should pay more attention to the eye care of pre-schoolchildren.
A key role of PGC‐1α transcriptional coactivator in production of VEGF by a novel angiogenic agent COA‐Cl in cultured human fibroblasts

We previously demonstrated a potent angiogenic effect of a newly developed adenosine‐like agent named COA‐Cl. COA‐Cl exerted tube forming activity in human umbilical vein endothelial cells in the presence of normal human dermal fibroblasts (NHDF). We therefore explored whether and how COA‐Cl modulates gene expression and protein secretion of VEGF, a master regulator of angiogenesis, in NHDF. RT‐PCR and ELISA revealed that COA‐Cl upregulated VEGF mRNA expression and protein secretion in NHDF. HIF1α (hypoxia‐inducible factor 1α), a transcription factor, and PGC‐1α (peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor‐γ coactivator‐1α), a transcriptional coactivator, are known to positively regulate the VEGF gene. Immunoblot and RT‐PCR analyses revealed that COA‐Cl markedly upregulated the expression of PGC‐1α protein and mRNA. COA‐Cl had no effect on the expression of HIF1α protein and mRNA in both hypoxia and normoxia. Silencing PGC‐1α gene, but not HIF1α gene, by small interfering RNA attenuated the ability of COA‐Cl to promote VEGF secretion. When an N‐terminal fragment of PGC‐1α was cotransfected with its partner transcription factor ERRα (estrogen‐related receptor‐α) in COS‐7 cells, COA‐Cl upregulated the expression of the endogenous VEGF mRNA. However, COA‐Cl had no effect on the expression of VEGF, when HIF1α was transfected. COA‐Cl induces VEGF gene expression and protein secretion in fibroblasts. The transcriptional coactivator PGC‐1α, in concert with ERRα, plays a key role in the COA‐Cl‐induced VEGF production. COA‐Cl‐induced activation of PGC‐1α‐ERRα‐VEGF pathway has a potential as a novel means for therapeutic angiogenesis.
Association of Coffee Consumption With Total and Cause-Specific Mortality in 3 Large Prospective Cohorts

Background— The association between consumption of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee and risk of mortality remains inconclusive. Methods and Results— We examined the associations of consumption of total, caffeinated, and decaffeinated coffee with risk of subsequent total and cause-specific mortality among 74 890 women in the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), 93 054 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II, and 40 557 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Coffee consumption was assessed at baseline using a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. During 4 690 072 person-years of follow-up, 19 524 women and 12 432 men died. Consumption of total, caffeinated, and decaffeinated coffee were nonlinearly associated with mortality. Compared with nondrinkers, coffee consumption of 1 to 5 cups per day was associated with lower risk of mortality, whereas coffee consumption of more than 5 cups per day was not associated with risk of mortality. However, when restricting to never smokers compared with nondrinkers, the hazard ratios (and 95% confidence intervals) of mortality were 0.94 (0.89–0.99) for 1.0 or less cup per day, 0.92 (0.87–0.97) for 1.1 to 3.0 cups per day, 0.85 (0.79–0.92) for 3.1 to 5.0 cup per day, and 0.88 (0.78–0.99) for more than 5.0 cup per day (P value for nonlinearity = 0.32; P value for trend < 0.001). Significant inverse associations were observed for caffeinated (P value for trend < 0.001) and decaffeinated coffee (P value for trend = 0.022). Significant inverse associations were observed between coffee consumption and deaths attributed to cardiovascular disease, neurologic diseases, and suicide. No significant association between coffee consumption and total cancer mortality was found. Conclusions— Higher consumption of total coffee, caffeinated coffee, and decaffeinated coffee was associated with lower risk of total mortality.
Efficient fermentation of Pinus sp. acid hydrolysates by an ethanologenic strain of Escherichia coli

Process conditions for the acid hydrolysis of pine hemicellulose and cellulose have been described which provide a biocompatible sugar solution. By using an improved strain of recombinant Escherichia coli, strain KO11, hydrolysates supplemented with yeast extract and tryptone nutrients were converted to ethanol with an efficiency of 85% to over 100% on the basis of monomer sugar content (approximately 72 g/liter) and with the production of 35 g of ethanol per liter in 48 h. In the process described, approximately 347 liters of ethanol could be produced per dry metric ton of lignocellulose.
The Role of Motion in Infants' Perception of Solid Shape

Previous research has shown that infants as young as the first few months of life perceive several aspects of the three-dimensional environment. Yet we know relatively little about the visual depth information which serves as a basis for their spatial capacities. A study is reported in which a visual habituation procedure was used to examine what types of optical depth information four-month-old infants find useful in visually perceiving solid (three-dimensional) shape. Results imply that in the absence of binocular depth cues four-month-olds rely on kinetic depth information to perceive solid shape.
Spatio-temporal modeling of the topology of swarm behavior with persistence landscapes

We propose a method for modeling the topology of swarm behavior in a manner which facilitates the application of machine learning techniques such as clustering. This is achieved by modeling the persistence of topological features, such as connected components and holes, of the swarm with respect to time using zig-zag persistent homology. The output of this model is subsequently transformed into a representation known as a persistence landscape. This representation forms a vector space and therefore facilitates the application of machine learning techniques. The proposed model is validated using a real data set corresponding to a swarm of 300 fish. We demonstrate that it may be used to perform clustering of swarm behavior with respect to topological features.
Complexity Results for Serial Decomposability

Korf (1985) presents a method for learning macro-operators and shows that the method is applicable to serially decomposable problems. In this paper I analyze the computational complexity of serial decomposability. Assuming that operators take polynomial time, it is NP-complete. to determine if an operator (or set of operators) is not serially decomposable, whether or not an ordering of state variables is given. In addition to serial decomposability of operators, a serially decomposable problem requires that the set of solvable states is closed under the operators. It is PSPACE-complete to determine if a given "finite state-variable problem" is serially decomposable. In fact, every solvable instance of a PSPACE problem can be converted to a serially decomposable problem. Furthermore, given a bound on the size of the input, every problem in PSPACE can be transformed to a problem that is nearly serially-decomposable, i.e., the problem is serially decomposable except for closure of solvable states or a unique goal state.
Fast Face Detection Based on Skin Segmentation and Facial Features

Human face detection plays an important role in various biometric applications such as crowd surveillance, photography, human computer interaction, tracking, automatic target recognition and many security related areas. Varying illumination conditions, color variance, brightness, pose variations are major challenging problems for face detection. This paper proposes a localized approach for face detection based on skin color segmentation and facial features. Skin color segmentation approach decreases the computational complexity and increases the accuracy since the skin region is previously determined. For skin color segmentation, we have used Y CbCr color image. The advantage of using Y CbCr is to remove the illumination component that is represented by Y. This method is tested on two databases: Bao database: contains 157 images and Muct database: contains 751 images. The algorithm achieves an average accuracy of 96:73%. Comparison with Viola Jones and Face Detection using Skin Color Model methods has also been done.
Pericytes and immune cells contribute to complement activation in 1 tubulointerstitial fibrosis 2 3

Pericytes and immune cells contribute to complement activation in 1 tubulointerstitial fibrosis 2 3 Sandhya Xavier, Ranjit K Sahu, Susan G Landes, Jing Yu , Ronald P Taylor, Srinivas Ayyadevara, Judit 4 Megyesi, William B Stallcup, Jeremy S Duffield, Edimara S Reis, John D Lambris, Didier Portilla. 5 6 7 Division of Nephrology, Center for Immunity, Inflammation and Regenerative Medicine, Department of 8 Cell Biology, Department of Biochemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, University of 9 Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, Arkansas, Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery 10 Institute, Tumor Metastasis and Cancer Immunology Program, La Jolla, California, Research and 11 Development, Biogen Idec, Cambridge, Massachusetts Department of Pathology and Laboratory 12 Medicine University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Salem Veterans Affairs Medical 13 Center, Salem, Virginia 14 15 16 17 18 Running title: Pericytes, Complement and kidney fibrosis 19
Patent foramen ovale and stroke.

To the Editor: I wish to congratulate the authors of the current “Controversies in Stroke” on their critical discussion of secondary prevention in patients with patent foramen ovale (PFO) and cryptogenic stroke.1–3 In the absence of definitive data in this scenario, they focus a large part of their discussion on the possible treatment options quoting the 2 most cited recently published prospective multicenter studies that evaluated the stroke recurrence risk in patients with PFO.4,5 I fully agree with the authors that the best medical therapy has not yet be determined; furthermore, there is no doubt that another trial randomizing patients <55 years of age either to device closure or medical therapy is necessary. More or less all authors accept that there is an association between the presence of PFO and stroke. Unfortunately, despite the controversy surrounding PFO identification/quantification, I am missing a critical …
Differential Sensitivity to Human Communication in Dogs, Wolves, and Human Infants

Boxing Clever? Piaget showed that 10-month-old infants will persist in looking for a toy in box A, where it has been placed several times, even after having been shown that it has been moved to box B, whereas 12-month-old infants do not. This phenomenon marks a developmental milestone in human infant cognition that Topál et al. (p. 1269; see the Perspective by Tomasello and Kaminski and the news story by Pennisi) explored in a remarkable series of comparative tests. The results support the view that infants and adult dogs will both persevere in searching erroneously in box A because they regard the placement of the toy by a human experimenter as a social teaching event. By contrast, wolves rapidly learn correctly to search box B. They also observed that infants are able to generalize and thus still persevere when one experimenter places the toy in box A and a second then places the toy in box B. Dogs, however, display episodic learning, and a second experimenter reduces their searching choice to chance. Social interactions with humans govern the way dogs and children learn, but wolves learn by focusing on objects. Ten-month-old infants persistently search for a hidden object at its initial hiding place even after observing it being hidden at another location. Recent evidence suggests that communicative cues from the experimenter contribute to the emergence of this perseverative search error. We replicated these results with dogs (Canis familiaris), who also commit more search errors in ostensive-communicative (in 75% of the total trials) than in noncommunicative (39%) or nonsocial (17%) hiding contexts. However, comparative investigations suggest that communicative signals serve different functions for dogs and infants, whereas human-reared wolves (Canis lupus) do not show doglike context-dependent differences of search errors. We propose that shared sensitivity to human communicative signals stems from convergent social evolution of the Homo and the Canis genera.
Cardiopulmonary Bypass Produces Greater Pulmonary than Systemic Proinflammatory Cytokines

Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) impairs pulmonary endothelial injury in part by increasing expression of adhesion molecules that results in neutrophil influx. Although numerous proinflammatory cytokines up-regulate these responses, the extent to which systemic and pulmonary proinflammatory cytokines increase remains unknown. We therefore examined systemic and pulmonary gene expression and production of proinflammatory cytokines during CPB. Bronchoalveolar lavage and peripheral blood sampling were performed just after the induction of anesthesia and at the end of surgery in 80 patients undergoing CPB. RNA was extracted from harvested cells and cDNA was synthesized by reverse transcription. The expression of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, and tumor necrosis factor-&agr; (TNF-&agr;) was measured by semiquantitative polymerase chain reaction using &bgr;-actin as an internal standard. We also measured these cytokines in cultured alveolar macrophages and plasma monocytes in standard medium alone, or in the presence of lipopolysaccharide. We found 2- to 20-fold increases in gene expression for these cytokines in both plasma and alveolar leukocytes at the end of surgery. However, the increases were 4–8 times greater in alveolar than plasma leukocytes. Alveolar macrophages obtained at the end of surgery produced 1.5–3 times more IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-&agr; than those obtained at the beginning (P < 0.0001). Although plasma monocytes produced more IL-8 at the end of surgery (P < 0.001), TNF-&agr; and IL-6 did not increase. The production of all cytokines was 1.5–3 times greater in alveolar macrophages obtained at the end of surgery than in plasma monocytes obtained simultaneously (P < 0.005). Our data thus suggest that CPB provokes a greater pulmonary than systemic inflammatory response. Implications Both gene expression and production of proinflammatory cytokines were greater in alveolar than plasma leukocytes after cardiopulmonary bypass. These results suggest that cardiopulmonary bypass provokes more serious pulmonary than systemic inflammatory responses.
Rotational Symmetry Breaking in the Hidden-Order Phase of URu2Si2

The mysterious hidden-order phase of a heavy-fermion compound may be an electronic nematic state. A second-order phase transition is characterized by spontaneous symmetry breaking. The nature of the broken symmetry in the so-called “hidden-order” phase transition in the heavy-fermion compound URu2Si2, at transition temperature Th = 17.5 K, has posed a long-standing mystery. We report the emergence of an in-plane anisotropy of the magnetic susceptibility below Th, which breaks the four-fold rotational symmetry of the tetragonal URu2Si2. Two-fold oscillations in the magnetic torque under in-plane field rotation were sensitively detected in small pure crystals. Our findings suggest that the hidden-order phase is an electronic “nematic” phase, a translationally invariant metallic phase with spontaneous breaking of rotational symmetry.
Using Random Matrix Theory to determine the number of endmembers in a hyperspectral image

Determining the number of spectral endmembers in a hyper-spectral image is an important step in the spectral unmixing process, and under- or overestimation of this number may lead to incorrect unmixing for unsupervised methods. In this paper we discuss a new method for determining the number of endmembers, using recent advances in Random Matrix Theory. This method is entirely unsupervised and is computationally cheaper than other existing methods. We apply our method to synthetic images, including a standard test image developed by Chein-I Chang, with good results for Gaussian independent noise.
Impact of User Pairing on 5G Nonorthogonal Multiple-Access Downlink Transmissions

Nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) represents a paradigm shift from conventional orthogonal multiple-access (MA) concepts and has been recognized as one of the key enabling technologies for fifth-generation mobile networks. In this paper, the impact of user pairing on the performance of two NOMA systems, i.e., NOMA with fixed power allocation (F-NOMA) and cognitive-radio-inspired NOMA (CR-NOMA), is characterized. For F-NOMA, both analytical and numerical results are provided to demonstrate that F-NOMA can offer a larger sum rate than orthogonal MA, and the performance gain of F-NOMA over conventional MA can be further enlarged by selecting users whose channel conditions are more distinctive. For CR-NOMA, the quality of service (QoS) for users with poorer channel conditions can be guaranteed since the transmit power allocated to other users is constrained following the concept of cognitive radio networks. Because of this constraint, CR-NOMA exhibits a different behavior compared with F-NOMA. For example, for the user with the best channel condition, CR-NOMA prefers to pair it with the user with the second best channel condition, whereas the user with the worst channel condition is preferred by F-NOMA.
TGF beta suppresses casein synthesis in mouse mammary explants and may play a role in controlling milk levels during pregnancy

Mammary explants from 14-15-d-pregnant mice synthesize and secrete milk proteins in culture in response to insulin, hydrocortisone, and prolactin. Here we demonstrate that transforming growth factor beta (TGF beta) treatment suppresses, in a dose dependent and reversible manner, the ability of explants to synthesize and secrete milk caseins. TGF beta does not affect the level of casein mRNA within explants but inhibits casein synthesis posttranscriptionally. We also show increased expression of TGF beta 2 and TGF beta 3 in intact mammary gland as pregnancy progresses, with reduced expression of all three TGF betas at the onset of lactation. These findings suggest that endogenously produced TGF beta may limit the accumulation of milk caseins that are produced in the mammary gland during pregnancy.
TEST FOR SIMULTANEOUS DIVERGENCE USING APPROXIMATE BAYESIAN COMPUTATION

Abstract Comparative phylogeographic studies often reveal disparate levels of sequence divergence between lineages spanning a common geographic barrier, leading to the conclusion that isolation was nonsynchronous. However, only rarely do researchers account for the expected variance associated with ancestral coalescence and among-taxon variation in demographic history. We introduce a flexible approximate Bayesian computational (ABC) framework that can test for simultaneous divergence (TSD) using a hierarchical model that incorporates idiosyncratic differences in demographic history across taxon pairs. The method is tested across a range of conditions and is shown to be accurate even with single-locus mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data. We apply this method to a landmark dataset of putative simultaneous vicariance, eight geminate echinoid taxon pairs thought to have been split by the Isthmus of Panama 3.1 million years ago. The ABC posterior estimates are not consistent with a history of simultaneous vicariance given these data. Subsequent ABC estimates under a constrained model that assumes two divergence times across the eight taxon pairs suggests simultaneous divergence 3.1 million years ago in seven of the taxon pairs and a more recent divergence in the remaining taxon pair. These ABC estimates on the simultaneous divergence of the seven taxon pairs correspond to a DNA substitution rate of approximately 1.59% per lineage per million years at the mtDNA cytochrome oxidase I gene. This ABC framework can easily be modified to analyze single taxon-pair datasets and/or be expanded to include multiple loci, migration, recombination, and other idiosyncratic demographic histories. The flexible aspect of ABC and its built-in evaluation of estimator bias and statistical power has the potential to greatly enhance statistical rigor in phylogeographic studies.
Transfer scenarios: grounding innovation with marginal practices

Transfer scenarios is a method developed to support the design of innovative interactive technology. Such a method should help the designer to come up with inventive ideas, and at the same time provide grounding in real human needs. In transfer scenarios, we use marginal practices to encourage a changed mindset throughout the design process. A marginal practice consists of individuals who share an activity that they find meaningful. We regard these individuals not as end-users, but as valuable input in the design process. We applied this method when designing novel applications for autonomous embodied agents, e.g. robots. Owners of unusual pets, such as snakes and spiders, were interviewed - not with the intention to design robot pets, but to determine underlying needs and interests of their practice. The results were then used to design a set of applications for more general users, including a dynamic living-room wall and a set of communicating hobby robots.