Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Barriers to access and minority ethnic carers' satisfaction with social care services in the community: a systematic review of qualitative and quantitative literature

As populations age, the numbers of carers overall and numbers of carers from minority ethnic groups in particular are rising. Evidence suggests that carers from all sections of the community and particularly carers from minority groups often fail to access care services. This may relate to barriers in accessing services and service dissatisfaction. The aim of this systematic review was to identify and summarise minority ethnic carers' perceptions of barriers to accessing community social care services and their satisfaction with these services if accessed. The following databases were searched from their start until July 2013: Social Care Online, Social Policy and Research, Scopus, PsychINFO, HMIC, ASSIA, MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL Plus and AMED. Thirteen studies met the inclusion criteria. Most investigated either barriers to access or satisfaction levels, although three explored both. Only 4 studies investigated minority ethnic carers' satisfaction with social care, although 12 studies reported perceived barriers to accessing services. Few studies compared minority ethnic carers' perceptions with majority ethnic groups, making it difficult to identify issues specific to minority groups. Most barriers described were potentially relevant to all carers, irrespective of ethnic group. They included attitudinal barriers such as not wanting to involve outsiders or not seeing the need for services and practical barriers such as low awareness of services and service availability. Issues specific to minority ethnic groups included language barriers and concerns about services' cultural or religious appropriateness. Studies investigating satisfaction with services reported a mixture of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Barriers common to all groups should not be underestimated and a better understanding of the relationship between perceived barriers to accessing services and dissatisfaction with services is needed before the experiences of all carers can be improved.
In Vivo Measurements of Blood Flow and Glial Cell Function with Two-Photon Laser-Scanning Microscopy

Two-photon laser scanning microscopy is an ideal tool for high-resolution fluorescence imaging in intact organs of living animals. With regard to in vivo brain research, this technique provides new opportunities to study hemodynamics in the microvascular system and morphological dynamics and calcium signaling in various glial cell types. These studies benefit from the ongoing developments for in vivo labeling, imaging, and photostimulation. Here, we review recent advances in the application of two-photon microscopy for the study of blood flow and glial cell function in the neocortex. We emphasize the dual role of two-photon imaging as ameans to assess function in the normal state as well as a tool to investigate the vascular system and glia under pathological conditions,
Circulating Fibroblast Growth Factor-21 Is Elevated in Impaired Glucose Tolerance and Type 2 Diabetes and Correlates With Muscle and Hepatic Insulin Resistance

OBJECTIVE Fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-21 is highly expressed in the liver and regulates hepatic glucose production and lipid metabolism in rodents. However, its role in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes in humans remains to be defined. The aim of this study was to quantitate circulating plasma FGF-21 levels and examine their relationship with insulin sensitivity in subjects with varying degrees of obesity and glucose tolerance. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Forty-one subjects (8 lean with normal glucose tolerance [NGT], 9 obese with NGT, 12 with impaired fasting glucose [IFG]/impaired glucose tolerance [IGT], and 12 type 2 diabetic subjects) received an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) and a hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp (80 mU/m2 per min) combined with 3-[3H] glucose infusion. RESULTS Subjects with type 2 diabetes, subjects with IGT, and obese subjects with NGT were insulin resistant compared with lean subjects with NGT. Plasma FGF-21 levels progressively increased from 3.9 ± 0.3 ng/ml in lean subjects with NGT to 4.9 ± 0.2 in obese subjects with NGT to 5.2 ± 0.2 in subjects with IGT and to 5.3 ± 0.2 in type 2 diabetic subjects. FGF-21 levels correlated inversely with whole-body (primarily reflects muscle) insulin sensitivity (r = −0.421, P = 0.007) and directly with the hepatic insulin resistance index (r = 0.344, P = 0.034). FGF-21 levels also correlated with measures of glycemia (fasting plasma glucose [r = 0.312, P = 0.05], 2-h plasma glucose [r = 0.414, P = 0.01], and A1C [r = 0.325, P = 0.04]). CONCLUSIONS Plasma FGF-21 levels are increased in insulin-resistant states and correlate with hepatic and whole-body (muscle) insulin resistance. FGF-21 may play a role in pathogenesis of hepatic and whole-body insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes.
NK cells sense tumors, course of disease and treatments

The recent findings on NK activation indicate that these cells are important antitumor effectors. NK cells participate in the graft-vs.-leukemia effect to control the relapse in leukemic patients transplanted with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cells. In various tumors, correlation between NK cell infiltrates and prognosis were reported. However, tumor-infiltrating NK cells are yet poorly characterized. We here summarize our results and the recent studies of the literature on tumor-infiltrating NK cells, and discuss the impact of these novel insights into NK cell responses against tumors for the design of NK cell-based therapies.
Human T Cell Aging and the Impact of Persistent Viral Infections

Aging is associated with a dysregulation of the immune response, loosely termed “immunosenescence. ” Each part of the immune system is influenced to some extent by the aging process. However, adaptive immunity seems more extensively affected and among all participating cells it is the T cells that are most altered. There is a large body of experimental work devoted to the investigation of age-associated differences in T cell phenotypes and functions in young and old individuals, but few longitudinal studies in humans actually delineating changes at the level of the individual. In most studies, the number and proportion of late-differentiated T cells, especially CD8+ T cells, is reported to be higher in the elderly than in the young. Limited longitudinal studies suggest that accumulation of these cells is a dynamic process and does indeed represent an age-associated change. Accumulations of such late-stage cells may contribute to the enhanced systemic pro-inflammatory milieu commonly seen in older people. We do not know exactly what causes these observed changes, but an understanding of the possible causes is now beginning to emerge. A favored hypothesis is that these events are at least partly due to the effects of the maintenance of essential immune surveillance against persistent viral infections, notably Cytomegalovirus (CMV), which may exhaust the immune system over time. It is still a matter of debate as to whether these changes are compensatory and beneficial or pathological and detrimental to the proper functioning of the immune system and whether they impact longevity. Here, we will review present knowledge of T cell changes with aging and their relation to chronic viral and possibly other persistent infections.
Atmospheric Circulation of Close-In Extrasolar Giant Planets. I. Global, Barotropic, Adiabatic Simulations

We present results from a set of over 300 pseudospectral simulations of atmospheric circulation on extrasolar giant planets with circular orbits. The simulations are of high enough resolution (up to 341 total and sectoral modes) to resolve small-scale eddies and waves, required for reasonable physical accuracy. In this work, we focus on the global circulation pattern that emerges in a shallow, “equivalent barotropic,” turbulent atmosphere on both tidally synchronized and unsynchronized planets. A full exploration of the large physical and numerical parameter space is performed to identify robust features of the circulation. For some validation, the model is first applied to solar system giant planets. For extrasolar giant planets with physical parameters similar to HD 209458b—a presumably synchronized extrasolar giant planet, representative in many dynamical respects—the circulation is characterized by the following features: (1) a coherent polar vortex that revolves around the pole in each hemisphere; (2) a low number (typically two or three) of slowly varying, broad zonal (east-west) jets that form when the maximum jet speed is comparable to, or somewhat stronger than, those observed on the planets in the solar system; and (3) a motion-associated temperature field, whose detectability and variability depend on the strength of the net heating rate and the global rms wind speed in the atmosphere. In many ways, the global circulation is Earth-like, rather than Jupiter-like. However, if extrasolar giant planets rotate faster and are not close-in (therefore not synchronized), their circulations become more Jupiter-like, for Jupiter-like rotation rates.
A data collection tool for sketched diagrams

Repositories of digital ink sketches would be invaluable for testing and evaluation of sketch recognition software. However, there is no existing tool for flexible data collection and management of digital ink data for building repositories of hand drawn diagrams. We present a tool for the efficient collection, management and analysis of ink data. A resultant dataset records each ink stroke accompanied by participant and diagram information, stroke labels and measurements of various stroke features. This tool enables the effective construction of a large database of sketches to aid the development of recognition techniques.
The Evolution Of Indicator Traits For Parental Quality: The Role Of Maternal And Paternal Effects

In systems where individuals provide material resources to their mates or offspring, mate choice based on traits that are phenotypically correlated with the quality of resources provided is expected to be adaptive. Several models have explored the evolution of mating preference where there are direct benefits to choice, but few have addressed how a phenotypic correlation can be established between a male indicator trait and the degree of parental investment. We present a model with three quantitative traits: male and female parental investment and a potential male indicator trait. In our model, the expression of the “indicator” trait in offspring is affected by parental investment. These effects are referred to as maternal or paternal effects, or as “indirect genetic effects” when parental investment is heritable. With genetic variation for degree of parental investment, offspring harbor genes for parental investment that are unexpressed before mating but will affect the investment that they provide when expressed. Because the investment received from the parents affects the expression of the indicator trait, there will be a correlation between the genes for parental investment inherited and the degree of expression of the indicator trait in the offspring. The indicator trait is thus an “honest” signal for the degree of paternal investment.
Blind correction of gain and timing mismatches for a two-channel time-interleaved analog-to-digital converter: experimental verification

We report experimental verification of the previously proposed blind method of correcting gain and timing mismatches for a two-channel time-interleaved analog-to-digital converter (TIADC). The experimental setup allows for two different M=2 TIADC configurations with 14-bit resolution and 200-MHz overall sampling rates. Mismatch parameters are estimated by the blind algorithm with representative narrowband and wideband signals. The spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) performance is then evaluated by using sinusoids. We discuss performance gain, as well as the limitations of the proposed blind algorithm when applied to real world analog-to-digital (A/D) converters
Corpus-based techniques in the AT&t nextgen synthesis system

The AT&T text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis system has been used as a framework for experimenting with a perceptuallyguided data-driven approach to speech synthesis, with primary focus on data-driven elements in the \back end". Statistical training techniques applied to a large corpus are used to make decisions about predicted speech events and selected speech inventory units. Our recent advances in automatic phonetic and prosodic labeling and a new faster harmonic plus noise model (HNM) and unit preselection implementations have signi cantly improved TTS quality and speeded up both development time and runtime.
Anyons, 't Hooft loops and a generalized connection in three-dimensions

We consider a generalized connection in three dimensions and show that it emerges in Chern-Simons-Maxwell theories when one studies the disorder instanton operator. We generalize this construction to non-Abelian theories and find that the disorder operator (the 't Hooft operator) is equivalent to a generalized Wilson loop in a representation that depends on the Chern-Simons term. We speculate about the effective action of the disorder operator and its applications to the possible phases of the theory in the infra-red. We also show that fractional statistics can emerge in gauge theories without a Chern-Simons term if the generalized connection rather than the ordinary connection is used to couple charged particles.
Artificial-noise-assisted energy-efficient secure transmission in 5G with imperfect CSIT and antenna correlation

The problem of energy-efficient resource allocation in multiple-antenna wiretap channels where transmit antennas are correlated is investigated. The use of artificial noise (AN) in combination with only statistical channel state information (CSI) at the legitimate transmitter is considered. The goal of this work is to do the resource allocation such that the amount of bits which can be reliably and confidentially transmitted per unit of consumed energy, namely, the secrecy energy efficiency (SEE), is maximized. The resulting non-convex maximization problems are tackled by means of fractional programming and sequential convex optimization tools, and first-order optimal solutions are obtained with polynomial complexity. Numerical results show the merits of the proposed algorithms.
Automatic Tweet Generation From Traffic Incident Data

We examine the use of trafﬁc information with other knowledge sources to automatically generate natural language tweets similar to those created by humans. We consider how different forms of information can be combined to provide tweets customized to a particular location and/or speciﬁc user. Our approach is based on data-driven natural language generation (NLG) techniques using corpora containing examples of natural language tweets. It speciﬁcally draws upon semantic data and knowledge developed and used in the web based Connected Vehicles and Smart Transportation system. We introduce an alignment model, generation model and location-based user model which will together support location-relevant information delivery. We provide examples of our system output and discuss evaluation issues with generated tweets.
Side-channel information leakage of encrypted video stream in video surveillance systems

Video surveillance has been widely adopted to ensure home security in recent years. Most video encoding standards such as H.264 and MPEG-4 compress the temporal redundancy in a video stream using difference coding, which only encodes the residual image between a frame and its reference frame. Difference coding can efficiently compress a video stream, but it causes side-channel information leakage even though the video stream is encrypted, as reported in this paper. Particularly, we observe that the traffic patterns of an encrypted video stream are different when a user conducts different basic activities of daily living, which must be kept private from third parties as obliged by HIPAA regulations. We also observe that by exploiting this side-channel information leakage, attackers can readily infer a user's basic activities of daily living based on only the traffic size data of an encrypted video stream. We validate such an attack using two off-the-shelf cameras, and the results indicate that the user's basic activities of daily living can be recognized with a high accuracy.
Developmental characteristics of gifted children aged 0–6 years: parental observations

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to examine the different development characteristics of gifted children during the preschool period in comparison with normal developing children according to family observation. For this purpose, face-to-face interviews were carried out with the parents of 112 children identified as gifted and data regarding the differences of these children in comparison with their peer groups of 0–2, 2–4, 4–6 age intervals were acquired via semi-structured questionnaire form. The data were analysed according to content analysis rules. The data obtained as a result of this analysis were interpreted and classified with an inductive approach. It was determined as a result of the study that gifted children display different characteristics in cognitive, linguistic, affective and psychomotor skills in comparison with other children at dimensions which can be recognized by the families.
Distribution of neurotransmitter receptors and zinc in the pigeon (Columba livia) hippocampal formation: A basis for further comparison with the mammalian hippocampus

The avian hippocampal formation (HF) and mammalian hippocampus share a similar functional role in spatial cognition, but the underlying neuronal mechanisms allowing the functional similarity are incompletely understood. To understand better the organization of the avian HF and its transmitter receptors, we analyzed binding site densities for glutamatergic AMPA, NMDA, and kainate receptors; GABAA receptors; muscarinic M1, M2 and nicotinic (nACh) acetylcholine receptors; noradrenergic α1 and α2 receptors; serotonergic 5‐HT1A receptors; dopaminergic D1/5 receptors by using quantitative in vitro receptor autoradiography. Additionally, we performed a modified Timm staining procedure to label zinc. The regionally different receptor densities mapped well onto seven HF subdivisions previously described. Several differences in receptor expression highlighted distinct HF subdivisions. Notable examples include 1) high GABAA and α1 receptor expression, which rendered distinctive ventral subdivisions; 2) high α2 receptor expression, which rendered distinctive a dorsomedial subdivision; 3) distinct kainate, α2, and muscarinic receptor densities that rendered distinctive the two dorsolateral subdivisions; and 4) a dorsomedial region characterized by high kainate receptor density. We further observed similarities in receptor binding densities between subdivisions of the avian and mammalian HF. Despite the similarities, we propose that 300 hundred million years of independent evolution has led to a mosaic of similarities and differences in the organization of the avian HF and mammalian hippocampus and that thinking about the avian HF in terms of the strict organization of the mammalian hippocampus is likely insufficient to understand the HF of birds. J. Comp. Neurol. 522:2553–2575, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Global spatiotemporal distribution of soil respiration modeled using a global database

Abstract. The flux of carbon dioxide from the soil to the atmosphere (soil respiration) is one of the major fluxes in the global carbon cycle. At present, the accumulated field observation data cover a wide range of geographical locations and climate conditions. However, there are still large uncertainties in the magnitude and spatiotemporal variation of global soil respiration. Using a global soil respiration data set, we developed a climate-driven model of soil respiration by modifying and updating Raich's model, and the global spatiotemporal distribution of soil respiration was examined using this model. The model was applied at a spatial resolution of 0.5°and a monthly time step. Soil respiration was divided into the heterotrophic and autotrophic components of respiration using an empirical model. The estimated mean annual global soil respiration was 91 Pg C yr−1 (between 1965 and 2012; Monte Carlo 95 % confidence interval: 87–95 Pg C yr−1) and increased at the rate of 0.09 Pg C yr−2. The contribution of soil respiration from boreal regions to the total increase in global soil respiration was on the same order of magnitude as that of tropical and temperate regions, despite a lower absolute magnitude of soil respiration in boreal regions. The estimated annual global heterotrophic respiration and global autotrophic respiration were 51 and 40 Pg C yr−1, respectively. The global soil respiration responded to the increase in air temperature at the rate of 3.3 Pg C yr−1 °C−1, and Q10 = 1.4. Our study scaled up observed soil respiration values from field measurements to estimate global soil respiration and provide a data-oriented estimate of global soil respiration. The estimates are based on a semi-empirical model parameterized with over one thousand data points. Our analysis indicates that the climate controls on soil respiration may translate into an increasing trend in global soil respiration and our analysis emphasizes the relevance of the soil carbon flux from soil to the atmosphere in response to climate change. Further approaches should additionally focus on climate controls in soil respiration in combination with changes in vegetation dynamics and soil carbon stocks, along with their effects on the long temporal dynamics of soil respiration. We expect that these spatiotemporal estimates will provide a benchmark for future studies and also help to constrain process-oriented models.
Aura Microwave Limb Sounder observations of the Northern Annular Mode: From the mesosphere to the upper troposphere

Vertical structure and evolution of the wintertime Northern Hemisphere Annular Mode (NAM), the first Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) of geopotential height anomalies, are constructed from the 2005–2009 Aura Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) measurements in the entire middle atmosphere between 316 hPa (∼9 km) and 0.001 hPa (∼90 km). This is the first report of NAM structure extending into the mesosphere. The mode appears to be robust and it accounts for up to 70% of middle‐atmospheric variance before decreasing in the upper mesosphere. The vertical connection of the NAM modes suggests strong dynamic coupling between the mesosphere and stratosphere. Time evolution of the NAM suggests that the significant NAM anomalies typically appear first in the mesosphere and progress downward. NAM patterns derived from MLS observations are consistent with those derived from long‐term reanalysis below the middle stratosphere. The NAM indexes show the mesospheric cooling signals during the major stratospheric sudden warmings (SSWs) in 2006 and 2009.