Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ambiguity Aversion in Rhesus Macaques

People generally prefer risky options, which have fully specified outcome probabilities, to ambiguous options, which have unspecified probabilities. This preference, formalized in economics, is strong enough that people will reliably prefer a risky option to an ambiguous option with a greater expected value. Explanations for ambiguity aversion often invoke uniquely human faculties like language, self-justification, or a desire to avoid public embarrassment. Challenging these ideas, here we demonstrate that a preference for unambiguous options is shared with rhesus macaques. We trained four monkeys to choose between pairs of options that both offered explicitly cued probabilities of large and small juice outcomes. We then introduced occasional trials where one of the options was obscured and examined their resulting preferences; we ran humans in a parallel experiment on a nearly identical task. We found that monkeys reliably preferred risky options to ambiguous ones, even when this bias was costly, closely matching the behavior of humans in the analogous task. Notably, ambiguity aversion varied parametrically with the extent of ambiguity. As expected, ambiguity aversion gradually declined as monkeys learned the underlying probability distribution of rewards. These data indicate that ambiguity aversion reflects fundamental cognitive biases shared with other animals rather than uniquely human factors guiding decisions.
The Finokalia Aerosol Measurement Experiment – 2008 (FAME-08): an overview

Abstract. A month (4 May to 8 June 2008) of ambient aerosol, air ion and gas phase sampling (Finokalia Aerosol Measurement Experiment 2008, FAME-08) was conducted at Finokalia, on the island of Crete, Greece. The purpose of the study was to characterize the physical and chemical properties of aged aerosol and to investigate new particle formation. Measurements included aerosol and air ion size distributions, size-resolved chemical composition, organic aerosol thermal volatility, water uptake and particle optical properties (light scattering and absorption). Statistical analysis of the aerosol mass concentration variations revealed the absence of diurnal patterns suggesting the lack of strong local sources. Sulfates accounted for approximately half of the particulate matter less than 1 micrometer in diameter (PM1) and organics for 28%. The PM1 organic aerosol fraction was highly oxidized with 80% water soluble. The supermicrometer particles were dominated by crustal components (50%), sea salt (24%) and nitrates (16%). The organic carbon to elemental carbon (OC/EC) ratio correlated with ozone measurements but with a one-day lag. The average OC/EC ratio for the study period was equal to 5.4. For three days air masses from North Africa resulted in a 6-fold increase of particulate matter less than 10 micrometers in diameter (PM10) and a decrease of the OC/EC ratio by a factor of 2. Back trajectory analysis, based on FLEXPART footprint plots, identified five source regions (Athens, Greece, Africa, other continental and marine), each of which influenced the PM1 aerosol composition and properties. Marine air masses had the lowest PM1 concentrations and air masses from the Balkans, Turkey and Eastern Europe the highest.
NOX, a novel nitric oxide scavenger, reduces bacterial translocation in rats after endotoxin challenge.

Endotoxemia promotes gut barrier failure and bacterial translocation (BT) by upregulating inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) in the gut. We hypothesized that administration of a dithiocarbamate derivative, NOX, which scavenges nitric oxide (NO), may reduce intestinal injury and BT after lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge. Sprague-Dawley rats were randomized to receive NOX or normal saline via subcutaneously placed osmotic pumps before or after LPS challenge. Mesenteric lymph nodes, liver, spleen, and blood were cultured 24 h later. Transmucosal passage of Escherichia coli C-25or fluorescent beads were measured in an Ussing chamber. Intestinal membranes were examined morphologically for apoptosis, iNOS expression, and nitrotyrosine immunoreactivity. NOX significantly reduced the incidence of bacteremia, BT, and transmucosal passage of bacteria and beads when administered before or up to 12 h after LPS challenge. LPS induced enterocyte apoptosis at the villus tips where bacterial entry was demonstrated by confocal microscopy. NOX significantly decreased the number of apoptotic nuclei and nitrotyrosine residues. NOX prevents LPS-induced gut barrier failure by scavenging NO and its toxic derivative, peroxynitrite.
The impact of pain frequency, pain localization and perceived cause of pain on quality of life after cholecystectomy

Abstract Objective: Further research is needed to understand how pain frequency, localization of pain and the patient’s conviction of the cause of pain effects long-term outcome after gallstone surgery. Materials and methods: A cohort study was conducted based on patients evaluated with SF-36 along with three single-items focusing on gallstone specific symptoms. The physical component summary (PCS) and bodily pain (BP) of SF-36 were used as main outcome measures. To assess the improvement from the procedure, the differences between the preoperative and postoperative ratings were tested with univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis. The ratings on the single-items regarding pain frequency, pain localization and patient’s conviction of the cause of pain were used as predictors. In the multivariate analysis, adjustment was made for age, gender and approach. The study was approved by the Swedish Ethics Committee, Dnr 2015/115. Results: The study group was based on 4021 patients who responded to the questionnaire SF-36 and the three gallstone specific items preoperatively. A total of 2216 (55.1%) patients also responded postoperatively. In multivariate logistic regression analysis the frequency of the pain attacks and the patient’s conviction of the origin of pain significantly predicted postoperative pain as well as PCS of SF-36 (all p < .05). Conclusions: The preoperative frequency of pain attacks and the patient’s conviction of the cause of pain can predict the outcome regarding PCS and the subscale BP of SF-36 with significantly better ratings in patients with a pain frequency exceeding once per month and in patients convinced of having pain related to gallstones.
The relationship between morphology and disaccharidase activity in ischemia- reperfusion injured intestine.

BACKGROUND Questions regarding functional markers characterizing injured intestines remain unanswered. Brush border disaccharidases are crucial for the functioning of the intestines. AIMS The study was designed to assess changes in disaccharidase activity (DA) following intestinal injury and to compare them with morphological changes. METHODS Wistar rats, randomly divided into six experimental groups (each n = 6), were subjected to different ischemic/reperfusion injury. One-hour mesenteric ischemia followed by reperfusion for 0, 1, 2, 4, 12 or 24 hours was induced. As a control group sham-operated animals were used (n = 6). Intestine morphology was evaluated using histopathological injury index (HII) and goblet cell (GC) detection. DA (sucrase and maltase) was studied in mucosal scrape or in entire intestinal wall samples. RESULTS Moderate morphological damage (HII, GC) after mesenteric ischemia was detected. Deepening of the injury was found during reperfusion with a maximum after two hours. Improved morphology with longer reperfusion confirmed reversible damage with almost normal mucosal structure after 24 hours of reperfusion. Similar pattern was observed when DA was measured. The lowest activity was detected after 2 hours of reperfusion followed by increasing activity in the subsequent reperfusion periods. Physiological values after 24 hours of reperfusion were seen only in samples of entire intestinal wall. CONCLUSIONS Significant changes in intestinal DA were observed after intestinal ischemia/reperfusion injury. A similar pattern was seen for morphological characteristics. Although based on microscopic survey the intestine seems to be fairly regenerated, some functional limitation is expected to persist.
Barriers to cancer clinical trial participation among Native elders.

OBJECTIVES American Indians/Alaska Natives are underrepresented in clinical trials. Therefore, they must participate in large-scale cancer clinical trials to ensure the generalizability of trial results and improve their access to high-quality treatment. Our goal was to identify factors that influenced participation in cancer clinical trials among American Indians/Alaska Natives. METHODS An anonymous survey that assessed willingness to participate in a hypothetical cancer clinical trial and how 37 factors influenced their willingness to participate was administered to 112 older American Indian/Alaska Native adults at an annual social event honoring elders. Responses ranged from one (definitely would not participate) to five (definitely would participate). Data were analyzed with ordinal logistic regression. RESULTS Factors that most strongly increased willingness to participate were having a lead researcher of Native descent, having a study physician with experience treating American Indians/Alaska Natives, personal experience with the cancer being studied, family support for participation, and belief/hope that the study would result in new treatments. Factors that decreased willingness to participate most strongly were living far from the study site and a high risk that confidentiality could be breached. CONCLUSIONS Our results identify conventional and culturally unique barriers to research participation among older American Indians/Alaska Natives. These data emphasize the need to establish partnerships with Native communities and include American Indian/Alaska Native and culturally competent professionals in research efforts. Of equal importance are disseminating information about clinical trials and recognizing the role of family in decisionmaking in this group.
Postponed or cancelled heart operations from the patient's perspective.

OBJECTIVES The aim was to describe postponements or complete cancellations of planned cardiac operations at a Swedish hospital during 1999 and the reception the patients received from the staff in connection with this, from the inpatient's perspective. DESIGN A qualitative descriptive design inspired by content analysis was used. Data were collected through questionnaires distributed to all 74 patients who had their heart operation cancelled. RESULTS During analysis of the questionnaires, five categories of answers emerged describing the patients' perception of: organization, medical aspects, information, waiting time and staff reception. Overall, the patients reacted negatively to the postponement/cancellation in the form of anxiety and disappointment and fear of being affected by cardiovascular problems, but were generally satisfied with reception received from hospital staff. A number of concerns were revealed, however, with possible practical implications for the health-care system. CONCLUSION An understanding of the disappointment and anxiety felt by patients because of the postponement/cancellation of heart surgery can help medical staff to improve the situation. An intervention program is suggested that includes a pre-admission clinic, a change in the planning and waiting list system and support via follow-up telephone calls or internet-based support system.
Brain Activity: Connectivity, Sparsity, and Mutual Information

We develop a new approach to functional brain connectivity analysis, which deals with four fundamental aspects of connectivity not previously jointly treated. These are: temporal correlation, spurious spatial correlation, sparsity, and network construction using trajectory (as opposed to marginal) Mutual Information. We call the new method Sparse Conditional Trajectory Mutual Information (SCoTMI). We demonstrate SCoTMI on simulated and real fMRI data, showing that SCoTMI gives more accurate and more repeatable detection of network links than competing network estimation methods.
Pharmacological review of Tridax procumbens L.

Herbs are natural remedies for the disease with higher safety profile and efficacy. India is gifted with varieties of large number of medicinal herbs because of variety of climatic conditions and seasons favorable for growth of many species of plants. Amongst the large number of herbal drugs existing in India, very few have been studied systematically so far. Tridax procumbens L is a highly valuable drug and is one of the essential ingredients in the most of the compound preparations included in Ayurvedic literature. It is well known for number of pharmacological activities like hepatoprotective activity, antiinflammatory, wound healing, antidiabetic activity, hypotensive effect, immunomodulating property, bronchial catarrh, dysentery, diarrhea and to prevent falling of hair, promotes the growth of hair, and antimicrobial activity against both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The leaf juice shows antiseptic, insecticidal and parasiticidal properties, against conjunctivitis and is used also to check haemorrhage from cuts, bruises and wounds insect repellent. It is also used as bioadsorbent for chromium. Here we try to make attempt for focusing on the wide pharmacological activities of Tridax procumbens
Relationships between Coping Strategies and Defense Mechanisms in Sport Performance

In an exploratory study, the relationships between two major concepts in psychological adjustment, coping strategies, and defense mechanisms were investigated. Sport competition is an example of a real-world context in which people's responses to stressful situations can be investigated. The extent to which participants reported different uses of coping strategies and defense mechanisms was assessed in terms of performance. 26 elite kayakers were classified into one of two groups, depending on the discrepancy between their standard performance and their performance in competition. Correlations were found among the coping strategies of seeking social support, positive reappraisal/planful problem solving, and mature defenses and between the coping strategy of distancing/avoidance and immature defenses. The results of multivariate and univariate analyses confirmed a significantly different use of coping strategies and defense mechanisms between the two performance groups. In light of these findings, certain recommendations in terms of methodology and application are warranted. Coping strategies and defense mechanisms should be studied to improve adjustment to sport performance.
Ubiquitous and Temperature-Dependent Neural Plasticity in Hibernators

Hibernating mammals are remarkable for surviving near-freezing brain temperatures and near cessation of neural activity for a week or more at a time. This extreme physiological state is associated with dendritic and synaptic changes in hippocampal neurons. Here, we investigate whether these changes are a ubiquitous phenomenon throughout the brain that is driven by temperature. We iontophoretically injected Lucifer yellow into several types of neurons in fixed slices from hibernating ground squirrels. We analyzed neuronal microstructure from animals at several stages of torpor at two different ambient temperatures, and during the summer. We show that neuronal cell bodies, dendrites, and spines from several cell types in hibernating ground squirrels retract on entry into torpor, change little over the course of several days, and then regrow during the 2 h return to euthermia. Similar structural changes take place in neurons from the hippocampus, cortex, and thalamus, suggesting a global phenomenon. Investigation of neural microstructure from groups of animals hibernating at different ambient temperatures revealed that there is a linear relationship between neural retraction and minimum body temperature. Despite significant temperature-dependent differences in extent of retraction during torpor, recovery reaches the same final values of cell body area, dendritic arbor complexity, and spine density. This study demonstrates large-scale and seemingly ubiquitous neural plasticity in the ground squirrel brain during torpor. It also defines a temperature-driven model of dramatic neural plasticity, which provides a unique opportunity to explore mechanisms of large-scale regrowth in adult mammals, and the effects of remodeling on learning and memory.
Vascular Tissue Engineering

Reconstructive surgery using autologous vessels is the conventional approach for substitution of diseased vessels or for generation of bypass to improve blood supply downstream of stenosed vessels. In some circumstances the use of autologous material is not possible due to concomitant diseases or previous use, and artificial grafts must be used. Unfortunately, these grafts cannot substitute small-caliber arterial vessels because of thrombotic complications. The objective of tissue engineering at the vascular level is then to generate biological substitutes of arterial conduits with functional characteristics of native vessels, combining cellular components with biodegradable scaffolds. These research projects started in several laboratories, in the late 1990s, and have expanded in different directions using a number of experimental approaches. The objective of this review is to give an overview of the results so far obtained in this area of research, and to discuss the problems related to these investigations, at the experimental and clinical level. The article provides an overview of different biodegradable scaffolds used, experimental techniques for vessels maturation in vitro under mechanical stimulation, and of differentiated as well as precursors of vascular cells, which opens new opportunities for further development of this form of cell transplantation. Finally, the current available results in clinical research will be discussed.
Patterns of Metropolitan Development: What Have We Learned?

Urban development patterns in both industrial and developing countries with market-oriented economies show strong regularities consistent with basic urban location theory. Large metropolitan areas are converging to similarly decentralised structures with multiple sub-centres, decentralised manufacturing and more centralised service employment. Decentralisation is increasing the reliance on road-based urban transport for both passengers and freight. Land markets are strong determinants of decentralisation, and the development patterns of cities without land markets differ greatly from cities with even poorly functioning land markets. Demand patterns in urban housing are similar across cities, but supply-side impediments vary widely, resulting in a wide range of the ratio of housing prices to income. The efficiency of public infrastructure provision also varies widely across cities and across sectors within cities. Large metropolitan areas in low-income countries will continue to grow as these countries urbanise.
Fast cycle-accurate simulation and instruction set generation for constraint-based descriptions of programmable architectures

State-of-the-art architecture description languages have been successfully used to model application-specific programmable architectures limited to particular control schemes. We introduce a language and methodology that provide a framework for constructing and simulating a wider range of architectures. The framework exploits the fact that designers are often only concerned with data paths, not the instruction set and control. In the framework, each processing element is described in a structural language that only requires the specification of the data path and constraints on how it can be used. From such a description, the supported operations of the processing clement are automatically extracted and a controller is generated. Various architectures are then realized by composing the processing elements. Furthermore, hardware descriptions and bit-true cycle-accurate simulators are automatically generated. Results show that our simulators are up to an order of magnitude faster than other reported simulators of this type and two orders of magnitude faster than equivalent Verilog simulations.
Mitochondrial Complex I Inhibitor Rotenone Inhibits and Redistributes Vesicular Monoamine Transporter 2 via Nitration in Human Dopaminergic SH-SY5Y Cells

Parkinson's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by selective degeneration of nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons. Long-term systemic mitochondrial complex I inhibition by rotenone induces selective degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in rats. We have reported dopamine redistribution from vesicles to the cytosol to play a crucial role in selective dopaminergic cell apoptosis. In the present study, we investigated how rotenone causes dopamine redistribution to the cytosol using an in vitro model of human dopaminergic SH-SY5Y cells. Rotenone stimulated nitration of the tyrosine residues of intracellular proteins. The inhibition of nitric-oxide synthase or reactive oxygen species decreased the amount of nitrotyrosine and attenuated rotenone-induced apoptosis. When we examined the intracellular localization of dopamine immunocytochemically using anti-dopamine/vesicular monoamine transporter 2 (VMAT2) antibodies and quantitatively using high-performance liquid chromatography, inhibiting nitration was found to suppress rotenone-induced dopamine redistribution from vesicles to the cytosol. We demonstrated rotenone to nitrate tyrosine residues of VMAT2 using an immunocytochemical method with anti-nitrotyrosine antibodies and biochemically with immunoprecipitation experiments. Rotenone inhibited the VMAT2 activity responsible for the uptake of dopamine into vesicles, and this inhibition was reversed by inhibiting nitration. Moreover, rotenone induced the accumulation of aggregate-like formations in the stained image of VMAT2, which was reversed by inhibiting nitration. Our findings demonstrate that nitration of the tyrosine residues of VMAT2 by rotenone leads to both functional inhibition and accumulation of aggregate-like formations of VMAT2 and consequently to the redistribution of dopamine to the cytosol and apoptosis of dopaminergic SH-SY5Y cells.
A System Decomposition Model for Phase Noise in Silicon Oscillating Accelerometers

A phase noise model is proposed for silicon oscillating accelerometers (SOAs), which can be used to estimate the frequency noise from the accelerometer. This model treats the SOA as a time-varying system and employs a unified approach to decompose the physical system into phase and amplitude modulation paths to predict the phase noise in SOA. Furthermore, the model also reveals the relationship between mechanical displacement amplitude and design specifications, which can serve as a guideline for performance optimization. The soundness of this model has been validated against both time-domain numerical simulations and experimental results. This model is also applicative in microelectromechanical-system (MEMS) oscillators and MEMS oscillator-based sensors.