Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Planum temporale asymmetry reversal in schizophrenia: replication and relationship to gray matter abnormalities.

OBJECTIVE The planum temporale, the posterior superior surface of the superior temporal gyrus, is a highly lateralized brain structure involved with language. In schizophrenic patients the authors previously found consistent reversal of the normal left-larger-than-right asymmetry of planum temporale surface area. The original subjects plus new patients and comparison subjects participated in this effort to replicate and extend the prior study. METHOD High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging of 28 schizophrenic patients and 32 group-matched normal subjects was performed. The authors measured planum temporale surface area, gray matter volume underlying the planum temporale, and gray matter thickness. Asymmetry indices for areas and volumes were calculated. RESULTS Overall gray matter and total brain volume were not significantly smaller in the patients than in the comparison subjects. As previously reported, there was striking reversal of the normal asymmetry for planum temporale surface area in the male and female schizophrenic subjects. Bilaterally, gray matter volume beneath the planum temporale was smaller in the schizophrenic patients, and the gray matter thickness of the right planum temporale was only 50% of the comparison value. Volume of planum temporale gray matter did not show significant asymmetry in either group. CONCLUSIONS This study extends the finding of reversed planum temporale surface area asymmetry in schizophrenic patients and clarifies its relationship to underlying gray matter volume. Although right planum temporale surface area is larger than normal in schizophrenia, gray matter volume is less than the comparison value; thus, gray matter thickness is substantially less than normal.
The influence of speed on omissions in simultaneous interpretation: An experimental study

Simultaneous interpreting (SI) is a highly complex cognitive process which aims to deliver a complete and accurate rendition of the original message in real time. However, there is a myriad of factors that can influence the process, speed being one of the factors most frequently put forward by practising interpreters as a major challenge. Against this background, we, who are professional interpreters at the United Nations and in the private market, and have observed that speed has become an increasingly present challenge in our work, have carried out an experimental study with the aim of elucidating one of the strategies that expert interpreters resort to when confronted with different speed rates, namely the omission of redundant information. Ten professional interpreters from the United Nations were asked to simultaneously interpret three speeches, which were written to be read and were of similar lexical density, at different speeds. The findings indicate that at higher speeds interpreters omit more redundant information, and it would appear that omission is a strategy the interpreter resorts to for coping with speed.
Challenges of Multiracial Antiracist Activism: Racial Consciousness and Chief Wahoo

We explore how white activists’ racial identity struggles might disrupt effective antiracist action in multiracial organizations. Drawing on data collected through participant observation and interviews, we examine the struggles of a small, multiracial antiracist organization that protests the Cleveland baseball franchise’s ‘Indians’ name and Chief Wahoo mascot. White activists’ racial consciousness, or awareness of white racism and white privilege, compels them to participate in the group; their ways of participating, however, ultimately may hamper the organizational effectiveness of the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance. Specifically, white activists’ racial consciousness makes them reluctant to adopt necessary leadership roles. Borrowing from literature on white racism, white racial consciousness, and multiracial organizing, we illustrate the complex nature and potential pitfalls of multiracial alliances formed to protest racism in the United States.
Full Field Measurements of the Dynamic Deformation Field Around a Growing Adiabatic Shear Band at the Tip of a Dynamically Loaded Crack or Notch

The method of Coherent Gradient Sensing (CGS) is used to record the deformation field around an adiabatic shear band emanating from a pre-crack tip in C-300 steel loaded dynamically in mode-il. At early times after impact, the resulting fringe pattern surrounding the shear band seems to exhibit the deformation characteristics of a mode-fl Dugdale plastic zone evolving under small scale yielding conditions, and, as a result, the experimental fringe patterns are fitted to the theoretical Dugdale crack deformation field by using a least squares fitting scheme. This results in values for the shear band length and the average shear stress acting on the shear band as functions of time. The shear band is observed to initiate when Kid (t)= 140 MPa-V,/"i and subsequently propagate with an average speed of 320 m/s. The average shear stress on the shear band decreases from 1.6 GPA at initiation to 1.3 GPa during the later stages of propagation. 1 Currently with the Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556
Validation of spontaneous abortion diagnoses in the Danish National Registry of Patients

Purpose The purpose of this study is to validate the diagnosis of spontaneous abortion (SA) recorded in the Danish National Registry of Patients (DNRP). Methods We randomly selected patients registered in the DNRP with a diagnosis of SA between 1980 and 2008 from hospitals in the county of North Jutland and searched for their discharge records in hospital files. We estimated positive predictive value (PPV) of the DNRP diagnosis and stratified the analysis by period (1980–1994 versus 1995–2008), hospital type (regional versus local), and International Classification of Diseases revisions (ICD-8 versus ICD-10). Results We could identify hospital files of 117/174 (67%) sampled registration records. Of those, the diagnosis was confirmed in 114 patients, yielding a PPV of 97.4% (95% confidence interval = 92.7%–99.5%). The PPV did not markedly vary by period, hospital type, or ICD revision. Among the three patients with available data who did not fulfill the criteria for SA, one had an induced abortion and two had threatened abortion but did not miscarry. Conclusion Registration of SA in the DNRP accurately reflects the diagnoses recorded in medical charts. The DNRP is a suitable source of data on SAs for epidemiologic research.
A New Test of Linear Hypotheses in OLS Regression Under Heteroscedasticity of Unknown Form

When the errors in an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model are heteroscedastic, hypothesis tests involving the regression coefficients can have Type I error rates that are far from the nominal significance level. Asymptotically, this problem can be rectified with the use of a heteroscedasticity-consistent covariance matrix (HCCM) estimator. However, many HCCM estimators do not perform well when the sample size is small or when there exist points of high leverage in the design matrix. Prompted by a connection between MacKinnon and White’s HC2 HCCM estimator and the heterogeneous-variance two-sample t statistic, the authors provide a new statistic for testing linear hypotheses in an OLS regression model that does not assume homoscedasticity. The authors report simulation results showing that their new test maintains better Type I error rate control than existing methods in both the presence and absence of heteroscedasticity.
Answering top-k representative queries on graph databases

Given a function that classifies a data object as relevant or irrelevant, we consider the task of selecting k objects that best represent all relevant objects in the underlying database. This problem occurs naturally when analysts want to familiarize themselves with the relevant objects in a database using a small set of k exemplars. In this paper, we solve the problem of top-k representative queries on graph databases. While graph databases model a wide range of scientific data, solving the problem in the context of graphs presents us with unique challenges due to the inherent complexity of matching structures. Furthermore, top-k representative queries map to the classic Set Cover problem, making it NP-hard. To overcome these challenges, we develop a greedy approximation with theoretical guarantees on the quality of the answer set, noting that a better approximation is not feasible in polynomial time. To further optimize the quadratic computational cost of the greedy algorithm, we propose an index structure called NB-Index to index the \theta-neighborhoods of the database graphs by employing a novel combination of Lipschitz embedding and agglomerative clustering. Extensive experiments on real graph datasets validate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed techniques that achieve up to two orders of magnitude speed-up over state-of-the-art algorithms.
Microbial keratitis in Gujarat, Western India: findings from 200 cases

Introduction The objective of this study was to study the epidemiological characteristics and the microbiological profile of patients suspected with microbial keratitis in Gujarat. Methods Corneal scraping was collected from 200 consecutive cases of suspected microbial keratitis and was subjected to direct examination and culture. Results Of the 200 ulcers 55% were culture positive, 26.5% were bacterial ulcers of which 47% were due to Staphylococcus spp. Pure fungal growth was seen in 22% while 6% were mixed ulcers. Fusarium spp. (30%) was the most common fungus followed by Aspergillus spp. (21%). Only one case of Acanthamoeba keratitis was encountered. Patients were mainly from rural areas (61.5%) with male preponderance (61.5%). Corneal injury was seen in 78.5% cases of which 53% had injury with vegetative matter. Prior treatment was seen in 58% of which 5% had been treated by village healers. Nineteen patients (9.5%) also used some kind of traditional topical treatment. Increased incidence was seen from August to December. Five case of fugal ulcers lead to perforation of which three were due to Fusarium spp. whereas perforation was seen in only two cases of bacterial ulcers due to Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Conclusion Staphylococcus and Fusarium spp. were the most common etiological agents in our region. Predominant outdoor agricultural activity is the principal causative factor for corneal injury. Corneal ulcers complicated due to treatment by village healers are another important concern. The information regarding regional etiology will help empirical management as many eye clinics do not have microbiological facilities.
Different Effects of BMP-2 on Marrow Stromal Cells from Human and Rat Bone

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) promote the differentiation of osteoprogenitor cells, and also induce osteogenesis in bone marrow stromal cells (MSC) from rats and mice. However, compared to results with animal models, BMPs are relatively inefficient in inducing human MSC to undergo osteogenesis, and are much less effective in promoting bone formation in human clinical trials. Previous studies indicated that, while human MSC respond to dexamethasone with elevated levels of the osteoblast marker alkaline phosphatase, most isolates of human MSC fail to show alkaline phosphatase induction in response to BMP-2, BMP-4, or BMP-7. Several other genes known to be induced by BMPs are appropriately regulated; thus, human MSC are capable of some BMP-activated signaling. Analysis of the BMP receptors ALK-3 and ALK-6 indicated that, although ALK-6 mRNA was not expressed in human MSC, overexpressing a constitutively active ALK-6 receptor did not induce elevated alkaline phosphatase. Real-time RT-PCR was used to investigate expression of several osteoblast-related transcription factors in MSC after 6 days’ exposure to BMP2 or dexamethasone. Msx-2, a transcription factor that has been reported to inhibit differentiation of osteoprogenitor cells, showed 10-fold elevation in BMP-2-treated human MSC, but not in BMP-2-treated rat MSC. Overexpression of Msx-2 in human and rat MSC, however, did not alter alkaline phosphatase levels, which suggests that absence of BMP-stimulated alkaline phosphatase was not caused by the BMP-2-induced increase in Msx-2. Although Runx2 isoforms have been implicated in control of osteoblast differentiation, levels of this transcription factor were unaffected by BMP treatment. Expression of the FKHR transcription factor, which has been reported to regulate alkaline phosphatase transcription in mouse cells, showed a modest increase in response to BMP-2, but a much greater increase in dexamethasone-treated cells. We propose that BMP regulation of the bone/liver/kidney alkaline phosphatase gene is indirect, requiring expression of new transcription factor(s) that behave differently in rodent and human MSC.
Nuclear Lamins and Neurobiology

ABSTRACT Much of the work on nuclear lamins during the past 15 years has focused on mutations in LMNA (the gene for prelamin A and lamin C) that cause particular muscular dystrophy, cardiomyopathy, partial lipodystrophy, and progeroid syndromes. These disorders, often called “laminopathies,” mainly affect mesenchymal tissues (e.g., striated muscle, bone, and fibrous tissue). Recently, however, a series of papers have identified important roles for nuclear lamins in the central nervous system. Studies of knockout mice uncovered a key role for B-type lamins (lamins B1 and B2) in neuronal migration in the developing brain. Also, duplications of LMNB1 (the gene for lamin B1) have been shown to cause autosome-dominant leukodystrophy. Finally, recent studies have uncovered a peculiar pattern of nuclear lamin expression in the brain. Lamin C transcripts are present at high levels in the brain, but prelamin A expression levels are very low—due to regulation of prelamin A transcripts by microRNA 9. This form of prelamin A regulation likely explains why “prelamin A diseases” such as Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome spare the central nervous system. In this review, we summarize recent progress in elucidating links between nuclear lamins and neurobiology.
Adolescent Major Depressive Disorder: Neuroimaging Evidence of Sex Difference during an Affective Go/No-Go Task

Compared to female major depressive disorder (MDD), male MDD often receives less attention. However, research is warranted since there are significant sex differences in the clinical presentation of MDD and a higher rate of suicide in depressed men. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study with a large sample addressing putative sex differences in MDD during adolescence, a period when one of the most robust findings in psychiatric epidemiology emerges; that females are twice as likely to suffer from MDD than males. Twenty-four depressed and 10 healthy male adolescents, together with 82 depressed and 24 healthy female adolescents, aged 11–18 years, undertook an affective go/no-go task during fMRI acquisition. In response to sad relative to neutral distractors, significant sex differences (in the supramarginal gyrus) and group-by-sex interactions (in the supramarginal gyrus and the posterior cingulate cortex) were found. Furthermore, in contrast to the healthy male adolescents, depressed male adolescents showed decreased activation in the cerebellum with a significant group-by-age interaction in connectivity. Future research may consider altered developmental trajectories and the possible implications of sex-specific treatment and prevention strategies for MDD.
Face Adaptation : Behavioural and electrophysiological studies on the perception of eye gaze and gender

Whereas the investigation of perceptual aftereffects has a very long tradition in studies on low-level vision, the report and analysis of face-related high-level aftereffects is a very recent line of research. Webster et al. (2004, Nature) first showed a visual aftereffect on the perception of face gender by demonstrating that adaptation to male faces biased the subsequent classification of androgynous faces towards female gender. Similar adaptation effects have also been observed for one of the most important social signals: human eye gaze. Jenkins et al. (2006, Psychological Science) found that adaptation to gaze in one direction virtually eliminated participants’ ability to perceive smaller gaze deviations in the same direction. The present thesis further examined these high-level face aftereffects by determining the temporal characteristics of gaze adaptation and by analysing the neural correlates of eye gaze and gender adaptation. A behavioural study on the temporal decay of gaze adaptation effects shed further light on their basic characteristics: not only was the aftereffect surprisingly long-lasting, but its exponential decay revealed remarkable similarity with the time course of low-level adaptation effects. Further, in a series of event-related potential (ERP) studies it was found that the N170 was only marginally affected by both eye gaze and gender adaptation, whereas pronounced effects of both kinds of adaptation emerged in the P3 component with smaller amplitudes in response to test stimuli similar to the adaptation condition. Finally, gaze adaptation was found to affect ERPs in an earlier time interval ~250-350 ms which appeared to be sensitive to the discrimination between direct vs. averted gaze even when this was only an illusionary percept induced by adaptation. Together, these studies extend previous knowledge of the temporal parameters and the neural correlates of high-level face adaptation.
Temperature dependent larval resource allocation shaping adult body size in Drosophila melanogaster

Geographical variation in Drosophila melanogaster body size is a long‐standing problem of life‐history evolution. Adaptation to a cold climate invariably produces large individuals, whereas evolution in tropical regions result in small individuals. The proximate mechanism was suggested to involve thermal evolution of resource processing by the developing larvae. In this study an attempt is made to merge proximate explanations, featuring temperature sensitivity of larval resource processing, and ultimate approaches focusing on adult and pre‐adult life‐history traits. To address the issue of temperature dependent resource allocation to adult size vs. larval survival, feeding was stopped at several stages during the larval development. Under these conditions of food deprivation, two temperate and two tropical populations reared at high and low temperatures produced different adult body sizes coinciding with different probabilities to reach the adult stage. In all cases a phenotypic trade‐off between larval survival and adult size was observed. However, the underlying pattern of larval resource allocation differed between the geographical populations. In the temperate populations larval age but not weight predicted survival. Temperate larvae did not invest accumulated resources in survival, instead they preserved larval biomass to benefit adult weight. In other words, larvae from temperate populations failed to re‐allocate accumulated resources to facilitate their survival. A low percentage of the larvae survived to adulthood but produced relatively large flies. Conversely, in tropical populations larval weight but not age determined the probability to reach adulthood. Tropical larvae did not invest in adult size, but facilitated their own survival. Most larvae succeeded in pupating but then produced small adults. The underlying physiological mechanism seemed to be an evolved difference in the accessibility of glycogen reserves as a result of thermal adaptation. At low rearing temperatures and in the temperate populations, glycogen levels tended to correlate positively with adult size but negatively with pupation probability. The data presented here offer an explanation of geographical variation in body size by showing that thermal evolution of resource allocation, specifically the ability to access glycogen storage, is the proximate mechanism responsible for the life‐history trade‐off between larval survival and adult size.
Monaural Congenital Deafness Affects Aural Dominance and Degrades Binaural Processing

Cortical development extensively depends on sensory experience. Effects of congenital monaural and binaural deafness on cortical aural dominance and representation of binaural cues were investigated in the present study. We used an animal model that precisely mimics the clinical scenario of unilateral cochlear implantation in an individual with single-sided congenital deafness. Multiunit responses in cortical field A1 to cochlear implant stimulation were studied in normal-hearing cats, bilaterally congenitally deaf cats (CDCs), and unilaterally deaf cats (uCDCs). Binaural deafness reduced cortical responsiveness and decreased response thresholds and dynamic range. In contrast to CDCs, in uCDCs, cortical responsiveness was not reduced, but hemispheric-specific reorganization of aural dominance and binaural interactions were observed. Deafness led to a substantial drop in binaural facilitation in CDCs and uCDCs, demonstrating the inevitable role of experience for a binaural benefit. Sensitivity to interaural time differences was more reduced in uCDCs than in CDCs, particularly at the hemisphere ipsilateral to the hearing ear. Compared with binaural deafness, unilateral hearing prevented nonspecific reduction in cortical responsiveness, but extensively reorganized aural dominance and binaural responses. The deaf ear remained coupled with the cortex in uCDCs, demonstrating a significant difference to deprivation amblyopia in the visual system.
THE EFFECT OF EXPERIMENTALLY MANIPULATED IMPLICIT NEGATIVE GENDER SELF-STEREOTYPING ON WOMEN'S IMPLICIT SELF-ESTEEM AND IMPLICIT CAREER IDENTIFICATION AND ATTITUDES

Institutional sexism still exists today and has implications for women’s gender selfconcept. One example of how sexism influences women’s self-concept is through the process of implicit gender self-stereotyping— defined as when individuals automatically associate themselves with society’s widely known gender stereotypes. The present dissertation research examines three primary goals. The first goal is to establish a method that experimentally manipulates women’s implicit negative gender self-stereotyping (Studies 1-5). The second goal is to test if an experimental manipulation of implicit negative gender self-stereotyping decreases women’s implicit (but not explicit) selfesteem (Studies 3 & 5). Finally, the third goal is to experimentally demonstrate that implicit negative gender self-stereotyping increases women’s implicit (but not explicit) career identification with and implicit positive career attitudes toward feminine relative to masculine occupations (Studies 4 & 5). Overall, the results suggest that implicit negative gender self-stereotyping enhances women’s implicit self-esteem (Studies 3 & 5) but also increases their implicit (traditional) career aspirations (Study 5).
Consumption and Portfolio Choice with Option-Implied State Prices

We propose an empirical implementation of the consumption-investment problem using the martingale representation alternative to dynamic programming. Our method is based on the direct observation of state prices from options data. This greatly simplifies the investor's task of specifying the investment opportunity set and inherits the computational convenience of the martingale representation. Our method also makes explicit the economic trade-off between exploiting differences in state prices and probabilities, which generate variation in consumption, and the consumption smoothing induced by risk aversion. Using options-implied information, we find quantitatively different optimal consumption and portfolio policies than those implied by standard return dynamics.