Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dephasing effects on coherent exciton-polaritons and the breakdown of the strong coupling regime

Using femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy, we identify excitation-induced dephasing as a major mechanism responsible for the breakdown of the strong coupling between excitons and photons in a semiconductor microcavity. The effects of dephasing are observed on the transmitted probe-pulse spectrum as a density-dependent broadening of the exciton-polariton resonances and the emergence of a third resonance at high excitation density. A striking asymmetry in the energy shift between the upper and the lower polaritons is also evidenced. Using the excitonic Bloch equations, we quantify the respective contributions to the energy shift of many-body effects associated with Coulomb fermion exchange and photon assisted exchange processes and the contribution to collisional broadening.
Movie with Scents Generated by Olfactory Display Using Solenoid Valves

We developed the olfactory display to blend 8 component odors at any composition. The solenoid valVes controled by the algorithm of of the delta sigma modulation showed the sufficient capability. Then,we developed the system for presenting a movie together with scents. We actually made the content of the movie with scents and evaluated it using questionnaire survey. It was found that the scene with smell attracted the people's attention and, moreover, the contrast of the pleasant smell with the offensive one emphasized their attention. Furthermore, we established several guidelines to make the contents of the movies with scents.
Secretagogues stimulate electrogenic HCO3– secretion in the ileum of the brushtail possum, Trichosurus vulpecula: evidence for the role of a Na+/HCO3– cotransporter

SUMMARY Fluid secretion is essential for intestinal function and, in eutherian mammals, is driven by electrogenic Cl– transport, which is dependent upon a bumetanide-sensitive, basolateral Na+/K+/2 Cl– cotransporter, NKCC1. However, ileal secretion in the brushtail possum, a marsupial, involves a fundamentally different process, since NKCC1 expression is low in this tissue and the secretagogue-induced short circuit current (Isc) is insensitive to bumetanide. In view of these differences we have investigated the basis of the secretory response of the possum ileum. In the Ussing chamber the secretory Isc is independent of Cl– but dependent upon Na+ and serosal HCO3–/CO2, suggesting that secretagogues stimulate electrogenic HCO3– secretion. In agreement with this, serosal DIDS (4,4′-diisothiocyano-stilbene-2,2′-disulfonate; 1 mmol l–1) inhibited the secretory response. However, acetazolamide (1 mmol l–1) and serosal amiloride (1 mmol l–1) had little effect, indicating that HCO3– secretion is driven by HCO3– transport from the serosal solution into the cell, rather than hydration of CO2 by carbonic anhydrase. Consistent with this the pancreatic variant of the electrogenic Na+/HCO3– cotransporter (pNBC) is highly expressed in the ileal epithelium and is located in the basolateral membrane of the epithelial cells, predominantly in the mid region of the villi, with lower levels of expression in the crypts and no expression in the villous tips. We conclude that the secretory response of the possum ileum involves electrogenic HCO3– secretion driven by a basolateral pNBC and that the ileal HCO3– secretion is associated with a specialised function of the possum ileum, most probably related to hindgut fermentation.
Cranial MR in Wilson disease: abnormal white matter in extrapyramidal and pyramidal tracts.

PURPOSE To describe abnormal white matter in the brain on MR in Wilson disease and to compare with anatomic location of white matter tracts. METHODS Forty-six patients with Wilson disease were examined. Axial T1-weighted inversion-recovery, axial T2-weighted spin-echo, and coronal T2*-weighted gradient-echo MR images were performed. Imaging studies were compared with clinical data. RESULTS Seventeen patients showed abnormalities in the region coinciding with the following white matter tracts: corticospinal tract (24%, n = 11), dentatorubrothalamic tract (24%, n = 11), and pontocerebellar tract (17%, n = 8). CONCLUSION Abnormal extrapyramidal and pyramidal white matter tracts are part of the neuroimaging spectrum of Wilson disease. No significant correlation was found with neurologic groups and individual white matter tracts affected.
The association of early IQ and education with mortality: 65 year longitudinal study in Malmö, Sweden

Objectives To establish whether differences in early IQ explain why people with longer education live longer, or whether differences in father’s or own educational attainment explain why people with higher early IQ live longer. Design Population based longitudinal study. Mortality risks were estimated with Cox proportional hazards regressions. Setting Malmö, Sweden. Participants 1530 children who took IQ tests at age 10 and were followed up until age 75. Results Own educational attainment was negatively associated with all cause mortality in both sexes, even when early IQ and father’s education were adjusted for (hazard ratio (HR) for each additional year in school 0.91 (95% CI 0.85 to 0.97) for men and HR 0.88 (95 % CI 0.78 to 0.98) for women). Higher early IQ was linked with a reduced mortality risk in men, even when own educational attainment and father’s education were adjusted for (HR for one standard deviation increase in IQ 0.85 (95 % CI 0.75 to 0.96)). In contrast, there was no crude effect of early IQ for women, and women with above average IQ had an increased mortality risk when own educational attainment was adjusted for, but only after the age of 60 (HR 1.60 (95 % CI 1.06 to 2.42)). Adding measures of social career over and above educational attainment to the model (for example, occupational status at age 36 and number of children) only marginally affected the hazard ratio for women with above average IQ (<5%). Conclusions Mortality differences by own educational attainment were not explained by early IQ. Childhood IQ was independently linked, albeit differently, to male adult mortality and to female adult mortality even when father’s education and own educational attainment was adjusted for, thus social background and own social career seem unlikely to be responsible for mortality differences by childhood IQ. The clear difference in the effect of IQ between men and women suggests that the link between IQ and mortality involves the social and physical environment rather than simply being a marker of a healthy body to begin with. Cognitive skills should, therefore, be addressed in our efforts to create childhood environments that promote health.
The role of surgical resection in patients with brain metastases

Brain metastasis is a devastating complication of systemic malignancy that affects a considerable number of cancer patients. The appearance of brain metastases is often considered to be a sign of poor prognosis; in patients with brain metastases poor survival time has been reported in the literature. Therefore, treatment of these brain lesions in cancer patients is important for quality of life, providing local tumour control, preventing death from neurological causes, and improving survival, although potentially only in a minority of patients. Surgical resection of brain metastases has been the cornerstone treatment in select patients. Careful patient selection, the use of appropriate surgical techniques, and surgical adjuncts are the major determinants of favourable outcome in patients undergoing resection of brain metastases. In this review, we explain the role of surgical resection in the treatment of patients with brain metastases with consideration of patient selection, surgical techniques and the use of intraoperative adjuncts.
Grain-Oriented Steel Rings for an Experimental Comparison of Relative Magnetostriction and Maxwell's Forces Effects

The magnetic material quality of transformer cores influences their emitted acoustic noise. The latter is generated by vibrations resulting from the effects of Maxwell's forces, located in the corners, and the magnetostriction inside the magnetic steel. In this paper, two annular structures allow differentiating these two phenomena and analyzing the vibration origins. Then, two different materials are compared, leading to conclusions about the influence of the material anisotropy on vibrations. At last, the measured vibration components are fully justified with the local saturation effects.
Structural domains in antiferromagnetic LaFeO3 thin films

Abstract We have grown epitaxial LaFeO3 thin films on different oxide substrates by molecular beam epitaxy and investigated them using transmission electron microscopy. The films reveal structural domains that strongly depend on the substrate material, substrate orientation, and the film thickness. On (001) perovskite substrates of SrTiO3 and LaAlO3, the long c-axis of the orthorhombic unit cell was found always to lie in-plane parallel to one of the <100> axes of the perovskite forming 90° rotational twins with the rotation axis parallel to the [110] axis of LaFeO3 and to the substrate normal. In contrast, MgO and MgAl2 O4 substrates lead to the in-plane and the out-of-plane orientation of the c-axis and give rise to smaller domains. The results are discussed with respect to the correlation between the crystallographic and the antiferromagnetic structure of LaFeO3.
Accountability of AI Under the Law: The Role of Explanation

The ubiquity of systems using artificial intelligence or "AI" has brought increasing attention to how those systems should be regulated. The choice of how to regulate AI systems will require care. AI systems have the potential to synthesize large amounts of data, allowing for greater levels of personalization and precision than ever before|applications range from clinical decision support to autonomous driving and predictive policing. That said, common sense reasoning [McCarthy, 1960] remains one of the holy grails of AI, and there exist legitimate concerns about the intentional and unintentional negative consequences of AI systems [Bostrom, 2003, Amodei et al., 2016, Sculley et al., 2014]. There are many ways to hold AI systems accountable. In this work, we focus on one: explanation. Questions about a legal right to explanation from AI systems was recently debated in the EU General Data Protection Regulation [Goodman and Flaxman, 2016, Wachter et al., 2017], and thus thinking carefully about when and how explanation from AI systems might improve accountability is timely. Good choices about when to demand explanation can help prevent negative consequences from AI systems, while poor choices may not only fail to hold AI systems accountable but also hamper the development of much-needed beneficial AI systems. Below, we briefly review current societal, moral, and legal norms around explanation, and then focus on the different contexts under which explanation is currently required under the law. We find that there exists great variation around when explanation is demanded, but there also exists important consistencies: when demanding explanation from humans, what we typically want to know is how and whether certain input factors affected the final decision or outcome. These consistencies allow us to list the technical considerations that must be considered if we desired AI systems that could provide kinds of explanations that are currently required of humans under the law. Contrary to popular wisdom of AI systems as indecipherable black boxes, we find that this level of explanation should often be technically feasible but may sometimes be practically onerous|there are certain aspects of explanation that may be simple for humans to provide but challenging for AI systems, and vice versa. As an interdisciplinary team of legal scholars, computer scientists, and cognitive scientists, we recommend that for the present, AI systems can and should be held to a similar standard of explanation as humans currently are; in the future we may wish to hold an AI to a different standard.
Avaliação da fluorescência das resinas compostas para esmalte e dentina de diferentes marcas comerciais

This study analyzes and comparatively evaluate, by a visual method, the fluorescence of the color A2 composite resins for both enamel and dentin from seven different commercial sources. We made fifty-two specimens of anterior/posterior composite resins. The specimens were obtained with a rigid and transparent acrylic matrix. The polymerization was done irradiating with the 3M Curing Light 2500, intensity of 600 mW cm–² for 40 s. The specimens were polished with Sof-Lex discs. A wooden box painted with flat black paint was used to avoid light reflection and other light sources and the experiment was conducted in a darkroom. Three calibrated and trained evaluators rated the degree of fluorescence of the specimens under the effect of ultraviolet light, and classified them according to their intensity. For each evaluator, the specimens were mixed and randomly arranged inside the box. For the evaluation of fluorescence between resin enamel and dentin, the Kruskal-Wallis test (p <0.05) was applied. The best resins in terms of fluorescence of enamel are Esthet X-HD, TPH, Z350 and Opallis and for dentin are Opallis and Evolu-X.
Peptidergic and Aminergic Modulation of Insect Skeletal Muscle

Insect skeletal muscles are frequently innervated by small numbers of motor neurones, all of which can be uniquely identified physiologically. They therefore present excellent model systems in which to study the basic principles of neuromuscular transmission and the modulation of these effects by biogenic amines and peptides. The extensor-tibiae muscle of the hind leg of the locust is a much studied, large muscle that is innervated by three identified motor neurones and one identified modulatory neurone. Much attention has recently been focused on the modulation of neuromuscular transmission and muscular contraction in this muscle by biogenic amines and peptides. One proximal bundle of muscle fibres in the extensor-tibiae muscle exhibits a myogenic rhythm of contraction and relaxation. The rhythm is stimulated by a variety of peptides including proctolin, the AKH-related peptides M1 and M2, and by small cardioactive peptide (SCPB). In addition, it is activated by 5-hydroxytryptamine and by oneclass of adenosine analogues. The rhythm is inhibited by octopamine and by a second class of adenosine analogues. The actions of these various modulatory compounds will be discussed in terms of the likely numbers of pharmacologically distinct receptors in this preparation and their modes of action. Neuromuscular transmission and muscular contraction in the extensor-tibiae muscle is modulated by the biogenic amine octopamine and by the peptides, proctolin and FMRFamide. The actions of these modulators are discussed in relation differences in the responsiveness of various regions of the muscle, to the frequency dependence of their effects on motor neurone activityand to their modes of action. The cellular locations and mode of transmission to the muscle of some of these modulators will be considered. Octopamine and proctolin are contained within neurones which innervate the muscle, whilst FMRFamide- and SCPB-like peptides appear to be released into the locust haemolymph as neurohormones.
The Antitumor Peptide CIGB-552 Increases COMMD1 and Inhibits Growth of Human Lung Cancer Cells

We have demonstrated that the peptide L-2 designed from an alanine scanning of the Limulus-derived LALF32-51 region is a potential candidate for the anticancer therapy and its cell-penetrating capacity is an associated useful property. By the modification in the primary structure of L-2, a second-generation peptide (CIGB-552) was developed. However, the molecular mechanism underlying its cytotoxic activity remains partially unknown. In this study, it was shown that CIGB-552 increases the levels of COMMD1, a protein involved in copper homeostasis, sodium transport, and the NF-κB signaling pathway. We found that CIGB-552 induces ubiquitination of RelA and inhibits the antiapoptotic activity regulated by NF-κB, whereas the knockdown of COMMD1 blocks this effect. We also found that CIGB-552 decreases the antioxidant capacity and induces the peroxidation of proteins and lipids in the tumor cells. Altogether, this study provides new insights into the mechanism of action of the peptide CIGB-552, which could be relevant in the design of future anticancer therapies.
Maintenance of blood pressure in normotensive dogs by endothelin.

The role of endothelin (ET)-1 in blood pressure homeostasis and the interaction with the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) was investigated in normotensive conscious dogs. ETAreceptors were blocked by LU-135252 (1-30 mg/kg); trandolapril (2 mg/kg) or losartan (10 mg/kg) was used to inhibit the RAS. LU-135252 in oral doses of 3-30 mg/kg significantly reduced mean arterial pressure (MAP) by ∼10 mmHg maximally, whereas trandolapril or losartan were without any effect. MAP reduction was more pronounced when LU-135252 was combined with either losartan (-15.5 ± 3.2 mmHg; 2 h postadministration; P < 0.05) or trandolapril (-30.9 ± 3.6 mmHg; P < 0.05). When endogenous nitric oxide (NO) generation was blocked but NO concomitantly infused, this synergistic effect on MAP was prevented. The data show that ET-1 contributes to the maintenance of blood pressure via ETA receptors. Furthermore, ET-1 and ANG II play a prominent role in the control of blood pressure by opposing the effects of NO. The pronounced blood pressure fall after combined blockade of ETA receptors and the RAS may be mediated by an enhanced release of NO.
Enhanced Hearing in Noise for Cochlear Implant Recipients: Clinical Trial Results for a Commercially Available Speech-Enhancement Strategy

Objective To demonstrate benefits for speech perception and everyday listening in quiet and in noise with a speech-enhancement strategy called ClearVoice, which was designed to improve listening in complex acoustic environments without compromising hearing in quiet. Study Design A 2-week randomized crossover design was used to evaluate ClearVoice in 46 adults unilaterally implanted with a CII/HiRes 90K cochlear implant who had at least 6 months experience with HiRes Fidelity 120 sound processing. Speech perception was assessed using the AzBio sentences presented in quiet, in speech-spectrum noise and in multitalker babble. Subjective listening benefit and strategy preference were assessed with a questionnaire. ClearVoice has 3 gain settings (low, medium, and high), each intended as a full-time listening option according to individual preference. Speech understanding after acute use of ClearVoice-low was compared with HiRes Fidelity 120 during an initial test session. Speech perception abilities were compared with HiRes Fidelity 120 after 2 weeks of exclusive use of ClearVoice-medium, and after 2 weeks of exclusive use of ClearVoice-high. During a fifth week, participants were fit with 3 programs for comparison (HiRes Fidelity 120, ClearVoice-medium, and ClearVoice-high), after which, they reported preference and everyday listening benefits via a questionnaire. Results ClearVoice significantly improved speech understanding in speech-spectrum noise and multitalker babble, did not compromise listening in quiet, was preferred for everyday listening, and provided improved hearing in real-life situations. Conclusion ClearVoice improves hearing in noise for cochlear implant recipients who use HiRes Fidelity 120 sound processing.
Use of two unrelated umbilical cord stem cell units in stem cell transplantation for Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome

Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome, an X‐linked primary immunodeficiency can be cured by bone marrow transplantation. Umbilical cord haemopoietic stem cells are increasingly used as an alternative to bone marrow; advantages include ready availability, no risk to the donor, low rate of viral contamination, and low risk of graft versus host disease. Disadvantages include low stem cell dose for larger patients and lack of stem cells for boost infusions following the initial procedure. We report the case of a child with Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome who underwent cord blood stem cell transplantation with two separate cord blood units, 8 days apart. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2006;47:332–334. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Alteration of Expirated Bloodstain Patterns by Calliphora vicina and Lucilia sericata (Diptera: Calliphoridae) Through Ingestion and Deposition of Artifacts *,†

Abstract: Bloodstain pattern analysis can provide insight into a sequence of events associated with a violent crime. However, bloodstain pattern analysis can be confounded by the feeding activity of blow flies. We conducted two laboratory experiments to investigate the relationships between Lucilia sericata (green bottle fly) and Calliphora vicina (blue bottle fly), expirated bloodstains, and pooled bloodstains on a range of surfaces (linoleum, wallpaper, textured paint). C. vicina and L. sericata changed bloodstain pattern morphology through feeding and defecation. They also deposited artifacts in rooms where blood was not present originally. Chemical presumptive tests (Hemastix®, phenolphthalein, leucocrystal violet, fluorescein) were not able to differentiate between insect artifacts and bloodstains. Thus, C. vicina and L. sericata can confound bloodstain pattern analysis, crime scene investigation, and reconstruction. Crime scene investigators should be aware of these fundamental behaviors, and the effects that blow flies can have on expirated and pooled bloodstain patterns.
Marked increase in the prevalence of obesity in children of the Seychelles, a rapidly developing country, between 1998 and 2004.

BACKGROUND There are few data on overweight in children in developing countries. Such data are important to guide public health policy. We assessed trends in the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children from the Seychelles, a middle-income island state in the Indian Ocean. METHODS Multiple cross-sectional surveys were conducted each year between 1998 and 2004 on all students of all schools in four selected school grades (creche, 4th, 7th and 10th years of mandatory school). Weight and height were measured and children were asked about walking time and frequency of physical exercise at leisure time. Excess weight categories were defined according to the criteria of the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). RESULTS Data were available for 33 340 observations in 1998-2004, corresponding to 23,459 individual children measured once or several times. Based on IOTF criteria, the prevalence of 'overweight' or 'obesity' increased from 8.7% to 13.5% in boys, and from 11.8% to 18.6% in girls from 1998 to 2004 (P < 0.001). The prevalence of 'obesity' increased from 2.1% to 5.2% in boys and from 3.1% to 6.2% in girls (P < 0.001). Using CDC criteria, the prevalence of 'at risk of overweight' and 'overweight' increased by similar proportions. The shift towards higher values over time was larger in the upper than the lower tail of the BMI distribution. Physical activity decreased over calendar years and was inversely associated with excess weight. CONCLUSIONS The prevalence of excess weight increased markedly over a seven-year period in children in the Seychelles. This is likely to reflect a rapid nutrition transition with increasingly positive energy balance. These findings stress the need for programs and policies aimed at promoting physical activity and healthy nutrition in countries in epidemiological transition.