Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sensitivity of the Autonomic Nervous System to Visual and Auditory Affect Across Social and Non-Social Domains in Williams Syndrome

Although individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) typically demonstrate an increased appetitive social drive, their social profile is characterized by dissociations, including socially fearless behavior coupled with anxiousness, and distinct patterns of “peaks and valleys” of ability. The aim of this study was to compare the processing of social and non-social visually and aurally presented affective stimuli, at the levels of behavior and autonomic nervous system (ANS) responsivity, in individuals with WS contrasted with a typically developing (TD) group, with the view of elucidating the highly sociable and emotionally sensitive predisposition noted in WS. Behavioral findings supported previous studies of enhanced competence in processing social over non-social stimuli by individuals with WS; however, the patterns of ANS functioning underlying the behavioral performance revealed a surprising profile previously undocumented in WS. Specifically, increased heart rate (HR) reactivity, and a failure for electrodermal activity to habituate were found in individuals with WS contrasted with the TD group, predominantly in response to visual social affective stimuli. Within the auditory domain, greater arousal linked to variation in heart beat period was observed in relation to music stimuli in individuals with WS. Taken together, the findings suggest that the pattern of ANS response in WS is more complex than previously noted, with increased arousal to face and music stimuli potentially underpinning the heightened behavioral emotionality to such stimuli. The lack of habituation may underlie the increased affiliation and attraction to faces characterizing individuals with WS. Future research directions are suggested.
Household and Individual Risk Factors for Cholera among Cholera Vaccine Recipients in Rural Haiti

Abstract. Oral cholera vaccination was used as part of cholera control in Haiti, but the vaccine does not provide complete protection. We conducted secondary data analyses of a vaccine effectiveness study in Haiti to evaluate risk factors for cholera among cholera vaccine recipients. Individuals vaccinated against cholera that presented with acute watery diarrhea and had a stool sample positive for Vibrio cholerae O1 were included as cases. Up to four vaccinated individuals who did not present for treatment of diarrhea were included as controls for each case, and matched by location of residence, enrollment time, and age. We evaluated sociodemographic characteristics and risk factors for cholera. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression were performed to identify risk factors for cholera among vaccinees. Thirty-three vaccine recipients with culture-confirmed cholera were included as cases. One-hundred-and-seventeen of their matched controls reported receiving vaccine and were included as controls. In a multivariable analysis, self-reporting use of branded household water disinfection products as a means of treating water (adjusted relative risk [aRR] = 44.3, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 4.19–468.05, P = 0.002), and reporting having a latrine as the main household toilet (aRR = 4.22, 95% CI = 1.23–14.43, P = 0.02), were independent risk factors for cholera. Self-reporting always treating water (aRR = 0.09, 95% CI = 0.01–0.57, P = 0.01) was associated with protection against cholera. The field effectiveness of water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions used in combination with cholera vaccination in cholera control should be measured and monitored over time to identify and remediate shortcomings, and ensure successful impact on disease control.
Stochastic Lyapunov Analysis for Consensus Algorithms with Noisy Measurements

This paper studies the coordination and consensus of networked agents in an uncertain environment. We consider a group of agents on an undirected graph with fixed topology, but differing from most existing work, each agent has only noisy measurements of its neighbors' states. Traditional consensus algorithms in general cannot deal with such a scenario. For consensus seeking, we introduce stochastic approximation type algorithms with a decreasing step size. We present a stochastic Lyapunov analysis based upon the total mean potential associated with the agents. Subsequently, the so-called direction of invariance is introduced, which combined with the decay property of the stochastic Lyapunov function leads to mean square convergence of the consensus algorithm.
Waste not… Efficient co-processing of relational data

The variety of memory devices in modern computer systems holds opportunities as well as challenges for data management systems. In particular, the exploitation of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and their fast memory has been studied quite intensively. However, current approaches treat GPUs as systems in their own right and fail to provide a generic strategy for efficient CPU/GPU cooperation. We propose such a strategy for relational query processing: calculating an approximate result based on lossily compressed, GPU-resident data and refine the result using residuals, i.e., the lost data, on the CPU.We developed the required algorithms, implemented the strategy in an existing DBMS and found up to 8 times performance improvement, even for datasets larger than the available GPU memory.
Concurrent Multiband Digital Outphasing Transmitter Architecture Using Multidimensional Power Coding

All-digital outphasing transmitter architecture using multidimensional power coding (MDPC) is proposed for noncontiguous concurrent multiband transmission with a high power efficiency. MDPC transforms multiband digital baseband signals into multibit low-resolution digital signals that drive switching-mode PAs. A prototype digital outphasing transmitter consists of two 1-GHz bandwidth GaN Class-D PAs and a Chireix power combiner. The two GaN PAs are driven by bipolar radio frequency (RF) pulse-width modulation (PWM) signals, which are transformed from a concurrent dual-band LTE signal by MDPC. The dual-band LTE signal with 15-MHz aggregate channel bandwidth at 240 and 500 MHz frequency band is transmitted with -30 and -37 dBc out-of-band emissions, respectively. Digital outphasing achieves more than two times higher coding efficiency than conventional concurrent dual-band digital transmitters with the same PAs in Class-S operation. Measured power coding efficiencies of 35.4% and 47.1% are observed with outphasing bipolar and 3-level RF PWM signals respectively, which are encoded from the dual-band LTE signal.
Forward Prediction in the Posterior Parietal Cortex and Dynamic Brain-Machine Interface

While remarkable progress has been made in brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) over the past two decades, it is still difficult to utilize neural signals to drive artificial actuators to produce predictive movements in response to dynamic stimuli. In contrast to naturalistic limb movements largely based on forward planning, brain-controlled neuroprosthetics mainly rely on feedback without prior trajectory formation. As an important sensorimotor interface integrating multisensory inputs and efference copy, the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) might play a proactive role in predictive motor control. Here it is proposed that predictive neural activity in PPC could be decoded to provide prosthetic control signals for guiding BMI systems in dynamic environments.
Treatment Results of a Periprosthetic Femoral Fracture Case Series: Treatment Method for Vancouver Type B2 Fractures Can Be Customized

Background Currently, an algorithmic approach for deciding treatment options according to the Vancouver classification is widely used for treatment of periprosthetic femoral fractures after hip arthroplasty. However, this treatment algorithm based on the Vancouver classification lacks consideration of patient physiology and surgeon's experience (judgment), which are also important for deciding treatment options. The purpose of this study was to assess the treatment results and discuss the treatment options using a case series. Methods Eighteen consecutive cases with periprosthetic femoral fractures after total hip arthroplasty and hemiarthroplasty were retrospectively reviewed. A locking compression plate system was used for osteosynthesis during the study period. The fracture type was determined by the Vancouver classification. The treatment algorithm based on the Vancouver classification was generally applied, but was modified in some cases according to the surgeon's judgment. The reasons for modification of the treatment algorithm were investigated. Mobility status, ambulatory status, and social status were assessed before the fracture and at the latest follow-up. Radiological results including bony union and stem stability were also evaluated. Results Thirteen cases were treated by osteosynthesis, two by revision arthroplasty and three by conservative treatment. Four cases of type B2 fractures with a loose stem, in which revision arthroplasty is recommended according to the Vancouver classification, were treated by other options. Of these, three were treated by osteosynthesis and one was treated conservatively. The reasons why the three cases were treated by osteosynthesis were technical difficulty associated with performance of revision arthroplasty owing to severe central migration of an Austin-Moore implant in one case and subsequent severe hip contracture and low activity in two cases. The reasons for the conservative treatment in the remaining case were low activity, low-grade pain, previous wiring around the fracture and light weight. All patients obtained primary bony union and almost fully regained their prior activities. Conclusions We suggest reaching a decision regarding treatment methods of periprosthetic femoral fractures by following the algorithmic approach of the Vancouver classification in addition to the assessment of each patient's hip joint pathology, physical status and activity, especially for type B2 fractures. The customized treatments demonstrated favorable overall results.
The impact of operative approaches on outcomes of middle and lower third esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to investigate the perioperative outcomes and 3-year overall survival (OS) of 2 approaches including Sweet and open Ivor Lewis esophagectomy in the surgical treatment of middle and lower third esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. METHODS The medical records of 1,746 consecutive patients who underwent esophagectomy for middle and lower esophageal cancer between January 2009 and September 2015 at the First Department of Thoracic Oncologic Surgery of Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College were retrospectively reviewed. The clinical variables and 3-year survival were compared between Sweet (n=1,701) and open Ivor Lewis (n=45) approaches in unmatched and propensity score matching analysis. RESULTS Patients who received esophagectomy by Sweet approach had shorter duration of surgery (mean 212 vs. 390 min; P<0.001), more lymph nodes removed (mean 24 vs. 19; P=0.005), lower overall complications rate (24.4% vs. 11.7%; P=0.009), lower total hospital cost (¥77,200 vs. 106,000; P=0.045) compared with patients who received open Ivor Lewis approach. After propensity score matching analysis, Sweet approach was still associated with decreased duration of surgery (mean 210 vs. 390 min; P<0.001), more lymph nodes removed (mean 24 vs. 19; P=0.050), and lower total hospital cost (¥86,800 vs. 106,000; P=0.045) compared with Ivor Lewis approach. However, there were no significant differences in overall complication rates (24.4% vs. 24.4%; P=1.000) between two approaches. There was no significant difference in 3-year OS between Sweet and open Ivor Lewis approaches (59.9% vs. 61.4%; P=0.637) in unmatched analysis and in matched analysis (77.8% vs. 61.4%; P=0.264). CONCLUSIONS In this cohort, for middle and lower third esophageal squamous cell carcinoma patients, both Sweet and open Ivor Lewis approaches are feasible in terms of perioperative outcomes and 3-year OS.
Unique Features of a Highly Pathogenic Campylobacter jejuni Strain

Campylobacter jejuni, a major human enteric pathogen, exhibits significant strain-to-strain differences which result in differences in pathogenic potential. C. jejuni 81-176 is a highly virulent strain that exhibits unique pathogenic features and is used by many research laboratories. We have determined the nucleotide sequence of its genome and compared it to the genomes of other sequenced C. jejuni strains. We identified a number of unique genetic features which may confer specific metabolic and pathogenic properties on this strain. We have also identified regions of the C. jejuni genome that are hot spots for the integration of horizontally acquired genetic material. This information should help the understanding of the pathogenesis of C. jejuni and, in particular, the unique features of this highly pathogenic strain.
B-Type Natriuretic Peptide Deletion Leads to Progressive Hypertension, Associated Organ Damage, and Reduced Survival: Novel Model for Human Hypertension

Altered myocardial structure and function, secondary to chronically elevated blood pressure, are leading causes of heart failure and death. B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), a guanylyl cyclase A agonist, is a cardiac hormone integral to cardiovascular regulation. Studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between reduced production or impaired BNP release and the development of human hypertension. However, the consequences of BNP insufficiency on blood pressure and hypertension-associated complications remain poorly understood. Therefore, the goal of this study was to create and characterize a novel model of BNP deficiency to investigate the effects of BNP absence on cardiac and renal structure, function, and survival. Genetic BNP deletion was generated in Dahl salt-sensitive rats. Compared with age-matched controls, BNP knockout rats demonstrated adult-onset hypertension. Increased left ventricular mass with hypertrophy and substantially augmented hypertrophy signaling pathway genes, developed in young adult knockout rats, which preceded hypertension. Prolonged hypertension led to increased cardiac stiffness, cardiac fibrosis, and thrombi formation. Significant elongation of the QT interval was detected at 9 months in knockout rats. Progressive nephropathy was also noted with proteinuria, fibrosis, and glomerular alterations in BNP knockout rats. End-organ damage contributed to a significant decline in overall survival. Systemic BNP overexpression reversed the phenotype of genetic BNP deletion. Our results demonstrate the critical role of BNP defect in the development of systemic hypertension and associated end-organ damage in adulthood.
Wind Forced Variability in Eddy Formation, Eddy Shedding, and the Separation of the East Australian Current

The East Australian Current (EAC), like many other subtropical western boundary currents, is believed to be penetrating further poleward in recent decades. Previous observational and model studies have used steady state dynamics to relate changes in the westerly winds to changes in the separation behavior of the EAC. As yet, little work has been undertaken on the impact of forcing variability on the EAC and Tasman Sea circulation. Here using an eddy-permitting regional ocean model, we present a suite of simulations forced by the same time-mean fields, but with different atmospheric and remote ocean variability. These eddy-permitting results demonstrate the nonlinear response of the EAC to variable, nonstationary inhomogeneous forcing. These simulations show an EAC with high intrinsic variability and stochastic eddy shedding. We show that wind stress variability on time scales shorter than 56 days leads to increases in eddy shedding rates and southward eddy propagation, producing an increased transport and southward reach of the mean EAC extension. We adopt an energetics framework that shows the EAC extension changes to be coincident with an increase in offshore, upstream eddy variance (via increased barotropic instability) and increase in subsurface mean kinetic energy along the length of the EAC. The response of EAC separation to regional variable wind stress has important implications for both past and future climate change studies.
Decrease of very late activation antigen-4 and CD36 on reticulocytes in sickle cell patients treated with hydroxyurea.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is characterized by repeated vaso-occlusive events, which result in substantial morbidity. Abnormal adhesion of sickle red blood cells (RBC) to the vascular endothelium is postulated to play a role in the pathogenesis of vaso-occlusion. Two adhesion receptors, very late activation antigen-4 (VLA-4) and CD36, are found in unusually high numbers on sickle cell reticulocytes and do mediate adhesion of sickle RBC to endothelium. Hydroxyurea (HU) therapy results in fewer vaso-occlusive episodes, and we postulated that HU-related modulation of VLA-4 and CD36 receptors may contribute to its clinical benefit. Using flow cytometry, eight patients were followed from the onset of HU treatment through a mean treatment length of 200 +/- 49 days. Mean corpuscular volume and percent fetal hemoglobin (Hb F) increased from 87% +/- 6% to 98% +/- 9% and 6.6% +/- 3.9% to 12.7% +/- 5.6%, respectively. The percentage of reticulocytes expressing VLA-4 decreased from 29.0% +/- 5.9% to 14.9% +/- 2.3% (P = .0003). Two thirds of the total decrease in VLA-4 expression occurred after 10 weeks of HU and plateaued by 20 weeks. Changes in VLA-4 expression occurred before substantial increases in Hb F. The percentage of reticulocytes expressing CD36 decreased from 55.3% +/- 6.4% to 42.6% (P = .0046). Changes in adhesion receptor expression were not caused by a decrease in reticulocytosis with HU therapy. This report is the first to associate a decrease in adhesion receptor expression with a therapy known to reduce the clinical severity of SCD.
Teaching Conceptual Modeling in Online Courses: Coping with the Need for Individual Feedback to Modeling Exercises

Educational approaches for computer science proposing the use of complete online courses or traditional courses employing some kind of online material have received much attention recently. The integration of online materials into traditional courses or the replacement of entire courses offer huge possibilities, including increased teaching quality and better study and work alignment. However, researchers and teachers also identified some drawbacks of using online material, including the lack of interaction between students and teachers, and the need to discuss and provide feedback of the students' exercise results. A solution for providing such feedback are automated assessment tools which can generate feedback. However, these tools are not applicable in all situations, e.g. for providing feedback to conceptual modeling exercises. In this paper, we report on the design and implementation of an online course for teaching conceptual modeling. In this course, we use explicitly ambiguous exercises and sketch multiple solutions in brief whiteboard-style videos, thus enabling students to assess their own solutions. Evaluation results show that the proposed approach is able to fulfill students' educational needs.
Babylon v2.0: Support for Distributed, Parallel and Mobile Java Applications

This thesis describes the design and implementation of Babylon v2.0. Babylon v2.0 is a 100% Java compatible framework for building parallel, distributed and mobile applications in Java. Babylon v2.0 incorporates features like object migration, asynchronous method invocation and remote class loading while providing an easy-to-use interface that enables seamless interaction with remote objects and hides the complexities of remote messaging protocols that are normally large part of distributed systems programming. The potential cluster computing benefits of Babylon v2.0 are demonstrated by the evaluation results which show that sequential Java applications can achieve significant performance gains by using Babylon v2.0 to parallelize their work across a cluster of workstations. Intuitive interfaces, ease of use, support for multiple simultaneous users, and services and features that facilitate the development and administration of distributed systems make Babylon v2.0 a unique and powerful system for distributed systems programmers.
Primary and secondary effects of social background on educational attainment in Italy. Evidence from an administrative dataset

The existence of social-background inequality in educational transitions is a well-established fact in Italy. However, it is still unclear the extent to which these social-background differences are due to social-group variations in previous performance ("primary effects") rather than in decision models ("secondary effects"). This topic has been largely neglected in Italy thus far, with the only exception of Contini e Scagni (2011; 2013). We update and extend their results by exploiting a unique administrative dataset based on an entire student cohort who enrolled in upper secondary education in the province of Trento in school year 2010/11. Our results confirm that secondary effects play an overwhelmingly stronger role as compared with primary effects, especially for boys. But we also add some novel results. First, beyond transitions to general schools, we also consider transitions to vocational training courses, finding that secondary effects are even stronger in this latter case. Second, we proxy social origins using not only parental education but also social class, finding that the use of the former leads to an underestimation of secondary effects. Third, we examine interactions between school grades and social origins and find that social-background differences in general school enrollment persist even among top-performing students.
Learning anticipation policies for robot table tennis

Playing table tennis is a difficult task for robots, especially due to their limitations of acceleration. A key bottleneck is the amount of time needed to reach the desired hitting position and velocity of the racket for returning the incoming ball. Here, it often does not suffice to simply extrapolate the ball's trajectory after the opponent returns it but more information is needed. Humans are able to predict the ball's trajectory based on the opponent's moves and, thus, have a considerable advantage. Hence, we propose to incorporate an anticipation system into robot table tennis players, which enables the robot to react earlier while the opponent is performing the striking movement. Based on visual observation of the opponent's racket movement, the robot can predict the aim of the opponent and adjust its movement generation accordingly. The policies for deciding how and when to react are obtained by reinforcement learning. We conduct experiments with an existing robot player to show that the learned reaction policy can significantly improve the performance of the overall system.