Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Differences in brain morphology and working memory capacity across childhood

Abstract Working memory (WM) skills are closely associated with learning progress in key areas such as reading and mathematics across childhood. As yet, however, little is known about how the brain systems underpinning WM develop over this critical developmental period. The current study investigated whether and how structural brain correlates of components of the working memory system change over development. Verbal and visuospatial short‐term and working memory were assessed in 153 children between 5.58 and 15.92 years, and latent components of the working memory system were derived. Fractional anisotropy and cortical thickness maps were derived from T1‐weighted and diffusion‐weighted MRI and processed using eigenanatomy decomposition. There was a greater involvement of the corpus callosum and posterior temporal white matter in younger children for performance associated with the executive part of the working memory system. For older children, this was more closely linked with the thickness of the occipitotemporal cortex. These findings suggest that increasing specialization leads to shifts in the contribution of neural substrates over childhood, moving from an early dependence on a distributed system supported by long‐range connections to later reliance on specialized local circuitry. Our findings demonstrate that despite the component factor structure being stable across childhood, the underlying brain systems supporting working memory change. Taking the age of the child into account, and not just their overall score, is likely to be critical for understanding the nature of the limitations on their working memory capacity.
Higher order coherence of exciton-polariton condensates

The second- and third-order coherence functions g((n))(0) (n= 2 and 3) of an exciton-polariton condensate are measured and compared to the theory. Contrary to an ideal photon laser, deviation from unity in the second- and third-order coherence functions is observed, thus showing a bunching effect, but not the characteristics of a standard thermal state with g((n))(0) = n! The increase in bunching with the order of the coherence function, g((3))(0) > g((2))(0) > 1, indicates that the polariton condensate is different from a coherent state, a number state, or a thermal state. The measurement of third-order coherence has the advantage, compared to the second-order one, that the difference between a thermal state and a coherent state is more pronounced. The experimental results are in agreement with the theoretical model where polariton-polariton and polariton-phonon interactions are responsible for the loss of temporal coherence.
High ten‐year remission rates following rituximab, fludarabine, mitoxantrone and dexamethasone (R‐FND) with interferon maintenance in indolent lymphoma: Results of a randomized Study

We report a single‐centre, randomized study evaluating the efficacy and safety of concurrent fludarabine, mitoxantrone, dexamethasone (FND) and rituximab versus sequential FND followed by rituximab in 158 patients with advanced stage, previously untreated indolent lymphoma, enrolled between 1997 and 2002. Patients were randomized to 6–8 cycles of FND followed by 6 monthly doses of rituximab or 6 doses of rituximab given concurrently with FND. All patients who achieved at least a partial response received 12 months of interferon (IFN) maintenance. Median ages were 54 and 55 years. The two groups were comparable with the exception of a higher percentage of females (65% vs. 43%) and baseline anaemia (23% vs. 11%) in the FND followed by rituximab group. Complete response/unconfirmed complete response rates were 89% and 93%. The most frequent grade ≥ 3 toxicity was neutropenia (86% vs. 96%). Neutropenic fever occurred in 21% and 16%. Late toxicity included myelodysplastic syndrome (n = 3) and acute myeloid leukaemia (n = 5). With 12·5 years of follow‐up, no significant differences based on treatment schedule were observed. 10‐year overall survival estimates were 76% and 73%. 10‐year progression‐free survival estimates were 52% and 51%. FND with concurrent or sequential rituximab, and IFN maintenance in indolent lymphoma demonstrated high response rates and robust survival.
A reliable method to assess the water permeability of a dialysis system: the global ultrafiltration coefficient

Background: Recent randomized controlled trials suggest that sufficiently high convection post‐dilutional haemodiafiltration (HC‐HDF) improves survival in dialysis patients, consequently this technique is increasingly being adopted. However, when performing HC‐HDF, rigorous control systems of the ultrafiltration setting are required. Assessing the global ultrafiltration coefficient of the dialysis system [GKD‐UF; defined as ultrafiltration rate (QUF)/transmembrane pressure] or water permeability may be adapted to the present dialysis settings and be of value in clinics. Methods: GKD‐UF was determined and its reproducibility, variability and influencing factors were specifically assessed in 15 stable patients routinely treated by high‐flux haemodialysis or HC‐HDF in a single unit. Results: GKD‐UF invariably followed a parabolic function with increasing QUF in dialysis and both pre‐ and post‐dilution HC‐HDF (R2 constantly >0.96). The vertex of the parabola, GKD‐UF‐max and related QUF were very reproducible per patient (coefficient of variation 3.9 ± 0.6 and 3.3 ± 0.3%, respectively) and they greatly varied across patients (31‐42 mL/h−1/mmHg and 82‐100 mL/min, respectively). GKD‐UF‐max and its associated QUF decreased during dialysis treatment (P < 0.01). The GKD‐UF‐max decrease was related to weight loss (R2 = 0.66; P = 0.0015). Conclusions: GKD‐UF is a reliable and accurate method to assess the water permeability of a system in vivo. It varies according to dialysis setting and patient‐related factors. It is an objective parameter evaluating the forces driving convection and identifies any diversion of the system during the treatment procedure. It is applicable to low‐ or high‐flux dialysis as well as pre‐ or post‐dilution HDF. Thus, it may be used to describe the characteristics of a dialysis system, is suitable for clinical use and may be of help for personalized prescription.
Epicardial Fat: Definition, Measurements and Systematic Review of Main Outcomes

Epicardial fat (EF) is a visceral fat deposit, located between the heart and the pericardium, which shares many of the pathophysiological properties of other visceral fat deposits, It also potentially causes local inflammation and likely has direct effects on coronary atherosclerosis. Echocardiography, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging have been used to evaluate EF, but variations between methodologies limit the comparability between these modalities. We performed a systematic review of the literature finding associations of EF with metabolic syndrome and coronary artery disease. The summarization of these associations is limited by the heterogeneity of the methods used and the populations studied, where most of the subjects were at high cardiovascular disease risk. EF is also associated with other known factors, such as obesity, diabetes mellitus, age and hypertension, which makes the interpretation of its role as an independent risk marker intricate. Based on these data, we conclude that EF is a visceral fat deposit with potential implications in coronary artery disease. We describe the reference values of EF for the different imaging modalities, even though these have not yet been validated for clinical use. It is still necessary to better define normal reference values and the risk associated with EF to further evaluate its role in cardiovascular and metabolic risk assessment in relation to other criteria currently used.
Investigating the level of salivary endothelin‐1 in premalignant and malignant lesions

PURPOSE This study aimed to investigate the level of salivary endothelin-1 in premalignant and malignant lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS In this study, 75 cases were investigated of which 25 cases were healthy, 25 cases had oral lichen planus (OLP), and 25 cases had oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). In order to collect the saliva samples, the unstimulated spitting was used. The samples were collected between 9 and 12 a.m. They were sent to the lab shortly after being collected and salivary endothelin-1 was recorded for each sample according to the instruction of factory by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and optical density at a wavelength of 450 nm. SPSS version 20 and one-way ANOVA and LSD tests were used to analyze the data. RESULTS The mean of salivary endothelin-1 level in patients with OSCC was 163.98 pg/ml, in patients with OLP was 160.9 pg/ml, and in healthy people was 137.19 pg/ml. The analysis of one-way ANOVA suggested that the level of salivary endothelin-1 in both groups was the same and significantly higher than that in control group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS The level of salivary endothelin-1 in patients with SCC and OLP was higher than that in healthy group. Thus, it can be used as the latest therapeutic protocol for oral premalignant and malignant lesions.
X-band downlink antenna characterised by isoflux gain mask

This paper presents development and measurement results of a X-band isoflux downlink antenna. Isoflux antennas have to fulfil strict requirements concerning pattern mask, cross polarisation and backlobes. To satisfy these requirements and simultaneously providing circularly polarised waves, a compact polariser was matched and combined with a specific horn geometry. The antenna was manufactured, tested and delivered as flight model to enlarge time slots for transmitting big data between Earth observation satellites and ground stations. This paper discusses pros and cons of isoflux antennas and summarises the manufactured hardware as well as corresponding measurement results.
Guanylyl cyclase C and guanylin reduce fat droplet accumulation in cattle mesenteric adipose tissue

Guanylyl cyclase C (GC-C) is a member of a family of enzymes that metabolize GTP to cGMP and was first identified as a receptor for heat-stable enterotoxin. Guanylin (GNY) has since been identified as an endogenous ligand for GC-C in the intestine of several mammalian species. The GNY/GC-C system regulates ion transportation and pH in the mucosa. Recently, it was reported that GC-C and GNY are involved in lipid metabolism in rat mesenteric adipose tissue macrophages. To examine the role of GC-C and GNY in lipid metabolism in cattle, we used a bovine mesenteric adipocyte primary culture system and a coculture system for bovine adipocytes and GNY-/GC-C-expressing macrophages. Fat droplets were observed to accumulate in bovine mesenteric adipocytes cultured alone, whereas few fat droplets accumulated in adipocytes indirectly cocultured with macrophages. We also observed that GC-C was present in bovine mesenteric adipose tissue, and that fat droplet accumulation decreased after in vitro GNY administration. Expressions of mRNAs encoding lipogenic factors decreased significantly in adipocytes after either coculture or GNY administration. These results suggest that the GNY/GC-C system is part of the control system for lipid accumulation in bovine mesenteric adipose tissue.
Inter- and intra-individual variation in urinary concentrations of parabens in male and female Japanese subjects

ABSTRACT We evaluated the representativeness of concentrations of parabens in a spot urine sample for the assessment of long-term exposure levels. Urine sample was taken monthly from 10 male Japanese subjects (35.9 ± 6.8 years) and 12 female Japanese university students (21.1 ± 0.4 years) for 5 months and measured for methyl (MP), ethyl (EP), propyl (PP) and butyl (BP) parabens by liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. Median (min–max) specific-gravity-adjusted urinary concentrations of the male group (n = 10) were 39.7 (2.99–268), 1.69 (< 0.045–75.2), 0.569 (< 0.11–123) and 0.0264 (< 0.020–24.4) ng mL−1 for MP, EP, PP and BP, respectively. Those of the female group (n = 12) were 283 (5.49–1687), 9.30 (0.290–487), 22.9 (< 0.11–307) and 3.76 (< 0.020–135) ng mL−1, respectively, which were significantly higher than those of the male group. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated for the four parabens to find 0.56, 0.58, 0.39 and 0.28 for MP, EP, PP and BP, respectively, in the male group, and 0.40, 0.43, 0.41 and 0.37 for MP, EP, PP and BP, respectively, in the female group. The results suggested that four paraben concentrations in a spot urine sample moderately reflected long-term paraben exposure of Japanese subjects. Source of exposure to parabens is also discussed.
An Analysis of Categorical Distributional Reinforcement Learning

Distributional approaches to value-based reinforcement learning model the entire distribution of returns, rather than just their expected values, and have recently been shown to yield state-of-the-art empirical performance. This was demonstrated by the recently proposed C51 algorithm, based on categorical distributional reinforcement learning (CDRL) [Bellemare et al., 2017]. However, the theoretical properties of CDRL algorithms are not yet well understood. In this paper, we introduce a framework to analyse CDRL algorithms, establish the importance of the projected distributional Bellman operator in distributional RL, draw fundamental connections between CDRL and the Cram\'er distance, and give a proof of convergence for sample-based categorical distributional reinforcement learning algorithms.
Learning Saliency by MRF and Differential Threshold

Saliency detection has been an attractive topic in recent years. The reliable detection of saliency can help a lot of useful processing without prior knowledge about the scene, such as content-aware image compression, segmentation, etc. Although many efforts have been spent in this subject, the feature expression and model construction are far from perfect. The obtained saliency maps are therefore not satisfying enough. In order to overcome these challenges, this paper presents a new psychologic visual feature based on differential threshold and applies it in a supervised Markov-random-field framework. Experiments on two public data sets and an image retargeting application demonstrate the effectiveness, robustness, and practicability of the proposed method.
Comorbidity between pain and mental illness – Evidence of a bidirectional relationship

Pain from various locations in the body and mental illness are common and the comorbidity between the two is well‐known although the temporal relationship remains to be determined. Our aim was to follow patients over time to study if pain (here dorsalgia/abdominal pain) or fibromyalgia lead to an increased risk of developing mental illness (here depression/anxiety) and/or the reverse, that is whether patients with mental illness have an increased risk to develop pain or fibromyalgia, compared to the rest of the population.
Social virtual world continuance among teens: uncovering the moderating role of perceived aggregate network exposure

Engagement in virtual worlds has become pervasive, particularly among the young. At the same time, the number of virtual environments has increased rapidly. Due to intensifying competition, promoting sustained usage, i.e. continuance, has become a top priority for virtual world operators. Prior research has shown that network externalities play a key role in the adoption of communication technologies. However, a small amount of research has examined the role of network externalities in continued IT usage in general or with respect to the virtual world participation in particular. To fill in this gap, we examine how perceived network externalities affect the continuance of social virtual worlds. To this end, we introduce the concept of perceived aggregate network exposure (PANE). We extend the original information systems (IS) continuance model with perceived enjoyment and position PANE as a moderator. We test the model with data collected from 2134 Finnish Habbo Hotel users and employ structural equation modelling in the analysis. The results demonstrate that PANE moderates the influence of motivational factors on continued use intention and satisfaction.
Global crop yield response to extreme heat stress under multiple climate change futures

Extreme heat stress during the crop reproductive period can be critical for crop productivity. Projected changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climatic events are expected to negatively impact crop yields and global food production. This study applies the global crop model PEGASUS to quantify, for the first time at the global scale, impacts of extreme heat stress on maize, spring wheat and soybean yields resulting from 72 climate change scenarios for the 21st century. Our results project maize to face progressively worse impacts under a range of RCPs but spring wheat and soybean to improve globally through to the 2080s due to CO2 fertilization effects, even though parts of the tropic and sub-tropic regions could face substantial yield declines. We find extreme heat stress at anthesis (HSA) by the 2080s (relative to the 1980s) under RCP 8.5, taking into account CO2 fertilization effects, could double global losses of maize yield (ΔY = −12.8 ± 6.7% versus − 7.0 ± 5.3% without HSA), reduce projected gains in spring wheat yield by half (ΔY = 34.3 ± 13.5% versus 72.0 ± 10.9% without HSA) and in soybean yield by a quarter (ΔY = 15.3 ± 26.5% versus 20.4 ± 22.1% without HSA). The range reflects uncertainty due to differences between climate model scenarios; soybean exhibits both positive and negative impacts, maize is generally negative and spring wheat generally positive. Furthermore, when assuming CO2 fertilization effects to be negligible, we observe drastic climate mitigation policy as in RCP 2.6 could avoid more than 80% of the global average yield losses otherwise expected by the 2080s under RCP 8.5. We show large disparities in climate impacts across regions and find extreme heat stress adversely affects major producing regions and lower income countries.
Genotyping of Human Brucella melitensis Biovar 3 Isolated from Shanxi Province in China by MLVA16 and HOOF

Background Brucellosis presents a significant economic burden for China because it causes reproductive failure in host species and chronic health problems in humans. These problems can involve multiple organs. Brucellosis is highly endemic in Shanxi Province China. Molecular typing would be very useful to epidemiological surveillance. The purpose of this study was to assess the diversity of Brucella melitensis strains for epidemiological surveillance. Historical monitoring data suggest that Brucella melitensis biovar 3 is the predominant strain associated with the epidemic of brucellosis in Shanxi Province. Methods/Principal Findings Multiple-locus variable-number repeat analysis (MLVA-16) and hypervariable octameric oligonucleotide fingerprinting (HOOF-print) were used to type a human-hosted Brucella melitensis population (81 strains). Sixty-two MLVA genotypes (discriminatory index: 0.99) were detected, and they had a genetic similarity coefficient ranging from 84.9% to 100%. Eighty strains of the population belonged to the eastern Mediterranean group with panel 1 genotypes 42 (79 strains) and 43 (1 strain). A new panel 1 genotype was found in this study. It was named 114 MLVAorsay genotype and it showed similarity to the two isolates from Guangdong in a previous study. Brucella melitensis is distributed throughout Shanxi Province, and like samples from Inner Mongolia, the eastern Mediterranean genotype 42 was the main epidemic strain (97%). The HOOF-printing showed a higher diversity than MLVA-16 with a genetic similarity coefficient ranging from 56.8% to 100%. Conclusions According to the MLVA-16 and HOOF-printing results, both methods could be used for the epidemiological surveillance of brucellosis. A new genotype was found in both Shanxi and Guangdong Provinces. In areas with brucellosis, the MLVA-16 scheme is very important for tracing cases back to their origins during outbreak investigations. It may facilitate the expansion and eradication of the disease.
Jointly Tracking and Separating Speech Sources Using Multiple Features and the Generalized Labeled Multi-Bernoulli Framework

This paper proposes a novel joint multi-speaker tracking-and-separation method based on the generalized labeled multi-Bernoulli (GLMB) multi-target tracking filter, using sound mixtures recorded by microphones. Standard multi-speaker tracking algorithms usually only track speaker locations, and ambiguity occurs when speakers are spatially close. The proposed multi-feature GLMB tracking filter treats the set of vectors of associated speaker features (location, pitch and sound) as the multi-target multi-feature observation, characterizes transitioning features with corresponding transition models and overall likelihood function, thus jointly tracks and separates each multi-feature speaker, and addresses the spatial ambiguity problem. Numerical evaluation verifies that the proposed method can correctly track locations of multiple speakers and meanwhile separate speech signals.
Novel Multichain-Based Loran Positioning Algorithm for Resilient Navigation

Intentional high-power global positioning system jamming is a significant threat for ships in the South Korean waters and has occurred multiple times in recent years. The South Korean government intends to utilize the existing long-range navigation (Loran) infrastructure to provide a backup navigation capability to maritime users. However, the observed accuracy of a conventional Loran positioning fix during a field test in Incheon, South Korea, was 592.88 m, far from the 20-m accuracy that the South Korean government tries to provide. The largest error source for Loran is the additional secondary factor (ASF) delay. A conventional time of flight based ASF correction is not applicable in Northeast Asia because several transmitters are not synchronized to universal time coordinated. Thus, we propose a time difference of arrival based ASF correction method that is applicable to the existing Loran signals in Northeast Asia. The demonstrated accuracy with this correction was 32.12 m when using a single Loran chain for positioning. In order to utilize the full capability of the observed signals from the five transmitters of two Loran chains in the region, we further propose a novel multichain-based Loran positioning algorithm. By applying this algorithm together with the ASF correction method, we achieved a 15.32-m accuracy with 100% position availability. This result shows the potential of the existing Loran transmitters in Northeast Asia to provide a reliable and accurate backup maritime navigation service.
Impact of age at menarche on obesity and glycemic control in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes: Fukuoka Diabetes Registry

A younger age at menarche is associated with obesity and type 2 diabetes in adult life. The impact of early‐onset menarche on obesity and glycemic control in type 2 diabetes has not been investigated. The present study examined the relationship between age at menarche and obesity and glycemic control in type 2 diabetes.
Does Context Matter for the Performance of Continuous Authentication Biometric Systems? An Empirical Study on Mobile Device

In this paper we will show that context has an influence on the performance of a continuous authentication system. When context is considered we notice that the performance of the system improves by a factor of approximately 3. Even when testing and training are not based on exactly the same task, but on a similar task, we see an improvement of the performance over a system where the context is not included. In fact, we proof that the performance of the system depends on which particular kind of task is used for the training.