Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The confluence of radiotherapy and immunotherapy

Radiotherapy (RT) has been considered a local modality and outcomes have emphasized local and regional control of tumors. Recent data suggests that RT may activate the immune system and the combination of radiation therapy and immune therapies may have the potential to improve both local and distant control of tumor deposits. Below we review principals underlying the concepts of combining both modalities.
Real-time and integrated measurement of potential human exposure to particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from aircraft exhaust.

We used real-time monitors and low-volume air samplers to measure the potential human exposure to airborne polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) concentrations during various flight-related and ground-support activities of C-130H aircraft at an Air National Guard base. We used three types of photoelectric aerosol sensors (PASs) to measure real-time concentrations of particle-bound PAHs in a break room, downwind from a C-130H aircraft during a four-engine run-up test, in a maintenance hangar, in a C-130H aircraft cargo bay during cargo-drop training, downwind from aerospace ground equipment (AGE), and in a C-130H aircraft cargo bay during engine running on/off (ERO) loading and backup exercises. Two low-volume air samplers were collocated with the real-time monitors for all monitoring events except those in the break room and during in-flight activities. Total PAH concentrations in the integrated-air samples followed a general trend: downwind from two AGE units > ERO-loading exercise > four-engine run-up test > maintenance hangar during taxi and takeoff > background measurements in maintenance hangar. Each PAH profile was dominated by naphthalene, the alkyl-substituted naphthalenes, and other PAHs expected to be in the vapor phase. We also found particle-bound PAHs, such as fluoranthene, pyrene, and benzo[a]pyrene in some of the sample extracts. During flight-related exercises, total PAH concentrations in the integrated-air samples were 10-25 times higher than those commonly found in ambient air. Real-time monitor mean responses generally followed the integrated-air sample trends. These monitors provided a semiquantitative temporal profile of ambient PAH concentrations and showed that PAH concentrations can fluctuate rapidly from a baseline level < 20 to > 4,000 ng/m(3) during flight-related activities. Small handheld models of the PAS monitors exhibited potential for assessing incidental personal exposure to particle-bound PAHs in engine exhaust and for serving as a real-time dosimeter to indicate when respiratory protection is advisable.
Logit dynamics: a model for bounded rationality

We describe logit dynamics, which are used to model bounded rationality in games, and their related equilibrium concept, the logit equilibrium. We also present some results about the convergence time of these dynamics and introduce a suitable approximation of the logit equilibrium. We conclude by describing some interesting future extensions to logit dynamics.
Lianas and soil nutrients predict fine‐scale distribution of above‐ground biomass in a tropical moist forest

Prediction of carbon dynamics in response to global climate change requires an understanding of the processes that govern the distribution of carbon stocks. Above‐ground biomass (AGB) in tropical forests is regulated by variation in soil fertility, climate, species composition and topography at regional scales, but the drivers of fine‐scale variation in tropical forest AGB are poorly understood. The factors that control the growth and mortality of individual trees may be obscured by the low resolution of studies at regional scales. In this paper, we evaluated the effects of soil nutrients, topography and liana abundance on the fine‐scale spatial distribution of AGB and density of trees for a lowland tropical moist forest in Panama using additive regression models. Areas with larger values of AGB were negatively associated with the presence of lianas, which may reflect competition with lianas and/or the association of lianas with disturbed or open‐canopy patches within forests. AGB was positively associated with soils possessing higher pH and K concentrations, reflecting the importance of below‐ground resource availability on AGB independently of stem density. Synthesis. Our results shed new light on the factors that influence fine‐scale tree AGB and carbon stocks in tropical forests: liana abundance is the strongest predictor, having a negative impact on tree AGB. The availability of soil nutrients was also revealed as an important driver of fine‐scale spatial variation in tree AGB.
Unfolded recurrent neural networks for speech recognition

We introduce recurrent neural networks (RNNs) for acoustic modeling which are unfolded in time for a fixed number of time steps. The proposed models are feedforward networks with the property that the unfolded layers which correspond to the recurrent layer have time-shifted inputs and tied weight matrices. Besides the temporal depth due to unfolding, hierarchical processing depth is added by means of several non-recurrent hidden layers inserted between the unfolded layers and the output layer. The training of these models: (a) has a complexity that is comparable to deep neural networks (DNNs) with the same number of layers; (b) can be done on frame-randomized minibatches; (c) can be implemented efficiently through matrix-matrix operations on GPU architectures which makes it scalable for large tasks. Experimental results on the Switchboard 300 hours English conversational telephony task show a 5% relative improvement in word error rate over state-of-the-art DNNs trained on FMLLR features with i-vector speaker adaptation and hessianfree sequence discriminative training. Index Terms: recurrent neural networks, speech recognition
Screening Ethics When Honest Agents Care About Fairness

A principal faces an agent with private information who is either honest or dishonest. Honesty involves revealing private information truthfully if the probability that the equilibrium allocation chosen by an agent who lies is small enough. Even the slightest intolerance for lying prevents full ethics screening whereby the agent is given proper incentives if dishonest and zero rent if honest. Still, some partial ethics screening may allow for taking advantage of the potential honesty of the agent, even if honesty is unlikely. If intolerance for lying is strong, the standard approach that assumes a fully opportunistic agent is robust.
Pricing, Spectrum Sharing, and Service Selection in Two-Tier Small Cell Networks: A Hierarchical Dynamic Game Approach

Small cells overlaid with macrocells can increase the capacity of two-tier cellular wireless networks by offloading traffic from macrocells. To motivate the small cell service providers (SSPs) to open portion of the access opportunities to macro users (i.e., to operate in a hybrid access mode), we design an incentive mechanism in which the macrocell service provider (MSP) could pay to the SSPs. According to the price offered by the MSP, the SSPs decide on the open access ratio, which is the ratio of shared radio resource for macro users and the total amount of radio resource in a small cell. The users in this two-tier network can make service selection decisions dynamically according to the performance satisfaction level and cost, which again depend on the pricing and spectrum sharing between the MSP and SSPs. To model this dynamic interactive decision problem, we propose a hierarchical dynamic game framework. In the lower level, we formulate an evolutionary game to model and analyze the adaptive service selection of users. An evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) is considered to be the solution of this game. In the upper level, the MSP and SSPs sequentially determine the pricing strategy and the open access ratio, respectively, taking into account the distribution of dynamic service selection at the lower-level evolutionary game. A Stackelberg differential game is formulated where the MSP and SSPs act as the leader and followers, respectively. An open-loop Stackelberg equilibrium is considered to be the solution of this game. We also extend the hierarchical dynamic game framework and investigate the impact of information delays on the equilibrium solutions. Numerical results show the effectiveness and advantages of dynamic control of the open access ratio and pricing.
The Ethanol Extract of Osmanthus fragrans Flowers Reduces Oxidative Stress and Allergic Airway Inflammation in an Animal Model

The Osmanthus fragrans flower, a popular herb in Eastern countries, contains several antioxidant compounds. Ben Cao Gang Mu, traditional Chinese medical literature, describes the usefulness of these flowers for phlegm and stasis reduction, arrest of dysentery with blood in the bowel, and stomachache and diarrhea treatment. However, modern evidence regarding the therapeutic efficacy of these flowers is limited. This study was aimed at assessing the antioxidative effects of the ethanol extract of O. fragrans flowers (OFE) in vivo and evaluating its antioxidant maintenance and therapeutic effect on an allergic airway inflammation in mice. After OFE's oral administration to mice, the values obtained in the oxygen radical absorbance capacity assay as well as the glutathione concentration in the lungs and spleens of mice increased while thiobarbituric acid reactive substances decreased significantly, indicating OFE's significant in vivo antioxidant activity. OFE was also therapeutically efficacious in a mouse model of ovalbumin-induced allergic airway inflammation. Orally administered OFE suppressed ovalbumin-specific IgE production and inflammatory cell infiltration in the lung. Moreover, the antioxidative state of the mice improved. Thus, our findings confirm the ability of the O. fragrans flowers to reduce phlegm and suggest that OFE may be useful as an antiallergic agent.
A Role for the Right Anterior Temporal Lobe in Taste Quality Recognition

We conducted two experiments to examine central processing of the taste of citric acid. In the first experiment, elevated citric acid recognition thresholds, but normal detection thresholds, were observed in a group of patients who had undergone a rightanterior temporal lobectomy for the treatment of epilepsy, compared with a control group and a group of patients who had undergone the same operation in the left hemisphere. In the second study, using positron emission tomography, we compared regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in a condition in which citric acid was presented with one in which water was presented (with similar somatosensory stimulation across both conditions). We observed increased rCBF bilaterally in the caudolateral orbitofrontal cortex, in the right anteromedial temporal lobe, and in the right caudomedial orbitofrontal cortex. The elevated recognition thresholds exhibited in patients with resection of the right anteromedial temporal lobe may be accounted for by damage in an area corresponding to that of the rCBF increase. These results suggest that although taste sensation may be computed in the primary taste cortex, recognition requires further processing by structures located in the anteromedial temporal lobe. Furthermore, they point to preferential processing of this higher-order gustatory function by the right cerebral hemisphere.
Gamma-ray bursts from superconducting cosmic strings

Cusps of superconducting strings can serve as GRB engines. A powerful beamed pulse of electromagnetic radiation from a cusp produces a jet of accelerated particles, whose propagation is terminated by the shock responsible for GRB. A single free parameter, the string scale of symmetry breaking {eta}{approx}10{sup 14} GeV, together with reasonable assumptions about the magnitude of cosmic magnetic fields and the fraction of volume that they occupy, explains the GRB rate, duration, and fluence, as well as the observed ranges of these quantities. The wiggles on the string can drive the short-time structures of GRB. This model predicts that GRBs are accompanied by strong bursts of gravitational radiation which should be detectable by LIGO, VIRGO, and LISA detectors. Another prediction is the diffuse x- and gamma-ray radiation at 8 MeV--100 GeV with a spectrum and flux comparable to the observed. The weakness of the model is the prediction of too low a rate of GRBs from galaxies, as compared with observations. This suggests that either the capture rate of string loops by galaxies is underestimated in our model or that GRBs from cusps are responsible for only a subset of the observed GRBs not associated with galaxies.
Analysis of the Basidiomycete Coprinopsis cinerea Reveals Conservation of the Core Meiotic Expression Program over Half a Billion Years of Evolution

Coprinopsis cinerea (also known as Coprinus cinereus) is a multicellular basidiomycete mushroom particularly suited to the study of meiosis due to its synchronous meiotic development and prolonged prophase. We examined the 15-hour meiotic transcriptional program of C. cinerea, encompassing time points prior to haploid nuclear fusion though tetrad formation, using a 70-mer oligonucleotide microarray. As with other organisms, a large proportion (∼20%) of genes are differentially regulated during this developmental process, with successive waves of transcription apparent in nine transcriptional clusters, including one enriched for meiotic functions. C. cinerea and the fungi Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe diverged ∼500-900 million years ago, permitting a comparison of transcriptional programs across a broad evolutionary time scale. Previous studies of S. cerevisiae and S. pombe compared genes that were induced upon entry into meiosis; inclusion of C. cinerea data indicates that meiotic genes are more conserved in their patterns of induction across species than genes not known to be meiotic. In addition, we found that meiotic genes are significantly more conserved in their transcript profiles than genes not known to be meiotic, which indicates a remarkable conservation of the meiotic process across evolutionarily distant organisms. Overall, meiotic function genes are more conserved in both induction and transcript profile than genes not known to be meiotic. However, of 50 meiotic function genes that were co-induced in all three species, 41 transcript profiles were well-correlated in at least two of the three species, but only a single gene (rad50) exhibited coordinated induction and well-correlated transcript profiles in all three species, indicating that co-induction does not necessarily predict correlated expression or vice versa. Differences may reflect differences in meiotic mechanisms or new roles for paralogs. Similarities in induction, transcript profiles, or both, should contribute to gene discovery for orthologs without currently characterized meiotic roles.
Information Diffusion in eDonkey Filesharing Networks

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications have become highly popular in today’s Internet due to the spread of file sharing platforms such as KaZaa, eDonkey, and BitTorrent. In this paper we investigate the diffusion behavior of a file shared by mult iple sources in an eDonkey-like peer-to-peer (P2P) environment . We provide two simulation models, one which captures the chunk transfer in a detailed way and a simplified model, where the upload bandwidth is equally split among all chunks of the file. The simulation of a single chunk transmission is sufficient to ob tain accurate results, which leads to a much shorter simulation t ime. We further investigate the non-stationary process of file di ffusion in a statistically reliable way. Depending on the popularity of the file, we consider flash crowd arrivals and constant arrivals. We derive simple analytical expressions showing the relati onship between the propagation of the file, i.e. the number of peers sharing the chunk, and the main influencing factors: e.g. sha ring probability, access probability, or arrival rate.
Design for testability reuse in synthesis for testability

This paper presents our Design for Testability reuse approach implemented in the allocation for testability system IDAT. In the context of High-Level Synthesis for Testability, the allocation for testability process mainly consists in searching for the best cost/quality trade-off between the designer requirements and testability means which can be proposed by the system, considering the available components in the library and the possibility of generating additional testability structures. The cost/quality trade-off is also based on the result of the testability analysis process.
Treatment Implications of Predominant Polarity and the Polarity Index: A Comprehensive Review

Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a serious and recurring condition that affects approximately 2.4% of the global population. About half of BD sufferers have an illness course characterized by either a manic or a depressive predominance. This predominant polarity in BD may be differentially associated with several clinical correlates. The concept of a polarity index (PI) has been recently proposed as an index of the antimanic versus antidepressive efficacy of various maintenance treatments for BD. Notwithstanding its potential clinical utility, predominant polarity was not included in the DSM-5 as a BD course specifier. Methods: Here we searched computerized databases for original clinical studies on the role of predominant polarity for selection of and response to pharmacological treatments for BD. Furthermore, we systematically searched the Pubmed database for maintenance randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for BD to determine the PI of the various pharmacological agents for BD. Results: We found support from naturalistic studies that bipolar patients with a predominantly depressive polarity are more likely to be treated with an antidepressive stabilization package, while BD patients with a manic-predominant polarity are more frequently treated with an antimanic stabilization package. Furthermore, predominantly manic BD patients received therapeutic regimens with a higher mean PI. The calculated PI varied from 0.4 (for lamotrigine) to 12.1 (for aripiprazole). Conclusions: This review supports the clinical relevance of predominant polarity as a course specifier for BD. Future studies should investigate the role of baseline, predominant polarity as an outcome predictor of BD maintenance RCTs.
Digging in: lawn dissidents, performing sustainability, and landscapes of privilege

Abstract ‘Lawn dissidents’ are people who violate norms of turfgrass yards often found in North American suburbs. This paper uses qualitative methods and engages a performance view of landscape to examine how these subjects’ sustainability-oriented lawn alternatives work unintentionally to create exclusionary landscapes. As capitalism adopts environmentalism as a ‘sustainability fix’, niche ‘green’ capitalist markets allow lawn dissidents to cultivate subject positions within sustainability that ignore social justice concerns. Alongside their environmentalist concerns, lawn dissidents continue to approach land through frames that treat it as a commodity and as a signifier of cultural distinction, particularly within an elite cosmopolitan subcategory of whiteness. Nonetheless, inasmuch as lawn dissidents enact social scripts and cultivate landscapes that perform white bourgeois sensibilities around urban sustainability, the exclusionary effect of this practice is neither inevitable nor necessary. By viewing the landscapes that lawn dissidents create through the theory of the interstice, we posit an alternative direction in which sharing economies offer a more inclusive vision of sustainability in urban residential landscapes.
Impacts of global change on water-related sectors and society in a trans-boundary central European river basin – Part 1: project framework and impacts on agriculture

Abstract. Central Europe, the focus region of this study, is a region in transition, climatically from maritime to continental and politically from formerly more planning-oriented to more market-oriented management regimes, and in terms of climate change from regions of increasing precipitation in the west and north of Europe to regions of decreasing precipitation in central and southern Europe. The Elbe basin, a trans-boundary catchment flowing from the Czech Republic through Germany into the North Sea, was selected to investigate the possible impacts of global change on crop yields and water resources in this region. For technical reasons, the paper has been split into two parts, the first showing the overall model concept, the model set-up for the agricultural sector, and first results linking eco-hydrological and agro-economic tools for the German part of the basin. The second part describes the model set-up for simulating water supply and demand linking eco-hydrological and water management tools for the entire basin including the Czech part.
Using virtual reality environments to aid spatial awareness in disabled children

Several spatial tasks were presented to subjects in computer simulated environments to ascertain whether spatial skills could be trained and enhanced using this medium. Studies carried out at Leicester University have demonstrated that exploration of a simulated building by disabled and able bodied subjects allows them to acquire considerable information about the spatial layout of that specific building. The present studies extended these earlier findings. In Experiment 1, transfer of spatial skills between different virtual environments was investigated. The results confirmed that the skills disabled children acquired using computer simulated environments improved with exposure to successive environments. To eliminate the possibility that learning was non-specific, Experiment 2 compared 3-D exploration and 2-D (control) exploration, finding the former to be superior. Thus the interactivity and three-dimensionality of virtual environments seem to be crucial to spatial learning. Further research is being carried out to establish the nature and extent of the improvement in spatial skills of physically disabled children after intensive exploration of complex virtual environments and thus the value and limitations of VR as a training tool for children with mobility problems.
Experimental Parkinsonism Alters Endocannabinoid Degradation: Implications for Striatal Glutamatergic Transmission

Cannabinoid receptors and their endogenous ligands have been recently identified in the brain as potent inhibitors of neurotransmitter release. Here we show that, in a rat model of Parkinson's disease induced by unilateral nigral lesion with 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), the striatal levels of anandamide, but not that of the other endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol, were increased. Moreover, we observed a decreased activity of the anandamide membrane transporter (AMT) and of the anandamide hydrolase [fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH)], whereas the binding of anandamide to cannabinoid receptors was unaffected. Spontaneous glutamatergic activity recorded from striatal spiny neurons was higher in 6-OHDA-lesioned rats. Inhibition of AMT byN-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-arachidonoylamide (AM-404) or by VDM11, or stimulation of the cannabinoid CB1 receptor by HU-210 reduced glutamatergic spontaneous activity in both naı̈ve and 6-OHDA-lesioned animals to a similar extent. Conversely, the FAAH inhibitors phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride and methyl-arachidonoyl fluorophosphonate were much more effective in 6-OHDA-lesioned animals. The present study shows that inhibition of anandamide hydrolysis might represent a possible target to decrease the abnormal cortical glutamatergic drive in Parkinson's disease.