Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analyses of the 1957 (Asian) influenza pandemic in the United Kingdom and the impact of school closures

SUMMARY Many countries plan to close schools during a future influenza pandemic, although the potential impact is poorly understood. We apply a model of the transmission dynamics of pandemic influenza to consultation, serological and clinical data from the United Kingdom from the 1957 (Asian) influenza pandemic, to estimate the basic reproduction number (R0), the proportion of infected individuals who experience clinical symptoms and the impact of school/nursery closures. The R0 for Asian influenza was about 1·8 and 60–65% of infected individuals were estimated to have experienced clinical symptoms. During a future pandemic, closure of schools/nurseries could reduce the epidemic size only by a very small amount (<10%) if R0 is high (e.g. 2·5 or 3·5), and modest reductions, e.g. 22% might be possible if it is low (1·8) and schools are closed early, depending on assumptions about contact patterns. Further data on contact patterns and their dependence on school closures are needed.
Importance of multiple purging methods in the classification of eating disorder subtypes.

OBJECTIVE To examine two assumptions implicit in the subtyping of eating disorders: (1) purging behaviors are interchangeable, and (2) a primary distinction exists between the presence vs. absence of any means of purging. METHOD Data from a longitudinal study of health and eating patterns were used to compare women who reported self-induced vomiting, laxative abuse, or their combination. Further comparisons were made among women who used multiple purging methods (MP), a single purging method (SP), and randomly selected controls who never purged. RESULTS Vomiting and laxative abuse were associated with similar levels of eating pathology whereas their combination was associated with greater eating pathology. MP women reported significantly greater eating pathology compared to SP women who reported significantly greater eating pathology compared to controls. Differences were maintained at 10-year follow-up. CONCLUSION Purging behaviors may be interchangeable but the use of multiple purging methods is associated with greater severity over time.
An economic analysis of farmers' risk attitudes and farm households' responses to rainfall risk in Tigray Northern Ethiopia

Keywords: rainfall risk, ex-ante risk management, ex-post risk coping strategies, off-farm labor supply, fertilizer adoption, Northern Ethiopia, Tigray. Rural households in semi-arid areas often experience rainfall-related shocks that result in low and uncertain income. Household’s survival depends on the ability to anticipate and to cope with this uncertain income. Through time, households have developed ex-ante risk management and ex-post risk coping strategies. These include crop portfolio adjustments and off-farm activity diversification. This thesis investigates the role of rainfall and rainfall risk on households’ risk management and risk coping strategies. Econometric models based on the neo-classical household production and consumption model were used. These methods were applied to a four-year (1996, 1997, 2001, and 2002) panel data sample of Tigray (Northern Ethiopia) farm households. The study showed that farmers’ ex-ante strategic response to rainfall risk is through diversification of crops to be grown. Choosing the crops most suited to specific rainfall conditions was proven to be a strategy of farmers to cope with unpredictable rainfall. In times of low rainfall, the dominant crops to be chosen are teff and grass pea. Rainfall risk also increases the probability of off-farm labor supply. Therefore, households’ off-farm labor supply can be seen as an ex-ante and ex-post income smoothing strategy. Moreover, this study showed that ex-post consumption variability and rainfall risk negatively correlated with ex-ante fertilizer adoption decisions. This implies that households are biased toward technologies that are less risky. This leads to the conclusion that any mechanism that allows farmers to smooth consumption ex-post will raise ex-ante fertilizer adoption. Ex-ante crop choice, fertilizer adoption, and reliable water availability for farming can be viewed as complements. These complementarities suggest that policies that focus on rainwater harvesting techniques and promoting small-scale irrigation would promote fertilizer adoption. Reducing rainfall-induced risk leads to more fertilizer use, and therefore, to more production and income. Expansion of off-farm employment opportunities inside and outside agriculture would also improve households’ risk management and risk coping capacities.
Automated Cephalometric Landmark Identification Using Shape and Local Appearance Models

In this paper a method is presented for the automated identification of cephalometric anatomical landmarks in craniofacial cone-beam CT images. This method makes use of statistical models, incorporating both local appearance and shape knowledge obtained from training data. Firstly, the local appearance model captures the local intensity pattern around each anatomical landmark in the image. Secondly, the shape model contains a local and a global component. The former improves the flexibility, whereas the latter improves the robustness of the algorithm. Using a leave-one-out approach to the training data, we assess the overall accuracy of the method. The mean and median error values for all landmarks are equal to 2.55mm and 1.72mm, respectively.
CD4 T-Cell-Independent Antibody Response Reduces Enterovirus 71 Lethality in Mice by Decreasing Tissue Viral Loads

Enterovirus 71 (EV71) has induced fatal encephalitis in hundreds of thousands of infants and young children in the Asia-Pacific region since the past decade. Lymphocyte and antibody responses have been suspected to aggravate EV71-induced neurological symptoms, so anti-inflammatory agents have been used to treat patients with neurological symptoms. In the present study, we found that mice deficient in CD4+ T cells were resistant to EV71 infection as wild-type mice, whereas mice deficient in B cells were highly susceptible to viral infection. Compensation of CD4 T-cell function by other immune cells was not likely, because wild-type mice depleted of CD4+ T cells were also resistant to viral infection. Infected CD4 T-cell-deficient mice produced virus-specific neutralizing antibodies, IgM and IgG. Moreover, adoptive transfer of the virus-specific antibody produced by infected CD4 T-cell-deficient mice protected B-cell-deficient mice from infection by reducing tissue viral loads. Collectively, our results show that the CD4 T-cell-independent antibody response promotes the survival of EV71-infected mice and suggest great potential for the use of vaccines and neutralizing antibodies to reduce fatal symptoms in patients.
Fairness in the Lab: The Effects of Norm Enforcement in Economic Decisions

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Communication Over MIMO X Channels: Interference Alignment, Decomposition, and Performance Analysis

In a multiple-antenna system with two transmitters and two receivers, a scenario of data communication, known as the X channel, is studied in which each receiver receives data from both transmitters. In this scenario, it is assumed that each transmitter is unaware of the other transmitter's data (noncooperative scenario). This system can be considered as a combination of two broadcast channels (from the transmitters' points of view) and two multiple-access channels (from the receivers' points of view). Taking advantage of both perspectives, two signaling schemes for such a scenario are developed. In these schemes, some linear filters are employed at the transmitters and at the receivers which decompose the system into either two noninterfering multiple-antenna broadcast subchannels or two noninterfering multiple-antenna multiple-access subchannels. The main objective in the design of the filters is to exploit the structure of the channel matrices to achieve the highest multiplexing gain (MG). It is shown that the proposed noncooperative signaling schemes outperform other known noncooperative schemes in terms of the achievable MG. In particular, it is shown that in some specific cases, the achieved MG is the same as the MG of the system if full cooperation is provided either between the transmitters or between the receivers. In the second part of the paper, it is shown that by using mixed design schemes, rather than decomposition schemes, and taking the statistical properties of the interference terms into account, the power offset of the system can be improved. The power offset represents the horizontal shift in the curve of the sum-rate versus the total power in decibels.
Exquisite Sensitivity of TP53 Mutant and Basal Breast Cancers to a Dose-Dense Epirubicin−Cyclophosphamide Regimen

Background In breast cancers, only a minority of patients fully benefit from the different chemotherapy regimens currently in use. Identification of markers that could predict the response to a particular regimen would thus be critically important for patient care. In cell lines or animal models, tumor protein p53 (TP53) plays a critical role in modulating the response to genotoxic drugs. TP53 is activated in response to DNA damage and triggers either apoptosis or cell-cycle arrest, which have opposite effects on cell fate. Yet, studies linking TP53 status and chemotherapy response have so far failed to unambiguously establish this paradigm in patients. Breast cancers with a TP53 mutation were repeatedly shown to have a poor outcome, but whether this reflects poor response to treatment or greater intrinsic aggressiveness of the tumor is unknown. Methods and Findings In this study we analyzed 80 noninflammatory breast cancers treated by frontline (neoadjuvant) chemotherapy. Tumor diagnoses were performed on pretreatment biopsies, and the patients then received six cycles of a dose-dense regimen of 75 mg/m2 epirubicin and 1,200 mg/m2 cyclophosphamide, given every 14 days. After completion of chemotherapy, all patients underwent mastectomies, thus allowing for a reliable assessment of chemotherapy response. The pretreatment biopsy samples were used to determine the TP53 status through a highly efficient yeast functional assay and to perform RNA profiling. All 15 complete responses occurred among the 28 TP53-mutant tumors. Furthermore, among the TP53-mutant tumors, nine out of ten of the highly aggressive basal subtypes (defined by basal cytokeratin [KRT] immunohistochemical staining) experienced complete pathological responses, and only TP53 status and basal subtype were independent predictors of a complete response. Expression analysis identified many mutant TP53-associated genes, including CDC20, TTK, CDKN2A, and the stem cell gene PROM1, but failed to identify a transcriptional profile associated with complete responses among TP53 mutant tumors. In patients with unresponsive tumors, mutant TP53 status predicted significantly shorter overall survival. The 15 patients with responsive TP53-mutant tumors, however, had a favorable outcome, suggesting that this chemotherapy regimen can overcome the poor prognosis generally associated with mutant TP53 status. Conclusions This study demonstrates that, in noninflammatory breast cancers, TP53 status is a key predictive factor for response to this dose-dense epirubicin–cyclophosphamide regimen and further suggests that the basal subtype is exquisitely sensitive to this association. Given the well-established predictive value of complete responses for long-term survival and the poor prognosis of basal and TP53-mutant tumors treated with other regimens, this chemotherapy could be particularly suited for breast cancer patients with a mutant TP53, particularly those with basal features.
Global parameter-space correlations of coherent searches for continuous gravitational waves

The space of phase parameters (sky position, frequency, spindowns) of a coherent matched-filtering search for continuous gravitational waves from isolated neutron stars shows strong global correlations (‘circles in the sky’). In the local limit this can be analysed in terms of a parameter-space metric, but the global properties are less well studied. In this work, we report on our recent progress in understanding these global correlations analytically for short to intermediate (less than a month, say) observation times and neglecting spindowns. The location of these correlation circles in parameter space is found to be determined mostly by the orbital velocity of the earth, while the spin motion of the detector and the antenna patterns only contribute significantly to the amplitude of the detection statistic along these circles.
Ahf: AMIGA'S HALO FINDER

Cosmological simulations are the key tool for investigating the different processes involved in the formation of the universe from small initial density perturbations to galaxies and clusters of galaxies observed today. The identification and analysis of bound objects, halos, is one of the most important steps in drawing useful physical information from simulations. In the advent of larger and larger simulations, a reliable and parallel halo finder, able to cope with the ever-increasing data files, is a must. In this work we present the freely available MPI parallel halo finder Ahf. We provide a description of the algorithm and the strategy followed to handle large simulation data. We also describe the parameters a user may choose in order to influence the process of halo finding, as well as pointing out which parameters are crucial to ensure untainted results from the parallel approach. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ability of Ahf to scale to high-resolution simulations.
Effects of bisphosphonates in children with osteogenesis imperfecta: an AACPDM systematic review

This systematic review of the effects of bisphosphonate treatment in children with osteogenesis imperfecta was conducted using the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Medicine methodology for developing systematic reviews of treatment interventions (Revision 1.1) 2004. Despite a large body of published literature, there have been only eight studies with a sufficiently high level of internal validity to be truly informative. These studies confirm improvement in bone density. Many, but not all studies, demonstrate reduction in fracture rate and enhanced growth. There has been extremely limited evaluation of broader treatment impacts such as deformity, need for orthopedic surgery, pain, functioning, or quality of life. Short‐term side effects were minimal. Which medication and dosing regimen is optimal and how long patients should be treated are unclear. This body of evidence would be strengthened by a larger controlled trial, because many studies lacked adequate power to evaluate stated outcomes. These studies do not address the impacts of bisphosphonates in children with milder forms of osteogenesis imperfecta and severe forms that are not due to mutations in the type I pro‐collagen gene (e.g. types VII and VIII). Additional research is needed into treatment of infants. More studies evaluating medication choices, optimal dosing, duration of treatment, post‐treatment impacts, and long‐term side effects are necessary.
The initial–final mass relationship of white dwarfs revisited: effect on the luminosity function and mass distribution

The initial-final mass relationship connects the mass of a white dwarf with the mass of its progenitor in the main-sequence. Although this function is of fundamental importance to several fields in modern astrophysics, it is not well constrained either from the theoretical or the observational points of view. In this work we revise the present semi-empirical initial-final mass relationship by re-evaluating the available data. The distribution obtained from grouping all our results presents a considerable dispersion, which is larger than the uncertainties. We have carried out a weighted least-squares linear fit of these data and a careful analysis to give some clues on the dependence of this relationship on some parameters such as metallicity or rotation. The semiempirical initial-final mass relationship arising from our study covers the range of initial masses from 1.0 to 6.5 M⊙, including in this way the low-mass domain, poorly studied until recently. Finally, we have also performed a test of the initial-final mass relationship by studying its effect on the luminosity function and on the mass distribution of white dwarfs. This was done by using different initial-final mass relationships from the literature, including the expression derived in this work, and comparing the results obtained with the observational data from the Palomar Green Survey and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We find that the semi-empirical initial-final mass relationship derived here gives results in good agreement with the observational data, especially in the case of the white dwarf mass distribution.
UNFCCC vs. Minilateralism: Effects of Agreement Design Features on Support for Global Climate Governance Architectures

Numerous scholars and policy advisors have in the past few years called for “climate clubs” – small groups of countries moving ahead in climate policy outside the UNFCCC, and empirical examples for such “minilateral” organizations include the now defunct Asia-Pacific Partnership and the recently established Renewables Club. Conceptual and theoretical work details the advantages of minilateralism regarding commitment structure, compliance incentives, and depth of agreement, making for greater effectiveness in solving the climate change problem. Some voices caution, however, that a minilateral agreement would critically lack in political legitimacy, commanding little support from both policy-making elites and the general public. Not every small coalition that would be able to deliver substantial mitigation might thus be politically feasible. To evaluate the effects of agreement design features on support for minilateral climate governance, I report results from a conjoint experiment conducted with a nationally representative sample in the United States and among national delegates to the 2012 UNFCCC Conference of the Parties. Results indicate that minilateral approaches receive low support compared to the comprehensive UNFCCC architecture, especially if the club does not regulate a large share of global emissions. Support can however be increased by certain configurations of other design elements, namely reduction commitment structure, membership benefits (“club goods”), and “sanctions” for countries outside the club without ambitious climate policies. Still, individual membership benefits do not affect US respondent support as strongly as one might expect given the recent enthusiasm for such club goods in the theoretical literature. In the delegates survey, both membership benefits and outsider sanctions affected delegates’ preferences from non-Annex I countries positively, whereas those design features did not influence Annex I delegates’ support. If major emitter countries like the US are unwilling to accede to a minilateral agreement because of domestic political obstacles, it is doubtful whether a climate club could deliver meaningful mitigation beyond what the UNFCCC has so far achieved.
Adaptive GPU cache bypassing

Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) include hardware- controlled caches to reduce bandwidth requirements and energy consumption. However, current GPU cache hierarchies are inefficient for general purpose GPU (GPGPU) comput- ing. GPGPU workloads tend to include data structures that would not fit in any reasonably sized caches, leading to very low cache hit rates. This problem is exacerbated by the design of current GPUs, which share small caches be- tween many threads. Caching these streaming data struc- tures needlessly burns power while evicting data that may otherwise fit into the cache. We propose a GPU cache management technique to im- prove the efficiency of small GPU caches while further re- ducing their power consumption. It adaptively bypasses the GPU cache for blocks that are unlikely to be referenced again before being evicted. This technique saves energy by avoid- ing needless insertions and evictions while avoiding cache pollution, resulting in better performance. We show that, with a 16KB L1 data cache, dynamic bypassing achieves sim- ilar performance to a double-sized L1 cache while reducing energy consumption by 25% and power by 18%. The technique is especially interesting for programs that do not use programmer-managed scratchpad memories. We give a case study to demonstrate the inefficiency of current GPU caches compared to programmer-managed scratchpad memories and show the extent to which cache bypassing can make up for the potential performance loss where the effort to program scratchpad memories is impractical.
Morphological development of Hypophthalmus fimbriatus and H. marginatus post-yolk-sac larvae (Siluriformes: Pimelodidae)

Descriptions of stages in the larval development of two sympatric and congeneric freshwater fishes from the rio Negro (Amazon basin), Hypophthalmus fimbriatus and H. marginatus, are presented. Larval development is described in terms of ontogenetic changes in morphology, pigmentation and fin development. Developmental changes during the larval period of the two species are similar, but they can be separated mainly by the following variables: eye diameter, head width, body depth and pre-pectoral distance. Aspects of their reproduction strategies are also discussed.
Structural Adjustment and Unemployment in Selected Eurozone Countries

Although not always painless, sound public finance as an objective in the Eurozone generally goes unquestioned. The aim of this article is to investigate the effects of structural adjustment on unemployment in selected Eurozone countries from 2000 to 2013. The estimates suggest that fiscal tightening, especially in declining macroeconomic conditions, will tend to increase the unemployment rate. The results suggest that if the reduction in structural deficit has to be considered an objective to achieve per se, it should be pursued in times of growth.
Using light to tell the time of day: sensory coding in the mammalian circadian visual network

ABSTRACT Circadian clocks are a near-ubiquitous feature of biology, allowing organisms to optimise their physiology to make the most efficient use of resources and adjust behaviour to maximise survival over the solar day. To fulfil this role, circadian clocks require information about time in the external world. This is most reliably obtained by measuring the pronounced changes in illumination associated with the earth's rotation. In mammals, these changes are exclusively detected in the retina and are relayed by direct and indirect neural pathways to the master circadian clock in the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei. Recent work reveals a surprising level of complexity in this sensory control of the circadian system, including the participation of multiple photoreceptive pathways conveying distinct aspects of visual and/or time-of-day information. In this Review, I summarise these important recent advances, present hypotheses as to the functions and neural origins of these sensory signals, highlight key challenges for future research and discuss the implications of our current knowledge for animals and humans in the modern world. Summary: Accurately predicting daily changes in the environment is critical for health and survival. Mammals use surprisingly sophisticated sensory processing mechanisms to achieve this task.