Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DISCOVERING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONTEXT AND ALLOPHONES IN A SECOND LANGUAGE

The identification of stressed syllables by adult second-language (L2) Spanish learners was examined for evidence of influence of an allophonic alternation driven by word position and stress. The Spanish voiced stop-approximant alternation, whereby stops occur in stressed-syllable and word onsets, was utilized. If L2 learners track the distribution of this alternation, they should tend to link stops to stressed syllables in word-onset position and approximants to unstressed, word-medial position. Low- and high-intermediate-level first-language English learners of Spanish as well as native Spanish and monolingual English speakers listened to a series of nonce words and determined which of the two consonant-vowel (CV) syllables they perceived as stressed. In Experiment 1, onset allophone and vowel stress were crossed. In Experiment 2, the onset allophone alternated and a vowel unmarked for prominence was used. The results show that the monolingual English and low-intermediate groups were more likely to perceive syllables with stressed vowels as stressed, regardless of the allophone onset. In contrast, listeners with greater Spanish proficiency performed similarly to native Spanish speakers and were more likely to perceive stress on syllables with stop onsets, a pattern that follows the distributional information of Spanish. This finding suggests that learning the interplay between allophonic distributions and their conditioning factors is possible with experience and that knowledge of this relationship plays a role in the acquisition of L2 allophones.
Lunasin, a New Breast Cancer Chemopreventive Seed Peptide

With a prevalence of about 4.4 million women and a lethality rate of more than 410,000 cases per year, breast cancer is the most common cancer disease and the leading cause of death in women worldwide (Mangiapane et al., 2008). Advances in early detection and improved treatment for breast cancer have led to a steady decrease in the overall breast cancer mortality rate. However, breast cancer remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality. In general, breast cancer is categorized into the estrogen receptor (ER)–positive type and the ER-negative type, based on the prevalence of ERs within the cell. About 70-80% of all breast cancers are estrogen sensitive and they are treated by conventional procedures including surgery, radiation chemotherapy, and estrogen analogues. Results from clinical trials have demonstrated that it is possible to prevent estrogen-responsive breast cancers by targeting the ER with selective modulators (i.e. tamoxifen, raloxifene, or lasofoxifene) or with aromatase inhibitors (i.e. anastrozole, letrozole, or exemestene). While the ER-positive tumors respond to anti-estrogen therapy and have better prognosis, the ER-negative tumors are more aggressive and resistant to treatments (Uray & Brown, 2006; Li & Brown, 2007; Cuzick, 2008). The high aggressiveness and therapeutic resistance of ER-negative breast tumors have made necessary the development of new and efficient strategies for their prevention and/or treatment. Recently, the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research has reported that changes in diet and lifestyle are good strategies for cancer prevention. Evidence based on a systematic review of the published literature has demonstrated benefits of diet modification approach to reduce cancer risk (Greenwald & Dunn, 2009). The rising prevalence of cancer worldwide and the corresponding rise in health care costs is propelling interest among researchers and consumers for multiple health benefits of food compounds, including reduction in cancer risk and modification of tumor behavior (Beliveau, 2007; Kaefer and Milner, 2008). A large number of natural compounds present in the diet have been demonstrated to lower breast cancer risk and sensitize tumor cells to anti-cancer therapies (Kaefer & Milner, 2008; Ramos, 2008; Hauner & Hauner, 2010). Among these dietary compounds, those present in plant foods and collectively termed phytochemicals,
Local features based facial expression recognition with face registration errors

In this paper, we extensively investigate local features based facial expression recognition with face registration errors, which has never been addressed before. Our contributions are three fold. Firstly, we propose and experimentally study the histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) descriptors for facial representation. Secondly, we present facial representations based on local binary patterns (LBP) and local ternary patterns (LTP) extracted from overlapping local regions. Thirdly, we quantitatively study the impact of face registration errors on facial expression recognition using different facial representations. Overall LBP with overlapping gives the best performance (92.9% recognition rate on the Cohn-Kanade database), while maintaining a compact feature vector and best robustness against face registration errors.
Volatile Organic Compounds in Exhaled Air as Novel Marker for Disease Activity in Crohn's Disease: A Metabolomic Approach

Background:Disappearance of macroscopic mucosal inflammation predicts long-term outcome in Crohn’s disease (CD). It can be assessed by ileocolonoscopy, which is, however, an invasive and expensive procedure. Disease activity indices do not correlate well with endoscopic activity and noninvasive markers have a low sensitivity in subgroups of patients. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in breath are of increasing interest as noninvasive markers. The aim of this study was to investigate whether VOCs can accurately differentiate between active CD and remission. Methods:Patients participated in a 1-year follow-up study and Harvey–Bradshaw index, blood, fecal, and breath samples were collected at regular intervals. Patients were stratified into 2 groups: active (fecal calprotectin >250 µg/g) or inactive (Harvey–Bradshaw index <4, C-reactive protein <5 mg/L, and fecal calprotectin <100 µg/g) disease. Breath samples were analyzed by gas chromatography–time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Random forest analyses were used to find the most discriminatory VOCs. Results:Eight hundred thirty-five breath-o-grams were measured, 140 samples were assigned as active, 135 as inactive disease, and 110 samples of healthy controls. A set of 10 discriminatory VOCs correctly predicted active CD in 81.5% and remission in 86.4% (sensitivity 0.81, specificity 0.80, AUC 0.80). These VOCs were combined into a single disease activity score that classified disease activity in more than 60% of the previously undetermined individuals. Conclusions:We showed that VOCs can separate healthy controls and patients with active CD and CD in remission in a real-life cohort. Analysis of exhaled air is an interesting new noninvasive application for monitoring mucosal inflammation in inflammatory bowel disease.
Low-dose taxotere enhances the ability of sorafenib to induce apoptosis in gastric cancer models

Despite the low efficacy of conventional antitumour drugs, chemotherapy remains an essential tool in controlling advanced gastric and oesophageal cancers. We aimed to provide a biological rationale based on the sorafenib–taxotere interaction for the clinical treatment of gastric cancer. In vitro experiments were performed on four human gastric cancer cell lines (GK2, AKG, KKP and NCI‐N87). Cytotoxicity was evaluated by sulforhodamine B (SRB) assay, cell cycle perturbations, apoptosis and mitotic catastrophe were assessed by flow cytometric and microscopic analyses, and protein expression was studied by Western blot. In the in vivo experiments, nude mice xenografted with the most resistant line were treated with sorafenib and docetaxel singly or in association. Sorafenib inhibited cell growth (IG50 values ranged from 3.4 to 8.1 μM) and caused down‐regulation of MAP‐K/ERK phosphorylation and of mcl‐1 and p‐bad expression after a 48‐hr exposure. Apoptosis induction was associated with caspase‐3 and ‐9 activation and mitochondrial membrane depolarization. The drug combination enhanced apoptosis (up to 80%) and produced a synergistic interaction when low doses of the taxane preceded administration of the antityrosine kinase. This synergism was probably due to the induction of an anomalous multidiploid G0‐G1 peak and to consequent mitotic catastrophe, which increased sensitivity to sorafenib. Consistent with in vitro results, the docetaxel–sorafenib sequence exhibited high therapeutic efficacy in NCI‐N87 mouse xenografts producing tumour weight inhibition (> 65%), tumour growth delay (up to 25 days) and increased mouse survival (30%). Our findings suggest the potential clinical usefulness of treatment with sorafenib and docetaxel for advanced gastric cancer.
Political Advertising and Election Outcomes

We implement a new approach for estimating the persuasive effects of political advertising. Our empirical strategy exploits FCC regulations that result in plausibly exogenous variation in the number of impressions across the borders of neighboring counties. Applying this approach to uniquely detailed data on television advertisement broadcasts and viewership patterns during the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, our results indicate that total political advertising has virtually no impact on aggregate turnout. The point estimates are precise enough to rule out even moderately sized effects. By contrast, we find a positive and economically meaningful effect of advertising on candidates’ vote shares. Evidence from a regression discontinuity design with millions of observations suggests that advertising’s impact on elections is largely due to compositional changes of the electorate.
Top Management Support, External Expertise and Information Systems Implementation in Small Businesses

Top management support is a key recurrent factor critical for effective information systems (IS) implementation. However, the role of top management support may not be as critical as external IS expertise, in the form of consultants and vendors, in small business IS implementation due to the unique characteristics of small businesses. This paper describes an empirical study of the relative importance of top management support and external IS expertise on IS effectiveness in 114 small businesses. Partial least squares (PLS) was used for statistical testing. The results show that top management support is not as important as effective external IS expertise in small business IS implementation. While top management support is essential for IS effectiveness, high quality external IS expertise is even more critical for small businesses operating in an environment of resource poverty. These findings call for more research efforts to be directed at selecting and engaging high quality external IS expertise for IS implementation in small businesses.
Effect of windowing and zero‐filled reconstruction of MRI data on spatial resolution and acquisition strategy

Standard, MR spin‐warp sampling strategies acquire data on a rectangular k‐space grid. That method samples data from the “corners” of k‐space, i.e., data that lie in a region of k‐space outside of an ellipse just inscribed in the rectangular boundary. Illustrative calculations demonstrate that the data in the corners of k‐space contribute to the useful resolution only if an interpolation method such as a zero‐filled reconstruction is used. The consequences of this finding on data acquisition and data windowing strategies are discussed. A further implication of this result is that the spatial resolution of images reconstructed with zero‐filling (but without radial windowing) is expected to display angular dependence, even when the phase‐ and frequency‐encoded resolutions are identical. This hypothesis is experimentally verified with a slit geometry phantom. It is also observed that images reconstructed without zero‐filling do not display the angular dependence of spatial resolution predicted solely by the maximal k‐space extent of the raw data. The implications of these results for 3D contrast‐enhanced angiographic acquisitions with elliptical centric view ordering are explored with simulations. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2001;14:270–280. © 2001 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Hippocampal sharp wave‐ripple: A cognitive biomarker for episodic memory and planning

Sharp wave ripples (SPW‐Rs) represent the most synchronous population pattern in the mammalian brain. Their excitatory output affects a wide area of the cortex and several subcortical nuclei. SPW‐Rs occur during “off‐line” states of the brain, associated with consummatory behaviors and non‐REM sleep, and are influenced by numerous neurotransmitters and neuromodulators. They arise from the excitatory recurrent system of the CA3 region and the SPW‐induced excitation brings about a fast network oscillation (ripple) in CA1. The spike content of SPW‐Rs is temporally and spatially coordinated by a consortium of interneurons to replay fragments of waking neuronal sequences in a compressed format. SPW‐Rs assist in transferring this compressed hippocampal representation to distributed circuits to support memory consolidation; selective disruption of SPW‐Rs interferes with memory. Recently acquired and pre‐existing information are combined during SPW‐R replay to influence decisions, plan actions and, potentially, allow for creative thoughts. In addition to the widely studied contribution to memory, SPW‐Rs may also affect endocrine function via activation of hypothalamic circuits. Alteration of the physiological mechanisms supporting SPW‐Rs leads to their pathological conversion, “p‐ripples,” which are a marker of epileptogenic tissue and can be observed in rodent models of schizophrenia and Alzheimer's Disease. Mechanisms for SPW‐R genesis and function are discussed in this review. © 2015 The Authors Hippocampus Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
High-Throughput Sequencing Reveals the Incomplete, Short-Term Recovery of Infant Gut Microbiota following Parenteral Antibiotic Treatment with Ampicillin and Gentamicin

ABSTRACT The infant gut microbiota undergoes dramatic changes during the first 2 years of life. The acquisition and development of this population can be influenced by numerous factors, and antibiotic treatment has been suggested as one of the most significant. Despite this, however, there have been relatively few studies which have investigated the short-term recovery of the infant gut microbiota following antibiotic treatment. The aim of this study was to use high-throughput sequencing (employing both 16S rRNA and rpoB-specific primers) and quantitative PCR to compare the gut microbiota of nine infants who underwent parenteral antibiotic treatment with ampicillin and gentamicin (within 48 h of birth), 4 and 8 weeks after the conclusion of treatment, relative to that of nine matched healthy controls. The investigation revealed that the gut microbiota of the antibiotic-treated infants had significantly higher proportions of Proteobacteria (P = 0.0049) and significantly lower proportions of Actinobacteria (P = 0.00001) (and the associated genus Bifidobacterium [P = 0.0132]) as well as the genus Lactobacillus (P = 0.0182) than the untreated controls 4 weeks after the cessation of treatment. By week 8, the Proteobacteria levels remained significantly higher in the treated infants (P = 0.0049), but the Actinobacteria, Bifidobacterium, and Lactobacillus levels had recovered and were similar to those in the control samples. Despite this recovery of total Bifidobacterium numbers, rpoB-targeted pyrosequencing revealed that the number of different Bifidobacterium species present in the antibiotic-treated infants was reduced. It is thus apparent that the combined use of ampicillin and gentamicin in early life can have significant effects on the evolution of the infant gut microbiota, the long-term health implications of which remain unknown.
Students' Emotions, Physiological Reactions, and Coping in Academic Exams

The findings of two studies are presented which aimed to assess students' emotional and adrenocortical reactions to an exam, their biobehavioral relations, and their relations to coping. In Study I ( N = 40), five different exam-related trait emotions, i.e. anxiety, hopelessness, anger, joy, and hope as well as coping styles (problem-focused, emotion-focused and avoidant coping) were assessed by questionnaire. In addition, the respective state emotions were assessed by questionnaire before and after the exam. In Study II ( N = 25) the five state emotions and the coping responses were assessed on an event-by-event basis by a video-supported semi-structured interview about the exam. In both studies saliva samples were collected before and after the exam for determination of adrenocortical activity (cortisol). Whereas negative emotions were highest before or at the beginning of the exam, positive emotions increased during the exam and reached their highest values afterwards. While there was no general within-cortisol response, the findings indicate an anticipatory response in both studies. Associations between emotional and adrenocortical reactions could be identified only when using the fine-grained assessment procedure of Study II. While state emotions were associated with their respective traits, trait anxiety and hopelessness also predicted the cortisol responses. The influence of coping on emotional regulation was observed both on the emotional and adrenocortical level. In particular, in both studies emotion-focused coping was related to low anxiety and cortisol responses. The findings show that emotional as well as adrenocortical responses depend on the situation and are co-regulated by stable psychological characteristics, emotional dispositions as well as coping abilities.
Ovulation Prevalence in Women with Spontaneous Normal-Length Menstrual Cycles – A Population-Based Cohort from HUNT3, Norway

Background Ovulatory menstrual cycles are essential for women’s fertility and needed to prevent bone loss. There is a medical/cultural expectation that clinically normal menstrual cycles are inevitably ovulatory. Currently within the general population it is unknown the proportion of regular, normal-length menstrual cycles that are ovulatory. Thus, the objective of this study was to determine the population point prevalence of ovulation in premenopausal, normally menstruating women. The null hypothesis was that such cycles are ovulatory. Methods This is a single-cycle, cross-sectional, population-based study—a sub-study of the HUNT3 health study in the semi-rural county (Nord Trøndelag) in mid-Norway. Participants included >3,700 spontaneously (no hormonal contraception) menstruating women, primarily Caucasian, ages 20–49.9 from that county. Participation rate was 51.9%. All reported the date previous flow started. A single, random serum progesterone level was considered ovulatory if ≥9.54 nmol/L on cycle days 14 to -3 days before usual cycle length (CL). Results Ovulation was assessed in 3,168 women mean age 41.7 (interquartile range, [IQR] 36.8 to 45.5), cycle length 28 days (d) (IQR 28 to 28) and body mass index (BMI) 26.3 kg/m2 (95% CI 26.1 to 26.4). Parity was 95.6%, 30% smoked, 61.3% exercised regularly and 18% were obese. 1,545 women with a serum progesterone level on cycle days 14 to -3 were presumed to be in the luteal phase. Of these, 63.3% of women had an ovulatory cycle (n = 978) and 37% (n = 567) were anovulatory. Women with/ without ovulation did not differ in age, BMI, cycle day, menarche age, cigarette use, physical activity, % obesity or self-reported health. There were minimal differences in parity (96.7% vs. 94.5%, P = 0.04) and major differences in progesterone level (24.5 vs. 3.8 nmol/L, P = 0.001). Conclusion Anovulation in a random population occurs in over a third of clinically normal menstrual cycles.
A Greedy, Non-Recursive Algorithm for Minimum-Time Rendering of Triangle Meshes

We propose a new algorithm for solving the so-called minimum-time rendering (MTR) problem in computer graphics. Bar-Yehuda and Gotsman [ACM Transaction on Graphics, vol.15, no.2 (1996) p. 141-52] formulated the problem of MTR as a precise model to analyze fundamentally how efficient one can render polygon meshes. They showed also that their divide-and-conquer based method can always produce a minumum-time rendering sequence using a cache size bounded by O( √ n), and that this growth rate cannot be improved in a worst case sense. We illustrate that one can in general reduce the underlying hidden constant by a factor of 2 by using a non-recursive algorithm. The new MTR algorithm presented in this paper handles meshes of arbitrary topology, is non-recursive and greedy in nature, is very simple to implement, and runs in O(n log n) time when aided by a heap data-structure. We emphasize the benefit of avoiding a divide-and-conquer strategy through an analysis on a family of structured meshes; and present also computational results on a set of unstructured meshes encountered in computer graphics which illustrate a similar benefit as predicted by the theoretical analysis. Based on our MTR algorithm, we derive also a new algorithm for rendering arbitrarily large meshes when a controllable cache of a certain fixed size is given. We compare our method with two current state-of-the-art methods based on FIFO cache. Our result gives encouragement that algorithms based on a controllable cache (like ours) can give better average cache miss ratios when compared to algorithms based on the more standard FIFO cache model. Index Items. graph separation, minimum-time-rendering, polygon mesh, rendering, graphics pipeline, divide-and-conquer, triangle strips