Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Signal-Processing Pipeline for Magnetoencephalography Resting-State Networks

To study functional connectivity using magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data, the high-quality source-level reconstruction of brain activity constitutes a critical element. MEG resting-state networks (RSNs) have been documented by means of a dedicated processing pipeline: MEG recordings are decomposed by independent component analysis (ICA) into artifact and brain components (ICs); next, the channel maps associated with the latter ones are projected into the source space and the resulting voxel-wise weights are used to linearly combine the IC time courses. An extensive description of the proposed pipeline is provided here, along with an assessment of its performances with respect to alternative approaches. The following investigations were carried out: (1) ICA decomposition algorithm. Synthetic data are used to assess the sensitivity of the ICA results to the decomposition algorithm, by testing FastICA, INFOMAX, and SOBI. FastICA with deflation approach, a standard solution, provides the best decomposition. (2) Recombination of brain ICs versus subtraction of artifactual ICs (at the channel level). Both the recombination of the brain ICs in the sensor space and the classical procedure of subtracting the artifactual ICs from the recordings provide a suitable reconstruction, with a lower distortion using the latter approach. (3) Recombination of brain ICs after localization versus localization of artifact-corrected recordings. The brain IC recombination after source localization, as implemented in the proposed pipeline, provides a lower source-level signal distortion. (4) Detection of RSNs. The accuracy in source-level reconstruction by the proposed pipeline is confirmed by an improved specificity in the retrieval of RSNs from experimental data.
Audit Fees in Malaysia: Does Corporate Governance Matter?

This study examines the relationship between corporate governance and audit fees during the period before and after the enactment of the Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance (MCCG). Our panel analysis of 379 firms during the 1999â€“2002 period reveals a significant and positive relationship between corporate governance and audit fees. However, the relationship becomes weaker after 2001, suggesting that the MCCG reduced firms' control and inherent risk, thus ultimately contributing to reduced audit effort in Malaysia. Our findings remain viable after we control for political connections unique to Malaysia's capital market.
Exploring biomolecular machines: energy landscape control of biological reactions

For almost 15 years, our Pathway model has been the most powerful model in terms of predicting the tunnelling mechanism for electron transfer (ET) in biological systems, particularly proteins. Going beyond the conventional Pathway models, we have generalized our method to understand how protein dynamics modulate not only the Franck–Condon factor, but also the tunnelling matrix element. We have demonstrated that when interference among pathways modulates the electron tunnelling interactions in proteins (particularly destructive interference), dynamical effects are of critical importance. Tunnelling can be controlled by protein conformations that lie far from equilibrium—those that minimize the effect of destructive interference during tunnelling, for example. In the opposite regime, electron tunnelling is mediated by one (or a few) constructively interfering pathway tubes and dynamical effects are modest. This new mechanism for dynamical modulation of the ET rate has been able to explain and/or predict several rates that were later confirmed by experiment. However, thermal fluctuations can also affect these molecular machines in many other ways. For example, we show how global transformations, which control protein functions such as allostery, may involve large-scale motion and possibly partial unfolding during the reaction event.
Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Replication Analyses of Genome-Wide Association Loci of Type 2 Diabetes in Han Chinese

This study aimed to examine genomic loci of type 2 diabetes (T2D) initially identified by genome-wide association studies in populations of European ancestry for their associations with T2D and quantitative glycemic traits, as well as their effects on longitudinal change in fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and T2D development, in the Chinese population. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from 25 loci were genotyped in a large case-control sample of 10,001 subjects (5,338 T2D cases and 4,663 controls) and a prospective cohort of 1,881 Chinese. In the case-control sample, 8 SNPs in or near WFS1, CDKAL1, CDKN2A/2B, CDC123, HHEX, TCF7L2, KCNQ1, and MTNR1B were significantly associated with T2D (P<0.05). Thirteen SNPs were associated with quantitative glycemic traits. For example, the most significant SNP, rs10811661 near CDKN2A/2B (P = 1.11×10−8 for T2D), was also associated with 2-h glucose level of an oral glucose tolerance test (P = 9.11×10−3) and insulinogenic index (P = 2.71×10−2). In the cohort study, individuals carrying more risk alleles of the replicated SNPs had greater FPG increase and T2D incidence in a 7.5-year follow-up period, with each quartile increase in the number of risk alleles being associated with a 0.06 mmol/l greater increase in FPG (P = 0.03) and 19% higher odds of developing T2D (P = 0.058). Our study identified the associations of several established T2D-loci in Europeans with T2D and quantitative glycemic traits in the Chinese population. The prospective data also suggest their potential role in the risk prediction of T2D in the Chinese population.
Physical and Spectral Characteristics of the T8 and Later Type Dwarfs

We use newly observed and published near-infrared spectra, together with synthetic spectra obtained from model atmospheres, to derive physical properties of three of the latest type T dwarfs. A new R ≈ 1700 spectrum of the T7.5 dwarf HD 3651B, together with existing data, allows a detailed comparison to the well-studied and very similar dwarf Gl 570D. We find that HD 3651B has both higher gravity and higher metallicity than Gl 570D, with best-fit atmospheric parameters of Teff = 820-830 K, log g = 5.4-5.5, [m/H] = +0.2, and Kzz = 104 cm2 s-1. Its age is 8-12 Gyr, and its implied mass is 60-70 MJ. We perform a similar analysis of the T8 and T7.5 dwarfs 2MASS J09393548-2448279 and 2MASS J11145133-2618235 using published data, comparing them to the well-studied T8, 2MASS J04151954-0935066. We find that these two dwarfs have effectively the same Teff as the reference dwarf, and similar or slightly higher gravities, but lower metallicities. The derived parameters are Teff = 725-775 K and [m/H] = -0.3; log g = 5.3 - 5.45 for 2MASS J09393548-2448279 and log g = 5.0 - 5.3 for 2MASS J11145133-261823. The age and mass are ~10 Gyr and 60 MJ for 2MASS J09393548-2448279, and ~5 Gyr and 40 MJ for 2MASS J11145133-261823. A serious limitation to such analyses is the incompleteness of the line lists for transitions of CH4 and NH3 at λ ≤ 1.7 μm, which are also needed for synthesizing the spectrum of the later, cooler, Y type. Spectra of Saturn and Jupiter, and of laboratory CH4 and NH3 gas, suggest that NH3 features in the Y and J bands may be useful as indicators of the next spectral type, and not features in the H and K bands, as previously thought. However, until cooler objects are found, or the line lists improve, large uncertainties remain, as the abundance of NH3 is likely to be significantly below the chemical equilibrium value. Moreover, inclusion of laboratory NH3 opacities in our models predicts band shapes that are discrepant with existing data. It is possible that the T spectral class will have to be extended to temperatures around 400 K, when water clouds condense in the atmosphere and dramatically change the spectral energy distribution of the brown dwarf.
Subaru Spectroscopy of the Gravitational Lens HST 14176+5226: Implications for a Large Cosmological Constant

We present new optical spectroscopy of the lens elliptical galaxy in the Einstein Cross lens system HST 14176+5226, using the Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph of the Subaru Telescope. Our spectroscopic observations are aimed at measuring the stellar velocity dispersion of the lens galaxy, located at high redshift of zL = 0.81, as an important component to lens models. We have measured this dispersion to be 230 ± 14 km s-1 (1 σ) inside 0.35 effective radii of the lens, based on the comparison between the observed galaxy spectrum and spectral templates of three G–K giants by means of the Fourier cross-correlation method. To extract the significance of this information on the geometry of the universe, which also affects the lensing of the background image, we attempt to fit three different lens models to the available data of the lens system. Provided that the lens galaxy has structural and dynamical properties (i.e., its radial density profile, core radius, and velocity anisotropy) similar to those of local elliptical galaxies, we calculate the likelihood function for the simultaneous reproduction of both the observed image splitting and the newly measured velocity dispersion of the lens. Although the confidence interval depends rather sensitively on the adopted lens models or their parameters, our experiments suggest the greater likelihood for a larger cosmological constant ΩΛ: the formal 1 σ lower limit on ΩΛ in the flat universe ranges from 0.73 to 0.97, whereas the 2 σ lower limit is basically unavailable. This method for determining the world model is thus dependent on lens models but is insensitive to other unavoidable ambiguities, such as the dust absorption or the evolutionary effects of galaxies. Exploring spectroscopic observations of more lens galaxies at high redshift may minimize the model uncertainties and thus place a much tighter constraint on ΩΛ.
Visual Hierarchical Processing and Lateralization of Cognitive Functions through Domestic Chicks' Eyes

Hierarchical stimuli have proven effective for investigating principles of visual organization in humans. A large body of evidence suggests that the analysis of the global forms precedes the analysis of the local forms in our species. Studies on lateralization also indicate that analytic and holistic encoding strategies are separated between the two hemispheres of the brain. This raises the question of whether precedence effects may reflect the activation of lateralized functions within the brain. Non-human animals have perceptual organization and functional lateralization that are comparable to that of humans. Here we trained the domestic chick in a concurrent discrimination task involving hierarchical stimuli. Then, we evaluated the animals for analytic and holistic encoding strategies in a series of transformational tests by relying on a monocular occlusion technique. A local precedence emerged in both the left and the right hemisphere, adding further evidence in favour of analytic processing in non-human animals.
BLOW-UP

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), a space filling curve (SFC) refers to a path passing through all nodes in the network, with each node visited at least once. By enforcing a linear order of the sensor nodes through an SFC, many applications in WSNs concerning serial operations on both sensor nodes and sensor data can be performed, with examples including serial data fusion and path planning of mobile nodes. Although a few studies have made efforts to find such SFCs in WSNs, they primarily target 2D planar or 3D surface settings and cannot be directly applied to 3D volumetric WSNs due to considerably more complex geometric features and topology shapes that the 3D volumetric settings introduce. This article presents BLOW-UP, a distributed, scalable, and connectivity-based algorithm to construct an SFC for a 3D volumetric WSN (or alternatively to linearize the 3D volumetric network). The main idea of BLOW-UP is to decompose the given 3D volumetric network into a series of connected and closed layers, and the nodes are traversed layer by layer, incrementally from the innermost to the outermost, yielding an SFC covering the entire network, provably at least once and at most a constant number of times. To the best of our knowledge, BLOW-UP is the first algorithm that realizes linearization in 3D volumetric WSNs. It does not require advance knowledge of location or distance information. It is also scalable with a nearly constant per-node storage cost and message cost. Extensive simulations under various networks demonstrate its effectiveness on nodes’ covered times, coverage rate, and covering speed.
A Snapshot of College Access and Inequity: Using Photography to Illuminate the Pathways to Higher Education for Underserved Youth

Abstract:The researchers of this study collected data via photographs; two semi-structured, one-on-one interviews; and a focus group interview to explore the college pathways of ten underserved youth in a college access and preparation program. Findings show that participants experienced structural and systemic barriers rooted in classism and racism on their pathways to higher education. Drawing on multiple forms of Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005), students used assets and resources to support their pathways to higher education in the face of structural and systemic barriers. We envision that our findings will enhance the effectiveness of college access programming, curriculum, and policies designed to serve Students of Color and/or low-income and working class students who aspire to college by emphasizing the need to recognize the agency and capital these students possess, resist deficit-oriented perspectives of underserved youth, and enhance structural support for underserved youth.
Lexical Semantic Relatedness for Twitter Analytics

Existing work in the semantic relatedness literature has already considered various information sources such as WordNet, Wikipedia and Web search engines to identify the semantic relatedness between two words. We will show that existing semantic relatedness measures might not be directly applicable to microblogging content such as tweets due to i) the informality and short length of microblogging content, which can lead to shift in the meaning of words when used in microblog posts, ii) the presence of non-dictionary words that have their semantics defined/evolved by the Twitter community. Therefore, we propose the Twitter Space Semantic Relatedness (TSSR) technique that relies on the latent relation hypothesis to measure semantic relatedness of words on Twitter. We construct a graph representation of terms in tweets and apply a random walk procedure to produce a stationary distribution for each word, which is the basis for relatedness calculation. Our experiments examine TSSR from three different perspectives and show that TSSR is better suited for Twitter analytics compared to the standard semantic relatedness techniques.
Efficacy of a standardized training on horse welfare indicators: a preliminary study

Harmonized data collection is essential to obtain a reliable picture of equine welfare conditions. Effective education on how to assess and score welfare indicators plays a critical role in terms of inter-observer reliability. The Horse Grimace Scale (HGS), a facial-expression-based pain coding system, is able to identify a range of acute pain conditions in horses. This study aimed at evaluating the efficacy of a standardized training on HGS inter-observer reliability.Students in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Milan (N=46) and the University of Teramo (N=31) were recruited. Prior to any training, students were asked to score 10 pictures of horse faces using the six Facial Action Units (FAUs) of the HGS: Stiffly backwards ears, Orbital tightening, Tension above the eye area, Prominent strained chewing muscles, Mouth strained, Strained nostrils. Then, a 30-min training session was provided, including detailed descriptions and example pictures of each FAU, as well as a discussion of five pictures previously scored by an experienced assessor. After training, students scored other 10 pictures. To determine the inter-observer reliability pre and post-training, Intra-class Correlation Coefficient (ICC) was used.Students’ reliability was good even before training (ICC=0,986 for the overall HGS score), with Tension above the eye area, and Strained nostrils appearing more challenging to be scored reliably. Reliability improved after the 30 min training for the overall HGS score (ICC=0,992) and for each FAU (see table 1). According to Cicchetti (1994), an ICC score between 0.75 and 1.00 can be considered excellent.Our results suggest that the HGS scoring system is easy to apply even without any training; however, the training method applied proved useful to improve the reliability of HGS scores.
A study of the self-perceived competencies regarding the knowledge and skills of healthcare providers in the Expanded Program on Immunization in Thailand

Purpose The Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) has still been found to offer services that do not comply with standards. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain competency in terms of the knowledge and skills of the EPI staff. Design/methodology/approach The research design was a mixed-methods approach. The quantitative method employed a questionnaire survey on the perceived competency of 382 EPI staffs from six regions in Thailand. This was paired alongside of the qualitative method, where four staffs were in-depth interviewed, and the performance of the EPI staffs was observed. Findings The overall perceived competency in the work of immunization was at a high level. A comparative analysis between the quantitative and qualitative data showed findings in three categories. First, the perception of competency was high, and performance conformed to standards in the preparation of the setting and equipment for providing the service; second, the perception of competency was high, but in the performance of their work the participants did not comply completely with standards for scheduling the immunization appointments or for vaccine storage; and third, the perception of competency was either moderate or low, and the performance of work was inadequate for vaccine estimations, registering reports, and dealing with adverse events following immunization. Originality/value The findings showed a gap between perception of knowledge-and-skill competency and actual practice in EPI service. Effective cooperation among involved organizations in order to improve the standard of performance in expanding the quality of EPI service provision in Thailand is suggested.
The Substellar Mass Function: A Bayesian Approach

We report our efforts to constrain the form of the low-mass star and brown dwarf mass function via Bayesian inference. Recent surveys of M, L, and T dwarfs in the local solar neighborhood are an essential component of our study. Uncertainties in the age distribution of local field stars make reliable inference complicated. We adopt a wide range of plausible assumptions about the rate of Galactic star formation and show that their deviations from a uniform rate produce little effect on the resulting luminosity function for a given mass function. As an ancillary result, we calculate the age distribution for M, L, and T spectral types. We demonstrate that late L dwarfs, in particular, are systematically younger than objects with earlier or later spectral types, with a mean age of 3 Gyr. Finally, we use a Bayesian statistical formalism to evaluate the probability of commonly used mass functions in the light of recent discoveries. We consider three functional forms of the mass function, including a two-segment power law, a single power law with a low-mass cutoff, and a lognormal distribution. Our results show that at a 60% confidence level the power-law index α for the low-mass arm of a two-segment power law has a value between -0.6 and 0.6 for objects with masses between 0.04 and 0.10 M☉. The best-fit index is α = 0.3 ± 0.6 at the 60% confidence level for a single-segment mass function. Current data require this function to extend to at least 0.05 M☉ with no restrictions placed on a lower mass cutoff. Inferences of the parameter values for a lognormal mass function are virtually unaffected by recent estimates of the local space density of L and T dwarfs. We find that we have no preference among these three forms using this method. We discuss current and future capabilities that may eventually discriminate between mass function models and refine estimates of their associated parameter values.
Regional Integration, Scale Economies and Industry Location in the European Union

This paper analyses the effects of regional integration on the location of increasing-returns industry and the resulting pattern of trade. Theoretically, it is shown that regional integration may initially lead to a dispersion of industry inside the customs union. Below a certain threshold of internal trade costs, however, industry concentration in the central member country will again increase. This non-monotonic relationship with regional integration also applies to equilibrium levels of intra-industry trade (IIT). A strictly monotonic negative relationship is found between, on one hand, the degree of scale economies and, on the other hand, industrial concentration both in the central country and intra-union IIT. Empirical evidence for the European Union lends support to some of the theoretical predictions. Employment in scale-intensive industries tends to be concentrated at the centre of the EU, and IIT is relatively low in these sectors. An IIT growth reversal is detected for the scale-intensive industries, which supports the non-monotonicity predicted by the model.
Unsupervised Person Slot Filling based on Graph Mining

Slot ﬁlling aims to extract the values ( slot ﬁllers ) of speciﬁc attributes ( slots types ) for a given entity ( query ) from a large-scale corpus. Slot ﬁlling remains very challenging over the past seven years. We propose a simple yet effective unsupervised approach to extract slot ﬁllers based on the following two observations: (1) a trigger is usually a salient node relative to the query and ﬁller nodes in the dependency graph of a context sentence; (2) a relation is likely to exist if the query and candidate ﬁller nodes are strongly connected by a relation-speciﬁc trigger. Thus we design a graph-based algorithm to automatically identify triggers based on personalized PageRank and Afﬁnity Propagation for a given ( query , ﬁller ) pair and then label the slot type based on the identiﬁed triggers. Our approach achieves 11.6%-25% higher F-score over state-of-the-art English slot ﬁlling methods. Our experiments also demonstrate that as long as a few trigger seeds, name tagging and dependency parsing capabilities exist, this approach can be quickly adapted to any language and new slot types. Our promising results on Chinese slot ﬁlling can serve as a new benchmark.