Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Pursuit of Self-Esteem and Its Motivational Implications

Although recent studies have found contingent self-esteem (CSE) to be negatively related to individuals’ well-being, research concerning its implications for motivation and engagement is scarce. In two studies, we investigated the relation between CSE, motivation, and engagement in achievement-related situations. A first cross-sectional study among second year high school students (N = 641; 54.1% female) confirmed the hypothesized motivational ambiguity associated with academic CSE. Beyond the contribution of academic self-esteem, academic CSE was positively related to behavioral and emotional engagement, but also to emotional disaffection and test anxiety. These associations could partially be explained by motivational quality, as CSE was also positively related to both autonomous and controlled types of motivation. In a second experimental study among university students (N = 72; 70.8% female), who participated in a tangram puzzle task under varying feedback circumstances, global CSE related to more tension, while predicting less behavioral task perseverance. These effects were not moderated by the type of feedback provided (i.e., positive vs. negative). Theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.
Coherence region shape extraction for vegetation parameter estimation in polarimetric SAR interferometry

Polarimetric SAR interferometry (POLINSAR) provides volumetric information about electromagnetic scattering processes, whereas standard INSAR assumes that only surface scattering is present. Instead of a single complex interferometric coherence for each pixel, POLINSAR observes a polarization-dependent coherence function whose range is called the coherence region. To estimate canopy parameters, the shape of this region must be matched to predictions from scattering models. For computational efficiency, the region must be represented by a small number of samples. Current sampling methods find the stationary points of coherence magnitude or phase; it is questionable whether the coherence region can be characterized adequately with so few samples. We have developed an algorithm for sampling the outer boundary of the coherence region. We formulate the problem of finding the minimum and maximum real part of the coherence as an eigenvalue problem. The solutions specify two points on the boundary. Other points are found by applying a phase shift to the POLINSAR cross-correlation matrix. The mathematical literature shows that the coherence region is convex, and hence the algorithm rinds the entire boundary. We present a comparison of boundary sampling to standard methods on L-band POLINSAR data from the SIR-C platform. It is evident that boundary sampling describes the shape of the coherence region more thoroughly than other methods.
Objective, audiological and quality of life measures with the CI532 slim modiolar electrode

Objectives: To report on electrode array measurements for the Nucleus® CI532 Slim Modiolar Electrode device including: ECAP thresholds, electrode impedances, and psychophysical comfort levels, as well as speech perception results pre- and post-operatively and standardized evaluations of quality of life. Methods: Forty-four subjects were implanted with the CI532. Electrically evoked compound action potential (ECAP) thresholds and impedances were measured using automatic Neural Response Telemetry intra-operatively, at activation and at six months post implant. Pre- and post-operative measures of words in quiet and sentences in noise were made in multiple languages. Quality of life was assessed using The Speech Spatial Qualities questionnaire (SSQ) and Glasgow Benefit Inventory (GBI). Results: Intra-operative ECAP thresholds were recorded successfully from 90% of electrodes tested. ECAP thresholds varied across the array and a post-hoc Dunn’s test showed that median thresholds for electrodes E1–E13 were significantly greater than those for E17–E22 (all P < 0.001). Impedances increased significantly between surgery and activation. Speech recognition scores for words in quiet and sentences in noise showed a significant improvement for the group at six months, when using the cochlear implant, compared with pre-operative performance (P < 0.001). There was a significant increase compared to pre-operative ratings for all sections of the SSQ at six months post activation (P < 0.001). The GBI gave scores significantly above zero for the ‘general’ subscale and total score. Conclusion: Objective ECAP and impedance measures for this new electrode array were as expected and similar to results reported for other array types. Speech perception and quality of life improved significantly following implantation. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02392403.
Towards global health security: response to the May 2018 Nipah virus outbreak linked to Pteropus bats in Kerala, India

### Summary box This report summarises the complete outbreak timeline and findings, including the association of infection and Pteropus bats, and makes the link to global health security in India. INTRODUCTION On 17 May 2018, 12 days after his brother died of a febrile illness, a male patient in his mid-20s visited a hospital in Kozhikode, Kerala, with a fever. One day later, he was dead—but not before his doctors at Baby Memorial Hospital and Kerala’s additional director of public health noticed the similarity of the patient’s symptoms, which were consistent with encephalitis, to those of his brother who had died days before. NiV was identified as the cause of death from the patient’s samples sent to the Manipal Centre for Virus Research (MCVR) (a Grade I Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratory of the Indian Council of Medical Research; ICMR) at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (deemed University) in Manipal, Karnataka, on May 18. Additional investigation by scientists at the ICMR’s National Institute of Virology (NIV, Biosafety Level-4) in Pune, Maharashtra, quickly reconfirmed Nipah as the cause of this outbreak only 2 days after MCVR’s initial confirmation. Nipah claimed 21 lives out of 23 cases in the Kozhikode and Mallapuram districts of Kerala, with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 88.9% (deaths/laboratory-confirmed cases, 16/18). NiV is a member of the family Paramyxoviridae , genus Henipavirus and was initially isolated and identified during a 1999 outbreak of encephalitis among pig farmers and people with close …
A FOSSIL BULGE GLOBULAR CLUSTER REVEALED BY VERY LARGE TELESCOPE MULTI-CONJUGATE ADAPTIVE OPTICS

The globular cluster HP 1 is projected on the bulge, very close to the Galactic center. The Multi-Conjugate Adaptive Optics Demonstrator on the Very Large Telescope allowed us to acquire high-resolution deep images that, combined with first epoch New Technology Telescope data, enabled us to derive accurate proper motions. The cluster and bulge fields’ stellar contents were disentangled through this process and produced an unprecedented definition in color–magnitude diagrams of this cluster. The metallicity of [Fe/H] ≈ −1.0 from previous spectroscopic analysis is confirmed, which together with an extended blue horizontal branch imply an age older than the halo average. Orbit reconstruction results suggest that HP 1 is spatially confined within the bulge.
Changes in microbial population and chemical composition of corn stover during field exposure and effects on silage fermentation and in vitro digestibility

Objective To effectively use corn stover resources as animal feed, the changes in microbial population and chemical composition of corn stover during field exposure, and their silage fermentation and in vitro digestibility were studied. Methods Corn cultivars (Jintian, Jinnuo, and Xianyu) stovers from 4 random sections of the field were harvested at the preliminary dough stage of maturity on September 2, 2015. The corn stover exposed in the field for 0, 7, 15, 30, 60, 90, and 180 d, and their silages at 60 d of ensiling were used for the analysis of microbial population, chemical composition, fermentation quality, and in vitro digestibility. Data were analyzed with a completely randomized 3×6 [corn stover cultivar (C)×exposure d (D)] factorial treatment design. Analysis of variance was performed using SAS ver. 9.0 software (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). Results Aerobic bacteria were dominant population in fresh corn stover. After ensiling, the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) became the dominant bacteria, while other microbes decreased or dropped below the detection level. The crude protein (CP) and water-soluble carbohydrate (WSC) for fresh stover were 6.74% to 9.51% and 11.75% to 13.21% on a dry matter basis, respectively. After exposure, the CP and WSC contents decreased greatly. Fresh stover had a relatively low dry matter while high WSC content and LAB counts, producing silage of good quality, but the dry stover did not. Silage fermentation inhibited nutrient loss and improved the fermentation quality and in vitro digestibility. Conclusion The results confirm that fresh corn stover has good ensiling characteristics and that it can produce silage of good quality.
Please Stop Explaining Black Box Models for High Stakes Decisions

Black box machine learning models are currently being used for high stakes decision-making throughout society, causing problems throughout healthcare, criminal justice, and in other domains. People have hoped that creating methods for explaining these black box models will alleviate some of these problems, but trying to explain black box models, rather than creating models that are interpretable in the first place, is likely to perpetuate bad practices and can potentially cause catastrophic harm to society. There is a way forward - it is to design models that are inherently interpretable.
Accelerating alternating least squares for tensor decomposition by pairwise perturbation

The alternating least squares (ALS) algorithm for CP and Tucker decomposition is dominated in cost by the tensor contractions necessary to set up the quadratic optimization subproblems. We introduce a novel family of algorithms that uses perturbative corrections to the subproblems rather than recomputing the tensor contractions. This approximation is accurate when the factor matrices are changing little across iterations, which occurs when ALS approaches convergence. We provide a theoretical analysis to bound the approximation error. Our numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed pairwise perturbation algorithms are easy to control and converge to minima that are as good as ALS. The experimental results show improvements of up to 3.1 × with respect to state‐of‐the‐art ALS approaches for various model tensor problems and real datasets.
A mathematical model of cocoa bean fermentation

Cocoa bean fermentation relies on the sequential activation of several microbial populations, triggering a temporal pattern of biochemical transformations. Understanding this complex process is of tremendous importance as it is known to form the precursors of the resulting chocolate’s flavour and taste. At the same time, cocoa bean fermentation is one of the least controlled processes in the food industry. Here, a quantitative model of cocoa bean fermentation is constructed based on available microbiological and biochemical knowledge. The model is formulated as a system of coupled ordinary differential equations with two distinct types of state variables: (i) metabolite concentrations of glucose, fructose, ethanol, lactic acid and acetic acid and (ii) population sizes of yeast, lactic acid bacteria and acetic acid bacteria. We demonstrate that the model can quantitatively describe existing fermentation time series and that the estimated parameters, obtained by a Bayesian framework, can be used to extract and interpret differences in environmental conditions. The proposed model is a valuable tool towards a mechanistic understanding of this complex biochemical process, and can serve as a starting point for hypothesis testing of new systemic adjustments. In addition to providing the first quantitative mathematical model of cocoa bean fermentation, the purpose of our investigation is to show how differences in estimated parameter values for two experiments allow us to deduce differences in experimental conditions.
Hip Involvement in Patients With Calcium Pyrophosphate Deposition Disease: Potential and Limits of Musculoskeletal Ultrasound

To preliminarily explore the diagnostic potential of ultrasound (US) in detecting calcium pyrophosphate (CPP) crystal deposits at the hip joint in a cohort of patients with CPP deposition disease (CPPD) who were previously evaluated by conventional radiography (CR) and to assess the sensitivity and specificity as well as the agreement between US and CR in the evaluation of hip CPP crystal deposits.
HIV seropositivity among patients presenting with herpes zoster infection.

Background: Skin manifestations are usually the first presentation in HIV infection. Most common of these manifestations is herpes zoster. This study was carried out to determine HIV seroprevalence in patients with herpes zoster and to identify factors that may affect its prevalence. Methods: 40 patients were included in the study after clinical confirmation of herpes zoster. Every patient was interviewed privately to assess demographic, social and medical information. Data were obtained with high confidentiality. Blood samples were collected and tested for presence of antibodies against HIV.Khartoum. Results: Out of the 40 patients screened, 6 (15%) were found HIV seropositive, with significant association in patients with previous herpes zoster attack, history of traveling to endemic areas and sexually transmitted infections. Conclusion: We found high prevalence of HIV in patients with herpes zoster. These results may indicate the need for early screening of herpes zoster patients to facilitate better management of HIV infection.
The role of DNA methylation in human trophoblast differentiation

ABSTRACT The placenta is a vital fetal exchange organ connecting mother and baby. Specialised placental epithelial cells, called trophoblasts, are essential for adequate placental function. Trophoblasts transform the maternal vasculature to allow efficient blood flow to the placenta and facilitate adequate nutrient uptake. Placental development is in part regulated by epigenetic mechanisms. However, our understanding of how DNA methylation contributes to human trophoblast differentiation is limited. To better understand how genome-wide methylation differences affect trophoblast differentiation, reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) was conducted on four matched sets of trophoblasts; side-population trophoblasts (a candidate human trophoblast stem cell population), cytotrophoblasts (an intermediate progenitor population), and extravillous trophoblasts (EVT, a terminally differentiated population) each isolated from the same first trimester placenta. Each trophoblast population had a distinct methylome. In line with their close differentiation relationship, the methylation profile of side-population trophoblasts was most similar to cytotrophoblasts, whilst EVT had the most distinct methylome. In comparison to mature trophoblast populations, side-population trophoblasts exhibited differential methylation of genes and miRNAs involved in cell cycle regulation, differentiation, and regulation of pluripotency. A combined methylomic and transcriptomic approach was taken to better understand cytotrophoblast differentiation to EVT. This revealed methylation of 41 genes involved in epithelial to mesenchymal transition and metastatic cancer pathways, which likely contributes to the acquisition of an invasive EVT phenotype. However, the methylation status of a gene did not always predict gene expression. Therefore, while CpG methylation plays a role in trophoblast differentiation, it is likely not the only regulatory mechanism involved in this process.
An Analysis of Protein Consumption in India Through Plant and Animal Sources

Background: India became self-sufficient in food because of the Green Revolution in the 1960s. However, both the technological innovation and policy support have been biased toward cereals. It is expected that cereals are the major source of proteins in the diet. In recent years, the consumption of cereals is declining in spite of increasing output due to declining preference. Therefore, the country needs to increase production and consumption of pulses to meet the nutritional requirements of the population. Objectives: This article discusses the trends in pulse and protein consumption over the years. Further, it focuses on the substitutability and complementarity between various sources of proteins. Methods: A seemingly unrelated regression estimation (SURE) framework is used to study the price and income effect on proteins from different sources—cereals and pulses (plant sources), milk and milk products, animal sources such as eggs, fish, and meat, and other sources of protein. Results: It is found that the expenditure on proteins is large and significant. As income increases, consumption of proteins increases. Higher disposable incomes have led to higher demand of animal sources of proteins. There are significant food price effects in our analysis—negative for cereals and positive for eggs. As the price of pulses increases, consumption of animal sources of proteins increases. Conclusion: It becomes important to contain volatility in pulse prices given that it is a major source of plant protein. States distributing pulses in the Public Distribution System show higher consumption of proteins than other states.
Hypomagnetic fields cause anxiety in adult male mice

Hypomagnetic fields (HMF), that is, the elimination of the geomagnetic field (GMF), are a risk factor to the health of astronauts in outer space. It has been established that continuous HMF exposure affects cytoskeleton assembly, cell proliferation, embryonic development, and even learning and memory. In addition, although there were some previous studies that focused on the effects of long‐term HMF‐exposure, so far very limited investigations have been conducted to examine the short‐term HMF effect in animals. In this study, we exposed adult male C57BL/6 mice to a 3‐axis Helmholtz‐coil HMF‐simulation system for 72 h and found that short‐term HMF‐exposure induced a significant increase in anxiety‐related behaviors. And our findings provide important information for both psychological intervention and the health care of astronauts. Bioelectromagnetics. 40:27–32, 2019. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Do fish get wasted? Assessing the influence of effluents on parasitic infection of wild fish

Many ecosystems are influenced simultaneously by multiple stressors. One important environmental stressor is aquatic pollution via wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluents. WWTP effluents may contribute to eutrophication or contain anthropogenic contaminants that directly and/or indirectly influence aquatic wildlife. Both eutrophication and exposure to anthropogenic contaminants may affect the dynamics of fish-parasite systems. With this in mind, we studied the impact of WWTP effluents on infection of brown trout by the parasite Tetracapsuloides bryosalmonae, the causative agent of proliferative kidney disease (PKD). PKD is associated with the long-term decline of wild brown trout (Salmo trutta) populations in Switzerland. We investigated PKD infection of brown trout at two adjacent sites (≈400 m apart) of a Swiss river. The sites are similar in terms of ecology except that one site receives WWTP effluents. We evaluated the hypothesis that fish inhabiting the effluent site will show greater susceptibility to PKD in terms of prevalence and disease outcome. We assessed susceptibility by (i) infection prevalence, (ii) parasite intensity, (iii) host health in terms of pathology, and (iv) estimated apparent survival rate. At different time points during the study, significant differences between sites concerning all measured parameters were found, thus providing evidence of the influence of effluents on parasitic infection of fish in our study system. However, from these findings we cannot determine if the effluent has a direct influence on the fish host via altering its ability to manage the parasite, or indirectly on the parasite or the invertebrate host via increasing bryozoa (the invertebrate host) reproduction. On a final note, the WWTP adhered to all national guidelines and the effluent only resulted in a minor water quality reduction assessed via standardized methods in this study. Thus, we provide evidence that even a subtle decrease in water quality, resulting in small-scale pollution can have consequences for wildlife.
The Separation Power of Nanotubes in Membranes: A Review

Research on mixed matrix membranes in which nanoparticles are used to enhance the membrane's performance in terms of flux, separation, and fouling resistance has boomed in the last years. This review probes on the specific features and benefits of one specific type of nanoparticles with a well-defined cylindrical structure, known as nanotubes. Nanotube structures for potential use in membranes are reviewed. These comprise mainly single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), but also other structures and materials, which are less studied for membrane applications, can be used. Important issues related to polymer-nanotube interactions such as dispersion and alignment are outlined, and a categorization is made of the resultant membranes. Applications are reviewed in four different areas, that is, gas separation, water filtration, drug delivery, and fuel cells.
The effect of text-to-self reading strategies on reading comprehension

The Effect of Text-to-Self Reading Strategies on Reading Comprehension by Cathy Arlene (Legg) Cutright M.A., Marshall University, 1986 B.A., West Virginia University of Technology, 1979 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Education Walden University May 2010
Integrative approach using Yersinia pestis genomes to revisit the historical landscape of plague during the Medieval Period

Significance While our knowledge of modern plague reservoirs and their hosts is extensive, we have little to no knowledge about the origin of the Medieval plague pandemics or the routes of transmission involved in their spread. Prior genomic data provide a patchy low-resolution picture of the transmission dynamics involved during the Second Plague Pandemic, with only five distinct genomes. We have reevaluated all Medieval strains under the light of archaeological and historical evidence to carefully discuss the involvement of different transmission routes during the Second Plague Pandemic. Our interpretation showcases the importance of trade routes and human movements and further supports the identification of Yersinia pestis as the pathogenic agent of the so-called pestis secunda (1357–1366). Over the last few years, genomic studies on Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of all known plague epidemics, have considerably increased in numbers, spanning a period of about 5,000 y. Nonetheless, questions concerning historical reservoirs and routes of transmission remain open. Here, we present and describe five genomes from the second half of the 14th century and reconstruct the evolutionary history of Y. pestis by reanalyzing previously published genomes and by building a comprehensive phylogeny focused on strains attributed to the Second Plague Pandemic (14th to 18th century). Corroborated by historical and ecological evidence, the presented phylogeny, which includes our Y. pestis genomes, could support the hypothesis of an entry of plague into Western European ports through distinct waves of introduction during the Medieval Period, possibly by means of fur trade routes, as well as the recirculation of plague within the human population via trade routes and human movement.