Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do consumers always follow “useful” reviews? The interaction effect of review valence and review usefulness on consumers' purchase decisions

Consumers are influenced by both online review valence and usefulness. Although some scholars have recognized the gatekeeping role of review usefulness, whereby consumers always follow “useful” reviews, this is the first study that attempts to provide a better understanding of the gatekeeping role of review valence. Drawing on loss aversion theory, we propose that review valence provides more diagnostic value than review usefulness. Its crucial role is demonstrated in that only when reviews are perceived as positive do highly useful (rather than lowly useful) reviews increase consumers' adoption of them, whereas the difference appears less evident when reviews are perceived as negative. We empirically test the model from two perspectives including product level and review level. The results of a mixed‐method approach – a large‐scale panel study (product level) followed by two experimental studies (review level) – provide empirical evidence for the above hypotheses.
Cold Water Immersion Enhanced Athletes’ Wellness and 10-m Short Sprint Performance 24-h After a Simulated Mixed Martial Arts Combat

Objective: The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of Cold Water Immersion (CWI) on the recovery of physical performance, hematological stress markers and perceived wellness (i.e., Hooper scores) following a simulated Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) competition. Methods: Participants completed two experimental sessions in a counter-balanced order (CWI or passive recovery for control condition: CON), after a simulated MMAs competition (3 × 5-min MMA rounds separated by 1-min of passive rest). During CWI, athletes were required to submerge their bodies, except the trunk, neck and head, in the seated position in a temperature-controlled bath (∼10°C) for 15-min. During CON, athletes were required to be in a seated position for 15-min in same room ambient temperature. Venous blood samples (creatine kinase, cortisol, and testosterone concentrations) were collected at rest (PRE-EX, i.e., before MMAs), immediately following MMAs (POST-EX), immediately following recovery (POST-R) and 24 h post MMAs (POST-24), whilst physical fitness (squat jump, countermovement-jump and 5- and 10-m sprints) and perceptual measures (well-being Hooper index: fatigue, stress, delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS), and sleep) were collected at PRE-EX, POST-R and POST-24, and at PRE-EX and POST-24, respectively. Results: The main results indicate that POST-R sprint (5- and 10-m) performances were ‘likely to very likely’ (d = 0.64 and 0.65) impaired by prior CWI. However, moderate improvements were in 10-m sprint performance were ‘likely’ evident at POST-24 after CWI compared with CON (d = 0.53). Additionally, the use of CWI ‘almost certainly’ resulted in a large overall improvement in Hooper scores (d = 1.93). Specifically, CWI ‘almost certainly’ resulted in improved sleep quality (d = 1.36), stress (d = 1.56) and perceived fatigue (d = 1.51), and ‘likely’ resulted in a moderate decrease in DOMS (d = 0.60). Conclusion: The use of CWI resulted in an enhanced recovery of 10-m sprint performance, as well as improved perceived wellness 24-h following simulated MMA competition.
Early Post-stroke Depression and Mortality: Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression

Background: Post-stroke depression (PSD) is a common and serious complication after stroke. In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we evaluated the association between early PSD and mortality, considering depressive symptoms occurring within the first 3 months after the neurological event. Methods: This meta-analysis was conducted following Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) guidelines and based on studies indexed till May 2018 in PubMed and Web of Science databases. The relative risk (RR) for mortality in individuals with PSD, as compared with non-depressed ones, was estimated. Findings were pooled according to a random-effects model. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses were carried out. Results: We included seven studies, accounting for 119,075 individuals, of whom 17,609 suffering from an early PSD. We found higher rates of mortality in subjects with PSD as compared with non-depressed ones (RR = 1.50; 95%CI: 1.28 to 1.75; p < 0.001). Heterogeneity across studies was moderate (I2 = 50.7%). Subgroup analysis showed a slightly higher effect of PSD on short-term mortality (RR = 1.70; p < 0.001), as compared with long-term one (RR = 1.35; p = 0.01). According to relevant meta-regression analyses, the estimate was influenced by sample proportion of men (p = 0.043). Conclusions: Despite some limitations, our study shows the negative impact of early PSD on survival rates. Mechanisms underlying this association still need to be elucidated and several interpretations can be hypothesized. Future research should test if an early management of depression may increase life expectancy after stroke.
Inception-Residual Block based Neural Network for Thermal Image Denoising

Thermal cameras show noisy images due to their limited thermal resolution, especially for the scenes of a low temperature difference. In order to deal with a noise problem, this paper proposes a novel neural network architecture with repeatable denoising inception-residual blocks(DnIRB) for noise learning. Each DnIRB has two sub-blocks with difference receptive fields and one shortcut connection to prevent a vanishing gradient problem. The proposed approach is tested for thermal images. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach shows the best SQNR performance and reasonable processing time compared with state-of-the-art denoising methods.
Online cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation to the right homologue of Broca's area improves speech fluency in people who stutter

Previous functional imaging studies demonstrate that people who stutter (PWS) exhibit over‐ and under‐activation of Broca's and Wernicke's areas and their right hemisphere homologues when speaking. However, it is unclear whether this altered activation represents the neural cause of speech dysfluency or a secondary compensatory activation in PWS. To clarify the functional significance of the altered activation pattern in classic language areas and their right homologues, we examined whether the severity of stuttering was affected when the activation of these areas was modulated by brain stimulation.
CHARISMA - 5G Low Latency Technologies and their Interaction with Automotion¹ Control Loops

This paper presents the low latency improvements achieved by the key technologies in the 5G-PPP CHARISMA project. CHARISMA uses an hierarchically organizes RAN architecture in combination with FPGA based hardware accelerated network functions to achieve the 5G low latency KPI’s. We show a significant improvement in the operational results as compared to the initial CHARISMA performance. We also include a visualisation platform showing the latency impact on a discrete automotive control application.
Dissociations in the neural substrates of language and social functioning in autism spectrum disorder

Impairments in social communication (coupled with intact nonsocial language skills) are common in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, the neural correlates of these social communication deficits in adolescents and young adults with ASD are not fully understood. The communication checklist self‐report (CC‐SR) was administered to adolescents and young adults with ASD (n = 52) and typically developing (TD) controls (n = 64) to assess structural‐language, pragmatic‐language, and social‐engagement. One high‐resolution T1‐weighted structural image was obtained from each participant. FreeSurfer was used to quantify cortical thickness. A main effect of diagnosis, with the ASD group performing worse than the TD group on all three CC‐SR scales, and a diagnosis by scale interaction, driven by low social‐engagement self‐ratings in the ASD group, were found. There were also group differences in the relationship between scores on two of the three CC‐SR scales and cortical thickness in multiple regions (pragmatic‐language: left rostral frontal; social‐engagement: left medial prefrontal). These interactions were driven by poorer self‐ratings of language/social skills associated with decreased cortical thickness in the ASD group, while in the TD group worse self‐ratings were associated with thicker cortex. Self‐ratings of language/social‐communication were lower in the ASD than the TD group. Moreover, language/social‐communication self‐ratings showed a different relationship with cortical thickness for the ASD and TD groups in the left inferior frontal region for pragmatic language ratings and the left medial prefrontal cortex for social engagement ratings. These findings suggest thinner cortex is associated with more impaired pragmatic language and social communication abilities in ASD. Autism Res 2018, 11: 1175–1186. © 2018 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
JavaScript Convolutional Neural Networks for Keyword Spotting in the Browser: An Experimental Analysis

Used for simple commands recognition on devices from smart routers to mobile phones, keyword spotting systems are everywhere. Ubiquitous as well are web applications, which have grown in popularity and complexity over the last decade with significant improvements in usability under cross-platform conditions. However, despite their obvious advantage in natural language interaction, voice-enabled web applications are still far and few between. In this work, we attempt to bridge this gap by bringing keyword spotting capabilities directly into the browser. To our knowledge, we are the first to demonstrate a fully-functional implementation of convolutional neural networks in pure JavaScript that runs in any standards-compliant browser. We also apply network slimming, a model compression technique, to explore the accuracy-efficiency tradeoffs, reporting latency measurements on a range of devices and software. Overall, our robust, cross-device implementation for keyword spotting realizes a new paradigm for serving neural network applications, and one of our slim models reduces latency by 66% with a minimal decrease in accuracy of 4% from 94% to 90%.
PD-L1 blockade enhances anti-tumor efficacy of NK cells

ABSTRACT Anti-PD-1/anti-PD-L1 therapies have shown success in cancer treatment but responses are limited to ~ 15% of patients with lymphocyte infiltrated, PD-L1 positive tumors. Hence, strategies that increase PD-L1 expression and tumor infiltration should make more patients eligible for PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy, thus improving overall outcomes. PD-L1 expression on tumors is induced by IFNγ, a cytokine secreted by NK cells. Therefore, we tested if PM21-particle expanded NK cells (PM21-NK cells) induced expression of PD-L1 on tumors and if anti-PD-L1 treatment enhanced NK cell anti-tumor efficacy in an ovarian cancer model. Studies here showed that PM21-NK cells secrete high amounts of IFNγ and that adoptively transferred PM21-NK cells induce PD-L1 expression on SKOV-3 cells in vivo. The induction of PD-L1 expression on SKOV-3 cells coincided with the presence of regulatory T cells (Tregs) in the abdominal cavity and within tumors. In in vitro experiments, anti-PD-L1 treatment had no direct effect on cytotoxicity or cytokine secretion by predominantly PD-1 negative PM21-NK cells in response to PD-L1+ targets. However, significant improvement of NK cell anti-tumor efficacy was observed in vivo when combined with anti-PD-L1. PD-L1 blockade also resulted in increased in vivo NK cell persistence and retention of their cytotoxic phenotype. These results support the use of anti-PD-L1 in combination with NK cell therapy regardless of initial tumor PD-L1 status and indicate that NK cell therapy would likely augment the applicability of anti-PD-L1 treatment.
Meta-Analysis of Physical Activity Levels in Youth With and Without Disabilities.

The purpose of this study was to explore the current levels of physical activity among youth with disabilities using meta-analysis. The search identified 11 publications including 729 participants (age 4-20 yr). The overall effect size for 11 studies was Hedges g = 0.60 (SE = 0.18, 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.24, 0.96], p < .05, k = 11) using a random-effects model. The findings suggest that differences in physical activity levels between youth with and without disabilities are complex. Results indicated that youth without disabilities engaged in higher levels of physical activity of moderate to vigorous intensity (g = 0.66, SE = 0.18, p < .05). However, no differences were found in light-intensity physical activity (g = -0.03, SE = 0.16, p > .85). Results also suggested that the differences in physical activity between youth with and without disabilities were affected by age (<12 yr, g = 0.83, SE = 0.24, 95% CI [0.37, 1.29], p < .05, and >13 yr, g = 0.37, SE = 0.10, 95% CI [0.18, 0.57], p < .05; Q value = 3.20, df = 1, p < .05), with children with disabilities engaging in less physical activity than children without disabilities in younger ages. Differences in physical activity level between youth with and without disabilities are functions of intensity of physical activity and age but may not be of type of disability (Q value = 0.22, df = 1, p > .6).
Cell-bound complement activation products (CB-CAPs) have high sensitivity and specificity in pediatric-onset systemic lupus erythematosus and correlate with disease activity

Objective Elevated levels of cell-bound complement activation products (CB-CAPs) (C4d deposition on B lymphocytes (BC4d) and/or erythrocytes (EC4d)) are sensitive and specific in diagnosis and monitoring of adult systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Our objective was to evaluate the role of CB-CAPs for diagnosis and monitoring of pediatric-onset SLE (pSLE). Methods A prospective cohort study of 28 pSLE and 22 juvenile arthritis patients was conducted. SLE disease activity was determined using a clinical Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI) that excluded serologies. Autoantibodies were measured using solid-phase immunoassays, C3 and C4 using immunoturbidimetry, and CB-CAPs using quantitative flow cytometry. Abnormal CB-CAPs were defined as EC4d or BC4d above the 99th percentile for healthy adults (>14 and > 60 net mean fluorescence intensity (MFI), respectively). Performance characteristics of CB-CAPs were assessed using area under the curve (AUC) for receiver operating characteristics. Linear mixed effect models evaluated the correlation between CB-CAPs and clinical SLEDAI over 6 months. Results BC4d yielded higher AUC (0.91 ± 0.04) than C3 (0.63 ± 0.08) and C4 (0.67 ± 0.08) (p < 0.05). Abnormal CB-CAPs were 78% sensitive and 86% specific for diagnosis of pSLE (Youden’s index = 0.64 ± 0.11). In contrast to BC4d, EC4d levels correlated with clinical SLEDAI (p < 0.01). Conclusion CB-CAPs (EC4d and BC4d) have higher sensitivity and specificity than low complement in pSLE, and may help with diagnosis of pSLE. EC4d could provide a useful biomarker for disease activity monitoring.
ESIM: an Open Event Camera Simulator

: Event cameras are revolutionary sensors that work radically differently from standard cameras. Instead of capturing intensity images at a ﬁxed rate, event cameras measure changes of intensity asynchronously , in the form of a stream of events , which encode per-pixel brightness changes. In the last few years, their outstanding properties (asynchronous sensing, no motion blur, high dynamic range) have led to exciting vision applications, with very low-latency and high robustness. However, these sensors are still scarce and expensive to get, slowing down progress of the research community. To address these issues, there is a huge demand for cheap, high-quality synthetic, labeled event for algorithm prototyping, deep learning and algorithm benchmarking. The development of such a simulator, however, is not trivial since event cameras work fundamentally differently from frame-based cameras. We present the ﬁrst event camera simulator that can generate a large amount of reliable event data. The key component of our simulator is a theoretically sound, adaptive rendering scheme that only samples frames when necessary, through a tight coupling between the rendering engine and the event simulator. We release an open source implementation of our simulator. We release ESIM as open source: http://rpg.ifi. uzh.ch/esim .
Meeting the Traffic Requirements of Residential Users in the Next Decade with Current FTTH Standards: How Much? How Long?

Traffic demand in access networks has grown in recent years, and service providers need to upgrade their infrastructure to the latest access standards. While fiber has become the preferred technology of choice in access networks, there are many fibre access technologies available in the market. This poses challenging questions to operators that are not always easy to answer: How to upgrade? What technology and for how long wil it cope with the demands? In this article we model the traffic forecast in access networks for the next decade and analyze possible upgrade scenarios of fibre access networks, concluding which of the NG-PON flavors could better fit the demand.
Adipose‐derived stem cells‐conditioned medium improved osteogenic differentiation of induced pluripotent stem cells when grown on polycaprolactone nanofibers

Considering that the common osteogenic growth factors cannot be transplanted with stem cells to the patients, many studies are underway to find a replacement for these factors. Recently, it has been determined that mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)‐derived conditioned medium (CM) contains effective factors in the bone formation process. In the current study, the synergistic effect of adipose‐derived MSC’s CM, and polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffold was investigated on the osteogenic differentiation potential of human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). After scaffold fabrication by electrospinning and characterization by scanning electron microscopy, iPSCs proliferation in the presence of CM, PCL, and both was evaluated using 3‐[4,5‐dimethylthiazol‐2‐yl]‐2,5 diphenyl tetrazolium bromide. Then, iPSCs osteogenic differentiation was investigated while cultured on tissue culture plate and PCL under CM compared with the osteogenic medium using alizarin red staining, calcium content, alkaline phosphatase activity and gene and protein expression analysis. Proliferation rate of the iPSCs was increased while cultured under CM and its effect was synergistically enhanced by culture on PCL. Evaluation of the osteogenic markers was showed CM alone could induce osteogenic differentiation into the iPSCs and this potential was significantly increased while combined with PCL nanofibrous scaffold. According to the results, it was demonstrated that CM has an osteogenic induction property almost the same of the common osteogenic medium and it can also be used potentially with stem cells when transplant to the patients. CM can also help by prolonging cell survival at the site of the defect as well as accelerating healing process.
Targeted Inhibition of Aggrecanases Prevents Articular Cartilage Degradation and Augments Bone Mass in the STR/Ort Mouse Model of Spontaneous Osteoarthritis

Cartilage destruction in osteoarthritis (OA) is mediated mainly by matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and ADAMTS. The therapeutic candidature of targeting aggrecanases has not yet been defined in joints in which spontaneous OA arises from genetic susceptibility, as in the case of the STR/Ort mouse, without a traumatic or load‐induced etiology. In addition, we do not know the long‐term effect of aggrecanase inhibition on bone. We undertook this study to assess the potential aggrecanase selectivity of a variant of tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 3 (TIMP‐3), called [‐1A]TIMP‐3, on spontaneous OA development and bone formation in STR/Ort mice.
Acute effects of strength exercise with blood flow restriction on vascular function of young healthy males

Abstract Background Strength training with blood flow restriction (STBFR) provokes similar neuromuscular adaptations to traditional strength training using low training loads. However, there is a need for better understanding of the repercussions for antioxidant parameters and vascular function. Objectives: The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of a session of low intensity strength training with blood flow restriction, compared with high intensity and low intensity strength training without blood flow restriction, on the levels of nitric oxide products and antioxidant enzyme activity in healthy young men. Methods: Eleven young men performed three strength exercise sessions: low intensity with blood flow restriction (LIBFR), high intensity (HI), and low intensity (LI). Activity of the antioxidant enzymes catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) was assessed and metabolites of nitric oxide (NOx) were assayed before and after each session. Results: There were no changes to NOx plasma levels under the different exercise conditions (p > 0.05). However, SOD activity exhibited a significant reduction after the LIBFR condition (p < 0.05), while CAT activity reduced significantly after the LI condition (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that one session of low intensity strength training with blood flow restriction does not reduce bioavailability of nitric oxide or induce redox imbalance in healthy young men.
Improving Distant Supervision with Maxpooled Attention and Sentence-Level Supervision

We propose an effective multitask learning setup for reducing distant supervision noise by leveraging sentence-level supervision. We show how sentence-level supervision can be used to improve the encoding of individual sentences, and to learn which input sentences are more likely to express the relationship between a pair of entities. We also introduce a novel neural architecture for collecting signals from multiple input sentences, which combines the benefits of attention and maxpooling. The proposed method increases AUC by 10% (from 0.261 to 0.284), and outperforms recently published results on the FB-NYT dataset.
Relative Contributions of Myostatin and the GH/IGF-1 Axis in Body Composition and Muscle Strength

Myostatin, a negative regulator of muscle growth, is considered a potential therapeutic agent for individuals suffering from various muscle wasting and strength declining diseases because inhibiting Mstn signaling leads to muscular hypertrophy. In this study we investigate the interaction between myostatin and the growth hormone/insulin-like growth factor-1 (GH/IGF-1) axis in muscle function and strength. To this end, we measured hind limb grip strength and myostatin levels in two mouse models of GH gene manipulation; GH receptor knockout (GHR-/-) mice which have reduced GH/IGF-1 action, and bovine GH transgenic (bGH) mice which have excess GH/IGF-1 action. We found that specific muscle force was significantly reduced in bGH mice, and significantly increased in GHR-/- mice, compared to their respective littermate wild type controls. The expression of the mature form of myostatin was significantly increased in bGH mice, and unchanged in GHR-/- mice. In the bGH mice, the high levels of mature myostatin were accompanied by increase body weight and lean mass, consistent with other published results indicating that the IGF-1 signaling pathway is dominant over that of Mstn. Our results also suggest that in these mouse models there is an inverse relationship between muscle strength and levels of myostatin and GH, since constitutive overexpression of GH resulted in elevated levels of mature myostatin in muscle, accompanied by a reduction in strength. By contrast, in the GHR-/- mice with reduced levels of IGF-1, mature myostatin levels were unchanged and muscle strength was increased.