Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Understanding and predicting profiles of compulsive sexual behavior among adolescents

Background and aims This two-study research was designed to define and predict profiles of compulsive sexual behavior (CSB) among non-clinical population of adolescents, and aimed to fill gaps in the current research. Methods In Study 1 (N = 1,182), we examined the profiles of CSB among adolescents using latent profile analysis. Results revealed the following three clusters: abstainers, sexual fantasizers, and individuals with CSB. In Study 2 (N = 618), we replicated this classification and examined differences between the clusters in Big Five personality traits, locus of control, attachment orientations, loneliness, age, gender, socioeconomic status (SES), residence quality, use of pornography, and sex-related online activities. Results Adolescents classified into different clusters significantly differed in personality traits, loneliness, age, SES, use of pornography, and sex-related online activities. Specifically, individuals with CSB had external locus of control, anxious attachment, greater loneliness, higher frequency of pornography use, and more sex-related online activities than the other groups. Discussion The current research expands the knowledge about CSB by providing a more individualized approach to understanding CSB among adolescence.
Brain Plasticity in Mammals: An Example for the Role of Comparative Medicine in the Neurosciences

Comparative medicine deals with similarities and differences between veterinary and human medicine. All mammals share most basic cellular and molecular mechanisms, thus justifying murine animal models in a translational perspective; yet “mice are not men,” thus some biases can emerge when complex biological processes are concerned. Brain plasticity is a cutting-edge, expanding topic in the field of Neurosciences with important translational implications, yet, with remarkable differences among mammals, as emerging from comparative studies. In particular, adult neurogenesis (the genesis of new neurons from brain stem cell niches) is a life-long process in laboratory rodents but a vestigial, mostly postnatal remnant in humans and dolphins. Another form of “whole cell” plasticity consisting of a population of “immature” neurons which are generated prenatally but continue to express markers of immaturity during adulthood has gained interest more recently, as a reservoir of young neurons in the adult brain. The distribution of the immature neurons also seems quite heterogeneous among different animal species, being confined within the paleocortex in rodents while extending into neocortex in other mammals. A recent study carried out in sheep, definitely showed that gyrencephalic, large-sized brains do host higher amounts of immature neurons, also involving subcortical, white, and gray matter regions. Hence, “whole cell” plasticity such as adult neurogenesis and immature neurons are biological processes which, as a whole, cannot be studied exclusively in laboratory rodents, but require investigation in comparative medicine, involving large-sized, long-living mammals, in order to gain insights for translational purposes.
Orbitofrontal Lesion Alters Brain Dynamics of Emotion-Attention and Emotion-Cognitive Control Interaction in Humans

Patients with lesion to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) experience challenges in emotional control and emotion-guided behaviors. The OFC is known to participate in executive functions and attentional control of emotion and our previous research suggests OFC lesion alters the balance between voluntary and involuntary attention and cognitive control within the context of emotion. To better understand how OFC lesion affects the dynamics and interaction of these functions, we studied EEG and performance of 12 patients with lesion to the OFC and 11 control subjects with intact OFC in a Go/NoGo visual reaction time (RT) task with neutral targets and intervening threat-related emotional distractors (Executive RT Test). Event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically N2P3 peak-to-peak amplitude and the following late positive potential (LPP), were used to measure allocation of attention and cognitive control to emotional distractors. Task performance and Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Functions—Adult version (BRIEF-A) scores were used to assess executive functions. As expected, the Control group showed increased N2P3 amplitude in the context of threat-related distractors, particularly over the right hemisphere, while LPP was not modulated by these distractors. In contrast, patients with OFC lesion showed no such impact of threat-related distractors on N2P3 amplitude but exhibited increased and prolonged left-lateralized impact of threat on LPP in the Go-condition. In NoGo-condition, the N2P3 amplitude was increased in both groups due to threat, but the impact was seen earlier, i.e., at the N2 peak in the OFC group and later at the P3 peak in Controls. The OFC group committed more errors in the Executive RT Test and reported more problems in BRIEF-A, thus both objective and subjective evidence for challenges in executive functions was obtained in patients with orbitofrontal lesion. Furthermore, the time-course of attention allocation and cognitive control towards task-irrelevant emotional stimuli was altered as evidenced by ERPs. We conclude that orbitofrontal lesion is associated with altered neural dynamics underlying the interaction of involuntary attention to emotion and cognitive control. These alterations in brain dynamics may underlie some of the challenges patients encounter in everyday life when emotional events interact with cognitive demands.
Multimodal matching using a Hybrid Convolutional Neural Network

In this work we propose a novel Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture for the matching of pairs of image patches acquired by different sensors. Our approach utilizes two CNN sub-networks, where the first is a Siamese CNN and the second is a subnetwork consisting of dual non-weight-sharing CNNs. This allows simultaneous joint and disjoint processing of the input pair of multimodal image patches. The convergence of the training and the test accuracy is improved by introducing auxiliary losses, and a corresponding hard negative mining scheme. The proposed approach is experimentally shown to compare favorably with contemporary state-of-the-art schemes when applied to multiple datasets of multimodal images. The code implementing the proposed scheme was made publicly available.
Cancer driver mutations in endometriosis: Variations on the major theme of fibrogenesis

One recent study reports cancer driver mutations in deep endometriosis, but its biological/clinical significance remains unclear. Since the natural history of endometriosis is essentially gradual progression toward fibrosis, it is thus hypothesized that the six driver genes reported to be mutated in endometriosis (the RP set) may play important roles in fibrogenesis but not necessarily malignant transformation.
Cell‐specific Retention and Action of Pheophorbide‐based Photosensitizers in Human Lung Cancer Cells

This study determined in primary cultures of human lung cancer cells the cell specificity of chlorin‐based photosensitizers. Epithelial cells (ECs) preferentially retained 3‐[1‐hexyloxyethyl]‐2‐devinylpyropheophorbide‐a (HPPH) and related structural variants. Tumor‐associated fibroblasts (Fb) differ from EC by a higher efflux rate of HPPH. Immunoblot analyses indicated dimerization of STAT3 as a reliable biomarker of the photoreaction. Compared to mitochondria/ER‐localized photoreaction by HPPH, the photoreaction by lysosomally targeted HPPH‐lactose showed a trend toward lower STAT3 cross‐linking. Lethal consequence of the photoreaction differed between EC and Fb with the latter cells being more resistant. A survey of lung tumor cases indicated a large quantitative range by which EC retains HPPH. The specificity of HPPH retention defined in vitro could be confirmed in vivo in selected cases grown as xenografts. HPPH retention as a function of the tetrapyrrole structure was evaluated by altering side groups on the porphyrin macrocycle. The presence or absence of a carboxylic acid at position 172 proved to be critical. A benzyl group at position 20 enhanced retention in a subset of cancer cells with low HPPH binding. This study indicated experimental tools that are potentially effective in defining the photosensitizer preference and application for individual patient's cancer lesions.
Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment Alters Gastric Myoelectric Activity in Healthy Subjects.

OBJECTIVES It is unclear whether osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) affects gastric myoelectric activity (GMA), an index of gastric motility. We hypothesized that OMT significantly alters power spectral density (PSD) analyses of electrogastrography (EGG) recordings, an index of GMA, compared with time control OMT. DESIGN GMA data were obtained from nine subjects before and after OMT and time control on separate days in a cross-over design. Fifteen-minute EGG recordings were obtained before and after each intervention and after a water challenge (WC). Percent power in the normogastric range (PPN) was estimated from PSD analyses. Absolute percent change of PPN and dominant frequency (DF) from baseline to postintervention and baseline to post-WC was computed and compared using two-way repeated-measures ANOVA. RESULTS OMT altered PPN versus time control (time control: 5.3% ± 1.2%; OMT: 24.5% ± 4.5%; p = 0.015). WC altered PPN compared with time control (post-time control ΔPPN: 5.3% ± 1.2%; post-drink ΔPPN: 30.3% ± 7.2%; p < 0.01). However, WC did not alter PPN with prior OMT treatment (post-OMT ΔPPN: 24.5% ± 4.5%; post-WC ΔPPN: 19.4% ± 5.6%; p = 0.47). Nevertheless, OMT reduced the rate of change for DF compared with time control (WC post-time control: 37.9% ± 7.4%; WC post-OMT: 20.0% ± 5.9%; p = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS We conclude that (1) OMT significantly alters GMA compared with time control and that (2) OMT reduces the rate of change in the frequency response to WC within the normal frequency range of 2-4 cycles per minute, indicating a physiological effect.
Acute Stress Attenuates Cognitive Flexibility in Males Only: An fNIRS Examination

Cognitive processes that afford us the ability to control thoughts and achieve goal-directed behavior are known as executive functions. Empirical evidence in the past few years has demonstrated that executive functions can be influenced by acute stress. The impact of acute stress on cognitive flexibility, a key aspect of executive functions, has received little attention in the literature. We present the results of two experiments conducted to examine the effect of acute stress on cognitive flexibility. Acute stress was induced using the cold pressor task. Cognitive flexibility was assessed using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Across both experiments acute stress had an attenuating effect on task switching on the WCST. Our findings also indicate that this effect was moderated by the participant’s gender. In Study 1, we observed that following stress exposure male participants in the stress condition made more perseverative errors than participants in the control group. In Study 2, we examined the bilateral hemodynamics in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during acute stress induction using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Our analysis indicated that functional oxyHb signals fluctuated with greater amplitude than systemic components for participants in the stress group relative to those in the control group. In addition, oxyHb levels post stress induction were correlated with performance on the WCST for the male participants in the stress group only. Concordant with previous reports, our findings indicate that acute stress impacts cognitive flexibility in males and females differentially. Our work also demonstrates the feasibility of using fNIRS as a practical and objective technique for the examination of hemodynamics in the PFC during acute stress.
Scission: Signal Characteristic-Based Sender Identification and Intrusion Detection in Automotive Networks

Increased connectivity increases the attack vector. This also applies to connected vehicles in which vulnerabilities not only threaten digital values but also humans and the environment. Typically, attackers try to exploit the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus, which is the most widely used standard for internal vehicle communication. Once an Electronic Control Unit (ECU) connected to the CAN bus is compromised, attackers can manipulate messages at will. The missing sender authentication by design of the CAN bus enables adversarial access to vehicle functions with severe consequences. In order to address this problem, we propose Scission, an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) which uses fingerprints extracted from CAN frames, enabling the identification of sending ECUs. Scission utilizes physical characteristics from analog values of CAN frames to assess whether it was sent by the legitimate ECU. In addition, to detect comprised ECUs, the proposed system is able to recognize attacks from unmonitored and additional devices. We show that Scission is able to identify the sender with an average probability of 99.85%, during the evaluation on two series production cars and a prototype setup. Due to the robust design of the system, the evaluation shows that all false positives were prevented. Compared to previous approaches, we have significantly reduced hardware costs and increased identification rates, which enables a broad application of this technology.
Passive Harmonic RFID System for Buried Assets Localization

A passive harmonic tag for buried assets localization is presented for utility localization. The tag design is based on a dual-polarized patch antenna at Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band. One of its feeders is connected to a frequency doubler based on a Schottky diode that generates the second harmonic, which is transmitted using a linear-polarized patch tuned at this frequency. The power received at the other feeder of the dual-polarized antenna is harvested by an RF to DC converter based on a five-stage voltage multiplier whose energy is used to bias a low-power quartz oscillator that modulates the output of the doubler. The different parts of the system are presented, and the theoretical read range is estimated as a function of the soil composition and the water content. A low-cost reader based on a software defined radio is also presented. Finally, experiments with a prototype of the tag are performed for different soil conditions.
Daidzin inhibits RANKL‐induced osteoclastogenesis in vitro and prevents LPS‐induced bone loss in vivo

Osteoclasts are multinuclear giant cells responsible for bone resorption in bone loss diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, periodontitis, and the aseptic loosening of orthopedic implants. Because of injurious side effects with currently available drugs, it is necessary to continue research novel bone‐protective therapies. Daidzin, a naturally occurring isoflavone found in leguminous plants, has numerous beneficial pharmacologic effects, including anti‐cancer, anti‐cholesterol, and anti‐angiocardiopathy, promoting osteoblasts differentiation, and even anti‐osteoporosis. However, the effect of daidzin on the regulation of osteoclast activity has not yet been investigated. In this study, our study showed that daidzin significantly inhibited receptor activator of nuclear factor‐kB ligand (RANKL)‐induced osteoclast differentiation of bone marrow macrophages and the hydroxyapatite‐resorbing activity of mature osteoclasts by inhibiting RANKL‐induced NF‐kB signaling pathway. In addition, daidzin could inhibit the expression of osteoclast marker genes, including nuclear factor of activated T cells cytoplasmic 1 (NFATc1), cellular oncogene fos (c‐Fos), tartrate‐resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP), and cathepsin K (CTSK). Consistent with in vitro results, daidzin inhibited lipopolysaccharide‐induced bone loss by suppressing the osteoclast differentiation. Together our data demonstrated that daidzin inhibits RANKL‐induced osteoclastogenesis through suppressing NF‐ĸB signaling pathway and that daidzin is a promising agent in the treatment of osteolytic diseases.
Pride and Prejudice in Progressive Web Apps: Abusing Native App-like Features in Web Applications

Progressive Web App (PWA) is a new generation of Web application designed to provide native app-like browsing experiences even when a browser is offline. PWAs make full use of new HTML5 features which include push notification, cache, and service worker to provide short-latency and rich Web browsing experiences. We conduct the first systematic study of the security and privacy aspects unique to PWAs. We identify security flaws in main browsers as well as design flaws in popular third-party push services, that exacerbate the phishing risk. We introduce a new side-channel attack that infers the victim's history of visited PWAs. The proposed attack exploits the offline browsing feature of PWAs using a cache. We demonstrate a cryptocurrency mining attack which abuses service workers. Defenses and recommendations to mitigate the identified security and privacy risks are suggested with in-depth understanding.
INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT OF ENHANCED EDUCATION PROGRAMMES ON MATHEMATICS ANXIETY OF STUDENTS

The aim of this study is to determine whether mathematics anxiety levels of fourth grade primary school students differs between EEP (Enriched Education Program) implemented class and unapplied class. This study was conducted with totally 30 students who were randomly selected among 4th grade primary school students studying in two private schools depending on the Ministry of Education in Kutahya city centre in 2014-2015 academic years. While EEP (Enriched Education Program) is applied to the experimental group, there has been no application to control group. In the study 2x3 (experimental / control group X pre-test / post-test / screening test) split-plot design was used. In the study in order to collect data, Mathematics Anxiety Scale was applied three times (At different time intervals including when the session began, when completed, and three months after termination) to students in the experimental and control groups. According to the results, children subjected to the EEP program carry a lower mathematics anxiety compared to unapplied peers. Article visualizations:
Non-Empty Bins with Simple Tabulation Hashing

We consider the hashing of a set X ⊆ U with |X| = m using a simple tabulation hash function h : U → [n] = {0,. , n - 1} and analyse the number of non-empty bins, that is, the size of h(X). We show that the expected size of h(X) matches that with fully random hashing to within low-order terms. We also provide concentration bounds. The number of non-empty bins is a fundamental measure in the balls and bins paradigm, and it is critical in applications such as Bloom filters and Filter hashing. For example, normally Bloom filters are proportioned for a desired low false-positive probability assuming fully random hashing. Our results imply that if we implement the hashing with simple tabulation, we obtain the same low false-positive probability for any possible input.
Combating Information Attacks in the Age of the Internet: New Challenges for Cognitive Engineering

Objective: This article provides an overview of the characteristics of misinformation and information attack and their effects on the perceptions of the public, with the objective of outlining potential solutions and needed research for countering this growing problem. Background: Society is facing a significant challenge from the spread of misinformation through websites and social media that has driven a divergence in people’s perceptions and understanding of basic facts associated with many issues relevant to public policy decisions, including the economy, taxation, and the deficit; climate change and the environment; and vaccinations and public health and safety. A number of factors are driving this fracture, including information presentation challenges that lead to poor information understanding, deliberate information attacks, social network propagation, poor assessments of information reliability, and cognitive biases that lead to a rejection of information that conflicts with preexisting beliefs. Results: A framework for understanding information attack is provided, including common sources, features, avenues, cognitive mechanisms, and major challenges in overcoming information attacks. Conclusion and Application: Potential solutions and research needs are presented for improving people’s understanding of online information associated with a wide range of issues affecting public policy.
Effects of inconsistent reporting, regulation changes and market demand on abundance indices of sharks caught by pelagic longliners off southern Africa

The assumption of a proportional relationship between catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE) and the abundance of sharks caught by pelagic longliners is tenuous when based on fisher logbooks that report only retained specimens. Nevertheless, commercial logbooks and landings statistics are often the only data available for stock status assessments. Logbook data collected from local and foreign pelagic longline vessels operating in four areas off southern Africa between 2000 and 2015 were used to construct standardized CPUE indices for blue sharks Prionace glauca and shortfin makos Isurus oxyrinchus. Generalized linear mixed models were used to explore the effects of year, month, vessel, fleet and presence of an observer on blue shark and shortfin mako variability. Landing statistics and auxiliary information on the history of the fishery, regulation changes, and market factors were superimposed on the CPUE indices, to test hypotheses that they would influence CPUE trends. Indices in the West and Southwest (Atlantic) areas were elevated for both species, compared to the South and East (Indian Ocean). The scale of year-on-year CPUE increments, up to an order of magnitude for blue sharks, reflected occasional targeting and retention, interspersed with periods where blue sharks were not caught, or discarded and not reported. Increments were smaller for higher value shortfin makos, suggesting that indices were less affected by unreported discarding. CPUE indices and landings of both shark species have increased in recent years, suggesting increased importance as target species. Analysis of logbook data resulted in unreliable indicators of shark abundance, but when trends were interpreted in conjunction with landings data, disaggregated by area and month, and with hindsight of market demand and regulation changes, anomalies could be explained.
Anomaly Detection in Moving Crowds through Spatiotemporal Autoencoding and Additional Attention

We propose an anomaly detection approach by learning a generative model using deep neural network. A weighted convolutional autoencoder- (AE-) long short-term memory (LSTM) network is proposed to reconstruct raw data and perform anomaly detection based on reconstruction errors to resolve the existing challenges of anomaly detection in complicated definitions and background influence. Convolutional AEs and LSTMs are used to encode spatial and temporal variations of input frames, respectively. A weighted Euclidean loss is proposed to enable the network to concentrate on moving foregrounds, thus restraining background influence. Moving foregrounds are segmented from the input frames using robust principal component analysis decomposition. Comparisons with state-of-the-art approaches indicate the superiority of our approach in anomaly detection. Generalization of anomaly detection is improved by enforcing the network to focus on moving foregrounds.