Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
“INTEGRO INTEGRated Psychotherapeutic InterventiOn” on the Management of Chronic Pain in Patients with Fibromyalgia: The Role of the Therapeutic Relationship

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic disease characterized by a heterogeneous set of physical and psychological conditions. The chronic experience of disability felt by patients and the impact on quality of life (QoL) of the disease may worsen the cognitive reappraisal ability and contribute to maintaining an altered pain modulation mechanism. This paper presents the study protocol of an INTEGRated psychotherapeutic interventiOn on the management of chronic pain in patients with fibromyalgia (INTEGRO). The aim of the study is to investigate the efficacy of an integrated psychotherapeutic intervention focused on pain management on QoL and pain perception, in a pilot sample of 45 FM patients with idiopathic chronic pain. The contribution of perceived therapeutic relationship (alliance) and physiological attunement, in both the patient and therapist, will be considered as possible mediators of intervention efficacy. Attachment dimensions, traumatic experiences, difficulties in emotion regulation, mindfulness attitude and psychophysiological profile will also be considered as covariates. The objectives are to evaluate longitudinally if patients will experience an increase in QoL perception (primary endpoint), pain-managing self-efficacy and emotion-regulation abilities as well as a reduction in pain intensity (secondary endpoints), considering the mediating role of perceived therapeutic alliance and physiological attunement in both the patient and therapist.
Robust quasi-likelihood inference in generalized linear mixed models with outliers

It is well known that in a traditional outlier-free situation, the generalized quasi-likelihood (GQL) approach [B.C. Sutradhar, On exact quasilikelihood inference in generalized linear mixed models, Sankhya: Indian J. Statist. 66 (2004), pp. 261–289] performs very well to obtain the consistent as well as the efficient estimates for the parameters involved in the generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs). In this paper, we first examine the effect of the presence of one or more outliers on the GQL estimation for the parameters in such GLMMs, especially in two important models such as count and binary mixed models. The outliers appear to cause serious biases and hence inconsistency in the estimation. As a remedy, we then propose a robust GQL (RGQL) approach in order to obtain the consistent estimates for the parameters in the GLMMs in the presence of one or more outliers. An extensive simulation study is conducted to examine the consistency performance of the proposed RGQL approach.
Printing 3D dielectric elastomer actuators for soft robotics

We present a new approach to the fabrication of soft dielectric elastomer actuators using a 3D printing process. Complete actuators including active membranes and support structures can be 3D printed in one go, resulting in a great improvement in fabrication speed and increases in accuracy and consistency. We describe the fabrication process and present force and displacement results for a double-membrane antagonistic actuator. In this structure controlled prestrain is applied by the simple process of pressing together two printed actuator halves. The development of 3D printable soft actuators will have a large impact on many application areas including engineering, medicine and the emerging field of soft robotics.
REPRESENTATIONS OF EXCEPTIONAL SIMPLE JORDAN SUPERALGEBRAS OF CHARACTERISTIC 3#

ABSTRACT Representations of simple Jordan superalgebras of Hermitian 3 × 3 matrices over the exceptional simple alternative superalgebras B (1,2) and B (4,2) of characteristic 3 are studied. Every irreducible bimodule over these superalgebras up to isomorphism is either a regular bimodule or its opposite. As corollaries,some analogues of the Kronecker factorization theorem are proved for Jordan superalgebras that contain H3(B (1,2)) and H3(B(4,2)).
Analysis of spontaneous emission and noise in self-pulsing laser diodes

A theoretical model for spontaneous emission in self-pulsing semiconductor lasers is proposed and an analytical expression given for the excess noise factor. Statistical properties of emitted light pulses due to spontaneous noise are studied numerically and pump current conditions for optimal pulse stability are defined. The model proposed its applicable to the analysis of fluctuation properties of self-pulsing lasers at frequencies near pulsation repetition frequency.
Corona plasma instabilities in heavy ion fusion targets

Several plasma instabilities driven by a heavy ion beam impinging on a target are considered. Potential instabilities include longitudinal electrostatic (two-stream) instabilities and transverse electromagnetic (filamentation or Weibel) instabilities. Since the ion beam may be accompanied by electrons, both electron beam and ion beam instabilities are considered. The electrostatic beam instabilities saturate by formation of an electron tail. In this paper the filamentation instability driven by this electron energy anisotropy is shown to be benign; this confirms the results of earlier studies in which the slower ion filamentation instability was shown to be unimportant. The beam ion, target electron instability is found to be suppressed by the gradient in the target density. Moreover, even if it were to grow, it would saturate at a benign level. In conclusion, no significant problem due to corona plasma instabilities in heavy ion fusion applications has been found.
The assessment of boron toxicity tolerance in F 6 RILs of durum wheat

The identification of new genotypes tolerant to the boron toxicity is very important for the breeding programs carried out in the arid and semiarid regions of West Asia and North Africa region. This study aims to determine the genotypes tolerant to the boron toxicity in 141 F 6 recombinant inbred lines (RILs) of durum wheat. 141 RILs were characterized in terms of their tolerance to boron toxicity using the parameters: 1–5 scale of symptom score, dry matter yield, biomass reduction, tissue boron concentration. The component of variance varied from 0.69 to 0.95. 22 RILs tolerant for 1–5 scale, 121 RILs ranged from moderately tolerant to tolerant for the biomass reduction, 22 RILs moderately tolerant for the tissue concentration, and 75 RILs varied from moderately tolerant to the most tolerant for the boron content. The B toxicity evaluation parameters used in this study are efficient when they are used all together, and they produced fast and reliable results. However, the principal component analyses displayed that BC, DMY (%) and BR parameters were the most effective and reliable for the evaluation of B toxicity tolerance. The RILs represented a wide range of the genetic variation in response to the B toxicity treatments. The boron toxicity tolerance could be improved by the breeding studies.
Precision scans of the Pixel cell response of double sided 3D Pixel detectors to pion and X-ray beams

Three-dimensional (3D) silicon sensors offer potential advantages over standard planar sensors for radiation hardness in future high energy physics experiments and reduced charge-sharing for X-ray applications, but may introduce inefficiencies due to the columnar electrodes. These inefficiencies are probed by studying variations in response across a unit pixel cell in a 55μm pitch double-sided 3D pixel sensor bump bonded to TimePix and Medipix2 readout ASICs. Two complementary characterisation techniques are discussed: the first uses a custom built telescope and a 120GeV pion beam from the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) at CERN; the second employs a novel technique to illuminate the sensor with a micro-focused synchrotron X-ray beam at the Diamond Light Source, UK. For a pion beam incident perpendicular to the sensor plane an overall pixel efficiency of 93.0±0.5% is measured. After a 10o rotation of the device the effect of the columnar region becomes negligible and the overall efficiency rises to 99.8±0.5%. The double-sided 3D sensor shows significantly reduced charge sharing to neighbouring pixels compared to the planar device. The charge sharing results obtained from the X-ray beam study of the 3D sensor are shown to agree with a simple simulation in which charge diffusion is neglected. The devices tested are found to be compatible with having a region in which no charge is collected centred on the electrode columns and of radius 7.6±0. 6μm. Charge collection above and below the columnar electrodes in the double-sided 3D sensor is observed.
Phonons and superconductivity in the cubic perovskite Cr3RhN

We have performed an ab initio study of structural, electronic, vibrational, and superconducting properties of Cr3RhN. The calculations have been carried out by employing the density functional theory, a linear-response formalism, and the plane-wave pseudopotential method. A striking feature of the phonon spectra in this cubic perovskite is the existence of a number of soft modes at the zone centre as well as at Brillouin zone boundaries. Calculations of the Eliashberg spectral function α2F(ω) and the electron-phonon prefactor α2(ω) reveal that the low frequency soft phonon branches couple more strongly with electrons. Using the calculated electron-phonon coupling parameter λ=1.03 and the logarithmically averaged frequency ωln=255 K, we suggest that this material is a superconductor with the transition temperature close to 17 K.
Wavenumber selection in ramped Rayleigh–Bénard convection

We consider wavenumber selection for the periodic two-dimensional Rayleigh–Bénard problem on a horizontally infinite domain. The temperature difference (and hence the Rayleigh number) is assumed to be a slowly varying function of the horizontal coordinate perpendicular to the convection rolls. Under this condition Kramer et al. have shown that a unique wavenumber of convection is selected by a certain solvability condition if the domain contains a subcritical region. They performed analytic calculations for a model problem and for small-amplitude convection of an infinite-Prandtl-number fluid between stress-free boundaries. Their results are extended here to the realistic case of large-amplitude convection of a finite-Prandtl-number fluid between rigid boundaries. The temperature difference may be ‘ramped’ by changing either the temperature at the lower boundary or at the upper boundary, or both. It is shown that the choice has a significant effect on the ‘mean flow’, but no effect on the selected wavenumber.
On the total time spent in records by a discrete uniform sequence

We consider the sum S d of record values in a sequence of independent random variables that are uniformly distributed on 1,…,d. This sum can be interpreted as the total amount of time spent in record lifetimes in the standard renewal theoretic setup. We investigate the distributional limit of S d and some related quantities as d→∞. Some explicit values are given for d=6, a case that can be interpreted as a simple game of chance.
Unstructured Grid Solution of the Eikonal Equation for Acoustics

An acoustic eikonal equation solution procedure, that is easy to implement in unstructured grid Navier-Stokes equation flow solvers, is outlined. The approach is readily parallelizable. The method is tested for the following canonical point source cases: quiescent flow; subsonic uniform flow; supersonic uniform flow and an idealized jet flow. Then, as further validation, sound propagation of a wave front through a viscous vortex is considered. For these cases, encouraging agreement is found with analytic data and a high-fidelity numerical solution of the Euler equations. Finally, as demonstration cases, the use of the approach to study the shielding of noise from a planar jet is considered along with wave propagation in a complex three-dimensional geometry. At lower Mach numbers (< 0.25), for complex geometries, robust multigrid convergence acceleration is found.
Bayesian Marginal Inference

Abstract A method is proposed for approximating the marginal posterior density of a continuous function of several unknown parameters, thus permitting inferences about any parameter of interest for nonlinear models when the sample size is finite. Possibly tedious numerical integrations are replaced by conditional maximizations, which are shown to be quite accurate in a number of special cases. There are similarities with the profile likelihood ideas originated by Kalbfleisch and Sprott (1970), and the method is contrasted with a Laplacian approximation recommended by Kass, Tierney, and Kadane (1988, in press), referred to here as the “KTK procedure. ” The methods are used to approximate the marginal posterior densities of the log-linear interaction effects and an overall measure of association in a two-way contingency table. Snee's (1974) hair/eye color data are reanalyzed, and adjustments are proposed to Goodman's (1964) analysis for the full-rank interaction model. Another application concerns marginaliz.
Factors which influence ethnic minority women’s participation in maternity research: A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies

Background Women from Black, Asian and mixed ethnicity backgrounds in the UK experience higher rates of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, and report poorer experiences of maternity care. Research is required to understand how to reduce these disparities, however, it is acknowledged these groups of women are under-represented in clinical research. Aim To investigate factors which influence participation in maternity research for women from an ethnic minority background. Methods A systematic review was conducted to examine influencing factors for research participation. MEDLINE/CINHAL/PsycInfo/EMBASE databases were systematically searched in March 2021 and updated in March 2022. Papers were eligible if they explored maternal research participation and identified a woman’s ethnicity in the results. No restrictions were placed on methodology. A convergent integrated approach was used to synthesise findings. Findings A total of 14 papers met the inclusion criteria. Results were divided into eight overarching themes. A personalised approach to recruitment and incorporating culturally sensitive communication and considerations enhanced research participation. Distrust around sharing data, a perception of risk to research participation, and research lacking in personal relevance adversely affected the decision to participate. Large variation existed in the quality of the studies reviewed. Conclusions Consideration of a woman’s culture and background in the design and the delivery of a maternity research study may facilitate participation, particularly when sampling from a specific population. Further research, informed by women from ethnic minority backgrounds is warranted to develop women-centred recommendations for conducting inclusive maternity research. Prospero registration: www.crd. york.ac. uk/PROSPERO/display_record. asp? ID=CRD42021261686.
Homological Properties of Invariant Rings of Finite Groups

Let $V$ be a non-zero finite dimensional vector space over the finite field $F_q$. We take the left action of $G \le GL(V)$ on $V$ and this induces a right action of $G$ on the dual of $V$ which can be extended to the symmetric algebra $F_q[V]$ by ring automorphisms. In this thesis we find the explicit generators and relations among these generators for the ring of invariants $F_q[V]^G$. The main body of the research is in chapters 4, 5 and 6. In chapter 4, we consider three subgroups of the general linear group which preserve singular alternating, singular hermitian and singular quadratic forms respectively, and find rings of invariants for these groups. We then go on to consider, in chapter 5, a subgroup of the symplectic group. We take two special cases for this subgroup. In the first case we find the ring of invariants for this group. In the second case we progress to the ring of invariants for this group but the problem is still open. Finally, in chapter 6, we consider the orthogonal groups in even characteristic. We generalize some of the results of [24]. This generalization is important because it will help to calculate the rings of invariants of the orthogonal groups over any finite field of even characteristic.
Orthostatic hypotension and neurocognitive disorders in older women: Results from the EPIDOS cohort study

Background Although it is well-admitted that cardiovascular health affects cognition, the association between orthostatic hypotension (OH) and cognition remains unclear. The objectives of the present study were i) to determine among the EPIDOS cohort (EPIdémiologie de l’OStéoporose) whether OH was cross-sectionally associated with cognitive impairment at baseline, and ii) whether baseline OH could predict incident cognitive decline after 7 years of follow-up. Methods Systolic and Diastolic Blood Pressure (SBP and DBP) changes while standing (ie, ΔSBP and ΔDBP, in %) were measured at baseline among 2,715 community-dwelling older women aged 75 years and older using no antihypertensive drugs from the French EPIDOS cohort. OH was defined as a decrease in SBP ≥20 mmHg and/or a decrease in DBP ≥10 mmHg within 3 min after standing. Cognitive impairment was defined as a Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ) score <8 (/10). Among those without cognitive impairment at baseline, a possible incident onset of cognitive decline was then sought after 7 years of follow-up among 257 participants. Results Baseline ΔSBP was associated with baseline cognitive impairment (adjusted OR = 1.01, p = 0.047), but not with incident onset of cognitive decline after 7 years (adjusted OR = 0.98, p = 0.371). Neither baseline OH nor baseline ΔDBP were associated with cognitive impairment neither at baseline (p = 0.426 and p = 0.325 respectively) nor after 7 years (p = 0.180 and p = 0.345 respectively). Conclusions SBP drop while standing, but neither OH per se nor DBP drop while standing, was associated with baseline cognitive impairment in older women. The relationship between OH and cognitive impairment appears more complex than previously expected.
A microbiota and dietary metabolite integrates DNA repair and cell death to regulate embryo viability and aneuploidy during aging

During aging, environmental stressors and mutations along with reduced DNA repair cause germ cell aneuploidy and genome instability, which limits fertility and embryo development. Benevolent commensal microbiota and dietary plants secrete indoles, which improve healthspan and reproductive success, suggesting regulation of germ cell quality. We show that indoles prevent aneuploidy and promote DNA repair and embryo viability, which depends on age and genotoxic stress levels and affects embryo quality across generations. In young animals or with low doses of radiation, indoles promote DNA repair and embryo viability; however, in older animals or with high doses of radiation, indoles promote death of the embryo. These studies reveal a previously unknown quality control mechanism by which indole integrates DNA repair and cell death responses to preclude germ cell aneuploidy and ensure transgenerational genome integrity. Such regulation affects healthy aging, reproductive senescence, cancer, and the evolution of genetic diversity in invertebrates and vertebrates.
Majorization of sequences, sharp vector Khinchin inequalities, and bisubharmonic functions

Let X = ∑k i=1 aiUi, Y = ∑k i=1 biUi, where the Ui are independent random vectors, each uniformly distributed on the unit sphere in R, and ai, bi are real constants. We prove that if {bi } is majorized by {ai } in the sense of Hardy–Littlewood–Pólya, and if Φ : R → R is continuous and bisubharmonic, then EΦ(X) ≤ EΦ(Y ). Consequences include most of the known sharp L2-Lp Khinchin inequalities for sums of the form X. For radial Φ, bisubharmonicity is necessary as well as sufficient for the majorization inequality to always hold. Counterparts to the majorization inequality exist when the Ui are uniformly distributed on the unit ball of R instead of on the unit sphere. 1. Main results. In this first section, we set up notation and state our main results, about sums of independent random vectors uniformly distributed on spheres in R. History and background are provided in §2, Theorems 1, 2, 3 are proved in §3, 4, 5, and §6 contains a formula which permits transfer of the results in §1 to sums of independent random vectors uniformly distributed on balls in R. Throughout the paper, a = (a1, . . . , ak) and b = (b1, . . . , bk) will denote k-tuples of real numbers. Following the terminology of [MO 79], we say that a is majorized by b, and write a ≺ b, or {ai} ≺ {bi}, if
Lymphocyte deficiency alters the transcriptomes of oligodendrocytes, but not astrocytes or microglia

Though the brain was long characterized as an immune-privileged organ, findings in recent years have shown extensive communications between the brain and peripheral immune cells. We now know that alterations in the peripheral immune system can affect the behavioral outputs of the central nervous system, but we do not know which brain cells are affected by the presence of peripheral immune cells. Glial cells including microglia, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) are critical for the development and function of the central nervous system. In a wide range of neurological and psychiatric diseases, the glial cell state is influenced by infiltrating peripheral lymphocytes. However, it remains largely unclear whether the development of the molecular phenotypes of glial cells in the healthy brain is regulated by lymphocytes. To answer this question, we acutely purified each type of glial cell from immunodeficient Rag2-/- mice. Interestingly, we found that the transcriptomes of microglia, astrocytes, and OPCs developed normally in Rag2-/- mice without reliance on lymphocytes. In contrast, there are modest transcriptome differences between the oligodendrocytes from Rag2-/- and control mice. Furthermore, the subcellular localization of the RNA-binding protein Quaking, is altered in oligodendrocytes. These results demonstrate that the molecular attributes of glial cells develop largely without influence from lymphocytes and highlight potential interactions between lymphocytes and oligodendrocytes.
A push-pull strategy to control the western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis, using alarm and aggregation pheromones

Since the first report in 1993 in Korea, the western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis, has been found in various crops throughout the country. Although more than 20 different chemical insecticides are registered to control this insect pest, its outbreaks seriously damage crop yields, especially in greenhouses. This study developed a non-chemical technique to control F. occidentalis infesting hot peppers cultivated in greenhouses. The method was based on behavioral control using an alarm pheromone (“Push”) to prevent the entry of the thrips into greenhouses and an aggregation pheromone (“Pull”) for mass trapping inside the greenhouses. The greenhouse fences were treated with a wax formulation of the alarm pheromone and a yellow CAN trap covered with sticky material containing the aggregation pheromone was constructed and deployed inside the greenhouses. Field assay demonstrated the efficacy of the push-pull tactics by reducing thrips density in flowers of the hot peppers as well as in the monitoring traps. Especially, the enhanced mass trapping to the CAN trap compared to the conventional yellow sticky trap led to significant reduction in the thrips population. This novel push-pull technique would be applicable to effectively control F. occidentalis in field conditions.