Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An attention and interpretation bias for illness-specific information in chronic fatigue syndrome

Background Studies have shown that specific cognitions and behaviours play a role in maintaining chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). However, little research has investigated illness-specific cognitive processing in CFS. This study investigated whether CFS participants had an attentional bias for CFS-related stimuli and a tendency to interpret ambiguous information in a somatic way. It also determined whether cognitive processing biases were associated with co-morbidity, attentional control or self-reported unhelpful cognitions and behaviours. Method A total of 52 CFS and 51 healthy participants completed self-report measures of symptoms, disability, mood, cognitions and behaviours. Participants also completed three experimental tasks, two designed specifically to tap into CFS salient cognitions: (i) visual-probe task measuring attentional bias to illness (somatic symptoms and disability) v. neutral words; (ii) interpretive bias task measuring positive v. somatic interpretations of ambiguous information; and (iii) the Attention Network Test measuring general attentional control. Results Compared with controls, CFS participants showed a significant attentional bias for fatigue-related words and were significantly more likely to interpret ambiguous information in a somatic way, controlling for depression and anxiety. CFS participants had significantly poorer attentional control than healthy individuals. Attention and interpretation biases were associated with fear/avoidance beliefs. Somatic interpretations were also associated with all-or-nothing behaviour and catastrophizing. Conclusions People with CFS have illness-specific biases which may play a part in maintaining symptoms by reinforcing unhelpful illness beliefs and behaviours. Enhancing adaptive processing, such as positive interpretation biases and more flexible attention allocation, may provide beneficial intervention targets.
Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Relapse in the Uterine Cervix

Purpose: Extramedullary relapse outside the testes and CNS is rare in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). We describe a case of a recurrence of ALL in the uterine cervix during hematopoietic remission. Results: Primaiy recurrence in the uterine cervix was diagnosed by cytology with immunochemistry 43 months after initial diagnosis. She was successfully treated with systemic chemotherapy, without hysterectomy or irradiation. She remains in second complete remission 54 months after relapse. Conclusions: Immunocytochemistry using monoclonal antibodies against cell surface antigens made the cytologic diagnosis of leukemic relapse in the uterine cervix possible. Systemic chemotherapy is the first treatment of choice for ALL recurrence in the genital tract in a patient without poor prognostic factors in order to spare gonadal function and reproductive potential.
Zipf’s law for all the natural cities around the world

Two fundamental issues surrounding research on Zipf’s law regarding city sizes are whether and why this law holds. This paper does not deal with the latter issue with respect to why, and instead investigates whether Zipf’s law holds in a global setting, thus involving all cities around the world. Unlike previous studies, which have mainly relied on conventional census data such as populations and census-bureau-imposed definitions of cities, we adopt naturally (in terms of data speak for itself) delineated cities, or natural cities, to be more precise, in order to examine Zipf’s law. We find that Zipf’s law holds remarkably well for all natural cities at the global level, and it remains almost valid at the continental level except for Africa at certain time instants. We further examine the law at the country level, and note that Zipf’s law is violated from country to country or from time to time. This violation is mainly due to our limitations; we are limited to individual countries, or to a static view on city-size distributions. The central argument of this paper is that Zipf’s law is universal, and we therefore must use the correct scope in order to observe it. We further find Zipf’s law applied to city numbers; the number of cities in the largest country is twice as many as that in the second largest country, three times as many as that in the third largest country, and so on. These findings have profound implications for big data and the science of cities.
Protein aggregation and bioprocessing

Protein aggregation is a common issue encountered during manufacture of biotherapeutics. It is possible to influence the amount of aggregate produced during the cell culture and purification process by carefully controlling the environment (eg, media components) and implementing appro-priate strategies to minimize the extent of aggregation. Steps to remove aggregates have been successfully used at a manufacturing scale. Care should be taken when developing a process to monitor the compatibility of the equipment and process with the protein to ensure that potential aggregation is minimized.
Acute phase proteins in serum and milk from dairy cows with clinical mastitis

The serum concentrations of haptoglobin, serum amyloid A and α acid glycoprotein were determined in serum collected from healthy dairy cows and cows with clinical mastitis, graded as mild (clots in milk) or moderate (clots in milk and visible signs of inflammation in the mammary gland/s) to assess their relative diagnostic value in detecting the disease. The concentrations of haptoglobin and serum amyloid A were also measured in milk collected from infected and uninfected quarters. The concentrations of haptoglobin and serum amyloid A were higher in the serum and milk from the cows with mild or moderate mastitis. The diagnostic value of haptoglobin in differentiating between healthy animals and those with mastitis gave sensitivities and specificities of 82 per cent and 94 per cent respectively with serum and 86 per cent and 100 per cent with milk. The diagnostic value of serum amyloid A in differentiating between healthy animals and those with mastitis gave sensitivities and specificities of 83 per cent and 90 per cent with serum and 93 per cent and 100 per cent with milk. The diagnostic value of serum α acid glycoprotein in differentiating between healthy animals and those with mastitis gave sensitivities and specificities of 62 per cent and 91 per cent.
Noise resistant projective and affine invariants

A method of obtaining local projective and affine invariants that is more robust than existing methods is presented. These shape descriptors are useful for object recognition because they eliminate the search for the unknown viewpoint. Being local, these invariants are much less sensitive to occlusion than the global ones used elsewhere. The basic ideas are (i) using an implicit curve representation without a curve parameter, thus increasing robustness; and (ii) using a canonical coordinate system which is defined by the intrinsic properties of the shape, regardless of any given coordinate system, and is thus invariant. Several configurations are treated: a general curve without any correspondence, and curves with known correspondence of feature points or lines. <<ETX>>
Field trial for Brazilian DTV using space diversity

This paper presents field tests results of High Definition Television (HDTV) mobile reception performance of an Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial version B (ISDB-TB) receiver with space diversity. The diversity receiver hardware uses a commercial chip with a four branch maximal ratio combining (MRC) system. The tests were performed at the center of the UHF band using 64-QAM in urban, suburban, rural, and highway areas. During the tests the diversity receiver and a standard receiver performances were compared and the results showed that diversity reception would make HDTV mobile reception possible.
Facilitation in recognizing pairs of words: evidence of a dependence between retrieval operations.

Two experiments are reported in which 5s were presented two strings of letters simultaneously, with one string displayed visually above the other. In Exp. I, 5s responded "yes" if both strings were words, otherwise responding "no." In Exp. II, 5s responded "same" if the two strings were either both words or both nonwords, otherwise responding "different. " "Yes" responses and "same" responses were faster for pairs of commonly associated words than for pairs of unassociated words. "Same" responses were slowest for pairs of nonwords. "No" responses were faster when the top string in the display was a nonword, whereas "different" responses were faster when the top string was a word. The results of both experiments support a retrieval model involving a dependence between separate successive decisions about whether each of the two strings is a word. Possible mechanisms that underlie this dependence are discussed.
Hemadsorption and virulence are separable properties of Mycoplasma pneumoniae

A selective enrichment technique was used to isolate a hemadsorption-positive revertant of a hemadsorption-negative mutant strain of Mycoplasma pneumoniae. This hemadsorption-positive revertant was shown to have simultaneously regained both the ability to attach to neuraminidase-sensitive receptors on the tracheal ring respiratory epithelium in vitro and the ability to synthesize three virulent-strain-specific proteins which were not synthesized by the hemadsorption-negative mutant. Despite the persistence of the revertant in hamster lung tissue for 9 to 12 weeks postinfection, no cytopathology was observed. Intranasal inoculation of the revertant provided limited protection against a challenge dose of virulent M. pneumoniae.
Ultra-Sub-Threshold Operation of Always-On Digital Circuits for IoT Applications by Use of Schmitt Trigger Gates

Supply-voltage reduction in digital circuits beyond the minimum energy per operation point is advantageous for supply-voltage-constrained applications and can help to considerably reduce standby power consumption. Schmitt trigger (ST) logic allows for ultra-low voltage (ULV) operation; hardware implementations with supply voltages as low as 62mV have been demonstrated. In this paper, a systematic in-depth analysis of ST logic is presented. First, it is shown that ST logic allows for operation at supply voltages below the ultimate limit of standard digital CMOS circuits, making it—to the best of our knowledge—the only approach proposed to date for operation of digital circuits in this voltage region. The factors critical to the ultimate limit of supply voltage reduction are the ON-to-OFF current ratio of the transistors and the susceptibility to global variability. It is shown that ST logic provides improvements over standard CMOS logic in both of these aspects. The hysteresis that occurs in ST circuits at nominal supply voltage could potentially limit the applicability for ULV operation and is therefore carefully investigated. Furthermore, a systematic approach to optimum sizing of ST gates is presented for the first time. ST gates exhibit inherent overheads with respect to gate area, delay, and leakage, which are carefully evaluated. Compared with standard CMOS gates designed for the same minimum supply voltage, it is shown that ST gates, nevertheless, are the most efficient solution if the target minimum supply voltage is sufficiently low: with respect to area, this limit is at $V_{DD}\approx 110\,mV$ and with respect to power/delay at $V_{DD}\approx 75\,mV$ .
Discrete Duration Model for Speech Synthesis

The acoustic model and the duration model are the two major components in statistical parametric speech synthesis (SPSS) systems. The neural network based acoustic model makes it possible to model phoneme duration at phone-level instead of state-level in conventional hidden Markov model (HMM) based SPSS systems. Since the duration of phonemes is countable value, the distribution of the phone-level duration is discrete given the linguistic features, which means the Gaussian hypothesis is no longer necessary. This paper provides an investigation on the performance of LSTM-RNN duration model that directly models the probability of the countable duration values given linguistic features using cross entropy as criteria. The multitask learning is also experimented at the same time, with a comparison to the standard LSTM-RNN duration model in objective and subjective measures. The result shows that directly modeling the discrete distribution has its benefit and multi-task model achieves better performance in phone-level duration modeling.
Toward Effective and Reliable Digital Forensics

Digital forensics is a recently emerged research area, and it has attracted the attention of computer professionals, law enforcement experts and practitioners. It is a multidisciplinary area that includes multiple fields, i.e. law, computer science, finance, networking, data mining and criminal justice. We believe that papers enclosed in this Special Issue will enhance knowledge in digital forensics and will stimulate further research in the important areas of information and network security.
Topological quantum memory

We analyze surface codes, the topological quantum error-correcting codes introduced by Kitaev. In these codes, qubits are arranged in a two-dimensional array on a surface of nontrivial topology, and encoded quantum operations are associated with nontrivial homology cycles of the surface. We formulate protocols for error recovery, and study the efficacy of these protocols. An order-disorder phase transition occurs in this system at a nonzero critical value of the error rate; if the error rate is below the critical value (the accuracy threshold), encoded information can be protected arbitrarily well in the limit of a large code block. This phase transition can be accurately modeled by a three-dimensional Z(2) lattice gauge theory with quenched disorder. We estimate the accuracy threshold, assuming that all quantum gates are local, that qubits can be measured rapidly, and that polynomial-size classical computations can be executed instantaneously. We also devise a robust recovery procedure that does not require measurement or fast classical processing; however, for this procedure the quantum gates are local only if the qubits are arranged in four or more spatial dimensions. We discuss procedures for encoding, measurement, and performing fault-tolerant universal quantum computation with surface codes, and argue that these codes provide a promising framework for quantum computing architectures.
Does Early Childhood Teacher Education Affect Students' Cognitive Orientations? The Effect of Different Education Tracks in Teacher Education on Prospective Early Childhood Teachers' Cognitive Orientations in Germany.

Early childhood teachers may differ regarding the knowledge base they use when making professional decisions. In this study two orientations are distinguished: the orientation towards scientific knowledge vs. the orientation towards intuition and subjective experience. As different tracks in early childhood teacher education qualify for professional practice, and as education of early childhood teachers matters with regard to developmental outcomes of children, knowledge orientations of prospective early childhood teachers attending universities and attending vocational schools are investigated and compared. Knowledge orientations were assessed by means of a questionnaire. After propensity score matching of 402 beginners and 402 graduates, multilevel analyses indicate that scientific orientation at the end of teacher education was higher and subjective orientation was lower than at the beginning. Furthermore, scientific knowledge orientation of BA-students was higher, subjective orientation was lower than of students at professional schools. Implications of these results regarding education of early childhood teachers are discussed.
The prevalence of oesophageal eosinophilia and eosinophilic oesophagitis: a prospective study in unselected patients presenting to endoscopy

Oesophageal eosinophilia (EE) is encountered in clinical practice as oesophageal biopsies are being obtained in patients with GI symptoms other than classical symptoms of eosinophilic oesophagitis (EoE). The prevalence, determinants and clinical relevance of EE identified irrespective of symptoms are unclear.
Effects of Simvastatin on bone healing around titanium implants in osteoporotic rats.

OBJECTIVES Osteoporosis is known to impair the process of implant osseointegration. The recent discovery that statins (HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors) act as bone anabolic agents suggests that statins can be used as potential agents in the treatment of osteoporosis. Therefore, we hypothesized that statins will promote osteogenesis around titanium implants in subjects with osteoporosis. MATERIAL AND METHODS Fifty-four female Sprague Dawley rats, aged 3 months old, were randomly divided into three groups: Sham-operated group (SHAM; n=18), ovariectomized group (OVX; n=18), and ovariectomized with Simvastatin treatment group (OVX+SIM; n=18). Fifty-six days after being ovariectomized (OVX), screw-shaped titanium implants were inserted into the tibiae. Simvastatin was administered orally at 5 mg/kg each day after the placement of the implant in the OVX+SIM group. The animals were sacrificed at either 28 or 84 days after implantation and the undecalcified tissue sections were obtained. Bone-to-implant contact (BIC) and bone area (BA) within the limits of implant threads were measured around the cortical (zone A) and cancellous (zone B) bone regions. Furthermore, bone density (BD) of zone B in a 500 microm wide zone lateral to the implants was also measured. RESULTS There were no significant differences in BIC and BA measurements in zone A in any of the three groups at either 28 or 84 days after implantation (P>0.05). By contrast, in zone B, significant differences in the measurement of BIC, BA, and BD were observed at 28 and 84 days between all three groups. Bone healing decreased with lower BIC, BA, and BD around implant in OVX group compared with other two groups, and Simvastatin reversed the negative effect of OVX on bone healing around implants with the improvement of BIC, BA, and BD in zone B. CONCLUSION Osteoporosis can significantly influence bone healing in the cancellous bone around titanium implants and Simvastatin was shown to significantly improve the osseointegration of pure titanium implants in osteoporotic rats.
The Clinical Value of Extratympanic Electrocochleography in the Diagnosis of Ménière’s Disease

Objective: To evaluate the clinical conditions causing an elevation in the click-evoked summation potential (SP)/action potential (AP) amplitude ratio (SP/AP ratio), the cause of the SP enhancement in Ménière’s disease (MD) and the diagnostic efficacy of electrocochleography (ECoG) were discussed. Study Design: Retrospective case review. Setting: An outpatient clinic of the Otolaryngology Department of Kochi Medical School. Patients: ECoG testing was performed in 632 patients (727 ears) with vertigo/dizziness and/or deafness over a 10-year period (1995–2005). Among them, 334 patients had diagnoses of definite MD, including 95 cases of bilateral involvement. Main Outcome Measures: Audiological thresholds and SP/AP ratio. Results: An enhanced SP was observed in 56.3% of patients with MD. The incidence of an enhanced SP was low in patients for whom the disease duration was 2 years or less and the frequency of attacks was once a year or less, but was significantly higher in cases where the disease duration was 2 years or longer and/or the frequency of attacks was several times a year (Games-Howell test, p < 0.05). The incidence of an enhanced SP was significantly elevated in cases with pure-tone average exceeding 31 dB (Kendall’s rank correlation test, p < 0.001). However, the enhanced SP, once it appeared, did not always disappear in spite of hearing improvement. Hearing improvement induced by the glycerol test also produced no alteration in an SP/AP ratio, and there was no significant difference between the glycerol test results and the incidence of an enhanced SP (χ2 goodness-of-fit test). Conclusions: The longer the patients were symptomatic or the severer the ear symptoms, the more likely the ECoG was to be positive. The abnormally elevated SP, once it had appeared, persisted for long periods. Spontaneous and glycerol-induced hearing gains did not result in a decrease in SP/AP ratio. These clinical characteristics of ECoG seem to indicate that the enhanced SP in MD might be caused by the malfunction of hair cells, not by the displacement of the basilar membrane toward the scala tympani.
[From or for the members].

Executive Summary The Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC) panel to investigate burning plasma science was formed in response to a letter to FESAC on October 5, 2000 from Dr. Mildred Dresselhaus, then Director of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy. Dr. Dresselhaus noted that burning plasma physics has been recognized as " the next frontier of fusion research. " She also noted that there have been many attempts over the years by the fusion community to initiate a burning plasma experiment and that burning plasma physics is a major thrust area in recent fusion energy sciences planning documents. Based on these observations Dr. Dresselhaus presented the panel with three charges. 1. What scientific issues should be addressed by a burning plasma physics experiment and its major supporting elements? What are the different levels of self-heating that are needed to contribute to our understanding of these issues? 2. Which scientific issues are generic to toroidal magnetic confinement and which ones are concept-specific? What are the relative advantages of using various magnetic confinement concepts in studying burning plasma physics? 3. How should the Next Step Options (NSO) program be used to assist the community in its preparations for an assessment in 2004, as recommended by the Priorities and Balance report? The first two charges are scientific and are relatively straightforward to address. The panel agrees that the next scientific frontier in the quest for magnetic fusion energy is the development of a basic understanding of plasma behavior in the regime of strong self-heating, the burning plasma regime. This is the regime in which the internal nuclear fusion reaction by-products dominate the heating of the plasma. Specifically, in the fusion reaction of deuterium and tritium nuclei, very energetic charged alpha particles are produced. The alpha particles are confined in the plasma by the magnetic field. Through collisions with both fuel ions and electrons, the alpha particles transfer their energy to the background plasma. When this self-heating of the plasma by fusion alpha particles is large, the plasma is said to be burning. With a sufficient self-heating, external heating may be turned off and the plasma will be self-sustaining; that is, the plasma is ignited. Producing and understanding the dynamics of a burning plasma will be an immense physics challenge and the crucial next step in establishing the credibility of fusion as a source of energy. This finding has …
Large deviation exponential inequalities for supermartingales

Let $(X_{i}, \mathcal{F}_{i})_{i\geq 1}$ be a sequence of supermartingale differences and let $S_k=\sum_{i=1}^k X_i$. We give an exponential moment condition under which $\mathbb{P}( \max_{1\leq k \leq n} S_k \geq n)=O(\exp\{-C_1 n^{\alpha}\}),$ $n\rightarrow \infty, $ where $\alpha \in (0, 1)$ is given and $C_{1}>0$ is a constant. We also show that the power $\alpha$ is optimal under the given moment condition.