Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Longitudinal associations between self-regulation and health across childhood and adolescence.

OBJECTIVE There is some evidence to suggest that one's ability to delay gratification is associated with a lower body mass index (BMI) and slower overall weight gain. Less is known about the role that a broader set of self-regulatory skills, including attention focusing, inhibitory control, and impulsivity, might play in fostering not only a healthy weight but also better overall health and health-related behaviors such as sleep. METHOD Participants in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development were followed from birth through age 15 beginning in 1991. Self-regulation was assessed when children were 4.5 years old, whereas health-related outcomes were assessed regularly between toddlerhood and adolescence. Structural equation modeling was used to test direct associations between self-regulation and either physical health or sleep in childhood and adolescence. RESULTS Findings suggest that there are long-term benefits of self-regulation, indexed by multiple dimensions, for children's health-related outcomes. Children with better self-regulatory skills demonstrated smaller increases in standardized BMI scores and maintained greater mother-reported health across childhood and adolescence. Furthermore, better self-regulation predicted fewer sleep problems and longer sleep duration when children were 8 and 11 but not when they were 15. CONCLUSIONS Early self-regulation, marked by numerous skills, appears to have long-term benefits for children's health-related outcomes. These findings provide some evidence that targeting childhood self-regulatory skills for improvement may help reduce poor health-related outcomes later in life and offer important insight into potential avenues for intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record
An Energy-efficient and Lightweight Indoor Localization System for Internet-of-Things (IoT) Environments

Each and every spatial point in an indoor space has its own distinct and stable fingerprint, which arises owing to the distortion of the magnetic field induced by the surrounding steel and iron structures. This phenomenon makes many indoor positioning techniques rely on the magnetic field as an important source of localization. Most of the existing studies, however, have leveraged smartphones that have a relatively high computational power and many sensors. Thus, their algorithmic complexity is usually high, especially for commercial location-based services. In this paper, we present an energy-efficient and lightweight system that utilizes the magnetic field for indoor positioning in Internet of Things (IoT) environments. We propose a new hardware design of an IoT device that has a BLE interface and two sensors (magnetometer and accelerometer), with the lifetime of one year when using a coin-size battery. We further propose an augmented particle filter framework that features a robust motion model and a localization heuristic with small sensory data. The prototype-based evaluation shows that the proposed system achieves a median accuracy of 1.62 m for an office building, while exhibiting low computational complexity and high energy efficiency.
Addressing the estimation of standard errors in fixed effects meta‐analysis

Standard methods for fixed effects meta‐analysis assume that standard errors for study‐specific estimates are known, not estimated. While the impact of this simplifying assumption has been shown in a few special cases, its general impact is not well understood, nor are general‐purpose tools available for inference under more realistic assumptions. In this paper, we aim to elucidate the impact of using estimated standard errors in fixed effects meta‐analysis, showing why it does not go away in large samples and quantifying how badly miscalibrated standard inference will be if it is ignored. We also show the important role of a particular measure of heterogeneity in this miscalibration. These developments lead to confidence intervals for fixed effects meta‐analysis with improved performance for both location and scale parameters.
Effect of Extreme Seasons on Some Blood Biochemical Parameters in Beetal and Toggenberg Goats of Jammu Region

The influence of extreme environmental conditions on biochemical parameters were studied in 36 healthy adult female (2-4 years of age) Beetal (n=18) and Toggenberg (n=18) goats in Jammu (J&K, India). Blood glucose, total cholesterol, total protein, albumin and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) levels were studied during moderate (autumn), extreme hot (summer) and extreme cold (winter) ambiences. Ambient temperature (0C) and relative humidity (%) were recorded and temperature-humidity index (THI) was calculated. For the season and breed interaction, significantly higher (P<0.01) total protein and cholesterol levels were found in Toggenberg goats in all the seasons. Significantly higher (P<0.01) levels of total protein, albumin and BUN levels were found during summer as compared to autumn and winter seasons. The concentrations of glucose and cholesterol were significantly higher (P<0.01) in winter season. Among the two breeds, all the values were significantly higher (P<0.01) in Toggenberg. Biochemical parameters change in different seasons and THI values were found higher during summer season and is considered as danger status.
Towards the Development of the TPR Scaffold into Novel Biomaterials & Bioswitches.

TetratricoPeptide Repeats or TPRs are a class of repeat proteins made up of helices. Each repeat contains 34 amino acids that form a helix-turn-helix motif and is stabilised by short range interactions creating a non-globular fold. Tandem arrays of these repeats form stable superhelical structures. The modular nature of the TPR fold has allowed a series of consensus TPRs (CTPRs) to be designed where the number of repeat units has been varied. We have exploited the modular nature of CTPR proteins in order to create fibres via a bottom-up approach. Using Native Chemical Ligation (NCL) we have been able to trigger specific assembly of monomeric CTPR units to form extended fibrous structures up to microns in length (as viewed by TEM). This reaction proceeds at room temperature and neutral pH, with filaments observed within 12 hours. The equilibrium unfolding of CTPRs is prone to the population of partially folded states. Through studying the stability of a series of deletion mutants and using a Heteropolymer Ising model to analyse the unfolding data we have been able to design a CTPR with a conformational ‘switch’. This new CTPR was designed to populate a stable intermediate, with an exposed dimerisation interface, under certain conditions. When this new construct was analysed using 2D NMR and CD spectroscopy, it was found to selectively unfold its C-terminal α-helix at a specific concentration of GuHCl. Our aim is to develop a system in which a ‘switching’ CTPR is used as a sensor that, when triggered by environmental conditions, partially unfolds and oligomerises.
Analytical study of quality-biased competition dynamics for memes in social media

The spreading of news, memes and other pieces of information occurring via online social platforms has a strong and growing impact on our modern societies, with enormous consequences, that may be beneficial but also catastrophic. In this work we consider a recently introduced model for information diffusion in social media taking explicitly into account the competition of a large number of items of diverse quality. We map the meme dynamics onto a one-dimensional diffusion process that we solve analytically, deriving the lifetime and popularity distributions of individual memes. We also present a mean-field type of approach that reproduces the average stationary properties of the dynamics. In this way we understand in detail how the different ingredients of the model (size of users memory, rate of introduction of new memes, intrinsic meme fitness) affect meme spreading at the individual and collective level. This opens the path for the inclusion of additional, more realistic, features, such as heterogeneities in the behavior of individual users.
Data-driven approaches in the investigation of social perception

The complexity of social perception poses a challenge to traditional approaches to understand its psychological and neurobiological underpinnings. Data-driven methods are particularly well suited to tackling the often high-dimensional nature of stimulus spaces and of neural representations that characterize social perception. Such methods are more exploratory, capitalize on rich and large datasets, and attempt to discover patterns often without strict hypothesis testing. We present four case studies here: behavioural studies on face judgements, two neuroimaging studies of movies, and eyetracking studies in autism. We conclude with suggestions for particular topics that seem ripe for data-driven approaches, as well as caveats and limitations.
FINE-TUNING OF PAPER CHARACTERISTICS BY INCORPORATION OF VISCOSE FIBRES

Typically, the quality of paper can be controlled by using the adequate grade of pulp and auxiliary materials as well as selecting the appropriate process settings, as for example the level of refining. In many cases, in order to achieve specific paper properties it is furthermore necessary to use blends of pulp and other fibres of natural or manmade origin. For this application viscose fibres are especially useful. As a cellulosic fibre they can be conveniently included into the paper matrix. On the other hand, as a man-made fibre they offer a very broad spectrum of possible variations, allowing a pinpoint control over the desired paper characteristics. It is detailed, which possibilities for the variation of viscose fibres exist in terms of fibre cross section, fibre dimensions and fibre functionalization. On selected examples it is demonstrated that through the choice of the appropriate viscose fibre cross section, control over the air permeability can be achieved without loss of tear strength, while at the same time also tear resistance and a number of double folds can be improved. Furthermore, it is shown what influence the choice of the percentage of viscose fibres in the blend as well as the viscose fibre dimensions have on the ratio of tear strength to tear resistance in a paper. Finally, the possibility to combine these effects with an additional fibre functionalization such as incorporation of functional particles, enhancement of water imbibition or anionic and cationic modifications is outlined.
Data imputation and dimensionality reduction using deep learning in industrial data

Due to human errors, noise during transmission and other interference, some data collected from industrial process system might be lost in the collection process, which would affect the whole quality of data. In addition, the data collected by the industrial control system are generally composited of a large number of high-dimensional data. To facilitate the follow-up processing like anomaly detection, the “the curse of dimensionality” need to be solved, to obtain useful and meaningful content from massive high-dimensional data. The features obtained from DBNs (Deep Belief Networks) are usually not on the low-dimensional surface, and they can well express high-dimensional nonlinear function with a variety of variables. Therefore, in this paper, the DBNs are used to solve the data processing problem in industrial control system. Moreover, some experiments have been done to reveal that the DBNs algorithm can improve the filling accuracy, and the reduction of dimensions of data is good for effective information extraction.
The Nonwovens Properties Made from Hybrid Fibres

The varieties of using nonwovens (NW) increases. The results of study about the influence of hybrid fibres content and technological parameters of production on properties of NW made from webs of two contents of hemp, recycled polyethylene terephthalate and polypropylene fibres, produced in two temperature and pressure conditions are presented. It is concluded that NW surface parameters and mechanical properties can be purposefully influenced with webs composition and production technology of NW. Produced NW are applicable, where lightweight and water permeable materials are necessary.
Design of intelligent vehicle for distribution system based on speech recognition

The paper presents a method of designing an intelligent vehicle for distribution system. The voice order of a human being operator can be recognized and transformed into digital information by iFlytek Input, which is installed on the Android smartphones as a mobile app. Moreover, based on the Bluetooth wireless communication technology, the digital information about voice order can be transmitted to the intelligent vehicle which is mainly made up of the Single Chip Microcomputer(SCM) MSP430F169. Finally, the SCM will deal with the received information and acquire the key content to control Direct Current (DC) driving device, which can actuate the DC motor to accomplish all kinds of basic distribution assignments.
Depression one year after hemorrhagic stroke is associated with late worsening of outcomes.

BACKGROUND Poststroke depression is the most common psychiatric sequelae of stroke, and it's independently associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Few studies have examined depression after intracranial hemorrhage (ICH). OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between depression, ICH and outcomes. METHODS A substudy of the prospective Diagnostic Accuracy of MRI in Spontaneous Intracerebral Hemorrhage (DASH) study, we included 89 subjects assessed for depression 1 year after hemorrhage. A Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score >10 defined depression. Univariate, multivariable, and trend analyses evaluated relationships between depression, clinical, radiographic, and inflammatory factors and modified Rankin score (mRS) at 90 days and one year. RESULTS Prevalence of depression at one year was 15%. Depression was not associated with hematoma volumes, presence of IVH or admission NIHSS, nor with demographic factors. Despite this, depressed patients had worse 1-year outcomes (p = 0.004) and were less likely to improve between 3 and 12 months, and more likely to worsen (p = 0.042). CONCLUSION This is the first study to investigate depression one year after ICH. Post-ICH depression was common and associated with late worsening of disability unrelated to initial hemorrhage severity. Further research is needed to understand whether depression is caused by worsened disability, or whether the converse is true.
Risk factors associated with allergic sensitization and asthma phenotypes among poultry farm workers

BACKGROUND This study investigated the risk factors for occupational allergic sensitization and various asthma phenotypes in poultry-workers. METHODS A cross-sectional study of 230 workers used a modified ECRHS questionnaire, spirometry, FeNO, Phadiatop, and sIgE to poultry farming related allergens. RESULTS Worker's mean age was 37 ± 9 years, 68% male, 43% current-smokers, 34% atopic, and 5% casual-workers. The prevalence of non-atopic asthma (NAA = 7%) was higher than atopic-asthma (AA = 5%) and probable allergic occupational-asthma (OA = 3%). Sensitization to at least one poultry farming related allergen was 24%. Workers sensitized to chicken-specific-allergens were more likely to be atopic (ORunadj = 20.9, 95%CI: 4.7-93.2) or employed as casual-workers (ORunadj = 6.0, 95%CI: 1.1-35.9). Work-related chest symptoms were associated the rearing-department (ORadj = 3.2, 95%CI: 1.2-8.4) and exposure to high gas/dust/fumes (ORadj = 4.8, 95%CI: 2.4-9.5). Airflow reversibility (ORadj = 10.9, 95%CI: 2.0-60.3) was significantly associated with casual-work status. CONCLUSION Allergic and non-allergic mechanisms play a role in asthma development among poultry-workers with casual workers demonstrating increased risk.
Dual Targeting of Mesenchymal and Amoeboid Motility Hinders Metastatic Behavior

Commonly upregulated in human cancers, the scaffolding protein NEDD9/HEF1 is a known regulator of mesenchymal migration and cancer cell plasticity. However, the functional role of NEDD9 as a regulator of different migration/invasion modes in the context of breast cancer metastasis is currently unknown. Here, it is reported that NEDD9 is necessary for both mesenchymal and amoeboid individual cell migration/invasion in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). NEDD9 deficiency results in acquisition of the amoeboid morphology, but severely limits all types of cell motility. Mechanistically, NEDD9 promotes mesenchymal migration via VAV2-dependent Rac1 activation, and depletion of VAV2 impairs the ability of NEDD9 to activate Rac1. In addition, NEDD9 supports a mesenchymal phenotype through stimulating polymerization of actin via promoting CTTN phosphorylation in an AURKA-dependent manner. Interestingly, an increase in RhoA activity in NEDD9-depleted cells does not facilitate a switch to functional amoeboid motility, indicating a role of NEDD9 in the regulation of downstream RhoA signaling effectors. Simultaneous depletion of NEDD9 or inhibition of AURKA in combination with inhibition of the amoeboid driver ROCK results in an additional decrease in cancer cell migration/invasion. Finally, we confirmed that a dual targeting strategy is a viable and efficient therapeutic approach to hinder the metastasis of breast cancer in xenograft models, showcasing the important need for further clinical evaluation of this regimen to impede the spread of disease and improve patient survival. Implications: This study provides new insight into the therapeutic benefit of combining NEDD9 depletion with ROCK inhibition to reduce tumor cell dissemination and discovers a new regulatory role of NEDD9 in the modulation of VAV2-dependent activation of Rac1 and actin polymerization. Mol Cancer Res; 15(6); 670–82. ©2017 AACR.
Differential double tail dynamic CMOS voltage comparator

This paper presents a new differential double tail high-performance dynamic comparator suitable for low-voltage low-power applications. Authors have proposed novel architecture of dynamic voltage comparator which is differential and double tail and verified the architecture by simulation in 180nm technology with ±0.9V supply. The proposed comparator has very wide dynamic range, low offset, low propagation delay with less power dissipation as compared to other architectures.
Effect of Nitrogen Content on the Mechanical Properties of Amorphous SiCN Films

Amorphous silicon carbonitride (a-SiCxNy) thin films were deposited using reactive magnetron sputtering of SiC target in the mixture of Ar and N gasses. The films with nitrogen content from 0 - 40 at. % were sputtered at various N2/Ar flow ratios in the range of 0 - 0.48. The as deposited films were additionally annealed in argon at 700 °C and vacuum at 900 °C. Analysis of mechanical properties was performed using the regular nanoindentation and short duration nanoindentation creep test (600 s). Hardness of the a-SiCxNy films increases with the decrease of nitrogen content from approx. 19 GPa (a-Si30C30N40) to 22 GPa (a-SiC). Annealing of the films in inert atmosphere or vacuum leads to the increase of both the hardness and the elastic modulus. This increase is more pronounced for the SiC film than for the SiCN films. The nanoindentation creep test (600 s) showed that the rate of the steady-state creep growths with the increase of nitrogen content.
Reliable Rateless Wireless Broadcasting With Near-Zero Feedback

We examine the problem of minimizing feedback in reliable wireless broadcasting by pairing rateless coding with extreme value theory. Our key observation is that, in a broadcast environment, this problem resolves into estimating the maximum number of packets dropped among many receivers rather than for each individual receiver. With rateless codes, this estimation relates to the number of redundant transmissions needed at the source in order for all receivers to correctly decode a message with high probability. We develop and analyze two new data dissemination protocols, called Random Sampling (RS) and Full Sampling with Limited Feedback (FSLF), based on the moment and maximum likelihood estimators in extreme value theory. Both protocols rely on a single-round learning phase, requiring the transmission of a few feedback packets from a small subset of receivers. With fixed overhead, we show that FSLF has the desirable property of becoming more accurate as the receivers' population gets larger. Our protocols are channel-agnostic, in that they do not require a priori knowledge of (i.i.d.) packet loss probabilities, which may vary among receivers. We provide simulations and an improved full-scale implementation of the Rateless Deluge over-the-air programming protocol on sensor motes as a demonstration of the practical benefits of our protocols, which translate into about 30% latency and energy consumption savings. Furthermore, we apply our protocols to real-time (RT) oblivious rateless codes in broadcast settings. Through simulations, we demonstrate a 100-fold reduction in the amount of feedback packets while incurring an increase of only 10%–20% in the number of encoded packets transmissions.
Nucleolar stress enhances lytic reactivation of the Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus

Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) is a human tumorigenic virus exhibiting two forms of infection, latent and lytic. Latent infection is abortive and allows the virus to establish lifelong infection, while lytic infection is productive, and is needed for virus dissemination within the host and between hosts. Latent infection may reactivate and switch towards the lytic cycle. This switch is a critical step in the maintenance of long-term infection and for the development of KSHV-related neoplasms. In this study, we examined the effect of nucleolar stress, manifested by failure in ribosome biogenesis or function and often coupled with p53 activation, on lytic reactivation of KSHV. To this end, we induced nucleolar stress by treatment with Actinomycin D, CX-5461 or BMH-21. Treatment with these compounds alone did not induce the lytic cycle. However, enhancement of the lytic cycle by these compounds was evident when combined with expression of the viral protein K-Rta. Further experiments employing combined treatments with Nutlin-3, knock-down of p53 and isogenic p53+/+ and p53-/- cells indicated that the enhancement of lytic reactivation by nucleolar stress does not depend on p53. Thus, our study identifies nucleolar stress as a novel regulator of KSHV infection, which synergizes with K-Rta expression to increase lytic reactivation. This suggests that certain therapeutic interventions, which induce nucleolar stress, may affect the outcome of KSHV infection.
Modeling of extensible pneumatic actuator with bellows (EPAB) for continuum arm

The ability of a continuum arm is influenced by the performance of an actuator. Although several extensible pneumatic actuators have been proposed in previous research, balancing strength with large strain is still a challenge. We propose an extensible pneumatic actuator with bellows (EPAB) that consists of a rubber tube and a highly packed bellows sleeve. We propose a parametric model of the EPAB that can comprise various bellows and rubber tubes. We measured the basic properties of four actuators with different parameters to verify the proposed model. We conducted evaluation experiments under two conditions: constant length with variable pressure and constant pressure with variable length. The experimental results indicate that the proposed model can roughly predict the measured data. The proposed extensible actuator has an unloaded strain of up to 350% at a pressure of 0.6 MPa.