Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Agreement between participant-rated and compendium-coded intensity of daily activities in a triethnic sample of women ages 40 years ears and older

Participant-rated and compendium-coded intensity of daily physical activities were compared in 148 African American, 144 Native American, 51 non-Hispanic White women ages 40 to 91 years who completed 4 days of activity records. For compendium-coded intensity, reported activities were classified as light (> 3 metabolic equivalents [METS]), moderate (3–6 METS), or vigorous (< 6 METS) using the Compendium of Physical Activities (1), whereas these categories were self-assigned for participant-rated intensity. Minutes per day (min/d) spent in activities at each intensity level were computed. Relative to compendium-coded min/d, participants reported significantly greater time spent in light (+10 min/d; p > .01) and vigorous (+17 min/d; p > .001) activities, and less time spent in moderate activities (−27 min/d; p > .001). Similarly, compendium-coded estimates yielded higher rates of participants meeting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-American College of Sports Medicine and Surgeon General recommendations than participant-rated estimates (11–18% differences) but substantially lower rates meeting American College of Sports Medicine vigorous recommendations (22% difference). Further, 247 greater kilocalories per day were estimated based on compendium-coded intensity. Kilocalories per day estimates based on compendium codings were more highly associated with pedometer counts than those based on participant ratings (p > .05). Study patterns were generally seen across all sample subgroups. Discrepancies between participant and compendium estimates are likely to be most meaningful in studies estimating energy expenditure as it relates to health outcomes and in studies estimating vigorous activities.
“. . . If You’re Not Part of the Institution You Fall by the Wayside”: Service Providers’ Perspectives on Moving Young Men From Disconnection and Isolation to Connection and Belonging

There have been increasing calls for more gender-specific service provision to support young men’s (20-29 years) mental health and well-being. In Ireland, young men are the demographic group that are most likely to die by suicide but among the least likely to seek help. This study sought to investigate service providers’ perspectives on the factors that support or inhibit young men from engaging in services targeted at supporting their mental/emotional well-being. Qualitative methodologies (focus groups, n = 9; interviews, n = 7) were used for this study. Disconnection from family and community was identified as a key indicator of “at-risk” groups of young men who, more typically, had experienced significant disruption in their lives. The discord between demands and expectations facing young men on one hand, and insufficient life-management and coping skills on the other, left many young men vulnerable and bereft. The desire to save face and preserve one’s masculine identity was linked to young men’s reluctance to seek help when feeling down. There was a strong consensus that there could be no shortcuts to [re]connecting with young men. While sport, technology, and social media were cited as appropriate media in which to engage young men, the essence of sustained connection revolved around creating safety, trust, rapport, and meaningful relationships. The findings from this study have informed the development of a Train the Trainer program (“Connecting with Young Men”), which is currently being delivered to service providers in Ireland and which may have implications for service provision elsewhere.
Mouse Y-Encoded Transcription Factor Zfy2 Is Essential for Sperm Formation and Function in Assisted Fertilization

Abstract Spermatogenesis is a key developmental process allowing for a formation of a mature male gamete. During its final phase, spermiogenesis, haploid round spermatids undergo cellular differentiation into spermatozoa, which involves extensive restructuring of cell morphology, DNA, and epigenome. Using mouse models with abrogated Y chromosome gene complements and Y-derived transgene we identified Y chromosome encoded Zfy2 as the gene responsible for sperm formation and function. In the presence of a Zfy2 transgene, mice lacking the Y chromosome and transgenic for two other Y-derived genes, Sry driving sex determination and Eif2s3y initiating spermatogenesis, are capable of producing sperm which when injected into the oocytes yield live offspring. Therefore, only three Y chromosome genes, Sry, Eif2s3y and Zfy2, constitute the minimum Y chromosome complement compatible with successful intracytoplasmic sperm injection in the mouse.
An effective feature selection method based on pair-wise feature proximity for high dimensional low sample size data

Feature selection has been studied widely in the literature. However, the efficacy of the selection criteria for low sample size applications is neglected in most cases. Most of the existing feature selection criteria are based on the sample similarity. However, the distance measures become insignificant for high dimensional low sample size (HDLSS) data. Moreover, the variance of a feature with a few samples is pointless unless it represents the data distribution efficiently. Instead of looking at the samples in groups, we evaluate their efficiency based on pair-wise fashion. In our investigation, we noticed that considering a pair of samples at a time and selecting the features that bring them closer or put them far away is a better choice for feature selection. Experimental results on benchmark data sets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method with low sample size, which outperforms many other state-of-the-art feature selection methods.
Increased vitronectin production by complement-stimulated human retinal pigment epithelial cells.

PURPOSE A variation in the complement factor H gene was associated with an enhanced risk to develop especially early age-related macular degeneration. Drusen and basal laminar deposits are hallmarks of this AMD manifestation that contain vitronectin as a major component. In this study, the correlation between complement stimulation and vitronectin production of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells was investigated. METHODS ARPE-19 cells, a permanent cell line of human RPE cells, were supplemented with and without human complement competent serum in medium with and without heat inactivated fetal calf serum. The cells were examined in situ for their vitronectin production as an effective inhibitor of alternatively activated complement by immunohistochemistry. Semi-quantitative RT-PCR and Western blots were performed to analyze vitronectin mRNA and protein. RESULTS A strong immunohistochemical staining for vitronectin was observed after complement supplementation. The enhanced production of this complement inactivator by ARPE-19 cells was confirmed by Western blot, whereas the expression analysis revealed unaltered mRNA amounts. CONCLUSIONS A stimulation of RPE cells with complement resulted in an upregulated production of vitronectin. This may support the concept of a protective mechanism, since vitronectin is the major inhibitor of complement activated by the alternative pathway. On the other hand, this increased vitronectin production after complement stimulation may contribute to focal or diffuse deposits in Bruch's membrane, as observed in early AMD.
Alteration of the Tumor Stroma Using a Consensus DNA Vaccine Targeting Fibroblast Activation Protein (FAP) Synergizes with Antitumor Vaccine Therapy in Mice

Purpose: Fibroblast activation protein (FAP) is overexpressed in cancer-associated fibroblasts and is an interesting target for cancer immune therapy, with prior studies indicating a potential to affect the tumor stroma. Our aim was to extend this earlier work through the development of a novel FAP immunogen with improved capacity to break tolerance for use in combination with tumor antigen vaccines. Experimental Design: We used a synthetic consensus (SynCon) sequence approach to provide MHC class II help to support breaking of tolerance. We evaluated immune responses and antitumor activity of this novel FAP vaccine in preclinical studies, and correlated these findings to patient data. Results: This SynCon FAP DNA vaccine was capable of breaking tolerance and inducing both CD8+ and CD4+ immune responses. In genetically diverse, outbred mice, the SynCon FAP DNA vaccine was superior at breaking tolerance compared with a native mouse FAP immunogen. In several tumor models, the SynCon FAP DNA vaccine synergized with other tumor antigen–specific DNA vaccines to enhance antitumor immunity. Evaluation of the tumor microenvironment showed increased CD8+ T-cell infiltration and a decreased macrophage infiltration driven by FAP immunization. We extended this to patient data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, where we find high FAP expression correlates with high macrophage and low CD8+ T-cell infiltration. Conclusions: These results suggest that immune therapy targeting tumor antigens in combination with a microconsensus FAP vaccine provides two-fisted punch-inducing responses that target both the tumor microenvironment and tumor cells directly. Clin Cancer Res; 24(5); 1190–201. ©2018 AACR.
Embodied Conflict Resolution : The Use of Body Psychotherapy , Gestalt Equine Psychotherapy , and Aikido to Resolve Conflict amongst Adolescents

This paper describes a clinical experiment integrating body psychotherapy, Gestalt equine psychotherapy, and Aikido principles with a group of adolescents. The project consisted of ten two-hour sessions in which the author’s purpose was to generate ideas, explore themes, and create a lasting approach to resolving interpersonal conflict. Participatory Action Research (PAR) was the qualitative method used to gather and analyse data. This study included its participants in the process of problem identification, data analysis, the creation of an intervention to address interpersonal conflict resolution, and the integration of feedback from their community. Findings show that GEP and Aikido supported the participants’ exploration of somatic responses to conflict and understanding their physical responses to conflict. Integrating body psychotherapy, GEP and Aikido may help adolescents create a more successful and satisfactory conflict resolution.
Crystal structure and defect property predictions in ceramic materials

Atomic scale computer simulation techniques have been employed to predict the crystal structures and defect properties of ceramic materials. The techniques use energy minimization procedures to relax ion positions subject to interatomic forces. Application has been made to a number of related solid state systems. Initial investigations were made of ABO3 perovskite materials. Crystal structure predictions were an essential precursor to more in depth studies of the perovskite defect structures. The two cations A and B were restricted to being trivalent, and the anion to be oxygen; in total 96 separate compositions were studied. Structural changes between rhombohedral Ric, orthorhombic Pnma, hexagonal P63cm perovskite and cubic bixbyite Ia3 were correlated to cation radii via a two dimensional contour map. Calculations of the internal energies for intrinsic defect formation were then undertaken over the extensive ABO3 compositional range. These results were then compared to previous work on a series of pyrochlore materials. The motivation stemmed from a correlation that had been made between intrinsic defect formation and radiation tolerance in the pyrochlore materials. Using this same idea, the relative radiation tolerance between different ABO3 compounds is proposed and the relative radiation tolerance compared to pyrochlores is discussed. It was found that
Invasion of the Red Seaweed Heterosiphonia japonica Spans Biogeographic Provinces in the Western North Atlantic Ocean

The recent invasion of the red alga Heterosiphonia japonica in the western North Atlantic Ocean has provided a unique opportunity to study invasion dynamics across a biogeographical barrier. Native to the western North Pacific Ocean, initial collections in 2007 and 2009 restricted the western North Atlantic range of this invader to Rhode Island, USA. However, through subtidal community surveys, we document the presence of Heterosiphonia in coastal waters from Maine to New York, USA, a distance of more than 700 km. This geographical distribution spans a well-known biogeographical barrier at Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Despite significant differences in subtidal community structure north and south of Cape Cod, Heterosiphonia was found at all but two sites surveyed in both biogeographic provinces, suggesting that this invader is capable of rapid expansion over broad geographic ranges. Across all sites surveyed, Heterosiphonia comprised 14% of the subtidal benthic community. However, average abundances of nearly 80% were found at some locations. As a drifting macrophyte, Heterosiphonia was found as intertidal wrack in abundances of up to 65% of the biomass washed up along beaches surveyed. Our surveys suggest that the high abundance of Heterosiphonia has already led to marked changes in subtidal community structure; we found significantly lower species richness in recipient communities with higher Heterosiphona abundances. Based on temperature and salinity tolerances of the European populations, we believe Heterosiphonia has the potential to invade and alter subtidal communities from Florida to Newfoundland in the western North Atlantic.
Femtosecond laser full and partial texturing of steel surfaces to reduce friction in lubricated contact

Abstract Minimizing mechanical losses and friction in vehicle engines would have a great impact on reducing fuel consumption and exhaust emissions, to the benefit of environmental protection. With this scope, laser surface texturing (LST) with femtosecond pulses is an emerging technology, which consists of creating, by laser ablation, an array of high-density microdimples on the surface of a mechanical device. The microtexture decreases the effective contact area and, in case of lubricated contact, acts as oil reservoir and trap for wear debris, leading to an overall friction reduction. Depending on the lubrication regime and on the texture geometry, several mechanisms may concur to modify friction such as the local reduction of the shear stress, the generation of a hydrodynamic lift between the surfaces or the formation of eddy-like flows at the bottom of the dimple cavities. All these effects have been investigated by fabricating and characterizing several LST surfaces by femtosecond laser ablation with different features: partial/full texture, circular/elliptical dimples, variable diameters, and depths but equivalent areal density. More than 85% of friction reduction has been obtained from the circular dimple geometry, but the elliptical texture allows adjusting the friction coefficient by changing its orientation with respect to the sliding direction.
Retina disease classification based on colour fundus images using convolutional neural networks

This paper explores Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) as a classifier to recognize retinal images. The dataset used in this research is public STARE color image dataset comprises of 61 × 70.46 × S3, and 31×35 pixels. The dataset is categorized into 15 classes. The experimentation shows that the CNN model can achieve 80.93 percent.
An interference suppression scheme with joint channel-data estimation

This paper describes an adaptive space-time receiver with joint channel-data estimation (JCDE) to combat time-varying (TV) multipath channels in the presence of undesired cochannel interference (CCI). The receiver uses a colored Gaussian metric for sequence detection in order to suppress the CCI. The proposed scheme also uses the knowledge of the transmit filter for improved channel estimation to enhance performance. The algorithm is derived as a quasi-Newton scheme on a chosen cost criterion and is also locally convergent. The performance of this class of interference cancellers is examined through the pairwise error probability (PEP). Through these expressions we gain insight into the properties of the canceller. The effect of channel dynamics and identification mismatch on the PEP is also examined. To reduce implementational complexity, a hybrid delayed-decision feedback and JCDE scheme is also proposed. The performance is illustrated using numerical results in realistic transmission environments.
Measuring the Effects of Advertising: The Digital Frontier

Online advertising offers unprecedented opportunities for measurement. A host of new metrics, clicks being the leading example, have become widespread in advertising science. New data and experimentation platforms open the door for firms and researchers to measure true causal effects of advertising on a variety of consumer behaviors, such as purchases. We dissect the new metrics and methods currently used by industry researchers, attacking the question, "How hard is it to reliably measure advertising effectiveness? " We outline the questions that we think can be answered by current data and methods, those that we believe will be in play within five years, and those that we believe could not be answered with arbitrarily large and detailed data. We pay close attention to the advances in computational advertising that are not only increasing the impact of advertising, but also usefully shifting the focus from "who to hit" to "what do I get. "
Perinatal Factors and Regional Brain Volume Abnormalities at Term in a Cohort of Extremely Low Birth Weight Infants

Our objective was to investigate diverse clinical antecedents of total and regional brain volume abnormalities and white matter hyperintensity volume on term MRI in extremely low birth weight (birth weight ≤1000 g) survivors. A consecutive cohort of extremely low birth weight infants who survived to 38 weeks postmenstrual age (n = 122) and a control group of 16 healthy term newborns underwent brain MRI at term-equivalent age. Brain volumes were measured using semi-automated and manual segmentation methods. Using multivariable linear regression, clinical antecedents were correlated with volumes of total brain tissue, white matter hyperintensities, and regional tissues/structures, adjusted for age at MRI, total cranial volume, and total tissue volume. Regional brain volumes were markedly reduced in extremely low birth weight infants as compared to term newborns (relative difference range: −11.0%, −35.9%). Significant adverse clinical associations for total brain tissue volume included: small for gestational age, seizures, caffeine therapy/apnea of prematurity, duration of parenteral nutrition, pulmonary hemorrhage, and white matter injury (p<0.01 for each; relative difference range: −1.4% to −15.0%). Surgery for retinopathy of prematurity and surgery for necrotizing enterocolitis or spontaneous intestinal perforation were significantly associated with increasing volume of white matter hyperintensities. Regional brain volumes are sensitive to multiple perinatal factors and neonatal morbidities or interventions. Brain growth measurements in extremely low birth weight infants can advance our understanding of perinatal brain injury and development.
Towards Efficient Data-flow Test Data Generation Using KLEE

Dataflow coverage, one of the white-box testing criteria, focuses on the relations between variable definitions and their uses.Several empirical studies have proved data-flow testing is more effective than control-flow testing. However, data-flow testing still cannot find its adoption in practice, due to the lack of effective tool support. To this end, we propose a guided symbolic execution approach to efficiently search for program paths to satisfy data-flow coverage criteria. We implemented this approach on KLEE and evaluated with 30 program subjects which are constructed by the subjects used in previous data-flow testing literature, SIR, SV-COMP benchmarks. Moreover, we are planning to integrate the data-flow testing technique into the new proposed symbolic execution engine, SmartUnit, which is a cloud-based unit testing service for industrial software, supporting coverage-based testing. It has successfully helped several well-known corporations and institutions in China to adopt coverage-based testing in practice, totally tested more than one million lines of real code from industry.
Organic Farming Favours Insect-Pollinated over Non-Insect Pollinated Forbs in Meadows and Wheat Fields

The aim of this study was to determine the relative effects of landscape-scale management intensity, local management intensity and edge effect on diversity patterns of insect-pollinated vs. non-insect pollinated forbs in meadows and wheat fields. Nine landscapes were selected differing in percent intensively used agricultural area (IAA), each with a pair of organic and conventional winter wheat fields and a pair of organic and conventional meadows. Within fields, forbs were surveyed at the edge and in the interior. Both diversity and cover of forbs were positively affected by organic management in meadows and wheat fields. This effect, however, differed significantly between pollination types for species richness in both agroecosystem types (i.e. wheat fields and meadows) and for cover in meadows. Thus, we show for the first time in a comprehensive analysis that insect-pollinated plants benefit more from organic management than non-insect pollinated plants regardless of agroecosystem type and landscape complexity. These benefits were more pronounced in meadows than wheat fields. Finally, the community composition of insect-pollinated and non-insect-pollinated forbs differed considerably between management types. In summary, our findings in both agroecosystem types indicate that organic management generally supports a higher species richness and cover of insect-pollinated plants, which is likely to be favourable for the density and diversity of bees and other pollinators.
Design and Implementation of ET++, a Seamless Object-Oriented Application Framework

ET++ is a homogeneous object-oriented class library integrating user interface building blocks, basic data structures, and support for object input/output with high level application framework components. The main goals in designing ET++ have been the desire to substantially ease the building of highly interactive applications with consistent user interfaces following the well known desktop metaphor, and to combine all ET++ classes into a seamless system structure. Experience has proven that writing a complex application based on ET++ can result in a reduction in source code size of 80% and more compared to the same software written on top of a conventional graphic toolbox. ET++ is implemented in C++ and runs under UNIXTM and either SunWindowsTM, NeWSTM, or the X11 window system. This paper discusses the design and implementation of ET++. It also reports key experience from working with C++ and ET++. A description of code browsing and object inspection tools for ET++ is included as well. ET++ is available in the public domain.2