Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial heterogeneity of transmembrane potential responses of single guinea‐pig cardiac cells during electric field stimulation

Changes in transmembrane voltage (Vm) of cardiac cells during electric field stimulation have a complex spatial‐ and time‐dependent behaviour that differs significantly from electrical stimulation of space‐clamped membranes by current pulses. A multisite optical mapping system was used to obtain 17 or 25 μm resolution maps of Vm along the long axis of guinea‐pig ventricular cells (n= 57) stained with voltage‐sensitive dye (di‐8‐ANEPPS) and stimulated longitudinally with uniform electric field (2, 5 or 10 ms, 3–62 V cm−1) pulses (n= 201). The initial polarizations of Vm responses (Vmr) varied linearly along the cell length and reversed symmetrically upon field reversal. The remainder of the Vm responses had parallel time courses among the recording sites, revealing a common time‐varying signal component (Vms). Vms was depolarizing for pulses during rest and hyperpolarizing for pulses during the early plateau phase. Vms varied in amplitude and time course with increasing pulse amplitude. Four types of plateau response were observed, with transition points between the different responses occurring when the maximum polarization at the ends of the cell reached values estimated as 60, 110 and 220 mV. Among the cells that had a polarization change of > 200 mV at their ends (for fields > 45 V cm−1), some (n= 17/25) had non‐parallel time courses among Vm recordings of the various sites. This implied development of an intracellular field (Ei) that was found to increase exponentially with time (τ= 7.2 ± 3.2 ms). Theoretical considerations suggest that Vms represents the intracellular potential (φi) as well as the average polarization of the cell, and that Vmr is the manifestation of the extracellular potential gradient resulting from the field stimulus. For cells undergoing field stimulation, φi acts as the cellular physiological state variable and substitutes for Vm, which is the customary variable for space‐clamped membranes.
Bigger than You Thought: China's Contribution to Scientific Publications and its Impact on the Global Economy

China's advance to the forefront of scientific research is one of the 21st century's most surprising developments, with implications for a world where knowledge is arguably “the one ring that rules them all. ” This paper provides new estimates of China's contribution to global science that far exceed estimates based on the proportion of papers with Chinese addresses in databases of international journals. Address‐based measures ignore articles written by Chinese researchers with non‐Chinese addresses and articles in Chinese language journals not indexed in those databases. Taking account of these contributions, we attribute 36 percent of 2016 global scientific articles to China. Taking account of increased citations to Chinese‐addressed articles relative to the global average as well, we attribute 37 percent of global citations to scientific articles published in 2013 to China. With shares of articles and citations more than twice its share of global population or GDP, China has achieved a comparative advantage in knowledge that has implications for the division of labor and trade among countries and for the direction of research and of technological and economic development worldwide.
Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation

Most years between 1969 and 1999 I taught either a oneor a two-semester course on Musics of the World from an anarchist and devolutionary perspective. From the egalitarian gathering societies thru the feudal societies to the present class societies, there has been a steady and disastrous decline in the quality and quantity of musicking per capita, was one argument. Many supposed technological "gains" represented a loss for musicking and for cultural and species diversity, was another. Further "progress" will deeper alienate and then kill us, a third. While Turino's views are more flexible, balanced, neutral, even neutered in places, I could have used this well-titled and well-written exposition of a "four fields" approach to sociomusicology as a cornerstone text for my "decline and fall of civilizations" course because he includes enough data on Zimbabwe, Peru, contradancing, Nazi Germany, and the civil rights movement to sustain both divergent hypothesis testing and radical (rooted) reinterpretation by any reader. Although I am a decade away from regular classroom teaching, I suspect this book will tum out to be a very concise and convenient cornerstone text for a variety of courses in diverse fields (sociology, history, performance studies, cultural studies, etc.) and just as useful in studies of Music the object, especially as recorded. A brief summary of contents follows. Turino divides "live" musicking into "participatory" and "presentational"; he divides "recorded music" into "high fidelity" and "studio audio art." These four "fields" are largely configured from earlier scholarship and do not constitute the "brave and extremely original book" that Anthony Seeger blurbs on the back cover, but this is indeed a solid synthesis, a useful compilation and interweaving of insights from others, and a taxonomic/descriptive model that will stand up to a lot of pragmatic testing as it invites expanding. To be fair, Turino claims to offer no more than a useful and accurate taxonomy, a description, a useful model, and it is. Alan Merriam too, thought of his classic as a reasonably thorough compilation of what had been said, and it was. John Blacking knocked off a classic by putting music through a by then very familiar cultural relativism wringer. Perhaps great scholarship is like Tiv composing, "slow addition and quick subtraction"; not really much about bravery and originality at all. Here is Turino testing his "four fields" on the Beatles trajectory:
Sample survey of drug‐resistant tuberculosis in Henan, China, 1996

Background: There is little reliable data on the global drug resistance to tuberculosis (TB) as most of the existing data is based upon biased samples, is not standardized or was obtained using poor techniques. For this reason, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) developed a global project on anti‐TB drug resistance surveillance (DRS) in 1994. China joined this project in 1995 and the province of Henan was selected as the first site for collection of representative samples to survey the prevalence of drug‐resistant TB.
Lesion Segmentation in Automated 3D Breast Ultrasound: Volumetric Analysis

Mammography is the gold standard screening technique in breast cancer, but it has some limitations for women with dense breasts. In such cases, sonography is usually recommended as an additional imaging technique. A traditional sonogram produces a two-dimensional (2D) visualization of the breast and is highly operator dependent. Automated breast ultrasound (ABUS) has also been proposed to produce a full 3D scan of the breast automatically with reduced operator dependency, facilitating double reading and comparison with past exams. When using ABUS, lesion segmentation and tracking changes over time are challenging tasks, as the three-dimensional (3D) nature of the images makes the analysis difficult and tedious for radiologists. The goal of this work is to develop a semi-automatic framework for breast lesion segmentation in ABUS volumes which is based on the Watershed algorithm. The effect of different de-noising methods on segmentation is studied showing a significant impact ( p < 0 . 05 ) on the performance using a dataset of 28 temporal pairs resulting in a total of 56 ABUS volumes. The volumetric analysis is also used to evaluate the performance of the developed framework. A mean Dice Similarity Coefficient of 0 . 69 ± 0 . 11 with a mean False Positive ratio 0 . 35 ± 0 . 14 has been obtained. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the segmented volumes and the corresponding ground truth volumes is r 2 = 0 . 960 ( p = 0 . 05 ). Similar analysis, performed on 28 temporal (prior and current) pairs, resulted in a good correlation coefficient r 2 = 0 . 967 ( p < 0 . 05 ) for prior and r 2 = 0 . 956 ( p < 0 . 05 ) for current cases. The developed framework showed prospects to help radiologists to perform an assessment of ABUS lesion volumes, as well as to quantify volumetric changes during lesions diagnosis and follow-up.
Growth studies in Jena, Germany: Historical background and secular changes in stature and weight in children 7–14 years

Anthropological investigations have been performed on Jena school children since 1880. The report summarizes the background of the surveys and then considers secular changes in stature and body weight since 1880. The stature of Jena school children shows a major increase over 105 years, ranging from 9.7% to 12.8% in girls and from 9.4% to 14.6% in boys. Changes in estimated growth rates are evident, especially in the preschool ages. Corresponding secular increases in weight between 1880 and 1985 range from 20.7% to 50.4%. Data during and after times of war suggest that females appear to react to changing living conditions more quickly than boys. On the other hand, the smaller variation in the stature of girls suggests more homogeneous and perhaps better buffered growth in girls. Estimated semiannual increments in stature and weight between 1880 and 1985 indicate an increase in the intensity of growth during school age in both sexes and acceleration of the pubertal growth spurt, especially in boys. The average decrease in weight in both sexes between 1932 and 1944 should be emphasized. This is the result of the poor nutritional conditions during the Second World War. Girls show a greater reduction in mean values than boys. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A fast collapsed data method for estimating haplotype frequencies from pooled genotype data with applications to the study of rare variants

Haplotype information could lead to more powerful tests of genetic association than single‐locus analyses but it is not easy to estimate haplotype frequencies from genotype data due to phase ambiguity. The challenge is compounded when individuals are pooled together to save costs or to increase sample size, which is crucial in the study of rare variants. Existing expectation–maximization type algorithms are slow and cannot cope with large pool size or long haplotypes. We show that by collapsing the total allele frequencies of each pool suitably, the maximum likelihood estimates of haplotype frequencies based on the collapsed data can be calculated very quickly regardless of pool size and haplotype length. We provide a running time analysis to demonstrate the considerable savings in time that the collapsed data method can bring. The method is particularly well suited to estimating certain union probabilities useful in the study of rare variants. We provide theoretical and empirical evidence to suggest that the proposed estimation method will not suffer much loss in efficiency if the variants are rare. We use the method to analyze re‐sequencing data collected from a case control study involving 148 obese persons and 150 controls. Focusing on a region containing 25 rare variants around the MGLL gene, our method selects three rare variants as potentially causal. This is more parsimonious than the 12 variants selected by a recently proposed covering method. From another set of 32 rare variants around the FAAH gene, we discover an interesting potential interaction between two of them. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Systematic design of antennas using the theory of characteristic modes for mobile phone applications

Mobile communications technology is constantly changing with the increasing demands of the consumers and Long Term Evolution (LTE) is widely accepted as the technology that can meet these requirements. This paper presents an electrically small antenna designed for European LTE frequency band of 1800 MHz. A systematic design procedure is developed using characteristic mode analysis (CMA). The CMA design procedure provides needed insights for the antenna designers to quickly come up with an antenna design using an arbitrarily shared structure.
A SPAD-Based Random Number Generator Pixel Based on the Arrival Time of Photons

A quantum random generator based on photon detection is here presented. The system consists of a source of photons, typically a commercial LED, coupled with a detector with single photon detection capability. The detector in this case is represented by a single pixel consisting of a SPAD and a time stamp circuit, which samples the arrival time of impinging photons within a predefined temporal window. The proposed implementation increases the efficiency of random bit extraction and reduces the afterpulsing probability, which can introduce undesirable correlation to the measurement. Preliminary results are reported, showing that the pixel has a flat behavior for a relevant range of intensity of the light, which makes the pixel robust against variations of external PVT parameters
Japanese high-school English teachers' role as citizenship educators : an exploratory study

The study discussed in this thesis addressed the question of how Japanese high-school English teachers (JTEs) may play a role in citizenship education. Similar to other countries, Japan faces challenges in preparing young people for citizenship in the context of globalization and increasing cultural diversity. Previous research from several countries has suggested that foreign language teachers (FLTs) can contribute to citizenship education by teaching intercultural communication skills and nurturing positive attitudes towards diversity. It suggests they can employ materials that promote reflection on contemporary issues, and help learners develop skills for dialogue. Notwithstanding the importance of English in Japan’s high schools, there has been little or no research on JTEs’ role in citizenship education, and an opportunity exists to contribute to knowledge in the field. The study discussed in this thesis explored JTEs’ role in citizenship teaching through the perceptions of JTEs who were purposively selected for their interest in this area. A questionnaire survey gathered views of 46 JTEs on citizenship and the possibility of incorporating citizenship education into English classes. Semi-structured interviews with 14 JTEs focused on ways they say they teach for citizenship and issues they say they confront in doing so. The study suggests participants tend towards a cosmopolitan view of citizenship, seeing the need for a strong Japanese identity combined with a sense of global citizenship. They believe JTEs can promote a cosmopolitan outlook by nurturing respect for human rights and cultural diversity and raising global awareness, and tend to emphasize the knowledge and values dimensions of citizenship rather than skills. The study highlights aspects of the local teaching environment that participants perceive as affecting their ability to pursue citizenship-related aims. It suggests JTEs’ role in citizenship education may be constrained by the extent to which schools prioritize entrance exam preparation and associated grammar-translation pedagogies.
Clathrin Mediates Infectious Hepatitis C Virus Particle Egress

ABSTRACT Although it is well established that hepatitis C virus (HCV) entry into hepatocytes depends on clathrin-mediated endocytosis, the possible roles of clathrin in other steps of the viral cycle remain unexplored. Thus, we studied whether cell culture-derived HCV (HCVcc) exocytosis was altered after clathrin interference. Knockdown of clathrin or the clathrin adaptor AP-1 in HCVcc-infected human hepatoma cell cultures impaired viral secretion without altering intracellular HCVcc levels or apolipoprotein B (apoB) and apoE exocytosis. Similar reductions in HCVcc secretion were observed after treatment with specific clathrin and dynamin inhibitors. Furthermore, detergent-free immunoprecipitation assays, neutralization experiments, and immunofluorescence analyses suggested that whereas apoE associated with infectious intracellular HCV precursors in endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-related structures, AP-1 participated in HCVcc egress in a post-ER compartment. Finally, we observed that clathrin and AP-1 knockdown altered the endosomal distribution of HCV core, reducing and increasing its colocalization with early endosome and lysosome markers, respectively. Our data support a model in which nascent HCV particles associate with apoE in the ER and exit cells following a clathrin-dependent transendosomal secretory route. IMPORTANCE HCV entry into hepatocytes depends on clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Here we demonstrate for the first time that clathrin also participates in HCV exit from infected cells. Our data uncover important features of HCV egress, which may lead to the development of new therapeutic interventions. Interestingly, we show that secretion of the very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) components apoB and apoE is not impaired after clathrin interference. This is a significant finding, since, to date, it has been proposed that HCV and VLDL follow similar exocytic routes. Given that lipid metabolism recently emerged as a potential target for therapies against HCV infection, our data may help in the design of new strategies to interfere specifically with HCV exocytosis without perturbing cellular lipid homeostasis, with the aim of achieving more efficient, selective, and safe antivirals.
Screening for vitamin D deficiency: defining vitamin D deficiency, target thresholds of treatment and estimating the benefits of treatment

Summary Vitamin D sufficiency has been associated with improved health outcomes but cost benefit analyses of published data adopt a number of assumptions. Firstly, definitions of vitamin D deficiency vary. Secondly, available methods used for the analysis of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) have significant limitations which could affect the adoption of specific target thresholds for treatment. Thirdly, although a variety of diseases are associated with vitamin D deficiency, randomised clinical trial data demonstrating the benefit of vitamin D supplementation only exist for the prevention of falls or fractures. This review will summarise the current evidence regarding an appropriate target threshold of 25OHD and review proposed therapeutic target thresholds of treatment. The limitations of current methods will be reviewed and objective data relating to the costs of diagnosis, the costs of treatment, and the level of evidence that screening could lessen disease burden in the community, will be provided. Finally, information needed by governments and health organisations to help justify population screening and what strategies could be adopted to make screening more cost-effective will be explored.
Comprehensive Benefit Allocation for Joint Operation of Multiple Reservoirs in the Ningbo Based on Shapely-Value Method and Benefit-Incremental Method

: With the completion of interconnection project of the Eastern Reservoir Group, it is possible to realize the joint operation of the multiple reservoirs in the Ningbo, and integrated dispatching involving water supply and power generation has significant benefits. Based on the inequality of multi-stakeholders and the irrationality of benefit allocation in the cascade reservoir, this paper takes the joint operation of three reservoirs in Ningbo as an example and establishes a Shapley-value and benefit-incremental model, aiming at quantifying and sharing the compensation benefits. Results show that this method not only has strong operability, but also it has clear objectives that can be quantified. Moreover, this method takes the actual contribution value of different stakeholders into consideration. Thus, adopting this method is able to give full play to the enthusiasm of different reservoirs and achieve the maximum comprehensive benefit of the reservoir group.
Targeted Carbon Tax Reforms∗

We show that in the presence of intersectoral linkages targeted sectoral carbon taxes might be a more effective way of reducing emissions than economy-wide carbon pricing. A carbon tax imposed on all sectors unambiguously reduces aggregate emissions, but taxes targeted at the set of key sectors can lead to the greatest emissions reduction. Due to intersectoral linkages and a tax rebate effect, taxing non-key sectors dampens the reduction in aggregate emissions. A key sector typically not only produces a lot of emissions, but also has a large influence on emissions in the rest of the economy. We focus on incremental changes in carbon taxes—carbon tax reforms—to characterise the set of key sectors analytically.
Machine learning for classification and quantification of monoclonal antibody preparations for cancer therapy

Monoclonal antibodies constitute one of the most important strategies to treat patients suffering from cancers such as hematological malignancies and solid tumors. In order to guarantee the quality of those preparations prepared at hospital, quality control has to be developed. The aim of this study was to explore a noninvasive, nondestructive, and rapid analytical method to ensure the quality of the final preparation without causing any delay in the process. We analyzed four mAbs (Inlfiximab, Bevacizumab, Ramucirumab and Rituximab) diluted at therapeutic concentration in chloride sodium 0.9% using Raman spectroscopy. To reduce the prediction errors obtained with traditional chemometric data analysis, we explored a data-driven approach using statistical machine learning methods where preprocessing and predictive models are jointly optimized. We prepared a data analytics workflow and submitted the problem to a collaborative data challenge platform called Rapid Analytics and Model Prototyping (RAMP). This allowed to use solutions from about 300 data scientists during five days of collaborative work. The prediction of the four mAbs samples was considerably improved with a misclassification rate and the mean error rate of 0.8% and 4%, respectively.
Automatic requirements extraction, analysis, and graph representation using an approach derived from computational linguistics

The quality of requirements is fundamental in engineering projects. Requirements are usually expressed partly or totally in a natural language (NL) format and come from different documents. Their qualities are difficult to analyze manually, especially when hundreds of thousands of them have to be considered. The assistance of software tools is becoming a necessity. In this article, the goal was to develop a set of metrics supported by NL processing (NLP) methods supporting different types of analysis of requirements and especially the dependencies between requirements. An NLP approach is used to extract requirements from text; to analyze their quality, links, similarities, and contradictions; and to cluster them automatically. The analysis framework includes different combinations of methods such as cosine similarity, singular value decomposition, and K‐means clustering. One objective is to assess the possible combinations and their impacts on detections to establish optimal metrics. Three case studies exemplify and support the validation of the work. Graphs are used to represent the automatically clustered requirements, as well as similarities and contradictions. A new contradiction analysis process that includes a rules‐based approach is proposed. Finally, the combined results are presented as graphs, which unveil the semantic relationships between requirements. Subsection 4.8 compares the results provided by the tool and the results obtained from experts. The proposed methodology and network presentation not only support the understanding of the semantics of the requirements but also help requirements engineers to review the interconnections and consistency of requirements systems and manage traceability. The approach is valuable during the early phases of projects when requirements are evolving dynamically and rapidly.