Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A neural interface provides long-term stable natural touch perception

Electrical stimulation, using patterned intensity, applied through cuff-type peripheral nerve interfaces provided stable touch perceptions in the fingers, thumb, and hand of two subjects with upper limb loss for 16 to 24 months. To Feel Again! The loss of sensation is a major consequence and unmet challenge for amputees who have suffered limb loss. Tan et al. now demonstrate that a simple electronic cuff placed around nerves in the upper arm of two amputees wearing a replacement neuroprosthetic limb directly activates the neural pathways responsible for hand sensations. This neural interface enabled the two amputees to feel sensations at many locations on the neuroprosthetic hand. Different stimulation patterns transformed the typical “tingling sensation” of electrical stimulation into multiple different natural sensations, enabling the amputees to perform fine motor tasks such as picking up soft fruit and pulling the stalks out of cherries. Touch perception on the fingers and hand is essential for fine motor control, contributes to our sense of self, allows for effective communication, and aids in our fundamental perception of the world. Despite increasingly sophisticated mechatronics, prosthetic devices still do not directly convey sensation back to their wearers. We show that implanted peripheral nerve interfaces in two human subjects with upper limb amputation provided stable, natural touch sensation in their hands for more than 1 year. Electrical stimulation using implanted peripheral nerve cuff electrodes that did not penetrate the nerve produced touch perceptions at many locations on the phantom hand with repeatable, stable responses in the two subjects for 16 and 24 months. Patterned stimulation intensity produced a sensation that the subjects described as natural and without “tingling,” or paresthesia. Different patterns produced different types of sensory perception at the same location on the phantom hand. The two subjects reported tactile perceptions they described as natural tapping, constant pressure, light moving touch, and vibration. Changing average stimulation intensity controlled the size of the percept area; changing stimulation frequency controlled sensation strength. Artificial touch sensation improved the subjects’ ability to control grasping strength of the prosthesis and enabled them to better manipulate delicate objects. Thus, electrical stimulation through peripheral nerve electrodes produced long-term sensory restoration after limb loss.
Which sequencing depth is sufficient to describe patterns in bacterial α- and β-diversity?

The vastness of microbial diversity implies that an almost infinite number of individuals needs to be identified to accurately describe such communities. Practical and economical constraints may therefore prevent appropriate study designs. However, for many questions in ecology it is not essential to know the actual diversity but rather the trends among samples thereof. It is, hence, important to know to what depth microbial communities need to be sampled to accurately measure trends in diversity. We used three data sets of freshwater and sediment bacteria, where diversity was explored using 454 pyrosequencing. Each data set contained 6-15 communities from which 15 000-20 000 16S rRNA gene sequences each were obtained. These data sets were subsampled repeatedly to 10 different depths down to 200 sequences per community. Diversity estimates varied with sequencing depth, yet, trends in diversity among samples were less sensitive. We found that 1000 denoised sequences per sample explained to 90% the trends in β-diversity (Bray-Curtis index) among samples observed for 15 000-20 000 sequences. Similarly, 5000 denoised sequences were sufficient to describe trends in α-diversity (Shannon index) with the same accuracy. Further, 5000 denoised sequences captured to more than 80% the trends in Chao1 richness and Pielou's evenness.
CHEMO- AND RADIOSENSITIVITY TESTING IN A PATIENT WITH ATAXIA TELANGIECTASIA AND HODGKIN DISEASE

Treatment of Hodgkin disease (HD) in ataxia telangiectasia (AT) patients is hampered by hypersensitivity to radiation and chemotherapy. Most patients die, due to toxicity or, rarely, to progressive disease. The authors report on a 9-year-old girl with stage IIA HD and AT. She was treated with a tailored combined modality approach. No unacceptable toxicity was found, but the girl died of a relapse outside their radiation field. In comparison with fibroblasts of non-AT patients, the fibroblasts of the patient were 3 times as sensitive for radiotherapy but just 1.2 times as sensitive for doxorubicin. A good correlation was shown between in vitro radio- and chemosensitivity testing and the observed clinical toxicity. The authors suggest, therefore, treating AT patients as much as possible according to standard protocols by adjusting the radiotherapy delivery and the chemotherapy regimen to individual doses derived from in vitro radio- and chemosensitivity testing.
Validity of DSM-IV subtypes of conduct disorder based on age of onset.

OBJECTIVE To present data from the DSM-IV field trials that led to the distinction between subtypes of conduct disorder (CD) that emerge in childhood or adolescence. In addition, data from a household sample were used to attempt to cross-validate these findings. METHOD Differences between youths who met criteria for the two subtypes of CD were examined in the field trials sample of 440 youths aged 4 through 17 years and in a household sample of 1,285 youths aged 9 through 17 years. RESULTS In both samples, there was a steep decline in aggression occurring around an age of onset of 10 years, but the number of nonaggressive behaviors was unrelated to the age of onset of CD. In the field trials sample, youths who met criteria for the adolescent-onset type were more likely to be girls, less likely to meet criteria for oppositional defiant disorder, and less likely to have a family history of antisocial behavior than the childhood-onset type, but these latter findings were not confirmed in the household sample. CONCLUSIONS The DSM-IV approach to subtyping CD distinguishes subgroups that differ markedly in level of physical aggression. The advantages of a developmental approach to subtyping are discussed.
MR colonography with barium-based fecal tagging: initial clinical experience.

PURPOSE To assess a strategy for fecal tagging with barium sulfate as an inexpensive tagging agent in conjunction with magnetic resonance (MR) colonography in patients suspected of having colorectal lesions. MATERIALS AND METHODS Twenty-four patients suspected of having colonic lesions because of rectal bleeding, positive fecal occult blood test results, or altered bowel habits underwent MR colonography and subsequent conventional colonoscopy. A 200-mL dose of a barium sulfate-containing contrast agent was ingested with each of four low-fiber meals, beginning 36 hours before the examination. For MR colonography, the colon was filled with tap water. Gadobenate dimeglumine was injected intravenously. Images were acquired 75 seconds after gadobenate dimeglumine administration by using only a T1-weighted three-dimensional gradient-echo sequence. Images were reviewed by two radiologists blinded to conventional colonoscopic data. By using colonoscopy as the reference standard, sensitivity and specificity of MR colonography were determined for detecting colorectal masses. RESULTS On the basis of MR colonography, 15 polyps of 5-20 mm and 10 carcinomas were detected and later confirmed with conventional colonoscopy. Conventional colonoscopy depicted three additional lesions less than 8 mm in diameter. Thus, sensitivity of MR colonography was 89.3% (25 of 28) for lesions and 91.7% (22 of 24) for patients. CONCLUSION Barium-tagged MR colonography obviates bowel cleansing and depicts all lesions exceeding 8 mm in diameter.
Inhalation of Human Insulin Is Associated with Improved Insulin Action Compared with Subcutaneous Injection and Endogenous Secretion in Dogs

This study compared the effects of endogenous (portal) insulin secretion versus peripheral insulin administration with subcutaneous or inhaled human insulin [INH; Exubera, insulin human (rDNA origin) inhalation powder] on glucose disposal in fasted dogs. In the control group, glucose was infused into the portal vein (Endo; n = 6). In two other groups, glucose was infused portally, whereas insulin was administered peripherally by inhalation (n = 13) or s.c. injection (n = 6) with somatostatin and basal glucagon. In the Endo group, over the first 3 h, the arterial insulin concentration was twice that of the peripheral groups, whereas hepatic sinusoidal insulin levels were half as much. Although net hepatic glucose uptake was greatest in the Endo group, the peripheral groups demonstrated larger increases in nonhepatic glucose uptake so that total glucose disposal was greater in the latter groups. Compared with s.c. insulin action, glucose excursions were smaller and shorter, and insulin action was at least twice as great after INH. Thus, at the glucose dose and insulin levels chosen, peripheral insulin delivery was associated with greater whole-body glucose disposal than endogenous (portal) insulin secretion. INH administration resulted in increased insulin sensitivity in nonhepatic but not in hepatic tissues compared with s.c. delivery.
Teachers’ Perspectives on Professional Development: A Case Study of Innovation at a Chinese University

Ben has 'to' as an automatic sight word and was able to sound out the word 'was'. He once again sounded out some of the sight words but said a different word aloud: 'for' /f/ /o/ /r/ was verbalized "road". When reading in context with the DRA, he automatically read 'no' and 'yes'. With the "Words I Can Write", Ben demonstrated again a knowledge of first letter sounds and sounds within a word. He wrote "mem" was 'mom'; "dod" was 'dad'; "ilikmykr" was 'I like my car'.
Species number, species abundance and body length relationships of arboreal beetles in Bornean lowland rain forest trees

ABSTRACT. 1 The relationships between number of species, abundance per species, and body length are examined for 859 species of beetles in samples of arthropods collected from ten Bornean lowland forest trees by insecticide fogging. Similar relationships are examined for different feeding guilds of these beetles, and for those beetles from different species of trees. 2 The data are used to construct four interrelated graphs, namely species: abundance, species: body length, population abundance: body length and total number of individuals: body length distributions. 3 In contrast to a number of previous studies, no consistent linear relationship between population density and body length was found for the Bornean beetles and it is suggested that, as in birds, the added dispersal ability of flight reduces critical population densities necessary for persistence in small species. Previous relationships between body weight and population abundance may also be artefacts of the way in which data were gathered. 4 Despite large samples, we failed to locate the mode in plots of the number of species in each abundance category (species: abundance distribution). 5 Species: body length and total number of individuals: body length plots were similar to those found in previous studies, although using data for Coleoptera alone may have produced a steeper decline in the total number of individuals as body size increases than is apparent in samples of all arthropods. 6 We present the first three‐dimensional graph relating numbers of species, body lengths and population abundances. The surface of this three‐dimensional relationship is relatively simple.
Conceptualizing Fashion in Everyday Lives

Seeking to explore ways that fashion is embedded in the complexity of people’s everyday lives, not just those of the young or fashion-conscious, this article was the first major output of a collaborative, AHRC-funded research project (2012). It stemmed from the authors’ growing perception (developed over many years and surfacing in other aspects of their research) that theories of fashion had been over-concentrated on fashion as an essential component of modernity–a position exemplified by Elizabeth Wilson’s 1985 bookAdorned in Dreams. Believing that there was the basis for a serious challenge to Wilson’s view, the authors’ research set out to address the question, ‘Does fashion involve ordinariness and continuity as much as the extraordinary and the novel? ' In this, the article attempted to make a theoretically useful contribution to the fields of fashion and design history. Fundamentally theoretical in orientation, the article built upon earlier work by Buckley and Clark on home dress-making and second-hand clothes. It adds to the critical questioning that has emerged regarding fashion as design and process, representation and identity, and as social-cultural artefact. At the same time it proposes a radically different idea of the nature of fashion change.
Growth Performance and Forecasts of Exports of Leather Industry in Punjab

The present paper aims at measuring the performance of exports of leather industry by computing yearly and compound annual growth rates, making short-term forecasts and measurement of long-term trends. Long-term trends in exports were captured by fitting ten distinct functional forms and equation of best fit was selected on the basis of yardsticks mentioned in the econometric literature. Forecasts of exports were prepared for the lead-time of five years by using Double Exponential Smoothing. Econometric benchmarks were used to test reliability and adequacy of the fitted model. The findings have been supplemented with necessary recommendations.
Attitudes and beliefs of students toward bi-/multilingualism at an international university in Japan

This study examines the topic of bi-/multilingualism from the perspective of Japanese as well as non-Japanese students at an international university in Kyushu, Japan. In order to understand their attitude toward learning second/foreign (or additional) languages and what values are placed on it, a questionnaire was designed and administered to a group of 122 students. Comparisons were made between responses offered by Japanese and non-Japanese students with respect to factors such as age and self-rated second language (L2) ability. In addition to the overall findings of a primarily quantitative study, the results of a qualitative analysis of written comments from the survey are also presented. Overall, participants tend to view bi-/multilingualism in a positive light, both in a personal sense and with regard to its broader influence within Japanese society. A tendency was also discovered in which bi-/multilingualism is valued more as ‘additional language’ ability increases. Most participants believe a bi-/multilingual person speaks English; this is contrasted with a relatively small number who associate the languages of ‘Japanese’ and ‘Chinese’ with their image of bi-/multilingualism. The analysis of comments on the question “when may a person call himself/herself bilingual? ” reveal that key ingredients of their definitions include: ‘speaking,’ ‘communicating’ and ‘using;’ mentioned with somewhat less regularity is the ability to ‘understand’ the L2 from both linguistic and cultural perspectives. The connection between bi-/multilingualism and global society, with its persistent need for language skills in business and international relations, was strongly voiced by respondents, many of whom suggest it is in Japan’s interests to pursue bi-/multilingualism seriously.
Idiosyncratic Volatility, Expected Windfall, and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns

Abstract This paper analyzes the roles of idiosyncratic risk and firm-level conditional skewness in determining cross-sectional returns. It is shown that the traditional EGARCH estimates of conditional idiosyncratic volatility may bring significant finite sample estimation bias in the presence of non-Gaussianity. We propose a new estimator that has more robust sampling performance than the EGARCH MLE in the presence of heavy-tail or skewed innovations. Our cross-sectional portfolio analysis demonstrates that the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle documented by Ang, Hodrick, Xiang, and Zhang (2006) exists intertemporally. We conduct further analysis to solve the puzzle. We show that two factors idiosyncratic variance and individual conditional skewness play important roles in determining cross-sectional returns. A new concept, the “expected windfall,” is introduced as an alternate measure of conditional return skewness. After controlling for these two additional factors, we solve the major piece of this puzzle: Our cross-sectional regression tests identify a positive relationship between conditional idiosyncratic volatility and expected returns for over 99% of the total market capitalization of the NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX stock exchanges.
Development of an Amperometric Acetic Acid Sensor in Organic System

An amperometric method was developed by using a lead working electrode in acetonitrile organic solution for detecting acetic acid. The mechanisms of electrochemical reaction were corresponding to the reduction of acetic ions in acetonitrile organic solution. The steady state amperometric current resulted from the reduction of acetic ions to produce the aldehyde in a two-electron process. In the organic sensing system, the organic salt, [CH3(CH2)3]4NBF4, was added into the solution to increase the conductivity of the acetonitrile organic solution. The potential window of limiting current of acetic ion reduction at the lead interface was determined in acetonitrile electrolyte in the range from -1.5 to -2.3 V (vs. Ag/Ag(superscript +) in acetonitrile). The effect of supporting electrolyte concentration on sensitivity was also discussed. The response time of acetic acid in the sensing system was 30 s. Meanwhile the stability of the sensing system was also tested.
A novel rice (Oryza sativa L.) acidic PR1 gene highly responsive to cut, phytohormones, and protein phosphatase inhibitors.

A novel rice acidic pathogenesis-related (PR) class 1 cDNA (OsPR1a) was isolated from jasmonic acid (JA)-treated rice seedling leaf. The OsPR1a cDNA is 830 bp long and contains an open reading frame of 507 nucleotides encoding 168 amino acid residues with a predicted molecular mass of 17,560 and pI of 4.4. The deduced amino acid sequence of OsPR1a has a high level of identity with acidic and basic PR1 proteins from plants. Southern analysis revealed that OsPR1a is a member of a multigene family. The OsPR1a gene was found to be cut-inducible, whereas the phytohormones JA, salicylic acid (SA), 3-indoleacetic acid, gibberellin, and ethylene (using ethylene generator ethephon, ET) enhanced accumulation of OsPR1a transcript, as well as the protein phosphatase inhibitors cantharidin (CN) and endothall (EN). Induced expression of OsPR1a gene by JA, CN or EN, and ET was light/dark- and dose-dependent and was almost completely inhibited by cycloheximide. Dark downregulated CN-, EN-, and ET-induced OsPR1a gene expression, whereas it was further enhanced with JA. SA and abscisic acid blocked JA-induced OsPR1a transcript. Simultaneous application of staurosporine (ST) enhances CH- or EN-induced OsPR1a transcript, but not with JA. This is the first report on cloning of a rice acidic PR1 gene (OsPR1a), which is regulated by phytohormones, phosphorylation/dephosphorylation event(s), and light.
Identification of Overweight Status Is Associated With Higher Rates of Screening for Comorbidities of Overweight in Pediatric Primary Care Practice

OBJECTIVES. The goals were to determine whether primary care provider identification of children as overweight was associated with additional screening or referrals and whether the types and numbers of visits to primary care differed for overweight and nonoverweight children. METHODS. Sequential parents/guardians at 13 diverse pediatric practices completed an in-office survey addressing health habits and demographic features. Medical records of each child from a sample of families were reviewed. Data were abstracted from the first visit and from all visits in the 14-month period before study enrollment. Analyses were limited to children ≥2 years of age for whom BMI percentile could be calculated. RESULTS. The analytic sample included 1216 children (mean age: 7.9 years; 51% male) from 777 families (parents were 43% white, 18% black, 34% Hispanic, and 5% other; 49% of families had a child receiving Medicaid/uninsured). Among overweight children (BMI of ≥95th percentile; n = 248), 28% had been identified as such in the record. Screening or referral for evaluation of comorbidities was more likely among overweight children who were identified in the record (54%) than among overweight children who were not identified (17%). Among children at risk of overweight (BMI of 85th to 94th percentile; n = 186), 5% had been identified as such in the record and overall 15% were screened/referred. In logistic regression modeling, the children identified as overweight/at risk of overweight had 6 times greater odds of receiving any management for overweight. CONCLUSIONS. Low rates of identification of overweight status and evaluation or referrals for comorbidities were found. Identification of overweight status was associated with a greatly increased rate of screening for comorbidities.
ATM binds to β-adaptin in cytoplasmic vesicles

Inherited mutations in the ATM gene lead to a complex clinical phenotype characterized by neuronal degeneration, oculocutaneous telangiectasias, immune dysfunction, and cancer predisposition. Using the yeast two-hybrid system, we demonstrate that ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) binds to β-adaptin, one of the components of the AP-2 adaptor complex, which is involved in clathrin-mediated endocytosis of receptors. The interaction between ATM and β-adaptin was confirmed in vitro, and coimmunoprecipitation and colocalization studies show that the proteins also associate in vivo. ATM also interacts in vitro with β-NAP, a neuronal-specific β-adaptin homolog that was identified as an autoantigen in a patient with cerebellar degeneration. Our data describing the association of ATM with β-adaptin in vesicles indicate that ATM may play a role in intracellular vesicle and/or protein transport mechanisms.
Multimodal treatment of peritoneal carcinomatosis and sarcomatosis.

Peritoneal carcinomatosis and sarcomatosis (PCS) are short-term fatal conditions amenable only to palliative treatment. They are generally considered as a systemic disease at clinical presentation, and are resistant to standard treatments. However, there may be in the natural history a phase of loco-regional tumour spread during which the tumour may still be curable. Surgical treatment alone, or in combination with systemic chemotherapy, has yielded poor results in terms of survival and quality of life. One approach is cytoreductive surgery (CS) combined with the intraperitoneal administration of antiblastic agents. This may diminish any residual tumour following macroscopic excision and may overcome the pharmacokinetic limits of systemic chemotherapy. A further improvement in this multimodal approach may be achieved by the use of hyperthermic intraperitoneal intraoperative chemotherapy (HIIC). Results so far have been encouraging. However, series reported in the literature are relatively small and heterogeneous, and clinical and technical factors which include the selection of patients, optimal drugs dosage and temperature, evaluation of outcome and costs are still under discussion.