Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HPTN 062: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial Exploring the Effect of a Motivational-Interviewing Intervention on Sexual Behavior among Individuals with Acute HIV Infection in Lilongwe, Malawi

Objective We pilot tested a Motivational Interviewing (MI) –based counseling intervention for individuals with Acute HIV Infection (AHI) to reduce risky sexual behavior in Lilongwe, Malawi. Methods Twenty-eight individuals diagnosed with AHI were randomized to receive either brief education alone, or the brief education plus the MI-based intervention, called Uphungu Wanga. Participants in Uphungu Wanga received four sessions delivered on the day of diagnosis, three days later and at weeks 1 and 2 with a booster session at week 8; participants were followed for 24 weeks from diagnosis. An interviewer administered quantitative questionnaire was conducted at baseline and at weeks 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20 and 24. Semi-structured qualitative interviews (SSI) were conducted at weeks 2, 8, 12, and 24. Results The majority of participants in both arms reported rapid and sustained behavior change following diagnosis with AHI. Very few participants reported having sex without a condom after diagnosis. Participants reported a trend towards fewer sex partners and abstaining from sex during study follow-up. Participants in the MI-based arm provided concrete examples of risk reduction strategies in the SSIs while those in the brief education arm primarily described reducing risk behavior, suggesting that the MI-based group may have acquired more risk reduction skills. Conclusions Individuals in both study arms reduced risky sexual behaviors after diagnosis with AHI. We found few major differences between study arms during the 6-month follow up period in self-reported sexual behaviors therefore a MI-based intervention may not be needed to trigger behavior change following AHI. However, comparing the MI-based intervention to repeated brief education sessions made it difficult to assess the potential benefit of an MI-based intervention in a setting where standard counseling often consists of one post-test session. Nevertheless, provision of counseling immediately following diagnosis with HIV to support behavior change should remain a priority. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01197027
21 Propagation Aspects in Vehicular Networks

Traffic accidents have become an important health and social problem due to the enormous number of fatalities and injuries. The total number of deaths and injuries in the European Union (EU), United States of America (USA) and Japan has been steadily reduced over the last decade. This reduction is mainly attributed to the implementation of a set of road safety measures, such as seat-belt use, vehicle crash protection, traffic-calming interventions and traffic law enforcement. However, the number of accidents has remained uniform due to the increasing number of vehicles and total distance driven (Peden et al., 2004). In addition to passive vehicle safety systems, such as airbags, anti-lock braking system (ABS) and electronic stability control (ESP), new active safety systems have been introduced to improve vehicular safety. To this end, the last decade has witnessed the traffic management industry, engage and promote the integration of information and communications technology (wireless, computing and advanced sensor technologies) into both vehicles and the wider transport infrastructure. These proposals have led to the intelligent transportation system (ITS) concept. At present, different ITS applications have been introduced, such as variable message signs (VMS), located at strategic points (e.g., tunnels and merging highways) or spaced at given distances, to inform drivers about traffic and dangerous situations; automated toll collection systems for highways and parkings; and real-time traffic information broadcasted in the FM radio band. Besides this, onboard ITS applications have improved the assistance and protection mechanisms for drivers: navigation systems, rear and front parking radars, and cameras are extensively used in the vehicle. Vehicles now incorporate sophisticated computing systems, with several sensors interconnected. However, short-range sensors employed in emergency systems, such as forward collision warning and lane keeping assist, are insufficient, specially when these sensors need to extend their communication horizon in emergency cases due to the limitation of their operating range to line-of-sight (LOS) conditions (Vlacic et al., 2001). Therefore, there are safety applications for distance emergency situations, such as blind corners and traffic crossing, where large-range vehicular communication systems are required, e.g., operating rages of about 1000 meters, in both LOS and non-LOS (NLOS) conditions (Gallagher & Akatsuka, 2006). Wireless communications systems which can operate with these constraints are known as cooperative systems on the road. In the cooperative system concept, vehicles and infrastructure exchange safety messages to extend the distance horizon and provide more information in real time to drivers. Cooperative systems involve two
Electrophysiological evidence for early perceptual facilitation and efficient categorization of self-related stimuli during an Implicit Association Test measuring neuroticism.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is a widely used latency-based categorization task that indirectly measures the strength of automatic associations between target and attribute concepts. So far, little is known about the perceptual and cognitive processes underlying personality IATs. Thus, the present study examined event-related potential indices during the execution of an IAT measuring neuroticism (N = 70). The IAT effect was strongly modulated by the P1 component indicating early facilitation of relevant visual input and by a P3b-like late positive component reflecting the efficacy of stimulus categorization. Both components covaried, and larger amplitudes led to faster responses. The results suggest a relationship between early perceptual and semantic processes operating at a more automatic, implicit level and later decision-related categorization of self-relevant stimuli contributing to the IAT effect.
Strengthening Causal Inference through Qualitative Analysis of Regression Residuals: Explaining Forest Governance in the Indian Himalaya

This paper contributes to fertile debates in environmental social sciences on the uses of and potential synergies between qualitative and quantitative analytical approaches for theory development and validation. Relying on extensive fieldwork on local forest governance in India, and using a dataset on 205 forest commons, we propose a methodological innovation for combining qualitative and quantitative analyses to improve causal inference. Specifically, we demonstrate that qualitative knowledge of cases that are the least well predicted by quantitative modeling can strengthen causal inference by helping check for possible omitted variables, measurement errors, nonlinearities in posited relationships, and possible interaction effects, and thereby lead to analytical improvements in the quantitative analysis. In the process, the paper also presents a contextually informed and theoretically engaged empirical analysis of forest governance in north India, showing in particular the importance of institutional and historical factors in influencing commons outcomes.
Arousal, time estimation, and time use in attention-disordered children

To assess whether increased arousal would differentially affect time estimation in attention-disordered and normal English teenagers, 2 videotapes (1 of a police car chase [Bombadier, 1994] for high arousal and another of cell division [ITV, 1991] for low arousal) were shown. Self-reported arousal levels strongly correlated with pulse-rate change. Attention-disordered students estimated longer times in the low-arousal condition than normal students but not in the high-arousal condition. This evidence supports the cortical underarousal hypothesis as the basis for attention disorder. Compared to normal students, such children were poorer in use of time but better in imagery-based creativity tasks in high-arousal conditions. It would appear that attention-disordered children are unable to self-motivate in low-arousal situations.
Gender, work and childbearing: couple analysis of work adjustments after the transition to parenthood

This study focuses on Swedish couples' work adjustments following the transition to parenthood. Specifically, we ask whether couples' gender role attitudes influence whether they make adjustments to their work situations after the end of the parental leave. Using couple data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we find that both partners are more likely to make work adjustments when both partners hold egalitarian attitudes. It is also more likely that only the male partner will make work changes when both partners are egalitarian. When one partner holds more egalitarian attitudes than the other partner, it tends to have a stronger impact on the work adjustments of the more egalitarian partner. For example, couples with egalitarian male partners are more than three times as likely to have the male partner change his work situation as couples in which neither partner holds egalitarian attitudes. While less consistent, there is some evidence that female egalitarian attitudes increase the likelihood of female work changes.
Analysis of strategies for constructive general block placement

The problem of general block placement in VLSI is considered, using the constructive approach in which blocks are selected and located one at a time. Some well-known strategies are presented for the selection of the next block to be located, novel ones are proposed, and a methodology to evaluate them is established. It is then shown that the optimization problem arising in constructive placement can be reduced to several much simpler sub problems. Objective functions for locating the selected block to achieve a good layout are presented for three different metrics: the squared Euclidean, rectilinear, and Euclidean. Appropriate optimization problems are obtained and solved analytically, using efficient computation schemes. These solutions have been implemented and are used in a real VLSI chip design environment. It is shown that the squared Euclidean and the rectilinear metrics are preferable to the Euclidean one. >
Learning the morphology of Zulu with different degrees of supervision

In this paper we compare different levels of supervision for learning the morphology of the indigenous South African language Zulu. After a preliminary analysis of the Zulu data used for our experiments, we concentrate on supervised, semi-supervised and unsupervised approaches comparing strengths and weaknesses of each method. The challenges we face are limited data availability and data sparsity in connection with morphological analysis of indigenous languages. At the end of the paper we draw conclusions for our future work towards a morphological analyzer for Zulu.
Influenza A Virus Infections in Land Birds, People’s Republic of China

Water birds are considered the reservoir for avian influenza viruses. We examined this assumption by sampling and real-time reverse transcription–PCR testing of 939 Asian land birds of 153 species. Influenza A infection was found, particularly among migratory species. Surveillance programs for monitoring spread of these viruses need to be redesigned.
Material Values in the Comics: A Content Analysis of Comic Books Featuring Themes of Wealth

During the past 40 years, four popular U.S. comic books have emphasized themes of extreme wealth: Archie, The Fox and the Crow, Uncle Scrooge , and Richie Rich. Collectively, these comics have provided potential models of the acquisition and use of wealth as well as models for human relationships between haves and have-nots. Whether such comic book treatments shape or merely reflect American material values during this period, they necessarily inform our understanding of the significance we attach to consuming and consuming ability in our evaluations of our own worth and that of others. These themes are analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively to determine the nature of such models and messages. Content analyses reveal primarily socially desirable but ambivalent treatments of such themes.
The Bean Pod Mottle Virus RNA2-Encoded 58-Kilodalton Protein P58 Is Required in cis for RNA2 Accumulation

ABSTRACT Bean pod mottle virus (BPMV) is a bipartite, positive-sense (+) RNA plant virus in the Secoviridae family. Its RNA1 encodes proteins required for genome replication, whereas RNA2 primarily encodes proteins needed for virion assembly and cell-to-cell movement. However, the function of a 58-kDa protein (P58) encoded by RNA2 has not been resolved. P58 and the movement protein (MP) of BPMV are two largely identical proteins differing only at their N termini, with P58 extending MP upstream by 102 amino acid residues. In this report, we unveil a unique role for P58. We show that BPMV RNA2 accumulation in infected cells was abolished when the start codon of P58 was eliminated. The role of P58 does not require the region shared by MP, as RNA2 accumulation in individual cells remained robust even when most of the MP coding sequence was removed. Importantly, the function of P58 required the P58 protein, rather than its coding RNA, as compensatory mutants could be isolated that restored RNA2 accumulation by acquiring new start codons upstream of the original one. Most strikingly, loss of P58 function could not be complemented by P58 provided in trans, suggesting that P58 functions in cis to selectively promote the accumulation of RNA2 copies that encode a functional P58 protein. Finally, we found that all RNA1-encoded proteins are cis-acting relative to RNA1. Together, our results suggest that P58 probably functions by recruiting the RNA1-encoded polyprotein to RNA2 to enable RNA2 reproduction. IMPORTANCE Bean pod mottle virus (BPMV) is one of the most important pathogens of the crop plant soybean, yet its replication mechanism is not well understood, hindering the development of knowledge-based control measures. The current study examined the replication strategy of BPMV RNA2, one of the two genomic RNA segments of this virus, and established an essential role for P58, one of the RNA2-encoded proteins, in the process of RNA2 replication. Our study demonstrates for the first time that P58 functions preferentially with the very RNA from which it is translated, thus greatly advancing our understanding of the replication mechanisms of this and related viruses. Furthermore, this study is important because it provides a potential target for BPMV-specific control, and hence could help to mitigate soybean production losses caused by this virus.
Elastic theory of flux lattices in the presence of weak disorder.

The effect of disorder on flux lattices at equilibrium is studied quantitatively in the absence of free dislocations using both the Gaussian variational method and the renormalization group. Our results for the mean square relative displacements clarify the nature of the crossovers with distance. We find three regimes: (i) a short distance regime (``Larkin regime'') where elasticity holds (ii) an intermediate regime (``Random Manifold'') where vortices are pinned independently (iii) a large distance, quasi-ordered regime where the periodicity of the lattice becomes important and there is universal logarithmic growth of displacements for $2<d<4$ and persistence of algebraic quasi-long range translational order. The functional renormalization group to $O(\epsilon=4-d)$ and the variational method, agree within $10\%$ on the value of the exponent. In $d=3$ we compute the crossover function between the three regimes. We discuss the observable signature of this crossover in decoration experiments and in neutron diffraction experiments on flux lattices. Qualitative arguments are given suggesting the existence for weak disorder in $d=3$ of a `` Bragg glass '' phase without free dislocations and with algebraically divergent Bragg peaks. In $d=1+1$ both the variational method and the Cardy-Ostlund renormalization group predict a glassy state below the same transition temperature $T=T_c$, but with different behaviors. Applications to $d=2+0$ systems and experiments on magnetic bubbles are discussed.
Dissociation of motor impairment and higher-level brain deficits in strokes and cerebral neoplasms

Abstract This study evaluated primary motor ability (finger tapping speed) of each hand and dysphasia and constructional dyspraxia in groups of 30 subjects, each of whom had a left or right cerebral neoplasm or stroke. The results identified strongly significant clusters of variables: (1) left cerebral damage, dysphasia, and right-sided motor impairment, and (2) right cerebral damage, constructional dyspraxia, and left-sided motor impairment. A procedure for data analysis was developed which permitted a comparative analysis of the degree of deficits associated with lateralized lesions. The results indicated that dysphasia and constructional dyspraxia were equivalently impaired with left or right cerebral damage, respectively, in tumor and stroke groups, but that finger tapping speed was comparatively spared in groups with lateralized tumors.
Cell cycle arrest and DNA damage after melphalan treatment of the human myeloma cell line RPMI 8226

Abstract: Exposure of a myeloma cell line (RPMI 8226) to a 30‐minute pulse of melphalan (1‐phenylalanine‐mustard) resulted in a cell cycle progression delay characteristic for DNA cross‐linking agents. Reduction of outflow of cells from late S‐ and G2‐phases was more pronounced as compared to that from G1‐phase. The consequence is a progressive accumulation of cells in late S‐ and G2‐phases. At restoration of outflow of cells from late S‐ and G2‐phases, complete removal of DNA interstrand cross‐links, as measured by DNA alkaline elution, was noted. At this time less than 50% of maximum DNA‐protein cross‐links were removed. Further we found no correlation between restored outflow of cells from the G2‐phase and removal of DNA‐protein cross‐links during the follow‐up time of 72 h. No DNA double strand breaks as measured by DNA neutral elution were formed during the observation period. The data suggest that removal of DNA interstrand cross‐links seems prerequisite for the outflow of cells from G2 after melphalan treatment.
Characterization of a novel mRNA expressed by neurons in mature brain

In previous studies, differential hybridization screening of an activated murine T‐lymphocyte cDNA library identified an interleukin 2‐responsive mRNA, designated F5, expressed in lymphoid tissues and brain only. We now report characterization of a full‐length clone isolated from an adult mouse brain cDNA library. Neither the nucleic acid nor amino acid sequences demonstrated similarity to reported sequences. On Southern blotting, the protein coding sequence hybridized to genomic DNA from a variety of species. On Northern blotting, F5 mRNA was expressed in adult mouse brain, spinal cord, eye, and dorsal root ganglia but not in peripheral nerve. In situ hybridization studies demonstrated prominent expression by neurons in brain. F5 mRNA expression was undetectable in embryonic rat cerebral hemisphere and low until postnatal day 21. F5 is a novel mRNA selectively expressed by proliferating lymphocytes and mature neurons.
Differentiable pooling for unsupervised speaker adaptation

This paper proposes a differentiable pooling mechanism to perform model-based neural network speaker adaptation. The proposed technique learns a speaker-dependent combination of activations within pools of hidden units, was shown to work well unsupervised, and does not require speaker-adaptive training. We have conducted a set of experiments on the TED talks data, as used in the IWSLT evaluations. Our results indicate that the approach can reduce word error rates (WERs) on standard IWSLT test sets by about 5-11% relative compared to speaker-independent systems and was found complementary to the recently proposed learning hidden units contribution (LHUC) approach, reducing WER by 6-13% relative. Both methods were also found to work well when adapting with small amounts of unsupervised data - 10 seconds is able to decrease the WER by 5% relative compared to the baseline speaker independent system.
In situ hybridization

子宮 頸部 細胞 診 にお け るHPVDNAの 検 出 を 目的 としたin situ hybridization法 の た めの固定 法,処 理 法(蛋 白消 化反 応 の必要 性 の有無 お よび反 応時 間 の組 み合 わせ)に つい て検 討 を行 い以下 の結 果 を得 た. 1)通 常 の組織標 本 に用 い るin situ hybridization法 操作 手 順 を用 いた場 合,15%中 性緩 衝 ホ ル マ リン固定 が95%エ タノー ル,ア セ トン固定 に比 して染 色性 は良 好 で ある. 2)95%エ タ ノー ル固定 を用 い た場合 は,in situ hybridization法 操作 手順 に含 まれ る蛋 白消化 反 応 を省 略 す る こ とで良好 な染 色結 果 が得 られ た. し たが って通常 の細胞 診 におい て特 別 な 固定法 を必要 と しな い. 3)Papanicolaou染 色 もど し標本 か らもHPV―DNA検 出が可 能 であ る. 以 上 よ り今 後,子 宮 頸 部 細 胞 診 に お け るPapanicolaou染 色 も ど し標 本 か らのHPVのretrospectiveな 検 索が可 能 で ある と考 え られ る.
Path Pruning in Mailbox-based Mobile Agent Communications

This paper is concerned with the design of efficient algorithms for mobile agent communications. We first describe a novel mailbox-based framework for flexible and adaptive message delivery in mobile agent systems and a specific adaptive protocol derived from the framework. Then we present the design and verification of a path pruning and garbage collection algorithm for improving the performance of the proposed protocol. Simulation results show that by properly setting some parameters, the algorithm can effectively reduce both the number of location registrations and the communication overhead for each registration. Consequently, the total location registration overhead during the life cycle of a mobile agent is greatly reduced. The algorithm can also be used for clearing useless addresses cached by hosts in the network.
Fundamental characteristics of DC microgrid for residential houses with cogeneration system in each house

DC microgrid is a novel power system using dc distribution in order to provide a super high quality power. This system is suitable for dc output type distributed generations and energy storages. The dc power can be converted to the proper ac or dc voltages for the consumers by converters placed near loads, and these converters do not require transformers. This distributed scheme of load side converters also contributes to provide the high quality power supplying. In this research, we assumed a dc microgrid applied for residential houses. All houses have a cogeneration system such as gas engine or fuel cell. The outputs of those distributed generations are connected to the dc distribution line, and the power from the generations can be shared among the houses. The hot water from distributed generations are used in each house. We constructed a small scale experimental in our laboratory, and examined the fundamental characteristics of the dc microgrid by the experimental system when it was connected to the bulk power system. Experimental results demonstrated that the system could supply high quality power to the loads stably against sudden load variations, voltage sags of the bulk power system and short circuits of the load.
Orthogonal self-guided similarity preserving projections

In this paper, we propose a novel unsupervised dimensionality reduction (DR) method called orthogonal self-guided similarity preserving projections (OSSPP), which seamlessly integrates the procedures of an adjacency graph learning and DR into a one step. Specifically, OSSPP projects the data into a low-dimensional subspace and simultaneously performs similarity preserving learning by using the similarity preserving regularization term in which the reconstruction coefficients of the projected data are used to encode the similarity structure information. An interesting finding is that the problem to determine the reconstruction coefficients can be converted into a weighted non-negative sparse coding problem without any explicit sparsity constraint. Thus the projections obtained by OSSPP contain natural discriminating information. Experimental results demonstrate that OSSPP outperforms state-of-the-art methods in DR.