Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic and Environmental Factors in Alexithymia: A Population-Based Study of 8,785 Danish Twin Pairs

Background: The role of genetic and environmental factors for developing alexithymia is still unclear, and the aim of this study was to examine these factors in a large population-based sample of twins. Methods: The Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) was included in a mail survey of 46,418 individuals born between 1931 and 1982 and registered with the Danish Twin Registry. The response rate was 75.3%. A total of 8,785 twin pairs, where both cotwins had completed all items of the TAS-20, were selected for this study. Analyses were conducted for total TAS-20 scores and the subscales of (1) difficulties in identifying feelings, (2) difficulties in describing feelings, and (3) externally oriented thinking. The phenotypes were analyzed both as categorical and continuous data. Results: All measures of similarity suggested that genetic factors added to all facets of alexithymia. Structural equation modeling of the noncategorical data, an ACE model including additive genetic, shared environmental and nonshared environmental effects, provided the best fit for all three facets of alexithymia as well as total alexithymia scores, with heritabilities of 30–33% and the remaining variance being explained by shared (12–20%) and nonshared environmental effects (50–56%). Conclusion: The results from this large population-based sample suggest that genetic factors have a noticeable and similar impact on all facets of alexithymia. While the results suggested a moderate influence of shared environmental factors, our results are in concordance with the general finding that environmental influences on most psychological traits are primarily of the nonshared rather than the shared type.
Polymetric Views - A Lightweight Visual Approach to Reverse Engineering

Reverse engineering software systems has become a major concern in software industry because of their sheer size and complexity. This problem needs to be tackled since the systems in question are of considerable worth to their owners and maintainers. In this article, we present the concept of a polymetric view, a lightweight software visualization technique enriched with software metrics information. Polymetric views help to understand the structure and detect problems of a software system in the initial phases of a reverse engineering process. We discuss the benefits and limits of several predefined polymetric views we have implemented in our tool CodeCrawler. Moreover, based on clusters of different polymetric views, we have developed a methodology which supports and guides a software engineer in the first phases of a reverse engineering of a large software system. We have refined this methodology by repeatedly applying it on industrial systems and illustrate it by applying a selection of polymetric views to a case study.
A New Multiscale Image Model for Bayesian Tomography y

In this paper, we propose a new multiscale image model for Bayesian tomography. Using the multiscale model and the sequential MAP estimator, we present a completely unsupervised scheme to reconstruct the image. The EM algorithm is used to estimate the parameters of the image model. Preliminary experimental results show the usefulness of this model and technique.
Comparison-based system-level fault diagnosis in ad hoc networks

The problem of identifying faulty mobiles in ad-hoc networks is considered. Current diagnostic models were designed for wired networks, thus they do not take advantage of the shared nature of communication typical of ad-hoc networks. In this paper we introduce a new comparison-based diagnostic model based on the one-to-many communication paradigm. Two implementations of the model are presented. In the first implementation, we assume that the network topology does not change during diagnosis, and we show that both hard and soft faults can be easily, detected Based on this implementation, a diagnosis protocol is presented The evaluation of the communication and time complexity of the protocol indicates that efficient diagnosis protocols for ad-hoc networks based on our model can be designed In the second implementation we allow the system topology to change during diagnosis. As expected, the ability of diagnosing faults under this scenario is significantly reduced with respect to the stationary case.
Prediction of Sensor Lifetime in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Fuzzy Logic

Cluster formation and cluster head selection are important problems in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and can drastically affect the network's communication energy dissipation. Moreover, in WSNs, the bad usage of the energy shortens the operation time of sensors and consequently the network lifetime. In this work, we propose a fuzzy-based simulation system for WSNs, in order to calculate the lifetime of a sensor by considering the remaining battery power, sleep time rate and transmission time rate. We evaluate the system by MATLAB simulations and show that it has a good behaviour for measuring sensor lifetime.
Life-Course Transitions Among Adolescents With and Without Disabilities

Research on adolescents suggests that young people are able to form reasonable expectations about future life-course transitions—and that these expectations are predictive of future outcomes. However, less is known about how these expectations might vary for adolescents with disabilities, who might face additional challenges when transitioning to adulthood. The present study addresses this gap in the literature by using nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) to suggest that young people's expectations about pregnancy, parenthood, education, and employment do vary according to disability status. Furthermore, disability status conditions the relationship between these expectations and their future outcomes. In general, adolescents with disabilities are more proficient in the prediction of educational outcomes than employment or pregnancy outcomes. However, their expectations about education are significantly lower—and expectations about teenage parenthood much higher—than those of adolescents without disabilities.
Defense Joint Attacks Based on Stochastic Discrete Sequence Anomaly Detection

To evade detection, hackers may use a botnet, a set of compromised machines, to attempt to gain the access of a target and the bot machines report the results to the command and control server after the instructed attack has been performed. As the machines which explore or attempt login to the target might be captured and blocked by the defense mechanism installed in the network, the hacker would use another clean zombie machine to login the target using the access information collected by the botnet. Such attack sequence is called "Scouts-and-Commander" joint attack, where scouts take charge of scanning and exploring the vulnerability of a target and commander launches the precise strike using the correct login information provided by scouts. The detection system would consider the access normal, it is hard to identify such collaborative attack. In order to identify the attack sequence, this study correlates network information and system logs to find the attack sequence and identifies the potential scouts and commanders in the early stage before real damage has been done. In this paper, hidden Markov model often used to describe sequential data is adopted to forecast possible joint attacks and to prevent real damage. The experimental results show that the proposed defense mechanism can identify the joint attacks in the early stage efficiently to prevent further damage in the networks.
Seamless Integration of SER in Rewiring-Based Design Space Exploration

Rewiring has been used extensively for optimizing the area, the power consumption, the delay, and the testability of a circuit. In this work, we demonstrate how rewiring can also be used for reducing the soft error rate (SER). We employ an ATPG-based rewiring method to generate functionally-equivalent yet structurally-different implementations of a logic circuit based on simple transformation rules. This rewiring capability, along with an off-the-shelf method for assessing the SER of a circuit, enable the integration of the SER in a unified search algorithm that iteratively evolves the design in order to satisfy a given set of objectives. Experimental results on ISCAS'89 and ITC'99 benchmark circuits verify that rewiring can indeed be successfully used to reduce the SER of a circuit and, thus, it facilitates a design-space exploration framework for trading off area, power consumption, delay, testability, and SER
Temporal profiling of gene expression during neurogenesis and remodeling in the olfactory epithelium at short intervals after target ablation

Neurogenesis in the olfactory epithelium (OE) is induced by olfactory bulbectomy (OBX), which effectively axotomizes olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) and removes their synaptic targets, resulting in apoptosis. We used Affymetrix high‐density oligonucleotide arrays to investigate changes in gene expression during initiation of signaling in pathways that regulate apoptosis and neurogenesis in the murine OE at 2, 8, 16, and 48 hr after bilateral OBX compared to that in sham‐operated controls. We focused on regulation of a defined set of genes associated with apoptosis, stem/progenitor cell regulation, and cell cycle progression because of the activation of these processes in OE degeneration and remodeling after OBX. After data scrubbing and categorical analysis, one‐way analysis of variance identified 72 genes (4.9% of the present known genes) as being regulated significantly (P < 0.05) at one or more points; 50 were defined as regulated differentially with the false discovery rate at 10%. Significant changes in gene expression occurred in all categories as early as 2 hr post‐OBX, with the greatest number of differentially regulated genes at 16 and 48 hr. Hierarchical cluster analysis and correlation coefficients were used to identify similarities in patterns of gene expression changes within and across categories. Validation was carried out with SuperArray macroarrays and real‐time RT‐PCR. Our results confirmed the participation of many genes in known signaling pathways and identified changes in the expression of 42 genes not identified previously as participating in apoptosis and neurogenesis in the OE. Additionally, our analyses indicated the early involvement of genes regulating cytoskeletal reorganization and angiogenesis in the response to OBX. These studies are an important first step in defining early time‐dependent changes in gene expression after target ablation that lead to neurogenesis in the olfactory sensory epithelium. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Multi-video summarization based on AV-MMR

This paper presents an algorithm for video summarization, Audio Video Maximal Marginal Relevance (AV-MMR), exploiting both audio and video information. It is an extension of the Video Maximal Marginal Relevance (Video-MMR) algorithm which was only based on visual information. AV-MMR iteratively selects segments which best represent unselected information and are non redundant with previously selected information. As for Video-MMR, AV-MMR is a generic algorithm which is suitable for both single and multiple videos with multiple genres. Several variants of AV-MMR are proposed and the best one is identified by experimentation. Besides, a visual representation of the coherence of audio and video information for a set of audio-visual sequences is also proposed.
Printed facial skin electrodes as sensors of emotional affect

Electromyography of the zygomaticus major and the corrugator supercilii muscles is a well-established technique to capture positive and negative emotional affect. Despite the great potential, its wide adoption has been so far limited owing to several lingering technical limitations in contemporary electromyography electrodes. In this paper, we report on new printed electrode arrays, specifically designed to capture emotional affect, focusing on their unique and advantageous properties compared with conventional gelled electrodes. Inkjet- or screen-printing, combined with film cutting and lamination techniques, were used to produce customized electrode arrays. Conformity with the skin was guaranteed by printing on very thin and soft films. Unlike conventional gelled-surface electromyography electrodes, the printed electrode arrays are dry, allowing long-term and stable recording. Moreover, the large electrode arrays can be rapidly and conveniently placed on the subject’s face, maintaining excellent electrode–skin compliance. Muscle localization was achieved despite inter-subject variability in facial features and electrode array position, as a result of high spatial resolution and source separation methodology. The presented electrode arrays open new opportunities in brain–machine interfacing, well-being investigations and mood monitoring.
Adenosine level in exhaled breath increases during exercise-induced bronchoconstriction

In asthmatic patients, airway obstruction provoked by exercise challenge is accompanied by an increase in plasma adenosine level. In this study, the current authors investigated if exercise-induced bronchoconstriction was associated with local changes of adenosine concentration in the airways. Oral exhaled breath condensate (EBC) collection (5-min duration) and forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1) measurements were performed at rest (baseline) and 4–8 times after treadmill exercise challenge in healthy and asthmatic subjects. Adenosine concentration in EBC was determined by HPLC. Observations indicated that physical exercise results in bronchoconstriction together with a significant increase of adenosine level in EBC in asthmatic patients (mean±sd maximal fall in FEV1 27±13%; associated increase in adenosine 110±76% as compared to baseline), but not in healthy control subjects. Exercise-induced changes in adenosine concentration correlated significantly with the fall in FEV1 values in asthmatic patients. In conclusion, the observed increase in adenosine concentration of oral exhaled breath condensate most probably reflects changes in the airways during exercise-induced bronchoconstriction. Due to its known bronchoconstrictor property in asthma, adenosine may contribute to the development of bronchospasm.
Antiretroviral Drug Resistance Testing in Adult Hiv-1 Infection: 2008 Recommendations of an International Aids Society–usa Panel

Resistance to antiretroviral drugs remains an important limitation to successful human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) therapy. Resistance testing can improve treatment outcomes for infected individuals. The availability of new drugs from various classes, standardization of resistance assays, and the development of viral tropism tests necessitate new guidelines for resistance testing. The International AIDS Society–USA convened a panel of physicians and scientists with expertise in drug-resistant HIV-1, drug management, and patient care to review recently published data and presentations at scientific conferences and to provide updated recommendations. Whenever possible, resistance testing is recommended at the time of HIV infection diagnosis as part of the initial comprehensive patient assessment, as well as in all cases of virologic failure. Tropism testing is recommended whenever the use of chemokine receptor 5 antagonists is contemplated. As the roll out of antiretroviral therapy continues in developing countries, drug resistance monitoring for both subtype B and non–subtype B strains of HIV will become increasingly important. A panel of the International AIDS Society–USA published recommendations for HIV-1 drug resistance testing in HIV-1–infected adults in 1998, 2000, and 2003 [1–3]. Since the 2003 publication, drug resistance testing has become widespread in the developed world and has been accepted as an important adjunct to the management of patients with detectable plasma viremia who are receiving antiretroviral therapy. Moreover, person-to-person transmission of drug-resistant viruses occurs in a variety of settings, including between adults and from mother to child [4, 5], indicating that testing for drug resistance before initiating therapy may be useful even for treatment-naive patients. Novel resistance mutations that confer resistance to older drugs continue to be identified (figure 1), and newer-generation pro-tease inhibitors (PIs) and reverse transcriptase inhibi-tors have been developed to counteract mutations that confer resistance to the older agents. Approval of agents from new classes, like integrase strand transfer inhib-itors (INSTIs) and entry inhibitors, assure that drug resistance testing will become increasingly complex and important in case management in the years ahead. Testing methodologies have improved and are becoming more sensitive, and tests for viral coreceptor use (i.e., tropism) have been introduced. With increasing patient access to antiretroviral drugs in the developing world, many of the same problems
Trends in biomedical informatics: most cited topics from recent years

Biomedical informatics is a young, highly interdisciplinary field that is evolving quickly. It is important to know which published topics in generalist biomedical informatics journals elicit the most interest from the scientific community, and whether this interest changes over time, so that journals can better serve their readers. It is also important to understand whether free access to biomedical informatics articles impacts their citation rates in a significant way, so authors can make informed decisions about unlock fees, and journal owners and publishers understand the implications of open access. The topics and JAMIA articles from years 2009 and 2010 that have been most cited according to the Web of Science are described. To better understand the effects of free access in article dissemination, the number of citations per month after publication for articles published in 2009 versus 2010 was compared, since there was a significant change in free access to JAMIA articles between those years. Results suggest that there is a positive association between free access and citation rate for JAMIA articles.
Sonochemical synthesis of a 2D–2D MoSe2/graphene nanohybrid electrode material for asymmetric supercapacitors

A sonochemical route is used to prepare a few layers of MoSe2 and its 2D–2D nanohybrid is prepared with graphene by a solvothermal process. This nanohybrid exhibits a high specific capacitance of 945 F g−1. An ASC device MoSe2/G‖AC is fabricated, which delivers an energy density of 26.6 W h kg−1 and a power density of 0.8 kW kg−1.
An Approach to a New Ship Production System Based on Advanced Accuracy Control

Abstract : Mechanizing and automating have been accelerated in shipbuilding in order to respond to current situations such as decreasing numbers of skilled workers and increasing difficulty in recruiting new workers. For effective implementation of mechanization or automation, current hull fabrication systems should be reviewed in order to make them suitable for intended mechanization or automation because geometric inaccuracy hampers implementation and necessitates voluminous work adjustments. This report proposes a new ship production concept based on using advanced methods to keep the accuracy of the hull structure at a high level, such as numerical simulation of heat deformation in burning, welding and bending, mechanizing to reduce deviations dependent on human skill, and a three-dimensional measuring system for advanced accuracy control together with some examples of its actual application to checking block shape at the assembly stage and shipwrighting at the erection site.
Electrostatic Switch Function in the Mechanism of Protein Kinase A Iα Activation: Results of the Molecular Dynamics Simulation

We used molecular dynamics to find the average path of the A-domain H → B conformational transition in protein kinase A Iα. We obtained thirteen productive trajectories and processed them sequentially using factor and cross-correlation analyses. The conformational transition is presented as partly deterministic sequence of six events. Event B represents H → B transition of the phosphate binding cassette. Main participants of this event form electrostatic switch cAMP(O6)–A202(N-H)–G199(C=O). Through this switch, cAMP transmits information about its binding to hydrophobic switch L203–Y229 and thus triggers conformational transition of A-domain. Events C and D consist in N3A-motif displacement towards phosphate binding cassette and B/C-helix rotation. Event E involves an increase in interaction energy between Y229 and β-subdomain. Taken together, events B, E, and D correspond to the hinge movement towards β-barrel. Transition of B/C-helix turn (a.a. 229–234) from α-form to π-form accounts for event F. Event G implies that π-helical turn is replaced by kink. Emerging in the resulting conformation, electrostatic interaction R241–E200 facilitates kink formation. The obtained data on the mechanism of cAMP-dependent activation of PKA Iα may contribute to new approaches to designing pharmaceuticals based on cAMP analogs.
Magneto-mechanical Stimulation of Bone Marrow Mesenchymal Stromal Cells for Chondrogenic Differentiation Studies

Mechanical interaction of cells and their surroundings are prominent in mechanically active tissues such as cartilage. Chondrocytes regulate their growth, matrix synthesis, metabolism, and differentiation in response to mechanical loadings. Cells sense and respond to applied physical forces through mechanosensors such as integrin receptors. Herein, we examine the role of mechanical stimulation of integrins in regards to their mechanotransduction ability to promote chondrogenesis. For this purpose, magnetic nanoparticles were chemically bonded to cell membrane mechanoreceptors and stimulated. Histological results showed the endocytosis of nanoparticles over the experimental period, pointing out the inefficient mechanical stimulation of the mechanoreceptors. Moreover, gene expression analysis only showed significant upregulation for SOX9, whereas type II collagen and aggrecan gene expression were not significantly different from the control group. Our results suggest that magneto-mechanical stimulation studies using magnetic nanoparticles should not only focus on the mechanical aspects, but also the interaction of magnetic nanoparticles with intracellular machinery should be investigated as well.
A probabilistic approach for earthquake potential evaluation based on the load/unload response ratio method

Previous studies indicate that the occurrence of a large earthquake might be predicted by anomalous temporal increase of the load/unload response ratio (LURR), which was often defined as the ratio of Benioff strain of small earthquakes released during loading and unloading time periods, corresponding to earth tide‐induced Coulomb failure stress change on optimally oriented faults. The conventional LURR anomalous evaluation usually sets a critical LURR value, above which an earthquake may occur. In this paper a probabilistic approach for the evaluation of earthquake potential based on the LURR method is developed. In the approach, the occurrence probability of a future earthquake is quantitatively evaluated by assessing the confidence level of LURR anomaly associated with its stochastic distribution. As retrospective studies, we apply the approach to investigate the time series of LURR prior to the 50M>6.3 earthquakes that occurred in the Chinese mainland and the 21M>6.0 earthquakes in southern California over the past 30 years, and find high correlation between the confidence level of the LURR anomalies and the occurrence of the large earthquakes. We then depict all the high peaks that appeared in the LURR time series, and evaluate the earthquake occurrence rate as a function of the confidence level. The research results show considerable promise that our probabilistic approach may provide a useful tool to evaluate quantitatively the occurrence possibilities of future earthquakes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.