Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SUSTAINED NEURAL ALTERATIONS IN ANXIOUS YOUTH PERFORMING AN ATTENTIONAL BIAS TASK: A PUPILOMETRY STUDY

Biased attention patterns have been observed at early (16–500 ms poststimulus onset) and intermediate (1,500–4,000 ms post‐onset) time points in anxious youth, but it is unclear whether a more sustained form of neural attentional bias, persisting well beyond the time frame of stimulus presentation and behavioral response, is also apparent. We investigated early, intermediate, and sustained forms of bias using behavioral measures and pupillary reactivity, an index of cognitive and affective load, to gain insight into potential neurocognitive targets for early intervention.
Large-scale behavioral targeting

Behavioral targeting (BT) leverages historical user behavior to select the ads most relevant to users to display. The state-of-the-art of BT derives a linear Poisson regression model from fine-grained user behavioral data and predicts click-through rate (CTR) from user history. We designed and implemented a highly scalable and efficient solution to BT using Hadoop MapReduce framework. With our parallel algorithm and the resulting system, we can build above 450 BT-category models from the entire Yahoo's user base within one day, the scale that one can not even imagine with prior systems. Moreover, our approach has yielded 20% CTR lift over the existing production system by leveraging the well-grounded probabilistic model fitted from a much larger training dataset. Specifically, our major contributions include: (1) A MapReduce statistical learning algorithm and implementation that achieve optimal data parallelism, task parallelism, and load balance in spite of the typically skewed distribution of domain data. (2) An in-place feature vector generation algorithm with linear time complexity O(n) regardless of the granularity of sliding target window. (3) An in-memory caching scheme that significantly reduces the number of disk IOs to make large-scale learning practical. (4) Highly efficient data structures and sparse representations of models and data to enable fast model updates. We believe that our work makes significant contributions to solving large-scale machine learning problems of industrial relevance in general. Finally, we report comprehensive experimental results, using industrial proprietary codebase and datasets.
A Conserved CXXC Motif in CD3ε Is Critical for T Cell Development and TCR Signaling

Structural integrity of the extracellular membrane-proximal stalk region of CD3ε is required for efficient signaling by the T cell antigen receptor complex. The results in this article suggest that receptor aggregation may not be sufficient for a complete T cell receptor signal and that some type of direct allosteric signal may be involved.
Fast multiple object tracking via a hierarchical particle filter

A very efficient and robust visual object tracking algorithm based on the particle filter is presented. The method characterizes the tracked objects using color and edge orientation histogram features. While the use of more features and samples can improve the robustness, the computational load required by the particle filter increases. To accelerate the algorithm while retaining robustness we adopt several enhancements in the algorithm. The first is the use of integral images for efficiently computing the color features and edge orientation histograms, which allows a large amount of particles and a better description of the targets. Next, the observation likelihood based on multiple features is computed in a coarse-to-fine manner, which allows the computation to quickly focus on the more promising regions. Quasi-random sampling of the particles allows the filter to achieve a higher convergence rate. The resulting tracking algorithm maintains multiple hypotheses and offers robustness against clutter or short period occlusions. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the algorithm for single and multiple object tracking.
The Association of Life’s Simple 7 with Aldosterone among African Americans in the Jackson Heart Study

Background: Among African Americans (AAs), attaining higher levels of American Heart Association (AHA) ideal cardiovascular health (Life’s Simple 7 [LS7]) is associated with lower risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD). We previously showed that aldosterone is associated with higher risk of diabetes and CVD in AAs. Thus, we investigated the association of LS7 metrics with aldosterone in the Jackson Heart Study (JHS). Methods: Ideal metrics were defined by AHA 2020 goals for health behaviors (smoking, dietary intake, physical activity, and body mass index) and health factors (total cholesterol, blood pressure, and fasting glucose). The number of ideal LS7 metrics attained at baseline were summed into a continuous score (0–7) and categorical groups (Poor: 0–1, Intermediate: 2–3, and Ideal: ≥4 ideal LS7 metrics). Multivariable linear regression was used. Results: Among 4,095 JHS participants (mean age 55 ± 13 years, 65% female), median serum aldosterone was 4.90, 4.30, and 3.70 ng/dL in the poor (n = 1132), intermediate (n = 2288) and ideal (n = 675) categories respectively. Aldosterone was 15% [0.85 (0.80, 0.90)] and 33% [0.67 (0.61, 0.75)] lower in the intermediate and ideal LS7 categories compared to the poor LS7 category. Each additional LS7 metric attained on continuous LS7 score (0–7) was associated with an 11% [0.89 (0.86, 0.91)] lower aldosterone level with variation by sex with women having a 15% lower aldosterone vs. 5% in men. Conclusions: Higher attainment of ideal LS7 metrics was associated with lower serum aldosterone among AAs with a greater magnitude of association among women compared to men.
Target tracking using particle filtering and CAZAC sequences

When tracking targets in radar, the selection of the transmitted waveform and the method of processing the return signal are two of the design aspects that affect measurement accuracy. Increased measurement accuracy results in enhanced tracking performance. In this paper, we apply sequential Monte Carlo methods to propose matched filtering operations in the delay-Doppler space where a target is expected to exist. Moreover, in the case of thresholding the measurements, these methods are used to form resolution cells that have the shape of the probability of detection contour. These methods offer an advantage over traditional radar tracking methods that form tessellating resolution cells to approximate the probability of detection contours, and exhaustively perform matched filtering operations over the entire delay-Doppler space. With the use of a Bjorck constant amplitude zero-autocorrelation (CAZAC) sequence, a high resolution measurement is attained and the use of thresholding is avoided. This is an advantage over commonly used waveforms such as linear frequency modulated chirps (LFMs). We examine the properties of Bjorck CAZACs and demonstrate improved tracking performance over LFMs in a single target tracking scenario.
Pituitary Adenylate Cyclase-Activating Polypeptide and Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide Inhibit Dendritic Growth in Cultured Sympathetic Neurons

Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide (PACAP) and vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) are related neuropeptides that are released by the preganglionic sympathetic axons. These peptides have previously been implicated in the regulation of sympathetic neurotransmitter metabolism and cell survival in postganglionic sympathetic neurons. In this study we consider the possibility that PACAP and VIP also affect the morphological development of these neurons. Postganglionic rat sympathetic neurons formed extensive dendritic arbors after exposure to bone morphogenetic protein-7 (BMP-7)in vitro. PACAP and VIP reduced BMP-7-induced dendritic growth by ∼70–90%, and this suppression was maintained for 3 weeks. However, neither PACAP nor VIP affected axonal growth or cell survival. The actions of PACAP and VIP appear to be mediated by PAC1 receptors because their effects were suppressed by an antagonist that binds to PAC1 and VPAC2 receptors (PACAP6–38), but not by an antagonist that binds to the VPAC1 and VPAC2receptors. Moreover, exposure to PACAP and VIP caused phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of cAMP response element-binding protein, and agents that increase the intracellular concentration of cAMP mimicked the PACAP-induced inhibition of dendritic growth. These data suggest that peptides released by preganglionic nerves modulate dendritic growth in sympathetic neurons by a cAMP-dependent mechanism.
Preferential transposition of an IS630-associated composite transposon to TA in the 5'-CTAG-3' sequence

A composite transposon, Tn4731, associated with IS630 has been shown to transpose preferentially to 5'-TA-3' sequences that are located at two sites in a rho-dependent transcription terminator in plasmid ColE1 in Escherichia coli (T. Tenzen, S. Matsutani, and E. Ohtsubo, J. Bacteriol. 172:3830-3836, 1990). Here we demonstrated that Tn4731 preferentially transposes to TA sequences at four sites in plasmid pUC118 and its derivatives: the TA sequence (hot spot I) in the intergenic region of phage M13 within the pUC sequence, the TA sequence (hot spot II) in the XbaI site in multiple cloning sites of the lacZ coding region, the TA sequence (hot spot III) in a spacer region flanked by inverted repeat sequences of a transcription terminator located downstream of the bla gene, and the TA sequence (hot spot IV) in the middle of bla. Transposition of Tn4731 to hot spot III was found not to require the inverted repeats in the terminator. Transposition of Tn4731 to hot spot II, which is located immediately downstream of the lacZ promoter, was not affected by mutations introduced into the promoter. There appear to be no particular sequences important for transposition of Tn4731 around each of the hot spots, except a palindromic sequence, 5'-CTAG-3', that contains the target sequence. Mutations introduced within the CTAG sequence at a hot spot inhibited Tn4731 from transposing to it, indicating that the CTAG sequence is responsible for the preferential transposition of Tn4731.
Maternal serum inhibin-A for predicting preeclampsia

Objective. To evaluate the use of late first trimester maternal serum inhibin-A concentrations in prediction of preeclampsia. Design. Prospective study. Setting. Tanta University Hospital. Methods. All cases (327) were subjected to complete history taking, clinical and ultrasound examination, CBC, liver function tests, estimation of 24 h urine protein and venous blood samples were taken during the late first trimester for estimation of serum level of inhibin-A. Results. First trimester maternal serum inhibin-A concentrations were significantly higher in women who subsequently develop preeclampsia than the corresponding values in healthy matched control pregnant women. Conclusions. Measurement of inhibin-A during late first trimester of pregnancy can be useful in the prediction of preeclampsia.
Seeking a fingerprint: analysis of point processes in actigraphy recording

Motor activity of humans displays complex temporal fluctuations which can be characterised by scale-invariant statistics, thus demonstrating that structure and fluctuations of such kinetics remain similar over a broad range of time scales. Previous studies on humans regularly deprived of sleep or suffering from sleep disorders predicted a change in the invariant scale parameters with respect to those for healthy subjects. In this study we investigate the signal patterns from actigraphy recordings by means of characteristic measures of fractional point processes. We analyse spontaneous locomotor activity of healthy individuals recorded during a week of regular sleep and a week of chronic partial sleep deprivation. Behavioural symptoms of lack of sleep can be evaluated by analysing statistics of duration times during active and resting states, and alteration of behavioural organisation can be assessed by analysis of power laws detected in the event count distribution, distribution of waiting times between consecutive movements and detrended fluctuation analysis of recorded time series. We claim that among different measures characterising complexity of the actigraphy recordings and their variations implied by chronic sleep distress, the exponents characterising slopes of survival functions in resting states are the most effective biomarkers distinguishing between healthy and sleep-deprived groups.
Comparison of the Effect of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy Accompanied by Pharmacotherapy With Pharmacotherapy Alone in Treating Dysthymic Patients

Background Dysthimia in adults is a chronic depression disorder which is characterized by a mild depression for at least 2 years. Remarkable psycho-social involvements, greater disturbances in psycho-social functions compared to other forms of depression and lack of definite findings about preferred treatment for this disorder led us to evaluate the effectiveness of Mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) method adjunct to pharmacotherapy compared with pharmachothrapy alone in treating dysthymia in this thesis. Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on a chronic type of depression disorder called dysthymia Patients and Methods This study is a clinical trial of an interventional method which was carried out on dysthymic and double depressed patients who had referred to psychiatric clinics of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. In doing so, 50 patients above the age of 18 were selected through convenience sampling and assigned into intervention and control groups. The control group only received medications while the intervention group in addition to receiving medication, participated in 8 sessions of a mindfulness based cognitive therapy course which was held once a week and each session lasted for 2 to 2.5 hours. All the participants filled out Beck Depression Inventory II and five facet mindfulness questionnaire. The data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical software (version 16) and univariate covariance and independent t test statistical methods. Results In this study, no statistically significant differences were found between the two groups regarding the demographic characteristics. The mean difference between the two groups was statistically significant for the variables in post-test considering the pre-test. The experimental group participants showed significant improvement in terms of the defined variables; a trend which was not observed in the control group participants. Conclusion The results of this study show that adding MBCT to pharmacotherapy in treatment of dysthymic patients can cause significant improvement in depression symptoms and mindfulness skills in patients compared to pharmacotherapy alone.
Immuno-physiological alterations from AFB1 in rats counteracted by treatments with Lactobacillus paracasei BEJ01 and montmorillonite clay mixture

Abstract High contamination by aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) has been detected in Beja province (Tunisia) in many dairy products and animal feed, which has resulted in many tons of cereals and cereals being removed from the market, causing economic loss. While removal represents a means of reducing risk, exposures still occur. Studies have increasingly focused on means of AFB1 biodegradation/elimination using lactic acid bacteria and clay mineral. In the study here, Lactobacillus paracasei BEJ01 (LP) and montmorilonite clay (MT) were used to reduce the physio-/immunotoxicologic disorders that could develop in rats that underwent AFB1 exposures for a total of 7 consecutive days. The results indicated that rats treated with AFB1 (80 μg/kg BW) alone had significant decreases in lymphocytes in their blood (including B-lymphocytes, CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+ T-lymphocyte subtypes, and NK cells), immunoglobulins (IgA and IgG) and pro-inflammatory cytokines; these rats also had altered oxidative stress status. In contrast, in rats treated with LP + MT (2 × 109 cfu/ml [∼ 2 mg/kg] + 0.5 mg MT/kg BW) for a total of 7 days before, concurrent with or after AFB1 treatment, there was a significant blockade/mitigation of each AFB1-impacted parameter. Moreover, treatment with the mixture at any point in relation to AFB1 treatment expectedly caused enhanced TNFα and IL-1β expression relative to control values; all other parameters were comparable to values noted in control rats. Alone, the mixture had no impact on host parameters. From the results here it may be concluded the the LP + MT mixture was effective in protecting these hosts against AFB1-induced immunologic/physiologic disorders and that LP + MT could prevent and/or mitigate AFB1 toxicities in vivo.
SmartDec: Approaching C++ Decompilation

Decompilation is a reconstruction of a program in a high-level language from a program in a low-level language. Typical applications of decompilation are software security assessment, malware analysis, error correction and reverse engineering for interoperability. Native code decompilation is traditionally considered in the context of the C programming language. C++ presents new challenges for decompilation, since the rules of translation from C++ to assembly language are far more complex than those of C. In addition, when decompiling a program that was originally written in C++, reconstruction of C++ specific constructs is desired. In this paper we discuss new methods that allow partial recovery of C++ specific language constructs from a low-level code provided that this code was obtained from a C++ compiler. The challenges that arise when decompiling such code are described. These challenges include reconstruction of polymorphic classes, class hierarchies, member functions and exception handling constructs. An approach to decompilation that is used to overcome these challenges is presented. Smart Dec, a native code to C++ decompiler that is being developed by the authors at Select LTD is presented. It reconstructs expressions, function arguments, local and global variables, integral and composite types, loops and compound conditional statements, C++ class hierarchies and exception handling constructs. An empirical study of the decompiler is provided.
D-Cycloserine in Neuropsychiatric Diseases: A Systematic Review

D-Cycloserine, known from tuberculosis therapy, has been widely introduced to neuropsychiatric studies, since its central active mechanism as a partial NMDA-agonist has been found. In this review, we evaluate its therapeutic potential in neuropsychological disorders and discuss its pitfalls in terms of dosing and application frequency as well as its safety in low-dose therapy. Therefore, we identified 91 clinical trials by performing a Medline search. We demonstrate in part preliminary but increasing evidence that D-cycloserine may be effective in various psychiatric diseases, including schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, addiction, eating disorders, major depression, and autism as well as in neurological diseases, including dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and spinocerebellar degeneration. D-Cycloserine in low-dose therapy is safe, but there is still a need for new drugs with higher specificity to the different N-methyl-D-aspartate-receptor subunits.
qSpell : Spelling Correction of Web Search Queries using Ranking Models and Iterative Correction

In this work we address the challenging problem of Web search queries in order to build a speller that proposes the most plausible spelling alternatives for each query. First we generate a large set of candidates using diverse approaches including enumerating all possible candidates in edit distance of one, fuzzy search on known data sets, and word breaking. Then, we extract about 150 features for each query-candidate pair and train a ranking model to order the candidates such that the best candidates are ranked on the top of the list. We show that re-ranking top results, iterative correction, and post-processing of the results can significantly increase the precision of the spell checker. The final spell checker, named qSpell, achieves a precision of 0.9482 on a test data set randomly collected from real search queries. qSpell won the 3rd prize in the recent Microsoft’s Speller Challenge.
Technologies for augmented reality systems: realizing ultrasound-guided needle biopsies

We present a real-time stereoscopic video-see-through augmented reality (AR) system applied to the medical procedure known as ultrasound-guided needle biopsy of the breast. The AR system was used by a physician during procedures on breast models and during non-invasive examinations of human subjects. The system merges rendered live ultrasound data and geometric elements with stereo images of the patient acquired through head-mounted video cameras and presents these merged images to the physician in a head-mounted display. The physician sees a volume visualization of the ultrasound data directly under the ultrasound probe, properly registered within the patient and with the biopsy needle. Using this system, a physician successfully guided a needle into an artificial tumor within a training phantom of a human breast. We discuss the construction of the AR system and the issues and decisions which led to the system architecture and the design of the video see-through head-mounted display. We designed methods to properly resolve occlusion of the real and synthetic image elements. We developed techniques for realtime volume visualization of timeand position-varying ultrasound data. We devised a hybrid tracking system which achieves improved registration of synthetic and real imagery and we improved on previous techniques for calibration of a magnetic tracker. CR
Deriving an Emergent Relational Schema from RDF Data

We motivate and describe techniques that allow to detect an "emergent" relational schema from RDF data. We show that on a wide variety of datasets, the found structure explains well over 90% of the RDF triples. Further, we also describe technical solutions to the semantic challenge to give short names that humans find logical to these emergent tables, columns and relationships between tables. Our techniques can be exploited in many ways, e.g., to improve the efficiency of SPARQL systems, or to use existing SQL-based applications on top of any RDF dataset using a RDBMS.
Assessing measurement distances for OTA testing of massive MIMO base station at 28 GHz

This paper discusses physical dimensions for a multi probe anechoic chamber based (MPAC) over-the-air (OTA) setup aiming for base station (BS) testing. The target frequency of the simulated massive multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) BS arrays is 28 GHz. The assessment is performed with two metrics. The first metric is a new power metric based on assumptions of a code book of fixed beams and planar waves. The second one is the multi-user (MU) MIMO sum rate capacity. The intention is to evaluate physical dimensions in metres with respect to different BS array sizes. Simulation results indicate that OTA performance of a BS array with maximum dimension of 0.15m could be measured with a setup having measurement distance of approximately 1m.