Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical Results of Selective Laser Trabeculoplasty in Open-angle Glaucoma in Japanese Eyes: Comparison of 180 Degree With 360 Degree SLT

PurposeTo evaluate the efficacy of selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT) in the adjunctive treatment of medically diagnosed open-angle glaucoma and to compare the difference in intraocular pressure (IOP) lowering effects between 180-degree and 360-degree SLT. MethodsThis study is a retrospective consecutive chart review of open-angle glaucoma patients who had undergone first-time SLT from January of 2005 to July of 2007. All the patients had primary open-angle glaucoma or pseudoexfoliation glaucoma under medical treatment and followed for at least 3 months after the procedure. The IOP reduction and treatment success were compared with the 2 treatment types. ResultsTwenty-nine patients underwent 180-degree SLT (35 eyes) and 25 patients underwent 360-degree SLT (34 eyes). The average follow-up was 19.5 months (range 3 to 36) for 180-degree group and 17.9 months (range 3 to 36) for 360-degree group. During the follow-up period, the 360-degree SLT group showed significantly lower posttreatment IOP at each follow-up point relative to pretreatment IOP, and its IOP reduction rate stayed statistically higher than the 180-degree group. We found a positive correlation between the pretreatment IOP and the IOP reduction rate for 360-degree SLT. The lower the pretreatment IOP was, the lower IOP reduction rate became. A Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed higher success rates after 360-degree SLT than after 180-degree SLT. ConclusionsThe 360-degree SLT was shown to be more effective than180-degree SLT for intermediateterm reduction in IOP of Japanese patients with open-angle glaucoma as an adjunctive treatment protocol.
Examining Undergraduate Student Attitude towards Interdisciplinary Education.

As the global population grows, concern for a food shortage may be looming. As the next generations of agricultural and natural resource leaders are prepared to address this challenge, input throughout multiple disciplines is required to solve this dilemma. Undergraduates must be prepared to engage in problem solving and entrepreneurial thinking if our society hopes to conquer this shortage. Opportunities to engage in interdisciplinary education can offer learning experiences focused on bridging research and policy, exploring real world problems, and developing solutions for socio-environmental issues. As interdisciplinary education in academia gains momentum, exploration is needed to understand the factors and influences affecting student attitude towards enrollment in interdisciplinary courses. This research examined the relationships between undergraduate goal orientation and attitude towards participation in interdisciplinary education specifically addressing, “How do we sustainably feed nine billion people by 2050? ” Data was collected from a convenience sample of undergraduates who responded to Vandewalle’s (1997) goal orientation and a researcher-developed instrument. Findings indicated undergraduates were most interested in nutrition followed by human disease management and water issues and least interested in economic concerns and plant disease management issues. Learning goal orientation and performance goal orientation – prove were found to influence attitude toward interdisciplinary education.
IN VIVO AND IN VITRO ENCYSTMENT OF ECHINOCHASMUS LILIPUTANUS CERCARIAE AND BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY OF THE METACERCARIAE

In vivo and in vitro encystment of the cercariae of Echinochasmus liliputanus and biological activity of the metacercariae were studied. In vivo encystment of cercariae occurred in the gills of goldfish, the second intermediate host. However, the cercariae also encysted in vitro in Locke solution (0.6× to 1.2× strength), 0.7–1.2% NaCl, artificial gastric juice, and human gastric juice. Locke or NaCl solutions were shown to be appropriate for in vitro encystment to occur within 24 hr; however, full-strength Locke solution was shown to be optimal. The 1-day-old metacercariae formed in vivo and treated in 0.1% sodium deoxycholate excystation medium at 37 C for 1 hr showed 88.5% excystation. The metacercariae formed in vitro, however, showed 88.6% and 85.0% excystation for normal and abnormal ones, respectively. Abnormal cysts at room temperature usually die within 10 days. About 70% of the normal cysts, both in vivo and in vitro, can still excyst after being stored in Locke 0.5× solution at 4 C for 3 mo. Cysts formed in vivo and in vitro were equally infective. The encystment of the cercariae in vitro could be inhibited when the cercariae were treated with 1 μmol silver nitrate. Because silver nitrate binds to the papillae, especially to the ciliated papillae, on the cercaria surface, it is suggested that papillary chemoreceptors may be involved in encystment of the cercariae. The finding of E. liliputanus cercariae encysting in vitro, especially in human gastric juice, might be helpful in elucidating mechanisms of the definitive hosts that are directly infected by the cercariae.
Induction of splice correction by cell‐penetrating peptide nucleic acids

Directing splicing using oligonucleotides constitutes a promising therapeutic tool for a variety of diseases such as β‐thalassemia, cystic fibrosis, and certain cancers. The rationale is to block aberrant splice sites, thus directing the splicing of the pre‐mRNA towards the desired protein product. One of the difficulties in this setup is the poor bioavailability of oligonucleotides, as the most frequently used transfection agents are unsuitable for in vivo use. Here we present splice‐correcting peptide nucleic acids (PNAs), tethered to a variety of cell‐penetrating peptides (CPPs), evaluating their mechanism of uptake and ability to correct aberrant splicing.
Stop annoying me!: an empirical investigation of the usability of app privacy notifications

Privacy nudges are a "soft-paternalistic" method to nudge (instead of force) users to make more informed privacy decisions. While previous work has shown that privacy nudges are effective in encouraging users to adjust their privacy settings, current privacy nudges are considered to be annoying. Previous research found that modalities influence the effectiveness of responses to system messages. Hence, with the aim of improving the usability of privacy nudges, we conducted both a lab and a 3-day field study to empirically investigate how users perceive receiving privacy nudges using different modalities (combinations of visual, vibration, audio and speech). Our results suggest that app designers should implement privacy nudges which cede the decision of their delivery time to the users themselves. Most importantly, our findings reveal that to minimize annoyance, intrusiveness and interruption, while still being read, low priority notifications should not be delivered using salient modalities (i.e., audio or speech). 1
Privacy issues of ISPs in the modern web

In recent years, privacy issues in the networking field are getting more important. In particular, there is a lively debate about how Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should collect and treat data coming from passive network measurements. This kind of information, such as flow records or HTTP logs, carries considerable knowledge from several points of view: traffic engineering, academic research, and web marketing can take advantage from passive network measurements on ISP customers. Nevertheless, in many cases collected measurements contain personal and confidential information about customers exposed to monitoring, thus raising several ethical issues. Modern web is very different from the one we experienced few years ago: web services converged to few protocols (i.e., HTTP and HTTPS) and a large share of traffic is encrypted. The aim of this work is to provide an insight about which information is still visible to ISPs, with particular attention to novel and emerging protocols, and to what extent it carries personal information. We illustrate that sensible information, such as website history, is still exposed to passive monitoring. We illustrate privacy and ethical issues deriving by the current situation and provide general guidelines and best practices to cope with the collection of network traffic measurements.
Gene length and expression level shape genomic novelties

Gene duplication and alternative splicing are important mechanisms in the production of genomic novelties. Previous work has shown that a gene’s family size and the number of splice variants it produces are inversely related, although the underlying reason is not well understood. Here, we report that gene length and expression level together explain this relationship. We found that gene lengths correlate with both gene duplication and alternative splicing: Longer genes are less likely to produce duplicates and more likely to exhibit alternative splicing. We show that gene length is a dynamic property, increasing with evolutionary time—due in part to the insertions of transposable elements—and decreasing following partial gene duplications. However, gene length alone does not account for the relationship between alternative splicing and gene duplication. A gene’s expression level appears both to impose a strong constraint on its length and to restrict gene duplications. Furthermore, high gene expression promotes alternative splicing, in particular for long genes, and alternatively, short genes with low expression levels have large gene families. Our analysis of the human and mouse genomes shows that gene length and expression level are primary genic properties that together account for the relationship between gene duplication and alternative splicing and bias the origin of novelties in the genome.
Feature-level fusion method based on KFDA for multimodal recognition fusing ear and profile face

A novel method of feature-level fusion based on kernel Fisher discriminant analysis (KFDA) is proposed and applied to fusion of ear and profile face biometrics in this paper. Ear recognition is proved to be a new and promising authentication technique. Because of ear's special physiological structure and location, it is reasonable to combine ear with profile face for recognition in such scenarios as frontal face images are not available. First, only the face profile-view images are captured for recognition. Then based on KFDA, three feature fusion rules are presented. With the rules, the fusion discriminant vectors of ear and profile face are established and nonlinear feature fusion projection could be implemented. The experimental results show that the method is efficient for feature-level fusion, and the multimodal recognition based on ear and profile face performs better than ear or profile face unimodal biometric recognition. The work provides a new effective approach of non-intrusive biometric recognition.
Tracing Exchange Rate Volatility in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV)

The general aim of this paper is to examine the eectiveness of the ExchangeMarket Pressure (EMP) index in suciently tracing the presence ofeconomic crises. The index was unveiled by Girton and Roper (1977) toassist policy makers in responding conclusively when severe compressionsin currencies emerge. This study provides a better acumen for how smallopen economies maintain and stabilize their exchange rates and keep othermacroeconomic variables under control through policy responses by means ofan investigation of the CLMV countries (i.e., Cambodia, Lao Peoples DemocraticRepublic (LPDR), Myanmar and Vietnam). By computing the EMPindex using the methods in Eichengreen et al. (1996), Sachs et al. (1996),and Kaminsky et al. (1998), we monitor and predict the future pace of theCLMV foreign exchange markets. Our ndings reveal several EMP signalsand its potential impact over the sample period. The EMP index plots alsoallow us to witness CLMVs quick recovery from these crises through policyresponses. These ndings indicate the eectiveness of the EMP index as anearly warning system in detecting the market pressure on the CambodianRiel, Laos Kip, Myanmar Kiat and Vietnam Dong especially during crises,through the dierent exchange rate regimes.
Singaporean Humor: A Cross-Cultural, Cross-Gender Comparison

Abstract One hundred and nineteen undergraduate students (62 men and 57 women) of Chinese origin at the National University of Singapore answered three self-report humor questionnaires. Students were also asked to supply their favorite joke (M. A. Johnson, 1991) and a description of a person with an outstanding sense of humor (M. Crawford & D. Gressley, 1991). These responses were compared with results obtained using the same questionnaires and methods in previous studies in Israel and the United States. In general, means and reliabilities of results obtained from the Singapore study replicated those found in other countries. However, Singaporean participants reported significantly less use of humor for coping. Content analysis of jokes supplied by Singaporean students reflected conservative values: Compared with American students, they reported a significantly greater number of jokes with aggressive content and relatively fewer jokes with sexual content. Contrary to expectations, very few gender differences were found. Regardless of gender, a majority of participants nominated a man as an example of a person with an outstanding sense of humor.
Spontaneous Laryngeal Reinnervation after Recurrent Laryngeal or Vagus Nerve Injury

Objectives: The status of innervation in patients with laryngeal paralysis is somewhat controversial. Electromyographic activity has been frequently documented in the laryngeal muscles of patients with laryngeal paralysis, and animal experiments report a strong propensity for reinnervation after laryngeal nerve injury. However, a study of intraoperative electromyography performed in patients during reinnervation surgery failed to document activity with stimulation of the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN). Noting the long-observed differences in the symptoms of patients with vagus nerve injury and those with RLN injury, I hypothesized that reinnervation is influenced by the site of nerve injury. Methods: Cats were sacrificed at various intervals after resection of 1 cm of either the RLN or the vagus nerve, without any attempt to repair the nerve. Results: Four months after RLN resection, distal nerve biopsy revealed unmyelinated axons scattered through fibrous tissue. By 6 months, myelinated axons were organized, and electromyographic and histologic examination showed preferential reinnervation of the thyroarytenoid muscle. After vagotomy, the RLN was fibrotic and no axons were present. Both the thyroarytenoid and posterior cricoarytenoid muscles were fibrotic and had no electromyographic activity. Conclusions: The results confirm the strong propensity for laryngeal reinnervation after RLN injury, but not after vagus nerve injury. Preferential reinnervation of adductor muscles may account for a medial position of the paralyzed vocal fold.
Overlapping community discovery based on core nodes and LDA topic modeling

This paper proposed an overlapping community discovery method based on cored nodes and the Latent Allocation Dirichlet (LDA) topic modeling, which is called as CN-LDA. CN-LDA models the complex network with the LDA model, finds the probability of each edge in each community, and then uses statistical methods to calculate the probability value of each node in each community. Furthermore, to determine the community number of the network, we give an algorithm to identify the core nodes of the complex networks with the threshold random walk. CN-LDA also can be used to determine overlapping nodes. We do experiments to Compare CN-LDA with some other community algorithms in several real-world social networks. The experimental results showed that CN-LDA is effective to discover overlapping communities.
Characterization and optimization of a simple, repeatable system for the long term in vitro culture of aligned myotubes in 3D

Increased recent research activity in exercise physiology has dramatically improved our understanding of skeletal muscle development and physiology in both health and disease. Advances in bioengineering have enabled the development of biomimetic 3D in vitro models of skeletal muscle which have the potential to further advance our understanding of the fundamental processes that underpin muscle physiology. As the principle structural protein of the extracellular matrix, collagen‐based matrices are popular tools for the creation of such 3D models but the custom nature of many reported systems has precluded their more widespread adoption. Here we present a simple, reproducible iteration of an established 3D in vitro model of skeletal muscle, demonstrating both the high levels of reproducibility possible in this system and the improved cellular architecture of such constructs over standard 2D cell culture techniques. We have used primary rat muscle cells to validate this simple model and generate comparable data to conventional established cell culture techniques. We have optimized culture parameters for these cells which should provide a template in this 3D system for using muscle cells derived from other donor species and cell lines. J. Cell. Biochem. 113: 1044–1053, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
EXPRESSION OF GENETIC VARIATION IN BODY SIZE OF THE COLLARED FLYCATCHER UNDER DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS

Heritability of body size in two experimentally created environments, representing good and poor feeding conditions, respectively, was estimated using cross‐fostered collared flycatcher Ficedula albicollis nestlings. Young raised under poor feeding conditions attained smaller body size (tarsus length) than their full‐sibs raised under good feeding conditions. Parent‐offspring regressions revealed lower heritability (h2) of body size under poor than under good feeding conditions. Hence, as the same set of parents were used in the estimation of h2 in both environments, this suggests environment‐dependent change in additive genetic component of variance (VA), or that the genetic correlation between parental and poor offspring environment was less than that between parental and good offspring environment. However, full‐sib analyses failed to find evidence for genotype‐environment interactions, although the power of these tests might have been low. Full‐sib heritabilities in both environments tended to be higher than estimates from parent‐offspring regressions, indicating that prehatching or early posthatching common environment/maternal effects might have inflated full‐sib estimates of VA. The effect of sibling competition on estimates of VA was probably small as the nestling size‐hierarchy at day 2 posthatch was not generally correlated with size‐hierarchy at fledging. Furthermore, there was no correlation between maternal body condition during the incubation and final size of offspring, indicating that direct maternal effects related to nutritional status were small. A review of earlier quantitative genetic studies of body size variation in birds revealed that in eight of nine cases, heritability of body size was lower in poor than in good environmental conditions. The main implication of this relationship will be a decreased evolutionary response to selection under poor environmental conditions. On the other hand, this will retard the loss of genetic variation by reducing the accuracy of selection and might help explain the moderate to high heritabilities of body‐size traits under good environmental conditions.
The Development of Black Girl Critical Literacies of Race, Gender, and Class in Independent Schools: Awareness, Agency, & Emotion

This dissertation analyzes the agency that adolescent Black girls in independent schools use to craft their identities, and describes the particular competencies that they enact as they navigate encounters of race/ ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status within their daily school lives. Through the adoption of developmental, feminist, and critical pedagogy frameworks, this phenomenological study employs a grounded theory methodology and presents an emergent theory that describes the phenomenon of “Black girl critical literacies” when situated in the context of elite, predominantly White independent schools. I define Black girl critical literacies as the phenomenon in which Black girls use particular competencies to recognize, process, and respond to messages that they receive connected to their status as Black adolescent females in U.S. society while simultaneously crafting their own sense of their Black girl identities. Using weekly discussion groups grounded in critical feminist pedagogy and one-on-one interviews as the main sources of data, this dissertation serves two purposes: 1) it identifies and explores four different components that contribute to the development of Black girl critical literacies in independent schools: school culture, a developing critical consciousness, emotional literacy, and agency and activism; and 2) it analyzes how Black girls communicate the components of Black girl critical literacies to each other. The findings from this study contribute to the fields of education and gender studies and the disciplines of psychology, and sociology by offering a perspective on adolescent development, identity formation, and curriculum development that is infused with feminist and critical pedagogy frameworks. Specific to education, the dissertation findings contribute to the literature on how to support students of color in independent schools, and point to how affinity group spaces can function as places for the critical consciousness development of adolescents. From a psychological perspective, the findings from this project deepen the literature on adolescent development and particularly highlight the identity development and construction of Black girls. In the sociological tradition and connected to the field of gender studies, my research contributes to the emerging field of Black girlhood studies by presenting how social structures of race, gender, and class function within particular sociocultural contexts. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group Education First Advisor Howard C. Stevenson This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn. edu/edissertations/2356
Schottky-barrier normally off GaN/InAlN/AlN/GaN HEMT with selectively etched access region

A Schottky-barrier normally off InAlN-based high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) with selectively etched access regions, high off-state breakdown, and low gate leakage is presented. Metal-organic chemical vapor deposition-grown 1-nm InAlN/1-nm AlN barrier stack is capped with a 2-nm-thick undoped GaN creating a negative polarization charge at a GaN/InAlN heterojunction. Consequently, the gate effective barrier height is increased, and the gate leakage as well as the equilibrium carrier concentration in the channel is decreased. After removal of the GaN cap at access regions by using a highly selective dry process, the extrinsic channel becomes populated by carriers. Normally off HEMTs with 8-μm source-to-drain distance and 1.8-μm -long symmetrically placed gate showed a source drain current of about 140 mA/mm. The HEMT gate leakage at a drain voltage of 200 V and grounded gate is below 10-7 A/mm with a three-terminal device breakdown of 255 V. The passivated InAlN surface potential has been calculated to be 1.45 V; significant drain current increase is predicted for even lower potential.