Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Superior Parietal Volume in Adolescents with a History of Trauma

Objective: Early trauma exposure has been demonstrated to significantly impact brain volume. Childhood trauma also contributes to onset of psychopathology, particularly depression. We sought to identify gray matter volume changes unique to trauma exposure in adolescent depression and hypothesized that adolescents with diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD) and childhood trauma would have smaller gray matter volume and thickness in areas previously identified as reduced with childhood trauma exposure relative to non-traumatized depressed adolescents and healthy controls. Methods: We obtained structural MRI scans for 120 adolescents with a history of past trauma exposure and a current diagnosis major depressive disorder (MDD, n=29), a diagnosis of MDD, but no trauma exposure (n=49), and healthy controls (n=42). Adolescents with a diagnosis of MDD and trauma exposure compared with adolescents with MDD and no history of trauma exposure showed increased gray matter volume in the right superior parietal lobe (p=0.001), a cortical region important for processing of visuospatial cues and implicated in traumatic memory. Positive trauma history status included sexual or physical abuse, or trauma with risk of death or bodily harm. Results: Our findings indicate increased right superior parietal volume in depressed adolescents with history of trauma exposure that is distinct from findings related to depression or suicidal behavior. Conclusion: Our finding of increased superior parietal volume in adolescents exposed to past trauma compared with adolescents not exposed to past trauma may indicate differences in information processing, particularly visuospatial processing and working memory, in trauma exposed, depressed adolescents. The absence of any significant relationships between superior parietal lobe volume abnormality and measures of present symptom severity, suicidal ideation, past suicide attempt and medication in adolescents with history of depression and past trauma suggests that increased right superior parietal lobe volume may be related to trauma exposure in adolescents with depression.
Self-Organized Origami

In origami, form follows the sequential spatial organization of folds. This requires continuous intervention and raises a natural question: Can origami arise through self-organization? We answer this affirmatively by examining the possible physical origin for the Miura-ori leaf-folding patterns that arise naturally in insect wings, leaves, and other laminae-like organelles. In particular, we point out examples where biaxial compression of an elastically supported thin film, such as that due to differential growth, shrinkage, desiccation, or thermal expansion, spontaneously generates these patterns, and we provide a simple theoretical explanation for their occurrence.
Effect of immobilized interfacial layer on the maximum filler loading of polystyrene/silica nanocomposites

The effects of filler particle size and volume fraction on the immobilized interfacial layer volume and maximum filler loading of filled polymers are investigated using polystyrene-containing silica nanoparticles. The samples are prepared by solution-mixing method to obtain a better dispersion of silica particles, and dynamic rheometry is used to study viscoelastic behavior of these composites in the melt state. Addition of silica particles increases the glass-transition temperature; this phenomenon is intensified by decreasing the silica particle size. By decrease in size of silica particles, glass transition of filled polymer increases simultaneously with increase of interfacial layer volume fraction, which is related to increase in the total surface area of silica particles. Furthermore, the growth of immobilized interfacial layer volume fraction reduces the maximum filler loading as the filler particle size decreases.
Genetic and Epigenetic Alterations of the NF2 Gene in Sporadic Vestibular Schwannomas

Background Mutations in the neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) tumor-suppressor gene have been identified in not only NF2-related tumors but also sporadic vestibular schwannomas (VS). This study investigated the genetic and epigenetic alterations in tumors and blood from 30 Korean patients with sporadic VS and correlated these alterations with tumor behavior. Methodology/Principal Findings NF2 gene mutations were detected using PCR and direct DNA sequencing and three highly polymorphic microsatellite DNA markers were used to assess the loss of heterozygosity (LOH) from chromosome 22. Aberrant hypermethylation of the CpG island of the NF2 gene was also analyzed. The tumor size, the clinical growth index, and the proliferative activity assessed using the Ki-67 labeling index were evaluated. We found 18 mutations in 16 cases of 30 schwannomas (53%). The mutations included eight frameshift mutations, seven nonsense mutations, one in-frame deletion, one splicing donor site, and one missense mutation. Nine patients (30%) showed allelic loss. No patient had aberrant hypermethylation of the NF2 gene and correlation between NF2 genetic alterations and tumor behavior was not observed in this study. Conclusions/Significance The molecular genetic changes in sporadic VS identified here included mutations and allelic loss, but no aberrant hypermethylation of the NF2 gene was detected. In addition, no clear genotype/phenotype correlation was identified. Therefore, it is likely that other factors contribute to tumor formation and growth.
Vortices and turbulence in trapped atomic condensates

After more than a decade of experiments generating and studying the physics of quantized vortices in atomic gas Bose–Einstein condensates, research is beginning to focus on the roles of vortices in quantum turbulence, as well as other measures of quantum turbulence in atomic condensates. Such research directions have the potential to uncover new insights into quantum turbulence, vortices, and superfluidity and also explore the similarities and differences between quantum and classical turbulence in entirely new settings. Here we present a critical assessment of theoretical and experimental studies in this emerging field of quantum turbulence in atomic condensates.
Fabrication of compound refractive lens using soft and deep X-ray lithography beamline on Indus-2

X-ray compound refractive lenses (CRL) have been fabricated using Soft and Deep X-ray lithography (SDXRL) beamline on Indus-2. Upto 50 parabolic lenses are fabricated in PMMA using 1X X-ray mask. The mask contains of 20 micron thick gold absorbing pattern on polyimide membrane. The lens fabrication is done by exposing 500 μm thick PMMA sheets to 5-12keV X-rays from Indus-2. The fabricated CRL will be suitable for generating focused X-ray beam of Indus-2 bending magnet source.
Cytokine profile during latent and slowly progressive primary tuberculosis: a possible role for interleukin‐15 in mediating clinical disease

Recently, mouse models for latent (LTB) and slowly progressive primary tuberculosis (SPTB) have been established. However, cytokine profiles during the two models are not well established. Using quantitative reverse transcription‐polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) we studied the expression levels of interleukin (IL)‐2, IL‐4, IL‐10, IL‐12, IL‐15, interferon (IFN)‐γ and tumour necrosis factor (TNF)‐α during the course of LTB and SPTB in the lungs and spleens of B6D2F1Bom mice infected with the H37Rv strain of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). The results show that, except for IL‐4, cytokine expression levels were significantly higher during SPTB than LTB in both the lungs and spleens. During LTB, all the cytokines (except IL‐2 in the lungs) had higher expression levels during the initial period of infection both in the lungs and spleens. During SPTB, the expression levels of IL‐15 increased significantly from phases 1 to 3 in the lungs. The expression levels of IL‐10, IL‐12 and IFN‐γ increased significantly from 2 to 3 in the lungs. IL‐10 and IL‐15 increased significantly from phases 2 to 3, whereas that of TNF‐α decreased significantly and progressively from phases 1 to 3 in the spleens. Over‐expression of proinflammatory cytokines during active disease has been well documented, but factor(s) underlying such over‐expression is not known. In the present study, there was a progressive and significant increase in the expression levels of IL‐15, together with Th1 cytokines (IL‐12 and IFN‐γ) during SPTB but a significant decrease during LTB. IL‐15 is known to up‐regulate the production of proinflammatory cytokines, IL‐1β, IL‐8, IL‐12, IL‐17, IFN‐γ and TNF‐α and has an inhibitory effect on activation‐induced cell death. IL‐15 is known to be involved in many proinflammatory disease states such as rheumatoid arthritis, sarcoidosis, inflammatory bowel diseases, autoimmune diabetes, etc. Our results, together with the above observations, suggest that IL‐15 may play an important role in mediating active disease during Mtb infection.
Control of powder morphology for texture enhancement of lead barium niobate ferroelectric ceramics

In this work, the influence of the powder particle morphology on the microstructural morphology and structural texture levels of tetragonal tungsten bronze Pb0·56Ba0·44Nb2O6 ceramics was investigated. Powders were obtained by solid state reaction synthesis with different aspect ratios and densified through biaxial hot forging. A texture diffractometer was used to investigate the preferential orientation of the crystallographic planes and their relation to the microstructural morphology of the hot forged samples. The results showed that the higher the particle aspect ratio before firing, the higher the structural texture level of the sample after hot forging process. The highest anisotropy of the dielectric properties was observed in the sample with enhanced texture. Therefore, control of the particle morphology of the lead barium niobate precursor powder is very useful for obtaining ceramics with high texture levels and desirable anisotropic properties.
Role of histone modifications in defining chromatin structure and function

Abstract Chromosomes in eukaryotic cell nuclei are not uniformly organized, but rather contain distinct chromatin elements, with each state having a defined biochemical structure and biological function. These are recognizable by their distinct architectures and molecular components, which can change in response to cellular stimuli or metabolic requirements. Chromatin elements are characterized by the fundamental histone and DNA components, as well as other associated non-histone proteins and factors. Post-translational modifications of histone proteins in particular often correlate with a specific chromatin structure and function. Patterns of histone modifications are implicated as having a role in directing the level of chromatin compaction, as well as playing roles in multiple functional pathways directing the readout of distinct regions of the genome. We review the properties of various chromatin elements and the apparent links of histone modifications with chromatin organization and functional output.
A STRINGENT LIMIT ON THE AMPLITUDE OF ALFVÉNIC PERTURBATIONS IN HIGH-BETA LOW-COLLISIONALITY PLASMAS

It is shown that low-collisionality plasmas cannot support linearly polarized shear-Alfvén fluctuations above a critical amplitude , where β is the ratio of thermal to magnetic pressure. Above this cutoff, a developing fluctuation will generate a pressure anisotropy that is sufficient to destabilize itself through the parallel firehose instability. This causes the wave frequency to approach zero, interrupting the fluctuation before any oscillation. The magnetic field lines rapidly relax into a sequence of angular zig-zag structures. Such a restrictive bound on shear-Alfvén-wave amplitudes has far-reaching implications for the physics of magnetized turbulence in the high-β conditions prevalent in many astrophysical plasmas, as well as for the solar wind at ∼1 au where β ≳ 1.
Static 3D triangle mesh compression overview

3D triangle meshes are extremely used to model discrete surfaces, and almost always represented with two tables: one for geometry and another for connectivity. While the raw size of a triangle mesh is of around 200 bits per vertex, by coding cleverly (and separately) those two distinct kinds of information it is possible to achieve compression ratios of 15:1 or more. Different techniques must be used depending on whether single-rate vs. progressive bitstreams are sought; and, in the latter case, on whether or not hierarchically nested meshes are desirable during reconstruction.
Missing sensor value estimation method for participatory sensing environment

Participatory sensing produces incomplete sensor data. Thus, we have to fill in the gaps of any missing values in the sensor data in order to provide sensor-based services. We propose a method to estimate a missing value of incomplete sensor data. It accurately estimates a missing value by repeating two processes: selecting sensors locally correlated with the sensor that includes the missing value and then updating the training sensor dataset that consist of data from the selected sensors available for multiple regression. This procedure effectively helps to find more suitable neighbor records of a query record from the training sensor dataset and to refine the regression model using the records. It overcomes three problems that other estimation methods have: a decrease in the amount of available training sensor dataset due to missing values, the difficulty in finding similar records of a query due to the “curse of dimensionality,” and the complexity in formalizing the estimation model due to “overfitting. ” The main feature of our method is the way it repeatedly prunes inessential sensors while exploiting the anti-monotone property in which the training sensor dataset R' that consist of the sensors V' ⊂ V is larger than the data R that consist of V. Empirical evaluations done using public datasets in which we appended missing values show that our method increases the training sensor dataset for estimation and improves estimation accuracy through repeated sensor selections. Furthermore, we confirmed through a field trial and a life-log enrichment trial, that our method was effective for estimating missing sensor values in a participatory sensing environment.
Ground Moving Target Extraction in a Multichannel Wide-Area Surveillance SAR/GMTI System via the Relaxed PCP

This letter presents a novel approach for extracting moving targets in a multichannel wide-area surveillance radar system. In the algorithm, after proper preprocessing and matrix combination, the combined matrix of radar echoes can be regarded as the superposition of three matrices, namely, a low-rank matrix of ground clutter, a sparse matrix of moving targets, and an entry-wise matrix of noise component. Then, the recently proposed relaxed version of principal component pursuit is used to realize ground clutter (low-rank matrix) and moving target (sparse matrix) separation under the influence of entry-wise noise. Both simulation and real data processing results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. In addition, the results show the advantage of the proposed method in a nonhomogeneous environment when compared with a reduced-dimension space-time adaptive processing method.
FDI in OECD : Separate E ¤ ects from Political and Fiscal Vertical Decentralization

This paper empirically investigates the e¤ect of vertical decentralization of government structures on foreign direct investment in industrialized countries. Federalism is disentangled into its political and scal dimensions. Analyzing a panel of OECD countries we nd that both aspects of vertical decentralization yield a strong negative impact on the investment stocks in these countries. The results may be justi ed by potential hold-up and common-pool problems associated with overtaxation, excessive bureaucracy and regulatory provisions. Keywords: decentralization, federalism, foreign direct investment, knowledge-capital model JEL classi cation numbers: F23, H77 Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Reichpietschufer 50, 10785 Berlin, Germany, phone: (+49) 3
Experience with an implementation of the Idle Sense wireless access method

An overwhelming part of research work on wireless networks validates new concepts or protocols with simulation or analytical modeling. Unlike this approach, we present our experience with implementing the Idle Sense access method on programmable off-the-shelf hardware---the Intel IPW2915/abg chipset. We also present measurements and performance comparisons of Idle Sense with respect to the Intel implementation of the 802.11 DCF (Distributed Coordination Function) standard. Implementing a modified MAC protocol on constrained devices presents several challenges: difficulty of programming without support for multiplication, division, and floating point arithmetic, absence of support for debugging and high precision measurement. To achieve our objectives, we had to overcome the limitations of the hardware platform and solve several issues. In particular, we have implemented the adaptation algorithm with approximate values of control parameters without the division operation and taken advantage of some fields in data frames to trace the execution and test the implemented access method. Finally, we have measured its performance to confirm good properties of Idle Sense: it obtains slightly better throughput, much better fairness, and significantly lower collision rate compared to the Intel implementation of the 802.11 DCF standard.
CS 276 Project : Survey of Symbolic Techniques for Protocol Analysis

Traditional models of cryptography have been based on complexity theory and probability. Though an analysis of a system may proceed in layers, a proof of a system’s security can in principle be reduced to one that assumes only the quality of some basic primitives, like RSA. However, often these details can obscure the essence of a problem. In such cases, symbolic models of cryptographic systems can make analysis much more tractable. For instance, the design of cryptographic protocols is notoriously difficult. Subtle changes in a protocol can have drastic effects on its security. Precise complexity theoretic bounds on security are important, but often it is issues of trust between principals that lead to the most design errors. [3] introduced the BAN logic for reasoning about authentication protocols in a way that abstracts the details of cryptographic primitives. By breaking a protocol down into the assumptions of its principals at each stage, it is possible to use the BAN logic’s formal proof system to show that a correct execution of the protocol implies the designer’s conclusions, without relying on unwanted assumptions. Inability to prove this may reveal unexpected and undesired assumptions. Another formal system with a similar purpose is the spi calculus [2]. It can be used to model a protocol as a system of interacting processes, standing for the principals. In contrast to the informal models of protocols common in the literature, spi calculus programs have a precise semantics and may even be executed. This facilitates formal analysis of protocols. Proofs based on formal notions of equivalences of processes can be used to prove properties like secrecy and authenticity of protocols. [1] makes automatizing the proof process even easier by introducing a type system that implies secrecy for well-typed programs. I will introduce these formal models and show how they may be used to analyze specific protocols.
Improving the Prediction of Prostate Cancer Overall Survival by Supplementing Readily Available Clinical Data with Gene Expression Levels of IGFBP3 and F3 in Formalin-Fixed Paraffin Embedded Core Needle Biopsy Material

Background A previously reported expression signature of three genes (IGFBP3, F3 and VGLL3) was shown to have potential prognostic value in estimating overall and cancer-specific survivals at diagnosis of prostate cancer in a pilot cohort study using freshly frozen Fine Needle Aspiration (FNA) samples. Methods We carried out a new cohort study with 241 prostate cancer patients diagnosed from 2004–2007 with a follow-up exceeding 6 years in order to verify the prognostic value of gene expression signature in formalin fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) prostate core needle biopsy tissue samples. The cohort consisted of four patient groups with different survival times and death causes. A four multiplex one-step RT-qPCR test kit, designed and optimized for measuring the expression signature in FFPE core needle biopsy samples, was used. In archive FFPE biopsy samples the expression differences of two genes (IGFBP3 and F3) were measured. The survival time predictions using the current clinical parameters only, such as age at diagnosis, Gleason score, PSA value and tumor stage, and clinical parameters supplemented with the expression levels of IGFBP3 and F3, were compared. Results When combined with currently used clinical parameters, the gene expression levels of IGFBP3 and F3 are improving the prediction of survival time as compared to using clinical parameters alone. Conclusion The assessment of IGFBP3 and F3 gene expression levels in FFPE prostate cancer tissue would provide an improved survival prediction for prostate cancer patients at the time of diagnosis.
X-Ray Spectral and Timing Evolution during the Decay of the 1998 Outburst from the Recurrent X-Ray Transient 4U 1630–47

We report on the X-ray spectral and timing behavior of the recurrent X-ray transient 4U 1630-47 for 51 Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) observations made during the decay of its 1998 outburst. The observations began when the source was still relatively bright, and during one of the early observations, a quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) with a non-Lorentzian profile occurred near 6 Hz. As the source decayed, the X-ray flux dropped exponentially with an e-folding time of 14.4 days. The exponential decay was interrupted by an increase in the X-ray flux, and a secondary maximum occurred 89 days after the onset of the outburst. A transition marked by significant changes in the timing and spectral properties of the source occurred 104 days after the start of the outburst. The transition is similar to soft-to-hard state transitions observed in other black hole candidate X-ray binaries. Most of the changes associated with the transition occurred in less than 2 days. The timing changes include an increase in the continuum noise level from less than 4% rms to greater than 10% rms and the appearance of a QPO at 3.4 Hz with an rms amplitude of 7.3% in the 2-21 keV energy band. At the transition, the energy spectrum also changed with an abrupt drop in the soft component flux in the RXTE bandpass. A change in the power-law photon index from 2.3 to 1.8, also associated with the transition, occurred over a time period of 8 days. After the transition, the source flux continued to decrease, and the QPO frequency decayed gradually from 3.4 Hz to about 0.2 Hz.
Concept Extensions as the Basis for Vector-Space Semantics: Combining Distributional and Ontological Information about Entities

We propose to base the development of vector-space models of semantics on concept extensions, which defines concepts to be sets of entities. We investigate two sources of knowledge about entities that could be relevant: distributional information provided by word or phrase embeddings, and ontological information derived from a knowledge base. We develop a feedforward neural network architecture to learn entity representations that are used to predict their concept memberships, and show that the two sources of information are actually complementary. In an entity ranking experiment, the combination approach that uses both types of information outperforms models that only rely on one of the two. We also perform an analysis of the output using fuzzy logic techniques to demonstrate the potential of learning concept extensions for supporting inference involving classical semantic operations.