Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A novel V1a receptor antagonist blocks vasopressin-induced changes in the CNS response to emotional stimuli: an fMRI study

Background: We hypothesized that SRX246, a vasopressin V1a receptor antagonist, blocks the effect of intranasally administered vasopressin on brain processing of angry Ekman faces. An interaction of intranasal and oral drug was predicted in the amygdala. Methods: Twenty-nine healthy male subjects received a baseline fMRI scan while they viewed angry faces and then were randomized to receive oral SRX246 (120 mg PO twice a day) or placebo. After an average of 7 days of treatment, they were given an acute dose of intranasal vasopressin (40 IU) or placebo and underwent a second scan. The primary outcome was BOLD activity in the amygdala in response to angry faces. Secondary analyses were focused on ROIs in a brain regions previously linked to vasopressin signaling. Results: In subjects randomized to oral placebo-intranasal vasopressin, there was a significantly diminished amygdala BOLD response from the baseline to post-drug scan compared with oral placebo-intranasal placebo subjects. RM-ANOVA of the BOLD signal changes in the amygdala revealed a significant oral drug × intranasal drug × session interaction (F(1, 25) = 4.353, p < 0.05). Follow-up tests showed that antagonism of AVPR1a with SRX246 blocked the effect of intranasal vasopressin on the neural response to angry faces. Secondary analyses revealed that SRX246 treatment was associated with significantly attenuated BOLD responses to angry faces in the right temporoparietal junction, precuneus, anterior cingulate, and putamen. Exploratory analyses revealed that the interactive and main effects of intranasal vasopressin and SRX246 were not seen for happy or neutral faces, but were detected for aversive faces (fear + anger) and at a trend level for fear faces. Conclusion: We found confirmatory evidence that SRX246 has effects on the amygdala that counter the effects of intranasal vasopressin. These effects were strongest for angry faces, but may generalize to other emotions with an aversive quality.
Adjusting to Genocide: The Techniques of Neutralization and the Holocaust

In recent years, as social scientists questioned the intellectual boundaries set by customary perceptions of criminality, their discourse expanded to incorporate more than purely legalistic definitions of crime. In addition to conventional street crimes, some scholars began examining both interpersonal and collective actions and behaviors that were once considered to be outside the scope of commonly accepted definitions of criminality. For example, criminologists now study crime categorized as occupational (Albanese 1987; Cressey 1953; Green 1990; Hollinger and Clark 1983; Horning 1979; Nettler 1974; Tracy and Fox 1989), environmental (Block and Bernard 1988; Brady 1987; Stone 1987; Tallmer 1987), political (Barak 1994; Block 1989; Block and Chambliss 1981; Chambliss 1993; Quinney 1970; Schwendinger and Schwendinger 1970; Tunnell 1993; Turk 1969), and corporate (Clinard and Yeager 1980; Clinard et al. 1979; Coleman 1994; Reiman 1979; Sutherland 1949), using methodology and terminology once reserved for predatory street crime. This trend can be traced to the pioneering work of Thorsten Sellin (1938) and Edwin Sutherland (1940, 1949), who argued for broader, more inclusive definitions of criminality and less conventional approaches to the study of crime.
Gorham–Stout Disease of the Skull Base With Hearing Loss: Dramatic Recovery and Antiangiogenic Therapy

Gorham–Stout disease (GSD) is a rare disorder of unknown etiology. We present a 6‐year‐old male with GSD involving the skull base who presented with recurrent cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) rhinorrhea, severe hearing loss, and facial palsy secondary to cerebellar herniation into the internal auditory canal. After 2 months of treatment with pegylated interferon (IFN) α‐2b (50 μg/week), his hearing recovered dramatically. Two years later, new bone formation appeared radiologically and IFN was switched to sirolimus. One year after the switch, CSF rhinorrhea disappeared. Antiangiogenic therapy might inhibit proliferation of vascular endothelial cells in osteolytic lesions and lead to new bone formation.
Youtopia: a collaborative, tangible, multi-touch, sustainability learning activity

Youtopia is a hybrid tangible and multi-touch land use planning activity for elementary school aged children. It was implemented on a Microsoft Pixelsense digital tabletop. The main method of interaction is through physical stamp objects that children use to "stamp" different land use types onto an interactive map. Youtopia was developed to investigate issues surrounding how to design and evaluate children's collaborative learning applications using digital tabletops. In particular we are looking at how the interface design supports in depth discussion and negotiation between pairs of children around issues in sustainable development. Our primary concern is to investigate questions about codependent access points, which may enable positive interdependence among children. Codependent access points are characteristics that enable two or more children to participate and interact together. In Youtopia these implemented through sequences of stamps that are required for successful interaction, which can be assigned to children (codependent mode) or remain unassigned (independent mode).
Exploiting Time-Malleability in Cloud-based Batch Processing Systems

Existing cloud provisioning schemes allocate resources to batch processing systems at deployment time and only change this allocation at run-time due to unexpected events such as server failures. We observe that MapReduce-like jobs are timemalleable, i.e., at runtime it is possible to dynamically vary the number of resources allocated to a job and, hence, its completion time. In this paper, we propose a novel approach based on time-malleability to opportunistically update job resources in order to increase overall utilization and revenue. To set the right incentives for both providers and tenants, we introduce a novel pricing model that charges tenants according to job completion times. Using this model, we formulate an optimization problem for revenue maximization. Preliminary results show that compared to today’s practices our solution can increase revenue by up to 69.7% and can accept up to 57% more jobs.
Exploiting color for edge extraction and line segment stereo matching

This paper investigates into the added value of color information for edge extraction and straight edge segment matching between stereo views. For edge extraction in color images different methods proposed in the literature are evaluated and compared, paying special attention to significance and completeness of the obtained edge-map. To find related edge segment pairs in different views, we apply an odd-man-out scheme: starting with all geometrically possible pairs we first rule out pairs, for which the chromatic information provided by the regions flanking the edge segments is incompatible. To further restrict the number of pairs we compute a chromatic similarity measure based on cross-correlation in the color bands. Both steps result in a significant reduction of candidate pairs, yet no correct pairs get lost. A main application of our technique is for automatic 3D building reconstruction from high resolution aerial images.
A note on thermal analysis for an inclined plate crotch absorber

Crotch absorbers are used to absorb unwanted synchrotron radiation to prevent most of the photons from striking the wall of a vacuum chamber. Since synchrotron radiation generated by bending the positron beam is very powerful, concentrated and penetrating, the absorber produces high internal heat generation. Depending on the materials used, this energy generation may be restricted near the surface of the absorber or distributed throughout the absorber with exponential decay in the direction of the penetration. The cooling of an absorber is important to prevent melting the material and to retain ultra high vacuum, since photon energy deposition on the metal surface causes the desorption of gases. This note describes an analytical solution of the heat transfer with application to designing a crotch absorber. The effects of angles and thicknesses of the plate and different materials on temperature distributions of the absorber are examined.
Hard Times in Dry Lands: Making Meaning of Violence in the Ancient Southwest

The scientific and systematic integration of data derived from human remains is offered as an important methodology with which to test hypotheses regarding violence in the Greater Southwest prior to European contact. The evidence suggests a continuum of violent activities that does not fit into broad classifications such as warfare. Osteological remains combined with site information illuminates how and why violence was performed and bones were processed at certain times and in certain places. This context-specific approach affords a more emic glimpse of how violence was experienced by victims, perpetrators, and witnesses. Persistent forms of violence included (1) disarticulated human remains, (2) witch killings, (3) massacres, (4) nonlethal head wounds, and (5) raiding for captives. A model that takes these politically and culturally motivated behaviors into consideration is offered. A more parsimonious explanation for violence is that it was a cultural practice that was integrated into other ritual and ceremonial activities.
Greater Cardiovascular Responses to Laboratory Mental Stress Are Associated With Poor Subsequent Cardiovascular Risk Status: A Meta-Analysis of Prospective Evidence

An increasing number of studies has tested whether greater cardiovascular responses to acute mental stress predict future cardiovascular disease, but results have been variable. This review aimed quantitatively to evaluate the association between cardiovascular responses to laboratory mental stress and subsequent cardiovascular risk status in prospective cohort studies. We searched general bibliographic databases, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed, up to December 2009. Two reviewers independently extracted data on study characteristics, quality, and estimates of associations. There were 169 associations (36 articles) of stress reactivity and 30 associations (5 articles) of poststress recovery in relation to future cardiovascular risk status, including elevated blood pressure, hypertension, left ventricular mass, subclinical atherosclerosis, and clinical cardiac events. The overall meta-analyses showed that greater reactivity to and poor recovery from stress were associated longitudinally with poor cardiovascular status (r=0.091 [95% CI: 0.050 to 0.132], P<0.001, and r=0.096 [95% CI: 0.058 to 0.134], P<0.001, respectively). These findings were supported by more conservative analyses of aggregate effects and by subgroup analyses of the methodologically strong associations. Notably, incident hypertension and increased carotid intima-media thickness were more consistently predicted by greater stress reactivity and poor stress recovery, respectively, whereas both factors were associated with higher future systolic and diastolic blood pressures. In conclusion, the current meta-analysis suggests that greater responsivity to acute mental stress has an adverse effect on future cardiovascular risk status, supporting the use of methods of managing stress responsivity in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease.
Systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic and prognostic studies: a tutorial

Systematic reviews with meta-analysis of studies on diagnostic tests or prognostic factors are research tools that are still being developed. The objective of the present paper is to describe the methodology of systematic review and meta-analysis of this type of studies, step by step. A literature review on the subject was made, the recommendations were compiled and the paper was organized in: a) Introduction, b) Details on the eight steps to be followed, c) Form of publication of a systematic review with meta-analysis, and d) Conclusion. The systematic review methods were thoroughly described with a critical analysis of the methods of statistical compilation of results, with emphasis on the utilization of the Summary Receiver Operator Characteristic curve. References for the details of each statistical technique used were provided in the meta-analysis. We concluded that systematic reviews with meta-analysis of diagnostic tests or prognostic factors are useful in data compilation of various studies on the same subject, since they reduce biases and increase the statistical power of the primary research.
A Per-File Partitioned Page Cache

In this paper we describe a new design of the operating system page cache. Page caches form an important part of the memory hierarchy and are used to access file-system data. In most operating systems, there exists a single page cache whose contents are replaced according to a LRU eviction policy. We design and implement a page cache which is partitioned by file—the per-file page cache. The per-file page cache provides the ability to control fine-grained caching parameters such as cache size and eviction policies for each file. Furthermore, the deterministic cache allocation and partitioning allows for improved isolation among processes. We provide dynamic cache partitioning(among files) by using utility derived from the miss-ratio characteristics of the file accesses. We have implemented the per-file page cache architecture in the Linux kernel and demonstrate its efficacy using disk image files of virtual machines and different types of file access patterns by processes. Experimental results show that the utility-based partitioning can reduce the cache size by up to an order of magnitude while increasing cache hit ratios by up to 20%. Among other features, the per-file page cache has fadvise integration, a scan-resistant eviction algorithm (ARC) and reduced lock-contention and overhead during the eviction process.
A New Era for Hot Spots Policing

At the turn of the 20th century, social scientists developed an approach to understanding the distribution of crime across a city that came to be called the Chicago school. This approach—especially the work on social disorganization by Shaw, McKay, and their colleagues (see Shaw & McKay, 1942; Shaw, Zorbaugh, McKay, & Cottrell, 1929)—began by plotting the residences of known offenders and noting their concentration in certain sections of the city. Using this unequal distribution of criminality, they and others began to develop explanations for why offenders and crime clustered in certain locations. In particular, their ideas focused on the inability of communities to develop norms for social control possibly due to factors such as high residential mobility, population turnover, racial and ethnic heterogeneity, and concentrated poverty—see later developments of this idea by Kornhauser (1978) and Bursik & Grasmick (1993). The Chicago School used these explanations to develop and advocate for crime prevention interventions (i.e., the Chicago Area Projects) that might increase community efficacy and ties, thereby reducing crime. Social disorganization theory could have been a precursor to modern crime and place research and policy, including hot spots policing. However, because of its focus on offenders, and because of a widespread belief among both practitioners and scholars that place-based prevention programs would simply displace crime, the influence of the Chicago School on criminology until the 1980s was primarily offender-based, sociological, and dispositional (Clarke, 1980; Weisburd, 2002). Explanations for the clustering of offenders in certain areas included how socio-economic and demographic characteristics that were also unevenly distributed across geography, influenced offending. But environmental criminologists, social ecologists, and social psychologists like Jeffery (1971), Newman (1972), and Brantingham and Brantingham (1981) began arguing that these sociological forces were not the only explanation for geographic crime patterns. Indeed, they asserted that the environmental context in which a crime occurs was essential to understanding crime patterns across places. Early works on opportunity and situational crime prevention by Ron Clarke also suggested the importance of the context of crime as well as a rational offender who responded to situational cues, in explaining crime (Clarke, 1980, 1983; Cornish & Clarke, 1986). Clarke’s work emphasized that crime prevention could successfully target situations,
Scalable Constrained Clustering: A Generalized Spectral Method

We present a principled spectral approach to the well-studied constrained clustering problem. It reduces clustering to a generalized eigenvalue problem on Laplacians. The method works in nearly-linear time and provides concrete guarantees for the quality of the clusters, at least for the case of 2-way partitioning. In practice this translates to a very fast implementation that consistently outperforms existing spectral approaches. We support this claim with experiments on various data sets: our approach recovers correct clusters in examples where previous methods fail, and handles data sets with millions of data points - two orders of magnitude larger than before.
Pattern Recognition Letters

Sequence comparison is the core computation of many applications involving textual representations of data. Edit distance is the most widely used measure to quantify the similarity of two sequences. Edit distance can be deﬁned as the minimal total cost of a sequence of edit operations to transform one sequence into the other; for a sequence x of length m and a sequence y of length n , it can be computed in time O ( mn ) . In many applications, it is common to consider sequences with circular structure: for instance, the orientation of two images or the leftmost position of two linearised circular DNA sequences may be irrelevant. To this end, an algorithm to compute the cyclic edit distance in time O ( mn log m ) was proposed (Maes, 2003 [18]) and several heuristics have been proposed to speed up this computation. Recently, a new algorithm based on q -grams was proposed for circular sequence comparison (Grossi et al., 2016 [13]). We extend this algorithm for cyclic edit distance computation and show that this new heuristic is faster and more accurate than the state of the art. The aim of this letter is to give visibility to this idea in the pattern recognition community.
Increased Anxiety-Like Behavior and Enhanced Synaptic Efficacy in the Amygdala of GluR5 Knockout Mice

GABAergic transmission in the amygdala modulates the expression of anxiety. Understanding the interplay between GABAergic transmission and excitatory circuits in the amygdala is, therefore, critical for understanding the neurobiological basis of anxiety. Here, we used a multi-disciplinary approach to demonstrate that GluR5-containing kainate receptors regulate local inhibitory circuits, modulate the excitatory transmission from the basolateral amygdala to the central amygdala, and control behavioral anxiety. Genetic deletion of GluR5 or local injection of a GluR5 antagonist into the basolateral amygdala increases anxiety-like behavior. Activation of GluR5 selectively depolarized inhibitory neurons, thereby increasing GABA release and contributing to tonic GABA current in the basolateral amygdala. The enhanced GABAergic transmission leads to reduced excitatory inputs in the central amygdala. Our results suggest that GluR5 is a key regulator of inhibitory circuits in the amygdala and highlight the potential use of GluR5-specific drugs in the treatment of pathological anxiety.
SIR epidemics in dynamic contact networks

Contact patterns in populations fundamentally influence the spread of infectious diseases. Current mathematical methods for epidemiological forecasting on networks largely assume that contacts between individuals are fixed, at least for the duration of an outbreak. In reality, contact patterns may be quite fluid, with individuals frequently making and breaking social or sexual relationships. Here we develop a mathematical approach to predicting disease transmission on dynamic networks in which each individual has a characteristic behavior (typical contact number), but the identities of their contacts change in time. We show that dynamic contact patterns shape epidemiological dynamics in ways that cannot be adequately captured in static network models or mass-action models. Our new model interpolates smoothly between static network models and mass-action models using a mixing parameter, thereby providing a bridge between disparate classes of epidemiological models. Using epidemiological and sexual contact data from an Atlanta high school, we then demonstrate the utility of this method for forecasting and controlling sexually transmitted disease outbreaks.
Galaxy Orientations in the Coma Cluster

We have examined the orientations of early-type galaxies in the Coma Cluster to see whether the well-established tendency for brightest cluster galaxies to share the same major-axis orientation as their host cluster also extends to the rest of the galaxy population. We find no evidence of any preferential orientations of galaxies within Coma or its surroundings. The implications of this result for theories of the formation of clusters and galaxies (particularly the first-ranked members) are discussed.
A model of Erasure-Coding-Based Distributed File System

Today's exponential growth in network bandwidth and storage capacity has inspired different classes of distributed storage infrastructures. However replication has become the actual way for storing data across data centers, no matter the system is centralized framework or peer-to-peer infrastructure. Erasure code, which is well researched and more space efficient than replication, has multiple tradeoffs that need to be seriously considered. In this paper, we present an erasure-coding-based model coupled with hadoop library, and we call it the Erasure-Coding-Based Distributed File System. We discuss the detailed design of our model and provide some recommendations on other coding strategy for distributed file systems.
Selection of optimal features for texture characterization and perception

Different approach to texture characterization can be considered. In this work texture are analyzed through second order statistical measurements based on the Grey-Level Co-occurrence Matrix proposed by Haralick [1]. By this method is possible to compute 22 different features to describe texture. Usually, in previous works, only 5 features are considered among the complete set, but no reasons are exposed for that selection. In this work, using Principal Component Analysis, the set of features is studied and 5 features, different from former, are proposed as the most convenient describing and characterizing the considered textures. Finally, the relationship between the proposed features and perception of texture is analyzed.