Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantitative Fluctuation Electron Microscopy in the STEM: Methods to Identify, Avoid, and Correct for Artifacts

Abstract Fluctuation electron microscopy can reveal the nanoscale order in amorphous materials via the statistical variance in the scattering intensity as a function of position, scattering vector, and resolution. However, several sources of experimental artifacts can seriously affect the magnitude of the variance peaks. The use of a scanning transmission electron microscope for data collection affords a convenient means to check whether artifacts are present. As nanodiffraction patterns are collected in serial, any spatial or temporal dependence of the scattering intensity across the series can easily be detected. We present examples of the major types of artifact and methods to correct the data or to avoid the problem experimentally. We also re-cast the statistical formalism used to identify sources of noise in view of the present results. The present work provides a basis on which to perform fluctuation electron microscopy with a high level of reliability and confidence in the quantitative magnitude of the data.
Cerebral hemodynamics and cognitive performance in patients with asymptomatic carotid stenosis

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate whether the presence of severe internal carotid artery stenosis may be associated with different cognitive performance in relation to the side of the stenosis and its hemodynamic consequences. Methods: Eighty-three patients with asymptomatic severe unilateral internal carotid stenosis were included. A neuropsychological investigation including Verbal Fluency using phonemic and category access, Coloured Progressive Matrices, and Complex Figure Test Copy was performed. Each patient underwent an assessment of cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) to hypercapnia with transcranial Doppler ultrasonography using the breath-holding index (BHI). Thirty healthy subjects comparable for demographic characteristics and vascular risk profile served as controls. Subjects with carotid stenosis were classified into two groups: preserved CVR (BHI ≥0.69), 48 patients (25 with left and 23 with right stenosis); and impaired CVR (BHI <0.69), 35 patients (19 with left and 16 with right stenosis). Results: Subjects with left stenosis and reduced CVR had significantly lower performances at phonemic verbal fluency with respect to controls and the other groups of stenosis. In subjects with right stenosis and reduced CVR, scores obtained in Coloured Progressive Matrices and in Complex Figure Test Copy were significantly lower with respect to the other groups. Conclusions: These results suggest that an alteration of cerebrovascular reactivity may be responsible for reduction in some cognitive abilities involving the function of the hemisphere ipsilateral to carotid stenosis. Such findings may be of interest for providing a more comprehensive indication to surgical treatment in subgroups of subjects with asymptomatic carotid stenosis.
A Syndrome with Juvenile Cataract, Cerebellar Atrophy, Mental Retardation and Myopathy

Four patients of two families with clinical characteristics resembling those in Marinesco-Sjögren syndrome are presented. All patients had infantile hypotonia as the presenting sign. In preschool age ataxia, cataract and mental retardation manifested. CT scan revealed cerebellar atrophy. Muscle biopsy showed myopathic changes with vacuolar degeneration and marked adipose tissue proliferation. Electron microscopy showed myelin bodies and autophagic vacuoles. The conclusion is that the peculiar myopathic and degenerative findings in the muscle biopsy are a consistent morphological feature in the clinical entity of the patients and the syndrome is distinctive from Marinesco-Sjögren syndrome.
Energy-Aware UMTS Access Networks

The sensitiveness toward energy consumption problems is driving Telecommunications operators to optimize network equipment utilization. Since cellular systems are often dimensioned for peak hour traffic, during low traffic periods, such as night, many devices are underutilized but still, by being active, consume power. In this paper, we show that dynamic planning, consisting in reducing the number of active access devices when traffic is low, can achieve significant power saving. In our study, we consider three different UMTS scenarios with a simplified traffic model describing three classes of services, quality of service guarantees, link-budget, propagation and electromagnetic exposure constraints.
Co-integration and Causality Among Jakarta Stock Exchange, Singapore Stock Exchange, and Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange

For both risk management and portfolio selection purposes, modeling the linkage across financial markets is crucial, especially among neighboring stock markets. In investigating the dependence or co-movement of three or more stock markets in different countries, researchers frequently use co-integration and causality analysis. Nevertheless, they conducted the causality in mean tests but not the causality in variance tests. This paper examines the co-integration and causal relations among three major stock exchanges in Southeast Asia, i.e Jakarta Stock Exchange, Singapore Stock Exchange, and Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange. It employs the recently developed techniques for investigating unit roots, co-integration, time-varying volatility, and causality in variance. For estimating market risk of portfolio, this paper employs Value-at-Risk with delta-normal approach.
Characterization of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 in Saliva and Blood Plasma by V3-Specific Heteroduplex Tracking Assay and Genotype Analyses

ABSTRACT The gp120 V3-encoding region of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA derived from the saliva and blood plasma of 11 individuals was characterized by heteroduplex tracking assay and sequence analyses. R5-like viral variants were identified in both fluids of all subjects. X4-like variants were detected in the plasma and/or saliva of three subjects, indicating that X4-like variants are not excluded from the saliva compartment. Viral subpopulations were similar in both fluids of most subjects, suggesting that HIV-1 in oral fluids and blood may stem from a common source. These findings raise the possibility of using saliva as a noninvasive fluid for evaluating and monitoring viral evolution in infected persons.
Switchable Long-Term Evolution/ Wireless Wide Area Network/ Wireless Local Area Network Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output Antenna System for Laptop Computers

This paper introduces a multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) antenna system for deployment in the closed hinge slot region of notebook computers for long-term evolution (LTE)/wireless wide area network (WWAN)/wireless local area network (WLAN) applications. This antenna system was placed in the closed hinge slot region formed by the full metal cover, metal ground plate, and metal hinges. The MIMO antenna system, includes a main antenna (Ant 1), an auxiliary antenna (Ant 2), and an isolation element. The main and auxiliary antennas were integrated with the metal surrounding them and were used to excite several resonance modes of the closed hinge slot. Excellent antenna efficiency was achieved using the small antennas. Although Ant1 and Ant2 are only 25 mm <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times5$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm in size, they could cover LTE/WWAN or WLAN operating bands by switching feed points in the same antenna pattern. The isolation element—a 10 mm <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\times6$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm metal sheet—was placed at the center of the closed hinge slot region, and enhanced isolation by more than 7 dB. The isolation levels exceeded 18 dB for LTE700/2300/2500 bands and 15 dB for 2.4/5.2/5.8 GHz WLAN bands.
γ-Rays-generated ROS induce apoptosis via mitochondrial and cell cycle alteration in smooth muscle cells

Abstract Purpose: γ-rays (IR) cause an increase in intracellular calcium [Ca2+], alters contractility and triggers apoptosis via the activation of protein kinase C in intestinal guinea pig smooth muscle cells. The present study investigated the role of the mitochondria in these processes and characterized proteins involved in IR-induced apoptosis. Materials and methods: Intestinal smooth muscle cells were exposed to 10–50 Gy from a 60Co γ-source. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels were measured by colourimetry with a fluorescente probe. Protein expression was analyzed by immunoblotting and immunofluorescence. Results: Apoptosis was inhibited by glutathione, possible by inhibiting the generation or scavenging ROS. Apoptosis was mediated by the mitochondria releasing cytochrome c leading to caspase 3 activation. IR increased the expression of the cyclins A, B2 and E and led to unbalanced cellular growth in an absorption dose-dependent manner. However, radiation did not induce alterations in the mitochondrial ultrastructure or in transmembrane electric potential. In contrast, IR increased the nuclear expression of cytoplasmic proteins and cyclins A and E. Conclusion: Smooth muscle cells subjected to IR undergo mitochondrial-mediated apoptosis that involves oncoproteins activation and preserves mitochondrial structure. IR also cause alterations in the expression and localization of both pro- and anti-apoptotic proteins.
Directional Change and Transformation of Sliding F-actin Analyzed by a Semi-Automatic Image Tracking System

We have developed a semi-automatic image tracking system to analyze the longitudinal sliding and transformation of a string-like object. By using this system, we made a moving image analysis on actin filament (F-actin) in an in vitro motility assay. In this assay, F-actin was sliding on the surface under a fluorescent microscope. The tracking system pursues the fluorescent image of F-actin by matching a polygon line model with the video images. In this study, the directional change and the curvatures of the sliding F- actin were statistically analyzed using the data obtained by the tracking system. The simplified sliding motion of the polygon line model was simulated on a computer. By comparing the result of the analysis with that of the simulation, we found that the sliding F-actin has a flexible and compliant nature.
SHB: a strategic hierarchy builder for managing heterogeneous databases

The paper presents a methodology based on data model translation for the management of interoperable information systems. The key feature of this solution are: 1) a set of abstract metatypes that capture the characteristics of various modeling concepts; and 2) the organization of the metatypes in a generalization hierarchy to allow unification and correlation of data models. Description logic formalism is used to provide formal specification of the metatypes and a tool called "Strategic Hierarchy Builder" is defined to build the metatype hierarchy semi-automatically. The Strategic Hierarchy Builder organizes the hierarchy and implements an extensible metamodel in which new metatypes are created by specialization of existing metatypes.
Weather and stroke in a subtropical area: Ilan, Taiwan.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The aim of this study was to clarify the association of weather and stroke occurrence in a subtropical area in Ilan, Taiwan. METHODS We studied 517 patients with stroke (date of onset, January 1 to December 31, 1991) in Poh-Ai Hospital and St Mary's Hospital: 316 patients (61.1%) with cerebral infarction, 170 (32.9%) with intracerebral hemorrhage, and 31 (6.0%) with other types of stroke. The daily occurrence of cerebral infarction and intracerebral hemorrhage was analyzed and correlated with three major meteorologic factors: air temperature, air pressure, and relative humidity. RESULTS The occurrence of cerebral infarction was rather uniform in all kinds of weather. The occurrence of intracerebral hemorrhage was approximately twice as great on cold days (0.71 case per day) and high-pressure days (0.73) as on warm days (0.31) and low-pressure days (0.39) (P < .005 by chi 2 test). When a linear regression model was used to test whether air temperature or air pressure had more influence on intracerebral hemorrhage, only air temperature showed a significant effect. Regarding intracerebral hemorrhage, the relative risks of cooler and median temperature days versus warmer days were 18.5 and 5.1, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Intracerebral hemorrhage but not cerebral infarction occurs more frequently on cooler days, with a dose-response relationship, in Ilan, Taiwan.
Television viewing and risk of sexual initiation by young adolescents.

OBJECTIVE To determine if television viewing is associated with the risk of initiating sexual intercourse in young adolescents. DESIGN Secondary analysis of data obtained from 1994 through 1996. SETTING The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. PARTICIPANTS The 4808 students younger than 16 years who had not initiated intercourse before baseline interview. EXPOSURES Primary exposure was self-reported daily television watching, categorized as low (< 2 hours) or high (> or =2 hours) use. Secondary exposure was parental regulation of television programming watched. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Odds ratio for initiating intercourse by 1-year follow-up, adjusted for potential confounders. RESULTS At baseline, 2414 (48.8%) subjects watched television 2 or more hours per day. By 1-year follow-up, 791 (15.6%) subjects had initiated intercourse. Sexual initiation was associated with high television use (adjusted odds ratio, 1.35; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-1.79) and lack of parental regulation of television programming (adjusted odds ratio, 1.35; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-1.80). Most subjects (73.8%) reported strong parental disapproval of sex; their overall rate of initiation was 12.5%, and their risk was independently associated with high television use (adjusted odds ratio, 1.72; 95% confidence interval, 1.24-2.40) and lack of parental regulation of television programming (adjusted odds ratio, 1.35; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-1.81). Among adolescents who did not report strong parental disapproval, the rate of sexual initiation was higher (24.1%) but unrelated to television use. CONCLUSION Among young adolescents who reported strong parental disapproval of sex, watching television 2 or more hours per day and lack of parental regulation of television programming were each associated with increased risk of initiating sexual intercourse within a year.
Monocular Free-Head 3D Gaze Tracking with Deep Learning and Geometry Constraints

Free-head 3D gaze tracking outputs both the eye location and the gaze vector in 3D space, and it has wide applications in scenarios such as driver monitoring, advertisement analysis and surveillance. A reliable and low-cost monocular solution is critical for pervasive usage in these areas. Noticing that a gaze vector is a composition of head pose and eyeball movement in a geometrically deterministic way, we propose a novel gaze transform layer to connect separate head pose and eyeball movement models. The proposed decomposition does not suffer from head-gaze correlation overfitting and makes it possible to use datasets existing for other tasks. To add stronger supervision for better network training, we propose a two-step training strategy, which first trains sub-tasks with rough labels and then jointly trains with accurate gaze labels. To enable good cross-subject performance under various conditions, we collect a large dataset which has full coverage of head poses and eyeball movements, contains 200 subjects, and has diverse illumination conditions. Our deep solution achieves state-of-the-art gaze tracking accuracy, reaching 5.6° cross-subject prediction error using a small network running at 1000 fps on a single CPU (excluding face alignment time) and 4.3° cross-subject error with a deeper network.
The relationship between school-based health centers and the learning environment.

BACKGROUND School-based health centers (SBHCs) have improved access to primary and preventive health care for underserved children and youth by bringing comprehensive health services into the schools while addressing critical health problems that make it difficult for students to learn. Despite the findings on the positive effects of SBHCs on health outcomes, the literature investigating the relationship between SBHCs and the learning environment is scant. This purpose of this study is to add to the literature by investigating the correlation between SBHCs and perceptions of the overall school learning environment. METHODS This study investigates the relationship between SBHCs and the learning environment utilizing a retrospective quasi-experimental design. Researchers used secondary data from the 2007 Board of Education Learning Environment Survey (LES) of a large northeastern city to compare schools with SBHCs and schools without SBHCs. RESULTS The findings demonstrate that the presence of a SBHC is associated with greater satisfaction in 3 out of 4 learning environment domains. CONCLUSIONS Perhaps by helping to eliminate the barriers that affect lower-performing students' readiness to learn, while improving student and parent engagement, SBHCs can partner with schools to reach their performance and accountability goals.
Non-adherence to treatment in cystic fibrosis.

Introduction Non-adherence to treatment is one of the major problems in the management of cystic fibrosis. Although some authors have considered non-adherence not to be a serious probleml2, others have found a high incidence3'4. There are a number of possible explanations for this variation in findings: the definition of non-adherence, the populations and variables studied, the methodology used and particularly how non-adherence is measured.
Life Goes On: The Experiences of Wives of Multiply-Deployed National Guard Soldiers

Whether a service member is active duty or part of the National Guard, deployment of these service members is a major issue for most families. There is limited knowledge of the experience of multiple deployments on the family. The purpose of this study was to describe experiences of wives of National Guard soldiers that were deployed more than once. Nine wives were interviewed. An analysis of the interviews revealed four themes: (1) “Life Goes On” (i.e., despite the repeated deployments, life continues at home); (2) the “Guard is a Different Animal” (i.e., life as a National Guard spouse is different from that of an active duty spouse); (3) “It's a Mind-Set” (i.e., how wives cope their husband's deployment); and (4) “Going Back Again” (i.e., wives’ experiences of multiple deployments). Exploring how multiple deployments affects wives of National Guard soldiers is helpful in understanding their experiences and the adjustments that must be made in family life. Knowledge of the experiences of these wives may help in formulating more effective interventions with families who have experienced multiple deployments.
Decentralization of forest administration in Indonesia: implications for forest sustainability, economic development and community livelihoods

Since the collapse of Soeharto's New Order regime in May 1998, Indonesia's national, provincial, and district governments have engaged in an intense struggle over how authority and the power embedded in it, should be shared. How this ongoing struggle over authority in the forestry sector will ultimately play out is of considerable significance due to the important role that Indonesia's forests play in supporting rural livelihoods, generating economic revenues, and providing environmental services. This book examines the process of forestry sector decentralization that has occurred in post-Soeharto Indonesia, and assesses the implications of more recent efforts by the national government to recentralize administrative authority over forest resources. It aims to describe the dynamics of decentralization in the forestry sector, to document major changes that occurred as district governments assumed a greater role in administering forest resources, and to assess what the ongoing struggle among Indonesia's national, provincial, and district governments is likely to mean for forest sustainability, economic development at multiple levels, and rural livelihoods. Drawing from primary research conducted by numerous scientists both at CIFOR and its many Indonesian and international partner institutions since 2000, this book sketches the sectoral context for current governmental reforms by tracing forestry development and the changing structure of forest administration from Indonesia's independence in 1945 to the fall of Soeharto's New Order regime in 1998. The authors further examine the origins and scope of Indonesia's decentralization laws in order to describe the legal-regulatory framework within which decentralization has been implemented both at the macro-level and specifically within the forestry sector. This book also analyses the decentralization of Indonesia's fiscal system and describes the effects of the country's new fiscal balancing arrangements on revenue flows from the forestry sector, and describes the dynamics of district-level timber regimes following the adoption of Indonesia's decentralization laws. Finally, this book also examines the real and anticipated effects of decentralization on land tenure and livelihood security for communities living in and around forested areas, and summarizes major findings and options for possible interventions to strengthen the forestry reform efforts currently underway in Indonesia.
Asymptotic Distribution for Conditional MLE of VARMA Models

0.1 Asymptotic Distribution for Conditional MLE of VARMA Models For a well-defined stationary and invertible VARMA(p, q) model, we assume that the innovations {at} satisfies (a) E(at|Ft−1) = 0, (b) E(atat|Ft−1) = Σ > 0, and (c) at has finite fourth moments, where Ft−1 denotes the σ-field generated by {zt−1, zt−2, · · ·}. It has been proven (Dunsmuir and Hannan, 1976, and Hannan and Deistler, 1988, and Reinsel, 1993, p. 117) that the MLE of the model parameters are stongly consistent and asymptotically normally distributed. Here MLE denotes estimates obtained by maximizing the multivariate normal density function. Next, we discuss more on the impulse response functions of VARMA models and introduce the forecast error variance decomposition.
RELATION BETWEEN EXPECTED RETURN AND VOLATILITY AT BUCHAREST STOCK EXCHANGE, ON BUSINESS CYCLE STAGES

The study of the relation between risk and return is an important topic forinvestors in financial assets, which is the reason why many researchers have tackled it. It isonly natural for an investor with aversion for risk, who undertakes a higher risk investment,mare to expect be rewarded accordingly, that is to achieve higher return rates. The researchconducted on various stock markets had contradictory results, which means that the existenceof such a connection is not certain on all stock markets. According to a new hypothesis,tackled by the latest studies, the aversion for risk of rational investors may be related to thestages of the business cycles. This paper deals with the connection between expected returnand volatility at Bucharest Stock Exchange, by analyzing the return and volatility of the BETindex portfolio. In order to assess this relation, we employed heteroskedastic autoregressivemodels. The study was conducted between January 2000 and April 2011, as well as duringtwo sub-periods determined by different business cycle phases: economic growth andrecession. The results revealed significant differences between the whole analyzed period andthe economic growth and recession sub-periods. By studying BSE return throughout theanalyzed period, we conclude that there is no relationship between expected return and risk,whereas volatility is asymmetric. Actually, one may witness a relation between return andrisk, as well as a non-asymmetric response of volatility to shocks during economic growth,and no risk-return relationship and asymmetric volatility during economic recession. Also,results have shown a positive relationship between return and volatility during economicgrowth, and a negative relationship between the same during economic recession.