Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Pandora Effect

Curiosity—the desire for information—underlies many human activities, from reading celebrity gossip to developing nuclear science. Curiosity is well recognized as a human blessing. Is it also a human curse? Tales about such things as Pandora’s box suggest that it is, but scientific evidence is lacking. In four controlled experiments, we demonstrated that curiosity could lead humans to expose themselves to aversive stimuli (even electric shocks) for no apparent benefits. The research suggests that humans possess an inherent desire, independent of consequentialist considerations, to resolve uncertainty; when facing something uncertain and feeling curious, they will act to resolve the uncertainty even if they expect negative consequences. This research reveals the potential perverse side of curiosity, and is particularly relevant to the current epoch, the epoch of information, and to the scientific community, a community with high curiosity.
Presence of third molars in orthodontic patients from northern Greece

Objective The purpose of the present study was to investigate the frequency of presence of third molar teeth and their distribution in each jaw and each side, according to sex, in a group of orthodontic patients with permanent dentition from northern Greece. Methods The sample included panoramic radiographs from 220 patients with permanent dentition (mean age 13.62 ± 1.81). The χ2 test was used to assess the relationships between the variables, and the Fisher’s exact test was used in cases where the expected frequencies in each cell were <5. Results The frequency of third molar presence was 79.1%, and 20.9% was the frequency of third molar agenesis. Intersexual differences in the number of third molars was not statistically significant. There was a correlation between the distribution of third molars on the right and the left side (Fisher’s exact test = 100.788; P = 0). The two sides showed the same tendency toward the presence or absence of third molars. A correlation was also found between the distribution of maxillary and mandibular third molars (Fisher’s exact test = 24.372; P = 0). In each jaw, the presence or absence of third molars was highly related to the number of third molars found in the other jaw. Conclusion The present results showed that in this orthodontic group of northern Greek patients, presence accounted for 79.1% and agenesis for 20.9%. No significant difference was found between the frequencies of third molar presence on the left and right sides in either the maxilla or mandible.
A compact broadband mixed-signal power amplifier in bulk CMOS with hybrid Class-G and dynamic load trajectory manipulation operations

We present a mixed-signal PA with real-time Class-G and dynamic load trajectory manipulation (DLTM) hybrid operations to achieve PA efficiency enhancement up to the deep power back-off (PBO) region. Moreover, the PA load trajectory is dynamically manipulated to achieve PA efficiency peaking during the PBO operation, and the PA load modulation network is realized by only one on-chip transformer balun for an ultra-compact layout. A prototype PA fully integrated in a standard 65nm bulk CMOS process achieves +24.6dBm peak output power (Pout) and 45.6% maximum drain efficiency (DE) at 2.4GHz. By combining the real-time Class-G and DLTM hybrid operations with mixed-signal AM and PM linearization, the PA delivers a +18.5dBm 10MSym/s 64-QAM signal with 32.6% DE and -27.8dB EVM. The DLTM operation also extends the PA Pout 1dB bandwidth by 40%. The total chip area is only 1.9mm2.
Neurocognitive Impairment in Schizophrenia and how it Affects Treatment Options

Objective To review the roles played by neurocognitive assessment in the treatment of schizophrenia and in the design of treatment research strategies. Method A review of the literature and summaries of clinical and research implications are presented, with directions for future research. Results Neurocognitive deficits are now targets of antipsychotic drug treatment and should increasingly be used to refine both theory and clinical practice by considering the effects of treatments at the level of neural systems. Conclusion Efforts to bridge the gaps between preclinical and clinical assessments should yield large rewards in drug development and individualized treatment strategies. Functional neuroimaging may play a major role in these developments.
A new method for estimating the demographic history from DNA sequences: an importance sampling approach

The effective population size over time (demographic history) can be retraced from a sample of contemporary DNA sequences. In this paper, we propose a novel methodology based on importance sampling (IS) for exploring such demographic histories. Our starting point is the generalized skyline plot with the main difference being that our procedure, skywis plot, uses a large number of genealogies. The information provided by these genealogies is combined according to the IS weights. Thus, we compute a weighted average of the effective population sizes on specific time intervals (epochs), where the genealogies that agree more with the data are given more weight. We illustrate by a simulation study that the skywis plot correctly reconstructs the recent demographic history under the scenarios most commonly considered in the literature. In particular, our method can capture a change point in the effective population size, and its overall performance is comparable with the one of the bayesian skyline plot. We also introduce the case of serially sampled sequences and illustrate that it is possible to improve the performance of the skywis plot in the case of an exponential expansion of the effective population size.
Plastic Strain Hardening Effect on Ductile Fracture Resistance

The effect of strain hardening on ductile fracture resistance is unclear and contradictory in the literature. The effect is also difficult to verify experimentally. In this paper the complete Gurson model developed by the authors has been applied to numerically investigate the effect of strain hardening on ductile fracture resistance. It has been found that the predicted fracture resistance pattern depends on the element damage strain and void coalescence criterion. When an unrealistically large critical void volume fraction is used the plastic strain hardening displays a positive effect on the predicted crack resistance. However, when Thomason’s plastic limit load based void coalescence criterion is used (the so-called complete Gurson model) plastic strain hardening has shown to reduce the crack resistance.
Intracellular Enzymatic Formation of Nanofibers Results in Hydrogelation and Regulated Cell Death

Self-assembly, a fundamental process at all scales, [1] plays a vital role in nature and provides an important guidance for design and fabrication of functional materials. [2] Particularly, self-assembly provides an attractive and practical methodology for creating artificial nanostructures that promise broad impacts and applications in the emerging field of nano-science. For example, self-assembled nanoparticles can lead to novel optical materials [3] and high-density magnetic recording media; [4] self-assembled monolayers [5] have enabled nano-meter thickness organic films to be constructed on a variety of substrates for modeling biological surface to control the fate of cells, [6] building molecular electronic devices, [7] developing nanolithography, [8] and generating nanostructures for biomedical diagnostics; [9] and the self-assembly of oligopeptides [10,11] and other organic molecules [12] has resulted in nanofibers as the functional matrices of hydrogels that find possible applications in tissue engineering, [10,13] inhibitor screening, [14] and wound healing. [15] Although these works reflect the exciting and important development of self-assembled nanostructures in a non-biological arena or extracellular settings, intracellular creation of artificial nanostructures remains less explored and its subsequent biological effects largely unknown despite of its potential significances and applications.
Association of adherence to a Mediterranean diet with glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors in youth with type 1 diabetes : The SEARCH Nutrition Ancillary Study

Victor W. Zhong, BS1, Archana P. Lamichhane, PhD1, Jamie L. Crandell, PhD2, Sarah C. Couch, PhD3, Angela D. Liese, PhD4, Natalie S. The, PhD5, Benjamin A. Tzeel, BA1, Dana Dabelea, MD, PhD6, Jean M. Lawrence, ScD, MPH, MSSA7, Santica M. Marcovina, PhD8, Grace Kim, MD9, and Elizabeth J. Mayer-Davis, PhD1,10 1Department of Nutrition, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA 2School of Nursing and Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Photochemical transformations of riverine dissolved organic matter: effects on estuarine bacterial metabolism and nutrient demand

By experimentally simulating the exposure of terrigenous dissolved organic matter (DOM) to sunlight during the mixing of river water and seawater in an estuary (St. Helena Sound, South Carolina), this study examined how photochemical alterations may affect both the magnitude and fate of DOM utilization by estuarine bacteria. In a series of experiments performed with water samples collected from 3 blackwater rivers draining into an estuary of the South Atlantic Bight (USA), exposure to light resulted in significant decreases in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration and DOM absorption at 350 nm relative to dark controls. When these water samples were subsequently inoculated with an estuarine bacterial community, prior exposure to light significantly increased bacterial growth, respiration and total DOC consumption relative to that observed in control treatments. Increases in respiration (46 to 78 %) were, however, always greater than increases in growth (19 to 35 %). This resulted in decreases in bacterial growth efficiency that ranged from 16 to 33 % and appeared predictable from initial differences in DOM optical characteristics. In addition, although light exposure consistently resulted in significant NH 4 production, bacterial metabolism in light treatments was accompanied by a significant increase in bacterial demand for inorganic nutrients (117 to 243% over dark controls). These results indicate that irradiation of terrigenous DOM significantly alters its ultimate fate (CO 2 vs. bacterial biomass) and that bacterial carbon metabolism of photoaltered DOM is coupled to an enhanced demand for inorganic nutrients, which may considerably influence ecosystem-scale carbon and nutrient interactions in the coastal zone.
Bcl-2 functionally interacts with inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptors to regulate calcium release from the ER in response to inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate

Inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (InsP3) receptors (InsP3Rs) are channels responsible for calcium release from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). We show that the anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 (either wild type or selectively localized to the ER) significantly inhibited InsP3-mediated calcium release and elevation of cytosolic calcium in WEHI7.2 T cells. This inhibition was due to an effect of Bcl-2 at the level of InsP3Rs because responses to both anti-CD3 antibody and a cell-permeant InsP3 ester were decreased. Bcl-2 inhibited the extent of calcium release from the ER of permeabilized WEHI7.2 cells, even at saturating concentrations of InsP3, without decreasing luminal calcium concentration. Furthermore, Bcl-2 reduced the open probability of purified InsP3Rs reconstituted into lipid bilayers. Bcl-2 and InsP3Rs were detected together in macromolecular complexes by coimmunoprecipitation and blue native gel electrophoresis. We suggest that this functional interaction of Bcl-2 with InsP3Rs inhibits InsP3R activation and thereby regulates InsP3-induced calcium release from the ER.
The University of Cambridge Russian-English System at WMT13

This paper describes the University of Cambridge submission to the Eighth Workshop on Statistical Machine Translation. We report results for the RussianEnglish translation task. We use multiple segmentations for the Russian input language. We employ the Hadoop framework to extract rules. The decoder is HiFST, a hierarchical phrase-based decoder implemented using weighted finitestate transducers. Lattices are rescored with a higher order language model and minimum Bayes-risk objective.
Integrating Goal Models and Problem Frames for Requirements Analysis of Self-Adaptive CPS

As Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) operate in open, dynamic and diverse environments, they need to be self-adaptive to address the uncertainty challenges. And it is urgent to study self-adaptive software intensive Cyber-Physical Systems (self-adaptive CPS). As self-adaptive CPS interact closely with the environments and users, their requirements analysis is particularly challenging. General requirement models (e.g., goal models and problem frames) of CPS or self-adaptive software cannot be directly applied to self-adaptive CPS. In this paper, we present the Adapt-Requirement Model, which integrates goal models and problem frames, and further extends both models with self-adaptive CPS concepts. The integrated approach incorporates advantages of both goal models and problem frames, and can specify adaptation objectives of stakeholders as well as dynamic contexts of the system. Moreover, we create a UML Profile to represent Adapt-Requirement Model, and create a supporting tool for it. The UML profile and supporting tool has established continuity and integratability between Adapt-Requirement Model and UML design models. The applicability of our approach is illustrated using an example of Smart Building Firefighting System.
On local spatial outliers

We propose a measure, spatial local outlier measure (SLOM) which captures the local behaviour of datum in their spatial neighborhood. With the help of SLOM, we are able to discern local spatial outliers which are usually missed by global techniques like "three standard deviations away from the mean". Furthermore, the measure takes into account the local stability around a data point and supresses the reporting of outliers in highly unstable areas, where data is too heterogeneous and the notion of outliers is not meaningful. We prove several properties of SLOM and report experiments on synthetic and real data sets which show that our approach is scalable to large data sets.
Adhesion Frequency in Interfacial Dynamics of Copolymers

Abstract This paper introduces the concept of adhesion frequency that characterizes the dynamic interaction between a polymer matrix and a solid surface. It is argued that the pressure sensitive bonding of a polymer interface occurs within a critical time scale below which no wetting is established upon contact. The adhesion frequency can be viewed as the inverse of this critical time scale. The bonding kinetics is used to model transient adhesion and take into account the growth of bonding energy with time. The mechanics of the interfacial dynamics is used to derive expressions for the adhesion frequency when inertial, viscous or elastic effects dominate the surface deformation. Transient adhesion effects are also investigated experimentally using non-axisymmetric rotating bits and commercially-available copolymer adhesives. The rotating bits induce an oscillatory motion on the polymer surface. Experiments are conducted with the rotating bits spinning at a wide range of speeds making it possible to obtain the dynamic response of the polymer interface as well as to measure the adhesion frequency for the tested polymers.
The influence of mechanical cold drawing and drawing velocity on the molecular structure of isotactic polypropylene fiber

The main goal of this work study is to study the influence of mechanical cold drawing and drawing velocity on the molecular orientation and physical structure parameters of isotactic polypropylene, iPP, fibers. A Video Opto- Mechanical device (VOM) attached with automatic multiple-beam interferometric technique was used to cold draw iPP fibers at different draw ratio and drawing velocity. The molecular structure of iPP fiber was characterized by measuring the refractive indices, birefringence, optical orientation function, orientation angle, the percentage of the volume fraction of amorphous and crystalline regions, density and the mean square density fluctuation. The obtained microinterferograms of multiple beam interference fringes were enhanced and the noises were removed by using Fourier transform method. The obtained contour lines were analyzed via a software program for fiber refractive index determination. The results show that the drawing velocity has a less effect than the draw ratio on the molecular structure of iPP fiber. The contour lines of microinterferograms are given for illustration. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013
Clustering the infant brain tissues based on microstructural properties and maturation assessment using multi-parametric MRI

Microstructural and physiological changes are intense in the developing brain, thus considerably modifying parameters quantified by MRI (relaxation times, anisotropy and diffusivities). The latest advances in EPI enabled to non-invasively measure these parameters in infants in a reasonable acquisition time to follow brain maturation. To take advantage of the parameters complementarity, we first proposed to correct EPI distortions by a registration approach never applied on infants' data. We then clustered brain regions according to their different microstructural properties and maturation, without spatial priors. Results were in agreement with post-mortem studies : maturation proceeds from center to periphery; first maturing regions included primary regions, but also the amygdala and the medial cingular region. The most delayed regions were observed in superior frontal and parietal lobes. In future analyses, we will propose new partitions of the whole brain and of specific functional regions based on maturation patterns returned by this approach.
Mirrorcle: Enhanced Visual Feedback to support Motor Learning in Low Back Pain

About 60 to 90% of the population has experienced low back pain (LBP) once in their life; yearly this is 5% of the population. Non specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) is LBP without a specific cause that lasts longer than twelve weeks. Research has shown that exercise therapy is the most effective rehabilitation method; and can be enhanced by technological systems. This knowledge served as a base for the development of Mirrorcle. Mirrorcle is an interactive mirror that provides a set of exercises, designed for persons suffering from NSCLBP. By giving extrinsic feedback during and after the exercises, Mirrorcle enables patients to perform their exercises better and learn more from them. Five physiotherapists rated the credibility for the use of Mirrorcle in rehabilitation as high and the expectancy for good treatment results as moderate. A usability questionnaire and observation was done with one LBP patient. During this test, the usability of Mirrorcle was perceived positive.
Pulmonary embolism in intensive care unit: Predictive factors, clinical manifestations and outcome

OBJECTIVE: To determine predictive factors, clinical and demographics characteristics of patients with pulmonary embolism (PE) in ICU, and to identify factors associated with poor outcome in the hospital and in the ICU. METHODS: During a four-year prospective study, a medical committee of six ICU physicians prospectively examined all available data for each patient in order to classify patients according to the level of clinical suspicion of pulmonary thromboembolism. During the study periods, all patients admitted to our ICU were classified into four groups. The first group includes all patients with confirmed PE; the second group includes some patients without clinical manifestations of PE; the third group includes patients with suspected and not confirmed PE and the fourth group includes all patients with only deep vein thromboses (DVTs) without suspicion of PE. The diagnosis of PE was confirmed either by a high-probability ventilation/perfusion (V/Q) scan or by a spiral computed tomography (CT) scan showing one or more filling defects in the pulmonary artery or in its branches. The diagnosis was also confirmed by echocardiography when a thrombus in the pulmonary artery was observed. RESULTS: During the study periods, 4408 patients were admitted in our ICU. The diagnosis of PE was confirmed in 87 patients (1.9%). The mean delay of development of PE was 7.8 ± 9.5 days. On the day of PE diagnosis, clinical examination showed that 50 patients (57.5%) were hypotensive, 63 (72.4%) have SIRS, 15 (17.2%) have clinical manifestations of DVT and 71 (81.6%) have respiratory distress requiring mechanical ventilation. In our study, intravenous unfractionated heparin was used in 81 cases (93.1%) and low molecular weight heparins were used in 4 cases (4.6%). The mean ICU stay was 20.2 ± 25.3 days and the mean hospital stay was 25.5 ± 25 days. The mortality rate in ICU was 47.1% and the in-hospital mortality rate was 52.9%. Multivariate analysis showed that factors associated with a poor prognosis in ICU are the use of norepinephrine and epinephrine. Furthermore, factors associated with in-hospital poor outcome in multivariate analysis were a number of organ failure associated with PE ≥ 3. Moreover, comparison between patients with and without pe showed that predictive factors of pe are: acute medical illness, the presence of meningeal hemorrhage, the presence of spine fracture, hypoxemia with PaO2/FiO2 ratio <300 and the absence of pharmacological prevention of venous thromboembolism. CONCLUSION: Despite the high frequency of DVT in critically ill patients, symptomatic PE remains not frequently observed, because systematic screening is not performed. Pulmonary embolism is associated with a high ICU and in-hospital mortality rate. Predictive factors of PE are acute medical illness, the presence of meningeal hemorrhage, the presence of spine fracture, hypoxemia with PaO2/FiO2 < 300 and the absence of pharmacological prevention of venous thromboembolism.
Analysis of Oligomerization Properties of Heme a Synthase Provides Insights into Its Function in Eukaryotes*

Heme a is an essential cofactor for function of cytochrome c oxidase in the mitochondrial electron transport chain. Several evolutionarily conserved enzymes have been implicated in the biosynthesis of heme a, including the heme a synthase Cox15. However, the structure of Cox15 is unknown, its enzymatic mechanism and the role of active site residues remain debated, and recent discoveries suggest additional chaperone-like roles for this enzyme. Here, we investigated Cox15 in the model eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae via several approaches to examine its oligomeric states and determine the effects of active site and human pathogenic mutations. Our results indicate that Cox15 exhibits homotypic interactions, forming highly stable complexes dependent upon hydrophobic interactions. This multimerization is evolutionarily conserved and independent of heme levels and heme a synthase catalytic activity. Four conserved histidine residues are demonstrated to be critical for eukaryotic heme a synthase activity and cannot be substituted with other heme-ligating amino acids. The 20-residue linker region connecting the two conserved domains of Cox15 is also important; removal of this linker impairs both Cox15 multimerization and enzymatic activity. Mutations of COX15 causing single amino acid conversions associated with fatal infantile hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and the neurological disorder Leigh syndrome result in impaired stability (S344P) or catalytic function (R217W), and the latter mutation affects oligomeric properties of the enzyme. Structural modeling of Cox15 suggests these two mutations affect protein folding and heme binding, respectively. We conclude that Cox15 multimerization is important for heme a biosynthesis and/or transfer to maturing cytochrome c oxidase.