Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Opposite brain laterality in analogous auditory and visual tests

ABSTRACT Laterality for language processing can be assessed by auditory and visual tasks. Typically, a right ear/right visual half-field (VHF) advantage is observed, reflecting left-hemispheric lateralization for language. Historically, auditory tasks have shown more consistent and reliable results when compared to VHF tasks. While few studies have compared analogous tasks applied to both sensory modalities for the same participants, one such study by Voyer and Boudreau [(2003). Cross-modal correlation of auditory and visual language laterality tasks: a serendipitous finding. Brain Cogn, 53(2), 393–397] found opposite laterality for visual and auditory language tasks. We adapted an experimental paradigm based on a dichotic listening and VHF approach, and applied the combined language paradigm in two separate experiments, including fMRI in the second experiment to measure brain activation in addition to behavioural data. The first experiment showed a right-ear advantage for the auditory task, but a left half-field advantage for the visual task. The second experiment, confirmed the findings, with opposite laterality effects for the visual and auditory tasks. In conclusion, we replicate the finding by Voyer and Boudreau (2003) and support their interpretation that these visual and auditory language tasks measure different cognitive processes.
Exome Sequencing Identifies a Rare HSPG2 Variant Associated with Familial Idiopathic Scoliosis

Idiopathic scoliosis occurs in 3% of individuals and has an unknown etiology. The objective of this study was to identify rare variants that contribute to the etiology of idiopathic scoliosis by using exome sequencing in a multigenerational family with idiopathic scoliosis. Exome sequencing was completed for three members of this multigenerational family with idiopathic scoliosis, resulting in the identification of a variant in the HSPG2 gene as a potential contributor to the phenotype. The HSPG2 gene was sequenced in a separate cohort of 100 unrelated individuals affected with idiopathic scoliosis and also was examined in an independent idiopathic scoliosis population. The exome sequencing and subsequent bioinformatics filtering resulted in 16 potentially damaging and rare coding variants. One of these variants, p.Asn786Ser, is located in the HSPG2 gene. The variant p.Asn786Ser also is overrepresented in a larger cohort of idiopathic scoliosis cases compared with a control population (P = 0.024). Furthermore, we identified additional rare HSPG2 variants that are predicted to be damaging in two independent cohorts of individuals with idiopathic scoliosis. The HSPG2 gene encodes for a ubiquitous multifunctional protein within the extracellular matrix in which loss of function mutation are known to result in a musculoskeletal phenotype in both mouse and humans. Based on these results, we conclude that rare variants in the HSPG2 gene potentially contribute to the idiopathic scoliosis phenotype in a subset of patients with idiopathic scoliosis. Further studies must be completed to confirm the effect of the HSPG2 gene on the idiopathic scoliosis phenotype.
Utility Based Scheduling Algorithm for Multiple Services Per User in MIMO OFDM System

This paper focuses on adaptive resource scheduling for multiple services per user at the downlink of multiple input multiple output (MIMO) - orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. In future wireless networks, one user will simultaneously require multiple homogeneous or heterogeneous services. Then, the scheduling algorithm is responsible for not only assigning resource blocks to different users but also distributing the assigned resource blocks among multiple services for one user. This paper firstly formulates this integrated optimization problem based on utility function in homogeneous service system. As the solution to the optimization problem requires high computational complexity, a sub-optimal and low-complexity algorithm is proposed with two theorems for practical implementation. Moreover, the algorithm is extended to heterogeneous services system by classifying delay sensitive services according to the head-of-line packets delay. The design goal of the algorithm is to fully exploit multiuser diversity gain while guaranteeing the quality of service (QoS) for delay sensitive services. Numeric results show that the algorithm outperforms traditional algorithm in terms of system spectral efficiency and fairness criterion.
Effect of perforated blue polyethylene bunch covers on selected postharvest quality parameters of tissue-cultured bananas (Musa spp.) cv. Williams in Central Kenya

Banana farming in Kenya has recently moved from subsistence to commercial farming. There is therefore the need to produce high quality fruits that are visually acceptable, have good postharvest quality attributes and therefore sell well in both local and international markets. Technologies such as pre-harvest bunch covers have been shown to improve postharvest quality of banana fruits. However, earlier reports on the effect of bunch covers on postharvest quality of banana fruits in the tropics have been contradictory. This study therefore aimed at understanding the effect of perforated polyethylene bunch covers on the postharvest quality characteristics of tissue-cultured bananas using banana (Musa spp.) cv. Williams as the test variety. The trial was carried out in Maragwa region in central province of Kenya, in a complete randomized design and was replicated three times. Perforated dull and shiny blue polyethylene covers were placed when the hands had started to turn upwards. Fruits were harvested at full three quarter maturity. Parameters measured were; bunch weight, finger grade and length, starch, total soluble solids (TSS), sugars, total titratable acidity (TTA), pulp/peel ratio, colour, chlorophyll content, firmness, moisture content, weight loss, green life and shelflife. Banana bunches were also evaluated for cleanliness and bruise marks at harvest. Data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) using the general linear model (GLM) procedure of SAS statistical programme. The means were compared using Student Newman Keuls’ test (SNK) and least significant difference (LSD) at significance level of 5%. Results showed that bunch covers did not influence finger grade, length and bunch weight at harvest. Colour, chlorophyll content, firmness, starch content, TSS, TTA, moisture content, weight loss, individual and total sugars and pulp/peel ratio at harvest and during ripening were not influenced by bunch covers. Bunch covers did not influence greenlife and shelflife significantly. Fruits grown under cover were more visually appealing, cleaner and had minimal bruises compared to the unbagged fruits. However, bunch covers had some detrimental effects on postharvest quality characteristics of banana fruits of the covered bunches compared to the fruits from the control, where few fingers of top hands of some bunches suffered sun burn. The study has shown that perforated dull and shiny blue bunch covers may be used in commercial banana orchards in Kenya to produce high quality fruits especially in the cooler areas. Key words: Musa spp, polyethylene bunch covers, postharvest quality.
Functional Activation during an Auditory Comprehension Task in Patients with Temporal Lobe Lesions

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to map regional brain activation during an auditory comprehension task in two normal controls and two patients with left temporal lobe lesions. Activity in the superior temporal and angular gyrus regions was detected in all normal subjects. In the patients, the spatial distribution of activation ipsilateral to the lesions differed from the pattern observed in contralateral cortex or in control subjects. These studies highlight the potential of fMRI for mapping abnormal functional anatomy in the human brain.
First steps toward an electronic field guide for plants

We describe an ongoing project to digitize information about plant specimens and make it available to botanists in the field. This first requires digital images and models, and then effective retrieval and mobile computing mechanisms for accessing this information. We have almost completed a digital archive of the collection of type specimens at the Smithsonian Institution Department of Botany. Using these and additional images, we have also constructed prototype electronic field guides for the flora of Plummers Island. Our guides use a novel computer vision algorithm to compute leaf similarity. This algorithm is integrated into image browsers that assist a user in navigating a large collection of images to identify the species of a new specimen. For example, our systems allow a user to photograph a leaf and use this image to retrieve a set of leaves with similar shapes. We measured the effectiveness of one of these systems with recognition experiments on a large dataset of images, and with user studies of the complete retrieval system. In addition, we describe future directions for acquiring models of more complex, 3D specimens, and for using new methods in wearable computing to interact with data in the 3D environment in which it is acquired.
EURRECA—Estimating Selenium Requirements for Deriving Dietary Reference Values

Current reference values for selenium, an essential micronutrient, are based on the intake of selenium that is required to achieve maximal glutathione peroxidase activity in plasma or erythrocytes. In order to assess the evidence of relevance to setting dietary reference values for selenium, the EURRECA Network of Excellence focused on systematic searches, review, and evaluation of (i) selenium status biomarkers and evidence for relationships between intake and status biomarkers, (ii) selenium and health (including the effect of intake and/or status biomarkers on cancer risk, immune function, HIV, cognition, and fertility), (iii) bioavailability of selenium from the diet, and (iv) impact of genotype/single nucleotide polymorphisms on status or health outcomes associated with selenium. The main research outputs for selenium and future research priorities are discussed further in this review.
The Effect of China ’ s Weak Institutional Environment on the Quality of Big 4 Audits

This study examines whether China’s weak institutional environment results in lower-quality audits by the Big 4 firms. We find that the Big 4 assign their less experienced partners to companies that are listed only in China compared with clients cross-listed in Hong Kong. The Big 4 are less likely to issue modified audit reports, and they charge lower audit fees for clients that are listed only in China. Finally, companies listed only in China have larger signed abnormal accruals than do companies crosslisted in Hong Kong. Overall, we conclude that the weak institutional environment in China results in the Big 4 firms providing lower-quality audits to companies that are listed only in China.
A stream-oriented power management protocol for low duty cycle sensor network applications

Most power management protocols are packet-based and optimized for applications with mostly asynchronous (i.e. unexpected) traffic. We present AppSleep, a stream-oriented power management protocol for latency tolerant sensor network applications. For this class of applications, AppSleep demonstrates an over 3/spl times/ lifetime gain over B-MAC and SMAC. AppSleep leverages application characteristics in order to take advantage of periods of high latency tolerance to put the network to sleep for extended periods of time, while still facilitating low latency responses when required. AppSleep also gives applications the flexibility to efficiently and effectively trade latency for energy when desired, and enables energy efficient multi-fragment unicast communication by only keeping the active route awake. We also present Adaptive AppSleep, an application driven addition to AppSleep which supports varying latency requirements while still maximizing energy efficiency. Our evaluation demonstrates that for an overlooked class of applications, stream-oriented power management protocols such as AppSleep outperform packet-based protocols such as B-MAC and S-MAC.
Description Logic-Based Web Service Self-Adaptation Strategy Representation

Method of representation for Web service self-adaptation strategy is studied. By this method, description logic is exploited to support the modeling of self-adaptation strategies. The framework of description logic-based adaptation strategy representation is presented with syntax and semantics. Examples are given to show the formalization of self-adaptation strategy. Furthermore, self-adaptation strategy reasoning using description logic is introduced, which mainly includes self-adaptation strategy subsumption reasoning and realization reasoning. Three different subsumptions between strategies suitable for different tasks are identified: abstraction subsumption, goal subsumption, and applicability subsumption. The proposed way has the potential to provide a formal and semantically rich representation for self-adaptation strategy.
Using Content-level Structures for Summarizing Microblog Repost Trees

A microblog repost tree provides strong clues on how an event described therein develops. To help social media users capture the main clues of events on microblogging sites, we propose a novel repost tree summarization framework by effectively differentiating two kinds of messages on repost trees called leaders and followers, which are derived from contentlevel structure information, i.e., contents of messages and the reposting relations. To this end, Conditional Random Fields (CRF) model is used to detect leaders across repost tree paths. We then present a variant of random-walk-based summarization model to rank and select salient messages based on the result of leader detection. To reduce the error propagation cascaded from leader detection, we improve the framework by enhancing the random walk with adjustment steps for sampling from leader probabilities given all the reposting messages. For evaluation, we construct two annotated corpora, one for leader detection, and the other for repost tree summarization. Experimental results confirm the effectiveness of our method.
Staphylococcus aureus Contains Two Low-Molecular-Mass Phosphotyrosine Protein Phosphatases

ABSTRACT The analysis of the different amino acid sequences deduced from the complete genome sequence of the gram-positive bacterium Staphylococcus aureus suggested the presence of two eukaryotic-protein-like low-molecular-mass phosphotyrosine protein phosphatases, which are usually found in gram-negative bacteria. To check this prediction, the corresponding genes were cloned and overexpressed in an Escherichia coli system. Two distinct proteins with an apparent molecular mass of 23 kDa each, PtpA and PtpB, were produced and then purified by affinity chromatography and assayed for enzymatic properties. As expected, they both exhibited phosphatase activity in vitro, with a maximum value at a pH of around 6.2 and at a temperature of 40°C. In addition, their kinetic constants, their specificity for phosphotyrosine residues, and their sensitivity to two phosphatase inhibitors, N-ethylmaleimide and orthovanadate, matched those of acid low-molecular-mass phosphotyrosine protein phosphatases.
Homocysteine, Cortisol, Diabetes Mellitus, and Psychopathology

Objective. This study investigates the association of homocysteine and cortisol with psychological factors in type 2 diabetic patients. Method. Homocysteine, cortisol, and psychological variables were analyzed from 131 diabetic patients. Psychological factors were assessed with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire (HDHQ), the Symptom Checklist 90-R (SCL 90-R), the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (ZDRS), and the Maudsley O-C Inventory Questionnaire (MOCI). Blood samples were taken by measuring homocysteine and cortisol in both subgroups during the initial phase of the study (T0). One year later (T1), the uncontrolled diabetic patients were reevaluated with the use of the same psychometric instruments and with an identical blood analysis. Results. The relation of psychoticism and homocysteine is positive among controlled diabetic patients (P value = 0.006 < 0.05) and negative among uncontrolled ones (P value = 0.137). Higher values of cortisol correspond to lower scores on extraversion subscale (r p = −0.223, P value = 0.010). Controlled diabetic patients showed a statistically significant negative relationship between homocysteine and the act-out hostility subscale (r sp = −0.247, P = 0.023). There is a statistically significant relationship between homocysteine and somatization (r sp = −0.220, P = 0.043). Conclusions. These findings support the notion that homocysteine and cortisol are related to trait and state psychological factors in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2.
Frequency-Domain Upsampling on a Body-Centered Cubic Lattice for Efficient and High-Quality Volume Rendering

In volume-rendering applications, an appropriate resampling filter can be chosen by making a compromise between quality and efficiency. For realtime volume visualization, usually the trilinear filter is used, since its evaluation is directly supported by the recent GPUs. Although higher-order filters (e.g. quadratic or cubic filters) ensure much higher image quality, due to their larger support, they are significantly more expensive to evaluate even if a GPU acceleration is applied. Instead of higher-order filtering, in this paper, we propose a frequency-domain upsampling on an optimal BodyCentered Cubic (BCC) lattice. The obtained BCCsampled representation is rendered by using a simple GPU-accelerated trilinear B-spline reconstruction. Although this approach doubles the storage requirements, it provides similar quality as the most popular cubic filters, but for a significantly lower computational overhead.
A multiprojection noncontact fluorescence tomography setup for imaging arbitrary geometries

Optical imaging and tomography in tissues can facilitate the quantitative study of several important chromophores and fluorophores in-vivo. Due to this fact, there has been great interest in developing imaging systems offering quantitative information on the location and concentration of chromophores and fluorescent probes. However, most imaging systems currently used in research make use of fiber technology for delivery and detection, which restricts the size of the photon collecting arrays leading to insufficient spatial sampling and field of view. To enable large data sets and full 360o angular measurements, we developed a novel imaging system that enables 3D imaging of fluorescent signals in bodies of arbitrary shapes in a non-contact geometry in combination with a 3D surface reconstruction algorithm. The system consists of a rotating subject holder and a lens coupled Charge Coupled Device (CCD) camera in combination with a fiber coupled laser scanning device. An Argon ion laser is used as the source and different filters are used for the detection of various fluorophores or fluorescing proteins. With this new setup a large measurements dataset can be achieved while the use of inversion models give a high capacity for quantitative 3D reconstruction of fluorochrome distributions as well as high spatial resolution. The system is currently being tested in the observation of the distribution of Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) expressing T-lymphocytes in order to study the function of the immune system in a murine model.
Mechanical Behavior of a Series of Copolyester Blends near the Glass Transition: Monotonic and Load-Hold Behavior in Compression

Monotonic loading tests were conducted on five commercial blends of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and poly(1,4-cyclohexylenedimethylene terephthalate) (PCT) at temperatures of 90°C and 100°C and strain rates of 0.1/s, 0.05/s, and 0.005/s in uniaxial and plane strain compression. On comparing the mechanical behavior of the five materials, it was found that the behavior of the low-PCT content materials was different from the high-PCT content materials only at conditions that favored strain-induced crystallization, particularly in plane strain compression. Load-hold tests were also conducted on three of the blends with similar results to the monotonic tests. Material differences were only pronounced at certain conditions, and in these cases the low-PCT content materials showed increased strain hardening after the hold period while the high-PCT content material did not. Therefore, it was found that the addition of a hold period was not exclusively required to observe differences in the crystallizable materials over the noncrystallizing blends. The increased strain hardening likely associated with crystallization in PET was only observed when the following conditions were met: (i) strain rates of 0.1/s and above, (ii) temperatures of 90°C–100°C, (iii) plane strain compression, and (iv) after a certain level of deformation.
Probing the helicity structure of $b \to s \gamma$ in $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda \gamma$

We investigate the rare decay $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda \gamma$ which receives both short and long distance contributions. We estimate the long distance contributions and find them very small. The form factors are obtained from $\Lambda_c \to \Lambda \ell \bar{\nu}_\ell$ using heavy quark symmetry and a pole model. The short distance piece opens a window to new physics and we discuss the sensitivity of $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda \gamma$ to such effects.
Panoramic vision and LRF sensor fusion based human identification and tracking for autonomous luggage cart

In this paper, we propose a solution for human identification and localization with a mobile robot problem that implements multi-sensor data fusion techniques. This solution is designed for an autonomous luggage cart. The system utilizes a new approach based on identifying the target human visually from an omni directional camera then localizing and tracking him using LRF. This approach is composed of "Registration Stage" and "Identification and Localization Stage". The registration stage extracts all necessary information needed including patches from the clothes. The identification is made using a modified pattern-matching algorithm to fit to a real time application. The tracking is implemented using a positions history structure to keep record of all positions of surrounding objects and the identified human.We implemented the proposed approach in fixed configuration to test its effectiveness.
Internal Friction in Metallic Materials: A Handbook

1. Introduction to Internal Friction: Terms and Definitions. - 2. Anelastic Relaxation Mechanisms of Internal Friction. - 3. Other Mechanisms of Internal Friction. - 4. Internal Friction Data of Crystalline Metals and Alloys (Tables). - 5. Internal Friction Data of Special Types of Metallic Materials (Tables).