Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of surgery and analgesic administration on spontaneous behaviour in singly housed rats.

The study examined the use of behaviour in assessing post-laparotomy pain in rats given subcutaneous injections of saline (0.2 ml 100 g(-1)) or the analgesics buprenorphine (0.05 mg kg(-1)) or ketoprofen (5 mg kg(-1)). Procedural control influences (handling/movement, anaesthesia, injections) were studied in a second group. Of 150 behaviours examined, discriminant analysis classified the main treatment effects, and class mean frequencies were compared between treatments within each group. With the exception of buprenorphine treatment, control procedures reduced the frequency of active, attentive and grooming behaviour, and increased sleeping during 24 hours following each treatment. Moving animals to the theatre was the main factor responsible for these changes. Surgery also reduced active and attentive behaviour. Animals given pre-operative saline were more frequently inactive than those given ketoprofen. These effects most likely resulted from post-surgery pain, but this was not significantly diminished with the ketoprofen dose used. In all cases, buprenorphine outweighed these effects, causing a sustained increase in active, inactive and attentive behaviour, such that determination of any analgesic effects was impossible. The study underlined a role for pain assessments based on rat behaviour. Drug-related effects emphasised a need for more comprehensive assessments encompassing procedural influences, before behaviour changes that are potentially pain related may be determined accurately.
Sampling-Based Planning and Local Reactive Strategies for Environment Manipulation

We address the motion planning problem for a single robot that manipulates passive objects in an otherwise static environment. We handle uncertainties in passive object responses while abstracting their dynamics by creating a roadmap that encodes the possible passive object responses. The robot extracts reference paths from the passive roadmap to plan approaching motions with an active roadmap. When the robot acts on the object, it receives response feedback and reacts accordingly. We apply this approach to pushing, a basic manipulation primitive. We propose four different pushing strategies, one of them using reinforcement learning. Our simulations show the effectiveness of the approach and of each pushing strategy.
Prosodic, Spectral and Voice Quality Feature Selection Using a Long-Term Stopping Criterion for Audio-Based Emotion Recognition

Emotion recognition from speech is an important field of research in human-machine-interfaces, and has begun to influence everyday life by employment in different areas such as call centers or wearable companions in the form of smartphones. In the proposed classification architecture, different spectral, prosodic and the relatively novel voice quality features are extracted from the speech signals. These features are then used to represent long-term information of the speech, leading to utterance-wise suprasegmental features. The most promising of these features are selected using a forward-selection/backward-elimination algorithm with a novel long-term termination criterion for the selection. The overall system has been evaluated using recordings from the public Berlin emotion database. Utilizing the resulted features, a recognition rate of 88,97% has been achieved which surpasses the performance of humans on this database and is comparable to the state of the art performance on this dataset.
A Comparative Study of Family-Based and Patient-Based Behavioural Management in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Thirty obsessive-compulsive patients were randomly allocated to two treatment conditions. In group A a significant family member was trained to act as cotherapist at home, whereas in group B, only the patient was seen and given home assignments. All 30 patients received a similar treatment regime of systematic desensitisation, exposure, and response prevention. The family-based approach resulted in greater improvement in anxiety, depression, obsessive symptoms, and in social adjustment in occupational and household responsibilities. The personality pattern of the family members also appeared to influence outcome.
Mitigation of Voltage Disturbances Using Dynamic Voltage Restorer Based on Direct Converters

In this paper, two new topologies are proposed for three-phase dynamic voltage restorers (DVRs). These topologies are based on direct converters. The proposed topologies do not require dc-link energy storage elements. As a result, they have less volume, weight, and cost. They can also compensate long-time voltage sags and swells. The proposed DVRs can compensate several types of disturbances, such as voltage sags, swells, unbalances, harmonics, and flickers. Moreover, due to the fact that the compensation voltage for each phase is taken from all three phases, the proposed topologies can compensate one-phase outages. In the proposed topologies, three independent three-phase to single-phase direct converters are used. Each converter operates independently and, as a result, the proposed DVRs properly compensate unbalanced voltage sags and swells. The used converters can be constructed by four or six power switches. Depending on the structure of the used converters, the compensation ranges will be different. A new control method is also proposed for using direct ac/ac converters. The experimental and simulation results verify the capabilities of the proposed topologies in compensation of voltage distortions.
Financial Structure and Economic Development in Africa

This paper explores the relationship between economic development and financial structure: that is, whether the degree of financial system structure matter for pace and character of economic development in 15 African countries for the period of 1995 to 2011. The paper utilizes the fixed effect instrument variable technique for econometric estimation. None of the financial structure indicators enters any of the economic development regressions significantly at the conventional 10% level, which is inconsistent with bank-based and market-based system view of financial system. Therefore, financial structure does not matter for economic development in these African countries. Rather, financial services are a significant determinant of economic development for our sample of 15 African countries. The overarching policy implication therefore is that relevant authorities should invest in accumulating both quantity and quality financial services in order to impact economic development in Africa.
First evidence for an association of a functional variant in the microRNA-510 target site of the serotonin receptor-type 3E gene with diarrhea predominant irritable bowel syndrome.

Diarrhea predominant irritable bowel syndrome (IBS-D) is a complex disorder related to dysfunctions in the serotonergic system. As cis-regulatory variants can play a role in the etiology of complex conditions, we investigated the untranslated regions (UTRs) of the serotonin receptor type 3 subunit genes HTR3A and HTR3E. Mutation analysis was carried out in a pilot sample of 200 IBS patients and 100 healthy controls from the UK. The novel HTR3E 3'-UTR variant c. *76G>A (rs62625044) was associated with female IBS-D (P = 0.033, OR = 8.53). This association was confirmed in a replication study, including 119 IBS-D patients and 195 controls from Germany (P = 0.0046, OR = 4.92). Pooled analysis resulted in a highly significant association of c. *76G>A with female IBS-D (P = 0.0002, OR = 5.39). In a reporter assay, c. *76G>A affected binding of miR-510 to the HTR3E 3'-UTR and caused elevated luciferase expression. HTR3E and miR-510 co-localize in enterocytes of the gut epithelium as shown by in situ hybridization and RT-PCR. This is the first example indicating micro RNA-related expression regulation of a serotonin receptor gene with a cis-regulatory variant affecting this regulation and appearing to be associated with female IBS-D.
A 100-GHz 0.21-K NETD 0.9-mW/pixel Charge-Accumulation Super-Regenerative Receiver in 65-nm CMOS

In this paper, a charge-accumulation technique is proposed in the design of super-regenerative receiver (SRR), which significantly improves the receiver responsivity and sensitivity. Furthermore, a new power-injection method is adopted without loading the $LC$- tank of super-regenerative oscillator (SRO). Implemented in a 65-nm CMOS technology with a core area of 0.023 mm2 , the prototype achieves a sensitivity of -67 dBm, a noise-equivalent power (NEP) of 2.8 fW/Hz0.5 , and a noise-equivalent time difference (NETD) of 0.21 K with a power consumption of 0.9 mW.
Credit Crunch and Insurance Consumption: The Aftermath of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Using cross-state panel auto insurance premium data from 2007 to 2012 in the U.S., this study provides evidence that individual purchases of private auto insurance were excessively reduced during and after the U.S. subprime mortgage. Analyses show that the credit crunch triggered by a shock in house prices was a major contributing factor of the reduced consumption of auto insurance during and after the crisis. This result is robust even after controlling for associated factors such as insurance prices, personal spending on vehicles and general consumption, recession indicators and the use of alternative transportation. Tests also find that a drop in house prices was also related to the deterioration of underwriting performance. These findings provide evidence for a real effect of the banking crisis.
Imperfections in the Capital Markets and Consumer Behavior

It is well known from orthodox economic theory how a consumer's intertemporal consumption plan reflects the influence of the strictly concave maximand. Thus concentration of consumption at points in time are avoided by smoothing out any uneven distribution over life of wage income. This is, in fact, accomplished by saving and dissaving whenever necessary. But any borrowing requires lenders willing to lend, and as loans are often made in expectations of future wage income, the willingness to lend is likely to be tempered with caution by risk averse lenders. They attempt to avoid and absorb risks by imposing credit limits and charging high rates of interest. As this implies that a consumer may have restricted freedom in planning his intertemporal consumption path, it is important to formulate the consumer's choice problem such that the relevant implications of the lender's behavior are taken into account.
Social Media Advertisement Outreach: Learning the Role of Aesthetics

Corporations spend millions of dollars on developing creative image based promotional content to advertise to their user-base on platforms like Twitter. Our paper is an initial study, where we propose a novel method to evaluate and improve outreach of promotional images from corporations on Twitter, based purely on their describable aesthetic attributes. Existing works in aesthetic based image analysis exclusively focus on the attributes of digital photographs, and are not applicable to advertisements due to the influences of inherent content and context based biases on outreach. Our paper identifies broad categories of biases affecting such images, describes a method for normalizing outreach scores to eliminate effects of those biases, which enables us to subsequently examine the effects of certain handcrafted describable aesthetic features on image outreach. Optimizing on the features resulting from this research is a simple method for corporations to complement their existing marketing strategy to gain significant improvement in user engagement on social media for promotional images.
Electromagnetic Background Generated by Mobile (Cellular) Communications

A practical technique for the worst-case evaluation of levels of electromagnetic background generated by cellular communication systems is proposed. It is based on the analysis of the average electromagnetic loading on area created by base and mobile subscriber's stations, and on the prediction of the area traffic capacity created by wireless information services supported by cellular communications. Such evaluations are very important for supporting the intersystem EMC, electromagnetic safety and ecological compatibility of 4G/5G/6G systems
Mapping of discontinuous conformational epitopes by amide hydrogen/deuterium exchange mass spectrometry and computational docking

Understanding antigen–antibody interactions at the sub‐molecular level is of particular interest for scientific, regulatory, and intellectual property reasons, especially with increasing demand for monoclonal antibody therapeutic agents. Although various techniques are available for the determination of an epitope, there is no widely applicable, high‐resolution, and reliable method available. Here, a combination approach using amide hydrogen/deuterium exchange coupled with proteolysis and mass spectrometry (HDX‐MS) and computational docking was applied to investigate antigen–antibody interactions. HDX‐MS is a widely applicable, medium‐resolution, medium‐throughput technology that can be applied to epitope identification. First, the epitopes of cytochrome c–E8, IL‐13–CNTO607, and IL‐17A–CAT‐2200 interactions identified using the HDX‐MS method were compared with those identified by X‐ray co‐crystal structures. The identified epitopes are in good agreement with those identified using high‐resolution X‐ray crystallography. Second, the HDX‐MS data were used as constraints for computational docking. More specifically, the non‐epitope residues of an antigen identified using HDX‐MS were designated as binding ineligible during computational docking. This approach, termed HDX‐DOCK, gave more tightly clustered docking poses than stand‐alone docking for all antigen–antibody interactions examined and improved docking results significantly for the cytochrome c–E8 interaction. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The effects of acute static stretching on reaction time and force.

AIM The purpose of this study was to determine alterations in explosive force production and reaction time following the soleus and gastrocnemius muscle stretching. Specifically we investigated whether or not actually stretching the calf muscles would alter the performance of reaction time and force production. METHODS Fifteen subjects (age: 25.07+/-5.35 years; height: 1.76+/-0.07 m; weight: 81.38+/-17.28 kg) completed 2 test sessions. All subjects underwent a warm-up of 5 min bicycling and stretching of the ankle plantar flexors followed by reaction time and force tasks, and a similar control period of no stretch of the ankle plantar flexors. Measure of reaction time and force were assessed following stretching and no stretching conditions. RESULTS There were no significant differences in reaction time and force between the stretching and control conditions (P>0.05). CONCLUSION These results demonstrated that 3 sets of 15 s duration of the static stretching did not have a positive or negative effect on reaction time and explosive force.
The Comprehensive Business Income Tax System: A Proposal for Ultimate Neutrality between Debt and New Equity Issues?

The majority of experts agree that taxes are distortionary in nature. This is relatively true for all of the different groups of taxes, but for the corporate taxes is exceptionally obvious. The existence of corporate taxes can affect the company’s behavior in a number of ways and one of them is the distortion of choice of the sources of finance. As it is known, companies usually face 2 different financial alternatives to cover their investment opportunities: debt and equity (new equity issues or alternatively, retained earnings). According to the principles of corporate taxation, since interest payments are in fact tax deductible from the corporate income tax base, the debt source of finance is commonly considered as tax preferred as compared to the equity source of finance. Similarly, retained earnings are more preferred to new equities since capital gains are usually taxed upon realization or eventually exempted from taxation when reinvested. The theory suggests many varieties of corporate tax systems that sustain relative capacities to offset the excessive burden on the external equity supported investments and thus, eliminate the debt-equity related distortions.From the wider literature offer, we chose to examine the comprehensive business income tax system (CBIT), a proposal of the US Treasury Department and compare it with the basic “classical” approach in corporate taxation. The intention is to explore its properties from the view of neutrality and the allocation criteria, for which purpose the basic methodology of EMTR is additionally modified and extended. We hope to prove that this corporate system has justified its reputation in the sphere of our interest.
Genome Sequence of Dyella japonica Strain A8, a Quorum-Quenching Bacterium That Degrades N-Acylhomoserine Lactones, Isolated from Malaysian Tropical Soil

ABSTRACT Dyella japonica strain A8 is a Malaysian tropical soil bacterial strain which shows N-acylhomoserine lactone-degrading activity. Here, we present its draft genome sequence. A putative quorum-quenching gene was identified based on the genome sequence analysis of strain A8. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first genome announcement of a member from the genus of Dyella, and this is also the first work that reports the quorum-quenching activity of Dyella japonica.
A Direct Demonstration of both Structure and Function in the Visual System: Combining Diffusion Tensor Imaging with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

The relationships between functional activation patterns and the structural properties of brain pathways have not been widely studied. The recently developed magnetic resonance imaging technique of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) allows a full characterization of water molecule mobility in three dimensions, providing new structural information that is not available from other in vivo imaging techniques. The directional bias of diffusion (anisotropy) may be derived from the diffusion tensor, and is related to fiber tract integrity and orientation. Since DTI and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) both require rapid (generally echoplanar) imaging it is possible to obtain geometrically matched images from the two modalities. fMRI and DTI were combined in a visual system study using photic stimulation to demonstrate the feasibility of combining the two methods and to investigate the structural properties of activated regions compared to the white matter tracts. Blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI activation maps were directly overlayed upon fractional anisotropy (FA) maps, avoiding registration and spatial transformation by carefully matching acquisition parameters. Activated regions had lower FA than optic radiation white matter, supporting the hypothesis that most BOLD signal change occurs within the relatively isotropic cortical grey matter. The combination of these modalities in future studies may provide further insights into relationships between brain structure and function in both health and disease.
Using shape effects to target antibody-coated nanoparticles to lung and brain endothelium

Vascular endothelium offers a variety of therapeutic targets for the treatment of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Significant research has been focused on developing agents to target the endothelium in diseased tissues. This includes identification of antibodies against adhesion molecules and neovascular expression markers or peptides discovered using phage display. Such targeting molecules also have been used to deliver nanoparticles to the endothelium of the diseased tissue. Here we report, based on in vitro and in vivo studies, that the specificity of endothelial targeting can be enhanced further by engineering the shape of ligand-displaying nanoparticles. In vitro studies performed using microfluidic systems that mimic the vasculature (synthetic microvascular networks) showed that rod-shaped nanoparticles exhibit higher specific and lower nonspecific accumulation under flow at the target compared with their spherical counterparts. Mathematical modeling of particle–surface interactions suggests that the higher avidity and specificity of nanorods originate from the balance of polyvalent interactions that favor adhesion and entropic losses as well as shear-induced detachment that reduce binding. In vivo experiments in mice confirmed that shape-induced enhancement of vascular targeting is also observed under physiological conditions in lungs and brain for nanoparticles displaying anti–intracellular adhesion molecule 1 and anti-transferrin receptor antibodies.
DETERMINANTS OF CAPITAL FLIGHT AND CAPITAL MOVEMENT THROUGH TRADE MISPRICING: THE AFRICAN CASE

This study attempts to accomplish two things. First, it tries to establish the determinants of capital flight and capital movement through trade misinvoicing from selected African countries in order to ascertain whether the same factors could explain both types of capital movement. Second, it attempts to determine whether Granger causation exists between capital movement through trade misinvoicing and capital flight. Data for selected countries were combined into geographical, economic, and monetary regions. For 1990–2005, the amount of capital flight from the African Continent was estimated to be $499.8 billion and $438.9 billion for the Sub-Saharan region. Using 21 explanatory variables, the results showed that variables that explain capital flight do not always explain capital movement and vice versa. The independent variables tended to explain the dependent variables in a few cases, implying that the reason for capital flight and capital movement was other than for investment purposes. Overall causality was found to exist between the dependent variables, mostly in the form of feedback. Yet, the relationship was mostly transitory with a long-term relationship existing in only few cases. African governments need to establish stronger trade policies and create incentives for individuals and institutions not to move the desperately needed capital out of the continent.
Biological circuits for signaling and synchronization in bacterial populations

To coordinate their behavior and virulence and to synchronize attacks against their hosts, bacteria communicate by producing and detecting signaling molecules (autoinducers). This communication is controlled by biological circuits called quorum sensing circuits. Recently quorum sensing circuits have been recognized as an alternative target for controlling bacterial virulence and infections without the use of antibiotics. Here we model the quorum sensing process as a state transition graph. Based on this model we develop a simulation tool for the quorum sensing process in open and confined spaces. We perform a number of numerical experiments with various strategies of quorum sensing circuit regulation and we study the effectiveness of quorum sensing inhibitors. We also use network graph theory to model the complete quorum sensing system of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and construct its state space, which turned out to be very large, hierarchical, modular and scale-free.