Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Appetitive vs. Aversive conditioning in humans

In classical conditioning, an initially neutral stimulus (conditioned stimulus, CS) becomes associated with a biologically salient event (unconditioned stimulus, US), which might be pain (aversive conditioning) or food (appetitive conditioning). After a few associations, the CS is able to initiate either defensive or consummatory responses, respectively. Contrary to aversive conditioning, appetitive conditioning is rarely investigated in humans, although its importance for normal and pathological behaviors (e.g., obesity, addiction) is undeniable. The present study intents to translate animal findings on appetitive conditioning to humans using food as an US. Thirty-three participants were investigated between 8 and 10 am without breakfast in order to assure that they felt hungry. During two acquisition phases, one geometrical shape (avCS+) predicted an aversive US (painful electric shock), another shape (appCS+) predicted an appetitive US (chocolate or salty pretzel according to the participants' preference), and a third shape (CS–) predicted neither US. In a extinction phase, these three shapes plus a novel shape (NEW) were presented again without US delivery. Valence and arousal ratings as well as startle and skin conductance (SCR) responses were collected as learning indices. We found successful aversive and appetitive conditioning. On the one hand, the avCS+ was rated as more negative and more arousing than the CS– and induced startle potentiation and enhanced SCR. On the other hand, the appCS+ was rated more positive than the CS– and induced startle attenuation and larger SCR. In summary, we successfully confirmed animal findings in (hungry) humans by demonstrating appetitive learning and normal aversive learning.
Human three‐dimensional fibroblast cultures express angiogenic activity

Human neonatal fibroblasts were cultured on a lactate‐glycollate copolymer scaffold for 12–16 days to form a three‐dimensional dermal equivalent tissue. The cellular content of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA in these three‐dimensional cultures was 22‐fold greater than that observed in the same fibroblasts grown as monolayers. No induction was shown by hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) or angiopoietin 1 indicating that the effect was specific to VEGF. The predominant VEGF splice variant, detected by RT‐PCR corresponded to the 121 amino acid form, with less of the 165 amino acid form. The cell‐associated forms (189 and 206 amino acids) comprised less than 1% of the total VEGF mRNA. VEGF and HGF proteins, determined by ELISA, were secreted in physiologically significant amounts, 0.5–4 ng per 24 h/106 cells. Conditioned medium from the three‐dimensional cultures stimulated proliferation of endothelial cells in a dose‐dependent manner and induced cellular expression of integrin αvβ3. Conditioned medium from the same dermal fibroblasts cultured in monolayer showed little angiogenic activity in any of these assays. Using the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) angiogenesis assay, the cultures stimulated blood vessel production 2.8‐fold over scaffold alone. VEGF‐neutralizing antibody reduced the vessel development in the CAM to the level in the scaffold control. Anti‐HGF antibody had no significant effect. In conclusion, three‐dimensional cultures of dermal equivalent tissue express angiogenic activity to a greater extent than monolayer cultures, some of which can be assigned to VEGF. J. Cell. Physiol. 183:74–82, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Mixture cure model with random effects for the analysis of a multi‐center tonsil cancer study

Cure models for clustered survival data have the potential for broad applicability. In this paper, we consider the mixture cure model with random effects and propose several estimation methods based on Gaussian quadrature, rejection sampling, and importance sampling to obtain the maximum likelihood estimates of the model for clustered survival data with a cure fraction. The methods are flexible to accommodate various correlation structures. A simulation study demonstrates that the maximum likelihood estimates of parameters in the model tend to have smaller biases and variances than the estimates obtained from the existing methods. We apply the model to a study of tonsil cancer patients clustered by treatment centers to investigate the effect of covariates on the cure rate and on the failure time distribution of the uncured patients. The maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters demonstrate strong correlation among the failure times of the uncured patients and weak correlation among cure statuses in the same center. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Use case refactoring: a tool and a case study

Use case models are widely used for requirements engineering to capture functional and nonfunctional requirements, guide scenario-based design and validation, and to manage projects. Our tool for use case development and evolution supports reorganization (refactoring) of use case models as well as the extension of use case models to include new functional and nonfunctional requirements. The tool is based on a three-level metamodel covering the environment or context of a use case model, the structure of use cases, and the event or message-passing details of a scenario. In this paper we describe the tool that we have developed, and demonstrate its application to a case study for bank teller machines (ATMs). We show that the concept of refactoring can be applied to use case models as an aid to their development and evolution. We are now working on a firm semantic foundation for use cases in order to verify the behaviour-preserving property of individual refactorings.
THE BENEFITS OF A FUNCTIONAL EXERCISE CIRCUIT FOR OLDER ADULTS

The physical benefits of a functional exercise circuit are not well known in an elderly population. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a functional exercise circuit on mobility and perceived health in the elderly. Subjects were 119 men and women (aged 74 [64.2] years) who received preand posttests of mobility (e.g., sit to stand, get up and go, timed walk), flexibility (sit and reach), and balance (standing reach) and who completed the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). A supervised functional exercise circuit that included 10 different upper- and lower-body exercises performed under time constraints was performed 3 times per week for 12 consecutive weeks. Paired t-tests showed significant differences at posttest for the get up and go (p < 0.001), standing reach (p < 0.001), sit and reach (p < 0.001), and selected items from the SF-36, including physical functioning (p < 0.001), pain (p = 0.001), vitality (p = 0.001), and number of doctor visits (p < 0.001). A functional exercise circuit such as the one employed in this study may offer promise as an effective means of promoting mobility and perceived health in older adults.
Spatial Modulation

Spatial modulation (SM) is a recently developed transmission technique that uses multiple antennas. The basic idea is to map a block of information bits to two information carrying units: 1) a symbol that was chosen from a constellation diagram and 2) a unique transmit antenna number that was chosen from a set of transmit antennas. The use of the transmit antenna number as an information-bearing unit increases the overall spectral efficiency by the base-two logarithm of the number of transmit antennas. At the receiver, a maximum receive ratio combining algorithm is used to retrieve the transmitted block of information bits. Here, we apply SM to orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission. We develop an analytical approach for symbol error ratio (SER) analysis of the SM algorithm in independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh channels. The analytical and simulation results closely match. The performance and the receiver complexity of the SM-OFDM technique are compared to those of the vertical Bell Labs layered space-time (V-BLAST-OFDM) and Alamouti-OFDM algorithms. V-BLAST uses minimum mean square error (MMSE) detection with ordered successive interference cancellation. The combined effect of spatial correlation, mutual antenna coupling, and Rician fading on both coded and uncoded systems are presented. It is shown that, for the same spectral efficiency, SM results in a reduction of around 90% in receiver complexity as compared to V-BLAST and nearly the same receiver complexity as Alamouti. In addition, we show that SM achieves better performance in all studied channel conditions, as compared with other techniques. It is also shown to efficiently work for any configuration of transmit and receive antennas, even for the case of fewer receive antennas than transmit antennas.
Thrifty-malloc: A HW/SW codesign for the dynamic management of hardware transactional memory in embedded multicore systems

We present thrifty-malloc: a transaction-friendly dynamic memory manager for high-end embedded multicore systems. The manager combines modularity, ease-of-use and hardware transactional memory (HTM) compatibility in a lightweight and memory-effcient design. Thrifty-malloc is easy to deploy and configure for non-expert programmers, yet provides good performance with low memory overhead for highly-parallel embedded applications running on massively parallel processor arrays (MPPAs) or many-core architectures. In addition, the transparent mechanisms that increase our manager's resilience to unpredictable dynamic situations incur a low timing overhead in comparison to established techniques.
Graphical Multiagent Decision Model: Towards Adaptability

Multiagent decision making is a typical decision problem in the changing world. We propose a new framework, including multiply sectioned influence diagrams (MSID) and hyper relevance graph (HRG), to represent this large and complex decision problem involving multiple agents. An MSID is an agency graphical language for representing decision problems in a distributed fashion while an HRG expresses the organizational relationships in multiagent systems. MSID, together with HRG, is partly adaptive to the changing world. Extended from basic evaluation algorithms in influence diagrams, three evaluation algorithms for solving MSID are discussed and compared. Based on MSID methodologies, an evolutionary decision model and a strategy for evaluation algorithm selection are proposed to address decision problems in the changing world. An evolutionary decision model facilitates the communication between domain experts and decision engineers while the evaluation algorithm selection method enriches the strategy to solve decision models. These promising methods aid the representing and solving of decision problems in the changing world, however, much challenging work still exists.
An Accurate and Efficient Spectral Tau Method for the Incompressible Navier-Stokes Equations in a Planar Channel

We present a spectral tau method for the efficient solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in a planar channel geometry, with the Navier-Stokes equations expressed in the vorticity-stream function formulation. The main innovations of the scheme are the incorporation of no-slip constraints in the semi-implicit time advancement of the vorticity field, and the efficient and accurate solution of the linear systems resulting from the numerical discretization Of the equations by well-conditioned integration operators. The pressure field is calculated in a postprocessing step by direct inversion of the gradient. The asymptotic stability of our scheme is analyzed, and a numerical solution of the Orr-Sommerfeld stability problem for plane Poiseuille flow is performed to offer a comparison of our method of enforcing the no-slip boundary condition with that of existing techniques. Results from representative direct simulations are presented to demonstrate the accuracy of the scheme.
MODERATING EFFECT ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A COMPANIES'S LIFE CYCLE AND THE RELEVANCE OF ACCOUNTI

The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the company and the value relevance of intangible assets during the life cycle before and after the implementation of the accounting standard No. 17. Data in this research has been conducted in three phases, the first sample companies to the growth, maturity and decline are classified. The relevance of intangible assets in each of the stages of growth, maturity and decline, and also the period before and after implementation of the standard have been studied, And finally statistical method using cross-correlation analysis, and regression testing of hypotheses have been. Results from 25 companies during the period 2004 to 2010, it is confirmed that the company’s life cycle, the amount of intangible assets related impacts. The overall results show that the different life cycle stages of company maturity, the strongest influence on the amount of intangible assets is concerned. Our results also suggest that the relevance of intangible assets during the period prior to the implementation of the standard is the standard.
Ultrasound‐guided fine‐needle aspiration biopsy of the thyroid: Role of on‐site assessment and multiple cytologic preparations

Several studies have shown that ultrasound guidance can serve as a valuable aid in improving the diagnostic yield of fine‐needle aspiration (FNA) biopsy of thyroid nodules. In this study, we evaluated the combined impact of ultrasound‐guidance, rapid on‐site evaluation of FNA specimens, and different cytologic preparations (fresh and alcohol‐fixed smears, Millipore filter) and staining methods (Diff‐Quik and Papanicolaou stains) on the diagnostic yield of thyroid FNA. Ultrasound‐guided FNA was performed on 282 patients (313 cases) between November 1997 and April 1999. The diagnostic categories included: benign (198 cases, 63.2%); indeterminate (42 cases, 13.4%); suspicious for follicular variant of papillary carcinoma (26 cases, 8.3%), malignant (32 cases, 10.1%); and nondiagnostic (15 cases, 5%). The nondiagnostic cases also included 6 cystic lesions without any solid component and 3 thyroid‐bed aspirations. After excluding these, the nondiagnostic rate was only 2%. Histological follow‐up was available in 77 (77/313) cases. The concordance rate between cytological and histological diagnosis was 100% in malignant, 67% in suspicious, and 56% in indeterminate cases. All cases with histologic follow‐up were selected to evaluate the independent diagnostic efficacy of each aforementioned cytologic staining method. A definite diagnosis could be made solely on the basis of air‐dried, Diff‐Quik‐stained preparations in 50 (65%), alcohol‐fixed, Papanicolaou stained smears in 68 (88%), and Millipore filter preparations in 70 (91%) cases. We conclude that ultrasound‐guided FNA combined with on‐site evaluation and different cytologic preparations can significantly improve the diagnostic accuracy of thyroid FNA specimens. Diagn. Cytopathol. 2000;23:425–429. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Helicobacter pylori ATCC 43629/NCTC 11639 Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMVs) from Biofilm and Planktonic Phase Associated with Extracellular DNA (eDNA)

Helicobacter pylori persistence is associated with its capacity to develop biofilms as a response to changing environmental conditions and stress. Extracellular DNA (eDNA) is a component of H. pylori biofilm matrix but the lack of DNase I activity supports the hypothesis that eDNA might be protected by other extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) and/or Outer Membrane Vesicles (OMVs), which bleb from the bacteria surface during growth. The aim of the present study was to both identify the eDNA presence on OMVs segregated from H. pylori ATCC 43629/NCTC 11639 biofilm (bOMVs) and its planktonic phase (pOMVs) and to characterize the physical-chemical properties of the OMVs. The presence of eDNA in bOMVs and pOMVs was initially carried out using DNase I-gold complex labeling and Transmission Electron Microscope analysis (TEM). bOMVs and pOMVs were further isolated and physical-chemical characterization carried out using dynamic light scattering (DLS) analysis. eDNA associated with OMVs was detected and quantified using a PicoGreen spectrophotometer assay, while its extraction was performed with a DNA Kit. TEM images showed that eDNA was mainly associated with the OMV membrane surfaces; while PicoGreen staining showed a four-fold increase of dsDNA in bOMVs compared with pOMVs. The eDNA extracted from OMVs was visualized using gel electrophoresis. DLS analysis indicated that both planktonic and biofilm H. pylori phenotypes generated vesicles, with a broad distribution of sizes on the nanometer scale. The DLS aggregation assay suggested that eDNA may play a role in the aggregation of OMVs, in the biofilm phenotype. Moreover, the eDNA associated with vesicle membrane may impede DNase I activity on H. pylori biofilms. These results suggest that OMVs derived from the H. pylori biofilm phenotype may play a structural role by preventing eDNA degradation by nucleases, providing a bridging function between eDNA strands on OMV surfaces and promoting aggregation.
Optimized Aerosol Jet Printed Silver Contacts on Lowly Doped Phosphorus and Boron Emitters

For highly efficient silicon solar cells, lowly doped phosphorus or boron emitters are essential prerequisites to achieve sufficient surface passivation. However, contact formation to such lowly doped surfaces remains a challenge for traditional printing technologies. The question arises if such emitters can be contacted reliably applying advanced metallization inks. For this investigation, we manufactured lowly doped boron and phosphorus emitters with ND/A < 1·10 cm onto silicon substrates with high pyramid texture. For metallization we used our optimized aerosol jet printing process and altered the ink deposition density from 6 to 23 g/m2. On textured wafers the seed layer width remained < 40 μm in average with our own developed seed layer ink. For characterization purposes the lines were thickened with electro-plated silver. Contact resistivity measurements were performed to judge the suitability of this metallization scheme. It is shown that contact formation mainly depends on the firing temperature and less on the amount of deposited ink. Contact resistivities of 1-7 mΩ·cm2 for the phosphorus and 612 mΩ·cm2 for the boron emitter could be achieved.
Genetic variation within two cryptic species of Cirrochroa (Heliconiinae: Lepidoptera) by RAPD-PCR technique

The morphological characters of Cirrochroa aoris (Large Yeoman) and C. tyche (Common Yeoman) are very similar making identification confusing and difficult. The genomic DNA of the two species was subjected to RAPD-PCR analysis with six decamer oligonucleotides, i.e. MA5, MA6, MA8, OPB12, OPT4 and OPT5. All of them produced discrete bands of various lengths revealing genetic variations as well as similarities between the two species. A total of 50 RAPD bands were generated with 45 polymorphic bands. The percentage polymorphism was 90.58% and all the similarity coefficients between the species were less than 0.2. Results showed a high genetic variation between the two cryptic species. Some species specific bands were obtained with these primers which can be considered as diagnostic bands. All the primers also produced species specific bands.
Relationship Between Some Acute Phase Reactants and the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index in Patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis

Objectives The aims of this study were to investigate a possible relationship between the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) and some acute phase reactant (APR) levels in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS). Methods Twenty outpatients who fulfilled the modified New York criteria for AS were included in the study. Laboratory activity was assessed by examining erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP), haptoglobin (Hp), and &bgr;2 microglobulin (&bgr;2MG). Disease activity was assessed according to the BASDAI, which includes a 10-point visual analogue scale to measure pain, fatigue, morning stiffness, swelling, and areas of local tenderness. Results When APR values were analyzed for the BASDAI, a positive correlation between CRP and BASDAI was observed (r = 0.556, P < 0.05). There was no clear, statistically significant correlation between BASDAI and the other APRs (ESR, r = 0.328, P > 0.05; Hp, r = 0.035, P > 0.05; and &bgr;2MG, r = −0.190, P > 0.05). Conclusions Our data suggest that CRP is a better marker of disease activity than ESR, Hp, and &bgr;2MG.
Low-Rank Dynamics for Computing Extremal Points of Real Pseudospectra

We consider the real $\varepsilon$-pseudospectrum of a real square matrix, which is the set of eigenvalues of all real matrices that are $\varepsilon$-close to the given matrix, where closeness is measured in either the 2-norm or the Frobenius norm. We characterize extremal points and compare the situation with that for the complex $\varepsilon$-pseudospectrum. We present differential equations for rank-1 and rank-2 matrices for the computation of the real pseudospectral abscissa and radius. Discretizations of the differential equations yield algorithms that are fast and well suited for sparse large matrices. Based on these low-rank differential equations, we further obtain an algorithm for drawing boundary sections of the real pseudospectrum with respect to both the 2-norm and the Frobenius norm.
A Longitudinal Study of the Association Between Treatment Optimism and Sexual Risk Behavior in Young Adult Gay and Bisexual Men

To determine whether optimism about highly active antiretroviral therapy is associated with sexual risk behavior among young adult HIV-negative gay and bisexual men, and to test 2 alternative explanations for this association: that treatment optimism leads to increased sexual risk or that treatment optimism is the result of previous sexual risk. Data on sexual risk behavior, treatment optimism, and perceived susceptibility to HIV infection were obtained from a sample of 538 HIV-negative or untested gay and bisexual men (ages 18-30) who were not in monogamous relationships. Follow-up data were collected 18 months later. In the cross-sectional data, treatment optimism was associated with the 2-month cumulative incidence of unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) with nonprimary partners; however, this effect was observed only among men who felt highly susceptible to HIV infection. Longitudinal analyses revealed that treatment optimism did not predict subsequent UAI, but UAI did predict later treatment optimism. Treatment optimism is associated with sexual risk behavior among young adult gay and bisexual men. However, these data suggest that optimism may result from, rather than precede, sexual risk.
A Path Following Algorithm for the Graph Matching Problem

We propose a convex-concave programming approach for the labeled weighted graph matching problem. The convex-concave programming formulation is obtained by rewriting the weighted graph matching problem as a least-square problem on the set of permutation matrices and relaxing it to two different optimization problems: a quadratic convex and a quadratic concave optimization problem on the set of doubly stochastic matrices. The concave relaxation has the same global minimum as the initial graph matching problem, but the search for its global minimum is also a hard combinatorial problem. We, therefore, construct an approximation of the concave problem solution by following a solution path of a convex-concave problem obtained by linear interpolation of the convex and concave formulations, starting from the convex relaxation. This method allows to easily integrate the information on graph label similarities into the optimization problem, and therefore, perform labeled weighted graph matching. The algorithm is compared with some of the best performing graph matching methods on four data sets: simulated graphs, QAPLib, retina vessel images, and handwritten Chinese characters. In all cases, the results are competitive with the state of the art.