Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of the factor structure and reliability of the 28 item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) in El Salvador

We wished to assess both the factor structure and the reliability of the 28-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) in a non-clinical population in El Salvador. The GHQ-28 was applied to a large sample (n = 714) of university students in El Salvador. A principal components analysis was applied and a four-factor solution selected. A sub-group of the participants were retested after an average of 3 months to assess retest reliability while internal consistency was assessed using the Cronbach's alpha test. The factor analysis results corresponded closely to the original factor structure, though with a relatively higher inter-correlation found between the resulting scales, especially the 'anxiety and insomnia' and 'somatization' scales. The test-retest and internal consistency measures reached values . 70 or higher in each case. The findings indicate a remarkable consistency in the factor structure of the GHQ-28 with result from other cultural settings, supporting Goldberg's hypothesis of a common language of psychological distress between cultures. The 'severe depression' and 'so- cial dysfunction' scales appear to be relatively stable and independent while the 'anxiety and insomnia' and 'somatization' scales are more highly correlated. The reliability of the instrument in El Salvador is satisfactory.
Silicon Fusion Bonding and Deep Reactive Ion Etching a New Technology for Microstructures

It has become common to categorize silicon micromachining processes in terms of "bulk" and "surface" techniques. "Bulk" micro-machining generally refers to structures which have been formed by deep anisotropic etching. In these devices, a portion of the substrate itself is usually an active mechanical element of the micromechanical device. "Surface" micro-machining generally refers to structures which have been formed from thin film layers deposited or grown on the surface of the silicon substrate. New developments in deep reactive ion etching technology (DRIE), combined with silicon fusion bonding (SFB), have made it possible, for the first time, to span nearly the entire range of microstructure thicknesses between surface and bulk micromachining, using only single crystal silicon. This presentation will explain the processes and technologies which make this possible, and will describe some structures and devices which have been demonstrated using this new process technology.
Activation of Rho-kinase and focal adhesion kinase regulates the organization of stress fibers and focal adhesions in the central part of fibroblasts

Specific regulation and activation of focal adhesion kinase (FAK) are thought to be important for focal adhesion formation, and activation of Rho-kinase has been suggested to play a role in determining the effects of FAK on the formation of stress fibers and focal adhesions. To clarify the role of FAK in stress fiber formation and focal adhesion organization, the author examined the formation of new stress fibers and focal adhesions by activation of Rho-kinase in FAK knockout (FAK–/–) fibroblasts. FAK–/– cells were elliptical in shape, and showed reduced numbers of stress fibers and focal adhesions in the central part of the cells along with large focal adhesions in the peripheral regions. Activation of Rho-kinase in FAK–/– cells transiently increased the actin filaments in the cell center, but these did not form typical thick stress fibers. Moreover, only plaque-like structures as the origins of newly formed focal adhesions were observed in the center of the cell. Furthermore, introduction of an exogenous GFP-labeled FAK gene into FAK–/– cells resulted in increased numbers of stress fibers and focal adhesions in the center of the cells, which showed typical fibroblast morphology. These results indicated that FAK plays an important role in the formation of stress fibers and focal adhesions as well as in regulation of cell shape and morphology with the activation of Rho-kinase.
Basal cell carcinoma in the eyelid region.

The first recorded account of the surgical treatment of basal cell carcinoma is given by Jacques Daviel in an address to the Royal Society of London in 1755 (Bennett, 1974). He described four patients with ulcers in the 'great angle' of the eye and four patients with ulcers affecting the eyelids, all of whom he treated successfully with surgical excision. Stenbeck (i900) was the first to describe the cure of a basal cell carcinoma with irradiation and during this century much literature has been published showing increasingly successful results with both forms of treatment. Older, Quickert, and Beard (I975) finally approached the ultimate with a report of I57 cases of histologically proved eyelid basal cell carcinoma, none of which recurred during a follow-up period that varied between a few months and i8 years. The purpose of this paper is to assess a series of eyelid basal cell carcinomas which were operated on in a general plastic surgery unit and to draw attention to the risk involved if the primary treatment does not effect a complete cure.
Mapping Landmarks on to the Face

Landmarking can be formalised as calculating the Maximum A-posteriori Probability (MAP) of a set of land-marks given an image (texture) containing a face. In this paper a likelihood-ratio based landmarking method is extended to a MAP-based landmarking method. The approach is validated by means of experiments. The MAP approach turns out to be advantageous, particularly for low quality images, in which case the landmarking accuracy improves significantly.
Control independence in trace processors

Branch mispredictions are a major obstacle to exploiting instruction-level parallelism, at least in part because all instructions after a mispredicted branch are squashed. However, instructions that are control independent of the branch must be fetched regardless of the branch outcome, and do not necessarily have to be squashed and re-executed. Control independence exists when the two paths following a branch re-converge. A trace processor microarchitecture is developed to exploit control independence and thereby reduce branch misprediction penalties. There are three major contributions: 1) Trace-level re-convergence is not guaranteed despite re-convergence at the instruction-level. Novel trace selection techniques are developed to expose control independence at the trace-level. 2) Control independence's potential complexity stems from insertion and removal of instructions from the middle of the instruction window. Trace processors manage control flow hierarchically (traces are the fundamental unit of control flow) and this results in an efficient implementation. 3) Control independent instructions must be inspected for incorrect data dependences caused by mispredicted control flow. Existing data speculation support is easily leveraged to selectively re-execute incorrect-data dependent, control independent instructions. For five of the SPEC95 integer benchmarks, control independence improves trace processor performance from 5% to 25%, and 17% on average.
Evolution and Selection in Yeast Promoters: Analyzing the Combined Effect of Diverse Transcription Factor Binding Sites

In comparative genomics one analyzes jointly evolutionarily related species in order to identify conserved and diverged sequences and to infer their function. While such studies enabled the detection of conserved sequences in large genomes, the evolutionary dynamics of regulatory regions as a whole remain poorly understood. Here we present a probabilistic model for the evolution of promoter regions in yeast, combining the effects of regulatory interactions of many different transcription factors. The model expresses explicitly the selection forces acting on transcription factor binding sites in the context of a dynamic evolutionary process. We develop algorithms to compute likelihood and to learn de novo collections of transcription factor binding motifs and their selection parameters from alignments. Using the new techniques, we examine the evolutionary dynamics in Saccharomyces species promoters. Analyses of an evolutionary model constructed using all known transcription factor binding motifs and of a model learned from the data automatically reveal relatively weak selection on most binding sites. Moreover, according to our estimates, strong binding sites are constraining only a fraction of the yeast promoter sequence that is under selection. Our study demonstrates how complex evolutionary dynamics in noncoding regions emerges from formalization of the evolutionary consequences of known regulatory mechanisms.
Micro-structure mechanical failure characterization using rotating Couette flow in a small gap

A new method for testing the failure rates of micro-mechanical structures is presented. The technique uses Couette flow in a narrow-gap channel to induce different forces and loading on an array of structures. The Couette flow is induced by a rotating disc, which allows multiple devices to be tested at different designed stress levels depending on rotation speed and radial position. As an example, SU-8 micro-structures are used to present a general testing procedure that can be applied to other components. The forces acting on the micro-structures are due to fluid shear stress, centrifugal forces from rotation and form drag, all of which are characterized as they vary with radial position for one rotation rate. One series of tests with a single circumferential row of identical micro-structures is performed to determine the relative importance of these forces on revolutions to failure and failure rate of the structures in the row. Two additional series of tests are conducted to determine the effects of also adding unsteady loading from wakes to the structures. This unsteady loading from wakes is induced by time-varying velocity and pressure variations, which are imposed when additional rows of micro-structures are placed at smaller radial positions compared to the row being tested. Weibull failure rate approaches are used to provide information on failure rate as dependent upon cumulative revolutions. As such, the testing approach is useful for failure characterization of thin-film adhesion, self assembled nano-layers and micro-mechanical structures.
Identification of Structural Motifs Critical for Epstein-Barr Virus-Induced Molecule 2 Function and Homology Modeling of the Ligand Docking Site

Epstein-Barr virus-induced molecule 2 (EBI2) (also known as G-protein–coupled receptor 183) is a G-protein–coupled receptor (GPCR) that is best known for its role in B cell migration and localization. Our recent deorphanization effort led to the discovery of 7α,25-dihydroxycholesterol (7α,25-OHC) as the endogenous ligand for EBI2, which provides a tool for mechanistic studies of EBI2 function. Because EBI2 is the first GPCR known to bind and to be activated by an oxysterol, the goal of this study was to understand the molecular and structural bases for its ligand-dependent activation; this was achieved by identifying structural moieties in EBI2 or in 7α,25-OHC that might affect receptor-ligand interactions. By using a series of chemically related OHC analogs, we demonstrated that all three hydroxyl groups in 7α,25-OHC contributed to ligand-induced activation of the receptor. To determine the location and composition of the ligand binding domain in EBI2, we used a site-directed mutagenesis approach and generated mutant receptors with single amino acid substitutions at selected positions of interest. Biochemical and pharmacological profiling of these mutant receptors allowed for structure-function analyses and revealed critical motifs that likely interact with 7α,25-OHC. By using a hybrid β2-adrenergic receptor–C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 structure as a template, we created a homology model for EBI2 and optimized the docking of 7α,25-OHC into the putative ligand binding site, so that the hydroxyl groups interact with residues Arg87, Asn114, and Glu183. This model of ligand docking yields important structural insight into the molecular mechanisms mediating EBI2 function and may facilitate future efforts to design novel therapeutic agents that target EBI2.
Tactile Element with Double-sided Inkjet Printing to Generate Electrostatic Forces and Electrostimuli

We propose a tactile element that can generate both an electrostatic force and an electrostimulus, and can be used to provide tactile feedback on a wide area of human skin such as the palm of the hand. Touching the flat surface through the our proposed tactile element allow the user to feel both uneven and rough textures. In addition, the element can be fabricated using double-sided inkjet printing with conductive ink. Use of a flexible substrate, such as a PET film or paper, allows the user to design a free-formed tactile element. In this demonstration, we describe the implementation of the proposed stimuli element and show examples of applications.
Modeling, Simulation and Experimental Studies of Distortions, Residual Stresses and Hydrogen Diffusion During Laser Welding of As-Rolled Steels

Beyond the assembling of components laser welding procedures are also increasingly applied in steel manufacturing. Reasons for this trend are: high joining velocities, concentrated heat input resulting in extremely thin heating zones, and nearly constant seam geometries along the welding line. So, for example, welding aggregates are installed at the beginning of electrolytic or hot-galvanizing manufacturing lines to join coils of different thickness or grade for continuous production, cf. Figure 1. To minimize shutdowns welding must be extremely reliable, since the joining zone of the ’endless strip’ has to resist high thermal and mechanical loads, such subsequent annealing, bending and tension. Failures lead to technical breakdowns, repairs, and loss of production, which should be avoided as much as possible. Moreover, the welding process must be such robust that material with imperfections, such as oxidations or materials ripples, would be also accurately joined. Welding defects, for instances cracks, pores or seam shrinkages, cf. Figure 2, lead to reduction of the cross-sectional area and, therefore, represent critical regions w. r. t. damage and failure. From the engineering point-of-view it is essential to know, whether residual stresses or heat-induced degradations of the materials strength following from joining become critical or not. This question can be answered by e.g. extensive experimental investigations, during which material combinations, geometries (i.e., thickness) and welding parameters such as joining velocity, welding power or laser caustic are varied. Subsequent tensile tests of the different seams yield the critical strength, which is compared with the loading conditions of the production line.
A commonly carried genetic variant in the delta opioid receptor gene, OPRD1, is associated with smaller regional brain volumes: Replication in elderly and young populations

Delta opioid receptors are implicated in a variety of psychiatric and neurological disorders. These receptors play a key role in the reinforcing properties of drugs of abuse, and polymorphisms in OPRD1 (the gene encoding delta opioid receptors) are associated with drug addiction. Delta opioid receptors are also involved in protecting neurons against hypoxic and ischemic stress. Here, we first examined a large sample of 738 elderly participants with neuroimaging and genetic data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. We hypothesized that common variants in OPRD1 would be associated with differences in brain structure, particularly in regions relevant to addictive and neurodegenerative disorders. One very common variant (rs678849) predicted differences in regional brain volumes. We replicated the association of this single‐nucleotide polymorphism with regional tissue volumes in a large sample of young participants in the Queensland Twin Imaging study. Although the same allele was associated with reduced volumes in both cohorts, the brain regions affected differed between the two samples. In healthy elderly, exploratory analyses suggested that the genotype associated with reduced brain volumes in both cohorts may also predict cerebrospinal fluid levels of neurodegenerative biomarkers, but this requires confirmation. If opiate receptor genetic variants are related to individual differences in brain structure, genotyping of these variants may be helpful when designing clinical trials targeting delta opioid receptors to treat neurological disorders. Hum Brain Mapp 35:1226–1236, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Redundancy Reduction in Wireless Sensor Networks via Centrality Metrics

The advances in wireless communications, together with the need of sensing and controlling various nature or human made systems in a large number of points (e.g. smart traffic control, environmental monitoring), lead to the emergence of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) as a powerful tool to fulfill the above requirements. Due to the large amount of wireless devices needed and cost constraints, such networks are usually made by low-cost devices with limited energy and computational capabilities, these further on being subject to easy communication or hardware fails. At the same time, the deployment of such devices in harsh environments (e.g. in the ocean) may lead to uncontrollable redundant topologies which have to be often refined during the exploitation phase of these networks in an automated manner. In the scope of these arguments, in this paper, we take advantage of the latest theoretical advances in complex networks and we propose an automated solution to refine the topology of WSNs by using centrality metrics to detect the redundant nodes and links in a network, and further on to shut down them safely. Our solution may work in both ways, centralized or decentralized, by choosing a centralized or a decentralized centrality metric, this choice being driven by the application goal. The experiments performed on a wide variety of network topologies with different sizes (e.g. number of nodes and links), using different centrality metrics, validate our approach and recommend it as a solution for the automatic control of WSNs topologies during the exploitation phase of such networks to optimize, for instance, their life time.
Tick-Borne Rickettsioses around the World: Emerging Diseases Challenging Old Concepts

SUMMARY During most of the 20th century, the epidemiology of tick-borne rickettsioses could be summarized as the occurrence of a single pathogenic rickettsia on each continent. An element of this paradigm suggested that the many other characterized and noncharacterized rickettsiae isolated from ticks were not pathogenic to humans. In this context, it was considered that relatively few tick-borne rickettsiae caused human disease. This concept was modified extensively from 1984 through 2005 by the identification of at least 11 additional rickettsial species or subspecies that cause tick-borne rickettsioses around the world. Of these agents, seven were initially isolated from ticks, often years or decades before a definitive association with human disease was established. We present here the tick-borne rickettsioses described through 2005 and focus on the epidemiological circumstances that have played a role in the emergence of the newly recognized diseases.
Yip1A regulates the COPI-independent retrograde transport from the Golgi complex to the ER

Yip1A, a mammalian homologue of yeast Yip1p, is a multi-spanning membrane protein that is considered to be involved in transport between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and the Golgi. However, the precise role of Yip1A in mammalian cells remains unclear. We show here that endogenous Yip1A is localized to the ER-Golgi intermediate compartment (ERGIC). Knockdown of Yip1A by RNAi did not induce morphological changes in the Golgi, ER, or ERGIC. By analyzing a number of intracellular transport pathways, we found that Yip1A knockdown delayed the transport of Shiga toxin from the Golgi to the ER, but did not affect the anterograde transport of VSVGts045. We also found that a recombinant protein that corresponded to the N-terminal domain of Yip1A inhibited the COPI-independent retrograde transport of GFP-tagged galactosyltransferase, GT-GFP, but not the COPI-dependent retrograde transport of p58/ERGIC53. Furthermore, we found that Yip1A knockdown resulted in the dissociation of Rab6 from the membranes. These results suggested that Yip1A has a role in COPI-independent retrograde transport from the Golgi to the ER and regulates the membrane recruitment of Rab6.
Gunder differences in skills development in hands-on learning environments

Women's participation in engineering education is low relative to their presence in the general and college student populations, and it is sometimes assumed that the competitive engineering culture has a detrimental effect on women's confidence in their engineering skills. The described study investigated self-assessed confidence in five engineering skills across three K-16 curricular initiatives conducted by the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder during a two-year period. In this investigation, attention is paid to gender differences in skills self-assessment and the reasons underlying gender disparity in engineering education. The effects of engineering and pre-engineering curricula on gender, with respect to student confidence in a number of skills necessary to succeed in engineering, are investigated. Results are discussed with respect to the structure of gender- friendly curricula and strategies for closing gender gaps. Suggestions for future research are presented.
Spectrum of Monodromy Operator for a Time-Delay System With Application to Stability Analysis

This note studies the spectral properties of monodromy operators, which play an important role in stability analysis of linear time-invariant time-delay feedback systems. The note is motivated by the fact that this operator can actually be defined naturally on four spaces, where the difference stems from different choices for the function space on which the infinite-dimensional state of such a time-delay system is assumed to take its value. It is first shown that the spectrum of the monodromy operator is independent of the spaces on which it is defined. This implies that stability of time-delay systems is independent of the underlying function spaces. It is further shown that the operator spectrum is continuous at monodromy operators, which justifies the spectrum computation of the monodromy operator through its approximation by any sort of tractable operators. A numerical study relevant to the theoretical development is provided and a practical implication of our theoretical study is suggested.
Optimization of the hybrid asymmetric-FIR/analog square-root filters

This paper presents a method for designing asymmetric square-root (SR) FIR filters against the effects of jitter-induced interference at the receiver. The proposed method employs the linear programming to design the Nyquist filter coefficients for minimizing the power of the jitter-induced interference. The desired SR filter coefficients are obtained via the spectral factorization of the Nyquist filter polynomial. The proposed method takes the filter's stopband attenuation, the system's tolerable ISI, and the “roughness” of the analog/FIR-SR filter impulse response into account. Unlike previous publications, we show that the error-performance of a system employing a matched SR filter pair, in the presence of receiver timing jitter, is more strongly related to the roughness of the hybrid analog/FIR-SR filter's impulse response, than it is to the eye width caused by the Nyquist pulse. The design example validates the proposition that the proposed method can lead to improved error performance of a high-order QAM communication system in the presence of receiver clock jitter.