Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional magnetic resonance imaging of hippocampal activation during silent mantra meditation.

OBJECTIVES The objective of the present study was to investigate whether moderately experienced meditators activate hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex during silent mantra meditation, as has been observed in earlier studies on subjects with several years of practice. METHODS Subjects with less than 2 years of meditation practice according to the Kundalini yoga or Acem tradition were examined by functional magnetic resonance imaging during silent mantra meditation, using an on-off block design. Whole-brain as well as region-of-interest analyses were performed. RESULTS The most significant activation was found in the bilateral hippocampus/parahippocampal formations. Other areas with significant activation were the bilateral middle cingulate cortex and the bilateral precentral cortex. No activation in the anterior cingulate cortex was found, and only small activation clusters were observed in the prefrontal cortex. CONCLUSIONS In conclusion, the main finding in this study was the significant activation in the hippocampi, which also has been correlated with meditation in several previous studies on very experienced meditators. We propose that the hippocampus is activated already after moderate meditation practice and also during different modes of meditation, including relaxation. The role of hippocampal activity during meditation should be further clarified in future studies, especially by investigating whether the meditation-correlated hippocampal activity is related to memory consolidation.
Random and pseudorandom inputs for Volterra filter identification

This paper studies input signals for the identification of nonlinear discrete-time systems modeled via a truncated Volterra series representation. A Kronecker product representation of the truncated Volterra series is used to study the persistence of excitation (PE) conditions for this model. It is shown that i.i. d. sequences and deterministic pseudorandom multilevel sequences (PRMS's) are PE for a truncated Volterra series with nonlinearities of polynomial degree N if and only if the sequences take on N+1 or more distinct levels. It is well known that polynomial regression models, such as the Volterra series, suffer from severe ill-conditioning if the degree of the polynomial is large. The condition number of the data matrix corresponding to the truncated Volterra series, for both PRMS and i.i. d. inputs, is characterized in terms of the system memory length and order of nonlinearity. Hence, the trade-off between model complexity and ill-conditioning is described mathematically. A computationally efficient least squares identification algorithm based on PRMS or i.i. d. inputs is developed that avoids directly computing the inverse of the correlation-matrix. In many applications, short data records are used in which case it is demonstrated that Volterra filter identification is much more accurate using PRMS inputs rather than Gaussian white noise inputs. >
DIFFERENTIAL microRNA EXPRESSION IN CHILDHOOD B-CELL PRECURSOR ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC LEUKEMIA

MiRNAs play important roles in the development of both hematopoiesis and leukemogenesis. The analysis of differential microRNA expression profiles may be a powerful tool to allow us insight on the mechanisms of childhood B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (pre-B-ALL). The present study provides an informative profile of the expression of miRNAs in pre-B-ALL using two independent and quantitative methods: miRNA chip and qRT-PCR of mature miRNA from 40 newly diagnosed pre-B-ALL children. Additionally, putative hematopoiesis-specific target genes were analyzed with informatics technique. Both approaches showed that miR-222, miR-339, and miR-142–3p were dramatically overexpressed in pre-B-ALL patients, and downregulation of hsa-miR-451 and hsa-miR-373* was confirmed. The results of this study offer a comprehensive and quantitative profile of miRNA expression in pre-B-ALL and their healthy counterpart, suggesting that miRNAs could play a primary role in the disease itself.
Bacterial adherence and biofilm formation on medical implants: A review

Biofilms are a complex group of microbial cells that adhere to the exopolysaccharide matrix present on the surface of medical devices. Biofilm-associated infections in the medical devices pose a serious problem to the public health and adversely affect the function of the device. Medical implants used in oral and orthopedic surgery are fabricated using alloys such as stainless steel and titanium. The biological behavior, such as osseointegration and its antibacterial activity, essentially depends on both the chemical composition and the morphology of the surface of the device. Surface treatment of medical implants by various physical and chemical techniques are attempted in order to improve their surface properties so as to facilitate bio-integration and prevent bacterial adhesion. The potential source of infection of the surrounding tissue and antimicrobial strategies are from bacteria adherent to or in a biofilm on the implant which should prevent both biofilm formation and tissue colonization. This article provides an overview of bacterial biofilm formation and methods adopted for the inhibition of bacterial adhesion on medical implants
Measuring Fuel Poverty: General Considerations and Application to German Household Data

Fuel poverty measurement consists of two independent parts: firstly, the definition of an adequate fuel poverty line, and secondly, techniques to measure fuel poverty. This paper reviews options for the definition of fuel poverty lines and techniques for fuel poverty measurement. Based on household data from Germany, figures that would result from different fuel poverty lines are derived. Different fuel poverty lines yield highly different results with respect to which households are identified as fuel poor. Thus, the choice of the fuel poverty line matters decisively for the resulting assessment. Options for fuel poverty measurement and subgroup comparison are discussed.
[18F]-THK5351 PET Correlates with Topology and Symptom Severity in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a neurodegenerative movement disorder characterized by deposition of fibrillar aggregates of 4R tau-protein in neurons and glial cells of the brain. These deposits are a key neuropathological finding, allowing a diagnosis of “definite PSP,” which is usually established post mortem. To date criteria for clinical diagnosis of PSP in vivo do not include biomarkers of tau pathology. For intervention trials, it is increasingly important to (i) establish biomarkers for an early diagnosis and (ii) to develop biomarkers that correlate with disease progression of PSP. [18F]-THK5351 is a novel PET-ligand that may afford in vivo visualization and quantification of tau-related alterations. We investigated binding characteristics of [18F]-THK5351 in patients with clinically diagnosed PSP and correlate tracer uptake with clinical findings. Eleven patients (68.4 ± 7.4 year; N = 6 female) with probable PSP according to current clinical criteria and nine healthy controls (71.7 ± 7.2 year; N = 4 female) underwent [18F]-THK5351 PET scanning. Voxel-wise statistical parametric comparison and volume-of-interest based quantification of standardized-uptake-values (SUV) were conducted using the cerebellar cortex as reference region. We correlated disease severity as measured with the help of the PSP Rating Scale (PSPRS) as well as several other clinical parameters with the individual PET findings. By voxel-wise mapping of [18F]-THK5351 uptake in the patient group we delineated typical distribution patterns that fit to known tau topology for PSP post mortem. Quantitative analysis indicated the strongest discrimination between PSP patients and healthy controls based on tracer uptake in the midbrain (+35%; p = 3.01E-7; Cohen's d: 4.0), followed by the globus pallidus, frontal cortex, and medulla oblongata. Midbrain [18F]-THK5351 uptake correlated well with clinical severity as measured by PSPRS (R = 0.66; p = 0.026). OCT and MRI delineated PSP patients from healthy controls by use of established discrimination thresholds but only OCT did as well correlate with clinical severity (R = 0.79; p = 0.024). Regional [18F]-THK5351 binding patterns correlated well with the established post mortem distribution of lesions in PSP and with clinical severity. The contribution of possible MAO-B binding to the [18F]-THK5351 signal needs to be further evaluated, but nevertheless [18F]-THK5351 PET may still serve as valuable biomarker for diagnosis of PSP.
Ergodic Secret Alignment

In this paper, we introduce two new achievable schemes for the fading multiple access wiretap channel (MAC-WT). In the model that we consider, we assume that perfect knowledge of the state of all channels is available at all the nodes in a causal fashion. Our schemes use this knowledge together with the time-varying nature of the channel model to align the interference from different users at the eavesdropper perfectly in a one-dimensional space while creating a higher dimensionality space for the interfering signals at the legitimate receiver, hence allowing for better chance of recovery. While we achieve this alignment through signal scaling at the transmitters in our first scheme (scaling-based alignment), we let nature provide this alignment through the ergodicity of the channel coefficients in the second scheme [ergodic secret alignment (ESA)],. For each scheme, we obtain the resulting achievable secrecy rate region. We show that the secrecy rates achieved by both schemes in the two-user fading MAC-WT scale with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as. Hence, we show the suboptimality of the independent identically distributed (i.i.d.) Gaussian signaling-based schemes with and without cooperative jamming by showing that the secrecy rates achieved using i.i. d. Gaussian signaling with cooperative jamming do not scale with SNR. In addition, we introduce an improved version of our ESA scheme where we incorporate cooperative jamming to achieve higher secrecy rates. Moreover, we derive the necessary optimality conditions for the power control policy that maximizes the secrecy sum rate achievable by our ESA scheme when used solely and with cooperative jamming. Finally, we discuss the extension of the proposed schemes to the case where there are more than two users and show that, for the -user fading MAC-WT, each of the two schemes achieves secrecy sum rate that scales with SNR as.
Hospital Episode Statistics data analysis of postoperative venous thromboembolus in patients undergoing urological surgery: a review of 126,891 cases

Introduction Current guidelines on venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention do not reflect the potential varying risk for patients undergoing different urological procedures. Our study aimed to establish the procedure specific rate of postoperative VTE in patients undergoing urological surgery. Methods Hospital Episode Statistics were obtained for all patients undergoing common urological procedures between April 2009 and April 2010. This cohort was followed up to identify all patients reattending with either deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE) within 12 months. Results A total of 126,891 individuals underwent urological surgery during the study period. This included 89,628 men (70.6%) and 37,236 women (29.3%) with a mean age of 65.2 years. At the 12-month follow-up, 839 patients (0.66%) were readmitted with VTE. Of these, 373 (0.29%) were admitted with DVT and 466 (0.37%) with PE. The procedure-specific rate of VTE varied significantly between 2.86% following cystectomy and 0.23% following urethral dilatation. Procedures performed in the lithotomy position carried a significantly lower risk of VTE than those performed in the supine position (0.60% vs 1.28%, p<0.0001). Furthermore, of all procedures performed in the lithotomy position, those performed on benign conditions carried a significantly lower risk than those performed on malignant disease (0.52% vs 0.79%, p<0.0001). Conclusions Procedure specific rates of postoperative VTE vary widely among patients undergoing urological procedures. These findings suggest the potential benefit of prolonging the use of thromboprophylaxis in high-risk patients but also exploring the apparent lack of need for routine thromboprophylaxis in patients undergoing low-risk procedures.
Inverse optimal design of the distributed consensus protocol for formation control of multiple mobile robots

This paper presents the inverse optimal design method of a nonlinear distributed consensus protocol for formation control of multiple mobile robots. Both dynamics and kinematics are considered in the protocol design. First, we propose a state transformation method to obtain a proper consensus model of a mobile robot. Then, the inverse optimal protocol is designed with respect to a meaningful cost function under the assumption of perfect angular velocity tracking. The assumption will be relaxed by extending the inverse optimal protocol using the backstepping and Lyapunov's direct methods. The numerical simulation is carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Antitumor Properties of the Essential Oil From the Leaves of Duguetia gardneriana

Abstract Duguetia gardneriana, popularly known in the Brazilian northeast as “jaquinha”, is a species belonging to the family Annonaceae. The aim of this work was to assess the chemical composition and antitumor properties of the essential oil from the leaves of D. gardneriana in experimental models. The chemical composition of the essential oil was analyzed via gas chromatography-flame ionization detector and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. In vitro cytotoxic activity was determined in cultured tumor cells, and in vivo antitumor activity was assessed in B16-F10-bearing mice. The identified compounds were β-bisabolene (80.99 %), elemicin (8.04 %), germacrene D (4.15 %), and cyperene (2.82 %). The essential oil exhibited a cytotoxic effect, with IC50 values of 16.89, 19.16, 13.08, and 19.33 µg/mL being obtained for B16-F10, HepG2, HL-60, and K562 cell lines, respectively. On the other hand, β-bisabolene was inactive in all of the tested tumor cell lines (showing IC50 values greater than 25 µg/mL). The in vivo analysis revealed tumor growth inhibition rates of 5.37–37.52 % at doses of 40 and 80 mg/kg/day, respectively. Herein, the essential oil from the leaves of D. gardneriana presented β-bisabolene as the major constituent and showed cytotoxic and antitumor potential.
Stepfamilies: Redefining the Family

This study of 29 nonclinical stepfamilies with custodial adolescent stepchildren examines stepfamily cohesion and adaptability, the process of revising basic assumptions about family life, and the development of stepfamily identity. The stepfamilies reported low to moderate levels of cohesion and moderate to high levels of adaptability, both of which were associated with stepfamily, but not marital, satisfaction. Stepfamily cohesion was lower than that of nuclear families in the same life cyc/e stage, while adaptability was higher.
Application of social control theory to examine parent, teacher, and close friend attachment and substance use initiation among Korean Youth

Based on Hirschi’s social control theory (1969), this study examined the relationship between attachment (an element of social bonds) and the onset of substance use among South Korean adolescents. Using discrete-time logistic regression, the study investigated how attachment to parents, teachers, and close friends was associated with the timing of first alcohol and cigarette use. A nationally representative sample of Korean youth from five waves of the Korea Youth Panel Survey (N = 3,449 at baseline) was studied. Higher levels of parent and teacher attachment were associated with delayed onset of alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking. Attachment to close friends, however, was associated with earlier onset of substance use. These findings suggest that strategies for early substance use prevention should specifically target the relationships that youth develop with parents and teachers. Furthermore, the results highlight the importance of managing youth’s relationships with close friends to prevent the inadvertent negative social influence of particular types of peers.
Investigation on sentiment analysis for Arabic reviews

Arabic language has very rich vocabulary. It is manifested in different forms. The formal, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), and the informal, colloquial or dialects. Dialectical languages become important as a result of the proliferation of social networks which resulted in the vast unstructured dialectical text available on the web. Unique properties of modern standard Arabic and dialects present major challenges to build sentiment analysis systems by adopting similar models designed for the English language. In this paper, we present a supervised Arabic sentiment analysis using a bag-of-words feature. We further examine using a set of key words (lexicon) for better polarity classification. The testing of the system is carried out on the freely-available Arabic books' reviews (LABR) dataset. LABR includes both modern standard Arabic and Egyptian dialectal reviews. We used both balanced and unbalanced datasets. Clearly, the balanced data set is small in size and, henceforth, a large-scale balanced dataset is required for training of the classifier model. Further, we compared the computed predicted sentiments against the actual reviews for a specific book. Findings, by annotators, had indicated ambiguity between a review and its rating when verified alongside the predicted sentiment, which provided a more reasonable result. Moreover, working with dialects and sarcasm is exceedingly exciting. Experimental results on the adopted logistic classifier model and LABR are encouraging and promising. However, a key prerequisite is the availability of rich and well represented datasets in order to develop robust and efficient Arabic sentiment analyzers.
Prefactual Thoughts: Mental Simulations about What Might Happen

Thought about the future can take many forms, from goal planning to intentions and from fantasies to magical thinking. The term prefactual has guided some past research, yet its potential impact has been hampered by inconsistency in its definition. Here we define prefactual thought as a conditional (if-then) proposition about an action-outcome linkage that may (or may not) take place in the future, such as “If I take action X, it will lead to outcome Y. ” A prefactual embraces a causal belief that an action (if taken) will result in the outcome with a high degree of certainty. A form of mental simulation, prefactuals often derive from counterfactuals (which focus on the past) and feed into intentions (which center on the future). This article provides an overview of extant findings, draws connections to goal pursuit and affect regulation, and clarifies the value of the prefactual construct for conceptualizations of prospection.
Gettering of interstitial iron in silicon by plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposited silicon nitride films

It is known that the interstitial iron concentration in silicon is reduced after annealing silicon wafers coated with plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposited (PECVD) silicon nitride films. The underlying mechanism for the significant iron reduction has remained unclear and is investigated in this work. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) depth profiling of iron is performed on annealed iron-contaminated single-crystalline silicon wafers passivated with PECVD silicon nitride films. SIMS measurements reveal a high concentration of iron uniformly distributed in the annealed silicon nitride films. This accumulation of iron in the silicon nitride film matches the interstitial iron loss in the silicon bulk. This finding conclusively shows that the interstitial iron is gettered by the silicon nitride films during annealing over a wide temperature range from 250 °C to 900 °C, via a segregation gettering effect. Further experimental evidence is presented to support this finding. Deep-level transient spectrosc.
Practical applications of Ethernet in substations and industrial facilities

This paper is a tutorial in Ethernet communications and architectures. The defacto LAN standard throughout the world is Ethernet and the worldwide investment into this technology dwarfs that of investment into any other LAN standard. Speed, fiber support, multiple services and protocol support, and the emergence and usage of the IEC61850 protocol have resulted in an increase in the installation of Ethernet within substations and industrial facilities. There are many practical aspects associated with the application of Ethernet within the substation and industrial facility. This paper will address Ethernet fundamentals and will attempt to cover the most common elements of an Ethernet architecture from media selection, requirements for protective relaying systems, managed Ethernet Switch functions and terminology relevant to the protection relay engineer (such as VLAN, RSTP and QoS), network topology (ring, star, mesh, redundancy) and high speed recovery of redundant ring networks. Architectures for different applications will be reviewed, such as SCADA and GOOSE messaging. The intent of this paper is to educate the non-IT person, such as the protective relay engineer, on Ethernet fundamentals that are important to protective relaying applications.
The Effects of Individual Spatial Cognitive Styles and Spatial Stimulus-Response Pairing Patterns on Choice Reaction Time

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of both individual spatial cognitive styles and spatial stimulus-response (S-R) patterns on average choice reaction time. The experiment employed a 2 (individual spatial cognitive styles) ×2 (spatial S-R pairing patterns) split-plot design. The individual spatial cognitive styles used field-dependent-independent (FDI) cognitive styles that were tested with Riding's computer-administered Cognitive Styles Analysis (CSA). The spatial S-R pairing patterns used correspondent spatial S-R pairing task and non-correspondent spatial S-R pairing task. Analysis of variance showed that both individual spatial cognitive styles and spatial S-R pairing patterns were significant. Further, it was found that the difference in the FD participants' performances between the two different spatial S-R pairing pattern tasks varied more significantly than the difference in the FI participants' performances (the FD participants performed significantly more slowly than the FI participants in the non-correspondent spatial S-R pairing task than in the correspondent spatial S-R pairing task). This indicates that spatial-cognitive individuals performed differently in different spatial S-R pairing pattern tasks, and demonstrates the important role of selecting operator for spatial S-R pairing tasks, especially in the advanced control room.
Link-Prediction Enhanced Consensus Clustering for Complex Networks

Many real networks that are collected or inferred from data are incomplete due to missing edges. Missing edges can be inherent to the dataset (Facebook friend links will never be complete) or the result of sampling (one may only have access to a portion of the data). The consequence is that downstream analyses that “consume” the network will often yield less accurate results than if the edges were complete. Community detection algorithms, in particular, often suffer when critical intra-community edges are missing. We propose a novel consensus clustering algorithm to enhance community detection on incomplete networks. Our framework utilizes existing community detection algorithms that process networks imputed by our link prediction based sampling algorithm and merges their multiple partitions into a final consensus output. On average our method boosts performance of existing algorithms by 7% on artificial data and 17% on ego networks collected from Facebook.