Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
No evidence for changes in GABA concentration, functional connectivity, or working memory following continuous theta burst stimulation over dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) is thought to reduce cortical excitability and modulate functional connectivity, possibly by altering cortical inhibition at the site of stimulation. However, most evidence comes from the motor cortex and it remains unclear whether similar effects occur following stimulation over other brain regions. We assessed whether cTBS over left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex altered gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentration, functional connectivity and brain dynamics at rest, and brain activation and memory performance during a working memory task. Seventeen healthy individuals participated in a randomised, sham-controlled, cross-over experiment. Before and after either real or sham cTBS, magnetic resonance spectroscopy was obtained at rest to measure GABA concentrations. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was also recorded at rest and during an n-back working memory task to measure functional connectivity, regional brain activity (low-frequency fluctuations), and task-related patterns of brain activity. We could not find evidence for changes in GABA concentration (P=0.66, Bayes factor [BF10]=0.07), resting-state functional connectivity (P(FWE)>0.05), resting-state low-frequency fluctuations (P=0.88, BF10=0.04), blood-oxygen level dependent activity during the n-back task (P(FWE) >0.05), or working memory performance (P=0.13, BF10=0.05) following real or sham cTBS. Our findings add to a growing body of literature suggesting the effects of cTBS are highly variable between individuals and question the notion that cTBS is a universal ‘inhibitory’ paradigm.
A co-fractionation mass spectrometry-based prediction of protein complex assemblies in the developing rice aleurone-subaleurone

Multiprotein complexes execute and coordinate diverse cellular processes such as organelle biogenesis, vesicle trafficking, cell signaling, and metabolism. Knowledge about their composition and localization provides useful clues about the mechanisms of cellular homeostasis and systems-level control. This is of great biological importance and practical significance in heterotrophic rice endosperm and aleurone-subaleurone tissues that are a primary source of seed vitamins and stored energy. Dozens of protein complexes have been implicated in the synthesis, transport, and storage of seed proteins, lipids, vitamins, and minerals. Mutations in protein complexes that control RNA transport result in aberrant endosperm with shrunken and floury phenotypes, significantly reducing seed yield and quality. The purpose of this research is to broadly predict protein complex composition in the aleurone-subaleurone layers of developing rice seeds using co-fractionation mass spectrometry. Following orthogonal chromatographic separations of biological replicates, thousands of protein elution profiles were subjected to distance-based clustering to enable a large-scale determination of multimerization state and complex composition. Predictions included evolutionarily conserved proteins across diverse functional categories, including novel heteromeric RNA binding protein complexes that influence seed quality. This effective and open-ended proteomics pipeline provides useful clues about systems-level controls in the early stage of rice seed development. One-sentence summary A co-fractionation mass spectrometry pipeline predicts compositions of cytosolic protein complexes present in the early stages of rice seed development.
Determination of Pregabalin by HPLC with Precolumn Derivatization Using 1-Fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene

A high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method with UV detection was developed to determine the content of Pregabalin (PGB) by using 1-fluoro-2,4-dinitrobenzene (DNFB) as the precolumn derivatization reagent. The effects of light, reaction temperature, molar ratio of DNFB to PGB and reaction time on the derivatization reaction were investigated. Chromatographic separation was achieved on a C18 column with a mixture of phosphate buffer and acetonitrile as the mobile phase. The relationship between the PGB concentration and the PGB-DNFB peak area on the chromatograph is linear over the PGB concentration range of 8～48 μg·mL-1 (r = 0.9998). The recover ratio is (100.03 ± 1.10)% (n = 9). The within-day precisions are 0.82%, 0.77% and 1.87% for three different PGB concentrations (n = 6), respectively. The derivative solution is stable within 8 hours (RSD = 1.92%). The LOD is as low as 0.8 ng·mL-1. The proposed PGB content determination method is simple, rapid, accurate and reliable.
Analysis Of Semantic And Stylistic Image Generation

: Semantic Image Generation refers to the task of generating photorealistic images conditioning on some input data. This task is carried out by a specific set of neural networks called Generative Adversarial Networks. These are a set of neural networks which work opposed to each other, evolving from each other’s successes. The generator is a convolution network that outputs some image, while the discriminator is a network that classifies said image. The job of the discriminator is to perfectly identify an image as fake or real, while the generator’s job is to try to produce realistic images. Combining
Healthy People Statistical Notes Number 28 September 2020

Introduction—Healthy People is an initiative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that provides science-based, 10-year national objectives and targets for improving the health of all Americans. The fifth iteration of the initiative, Healthy People 2030 (HP2030), was released in August 2020. As in previous iterations, targets were set with the goal to be achieved by the end of the decade. HP2030 aims for continued transparency and scientific basis for how targets are selected and justified. To this end, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) developed statistical methods and analytical tools to assist in setting transparent, data-driven targets. Objective—This Statistical Note documents the statistical methods underlying the analytical tools that were developed by NCHS for HP2030 target setting based on percent or percentage point improvement and trend projection. Targets based on percent or percentage point improvement—In HP2030, targets reflecting a projected 10or 20-percent improvement from baseline values are proposed for rates and quantities other than percentages. For percentages, NCHS developed an enhanced method for HP2030, based on a percentage point improvement derived from Cohen’s effect size h. When applicable, two effect size values are proposed, h = 0.1 and h = 0.2. Targets based on trend projection— When historical data are available, fitting a trend line using (weighted) least squares permits the calculation of a range of predictions for the value of an indicator at any future time point. From this range of predictions, users can select a target based on the objective’s desired direction (i.e., increase or decrease). Conclusion—HP2030 is the first decade in the Healthy People initiative in which analytical tools for setting targets have been developed by NCHS. These tools assist in setting transparent, datadriven targets, and the methodological underpinnings of these tools may be useful for other public health initiatives.
Arches : a Framework for Modelling Complex Terrains

In this paper, we present a framework for representing complex terrains with such features as overhangs, arches and caves and including different materials such as sand and rocks. Our hybrid model combines a volumetric discrete data structure that stores the different materials and an implicit representation for sculpting and reconstructing the surface of the terrain. Complex scenes can be edited and sculpted interactively with high level tools. We also propose an original rock generation technique that enables us to automatically generate complex rocky sceneries with piles of rocks without any computationally demanding physically-based simulation.
Corporate Social Responsibility and Post Earnings Announcement Drift: Evidence from Korea

To promote corporate social responsibility (CSR) in emerging markets such as South Korea to the level of developed nations, support from capital market investors is necessary. That is, CSR activities expand if capital market investors actively invest in companies that pursue such activities. This study thus analyzes the influence of the level of CSR activities on the post-earnings-announcement drift (PEAD) of publicly listed companies in South Korea, given the need to analyze the relationship between capital markets and CSR, which is part of sustainability management strategies. A sample of Korean firms listed on the Korean Stock Exchange from 2014 to 2018 was used for the regression analysis. The financial and stock return data were extracted from the KIS-Value database and CSR activities data were collected from the Korea Economic Justice Institute (KEJI) Index. The empirical analysis determined that more inactive companies in terms of CSR exhibited greater PEAD magnitude. Furthermore, high information asymmetry was found to further increase the magnitude of PEAD. These results indicate that investors cannot make swift investment decisions because of their low confidence in the information disclosed by inactive CSR companies; as a result, earnings information is slowly reflected in the stock prices of the period following disclosure. These findings suggest that CSR plays an important role in boosting investor confidence in corporate earnings information.
Interparental Conflict Exposure and Self-Reported Depressive Symptoms and Religious Service Attendance in College Students

Conflict between parents is a common domestic experience, often witnessed by children in the home. Young adult children who were exposed to this conflict while in the home may be impacted negatively by these experiences to the point of experiencing depressive symptoms or reduced religious service attendance. Religious service attendance may be a helpful resource for those suffering from depressive symptoms related to parental conflict exposure. In two studies, the present research investigates relationships between three dimensions of interparental conflict – frequency, intensity, and resolution – depressive symptoms, and religious service attendance among college students. Study 1 (N = 963) found that as interparental conflict increased, symptoms of depressive symptoms increased, and religious service attendance decreased. Study 2 (N = 960) found that religious service attendance moderated the relationship between interparental conflict resolution and depressive symptoms, such that higher levels of religious service attendance weakened the relationship between poor conflict resolution and greater levels of depressive symptoms. Religious service attendance may serve as a buffer for depressed persons with a history of exposure to in-home parental conflict.
Identifying Untrustworthy News Websites using Third-Party Partnerships

Untrustworthy content such as fake news and clickbait have become a pervasive problem on the Internet, causing significant socio-political problems around the world. Identifying untrustworthy content is a crucial step in countering them. The current best-practices for identification involve content analysis and arduous fact-checking of the content. To complement content analysis, we propose examining websites’ third-parties to identify their trustworthiness. Websites utilize third-parties, also known as their digital supply chains, to create and present content and help the website function. Third-parties are an important indication of a website’s business model. Similar websites exhibit similarities in the third-parties they use. Using this perspective, we use machine learning and heuristic methods to discern similarities and dissimilarities in third-party usage, which we use to predict trustworthiness of websites. We demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of our approach in predicting trustworthiness of websites from a database of News, Fake News, and Clickbait websites. Our approach can be easily and cost-effectively implemented to reinforce current identification methods.
A Probe into Propagators

by Jiani FEI Quantum field theory (QFT) is interesting in the sense that it explains the subatomic world with a mathematical framework that is both essential and beautiful. Equations in quantum field theory are well understood while very difficult to solve. Due to the imaginary nature of the partition function, field theory under finite temperature (thermal QFT) employs the Matsubara formalism majorly in practice, which ‘Wick’ rotates the Euclidean time by 90 degrees in the complex plane (multiply by ‘i’) and evolves in this ‘imaginary time’ [1]. Matsubara formalism involves the propagators (Green’s functions) that corresponds to the spectral functions measurable in experiments, though in ‘real time’. Physics lying beneath different spectral functions is a heated area of research, which for instance provides evidence for the exciting high-Tc superconductivity phenomena. However, one big obstacle there, between theories and experiments, is the abstruse relation between the imaginaryand real-time formalism, or their corresponding (Fourier transformed) frequency components. The kernel relating ‘imaginary’ with ‘real’ domain propagators is notoriously ill-conditioned. Finding an operational procedure that takes in Matsubara Green’s function data and outputs real-frequency data is therefore of enormous need as the post-processing of quantum simulations. Analytic continuation, by the uniqueness theorem, can extend analytic functions uniquely into a bigger domain. It is used in practice as the algorithm for this transformation. Existing methods such as Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) method and Padé continued fraction fit involve instabilities that brings unphysical features or resolution ambiguity. Like although Padé is cool enough, it still would get the poles in the wrong half of the complex plane and would not get the correct normalization in general. This thesis will majorly (Chapter 1 and Chapter 2) develop methods to replace MaxEnt and Padé, namely the Nevanlinna method. Nevanlinna (and Carathéodory) continuation method is based on interesting mathematics and enforce the causal analytic structure on the Green’s function (both single-particle and matrix-valued ones). It has shown unprecedented accuracy in some application examples. The resulting paper have been published in Physical Review Letters (Phys. Rev. Lett. 126, 056402) as the Editors’ Suggestion. Chapter 3 is a real-material simulation that I finished with the guidance of Dr. Chia-Nan Yeh. I have used the self-energy embedding theory (SEET) and the code developed by our group to simulate the spectral function of the strontium titanate (SrTiO3). This was a fruitful learning experience of mine where I have appreciated the beautiful math in numerical algorithms, probing more into the propagator (response function) physics, as well as seeing how condensed matter simulations talk to experiments in practice.
AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE USE AND ACCEPTANCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A MARKETING TOOL BY SMALL SCALE FARMERS IN EASTERN ZIMBABWE: THE TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL PERSPECTIVE

Social media has become a trend for business partners today. Therefore, this research was carried out to encourage small scale farmers to adopt and accept social media as new business platform to further improve their business and market their products easily and cheaply. This is because 92 % of customers are now using various social media platforms. Some of the farmers, entrepreneurs and other businesses still prefer offline business because they think that traditional marketing still remains as a rival for social media marketing. Questionnaires were distributed to the targeted respondents which were 300 small scale farmers from Marondera. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and correlation analysis using the SPSS software. The study revealed that perceived usefulness, trust and attitude influence intention to use social media. It is recommended that small scale farmers and other businesses can take social media into consideration as it plays an important role in marketing and advertising of various
Modeling of Fundus Laser Exposure for Estimating Safe Laser Coagulation Parameters in the Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy

A personalized medical approach can make diabetic retinopathy treatment more effective. To select effective methods of treatment, deep analysis and diagnostic data of a patient’s fundus are required. For this purpose, flat optical coherence tomography images are used to restore the three-dimensional structure of the fundus. Heat propagation through this structure is simulated via numerical methods. The article proposes algorithms for smooth segmentation of the retina for 3D model reconstruction and mathematical modeling of laser exposure while considering various parameters. The experiment was based on a two-fold improvement in the number of intervals and the calculation of the root mean square deviation between the modeled temperature values and the corresponding coordinates shown for the convergence of the integro-interpolation method (balance method). By doubling the number of intervals for a specific spatial or temporal coordinate, a decrease in the root mean square deviation takes place between the simulated temperature values by a factor of 1.7–5.9. This modeling allows us to estimate the basic parameters required for the actual practice of diabetic retinopathy treatment while optimizing for efficiency and safety. Mathematical modeling is used to estimate retina heating caused by the spread of heat from the vascular layer, where the temperature rose to 45 °C in 0.2 ms. It was identified that the formation of two coagulates is possible when they are located at least 180 μm from each other. Moreover, the distance can be reduced to 160 μm with a 15 ms delay between imaging.
Design and development of a tri-pro UN manned Arial vehicle Concept for commercial application

Purpose – This paper aims to present the results of aerodynamic calculation of the aircraft in tricopter with 2 fixed brushless and a servo attached motor at the rear side. A presented unmannedaerial vehicle is one of two types of tricopter UAVs, but presented and analyzed in basic level. The aircraft is equipped with a pair of fixed rotors mounted on the tips of the front and a servo attached rotor to the rear wings/arms. The main goal of the presented research was to research, design and analyze a rarer kind of the aircraft. Moreover, the studied model or design is also supposed to be manufactured later. Methodology/approach – The Solid Works was used to design and assemble the parts/components of the UAV. Detailed study of tricopter types and components along with mathematical logic was conducted by the team in order to learn about the tri rotor UAVs. Findings – The result obtained from the study includes the functioning along with the given components. Not only that, it covers the mechanical forces that are acting on our UAV. The influence of the angle of attack, sideslip angle and the change of angle of servo motor was briefly investigated. New design of tricopter is also provided. Practical implications – Presented results could be very useful in the computation of dynamic stability of unconventional aircraft. Moreover, results could be slightly helpful during designing the aircraft in the tandem wing configuration. Index Terms UAV, Tri Prop, Dynamic Pressure, Design Of aircraft, Drons
Rural–Urban Inequalities in Poor Self-Rated Health, Self-Reported Functional Disabilities, and Depression among Chinese Older Adults: Evidence from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study 2011 and 2015

The household registration system (Hukou) in China classifies persons into rural or urban citizens and determines eligibility for state-provided services and welfare. Not taking actual residence into account may underestimate rural–urban differences. This study investigates rural–urban inequalities in self-reported health outcomes among older adults aged 60+, taking into account both Hukou and actual residence, adjusting for sociodemographic determinants, based on the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) in 2011 and 2015. Self-Rated Health (SRH) was assessed with a single question, functional abilities were assessed with the Basic Activities of Daily Living (BADLs) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs) scales, and depression was assessed with the 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Rural respondents had poorer socioeconomic status and higher prevalence of poor SRH, functional disabilities, and depression than urban respondents in both years, which were closely related to rural–urban differences in educational level and income. Impairments appeared at a younger age among rural respondents. Analyses using only Hukou registration and not actual residence resulted in underestimation of rural–urban differences. This study may serve as a basis for interventions to address rural–urban differences in health and social services and reduce health inequalities among Chinese older adults.
for “More than meets the tie: Examining the Role of Interpersonal Relationships in Social Networks”

To maintain precision, phrases that could signal multiple relationships, e.g., bro for a biological brother or a friend, were removed from our dataset. The removal of such relationships is an attempt to preserve the distinctiveness of relationships at the expense of sample size. Additionally, for dyads where both users declared different relationships or different relationships were declared several times in the same dyad, we randomly sampled one instance and dropped the remaining duplicates. Another filtering step was to remove personal relationships declared towards public figures. Parasocial celebrity-fan relationships often entail a degree of affection from one side that may look like friendships or romantic relationships (Dibble, Hartmann, and Rosaen, 2016; Kehrberg, 2015). For instance, the account for Justin Bieber was declared as a boyfriend by 3,749 distinct users. We removed all declarations of non-parasocial relationships that was targeted to Twitter accounts with more than 10,000 followers, which is a reasonable threshold for identifying influential users.
Double Quadrature Spatial Modulation

Quadrature spatial modulation (QSM) utilizes the in-phase and quadrature spatial dimensions to transmit the real and imaginary parts, respectively, of a single signal symbol. Improved QSM (IQSM) builds upon QSM to increase the spectral efficiency by transmitting the real and imaginary parts of two signal symbols using antenna combinations of size of two. In this paper, we propose a double QSM (DQSM) scheme that transmits the real and imaginary parts of two signal symbols independently through any of the transmit antennas. The two signal symbols are drawn from two different constellations of the same size with the first symbol drawn from any of the conventional modulation sets while the second is drawn from an optimally rotated version of the first constellation. The optimum rotation angle is obtained through extensive Monte Carlo simulations to minimize the bit error rate (BER) of the system. Simulation results show that for a given spectral efficiency, DQSM performs relatively close to IQSM while requiring a smaller number of transmit antennas, and outperforms IQSM by up to 2 dB when the same number of antennas are used.