Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Correlation of phoria with personality: A pioneering study

The development of concomitant squint is a function of personality trait of a child. It is also a known fact that the personality trait of a child is carried forward to his adult personality. Therefore a hypothesis that phoria is correlated with personality was postulated. The objective of the study is to examine how exophoria is correlated with neuroticism- Stable and Extravert- Introvert dimensions of personality. After taking proper informed consent, fifty-eight undergraduate and postgraduate medical students with atleast -2.00 D spherical equivalent myopia were evaluated in a tertiary eye hospital in West Bengal for their Personality on Neuroticism (N) and Extraversion (E) scales by Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI) 48 questionnaires. Maximum and minimum possible scores on each scale was 48.00 and 0.00 respectively. Their Phoria status (hetrophoria/ orthophoria) was also evaluated. Out of a total of fifty eight (58), thirty two (32) students were male and twenty six (26) were female. The age range of the 58 students was 18-30 years (24.53 +/- 3.45). 37 (thirty-seven, 63.79%) of them had exophoria and the rest 21 (twenty-one, 36.20%) had orthophoria. Mean, Standard Deviation of the scores on Neuroticism (N) and Extraversion (E) scale for 58 students were23.82+/- 8.45 and23.06 +/- 8.78 respectively. The students were grouped into two, one with ‘Phoria’ (n=37) and other with ‘No Phoria’ (orthophoria, n=21) and were compared with two outcomes, N-scores 24 (neurotic personality tendency, n= 21) by Fisher Exact Test. The test showed exophorias were correlated with stable personality pattern (P =0.0005). However phoria was not found to be correlated with Extraversion-Introversion dimension of personality (P = 0.2836). Exophoriais correlated with stable personality pattern, a fact, which to authors’ belief, is probably discovered for the first time by this study. Keywords: Phoria, Exophoria, Orthophoria, Maudsley Personality Inventory(MPI), Personality, Neuroticism-Stable, Extraversion-Introversion
A Superfamily of T6SS Antibacterial Effectors Displaying L,D-carboxypeptidase Activity Towards Peptidoglycan

Type VI secretion systems (T6SSs) are contractile nanomachines used by bacteria to inject toxic effectors into competitors. The identity and mechanism of many effectors remain unknown. We characterized a Salmonella SPI-6 T6SS antibacterial effector called Tae5STM (type VI amidase effector 5). Tae5STM is toxic in target-cell periplasm and is neutralized by its cognate immunity protein (Tai5STM). Microscopy analysis revealed that cells expressing the effector stop dividing and lose cell envelope integrity. Bioinformatic analysis uncovered similarities between Tae5STM and the catalytic domain of L,D-transpeptidase. Point mutations on conserved catalytic histidine and cysteine residues abrogated toxicity. Biochemical assays revealed that Tae5STM displays L,D-carboxypeptidase activity, cleaving peptidoglycan tetrapeptides between meso-diaminopimelic acid3 and D-alanine4. Phylogenetic analysis showed that Tae5STM homologs constitutes a new superfamily of T6SS-associated amidase effectors distributed among α-, β- and γ-proteobacteria. This work expands our current knowledge about bacterial effectors used in interbacterial competition.
The Relationship Between Insulin Resistance and Hyperinsulinemia on Mammary Cancer Growth and Development

ii Acknowledgements: . iii List of Abbreviations: . iv List of Figures: . vii CHAPTER 1: . 1 General Introduction . 1 1.1 Breast Cancer . 1 1.1.1 Classification and statistics . 1 1.1.2 Pathophysiology of breast cancer . 1 1.1.3 Risk factors . 2 1.2 The Metabolic Syndrome & Insulin Resistance . 4 1.2. 1 Insulin and Insulin-like Growth Factor I (IGF-I) . 4 1.3 Evidence for the Role of Insulin in Breast Cancer . 6 1.3. 1 Clinical studies . 6 1.3. 2 In vivo studies . 8 1.3. 3 In vitro studies . 9 1.4 Mechanisms by Which Insulin Can Stimulate Breast Cancer . 9 1.4. 1 Direct action of insulin . 9 1.4. 2 Indirect action of insulin . 15 1.5 Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) . 18 1.5. 1 HER2/Neu as a model of breast cancer . 18 1.5. 2 Signaling mechanisms . 19 1.5. 3 Crosstalk between the ErbB/HER family and the IGF-IR signaling pathway . 22 1.6 Metformin . 22 1.6. 1 Role in the treatment of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus . 22 1.6. 2 Mechanism of action of metformin . 24 1.6. 3 Use of metformin in the treatment of breast cancer . 26 1.7 General Hypothesis . 28 CHAPTER 2: . 31 The Effect of a High-Fat Diet on HER2/Neu Mammary Carcinogenesis. 31 2.
Home food safety intervention for the Georgia olOlder Americans Act Nutrition Program

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an educational intervention on improving home food safety practices in congregate meal recipients in senior centers in northeast Georgia. A random sample of participants was selected from north Georgia senior centers (N = 136; mean age: 79 years; 74% female; 61% Caucasian; 39% African American). The study design was a pre-test, intervention, and post-test design. At the pre-test, variability in adherence to 16 home food safety practices was large and ranged from ≤ 17% for checking temperatures of the refrigerator and cooked meats to ≥ 76% for other behaviors. Following the intervention, participants were more likely to wash their hands with warm water and soap for 20 seconds before eating (76% vs. 90%, P ≤ 0.01) and before preparing food (76% vs. 92%, P ≤ 0.01). In a series of regression analyses, younger age was the most consistent predictor of adherence to home food safety practices at the pre-test, and older age was the most consistent predictor of improvements in adherence after the intervention. As a first step, this intervention improved several aspects of home food safety practices; however, additional interventions that target the individual are needed to increase home food safety practices in older adults. INDEX WORDS: Older Americans Act Nutrition Program, Congregate Meal Program, Senior Center, Home Food Safety Practices, Nutrition Education, Nutrition Intervention. HOME FOOD SAFETY INTERVENTION FOR THE GEORGIA OLDER AMERICANS ACT
Multi-Task Topic Analysis Framework for Hallmarks of Cancer with Weak Supervision

The hallmarks of cancer represent an essential concept for discovering novel knowledge about cancer and for extracting the complexity of cancer. Due to the lack of topic analysis frameworks optimized specifically for cancer data, the studies on topic modeling in cancer research still have a strong challenge. Recently, deep learning (DL) based approaches were successfully employed to learn semantic and contextual information from scientific documents using word embeddings according to the hallmarks of cancer (HoC). However, those are only applicable to labeled data. There is a comparatively small number of documents that are labeled by experts. In the real world, there is a massive number of unlabeled documents that are available online. In this paper, we present a multi-task topic analysis (MTTA) framework to analyze cancer hallmark-specific topics from documents. The MTTA framework consists of three main subtasks: (1) cancer hallmark learning (CHL)—used to learn cancer hallmarks on existing labeled documents; (2) weak label propagation (WLP)—used to classify a large number of unlabeled documents with the pre-trained model in the CHL task; and (3) topic modeling (ToM)—used to discover topics for each hallmark category. In the CHL task, we employed a convolutional neural network (CNN) with pre-trained word embedding that represents semantic meanings obtained from an unlabeled large corpus. In the ToM task, we employed a latent topic model such as latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) and probabilistic latent semantic analysis (PLSA) model to catch the semantic information learned by the CNN model for topic analysis. To evaluate the MTTA framework, we collected a large number of documents related to lung cancer in a case study. We also conducted a comprehensive performance evaluation for the MTTA framework, comparing it with several approaches.
Bifurcations and chaos control in a discrete-time biological model

In this paper, bifurcations and chaos control in a discrete-time Lotka–Volterra predator–prey model have been studied in quadrant-[Formula: see text]. It is shown that for all parametric values, model has boundary equilibria: [Formula: see text], and the unique positive equilibrium point: [Formula: see text] if [Formula: see text]. By Linearization method, we explored the local dynamics along with different topological classifications about equilibria. We also explored the boundedness of positive solution, global dynamics, and existence of prime-period and periodic points of the model. It is explored that flip bifurcation occurs about boundary equilibria: [Formula: see text], and also there exists a flip bifurcation when parameters of the discrete-time model vary in a small neighborhood of [Formula: see text]. Further, it is also explored that about [Formula: see text] the model undergoes a N–S bifurcation, and meanwhile a stable close invariant curves appears. From the perspective of biology, these curves imply that between predator and prey populations, there exist periodic or quasi-periodic oscillations. Some simulations are presented to illustrate not only main results but also reveals the complex dynamics such as the orbits of period-2,3,13,15,17 and 23. The Maximum Lyapunov exponents as well as fractal dimension are computed numerically to justify the chaotic behaviors in the model. Finally, feedback control method is applied to stabilize chaos existing in the model.
Vegetated ridge and sandbag may not reduce soil erosion and loss of carbon and nutrients from upland fields

ABSTRACT Though construction of vegetated ridge (VR) and placement of sandbag (SB) across the slope of upland fields are believed to be effective in reducing soil erosion and nutrient loss, relevant data are lacking to confirm such expectations. In this study, the effects of VR and SB on loss of soils, carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) (CNP) were investigated through both artificial (in dry season) and natural (in rainy season) runoff experiments on upland fields cultivated with maize (Zea mays L. var. ceratina). Contrary to expectations, both VR and SB were not effective in reducing the loss of soils and CNP. For VR, accelerated convergent flow caused by ridge failure, which occurred when part of the ridges collapsed because the amount of water collected in the furrows exceeded the water storage capacity of the ridges, led to excessive loss of soils and CNP. For SB, the loss of soils and CNP could be ascribed to the malfunction of SB; i.e., soil and CNP were lost by seepage through the gaps between SBs and between SB and soil surface. Maize growth and yield were not affected by VR and SB, coinciding with the lack of beneficial effects of VR and SB on soil and nutrient loss. As VR and SB are easy to be implemented and cost-effective, however, further study is necessary to correct the flaws of VR and SB found in this study.
An End-to-End Recommendation System for Urban Traffic Controls and Management Under a Parallel Learning Framework

A paradigm shift towards agile and adaptive traffic signal control empowered with the massive growth of Big Data and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies is emerging rapidly for Intelligent Transportation Systems. Generally, an adaptive signal control system fine-tunes signal timing parameters based on pre-defined control hyperparameters using instantaneous traffic detection information. Once traffic pattern changes, those hyperparameters (e.g., maximum and minimum green times) need to be adjusted according to the evolution of traffic dynamics over a very short-term period. Such adjustment processes are usually conducted by professional and experienced traffic engineers. Here we present a human-in-the-loop parallel learning framework and its utilization in an end-to-end recommendation system that mimics and enhances professional signal control engineers’ behaviors. The system has been deployed into a real-world application for an extended period in Hangzhou, China, where signal control hyperparameters are recommended based on large-scale multidimensional traffic datasets. Experimental evaluations demonstrate significant improvements in traffic efficiency through the use of our signal recommendation system.
Testing the Establishment of Eight Forbs in Mowed Lawns of Hard Fescue (Festuca brevipila) for Use in Pollinator Conservation

Public concern for the conservation of pollinating insect communities, such as bees, has created demand for more florally diverse landscapes. In urban environments, lawns form a large portion of cultivated land, and are typically managed to exclude flowering species richness. In this study, we investigated the establishment of eight flowering plants with pollinator value (plants that provide floral nectar and pollen for visiting insects) when coseeded with the turfgrass hard fescue (Festuca brevipila Tracey). The study was established as a dormant seeding at two locations in central Minnesota with substantially different soil types. Plots were maintained at either a 6- or 9-cm mowing height. We monitored these plantings over the 2014, 2015, and 2016 growing seasons for vegetative establishment and flowering of planted forbs. Of the eight forbs tested, Trifolium repens L. , Prunella vulgaris ssp. lanceolata (W. Bartram) Hultén, Thymus serpyllum auct. non L. , and Astragalus crassicarpus Nutt. established in at least one location. Mowing height did not affect vegetative establishment, but had a negative effect on the number of blooms produced by P. vulgaris ssp. lanceolata. Vegetative establishment was affected by location, with P. vulgaris ssp. lanceolata establishing in higher abundance in the moist loamy site, whereas T. serpyllum and A. crassicarpus established in higher abundance at the dry sandy site. This study represents an important first step in identifying appropriate plants and management practices for improving lawns as a resource for pollinators.
Research on missile overload control technology with prescribed performance

Considering that the present control methods for missile overload don’t take the transient and steady state with prescribed performance into consideration. On the basis of backstepping idea, a controller design method with prescribed performance is proposed for longitudinal channel overload motion model of missile in order to improve the performance of missile control systems. It is proved that the system is stable in the sense of Lyapunov, the tracking error of the system satisfy the prescribed transient and steady performance. The given simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.
Photogrammetry-derived digital surface model and orthoimagery of Slope Mountain, North Slope, Alaska, June 2018

The Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys (DGGS) conducted a photogrammetric survey of Slope Mountain in northern Alaska. The survey encompasses a well-known outcrop of significance to petroleum resources on the North Slope. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) data and aerial photographs were collected on 20-22 June 2018 and 24 and 26 June 2018, respectively. We processed these data using structure-from-motion (SfM) photogrammetric techniques to create a digital surface model (DSM) and orthorectified aerial optical image (orthoimage). This Raw Data File provides open access to, and an open end-user license for, these data products. All files can be downloaded free of charge from the DGGS website (http://doi.org/10.14509/30419).
Therapeutic features of the family group conference model when applied for long-term social assistance recipients

ABSTRACT The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore long-term social assistance recipients´ experiences with family group conferences (FGC). Fifteen Norwegian long-term (> 6 months) social assistance recipients whom had arranged an FGC were interviewed. There were nine men and six women, age 24–64 years. The findings show that the FGC may have therapeutic features when applied in a social service context. Three features associated with family/network therapy were found: Self-disclosure, dialogic communication and improved family relationships. The possible therapeutic function of the FGC when applied for adults is potent in a social work context, as solving family conflicts and/or improving family interaction may be a prerequisite in order to achieve other desired changes among many long-term social assistance recipients.
On Practical Stability Preservation Under Fast Sampling and Accurate Quantization of Feedbacks for Nonlinear Time-Delay Systems

In this article, we deal with the problem of stabilizing a nonlinear system with state-delays by means of quantized sampled-data state feedback control laws. Quantization in the state measurements and in the input signal are simultaneously considered. Fully nonlinear (i.e., possibly nonaffine in the control) time-delay systems are studied. Sufficient conditions are provided such that suitably fast sampling and accurate quantization of the state feedback at hand yield semiglobal practical stability, with arbitrarily small final target ball of the origin. Nonlinear delay-free systems are addressed as a special case: it is shown that the above sufficient conditions, ensuring the semiglobal practical stability, are satisfied if the continuous-time static state feedback controller is a global stabilizer. The theory of stabilization in the sample-and-hold sense is used. The theoretical results are validated through an example.
Effects of fluorescent glutamate indicators on neurotransmitter diffusion and uptake

Genetically encoded fluorescent glutamate indicators (iGluSnFRs) enable neurotransmitter release and diffusion to be visualized in intact tissue. Synaptic iGluSnFR signal time courses vary widely depending on experimental conditions and often last 10-100 times longer than the extracellular lifetime of synaptically released glutamate estimated with uptake measurements. iGluSnFR signals typically also decay much more slowly than the unbinding kinetics of the indicator. To resolve these discrepancies, here we have modeled synaptic glutamate diffusion, uptake and iGluSnFR activation to identify factors influencing iGluSnFR signal waveforms. Simulations suggested that iGluSnFR competes with transporters to bind synaptically released glutamate, delaying glutamate uptake. Accordingly, synaptic transporter currents recorded in iGluSnFR-expressing cortical astrocytes were slower than those in control astrocytes. Simulations also suggested that iGluSnFR reduces free glutamate levels in extrasynaptic spaces, likely limiting extrasynaptic receptor activation. iGluSnFR and lower-affinity variants nonetheless provide linear indications of vesicle release, underscoring their value for optical quantal analysis.
A 28-GHz Beamforming Doherty Power Amplifier With Enhanced AM-PM Characteristic

This article presents a beamforming Doherty power amplifier (B-DPA) for the 28-GHz fifth-generation (5G) new-radio band. The proposed B-DPA is based on a new combiner topology that allows the current profile in the auxiliary branch of the DPA to be relaxed while simultaneously canceling the amplitude-to-phase (AM-PM) distortion exhibited in the active devices. This approach enables efficiency and linearity enhancements. In addition, the DPA is augmented with high-accuracy digitally assisted vector multipliers at its input stage to provide the required relative and absolute phase adjustments for proper Doherty operation and the overall phase shift required for beamforming. A proof-of-concept prototype was implemented in the 45-nm silicon on insulator (SOI)-CMOS technology. Measurement results reveal that the proposed B-DPA demonstrated good Doherty operation with drain efficiencies of 18%–20% and 33%–35% at 6-dB back-off and saturation power (Psat, 18 dBm) levels, respectively, between 28 and 30 GHz. In particular, excellent AM-PM characteristics were noted with a peak value of only 1.5° up to Psat, which remained below 2.5° as the B-DPA was swept with a 0° to 360° phase shift. Finally, modulated-signal tests revealed error vector magnitudes of 3.1% and 0.9% for 4-MHz $\times100$ -MHz orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals before and after applying digital predistortion, respectively.
Seasonal Time Series Models with Application to Weather and Lake Level Data

This work studies seasonal time series models with application to lake level and weather data. The thesis includes related time series concepts, integrated autoregressive moving average models (abbreviated as ARIMA), parameter estimation, model diagnostics, and forecasting. The studied time series models are applied to the data of daily lake level in Beaver Lake (1988-2017) and the data of daily maximum temperature in New York Central Park (1870-2017). Due to seasonality of the data, three different approaches are proposed to the modeling: regression method, functional ARIMA method and multiplicative seasonal ARIMA method. The forecasted values of the year 2018 are compared with observations; regression method is better to forecast daily values, and multiplicative ARIMA method is a better choice owing to higher accuracy for a short term and shorter period.
Sleep disturbances in patient with chronic nasal obstruction due to nasal polyp: a prospective study

Background: Nasal obstruction is thought to be a major cause of sleep impairment. Typical sleep-related problems seen with nasal polyp include snoring, sleep-disordered breathing and sleep apnoea. The impact of nasal polyposis on quality of life is well studied however its effects on sleep have been less well studied. In the current study, we aim to investigate sleep disturbances in Filipino patients with nasal polyposis using different sleep questionnaires VAS score for snoring, Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS) for daytime sleepiness and Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) for sleep quality and the effect of endoscopic sinus surgery on sleep quality. Methods: A prospective, non-randomized study was done in the Department of Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery of Southern Philippines Medical Center from February 2014 to July 2014. Number of 18 patients with chronic nasal obstruction for more than 6months due to nasal polyps at least grade II on endoscopic examination were included in the study. Visual analogue scale (VAS) score for snoring, ESS for daytime somnolence and PSQI for quality of sleep was compared preoperatively and 1month postoperatively. Results: Mean value of VAS score for snoring, mean value of excessive daytime sleepiness measured by ESS and mean PSQI score for sleep quality improved significantly with p<0.001 after endoscopic sinus surgery. Conclusions: Nasal polyp patients mostly present with nasal obstruction, snoring and excessive daytime sleepiness. Correction of nasal obstruction significantly improves snoring and sleep quality. After endoscopic sinus surgery, patients may experience improvement in snoring and have better sleep quality with decreased daytime sleepiness.
A Deep-Reinforcement-Learning-Based Recommender System for Occupant-Driven Energy Optimization in Commercial Buildings

In this article, we present recEnergy, a recommender system for reducing energy consumption in commercial buildings with human-in-the-loop. We formulate the building energy optimization problem as a Markov decision process, show how deep reinforcement learning can be used to learn energy-saving recommendations, and effectively engage occupants in energy-saving actions. recEnergy is a recommender system that learns actions with high-energy-saving potential, actively distributes recommendations to occupants in a commercial building, and utilizes feedback from the occupants to learn better energy-saving recommendations. Over a four-week user study, four different types of energy-saving recommendations were trained and learned. recEnergy improves building energy reduction from a baseline saving (passive-only strategy) of 19%–26%.