Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The 'preclinical phase' of probable Alzheimer's disease. A 13-year prospective study of the Framingham cohort.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the interval between the onset of detectable cognitive impairment and clinical diagnosis in individuals with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), and to identify the pattern of the earliest changes in cognition in probable AD. DESIGN Longitudinal follow-up of a community-based cohort sample. In 1976 through 1978, a screening neuropsychological examination was administered to Framingham Study participants. These subjects were then followed up prospectively for development of probable AD for up to 13 years. SETTING This study was conducted at a community-based center for epidemiologic research. PARTICIPANTS The surveillance sample consisted of 1045 participants in the Framingham Study aged 65 to 88 years who were free of dementia at the time of the neuropsychological screening examination. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Scores on a group of neuropsychological tests were entered into a series of age- and education-adjusted multiple regression procedures, with the presence or absence of probable AD as the outcome variable. RESULTS Considered individually, most of the screening neuropsychological measures were significantly related to later AD diagnosis. When stepwise regression procedures were employed, only measures of verbal memory and immediate auditory attention span remained significantly related to AD diagnosis. Of note, subjects later diagnosed with probable AD performed at higher levels than normal subjects on the Digit Span test at initial screening. Regression results were essentially unchanged even when the AD sample was restricted to those individuals for whom the screening examination preceded the clinical onset of dementia by 7 years or more. CONCLUSIONS These findings support previous contentions that a "preclinical phase" of detectable cognitive deficits can precede the clinical diagnosis of probable AD by many years, and they also support the hypothesis that problems with secondary verbal memory are among the first signs of AD.
A Novel Method of Dexterity Analysis for a 5-DOF Manipulator

The dexterity characteristics and dexterous workspace features are applied as the considerable and key kinematics properties to evaluate the manipulator performance. In this paper, a novel method of the dexterity analysis with the character of graphic dexterity and a newconcept of the spatial mapping envelope surface are proposed for a 5-degree of freedom (DOF) manipulator. Additionally, for an arbitrary selected point and a dexterous workspace, the dexterity characteristics and the dexterity conditions are drawn, respectively. Finally, the dexterous workspace of this 5-DOF manipulator is obtained and it can be utilized as the basis research of this manipulator in future such as the structure optimization and motion control.
Taking Stock of Stockbrokers: Exploring Momentum versus Contrarian Investor Strategies and Profiles

Two studies were conducted among professional security analysts to explore their patterns of decision making while managing investment portfolios. In study 1, a computer-based simulation, the analysts' styles differed markedly, with most exhibiting either a momentum or contrarian approach, as indicated by responses to portfolio stock price changes. Study 2 used a verbal protocol procedure and semistructured depth interviews to probe the analysts' thought processes. Momentum and contrarian investors were found to differ on a number of dimensions including price expectations, age, experience, raw performance, risk propensity, cognitive style, knowledge calibration, and strategy adaptivity. Implications and limitations are discussed. Copyright 2002 by the University of Chicago.
Genomic insights into the evolution of the nicotine biosynthesis pathway in 14 tobacco

Short title 1 Nicotine biosynthesis regulon in tobacco 2 3 Corresponding author details 4 Name; Tsubasa Shoji 5 Affiliation; Graduate School of Biological Sciences, Nara Institute of 6 Science and Technology 7 Address; Takayama-cho 8916-5, Ikoma, Nara 630-0101, Japan 8 Phone; +81-743-72-5521 9 Fax; +81-743-72-5529 10 e-mail;t-shouji@bs.naist. jp 11 12 Article title 13 Genomic insights into the evolution of the nicotine biosynthesis pathway in 14 tobacco. 15 16 Author names and affiliations 17 Masataka Kajikawa, Nicolas Sierro, Haruhiko Kawaguchi, Nicolas 18 Bakaher, Nikolai V. Ivanov, Takashi Hashimoto, and Tsubasa Shoji 19 20 Graduate School of Biological Sciences, Nara Institute of Science and 21 Technology, Ikoma, Nara 630-0101, Japan 22 Philip Morris International R&D, Philip Morris Products S.A. , Quai 23 Jeanrenaud 5, 2000, Neuchâtel, Switzerland (Part of Philip Morris 24 International Group of Companies) 25 26 $ These authors have contributed equally to this work. 27 28 One sentence summary 29 A series of metabolic and transport genes involved in nicotine pathway 30 form a regulon under the control of jasmonate-responsive transcription 31 factors in tobacco. 32 33 Foot notes 34 List of author contributions 35 T.S. conceived the research plans. T.S. , T.H. , N.I. and N.S. supervised the 36 Plant Physiology Preview. Published on April 18, 2017, as DOI:10.1104/pp.17. 00070
Spectrally-efficient differential turbo-coded modulation for multi-gigabit satellite links

Efficient exploitation of the wide bandwidth available in the EHF (extremely high frequency) domain will be a main pillar for the development of future-generation terabit satellite networks. State-of-the-art systems use spectrally-efficient coded modulations, which are based on coherent demodulation that requires the use of complex and expensive analog PLL circuitry, which are vulnerable to high Doppler shifts and phase noise, the latter, being a significant impairment in the W-band. The latest trends in digital communications are to use fully digital receivers. Therefore, we consider a novel modulation method based on differential turbo-coded modulation and A-Posteriori-Probability (APP) channel estimation for application in multi-gigabit W-band satellite links. The proposed scheme utilizes the combination of an outer 2/3 binary parity channel code and differential 8-PSK modulation, similar to a binary repeat-accumulate serial turbo coding. The turbo-demodulator uses a double-spread interleaver and Log-MAP decoding performed on the 8-PSK trellis. Counteracting channel impairments and frequency drifts is primarily accomplished by APP channel estimation which is integrated into the differential demodulator, and consists of a simple smoothing filter. Preliminary results have shown a robust behavior of the system, achieving high link availability.
Comparison of Hyperelastic Models for Rubber-Like Materials

The present paper proposes a thorough comparison of twenty hyperelastic models for rubber-like materials. The ability of these models to reproduce different types of loading conditions is analyzed thanks to two classical sets of experimental data. Both material parameters and the stretch range of validity of each model are determined by an efficient fitting procedure. Then, a ranking of these twenty models is established, highlighting new efficient constitutive equations that could advantageously replace well-known models, which are widely used by engineers for finite element simulation of rubber parts.
A new approach to relatively short message steganography

The rapid growth of Internet users and the increasing range of data types which are exchanged over this network (video, audio, text messages.), emphasize the security problem that this way of communication has. The flood of multimedia contents in the structure of transmitted data has made the appearance of images in this network quite normal. This revived the use of steganography (hiding data within images) in order to hide information to avoid unauthorized access. A much used technique for this purpose, the LSB (Least Significant Bits) technique, still leads to visible changes in the original image, which was chosen to be the message carrier. These differences make quite a path for a cryptanalyst to doubt the authenticity (independence) of the picture itself. However, by using GA (Genetic Algorithm), the differences between the original image and the image embedded with secret data can be reduced. However, the difference between the original image and the image with embedded information still remains, while the achieved improvements are paid with an increase of computational complexity. Naturally a question arises: Can the image be embedded with information in a way so that it does not undergo any changes? Most fast responses would be that it is not possible. This paper shows that this is in fact possible.
Clinical Utility of Screening for Anxiety and Depression in Children with Tourette Syndrome.

Background Tourette syndrome (TS) is often co-morbid with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Studies of TS, anxiety and depression have found variable results depending on study methodology and sample characteristics. Our aim was to examine the clinical utility of routine screening for anxiety and depression in children with TS. Methods Using a clinic-based sample, we evaluated the proportion of children with TS meeting diagnostic criteria for ADHD, OCD, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), separation anxiety disorder (SAD), and major depressive disorder (MDD); the frequency of above average anxiety and depressive symptoms using the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC) and the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI); and the association between diagnoses and symptom severity. Results One hundred twenty six children were included (mean age 10.7 years). The most common comorbid disorder was ADHD (37%), followed by GAD (21%), OCD (10%), MDD (2%) and SAD (2%). On the MASC, the separation anxiety/panic subscale score was higher than all other subscale scores (p<0.0001). Clinically significant anxiety symptoms were present in 20% of the sample based on the MASC Anxiety Disorders Index, while 6% were identified as potentially clinically depressed based on the CDI Total Score. Yale Global Tic Severity Scale scores were positively correlated with total scores on the MASC (r=0.22, p=0.03) and CDI (r=0.37, p=0.0002). Conclusions Routine screening children with TS for anxiety is warranted given the rate of comorbidity. Screening for depression in TS will have a higher yield in adolescents, adults, and children with more severe tics.
Successful ab initio prediction of the tertiary structure of NK‐lysin using multiple sequences and recognized supersecondary structural motifs

A simple approach to protein tertiary structure prediction is described, based on the assembly of recognized supersecondary structural fragments taken from highly resolved protein structures by using a simulated annealing algorithm. The results of blind‐testing this method on CASP2 target T0042 (pig NK‐lysin) are presented. The predicted structure had a Cα root‐mean‐square deviation of only 6.2 Å from the experimental structure (and less than 5.0 Å over the first 66 residues), and clearly had the correct fold when judged by using a number of objective measures. Despite the significant degree of success in this case, there is clearly much more development required before predictions with the accuracy of a good homology model can be made with this kind of approach. Proteins, Suppl. 1:185–191, 1997. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Asserted Predica , on Inferred Predica , on Med 1 Med 2 Med 3 Disease *

Semantic MEDLINE applies automatic summarization techniques to manage the semantic predications extracted from the biomedical literature by SemRep. It does so by selecting salient predications based on several criteria. In this study, we investigated a new technique to automatically summarize SemRep predications. Our technique leverages hierarchical relations from the UMLS Metathesaurus for aggregating the semantic predications. We also generated new inferences from the aggregated semantic predications. Several quantitative measures are defined to evaluate the system. We applied our method to summarize medications used to treat diseases and also adverse drug events reported in the biomedical literature. Our preliminary experimental results are promising in terms of summarization rate. They also indicate that less than half of the newly generated inferences correspond to existing relations. Further work is needed to evaluate the rest of the inferences.
Characteristics of the Nonoccurrence of Tropical Cyclones in the Western North Pacific in August 2014

This study identified the causes of the nonoccurrence of tropical cyclones (TCs) in August 2014 by examining large-scale environments. First, over the previous 30 years, the TC genesis frequency in August showed an overall statistically significant decline. In the tropical and subtropical western Pacific, the outgoing longwave radiation anomaly index also exhibited an overall increase until recently. Regarding precipitable water and precipitation, an analysis was performed on the difference between the mean values for August 2014 and the mean values for August over the previous 30 years. As a result, while convective activities were suppressed in the tropical and subtropical western Pacific, convective activities were strong in the mid-latitudes of East Asia. This indicates that while the western North Pacific summer monsoon was weakened in August 2014, the East Asian summer monsoon was strengthened. The weakening of the western North Pacific summer monsoon may have made it difficult for TCs to occur. An analysis of 850 hPa and 500 hPa stream flows showed the strengthening of anomalous huge anticyclonic circulations in the tropical and subtropical western Pacific, whereas anomalously cyclonic circulations were reinforced in the mid-latitudes of East Asia. This was associated with the result that the western North Pacific subtropical high (WNPSH) showed further westward and southward expansion in August 2014 compared to the climatological mean WNPSH. Therefore, TCs were unlikely to occur in the tropical and subtropical western Pacific, but anomalous cold northerlies and anomalous warm southerlies converged in the Japanese Islands after originating in China’s central region and passing the East China Sea. Therefore, a favorable environment for the occurrence of precipitation had been formed.
Framing Matters: Effects of Framing on Older Adults’ Exploratory Decision-Making

We examined framing effects on exploratory decision-making. In Experiment 1 we tested older and younger adults in two decision-making tasks separated by one week, finding that older adults’ decision-making performance was preserved when maximizing gains, but it declined when minimizing losses. Computational modeling indicates that younger adults in both conditions, and older adults in gains maximization, utilized a decreasing threshold strategy (which is optimal), but older adults in losses were better fit by a fixed-probability model of exploration. In Experiment 2 we examined within-subject behavior in older and younger adults in the same exploratory decision-making task, but without a time separation between tasks. We replicated the older adult disadvantage in loss minimization from Experiment 1 and found that the older adult deficit was significantly reduced when the loss-minimization task immediately followed the gains-maximization task. We conclude that older adults’ performance in exploratory decision-making is hindered when framed as loss minimization, but that this deficit is attenuated when older adults can first develop a strategy in a gains-framed task.
Variable efficiency of a Ti plasmid-encoded VirA protein in different agrobacterial hosts

The transconjugant CB100, harboring the Ti plasmid from the Agrobacterium tumefaciens biovar 2 strain D10B/87 in the chromosomal background of the biovar 1 strain C58, was defective in vir gene induction. This defect was corrected in the presence of virA from pTiA6. Based on this complementation result and an analysis of the induction requirements of the transconjugant CB100 and its parent strains, it was hypothesized that the defective vir gene induction in CB100 was related to a dysfunctional interaction between the pTi-encoded D10B/87 VirA and the chromosome-encoded C58 ChvE. To verify this hypothesis, D10B/87 and C58 virA were compared, and conclusions from this first set of analyses were then corroborated by comparing D10B/87 and C58 chvE. Whereas only a few nucleotide differences were identified in the promoters and 5' ends of the coding regions of D10B/87 and C58 virA, analysis of hybrid virA genes showed that these differences collectively accounted for the poor vir gene induction of strain CB100. In contrast with the sequence similarity of the VirA proteins, extensive divergence was seen between the chromosome-encoded D10B/87 and C58 ChvE. Although D10B/87 chvE introduced in trans had little effect on vir gene induction of CB100, it enhanced the induction response of a strain CB100 derivative in which the chromosomal C58 chvE had been inactivated by marker exchange. These results suggest that chromosomal backgrounds provided by different strains of A. tumefaciens are not equivalent for VirA function. Following conjugative transfer of certain Ti plasmids to a new agrobacterial host, evolution of the newly introduced virA, or coevolution of chvE and virA, may lead to optimization of ChvE-VirA interaction and vir gene induction levels.
Temporal and regional changes during focal ischemia in rat brain studied by proton spectroscopic imaging and quantitative diffusion NMR imaging

The early development of focal ischemia after permanent occlusion of the right middle cerebral artery (MCA) was studied in six rats using interleaved measurements by diffusion‐weighted NMR imaging (DWI) of water and two variants of proton spectroscopic imaging (SI), multiecho SI (TE: 136, 272, 408 ms) and short TE SI (TE: 20 ms). Measurements on a 4.7‐T NMR imaging system were performed between the control phase and approximately 6 h postocclusion. In the center of the ischemic lesion of all rats, the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) decreased rapidly to 84.4 ± 4.2% (mean ± SD) of the control values approximately 2 min postocclusion. Approximately 6 h postocclusion, the ADC was reduced to 67.1 ± 5.9%. In contrast, large differences between the animals were observed for the temporal increase of lactate (Lac) in the ipsilateral hemisphere. The maximum Lac signal was reached in four rats after 0.5‐1.5 h, and in two rats was not reached even after 6 h postocclusion. Six h postocclusion, SI spectra measured at a TE of 136 ms revealed a decrease in the CH3 signal of N‐acetylaspartate (NAA) to 67 ± 13% of the control values. Differences were observed between the spatial regions of decreased NAA and increased Lac. In the lesions, a T2 relaxation time of Lac of 292 ± 40 ms, considering a J‐cou‐pling constant of 6.9 Hz, was measured. Furthermore, a prolongation of the T2 of the CH3 signal of creatine/phosphocre‐atine (Cr/PCr) was observed in the lesion, from 163 ± 22 ms during control to 211 ± 41 ms approximately 6 h postocclusion. The experiments proved that DWI and proton SI are valuable tools to provide complementary information on processes associated with brain infarcts.
QoS-Based Interwoking among Wide Area Subsystems Alessando Garibbo

This paper deals with a protocol architecture to interconnect Autonomous Systems (ASes), together with guaranteeing the QoS provision. The adoption of the MPLS protocol allows defining an effective way to face the heterogeneity due to the interconnection of ASes implementing different QoS technologies. In this perspective, the problem regarding the management of the traffic flows that cross the boundaries of the ASes reveals to be a hot topic of research and will be deeply investigated in the paper.
A capacitor-less low drop-out voltage regulator for SoC applications

A capacitor-less low drop-out (LDO) regulator for SoC applications with buffer based compensation technique is proposed in this paper. The 1.6 V LDO with a power supply of 1.8 V is implemented in GPDK 0.18 μm CMOS technology and it achieves a PSRR of 70 dB up to 1 kHz for load currents up to 10 mA. It makes use of PMOS folded cascode error amplifier to lower the flicker noise. Simulation results verify that the proposed LDO is stable for a capacitive load from 0 to 30 pF and with a load capability of 10 mA and has a drop-out voltage of 200 mV. The layout of the design shows that the area acquired on the chip is approximately equal to 0.79 mm2.
Antibody Persistence 1–5 Years Following Vaccination With MenAfriVac in African Children Vaccinated at 12–23 Months of Age

Background. Following mass vaccination campaigns in the African meningitis belt with group A meningococcal conjugate vaccine, MenAfriVac (PsA-TT), disease due to group A meningococci has nearly disappeared. Antibody persistence in healthy African toddlers was investigated. Methods. African children vaccinated at 12–23 months of age with PsA-TT were followed for evaluation of antibody persistence up to 5 years after primary vaccination. Antibody persistence was evaluated by measuring group A serum bactericidal antibody (SBA) with rabbit complement and by a group A–specific IgG enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results. Group A antibodies measured by SBA and ELISA were shown to decline in the year following vaccination and plateaued at levels significantly above baseline for up to 5 years following primary vaccination. Conclusions. A single dose of PsA-TT induces long-term sustained levels of group A meningococcal antibodies for up to 5 years after vaccination. Clinical Trials Registration. ISRTCN78147026.
Identification of PLCβ and PKC in pheromone receptor neurons of Antheraea polyphemus

Two proteins of the IP3 transduction pathway were identified by Western blots in homogenates of isolated pheromonesensitive sensilla of the silkmoth Antheraea polyphemus. A 110 kDa protein was recognized by an antiserum raised against the Drosophila phospholipase Cβ (PLCβ p121) and a 80 kDa protein was labelled by an antiserum against a synthetic peptide of a conserved region of protein kinase C (PKC). Incubation of homogenized sensory hairs with the main sex pheromone component, (E,Z) 6–11 hexadecadienyl acetate, resulted in a 6-fold increase in the activity of PKC compared to controls without pheromone. In contrast, incubation with pheromone did not affect the activity of protein kinase A (PKA). Activation of PKC by the membrane permeable dioctanoylglycerol led to excitation of the pheromone-sensitive receptor neurons. These data support the current concept that pheromone perception of moths is mediated by the IP3 transduction pathway.
Rule extraction from trained artificial neural network with functional dependency preprocessing

The paper describes a technique to extract symbolic rules from a trained artificial neural network with functional dependency preprocessing. RULEX (R. Andrews and S. Geva, 1994; 1995), classified as a decompositional technique of rule extraction from trained neural network in a recent survey by R. Andrews et al. (1995), is used to extract symbolic rules from data that have been preprocessed by identification of functional dependency. The identification of functional dependency offers several advantages. It can lead to significant reductions in the computational load, to reduction in the number and complexity of derived rules and to the discovery of alternative solutions that would otherwise be ignored by some methods due to implicit or explicit procedural bias. Benchmark datasets from the UCI repository of machine learning databases are used in the testing. Experimental results indicate that by including functional dependency preprocessing performance of RULEX can be improved. Good rule quality is obtained by applying RULEX with functional dependency preprocessing when compared to symbolic rule extraction technique C4.5.