Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Towards the elucidation of the genetic and brain bases of developmental speech and language disorders.

Two papers in this issue of Brain by Watkins and colleagues (Watkins et al ., 2002 a , b ) provide fascinating and important new data about the core behavioural features and neural basis of an inherited form of speech and language disorder. This work is particularly relevant in the light of recent discoveries about the genetic basis of the same developmental disorder. Individuals affected by developmental speech and language disorders have major difficulties acquiring expressive and/or receptive language despite adequate intelligence and opportunity, and in the absence of any profound sensory or neurological impairment (Bishop et al ., 1995). Although twin studies consistently show a significant genetic component, the majority of families show a complex pattern of inheritance. The present studies concern the unique three‐generation pedigree, the KE family, in whom a severe speech and language disorder is transmitted as an autosomal‐dominant monogenetic trait. Speech in affected individuals is effortful, distorted and often unintelligible with word order and other grammatical errors. Previous work on the KE family had mapped the locus responsible (SPCH1) to 7q31 (Fisher et al ., 1998). Further studies by the same research group have now identified a point mutation in affected family members, which alters an invariant amino acid residue in the DNA‐binding domain in a forkhead/winged helix transcription factor, encoded by the FOXP2 gene (Lai et al ., 2001). The case for a causal association is further strengthened by the finding of a translocation break in the same gene in another unrelated individual who has a very similar speech and language disorder (Lai et al ., 2001). Many members of the forkhead/winged helix protein family are known to be regulators of embryogenesis and mutations of the FOX genes have been implicated in a range of other human developmental disorders. Lai et al . (2001) propose …
Concurrent versus Retrospective Verbal Protocol for Comparing Window Usability

A traditional concurrent verbal protocol method was compared to a heavily cued retrospective verbal protocol in which users were presented with a video tape of their performance to help them recall their thoughts after task completion. The two methods of protocol were employed in a comparison of two different size monitors. Subjects were required to complete 12 tasks which varied in the number of windows required simultaneously on the monitor. The subjects' performance, as measured by steps to completion, task completion time, and errors committed, was compared across monitors and protocol methods. Subjective data were also collected in the form of task difficulty ratings, as well as a global measure of user satisfaction. Verbal data were compared to assess any information differences due to the methods of collection or the monitor sizes. No performance or subjective differences were found between the two protocol methods. The kinds of information gathered were quite different for the two methods, with concurrent protocol subjects giving procedural information and retrospective protocol subjects giving explanations and design statements. Performance data, as well as subjective data, indicated that on tasks that require that one or two windows be present simultaneously, there were no differences between the two monitor sizes. As the number of simultaneous windows increased, however, the large monitor's advantages became apparent. Tasks which require that four windows be present simultaneously were judged to be easier and required fewer steps on the large monitor than on the small monitor.
Mania and Recovery from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Discussion We present here a patient with sarcoidosis limited to the stomach and complicated by pernicious anaemia who was treated conservatively with oral corticosteroids. The stomach is a rare site of sarcoid involvement. A review by Maycock et al. reported no cases of gastric involvement among 1109 patients'. In 1979 Korsager reported a case of gastric and pulmonary sarcoidosis and identified an additional 45 cases in the literature of sarcoidosis with gastric involvement2. Several subsequent cases have been reported of patients with sarcoidosis involving the stomach as well as other organs5-11. In only one of these cases5, a 22-year-old woman with sarcoidosis ofthe thyroid, lungs, phalanges, oesophagus, stomach, duodenum, appendix and lungs, did the individual have concomitant pernicious anaemia. A second case6 has been reported of sarcoidosis of the liver, spleen, lungs, stomach, small intestine, colon and rectum in a 60-year-old woman who had an abnormal Schilling test both with and without intrinsic factor in the setting of mild generalized malabsorption but no reported resultant anaemia. Chlumsky et al.3 reported a case of a 31-year-old man with isolated gastric sarcoidosis which responded to oral corticosteroid therapy. Gallagher et aL4 presented two cases of gastric sarcoidosis, one with concomitant pulmonary involvement and the other being a 25-year-old woman with isolated gastric sarcoidosis discovered at laparotomy; no further treatment beyond resection was needed. Berens and Montes'2 also presented two cases of gastric sarcoidosis, one with concomitant pulmonary and liver involvement and the other being a 35-year-old woman with presumed isolated gastric involvement, although in this case the evaluation was incomplete. Fahimi and his colleagues"3 reported three additional cases of patients with isolated granulomatous gastritis; however, they were unconvinced that these were sarcoidosis. Thus, review ofthe literature confirms the rarity of gastric involvement in sarcoidosis. Furthermore, isolated gastric sarcoidosis appears to be extremely rare with only six prior potential cases reported in the world literature, and in some ofthese the diagnosis was questionable. Finally, there is only one prior report in the world literature of gastric sarcoidosis leading to pernicious anaemia. Therefore, we feel that our patient represents a highly unusual presentation of sarcoidosis with isolated gastric involvement and concomitant pernicious anaemia.
High gain multiband circular loop antenna with ring resonators reflectors by using FSS technique

A high gain multiband circular loop antenna with ring resonator reflectors by using FSS technique reaches responsibility in applications for multiband operation and enhanced gain. The applications of multiband operation include WLAN IEEE802.11 b/g (2.4-2.484 GHz), WiMAX (3.3-3.8 GHz), and WLAN IEEE802.11a (5.15-5.35 GHz), consequently. Moreover the presented antenna enhances the gain using the technique of FSS with maximum gains of 9.14 dBi, 11.1 dBi, and 6.64 dBi at the operating frequencies of 2.45 GHz, 3.5 GHz, and 5.25 GHz, respectively. The antenna dimension is about 120 mm × 120 mm × 79.65 mm. The antenna is fed by using the coplanar stripe line. Designed details and results of the proposed antenna are presented and discussed.
The basic butterfly for radix-8 FFT algorithm III . RADIX-4 FFT ALGORITHM

This paper focus on the development of the fast Fourier transform (FFT), based on Decimation-In-Time (DIT) domain by using Mixed-Radix algorithm (Radix-4 and Radix-8). Fast Fourier transforms, popularly known as FFTs, have become an integral part of any type of digital communication system and a wide variety of approaches have been tried in order to optimize the algorithm for a variety of parameters such as area, time delay, power and speed. In this paper a comparison of area and minimum time delay are drawn between the proposed design of 32 point FFT by using Mixed-Radix algorithmwithRadix-2 algorithm. Here our goal is to implement Mixed Radix 32-point FFT by using hardware language (VHDL). Simulation and synthesis of design is done using Xilinx ISE 14.7. The result shows significant reduction in terms of area complexity and minimum time delay.
Alzheimer’s Disease and the Cerebellum: A Morphologic Study on Neuronal and Glial Changes

Structural manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) including neuronal loss were investigated in 12 cases of AD and in 10 healthy age-matched controls, with focus on the cerebellum. Linear Purkinje cell (PC) density was measured in the vermis and cerebellar hemispheres. Neurons were also counted in the inferior olivary nucleus. In vermis of the AD cases, the mean PC number was significantly lower (p = 0.019) than in the controls. The neurons in the inferior olive were similarly fewer, though not significantly (p = 0.13). Molecular layer gliosis and atrophy in the vermis was clearly severer in AD than in the controls. Features typical of cerebral Alzheimer encephalopathy (plaques, tangles and microvacuolization) were inconspicious. The structural cerebellar changes in the AD cases were thus neuronal loss, atrophy and gliosis, judged to represent the disease process, and with a main involvement in the vermis. This may be reflected in some of the symptoms and signs seen in AD, signs that are generally overlooked or judged to be of noncerebellar origin.
First trimester interleukin 8 levels are associated with postpartum relapse in multiple sclerosis

Pregnancy has an ameliorating effect on multiple sclerosis (MS), but directly after delivery the risk of a relapse is increased. The pro-inflammatory chemokine interleukin 8 is associated with disease activity. We aimed to investigate whether pregnancy-induced fluctuations of interleukin 8 correlate with periods of enhanced and diminished disease activity. Thirty-six women with MS were prospectively studied before, during and after pregnancy. Serum levels of interleukin 8 were significantly decreased during the third trimester (p = 0.03). High first trimester serum levels of interleukin 8 were associated with a high risk of postpartum relapse (p = 0.007). These results help us to further understand the altered disease course during pregnancy.
Automatic Query Generation and Query Relevance Measurement for Unsupervised Language Model Adaptation of Speech Recognition

We are developing a method of Web-based unsupervised language model adaptation for recognition of spoken documents. The proposed method chooses keywords from the preliminary recognition result and retrieves Web documents using the chosen keywords. A problem is that the selected keywords tend to contain misrecognized words. The proposed method introduces two new ideas for avoiding the effects of keywords derived from misrecognized words. The first idea is to compose multiple queries from selected keyword candidates so that the misrecognized words and correct words do not fall into one query. The second idea is that the number of Web documents downloaded for each query is determined according to the "query relevance. " Combining these two ideas, we can alleviate bad effect of misrecognized keywords by decreasing the number of downloaded Web documents from queries that contain misrecognized keywords. Finally, we examine a method of determining the number of iterative adaptations based on the recognition likelihood. Experiments have shown that the proposed stopping criterion can determine almost the optimum number of iterations. In the final experiment, the word accuracy without adaptation (55.29%) was improved to 60.38%, which was 1.13 point better than the result of the conventional unsupervised adaptation method (59.25%).
Clustering of nitrogen fixation (nif) genes in Rhizobium meliloti

A cloned 17.3-kilobase region of the Rhizobium meliloti genome with homology to the Klebsiella pneumoniae nitrogenase structural genes was studied. Limits on the extent of homology were determined. Transposon mutagenesis of this region of the genome verified that it contained functional nif genes, Some transposon insertions resulted in a defective symbiotic phenotype, whereas others had no noticeable effect on symbiotic competence. The relative position of insertions yielding these two phenotypic classes suggested that at least three distinct units of gene expression are present in this region. Hybridization of RNA from alfalfa root nodules and from vegetatively grown Rhizobium to this cloned DNA showed that at least 11.1 kilobases of the region was transcribed actively and that transcription was specific for the symbiotic state.
Adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy output feedback control based on nonlinear high gain observer for flexible air-breathing hypersonic vehicles

In this paper, an adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy output feedback control (AIT2-FOFC) scheme is developed for flexible air-breathing hypersonic vehicles (FAHVs) in the presence of unknown flexible dynamics and parameter uncertainties. After calculating the derivatives of the velocity and altitude repeatedly, a state feedback dynamic inversion controller is formulated as the basic nominal controller. Then, an adaptive interval type-2 fuzzy logic system (AIT2-FLS) is constructed to approximate the unknown uncertainties in the FAHV longitudinal model. Furthermore, a nonlinear high gain observer is designed to estimate the high order derivatives of the velocity tracking error and altitude tracking error which are unavailable in practice. Based on the separation principle, the overall AIT2-FOFC scheme is finally obtained through combining the state feedback controller and the nonlinear high gain observer. Simulation at last demonstrates the effectiveness of our proposed control scheme.
Spheroidal Organoids Reproduce Characteristics of Longitudinal Depth Zones in Bovine Articular Cartilage

Articular cartilage has multiple histologically distinct longitudinal depth zones. Development and pathogenesis occur throughout these zones. Cartilage explants, monolayer cell culture and reconstituted 3-dimensional cell constructs have been used for investigating mechanisms of pathophysiology in articular cartilage. Such models have been insufficient to reproduce zone-dependent cellular characteristics and extracellular matrix (ECM) upon investigation into cartilage development and pathogenesis. Therefore, we defined a chondrocyte spheroid model consistently formed with isolated chondrocytes from longitudinal depth zones without extrinsic materials. This spheroid showed zone-dependent characteristics of size, cartilage-specific ECM (collagen types I and II, aggrecan and keratan sulfate) and gene expressions of anabolic and catabolic molecules (matrix molecules and matrix metalloproteinase-13). In addition, the spheroid model is small enough to maintain the viability of cells and point symmetry to analyze the gradient of diffusive molecules. This spheroid organoid model will be useful to elucidate the mechanism of histogenesis and pathogenesis in articular cartilage.
A type II metacaspase interacts with Rps1-k-2 in soybean and analysis of the soybean metacaspase gene family

9 Introduction . 10 Materials and Methods . 13 Plant Materials . 13 Yeast Two-Hybrid Screen . 14 Generation of RNAi Vectors . 15 Agrobacterium rhizogenes Manipulation . 15 A. rhizogenes-Mediated Transformation of Soybean Cotyledons . 16 Infection of A. rhizogenes Transformed Cotyledons with P. sojae . 16 RT-PCR . 17 Antibody Production and Western Blot Analysis of Gmmc11 p10 and p20 Subunits . 18 Western Blot Analysis of Protein Extracts from P. sojae Infected and Uninfected Soybean Tissues . 18 Results . 19 Gmmc11 Is a Type II Metacaspase . 19
Active Site Distortion Is Sufficient for Proteinase Inhibition by Serpins

We report here the x-ray structure of a covalent serpin-proteinase complex, α1-proteinase inhibitor (α1PI) with porcine pancreatic elastase (PPE), which differs from the only other x-ray structure of such a complex, that of α1PI with trypsin, in showing nearly complete definition of the proteinase. α1PI complexes with trypsin, PPE, and human neutrophil elastase (HNE) showed similar rates of deacylation and enhanced susceptibility to proteolysis by exogenous proteinases in solution. The differences between the two x-ray structures therefore cannot arise from intrinsic differences in the inhibition mechanism. However, self-proteolysis of purified complex resulted in rapid cleavage of the trypsin complex, slower cleavage of the PPE complex, and only minimal cleavage of the HNE complex. This suggests that the earlier α1 PI-trypsin complex may have been proteolyzed and that the present structure is more likely to be representative of serpin-proteinase complexes. The present structure shows that active site distortion alone is sufficient for inhibition and suggests that enhanced proteolysis is not necessarily exploited in vivo.
Randomized Field Trials and Internal Validity: Not So Fast My Friend

The purpose of this article is to summarize eight potential threats to internal validity that occur with randomized field trial (RFT) studies. Depending on specific contextual factors, RFTs do not necessarily result in strong internal validity. Of particular concern is whether the unit of random assignment is the same as the number of replications of the intervention, threats as a result of local history, and subject effects. The eight threats are described, with suggestions for providing adequate monitoring to know if they rise to the level of likely or plausible threat to internal validity.
Economic and Environmental Effectiveness of Incentives Tools for the Building Waste Recycling

In this paper, I propose an evaluation of the different policy tools implemented in the Building Industry in order to promote waste recycling. We consider that the Building Industry, one of the major waste disposer, is composed of two completely different sectors. As I consider a two-sector based economy, it allows me to put in evidence the most efficient policy tool for each sector.
Estimation of Seismic Loss for a Portfolio of Buildings under Bidirectional Horizontal Ground Motions due to a Scenario Cascadia Event

Earthquake ground motions induced by a scenario event are spatially (partially) correlated and (partially) coherent. Simulated ground motion records can be used to carry out nonlinear inelastic time history analysis for a portfolio of buildings to estimate the seismic loss, which is advantageous as there is no need to develop and apply empirical ground motion prediction equations and the ductility demand rules, or to search the scenario compatible recorded records at selected sites that may not exist. Further, if the structures being considered are sensitive to the orientation of the excitation, multiple-component ground motion records are needed. For the simulation of such ground motion records, previous studies have shown that correlation and coherency between any pair of ground motion components need to be incorporated. In this study, the seismic loss of a portfolio of hypothetical buildings in downtown Vancouver under bidirectional horizontal ground motions due to a scenario Cascadia event is estimated by using simulated bidirectional ground motion records that include realistic correlation and coherency characteristics. The hysteretic behaviours of the buildings are described by bidirectional Bouc-Wen model. The results show that the use of unidirectional ground motions and single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system structural model may underestimate the aggregated seismic loss.
Optimisation study of the synthesis of vanadium oxide nanostructures using pulsed laser deposition

Fast imaging plasma plume study have been carried out on vanadium-oxygen plasma generated using 248 nm, 25 ns pulses from an excimer KrF laser under oxygen atmosphere. The plume expansion dynamics of an ablated VO2 target was investigated using a fast-imaging technique. The free expansion, splitting, sharpening and stopping of the plume were observed during these oxygen pressures, 0.01, 0.05, 0.10 and 0.20 mbar. The influence of the plume dynamics study on the properties of the obtained vanadium oxide thin films were examined using X-Ray Diffraction method. A vanadium dioxide phases were deposited at 0.05 mbar oxygen pressure for target-substrate distance of 40 mm and 50 mm. Mixed phases of vanadium oxide were deposited at 0.01, 0.10 and 0.20 mbar oxygen pressure for target-substrate distance of 40 mm. Transition temperatures of around 60.9oC have been measured from sample deposited at 0.05 mbar oxygen pressure for target-substrate distance of 50 mm. We observe mixed nanostructures for thin film prepared at 0.05 mbar for target-substrate distance of 40 mm, while the thin film prepared at 0.05 mbar for target-substrate of 50 mm shows an uniform nanostructure film.
Accurate sparse recovery of guided wave characteristics for structural health monitoring

Guided wave structural health monitoring systems are often characterized by multi-modal and dispersive propagation media. Accurate knowledge of guided wave characteristics could help to dramatically improve performance, but estimating this information from data is often very difficult. In this paper, we present a methodology, based on compressed sensing, that utilizes ℓ1-regularized optimization techniques to recover the sparse characteristics of the guided wavefields in the frequency-wavenumber domain. Using simulated guided wave data, we demonstrate the performance of this technique and compare it to a more traditional approach, the 2-dimensional discrete Fourier transform method. We show that, with 10 sensors, our compressed sensing method successfully estimates 1000 points in a wavefield with an average correlation coefficient of more than 0.99 while the 2-dimensional discrete Fourier transform method requires more than 820 sensors to achieve the same performance.
Patient morbidity and management patterns of community-based primary health care services in Hong Kong.

1. The most common reason for doctor consultation was upper respiratory tract infection (26.4%), followed by hypertension (10.0%), diabetes (4.0%), gastroenteritis (3.9%), and lipid disorder (2.7%). 2. Imbalance of care was evident between the private and public primary care sectors; the public sector was heavily burdened with care for patients with chronic diseases. There is room to expand the role of private sector in primary care for chronic diseases and in disease prevention. 3. Funding methods and training in family medicine was associated with morbidity and management patterns.4. These findings could guide health care policy and resource allocation as well as the content of medical training programmes.
Designing interactive speech systems - from first ideas to user testing

1. Interactive Speech Systems. - 1.1 Introduction. - 1.2 Background and Scope of This Book. - 1.3 State of the Art.- 1.4 Unsolved Problems. - 2. Speech Interaction Theory. - 2.1 Introduction. - 2.2 Elements of Interactive Speech Theory. - 2.3 Context. - 2.4 Interaction Control. - 2.5 Language. - 2.6 Speech. - 2.7 Performance. - 2.8 Characterizing Systems. - 3. Developing Interactive Speech Systems. - 3.1 Introduction. - 3.2 The Development and Evaluation Process. - 3.3 Supporting Completeness and Consistency of Requirement Specifications. - 3.4 Representing Design Space and Design Reasoning. - 3.5 Speech Functionality. - 4. Interaction Model Analysis and Design. - 4.1 Introduction. - 4.2 Guidelines for Co-operative Interaction Design. - 4.3 Guidelines Illustrated and Explained. - 4.4 Development and Justification of the Guidelines. - 5. Wizard of Oz Simulation. - 5.1 Introduction. - 5.2 Wizard of Oz for Interaction Model Development. - 5.3 Planning Wizard of Oz Simulations. - 5.4 Developing the First Interaction Model. - 5.5 Iterating the Interaction Model. - 5.6 Uses of WOZ. - 6. Implementational Issues. - 6.1 The Overall Dialogue System. - 6.2 Dialogue Control. - 6.3 Debugging. - 7. Corpus Handling. - 7.1 Introduction. - 7.2 Transcription. - 7.3 Mark-up. - 7.4 Coding. - 7.5 Corpus Tools. - 8. Evaluation. - 8.1 Introduction. - 8.2 Performance Evaluation. - 8.3 Diagnostic Evaluation. - 8.4 A By-product: User Errors. - 8.5 Adequacy Evaluation. - 9. Next Steps in Interactive Speech Systems. - 9.1 Introduction. - 9.2 Advanced Mixed Initiative Interactive Speech Systems. - 9.3 Intelligent Multimodal Systems Using Advanced Interactive Speech. - References.