Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and Correlates of Problematic Internet Experiences and Computer-Using Time: A Two-Year Longitudinal Study in Korean School Children

Objective To measure the prevalence of and factors associated with online inappropriate sexual exposure, cyber-bullying victimisation, and computer-using time in early adolescence. Methods A two-year, prospective school survey was performed with 1,173 children aged 13 at baseline. Data collected included demographic factors, bullying experience, depression, anxiety, coping strategies, self-esteem, psychopathology, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder symptoms, and school performance. These factors were investigated in relation to problematic Internet experiences and computer-using time at age 15. Results The prevalence of online inappropriate sexual exposure, cyber-bullying victimisation, academic-purpose computer overuse, and game-purpose computer overuse was 31.6%, 19.2%, 8.5%, and 21.8%, respectively, at age 15. Having older siblings, more weekly pocket money, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and passive coping strategy were associated with reported online sexual harassment. Male gender, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms were associated with reported cyber-bullying victimisation. Female gender was associated with academic-purpose computer overuse, while male gender, lower academic level, increased height, and having older siblings were associated with game-purpose computer-overuse. Conclusion Different environmental and psychological factors predicted different aspects of problematic Internet experiences and computer-using time. This knowledge is important for framing public health interventions to educate adolescents about, and prevent, internet-derived problems.
Interplay between pro-inflammatory cytokines and growth factors in depressive illnesses

The development of depressive disorders had long been attributed to monoamine variations, and pharmacological treatment strategies likewise focused on methods of altering monoamine availability. However, the limited success achieved by treatments that altered these processes spurred the search for alternative mechanisms and treatments. Here we provide a brief overview concerning a possible role for pro-inflammatory cytokines and growth factors in major depression, as well as the possibility of targeting these factors in treating this disorder. The data suggest that focusing on one or another cytokine or growth factor might be counterproductive, especially as these factors may act sequentially or in parallel in affecting depressive disorders. It is also suggested that cytokines and growth factors might be useful biomarkers for individualized treatments of depressive illnesses.
A characterization of ten rasterization techniques

With widespread use of raster scan displays and the ever-increasing desire for faster interactivity, higher image complexity, and higher resolution in displayed images, several techniques have been proposed for rasterizing primitive graphical objects. This paper characterizes the performance of these techniques and shows how they evolve for more complex images on higher resolution displays. This characterization will not only show the strengths and deficiencies of existing rasterization techniques, but will also reveal new architectures for future raster graphics systems.
Social Context Influences Aggressive and Courtship Behavior in a Cichlid Fish

Social interactions require knowledge of the environment and status of others, which can be acquired indirectly by observing the behavior of others. When being observed, animals can also alter their signals based on who is watching. Here we observed how male cichlid fish (Astatotilapia burtoni) behave when being watched in two different contexts. In the first, we show that aggressive and courtship behaviors displayed by subordinate males depends critically on whether dominant males can see them, and in the second, we manipulated who was watching aggressive interactions and showed that dominant males will change their behavior depending on audience composition. In both cases, when a more dominant individual is out of view and the audience consists of more subordinate individuals, those males signal key social information to females by displaying courtship and dominant behaviors. In contrast, when a dominant male is present, males cease both aggression and courtship. These data suggest that males are keenly aware of their social environment and modulate their aggressive and courtship behaviors strategically for reproductive and social advantage.
Understanding spatial contexts of the real world under explicit or tacit roles of location

To realize context-aware services in a ubiquitous computing environment, it is essential to extract the spatial structure of non-linguistic context information that involves a person at a certain location in the real world. With the techniques of multimodal behavior observation and knowledge science, we propose a method of location-based activity analysis to extract the explicit or tacit roles of location in human activities and to express the spatial contexts of the world. We confirmed that location-based estimation of real-world spatial contexts enables a close approximation of the contexts of real-world people. We also showed that spatial contexts can be multidi-rectionally understood by accumulating, comparing, and integrating the results of spatial interpretations made by people with different attributes and different viewpoints. The estimated spatial contexts can be used for onsite and offsite support services that consider the inherent characteristics of each location and potential human needs arising at each location.
Follicular helper T cells are required for systemic autoimmunity

Production of high-affinity pathogenic autoantibodies appears to be central to the pathogenesis of lupus. Because normal high-affinity antibodies arise from germinal centers (GCs), aberrant selection of GC B cells, caused by either failure of negative selection or enhanced positive selection by follicular helper T (TFH) cells, is a plausible explanation for these autoantibodies. Mice homozygous for the san allele of Roquin, which encodes a RING-type ubiquitin ligase, develop GCs in the absence of foreign antigen, excessive TFH cell numbers, and features of lupus. We postulated a positive selection defect in GCs to account for autoantibodies. We first demonstrate that autoimmunity in Roquinsan/san (sanroque) mice is GC dependent: deletion of one allele of Bcl6 specifically reduces the number of GC cells, ameliorating pathology. We show that Roquinsan acts autonomously to cause accumulation of TFH cells. Introduction of a null allele of the signaling lymphocyte activation molecule family adaptor Sap into the sanroque background resulted in a substantial and selective reduction in sanroque TFH cells, and abrogated formation of GCs, autoantibody formation, and renal pathology. In contrast, adoptive transfer of sanroque TFH cells led to spontaneous GC formation. These findings identify TFH dysfunction within GCs and aberrant positive selection as a pathway to systemic autoimmunity.
Spanning trees short or small

We study the problem of finding small trees. Classical network design problems are considered with the additional constraint that only a specified number k of nodes are required to be connected in the solution. A prototypical example is the kMST problem in which we require a tree of minimum weight spanning at least k nodes in an edge-weighted graph. We show that the kMST problem is NP-hard even for points in the Euclidean plane. We provide approximation algorithms with performance ratio 2v/ for the general edge-weighted case and O(k1/4) for the case of points in the plane. Polynomial-time exact solutions are also presented for the class of treewidth-bounded graphs, which includes trees, series-parallel graphs, and bounded bandwidth graphs, and for points on the boundary of a convex region in the Euclidean plane. We also investigate the problem of finding short trees and, more generally, that of finding networks with minimum diameter. A simple technique is used to provide a polynomiM-time solution for finding k-trees of minimum diameter. We identify easy and hard problems arising in finding short networks using a framework due to T. C. Hu.
Does Sexuality Education Last? Self-Reported Benefits of a High School Comprehensive Sexuality Education Course

Studies of the benefits of high school sexuality education often focus on risk reduction and behavior changes in terms of unplanned pregnancy and STDs directly following or a few months after a sexuality education course. The purpose of this study was to explore the perceived long-term effect, if any, of a high school comprehensive sexuality education course. Participants were former students who graduated from high school between 1980 and 1995 and took a comprehensive sexuality education course during their senior year. Three sets of data collected through a Likert scale, short-answer questionnaire, and personal interviews were triangulated to look at participants' descriptions of the impact of the sexuality education course. Findings suggest that participants believe their high school sexuality course had a long-term impact on their lives. Themes observed through each level of data collection included self-exploration, increased self-efficacy relating to skills of sexual health, increased knowledge, and perceived increased comfort dealing with issues of sexuality. Participants reported that candid discussions within an interactive setting where students' beliefs and opinions were valued, teachers demonstrating nonjudgmental attitudes that respect all students, and the inclusion of strategies such as the use of guest speakers, journal writing, group discussions, videos, and role plays enhanced their learning. Sexuality education within the school has the potential to encourage lifelong application to sexual health, not just limited focus on eliminating negative outcomes for teenagers. Results of this study, if replicated on a larger scale, can influence teacher preparation in health and human sexuality education.
Simple network performance tomography

In network performance tomography, characteristics of the network interior are inferred by correlating end-to-end measurements. In much previous work, the presence of correlations must be arranged at the packet level, e.g., using multicast probes or unicast emulations of them. This carries costs in deployment and limits coverage. However, it is difficult to determine performance characteristics without correlations. Some recent work has had success in reaching a lesser goal---identifying the lossiest network links---using only uncorrelated end-to-end measurements. In this paper we abstract the required properties of network performance, and show that they are independent of the particular inference algorithm used. This observation allows us to design a quick and simple inference algorithm that identifies the worst performing link in a badly performing subnetwork, with high likelihood when bad links are uncommon. We give several examples of perforance models and that exhibit the required properties. The performance of the algorithm is analyzed explicitly.
Herschel : the first science highlights Special feature L etter to the E ditor Herschel photometric observations of the nearby low metallicity irregular galaxy NGC 6822

We present the first Herschel PACS and SPIRE images of the low-metallicity galaxy NGC 6822 observed from 70 to 500 μm and clearly resolve the H ii regions with PACS and SPIRE. We find that the ratio 250/500 is dependent on the 24 μm surface brightness in NGC 6822, which would locally link the heating processes of the coldest phases of dust in the ISM to the star formation activity. We model the SEDs of some regions H ii regions and less active regions across the galaxy and find that the SEDs of H ii regions show warmer ranges of dust temperatures. We derive very high dust masses when graphite is used in our model to describe carbon dust. Using amorphous carbon, instead, requires less dust mass to account for submm emission due to its lower emissivity properties. This indicates that SED models including Herschel constraints may require different dust properties than commonly used. The global G/D of NGC 6822 is finally estimated to be 186, using amorphous carbon.
DUX4, a candidate gene of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, encodes a transcriptional activator of PITX1

Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) is an autosomal dominant disorder linked to contractions of the D4Z4 repeat array in the subtelomeric region of chromosome 4q. By comparing genome-wide gene expression data from muscle biopsies of patients with FSHD to those of 11 other neuromuscular disorders, paired-like homeodomain transcription factor 1 (PITX1) was found specifically up-regulated in patients with FSHD. In addition, we showed that the double homeobox 4 gene (DUX4) that maps within the D4Z4 repeat unit was up-regulated in patient myoblasts at both mRNA and protein level. We further showed that the DUX4 protein could activate transient expression of a luciferase reporter gene fused to the Pitx1 promoter as well as the endogenous Pitx1 gene in transfected C2C12 cells. In EMSAs, DUX4 specifically interacted with a 30-bp sequence 5′-CGGATGCTGTCTTCTAATTAGTTTGGACCC-3′ in the Pitx1 promoter. Mutations of the TAAT core affected Pitx1-LUC activation in C2C12 cells and DUX4 binding in vitro. Our results suggest that up-regulation of both DUX4 and PITX1 in FSHD muscles may play critical roles in the molecular mechanisms of the disease.
STEREOTYPE THREAT, GENDER, AND MATH PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM THE NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS

Stereotype threat posits that when individuals are primed about a fixed characteristic of theirs that is negatively stereotyped in relation to a task (i.e., girls cannot do math), subsequent performance on the task is adversely affected. A limitation of most stereotype threat studies is that they have been based upon small and non-representative samples in lab settings, raising concerns about their external validity. I use micro data from the 1978 to 1999 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) – a large and representative field assessment of 9, 13, and 17 year-old U.S. children – where through a design quirk, students are randomly assigned to test blocks, some of which include gender prime questions while others do not. I exploit this natural experiment by comparing the gender gap in math test scores of students receiving gender primes to those with placebo questions. I find little evidence of negative stereotype threat and strong evidence of stereotype reactance with girls performing better relative to boys for some gender primes. The impact of gender primes on math test performance appears to be sensitive to the exact phrasing used in the primes.
Microarray-Based Characterization of a Colony Assay Used to Investigate Endothelial Progenitor Cells and Relevance to Endothelial Function in Humans

Objective—An assay proposed to quantify endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) colonies in humans was investigated to determine the phenotype of recovered cells and their relevance to in vivo endothelial function. Methods and Results—Twelve sedentary subjects participating in a worksite wellness program underwent endothelial flow-mediated dilation (FMD) testing of the brachial artery and blood sampling for EPC colony assay. Microarray-based genotypic characterization of colonies showed surface markers consistent with T lymphocyte phenotype, but not with an EPC (CD34, CD133, VEGFR-2) or endothelial (CD146) phenotype. Gene expression patterns more closely matched T lymphocytes (r=0.87) than endothelial cells (r=0.66) in our microarray database. Flow cytometry of colonies confirmed large populations of CD3+CD45+ T cells (>75%) and few CD146+CD45− endothelial cells (<1%). Further, there was no correlation between colony number and the magnitude of FMD (r=−0.1512, P=0.6389). After exercise training, subjects improved FMD, from 6.7±2.0 to 8.7±1.9% (P=0.0043). Colonies also increased (P=0.0210), but without relation to FMD (r=0.1074, P=0.7396). T lymphocyte phenotype persisted after exercise (r=0.87). Conclusions—Cells in a commonly used EPC colony assay have a gene expression and cell surface marker profile consistent with a predominance of T lymphocytes and have an unclear relevance to endothelial function, either before or after exercise training.
Keyword Query Expansion Paradigm Based on Recommendation and Interpretation in Relational Databases

Due to the ambiguity and impreciseness of keyword query in relational databases, the research on keyword query expansion has attracted wide attention. Existing query expansion methods expose users’ query intention to a certain extent, but most of them cannot balance the precision and recall. To address this problem, a novel two-step query expansion approach is proposed based on query recommendation and query interpretation. First, a probabilistic recommendation algorithm is put forward by constructing a term similarity matrix and Viterbi model. Second, by using the translation algorithm of triples and construction algorithm of query subgraphs, query keywords are translated to query subgraphs with structural and semantic information. Finally, experimental results on a real-world dataset demonstrate the effectiveness and rationality of the proposed method.
Adherence to WCRF/AICR Cancer Prevention Recommendations and Risk of Postmenopausal Breast Cancer

Background: In 2007, the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and the American Institute for Cancer Research (AICR) released eight recommendations related to body fatness, physical activity, and diet aimed at preventing the most common cancers worldwide. However, limited information exists on the association between meeting these recommendations and risks of specific cancers, including breast cancer. Methods: We operationalized six recommendations (related to body fatness, physical activity, foods that promote weight gain, plant foods, red and processed meats, and alcohol) and examined their association with invasive breast cancer incidence over 6.7 years of follow-up in the Vitamins and Lifestyle (VITAL) study cohort. Participants included 30,797 postmenopausal women, ages 50–76 years at baseline in 2000–2002 with no history of breast cancer. Breast cancers (n = 899) were tracked through the Western Washington Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Results: Breast cancer risk was reduced by 60% in women who met at least five recommendations compared with those who met none [HR: 0.40; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.25–0.65; Ptrend < 0.001]. Further analyses that sequentially removed individual recommendations least associated with reduced risk suggested that this reduction is due to meeting recommendations related to body fatness, plant foods, and alcohol (HR for meeting vs. not meeting these three recommendations: 0.38; 95% CI: 0.25–0.58; Ptrend < 0.001). Conclusions: Meeting the WCRF/AICR cancer prevention recommendations, specifically those related to alcohol, body fatness, and plant foods, is associated with reduced postmenopausal breast cancer incidence. Impact: Increased adherence to the WCRF/AICR cancer prevention recommendations could substantially reduce postmenopausal breast cancer risk in U.S. women. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 22(9); 1498–508. ©2013 AACR.
Correlations of long-term matrix metalloproteinase localization in human corneas after successful laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis with minor complications at the flap margin.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are present long-term in human corneas after successful laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK). METHODS Eighteen postmortem corneas from 10 patients with postoperative intervals of 2 to 8 years after LASIK surgery and 4 normal control corneas from 2 patients were collected from US eye banks and processed for histologic analysis and immunolocalization with antibodies to MMP-1, MMP-2, MMP-3, MMP-7, MMP-8, MMP-9, MMP-10, and MMP-14. RESULTS Matrix metalloproteinase 7 was present in the epithelium of all corneas. Other MMPs were localized to the wound margin in some post-LASIK corneas. Matrix metalloproteinase 9 was detected around epithelial cells trapped in the lamellar scar in 5 of 6 corneas with epithelial ingrowth. Various MMPs were detected in fibrotic tissue at the wound margin in 2 of 2 corneas with flap retraction. CONCLUSIONS The presence of MMPs in post-LASIK corneas correlates with an ongoing wound healing process associated with minor post-LASIK complications. Matrix metalloproteinases might contribute to instances of ongoing flap instability, and if so, judicious use of MMP inhibitors could provide benefit.
Isolating the Impact of PWM Modulation on Motor Iron Losses

This paper presents an investigation into the impact that PWM harmonics have on iron losses in an induction motor. In order to isolate the effect on iron losses, a special test motor is used, with a plastic rotor cage. The special motor is operated at standstill and input power is measured and allocated as stator copper loss or iron loss. Using sinusoidal and PWM supply conditions, the influence of amplitude modulation index and switching frequency are investigated.
Small-signal analysis and design of constant frequency V2 peak control

This paper investigates the small-signal model and design considerations for constant frequency V2 peak control. The factorized small-signal control-to-output transfer function is investigated, and the cause of the double poles is explained. Stability criterion is obtained, and design considerations are analyzed for different duty cycle applications, as well as different types of capacitors. To solve the instability problem, two types of compensations (either by adding an external ramp or a current ramp) are examined. The effect of the external ramp and the current ramp are analyzed, and design considerations are given based on the small-signal model. The external ramp is good enough to get a well-damped performance when feedback strength is strong (for example, when employing OSCON caps). However, current ramp is necessary to achieve good dynamic performance when feedback strength is weak (for example, when employing Ceramic caps). The small-signal analysis is verified with a Simplis simulation and experimental results.
Triamcinolone-assisted 3D-vitrectomy in diabetic vitreomacular traction.

PURPOSE To evaluate the efficacy of triamcinolone as an aid in vitreous visualization during 3D-vitrectomy for the treatment of diabetic vitreomacular traction. METHODS Prospective interventional study in patients with symptomatic vitreomacular traction. Pre- and postoperative assessments included visual acuity, retinography, intraocular pressure and optical coherence tomography. All patients were operated by the same surgeon (OOMJ). Triamcinolone was used as a visual enhancer during surgery. The parameters of the vitreophage (Accurus 800CS, Alcon) were set to the 3D-system (dual dynamic drive), contact lenses (plain and wide angle) being used for visualization. Peripheral 360 masculine vitreous circumcision at high cut rate was performed, carefully releasing the vitreomacular adhesion at the posterior pole by means of an appropriate pic or vitreoretinal forceps. RESULTS The sample consisted of five consecutive patients (five eyes), three female and two male, with symptomatic vitreomacular traction. Their age ranged from 54 to 71 years (mean 62.6 +/- 6.3 years). During the surgical procedure, the areas with vitreomacular traction were properly visualized and identified after the application of triamcinolone. No complications were recorded during or after surgery. There was a statistically significant improvement in visual acuity after the surgical procedure (p=0.0313). CONCLUSION Triamcinolone facilitates the surgical treatment of vitreomacular traction by improving visibility of both the vitreous humor and the vitreous-retina interface. Triamcinolone-assisted 3D vitrectomy proved to be an effective procedure in these cases.