Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Searching for endophenotypes: negative symptoms and schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a disorder affecting millions of individuals, with a prevalence rate over one percent. Although the diagnosis of schizophrenia has a high heritability, identification of individual risk variants has been difficult, due to their small individual effects on the diagnosis. Identification of useful endophenotypes - that is, features more sensitive to genetic effects than the diagnosis itself - should aid in detecting genetic variants that contribute to the disorder. The current study examined negative symptoms as a possible endophenotype for schizophrenia. Specifically, the study examined the genetic correlations between the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) and schizophrenia among multigenerational, multiplex schizophrenia families. To examine diagnostic specificity, major depressive disorder and substance abuse were also tested for genetic correlations with negative symptoms. The total sample (493) included 43 families, 90 schizophrenia patients, 359 of their relatives, and 44 controls. The majority of SANS scales were significantly heritable (average h2 = 0.48). Results suggested that even among relatives without any diagnoses, the prevalence of negative symptoms increased significantly with the degree of genetic relationship to schizophrenia (average RG = 0.76) but not depression or substance abuse. This suggests the potential utility of negative symptoms as a candidate endophenotype with some diagnostic specificity in studies seeking to identify genetic risk variants contributing to schizophrenia.
Draft for Discussion CIVIC PARTICIPATION IN NATIONAL GOVERNANCE

his module has been designed to provide civil society organizations and individuals, and public officials representatives with a set of tools and techniques enacted to promote good governance at the national level. Moreover, it will expose participants to conceptual and theoretical explanations of governance and participation, as well as to a series of practical experiences from different countries.
Designing a Reliable IPTV Network

Meeting IPTV's quality of service constraints (such as low latency and loss) requires designing the right combination of underlying IP-transport, restoration, and video and packet recovery methods. Carriers use link-based fast reroute (FRR) as the primary transport restoration method to achieve this goal. Although we can carefully tune the link weights in the IP routing protocol to avoid traffic overlap from FRR during single link failures, multiple failures can still cause path overlap in long-distance networks. By having FRR, IGP, and multicast protocols work in harmony and with appropriate link weight assignments, this approach can help minimize path overlap during multiple failures.
Experiences of breast cancer patients and helpful aspects of supportive-expressive group therapy: A qualitative study.

OBJECTIVE This study explored the experiences and perceived changes of breast cancer (BC) patients after participating in 16-weekly sessions of Supportive-Expressive Group Therapy (SEGT). METHODS A semi-structured interview adapted from Elliott's Client Change Interview was carried out with 12 women (aged 33-60 years) with BC, about 6 months after completing the treatment. RESULTS Content analysis identified four main themes: expectations and motivations to participate in SEGT, group processes and experiences, perceived changes enhanced by SEGT and perceptions about the therapeutic relationship. The most helpful aspects of SEGT mentioned by participants were as follows: the expression/normalisation of feelings, thoughts and reactions; the improvement of social support; and the learning opportunities obtained through sharing of experiences among participants. Additionally, participants mentioned that SEGT contributed to improve personal and social skills, such as the capacity to express emotions and the ability to establish satisfactory interpersonal relationships. CONCLUSIONS Based on the participants' experiences, SEGT seems to be an effective intervention to support women facing BC during the initial phase of cancer. The use of SEGT by health care professionals is encouraged, but the specific needs/problems of each group member should be carefully attended.
Dosimetric uncertainties as a result of temporal resolution in 4D dose calculations for PBS proton therapy

This work investigates the dosimetric impact on 4D dose distribution estimation for pencil beam scanned (PBS) proton therapy as function of the temporal resolution used for the time resolved dose calculation. For three liver patients (CTV volume: 403/122/264 cc), 10-phase 4DCT-MRI datasets with ~15 mm tumour motion were simulated for seven different motion periods (2–8 s). 4D dose distributions were calculated and compared by considering both coarser and finer temporal resolutions (200–800 ms and 20 ms). Single scanned 4D plans for seven fraction doses (0.7/2/4/6/8/10/12 Gy) were investigated, whose dose delivery timelines were simulated by assuming two types of PBS scanning modes: (1) layer-wise raster scanning with varying dose rate per layer and (2) fixed dose rate, discrete scanning. For both delivery scenarios, dosimetric assessments were performed by comparing corresponding dose distributions derived from the two 4D dose calculation (4DDC) results. Differences were quantified as the difference in D5–D95 of the CTV and by comparing total volume of the CTV receiving point-to-point absolute dose difference more than 5%. Our results show that varying temporal resolution in 4DDC has a direct influence on the final accumulated dose distribution. For all scenarios, patients, fraction doses and motion periods studied, pronounced dose differences can be observed between the two 4DDC results. However, the magnitude of differences varies depending on the selected PBS scanning model and prescribed dose per field. For fixed dose rate delivery, the average duration of the delivery of each spot increases for hypo-fractionated treatments, enhancing the benefit of using a finer temporal resolution for 4DDC. In particular, for fraction doses >4 Gy and motion periods less than 4 s, warping the dose between discrete 4DCT phases can over predict the interplay effect (D5–D95 in CTV) by 3%–10% compared to the use of a finer temporal resolution, resulting in more than 20% of CTV voxels having absolute dose differences of over 5% between the two 4DDC approaches. These findings emphasize the importance for PBS 4DDC using finer temporal resolutions than provided by conventional 4D dose accumulation techniques. In particular, the observed differences in dosimetric effects using the fine temporal resolution provided by dose warping cannot be neglected for hypo-fractionation and short breathing periods, especially when using constant dose rates for dose delivery.
Semiparametric Estimation of Fixed E ects Panel Data Varying Coe cient Models

We consider the problem of estimating a varying coe cient panel data model with xed e ects using a local linear regression approach. Unlike rst-di erenced estimator, our proposed estimator removes xed e ects using kernel-based weights. This results a one-step estimator without using backtting technique. The computed estimator is shown to be asymptotically normally distributed. A modi ed least-squared cross-validatory method is used to select the optimal bandwidth automatically. Moreover, we propose a test statistic for testing the null hypothesis of a random e ects against a xed e ects varying coe cient panel data model. Monte Carlo simulations show that our proposed estimator and test statistic have satisfactory nite sample performance.
Concurrence et effets de dominance économique dans l'industrie multimédia

L'objectif de cette these est d'etudier les conditions susceptibles d'expliquer la dominance economique de certaines activites dans l'industrie multimedia. La premiere partie concerne la dynamique industrielle du multimedia. Elle interprete l'emergence de l'industrie comme le resultat d'un processus de convergence des technologies, aboutissant finalement a la convergence des activites elles-memes. La seconde partie met en evidence les consequences de ces mutations industrielles sur la transformation de l'environnement concurrentiel et sur le comportement strategique des firmes. Enfin, la troisieme partie vise a specifier empiriquement le type d'organisation structurale auquel repond l'industrie multimedia. A partir d'une etude systematique des relations intersectorielles sur la periode 2000-2001, notre analyse structurale permet a la fois de confirmer le phenomene de convergence des activites, et de souligner leur interdependance dans le processus de structuration de l'industrie.
Advances in Cognitive Psychology Attentional Capture by Emotional Faces in Adolescence

Poor decision making during adolescence occurs most frequently when situations are emotionally charged. however, relatively few studies have measured the development of cognitive control in response to emotional stimuli in this population. this study used both affective (emotional faces) and non-affective (letter) stimuli in two different flanker tasks to assess the ability to ignore task-irrelevant but distracting information, in 25 adults and 25 adolescents. on the non-emotional (letter) flanker task, the presence of incongruent flanking letters increased the number of errors, and also slowed participants' ability to identify a central letter. Adolescents committed more errors than adults, but there were no age-related differences for the reaction time interference effect in the letter condition. Post-hoc testing revealed that age-related differences on the task were driven by the younger adolescents (11-14 years); adults and older adolescents (15-17 years) were equally accurate in the letter condition. in contrast, on the emotional face flanker task, not only were adolescents less accurate than adults but they were also more distracted by task-irrelevant fearful faces as evidenced by greater reaction time interference effects. our findings suggest that the ability to self-regulate in adolescents, as evidenced by the ability to suppress irrelevant information on a flanker task, is more difficult when stimuli are affective in nature. the ability to ignore irrelevant flankers appears to mature earlier for non-affective stimuli than for affective stimuli. AbstrAct Keywords
Response of a Deciduous Forest to the Mount Pinatubo Eruption: Enhanced Photosynthesis

Volcanic aerosols from the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption greatly increased diffuse radiation worldwide for the following 2 years. We estimated that this increase in diffuse radiation alone enhanced noontime photosynthesis of a deciduous forest by 23% in 1992 and 8% in 1993 under cloudless conditions. This finding indicates that the aerosol-induced increase in diffuse radiation by the volcano enhanced the terrestrial carbon sink and contributed to the temporary decline in the growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide after the eruption.
Photoluminescence and absorption studies of defects in CdTe and ZnxCd1-xTe crystals.

We have studied at cryogenic temperatures photoluminescence features which lie more than 0.15 eV below the band edge in ${\mathrm{Zn}}_{\mathit{x}}$${\mathrm{Cd}}_{1\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}\mathit{x}}$Te (0\ensuremath{\le}x\ensuremath{\le}0.09) crystals. The same features, namely a defect band which lies at about 0.13\char21{}0.20 eV below the band-gap energy and a peak at 1.1 eV, that are observed in pure CdTe samples are observed in these alloy materials. In annealed samples we observe that the 1.1-eV feature, which has been attributed to tellurium vacancies, increases with fast cooling. Increased concentrations of tellurium vacancies can be understood in terms of the phase diagram of CdTe which indicates that higher concentrations of excess Cd appear in CdTe quenched from high temperatures. We also observe an absorption transition near 1.1 eV by photothermal deflection spectroscopy (PTDS). The PTDS phase shifts show that the deep defect is a bulk effect rather than a surface effect. The well-defined absorption peak suggests that the states contributing to the 1.1-eV transition are both localized. Our results also suggest that the defect band which lies 0.13 eV below the band gap (1.48 eV in CdTe) may also be related to tellurium vacancies. However, the fact that the ratio of intensities between this defect band and the 1.1-eV feature is highly variable suggests that the relationship is not simple. The origin of the defect band and its phonon replicas remains controversial.
Surface attachment induces Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence

Significance Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a pathogen that kills a remarkably wide range of hosts. The environmental cues that regulate P. aeruginosa virulence have remained unclear. Here, we develop a rapid imaging-based virulence assay to quantify virulence. We find that association with rigid surfaces induces virulence toward multiple hosts. Virulence induction depends on the mechanical, but not chemical, properties of the surfaces and requires the surface-exposed protein PilY1, which has homology to the mechanosensitive von Willebrand factor A domain. Specific mutation of this mechanosensitive domain is sufficient to constitutively activate virulence independent of surface attachment. Mechanosensitive virulence induction can explain how P. aeruginosa infects a broad range of hosts while tightly regulating virulence. Consistently, association with one host induces virulence toward other hosts. Pseudomonas aeruginosa infects every type of host that has been examined by deploying multiple virulence factors. Previous studies of virulence regulation have largely focused on chemical cues, but P. aeruginosa may also respond to mechanical cues. Using a rapid imaging-based virulence assay, we demonstrate that P. aeruginosa activates virulence in response to attachment to a range of chemically distinct surfaces, suggesting that this bacterial species responds to mechanical properties of its substrates. Surface-activated virulence requires quorum sensing, but activating quorum sensing does not induce virulence without surface attachment. The activation of virulence by surfaces also requires the surface-exposed protein PilY1, which has a domain homologous to a eukaryotic mechanosensor. Specific mutation of the putative PilY1 mechanosensory domain is sufficient to induce virulence in non–surface-attached cells, suggesting that PilY1 mediates surface mechanotransduction. Triggering virulence only when cells are both at high density and attached to a surface—two host-nonspecific cues—explains how P. aeruginosa precisely regulates virulence while maintaining broad host specificity.
Challenges in Searching Online Communities

An ever-growing number of users participate in online communities such as Flickr, del.icio. us , and YouTube , making friends and sharing content. Users come to these sites to find out about general trends – the most popular tags, or the most recently tagged item – as well as for more specific information, such as the recent posts of one of their friends. While these activities correspond to different user needs, they all can be seen as the filtering of resources in communities by various search criteria. We provide a survey of these search tasks and discuss the challenges in their efficient and effective evaluation.
Discrete torsion orbifolds and D-branes

The consistency of the orbifold action on open strings between D-branes in orbifold theories with and without discrete torsion is analysed carefully. For the example of the 3/2 × 2 theory, it is found that the consistency of the orbifold action requires that the D-brane spectrum contains branes that give rise to a conventional representation of the orbifold group as well as branes for which the representation is projective. It is also shown how the results generalise to the orbifolds 3/N × N, for which a number of novel features arise. In particular, the N > 2 theories with minimal discrete torsion have non-BPS branes charged under twisted R-R potentials that couple to none of the (known) BPS branes.
Improved anonymous proxy re-encryption with CCA security

Outsourcing private data and heavy computation tasks to the cloud may lead to privacy breach as attackers (e.g., malicious outsiders or cloud administrators) may correlate any relevant information to penetrate information of their interests. Therefore, how to preserve cloud users' privacy has been a top concern when adopting cloud solutions. In this paper, we investigate the identity privacy problem for the proxy re-encryption, which allows any third party (e.g., cloud) to re-encrypt ciphertexts in order to delegate the decryption right from one to another user. The relevant identity information, e.g., whose ciphertext was re-encrypted to the ciphertext under whose public key, may leak because re-encryption keys and ciphertexts (before and after re-encryption) are known to the third party. We review prior anonymity (identity privacy) notions, and find that these notions are either impractical or too weak. To address this problem thoroughly, we rigorously define the anonymity notion that not only embraces the prior anonymity notions but also captures the necessary anonymity requirement for practical applications. In addition, we propose a new and efficient proxy re-encryption scheme. The scheme satisfies the proposed anonymity notion under the Squared Decisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption and achieves security against chosen ciphertext attack under the Decisional Bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption in the random oracle model. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first proxy re-encryption scheme attaining both chosen-ciphertext security and anonymity simultaneously. We implement a prototype based on the proposed proxy re-encryption scheme and the performance study shows that it is efficient.
Synchronization of different frequency power grids by back-to-back modular multilevel converter with CSMC-SPWM algorithm

This paper presents a control process and the functioning of Back-to-Back Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) in connecting asynchronous grids of high-voltage DC transmission system. CSMC-SPWM algorithm is used to generate gate pulses of the switching devices of back-to-back MMC for running, shifting the system from higher to any other lower level of operation and connecting of two different frequencies power grids. In this research two power grids having different frequencies of 50Hz and 60Hz are connected. The simulation results shows that the MMC operates well and synchronized properly with asynchronous grids and power can transmitted in both direction. A tap changing transformer is used to step up the output voltage of the converter during reduced number of level operation.
AVSP 2001 International Conference on Auditory-Visu 50 ETIC PERCEPTION

This study was undertaken to examine relationships between the similarity structures of optical phonetic measures and visual phonetic perception. For this study, four talkers who varied in visual intelligibility were recorded simultaneously with a 3-dimensional optical recording system and a video camera. Subjects perceptually identified the talkers’ consonant-vowel nonsense syllable utterances in a forced-choice identification task. Then, perceptual confusion matrices were analyzed using multidimensional scaling, and Euclidean distances among stimulus phonemes were obtained. Physical Euclidean distances between phonemes were computed on the raw 3-dimensional optical recordings for the phonemes used in the perceptual testing. Multilinear regression was used to generate a transformation vector between physical and perceptual distances. Then, correlations were computed between transformed physical and perceptual distances. These correlations ranged between . 77 and . 81 (59% and 66% variance accounted for), depending on the vowel context. This study showed that the relatively raw representations of the physical stimuli were effective in accounting for visual speech perception, a result consistent with the hypothesis that perceptual representations and similarity structures for visual speech are modality-specific.
Obfuscated malicious javascript detection using classification techniques

As the World Wide Web expands and more users join, it becomes an increasingly attractive means of distributing malware. Malicious javascript frequently serves as the initial infection vector for malware. We train several classifiers to detect malicious javascript and evaluate their performance. We propose features focused on detecting obfuscation, a common technique to bypass traditional malware detectors. As the classifiers show a high detection rate and a low false alarm rate, we propose several uses for the classifiers, including selectively suppressing potentially malicious javascript based on the classifier's recommendations, achieving a compromise between usability and security.
Identification of Gingival Crevicular Fluid Sampling, Analytical Methods, and Oral Biomarkers for the Diagnosis and Monitoring of Periodontal Diseases: A Systematic Review

Background. Several studies in the last decades have focused on finding a precise method for the diagnosis of periodontal disease in its early stages. Aim. To evaluate from current scientific literature the most common and precise method for gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) sample collection, biomarker analytical methods, and the variability of biomarker quantification, even when using the same analytical technique. Methodology. An electronic search was conducted on in vivo studies that presented clinical data on techniques used for GCF collection and biomarker analysis. Results. The results showed that 71.1%, 24.7%, and 4.1% of the studies used absorption, microcapillary, and washing techniques, respectively, in their gingival crevicular fluid collection. 73.1% of the researchers analyzed their samples by using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). 22.6%, 19.5%, and 18.5% of the researchers included interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β), matrix metalloproteinase-8 (MMP-8), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), respectively, in their studies as biomarkers for periodontal disease. Conclusion. IL-1β can be considered among the most common biomarkers that give precise results and can be used as an indicator of periodontal disease progression. Furthermore, paper strips are the most convenient and accurate method for gingival crevicular fluid collection, while enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay can be considered the most conventional method for the diagnosis of biofluids.
FITNESS CONSEQUENCES OF SEX‐SPECIFIC SELECTION

Theory suggests that sex‐specific selection can facilitate adaptation in sexually reproducing populations. However, sexual conflict theory and recent experiments indicate that sex‐specific selection is potentially costly due to sexual antagonism: alleles harmful to one sex can accumulate within a population because they are favored in the other sex. Whether sex‐specific selection provides a net fitness benefit or cost depends, in part, on the relative frequency and strength of sexually concordant versus sexually antagonistic selection throughout a species’ genome. Here, we model the net fitness consequences of sex‐specific selection while explicitly considering both sexually concordant and sexually antagonistic selection. The model shows that, even when sexual antagonism is rare, the fitness costs that it imposes will generally overwhelm fitness benefits of sexually concordant selection. Furthermore, the cost of sexual antagonism is, at best, only partially resolved by the evolution of sex‐limited gene expression. To evaluate the key parameters of the model, we analyze an extensive dataset of sex‐specific selection gradients from wild populations, along with data from the experimental evolution literature. The model and data imply that sex‐specific selection may likely impose a net cost on sexually reproducing species, although additional research will be required to confirm this conclusion.