Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A neurological perspective on the enhancement debate: Lessons learned from Parkinson’s disease

Cognitive enhancement is signified by adaptive behavioural change following an intervention that targets the brain. Although much of the discussion and research into cognitive enhancement focuses on the effects of neural interventions in healthy individuals, it is useful to consider evidence from clinical populations. Diseases of the central nervous system represent the primary and richest source of evidence on the effects of brain manipulations, which are in the first instance therapeutic. Parkinson’s disease (PD) is used as a model for understanding the effects of pharmacological agents that target systems with a central role in cognition. The mixed outcomes of deep brain stimulation on cognition will also be discussed. By illustrating the psychopharmacological principle of diverse and malleable neurochemical optima for different cognitive functions, and the role of individual differences, it will be argued that the entire spectrum of cognitive effects in any one individual following any given manipulation, such as the administration of a drug, often includes enhancement as well as impairment. Predicting these effects represents a complex multivariate problem, and the accuracy of this predictive effort, as well as the harm prevention it connotes, is determined by our evolving understanding of the brain and cognition. A manipulation can be said to confer cognitive enhancement; however, it is argued that using the global term cognitive enhancer to refer to such a manipulation without qualification is of limited utility.
Price Effects of Sovereign Debt Auctions in the Euro-zone: The Role of the Crisis

Exploring the period since the inception of the euro, we show that secondary-market yields on Italian public debt increase in anticipation of auctions of new issues and decrease after the auction, while no or a smaller such effect is present for German public debt. However, these yield movements on the Italian debt are largely confined to the period of the crisis since mid-2007. We also find that there is some tendency of the yield movements to be larger when the demand for the new issue is smaller relative to its supply. Our results are consistent with a framework in which a small group of primary dealers require compensation for inventory risk and this compensation needs to be higher when market uncertainty is larger. We also find that the secondary-market behaviour of series with a maturity close to the auctioned series, but for which there is no auction, is very similar to the secondary-market behaviour of the auctioned series. These findings support an explanation of yield movements based on the behaviour of primary dealers with limited risk-bearing capacity. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
Long-Term Prevention of Bone Loss

TO THE EDITOR: Ravn and coworkers (1) show that alendronate supplement in early postmenopausal women stabilizes or increases bone mineral density (BMD) for up to 4 years of use. However, their conclusions would have been more supportable had the design included optimal calcium and vitamin D intake for all participants (oddly, the latter was not even mentioned). Calcium intake was estimated from a questionnaire; if the participants' diet contained less than 500 mg of calcium daily, the participant was advised to increase intake (hardly an assurance of implementation). Although optimal calcium intake is not known, a goal of 1200 to 1500 mg/d is recommended for postmenopausal women; thus, many members of the cohort (perhaps most of them) probably had suboptimal calcium intake. Three of the four study centers are characterized by sparse sunlight during much of the year, suggesting high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is necessary to promote calcium absorption when intake is low, and marginal calcium intake would have been aggravated by concurrent deficiency of vitamin D. Several studies indicate that even modest calcium and vitamin D supplementation can reduce bone loss in older persons (2, 3) and can lead to statistically significant reductions in fracture rates (2, 4). The daily supplementation of only 500 mg of calcium and 700 IU of cholecalciferol in a cohort with an average age of 71 years (a cohort that included some men) during a 3-year period had effects on BMD almost equivalent to those seen in the participants in Ravn and colleagues' study, who received 2.5 mg of alendronate. This finding suggests that the placebo group would have had a more favorable outcome had intake of calcium and vitamin D been optimized. I disagree with Ravn and colleagues' claim that fracture rate was not a feasible end point. During the 4 years of the study, 49 fractures occurred, with no suggestion of a difference between the placebo and alendronate groups. In concentrating on BMD, we tend to forget that BMD is only a proxy for, and only one major factor in, the desired end point of fracture incidence.
Effects of oil on the rate and trajectory of Louisiana marsh shoreline erosion

Oil can have long-term detrimental effects on marsh plant health, both above- and belowground. However, there are few data available that quantify the accelerated rate of erosion that oil may cause to marshes and the trajectory of change. Between November 2010 and August 2012, we collected data on shoreline erosion, soil strength, per cent cover of Spartina alterniflora, and marsh edge overhang at 30 closely spaced low oil and high oil sites in Bay Batiste, Louisiana. Surface oil samples were taken one meter into the marsh in February 2011. All high oiled sites in Bay Batiste were contaminated with Macondo 252 oil (oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, 20 April–15 July 2010). The results suggest that there is a threshold where soil parameters change dramatically with a relatively small increase in oil concentration in the soil. Heavy oiling weakens the soil, creating a deeper undercut of the upper 50 cm of the marsh edge, and causing an accelerated rate of erosion that cascades along the shoreline. Our results demonstrate that it could take at least 2 yr to document the effects heavy oiling has had on the marsh shoreline. The presence of aboveground vegetation alone may not be an appropriate indicator of recovery.
Immigrants and the Use of Government Transfer Payments

This article examines the use of government benefits and allowances by Australian immigrants relative to their native-born counterparts. The study extends the Australian literature by employing micro-level (Australian Longitudinal Survey) data, controlling for a number of relevant variables including first or second generation immigrant status and the nature of transfer payments received. The data on young adults employed in the study provide a comparable population for examining the relative use of benefits among those of similar age, allowing comparisons based on only the relevant types of benefits. The results consistently reject the hypothesis that immigrants are disproportionately using benefit payments and thereby imposing a burden on public funds. These results are of interest, especially since Australia is already a major immigrant-receiving country, and since the Australian welfare system is more extensive in its coverage than most other immigrant-receiving countries.
An axiomatization of Nash equilibria in economic situations

Abstract We consider the class of all abstract economies with convex and compact strategy sets, continuous and quasi-concave payoff functions, and continuous and convex-valued feasibility correspondences. We prove that the Nash correspondence is the unique solution on the foregoing class of abstract economies that satisfies nonemptiness, rationality in one-person economies, and consistency.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: C72, D50.
Fabrication of Flexible Neural Probes With Built-In Microfluidic Channels by Thermal Bonding of Parylene

This paper describes the fabrication technology and characterization of Parylene neural probes containing fluidic channels for delivery of small amounts of drugs into biological tissue as well as neural recording. We present a first attempt to realize such neural probes by micromolding and thermal bonding of Parylene. Compared to the common fabrication method, where a sacrificial photoresist layer is sandwiched between two Parylene layers, the major advantages of this process are, that the time consuming photoresist dissolution is omitted, and that the adhesion between the Parylene layers could be improved. The electrodes were characterized by impedance measurements, in which an impedance sufficiently low for neural recording was observed. Fluidic injection experiments with the microchannel have shown that nanoliter volumes can be injected
Comparison research on the performance of DTN route protocol and Ad hoc route protocol

DTN network as a new type of wireless network operation mode can be widely used in the frequently divided and interrupted environment of wireless network. It can complete data transmission and switch through a way of “storage - carry - forward”. The DTN network is very similar with Ad hoc network in application environment and software design but in the routing algorithms application cost, QoS, etc. they both have advantages and disadvantages. To get more optimal routing protocols of the combination of DTN and the Ad hoc, in this paper we simulate and compare the Epidemic protocol of the DTN network and AODV protocol of the Ad hoc network in the case of different communication radius and different node numbers, thus arrive the characteristics of different routing protocols in different situation. It will provide a basis for the combination of the Ad hoc network protocol and the DTN network protocol.
The Challenges Facing Currency Usage: Will the Traditional Transaction Medium Be Able to Resist Competition from the New Technologies?

The euro's introduction highlights several shortcomings of cash and coins, and some advantages of paying with plastic, but is hard currency an endangered species, threatened by technologically more advanced means of payments, electronic transfers, e-money and the like? If the last twenty years are any guide, the answer is no. We find that modern payment technologies have little impact on currency usage. To understand this lack of effect, we distinguish between demands for large- and small-denomination banknotes. Competition from existing electronic retail payments' products focuses mostly on small to medium-sized purchases where small bills (less than the £50) are most common. By contrast, there are few signs, nor much likelihood, of past or current electronic products displacing holdings of large bills without government intervention. Large bills, which account for over half the stock of outstanding currency in many OECD nations, are mainly held for hoarding and bad behaviour motives ranging from hard crime to paying the plumber under the table; for such purposes the anonymity of cash is, and is likely to remain, superior. As concerns policy implications, we note that, although issuing large denomination bills facilitates 'bad behaviour', withdrawing big bills is unlikely for political reasons. Governments could try to induce e-money usage as a means of discouraging bad behaviour, but we argue that any attempt to force a complete shift to electronic transfer, and to try to ban, or to prevent, the domestic use of cash would be appallingly illiberal. Copyright (c) CEPR, CES, MSH, 2002.
Four-year placebo-controlled trial of docosahexaenoic acid in X-linked retinitis pigmentosa (DHAX trial): a randomized clinical trial.

IMPORTANCE X-linked retinitis pigmentosa is a severe inherited retinal degenerative disease with a frequency of 1 in 100,000 persons. Because no cure is available for this orphan disease and treatment options are limited, slowing of disease progression would be a meaningful outcome. OBJECTIVE To determine whether high-dose docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an ω-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid, slows progression of X-linked retinitis pigmentosa measured by cone electroretinography (ERG). DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A 4-year, single-site, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-masked phase 2 clinical trial at a research center specializing in medical retina. Seventy-eight male patients diagnosed as having X-linked retinitis pigmentosa were randomized to DHA or placebo. Data were omitted for 2 patients with non-X-linked retinitis pigmentosa and 16 patients who were unable to follow protocol during the first year. The remaining participants were tested annually and composed a modified intent-to-treat cohort (DHA group, n = 33; placebo group, n = 27). INTERVENTIONS All participants received a multivitamin and were randomly assigned to oral DHA (30 mg/kg/d) or placebo. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was the rate of loss of cone ERG function. Secondary outcomes were rod and maximal ERG amplitudes and cone ERG implicit times. Capsule counts and red blood cell DHA levels were assessed to monitor adherence. RESULTS Average (6-month to 4-year) red blood cell DHA levels were 4-fold higher in the DHA group than in the placebo group (P < .001). There was no difference between the DHA and placebo groups in the rate of cone ERG functional loss (0.028 vs 0.022 log µV/y, respectively; P = .30). No group differences were evident for change in rod ERG (P = .27), maximal ERG (P = .65), or cone implicit time (no change over 4 years). The rate of cone loss (ie, event rate) was markedly reduced compared with rates in previous studies. No severe treatment-emergent adverse events were found. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Long-term DHA supplementation was not effective in slowing the loss of cone or rod ERG function associated with X-linked retinitis pigmentosa. Participant dropout and lower-than-expected disease event rate limited power to detect statistical significance. A larger sample size, longer trial, and attainment of a target blood DHA level (13%) would be desirable. While DHA supplementation at 30 mg/kg/d does not present serious adverse effects, routine monitoring of gastrointestinal tolerance is prudent. TRIAL REGISTRATION clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00100230.
Characteristics of adolescents with type 1 diabetes who exhibit adverse outcomes.

PURPOSE This study seeks to determine differences in key characteristics between adolescents with type 1 diabetes who experience the adverse outcomes of poor glycemic control, hypoglycemic events, and hospitalizations due to their disease versus those who do not experience such events. A secondary purpose is to examine differences in outcomes for adolescents using insulin pumps versus daily insulin injections (>or=2). METHODS Data from 108 adolescents were divided according to glycemic control (HbA1c <8% vs >or=8%), hypoglycemic reactions and hospitalizations in the past year (0 vs >or=1 episode of each), and pump versus injection delivery of insulin. Within each grouping, body mass index, insulin dose, caloric intake, parental educational level, marital status, annual family income, race, and gender were compared. HbA1c level was examined in relation to the number of hypoglycemic reactions and hospitalizations in the past year and for any differences between those receiving insulin via pump therapy versus daily injections (>or=2). RESULTS Subjects receiving insulin via pump had better glucose control and were on lower insulin doses. Subjects with adequate glucose control used a lower insulin dose, checked blood glucose levels more frequently, and had fathers with a higher education level. Those with inadequate control were more likely to come from a single-parent home, a lower-income family, and an ethnic minority. CONCLUSIONS Pump therapy for adolescents should be encouraged when appropriate. Also, certain groups of adolescents need increased supervision to manage their disease appropriately. Further research needs to explore what interventions will bring more favorable outcomes for such groups.
Another Entrepreneurial Venture Fails to See the Light of the Day

The entrepreneurial journey for a young and aspiring entrepreneur and that too from a middle class family, is triggered for a variety of reasons but has its own share of crests and troughs. It requires a strong will and character on the part of the entrepreneur to sustain the momentum and once too often we see a start-up die a premature death, leaving the protagonist thinking- what went wrong? This case is about one such young entrepreneur, who motivated by the success of his role model, launches an enterprise only to see it wither away in quick time. In trying to understand why it happened, we trace the entrepreneurs’ background, the antecedents of his taking the entrepreneurial route and the reasons why the enterprise could not be sustained. We also make an attempt to see if the failure of the first shot at entrepreneurship deters an individual to start another one.
Clinical evaluation of marginal bone level change of multiple adjacent implants restored with splinted and nonsplinted restorations: a 5-year prospective study.

PURPOSE The success of single-tooth implant restorations has resulted in an increased use of nonsplinted implants to replace adjacent missing teeth; however, this may result in excessive force transmission to the implant and bone, causing bone loss. The purpose of this prospective study was to compare the marginal bone level change of adjacent splinted implants and of nonsplinted implants functionally loaded with cemented restorations up to 5 years in maxillae. MATERIAL AND METHODS Between 2002 and 2004, all patients who received three consecutive adjacent implants in a private office and a university implant dentistry department were included in this study. All implants were placed in posterior maxillae. Maxillary left implants were restored with splinted cemented restorations, and maxillary right implants were restored with nonsplinted cemented restorations. Marginal bone resorption was measured with intraoral radiographs annually for 5 years. The data were analyzed statistically with the Mann-Whitney U test and the two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to identify differences between splinted and nonsplinted implant restorations. RESULTS One hundred thirty-two implants were placed in 44 patients. Two subjects (6 implants in total) did not complete the study. Three implants failed at stage-two surgery. Of the remaining 123 implants, 63 were restored with splinted cemented restorations and 60 were restored with nonsplinted cemented restorations. The mean marginal bone level changes at the 5-year recall were -0.7 ± 0.2 mm for splinted restorations and -0.8 ± 0.2 mm) for nonsplinted restorations. CONCLUSIONS Peri-implant marginal bone loss around nonsplinted implants in the present study was statistically equivalent to that observed in splinted implants. Multiple nonsplinted implants can be successfully included in many clinical situations in an effort to optimize esthetics and circumvent the problem of nonpassively fitting frameworks.
Botryococcus braunii: A Renewable Source of Hydrocarbons and Other Chemicals

ABSTRACT: Botryococcus braunii, a green colonial microalga, is an unusually rich renewable source of hydrocarbons and other chemicals. Hydrocarbons can constitute up to 75% of the dry mass of B. braunii. This review details the various facets of biotechnology of B. braunii, including its microbiology and physiology; production of hydrocarbons and other compounds by the alga; methods of culture; downstream recovery and processing of algal hydrocarbons; and cloning of the algal genes into other microorganisms. B. braunii converts simple inorganic compounds and sunlight to potential hydrocarbon fuels and feedstocks for the chemical industry. Microorganisms such as B. braunii can, in the long run, reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and because of this B. braunii continues to attract much attention.
How to measure wisdom: content, reliability, and validity of five measures

Wisdom is a field of growing interest both inside and outside academic psychology, and researchers are increasingly interested in using measures of wisdom in their work. However, wisdom is a highly complex construct, and its various operationalizations are based on quite different definitions. Which measure a researcher chooses for a particular research project may have a strong influence on the results. This study compares four well-established measures of wisdom—the Self-Assessed Wisdom Scale (Webster, 2003, 2007), the Three-Dimensional Wisdom Scale (Ardelt, 2003), the Adult Self-Transcendence Inventory (Levenson et al., 2005), and the Berlin Wisdom Paradigm (Baltes and Smith, 1990; Baltes and Staudinger, 2000)—with respect to content, reliability, factorial structure, and construct validity (relationships to wisdom nomination, interview-based wisdom ratings, and correlates of wisdom). The sample consisted of 47 wisdom nominees and 123 control participants. While none of the measures performed “better” than the others by absolute standards, recommendations are given for researchers to select the most suitable measure for their substantive interests. In addition, a “Brief Wisdom Screening Scale” is introduced that contains those 20 items from the three self-report scales that were most highly correlated with the common factor across the scales.
EXTRACTION OF HUMAN SETTLEMENTS FROM HIGH RESOLUTION REMOTE SENSING IMAGERY BY FUSING BOTH RIGHT-ANGLE CORNERS AND RIGHT-ANGLE SIDES

Abstract. A method for human settlements extraction from high resolution remote sensing imagery using feature-level-based fusion of right-angle-corners and right-angle-sides is proposed in this paper. First, the corners and line segments are detected, the right-angle-corners and right-angle-sides are determined by cross verification of the detected corners and line segments, and these two types of features are rasterized. Second, a human settlement index image is built based on the density and distance of the right-angle-corners and right-angle-sides in a local region. Finally, the polygons of human settlements are generated through binary thresholding of the index image, conversion from raster format to vector format, and sieving. Three images are used for testing the proposed method. The experimental results suggest that our proposed method has higher accuracy than the existed method. Specifically, the correctness, completeness, and quality of our method are 6.76 %, 10.12 %, 12.14 % respectively higher than the existed method.
IL‐22 and inflammation: Leukin' through a glass onion

IL‐22 is a Th17 T‐cell‐associated cytokine that is highly expressed during chronic inflammation. IL‐22 receptor expression is absent on immune cells, but is instead restricted to the tissues, providing signaling directionality from the immune system to the tissues. Through Stat3 signaling, IL‐22 induces a variety of proliferative, anti‐apoptotic, and anti‐microbial pathways. IL‐22 is bi‐functional with both pro‐inflammatory and protective effects on tissues depending on the inflammatory context. The cytokine plays a role both in the host response against extracellular pathogens and in the inflammation associated with autoimmune diseases. Therapeutics targeting IL‐22 therefore may have promise for treating various chronic inflammatory diseases.