Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Planting False Childhood Memories: The Role of Event Plausibility

Two experiments tested and confirmed the hypothesis that events will be suggestively planted in memory to the degree that they are plausible and script-relevant knowledge exists in memory In Experiment 1, 22 Jewish and 29 Catholic high school students were read descriptions of three true events and two false events reported to have occurred when they were 8 years old One false event described a Jewish ritual, and one described a Catholic ritual Results for the false events showed the predicted asymmetry Whereas 7 Catholics but 0 Jews remembered only the Catholic false event, 3 Jews but only 1 Catholic remembered only the Jewish false event Two subjects recalled both events In Experiment 2 20 confederates read descriptions of one true event and two false events to a younger sibling or close relative The more plausible false event described the relative being lost in a mall while shopping the less plausible false event described the relative receiving an enema Three events were falselv remembered, all were the more plausible event We conclude by outlining a framework that specifies the cognitive processes underlying suggestively planting false events in memory
Development and experimental testing of a portable hand exoskeleton

In this paper, the development and the experimental testing phases of an innovative assistive device for hand disabilities are presented. This robotic device is based on an parallel kinematic chain applied to a single phalanx architecture and it is designed to be extremely portable to easily assist people with physical disabilities in their everyday lives. Focusing on patients with hand opening disabilities, the authors have developed a model-based methodology which starting from the motion capture of the patient fingertip trajectories is able to define the mechanism that better fits with such trajectories. The authors have validated the proposed innovative mechanism by developing a portable Hand Exoskeleton System (HES) prototype and performing a suitable preliminary testing campaign. The testing phase of the real prototype on a group of patients is currently ongoing.
The Effectiveness of Strategies for Increasing Social Interaction with a Physically Disabled Person1

The effectiveness of strategies a physically disabled person can use to increase a nondisabled person's willingness to engage in social interaction were investigated. In the strategies, the disabled person engages in behavior demonstrating that he/she is not preoccupied with the disability. Female college students chose the amount of time to be spent listening to music versus social interaction before and after learning that the other was a disabled male. The subject witnessed via “closed circuit” TV (actually a videotape) a brief interaction between the male and another female in the waiting room from which the subject had just come. In the Interest in others condition, the male encouraged the female to talk about herself. In the Typical activities condition, the male mentioned he had to pick up tickets, organize a party, and study for an exam. In the Athletic activities condition, the male mentioned he went swimming and bowling. In the Request condition, the male asked the female to pick up a paper he had dropped. In the Control condition, there was limited interaction. In the Inappropriate communication condition, the male mentioned the same activities as in the Typical activities condition but talked continuously without waiting for polite interest from the female. Changes in preference for social interaction were significantly more positive in the Attentive to others, Typical activities and Athletic activities conditions than in the Control conditions. It was concluded that demonstrating interest in others, typical activities and athletic activities are effective strategies.
Analog implementation of high resolution DFT in RF domain, utilizing a special multilayer realization of Rotman lens

A passive DFT processor using a special realization of a Rotman lens is proposed which provides higher resolution with less complexity in compare to the traditional Butler matrices implementation which their complexity increases exponentially with resolution. The design is extended to 2X point by adding another dimension in form of stacked configuration which is easily available in multilayer PCBs. By offsetting the center frequency of the serial-to-parallel converter from that of the lens, the bandwidth of the processor was increased from 320 MHz to 1 GHz maintaining error at the same level (~4%). This is more than 3X bandwidth enhancement, making this design suitable for processing wide band time domain signals.
Ecological Succession in Tropical Forests: The Role of Edaphic Factors, Initial Conditions and Competition

ECOLOGICAL SUCCESSION IN TROPICAL FORESTS: THE ROLE OF EDAPHIC FACTORS, INITIAL CONDITIONS AND COMPETITION Sergio Estrada Villegas, B.Sc., M.Sc. Marquette University, 2019 Succession is a fundamental process in ecology in which ecosystems recover after disturbances. The goal of the study of ecological succession is to understand the mechanisms responsible for changes in species’ density, diversity, and ecosystem processes. Understanding the mechanisms that determine how young tropical forests change during succession is crucial because approximately half of the world’s tropical forests are regenerating after farmland abandonment, and successional forests are now expected to supply the vast majority of ecosystems services that were provided by old growth forests (e.g. carbon sequestration). Edaphic factors, initial conditions, and competition have been proposed to be key drivers that influence tropical forest succession; however, how these drivers alter succession remains poorly understood. For my doctoral dissertation research, I used census data from a young tropical dry forest, and a large-scale field experiment in a tropical moist forest to examine the combined effects of edaphic factors and initial conditions on forest succession, as well as the effect of lianas on trees, an intense form of plant competition, on forest succession. In the dry forest, edaphic factors and initial conditions were strong determinants of succession. Soil fertility accelerated tree biomass accretion. Topography made liana composition more similar over time. Initial conditions decreased sapling recruitment and biomass accretion, probably due to lower light levels when there is more basal area early in succession. The accumulation of tree species was slowed while tree composition similarity increased with more basal area early in succession. Competition for space may have delayed tree recruitment in the canopy and homogenized composition. In the moist forest, liana competition significantly influenced succession. Lianas contributed 20% of the foliage to the forest canopy, and thus significantly reduced light level and tree biomass accumulation. Lianas reduced tree biomass accumulation even when trees received full sunlight and their canopies were intact. Finally, using a comprehensive literature review on liana removal experiments, I report that lianas decrease tree establishment, growth, biomass accumulation and reproduction across the world’s tropical forests. In summary, liana competition, edaphic factors, and initial conditions all influence the rate and direction of succession in young tropical forests.
Effect of Gas Flow Rate on Distribution of Active Species and Dynamics of an Atmospheric RF- (Bio) Plasma Jet

A fast imaging technique applied for RF plasma indicates that the plasma jet propagation dynamics, operating even at megahertz frequency includes the so-called plasma bullet phenomenon. Broadband emission and intensity of lines corresponding to excited Ar and OH are registered. The spatial distribution of ground state OH is also detected by means of laser-induced fluorescence diagnostics.
Is the volume-outcome relation still an issue in the era of PCI with systematic stenting? Results of the greater Paris area PCI registry.

AIMS In acute myocardial infarction (AMI), primary percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTCA) is the preferred option when it can be performed rapidly. Because of the limited access to high PTCA volume centres in some areas, it has been suggested that PTCA could be performed in low-volume centres on AMI patients. Little data exist on the validity of this strategy in modern era PTCA. METHODS AND RESULTS The Greater Paris area comprises 11 million inhabitants and accounts for 18% of the French population. In 2001, the hospital agency of the Greater Paris area set up a registry of all PTCAs performed in this region. Data from 2001 and 2002 was analysed. Hospitals performing <400 PTCAs per year were classified as low-volume. A case-control analysis (propensity score) compared in-hospital mortality in low- and high-volume centres. A total of 37 848 angioplasty procedures were performed in 44 centres during the study period; 24.7% were performed in low-volume centres. A non-statistically significant trend towards reduced in-hospital mortality was noted in high-volume centres as opposed to low-volume centres: 2.01 vs. 2.42%, P = 0.057. In-hospital mortality rates were significantly different in the sub-group of emergency procedures: 6.75% in high- vs. 8.54% in low-volume centres, P = 0.028. No difference was noted between low- and high-volume centres in non-emergency procedures (0.62 vs. 0.62%, P = 0.99). CONCLUSION In the era of modern stenting, a clear inverse relationship exists between hospital PTCA volume and in-hospital mortality after emergency procedures. Tolerance of low-volume thresholds for angioplasty centres with the purpose of providing primary PTCA in AMI should not be recommended, even in underserved areas.
Phylogenetic relationships among species of Contracaecum Railliet & Henry, 1912 and Phocascaris Høst, 1932 (Nematoda[ratio ]Ascaridoidea) based on nuclear rDNA sequence data

Nuclear-encoded large-subunit ribosomal DNA sequences were used to infer a phylogenetic hypothesis for 17 taxa (16 nominal species) of the genera Contracaecum and Phocascaris. Phylogenetic trees based on these data have been used to assess the validity of the taxonomic distinction between these genera, which was based on the presence or absence of certain structural features, rather than on explicit hypotheses of evolutionary history. Phylogenetic hypotheses based on parsimony, likelihood, and neighbor-joining analyses of these sequence data strongly support the hypothesis that species of Phocascaris are nested within the clade of Contracaecum species hosted by phocid seals, and are more closely related to species of the Contracaecum osculatum complex than to other Contracaecum species. Alternative tree topologies representing Phocascaris as not nested within the C. osculatum complex were significantly worse interpretations of these sequence data. Phylogenetic analysis also provides strong support for the monophyly of all taxa (Contracaecum and Phocascaris) from phocid seals, which is consistent with Berland's (1964) proposal that such species form a natural group; however, his proposal to recognize all species in phocid seals as Phocascaris, with all species from birds as Contracaecum would result in a paraphyletic Contracaecum, according to the molecular phylogenetic hypothesis.
Two Components of Nocturnal Locomotor Suppression by Light

In nocturnal rodents, millisecond light (“flash”) stimuli can induce both a large circadian rhythm phase shift and an associated state change from highly active to quiescence followed by behavioral sleep. Suppression of locomotion (“negative masking”) is an easily measured correlate of the state change. The present mouse studies used both flashes and longer light stimuli (“pulses”) to distinguish initiation from maintenance effects of light on locomotor suppression and to determine whether the locomotor suppression exhibits temporal integration as is thought to be characteristic of phase shift responses to pulse, but not flash, stimuli. In experiment 1, locomotor suppression increased with irradiance (0.01-100 µW/cm 2), in accordance with previous reports. It also increased with stimulus duration (3-3000 sec), but interpretation of this result is complicated by the ability of light to both initiate and maintain locomotor suppression. In experiment 2, an irradiance response curve was determined using a stimulus series of 10 flashes, 2 msec each, with total flash energy varying from 0.0025 to 110.0 J/m2. This included a test for temporal integration in which the effects of two equal energy series of flashes that differed in the number of flashes per series (10 vs 100), were compared. The 10 flash series more effectively elicited locomotor suppression than the 100 flash series, a result consistent with prior observations involving flash-induced phase shifts. In experiment 3, exposure of mice to an 11-h light stimulus yielded irradiance-dependent locomotor suppression that was maintained for the entire stimulus duration by a 100-µW/cm2 stimulus. Light has the ability to initiate a time-limited (30-40 min) interval of locomotor suppression (initiation effect) that can be extended by additional light (maintenance effect). Temporal integration resembling that seen in phase-shifting responses to light does not exist for either phase shift or locomotor suppression responses to flashes or for locomotor suppression responses to light pulses. The authors present an alternative interpretation of data thought to demonstrate temporal integration in the regulation of phase shift responses to light pulses.
VFDB 2016: hierarchical and refined dataset for big data analysis—10 years on

The virulence factor database (VFDB, http://www.mgc.ac.cn/VFs/) is dedicated to providing up-to-date knowledge of virulence factors (VFs) of various bacterial pathogens. Since its inception the VFDB has served as a comprehensive repository of bacterial VFs for over a decade. The exponential growth in the amount of biological data is challenging to the current database in regard to big data analysis. We recently improved two aspects of the infrastructural dataset of VFDB: (i) removed the redundancy introduced by previous releases and generated two hierarchical datasets – one core dataset of experimentally verified VFs only and another full dataset including all known and predicted VFs and (ii) refined the gene annotation of the core dataset with controlled vocabularies. Our efforts enhanced the data quality of the VFDB and promoted the usability of the database in the big data era for the bioinformatic mining of the explosively growing data regarding bacterial VFs.
Development and evolution of craniofacial patterning is mediated by eye‐dependent and ‐independent processes in the cavefish Astyanax

Summary We studied the development and evolution of craniofacial features in the teleost fish, Astyanax mexicanus. This species has an eyed surface dwelling form (surface fish) and many different cave dwelling forms (cavefish) with various degrees of reduced eyes and pigmentation. The craniofacial features we examined are the tooth‐bearing maxillary bones, the nasal and antorbital bones, the circumorbital bones, and the opercular bones, all of which show evolutionary modifications in different cavefish populations. Manipulations of eye formation by transplantation of the embryonic lens, by lentectomy, or by removing the optic vesicle showed that eye‐dependent and ‐independent processes change both the surface fish and cavefish craniofacial skeletons. The size of the olfactory pits, which the nasal and antorbital bones define, and the size and positioning of the circumorbital bones were found to correlate with eye development. For the six suborbital bones (SO1–6), the relationship with the developing eye appears to be due to ossification initiated from foci in the suborbital canal of cranial neuromasts, whose patterning is also highly correlated with the presence or absence of an eye. By contrast, we found that the number of maxillary teeth, the number of SO3 bone elements, the positioning of SO4–6 with respect to the opercular bone, and the shape of the opercular bone are not dependent on eye formation and vary among different cavefish populations. The results suggest that evolution of the cavefish craniofacial skeleton is controlled by multiple developmental events, some a direct consequence of eye degeneration and others unrelated to loss of the eye.
Seasonality of CO 2 in coastal oceans altered by increasing anthropogenic nutrient delivery from large rivers: evidence from the Changjiang–East China Sea system

Model studies suggested that human-induced increase in nutrient load may have stimulated primary production and thus enhanced the CO 2 uptake capacity in the coastal ocean. In this study, we investigated the seasonal variations of the surface water's partial pressure of CO 2 ( p CO 2 sw ) in the highly human-impacted Changjiang–East China Sea system between 2008 and 2011. The seasonality of p CO 2 sw has large spatial variations, with the largest extreme of 170 ± 75 μatm on the inner shelf near the Changjiang Estuary (from 271 ± 55 μatm in summer to 441 ± 51 μatm in autumn) and the weakest extreme of 53 ± 20 μatm on the outer shelf (from 328 ± 9 μatm in winter to 381 ± 18 μatm in summer). During the summer period, stronger stratification and biological production driven by the eutrophic Changjiang plume results in a very low dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) in surface waters and a very high DIC in bottom waters of the inner shelf, with the latter returning high DIC to the surface water during the mixed period. Interestingly, a comparison with historical data shows that the average p CO 2 sw on the inner shelf near the Changjiang Estuary has decreased notably during summer, but has increased during autumn and winter from the 1990s to the 2000s. We suggest that this decadal change is associated with recently increased eutrophication. This would increase both the photosynthetic removal of DIC in surface waters and the respiratory release of DIC in bottom waters during summertime, thereby returning more DIC to the surface during the subsequent mixing seasons and/or episodic extreme weather events (e.g., typhoons). Our finding demonstrates that increasing anthropogenic nutrient delivery from a large river may enhance the sequestration capacity of CO 2 in summer but may reduce it in autumn and winter. Consequently, the coastal ocean may not necessarily take up more atmospheric CO 2 in response to increasing eutrophication, and the net effect largely depends on the relative timescale of air–sea gas exchange and offshore transport of the shelf water. Finally, the case we report for the Changjiang system may have general ramifications for other eutrophic coastal oceans.
Distributed learning algorithm for feedforward neural networks

With the appearance of huge data sets new challenges have risen regarding the scalability and eﬃciency of Machine Learning algorithms, and both distributed computing and randomized algorithms have become eﬀective ways to handle them. Taking advantage of these two approaches, a distributed learning algorithm for two-layer neural networks is proposed. Results demonstrate a similar accuracy when compared to an equivalent non-distributed approach whilst providing some advantages that make it especially well-suited for Big Data sets: over 50% savings in computational time; low communication and storage cost; no hyperparam-eters to be tuned; it allows online learning and it is privacy-preserving.
Understanding Conceptual Climate Change Meanings and Preferences of Multi-Actor Professional Leadership in New York

Abstract This article sets out to evaluate the range of meanings and preferences for the concepts of adaptation, resilience, mitigation and coping of a variety of professionals in New York who are undertaking leadership positions in developing climate change policies and practices. This article positions a normative set of simplified meanings for each of the aforementioned concepts based on a review of existing literature. Utilizing a survey, these normative meanings are evaluated by and between the: (a) concepts and meanings; (b) concepts and applications and (c) applications and preferences, as applied to various risk-based scenarios ranging from sea-level rise to heat waves. This survey tests the hypotheses that the respondents: (i) are unable to consistently match the concept of resiliency with the normative meanings or applications: and (ii) will not consistently show a preference for resilience applications or outcomes ahead of other concepts. The results of the survey confirm both hypotheses, which is demonstrative of the inadequacy of the current framework dominated by a narrowly defined framework for resilience. It is anticipated that the results of this article will advance an argument for the necessity to develop consistent meanings for concepts which bridge the scientific, policy and popular domains.
Haplotypes in IL-8 Gene Are Associated to Age-Related Macular Degeneration: A Case-Control Study

Background Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the main cause of blindness in the developed world. The etiology of AMD is multifactorial due to the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. IL-8 has a role in inflammation and angiogenesis; we report the genetic characterization of IL-8 allele architecture and evaluate the role of SNPs or haplotypes in the susceptibility to wet AMD, case-control study. Methods Case-control study including 721 AMD patients and 660 controls becoming from Italian population. Genotyping was carried out by Real Time-PCR. Differences in the frequencies were estimated by the chi-square test. Direct sequencing was carried out by capillary electrophoresis trough ABI3130xl. Results rs2227306 showed a p–value of 4.15*10−5 and an Odds Ratio (OR) for T allele of 1.39 [1.19–1.62]. After these positive results, we sequenced the entire IL-8 regulatory and coding regions of 60 patients and 30 controls stratified for their genotype at rs2227306. We defined two different haplotypes involving rs4073 (A/T), rs2227306 (C/T), rs2227346 (C/T) and rs1126647 (A/T): A-T-T-T (p-value: 2.08*10−9; OR: 1.68 [1.43–1.97]) and T-C-C-A (p-value: 7.07*10−11; OR: 0.60 [0.51–0.70]). To further investigate a potential functional role of associated haplotypes, we performed an expression study on RNA extracted from whole blood of 75 donors to verify a possible direct correlation between haplotype and gene expression, failing to reveal significant differences. Conclusions These results suggest a possible secondary role of IL-8 gene in the development of the disease. This paper outlines the importance of association between inflammation and AMD. Moreover IL-8 is a new susceptibility genomic biomarker of AMD.
Multicentric outcome analysis of sirolimus‐based immunosuppression in 252 liver transplant recipients

The use of sirolimus (SRL) in orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) has been controversial after experimental data suggested an increased risk of hepatic artery thrombosis (HAT). To assess the safety and efficacy of SRL as de novo immunosuppression in OLT recipients. Outcomes of 252 OLT patients who received SRL were compared with outcomes of 291 OLT recipients who received calcineurin inhibitor in a retrospective study. Primary outcomes of this study were: patient‐ and graft survivals, vascular, biliary, wound complications and rejection rates. Secondary outcomes were: postoperative infection rate, bone marrow and renal function and changes of lipid levels. Patient‐ and graft survivals, rejection and infection rates were similar. In the SRL group, HAT occurred in 1.2%, biliary complications in 19.4%, and incisional hernias in 9.1%. In the control group the incidence of HAT was 5.8% (P = 0.004), biliary complications 18.5% (P = NS) and incisional hernias 7.2% (P = NS). Patients on SRL experienced significantly higher levels of serum triglycerides but fewer acute cellular rejections. Bone marrow and renal functions were similar in both the groups. Our findings would suggest that SRL is safe and effective for very selected OLT recipients. Randomized controlled trials are necessary to confirm our results.