Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association between serum cystatin C level and cognition in older adults: a cross-sectional analysis

Introduction Serum Cystatin C level, an indication of kidney function, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive impairment. In this cross-sectional study, we looked into the relation between serum Cystatin C levels and cognition in a group of U.S. older adults. Method The data of this study were from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2002. A total of 4,832 older adults aged ≥60 who met the inclusion criteria were included. The Dade Behring N Latex Cystatin C assay, which is a particle-enhanced nephelometric assay (PENIA), was utilized to assess Cystatin C levels in participants’ blood samples. Participants’ cognition was examined using the digit symbol substitution test (DSST). Z-scores of the DSST were calculated based on sample means and standard deviations (SD). To investigate the relationships between the quartiles of serum Cystatin C level and DSST z scores, multiple linear regression models were developed while controlling for age, sex, race/ethnicity, and education. Results The average age of the participants was 71.1 (SD 7.8). The participants were about half female (50.5%), non-Hispanic White (61.2%), and (36.1%) who had completed at least some college. They had an average serum Cystatin C level of 1.0 mg/dl (SD 0.44). After performing multiple linear regression with a reference group consisting of participants in quartile one of plasma Cystatin C levels, we found that serum Cystatin C levels in quartiles three and four were independently associated with lower DSST z scores (β = −0.059, 95% CI −0.200 to −0.074 and β = −0.108, 95% CI −0.319 to −0.184, respectively). Conclusion Higher serum Cystatin C level is associated with worse processing speed, sustained attention, and working memory in older adults. Cystatin C level may be a biomarker for cognitive decline in older adults.
Using self-paced reading in research with heritage speakers: a role for reading skill in the online processing of Spanish verb argument specifications

Relatively little is known about how heritage speakers process language in real time, despite recent calls for the use of online methods such as self-paced reading, eyetracking, and ERPs (event-related potentials) in research on this early bilingual population. The present study addressed this gap with an empirical study of the online processing of heritage speakers of Spanish in the U.S. using self-paced reading, which is the online method that is most accessible to a wide body of researchers because it does not require specialized equipment. The processing target was related to the online integration of verb argument specifications, which was chosen because it does not involve ungrammatical sentences and therefore may be less likely to involve metalinguistic knowledge and less likely to put heritage speakers at a disadvantage than measures that rely on the recognition of grammatical errors. More specifically, this study examined an effect that occurs when a noun phrase appears after an intransitive verb, which can cause processing difficulty relative to a comparison condition in which the verb is transitive. The participants were 58 heritage speakers of Spanish and a comparison group of 16 first-generation immigrants raised in Spanish-speaking countries. Both groups showed the expected transitivity effect on the post-verbal noun phrase during self-paced reading, but the heritage speaker group also showed a spillover effect on the post-critical region. Among the heritage speakers, these effects were associated with lower self-ratings for reading skill in Spanish and with slower average reading speed during the experiment. Three theoretical accounts of the apparent susceptibility to spillover effects among heritage speakers are proposed: that it is a characteristic of shallow processing, that it is due to underdeveloped reading skill, and that it is an artifact of the self-paced reading method. The latter two possibilities are especially consistent with a role for reading skill in these results.
Venom biotechnology: casting light on nature’s deadliest weapons using synthetic biology

Venoms are complex chemical arsenals that have evolved independently many times in the animal kingdom. Venoms have attracted the interest of researchers because they are an important innovation that has contributed greatly to the evolutionary success of many animals, and their medical relevance offers significant potential for drug discovery. During the last decade, venom research has been revolutionized by the application of systems biology, giving rise to a novel field known as venomics. More recently, biotechnology has also made an increasing impact in this field. Its methods provide the means to disentangle and study venom systems across all levels of biological organization and, given their tremendous impact on the life sciences, these pivotal tools greatly facilitate the coherent understanding of venom system organization, development, biochemistry, and therapeutic activity. Even so, we lack a comprehensive overview of major advances achieved by applying biotechnology to venom systems. This review therefore considers the methods, insights, and potential future developments of biotechnological applications in the field of venom research. We follow the levels of biological organization and structure, starting with the methods used to study the genomic blueprint and genetic machinery of venoms, followed gene products and their functional phenotypes. We argue that biotechnology can answer some of the most urgent questions in venom research, particularly when multiple approaches are combined together, and with other venomics technologies.
Identifying lifestyle factors associated to co-morbidity of obesity and psychiatric disorders, a pilot study

Obesity and psychiatric disorders are linked through a bidirectional association. Obesity rates have tripled globally in the past decades, and it is predicted that by 2025, one billion people will be affected by obesity, often with a co-morbidity such as depression. While this co-morbidity seems to be a global health issue, lifestyle factors associated to it differ between countries and are often attributed to more than one factor. Prior obesity studies were performed in Western populations; this is the first study that investigates lifestyle factors relating to obesity and mental health of the diverse population in Qatar, a country that has witnessed tremendous lifestyle change in a short time. In this pilot study, we surveyed 379 respondents to assess and compare the lifestyles of Qatar residents to the global population. However due to the high proportion of responses from the United Kingdom (UK) residents, we have made comparisons between Qatar residents and UK residents. We used chi-square analysis, spearman rank correlation and logistic regression to compare the lifestyle factors of individuals suffering from both increased BMI and mental health conditions. The types of food consumed, stress, exercise frequency and duration, alcohol and tobacco consumption, and sleep duration, were explored and results argue that different lifestyle factors can contribute to the same health condition, suggesting different mechanisms involved. We found that both groups reported similar sleep durations (p = 0.800), but that perception of sleep (p = 0.011), consumption of alcohol (p = 0.001), consumption of takeaway food (p = 0.007), and physical activity significantly varied between the groups (p = 0.0001). The study examined the predictors of comorbidity in Qatar as well as UK populations using multivariate logistic regression analysis. The result of the study showed no statistical association between comorbidity and the predictors drinking habit, smoking, physical activity, vegetable consumption, eat outs, and sleep perception for the Qatar population, and for the combined population. This study, however showed a significant association (p = 0.033) between sleep perception and comorbidity for the UK population. We conclude that further analysis is needed to understand the relationship between specific lifestyle factors and multimorbidity in each country.
Walker-Type Mean Circulations and Convectively Coupled Tropical Waves as an Interacting System

Abstract Interactions between convectively coupled tropical waves and Walker-type mean circulations are examined using a two-dimensional analytic model wherein drying and cooling of the boundary layer by convective and mesoscale downdrafts are in equilibrium with the wind-induced perturbations of surface fluxes. The moist thermodynamic state directly affects the stability of the large-scale circulation by controlling the wind perturbation on surface fluxes and the strength of the convective downdrafts. Stability analyses yield two major conclusions. (i) The mean Walker circulation is linearly unstable, suggesting that it may only exist in a quasi-steady sense through the spontaneous generation of transient waves. The instability is a manifestation of positive feedback: enhanced low-level convergence increases the surface wind speed, which increases the surface flux. As a result, convective heating is increased, which further enhances the low-level convergence. The mean circulation is more unstable when it.
Catechol siderophores framed on 2,3-dihydroxybenzoyl-L-serine from Streptomyces varsoviensis

Enterobactin is an archetypical catecholate siderophore that plays a key role in the acquisition of ferric iron by microorganisms. Catechol moieties have been shown to be promising siderophore cores. Variants of the conserved 2,3-dihydroxybenzoate (DHB) moiety with structural modifications expand the bioactivity. Streptomyces are characterized by metabolites with diverse structures. The genomic sequence of Streptomyces varsoviensis indicated that it possessed a biosynthetic gene cluster for DHB containing siderophores and metabolic profiling revealed metabolites correlated with catechol-type natural products. Here, we report the discovery of a series of catecholate siderophores produced by S. varsoviensis and a scale-up fermentation was performed to purify these compounds for structural elucidation. A biosynthetic route for the catecholate siderophores is also proposed. These new structural features enrich the structural diversity of the enterobactin family compounds. One of the new linear enterobactin congeners shows moderate activity against a food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. This work demonstrated that changing culture conditions is still a promising approach to explore unexplored chemical diversity. The availability of the biosynthetic machinery will enrich the genetic toolbox of catechol siderophores and facilitate such engineering efforts.
Multimodal monitoring: practical recommendations (dos and don'ts) in challenging situations and uncertainty

With the advancements in modern medicine, new methods are being developed to monitor patients in the intensive care unit. Different modalities evaluate different aspects of the patient's physiology and clinical status. The complexity of these modalities often restricts their use to the realm of clinical research, thereby limiting their use in the real world. Understanding their salient features and their limitations can aid physicians in interpreting the concomitant information provided by multiple modalities to make informed decisions that may affect clinical care and outcomes. Here, we present a review of the commonly used methods in the neurological intensive care unit with practical recommendations for their use.
Biochemical characterization of an acetylesterase from Bacillus subtilis and its application for 7-aminocephalosporanic acid deacetylation

Deacetyl-7-aminocephalosporanic acid (D-7-ACA), which could be converted from 7-aminocephalosporanic acid (7-ACA), is a crucial starting material that is used for synthesizing industrial semisynthetic β-lactam antibiotics. Enzymes involved in the conversion from 7-ACA to D-7-ACA present critical resources in the pharmaceutical industry. In the present study, a putative acetylesterase, EstSJ, identified from Bacillus subtilis KATMIRA1933, was first heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli BL21(DE3) cells and biochemically characterized. EstSJ belongs to carbohydrate esterase family 12 and is active on short-chain acyl esters from p-NPC2 to p-NPC6. Multiple sequence alignments showed that EstSJ was also an SGNH family esterase with a typical GDS(X) motif at its N-terminal end and a catalytic triad composed of Ser186-Asp354-His357. The purified EstSJ displayed the highest specific activity of 1,783.52 U mg–1 at 30°C and pH 8.0, and was stable within the pH range of 5.0–11.0. EstSJ can deacetylate the C3′ acetyl group of 7-ACA to generate D-7-ACA, and the deacetylation activity was 4.50 U mg–1. Based on the structural and molecular docking with 7-ACA, the catalytic active sites (Ser186-Asp354-His357) together with four substrate-binding residues (Asn259, Arg295, Thr355, and Leu356) of EstSJ are revealed. This study provided a promising 7-ACA deacetylase candidate that could be applied to produce D-7-ACA from 7-ACA in the pharmaceutical industry.
Introducing DynaPTI–constructing a dynamic patent technology indicator using text mining and machine learning

Patent data is an established source of information for both scientific research and corporate intelligence. Yet, most patent-based technology indicators fail to consider firm-level dynamics regarding their technological quality and technological activity. Accordingly, these indicators are unlikely to deliver an unbiased view on the current state of firm-level innovation and are thus incomplete tools for researchers and corporate intelligence practitioners. In this paper, we develop DynaPTI, an indicator that tackles this particular shortcoming of existing patent-based measures. Our proposed framework extends the literature by incorporating a dynamic component and is built upon an index-based comparison of firms. Furthermore, we use machine-learning techniques to enrich our indicator with textual information from patent texts. Together, these features allow our proposed framework to provide precise and up-to-date assessments about firm-level innovation activities. To present an exemplary implementation of the framework, we provide an empirical application to companies from the wind energy sector and compare our results to alternatives. Our corresponding findings suggest that our approach can generate valuable insights that are complementary to existing approaches, particularly regarding the identification of recently emerging, innovation-overperformers in a particular technological field.
Break‐up of a stratospheric streamer observed by MST radar

The break‐up of a stratospheric streamer over the British Isles is described, using satellite, Mesosphere—Stratosphere—Troposphere (MST) radar and in situ observations together with European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts analyses. The streamer started as a thin ribbon of high potential vorticity to the west of the British Isles. As this was strained by the background flow it broke up into a series of mesoscale vortices. MST radar and ozonesonde observations delineated a tropopause fold to the west of the initial streamer, taking the form of a thin layer of stratospheric air embedded in a deep layer of descending upper‐tropospheric air. The fold appears to have been mixed out by small‐scale turbulence as the streamer broke up. This break‐up also generated strong inertia‐gravity waves, which broke just above the tropopause introducing extensive mixing to the lowermost stratosphere. One of the mesoscale vortices returned over the MST radar, showing a very indistinct tropopause typical of a synoptic‐scale cut‐off low. This vortex was also responsible for the development of a rain band on its eastern flank, which brought significant rainfall to the British Isles at a time when the synoptic flow pattern was strongly anticyclonic.
Canonical cortical circuits

The observation that neural circuits of the neocortex are adapted to many different tasks raises deep questions of how they are organized and operate. Most theories of cortical computation propose that the cortex processes its information in a feedforward manner through a series of hierarchically organized stages and that each of these stages is dominated by the pattern of the input to the local cortical circuit. The most infl uential of these models of the local circuit is Hubel and Wiesel’s ( 1962 ) proposal for the circuits that underlie simple and complex cells in the cat’s primary visual cortex. Felleman and Van Essen ( 1991 ) extended the notion of a processing hierarchy in their comprehensive summary wiring diagram for the primate visual system. In these models of intraand interareal cortical circuits, sensory information from the retina is passed through successive stages of cortical processing, each of which increases the feature selectivity of visual receptive fi elds. Thus, from the concentric center-surround receptive fi elds of the retina and dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus, simple cells are created, then complex cells from simple cells, and eventually the face cells, object-specifi c cells, and 3-D motionspecifi c cells of the high levels of the cortical processing hierarchy. This serial processing schema is conceptually simple, which makes it very attractive for theorists (e.g., Riesenhuber and Poggio, 1999 ). More recent experimental and theoretical considerations of the cortical circuits, however, have suggested a rather different architecture: one in which local circuits of cortical neurons are connected in a series of nested positive and negative feedback loops, called “recurrent circuits” ( Fig. 2.1 ; Douglas et al., 1989 ; Douglas and Martin, 2004 , 2007 ). Excitatory neurons outnumber the inhibitory neurons by 5 to 1, so this ratio might be expected to create an unstable positive feedback. However, because the recurrent connections also exist 2
Contrast optimization for 0.33NA EUV lithography

0.33 NA EUV lithography is expected to be introduced into High Volume Manufacturing at k1 values of approximately 0.4. 0.5. This is significantly larger than state of the art immersion lithography which can operate at k1 of 0.3. We investigated the impact of contrast enhancement on the imaging properties of Contact Holes and Lines and Spaces. Contrast was adjusted by changing the illumination properties pupil fill ratio and center incidence angle. We found a strong improvement of the local Critical Dimension control: line width variation for Lines and Spaces and hole to hole CD variations for arrays of contact holes. For all features we found a similar dependency on contrast. As the local Critical Dimension variations contribute significant to Edge Placement Error budgets, we foresee the implementation of contrast enhancements already at moderate k1 values around 0.4.
Influence of yaw damper layouts on locomotive lateral dynamics performance: Pareto optimization and parameter analysis

High-speed locomotives are prone to carbody or bogie hunting when the wheel-rail contact conicity is excessively low or high. This can cause negative impacts on vehicle dynamics performance. This study presents four types of typical yaw damper layouts for a high-speed locomotive (Bo-Bo) and compares, by using the multi-objective optimization method, the influences of those layouts on the lateral dynamics performance of the locomotive; the linear stability indexes under low-conicity and high-conicity conditions are selected as optimization objectives. Furthermore, the radial basis function-based high-dimensional model representation (RBF-HDMR) method is used to conduct a global sensitivity analysis (GSA) between key suspension parameters and the lateral dynamics performance of the locomotive, including the lateral ride comfort on straight tracks under the low-conicity condition, and also the operational safety on curved tracks. It is concluded that the layout of yaw dampers has a considerable impact on low-conicity stability and lateral ride comfort but has little influence on curving performance. There is also an important finding that only when the locomotive adopts the layout with opening outward, the difference in lateral ride comfort between the front and rear ends of the carbody can be eliminated by adjusting the lateral installation angle of the yaw dampers. Finally, force analysis and modal analysis methods are adopted to explain the influence mechanism of yaw damper layouts on the lateral stability and differences in lateral ride comfort between the front and rear ends of the carbody. 目 的 以中国某型 Bo-Bo 高速机车为研究对象, 分析四种典型的抗蛇行减振器布置方式及横向安装角对机车横向动力学性能和参数匹配关系的影响, 并解释其作用机理. 创新点 1. 通过多目标优化方法来同时优化机车低锥度和高锥度横向稳定性, 获得四种抗蛇行减振器布置方式下机车最优横向动力学性能及横向安装角的不同选取原则; 2. 当抗蛇行减振器横向安装角存在时, 引入抗蛇行减振器附加作用力和作用力矩, 结合车体横向和摇头模态相位差来解释抗蛇行减振器布置方式对机车蛇行稳定性和车体前后横向平稳性差异的影响机理. 方 法 1. 基于搭建的 MATLAB/SIMPACK 联合仿真平台, 采用多目标优化方法得到机车最优横向动力学性能及对应悬挂参数分布结果 (图 4 和 5); 2. 通过拉丁超立方采样对机车直线运行性能和曲线通过性能评价指标进行蒙特卡洛仿真, 并采用基于径向基函数的高维模型表示的敏感性分析方法对关键悬挂参数进行全局敏感性分析 (图 6); 3. 采用根轨迹法分析不同抗蛇行减振器布置方式下横向安装角对机车蛇行稳定性影响规律, 并提取蛇行模态中对应的车体横移和摇头模态相位差 (图 8 和 9). 结 论 1. 抗蛇行减振器的布置方式对机车横向稳定性和平稳性具有显著影响, 且不同布置方式下横向安装角的选取原则存在差异. 2. 全局敏感性分析结果显示: 机车曲线通过性能对抗蛇行减振器阻尼和一系横向刚度的敏感性较强, 但对抗蛇行减振器横向安装角的敏感性较弱. 3. 机车采用抗蛇行减振器开口向外布置时, 优化横向安装角可以减小车体前后端横向平稳性差异, 而机车采用其他三种抗蛇行减振器布置方式时没有这个特点.
Model Order Selection in System Identification: New and Old Techniques

The thesis analyzes some techniques adopted for model order selection in system identification: both classical methods (cross-validation, information criteria, the F-test and the statistical tests on the residuals) and innovative ones are evaluated, such as PUMS criterion and kernel-based estimation. The theoretical description of these methods is accompanied by an experimental analysis. Two combinations of the methods are also introduced, proving that they allow a more robust order selection
EXTENSION OF THE MARGINAL CUMULATIVE LOGISTIC MODEL AND DECOMPOSITIONS OF MARGINAL HOMOGENEITY FOR MULTI-WAY TABLES

For multi-way contingency tables of same classifications with ordered categories, this paper proposes such a model that the difference between arbitrary two marginal cumulative logits is a linear function of the category value. The model is an extension of the marginal homogeneity model and the marginal cumulative logistic model. This paper also proposes a similar model on condition that the values of all variables are not identical. Using the proposed models, the decompositions for the marginal homogeneity model are given. Examples are given.