Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Instability of Abyssal Currents in a Continuously Stratified Ocean with Bottom Topography

A theory is developed for the baroclinic destabilization of density-driven abyssal flows over topography in a rotating environment. The dominant instability mechanism being studied is the release of available potential energy caused by gradual downhill slumping of the abyssal current. The present model assumes a two-layer configuration and allows for intersections of the interface with the bottom (i.e., true fronts), as well as continuous stratification in the ambient fluid. The linear instability problem in a channel for a current with parabolic cross section is solved, and the perturbation growth rate and most unstable wavenumber are both shown to increase with current thickness. A similar trend is evident as the stratification number is increased or the current width is decreased. The instability manifests itself in the overlying ocean as an amplifying topographic Rossby wave. Alternating positive/negative pressure anomalies in the upper layer are accompanied by a wavelike deformation of the abyssal current that is most pronounced on the downslope side. Upper-layer vortical features have a distinct vertically tapered shape and are to be interpreted as bottom-intensified eddies. Long-term evolution of the flow is elucidated in a series of simulations employing the fully nonlinear governing equations. It is found that, even though the linear instability calculation relates to a periodic current, the instability characteristics are still valid to a good approximation for the case of a source flow. The abyssal current breaks up into a series of plumes that penetrate downslope into the deeper ocean, producing strong current fluctuations not unlike those observed in Denmark Strait overflow water. Furthermore, introduction of more realistic topography into the numerical simulation leads to the development of coherent baroclinic vortex pairs whose upper-layer component is strongly cyclonic.
Using Activity Schedules to Increase On-Task Behavior in Children at Risk for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

The effects of activity schedules on on-task and on-schedule behavior were assessed with two boys at risk for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and referred by their public school teachers as having difficulty during independent work time. On-task behavior increased for both participants after two training sessions. Teachers, peers, and participants reported high acceptability of the use and outcomes of the activity schedules. These findings replicate previous research with activity schedules with individuals with developmental disabilities and provide a novel classroom intervention for teachers of students at risk for and/or diagnosed with ADHD. Future research on activity schedules with these populations is discussed.
Direct Laser Interference Patterning: Tailoring of Contact Area for Frictional and Antibacterial Properties

Surface functionalization by topographic micro- and nano-structures in order to achieve unique properties, like super-hydrophobicity or ultrahigh light absorption, is a common strategy in nature. In this paper, direct laser interference patterning (DLIP) is presented as a promising tool allowing for the generation of such surface patterns on technical surfaces in order to mimic these biological surfaces and effects. Friction optimization and antibacterial effects by DLIP are exemplarily described. Topographic surface patterns on the micro- and nano-scale demonstrated a significant reduction in the coefficient of friction and bacterial adhesion. It was shown that in both cases, the control of the contact area between surfaces or between surface and bacteria is of utmost importance.
Design of an MR-compatible three-axis force sensor

This paper presents a newly designed and developed MR-compatible three-axis force sensor: its principle, structure and performance. It employs a new MR-compatible optical micrometry based on differential measure of light intensity. This technology enables highly accurate and sensitive two degrees-of-freedom displacement sensing by using optoelectronic devices and pair of fiber optics. In order to realize three-axis force sensitivity, two micrometers are aligned in orthogonal directions. The accuracy of this force sensor is better than 3.0% and the maximum displacement of the detector is about 40 /spl mu/m under the applied force ranging from 0 to 15 N in vertical, and -8 to 8 N in horizontal directions. The loss of homogeneity of the magnetic field and signal-to-noise ratio of the MR image caused by this sensor are observed to be 0.49 ppm and 0.49 to 7.30% that show the sufficient MR compatibility of this sensor.
A Novel Assembly Evolutionary Algorithm for n-Queens Problem

Individuals in nowadays evolutionary algorithms for n-queens problem do not satisfy some basic constraint conditions. Motivated by self-assembly computing, a novel assembly evolutionary algorithm for n-queens problem is presented. Each individual is made up of assembly-parts, assembly-seeds and status information. Some important notions and rules regarding the novel assembly evolutionary algorithm are discussed. Experimental results show that the algorithm finds a solution faster than other latest evolutionary algorithms.
Egocentric Spatial Representation in Early Vision

Recent physiological experiments have shown that the responses of many neurons in V1 and V3a are modulated by the direction of gaze. We have developed a neural network model of the hierarchy of maps in visual cortex to explore the hypothesis that visual features are encoded in egocentric (spatiotopic) coordinates at early stages of visual processing. Most psychophysical studies that have attempted to examine this question have concluded that features are represented in retiThe three most common types of coordinates used for representing visual objects in biological and computer vision systems are eye-centered (retinal), object-centered, and viewer-centered (egocentric). Eye-centered representations are consistent with many physiological and psychophysical studies of early vision. Neurons in primary visual cortex and most extrastriate areas are organized into retinotopic maps (Felleman & Van Essen, 1991). Most psychophysical experiments designed to determine the nature of spatial representation at early visual stages have reached the same conclusion, as we review in the discussion. Other types of representation are believed to be used at the highest stages of visual processing. Mishkin, Ungerleider, and Macko (1983) proposed a functional distinction between two main streams of processing, the "what" and "where" pathways leading, respectively, in the temporal and parietal cortex. Object-centered reference frames have been suggested for the representation of objects in the inferior temporal cortex and egocentric reference frames have been proposed for the representation of spatial location in the parietal cortex (Andersen, 1989). Goodale and Milner (1990) recently proposed that the dorsal pathway to parietal cortex could also be involved *Present address: Department of Psychology, Yale University. O 1993 Mmachuset& Institute of Technology nal coordinates, but the interpretation of these experiments does not preclude the type of retinospatiotopic representation that is embodied in our model. The model also explains why electrical stimulation experiments in visual cortex cannot distinguish between retinal and retinospatiotopic coordinates in the early stages of visual processing. Psychophysical predictions are made for testing the existence of retinospatiotopic repre-
Examining Adolescents’ Strategic Processing During Online Reading With a Question-Generating Task

Forty-three high school students participated in an online reading task to generate a critical question on a controversial topic. Participants’ concurrent verbal reports of strategy use (i.e., information location, meaning making, source evaluation, self-monitoring) and their reading outcome (i.e., the generated question) were evaluated with scoring rubrics. Path analysis indicated that strategic meaning making coordinated with self-monitoring and source evaluation positively influenced the quality of the generated questions, whereas information-locating strategies alone contributed little to the participants’ question generation. Further, source evaluation played a positive role when readers monitored and regulated their strategies for information location and meaning making. The findings on the interplay of metacognitive, critical, and intertextual strategies in online reading are discussed with regard to research and practice.
Impacts of the Detection of Cassiopeia A Point Source

Very recently the Chandra first light observation discovered a point-like source in the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. This detection was subsequently confirmed by the analyses of the archival data from both ROSAT and Einstein observations. Here we compare the results from these observations with the scenarios involving both black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs). If this point source is a BH, we offer as a promising model a disk-corona type model with a low accretion rate in which a soft photon source at ~0.1 keV is Comptonized by higher energy electrons in the corona. If it is an NS, the dominant radiation observed by Chandra most likely originates from smaller, hotter regions of the stellar surface, but we argue that it is still worthwhile to compare the cooler component from the rest of the surface with cooling theories. We emphasize that the detection of this point source itself should potentially provide enormous impacts on the theories of supernova explosion, progenitor scenario, compact remnant formation, accretion to compact objects, and NS thermal evolution.
Biosynthesis and Metabolic Engineering of Anthocyanins in Arabidopsis thaliana

Arabidopsis thaliana is the first model plant, the genome of which has been sequenced. In general, intensive studies on this model plant over the past nearly 30 years have led to many new revolutionary understandings in every single aspect of plant biology. Here, we review the current understanding of anthocyanin biosynthesis in this model plant. Although the investigation of anthocyanin structures in this model plant was not performed until 2002, numerous studies over the past three decades have been conducted to understand the biosynthesis of anthocyanins. To date, it appears that all pathway genes of anthocyanins have been molecularly, genetically and biochemically characterized in this plant. These fundamental accomplishments have made Arabidopsis an ideal model to understand the regulatory mechanisms of anthocyanin pathway. Several studies have revealed that the biosynthesis of anthocyanins is controlled by WD40-bHLH-MYB (WBM) transcription factor complexes under lighting conditions. However, how different regulatory complexes coordinately and specifically regulate the pathway genes of anthocyanins remains unclear. In this review, we discuss current progresses and findings including structural diversity, regulatory properties and metabolic engineering of anthocyanins in Arabidopsis thaliana.
AIBO: Toward the Era of Digital Creatures

The 21st century will become an era of autonomous robots that help and support people. Thus, they will be considered as partners of human beings. In this paper, the author introduces AIBO, the first product model of Robot Entertainment Systems. The main application of this robot is a pet-style robot, which must maintain a lifelike appearance. The author suggests how to maximize the complexity of responses and movements to solve the problem of substantially increasing the lifelike appearance of autonomous robots. The technologies used in AIBO are also described. Although AIBO is not intended for service or hazardous work, the development of AIBO is a major step toward a new era of autonomous robots in the new century.
Interpolation techniques for spatial distributed system identification using wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) being an assembly of hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes, each with sensing (temperature, humidity, sound level, light intensity, magnetism, etc.) and wireless communication capabilities, provide vast opportunities for monitoring and mathematical modeling the spatial information about a region of interest. Starting from the measurements collected by sensor nodes inside an investigated spatial distributed system, this paper offers a view upon the use of two interpolation techniques in system identification.
Friends or Strangers? Strategic Uncertainty and Coordination across Experimental Games of Strategic Complements and Substitutes

It is commonly assumed that friendship should generally benefit agents' ability to tacitly coordinate with others. However, this has never been tested on two 'opposite poles' of coordination, namely, games of strategic complements and substitutes. We present an experimental study in which participants interact with either a friend or a stranger in two classic games: the stag hunt game, which exhibits strategic complementarity, and the entry game, which exhibits strategic substitutability. Both games capture a frequent trade-off between a potentially high paying but uncertain action and a lower paying but safe alternative. We find that, relative to strangers, friends exhibit a propensity towards uncertainty in the stag hunt game, but an aversion to uncertainty in the entry game. Friends also "tremble" less than strangers, coordinate better and earn more in the stag hunt game but these advantages are largely decreased, and almost entirely lost in the entry game. Friendship thus appears to have a very different impact on coordination games involving strategic complements and substitutes. We further investigate the role of interpersonal similarities and friendship qualities in this differential impact.
Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists for Diabetes Mellitus: A Role in Cardiovascular Disease

Diabetes mellitus, defined as a fasting plasma glucose of ≥126 mg/dL or a glycosylated hemoglobin A1c level (HbA1c) of ≥6.5%, afflicts ≈12.9% of adults in the United States and nearly 285 million adults worldwide.1,2 Diabetes mellitus is a major risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease, independently conferring a 2-fold excess risk of coronary heart disease and stroke.3 Macrovascular events in diabetes mellitus remain the leading cause of mortality, and the burden of cardiovascular disease attributable to diabetes mellitus has increased over the past decade.4 An increase in the prevalence of obesity has contributed to the rise in diabetes mellitus. Additionally, obesity independently increases the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes mellitus.5 Although strict glycemic control unequivocally reduces the microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus, the macrovascular benefits of intensive therapy have been difficult to establish, with conflicting results from large clinical trials.6–9 Multifactorial strategies are recommended to reduce cardiovascular risk in diabetes mellitus through enhanced glycemic control, blood pressure reduction, lipid management, weight loss, and physical activity.10 Unfortunately, despite aggressive interventions for hyperglycemia, <50% of patients achieve standard HbA1c targets with conventional therapy.11 Polypharmacy is required to achieve glycemic control in the majority of patients within 3 years of diagnosis.12 Although combinations of drug classes can synergistically target multiple pathophysiological defects, novel therapies are required to manage diabetes mellitus and mitigate cardiovascular risks. Dipeptidyl-peptidase IV (DPP-IV) inhibitor and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist incretin therapies were developed to complement conventional treatment options for diabetes mellitus. Despite promising initial reports of cardioprotective effects, DPP-IV inhibitors have failed to demonstrate improved cardiovascular outcomes in large clinical trials.13–15 Randomized studies to evaluate cardiovascular outcomes associated with GLP-1 receptor agonists are currently underway. This review presents …
Controlling musical emotionality: an affective computational architecture for influencing musical emotions

Abstract Emotions are a key part of creative endeavours, and a core problem for computational models of creativity. In this paper we discuss an affective computing architecture for the dynamic modification of music with a view to predictablyaffectinginducedmusicalemotions. Extending previous work on the modification of perceived emotions in music, our system architecture aims to provide reliable control of both perceived and induced musical emotions: its emotionality. A rule-based system is used to modify a subset of musical features at two processing levels, namely score and performance. The interactive model leverages sensed listener affect by adapting the emotionality of the music modifications in real-time to assist the listener in reaching a desired emotional state.
Effect of the tumor vascular-damaging agent, ZD6126, on the radioresponse of U87 glioblastoma.

PURPOSE The effect of ZD6126 on tumor oxygen tension and tumor growth delay in combination with ionizing radiation was examined in the human U87 glioblastoma tumor model. Resistance to ZD6126 treatment was investigated with the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor, l-N(G)-nitroarginine methyl ester (hydrochloride; l-NAME/active form, l-NNA). METHODS U87 human xenografts were grown in athymic nude mice. ZD6126 was given with or without l-NNA. Tumor oxygen tension was measured using the Oxford Oxylite (Oxford, England) fiberoptic probe system. Tumor volume was determined by direct measurement with calipers and calculated by the formula [(smallest diameter(2) x widest diameter)/2]. RESULTS Multiple doses of ZD6126 treatment (three doses) had a significant effect on tumor growth delay, reducing the average daily tumor growth rate from 29% to 16%. When given 1 hour before radiation, ZD6126 caused an acute increase in hypoxia in U87 tumors, and reduced tumor growth delay compared with that of radiation alone. The combination of ZD6126 given after radiation, either as a single dose or in multiple doses, had greater or similar antitumor activity compared with radiation alone. Twenty-four hours after administration, a single dose of ZD6126 induced little (10 +/- 8%) necrosis in U87 xenografts. l-NNA, when given in combination with ZD6126, significantly enhanced the effectiveness of ZD6126 in inducing tumor necrosis. CONCLUSIONS Our observation that ZD6126-induced tumor hypoxia can decrease radiation response when ZD6126 is given prior to radiation indicates the importance of scheduling. Our findings suggest that the optimal therapeutic benefit of ZD6126 plus radiation in human glioblastoma may require multiple dosing in combination with a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor, to be scheduled following radiotherapy.
Psychosocial and psychological interventions for prevention of postnatal depression: systematic review

Abstract Objective To assess the effects of psychosocial and psychological interventions compared with usual antepartum, intrapartum, or postpartum care on the risk of postnatal depression. Data sources Medline, Embase, CINAHL, Cochrane central register of controlled trials, Cochrane pregnancy and childbirth group trials register, Cochrane depression, anxiety, and neurosis trials register, secondary references and review articles, and experts in the field. Study selection All published and unpublished randomised controlled trials of preventive psychosocial or psychological interventions in which the primary or secondary aim was a reduction in the risk of postnatal depression. All trials recruited pregnant women or new mothers less than six weeks postpartum. Eligible studies were abstracted, assessed for methodological quality, and pooled with relative risk for categorical data and weighted mean difference for continuous data. Results Fifteen trials with 7697 women were included. Although there was no overall statistically significant effect on the prevention of postnatal depression in the meta-analysis of all types of interventions (15 trials, n = 7697; relative risk 0.81, 95% confidence interval 0.65 to 1.02), these results suggest a potential reduction in postnatal depression. The only intervention to have a clear preventive effect was intensive postpartum support provided by a health professional (0.68, 0.55 to 0.84). Identifying women “at risk” assisted in the prevention of postnatal depression (0.67, 0.51 to 0.89). Interventions with only a postnatal component were more beneficial (0.76, 0.58 to 0.98) than interventions that incorporated an antenatal component. In addition, individually based interventions were more effective (0.76, 0.59 to 1.00) than group based interventions (1.03, 0.65 to 1.63). Conclusions Diverse psychosocial or psychological interventions do not significantly reduce the number of women who develop postnatal depression. The most promising intervention is the provision of intensive, professionally based postpartum support.
Recognizing and Treating Children with Central Auditory Processing Disorders

What is CAPD? Children and adults who have central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) are a heterogeneous group of people who have difficulty using auditory information to communicate and learn. CAPD is not a specific problem or disease; rather it is a set of problems that occur in different kinds of listening tasks. Often children with CAPD are first diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or learning disabilities. Later, an audiologist may render a diagnosis of CAPD. To audiologists, CAPD includes problems with one or more of the following auditory tasks (ASHA CAPD Task Force, 1996): • Sound localization and lateralization • Auditory discrimination • Auditory pattern recognition • Temporal aspects of audition (resolution, masking, integration, ordering) • Auditory performance decrements with competing acoustic signals • Auditory performance with degraded acoustic signals Audiologists make the diagnosis using standardized tests of these skills administered in carefully controlled acoustic environments with very sophisticated calibrated equipment. Because the American Speech Language Hearing Association has determined that diagnosis of CAPD falls under the scope of practice of audiology, it is important to understand what the audiological diagnosis means. Sound localization and lateralization refers to the ability of a child or adult to know where a sound has occurred in space. This is an important survival skill; localization is used to identify a source of sound, like a moving vehicle or barking dog. Auditory discrimination refers to the ability to distinguish one sound from another. The term is most often used for distinguishing speech sounds, such as phoneme /p/ from phoneme /b/. Auditory pattern recognition refers to the ability to determine similarities and differences in patterns of sounds. Temporal aspects of auditory processing refers to the ability to sequence sounds, integrate a sequence of sounds into words or other meaningful combinations, and perceive sounds as separate when they quickly follow one another. Auditory performance decrements refers to the ability to perceive speech or other sounds when another signal is present. The other signal might be noise or another similar speech signal, and the competing signal might be soft or loud. Auditory performance with degraded acoustic signals refers to the ability to perceive a signal in which some of the information is missing. A degraded signal might be one where parts of the sound spectrum have been deleted, the highest or lowest frequency components of the sound are removed, or where the sound is compressed in …