Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Aripiprazole Selectively Reduces Motor Tics in a Young Animal Model for Tourette’s Syndrome and Comorbid Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder

Tourette’s syndrome (TS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized primarily by motor and vocal tics. Comorbidities such as attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are observed in over 50% of TS patients. We applied aripiprazole in a juvenile rat model that displays motor tics and hyperactivity. We additionally assessed the amount of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) as an indicator for the presence of vocal tics and evaluated the changes in the striatal neurometabolism using in vivo proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) at 11.7T. Thirty-one juvenile spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) underwent bicuculline striatal microinjection and treatment with either aripiprazole or vehicle. Control groups were sham operated and sham injected. Behavior, USVs, and striatal neurochemical profile were analyzed at early, middle, and late adolescence (postnatal days 35 to 50). Bicuculline microinjections in the dorsolateral striatum induced motor tics in SHR juvenile rats. Acute aripiprazole administration selectively reduced both tic frequency and latency, whereas stereotypies, USVs, and hyperactivity remained unaltered. The striatal neurochemical profile was only moderately altered after tic-induction and was not affected by systemic drug treatment. When applied to a young rat model that provides high degrees of construct, face, and predictive validity for TS and comorbid ADHD, aripiprazole selectively reduces motor tics, revealing that tics and stereotypies are distinct phenomena in line with clinical treatment of patients. Finally, our 1H-MRS results suggest a critical revision of the striatal role in the hypothesized cortico-striatal dysregulation in TS pathophysiology.
The effects of cigarette smoking on ventricular repolarization in adolescents

ABSTRACT Objective To assess the association between cigarette smoking and ventricular arrhythmias in adolescents. Novel electrocardiographic parameters –Tp-e interval, as well as Tpe/QT and Tpe/QTc ratios – were used to make this assessment. Methods The study population consisted of 87 subjects aged between 16-19 years. Fifty-one adolescent smokers with no risk of arrhythmia comprised the Smoker Group, and 36 adolescents who had never smoked cigarettes comprised the Control Group. Smokers were defined as patients smoking more than three cigarettes per day, for at least 1 year. Body mass index, systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressures were measured, and electrocardiograms were performed on all subjects. Heart rate, PR and Tp-e intervals, and Tpe/QT, Tpe/QTc ratio were digitally measured. Results Adolescents in Smoker Group had smoked cigarettes for 2.9±1.4 years (range 1 to 6 years). The mean age at starting smoking was 13.8±1.4 years. There were no differences between smokers and Control Group as to baseline clinical variables (p>0.05). The PR, QT and QTc intervals were similar in all groups. Tp-e interval (98.4±12.7ms and 78.3±6.9 ms; p<0.001), Tpe/QT (0.28±0.04 and 22±0.03; p<0.01), Tpe/QTc (0.24±0.03 and 0.19±0.01; p<0.001) ratios were significantly higher in Smoker Group. There were no correlations between years of smoking, number of cigarettes per day, Tpe interval, Tpe/QT or Tpe/QTc ratios. Conclusion Cigarette smoking is associated with risk of ventricular arrhytmogenesis with prolonged Tp-e interval and increased Tpe/QT and Tpe/QTc ratios in adolescents.
Analysis of smart functionally graded materials using an improved third order shear deformation theory

Analysis of Smart Functionally Graded Materials Using an Improved Third Order Shear Deformation Theory. (August 2006) James Wilson Aliaga Salazar, B.S., Universidad Nacional de Ingenieria, Lima, Peru; M.S., Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. J.N Reddy Smart materials are very important because of their potential applications in the biomedical, petroleum and aerospace industries. They can be used to build systems and structures that self-monitor to function and adapt to new operating conditions. In this study, we are mainly interested in developing a computational framework for the analysis of plate structures comprised of composite or functionally graded materials (FGM) with embedded or surface mounted piezoelectric sensors/actuators. These systems are characterized by thermo-electro-mechanical coupling, and therefore their understanding through theoretical models, numerical simulations, and physical experiments is fundamental for the design of such systems. Thus, the objective of this study was to perform a numerical study of smart material plate structures using a refined plate theory that is both accurate and computationally economical. To achieve this objective, an improved version of the Reddy third-order shear deformation theory of plates was formulated and its finite element model was developed. The theory and finite element model was evaluated in the context of static and dynamic responses without and with actuators. In the static part, the performance of the developed finite element model is compared with that of the existing models in determining the displacement and stress fields for composite laminates and FGM plates under mechanical and/or thermal loads. In the dynamic case, coupled and uncoupled
Query-Free Attacks on Industry-Grade Face Recognition Systems under Resource Constraints

To attack a deep neural network (DNN) based Face Recognition (FR) system, one needs to build \textit{substitute} models to simulate the target, so the adversarial examples discovered could also mislead the target. Such \textit{transferability} is achieved in recent studies through querying the target to obtain data for training the substitutes. A real-world target, likes the FR system of law enforcement, however, is less accessible to the adversary. To attack such a system, a substitute with similar quality as the target is needed to identify their common defects. This is hard since the adversary often does not have the enough resources to train such a model (hundreds of millions of images for training a commercial FR system). We found in our research, however, that a resource-constrained adversary could still effectively approximate the target's capability to recognize \textit{specific} individuals, by training \textit{biased} substitutes on additional images of those who want to evade recognition (the subject) or the victims to be impersonated (called Point of Interest, or PoI). This is made possible by a new property we discovered, called \textit{Nearly Local Linearity} (NLL), which models the observation that an ideal DNN model produces the image representations whose distances among themselves truthfully describe the differences in the input images seen by human. By simulating this property around the PoIs using the additional subject or victim data, we significantly improve the transferability of black-box impersonation attacks by nearly 50\%. Particularly, we successfully attacked a commercial system trained over 20 million images, using 4 million images and 1/5 of the training time but achieving 60\% transferability in an impersonation attack and 89\% in a dodging attack.
Real-time observation of conformational switching in single conjugated polymer chains

Single-molecule experiments in organic solvents provide new insight into the conformational dynamics of conjugated polymers. Conjugated polymers (CPs) are an important class of organic semiconductors that combine novel optoelectronic properties with simple processing from organic solvents. It is important to study CP conformation in solution to understand the physics of these materials and because it affects the properties of solution-processed films. Single-molecule techniques are unique in their ability to extract information on a chain-to-chain basis; however, in the context of CPs, technical challenges have limited their general application to host matrices or semiliquid environments that constrain the conformational dynamics of the polymer. We introduce a conceptually different methodology that enables measurements in organic solvents using the single-end anchoring of polymer chains to avoid diffusion while preserving polymer flexibility. We explore the effect of organic solvents and show that, in addition to chain-to-chain conformational heterogeneity, collapsed and extended polymer segments can coexist within the same chain. The technique enables real-time solvent-exchange measurements, which show that anchored CP chains respond to sudden changes in solvent conditions on a subsecond time scale. Our results give an unprecedented glimpse into the mechanism of solvent-induced reorganization of CPs and can be expected to lead to a new range of techniques to investigate and conformationally manipulate CPs.
Increased Amplitude of the P3a ERP Component as a Neurocognitive Marker for Differentiating Amnestic Subtypes of Mild Cognitive Impairment

The event-related potential (ERP) technique has been shown to be useful for evaluating changes in brain electrical activity associated with different cognitive processes, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Longitudinal studies have shown that a high proportion of people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) go on to develop AD. aMCI is divided into two subtypes according to the presence of memory impairment only (single-domain aMCI: sdaMCI) or impairment of memory and other cognitive domains (multi-domain aMCI: mdaMCI). The main aim of this study was to examine the effects of sdaMCI and mdaMCI on the P3a ERP component associated with the involuntary orientation of attention toward unattended infrequent novel auditory stimuli. Participants performed an auditory-visual distraction-attention task, in which they were asked to ignore the auditory stimuli (standard, deviant, and novel) and to attend to the visual stimuli (responding to some of them: Go stimuli). P3a was identified in the Novel minus Standard difference waveforms, and reaction times (RTs) and hits (in response to Go stimuli) were also analyzed. Participants were classified into three groups: Control, 20 adults (mean age (M): 65.8 years); sdaMCI, 19 adults (M: 67 years); and mdaMCI, 11 adults (M: 71 years). In all groups, the RTs were significantly longer when Go stimuli were preceded by novel (relative to standard) auditory stimuli, suggesting a distraction effect triggered by novel stimuli; mdaMCI participants made significantly fewer hits than control and sdaMCI participants. P3a comprised two consecutive phases in all groups: early-P3a (e-P3a), which may reflect the orienting response toward the irrelevant stimuli, and late-P3a (l-P3a), which may be a correlate of subsequent evaluation of these stimuli. The e-P3a amplitude was significantly larger in mdaMCI than in sdaMCI participants, and the l-P3a amplitude was significantly larger in mdaMCI than in sdaMCI and Control participants, indicating greater involuntary capture of attention to unattended novel auditory stimuli and allocation of more attentional resources for the subsequent evaluation of these stimuli in mdaMCI participants. The e-P3a and l-P3a components showed moderate to high sensitivity and specificity for distinguishing between groups, suggesting that both may represent optimal neurocognitive markers for differentiating aMCI subtypes.
Projector-based virtual reality dome environment for procedural pain and anxiety in young children with burn injuries: a pilot study

Background Virtual reality (VR) is a non-pharmacological method to distract from pain during painful procedures. However, it was never tested in young children with burn injuries undergoing wound care. Aim We aimed to assess the feasibility and acceptability of the study process and the use of VR for procedural pain management. Methods From June 2016 to January 2017, we recruited children from 2 months to 10 years of age with burn injuries requiring a hydrotherapy session in a pediatric university teaching hospital in Montreal. Each child received the projector-based VR intervention in addition to the standard pharmacological treatment. Data on intervention and study feasibility and acceptability in addition to measures on pain (Face, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability scale), baseline (Modified Smith Scale) and procedural (Procedure Behavior Check List) anxiety, comfort (OCCEB-BECCO [behavioral observational scale of comfort level for child burn victims]), and sedation (Ramsay Sedation Scale) were collected before, during, and after the procedure. Data analyses included descriptive and non-parametric inferential statistics. Results We recruited 15 children with a mean age of 2.2±2.1 years and a mean total body surface area of 5% (±4). Mean pain score during the procedure was low (2.9/10, ±3), as was the discomfort level (2.9/10, ±2.8). Most children were cooperative, oriented, and calm. Assessing anxiety was not feasible with our sample of participants. The prototype did not interfere with the procedure and was considered useful for procedural pain management by most health care professionals. Conclusion The projector-based VR is a feasible and acceptable intervention for procedural pain management in young children with burn injuries. A larger trial with a control group is required to assess its efficacy.
Combining MaxSAT Reasoning and Incremental Upper Bound for the Maximum Clique Problem

Recently, MaxSAT reasoning has been shown to be powerful in computing upper bounds for the cardinality of a maximum clique of a graph. However, existing upper bounds based on MaxSAT reasoning have two drawbacks: (1)at every node of the search tree, MaxSAT reasoning has to be performed from scratch to compute an upper bound and is time-consuming, (2) due to the NP-hardness of the MaxSAT problem, MaxSAT reasoning generally cannot be complete at anode of a search tree, and may not give an upper bound tight enough for pruning search space. In this paper, we propose an incremental upper bound and combine it with MaxSAT reasoning to remedy the two drawbacks. The new approach is used to develop an efficient branch-and-bound algorithm for MaxClique, called IncMaxCLQ. We conduct experiments to show the complementarity of the incremental upper bound and MaxSAT reasoning and to compare IncMaxCLQ with several state-of-the-art algorithms for MaxClique.
Widespread suppression of intragenic transcription initiation by H-NS

H-NS is a bacterial folding factor that has been implicated in the silencing of horizontally acquired genes. These genes are thought to be toxic by virtue of their A/T content. Here, Singh et al. show that a major, long-overlooked function of H-NS is to prevent widespread initiation of noncoding transcripts within foreign genes. This study provides a molecular rationalization for the toxicity of horizontally acquired DNA and explains how this is counteracted by H-NS.
Steeper declines in forest photosynthesis than respiration explain age-driven decreases in forest growth

Significance Advancing our understanding of how and why forests dynamically change in their productivity is important to predict the future change. The traditional view of forest dynamics originated by Kira, Shidei, and Odum suggests a decline in net primary productivity [or gross primary productivity (GPP) − autotrophic respiration (Ra)] in aging forests due to stabilized GPP and continuously increased Ra. We found that, in contrast to the traditional view, both GPP and Ra decline in aging forests while GPP decreases more rapidly than Ra does, and thus generalize the alternative hypothesis initiated by Ryan and colleagues with a large dataset. We presented a new quantitative model to describe forest dynamics that can be incorporated into ecosystem models. The traditional view of forest dynamics originated by Kira and Shidei [Kira T, Shidei T (1967) Jap J Ecol 17:70–87] and Odum [Odum EP (1969) Science 164(3877):262–270] suggests a decline in net primary productivity (NPP) in aging forests due to stabilized gross primary productivity (GPP) and continuously increased autotrophic respiration (Ra). The validity of these trends in GPP and Ra is, however, very difficult to test because of the lack of long-term ecosystem-scale field observations of both GPP and Ra. Ryan and colleagues [Ryan MG, Binkley D, Fownes JH (1997) Ad Ecol Res 27:213–262] have proposed an alternative hypothesis drawn from site-specific results that aboveground respiration and belowground allocation decreased in aging forests. Here, we analyzed data from a recently assembled global database of carbon fluxes and show that the classical view of the mechanisms underlying the age-driven decline in forest NPP is incorrect and thus support Ryan’s alternative hypothesis. Our results substantiate the age-driven decline in NPP, but in contrast to the traditional view, both GPP and Ra decline in aging boreal and temperate forests. We find that the decline in NPP in aging forests is primarily driven by GPP, which decreases more rapidly with increasing age than Ra does, but the ratio of NPP/GPP remains approximately constant within a biome. Our analytical models describing forest succession suggest that dynamic forest ecosystem models that follow the traditional paradigm need to be revisited.
Pedunculopontine Nucleus Region Deep Brain Stimulation in Parkinson Disease: Surgical Techniques, Side Effects, and Postoperative Imaging

The pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) region has received considerable attention in clinical studies as a target for deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson disease. These studies have yielded variable results with an overall impression of improvement in falls and freezing in many but not all patients treated. We evaluated the available data on the surgical anatomy and terminology of the PPN region in a companion paper. Here we focus on issues concerning surgical technique, imaging, and early side effects of surgery. The aim of this paper was to gain more insight into the reasoning for choosing specific techniques and to discuss shortcomings of available studies. Our data demonstrate the wide range in almost all fields which were investigated. There are a number of important challenges to be resolved, such as identification of the optimal target, the choice of the surgical approach to optimize electrode placement, the impact on the outcome of specific surgical techniques, the reliability of intraoperative confirmation of the target, and methodological differences in postoperative validation of the electrode position. There is considerable variability both within and across groups, the overall experience with PPN DBS is still limited, and there is a lack of controlled trials. Despite these challenges, the procedure seems to provide benefit to selected patients and appears to be relatively safe. One important limitation in comparing studies from different centers and analyzing outcomes is the great variability in targeting and surgical techniques, as shown in our paper. The challenges we identified will be of relevance when designing future studies to better address several controversial issues. We hope that the data we accumulated may facilitate the development of surgical protocols for PPN DBS.
Network approach to understanding the organization of and the consequence of targeted leader removal on an end-oriented task

Abstract Relocation is an important event in the lives of several social insects whereby all colony members have to be transferred to a new nest when conditions in the old nest become unfavorable. In the current study, network tools were used to examine the organization of this goal-oriented task in the Indian queenless ant Diacamma indicum which relocate their colonies by means of tandem running. Individual ants were used as nodes and tandem runs as directed edges to construct unweighted networks. Network parameters were characterized in control relocations (CRs) and in relocations where the node with the highest outdegree, that is, the Maximum tandem leader (Max TL) was experimentally removed. These were then compared to 1) randomized networks, 2) simulated networks in which Max TL was removed, and 3) simulated networks with removal of a random leader. Not only was there complete recovery of the task, but the manner in which it was organized when Max TL was removed was comparable to CRs. The results obtained from our empirical study were significantly different from the results predicted by simulations of leader removal. At an individual level, the Max TL had a significantly higher outdegree than expected by chance alone and in her absence the substitute Max TL did comparable work. In addition, the position of the Max TL in the pathway of information flow was conserved in control and experimentally manipulated conditions. Understanding the organization of this critical event as more than the sum of individual interactions using network parameters allows us to appreciate the dynamic response of groups to perturbations.
Indirect plant defense against insect herbivores: a review

Plants respond to herbivore attack by launching 2 types of defenses: direct defense and indirect defense. Direct defense includes all plant traits that increase the resistance of host plants to insect herbivores by affecting the physiology and/or behavior of the attackers. Indirect defense includes all traits that by themselves do not have significant direct impact on the attacking herbivores, but can attract natural enemies of the herbivores and thus reduce plant loss. When plants recognize herbivore‐associated elicitors, they produce and release a blend of volatiles that can attract predators, parasites, and other natural enemies. Known herbivore‐associated elicitors include fatty acid–amino acid conjugates, sulfur‐containing fatty acids, fragments of cell walls, peptides, esters, and enzymes. Identified plant volatiles include terpenes, nitrogenous compounds, and indoles. In addition, constitive traits including extrafloral nectars, food bodies, and domatia can be further induced to higher levels and attract natural enemies as well as provide food and shelter to carnivores. A better understanding of indirect plant defense at global and componential levels via advanced high throughput technologies may lead to utilization of indirect defense in suppression of herbivore damage to plants.
Hybrid space vector PWM strategy for three-level NPC inverters with optimal extension mode

Neutral-point (NP) voltage oscillation amplitude, THD of output voltage and the switching frequency of the inverter are the three key performance indices in three-level neutral-point-clamped (NPC) inverter. Every element connects with each other and restricts each other, which indicates that to keep the three key performance indices balanced is the research focus of the modulation strategy for three-level NPC inverter. Hybrid space vector PWM strategy, which is proposed in this paper, combines NV and non-NV, synthesizes the advantages of the two methods, reduces NP low-frequency oscillation and also decreases switching frequency and output voltage THD. Taking NTV (the most typical method of NV) and NTV (the most typical method of non-NV) as examples, A new hybrid SVPWM method, based on the NP current maximum minimum (MM) method is proposed in this paper. This new hybrid space vector PWM method applies NTV to uncontrolled balancing area and minimizes the switching frequency and THD of output voltage within the range of the allowable NP oscillation amplitude. Meanwhile, the impact on the output voltage produced by NP oscillation is researched in this paper. The experimental results show the validity of the proposed strategy.