Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of light on brain and behavior

It is obvious that light entering the eye permits the sensory capacity of vision. The human species is highly dependent on visual perception of the environment and consequently, the scientific study of vision and visual mechanisms is a centuries old endeavor. Relatively new discoveries are now leading to an expanded understanding of the role of light entering the eye in addition to supporting vision, light has various nonvisual biological effects. Over the past thirty years, animal studies have shown that environmental light is the primary stimulus for regulating circadian rhythms, seasonal cycles, and neuroendocrine responses. As with all photobiological phenomena, the wavelength, intensity, timing and duration of a light stimulus is important in determining its regulatory influence on the circadian and neuroendocrine systems. Initially, the effects of light on rhythms and hormones were observed only in sub-human species. Research over the past decade, however, has confirmed that light entering the eyes of humans is a potent stimulus for controlling physiological rhythms. The aim of this paper is to examine three specific nonvisual responses in humans which are mediated by light entering the eye: light-induced melatonin suppression, light therapy for winter depression, and enhancement of nighttime performance. This will serve as a brief introduction to the growing database which demonstrates how light stimuli can influence physiology, mood and behavior in humans. Such information greatly expands our understanding of the human eye and will ultimately change our use of light in the human environment.
Molecular Cloning and Expression of a Second Chondroitin N-Acetylgalactosaminyltransferase Involved in the Initiation and Elongation of Chondroitin/Dermatan Sulfate*

We identified a novel human chondroitinN-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase, designated chondroitin GalNAcT-2 after a BLAST analysis of the GenBankTM data base using the sequence of a previously described human chondroitinN-acetylgalactosaminyltransferase (chondroitin GalNAcT-1) as a probe. The new cDNA sequence contained an open reading frame encoding a protein of 542 amino acids with a type II transmembrane protein topology. The amino acid sequence displayed 60% identity to that of human chondroitin GalNAcT-1. Like chondroitin GalNAcT-1, the expression of a soluble form of the protein in COS-1 cells produced an active enzyme, which not only transferred β1,4-N-acetylgalactosamine (GalNAc) from UDP-[3H]GalNAc to a polymer chondroitin representing growing chondroitin chains (β-GalNAc transferase II activity) but also to GlcUAβ1–3Galβ1-O-C2H4NHCbz, a synthetic substrate for β-GalNAc transferase I that transfers the first GalNAc to the core tetrasaccharide in the protein-linkage region of chondroitin sulfate. In contrast, the tetrasaccharide serine (GlcUAβ1–3Galβ1–3Galβ1–4Xylβ1-O-Ser) derived from the linkage region, which is an inert acceptor substrate for chondroitin GalNAcT-1, served as an acceptor substrate. The coding region of this enzyme was divided into seven discrete exons, which is similar to the genomic organization of the chondroitin GalNAcT-1 gene, and was localized to chromosome 10q11.22. Northern blot analysis revealed that the chondroitin GalNAcT-2 gene exhibited a ubiquitous but differing expression in human tissues, and the expression pattern differed from that of chondroitin GalNAcT-1. Thus, we demonstrated redundancy in the chondroitin GalNAc transferases involved in the biosynthetic initiation and elongation of chondroitin sulfate, which is important for understanding the biosynthetic mechanisms leading to the selective chain assembly of chondroitin/dermatan sulfate on the linkage region tetrasaccharide common to various proteoglycans containing chondroitin/dermatan sulfate and heparin/heparan sulfate chains.
The Francis scale of attitude towards Christianity (short scale): Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis among English students

To confirm the factor structure of the 7-item adult form of the Francis scale of attitude towards Christianity, data from 135 English university students were examined using both exploratory and confirmatory factor anal! :tic methods. Results suggest that the 7-item adult form of the Francis scale has a unidimensional factor structure. In addition, the reliability estimates indicate that the 7-item adult form is highly homogeneous. It is suggested that these results confirm the unidimensionality of the 7-item adult form of the Francis scale.
An Overview of the Statistical Methods Used for Inferring Gene Regulatory Networks and Protein-Protein Interaction Networks

The large influx of data from high-throughput genomic and proteomic technologies has encouraged the researchers to seek approaches for understanding the structure of gene regulatory networks and proteomic networks. This work reviews some of the most important statistical methods used for modeling of gene regulatory networks (GRNs) and protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks. The paper focuses on the recent advances in the statistical graphical modeling techniques, state-space representation models, and information theoretic methods that were proposed for inferring the topology of GRNs. It appears that the problem of inferring the structure of PPI networks is quite different from that of GRNs. Clustering and probabilistic graphical modeling techniques are of prime importance in the statistical inference of PPI networks, and some of the recent approaches using these techniques are also reviewed in this paper. Performance evaluation criteria for the approaches used for modeling GRNs and PPI networks are also discussed.
Lifted Symmetry Detection and Breaking for MAP Inference

Symmetry breaking is a technique for speeding up propositional satisfiability testing by adding constraints to the theory that restrict the search space while preserving satisfiability. In this work, we extend symmetry breaking to the problem of model finding in weighted and unweighted relational theories, a class of problems that includes MAP inference in Markov Logic and similar statistical-relational languages. We introduce term symmetries, which are induced by an evidence set and extend to symmetries over a relational theory. We provide the important special case of term equivalent symmetries, showing that such symmetries can be found in low-degree polynomial time. We show how to break an exponential number of these symmetries with added constraints whose number is linear in the size of the domain. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques through experiments in two relational domains. We also discuss the connections between relational symmetry breaking and work on lifted inference in statistical-relational reasoning.
Obstacles to usability evaluation in practice: a survey of software development organizations

This paper reports from a combined questionnaire survey and interview study of obstacles for deploying usability evaluation in software development organizations. It was conducted in a limited geographical area. The purpose of the questionnaire survey was to determine whether software development organizations in that area were evaluating the usability of their software and to identify key obstacles. It revealed that 29 of 39 software development organizations conducted some form of usability evaluation. The purpose of the interview study was to gain more insight into the obstacles that were expressed. It involved 10 of the 39 software development organizations. Our results show, that the understanding of usability evaluation is a major obstacle. Furthermore, the two most significant obstacles were resource demands and the mindset of developers. These obstacles were not only an obstacle for more organizations to deploy usability evaluation, but also a concern for the software development organizations, that had deployed usability evaluations in their development process.
Intended and Ideal Family Size in the United States, 1970-2002.

Cross-nationally, observed fertility is well below mean levels of reported ideal family size and also usually well below survey respondents' fertility desires and intentions. The United States is an exception. In this article we: (1) discuss the importance of fertility ideals and intentions for understanding observed fertility levels, (2) propose a model that can account for variable attitude-behavior consistency, and (3) use this model as a framework to examine trends in American women's fertility ideals, intentions, and actual fertility. Our study uses data from the General Social Surveys and the Current Population Surveys. We ask whether preferences and intentions for moderate family sizes have eroded with time. The answer is remarkably clear: the dominant American ideals and intentions are for two or three children, and these preferences have persisted across the last three decades. The unusual aggregate correspondence between fertility intentions and behavior in the United States is explained by an apparent offsetting of factors that increase/decrease fertility relative to intentions. Copyright 2005 The Population Council, Inc.
Automatic Optimization of Dialogue Management

Designing the dialogue strategy of a spoken dialogue system involves many nontrivial choices. This paper presents a reinforcement learning approach for automatically optimizing a dialogue strategy that addresses the technical challenges in applying reinforcement learning to a working dialogue system with human users. We then show that our approach measurably improves performance in an experimental system.
Green Cellular Networks: A Survey, Some Research Issues and Challenges

Energy efficiency in cellular networks is a growing concern for cellular operators to not only maintain profitability, but also to reduce the overall environment effects. This emerging trend of achieving energy efficiency in cellular networks is motivating the standardization authorities and network operators to continuously explore future technologies in order to bring improvements in the entire network infrastructure. In this article, we present a brief survey of methods to improve the power efficiency of cellular networks, explore some research issues and challenges and suggest some techniques to enable an energy efficient or "green" cellular network. Since base stations consume a maximum portion of the total energy used in a cellular system, we will first provide a comprehensive survey on techniques to obtain energy savings in base stations. Next, we discuss how heterogenous network deployment based on micro, pico and femtocells can be used to achieve this goal. Since cognitive radio and cooperative relaying are undisputed future technologies in this regard, we propose a research vision to make these technologies more energy efficient. Lastly, we explore some broader perspectives in realizing a "green" cellular network technology.
Leptin is an independent marker of metabolic syndrome in elderly adults with type 2 diabetes

Objective: It is well established that patients with metabolic syndrome (MetS) demonstrate elevated levels of serum leptin. The aim of this study is to identify fasting serum leptin as an independent marker of MetS in geriatric diabetic patients. Materials and Methods: Sixty-four patients over 65 years old with type 2 diabetic mellitus (T2DM) were assessed for MetS based on the diagnostic criteria of the International Diabetes Federation. Fasting blood samples including serum leptin concentrations were obtained from the participants. Leptin levels were determined using a commercial enzyme immunoassay. Results: Forty-five (70.3%) of the 64 geriatric T2DM patients enrolled in this study were found to have MetS. This group of participants compared with those in the non-MetS group had higher serum levels of leptin (P = 0.004), triglycerides (P = 0.005), fasting glucose (P = 0.049), glycated hemoglobin (P = 0.016), white blood cells (P = 0.003), C-reactive protein (CRP, P = 0.028), insulin (P < 0.001), higher homeostatic model assessment insulin resistance values (HOMA1-IR and HOMA2-IR, both P < 0.001), a higher body weight (P = 0.024), body mass index (P < 0.001), body fat mass (P < 0.001), waist circumference (P < 0.001), systolic blood pressure (BP) (P < 0.001), diastolic BP (P < 0.001), percentage of women (P = 0.011), prevalence of hypertension (P = 0.042), and a lower level of serum high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (P = 0.001). Univariate linear analysis of the clinical variables associated with the fasting serum leptin level revealed that height (P = 0.020) had a negative correlation, while body fat mass (P < 0.001) and logarithmically transformed CRP (log-CRP, P < 0.001) had positive correlations with serum leptin levels. Multivariate forward step-wise linear regression analysis of the variables significantly associated with fasting serum leptin levels showed that body fat mass (P < 0.001) and log-CRP (P = 0.001) were independent predictors of these values. Conclusion: Serum leptin is positively correlated with MetS. It serves as an independent marker of MetS in elderly patients with T2DM.
The Myth of Impoverished Signal: Dispelling the Spoken-Language Fallacy for Emoticons in Online Communication

Besides these direct linguistic expressions of emotion, both speech and writing offer additional opportunities for conveying emotion. In face-to-face communication, 2 emotion is commonly transmitted through such paralinguistic tools as facial expression, body posture, or physical proximity to our interlocutor, not to mention the volume and timbre of our voice. When we write, none of these means of expression is available. To compensate, we sometimes rely upon punctuation marks for emphasis (e.g., ! or ? ), use capital letters, underline words, put passages into bold or italic fonts, employ out-sized point type, or repeat words that, in speech, would have carried distinctive articulation (e.g., spoken: “I‟m REALLY sorry to inconvenience you” versus written: “I‟m really, really, really sorry to inconvenience you”). Historically, additional contrivances included opting for a certain type of stationery, sprinkling perfume or enclosing dried flowers, or choosing a particular stamp for the envelope.
A local feature descriptor based on Local Binary Patterns

This paper presents a local feature descriptor based on Local Binary Patterns (LBP). This descriptor uses binary bit string to represent the local region of images and the integral image to mean filter that makes descriptor building faster. Compared to Scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT)that the calculation is large and the process is time consuming in the description of the characteristics, the descriptor based on LBP speeds about 1 orders of magnitude. In the matching effect for blurred image, illumination changes, and different JPEG compression ratio, the matching results are better than descriptors based on SIFT.
Body Mass Index, Outcomes, and Mortality Following Cardiac Surgery in Ontario, Canada

Background The “obesity paradox” reflects an observed relationship between obesity and decreased morbidity and mortality, suggesting improved health outcomes for obese individuals. Studies examining the relationship between high body mass index (BMI) and adverse outcomes after cardiac surgery have reported conflicting results. Methods and Results The study population (N=78 762) was comprised of adult patients who had undergone first-time coronary artery bypass (CABG) or combined CABG/aortic valve replacement (AVR) surgery from April 1, 1998 to October 31, 2011 in Ontario (data from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences). Perioperative outcomes and 5-year mortality among pre-defined BMI (kg/m2) categories (underweight <20, normal weight 20 to 24.9, overweight 25 to 29.9, obese 30 to 34.9, morbidly obese >34.9) were compared using Bivariate analyses and Cox multivariate regression analysis to investigate multiple confounders on the relationship between BMI and adverse outcomes. A reverse J-shaped curve was found between BMI and mortality with their respective hazard ratios. Independent of confounding variables, 30-day, 1-year, and 5-year survival rates were highest for the obese group of patients (99.1% [95% Confidence Interval {CI}, 98.9 to 99.2], 97.6% [95% CI, 97.3 to 97.8], and 90.0% [95% CI, 89.5 to 90.5], respectively), and perioperative complications lowest. Underweight and morbidly obese patients had higher mortality and incidence of adverse outcomes. Conclusions Overweight and obese patients had lower mortality and adverse perioperative outcomes after cardiac surgery compared with normal weight, underweight, and morbidly obese patients. The “obesity paradox” was confirmed for overweight and moderately obese patients. This may impact health resource planning, shifting the focus to morbidly obese and underweight patients prior to, during, and after cardiac surgery.
On the coverage of science in the media: A big data study on the impact of the Fukushima disaster

The contents of English-language online-news over 5 years have been analyzed to explore the impact of the Fukushima disaster on the media coverage of nuclear power. This big data study, based on millions of news articles, involves the extraction of narrative networks, association networks, and sentiment time series. The key finding is that media attitude towards nuclear power has significantly changed in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, in terms of sentiment and in terms of framing, showing a long lasting effect that does not appear to recover before the end of the period covered by this study. In particular, we find that the media discourse has shifted from one of public debate about nuclear power as a viable option for energy supply needs to a re-emergence of the public views of nuclear power and the risks associated with it. The methodology used presents an opportunity to leverage big data for corpus analysis and opens up new possibilities in social scientific research.
Dynamics of lock-release gravity currents over sparse and dense rough bottoms

Dynamics of lock-release gravity currents over sparse and dense rough bottoms Claudia Cenedese 1 , Roger Nokes 2 and Jason Hyatt 3 Department of Physical Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ccenedese@whoi.edu Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury Department of Science and Mathematics, Massachusetts Maritime Academy Abstract Dense oceanic overflows mix with surrounding waters along the descent down the conti- nental slope. The existing parameterizations for entrainment in dense currents account primarily for the shear-induced entrainment at the interface between the dense flow and the ambient fluid. However, the turbulence generated by roughness elements at the bot- tom boundary, which produces an enhanced drag, can be intense and must be considered. This paper describes an experimental study investigating the dynamics of a lock-release dense gravity current propagating through ‘sparse’ and ‘dense’ bottom roughnesses. Two main regimes are observed in which the entrainment/dilution of the current is enhanced due to different mechanisms. For the sparse configuration the dense current is observed to propagate between the roughness elements while for the dense configuration it rides on top of the cylinders. Introduction The amount of mixing and entrainment at the interface of the dense currents dictates the final properties of these overflows, and thus is of fundamental importance to the under- standing of the formation of deep water masses. Oceanographic measurements through dense currents suggest that the top of the current is usually characterized by a large velocity shear, low Richardson number and large turbulent displacements indicative of entrainment due to shear-driven mixing (Peters and Johns, 2005). Low Richardson num- ber are also observed near the bottom of the dense current due to the large shear caused by frictional drag. Although several studies have investigated entrainment in dense currents and proposed improved parameterizations (Hallberg 2000; Xu et al. 2006; Jackson et al. 2008; Cenedese and Adduce 2010), the main focus has been on the shear-induced entrainment at the interface between the dense flow and the ambient fluid. Comparatively little work has been done on the entrainment and dilution due to roughness elements at the bottom boundary. A closely related topic that has been investigated recently is fluid flow through aquatic canopies of various types and Nepf (2012) provides an overview of the research in the area. In particular, Zhang and Nepf (2011) focused on the dynamics of a surface gravity current propagating through a suspended canopy generated by an array of circular cylinders using an experimental PIV system. This paper describes part of a larger investigation into the dynamics of lock-release gravity VIII th Int. Symp. on Stratified Flows, San Diego, USA, Aug. 29 - Sept. 1, 2016
HIF1α regulation of Sox9 is necessary to maintain differentiation of hypoxic prechondrogenic cells during early skeletogenesis

During early stages of limb development, the vasculature is subjected to extensive remodeling that leaves the prechondrogenic condensation avascular and, as we demonstrate hereafter, hypoxic. Numerous studies on a variety of cell types have reported that hypoxia has an inhibitory effect on cell differentiation. In order to investigate the mechanism that supports chondrocyte differentiation under hypoxic conditions, we inactivated the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF1α) in mouse limb bud mesenchyme. Developmental analysis of Hif1α-depleted limbs revealed abnormal cartilage and joint formation in the autopod, suggesting that HIF1α is part of a mechanism that regulates the differentiation of hypoxic prechondrogenic cells. Dramatically reduced cartilage formation in Hif1α-depleted micromass culture cells under hypoxia provided further support for the regulatory role of HIF1α in chondrogenesis. Reduced expression of Sox9, a key regulator of chondrocyte differentiation, followed by reduction of Sox6, collagen type II and aggrecan in Hif1α-depleted limbs raised the possibility that HIF1α regulation of Sox9 is necessary under hypoxic conditions for differentiation of prechondrogenic cells to chondrocytes. To study this possibility, we targeted Hif1α expression in micromass cultures. Under hypoxic conditions, Sox9 expression was increased twofold relative to its expression in normoxic condition; this increment was lost in the Hif1α-depleted cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation demonstrated direct binding of HIF1α to the Sox9 promoter, thus supporting direct regulation of HIF1α on Sox9 expression. This work establishes for the first time HIF1α as a key component in the genetic program that regulates chondrogenesis by regulating Sox9 expression in hypoxic prechondrogenic cells.
Le processus d’attribution rénale québécois défavorise-t-il les patients en attente d’une greffe combinée rein-pancréas?

Summary En transplantation d’organes, il y a un ecart important entre le nombre d’organes disponibles et le nombre de patients en attente. Afin de mieux repartir ces organes, les regles d’allocation s’appuient sur des principes d’equite et d’utilite medicale. Dans cette etude de cas, nous allons illustrer la difficulte associee a la mise en place d’un systeme d’allocation. Celui-ci a pour objectif de garantir une repartition equitable des greffons renaux tout en tenant compte du principe d’utilite et ce, pour tous les patients en attente, dont les patients en attente d’une greffe combinee rein-pancreas. In organ transplantation, there is a significant gap between the number of organs available and the number of patients waiting. To better distribute these organs, allocation rules are based on principles of equity and medical utility. In this case study, we will illustrate the difficulties associated with the implementation of an allocation system. The aim is to ensure a fair distribution of kidney transplants while also taking into account the principle of utility, and this for all patients, including those waiting for a combined kidneypancreas transplant.