Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Selective activation of deep layer (V-VI) retrohippocampal cortical neurons during hippocampal sharp waves in the behaving rat

The coordinated activity of hippocampal neurons is reflected by macroscopic patterns, theta and sharp waves (SPW), evident in extracellular field recordings. The importance of these patterns is underscored by the ordered relation of specific neuronal populations to each pattern as well as the relation of each pattern to distinct behavioral states. During awake immobility, consummatory behavior, and slow wave sleep, CA3 and CA1 neurons participate in organized population bursts during SPW. In contrast, during theta-associated exploratory activity, the majority of principle cells are silent. Considerably less is known about the discharge properties of retrohippocampal neurons during theta, and particularly during SPW. These retrohippocampal neurons (entorhinal cortical, parasubicular, presubicular, and subicular) process and transmit information between the neocortex and the hippocampus. The present study examined the activity of these neurons in freely behaving rats during SPW (awake immobility) as well as theta (locomotion and REM sleep). A qualitative distinction between the activity of deep (V-VI) and superficial (II- III) layer retrohippocampal neurons was observed in relation to SPW as compared to theta. Deep layer retrohippocampal neurons exhibited a concurrent increase in activity during hippocampal SPW. In contrast, deep layer neurons were not modulated by the prominent theta oscillations observed throughout the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. On the other hand, superficial layer retrohippocampal neurons were often phase-related to theta oscillations, but were surprisingly indifferent to the SPW-associated population bursting occurring within the deep layers. These findings indicate a concerted discharge of the hippocampal and retrohippocampal cortices during SPW that includes neurons within CA3, CA1, and subiculum as well as neurons in layers V- VI of the presubiculum, parasubiculum, and entorhinal cortex. Further, they suggest a temporal discontinuity in the input/output relations between the hippocampus and retrohippocampal structures. We suggest that SPW-associated population bursts in hippocampal and retrohippocampal cortices exert a powerful depolarizing effect on their postsynaptic neocortical targets and may represent a physiological mechanism for memory trace transfer from the hippocampus to the neocortex.
Couple versus Single Mother Group Treatment: A Comparative Study

This study compared couple versus single-mother treatment in group. Ninety-three participants from nine small groups received treatment in one of two conditions: mothers (47) and 23 couples (n = 46). Results showed positive pre-post outcomes on stress and parental coping for participants in both conditions, with no difference between them. However, differences were found at post-follow up (after six months), with parents treated as couples managing to retain gains following treatment, compared with mothers treated alone, who even showed some deterioration with time. Only one gender difference was found—fathers were less motivated to engage in treatment in all three time measurements. Regarding the important role fathers have in their child’s development and the positive gains when treated as a couple, fathers should be encouraged to engage more in treatment, and an interpersonal group of an expressive-supportive modality may be a viable way for fathers to do so.
Selective updating of sentences: Introducing a new measure of verbal working memory

ABSTRACT Working memory (WM) is one of the most studied cognitive constructs in psychology, because of its relevance to human performance, including language processing. When measuring verbal WM for sentences, the reading span task is the most widely used WM measure for this purpose. However, comparable sentence-level updating tasks are missing. Hence, we sought to develop a WM updating task, which we termed the selective updating of sentences (SUS) task, which taps the ability to constantly update sentences. In two experiments with Finnish-speaking young adults, we examined the internal consistency and concurrent validity of the SUS task. It exhibited adequate internal consistency and correlated positively with well-established working memory measures. Moreover, the SUS task also showed positive correlations with verbal episodic memory tasks employing sentences and paragraphs. These results indicate that the SUS task is a promising new task for psycholinguistic studies addressing verbal WM updating.
Serial Concatenation of LDPC and Turbo Code for GPRS System under Different Fading Channels

In wireless communication systems, error control coding is necessary to provide reliable communications over fading channels. Turbo code is used practically in third generation due to good error correcting capability. However, it has error floor at high Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Concatenation of another code as an outer code is an alternative to reduce turbo code’s error floor. In this paper, we study the behavior of a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) system, under different scenarios. We propose a method for reducing transmitter energy versus bit error rate and eliminating the error floor via a serial concatenation of Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) and turbo codes instead of the convolutional coded system. Moreover, computer simulations were conducted to compare the overall system performances obtained with turbo coding to the serial concatenation coded and channel non coded systems. The performance of the coding scheme is discussed in a Rayleigh fading channel with correlated and non correlated fading amplitudes and an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). Evaluation of the proposed encoder has shown a performance improvement over fading channels.
Wobble: Shaping Unobtrusive Reminders for Prospective Memories in the Home Context

Reminders are designed to support remembering actions or intentions to be performed later in time. Most technologies that have a reminding functionality do so by asking attention (e.g., by using auditory alerts or vibration patterns) from users at a certain point in time or location. Because of their obtrusive nature, the reminders of many (digital) prospective memory aids we use on a daily basis are hard to ignore, regardless of our ability and motivation to perform the reminded action or intention. In this paper, we present Wobble: an interactive cone-shaped artefact for reminding in the home environment. Wobble was designed to investigate peripheral reminders. Our results imply that wobble is best suitable for reminding intentions that do not require direct action but can be carried out over a period of time, which is a type of reminding currently not met by most electronic memory aids.
Magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging using parallel transmission at 7T

Conventional magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI), also known as phase-encoded (PE) chemical shift imaging (CSI), suffers from both low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the brain metabolites, as well as inflexible tradeoffs between acquisition time and spatial resolution. In addition, although CSI at higher main field strengths, e.g. 7 Tesla (T), offers improved SNR over clinical 1.5T or 3.0T scanners, the realization of these benefits is limited by severe inhomogeneities of the radio frequency (RF) excitation magnetic field (B1), which is responsible for significant signal variation within the volume of interest (VOI) resulting in spatially dependent SNR losses. The work presented in this dissertation aims to provide the necessary means for using spectroscopic imaging for reliable and robust whole brain metabolite detection and quantification at high main field strengths. It addresses the challenges mentioned above by improving both the excitation and the readout components of the CSI acquisition. The long acquisition times of the PE CSI are significantly shortened (at least 20 fold) by implementing the time-efficient spiral CSI algorithm, while the B1 non-uniformities are corrected for using RF pulses designed for new RF excitation hardware at 7T, so-called parallel transmission (pTx). The B1 homogeneity of the pTx excitations improved at least by a factor of 4 (measured by the normalized spatial standard deviations) compared to conventional single channel transmit systems. The first contribution of this thesis describes the implementation of spiral CSI algorithm for online gradient waveform design and spectroscopic image reconstruction
Mason: An Open Development Contextual Sensing Framework Enabling Reactive Applications

Mobile devices continue to push the limits of contextually aware application intelligence. However, due to the complexity of contextual processing and programming, a centralized system that handles all mobile context processing is difficult to realize. The problem of defining such a contextual reasoning unit that uses an all-encompassing contextual ontology for all possible uses of context is not feasible nor useful. Furthermore, implementing custom contextual logic ad hoc per application is difficult due to the complexity of sensor monitoring and contextual reasoning and may be redundant across applications. In this work we propose an openly developed dynamic ontology formation that allows developers to contribute logical pieces to a greater network of contextual reasoning for use by application developers. Specifically, we introduce Mason, a framework for supporting modular contextual reasoning development by handling low-level sensor routing and abstracting data sources as composable and functionally reactive data streams. This provisions for high levels of abstraction for contextual logic developers that contribute to the framework as well as application developers that use it. We demonstrate the simplicity of developing with Mason and show, through an audit of open source applications, the increased contextual functionality offered, better enabling the next generation of contextually reactive applications.
Digitally Controllable Large-Scale Integrated Microfluidic Systems

Active microfluidic mixers, micro vortex pumping devices, tesla microvalves, and microchannels were successfully fabricated using a single polymer based micro-molding process. These individual microfluidic devices were then integrated to perform precise fluid delivery, cutting, and mixing. Continuous and discretized pumping of fluids in microchannels can be achieved by the vortex micropumps that use rotating impellers. The fluid mixing is based on the vertical mechanical vibration of membranes driven by PZT actuator. Tesla microvalves were built to eliminate the backward flow by increasing the unidirectional back pressure. Experiments were conducted to investigate the performance of the mixing, pumping, and valving systems. The large-scale integration of microfluidic components using our micropump, microvalve and micromixer is also described in this paper
Repairing Non-Manifold Triangle Meshes using Simulated Annealing

In the field of reverse engineering one often faces the problem of repairing triangulations with holes, intersecting triangles, Mobius-band-like structures or other artifacts. In this paper we present a novel approach for generating manifold triangle meshes from such incomplete or imperfect triangulations. Even for heavily damaged triangulations, representing closed surfaces with arbitrary genus, our algorithm results in correct manifold triangle meshes. The algorithm is based on a randomized optimization technique from probability calculus called simulated annealing.
Searching for Active Factors in Diverse Approaches to Psychotherapy – Types of Intervention and Temporal Aspects

This paper is a synopsis of scientific research on treatment effectiveness of ten varying approaches to psychotherapy. Different types of psychotherapy justify their existence by the basic assumption that therapeutic change is effectuated by specific concepts, attitudes and interventional techniques. In comparative psychotherapy research, for many years, studies have quantified outcome differences (see e.g. Lambert, 2013), and only very few have closely examined the process of treatment. The study reported here was part of a larger multi-center naturalistic process-outcome study (pre-post-follow-up, see e.g. von Wyl et al., 2013; Crameri et al., 2015; Tschuschke et al., 2015), named PAP-S, which included 362 patients from 81 therapists. The synopsis includes methods as well as results and discussion.
Early evolution of the lungfish pectoral-fin endoskeleton: evidence from the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Pentlandia macroptera

As the closest living relatives of tetrapods, lungfishes are frequently used as extant models for exploring the fin-to-limb transition. These studies have generally given little consideration to fossil taxa. This is because although lungfish fins are relatively common in the fossil record, the internal structure of these fins is virtually unknown. Information on pectoral-fin endoskeletons in fossil representatives of Dipnomorpha (the lungfish total group) is limited to poorly preserved remains in the lungfish Dipterus and Conchopoma and more complete material in the porolepiform Glyptolepis. Here we describe a well-preserved pectoral-fin endoskeleton in the Middle Devonian (Givetian) lungfish Pentlandia macroptera from the John O’Groats fish bed, Caithness, northeastern Scotland. The skeleton is in association with a cleithrum and clavicle, and consists of a series of at least eight mesomeres. Extensive series of preaxial and postaxial radials are present. Some of the radials are jointed, but none branch. No mesomere articulates with multiple radials on either its pre- or post-axial face. The first two mesomeres, corresponding to the humerus and ulna, bear well-developed axial processes. Uniquely among dipnomorphs, a distinct ossification centre corresponding to the radius is present in Pentlandia. A review of anatomy and development of the pectoral-fin endoskeleton in the living Neoceratodus is presented based on cleared and stained material representing different size stages. These developmental data, in conjunction with new details of primitive lungfish conditions based on Pentlandia, highlight many of the derived features of the pectoral-fin skeleton of Neoceratodus, and clarify patterns of appendage evolution within the dipnomorphs more generally.
Expected Utility Theory

This is a chapter for the forthcoming Handbook of Rational and Social Choice, Paul Anand, Prasanta Pattanaik, and Clemens Puppe, eds., Oxford University Press, 2008. We review classic normative expected utility theory. Our goal is to frame the subsequent chapters (which consider more modern extensions to and deviations from this classic theory) in a way that is accessible to the nonspecialist but also useful to the specialist. We start from scratch with a revealed preference approach to the existence of a utility function. We then present the mathematical structure of additive and linear utility representations and their axiomatizations, in the context of abstract choice theory and using intertemporal choice as a source of examples. We are thus able to focus on this mathematical structure without the interference of the specific interpretation and notation for decision under uncertainty. Furthermore, this approach allows us to focus on the interpretation of the axioms when we turn to decision under uncertainty.
Towards an Architectural Framework for Agile Software Development

One of the ideas of agile software development is to respond to changes rather than following a plan. Constantly changing businesses result in changing requirements, to be handled in the development process. Therefore, it is essential that the underlying software architecture is capable of managing agile business processes. However, criticism on agile software development states that it lacks paying attention to architectural and design issues and therefore is bound to engender suboptimal design-decisions. In this paper we propose an architectural framework for agile software development, that by explicitly separating computational, coordinational, and communicational models offers a high degree of flexibility regarding architectural and design changes introduced by agile business processes. The framework strength is facilitated by combining the characteristics and properties of state-of-the-art middleware architectural styles captured in a simple API. The benefit of our approach is a clear architectural design with minimized effects of changes the models have on each other, accompanied by an efficient realization of new business requirements.
Assessing the Association between Iron Deficiency Anemia and H. Pylori Infection among Pregnant Women referring to a Busy Antenatal Clinic in Tehran-Iran

Objective: Anemia can have multiple adverse effects on pregnancy outcome. Recent studies suggested an association between H. Pylori infection and iron deficiency anemia. The present study aimed to investigate the association between iron deficiency anemia and H. pylori infections among pregnant women referring to antenatal care center of Shahid Akbarabadi hospital during the year 2010, Tehran, Iran. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 180 pregnant women in their first trimester. Demographic data and clinical data were collected by a gynecologist assistant in the center, 5 ml blood was collected from women. The hemoglobin level and the ferritin level were measured. The serology test of H. pylori IgG was measured by ELIZA test. Results: The mean hemoglobin level of participants was 12.03 ± 1.4 g/dl. Fifty two of the participants (31.0%) had a hemoglobin level less than 11 g/dl. Fifty one of the participants (30.4%) had a ferritin level less than 15 mg/dl. 91 participants (54.2%) were positive for H.pylori. There was a significant difference in nausea and vomiting and being serologically positive for H. Pylori (P = 0.003). Conclusion: There was a significant and adverse correlation between being serologically H. Pylori positive and hemoglobin level (P = 0.005, r = -0.218), and ferritin level (P = 0.001, r = -0.263).
Enhanced Gender Identification through Social Media Analytics on the Cloud

Social networking platforms such as Twitter have become a global phenomenon. Net citizens use such services as part of their daily lives. Given this, the opportunities to mine such data resources is of considerable interest to researchers, businesses and government alike. Many researchers have explored the analysis of such resources to support sentiment analysis and event detection amongst many other scenarios. However the potential to more accurately gauge the sentiment based upon gender is increasingly desirable, e.g. for brand analysis. In this paper we present a Cloudbased solution that supports gender identification through a mixed solution combining name classification, image recognition and gender targeted analysis. This paper outlines the Cloud infrastructure and the use of the systems for a range of gender-oriented sentiment classification scenarios.
High available database system: With TGPMS as an example

Dealing with the service aspect of a system as an unbroken whole, the availability of database management system (DBMS) is more and more critical as the base of information system. In this paper, we present an overview of the distributed DBMS and parallel DBMS technologies, highlight the characteristics related to system availability of each and try to give out the theoretical fundamental of high available DBMS. By introducing the features of the clustering technology, and discussing the real implementation of TGPMS DBMS, it is instructive for us to optimize system design to get high availability.
The Role of Uncertainty in the Transmission of Monetary Policy Effects on Bank Lending

In this paper we re-examine commercial banks' lending behavior taking into account changes in the stance of monetary policy in conjunction with changes in financial sector uncertainty. Using a very large data set covering all banks in the US between 1986-2000, we show that financial uncertainty has an important and significant role in the monetary policy transmission mechanism that varies across bank categories and the strength of banks' balance sheets. We find support for the existence of a bank lending channel among US banks.
Genetic analysis of DNA excreted in urine: a new approach for detecting specific genomic DNA sequences from cells dying in an organism.

BACKGROUND Cell-free DNA from dying cells recently has been discovered in human blood plasma. In experiments performed on animals and humans, we examined whether this cell-free DNA can cross the kidney barrier and be used as a diagnostic tool. METHODS Mice received subcutaneous injections of either human Raji cells or purified (32)P-labeled DNA. DNA was isolated from urine and analyzed by measurement of radioactivity, agarose gel electrophoresis, and PCR. In humans, the permeability of the kidney barrier to polymeric DNA was assessed by detection in urine of sequences that were different from an organism bulk nuclear DNA. RESULTS In the experiments on laboratory animals, we found that approximately 0.06% of injected DNA was excreted into urine within 3 days in a polymeric form and that human-specific ALU: sequences that passed through the kidneys could be amplified by PCR. In humans, male-specific sequences could be detected in the urine of females who had been transfused with male blood as well as in DNA isolated from urine of women pregnant with male fetuses. K-ras mutations were detected in the urine of patients with colon adenocarcinomas and pancreatic carcinomas. CONCLUSIONS The data suggest that the kidney barrier in rodents and humans is permeable to DNA molecules large enough to be analyzed by standard genetic methodologies.
Alcohol Consumption and the Incidence of Hypertension: The Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study

Abstract—A close relationship between alcohol consumption and hypertension has been established, but it is unclear whether there is a threshold level for this association. In addition, it has infrequently been studied in longitudinal studies and in black people. In a cohort study, 8334 of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study participants, aged 45 to 64 years at baseline, who were free of hypertension and coronary heart disease had their blood pressures ascertained after 6 years of follow-up. Alcohol consumption was assessed by dietary interview. The type of alcoholic beverage predominantly consumed was defined by the source of the largest amount of ethanol consumed. Incident hypertension was defined as a systolic blood pressure ≥140 mm Hg or diastolic blood pressure ≥90 mm Hg or use of antihypertensive medication. There was an increased risk of hypertension in those who consumed large amounts of ethanol (≥210 g per week) compared with those who did not consume alcohol over the 6 years of follow-up. The adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) were 1.2 (0.85 to 1.67) for white men, 2.02 (1.08 to 3.79) for white women, and 2.31 (1.11 to 4.86) for black men. Only 4 black women reported drinking >210 g ethanol per week. At low to moderate levels of alcohol consumption (1 to 209 g per week), the adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) were 0.88 (0.71 to 1.08) in white men, 0.89 (0.73 to 1.09) in white women, 1.71 (1.11 to 2.64) in black men, and 0.88 (0.59 to 1.33) in black women. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures were higher in black men who consumed low to moderate amounts of alcohol compared with the nonconsumers but not in the 3 other race-gender strata. Models with polynomial terms of alcohol exposure suggested a nonlinear association in white and black men. Higher levels of consumption of all types of alcoholic beverages were associated with a higher risk of hypertension for all race-gender strata. The consumption of alcohol in amounts ≥210 g per week is an independent risk factor for hypertension in free-living North American populations. The consumption of low to moderate amounts of alcohol also appears to be associated with a higher risk of hypertension in black men.