Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cowpox virus infection in natural field vole Microtus agrestis populations: significant negative impacts on survival.

1. Cowpox virus is an endemic virus circulating in populations of wild rodents. It has been implicated as a potential cause of population cycles in field voles Microtus agrestis L. , in Britain, owing to a delayed density-dependent pattern in prevalence, but its impact on field vole demographic parameters is unknown. This study tests the hypothesis that wild field voles infected with cowpox virus have a lower probability of survival than uninfected individuals. 2. The effect of cowpox virus infection on the probability of an individual surviving to the next month was investigated using longitudinal data collected over 2 years from four grassland sites in Kielder Forest, UK. This effect was also investigated at the population level, by examining whether infection prevalence explained temporal variation in survival rates, once other factors influencing survival had been controlled for. 3. Individuals with a probability of infection, P(I), of 1 at a time when base survival rate was at median levels had a 22.4% lower estimated probability of survival than uninfected individuals, whereas those with a P(I) of 0.5 had a 10.4% lower survival. 4. At the population level, survival rates also decreased with increasing cowpox prevalence, with lower survival rates in months of higher cowpox prevalence. 5. Simple matrix projection models with 28 day time steps and two stages, with 71% of voles experiencing cowpox infection in their second month of life (the average observed seroprevalence at the end of the breeding season) predict a reduction in 28-day population growth rate during the breeding season from lambda = 1.62 to 1.53 for populations with no cowpox infection compared with infected populations. 6. This negative correlation between cowpox virus infection and field vole survival, with its potentially significant effect on population growth rate, is the first for an endemic pathogen in a cyclic population of wild rodents.
Fighting false allegations of parental alienation raised as defenses to valid claims of abuse

Nancy Erickson provides a compendium for challenging the typical allegations made against domestic violence victims by batterers and their attorneys during child custody litigation. She dissects the circular reasoning and gender-biased thinking inherent in charges like "parental alienation," a legal strategy often used against protective mothers claiming child or intimate partner abuse. KEYWORDS: badmouthing; manipulate the court; child support; Richard Gardner; Malicious Parent Syndrome; target parent; brainwashing; friendly parent concept; civil order of protection; social media; Jennifer Hoult; Appel Meller v. Meller; guardian ad litem Language: en
Cultural Diversity at Work: The Effects of Diversity Perspectives on Work Group Processes and Outcomes

This paper develops theory about the conditions under which cultural diversity enhances or detracts from work group functioning. From qualitative research in three culturally diverse organizations, we identified three different perspectives on workforce diversity: the integration-and-learning perspective, the access-and-legitimacy perspective, and the discrimination-and-fairness perspective. The perspective on diversity a work group held influenced how people expressed and managed tensions related to diversity, whether those who had been traditionally underrepresented in the organization felt respected and valued by their colleagues, and how people interpreted the meaning of their racial identity at work. These, in turn, had implications for how well the work group and its members functioned. All three perspectives on diversity had been successful in motivating managers to diversify their staffs, but only the integration-and-learning perspective provided the rationale and guidance needed to achieve sustained benefits from diversity. By identifying the conditions that intervene between the demographic composition of a work group and its functioning, our research helps to explain mixed results on the relationship between cultural diversity and work group outcomes.
On-line testing of permanent radiation effects in reconfigurable systems

Partially reconfigurable systems are more and more employed in many application fields, including aerospace. SRAM-based FPGAs represent an extremely interesting hardware platform for this kind of systems, because they offer flexibility as well as processing power. In this paper we report about the ongoing development of a software flow for the generation of hard macros for on-line testing and diagnosing of permanent faults due to radiation in SRAM-FPGAs used in space missions. Once faults have been detected and diagnosed the flow allows to generate fine-grained patch hard macros that can be used to mask out the discovered faulty resources, allowing partially faulty regions of the FPGA to be available for further use.
The effect of chlorpromazine and benzhexol on memory and psychomotor function in healthy volunteers

Both antipsychotic and anticholinergic drugs have been implicated in the production of the memory deficits seen in schizophrenia. We compared the effects of chlorpromazine (50 mg) and benzhexol (5 mg) with placebo on a battery of tests of memory, psychomotor function and mood, in 12 healthy volunteers. Benzhexol, but not chlorpromazine, impaired both word recall and word recognition. Neither drug had an effect on long-term memory Both active compounds were associated with self-rated sedation, and chlorpromazine produced impairment in saccadic eye movements. This study supports the contention that sedation is unlikely to be the mechanism by which anticholinergic drugs exert their amnestic effect.
Radiation necrosis of the ossicles.

Disappearance of the long process and lenticular process of the incus has frequently been found at surgery in the presence of chronic otitis media, with or without the formation of cholesteatoma. The absence of these processes has been reported many years after a skull fracture with injury of the temporal bone (Gisselsson1). Congenital malformation of the ossicles has frequently been recorded in the literature. However, destruction of the incus due to massive radiation has not previously been reported. Perhaps the reason for this is that extensive radiation is usually carried out for malignant neoplasms. These patients do not survive long enough to develop destruction of the incus. We encountered the instance of a patient who had a large amount of radiation and who did survive for a period of eight years. This patient was found to have a destruction of the long process and lenticular process of the incus
Increased protein expression of DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) 1 is significantly correlated with the malignant potential and poor prognosis of human hepatocellular carcinomas

Alteration of DNA methylation is one of the most consistent epigenetic changes in human cancers. DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) 1 is a major enzyme involved in establishing genomic methylation patterns. Most of the studies concerning DNMT1 expression in human cancers have been performed only at the mRNA level. To directly examine DNMT1 protein expression levels during human hepatocarcinogenesis, 16 histologically normal liver tissues, 51 noncancerous liver tissues exhibiting chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis, which are considered to be precancerous conditions, and 53 hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) were subjected to immunohistochemic examination. If more than 20% of the cells exhibited nuclear DNMT1 staining, the tissue sample was considered to be DNMT1‐positive. DNMT1 immunoreactivity was observed in 23 (43%) of the HCCs, but in none (0%) of the histologically normal liver or noncancerous liver tissues exhibiting chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis. The incidence of increased DNMT1 protein expression in HCCs correlated significantly with poor tumor differentiation (p = 0.0006) and portal vein involvement (p = 0.0002). Moreover, the recurrence‐free (p = 0.0001) and overall (p < 0.0001) survival rates of patients with HCCs exhibiting increased DNMT1 protein expression were significantly lower than those of patients with HCCs that did not exhibit increased expression. Increased DNMT1 protein expression may play a critical role in the malignant progression of HCCs and be a biologic predictor of both HCC recurrence and a poor prognosis in HCC patients. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Symbolic FSM traversals based on the transition relation

We define the new "exist" generalized cofactor and image restrictor, a Boolean operator that supports the distributivity of conjunction and existential quantification. It finds a major application in existentially quantified products, like the transition relations that describe the sequential behavior of synchronous sequential circuits. We prove that the "exist" cofactor extends and includes the previous uses of the cofactor as an image restrictor. Aware of the fact that cofactoring sometimes makes binary decision diagrams (BDD's) more complex, we introduce selective cofactoring, i.e., we cofactor only subsets of functions, allowing a mix between cofactoring and conjunction. As a result, we propose an image computation method that includes techniques presented earlier. Experimental results show that we are able to reduce memory peaks, to lower overall memory occupation, and to reduce CPU time for symbolic traversal of some large benchmark circuits. We are also able to present experimental evidence on circuits that, to the best of our knowledge, have not yet been traversed.
Patient Beliefs and Behaviors About Genomic Risk for Type 2 Diabetes: Implications for Prevention

Type 2 diabetes is a major health burden in the United States, and population trends suggest this burden will increase. High interest in, and increased availability of, testing for genetic risk of type 2 diabetes presents a new opportunity for reducing type 2 diabetes risk for many patients; however, to date, there is little evidence that genetic testing positively affects type 2 diabetes prevention. Genetic information may not fit patients’ illness representations, which may reduce the chances of risk-reducing behavior changes. The present study aimed to examine illness representations in a clinical sample who are at risk for type 2 diabetes and interested in genetic testing. The authors used the Common Sense Model to analyze survey responses of 409 patients with type 2 diabetes risk factors. Patients were interested in genetic testing for type 2 diabetes risk and believed in its importance. Most patients believed that genetic factors are important to developing type 2 diabetes (67%), that diet and exercise are effective in preventing type 2 diabetes (95%), and that lifestyle changes are more effective than drugs (86%). Belief in genetic causality was not related to poorer self-reported health behaviors. These results suggest that patients’ interest in genetic testing for type 2 diabetes might produce a teachable moment that clinicians can use to counsel behavior change.
Temporally variable multi-aspect N-way morphing based on interference-free speech representations

Voice morphing is a powerful tool for exploratory research and various applications. A temporally variable multi-aspect morphing is extended to enable morphing of arbitrarily many voices in a single step procedure. The proposed method is implemented based on interference-free representations of periodic signals and found to yield highly-naturally sounding manipulated voices which are useful for investigating human perception of voice. The formulation of the proposed method is general enough to be applicable to other representations and easily modified depending on application needs.
Fivebrane Structures

We study the cohomological physics of fivebranes in type II and heterotic string theory. We give an interpretation of the one-loop term in type IIA, which involves the first and second Pontrjagin classes of spacetime, in terms of obstructions to having bundles with certain structure groups. Using a generalization of the Green-Schwarz anomaly cancelation in heterotic string theory which demands the target space to have a String structure, we observe that the “magnetic dual” version of the anomaly cancelation condition can be read as a higher analog of String structure, which we call Fivebrane structure. This involves lifts of orthogonal and unitary structures through higher connected covers which are not just 3but even 7-connected. We discuss the topological obstructions to the existence of Fivebrane structures. The dual version of the anomaly cancelation points to a relation of String and Fivebrane structures under electric-magnetic duality. hisham.sati@yale.edu, schreiber@math.uni-hamburg.de, jds@math.upenn. edu. 1 2 HISHAM SATI, URS SCHREIBER AND JIM STASHEFF
Better punctuation prediction with hierarchical phrase-based translation

Punctuation prediction is an important task in spoken language translation and can be performed by using a monolingual phrase-based translation system to translate from unpunctuated to text with punctuation. However, a punctuation prediction system based on phrase-based translation is not able to capture long-range dependencies between words and punctuation marks. In this paper, we propose to employ hierarchical translation in place of phrase-based translation and show that this approach is more robust for unseen word sequences. Furthermore, we analyze different optimization criteria for tuning the scaling factors of a monolingual statistical machine translation system. In our experiments, we compare the new approach with other punctuation prediction methods and show improvements in terms of F1-Score and BLEU on the IWSLT 2014 German→English and English→French translation tasks.
Sustainable remediation: electrochemically assisted microbial dechlorination of tetrachloroethene-contaminated groundwater

Microbial electric systems (MESs) hold significant promise for the sustainable remediation of chlorinated solvents such as tetrachlorethene (perchloroethylene, PCE). Although the bio‐electrochemical potential of some specific bacterial species such as Dehalcoccoides and Geobacteraceae have been exploited, this ability in other undefined microorganisms has not been extensively assessed. Hence, the focus of this study was to investigate indigenous and potentially bio‐electrochemically active microorganisms in PCE‐contaminated groundwater. Lab‐scale MESs were fed with acetate and carbon electrode/PCE as electron donors and acceptors, respectively, under biostimulation (BS) and BS‐bioaugmentation (BS‐BA) regimes. Molecular analysis of the indigenous groundwater community identified mainly Spirochaetes, Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and γ and δ‐Proteobacteria. Environmental scanning electron photomicrographs of the anode surfaces showed extensive indigenous microbial colonization under both regimes. This colonization and BS resulted in 100% dechlorination in both treatments with complete dechlorination occurring 4 weeks earlier in BS‐BA samples and up to 11.5 μA of current being generated. The indigenous non‐Dehalococcoides community was found to contribute significantly to electron transfer with ∼61% of the current generated due to their activities. This study therefore shows the potential of the indigenous non‐Dehalococcoides bacterial community in bio‐electrochemically reducing PCE that could prove to be a cost‐effective and sustainable bioremediation practice.
Fire Blight Disease Caused by Erwinia amylovora on Rosaceae Plants in Kyrgyzstan and Biological Agents to Control This Disease

Erwinia amylovora species were isolated from the blossoms, exudates, infected fruits, leaves and bent branches of diseased apple, pear and hawthorn trees, selected in the Chy, Osh and Jalal Abad regions. Biochemical and pathogenicity tests, alongside PCR analyses, were conducted to identify the local isolates of Erwinia amylovora. The alternative antagonistic microorganisms which combat bacterium E. amylovora were tested within in vitro and in vivo conditions. The results revealed the ability of Streptomyces antagonistic bacteria to decrease fire blight severity on pear and apple trees during the first stage of the fire blight disease in leaf tissues. Streptomyces strain C1-4 suppressed E. amylovora disease symptoms in the leaf tissues and excised apple and pear shoots. The incidence of fire blight on leaves was reduced by about 70% with two applications of bacterial antagonists. Further studies at different locations in Kyrgyzstan, using large scale application, would allow for stronger recommendations to be made, including studies and recommendations on their ability to prevent disease and to use them as main components in an integrated pest management program.
The Randomized Communication Complexity of Set Disjointness

We study the communication complexity of the disjointness function, in which each of two players holds a k-subset of a universe of size n and the goal is to determine whether the sets are disjoint. In the model of a common random string we prove that O(k) communication bits are sufficient, regardless of n. In the model of private random coins O(k+ log log n) bits suffice. Both results are asymptotically tight.
21.6 A 2.4-to-5.3GHz dual-core CMOS VCO with concentric 8-shaped coils

Despite recent attempts to relax the phase-noise demands on voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs) for cellular communications [1], mainstream radios require harmonic VCOs capable of a very low phase noise with moderate power consumption, associated to a large tuning range (TR) and a high insensitivity to interfering signals. Ideally, the TR should be in excess of one octave, since this allows the easy synthesis of all frequencies below those directly generated by the VCOs via repeated frequency divisions by 2. At the same time, the oscillation spectrum should be affected as little as possible by spurious (common-mode) magnetic fields impinging on the inductor coil in the VCO tank. This is a crucial requirement in modern radios, where there are more PLLs active at the same time, and particularly when (non-contiguous) carrier aggregation is implemented, since in this case the signal bands may be very close to each other. If an individual PLL is used for each band, the VCOs may oscillate very close to each other, or at frequencies that are harmonically related to each other, posing a very serious issue of mutual pulling through the respective magnetic field. And even if a single VCO is used [2], or two (or more) VCOs that are not harmonically related [3], it is nevertheless a good practice to design the tank inductor as insensitive as possible to external magnetic fields, which abound in and close to the radio IC.
Evaluation and Determination of the Sensitivity and Specificity of a Treponema Pallidum Dried Blood Spot Method for Serologic Diagnosis of Syphilis

EVALUATION AND DETERMINATION OF THE SENSITIVITY AND SPECIFICITY OF A Treponema pallidum DRIED BLOOD SPOT (DBS) METHOD FOR SEROLOGIC DIAGNOSIS OF SYPHILIS Background: Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. Syphilis is known as the “great imitator" due to the similarity of clinical signs and symptoms to other infectious diseases. The primary diagnosis of syphilis relies on clinical findings, including the examination of treponemal lesions, and/or serologic tests. Serologic tests are divided into nontreponemal and treponemal tests. Nontreponemal tests are useful for screening, while treponemal tests are used as confirmatory tests. Methods: A total of 200 serum and DBS specimens collected from patients at the Los Angeles Municipal Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinics were tested by the DBS and enzyme immunoassay (EIA) methods. These samples were sent to the Syphilis Diagnostics Laboratory, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia for testing. Samples were blindly evaluated by the TREP-SPOT TM DBS and the TREPSURE TM EIA methods for the detection of anti-treponemal IgGand IgM-class antibodies. Results: The sensitivity of the DBS method was 83% (95% CI, 73.89 89.50) and specificity was 100% (95% CI, 95.39 100)). The positive predictive value and negative predictive values were 100% (95% CI, 94.48 100) and 85% (95% CI, 77.43 91.0), respectively. The efficiency of the DBS method was 91.5%. The kappa value for the agreement between the DBS method and EIA assay was 0.83 (95% CI, 0.754 0.906). The correlation coefficient (r 2 ) between the antitreponemal antibody assay results obtained from DBS and serum samples was 0.94. Conclusion: DBS is an optimal choice to be used as a screening tool for the detection of anti-treponemal antibodies for the diagnosis of syphilis. The detection of anti-treponemal antibodies (TREP-SPOT TM DBS EIA) compared favorably to the results of serum-base assay (TREP-SURE TM EIA), with an overall concordance of 91.5%. Dried blood spots are technically easier to obtain and are suitable blood samples for primary health care centers.
Identity driven capability based access control (ICAC) scheme for the Internet of Things

Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming integral and mandatory part of everyday life. Scalability and manageability is intimidating due to unbounded number of devices and services. Access control and authorization in IoT with least privilege is important to establish secure communication between multiple devices and services. In this paper, the concept of capability for access control is introduced where the identities of the involved devices are entrenched in the access capabilities. Identity driven capability based access control (ICAC) scheme presented in this paper helps to alleviate issues related to the complexity and dynamics of device identities. ICAC is implemented for Wi-Fi and results shows that ICAC is scalable and performs better compared to other access control schemes. The ICAC evaluation by using security protocol verification tool shows that ICAC is secure against man-in-the-middle attack, especially eavesdropping and replay attacks.
On-chip transparent wire pipelining

Wire pipelining has been proposed as a viable mean to break the discrepancy between decreasing gate delays and increasing wire delays in deep-submicron technologies. Far from being a straightforwardly applicable technique, this methodology requires a number of design modifications in order to insert it seamlessly in the current design flow. In this paper, we briefly survey the methods presented by other researchers in the field and then we thoroughly analyze the solutions we recently proposed, ranging from system-level wire pipelining to physical design aspects.