Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enriched Environments Protect Against Depression Brought About By Chronic Mild Stress and Increase Neuronal Density in the Hippocampus in Sprague-Dawley Rats

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Migraine, the menopause and hormone replacement therapy: a clinical review

In contrast to the relatively stable hormone profile during the middle reproductive years, the perimenopause is marked by erratic fluctuations of oestrogen and progesterone. By the late perimenopause, oestrogen levels can reach high magnitudes.1 Given the association between migraine and oestrogen ‘withdrawal’ it is not surprising that this stage of life is often accompanied by worsening migraine, which persists until oestrogen levels plateau post-menopause. This paper reviews the effects that menopause and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) have on headache and migraine and considers the data on the risk of ischaemic stroke in HRT users with migraine. This evidence will be used to support practical guidance on the management of women with migraine wishing to use HRT.
ω Centauri: The Population Puzzle Goes Deeper

We present Hubble Space Telescope observations that show a bifurcation of colors in the middle main sequence of the globular cluster ω Centauri. We see this in three different fields, observed with different cameras and filters. We also present high-precision photometry of a central Advanced Camera for Surveys field, which shows a number of main-sequence turnoffs and subgiant branches. The double main sequence, the multiple turnoffs and subgiant branches, and other population sequences discovered in the past along the red giant branch of this cluster add up to a fascinating but frustrating puzzle. We suggest various explanations, none of them very conclusive.
The direction of masked auditory category priming correlates with participants’ prime discrimination ability

Semantic priming refers to the phenomenon that participants typically respond faster to targets following semantically related primes as compared to semantically unrelated primes. In contrast, Wentura and Frings (2005) found a negatively signed priming effect (i.e., faster responses to semantically unrelated as compared to semantically related targets) when they used (a) a special masking technique for the primes and (b) categorically related prime-target-pairs (e.g., fruit-apple). The negatively signed priming effect was most pronounced for participants with random prime discrimination performance, whereas participants with high prime discrimination performance showed a positive effect. In the present study we analyzed the after-effects of masked category primes in audition. A comparable pattern of results as in the visual modality emerged: The poorer the individual prime discrimination, the more negative is the semantic priming effect. This result is interpreted as evidence for a common mechanism causing the semantic priming effect in vision as well as in audition instead of a perceptual mechanism only working in the visual domain.
Hepatitis C: viral and host factors associated with non-response to pegylated interferon plus ribavirin

Treatment for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has evolved considerably in the last years. The standard of care (SOC) for HCV infection consists in the combination of pegylated interferon (PEG‐IFN) plus ribavirin. However, it only induces a sustained virological response (SVR) in half of genotype 1‐infected patients. Several viral and host factors have been associated with non‐response: steatosis, obesity, insulin resistance, age, male sex, ethnicity and genotypes. Many studies have demonstrated that in non‐responders, some interferon‐stimulated genes were upregulated before treatment. Those findings associated to clinical, biochemical and histological data may help detect responders before starting any treatment. This is a very important issue because the standard treatment is physically and economically demanding. The future of HCV treatment would probably consist in the addition of specifically targeted antiviral therapy for HCV such as protease and/or polymerase inhibitors to the SOC. In genotype 1 patients, very promising results have been reported when the protease inhibitor telaprevir or boceprevir is added to the SOC. It increases the SVR rates from approximately 50% (PEG‐IFN plus ribavirin) to 70% (for patients treated with a combination of PEG‐IFN plus ribavirin plus telaprevir). Different elements are associated with non‐response: (i) viral factors, (ii) host factors and (iii) molecular mechanisms induced by HCV proteins to inhibit the IFN signalling pathway. The goal of this review is to present the mechanisms of non‐response, to overcome it and to identify factors that can help to predict the response to anti‐HCV therapy.
How to manipulate truthful prior-dependent mechanisms?

In the standard formulation of mechanism design, a key assumption is that the designer has reliable information and technology to determine a prior distribution on types of the agents. In the meanwhile, as pointed out by the Wilson's Principle, a mechanism should reply as little as possible on the accuracy of prior type distribution. In this paper, we put forward a model to formalize and quantify this statement. In our model, each agent has a type distribution. In addition, the agent can commit to a fake distribution and bids consistently and credibly with respect to the fake distribution (i.e., plays Bayes equilibrium under the fake distributions). We study the equilibria of the induced distribution-committing games in several well-known mechanisms. Our results can be summarized as follows: (1) the game induced by Myerson's auction under our model is strategically equivalent to the first price auction under the standard model. As a consequence, they are revenue-equivalent as well. (2) the second-price auction yields weakly better revenue than several reserve-based and virtual-value-based auctions, under our fake distribution model. These results echo the recent literature on prior-independent mechanism design.
Photoluminescence Blinking of Single-Crystal Methylammonium Lead Iodide Perovskite Nanorods Induced by Surface Traps

Photoluminescence (PL) of organometal halide perovskite materials reflects the charge dynamics inside of the material and thus contains important information for understanding the electro-optical properties of the material. Interpretation of PL blinking of methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3) nanostructures observed on polycrystalline samples remains puzzling owing to their intrinsic disordered nature. Here, we report a novel method for the synthesis of high-quality single-crystal MAPbI3 nanorods and demonstrate a single-crystal study on MAPbI3 PL blinking. At low excitation power densities, two-state blinking was found on individual nanorods with dimensions of several hundred nanometers. A super-resolution localization study on the blinking of individual nanorods showed that single crystals of several hundred nanometers emit and blink as a whole, without showing changes in the localization center over the crystal. Moreover, both the blinking ON and OFF times showed power-law distributions, indicating trapping–detrapping processes. This is further supported by the PL decay times of the individual nanorods, which were found to correlate with the ON/OFF states. Furthermore, a strong environmental dependence of the nanorod PL blinking was revealed by comparing the measurements in vacuum, nitrogen, and air, implying that traps locate close to crystal surfaces. We explain our observations by proposing surface charge traps that are likely related to under-coordinated lead ions and methylammonium vacancies to result in the PL blinking observed here.
Multi-layer design of IP over WDM backbone networks: Impact on cost and survivability

To address the reliability challenges due to failures and planned outages, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) typically use two backbone routers at each central office to which access routers connected in a dual-homed configuration. At the IP layer, redundant backbone routers and redundant transport equipment to interconnect them are deployed, providing reliability through node and path diversity. However, adding such redundant resources increases the overall cost of the network. Hence, a fundamental redesign of the backbone network avoiding such redundant resources, by leveraging the capabilities of an agile optical transport network, is highly desired. In this paper, we propose such a fundamental redesign of IP backbones. Our alternative design uses only a single router at each office but uses the agile optical transport layer to carry traffic to remote Backbone Routers (BRs) in order to survive failures or outages of the single local BR. Optimal mapping of local Access Routers (ARs) to remote BRs is determined by solving an Integer Linear Program (ILP). We describe how our proposed design can be realized using current optical transport technology. We evaluate network designs for cost and performability, the latter being a metric combining performance and availability. We show significant reduction in cost for approximately the same level of reliability as current designs.
Verb Production in Aphasia: Testing the Division of Labor between Syntax and Semantics

Abstract Some individuals with aphasia preferably use semantically general light verbs, whereas others prefer semantically specific heavy verbs. This study aimed to test Gordon and Dell's “division of labor” hypothesis that light versus heavy verb usage depends on syntactic and semantic processes, respectively. In a retrospective analysis of data from the AphasiaBank corpus, narrative language of neurologically healthy individuals and individuals with aphasia was analyzed for the proportion of light verbs used, and its relationship with narrative measures of syntactic and semantic sophistication and verb naming scores was examined. In individuals with aphasia, light verb usage was positively correlated with a syntactic measure (developmental sentence score) and negatively associated with two semantic measures (idea density and verb naming). For healthy individuals, the number of verbs per utterance, which is a measure of syntactic complexity, predicted light verb use. These findings suggest that light verb usage in aphasia observes an inverse relationship with syntactic and semantic abilities, supporting the division of labor hypothesis.
Short-Term Effects of Particulate Matter on Stroke Attack: Meta-Regression and Meta-Analyses

Background and Purpose Currently there are more and more studies on the association between short-term effects of exposure to particulate matter (PM) and the morbidity of stroke attack, but few have focused on stroke subtypes. The objective of this study is to assess the relationship between PM and stroke subtypes attack, which is uncertain now. Methods Meta-analyses, meta-regression and subgroup analyses were conducted to investigate the association between short-term effects of exposure to PM and the morbidity of different stroke subtypes from a number of epidemiologic studies (from 1997 to 2012). Results Nineteen articles were identified. Odds ratio (OR) of stroke attack associated with particular matter (“thoracic particles” [PM10]<10 µm in aerodynamic diameter, “fine particles” [PM2.5]<2.5 µm in aerodynamic diameter) increment of 10 µg/m3 was as effect size. PM10 exposure was related to an increase in risk of stroke attack (OR per 10 µg/m3 = 1.004, 95%CI: 1.001∼1.008) and PM2.5 exposure was not significantly associated with stroke attack (OR per 10 µg/m3 = 0.999, 95%CI: 0.994∼1.003). But when focused on stroke subtypes, PM2.5 (OR per 10 µg/m3 = 1.025; 95%CI, 1.001∼1.049) and PM10 (OR per 10 µg/m3 = 1.013; 95%CI, 1.001∼1.025) exposure were statistically significantly associated with an increased risk of ischemic stroke attack, while PM2.5 (all the studies showed no significant association) and PM10 (OR per 10 µg/m3 = 1.007; 95%CI, 0.992∼1.022) exposure were not associated with an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke attack. Meta-regression found study design and area were two effective covariates. Conclusion PM2.5 and PM10 had different effects on different stroke subtypes. In the future, it's worthwhile to study the effects of PM to ischemic stroke and hemorrhagic stroke, respectively.
A fully automated flowgraph analysis tool for Matlab

In this paper, a fully automated flowgraph analysis tool using Matlab's symbolic and signal processing toolbox is presented. The goal was to construct an analysis tool for both continuous- and discrete-time systems. From a simple textual nodelist model one can easily generate one or several transfer functions between any nodes and apply the result to control system analysis. Such a versatile tool can be applied to filter design, delta-sigma modulator analysis or even reflection analysis s-parameter measurements in RF techniques and in optics. The tool is easy to customize to a given need and some design examples are presented in this paper.
The Use of Jute Mill Waste in Making Nonwoven Fabric by an Air-Laying System

Nonwoven fabrics were made from jute broadloom caddis (raw and bleached), stapled raw jute, woollenized jute, viscose rayon, and their blends on a Callaghan nonwoven fabric machine, employing an air-laying technique of ran domization of fibers, followed by impregnation with bonding agent and curing. The properties of these fabrics were also measured so that their suitability for various uses could be examined.
Anti-localization suppresses non-radiative recombination in GaInN/GaN quantum wells

The light emission efficiency of (AlGaIn)N heterostructures and light-emitting diodes is exceptionally high, despite the high density of threading dislocations generally found in such structures. It has become common to attribute the high efficiency to compositional fluctuations or even phase separation in the active GaInN quantum well region. The resulting localization of charge carriers is thought to keep them from recombining non-radiatively at the defects. Here, we show that carriers are mobile at room temperature rather than localized and that under suitable growth conditions hexagonal V-shaped pits decorating the defects exhibit narrow sidewall quantum wells with an effective bandgap significantly larger than that of the regular c-plane quantum wells. Thereby nature provides a unique, hitherto unrecognized mechanism generating a potential landscape which effectively screens the defects themselves by providing an energy barrier around every defect. Thus even for mobile charge carriers non-radiative recombination is effectively suppressed leading to the unexpectedly high emission efficiency.
Comparison of graphical and subexpression methods for design of efficient multipliers

Relationships are examined between two traditional strategies used to design "multiplier blocks": graphical methods and common subexpression elimination (CSE), four applications: single multipliers, multiplier blocks (several products of a single multiplicand), FIR filters and matrix multipliers are compared. A new representation shows how graphical designs can be extracted from CSE designs. Algorithms for both approaches are compared. A new graphical algorithm for FIR filter design and new results for CSE in the multiple product case are presented so comparison can be made for all applications. We conclude that for simpler problems, graphical methods are best, while CSE works better for the more complex problems.
Fusion of an Isometric Deformation Modeling Approach Using Spectral Decomposition and a Region-Based Approach Using ICP for Expression-Invariant 3D Face Recognition

The recognition of faces under varying expressions is one of the current challenges in the face recognition community. In this paper, we propose a method fusing different complementary approaches each dealing with expression variations. The first approach uses an isometric deformation model and is based on the largest singular values of the geodesic distance matrix as an expression-invariant shape descriptor. The second approach performs recognition on the more rigid parts of the face that are less affected by expression variations. Several fusion techniques are examined for combining the approaches. The presented method is validated on a subset of 900 faces of the BU-3DFE face database resulting in an equal error rate of 5.85% for the verification scenario and a rank 1 recognition rate of 94.48% for the identification scenario using the sum rule as fusion technique. This result outperforms other 3D expression-invariant face recognition methods on the same database.
Modeling MEMS and NEMS

INTRODUCTION MEMS and NEMS A Capsule History of MEMS and NEMS Dimensional Analysis and Scaling Exercises A REFRESHER ON CONTINUUM MECHANICS Introduction The Continuum Hypothesis Heat Conduction Elasticity Linear Thermoelasticity Fluid Dynamics Electromagnetism Numerical Methods for Continuum Mechanics SMALL IS DIFFERENT The Backyard Scaling Systems Exercises THERMALLY DRIVEN SYSTEMS Introduction Thermally Driven Devices From PDE to ODE: Lumped Models Joule Heating of a Cylinder Analysis of Thermal Data Storage Exercises MODELING ELASTIC STRUCTURES Introduction Examples of Elastic Structures in MEMS/NEMS The Mass on a Spring Membranes Beams Plates The Capacitive Pressure Sensor Exercises MODELING COUPLED THERMAL-ELASTIC SYSTEMS Introduction Devices and Phenomena in Thermal-Elastic Systems Modeling Thermopneumatic Systems The Thermoelastic Rod Revisited Modeling Thermoelastic V-Beam Actuators Modeling Thermal Bimorph Actuators Modeling Bimetallic Thermal Actuators Exercises MODELING ELECTROSTATIC-ELASTIC SYSTEMS Introduction Devices Using Electrostatic Actuation The Mass-Spring Model Modeling General Electrostatic-Elastic Systems Electrostatic-Elastic Systems - Membrane Theory Electrostatic-Elastic Systems - Beam and Plate Theory Analysis of Capacitive Control Schemes Exercises MODELING MAGNETICALLY ACTUATED SYSTEMS Introduction Magnetically Driven Devices Mass-Spring Models A Simple Membrane Micropump Model A Small-Aspect Ratio Model Exercises MICROFLUIDICS Introduction Microfluidic Devices More Fluidic Scaling Modeling Squeeze Film Damping Exercises BEYOND CONTINUUM THEORY Introduction Limits of Contiuum Mechanics Devices and Systems Beyond Continuum Theory Exercises REFERENCES APPENDICES Mathematical Results Physical Constants INDEX Each chapter also contains Related Reading and Notes sections.
Preclinical and clinical investigation of histone deacetylase inhibitor valproic acid given orally in androgen independent prostate cancer.

14614 Background: Considerable preclinical data suggests that histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDAIs) can cause differentiation and apoptosis of prostate cancer cell lines and inhibit prostate cancer xenografts in vivo. There is evidence that valproic acid (VPA) is a HDAI and can be administered safely to cancer patients intravenously (Atmaca et al J Clin Oncol 2004). METHODS In the current investigation, 6 cell lines of a variety of solid tumors including prostate cancers were treated with escalating concentrations of VPA (0.5, 1, 2 and 4 mM) over 24-144 hours. Cell growth inhibition was studied by a modified MTS assay. Simultaneously, patients with androgen independent prostate cancers were treated with dose escalations of oral VPA every week or as tolerated (10, 15, 20, 25 mg/kg). Weekly total and free serum VPA, PSA and serum testosterone levels were obtained. In addition, lymphocytes were collected for histone H3 acetylation. RESULTS VPA inhibited all solid tumor cell lines in a dose-dependent and time-dependent fashion. Optimal (>50% over control) inhibition of most cell lines required 2-4 mM exposure over at least 72-96 hours. Prostate and lung cancer lines were more sensitive to inhibition after VPA administration. A total of 5 patients (Median age 71, Range 48-78) were treated with VPA. Major adverse events included Gr 1 confusion (1 pt), Gr 1 fatigue (3 pts), Gr 1 Dizziness (2 patients) and Gr 1 nausea and vomiting (1 pt). When PSA levels were normalized for simultaneously drawn serum testosterone (Median 20, Range 16-281 ng/dl), all patients had transient drops in PSA. In 3 of 4 evaluable patients, normalized PSA increased after patients were discontinued from VPA because of side effects or co-morbid conditions. In 1 patient, normalized PSA declined after re-challenge with VPA. CONCLUSIONS In this study, VPA has demonstrable activity in cell lines and in patients as measured by lowered PSA levels. Normalization of PSA to serum testosterone might be important to detect clinical effects of HDAIs. Updated clinical data and a correlation between PSA, serum levels of VPA and histone acetylation will be presented. No significant financial relationships to disclose.
Advances in Brief Identification of a Novel Function for 67-kDa Laminin Receptor : Increase in Laminin Degradation Rate and Release of Motility Fragments 1

The 67-kDa laminin receptor (67LR) is a high-affinity laminin-binding protein that is overexpressed on the tumor cell surface in a variety of cancers. We report here that the 67LR molecule also functions in the proteolytic cleavage of laminin-1, a relevant event in basement membrane degradation and tumor dissemination. In the presence of a synthetic peptide (peptide G) corresponding to the 67LR laminin binding site, the rate of laminin-1 degradation by the cysteine proteinase cathepsin B was significantly increased, and a new proteolytic fragment particularly active in in vitro cell migration assays was generated. The YIGSR peptide, corresponding to the 67LR binding site on laminin-1, blocked the peptide G-dependent proteolytic degradation. Our results shed light on the mechanism by which an adhesion receptor such as the 67LR plays a major role in tumor aggressiveness and metastasis.