Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hippocampal Volume and Everyday Memory in Children of Very Low Birth Weight

Children born preterm and of very low birth weight have an increased incidence of learning difficulties, but little is known about the specific nature of their cognitive deficits and the underlying neuropathology. We hypothesized that their vulnerability to hypoxic, metabolic, and nutritional insults would lead to reduced hippocampal volumes and to deficits in memory because of the role of the hippocampus in this domain of cognition. Neuropsychological and magnetic resonance imaging methods were used to investigate this hypothesis in adolescents born preterm (≤30 wk gestation, n = 11) or full-term (n = 8). The preterm group had significantly smaller hippocampal volumes bilaterally, despite equivalent head size, and showed specific deficits in certain aspects of everyday memory, both on objective testing and as indicated by parental questionnaires. The preterm group also had a specific deficit in numeracy. The reduced hippocampal volumes and deficits in everyday memory have previously been unrecognized, but their prevalence in a group of neurologically normal children is striking.
Evaluation of gossip Vs. broadcast as communication strategies for multiple swarms solving MaOPs

In this work we evaluate the application of multiple independent swarms to solve Many-Objective Problems (MaOPs). Solving MaOPs is often a challenge, as these problems do not have a single best solution, but a set of solutions. Furthermore, the objectives to be optimized are usually conflicting among themselves. Employing multiple independent swarms that evolve independently from each other is an effective optimization strategy, that pushes convergence while preserving the diversity of the solutions. One of the key decisions for organizing a set of swarms is to define the communication strategy they use to share solutions. The strategy defines how particles migrate among the swarms, and how much interaction they feature among themselves. We evaluate two multi-swarm communication strategies, broadcast and the probabilistic gossip to 1-neighbor. Extensive simulation results are presented for two members of the DTLZ family with 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 15, and 20 objectives. A set of quality indicators were evaluated for both communication strategies as well as for a baseline reference execution based on a single swarm. Results show that both distributed strategies outperform the centralized alternative. It is also possible to conclude that the higher level of interactivity of the broadcast alternative proved to be the best for several scenarios.
The Pain System in Oesophageal Disorders: Mechanisms, Clinical Characteristics, and Treatment

Pain is common in gastroenterology. This review aims at giving an overview of pain mechanisms, clinical features, and treatment options in oesophageal disorders. The oesophagus has sensory receptors specific for different stimuli. Painful stimuli are encoded by nociceptors and communicated via afferent nerves to the central nervous system. The pain stimulus is further processed and modulated in specific pain centres in the brain, which may undergo plastic alterations. Hence, tissue inflammation and long-term exposure to pain can cause sensitisation and hypersensitivity. Oesophageal sensitivity can be evaluated ,for example, with the oesophageal multimodal probe. Treatment should target the cause of the patient's symptoms. In gastro-oesophageal reflux diseases, proton pump inhibitors are the primary treatment option, surgery being reserved for patients with severe disease resistant to drug therapy. Functional oesophageal disorders are treated with analgesics, antidepressants, and psychological therapy. Lifestyle changes are another option with less documentation.
Allopurinol as a Cardiovascular Drug

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death in the United States. There is evidence that shows a direct relationship between an elevated uric acid level and an increased risk of cardiovascular (CV) events, which has set the foundation for the investigation of uric acid-lowering drugs for the treatment of CVD. Although traditionally the cornerstone therapy for gout, allopurinol's ability to be a competitive inhibitor of the key enzyme, xanthine oxidase, needed for uric acid formation, has prompted recent clinical research evaluating allopurinol as a CV drug. Epidemiologic and biochemical studies on uric acid formation have shown that it is not only uric acid itself that leads to worsening prognosis and increased CV events, but also the free radicals and superoxides formed during xanthine oxidase activity. The combination of uric acid formation and formed free radicals could ultimately lead to coronary endothelial dysfunction and worsening of myocardial oxidative stress. Along with preventing uric acid formation, allopurinol also has the ability to behave as a free radical scavenger of the superoxide anions and free radicals released during uric acid formation. Clinical studies have shown that allopurinol improves endothelial dysfunction and subsequently improves the exercise capacity in patients diagnosed with angina pectoris. Allopurinol has also been shown to decrease oxidative stress and ameliorate the morbidity and mortality of congestive heart failure patients by possibly improving mechanoenergetic uncoupling, with the enhancement of myocardial contractility and the left ventricular ejection fraction. This review presents the pharmacologic action of allopurinol on the CV system and describes the effectiveness of allopurinol as a potential drug to treat 2 CVD morbidities: ischemic heart disease and congestive heart failure.
Describing Directional Cell Migration with a Characteristic Directionality Time

Many cell types can bias their direction of locomotion by coupling to external cues. Characteristics such as how fast a cell migrates and the directedness of its migration path can be quantified to provide metrics that determine which biochemical and biomechanical factors affect directional cell migration, and by how much. To be useful, these metrics must be reproducible from one experimental setting to another. However, most are not reproducible because their numerical values depend on technical parameters like sampling interval and measurement error. To address the need for a reproducible metric, we analytically derive a metric called directionality time, the minimum observation time required to identify motion as directionally biased. We show that the corresponding fit function is applicable to a variety of ergodic, directionally biased motions. A motion is ergodic when the underlying dynamical properties such as speed or directional bias do not change over time. Measuring the directionality of nonergodic motion is less straightforward but we also show how this class of motion can be analyzed. Simulations are used to show the robustness of directionality time measurements and its decoupling from measurement errors. As a practical example, we demonstrate the measurement of directionality time, step-by-step, on noisy, nonergodic trajectories of chemotactic neutrophils. Because of its inherent generality, directionality time ought to be useful for characterizing a broad range of motions including intracellular transport, cell motility, and animal migration.
Modern and healthy?: socioeconomic differences in the quality of diet.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to describe how nutrient intake and food consumption varied according to education and household income in men and women. The second aim was to find out to what extent the goals of the national dietary guidelines were met in different socioeconomic groups. DESIGN A random dietary survey using a 3 d estimated food record and a self-administered questionnaire. SETTING Individuals from four different regions in Finland in spring 1992. SUBJECTS 870 men and 991 women aged 25-64 y. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Food group and nutrient consumption, two saturated fat indices, educational level and household income. MAIN RESULTS Men with a higher educational level had a lower energy intake and women with a higher income a lower intake of carbohydrates. The intake of vitamin C and carotenoids increased with increasing socioeconomic status. Otherwise, no socioeconomic differences in energy intake, densities of fat and saturated fat, macronutrient or fibre were found. Higher socioeconomic groups consumed more cheese, vegetables, fruit and berries and candies and less milk, butter and bread. CONCLUSIONS Higher socioeconomic groups did not follow current national dietary guidelines better than lower socioeconomic groups. Higher socioeconomic groups consumed more of the modern recommended foods, such as vegetables and fruit and berries, but less traditional recommended foods, such as bread and potatoes.
An Enigmatic New Species of Blind Snake from Luzon Island, Northern Philippines, with A Synopsis of The Genus Acutotyphlops (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)

Abstract We describe a strikingly distinct new species of Acutotyphlops from Kalinga Province of Luzon Island, Philippines. The new species is most closely related to other members of the genus Acutotyphlops from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and represents a new genus and species group record for the Philippines. A revised definition of Acutotyphlops is presented along with a synopsis of the genus. The discovery of this species, combined with consideration of its morphology and distribution, represents a curious new systematic and biogeographical problem in Southeast Asian and southwest Pacific scolecophidian snake systematics.
Tone-entropy analysis as a cardiac risk stratification tool

Improving risk assessment to provide evidence for preventative intervention has recently become more of a focus in cardiovascular medicine with atherosclerosis as an early manifestation of cardiovascular disease. The total cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein (TC/HDL) ratio is often used an atherogenic index. High levels of the TC/HDL ratio also affect nervous system function and this study investigated the relationship between TC/HDL and heart rate variability measured by the tone-entropy algorithm. For tone there was a significant indication that cholesterol levels? influences autonomic nervous system function in control individuals with no cardiovascular disease, but not in diabetics. Entropy was not associated with TC/HDL in eitherthe control ordiabetes group. The relationship seen for tone and TC/HDL suggests that tone can be used as an initial risk indicator for further invasive cardiac function testing.
The Bass handbook of leadership : theory, research, and managerial applications

For thirty-three years and through three editions, Bass & Stodgill'sHandbook of Leadershiphas been the indispensable "bible" for every serious student of leadership. Since the 3rd edition came out in 1990, the field of leadership has exploded. This completely revised and updated fourth edition reflects the growth and changes in the study of leadership over the past 17 years. This new edition offers shifts in both content and method. Ethics and transformational leadership, for example, have become increasing subjects of inquiry. Distinctly separate fields of inquiry, such as political science and psychology, have been joined in this edition to build a broader appreciation of the phenomenon of leadership. Throughout the Handbook, the contributions from cognitive social psychology and the social, political, communications, and administrative sciences have been expanded.
Melanopsin-Derived Visual Responses under Light Adapted Conditions in the Mouse dLGN

A direct projection from melanopsin-expressing intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) reaches the primary visual thalamus (dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus; dLGN). The significance of this melanopsin input to the visual system is only recently being investigated. One unresolved question is the degree to which neurons in the dLGN could use melanopsin to track dynamic changes in light intensity under light adapted conditions. Here we set out to address this question. We were able to present full field steps visible only to melanopsin by switching between rod-isoluminant ‘yellow’ and ‘blue’ lights in a mouse lacking cone function (Cnga3-/-). In the retina these stimuli elicited melanopsin-like responses from a subset of ganglion cells. When presented to anaesthetised mice, we found that ~25-30% of visually responsive neurones in the contralateral dLGN responded to these melanopsin-isolating steps with small increases in firing rate. Such responses could be elicited even with fairly modest increases in effective irradiance (32% Michelson contrast for melanopsin). These melanopsin-driven responses were apparent at bright backgrounds (corresponding to twilight-daylight conditions), but their threshold irradiance was strongly dependent upon prior light exposure when stimuli were superimposed on a spectrally neutral ramping background light. While both onset and offset latencies were long for melanopsin-derived responses compared to those evoked by rods, there was great variability in these parameters with some cells responding to melanopsin steps in <1 s. These data indicate that a subset of dLGN units can employ melanopsin signals to detect modest changes in irradiance under photopic conditions.
Finding Demand for Products in the Social Web

Finding potential customers in social networks is a hard challenge for today's businesses. But by listening to the noise of social network posts, we identify users, who express a demand for a certain product. We achieve this identification with a two-stage text categorization classifier: First, we detect whether the post expresses a demand for some product in general. Second, we detect, which product the post is about. By using the company's brochures, we minimize the integration effort for our system. However, this approach is difficult, because brochures differ from social network posts in style and length and only few brochures exist for each product. By employing feature selection and document sampling we are able to cope with these issues. Our evaluation has shown the practicability of this approach and supports our decisions for a two-stage classifier, document sampling and strict feature selection.
Evaluation of 3D Facial Feature Selection for Individual Facial Model Identification

Face recognition using 3D information has been intensively investigated in recent years. The features selected from 3D facial surfaces are invariant to pose and lighting conditions. However, they are sensitive to expression variations. In this paper, we investigate the issues on selecting good features for 3D facial shape classification, and evaluate its applicability to various types of models. Based on our existing work on feature selection using a genetic algorithm, we derived a set of features from the individualized wire-frame models. We evaluate the usefulness of such features not only to the generated models from images, but also to the range data from 3D imaging systems with variable resolutions. We tested the algorithm on two types of data sets: generic model based dataset and range-scan model based dataset. Experimental results show that the optimal features derived from both datasets are robust among two databases. The resolution of captured models affects the selection of optimal features; however, the combination of the optimal features improves the recognition rate
ASSESSMENT OF SUGARCANE ENDOPHYTIC BACTERIA AND RHIZOSPHERIC BURKHOLDERIA SPECIES AS ANTIFUNGAL AGENTS

Naturally occurring bacterial endophytes were isolated from the stalks of six different sugarcane varieties. The highest numbers of bacterial populations were isolated from variety N12 and this variety was used for further investigations. Xylem sap as well as crushed cane sap was used for isolations, but no differences were observed between the type and numbers of species isolated. Endophytic bacterial populations decreased from the lowest to the upper-most internode. The lowest internode was surface sterilized and used to extract bacterial species on four different media (modified PW, TSA, PCAT and Candida medium). Most bacterial species were isolated on PW while PCAT medium was used to isolate Burkholderia and Pseudomonas species. The most common bacterial species isolated from sugarcane stalks were Pseudomonas spp. , Zymomonas spp. , Burkholderia spp. , Bacillus spp. , Serratia spp. , Klebsiella spp. and Xanthomonas spp. Burkholderia reference strains, local endophytic stalk isolates as well as local Burkholderia isolates from the sugarcane rhizosphere were tested for their antifungal activity against sugarcane smut (Ustilago scitaminea) and Fusarium spp. causing stalk rot. Forty-seven strains inhibited the growth of Ustilago while seventy-two strains inhibited the growth of Fusarium in vitro. Twenty-one of these bacterial strains inhibited the growth of both Fusarium and Ustilago.
Experimental Stability Analysis of a Haptic System

An elementary prerequisite for haptic applications is to preserve stability. Numerous studies have been presented in the past dealing with ensuring stability for haptic interfaces. The passivity condition of Colgate et al. (1994; 1997) represents one of the most cited theoretical studies towards a common stability condition. Although ensuring passivity of haptic devices is a general approach, it has the disadvantages of being conservative in terms of stability.
Enabling system-level modeling of variation-induced faults in Networks-on-Chips

Process Variation (PV) is increasingly threatening the reliability of Networks-on-Chips. Thus, various resilient router designs have been recently proposed and evaluated. However, these evaluations assume random fault distributions, which result in 52%–81% inaccuracy. We propose an accurate circuit-level fault-modeling tool, which can be plugged into any system-level NoC simulator, quantify the system-level impact of PV-induced faults at runtime, pinpoint fault-prone router components that should be protected, and accurately evaluate alternative resilient multi-core designs.
Debate y construcción de conocimiento en foros virtuales: la importancia de los motivos de los participantes en la actividad

Resumen El presente trabajo aborda, desde una perspectiva sociocultural, las relaciones entre la calidad cognitiva de las contribuciones a un foro virtual de debate y los objetivos y motivos que los participantes construyen a lo largo del debate para llevarlo a cabo. Para ello, se analiza un foro virtual de debate desarrollado por 17 estudiantes universitarios. El foro tiene una duración de 25 días, y forma parte de las actividades de una asignatura obligatoria de los estudios de Maestro. El profesor diseña y enmarca el debate, pero no participa en su desarrollo. Los resultados muestran que los estudiantes construyen a lo largo del debate dos objetivos básicos: ganar el debate y cumplir con los requisitos formales de la actividad establecidos por el profesor. Dichos objetivos no parecen presididos por un motivo de carácter instructional, sino más bien de tipo productivo —resolver adecuadamente la tarea planteada—. Paralelamente, la calidad cognitiva de sus contribuciones al debate es globalmente baja y no progresa a lo largo del mismo. Estos resultados se interpretan como un apoyo a la necesidad de considerar los objetivos y motivos construidos por los participantes como un factor clave en los procesos de aprendizaje colaborativo mediado por ordenador.
“Wireless networks without edges”: Dynamic radio resource clustering and user scheduling

Cellular systems using Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) transmissions leveraging clusters of spatially distributed radio antennas as Virtual Base Stations (VBSs) have the potential to realize overall throughput gains and, perhaps more importantly, can deliver substantial enhancement to poor performing “edge” users. In this paper we propose a novel framework aimed at fully exploiting the potential of such systems through dynamic radio resource clustering and user scheduling which maximize system utility. The dynamic clustering problem is modeled as a maximum weight clustering problem which is NP-hard, however, we show that by structuring the set of possible VBSs to be “2-decomposable” it can be efficiently computed. We also propose to optimize over a class of power allocation policies to radio resources, and thus VBSs, which allow dynamic user scheduling and flexible power allocations depending on instantaneous channel realizations. We use simulation to compare our approach with a state-of-the-art baseline which exploits dynamic frequency reuse and opportunistic user scheduling, but no clustering, and show edge users' throughput gains are as high as 80% without degrading the performance of others.
A user-study examining visualization of lifelogs

With continuous advances in the pervasive sensing and lifelogging technologies for the quantified self, users now can record their daily life activities automatically and seamlessly. In the existing lifelogging research, visualization techniques for presenting the lifelogs and evaluating the effectiveness of such techniques from a lifelogger's perspective has not been adequately studied. In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of four distinct visualization techniques for exploring the lifelogs, which were collected by 22 lifeloggers who volunteered to use a wearable camera and a GPS device simultaneously, for a period of 3 days. Based on a user study with these 22 lifeloggers, which required them to browse through their personal lifelogs, we seek to identify the most effective visualization technique. Our results suggest various ways to augment and improve the visualization of personal lifelogs to enrich the quality of user experience and making lifelogging tools more engaging. We also propose a new visualization feature-drill-down approach with details-on-demand, to make the lifelogging visualization process more meaningful and informative to the lifeloggers.
Robust MMSE Beamforming for Multiantenna Relay Networks

In this paper, we propose a robust minimum mean square error (MMSE)-based beamforming technique for multiantenna relay broadcast channels, where a multiantenna base station transmits signal to single antenna users with the help of a multiantenna relay. The signal transmission from the base station to the single antenna users is completed in two time slots, where the relay receives the signal from the base station in the first time slot, and it then forwards the received signal to different users based on amplify and forward (AF) protocol. We propose a robust beamforming technique for a sum-power minimization problem with an imperfect channel state information (CSI) between the relay and the users. This robust scheme is developed based on the worst-case optimization framework and the Nemirovski Lemma by incorporating uncertainties in the CSI. The original optimization problem is divided into three subproblems due to joint nonconvexity in terms of beamforming vectors at the base station, the relay amplification matrix, and receiver coefficients. These subproblems are formulated into a convex optimization framework by exploiting the Nemirovski Lemma, and an iterative algorithm is developed by alternatively optimizing each of them with channel uncertainties. In addition, we provide an optimization framework to evaluate the achievable worst-case mean square error (MSE) of each user for a given set of design parameters. Simulation results are provided to validate the convergence of the proposed algorithm.