Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The persuasion network is modulated by drug-use risk and predicts anti-drug message effectiveness

Abstract While a persuasion network has been proposed, little is known about how network connections between brain regions contribute to attitude change. Two possible mechanisms have been advanced. One hypothesis predicts that attitude change results from increased connectivity between structures implicated in affective and executive processing in response to increases in argument strength. A second functional perspective suggests that highly arousing messages reduce connectivity between structures implicated in the encoding of sensory information, which disrupts message processing and thereby inhibits attitude change. However, persuasion is a multi-determined construct that results from both message features and audience characteristics. Therefore, persuasive messages should lead to specific functional connectivity patterns among a priori defined structures within the persuasion network. The present study exposed 28 subjects to anti-drug public service announcements where arousal, argument strength, and subject drug-use risk were systematically varied. Psychophysiological interaction analyses provide support for the affective-executive hypothesis but not for the encoding-disruption hypothesis. Secondary analyses show that video-level connectivity patterns among structures within the persuasion network predict audience responses in independent samples (one college-aged, one nationally representative). We propose that persuasion neuroscience research is best advanced by considering network-level effects while accounting for interactions between message features and target audience characteristics.
Cryptoschemes Based on New Signature Formation Mechanism

Several variants of new digital signature schemes (DSS) based on the discrete logarithm and factorization problems have been proposed. Considered DSS are characterized in that a novel mechanism of the signature generation is used, in which two parameters of the (k;S) or (R;S) signature are defined after solving a system of two congruences. In the case of composite modulus additional restrictions conditions have been introduced for selection of the public key.
The APP Intracellular Domain Is Required for Normal Synaptic Morphology, Synaptic Plasticity, and Hippocampus-Dependent Behavior

The amyloid precursor protein family (APP/APLPs) has essential roles for neuromuscular synapse development and for the formation and plasticity of synapses within the CNS. Despite this, it has remained unclear whether APP mediates its functions primarily as a cell surface adhesion and signaling molecule or via its numerous proteolytic cleavage products. To address these questions, we followed a genetic approach and used APPΔCT15 knockin mice lacking the last 15 amino acids of APP, including the highly conserved YENPTY protein interaction motif. To circumvent functional compensation by the closely related APLP2, these mice were bred to an APLP2-KO background to generate APPΔCT15-DM double mutants. These APPΔCT15-DM mice were partially viable and displayed defects in neuromuscular synapse morphology and function with impairments in the ability to sustain transmitter release that resulted in muscular weakness. In the CNS, we demonstrate pronounced synaptic deficits including impairments in LTP that were associated with deficits in spatial learning and memory. Thus, the APP-CT15 domain provides essential physiological functions, likely via recruitment of specific interactors. Together with the well-established role of APPsα for synaptic plasticity, this shows that multiple domains of APP, including the conserved C-terminus, mediate signals required for normal PNS and CNS physiology. In addition, we demonstrate that lack of the APP-CT15 domain strongly impairs Aβ generation in vivo, establishing the APP C-terminus as a target for Aβ-lowering strategies. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Synaptic dysfunction and cognitive decline are early hallmark features of Alzheimer′s disease. Thus, it is essential to elucidate the in vivo function(s) of APP at the synapse. At present, it is unknown whether APP family proteins function as cell surface receptors, or mainly via shedding of their secreted ectodomains, such as neurotrophic APPsα. Here, to dissect APP functional domains, we used APP mutant mice lacking the last 15 amino acids that were crossed onto an APLP2-KO background. These APPΔCT15-DM mice showed defects in neuromuscular morphology and function. Synaptic deficits in the CNS included impairments of synaptic plasticity, spatial learning, and memory. Collectively, this indicates that multiple APP domains, including the C-terminus, are required for normal nervous system function.
Writing systems software in a functional language: an experience report

Current practices for developing systems software usually rely on fairly low-level programming languages and tools. As an alternative, our group has been investigating the possibility of using a high-level functional language, Haskell, for kernel and device driver construction, with the hope that it will allow us to produce more reliable and secure software. In this paper, we describe our experience developing a prototype operating system, House, in which the kernel, device drivers, and even a simple GUI, are all written in Haskell. The House system demonstrates that it is indeed possible to construct systems software in a functional language. However, it also suggests some ideas for a new Haskell dialect with features that target specific needs in this domain, including strongly typed support for low-level data structures and facilities for explicit memory accounting.
Scalable aggregation on multicore processors

In data-intensive and multi-threaded programming, the performance bottleneck has shifted from I/O bandwidth to main memory bandwidth. The availability, size, and other properties of on-chip cache strongly influence performance. A key question is whether to allow different threads to work independently, or whether to coordinate the shared workload among the threads. The independent approach avoids synchronization overhead, but requires resources proportional to the number of threads and thus is not scalable. On the other hand, the shared method suffers from coordination overhead and potential contention. In this paper, we aim to provide a solution to performing in-memory parallel aggregation on the Intel Nehalem architecture. We consider several previously proposed techniques that were evaluated on other architectures, including a hybrid independent/shared method and a method that clones data items automatically when contention is detected. We also propose two algorithms: partition-and-aggregate and PLAT. The PLAT and hybrid methods perform best overall, utilizing the computational power of multiple threads without needing memory proportional to the number of threads, and avoiding much of the coordination overhead and contention apparent in the shared table method.
What Accounts for Race and Ethnic Differences in Parental Financial Transfers to Adult Children in the United States?

Financial assistance that parents give to their young adult children is part of the bundle of flows that constitutes intergenerational support. Are there racial and ethnic differences in this financial assistance, and if so, why? Wave 2 data from the Health and Retirement Study (N = 17,996) suggest group differences in both the incidence and amount of annual support given to nonresident adult children. Structural inequalities in the form of economic resources, family structure, and health account for most group differences, a finding counter to recent research emphasizing culture and behavioral practices. Economic resources most strongly account for less giving in African American families than in other groups. For Latinos, income and parental education are most vital. Parental health and family size are also important predictors of group differences. African American and Latino families help compensate for the differences in financial transfers with coresidence, extended family exchange, and proximity.
Thirty-day outcome of transcatheter aortic valve implantation with the edwards SAPIEN XT prosthesis via the transiliofemoral approach.

BACKGROUND Few data exist on the results of transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) via the transfemoral approach in small slightly built Japanese patients with severe aortic stenosis who are ineligible or at high-risk for conventional surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR). Therefore, the purpose was to investigate the early outcomes of TAVI using the transiliofemoral approach in Japan. METHODS AND RESULTS Between June 2010 and June 2013, 21 consecutive patients (mean age, 81.0 years; 81.0% female) underwent TAVI with Edwards SAPIEN XT valves using the transiliofemoral approach. The mean body surface area was 1.44±0.15m(2). The device success rate was 90.5%. Although 2 patients did not meet the echocardiographic criteria for device success, no failure to deliver and deploy a valve occurred. The mean effective aortic valve area increased from 0.54±0.12cm(2) at baseline to 1.46±0.29cm(2) after the procedure (P<0.001), and the mean aortic transvalvular pressure gradient decreased from 51.0±15.6 at baseline to 11.2±3.6 after the procedure (P<0.001). The 30-day mortality and combined safety endpoint rates were 0% and 4.8%, respectively. All patients achieved New York Heart Association functional class I or II at 30 days. CONCLUSIONS Early outcome of TAVI with the Edwards-SAPIEN XT valve via the transiliofemoral approach at Kurashiki Central Hospital is satisfactory for patients who are ineligible or at high risk for SAVR.
Use of RBF neural network in EMG signal noise removal

The bioelectric potentials associated with muscle activity constitute the electromyogram (EMG). EMG signal is used in biomedical applications to detect abnormal muscle electrical activity that occur in many diseases and conditions like muscular dystrophy, inflammation of muscles, pinched nerves, peripheral nerve damages, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, disc herniation, myasthenia gravis and others. In this paper, it is depicted that an RBF neural network as compared with other types of neural networks can be effectively used for EMG signal noise removal, which is a typical nonlinear multivariable regression problem. The performance parameters i.e. MSE and correlation coefficient are found to be in the expected range of values.
Prevalence and Mechanisms of Macrolide Resistance in Clinical Isolates of Group A Streptococci from Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT A total of 3,205 group A streptoccal isolates were collected in 1997 through a private laboratory which serves community physicians in southern Ontario and which represents a population base of 6 million people. Nonsusceptibility to erythromycin was detected for 67 (2.1%) isolates both by disk diffusion and by broth microdilution. Of these, 47 (70%) were susceptible to clindamycin and were found by PCR to possess the mef gene. Of the other 20 strains, 18 and 2 showed inducible and constitutive resistance, respectively, to clindamycin. Nineteen of these strains were shown by PCR to possess theermTR gene, and a single constitutively resistant strain harbored an ermB gene. Sixteen (24%) erythromycin-resistant strains were also resistant to tetracycline. All were susceptible to penicillin and chloramphenicol.
Nanoscale Increases in CD2-CD48-mediated Intermembrane Spacing Decrease Adhesion and Reorganize the Immunological Synapse*

The relationship between intermembrane spacing, adhesion efficiency, and lateral organization of adhesion receptors has not been established for any adhesion system. We have utilized the CD2 ligand CD48 with two (wild type CD48 (CD48-WT)), four (CD48-CD2), or five (CD48-CD22) Ig-like domains. CD48-WT was 10-fold more efficient in mediating adhesion than CD48-CD2 or CD48-CD22. Electron tomography of contact areas with planar bilayers demonstrated average intermembrane spacing of 12.8 nm with CD48-WT, 14.7 nm with CD48-CD2, and 15.6 nm with CD48-CD22. Both CD48-CD2 and CD48-CD22 chimeras segregated completely from CD48-WT in mixed contact areas. In contrast, CD48-CD2 and CD48-CD22 co-localized when mixed contacts were formed. Confocal imaging of immunological synapses formed between primary T lymphocytes and Chinese hamster ovary cells presenting major histocompatibility complex-peptide complexes, and different forms of CD48 demonstrated that CD48-CD2 and CD48-CD22 induce an eccentric CD2/T cell antigen receptor cluster. We propose that this reorganization of the immunological synapse sequesters the T cell antigen receptor in a location where it cannot interact with its ligand and dramatically reduces T cell sensitivity.
Antitumor bisdioxopiperazines inhibit yeast DNA topoisomerase II by trapping the enzyme in the form of a closed protein clamp.

The mechanism of inhibition of eukaryotic DNA topoisomerase II [DNA topoisomerase (ATP-hydrolyzing), EC 5.99. 1.3] by a member of the bisdioxopiperazine family of anticancer drugs, ICRF-193, was investigated by using purified yeast DNA topoisomerase II. In the absence of ATP, ICRF-193 has little effect on the binding of the enzyme to various forms of DNA. In the presence of ATP, the drug converts the enzyme to a form incapable of binding circular DNA. Incubation of a preformed circular DNA-enzyme complex with ICRF-193 and ATP converts the complex to a form stable in molar concentrations of salt. These results can be interpreted in terms of the ATP-modulated protein-clamp model of type II DNA topoisomerases [Roca, J. & Wang, J. C. (1992) Cell 71, 833-840]; ICRF-193 can bind to the closed-clamp form of the enzyme and prevents its conversion to the open-clamp form. This interpretation is further supported by the finding that whereas both ATP and the drug are needed to form the salt-stable circular DNA-enzyme complex, ATP is not needed for maintaining this complex; furthermore, a signature of the closed-clamp form of the enzyme, Staphylococcus aureus strain V8 endoproteinase cleavage site at Glu-680, is observed if the enzyme is incubated with both ATP and ICRF-193. Inhibition of interconversion between the open- and closed-clamp forms of type II DNA topoisomerases offers a new mechanism in the selection and design of therapeutics targeting this class of enzymes.
McKibben artificial muscles: pneumatic actuators with biomechanical intelligence

Reports on the design of a biorobotic actuator. Biological requirements are developed from published reports in the muscle physiology literature whose parameters are extracted and applied in the form of the Hill muscle model. Data from several vertebrate species (rat, frog, cat, and human) are used to evaluate the performance of a McKibben pneumatic actuator. The experimental results show the force-length properties of the actuator are muscle-like, but the force-velocity properties are not. The design of a hydraulic damper with fixed orifices, placed in parallel with the McKibben actuator, is proposed to improve the force-velocity performance. Simulation results of this practical design indicate a significant improvement.
Development and validation of the Occupational Hardiness Questionnaire.

BACKGROUND One of the most traditional approaches to the positive study of personality has been the research on Hardiness or Hardy Personality. However, studies about this construct have systematically suffered from a lack of sufficient psychometric guarantees of the measures. METHOD This paper presents the Occupational Hardiness Questionnaire (OHQ), the result of a research line on the subject and its measurement with a total sample of 1,647 participants. RESULTS Four studies show the results of exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), consistency, temporal reliability and construct validity. CONCLUSIONS Results indicate that the OHQ has satisfactory psychometric characteristics and can be used in the study of Occupational Health and in the area of Positive Personality.
© 2007 INASED Needed: Critics of Literacy Education with a More Inclusive Perspective

Journalists, book authors, and think tank members have been extremely critical of how literacy is presented in schools. Many of these critics who are inexperienced in literacy education believe that educators are inadequately teaching reading and writing. Those most critical of the “inadequate skills perspective” are usually experts in their respective fields, including neuroscience, speech-language pathology, and educational psychology. Not surprisingly, their fields of expertise are not fine-tuned in the field of literacy. These critics are more likely to promote balanced and constructive criticisms if they (a) hold graduate degrees in the areas in which they serve as critics, (b) collaborate with colleagues who believe in different points of view, (c) maintain rigorous peer-review standards before releasing research findings to the media, (d) have practical experience in schools, and (e) attend professional development sessions concerning big-picture perspectives and make observations in schools where these perspectives have been effectively implemented.
Cross-informant agreement and teacher nomination technique in the assessment of children behavior problems

The aim of our study was to (1) examine the degree of agreement among children, parents and teachers on the scales and items of the Czech version of the Child Behavior Checklist, and (2) to assess a teacher nomination technique as a short and simple tool for the recognition of children with higher levels of self-reported problems. The first part of the study was conducted on a sample of 300 children (aged 11-16). The overall degree of cross-informant agreement was low, particularly for ratings of boys. The highest correlations were found between the ratings of parents and teachers (median correlation 0.336), followed by the correlations between the ratings of parents and children (median correlation 0.316). The agreement between teachers and children's ratings was generally poor (median correlation 0.115), with the exception of moderate agreement on the Externalizing Behavior scales. The nomination technique was mainly based on the TRF scales and contained nine short descriptions; the sample consisted of 145 children from non-clinical population (aged 11-12). Only a low proportion of children were named by the teachers at each problem child description. Four significant associations were found between the teacher's ratings in the nomination technique and the categorical ratings based on children self-reports (YSR). Results of both parts of the study are consistent with previous findings and emphasize the importance of utilizing multiple sources in the assessment of children behavior problems.
Management of aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: State of the art and future perspectives

Background: Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) accounts for 5% of strokes and carries a poor prognosis. It affects around 6 cases per 100,000 patient years occurring at a relatively young age. Methods: Common risk factors are the same as for stroke, and only in a minority of the cases, genetic factors can be found. The overall mortality ranges from 32% to 67%, with 10–20% of patients with long-term dependence due to brain damage. An explosive headache is the most common reported symptom, although a wide spectrum of clinical disturbances can be the presenting symptoms. Brain computed tomography (CT) allow the diagnosis of SAH. The subsequent CT angiography (CTA) or digital subtraction angiography (DSA) can detect vascular malformations such as aneurysms. Non-aneurysmal SAH is observed in 10% of the cases. In patients surviving the initial aneurysmal bleeding, re-hemorrhage and acute hydrocephalus can affect the prognosis. Results: Although occlusion of an aneurysm by surgical clipping or endovascular procedure effectively prevents rebleeding, cerebral vasospasm and the resulting cerebral ischemia occurring after SAH are still responsible for the considerable morbidity and mortality related to such a pathology. A significant amount of experimental and clinical research has been conducted to find ways in preventing these complications without sound results. Conclusions: Even though no single pharmacological agent or treatment protocol has been identified, the main therapeutic interventions remain ineffective and limited to the manipulation of systemic blood pressure, alteration of blood volume or viscosity, and control of arterial dioxide tension.
Coupler Winding Ratio Selection for Effective Narrowband Power-Line Communications

Coupling losses caused by impedance mismatches are often underestimated and neglected by power-line communications researchers and manufacturers. Further, the variations in network topology combined with unknown cable and load impedances obscure the requirements for impedance adaptation, causing researchers and manufacturers to default to a guessed impedance level and a fixed winding ratio. Attempting to clarify said requirements, this paper approaches the transmitter-to-receiver chain using a simplified lumped-parameter model, which distinguishes between the influences of series (cable) and parallel (load) power-line impedances. Using apparent power transfer to the receiver as criterion, the influence of both the transmitter and receiver coupler winding ratios are investigated for 50- modems at frequencies below 1 MHz. Live measurements indicate that the results are useful regardless of power-line topology, yielding gains up to 10 dB.
A prospective blood RNA signature for tuberculosis disease risk

Background— Identification of blood biomarkers that prospectively predict progression of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection to tuberculosis disease may lead to interventions that impact the epidemic. Methods— Healthy, M. tuberculosis infected South African adolescents were followed for 2 years; blood was collected every 6 months. A prospective signature of risk was derived from whole blood RNA-Sequencing data by comparing participants who ultimately developed active tuberculosis disease (progressors) with those who remained healthy (matched controls). After adaptation to multiplex qRT-PCR, the signature was used to predict tuberculosis disease in untouched adolescent samples and in samples from independent cohorts of South African and Gambian adult progressors and controls. The latter participants were household contacts of adults with active pulmonary tuberculosis disease.
Energy procurement strategies in the presence of intermittent sources

The increasing penetration of intermittent, unpredictable renewable energy sources such as wind energy, poses significant challenges for utility companies trying to incorporate renewable energy in their portfolio. In this work, we study the problem of conventional energy procurement in the presence of intermittent renewable resources. We model the problem as a variant of the newsvendor problem, in which the presence of renewable resources induces supply side uncertainty, and in which conventional energy may be procured in three stages to balance supply and demand. We compute closed-form expressions for the optimal energy procurement strategy and study the impact of increasing renewable penetration, and of proposed changes to the structure of electricity markets. We explicitly characterize the impact of a growing renewable penetration on the procurement policy by considering a scaling regime that models the aggregation of unpredictable renewable sources. A key insight from our results is that there is a separation between the impact of the stochastic nature of this aggregation, and the impact of market structure and forecast accuracy. Additionally, we study the impact on procurement of two proposed changes to the market structure: the addition and the placement of an intermediate market. We show that addition of an intermediate market does not necessarily increase the efficiency of utilization of renewable sources. Further, we show that the optimal placement of the intermediate market is insensitive to the level of renewable penetration.