Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perceptions of 3R implementation in European animal research: A systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-synthesis of barriers and facilitators

Objectives The purpose of this systematic review was to examine how the scientific community in Europe that is involved with research with animals perceives and experiences the implementation of 3R (Replace, Reduce, Refine). Methods A systematic search of the literature published in the past ten years was performed in PubMed, Web of Science and Scopus. Publications were screened for eligibility using a priori inclusion criteria, and only empirical evidence (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methodologies) was retained. Quantitative survey items were investigated by conducting a meta-analysis, and the qualitative data was summarized using an inductive meta-synthetic approach. Included publications were assessed using the Quality Assessment for Diverse Studies tool. Results 17 publications were included (eight quantitative, seven qualitative, two mixed-methods). The meta-analysis revealed that scientists are skeptical about achieving replacement, even if they believe that 3R improve the quality of experimental results. They are optimistic concerning the impact of 3R on research costs and innovation, and see education as highly valuable for the implementation of 3R. The meta-synthesis revealed four barriers (systemic dynamics, reification process, practical issues, insufficient knowledge) and four facilitators (efficient use of animals, caring for animals, regulatory uptake, supportive workplace environment). Conclusion These findings show actionable levers at the local and systemic levels, and may inform regulators and institutions in their 3R policies. Trial registration The protocol was registered into the PROSPERO database under the number CRD42023395769.
A Globally Exponentially Stable Tracking Controller for Mechanical Systems Using Position Feedback

A solution to the problem of global exponential tracking of mechanical systems without velocity measurements is given in the technical note. The proposed controller is obtained combining a redesign of the recently reported exponentially stable immersion and invariance velocity observer and a new state-feedback passivity-based controller, which assigns to the closed-loop a port-Hamiltonian structure with a desired energy function. The result is applicable to a large class of mechanical systems including those with unbounded inertia matrix and possible presence of friction forces. Unlike previous results that rely on the presence-exact knowledge and pervasiveness-of these forces, our design treats them as disturbances, which are suitably compensated.
Association Mapping and Validation of QTLs for Flour Yield in the Soft Winter Wheat Variety Kitahonami

The winter wheat variety Kitahonami shows a superior flour yield in comparison to other Japanese soft wheat varieties. To map the quantitative trait loci (QTL) associated with this trait, association mapping was performed using a panel of lines from Kitahonami’s pedigree, along with leading Japanese varieties and advanced breeding lines. Using a mixed linear model corrected for kernel types and familial relatedness, 62 marker-trait associations for flour yield were identified and classified into 21 QTLs. In eighteen of these, Kitahonami alleles showed positive effects. Pedigree analysis demonstrated that a continuous pyramiding of QTLs had occurred throughout the breeding history of Kitahonami. Linkage analyses using three sets of doubled haploid populations from crosses in which Kitahonami was used as a parent were performed, leading to the validation of five of the eight QTLs tested. Among these, QTLs on chromosomes 3B and 7A showed highly significant and consistent effects across the three populations. This study shows that pedigree-based association mapping using breeding materials can be a useful method for QTL identification at the early stages of breeding programs.
Atrial Fibrillation in the Young: A Neurologist's Nightmare

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia seen in clinical practice with prevalence in excess of 33 million worldwide. Although often asymptomatic and until recently considered a “benign” arrhythmia, it is now appreciated that thromboembolism resulting from AF results in significant morbidity and mortality predominantly due to stroke. Although an arrhythmia more commonly affecting the elderly, AF can also occur in the young. This review focuses on the impact of AF in the younger population and discusses the dilemmas of managing younger patients with AF.
Rapid simulation-driven reinforcement learning of multimodal dialog strategies in human-robot interaction

In this work we propose a procedure model for rapid automatic strategy learning in multimodal dialogs. Our approach is tailored for typical task-oriented human-robot dialog interactions, with no prior knowledge about the expected user and system dynamics being present. For such scenarios, we propose the use of stochastic dialog simulation for strategy learning, where the user and sys-tem error models are solely trained through the initial execution of an inexpensive Wizard-of-Oz experiment. We argue that for the addressed dialogs, already a small data corpus combined with a low-conditioned simulation model facilitates learning of strong and complex dialog strategies. To validate our overall approach, we empirically show the supremacy of the learned strategy over a hand-crafted strategy for a concrete human-robot dialog scenario. To the authors’ knowledge, this work is the ﬁrst to perform strategy learning from multimodal dialog simulation.
A pilot randomised controlled trial comparing the effectiveness of the MaTerre180’ participatory tool including a serious game versus an intervention including carbon footprint awareness-raising on behaviours among academia members in France

Background Activities embedded in academic culture (international conferences, field missions) are an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, collective efforts are still needed to lower the carbon footprint of Academia. Serious games are often used to promote ecological transition. Nevertheless, most evaluations of their effects focus on changes in knowledge and not on behaviour. The main objectives of this study are to 1) Evaluate the feasibility of a control and an experimental behaviour change intervention and, 2) Evaluate the fidelity (the extent to which the implementation of the study corresponds to the original design) of both interventions. Methods People employed by a French research organisation (N = 30) will be randomised to one of the two arms. The experimental arm consists in a 1-hour group discussion for raising awareness about climate change, carrying out a carbon footprint assessment and participating to a serious game called “Ma terre en 180 minutes. ” The control arm consists of the same intervention (1h discussion + carbon footprint assessment) but without participating to the serious game. On two occasions over one month, participants will be asked to fill in online surveys about their behaviours, psychological constructs related to behaviour change, sociodemographic and institutional information. For every session of intervention, the facilitators will assess task completion, perceived complexity of the tasks and the perceived responsiveness of participants. Descriptive statistics will be done to analyse percentages and averages of the different outcomes. Discussion Ma-terre EVAL pilot study is a 1-month and a half pilot randomised controlled trial aiming to evaluate the feasibility and the fidelity of a 24-month randomised controlled trial. This study will provide more information on the levers and obstacles to reducing the carbon footprint among Academia members, so that they can be targeted through behaviour change interventions or institutional policies.
What Science Offers the Humanities: Integrating Body and Culture

Introduction Part I. Exorcising the Ghost in the Machine: 1. The disembodied mind 2. They live among us 3. Pulling the plug Part II. Embodying Culture: 4. Embodying culture Part III. Defending Vertical Integration: 5. Defending the empirical 6. Who's afraid of reductionism? Conclusion.
Intraocular pressure and central visual field of normal tension glaucoma

AIM To study whether damage in the central 30° field of normal tension glaucoma (NTG) is relatively heterogeneous or homogeneous with respect to intraocular pressure (IOP) related damage. METHODS Using the results of Humphrey perimeter examinations, the central 30° field was divided into four subfields; superior and inferior hemifields excluding the caecocentral field (30-2 program) and superior and inferior 10° hemifields (10-2 program). In 103 NTG cases, the intraindividual bilateral difference in the mean of total deviations (mean TD) in the four subfields was analysed by multiple linear regression to correct the effects of factors other than IOP. Explanatory variables were the intraindividual bilateral difference in the mean of clinic IOP (IOPmean), that in the ratio of area of peripapillary atrophy corresponding to each subfield to disc area, and that in myopic refraction. RESULTS The intraindividual bilateral difference in the mean TD was significantly and negatively correlated with that in IOPmean in three of the above four subfields (p<0.005) and correlation tended to be negative (p=0.07) in the superior 10° hemifield. CONCLUSIONS Diffuse IOP related damage was suggested in the central 30º field of NTG; greater extent of the damage in the above four subfields was correlated with higher mean IOP. The present findings may have clinical implications.
Extrasynaptic localization is essential for α5GABAA receptor modulation of dopamine system function

Dopamine system dysfunction, observed in animal models with psychosis-like symptomatology, can be restored by targeting Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid type A receptors (GABAAR) containing the α5, but not α1, subunit in the ventral hippocampus (vHipp). The reason for this discrepancy in efficacy remains elusive; however, one key difference is that α1GABAARs are primarily located in the synapse, whereas α5GABAARs are mostly extrasynaptic. To test whether receptor location is responsible for this difference in efficacy, we injected a small interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) into the vHipp to knock down radixin, a scaffolding protein that holds α5GABAARs in the extrasynaptic space. We then administered GL-II-73, a positive allosteric modulator of α5GABAARs (α5-PAM) known to reverse shock-induced deficits in dopamine system function, to determine if shifting α5GABAARs from the extrasynaptic space to the synapse would prevent the effects of α5-PAM on dopamine system function. As expected, knockdown of radixin significantly decreased radixin-associated α5GABAARs and increased the proportion of synaptic α5GABAARs, without changing the overall expression of α5GABAARs. Importantly, GL-II-73 was no longer able to modulate dopamine neuron activity in radixin-knockdown rats, indicating that the extrasynaptic localization of α5GABAARs is critical for hippocampal modulation of the dopamine system. These results may have important implications for clinical use of GL-II-73, as periods of high hippocampal activity appear to favor synaptic α5GABAARs, thus efficacy may be diminished in conditions where aberrant hippocampal activity is present. Significance Statement Dopamine activity is known to be altered in both psychosis patients and in animal models, with promising new antipsychotics restoring normal dopamine system function. One such drug is GL-II-73, a positive allosteric modulator of α5GABAARs (α5-PAM). Interestingly, previous research has shown that a positive allosteric modulator of α1GABAARs (α1-PAM) does not share this ability, even when directly given to the ventral hippocampus, a region known to modulate dopamine activity. One potential explanation for this difference we examined in this study is that α1GABAARs are primarily located in the synapse, whereas α5GABAARs are mostly extrasynaptic. Determining the mechanism of this differential efficacy could lead to the refinement of antipsychotic treatment and improve patient outcomes overall.
Measuring effects of voluntary attention: A comparison among predictive arrow, colour, and number cues

The Posner cueing paradigm is one of the most widely used paradigms in attention research. Importantly, when employing it, it is critical to understand which type of orienting a cue triggers. It has been suggested that large effects elicited by predictive arrow cues reflect an interaction of involuntary and voluntary orienting. This conclusion is based on comparisons of cueing effects of predictive arrows, nonpredictive arrows (involuntary orienting), and predictive numbers (voluntary orienting). Experiment 1 investigated whether this conclusion is restricted to comparisons with number cues and showed similar results to those of previous studies, but now for comparisons to predictive colour cues, indicating that the earlier conclusion can be generalized. Experiment 2 assessed whether the size of a cueing effect is related to the ease of deriving direction information from a cue, based on the rationale that effects for arrows may be larger, because it may be easier to process direction information given by symbols such as arrows than that given by other cues. Indeed, direction information is derived faster and more accurately from arrows than from colour and number cues in a direction judgement task, and cueing effects are larger for arrows than for the other cues. Importantly though, performance in the two tasks is not correlated. Hence, the large cueing effects of arrows are not a result of the ease of information processing, but of the types of orienting that the arrows elicit.
GraphScale: Adding Expressive Reasoning to Semantic Data Stores

We present GraphScale, a technology that empowers semantic data stores with OWL reasoning. It connects a given data store with any state of the art OWL reasoner. The underlying abstraction approach allows to efficiently perform a full materialization of the store based on sound and complete OWL 2 RL reasoning for high-performance querying.
Comprehensive evidence-based review on European antitussives

Acute cough caused by viral respiratory tract infections is probably the most common illness to afflict mankind. Despite the widespread but ineffective prescribing of antibiotics, there is no specific therapy. Home remedies and over-the-counter medicines are the mainstay for treatment of this short-lived but debilitating condition where cough is a major troublesome symptom. Across Europe, there are large variations in the recommendations made by healthcare professionals for the treatment of acute cough. This has arisen through custom and practice based on the evidence of historical studies performed to standards well short of what would be considered legitimate today. Acute cough is particularly difficult to study in a controlled setting because of the high rate of spontaneous remission and a large placebo effect. Here we detail the validated modern methodology used to assess the efficacy of antitussives and review the drugs commonly used in Europe against these standards.
Fuzzy Adaptive Actuator Failure Compensation Control of Uncertain Stochastic Nonlinear Systems With Unmodeled Dynamics

This paper investigates fuzzy adaptive actuator failure compensation control for a class of uncertain stochastic nonlinear systems in strict-feedback form. These stochastic nonlinear systems contain the actuator faults of both loss of effectiveness and lock-in-place, unmodeled dynamics, and without direct measurements of state variables. With the help of fuzzy logic systems to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions, a fuzzy state observer is established to estimate the unmeasured states. By introducing the dynamical signal and the changing supply function technique design into the backstepping control design, a robust adaptive fuzzy fault-tolerant control scheme is developed. It is proved that the proposed control approach can guarantee that all the signals of the closed-loop system are bounded in probability in the presence of the actuator failures and the unmodeled dynamics. Simulation results are provided to show the effectiveness of the control approach.
Problem-solving therapy for people who present to hospital with self-harm: Zelen randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND Presentations to hospital with self-harm are common, associated with suicide and have an increased mortality, yet there is no accepted effective intervention. AIMS To investigate whether problem-solving therapy would improve outcomes in adults presenting to hospital with self-harm, compared with usual care. METHOD A Zelen randomised controlled trial was conducted in four district health boards in New Zealand. A second hospital presentation with self-harm at 1 year for all episodes, plus separate comparisons of first-time and repeat presentations at the index episode, were the a priori primary outcomes. The trial registration number was ACTRN12605000337673. RESULTS In an intention-to-treat analysis of all randomised patients (n = 1094) there was no significant difference at 12 months in the proportion of people who had presented again with self-harm when comparing all episodes (intervention 13.4%, usual care 14.1%; relative risk reduction RR = 0.05, 95% CI -0.28 to 0.30, P = 0.79) or where the index episode was the first episode (intervention 13.4%, usual care 9.4%, RR = -0.42, 95% CI -1.17 to 0.08, P = 0.37). Where the index episode was repeated self-harm, those who received therapy were less likely to present again with self-harm (intervention 13.5%, usual care 22.1%, RR = 0.39, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.60, number needed to treat 12, P = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS Problem-solving therapy is not recommended for everyone who presents to hospital with self-harm. Among adults with a history of self-harm it may be an effective intervention.
10Gb/s 15mW optical receiver with integrated Germanium photodetector and hybrid inductor peaking in 0.13µm SOI CMOS technology

As data networks scale to meet increasing bandwidth requirements, the shortcomings of copper channels are becoming more apparent. Dispersion, attenuation, and crosstalk are the main impediments. They can be mitigated with equalization, coding, and shielding, but these techniques carry considerable power, complexity, and cable bulk penalties while offering only modest improvements in reach and limited scalability. Optical communication has been recognized as the successor to copper links; however, high cost of optical transceivers—a result of low degree of integration and reliance on exotic materials and technologies—has limited their proliferation outside of the long-haul systems. This paper presents a receiver developed using a silicon photonics technology platform that enables monolithic optoelectronic device integration in a low-cost CMOS process.
Aging and the Exercise Pressor Reflex in Humans

Background—Blood flow limitation to exercising muscles engages the muscle reflex during exercise, evoking an increase in heart rate (HR), blood pressure (BP), and muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA). Methods and Results—In the current study, we examined forearm flow and autonomic responses to ischemic handgrip in young and older subjects. We studied 6 younger subjects (mean age 23.5±2.2 years) and 7 older subjects (mean age 65.0±2.4 years). Subjects performed rhythmic handgrip (thirty 1-sec contractions/min) at 30% maximal voluntary contraction during six 1-minute stages: freely perfused exercise (E1) and exercise with forearm pressure of +10, +20, +30, +40, and +50 mm Hg (E2 through E6). We measured HR, BP, MSNA, forearm flow velocity, forearm venous oxygen saturation, H+, and lactate. Compared with E1, ischemic exercise (E2 through E6) increased HR, BP, and MSNA, reduced forearm velocity, lowered venous oxygen saturation, and raised venous lactate and H+. Compared with the younger subjects, the older subjects had attenuated BP at E6, attenuated MSNA indices (%&Dgr;bursts, bursts/100 heart beats and signal averaged MSNA), attenuated H+ at E6, a trend toward higher levels of oxygen saturation, and similar forearm velocity and HR responses. Conclusions—Aging attenuates the muscle reflex.
A Hybrid Approach with Modular Neural Networks and Fuzzy Logic for Time Series Prediction

We describe in this paper the application of several neural network architectures to the problem of simulating and predicting the dynamic behavior of complex economic time series. We use several neural network models and training algorithms to compare the results and decide at the end, which one is best for this application. We also compare the simulation results with the traditional approach of using a statistical model. In this case, we use real time series of prices of consumer goods to test our models. Real prices of tomato in the U.S. and Mexico show complex fluctuations in time and are very complicated to predict with traditional approaches.
Editorial message: special track on web technologies and applications

The special track on Web Technologies and Applications is already at its fourth edition and has seen a constant evolution in the research issues. Currently, Web applications are required to rely on open, flexible, adaptable, and distributed infrastructure and to be ubiquitous, highly scalable, reliable, accessible from different devices, and personalized with respect to various user requirements. Web applications are becoming increasingly complex thereby creating a need for appropriate theoretical foundations, development methodologies, and supporting technology, drawing on different areas of computer science such as databases, artificial intelligence, programming languages, distributed computing, information retrieval, semantic modeling, human-computer interaction, etc.
Diversity and Distribution of Benthic Polychaetes of Nizampatnam Bay, Bay of Bengal

Diversity and Distribution of Benthic Polychaetes of Nizampatnam Bay, Bay of Bengal A study was carried out to observe the diversity and distribution of soft bottom macrobenthic polychaetes in Nizampatnam bay, Bay of Bengal. The aim of this study is to determine patterns of abundance, species richness and community structure along with the influence of environmental parameters on the diversity of polychaetes collected from the Nizampatnam Bay. Four cruises were conducted during 2006 to 2008 covering 20 stations along the Bay having a maximum depth of 40 m. Altogether 128 infaunal samples (van Veen grab 0.1 m2) were collected from the bay along with the hydrographical and sediment samples. Polychaete diversity indices S, N, d and H' were higher in the stations located nearer to the shoreline (15 m). Temporally post-monsoon seasons supported high polychaete diversity than pre-monsoon season. Multivariate analyses were used to define assemblages named after the most important (determining) taxon. Occurrence of Prionospio pinnata and Capitella capitata, the deposit feeders and indicators of organic pollution suggested that the stations that lie nearer the shore are organically rich. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed that depth, sediment organic matter and sediment mean size influenced polychaete distribution. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed that majority of polychaete species were deposit feeders and they preferred high organic carbon and clayey silt substratum.