Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Microstructure and phase transformation of zinc titanate thin films

ZnTiO<inf>3</inf> have excellent microwave dielectric properties, can be as high-frequency (≫ 10 GHz) capacitors among the passive components industry. In this study, the microstructures and phase transformations of zinc titanate thin films were investigated. Zinc titanate thin films were synthesized on SiO<inf>2</inf>/Si(100) substrates by RF magnetron sputtering using a sintered ceramics target of ZnTiO<inf>3</inf> at various Ar/O<inf>2</inf> mixing ratios (100/0, 90/10, 80/20), the substrate temperatures ranging from 25 to 400 °C and then the as-deposited films were annealed at temperatures ranging from 600 to 900 °C. The samples were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). A single phase of ZnTiO<inf>3</inf> (hexagonal) films could be obtained and existed at substrate temperatures of 400 °C, and annealing temperatures between 700 and 800 °C for 2h. However, it is found the hexagonal ZnTiO<inf>3</inf> decomposes into cubic Zn<inf>2</inf>TiO<inf>4</inf> and rutile TiO<inf>2</inf> at annealing temperature 900 °C. This result is unlike to bulk ZnTiO<inf>3</inf> ceramics which the hexagonal ZnTiO<inf>3</inf> phase remains stable at temperatures below 945°C, and then it decomposes to the cubic Zn<inf>2</inf>TiO<inf>4</inf> and TiO<inf>2</inf> phases at 945°C, as indicated in the phase diagram of ZnO-TiO<inf>2</inf>. However, the unit cell size of the ZnTiO<inf>3</inf> films crystal is a = ∼5.075 Å, c = ∼ 13.85 Å. In addition, Zn<inf>2</inf>Ti<inf>3</inf>O<inf>8</inf> phase was observed when the substrate temperature is below 300 °C to accompany with annealing temperature at 800 °C.
BOLD signal and functional connectivity associated with loving kindness meditation

Loving kindness is a form of meditation involving directed well‐wishing, typically supported by the silent repetition of phrases such as “may all beings be happy,” to foster a feeling of selfless love. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the neural substrate of loving kindness meditation in experienced meditators and novices. We first assessed group differences in blood oxygen level‐dependent (BOLD) signal during loving kindness meditation. We next used a relatively novel approach, the intrinsic connectivity distribution of functional connectivity, to identify regions that differ in intrinsic connectivity between groups, and then used a data‐driven approach to seed‐based connectivity analysis to identify which connections differ between groups. Our findings suggest group differences in brain regions involved in self‐related processing and mind wandering, emotional processing, inner speech, and memory. Meditators showed overall reduced BOLD signal and intrinsic connectivity during loving kindness as compared to novices, more specifically in the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus (PCC/PCu), a finding that is consistent with our prior work and other recent neuroimaging studies of meditation. Furthermore, meditators showed greater functional connectivity during loving kindness between the PCC/PCu and the left inferior frontal gyrus, whereas novices showed greater functional connectivity during loving kindness between the PCC/PCu and other cortical midline regions of the default mode network, the bilateral posterior insula lobe, and the bilateral parahippocampus/hippocampus. These novel findings suggest that loving kindness meditation involves a present‐centered, selfless focus for meditators as compared to novices.
Recent Advances in the Molecular Genetics of Hereditary Retinal Dystrophies with Primary Involvement of the Macula

Hereditary dystrophies of the central retina and choroid are a heterogeneous group of disorders characterized by preferential loss of macular function and consequently loss of central and color vision. The primary causes leading to the degenerative processes are largely unknown although recent progress in human molecular genetics is most promising in providing novel insights into the basic biochemical mechanisms of these dystrophies. To date, the disease loci of more than 20 maculopathies including cone and cone-rod dystrophies have been mapped to specific chromosomal regions of which seven disease genes have already been identified. As the goals of the Human Genome Initiative approach completion, the cloning of the genes involved in the etiology of human retinopathies will be greatly simplified providing the basis for a more comprehensive understanding of retinal function and dysfunction. In addition, these advances will facilitate the identification of individuals at risk at a presymptomatic or initial stage of disease, thus creating a unique opportunity to devise novel therapeutic strategies that will primarily be aimed at an early intervention with the potential to either delay or even prevent the development of disease pathology.
Detrimental effects of noise on anaesthetists

To study the detrimental effects of operating room noise, noise levels in operating rooms were first measured and the average noise level was calculated in Decibels, which was 77.32 dB(A). An audiocassette of 90 min duration was prepared recording the operating room noise. The same audiocassette was used later to expose the 20 anaesthesia residents to the operating room noise in the acoustically treated rooms of audiology department. The noise level during exposure was maintained at 77.32 dB(A). Two cognitive functions, mental efficiency and short-term memory were studied. The tests used were the Trail Making Test and Digit Symbol Test for mental efficiency and the Benton Visual Retention Test for short-term memory. The mean pre-exposure scores for the Trail Making Test, Digit Symbol Test and Benton Visual Retention Test were 22.9± 1.94, 83± 2.62 and 9.55± 0.51 respectively. The mean during-exposure scores were 16.35± 1.39, 74.05± 3.46 and 5.8± 0.41 respectively (P < 0.05). In conclusion, we observed that operating room noise reduced the mental efficiency and short-term memory of anaesthesia residents. RésuméPour étudier en salle d’opération ses effets nocifs, le niveau du bruit a été établi à une valeur moyenne de 77,32 dB(A) calculée en décibels. Les bruits de la salle d’opération ont ensuite été enregistré apendant 90 min sur audiocassette. Grâce à celle-ci, on a pu exposer 20 résidents en anesthésie aux bruits de la salle d’opération dans la salle acoustique du département d’audiologie. Pendant cette expérience, le niveau de bruit a été maintenu à 77,32 dB(A). Deux fonctions cognitives, l’efficience mentale et la mémoire à court terme ont été étudiées. L’efficience mentale a été évaluée avec le test du tracé à la main et le test des symboles numériques, et la mémoire à court terme, avec le test de rétention visuelle de Benton. Avant l’exposition au bruit, les scores moyens pour le test du tracé, pour le test des symboles numériques et pour le test de rétention visuelle de Benton étaient respectivement de 22,9± 1,94, de 83± 2,62, et de 9,55± 0,51. Durant l’exposition au bruit, la moyenne des scores se situait à 16,35± 1,39, à 74,05± 3,46 et à 5,80± 0,41 respectivement (P < 0,05). En conclusion, nous avons observé que le bruit de la salle d’opération diminuait l’efficience mentale et la mémoire à court terme des résidents en anesthésie.
PFLEIDERER 2: IDENTIFICATION OF A NEW GLOBULAR CLUSTER IN THE GALAXY

We provide evidence that indicates the star cluster Pfleiderer 2, which is projected in a rich field, as a newly identified Galactic globular cluster. Since it is located in a crowded field, core extraction and decontamination tools were applied to reveal the cluster sequences in B, V, and I color–magnitude diagrams (CMDs). The main CMD features of Pfleiderer 2 are a tilted red giant branch and a red horizontal branch, indicating a high metallicity around solar. The reddening is E(B − V) = 1.01. The globular cluster is located at a distance of d☉ = 16 ± 2 kpc from the Sun. The cluster is located 2.7 kpc above the Galactic plane and at a distance of RGC = 9.7 kpc from the Galactic center, which is unusual for a metal-rich globular cluster.
Indexing Vocabularies : Reference vs . Content

A search engine is only as good as its ability to pair people with the information they need. Current search technology is moderately successful when asked to satisfy simple information needs, but inadequate for complex, research-oriented tasks in which fine distinctions between documents are necessary. As a means of enhancing the ability of researchers to find the information they need I present a new indexing technique based on the words used in reference to documents. While others have also suggested the use of referential text (hypertext) in indexing documents, my approach is novel in that it identifies not just the most recommended documents, but also the subjects for which these documents are highly recommended. It is therefore better able to distinguish popular but irrelevant documents from those which will be more useful to an information seeker. In this chapter I present a study of the indexing vocabulary provided by reference in a collection of academic research papers. Using content as a baseline for comparison, I measure reference against the metrics of topical precision, identification of meta-information, and term diversity. The results of this study indicate that the words authors of research papers use in reference to the documents they cite identify the subjects of those documents and other important features with precision, using a vocabulary that recognizes many different ways of describing the same idea. Document Indexing Vocabularies: Reference vs. Content
On the chronobiology of seasonal affective disorder

Chronobiological hypotheses about the pathogenesis of affective disorders have a long history. According to the modern variants, abnormalities of either a sleep-wake cycle dependent process S, or a circadian pacemaker related process C, or an abnor-mal interaction between these two processes underlie the pathogenesis of depres-sion. However, up till now, research did not yield consistent support for these theo-ries. The development of the forced desynchrony protocol for the study of the human circadian system and the observed effects of extraocular light stimuli on this system offered the opportunity to reinvestigate this issue. In this thesis these opportunities have been utilized to test chronobiological hypotheses in winter-type Seasonal Affective Disorder.
Learning an Expert from Human Annotations in Statistical Machine Translation: the Case of Out-of-Vocabulary Words

We present a general method for incorporating an “expert” model into a Statistical Machine Translation (SMT) system, in order to improve its performance on a particular “area of expertise”, and apply this method to the specific task of finding adequate replacements for Out-of-Vocabulary (OOV) words. Candidate replacements are paraphrases and entailed phrases, obtained using monolingual resources. These candidate replacements are transformed into “dynamic biphrases”, generated at decoding time based on the context of each source sentence. Standard SMT features are enhanced with a number of new features aimed at scoring translations produced by using different replacements. Active learning is used to discriminatively train the model parameters from human assessments of the quality of translations. The learning framework yields an SMT system which is able to deal with sentences containing OOV words but also guarantees that the performance is not degraded for input sentences without OOV words. Results of experiments on English-French translation show that this method outperforms previous work addressing OOV words in terms of acceptability.
Decrease of ventral tegmental area dopamine neuronal activity in nicotine withdrawal rats

The present study was designed to examine the ventral tegmental area (VTA) dopamine neuronal activity in nicotine withdrawal rats by means of in vivo single-unit extracellular recordings. Animals were treated with nicotine base (6 mg/kg/day, s.c.) four times daily for 12 days. One day after the last nicotine administration, the firing rates of the VTA dopamine neurons were found to be significantly decreased. Following 2, 3, 5 and 10 days of nicotine withdrawal, however, the firing rates returned to the control levels. The number of spontaneously active dopamine cells was not altered at any time points. The results indicate that the VTA dopamine neuronal activity is reduced during the first day of nicotine withdrawal.
Image Segmentation Method by Combining Watersheds and Ant Colony Clustering

Aimed at resolving the problems of sensitivity to noise and over-segmentation existing in traditional watershed algorithm, we presents a new image segmentation method - combining watersheds and ant colony clustering(CWAC). Firstly, the image is initially segmented using watershed algorithm. Then, ant colony clustering algorithm is used to merge different regions of homogeneity to gain the final result of segmentation. We use intensity and spatial information from watershed transform to define a new visibility which can get more accuracy and efficient clustering ant colony. Experiments show that CWAC algorithm can successfully solve over-segmentation problem and at the same time it can reduce the computational times of ant colony clustering. So CWAC can segment objective quickly and accurately and it is practicable method for the image segmentation.
Serum Levels of Follistatin Are Positively Associated With Serum-Free Thyroxine Levels in Patients With Hyperthyroidism or Euthyroidism

Abstract Follistatin is a glycoprotein with various biologic functions that plays a role in adipocyte differentiation, muscle stimulation, anti-inflammation, and energy homeostasis. Thyroid hormones influence energy expenditure, glucose, and lipid metabolism. The association between serum follistatin level and thyroid function statuses has seldom been evaluated. The objectives of this study were to compare serum follistatin concentrations in different thyroid function statuses and to evaluate the associations between serum follistatin and free thyroxine (fT4) levels. In this study, 30 patients with hyperthyroidism (HY group) and 30 euthyroid individuals (EU group) were recruited. The patients of HY group were treated with antithyroid regimens as clinically indicated, whereas no medication was given to EU group. The demographic and anthropometric characteristics, biochemical data, serum levels of follistatin, and thyroid function of both groups at baseline and at the 6th month were compared. Data of all patients were pooled for the analysis of the associations between the levels of follistatin and fT4. At baseline, the HY group had significantly higher serum follistatin levels than the EU group (median [Q1, Q3]: 1.81 [1.33, 2.78] vs 1.13 [0.39, 1.45] ng/mL, P < 0.001). When treated with antithyroid regimens, the follistatin serum levels in HY group decreased to 1.54 [1.00, 1.88] ng/mL at the 6th month. In all patients, the serum levels of follistatin were positively associated with fT4 levels at baseline (&bgr; = 0.54, P = 0.005) and at the 6th month (&bgr; = 0.59, P < 0.001). The association between follistatin and fT4 levels remained significant in the stepwise multivariate regression analysis, both initially and at the 6th month. In comparison to the EU group, patients with hyperthyroidism had higher serum follistatin levels, which decreased after receiving antithyroid treatment. In addition, the serum follistatin concentrations were positively associated with serum fT4 levels in patients with hyperthyroidism or euthyroidism.
Picornaviruses and nuclear functions: targeting a cellular compartment distinct from the replication site of a positive-strand RNA virus

The compartmentalization of DNA replication and gene transcription in the nucleus and protein production in the cytoplasm is a defining feature of eukaryotic cells. The nucleus functions to maintain the integrity of the nuclear genome of the cell and to control gene expression based on intracellular and environmental signals received through the cytoplasm. The spatial separation of the major processes that lead to the expression of protein-coding genes establishes the necessity of a transport network to allow biomolecules to translocate between these two regions of the cell. The nucleocytoplasmic transport network is therefore essential for regulating normal cellular functioning. The Picornaviridae virus family is one of many viral families that disrupt the nucleocytoplasmic trafficking of cells to promote viral replication. Picornaviruses contain positive-sense, single-stranded RNA genomes and replicate in the cytoplasm of infected cells. As a result of the limited coding capacity of these viruses, cellular proteins are required by these intracellular parasites for both translation and genomic RNA replication. Being of messenger RNA polarity, a picornavirus genome can immediately be translated upon entering the cell cytoplasm. However, the replication of viral RNA requires the activity of RNA-binding proteins, many of which function in host gene expression, and are consequently localized to the nucleus. As a result, picornaviruses disrupt nucleocytoplasmic trafficking to exploit protein functions normally localized to a different cellular compartment from which they translate their genome to facilitate efficient replication. Furthermore, picornavirus proteins are also known to enter the nucleus of infected cells to limit host-cell transcription and down-regulate innate antiviral responses. The interactions of picornavirus proteins and host-cell nuclei are extensive, required for a productive infection, and are the focus of this review.
Ancillary service to the grid from deferrable loads: The case for intelligent pool pumps in Florida

Renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power have a high degree of unpredictability and time-variation, which makes balancing demand and supply challenging. One possible way to address this challenge is to harness the inherent flexibility in demand of many types of loads. We focus on pool pumps, and how they can be used to provide ancillary service to the grid for maintaining demand-supply balance. A Markovian Decision Process (MDP) model is introduced for an individual pool pump. A randomized control architecture is proposed, motivated by the need for decentralized decision making, and the need to avoid synchronization that can lead to large and detrimental spikes in demand. An aggregate model for a large number of pools is then developed by examining the mean field limit. A key innovation is an LTI-system approximation of the aggregate nonlinear model, with a scalar signal as the input and a measure of the aggregate demand as the output. This makes the approximation particularly convenient for control design at the grid level. Simulations are provided to illustrate the accuracy of the approximations and effectiveness of the proposed control approach.
Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions Aimed at Anger of Parents at Risk of Child Abuse

IN THE AREA of child abuse, theory and interventive strategy suggest that a focus on the immediacy of the interaction be tween parent and child is useful. Kadushin and Martin criticize the failure to imple ment such an orientation in practice: "The literature on child abuse has paid far more attention to the more peripheral, psycho dynamic, developmental, social and cultural variables with an almost complete indifference to the immediate, contextual, phenomenological variables. "1 Recently, this conceptual orientation has been para lleled by an emphasis on an interventive approach of an "immediate, contextual, and phenomenological nature"—cogni tive-behavioral techniques. The pertinence of cognitive-behavioral interventions for social work has been noted by Berlin, and the particular relevance of the intervention for work with child-abusing parents has been detailed by Azar and Twentyman.2 In both research study and clinical prac tice, a cognitive-behavioral intervention typically is an assemblage of techniques such as cognitive restructuring, role modeling, behavioral rehearsal, and prob lem solving.3 The intent of such "packag ing" of component techniques is to achieve maximum possible intervention. However, two problems arise from this procedure. The first problem is the difficulty isolating the particular treatment technique or tech niques that actually contribute to the behavioral effect. The second problem is the loss or minimization of an explicit ra tionale relating various interventional com ponents and the underlying psychological tendencies that are presumed affected, whether cognitive, emotional, or motiva tional tendencies.
High Performance Architecture for Elliptic Curve Scalar Multiplication over GF(2m)

We propose a new architecture for performing Elliptic Curve Scalar Multiplication (ECSM) on elliptic curves over GF (2). This architecture maximizes the parallelism that the proj ective version of the Montgomery ECSM algorithm can achieve. It completes one ECSM operation in about 2(m−1)(dm/De+4)+m cycles, and is at least three times the speed of the best known result currently available. When imp le ented on a Virtex-4 FPGA, it completes one ECSM operation overGF (2) in 12. 5μs with the maximum achievable frequency of 222MHz. Two other i mplementation variants for less resource consumption are also proposed. O ur first variant reduces the resource consumption by almost 50% while still maintaining the utilization efficiency, whi ch is measured by a performance to resource consumption ratio. Our second variant achieves the best utilization effi ci ncy and in our actual implementation on an elliptic curve group overGF (2), it gives more than 30% reduction on resource consumption wh ile maintaining almost the same speed of computation as that of our original design. For achi eving this high performance, we also propose a modified finite field inversion algorithm which takes only m cycles to invert an element over GF (2), rather than2m cycles as the traditional Extended Euclid algorithm does, and this new design yields much better utilization of the cycle time.
Smooth and non-smooth wavelet basis for capturing and representing light

Indirectly estimating light sources from scene images and modeling the light distribution is an important, but difcult problem in computer vision. A practical solution is of value both as input to other computer vision algorithms and in graphics rendering. For instance, photometric stereo and shape from shading requires known light. With estimated light such techniques could be applied in everyday environments, outside of controlled lab conditions. Light estimated from images is also helpful in augmented reality in order to consistently relight an articially introduced object. While algorithms that recover light as individual point light sources work for simple illumination environments, it has been shown that a basis representation achieves better results for complex illumination. In this paper we propose a light model that uses Daubechies wavelets and a method for recovering light from cast shadows and specular highlights in images. We assume that the geometry is known for part of the scene. In everyday images, one can often obtain a CAD model of man-made objects (e.g. a car), but the rest of the scene is unknown. Experimentally, we tested our method for difcult cases of both uniform and textured objects and under complex geometry and light conditions. We evaluate the stability of estimation and quality of scene relighting using our smooth wavelet representation compared to a non-smooth Haar basis and two other popular light representations (a discrete set of innite light sources and a global spherical harmonics basis). We show good results using the proposed Daubechies basis on both synthetic and real datasets.