Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Electroencephalographic effects of ketamine on power, cross-frequency coupling, and connectivity in the alpha bandwidth

Recent studies of propofol-induced unconsciousness have identified characteristic properties of electroencephalographic alpha rhythms that may be mediated by drug activity at γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors in the thalamus. However, the effect of ketamine (a primarily non-GABAergic anesthetic drug) on alpha oscillations has not been systematically evaluated. We analyzed the electroencephalogram of 28 surgical patients during consciousness and ketamine-induced unconsciousness with a focus on frontal power, frontal cross-frequency coupling, frontal-parietal functional connectivity (measured by coherence and phase lag index), and frontal-to-parietal directional connectivity (measured by directed phase lag index) in the alpha bandwidth. Unlike past studies of propofol, ketamine-induced unconsciousness was not associated with increases in the power of frontal alpha rhythms, characteristic cross-frequency coupling patterns of frontal alpha power and slow-oscillation phase, or decreases in coherence in the alpha bandwidth. Like past studies of propofol using undirected and directed phase lag index, ketamine reduced frontal-parietal (functional) and frontal-to-parietal (directional) connectivity in the alpha bandwidth. These results suggest that directional connectivity changes in the alpha bandwidth may be state-related markers of unconsciousness induced by both GABAergic and non-GABAergic anesthetics.
Magnetic Particle Imaging With Tailored Iron Oxide Nanoparticle Tracers

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) shows promise for medical imaging, particularly in angiography of patients with chronic kidney disease. As the first biomedical imaging technique that truly depends on nanoscale materials properties, MPI requires highly optimized magnetic nanoparticle tracers to generate quality images. Until now, researchers have relied on tracers optimized for MRI T2*-weighted imaging that are sub-optimal for MPI. Here, we describe new tracers tailored to MPI's unique physics, synthesized using an organic-phase process and functionalized to ensure biocompatibility and adequate in vivo circulation time. Tailored tracers showed up to 3 × greater signal-to-noise ratio and better spatial resolution than existing commercial tracers in MPI images of phantoms.
Reflexões de introdução [a "Comunicação organizacional e relações públicas: horizontes e perspetivas. Relatório de um debate"]

Resumo Partindo do pressuposto que as relações públicas ”têm um papel social, político e económico” (Ramalho, 1982) então, assume-se que são construtoras de realidade enquanto produtoras de significados, de simbolismos e definidoras de uma narrativa e que nessa medida a sua actuação se desenrola a um nível de intervenção estratégico. O quadro de referência que se propõe para consubstanciar a posição acima afirmada passa por considerar e defender que as relações públicas enquanto produtoras de significados, simbolismos e definidoras de uma narrativa, logo construtoras de realidade, o são na medida em que estudam a identidade, os relacionamentos com os públicos e os valores da organização e que estes estudos situam a sua actuação a um nível estratégico de intervenção. O artigo aqui apresentado faz uma breve explanação do conceito de identidade organizacional, do conceito de relacionamento das organizações com os públicos e do conceito de valores organizacionais, para finalmente cruzar estes conceitos com os vários contributos de escolas e correntes do pensamento estratégico justificando deste modo os prossupostos e quadro de referência proposto.
Reduction in the Density and Expression, But Not G-Protein Coupling, of Serotonin Receptors (5-HT1A) in 5-HT Transporter Knock-Out Mice: Gender and Brain Region Differences

The aim of the present study was to investigate the mechanisms underlying the desensitization of 5-HT1A receptors in the dorsal raphe and hypothalamus of serotonin (5-HT) transporter knock-out mice (5-HTT −/−). The density of 5-HT1A receptors in the dorsal raphe was reduced in both male and female 5-HTT −/− mice. This reduction was more extensive in female than in male 5-HTT −/− mice. 8-OH-DPAT-induced hypothermia was absent in female 5-HTT −/− and markedly attenuated in 5-HTT +/− mice. The density of 5-HT1A receptors also was decreased significantly in several nuclei of the hypothalamus, amygdala, and septum of female 5-HTT −/− mice. 5-HT1A receptor mRNA was reduced significantly in the dorsal raphe region, but not in the hypothalamus or hippocampus, of female 5-HTT +/− and 5-HTT −/− mice. G-protein coupling to 5-HT1A receptors and G-protein levels in most brain regions were not reduced significantly, except that Go and Gi1 proteins were reduced modestly in the midbrain of 5-HTT −/− mice. These data suggest that the desensitization of 5-HT1A receptors in 5-HTT −/− mice may be attributable to a reduction in the density of 5-HT1A receptors. This reduction is brain region-specific and more extensive in the female mice. The reduction in the density of 5-HT1A receptors may be mediated partly by reduction in the gene expression of 5-HT1A receptors in the dorsal raphe, but also by other mechanisms in the hypothalamus of 5-HTT −/− female mice. Finally, alterations in G-protein coupling to 5-HT1Areceptors are unlikely to be involved in the desensitization of 5-HT1A receptors in 5-HTT −/− mice.
The RUB/Nedd8 conjugation pathway is required for early development in Arabidopsis

The related‐to‐ubiquitin (RUB) protein is post‐translationally conjugated to the cullin subunit of the SCF (SKP1, Cullin, F‐box) class of ubiquitin protein ligases. Although the precise biochemical function of RUB modification is unclear, studies indicate that the modification is important for SCF function. In Arabidopsis, RUB modification of CUL1 is required for normal function of SCFTIR1, an E3 required for response to the plant hormone auxin. In this report we show that an Arabidopsis protein called RCE1 functions as a RUB‐conjugating enzyme in vivo. A mutation in the RCE1 gene results in a phenotype like that of the axr1 mutant. Most strikingly, plants deficient in both RCE1 and AXR1 have an embryonic phenotype similar to mp and bdl mutants, previously shown to be deficient in auxin signaling. Based on these results, we suggest that the RUB‐conjugation pathway is required for auxin‐dependent pattern formation in the developing embryo. In addition, we show that RCE1 interacts directly with the RING protein RBX1 and is present in a stable complex with SCF. We propose that RBX1 functions as an E3 for RUB modification of CUL1.
RegulonDB (version 6.0): gene regulation model of Escherichia coli K-12 beyond transcription, active (experimental) annotated promoters and Textpresso navigation

RegulonDB (http://regulondb.ccg.unam.mx/) is the primary reference database offering curated knowledge of the transcriptional regulatory network of Escherichia coli K12, currently the best-known electronically encoded database of the genetic regulatory network of any free-living organism. This paper summarizes the improvements, new biology and new features available in version 6.0. Curation of original literature is, from now on, up to date for every new release. All the objects are supported by their corresponding evidences, now classified as strong or weak. Transcription factors are classified by origin of their effectors and by gene ontology class. We have now computational predictions for σ54 and five different promoter types of the σ70 family, as well as their corresponding −10 and −35 boxes. In addition to those curated from the literature, we added about 300 experimentally mapped promoters coming from our own high-throughput mapping efforts. RegulonDB v.6.0 now expands beyond transcription initiation, including RNA regulatory elements, specifically riboswitches, attenuators and small RNAs, with their known associated targets. The data can be accessed through overviews of correlations about gene regulation. RegulonDB associated original literature, together with more than 4000 curation notes, can now be searched with the Textpresso text mining engine.
Gramian-based optimal design of a dynamic stroke amplifier compliant micro-mechanism

This paper presents a new method developed for the optimal design of microrobotic compliant mechanisms. It is based on a flexible building block method, called Flexln, which uses an evolutionary approach, to optimize a truss-like structure made of building blocks. From the first design step, in addition to conventional mechanical criteria, dynamic gramian- based metrics can be considered in the optimization procedure to fit expected frequency responses of the synthesized mechanisms. A planar monolithic compliant coupling structure is obtained by the optimal design method to act as a stroke amplifier for piezoelectric stacked actuators, to operate in both static and dynamic motions, and to passively filter out undesirable vibrations. Finally, performance comparisons between some of the pseudo-optimal Flexln synthetized compliant mechanisms demonstrate the interests of the proposed optimization method for the design of dynamic operating smart microrobotic structures.
An evaluation of the AWS Entry Level Welder Training Program

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a training program for Entry Level Welders and to provide this information to the American Welding Society (AWS), industry, and educators. The problem of this study was to evaluate the AWS Entry Level Welder Training Program (ELWTP) by obtaining the opinions of faculty members who taught the program and welders who had completed the program. Two groups comprised the research population for this study. The first group consisted of faculty members who were actually involved in teaching the course at institutions accredited by the AWS to offer the curriculum. The second group consisted of all graduates of the program registered as Certified Entry Level Welders. There were 118 Certified Entry Level Welders and 251 registered institutions (faculty) on lists furnished by the AWS. A questionnaire was developed based on the curriculum guidelines presented in AWS Manual EG2.0-95, Guide for Training and Qualification of Welding Personnel-Entry Level Welders. These guidelines direct the institutions in providing competency-based training that leads to the certification of trainees in accordance with AWS specifications. The ELWTP consists of six Courses which are further divided into 65 Learning Objectives. These Courses Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and Learning Objectives provided the framework for the questionnaire. Respondents (faculty and graduates) were asked to evaluate the course content of each of the 65 Learning Objectives by means of a five-point Likert Scale, and the means for welders and faculty were compared. The results of the study indicated that, of the six ELWTP Courses, only Course B. Drawing and Welding Symbol Interpretation had a preference by both welders and faculty to have the course content "Increased Slightly. " In general, both welders and faculty members were satisfied with the Courses and Learning Objectives as offered by the ELWTP with welders slightly favoring increases in instructional content. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
AI-1003 The University of Texas at Austin

This paper develops generalizations of empowerment to continuous states. Empowerment is a recently introduced information-theoretic quantity motivated by hypotheses about the efficiency of the sensorimotor loop in biological organisms, but also from considerations stemming from curiositydriven learning. Empowemerment measures, for agent-environment systems with stochastic transitions, how much influence an agent has on its environment, but only that influence that can be sensed by the agent sensors. It is an information-theoretic generalization of joint controllability (influence on environment) and observability (measurement by sensors) of the environment by the agent, both controllability and observability being usually defined in control theory as the dimensionality of the control/observation spaces. Earlier work has shown that empowerment has various interesting and relevant properties, e.g., it allows us to identify salient states using only the dynamics, and it can act as intrinsic reward without requiring an external reward. However, in this previous work empowerment was limited to the case of small-scale and discrete domains and furthermore state transition probabilities were assumed to be known. The goal of this paper is to extend empowerment to the significantly more important and relevant case of continuous vector-valued state spaces and initially unknown state transition probabilities. The continuous state space is addressed by Monte-Carlo approximation; the unknown transitions are addressed by model learning and prediction for which we apply Gaussian processes regression with iterated forecasting. In a number of well-known continuous control tasks we examine the dynamics induced by empowerment and include an application to exploration and online model-learning.
Constructing More Reliable Protein-Protein Interaction Maps

Progress in high-throughput experimental techniques in the past decade has resulted in a rapid accumulation of protein-protein interaction data [27, 17, 28]. High-quality protein-protein interaction maps are useful for a deeper understanding of how proteins may together to carry out specific functions. However, high-throughput methods are known to yield a non-negligible rate of false positives, and to miss a fraction of existing interactions [28, 26, 10]. As a result, further carefully-focused small-scale experiments are often needed to complement the large-scale methods to validate the detected interactions. Therefore computational analysis techniques for assessing and ranking the reliability of a protein-protein interaction are highly desirable.
Triagem cognitiva nas doenças cerebrovasculares : processo de construção e propriedades psicométricas do instrumento TRIACOG

This doctoral dissertation discusses theoretical and empirical aspects of the neuropsychological assessment in cerebrovascular diseases, proposing the construction of a cognitive screening instrument. The thesis was divided into four studies. The Study 1 presents steps and criteria to construct and adapt neuropsychological instruments. In this study, was highlighted the importance to have a theoretical basis to development the items of a test, besides the contribution of psychometry, neuropsycholinguistics, experimental psychology and information processing models. The Study 2 is a systematic review that analyzed the psychometric properties of neuropsychological instruments to evaluate stroke samples and the performance of patients assessed by the studies. It was concluded that many researches use instruments developed for evaluating patients with dementia, not sensitive to adults poststroke. The main deficits of this disease involve processing speed, visuoconstruction, episodic memory, attention and executive functions, which should be included in neuropsychological batteries. The Study 3 empirically investigated which tasks are important for evaluating poststroke patients. When analyzing the performance by items in a brief neuropsychological evaluation instrument, were identified that orientation, oral language, academic abilities (reading, writing and arithmetic) and executive functions tasks best discriminated between clinical and healthy groups. The Study 4 presents the construction and the psychometric properties of Cognitive Screening (TRIACOG) to evaluate adults post cerebrovascular disease. TRIACOG has undergone rigorous steps: literature review, pilot studies, and application in 100 post-stroke adults and 100 neurologically healthy adults. The instrument presents evidence of validity based on content, on relation to other variables (criterion and convergent validity) and on response processes; and test-retest and inter-rater reliability evidences. It is intended that these studies may guide researchers who want to build neuropsychological instruments and contribute with a tool that can be used in the clinical, hospital and research contexts, by health professionals.
A New Approach for a Better Load Balancing and a Better Distribution of Resources in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a new paradigm where data and services of Information Technology are provided via the Internet by using remote servers. It represents a new way of delivering computing resources allowing access to the network on demand. Cloud computing consists of several services, each of which can hold several tasks. As the problem of scheduling tasks is an NP-complete problem, the task management can be an important element in the technology of cloud computing. To optimize the performance of virtual machines hosted in cloud computing, several algorithms of scheduling tasks have been proposed. In this paper, we present an approach allowing to solve the problem optimally and to take into account the QoS constraints based on the different user requests. This technique, based on the Branch and Bound algorithm, allows to assign tasks to different virtual machines while ensuring load balance and a better distribution of resources. The experimental results show that our approach gives very promising results for an effective tasks planning.
Weak type $(2,H)$ and weak cotype $(2,H)$ of operator spaces

Recently an operator space version of type and cotype, namely type $(p,H)$ and cotype $(q,H)$ of operator spaces for $1\leq p \leq 2\leq q \leq \infty$ and a subquadratic and homogeneous Hilbetian operator space $H$ were introduced and investigated by the author. In this paper we define weak type $(2,H)$ (resp. weak cotype $(2,H)$) of operator spaces, which lies strictly between type $(2,H)$ (resp. cotype $(2,H)$) and type $(p,H)$ for all $1\leq p <2$ (resp. cotype $(q,H)$ for all $2<q \leq \infty$). This is an analogue of weak type 2 and weak cotype 2 in the Banach space case, so we develop analogous equivalent formulations. We also consider weak-$H$ space, spaces with weak type $(2,H)$ and weak cotype $(2,H^*)$ simultaneously and establish corresponding equivalent formulations.
Reassembling difference? Rethinking inclusion through/as embodied ethics

This article considers inclusion through the lens of embodied ethics. It does so by connecting feminist writing on recognition, ethics and embodiment to recent examples of political activism as instances of recognition-based organizing. In making these connections, the article draws on insights from Judith Butler’s recent writing on the ethics and politics of assembly in order to rethink how inclusion might be understood and practised. The article has three interrelated aims: (i) to emphasize the importance of a critical reconsideration of the ethics and politics of inclusion given – on the one hand, its positioning as an organizational ‘good’, and on the other, the conditions attached to it; (ii) to develop a critique of inclusion, drawing on insights from recent feminist thinking on relational ethics; and (iii) to connect this theoretical critique of inclusion, reconsidered here through the lens of embodied ethics, to assembly as a form of feminist activism. Each of these aims underpins the theoretical and empirical discussion developed in the article, specifically its focus on the relationship between embodied ethics, the interplay between theory and practice, and a politics of assembly as the basis for a critical reconsideration of inclusion.
2008 International Workshop on Earth Observation and Remote Sensing Applications Physically Based Estimation Soil Moisture from L-band Radiometer

—Soil moisture, as the fundamental parameters for land surface water resource formation, it plays an important role in climate change. The goal of the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity mission (SMOS) over land is to infer surface soil moisture from L-band, dual-polarization radiometric measurements under a range of viewing angles. Previous research has shown that L-band passive microwave remote sensing sensors can be better used to monitor soil moisture over land surface. However, the effects of soil surface roughness play a significant role in the microwave emission from the surface. Therefore, a good parameterization of the effects is a prerequisite for retrieving surface soil moisture information. There are two types of approaches—the physical modeling and semi-empirical approaches that are commonly used in modeling the surface emission. The model parameters used in semi-empirical approaches are often derived from limited field observations and always need to be evaluated when applying to other datasets or application purposes. In recent theoretical model developments, advanced integral equation model (AIEM) has demonstrated a much wider application range for surface roughness conditions than that from conventional models. In this study, we generate a simulated database with a wide range of the surface roughness and soil moisture conditions under SMOS sensor configurations using AIEM model. A simple and accurate surface emission model is developed based on the simulated database that can be easily used as forward model in the passive microwave remote sensing applications. An inversion procedure is set up in terms of dual-polarization microwave brightness temperatures available from the forward model to retrieve soil moisture with a minimum of auxiliary information about the ground. The inversion technique is validated with microwave radiometer experimental data at Beltsville, MD. The results reveal that the use of dual-polarization and multi-angular inversion technique to estimate soil moisture from radiometric measurements decrease the perturbing effects of surface roughness on the soil moisture estimation.
A Novel Image Retrieval Based on Visual Words Integration of SIFT and SURF

With the recent evolution of technology, the number of image archives has increased exponentially. In Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR), high-level visual information is represented in the form of low-level features. The semantic gap between the low-level features and the high-level image concepts is an open research problem. In this paper, we present a novel visual words integration of Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) and Speeded-Up Robust Features (SURF). The two local features representations are selected for image retrieval because SIFT is more robust to the change in scale and rotation, while SURF is robust to changes in illumination. The visual words integration of SIFT and SURF adds the robustness of both features to image retrieval. The qualitative and quantitative comparisons conducted on Corel-1000, Corel-1500, Corel-2000, Oliva and Torralba and Ground Truth image benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed visual words integration.
Adaptation and Validation of a Measure of Students’ Adaptive and Maladaptive Ways of Coping With Academic Problems

Little research has, to date, explored students’ coping in the academic domain. Yet, children and adolescents frequently refer daily academic difficulties as a common source of stress. The ways children respond to academic demands have the potential to make a difference in their learning and achievement. Therefore, the availability of a measure of academic coping is of critical importance to expand educational research and practice in this area. The current study adapted and validated the Portuguese language version of the Multidimensional Measure of Coping (MMC). Cognitive interviewing, confirmatory factor analysis, and measurement invariance testing using calibration and validation samples provided sound support for the validity of the MMC to measure academic coping among Portuguese elementary and middle school students. Furthermore, the external and discriminant validity of the scale was established based on the relations found between adaptive and maladaptive coping and their differential functionality for academic performance.