Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From finite sample to asymptotics: A geometric bridge for selection criteria in spline regression

This paper studies, under the setting of spline regression, the connection between finite-sample properties of selection criteria and their asymptotic counterparts, focusing on bridging the gap between the two. We introduce a bias-variance decomposition of the prediction error, using which it is shown that in the asymptotics the bias term dominates the variability term, providing an explanation of the gap. A geometric exposition is provided for intuitive understanding. The theoretical and geometric results are illustrated through a numerical example.
The common knowledge effect: Information sharing and group judgment.

The hypothesis that the influence of an item of information on a group judgment is directly related to the number of group members who hold that information before group discussion was tested. Three-member groups read short descriptions of students and were asked to make individual and then group consensus judgments about those students' grades in the course. Information held by all members before group discussion had more influence on the group judgments than information held by only 1 member. However, no erect of information distribution was found when controlling for member judgments, suggesting that the impact of the information, and hence the erects of distribution across members, was mediated by its impact on individual-member prediscussion judgments
Children's Knowledge of Locality Conditions in Binding as Evidence for the Modularity of Syntax and Pragmatics

We report three experiments concerning English-speaking children's knowledge of locality conditions in the binding of reflexives and pronouns (Principles A and B). The children tested were between the ages of 2;6 and 6;6. By age 6, children know that a reflexive must be locally bound. At the same age, however, they appear to not know that a pronoun may not be locally bound. We suggest that children are missing a pragmatic principle, not the syntactic Principle B. This hypothesis predicts that children will not accept a local antecedent for a pronoun that is a bound variable. Experiment 4 confirms this prediction. We conclude that children know the grammatical principles of binding but do not know a relevant pragmatic principle. We suggest that such dissociation in children might be a useful tool in the study of linguistic theory.
Psychopathy and Violence in Criminals

The present study investigated the relationship between criminal psychopathy and violent behavior. Groups were defined according to psychopathy ratings (Hare's Psychopathy Checklist) and violence. Psychopaths scored higher than nonpsychopaths on measures of impulsiveness and aggressiveness, and they were more likely than other inmates to behave aggressively, to have committed more serious past offenses, to have used weapons, threats and instrumental aggression, and to have suffered physical abuse as a child. When presented with hypothetical situations that involved a frustrating outcome, psychopaths reported that they would be more angry than nonpsychopaths, and they attributed greater hostile intent to others. Violent psychopaths were seen as qualitatively different than violent nonpsychopaths in their use of violence, yet they did not differ in terms of the seriousness of their index offense.
Buffer Management for Wireless Media Streaming

We study playout buffer management at the receiver for supporting multimedia streaming services over unreliable wireless links. On one hand, memory is a precious resource on portable wireless devices and must be used judiciously. On the other hand, allocating a big playout buffer to a media streaming application reduces the probability of a playout interruption/freeze due to buffer underflow, thus improving the user's perceived experience. Thus, inherent in the wireless media streaming scenario is a tradeoff between memory utilization and quality-of-service (QoS) delivered to the application layer. We study this buffer vs. QoS tradeoff in a dynamic programming (DP) framework. Within the same setting, we also address the issue of determining the optimal rebuffering level when the buffer underflows. Leveraging closed form solutions obtained for a special case of our formulation, we propose BuM, a very low complexity heuristic dynamic buffer management algorithm. The near optimality of BuM, as demonstrated by experimental results, in conjunction with its ease of implementation, makes it an attractive option from a practical perspective.
Activation of the Drosophila NF‐κB factor Relish by rapid endoproteolytic cleavage

The Rel/NF‐κB transcription factor Relish plays a key role in the humoral immune response in Drosophila. We now find that activation of this innate immune response is preceded by rapid proteolytic cleavage of Relish into two parts. An N‐terminal fragment, containing the DNA‐binding Rel homology domain, translocates to the nucleus where it binds to the promoter of the Cecropin A1 gene and probably to the promoters of other antimicrobial peptide genes. The C‐terminal IκB‐like fragment remains in the cytoplasm. This endoproteolytic cleavage does not involve the proteasome, requires the DREDD caspase, and is different from previously described mechanisms for Rel factor activation.
The (Un)Importance of Cerebral Microemboli

Background: The use of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is associated with cerebral microemboli. Cognitive decline after cardiac surgery has therefore always been attributed to the use of CPB. However, randomized studies comparing coronary bypass surgery with and without CPB failed to establish a clear cognitive benefit of avoiding CPB. The aim of this analysis was to systematically review the studies that directly assessed the association between cerebral microemboli and cognitive decline after cardiac surgery. Methods: The electronic database of PubMed of the National Library of Medicine from 1980 until 2009 was searched to identify relevant literature. Search terms related to “cardiac surgery,” “microemboli,” and “cognitive decline” were used. Studies were reviewed independently by 2 reviewers and relevant articles were included completely if they matched the selection criteria. This review included studies in adult cardiac surgical patients reporting both a measure of cerebral embolic load and cognitive outcomes. Results: The literature search yielded 423 different titles, of which 22 met the selection criteria. All 22 studies used neuropsychological tests to determine cognitive outcome. Seven studies used postoperative (diffusion-weighted) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to detect cerebral emboli and 15 studies used intraoperative transcranial Doppler imaging. In 1 MRI study and 5 Doppler studies, an association was found between the number of cerebral emboli and the risk of postoperative cognitive decline. In 15 studies, such an association could not be established. One study did not assess the direct relation between microemboli and cognitive decline. Conclusion: This systematic review could neither confirm nor rule out a causal link between emboli from CPB and postoperative cognitive decline.
Students’ Attitudes Toward Older People: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

There is a popular belief that attitudes toward older people are predominantly negative in Western cultures and positive in Eastern cultures. In the light of social and cultural changes in these cultures, it is timely to investigate whether this belief still holds true. The study also explores an often-ignored feature of cultural differences in these attitudes, namely, that attitudes toward older people are mixed phenomena in both cultures. The study uses a cross-group research design. Sixty-five undergraduates (31 Western and 35 Eastern) completed the Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA) administered on computers. It found that attitudes toward older people were generally positive in both cultures and did not support the first hypothesis that attitudes toward older people would be predominantly negative in Western cultures and positive in Eastern cultures. However, as predicted, attitudes toward older people were mixed in both cultures. This study highlights the similarity in attitudes toward older people across cultures and argues that future studies need to be encouraged to pay more attention to positive attitudes.
Critical Media Literacy: Research, Theory, and Practice in “New Times”

Literacy is on the verge of reinventing itself. Luke and Elkins (1998), recently appoint d editors of the Jour nal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, noted in their first issue of the journal that the potential for such reinvention is reflected in the way "texts and literate practices of everyday life are changing at an unprecedented and disorienting pace" (p. 4). Attributing the changes largely to new infor mation technologies and to the complex multiliteracies that these technologies entail (New London Group, 1997), Luke and Elkins characterized the era in which we are living as New Times. It is a time of major shifts in cultural practices, economic systems, and social institutions on a global scale; a time when literacy educators from around the world are speculating about the ways in which new technologies will alter conceptions of reading and writing. Not surprisingly, what being literate in the 21st century will mean is capturing the imagination of those outside the traditional literacy community as well. With an estimated 3 million students in the United States taking a portion of their instruction over the Internet as early as the year 2000, policy makers at the Educational Testing Service in Prince ton, New Jersey are basing their new assessments on the fact that in the very near future "instruction will be adapted . to personal interests and background, allowing more meaningful accommodation to diversity than was possible with earlier approaches" (Bennett, 1998, p. 12). To keep pace with the anticipated shifts in instruction made possible through increased accessibility to digital media (Bruce, 1999), large-scale educational assessments also will change in fundamental ways. For example, next-generation elec tronic tests will make it possible to embed assessment activ ities within instruction so that large-scale evaluations will serve formative as well as summative purposes. The assess ment tasks also will look very different from those of the past and will include, among other things, multimedia exer cises and virtual reality simulations (Bennett, 1998). For students to perform well on the new assessments, they will need to develop a critical understanding of how all texts (both print and nonprint) position them as readers and view ers within different social, cultural, and historical contexts. That is just a small part of the challenge that lies ahead for literacy educators and the students they teach. Equally demanding are the challenges associated with simply living in a media-rich world? one in which our choices for how we communicate, learn, shop, and entertain ourselves on the World Wide Web are only a mouse-click away (McChesney, 1999). Writing on the significance of such a world for children in this country, Thomas Friedman (1999), a columnist for The New York Times, noted the fol lowing about the Internet in an article aimed at parents but with implications for literacy educators:
Physical activity at midlife in relation to successful survival in women at age 70 years or older.

BACKGROUND Physical activity is associated with reduced risks of chronic diseases and premature death. Whether physical activity is also associated with improved overall health among those who survive to older ages is unclear. METHODS A total of 13,535 Nurses' Health Study participants who were free of major chronic diseases at baseline in 1986 and had survived to age 70 years or older as of the 1995-2001 period made up the study population. We defined successful survival as no history of 10 major chronic diseases or coronary artery bypass graft surgery and no cognitive impairment, physical impairment, or mental health limitations. RESULTS After multivariate adjustment for covariates, higher physical activity levels at midlife, as measured by metabolic-equivalent tasks, were significantly associated with better odds of successful survival. Significant increases in successful survival were observed beginning at the third quintile of activity: odds ratios (ORs) (95% confidence intervals [CIs]) in the lowest to highest quintiles were 1 [Reference], 0.98 (0.80-1.20), 1.37 (1.13-1.65), 1.34 (1.11-1.61), and 1.99 (1.66-2.38) (P < .001 for trend). Increasing energy expenditure from walking was associated with a similar elevation in odds of successful survival: the ORs (95% CIs) of successful survival across quintiles of walking were 1 [Reference], 0.99 (0.80-1.21), 1.19 (0.97-1.45), 1.50 (1.24-1.82), and 1.47 (1.22-1.79) (P < .001 for trend). CONCLUSION These data provide evidence that higher levels of midlife physical activity are associated with exceptional health status among women who survive to older ages and corroborate the potential role of physical activity in improving overall health.
Right Heart Hemodynamics in Pulmonary Hypertension　- An Echocardiography and Catheterization Study.

BACKGROUND Echocardiography (ECHO) plays a key role in both the diagnosis and prognosis of pulmonary hypertension (PH). Many equations have been published to assess right heart hemodynamics using ECHO. The objective of this study was to test the accuracy and precision of different echocardiographic equations in comparison with the right heart catheterization. METHODSANDRESULTS Complete right heart hemodynamic assessments were prospectively obtained from 115 individuals (mean age 66±1 years; 57 males) who had known or suspected PH. Several equations were tested for the estimation of right atrial pressure, mean and systolic pulmonary artery pressure (MPAP), cardiac output, pulmonary capillary wedge pressure (PCWP), and pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR). The accuracy of ECHO was good, with a mean difference <2 mmHg for all of the pressure calculations and ±0.6 L/min for cardiac output. However, the PVR estimation was weak using any one of the formulae. For all the parameters, the precision of ECHO was moderate. The MPAP calculation detected PH with a sensibility of 97% and specificity of 83%. However, ECHO underdiagnosed post-capillary PH. CONCLUSIONS ECHO is a good method for the diagnosis of PH, with an adequate calculation of right pressures, but cannot accurately calculate PCWP and PVR. (Circ J 2016; 80: 2019-2025).
Extrachromosomal circular DNA is common in yeast

Significance We performed a screen for extrachromosomal circular DNAs containing segments of genomic yeast DNA. We found 1,756 such extrachromosomal circular DNAs containing about 23% of the total yeast genomic information. The abundance of these circular forms of genomic DNA suggests that eccDNA formation might be a common mutation that can arise in any part of the genome, and not in only a few special loci. We propose that eccDNAs may be precursors to the copy number variation in eukaryotic genomes characteristic of both the evolutionary process and cancer progression. Examples of extrachromosomal circular DNAs (eccDNAs) are found in many organisms, but their impact on genetic variation at the genome scale has not been investigated. We mapped 1,756 eccDNAs in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome using Circle-Seq, a highly sensitive eccDNA purification method. Yeast eccDNAs ranged from an arbitrary lower limit of 1 kb up to 38 kb and covered 23% of the genome, representing thousands of genes. EccDNA arose both from genomic regions with repetitive sequences ≥15 bases long and from regions with short or no repetitive sequences. Some eccDNAs were identified in several yeast populations. These eccDNAs contained ribosomal genes, transposon remnants, and tandemly repeated genes (HXT6/7, ENA1/2/5, and CUP1-1/-2) that were generally enriched on eccDNAs. EccDNAs seemed to be replicated and 80% contained consensus sequences for autonomous replication origins that could explain their maintenance. Our data suggest that eccDNAs are common in S. cerevisiae, where they might contribute substantially to genetic variation and evolution.
Online Diaries: Towards a Structural Approach

Online diaries are at once thoroughly familiar and intensely new. Their publication on the Internet may be seen as upholding a long tradition in self-representational writing even as information technology modifies the forms and functions of such texts. Studying online diaries from a literary standpoint may therefore shed light on the development of new forms of writing, and contribute to assessing the extent of this transformation and its meaning. At the same time, viewing online diaries as primary sources may afford insight into the mores of ordinary people in contemporary America. Focusing on anonymous American diarists makes it possible to explore how this contemporary social practice reflects the transformations of the heartland in present-day America, how ordinary women and men, average Americans, make sense of their society and can be seen as representative of American culture, while at the same time engaging in the most personal kind of writing.
Quantitation of central activation failure during maximal voluntary contractions in humans

Muscle fatigue or neuromuscular disease may result in central activation failure during maximal voluntary contractions (MVCs). Superimposition of an electrically stimulated contraction during an MVC has been used to detect central activation failure. To determine the most sensitive means of quantitating central activation failure using this technique, we compared the increment in isometric force from single‐, double‐, and high‐frequency trains (50 Hz, 500 or 1000 ms) of stimuli of the peroneal nerve imposed during three separate MVCs of the dorsiflexor muscles. Completeness of activation was quantitated with the central activation ratio (CAR) = MVC/(MVC + stimulated force). Comparisons were made of the CARs of three groups of subjects during the three stimulation conditions: 7 healthy subjects, 13 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and 5 healthy subjects after fatiguing exercise. For all three groups, the CAR was significantly lower during the train of stimuli condition (means = 0.76–0.89) compared with either the single or double stimuli conditions (means = 0.96–1.00). The results suggest that a superimposed high‐frequency train of stimuli is a more sensitive indicator of central activation failure during isometric MVCs compared with either the superimposed single or double stimuli methods. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Experiences with Weight Change in African‐American Breast Cancer Survivors

Abstract: Although weight gain is a common side effect of breast cancer treatment, limited empirical data are available on how African‐American breast cancer survivors react to changes in their weight following diagnosis and treatment. The purpose of this study was to explore psychological and behavioral reactions to weight change in African‐American breast cancer survivors. We conducted a qualitative study to explore reactions to weight change following diagnosis and treatment in 34 African‐American breast cancer survivors. Forty‐seven percent of women reported gaining weight, 32% reported weight loss, and 21% reported no changes in their weight. Regardless of whether women gained or lost weight, these changes were viewed as stressors that caused psychological distress and health concerns. However, some women had positive reactions to weight loss, especially if they had been heavy prior to diagnosis. Women exercised and changed their dietary behaviors following treatment. Despite this, women reported being frustrated with not being able to control changes in their weight. These results suggest that changes in weight may be a critical component of breast cancer survivorship in African‐American women. It may be important to provide African‐American breast cancer survivors with information about the causes and implications of weight change and strategies for weight control after treatment as part of their follow‐up care.
Emotion Telepresence: Emotion Augmentation through Affective Haptics and Visual Stimuli

The paper focuses on a novel concept of emotional telepresence. The iFeel_IM! system which is in the vanguard of this technology integrates 3D virtual world Second Life, intelligent component for automatic emotion recognition from text messages, and innovative affective haptic interfaces providing additional nonverbal communication channels through simulation of emotional feedback and social touch (physical co-presence). Users can not only exchange messages but also emotionally and physically feel the presence of the communication partner (e.g., family member, friend, or beloved person). The next prototype of the system will include the tablet computer. The user can realize haptic interaction with avatar, and thus influence its mood and emotion of the partner. The finger gesture language will be designed for communication with avatar. This will bring new level of immersion of on-line communication.
Mechanisms of neglect: Implications for rehabilitation

Abstract Unilateral neglect is not a unitary disorder, nor does it reflect injury to a single modular structure or element of a distributed neural network. Rather, neglect characterises a set of syndromes that share a characteristic (laterally biased) pattern of malfunction. Specifically, neglect syndromes arise on account of a basic design characteristic of the bisymmetrically organised nervous system: Interaction between opponent processors, which determines the moment-to-moment status of certain parameters. Among these are the opponent systems that implement changes in the direction of attention along the lateral (right-left) axis. Such systems are widespread among both vertebrates and non-vertebrates, at multiple levels of the neuroaxis (Kinsbourne, 1974). Negative feedback interactions between the opponent processors in each half brain enable the individual to shift attention along the lateral plane in a graduated fashion, in a direction contralateral to the more activated processor. Thus there is a .
HIF-1α Inhibition Reduces Nasal Inflammation in a Murine Allergic Rhinitis Model

Background Hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α) is an important regulator of immune and inflammatory responses. We hypothesized that nasal allergic inflammation is attenuated by HIF-1α inhibition and strengthened by HIF-1α stabilization. Objective To elucidate the role of HIF-1α in a murine model of allergic rhinitis (AR). Methods Mice were pretreated with the HIF-1α inhibitor 2-methoxyestradiol (2ME2) or the HIF-1α inducer cobalt chloride (CoCl2) in an established AR murine model using ovalbumin (OVA)-sensitized BALB/c mice. HIF-1α and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in nasal mucosa was measured and multiple parameters of allergic responses were evaluated. Results HIF-1α and VEGF levels were locally up-regulated in nasal mucosa during AR. Inflammatory responses to OVA challenge, including nasal symptoms, inflammatory cell infiltration, eosinophil recruitment, up-regulation of T-helper type 2 cytokines in nasal lavage fluid, and serum OVA-specific IgE levels were present in the OVA-challenged mice. 2ME2 effectively inhibited HIF-1α and VEGF expression and attenuated the inflammatory responses. Stabilization of HIF-1α by CoCl2 facilitated nasal allergic inflammation. HIF-1α protein levels in nasal airways correlated with the severity of AR in mice. Conclusions HIF-1α is intimately involved in the pathogenesis of nasal allergies, and the inhibition of HIF-1α may be useful as a novel therapeutic approach for AR.