Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cognitive reappraisal self-efficacy mediates the effects of individual cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder.

OBJECTIVE To examine whether changes in cognitive reappraisal self-efficacy (CR-SE) mediate the effects of individually administered cognitive-behavioral therapy (I-CBT) for social anxiety disorder (SAD) on severity of social anxiety symptoms. METHOD A randomized controlled trial in which 75 adult patients (21-55 years of age; 53% male; 57% Caucasian) with a principal diagnosis of generalized SAD were randomly assigned to 16 sessions of I-CBT (n = 38) or a wait-list control (WL) group (n = 37). All patients completed self-report inventories measuring CR-SE and social anxiety symptoms at baseline and post-I-CBT/post-WL, and I-CBT completers were also assessed at 1-year posttreatment. RESULTS Compared with WL, I-CBT resulted in greater increases in CR-SE and greater decreases in social anxiety. Increases in CR-SE during I-CBT mediated the effect of I-CBT on social anxiety. Gains achieved by patients receiving I-CBT were maintained 1-year posttreatment, and I-CBT-related increases in CR-SE were also associated with reduction in social anxiety at the 1-year follow-up. CONCLUSIONS Increasing CR-SE may be an important mechanism by which I-CBT for SAD produces both immediate and long-term reductions in social anxiety.
A Drosophila DEG/ENaC Subunit Functions Specifically in Gustatory Neurons Required for Male Courtship Behavior

Detection of specific female pheromones stimulates courtship behavior in Drosophila melanogaster males, but the chemosensory molecules, cells, and mechanisms involved remain poorly understood. Here we show that ppk25, a DEG/ENaC ion channel subunit required for normal male response to females, is expressed at highest levels in a single sexually dimorphic gustatory neuron of most taste hairs on legs and wings, but not in neurons that detect courtship-inhibiting pheromones or food. Synaptic inactivation of ppk25-expressing neurons, or knockdown of ppk25 expression in all gustatory neurons, significantly impairs male response to females, whereas gustatory expression of ppk25 rescues the courtship behavior of ppk25 mutant males. Remarkably, the only other detectable albeit significantly weaker expression of ppk25 occurs in olfactory neurons implicated in modulation of courtship behavior. However, expression of ppk25 in olfactory neurons is not required for male courtship under our experimental conditions. These data show that ppk25 functions specifically in peripheral taste neurons involved in activation of courtship behavior, an unexpected function for this type of channel. Furthermore, our work identifies a small subset of gustatory neurons with an essential role in activation of male courtship behavior, most likely in response to female pheromones.
A statistical approach towards performance analysis of multimodal biometric systems

This paper investigates the application of statistical methods in performance analysis of multimodal biometric systems. It develops an efficient and systematic approach to evaluate system performance under the influence of errors. Based upon the proposed approach, 126 experiments are conducted with the BSSR1 dataset on typical fusion methods using different normalization techniques. Experiment results demonstrate that the Simple Sum fusion method yields the best overall performance when working with Min-Max normalization. More importantly, further examination of experimental results reveals the need for systematic analysis of system performance as the performance of some fusion methods may exhibit big variations when the level of errors changes, and some fusion methods may produce very good performance in some application though normally unacceptable in others.
Nuclear Death in Living Tetrahymena: The Case of the Haploid Nuclei

Abstract During sexual conjugation in Tetrahymena the micronucleus divides meiotically, producing four haploid nuclei. While one of these nuclei divides mitotically to yield two genetically identical gametic pronuclei, a stationary pronucleus and a migratory pronucleus, the remaining three haploid nuclei degenerate and disappear. Typically, they migrate to the posterior end of the cell where they remain as residual bodies until they disappear. In the present study we asked whether degenerating haploid nuclei share any properties with apoptotic nuclei. Specifically, we wondered whether they would be stained by “apofluor”, a combination of vital fluorescent indicators that differentially stains apoptotic nuclei in living cells. “Apofluor” includes acridine orange, which becomes trapped in acidic compartments and stains lysosomal bodies a brilliant orange-red, and Hoechst 33342, which binds to DNA and stains nuclei bright blue. With this dye combination, while ordinary nuclei stain blue, the apoptotic macronucleus stains first blue-green, then yellow, and finally orange. The progression in color is presumed to be due to the accumulation of protons in the apoptotic nucleus compartment. We found that three of the four post-meiotic haploid nuclei, those that are eliminated, were stained differentially green, then yellow, and then come to be indistinguishable from the orange lysosomal bodies. Differential staining can occur even while the nuclei are located at the anterior ends of the cells, and before the “viable” nucleus divides to form pronuclei. These results indicate that haploid nuclei in the process of degradation are differentially stained in living cells by “apofluor”, and that the differential staining occurs early in the elimination process. Further, since the degenerating haploid nuclei are stained by “apofluor” it is likely that they are degraded by a mechanism similar to the elimination of the apoptotic macronucleus.
Infrastructure and Reliability Analysis of Electric Networks for E-Textiles

Electronic textiles (e-textiles), known as computational fabrics, offer an emerging platform for constructing ambient intelligent applications. Computational nodes in e-textiles are driven by batteries. Unlike wireless sensor networks, not each computational node in e-textiles has its own battery. Instead, many computational nodes in e-textiles share a battery. Existing e-textiles use one fixed battery to drive a fixed set of computation nodes (or power consuming electronic components). The fixed battery-component connection may result in electronic components stopping functioning and/or energy waste in batteries when link connection problems occur. In this paper, we propose a new infrastructure of the power networks for e-textiles: flexible power network (FPN). Under the FPN infrastructure, a power consuming node (PCN) is not just connected to one single fixed battery. Instead, it is connected to multiple batteries and can obtain power energy from one of the available battery nodes (BNs) with the help of a battery selector. The electrical features of battery selectors and overcurrent protectors that protect the batteries from wasting the charge when short-circuit faults occur are illustrated. Moreover, by modeling the number of fault occurrence at conductive wires and nodes stochastically, an evaluation algorithm is proposed to analyze the reliability of FPN and to compare the metrics of different design schemes under the perspective of both the BNs and the PCNs. Experimental results show that our FPN is more dependable than some common e-textile electric networks published before with the occurrence of short- and/or open-circuit faults.
A Third Exoplanetary System with Misaligned Orbital and Stellar Spin Axes

We present evidence that the WASP-14 exoplanetary system has misaligned orbital and stellar-rotational axes, with an angle λ = -33.1° ± 7.4° between their sky projections. The evidence is based on spectroscopic observations of the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect as well as new photometric observations. WASP-14 is now the third system known to have a significant spin-orbit misalignment, and all three systems have “super-Jupiter” planets (MP > 3 MJup) and eccentric orbits. This finding suggests that the migration and subsequent orbital evolution of massive, eccentric exoplanets is somehow different from that of less massive close-in Jupiters, the majority of which have well-aligned orbits.
A Comparison of Urethane and Cellulose Sponges as Cleaning Tools in Household Kitchens

Household kitchen sponges are known to harbor enteric bacteria and are believed to play a role in cross contamination during food preparation. This study compared the reduction of chlorine and a quaternary ammonium disinfectant, and of bacterial load, for polyurethane and cellulose sponges used in households. Chlorine levels were not reduced after 30 minutes when polyurethane sponges were used, but cellulous sponges use reduced chlorine levels by 24%. Polyurethane sponges always had fewer total bacteria, coliforms and Escherichia coli than cellulose sponges. This was also the case of both types of sponges containing an antimicrobial. a risk assessment comparison indicated that this difference resulted in a reduced risk of infection by almost 90% if pathogenic E. coli were present in polyurethane sponges vs. cellulose sponges. Overall, use of the polyurethane sponges used in this study has several advantages over use of cellulose sponges in reducing exposure to enteric bacteria in the kitchen.
What Is Computer Security?

Computer and network security, or cybersecurity, are critical issues. But merely protecting the systems that hold data about citizens, corporations, and government agencies it is not enough. The infrastructure of networks, routers, domain name servers, and switches that glue these systems together must not fail, or computers will no longer be able to communicate accurately or reliably. Given the magnitude of securing cyberspace, a reflection on what we are trying to do seems in order. Several questions arise, such as what exactly the infrastructure is, what threats it must be secured against, and how protection can be provided on a cost-effective basis. But underlying all these questions is how to define a secure system. What is security? Having it is obviously good; everyone says so. But few people define it exactly, or even nebulously. This column tries to place cybersecurity in perspective, because it is, of course, central to countries, organizations, and even home users now and in the future.
Integrative Analysis of Methylome and Transcriptome Reveals the Importance of Unmethylated CpGs in Non-CpG Island Gene Activation

Background. Promoter methylation is associated with gene repression; however, little is known about its mechanism. It was proposed that the repression of methylated genes is achieved through the recruitment of methyl binding proteins (MBPs) that participate in closing the chromatin. An alternative mechanism suggests that methylation interferes with the binding of either site specific activators or more general activators that bind to the CpG dinucleotide. However, the relative contribution of these two mechanisms to gene repression is not known. Results. Bioinformatics analyses of genome-wide transcriptome and methylome data support the latter hypothesis by demonstrating a strong association between transcription and the number of unmethylated CpGs at the promoter of genes lacking CpG islands. Conclusions. Our results suggest that methylation represses gene expression mainly by preventing the binding of CpG binding activators.
Repeated B lymphocyte depletion with rituximab in rheumatoid arthritis over 7 yrs.

OBJECTIVE To assess safety and efficacy of repeated B-cell depletion with rituximab in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS Thirty-seven patients with refractory RA entered into a programme of repeated B-lymphocyte depletion (up to 5 cycles, 89 cycles in total) with protocols based on the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody, rituximab, have been observed over periods of >5 yrs (n = 22) or 3-5 yrs (n = 14). RESULTS Twenty two subjects have been followed up for >5 yrs. Average duration of benefit per cycle was 15 months (maximum 43 months), and time to re-treatment 20 months. Nineteen patients remain on the programme. Patients were withdrawn for lack of efficacy (n = 5), hypersensitivity infusion reaction (n = 1), brevity of response (n = 8), or occurrence of adverse respiratory events (n = 1). Sixteen major lower respiratory events occurred during the 180 patient-yrs of follow-up. Of these only one had low IgG. In patients receiving rituximab +/- cyclophosphamide (cy) carcinomata have developed as follows: breast (3, +cy), ovary (1, +cy), transitional cell (1, +cy), and renal cell (1, -cy). Falls in total immunoglobulin levels to below the normal range occurred in 12 patients for IgM (undetectable levels in three after repeated cycles), seven for IgG and one for IgA, not taking into account patients who started off with low immunoglobulin levels before the first cycle. CONCLUSION Repeated B-lymphocyte depletion over a 5-yr period appears to be an acceptable and relatively well-tolerated therapy in RA with a relatively high rate of continuation. Long-term effects on immunoglobulin levels require surveillance.
The Bright Elusive Butterfly of Value in Health Technology Development

The current system of health technology development is characterised by multiple misalignments. The "supply" side (innovation policy-makers, entrepreneurs, investors) and the "demand" side (health policy-makers, regulators, health technology assessment, purchasers) operate under different – and conflicting – logics. The system is less a "pathway" than an unstable ecosystem of multiple interacting sub-systems. "Value" means different things to each of the numerous actors involved. Supply-side dynamics are built on fictions; regulatory checks and balances are designed to assure quality, safety and efficacy, not to ensure that technologies entering the market are either desirable or cost-effective. Assessment of comparative and cost-effectiveness usually comes too late in the process to shape an innovation’s development. We offer no simple solutions to these problems, but in the spirit of commencing a much-needed public debate, we suggest some tentative ways forward. First, universities and public research funders should play a more proactive role in shaping the system. Second, the role of industry in forging long-term strategic partnerships for public benefit should be acknowledged (though not uncritically). Third, models of "responsible innovation" and public input to research priority-setting should be explored. Finally, the evidence base on how best to govern inter-sectoral health research partnerships should be developed and applied.
Heritable risk factors associated with language impairments

There is a strong genetic contribution to children’s language and literacy impairments. The aim of this study was to determine which aspects of the phenotype are familial by comparing 34 parents of probands with language/literacy impairments and 33 parents of typically developing probands. The parents responded to questionnaires regarding previous history for language/reading impairment and participated in psychometric testing. The psychometric test battery consisted of tests assessing non‐verbal IQ, short‐term memory, articulation, receptive grammar, reading abilities and spelling. Self‐report measures demonstrated a higher prevalence of language and literacy impairments in parents of affected probands (32%) compared with parents of unaffected probands (6%). The two groups of parents differed significantly in their performance on the non‐word repetition, oromotor and digit span tasks. Non‐word repetition gave the best discrimination between the parent groups even when the data from the parents who actually were impaired as ascertained by direct testing or self‐report were removed from the analyses. This suggests that non‐word repetition serves as a marker of a family risk for language impairment. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues associated with ascertainment of specific language impairment (SLI).
A Molecular Basis for Stabilization of the von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) Tumor Suppressor Protein by Components of the VHL Ubiquitin Ligase*

The multiprotein von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor (CBCVHL, Cul2-ElonginBC-VHL) and SCF (Skp1-Cul1/Cdc53-F-box protein) complexes are members of structurally related families of E3 ubiquitin ligases that use a heterodimeric module composed of a member of the Cullin protein family and the RING finger protein Rbx1 (ROC1/Hrt1) to activate ubiquitylation of target proteins by the E2 ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes Ubc5 and Cdc34. VHL and F-box proteins function as the substrate recruitment subunits of CBCVHLand SCF complexes, respectively. In cells, many F-box proteins are short lived and are proposed to be ubiquitylated by an autocatalytic mechanism and destroyed by the proteasome following assembly into SCF complexes. In contrast, the VHL protein is stabilized by interaction with the Elongin B and C subunits of CBCVHL in cells. In this report, we have presented direct biochemical evidence that unlike the F-box protein Cdc4, which is ubiquitylated in vitro by Cdc34 in the context of the SCF, the VHL protein is protected from Ubc5-catalyzed ubiquitylation following assembly into the CBCVHL complex. CBCVHL is continuously required for negative regulation of hypoxia-inducible transcription factors in normoxic cells and of SCF complexes, many of which function only transiently during the cell cycle or in response to cellular signals. Our findings provide a molecular basis for the different modes of cellular regulation of VHL and F-box proteins and are consistent with the known roles of CBCVHL.
Software assurance by bounded exhaustive testing

Bounded exhaustive testing (BET) is a verification technique in which software is automatically tested for all valid inputs up to specified size bounds. A particularly interesting case of BET arises in the context of systems that take structurally complex inputs. Early research suggests that the BET approach can reveal faults in small systems with inputs of low structural complexity, but its potential utility for larger systems with more complex input structures remains unclear. We set out to test its utility on one such system. We used Alloy and TestEra to generate inputs to test the Galileo dynamic fault tree analysis tool, for which we already had both a formal specification of the input space and a test oracle. An initial attempt to generate inputs using a straightforward translation of our specification to Alloy did not work well. The generator failed to generate inputs to meaningful bounds. We developed an approach in which we factored the specification, used TestEra to generate abstract inputs based on one factor, and passed the results through a postprocessor that reincorporated information from the second factor. Using this technique, we were able to generate test inputs to meaningful bounds, and the inputs revealed nontrivial faults in the Galileo implementation, our specification, and our oracle. Our results suggest that BET, combined with specification abstraction and factoring techniques, could become a valuable addition to our verification toolkit and that further investigation is warranted.
SET: a pupil detection method using sinusoidal approximation

Mobile eye-tracking in external environments remains challenging, despite recent advances in eye-tracking software and hardware engineering. Many current methods fail to deal with the vast range of outdoor lighting conditions and the speed at which these can change. This confines experiments to artificial environments where conditions must be tightly controlled. Additionally, the emergence of low-cost eye tracking devices calls for the development of analysis tools that enable non-technical researchers to process the output of their images. We have developed a fast and accurate method (known as “SET”) that is suitable even for natural environments with uncontrolled, dynamic and even extreme lighting conditions. We compared the performance of SET with that of two open-source alternatives by processing two collections of eye images: images of natural outdoor scenes with extreme lighting variations (“Natural”); and images of less challenging indoor scenes (“CASIA-Iris-Thousand”). We show that SET excelled in outdoor conditions and was faster, without significant loss of accuracy, indoors. SET offers a low cost eye-tracking solution, delivering high performance even in challenging outdoor environments. It is offered through an open-source MATLAB toolkit as well as a dynamic-link library (“DLL”), which can be imported into many programming languages including C# and Visual Basic in Windows OS (www.eyegoeyetracker.co.uk).
Clinical experience with insulin detemir, biphasic insulin aspart and insulin aspart in people with type 2 diabetes: Results from the West India cohort of the A1chieve study

Background: The A1chieve, a multicentric (28 countries), 24-week, non-interventional study evaluated the safety and effectiveness of insulin detemir, biphasic insulin aspart and insulin aspart in people with T2DM (n = 66,726) in routine clinical care across four continents. Materials and Methods: Data was collected at baseline, at 12 weeks and at 24 weeks. This short communication presents the results for patients enrolled from West India. Results: A total of 4192 patients were enrolled in the study. Four different insulin analogue regimens were used in the study. Patients had started on or were switched to biphasic insulin aspart (n = 2846), insulin detemir (n = 596), insulin aspart (n = 517), basal insulin plus insulin aspart (n = 140) and other insulin combinations (n = 83). At baseline glycaemic control was poor for both insulin naïve (mean HbA1c: 8.8%) and insulin user (mean HbA1c: 9.1%) groups. After 24 weeks of treatment, both the groups showed improvement in HbA1c (insulin naïve: −1.6%, insulin users: −1.7%). SADRs including major hypoglycaemic events or episodes did not occur in any of the study patients. Conclusion: Starting or switching to insulin analogues was associated with improvement in glycaemic control with a low rate of hypoglycaemia.