Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Impact of Pneumococcal Conjugate Universal Routine Vaccination on Pneumococcal Disease in Italian Children

In Italy, the effectiveness of pneumococcal universal vaccination in preventing vaccine-type invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) in the PCV7/PCV13 shifting period was estimated to be 84.3% (95% CI: 84.0–84.6%) in children <5 years. This study aims at corroborating the estimation of both the effectiveness (VE) of PCVs and its impact in reducing pneumococcal diseases. A 1 : 3 matched-case-control study was conducted among children <5 years old hospitalized for IPD or pneumococcal pneumonia (PP) between 2006 and 2012 in the Puglia region. Moreover, hospitalizations for pneumococcal outcomes in the pre- and postvaccination period and the hospitalization risk ratios (HRRs) with 95% CIs were computed in Italy and in the first eight regions that introduced PCVs in 2006. The overall effectiveness of PCVs was 75% (95% CI: 61%–84%); it was 69% (95% CI: 30%–88%) against IPD and 77% (95% CI: 61%–87%) against PP. PCVs showed a significant impact on IPD and acute otitis media either at a national level or in those regions with a longer vaccination history, with a nearly 40% reduction of hospitalizations for both outcomes. Our findings provide further evidence of the effectiveness of PCVs against pneumococcal diseases and its impact on nasopharyngeal carriage in children <5 years, indicating the importance of maintaining high immunization coverage.
Neural Correlates of Rote Memory: Auditory Interference and Working Memory Capacity Effect Quranic Recall in Children and Young Adults Using Electroencephalography

The study in question investigated the neural activation patterns in children and young adults who have previously memorized text from the holy Quran of the Islamic religion. The Quran Recognition Task (QRT) was developed to test long term memory recall and working memory capacity during electroencephalography (EEG) recording. The study examined the effect of auditory interference as a means of distraction. 16 subjects (Aged 8-27 years) participated in the study. Significant differences in brain activation patterns and in the appearance of select event related potentials were observed across distraction conditions and between groups. Children exhibited more global activation, showing their need for more neural resources and working memory capacity to successfully complete the task while the brain activation patterns for adults depicted decreased amplitudes in the waveforms overall. This study suggests developmental differences in the cognitive and neural approaches in retaining and recalling rote memory.
ReservedLoss rate DelayBandwidth ReservedLoss rate DelayBandwidth Max delayMin bandwidth Timestamp Hop 1 UUID 32160

The demand for live and interactive multimedia services over the Internet raises questions on how well the Internet Protocol (IP)’s best-effort effort service can be adapted to provide adequate end-to-end quality of service (QoS) for the users. Although the Internet community has developed two different IP-based QoS architectures, neither has been widely deployed. Overlay networks are seen as a step to address the demand for end-to-end QoS until a better solution can be obtained. As part of the telecommunication research at Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) in Karlskrona, Sweden we are investigating new theories and algorithms concerning QoS routing. We are in the process of developing Overlay Routing Protocol (ORP), a framework for overlay QoS routing consisting of two protocols: Route Discovery Protocol (RDP) and Route Management Protocol (RMP). In this paper we describe RDP and provide preliminary simulation results for it.
Controlled-distortion constrained global parametrization

The quality of a global parametrization is determined by a number of factors, including amount of distortion, number of singularities (cones), and alignment with features and boundaries. Placement of cones plays a decisive role in determining the overall distortion of the parametrization; at the same time, feature and boundary alignment also affect the cone placement. A number of methods were proposed for automatic choice of cone positions, either based on singularities of cross-fields and emphasizing alignment, or based on distortion optimization. In this paper we describe a method for placing cones for seamless global parametrizations with alignment constraints. We use a close relation between variation-minimizing cross-fields and related 1-forms and conformal maps, and demonstrate how it leads to a constrained optimization problem formulation. We show for boundary-aligned parametrizations metric distortion may be reduced by cone chains, sometimes to an arbitrarily small value, and the trade-off between the distortion and the number of cones can be controlled by a regularization term. Constrained parametrizations computed using our method have significantly lower distortion compared to the state-of-the art field-based method, yet maintain feature and boundary alignment. In the most extreme cases, parametrization collapse due to alignment constraints is eliminated.
EVALUATION EFFICIENCY OF MODERN ANTIDEPRESSANTS BY MEANS OF QUANTATIVE PHARMACO-EEG

Introduction. Currently, topicality the problem of diagnosis and treatment of depressive disorders (DD) in medical practice is not in doubt. The drugs of choice in the treatment of this affective disease are the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). One of the best known and widely used today of representatives a number of SSRIs is fluoxetine. An example perspective way to improve the pharmacotherapy of depression is to combine SSIRs with representatives of other groups of drugs. Great interest from this point of view is the hormone of pineal gland melatonin (MT), which is an important element of the non-specific antistress system of body. One more potentially significant vector of perfecting therapy is searching/development of the new, more potent and fast-acting antidepressants. In this respect, the attention of researchers attracts agonist to MT1and MT2-receptors and antagonist to 5-HT2Creceptors valdoxan. Materials and methods. In this study, by means of quantitative pharmacoEEG (QPEEG) was performed a comparative evaluation of pharmacological activity of valdoxan, fluoxetine and combination of fluoxetine with melaxen during rat's experimental depression (ED) and depressive disorder (DD) in patients. Pharmacoeconomic analysis was performed by the method of "cost/effectiveness". Results and discussion. It was established that reception of valdoxan and combined fluoxetine with melaxen promotes a more rapid normalization of bioelectric activity of brain than at fluoxetine usage separately. So, on the EEG at rats with ED was registered significant increase of theta-rhythm activity, which dominates in the norm, and at patients with DD this regime of pharmacotherapy normalized the distribution of the alpha-rhythm and reduced slow-wave activity. Conclusions. Evaluation efficiency of the above regimes of pharmacotherapy of depressive frustration showed, that the application of valdoxan, and also combination fluoxetine+melaxen favorably affects the course of the disease and contributes to a more rapid normalization of bioelectric activity of brain than fluoxetine in isolation, both experimentally and clinically.
Preconditioning with Hemin Decreases Plasmodium chabaudi adami Parasitemia and Inhibits Erythropoiesis in BALB/c Mice

Increased susceptibility to bacterial and viral infections and dysfunctional erythropoiesis are characteristic of malaria and other hemolytic hemoglobinopathies. High concentrations of free heme are common in these conditions but little is known about the effect of heme on adaptive immunity and erythropoiesis. Herein, we investigated the impact of heme (hemin) administration on immune parameters and steady state erythropoiesis in BALB/c mice, and on parasitemia and anemia during Plasmodium chabaudi adami infection. Intra-peritoneal injection of hemin (5 mg/Kg body weight) over three consecutive days decreased the numbers of splenic and bone marrow macrophages, IFN-γ responses to CD3 stimulation and Th1 differentiation. Our results show that the numbers of erythroid progenitors decreased in the bone marrow and spleen of mice treated with hemin, which correlated with reduced numbers of circulating reticulocytes, without affecting hemoglobin concentrations. Although blunted IFN-γ responses were measured in hemin-preconditioned mice, the mice developed lower parasitemia following P.c. adami infection. Importantly, anemia was exacerbated in hemin-preconditioned mice with malaria despite the reduced parasitemia. Altogether, our data indicate that free heme has dual effects on malaria pathology.
Different representations of pleasant and unpleasant odours in the human brain

Odours are important in emotional processing; yet relatively little is known about the representations of the affective qualities of odours in the human brain. We found that three pleasant and three unpleasant odours activated dissociable parts of the human brain. Pleasant but not unpleasant odours were found to activate a medial region of the rostral orbitofrontal cortex. Further, there was a correlation between the subjective pleasantness ratings of the six odours given during the investigation with activation of a medial region of the rostral orbitofrontal cortex. In contrast, a correlation between the subjective unpleasantness ratings of the six odours was found in regions of the left and more lateral orbitofrontal cortex. Moreover, a double dissociation was found with the intensity ratings of the odours, which were not correlated with the BOLD signal in the orbitofrontal cortex, but were correlated with the signal in medial olfactory cortical areas including the pyriform and anterior entorhinal cortex. Activation was also found in the anterior cingulate cortex, with a middle part of the anterior cingulate activated by both pleasant and unpleasant odours, and a more anterior part of the anterior cingulate cortex showing a correlation with the subjective pleasantness ratings of the odours. Thus the results suggest that there is a hedonic map of the sense of smell in brain regions such as the orbitofrontal cortex, and these results have implications for understanding the psychiatric and related problems that follow damage to these brain areas.
Can Access Control be Extended to Deal with Data Handling in Privacy Scenarios

In this position paper, we claim that access control policy languages can be extended to address data handling. Indeed, matching users’ privacy preferences and services’ privacy policies as well as enforcing what services can do with collected data rely on authorization queries and obligations, which exist in some access control languages. We present results from extending SecPAL to address data handling and discuss what could be applied to XACML.
Desensitization of Capsaicin-activated Currents in the Vanilloid Receptor TRPV1 Is Decreased by the Cyclic AMP-dependent Protein Kinase Pathway*

Proinflammatory prostaglandin E2 is known to sensitize sensory neurons to noxious stimuli. This sensitization is mediated by the cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) signal pathway. The capsaicin receptor TRPV1, a non-selective cation channel of sensory neurons involved in the sensation of inflammatory pain, is a target of PKA-mediated phosphorylation. Our goal was to investigate the influence of PKA on Ca2+-dependent desensitization of capsaicin-activated currents. By using site-directed mutagenesis, we created point mutations at PKA consensus sites and studied wild-type and mutant channels transiently expressed in HEK293t cells under whole-cell voltage clamp. We found that forskolin, a stimulator of adenylate cyclase, decreased desensitization of TRPV1. The selective PKA inhibitor H89 inhibited this effect. Mimicking phosphorylation at PKA consensus sites by replacing Ser-6, Ser-116, Thr-144, Thr-370, Ser-502, Ser-774, or Ser-820 with aspartate resulted in five mutations (S116D, T144D, T370D, S774D, and S820D) that exhibited decreased desensitization as well. However, disrupting phosphorylation by replacing respective sites with alanine resulted in four mutations (S6A, T144A, T370A, and S820A) with desensitization properties resembling those of the aspartate mutations. Significant changes in relative permeabilities for Ca2+ over Na+ or in capsaicin sensitivity could not explain changes in desensitization properties of mutant channels. In mutations S116A, S116D, T370A, and T370D, pretreatment of cells with forskolin did not reduce desensitization as compared with wild-type and other mutant channels. We conclude that Ser-116 and possibly Thr-370 are the most important residues involved in the mechanism of PKA-dependent reduction of desensitization of capsaicin-activated currents.
Extensive introgressive hybridization within the northern oriole group (Genus Icterus) revealed by three-species isolation with migration analysis

Until recently, studies of divergence and gene flow among closely-related taxa were generally limited to pairs of sister taxa. However, organisms frequently exchange genes with other non-sister taxa. The “northern oriole” group within genus Icterus exemplifies this problem. This group involves the extensively studied hybrid zone between Baltimore oriole (Icterus galbula) and Bullock's oriole (I. bullockii), an alleged hybrid zone between I. bullockii and black-backed oriole (I. abeillei), and likely mtDNA introgression between I. galbula and I. abeillei. Here, we examine the divergence population genetics of the entire northern oriole group using a multipopulation Isolation-with-Migration (IM) model. In accordance with Haldane's rule, nuclear loci introgress extensively beyond the I. galbula–I. bullockii hybrid zone, while mtDNA does not. We found no evidence of introgression between I. bullockii and I. abeillei or between I. galbula and I. abeillei when all three species were analyzed together in a three-population model. However, traditional pairwise analysis suggested some nuclear introgression from I. abeillei into I. galbula, probably reflecting genetic contributions from I. bullockii unaccounted for in a two-population model. Thus, only by including all members of this group in the analysis was it possible to rigorously estimate the level of gene flow among these three closely related species.
Unusual Play in Young Children Who Claim to Remember Previous Lives

Among 278 cases of children who claim to remember previous lives, 66 (23.7%) engaged in play that was unusual for their families and had no model in family members or other obvious normal stimulus. This paper reports 25 examples of such atypical play. The play accorded with claimed memories of previous lives expressed by the children when they could speak. The child’s unusual play sometimes gave its parents the first indication they had that the child was possibly remembering a previous life. In 22 cases the child’s statements were found to match events in the life of a specific deceased person. In such cases the play was also found to correspond to some aspects of that deceased person’s life, such as his or her vocation, avocation, or mode of death.
Journalism in virtual reality: opportunities and future research challenges

This paper presents a state-of-the-art overview of journalism and its opportunities and challenges in virtual reality (VR). First, we examine what kind of real-life journalistic experiments have been made in this field thus far, and then we analyze the research literature on journalistic VR. We discuss the emergence of virtual reality and immersive journalism explored in the latest reports in the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and VR design. To analyze VR journalism further, we develop an early draft of an analysis model based on sample of three VR productions and four VR applications. We conclude by discussing the results of the analysis and outline a more advanced and interdisciplinary research approach for studying and designing journalistic VR productions.
Adaptive modulation transmission in high speed railway environment with QoS provisioning

Robust adaptive modulation (AM) is a promising technique to improve the spectrum efficiency (SE) of high speed railway (HSR) communication system. Although robust AM transmission schemes with assumption of block fading channel have been extensively investigated, which are no longer valid in the fast time-varying channel due to the channel variation in frame duration. This paper investigates the optimum of AM transmission schemes design with different bit-error rate (BER) criteria for maximizing SE in HSR communication system. We propose a variable rate and variable power modulation scheme in a normal HSR environment, in which the closed-form expression of the power allocation policy is derived. Furthermore, considering the extract coverage requirements in a higher mobility scenario and different BER requirements, we propose two constant power and variable rate transmission schemes with probability BER constraint and average BER constraint. The effectiveness of the proposed AM transmission schemes are validated by extensive simulations. The effects of channel quality and Doppler shift on the performance of the proposed AM transmission schemes are evaluated.
Mapas Conceituais de Projeto: uma ferramenta para projetar objetos de aprendizagem significativa

EnglishAbstract: This paper presents a methodology designed for a project on meaningful learning objects called Project Based on Learning Trajectories (PBLT). This methodology considers a metaphor where the student’s previous knowledge are starting points, the educational objectives are considered destination points and the learning objects are roads connecting the starting points to destination points. A differentiated Conceptual Map called Project’s Conceptual Map is a tool intended to define relations between the previous knowledge of the students (starting points) and the educational objectives (destination points). The theoretical basis of this proposed method includes Meaningful Learning Theory and Cognitive Load Theory. Previous studies are referenced as evidence of the proposed methodology’s effectiveness. portuguesResumo: Este artigo apresenta uma metodologia de projeto de objetos de aprendizagem significativa chamada Projeto Baseado em Trajetorias de Aprendizagem (PBTA). Esta metodologia considera uma metafora onde os conhecimentos previos do estudante sao pontos de partida, os objetivos educacionais sao pontos de chegada e objetos de aprendizagem sao estradas que conectam os pontos de partida aos pontos de chegada. Um tipo diferenciado de Mapa Conceitual chamado Mapa Conceitual de Projeto e utilizado como ferramenta de projeto para definir relacoes entre o conhecimento previo do estudante e os objetivos educacionais. A base teorica inclui a Teoria da Aprendizagem Significativa e a Teoria da Carga Cognitiva. Estudos anteriormente realizados sao citados como evidencias da eficacia da metodologia proposta.
Introspective Fault Tolerance for Exascale Systems∗

Faults and errors are an unavoidable aspect of high performance computing systems. Emerging exascale systems will contain billions of hardware components and complex software stacks. In addition, higher fabrication density and power challenges will further compound fault detection, management and recovery. Efficient fault tolerance and resiliency frameworks are thus of immense importance in the path to the exascale era [7].
Selective Electrical Stimulation of the Auditory Nerve Activates a Pathway Specialized for High Temporal Acuity

Deaf people who use cochlear implants show surprisingly poor sensitivity to the temporal fine structure of sounds. One possible reason is that conventional cochlear implants cannot activate selectively the auditory-nerve fibers having low characteristic frequencies (CFs), which, in normal hearing, phase lock to stimulus fine structure. Recently, we tested in animals an alternative mode of auditory prosthesis using penetrating auditory-nerve electrodes that permit frequency-specific excitation in all frequency regions. We present here measures of temporal transmission through the auditory brainstem, from pulse trains presented with various auditory-nerve electrodes to phase-locked activity of neurons in the central nucleus of the inferior colliculus (ICC). On average, intraneural stimulation resulted in significant ICC phase locking at higher pulse rates (i.e., higher “limiting rates”) than did cochlear-implant stimulation. That could be attributed, however, to the larger percentage of low-CF neurons activated selectively by intraneural stimulation. Most ICC neurons with limiting rates >500 pulses per second had CFs <1.5 kHz, whereas neurons with lower limiting rates tended to have higher CFs. High limiting rates also correlated strongly with short first-spike latencies. It follows that short latencies correlated significantly with low CFs, opposite to the correlation observed with acoustical stimulation. These electrical-stimulation results reveal a high-temporal-acuity brainstem pathway characterized by low CFs, short latencies, and high-fidelity transmission of periodic stimulation. Frequency-specific stimulation of that pathway by intraneural stimulation might improve temporal acuity in human users of a future auditory prosthesis, which in turn might improve musical pitch perception and speech reception in noise.
On the Remote Galactic Globular Cluster NGC 2419

We present a new, deep (V ~ 26) study of the Galactic globular cluster NGC 2419 based on B, V, I time-series CCD photometry over about 10 years and extending beyond the cluster published tidal radius. We have identified 101 variable stars, of which 60 are new discoveries, doubling the known RR Lyrae stars and including 12 SX Phoenicis stars. The average period of the RR Lyrae stars (⟨Pab⟩ = 0.662 days and ⟨Pc⟩ = 0.366 days, for fundamental-mode—RRab—and first-overtone pulsators, respectively) and the position in the period-amplitude diagram both confirm that NGC 2419 is an Oosterhoff II cluster. The average apparent magnitude of the RR Lyrae stars is ⟨V⟩ = 20.31 ± 0.01 (σ = 0.06, 67 stars) and leads to the distance modulus μ0 = 19.60 ± 0.05. The color-magnitude diagram, reaching about 2.6 mag below the cluster turnoff, does not show clear evidence of multiple stellar populations. Cluster stars are found until r ~ 10.5′, and possibly as far as r ~ 15′, suggesting that the literature tidal radius might be underestimated. No extratidal structures are clearly detected in the data. NGC 2419 has many blue stragglers and a well-populated horizontal branch extending from the RR Lyrae stars down to an extremely blue tail ending with the "blue hook," for the first time recognized in this cluster. The red giant branch is narrow, ruling out significant metallicity spreads. Our results seem to disfavor the interpretation of NGC 2419 as either having an extragalactic origin or being the relict of a dwarf galaxy tidally disrupted by the Milky Way.
Optimizing coherent demodulation for improved separation of overlapping sources

The complex modulators of coherent demodulation make the algorithm a natural fit for source separation, but the overlapping bands typically found in real audio mixtures present interference problems for the algorithm. This paper proposes reframing coherent demodulation as an optimization problem that distributes the energy in overlapping bands according to an optimally low-frequency strategy. The extension is shown to improve separation for sinewave mixtures and for mixtures of speech and music.
Visualizing the evolution of code clones

The knowledge of code clone evolution throughout the history of a software system is essential in comprehending and managing its clones properly and cost-effectively. However, investigating and observing facts in a huge set of text-based data provided by a clone genealogy extractor could be challenging without the support of a visualization tool. In this position paper, we present an idea of visualizing code clone evolution by exploiting the advantages of existing clone visualization techniques that would be both scalable and useful.