Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Toward Simple Representative Mathematical Models of Naturalistic Decision Making Through Fast-and-Frugal Heuristics

Naturalistic decision making (NDM) describes how people make decisions with time pressure and other complexities in familiar and meaningful environments. The complexities of NDM, although essential for a thorough understanding of experts, have limited the use of NDM in decision support system (DSS) design and decision analysis. There have been attempts to computationally model NDM theories; however, to do so has required significant programming skill, resulting in opaque models while still leaving significant portions of the theories unrepresented. To provide a path toward simple, representative, mathematical models of NDM, we present a general mathematical form that can model most of the components of the judgment and decision-making strategies from the fast-and-frugal heuristics (FFH) program. As a case study, the NDM quick test process was transformed into representative FFH components and then into mathematical form. The results show that the quick test process is similar to the FFH strategy tallying, which itself is a type of fast-and-frugal tree. Although the mathematical form does not capture all the cognitive processes at work, it does provide a simple, representative form for use in DSS design and decision analysis. Moreover, the model’s basis in the extensive human-subjects, mathematical, and computational analyses completed by the FFH program provides another method for integrating FFH and NDM by providing (a) a framework for generating constructive questions about how NDM theories account for FFH components; (b) a basis for prescriptive NDM decision support tools that are easy to communicate, understand, and apply; and (c) a method for approximating experience, expertise, and time pressure.
RF inhomogeneities correction inMRI T-weighted spin-echo image handling the non-multiplicative character of the bias field

We propose a method to reduce the noise and to eliminate the effects of the inhomogeneity of the Radio-Frequency (RF) pulses and of the sensivity of the RF reception, particularly in the case of MR T-weighted images acquired with a low-field MRI system. In T-weighted images the effects of the pulse inhomogeneities vary with the tissues. Consequently the bias field is not strictly multiplicative and depends on the content of the image. In our approach, the MR signal is modeled as a sum of contributions of all the tissues present in the object. For the sake of generality, each pixel is assumed to contain an unknown proportion of each tissue, which thereby enables the method to cope with partial volume effect. The number of tissues composing the object as well as the MR characteristics of each tissue are assumed known. Several images with different acquisition parameter values are also needed. A penalized least-square criterion is proposed to estimate the RF emitted field, the RF sensitivity reception and the proportion of each tissue. The criterion incorporates smoothness regularization terms for both RF fields and for the proportion of each tissue in a view to reduce noise. We solve the optimization problem using a conjugate gradient algorithm within a block coordinate descent iterative scheme. Results based on simulation and on real MR images of fish acquired on a 0.2 T MRI demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.
Early Life Factors and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a multifactorial disease, and its aetiology involves a complex interplay between genetic, epigenetic, and environmental factors. In recent years, evidences from both human and animal experiments have correlated early life factors with programming diabetes risk in adult life. Fetal and neonatal period is crucial for organ development. Many maternal factors during pregnancy may increase the risk of diabetes of offsprings in later life, which include malnutrition, healthy (hyperglycemia and obesity), behavior (smoking, drinking, and junk food diet), hormone administration, and even stress. In neonates, catch-up growth, lactation, glucocorticoids administration, and stress have all been found to increase the risk of insulin resistance or T2DM. Unfavorable environments (socioeconomic situation and famine) or obesity also has long-term negative effects on children by causing increased susceptibility to T2DM in adults. We also address the potential mechanisms that may underlie the developmental programming of T2DM. Therefore, it might be possible to prevent or delay the risk for T2DM by improving pre- and/or postnatal factors.
Fine-root respiration in a loblolly pine and sweetgum forest growing in elevated CO2.

• The loss of carbon below-ground through respiration of fine roots may be modified by global change. Here we tested the hypothesis that a reduction in N concentration of tree fine-roots grown in an elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration would reduce maintenance respiration and that more energy would be used for root growth and N uptake. We partitioned total fine-root respiration (RT ) between maintenance (RM ), growth (RG ), and N uptake respiration (RN ) for loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua) forests exposed to elevated CO2 . • A substantial increase in fine-root production contributed to a 151% increase in RG for loblolly pine in elevated CO2 . Root specific RM for pine was 24% lower under elevated CO2 but when extrapolated to the entire forest, no treatment effect could be detected. • R G (< 10%) and RN (< 3%) were small components of RM in both forests. Maintenance respiration was the vast majority of RT , and contributed 92% and 86% of these totals at the pine and sweetgum forests, respectively. • The hypothesis was rejected because the majority of fine-root respiration was used for maintenance and was not reduced by changes in root N concentration in elevated CO2 . Because of its large contribution to RT and total soil CO2 efflux, changes in RM caused by warming may greatly alter carbon losses from forests to the atmosphere.
An Algorithm for 4-D Parameters Jointly Estimating of Near-Field Sources

Source localization is an important problem in array signal processing and it is used to estimate the direction of arrival (DOA) of multiple sources. In this paper, we present a four-order cumulant based ESPRIT like method for passive localization of near-field narrowband non-Gaussian sources using a centrosymmetric cross array. The proposed method uses the multiple-rotational invariance among certain cumulant-domain signal subspaces for 4D parameter (carrier frequency, elevation, bearing and range) estimation of multiple sources. The method does not require any spectral peak search, only needs 1D parameter pairing, and can be applied to additive Gaussian noise environment. The performance of the proposed method is verified by computer simulations.
Agonist and antagonist switch DNA motifs recognized by human androgen receptor in prostate cancer

Human transcription factors recognize specific DNA sequence motifs to regulate transcription. It is unknown whether a single transcription factor is able to bind to distinctly different motifs on chromatin, and if so, what determines the usage of specific motifs. By using a motif‐resolution chromatin immunoprecipitation‐exonuclease (ChIP‐exo) approach, we find that agonist‐liganded human androgen receptor (AR) and antagonist‐liganded AR bind to two distinctly different motifs, leading to distinct transcriptional outcomes in prostate cancer cells. Further analysis on clinical prostate tissues reveals that the binding of AR to these two distinct motifs is involved in prostate carcinogenesis. Together, these results suggest that unique ligands may switch DNA motifs recognized by ligand‐dependent transcription factors in vivo. Our findings also provide a broad mechanistic foundation for understanding ligand‐specific induction of gene expression profiles.
What goes up must come down: glucose variability and glucose control in diabetes and critical illness

The central question of this thesis is whether it is necessary to curb all glucose peaks. From the studies presented in this thesis we conclude that this is not always the case. In diabetes it is important to lower mean glucose while avoiding hypoglycaemia, but we found that lowering of glucose to normoglycaemia in critically ill patients seems actually harmful, in patients with and without diabetes. In addition, our studies show that glucose variability does not need separate treatment in diabetes, while it is associated with mortality in critically ill patients without diabetes. Thus, not all what goes up must come down.
Coherent joint-processing CoMP in pico-cellular lamp-post street deployment

In this paper we study the performance of coherent joint-processing coordinated multi-point (CoMP) transmission, also known as Network MIMO, in pico-cellular street deployments with lamp-post base station installation. Previously published and experimentally confirmed short-range wireless propagation models have been applied. The performance is compared against the equivalent case of macro-cellular deployment. In both deployments, we report significant Network MIMO gains compared to the conventional solution without coordination. Effects of the base station antenna elevation and transmit power are also analyzed. Greater benefit of Network MIMO is determined in pico- than in macro-cellular systems.
Neutrophil‐activating potential of antineutrophil cytoplasm autoantibodies

Accumulating in vivo and in vitro evidence supports the hypothesis that antineutrophil cytoplasm autoantibodies (ANCA) with specificity for proteinase 3 (PR3) and myeloperoxidase (MPO) are involved in the pathophysiology of small‐vessel vasculitis. The best‐described effector function of these autoantibodies is stimulation of neutrophils to produce reactive oxygen species and to release proteolytic enzymes. Neutrophil activation requires interaction of monomeric ANCA with PR3/MPO and Fcγ receptors, but also other mechanisms—for instance, stimulation by ANCA‐containing immune complexes—cannot be excluded. This review focuses on the mechanisms of neutrophil activation by ANCA. We discuss the molecules involved in ANCA binding to the neutrophil surface and in triggering the functional responses. We summarize current knowledge on the signal‐transduction pathways initiated by ANCA and on the factors determining susceptibility of neutrophils to activation by these autoantibodies.
Muscle Impairments in Patients With Knee Osteoarthritis

Context: Muscle impairments associated with knee osteoarthritis (OA) are the primary underlying cause of functional limitations. Understanding the extent of muscle impairments, its relationship with physical function and disease progression, and the evidence behind exercise therapy that targets muscle impairments is crucial. Evidence Acquisition: An electronic search for relevant articles using MEDLINE and CINHAL databases up to September 2011 was performed. In addition to the electronic search, retrieved articles were searched manually for relevant studies. Results: Quadriceps, hamstrings, and hip muscles are significantly impaired in subjects with knee OA compared with age-matched controls. Muscle strength, especially quadriceps, is a major determinant of both performance-based and self-reported physical function. Whether stronger quadriceps is protective against knee OA onset and progression is not clear. Exercise therapy, including global and targeted resistance training, is effective in reducing pain and improving function in subjects with knee OA. Conclusions: Subjects with knee OA have significant muscle impairments. These muscle impairments affect physical function and should be targeted in therapy. Further research is needed to explore the relationship between quadriceps strength and knee OA initiation and progression and to determine the optimal exercise prescription that augments outcomes in this patient population.
Terahertz Sources and Receivers for Science Applications and Test & Measurement Systems

Solid-state sources and receivers are now available throughout the frequency range from 100 GHz to 3 THz. Although III-V MMIC amplifiers and Si-Ge technology are beginning to extend throughout this band, systems based on GaAs Schottky diodes still offer the best performance for most applications. These include a variety of important applications in science, and also test & measurement equipment for laboratory use, such as VNA frequency extenders. This paper will review progress in this important technology with emphasis on recent results and its application.
Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of individually tailored Internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy for anxiety disorders in a primary care population : A randomized controlled rial

A significant proportion of the general population suffers from anxiety disorders, often with comorbid psychiatric conditions. Internet-delivered cognitive behavior therapy (ICBT) has been found to be a potent treatment for patients with specific psychiatric conditions. The aim of this trial was to investigate the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of ICBT when tailoring the treatment to address comorbidities and preferences for primary-care patients with a principal anxiety disorder. One hundred participants were recruited through their primary-care contact and randomized to either treatment or an active control group. The treatment consisted of 7e10 weekly individually assigned modules guided by online therapists. At post-treatment, 46% of the treatment group had achieved clinically significant improvement on the primary outcome measure (CORE-OM) and between-group effect sizes ranged from d 1⁄4 0.20 to 0.86, with a mean effect of d 1⁄4 0.59. At one-year follow-up, within-group effect sizes varied between d 1⁄4 0.53 to 1.00. Cost analysis showed significant reduction of total costs for the ICBT group, the results were maintained at one-year follow-up and the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio favored ICBT compared to control group. Individually tailored ICBT is an effective and cost-effective treatment for primary-care patients with anxiety disorders with or without comorbidities. Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT01390168. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
Synthetic Teichoic Acid Conjugate Vaccine against Nosocomial Gram-Positive Bacteria

Lipoteichoic acids (LTA) are amphiphilic polymers that are important constituents of the cell wall of many Gram-positive bacteria. The chemical structures of LTA vary among organisms, albeit in the majority of Gram-positive bacteria the LTAs feature a common poly-1,3-(glycerolphosphate) backbone. Previously, the specificity of opsonic antibodies for this backbone present in some Gram-positive bacteria has been demonstrated, suggesting that this minimal structure may be sufficient for vaccine development. In the present work, we studied a well-defined synthetic LTA-fragment, which is able to inhibit opsonic killing of polyclonal rabbit sera raised against native LTA from Enterococcus faecalis 12030. This promising compound was conjugated with BSA and used to raise rabbit polyclonal antibodies. Subsequently, the opsonic activity of this serum was tested in an opsonophagocytic assay and specificity was confirmed by an opsonophagocytic inhibition assay. The conjugated LTA-fragment was able to induce specific opsonic antibodies that mediate killing of the clinical strains E. faecalis 12030, Enterococcus faecium E1162, and community-acquired Staphylococcus aureus strain MW2 (USA400). Prophylactic immunization with the teichoic acid conjugate and with the rabbit serum raised against this compound was evaluated in active and passive immunization studies in mice, and in an enterococcal endocarditis rat model. In all animal models, a statistically significant reduction of colony counts was observed indicating that the novel synthetic LTA-fragment conjugate is a promising vaccine candidate for active or passive immunotherapy against E. faecalis and other Gram-positive bacteria.
Evolutionary Entropy Determines Invasion Success in Emergent Epidemics

Background Standard epidemiological theory claims that in structured populations competition between multiple pathogen strains is a deterministic process which is mediated by the basic reproduction number () of the individual strains. A new theory based on analysis, simulation and empirical study challenges this predictor of success. Principal Findings We show that the quantity is a valid predictor in structured populations only when size is infinite. In this article we show that when population size is finite the dynamics of infection by multi-strain pathogens is a stochastic process whose outcome can be predicted by evolutionary entropy, S, an information theoretic measure which describes the uncertainty in the infectious age of an infected parent of a randomly chosen new infective. Evolutionary entropy characterises the demographic stability or robustness of the population of infectives. This statistical parameter determines the duration of infection and thus provides a quantitative index of the pathogenicity of a strain. Standard epidemiological theory based on as a measure of selective advantage is the limit as the population size tends to infinity of the entropic selection theory. The standard model is an approximation to the entropic selection theory whose validity increases with population size. Conclusion An epidemiological analysis based on entropy is shown to explain empirical observations regarding the emergence of less pathogenic strains of human influenza during the antigenic drift phase. Furthermore, we exploit the entropy perspective to discuss certain epidemiological patterns of the current H1N1 swine 'flu outbreak.
Private Rendezvous-based Calibration of Low-Cost Sensors for Participatory Environmental Sensing

Ever-connected smart phones and advanced sensors have lead to new sensing paradigms that promise environmental monitoring in unprecedented spatio-temporal resolution. Especially in air quality sensing with low-cost sensors, regular in-situ device calibration is a helpful approach to ensure data quality. In participatory sensing scenarios, privacy implications arise, as personal sensor data, time and location need to be exchanged. We present a novel privacy-preserving multi-hop sensor calibration scheme that combines Private Proximity Testing and an anonymizing MIX network with cross-sensor calibration based on sensor rendezvous. Our evaluation with simulated ozone measurements and real-world taxicab mobility traces shows that our scheme provides privacy protection while maintaining competitive overall data quality in dense participatory sensing networks.
Exact rotamer optimization for protein design

Computational methods play a central role in the rational design of novel proteins. The present work describes a new hybrid exact rotamer optimization (HERO) method that builds on previous dead‐end elimination algorithms to yield dramatic performance enhancements. Measured on experimentally validated physical models, these improvements make it possible to perform previously intractable designs of entire protein core, surface, or boundary regions. Computational demonstrations include a full core design of the variable domains of the light and heavy chains of catalytic antibody 48G7 FAB with 74 residues and 10128 conformations, a full core/boundary design of the β1 domain of protein G with 25 residues and 1053 conformations, and a full surface design of the β1 domain of protein G with 27 residues and 1060 conformations. In addition, a full sequence design of the β1 domain of protein G is used to demonstrate the strong dependence of algorithm performance on the exact form of the potential function and the fidelity of the rotamer library. These results emphasize that search algorithm performance for protein design can only be meaningfully evaluated on physical models that have been subjected to experimental scrutiny. The new algorithm greatly facilitates ongoing efforts to engineer increasingly complex protein features. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem 24: 232–243, 2003
A Flexible and Compact Digital Front-End Design for Wideband Software Radio Receivers

The Digital front-end technique (DFE) is a key element of software-defined radio receivers. With this technique, any signal of interest can be extracted and shaped from the wideband radio frequency (RF) input signal. This paper aims to study, design, and implement a flexible wideband DFE architecture that can be compactly implemented on field programmable gate array (FPGA). The tradeoff between cost and computing complexity is analyzed and compared. Furthermore, a flexible and compact 32-channel DFE is implemented on single-chip FPGA. The architecture includes polyphase filter banks, fine tuning, channel filtering and gain control blocks. Our DFE parameters for each output channel can be programmed individually. It supports 0.01Hz tuning precision and end-to-end dynamic range of around 80dB at sample rate of 200MSPS.
Components of Swarm Intelligence International Conference on Robotics and Remote Systems for Hazardous Environments Components of Swarm Intelligence

This paper discusses the successes and failures over the past three years as efforts at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) have developed and evaluated robot behaviors that promote the emergence of swarm intelligence. Using a team of 12 small robots with the ability to respond to light and sound, the INEEL has investigated the fundamental advantages of swarm behavior as well as the limitations of this approach. The paper discusses the ways in which biology has inspired this work and the ways in which adherence to the biological model has proven to be both a benefit and hindrance to developing a fieldable system. The paper outlines how a hierarchical command and control structure can be imposed in order to permit human control at a level of group abstraction and discusses experimental results that show how group performance scales as different numbers of robots are utilized. Lastly, the paper outlines the applications for which the resulting capabilities have been applied and demonstrated.