Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chemical-shift water-fat MRI of white adipose depots: inability to resolve cell size differences.

PURPOSE Adipocyte cell size varies among individuals and importantly, is inversely correlated with insulin sensitivity, and modifiable by weight loss or pharmaceutical agents. However, there are no non-invasive, in vivo methods for adipocyte cell size determination. Here we apply Chemical-Shift Water-Fat MRI to in vivo measures of subcutaneous (inguinal) and visceral (gonadal) white adipose tissue (WAT) to determine whether the fat-signal fraction (FF) is a sensitive indicator of adipocyte cell size. MATERIALS AND METHODS C57BL/6J male mice (8 weeks old) were singly housed and fed a low-fat diet, high-fat diet or very high-fat diet (n = 16 or 15/group) for 8 weeks. Food intake, body weight and composition were measured; CS-MRI was performed on a 9.4 Tesla Bruker magnet with respiratory gating and anesthesia. Histology was acquired for gonadal WAT; both gonadal and inguinal WAT were fixed with osmium tetroxide and then measured through Image J for cell size. RESULTS Mice fed with higher fat content diets gained significantly more body weight, fat and lean mass while maintaining higher energy intakes over the 8 weeks. There was no significant difference in fat fraction for either gonadal (P = 0.1295) or inguinal (P = 0.4704) WAT among the three groups, despite significantly larger adipocytes (P <0.0001) in mice on high fat diets. CONCLUSION Although diet-induced obesity significantly increased the amount of fat mass, as well as mean and overall white adipocyte cell size, the CS-MRI measured fat fraction between groups were not significantly different. These results do not support the utility of CS-MRI measured FF for in vivo determination of adipocyte cell size.
Radio resource allocation for physical-layer security in OFDMA based HetNets with unknown mode of adversary

Consider an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA)-based heterogeneous cellular network (HetNet) in which a macrocell is underlaid with several small cells overheard by eavesdropper and jamming by jammer. In this paper, our goal is to design a transmission strategy, such that the achievable secrecy rate is maximized subject to the individual transmit power constraints for the macrocell base station (MBS) and each small-cell base station (SBS) and a constraint for the interference caused by SBSs to the macrocell user equipments (MUEs). There exists an adversary which can choose between two functional modes: eavesdropping the transmission between the legitimate parties or jamming it, but not both at the same time. We assume that the mode of adversary on each sub-carrier is unknown. To solve this non-convex problem, we employ an iterative approach in which sub-carriers and transmit powers of each base stations are alternatively assigned and optimized at every step. To handle the non-convexity of the power allocation, we adopt the successive convex approximation (SCA) approach by exploiting arithmetic-geometric mean (AGM) and logarithmic and difference-of-two-concave-functions (D.C.) approximations to transform problem into a sequence of convex subproblems. Simulation results demonstrate the close-to-optimal performance of the proposed schemes.
The Strength of the Halo Effect in Physical Attractiveness Research

Summary Two studies to assess the strength of the “halo effect” of physical attractiveness on person perception examined the ratings of 24 male and female targets by 155 male and 155 female American college students. Both the first study and its replication indicate that the halo effect is much more limited than previously implied. However, three attributions, sexiness, femininity/masculinity, and liking showed a strong relationship to physical attractiveness, especially for female targets.
EPIDEMIOLOGY Social Inequalities and Gender Differences in the Experience of Alcohol-Related Problems

Aims: To examine the influence of country-level characteristics and individual socio-economic status (SES) on individ- ual alcohol-related consequences. Methods: Data from 42,655 men and women collected by cross-sectional surveys in 25 countries of the Gender, Alcohol and Culture: An International Study study were used. The individual SES was measured by the highest attained educational level. Alcohol-related consequences were defined as the self-report of at least one internal or one external consequence in the last year. The relationship between individuals' education and alcohol-related consequences was examined by meta-analysis. In a second step, the individual level data and country data were combined in multilevel models. As country-level indicators, we used the purchasing power parity of the gross national income (GNI), the Gini coefficient and the Gender Gap Index. Results: Lower educated men and women were more likely to report consequences than higher educated men and women even after controlling for drinking patterns. For men, this relation was significant for both internal and external problems. For women, it was only significant for external problems. The GNI was significantly associated with reporting external consequences for men such that in lower income countries men were more likely to report social problems. Conclusion: The fact that problems accrue more quickly for lower educated persons even if they drink in the same manner can be linked to the social or environmental dimension surround- ing problems. That is, those of fewer resources are less protected from the experience of a problem or the impact of a stressful life event.
Multi-level Isolation for Android Applications

Android is one of the most popular operating systems on mobile devices, and its usage is not going to decrease anytime soon. Although Android security has already been widely studied in the literature, its quick evolution scheme and emerging usages call for the continuation of this common effort.In particular, mobile devices are now commonly used in different contexts, like in a bring-your-own device (BYOD) environment where personal and business data are held on the same device. However, small and medium companies cannot afford the costs of a dedicated software solution allowing personal and professional data to securely coexist on employees devices.In this paper, we present a preliminary solution to address this need of isolation by leveraging hardware virtualization extensions found in current mobile processors. This solution targets chipset manufacturers and provides security and privacy protections for standard Android end users.
Drug addicts in therapy—changes in life space in the course of one year

In a residential community treatment setting, moods and emotional states of drug addicts were explored over a 1-year period. The specific form of treatment of heroin addiction employed in the communities is based on the importance of interpersonal relationships for psychosocial transition. Twenty-nine participants reported current mood, emotions, attributions, and motive activation using a time-sampling diary for 2 weeks at the beginning of the treatment, and 6 and 12 months later. Results show an increase in positive emotions, and in subjective strength and freedom. Furthermore, participants report higher self-esteem and use less fatalistic attributions. This is interpreted as indicating successful transition processes in terms of higher autonomy, a more extended life space and increased levels of realism. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A new hybrid metric for verifying parallel corpora of Arabic-English

This paper discusses a new metric that has been applied to verify the quality in translation between sentence pairs in parallel corpora of Arabic-English. This metric combines two techniques, one based on sentence length and the other based on compression code length. Experiments on sample test parallel Arabic-English corpora indicate the combination of these two techniques improves accuracy of the identification of satisfactory and unsatisfactory sentence pairs compared to sentence length and compression code length alone. The new method proposed in this research is effective at filtering noise and reducing mis-translations resulting in greatly improved quality.
Permitted and Forbidden Sets in Discrete-Time Linear Threshold Recurrent Neural Networks

The concepts of permitted and forbidden sets enable a new perspective of the memory in neural networks. Such concepts exhibit interesting dynamics in recurrent neural networks. This paper studies the basic theories of permitted and forbidden sets of the linear threshold discrete-time recurrent neural networks. The linear threshold transfer function has been regarded as an adequate transfer function for recurrent neural networks. Networks with this transfer function form a class of hybrid analog and digital networks which are especially useful for perceptual computations. Networks in discrete time can directly provide algorithms for efficient implementation in digital hardware. The main contribution of this paper is to establish foundations of permitted and forbidden sets. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the linear threshold discrete-time recurrent neural networks are obtained for complete convergence, existence of permitted and forbidden sets, as well as conditionally multiattractivity, respectively. Simulation studies explore some possible interesting practical applications.
Bridge deck deflection: importance of early shrinkage

The construction of the viaduct over the A9 highway, a semi-integral prestressed concrete bridge with a total span of 351.60 m, was accompanied by uncertainties about the importance of longterm effects on the deck deformations. To clarify these, deformation measurements have been carried out using optical fibers, which turned out to be a powerful measurement tool enabling the recording of the whole construction process. The measurements of the deck allowed identifying the various causes of deformation: an expansion period caused by the hydration heat release, a contraction due to early shrinkage; some deformations due to construction stages such as prestressing of the deck and lowering the formwork, and deformation due to creep. Analysing the early stages of deformations allowed the development of a structural model for concrete which distinguishes the point of zero deformation and the one of zero stress. The point of zero deformation occurs after the dormant phase, some hours after concreting, when concrete is transforming from liquid to solid state. The point of zero stress occurs few days after concreting when the deformations reach a clear peak value defined as the “birth of the concrete structure”. Up to this point of birth, the deformations occurring in the structure induce stress. Distinguishing these two points allows matching the experimental measurements and explaining the early cracking observed in concrete structures. It is shown that prediction of the deformations with numerical models is possible as long as the construction stages, the long-term effects and early shrinkage are considered. However, early shrinkage occurring after the birth of the concrete structure, which reaches values around 0.3 ‰ during the first weeks, has to be added to the currently used strain values of shrinkage. Generally speaking, early shrinkage has to be considered in the design to explain and avoid early age cracking in concrete structures.
Histopathologic changes in two mouse models of asthma.

BACKGROUND No studies to date have compared mouse models of asthma by evaluating airway histopathology. OBJECTIVE To compare 2 such models by studying chronic histopathologic changes of the airways using light and electron microscopy. METHODS Twenty-one male BALB/c mice were divided into 3 groups: a nebulization group sensitized via an intraperitoneal injection of 10 microg ovalbumin on days 0 and 14 and exposed to 2.5% aerosolized ovalbumin 3 days a week over the subsequent 8 weeks; an intranasal group sensitized via 2 intraperitoneal injections of 100 microg ovalbumin on days 0 and 14 and administered an intranasal dose of 500 microg ovalbumin on days 14, 27, 28, 29, 47, 61, 73, 74, and 75; and a control group that received nothing. Airway histopathologies were evaluated. RESULTS Basement membrane, epithelium, and subepithelial smooth muscle layer thicknesses and mast and goblet cell numbers were significantly higher in the nebulization group than in the control group. With the exception of mast cell numbers, these parameters were also significantly higher in the intranasal group than in the control group. On comparing the intranasal and the nebulization group, goblet cell numbers were significantly higher in the former and mast cells in the latter. CONCLUSION Both models replicated all the structural parameters of asthma except for mast cell numbers in the intranasal group (no significant difference with respect to the control group). Our findings do not provide sufficient evidence that one protocol is superior to the other. Larger studies are needed to compare different asthma protocols.
Knowledge-based Grids

Grids tie together distributed storage systems and execution platforms into globally accessible resources. Data Grids provide collection management and global namespaces for organizing data objects that reside within a grid. Knowledge-based grids provide concept spaces for discovering relevant data objects. In a knowledge-based grid, data objects are discovered by mapping from scientific domain concepts, to the attributes used within a data grid collection, to the digital objects residing in an archival storage system. These concepts will be explored in the context of large-scale storage in the web, and illustrated based on infrastructure under development at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
Genetic Heterogeneity of Small Ruminant Lentiviruses Involves Immunodominant Epitope of Capsid Antigen and Affects Sensitivity of Single-Strain-Based Immunoassay

ABSTRACT The pol and gag gene fragments of small ruminant lentivirus field isolates collected in the last decade in Italy were amplified, sequenced, and analyzed. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the majority of ovine isolates form a distinct cluster more similar to caprine lentivirus prototypes than to the visna virus prototype. These findings confirm and extend those reported by Leroux et al. (Arch. Virol., 142:1125-1137, 1997). Moreover, we observed that a variable region of Gag, included in the fragment analyzed, corresponded to one of the three major capsid antigen epitopes, which suggests that the antibody response to this epitope may be type specific. To test this hypothesis, two recombinant peptides, derived from the Icelandic prototype K1514 and this novel genotype, were expressed and used in an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay to screen a panel of ovine and caprine sera collected from different geographical locations in Italy. Several sera reacted in a type-specific manner, indicating that in a diagnostic setting the combination of at least these two type-specific peptides is necessary to cover a wide range of infections. Additionally, these results support the hypothesis of cross-species transmission based on the phylogenetic analysis described above. This has implications for the control and eradication of small ruminant lentivirus infections.
Complicated Mild Traumatic Brain Injury on the Inpatient Rehabilitation Unit: A Multicenter Analysis

ObjectiveTo determine characteristics of patients with complicated mild traumatic brain injury (CMTBI) on the inpatient rehabilitation unit and to accentuate limits of current classification systems for patients with mild TBI. DesignMulticenter analysis of individuals with a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score of 13 to 15 (lowest score in 24 h) and positive computed tomography findings admitted to inpatient rehabilitation for TBI. Setting16 TBI Model System centers funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. Participants373 adults with CMTBI. Main outcome measuresFunctional Independence Measure (FIM) and Disability Rating Scale (DRS) scores, length of stay, and medical complications. Results16% of the sample experienced serious cranial complications (eg, cerebrospinal fluid leak, intracranial hypertension), with seizures being the most common during the course of inpatient rehabilitation. Most patients demonstrated substantial improvements on functional outcome measures during rehabilitation (mean admission FIM 68.2, discharge FIM 100.6; admission DRS 9.1, discharge DRS 4.8). Age, acute length of stay, and FIM score on rehabilitation admission were significant predictors of rehabilitation length of stay. Factors not predictive of rehabilitation duration were GCS score, ethnicity, gender, incidence of fractures, and incidence of cranial/noncranial complications. ConclusionDespite favorable GCS scores, some patients with CMTBI suffer a variety of serious cranial and noncranial complications. Such patients appear to benefit from additional brain injury services offered in inpatient rehabilitation. Further study of the unique treatment needs of these patients is warranted.
Building approximate overlap graphs for DNA assembly using random-permutations-based search

between two reads indicates an approximate overlap between the reads. Since the algorithm finds approximate overlaps directly, it can process reads without errorcorrection preprocessing steps. Extensions of the algorithm, such as construction graphs of overlapping pairs of reads, are discussed. The algorithm can be used to construct graphs for assembly and for other related applications such as error correction. Preliminary experimental results indicate that the algorithm constructs graphs which lead to relatively long contigs even in the presence of sequencing errors.
Visualization of the Interaction of Multiple Sclerosis Lesions with Adjacent White Matter Fibers Using Streamtubes and Streamsurfaces

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease of the central nervous system that predominantly affects young adults during their most productive years. Pathologically, MS is characterized by the presence of areas of demyelination and T-cell predominant perivascular inflammation in the brain white matter. In order to study the effect of MS lesion on the white matter, we acquire diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data on MS patients and employ streamtubes and streamsurfaces to visualize the DTI data. We also register structural data sets with DTI data sets and generate isosurfaces of the MS lesions and the ventricles. The simultaneous visualization of all the models has the potential to elucidate the complex relationship between the MS lesions, the white matter neural fibers and the affected gray matter regions.
"Your click decides your fate": Leveraging clickstream patterns from MOOC videos to infer students' information processing & attrition behavior

With an expansive and ubiquitously available gold mine of educational data, Massive Open Online courses (MOOCs) have become the an important foci of learning analytics research. The hope is that this new surge of development will bring the vision of equitable access to lifelong learning opportunities within practical reach. MOOCs offer many valuable learning experiences to students, from video lectures, readings, assignments and exams, to opportunities to connect and collaborate with others through threaded discussion forums and other Web 2.0 technologies. Nevertheless, despite all this potential, MOOCs have so far failed to produce evidence that this potential is being realized in the current instantiation of MOOCs. In this work, we primarily explore video lecture interaction in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which is central to student learning experience on these educational platforms. As a research contribution, we operationalize video lecture clickstreams of students into behavioral actions, and construct a quantitative information processing index, that can aid instructors to better understand MOOC hurdles and reason about unsatisfactory learning outcomes. Our results illuminate the effectiveness of developing such a metric inspired by cognitive psychology, towards answering critical questions regarding students' engagement, their future click interactions and participation trajectories that lead to in-video dropouts. We leverage recurring click behaviors to differentiate distinct video watching profiles for students in MOOCs. Additionally, we discuss about prediction of complete course dropouts, incorporating diverse perspectives from statistics and machine learning, to offer a more nuanced view into how the second generation of MOOCs be benefited, if course instructors were to better comprehend factors that lead to student attrition.
A Solution to the Ramification Problem Expressed in Temporal Description Logics

The ramification problem in Artificial Intelligence is concerned with the indirect effects of an action. It has been shown in previous work that the ramification problem can be solved with the use of integrity constraints and actions representation. In this paper we begin with a quick review of the existing Description Logic Languages, and then we describe a Temporal Extension of Description Logics, able to represent integrity constraints, temporalized actions and non persistent effects. We describe a thorough solution to the ramification problem in Temporal Settings expressed in Temporal Description Logics. The solution also deals with the hard case, in which the effects of an action change the belief about the past.
Suitability of Simple Human Immunodeficiency Virus Rapid Tests in Clinical Trials in Community-Based Clinic Settings

ABSTRACT The suitability and accuracy of using simple human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) rapid (SR) tests in community-based clinics in northwest Tanzania were determined to assess eligibility for participation in clinical trials. The HIV rapid and ELISA test results for 789 women aged 16 to 54 who were screened for two clinical trials of HIV prevention were compared. Women were offered voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT) at screening; those who accepted were tested with the Abbott Determine and Trinity Biotech Capillus SR tests in parallel. The results were confirmed by two parallel HIV enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests (Abbott Murex HIV Ag/Ab combination and Vironostika Uniform II HIV Ag/Ab) to determine eligibility. Positive samples for any of the four assays were confirmed by a line immunoassay and p24 testing. The parallel SR tests had high concordance (96.2%) with the parallel ELISA algorithm. The sensitivities of the SR tests were 98.6% for Capillus (95% confidence interval [CI], 95.1 to 99.8%), 99.3% for Determine (95% CI, 96.2 to 100%), and 98.6% for the parallel SR (95% CI, 95.1 to 99.8%). The specificities were 99.7% for Capillus (95% CI, 98.9 to 100%), 99.7% for Determine (95% CI, 98.9 to 100%), and 100% for the parallel SR (95% CI, 99.4 to 100%). SR tests are suitable for use in community-based clinical research settings to assess eligibility both for trial participation and for the provision of on-site VCT services.