Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Functional Neuroanatomy of Music Performance, Perception, and Comprehension

Abstract: This chapter highlights findings by my colleagues and me in four neuroimaging and neurological studies of music performance, perception, and comprehension. These investigations elucidate the neural subsystems supporting musical pitch, melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, meter, and duration. In a positron emission tomography (PET) study of pianists, a memorized performance of a musical piece was contrasted with that of scales to localize brain areas specifically supporting music. A second PET study assayed brain areas subserving selectively the comprehension of harmony, melody, and rhythm. Musicians sight‐read a score while detecting specific melodic, harmonic, or rhythmic errors in its heard performance. In a third PET study, musicians and nonmusicians discriminated pairs of rhythms with respect to pattern, tempo, meter, or duration. Data in these studies implicated the cerebellum in nonmotor, nonsomatic, sensory, or cognitive processing. In a fourth study, neurological patients with degeneration of the cerebellum were found to be impaired in fine discrimination of pitch. Overall, these data suggest that the neural systems underlying music are distributed throughout the left and right cerebral and cerebellar hemispheres, with different aspects of music processed by distinct neural circuits. Also discussed are key issues for interpreting the role in music of brain areas implicated in neuroimaging studies.
Urbanizing the Ambient: Why People Matter So Much in Smart Cities

The purpose of this chapter is to develop and explore the ambient urbanizing concept as a way to shed light on what happens at the urban level when people become more aware and attuned to smartness and ambience in everyday city spaces. The research design for this work includes a case study approach and multiple methods of quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. In parallel with this study, anecdotal evidence gathered from individuals across the city through informal individual and group discussions enabled further analysis, comparison, and triangulation of data. This chapter makes a contribution to the research literature across multiple domains; sheds light on the emerging relationships of awareness in the people – technologies – cities dynamic, highlighting the critical role of people, in their everyday urban activities, interactions, and experiences; and offers a proposed ambient urbanizing framework for enriching spaces, things, and designs in smart cities.
Capacity with Explicit Delay Guarantees for Generic Sources over Correlated Rayleigh Channel

This work analyzes the joint influence of channel fading and the data outsourcing process in the QoS metrics of a wireless system. As a first contribution, expressions of the channel effective bandwidth function (also known as effective capacity) for time-correlated Rayleigh fading under different adaptive rate policies are obtained. This result allows us to analytically evaluate the maximum constant information rate that can be transmitted over the channel under a probabilistic delay constraint. Later, this Capacity with Probabilistic Delay Constraint CDt, ε is generalized for systems with non-constant sources and simple closed-form expressions able to capture the influence of source processes in the probability of over-delay are given. Figures on how much the maximum allowable rate decreases for shorter allowable delays or for more changing rate sources are shown and the expected delay violation is compared to simulations in order to validate our results.
Overview on ‘escaping the middle-income trap’

The ‘middle-income trap’ has become a popular theme in the literature and among policy-makers, even though a precise definition of it and empirical evidence for it are hard to pin down. The argument boils down to the view that high-income growth differs qualitatively from middle-income growth, and hence requires different factor endowments, industrial structures and policies, and that the transition cannot be taken for granted. Increased capacity to innovate is widely seen as vital to support higher value-added production. Since many policy-makers aspire for their countries to achieve high-income status, understanding the factors that hinder or support this transition becomes crucially important. This volume presents recent research related to the middle-income trap, with a focus on the experience of China, whose policy-makers certainly show great interest in the question. Some of the papers were taken from two conferences sponsored by the Asian Development Bank Institute, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project 71133004), and China &World Economy journal, one in November 2015 and one in April 2016. The first five papers examine the questions of the nature of the middle-income trap and the fundamental factors that support or hinder sustainable growth, most notably the roles of the manufacturing and financial sectors and trade openness. The latter five papers explore the role of government policy in fostering growth in China. A common theme is that such policies may have unforeseen side-effects which gradually undermine the effectiveness of those policies. This includes the effects of the hukou system and land-use policy in controlling the pace and distribution of urbanization as a part of overall development planning, and competition among provinces to imitate growth policies set by the central government regardless of local comparative advantage.
Passively mode-locked semiconductor laser for coherent population trapping in 87Rb

Recent growing interest in miniature atomic frequency references and precision magnetometers has motivated investigations of coherent population trapping (CPT) and its use in such applications [1]. System designs based on picosecond mode-locked lasers have been previously reported for generating the CPT effect, using Ti:Sapphire lasers passively mode-locked at a submultiple of the hyperfine splitting 87Rb levels [2], or laser diodes modulated electrically [3] or with an external electro-optic modulator [4] at the 87Rb splitting frequency. In this work we investigate a novel approach for achieving CPT in 87Rb vapour cells. We use a 795nm semiconductor laser passively mode-locked [5] at the 87Rb standard frequency (∼6.834GHz). This approach eliminates the need for any RF driving circuit, allowing a more compact, integrable and easy to drive implementation of CPT in 87Rb. For this purpose we have fabricated 5.678mm long lasers with 3µm wide and 1. 2µm deep ridge waveguides, with a 150µm long saturable absorber (SA) at one facet. The laser material used is a 793nm GaAs/AlxGa1−xAs single quantum well (QW) graded-index separate confinement heterostructure (GRINSCH), with an epitaxial design similar to the one reported in [6].
An innovative probabilistic methodology for net transfer capacity evaluation

In the context of transmission system planning, research proposes methods to assess the effect of uncertainties of power system operating condition due to forecasting errors of intermittent generation and loads. In particular probabilistic power flow methods are illustrated to calculate the probability distributions of the voltages and the branch currents, starting from the distributions of power injections/absorptions. These uncertainties play a key role in the operational planning of power systems, as certain configurations of load and intermittent generation can cause security problems. This paper aims to propose a probabilistic methodology to assess Net Transfer Capacity (NTC) among network areas, which quantifies forecast error uncertainties by applying the Point Estimate Method (PEM) combined with Third Order Polynomial Normal (TPN) Transformation. This approach is compared with a conventional NTC assessment technique and has been validated against Monte-Carlo benchmark on an IEEE test system.
Jumper's knee

Jumper's knee is an overuse disease. The initial subjective complaints are well‐localized pain, usually occurring after physical activities and often at the lower pole of the patella. The diagnosis of jumper's knee is usually easily established after acquiring a detailed history and a carefully performed physical examination, but the lesion can be mistaken for other disorders or injuries, such as bursitis, meniscal injuries or chondromalacia (1) or other causes of the patellofemoral pain syndrome. Today ultrasonography is the method of choice for the evaluation of jumper's knee as it is both time and cost saving, non‐invasive, repeatable, accurate and allows a dynamic image of the tendon, guided injections and control of treatment. Conservative therapy is the treatment of choice in the early stages and includes adequate warm‐up, stretching of the quadriceps muscle and physical activity with respect to the pain, and ice pack application after activity. When the pain disappears, the training intensity can be increased. NSAID (Non‐Steroidal Anti‐Inflammatory Drugs) and local peritendinous injections with long‐acting steroids can be a helpful and safe adjuvant to the conservative treatment and should be tried before surgery. Surgical treatment is indicated only if a prolonged and well‐supervised conservative treatment program fails in chronic jumper's knee (including local injection with steroid) or in acute total rupture. Review papers concerning jumper's knee are already published (2–5), but in this review the importance of ultrasonography to make the diagnosis, to plan therapy and control the treatment and the safety of peritendinous injection with steroid is pointed out. The scientific documentation for the recommanded treatment (conservative, steroid injection and operation) is, however, insufficient. Many more controlled studies are needed. Ultrasonography and placebo‐controlled, double–blinded, cross‐over studies for treatment with local injection of steroid are ongoing (6, 7).
Antibody response after RSV infection in children younger than 1 year of age living in a rural area of Mozambique

Serological responses have been studied in respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infected children < 1 year of age attending the outpatient department of the Manhiça District Hospital (Mozambique). Molecular characterization of viral RNA in nasopharyngeal aspirates from the infected children indicated a high level of genetic uniformity among the infecting viruses, all of which belonged to a single genotype of RSV group A. A representative virus strain, Moz00, was isolated from one of the infants and was used, together with the group A strain A2 and the group B strain 8/60, as antigens in the quantification of infant antibody responses. In this study, 97.5% (39/40) and 96.4% (27/28) of infected children produced an antibody response against Moz00 detected by the membrane fluorescent antibody test (MFAT) and the neutralization test (NT), respectively. Seroconversion rates decreased when the A2 and 8/60 strains were used as antigen in MFAT (95.4% and 88.2%, respectively) or NT (81.8% and 54.5%, respectively), indicating that antibody responses had both group‐ and strain‐specific components. Antibodies in convalescent sera of infected children were compared with maternally derived antibodies detected in a group of children also < 1 year of age, but with no evidence of RSV infection. The convalescent sera exhibited reduced neutralizing capacity when the 8/60 strain was used as antigen (P = 0.028), suggesting that the infant antibody response lacks neutralizing capacity against strains of the heterologous virus group. Restricted cross‐reactivity and neutralizing capacity of antibodies generated by young children might be expected to induce only moderate protection in subsequent epidemics against genetically distant strains. J. Med. Virol. 69:579–587, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Effect of heat shock protein peptide DiaPep277 on beta-cell function in paediatric and adult patients with recent-onset diabetes mellitus type 1: two prospective, randomized, double-blind phase II trials.

BACKGROUND Aim of this trial was to test whether heat shock protein peptide DiaPep277 treatment in adult and paediatric patients with recent-onset type 1 diabetes (T1D) is safe and whether it can preserve endogenous insulin production. METHODS Two studies were performed in a prospective, multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Fifty adult (study p520, aged 16-44 years) and 49 paediatric patients (study p521, 4-15 years) with recent-onset T1D were treated subcutaneously at four different time points with 0.2 mg or 1.0 mg DiaPep277 versus placebo and followed for 18 months. Adult patients were treated with 0.2 mg, 1.0 mg or 2.5 mg DiaPep277 versus placebo. Stimulated C-peptide served as readout for functional beta-cell-mass. RESULTS DiaPep277-treatment was not associated with severe side effects. No differences were found in placebo and DiaPep277 treated groups. In adults, a modest trend towards better maintenance of beta-cell function was observed in the 0.2 mg and 1.0 mg group, while there was significant loss of stimulated C-peptide in the placebo and 2.5 mg group. Paediatric patients with low HLA risk showed stable C-peptide levels until 13 months upon treatment with 1 mg DiaPep277. Despite similar stimulated C-peptide levels at baseline, children exhibited a more pronounced loss of beta-cell function over 18 months than adults (p = 0.0003). CONCLUSION Administration of DiaPep277 seems safe and may have beneficial effects on C-peptide levels over time in some patients with T1D, but this finding was not accompanied by reduced HbA1c or insulin requirement. Studies with more patients and longer follow-up are needed to further study the effect of DiaPep277.
MOTIVATION FOR STARTING A BUSINESS: OPPORTUNITY OR SURVIVAL? A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE

Labour and trade union disputes and political uncertainty continue to negatively affect the South African economy. Strike action hampers productivity in many industries, affecting foreign investment. These factors all contribute to a slower economy, weakening the exchange rate and increasing cost of imports (Anon1 2014:1). A struggling electricity supply is also adding to current South African economic woes. The above factors add to the reasons why small businesses (SMEs) are being started as a means for South Africans to establish their own forms of income during these tough economic times. SMEs often form the backbone of national economies and have lately increased in importance (Hove & Tarisi 2013:57). This research paper aims to explore the reasons why small businesses are started in South Africa by focusing on intrinsic and extrinsic driving forces. Once the reasons are known as to why small businesses are started, researchers can begin to develop interventions and strategies for the successful establishment and long-term survival of these SMEs.
Screening for transient ischemic attacks in hemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND Rapid recognition and management of transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) reduce incident strokes in the general population, but similar data are lacking in dialysis patients, who form a high-risk group for this pathology. We systematically screened hemodialysis patients for TIA to estimate its incidence and determine whether there was significant scope to reduce subsequent strokes by risk modification. METHODS Patients established on hemodialysis at a satellite dialysis unit at our center were screened prospectively using weekly symptom questionnaires over a 12-month period. Following clinical review, patients who screened positive were urgently referred to a TIA clinic, and all stroke and TIA and stroke events were recorded. RESULTS A total of 304 patients were screened over 2,594 total patient months of follow-up (1st November 2009 to 1st November 2010). Six strokes occurred, of which 5 were ischemic (a rate of 23.1/1,000 patient-years). No patients screened positive for a TIA, despite predicted rates of 4.2/1,000 patient-years (95% confidence interval, 1.4-9.7/1,000 patient-years). One ischemic stroke was preceded by symptoms compatible with a TIA, although this was ascertained in retrospect and not during screening. CONCLUSIONS Based on the first study of its kind to date, systematic screening for TIA has a low yield and cannot be relied on alone to identify patients at higher risk of cerebrovascular events. The confounding presence of symptoms attributable to uremia, neuropathy, hypotension and dysglycemia could reduce the sensitivity of established tests, with significant implications for the detection and treatment of TIA in dialysis.
Competence to develop sensory organs is temporally and spatially regulated in Drosophila epidermal primordia.

The Drosophila adult cuticle displays a stereotyped pattern of sensory organs (SOs). Its deployment requires the expression of the achaete (ac) and scute (sc) genes. Their products confer to cells of epidermal primordia (imaginal discs and histoblasts) the ability to become SO precursors (SOPs). In imaginal discs, ac and sc expression is spatially restricted to cell clusters within which one or a few cells become SOP(s). With the help of ubiquitous sc expression provided at different developmental times by a heat shock‐sc (HSSC) chimeric gene, we have analyzed the response of epidermal primordia to the proneural action of the sc product, and have tested whether the patterned distribution of ac/sc products is necessary to position SOs correctly within the epidermis. Each primordium responds to HSSC expression by developing SOs only during a characteristic developmental period. In the absence of the endogenous ac and sc genes, most SOs induced by HSSC are of the correct type and are located in wild type positions. These results indicate that the capacity of primordia to respond to sc is temporally and spatially regulated, that specification of the type of SO does not depend on ac/sc, and that SO positioning utilizes topological information independent of the spatially restricted distribution of ac/sc products.
High-level chromosomal gentamicin resistance in Streptococcus agalactiae (group B)

This is the first report of high-level gentamicin resistance in a group B streptococcus. Strain B128 of serotype II was isolated from an infected leg wound in 1987. B128 was resistant to high levels of gentamicin as well as of all other available aminoglycosides and was also resistant to tetracyclines. No bactericidal synergism was found between ampicillin or vancomycin and any of these aminoglycosides. Gentamicin, kanamycin, streptomycin, and tetracycline resistance determinants transferred by conjugation into a plasmid-free group B streptococcus recipient at a frequency of 10(-8) to 10(-9) transconjugants per donor cell. No transconjugants were detected when streptococci of groups A, C, and G, Streptococcus sanguis, or Enterococcus faecalis was used as a recipient. No plasmids were detected in B128 or in any of the four transconjugants tested. By DNA-DNA hybridization, homology was detected between gene aac6/aph2, of E. faecalis origin, and a 2.4-kilobase HindIII chromosomal fragment of B128; homology to the genes aph3 and aadE, of E. faecalis origin, was found with HindIII chromosomal fragments of the same size (3.0 kilobases). Strains like B128, which potentially can be responsible for severe neonatal infections, are of great clinical concern, since there are to date no antibiotic combinations exhibiting bactericidal synergism against them.
A phenology-preserving filtering method to reduce noise in NDVI time series

This paper presents a phenology-preserving filtering method as a significant improvement to the standard changing-weight filter method to reduce noise in NDVI time series. Specifically it introduces two new features: (1) replacing the changing-weight filter with a 3-point Gaussian filter to improve the computing efficiency; and (2) introducing a multi-year average NDVI time series to remove the false local minima points. This phenology-preserving filtering method was tested at 178 test points for 15 land cover types and 6 test regions around the world using the 250 m 16-day MODIS NDVI product. The results were evaluated in comparison with the original changing-weight filter and other three popular filtering methods. The visual and quantitative analyses demonstrate that the phenology-preserving filtering method can effectively reduce noise and preserve the integrity of the time series with a high computing efficiency.
The Illusion of Scale in Segregated Witness

Money gains value through use. As a limited quantity of money chases a set value of wealth, we see the price increase linearly with the velocity of the system. The more use, the higher the price. Likewise, as use cases are limited we can expect a decline in price. This effect can be coupled together with scarcity. Bitcoin is a scarce economic good. Its value is retained from its use factor which as a settlement layer alone is severely limited. When proposed changes such as segregated witness are introduced into the system, value is not added into the system, rather than value being added, it is distributed between aspects that are detrimental to the growth of the system. This occurs because schemes such as segregated witness allow for the introduction of fractional reserve systems into bitcoin. With these, the velocity of the system is lowered and bitcoin becomes a pure settlement system such as Swift. In this, value was transferred from bitcoin into sidechains.
Role of Immune Responses against the Envelope and the Core Antigens of Simian Immunodeficiency Virus SIVmne in Protection against Homologous Cloned and Uncloned Virus Challenge in Macaques

ABSTRACT We previously showed that envelope (gp160)-based vaccines, used in a live recombinant virus priming and subunit protein boosting regimen, protected macaques against intravenous and intrarectal challenges with the homologous simian immunodeficiency virus SIVmne clone E11S. However, the breadth of protection appears to be limited, since the vaccines were only partially effective against intravenous challenge by the uncloned SIVmne. To examine factors that could affect the breadth and the efficacy of this immunization approach, we studied (i) the effect of priming by recombinant vaccinia virus; (ii) the role of surface antigen gp130; and (iii) the role of core antigens (Gag and Pol) in eliciting protective immunity. Results indicate that (i) priming with recombinant vaccinia virus was more effective than subunit antigen in eliciting protective responses; (ii) while both gp130 and gp160 elicited similar levels of SIV-specific antibodies, gp130 was not as effective as gp160 in protection, indicating a possible role for the transmembrane protein in presenting functionally important epitopes; and (iii) although animals immunized with core antigens failed to generate any neutralizing antibody and were infected upon challenge, their virus load was 50- to 100-fold lower than that of the controls, suggesting the importance of cellular immunity or other core-specific immune responses in controlling acute infection. Complete protection against intravenous infection by the pathogenic uncloned SIVmne was achieved by immunization with both the envelope and the core antigens. These results indicate that immune responses to both antigens may contribute to protection and thus argue for the inclusion of multiple antigens in recombinant vaccine designs.