Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Might School Performance Grow on Trees? Examining the Link Between “Greenness” and Academic Achievement in Urban, High-Poverty Schools

In the United States, schools serving urban, low-income students are among the lowest-performing academically. Previous research in relatively well-off populations has linked vegetation in schoolyards and surrounding neighborhoods to better school performance even after controlling for important confounding factors, raising the tantalizing possibility that greening might boost academic achievement. This study extended previous cross-sectional research on the “greenness”-academic achievement link to a public school district in which nine out of ten children were eligible for free lunch. In generalized linear mixed models, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)-based measurements of green cover for 318 Chicago public schools predicted statistically significantly better school performance on standardized tests of math, with marginally statistically significant results for reading—even after controlling for disadvantage, an index combining poverty and minority status. Pupil/teacher ratio %bilingual, school size, and %female could not account for the greenness-performance link. Interactions between greenness and Disadvantage suggest that the greenness-academic achievement link is different for student bodies with different levels of disadvantage. To determine what forms of green cover were most strongly tied to academic achievement, tree cover was examined separately from grass and shrub cover; only tree cover predicted school performance. Further analyses examined the unique contributions of “school tree cover” (tree cover for the schoolyard and a 25 m buffer) and “neighborhood tree cover” (tree cover for the remainder of a school’s attendance catchment area). School greenness predicted math achievement when neighborhood greenness was controlled for, but neighborhood greenness did not significantly predict either reading or math achievement when school greenness was taken into account. Future research should assess whether greening schoolyards boost school performance.
Loss of histone acetylation and H3K4 methylation promotes melanocytic malignant transformation

ABSTRACT Epigenetic mechanisms play essential roles in biological processes such as cell maintenance, differentiation, proliferation and apoptosis. A recent report from our laboratory showed that the loss of histone acetylation and H3K4 (Histone H3 Lysine 4) methylation in the proximal regions of cancer regulatory genes promote tumorigenesis.
Visually induced analgesia during face or limb stimulation in healthy and migraine subjects

Background Visually induced analgesia (VIA) defines a phenomenon in which viewing one’s own body part during its painful stimulation decreases the perception of pain. VIA occurs during direct vision of the stimulated body part and also when seeing it reflected in a mirror. To the best of our knowledge, VIA has not been studied in the trigeminal area, where it could be relevant for the control of headache. Subjects and methods We used heat stimuli (53°C) to induce pain in the right forehead or wrist in 11 healthy subjects (HSs) and 14 female migraine without aura (MO) patients between attacks. The subjects rated pain on a visual analog scale (VAS) and underwent contact heat-evoked potential (CHEP) recordings (five sequential blocks of four responses) with or without observation of their face/wrist in a mirror. Results During wrist stimulation, amplitude of the first block of P1–P2 components of CHEPs decreased compared to that in the control recording when HSs were seeing their wrist reflected in the mirror (p = 0.036; Z = 2.08); however, this was not found in MO patients. In the latter, the VAS pain score increased viewing the reflected wrist (p = 0.049; Z = 1.96). Seeing their forehead reflected in the mirror induced a significant increase in N2 latency of CHEPs in HSs, as well as an amplitude reduction in the first block of P1–P2 components of CHEPs both in HSs (p = 0.007; Z = 2.69) and MO patients (p = 0.035; Z = 2.10). Visualizing the body part did not modify habituation of CHEP amplitudes over the five blocks of averaged responses, neither during wrist nor during forehead stimulation. Conclusion This study adds to the available knowledge on VIA and demonstrates this phenomenon for painful stimuli in the trigeminal area, as long as CHEPs are used as indices of central pain processing. In migraine patients during interictal periods, VIA assessed with CHEPs is within normal limits in the face but absent at the wrist, possibly reflecting dysfunctioning of extracephalic pain control.
Action of surfactants on the mammal epidermal skin barrier.

BACKGROUND Daily skin washing routines can promote undesirable effects on skin barrier function. The stratum corneum (SC) lipid matrix is crucial for skin barrier function. Skin cleansing products are mostly composed of surfactants: surface-active molecules that interact with skin lipids in several ways. The main aim of this work was to investigate the effect produced by surfactants on skin barrier permeability. Porcine skin is a well-accepted and readily available model of the human skin barrier. The effect of two cleansing formulations (based on different surfactant mixtures) on the barrier properties of mammalian skin were evaluated. METHODS Water sorption/desorption (DVS) experiments were used to measure skin permeability. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and confocal Raman were useful to study SC lipid organization. RESULTS The results showed that while anionic surfactants (SLS) had a negative impact on the skin barrier, with a clear increase of alkyl chain disorder; co- surfactants present in the shampoo formulation diminished the detrimental effect of their primary ionic surfactant, inducing less modification on lipid intramolecular chain disorder. CONCLUSIONS The obtained results confirmed that the mild cleansing formulations studied had gentle interaction with skin. The capacity to discriminate between detergent systems was clearly established with both DVS and spectroscopy techniques.
Assessment of Google Glass for Photographic Documentation in Veterinary Forensic Pathology: Usability Study

Background Google Glass is a head-mounted device designed in the shape of a pair of eyeglasses equipped with a 5.0-megapixel integrated camera and capable of taking pictures with simple voice commands. Objective The objective of our study was to determine whether Google Glass is fit for veterinary forensic pathology purposes. Methods A total of 44 forensic necropsies of 2 different species (22 dogs and 22 cats) were performed by 2 pathologists; each pathologist conducted 11 necropsies of each species and, for each photographic acquisition, the images were taken with a Google Glass device and a Nikon D3200 digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera. The pictures were collected, divided into 3 groups (based on the external appearance of the animal, organs, and anatomical details), and evaluated by 5 forensic pathologists using a 5-point score system. The parameters assessed were overall color settings, region of interest, sharpness, and brightness. To evaluate the difference in mean duration between necropsies conduced with Google Glass and DSLR camera and to assess the battery consumption of the devices, an additional number of 16 necropsies were performed by the 2 pathologists. In these cases, Google Glass was used for photographic reports in 8 cases (4 dogs and 4 cats) and a Nikon D3200 reflex camera in the other 8 cases. Statistical evaluations were performed to assess the differences in ratings between the quality of the images taken with both devices. Results The images taken with Google Glass received significantly lower ratings than those acquired with reflex camera for all 4 assessed parameters (P<.001). In particular, for the pictures of Groups A and B taken with Google Glass, the sum of frequency of ratings 5 (very good) and 4 (good) was between 50% and 77% for all 4 assessed parameters. The lowest ratings were observed for the pictures of Group C, with a sum of frequency of ratings 5 and 4 of 21.1% (342/1602) for region of interest, 26% (421/1602) for sharpness, 35.5% (575/1602) for overall color settings, and 61.4% (995/1602) for brightness. Furthermore, we found a significant reduction in the mean execution time for necropsy conduced with the Google Glass with respect to the reflex group (P<.001). However, Google Glass drained the battery very quickly. Conclusions These findings suggest that Google Glass is usable in veterinary forensic pathology. In particular, the image quality of Groups A and B seemed adequate for forensic photographic documentation purposes, although the quality was lower than that with the reflex camera. However, in this step of development, the high frequency of poor ratings observed for the pictures of Group C suggest that the device is not suitable for taking pictures of small anatomical details or close-ups of the injuries.
A Unified Framework for the Tractable Analysis of Multi-Antenna Wireless Networks

Densifying networks and deploying more antennas at each access point are two principal ways to boost the capacity of wireless networks. However, the complicated distributions of the signal power and the accumulated interference power, largely induced by various space–time processing techniques, make it highly challenging to quantitatively characterize the performance of multi-antenna networks. In this paper, using tools from stochastic geometry, a unified framework is developed for the analysis of such networks. The major results are two innovative representations of the coverage probability, which make the analysis of multi-antenna networks almost as tractable as the single-antenna case. One is expressed as an $\ell _{1}$ -induced norm of a Toeplitz matrix, and the other is given in a finite sum form. With a compact representation, the former incorporates many existing analytical results on single- and multi-antenna networks as special cases and leads to tractable expressions for evaluating the coverage probability in both ad hoc and cellular networks. While the latter is more complicated for numerical evaluation, it helps analytically gain key design insights. In particular, it helps prove that the coverage probability of ad hoc networks is a monotonically decreasing convex function of the transmitter density and that there exists a peak value of the coverage improvement when increasing the number of transmit antennas. On the other hand, in multi-antenna cellular networks, it is shown that the coverage probability is independent of the transmitter density and that the outage probability decreases exponentially as the number of transmit antennas increases.
Efficient Digital Signage Multiplexing Based on User Grouping of NOMA System

This paper proposes non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) using user grouping with coordinated multi point (CoMP). Proposed method outperforms conventional CoMP NOMA method due to user grouping scheme. Basic NOMA scheme aims to enhance multi user capacity and CoMP NOMA scheme aims to improve overall bit error rate (BER) performance. However, serious degradation on signal to noise ratio (SNR) performance hasn't been solved since complex successive interference cancellation (SIC) is accumulated. Therefore, we propose user grouping scheme to efficiently bind signage entities. By separating signage entities into independent groups, SNR performance is increased compared to the conventional CoMP NOMA. It is shown that the proposed scheme outperforms conventional scheme from the simulation results.
SelfKin: Self Adjusted Deep Model For Kinship Verification

One of the unsolved challenges in the field of biometrics and face recognition is Kinship Verification. This problem aims to understand if two people are family-related and how (sisters, brothers, etc.) Solving this problem can give rise to varied tasks and applications. In the area of homeland security (HLS) it is crucial to auto-detect if the person questioned is related to a wanted suspect, In the field of biometrics, kinship-verification can help to discriminate between families by photos and in the field of predicting or fashion it can help to predict an older or younger model of people faces. Lately, and with the advanced deep learning technology, this problem has gained focus from the research community in matters of data and research. In this article, we propose using a Deep Learning approach for solving the Kinship-Verification problem. Further, we offer a novel self-learning deep model, which learns the essential features from different faces. We show that our model wins the Recognize Families In the Wild(RFIW2018,FG2018) challenge and obtains state-of-the-art results. Moreover, we show that our proposed model can reduce the size of the network by half without loss in performance.
Projections as visual aids for classification system design

Dimensionality reduction is a compelling alternative for high-dimensional data visualization. This method provides insight into high-dimensional feature spaces by mapping relationships between observations (high-dimensional vectors) to low (two or three) dimensional spaces. These low-dimensional representations support tasks such as outlier and group detection based on direct visualization. Supervised learning, a subfield of machine learning, is also concerned with observations. A key task in supervised learning consists of assigning class labels to observations based on generalization from previous experience. Effective development of such classification systems depends on many choices, including features descriptors, learning algorithms, and hyperparameters. These choices are not trivial, and there is no simple recipe to improve classification systems that perform poorly. In this context, we first propose the use of visual representations based on dimensionality reduction (projections) for predictive feedback on classification efficacy. Second, we propose a projection-based visual analytics methodology, and supportive tooling, that can be used to improve classification systems through feature selection. We evaluate our proposal through experiments involving four datasets and three representative learning algorithms.
Phylogeography of an endangered disjunct herb: long-distance dispersal, refugia and colonization routes

Abstract Quaternary glacial cycles appear to have had a consistent role in shaping the genetic diversity and structure of plant species. Despite the unusual combination of the characteristics of the western Mediterranean–Macaronesian area, there are no studies that have specifically examined the effects of palaeoclimatic and palaeogeographic factors on the genetic composition and structure of annual herbs. Astragalus edulis is a disjunct endemic found in the easternmost Canary Islands and the semi-arid areas of north-eastern Africa and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula. This endangered species shows no evident adaptations to long-distance dispersal. Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) data and plastid DNA sequences were analysed from a total of 360 individuals distributed throughout the range of this species. The modelled potential distribution of A. edulis under current conditions was projected over the climatic conditions of the Last Interglacial (130 ka BP) and Last Glacial Maximum (21 ka BP) to analyse changes in habitat suitability and to look for associations between the modelling and genetic results. Amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis showed clear phylogeographic structure with four distinct genetic clusters. Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) models based on plastid DNA sequences indicated a Middle Pleistocene long-distance dispersal event as the origin of the populations of the Canary Islands. The models also suggested south-western Morocco as the ancestral area for the species, as well as subsequent colonization of north-eastern Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula. The data compiled indicated the possibility of the presence of refuge areas at favourable locations around the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas mountain ranges. Moreover, palaeodistribution models strongly support the events inferred by ABC modelling and show the potential distribution of the species in the past, suggesting a putative colonization route.
A Nationwide Survey of Pediatric-onset Japanese Encephalitis in Japan.

BACKGROUND Japanese encephalitis (JE) is the leading cause of viral encephalitis with high mortality and morbidity in Asia. In Japan, however, the active recommendation of JE vaccine was retracted in 2005 because of the potential risk of acute disseminated encephalomyelitis. We aimed to determine the recent incidence of childhood-onset JE after the domestic change of vaccination policy in Japan, and to analyze the clinical features of affected children. METHODS A retrospective nationwide survey was conducted for pediatric patients with JE in Japan from 1995 to 2015. The national surveillance system was used to identify the pediatric patients with JE. Follow-up questionnaires were sent to analyze their clinical and neuroimaging profiles. RESULTS Among a total of 109 patients registered to the national surveillance, 10 (9%) were less than age 15 years. The annual incidence rate of childhood-onset JE was higher during 2005-15 than that during 1995-2004 (4.3 × 10-3 vs 1.1 × 10-3 per 100000, respectively; P = .04). Endemic regions overlapped with prefectures that farmed pigs harboring antibodies against JE virus with high prevalence. Detailed clinical data were collected from 9 patients. None of them died, but 5 of 9 patients (56%) had neurological sequelae after recovery. One patient who was partially vaccinated with 2 doses of JE vaccine fully recovered from a coma. The age of 3 years or less was associated with unfavorable neurological prognosis. CONCLUSIONS Our data provide evidence for the importance and prophylactic effect of the JE vaccine in young children in the endemic area.
American Geriatrics Society and National Institute on Aging Bench‐to‐Bedside Conference: Sensory Impairment and Cognitive Decline in Older Adults

This article summarizes the presentations and recommendations of the tenth annual American Geriatrics Society and National Institute on Aging Bench‐to‐Bedside research conference, “Sensory Impairment and Cognitive Decline,” on October 2–3, 2017, in Bethesda, Maryland. The risk of impairment in hearing, vision, and other senses increases with age, and almost 15% of individuals aged 70 and older have dementia. As the number of older adults increases, sensory and cognitive impairments will affect a growing proportion of the population. To limit its scope, this conference focused on sensory impairments affecting vision and hearing. Comorbid vision, hearing, and cognitive impairments in older adults are more common than would be expected by chance alone, suggesting that some common mechanisms might affect these neurological systems. This workshop explored the mechanisms and consequences of comorbid vision, hearing, and cognitive impairment in older adults; effects of sensory loss on the aging brain; and bench‐to‐bedside innovations and research opportunities. Presenters and participants identified many research gaps and questions; the top priorities fell into 3 themes: mechanisms, measurement, and interventions. The workshop delineated specific research questions that provide opportunities to improve outcomes in this growing population. J Am Geriatr Soc 66:2052–2058, 2018.
A salamander's top down effect on fungal communities in a detritivore ecosystem

The soil decomposer community is a primary driver of carbon cycling in forest ecosystems. Understanding the processes that structure this community is critical to our understanding of the global carbon cycle. In North American forests, soil fungal communities are regulated by grazing soil invertebrates, which are in turn controlled by the predatory red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus). The presence of these soil invertebrate taxa is known to exert direct top-down control via selective grazing on saprotrophic fungi, with direct consequences for biogeochemical cycling in soil. We investigated whether the removal of P. cinereus would relieve top-down control on decomposer fungal communities in a tri-trophic mesocosm study. Fungal communities were characterized using metabarcoding and high-throughput DNA sequencing. The β-diversity of fungal communities differed between salamander presence and absence treatments with a strong effect on saprotrophic fungal communities. We concluded that P. cinereus, a mesopredator in the detritivore food chain, exerts a prominent control on the composition and functional diversity of fungal communities in soil through a multi-trophic top-down process. Given their capacity to govern the compositions of soil invertebrates, the activity of these amphibians may be important for regulating ecosystem function and nutrient cycling in temperate forest systems.
Exploring the Influence of Food and Temperature on North Sea Sandeels Using a New Dynamic Energy Budget Model

The zooplanktivorous schooling fish sandeels A. marinus comprise a quarter of North Sea fish biomass and are essential food for a number of marine mammals and birds. However, in recent decades there has been a decline in the abundance of older sandeels, with increased overwinter mortality proposed as a contributor. To survive winter animals require a minimum energy reserve which is determined by temperature, prey abundance, and possibly prey size. Here a new dynamic energy budget model is created to determine the influence of food and temperature on sandeel energy dynamics. The model hindcasts changes in energy and survival between 2000 and 2008, a period of pronounced stock decline in the northwestern North Sea. Overwinter starvation mortality was a large contributor towards a recent decline in sandeels in northern UK waters. Highest over-winter mortality rates were recorded for juveniles and not individuals aged 1 or over due to the effect of weight-specific metabolism. However, a sensitivity analysis of the model suggests that mortality rates are more sensitive to changes in copepod abundance in the build up to overwintering rather than temperature during overwintering. Further, projections show that temperature rises are negated by increases in large, but not small copepods. The conclusion is that food-driven size-selective starvation mortality contributed to the northwestern North Sea stock decline and that indirect food web effects of climate change are greater than direct physiological effects on sandeels.
Optimistic parallelism requires abstractions

The problem of writing software for multicore processors is greatly simplified if we could automatically parallelize sequential programs. Although auto-parallelization has been studied for many decades, it has succeeded only in a few application areas such as dense matrix computations. In particular, auto-parallelization of irregular programs, which are organized around large, pointer-based data structures like graphs, has seemed intractable. The Galois project is taking a fresh look at autoparallelization. Rather than attempt to parallelize all programs no matter how obscurely they are written, we are designing programming abstractions that permit programmers to highlight opportunities for exploiting parallelism in sequential programs, and building a runtime system that uses these hints to execute the program in parallel. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of a system based on these ideas. Experimental results for two real-world irregular applications, a Delaunay mesh refinement application and a graphics application that performs agglomerative clustering, demonstrate that this approach is promising.