julilili42/papers huggingface dataset:
Demonstrating the Impact of the Adsorbate Orientation on the Charge Transfer at Organic–Metal Interfaces
2021-04-27

Charge-transfer processes at molecule-metal interfaces play a key role in tuning the charge injection properties in organic-based devices and thus, ultimately, the device performance. Here, the metal's work function and the adsorbate's electron affinity are the key factors that govern the electron transfer at the organic/metal interface. In our combined experimental and theoretical work, we demonstrate that the adsorbate's orientation may also be decisive for the charge transfer. By thermal cycloreversion of diheptacene isomers, we manage to produce highly oriented monolayers of the rodlike, electron-acceptor molecule heptacene on a Cu(110) surface with molecules oriented either along or perpendicular to the close-packed metal rows. This is confirmed by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) images as well as by angle-resolved ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy (ARUPS). By utilizing photoemission tomography momentum maps, we show that the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) is fully occupied and also, the LUMO + 1 gets significantly filled when heptacene is oriented along the Cu rows. Conversely, for perpendicularly aligned heptacene, the molecular energy levels are shifted significantly toward the Fermi energy, preventing charge transfer to the LUMO + 1. These findings are fully confirmed by our density functional calculations and demonstrate the possibility to tune the charge transfer and level alignment at organic-metal interfaces through the adjustable molecular alignment.
A single dose of escitalopram blunts the neural response in the thalamus and caudate during monetary loss
2021-04-27

Background: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) show acute effects on the neural processes associated with negative affective bias in healthy people and people with depression. However, whether and how SSRIs also affect reward and punishment processing on a similarly rapid time scale remains unclear. Methods: We investigated the effects of an acute and clinically relevant dose (20 mg) of the SSRI escitalopram on brain response during reward and punishment processing in 19 healthy participants. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study using functional MRI, participants performed a well-established monetary reward task at 3 time points: at baseline; after receiving placebo or escitalopram; and after receiving placebo or escitalopram following an 8-week washout period. Results: Acute escitalopram administration reduced blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) response during punishment feedback in the right thalamus (family-wise error corrected [FWE] p = 0.013 at peak level) and the right caudate head ( p FWE = 0.011 at peak level) compared to placebo. We did not detect any significant BOLD changes during reward feedback. Limitations: We included only healthy participants, so interpretation of findings are limited to the healthy human brain and require future testing in patient populations. The paradigm we used was based on monetary stimuli, and results may not be generalizable to other forms of reward. Conclusion: Our findings extend theories of rapid SSRI action on the neural processing of rewarding and aversive stimuli and suggest a specific and acute effect of escitalopram in the punishment neurocircuitry.
Individual labor market effects of local public expenditures on sports
2021-04-27

By merging administrative data on public finances of all municipalities in Germany with individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we explore whether local public expenditures on sports facilities influences individual labor market outcomes. Our identification strategy follows a selection-on-observables approach and exploits the panel structure of the data covering 12 years between 2001 and 2012. The results of our matching estimations suggest that both women and men exposed to high annual expenditure levels (i.e. €31–€85 per capita) over 5 years, obtain approximately €150 of additional household net income on average. However, this income effect is captured by earning gains for men rather than for women living in the household. Additional analysis suggests, that these gender differences, which can also be observed in terms of working time, hourly wage and employment status, appear plausible since women in the age cohort under consideration are less likely to engage in sports in general, and in any of the publicly funded sports facilities in particular. Moreover, improved well-being and health are possible mechanisms through which the positive labor market effects for men may unfold.
Orientation of Few-Layer MoS2 Films: In-Situ X-ray Scattering Study During Sulfurization
2021-04-27

Some of the distinct optical, catalytical, and electronic properties of few-layer MoS2 films arise from a specific orientation of the MoS2 layers. The growth of horizontally or vertically aligned MoS2 during the sulfurization of predeposited Mo film can be controlled by various physical conditions such as temperature, heating rate, Mo film thickness, or sulfur vapor pressure. However, due to the inherent limitations of performing real-time and in situ experiments during sulfurization in a standard growth chamber, only a limited number of analytical techniques can be used to elucidate the in-process phase transformation. Here, we present a comprehensive real-time study of the growth of few-layer MoS2 films by sulfurization of Mo films using in situ grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering. We demonstrate that the process gas flow, and thus the sulfur partial vapor pressure, is the key control parameter for the few-layer MoS2 layer orientation while all other process parameters remain fixed. Tracking the crystallization of few-layer MoS2 layers in real-time allowed us to estimate the activation energy required for both horizontal and vertical orientations. Growth of either horizontal or vertical MoS2 was observed without a metastable transition between them throughout the sulfurization.
PHEMTO: the polarimetric high energy modular telescope observatory
2021-04-27

Abstract Based upon dual focusing techniques, the Polarimetric High-Energy Modular Telescope Observatory (PHEMTO) is designed to have performance several orders of magnitude better than the present hard X-ray instruments, in the 1–600 keV energy range. This, together with its angular resolution of around one arcsecond, and its sensitive polarimetry measurement capability, will give PHEMTO the improvements in scientific performance needed for a mission in the 2050 era in order to study AGN, galactic black holes, neutrons stars, and supernovae. In addition, its high performance will enable the study of the non-thermal processes in galaxy clusters with an unprecedented accuracy.
The Enduring Discoveries of Generative Syntax
2021-04-27

This chapter describes how the core principles of generative linguistics, which were outlined by Chomsky in the 1950s and 1960s, yielded a research methodology whose core features guarantee quick and fruitful syntactic research. Although generative linguistics is predominantly a syntax-focused program, the methodology is intended for use in all linguistic subfields. The discovery that the establishment of a nonlocal dependency rests on hierarchical relations between words and phrases rather than on linear relations represents a watershed moment for generative syntax. The ubiquity of gaps in natural language has prompted extensive research into the precise status of gaps and whether all gaps have the same status. The chapter also discusses the enduring discoveries made about the hierarchical syntactic structures on which nonlocal dependencies are instantiated. It focuses on so-called gaps or empty categories, which frequently feature as members in nonlocal dependencies.
Dynamic Range and Complexity Optimization of Mixed-Signal Machine Learning Systems
2021-04-27

Audio processing had been in demand throughout the electronic era. Recent advances in neural networks increased the demand on audio processing for speech recognition applications. In this work, a rigorous study on the dynamic range and system complexity optimization is presented for a mixed-signal keyword spotting system. The proposed system consists of an analog feature extractor and a neural network based keyword classifier. The results showed that with the proposed method, more than an order of magnitude power saving can be achieved in the analog feature extraction compared to the digital state-of-the-art counterpart.
Efficacy and safety of Chinese patent medicine (Kang-ai injection) as an adjuvant in the treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: a meta-analysis
2021-04-27

Kang-ai injection (KAI) is an authorized herbal medicine used in cancer treatment. However, its clinical efficacy in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been investigated thoroughly. To systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of KAI in patients with HCC. The Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, CBM, CNKI, VIP and Wanfang databases were systematically searched (date range: inception to December 2020) using the key terms ‘Kang-ai injection’ and ‘hepatocellular carcinoma’. The current analysis included controlled clinical trials that compared the efficacy and safety of the combination of KAI and conventional treatment (CT) with CT alone for HCC. The current study estimated the pooled risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Data pertaining to 35 trials with 2501 HCC patients were analysed. The results revealed that the combination of KAI and CT was associated with significantly superior objective response rate (RR = 1.57, 95% CI = 1.43–1.73), disease control rate (RR = 1.18, 95% CI = 1.10–1.26), and quality of life (RR = 2.40, 95% CI = 1.79–3.23), compared to CT alone. The administration of KAI significantly alleviated most of the adverse effects caused by CT, including nausea and vomiting, liver damage, peripheral neurotoxicity, fever, abdominal pain, alopecia, increased bilirubin levels, leukopoenia, and reduction in haemoglobin levels (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.05, for all). The current meta-analysis indicates that a combination of CT and KAI could be more effective in improving the clinical efficacy of the treatment of HCC, compared to CT alone.
Common virulence gene expression in adult first-time infected malaria patients and severe cases
2021-04-28

Sequestration of Plasmodium falciparum ( P. falciparum )-infected erythrocytes to host endothelium through the parasite-derived P. falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 ( Pf EMP1) adhesion proteins is central to the development of malaria pathogenesis. Pf EMP1 proteins have diversified and expanded to encompass many sequence variants, conferring each parasite a similar array of human endothelial receptor-binding phenotypes. Here, we analyzed RNA-seq profiles of parasites isolated from 32 P. falciparum- infected adult travellers returning to Germany. Patients were categorized into either malaria naive (n = 15) or pre-exposed (n = 17), and into severe (n = 8) or non-severe (n = 24) cases. For differential expression analysis, Pf EMP1-encoding var gene transcripts were de novo assembled from RNA-seq data and, in parallel, var- expressed sequence tags were analyzed and used to predict the encoded domain composition of the transcripts. Both approaches showed in concordance that severe malaria was associated with Pf EMP1 containing the endothelial protein C receptor (EPCR)-binding CIDRα1 domain, whereas CD36-binding Pf EMP1 was linked to non-severe malaria outcomes. First-time infected adults were more likely to develop severe symptoms and tended to be infected for a longer period. Thus, parasites with more pathogenic Pf EMP1 variants are more common in patients with a naive immune status, and/or adverse inflammatory host responses to first infections favor the growth of EPCR-binding parasites.
ENIGMA‐Sleep: Challenges, opportunities, and the road map
2021-04-28

Summary Neuroimaging and genetics studies have advanced our understanding of the neurobiology of sleep and its disorders. However, individual studies usually have limitations to identifying consistent and reproducible effects, including modest sample sizes, heterogeneous clinical characteristics and varied methodologies. These issues call for a large‐scale multi‐centre effort in sleep research, in order to increase the number of samples, and harmonize the methods of data collection, preprocessing and analysis using pre‐registered well‐established protocols. The Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta‐Analysis (ENIGMA) consortium provides a powerful collaborative framework for combining datasets across individual sites. Recently, we have launched the ENIGMA‐Sleep working group with the collaboration of several institutes from 15 countries to perform large‐scale worldwide neuroimaging and genetics studies for better understanding the neurobiology of impaired sleep quality in population‐based healthy individuals, the neural consequences of sleep deprivation, pathophysiology of sleep disorders, as well as neural correlates of sleep disturbances across various neuropsychiatric disorders. In this introductory review, we describe the details of our currently available datasets and our ongoing projects in the ENIGMA‐Sleep group, and discuss both the potential challenges and opportunities of a collaborative initiative in sleep medicine.
Many roles for oligodendrocyte precursor cells in physiology and pathology
2021-04-28

Oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs) are a fourth resident glial cell population in the mammalian central nervous system. They are evenly distributed throughout the gray and white matter and continue to proliferate and generate new oligodendrocytes (OLs) throughout life. They were understudied until a few decades ago when immunolabeling for NG2 and platelet‐derived growth factor receptor alpha revealed cells that are distinct from mature OLs, astrocytes, neurons, and microglia. In this review, we provide a summary of the known properties of OPCs with some historical background, followed by highlights from recent studies that suggest new roles for OPCs in certain pathological conditions.
Reproducible, portable, and efficient ancient genome reconstruction with nf-core/eager
2021-04-28

The broadening utilisation of ancient DNA to address archaeological, palaeontological, and biological questions is resulting in a rising diversity in the size of laboratories and scale of analyses being performed. In the context of this heterogeneous landscape, we present an advanced, and entirely redesigned and extended version of the EAGER pipeline for the analysis of ancient genomic data. This Nextflow pipeline aims to address three main themes: accessibility and adaptability to different computing configurations, reproducibility to ensure robust analytical standards, and updating the pipeline to the latest routine ancient genomic practices. The new version of EAGER has been developed within the nf-core initiative to ensure high-quality software development and maintenance support; contributing to a long-term life-cycle for the pipeline. nf-core/eager will assist in ensuring that a wider range of ancient DNA analyses can be applied by a diverse range of research groups and fields.
Abnormally reduced frontal cortex activity during Trail-Making-Test in prodromal parkinson's disease–a fNIRS study
2021-04-28

Parkinson's Disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder leading to typical motor as well as a range of non-motor symptoms, including cognitive decline mainly characterized by executive deficits. The latter are known to appear years before the typical motor signs, thus representing the prodromal phase of PD. However, appropriate methods for measuring executive dysfunction in this context are not well established yet. Traditionally, executive performance is associated with frontal structures. Here, we investigated prodromal, early PD patients and healthy controls regarding their executive functioning on the behavioral and neural level, measured by the Trail-Making-Test (TMT) combined with functional near-infrared spectroscopy. We observed significantly reduced neural activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex within PD patients compared to controls completing the TMT-A and -B in contrast to the TMT-C, but no differences on a behavioral level. These promising results need to be confirmed and checked for reliability in future studies to extend the spectrum of markers applied in prodromal PD.
Advanced Microscopy for Liver and Gut Ultrastructural Pathology in Patients with MVID and PFIC Caused by MYO5B Mutations
2021-04-28

Mutations in the actin motor protein myosinVb (myo5b) cause aberrant apical cargo transport and the congenital enteropathy microvillus inclusion disease (MVID). Recently, missense mutations in myo5b were also associated with progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (MYO5B-PFIC). Here, we thoroughly characterized the ultrastructural and immuno-cytochemical phenotype of hepatocytes and duodenal enterocytes from a unique case of an adult MYO5B-PFIC patient who showed constant hepatopathy but only periodic enteric symptoms. Selected data from two other patients supported the findings. Advanced methods such as cryo-fixation, freeze-substitution, immuno-gold labeling, electron tomography and immuno-fluorescence microscopy complemented the standard procedures. Liver biopsies showed mislocalization of Rab11 and bile canalicular membrane proteins. Rab11-positive vesicles clustered around bile canaliculi and resembled subapical clusters of aberrant recycling endosomes in enterocytes from MVID patients. The adult patient studied in detail showed a severe, MVID-specific enterocyte phenotype, despite only a mild clinical intestinal presentation. This included mislocalization of numerous proteins essential for apical cargo transport and morphological alterations. We characterized the heterogeneous population of large catabolic organelles regarding their complex ultrastructure and differential distribution of autophagic and lysosomal marker proteins. Finally, we generated duodenal organoids/enteroids from biopsies that recapitulated all MVID hallmarks, demonstrating the potential of this disease model for personalized medicine.
Applied anatomy and surgical technique of the lateral single‐position L5–S1 fusion
2021-04-28

Abstract The latest development in the anterior lumbar interbody fusion (ALIF) procedure is its application in the lateral position to allow for simultaneous posterior percutaneous screw placement. The technical details of the lateral ALIF technique have not yet been described. To describe the surgical anatomy relevant to the lateral ALIF approach we performed a comprehensive anatomical study. In addition, the preoperative imaging, patient positioning, planning of the skin incision, positioning of the C‐arm, surgical approach, and surgical technique are discussed in detail. The technique described led to the successful use of the lateral ALIF technique in our clinical cases. No lateral ALIF procedure needed to be aborted during these cases. Our present work gives detailed anatomical background and technical details for the lateral ALIF approach. This teaching article can provide readers with sufficient technical and anatomical knowledge to assist them in performing their first lateral ALIF procedure.
Optimism and pessimism in optimised replay
2021-04-28

ABSTRACT The replay of task-relevant trajectories is known to contribute to memory consolidation and improved task performance. A wide variety of experimental data show that the content of replayed sequences is highly specific and can be modulated by reward as well as other prominent task variables. However, the rules governing the choice of sequences to be replayed still remain poorly understood. One recent theoretical suggestion is that the prioritization of replay experiences in decision-making problems is based on their effect on the choice of action. We show that this implies that subjects should replay sub-optimal actions that they dysfunctionally choose rather than optimal ones, when, by being forgetful, they experience large amounts of uncertainty in their internal models of the world. We use this to account for recent experimental data demonstrating exactly pessimal replay, fitting model parameters to the individual subjects’ choices.
Probabilistic solvers enable a straight-forward exploration of numerical uncertainty in neuroscience models
2021-04-28

Abstract Understanding neural computation on the mechanistic level requires models of neurons and neuronal networks. To analyze such models one typically has to solve coupled ordinary differential equations (ODEs), which describe the dynamics of the underlying neural system. These ODEs are solved numerically with deterministic ODE solvers that yield single solutions with either no, or only a global scalar bound on precision. It can therefore be challenging to estimate the effect of numerical uncertainty on quantities of interest, such as spike-times and the number of spikes. To overcome this problem, we propose to use recently developed sampling-based probabilistic solvers, which are able to quantify such numerical uncertainties. They neither require detailed insights into the kinetics of the models, nor are they difficult to implement. We show that numerical uncertainty can affect the outcome of typical neuroscience simulations, e.g. jittering spikes by milliseconds or even adding or removing individual spikes from simulations altogether, and demonstrate that probabilistic solvers reveal these numerical uncertainties with only moderate computational overhead.
Influenca: a gamified assessment of value-based decision-making for longitudinal studies
2021-04-28

Abstract Reinforcement learning is a core facet of motivation and alterations have been associated with various mental disorders. To build better models of individual learning, repeated measurement of value-based decision-making is crucial. However, the focus on lab-based assessment of reward learning has limited the number of measurements and the test-retest reliability of many decision-related parameters is therefore unknown. Here, we developed an open-source cross-platform application Influenca that provides a novel reward learning task complemented by ecological momentary assessment (EMA) for repeated assessment over weeks. In this task, players have to identify the most effective medication by selecting the best option after integrating offered points with changing probabilities (according to random Gaussian walks). Participants can complete up to 31 levels with 150 trials each. To encourage replay on their preferred device, in-game screens provide feedback on the progress. Using an initial validation sample of 127 players (2904 runs), we found that reinforcement learning parameters such as the learning rate and reward sensitivity show low to medium intra-class correlations (ICC: 0.22-0.52), indicating substantial within- and between-subject variance. Notably, state items showed comparable ICCs as reinforcement learning parameters. To conclude, our innovative and openly customizable app framework provides a gamified task that optimizes repeated assessments of reward learning to better quantify intra- and inter-individual differences in value-based decision-making over time.