Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional imaging correlates of fronto-temporal dysfunction in Morvan’s syndrome

A previously well 66-year-old man presented with a 1-month history of focal involuntary spasms of his arms and then his left leg, culminating in two generalised convulsions. He also complained of episodic memory problems, sleeping difficulties, daytime somnolence, hyperphagia, hyperhidrosis and erectile impotence. He was initially treated with phenytoin for 2 months and then valproate. His family noticed increasing dishevelment and emotional lability over the previous 6 months. Both he and his step-daughter reported that he did not drink to excess, although 10 years previously he was a heavy drinker, but had since cut down considerably. On examination, he was flamboyant, disinhibited and garrulous, but alert and orientated. He confabulated about attending to business and family affairs, whereas he had not worked for several years. He was able to learn a name and address perfectly in three attempts. He showed difficulties in naming people, word-finding and planning constructional tasks, which is indicative of fronto-temporal impairment. Cranial nerves were normal with no frontal release signs. There were prominent fasciculations bilaterally in quadriceps femorii, gastrocnemii and right biceps femoris. Power and coordination were normal. Deep tendon reflexes were absent except for biceps jerks. Plantar responses were flexor. Sensation was intact. The following blood tests …
Phenomenology of transformation through participation in a General Education Development program

3 Copyright Page 4 Dedication 5 Acknowledgments 6 List of Tables 10 List of Figures 11 List of Abbreviations 12 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 13 Overview 13 Background 13 Situation to Self 17 Problem Statement 18 Purpose Statement 19 Significance of the Study 20 Research Questions 22 Research Plan 23 Delimitations and Limitations 24 Definitions 25 Summary 29 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 31 Overview 31 Theoretical Framework 33
Role of cytoskeletal mechanics and cell membrane fluidity in the intracellular delivery of molecules mediated by laser‐activated carbon nanoparticles

Exposure of cells and nanoparticles to near‐infrared nanosecond pulsed laser light can lead to efficient intracellular delivery of molecules while maintaining high cell viability by a photoacoustic phenomenon known as transient nanoparticle energy transduction (TNET). Here, we examined the influence of cytoskeletal mechanics and plasma membrane fluidity on intracellular uptake of molecules and loss of cell viability due to TNET. We found that destabilization of actin filaments using latrunculin A led to greater uptake of molecules and less viability loss caused by TNET. Stabilization of actin filaments using jasplakinolide had no significant effect on uptake or viability loss caused by TNET. To study the role of plasma membrane fluidity, we increased fluidity by depletion of membrane cholesterol using methyl‐β‐cyclodextrin and decreased fluidity by enrichment of the membrane with cholesterol using water‐soluble cholesterol. Neither of these membrane fluidity changes significantly altered cellular uptake or viability loss caused by TNET. We conclude that weakening mechanical integrity of the cytoskeleton can increase intracellular uptake and decrease loss of cell viability, while plasma membrane fluidity does not appear to play a significant role in uptake or viability loss caused by TNET. The positive effects of cytoskeletal weakening may be due to an enhanced ability of the cell to recover from the effects of TNET and maintain viability. Biotechnol. Bioeng. 2017;114: 2390–2399. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Social Sharing With Friends and Family After Romantic Breakups: Patterns of Media Use and Effects on Psychological Well-Being

Romantic breakups are prevalent and distressing experiences in the lives of college students. The present study examined (a) college students’ media use for discussing their breakups with various relational partners; and (b) the association between this sharing and personal growth, a eudaimonic marker of well-being. For geographically close relationships, participants used face-to-face interaction the most for breakup-related sharing, followed by texting, and least of all the phone. This pattern was different for long-distance relationships, where texting prevailed, followed by the phone, and least of all face-to-face. Differences also emerged based on relationship type with the sharers (friends vs. family). Only face-to-face sharing with close friends was associated with sharers’ personal growth after the breakup. The results extend the social sharing theoretical framework by incorporating media factors and advance the literature on media use and psychological well-being.
Do online web resources help professionals to work more effectively? A case study based on three sites

This article contains important messages for all those with an interest in enhancing the effectiveness of professional development supported by websites. It is informed by the findings of a Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) funded evaluation of the use and effectiveness of three websites whose development the TDA had supported. Data were collected from teacher educators and student teachers from a variety of initial teacher education (ITE) providers by means of face-to-face, telephone and e-interviews, as well as case study visits. It was found that although all three websites were regarded as being high quality, their effectiveness in supporting professional development varied. This article considers possible reasons for this and implications for other websites, not just within the English and schools contexts, but also more globally.
Joint Learning of Character and Word Embeddings

Most word embedding methods take a word as a basic unit and learn embeddings according to words' external contexts, ignoring the internal structures of words. However, in some languages such as Chinese, a word is usually composed of several characters and contains rich internal information. The semantic meaning of a word is also related to the meanings of its composing characters. Hence, we take Chinese for example, and present a character-enhanced word embedding model (CWE). In order to address the issues of character ambiguity and non-compositional words, we propose multiple prototype character embeddings and an effective word selection method. We evaluate the effectiveness of CWE on word relatedness computation and analogical reasoning. The results show that CWE outperforms other baseline methods which ignore internal character information. The codes and data can be accessed from https://github.com/Leonard-Xu/CWE.
Deeper Delta across genres and languages: do we really need the most frequent words?

In 2007, John Burrows identified three regions in word frequency lists of corpora in authorship attribution and stylometry. The first of these regions consists of the most frequent words, for which his Delta has become the best-known method of study. This is evidenced by a varied body of research with interesting modifications of the method (e.g. Argamon 2008; Hoover 2004, 2004a). At the other end of the frequency list, Iota deals with the lowest-frequency words, while "the large area between the extremes of ubiquity and rarity" (Burrows, 2007) is now the target of many studies employing Zeta (e.g. Craig, Kinney, 2009; Hoover, 2007).
Ornstein-Uhlenbeck-Cauchy process

We combine earlier investigations of linear systems subject to Levy fluctuations with recent attempts to give meaning to so-called Levy flights in external force fields. We give a complete construction of the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck–Cauchy process as a fully computable paradigm example of Doob’s stable noise-supported Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process. Despite the nonexistence of all moments, we determine local characteristics (forward drift) of the process, generators of forward and backward dynamics, and relevant (pseudodifferential) evolution equations. The induced nonstationary spatial process is proved to be Markovian and quite apart from its inherent discontinuity defines an associated velocity process in a probabilistic sense.
Subcortical structures projecting to visual cortical areas in squirrel monkey

In 17 adult squirrel monkeys (Saimiri), horseradish peroxidase was used as a retrograde tracer substance to reveal the subcortical structures (other than the lateral geniculate nucleus and pulvinar) which project to the occipital lobe, and, in particular, to the central visual field representation in areas 17, 18, 19, and MT. Evidence is provided that each of areas 17, 18, and MT receives a projection from locus coeruleus, nucleus dorsalis raphae, nucleus annularis, nucleus centralis superior, formatio reticularis pontis oralis, nucleus basalis of Meynert, lateral hypothalamus, claustrum, and nuclei paracentralis and centralis medialis thalami. Area 19 receives a projection from all these structures except from the nucleus annularis. Only area MT was determined to be a target of a projection from the nucleus linearis. For technical reasons, only area MT was determined to receive afferent fibers from the nucleus basalis lateralis amygdalae. The results indicate that there is no topographical organization of subcortical inputs to the central visual field representation in individual cortical areas.
Students' Perceptions of Teacher Biases: Experimental Economics in Schools

We put forward a new experimental economics design with monetary incentives to estimate students’ perceptions of grading discrimination. We use this design in a large field experiment which involved 1,200 British students in grade 8 classrooms across 29 schools. In this design, students are given an endowment they can invest on a task where payoff depends on performance. The task is a written verbal test which is graded non anonymously by their teacher, in a random half of the classrooms, and graded anonymously by an external examiner in the other random half of the classrooms. We find significant evidence that students’ choices reflect perceptions of biases in teachers’ grading practices. Our results show systematic gender interaction effects: male students invest less with female teachers than with male teachers while female students invest more with male teachers than with female teachers. Interestingly, female students’ perceptions are not in line with actual discrimination: Teachers tend to give better grades to students of their own gender. Results do not suggest that ethnicity and socioeconomic status play a role.
Impact of early in-hospital medication review by clinical pharmacists on health services utilization

Background Adverse drug events are a leading cause of emergency department visits and unplanned admissions, and prolong hospital stays. Medication review interventions aim to identify adverse drug events and optimize medication use. Previous evaluations of in-hospital medication reviews have focused on interventions at discharge, with an unclear effect on health outcomes. We assessed the effect of early in-hospital pharmacist-led medication review on the health outcomes of high-risk patients. Methods We used a quasi-randomized design to evaluate a quality improvement project in three hospitals in British Columbia, Canada. We incorporated a clinical decision rule into emergency department triage pathways, allowing nurses to identify patients at high-risk for adverse drug events. After randomly selecting the first eligible patient for participation, clinical pharmacists systematically allocated subsequent high-risk patients to medication review or usual care. Medication review included obtaining a best possible medication history and reviewing the patient’s medications for appropriateness and adverse drug events. The primary outcome was the number of days spent in-hospital over 30 days, and was ascertained using administrative data. We used median and inverse propensity score weighted logistic regression modeling to determine the effect of pharmacist-led medication review on downstream health services use. Results Of 10,807 high-risk patients, 6,416 received early pharmacist-led medication review and 4,391 usual care. Their baseline characteristics were balanced. The median number of hospital days was reduced by 0.48 days (95% confidence intervals [CI] = 0.00 to 0.96; p = 0.058) in the medication review group compared to usual care, representing an 8% reduction in the median length of stay. Among patients under 80 years of age, the median number of hospital days was reduced by 0.60 days (95% CI = 0.06 to 1.17; p = 0.03), representing 11% reduction in the median length of stay. There was no significant effect on emergency department revisits, admissions, readmissions, or mortality. Limitations We were limited by our inability to conduct a randomized controlled trial, but used quasi-random patient allocation methods and propensity score modeling to ensure balance between treatment groups, and administrative data to ensure blinded outcomes ascertainment. We were unable to account for alternate level of care days, and therefore, may have underestimated the treatment effect in frail elderly patients who are likely to remain in hospital while awaiting long-term care. Conclusions Early pharmacist-led medication review was associated with reduced hospital-bed utilization compared to usual care among high-risk patients under 80 years of age, but not among those who were older. The results of our evaluation suggest that medication review by pharmacists in the emergency department may impact the length of hospital stay in select patient populations.
Composition, Diversity, and Origin of the Bacterial Community in Grass Carp Intestine

Gut microbiota has become an integral component of the host, and received increasing attention. However, for many domestic animals, information on the microbiota is insufficient and more effort should be exerted to manage the gastrointestinal bacterial community. Understanding the factors that influence the composition of microbial community in the host alimentary canal is essential to manage or improve the microbial community composition. In the present study, 16S rRNA gene sequence-based comparisons of the bacterial communities in the grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus) intestinal contents and fish culture-associated environments are performed. The results show that the fish intestinal microbiota harbors many cellulose-decomposing bacteria, including sequences related to Anoxybacillus, Leuconostoc, Clostridium, Actinomyces, and Citrobacter. The most abundant bacterial operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in the grass carp intestinal content are those related to feed digestion. In addition, the potential pathogens and probiotics are important members of the intestinal microbiota. Further analyses show that grass carp intestine holds a core microbiota composed of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria. The comparison analyses reveal that the bacterial community in the intestinal contents is most similar to those from the culture water and sediment. However, feed also plays significant influence on the composition of gut microbiota.
The “meddling-in” of affective information: A general model of automatic evaluation effects

This is a formatted version of the final manuscript. Although it is almost identical to the printed version, it is not a copy of it! In a recent text on visual cognition, Houghton, Tipper, Weaver, and Shore (1996) illustrated the basic problem of selective attention by inviting their readers to imagine a fictitious peanut-eater, whose only aim is to eat peanuts. Equipped with a sensory apparatus to locate peanuts in his visual field and an effector to grasp one peanut at a time, the problem arises how this organism will behave in the case of two peanuts placed in front of its sensory system. What mechanisms will prevent the peanut-eater from endlessly grasping into the emptiness between the two peanuts, thereby starving to death? An adequate cognitive apparatus must be tuned to process objects in its visual field in an asymmetrical manner, that is, to respond efficiently to target objects while ignoring distractor objects (see also Neumann, 1987). But what is the target and what is the distractor? Because one peanut is just as good as the other, higher order goals (like the wish to eat peanuts) do not sufficiently determine which of the objects is to be considered as the target of the next action, thereby defining other objects as distractors. In this regard, the peanut-eater simile reminds one of the old allegory of Buridan's ass who starved to death in the midst of two bundles of hay because of its inability to come to a decision about which bundle it should eat. In contrast to the donkey, we as humans are equipped with the ability to decide; it seems as if we are not only able to pursue top-down higher order goals that determine target objects (like bundles of hay) but are also outfitted with a bottom-up sensitivity for differences in valence between potential targets.
Can neuroscience inform economics? Rationality, emotions and preference formation

The interaction between neuroscience and economics has gained much prominence recently, leading to the emergence of the new and expanding field of neuroeconomics. I will argue that, although there is much insight to be gained from the interaction between neuroscience and economics, the implications of recent developments in neuroscience and neuroeconomics for the deductivist methodology of mainstream economics, and its emphasis on prediction of events, have not been sufficiently addressed. In fact, much research on neuroeconomics has contributed to the formulation of deductivist models aimed at the prediction of events, when the more fruitful use of neuroscience in economics consists rather in the utilisation of its insights for the development of an explanation of social behaviour that moves beyond the mainstream deductivist methodology. The somatic marker hypothesis, developed by Damasio and others working closely with him, will be suggested as an alternative framework for conceptualising the emergence of social behaviour from a neurobiological substrate. Copyright The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved. , Oxford University Press.
Genome-wide Chromatin Profiling of Legionella pneumophila-Infected Human Macrophages Reveals Activation of the Probacterial Host Factor TNFAIP2.

BACKGROUND Legionella pneumophila is a causative agent of severe pneumonia. Infection leads to a broad host cell response, as evident, for example, on the transcriptional level. Chromatin modifications, which control gene expression, play a central role in the transcriptional response to L. pneumophila METHODS We infected human-blood-derived macrophages (BDMs) with L. pneumophila and used chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by sequencing to screen for gene promoters with the activating histone 4 acetylation mark. RESULTS We found the promoter of tumor necrosis factor α-induced protein 2 (TNFAIP2) to be acetylated at histone H4. This factor has not been characterized in the pathology of L. pneumophila TNFAIP2 messenger RNA and protein were upregulated in response to L. pneumophila infection of human-BDMs and human alveolar epithelial (A549) cells. We showed that L. pneumophila-induced TNFAIP2 expression is dependent on the NF-κB transcription factor. Importantly, knock down of TNFAIP2 led to reduced intracellular replication of L. pneumophila Corby in A549 cells. CONCLUSIONS Taken together, genome-wide chromatin analysis of L. pneumophila-infected macrophages demonstrated induction of TNFAIP2, a NF-κB-dependent factor relevant for bacterial replication.
Phase II Trial of Gefitinib in Combination with Bevacizumab as First-Line Therapy for Advanced Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer with Activating EGFR Gene Mutations: The Okayama Lung Cancer Study Group Trial 1001

Purpose: Whether bevacizumab enhances the effect of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor gefitinib on EGFR mutant non–small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) remains unknown. We conducted a phase II trial to investigate the efficacy and safety of gefitinib when combined with bevacizumab as first-line therapy in patients with advanced NSCLC harboring EGFR gene mutations. Methods: In this trial, 42 patients with a performance status of 0 to 2 received gefitinib (250 mg/d) and bevacizumab (15 mg/kg, every 3 weeks). The primary end point of this study was the 1-year progression-free survival (PFS) rate. We assumed that a 1-year PFS rate of 55% would indicate potential usefulness and that a 1-year PFS rate of 40% would constitute the lower limit of interest. Results: Forty-two patients were enrolled in the study with a median age of 73 (range 42–86) years. Activating EGFR gene mutations included exon 19 deletion (57%) and L858R point mutations in exon 21 (38%). The objective response rate was 73.8% and included two complete responses. The 1-year PFS rate and median PFS time were 56.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] 39.9–70.5) and 14.4 months (95% CI 10.1–19.2), respectively. The median PFS differed significantly between EGFR exon 19 deletion and the L858R point mutation (18.0 versus 9.4 months, respectively; p = 0.006). The median overall survival had not yet been reached. Severe adverse events included grade 3 skin rash (15%), hypertension (17%), aspartate transaminase/alanine aminotransferase elevation (17%), proteinuria (7%), intracranial hemorrhage (2%), and grade 4 perforation of the digestive tract (2%). There were no treatment-related deaths. Conclusion: Gefitinib in combination with bevacizumab as first-line therapy seems to be a favorable and well-tolerated treatment for patients with advanced NSCLC with activating EGFR gene mutations, especially those with EGFR exon 19 deletion mutations, although the primary end point was not met because the lower limit of the CI was less than 40%.
Tree preserving embedding

The goal of dimensionality reduction is to embed high-dimensional data in a low-dimensional space while preserving structure in the data relevant to exploratory data analysis such as clusters. However, existing dimensionality reduction methods often either fail to separate clusters due to the crowding problem or can only separate clusters at a single resolution. We develop a new approach to dimensionality reduction: tree preserving embedding. Our approach uses the topological notion of connectedness to separate clusters at all resolutions. We provide a formal guarantee of cluster separation for our approach that holds for finite samples. Our approach requires no parameters and can handle general types of data, making it easy to use in practice and suggesting new strategies for robust data visualization.