Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physician peer assessments for compliance with methadone maintenance treatment guidelines

Introduction: Medical associations and licensing bodies face pressure to implement quality assurance programs, but evidence‐based models are lacking. To improve the quality of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT), the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Canada, conducts an innovative quality assurance program on the basis of peer assessments. Using data from this program, we assessed physician compliance with MMT guidelines and determined whether physician factors (e.g., training, years of practice), practice type, practice location, and/or caseload is associated with MMT guideline adherence. Methods: Secondary analysis of methadone practice assessment data collected by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Canada. Assessment data from methadone prescribing physicians who completed their first year of methadone practice were analyzed. We calculated the mean percentage compliance per guideline per physician and global compliance across all guidelines per physician. Linear regression was used to assess factors associated with compliance. Results: Data from 149 physician practices and 1,326 patient charts were analyzed. Compliance across all charts was greater than 90% for most areas of care. Compliance was less than 90% for take‐home medication procedures; urine toxicology screening; screening for hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), tuberculosis, other sexually transmitted infections, and completion of a psychosocial assessment. Mean global compliance across all charts and guidelines per physician was 94.3% (standard deviation = 7.4%) with a range of 70% to 100%. Linear regression analysis revealed that only year of medical school graduation was a significant predictor of physician compliance. Discussion: This is the first report of MMT peer assessments in Canada. Compliance is high. Few countries conduct similar assessment processes; none report physician‐level results. We cannot quantify the contribution of peer assessment, training, or self‐selection to the compliance rates, but compared to other areas of practice these rates suggest that peer assessment may exert a significant effect on compliance. A similar assessment process may in other areas of clinical practice improve physician compliance.
Tweet2Vec: Character-Based Distributed Representations for Social Media

Text from social media provides a set of challenges that can cause traditional NLP approaches to fail. Informal language, spelling errors, abbreviations, and special characters are all commonplace in these posts, leading to a prohibitively large vocabulary size for word-level approaches. We propose a character composition model, tweet2vec, which finds vector-space representations of whole tweets by learning complex, non-local dependencies in character sequences. The proposed model outperforms a word-level baseline at predicting user-annotated hashtags associated with the posts, doing significantly better when the input contains many out-of-vocabulary words or unusual character sequences. Our tweet2vec encoder is publicly available.
Group 1 Allergen Genes in Two Species of House Dust Mites, Dermatophagoides farinae and D. pteronyssinus (Acari: Pyroglyphidae): Direct Sequencing, Characterization and Polymorphism

Group 1 allergens of Dermatophagoides farinae (Der f 1) and D. pteronyssinus (Der p 1) dominate overall allergic responses in house dust mite allergy patients. The need for accurate identification and characterization of representative variants of group 1 allergens in any given geographic locality has been emphasized for development of appropriate allergen extracts. Regional amino acid sequence polymorphism has been described but the extent of this polymorphism is not well understood. Such data are completely absent for the USA and many other countries. Most previous studies used cDNA libraries generated by reverse transcriptase (RT-PCR) and/or primers amplifying shorter fragments of this gene. Using novel species-specific primers and direct PCR, we document group 1 allergen gene sequence polymorphism in populations of D. farinae and D. pteronyssinus from the USA and Pakistan. We report two novel introns (nt pos 87 and 291) in both species, and the absence of intron 3 in Der p 1. Thirteen silent and one novel non-synonymous mutation (Tryptophan W197 to Arginine R197) were detected in D. farinae. The potential medical significance of the latter mutation is discussed. Two haplotypes of the Der f 1 gene were identified, haplotype 1 (63%) was more frequent than haplotype 2 (18%). Polymorphism in Der f 1 displayed geographical localization, since both haplotypes were present in mite populations from Pakistan whereas haplotype 1 was observed only in the USA. In Der p 1, a silent mutation at nt (aa) position 1011(149) and four non-synonymous mutations at positions 589(50), 935(124), 971(136), 1268(215) were observed. These mutations were reported from many other geographic regions, suggesting that polymorphism in the Der p 1 gene is panmictic. The extent of polymorphism in both genes is substantially lower than that reported previously (0.10–0.16% vs 0.31–0.49%), indicating the need for careful evaluation of potential polymerase errors in studies utilizing RT-PCR.
Dual Approach Using Vitrectorhexis Combined with Anterior Vitrectomy in Pediatric Cataract Surgery

Purpose. To evaluate efficacy and safety of vitrectorhexis method for both anterior and posterior capsules combined with anterior vitrectomy in children with cataract. Methods. A retrospective chart review was performed for 19 children with cataract operated at a tertiary referral center. Dual approach including anterior and posterior segments was used during the surgery in terms of capsulotomy, intraocular lens (IOL) implantation, and anterior vitrectomy. Results. A total of 23 eyes of 19 patients were enrolled in the study. The mean age of the children was 39.4 ± 2.2 months (5–78). The mean postoperative followup duration was 20.6 ± 7.8 months (3–32). Intraoperative tear was observed only in one of 23 (4.3%) eyes during anterior capsulotomy. All of the patients had a clear visual axis and showed no IOL decentration. Conclusions. Dual approach using vitrectorhexis and anterior vitrectomy is an easy-to-perform technique that seems safe and effective in the short term for younger children.
Effects of intrahippocampal CT105, a carboxyl terminal fragment of β‐amyloid precursor protein, alone/with inflammatory cytokines on working memory in rats

In this study, we examined the effects of a 105 amino acid carboxyl terminal fragment of β‐amyloid precursor protein (CT105) and inflammatory cytokines on working memory in rats, by using a three‐panel runway set‐up. CT105 at 10 nmol/side significantly impaired working memory when it was administered bilaterally into the hippocampus. Furthermore, to elucidate the interaction of CT105 with inflammatory cytokines, we co‐administered tumor necrosis factor‐alpha (TNF‐α) and interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β) in combination with CT105. Concurrent injections of CT105 (1.0 nmol/side) and TNF‐α (100 ng/side) produced a synergistic deficit of working memory, whereas IL‐1β (100 ng/side) combined with CT105 (1.0 nmol/side) did not affect the working memory performance. These results indicate that the CT105‐induced impairment of working memory is strongly aggravated by an increase in the level of the inflammatory cytokine TNF‐α, which may occur in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.
dTAF10- and dTAF10b-Containing Complexes Are Required for Ecdysone-Driven Larval-Pupal Morphogenesis in Drosophila melanogaster

In eukaryotes the TFIID complex is required for preinitiation complex assembly which positions RNA polymerase II around transcription start sites. On the other hand, histone acetyltransferase complexes including SAGA and ATAC, modulate transcription at several steps through modification of specific core histone residues. In this study we investigated the function of Drosophila melanogaster proteins TAF10 and TAF10b, which are subunits of dTFIID and dSAGA, respectively. We generated a mutation which eliminated the production of both Drosophila TAF10 orthologues. The simultaneous deletion of both dTaf10 genes impaired the recruitment of the dTFIID subunit dTAF5 to polytene chromosomes, while binding of other TFIID subunits, dTAF1 and RNAPII was not affected. The lack of both dTAF10 proteins resulted in failures in the larval-pupal transition during metamorphosis and in transcriptional reprogramming at this developmental stage. Surprisingly, unlike dSAGA mutations, dATAC subunit mutations resulted in very similar changes in the steady state mRNA levels of approximately 5000 genes as did ablation of both dTaf10 genes, indicating that dTAF10- and/or dTAF10b-containing complexes and dATAC affect similar pathways. Importantly, the phenotype resulting from dTaf10+dTaf10b mutation could be rescued by ectopically added ecdysone, suggesting that dTAF10- and/or dTAF10b-containing complexes are involved in the expression of ecdysone biosynthetic genes. Indeed, in dTaf10+dTaf10b mutants, cytochrome genes, which regulate ecdysone synthesis in the ring gland, were underrepresented. Therefore our data support the idea that the presence of dTAF10 proteins in dTFIID and/or dSAGA is required only at specific developmental steps. We propose that distinct forms of dTFIID and/or dSAGA exist during Drosophila metamorphosis, wherein different TAF compositions serve to target RNAPII at different developmental stages and tissues.
Role of mitogen‐activated protein kinase in Zn‐BC‐AM PDT‐induced apoptosis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with a recently developed photosensitizer Zn‐BC‐AM was found to effectively induce apoptosis in a well‐differentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) HK‐1 cell line. Sustained activation of p38 mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) and c‐jun N‐terminal kinase (JNK) as well as a transient increase in activation of extracellular signal‐regulated kinase (ERK) were observed immediately after Zn‐BC‐AM PDT. A commonly used p38 MAPK/JNK pharmacological inhibitor PD169316 was found to reduce PDT‐induced apoptosis of HK‐1 cells. PD169316 also prevented the loss of Bcl‐2 and Bcl‐xL in PDT‐treated HK‐1 cells. However, inhibition of JNK with SP600125 had no effect on Zn‐BC‐AM PDT‐induced apoptosis while inhibition of ERK with PD98059 or p38 MAPK with SB203580 significantly increased Zn‐BC‐AM PDT‐induced apoptosis. Further study showed that knockdown of the p38β isoform with siRNA also increased Zn‐BC‐AM PDT‐induced apoptosis, indicating that the anti‐apoptotic effect of PD169316 in PDT‐treated HK‐1 cells was probably independent of p38 MAPK or JNK activation. Taken together, the results suggest that inhibition of p38β and ERK may enhance the therapeutic efficacy of Zn‐BC‐AM PDT on NPC cells. It should be noted that data only based on the use of PD169316 should be interpreted in caution. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Learning of Separable Filters by Stacked Fisher Convolutional Autoencoders

Learning of convolutional filters in deep neural networks proves high efficiency to provide sparse representations for the purpose of image recognition. The computational cost of these networks can be alleviated by focusing on separable filters to reduce the number of learning parameters. Autoencoders are a family of powerful deep networks to build scalable generative models for automatic feature learning. Inspired by their stacked hierarchy, we introduce Fisher convolutional autoencoders to learn separable filters in a distributed architecture. These novel overcomplete autoencoders employ discriminant analysis to impose the highest possible distinction among texture classes whilst holds the minimum separation within each individual class. A distributed network of stacked Fisher autoencoders learns banks of separable filters in parallel and makes an ensemble of deep convolutional features with higher separability for a better classification. This network automatically adjusts depth of each stack with respect to the capability of its correspondent separable filter on extracting higher order convolutional features for the dataset under study. We conduct our experiments on several publicly available datasets varying in number of classes and quality of samples by using a standard implementation. Our results confirm the supremacy of our method on improving the precision of texture understanding in comparison with the recently published benchmarks.
Choosing software metrics for defect prediction: an investigation on feature selection techniques

The selection of software metrics for building software quality prediction models is a search‐based software engineering problem. An exhaustive search for such metrics is usually not feasible due to limited project resources, especially if the number of available metrics is large. Defect prediction models are necessary in aiding project managers for better utilizing valuable project resources for software quality improvement. The efficacy and usefulness of a fault‐proneness prediction model is only as good as the quality of the software measurement data. This study focuses on the problem of attribute selection in the context of software quality estimation. A comparative investigation is presented for evaluating our proposed hybrid attribute selection approach, in which feature ranking is first used to reduce the search space, followed by a feature subset selection. A total of seven different feature ranking techniques are evaluated, while four different feature subset selection approaches are considered. The models are trained using five commonly used classification algorithms. The case study is based on software metrics and defect data collected from multiple releases of a large real‐world software system. The results demonstrate that while some feature ranking techniques performed similarly, the automatic hybrid search algorithm performed the best among the feature subset selection methods. Moreover, performances of the defect prediction models either improved or remained unchanged when over 85were eliminated. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Fas and activation-induced Fas ligand mediate apoptosis of T cell hybridomas: inhibition of Fas ligand expression by retinoic acid and glucocorticoids

Activation of T cell hybridomas induces a G1/S cell cycle block and apoptosis. We isolated a variant of the 2B4.11 T cell hybridoma that, when activated via the TCR, produced IL-2 and underwent growth inhibition but did not die. Analysis of a variety of cell surface molecules revealed that the variant cell line, termed VD1, expressed very low levels of Fas compared to the wild type cells. Unlike 2B4.11 cells, VD1 cells were not killed by Fas ligand (FasL)-bearing effector cells. To determine if Fas is involved in activation-induced apoptosis, two different reagents that specifically bind Fas without killing the T cell hybridomas, a monoclonal antibody and a soluble Fas:Fc chimeric molecule, were added to activated T cell hybridomas. Both treatments prevented activation-induced apoptosis in a dose-dependent manner, but had no effect on IL-2 production or growth inhibition. Northern blot analysis revealed that unactivated 2B4.11 cells expressed negligible levels of FasL mRNA, but transcripts were detectable as early as 2 h after activation and continued to increase up to 4-6 h after activation. Anti-TCR induced activation of 2B4.11 cells in the presence of a TCR- 2B4.11 variant resulted in death of the unactivated "bystander" cells, which was inhibited by anti-Fas antibodies. Finally, treatment of T hybridoma cells with 9-cis retinoic acid or glucocorticoids, which are known to prevent activation-induced T cell apoptosis, inhibited the up-regulation of FasL. We conclude that up- regulated expression of FasL and its subsequent interaction with Fas accounts for the apoptotic response of T cell hybridomas to activation, and that retinoic acid and corticosteroids inhibit activation-induced apoptosis by preventing up-regulation of FasL.
When Do People Trust Their Social Groups?

Trust facilitates cooperation and supports positive outcomes in social groups, including member satisfaction, information sharing, and task performance. Extensive prior research has examined individuals' general propensity to trust, as well as the factors that contribute to their trust in specific groups. Here, we build on past work to present a comprehensive framework for predicting trust in groups. By surveying 6,383 Facebook Groups users about their trust attitudes and examining aggregated behavioral and demographic data for these individuals, we show that (1) an individual's propensity to trust is associated with how they trust their groups, (2) smaller, closed, older, more exclusive, or more homogeneous groups are trusted more, and (3) a group's overall friendship-network structure and an individual's position within that structure can also predict trust. Last, we demonstrate how group trust predicts outcomes at both individual and group level such as the formation of new friendship ties.
Results of Cervical Recapping Laminoplasty: Gross Anatomical Changes, Biomechanical Evaluation at Different Time Points and Degrees of Level Involvement

Background Recapping laminoplasty has become the frequently-used approach to the spinal canal when bone decompression of the vertebral canal is not the goal. However, what changes will occur after surgery, and whether recapping laminoplasty can actually reduce the risk of delayed deformities remains unknown. Methodology We designed an animal experiment using a caprine model, and partitioned the animals into in vitro and in vivo surgical groups. We performed recapping laminoplasty on one group and laminectomy on another group. These animals were sacrificed six months after operating, cervical spines removed, biomechanically tested, and these data were compared to determine whether the recapping laminoplasty technique leads to subsequent differences in range of motion. Image data were also obtained before the surgery and when the animals were killed. Besides, we investigated the initial differences in kinetics between recapping laminoplasty and laminectomy. We did this by comparing data obtained from biomechanical testing of in vitro-performed recapping laminoplasty and laminectomy. Finally, we investigated the effect that longitudinal distance has on cervical mechanics. This was determined by performing a two-level recapping laminoplasty, and then extending the laminoplasty to the next level and repeating the mechanical testing at each step. Principal Findings There were three mainly morphological changes at the six months after laminoplasty: volume reduction and bone nonunion of the recapping laminae, irregular fibrosis formation around the facet joints and re-implanted lamina-ligamentous complex. In the biomechanical test, comparing with laminectomy, recapping laminoplasty didn’t show significant differences in the immediate postoperative comparison, while recapping laminoplasty demonstrated significantly decreased motion in flexion/extension six months later. Inclusion of additional levels in the laminotomy procedure didn’t lead to changes in immediate biomechanics. Conclusions Recapping laminoplasty can’t fully restore the posterior structure, but still reduced the risk of delayed cervical instability in a caprine model.
On Jordan and Jordan*-Generalized Derivations in Semiprime Rings with Involution

The purpose of this note is to prove the following result. Let R be a6 −torsion free semiprime *-ring and let G: R−→R be an additive mapping such that G(xyx )= G(x)y ∗ x ∗ + xD(y)x ∗ + xyD(x) holds for all x,y ∈ R and some *-derivations D of R. Then G is a Jordan*generalized derivation.
Derivation of Chondrogenically-Committed Cells from Human Embryonic Cells for Cartilage Tissue Regeneration

Background Heterogeneous and uncontrolled differentiation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in embryoid bodies (EBs) limits the potential use of hESCs for cell-based therapies. More efficient strategies are needed for the commitment and differentiation of hESCs to produce a homogeneous population of specific cell types for tissue regeneration applications. Methodology/Principal Findings We report here that significant chondrocytic commitment of feeder-free cultured human embryonic stem cells (FF-hESCs), as determined by gene expression and immunostaining analysis, was induced by co-culture with primary chondrocytes. Furthermore, a dynamic expression profile of chondrocyte-specific genes was observed during monolayer expansion of the chondrogenically-committed cells. Chondrogenically-committed cells synergistically responded to transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) and β1-integrin activating antibody by increasing tissue mass in pellet culture. In addition, when encapsulated in hydrogels, these cells formed cartilage tissue both in vitro and in vivo. In contrast, the absence of chondrocyte co-culture did not result in an expandable cell population from FF-hESCs. Conclusions/Significance The direct chondrocytic commitment of FF-hESCs can be induced by morphogenetic factors from chondrocytes without EB formation and homogenous cartilage tissue can be formed in vitro and in vivo.
Loss of the Plateau of the Cardiac Action Potential in Hypertonic Solutions

The effect of hypertonicity on the electrical properties of vertebrate myocardial cells was studied in ventricular muscle fibers of guinea pig, cat, frog, and chicken. The latter two species do not have a T-tubule system, whereas the former two do. In hypertonic solutions (2 x isotonic) produced by addition of sucrose or excess of NaCl, cell diameter decreased and there was a slight hyperpolarization and decrease in action potential overshoot. In guinea pig and cat, the hypertonic solution caused a decrease in input resistance and the plateau of the action potential to disappear in some of the cells; contractions of the entire ventricle also became depressed. These effects were reversed by returning the muscle fibers to isotonic solution. Addition of 5 mM SrCl2 to the hypertonic solution also caused the plateau component and contraction to reappear. In frog and chick cells, loss of the plateau component and contraction never occurred in hypertonic solution, and input resistance increased. Urea and glycerol hyperosmolarity (2 x) caused no loss of the plateau component or contraction. If the frog and chicken ventricular, and guinea pig atrial myocardial cells (all of which lack T tubules) were to serve as an adequate control for possible effects of hypertonicity on the surface membrane and on contractile proteins, then the results suggest that swelling of the T tubules of mammalian myocardial cells leads to loss of the plateau component.