Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ischemia-Induced Changes in the Extracellular Space Diffusion Parameters, K+, and pH in the Developing Rat Cortex and Corpus Callosum

Changes in the ability of substances to diffuse in the intersticial space of the brain are important factors in the pathophysiology of cerebrovascular diseases. Extracellular space (ECS) volume fraction α (α = ECS volume/total tissue volume), tortuosity λ (λ2 = free diffusion coefficient/apparent diffusion coefficient), and nonspecific uptake (k′) − three diffusion parameters of brain tissue were studied in cortex and subcortical white matter (WM) of the developing rat during anoxia. Changes were compared with the rise in extracellular potassium concentration ([K+]e), extracellular pH (pHe) shifts, and anoxic depolarization (AD). Diffusion parameters were determined from extracellular concentration–time profiles of tetramethylammonium (TMA+) or tetraethylammonium (TEA+). TMA+, TEA+, K+, and pH changes were measured using ion-selective microelectrodes. In the cortex and WM of animals at 4–12 postnatal days (P4–P12), the volume fraction, α, is larger than that of animals at ≥P21. Anoxia evoked by cardiac arrest brought about a typical rise in [K+]e to ∼60–70 mM AD of 25–30 mV, decrease in α, increase in λ, and increase in k′. At P4–P6, α decreased from ∼0.43 to 0.05 in cortical layer V and from ∼0.45 to 0.5 in WM. Tortuosity, λ, increased in the cortex from 1.50 to 2.12 and in WM from ∼1.48 to 2.08. At P10–P12 and at P21–P23, when α in normoxic rats is lower than at P4–P6 by ∼25 and 50%, respectively, the final changes in values of α and A evoked by anoxia were not significantly different from those in P4–P6. However, the younger the animal, the longer the time course of the changes. On P4–P6 final changes in α, λ, and k′ in cortex and WM were reached after 37 ± 3 min and 54 ± 2 min; on P10–P12, after 24 ± 2 and 27 ± 3 min; and on P21–P23 at 15 ± 1 and 17 ± 3 min, respectively (mean ± SE, n = 6). The time course of the changes was longer in WM than in gray matter (GM), particularly during the first postnatal week, i.e., in the period during which WM is largely unmyelinated. Changes in diffusion parameters occurred in three phases. The first slow and second fast changes occurred simultaneously with the rise in [K+]e and AD. Peaks in [K+]e and AD were reached simultaneously; the younger the animal, the longer the time course of the changes. The third phase outlasted the rise in [K+]e and AD by 10–15 min and correlated with the acid shift in pHe. Linear regression analysis revealed a positive correlation between the normoxic size of the ECS volume and the time course of the changes. Slower changes in ECS volume fraction and tortuosity in nervous tissue during development can contribute to slower impairment of signal transmission, e.g., due to lower accumulation of ions and neuroactive substances released from cells and their better diffusion from the hypoxic area in uncompacted ECS.
SLEEP QUALITY AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH PSYCHOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS IN ADOLESCENT ATHLETES

ABSTRACT Objective: To verify the prevalence of poor sleep quality and its association with personal characteristics and symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress in amateur adolescent athletes. Methods: 309 adolescent athletes aged between 10 and 19 years were enrolled. Data collection included: a structured questionnaire, with personal information; the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI); and the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Results are described in mean and standard deviation (numeric variables) and absolute and relative frequencies (categorical variables). For the inferential analysis, Student’s t-test and chi-square test were performed, in addition to Poisson regression. Prevalence ratios (PR) were calculated in a 95% confidence interval (95%CI). Results: The mean age of participants was 14.1±2.1, being 13.8±2.0 and 15.0±2.1, respectively, for those with good and poor sleep quality. Poor sleep quality was recorded in 28.2% (n=87), depression in 26.9% (n=83) and anxiety/stress in 40.1% (n=124). Poor sleep quality was associated with ages between 15 and 19 years (PR 1.24; 95%CI 1.14-1.37), overweight (PR 1.12; 95%CI 1.01-1.24) and psychological symptoms of depression (PR 1.23; 95%CI 1.08-1.40) and anxiety/stress (PR 1.16; 95%CI 1.04-1.28). Conclusions: The presence of overweight and psychological symptoms and the age over 15 years were risk factors for increasing the likelihood of poor sleep quality in adolescent athletes.
A robotic hand rehabilitation system with interactive gaming using novel Electro-Rheological Fluid based actuators

A newly developed hand rehabilitation system is presented that combines robotics and interactive gaming to facilitate repetitive performance of task specific exercises for patients recovering from neurological motor deficits. A two degree of freedom robotic interface allows coordinated motions of the forearm and the hand (pronation/supination and grasp/release, respectively). It is driven by two novel Electro-Rheological Fluid based hydraulic actuators. Tests were conducted to characterize these actuators, and feed-forward controllers were developed for their force/torque control. A virtual reality environment (maze game) was developed in which the robot applies force fields to the user as the user navigates the environment, forming a haptic interface between the patient and the game.
High Performance Lithography Hotspot Detection With Successively Refined Pattern Identifications and Machine Learning

Under the real and evolving manufacturing conditions, lithography hotspot detection faces many challenges. First, real hotspots become hard to identify at early design stages and hard to fix at post-layout stages. Second, false alarms must be kept low to avoid excessive and expensive post-processing hotspot removal. Third, full chip physical verification and optimization require very fast turn-around time. Last but not least, rapid technology advancement favors generic hotspot detection methodologies to avoid exhaustive pattern enumeration and excessive development/update as technology evolves. To address the above issues, we propose a high performance hotspot detection methodology consisting of: 1) a fast layout analyzer; 2) powerful hotspot pattern identifiers; and 3) a generic and efficient flow with successive performance refinements. We implement our algorithms with industry-strength engine under real manufacturing conditions and show that it significantly outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms in false alarms (2.4X to 2300X reduction) and runtime (5X to 237X reduction), meanwhile achieving similar or better hotspot accuracies. Compared with pattern matching, our method achieves higher prediction accuracy for hotspots that are not previously characterized, therefore, more detection generality when exhaustive pattern enumeration is too expensive to perform a priori. Such high performance hotspot detection is especially suitable for lithography-friendly physical design.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Research Department Staff Report 420 Quantitative Macroeconomics with Heterogeneous Households *

Macroeconomics is evolving from the study of aggregate dynamics to the study of the dynamics of the entire equilibrium distribution of allocations across individual economic actors. This article reviews the quantitative macroeconomic literature that focuses on household heterogeneity, with a special emphasis on the " standard " incomplete markets model. We organize the vast literature according to three themes that are central to understanding how inequality matters for macroeconomics. First, what are the most important sources of individual risk and cross-sectional heterogeneity? Second, what are individuals' key channels of insurance? Third, how does idiosyncratic risk interact with aggregate risk? The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis or the Federal Reserve System.
Investigating the Role of the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex in the Assessment of Brands

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is believed to be important in everyday preference judgments, processing emotions during decision-making. However, there is still controversy in the literature regarding the participation of the vmPFC. To further elucidate the contribution of the vmPFC in brand preference, we designed a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study where 18 subjects assessed positive, indifferent, and fictitious brands. Also, both the period during and after the decision process were analyzed, hoping to unravel temporally the role of the vmPFC, using modeled and model-free fMRI analysis. Considering together the period before and after decision-making, there was activation of the vmPFC when comparing positive with indifferent or fictitious brands. However, when the decision-making period was separated from the moment after the response, and especially for positive brands, the vmPFC was more active after the choice than during the decision process itself, challenging some of the existing literature. The results of the present study support the notion that the vmPFC may be unimportant in the decision stage of brand preference, questioning theories that postulate that the vmPFC is in the origin of such a choice. Further studies are needed to investigate in detail why the vmPFC seems to be involved in brand preference only after the decision process.
Care for the Elderly in Slovenia: A Combination of Informal and Formal Care

Most care provided to the elderly living at home comes from informal caregivers: family members, friends and neighbours. With the development of community services such as community healthcare, personal lifeline systems for the elderly or the panic button, home care and similar, informal care is enhanced by formal community forms of care. The data from the SHARE (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe) survey was used to estimate the number of people (over 65 years old) who receive an individual type of care (no care, only informal care, only formal care, a combination of the two), as well as the number of people who need care, but fail to receive it. The multinomial logistic regression method was also used to evaluate the factors that influence the type of care. Similar to other European countries, the need and the availability of informal caregivers have the strongest influence on the type of care, whereas the distribution of types of care mostly resembles Mediterranean countries.
Prevalence and serovar distribution of asymptomatic cervical Chlamydia trachomatis infections as determined by highly sensitive PCR

The prevalence rates and serovar distributions of Chlamydia trachomatis cervical infections were investigated in two different groups of women. Group I consisted of 393 asymptomatic young women (aged 17 to 30 years) who were invited to participate in a C. trachomatis screening program. Group II consisted of 734 randomly selected patients (aged 17 to 68 years) attending an inner-city gynecological outpatient clinic. C. trachomatis was detected in cervical scrapes by PCR specific for endogenous plasmid. These plasmid PCR-positive samples were subsequently subjected to genotyping by C. trachomatis-specific omp1 PCR-based restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis (J. Lan, J. M. M. Walboomers, R. Roosendaal, G. J. van Doornum, D. M. MacLaren, C. J. L. M. Meijer, and A. J. C. van den Brule, J. Clin. Microbiol. 31:1060-1065, 1993). The overall prevalence rates of C. trachomatis found in patients younger than 30 years were 9.2 and 11.8% in groups I and II, respectively. A clear age dependency was seen in group II, with the highest prevalence rate (20%) found in patients younger than 20 years, while the rate declined significantly after 30 years of age (5.9%). In women younger than 30 years, the genotyping results showed that serovars E, I, and D (in decreasing order) were frequent in group I, while serovars F, E, and G (in decreasing order) were predominantly found in group II. The study shows that C. trachomatis infections are highly prevalent in asymptomatic young women. The different serovar distributions found most likely reflect the different compositions of the study groups, but additional analysis of the case histories of individual patients suggests that certain serovars might be associated with symptomatic (i.e., serovar G) or asymptomatic (i.e., serovars D and I) infections.
Incomplete Neutralization in Japanese Monomoraic Lengthening

Incomplete neutralization (IN) (Port et al. 1981, Fourakis & Iverson 1984, Port & O’Dell 1985) refers to cases in which two underlyingly distinct segments become nearly identical on the surface. IN has posed a challenge for traditional views of the phonetics-phonology interface. While classical modular feedforward architectures (e.g. Chomsky & Halle 1968, Bermudez-Otero 2007) generally do not allow underlying phonological representations to directly affect phonetic realization, incompletely neutralized contrasts show subphonemic distinctions on the surface that can only be inferred from the underlying representations. We show that the combination of two independently motivated theoretical mechanisms—paradigm uniformity (Benua 1997, Steriade 2000) and weighted phonetic constraints (Legendre et al. 1990, Zsiga 2000, Flemming 2001, Pater 2009)—automatically account for the IN patterns.
Maternal recall of exclusive breast feeding duration

Background: Both the pattern and duration of breast feeding are important determinants of health outcomes. In vertical HIV transmission research, reliable documentation of early breast feeding practices is important in order to correctly attribute postnatal transmission to feeding pattern. Aims: To validate methods of collecting data on the duration of exclusive breast feeding (EBF) in an area of South Africa with a high HIV prevalence rate. Methods: A total of 130 mothers were interviewed weekly, postnatally. At every interview a 48 hour and a seven day recall breast feeding history were taken. A subset of 70 mothers also received two intermediate visits per week during which additional 48 hour, non-overlapping, recall interviews were conducted. Ninety three infants were revisited at 6–9 months of age when mothers’ recall of EBF duration from birth was documented. The different methods of recalling EBF status were compared against an a priori “best comparison” in each case. Results: Reported breast feeding practices over the previous 48 hours did not reflect EBF practices since birth (specificity 65–89%; positive predictive value 31–48%). Six month EBF duration recall was equally poor (sensitivity at 2 weeks 79%; specificity 40%). Seven day recall accurately reflected EBF practices compared with thrice weekly recall over the same time period (sensitivity 96%, specificity 94%). Conclusions: 48 hour EBF status does not accurately reflect feeding practices since birth. Long term recall data on EBF are even more inaccurate. We recommend that data on duration of EBF be collected prospectively at intervals of no longer than one week.
Local ill-posedness and source conditions of operator equations in Hilbert spaces

The characterization of the local ill-posedness and the local degree of nonlinearity are of particular importance for the stable solution of nonlinear ill-posed problems. We present assertions concerning the interpendence between the ill-posedness of the nonlinear problem and its linearization. Moreover, we show that the concept of the degree of nonlinearity combined with source conditions can be used to characterize the local ill-posedness and to derive a posteriori estimates for nonlinear ill-posed problems. A posteriori estimates are widely used in finite element and multigrid methods for the solution of nonlinear partial differential equations, but these techniques are in general not applicable to inverse and ill-posed problems. Additionally we show for the well known Landweber method and the iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method that they satisfy a posteriori estimates under source conditions; this can be used to prove convergence rate results. A numerical test is presented that confirms the theoretical assertions.
A new hERG allosteric modulator rescues genetic and drug‐induced long‐QT syndrome phenotypes in cardiomyocytes from isogenic pairs of patient induced pluripotent stem cells

Long‐QT syndrome (LQTS) is an arrhythmogenic disorder characterised by prolongation of the QT interval in the electrocardiogram, which can lead to sudden cardiac death. Pharmacological treatments are far from optimal for congenital forms of LQTS, while the acquired form, often triggered by drugs that (sometimes inadvertently) target the cardiac hERG channel, is still a challenge in drug development because of cardiotoxicity. Current experimental models in vitro fall short in predicting proarrhythmic properties of new drugs in humans. Here, we leveraged a series of isogenically matched, diseased and genetically engineered, human induced pluripotent stem cell‐derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC‐CMs) from patients to test a novel hERG allosteric modulator for treating congenital LQTS, drug‐induced LQTS or a combination of the two. By slowing IKr deactivation and positively shifting IKr inactivation, the small molecule LUF7346 effectively rescued all of these conditions, demonstrating in a human system that allosteric modulation of hERG may be useful as an approach to treat inherited and drug‐induced LQTS. Furthermore, our study provides experimental support of the value of isogenic pairs of patient hiPSC‐CMs as platforms for testing drug sensitivities and performing safety pharmacology.
An evaluation of the use of eye gaze to measure preference of individuals with severe physical and developmental disabilities

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine whether duration of eye gaze could be used to identify reinforcing stimuli for four individuals with severe physical and developmental disabilities, as well as the effectiveness of the assessment using different numbers of stimuli (i.e. 6 vs 14). Methods: This study measured each student's preferences in a paired stimulus preference assessment using duration of eye gaze toward various stimuli. Following the preference assessment, a reinforcer assessment was conducted within a reversal design to determine the accuracy of the preference hierarchy. Results: Results indicated that duration of eye gaze toward a stimulus was successful in identifying preferred stimuli that functioned as reinforcers for all participants. Additionally, the shorter preference assessment produced measures of similar accuracy in considerably less time. Conclusion: Eye gaze can be used to identify reinforcing stimuli for individuals with severe physical and developmental disabilities.
The state-of-the-art of emergency contraception with the cutting edge drug

The objective of this study is to evaluate and elucidated the potential of selective progesterone receptor modulators (SPRMs) to be an effective emergency contraception (EC). The data are extracted from the literature through the MEDLINE database service from 2000–2010. The SPRMs are in fact progesterone receptor ligands that could bind to progesterone receptor (PR) and exert antagonistic, agonistic or mixed agonist-antagonistic effects. These SPRMs are mifepristone, onapristone, asoprisnil, ulipristal, proellex among other compounds. Currently developed SPRMs may exert contraceptive effects by inhibiting ovulation and retarding endometrial synchronization. Low-doses of progesterone antagonists retard endometrial maturation without affecting ovulation. Mifepristone being a SPRM is effective for prevention of pregnancy but with prostaglandin acts as an excellent abortifacient; yet could not compete with levonorgestrel as EC. However, a single dose of 30 mg ulipristal acetate, another SPRM with similar effectiveness and side effect profiles as 1.5 mg levonorgestrel EC, has shown wider ‘window of effect’ by inhibition of the LH peak even if administered at the advanced pre-ovulatory phase, a time when use of levonorgestrel EC is no longer effective. Thus, ulipristal acetate goes one-step ahead of levonorgestrel in the field of emergency contraception treatment. Further studies are needed to explore the potential of other SPRMs to be cutting edge emergency contraceptive drugs.
Deformation of Minimal Polynomials and Approximation of Several Intervals by an Inverse Polynomial Mapping

In this paper we show that for a given set of l real disjoint intervals E"[email protected]? ^l"j"="1[a"2"j"-"1, a"2"j] and given @e>0 there exists a real polynomial T and a set of l disjoint intervals E"[email protected]? ^l"j"="1[a"2"j"-"1, a"2"j] with E"[email protected]? E"l and @? (a"1, ., a"2"l)-(a"1, ., a"2"l)@? "m"a"x<@e, such that T^-^1([-1, 1])=E"l. The statement follows by showing how to get in a constructive way by a continuous deformation procedure from a minimal polynomial on E"l with respect to the maximum norm a polynomial mapping of E"l.
Evaluating the educational impact of visualization

The educational impact of visualization depends not only on how well students learn when they use it, but also on how widely it is used by instructors. Instructors believe that visualization helps students learn. The integration of visualization techniques in classroom instruction, however, has fallen far short of its potential. This paper considers this disconnect, identifying its cause in a failure to understand the needs of a key member in the hierarchy of stakeholders, namely the instructor. We describe these needs and offer guidelines for both the effective deployment of visualizations and the evaluation of instructor satisfaction. We then consider different forms of evaluation and the impact of student learning styles on learner outcomes.
Extraneural hemangioblastoma of the kidney: the challenge for clinicopathological diagnosis

Background Hemangioblastoma is a benign cerebellar tumour which may occur as a sporadic entity or in association with von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) disease in approximately 25% of cases. Renal hemangioblastoma (RH) is an extremely rare and newly recognised tumour. Here, we describe five cases of RH, one discovered by CT in an accident and the other four detected during routine examinations. Methods Five cases of renal hemangioblastoma retrieved from the Department of Pathology, Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center were studied and the literatures were reviewed. Immunohistochemistry was used to differentiate and confirm this tumour. Results Pathological examination following tumour resection revealed RH in all cases, the first patient was also diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma (RCC), suggesting the possibility of VHL syndrome, but PCR sequencing analysis of the VHL gene confirmed no mutation in any of the three exons, implying sporadic disease . Histologically, the tumours were circumscribed, composed of sheets of oval or polygonal cells and a prominent vascular network. Tumour cells had pleomorphic nuclei, but mitotic figures were rare. The diagnosis of hemangioblastoma was confirmed by immunohistochemistry. Conclusions RH is very rare and is challenging to differentially diagnose. Distinguishing RCC and RH is difficult and each has a different prognosis, so differentiating between them is essential for avoiding over-diagnosis and unnecessary treatment.