Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Temporal profile of pain and other sensory manifestations in Guillain-Barre' syndrome during ten days of hospitalization.

BACKGROUND Focused studies on sensory manifestations, especially pain and paresthesia in Guillain-Barre' (GB) syndrome are few and far between. AIM To study the sensory manifestations in GB syndrome during 10 days of hospitalization with clinico-electrophysiological correlation. MATERIALS AND METHODS The study included 60 non-consecutive patients with GB syndrome, fulfilling National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS) criteria for GB syndrome. Data especially related to clinical and electrophysiological evidence of sensory involvement were analyzed. Pain was assessed using a) visual analogue paraesthesias (Vapar), b) visual analogue for pain (Vap) and c) verbal rating scale for pain (Verp). RESULTS Sensory symptoms were widely prevalent: paraesthesia in 45 (75%) patients and pain in 30 (50%) patients. Impairment of different sensory modalities included: pain in 8 (13.3%), joint position sense in 14 (23.3%), and vibration in 11 (18.3%). Electrophysiological evidence of abnormal sensory nerve conduction was noted in 35 (58.3%) patients. Pain assessment using Vapar, Vap and Verp for from Day 1 to Day 10 of hospitalization revealed that from Day 7 onwards the degree and frequency of sensory symptoms and signs decreased. On comparing various clinico-electrophysiological parameters among patients of GB syndrome with and without pain and paresthesia. Presence of respiratory distress correlated with pain and paresthesia (P=0.02). CONCLUSIONS Sensory manifestations in GB syndrome are often under-recognized and under-emphasized. This study analyzed the evolution and the profile of pain and paresthesia in GB syndrome during hospitalization. Knowledge, especially about evolution of pain and paresthesia during hospitalization might improve understanding and patient care.
Optical and Infrared Emission from the Anomalous X-Ray Pulsars and Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters

We show that the irradiated accretion disk model can account for all the optical and infrared observations of the anomalous X-ray pulsars in the persistent state. While placing an upper limit on the inner disk radii, and thus on the strength of the dipole component of the stellar magnetic field, the model fits do not constrain the outer disk radii. And while magnetar fields (B* > 1014 G) in higher multipoles are compatible with the irradiated disk model, magnetic dipole components of magnetar strength are not consistent with optical data.
Mother-to-child transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus.

Heterosexual transmission is responsible for most infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The increase in pediatric HIV infection has had a substantial impact on childhood mortality, both in industrialized countries, such as the United States,1 and in developing countries.2 In some areas in sub-Saharan Africa, 10 to 30 percent of pregnant women are HIV-infected, and infection is now spreading to parts of Southeast Asia. Reporting of pediatric cases of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) to public health authorities, registers of HIV-infected children, and unlinked anonymous testing of antenatal and neonatal blood samples make it possible to monitor the prevalence .
A Linguistic Evaluation of Rule-Based, Phrase-Based, and Neural MT Engines

Abstract In this paper, we report an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of several Machine Translation (MT) engines implementing the three most widely used paradigms. The analysis is based on a manually built test suite that comprises a large range of linguistic phenomena. Two main observations are on the one hand the striking improvement of an commercial online system when turning from a phrase-based to a neural engine and on the other hand that the successful translations of neural MT systems sometimes bear resemblance with the translations of a rule-based MT system.
Fabrication of magnetic nanoparticles armed with quaternarized N-halamine polymers as recyclable antibacterial agents

Abstract Magnetic recyclable bactericidal nanocomposites (Fe3O4@PDMC) were well-designed and prepared by coating of Fe3O4 nanoparticles with quaternarized N-halamine polymers via the free radical polymerization process. In which, 5,5-dimethylhydantoinyl-(3-ethyl-methacrylamine)propyl dimethylammonium bromide (DEMPA), a new monomeric N-halamine precursor, was used as a coating material as well as the dual-functional bactericidal agent. The developed Fe3O4@PDMC nanocomposites exhibited suitable size and super-paramagnetic responsibility. The antibacterial results showed that the Fe3O4@PDMC nanocomposites had excellent biocidal abilities against Staphylococcus aureus (gram-positive) and Escherichia coli (gram-negative). Furthermore, the TTC (Triphenyl Tetrazolium Chloride)–dehydrogenase activity assay confirmed that the reductions of the bacteria were mainly attributed to powerful biocidal effects of the coating polymer instead of bacteria capture by the cationic surface. Interestingly, due to the magnetic responsive performance of Fe3O4, the as-prepared Fe3O4@PDMC nanocomposites can be recycled by a magnet and reused for antibacterium through the quenching/rechlorination procedure. All the results presented in this study show that the proposed Fe3O4@PDMC nanocomposites could be a competitive candidate for water purification systems and household sanitation.
Small Targets: Why are they So Difficult to Acquire?

Facilitating the acquisition of small targets is an active area of research. Despite the usefulness of the techniques proposed so far, we show why this topic can benefit from more fundamental work. We investigate three factors that might account for the observed drop in performance when selecting small targets: motor accuracy, visual legibility and quantization. Our findings suggest that visual size is as important as motor scale and that quantization has almost no effect. We also show that ‐ as proposed by Welford in 1969 ‐ motor inaccuracy is well-modeled by subtracting a “tremor” constant from target size. We conclude with implications for design.
Modeling Extreme Warm‐Air Advection in the Arctic: The Role of Microphysical Treatment of Cloud Droplet Concentration

As the Arctic climate is changing fast, with increasing areas of open water in summer, there is a growing interest in the processes related to the marginal ice zones. Recent studies have indicated that such a critical process may be the advection of warm and moist air from the south. In this study, the performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is evaluated during an extreme warm advection episode over melting sea ice that occurred near the Arctic ice edge in summer 2014. The model gives a reasonably good representation of the atmospheric conditions and the Arctic boundary layer, characterized by very strong surface inversions and the frequent presence of low‐level jets. However, the representation of the highly variable cloud conditions, from optically thick to optically thin, dissipating clouds, is sensitive to the choice of cloud droplet treatment in WRF. Simulations with relatively high cloud droplet number concentrations (Ndrop ≥ 100 cm−3) are more successful in representing the optically thick cloud state, whereas to reproduce optically thin and tenuous clouds Ndrop should be <50 cm−3. The WRF‐Chem model, with a realistic treatment of the cloud‐aerosol interactions, allows for large variations in Ndrop and hence can reproduce the cloud water properties reasonably well for most of the simulation time. This contributes to an improved representation of the cloud longwave radiative effect, compared to the simulations where a less adaptive treatment of Ndrop is applied.
Trees and Markov Convexity

Abstract.We show that an infinite weighted tree admits a bi-Lipschitz embedding into Hilbert space if and only if it does not contain arbitrarily large complete binary trees with uniformly bounded distortion. We also introduce a new metric invariant called Markov convexity, and show how it can be used to compute the Euclidean distortion of any metric tree up to universal factors.
SHIFTING PATTERNS IN GENETIC CONTROL AT THE EMBRYO‐ALEVIN BOUNDARY IN BROOK CHARR

Abstract Maternal inputs to offspring early in development are initially high but the process of development suggests that ontogenetic shifts in the importance of maternal genetic variation relative to other sources should occur. We investigated additive genetic variance and covariance for direct (animal), sire, and maternal effects on embryonic length (EL), yolk sac volume (YSV), and alevin (after yolk sac resorption) length (AL) for 460 embryonic and 460 alevin brook charr (Salvelinus fontinalis) in 23 half‐sib families (12 sires, 23 dams). There were no additive genetic effects of sires or individual animals on their own phenotype using sire‐dam and maternal‐animal models for YSV or EL (h2 < 0.05). However, at the alevin stage we detected low but significant heritability for AL (h2= 0.14 ± 0.11). Conversely, maternal genetic effects were high for both embryonic traits (h2EL= 0.61 ± 0.05; h2YSV= 0.57 ± 0.06) but faded rapidly for postresorption length (h2AL= 0.18 ± 0.04). Maternal effects in the sire‐dam model corresponded highly with those in the animal‐dam model. We did not detect significant genetic covariance between progeny and dams for preresorption traits or between sires and dams for any trait. However, following resorption of the yolk sac, the genetic value of dams for AL was negatively correlated with that of individual progeny (rma=– 0.38 ± 0.13), suggesting trade‐offs and/or stabilizing selection between maternal and animal genetic trait value. This finding was supported by models of dam fecundity on offspring length and dam weight in phenotypic space. Heritability estimates using simple regression of embryo phenotype on adult parental phenotype produced upwardly biased estimates of genetic variance (h2± 1.0). We propose that development through the embryo‐alevin boundary may be a major point in salmonids for ontogenetic changes in the genetic architecture of embryo size from maternal genetic effects to those of the individual organism, nd that maternal‐offspring conflicts in resource allocation related to size may be partially indicated by negative genetic covariance.
Genetic association of the transcription of neuroplasticity-related genes and variation in stress-coping style

Stress coping has been defined as the cognitive and behavioral efforts made to conquer, endure, or decrease external and internal demands and the conflicts between them. It has two main elements: the control or modification of the person–environment relationship causing the stress (i.e., problem‐focused coping) and/or regulation of stressful feelings (i.e., emotion‐focused coping). Research suggests that the expressions of brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor type 2 (NTRK2) play important roles in brain adaptation to investigate stress. To clarify the genetic basis of stress coping, we investigated the association of stress‐coping strategies and social adaptation with single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) involved in neural plasticity, anxiety, and depression.
MindReader: Querying Databases Through Multiple Examples

Users often can not easily express their queries. For example, in a multimedia/image by content setting, the user might want photographs with sunsets; in current systems, like QBIC, the user has to give a sample query, and to specify the relative importance of color, shape and texture. Even worse, the user might want correlations between attributes, like, for example, in a traditional, medical record database, a medical researcher might want to find “mildly overweight patients”, where the implied query would be “weight/height M 4 lb/inch”. Our goal is to provide a user-friendly, but theoretically solid method, to handle such queries. We allow the user to give several examples, and, optionally, their ‘goodness’ scores, and we propose a novel method to “guess” which attributes are important, which correlations are important, and with what weight. Our contributions are twofold: (a) we formalize the problem as a minimization problem and show how to solve for the optimal solution, completely avoiding the ad-hoc heurist Part of this work was done while this author was vising University of Maryland and Carnegie Mellon University. $ This work was supported by NSF IRI-9625428. Also, by the National Science Foundation, ARPA and NASA under NSF Cooperative Agreement No. IRI-9411299. Permission to copy without fee all OT part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made OT distributed for direct commercial advantage, the VLDB copyright notice and the title of the publication and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of the Very Large Data Base Endowment. To copy otherwise, OT to republish, requires a fee and/or special permission jrom the Endowment. Proceedings of the 24th VLDB Conference New York, USA, 1998 tics of the past. (b) Moreover, we are the first that can handle ‘diagonal’ queries (like the ‘overweight’ query above). Experiments on synthetic and real datasets show that our method estimates quickly and accurately the ‘hidden’ distance function in the user’s mind.
Status Concerns and Occupational Choice Under Uncertainty

This paper examines the consequences of status preferences on entrepreneurial risk-taking in a general equilibrium model of occupational choice. We distinguish between two frames of reference. In the first, status is derived from class-membership, the economic indicator of which is the expected relative income of the person's occupation. In the second, status is tied to individual income relative to the mean. We find that the effect of status needs depends on whether or not the status variable itself is subject to risk. While social status increases entrepreneurial risk-taking in the first case, the effect is ambiguous in the second and crucially depends on how status preferences alter the effective degree of risk aversion. The results carry over to the distributional consequences, where status preferences have an equalizing effect only if certain conditions are met.
Government Ownership and the Public Information Content of Insider Trading: International Evidence

This paper investigates the political determinants of informed insider trading using an international sample of ﬁrms from 28 countries. We show that insider trading in state-owned ﬁrms (SOEs) is statistically and economically more proﬁtable and informative than in non-state-owned ﬁrms, indicating a unique political information advantage enjoyed by these insiders. Further analysis shows that insider trading in government-owned ﬁrms becomes more proﬁtable during nationwide periods of political uncertainty and when industry-speciﬁc government actions are introduced. Moreover, the aggregate insider trading in SOEs better predicts future stock market returns than that in non-SOEs. These results suggest that the political information advantage of SOE insiders is evident in both the idiosyncratic and macroeconomic information content of insider trading, consistent with the superior ability of these insiders to interpret the economic impact of the country, industry, and ﬁrm-speciﬁc government actions.
Electrophoretic and zymographic characterization of proteins isolated by various extraction methods from ejaculated and capacitated boar sperms

The presented work focuses on electrophoretic and zymographic characterization of boar sperm proteins isolated by various extraction methods and on comparison of the protein profiles obtained from ejaculated and in vitro capacitated spermatozoa. Sperm proteins of ejaculated and in vitro capacitated boar sperms were isolated with the following agents: 1% v/v Triton X‐100, 1% v/v Triton X‐114, 2% v/v acetic acid, 1% m/v sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS), 30 mM N‐octyl‐β‐D‐glucopyranoside (OBG), rehydration buffer (RHB) for isoelectric focusing and finally by the freezing–thawing approach. The extracts were characterized in terms of 1‐DE, 2‐DE protein profiles, 1‐DE glycoprotein staining and proteinase and hyaluronidase substrate zymographic profiles. The results have shown quantitative and qualitative differences in 1‐DE protein and glycoprotein profiles with respect to the employed isolation approach. These differences were seen even more clearly in 2‐DE protein profiles, where it was possible to distinguish the presence/absence, changes in relative abundance and pI/Mr shifts of various protein spots. Proteinase and hyaluronidase zymograms supported the prediction that various isolation protocols result in various profiles of enzymatically active molecules.
Measuring The Financial Performance Of Msmes From The Perspective Of Financial Literacy, Financial Inclusion And Financial Technology

This research aims to determine the influence of Financial Literacy on the performance of MSMEs in Bengkulu City, the influence of Financial Inclusion on the performance of MSMEs in Bengkulu City, the influence of Financial Technology on the performance of MSMEs in Bengkulu City and the influence of Financial Literacy, Financial Inclusion and Financial Technology on the performance of MSMEs. This research includes associative research. The population in this research is all MSMEs in Bengkulu City, totaling 9 sub-districts. This research uses instrument testing, this research is taken from within the population, the results of which will then be directly used for research. The data analysis technique used is simple linear regression analysis, multiple linear regression. The results of this research show that financial literacy has no effect on the performance of MSMEs in the city of Bengkulu. The T test shows that the financial literacy variable has a calculated t value of -1,369 with a significance level of 0.174. This significance value is greater than 0.05, meaning the first hypothesis is rejected, Financial Inclusion has no effect on the performance of MSMEs. The t test shows that the Financial Inclusion variable has a calculated t value of -0.921 with a significance level of 0.359. This significance value is greater than 0.05, meaning the second hypothesis is rejected, Financial Technology has an effect on MSME Performance. The t test shows that the Financial Technology variable has a calculated t value of 23,021 with a significance level of 0.000. This significance value is smaller than 0.05, meaning that the third hypothesis is accepted.
Hypertriglyceridemia and Ischemic Stroke

There are no conclusive data regarding the association between dyslipidemia and the risk of ischemic stroke (IS). Clinical investigations have primarily focused on the association between elevated levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and low levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol as stroke risk factors. Much less scientific attention has been aimed at elevated levels of triglycerides. Consequently the potential role of hypertriglyceridemia as an independent risk factor for IS remains controversial. However, accumulating evidence has shown that hypertriglyceridemia is associated with pathophysiological processes such as endothelial dysfunction, atherosclerosis and the production of a prothrombotic state, which could contribute to IS risk. The aim of this review is to critically analyze the contribution of hypertriglyceridemia to the occurrence of IS.
An Examination of the Ecological and Oceanographic Effects of Mid-to-Late Holocene Climate Changes on the Ross Sea Ecosystem

Today, West Antarctica has been experiencing some of the most profound and rapid climate change on Earth, affecting biota from phytoplankton to seals. To better predict future changes in Antarctica with continued warming, a clear understanding of this region’s biogeochemistry and trophic dynamics is essential. Furthermore, studies of subfossils can reveal how species and their environment responded to past climate events, indicating how anthropogenic climate change might affect them. The goals of this dissertation are threefold. First, bulk stable carbon and nitrogen isotope (δ13C and δ15N, respectively) analyses of zooplankton were performed to study spatial gradients in West Antarctica’s biogeochemistry. These analyses also established isotopic baselines for this area, critical for accurate assessments of animals’ movements and foraging behaviors. Second, bulk δ13C and δ15N and amino acid δ15N analyses were conducted on present-day pinnipeds of West Antarctica – crabeater, Weddell, and Ross seals – to thoroughly investigate their foraging ecologies. Third, subfossil specimens of four pinnipeds – crabeater, Weddell, leopard, and southern elephant seals – were analyzed for bulk and amino acid isotope values to discern temporal changes in their foraging strategies and habitats during the Holocene. We found significant spatial shifts in zooplankton bulk isotope values, which were likely driven by gradients in sea surface temperature and nutrient utilization. Our analyses of modern seals showed that Ross seals forage in a pelagic-based food web isolated from that of crabeater and Weddell seals. Although crabeater and Weddell seals are foraging within a similar food web, the former is likely following sea ice, while the latter targets the most productive areas. Our amino acid δ15N results revealed a higher trophic position for Ross seals, equivalent to that of Weddell seals, than expected given bulk δ15N data. Our study of subfossil seal specimens showed that crabeater seals had more diverse diets, incorporating more fish, earlier in the Holocene than in modern times. This suggests the species can show greater flexibility in foraging than might be apparent from modern observations, which may allow them adapt to a changing environment. Furthermore, we found that part of the Ross Sea, habitat for Weddell seals and some southern elephant seals, likely experienced a productivity drop in the recent past, perhaps responding to increasing landfast and sea ice conditions.
Olfactory Receptor OR2K2 Expression in Human Choroid Plexus as a Potential Marker in Early Sporadic Alzheimer’s Disease

Epithelial cells comprising the choroid plexus (CP) form a crucial barrier between the blood and the cerebrospinal fluid, thereby assuming a central position in brain homeostasis and signaling. Mounting evidence suggests that the impairment of CP function may be a significant contributor to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathogenesis. CP function relies on the expression of specific receptors, and the potential involvement of olfactory receptors (ORs) and taste receptors (TASRs) in chemical surveillance within the CP is being investigated. Previous studies have implicated ORs and TASRs in neurodegenerative disorders like AD, although the direct evidence of their expression in the human CP remains to be established. In this study, we conducted a transcriptomic analysis encompassing eleven ORs and TASRs in the CP, comparing samples from healthy age-matched controls to those from patients with AD spanning Braak stages I to VI. Among these receptors, a striking finding emerged—OR2K2 exhibited robust expression, with a statistically significant upregulation noted at Braak stage I. Surprisingly, at the protein level, OR2K2 showed a significant decrease in both Braak stage I and VI. Additionally, we identified CP epithelial cells as the source of OR2K2 expression, where it colocalized with autophagy markers LC3 and p62. We postulate that OR2K2 could be subjected to degradation by autophagy in the early stages of AD, triggering a compensatory mechanism that leads to increased OR2K2 mRNA transcription. This study uncovers a potential role for OR2K2 in AD pathogenesis, offering a novel perspective on the intricate dynamics at play in this neurodegenerative disorder.