Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Consumer Heterogeneity and Paid Search Effectiveness: A Large Scale Field Experiment

Internet advertising has been the fastest growing advertising channel in recent years, with paid search ads comprising the bulk of this revenue. We present results from a series of large‐scale field experiments done at eBay that were designed to measure the causal effectiveness of paid search ads. Because search clicks and purchase intent are correlated, we show that returns from paid search are a fraction of non‐experimental estimates. As an extreme case, we show that brand keyword ads have no measurable short‐term benefits. For non‐brand keywords, we find that new and infrequent users are positively influenced by ads but that more frequent users whose purchasing behavior is not influenced by ads account for most of the advertising expenses, resulting in average returns that are negative.
Graph analysis of spontaneous brain network using EEG source connectivity

Exploring the human brain networks during rest is a topic of great interest. Several structural and functional studies have previously been conducted to study the intrinsic brain networks. In this paper, we focus on investigating the human brain network topology using dense Electroencephalography (EEG) source connectivity approach. We applied graph theoretical methods on functional networks reconstructed from resting state data acquired using EEG in 14 healthy subjects. Our findings confirmed the existence of sets of brain regions considered as functional hubs. In particular, the isthmus cingulate and the orbitofrontal regions reveal high levels of integration. Results also emphasize on the critical role of the default mode network (DMN) in enabling an efficient communication between brain regions.
Use of the Progressive Aphasia Severity Scale (PASS) in monitoring speech and language status in PPA

Background: Primary progressive aphasia (PPA) is a devastating neurodegenerative syndrome involving the gradual development of aphasia, slowly impairing the patient’s ability to communicate. Pharmaceutical treatments do not currently exist and intervention often focuses on speech and language behavioural therapies, although further investigation is warranted to determine how best to harness functional benefits. Efforts to develop pharmaceutical and behavioural treatments have been hindered by a lack of standardised methods to monitor disease progression and treatment efficacy. Aims: Here, we describe our current approach to monitoring progression of PPA, including the development and applications of a novel clinical instrument for this purpose, the Progressive Aphasia Severity Scale (PASS). We also outline some of the issues related to initial evaluation and longitudinal monitoring of PPA. Methods & Procedures: In our clinical and research practice, we perform initial and follow-up assessments of PPA patients using a multifaceted approach. In addition to standardised assessment measures, we use the PASS to rate presence and severity of symptoms across distinct domains of speech, language, and functional and pragmatic aspects of communication. Ratings are made using the clinician’s best judgement, integrating information from patient test performance in the office as well as a companion’s description of routine daily functioning. Outcomes & Results: Monitoring symptom characteristics and severity with the PASS can assist in developing behavioural therapies, planning treatment goals, and counselling patients and families on clinical status and prognosis. The PASS also has potential to advance the implementation of PPA clinical trials. Conclusions: PPA patients display heterogeneous language profiles that change over time given the progressive nature of the disease. The monitoring of symptom progression is therefore crucial to ensure that proposed treatments are appropriate at any given stage, including speech and language therapy and potentially pharmaceutical treatments once these become available. Because of the discrepancy that can exist between a patient’s daily functioning and standardised test performance, we believe a comprehensive assessment and monitoring battery must include performance-based instruments, interviews with the patient and partner, questionnaires about functioning in daily life, and measures of clinician judgement. We hope that our clinician judgement-based rating scale described here will be a valuable addition to the PPA assessment and monitoring battery.
Historicising involvement: the visibility of user groups in the modernisation of the Chilean Mental Health System

ABSTRACT In western mental health systems, the involvement of user organisations has become an important dimension of contemporary policy development. But the processes constituting users as a relevant/irrelevant group have received little investigation, especially outside the English-speaking world. Drawing on Luhmann’s theory of society, this article presents a reconstruction of involvement initiatives in mental health policy in Chile between 1990 and 2005. It is based on 17 oral history interviews with policy-makers, high-level professionals, involved users, ex-users, and family activists, drawing also on relevant policy documents. Five processes are identified. In the early 1990s, the relevance of family groups as care providers in the context of deinstitutionalisation shaped the first encounters between psychiatry and community. Later, user groups became relevant as political supporters of the Mental Health Department’s funding requests, and in their capacity to legitimise decisions on involuntary treatment. The first National User Organisation resulted, in 2001. Its relevance was quickly undermined, however, by the AUGE health reform which restricted the definition of diseases and treatments with reference to evidence and costs. The legitimation of users was no longer needed and efforts to involve them subsided. Thus, we argue that the way in which the mental health system observes the voices of users is less a result of the actual status of users’ organisations than of the changing needs of mental health policy for ‘user representation’. By highlighting the contingency of policy shifts, we suggest that this historical and systemic perspective provides grounds for the strategic irritation and transformation of mental health systems through users’ activism.
Spatio-Temporal Diffusion Strategies for Estimation and Detection Over Networks

We present diffusion algorithms for distributed estimation and detection over networks that endow all nodes with both spatial cooperation abilities and temporal processing abilities. Each node in the network is allowed to share information locally with its neighbors; this step amounts to sharing and processing of spatial data. At the same time, each node is allowed to after and process past estimates to improve estimation accuracy through an overall collaborative process. In this manner, the resulting distributed algorithms consist of three stages: adaptation, spatial processing, and temporal processing. Moreover, the order of these three stages can be interchanged leading to a total of six variations. The results indicate that whether temporal processing is performed before or after adaptation, the strategy that performs adaptation before spatial cooperation leads to smaller mean-square error. The additional temporal processing step is useful in combating perturbations due to noise over the communications links. We further describe an application in the context of distributed detection and provide computer simulations to illustrate and support the findings.
Testing the effect of CO2 concentration on the dynamics of marine heterotrophic bacterioplankton

To date no study exists that directly addresses changes in dynamics of heterotrophic bacteria in surface waters in relation to partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2). Therefore, we studied the effect of changes in pCO2 on bacterial abundance and activities by using mesocosms with different pCO2 levels (~190, ~370, and ~700 ppmV, representing past, present‐day, and future atmospheric pCO2, respectively). Abundance of total bacteria did not differ with increasing pCO2 throughout the whole study period, whereas bacterial protein production (BPP) was highest at highest pCO2. This effect was even more pronounced for cell‐specific production rates, especially those of attached bacteria, which were up to 25 times higher than those of free bacteria. During the breakdown of the bloom, however, the abundance of both free and attached bacteria was significantly increased with pCO2. Differences in bacterial growth rate (µ) were smaller than those of BPP, but both µ and BPP of attached bacteria were elevated under high pCO2. Averages of total protease as well as α‐ and α ‐glucosidase activities were highest at elevated pCO2 levels, but a statistically significant dependence on pCO2 was only evident for protease activity. There is a measurable but indirect effect of changes in pCO2 on bacterial activities that are mainly linked to phytoplankton and presumably particle dynamics.
A multiple-levels-of-analysis approach to the study of developmental processes in maltreated children.

Before the early 1970s, scientific investigations of children from high-risk environments, as well as those with mental disorders, portrayed the developmental course of such individuals as deterministic, inevitably eventuating in maladaptive and psychopathological outcomes (1). As researchers discovered that not all high-risk children evinced the dire consequences that the existing theories of psychopathology predicted, comprehending the processes through which children at risk did not develop psychopathology became viewed as important for informing theoretical viewpoints on the development of maladaptation and pathology (2). Indeed, over the past several decades advances have occurred in understanding the complexity of causality, the interaction of risk and protective factors, the heterogeneity of disorders, and the importance of biological and psychological developmental processes and mechanisms (3, 4). The work of Kaufman et al. (5) in a recent issue of PNAS illustrates that individual risk factors alone seldom are powerful predictors of later psychopathological outcomes (6, 7). Much more often, adequate prediction of either disturbance or resilience requires considering multiple risks and protective factors and their interplay. It is now common knowledge that the same risk factors may be associated with different outcomes (i.e., multifinality) and that subgroups of individuals exhibiting similar problems arrived at them from different beginnings (i.e., equifinality) (8). Furthermore, comprehending the factors contributing to positive outcomes despite the presence of significant adversity (i.e., known as resilience; see ref. 1) can help to broaden the understanding of developmental processes that may not be evident in normative environments. The study of child maltreatment, perhaps the greatest failure of the caregiving environment to provide the expectable experiences that are necessary to promote normal developmental processes, provides researchers with a vital opportunity to investigate the pathways to normal and deviant outcomes (9). Child abuse and neglect set in motion a probabilistic path of epigenesis for …
CHL1 Is a Selective Organizer of the Presynaptic Machinery Chaperoning the SNARE Complex

Proteins constituting the presynaptic machinery of vesicle release undergo substantial conformational changes during the process of exocytosis. While changes in the conformation make proteins vulnerable to aggregation and degradation, little is known about synaptic chaperones which counteract these processes. We show that the cell adhesion molecule CHL1 directly interacts with and regulates the activity of the synaptic chaperones Hsc70, CSP and αSGT. CHL1, Hsc70, CSP and αSGT form predominantly CHL1/Hsc70/αSGT and CHL1/CSP complexes in synapses. Among the various complexes formed by CHL1, Hsc70, CSP and αSGT, SNAP25 and VAMP2 induce chaperone activity only in CHL1/Hsc70/αSGT and CHL1/CSP complexes, respectively, indicating a remarkable selectivity of a presynaptic chaperone activity for proteins of the exocytotic machinery. In mice with genetic ablation of CHL1, chaperone activity in synapses is reduced and the machinery for synaptic vesicle exocytosis and, in particular, the SNARE complex is unable to sustain prolonged synaptic activity. Thus, we reveal a novel role for a cell adhesion molecule in selective activation of the presynaptic chaperone machinery.
A correlative analysis of mystical experiences and lasting symptom improvement from MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for treatment-resistant PTSD : a project based upon an investigation sponsored by Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

Before the Controlled Substance Act of 1985 categorized psychedelic substances as criminalized schedule I drugs, psychiatrists used ±3,4methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) as a catalyst to psychotherapy. Over two decades later, this project seeks to contribute to the renaissance of psychedelic research. Specifically, this study focuses on participants’ experience of treatment in the recent FDA approved Phase 2 clinical study, “A Randomized, Triple-Blind Phase 2 Pilot Study Comparing 3 Different Doses of MDMA in conjunction with manualized psychotherapy in 24 Veterans, Firefighters, and Police Officers with Chronic, Treatment-resistant PTSD. ” The current study presents results from correlation analyses of the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30) with PTSD symptom improvement to determine whether outcomes are related to mystical experiences. Mystical experiences are often described by people under the influence of psychedelics; however, that experience with MDMA is not correlated with long-term positive symptom change as reported by participants during long-term follow-up (LTFU) interviews and Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) scores.
Patients' experiences of taking orlistat: A longitudinal study.

Objective: To examine the psychological processes that occur whilst people are taking obesity medication orlistat and to assess longer term changes in weight, beliefs and behaviour over an 18 month period. Background: Orlistat functions by reducing fat absorption. Research indicates that orlistat can have a significant impact on weight loss however there is some variability in outcomes and it is still not clear where the variability arises from. Method: A questionnaire was completed at baseline (n=1582), 6 (n=572), 12 (n=443) and 18 months (n=519) to explore predictors of change in weight, beliefs and behaviour. The data was analysed at baseline (n=1582), 0 to 6 months. (n=572), 0 to 18 months (n=519) and the process of change over the 18 months (n=296). 10 individuals who failed to lose weight after 18 months were interviewed. The qualitative data was analysed using IPA to examine participants' explanations for their weight loss failure. Results: The results show a significant decline in weight over the first 6 months (4.5kg), then a gradual regain. Successful weight loss was related to significant event motivations, adhering to orlistat, eating less fat and greater perceived control over their weight. Orlistat functioned by educating them in what foods should not be eaten through the side effects and showed them that their weight could be controlled. To reduce failure, people needed to have a shift in identity towards someone who no longer expected to fail and to endorse the efficacy of their current method of weight loss whilst overcoming barriers. Conclusion: Successful weight loss was related to a significant event motivation and believing their weight is controllable. The additional impact of orlistat is that it promotes healthy eating and shows their weight can be controlled, which facilitates long term weight loss and maintenance.
Changes in Voluntary Activation Assessed by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation during Prolonged Cycling Exercise

Maximal central motor drive is known to decrease during prolonged exercise although it remains to be determined whether a supraspinal deficit exists, and if so, when it appears. The purpose of this study was to evaluate corticospinal excitability and muscle voluntary activation before, during and after a 4-h cycling exercise. Ten healthy subjects performed three 80-min bouts on an ergocycle at 45% of their maximal aerobic power. Before exercise and immediately after each bout, neuromuscular function was evaluated in the quadriceps femoris muscles under isometric conditions. Transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to assess voluntary activation at the cortical level (VATMS), corticospinal excitability via motor-evoked potential (MEP) and intracortical inhibition by cortical silent period (CSP). Electrical stimulation of the femoral nerve was used to measure voluntary activation at the peripheral level (VAFNES) and muscle contractile properties. Maximal voluntary force was significantly reduced after the first bout (13±9%, P<0.01) and was further decreased (25±11%, P<0.001) at the end of exercise. CSP remained unchanged throughout the protocol. Rectus femoris and vastus lateralis but not vastus medialis MEP normalized to maximal M-wave amplitude significantly increased during cycling. Finally, significant decreases in both VATMS and VAFNES (∼8%, P<0.05 and ∼14%, P<0.001 post-exercise, respectively) were observed. In conclusion, reductions in VAFNES after a prolonged cycling exercise are partly explained by a deficit at the cortical level accompanied by increased corticospinal excitability and unchanged intracortical inhibition. When comparing the present results with the literature, this study highlights that changes at the cortical and/or motoneuronal levels depend not only on the type of exercise (single-joint vs. whole-body) but also on exercise intensity and/or duration.
Anti-Obesity Effects of Granulocyte-Colony Stimulating Factor in Otsuka-Long-Evans-Tokushima Fatty Rats

Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) has molecular structures and intracellular signaling pathways that are similar to those of leptin and ciliary neurotropic factor (CNTF). It also has immune-modulatory properties. Given that leptin and CNTF play important roles in energy homeostasis and that obesity is an inflammatory condition in adipose tissue, we hypothesized that G-CSF could also play a role in energy homeostasis. We treated 12 38-week-old male Otsuka-Long-Evans-Tokushima fatty rats (OLETF, diabetic) and 12 age-matched male Long-Evans-Tokushima rats (LETO, healthy) with 200 µg/day G-CSF or saline for 5 consecutive days. Body weight reduction was greater in G-CSF-treated OLETF (G-CSF/OLETF) than saline-treated OLETF (saline/OLETF) following 8 weeks of treatment (−6.9±1.6% vs. −3.1±2.2%, p<0.05). G-CSF treatment had no effect on body weight in LETO or on food intake in either OLETF or LETO. Body fat in G-CSF/OLETF was more reduced than in saline/OLETF (−32.2±3.1% vs. −20.8±6.2%, p<0.05). Energy expenditure was higher in G-CSF/OLETF from 4 weeks after the treatments than in saline/OLETF. Serum levels of cholesterol, triglyceride, interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor-α were lower in G-CSF/OLETF than in saline/OLETF. Uncoupling protein-1 (UCP-1) expression in brown adipose tissue (BAT) was higher in G-CSF/OLETF than in saline/OLETF, but was unaffected in LETO. Immunofluorescence staining and PCR results revealed that G-CSF receptors were expressed in BAT. In vitro experiments using brown adipocyte primary culture revealed that G-CSF enhanced UCP-1 expression from mature brown adipocytes via p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. In conclusion, G-CSF treatment reduced body weight and increased energy expenditure in a diabetic model, and enhanced UCP-1 expression and decreased inflammatory cytokine levels may be associated with the effects of G-CSF treatment.
Hybrid lattice Boltzmann finite‐difference simulation of axisymmetric swirling and rotating flows

The axisymmetric flows with swirl or rotation were solved by a hybrid scheme with lattice Boltzmann method for the axial and radial velocities and finite‐difference method for the azimuthal (or swirl) velocity and the temperature. An incompressible axisymmetric lattice Boltzmann D2Q9 model was proposed to solve the axial and radial velocities through inserting source terms into the two‐dimensional lattice Boltzmann equation. Present hybrid scheme was firstly validated by simulations of Taylor–Couette flows between two concentric cylinders. Then the benchmark problems of melt flow in Czochralski crystal growth were studied and accurate results were obtained. Numerical experiment demonstrated that present axisymmetric D2Q9 model is more stable than the previous axisymmetric D2Q9 model (J. Comp. Phys. 2003; 186(1):295–307). Hence, compared with the previous model, present numerical method provides a significant advantage in simulation melt flow cases with high Reynolds number and high Grashof number. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Mental Health and Substance Use among Bisexual Youth and Non-Youth in Ontario, Canada

Research has shown that bisexuals have poorer health outcomes than heterosexuals, gays, or lesbians, particularly with regard to mental health and substance use. However, research on bisexuals is often hampered by issues in defining bisexuality, small sample sizes, and by the failure to address age differences between bisexuals and other groups or age gradients in mental health. The Risk & Resilience Survey of Bisexual Mental Health collected data on 405 bisexuals from Ontario, Canada, using respondent-driven sampling, a network-based sampling method for hidden populations. The weighted prevalence of severe depression (PHQ-9≥20) was 4.7%, possible anxiety disorder (OASIS≥8) was 30.9%, possible post-traumatic stress disorder (PCL-C≥50) was 10.8%, and past year suicide attempt was 1.9%. With respect to substance use, the weighted prevalence of problem drinking (AUDIT≥5) was 31.2%, and the weighted prevalence of illicit polydrug use was 30.5%. Daily smoking was low in this sample, with a weighted prevalence of 7.9%. Youth (aged 16–24) reported significantly higher weighted mean scores on depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and higher rates of past year suicidal ideation (29.7% vs. 15.2%) compared with those aged 25 and older. The burden of mental health and substance use among bisexuals in Ontario is high relative to population-based studies of other sexual orientation groups. Bisexual youth appear to be at risk for poor mental health. Additional research is needed to understand if and how minority stress explains this burden.
PARTICIPAÇÃO EM GRUPO COMO RECURSO PARA PROMOÇÃO DA SAÚDE E QUALIDADE DE VIDA ENTRE IDOSOS

Objetivo: analisar a participacao em grupo de promocao da saude como estrategia para melhorar a qualidade de vida de idosos. Metodo: pesquisa realizada com idosos cadastrados em uma Unidade de Atencao Basica a Saude da Familia, participantes (G1) e nao participantes (G2) de um grupo de promocao da saude. Os dados foram coletados por meio de um instrumento com questoes sociodemograficas e pelos WHOQOL-BREF e WHOQOL-OLD, e analisados no software Stata versao 11.0, por meio de regressao linear multipla. O nivel de significância adotado foi ≤ 5%. Resultados: participar do grupo foi significativamente associado a melhores escores de qualidade de vida nos dominios “fisico”, “relacoes sociais” e “meio ambiente” (WHOQOL-BREF), e nas facetas “atividades passadas, presentes e futuras” e “participacao social” (WHOQOL-OLD). Conclusao: participacao em grupo de promocao da saude favorece melhorias em diversos aspectos da vida dos idosos, especialmente os relacionados a inclusao social e estabelecimento/manutencao de relacionamento interpessoal. Descritores: Qualidade de Vida; Estrutura de Grupo; Promocao da Saude.