Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Low vitamin D-modulated calcium-regulating proteins in psoriasis vulgaris plaques: S100A7 overexpression depends on joint involvement

Psoriasis is an inflammatory skin disease with or without joint involvement. In this disease, the thickened epidermis and impaired barrier are associated with altered calcium gradients. Calcium and vitamin D are known to play important roles in keratinocyte differentiation and bone metabolism. Intracellular calcium is regulated by calcium-sensing receptor (CASR), calcium release-activated calcium modulator (ORAI) and stromal interaction molecule (STIM). Other proteins modulated by vitamin D play important roles in calcium regulation e.g., calbindin 1 (CALB1) and transient receptor potential cation channel 6 (TRPV6). In this study, we aimed to investigate the expression of calcium-regulating proteins in the plaques of patients with psoriasis vulgaris with or without joint inflammation. We confirmed low calcium levels, keratinocyte hyperproliferation and an altered epidermal barrier. The CASR, ORAI1, ORAI3, STIM1, CALB1 and TRPV6 mRNA, as well as the sterol 27-hydroxylase (CYP27A1), 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 1-α-hydroxylase (CYP27B1) and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 24-hydroxylase (CYP24A1) protein levels were low in the plaques of patients with psoriasis. We demonstrated S100 calcium-binding protein A7 (S100A7) overexpression in the plaques of patients with psoriasis vulgaris with joint inflammation, compared with those without joint involvement. We suggest an altered capacity to regulate the intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i), characterized by a reduced expression of CASR, ORAI1, ORAI3, STIM1, CALB1 and TRPV6 associated with diminished levels of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1,25(OH)2D3], which may be associated with an altered balance between keratinocyte proliferation and differentiation in the psoriatic epidermis. Additionally, differences in S100A7 expression depend on the presence of joint involvement.
Language Assessment Literacy: Implications for Language Teachers

Recently, the applied linguistics field has examined the knowledge, skills, and principles needed for assessment, defined as language assessment literacy. Two major issues in language assessment literacy have been addressed but not fully resolved—what exactly language assessment literacy is and how it differs among stakeholders (e.g., students and teachers). This reflective article reviews assessment literacy from general education experts and language education scholars and shows how the meaning of language assessment literacy has expanded. To add to the discussion of this construct, the article focuses on the specific language assessment literacy for language teachers and proposes a core list of assessment knowledge, skills, and principles for these stakeholders.
Mining Wiki Resources for Multilingual Named Entity Recognition

In this paper, we describe a system by which the multilingual characteristics of Wikipedia can be utilized to annotate a large corpus of text with Named Entity Recognition (NER) tags requiring minimal human intervention and no linguistic expertise. This process, though of value in languages for which resources exist, is particularly useful for less commonly taught languages. We show how the Wikipedia format can be used to identify possible named entities and discuss in detail the process by which we use the Category structure inherent to Wikipedia to determine the named entity type of a proposed entity. We further describe the methods by which English language data can be used to bootstrap the NER process in other languages. We demonstrate the system by using the generated corpus as training sets for a variant of BBN's Identifinder in French, Ukrainian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and Portuguese, achieving overall F-scores as high as 84.7% on independent, human-annotated corpora, comparable to a system trained on up to 40,000 words of human-annotated newswire.
Introduction to the Second World Congress on Controversies to Consensus in Diabetes, Obesity and Hypertension (CODHy)

Successful management of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension is a matter of great urgency in current medical practice because of the soaring prevalence of these three interrelated conditions worldwide. Their complications (first and foremost, cardiovascular disease) result in significant morbidity, which exerts a heavy toll on health care systems everywhere, especially in industrialized countries. Because the causes and effects of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension are closely intertwined, preventing their complications requires a comprehensive approach. Massive research into the etiology and treatment of these three afflictions has recently generated vast amounts of data, which call into question many of the accepted treatment paradigms. They present physicians in clinical practice with the daily challenges of integrating innovative therapies into the treatment protocol, addressing difficult questions and making controversial decisions. One of the major dilemmas faced by physicians in this field stems from the recent trials that revealed the relatively small benefits of blood glucose control in certain diabetic patients compared with the possible morbidity and mortality risk. On the one hand, follow-ups to the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial/Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications Study (DCCT-EDIC) (1) and the U.K. Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS) (2) have supported the importance of early diabetes control in preventing later cardiovascular events and microvascular complications. Moreover, the STENO-2 Follow-Up Study (3) from the Steno Diabetes Center in Copenhagen demonstrated that early treatment of cardiovascular risk factors reduces cardiovascular morbidity and mortality years later. On the other hand, however, the results of several trials—the Action in Diabetes and Vascular Disease Trial (ADVANCE) (4), the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes Study (ACCORD) (5), the VA Diabetes Trial (VADT) (6), and Heart 2D study (7)—have cast doubt on the benefits of tight glucose control in older patients with longstanding disease (the only exception being the …
“ Good ” Observers Enhance SGA Exploration

Most metaheuristics try to find a good balance between exploitation and exploration to achieve their goals. The exploration efficiency is highly dependent on the cardinality and ruggedness of the search space. A metaheuristic like the Simple Genetic Algorithm (SGA) can suffer a lot when traversing very large landscapes, especially deceptive ones. The approach proposed here improves the exploration of the SGA through the use of behavioural information of the SGA itself. Behavioural information on the SGA is obtained through a number of competitive processes which we refer to as “observers”. The new metaheuristic we investigate, trains the observers for a specific time and then decides which of them is the most suitable to solve the whole problem. Concretely, a second evolutionary stage has been added to evolve observers for the SGA. These observers transform the cardinality and ruggedness of the search space through a simplification of the genotype. To test the proposed approach, we chose some difficult problems such as the Hierarchical IF-and-only-iF (HIFF). We obtained very good results, since we seriously improved the adaptive capacity of the SGA. Based on the current results, we are encouraged to continue in this way.
Fluoroscopic analysis of lumbar epidural contrast spread after retrograde interlaminar ventral epidural injection (RIVEI)

Background Retrograde interlaminar ventral epidural injection (RIVEI) may hypothetically be more effective if the catheter is placed at the ventrocaudal aspect of the exiting nerve. We tested that hypothesis by measuring ventral and dorsal epidural contrast flow during RIVEI. Methods To perform RIVEI, a 17 G Tuohy needle was inserted to access the epidural space. A 19 G epidural catheter was inserted and advanced through the needle, passing in a caudal direction to the lower aspect of the contralateral pedicle. Fluoroscopic images were recorded at 1.5 ml increments of contrast. Based on the images of contrast dispersal, the extent of contrast spreading was assessed in 82 patients. Results All 82 patients (100%) injected with 3.0 ml contrast medium demonstrated ventral epidural spreading. Mean spreading level from the catheter tip was 2.21 ± 0.93 with 3.0 ml of contrast. Spreading to the superior aspect of the supra-adjacent intervertebral disc was observed in 67/82 (81.7%) of RIVEIs with 3.0 ml of contrast injected into the ventral epidural space. We found that 3.0 ml of contrast reached the inferior aspect of the infra-adjacent intervertebral disc in 95.1% (78/82) of RIVEIs performed. Conclusions Our findings imply that a one-level RIVEI may be sufficient in situations where a two-level injection would currently be used.
Comparing the Hyper‐Variable V4 and V9 Regions of the Small Subunit rDNA for Assessment of Ciliate Environmental Diversity

The hyper‐variable V4 and V9 regions of the small subunit (SSU) rDNA have been targeted for assessing environmental diversity of microbial eukaryotes using next generation sequencing technologies. Here, we explore how the genetic distances among these short fragments compare with the distances obtained from near full‐length SSU‐rDNA sequences by comparing all pairwise estimates, as well as within and among species of ciliates. Results show that pairwise distances from V4 more closely match the near full‐length SSU‐rDNA and are more comparable with previous studies based on much longer SSU‐rDNA fragments, then pairwise distances from V9. Thus, studies that use the V4 will estimate similar values of phylotype richness and community structure as would have been estimated using the full‐length SSU‐rDNA.
Mediation of the Negative Effect of Red on Intellectual Performance

This research examines the hypothesis that an attentional process grounded in avoidance motivation—local relative to global processing—mediates the negative effect of red on intellectual performance. This hypothesis was tested in a series of experiments using two approaches to documenting mediation. Experiment 1 established that the perception of red undermines IQ test performance. Experiments 2a and 2b documented mediation via the experimental causal chain approach, and Experiment 3 documented mediation via the measurement of mediation approach. This represents the first demonstration of a mediational process in the domain of color psychology. A call is made to broaden priming research to include color stimuli.
A Case Report with Plasmablastic Lymphoma of the Jejunum

Plasmablastic lymphoma (PBL) is a recently identified entity that is considered to be a type of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma with a unique immunophenotype and a predilection for the oral cavity of patients with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Although its clinical features may help in the differential diagnosis, an extraoral location in a patient without HIV makes it more difficult to suspect clinically. This case report is the first to describe a patient with PBL originating from the jejunum in a 60-yr-old, HIV-seronegative man. Computed tomography of the face, chest and abdomen showed about a 9.4×9.0 cm mass of the proximal jejunum, multiple masses in the musculoskeletal soft tissue, and multiple lymphadenopathies. The histological examinations demonstrated a large cell lymphoma with plasmablastic differentiation. The neoplastic cells were diffusely positive for MUM1, epithelial membrane antigen and lambda light chains, and focally positive for CD79a; but negative for CD3, CD20, CD30, CD34, CD45RO, CD56, CD99, and CD117. The proliferation index by Ki-67 immunohistochemistry was approximately 70%. These findings were compatible with the diagnosis of PBL. The findings in this case suggest that PBL should be included in the differential diagnosis of a small bowel mass even in a HIV-negative patient.
Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group Working Paper Series Working

This paper compares partial and general equilibrium effects of alternative financial aid policies intended to promote college participation. We build an overlapping generations life-cycle, heterogeneous-agent, incomplete-markets model with education, labor supply, and consumption/saving decisions. Altruistic parents make inter vivos transfers to their children. Labor supply during college, government grants and loans, as well as private loans, complement parental transfers as sources of funding for college education. We find that the current financial aid system in the U.S. improves welfare, and removing it would reduce GDP by two percentage points in the long-run. Any further relaxation of government-sponsored loan limits would have no salient effects. The short-run partial equilibrium effects of expanding tuition grants (especially their need-based component) are sizeable. However, long-run general equilibrium effects are 3-4 times smaller. Every additional dollar of government grants crowds out 20-30 cents of parental transfers. JEL Classification: E24, I22, J23, J24.
Seasonal variation in effects of herbivory on foliar nitrogen of a threatened conifer

Invasive herbivores can dramatically impact the nitrogen (N) economy of native hosts. In eastern forests of the United States, the foundational conifer eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is under threat of extirpation by the invasive hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA: Adelges tsugae). Our study suggests that HWA-induced mobilization of N to local feeding sites and its rapid depletion may be a significant contributor to eastern hemlock mortality in U.S. forests.
210408 nr2 Ray Cognitrace boekje blauw

1. Short introduction into neurophysiological assessment 2 1.1. Introducing EEG recording, EEG spectrum analysis and Event Related Potential analysis 2 1.2. Description of several EP and ERP protocols with relevance to psychiatry 8 2. Rationale of the use of EEG/EP/ERP protocols in psychiatry 14 2.1 Improved diagnostic precision 14 2.2. Better predicted treatment response 20 2.3. Shortened time to final diagnosis and most effective treatment 21 2.4. Ability to provide alternative treatment: Neuro-Feedback 22 2.5. A final reason to use neurophysiological assessment in psychiatry 23 3. The Cognitrace system 24 3.1. Introducing Cognitrace 24 3.2. Cognitrace system overview 27 3.3. Attractive features of Cognitrace for clinical practice 28 3.4. Selected user list of hospitals, institutes or practices 30 4. General conclusions 32 5. Main references 34
The political economy of growth in China and India

This paper attempts to examine the growth performance and its impact on inequality and poverty in China and India. The recent upsurge in growth rates in China and India is seen widely as the ‘success’ story of globalization. It is also claimed that these developments will make a significant impact on the reduction of global inequalities and poverty. Although a number of scholars have analysed the recent economic performance of China and India, these studies, however, have not taken into account the past policies and their impact on current performance. We find there is a gap in the current discussion, which overlooks historical and economic factors on the recent performance. This article critically assesses the claimed fall in global poverty due to mainly the rise of China and India in recent years. The article questions the ‘pro-globalization’ argument, which suggests that there is a link between ‘market liberal’ free market policies and falling poverty. It is argued instead that the evidence concerning poverty reduction is ambiguous, and it is not that the most successful economies have adopted pro-globalization policies. Studying the developmental changes taking place in these two countries is important because they together account for 37.5% of the global population. These populous neighbours, regarded as symbols of poverty and failure until two decades ago, contain large numbers of people living below the officially defined poverty line.
Short term response is predictive of long term response to acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in Alzheimer’s disease: A starting point to explore Bayesian approximation in clinical practice

This study was aimed at identifying, in 203 patients with Alzheimer's disease followed during long-term treatment with Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs), the predictive factors of the clinical response among cognition (MMSE), functioning (BADL and IADL) measures and age and gender at the baseline (T0). The ANCOVA test showed a significant association between MMSE scores at time T0 and T3, and the variation T9 to T0, T15 to T0 and T21 to T0 of the MMSE scores, using also gender, age and drug as covariates. The significance was higher for the patients affected by mild dementia. Regarding functional activities, a significant relationship was detected, by the ANCOVA test, only between the scores at T3 and the variation T15 to T0 for BADL, and the variation T9 to T0, T15 to T0 for IADL, respectively. Our results confirm, in a real world setting, that ChEIs provide long-term cognitive benefit, which is correlated to, and predictable by, the short-term response (within the third month) as well as the cognitive status (evaluated by means of the MMSE) at the beginning of the treatment. These factors should be the basis of any cost/effectiveness algorithm in health economic decision models.
Cauchy-Riemann geometry and contact topology in three dimensions

We introduce a global Cauchy-Riemann($CR$)-invariant and discuss its behavior on the moduli space of $CR$-structures. We argue that this study is related to the Smale conjecture in 3-topology and the problem of counting complex structures. Furthermore, we propose a contact-analogue of Ray-Singer's analytic torsion. This ``contact torsion'' is expected to be able to distinguish among ``contact lens'' spaces. We also propose the study of a certain kind of monopole equation associated with a contact structure.
COLOR CALIBRATION OF SCANNERS USING POLYNOMIAL TRANSFORMATION

Digital imaging is a rapid growing area with the developments in computer technology. Digital color use has become a conventional tool in many disciplines, such as cartography remote sensing and photogrammetry. The need for better color quality enforces digital imaging industry to produce devices with less color distortions. Despite the today’s advanced level of technology, it is known that input and output devices cause color distortions, which depends on the quality of the device itself. Scanners, being peripheral devices that capture the image of an object, are mostly used input devices in digital imaging. In this study color accuracy of desktop scanners is handled. A method based on polynomial transformation, which makes possible to map device dependent colors to device independents ones, is introduced. Tests on five different desktop scanners show the evident applicability of the method.
How Do Self-Narratives Change During Psychotherapy? A Review of Innovative Moments Research

In the past decade, researching what we refer to as innovative moments (IMs) has produced interesting results with regard to change in self-narratives during psychotherapy. Building upon the concept of “unique outcomes” (White & Epston, 1990) and “exceptions” in therapy (de Shazer, 1991), a coding system was developed for tracking moments of innovation in clients’ narratives throughout the therapy process. In the present article, we review the trajectory of this research, highlighting four main issues. First, we briefly comment on its development and on some of its core theoretical assumptions. Second, we introduce the reader to the basics of the coding system, describing the different types of IMs. Third, we review the main research outcomes, and some preliminary conclusions are drawn with regard to patterns of narrative change. Finally, the practical implications of the findings are discussed. We consequently outline some tips to assist therapists in developing a greater sensitivity to self-narrative ch.
DRAFT Designing Therapeutic Games for Seniors : Case Study of “ Le Village aux Oiseaux ”

In this paper, we describe the method we used to design the therapeutic game called Le Village aux Oiseaux, a first person shooter aiming to stimulate the attention network of seniors suffering from the Alzheimer's disease. One of the main issues we had to deal with was how to adapt games designed for adolescents and young adults, to seniors. A lack of studies and game design guidelines, as well as a lack of data on what seniors enjoy while playing made this design more complicated and, thus, interesting to analyse.
Dysregulated Fear Predicts Social Wariness and Social Anxiety Symptoms during Kindergarten

Fearful temperament is associated with risk for the development of social anxiety disorder in childhood; however, not all fearful children become anxious. Identifying maladaptive trajectories is thus important for clarifying which fearful children are at risk. In an unselected sample of 111 two-year-olds (55% male, 95% Caucasian), Buss (2011) identified a pattern of fearful behavior, dysregulated fear, characterized by high fear in low threat situations. This pattern of behavior predicted parent- and teacher-reported withdrawn/anxious behaviors in preschool and at kindergarten entry. The current study extended original findings and examined whether dysregulated fear predicted observed social wariness with adults and peers, and social anxiety symptoms at age 6. We also examined prosocial adjustment during kindergarten as a moderator of the link between dysregulated fear and social wariness. Consistent with predictions, children with greater dysregulated fear at age 2 were more socially wary of adults and unfamiliar peers in the laboratory, were reported as having more social anxiety symptoms, and were nearly 4 times more likely to manifest social anxiety symptoms than other children with elevated wariness in kindergarten. Results demonstrated stability in the dysregulated fear profile and increased risk for social anxiety symptom development. Dysregulated fear predicted more social wariness with unfamiliar peers only when children became less prosocial during kindergarten. Findings are discussed in relation to the utility of the dysregulated fear construct for specifying maladaptive trajectories of risk for anxiety disorder development.
Strategies for tonal and atonal musical interpretation in blind and normally sighted children: an fMRI study

Early childhood is known to be a period when cortical plasticity phenomena are at a maximum. Music is a stimulus known to modulate these mechanisms. On the other hand, neurological impairments like blindness are also known to affect cortical plasticity. Here, we address how tonal and atonal musical stimuli are processed in control and blind young children. We aimed to understand the differences between the two groups when processing this physiological information.
Commentary: Changes in Bacillus Spore Small Molecules, rRNA, Germination, and Outgrowth after Extended Sublethal Exposure to Various Temperatures: Evidence that Protein Synthesis Is Not Essential for Spore Germination

Dormant bacterial spores can rapidly revive and resume a vegetative life form once nutrients become available (Stragier and Losick, 1996; Setlow, 2003). The earliest revival event, termed germination, holds the key to understanding this rapid conversion from a dormant into an active cell. During germination, the spore undergoes release of dipicolinic acid (DPA), rehydration, cortex hydrolysis, and coat disassembly. This phase is accompanied by transition from a phase-bright spore to a phase-dark cell, as manifested by light microscopy (Setlow, 2003, 2013; Moir, 2006; Figure ​Figure1A). 1A). Germination is traditionally considered to occur without the need for any macromolecule synthesis (Steinberg et al., 1965; Vinter, 1970; Setlow, 2003, 2013; Moir, 2006); however, our recent results challenge this view, as we demonstrated that translation occurs during germination and is required for its execution (Sinai et al., 2015).