Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long‐term results of a multicenter study on subthalamic and pallidal stimulation in Parkinson's disease

We report the 5 to 6 year follow‐up of a multicenter study of bilateral subthalamic nucleus (STN) and globus pallidus internus (GPi) deep brain stimulation (DBS) in advanced Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Thirty‐five STN patients and 16 GPi patients were assessed at 5 to 6 years after DBS surgery. Primary outcome measure was the stimulation effect on the motor Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) assessed with a prospective cross‐over double‐blind assessment without medications (stimulation was randomly switched on or off). Secondary outcomes were motor UPDRS changes with unblinded assessments in off‐ and on‐medication states with and without stimulation, activities of daily living (ADL), anti‐PD medications, and dyskinesias. In double‐blind assessment, both STN and GPi DBS were significantly effective in improving the motor UPDRS scores (STN, P < 0.0001, 45.4%; GPi, P = 0.008, 20.0%) compared with off‐stimulation, regardless of the sequence of stimulation. In open assessment, both STN‐ and GPi‐DBS significantly improved the off‐medication motor UPDRS when compared with before surgery (STN, P < 0.001, 50.5%; GPi, P = 0.002, 35.6%). Dyskinesias and ADL were significantly improved in both groups. Anti‐PD medications were significantly reduced only in the STN group. Adverse events were more frequent in the STN group. These results confirm the long‐term efficacy of STN and GPi DBS in advanced PD. Although the surgical targets were not randomized, there was a trend to a better outcome of motor signs in the STN‐DBS patients and fewer adverse events in the GPi‐DBS group. © 2010 Movement Disorder Society
A Flexible and Efficient Algorithmic Framework for Constrained Matrix and Tensor Factorization

We propose a general algorithmic framework for constrained matrix and tensor factorization, which is widely used in signal processing and machine learning. The new framework is a hybrid between alternating optimization (AO) and the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM): each matrix factor is updated in turn, using ADMM, hence the name AO-ADMM. This combination can naturally accommodate a great variety of constraints on the factor matrices, and almost all possible loss measures for the fitting. Computation caching and warm start strategies are used to ensure that each update is evaluated efficiently, while the outer AO framework exploits recent developments in block coordinate descent (BCD)-type methods which help ensure that every limit point is a stationary point, as well as faster and more robust convergence in practice. Three special cases are studied in detail: non-negative matrix/tensor factorization, constrained matrix/tensor completion, and dictionary learning. Extensive simulations and experiments with real data are used to showcase the effectiveness and broad applicability of the proposed framework.
Phosphorylation of Fascin Decreases the Risk of Poor Survival in Patients With Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Phosphorylation of fascin at serine 39 (phospho-S39-fascin) could inhibit its actin-binding and actin-bundling activities and decrease filopodia formation. However, the relationship between phospho-S39-fascin expression and clinicopathological parameters in tumors is still unknown. Here, Western blot analysis and IHC applied to tissue microarray technology were performed to examine the expression status of non-phosphorylated fascin (fascin) and phospho-S39-fascin and their impacts on the prognosis of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Fascin and phospho-S39-fascin expressions were tested by cytoplasmic staining. Among the 254 patients, 90 cases showed high expression of fascin and 87 cases showed high expression of phospho-S39-fascin. Survival analysis showed that high expression of fascin was significantly associated with a poor prognosis of the patients with ESCC (p = 0.004). In contrast, high expression of phospho-S39-fascin correlated significantly with an improved outcome of patients (p = 0.020). Multivariate analysis showed that both fascin and phospho-S39-fascin were independent prognostic factors. In a combined analysis, the patients with high expression of fascin and low expression of phospho-S39-fascin tumors had a shorter overall survival than those with high expression of both fascin and phospho-S39-fascin tumors (5-year overall survival rate: 28.7% vs 48.3%, p = 0.068). Our results suggest that high expression of fascin correlates with poor outcome and that high expression of phospho-S39-fascin decreases the risk of poor prognosis in ESCC. This manuscript contains online supplemental material at http://www.jhc. org. Please visit this article online to view these materials.
Differences in outcome between obese and nonobese patients following severe blunt trauma are not consistent with an early inflammatory genomic response

Objectives:Obesity has been demonstrated to alter a number of acute and chronic medical conditions. The effect of obesity on severely injured patients, however, remains incompletely defined. We sought to unravel potential physiologic and genomic alterations induced by obesity in severely injured blunt trauma patients. Design:A retrospective review of clinical and genomic information contained in the Inflammation and the Host Response to Injury multicenter trauma-related database examining the relationship between body mass index and the early genomic response from peripheral blood leukocytes to patient outcome following severe blunt trauma was performed. Setting:Multicenter collaboration between university-based academic trauma centers. Patients:Severely injured blunt trauma patients enrolled in the database. Interventions:None. Measurements and Main Results:Univariate analysis of 455 severely injured trauma patients using the National Institutes of Health/World Health Organization body mass index classification system revealed significant increases in morbidity, including longer intensive care unit stays and a greater number of ventilator days, cardiac arrests, episodes of acute renal failure, and patients developing multiple organ failure. Regression modeling identified body mass index class as being independently associated with adverse outcomes and increased morbidity but an inverse relationship with mortality in patients who suffered severe blunt traumatic injury. Initial leukocyte genomic expression patterns between 163 patients in the four different body mass index groupings did not differ; however, analysis of gene differences between body mass index classes occurring over time demonstrated significant changes in 513 probe sets with significant pathway differences being related to cellular metabolism. Conclusions:Increasing body mass index is associated with increased morbidity following severe blunt trauma. The initial blood leukocyte inflammatory response to blunt trauma does not appear to differ significantly between patients despite increasing body mass index. Resolution of the inflammatory response may differ between patients on the basis of body mass index; however, additional work is needed to clarify the potential causality of this finding.
Exploration of a stylistic motion space through realtime synthesis

We present a first implementation of a framework for the exploration of stylistic variations in intangible heritage, recorded through motion capture techniques. Our approach is based on a statistical modelling of the phenomenon, which is then presented to the user through a reactive stylistic synthesis, visualised in real-time on a virtual character. This approach enables an interactive exploration of the stylistic space. In this paper, a first implementation of the framework is presented with a proof-of-concept application enabling the intuitive and interactive stylistic exploration of an expressive gait space.
Prospective clinical evaluation of lower cut‐offs for galactomannan detection in adult neutropenic cancer patients and haematological stem cell transplant recipients

The recent advent of an improved commercial serum enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for the detection of circulating galactomannan (GM), a major constituent of Aspergillus cell walls, has contributed to the diagnosis of invasive aspergillosis (IA) in many haematology and transplant centres. However, the optimal threshold for positivity remains a matter of debate. We prospectively evaluated the impact of lowering the cut‐off in 124 neutropenic episodes with a high pretest probability for IA. Two new cut‐off points, lower than previously accepted, are proposed: (a) a ‘static’ cut‐off at 0·8 and (b) a ‘dynamic’ cut‐off at 0·5. A single assay with an optical density (OD) index ≥0·8 warrants the initiation of anti‐Aspergillus therapy. A further lowering of the ‘static’ threshold seems not clinically feasible given the drop in positive predictive value (PPV). However, the demonstration of at least two sequential sera with an OD ≥0·5 (‘dynamic’ threshold) increased the specificity and the PPV to 98·6% and the efficiency to 98%. Applying both cut‐offs to a subgroup of 21 ‘possible’ fungal infections further identified and upgraded six cases of IA. However, the clinical benefit of lower cut‐offs (particularly for earlier diagnosis) depends upon the kinetics of antigenaemia and the intensity of serum sampling.
SampleRank Training for Phrase-Based Machine Translation

Statistical machine translation systems are normally optimised for a chosen gain function (metric) by using MERT to find the best model weights. This algorithm suffers from stability problems and cannot scale beyond 20-30 features. We present an alternative algorithm for discriminative training of phrase-based MT systems, SampleRank, which scales to hundreds of features, equals or beats MERT on both small and medium sized systems, and permits the use of sentence or document level features. SampleRank proceeds by repeatedly updating the model weights to ensure that the ranking of output sentences induced by the model is the same as that induced by the gain function.
An Optimal Adaptive Approach using Behavioral Promiscuous Caching and Storage-Capacity Characteristics for Energy Conservation in Asymmetrical Wireless Devices

Current approaches for tuning the energy conservation do not take into consideration the storage requirements of each device, the traffic and channel data rate as well as parameters concerning the caching activity for packet forwarding. In this work, an evaluation scheme is proposed based on each node's self-scheduling energy management. This scheme is associating crucial metrics of an ad-hoc wireless host with the remaining capacity units of each device, communicating via asymmetrical wireless links. Promiscuous caching is used in the ad-hoc based connectivity scenario where the-so called- promiscuous caching threshold parameter is introduced in order to bound the associated mobility with storage/capacity and traffic characteristics and figure out a suitable pattern for optimal energy conservation. Through experimental simulation, the proposed energy management scheme is thoroughly evaluated in order to meet the parameters' values where the optimal energy conservation is achieved.
Expression of Recombinant Small Hydrophobic Protein for Serospecific Detection of Avian Pneumovirus Subgroup C

ABSTRACT The small hydrophobic (SH) gene of the avian pneumovirus (APV) Colorado isolate (CO), which belongs to subgroup C (APV/C), was expressed with a baculovirus vector. The recombinant SH protein was evaluated as a potential subgroup-specific diagnostic reagent in order to differentiate infections resulting from APV/C from those induced by APV/A, APV/B, and human metapneumovirus (hMPV). When the recombinant baculovirus was used to infect insect cells, a 31- to 38-kDa glycosylated form of the SH protein was produced and subsequently tested for reactivity with antibodies specific for APV/A, APV/B, APV/C, and hMPV. Western blot analysis showed that the expressed recombinant SH protein could only be recognized by APV/C-specific antibodies. This result was consistent with sequence analysis of the APV/C SH protein, which had very low (24%) amino acid identity with the corresponding protein of hMPV and no discernible identity with the SH protein of APV/A or APV/B. A recombinant SH protein-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed, and it further confirmed the lack of reactivity of this protein with antisera raised to APV/A, APV/B, and hMPV and supported its designation as a subgroup-specific antigen. This finding indicated that the recombinant SH protein was a suitable antigen for ELISA-based detection of subgroup-specific antibodies in turkeys and could be used for serologically based differential diagnosis of APV and hMPV infections.
Reduction of exercise-induced asthma in children by short, repeated warm ups.

AIM: To study the effect of a warm up schedule on exercise-induced asthma in asthmatic children to enable them to engage in asthmogenic activities. METHOD: In the first study, peak flows during and after three short, repeated warm up schedules (SRWU 1, 2, and 3), identical in form but differing in intensity, were compared in 16 asthmatic children. In the second study the efficiency of the best of these SRWU schedules was tested on 30 young asthmatic children. Children performed on different days a 7 minute run alone (EX1) or the same run after an SRWU (EX2). RESULTS: The second study showed that for most children (24/30) the fall in peak flow after EX2 was less than that after EX1. The percentage fall in peak flow after EX2 was significantly correlated with the percentage change in peak flow induced by SRWU2 (r = 0.68). The children were divided into three subgroups according to the change in peak flow after SRWU2: (G1: increase in peak flow; G2: < 15% fall in peak flow; G3: > 15% fall in peak flow). Only the children in the G3 subgroup did not show any gain in peak flow after EX2 compared with EX1. CONCLUSION: The alteration in peak flow at the end of the SRWU period was a good predictor of the occurrence of bronchoconstriction after EX2. An SRWU reduced the decrease in peak flow for most of the children (24/30) in this series, thus reducing subsequent post-exercise deep bronchoconstriction.
Inhibition of constitutively active Stat3 reverses enzalutamide resistance in LNCaP derivative prostate cancer cells

Use of enzalutamide has improved the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. However, resistance to enzalutamide can develop frequently in initial responders. This study aimed to test whether overexpression of IL‐6 and constitutive activation of Stat3 in prostate cancer cells increase resistance to enzalutamide.
Phase II trial of weekly bortezomib in combination with rituximab in relapsed or relapsed and refractory Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia.

PURPOSE This study aimed to determine activity and safety of weekly bortezomib and rituximab in patients with relapsed/refractory Waldenström macroglobulinemia (WM). PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients who had at least one previous therapy were eligible. All patients received bortezomib intravenously weekly at 1.6 mg/m(2) on days 1, 8, and 15, every 28 days for six cycles and rituximab 375 mg/m(2) weekly on cycles 1 and 4. The primary end point was the percentage of patients with at least a minor response. RESULTS Thirty-seven patients were treated. The majority of patients (78%) completed treatment per protocol. At least minimal response (MR) or better was observed in 81% (95% CI, 65% to 92%), with two patients (5%) in complete remission (CR)/near CR, 17 patients (46%) in partial response, and 11 patients (30%) in MR. The median time to progression was 16.4 months (95% CI, 11.4 to 21.1 months). Death occurred in one patient due to viral pneumonia. The most common grade 3 and 4 therapy-related adverse events included reversible neutropenia in 16%, anemia in 11%, and thrombocytopenia in 14%. Grade 3 peripheral neuropathy occurred in only two patients (5%). The median progression-free (PFS) is 15.6 months (95% CI, 11 to 21 months), with estimated 12-month and 18-month PFS of 57% (95% CI, 39% to 75%) and 45% (95% CI, 27% to 63%), respectively. The median overall survival has not been reached. CONCLUSION The combination of weekly bortezomib and rituximab showed significant activity and minimal neurologic toxicity in patients with relapsed WM.
Child sexual abuse and the criminal justice system

A study which investigated significant procedures in the criminal justice process which impact on female child complainants of sexual abuse, as well as the range of consequences of their involvement, is reported. The authors highlight some of the ongoing problems which need to be addressed in order that children are not further traumatised through their interaction with the criminal justice system.
Bounds on Energy and Helicity Dissipation Rates of Approximate Deconvolution Models of Turbulence

We consider a family of high-accuracy, approximate deconvolution models of turbulence. For body force driven turbulence, we prove directly from the model's equations of motion the following bounds on the model's time-averaged energy dissipation rate $\langle\varepsilon_{ADM}\rangle$ and helicity dissipation rate $\langle\gamma_{ADM}(w)\rangle$: where $U,L$ are global velocity and length scales, respectively, and $\delta$ is the large eddy simulation filter radius. We also give a partial result on the helicity dissipation rate of solutions of the Navier–Stokes equations.
Using a Feedback Environment to Improve Creative Performance: A Dynamic Affect Perspective

Prior research on feedback and creative performance has neglected the dynamic nature of affect and has focused only on the influence of positive affect. We argue that creative performance is the result of a dynamic process in which a person experiences a phase of negative affect and subsequently enters a state of high positive affect that is influenced by the feedback environment. Hierarchical regression was used to analyze a sample of 264 employees from seven industry firms. The results indicate that employees’ perceptions of a supportive supervisor feedback environment indirectly influence their level of creative performance through positive affect (t2); the negative affect (t1) moderates the relationship between positive affect (t2) and creative performance (t2), rendering the relationship more positive if negative affect (t1) is high. The change in positive affect mediates the relationship between the supervisor feedback environment and creative performance; a decrease in negative affect moderates the relationship between increased positive affect and creative performance, rendering the relationship more positive if the decrease in negative affect is large. The implications for improving the creative performances of employees are further discussed.
Effect of Load Carriage on Lumbar Spine Kinematics

Study Design. Feasibility study on the acquisition of lumbar spine kinematic data from upright magnetic resonance images obtained under heavy load carrying conditions. Objective. To characterize the effect of the load on spinal kinematics of active Marines under typical load carrying conditions from a macroscopic and lumbar-level approach in active-duty US Marines. Summary of Background Data. Military personnel carry heavy loads of up to 68 kg depending on duty position and nature of the mission or training; these loads are in excess of the recommended assault loads. Performance and injury associated with load carriage have been studied; however, knowledge of lumbar spine kinematic changes is still not incorporated into training. These data would provide guidance for setting load and duration limits and a tool to investigate the potential contribution of heavy load carrying on lumbar spine pathologies. Methods. Sagittal T2 magnetic resonance images of the lumbar spine were acquired on a 0.6-T upright magnetic resonance imaging scanner for 10 active-duty Marines. Each Marine was scanned without load (UN1), immediately after donning load (LO2), after 45 minutes of standing (LO3) and walking (LO4) with load, and after 45 minutes of side-lying recovery (UN5). Custom-made software was used to measure whole spine angles, intervertebral angles, and regional disc heights (L1–S1). Repeated measurements analysis of variance and post hoc Sidak tests were used to identify significant differences between tasks (&agr; = 0.05). Results. The position of the spine was significantly (P < 0.0001) more horizontal relative to the external reference frame and lordosis was reduced during all tasks with load. Superior levels became more lordotic, whereas inferior levels became more kyphotic. Heavy load induced lumbar spine flexion and only anterior disc and posterior intervertebral disc height changes were observed. All kinematic variables returned to baseline levels after 45 minutes of side-lying recovery. Conclusion. Superior and inferior lumbar levels showed different kinematic behaviors under heavy load carrying conditions. These findings suggest a postural, lumbar flexion strategy aimed at centralizing a heavy posterior load over the base of support.
Training History Students in Working Archives.

MOST ARCHIVAL institutions have a continuing need for adequate personnel to process collections. An essential element in preparing prospective archivists and historians is the opportunity for the essential practice that leads to the mastery of basic professional skills. Too often, a promising archival collection lies untouched for want of a suitable index or inventory. Too often, a promising student does not develop full competence because of an academic program's inordinate reliance on theory or abstract exercises. Colorado State University's Department of History and the University Archives are cooperating to increase the accessibility of archival materials while providing graduate students with readily applicable training. Although not free of problems, these efforts have thus far produced some highly positive results.
Rapid Oral Fluid HIV Antibody Testing in Exposed Babies: A Diagnostic Study

Aims: The usefulness of rapid oral fluid HIV antibody tests has rarely been evaluated in exposed babies. Study Design: A diagnostic survey comparing the performance of oral fluid HIV antibody test and the routine rapid blood screening test. Place and Duration of Study: University College Hospital, Ibadan and Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Lagos, between May 2010 and April 2011. Methodology: The study involved children aged less than 18 months referred for screening in two large HIV care programmes in Nigeria using rapid antibody tests - an oral fluid test (Test A) and the routine blood test (Test B). The testing was blinded and HIV status was confirmed using DNA PCR. Results: A total of 94 children were studied with ages ranging from 0.13 to less than 18months. Out of the 94 parallel tests, when compared with DNA PCR, there were 7 (7.5%) discordant results. Test A gave one false positive, one false negative and no indeterminate result. Test B gave four false positive, one false negative and two indeterminate results. Test A had a sensitivity of 93.3%, specificity of 98.7%, positive