Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy and safety profile of roflumilast in a real-world experience.

Background Roflumilast is the only phosphodiesterase enzyme 4 inhibitor approved in the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients with chronic cough and sputum and a history of exacerbations. Real-world studies about the use of roflumilast are limited. Our aim was to assess the efficacy, safety and tolerability of roflumilast in the treatment of stable COPD, in a real-world setting. Methods From August 2014 to August 2017, medical records of all COPD patients who were prescribed roflumilast therapy in Akdeniz University Hospital were analyzed retrospectively. COPD patients were studied in terms of efficacy, safety, and drug discontinuation rate. Efficacy was evaluated as the effect of roflumilast on exacerbation and hospitalization rates of COPD compared to the pre-treatment period. Results Eighty-three COPD patients treated with roflumilast were included (mean age 66.2±9.3 years, 88.0% male). All the patients were chronic bronchitis and frequent exacerbator clinical phenotype and were classified in the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease categories C (n=17; 20.5%) and D (n=66; 79.5%). Mean duration of roflumilast use was 18.9±10.4 months. There was a significant decrease in both COPD exacerbations (2.7 vs. 1.16; P<0.001) and hospitalizations (0.77 vs. 0.32; P<0.001) in roflumilast users compared to the pre-treatment period. Of the patients, 22 (26.5%) experienced adverse events (AE) during their treatment period. The most frequently reported AEs were weight loss (10.8%), loss of appetite (10.8%) and nausea (8.4%). Serious or life-threatening AEs were not detected. Sixteen (19.3%) patients discontinued roflumilast because of AEs. Conclusions Roflumilast reduced exacerbations and hospitalizations in our real-world population with severe COPD. AEs are common and frequently leading to discontinuation of roflumilast therapy.
Automatic Smoothing With Wavelets for a Wide Class of Distributions

Wavelet-based denoising techniques are well suited to estimate spatially inhomogeneous signals. Waveshrink (Donoho and Johnstone) assumes independent Gaussian errors and equispaced sampling of the signal. Various articles have relaxed some of these assumptions, but a systematic generalization to distributions such as Poisson, binomial, or Bernoulli is missing. We consider a unifying l1-penalized likelihood approach to regularize the maximum likelihood estimation by adding an l1 penalty of the wavelet coefficients. Our approach works for all types of wavelets and for a range of noise distributions. We develop both an algorithm to solve the estimation problem and rules to select the smoothing parameter automatically. In particular, using results from Poisson processes, we give an explicit formula for the universal smoothing parameter to denoise Poisson measurements. Simulations show that the procedure is an improvement over other methods. An astronomy example is given.
Discovery of a Novel Mutation (X8Del) Resulting in an 8-bp Deletion in the Hepatitis B Virus X Gene Associated with Occult Infection in Korean Vaccinated Individuals

Universal infantile hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination may lead to an increase in vaccine escape variants, which may pose a threat to the long-term success of massive vaccination. To determine the prevalence of occult infections in Korean vaccinated individuals, 87 vaccinated subjects were screened for the presence of HBV DNA using both the nested PCR protocol and the VERSANT HBV DNA 3.0 assay. The mutation patterns of variants were analyzed in full-length HBV genome sequences. Their HBsAg secretion and replication capacities were investigated using both in vitro transient transfection and in vivo hydrodynamic injection. The presence of HBV DNA was confirmed in 6 subjects (6.9%). All six variants had a common mutation type (X8Del) composed of an 8-bp deletion in the C-terminal region of the HBV X gene (HBxAg). Our in vitro and in vivo analyses using the full-length HBV genome indicated that the X8Del HBxAg variant reduced the secretion of HBsAg and HBV virions compared to the wild type. In conclusion, our data suggest that a novel mutation (X8Del) may contribute to occult HBV infection in Korean vaccinated individuals via a reduced secretion of HBsAg and virions, possibly by compromising HBxAg’s transacting capacity.
Management's Role in the Approval and Administration of Decision Support Systems

Decision Support Systems (DSS) have become an increasingly important type of computer-based information system. However, there has been limited research on management's role in DSS approval and administration. Because of this, the authors recently investigated eighteen decision support systems and report the findings here. The specific areas explored include motivations for developing a DSS, methods for evaluating the desirability of creating a DSS, planning and organizing for building a DSS, techniques for reviewing and controlling DSS projects, and managing a DSS as an organizational entity.
MR volumetric analysis of the human entorhinal, perirhinal, and temporopolar cortices.

PURPOSE Our purpose was to investigate the normal volumes of the human entorhinal, perirhinal, and temporopolar cortices on MR imaging studies using a customized program. METHODS We designed a protocol in which the volumes of the entorhinal, perirhinal, and temporopolar cortices were determined from coronal MR images using anatomic landmarks defined on the basis of cytoarchitectonic analyses of 49 autopsy cases. MR volumetry of these cortical areas was performed in 52 healthy volunteers. RESULTS The overall mean volumes were 1768 +/- 328 mm3/1558 +/- 341 mm3 (right/left) for the entorhinal cortex, 2512 +/- 672 mm3/2572 +/- 666 mm3 for the perirhinal cortex, and 2960 +/- 623 mm3/3091 +/- 636 mm3 for the temporopolar cortex. The right entorhinal cortex was 12% larger than the left. The volume of the temporopolar cortex was reduced bilaterally by 13% in the older age group compared with younger subjects, while the volumes of the entorhinal and perirhinal cortices were unaffected by age. There were no differences between men and women in the volumes of any of the three cortices. CONCLUSION Our method provides a tool by which to measure volumes of the entorhinal, perirhinal, and temporopolar cortices on coronal MR images.
“Nonhedonic” food motivation in humans involves dopamine in the dorsal striatum and methylphenidate amplifies this effect

The drive for food is one of the most powerful of human and animal behaviors. Dopamine, a neurotransmitter involved with motivation and reward, its believed to regulate food intake in laboratory animals by modulating its rewarding effects through the nucleus accumbens (NA). Here we assess the involvement of dopamine in “nonhedonic” food motivation in humans. Changes in extracellular dopamine in striatum in response to nonhedonic food stimulation (display of food without consumption) were evaluated in 10 food‐deprived subjects (16–20 h) using positron emission tomography (PET) and [11C]raclopride (a D2 receptor radioligand that competes with endogenous dopamine for binding to the receptor). To amplify the dopamine changes we pretreated subjects with methylphenidate (20 mg p.o.), a drug that blocks dopamine transporters (mechanism for removal of extracellular dopamine). Although the food stimulation when preceded by placebo did not increase dopamine or the desire for food, the food stimulation when preceded by methylphenidate (20 mg p.o.) did. The increases in extracellular dopamine were significant in dorsal (P < 0.005) but not in ventral striatum (area that included NA) and were significantly correlated with the increases in self‐reports of hunger and desire for food (P < 0.01). These results provide the first evidence that dopamine in the dorsal striatum is involved in food motivation in humans that is distinct from its role in regulating reward through the NA. In addition it demonstrates the ability of methylphenidate to amplify weak dopamine signals. Synapse 44:175–180, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Young Children's Language uses during Play and Implications for Classroom Assessment

THIS PAPER REPORTS ON research examining children's use of language in dramatic play and play with construction materials in kindergarten classrooms within three Indigenous and two non-Indigenous northern Canadian rural communities. Underpinned by sociolinguistic theory, the research involves inductive analysis of video-recorded interactions of five-year-old children during play. Participating children used language for 36 different purposes. Children's construction play talk often involved purposes within the categories of Language for learning and Language for own needs. Children often used language for purposes associated with the Language for learning and Language for imagining categories in dramatic play. As part of collaborative action research, teachers and researchers used these findings to develop a formative oral language observation tool. Using the tool, information gathered can inform practice and communication with parents and speech-language pathologists working with identified children.
Structured patterns from random fields

The problem of modeling structured textures and image data with random field models is discussed. Random field models have recently been applied to a variety of problems such as image enhancement, segmentation, and coding. The models have been shown to successfully reproduce a variety of stochastic patterns, but have not been successful for capturing structure in patterns. Two possible solutions to the structured pattern problem are examined. The first solution is based on the structure present in the initial state of the random process, and the second is based on a relationship between internal random field interactions and coupling to a set of external constraints. <<ETX>>
Separation of foraging habitat among breeding sites of a colonial marine predator, the northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus)

This study examines whether lactating northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) from different breeding sites on the Pribilof Islands in the eastern Bering Sea forage in separate areas. Satellite transmitters were attached to 97 northern fur seal females from nine breeding areas for 119 complete foraging trips during the 1995 and 1996 breeding seasons. Females from St. Paul and St. George islands tended to travel in different directions relative to their breeding site in both years of the study. St. Paul Island females dispersed in all directions except to the southeast, where St. George Island females foraged. Habitat separation was also observed among breeding areas on northeastern and south- western St. Paul Island and to a lesser degree on northern and southern St. George Island. Although foraging direction led to geographical separation among sites, the maximum distance traveled and the duration of foraging trips did not differ significantly among islands in either year. The results of this study document that lactating fur seals from the same site share a common foraging area and that females from different breeding sites tend to forage in separate areas and hydrographic domains. Resume : Notre etude verifie si les otaries a fourrure nordiques ( Callorhinus ursinus) nourricieres habitant les differen- tes aires de reproduction des iles Pribilof dans l'est de la mer de Bering recherchent leur nourriture dans des sites dif- ferents. Des emetteurs satellites ont ete fixes a 97 otaries a fourrure provenant de neuf aires de reproduction, fournissant ainsi des donnees sur 119 excursions completes de recherche de nourriture durant les saisons de reproduction 1995 et 1996. Les femelles des iles St-Paul et St-Georges avaient tendance a se deplacer dans des directions differentes de leur aire de reproduction durant les deux annees de l'etude. Les femelles de l'ile St-Paul se dispersaient dans toutes les di- rections, excepte vers le sud-est, ou les femelles de l'ile St-Georges recherchaient leur nourriture. Des separations d'habitat s'observent aussi entre les aires de reproduction au nord-est et au sud-ouest de l'ile St-Paul et, dans une moindre mesure, entre les aires au nord et au sud de l'ile St-Georges. Bien que la direction des deplacements durant la recherche de nourriture ait entraine une separation des sites, la distance maximale des deplacements et la duree des sorties a la recherche de nourriture n'ont pas varie significativement d'une ile a l'autre durant les deux annees. Ces re - sultats montrent que des otaries a fourrure nourricieres provenant d'une meme aire de reproduction ont tendance a par- tager un meme site de recherche de nourriture et que des femelles provenant d'aires de reproduction differentes tendent a rechercher leur nourriture dans des regions et des domaines hydrographiques separes.
Distributional Aspects of the Quality Change Bias in the CPI : Evidence from Spain

In this paper we address the issue of the distributional consequences of the quality change bias (QCB) in the CPI. In particular, we assess the conjecture raised by some critics of the Boskin commission report that new products and goods affected by quality effects are disproportionately consumed by the rich. Our analysis begins with the observation that the CPI is a weighted mean of household-specific statistical price indexes, with weights proportional to household total expenditures. Then, we suggest a simple but powerful procedure to evaluate the distributional consequences of eliminating the QCB by examining its impact on two scalars: (1) the CPI plutocratic bias, and (2) the change in money inequality after compensating every household for her individual inflation rate. The empirical analysis combines the detailed information pertaining the size of the QCB for the U.S. with household-specific price indexes for Spain in 1973–74, 1980–81, and 1990–91. The results show that, as conjectured, the quality bias especially affects the richer households.
Identifying Stable Patterns over Time for Emotion Recognition from EEG

In this paper, we investigate stable patterns of electroencephalogram (EEG) over time for emotion recognition using a machine learning approach. Up to now, various findings of activated patterns associated with different emotions have been reported. However, their stability over time has not been fully investigated yet. In this paper, we focus on identifying EEG stability in emotion recognition. We systematically evaluate the performance of various popular feature extraction, feature selection, feature smoothing and pattern classification methods with the DEAP dataset and a newly developed dataset called SEED for this study. Discriminative Graph regularized Extreme Learning Machine with differential entropy features achieves the best average accuracies of 69.67 and 91.07 percent on the DEAP and SEED datasets, respectively. The experimental results indicate that stable patterns exhibit consistency across sessions; the lateral temporal areas activate more for positive emotions than negative emotions in beta and gamma bands; the neural patterns of neutral emotions have higher alpha responses at parietal and occipital sites; and for negative emotions, the neural patterns have significant higher delta responses at parietal and occipital sites and higher gamma responses at prefrontal sites. The performance of our emotion recognition models shows that the neural patterns are relatively stable within and between sessions.
A flick in the right direction: a case study of gestural input

This paper describes the design and evaluation of a gesture-based scheme for issuing the back and forward commands in web browsers. In designing our gesture recogniser we conducted several experiments to determine metrics associated with the magnitude, timing and stereotypical errors of ‘natural’ linear flick gestures using stylus and mouse input devices. These low-level metrics are important to software designers who must implement algorithms that discriminate between gestures and other actions such as mouse clicks and drags. As well as empirically characterising gestures, the metrics provide various insights into stereotypical behaviour with gestures, including the facts that angular errors are larger in the left and right directions with the pen, that vertical gestures are ‘awkward’ with the mouse, and that downwards gestures are slower than other directions. An evaluation of gestures for web browsing shortcuts shows that they enhance navigation efficiency, and that participants were extremely enthusiastic about them.
f-DIVERGENCES : SUFFICIENCY , DEFICIENCY AND TESTING OF HYPOTHESES

This paper deals with f -divergences of probability measures considered in the same general form as e.g. in [12] or [45], where f is an arbitrary (not necessarily differentiable) convex function. Important particular cases or subclasses are mentioned, including those introduced by Bhattacharyya [3], Kakutani [32], Shannon [61] and Kullback with Leibler [38], Chernoff [7], Kraft [37], Matusita [47], Rényi [57] and De Groot [15]. Some important relations between these subclasses are reproduced or reestablished in a new manner. The main result is a new proof of the representation of general f -divergence If(P0, P1) by means of the information gains Gπ(P0, P1), 0 ≤ π ≤ 1 of De Groot. This proof uses the generalized Taylor formula applied to arbitrary convex functions derived in this paper. The basic known properties of general f -divergences are deduced in a new manner from this representation, among them the convergence for increasing sequences of σ -algebras of observation events. Further, statistical sufficiency and ε -deficiency (approximate sufficiency) are considered in the model of testing the hypothesis H0 : P0 against the alternative H1 : P1. New characterizations of these properties by means of f -divergences are given. Finally, the above mentioned results about convergence for increasing sequences of σ -algebras are assessed by evaluating the rate of this convergence in some important cases.
Listening for the WHAT and HOW: Older adults' processing of semantic and affective information in speech

Processing of semantic information in language comprehension has been suggested to be modulated by attentional resources. Consequently, cognitive load would be expected to reduce semantic priming, but studies have yielded inconsistent results. This study investigated whether cognitive load affects semantic activation in speech processing in older adults, and whether this is modulated by individual differences in cognitive and hearing abilities. Older adults participated in an auditory continuous lexical decision task in a low-load and high-load condition. The group analysis showed only a marginally significant reduction of semantic priming in the high-load condition compared to the low-load condition. The individual differences analysis showed that semantic priming was significantly reduced under increased load in participants with poorer attention-switching control. Hence, a resource-demanding secondary task may affect the integration of spoken words into a coherent semantic representation for listeners with poorer attentional skills.
A Computer Model of Language Acquisition – Syllable Learning – Based on Hebbian Cell Assemblies and Reinforcement Learning

(cid:3) Abstract — Investigating language acquisition is one of the most challenging problems in the area of studying language. Syllable learning as a level of language acquisition has a considerable significance since it plays an important role in language acquisition. Because of impossibility of studying language acquisition directly with children, especially in its developmental phases, computer models will be useful in examining language acquisition. In this paper a computer model of early language learning for syllable learning is proposed. It is guided by a conceptual model of syllable learning which is named Directions Into Velocities of Articulators model (DIVA). The computer model uses simple associational and reinforcement learning rules within neural network architecture which are inspired by neuroscience. Our simulation results verify the ability of the proposed computer model in producing phonemes during babbling and early speech. Also, it provides a framework for examining the neural basis of language learning and communication disorders.
Predation of Colorado potato beetle eggs by a polyphagous ladybeetle in the presence of alternate prey: potential impact on resistance evolution

The influence of prey choice on the predation of a target prey item by a polyphagous insect predator was investigated in field plot studies. The target prey consisted of eggs of the Colorado potato beetle (CPB), Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), and the predator was the 12‐spotted ladybeetle, Coleomegilla maculata Lengi (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae). Eggs of the European corn borer (ECB), Ostrinia nubilalis Hübner (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae), and nymphs and adults of the green peach aphid, Myzus persicae Sulzer (Homoptera: Aphididae), comprised the alternative prey choices. The objectives of these studies were to: (1) examine predation in a multiprey scenario likely to occur in an agroecosystem, and (2) use the data to simulate the impact of predator‐induced mortality on the evolution of resistance to Bt‐transgenic plants in the target herbivore. Simulations of the rate of resistance evolution were carried out using a deterministic genetic model. Experiments were performed using potato field plots planted in a manner reflecting a 25% or 50% non‐transgenic refuge. CPB eggs were infested so as to mimic the densities of resistant and susceptible populations that might occur in commercial Bt‐transgenic plantings. Densities of predators and alternate prey species were chosen to represent those that might typically occur in potato crops in the eastern USA. Simulation results indicated that when ECB eggs were present, predation on CPB eggs either became inversely spatially density‐dependent, or increased significantly in a density‐dependent manner. When aphids were present, predation became positively density‐dependent. Model simulations predicted that ECB egg presence is beneficial, in that resistance was delayed by up to 40 pest generations (as compared to the scenario with CPB as the only prey), while aphid presence accelerated resistance evolution by 18 generations. Results suggest that resistance management strategies should take into account the composition of prey species available to generalist predators typically present, so as to best delay pest adaptation to Bt‐toxins.