Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Varenicline for tobacco dependence: panacea or plight?

Introduction: This review examines the postmarketing experience with varenicline, including case reports, newer clinical trials and secondary analyses of large clinical datasets. Areas covered: Varenicline has been shown to be an effective treatment in a broad range of tobacco users with medical, behavioral and diverse demographic characteristics. Recent studies finding excellent safety and efficacy in groups of smokers with diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease are particularly encouraging and call for increased use of this medication for smoking cessation. Despite case reports of serious neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients taking varenicline, including changes in behavior and mood, causality has not been established. Recent analyses of large datasets from clinical trials have not demonstrated that varenicline is associated with more depression or suicidality than other treatments for smoking cessation. Expert opinion: Now that additional clinical trials in specific populations and observational studies on treatment-seeking smokers outside of clinical trials have been published, we can be confident that varenicline remains the most efficacious monotherapy for smoking cessation and that its side-effect profile remains good. The risk-to-benefit ratio of receiving varenicline to quit smoking must include the increased chances of quitting smoking and avoiding the sizeable risks of smoked-caused disease and death that remain if tobacco addiction is not properly treated.
Manganese Superoxide Dismutase Gene Expression Is Induced by Nanog and Oct4, Essential Pluripotent Stem Cells’ Transcription Factors

Pluripotent stem cells possess complex systems that protect them from oxidative stress and ensure genomic stability, vital for their role in development. Even though it has been reported that antioxidant activity diminishes along stem cell differentiation, little is known about the transcriptional regulation of the involved genes. The reported modulation of some of these genes led us to hypothesize that some of them could be regulated by the transcription factors critical for self-renewal and pluripotency in embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and in induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). In this work, we studied the expression profile of multiple genes involved in antioxidant defense systems in both ESCs and iPSCs. We found that Manganese superoxide dismutase gene (Mn-Sod/Sod2) was repressed during diverse differentiation protocols showing an expression pattern similar to Nanog gene. Moreover, Sod2 promoter activity was induced by Oct4 and Nanog when we performed a transactivation assay using two different reporter constructions. Finally, we studied Sod2 gene regulation by modulating the expression of Oct4 and Nanog in ESCs by shRNAs and found that downregulation of any of them reduced Sod2 expression. Our results indicate that pluripotency transcription factors positively modulate Sod2 gene transcription.
Characterization of Hydrogen Storage Materials and Systems with Photons and Neutrons

Complex hydrides are very promising candidates for future light‐weight solid state hydrogen storage materials. The present work illustrates detailed characterization of such novel hydride materials on different size scales by the use of synchrotron radiation and neutrons. The comprehensive analysis of such data leads to a deep understanding of the ongoing processes and mechanisms. The reaction pathways during hydrogen desorption and absorption are identified by in situ X‐ray diffraction (XRD). Function and size of additive phases are estimated using X‐ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and anomalous small‐angle X‐ray scattering (ASAXS). The structure of the metal hydride matrix is characterized using (ultra) small‐angle neutron scattering (SANS/USANS). The hydrogen distribution in tanks filled with metal hydride material is studied with neutron computerized tomography (NCT). The results obtained by the different analysis methods are summarized in a final structural model. The complementary information obtained by these different methods is essential for the understanding of the various sorption processes in light metal hydrides and hydrogen storage tanks.
Charcoal-burning suicide in post-transition Hong Kong

Background Charcoal-burning, a new suicide method, emerged in Hong Kong during the latest economic recession. With-in 2 months charcoal-burning had become the third most common suicide method. Aims To examine the characteristics of suicides by charcoal-burning, and to delineate the pathways linking macro-level economic and social changes with the subjective experiences of those surviving a charcoal-burning suicide attempt. Method Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used. In the coroner's records study, the first 160 cases of suicide by charcoal-burning were compared with a control group. In the ethnographic enquiry, we interviewed 25 consecutive informants who had survived serious suicide attempt using charcoal-burning. Results People who completed suicide by the charcoal-burning method were more likely to have been economically active and physically healthy, and were less likely to have had pre-existing mental illness. Charcoal-burning suicide was associated with overindebtedness. Media reports were pivotal in linking overindebtedness and financial troubles with charcoal-burning. Conclusions The political economy of suicide by charcoal-burning illustrated how historical, socio-economic and cultural forces shaped the lived experience that preceded suicide.
Microwave imaging of piecewise constant objects in a 2D-TE configuration

In this paper we propose a stochastic algorithm applied to an electromagnetic inverse scattering problem. The objective is to characterise an unknown object from measurements of the scattered fields at different frequencies and for several illuminations. This inverse problem is known to be nonlinear and ill-posed. It then needs to be regularized by introducing prior information. The particular prior information we account for is that the object is composed of a known finite number of different materials distributed in compact regions. The algorithm is applied to the inversion of experimental data collected at the Institut Fresnel (Marseille) and has already provided satisfactory results in a 2D-TM configuration. Herein, the goal is to test the same kind of method in a 2D-TE configuration.
Sub-ballistic random walk in Dirichlet environment

We consider random walks in Dirichlet environment (RWDE) on $\mathbb{Z} ^d$, for $d \geq 3$, in the sub-ballistic case. We associate to any parameter $ (\alpha_1, \dots, \alpha _{2d}) $ of the Dirichlet law a time-change to accelerate the walk. We prove that the continuous-time accelerated walk has an absolutely continuous invariant probability measure for the environment viewed from the particle. This allows to characterize directional transience for the initial RWDE. It solves as a corollary the problem of Kalikow's $0-1$ law in the Dirichlet case in any dimension. Furthermore, we find the polynomial order of the magnitude of the original walk's displacement.
Information Sharing for Collective Sensemaking

Group decision tasks that require pooling of information to reach the best decision have been studied across a variety of disciplines over the past thirty years. The crucial question of what makes these tasks so difficult, however remains unanswered. Various hypotheses include inefficiency in sharing information leading to decisions based on incomplete information or cognitive inefficiencies in processing and storing information arriving in a piecemeal fashion. The present study attacks this problem from two directions. Human experiments are used to compare decisions between groups manipulated to receive and share information in raw and aggregated forms and mixed groups comprised of humans and software agents. To shed light on cognitive limitations that may affect performance, an ACT-R cognitive model of group members was constructed and its results compared to human data.
Image-Guided Dacryolocalization (IGDL) in Traumatic Secondary Acquired Lacrimal drainage Obstructions (SALDO)

Purpose: The aim of this study was to illustrate the usefulness of stereotactic or image-guided navigation in the management of traumatic secondary acquired lacrimal drainage obstructions. Methods: Image-guided dacryolocalization was performed on 3 patients. All the patients were posttraumatic nasolacrimal duct obstruction as a consequence of gross naso-orbito-ethmoid fractures. All the procedures were performed through an endoscopic endonasal approach using the intraoperative electromagnetic image-guided Fusion ENT navigation system. Intraoperative anatomical guidance in localizing the lacrimal drainage system, usefulness at crucial phases of surgery, ease of surgery, and complications were noted. Results: All patients underwent a powered endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy using standard protocols but with an additional intraoperative navigation use at each of the major steps during the surgery. The dacryolocalization provided useful anatomical clues while operating in the vicinity of orbit and skull base. The set up was quick with no additional technical difficulties. Conclusions: Image-guided dacryolocalization is a very useful adjunctive tool that facilitates safe and precise surgeries in otherwise challenging surgical situations.
Tutorial on Answering Questions about Images with Deep Learning

Together with the development of more accurate methods in Computer Vision and Natural Language Understanding, holistic architectures that answer on questions about the content of real-world images have emerged. In this tutorial, we build a neural-based approach to answer questions about images. We base our tutorial on two datasets: (mostly on) DAQUAR, and (a bit on) VQA. With small tweaks the models that we present here can achieve a competitive performance on both datasets, in fact, they are among the best methods that use a combination of LSTM with a global, full frame CNN representation of an image. We hope that after reading this tutorial, the reader will be able to use Deep Learning frameworks, such as Keras and introduced Kraino, to build various architectures that will lead to a further performance improvement on this challenging task.
Vitamin D deficiency in inflammatory bowel disease: prevalence and predictors in a Norwegian outpatient population

Abstract Background and aim: Vitamin D deficiency is common in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The aims of the present study were to determine the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and to identify clinical and epidemiological variables associated with vitamin D deficiency in an outpatient population with IBD. Methods: Participants were recruited from nine hospitals in the southeastern and western regions of Norway as part of an observational, multicentre study from March 2013 to April 2014. Clinical and epidemiological data were collected by interview and from medical records. All analyses of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OH-D) were performed in the same laboratory. Results: In total, 49% (200/408) of the patients had a 25-OH-D concentration <50 nmol/L, including 53% (122/230) of the Crohn’s disease (CD) patients and 44% (78/178) of the ulcerative colitis (UC) patients. In CD patients, disease activity, measured as the HBI, was inversely associated with vitamin D deficiency. No such association was observed with the Simple Clinical Colitis Activity Index (SCCAI) scores in UC, but in UC patients, vitamin D deficiency was associated with elevated faecal calprotectin >100 mg/kg. In patients with CD, there were significantly more relapses during the previous year in patients with vitamin D deficiency. Conclusions: Vitamin D deficiency was common, especially in CD, and was associated with increased disease activity, a relapsing disease course and higher inflammatory activity.
Collaborative Multi-domain Sentiment Classification

Sentiment classification is a hot research topic in both industrial and academic fields. The mainstream sentiment classification methods are based on machine learning and treat sentiment classification as a text classification problem. However, sentiment classification is widely recognized as a highly domain-dependent task. The sentiment classifier trained in one domain may not perform well in another domain. A simple solution to this problem is training a domain-specific sentiment classifier for each domain. However, it is difficult to label enough data for every domain since they are in a large quantity. In addition, this method omits the sentiment information in other domains. In this paper, we propose to train sentiment classifiers for multiple domains in a collaborative way based on multi-task learning. Specifically, we decompose the sentiment classifier in each domain into two components, a general one and a domain-specific one. The general sentiment classifier can capture the global sentiment information and is trained across various domains to obtain better generalization ability. The domain-specific sentiment classifier is trained using the labeled data in one domain to capture the domain-specific sentiment information. In addition, we explore two kinds of relations between domains, one based on textual content and the other one based on sentiment word distribution. We build a domain similarity graph using domain relations and encode it into our approach as regularization over the domain-specific sentiment classifiers. Besides, we incorporate the sentiment knowledge extracted from sentiment lexicons to help train the general sentiment classifier more accurately. Moreover, we introduce an accelerated optimization algorithm to train the sentiment classifiers efficiently. Experimental results on two benchmark sentiment datasets show that our method can outperform baseline methods significantly and consistently.
Human adenovirus 5-vectored Plasmodium falciparum NMRC-M3V-Ad-PfCA vaccine encoding CSP and AMA1 is safe, well-tolerated and immunogenic but does not protect against controlled human malaria infection

Background: In a prior study, a DNA prime / adenovirus boost vaccine (DNA/Ad) expressing P. falciparum circumsporozoite protein (CSP) and apical membrane antigen-1 (AMA1) (NMRC-M3V-D/Ad-PfCA Vaccine) induced 27% protection against controlled human malaria infection (CHMI). To investigate the contribution of DNA priming, we tested the efficacy of adenovirus vaccine alone (NMRC-M3V-Ad-PfCA ) in a Phase 1 clinical trial. Methodology/Principal Findings: The regimen was a single intramuscular injection with two non-replicating human serotype 5 adenovectors encoding CSP and AMA1, respectively. One x 1010 particle units of each construct were combined prior to administration. The regimen was safe and well-tolerated. Four weeks later, 18 study subjects received P. falciparum CHMI administered by mosquito bite. None were fully protected although one showed delayed onset of parasitemia. Antibody responses were low, with geometric mean CSP ELISA titer of 381 (range < 50–1626) and AMA1 ELISA of 4.95 µg/mL (range 0.2–38). Summed ex vivo IFN-γ ELISpot responses to overlapping peptides were robust, with geometric mean spot forming cells/million peripheral blood mononuclear cells [sfc/m] for CSP of 273 (range 38–2550) and for AMA1 of 1303 (range 435–4594). CD4+ and CD8+ T cell IFN-γ responses to CSP were positive by flow cytometry in 25% and 56% of the research subjects, respectively, and to AMA1 in 94% and 100%, respectively. Significance: In contrast to DNA/Ad, Ad alone did not protect against CHMI despite inducing broad, cell-mediated immunity, indicating that DNA priming is required for protection by the adenovirus-vectored vaccine. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00392015.
Colors and Mass-to-Light Ratios of Bulges and Disks of Nearby Spiral Galaxies

We investigated the colors and mass-to-light (M=L )r atios of bulge sa nddisks for 28 nearby spiral galaxies with various morphological types of Sab–Scd, using images in optical and near-infrared (V , I ,a ndJ )b andsas well as published rotation curves. It is shown that the observed colors and M=L values generally agree with the galaxyformation model with an exponentially declining star-formation rate and a shallow slope initial mass function (e.g., Scalo IMF) for both the bulges and the disks. We find that the bulge M=L is generally higher than the disk M=L, and that the galaxies with a larger bulge-to-total luminosity (B=T )r atio tend to have a smaller bulge M=L . T hi sf act indicates that the luminosity-weighted average age of bulges for early-type spirals is younger than that for later-type spirals. These results support a formation scenario that the bulges of middle-type and early-type spirals produce young stars.
Serum Immune Proteins in Moderate and Severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis Patients

Immunological dysregulation is present in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME), with recent studies also highlighting the importance of examining symptom severity. This research addressed this relationship between CFS/ME severity subgroups, assessing serum immunoglobulins and serum cytokines in severe and moderate CFS/ME patients. Participants included healthy controls (n= 22), moderately (n = 22) and severely (n=19) affected CFS/ME patients. The 1994 Fukuda Criteria defined CFS/ME and severity scales confirmed mobile and housebound CFS/ME patients as moderate and severe respectively. IL-1β was significantly reduced in severe compared with moderate CFS/ME patients. IL-6 was significantly decreased in moderate CFS/ME patients compared with healthy controls and severe CFS/ME patients. RANTES was significantly increased in moderate CFS/ME patients compared to severe CFS/ME patients. Serum IL-7 and IL-8 were significantly higher in the severe CFS/ME group compared with healthy controls and moderate CFS/ME patients. IFN-γ was significantly increased in severe CFS/ME patients compared with moderately affected patients. This was the first study to show cytokine variation in moderate and severe CFS/ME patients, with significant differences shown between CFS/ME symptom severity groups. This research suggests that distinguishing severity subgroups in CFS/ME research settings may allow for a more stringent analysis of the heterogeneous and otherwise inconsistent illness.
EGFR, HER-2 and KRAS in Canine Gastric Epithelial Tumors: A Potential Human Model?

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR or HER-1) and its analog c-erbB-2 (HER-2) are protein tyrosine kinases correlated with prognosis and response to therapy in a variety of human cancers. KRAS mediates the transduction of signals between EGFR and the nucleus, and its mutation has been identified as a predictor of resistance to anti-EGFR drugs. In human oncology, the importance of the EGFR/HER-2/KRAS signalling pathway in gastric cancer is well established, and HER-2 testing is required before initiating therapy. Conversely, this pathway has never been investigated in canine gastric tumours. A total of 19 canine gastric epithelial neoplasms (5 adenomas and 14 carcinomas) were retrospectively evaluated for EGFR/HER-2 immunohistochemical expression and KRAS mutational status. Five (35.7%) carcinomas were classified as intestinal-type and 9 (64.3%) as diffuse-type. EGFR was overexpressed (≥1+) in 8 (42.1%) cases and HER-2 (3+) in 11 (57.9%) cases, regardless of tumour location or biological behaviour. The percentage of EGFR-positive tumours was significantly higher in the intestinal-type (80%) than in the diffuse-type (11.1%, p = 0.023). KRAS gene was wild type in 18 cases, whereas one mucinous carcinoma harboured a point mutation at codon 12 (G12R). EGFR and HER-2 may be promising prognostic and therapeutic targets in canine gastric epithelial neoplasms. The potential presence of KRAS mutation should be taken into account as a possible mechanism of drug resistance. Further studies are necessary to evaluate the role of dog as a model for human gastric cancer.
Design and Fabrication of Elastic Interconnections for Stretchable Electronic Circuits

For biomedical and textile applications, the comfort of the user will be enhanced if the electronic circuits are not only flexible but also elastic. This letter reveals a simple moulded-interconnect-device technology for the construction of elastic point-to-point interconnections, based on 2-D spring-shaped metallic tracks, which are embedded in a highly elastic silicone film. Metal interconnections of 3-cm long were constructed with an initial resistance of about 3Omega , which did not significantly increase (<5%) when stretched. A stretchability above 100% in one direction has been demonstrated.
Urinary Sodium Excretion Has Positive Correlation with Activation of Urinary Renin Angiotensin System and Reactive Oxygen Species in Hypertensive Chronic Kidney Disease

It is not well described the pathophysiology of renal injuries caused by a high salt intake in humans. The authors analyzed the relationship between the 24-hr urine sodium-to-creatinine ratio (24HUna/cr) and renal injury parameters such as urine angiotensinogen (uAGT/cr), monocyte chemoattractant peptide-1 (uMCP1/cr), and malondialdehyde-to-creatinine ratio (uMDA/cr) by using the data derived from 226 hypertensive chronic kidney disease patients. At baseline, the 24HUna/cr group or levels had a positive correlation with uAGT/cr and uMDA/cr adjusted for related factors (P<0.001 for each analysis). When we estimated uAGT/cr in the 24HUna/cr groups by ANCOVA, the uAGT/cr in patients with ≥200 mEq/g cr was higher than in patients with <100 mEq/g cr (708 [95% CI, 448-967] vs. 334 [95% CI, 184-483] pg/mg cr, P=0.014). Similarly, uMDA/cr was estimated as 0.17 (95% CI, 0.14-0.21) pM/mg cr in patients with <100 mEq/g cr and 0.27 (95% CI, 0.20-0.33) pM/mg cr in patients with ≥200 mEq/g cr (P=0.016). During the 16-week follow-up period, an increase in urinary sodium excretion predicted an increase in urinary angiotensinogen excretion. In conclusion, high salt intake increases renal renin-angiotensin-system (RAS) activation, primarily, and directly or indirectly affects the production of reactive oxygen species through renal RAS activation.
Soft lithographic patterning of spin crossover complexes. Part 2: stimuli-responsive diffraction grating properties

Surface-relief diffraction gratings of various geometries were fabricated from the molecular spin crossover complex [FeII(hptrz)3](OTs)2 using the soft lithographic method described in Part 1 of this paper [Quintero et al., J. Mater. Chem., DOI: 10.1039/c2jm15662h]. The grating geometry and optical properties were obtained from atomic force microscopy and spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements. The grating diffraction efficiency (η) was determined as a function of the temperature at various wavelengths (400–700 nm) using a conoscopic microscopy setup. A significant effect of the molecular spin state change on η is demonstrated (ca. 3% modulation). Using scalar transmission theory the changes in the diffraction pattern were quantitatively traced back to the decrease of the real part of the refractive index (ΔnHL = –0.01) accompanying the 1A → 5T spin transition. These stimuli-responsive photonic devices exhibit useful properties for various applications. Here a proof of concept gas sensor application is demonstrated for the detection of alcohol vapor.