Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Functional brain networks related to working memory using phase synchrony analysis

Phase synchrony among cortical brain regions is a key aspect of the working memory process. In this study we utilized phase synchrony analysis of EEG signals to construct brain networks and investigate the rest and working memory states of the brain. The maintenance period of working memory demonstrated higher global and local phase synchronization compared to the rest condition in the theta, alpha and beta bands. In contrast, during the manipulation period, we observed high synchrony between brain areas in the theta band and low phase synchrony in the alpha and beta bands. These alterations between different phases of working memory illustrated the critical behavior of brain networks and their highly dynamic characteristic.
Autonomic dysfunction in mild cognitive impairment: a transcranial Doppler study

Anzola GP, Galluzzi S, Mazzucco S, Frisoni GB. Autonomic dysfunction in mild cognitive impairment: a transcranial Doppler study. Acta Neurol Scand: 2011: 124: 403–409. © 2011 John Wiley & Sons A/S.
Optimizing Query Answering in Description Logics using Disjunctive Deductive Databases

Motivated by the possibilities of applying deductive database technology for efficient query answering in description logics, we present a translation operator μ that transforms non-recursive ALC ontologies into a disjunctive deductive database. Contrary to our previous work, in this paper we focus on handling negation, disjunction and existential quantifiers, which cannot be handled by deductive databases in a straightforward manner. We present a performance evaluation of our approach, confirming the intuition that techniques for optimizing query answering in disjunctive deductive databases may improve query answering in description logics.
Physical activity and mortality in postmenopausal women.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association between physical activity and all case mortality in postmenopausal women. DESIGN Prospective cohort study with 7 years of follow-up through December 31, 1992. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS Subjects were 40417 postmenopausal Iowa women, aged 55 to 69 years at baseline in 1986. Physical activity was assessed by mailed questionnaire. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE All-cause mortality (n=2260). RESULTS After adjustment for potential confounders and excluding women who reported having cancer or heart disease and those who died in the first 3 years of follow-up, women who reported regular physical activity were at significantly reduced risk of death during follow-up compared with women who did not (relative risk [RR], 0.77; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.66-0.90). Increasing frequency of moderate physical activity was associated with reduced risk of death during follow-up (from rarely or never engaging in activity to activity at least 4 times per week, RRs, 1.0 [referent], 0.76, 0.70, and 0.62; P value for trend<.001). A similar pattern was seen for vigorous physical activity (corresponding RRs, 1.0, 0.89, 0.74, and 0.57; Pvalue for trend=.06). Reduced risks of death with increased physical activity were evident for cardiovascular diseases (n=729) and respiratory illnesses (n=147). Women who engaged only in moderate but not vigorous physical activity also benefited, with moderate activity as infrequently as once per week demonstrating a reduced mortality risk of 0.78 (95% CI, 0.64-0.96). CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate a graded, inverse association between physical activity and all-cause mortality in postmenopausal women. These findings strengthen the confidence that population recommendations to engage in regular physical activity are applicable to postmenopausal women.
An empirical study of the robustness of MacOS applications using random testing

We report on the fourth in a series of studies on the reliability of application programs in the face of random input. Over the previous 15 years, we have studied the reliability of UNIX command line and X-Window based (GUI) applications and Windows applications. In this study, we apply our fuzz testing techniques to applications running on the Mac OS X operating system. We continue to use a simple, or even simplistic technique: unstructured black-box random testing, considering a failure to be a crash or hang. As in the previous three studies, the technique is crude but seems to be effective in locating bugs in real programs.We tested the reliability of 135 command-line UNIX utilities and thirty graphical applications on Mac OS X by feeding random input to each. We report on application failures -- crashes (dumps core) or hangs (loops indefinitely) -- and, where source code is available, we identify the causes of these failures and categorize them.Our testing crashed only 7% of the command-line utilities, a considerably lower rate of failure than observed in almost all cases of previous studies. We found the GUI-based applications to be less reliable: of the thirty that we tested, only eight did not crash or hang. Twenty others crashed, and two hung. These GUI results were noticeably worse than either of the previous Windows (Win32) or UNIX (X-Windows) studies.
Neuroprotective studies of Rubia cordifolia Linn. on β-amyloid induced cognitive dysfunction in mice.

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is neurodegenerative disorder linked to pathological aggregation of misfolded proteins that accumulate fibrillary amyloid deposits in selective regions of central nervous system. AD is neuro fibrillary tangles (NFTs) and senile plaques formed by neuro accumulation of abnormal tau filaments and extra cellular deposits of βamyloid fibrils. Amyloid plaques correlate with progressive deficits in cognitive, memory dysfunction and selectively cholinergic deficits in neurocortex, hippocampus and basal forebrain. In the present study animals were pretreated with ethanolic extract of Rubia cordifolia (collected from western ghats in south India) for a period of 4 weeks dose dependently(200 and 400 mg/ kg b.w) and kept In light/dark cycle. During this period the animals were trained in water-maze, Y-maze, exploratory behaviour and passive avoidance apparatus for memory. On 21 day of the treatment βamyloid peptide was administered by IntraCerebroVentricular (i.c.v) route using Hamilton 701 RN micro syringe 26 gauze needle with 10μl volume of injection and animals were tested for cognitive and memory dysfunction. Rubia cordifolia extract administration significantly (P<0.01) reduced the βamyloid induced cognitive and memory dysfunction. The extract decreases the neurodegeneration and helps in memory retention activity. The extract showed significant effects (P<0.05) in short term retention and increases long term retention of memory in step-down inhibitory avoidance task and an increase(P<0.05) in number of head dippings, line crossings and rearings in the open field, and the water-maze test the extract treated showed the escape latency equal to the normal levels. Analysis was done by using ANOVA followed by Dunnet’s “t” test. Rubia cordifoliat extract shows significant protective effect on neurodegeneration and shows improvement in memory retention activity when compared with Aβ 25-35 induced group, further study is needed to determine the underlying mechanism involved.
Clinical and pharmacokinetic considerations for the use of daptomycin in patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia and severe renal impairment.

OBJECTIVES To support daptomycin dosing recommendations in patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia (SAB) and severe renal impairment using simulations from a population pharmacokinetic model for daptomycin. METHODS A population pharmacokinetic model was developed using 4875 daptomycin plasma concentrations from 442 subjects. Daptomycin 24 h AUC and Cmax were then simulated for subjects with a CL(CR) < 30 mL/min [with or without haemodialysis (HD) or continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD)] for different dosing frequencies (every 24 h, every 48 h and three times weekly) with doses of 4 mg/kg and 6 mg/kg. These results were compared with efficacy and safety exposure references based on daily dosing to understand the implications of less frequent dosing (for example, higher exposures on day 1 versus day 2) and to evaluate the 4 mg/kg versus 6 mg/kg regimens. RESULTS Substantially more patients with SAB and severe renal impairment were underexposed (24 h AUCs compared with an efficacy reference of 6 mg/kg/day, CLCR ≥ 30 mL/min, pivotal trial population) at 4 mg/kg every 48 h compared with 6 mg/kg. Cmax results also favoured 6 mg/kg every 48 h over 4 mg/kg every 48 h. Both exposure metrics at 6 mg/kg every 48 h also stayed below the defined safety limits (based on 12 mg/kg/day, CL(CR) >80 mL/min, the highest dose in controlled clinical trials). CONCLUSIONS For patients with SAB and CLCR <30 mL/min, or receiving HD or CAPD, the dose recommendation of 6 mg/kg every 48 h provides appropriate daptomycin exposure for this indication; this will not be the case for patients receiving 4 mg/kg every 48 h.
Reliable H ∞ control of multiple time scales singularly perturbed systems with sensor failure

This paper studies the reliable H ∞ control for linear time-invariant multiparameter singularly perturbed systems against sensor failures. By time-scale decomposition, the full-order system is decomposed into slow and fast subsystems. After designing a reliable H ∞ controller for the global system, three reduced reliable H ∞ sub-controllers based on the slow and fast problems are obtained through the manipulation of the algebraic Riccati equations. The resulting control systems are reliable in that they provide guaranteed asymptotic stability and H ∞ performance when all control components are operational as well as when sensor failures occur.
The Organic Builder: A Public Experiment in Artificial Chemistries and Self-Replication

We describe some results submitted by users of the Organic Builder, a Java applet where the rules of an artificial chemistry can be chosen in order to achieve a desired behavior. Though it was initially intended as a set of challenges to be tackled as a game, the users experimented with the system far beyond this and discovered several novel forms of self-replicators. When searching for a system with certain properties such as self-replication, making the system accessible to the public through a Web site is an unusual but effective way of making scientific discoveries, credit for which must go to the users themselves for their tireless experimentation and innovation.
Prescribing patterns of antidepressants, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers in bipolar patients misdiagnosed with major depressive disorder in China

Bipolar disorder (BD) is frequently misdiagnosed as major depressive disorder (MDD), which may lead to inappropriate treatment and poor outcomes. This study aimed to examine prescribing patterns of antidepressants, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers in BD patients misdiagnosed with MDD in China.
Skimming impacts and rebounds on shallow liquid layers

The evolution of the combined solid–fluid motion when a solid body undergoes a skimming impact with (and rebounds from) a shallow liquid layer is investigated. A model is derived coupling the motion of the body to the fluid dynamics of the liquid layer. This predicts that the lift on the body induced by the pressure in the liquid layer is sufficient to entirely retard its incident downward motion before causing the body to rise out of the liquid. Water exit is predicted at a finite scaled time. Analysis for the small-time behaviour immediately after touchdown, and also as water exit is approached, shows close agreement with numerical prediction.
Large errors in the dosing of medications for children.

To the Editor: Dosing errors are among the most common types of medication errors.1–3 Errors by a factor of 10 (the administration of a dose 10 times or 1/10 as high as appropriate) are of particular concern.4 There is a greater chance that an infant or a young child will receive such a dose of medication than that an adult will, because even a dose 10 times as high as the appropriate pediatric dose may represent an unsuspiciously small volume of stock solution. We reviewed all forms of errors involving medication that were reported to the pharmacy department at .
More than a bystander: the contributions of intrinsic skeletal muscle defects in motor neuron diseases

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and spinal-bulbar muscular atrophy (SBMA) are devastating diseases characterized by the degeneration of motor neurons. Although the molecular causes underlying these diseases differ, recent findings have highlighted the contribution of intrinsic skeletal muscle defects in motor neuron diseases. The use of cell culture and animal models has led to the important finding that muscle defects occur prior to and independently of motor neuron degeneration in motor neuron diseases. In SMA for instance, the muscle specific requirements of the SMA disease-causing gene have been demonstrated by a series of genetic rescue experiments in SMA models. Conditional ALS mouse models expressing a muscle specific mutant SOD1 gene develop atrophy and muscle degeneration in the absence of motor neuron pathology. Treating SBMA mice by over-expressing IGF-1 in a skeletal muscle-specific manner attenuates disease severity and improves motor neuron pathology. In the present review, we provide an in depth description of muscle intrinsic defects, and discuss how they impact muscle function in these diseases. Furthermore, we discuss muscle-specific therapeutic strategies used to treat animal models of SMA, ALS, and SBMA. The study of intrinsic skeletal muscle defects is crucial for the understanding of the pathophysiology of these diseases and will open new therapeutic options for the treatment of motor neuron diseases.
Owl Monkeys (Aotus nigriceps and A. infulatus) Follow Routes Instead of Food-Related Cues during Foraging in Captivity

Foraging at night imposes different challenges from those faced during daylight, including the reliability of sensory cues. Owl monkeys (Aotus spp.) are ideal models among anthropoids to study the information used during foraging at low light levels because they are unique by having a nocturnal lifestyle. Six Aotus nigriceps and four A. infulatus individuals distributed into five enclosures were studied for testing their ability to rely on olfactory, visual, auditory, or spatial and quantitative information for locating food rewards and for evaluating the use of routes to navigate among five visually similar artificial feeding boxes mounted in each enclosure. During most experiments only a single box was baited with a food reward in each session. The baited box changed randomly throughout the experiment. In the spatial and quantitative information experiment there were two baited boxes varying in the amount of food provided. These baited boxes remained the same throughout the experiment. A total of 45 sessions (three sessions per night during 15 consecutive nights) per enclosure was conducted in each experiment. Only one female showed a performance suggestive of learning of the usefulness of sight to locate the food reward in the visual information experiment. Subjects showed a chance performance in the remaining experiments. All owl monkeys showed a preference for one box or a subset of boxes to inspect upon the beginning of each experimental session and consistently followed individual routes among feeding boxes.
Gastric carcinoma: A multicentric lesion

HE PRINCIPLE of the unicentric origin of the resection in ninety-seven and by necropsy in T neoplasm has had wide acceptance since twenty instances. Each stomach was opened in the early pronouncements by Cohnheim.2, It such a manner as to preserve intact the tumor is generally believed that carcinoma is the rewithin it. It was then pinned open upon sult of the centrifugal reproduction of a singlecardboard and fixed in I0 per cent formaldecell nidus. Experience has shown, however, hyde. Large blocks were cut to include the that this is not always the case, and it has been proposed alternatively that overt cancer niay represent the ultimate coalescence of neighboring but independent lesions. Observations relating to this multicentric phenomenon have been suniniarized by Willisli who has arrived at pertinent conclusions from his own investigations of skin neoplasms.lsp 16 A recent survey of large tissue sections of gastric carcinoma afforded an opportunity to examine the problem in this organ.l9 Conventional methods of histopathological study are restricted by the use of small blocks ot tissue often removed from only a single segment of a neoplasm. Large sections (8x12 an.) offer the advantage of an over-all survey of the cytological pattern of a tumor and in addition provide a means of scrutinizing, in continuity, the neighboring mucosa. Although many features were investigated by this means, there were three that appeared to lend theinselves to the concept of multicentric new growth. These were: the nature of the cellular pleomorphism within the carcinoma, the occurrence of independent focuses of preinvasive carcinoma in the mucosa surrounding the tumor, and the presence of plaques of carcinoma in situ in immediate contiguity with the cancer. None of these had been detectable on gross examination.
Compact Numerical Function Generators Based on Quadratic Approximation: Architecture and Synthesis Method

This paper presents an architecture and a synthesis method for compact numerical function generators (NFGs) for trigonometric, logarithmic, square root, reciprocal, and combinations of these functions. Our NFG partitions a given domain of the function into non-uniform segments using an LUT cascade, and approximates the given function by a quadratic polynomial for each segment. Thus, we can implement fast and compact NFGs for a wide range of functions. Experimental results show that: 1) our NFGs require, on average, only 4% of the memory needed by NFGs based on the linear approximation with non-uniform segmentation; 2) our NFG for 2x-1 requires only 22% of the memory needed by the NFG based on a 5th-order approximation with uniform segmentation; and 3) our NFGs achieve about 70% of the throughput of the existing table-based NFGs using only a few percent of the memory. Thus, our NFGs can be implemented with more compact FPGAs than needed for the existing NFGs. Our automatic synthesis system generates such compact NFGs quickly.
‘Disability Means, um, Dysfunctioning People’: A Qualitative Analysis of the Meaning and Experience of Disability among Adults with Intellectual Disabilities

BACKGROUND There has been little qualitative analysis of the experience of stigma, social comparisons and conception of identity among adults with intellectual disabilities (ID). This study aimed to develop an understanding of how adults with intellectual disabilities experience their own disability, and any implications relating to self-esteem, stigma and social interactions. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifteen adults with intellectual disabilities were interviewed using semi-structured, open-ended questions regarding disability, social interactions and self-esteem. Interviews were analysed independently by two researchers using interpretive phenomenological analysis. RESULTS Three major themes emerged during analysis, exploring pressure on participants to behave in a socially normative way, tendency to produce personal definitions of disability and consistently limited knowledge of and discomfort around common disability terminology. CONCLUSIONS Participants' clearly experienced feelings of difference, despite a lack of articulation. Limited understanding of both terminology and conceptualization of disability status could negatively impact self-esteem, person-centred actions and political movement.
Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology Open Access Activin Promotes Oocyte Development in Ovine Preantral Follicles in Vitro

Activins have been implicated as important regulating factors for many reproductive processes. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of activin A on the development of ovine preantral follicles in vitro. Mechanically isolated preantral follicles (161 ± 2 microm) were cultured for 6 days in the presence of human recombinant activin A (0, 10 and 100 ng/ml). Half of the medium was replaced every second day and follicle diameters were measured. Conditioned medium was subsequently analysed for oestradiol content using a delayed enhancement lanthanide fluorometric immunoassay (DELFIA). At the end of the culture period, follicles were fixed and processed for histology, after which oocyte diameter and granulosa cell death were measured. There was significant follicle growth over 6 days in all groups (p < 0.001). Activin, at both concentrations, increased follicle growth over control levels by Day 6 (p < 0.05). Oocyte diameters were also significantly increased by Day 6 of culture in all groups (p < 0.05), with 100 ng/ml activin increasing oocyte diameter over control levels (p < 0.05). Activin, at both concentrations, increased oestradiol production on Day 2 of culture, but this increase was not sustained during the culture period. Moreover, activin did not have any effect on antrum formation or follicle survival. In conclusion, activin promoted ovine preantral follicle and oocyte growth in vitro, but did not accelerate follicle differentiation over a six-day culture period. These results support a paracrine role for activin A during early oocyte and follicular development.
TennisVid2Text: Fine-grained Descriptions for Domain Specific Videos

Automatically describing videos has ever been fascinating. In this work, we attempt to describe videos from a specific domain - broadcast videos of lawn tennis matches. Given a video shot from a tennis match, we intend to generate a textual commentary similar to what a human expert would write on a sports website. Unlike many recent works that focus on generating short captions, we are interested in generating semantically richer descriptions. This demands a detailed low-level analysis of the video content, specially the actions and interactions among subjects. We address this by limiting our domain to the game of lawn tennis. Rich descriptions are generated by leveraging a large corpus of human created descriptions harvested from Internet. We evaluate our method on a newly created tennis video data set. Extensive analysis demonstrate that our approach addresses both semantic correctness as well as readability aspects involved in the task.
Uncovering Affinity of Artists to Multiple Genres from Social Behaviour Data

In organisation schemes, musical artists are commonly identified with a unique ‘genre’ label attached, even when they have affinity to multiple genres. To uncover this hidden cultural awareness about multi-genre affinity, we present a new model based on the analysis of the way in which a community of users organise artists and genres in playlists. Our work is based on a novel dataset that we have elaborated identifying the co-occurrences of artists in the playlists shared by the members of a popular Web-based community, and that is made publicly available. The analysis defines an automatic social-based method to uncover relationships between artists and genres, and introduces a series of novel concepts that characterises artists and genres in a richer way than a unique ‘genre’ label would do.
Time-frequency reassigned features for automatic chord recognition

This paper addresses feature extraction for automatic chord recognition systems. Most chord recognition systems use chroma features as a front-end and some kind of classifier (HMM, SVM or template matching). The vast majority of feature extraction approaches are based on mapping frequency bins from spectrum or constant-Q spectrum to chroma bins. In this work a set of new chroma features that are based on the time-frequency reassignment (TFR) technique is investigated. The proposed feature set was evaluated on the commonly used Beatles dataset and proved to be efficient for the chord recognition task, outperforming standard chroma.