Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A 6-month follow-up after constraint-induced movement therapy with and without transfer package for patients with hemiparesis after stroke: a pilot quasi-randomized controlled trial

Objective: To investigate the long-term effects of the ‘transfer package’ in constraint-induced movement therapy, which is an optional protocol to facilitate actual use of the trained affected arm in activities of daily living. Design: A pilot quasi-randomized controlled trial with a blinded single assessor with six-month follow-up. Setting: Hospitalized care at university hospital. Subjects: Twenty-one post-stroke patients were quasi-randomized to either a group with transfer package during constraint-induced movement therapy or a control group (without transfer package). Interventions: The transfer package group received 4.5 hours of intensive task training and 0.5 hours of transfer package whereas the control group received 5.0 hours of intensive task training per day during 10 consecutive weekdays. Main measures: Arm function was measured with Fugl-Meyer Assessment and Amount of Use score of Motor Activity Log. Results: Twenty-three patients were quasi-randomized, but data from two patients were missing from the long-term follow-up. Both groups showed increase in arm function postintervention. However, at six months’ follow-up only the transfer package group showed consistent increase in arm function (with transfer package group versus control group; Fugl-Meyer Assessment, mean (± SD) from 48.6 ± 7.8 (preintervention) to 55.7 ± 4.5 (postintervention) and 59.0 ± 3.6 (six months postintervention) versus from 49.1 ± 5.5 to 52.8 ± 6.0 and 53.3 ± 4.9, P= 0.003; Amount of Use scale of Motor Activity Log, mean from 1.3 ± 0.55 (preintervention) to 2.12 ± 0.55 (postintervention) and 2.79 ± 0.98 (six months postintervention) versus from 1.18 ± 0.70 to 1.61 ± 0.54 and 1.65 ± 0.68, P= 0.002). Conclusions: Our results confirmed the long-term effects of the transfer package in constraint-induced movement therapy.
A Geometric Method for Optimal Design of Color Filter Arrays

A color filter array (CFA) used in a digital camera is a mosaic of spectrally selective filters, which allows only one color component to be sensed at each pixel. The missing two components of each pixel have to be estimated by methods known as demosaicking. The demosaicking algorithm and the CFA design are crucial for the quality of the output images. In this paper, we present a CFA design methodology in the frequency domain. The frequency structure, which is shown to be just the symbolic DFT of the CFA pattern (one period of the CFA), is introduced to represent images sampled with any rectangular CFAs in the frequency domain. Based on the frequency structure, the CFA design involves the solution of a constrained optimization problem that aims at minimizing the demosaicking error. To decrease the number of parameters and speed up the parameter searching, the optimization problem is reformulated as the selection of geometric points on the boundary of a convex polygon or the surface of a convex polyhedron. Using our methodology, several new CFA patterns are found, which outperform the currently commercialized and published ones. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our CFA design methodology and the superiority of our new CFA patterns.
Comparative analysis of noncoding regions of 77 orthologous mouse and human gene pairs.

A data set of 77 genomic mouse/human gene pairs has been compiled from the EMBL nucleotide database, and their corresponding features determined. This set was used to analyze the degree of conservation of noncoding sequences between mouse and human. A new alignment algorithm was developed to cope with the fact that large parts of noncoding sequences are not alignable in a meaningful way because of genetic drift. This new algorithm, DNA Block Aligner (DBA), finds colinear-conserved blocks that are flanked by nonconserved sequences of varying lengths. The noncoding regions of the data set were aligned with DBA. The proportion of the noncoding regions covered by blocks >60% identical was 36% for upstream regions, 50% for 5' UTRs, 23% for introns, and 56% for 3' UTRs. These blocks of high identity were more or less evenly distributed across the length of the features, except for upstream regions in which the first 100 bp upstream of the transcription start site was covered in up to 70% of the gene pairs. This data set complements earlier sets on the basis of cDNA sequences and will be useful for further comparative studies. [This paper contains supplementary data that can be found at http://www.genome. org [corrected]].
Effects of Compensation on Job Satisfaction Among Secondary School Teachers in Maara Sub - County of Tharaka Nithi County, Kenya

Compensation plays an important role in determining employees’ job satisfaction. According to Bozeman & Gaughan (2011), the perception of being paid what one is worth predicts job satisfaction. Teachers in Kenya have always downed their tools lamenting about their compensation which raises concern about their job satisfaction. However it is not clear the influence compensation has on teachers job satisfaction to cause the many stand offs. This study therefore sought to establish the effects of compensation on job satisfaction among Secondary school teachers in Maara Sub- County Tharaka Nithi County Kenya. The objectives of the study were to determine the effects of both financial and nonfinancial compensation on job satisfaction. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. Stratified random sampling was used to select a sample size of 214 teachers drawn from the target population of 474. Responses were collected through administration of questionnaire. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire was enhanced through a pilot study carried out in three schools in Meru South Sub-County. To ensure the validity of the instruments, both face and content validity was used. Data collected was categorized coded and then tabulated using SPSS. The qualitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics, means frequency tables and percentages. The hypotheses were tested using chi-square. The study established that the basic pay, allowances and work environment affects teachers’ job satisfaction to a great extent. The research concluded that teachers were highly dissatisfied with all aspects of compensation that they receive. The study recommends that the government reviews the teachers’ compensation to commensurate the services rendered. It is hoped that the findings of this study could assist the education planners in formulating compensation policies that would enable teachers to achieve job satisfaction.
Identification of Psychological Risk Factors for Eating Disorder Symptomatology in Women

9 Zusammenfassung. 11 I. Theoretical background . 13 1 Eating disorders . 13 1.1 Anorexia nervosa. 14 1.2 Bulimia nervosa . 16 1.3 Eating disorders not otherwise specified. 18 1.4 Eating disorders in DSM-5 . 20 2 Risk factors. 23 2.1 Definition of risk factors. 23 2.2 Key features of the risk factor concept. 24 2.3 Taxonomy of risk factors. 25 2.4 Study designs to investigate risk factors . 26 2.5 Study requirements to investigate risk factors . 27 3 Risk factors for eating disorders . 28 3.1 Biological risk factors . 28 3.2 Social risk factors. 31 3.3 Psychological risk factors. 34 II. Study aims. 42 1 Identifying risk factors for eating disorder symptomatology and measuring their potency . 42 2 Temporal occurrence and course of risk factors for eating disorder symptomatology . 45 III. Methods . 49 1 The INTACT network. 49 2 Data collection. 51 2.1 Recruitment . 51 2.2 Internet-based data collection. 52 3 Procedure. 53 4 Design . 54 4.1 Assessments . 54 4.2 Measures . 55 4.3 Outcome criterion . 58 5 Statistical analysis . 59 5.1 Identification of risk factors for the onset of eating disorder symptomatology. 59 5.2 Temporal course of factors prior to the onset of eating disorder symptomatology. 60 5.3 Sampling. 62 IV. Results . 64 1 Sample description. 64 1.1 Subsample 1. 66 1.2 Subsample 2. 67 2 Identification of risk factors for the onset of eating disorder symptomatology . 69 3 Temporal course of factors prior to the onset of eating disorder symptomatology . 81 V. Discussion. 92 1 Discussion of the results . 92 2 Discussion of methodological issues. 99 3 Limitations and strengths. 106 4 Conclusion and outlook . 108 VI. References. 110 VII. Annex . 126
Attributional Styles in Adolescents with Transfusion-dependent Thalassemia

This study focused on the way that Adolescents with Transfusiondependent thalassemia explained negative or positive events in their life (Attributional Styles). It is defined by three dimensions describing the cognitive appraisal of the events: internal-external, stable-unstable, and global-specific. With cross-sectional research design, the observations consist of 102 adolescents (48 males, 54 females) who diagnosed with Transfusion-dependent thalassemia (more than 50 times for blood transfusions) completed the measure of Attributional Styles and Anxiety Questionnaires. The correlations in the predicted directions among variables examine with Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, t-test, and One-way ANOVA to ascertain a significant between the group differences on attributional factors and levels of anxiety symptoms. The results show that Adolescent samples with higher levels of anxiety revealed statistically significant relationship among three negative attributional dimensions (overall composite F = 4.5, p < 0.05; negative composite F = 4.99, p < 0.01; negative-internality F = 4.99 p < 0.01; negative-stability F = 3.42, p < 0.05 and negative-globality F = 3.77, p < 0.05). In addition, significant agegroup differences were found for the total negative-globality (t = 2.05, p < 0.05) and negativeglobality (t = -2.22, p < 0.05). These data are consistent with the reformulated learned helplessness model of depression. In finding, the individuals who attribute negative life events to internal, stable, and global causes will be more vulnerable to anxiety than those who make external, unstable, and specific attributions. Most interestingly, those adolescents more than 17 years evidence more negative-globality attributional style than group less than 16 years, and female adolescents may influence this pattern. These results suggest that targeting Adolescents with Transfusion-dependent thalassemia may be important for improving aspect of coping on psychological adjustment to their chronic illness.
Constraints on holographic dark energy from the latest supernovae, galaxy clustering, and cosmic microwave background anisotropy observations

The holographic dark energy model is proposed by Li as an attempt for probing the nature of dark energy within the framework of quantum gravity. The main characteristic of holographic dark energy is governed by a numerical parameter $c$ in the model. The parameter $c$ can only be determined by observations. Thus, in order to characterize the evolving feature of dark energy and to predict the fate of the Universe, it is of extraordinary importance to constrain the parameter $c$ by using the currently available observational data. In this paper, we derive constraints on the holographic dark energy model from the latest observational data including the gold sample of 182 type Ia supernovae (SNIa), the shift parameter of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) given by the three-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) observations, and the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurement from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The joint analysis gives the fit results in $1\mathrm{\text{\ensuremath{-}}}\ensuremath{\sigma}$: $c={0.91}_{\ensuremath{-}0.18}^{+0.26}$ and ${\ensuremath{\Omega}}_{\mathrm{m}0}=0.29\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.03$. That is to say, though the possibility of $cl1$ is more favored, the possibility of $cg1$ cannot be excluded in one-sigma error range, which is somewhat different from the result derived from previous investigations using earlier data. So, according to the new data, the evidence for the quintom feature in the holographic dark energy model is not as strong as before.
Autism and Intellectual Disability Associated with Mitochondrial Disease and Hyperlactacidemia

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with intellectual disability (ID) is a life-long debilitating condition, which is characterized by cognitive function impairment and other neurological signs. Children with ASD-ID typically attain motor skills with a significant delay. A sub-group of ASD-IDs has been linked to hyperlactacidemia and alterations in mitochondrial respiratory chain activity. The objective of this report is to describe the clinical features of patients with these comorbidities in order to shed light on difficult diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in such patients. We reported the different clinical features of children with ID associated with hyperlactacidemia and deficiencies in mitochondrial respiratory chain complex II–IV activity whose clinical presentations are commonly associated with the classic spectrum of mitochondrial diseases. We concluded that patients with ASD and ID presenting with persistent hyperlactacidemia should be evaluated for mitochondrial disorders. Administration of carnitine, coenzyme Q10, and folic acid is partially beneficial, although more studies are needed to assess the efficacy of this vitamin/cofactor treatment combination.
Parapharyngeal space neoplasms

Background. Primary parapharyngeal space neoplasms are rare. Tumor distribution characteristics and long‐term outcome have been quite variable in the recent literature. We report the results of a retrospective review of 172 patients with primary parapharyngeal space neoplasms treated surgically from 1960 to 1990 at a large multispecialty clinic and teaching hospital.
Meta-analysis of incidence and risk of severe adverse events and fatal adverse events with crizotinib monotherapy in patients with ALK-positive NSCLC

Background Numerous clinical trials show crizotinib has promising efficacy for anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients which trigger the substitution of traditional chemotherapy to be the current standard first-line treatment for these patients. Conversely, few reports systematically analyze toxicity of crizotinib. Hence, we performed a first meta-analysis to determine the risk of crizotinib-related severe adverse events (SAEs) and fatal adverse events (FAEs) in ALK positive NSCLC patients. Materials and Methods A systematic literature search was conducted through December 2016 to identify clinical trials that reported crizotinib monotherapy in ALK-positive NSCLC patients. Data on crizotinib-related SAEs and FAEs were extracted from each study and pooled to determine the overall incidence and risk. Random-effects or fixed-effects models were conducted to calculate the summary incidence, relative risk (RR), and 95% CIs on basis of the heterogeneity of included studies. Results 1,924 patients from 11 clinical trials were included. The overall incidence of SAEs and FAEs with crizotinib was 19.9% (95% CI, 14.1% to 23.7%; P < 0.001) and 1.4% (95% CI, 0.9% to 2.1%; P < 0.001), respectively. Meanwhile, Asian patients have lower incidence of SAEs (11.5%, 95% CI: 7.9% to 16.5%). However, significant differences of SAEs (RR: 0.97, 95% CI, 0.79 to 1.18; P = 0.76) and FAEs (RR: 2.24, 95% CI, 0.49 to 10.30; P = 0.30) were not detected between crizotinib monotherapy and chemotherapy. Conclusions Crizotinib may not increase the risk of SAEs and FAEs in patients with ALK positive NSCLC compared with chemotherapy.
Tumor hypoxia enhances non-small cell lung cancer metastasis by selectively promoting macrophage M2 polarization through the activation of ERK signaling

Hypoxia is a common phenomenon occurring in the majority of human tumors and has been proved to play an important role in tumor progression. However, it remains unclear that whether the action of hypoxia on macrophages is a main driving force of hypoxia-mediated aggressive tumor behaviors. In the present study, we observe that high density of M2 macrophages is associated with metastasis in adenocarcinoma Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) patients. By applying the in vivo hypoxia model, the results suggest that intermittent hypoxia significantly promotes the metastasis of Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC), accompanied with more CD209+ macrophages infiltrated in primary tumor tissue. More intriguingly, by skewing macrophages polarization away from the M1- to a tumor-promoting M2-like phenotype, hypoxia and IL-6 cooperate to enhance the LLC metastasis both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, we also demonstrate that skewing of macrophage M2 polarization by hypoxia relies substantially on activation of ERK signaling. Collectively, these observations unveil a novel tumor hypoxia concept involving the macrophage phenotype shift and provide direct evidence for lung cancer intervention through modulating the phenotype of macrophages.
Line formation in solar granulation V. Missing UV-opacity and the photospheric Be abundance

The possibility of unaccounted for opacity sources in the UV for late-type stars has often been invoked to explain discrepancies between predicted and observed flux distributions and spectral line strengths. Such missing UV-opacity could among other things have a significant impact on abundance determination for elements whose only relevant spectral features are accessible in this wavelength region, such as Be. Here, the study by Balachandran & Bell ([CITE]) is re-visited in the light of a realistic 3D hydrodynamical solar model atmosphere and the recently significantly downward revised solar O abundance obtained with the same model atmosphere. The amount of missing UV-opacity, if any, is quantified by enforcing that the OH A-X electronic lines around 313 nm produce the same O abundance as the other available diagnostics: OH vibration-rotation and pure rotation lines in the IR, the forbidden [O i] 630.0 and 636.3 nm lines and high-excitation, permitted O i lines. This additional opacity is then applied for the synthesis of the Be ii line at 313.0 nm to derive a solar photospheric Be abundance in excellent agreement with the meteoritic value, thus re-enforcing the conclusions of Balachandran & Bell. The about 50% extra opacity over accounted for opacity sources can be well explained by recent calculations by the Iron Project for photo-ionization of Fe i.
Recruiting TATA-binding protein to a promoter: transcriptional activation without an upstream activator

The binding of TATA-binding protein (TBP) to the TATA element is the first step in the initiation of RNA polymerase II transcription from many promoters in vitro. It has been proposed that upstream activator proteins stimulate transcription by recruiting TBP to the promoter, thus facilitating the assembly of a transcription complex. However, the role of activator proteins acting at this step to stimulate transcription in vivo remains largely speculative. To test whether recruitment of TBP to the promoter is sufficient for transcriptional activation in vivo, we constructed a hybrid protein containing TBP of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae fused to the DNA-binding domain of GAL4. Our results show that TBP recruited by the GAL4 DNA-binding domain to promoters bearing a GAL4-binding site can interact with the TATA element and direct high levels of transcription. This finding indicates that binding of TBP to promoters in S. cerevisiae is a major rate-limiting step accelerated by upstream activator proteins.
The diagnostic and prognostic value of coronary CT angiography in asymptomatic high-risk patients: a cohort study

Objective To prospectively assess the value of coronary CT angiography (CTA) in asymptomatic patients with high ‘a priori’ risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods 711 consecutive asymptomatic patients (61.8 years; 40.1% female) with high ‘a priori’ risk of CAD were prospectively examined with a coronary calcium score (CCS) and CTA. Coronary arteries were evaluated for atherosclerotic plaque (non-calcified and calcified) and stenosis (mild <50%, intermediate 50–70% or high-grade >70%). Coronary Segment Involvement Score (SIS, total number of segments with plaque) and nc (non-calcified) SIS were calculated. Primary end points were major adverse cardiac events (ST-elevation MI, non-ST-elevation MI and cardiac death); secondary end points were coronary revascularisation and >50% stenosis by invasive angiography. Results Of 711 patients, 28.3% were negative for CAD and 71.7% positive (CAD+) by CTA (15.6% had plaques without stenosis, 23.9% mild, 10.7% intermediate and 21.5% high-grade stenosis). CCS zero prevalence was 306 (43%), out of those 100 (32.7%) had non-calcified plaque only. Mean follow-up period was 2.65 years. MACE rate was 0% in CAD negative and higher (1.2%) in CAD positive by CTA. Coronary revascularisation rate was 5.5%. Patients with SIS ≥5 had an HR of 6.5 (95% CI 1.6 to 25.8, p<0.013) for MACE, patients with ncSIS ≥1 had an HR of 2.4 (95% CI 1.2 to 4.6, p<0.01) for secondary end point. The sensitivity of CTA for stenosis >50% compared with invasive angiography was 92.9% (95% CI 83.0% to 98.1%). Negative predictive value of CTA was 99.4% (95% CI 98.3% to 99.8%) for combined end points. Conclusions CAD prevalence by CTA in asymptomatic high-risk patients is high. CCS zero does not exclude CAD. CTA is highly accurate to exclude CAD. Total coronary plaque burden and nc plaques, even if only one segment is involved, are associated with an increased risk of adverse outcome.
Physicochemical Properties of Meat Batter Added with Edible Silkworm Pupae (Bombyx mori) and Transglutaminase

This study was conducted to investigate the physicochemical properties of meat batters prepared with fresh pork meat, back fat, water, and salt and formulated with three different amounts (5%, 10%, and 15%) of silkworm pupae (Bombyx mori) powder and transglutaminase (TG). Meat batters formulated with silkworm pupae powder showed significantly higher contents of protein and ash than control batter. Addition of silkworm pupae to batter also showed significantly lower cooking loss than the control. Moreover, meat batter containing 15% silkworm pupae showed no significant difference in redness value compared to the control. In addition, pH, viscosity, hardness, gumminess, and chewiness were improved after the addition of silkworm pupae. Furthermore, meat batter formulated with TG and silkworm pupae showed improved hardness, gumminess, chewiness and viscosity compared to control batter. Addition of 1% TG with 15% silkworm pupae to meat batter resulted in significantly higher pH, textures, and viscosity. Our data suggest that both silkworm pupae and TG can be added to meat batter to improve its physicochemical properties. Therefore, combination of silkworm pupae and TG could be a new nutritional and functional source for meat products.