Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multiple‐region directed functional connectivity based on phase delays

Network analysis is increasingly advancing the field of neuroimaging. Neural networks are generally constructed from pairwise interactions with an assumption of linear relations between them. Here, a high‐order statistical framework to calculate directed functional connectivity among multiple regions, using wavelet analysis and spectral coherence has been presented. The mathematical expression for 4 regions was derived and used to characterize a quartet of regions as a linear, combined (nonlinear), or disconnected network. Phase delays between regions were used to obtain network's temporal hierarchy and directionality. The validity of the mathematical derivation along with the effects of coupling strength and noise on its outcomes were studied by computer simulations of the Kuramoto model. The simulations demonstrated correct directionality for a large range of coupling strength and low sensitivity to Gaussian noise compared with pairwise coherences. The analysis was applied to resting‐state fMRI data of 40 healthy young subjects to characterize the ventral visual system, motor system and default mode network (DMN). It was shown that the ventral visual system was predominantly composed of linear networks while the motor system and the DMN were composed of combined (nonlinear) networks. The ventral visual system exhibits its known temporal hierarchy, the motor system exhibits center ↔ out hierarchy and the DMN has dorsal ↔ ventral and anterior ↔ posterior organizations. The analysis can be applied in different disciplines such as seismology, or economy and in a variety of brain data including stimulus‐driven fMRI, electrophysiology, EEG, and MEG, thus open new horizons in brain research. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1374–1386, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Assessment of the Possibility of Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for the Documentation of Hiking Trails in Alpine Areas

The research described in this paper deals with the documentation of hiking trails in alpine areas. The study presents a novel research topic, applying up-to-date survey techniques and top quality equipment with practical applications in nature conservation. The research presents the initial part of the process—capturing imagery, photogrammetric processing, quality checking, and a discussion on possibilities of the further data analysis. The research described in this article was conducted in the Tatra National Park (TNP) in Poland, which is considered as one of the most-visited national parks in Europe. The exceptional popularity of this place is responsible for intensification of morphogenetic processes, resulting in the development of numerous forms of erosion. This article presents the outcomes of research, whose purpose was to verify the usability of UAVs to check the condition of hiking trails in alpine areas. An octocopter equipped with a non-metric camera was used for measurements. Unlike traditional methods of measuring landscape features, such a solution facilitates acquisition of quasi-continuous data that has uniform resolution throughout the study area and high spatial accuracy. It is also a relatively cheap technology, which is its main advantage over equally popular laser scanning. The paper presents the complete methodology of data acquisition in harsh conditions and demanding locations of hiking trails on steep Tatra slopes. The paper also describes stages that lead to the elaboration of basic photogrammetric products relying on structure from motion (SfM) technology and evaluates the accuracy of the materials obtained. Finally, it shows the applicability of the prepared products to the evaluation of the spatial reach and intensity of erosion along hiking trails, and to the study of plant succession or tree stand condition in the area located next to hiking trails.
Differential calcium sensitivity in NaV1.5 mixed syndrome mutants

SCN5a mutations may express gain‐of‐function (Long QT Syndrome‐3), loss‐of‐function (Brugada Syndrome 1) or both (mixed syndromes), depending on the mutation and environmental triggers. One such trigger may be an increase in cytosolic calcium, accompanying exercise. Many mixed syndromes mutants, including ∆KPQ, E1784K, 1795insD and Q1909R, are found in calcium‐sensitive regions. Elevated cytosolic calcium attenuates gain‐of‐function properties in ∆KPQ, 1795insD and Q1909R, but not in E1784K. By contrast, elevated cytosolic calcium further exacerbates gain‐of‐function in E1784K by destabilizing slow inactivation. Action potential modelling, using a modified O'Hara Rudy model, suggests that elevated heart rate rescues action potential duration in ∆KPQ, 1795insD and Q1909R, but not in E1784K. Action potential simulations suggest that E1784K carriers have an increased intracellular sodium‐to‐calcium ratio under bradycardia and tachycardia conditions. Elevated cytosolic calcium, which is common during high heart rates, ameliorates or exacerbates the mixed syndrome phenotype depending on the genetic signature.
Stuck in fragments: Population genetics of the Endangered collared brown lemur Eulemur collaris in the Malagasy littoral forest.

OBJECTIVES The Endangered collared brown lemur (Eulemur collaris) is the largest primate living in the littoral forest of southeastern Madagascar, a top priority habitat for biodiversity conservation on the island. Because this lemur is a key seed-disperser, an evaluation of the structure and connectivity of the populations surviving in the forest fragments is urgently needed to guide conservation plans. MATERIALS AND METHODS Genetic variability at autosomal microsatellites and mitochondrial DNA was investigated in a total of 49 collared brown lemurs sampled by non-invasive methods in three littoral forest fragments and in the nearby lowland humid forest. RESULTS The overall genetic diversity of E. collaris in the southeastern coastal region of Madagascar was lower than in other populations, as well as in other lemur species. The population appears highly structured, with less variable and more inbred groups inhabiting the littoral forest fragments compared to the inland area. Major barriers to gene flow were identified isolating littoral forest fragments from each other and from the inland lowland humid forest. DISCUSSION Medium to long-term drift and scarce gene flow is the scenario that best explains the current genetic distribution. Habitat discontinuities such as rivers and grassland between forest fragments played a major role in structuring the population. A common history of size contraction is pointed out by several genetic estimators, indicating a possible ecological crisis triggered around 1,300 years ago. The adoption of strategies aimed at facilitating gene flow and population growth appears crucial to delay further loss of genetic diversity.
Progressive Diaphragm Atrophy in Pediatric Acute Respiratory Failure*

Objectives: Diaphragm atrophy is associated with delayed weaning from mechanical ventilation and increased mortality in critically ill adults. We sought to test for the presence of diaphragm atrophy in children with acute respiratory failure. Design: Prospective, observational study. Setting: Single-center tertiary noncardiac PICU in a children’s hospital. Patients: Invasively ventilated children with acute respiratory failure. Measurements and Main Results: Diaphragm thickness at end-expiration and end-inspiration were serially measured by ultrasound in 56 patients (median age, 17 mo; interquartile range, 5.5–52), first within 36 hours of intubation and last preceding extubation. The median duration of mechanical ventilation was 140 hours (interquartile range, 83–201). At initial measurement, thickness at end-expiration was 2.0 mm (interquartile range, 1.8–2.5) and thickness at end-inspiration was 2.5 mm (interquartile range, 2–2.8). The change in thickness at end-expiration during mechanical ventilation between first and last measurement was –13.8% (interquartile range, –27.4% to 0%), with a –3.4% daily atrophy rate (interquartile range, –5.6 to 0%). Thickening fraction = ([thickness at end-inspiration – thickness at end-expiration]/thickness at end-inspiration) throughout the course of mechanical ventilation was linearly correlated with spontaneous breathing fraction (beta coefficient, 9.4; 95% CI, 4.2–14.7; p = 0.001). For children with a period of spontaneous breathing fraction less than 0.5 during mechanical ventilation, those with exposure to a continuous neuromuscular blockade infusion (n = 15) had a significantly larger decrease in thickness at end-expiration compared with children with low spontaneous breathing fraction who were not exposed to a neuromuscular blockade infusion (n = 18) (–16.4%, [interquartile range, –28.4% to –7.0%] vs –7.3%; [interquartile range, –10.9% to –0%]; p = 0.036). Conclusions: Diaphragm atrophy is present in children on mechanical ventilation for acute respiratory failure. Diaphragm contractility, measured as thickening fraction, is strongly correlated with spontaneous breathing fraction. The combination of exposure to neuromuscular blockade infusion with low overall spontaneous breathing fraction is associated with a greater degree of atrophy.
White Bile in Malignant Biliary Obstruction: A Poor Prognostic Marker

A 71-year-old man presented with progressively worsening painless jaundice. Laboratory findings were significant for severe cholestasis (serum total bilirubin, 24 mg/dL; direct bilirubin, 22 mg/dL). Computed tomography of the abdomen revealed a 4-cm mass in the head of the pancreas with marked extraand intra-hepatic biliary dilatation (Fig. 1A). Diffuse hepatic metastases and extensive metastatic retroperitoneal and left supraclavicular adenopathy were also noted (Fig. 1B). Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) revealed a 32×28 mm hypoechoic heterogeneous solid mass in the head of the pancreas, causing complete obstruction of the common bile duct, with marked upstream ductal dilation (Fig. 2A). EUS-guided fine needle aspiration cytology revealed a poorly differentiated pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography for transpapillary biliary stenting was unsuccessful. Subsequently, EUS-guided choledochoduodenostomy using a 15–10 mm, cautery-tipped, biflanged, fully covered, lumen-apposing
Three-Stage Iterative Detection of a MIMO-Aided Precoded AMR-WB Speech Transceiver

Ajointlyoptimisediterativesource and chan- nel decoding (ISCD) scheme invoking the Adaptive Multi RateWideband (AMR-WB)speech codec isproposed. More explicitly, the transceiver investigated consists of serially concatenated Recursive Convolutional (RSC)codes, aUnity Rate Code (URC) referred to as a precoder and the AMR- WB speech codec, where the resultant bitstream is trans- mittedusingDifferential Space-Time Spreading (DSTS) and Sphere Packing (SP) modulation over narrowband tempo- rallycorrelated Rayleigh fading channels. Theconvergence behaviour of the advocated scheme is investigated with the aid of Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts, which suggests that potential performance improvements can be achieved by combining a serially concatenated precoder with the AMR-WB speech codec. The proposed system exhibits an Eb/N0 gain of about 1.5 dB in comparison to the benchmark scheme carrying out iterative source- and channel-decoding as well as DSTS aided SP-demodulation, but dispensing with the precoder, when using Isystem =4 system iterations.
LPaMI: A Graph-Based Lifestyle Pattern Mining Application Using Personal Image Collections in Smartphones

Normally, individuals use smartphones for a variety of purposes like photography, schedule planning, playing games, and so on, apart from benefiting from the core tasks of call-making and short messaging. These services are sources of personal data generation. Therefore, any application that utilises personal data of a user from his/her smartphone is truly a great witness of his/her interests and this information can be used for various personalised services. In this paper, we present Lifestyle Pattern MIning (LPaMI), which is a personalised application for mining the lifestyle patterns of a smartphone user. LPaMI uses the personal photograph collections of a user, which reflect the day-to-day photos taken by a smartphone, to recognise scenes (called objects of interest in our work). These are then mined to discover lifestyle patterns. The uniqueness of LPaMI lies in our graph-based approach to mining the patterns of interest. Modelling of data in the form of graphs is effective in preserving the lifestyle behaviour maintained over the passage of time. Graph-modelled lifestyle data enables us to apply variety of graph mining techniques for pattern discovery. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposal, we have developed a prototype system for LPaMI to implement its end-to-end pipeline. We have also conducted an extensive evaluation for various phases of LPaMI using different real-world datasets. We understand that the output of LPaMI can be utilised for variety of pattern discovery application areas like trip and food recommendations, shopping, and so on.
Platelet Glycoprotein IIb/IIIa Antagonists: Pharmacology and Clinical Developments

PLATELETS are critical for normal hemostasis and thrombus formation. Thrombus formation initiated by platelets plays a central role in the pathogenesis of acute coronary syndromes (unstable angina and myocardial infarction). Platelets are involved in events causing angioplasty failure and stent thrombosis and may also play an important role in restenosis through the release of potent prothrombotic, vasoactive, mitogenic, and inflammatory factors. The identification of the platelet glycoprotein IIb/IIIa receptor, a fibrinogen receptor important for platelet aggregation, has led to the development of receptor antagonists. Although aspirin lowers the risk of death and myocardial infarction (MI) in patients with acute coronary syndromes, intravenous glycoprotein IIb/IIIa antagonists further reduce the rates of ischemic events and coronary angioplasty complications and improve the results of coronary stenting. Furthermore, uses of these drugs are extending to the treatment of cerebrovascular and peripheral vascular disease. This article provides an overview of the pharmacology of the glycoprotein IIa/IIIb antagonists and a commentary on the perioperative issues in patients receiving this class of drugs.
Predictors of Change in Functional Competence and Functional Behavior After Functional Adaptation Skills Training for Schizophrenia

Abstract Functional recovery is an important treatment target in schizophrenia. Although medication is effective at reducing positive symptoms of the disorder, these improvements do not translate to improved functioning. In this study, schizophrenia outpatients (N = 54) received the psychosocial treatment Functional Adaptation Skills Training. Hierarchical regression analyses determined whether baseline neurocognitive, symptom, course of illness, and demographic variables predicted improvement in performance-based measures of functional competence and case manager–rated real-world behavior after the intervention. Consistent with previous research, neurocognition emerged as a predictor of improved competence and behavior. Symptoms played a minor role in predicting change; however, institutionalization history seemed to be an important rate limiter for functional recovery. Correlations among change scores were modest, with evidence for concomitant changes in competence and performance. The predictors of change after psychosocial treatment vary by the domain (e.g., adaptive and interpersonal) of functioning and the level of assessment (e.g., competence and performance).
Interobserver agreement of scoring of histopathological characteristics and classification of lupus nephritis.

BACKGROUND Assessing renal biopsies from patients with lupus nephritis (LN) is a difficult task and it is subject to interobserver variability. In this study the interobserver agreement amongst five nephropathologists was analysed. METHODS Five specialized nephropathologists scored 126 biopsies, comprising 87 first and 39 repeat biopsies from 87 patients with biopsy-proven proliferative LN, included in a randomized controlled trial. The interobserver agreement [expressed as intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC)] of the scored histopathological items was calculated. Also, the WHO1995 and ISN/RPS2003 classification systems for LN were compared, with extra attention being given to the comparison between patients with diffuse proliferative LN with either segmental (IV-S) or global (IV-G) lesions. RESULTS There was a wide range of agreement. A good interobserver agreement (ICC>0.6) was present in 15%, and a moderate interobserver agreement (ICC 0.4-0.6) in 31% of the scored items. The activity index for LN showed a good (ICC 0.716) and the chronicity index a moderate (ICC 0.494) interobserver agreement. Both classification systems showed low agreement, although consensus was easily reached. Patients classified as IV-S (n=15) had more favorable clinical parameters at study entry than those with class IV-G (n=57). Although suggested by others, we found no differences in outcome between these two subclasses. CONCLUSIONS This study shows that, although definitions were agreed upon beforehand, even specialized on nephropathologists have difficulties with scoring histopathological characteristics of LN, particularly with SLE the classification systems.
Measuring Geopolitical Risk

We present a news-based measure of adverse geopolitical events and associated risks. The geopolitical risk (GPR) index spikes around the two world wars, at the beginning of the Korean War, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and after 9/11. Higher geopolitical risk foreshadows lower investment and employment and is associated with higher disaster probability and larger downside risks. The adverse consequences of the GPR index are driven by both the threat and the realization of adverse geopolitical events. We complement our aggregate measures with industry- and firm-level indicators of geopolitical risk. Investment drops more in industries that are exposed to aggregate geopolitical risk. Higher firm-level geopolitical risk is associated with lower firm-level investment.
Nanoscale Energy Conversion and Its Applications

There are many ways in which the energy around us can be stored, converted, and developed for use. Energy exists in two basic types: potential energy, including chemical, elastic, gravitational, and nuclear energies, and kinetic energy, including heat, electrical, and electromagnetic energies. It is often necessary to convert one type of energy to another type or other types of energy. However, human engineering and nature take very different paths to complete such conversion processes. This paper discusses the similarities and dissimilarities of energy conversion processes that are taken by nature and human engineering. One might notice that energy conversion efficiency in biological systems is often higher than what human engineering can offer. As an attempt to mimic nature’s way of energy conversion on the nanoscale, our experiment indicates that nanocatalytic particles can convert chemical energy directly to thermal energy without conventional high-temperature gas-phase combustion and without the traditional ignition process. Furthermore, we have converted chemical energy to thermal energy and thermal energy to electrical energy on semiconductor materials, an achievement that raises the possibility of constructing a new class of nano-thermoelectric power generation systems. © 2007 ASME
Reducing the Opportunities for Violence in Robbery and Property Crime: The Perspectives of Offenders and Victims

This paper reports on research undertaken in Western Australia in 1993 on violence associated with robbery and property crime. Firsthand accounts from 88 offenders and 10 victims are examinedfor information and perspectives that may be relevant to the prevention of such violence. Results suggest that violence occurring in the course of a robbery or a property crime is most effectively prevented by reducing the overall rate of these crimes. However, once an offender has confronted a victim, the victim's behaviour may be critical in preventing violence. Appreciating that offenders may be very afraid or even angry with the victim suggests a non-confrontational approach and one that may even facilitate the offender's escape.
Trail Making Test Part A and Brain Perfusion Imaging in Mild Alzheimer's Disease

Background/Aims: The Trail Making Test (TMT) has long been used to investigate deficits in cognitive processing speed and executive function in humans. However, there are few studies that elucidate the neural substrates of the TMT. The aim of the present study was to identify the regional perfusion patterns of the brain associated with performance on the TMT part A (TMT-A) in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Methods: Eighteen AD patients with poor performance on the TMT-A and 36 age- and sex-matched AD patients with good performance were selected. All subjects underwent brain single photon emission computed tomography. Results: No significant differences between the good and poor performance groups were found with respect to years of education and revised Addenbrooke's Cognitive Examination scores. However, higher z-scores for hypoperfusion in the bilateral superior parietal lobule were observed in the group that scored poorly on the TMT-A compared with the good performance group. Conclusion: Our results suggest that functional activity of the bilateral superior parietal lobules is closely related to performance time on the TMT-A. Thus, the performance time on the TMT-A might be a promising index of dysfunction of the superior parietal area among mild AD patients.
Hospital discharge data for assessing myocardial infarction events and trends, and effects of diagnosis validation according to MONICA and AHA criteria

Background Acute myocardial infarction (AMI; ICD9-CM 410*) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality all over the world, and its community surveillance is essential to monitor variation in the occurrence of the disease. Between the late 1990s and the early 2000s more sensitive and specific biomarkers of myocardial necrosis (ie, troponins) were introduced and new diagnostic criteria, emphasising the role of biomarkers, have been developed for clinical and epidemiological purposes. Methods Tosc-AMI is a population-based registry based on the record linkage between hospital and mortality databases; it provides trends of coronary events in Tuscany, Italy. Two random samples of patients admitted to hospital in 2003 were validated according to the American Heart Association (AHA; 2003) and the Multinational MONItoring of trends and determinants in CArdiovascular disease (MONICA) (1983) criteria. Sample 1 (380 cases) was represented by patients admitted to hospital for AMI and sample 2 (380 cases) for other coronary diagnosis. Results Tosc-AMI attack rates increased from the period 1997 to 2005 (men: +17%; women: +30%) and then they decreased in the following 2 years (men: −8%; women: −13%). The rise of AMI hospital admissions was due to cases with ICD9-CM code 410.7 (largely representing non-ST elevation MI). According to the AHA criteria, 94.6% events of sample 1 and 29.8% events of sample 2 fulfilled the most extensive criteria for definite, probable or possible AMI. As expected, the more updated AHA definition identified as definite AMI an additional 33.3% when compared to the MONICA criteria (86.0% vs 52.7%). Conclusions The study suggests an influence of the new diagnostic criteria on the rising AMI trend observed in the early 2000s, an increase of less severe cases and a decreasing trend of forms with a more extended myocardial damage.