Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Video-EEG monitoring in newborns with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy treated with hypothermia

Background: Therapeutic hypothermia (TH) is becoming standard of care in newborns with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). The prognostic value of the EEG and the incidence of seizures during TH are uncertain. Objective: To describe evolution of EEG background and incidence of seizures during TH, and to identify EEG patterns predictive for MRI brain injury. Methods: A total of 41 newborns with HIE underwent TH. Continuous video-EEG was performed during hypothermia and rewarming. EEG background and seizures were reported in a standardized manner. Newborns underwent MRI after rewarming. Sensitivity and specificity of EEG background for moderate to severe MRI brain injury was assessed at 6-hour intervals during TH and rewarming. Results: EEG background improved in 49%, remained the same in 38%, and worsened in 13%. A normal EEG had a specificity of 100% upon initiation of monitoring and 93% at later time points. Burst suppression and extremely low voltage patterns held the greatest prognostic value only after 24 hours of monitoring, with a specificity of 81% at the beginning of cooling and 100% at later time points. A discontinuous pattern was not associated with adverse outcome in most patients (73%). Electrographic seizures occurred in 34% (14/41), and 10% (4/41) developed status epilepticus. Seizures had a clinical correlate in 57% (8/14) and were subclinical in 43% (6/14). Conclusions: Continuous video-EEG monitoring in newborns with HIE undergoing TH provides prognostic information about early MRI outcome and accurately identifies electrographic seizures, nearly half of which are subclinical.
Longitudinal and concurrent links between memory span, anxiety symptoms, and subsequent executive functioning in young children

It has been conjectured that basic individual differences in attentional control influence higher-level executive functioning and subsequent academic performance in children. The current study sets out to complement the limited body of research on early precursors of executive functions (EFs). It provides both a cross-sectional, as well as a longitudinal exploration of the relationship between EF and more basic attentional control mechanisms, assessed via children's performance on memory storage tasks, and influenced by individual differences in anxiety. Multiple measures of verbal and visuospatial short-term memory (STM) were administered to children between 3 and 6 years old, alongside a non-verbal measure of intelligence, and a parental report of anxiety symptoms. After 9 months, children were re-tested on the same STM measures, at which time we also administered multiple measures of executive functioning: verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM), inhibition, and shifting. A cross-sectional view of STM development indicated that between 3 and 6 years the trajectory of visuospatial STM and EF underwent a gradual linear improvement. However, between 5 and 6 years progress in verbal STM performance stagnated. Hierarchical regression models revealed that trait anxiety was negatively associated with WM and shifting, while non-verbal intelligence was positively related to WM span. When age, gender, non-verbal intelligence, and anxiety were controlled for, STM (measured at the first assessment) was a very good predictor of overall executive performance. The models were most successful in predicting WM, followed by shifting, yet poorly predicted inhibition measures. Further longitudinal research is needed to directly address the contribution of attentional control mechanisms to emerging executive functioning and to the development of problematic behavior during early development.
Polyphonic Sound Event Detection and Localization using a Two-Stage Strategy

Sound event detection (SED) and localization refer to recognizing sound events and estimating their spatial and temporal locations. Using neural networks has become the prevailing method for SED. In the area of sound localization, which is usually performed by estimating the direction of arrival (DOA), learning-based methods have recently been developed. In this paper, it is experimentally shown that the trained SED model is able to contribute to the direction of arrival estimation (DOAE). However, joint training of SED and DOAE degrades the performance of both. Based on these results, a two-stage polyphonic sound event detection and localization method is proposed. The method learns SED first, after which the learned feature layers are transferred for DOAE. It then uses the SED ground truth as a mask to train DOAE. The proposed method is evaluated on the DCASE 2019 Task 3 dataset, which contains different overlapping sound events in different environments. Experimental results show that the proposed method is able to improve the performance of both SED and DOAE, and also performs significantly better than the baseline method.
Mediation Models for Longitudinal Data in Developmental Research

Mediation models are used to describe the mechanism(s) by which one variable influences another. These models can be useful in developmental research to explicate the relationship between variables, developmental processes, or combinations of variables and processes. In this article we describe aspects of mediation effects specific to developmental research. We focus on three central issues in longitudinal mediation models: the theory of change for variables in the model, the role of time in the model, and the types of indirect effects in the model. We use these themes as we describe three different models for examining mediation in longitudinal data.
Development of Neuroscience-Based Methods for Detection of Consciousness in Severely Brain Injured Patients

Neurologists routinely use visual, auditory, tactile, or noxious stimuli to examine the purposeful motor responses indicating awareness in patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC), however with a high rate of misdiagnosis. Previous studies have shown that functional neuroimaging can be used to detect conscious awareness in this patient group because some patients fulfilling the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of vegetative state [VS; recently renamed as unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS)] exhibited purposeful activity manifested in cerebral activation, rather than in the overt motor responses. For example the UWS patient in the study of Owen et al. (2006) was obviously able to follow instructions. It is possible, however, that patients who cannot follow instructions (e.g., due to limited memory/attention capacities) are nevertheless conscious and retain emotional abilities to feel pain and pleasure. With this in mind, a hierarchical functional neuroimaging approach was developed in the present study, starting with the simplest form of processing within the domain of pain perception, then progressing to emotional processes of pain cries from other persons and ending with the more complex and demanding mental imagery task. Brain responses were acquired from a group of 54 non-traumatic brain-injured patients with a clinical diagnoses of UWS (N = 30) or minimally conscious state (MCS; N = 24). A range of patterns of activations was observed: while some patients did not show significant responses in any of the three experimental paradigms, others, including patients diagnosed as being in UWS, demonstrated significant responses in appropriate neuroanatomical locations, that were virtually indistinguishable from those obtained from a group of 15 healthy volunteers performing the same task (Responder in patients: 59.3% in pain experiment, 46.3% in emotional experiment, 13% in mental imagery task). The data indicate that some DOC patients retain islands of residual function and that in the absence of behavioural response, functional neuroimaging provides an additional tool for the assessment team. More importantly, the present study provides clear evidence that the higher cognitive functions such as attention, working memory or language comprehension do not make the whole of human consciousness. There are more basic and probably simpler cognitive functions which processes not only the own pain, but also the pain of others. This so called affective consciousness can survive even very severe brain damage, suggesting that for many DOC patients, an emotional contact with caregivers might be established to improve their quality of life.
Kalman filtering speech enhancement incorporating masking properties for mobile communication in a car environment

In this paper a single channel speech enhancement system based on Kalman filtering and masking properties of the human auditory system is studied. The main objective of our study is to develop a high quality speech enhancement system for car mobile communication, which optimizes the tradeoff between speech distortion and noise reduction. To develop a robust Kalman filtering speech enhancement system, we propose that the noise variance estimate be modified as a function of masking threshold in each subband. By using such a Kalman filtering with masking method, we can achieve better results as compared to full band Kalman filtering, especially in the case of weak speech spectral components in noise. Through a great deal of simulations, we show the advantages of our proposed system in terms of objective and subjective measurements as compared to many existing speech enhancement methods
Comparing the Effects on Learning Outcomes of Tablet-Based and Virtual Reality–Based Serious Gaming Modules for Basic Life Support Training: Randomized Trial

Background Serious gaming is recognized as a training tool due its potential for a risk-free educational environment. There is still limited research about using serious gaming modules for emergency skills training. Objective The aim of this study is to compare the effects on the knowledge level of participants after using a tablet-based serious game and a virtual reality (VR)–based serious game for Basic Life Support using a pretest/posttest method. Methods The study was designed as a randomized trial comparing pretest and posttest results. A tablet-based and VR-based serious game with identical content was used for 40 participants. Over half of them (22/40, 55%) were included in the VR group and just under half (18/40, 45%) were in the tablet group. Student t test and Wilcoxon signed rank tests were used to determine the relation between the dependent and independent variables. In order to determine the effect size of the results, the effect size calculator (Cohen d) for t test was used. There is a significant difference between pre- and posttest results in both groups (P=.001; Wilcoxon). Results Mean posttest results were significantly higher in both groups. The posttest results were significantly higher in the VR group in terms of pre- and posttest changes (P=.021; Student t test). Conclusions Past research studies have shown that serious gaming presents a favorable additional tool for medical education. The results indicate that both serious gaming modules are effective and that VR-based serious gaming is more efficient in terms of learning outcome than tablet-based gaming.
Mother- Versus Infant-Centered Correlates of Maternal Mind-Mindedness in the First Year of Life.

We investigated whether maternal mind-mindedness in infant-mother interaction related to aspects of obstetric history and infant temperament. Study 1, conducted with a socially diverse sample of 206 eight-month-old infants and their mothers, focused on links between maternal mind-mindedness and (i) planned conception, (ii) perception of pregnancy, and (iii) recollections of first contact with the child. The two indices of mind-mindedness (appropriate and nonattuned mind-related comments) related to different aspects of obstetric history, but no strong associations were seen with socioeconomic status, maternal depression, or perceived social support. In Study 2, we found good temporal stability in both indices of mind-mindedness in a sample of 41 infant-mother dyads between 3 and 7 months. Neither index of mind-mindedness related to infant temperament. We conclude that mind-mindedness is best characterized as a facet of the specific caregiver-child relationship, while also being influenced by stable cognitive-behavioral traits in the mother.
Peptides from Colochirus robustus Enhance Immune Function via Activating CD3ζ- and ZAP-70-Mediated Signaling in C57BL/6 Mice

Colochirus robustus, a species of sea cucumber, has long been used in East and Southeast Asia as nutritious food as well as for certain medicinal purpose. Studies have shown a number of biological functions associated with consumption of sea cucumber, many of which are attributed to its major component, sea cucumber peptides (SCP). However, how SCP impacts immune system, which is critical for host defense, has not been defined. To address this issue, in the present study, we conducted comprehensive analysis of immune function after oral administration of SCP (0, 25, 50 and 75 mg/kg body weigh) for eight weeks in C57BL/6 mice. We found that SCP treatment significantly enhanced lymphocyte proliferation, serum albumin (ALB) levels, and the natural killer (NK) cell activity. Moreover, SCP promoted functions of helper T cells (Th) as indicated by increased production of Th1 type cytokines of Interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-2, Interferon (IFN)-γ and TNF-α and Th2 type cytokines (IL-4, IL-6 and IL-10). To determine the effective components, SCP was hydrolyzed into 16 types of constituent amino acids in simulated gastrointestinal digestion and these hydrolytic amino acids (HAA) were used for the mechanistic studies in the in vitro models. Results showed that HAA enhanced lymphocyte proliferation and production of IL-2, IL-10 and IFN-γ. Furthermore, CD3ζ (CD3ζ) and ζ-chain-associated protein kinase 70 (ZAP-70), the signaling molecules essential for activating T lymphocytes, were significantly up-regulated after HAA treatment. In summary, our results suggest that SCP is effective in enhancing immune function by activating T cells via impacting CD3ζ- and ZAP-70-mediated signaling pathway.
Radiation Therapy for Long-Term Control of Odontogenic Tumours and Epulis in Three Cats

Orthovoltage radiation was used to treat odontogenic tumours in three cats following incomplete surgical resection. Cats received a total radiation dose of 48–52 Gy over a period of 26–29 days. Acute toxicities were mild, consisting of hair loss within the radiation field in all cats, and mild mucositis in one cat. All cats had long-term (>35 months) control of their tumour, and two cats are still alive without recurrence of tumour 60 and 39 months, respectively, after completing treatment. Radiation therapy should be considered to be an adjuvant to incomplete surgery in cats with odontogenic neoplasms or epulides.
Increased Duration of Heating Boosts Local Drug Deposition during Radiofrequency Ablation in Combination with Thermally Sensitive Liposomes (ThermoDox) in a Porcine Model

Introduction Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is used for the local treatment of liver cancer. RFA is effective for small (<3cm) tumors, but for tumors > 3 cm, there is a tendency to leave viable tumor cells in the margins or clefts of overlapping ablation zones. This increases the possibility of incomplete ablation or local recurrence. Lyso-Thermosensitive Liposomal Doxorubicin (LTLD), is a thermally sensitive liposomal doxorubicin formulation for intravenous administration, that rapidly releases its drug content when exposed to temperatures >40°C. When used with RFA, LTLD releases its doxorubicin in the vasculature around the zone of ablation-induced tumor cell necrosis, killing micrometastases in the ablation margin. This may reduce recurrence and be more effective than thermal ablation alone. Purpose The purpose of this study was to optimize the RFA procedure used in combination with LTLD to maximize the local deposition of doxorubicin in a swine liver model. Pigs were anaesthetized and the liver was surgically exposed. Each pig received a single, 50 mg/m2 dose of the clinical LTLD formulation (ThermoDox®). Subsequently, ablations were performed with either 1, 3 or 6 sequential, overlapping needle insertions in the left medial lobe with total ablation time of 15, 45 or 90 minutes respectively. Two different RFA generators and probes were evaluated. After the final ablation, the ablation zone (plus 3 cm margin) was dissected out and examined for doxorubicin concentration by LC/MS and fluorescence. Conclusion The mean Cmax of plasma total doxorubicin was 26.5 μg/ml at the end of the infusion. Overall, increased heat time from 15 to 45 to 90 minutes shows an increase in both the amount of doxorubicin deposited (up to ~100 μg/g) and the width of the ablation target margin to which doxorubicin is delivered as determined by tissue homogenization and LC/MS detection of doxorubicin and by fluorescent imaging of tissues.
Prevalence of anemia among pregnant women in rural population of Kolar district

Background: Anemia is the most common hematological disorder during pregnancy. According to the reports of World Health Organization reports, from 35% to 75% (56% on average) of the pregnant women in developing countries are anemic. Prevalence of anemia in South Asian countries is among the highest in the world. India has the highest prevalence of anemia (87%). Objective: To determine the prevalence of anemia and factors influencing its causation among pregnant women. Materials and Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among 446 pregnant women from July 2013 to June 2014 in the rural population of Kolar district, Karnataka, India. The study participants were selected by using multistage sampling method. The hemoglobin estimation was done by using HemoCue method, and data were collected in a pretested questionnaire. Data were analyzed with SPSS version 22. The X2-test and correlation coefficient was used to test the degree of significance. Result: A high prevalence (64%) of anemia was observed among pregnant women. The mean hemoglobin level was found to be 10.3 ± 1.53 g%, ranging from 5 to 15 g%. Anemia was predominantly observed among below poverty line families (59.4%) compared with above poverty line families (5.4%). The prevalence of anemia increased with increase in gestational age and gravida and decreased with increase in birth interval. Conclusion: High prevalence of anemia among pregnant women indicates anemia to be a major public health problem in the rural community. Factors such as socioeconomic status, birth interval, and gravida contribute to this high prevalence.
A Scalable Fluid Flow Process Algebraic Approach to Emergency Egress Analysis

Pervasive environments offer an increasing number of services to a large number of people moving within these environments including timely information about where to go and when. People using these services interact with the system but they are also meeting other people and performing other activities as relevant opportunities arise. The design of such systems and the analysis of collective dynamic behaviour of people within them is a challenging problem. In previous work we have successfully explored a scalable analysis of stochastic process algebraic models of smart signage systems. In this paper we focus on the validation of a representative example of this class of models in the context of emergency egress. This context has the advantage that detailed data is available from studies with alternative analysis methods. A second aim is to show how realistic human behaviour, often observed in emergency egress, can be embedded in the model and how the effect of this behaviour on building evacuation can be analysed in an efficient and scalable way.
Using Video Clips to Teach Social Psychology

dayofclassbeforementioninganyspecificdisorders,reflectingstudents’ prior knowledge of legitimate psychiatric labels.Several limitations of this study merit attention. Self-re-port data are unverifiable; some students may exaggeratetheir exposure. Furthermore, because an abnormal psychol-ogy class may draw those who have had personal experienceswith psychological disorders, these data should not be gener-alized to students in other courses. Because this study waslimited to students’ reported exposure to mental illness, fur-ther research assessing students’ myths, misconceptions, andsources of misinformation about mental illnesses would bevaluable to teachers of abnormal psychology.Given the strong personal connection that students re-ported to the abnormal psychology course content, facultyshould present course material in a sensitive manner and rec-ognize the likelihood that students may have preconceivedideas about disorders based on their own experiences and ob-servations. It is especially important to emphasize the limita-tions of generalizing from single cases, to highlight thevariability that may occur within any single diagnostic cate-gory, and to educate students about the differences betweencorrelation and causation. For example, a student whoseneighbor’s only child was autistic assumed that family dys-function caused autism because he had witnessed numerousfamily arguments.Providing research data on the statistical likelihood ofheritability of disorders may be especially reassuring to stu-dents with a family history of mental illness. For example, astudent with a schizophrenic father heard that schizophreniawas “genetic” and assumed that he was almost certain to de-velop the disorder. The information and misinformation thatstudents bring to a class can be a rich source of questions,which play a central role in the learning process.In some courses, it is difficult to get students engaged inthematerial.Inabnormalpsychologyclasses,studentsareen-gaged; the challenge is to provide accurate, meaningful infor-mation, clarify potential misconceptions, and buildproblem-solving skills that will benefit students, their fami-lies, and friends long after the course has ended.References
LEAR-INRIA submission for the THUMOS workshop

This notebook paper describes the submission of the LEAR team from INRIA to the THUMOS workshop in conjunction with ICCV 2013. Our system is based on the recent improvement of dense trajectory feature [14]. After extracting the local features, we apply Fisher vector to integrate them into a compact representation for each video. We also use spatio-temporal pyramids to embed structure information. Finally a linear SVM with one-against-rest is employed for the multi-class action classification problem.
Quantitative abdominal fat estimation using MRI

This paper introduces a new method for automatic quantification of subcutaneous, visceral and non-visceral internal fat from MR-images acquired using the two point Dixon technique in the abdominal region. The method includes (1) a three dimensional phase unwrapping to provide water and fat images, (2) an image intensity inhomogeneity correction, and (3) a morphon based registration and segmentation of the tissue. This is followed by an integration of the corrected fat images within the different fat compartments that avoids the partial volume effects associated with traditional fat segmentation methods. The method was tested on 18 subjects before and after a period of fast-food hyper-alimentation showing high stability and performance in all analysis steps.
Environmental policy and growth when inputs are differentiated in pollution intensity

Environmental policy affects the distribution of market shares if intermediate goods are differentiated in their pollution intensity. When innovations are environment-friendly, a tax on emissions skews demand towards new goods which are the most productive. In this case, the tax has to increase along a balanced growth path to keep the market shares of goods of different vintages constant. Comparing balanced growth paths, we find that tightening the policy stance spurs innovation, because it increases the market share of recent vintages, and promotes environment-friendly technological progress. As a result the cost of environmental policy in terms of slower growth is weaker.