Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Associations between specific autoimmune diseases and subsequent dementia: retrospective record-linkage cohort study, UK

Objective To determine whether hospital admission for autoimmune disease is associated with an elevated risk of future admission for dementia. Methods Retrospective, record-linkage cohort study using national hospital care and mortality administrative data, 1999–2012. Cohorts of people admitted to hospital with a range of autoimmune diseases were constructed, along with a control cohort, and followed forward in time to see if they developed dementia. 1 833 827 people were admitted to hospital with an autoimmune disease; the number of people in cohorts for each autoimmune disease ranged from 1019 people in the Goodpasture's syndrome cohort, to 316 043 people in the rheumatoid arthritis cohort. Results The rate ratio for dementia after admission for an autoimmune disease, compared with the control cohort, was 1.20 (95% CI 1.19 to 1.21). Where dementia type was specified, the rate ratio was 1.06 (1.04 to 1.08) for Alzheimer's disease and 1.28 (1.26 to 1.31) for vascular dementia. Of 25 autoimmune diseases studied, 18 showed significant positive associations with dementia at p<0.05 (with 14 significant at p<0.001) including Addison's disease (1.48, 1.34 to 1.64), multiple sclerosis (1.97, 1.88 to 2.07), psoriasis (1.29, 1.25 to 1.34) and systemic lupus erythematosus (1.46, 1.32 to 1.61). Conclusions The associations with vascular dementia may be one component of a broader association between autoimmune diseases and vascular damage. Though findings were significant, effect sizes were small. Clinicians should be aware of the possible coexistence of autoimmune disease and dementia in individuals. Further studies are needed to confirm or refute our findings and to explore possible mechanisms mediating any elevation of risk.
PREDICTION OF CORRECTED IN SITU FORAGE PROTEIN DEGRADABILITY BY THE CORNELL METHOD

An experiment was conducted on eight fibrous feeds to compare the Cornell rumen degradable protein values with those of the in situ method that have been corrected for microbial contamination. Samples of hay, sugarbeet pulp, dried lucerne, maize silage, peahaulm silage, fermented whole crop wheat and two different grass silages were used for the Cornell method. A corresponding in situ experiment was carried out on the same samples to estimate their rumen degradable protein values. Regression was used to relate the Cornell rumen degradable protein to that of the in situ technique. Rumen degradable protein estimates observed using the Cornell method were, on average, 0.06 and 0.16 lower than their corresponding in situ uncorrected and corrected values, respectively, with the latter being statistically significant (P<0.01). However, regression analysis between the Cornell and the in situ uncorrected rumen degradable protein, using all eight feeds, was statistically significant (r2 0.59; P<0.05). The relationship did not improve when the Cornell values were compared with the in situ corrected values for the eight feeds (r2 0.55; P<0.05). On the basis of inadequate preparation of the peahaulm silage sample for the in situ experiment, it was removed from the data set and the ensuing equation accounted for 0.89 of the variability in the in situ uncorrected rumen degradable protein (P<0.01). A better agreement was observed between the Cornell and the in situ corrected rumen degradable protein (r2 0.95; P<0.001). The Cornell method therefore significantly correlated with the in situ technique for fibrous feeds. Correlation between the methods could improve if microbial contamination was removed from the analysis. The in situ rumen degradable protein values appeared to be bigger than the associated Cornell values. The Cornell adopted rates of degradation therefore need to be evaluated.
Comparison of higher-order aberration induction between manual microkeratome and femtosecond laser flap creation.

PURPOSE To compare the mean change in aberrations produced by a mechanical microkeratome and femtosecond laser. METHODS This was a retrospective study of 62 consecutive near emmetropic eyes that underwent LASIK and satisfied the following criteria: negligible laser ablation (for spherical equivalent of 0.00 to +0.50 diopters and maximum meridian of +0.50 diopters), and preoperative and at least 3 months postoperative Placido-based corneal aberrometry (ATLAS; Carl Zeiss Meditec, Jena, Germany). Eyes were divided into two groups according to the method used for flap creation: mechanical microkeratome (Hansatome zero-compression microkeratome; Bausch & Lomb, Rochester, NY [mechanical microkeratome group]) or femtosecond laser (VisuMax; Carl Zeiss Meditec, Jena, Germany [femtosecond laser group]). The root mean square total and individual higher-order aberrations were compared between the two groups. RESULTS Corneas with mechanical flaps, on average, possessed statistically significantly higher trefoil and horizontal coma (P < .001). There was no change in higher-order aberrations, except for spherical aberration in the femtosecond laser group. Average change in coma did not correlate with hinge position. Both groups showed statistically significant changes in spherical aberration (P < .001), although this was most likely due to the small hyperopic ablation performed. CONCLUSIONS There was greater induction of specific aberrations with the microkeratome than the femtosecond laser. Hinge position did not appear to influence the induction of coma directly, contrary to previously published reports. The difference in aberrations induction between the two groups might be due to the differences in flap thickness profiles.
Factors Influencing Simulated Changes in Future Arctic Cloudiness

AbstractThis study diagnoses the changes in Arctic clouds simulated by the Community Climate System Model version 3 (CCSM3) in a transient 2 × CO2 simulation. Four experiments—one fully coupled and three with prescribed SSTs and/or sea ice cover—are used to identify the mechanisms responsible for the projected cloud changes. The target simulation uses a T42 version of the CCSM3, in which the atmosphere is coupled to a dynamical ocean with mobile sea ice. This simulation is approximated by a T42 atmosphere-only integration using CCSM3’s atmospheric component [the Community Atmosphere Model version 3 (CAM3)] forced at its lower boundary with the changes in both SSTs and sea ice concentration from CCSM3’s 2 × CO2 run. The authors decompose the combined effect of the higher SSTs and reduced sea ice concentration on the Arctic cloud response in this experiment by running two additional CAM3 simulations: one forced with modern SSTs and the projected sea ice cover changes in CCSM3 and the other forced with moder.
Improved Short-Term Clock Prediction Method for Real-Time Positioning

The application of real-time precise point positioning (PPP) requires real-time precise orbit and clock products that should be predicted within a short time to compensate for the communication delay or data gap. Unlike orbit correction, clock correction is difficult to model and predict. The widely used linear model hardly fits long periodic trends with a small data set and exhibits significant accuracy degradation in real-time prediction when a large data set is used. This study proposes a new prediction model for maintaining short-term satellite clocks to meet the high-precision requirements of real-time clocks and provide clock extrapolation without interrupting the real-time data stream. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) is used to analyze the linear prediction residuals of real-time clocks. The periodic terms obtained through FFT are adopted in the sliding window prediction to achieve a significant improvement in short-term prediction accuracy. This study also analyzes and compares the accuracy of short-term forecasts (less than 3 h) by using different length observations. Experimental results obtained from International GNSS Service (IGS) final products and our own real-time clocks show that the 3-h prediction accuracy is better than 0.85 ns. The new model can replace IGS ultra-rapid products in the application of real-time PPP. It is also found that there is a positive correlation between the prediction accuracy and the short-term stability of on-board clocks. Compared with the accuracy of the traditional linear model, the accuracy of the static PPP using the new model of the 2-h prediction clock in N, E, and U directions is improved by about 50%. Furthermore, the static PPP accuracy of 2-h clock products is better than 0.1 m. When an interruption occurs in the real-time model, the accuracy of the kinematic PPP solution using 1-h clock prediction product is better than 0.2 m, without significant accuracy degradation. This model is of practical significance because it solves the problems of interruption and delay in data broadcast in real-time clock estimation and can meet the requirements of real-time PPP.
Newcastle disease virus employs macropinocytosis and Rab5a-dependent intracellular trafficking to infect DF-1 cells

Oncolytic Newcastle disease virus (NDV) reportedly employs direct fusion of the viral envelope with the plasma membrane and caveolae-dependent endocytosis to enter cells. Here, we show that macropinocytosis and clathrin-mediated endocytosis are involved in NDV entry into a galline embryonic fibroblast cell line. Upon specific inhibition of clathrin assembly, GTPase dynamin, Na+/H+ exchangers, Ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1, p21 activated kinase 1 or protein kinase C, entry of NDV and its propagation were suppressed. NDV entry into cells triggers Rac1-Pak1 signaling and elicits actin rearrangement and plasma membrane ruffling. Moreover, NDV internalization within macropinosomes and trafficking involve Rab5a-positive vesicles. This is the first report demonstrating that NDV utilizes clathrin-mediated endocytosis and macropinocytosis as alternative endocytic pathways to enter cells. These findings shed new light on the molecular mechanisms underlying NDV entry into cells, and provide potential targets for NDV-mediated therapy in cancer.
Efficient Parallel Lists Intersection and Index Compression Algorithms using Graphics Processing Units

Major web search engines answer thousands of queries per second requesting information about billions of web pages. The data sizes and query loads are growing at an exponential rate. To manage the heavy workload, we consider techniques for utilizing a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU). We investigate new approaches to improve two important operations of search engines -- lists intersection and index compression. For lists intersection, we develop techniques for efficient implementation of the binary search algorithm for parallel computation. We inspect some representative real-world datasets and find that a sufficiently long inverted list has an overall linear rate of increase. Based on this observation, we propose Linear Regression and Hash Segmentation techniques for contracting the search range. For index compression, the traditional d-gap based compression schemata are not well-suited for parallel computation, so we propose a Linear Regression Compression schema which has an inherent parallel structure. We further discuss how to efficiently intersect the compressed lists on a GPU. Our experimental results show significant improvements in the query processing throughput on several datasets.
Extractive Summarization: Limits, Compression, Generalized Model and Heuristics

Due to its promise to alleviate information overload, text summarization has attracted the attention of many researchers. However, it has remained a serious challenge. Here, we first prove empirical limits on the recall (and F1-scores) of extractive summarizers on the DUC datasets under ROUGE evaluation for both the single-document and multi-document summarization tasks. Next we define the concept of compressibility of a document and present a new model of summarization, which generalizes existing models in the literature and integrates several dimensions of the summarization, viz., abstractive versus extractive, single versus multi-document, and syntactic versus semantic. Finally, we examine some new and existing single-document summarization algorithms in a single framework and compare with state of the art summarizers on DUC data.
Blur Detection, Depth of Field, and Accommodation in Emmetropic and Hyperopic Children.

SIGNIFICANCE Our results demonstrate that blur detection thresholds are elevated in young children compared with adults, and poorer blur detection thresholds are significantly correlated with the magnitude of accommodative microfluctuations. Given that accommodative microfluctuations are greater with greater accommodative responses, these findings may have implications for young uncorrected hyperopes. PURPOSE This study investigated the association between subjective blur detection thresholds and accommodative microfluctuations in children 3 years to younger than 10 years old and adults. METHODS Blur detection thresholds were determined in 49 children with habitually uncorrected refractive error (+0.06 to +4.91 diopters [D] spherical equivalent) and 10 habitually uncorrected adults (+0.08 to +1.51 D spherical equivalent) using a custom blur chart with 1° sized optotypes at 33 cm. Letters were blurred by convolution using a Gaussian kernel (SDs of 0.71 to 11.31 arc minutes in √2 steps). Subjective depth of field was determined in subjects 6 years or older and adults. Accommodative microfluctuations, pupils, and lag were measured using infrared photorefraction (25 Hz). RESULTS Children had greater blur detection thresholds (P < .001), accommodative microfluctuations (P = .001), and depth of field (P < .001) than adults. In children, increased blur detection thresholds were associated with increased accommodative microfluctuations (P < .001), increased uncorrected hyperopia (P = .01), decreased age (P < .001), and decreased pupil size (P = .01). In a multiple linear regression analysis, blur detection thresholds were associated with accommodative microfluctuations (P < .001) and age (P < .001). Increased accommodative microfluctuations were associated with increased uncorrected hyperopia (P = .004) and decreased pupil size (P = .003) and independently associated with uncorrected hyperopia (P = .001) and pupil size (P = .003) when controlling for age and lag. CONCLUSIONS Children did not have adult-like blur detection thresholds or depth of field. Increased accommodative microfluctuations and decreased age were independently associated with greater blur detection thresholds in children 3 years to younger than 10 years. Larger amounts of uncorrected hyperopia in children appear to increase blur detection thresholds because the greater accommodative demand and resulting response increase accommodative microfluctuations.
What's in a name? Monophyly of genera in the red algae: Rhodophyllis parasitica sp. nov. (Gigartinales, Rhodophyta); a new red algal parasite from New Zealand

Red algal parasites are common within red algae and are mostly closely related to their hosts, but have a reduced habit. In the past, red algal parasites, due to their reduced morphology, have been given distinct generic names, even though they are often phylogenetically nested in their host’s genus. This is a problem nomenclaturally for maintenance of a taxonomy based on monophyly. This study investigates the morphology, genetic variation and distribution of an unde-scribed red algal parasite growing on its host
Differential tumor biological role of the tumor suppressor KAI1 and its splice variant in human breast cancer cells

The tetraspanin and tumor suppressor KAI1 is downregulated or lost in many cancers which correlates with poor prognosis. KAI1 acts via physical/functional crosstalk with other membrane receptors. Also, a splice variant of KAI1 (KAI1-SP) has been identified indicative of poor prognosis. We here characterized differential effects of the two KAI1 variants on tumor biological events involving integrin (αvß3) and/or epidermal growth factor receptor (EGF-R). In MDA-MB-231 and -435 breast cancer cells, differential effects were documented on the expression levels of the tumor biologically relevant integrin αvß3 which colocalized with KAI1-WT but not with KAI1-SP. Cellular motility was assessed by video image processing, including motion detection and vector analysis for the quantification and visualization of cell motion parameters. In MDA-MB-231 cells, KAI1-SP provoked a quicker wound gap closure and higher closure rates than KAI1-WT, also reflected by different velocities and average motion amplitudes of singular cells. KAI1-SP induced highest cell motion adjacent to the wound gap borders, whereas in MDA-MB-435 cells a comparable induction of both KAI1 variants was noticed. Moreover, while KAI1-WT reduced cell growth, KAI1-SP significantly increased it going along with a pronounced EGF-R upregulation. KAI1-SP-induced cell migration and proliferation was accompanied by the activation of the focal adhesion and Src kinase. Our findings suggest that splicing of KAI1 does not only abrogate its tumor suppressive functions, but even more, promotes tumor biological effects in favor of cancer progression and metastasis.
Political Orientation Predicts Credulity Regarding Putative Hazards

To benefit from information provided by other people, people must be somewhat credulous. However, credulity entails risks. The optimal level of credulity depends on the relative costs of believing misinformation and failing to attend to accurate information. When information concerns hazards, erroneous incredulity is often more costly than erroneous credulity, given that disregarding accurate warnings is more harmful than adopting unnecessary precautions. Because no equivalent asymmetry exists for information concerning benefits, people should generally be more credulous of hazard information than of benefit information. This adaptive negatively biased credulity is linked to negativity bias in general and is more prominent among people who believe the world to be more dangerous. Because both threat sensitivity and beliefs about the dangerousness of the world differ between conservatives and liberals, we predicted that conservatism would positively correlate with negatively biased credulity. Two online studies of Americans supported this prediction, potentially illuminating how politicians’ alarmist claims affect different portions of the electorate.
Acquired temperature‐sensitive paralysis as a biomarker of declining neuronal function in aging Drosophila

General locomotor activity decreases with normal aging in animals and could be partially explained by decreases in neuronal function. Voltage‐gated Na+ channels are essential in initiating and propagating rapid electrical impulses underlying normal locomotor activity and behavior in animals. Isolation of mutations conferring temperature‐sensitive (ts) paralysis has been an extremely powerful paradigm for identifying genes involved in neuronal functions, such as membrane excitability and synaptic transmission. For instance, decreased expression of wild‐type Na+ channels in flies harboring the no‐action‐potential (nap) mutant allele (mlenapts) confers rapid and reversible ts paralysis, because of failure of action potential propagation. Here, we report that aging wild‐type Drosophila gradually develops an acquired susceptibility to ts paralysis that is indistinguishable from that seen in young ts paralytic mlenapts mutants. Moreover, we show that this general age‐dependent susceptibility is also present in mlenapts flies, although the effects are shifted to lower temperature regimes. The mlenapts flies also exhibit decreased lifespan and increased frailty. Paralysis and decreased lifespan of mlenapts flies were partially rescued by increasing the dosage of para, the structural gene for the major action potential Na+ channel in central nervous system of Drosophila. Lastly, we show a dramatic scaling of ts paralysis susceptibility with chronological age in short‐lived and long‐lived mutant flies, further demonstrating that this age‐dependent risk is independent of genetic background. Thus, decreased neural transmission, a hallmark of which is ts paralysis, is a biomarker of aging.
Concise Review: Is Cardiac Cell Therapy Dead? Embarrassing Trial Outcomes and New Directions for the Future

Stem cell therapy is a promising strategy for tissue regeneration. The therapeutic benefits of cell therapy are mediated by both direct and indirect mechanisms. However, the application of stem cell therapy in the clinic is hampered by several limitations. This concise review provides a brief introduction into stem cell therapies for ischemic heart disease. It summarizes cell‐based and cell‐free paradigms, their limitations, and the benefits of using them to target disease. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2018;7:354–359
Phase-Transformation-Induced Twinning in Orthorhombic LaGaO3: {121} and [010] Twins

Pressureless-sintered lanthanum gallate (LaGaO 3 ) ceramics have been analyzed using X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and scanning electron and transmission electron microscopy (SEM and TEM). Twins are induced by solid-state phase transformation upon cooling from rhombohedral (r, R3c) to orthorhombic (o, Pnma) symmetry at ∼145°C. Two types of transformation twins have been identified, and they co-exist in some of the grains. The {121} twins are generated by loss of the mirror plane symmetry upon phase transformation. The twin planes are on {121} about which the two crystal parts are related by a mirror operation. The fact that twins are of reflection type is also confirmed by a tilting experiment in the microscope. The other, often termed the [010] 90° -type rotation, is a rotation twin induced by loss of fourfold rotation axes upon phase transition. The spot splitting of 2Φ ≈ 0.22° because of the orthorhombic obliquity (Φ) is evidenced from the corresponding electron diffraction patterns (SADPs) where triplet reflection spots are clearly identified. The {121} twin domain boundaries exhibit δ-fringes. The fault vector across twin boundaries R = e[123] is determined by applying the invisibility criteria of 2πg·R = 0, or 2nn. Such a translation is not related in a simple way to the structure of LaGaO 3 , and the length of the fault vector is not a fractional of the lattice displacement vector.
Education and technology used to improve the quality of life for people with diabetes mellitus type II

Background The incidence of type II diabetes mellitus (DMT2) is expected to continue to rise. Current research has analyzed various tools, strategies, programs, barriers, and support in regards to the self-management of this condition. However, past researchers have yet to analyze the education process; including the adaptation of specific strategies in activities of daily living and roles, as well as the influence of health care providers in the integration of these strategies. Objectives The purpose of this qualitative case study was to identify the strengths and limitations of the current model of diabetes education in the United States and hypothesize how technology can impact quality of life. Methods Key informants on diabetes education were recruited from diabetes education centers through the American Association of Diabetes Educators. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants. Results Health care practitioners convey limited knowledge of DMT2. Individuals with DMT2 often have limited understanding of the implications of poor self-management. There appears to be no consistent standard of care for how to effectively incorporate self-management strategies. There is limited education for the use of technology in self-management. Diabetes educators describe that technology could be beneficial. Conclusion Findings suggest the importance of the role of care providers in emphasizing the implications of poor self-management strategies; that a multidisciplinary approach may enhance the education process; and a need for further developments in technology to address DMT2 self-management strategies.