Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Occurrence and risk factors for apathy in Parkinson disease: a 4-year prospective longitudinal study

Background: Apathy is a common but under-recognised behavioural disorder associated with depression and cognitive impairment in patients with Parkinson disease (PD). However, the longitudinal course of apathy in PD has not been studied. Objective: To examine the occurrence of and risk factors for apathy over time in a representative sample of patients with PD. Methods: A sample of 139 patients was drawn from a population-based prevalence study of PD in Rogaland County, Western Norway. Apathy was measured with the Neuropsychiatric Inventory, using a composite score ⩾4 to indicate clinically significant apathy. Additional measurements included standardised rating scales for parkinsonism, depression and cognitive impairment. A follow-up evaluation was carried out in 79 patients (78.2% of the survivors) 4 years later. Results: Of the 79 patients included in this study, 29 patients (36.7%) had never had apathy, 11 (13.9%) had persistent apathy, and a further 39 (49.4%) developed apathy during follow-up. At follow-up, patients with apathy were more frequently depressed and demented than never-apathetic patients. Dementia at baseline and a more rapid decline in speech and axial impairment during follow-up were independent risk factors for incident apathy. Conclusions: Apathy is a persistent behavioural feature in PD with a high incidence and prevalence over time. Progression of motor signs predominantly mediated by non-dopaminergic systems may be a useful preclinical marker for incident apathy in PD.
Title Natural Disaster and Natural Selection

In this paper, we investigate whether a natural selection mechanism works for firm exit. By using data of firms after a devastating earthquake, the Great Tohoku Earthquake, we examine the impact of firm efficiency on firm exit both inside and outside the earthquake-affected areas. We find evidence suggesting that more efficeint firms are less likely to exit both inside and outside the affected areas, which supports the natural selection mechanism. However, we also find that the mechanism is weaker for those firms whose main banks were damaged by the earthquake, which suggests that damage to banks weakens the natural selection mechanism. We also apply the same methodology to the case of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, and again find that the natural selection mechanism works both inside and outside the affected areas. However, no significant impact of bank damage is found on the exit probability of a firm.
Optimal Trending and Filtering Using Monotonic Walk Models

—This paper discusses algorithms for ﬁltering and recovering underlying trends from noisy data. The key assumption in this paper is that the trends are monotonic, e.g., describe system deterioration that accumulates irreversibly. A maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) estimate of the trend can be obtained using an empirical signal model (MAP prior). The overall problem statement is related to Kalman ﬁltering setting. The main difference is that a one-sided exponentially distributed process noise is assumed instead of a Gaussian noise. We consider nonlinear ﬁlters obtained using ﬁrst-or second-order monotonic walk trend models as the MAP estimation priors. A batch estimate is computed by solving a Quadratic Programming (QP) problem. A ﬁrst-order monotonic walk prior results in an isotonic regression problem, a special QP problem for which very efﬁcient algorithms exist. Analysis and simulations show that the approach works exceptionally well for trends with that have a small number of jumps in the trended variable or its increase rate and do not change between the jumps. Theoretical analysis of the smoothing and ﬁltering behaviours of the proposed algorithms is presented to explain and complement the simulation results. We show that similar to other l 1 regularized overdetermined systems, the solutions have certain sparsity properties.
Multilevel converters for large electric drives

Traditional two-level high-frequency pulse width modulation (PWM) inverters for motor drives have several problems associated with their high frequency switching which produces common-mode voltage and high voltage change (dV/dt) rates to the motor windings. Multilevel inverters solve these problems because their devices can switch at a much lower frequency. Two different multilevel topologies are identified for use as a power converter for electric drives: a cascade inverter with separate DC sources; and a back-to-back diode clamped converter. The cascade inverter is a natural fit for large automotive all-electric drives because of the high VA ratings possible and because it uses several levels of DC voltage sources which would be available from batteries or fuel cells. The back-to-back diode clamped converter is ideal where a source of AC voltage is available such as a hybrid electric vehicle. Simulation and experimental results show the superiority of these two power converters over PWM-based drives.
Placement mentors making sense of research-based knowledge

Abstract Placement mentors’ role increasingly implies demonstrating to student teachers how research-based knowledge in combination with experience-based knowledge may be relevant in teachers’ professional work. This is a challenge. Placement mentors are often unsure how to make sense of research-based knowledge. Frequently there is a mismatch between what they say they can do and what they actually show they are able to do. This paper explores how placement mentors’ reasoning is formed by their lack of power to define what research-based knowledge consists of. The analysis in this paper is based on an investigation of the epistemological premises that placement mentors rely on when they validate research-based knowledge. The theoretical–analytical point of departure is Michel Foucault’s conception of power-knowledge.
Multi-view Body Part Recognition with Random Forests

Many computer vision tasks such as object detection, pose estimation,and alignment are directly related to the estimation of correspondences overinstances of an object class. Other tasks such as image classification andverification if not completely solved can largely benefit from correspondenceestimation. This thesis presents practical approaches for tackling the corre-spondence estimation problem with an emphasis on deformable objects.Different methods presented in this thesis greatly vary in details but theyall use a combination of generative and discriminative modeling to estimatethe correspondences from input images in an efficient manner. While themethods described in this work are generic and can be applied to any object,two classes of objects of high importance namely human body and faces arethe subjects of our experimentations.When dealing with human body, we are mostly interested in estimating asparse set of landmarks – specifically we are interested in locating the bodyjoints. We use pictorial structures to model the articulation of the body partsgeneratively and learn efficient discriminative models to localize the parts inthe image. This is a common approach explored by many previous works. Wefurther extend this hybrid approach by introducing higher order terms to dealwith the double-counting problem and provide an algorithm for solving theresulting non-convex problem efficiently. In another work we explore the areaof multi-view pose estimation where we have multiple calibrated cameras andwe are interested in determining the pose of a person in 3D by aggregating2D information. This is done efficiently by discretizing the 3D search spaceand use the 3D pictorial structures model to perform the inference.In contrast to the human body, faces have a much more rigid structureand it is relatively easy to detect the major parts of the face such as eyes,nose and mouth, but performing dense correspondence estimation on facesunder various poses and lighting conditions is still challenging. In a first workwe deal with this variation by partitioning the face into multiple parts andlearning separate regressors for each part. In another work we take a fullydiscriminative approach and learn a global regressor from image to landmarksbut to deal with insufficiency of training data we augment it by a large numberof synthetic images. While we have shown great performance on the standardface datasets for performing correspondence estimation, in many scenariosthe RGB signal gets distorted as a result of poor lighting conditions andbecomes almost unusable. This problem is addressed in another work wherewe explore use of depth signal for dense correspondence estimation. Hereagain a hybrid generative/discriminative approach is used to perform accuratecorrespondence estimation in real-time.
GLOBAL SOJOURNERS: WOMEN’S POLITICAL EFFICACY AND POLITICAL AMBITION IN THE FACE OF POLITICAL CYNICISM AND GENDER BARRIERS

Despite progress that has been made worldwide regarding female political participation, the question of why more women do not enter the political arena remains. This study explored how women from MMIAPEZ (Mongolia, Morocco, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Zambia) discursively construct obstacles and barriers to their participation in politics, as well as their political interest and ability to participate in politics. Fifty-eight in-depth semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with young women from seven different countries. Using a qualitative approach and thematic analysis, this study uncovered three themes. First, MMIAPEZ women revealed the multi-faceted gender barriers that exist for female political participation in their countries. Second, MMIAPEZ women demonstrated high levels of political cynicism which was articulated by apathy and an active avoidance of politics. Finally, MMIAPEZ women generally expressed lower levels of political ambition and political efficacy which was articulated by their skeptical outlook towards politics. This study also conducted a follow-up survey at the end of the leadership institute to examine potential discursive shifts about their political interest and political efficacy. This study suggests that while encouraging women to run for political office is still an important goal, in countries such as MMIAPEZ, encouraging participation in the civil sphere may be more advantageous for young women with low political efficacy.
Gene-Based Genome-Wide Association Analysis in European and Asian Populations Identified Novel Genes for Rheumatoid Arthritis

Objective Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a complex autoimmune disease. Using a gene-based association research strategy, the present study aims to detect unknown susceptibility to RA and to address the ethnic differences in genetic susceptibility to RA between European and Asian populations. Methods Gene-based association analyses were performed with KGG 2.5 by using publicly available large RA datasets (14,361 RA cases and 43,923 controls of European subjects, 4,873 RA cases and 17,642 controls of Asian Subjects). For the newly identified RA-associated genes, gene set enrichment analyses and protein-protein interactions analyses were carried out with DAVID and STRING version 10.0, respectively. Differential expression verification was conducted using 4 GEO datasets. The expression levels of three selected ‘highly verified’ genes were measured by ELISA among our in-house RA cases and controls. Results A total of 221 RA-associated genes were newly identified by gene-based association study, including 71‘overlapped’, 76 ‘European-specific’ and 74 ‘Asian-specific’ genes. Among them, 105 genes had significant differential expressions between RA patients and health controls at least in one dataset, especially for 20 genes including 11 ‘overlapped’ (ABCF1, FLOT1, HLA-F, IER3, TUBB, ZKSCAN4, BTN3A3, HSP90AB1, CUTA, BRD2, HLA-DMA), 5 ‘European-specific’ (PHTF1, RPS18, BAK1, TNFRSF14, SUOX) and 4 ‘Asian-specific’ (RNASET2, HFE, BTN2A2, MAPK13) genes whose differential expressions were significant at least in three datasets. The protein expressions of two selected genes FLOT1 (P value = 1.70E-02) and HLA-DMA (P value = 4.70E-02) in plasma were significantly different in our in-house samples. Conclusion Our study identified 221 novel RA-associated genes and especially highlighted the importance of 20 candidate genes on RA. The results addressed ethnic genetic background differences for RA susceptibility between European and Asian populations and detected a long list of overlapped or ethnic specific RA genes. The study not only greatly increases our understanding of genetic susceptibility to RA, but also provides important insights into the ethno-genetic homogeneity and heterogeneity of RA in both ethnicities.
Cross‐culture and gender invariance of the Warr (1990) job‐related well‐being measure

The job-related affective well-being measure developed by Warr (1990, J. Occup. Psychol., 63, 193) has been a frequently used tool estimating affect in the work context. The main purpose of this study was to test the measurement invariance of the instrument across cultures and genders. The model with four correlated factors, representing anxiety, comfort, depression, and enthusiasm, had a superior fit compared to alternative models in a sample of 807 employees and was used as the basis of measurement invariance tests. The results of multigroup confirmatory factor analysis showed partial metric invariance across samples of employees from the Netherlands (n = 254), Poland (n = 436), and Spain (n = 207), as well as full scalar invariance across genders (female n = 323; male n = 466). This indicates that cross-cultural comparisons of relationships between job-related affect as measured with this instrument and other constructs can be meaningful. Additionally, mean scores on the scales of the instrument can be meaningfully compared across genders, but not across countries. Practitioner points Warr's job-related affective well-being measure is a valid and reliable operationalization of four correlated affective dimensions: anxiety, comfort, depression, and enthusiasm. Mean scores on these dimensions can be meaningfully compared across genders, but comparisons of mean scores between countries should be interpreted with caution.
Safety, Immunogenicity and Dose Ranging of a New Vi-CRM197 Conjugate Vaccine against Typhoid Fever: Randomized Clinical Testing in Healthy Adults

Background Typhoid fever causes more than 21 million cases of disease and 200,000 deaths yearly worldwide, with more than 90% of the disease burden being reported from Asia. Epidemiological data show high disease incidence in young children and suggest that immunization programs should target children below two years of age: this is not possible with available vaccines. The Novartis Vaccines Institute for Global Health developed a conjugate vaccine (Vi-CRM197) for infant vaccination concomitantly with EPI vaccines, either starting at 6 weeks with DTP or at 9 months with measles vaccine. We report the results from a Phase 1 and a Phase 2 dose ranging trial with Vi-CRM197 in European adults. Methodology Following randomized blinded comparison of single vaccination with either Vi-CRM197 or licensed polysaccharide vaccines (both containing 25·0 µg of Vi antigen), a randomised observer blinded dose ranging trial was performed in the same center to compare three concentrations of Vi-CRM197 (1·25 µg, 5·0 µg and 12·5 µg of Vi antigen) with the polysaccharide vaccine. Principal Findings All vaccines were well tolerated. Compared to the polysaccharide vaccine, Vi-CRM197 induced a higher incidence of mild to moderate short lasting local pain. All Vi-CRM197 formulations induced higher Vi antibody levels compared to licensed control, with clear dose response relationship. Conclusions Vi-CRM197 did not elicit safety concerns, was highly immunogenic and is therefore suitable for further clinical testing in endemic populations of South Asia. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01123941 NCT01193907
A randomized controlled trial to compare pregabalin with gabapentin for postoperative pain in abdominal hysterectomy

Background: Pregabalin is a potent ligand for alpha-2-delta subunit of voltage-gated calcium channels in the central nervous system, which exhibits potent anticonvulsant, analgesic and anxiolytic activity. The pharmacological activity of pregabalin is similar to that of gabapentin and shows possible advantages. Although it shows analgesic efficacy against neuropathic pain, very limited evidence supports its postoperative analgesic efficacy. We investigated its analgesic efficacy in patients experiencing acute pain after abdominal hysterectomy and compared it with gabapentin and placebo. Methods: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study was conducted in 90 women undergoing abdominal hysterectomy who were anaesthetized in a standardized fashion. Patients received 300 mg pregabalin, 900 mg gabapentin or placebo, 1–2 hours prior to surgery. Postoperative analgesia was administered at visual analogue scale (VAS) ≥3. The primary outcome was analgesic consumption over 24 hours and patients were followed for pain scores, time to rescue analgesia and side effects as secondary outcomes. Results: The diclofenac consumption was statistically significant between pregabalin and control groups, and gabapentin and control groups; however, pregabalin and gabapentin groups were comparable. Moreover, the consumption of tramadol was statistically significant among all the groups. Patients in pregabalin and gabapentin groups had lower pain scores in the initial hour of recovery. However, pain scores were subsequently similar in all the groups. Time to first request for analgesia was longer in pregabalin group followed by gabapentin and control groups. Conclusion: A single dose of 300 mg pregabalin given 1–2 hours prior to surgery is superior to 900 mg gabapentin and placebo after abdominal hysterectomy. Both the drugs are better than placebo.
Abnormal Striatal BOLD Responses to Reward Anticipation and Reward Delivery in ADHD

Altered reward processing has been proposed to contribute to the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The neurobiological mechanism underlying this alteration remains unclear. We hypothesize that the transfer of dopamine release from reward to reward-predicting cues, as normally observed in animal studies, may be deficient in ADHD. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate striatal responses to reward-predicting cues and reward delivery in a classical conditioning paradigm. Data from 14 high-functioning and stimulant-naïve young adults with elevated lifetime symptoms of ADHD (8 males, 6 females) and 15 well-matched controls (8 males, 7 females) were included in the analyses. During reward anticipation, increased blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses in the right ventral and left dorsal striatum were observed in controls, but not in the ADHD group. The opposite pattern was observed in response to reward delivery; the ADHD group demonstrated significantly greater BOLD responses in the ventral striatum bilaterally and the left dorsal striatum relative to controls. In the ADHD group, the number of current hyperactivity/impulsivity symptoms was inversely related to ventral striatal responses during reward anticipation and positively associated with responses to reward. The BOLD response patterns observed in the striatum are consistent with impaired predictive dopamine signaling in ADHD, which may explain altered reward-contingent behaviors and symptoms of ADHD.
Embryonic Stem Cell Differentiation Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition Events during Human

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) occurs during embryonic development and may also be associated with the metastatic spread of epithelial tumors. During EMT, E-cadherin is down-regulated and this correlates with increased motility and invasion of cells. We show that differentiation of human embryonic stem (ES) cells in monolayer culture is associated with an Eto N-cadherin switch, increased vimentin expression, up-regulation of E-cadherin repressor molecules (Snail and Slug proteins), and increased gelatinase (matrix metalloproteinases; MMP-2 and MMP-9) activity and cellular motility, all characteristic EMTevents. The 5T4 oncofetal antigen, previously shown to be associated with early human ES cell differentiation, is also part of this process. Abrogation of E-cadherin–mediated cellcell contact in undifferentiated ES cells using neutralizing antibody (nAb) SHE78.7 resulted in increased cellular motility, altered actin cytoskeleton arrangement and a mesenchymal phenotype together with presentation of the 5T4 antigen at the cell surface. nAb-treated ES cells remained in an undifferentiated state, as assessed by OCT-4 protein expression, and did not express EMT-associated transcripts. Removal of nAb from ES cells resulted in the restoration of cell-cell contact, absence of cell surface 5T4, decreased mesenchymal cellular morphology and motility, and enabled the differentiation of the cells to the three germ layers upon their removal from the fibroblast feeder layer. We conclude that E-cadherin functions in human ES cells to stabilize the cortical actin cyoskeletal arrangement and this prevents cell surface localization of the 5T4 antigen. Furthermore, human ES cells represent a useful model system with which to study EMT events relevant to embryonic development and tumor cell metastasis. [Cancer Res 2007;67(23):11254–62]
Discovery of Nine New Companions to Nearby Young M Stars with the Altair AO System

We present results of a high-resolution, near-infrared survey of 41 nearby, young (≲300 Myr) M0-M5.0 dwarfs using the Altair natural guide star adaptive optics system at the Gemini North telescope. Twelve of the objects appear to be binaries, seven of which are reported here for the first time. One triple system was discovered. Statistical properties are studied and compared with earlier (F to K) and later (≥M6 very low mass [VLM]) populations. We find that the separation distribution of the binaries in this sample peaks at 13 AU, which is consistent with previous measurements of early M binaries. Hence, early M binaries seem to occur in—on average—tighter systems than G binaries. At the same time they are significantly wider than field VLM binary stars. The distribution of mass ratios q of primary and secondary stars was found to show an intermediate distribution between the strongly q → 1 peaked distribution of field VLM systems and the almost flat distribution of earlier type stars. Consequently, we show evidence for relatively young, early M binaries representing a transition between the well-known earlier star distributions and the recently examined field VLM population characteristics. Despite the fact that this survey was dedicated to the search for faint brown dwarf and planetary mass companions, all planetary mass candidates were background objects. We exclude the existence of physical companions with masses greater than 10 Jupiter masses (MJ) at separations of ≳40 AU and masses greater than 24MJ for separations ≳10 AU around 37 of the 41 observed objects.