Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Physiological and proteomic characterization of salt tolerance in a mangrove plant, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza (L.) Lam.

Salinity is a major abiotic stress that is responsible for growth reduction in most higher plants. Bruguiera gymnorrhiza (L.) Lam. , a mangrove plant, is a halophyte and is one of the most salt-tolerant plant species. Physiological and proteomic characteristics of B. gymnorrhiza were investigated under three NaCl concentrations (0, 200 and 500 mM) in this study. Maximum seedling growth occurred at 200 mM NaCl. Leaf osmotic potential was more negative as salt levels increased further. Physiological results revealed that inorganic ions (especially Na(+) and Cl(-)) played a key role in osmotic adjustment of B. gymnorrhiza leaves under salinity treatments. Comparative proteomic analysis revealed 23 salt-responsive proteins in B. gymnorrhiza leaves, which were differentially expressed under salt treatment compared with control. Ten protein spots were analyzed by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry, leading to identification of proteins involved in photosynthesis, antioxidation, protein folding, cell organization and metabolism. Salt-responsive mechanism was different between 200 and 500 mM NaCl-treated plants on the basis of the physiological and proteomic analyses. Salt tolerance under 200 mM NaCl treatment was due to effective osmotic adjustment, accumulation of inorganic ions (especially Na(+) and Cl(-)) as well as increased expression of photosynthesis-related proteins and antioxidant enzymes, which improved the salt tolerance of B. gymnorrhiza, and furthermore promoted plant growth. On the other hand, 500 mM NaCl reduced the growth of B. gymnorrhiza, which appears to have been caused by the accumulation of NaCl (ionic effect) and energy consumption by organic solute synthesis. Moreover, the repressed expression of photosynthesis-related proteins and antioxidant enzymes led to the reduction of growth. Protein folding and degradation-related proteins and cell organization-related protein were up-regulated and played important roles in salt tolerance of B. gymnorrhiza under severe salt stress.
Weekly docetaxel versus CMF as adjuvant chemotherapy for older women with early breast cancer: final results of the randomized phase III ELDA trial.

BACKGROUND Evidence on adjuvant chemotherapy in older women with breast cancer is poor. We tested whether weekly docetaxel is more effective than standard chemotherapy. PATIENTS AND METHODS We carried out a multicenter, randomized phase III study. Women aged 65-79, operated for breast cancer, with average to high risk of recurrence, were allocated 1 : 1 to CMF (cyclophosphamide 600 mg/m², methotrexate 40 mg/m², fluorouracil 600 mg/m², days 1, 8) or docetaxel (35 mg/m(2) days 1, 8, 15) every 4 weeks, for four or six cycles according to hormone receptor status. Primary end point was disease-free survival (DFS). A geriatric assessment was carried out. Quality of life (QoL) was assessed with EORTC C-30 and BR-23 questionnaires. RESULTS From July 2003 to April 2011, 302 patients were randomized and 299 (152 allocated CMF and 147 docetaxel) were eligible. After 70-month median follow-up, 109 DFS events were observed. Unadjusted hazard ratio (HR) of DFS for docetaxel versus CMF was 1.21 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.83-1.76, P = 0.32]; DFS estimate at 5 years was 0.69 with CMF and 0.65 with docetaxel. HR of death was 1.34 (95% CI 0.80-2.22, P = 0.26). There was no interaction between treatment arms and geriatric scales measuring patients' ability or comorbidities. Hematological toxicity, mucositis and nausea were worse with CMF; allergy, fatigue, hair loss, onychopathy, dysgeusia, diarrhea, abdominal pain, neuropathy, cardiac and skin toxicity were worse with docetaxel. One death was attributed to CMF and two to docetaxel. Increasing age, impairment in instrumental daily living activities, number of comorbidities and docetaxel treatment were independently associated with severe nonhematological toxicity. QoL was worse with docetaxel for nausea-vomiting, appetite loss, diarrhea, body image, future perspective, treatment side-effects and hair loss items. CONCLUSIONS Weekly docetaxel is not more effective than standard CMF as adjuvant treatment of older women with breast cancer and worsens QoL and toxicity. CLINICALTRIALSGOV NCT00331097.
The interdependencies of viral load, the innate immune response, and clinical outcome in children presenting to the emergency department with respiratory syncytial virus-associated bronchiolitis

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes significant infant morbidity and mortality. For decades severe RSV-induced disease was thought to result from an uncontrolled host response to viral replication, but recent work suggests that a strong innate immune response early in infection is protective. To shed light on host-virus interactions and the viral determinants of disease, copy numbers of five RSV genes (NS1, NS2, N, G, F) were measured by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) in nasal wash samples from children with RSV-associated bronchiolitis. Correlations were sought with host cytokines/chemokines and biomarkers. Associations with disposition from the emergency department (hospitalized or sent home) and pulse oximetry O2 saturation levels were also sought. Additionally, RNase P copy number was measured and used to normalize nasal wash data. RSV gene copy numbers were found to significantly correlate with both cytokine/chemokine and biomarker levels; and RNase P-normalized viral gene copy numbers (NS1, NS2, N and G) were significantly higher in infants with less severe disease. Moreover, three of the normalized viral gene copy numbers (NS1, NS2, and N) correlated significantly with arterial O2 saturation levels. The data support a model where a higher viral load early in infection can promote a robust innate immune response that protects against progression into hypoxic RSV-induced lower respiratory tract illness.
Parenting a child with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Psychological variables and their relationship to well-being

Recent research has begun to acknowledge that parents of school-aged children with intellectual and developmental disabilities experience both positive and negative impacts when raising their children. Since some parents report feelings of a positive and a negative nature concurrently, within families research must attempt to discover the psychological variables that foster adaptation. This thesis aimed to extend current research in three ways. First parental cognitive variables and their incorporation into existing models of adaptation were critically discussed (Chapter 2). Second, relatively unstudied psychological variables were investigated with respect to both positive and negative parental adjustment. Third, longitudinal methodologies were used to draw conclusions as to the causal directions of the relationships and to ascertain whether the psychological variables acted as moderators or mediators i. e. were state- or trait-like. In Study I (Chapter 3) acceptancew as a psychological variable that was found to be associated with maternal well-being. Mothers who were generally more accepting reported fewer psychological adjustment problems. Acceptance entered into a bi-directional relationship with anxiety and depression. No significant associations were found for mindfulness and maternal well-being. Parental locus of control was examinedi n Study 2 (Chapter 4) and was significantly associatedw ith measures of both maternal positive perceptions and with maternal distress. Furthermore, dimensions of parental locus of control were significant predictors of negative maternal adjustment. Parental internal-external locus of control was related bi-directionally to stress over 18 months. Hope was the focus of Study 3 (Chapter 4) and was analysed separately for fathers and mothers. For mothers, hope was predictive of depression and positive affect and child behaviour problems predicted maternal depression. For fathers, hope was predictive of anxiety, depression and positive affect. An interaction effect was found for hope agency and pathways in the prediction of maternal depression such that mothers reporting high levels of both hope dimensions reported the lowest levels of depressive symptoms. Findings from the three empirical studies were discussed in relation to their theoretical value and their implication in intervention research. Recommendationsfo r further study were made, which included a call for further stringently defined study into an area that has the potential to be a valuable assessment tool for intervention work.
Co-training succeeds in Computational Paralinguistics

Data sparsity is one of the major bottlenecks in the field of Computational Paralinguistics. Partially supervised learning approaches can help leverage this problem without the need of cost-intensive human labelling efforts. We thus investigate the feasibility of cotraining for exemplary paralinguistic speech analysis tasks spanning along the time-continuum: from short-term-related emotion to mid-term-related sleepiness and finally to long-term trait of gender. By dividing the acoustic feature space with two views as independent and sufficient as possible, the semi-supervised learning approach of co-training selects instances with high confidence scores in each view, and agglomerates them along with their predictions into initial training sets per iteration. Our experimental results on official Interspeech Computational Paralinguistics Challenge tasks effectively demonstrate co-training's superiority over the baseline formed by single-view self-training, especially for the short- and medium-term tasks emotion and sleepiness recognition.
Hypercoagulable states: an algorithmic approach to laboratory testing and update on monitoring of direct oral anticoagulants

Hypercoagulability can result from a variety of inherited and, more commonly, acquired conditions. Testing for the underlying cause of thrombosis in a patient is complicated both by the number and variety of clinical conditions that can cause hypercoagulability as well as the many potential assay interferences. Using an algorithmic approach to hypercoagulability testing provides the ability to tailor assay selection to the clinical scenario. It also reduces the number of unnecessary tests performed, saving cost and time, and preventing potential false results. New oral anticoagulants are powerful tools for managing hypercoagulable patients; however, their use introduces new challenges in terms of test interpretation and therapeutic monitoring. The coagulation laboratory plays an essential role in testing for and treating hypercoagulable states. The input of laboratory professionals is necessary to guide appropriate testing and synthesize interpretation of results.
Impact of physician specialty on the cost of nonvariceal upper GI bleeding care

OBJECTIVE:Upper GI bleeding (UGIB) is a common medical emergency that leads to a high consumption of medical resources and costs. We aimed to analyze the influence of physician specialty on the costs of nonvariceal UGIB care.METHODS:We retrospectively assessed 350 nonvariceal UGIB episodes that were primarily cared for by gastroenterologists (n = 142), internists (n = 67), or surgeons (n = 141). Gastroenterologists followed evidence-based clinical protocols that included early endoscopy and early hospital discharge for uncomplicated bleeding. A risk score system was used to control for severity of illness. Linear regression analyses were performed to find out predictors of costs and the influence of specialist care on length of stay (LOS). RESULTS:The overall mean hospital cost was significantly lower in patients cared for by gastroenterologists (EUR 1630) than in those managed by internists (EUR 3745, p < 0.001) or surgeons (EUR 2513, p < 0.05). The mean LOS was the variable with highest influence on total cost. Patients cared for by gastroenterologists had a mean LOS significantly shorter (7.3 days) than that of those treated by internists (16.2 days, p < 0.001) or surgeons (11 days, p < 0.001). Hospital costs and LOS differences were maintained when adjusting for severity of illness. In caring for low risk patients, nongastroenterologists had a higher probability of having a hospital stay longer than 4 days (odds ratio = 18.4, CI = 4.6–73.6, p < 0.001). CONCLUSION:The implementation of specific evidence-based protocols by gastroenterologists reduces length of hospital stay and saves medical costs in patients with nonvariceal UGIB, especially those at low risk.
The natural history of psoriasis in 5,600 patients.

The natural history of psoriasis was studied through a questionnaire survey of 5,600 patients throughout the United States. The mean age of onset of psoriasis was 27.8 years. 36% of the respondents reported familial occurrence of the disease. At the time of study, the lower extremities were indicated as being the most often affected; trunk, elbow, and scalp were next, knee and face were cited less frequently. Fingernails were involved in half of the patients at some time during the period of their disease. In the majority of patients, hot weather and sunlight had a beneficial effect. One third of the females also indicated improvement during the course of pregnancy. Remissions were reported in 39% of the patients.
Trajectory Regression on Road Networks

This paper addresses the task of trajectory cost prediction, a new learning task for trajectories. The goal of this task is to predict the cost for an arbitrary (possibly unknown) trajectory, based on a set of previous trajectory-cost pairs. A typical example of this task is travel-time prediction on road networks. The main technical challenge here is to infer the costs of trajectories including links with no or little passage history. To tackle this, we introduce a weight propagation mechanism over the links, and show that the problem can be reduced to a simple form of kernel ridge regression. We also show that this new formulation leads us to a unifying view, where a natural choice of the kernel is suggested to an existing kernel-based alternative.
Memory Effects of Speech and Gesture Binding: Cortical and Hippocampal Activation in Relation to Subsequent Memory Performance

In human face-to-face communication, the content of speech is often illustrated by coverbal gestures. Behavioral evidence suggests that gestures provide advantages in the comprehension and memory of speech. Yet, how the human brain integrates abstract auditory and visual information into a common representation is not known. Our study investigates the neural basis of memory for bimodal speech and gesture representations. In this fMRI study, 12 participants were presented with video clips showing an actor performing meaningful metaphoric gestures (MG), unrelated, free gestures (FG), and no arm and hand movements (NG) accompanying sentences with an abstract content. After the fMRI session, the participants performed a recognition task. Behaviorally, the participants showed the highest hit rate for sentences accompanied by meaningful metaphoric gestures. Despite comparable old/new discrimination performances (d′) for the three conditions, we obtained distinct memory-related left-hemispheric activations in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the premotor cortex (BA 6), and the middle temporal gyrus (MTG), as well as significant correlations between hippocampal activation and memory performance in the metaphoric gesture condition. In contrast, unrelated speech and gesture information (FG) was processed in areas of the left occipito-temporal and cerebellar region and the right IFG just like the no-gesture condition (NG). We propose that the specific left-lateralized activation pattern for the metaphoric speech–gesture sentences reflects semantic integration of speech and gestures. These results provide novel evidence about the neural integration of abstract speech and gestures as it contributes to subsequent memory performance.
Effects of a Body-oriented Response Measure on the Neural Substrate of Imagined Perspective Rotations

Previous behavioral studies suggest that response measures related to the body, such as pointing, serve to anchor participants to their physical body during mental rotation tasks in which their perspective must be shifted elsewhere. This study investigated whether such measures engage spatial and low-level cortical motor areas of the brain more readily than non-body-related measures. We directly compared activation found in two imagined perspective rotation tasks, using responses that varied in the degree to which they emphasized the human body. In the body minimize condition, participants imagined rotating themselves around an object and judged whether a prescribed part of the object would be visible from the imagined viewpoint. In the body maximize condition, participants imagined rotating around the object and then located the prescribed object part with respect to their bodies. A direct comparison of neural activation in both conditions revealed distinct yet overlapping neural regions. The body maximize condition yielded activation in low-level cortical motor areas such as premotor cortex and primary motor cortex, as well as bilateral spatial processing areas. The body minimize condition yielded activation in nonmotoric egocentric processing regions. However, both conditions showed activation in the parietal–occipital region that is thought to be involved in egocentric transformations. These findings are discussed in the context of recent hypotheses regarding the role of the body percept in imagined egocentric transformations.
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and working memory in adults: a meta-analytic review.

OBJECTIVE Within the last decade, working memory (WM) has garnered increased interest as a potential core deficit or endophenotype of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The current study is the first meta-analytic review to examine several subject and task moderator variables' (e.g., percent female, diagnostic selection procedure, trials per set size, response demands, type of dependent variable, and central executive [CE] demands) effect on between-group phonological (PH) and visuospatial (VS) WM in adults with ADHD, relative to healthy controls. METHOD Literature searches were conducted using the PsycINFO, Web of Science, and PubMed databases, and yielded 38 studies of WM in adults with ADHD. RESULTS Results revealed moderate-magnitude between-group effect sizes (ESs) across both WM domains. In addition, several task-moderating variables explained significant ES variability among PH and VS studies. CONCLUSIONS Collectively, these findings indicate that WM deficits persist into adulthood and suggest that methodological variability may explicate why WM deficits have not been uniformly detected in previous experimental studies.
Characterizing and Detecting Anti-Patterns in the Logging Code

Snippets of logging code are output statements (e.g., LOG.info or System.out.println) that developers insert into a software system. Although more logging code can provide more execution context of the system's behavior during runtime, it is undesirable to instrument the system with too much logging code due to maintenance overhead. Furthermore, excessive logging may cause unexpected side-effects like performance slow-down or high disk I/O bandwidth. Recent studies show that there are no well-defined coding guidelines for performing effective logging. Previous research on the logging code mainly tackles the problems of where-to-log and what-to-log. There are very few works trying to address the problem of how-to-log (developing and maintaining high-quality logging code). In this paper, we study the problem of how-to-log by characterizing and detecting the anti-patterns in the logging code. As the majority of the logging code is evolved together with the feature code, the remaining set of logging code changes usually contains the fixes to the anti-patterns. We have manually examined 352 pairs of independently changed logging code snippets from three well-maintenance open source systems: ActiveMQ, Hadoop and Maven. Our analysis has resulted in six different anti-patterns in the logging code. To demonstrate the value of our findings, we have encoded these anti-patterns into a static code analysis tool, LCAnalyzer. Case studies show that LCAnalyzer has an average recall of 95% and precision of 60% and can be used to automatically detect previously unknown anti-patterns in the source code. To gather feedback, we have filed 64 representative instances of the logging code anti-patterns from the most recent releases of ten open source software systems. Among them, 46 instances (72%) have already been accepted by their developers.
Stochastic Search and Planning for Maximization of Resource Production in RTS Games

RTS games are an important field of research in Artificial Intelligence Planning. In these games we have to deal with features that represent challenges for Planning such as time constraints, numerical effects and actions with a large number of preconditions. RTS games are characterized by two important phases. The first one has to do with gathering resources and developing an army. In the second phase the resources produced in the first phase are used in battles against enemies. Thus, the first phase is vital for success in the game and the power of the army developed directly reflects in the chances of victory. Our research is focused on the first phase. In order to maximize resource production we developed algorithms based on Simulated Annealing and classical planning. As a result we have obtained a signification improvement of the strength of the
Major Causes of Lung and Liver Condemnation and Financial Impact in Cattle Slaughter at Bahir Dar Municpial Abattior

A cross-sectional study was conducted from November 2011 to March 2012 in Bahir Dar municipal abattoir, northwest Ethiopia, to identify the major causes of liver and lung condemnation from cattle slaughter and to estimate the direct economic loss associated with these organs condemnation. A total of 384 cattle were considered for antemortem and postmortem examination. During the antemortem examination, among 384 cattle destined for slaughter, nasal discharge (1.8%) and skin scar (0.5%) and body swelling (0.5%) had taken the highest and the lowest proportion rates, respectively. Post mortem examination revealed that 379 (91.7%) livers, 116 (28%) lungs, in both age categories were condemned due to various causes. Fasciolosis (22.9%) and hydatidosis (35.7%) were found the major causes responsible for rejection. Statistically significant differences were not observed (P>0.05) for liver and lung condemnation rates and factors considered like age, source and breed of animals. There was a statistically significant difference observed between body condition scoring categories and liver and lung condemnation (15.023, p<0.05) in this study. The average annual economic loss from liver and lung condemnation was estimated to be about 9257.914 USD. The current study revealed that fasciolosis and hydatidosis were the major causes for condemnation that lead to huge economic losses. Therefore, to alleviate this problem, further studies and preventive measures (for the two major diseases found) should be undertaken to reduce unnecessary financial losses encountered.