Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Obstructive sleep apnea and age: a double insult to brain function?

RATIONALE Healthy aging is associated with cognitive deficits similar to those found in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). As in OSA, older adults show compensatory cerebral activation during cognitive demands in the face of neurocognitive decline. OBJECTIVES The current study examines whether the combination of increasing age and sleep apnea will lead to a stronger compensatory response than either factor alone, or overwhelm the brain's capacity to compensate. METHODS A total of 14 treatment-naive patients with sleep apnea (aged 25-59 yr) and 14 age-matched healthy control subjects were each divided into two age groups of young (<45 yr) and middle-aged (> or = 45 yr). All underwent a sleep study, followed the next morning by a functional magnetic resonance imaging session that included a sustained attention and a verbal encoding task. A priori contrast analyses compared middle-aged patients with OSA to young patients, young control subjects, and middle-aged control subjects. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Middle-aged patients with OSA showed reduced performance for immediate word recall and slower reaction time during sustained attention compared with the other three groups (middle-aged control, young sleep apnea, and young control). For both tasks, decreased activation was detected for middle-aged sleep apnea relative to the other groups in task-related brain regions. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that the presence of both sleep apnea and increasing age overwhelmed the brain's capacity to respond to cognitive challenges with compensatory recruitment and to maintain performance. The findings that sleep apnea impairs performance and brain function at a younger age than what might ordinarily be expected underscore the importance of early diagnosis and treatment of sleep apnea.
Kinetochore inactivation by expression of a repressive mRNA

Differentiation programs such as meiosis depend on extensive gene regulation to mediate cellular morphogenesis. Meiosis requires transient removal of the outer kinetochore, the complex that connects microtubules to chromosomes. How the meiotic gene expression program temporally restricts kinetochore function is unknown. We discovered that in budding yeast, kinetochore inactivation occurs by reducing the abundance of a limiting subunit, Ndc80. Furthermore, we uncovered an integrated mechanism that acts at the transcriptional and translational level to repress NDC80 expression. Central to this mechanism is the developmentally controlled transcription of an alternate NDC80 mRNA isoform, which itself cannot produce protein due to regulatory upstream ORFs in its extended 5’ leader. Instead, transcription of this isoform represses the canonical NDC80 mRNA expression in cis, thereby inhibiting Ndc80 protein synthesis. This model of gene regulation raises the intriguing notion that transcription of an mRNA, despite carrying a canonical coding sequence, can directly cause gene repression.
Improving the effectiveness and efficiency of outpatient services: a scoping review of interventions at the primary–secondary care interface

Objectives Variation in patterns of referral from primary care can lead to inappropriate overuse or underuse of specialist resources. Our aim was to review the literature on strategies involving primary care that are designed to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of outpatient services. Methods A scoping review to update a review published in 2006. We conducted a systematic literature search and qualitative evidence synthesis of studies across five intervention domains: transfer of services from hospital to primary care; relocation of hospital services to primary care; joint working between primary care practitioners and specialists; interventions to change the referral behaviour of primary care practitioners and interventions to change patient behaviour. Results The 183 studies published since 2005, taken with the findings of the previous review, suggest that transfer of services from secondary to primary care and strategies aimed at changing referral behaviour of primary care clinicians can be effective in reducing outpatient referrals and in increasing the appropriateness of referrals. Availability of specialist advice to primary care practitioners by email or phone and use of store-and-forward telemedicine also show potential for reducing outpatient referrals and hence reducing costs. There was little evidence of a beneficial effect of relocation of specialists to primary care, or joint primary/secondary care management of patients on outpatient referrals. Across all intervention categories there was little evidence available on cost-effectiveness. Conclusions There are a number of promising interventions which may improve the effectiveness and efficiency of outpatient services, including making it easier for primary care clinicians and specialists to discuss patients by email or phone. There remain substantial gaps in the evidence, particularly on cost-effectiveness, and new interventions should continue to be evaluated as they are implemented more widely. A move for specialists to work in the community is unlikely to be cost-effective without enhancing primary care clinicians’ skills through education or joint consultations with complex patients.
Laying hen performance as affected by diet and caging density.

Two trials were conducted to investigate the effects of caging density and diet on the performance of caged layers. Diets were formulated contain . 775, . 725, and . 675% lysine. The TSAA content was formulated to be 85% of the lysine content of each diet. Pullets were caged in 25.4 cm wide x 40.0 cm deep cages at three, two, or one bird per cage. Production data were collected for 112 days in Trial 1 and 168 days in Trial 2. As dietary protein, lysine, and TSAA increased, hen-day egg production, egg weight, and feed conversion improved (P less than .05) . Feed consumption and feed per dozen eggs were not consistently affected by diet. Caging density had no consistent effects on any of the production parameters. No interactions were detected between dietary treatments and cage density in either trial.
Decomposition byproducts induced by gamma radiation and their toxicity: the case of 2-nitrophenol

ABSTRACT The induced degradation and detoxification of 2-nitrophenol (2-NP) in aqueous media by gamma irradiation were carefully evaluated in this study. Gamma radiation at absorbed doses as low as 20 kGy was able to degrade 2-NP to reach a removal of at least 85% across the investigated range of concentration (50–150 ppm). 2-NP breaks down to aromatic-based compounds with increasing number of byproducts upon increasing the radiation treatment from the absorbed dose of 50% decomposition (D50) to the absorbed dose of 90% decomposition (D90), after which no byproducts could be detected, indicating the formation of undetectable aliphatic hydrocarbons, insoluble, or volatile byproducts. Toxicology studies showed that the degradation of 2-NP under absorbed doses up to D90 resulted in a more toxic byproduct than the parent compound, and a remarkable reduction in the toxicity was observed with the irradiated samples with absorbed doses above D90. Varying the pH of the media to acidic or basic conditions did not significantly alter the degradation behavior of 2-NP. However, a notable improvement of the detoxification was associated with the samples of acidic pH. Adding 0.5% of H2O2 to 2-NP solutions had a positive effect by reducing D90 by a factor of nine and diminishing the toxicity by twofolds. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Association of Number of Dissected Lymph Nodes With Survival in Clinically Node-Negative Oral Cavity Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients Undergoing Primary Surgery: A Population-Based Analysis

Association of Number of Dissected Lymph Nodes With Survival in Clinically Node-Negative Oral Cavity Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients Undergoing Primary Surgery: A Population-Based Analysis The standard treatment for early-stage oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma (OCSCC) is definitive surgery. A randomized clinical trial1 of ipsilateral elective vs therapeutic node dissection in cT1-2 patients with OCSCC demonstrated superior sur vival in the elective dissection group. Another recent analysis2 linked higher lymph node count to improved survival in all patients with head and neck cancer with heterogeneous clinical nodal presentations. However, the need for extensive neck dissection in cN0 patients with OCSCC remains unclear. We therefore evaluated the survival impact of lymph node count in these patients using the National Cancer Database (NCDB).
Shell quality: potential for improvement by dietary means and relationship with egg size.

Three experiments were conducted by sampling a total of 15,705 eggs from Leghorn hens fed diets varying in methionine, Na, and Ca content. In Experiment 1, birds of four different ages were housed in a common environment and fed diets containing between . 233 and . 383% methionine. In Experiment 2, birds of five different ages were housed in a common environment and fed diets containing . 15, . 30, and . 45% Na and . 25, . 45, and . 65% nonphytate phosphorus (NPP). In Experiment 3, eggs were sampled from 42 to 62 wk of age in 4-wk intervals from hens fed diets containing from 3 to 9% Ca in increments of 1.5%. Feeding lower levels of methionine (.233%) produced significantly lower egg weights and greater shell strength but at the expense of a decline in egg production at early ages. Reducing the NPP level from . 65 to . 25% produced lower egg weights and greater shell strength. A corresponding drop in production was not observed except at the . 45%-Na level. No significant effects of Na on shell strength were observed. Higher Ca levels produced greater shell strength and had variable effects on egg weight. Increasing the Ca level beyond 6% resulted in a significant decline in production. Regression analyses indicated that within a population, the relationship between egg weight and shell strength is positive. In some instances, the relationship was curvilinear, where the positive association between egg weight and shell strength decreased with increasing egg weights.
Structure Learning for Markov Logic Networks

Most existing learning methods for Markov Logic Networks (MLNs) use batch training, which becomes computationally expensive and eventually infeasible for large datasets with thousands of training examples which may not even all fit in main memory. To address this issue, previous work has used online learning to train MLNs. However, they all assume that the model’s structure (set of logical clauses) is given, and only learn the model’s parameters. However, the input structure is usually incomplete, so it should also be updated. In this work, we present OSL—the first algorithm that performs both online structure and parameter learning for MLNs. Experimental results on two realworld datasets for natural-language field segmentation show that OSL outperforms systems that cannot revise structure.
In-utero exposure to antihypertensive medication and neonatal and child health outcomes: a systematic review

Background: Although medication is generally avoided wherever possible during pregnancy, pharmacotherapy is required for the treatment of pregnancy associated hypertension, which remains a leading cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality. The long-term effects to the child of in-utero exposure to antihypertensive agents remains largely unknown. Objective: The aim of this study was to systematically review published studies on adverse outcomes to the child associated with in-utero exposure to antihypertensive medications. Methods: OVID, Scopus, EBSCO Collections, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science databases were searched for relevant publications published between January 1950 and October 2016 and a total of 688 potentially eligible studies were identified. Results: Following review, 47 primary studies were eligible for inclusion. The Critical Appraisal Skills Programme checklist was used to assess study quality. Five studies were of excellent quality; the remainder were either mediocre or poor. Increased risk of low birth weight, low size for gestational age, preterm birth, and congenital defects following in-utero exposure to all antihypertensive agents were identified. Two studies reported an increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder following exposure to labetalol, and an increased risk of sleep disorders following exposure to methyldopa and clonidine. Conclusion: The current systematic review demonstrates a paucity of relevant published high-quality studies. A small number of studies suggest possible increased risk of adverse child health outcomes; however, most published studies have methodological weaknesses and/or lacked statistical power thus preventing any firm conclusions being drawn.
Apache Lucene as Content-Based-Filtering Recommender System: 3 Lessons Learned

For the past few years, we used Apache Lucene as recommendation frame-work in our scholarly-literature recommender system of the reference-management software Docear. In this paper, we share three lessons learned from our work with Lucene. First, recommendations with relevance scores below 0.025 tend to have significantly lower click-through rates than recommendations with relevance scores above 0.025. Second, by picking ten recommendations randomly from Lucene's top50 search results, click-through rate decreased by 15%, compared to recommending the top10 results. Third, the number of returned search results tend to predict how high click-through rates will be: when Lucene returns less than 1,000 search results, click-through rates tend to be around half as high as if 1,000+ results are returned.
Genetic correlations between body weight of cocks and production traits in laying hens, and their possible use in breeding schemes.

Genetic and phenotypic (co)variances between body weight of cocks (nm = 1,138), BWM, and production traits of hens (nf = 8,844), i.e., egg number (EN), egg weight (EW), feed intake (FI), and body weight (BWF) were estimated by the restricted maximum likelihood method for an animal model. Six multivariate analyses were carried out to get all desired components. Resulting heritabilities were . 292, . 754, . 682, . 732, and . 790 for EN, EW, FI, BWF, and BWM, respectively. Estimated genetic correlations between BWM and EN, EW, FI, and BWF, were -. 161, . 338, . 645, and . 841, respectively. The corresponding estimates between BWF and EN, EW, and FI, were -. 036, . 294, and . 787, respectively. The additional expected selection response in traits of hens from including BWM into the selection criterion of cocks is given for a particular structure with full- and half-sister information and different correlations between BWM and traits of hens.
Generalized Byzantine-tolerant SGD

We propose three new robust aggregation rules for distributed synchronous Stochastic Gradient Descent~(SGD) under a general Byzantine failure model. The attackers can arbitrarily manipulate the data transferred between the servers and the workers in the parameter server~(PS) architecture. We prove the Byzantine resilience properties of these aggregation rules. Empirical analysis shows that the proposed techniques outperform current approaches for realistic use cases and Byzantine attack scenarios.
Tryptophan's influence on feeding and body temperature in the fowl.

The neurotransmitter, serotonin, has been implicated in both food intake and body temperature regulation. In this experiment, the effect of tryptophan, the amino acid precursor of serotonin, on food consumption and rectal temperature in the fowl was determined. Single Comb White Leghorn cockerels were intubated with a tryptophan solution or distilled water. Tryptophan significantly (P less than or equal to .05) decreased both food intake and body temperature of the birds. These results suggest that tryptophan may inhibit food intake via peripheral rather than central mechanisms.
The entrapment of paclitaxel in PLGA nanoparticles increases its cytotoxicity against multiresistant cell line.

Paclitaxel (Ptx) is a taxane anticancer mitotic inhibitor, widely used in oncology for the last 20 years. Poor solubility of Ptx, as a consequence using of toxic solvents such as Cremofor EL, high affinity to P-glycoprotein are associated with serious side effects due to hypersensitivity reactions, low bioavailability and low therapeutic index. Development of new delivery solvent-free forms of Ptx is one of the key research problems in modern cancer chemotherapy. Ptx loaded into polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) nanoparticles (Ptx-PLGA-Nps) (size 200-300 nm) have been prepared using nanoprecipitation method. Impact of technological parameters on Ptx encapsulation efficacy and in vitro drug release was investigated. Drug encapsulation was determined using HPLC. Citotoxic activity and cell accumulation of nanosomal formulation of Ptx was studied on multiresistant cell line Jurkat WT (cells of human Т-limphoblastic leucosis). Obtained results suggest that formulation of PLGA Ptx nanoparticles have above 90-98% drug encapsulation efficacy, higher cell accumulation and cytotoxic activity.
Learning Awareness Models

We consider the setting of an agent with a fixed body interacting with an unknown and uncertain external world. We show that models trained to predict proprioceptive information about the agent's body come to represent objects in the external world. In spite of being trained with only internally available signals, these dynamic body models come to represent external objects through the necessity of predicting their effects on the agent's own body. That is, the model learns holistic persistent representations of objects in the world, even though the only training signals are body signals. Our dynamics model is able to successfully predict distributions over 132 sensor readings over 100 steps into the future and we demonstrate that even when the body is no longer in contact with an object, the latent variables of the dynamics model continue to represent its shape. We show that active data collection by maximizing the entropy of predictions about the body---touch sensors, proprioception and vestibular information---leads to learning of dynamic models that show superior performance when used for control. We also collect data from a real robotic hand and show that the same models can be used to answer questions about properties of objects in the real world. Videos with qualitative results of our models are available at this https URL.
Implications of Eligibility Criteria on the Generalizability of Alcohol and Drug Treatment Outcome Research: A Study of Real-World Treatment Seekers in Sweden and in Australia

ABSTRACT Background: Clinical studies of alcohol and drug treatment outcomes frequently apply participant eligibility criteria (EC), which may exclude real-world treatment seekers, impairing the representativeness of studied samples. Some research exists on the impact of EC on alcohol treatment seekers. Little is known about drug treatment and country differences. Objectives: We tested and compared the degree to which commonly used EC exclude real-world treatment seekers with problem alcohol and drug use in Sweden and Australia, and compared the impact of EC on outcomes. Methods: Two large naturalistic and comparative service user samples were used. Respondents were recruited in Stockholm County (n = 1,865; data collection 2000–2002), and Victoria and Western Australia (n = 796; in 2012–2013). Follow-up interviews were conducted after 1 year. Cross-tabulations, Chi-square (χ2) tests and logistic regressions were used. Results: Percentages of the samples excluded by individual EC ranged from 5% (lack of education/literacy) to 70% (social instability) among Swedish alcohol cases and from 2% (low alcohol problem severity) to 69% (psychiatric medication) among Australian counterparts; and from 2% (age 60+ years) to 82% (social instability) among Swedish drug cases and from 1% (age 60+ years) to 67% (psychiatric medication) among Australian counterparts. Country differences and differences across substances appeared independent of country effect. Co-morbid psychiatric medication, noncompliance, poly drug use, and low education EC caused positive 1-year outcome bias; whereas female sex and old age introduced negative outcome bias. Conclusions/Importance: Commonly used EC exclude large proportions of treatment seekers. This may impair generalizability of clinical research, and the effects of many EC differ by country and drug type.
ABCA1-Derived Nascent High-Density Lipoprotein–Apolipoprotein AI and Lipids Metabolically Segregate

Objective— Reverse cholesterol transport comprises cholesterol efflux from ABCA1-expressing macrophages to apolipoprotein (apo) AI, giving nascent high-density lipoprotein (nHDL), esterification of nHDL-free cholesterol (FC), selective hepatic extraction of HDL lipids, and hepatic conversion of HDL cholesterol to bile salts, which are excreted. We tested this model by identifying the fates of nHDL-[3H]FC, [14C] phospholipid (PL), and [125I]apo AI in serum in vitro and in vivo. Approach and Results— During in vitro incubation of human serum, nHDL-[3H]FC and [14C]PL rapidly transfer to HDL and low-density lipoproteins (t1/2=2–7 minutes), whereas nHDL-[125I]apo AI transfers solely to HDL (t1/2<10 minutes) and to the lipid-free form (t1/2>480 minutes). After injection into mice, nHDL-[3H]FC and [14C]PL rapidly transfer to liver (t1/2=≈2–3 minutes), whereas apo AI clears with t1/2=≈460 minutes. The plasma nHDL-[3H]FC esterification rate is slow (0.46%/h) compared with hepatic uptake. PL transfer protein enhances nHDL-[14C]PL but not nHDL-[3H]FC transfer to cultured Huh7 hepatocytes. Conclusions— nHDL-FC, PL, and apo AI enter different pathways in vivo. Most nHDL-[3H]FC and [14C]PL are rapidly extracted by the liver via SR-B1 (scavenger receptor class B member 1) and spontaneous transfer; hepatic PL uptake is promoted by PL transfer protein. nHDL-[125I]apo AI transfers to HDL and to the lipid-free form that can be recycled to nHDL formation. Cholesterol esterification by lecithin:cholesterol acyltransferase is a minor process in nHDL metabolism. These findings could guide the design of therapies that better mobilize peripheral tissue-FC to hepatic disposal.
Utilization of Temple waste flower -Tagetus erecta for Dyeing of Cotton, Wool and Silk on Industrial scale

Huge amounts of Tagetus erecta (marigold) flowers are offered in temples in India, creating a very large waste. This waste flowers were collected and used for industrial dyeing. Tagetus belongs to the family Asteraceae. It produces natural dye from its flowers (petals) consisting mainly of carotenoid-lutein and flavonoid- patuletin, these colorants have been isolated and identified. The crude extract has been used for dyeing textiles. In the present study innovative dyeing with Tagetus has been shown to give good dyeing results. Pretreatment with 1-2 % metal mordant and 5 % of plant extract (owf) was found to be satisfactory and showed very good fastness properties to dyed fabrics of cotton, wool and silk. Innovative solvent extraction of dry flowers of Tagetus erecta with ethanol was found to have high extraction efficiency allowing selective extraction of flavonoids and carotenoids. This is an easy extraction process, where ethanol solvent was removed and recovered. Crude extract was diluted with deionsed water and used for dyeing. CIELab and K/S of the dyed fabrics were also evaluated. The superiority of solvent extraction over conventional extraction has been established through this study.