Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Fatty acid components in Asian female patients with irritable bowel syndrome

Abstract Abdominal pain is one of the key symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Studies have indicated an increase in the incidence of IBS in Asia. However, yet the pathophysiology of this disease remains unknown. Women are more likely to develop the condition than men, especially the constipation-predominant type. Essential fatty acid (EFA) malnutrition is one of several theories discussing the mechanism of IBS. The authors hypothesized that significant EFA deficiency may cause abdominal pain in patients with IBS. However, because patterns in the oral intake of EFAs differ between cultures, the authors narrowed this study to examine the nutritional status of Asian female patients with IBS The authors investigated Asian female patients with IBS and compared them with a group of healthy controls. Thirty patients with IBS and 39 healthy individuals were included in this study. The participants’ age, height, weight, and waist size were recorded. The 24-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale was documented. Both erythrocyte and plasma fatty acid content were analyzed through gas–liquid chromatography. The authors found that patients with IBS exhibited significantly higher scores for depression, higher proportions of plasma saturated fatty acids and monounsaturated fatty acids, and lower proportions of docosahexaenoic acid and total omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in plasma are associated with IBS in Asian female patients. Further study is indicated to confirm the causality of this association.
Alefacept in the Treatment of Psoriasis in Patients for Whom Conventional Therapies Are Inadequate

Background: Many patients with moderate to severe chronic plaque psoriasis fail to respond to or are not appropriate candidates for conventional systemic therapies and/or phototherapy. Objectives:To assess the efficacy, quality of life and safety of alefacept among the proportion of patients who participated in the phase III studies and who were not suitable candidates for conventional systemic psoriasis therapies or phototherapy. Methods: The patient’s historical responses at the baseline visit during the phase III studies of alefacept were used to identify a subpopulation in whom the use of methotrexate, ciclosporin, retinoids, ultraviolet B or psoralen plus ultraviolet A was ineffective or inappropriate. Endpoints included Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI), Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) and adverse events. Results: Most patients (69%) who were treated with alefacept in the phase III programme were not candidates for ≧1 of the above-mentioned therapies, and 41 and 21% were not candidates for ≧2 and ≧3, respectively. A reduction in PASI of ≧75% was achieved by 27, 23 and 26% of alefacept-treated patients who were not candidates for ≧1, ≧2 and ≧3 conventional systemic psoriasis therapies or phototherapy, respectively (all p ≤ 0.001 vs. placebo). The corresponding results for PASI 50 were 53, 52 and 50% (all p ≤ 0.001 vs. placebo). At 2 weeks after the last dose of alefacept, mean DLQI overall scores were reduced by –4.2, –3.9 and –5.2, respectively (all p ≤ 0.001 vs. placebo). The incidence of adverse events was similar in the alefacept and placebo groups. Conclusions: The efficacy, quality of life effects and safety of alefacept in patients who were not candidates for conventional systemic psoriasis therapies or phototherapy were similar to those reported previously for the overall alefacept-treated population in the phase III studies.
A commentary on the practice of using the so-called typeless species

Abstract The fears expressed by Santos et al. (2016) that description of typeless species (new species described based on field photographs) can be fatal for the practice of taxonomy which will succumb to an uncontrollable stream of “species of questionable delimitation” are, in our opinion, exaggerated. The Code already protects taxonomic practice from subjectivity quite well by limiting opportunities for descriptions of new species based on field photos by rigid requirements, and only skilled taxonomists with extensive knowledge of a group are capable of fulfilling them. If a taxonomist has omitted to compare the new typeless species with the known species externally similar to it, the latter cannot be diagnosed and its name in that case becomes nomen nudum. Typeless species can coincide with species described earlier, but can represent a new species differing in internal features. To describe typeless species without infringement of Article 13.1 a taxonomist should compare this species to all related and similar species described earlier.
Performances of Hill-Type and Neural Network Muscle Models - Toward a Myosignal-Based Exoskeleton

Muscle models are the essential components of any musculoskeletal simulation. In addition, muscle models which are incorporated in neural-based prosthetic and orthotic devices may significantly improve their performance. The aim of the study was to compare the performances of two types of muscle models in terms of predicting the moments developed at the human elbow joint complex based on joint kinematics and neuromuscular activity. The performance evaluation of the muscle models was required to implement them in a powered myosignal-driven exoskeleton (orthotic device). The experimental setup included a passive exoskeleton capable of measuring the joint kinematics and dynamics in addition to the muscle myosignal activity (EMG). Two types of models were developed and analyzed: (i) a Hill-based model and (ii) a neural network. The task, which was selected for evaluating the muscle models performance, was the flexion-extension movement of the forearm with a hand-held weight. For this task the muscle model inputs were the normalized neural activation levels of the four main flexor-extensor muscles of the elbow joint, and the elbow joint angle and angular velocity. Using this inputs, the muscle model predicted the moment applied on the elbow joint during the movement. Results indicated a good performance of the Hill model, although the neural network predictions appeared to be superior. Relative advantages and shortcomings of both approaches were presented and discussed.
Cognitive functioning in socially anxious adults: insights from the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery

Theory suggests that individuals with social anxiety manifest unique patterns of cognition with less efficient fluid cognition and unperturbed crystallized cognition; however, empirical support for these ideas remains inconclusive. The heterogeneity of past findings may reflect unreliability in cognitive assessments or the influence of confounding variables. The present study examined the relations among social anxiety and performance on the reliable, newly established NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery. Results indicate that high socially anxious adults performed as well as low anxious participants on all measures of fluid cognition. However, high socially anxious adults demonstrated enhanced crystallized cognitive abilities relative to a low socially anxious comparison group.
BDNF Protects against Spatial Memory Deficits Following Neonatal Hypoxia-Ischemia

Hypoxic-ischemic (H-I) brain injury in the human perinatal period often leads to significant long-term neurobehavioral dysfunction in the cognitive and sensory-motor domains. Using a neonatal H-I injury model (unilateral carotid ligation followed by hypoxia) in postnatal day seven rats, previous studies have shown that neurotrophins, such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), can be protective against neural tissue loss. The present study explored potential relationships between neural protective and behavioral protective strategies in this neonatal H-I model by determining if neonatal H-I was associated with behavioral spatial learning and memory deficits and whether the neurotrophin BDNF was protective against both brain injury and spatial learning/memory dysfunction. Postnatal day seven rats received vehicle or BDNF pretreatments (intracerebroventricular injections) followed by H-I or sham treatments and then tested for spatial learning and memory on the simple place task in the Morris water maze from postnatal days 20 to 30, and their brains were histologically analyzed at 4 weeks following treatments. H-I rats with vehicle pretreatment displayed significant tissue loss in the hippocampus (including CA1 neurons), cortex, and striatum, as well as severe spatial memory deficits (e.g., short probe times). BDNF pretreatment resulted in significant protection against both H-I-induced brain tissue losses and spatial memory impairments. These findings indicate that unilateral H-I brain injury in a neonatal rodent model is associated with cognitive deficits, and that BDNF pretreatment is protective against both brain injury and spatial memory impairment.
Prototype evaluation of a self-management Internet diary for patients with ulcerative colitis

Objective: To evaluate content, navigation, usability, and impact measurability of a prototype Internet-based self-management intervention for patients with ulcerative colitis. Material and methods: Analysis of 52 Internet diaries that were used in a six-month test trial. Analysis was done using an evaluation framework for eHealth applications that incorporates goals from theory and empirical studies on living with chronic illness, the software design industry, and health services research. Results: Content of the diary covered the intended functions of the Internet-based self-management intervention. The evaluation led to several refinement suggestions concerning navigation, usability, and impact measurability of the Internet diary. Conclusion: Psychosocial, medical, and scientific content as well as interface and design are equally important in the development of effective eHealth interventions.
Event-related potentials and time course of the ‘other-race’ face classification advantage

Other-race faces are less accurately recognized than same race faces but classified faster by race. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we captured the brain temporal dynamics of face classification by race processing performed by 12 Caucasian participants. As expected, participants were faster to classify by race Asian than Caucasian faces. ERPs results identified the occurrence of the other-race face classification advantage at around 240 ms, in a stage related to the processing of visual information at the semantic level. The elaboration of individual face structural representation, reflected in the N170 face-sensitive component, was insufficient to achieve this process. Altogether, these findings suggest that the lesser experience of other-race faces engender fewer semantic representations, which in turn accelerate their speed of processing.
Coactivator-Associated Arginine Methyltransferase 1 Regulates Fetal Hematopoiesis and Thymocyte Development

Coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) is a protein arginine methyltransferase that methylates histones and transcriptional regulators. We previously reported that the absence of CARM1 partially blocks thymocyte differentiation at embryonic day 18.5 (E18.5). In this study, we find that reduced thymopoiesis in Carm1−/− mice is due to a defect in the fetal hematopoietic compartment rather than in the thymic stroma. To determine the cellular basis for impaired thymopoiesis, we examined the number and function of fetal liver (FL) and bone marrow cells. Despite markedly reduced cellularity of hematopoietic progenitors in E18.5 bone marrow, the number of long-term hematopoietic stem cells and downstream subsets was not reduced in Carm1−/− E14.5 or E18.5 FL. Nevertheless, competitive reconstitution assays revealed a deficit in the ability of Carm1−/− FL cells to contribute to hematopoiesis. Furthermore, impaired differentiation of Carm1−/− FL cells in a CARM1-sufficient host showed that CARM1 is required cell autonomously in hematopoietic cells. Coculture of Carm1−/− FL cells on OP9-DL1 monolayers showed that CARM1 is required for survival of hematopoietic progenitors under conditions that promote differentiation. Taken together, this report demonstrates that CARM1 is a key epigenetic regulator of hematopoiesis that affects multiple lineages at various stages of differentiation.
Migration strategy and divergent sexual selection on bird song

Migratory birds are assumed to be under stronger sexual selection pressure than sedentary populations, and the fact that their song is more complex has been taken as confirmation of this fact. However, this assumes that sexual selection pressure due to both male competition and female choice increase together. A further issue is that, in many species, songs become less complex during competitive encounters; in contrast, female choice selects for more complex song, so the two selection pressures may drive song evolution in different directions. We analysed song in two sedentary and two migratory populations of blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla), a species in which different song parts are directed to males and females. We found that migratory populations produce longer, female-directed warbles, indicating sexual selection through female choice is the strongest in these populations. However, the part of the song directed towards males is shorter and more repetitive (as observed in individual competitive encounters between males) in non-migratory populations, indicating sedentary populations, are under stronger selection due to male competition. We show for the first time that the intensity of selection pressure from male competition and female choice varies independently between populations with different migratory behaviours. Rapid alterations in the migration patterns of species are thus likely to lead to unexpected consequences for the costs and benefits of sexual signals.
Perception and Production of Two-stop-consonant Sequences

The duration of the silent closure interval required to perceive two stop consonants in a VC1C2V sequence depends, to some extent, on their places of articulation. In production, too, the duration of the closure interval varies systematically with place. Hqwever, there appears to be little relation between the patterns of variability in production and in perception. Moreover, two analogous perceptual experiments-one using synthetic stimuli, the other, natural speech-yield quite different results. Thus, variations in the amount of closure required to perceive two successive stops seem to be governed by stimulus-specific acoustic factors, not by an internal representation of articulatory patterns or constraints. This conclusion is further supported by the unexpected finding that some listeners do not require any closure for accurate perception of both stops.
A novel current-mode instrumentation amplifier based on operational floating current conveyor

This paper presents a novel current-mode instrumentation amplifier (CMIA) that utilizes an operational floating current conveyor (OFCC) as a basic building block. The OFCC, as a current-mode device, shows flexible properties with respect to other current- or voltage-mode circuits. The advantages of the proposed CMIA are threefold. First, it offers a higher differential gain and a bandwidth that is independent of gain, unlike a traditional voltage-mode instrumentation amplifier. Second, it maintains a high common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) without requiring matched resistors, and finally, the proposed CMIA circuit offers a significant improvement in accuracy compared to other current-mode instrumentation amplifiers based on the current conveyor. The proposed CMIA has been analyzed, simulated, and experimentally tested. The experimental results verify that the proposed CMIA outperforms existing CMIAs in terms of the number of basic building blocks used, differential gain, and CMRR.
A flexible, computationally efficient method for fitting the proportional hazards model to interval‐censored data

The proportional hazards model (PH) is currently the most popular regression model for analyzing time‐to‐event data. Despite its popularity, the analysis of interval‐censored data under the PH model can be challenging using many available techniques. This article presents a new method for analyzing interval‐censored data under the PH model. The proposed approach uses a monotone spline representation to approximate the unknown nondecreasing cumulative baseline hazard function. Formulating the PH model in this fashion results in a finite number of parameters to estimate while maintaining substantial modeling flexibility. A novel expectation‐maximization (EM) algorithm is developed for finding the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters. The derivation of the EM algorithm relies on a two‐stage data augmentation involving latent Poisson random variables. The resulting algorithm is easy to implement, robust to initialization, enjoys quick convergence, and provides closed‐form variance estimates. The performance of the proposed regression methodology is evaluated through a simulation study, and is further illustrated using data from a large population‐based randomized trial designed and sponsored by the United States National Cancer Institute.
SIRIUS-P: An inertially confined direct drive laser fusion power reactor

The SIRIUS-P conceptual design study is of a 1000 MWe laser driven inertial confinement fusion power reactor utilizing near symmetric illumination of direct drive targets. The reference driver is a KrF laser; however, any other laser capable of delivering short wavelength energy can be substituted. Sixty beams providing a total of 3.4 MJ of energy are used at a repetition rate of 6.7 Hz and a target gain of 118. The spherical chamber has an internal diameter of 6.5 m and consists of two independent components, a first wall assembly fabricated from a c/c composite and a blanket assembly made of SiC. First wall protection is provided by a xenon buffer gas at a pressure of 0.5 torr. The chamber is cooled by a flowing granular bed of solid ceramic material, TiO[sub 2] for the first wall assembly and Li[sub 2]O for the blanket assembly. The chamber is housed within a 42 m radius cylindrical reactor building which is 86 m high and which shares the same vacuum space as the chamber. All the laser beams are brought in at the bottom of the building, first onto a dielectrically coated final focusing mirror and finally onto a metallic grazing incidencemore » mirror which reflects them into the chamber through beam ports open to the building. Neutron traps behind the grazing incidence mirrors are used to prolong the lifetimes of the final focusing optics. The nominal cost of electricity from this system is 65 mills/kwh assuming an 8% interest rate on capital. « less
A GENERIC FACE REPRESENTATION APPROACH FOR LOCAL APPEARANCE BASED FACE VERIFICATION

In this paper we present the experimental results of a generic local appearance based face representation approach obtained from the first and fourth experiments of the Face Recognition Grand Challenge (FRGC) version 1 data. The introduced representation approach is compared with the baseline system with the standard distance metrics of L1 norm, L2 norm and cosine angle. The experimental results show that the proposed local appearance based approach provides better and more stable results than the baseline system -holistic Eigenfaces- approach.
Spatio-temporal pyramid matching for sports videos

In this paper, we address the problem of querying video shots based on content-based matching. Our proposed system automatically partitions a video stream into video shots that maintain continuous movements of objects. Finding video shots of the same category is not an easy task because objects in a video shot change their locations over time. Our spatio-temporal pyramid matching (STPM) is the modified spatial pyramid matching (SPM), which considers temporal information in conjunction with spatial locations to match objects in video shots. In addition, we model the mathematical condition in which temporal information contributes to match video shots. In order to improve the matching performance, dynamic features including movements of objects are considered in addition to static features such as edges of objects. In our experiments, several methods based on different feature sets and matching methods are compared, and our spatio-temporal pyramid matching performed better than existing methods in video matching for sports videos.
Quality of dietary control in phenylketonuric patients and its relationship with general intelligence.

OBJECTIVES Assessment of the quality of dietary treatment of phenylketonuria (PKU) patients and investigation of its relationship with the general intelligence of the patients. METHODS Cross-sectional and longitudinal study of 105 PKU treated patients. The index of dietary control (IDC) was calculated as the phenylalanine (Phe) data reduction in half-year medians and the mean of all medians throughout the patient's life. We calculated four different IDCs related to age: IDC-A (< 6 years), IDC-B (6-12 years), IDC-C (13-18 years) and IDC-D (> 18 years). To evaluate the fluctuation of Phe values we calculated the standard error of the estimate of the regression of Phe concentration over age. Development quotient was calculated with the Brunet-Lezine test (< 4 years). Intelligence quotient was evaluated with the Kaufman Bit Intelligence Test (K-Bit), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Third Edition (WAIS III). RESULTS Cross-sectional study: The IDC in age groups were significantly different and so were the number of patients with good, acceptable and poor IDC related to age (p < 0.001). Sampling frequency was good in 72, acceptable in 23 and poor in 10 patients. The general intelligence (101 +/- 10) correlated negatively with the IDC (p < 0.0001) and Phe fluctuations (p < 0.004). Longitudinal study: Significant differences were observed between the IDC through the patients' lifetime except in the adolescent/adult period. CONCLUSIONS 85% of PKU patients showed good/acceptable quality of dietary control. General intelligence correlates with the IDC at all ages, which highlights the importance of good control to achieve good prognosis.
Respiratory Virus Infections Cells to the Lung Airways During T + Nonspecific Recruitment of Memory CD8

Previous studies have shown that heterologous viral infections have a signiﬁcant impact on pre-existing memory T cell populations in secondary lymphoid organs through a combination of cross-reactive and bystander effects. However, the impact of heterologous viral infections on effector/memory T cells in peripheral sites is not well understood. In this study, we have analyzed the impact of a heterologous inﬂuenza virus infection on Sendai virus-speciﬁc CD8 (cid:1) effector/memory cells present in the lung airways. The data show a transient increase in the numbers of Sendai virus nucleoprotein 324–332/K b -speciﬁc CD8 (cid:1) memory T cells in the airways of the inﬂuenza-infected mice peaking around day 4 postinfection. Intratracheal transfer studies and 5-bromo-2 (cid:1) -de-oxyuridine incorporation demonstrate that this increase is due to the recruitment of resting memory cells into the airways. In addition, the data show that these immigrating memory cells are phenotypically distinct from the resident memory T cells of the lung airways. A similar inﬂux of nonproliferating Sendai virus nucleoprotein 324–332/K b -speciﬁc CD8 (cid:1) memory T cells is also induced by a secondary (homologous) infection with Sendai virus. Together, these data suggest that inﬂammation can accelerate memory T cell migration to nonlymphoid tissues and is a part of the normal recall response during respiratory infections. The Journal of Immunology, 2003, 170: 1423–1429.