Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Association of suicide attempts with acne and treatment with isotretinoin: retrospective Swedish cohort study

Objective To assess the risk of attempted suicide before, during, and after treatment with isotretinoin for severe acne. Design Retrospective cohort study linking a named patient register of isotretinoin users (1980-9) to hospital discharge and cause of death registers (1980-2001). Setting Sweden, 1980-2001. Population 5756 patients aged 15 to 49 years prescribed isotretinoin for severe acne observed for 17 197 person years before, 2905 person years during, and 87 120 person years after treatment. Main outcome measures Standardised incidence ratio (observed number divided by expected number of suicide attempts standardised by sex, age, and calendar year), calculated up to three years before, during, and up to 15 years after end of treatment. Results 128 patients were admitted to hospital for attempted suicide. During the year before treatment, the standardised incidence ratio for attempted suicide was raised: 1.57 (95% confidence interval 0.86 to 2.63) for all (including repeat) attempts and 1.36 (0.65 to 2.50) counting only first attempts. The standardised incidence ratio during and up to six months after treatment was 1.78 (1.04 to 2.85) for all attempts and 1.93 (1.08 to 3.18) for first attempts. Three years after treatment stopped, the observed number of attempts was close to the expected number and remained so during the 15 years of follow-up: standardised incidence ratio 1.04 (0.74 to 1.43) for all attempts and 0.97 (0.64 to 1.40) for first attempts. Twelve (38%) of 32 patients who made their first suicide attempt before treatment made a new attempt or committed suicide thereafter. In contrast, 10 (71%) of the 14 who made their first suicide attempt within six months after treatment stopped made a new attempt or committed suicide during follow-up (two sample test of proportions, P=0.034). The number needed to harm was 2300 new six month treatments per year for one additional first suicide attempt to occur and 5000 per year for one additional repeat attempt. Conclusions An increased risk of attempted suicide was apparent up to six months after the end of treatment with isotretinoin, which motivates a close monitoring of patients for suicidal behaviour for up to a year after treatment has ended. However, the risk of attempted suicide was already rising before treatment, so an additional risk due to the isotretinoin treatment cannot be established. As patients with a history of suicide attempts before treatment made new attempts to a lesser extent than did patients who started such behaviour in connection with treatment, patients with severe acne should not automatically have isotretinoin treatment withheld because of a history of attempted suicide.
Effects of fish-oil and folate supplementation of pregnant women on maternal and fetal plasma concentrations of docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid : a European randomized multicenter trial 1 – 3

Background: Pregnant women usually meet their increased energy needs but do not always meet their increased micronutrient requirements. The supply of both folic acid and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) has been related to positive pregnancy and infant outcomes. Objective: We aimed to assess whether fish-oil (FO) supplementation with or without folate from gestation week 22 to birth improves maternal and fetal n 3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (n 3 LC-PUFA) status. Design: We conducted a multicenter (Germany, Hungary, and Spain), randomized, double-blind, 2 2 factorial, placebo-controlled trial. From gestation week 22 until delivery, 311 pregnant women received daily a preparation with FO [0.5 g DHA and 0.15 g eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)], 400 g methyltetrahydrofolic acid (MTHF), FO withMTHF,orplacebo.Outcomemeasures includedmaternalandcord plasma DHA and EPA contents at gestation weeks 20 and 30 and at delivery, indicators of pregnancy outcome, and fetal development. Results: FO significantly (P 0.001) increased maternal DHA and EPA (% by wt), as shown by 3-factor repeated-measures ANOVA (ie, MTHF, FO, and time) with adjustment for maternal baseline DHA and EPA. In addition, FO significantly (P 0.001) increased cord blood DHA (% by wt; 2-factor ANOVA). MTHF was significantly (P 0.046) associated with increased maternal DHA (% by wt). There was no FO MTHF interaction for the time course of DHA or EPA (P 0.927 and 0.893). Pregnancy outcomes and fetal development did not differ significantly among the intervention groups. Conclusions: FO supplementation from gestation week 22 until delivery improves fetal n 3 LC-PUFA status and attenuates depletion of maternal stores. MTHF may further enhance maternal n 3 LC-PUFA proportions. Am J Clin Nutr 2007;85:1392–400.
Spark plasma sintering of cerium dioxide and its composites

Cerium dioxide (CeO2) is an important electroceramic material with a wide array of applications in the fuel cell industry. Recently, cerium dioxide was also found to have similar thermophysical properties as common nuclear fuel materials such as uranium dioxide, thorium dioxide and plutonium dioxide. Thus, it can be used as a surrogate material for simulating the processing of nuclear fuel materials, without the risks associated with radioactivity. However, similar to other ceramic materials, processing of cerium dioxide is challenging, due to its high melting point and low ductility. Consequently, powder metallurgy techniques are widely employed to overcome the limitations of ceramic processing. In this thesis, studies on the processing of cerium dioxide and its composites using a novel sintering technique called Spark Plasma Sintering (SPS) were carried out. The e ect of SPS process parameters on the physical and chemical changes of cerium dioxide were investigated. The results indicate that an optimal combination of sintering temperature, pressure and time are required in order to fabricate high integrity CeO2 coupons. Challenges associated with chemical expansion and stoichiometric instabilities were observed and related to SPS processing conditions, as well as the electric current inherent to the SPS fabrication process.
Selective effects of PPARγ agonists and antagonists on human pre‐adipocyte differentiation

Aim: The insulin sensitizer rosiglitazone (RTZ) acts by activating peroxisome proliferator and activated receptor γ (PPAR γ), an effect accompanied in vivo in humans by an increase in fat storage. We hypothesized that this effect concerns PPARγ1 and PPARγ2 differently and is dependant on the origin of the adipose cells (subcutaneous or visceral). To this aim, the effect of RTZ, the PPARγ antagonist GW9662 and lentiviral vectors expressing interfering RNA were evaluated on human pre‐adipocyte models.
Structure optimizations of neuromorphic computing architectures for deep neural network

This work addresses a new structure optimization of neuromorphic computing architectures. This enables to speed up the DNN (deep neural network) computation twice as fast as, theoretically, that of the existing architectures. Precisely, we propose a new structural technique of mixing both of the dendritic and axonal based neuromorphic cores in a way to totally eliminate the inherent non-zero waiting time between cores in the DNN implementation. In addition, in conjunction with the new architecture we propose a technique of maximally utilizing computation units so that the resource overhead of total computation units can be minimized. We have provided a set of experimental data to demonstrate the effectiveness (i.e., speed and area) of our proposed architectural optimizations: ∼2x speedup with no accuracy penalty on the neuromorphic computation or improved accuracy with no additional computation time.
Static solutions in the U(1) gauged Skyrme model

We use a prescription to gauge the SU(2) Skyrme model with a U(1) field, characterized by a conserved baryonic current. This model reverts to the usual Skyrme model in the limit of the gauge coupling constant vanishing. We show that there exist axially symmetric static solutions with zero magnetic charge, which can be electrically either charged or uncharged. The energies of the (uncharged) gauged Skyrmions are less than the energy of the (usual) ungauged Skyrmion. For physical values of the parameters the impact of the U(1) field is very small, so that it can be treated as a perturbation to the (ungauged) spherically symmetric hedgehog. This allows the perturbative calculation of the magnetic moment.
Single-Stage Bilateral Versus Unilateral Retrograde Intrarenal Surgery for Management of Renal Stones: A Matched-Pair Analysis.

PURPOSE This study aimed to compare the effectiveness and safety of single-stage bilateral and unilateral retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS) for treatment of patients with renal stones. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients undergoing single-stage bilateral RIRS for renal stones between January 2011 and April 2014 were retrospectively reviewed and matched to patients undergoing unilateral RIRS at a 1:1 ratio by the propensity score based on age, sex, body mass index, American Society of Anesthesiologists classification, stone burden, and stone location (involvement of the lower calix or not). Main outcome measures were stone-free rate per patient and per renal unit and RIRS-associated morbidity. RESULTS Of 60 patients treated by single-stage bilateral RIRS, 59 patients were matched with patients treated by unilateral RIRS. Stone-free rates per patient for bilateral RIRS and unilateral RIRS were 84.7% and 91.5%, respectively (P=0.255). Median operative time (100 vs 65 min, P<0.001) and postoperative hospitalization (2 vs 1 d, P=0.011) was significantly longer for bilateral RIRS than unilateral RIRS. Median changes in hematocrit (1.3% vs 1.0%, P=0.964) and serum creatinine level (3 vs 2 μmol/L, P=0.716) were similar between bilateral and unilateral RIRS. The overall complication rate was slightly higher with bilateral RIRS (11.9% vs 8.5%, P=0.542). No serious RIRS-associated morbidities occurred in either group. CONCLUSION Single-stage bilateral RIRS was as effective and safe as unilateral RIRS among propensity score-matched patients.
Inhibition of Growth and p21 ras Methylation in Vascular Endothelial Cells by Homocysteine but Not Cysteine*

Although hyperhomocysteinemia has been recognized recently as a prevalent risk factor for myocardial infarction and stroke, the mechanisms by which it accelerates arteriosclerosis have not been elucidated, mostly because the biological effects of homocysteine can only be demonstrated at very high concentrations and can be mimicked by cysteine, which indicates a lack of specificity. We found that 10–50 μm of homocysteine (a range that overlaps levels observed clinically) but not cysteine inhibited DNA synthesis in vascular endothelial cells (VEC) and arrested their growth at the G1 phase of the cell cycle. Homocysteine in this same range had no effect on the growth of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) or fibroblasts. Homocysteine decreased carboxyl methylation of p21 ras (a G1 regulator whose activity is regulated by prenylation and methylation in addition to GTP-GDP exchange) by 50% in VEC but not VSMC, a difference that may be explained by the ability of homocysteine to dramatically increase levels ofS-adenosylhomocysteine, a potent inhibitor of methyltransferase, in VEC but not VSMC. Moreover, homocysteine-induced hypomethylation in VEC was associated with a 66% reduction in membrane-associated p21 ras and a 67% reduction in extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2, which is a member of the mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase family. Because the MAP kinases have been implicated in cell growth, the p21 ras -MAP kinase pathway may represent one of the mechanisms that mediates homocysteine’s effect on VEC growth. VEC damage is a hallmark of arteriosclerosis. Homocysteine-induced inhibition of VEC growth may play an important role in this disease process.
Distribution of a major connective tissue protein, fibronectin, in normal human tissues

Fibronectin is a major surface-associated glycoprotein of cultured fibroblasts and it is also present in human plasma. Antiserum specific for human fibronectin was used to study the distribution of fibronectin in normal adult human tissues. The protein was detected (a) characteristically in various basement membranes including capillary walls: (b) around individual smooth muscle cells and in the sarcolemma of striated muscle fibers; and (c) in the stroma of lymphatic tissue and as thin fibers in loose connective tissue. The distribution of fibronectin was distinct from that of collagen and elastic fibers, but was very similar to reticulin, as demonstrated by conventional histological staining. The results indicate that fibronectin is a major component of connective tissue matrix. The distribution also indicates that most types of adherent cells abut fibronectin-containing structures. This supports the possible role of fibronectin in cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions in tissues.
Development and Outcomes of A Text Messaging Tobacco Cessation Intervention with Urban Adolescents

Background This paper describes the development of an urban adolescent text messaging tobacco cessation intervention and preliminary findings from a randomized, controlled trial. The authors successfully adapted a face-to-face intervention into a personalized, automated, and interactive 5-day texting protocol. Methods Respondent-driven sampling was used beginning at a community substance abuse facility. Seventy-two tobacco-dependent adolescents were randomized into an automated computer texting program that delivered either the experimental condition of 30 motivational interviewing– and social network counseling–based personalized messages or the attention control condition consisting of a texting program covering general (non–smoking-related) health habits. All teens were provided smartphones for the study and were assessed at baseline and at 1, 3, and 6 months post intervention. Analyses examined condition × time interactions. Results At 6 months, the experimental condition decreased the number of cigarettes smoked in the past 30 days, increased intentions not to smoke in the future, and increased peer social support compared with controls. Effect sizes were moderate to large. Conclusions These findings are unique, as they target urban adolescents with a mobile health format and add to the growing literature on the efficacy of text-delivered interventions.
Advantages of a single-cycle production assay to study cell culture-adaptive mutations of hepatitis C virus

The JFH1 strain of hepatitis C virus (HCV) is unique among HCV isolates, in that the wild-type virus can traverse the entire replication cycle in cultured cells. However, without adaptive mutations, only low levels of infectious virus are produced. In the present study, the effects of five mutations that were selected during serial passage in Huh-7.5 cells were studied. Recombinant genomes containing all five mutations produced 3–4 logs more infectious virions than did wild type. Neither a coding mutation in NS5A nor a silent mutation in E2 was adaptive, whereas coding mutations in E2, p7, and NS2 all increased virus production. A single-cycle replication assay in CD81-deficient cells was developed to study more precisely the effect of the adaptive mutations. The E2 mutation had minimal effect on the amount of infectious virus released but probably enhanced entry into cells. In contrast, both the p7 and NS2 mutations independently increased the amount of virus released.
Sleep patterns and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption among children from around the world

Abstract Objective To examine the relationships between objectively measured sleep patterns (sleep duration, sleep efficiency and bedtime) and sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption (regular soft drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks and fruit juice) among children from all inhabited continents of the world. Design Multinational, cross-sectional study. Setting The International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE). Subjects Children (n 5873) 9–11 years of age. Results Sleep duration was 12 min per night shorter in children who reported consuming regular soft drinks ‘at least once a day’ compared with those who reported consuming ‘never’ or ‘less than once a week’. Children were more likely to sleep the recommended 9–11 h/night if they reported lower regular soft drink consumption or higher sports drinks consumption. Children who reported consuming energy drinks ‘once a week or more’ reported a 25-min earlier bedtime than those who reported never consuming energy drinks. Children who reported consuming sports drinks ‘2–4 d a week or more’ also reported a 25-min earlier bedtime compared with those who reported never consuming sports drinks. The associations between sleep efficiency and SSB consumption were not significant. Similar associations between sleep patterns and SSB consumption were observed across all twelve study sites. Conclusions Shorter sleep duration was associated with higher intake of regular soft drinks, while earlier bedtimes were associated with lower intake of regular soft drinks and higher intake of energy drinks and sports drinks in this international study of children. Future work is needed to establish causality and to investigate underlying mechanisms.
Eosinophil crystalloid granules: structure, function, and beyond

Eosinophils are granulocytes associated with host defense against parasitic helminths with allergic conditions and more recently, with immunoregulatory responses. Eosinophils are distinguished from leukocytes by their dominant population of cytoplasmic crystalloid (also termed secretory, specific, or secondary) granules that contain robust stores of diverse, preformed cationic proteins. Here, we provide an update on our knowledge about the unique and complex structure of human eosinophil crystalloid granules. We discuss their significance as rich sites of a variety of receptors and review our own recent research findings and those of others that highlight discoveries concerning the function of intracellular receptors and their potential implications in cell signaling. Special focus is provided on how eosinophils might use these intracellular receptors as mechanisms to secrete, selectively and rapidly, cytokines or chemokines and enable cell‐free extracellular eosinophil granules to function as independent secretory structures. Potential roles of cell‐free eosinophil granules as immune players in the absence of intact eosinophils will also be discussed.
Effects of Salicylic Acid on Wheat Germination Parameters under Drought Stress

2 Abstract: A laboratory experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of seed priming with salicylic acid (SA) on germination characteristics of wheat (Chamran cv.) under drought stress. The experimental design was completely randomized design with five SA concentrations (0, 0.00001, 0.001, 0.1 and 1 mM), four levels of stress (0, -3, -6 and -9 bar) with three replications. The seeds were soaked in SA solution for 12 hrs and after drying, were placed in Petri dishes containing 7 ml of polyethylene glycol solution. For eight days the germination traits were monitored and germination percentage and rate, radicle and plumule lengths and seed vigor were measured. The results showed that drought stress inhibited all of the germination characteristics measured. Primed seeds with 0.00001 mM SA had the highest germination percentage and rate, and radicle and plumule lengths. The 0.00001 mM SA concentration had the highest germination percentage under high stress (-9 bar) and the highest germination rate under medium stress (-6 bar). Low concentrations of SA had more positive effects on wheat germination than high concentrations. Based on the results of this study, seed priming of wheat with low concentrations of SA (0.00001 mM) is recommended under low to high drought stress conditions.
ALIGNet

The process of aligning a pair of shapes is a fundamental operation in computer graphics. Traditional approaches rely heavily on matching corresponding points or features to guide the alignment, a paradigm that falters when significant shape portions are missing. These techniques generally do not incorporate prior knowledge about expected shape characteristics, which can help compensate for any misleading cues left by inaccuracies exhibited in the input shapes. We present an approach based on a deep neural network, leveraging shape datasets to learn a shape-aware prior for source-to-target alignment that is robust to shape incompleteness. In the absence of ground truth alignments for supervision, we train a network on the task of shape alignment using incomplete shapes generated from full shapes for self-supervision. Our network, called ALIGNet, is trained to warp complete source shapes to incomplete targets, as if the target shapes were complete, thus essentially rendering the alignment partial-shape agnostic. We aim for the network to develop specialized expertise over the common characteristics of the shapes in each dataset, thereby achieving a higher-level understanding of the expected shape space to which a local approach would be oblivious. We constrain ALIGNet through an anisotropic total variation identity regularization to promote piecewise smooth deformation fields, facilitating both partial-shape agnosticism and post-deformation applications. We demonstrate that ALIGNet learns to align geometrically distinct shapes and is able to infer plausible mappings even when the target shape is significantly incomplete. We show that our network learns the common expected characteristics of shape collections without over-fitting or memorization, enabling it to produce plausible deformations on unseen data during test time.
Functional quantization rate and mean pathwise regularity of processes with an application to Lévy processes

We investigate the connections between the mean pathwise regularity of stochastic processes and their L r (P)-functional quantization rate as random variables taking values in some L p ([0, T ], dt)-spaces (0 < p ≤ r). Our main tool is the Haar basis. We then emphasize that the derived functional quantization rate may be optimal (like for the Brownian motion) or not (like for the Poisson process). As a first application we establish the O((log N) − 1 2)-upper bound for general Itô processes which include multi-dimensional diffusions. Then, we focus on the specific family of Lévy processes for which we derive a general quantization rate based on the regular variation properties of its Lévy measure at 0. The case of compound Poisson processes which appears as degenerate in the former approach, is studied specifically: one observes some rates which are in-between finite dimensional and infinite dimensional " usual " rates.
Implantable Cardioverter-Deﬁbrillator Patients Who Are Upgraded and Respond to Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy Have Less Ventricular Arrhythmias Compared With Nonresponders

Objectives The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of upgrading implantable cardioverter-deﬁbrillator (ICD) therapy to cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) combined with deﬁbrillator (CRT-D) on the occurrence of ventricular arrhythmia (VA) and appropriate ICD therapies. Background CRT has been shown to improve left ventricular (LV) systolic function and induce reverse LV remodeling. In addi-tion, it has been hypothesized that CRT may reduce the incidence of VA. Methods Heart failure patients receiving an upgrade from ICD to CRT-D were evaluated. Patients were considered responders to CRT if LV end-systolic volume reduced (cid:1) 15% at 6 months of follow-up. Episodes of VA, triggering device therapy (anti-tachycardia pacing and shocks) were recorded before and after upgrade for the overall population. In addition, these outcomes were compared between CRT responders and nonresponders during the follow-up period after CRT response was assessed. Results One hundred ﬁfteen patients (93 males [81%], age 65 (cid:1) 12 years) were evaluated during a mean follow-up of 54 (cid:1) 34 months before CRT-D upgrade and 37 (cid:1) 27 months after upgrade. In CRT responders