Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A prospective clinico-radiological study of progressive supranuclear palsy using serial MRI with registration.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate: whether cross sectional MRI can help to discriminate progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), multiple system atrophy (Parkinsonian subtype, MSA-P) and Parkinson's disease (PD) whether established methods of serial volumetric MRI analysis can be applied to measure in-vivo rates of brain atrophy in PSP and whether cross sectional MRI and MRI-derived atrophy rates have a clinical correlate. Volumetric and diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) scans were performed in 24 patients with PSP, 11 with MSA-P, 12 with PD and 18 healthy controls. Detailed clinical and neuropsychological assessments were undertaken, and results at the time of initial assessment and follow-up compared. Whole brain and regional brain volumes were measured on positionally matched (registered) baseline and follow up MR images. The boundary shift integral (BSI), an image analysis technique for assessing volume differences from registered MR scans was applied to whole brain, and hypothesis-driven regions of interest in order to allow quantification of atrophy rates. PSP can be reliably discriminated from MSA-P with quantitative regional volume measurements of the superior cerebellar peduncle, midbrain, pons and cerebellum (p<0.001). DWI may help to identify regional pathological change in-vivo, discriminating MSA-P and PSP using apparent diffusion coefficients in the middle cerebellar peduncle (p0.001). The mean (SD) brain atrophy rate in PSP, 1.2 (1.0) %year_1 was greater than in healthy controls 0.4(0.5)%year"1 (p=0.04) but similar to MSA-P 1.0(l.l)%year'1. In PSP, the mean midbrain atrophy rate was most significantly different from controls (p<0.001). Ponto-cerebellar atrophy rates discriminated MSA-P and PSP (p<0.05). The distinct patterns and rates of atrophy in these diseases have a meaningful clinical correlate and power calculations confirm that in PSP, regional atrophy rates are quantifiable and feasible markers of disease progression that have utility in clinical trials as a marker for evaluating disease-modifying treatments in PSP.
Sex-Related Difference in Antral and Serum Gastrin Levels in the Rat

Summary Antral and serum gastrin concentrations were found to be significantly lower in female than in male rats. Following ovariectomy, serum gastrin concentration significantly increased to male levels; tissue gastrin also increased, but not significantly. Daily injections of estradiol benzoate (2 μg/ day) abolished the rise in gastrin levels after ovariectomy. Antral and serum gastrin concentrations were significantly higher in lac-tating rats than in any other group tested. The possible relationships among sex-dependent changes in food intake, gastrin concentration, and gastric secretion are discussed.
Towards improved treatment of parameter uncertainty in hydrologic modeling

Although solutions of multi-dimensional transient water flow can be obtained by numerical modeling, their application may be limited as root water uptake is generally considered to be one or two-dimensional only. This is especially the case for trees. The first objective of this Chapter is to test the suitability of a three-dimensional root water uptake model for the simultaneous simulation of transient soil water flow around an almond tree. The soil hydraulic and root water uptake parameters were optimized by minimizing the residuals between measured and simulated water content data. Water content was measured in a three-dimensional grid around a sprinklerirrigated almond tree for a 16-day period, following irrigation. A second objective was to compare the performance and results of the three-dimensional flow model using with oneand two-dimensional root water uptake models. For this purpose, measured water contents were aggregated in the xand j -di rect ion in the one-dimensional case and in the radial direction for the two-dimensional uptake model. For the estimation of root water uptake model parameters, a Genetic Algorithm was used to estimate the approximate global minimum of the parameter space, whereas final parameters were determined using the Simplex optimization algorithm. With the optimized root water uptake parameters, simulated and measured water contents during the 16-day period were in excellent agreement for all root water uptake models. Most significantly, the spatial variation in flux density below the rooting zone decreased when reducing multidimensional root water uptake to fewer dimensions, thereby justifying the proposed multidimensional approach. 'This Chapter has been published by: Jasper A. Vrugt, Mark T. van Wijk, Jan W. Hopmans, and Jirka Simtinek, One-, two-, and three-dimensional root water uptake functions for transient modeling, Water Resources Research, 37(10), 2457-2470,2001. © Reprinted with permission of the American Geophysical Union. 23
Impacts of suppression on emotional responses and performance outcomes: an experience-sampling study in younger and older workers.

OBJECTIVES Past studies have demonstrated that older adults used less emotional suppression to regulate their emotions than did younger adults, but the effectiveness of using this emotion regulatory strategy on psychosocial well-being across age remains largely unexplored. The present study adopted an experience-sampling method to examine whether the impacts of momentary employment of emotional suppression on momentary positive and negative emotions and job performance would be different by age. METHOD Eighty-seven Chinese insurance workers, aged between 18 and 61 years, participated in a 5-day sampling study. Their affective responses at work, momentary task performance, and sales productivity were recorded. RESULTS Results showed that older workers' greater use of suppression at work was associated with lower intensity of negative emotions, whereas such association was not found among younger workers. Moreover, greater use of suppression over the sampling period was significantly predictive of sales productivity of older workers, but such a positive association was not shown in younger workers. DISCUSSION These findings reveal that the use of suppression at work may be more effective for older workers than for younger workers.
Coupled Evolution of Transcription and mRNA Degradation

mRNA levels are determined by the balance between transcription and mRNA degradation, and while transcription has been extensively studied, very little is known regarding the regulation of mRNA degradation and its coordination with transcription. Here we examine the evolution of mRNA degradation rates between two closely related yeast species. Surprisingly, we find that around half of the evolutionary changes in mRNA degradation were coupled to transcriptional changes that exert opposite effects on mRNA levels. Analysis of mRNA degradation rates in an interspecific hybrid further suggests that opposite evolutionary changes in transcription and in mRNA degradation are mechanistically coupled and were generated by the same individual mutations. Coupled changes are associated with divergence of two complexes that were previously implicated both in transcription and in mRNA degradation (Rpb4/7 and Ccr4-Not), as well as with sequence divergence of transcription factor binding motifs. These results suggest that an opposite coupling between the regulation of transcription and that of mRNA degradation has shaped the evolution of gene regulation in yeast.
The Self in Process: Toward A Post-Rationalist Cognitive Therapy

Theoretical Premises. Selfhood Processes: An Ontological Approach. The Differentiation of Self? Boundaries. The Self? Organization of Personal Meaning Dimensions. Self? Boundaries and Lifespan Development. Psychotherapeutic Principles. A Post? Rationalist Framework for Cognitive Therapy. Preparing the Clinical and Interpersonal Context. Construing the Therapeutic Setting. Developmental Analysis. Concluding Remarks.
Does Stress Training Generalize to Novel Settings?

Many high-stress task environments are complex and dynamic, and it is often difficult during training to anticipate the exact conditions that may be encountered in these settings. We conducted an empirical study to examine whether the positive effects of stress training that addressed one specific type of stressor and task would remain when trainees performed under a novel stressor or performed a novel task. Participants performed a laboratory task under stress conditions. Measures of task performance and self-reported stress were obtained at three performance trials: (a) prior to stress training, (b) after a stress training intervention targeted to that specific task environment, and (c) under novel stressor/task conditions. Results indicated that the beneficial effects of stress training were retained when participants performed under a novel stressor and performed a novel task. We discuss the implications of this study with regard to their application in the design of stress training and the transfer of learning to complex, dynamic task environments.
Capillary distribution in the ventricles of hearts with pulmonary atresia and intact ventricular septum.

BACKGROUND Pulmonary atresia and intact ventricular septum (PA-IVS) can be complicated by the presence of a severely hypoplastic thick-walled right ventricle with or without ventriculo-coronary arterial communications. A variable amount of myocardial pathology has been described in these hearts, probably the result of ischemic conditions and a high pressure in the right ventricle. We studied whether the capillary network is still intact, allowing a sufficient perfusion of the myocardium, which will be important for the success of palliative surgery. METHODS AND RESULTS We studied the distribution of capillaries in the myocardium of hearts with PA-IVS and compared the results with normal hearts. The capillaries were detected by immunohistochemistry using a monoclonal antibody (408) against endothelium. Remarkable abnormalities in capillary distribution were found in the right ventricle of hearts with PA-IVS and reflect the arrangement of the myocytes. Thus, disorganization of capillaries, which is found to be the most common pattern, always paralleled the myocardial disarray. A low density of capillaries is always found in areas with a low density of myocytes, ie, with hypertrophied myocytes, compact fibrotic tissue, or diffuse fibrosis. Disarray and other disturbances in orientation of capillaries and myocytes are present in hearts with PA-IVS, a hypoplastic right ventricle, and ventriculo-coronary arterial communications. These disturbances are more extensive when interruptions of the coronary arteries are also present. In hearts with PA-IVS and a hypoplastic right ventricle only, extensive regions with low capillary densities and severe myocyte pathology are observed. On the contrary, hearts with PA-IVS and a normal-size right ventricle show minor abnormalities in capillary and myocyte organization. CONCLUSIONS In hearts with PA-IVS, various abnormal capillary distribution patterns are found. Our findings correlate well with clinical data that reported the best surgical results in hearts in which the major part of the myocardium showed a normal capillary distribution and myocyte morphology. This suggests that the capillary distribution may be an important parameter for the function of the heart. Because the distribution of the capillaries is found to be a good reflection of the arrangement of the myocytes, antibody 408 is also a useful tool in detecting abnormalities of the myocardium in a fast and easy way.
High work-function metal gate and high-/spl kappa/ dielectrics for charge trap flash memory device applications

We report the impact of high work-function (/spl Phi//sub M/) metal gate and high-/spl kappa/ dielectrics on memory properties of NAND-type charge trap Flash (CTF) memory devices. In this paper, theoretical and experimental studies show that high /spl Phi//sub M/ gate and high permittivity (high-/spl kappa/) dielectrics play a key role in eliminating electron back tunneling though the blocking dielectric during the erase operation. Techniques to improve erase efficiency of CTF memory devices with a fixed metal gate by employing various chemicals and structures are introduced and those mechanisms are discussed. Though process optimization of high /spl Phi//sub M/ gate and high-/spl kappa/ materials, enhanced CTF device characteristics such as high speed, large memory window, and good reliability characteristics of the CTF devices are obtained.
Using Hospital Discharge Database to Characterize Chagas Disease Evolution in Spain: There Is a Need for a Systematic Approach towards Disease Detection and Control

After the United States, Spain comes second in the list of countries receiving migrants from Latin America, and, therefore, it is the European country with the highest expected number of infected patients of Chagas disease. We have studied the National Health System’s Hospital Discharge Records Database (CMBD) in order to describe the disease evolution from 1997 to 2011 in Spain. We performed a retrospective descriptive study using CMBD information on hospitalizations including Chagas disease. Data was divided in two periods with similar length in time: 1997-2004 and 2005-2011. Hospitalization rates were calculated and clinical characteristics were described. We used multivariable logistic regression to calculate adjusted odds-ratio (aOR) for the association between various conditions and being hospitalized with organ affectation. A total of 1729 hospitalization records were identified. Hospitalization rates for the two periods were 18 and 242.8/100000 population, respectively. The median age was 35 years (range 0-87), 74% were female and the 16-45 age-group was mostly represented (69.8%). Overall, 23.4% hospitalizations included the diagnosis of Chagas disease with organ complications. Being male [aOR: 1.3 (1.00-1.77)], aged 45 and 64 years [aOR: 2.59 (1.42-4.71)], and a median hospitalization cost above 3,065 euro [aOR: 2.03 (3.73-7.86)] were associated with hospitalizations with organ affectation. Since 2005, the number of detected infections increased in Spain. The predominant patients’ profile (asymptomatic women at fertile age) and the conditions associated with organ affectation underlines the need for increased efforts towards the early detection of T cruzi.
A primal-dual multiobjective evolutionary algorithm for approximating the efficient set

In this article, we present a novel evolutionary algorithm for approximating the efficient set of a multiobjective optimization problem (MOP) with continuous variables. The algorithm is based on populations of variable size and exploits new rules for selecting alternatives generated by mutation and recombination. A special feature of the algorithm is that it solves at the same time the original problem and a dual problem such that solutions converge towards the efficient border from two "sides", the feasible set and a subset of the infeasible set. Together with additional assumptions on the considered MOP and further specifications on the algorithm, theoretical results on the approximation quality and the convergence of both subpopulations, the feasible and the infeasible one, are derived.
Differential Visual Processing of Animal Images, with and without Conscious Awareness

The human visual system can quickly and efficiently extract categorical information from a complex natural scene. The rapid detection of animals in a scene is one compelling example of this phenomenon, and it suggests the automatic processing of at least some types of categories with little or no attentional requirements (Li et al., 2002, 2005). The aim of this study is to investigate whether the remarkable capability to categorize complex natural scenes exist in the absence of awareness, based on recent reports that “invisible” stimuli, which do not reach conscious awareness, can still be processed by the human visual system (Pasley et al., 2004; Williams et al., 2004; Fang and He, 2005; Jiang et al., 2006, 2007; Kaunitz et al., 2011a). In two experiments, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to animal and non-animal/vehicle stimuli in both aware and unaware conditions in a continuous flash suppression (CFS) paradigm. Our results indicate that even in the “unseen” condition, the brain responds differently to animal and non-animal/vehicle images, consistent with rapid activation of animal-selective feature detectors prior to, or outside of, suppression by the CFS mask.
Payment rates for personal care assistants and the use of long-term services and supports among those dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.

OBJECTIVE To examine the association between payment rates for personal care assistants and use of long-term services and supports (LTSS) following hospital discharge among dual eligible Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. DATA SOURCES State hospital discharge, Medicaid and Medicare claims, and assessment data on California Medicaid LTSS users from 2006 to 2008. STUDY DESIGN Cross-sectional study. We used multinomial logistic regression to analyze county personal care assistant payment rates and postdischarge LTSS use, and estimate marginal probabilities of each outcome across the range of rates paid in California. DATA EXTRACTION METHODS We identified dual eligible Medicare and Medicaid adult beneficiaries discharged from an acute care hospital with no hospitalizations or LTSS use in the preceding 12 months. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Personal care assistant payment rates were modestly associated with home and community-based services (HCBS) use versus nursing facility entry following hospital discharge (RRR 1.2, 95 percent CI: 1.0-1.4). For a rate of $6.75 per hour, the probability of HCBS use was 5.6 percent (95 percent CI: 4.2-7.1); at $11.75 per hour, 18.0 percent (95 percent CI: 12.5-23.4). Payment rate was not associated with the probability of nursing facility entry. CONCLUSIONS Higher payment rates for personal care assistants may increase utilization of HCBS, but with limited substitution for nursing facility care.
Future Agribusiness Challenges: Strategic Uncertainty, Innovation and Structural Change

The global food and agribusiness industry is in the midst of major changes, and the pace of change seems to be increasing. These changes suggest three fundamental critical future issues for the sector: 1) decisions must be made in an environment of increasing risk and uncertainty, 2) developing and adopting technology and new innovations is critical to long-term financial success, and 3) responding to changes in industry structure and the competitor landscape and industry boundaries is essential to maintain market position. The focus of this paper is the synopsis and application of conceptual/theoretical frameworks that can be used in managerial decision making and analyzing the implications and consequences of strategic uncertainty, innovation and changing industry structure.
Space Vector PWM Technique for a Three-to-Five-Phase Matrix Converter

Variable-speed multiphase (more than three phases) drive systems are seen as serious contenders to the existing three-phase drives due to their distinct advantages. Supply to the multiphase drives is invariably given from a voltage source inverter. However, this paper proposes an alternative solution for supplying multiphase drive system using a direct ac-ac converter called a matrix converter. This paper proposes the pulsewidth modulation (PWM) algorithm for the matrix converter topology with three-phase grid input and five-phase variable-voltage and variable-frequency output. The PWM control technique developed and presented in this paper is based on space vector approach. This paper presents the complete space vector model of the three-to-five-phase matrix converter topology. The space vector model yield 215 total switching combinations which reduce to 243 states considering the imposed constraints, out of which 240 are active and 3 are zero vectors. However, for space vector PWM (SVPWM) implementation, only 90 active and 3 zero vectors can be used. The SVPWM algorithm is presented in this paper. The viability of the proposed solution is proved using analytical, simulation, and experimental approaches.
Genome Differences That Distinguish Bacillus anthracis from Bacillus cereus and Bacillus thuringiensis

ABSTRACT The three species of the group 1 bacilli, Bacillus anthracis, B. cereus, and B. thuringiensis, are genetically very closely related. All inhabit soil habitats but exhibit different phenotypes. B. anthracis is the causative agent of anthrax and is phylogenetically monomorphic, while B. cereus and B. thuringiensis are genetically more diverse. An amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis described here demonstrates genetic diversity among a collection of non-anthrax-causing Bacillus species, some of which show significant similarity to B. anthracis. Suppression subtractive hybridization was then used to characterize the genomic differences that distinguish three of the non-anthrax-causing bacilli from B. anthracis Ames. Ninety-three DNA sequences that were present in B. anthracis but absent from the non-anthrax-causing Bacillus genomes were isolated. Furthermore, 28 of these sequences were not found in a collection of 10 non-anthrax-causing Bacillus species but were present in all members of a representative collection of B. anthracis strains. These sequences map to distinct loci on the B. anthracis genome and can be assayed simultaneously in multiplex PCR assays for rapid and highly specific DNA-based detection of B. anthracis.
Visual search and stimulus similarity.

A new theory of search and visual attention is presented. Results support neither a distinction between serial and parallel search nor between search for features and conjunctions. For all search materials, instead, difficulty increases with increased similarity of targets to nontargets and decreasedsimilarity between nontargets, producing a continuum of search efficiency. A parallel stage of perceptual grouping and description is followed by competitive interaction between inputs, guiding selective access to awareness and action. An input gains weight to the extent that it matches an internal description of that information needed in current behavior (hence the effect of targetnontarget similarity). Perceptual grouping encourages input weights to change together (allowing "spreading suppression" of similar nontargets). The theory accounts for harmful effects of nontargets resembling any possible target, the importance of local nontarget grouping, and many other findings.