Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Developmental Changes in Locating Voice and Sound in Space

We know little about how infants locate voice and sound in a complex multi-modal space. Using a naturalistic laboratory experiment the present study tested 35 infants at 3 ages: 4 months (15 infants), 5 months (12 infants), and 7 months (8 infants). While they were engaged frontally with one experimenter, infants were presented with (a) a second experimenter’s voice and (b) castanet sounds from three different locations (left, right, and behind). There were clear increases with age in the successful localization of sounds from all directions, and a decrease in the number of repetitions required for success. Nonetheless even at 4 months two-thirds of the infants attempted to search for the voice or sound. At all ages localizing sounds from behind was more difficult and was clearly present only at 7 months. Perseverative errors (looking at the last location) were present at all ages and appeared to be task specific (only present in the 7 month-olds for the behind location). Spontaneous attention shifts by the infants between the two experimenters, evident at 7 months, suggest early evidence for infant initiation of triadic attentional engagements. There was no advantage found for voice over castanet sounds in this study. Auditory localization is a complex and contextual process emerging gradually in the first half of the first year.
Clinico-Etiological Profile of Cardiac Tamponade in a Tertiary Care Centre

Background: Pericardial tamponade, a life-threatening condition caused by the accumulation of fluid in the pericardial sac, can be acute or chronic. Mortality and morbidity can be minimized on prompt diagnosis and treatment with percutaneous drainage. Materials and methods: 246 patients admitted with cardiac tamponade between Jan 2010 and Aug 2014 was enrolled in the study. After clinical examination and echocardiographic assessment, all the patients were subjected to emergency pericardiocentesis (both diagnostic and therapeutic). Three samples of the aspirate were sent for biochemical, serological, and cytological analysis. The data collected was then analyzed.
Buckling based laser forming process: Concave or convex

Concave laser forming can be readily achieved, while convex forming may occur through buckling but the buckling direction heavily depends on the sheet surface and pre-strain condition. A new laser-scanning scheme is postulated, by which convex forming can be effected insensitive to the above mentioned initial conditions. The postulate is successfully validated by experimental and numerical results. The effect of the scanning parameters on the certainty of the convex forming are further investigated experimentally and numerically. The simulation results are in agreement with experimental observations. The numerical simulation model developed is also used to study the transient temperature, stress, and strain-state and provide further insight to the convex forming process.Concave laser forming can be readily achieved, while convex forming may occur through buckling but the buckling direction heavily depends on the sheet surface and pre-strain condition. A new laser-scanning scheme is postulated, by which convex forming can be effected insensitive to the above mentioned initial conditions. The postulate is successfully validated by experimental and numerical results. The effect of the scanning parameters on the certainty of the convex forming are further investigated experimentally and numerically. The simulation results are in agreement with experimental observations. The numerical simulation model developed is also used to study the transient temperature, stress, and strain-state and provide further insight to the convex forming process.
Orbital order in classical models of transition-metal compounds

We study the classical 120 degree and related orbital models. These are the classical limits of quantum models which describe the interactions among orbitals of transition-metal compounds. We demonstrate that at low temperatures these models exhibit a long-range order which arises via an “order by disorder” mechanism. This strongly indicates that there is orbital ordering in the quantum version of these models, notwithstanding recent rigorous results on the absence of spin order in these systems.
Treatment of pediatric brain tumors

Over the past decades considerable advances have been made in neurosurgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy resulting in improved survival and cure rates for children with brain tumors. Here we review four of the most common subtypes of pediatric brain tumors, low‐grade and high‐grade astrocytomas, medulloblastomas and ependymomas, highlighting their molecular features regarding their tumor biology, and promising potential therapeutic targets that may hold promise for finding new “molecular targeted” drugs. Importantly, appropriate clinical trial design will play a critical role in the evaluation of new and novel treatment approaches for pediatric brain tumors. J. Cell. Physiol. 217: 584–589, 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Lack of evidence on Tai Chi-related effects in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: a meta-analysis.

AIMS Whether Tai Chi (TC) benefits patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) remains controversial. Thus, we performed a meta-analysis to assess the efficacy of TC in T2DM patients. METHODS A computerised search through PubMed and Embase was performed to identify relevant studies. The primary outcomes were fasting blood glucose (FBG), haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and insulin resistance (HOMA). Secondary outcomes included total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and triglyceride. Weighted mean differences (WMDs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. RESULTS 4 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and 5 non-randomised controlled trials (NRCTs) met the inclusion criteria. The pooled WMDs from RCTs were -14.82 mg/dL (95% CI: -49.17 to 19.53; P=0.40) for FBG, -0.19% (95% CI: -0.41 to 0.03; P=0.09) for HbA1c and -0.34 units (95% CI: -3.02 to 2.34; P=0.80) for HOMA. The WMDs from NRCTs were -11.22 mg/dL (95% CI: -18.58 to -3.86; P=0.003) for FBG, -0.41% (95% CI: -0.53 to -0.29; P<0.00001) for HbA1c and -0.60 units (95% CI: -1.46 to 0.25; P=0.16) for HOMA. Furthermore, the pooled results of serum lipids suggest that TC significantly reduced triglyceride (P=0.006) instead of total cholesterol (P=0.77), and failed to improve HDL-C (P=0.12). CONCLUSIONS Sufficient evidence to support the benefits of TC to T2DM patients is lacking. Further large-scale studies are needed to investigate the long-term efficacy of TC.
Characterization of a Novel 5′ Subgenomic RNA3a Derived from RNA3 of Brome Mosaic Bromovirus

ABSTRACT The synthesis of 3′ subgenomic RNA4 (sgRNA4) by initiation from an internal sg promoter in the RNA3 segment was first described for Brome mosaic bromovirus (BMV), a model tripartite positive-sense RNA virus (W. A. Miller, T. W. Dreher, and T. C. Hall, Nature 313:68-70, 1985). In this work, we describe a novel 5′ sgRNA of BMV (sgRNA3a) that we propose arises by premature internal termination and that encapsidates in BMV virions. Cloning and sequencing revealed that, unlike any other BMV RNA segment, sgRNA3a carries a 3′ oligo(A) tail, in which respect it resembles cellular mRNAs. Indeed, both the accumulation of sgRNA3a in polysomes and the synthesis of movement protein 3a in in vitro systems suggest active functions of sgRNA3a during protein synthesis. Moreover, when copied in the BMV replicase in vitro reaction, the minus-strand RNA3 template generated the sgRNA3a product, likely by premature termination at the minus-strand oligo(U) tract. Deletion of the oligo(A) tract in BMV RNA3 inhibited synthesis of sgRNA3a during infection. We propose a model in which the synthesis of RNA3 is terminated prematurely near the sg promoter. The discovery of 5′ sgRNA3a sheds new light on strategies viruses can use to separate replication from the translation functions of their genomic RNAs.
Reproducibility of the Self-Controlled Six-Minute Walking Test in Heart Failure Patients

INTRODUCTION The six-minute walk test (6WT) has been proposed to be a submaximal test, but could actually demand a high level of exercise intensity from the patient, expressed by a respiratory quotient >1.0, following the guideline recommendations. Standardizing the 6WT using the Borg scale was proposed to make sure that all patients undergo a submaximal walking test. PURPOSE To test the reproducibility of the six-minute treadmill cardiopulmonary walk test (6CWT) using the Borg scale and to make sure that all patients undergo a submaximal test. METHODS Twenty-three male heart failure patients (50±9 years) were included; these patients had both ischemic (5) and non-ischemic (18) heart failure with a left ventricle ejection fraction of 23±7%, were diagnosed as functional class NYHA II-III and were undergoing optimized drug therapy. Patients were guided to walk at a pace between “relatively easy and slightly tiring” (11 and 13 on Borg scale). The 6CWT using the Borg scale was performed two times on a treadmill with zero inclination and patient control of speed with an interval of 24 hours. During the sixth minute, we analyzed ventilation (VE, L/min), respiratory quotient, Oxygen consumption (VO2, ml/kg/min), VE/VCO2 slope, heart rate (HR, bpm), systolic blood pressure (SBP, mmHg), diastolic (DBP, mmHg) blood pressure and distance. RESULTS The intraclass correlation coefficients at the sixth minute were: HR (ri=0.96, p<0.0001), VE (ri=0.84, p<0.0001), SBP (ri=0.72, p=0.001), distance (ri=0.88, p<0.0001), VO2 (ri=0.92, p<0.0001), SlopeVE/VCO2 (ri=0.86, p<0.0001) and RQ<1 (ri=0.6, p=0.004). CONCLUSION Using the 6CWT with the Borg scale was reproducible, and it seems to be an appropriate method to evaluate the functional capacity of heart failure patients while making sure that they undergo a submaximal walking test.
A comparison of triage methods for Kenyan women who screen positive for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia by visual inspection of the cervix with acetic acid.

BACKGROUND Only about one in seven visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA)-positive women has high-grade disease; further confirmatory testing could rule out false positives. OBJECTIVES To determine if visual inspection with Lugol's iodine (VILI) or visual inspection with acetic acid and magnification (VIAM) can accurately confirm the presence of disease among rural Kenyan women referred to a district hospital because of a VIA-positive result at a primary health facility. METHODS Referred women received cervical cytology and either VILI and/or VIAM as triage methods. All women were assessed by colposcopy and biopsied, if necessary. RESULTS Of the 490 VIA-positive subjects referred, 332 (68%) attended the district hospital and received at least one of two triage tests and cervical cytology. The sensitivity and specificity for histologically-confirmed CIN 2 and 3 were 93% (14/15) and 32% (52/161) for VIAM; 100% (3/3) and 77% (49/64) for VILI; and 80% (16/20) and 48% (110/228) for cervical cytology. VILI reduced the number of false-positive screening results by 73%, without missing any true positives. CONCLUSIONS VILI had comparable sensitivity and significantly higher specificity compared to VIAM and cervical cytology. VILI may be a promising triage test for screen-positive women in low-resource settings; additional research is required.
Augmentation of arterial endothelial cell expression of the plasminogen activator inhibitor type-1 (PAI-1) gene by proinsulin and insulin in vivo.

Diabetes mellitus is associated with an increased incidence and greater severity of primary atherosclerosis as well as restenosis after angioplasty for reasons not yet clear. We have shown previously that insulin and proinsulin-typically elevated in blood in patients with type II diabetes-increase plasma activity of plasminogen activator inhibitor type 1 (PAI-1)in vivo. Others have demonstrated that increased PAI-1 activity is associated with coronary heart disease. Accordingly, the present study was performed to identify sites of increased expression of the PAI-1 gene within the vessel wall. Equimolar concentrations of insulin, proinsulin, or vehicle alone as a control, were administered intravenously over 1 h to conscious rabbits that were kept euglycemic throughout by the use of glucose clamping. Within 3 h plasma PAI-1 activity increased from 1.15+/-1.34 to 11.33+/-4.30 AU/ml with insulin (mean+/-s.d., P=0.015) and from 2.83+/-0.74 to 15.43+/-4.70 AU/ml with proinsulin (P=0.035). This was found to be in contrast to the controls where the increase in plasma PAI-1 activity was of lesser degree (2.43+/-1.86 to 6.80+/-1.10 AU/ml, P=n.s., n=4 each). As judged from the results of in situ hybridization, the site of prominent aortic expression of the PAI-1 gene was the endothelium. Furthermore, expression increased further in this site after administration of insulin or proinsulin. As judged from results of immunohistochemistry, PAI-1 protein in the aorta was also prominent in endothelium. These results suggest that "hyper(pro)insulinemia", increases PAI-1 not only in blood but also in arterial endothelium. Thus, attenuation of vasculopathy and especially of restenosis after angioplasty in type II diabetes may be possible with somatic gene therapy targeting PAI-1 expression in endothelial cells.
Determinants of Economic Growth: A Bayesian Panel Data Approach

Abstract Model uncertainty hampers consensus on the key determinants of economic growth. Some recent cross-country cross-sectional analyses have employed Bayesian model averaging to tackle the issue of model uncertainty. This paper extends that approach to panel data models with country-specific fixed effects in order to simultaneously address model uncertainty and endogeneity issues. The empirical findings suggest that in a panel setting, the most robust growth determinants are the price of investment goods, distance to major world cities, and political rights.
Unsupervised Approach of Data Selection for Language Model Adaptation using Generalized Word Posterior Probability

This paper reports an unsupervised approach toward data selection for language model adaptation that is used for improving spontaneous speech recognition in a speech-tospeech translation (S2ST) system. The approach is characterized by the following: 1) it obtains speech data from a real environment (sightseeing sites), in the travel domain, (2) it utilizes the recognition results of the above collected speech for the language model adaptation, (3) it applies generalized word posterior probability (GWPP) among the N-best recognition hypotheses for the base of an utterance confidence measure to select adaptation utterances, (4) it utilizes a collected proper noun lexicon to the baseline language model in the form of zeroton event, so that it has ability to recognize new proper noun words that are previously not contained in the recognition lexicon. By experiments on a Chinese speech test collected from a set of field experiments at five sightseeing areas in Japan, using the above adapted language model, average absolute reductions of 7.6% of the character error rate (CER) were obtained, which is more than the baseline language model. This reduction is over 77% of the 9.8% reduction obtained by the supervised adaptation. By manually correcting a small amount of utterances that were not selected due to their low confidences, and adding them to the above adaptation data, nearly 83% of the reduction by the supervised method can be achieved. The proposed approach effectively improves utterance selection, especially for those containing proper nouns, and is expected to reduce the cost of manual transcription.
Visual field characteristics in neuromyelitis optica in absence of and after one episode of optic neuritis

Purpose Optic neuritis (ON) observed during neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is in most cases very severe and with poor prognosis. This study’s objective was to analyze visual field (VF) abnormalities observed in the absence of ON and post-ON episode. Methods Twenty-seven cases of both NMO and multiple sclerosis (MS) were selected. Thorough ophthalmologic exam was performed at least 6 months post-ON attack. The VF was collected using the Humphrey 750 perimeter. We used the central threshold tests 24-2 with FASTPAC strategy. The abnormalities were categorized based on the Optic Neuritis Treatment Trial classification. Results After one ON, 40% of the NMO group’s eyes showed total VF loss (P = 0.01), 21% showed abnormalities of neurologic aspect, and 27% showed fascicular abnormalities of which 12% were altitudinal. Given the total VF loss, the positive predictive value in favor of an NMO was 92.8% and the negative predictive value was 47.3%. Conclusion Alterations of the VF during the NMO differ from those observed in the course of the MS. One ON, blinding from the first attack, must call to mind an NMO. The altitudinal deficits point to a vascular mechanism.
Laboratory use of hepcidin in renal transplant recipients

Hepcidin is a small peptide with a critical role in cellular iron homeostasis, as it regulates utilization of stored iron and antimicrobial defense in inflammation (bacterial and fungal). Since it was isolated in 2000, and especially in the last decade, numerous studies aimed to evaluate the clinical use of plasma and urine hepcidin as a marker of anemia, especially anemia of chronic disease and post-transplant anemia (PTA). Hepcidin regulation is delicately tuned by two inflammatory pathways activated by interleukin-6 (IL-6) and bone morphogenic proteins (BMPs) and iron regulated pathway sensitive to circulating transferin-iron (TR-Fe) complex. BMP-mediated pathway and TR-Fe sensitive pathway seem to be connected by hemojuveline, a BMP co-factor that interacts with transferine receptor 2 (TRF2) in cases of high TR-Fe circulatory concentration. In addition to these regulatory mechanisms other regulators and signaling pathways are being extensively researched. Hepcidin has been identified as an important contributor to morbidity and mortality in end stage renal disease (ESRD) but no such association has jet been found in case of PTA. However, there is an association between higher doses of erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESA) and mortality in the posttransplant period and the assumption that hepcidin might play a role in ESA resistance in PTA. Thus the review’s main goal was to summarize papers published on the association of hepcidin with PTA, give up-to-date information on hepcidin regulation and on potential therapeutics that optimize hepcidin regulation. We also compared the performances of tests for hepcidin determination and reviewed research on immunosuppressants’ (IS) effect on hepcidin concentration.
THE RELATION BETWEEN VISUAL ACUITY AND ILLUMINATION

1. An apparatus for measuring the visual acuity of the eye at different illuminations is described. The test object is continuously variable in size and is presented at a fixed distance from the eye in the center of a 30° field. Observation of the field is through an artificial pupil. The maximum intensity obtainable is more than enough to cover the complete physiological range for the eye with white light though only 110 watts are consumed by the source. Means for varying the intensity over a range of 1:1010 in small steps are provided. 2. The relation of visual acuity and illumination for two trained observers was measured, using two different types of test object, a broken circle and a grating. The measurements with both test objects show a break at a visual acuity of 0.16, all values below that being mediated by the rods and those above by the cones. The grating gives higher visual acuities at intensities less than about 30 photons and lower visual acuities above that. The maximum visual acuity attainable with the grating under the same conditions is about 30 per cent lower than that with the C. It is shown that the limiting factor in the resolution of the eye for the grating is the diameter of the pupil when it is less than 2.3 mm. and the size of the central cones when the pupil is larger than that. The value of the diameter of the cone derived on that basis from the visual acuity data agrees with that derived from direct cone count in a unit of area. 3. The data for the cones made with both test objects are adequately described by one and the same form of the stationary state equation derived by Hecht for the photoreceptor system. This fact, together with certain considerations about the difference in the nature of the two test objects with regard to the resolvable area, leads to the conclusion that detail perception is a function of a distance rather than an area. All the data for the rods can likewise be described by another variety of the same equation, although the data are too fragmentary to make the choice of the form as certain as might be desired.
Microstructural study on Nb3Al superconducting wires prepared by clad-chip extrusion method

A microstructural study on Nb 3 Al superconducting wires prepared by the Clad-Chip Extrusion (CCE) method was carried out to understand the dependence of critical current density (J c ) on the reduction ratio of Nb/Al composite wire, the additive elements and the heat treatment conditions. The result reveals that the dominant factors which affect the J c property are the grain size and volume fraction of Nb 3 Al (A15), Al concentration in the A15-phase, and the interface density between the superconducting Nb 3 Al and normal Nb 2 Al (σ) layers
Molecular epidemiology of Streptococcus pyogenes in an area where acute pharyngotonsillitis is endemic

During an open clinical trial in an area where streptococcal infections are hyperendemic, we studied the genetic polymorphism of Streptococcus pyogenes isolates collected from patients and from healthy carriers living in close contact with them. The clonal diversity of isolates was analyzed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis with three restriction enzymes (SmaI, ApaI, and SacII). The pharynx of each patient and healthy carrier was colonized by a single clone, suggesting the clonal nature of streptococcal colonization in individuals. Among 52 isolates obtained from patients with acute pharyngotonsillitis, we found 14 genetically unrelated clones, showing the genetic diversity of S. pyogenes. However, two clones belonging to the M1 and M12 serotypes represented about 70% of isolates in carriers and patients. Pharyngeal colonization in cured patients was monitored for 3 to 4 months. After the initial elimination of S. pyogenes following antibiotic therapy, the rate of recolonization was high by day 30 (about 20%) and was also at that level between days 90 and 120; this was similar to the carriage rate in family contacts. Thus, cured patients can be recontaminated by unrelated clones, suggesting that colonization of healthy carriers might be a potential source of spread and redistribution of S. pyogenes isolates.