Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Incidence of migraine relative to menstrual cycle phases of rising and falling estrogen

Objective: To investigate the association between urinary hormone levels and migraine, with particular reference to rising and falling levels of estrogen across the menstrual cycle in women with menstrual and menstrually related migraine. Methods: Women with regular menstrual cycles, who were not using hormonal contraception or treatments and who experienced between one and four migraine attacks per month, one of which regularly occurred on or between days 1 ± 2 of menstruation, were studied for three cycles. Women used a fertility monitor to identify ovulation, conducting a test each day as requested by the monitor, using a sample of early morning urine. Urine samples were collected daily for assay of estrone-3-glucuronide, pregnanediol 3-glucuronide, follicle-stimulating hormone, and luteinizing hormone. All women kept a daily migraine diary and continued their usual treatment for migraine. Results: Of 40 women recruited, data from 38 women were available for analysis. Compared with the expected number of attacks, there was a significantly higher number of migraine attacks during the late luteal/early follicular phase of falling estrogen and lower number of attacks during rising phases of estrogen. Conclusion: These findings confirm a relationship between migraine and changing levels of estrogen, supporting the hypothesis of perimenstrual but not postovulatory estrogen “withdrawal” migraine. In addition, rising levels of estrogen appear to offer some protection against migraine.
Conceptual Framework for Internet of Things' Virtualization via OpenFlow in Context-aware Networks

A novel conceptual framework is presented in this paper with an aim to standardize and virtualize Internet of Things(IoT) infrastructure through deploying OpenFlow technology. The framework can receivee services based on context information leaving the current infrastructure unchanged. This framework allows the active collaboration of heterogeneous devices and protocols. Moreover it is capable to model placement of physical objects, manage the system and to collect information for services deployed on an IoT infrastructure. Our proposed IoT virtualization is applicable to a random topology scenario which makes it possible to 1) share flow sensors resources 2) establish multioperational sensor networks, and 3) extend reachability within the framework without establishing any further physical networks. Flow sensors achieve better results comparable to the typical sensors with respect to packet generation, reachability, simulation time, throughput, energy consumption point of view. Even better results are possible through utilizing multicast groups in large scale networks.
The metamorphosis of a collaborative team: from creation to operation

Abstract This paper reports on the process of developing a community-based interprofessional team to provide diabetes related foot ulcer care. A new interprofessional team was formed in a local community, and the process of building a successful team was examined by the adoption of an exploratory qualitative case study approach that gathered a series of one-on-one interviews with participants at three points in time – prior to the team’s formation, two months into the team’s operation, and finally seven months later – shortly before the team and its clinic closed. Interviews were also conducted with a small sample of the team’s patients. The factors linked to the successes and challenges of building a care team in a community setting are explored. Informants highlighted the value of regular team meetings, role clarity, and a commitment to patient-centered care. However effective collaboration was not sufficient to maintain the team in the face of poor institutional and government support.
Episodic medication adherence in adolescents and young adults with perinatally acquired HIV: a within-participants approach

ABSTRACT Due to the success of antiretroviral (ART) medications, young people living with perinatally acquired HIV (PHIV+) are now surviving into adolescence and young adulthood. Understanding factors influencing ART non-adherence in this group is important in developing effective adherence interventions. Most studies of ART adherence in HIV-positive populations assess differences in adherence levels and adherence predictors between participants, over a period of time (global adherence). Many individuals living with HIV, however, including PHIV+ young people, take medication inconsistently. To investigate this pattern of adherence, a within-participants design, focussing on specific episodes of adherence and non-adherence, is suitable (episodic adherence). A within-participants design was used with 29 PHIV+ young people (17 female, median age 17 years, range 14–22 years), enrolled in the UK Adolescents and Adults Living with Perinatal HIV cohort study. Participants were eligible if they could identify one dose of medication taken and one dose they had missed in the previous two months. For each of the two episodes (one adherent, one non-adherent), behavioural factors (whom they were with, location, routine, day, reminders) and psychological factors at the time of the episode (information about medication, adherence motivation, perceived behavioural skills to adhere to medication – derived from the Information-Motivation-Behavioural Skills (IMB) Model – and affect) were assessed in a questionnaire. Non-adherence was significantly associated with weekend days (Friday to Sunday versus Monday to Thursday, p = .001), lack of routine (p = .004), and being out of the home (p = .003), but not with whom the young person was with or whether they were reminded to take medication. Non-adherence was associated with lower levels of behavioural skills (p < .001), and lower positive affect (p = .005). Non-adherence was not significantly associated with negative affect, information about ART, or ART motivation. The use of situationally specific strategies to enhance adherence in young people who take their medication inconsistently is proposed.
Answer Sentence Retrieval by Matching Dependency Paths acquired from Question/Answer Sentence Pairs

In Information Retrieval (IR) in general and Question Answering (QA) in particular, queries and relevant textual content often significantly differ in their properties and are therefore difficult to relate with traditional IR methods, e.g. key-word matching. In this paper we describe an algorithm that addresses this problem, but rather than looking at it on a term matching/term reformulation level, we focus on the syntactic differences between questions and relevant text passages. To this end we propose a novel algorithm that analyzes dependency structures of queries and known relevant text passages and acquires transformational patterns that can be used to retrieve relevant textual content. We evaluate our algorithm in a QA setting, and show that it outperforms a baseline that uses only dependency information contained in the questions by 300% and that it also improves performance of a state of the art QA system significantly.
Clustered speculative multithreaded processors

In this paper we present a processor microarchitecture that can simultaneously execute multiple threads and has a clustered design for scalability purposes. A main feature of the proposed microarchitecture is its capability to spawn speculative threads from a single-thread application at run-time. These speculative threaak use otherwise idle resources of the machine. Spawning a speculative thread involves predicting its control flow as well as its dependences with other threads and the values that flow through them. In this way, threads fhat are not independent can be executed in parallel. Control-Jlow, data value and data dependence predictors particularly designedfor this type of microarchitecture are presented. Results show the potential of the microarchitecture to exploit speculative parallelism in programs that are hard to parallelize at compile-time, such as the SpecInt9.5. For a 4-thread unit configuration, some programs such as ijpeg and Ii can exploit an average degree of parallelism of more than 2 threads per cycle. The average degree ofparallelism for the whole SpecInt95 suite is 1.6 threads per cycle. This speculative parallelism results in significant speedups for all the Speclnt95 programs when compared with a single-thread execution.
Comodulation of dopamine and serotonin on prefrontal cortical rhythms: a theoretical study

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is implicated to play an important role in cognitive control. Abnormal PFC activities and rhythms have been observed in some neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, and evidences suggest influences from the neuromodulators dopamine (DA) and serotonin (5-HT). Despite the high level of interest in these brain systems, the combined effects of DA and 5-HT modulation on PFC dynamics remain unknown. In this work, we build a mathematical model that incorporates available experimental findings to systematically study the comodulation of DA and 5-HT on the network behavior, focusing on beta and gamma band oscillations. Single neuronal model shows pyramidal cells with 5-HT1A and 2A receptors can be non-monotonically modulated by 5-HT. Two-population excitatory-inhibitory type network consisting of pyramidal cells with D1 receptors can provide rich repertoires of oscillatory behavior. In particular, 5-HT and DA can modulate the amplitude and frequency of the oscillations, which can emerge or cease, depending on receptor types. Certain receptor combinations are conducive for the robustness of the oscillatory regime, or the existence of multiple discrete oscillatory regimes. In a multi-population heterogeneous model that takes into account possible combination of receptors, we demonstrate that robust network oscillations require high DA concentration. We also show that selective D1 receptor antagonists (agonists) tend to suppress (enhance) network oscillations, increase the frequency from beta toward gamma band, while selective 5-HT1A antagonists (agonists) act in opposite ways. Selective D2 or 5-HT2A receptor antagonists (agonists) can lead to decrease (increase) in oscillation amplitude, but only 5-HT2A antagonists (agonists) can increase (decrease) the frequency. These results are comparable to some pharmacological effects. Our work illustrates the complex mechanisms of DA and 5-HT when operating simultaneously through multiple receptors.
Relationship of nasal carriage of Staphylococcus aureus to pathogenesis of perennial allergic rhinitis.

BACKGROUND Several studies have previously shown some factors that modify the pathogenesis of perennial allergic rhinitis (PAR). However, the association between bacterial colonization and PAR has not been well understood. OBJECTIVE We sought to study the association between superantigen-producing Staphylococcus aureus and PAR. METHODS S aureus colonization in the nasal cavity and its superantigen production were studied in 65 patients with PAR and 45 nonallergic control subjects. The nasal symptom scores of the patients were evaluated. Furthermore, we examined the response to staphylococcal enterotoxin B or toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 of peripheral blood lymphocytes from both patients and control subjects by measuring proliferative responses and production of cytokines (IFN-gamma, IL-4, and IL-5). RESULTS The rate of nasal carriage of S aureus in the patients (44%) was significantly higher than that of the control subjects (20%, P <.01). Moreover, the rate of nasal carriage of superantigen-producing S aureus in the patients (22%) was significantly higher than that of the control subjects (6.7%, P <.05). The nasal symptom scores of the S aureus -positive patients were significantly higher than those of the S aureus -negative patients (P <.05), although there was no significant association between symptom scores and superantigen production. Peripheral blood lymphocytes from the patients showed significantly higher proliferative responses and were more likely to produce T(H2 )type cytokines in response to superantigens (P <.01), but the responses were not different among the patients with S aureus carriage and superantigen production. CONCLUSION This study suggests that PAR leads to a higher carriage rate of S aureus, and nasal carriage of S aureus may aggravate PAR.
Effect of Fluoroquinolone Concentration on Selection of Resistant Mutants of Mycobacterium bovis BCG andStaphylococcus aureus

ABSTRACT When Mycobacterium bovis BCG and Staphylococcus aureus were plated on agar containing increasing concentrations of fluoroquinolone, colony numbers exhibited a sharp drop, followed by a plateau and a second sharp drop. The plateau region correlated with the presence of first-step resistant mutants. Mutants were not recovered at concentrations above those required for the second sharp drop, thereby defining a mutant prevention concentration (MPC). A C-8-methoxy group lowered the MPC for anN-1-cyclopropyl fluoroquinolone.
A molluscan community from coastal bioclastic bottoms in the Strait of Gibraltar area

The molluscan community of a soft bottom of bioclastic gravels and sand has been studied monthly over two years in four stations of the bay of Barbate, SW Spain at the Atlantic entrance of the Strait of Gibraltar, between 18 and 29 m depth. Species richness, dominance and frequency over the two years are recorded. Micromolluscs, less than 1 mm in size, were also recorded from the sample of April 1994. Over the two years, 203 species of macromolluscs were found, of which 174 species (115.104 individuals) were collected alive and quantified. A total of 25 species of micromolluscs were determined, some of which usually considered as rare species. Most species richness values range between 20 to 40 species per sample, which is comparable with, or higher than, the values reported in other studies from soft bottom communities of molluscs. The qualitative analysis based on Jaccard’s and Baroni-Urbani and Buser’s indices show that three stations are significantly similar (p < 0.01), whereas the lowest similarity was found between the station close to the harbour of Barbate and the other ones. The quantitative analysis based on the Bray and Curtis index is biased by the high number of individuals of Chamelea striatula but consistent with the qualitative indices when this species is not taken into account. The main community is similar to “Biocénose des fonds meubles instables (MI)” and “Biocénose des fonds detritique du large (DL)” of P ÉRÈS AND P ICARD (1964), but occurs shallo-wer than in the Mediterranean. The concurrence of species from the Lusitanian, Mediterranean and Mauritanian regions results in an increment of the total number of species. radas habitualmente como especies raras. La mayoría de los valores de la riqueza especi-fica oscilan entre 20 y 40 especies por muestra, lo que es comparable o incluso mayor que los valores reseñados en otros estudios para comunidades de moluscos de fondos blandos. Losanálisis cualitativos de afinidad basados en los índices de Jaccard y de Baroni-Urbani y Buser muestran que tres estaciones son significativamente similares (p < 0,01), mientras que la menor afinidad se encontró entre la estación próxima al puerto de Barbate y las otras. El análisis cuantitativo de afinidad basado en el índice de Bray y Curtis esta ses-gado por el gran número de individuos de Chamelea striatula , pero si no consideramos dicha especie los resultados son similares a los obtenidos por índices cualitativos. La comunidad es similar a la “Biocénose des fonds meubles instables (MI)” y “Biocénose des fonds detritique du large (DL)” de P ÉRÈS Y P ICARD (1964), pero aparece a menor pro-fundidad que en el Mediterráneo. La comunidad de la estación próxima al puerto pre-senta caracteres intermedios con la “Biocénose des sables fins bien calibrés (SFBC)” de P ÉRÈS Y P ICARD (1964). La coexistencia de especies procedentes de las tres regiones Lusitá-nica, Mediterránea y Mauritánica supone un incremento de la riqueza específica.
Cohort Profile Cohort Profile : The Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study ( SEBAS ) in Taiwan

The Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (SEBAS) is a nationally representative longitudinal survey of Taiwanese middle-aged and older adults. It adds the collection of biomarkers and performance assessments to the Taiwan Longitudinal Study of Aging (TLSA), a nationally representative study of adults aged 60 and over, including the institutionalized population. The TLSA began in 1989, with follow-ups approximately every 3 years; younger refresher cohorts were added in 1996 and 2003. The first wave of SEBAS, based on a sub-sample of respondents from the 1999 TLSA, was conducted in 2000. A total of 1023 respondents completed both a face-to-face home interview and, several weeks later, a hospital-based physical examination. In addition to a 12-h (7 pm–7 am) urine specimen collected the night before and a fasting blood specimen collected during the examination, trained staff measured blood pressure, height, weight and waist and hip circumferences. A second wave of SEBAS was conducted in 2006 using a similar protocol to SEBAS 2000, but with the addition of performance assessments conducted by the interviewers at the end of the home interview. Both waves of SEBAS also included measures of health status (physical, emotional, cognitive), health behaviours, social relationships and exposure to stressors. The SEBAS data, which are publicly available at [http://www.icpsr. umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACDA/studies/3792/version/ 5], allow researchers to explore the relationships among life challenges, the social environment and health and to examine the antecedents, correlates and consequences of change in biological measures and health. VC The Author 2014; all rights reserved. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association 54 International Journal of Epidemiology, 2016, 54–63 doi: 10.1093/ije/dyu179 Advance Access Publication Date: 8 September 2014
Comparison of MUC‐1 mucin expression in epithelial and non‐epithelial cancer cell lines and demonstration of a new short variant form (MUC‐1/Z)

Mucins, including MUC‐1, are generally considered to be products of epithelial tissues and of their tumors. To examine the possible expression of MUC‐1 in other cell types, a panel of human epithelial and non‐epithelial tumor cell lines was studied by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR), Northern blot analysis, immunocytology and radio‐immunoprecipitation. Using the highly sensitive RT‐PCR method, products corresponding to the non‐repetitive 5′ and 3′ MUC‐1 sequences were detected in all the cell lines examined. Amplified products lacking the tandem repeat region of MUC‐1, including a new short form (designated MUC‐1/Z) different from the previously reported MUC‐1/Y protein, were also detected in most cell lines tested. Northern blot analysis, using a probe to the variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) region, confirmed the presence of MUC‐1 mRNA in the astrocytoma, melanoma and neuroblastoma cell lines studied. MUC‐1 protein was detected by immunocytology in these cell lines using monoclonal antibody (MAb) 139H2. Immunoprecipitation analysis with [3H]‐glucosamine‐labeled cell lysates and MAb 139H2 or an antibody to the cytoplasmic domain, CT‐1, detected MUC‐1 protein in 2 epithelial cell lines, an astrocytoma cell line (SK‐MG‐4) but not in the melanoma and neuroblastoma cell lines studied. Northern blot analysis using a probe to the 3′ end of MUC‐1 mRNA, confirmed the presence of MUC‐1 mucin and also identified short products corresponding to the size of the short variant forms. Protein products corresponding to the MUC‐1/Y and MUC‐1/Z variant forms were not ob‐ served using either [3H]‐glucosamine‐labeled OVCAR‐3 cells or [3H]‐amino acid‐labeled MCF‐7 cells and either CT‐1 antibody or MAb 232A1, detecting an epitope to the C‐terminal region. Thus, depending on the sensitivity of the assay used, varying amounts of MUC‐1 mRNA and protein could be detected in non‐epithelial tumor cell lines. Although the amounts of MUC‐1 in these cell lines are much lower than in carcinomas, it is possible that MUC‐1 mucin serves a similar function in non‐epithelial as in epithelial cells. The possible role of MUC‐1/Y and MUC‐1/Z variant forms in these cell lines is not understood. Int. J. Cancer 72:87–94, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss Inc.
Cortical Surround Interactions and Perceptual Salience via Natural Scene Statistics

Spatial context in images induces perceptual phenomena associated with salience and modulates the responses of neurons in primary visual cortex (V1). However, the computational and ecological principles underlying contextual effects are incompletely understood. We introduce a model of natural images that includes grouping and segmentation of neighboring features based on their joint statistics, and we interpret the firing rates of V1 neurons as performing optimal recognition in this model. We show that this leads to a substantial generalization of divisive normalization, a computation that is ubiquitous in many neural areas and systems. A main novelty in our model is that the influence of the context on a target stimulus is determined by their degree of statistical dependence. We optimized the parameters of the model on natural image patches, and then simulated neural and perceptual responses on stimuli used in classical experiments. The model reproduces some rich and complex response patterns observed in V1, such as the contrast dependence, orientation tuning and spatial asymmetry of surround suppression, while also allowing for surround facilitation under conditions of weak stimulation. It also mimics the perceptual salience produced by simple displays, and leads to readily testable predictions. Our results provide a principled account of orientation-based contextual modulation in early vision and its sensitivity to the homogeneity and spatial arrangement of inputs, and lends statistical support to the theory that V1 computes visual salience.
Turbo-decoding without SNR estimation

Theoretically, it is necessary to estimate the SNR when using a MAP of the log-MAP constituent decoder. The effect of an SNR mismatch on the bit error rate performance of turbo-codes and the design of good variance estimators have been addressed by several authors. In this letter we study the SNR sensitivity of turbo-decoding with log-MAP and max-log-MAP constituent decoders respectively for AWGN and Rayleigh fading channels. Our theoretical and simulation results indicate that an estimation of the SNR is not necessary from a practical point of view. Our setup is aligned with decoder implementation aspects of future mobile communication systems.