Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuropsychologic assessment of patients for movement disorder surgery

The neuropsychologic evaluation of patients under consideration for movement disorder surgery is recognized as being an essential component of the preoperative process. Patients with early‐stage concomitant dementia must be identified and the relative risk of postoperative cognitive decline evaluated. Knowledge of the patterns of an individual's strengths and weaknesses might also be a factor in deciding on a neurosurgical procedure. Although the advent of pallidal deep brain stimulation (DBS) has possibly resulted in reduced risk of induced cognitive impairment, even this procedure has been associated with negative sequelae. DBS within the subthalamic nucleus is becoming the method of choice and this may lead to cognitive and behavioral compromise, especially in the elderly patient. The team considering the establishment of neurosurgical treatment is often at a loss to decide how much neuropsychologic testing is required to determine relative risks of cognitive or behavioral morbidity as a consequence of the procedure. A brief summary of expected outcome and of pertinent family process and psychodynamic issues are addressed. This article is intended to serve as a guide to permit clinicians to choose the appropriate length and depth of neuropsychologic assessment, but also to highlight the confounding factors often present in these patients.
A review of anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility analysis of Indian dykes: Implications for magma emplacement

The analysis of Anisotropy of Magnetic Susceptibility (AMS) is a powerful and rapid technique to examine the preferred orientations of mineral (magnetic) fabrics and can indicate the nature of a magma transport (vertical or lateral). The relationship between magnetic fabric and geometry of a dyke swarm enables us to understand magma emplacement processes. Depending on the mutual relationship of magnetic fabric and individual dyke geometry, mode of magma transport is interpreted. The knowledge on the nature of magma transport combined with information on geometry, magmatic overpressure and geochemistry enable us to comment on dyke emplacement processes, the location of possible feeders, syn-emplacement and post-emplacement deformations and prevailing stress regime during emplacement. A number of dykes and dyke swarms have been emplaced into the Indian shield at different points in time. Their ages vary from the Mesoarchean to Tertiary. We present here a review of three case studies where AMS technique was applied to the samples collected from Indian dykes. Two case studies are on the Proterozoic dykes that intruded into the Dharwar craton and the third case study is on Mesozoic dykes that punctured the South Indian Granulite Terrain (SIGT). The dykes generally show “normal” anisotropy fabric to indicate vertical magma emplacement with few exceptions where lateral/inclined magma flow was suggested or the results were inconclusive. We present here a critical review on the interpretation of such “anomalous” fabrics and comment on further studies that can be carried out to extract more information from such results.
Training Data in Statistical Machine Translation - the More, the Better?

Current statistical machine translation (SMT) systems are stated to be dependent on the availability of a very large training data for producing the language and translation models. Unfortunately, large parallel corpora are available for a limited set of language pairs and for an even more limited set of domains. In this paper we investigate the behavior of an SMT system exposed to training data of different sizes and types. Our experimental results show that even parallel corpora of modest sizes can be used for training purposes without lowering too much the evaluation scores. We consider two language pairs in both translation directions for the experiments: English-Romanian and German-Romanian.
Point-of-Interest Recommendations: Learning Potential Check-ins from Friends

The emergence of Location-based Social Network (LBSN) services provides a wonderful opportunity to build personalized Point-of-Interest (POI) recommender systems. Although a personalized POI recommender system can significantly facilitate users' outdoor activities, it faces many challenging problems, such as the hardness to model user's POI decision making process and the difficulty to address data sparsity and user/location cold-start problem. To cope with these challenges, we define three types of friends (i.e., social friends, location friends, and neighboring friends) in LBSN, and develop a two-step framework to leverage the information of friends to improve POI recommendation accuracy and address cold-start problem. Specifically, we first propose to learn a set of potential locations that each individual's friends have checked-in before and this individual is most interested in. Then we incorporate three types of check-ins (i.e., observed check-ins, potential check-ins and other unobserved check-ins) into matrix factorization model using two different loss functions (i.e., the square error based loss and the ranking error based loss). To evaluate the proposed model, we conduct extensive experiments with many state-of-the-art baseline methods and evaluation metrics on two real-world data sets. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our methods.
Forming classes by stimulus frequency: Behavior and theory

Visual classification is the way we relate to different images in our environment as if they were the same, while relating differently to other collections of stimuli (e.g., human vs. animal faces). It is still not clear, however, how the brain forms such classes, especially when introduced with new or changing environments. To isolate a perception-based mechanism underlying class representation, we studied unsupervised classification of an incoming stream of simple images. Classification patterns were clearly affected by stimulus frequency distribution, although subjects were unaware of this distribution. There was a common bias to locate class centers near the most frequent stimuli and their boundaries near the least frequent stimuli. Responses were also faster for more frequent stimuli. Using a minimal, biologically based neural-network model, we demonstrate that a simple, self-organizing representation mechanism based on overlapping tuning curves and slow Hebbian learning suffices to ensure classification. Combined behavioral and theoretical results predict large tuning overlap, implicating posterior infero-temporal cortex as a possible site of classification.
Outburst Photometry of the Eclipsing Dwarf Nova GY Cancri

We observed the ROSAT-selected eclipsing dwarf nova GY Cnc (=RX J0909.8+1849) during the 2001 November outburst. We refined the orbital period to be 0.17544251(5) d. The fading portion of the outburst was indistinguishable from those of typical dwarf novae with similar orbital periods. However, the signature of orbital humps (or a hot spot) was far less prominently observed in the orbital light curves and eclipse profiles than in usual dwarf novae with similar orbital periods. The combination of low frequency of outbursts and the apparent lack of slowly rising, long outbursts in GY Cnc is difficult to reconcile within the standard framework of dwarf novae. We suspect that GY Cnc may be the first above-the-gap counterpart of unusual eclipsing dwarf novae HT Cas and IR Com.
Induction of nitric oxide release by MRC OX-44 (anti-CD53) through a protein kinase C-dependent pathway in rat macrophages

Many membrane proteins are implicated in the control of cell function by triggering specific signaling pathways. There is a new family of membrane proteins, defined by its structural motifs, which includes several lymphoid antigens, but lacks a function. To study its biological role, we determined which signaling pathways are affected by the CD53 antigen, a prototypic member of this family, in rat macrophages. Activation of CD53 by cross-linking results in an increase in inositol phosphates and diacylglycerol and in Ca2+ mobilization, which are insensitive to pertussis or cholera toxins. There is a translocation of protein kinase C to the membrane accompanied by nitric oxide (NO) release in macrophages. This effect is the result of the expression of the inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), which is dependent on protein kinase C and protein synthesis. These results have linked a new receptor with a specific pathway of NO induction and thus have opened up a novel aspect of NO regulation in cell biology.
Functional and neurochemical evidence for partial cardiac sympathetic reinnervation after cardiac transplantation in humans.

BACKGROUND The presence of cardiac reinnervation in humans after cardiac transplantation has been widely debated, based on the application of differing methods for the assessment of neuronal function. Some of these techniques have been rather indirect; consequently, the time course and extent of cardiac reinnervation remains uncertain. METHODS AND RESULTS To test for the presence of cardiac reinnervation after transplantation, we examined neurochemical (radiolabeled norepinephrine [NE] kinetics) and functional markers (power spectral analysis, heart rate response to exercise) of cardiac sympathetic nerve integrity in 15 cardiac transplantation recipients and 25 healthy control subjects of similar age. Cardiac transplantation subjects were studied 9 weeks to 8 years after cardiac transplantation (10 "early" patients < 18 months and 5 "late" patients > 2 years after cardiac transplantation). At rest, cardiac NE spillover was markedly attenuated early after transplantation (11.2 +/- 18.3 pmol/min) compared with subjects late after transplantation (105 +/- 11 pmol/min, P < .01) or in healthy control subjects (103 +/- 15 pmol/min, P < .01). Heart rate variability (measured by total spectral power) was significantly reduced in cardiac transplantation recipients compared with control subjects (59.4 +/- 30 vs 1673 +/- 516 milliseconds squared; P < .05), with evidence of a trend toward increasing spectral power late after transplantation. During exercise, the cardiac NE spillover was significantly lower in early cardiac transplantation recipients when compared with control subjects (163 +/- 50 vs 1876 +/- 418 pmol/min, P < .01). Late cardiac transplantation subjects showed a response intermediate (1080 +/- 254 pmol/min) between that of the early cardiac transplantation and control groups. However, measurements of the neuronal reuptake process for NE (assessed by the fractional extraction of plasma labeled NE across the heart and tritiated dihydroxyphenylglycol release) were significantly depressed in both early and late cardiac transplantation subjects. CONCLUSIONS The present study demonstrates a partial restoration of cardiac sympathetic nerve function in humans up to 8 years after heart transplantation.
Very long-chain-fatty acids enhance adipogenesis through coregulation of Elovl 3 and PPAR in 3 T 3L 1 cells

Kobayashi T, Fujimori K. Very long-chain-fatty acids enhance adipogenesis through coregulation of Elovl3 and PPAR in 3T3-L1 cells. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 302: E1461–E1471, 2012. First published March 20, 2012; doi:10.1152/ajpendo.00623. 2011. —Here, we show that Elovl3 (elongation of very long-chain fatty acids 3) was involved in the regulation of the progression of adipogenesis through activation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) in mouse adipocytic 3T3-L1 cells. The expression of the Elovl3 gene increased during adipogenesis, the expression pattern of which was similar to that of the PPAR gene. Troglitazone, a PPAR agonist, enhanced Elovl3 expression in adipocytes, as it did that of other PPAR target genes. Promoter-reporter analysis demonstrated that three PPAR-responsive elements in the Elovl3 gene promoter had the potential to activate its expression in 3T3-L1 cells. Moreover, a chromatin immunoprecipitation assay revealed that PPAR bound these PPAR-responsive elements of the Elovl3 promoter. When the Elovl3 mRNA level was suppressed by its siRNAs, the level of intracellular triglycerides was significantly decreased, and the expression levels of adipogenic, lipolytic, and lipogenic genes were also repressed. In a mammalian two-hybrid assay, C18:1 and C20:1 very long-chain fatty acids (VLCFAs), which are the products of Elovl3 and activated PPAR function. In addition, these same VLCFAs could prevent the Elovl3 siRNA-mediated suppression of adipogenesis by enhancing the expression of adipogenic, lipolytic, and lipogenic genes in adipocytes. Moreover, this VLCFAs-mediated activation was repressed by a PPAR antagonist. These results indicate that the expression of the Elovl3 gene was activated by PPAR during adipogenesis. Elovl3-produced C18:1 and C20:1 VLCFAs acted as agonists of PPAR in 3T3-L1 cells. Thus, the Elovl3-PPAR cascade is a novel regulatory circuit for the regulation of adipogenesis through improvement of PPAR function in adipocytes.
Interpretation of Single and Serial Measures of HE4 and CA125 in Asymptomatic Women at High Risk for Ovarian Cancer

Background: Human epididymis protein 4 (HE4) is approved for clinical use with CA125 to predict epithelial ovarian cancer in women with a pelvic mass or in remission after chemotherapy. Previously reported reference ranges for HE4 are inconsistent. Methods: We report positivity thresholds yielding 90%, 95%, 98%, and 99% specificity for age-defined populations of healthy women for HE4, CA125, and Risk of Ovarian Malignancy Algorithm (ROMA), a weighted average of HE4 and CA125. HE4 and CA125 were measured in 1,780 samples from 778 healthy women aged >25 years with a documented deleterious mutation, or aged >35 years with a significant family history. Effects on marker levels of a woman's age, ethnicity, and epidemiologic characteristics were estimated, as were the population-specific means, variances, and within- and between-woman variances used to generate longitudinal screening algorithms for these markers. Results: CA125 levels were lower with Black ethnicity (P = 0.008). Smoking was associated with higher HE4 (P = 0.007) and ROMA (P < 0.019). Continuous oral contraceptive use decreased levels of CA125 (P = 0.041), and ROMA (P = 0.12). CA125 was lower in women age ≥55, and HE4 increased with age (P < 0.01), particularly among women age ≥55. Conclusions: Because of the strong effect of age on HE4, thresholds for HE4 are best defined for women of specific ages. Age-specific population thresholds for HE4 for 95% specificity ranged from 41.4 pmol/L for women age 30 to 82.1 pmol/L for women age 80. Impact: Incorporation of serial marker values from screening history reduces personalized thresholds for CA125 and HE4 but is inappropriate for ROMA. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 21(11); 2087–94. ©2012 AACR.
Developing methodologies for sustainable groundwater management in sub-Saharan Africa : a case study of the Chad Basin around Maiduguri, Nigeria

Ii Dedication. Iii Author’s Declaration. Iv AUD-Permission to Copy. V Acronyms and Abbreviations. Vi List of Figures. Xvi List of Tables. Xvii AUTHOR’S DECLARATION . iv Major research output . xx CHAPTER 1 . 1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION . 1 1.1 Background . 1 1.2 Justification for the study and rationale for a case study . 8 1.3 Aim and objectives . 16 1.4 Research questions . 17 1.5 Methodology . 18 1.6 Structure of the thesis . 19 1.7 Scope and limitations of the study . 21 1.8 Summary and conclusion . 22 CHAPTER 2 . 23 ASPECTS OF GROUNDWATER CONTAMINATION, MANAGEMENT, & UTILISATION IN SUBSAHARAN AFRICA . 23 2. Introduction . 23 2.1 Groundwater . 24 2.2 Characteristics of hydrogeological environment in sub-Saharan Africa . 26 2.2.1. Hydrogeological environment solid phase. 28 xi 2.2.2 Hydrogeological environment Liquid Phase . 29 2.2.3 Hydrogeological environment Gaseous Phase . 30 2.3 Types of Contamination processes occurring in the Sedimentary Environment . 31 2.4 Groundwater quality standards in sub-Saharan Africa region . 35 2.5 Groundwater sampling strategies and protocols . 37 2.6 Groundwater Management and Utilisation in Africa . 38 2.6. 1 . Groundwater Management and Utilisation in the West African Sub-region . 39 2.6. 2 . Groundwater Management and Utilisation in the Southern Africa Region . 40 2.6. 3 . Groundwater Management and Utilisation in Eastern Africa Region . 40 2.7 Groundwater contaminants and contamination issues in sub-Saharan Africa . 42 2.8 Groundwater Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa . 46 2.8. 1 Sustainability-based Approaches for Groundwater Management . 47 2.9 Research Philosophy and Epistemology . 57 2.9. 1 Questionnaire design and developing the research questions . 60 2.9. 2 Hypothesis testing . 62 2.10 Summary and conclusion . 63 CHAPTER 3 . 67 CASE STUDY AREA . 67 3. Introduction . 67 3.1 The Study Area . 67 3.2 Demography . 69 3.3 Climate and Vegetation . 70 3.4 Relief and Drainage . 72 3.5 Geology and Hydrogeology of the Study Area . 73 3.6 Status of Water Supply Provisions in Maiduguri Metropolis . 79
Eating Behavior and Childhood Overweight Among Population-Based Elementary Schoolchildren in Japan

This study investigated the relationship between eating behavior and childhood overweight among population-based elementary schoolchildren in Japan. Data was collected from fourth graders (9 or 10 years of age) from Ina Town, Saitama Prefecture, Japan from 1999 to 2009. Information about subjects’ sex, age, and lifestyle, including eating behaviors (eating until full and chewing thoroughly), was obtained using a self-administered questionnaire, and height and weight were measured directly. Overweight was determined according to the definition established by the International Obesity Task Force. Data from 4027 subjects (2079 boys and 1948 girls) were analyzed. Chewing thoroughly was associated with a significantly decreased odds ratio (OR) for being overweight, whereas eating until full significantly increased the OR for being overweight (OR: 1.50, 95% confidence interval: 1.16–1.94) among boys. However, eating until full was not associated with a significantly increased OR for being overweight among the group that reported chewing thoroughly, whereas it was associated with a significantly increased OR for being overweight (2.02, 1.38–2.94) among boys who did not chew thoroughly. In conclusion, eating until full or not chewing thoroughly was associated with being overweight among elementary schoolchildren. Results of this study suggest that chewing thoroughly may be an avenue to explore childhood overweight prevention efforts.
Determinants of quality and quantity values of water for domestic uses in the steelpoort sub-basin : a contingent valuation approach

The value that domestic users attribute to reliability of water supply and to the quality of this water is a function of several determinants, such as the source of water, the socio-economic characteristics of households (per capita income, level of education, etc.), and other variables. Users that have private tap water at home may value less improved availability or more reliable source than households for which the only source of water is the closest river or a borehole. On the other hand, users connected to regular potable water supply are more interested in quality improvements compared to those who fetch water from surface source. This study analysed and measured the influence of such factors on domestic user's perception of the value of reliability and quality of water supply in rural and urban areas of the Steelpoort sub basin of South Africa. A stated preferences method (the Contingent Valuation Method - CVM) was adopted to quantify and analyse the relationship between willingness to pay (WTP) for improved availability and quality of water and such factors. Although WTP is not a measure of water price, and therefore cannot be used to construct water demand functions, the results of these analyses have important policy implications. The results inform decision-makers of the relative contribution of different socio-economic and spatial factors to the value of water. This study draws important lessons for the water demand management and allocation at catchment level. (Resume d'auteur)
DISRUPTED FOVEAL PHOTORECEPTORS AFTER COMBINED CYSTOID SPACES AND RETINAL DETACHMENT IN BRANCH VEIN OCCLUSION TREATED WITH BEVACIZUMAB

Purpose: To investigate how combined cystoid spaces and serous retinal detachment affect photoreceptor status and visual acuity at final visit in macular edema associated with branch retinal vein occlusion. Methods: Forty-seven consecutive eyes from 47 patients with macular edema associated with branch retinal vein occlusion treated with intravitreal bevacizumab injection were retrospectively reviewed. Foveal pathomorphology on optical coherence tomography images were divided into two groups: those in which combined foveal cystoid spaces and serous retinal detachment were observed at least once (C+S(+)) and those in which they were not observed (C+S(−)). The relationship between foveal pathomorphology and photoreceptor status and logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution at final visit was investigated. Results: Sixteen eyes were categorized as C+S(+), and the final visual acuity of C+S(+) group was significantly worse than that of C+S(−) group compared with no difference at baseline. Intriguingly, combined foveal pathomorphologies during the course were significantly associated with the absence of external limiting membrane and the junction of inner and outer segments at last visit. Using multivariable analysis, final logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution was significantly related to baseline logarithm of the minimum angle of resolution, diabetes, and C+S(+). Conclusion: Combined foveal cystoid spaces and retinal detachment during follow-up predict the disrupted foveal photoreceptors and concomitant poor final visual acuity in branch retinal vein occlusion treated with intravitreal bevacizumab injection.
Complex Patterns of Admixture across the Indonesian Archipelago

Abstract Indonesia, an island nation as large as continental Europe, hosts a sizeable proportion of global human diversity, yet remains surprisingly undercharacterized genetically. Here, we substantially expand on existing studies by reporting genome-scale data for nearly 500 individuals from 25 populations in Island Southeast Asia, New Guinea, and Oceania, notably including previously unsampled islands across the Indonesian archipelago. We use high-resolution analyses of haplotype diversity to reveal fine detail of regional admixture patterns, with a particular focus on the Holocene. We find that recent population history within Indonesia is complex, and that populations from the Philippines made important genetic contributions in the early phases of the Austronesian expansion. Different, but interrelated processes, acted in the east and west. The Austronesian migration took several centuries to spread across the eastern part of the archipelago, where genetic admixture postdates the archeological signal. As with the Neolithic expansion further east in Oceania and in Europe, genetic mixing with local inhabitants in eastern Indonesia lagged behind the arrival of farming populations. In contrast, western Indonesia has a more complicated admixture history shaped by interactions with mainland Asian and Austronesian newcomers, which for some populations occurred more than once. Another layer of complexity in the west was introduced by genetic contact with South Asia and strong demographic events in isolated local groups.