Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drug treatment of epilepsy in the century of the ILAE: The first 50 years, 1909–1958

This paper provides a review of the drug treatment of epilepsy from 1909, the year of the foundation of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), to 1958. It was during this period that modern approaches to the medicinal therapy of epilepsy were formulated and many new drugs were introduced. Of these, both phenytoin and phenobarbital continue to be widely used today. This was the period when scientific screening was also introduced into drug discovery. The leading figures in the ILAE played an important role in guiding the evolution of the treatment of epilepsy during this period.
Genetic triple dissociation reveals multiple roles for dopamine in reinforcement learning

What are the genetic and neural components that support adaptive learning from positive and negative outcomes? Here, we show with genetic analyses that three independent dopaminergic mechanisms contribute to reward and avoidance learning in humans. A polymorphism in the DARPP-32 gene, associated with striatal dopamine function, predicted relatively better probabilistic reward learning. Conversely, the C957T polymorphism of the DRD2 gene, associated with striatal D2 receptor function, predicted the degree to which participants learned to avoid choices that had been probabilistically associated with negative outcomes. The Val/Met polymorphism of the COMT gene, associated with prefrontal cortical dopamine function, predicted participants' ability to rapidly adapt behavior on a trial-to-trial basis. These findings support a neurocomputational dissociation between striatal and prefrontal dopaminergic mechanisms in reinforcement learning. Computational maximum likelihood analyses reveal independent gene effects on three reinforcement learning parameters that can explain the observed dissociations.
The Adults and Older Adults Functional Assessment Inventory

Functional assessment methods are an important element in multidimensional neuropsychological evaluations, particularly in older adults. The Adults and Older Adults Functional Assessment Inventory is a new measure of basic and instrumental activities of daily living. Rasch model analyses were used to analyze the psychometric characteristics of the instrument in a sample of 803 participants. The original categories did not provide an optimal assessment of functional incapacity. The scale was dichotomized to achieve a better reliability score and item fit. The final 50 items revealed a moderately high variability in item difficulty, acceptable fits to items and persons, and a good Person Separation Reliability score. The scores were able to discriminate between normal controls and clinical patients. None of the items showed Differential Item Functioning associated with age, gender, or education. The instrument is able to achieve measures of functional incapacity with the useful properties of the Rasch model.
Signal Flow Graph Approach to Efficient DST I-IV Algorithms

In this paper, fast and efficient discrete sine transformation (DST) algorithms are presented based on the factorization of sparse, scaled orthogonal, rotation, rotation-reflection, and butterfly matrices. These algorithms are completely recursive and solely based on DST I-IV. The presented algorithms have low arithmetic cost compared to the known fast DST algorithms. Furthermore, the language of signal flow graph representation of digital structures is used to describe these efficient and recursive DST algorithms having $(n-1)$ points signal flow graph for DST-I and $n$ points signal flow graphs for DST II-IV.
The differences of dengue vectors and human behavior between families with and without members having dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever

Dengue vectors, human knowledge and behavior have been reported to play an important role in the transmission of dengue. This study was designed to understand the differences of dengue vectors and the behavior between families with (target group) and without (control group) members having dengue fever/dengue hemorrhagic fever. Population density of dengue vectors were determined by ovitrap index. The living conditions, knowledge, and behavior related to dengue were investigated by questionnaire survey. Long-term ovitrap indices obtained in the target group was significantly higher than those obtained in the control. Most of the respondents had sufficient knowledge about the transmission and prevention of dengue. However, only low percentages of the families frequently cleaned water-filled containers and ditches around their residence, especially in the target group. These findings indicate that higher indices of dengue vectors and dengue-related behavior are important in the transmission of indigenous dengue.
A Non-Parametric Approach for Uncertainty Quantification in Elastodynamics

Matrix variate distributions are are used to quantify uncertainty in the mass, stiffness and damping matrices. The proposed approach is based on the so called Wishart random matrices. The probability density function of the system matrices are derived using the maximum entropy method. It is assumed that the mean of the system matrices are known. A new optimal Wishart distribution is proposed to model the random system matrices. The optimal Wishart distribution is such that the mean of the matrix and its inverse produce minimum deviations from their deterministic values. The method proposed here gives a simple nonparametric approach for uncertainty quantification and propagation for complex aerospace structural systems. The new method is illustrated using two examples.
A novel family of frequency hopping sequences for multi-hop Bluetooth networks

The Bluetooth technology is expected to be of the fastest growing which enable consumer electronic devices to connect and communicate via short-range links. The Bluetooth radio operates on frequency hopping over the 2.4 GHz band at 1600 hops/s. In this paper, a novel family of frequency hopping sequences based on 3DES iterated block cipher is proposed for Bluetooth multi-hop networks. The design offers a class of Bluetooth hopping codes with large family size, good impedance and a uniform spread over the ISM frequency bandwidth, which supports jumping of unit between piconets. With the performance of packet error and throughput for synchronized multi-hop Bluetooth network being derived in theory, many numerical results shown that the proposed sequences perform as well as random patterns in terms of multiple access of piconets. Efficiently implemented in FPGA, the generator prototype of the proposed sequence has been realized and is well suited for employment in the Bluetooth radios.
Transition-based Dependency Parsing with Rich Non-local Features

Transition-based dependency parsers generally use heuristic decoding algorithms but can accommodate arbitrarily rich feature representations. In this paper, we show that we can improve the accuracy of such parsers by considering even richer feature sets than those employed in previous systems. In the standard Penn Treebank setup, our novel features improve attachment score form 91.4% to 92.9%, giving the best results so far for transition-based parsing and rivaling the best results overall. For the Chinese Treebank, they give a signficant improvement of the state of the art. An open source release of our parser is freely available.
Reward Counteracts Conflict Adaptation

The conflict-adaptation effect has been observed in several executive-control tasks and is thought to reflect an increase in control, driven by experienced conflict. We hypothesized that if this adaptation originates from the aversive quality of conflict, it would be canceled out by a positive, rewarding event. Subjects performed an arrow flanker task with monetary gain or loss as arbitrary feedback between trials. As predicted, we found a reduction in conflict adaptation for trials in which conflict was followed by monetary gain. The strength of this gain-induced modulation was found to depend on subjects' motivation to pursue reward, as measured by the Behavioral Activation System Drive scale. Our findings demonstrate for the first time that the conflict-adaptation effect can be strongly reduced by reward contexts, suggesting that reward and conflict can compensate for each other's effects, probably via changes in dopamine levels.
Glycyrrhizin Prevents Liver Injury by Inhibition of High-Mobility Group Box 1 Production by Kupffer Cells after Ischemia-Reperfusion in Rats

High-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) acts as an early mediator of inflammation and organ damage in hepatic ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. Glycyrrhizin is a natural anti-inflammatory and antiviral triterpene in clinical use. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of glycyrrhizin on liver injury caused by I/R and production of HMGB1 by Kupffer cells in rats. In the first test period, rats were given saline or glycyrrhizin 20 min before segmental hepatic warm I/R. Serum alanine aminotransferase and HMGB1 levels and hepatic histopathological findings were evaluated after I/R. Furthermore, expression of HMGB1 in the liver was assessed by immunohistochemical staining after I/R. Kupffer cells were isolated by collagenase digestion and differential centrifugation, and production of HMGB1 was assessed. In another set of experiments, the effect of inhibition of Kupffer cells by injection of liposome-entrapped dichloromethylene diphosphonate (lipo-MDP) on liver injury and expression of HMGB1 were investigated after I/R. Liver injury was prevented in the glycyrrhizin group compared with the control group. Furthermore, serum HMGB1 levels were also significantly blunted in the glycyrrhizin group compared with the control group. Cells expressing HMGB1 were detected in the hepatic sinusoid by immunohistochemistry and recognized morphologically as Kupffer cells. Furthermore, the expression of HMGB1 was reduced in the glycyrrhizin group compared with the control group. Production of HMGB1 was reduced in Kupffer cells isolated from the glycyrrhizin group compared with the control group. It is noteworthy that treatment with lipo-MDP significantly blunted serum HMGB1 levels and prevented liver injury after I/R. These results suggest that glycyrrhizin has the therapeutic potential to prevent warm I/R-induced injury during hepato-biliary surgery.
An in vitro study of manure composition on the biochemical origins, composition, and accumulation of odorous compounds in cattle feedlots.

Very little is known about the biochemical origin of cattle feedlot odors and the environmental factors controlling their production. The tie between diet and manure composition is well established, but the effect of different manure compositions on odorous chemical production is unknown. This study describes the effect of starch, casein, and cellulose substrate additions to slurries of fresh (< 24 h) and aged cattle manure (> 1 d) on the anaerobic production of fermentation products and the consumption of substrates relative to no addition treatments. Aged cattle manure accumulated more VFA (245 to 290 mM) than the fresh manure (91 to 181 mM) irrespective of substrate additions (P < 0.001). In fresh manures, VFA concentrations were increased (P < 0.01) over no addition treatments when carbohydrate (starch or cellulose) was added, whereas starch and protein treatments to aged manure increased VFA content relative to no addition treatments (P < 0.001). Branched-chain VFA and aromatic compounds accumulated only in the aged manure (no addition and protein treatments), indicating that some protein fermentation occurred in those treatments. Based upon substrate loss, starch fermentation was the dominant process in both manures and all treatments with losses exceeding 18.6 g/L. Protein fermentation occurred only in the aged manure, specifically the no addition and protein treatments, when starch was no longer available. The production of odorous compounds from manure was controlled by substrate availability and pH, with pH related to lactate accumulation. We believe that calcareous soil and lactate-consuming microorganisms in the aged manure slurries minimized slurry acidification and resulted in greater accumulations of odorous products. Substrate additions had little effect on the overall accumulation of odor compounds in manure but had profound effects on odor compound composition. We propose that modifying cattle diets to limit starch and protein excretion would profoundly affect the production and accumulation of odor compounds in feedlots.
Setting learning analytics in context: overcoming the barriers to large-scale adoption

Once learning analytics have been successfully developed and tested, the next step is to implement them at a larger scale -- across a faculty, an institution or an educational system. This introduces a new set of challenges, because education is a stable system, resistant to change. Implementing learning analytics at scale involves working with the entire technological complex that exists around technology-enhanced learning (TEL). This includes the different groups of people involved -- learners, educators, administrators and support staff -- the practices of those groups, their understandings of how teaching and learning take place, the technologies they use and the specific environments within which they operate. Each element of the TEL Complex requires explicit and careful consideration during the process of implementation, in order to avoid failure and maximise the chances of success. In order for learning analytics to be implemented successfully at scale, it is crucial to provide not only the analytics and their associated tools but also appropriate forms of support, training and community building.
Butterfly Effect: Bidirectional Control of Classification Performance by Small Additive Perturbation

This paper proposes a new algorithm for controlling classification results by generating a small additive perturbation without changing the classifier network. Our work is inspired by existing works generating adversarial perturbation that worsens classification performance. In contrast to the existing methods, our work aims to generate perturbations that can enhance overall classification performance. To solve this performance enhancement problem, we newly propose a perturbation generation network (PGN) influenced by the adversarial learning strategy. In our problem, the information in a large external dataset is summarized by a small additive perturbation, which helps to improve the performance of the classifier trained with the target dataset. In addition to this performance enhancement problem, we show that the proposed PGN can be adopted to solve the classical adversarial problem without utilizing the information on the target classifier. The mentioned characteristics of our method are verified through extensive experiments on publicly available visual datasets.
Optimization of oil extraction from giant bushel gourd seeds using response surface methodology

Abstract Gourd seeds have been identified as a source of edible oil, but there is sparse literature on the effect of processing factors on the characteristics of oil extracted from any Lagenaria spp. Optimization of oil extraction with the aid of expeller was achieved by applying response surface methodology. The variables were roasting temperature (87.70–172.0°C) and roasting duration (7.93–22.07 min), while the responses were oil yield and oil quality (free fatty acid, color, specific gravity, saponification value, moisture, and refractive index). Data obtained were analyzed at P < 0.05. Roasting conditions significantly influenced all the responses at P < 0.05. The optimum roasting condition was 100°C for 20 min, which gave 27.62% oil yield with good quality attributes (free fatty acid: 0.61%, color: 3.47 abs, specific gravity: 0.90 g/mL, saponification value: 289.66 mL, and refractive index: 1.47).
Development of the Early Axon Scaffold in the Rostral Brain of the Small Spotted Cat Shark (Scyliorhinus canicula) Embryo

The cat shark is increasingly used as a model for Chondrichthyes, an evolutionarily important sister group of the bony vertebrates that include teleosts and tetrapods. In the bony vertebrates, the first axon tracts form a highly conserved early axon scaffold. The corresponding structure has not been well characterised in cat shark and will prove a useful model for comparative studies. Using pan-neural markers, the early axon scaffold of the cat shark, Scyliorhinus canicula, was analysed. Like in other vertebrates, the medial longitudinal fascicle was the first axon tract to form from a small cluster of neurones in the ventral brain. Subsequently, additional neuronal clusters and axon tracts emerged which formed an array of longitudinal, transversal, and commissural axons tracts in the Scyliorhinus canicula embryonic brain. The first structures to appear after the medial longitudinal fascicle were the tract of the postoptic commissure, the dorsoventral diencephalic tract, and the descending tract of the mesencephalic nucleus of the trigeminal nerve. These results confirm that the early axon scaffold in the embryonic brain is highly conserved through vertebrate evolution.
DELTRON: Neuromorphic architectures for delay based learning

We present a neuromorphic spiking neural network, the DELTRON, that can remember and store patterns by changing the delays of every connection as opposed to modifying the weights. The advantage of this architecture over traditional weight based ones is simpler hardware implementation without multipliers or digital-analog converters (DACs). The name is derived due to similarity in the learning rule with an earlier architecture called Tempotron. We present simulations of memory capacity of the DELTRON for different random spatio-temporal spike patterns and also present SPICE simulation results of the core circuits involved in a reconfigurable mixed signal implementation of this architecture.
Transition from glass to digital slide microscopy in the teaching of oral pathology in a Brazilian dental school

Objectives: Several medical and dental schools have described their experience in the transition from conventional to digital microscopy in the teaching of general pathology and histology disciplines; however, this transitional process has scarcely been reported in the teaching of oral pathology. Therefore, the objective of the current study is to report the transition from conventional glass slide to virtual microscopy in oral pathology teaching, a unique experience in Latin America. Study Design: An Aperio ScanScope® scanner was used to digitalize histological slides used in practical lectures of oral pathology. The challenges and benefits observed by the group of Professors from the Piracicaba Dental School (Brazil) are described and a questionnaire to evaluate the students’ compliance to this new methodology was applied. Results: An improvement in the classes was described by the Professors who mainly dealt with questions related to pathological changes instead of technical problems; also, a higher interaction with the students was described. The simplicity of the software used and the high quality of the virtual slides, requiring a smaller time to identify microscopic structures, were considered important for a better teaching process. Conclusions: Virtual microscopy used to teach oral pathology represents a useful educational methodology, with an excellent compliance of the dental students. Key words:Digital microscopy, virtual microscopy, dental education, virtual slides, oral pathology.
Quantitative Analysis of the P65 Gene Expression in Patients with Coloroctal Cancer

P65 gene expression level was determined in colon cancer cases by means of real-time PCR. 51 cases of colorectal carcinomas showing positive RT-PCR signals for P65 gene expression selected from 109 frozen samples were further investigated by quantitative real-time PCR. P65 levels were higher in cancer with metastases to lymph nodes and distant metastases. Higher levels were observed in more advanced cases classified as III and IV according to pTNM classification. In two groups of patients with vessel invasion and absence of lymphocytes in tumour tissue, the presence of P65 expression correlated with shorter survival time. Quantitative results confirmed that P65 gene expression in colon cancer is engaged in the process of metastasis formation and could be correlated with worse prognosis for the patients.
IκB kinase-induced interaction of TPL-2 kinase with 14-3-3 is essential for Toll-like receptor activation of ERK-1 and -2 MAP kinases

Significance TPL-2 is a MEK-1/2 kinase that mediates Toll-like receptor activation of ERK-1/2 MAP kinases in macrophages and is critical for TNF induction during inflammation. TPL-2 activation of MEK-1/2 requires release from its associated inhibitor NF-κB1 p105, resulting from p105 proteolysis triggered by the IκB kinase (IKK) complex. Here, we show that IKK phosphorylation of the TPL-2 C terminus induces 14-3-3 association with TPL-2, stimulating its MEK kinase activity, which is essential for TPL-2 activation of ERK-1/2. The 14-3-3 binding to TPL-2 is also indispensible for its induction of TNF, which is regulated independently of ERK-1/2 activation. The IKK complex, a key regulator of NF-κB transcription factors, therefore directly controls two key steps for TPL-2 activation in inflammatory responses. The MEK-1/2 kinase TPL-2 is critical for Toll-like receptor activation of the ERK-1/2 MAP kinase pathway during inflammatory responses, but it can transform cells following C-terminal truncation. IκB kinase (IKK) complex phosphorylation of the TPL-2 C terminus regulates full-length TPL-2 activation of ERK-1/2 by a mechanism that has remained obscure. Here, we show that TPL-2 Ser-400 phosphorylation by IKK and TPL-2 Ser-443 autophosphorylation cooperated to trigger TPL-2 association with 14-3-3. Recruitment of 14-3-3 to the phosphorylated C terminus stimulated TPL-2 MEK-1 kinase activity, which was essential for TPL-2 activation of ERK-1/2. The binding of 14-3-3 to TPL-2 was also indispensible for lipopolysaccharide-induced production of tumor necrosis factor by macrophages, which is regulated by TPL-2 independently of ERK-1/2 activation. Our data identify a key step in the activation of TPL-2 signaling and provide a mechanistic insight into how C-terminal deletion triggers the oncogenic potential of TPL-2 by rendering its kinase activity independent of 14-3-3 binding.
Pharmacologists and Alzheimer disease therapy: to boldly go where no scientist has gone before

Introduction: Alzheimer disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by severe cognitive impairment, inability to perform activities of daily living and mood changes. Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors or NMDA glutamate receptor antagonists are currently used for the treatment of AD, but only the former have weak beneficial effects on cognitive function. Areas covered: The aim of this review is to provide an overview of the main pharmacological features of both current drugs and new compounds which are still under clinical development for the treatment of AD. Expert opinion: The discovery of new drugs acting at the early stage of AD could be considered as a ‘medical need’ and inhibitors of γ-secretase or monoclonal antibodies against Aβ seemed good options. However, inhibitors of γ-secretase, that is, tarenflurbil or semagacestat, were discontinued due to their lack of cognitive improvement or unacceptable side effects. A careful evaluation of the risk:benefit ratio should be considered for monoclonal antibodies since, by increasing the disaggregation of fibrillar amyloid-β-peptide (Aβ), they could increase the neurotoxicity of soluble Aβ oligomers. In conclusion, the discovery of new drugs efficacious in AD subjects is an ambitious goal, however, and one that will require close, active collaboration by pharmacologists, chemists and clinicians.