Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A 6-week, double-blind, placebo- and haloperidol-controlled, phase II study of lurasidone in patients with acute schizophrenia

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the short-term efficacy and safety of the atypical antipsychotic agent lurasidone in the treatment of schizophrenia. Methods: In this phase II, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, hospitalized adult patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and experiencing an acute exacerbation of psychotic symptoms were randomly assigned to 6 weeks of fixed-dose lurasidone 20 mg/day (n = 71), lurasidone 40 mg/day (n = 67), lurasidone 80 mg/day (n = 71), haloperidol 10 mg/day (n = 72, included to test for assay sensitivity), or placebo (n = 72). Efficacy was assessed using the brief psychiatric rating scale, positive and negative syndrome scale, and clinical global impression-severity. Safety assessments included incidence of adverse events and clinical laboratory measures. Results: Numerical improvement was observed from baseline to week 6 (last observation carried forward) on all efficacy measures in all treatment groups; however, no statistically significant differences were noted between any lurasidone group and placebo, or between haloperidol and placebo. The most common adverse events in lurasidone-treated patients, with an incidence of at least 10% (dose groups combined) and greater than placebo, were sedation (15.3%), dyspepsia (13.4%), nausea (13.4%), akathisia (12.4%), and vomiting (10.5%); for haloperidol, the most common adverse events (incidence ⩾ 10% and greater than placebo) were extrapyramidal disorder (20.8%), sedation (19.4%), akathisia (19.4%), dystonia (15.3%), insomnia (13.9%), and somnolence (12.5%). Lurasidone was associated with minimal changes in weight, metabolic parameters, and prolactin levels. Conclusions: None of the lurasidone groups separated from placebo in this clinical study of patients with acute schizophrenia. In addition, haloperidol, which was included for assay sensitivity, did not separate from placebo, resulting in a failed study. Possible reasons for the lack of assay sensitivity in this study include the use of multiple active treatment arms and the relatively large placebo response. Consistent with other studies, lurasidone was generally safe and well tolerated, with minimal effects on weight or metabolic parameters.
Rounding-based Moves for Metric Labeling

Metric labeling is a special case of energy minimization for pairwise Markov random fields. The energy function consists of arbitrary unary potentials, and pairwise potentials that are proportional to a given metric distance function over the label set. Popular methods for solving metric labeling include (i) move-making algorithms, which iteratively solve a minimum st-cut problem; and (ii) the linear programming (LP) relaxation based approach. In order to convert the fractional solution of the LP relaxation to an integer solution, several randomized rounding procedures have been developed in the literature. We consider a large class of parallel rounding procedures, and design move-making algorithms that closely mimic them. We prove that the multiplicative bound of a move-making algorithm exactly matches the approximation factor of the corresponding rounding procedure for any arbitrary distance function. Our analysis includes all known results for move-making algorithms as special cases.
Exploring the adaptive structure of the mental lexicon

The mental lexicon is a complex structure organised in terms of phonology, semantics and syntax, among other levels. In this thesis I propose that this structure can be explained in terms of the pressures acting on it: every aspect of the organisation of the lexicon is an adaptation ultimately related to the function of language as a tool for human communication, or to the fact that language has to be learned by subsequent generations of people. A collection of methods, most of which are applied to a Spanish speech corpus, reveal structure at different levels of the lexicon. • The patterns of intra-word distribution of phonological information may be a consequence of pressures for optimal representation of the lexicon in the brain, and of the pressure to facilitate speech segmentation. • An analysis of perceived phonological similarity between words shows that the sharing of different aspects of phonological similarity is related to different functions. Phonological similarity perception sometimes relates to morphology (the stressed final vowel determines verb tense and person) and at other times shows processing biases (similarity in the word initial and final segments is more readily perceived than inword-internal segments). • Another similarity analysis focuses on cooccurrence in speech to create a representation of the lexicon where the position of aword is determined by the words that tend to occur in its close vicinity. Variations of context-based lexical space naturally categorise words syntactically and semantically. • A higher level of lexicon structure is revealed by examining the relationships between the phonological and the cooccurrence similarity spaces. A study in Spanish supports the universality of the small but significant correlation between these two spaces found in English by Shillcock, Kirby, McDonald and Brew (2001). This systematicity across levels of representation adds an extra layer of structure that may help lexical acquisition and recognition. I apply it to a new paradigm to determine the function of parameters of phonological similarity based on their relationships with the syntacticsemantic level. I find that while some aspects of a language's phonology maintain systematicity, others work against it, perhaps responding to the opposed pressure for word identification. This thesis is an exploratory approach to the study of the mental lexicon structure that uses existing and new methodology to deepen our understanding of the relationships between language use and language structure.
Detailed deletion mapping of chromosome band 14q32 in human neuroblastoma defines a 1.1-Mb region of common allelic loss

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a well-known malignant disease in infants, but its molecular mechanisms have not yet been fully elucidated. To investigate the genetic contribution of abnormalities on the long arm of chromosome 14 (14q) in NB, we analysed loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in 54 primary NB samples using 12 microsatellite markers on 14q32. Seventeen (31%) of 54 tumours showed LOH at one or more of the markers analysed, and the smallest common region of allelic loss was identified between D14S62 and D14S987. This region was estimated to be 1-cM long from the linkage map. Fluorescence in situ hybridization also confirmed the loss. There was no statistical correlation between LOH and any clinicopathologic features, including age, stage, amplification of MYCN and ploidy. We further constructed a contig spanning the lost region using bacterial artificial chromosome and estimated this region to be approximately 1.1-Mb by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Our results will contribute to cloning and characterizing the putative tumour-associated gene(s) in 14q32 in NB. © 2000 Cancer Research Campaign
Neural Stem and Progenitor Cells Retain Their Potential for Proliferation and Differentiation into Functional Neurons Despite Lower Number in Aged Brain

Neurogenesis in the subventricular zone (SVZ), which gives rise to new neurons in the olfactory bulb, continues throughout life but declines with increasing age. Little is known about how aging affects the intrinsic properties of the neural stem and progenitor cells (NSCs) in SVZ and the functional characteristics of their neuronal progeny. Here, we have compared the properties of NSCs isolated from embryonic lateral ganglionic eminence and adult and aged SVZ in mice using in vivo and in vitro systems, analyzed their gene expression profile, and studied their electrophysiological characteristics before and after differentiation into neurons. We show a loss of NSCs in SVZ from aged mice accompanied by reduced expression of genes for NSC markers, developmentally important transcription factors, and neurogenic factors. However, when isolated in vitro, the NSCs from SVZ of aged animals have capacity for proliferation and multilineage differentiation, including production of functional neurons, similar to that of NSCs in adult mice, albeit with lower efficacy. These properties are of major importance when considering therapeutic applications of neuronal replacement from endogenous NSCs in the injured, aged brain.
Methylene blue delays cellular senescence and enhances key mitochondrial biochemical pathways

Methylene blue (MB) has been used clinically for about a century to treat numerous ailments. We show that MB and other diaminophenothia‐zines extend the life span of human IMR90 fibroblasts in tissue culture by >20 population doubling (PDLs). MB delays senescence at nM levels in IMR90 by enhancing mitochondrial function. MB increases mitochon‐drial complex IV by 30%, enhances cellular oxygen consumption by 37–70%, increases heme synthesis, and reverses premature senescence caused by H2O2 or cadmium. MB also induces phase‐2 antioxidant enzymes in hepG2 cells. Flavin‐dependent enzymes are known to use NAD(P)H to reduce MB to leucomethyl‐ene blue (MBH2), whereas cytochrome c reoxidizes MBH2 to MB. Experiments on lysates from rat liver mitochondria suggest the ratio MB/cytochrome c is important for the protective actions of MB. We propose that the cellular senescence delay caused by MB is due to cycling between MB and MBH2 in mitochondria, which may partly explain the increase in specific mito‐chondrial activities. Cycling of MB between oxidized and reduced forms may block oxidant production by mitochondria. Mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress are thought to be key aberrations that lead to cellular senescence and aging. MB may be useful to delay mitochondrial dysfunction with aging and the decrease in complex IV in Alzheimer disease. —At‐amna H. , Nguyen, A. , Schultz, C. , Boyle, K. , Newberry, J., Kato, H. , Ames B. N. Methylene blue delays cellular senescence and enhances key mitochondrial biochemical pathways. FASEB J. 22, 703–712 (2008)
Uncovering Like-minded Political Communities on Twitter

Stance detection systems often integrate social clues in their algorithms. While the influence of social groups on stance is known, there is no evaluation of how well state-of-the-art community detection algorithms perform in terms of detecting like-minded communities, i.e. communities that share the same stance on a given subject. We used Twitter's social interactions to compare the results of community detection algorithms on datasets on the Scottish Independence Referendum and US Midterm Elections. Our results show that algorithms relying on information diffusion perform better for this task and confirm previous observations about retweets being better vectors of stance than mentions.
Time‐ and concentration‐dependent genomic responses of the rat airway to inhaled nickel sulfate

While insoluble nickel subsulfide (Ni3S2) was carcinogenic in the lung in a 2‐year rat bioassay, soluble nickel sulfate hexahydrate (NiSO4*6H2O) was not. To investigate whether differences in the cellular responses to these two nickel compounds could underlie their differential activities, we conducted parallel studies to determine the gene expression changes in micro‐dissected lung distal airway cells from Fischer 344 rats following inhalation of the two compounds for one and four weeks (6 hr per day, 5 days per week). The results of the Ni3S2 study have been reported previously; this paper reports the results for NiSO4 and provides a comparative analysis. The cellular responses to NiSO4 were highly similar to those previously reported for Ni3S2, and a set of genes was identified whose expression could be used as biomarkers for comparing cellular nickel effects from in vitro or in vivo studies with soluble NiSO4 and particulate Ni3S2. Evaluation of the genomic concentration‐responses for the two compounds suggests that the highest inhaled concentration in the tumor bioassay for NiSO4, which was limited by toxicity, may not have achieved the Ni concentrations at which tumors were observed in the Ni3S2 bioassay. However, several key differences in the immune responses to NiSO4 and Ni3S2 were identified that may result from the differential intracellular disposition of Ni from NiSO4 entering the cell as an ion rather than as a slowly soluble Ni3S2 particle. These differences may also contribute to the observation of tumors in the bioassay for Ni3S2 but not NiSO4. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 58:607–618, 2017. © 2017 The Authors Environmental and Molecular Mutagenesis published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Environmental Mutagen Society
Portfolio Concentration and Investment Performance

This study examines the relationship between investment performance and concentration inactive equity portfolios. Active management is dependent on the success of two importantcomponents in the investment process stock selection skill and portfolio management. Ourstudy documents a positive relationship between fund performance and portfolio concentration.The relationship is stronger for stocks in which active managers hold overweight positions, as well as for stocks outside the largest 50 stocks listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX). We find more concentrated funds tend to be those implementing growth styles, having smalleraggregate assets under management, being institutions which are not affiliated with a bank or life-office entity, whose funds experience past period outflows, and who are benchmarked to narrower indexes than the S&P/ASX 300.
Prediction-based Online Trajectory Compression

Recent spatio-temporal data applications, such as car-shar\-ing and smart cities, impose new challenges regarding the scalability and timeliness of data processing systems. Trajectory compression is a promising approach for scaling up spatio-temporal databases. However, existing techniques fail to address the online setting, in which a compressed version of a trajectory stream has to be maintained over time. In this paper, we introduce ONTRAC, a new framework for map-matched online trajectory compression. ONTRAC learns prediction models for suppressing updates to a trajectory database using training data. Two prediction schemes are proposed, one for road segments via a Markov model and another for travel-times by combining Quadratic Programming and Expectation Maximization. Experiments show that ONTRAC outperforms the state-of-the-art offline technique even when long update delays (4 mininutes) are allowed and achieves up to 21 times higher compression ratio for travel-times. Moreover, our approach increases database scalability by up to one order of magnitude.
Heuristics for Jointly Optimizing FEC and ARQ for Video Streaming over IEEE802.11 WLAN

In this paper, the problem of selecting an appropriate number of forward error correction (FEC) packets under given channel and network conditions is formulated as an optimization problem and two heuristic algorithms are proposed to find the solution. These heuristic algorithms are used for selecting the parameters of FEC scheme under a given maximum number of automatic repeat request (ARQ) retries, to achieve higher visual quality and efficient transport of multimedia applications over an IEEE 802.11 wireless channel. The proposed algorithms are: adaptive linear FEC (ALFEC) and adaptive exponential FEC (AEFEC), where the number of FEC packets respectively decreases linearly and exponentially, as the sender's queue increases. Simulated performance of the proposed algorithms is compared against those for the existing static and dynamic FEC generation schemes. It is found that the proposed heuristic algorithms outperform the other existing schemes in terms of system efficiency and provides comparable peak-signal-to-noise-ratio (PSNR) gain.
How Social Are Social Virtual Worlds? An Investigation Of Hedonic, Utilitarian, Social And Normative Usage Drivers

ð ð Abstract ð Social Virtual Worlds (SVW) on the Internet have become increasingly popular during the last decade. Despite their increasing usage, business potential and societal impact, limited prior research has focused on understanding the factors that drive users to participate in SVWs. Thus far research has investigated the utilitarian and hedonic outcomes derived from SVW usage, but the literature offers limited information on the social outcomes derived from virtual world usage. Moreover, social influence in the VW context has mostly been researched by employing the subjective norm construct, largely leaving the actual sources of normative influence unnoticed. To fill in these gaps, we develop a research model examining the utilitarian, hedonic and social outcomes of VW usage as well as the role of normative beliefs in determining the VW engagement. The model is tested with a sample of 844 German users of the SVW Habbo using PLS. The results demonstrate that usage is mainly determined by hedonic and utilitarian outcomes, i.e. pleasure experiences when immersed in the SVW and perceived benefits in social interaction. Social presence was the only social outcome exerting a significant influence on the use intention. Neither normative nor informational influence was found to be a significant predictor of Habbo usage. We discuss the implications for IS research and practice. ð
Trabecular meshwork bypass tube shunt: initial case series

Aims: This study describes a prospective consecutive case series of the initial six eyes of five patients undergoing implantation of the trabecular bypass tube shunt. Methods: A prospective consecutive case series. The initial six eyes of five patients with uncontrolled open angle glaucoma who had never previously undergone ocular surgery. Implantation of the trabecular bypass tube shunt measuring 150 μm outer diameter and 50 μm inner diameter was performed with the distal end placed in Schlemm’s canal and the proximal end in the anterior chamber. The main outcome measures were visual acuity, intraocular pressure, glaucoma medication use. Results: The tube was successfully implanted in five of six eyes. In four eyes longer term follow up of 5–9 months showed no loss of visual acuity with decreased intraocular pressure from preoperative levels (mean 23.4–16.5 mm Hg) and reduced requirement of glaucoma medications (mean 3–0.5). In a subset of two eyes, there was no measured increase in aqueous flare or reduction of endothelial cell count. In one eye the tube was explanted because of presumed misplacement by excessive bleeding during surgery. Two eyes showed a diffuse bleb. Conclusions: This study reports the initial experience with a novel approach to surgical glaucoma therapy. This very small tube allows a direct communication to be established between the anterior chamber and Schlemm’s canal, effecting a trabecular bypass. In this small number of eyes this procedure reduced intraocular pressure and the need for glaucoma medications without appreciable side effects.
A case‐control study of diet and gastric cancer in Northern Italy

Dietary factors in the aetiology of stomach cancer were investigated using data from a case‐control study conducted in Northern Italy on 206 histologically confirmed carcinomas and 474 control subjects in hospital for acute, non‐digestive conditions, unrelated to any of the potential risk factors for giistric cancer. Dietary histories concerned the frequency of consumption per week of 29 selected food Items (including ttie major sources of starches, proteins, fats, fibres, vitamins A and C, nitrates and nitrites in the Italian diet) and subjective stores for condiments and salt intake. Pasta and rice (the rajor sources of starch), polenta (a porridge made of maize) and ham were positively related with gastric cancer risk, whereas green vegetables and fresh fruit as a whole (and specifically citrus fruit) and selected fibre‐rich aliments (such aii whole‐grain bread or pasta) showed protective effects on giistric cancer risk. Allowance for major identified potential distorting factors (chiefly indicators of socio‐economic status) reduced the positive association with pasta or rice consumption, but did not appreciably modify any of the other risk estimates. When a single logistic model was fitted including all food items significant in univariate analysis, the 3 items remaining statistically significant were green vegetables (rel‐acive risk, RR = 0.27 for upper vs. lower tertile), polenta (f;R = 2.32) and ham (RR = 1.60). Indices of beta‐carotene and ascorbate intake were negatively and strongly related with giistric cancer risk, but the association with these micronu‐trients was no longer evident after simultaneous allowance for various food items. An approximately 7‐fold difference in risk was found between extreme quintiles of a scale measuring major positive and negative associations.
Ethylene oxide and leukemia.

To the Editor. — Divine and Amanollahi 1 argue that the study of Hogstedt and associates 2 —which confirmed an earlier observation that workers occupationally exposed to ethylene oxide had elevated rates of leukemia mortality—was seriously deficient. They also cite a previous occupational study, 3 involving a larger cohort, that found no excess cancer mortality. We address the issue of the carcinogenicity of ethylene oxide by comparing dose-response data from animals 4 with human data. 2,3 Ethylene oxide produced mononuclear cell leukemia in both male and female rats in two separate inhalation bioassays. 4,5 Thus, animals and humans of both sexes develop cancer in the same type of tissue after ethylene oxide exposure. Study. — We examined how well the dose-response relationship observed in rats fitted the epidemiologic data from several cohorts. 2,3 Our objective was to see if the observed number, of human cancer deaths was in the range of what
Tightness of a new and enhanced semidefinite relaxation for MIMO detection

In this paper, we consider a fundamental problem in modern digital communications known as multi-input multi-output (MIMO) detection, which can be formulated as a complex quadratic programming problem subject to unit-modulus and discrete argument constraints. Various semidefinite relaxation (SDR) based algorithms have been proposed to solve the problem in the literature. In this paper, we first show that the conventional SDR is generally not tight for the problem. Then, we propose a new and enhanced SDR and show its tightness under an easily checkable condition, which essentially requires the level of the noise to be below a certain threshold. The above results have answered an open question posed by So in [35]. Numerical simulation results show that our proposed SDR significantly outperforms the conventional SDR in terms of the relaxation gap.