Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neuroscience, virtual reality and neurorehabilitation: Brain repair as a validation of brain theory

This paper argues that basing cybertherapy approaches on a theoretical understanding of the brain has advantages. On one hand it provides for a rational approach towards therapy design while on the other allowing for a direct validation of brain theory in the clinic. As an example this paper discusses how the Distributed Adaptive Control architecture, a theory of mind, brain and action, has given rise to a new paradigm in neurorehabilitation called the Rehabilitation Gaming System (RGS) and to novel neuroprosthetic systems. The neuroprosthetic system considered is developed to replace the function of cerebellar micro-circuits, expresses core aspects of the learning systems of DAC and has been successfully tested in in-vivo experiments. The Virtual reality based rehabilitation paradigm of RGS has been validated in the treatment of acute and chronic stroke and has been shown to be more effective than existing methods. RGS provides a foundation for integrated at-home therapy systems that can operate largely autonomously when also augmented with appropriate physiological monitoring and diagnostic devices. These examples provide first steps towards a science based medicine.
Local mepivacaine before castration of horses under medetomidine isoflurane balanced anaesthesia is effective to reduce perioperative nociception and cytokine release

Summary Background In horses castration with primary intention healing is usually performed under balanced inhalation anaesthesia. To optimise analgesia, the use of local anaesthesia was tested. Objectives To investigate the effect of local mepivacaine before castration with first intention healing under balanced medetomidine‐isoflurane anaesthesia and flunixin meglumine, morphine analgesia on perioperative cytokine levels and pain in horses. Study design Prospective blinded clinical study. Methods Twenty stallions were randomly assigned to control or mepivacaine groups. Flunixin meglumine was administered before sedation with medetomidine and followed by ketamine/diazepam intravenously (i.v.). Anaesthesia was maintained with isoflurane and 3.5 μg/kg per hour medetomidine. Mepivacaine horses were given mepivacaine 2% (3.5 mL SC, 1 mL/100 kg intrafunicularly, 2 mL/100 kg intratesticularly) on each side. For recovery, horses were given 2 μg/kg medetomidine i.v. and 0.1 mg/kg morphine i.m. and oral phenylbutazone (0.02 mg/kg q12h) for post‐operative analgesia. One hour before premedication and 4, 8 and 24 h post‐incision, pain was scored with three different pain scales (Equine Utrecht University Scale for Facial Assessment of Pain, Horse Grimace Scale, Equine Utrecht University Scale for Composite Pain Assessment) and plasma cytokines (interleukin‐6 and tumour necrosis factor alpha) were measured. Data were analysed using repeated measures ANOVA, linear regression and unpaired t‐test, significance level P≤0.05. Results Horses in both groups showed a significant increase in pain scores and cytokines compared to baseline. Post‐operatively the mepivacaine group exhibited significantly lower pain scores and cytokine levels. Mean heart rate during anaesthesia was significantly lower in the mepivacaine group compared to control group (28.8 ± 1 and 33.2 ± 1.7 respectively). Otherwise there were no differences between the groups. Main limitations The decision to provide additional analgesia was based on the attending surgeon's assessment rather than a standardised rescue analgesia plan based on pain scores. The study was only conducted for 24 h post‐castration and complications were not recorded. Conclusion Local mepivacaine before castration with primary wound closure improved anaesthesia quality, attenuated post‐operative increases in cytokines and reduced post‐operative pain despite balanced anaesthesia with multimodal analgesia in control horses.
Application heartbeats: a generic interface for specifying program performance and goals in autonomous computing environments

The rise of multicore computing has greatly increased system complexity and created an additional burden for software developers. This burden is especially troublesome when it comes to optimizing software on modern computing systems. Autonomic or adaptive computing has been proposed as one method to help application programmers handle this complexity. In an autonomic computing environment, system services monitor applications and automatically adapt their behavior to increase the performance of the applications they support. Unfortunately, applications often run as performance black-boxes and adaptive services must infer application performance from low-level information or rely on system-specific ad hoc methods. This paper proposes a standard framework, Application Heartbeats, which applications can use to communicate both their current and target performance and which autonomic services can use to query these values. The Application Heartbeats framework is designed around the well-known idea of a heartbeat. At important points in the program, the application registers a heartbeat. In addition, the interface allows applications to express their performance in terms of a desired heart rate and/or a desired latency between specially tagged heartbeats. Thus, the interface provides a standard method for an application to directly communicate its performance and goals while allowing autonomic services access to this information. Thus, Heartbeat-enabled applications are no longer performance black-boxes. This paper presents the Applications Heartbeats interface, characterizes two reference implementations (one suitable for clusters and one for multicore), and illustrates the use of Heartbeats with several examples of systems adapting behavior based on feedback from heartbeats.
Investigation of the Mechanism of Therapeutic Protein-Drug Interaction Between Methotrexate and Golimumab, an Anti-TNFα Monoclonal Antibody

A prominent example of human therapeutic protein-drug interaction (TP-DI) is between methotrexate (MTX) and anti-TNFα mAbs. One plausible mechanism for this TP-DI is through the pharmacodynamic effect of MTX on immunogenicity. However, there is no definitive evidence to substantiate this mechanism, and other competing hypotheses, such as MTX suppressing FcγRI expression thereby affecting mAb PK, have also been proposed. In order to understand this mechanism, a cynomolgus monkey study was conducted using golimumab as a model compound. Golimumab elicited high incidences of immunogenicity in healthy cynomolgus monkeys. Concomitant dosing of MTX delayed the onset and reduced the magnitude of anti-drug antibody (ADA) formation. The impact of MTX on golimumab PK correlated with the ADA status. Prior to ADA formation, MTX has no discernable effect on golimumab PK. Additionally, no alteration in FcγRI expression was observed following MTX treatment. The impact of MTX on golimumab immunogenicity and PK has been observed in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis (PsA), and ankylosing spondylitis. In a representative phase 3 study of golimumab in patients with PsA, patients not receiving concomitant MTX was reported to have ~ 30% lower steady-state trough golimumab levels compared to those who received MTX. However, further analysis showed that PsA patients who were negative for ADA in both treatment groups had comparable trough levels of golimumab. Taken together, our results suggest that the mechanism of TP-DI between MTX and golimumab can mostly be attributed to the pharmacodynamic effect of MTX, i.e., the lowering of immunogenicity and immunogenicity-mediated clearance of mAbs.
Examining the roles of mobile and social media in political participation: A cross-national analysis of three Asian societies using a communication mediation approach

The Asia-Pacific constitutes the fastest growing region in mobile and social media penetration. Yet, the political implications of the technologies are not fully understood. Using probability samples of university students in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, this study examines the roles of mobile and social media news in offline and online political participation. Consistent with the O-S-R-O-R model (Orientations–Stimulus–Reasoning–Orientations–Response), which derives from communication and cognitive mediation models explaining the relationship between media use and political participation, all three samples demonstrated indirect relationships between mobile/social media use and political participation through interpersonal political discussion and political efficacy. The study contributes to theory building by demonstrating the external validity of the O-S-R-O-R model across different political systems.
Application of lectin microarrays for the analysis of seminal plasma glycome

We report application of lectin microarrays, exploiting simultaneous interaction of seminal plasma samples with multiple lectins of different sugar specificities to compare the glycomes of fertile and infertile men. The results indicate reduced lectin reactivity associated with decreased fertility, especially affecting oligozoospermic subjects and probably O‐glycosylation. Lectin microarrays may become a potent tool for semen analysis in search of the association of glycosylation and male fertility.
“Skin-Core-Skin” Structure of Polymer Crystallization Investigated by Multiscale Simulation

“Skin-core-skin” structure is a typical crystal morphology in injection products. Previous numerical works have rarely focused on crystal evolution; rather, they have mostly been based on the prediction of temperature distribution or crystallization kinetics. The aim of this work was to achieve the “skin-core-skin” structure and investigate the role of external flow and temperature fields on crystal morphology. Therefore, the multiscale algorithm was extended to the simulation of polymer crystallization in a pipe flow. The multiscale algorithm contains two parts: a collocated finite volume method at the macroscopic level and a morphological Monte Carlo method at the microscopic level. The SIMPLE (semi-implicit method for pressure linked equations) algorithm was used to calculate the polymeric model at the macroscopic level, while the Monte Carlo method with stochastic birth-growth process of spherulites and shish-kebabs was used at the microscopic level. Results show that our algorithm is valid to predict “skin-core-skin” structure, and the initial melt temperature and the maximum velocity of melt at the inlet mainly affects the morphology of shish-kebabs.
Facebook profile picture appearance affects recruiters’ first hiring decisions

We investigate whether the publicly available information on Facebook about job applicants affects employers’ hiring decisions. To this end, we conduct a field experiment in which fictitious job applications are sent to real job openings in Belgium. The only characteristic in which these candidates differ is the unique Facebook profile that can be found online with their name. Candidates with the most beneficial Facebook picture obtain approximately 38% more job interview invitations compared to candidates with the least beneficial picture. In addition, we find suggestive evidence for a higher effect of Facebook profile picture appearance on hiring chances when candidates are highly educated and when recruiters are female.
Medical Comorbidity in Alzheimer's Disease: A Nested Case-Control Study.

BACKGROUND Little is known about the distribution of medical comorbidities in Alzheimer's disease (AD). OBJECTIVE We aimed to describe the comorbidity pattern of AD in a nested case-control study. METHODS Incident AD cases were identified by International Classification of Diseases codes in a random sample of 2 million individuals in Taiwan National Health Insurance program during 2001-2011. We further restricted cases to those treated with AD drugs of approved reimbursement. We sampled a set of age- and sex-matched control subjects (2:1 ratio) and employed conditional logistic regression to estimate the associations between pre-specified 14 comorbidities and AD. The clusters of multiple chronic diseases were then identified by exploratory factor analysis. RESULTS A total of 2,618 AD cases were identified during 2001-2011 with a mean age of 76.1 years and female preponderance (59%). The most common 5 comorbidities in AD were hypertension (55.1%), osteoarthritis (38.2%), depression (32.3%), diabetes mellitus (DM) (25.7%), and cerebrovascular disease (CVD) (22.7%). After adjusting for age and sex, DM, osteoporosis, depression, and CVD were significantly associated with AD. The number of comorbidity was 3-fold greater in the AD group. The cluster of hypertension, DM, and hyperlipidemia was the most common combination in old age, whereas the cluster osteoarthritis and osteoporosis was the only multimorbidity pattern significantly associated with AD. CONCLUSION Multimorbidity is common in AD. Depression, CVD, osteoporosis, and DM are associated with incident AD, supporting that their co-existence is a typical feature of AD at old age. Comorbidity care should be integrated into current management for patients with AD.
Clinical application of computed tomography in differential diagnosis of malignant and benign lesions in maxilla

Our aim was to identify the computed tomographic (CT) characteristics most useful to differentiate malignant maxillary tumors (MMTs) from benign maxillary lesions (BML). A retrospective review of CT findings was performed in patients with histopathologically confirmed, untreated maxillary lesions. Logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the associations between CT characteristics and malignancy. Patients were divided into three groups according to the summed scores of five CT characteristics. We identified 159 patients with MMT and 132 patients with BML. After multivariable analyses, patients with MMT remained more likely to have cortical destruction and soft tissue extension than those with BML (odds ratio [OR], 49.9, 95% confidence interval [CI], 4.4-560.5 and OR, 17.5, 95% CI, 6.9-44.3, respectively). Compared with a summed CT score of < 2, patients with a score of 2-4 and ≥ 4 were 20 and 430 times more likely to have MMT (OR, 20.1, 95% CI, 4.3-94.7 and OR, 430.5, 95% CI, 87.6-2015.7, respectively). CT provides valuable information about differentiating malignant and benign maxillary lesions, particularly the presence of cortical involvement and soft tissue extension. The value of multi-parametric CT may highly increase such a differential diagnosis. Larger studies are needed to validate our findings.
Adversarial Example Generation with Syntactically Controlled Paraphrase Networks

We propose syntactically controlled paraphrase networks (SCPNs) and use them to generate adversarial examples. Given a sentence and a target syntactic form (e.g., a constituency parse), SCPNs are trained to produce a paraphrase of the sentence with the desired syntax. We show it is possible to create training data for this task by first doing backtranslation at a very large scale, and then using a parser to label the syntactic transformations that naturally occur during this process. Such data allows us to train a neural encoder-decoder model with extra inputs to specify the target syntax. A combination of automated and human evaluations show that SCPNs generate paraphrases that follow their target specifications without decreasing paraphrase quality when compared to baseline (uncontrolled) paraphrase systems. Furthermore, they are more capable of generating syntactically adversarial examples that both (1) “fool” pretrained models and (2) improve the robustness of these models to syntactic variation when used to augment their training data.
Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy: ongoing challenges in finding mechanisms and prevention

ABSTRACT Purpose/aim of the study: To summarize recent studies on the pathophysiology and preventive strategies for SUDEP. Materials and methods: Databases and literature review. Results: Patients with epilepsy have a significantly higher risk of death than the general population. Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is the leading cause of sudden death among patients with epilepsy. Despite on-going research, there are still deficits in our knowledge about the mechanisms, genetic factors, and prevention of SUDEP. Current evidence suggests that cardiac arrhythmias, respiratory dysfunction, and brainstem arousal system dysfunction are the major mechanisms of SUDEP, and animal models support the role of neurotransmitters, especially serotonin and adenosine, in pathophysiology of SUDEP. Several mutations in the neurocardiogenic channelopathy genes have been identified as a possible cause of epilepsy and increased SUDEP risk. The lack of awareness that SUDEP can be a potential cause of premature death has been found in several surveys. In addition, medical legal cases demonstrate the need for more education about this condition. Several preventive strategies to reduce SUDEP have been proposed, including effective seizure control, nocturnal supervision, seizure monitoring, devices to protect the airway, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Further research is needed to determine the efficacy of these interventions. Conclusions: The major mechanisms of SUDEP include cardiac arrhythmias, respiratory dysfunction, and brainstem arousal system dysfunction. Effective control of seizures is the only effective strategy to prevent SUDEP. Other preventive interventions require more research.
Structure of non-( 184 ) PTH fragments secreted by parathyroid glands in primary and secondary hyperparathyroidism

Structure of non-(1-84) PTH fragments secreted by parathyroid glands in primary and secondary hyperparathyroidism. Background. Non-(1-84) parathyroid hormone (PTH) fragments are large circulating carboxyl-terminal (C) fragments with a partially preserved amino-terminal (N) structure. hPTH (7-84), a synthetic surrogate, has been demonstrated to exert biologic effects in vivo and in vitro which are opposite to those of hPTH (1-34) on the PTH/PTHrP type I receptor through a C-PTH receptor. We wanted to determine the N structure of non-(1-84) PTH fragments. Methods. Parathyroid cells isolated from glands obtained at surgery from three patients with primary hyperparathyroidism and three patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism were incubated with 35S-methionine to internally label their secretion products. Incubations were performed for 8 hours at the patient-ionized calcium concentration and in the presence of various protease inhibitors. The supernatant was fractionated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and fractions were analyzed with PTH assays having (1 to 4) and (12 to 23) epitopes, respectively. The serum of each patient was similarly analyzed. Peaks of immunoreactivity identified were submitted to sequence analysis to recover the 35S-methionine residues in positions 8 and 18. Results. Three regions of interest were identified with PTH assays. They corresponded to non-(1-84) PTH fragments (further divided in regions 3 and 4), a peak of N-PTH migrating in front of hPTH (1-84) (region 2) and a peak of immunoreactivity corresponding to the elution position of hPTH (1-84) (region 1). The last corresponded to a single sequence starting at position 1. Region 2 gave similar results in all cases (a major signal starting at position 1) but also sometimes minor sequences starting at position 4 or 7. Regions 3 and 4 always identified a major sequence starting at positions 7 and minor sequences starting at positions 8, 10, and 15. Surprisingly, a major signal starting at position 1 was also present in region 3. The HPLC profile ob-
Montelukast attenuates radioactive I131-induced pulmonary damage on rats

Abstract Purpose: Radioactive I131 (RAI) therapy is a standard method to ablate the remnant thyroidal tissue after total thyroidectomy and its metastases in differentiated thyroid carcinomas; however, I131 also accumulates in nonthyroidal tissue, which may cause adverse effects and limit the I131 dose required for treatment. We hypothesized that montelukast, a known agent with anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties, would ameliorate the radiation-induced histopathological characteristics such as pneumonitis and fibrosis in rat lungs after RAI. Methods: Fifty female Wistar albino rats were randomly separated into five groups of 10. Group 1 was the control group; Group 2 was administered RAI only; Group 3 was administered RAI and montelukast, Group 4 was administered RAI after total thyroidectomy and Group 5 was administered RAI and montelukast after total thyroidectomy. All rats were sacrificed after 12 weeks and the lungs were evaluated in the histological examination to determine the degree of inflammation and fibrosis and for immunohistochemical (IHC) staining for tissue expression of IL-1, IL-6 and TNF-alpha and TGF-beta. Results: The RAI-administered groups, Group 2 and Group 4, were significantly different from the control group, however, the groups medicated with both RAI and montelukast, Group 3 and Group 5, were not significantly different from the control group. All histopathological and IHC parameters were significantly less in the groups administered with montelukast compared to the groups not administered with montelukast. Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated the radioprotective effect of montelukast in the pulmonary system through histopathological and IHC examination.
Proportional EMG control for upper-limb powered exoskeletons

Electromyography (EMG) has been frequently proposed as the driving signal for controlling powered exoskeletons. Lot of effort has been spent to design accurate algorithms for muscular torque estimation, while very few studies attempted to understand to what extent an accurate torque estimate is indeed necessary to provide effective movement assistance through powered exoskeletons. In this study, we focus on the latter aspect by using a simple and “low-accuracy” torque estimate, an EMG-proportional control, to provide assistance through an elbow exoskeleton. Preliminary results show that subjects adapt almost instantaneously to the assistance provided by the exoskeleton and can reduce their effort while keeping full control of the movement.