Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Maladaptive Neural Synchrony in Tinnitus: Origin and Restoration

Tinnitus is the conscious perception of sound heard in the absence of physical sound sources external or internal to the body, reflected in aberrant neural synchrony of spontaneous or resting-state brain activity. Neural synchrony is generated by the nearly simultaneous firing of individual neurons, of the synchronization of membrane-potential changes in local neural groups as reflected in the local field potentials, resulting in the presence of oscillatory brain waves in the EEG. Noise-induced hearing loss, often resulting in tinnitus, causes a reorganization of the tonotopic map in auditory cortex and increased spontaneous firing rates and neural synchrony. Spontaneous brain rhythms rely on neural synchrony. Abnormal neural synchrony in tinnitus appears to be confined to specific frequency bands of brain rhythms. Increases in delta-band activity are generated by deafferented/deprived neuronal networks resulting from hearing loss. Coordinated reset (CR) stimulation was developed in order to specifically counteract such abnormal neuronal synchrony by desynchronization. The goal of acoustic CR neuromodulation is to desynchronize tinnitus-related abnormal delta-band oscillations. CR neuromodulation does not require permanent stimulus delivery in order to achieve long-lasting desynchronization or even a full-blown anti-kindling but may have cumulative effects, i.e., the effect of different CR epochs separated by pauses may accumulate. Unlike other approaches, acoustic CR neuromodulation does not intend to reduce tinnitus-related neuronal activity by employing lateral inhibition. The potential efficacy of acoustic CR modulation was shown in a clinical proof of concept trial, where effects achieved in 12 weeks of treatment delivered 4–6 h/day persisted through a preplanned 4-week therapy pause and showed sustained long-term effects after 10 months of therapy, leading to 75% responders.
Single-Oral-Dose Azithromycin Prophylaxis against Experimental Streptococcal or Staphylococcal Aortic Valve Endocarditis

ABSTRACT Azithromycin and ampicillin protected 94 and 72% of animals challenged with Streptococcus oralis, respectively (P = 0.177), while azithromycin and vancomycin protected 59 and 94% of the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)-challenged animals, respectively (P = 0.018). Azithromycin is effective in preventing experimental streptococcal endocarditis, but against MRSA it is less effective than vancomycin.
Assessment and treatment of the risk of psychosis in adolescents--a review.

BACKGROUND When psychosis first presents, and particularly in the case of schizophrenia, the guidelines recommend rapid institution of treatment with atypical antipsychotics. Two different clinical pictures can be observed: psychoses with acute onset and those with insidious onset. Acute cases (60% of the total) have a favourable course in 85% of young patients but where onset is insidious and the symptoms are predominantly negative, the course is poor in 25% of subjects. Since acute symptoms are relatively easy to diagnose, it is diagnosis of the 'insidious/negative' cases that represents a major challenge. Is such a diagnosis possible yet? How can we limit the number of false negatives and false positives with the attendant risk of stigma? What treatment should be administered? METHODS Review of the literature (PubMed, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO) and comparison with clinical practice here. RESULTS Young people with a high risk of developing psychosis can be identified using scales such as SOPS (Scale of Prodromal Symptoms), PACE (Personal Assessment and Crisis Evaluation) or from the presence of neuroanatomical and genetic characteristics. Unfortunately, these tools are more specific for positive symptoms, and therefore identify a sub-population of young people at risk: those at Ultra-High Risk (UHR). It can be argued that effective treatment is available for these UHR young people to prevent the condition from developing into schizophrenia. On the other hand, the problem persists for young people presenting an insidious onset and predominantly negative symptoms: to date we have no real way of either screening them or assessing the efficacy of a treatment. CONCLUSION "Ultra-High Risk" patients are starting to represent a separate nosological entity. This entity is made up of young patients, most of whom have positive symptoms. If left untreated, the course will lead to seriously compromised social and psychological functioning. Rapid diagnosis and treatment for UHRs is therefore essential. In the future we need to refine our diagnostic tools to make them sufficiently specific and sensitive but also so that the widest category of "Risk Syndrome for Psychosis" includes young patients with mostly negative symptoms.
Ash Management Review—Applications of Biomass Bottom Ash

In industrialized countries, it is expected that the future generation of bioenergy will be from the direct combustion of residues and wastes obtained from biomass. Bioenergy production using woody biomass is a fast developing application since this fuel source is considered to be carbon neutral. The harnessing of bioenergy from these sources produces residue in the form of ash. As the demand for bioenergy production increases, ash and residue volumes will increase. Major challenges will arise relating to the efficient management of these byproducts. The primary concerns for ash are its storage, disposal, use and the presence of unburned carbon. The continual increase in ash volume will result in decreased ash storage facilities (in cases of limited room for landfill expansion), as well as increased handling, transporting and spreading costs. The utilization of ash has been the focus of many studies, hence this review investigates the likely environmental and technological challenges that increased ash generation may cause. The presence of alkali metals, alkaline earth metals, chlorine, sulphur and silicon influences the reactivity and leaching to the inorganic phases which may have significant impacts on soils and the recycling of soil nutrient. Discussed are some of the existing technologies for the processing of ash. Unburned carbon present in ash allows for the exploration of using ash as a fuel. The paper proposes sieve fractionation as a suitable method for the separation of unburnt carbon present in bottom ash obtained from a fixed-bed combustion system, followed by the application of the gasification technology to particle sizes of energy importance. It is hoped that this process will significantly reduce the volume of ash disposed at landfills.
Segregation of Vowels and Consonants in Human Auditory Cortex: Evidence for Distributed Hierarchical Organization

The speech signal consists of a continuous stream of consonants and vowels, which must be de- and encoded in human auditory cortex to ensure the robust recognition and categorization of speech sounds. We used small-voxel functional magnetic resonance imaging to study information encoded in local brain activation patterns elicited by consonant-vowel syllables, and by a control set of noise bursts. First, activation of anterior–lateral superior temporal cortex was seen when controlling for unspecific acoustic processing (syllables versus band-passed noises, in a “classic” subtraction-based design). Second, a classifier algorithm, which was trained and tested iteratively on data from all subjects to discriminate local brain activation patterns, yielded separations of cortical patches discriminative of vowel category versus patches discriminative of stop-consonant category across the entire superior temporal cortex, yet with regional differences in average classification accuracy. Overlap (voxels correctly classifying both speech sound categories) was surprisingly sparse. Third, lending further plausibility to the results, classification of speech–noise differences was generally superior to speech–speech classifications, with the no\ exception of a left anterior region, where speech–speech classification accuracies were significantly better. These data demonstrate that acoustic–phonetic features are encoded in complex yet sparsely overlapping local patterns of neural activity distributed hierarchically across different regions of the auditory cortex. The redundancy apparent in these multiple patterns may partly explain the robustness of phonemic representations.
Split‐Skin Grafting from the Scalp: The Hidden Advantage

BACKGROUND Split‐skin grafting is a routine reconstructive technique associated with large variation in practice. Grafts from the thigh, buttock, or abdomen take a long time to heal and may leave unpleasant, hypopigmented scars. Retrospective reports favor the scalp as a donor site in burn patients. OBJECTIVE Evaluation of duration of healing, cosmetic outcome, and safety of split‐skin grafting from the scalp in patients receiving dermatologic surgery. MATERIAL AND METHODS One hundred sixty‐six consecutive patients (85 men, 81 women) were treated for coverage of chronic leg ulcers or other large skin defects with a split‐skin graft taken from the posterior scalp. Area and thickness of the graft, healing time, and adverse events were documented. RESULTS Mean healing time until complete reepithelization was 5.4±1.0 days for a single harvest (median 5 days). No major complications occurred. Spotted alopecia was a rare event. Almost all (96.5%) of the patients would undergo split‐skin harvesting from the occipital scalp again if needed. CONCLUSIONS Advantages of the scalp as a donor site include rapidity of wound healing, low risk of complications, and excellent cosmetic results. The large number of hair follicles containing the epidermal stem cell pool can explain these advantages.
Airways involvement in rheumatoid arthritis: clinical, functional, and HRCT findings.

The aim of the present study was to assess the prevalence and characteristics of airways involvement in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients in the absence of interstitial lung disease. We prospectively evaluated, with high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and pulmonary function tests (PFTs), 50 patients with RA (nine males and 41 females; mean age: 57.8 yr), including 39 nonsmokers and 11 smokers (mean cigarette consumption: 15.3 pack-yr) without radiographic evidence of RA-related lung changes. PFTs demonstrated airway obstruction (i.e., reduced FEV1/VC) in nine patients (18%) and small airways disease (SAD) (i.e., decreased FEF(25-75), defined as exceeding the predicted value by 1.64 residual SD [RSD] or more, and/or an increased phase III slope > 2 SD by single breath nitrogen washout) in four patients (8%). HRCT demonstrated bronchial and/or lung abnormalities in 35 cases (70%), consisting of air trapping (n = 16; 32%), cylindral bronchiectasis (n = 15; 30%), mild heterogeneity in lung attenuation (n = 10; 20%), and/or centrilobular areas of high attenuation (n = 3; 6%). Airway obstruction and SAD were correlated with the presence of bronchiectasis and bronchial-wall thickening (p = 0.003), and with bronchial infection (p = 0.01), but were unrelated to rheumatologic data. FEF(25-75) was reduced and the slope of phase III was increased in patients with airway changes on HRCT scans, whereas no PFT abnormalities were found in 13 of 15 patients with normal HRCT scans. HRCT depicted features of SAD in 20 of the 33 patients with normal PFTs. HRCT findings were unrelated to rheumatologic data. A high prevalence of airway abnormalities as assessed with HRCT and/or PFTs was observed in our RA population. HRCT appears to be more sensitive than PFTs for detecting small airways disease.
A cell based voronoi roadmap for motion planning of articulated robots using movement primitives

The manufacturing industry today is still focused on the maximization of production. A possible development able to support the global achievement of this goal is the implementation of a new support system for trajectory-planning, specific for industrial robots. This paper describes the trajectory-planning algorithm, able to generate trajectories manageable by human operators, consisting of linear and circular movement primitives. First, the world model and a topology preserving roadmap are stored in a probabilistic occupancy octree by applying a cell extension based algorithm. Successively, the roadmap is constructed within the free reachable joint space maximizing the clearance to the obstacles. A search algorithm is applied on robot configuration positions within the roadmap to identify a path avoiding static obstacles. Finally, the resulting path is converted through an elastic net algorithm into a robot trajectory, which consists of canonical ordered linear and circular movement primitives. The algorithm is demonstrated in a real industrial manipulator context.
Free Lung Cancer Screening Trends Toward a Twofold Increase in Lung Cancer Prevalence in the Underserved Southeastern United States

Objectives The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) reported that the prevalence of lung cancer in individuals at high risk for the disease is 1%, and that screening these individuals using low-dose helical computed tomography of the chest saves lives. To increase screening accessibility in the underserved southeastern United States, we developed a free lung screening program, modeled after the Lahey Hospital & Medical Center Free Lung Screening Program, for individuals meeting National Comprehensive Cancer Network high-risk criteria. Methods This was a chart review of 264 participants screened in the first year of our program. Participants were divided into categories based on the Lung Imaging Reporting and Diagnostic System. Categories three and four were considered positive findings, with demographic and disease criteria collected on these patients. Results Of 264 participants screened, 28 (10.6%) were Lung Imaging Reporting and Diagnostic System category four, 23 (8.7%) were category three, 78 (29.5%) were category two, and 135 (51.1%) were category one. Eight of the 264 participants (3.0%) had lung cancer, with 75% detected in early stages. Conclusions We found a lung cancer prevalence in our high-risk screened population of 3.0% (8 of 264). After adjusting for patients who were symptomatic on clinical evaluation, we report a prevalence of cancer at 2.2% compared with 1.1% in the first year of the National Lung Screening Trial and a prevalence of 1.9% versus 0.6% compared with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network criteria in the first 10 months at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center. This study justifies low-dose helical computed tomography screening in high-risk regions because lung cancer treatment before symptoms appear is more effective, and the prevalence of disease in the detectable preclinical phase is high.
Aureococcus anophagefferens: Causes and ecological consequences of brown tides in U.S. mid‐Atlantic coastal waters

Aureococcus anophagefferens is a picoplankionic alga that since 1985 has bloomed in coastal embayments of the western mid‐Atlantic, ranging from Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, to Barnegat Bay, New Jersey, with greatest incidence of recurrence in Long Island bays, New York. Blooms of this small alga, referred to as “brown tide,” can persist for several months during late spring and summer at densities in excess of 1.0×106 cells ml−1. They are not associated with anomalous chlorophyll a, dissolved oxygen, or inorganic macronutrient (N, P) levels. Meterologically induced reduced flushing rates, elevated salinities, and delivery of micronutrients (e.g. iron) from the watershed have been implicated in bloom initiation. Brown tides have had severe detrimental effects on the benthos, especially eelgrass (Zostera marina) and suspension‐feeding bivalves, including bay scallops (Argopecten irradians) and blue mussels (Mytilus edulis). Adult bivalves experience sublethal effects (e.g. inhibition of clearance rates) at Aureococcus concentrations as low as ∼2×105 cells ml−1 and mortalities at ∼106 cells ml−1, attributed to toxicity of this microalga. Impacts of brown tide on zooplankton are less clear, but reduced egg production rates of copepods and reduced population growth rates of ciliates are documented at higher brown tide concentrations (≥1.0×106 cells ml−1). We summarize the state of knowledge about the physical, chemical, and biological factors that may contribute to brown tide initiation, maintenance, and decline and assess its ecological effects.
A Case of Juvenile Huntington Disease in a 6-Year-Old Boy

Huntington disease is a neurodegenerative disorder distinguished by the triad of dominant inheritance, choreoathetosis and dementia, usually with onset in the fourth and fifth decades. It is caused by an unstable cytosine-adenine-guanine (CAG) trinucleotide repeat expansion in the gene IT15 in locus 4p16.3. Juvenile HD that constitutes about 3% to 10% of all patients is clinically different from adult-onset form and characterized by a larger number of CAG repeats typically exceeding 60. We report a case of a 6-year-old boy with myoclonic seizure and 140 CAG repeats confirmed by molecular genetic analysis.
Racial Differences in the Relationship of Glucose Concentrations and Hemoglobin A1c Levels.

Background Debate exists as to whether the higher hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels observed in black persons than in white persons are due to worse glycemic control or racial differences in the glycation of hemoglobin. Objective To determine whether a racial difference exists in the relationship of mean glucose and HbA1c. Design Prospective, 12-week observational study. Setting 10 diabetes centers in the United States. Participants 104 black persons and 104 white persons aged 8 years or older who had had type 1 diabetes for at least 2 years and had an HbA1c level of 6.0% to 12.0%. Measurements Mean glucose concentration, measured by using continuous glucose monitoring and compared by race with HbA1c, glycated albumin, and fructosamine values. Results The mean HbA1c level was 9.1% in black persons and 8.3% in white persons. For a given HbA1c level, the mean glucose concentration was significantly lower in black persons than in white persons (P = 0.013), which was reflected in mean HbA1c values in black persons being 0.4 percentage points (95% CI, 0.2 to 0.6 percentage points) higher than those in white persons for a given mean glucose concentration. In contrast, no significant racial differences were found in the relationship of glycated albumin and fructosamine levels with the mean glucose concentration (P > 0.20 for both comparisons). Limitation There were too few participants with HbA1c levels less than 6.5% to generalize the results to such individuals. Conclusion On average, HbA1c levels overestimate the mean glucose concentration in black persons compared with white persons, possibly owing to racial differences in the glycation of hemoglobin. However, because race only partially explains the observed HbA1c differences between black persons and white persons, future research should focus on identifying and modifying barriers impeding improved glycemic control in black persons with diabetes. Primary Funding Source Helmsley Charitable Trust.
MECHANOMYOGRAPHIC AND ELECTROMYOGRAPHIC RESPONSES DURING SUBMAXIMAL TO MAXIMAL ECCENTRIC ISOKINETIC MUSCLE ACTIONS OF THE BICEPS BRACHII

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the mechanomyography (MMG) and electromyography (EMG) amplitude and mean power frequency (MPF) vs. eccentric isokinetic torque relationships for the biceps brachii muscle. Nine adults (mean ± SD age = 23.1 ± 2.9 years) performed submaximal to maximal eccentric iso-kinetic muscle actions of the dominant forearm flexors. After determination of isokinetic peak torque (PT), the subjects randomly performed submaximal step muscle actions in 10% increments from 10 to 90% PT. Polynomial regression analyses indicated that the MMG amplitude vs. eccentric isokinetic torque relationship was best fit with a quadratic model (R2 = 0.951), where MMG amplitude increased from 10 to 60% PT and then plateaued from 60 to 100% PT. There were linear increases in MMG MPF (r2 = 0.751) and EMG amplitude (r2 = 0.988) with increases in eccentric isokinetic torque, but there was no significant change in EMG MPF from 10 to 100% PT. The results suggested that for the biceps brachii, eccentric isokinetic torque was increased to approximately 60% PT through concurrent modulation of the number of active motor units and their firing rates, whereas additional torque above 60% PT was produced only by increases in firing rates. These findings contribute to current knowledge of motor-control strategies during eccentric isokinetic muscle actions and could be useful in the design of training programs.
DETERMINATION OF HEAVY METALS IN FISH, WATER AND SEDIMENTS OF AVSAR DAM LAKE IN TURKEY

In the present study, some heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Ni and Pb) were seasonally determined in water, sediment and some tissues of Cyprinus carpio from Avsar Dam Lake, which is an important water source for irrigation and drinking in Turkey. Heavy metal levels in water, sediment and fish samples were analyzed by inductively coupled plasma spectroscopy (ICP/AES). The obtained results showed that the average values of Fe in water samples were higher than the respective reference values for fresh water. Results for levels in water were compared with national and international water quality guidelines, as well as literature data reported for the lakes. The analysis of heavy metals in sediments indicated that among the six heavy metals tested, Fe was maximally accumulated, followed by Ni, Cu, Cr, Pb and Cd. Heavy metal concentrations were found to decrease in sequence of the Cyprinus carpio samples, in the muscle and stomach-intestine as Fe > Cu > Pb> Ni > Cr > Cd; in the gill, heart and liver as Fe > Cu > Ni > Pb > Cr > Cd and in the air sac as Fe > Cu > Ni > Pb > Cd >Cr. In the fish samples, cadmium, chromium, nickel and lead concentrations exceeded the tolerable values provided by international institutions.
Cocaine Users Differ from Normals on Cognitive Tasks Which Show Poorer Performance During Drug Abstinence

Seventeen non-treatment seeking cocaine-dependent individuals participated in three-week longitudinal inpatient studies of cognitive changes during drug use and abstinence. Protocols included three days drug-free baseline, three days cocaine self-administration, and two weeks complete abstinence. A repeatable cognitive battery showed attention and delayed verbal recognition memory but not working memory to be impaired in cocaine users compared to age- and sex-matched normative values. Attention was significantly poorer during the first and second week of abstinence compared to days on which cocaine was used suggesting that certain cocaine-induced impairments may be acutely normalized by cocaine use, but resurface during abstinence.