Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
On the role of general system theory for functional neuroimaging

One of the most important goals of neuroscience is to establish precise structure–function relationships in the brain. Since the 19th century, a major scientific endeavour has been to associate structurally distinct cortical regions with specific cognitive functions. This was traditionally accomplished by correlating microstructurally defined areas with lesion sites found in patients with specific neuropsychological symptoms. Modern neuroimaging techniques with high spatial resolution have promised an alternative approach, enabling non‐invasive measurements of regionally specific changes of brain activity that are correlated with certain components of a cognitive process. Reviewing classic approaches towards brain structure–function relationships that are based on correlational approaches, this article argues that these approaches are not sufficient to provide an understanding of the operational principles of a dynamic system such as the brain but must be complemented by models based on general system theory. These models reflect the connectional structure of the system under investigation and emphasize context‐dependent couplings between the system elements in terms of effective connectivity. The usefulness of system models whose parameters are fitted to measured functional imaging data for testing hypotheses about structure–function relationships in the brain and their potential for clinical applications is demonstrated by several empirical examples.
[Impact factor of timeliness lag for seeing a doctor about cataract patient in Wenzhou region of Zhejiang province].

OBJECTIVE Investigation the impact factor of timeliness lag about cataract patient of operation. METHODS Through Opportunistic Screening , from January 2007 to January 2012, we extracted people aged 50 or above and carried out the cataract screening in 10 towns of Wenzhou region of Zhejiang province. People extracted was checked by slit lamp microscope and ophthalmoscope directly, and the people who are suit for operation were brought to a first-rate of level three eye hospital and operated by MSICS . At the same time we have made questionnaire about five aspect including basic situation, economic status, basic life status, health and medical status and health needs for the operator and this questionnaire involves twenty-three relevant indexes about the timeliness, these factors of timeliness for patients seeing a doctor are judged. RESULTS 36 681 people are checked for five years and 10 326 people(10 326 eyes) are suitable for surgery. Through analyzing sixteen relevant indexes about the timeliness , there are ten indexes which have Statistical Significance including in transportation, the distance for nearest medical aid post , care knowledge, population of family, income of family, respondents degree , the highest degree of family members type of work, structure of building, government subsidies. The first reason that the people can't be operated in time are economic difficulties, next are older and making children trouble for seven factors of no operation in time. The people for this three reason is more than 75% for not seeing a doctor in time. CONCLUSION The key work of blindness prevention and treatment is the cataract surgery for our country.Eye doctors pay attention to new surgical technique , at the same time we should promote MSICS which is technique of low cost and have good effect of the operation.
Digital Dermoscopic Monitoring of Atypical Nevi in Patients at Risk for Melanoma

BACKGROUND Atypical nevi are a common risk factor for melanoma. OBJECTIVES The objective was to determine the utility of monitoring dermoscopic photographs of atypical nevi in a high-risk population. METHODS Over a 4.5-year period, digital dermoscopic photographs were taken of clinically atypical nevi at initial and follow-up visits, such that side-by-side comparisons could be made. RESULTS A total of 5,945 lesions were monitored in 297 patients over 3 to 52 months (median, 22 months), and 324 lesions were biopsied. Photographic (dermoscopic) changes were noted in 96 of 5,945 (1.6%) lesions, which included 64 dysplastic nevi (67%), 25 common nevi (26%), and 1 melanoma (1.0%). Of 6 melanomas biopsied during the follow-up period, only 1 was detected by dermoscopic photographic change at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS Most clinically atypical melanocytic nevi are stable over time, and lesions exhibiting dermoscopic changes are most likely to be dysplastic nevi. Although dermoscopy is a useful tool for clinical examination, the sensitivity of dermoscopic monitoring is limited by melanomas that may arise in normal skin or in clinically benign nevi that were not initially photographed.
DBN Based Joint Dialogue Act Recognition of Multiparty Meetings

Joint dialogue act segmentation and classification of the new AMI meeting corpus has been performed through an integrated framework based on a switching dynamic Bayesian network and a set of continuous features and language models. The recognition process is based on a dictionary of 15 DA classes tailored for group decision-making. Experimental results show that a novel interpolated factored language model results in a low error rate on the automatic segmentation task, and thus good recognition results can be achieved on AMI multiparty conversational speech
Insights into Frizzled evolution and new perspectives

The Frizzled proteins (FZDs) are a family of trans‐membrane receptors that play pivotal roles in Wnt pathways and thus in animal development. Based on evaluation of the Amphimedon queenslandica genome, it has been proposed that two Fzd genes may have been present before the split between demosponges and other animals. The major purpose of this study is to go deeper into the evolution of this family of proteins by evaluating an extended set of available data from bilaterians, cnidarians, and different basally branching animal lineages (Ctenophora, Placozoa, Porifera). The present study provides evidence that the last common ancestor of metazoans did possess two Fzd genes, and that the last common ancestor of cnidarians and bilaterians may have possessed four Fzd. Furthermore, amino acid analyses revealed an accurate diagnostic motif for these four FZD subfamilies facilitating the assignation of Frizzled paralogs to each subfamily. By highlighting conserved amino acids for each FZD subfamily, our study could also provide a framework for further research on the precise mechanisms that have driven FZD neo‐functionalization.
Just a Fad? Gamification in Health and Fitness Apps

Background Gamification has been a predominant focus of the health app industry in recent years. However, to our knowledge, there has yet to be a review of gamification elements in relation to health behavior constructs, or insight into the true proliferation of gamification in health apps. Objective The objective of this study was to identify the extent to which gamification is used in health apps, and analyze gamification of health and fitness apps as a potential component of influence on a consumer’s health behavior. Methods An analysis of health and fitness apps related to physical activity and diet was conducted among apps in the Apple App Store in the winter of 2014. This analysis reviewed a sample of 132 apps for the 10 effective game elements, the 6 core components of health gamification, and 13 core health behavior constructs. A regression analysis was conducted in order to measure the correlation between health behavior constructs, gamification components, and effective game elements. Results This review of the most popular apps showed widespread use of gamification principles, but low adherence to any professional guidelines or industry standard. Regression analysis showed that game elements were associated with gamification (P<.001). Behavioral theory was associated with gamification (P<.05), but not game elements, and upon further analysis gamification was only associated with composite motivational behavior scores (P<.001), and not capacity or opportunity/trigger. Conclusions This research, to our knowledge, represents the first comprehensive review of gamification use in health and fitness apps, and the potential to impact health behavior. The results show that use of gamification in health and fitness apps has become immensely popular, as evidenced by the number of apps found in the Apple App Store containing at least some components of gamification. This shows a lack of integrating important elements of behavioral theory from the app industry, which can potentially impact the efficacy of gamification apps to change behavior. Apps represent a very promising, burgeoning market and landscape in which to disseminate health behavior change interventions. Initial results show an abundant use of gamification in health and fitness apps, which necessitates the in-depth study and evaluation of the potential of gamification to change health behaviors.
Effects of a 1‐year exercise and lifestyle intervention on irisin, adipokines, and inflammatory markers in obese children

Exercise improves weight status and metabolism. Irisin, a novel myokine, may be involved in the regulation of metabolic function. The effect of an exercise and dietary lifestyle intervention for 1‐year on irisin, adipokines (leptin, adiponectin, resistin) and inflammatory markers (C‐reactive protein (CRP), soluble tumor necrosis factor receptor II (sTNFR‐II) was evaluated, and predictors of irisin levels were characterized in obese children.
Gain of function NaV1.7 mutations in idiopathic small fiber neuropathy

Small nerve fiber neuropathy (SFN) often occurs without apparent cause, but no systematic genetic studies have been performed in patients with idiopathic SFN (I‐SFN). We sought to identify a genetic basis for I‐SFN by screening patients with biopsy‐confirmed idiopathic SFN for mutations in the SCN9A gene, encoding voltage‐gated sodium channel NaV1.7, which is preferentially expressed in small diameter peripheral axons.
Sleep disturbances in patients with Huntington’s disease: A questionnaire-based study

OBJECTIVES: To compare the sleep profiles of genetically proven cases of Huntington’s disease (HD) with healthy controls and to correlate the results of various sleep-related parameters with disease severity, duration, and length of cytosine–adenine–guanosine repeats.METHODS: This prospective study was conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, India, which included 31 genetically confirmed patients with HD and 50 controls. All the subjects were evaluated for sleep disturbances using standardized sleep questionnaires (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [PSQI] and Epworth Sleepiness Scale [ESS]). RESULTS: The mean age of the patients during the first consultation was 46.0±12.7 years (range: 28–80). The mean age at onset of symptoms was 40.5±13.8 years. Nineteen patients (61.2%) gave history of sleep disturbances. Symptom suggestive of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder was present in 8 patients (25.8%). Difficulty in falling asleep was the most common sleep-related disturbance reported by 16 patients (51.6%). The mean ESS score of the patients was 6.22±2.89 and that of the control population was 3.00±2.8 (P value < 0.001). The mean PSQI score of the patients was 8.90±3.50 and that of the control population was 3.3±2.9 (P value < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates sleep disturbances in patients with HD compared to healthy controls and the sleep disturbances correlated significantly with the disease duration, severity, and coexistent anxiety and depression.
Copresence and Interaction in Virtual Environments: An Overview of the Range of Issues

Studies of shared virtual environments (SVEs) have used widely different approaches to how copresence and interaction should be analyzed. In this paper, I argue that if we take our starting point from what people actually do in shared VE's, and findings about what they do together then we can focus much more narrowly on the few essential features of interaction in SVEs. To do this, I review the different disciplinary approaches to SVEs and the range of findings in this field, and conclude by suggesting how the field can advance.
Old, Frail, and Uninsured: Accounting for Puzzles in the U.S. Long-Term Care Insurance Market

Half of U.S. 50-year-olds will experience a nursing home stay before they die, and a sizable fraction will incur out-of-pocket expenses in excess of $200,000. Surprisingly, only about 10 percent of individuals over age 62 have private long-term care insurance (LTCI), and many applicants are denied coverage by insurers because they are frail. This paper proposes an equilibrium optimal contracting framework that features demand-side frictions due to Medicaid and supply-side frictions due to adverse selection, market power and administrative costs of paying claims. We find that low LTCI take-up rates and rejections among poor individuals are due to Medicaid. Supply-side frictions, however, are responsible for rejections among frail affluent individuals, and both types of frictions matter for those in the middle class. JEL classification: D82, D91, E62, G22, H30, I13
The Acute Effects of Grape Polyphenols Supplementation on Endothelial Function in Adults: Meta-Analyses of Controlled Trials

Background The acute effects of grape polyphenols on endothelial function in adults are inconsistent. Here, we performed meta-analyses to determine these acute effects as measured by flow-mediated dilation (FMD). Methods Trials were searched in PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library database. Summary estimates of weighted mean differences (WMDs) and 95% CIs were obtained by using random-effects models. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses were performed to identify the source of heterogeneity. The protocol details of our meta-analysis have been submitted to the PROSPERO register and our registration number is CRD42013004157. Results Nine studies were included in the present meta-analyses. The results showed that the FMD level was significantly increased in the initial 120 min after intake of grape polyphenols as compared with controls. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses were performed and showed that a health status was the main effect modifier of the significant heterogeneity. Subgroups indicated that intake of grape polyphenols could significantly increase FMD in healthy subjects, and the increased FMD appeared to be more obviously in subjects with high cardiovascular risk factors. Moreover, the peak effect of grape polyphenols on FMD in healthy subjects was found 30 min after ingestion, which was different from the effect in subjects with high cardiovascular risk factors, in whom the peak effect was found 60 min after ingestion. Conclusions Endothelial function can be significantly improved in healthy adults in the initial 2 h after intake of grape polyphenols. The acute effect of grape polyphenols on endothelial function may be more significant but the peak effect is delayed in subjects with a smoking history or coronary heart disease as compared with the healthy subjects.
Collagenous Extracellular Matrix of Cartilage Submitted to Mechanical Forces Studied by Second Harmonic Generation Microscopy

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative pathology leading to degradation of the extracellular matrix (ECM). Similar effects can be visualized when applying mechanical or biochemical constraints on cartilaginous tissue. Here, we characterized modification of the ECM appearing under mechanical compression and/or biochemical action (hypoxia environment, nitric oxide and collagenase action). In recent decades, multiphoton microscopy has proved its interest for observing living, thick and opaque biological tissues. Thus, the main components of the cartilaginous ECM can be observed without fluorescent labeling. In particular, the collagen network emits strong second harmonic generation (SHG) signal which could be collected at half of the excitation wavelength. Combining autofluorescence and SHG signal detection enables to obtain complementary structural information. Here, we proved that multiphoton microscopy represents an appropriate tool for ex vitro cartilage imaging. First, we showed that SHG signal specifically comes from collagen (collagenase digestion). Further, we verified that the use of an appropriate band‐pass filter enables to reject the autofluorescence from the ECM. Once this specificity was shown, we followed modification of the cartilage ECM submitted to mechanical or biochemical constraints (compression, enzymatic digestion). By performing textural analysis of SHG images (Haralick’s method), we showed the restructuration of the collagen network according to constraints.
VTLN Using Analytically Determined Linear-Transformation on Conventional MFCC

In this paper, we propose a method to analytically obtain a linear-transformation on the conventional Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) features that corresponds to conventional vocal tract length normalization (VTLN)-warped MFCC features, thereby simplifying the VTLN processing. There have been many attempts to obtain such a linear-transformation, but all the previously proposed approaches either modify the signal processing (and therefore not conventional MFCC), or the linear-transformation does not correspond to conventional VTLN-warping, or the matrices being estimated and are data dependent. In short, the conventional VTLN part of an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system cannot be simply replaced with any of the previously proposed methods. Umesh proposed the idea to use band-limited interpolation for performing VTLN-warping on MFCC using plain cepstra. Motivated from this work, Panchapagesan and Alwan proposed a linear-transformation to perform VTLN-warping on conventional MFCC. However, in their approach, VTLN warping is specified in the Mel-frequency domain and is not equivalent to conventional VTLN. In this paper, we present an approach which also draws inspiration from the work of Umesh , and which we believe for the first time performs conventional VTLN as a linear-transformation on conventional MFCC using the ideas of band-limited interpolation. Deriving such a linear-transformation to perform VTLN, would allow us to use the VTLN-matrices in transform-based adaptation framework with its associated advantages and yet would require the estimation of a single parameter. Using four different tasks, we show that our proposed approach has almost identical recognition performance to conventional VTLN on both clean and noisy speech data.
Energy-aware demand paging on NAND flash-based embedded storages

The ever-increasing requirement for high-performance and huge-capacity memories of emerging embedded applications has led to the widespread adoption of SDRAM and NAND flash memory as main and secondary memories, respectively. In particular, the use of energy consuming memory, SDRAM, has become burdensome in battery-powered embedded systems. Intuitively, though demand paging can be used to mitigate the increasing requirement of main memory size, its applicability should be deliberately elaborated since NAND flash memory has asymmetric operation characteristics in terms of performance and energy consumption. In this paper, we present an energy-aware demand paging technique to lower the energy consumption of embedded systems considering the characteristics of interactive embedded applications with large memory footprints. We also propose a flash memory-aware page replacement policy that can reduce the number of write and erase operations in NAND flash memory. With real-life workloads, we show the system-wide energy-delay product can be reduced by 15/spl sim/30% compared to the traditional shadowing architecture.
Climate variability impacts on diversification processes in a biodiversity hotspot: a phylogeography of ancient pseudoscorpions in south-western Australia

The south-western division of Australia is the only biodiversity hotspot in Australia and is well-known for extreme levels of local endemism. Climate change has been identified as a key threat for flora and fauna, but very few data are presently available to evaluate its impact on invertebrate fauna. Here, we derive a molecular phylogeography for pseudoscorpions of the genus Pseudotyrannochthonius that in the south-west are restricted to regions with the highest rainfall. A dated molecular phylogeny derived from six gene fragments is used for biogeographic reconstruction analyses, spatial mapping, environmental niche-modelling, and to infer putative species. Phylogenetic analyses uncover nine clades with mostly allopatric distributions and often small linear ranges between 0.5 and 130 km. Molecular dating suggests that the origins of contemporary diversity fall into a period of warm/humid Palaeogene climates, but splits in the phylogeny coincide with major environmental shifts, such as significant global cooling during the Middle Miocene. By testing several models of historical biogeography available for the south-west, we determine that Pseudotyrannochthonius is an ancient relict lineage that principally follows a model of allopatric speciation in mesic zone refugia, although there are derivations from this model in that some species are older and distribution patterns more complex than expected. Ecological niche models indicate that drier and warmer future climates will lead to range contraction towards refugia of highest rainfall, probably mimicking past variations that have generated high diversity in these areas. Their conservation management will be crucial for preserving the unique biodiversity heritage of the south-west.
Numerical simulation of a coupled gas flow and geomechanics process in fractured coalbed methane reservoirs

The pores and throats of coal seam are narrow, and the permeability is very low. It is a porous medium with complicated deformation mechanism. In the process of gas production, the change of stress, pore pressure, gas adsorption and desorption will lead to the change of grains, pore volume, and the seepage capacity of coal seam. Based on the theory of poroelastic and seepage mechanics, a physical model of fractured horizontal well and a coupled mathematic model of coal deformation and gas flow are established. The dynamic change model of permeability is deduced too. The development characteristics and laws of coalbed methane are numerically simulated by using numerical analysis software Comsol Multiphysics. Finally, the sensitivity of the key parameters in the model and the influence of the fracture parameters are analyzed. The results show that the application of fractured horizontal well is an effective measure to increase production of coalbed reservoirs; with the increase of Langmuir volumetric strain constant, fracture half‐length, and the numbers of fracture, the production of coalbed methane is increasing. In the case of constant total fracture length, number, and spacing, when fracture half‐lengths are long and short interlaced distribution, the production is the highest and it is the best fracture distribution pattern. The study provides a theoretical basis for the further study of coalbed deformation, gas migration, efficient, and rational development of coalbed methane reservoirs.