Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prior Treatment with Anti‐High Mobility Group Box‐1 Antibody Boosts Human Neural Stem Cell Transplantation‐Mediated Functional Recovery After Spinal Cord Injury

Together with residual host neurons, transplanted neural stem cell (NSC)‐derived neurons play a critical role in reconstructing disrupted neural circuits after spinal cord injury (SCI). Since a large number of tracts are disrupted and the majority of host neurons die around the lesion site as the damage spreads, minimizing this spreading and preserving the lesion site are important for attaining further improvements in reconstruction. High mobility group box‐1 (HMGB1) is a damage‐associated molecular pattern protein that triggers sterile inflammation after tissue injury. In the ischemic and injured brain, neutralization of HMGB1 with a specific antibody reportedly stabilizes the blood‐brain barrier, suppresses inflammatory cytokine expression, and improves functional recovery. Using a SCI model mouse, we here developed a combinatorial treatment for SCI: administering anti‐HMGB1 antibody prior to transplantation of NSCs derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSC‐NSCs) yielded a dramatic improvement in locomotion recovery after SCI. Even anti‐HMGB1 antibody treatment alone alleviated blood‐spinal cord barrier disruption and edema formation, and increased the number of neurites from spared axons and the survival of host neurons, resulting in functional recovery. However, this recovery was greatly enhanced by the subsequent hiPSC‐NSC transplantation, reaching an extent that has never before been reported. We also found that this improved recovery was directly associated with connections established between surviving host neurons and transplant‐derived neurons. Taken together, our results highlight combinatorial treatment with anti‐HMGB1 antibody and hiPSC‐NSC transplantation as a promising novel therapy for SCI. Stem Cells 2018;36:737–750
Diabetes Management in Adolescents in Poor Metabolic Control

PURPOSE This study was conducted to describe and compare adolescent and parent report of diabetes management and to identify racial/ethnic differences in diabetes management and metabolic control in adolescents in poor metabolic control. METHODS The convenience sample consisted of 31 mother-adolescent dyads. Diabetes management was measured by the Diabetes Management Scale. Descriptive statistics, bivariate correlations, and t-tests were used to analyze the data. RESULTS The overall mean of individual management activities was 66% for adolescents and 68% for mothers. Mismanagement of insulin was reported by 25% of the adolescents yet this behavior was supervised only 65% of the time. Better metabolic control was related to eating 3 meals a day, getting insulin every day, and more assistance with meals. African American adolescents were in poorer metabolic control than European Americans. CONCLUSIONS Diabetes management behaviors are performed much less frequently than recommended by adolescents and their mothers. Additional research is necessary to identify modifiable factors that contribute to inadequate diabetes management to identify intervention strategies to improve diabetes management in adolescents with poor metabolic control.
The GOME-2 instrument on the Metop series of satellites: instrument design, calibration, and level 1 data processing – an overview

Abstract. The Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment-2 (GOME-2) flies on the Metop series of satellites, the space component of the EUMETSAT Polar System. In this paper we will provide an overview of the instrument design, the on-ground calibration and characterization activities, in-flight calibration, and level 0 to 1 data processing. The current status of the level 1 data is presented and points of specific relevance to users are highlighted. Long-term level 1 data consistency is also discussed and plans for future work are outlined. The information contained in this paper summarizes a large number of technical reports and related documents containing information that is not currently available in the published literature. These reports and documents are however made available on the EUMETSAT web pages and readers requiring more details than can be provided in this overview paper will find appropriate references at relevant points in the text.
Touch-sensing input devices

We can touch things, and our senses tell us when our hands aretouching something. But most computer input devices cannot detectwhen the user touches or releases the device or some portion of thedevice. Thus, adding touch sensors to input devices offers manypossibilities for novel interaction techniques. We demonstrate theTouchTrackball and the Scrolling TouchMouse, which use unobtrusivecapacitance sensors to detect contact from the users hand withoutrequiring pressure or mechanical actuation of a switch. We furtherdemonstrate how the capabilities of these devices can be matched toan implicit interaction technique, the On-Demand Interface, whichuses the passive information captured by touch sensors to fade inor fade out portions of a display depending on what the user isdoing; a second technique uses explicit, intentional interactionwith touch sensors for enhanced scrolling. We present our newdevices in the context of a simple tax- onomy of tactile inputtechnologies. Finally, we discuss the properties of touch-sensingas an input channel in general.
Detecting changes in winter precipitation extremes and fluvial flood risk

There is a widely held perception that flood risk has increased across Europe during the last decade (EEA, 2005). Following extensive flash flooding in England, the Pitt Review (2008) concluded that: “The Summer 2007 floods cannot be attributed directly to climate change, but they do provide a clear indication of the scale and nature of the severe weather events we may experience as a result”. The review further asserted that, “timely decisions will allow organisations the flexibility to choose the most cost-effective measures, rather than being forced to act urgently and reactively. Early action will also avoid lock-in to long-lived assets such as buildings and infrastructure which are not resilient to the changing climate”.
Neutrophil‐lymphocyte ratio is associated with prognosis in patients who underwent potentially curative resection for gastric cancer

The role of inflammation in cancer development is a well‐known phenomenon that may be represented by the neutrophil‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR). The present research intends to determine the impact of NLR on the survival outcome of patients with gastric cancer (GC), and to evaluate its use as a stratification factor for the staging groups.
Use of Eye-Tracking Technology to Investigate Cognitive Load Theory

Cognitive load theory (CLT) provides us guiding principles in the design of learning materials. CLT differentiates three different kinds of cognitive load -- intrinsic, extraneous and germane load. Intrinsic load is related to the learning goal, extraneous load costs cognitive resources but does not contribute to learning. Germane load can foster learning. Objective methods, such as eye movement measures and EEG have been used measure the total cognitive load. Very few research studies, if any, have been completed to measure the three kinds of load separately with physiological methods in a continuous manner. In this current study, we will show how several eye-tracking based parameters are related to the three kinds of load by having explicit manipulation of the three loads independently. Participants having low prior knowledge regarding the learning material participated in the study. Working memory capacity was also measured by an operation memory span task.
Island radiation on a continental scale: Exceptional rates of plant diversification after uplift of the Andes

Species radiations provide unique insights into evolutionary processes underlying species diversification and patterns of biodiversity. To compare plant diversification over a similar time period to the recent cichlid fish radiations, which are an order of magnitude faster than documented bird, arthropod, and plant radiations, we focus on the high-altitude flora of the Andes, which is the most species-rich of any tropical mountains. Because of the recent uplift of the northern Andes, the upland environments where much of this rich endemic flora is found have been available for colonization only since the late Pliocene or Pleistocene, 2–4 million years (Myr) ago. Using DNA sequence data we identify a monophyletic group within the genus Lupinus representing 81 species endemic to the Andes. The age of this clade is estimated to be 1.18–1.76 Myr, implying a diversification rate of 2.49–3.72 species per Myr. This exceeds previous estimates for plants, providing the most spectacular example of explosive plant species diversification documented to date. Furthermore, it suggests that the high cichlid diversification rates are not unique. Lack of key innovations associated with the Andean Lupinus clade suggests that diversification was driven by ecological opportunities afforded by the emergence of island-like habitats after Andean uplift. Data from other genera indicate that lupines are one of a set of similarly rapid Andean plant radiations, continental in scale and island-like in stimulus, suggesting that the high-elevation Andean flora provides a system that rivals other groups, including cichlids, for understanding rapid species diversification.
Teaching Machines to Describe Images via Natural Language Feedback

Robots will eventually be part of every household. It is thus critical to enable algorithms to learn from and be guided by non-expert users. In this paper, we bring a human in the loop, and enable a human teacher to give feedback to a learning agent in the form of natural language. We argue that a descriptive sentence can provide a much stronger learning signal than a numeric reward in that it can easily point to where the mistakes are and how to correct them. We focus on the problem of image captioning in which the quality of the output can easily be judged by non-experts. We propose a hierarchical phrase-based captioning model trained with policy gradients, and design a feedback network that provides reward to the learner by conditioning on the human-provided feedback. We show that by exploiting descriptive feedback our model learns to perform better than when given independently written human captions.
Is the Conformational Ensemble of Alzheimer’s Aβ10-40 Peptide Force Field Dependent?

By applying REMD simulations we have performed comparative analysis of the conformational ensembles of amino-truncated Aβ10-40 peptide produced with five force fields, which combine four protein parameterizations (CHARMM36, CHARMM22*, CHARMM22/cmap, and OPLS-AA) and two water models (standard and modified TIP3P). Aβ10-40 conformations were analyzed by computing secondary structure, backbone fluctuations, tertiary interactions, and radius of gyration. We have also calculated Aβ10-40 3JHNHα-coupling and RDC constants and compared them with their experimental counterparts obtained for the full-length Aβ1-40 peptide. Our study led us to several conclusions. First, all force fields predict that Aβ adopts unfolded structure dominated by turn and random coil conformations. Second, specific TIP3P water model does not dramatically affect secondary or tertiary Aβ10-40 structure, albeit standard TIP3P model favors slightly more compact states. Third, although the secondary structures observed in CHARMM36 and CHARMM22/cmap simulations are qualitatively similar, their tertiary interactions show little consistency. Fourth, two force fields, OPLS-AA and CHARMM22* have unique features setting them apart from CHARMM36 or CHARMM22/cmap. OPLS-AA reveals moderate β-structure propensity coupled with extensive, but weak long-range tertiary interactions leading to Aβ collapsed conformations. CHARMM22* exhibits moderate helix propensity and generates multiple exceptionally stable long- and short-range interactions. Our investigation suggests that among all force fields CHARMM22* differs the most from CHARMM36. Fifth, the analysis of 3JHNHα-coupling and RDC constants based on CHARMM36 force field with standard TIP3P model led us to an unexpected finding that in silico Aβ10-40 and experimental Aβ1-40 constants are generally in better agreement than these quantities computed and measured for identical peptides, such as Aβ1-40 or Aβ1-42. This observation suggests that the differences in the conformational ensembles of Aβ10-40 and Aβ1-40 are small and the former can be used as proxy of the full-length peptide. Based on this argument, we concluded that CHARMM36 force field with standard TIP3P model produces the most accurate representation of Aβ10-40 conformational ensemble.
Pediatric Hearing Aid Management: Challenges among Hispanic Families

Abstract Background: Hearing aid fitting in infancy has become more common in the United States as a result of earlier identification of hearing loss. Consistency of hearing aid use is an area of concern for young children, as well as other hearing aid management challenges parents encounter that may contribute to less-than-optimal speech and language outcomes. Research that describes parent hearing aid management experiences of Spanish-speaking Hispanic families, or the extent of their needs, is not available. To effectively support parent learning, in a culturally sensitive manner, providers may benefit from having a better understanding of the needs and challenges Hispanic families experience with hearing aid management. Purpose: The purpose of the current study was to describe challenges with hearing aid management and use for children from birth to 5 yr of age, as reported by Spanish-speaking parents in the United States, and factors that may influence hearing aid use. Research Design: This study used a cross-sectional survey design. Study Sample: Forty-two Spanish-speaking parents of children up to 5 yr of age who had been fitted with hearing aids. Data Collection and Analysis: Responses were obtained from surveys mailed to parents through early intervention programs and audiology clinics. Descriptive statistics were used to describe frequencies and variance in responses. Results: Forty-seven percent of the parents reported the need for help from an interpreter during audiology appointments. Even though parents received information and were taught skills by their audiologist, many wanted to receive more information. For example, 59% wanted to know how to meet other parents of children who have hearing loss, although 88% had previously received this information; 56% wanted to know how to do basic hearing aid maintenance, although 71% had previously received instruction. The two most frequently reported hearing aid use challenges were fear of losing the hearing aids, and not seeing benefit from the hearing aids. Hearing aid use during all waking hours was reported by more parents (66%) when their child had a good day than when their child had a bad day (37%); during the previous two weeks, 35% of the parents indicated their child had all good days. Conclusions: Hispanic parents wanted more comprehensive information, concrete resources, and emotional support from the audiologist to overcome hearing aid management challenges. Understanding parents’ perspectives, experiences, and challenges is critical for audiologists to provide appropriate support in a culturally sensitive manner and to effectively address families’ needs.
How Many Subjects are Needed for a Visual Field Normative Database? A Comparison of Ground Truth and Bootstrapped Statistics

Purpose The number of subjects needed to establish the normative limits for visual field (VF) testing is not known. Using bootstrap resampling, we determined whether the ground truth mean, distribution limits, and standard deviation (SD) could be approximated using different set size (x) levels, in order to provide guidance for the number of healthy subjects required to obtain robust VF normative data. Methods We analyzed the 500 Humphrey Field Analyzer (HFA) SITA-Standard results of 116 healthy subjects and 100 HFA full threshold results of 100 psychophysically experienced healthy subjects. These VFs were resampled (bootstrapped) to determine mean sensitivity, distribution limits (5th and 95th percentiles), and SD for different ‘x’ and numbers of resamples. We also used the VF results of 122 glaucoma patients to determine the performance of ground truth and bootstrapped results in identifying and quantifying VF defects. Results An x of 150 (for SITA-Standard) and 60 (for full threshold) produced bootstrapped descriptive statistics that were no longer different to the original distribution limits and SD. Removing outliers produced similar results. Differences between original and bootstrapped limits in detecting glaucomatous defects were minimized at x = 250. Conclusions Ground truth statistics of VF sensitivities could be approximated using set sizes that are significantly smaller than the original cohort. Outlier removal facilitates the use of Gaussian statistics and does not significantly affect the distribution limits. Translational Relevance We provide guidance for choosing the cohort size for different levels of error when performing normative comparisons with glaucoma patients.
Online Reviews as Health Data: Examining the Association Between Availability of Health Care Services and Patient Star Ratings Exemplified by the Yelp Academic Dataset

Background There have been public health interventions that aim to reduce barriers to health care access by extending opening hours of health care facilities. However, the impact of opening hours from the patient’s perspective is not well understood. Objective This study aims to investigate the relationship between temporal accessibility of health care services and how patients rate the providers on Yelp, an online review website that is popular in the United States. Using crowdsourced open Internet data, such as Yelp, can help circumvent the traditional survey method. Methods From Yelp’s limited academic dataset, this study examined the pattern of visits to health care providers and performed a secondary analysis to examine the association between patient rating (measured by Yelp’s rating) and temporal accessibility of health care services (measured by opening hours) using ordinal logistic regression models. Other covariates included were whether an appointment was required, the type of health care service, the region of the health care service provider, the number of reviews the health care service provider received in the past, the number of nearby competitors, the mean rating of competitors, and the standard deviation of competitors’ ratings. Results From the 2085 health care service providers identified, opening hours during certain periods, the type of health care service, and the variability of competitors’ ratings showed an association with patient rating. Most of the visits to health care service providers took place between normal working hours (9 AM-5 PM) from Sunday to Thursday, and the least on Saturday. A model fitted to the entire sample showed that increasing hours during normal working hours on Monday (OR 0.926, 95% CI 0.880-0.973, P=0.03), Saturday (OR 0.897, 95% CI 0.860-0.935, P<0.001), Sunday (OR 0.904, 95% CI 0.841-0.970, P=0.005), and outside normal working hours on Friday (OR 0.872, 95% CI 0.760-0.998, P=0.048) was associated with receiving lower ratings. But increasing hours during outside normal working hours on Sunday was associated with receiving higher ratings (OR 1.400, 95% CI 1.036-1.924, P=0.03). There were also observed differences in patient ratings among the health care services types, but not geographically or by appointment requirement. Conclusions This study shows that public health interventions, especially those involving opening hours, could use crowdsourced open Internet data to enhance the evidence base for decision making and evaluation in the future. This study illustrates one example of how Yelp data could be used to understand patient experiences with health care services, making a case for future research for exploring online reviews as a health dataset.
Safety of ovarian preservation in premenopausal women with stage I uterine sarcoma

Objective To evaluate the oncologic safety of ovarian preservation (OP) in premenopausal women diagnosed with the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage I uterine sarcoma. Methods The National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database was accessed and a cohort of women aged ≤50 diagnosed between 1988–2013 with a sarcoma limited to the uterus was drawn. Based on site-specific surgery codes, women who underwent hysterectomy with or without oophorectomy and did not receive radiation therapy were selected for further analysis. Overall (OS) and cancer-specific (CSS) survival were determined following generation of Kaplan-Meier curves; comparisons were made with the log-rank test. A Cox-proportional hazard model was constructed to control for possible confounders. Results A total of 1,482 women were included in the analysis; 800 (54.0%) were diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma (LMS), 520 (35.1%) with low-grade endometrial stromal sarcoma (LG-ESS), and 162 (10.9%) with adenosarcoma (AS). The OP group included 418 women (28.2%). Differences in the rate of OP were noted based on histology (p=0.014), year of diagnosis (p=0.001), patient age (p<0.001) and race (p=0.012). There was no difference in OS (p=0.220) or CSS (p=0.210) between women who had OP and those who did not. Multivariate analysis confirmed that OP was not associated with a worse mortality. Conclusion In this population-based cohort of women with sarcoma limited to the uterus, OP was not associated with worse oncologic outcomes. OP could be considered for women with LMS, sparing them from the morbidity associated with iatrogenic menopause. No conclusions could be made for those with LG-ESS or AS.