Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical and radiological determinants of prestroke cognitive decline in a stroke cohort

OBJECTIVES Stroke seems to be related to dementia more often than previously assumed and vascular factors are also related to Alzheimer's disease. The pathophysiology of poststroke dementia includes ischaemic changes in the brain, a combination of degenerative and vascular changes, and changes only related to Alzheimer's disease. Some cognitive decline recognised after a stroke may be due to pre-existing cognitive decline. The aim of this study was to determine the clinical and radiological determinants of prestroke cognitive decline. METHODS The study group comprised 337 of 486 consecutive patients aged 55 to 85 years who 3 months after ischaemic stroke completed a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery; structured medical, neurological, and mental status examination; interview of a knowledgeable informant containing structured questions on abnormality in the cognitive functions; assessment of social functions before the index stroke; and MRI. RESULTS Frequency of prestroke cognitive decline including that of dementia was 9.2% (31/337). The patients with prestroke cognitive decline were older, more often had less than 6 years of education, and had history of previous stroke. Vascular risk factors did not differ significantly between these two groups. White matter changes (p=0.004), cortical entorhinal, hippocampal, and medial temporal atrophy (p<0.001), cortical frontal atrophy (p=0.008); and any central atrophy (p<0.01), but not the frequencies or volumes of old, silent, or all infarcts on MRI differentiated those with and without prestroke cognitive decline. The correlates of prestroke cognitive decline in logistic regression analysis were medial temporal cortical atrophy (odds ratio (OR) 7.5, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) 3.2–18.2), history of previous ischaemic stroke (OR 4.4, 95% CI 1.8–10.6), and education (OR 0.9, 95% CI 0.8–0.9). CONCLUSIONS History of previous stroke, but not volumes or frequencies was found to correlate with prestroke cognitive decline. Other associating factors were rather those usually associated with degenerative dementia: white matter changes and cerebral atrophy; and in multiple models medial temporal cortical atrophy and education. The possible overlap between two or more underlying diseases must be remembered in diagnosis and treatment of patients with vascular cognitive impairment.
The Effects of Changing Projection Geometry on Perception of 3D Objects on and Around Tabletops

Displaying 3D objects on horizontal displays can cause problems in the way that the virtual scene is presented on the 2D surface; inappropriate choices in how 3D is represented can lead to distorted images and incorrect object interpretations. We present four experiments that test 3D perception. We varied projection geometry in three ways: type of projection (perspective/parallel), separation between the observer's point of view and the projection's center (discrepancy), and the presence of motion parallax (with/without parallax). Projection geometry had strong effects different for each task. Reducing discrepancy is desirable for orientation judgments, but not for object recognition or internal angle judgments. Using a fixed center of projection above the table reduces error and improves accuracy in most tasks. The results have far-reaching implications for the design of 3D views on tables, in particular, for multi-user applications where projections that appear correct for one person will not be perceived correctly by another.
Cryopreserved mesenchymal stromal cells display impaired immunosuppressive properties as a result of heat-shock response and impaired interferon-γ licensing

Human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) can suppress T-cell activation in vitro in an indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO)-dependent manner. However, their clinical effects on immune ailments have been inconsistent, with a recent phase III study showing no benefit in acute graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). We here tested the hypothesis that the banked, cryopreserved MSC often used in clinical trials display biologic properties distinct from that of MSC in the log phase of growth typically examined in pre-clinical studies. In freshly thawed cryopreserved MSC derived from normal human volunteers, we observed that MSC up-regulate heat-shock proteins, are refractory to interferon (IFN)-γ-induced up-regulation of IDO, and are compromised in suppressing CD3/CD28-driven T cell proliferation. Immune suppressor activity, IFN-γ responsiveness and induction of IDO were fully restored following 24 h of MSC tissue culture post-thaw. These results highlight a possible cause for the inefficacy of MSC-based immunotherapy reported in clinical trials using cryopreserved MSC thawed immediately prior to infusion.
Modeling Sparse Connectivity Between Underlying Brain Sources for EEG/MEG

We propose a novel technique to assess functional brain connectivity in electroencephalographic (EEG)/magnetoencephalographic (MEG) signals. Our method, called sparsely connected sources analysis (SCSA), can overcome the problem of volume conduction by modeling neural data innovatively with the following ingredients: 1) the EEG/MEG is assumed to be a linear mixture of correlated sources following a multivariate autoregressive (MVAR) model; 2) the demixing is estimated jointly with the source MVAR parameters; and 3) overfitting is avoided by using the group lasso penalty. This approach allows us to extract the appropriate level of crosstalk between the extracted sources and, in this manner, we obtain a sparse data-driven model of functional connectivity. We demonstrate the usefulness of SCSA with simulated data and compare it to a number of existing algorithms with excellent results.
Monosodium urate monohydrate crystal-induced inflammation in vivo: quantitative histomorphometric analysis of cellular events.

OBJECTIVE To quantify the inflammatory cell response in rat air pouch pseudosynovial membrane during monosodium urate monohydrate (MSU) crystal-induced inflammation. METHODS In the rat air-pouch model, we used a computer-assisted histomorphometric method to quantify cell distributions, based on cell linear densities, in histologic sections of membranes from pouches injected with MSU or saline. The volume, white blood cell (WBC) count, and histamine content of the pouch exudates were determined at several time points. RESULTS Injection of 10 mg of MSU crystals into the pouch produced an acute exudate. After peaking at 24 hours, the exudate volume and WBC count decreased spontaneously over the next 3 days, simulating the self-limited course of acute gout. Membrane thickness followed a parallel course. Membrane polymorphonuclear cell (PMN) linear densities were closely correlated with exudate WBC counts, suggesting PMN recruitment from the subintimal synovial membrane. Both monocyte/macrophage and mast cell linear densities increased in the subintimal layer 2 hours after crystal injection (P = 0.038 and P = 0.03, respectively, versus controls), whereas PMN linear densities showed 2 peaks, one at 4 hours and the other 24 hours. The exudate histamine content peaked 6 hours after crystal injection, when mast cell linear densities were minimal in the membranes, suggesting mast cell degranulation. CONCLUSION An increase in monocyte/macrophage and mast cell densities in the membrane preceded the PMN influx in the pouch membrane and exudate, suggesting that mast cells may be involved in the early phase of MSU crystal-induced inflammation, at least in this rat model.
Vanishing theorems for toric polyhedra

A toric polyhedron is a reduced closed subscheme of a toric variety that are partial unions of the orbits of the torus action. We prove vanishing theorems for toric polyhedra. We also give a proof of the E1-degeneration of Hodge to de Rham type spectral sequence for toric polyhedra in any characteristic. Finally, we give a very powerful extension theorem for ample line bundles.
Investigation of Endothelial Hyperreactivity in the Obese Zucker Rat In‐situ: Reversal by Vitamin E

The obese Zucker rat, a popular model of insulin resistance allied with oxidant stress, is associated with either normal or paradoxically enhanced endothelial vasodilator function compared with its lean litter mate. We have investigated hindquarter endothelium‐dependent vasodilation in the obese Zucker rat in‐situ and have examined its relationship with oxidant stress.
Plausible Deniability for Privacy-Preserving Data Synthesis

Releasing full data records is one of the most challenging problems in data privacy. On the one hand, many of the popular techniques such as data de-identification are problematic because of their dependence on the background knowledge of adversaries. On the other hand, rigorous methods such as the exponential mechanism for differential privacy are often computationally impractical to use for releasing high dimensional data or cannot preserve high utility of original data due to their extensive data perturbation. This paper presents a criterion called plausible deniability that provides a formal privacy guarantee, notably for releasing sensitive datasets: an output record can be released only if a certain amount of input records are indistinguishable, up to a privacy parameter. This notion does not depend on the background knowledge of an adversary. Also, it can efficiently be checked by privacy tests. We present mechanisms to generate synthetic datasets with similar statistical properties to the input data and the same format. We study this technique both theoretically and experimentally. A key theoretical result shows that, with proper randomization, the plausible deniability mechanism generates differentially private synthetic data. We demonstrate the efficiency of this generative technique on a large dataset; it is shown to preserve the utility of original data with respect to various statistical analysis and machine learning measures.
Multi agent based simulation of transport chains

An agent-based tool for micro-level simulation of transport chains (TAPAS) is described. It is more powerful than traditional approaches as it is able to capture the interactions between individual actors of a transport chain, as well as their heterogeneity and decision making processes. Whereas traditional approaches rely on assumed statistical correlation between different parameters, TAPAS relies on causality, i.e., the decisions and negotiations that lead to the transports being performed. An additional advantage is that TAPAS is able to capture time aspects, such as, the influence of timetables, arrival times, and time-differentiated taxes and fees. TAPAS is composed of two layers, one layer simulating the physical activities taking place in the transport chain, e.g., production, storage, and transports of goods, and another layer simulating the different actors' decision making processes and interaction. The decision layer is implemented as a multi-agent system using the JADE platform, where each agent corresponds to a particular actor. We demonstrate the use of TAPAS by investigating how the actors in a transport chain are expected to act when different types of governmental control policies are applied, such as, fuel taxes, road tolls, and vehicle taxes. By analyzing the costs and environmental effects, TAPAS provides guidance in decision making regarding such control policies. We argue that TAPAS may also complement existing approaches in different ways, for instance by generating input data such as transport demand. Since TAPAS models a larger part of the supply chain, the transport demand is a natural part of the output. Studies may concern operational decisions like choice of consignment size and frequency of deliveries, as well as strategic decisions like where to locate storages, terminals, etc., choice of producer, and adaptation of vehicle fleets.
Issues in Building Multiuser Interfaces

The proliferation of interest in collaborative computer applications in the past decade has resulted in a corresponding increase in the interest in multiuser interfaces. This research seeks to contribute to an understanding of the process of developing user models for group interaction and to the design and implementation of multiuser interfaces based on the model. Group ranking was used as an exemplar task. User requirements were identified by observing groups perform the ranking task in a noncomputer environment. A design was proposed based on the identified requirements and a prototype implemented. Feedback from informal user evaluation of the implemented interface is reported. Insights on the methodology are discussed.
Timeliness of Tissue-Type Plasminogen Activator Therapy in Acute Ischemic Stroke: Patient Characteristics, Hospital Factors, and Outcomes Associated With Door-to-Needle Times Within 60 Minutes

Background— The benefits of intravenous tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) in acute ischemic stroke are time dependent, and guidelines recommend an arrival to treatment initiation (door-to-needle) time of ≤60 minutes. Methods and Results— Data from acute ischemic stroke patients treated with tPA within 3 hours of symptom onset in 1082 hospitals participating in the Get With the Guidelines–Stroke Program from April 1, 2003, to September 30, 2009 were studied to determine frequency, patient and hospital characteristics, and temporal trends in patients treated with door-to-needle times ≤60 minutes. Among 25 504 ischemic stroke patients treated with tPA, door-to-needle time was ≤60 minutes in only 6790 (26.6%). Patient factors most strongly associated with door-to-needle time ≤60 minutes were younger age, male gender, white race, or no prior stroke. Hospital factors associated with ≤60 minute door-to-needle time included greater annual volumes of tPA-treated stroke patients. The proportion of patients with door-to-needle times ≤60 minutes varied widely by hospital (0% to 79.2%) and increased from 19.5% in 2003 to 29.1% in 2009 (P<0.0001). Despite similar stroke severity, in-hospital mortality was lower (adjusted odds ratio, 0.78; 95% confidence interval, 0.69 to 0.90; P<0.0003) and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage was less frequent (4.7% versus 5.6%; P<0.0017) for patients with door-to-needle times ≤60 minutes compared with patients with door-to-needle times >60 minutes. Conclusions— Fewer than one-third of patients treated with intravenous tPA had door-to-needle times ≤60 minutes, with only modest improvement over the past 6.5 years. These findings support the need for a targeted initiative to improve the timeliness of reperfusion in acute ischemic stroke.
Depressive Symptoms after Initiation of Interferon Therapy in Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Patients with Chronic Hepatitis C

Background Interferon alpha (IFN-α) therapy for chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection is commonly associated with neuropsychiatric side effects including depressive symptomatology. In this study, we evaluated the incidence and management of depressive symptoms during IFN-α therapy in HIV-infected patients with CHC. Methods HIV-infected patients with CHC who began IFN-α and ribavirin therapy during the recruitment period April 2001 to April 2003 were included in the study. Patients with a history of major depressive disorder were excluded. Results Of 113 co-infected patients who started IFN-α therapy during the recruitment period, 45 (40%) developed symptoms of depression (sadness, tiredness and apathy). Twenty of them (44%) were treated with citalopram, a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor, resulting in a significant improvement in their symptoms. Most of the patients (60%) showed depressive side effects in the first 3 months after initiation of IFN-α. In addition, during the study, three patients developed psychotic symptoms and one committed suicide. Conclusions The incidence of depressive symptoms in patients with HIV/HCV co-infection treated with IFN-α is high. Most of the depressive symptoms were not severe and improved with antidepressant therapy, without reduction or cessation of IFN-α therapy. During the first weeks after initiating IFN-α therapy for HIV/HCV co-infection, close assessment of psychiatric symptoms is recommended. Early treatment of these side effects with antidepressants would help avoid early dropouts from interferon therapy.
Schur complement Domain Decomposition in conjunction with Algebraic Multigrid methods based on generic approximate inverses

For decades, Domain Decomposition (DD) techniques have been used for the numerical solution of boundary value problems. In recent years, the Algebraic Multigrid (AMG) method has also seen significant rise in popularity as well as rapid evolution. In this article, a Domain Decomposition method is presented, based on the Schur complement system and an AMG solver, using generic approximate banded inverses based on incomplete LU factorization. Finally, the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method on characteristic two dimensional boundary value problems is demonstrated and numerical results on the convergence behavior are given.
The tooth of perfection: functional and spatial constraints on mammalian tooth shape

This paper addresses the question of how close mammalian teeth are to ideal functional forms. An ‘ideal’ form is a morphology predicted to be the best functional shape according to information of the relationships between shape and function. Deviations from an ideal form are likely to indicate the presence of developmental or genetic constraints on form. Model tools were constructed to conform to functional principles from engineering and dental studies. The final model shapes are very similar to several mammalian tooth forms (carnassial teeth and tribospheniclike cusps), suggesting that these tooth forms very closely approach ideal functional forms. Further evidence that these tooth forms are close to ideal comes from the conservation over 140 million years, the independent derivation and/or the occurrence over a size range of several orders of magnitude of these basic tooth forms. One of the main functional shapes derived here is the ‘protoconoid’, a fundamental design for double-bladed tools that fits a large number of functional parameters. This shape occurs in tooth forms such as tribosphenic, dilambdodont and zalambdodont. This study extends our understanding of constraints on tooth shape in terms of geometry (how space influences tooth shape) and function (how teeth divide food). © 2003 The Linnean Society of London . Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2003, 78 , 173‐191.
Candidate gene association studies and risk of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

To evaluate the contribution of candidate gene association studies to the understanding of genetic susceptibility to childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies (January 1996–July 2009). Studies had to meet the following criteria: be case-control design, be studied by two or more studies, not be focused on HLA antigen genetic markers and be published in English. We identified 47 studies of polymorphic variation in 16 genes and acute lymphoblastic leukemia risk. To clarify the impact of individual polymorphisms on risk, pooled analyses were performed. Of the 25 polymorphic variants studied, significant associations (P<0.05) were seen in pooled analyses for eight variants: GSTM1 (OR =1.16; 95%CI: 1.04–1.30), MTRR A66G (OR=0.73, 95%CI:0.59–0.91), SHMT1 C1420T (OR=0.79, 95%CI: 0.65–0.98), RFC1 G80A (OR=1.37, 95%CI: 1.11–1.69), CYP1A1*2A (OR=1.36, 95%CI:1.11–1.66), CYP2E1*5B (OR=1.99, 95%CI:1.32–3.00) NQO1 C609T (OR=1.24, 95%CI:1.02–1.50) and XRCC1 G28152A (OR=1.78, 95%CI:1.32–2.42). These findings should, however, be interpreted with caution as the estimated false-positive report probabilities (FPRP) for each association were not noteworthy (i.e. FPRP>0.2). While candidate gene analyses are complementary to genome-wide association studies, future analyses should be based on sample sizes commensurate with the detection of small effects and attention needs to be paid to study design.
Fertility and pregnancy outcomes following conservative treatment for placenta accreta.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to estimate the fertility and pregnancy outcomes after successful conservative treatment for placenta accreta. METHODS This retrospective national multicenter study included women with a history of conservative management for placenta accreta in French university hospitals from 1993 through 2007. Success of conservative treatment was defined by uterine preservation. Data were retrieved from medical files and telephone interviews. RESULTS Follow-up data were available for 96 (73.3%) of the 131 women included in the study. There were eight women who had severe intrauterine synechiae and were amenorrheic. Of the 27 women who wanted more children, 3 women were attempting to become pregnant (mean duration: 11.7 months, range: 7-14 months), and 24 (88.9% [95% confidence interval (CI), 70.8-97.6%]) women had had 34 pregnancies (21 third-trimester deliveries, 1 ectopic pregnancy, 2 elective abortions and 10 miscarriages) with a mean time to conception of 17.3 months (range, 2-48 months). All 21 deliveries had resulted in healthy babies born after 34 weeks of gestation. Placenta accreta recurred in 6 of 21 cases [28.6% (95% CI, 11.3-52.2%)] and was associated with placenta previa in 4 cases. Post-partum hemorrhage occurred in four [19.0% (95% CI, 5.4-41.9%)] cases, related to placenta accreta in three and to uterine atony in one. CONCLUSIONS Successful conservative treatment for placenta accreta does not appear to compromise the patients' subsequent fertility or obstetrical outcome. Nevertheless, patients should be advised of the high risk that placenta accreta may recur during future pregnancies.
Improving the generality of the fictitious magnetic charge approach to computing inductances in the presence of permeable materials

In this paper we present an improvement to the fictitious magnetic charge approach to computing inductances in the presence of permeable materials. The improvement replaces integration over a "non-piercing" surface with a line integral and an efficient quadrature scheme. Eliminating the need to generate non-piercing surfaces substantially simplifies handling problems with general geometries of permeable materials. Computational results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and versatility of the new method.
Identifying Bad Semantic Neighbors for Improving Distributional Thesauri

Distributional thesauri are now widely used in a large number of Natural Language Processing tasks. However, they are far from containing only interesting semantic relations. As a consequence, improving such thesaurus is an important issue that is mainly tackled indirectly through the improvement of semantic similarity measures. In this article, we propose a more direct approach focusing on the identification of the neighbors of a thesaurus entry that are not semantically linked to this entry. This identification relies on a discriminative classifier trained from unsupervised selected examples for building a distributional model of the entry in texts. Its bad neighbors are found by applying this classifier to a representative set of occurrences of each of these neighbors. We evaluate the interest of this method for a large set of English nouns with various frequencies.