Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Could cholinesterase inhibitors be harmful over the long term?

Given the rather modest clinical effects of cholinesterase inhibitors, an important question is: For how long should they be prescribed? The clinical trials that supported marketing of the drugs were only 3–6 months in duration. A couple of 12-month, placebo-controlled donepezil trials showed some advantage for Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores and maintaining a level of activities of daily living (ADL) function during that interval (Mohs et al., 2001; Winblad et al., 2001). The controversial AD2000 trial in the UK tended to show MMSE and ADL efficacy over at least two years (Courtney et al., 2004), but the authors questioned whether treatment was worthwhile or cost-effective.
Distributed STBCs with full-diversity partial interference cancellation decoding

Recently, Guo and Xia introduced low complexity decoders called Partial Interference Cancellation (PIC) and PIC with Successive Interference Cancellation (PIC-SIC), which include the Zero Forcing (ZF) and ZF-SIC receivers as special cases, for point-to-point MIMO channels. In this paper, we show that PIC and PIC-SIC decoders are capable of achieving the full cooperative diversity available in wireless relay networks. We give sufficient conditions for a Distributed Space-Time Block Code (DSTBC) to achieve full diversity with PIC and PIC-SIC decoders and construct a new class of DSTBCs with low complexity full-diversity PIC-SIC decoding using complex orthogonal designs. The new class of codes includes a number of known full-diversity PIC/PIC-SIC decodable Space-Time Block Codes (STBCs) constructed for point-to-point channels as special cases. The proposed DSTBCs achieve higher rates (in complex symbols per channel use) than the multigroup ML decodable DSTBCs available in the literature. Simulation results show that the proposed codes have better bit error rate performance than the best known low complexity, full-diversity DSTBCs.
Alterations in the Host Defense Properties of Human Milk Following Prolonged Storage or Pasteurization

Objectives: Preterm infants are often fed pasteurized donor milk or mother's milk that has been stored frozen for up to 4 weeks. Our objectives were to assess the impact of pasteurization or prolonged storage at −20°C on the immunologic components of human milk and the capability of the different forms of human milk to support bacterial proliferation. Materials and Methods: The concentrations and activities of major host defense proteins in the whey fractions of mother's milk stored for 4 weeks at −20°C or pasteurized human donor milk were compared with freshly expressed human milk. Proliferation of bacteria incubated in the 3 forms of human milk was assessed. Results: Relative to freshly expressed human milk, the concentrations of lysozyme, lactoferrin, lactoperoxidase, and secretory immunoglobulin A were reduced 50% to 82% in pasteurized donor milk and the activities of lysozyme and lactoperoxidase were 74% to 88% lower (P < 0.01). Proliferation of bacterial pathogens in pasteurized donor milk was enhanced 1.8- to 4.6-fold compared with fresh or frozen human milk (P < 0.01). Conclusions: The immunomodulatory proteins in human milk are reduced by pasteurization and, to a lesser extent, by frozen storage, resulting in decreased antibacterial capability. Stringent procedure to minimize bacterial contamination is essential during handling of pasteurized milk.
Settling the Complexity of Two-Player Nash Equilibrium

Even though many people thought the problem of finding Nash equilibria is hard in general, and it has been proven so for games among three or more players recently, it's not clear whether the two-player case can be shown in the same class of PPAD-complete problems. We prove that the problem of finding a Nash equilibrium in a two-player game is PPAD-complete
2878 JOURNAL OF THE ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES VOLUME 59 Reply

Lighthill’s most important idea is in our opinion the following, when expressed in a form appropriate to geophysical fluid dynamics. The idea is that the spontaneous-adjustment1 emission of inertia–gravity waves by unsteady vortical motion is sufficiently weak, in parameter regimes of interest, that the emission may be neglected when solving for the vortical motion. The sufficient weakness, in this sense, of the wave emission or ‘‘Lighthill radiation,’’ as we also called it, is the fundamental reason—transcending all details of mathe-
Assessing sparse information extraction using semantic contexts

One important assumption of information extraction is that extractions occurring more frequently are more likely to be correct. Sparse information extraction is challenging because no matter how big a corpus is, there are extractions supported by only a small amount of evidence in the corpus. A pioneering work known as REALM learns HMMs to model the context of a semantic relationship for assessing the extractions. This is quite costly and the semantics revealed for the context are not explicit. In this work, we introduce a lightweight, explicit semantic approach for sparse information extraction. We use a large semantic network consisting of millions of concepts, entities, and attributes to explicitly model the context of semantic relationships. Experiments show that our approach improves the F-score of extraction by at least 11.2% over state-of-the-art, HMM based approaches while maintaining more efficiency.
Interference resolution moderates the impact of rumination and reappraisal on affective experiences in daily life

Research has shown that cognitive control processes play a central role in emotion regulation. While most research has examined whether individual differences in such processes are related to the use of these strategies, a crucial next step involves examining whether such differences influence their impact on people's feelings, especially in normal daily life. The present study examined whether impairments in cognitive control (measured using an affective interference resolution task) moderate the impact of using rumination and reappraisal on affective experiences in everyday life (assessed using experience sampling methods). Multilevel analyses revealed that difficulties removing previously relevant negative information from working memory were associated with a larger increase in negative affect following rumination, and smaller increase and decrease in positive and negative affect, respectively, following reappraisal. These findings show that impaired interference resolution for negative information aggravates the deleterious effects of rumination and curbs the benefits of reappraisal in daily life.
Modeling the Relationship between Campus Spiritual Climate and the Sense of Belonging for Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Students

ABSTRACT This study investigates the relationship between campus spiritual climate and sense of belonging for Christian, Jewish, and Muslim students at the University of California. Using Structural Equation Modeling to better understand the relationship between students’ spiritual experiences on campus, this study extends current research on sense of belonging and provides student affairs professionals with a better understanding how religious students in the research university view their campus experiences.
Blending Surface Modelling Using Sixth Order PDEs

In order to model blending surfaces with curvature continuity, in this paper we apply sixth order partial differential equations (PDEs), which are solved with a composite power series based method. The proposed composite power series based approach meets boundary conditions exactly, minimises the errors of the PDEs, and creates almost as accurate blending surfaces as those from the closed form solution that is the most accurate but achievable only for some simple blending problems. Since only a few unknown constants are involved, the proposed method is comparable with the closed form solution in terms of computational efficiency. Moreover, it can be used to construct 3- or 4-sided patches through the satisfaction of continuities along all edges of the patches. Therefore, the developed method is simpler and more efficient than numerical methods, more powerful than the analytical methods, and can be implemented into an effective tool for the generation and manipulation of complex free-form surfaces.
Singular sector of the Burgers–Hopf hierarchy and deformations of hyperelliptic curves

We discuss the structure of shock singularities of the Burgers–Hopf hierarchy. It is shown that the set of singular solutions defines a stratification of the affine space of the flow parameters in the hierarchy. The stratification is associated with the Birkhoff decomposition of the Grassmannian given by the set of linear spaces spanned by the hierarchy. We then construct integrable hierarchy on each stratum and demonstrate that it describes a deformation of a hyperelliptic curve parametrizing the stratum. The hierarchy is called the hidden Burgers–Hopf hierarchy, and we found the Riemann invariant form and the hodograph solution.
Local a posteriori estimates for pointwise gradient errors in finite element methods for elliptic problems

We prove local a posteriori error estimates for pointwise gradient errors in finite element methods for a second-order linear elliptic model problem. First we split the local gradient error into a computable local residual term and a weaker global norm of the finite element error (the "pollution term"). Using a mesh-dependent weight, the residual term is bounded in a sharply localized fashion. In specific situations the pollution term may also be bounded by computable residual estimators. On nonconvex polygonal and polyhedral domains in two and three space dimensions, we may choose estimators for the pollution term which do not employ specific knowledge of corner singularities and which are valid on domains with cracks. The finite element mesh is only required to be simpliciai and shape-regular, so that highly graded and unstructured meshes are allowed.
The photospheric abundances of active binaries. II. Atmospheric parameters and abundance patterns for 6 single-lined RS CVn systems

Photospheric parameters and abundances are presented for a sample of single-lined chromospherically active binaries from a dierential LTE analysis of high-resolution spectra. Abundances have been derived for 13 chemical species, including several key elements such as Li, Mg, and Ca. Two methods have been used. The eective temperatures, surface gravities and microturbulent velocities were first derived from a fully self-consistent analysis of the spectra, whereby the temperature is determined from the excitation equilibrium of the Fei lines. The second approach relies on temperatures derived from the (B V) colour index. These two methods give broadly consistent results for the stars in our sample, suggesting that the neutral iron lines are formed under conditions close to LTE. We discuss the reliability in the context of chromospherically active stars of various colour indices used as temperature indicators, and conclude that the ( V R )a nd (V I) colours are likely to be significantly aected by activity processes. Irrespective of the method used, our results indicate that the X-ray active binaries studied are not as metal poor as previously claimed, but are at most mildly iron-depleted relative to the Sun ( 0:41 < (Fe=H) < +0:11). A significant overabundance of several chemical species is observed (e.g., the -synthezised elements). These abundance patterns are discussed in relation to stellar activity.
The dead leaves model: a general tessellation modeling occlusion

In this article, we study a particular example of general random tessellation, the dead leaves model. This model, first studied by the mathematical morphology school, is defined as a sequential superimposition of random closed sets, and provides the natural tool to study the occlusion phenomenon, an essential ingredient in the formation of visual images. We generalize certain results of G. Matheron and, in particular, compute the probability of n compact sets being included in visible parts. This result characterizes the distribution of the boundary of the dead leaves tessellation.
Colour Evaluation, Bioactive Compound Content, Phenolic Acid Profiles and in Vitro Biological Activity of Passerina del Frusinate White Wines: Influence of Pre-Fermentative Skin Contact Times

Passerina del Frusinate is an autochthonous wine grape variety, which grows in the Lazio region that is currently being evaluated by local wine producers. In this study, colour properties (CIELab coordinates), bioactive compounds (total polyphenols and flavan-3-ols), HPLC-DAD phenolic acid profiles and in vitro biological activity of monovarietal Passerina del Frusinate white wines and the effect of different maceration times (0, 18 and 24 h) were evaluated based on these parameters. Results highlighted statistically significant differences for almost all analysed parameters due to a strong influence of the pre-fermentative skin contact time. The flavan content of macerated wines was six times higher than that of the control, while total polyphenols were 1.5 times higher. According to their phytochemical content, macerated wines showed the highest antiradical capacity tested by means of DPPH• and ABTS+• assays. Besides, prolonged maceration resulted in a reduction of CIELab coordinates as well as of the content of phenolic substances and antiradical capacity. Among the phenolic acids analysed, the most abundant were vanillic acid and caffeic acid; the latter proved to be the most susceptible to degradation as a result of prolonged maceration. Passerina del Frusinate appears as a phenol-rich white wine with a strong antioxidant potential similar to that of red wines.
A single lysine in the N-terminal region of store-operated channels is critical for STIM1-mediated gating

Store-operated Ca2+ entry is controlled by the interaction of stromal interaction molecules (STIMs) acting as endoplasmic reticulum ER Ca2+ sensors with calcium release–activated calcium (CRAC) channels (CRACM1/2/3 or Orai1/2/3) in the plasma membrane. Here, we report structural requirements of STIM1-mediated activation of CRACM1 and CRACM3 using truncations, point mutations, and CRACM1/CRACM3 chimeras. In accordance with previous studies, truncating the N-terminal region of CRACM1 or CRACM3 revealed a 20–amino acid stretch close to the plasma membrane important for channel gating. Exchanging the N-terminal region of CRACM3 with that of CRACM1 (CRACM3-N(M1)) results in accelerated kinetics and enhanced current amplitudes. Conversely, transplanting the N-terminal region of CRACM3 into CRACM1 (CRACM1-N(M3)) leads to severely reduced store-operated currents. Highly conserved amino acids (K85 in CRACM1 and K60 in CRACM3) in the N-terminal region close to the first transmembrane domain are crucial for STIM1-dependent gating of CRAC channels. Single-point mutations of this residue (K85E and K60E) eliminate store-operated currents induced by inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate and reduce store-independent gating by 2-aminoethoxydiphenyl borate. However, short fragments of these mutant channels are still able to communicate with the CRAC-activating domain of STIM1. Collectively, these findings identify a single amino acid in the N terminus of CRAC channels as a critical element for store-operated gating of CRAC channels.
Reaction to Koppad SN et al. Bilateral spermatocytic seminoma: an update on “synchronous” and “sequential” presentation of this rare variant of testicular tumour

We read with interest the report of Koppad and colleagues in the Pan African Medical Journal describing a case of bilateral synchronous presentation of spermatocytic seminoma in an elderly Indian male. While we appreciate their efforts in documenting this rare presentation, we disagree with the reported figures as outlined in the report and wish to draw attention of the authors as well as the readers of the journal to the gross inaccuracies in the reported statistics. We present our data, following a comprehensive literature review, to unveil the magnitude of bilateral presentation (synchronous and sequential) of this unique variant of testicular tumor as reported in medical literature to facilitate dissemination of precise information on the topic.
Text-Independent Speaker Identification Using Hidden Markov Model

This paper presents a text-independent speaker identification system based on Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) feature vectors and Hidden Markov Model (HMM) classifier. The implementation of the HMM is divided into two steps: feature extraction and recognition. In the feature extraction step, the paper reviews MFCCs by which the spectral features of speech signal can be estimated and shows how these features can be computed. In the recognition step, the theory and implementation of HMM are reviewed and followed by an explanation of how HMM can be trained to generate the model parameters using ForwardBackward algorithm and tested using forward algorithm. The HMM is evaluated using data of 40 speakers extracted from Switchboard corpus. Experimental results show an identification rate of about 84%. KeywordsSpeaker identification; MFCC; HMM; Feature extraction; Forward-Backward; and Switchboard.
OpenStreetSLAM: Global vehicle localization using OpenStreetMaps

In this paper we propose an approach for global vehicle localization that combines visual odometry with map information from OpenStreetMaps to provide robust and accurate estimates for the vehicle's position. The main contribution of this work comes from the incorporation of the map data as an additional cue into the observation model of a Monte Carlo Localization framework. The resulting approach is able to compensate for the drift that visual odometry accumulates over time, significantly improving localization quality. As our results indicate, the proposed approach outperforms current state-of-the-art visual odometry approaches, indicating in parallel the potential that map data can bring to the global localization task.
The XY Gene Hypothesis of Psychosis: Origins and Current Status

Sex differences in psychosis and their interaction with laterality (systematic departures from 50:50 left‐right symmetry across the antero‐posterior neural axis) are reviewed in the context of the X‐Y gene hypothesis. Aspects of laterality (handedness/cerebral asymmetry/the torque) predict (1) verbal and non‐verbal ability in childhood and across adult life and (2) anatomical, physiological, and linguistic variation relating to psychosis. Neuropsychological and MRI evidence from individuals with sex chromosome aneuploidies indicates that laterality is associated with an X‐Y homologous gene pair. Within each mammalian species the complement of such X‐Y gene pairs reflects their potential to account for taxon‐specific sexual dimorphisms. As a consequence of the mechanism of meiotic suppression of unpaired chromosomes such X‐Y gene pairs generate epigenetic variation around a species defining motif that is carried to the zygote with potential to initiate embryonic gene expression in XX or XY format. The Protocadherin11XY (PCDH11XY) gene pair in Xq21.3/Yp11.2 in probable coordination with a gene or genes within PAR2 (the second pseudo‐autosomal region) is the prime candidate in relation to cerebral asymmetry and psychosis in Homo sapiens. The lately‐described pattern of sequence variation associated with psychosis on the autosomes may reflect a component of the human genome's adjustment to selective pressures generated by the sexually dimorphic mate recognition system. © 2013 The Authors. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics Published by John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.
A Randomized Study Comparing Skin Staples with Subcuticular Sutures for Wound Closure at Caesarean Section in Black-Skinned Women

This study aimed to compare patients' satisfaction and outcome of caesarean section wound closure by skin staples and subcuticular suture at discharge and 6 weeks of postoperation. It was a randomized controlled trial of pregnant women scheduled for caesarean section at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria, allocating them to wound closure by skin staples or subcuticular suture. Pain was assessed using the box numeric pain scale. Scar assessments were by patient, research nurse, and independent observers using the visual analogue scale, modified patient observer scar assessment scale, and patient satisfaction scale. Operation time (minutes) was significantly shorter in the staple group, 40.26 (±16.53) compared to 47.55 (±14.55) in the suture group (P = 0.025). Skin closure time (seconds) was significantly less in the staple group, 118.62 (±69.68) versus 388.70 (±170.40) in the suture group (P ≤ 0.001). There was no difference in pain experienced, wound assessment by the participants, and patients' satisfaction. Participants in the staple group scored higher on both scar assessment scales by the nurse (P = 0.044). Cost comparison analysis showed that staple use costs significantly more than suture use (P < 0.001). The perceived benefit of subcuticular suture over skin staples was not observed and participants were satisfied with both wound closure techniques.
Nonextensive Generalizations of the Jensen-Shannon Divergence

Convexity is a key concept in information theory, namely via the many implications of Jensen's inequality, su ch as the non-negativity of the Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD). Jensen's inequality also underlies the concept of Jensen-S hannon divergence (JSD), which is a symmetrized and smoothed version of the KLD. This paper introduces new JSD-type divergences, by extending its two building blocks: convexity and Shannon's entropy. In particular, a new concept of q-convexity is introduced and shown to satisfy a Jensen's q-inequality. Based on this Jensen's q-inequality, the Jensen-Tsallis q-difference is built, which is a nonextensive generalization of the JSD, based on Tsallis entropies. Finally, the Jensen-Tsallis q-difference is chara- terized in terms of convexity and extrema.
Age-dependent electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns during sevoflurane general anesthesia in infants

Electroencephalogram (EEG) approaches may provide important information about developmental changes in brain-state dynamics during general anesthesia. We used multi-electrode EEG, analyzed with multitaper spectral methods and video recording of body movement to characterize the spatio-temporal dynamics of brain activity in 36 infants 0–6 months old when awake, and during maintenance of and emergence from sevoflurane general anesthesia. During maintenance: (1) slow-delta oscillations were present in all ages; (2) theta and alpha oscillations emerged around 4 months; (3) unlike adults, all infants lacked frontal alpha predominance and coherence. Alpha power was greatest during maintenance, compared to awake and emergence in infants at 4–6 months. During emergence, theta and alpha power decreased with decreasing sevoflurane concentration in infants at 4–6 months. These EEG dynamic differences are likely due to developmental factors including regional differences in synaptogenesis, glucose metabolism, and myelination across the cortex. We demonstrate the need to apply age-adjusted analytic approaches to develop neurophysiologic-based strategies for pediatric anesthetic state monitoring. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.06513. 001