Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mu-wave Activity in Schizophrenia: Evidence of a Dysfunctional Mirror Neuron System from an Indian Study

Background: The ‘mirror-neuron system’ is thought to play an important role in automatic decoding of biological motions and interpretation of socially adaptive environmental stimuli. Accordingly, a dysfunction in this system in schizophrenia has been hypothesised to mediate the psychotic manifestations. Materials and Methods: As a part of an ongoing study, we evaluated the mirror neuron system using ‘EEG mu-wave (8-13 Hz) suppression’ paradigm in 15 drug naïve/drug free patients and compared the working to 15 age, sex and education matched controls. We also correlated the psychopathology scores on PANSS with the mu wave suppression in the schizophrenia patients, at baseline. We used high (192-channel) resolution EEG to record the mu rhythm while the subjects watched alternating sequences of a socially-relevant biological motion and white visual-noise on a custom made video-clip. Results: We found a significant difference in the degree of mu wave suppression between the two groups. We also found that the degree of mu suppression over right sensorimotor cortex at presentation correlated significantly and negatively with thought disorder in the patient group, and had a strong linear relationship. Conclusion: This study replicates past findings regarding a dysfunctional mirror neuron system in schizophrenia patients, and also emphasizes the role of rMNS in schizophrenic thought disorders.
FDA Regulation of Medical Devices and Medical Device Reporting

There are three main stakeholders in medical device regulation: people in industry, regulators and practitioners. A medical device report is filed after a device-related adverse event occurs. Studies show that while most medical device reports begin with practitioner observations, people in industry file 97% of reports and practitioners file 3% of reports. The objectives of this article are to identify the major areas of focus in medical device regulation according to industry, regulators, and practitioners, and to investigate the feasibility of increased practitioner participation in medical device reporting. The author interviewed 5 industry, 5 regulators, and 6 practitioners. The stakeholders’ views were influenced by their personal distribution on the importance of outcomes such as cost, speed, safety and effectiveness. Industry, regulators and practitioners’ main perspectives were that medical device regulation is inconsistent and unpredictable, and that the US medical device industry is lagging behind Europe. Individual stakeholder goals were not aligned and caused bias resulting in a varied depiction of FDA regulation of medical devices. A practitioner-focused survey on medical device reporting was sent to 1567 practitioners in the University of Pennsylvania Health System. 340 survey responses showed that 46% of practitioners have witnessed a medical device failure, but only 19% have ever filed a medical device report. The survey results revealed that practitioners do not currently have enough experience or knowledge about medical device reporting to participate effectively and positively impact postmarket surveillance
Exploring the online social identities of people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) : a discourse analysis approach

Chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) is a contested condition, owing to its lack of biological marker and it being a diagnosis of exclusion. This review explores qualitative literature about CFS/ME illness experiences. Keyword searches of PsychInfo and Web of Science, review of references and review of articles resulted in inclusion of 25 peer-reviewed articles. People with CFS/ME experience delay and disbelief when seeking diagnosis, linked to perceived illegitimacy of the condition. In response, people with CFS/ME frame the experience as serious and genuine. Illness onset often leads to loss of friends and work and, with that, a loss of meaning and purpose. People often develop a new identity, moving from being healthy to having an unpredictable and chronic condition. Limitations were the small sample sizes of most studies and that participants tended to be people already in contact with services or support groups.
Adult Learning in Groups

Chapter 1 Roadmap of Adult Learning in Groups Chapter 2 Wider contexts of Groupwork. Chapter 3 Wider Contexts of Learning as Adults Chapter 4 Critical Adult Learning in Groups Chapter 5 Characteristics of Learning Groups Chapter 6 Development in Learning Groups Chapter 7 Facilitation Qualities Chapter 8 Designing learning programmes for adults learning in groups Chapter 9 Activities and Exercises Bibliography Glossary Index
Identification of chronic rhinosinusitis phenotypes using cluster analysis

Current clinical classifications of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) have been largely defined based upon preconceived notions of factors thought to be important, such as polyp or eosinophil status. Unfortunately, these classification systems have little correlation with symptom severity or treatment outcomes. Unsupervised clustering can be used to identify phenotypic subgroups of CRS patients, describe clinical differences in these clusters and define simple algorithms for classification.
A Multilevel Examination of Occupational Safety: Regulatory Focus as an Explanatory Link Between Climate, Conscientiousness, and Performance

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS " Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. " (Thomas Edison). I certainly tried my hardest to avoid work over the years and I had nothing to show but faint memories and crazy stories. That is until I grabbed opportunity by the throat, wrestled it down, and made it mine. I am indebted to several people for letting me find these opportunities and kicking me in the rear when I did not. Thanks Mom & Dad for giving me the freedom of choice and being supportive of my endeavors. I know you never thought your youngest son would be called 'Doctor', but guess what? To my wife Jerae, we have known nothing but the life of poor students, but now you get to experience life married to a poor assistant professor. We started this journey together a mere two weeks after we were married and you have certainly been a trooper. Thank you for putting up with me and the long hours I needed to devote to reaching this milestone. While you give me all the credit for this degree you deserve at least half. I love you. I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues Tracy Kantrowitz, David Finch, and Steve Vodanovich for all of their support and insight into this project and graduate school as a whole. You three have certainly made this journey a bit more fun. I also wish to formally thank my committee, for helping to make this study that much better. Thanks! Oh yea, a wise man once said: " If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life gives you limes, make margaritas " (Jimmy Buffett). ix SUMMARY Occupational safety has once again become an inviting area of research and application for organizational researchers. Researchers have abandoned the search for the accident-prone employee and begun to identify the underlying symptoms that might lead to unsafe behaviors and accidents. The current research built upon theory and recent findings by integrating regulatory focus theory into an interactional model of occupational safety and productivity in an attempt to explain and predict safety performance and speed performance. Using a sample of facility workers (i.e., building & landscape development and maintenance, n = 251) a cross-level model of relationships was investigated that links facets of conscientiousness (dependability & achievement) and climate (safety & productivity) to facets …
Attenuated Neural Processing of Risk in Young Adults at Risk for Stimulant Dependence

Objective Approximately 10% of young adults report non-medical use of stimulants (cocaine, amphetamine, methylphenidate), which puts them at risk for the development of dependence. This fMRI study investigates whether subjects at early stages of stimulant use show altered decision making processing. Methods 158 occasional stimulants users (OSU) and 50 comparison subjects (CS) performed a “risky gains” decision making task during which they could select safe options (cash in 20 cents) or gamble them for double or nothing in two consecutive gambles (win or lose 40 or 80 cents, “risky decisions”). The primary analysis focused on risky versus safe decisions. Three secondary analyses were conducted: First, a robust regression examined the effect of lifetime exposure to stimulants and marijuana; second, subgroups of OSU with >1000 (n = 42), or <50 lifetime marijuana uses (n = 32), were compared to CS with <50 lifetime uses (n = 46) to examine potential marijuana effects; third, brain activation associated with behavioral adjustment following monetary losses was probed. Results There were no behavioral differences between groups. OSU showed attenuated activation across risky and safe decisions in prefrontal cortex, insula, and dorsal striatum, exhibited lower anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and dorsal striatum activation for risky decisions and greater inferior frontal gyrus activation for safe decisions. Those OSU with relatively more stimulant use showed greater dorsal ACC and posterior insula attenuation. In comparison, greater lifetime marijuana use was associated with less neural differentiation between risky and safe decisions. OSU who chose more safe responses after losses exhibited similarities with CS relative to those preferring risky options. Discussion Individuals at risk for the development of stimulant use disorders presented less differentiated neural processing of risky and safe options. Specifically, OSU show attenuated brain response in regions critical for performance monitoring, reward processing and interoceptive awareness. Marijuana had additive effects by diminishing neural risk differentiation.
Choice of MUX/DEMUX filter characteristics for NRZ, RZ, and CSRZ DWDM systems

This paper investigates the influence of filter bandwidth and flank steepness of both multiplexing and demultiplexing filters in dense wavelength division multiplexed systems (spectral efficiency 0.8 b/s/Hz) in the presence of coherent wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) crosstalk. Using a recently introduced technique for the statistically reliable performance prediction of systems impaired by coherent WDM crosstalk, this paper presents numerical results for nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ), 33% duty-cycle return-to-zero (RZ), and 67% duty-cycle carrier-suppressed return-to-zero signals. This paper confirms that steep filter flanks are generally preferable, both in terms of optical signal-to-noise ratio penalty and in terms of filter bandwidth tolerance.
Integrating next-generation sequencing into clinical oncology: strategies, promises and pitfalls

We live in an era of genomic medicine. The past five years brought about many significant achievements in the field of cancer genetics, driven by rapidly evolving technologies and plummeting costs of next-generation sequencing (NGS). The official completion of the Cancer Genome Project in 2014 led many to envision the clinical implementation of cancer genomic data as the next logical step in cancer therapy. Stemming from this vision, the term ‘precision oncology’ was coined to illustrate the novelty of this individualised approach. The basic assumption of precision oncology is that molecular markers detected by NGS will predict response to targeted therapies independently from tumour histology. However, along with a ubiquitous availability of NGS, the complexity and heterogeneity at the individual patient level had to be acknowledged. Not only does the latter present challenges to clinical decision-making based on sequencing data, it is also an obstacle to the rational design of clinical trials. Novel tissue-agnostic trial designs were quickly developed to overcome these challenges. Results from some of these trials have recently demonstrated the feasibility and efficacy of this approach. On the other hand, there is an increasing amount of whole-exome and whole-genome NGS data which allows us to assess ever smaller differences between individual patients with cancer. In this review, we highlight different tumour sequencing strategies currently used for precision oncology, describe their individual strengths and weaknesses, and emphasise their feasibility in different clinical settings. Further, we evaluate the possibility of NGS implementation in current and future clinical trials, and point to the significance of NGS for translational research.
Inhibitory activity of loratadine and descarboethoxyloratadine on expression of ICAM‐1 and HLA‐DR by nasal epithelial cells

Nasal epithelial cells represent the first barrier against noxious agents and allergens. In allergic rhinitis, these cells are activated and histamine may be involved in this activation. Loratadine and one of its active metabolites, descarboethoxyloratadine, were studied for their ability to reduce the activation of nasal epithelial cells by histamine. Nasal turbinates or polyps were removed during surgery from 19 subjects, and nasal epithelial cells were recovered after enzymatic digestion. The in vitro activation of epithelial cells with histamine using an optimal dose (1 μM) and an optimal time (24 h) of incubation was studied, and the effect of loratadine or descarboethoxyloratadine (l0 μM) was investigated. The expression of membrane markers (intercellular adhesion molecule‐1 (ICAM‐1) and a human leukocyte class II antigen (HLA‐DR) was assessed by immunocylochemical analysis using an alkaline‐antialkaline phosphatase (APAAP) system. The spontaneous expression of both markers was not significantly different in cells recovered from nasal turbinates or polyps, and there was a highly significant increase in the numbers of cells expressing ICAM‐1 and HLA‐DR following incubation with histamine. Loratadine or descarboethoxyloratadine significantly blocked these effects. This study shows a new possible antiallergic effect of H1‐blockers and suggests that their effects on epithelial cells may be relevant in vivo.
Antigen peptide transporter 1 is involved in the development of fructose‐induced hepatic steatosis in mice

The purpose of this study is to assess whether the decrease in CD8 cells has any role in the development of non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). In this study, we therefore used antigen peptide transporter 1 (TAP1−/−) mice that cannot transport major histocompatibility complex class I antigens onto the cell surface resulting in failure of the generation of CD8 cells.
Urinary calcium to creatinine ratio to predict preeclampsia and use of calcium supplementation to prevent preeclampsia

Background: Incidence of preeclampsia is around 5-10% of all pregnancies, and in developing countries around 4-18%. There is hypercalciuria during normal pregnancy, while pre-eclampsia is associated with hypocalciuria and low urinary calcium to creatinine ratio. Low calcium intake has been hypothesized to cause increase in blood pressure. The present study was carried out to investigate significance of urinary CCR in prediction of preeclampsia & role of calcium supplementation in reducing preeclampsia. Methods: 100 pregnant patients were divided into two groups, 50 cases and 50 controls. A spot urine sample was collected for estimation of CCR at around gestational age of 20-24 weeks. Cases were given 2 gm of calcium supplementation. Controls were 1 gm calcium . Then at each visit both the groups, were evaluated for symptoms of preeclampsia. Urinary calcium to creatinine ratio was calculated and those with ratio 0.04 were considered test negative. Results: The test (urinary CCR 0.04) in 84 patients and in those only 5 developed pre eclampsia. Urinary CCR had sensitivity of 63.63%, specificity of 94.87%. Out of 50 cases, only 3 developed preeclampsia. Out 0f 50 controls, 11 developed preeclampsia. Conclusions: Urinary CCR between 20-24wks of gestation will be an effective screening method for impending pre-eclampsia. Calcium supplementation (2gms/day) can help in prevention of preeclampsia.
Novel mass spectrometric immunoassays for the rapid structural characterization of plasma apolipoproteins Published, JLR Papers in Press, December 1, 2002. DOI 10.1194/jlr.D200034-JLR200

Novel mass spectrometric immunoassays (MSIAs) for the isolation and structural characterization of plasma apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I), apoA-II, and apoE have been developed. The assays combine selective isolation of apolipoprotein species via affinity capture with mass-specific detection using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry. In application, plasma (from 50 μl of whole blood drawn from individuals, using finger lancet) was addressed with affinity pipette tips derivatized with antibodies toward the specific apolipoprotein. The time required for each assay was ∼15 min, less if assays on multiple individuals were performed in parallel. In a brief study of five individuals, several recently reported apoA-II variants were identified and observed consistently in all individuals. Additionally, the apoE phenotype of E3/E3 was observed in three of the individuals, and E2/E3 and E3/E4 observed in the remaining two individuals, the latter of whom suffers from Alzheimer's disease. Overall, the MSIA approach offers a rapid, sensitive, and highly accurate means of profiling apolipoproteins from small volumes of plasma.
Involving users in the specification of functionality using scenarios and model-based evaluation

The research investigated how input from users can be used to inform system design at an early stage. The study was conducted in the context of a smart card project in an educational organization. Scenarios of smart card system use were developed based on claims analysis. For the purpose of evaluating the scenarios, a model of system acceptance was devised. Evaluation questionnaires based on the acceptance model were developed and used by potential system users to evaluate the scenarios. Multiple regression analysis of the questionnaire responses indicated which causal links in the acceptance model were significant, and enabled the elements of system functionality likely to have an impact on acceptance to be identified. This approach enables the importance of particular system functions to be assessed at an early stage of system design.
Cell-Free Spent Media Obtained from Bifidobacterium bifidum and Bifidobacterium crudilactis Grown in Media Supplemented with 3′-Sialyllactose Modulate Virulence Gene Expression in Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium

Complex oligosaccharides from human milk (HMO) possess an antimicrobial activity and can promote the growth of bifidobacteria such as Bifidobacterium bifidum and Bifidobacterium longum subsp. infantis. In addition, fermentation of carbohydrates by bifidobacteria can result in the production of metabolites presenting an antivirulence effect on several pathogenic bacteria. Whey is rich in complex bovine milk oligosaccharides (BMO) structurally similar to HMO and B. crudilactis, a species of bovine origin, is able to metabolize some of those complex carbohydrates. This study focused on the ability of B. bifidum and B. crudilactis to grow in a culture medium supplemented in 3′-sialyllactose (3′SL) as the main source of carbon, a major BMO encountered in cow milk. Next, the effects of cell-free spent media (CFSM) were tested against virulence expression of Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium. Both strains were able to grow in presence of 3′SL, but B. crudilactis showed the best growth (7.92 ± 0.3 log cfu/ml) compared to B. bifidum (6.84 ± 0.9 log cfu/ml). Then, CFSM were tested for their effects on virulence gene expression by ler and hilA promoter activity of luminescent mutants of E. coli and S. Typhimurium, respectively, and on wild type strains of E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium using RT-qPCR. All CFSM resulted in significant under expression of the ler and hilA genes for the luminescent mutants and ler (ratios of −15.4 and −8.1 respectively) and qseA (ratios of −2.1 and −3.1) for the wild type strain of E. coli O157:H7. The 3′SL, a major BMO, combined with some bifidobacteria strains of bovine or human origin could therefore be an interesting synbiotic to maintain or restore the intestinal health of young children. These effects observed in vitro will be further investigated regarding the overall phenotype of pathogenic agents and the exact nature of the active molecules.
Borderline personality disorder and childhood maltreatment: a genome‐wide methylation analysis

Early life adversity plays a critical role in the emergence of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and this could occur through epigenetic programming. In this perspective, we aimed to determine whether childhood maltreatment could durably modify epigenetic processes by the means of a whole‐genome methylation scan of BPD subjects. Using the Illumina Infinium® HumanMethylation450 BeadChip, global methylation status of DNA extracted from peripheral blood leucocytes was correlated to the severity of childhood maltreatment in 96 BPD subjects suffering from a high level of child adversity and 93 subjects suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD) and reporting a low rate of child maltreatment. Several CpGs within or near the following genes (IL17RA, miR124‐3, KCNQ2, EFNB1, OCA2, MFAP2, RPH3AL, WDR60, CST9L, EP400, A2ML1, NT5DC2, FAM163A and SPSB2) were found to be differently methylated, either in BPD compared with MDD or in relation to the severity of childhood maltreatment. A highly relevant biological result was observed for cg04927004 close to miR124‐3 that was significantly associated with BPD and severity of childhood maltreatment. miR124‐3 codes for a microRNA (miRNA) targeting several genes previously found to be associated with BPD such as NR3C1. Our results highlight the potentially important role played by miRNAs in the etiology of neuropsychiatric disorders such as BPD and the usefulness of using methylome‐wide association studies to uncover such candidate genes. Moreover, they offer new understanding of the impact of maltreatments on biological processes leading to diseases and may ultimately result in the identification of relevant biomarkers.
Association versus linkage studies in psychosis genetics.

One after another monogenic diseases are being successfully mapped within the human genome. In a number of cases, knowledge of the localisation has led to positional cloning of the genes. However, in diseases with a complex mode of transmission, such as the major psychoses, linkage studies with DNA markers have been far less conclusive than initially hoped. Nevertheless, genetic factors certainly exist in the major psychoses, as twin, family, and adoption studies consistently show. These genetic factors must be represented in variation of expressed or regulatory DNA sequences. In complex diseases the application of the linkage strategy may be hampered by both theoretical and practical problems. In some instances it might be more straightforward to use population samples and look for an association between DNA variants and disease. It is a major issue of current discussion to what extent association studies might complement the linkage approach in order to open the black box of psychosis genetics.