Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vertical Heterophoria and Susceptibility to Visually Induced Motion Sickness

Motion sickness is reported to be a common symptom in patients with vertical heterophoria. The goal of this study was to assess the relationship between vertical phoria and susceptibility to motion sickness in a nonclinical sample of 43 subjects. Vertical phoria was measured with a Maddox rod after 30 s of occlusion. To evaluate susceptibility to motion sickness, subjects read text while sitting inside a rotating optokinetic drum for 10 min. Subjects rated their level of motion sickness at 1 min intervals during drum rotation and the magnitude of 13 motion sickness symptoms after drum rotation ended. The magnitude of vertical phoria ranged from 0 to 2.13 prism diopters (pd) with a mean of 0.46 pd and correlated significantly with both the maximum rating of motion sickness during drum rotation and the summed symptom score following rotation. A vertical phoria of 0.75 pd discriminated best between subjects with low vs high summed motion sickness symptom scores (p < 0.0001). Introducing a prism to artificially increase the phoria of 12 subjects with vertical phorias <0.75 pd increased motion sickness symptoms in only 1 subject. Prisms that reduced the phoria of subjects with vertical phorias > 0.75 pd reduced motion sickness symptoms in 2 of the 4 subjects tested. The results confirm an association between vertical phoria and motion sickness, but suggest the relationship may not be causal.
A An Interactive Epidemiological Modeling Environment using High Performance Computing for Enhanced User-Productivity

Suruchi Deodhar, NDSSL, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech , Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech Keith R. Bisset, NDSSL, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech Jiangzhuo Chen, NDSSL, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech Yifei Ma, NDSSL, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech , Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech Madhav V. Marathe, NDSSL, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute, Virginia Tech, Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech
Selective central alpha-2 adrenoceptor control of regional haemodynamic responses to air jet stress in conscious spontaneously hypertensive rats.

The role of central nervous system alpha 2-adrenoceptors in the regulation of peripheral sympathetic outflow to regional vascular resistance beds during environmental stress was examined in conscious chronically instrumented spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). SHR were instrumented with pulsed Doppler flow probes on the renal and mesenteric arteries and the lower abdominal aorta. The mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate and regional vascular resistance responses to air jet stress were determined before and after cumulative administration of the alpha 2-adrenoceptor agonist, guanabenz, into the lateral cerebral ventricle in doses of 5 and 25 micrograms. Compared with intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) administration of isotonic saline vehicle which did not affect baseline systemic and regional haemodynamic measurements, guanabenz produced significant decreases in baseline MAP and heart rate but did not affect regional vascular resistances. During air jet stress, the characteristic pattern of the classic defense reaction with an increase in MAP, heart rate, renal and mesenteric vascular resistances and a decrease in hindquarters vascular resistance was observed and was not affected by i.c. v. administration of isotonic saline vehicle. Guanabenz did not affect the MAP, heart rate or renal vascular resistance responses to air jet stress. The air jet stress-induced increase in mesenteric vascular resistance was reduced by 25 micrograms guanabenz. The air jet stress-induced decrease in hindquarters vascular resistance was converted to an increase by 25 micrograms guanabenz. These results demonstrate that the regulation of environmental stress-stimulated sympathetic neural outflow to different vascular beds may be independently controlled by central nervous system alpha 2-adrenoceptors.
Spatially regularized estimation for the analysis of DCE-MRI data

Competing compartment models of different complexities have been used for the quantitative analysis of Dynamic Contrast-Enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging data. We present a spatial Elastic Net approach that allows to estimate the number of compartments for each voxel such that the model complexity is not fixed a priori. A multi-compartment approach is considered, which is translated into a restricted least square model selection problem. This is done by using a set of basis functions for a given set of candidate rate constants. The form of the basis functions is derived from a kinetic model and thus describes the contribution of a specific compartment. Using a spatial Elastic Net estimator, we chose a sparse set of basis functions per voxel, and hence, rate constants of compartments. The spatial penalty takes into account the voxel structure of an image and performs better than a penalty treating voxels independently. The proposed estimation method is evaluated for simulated images and applied to an in-vivo data set.
Synaptic and Endosomal Localization of Active γ-Secretase in Rat Brain

Background A key player in the development of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the γ-secretase complex consisting of at least four components: presenilin, nicastrin, Aph-1 and Pen-2. γ-Secretase is crucial for the generation of the neurotoxic amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) but also takes part in the processing of many other substrates. In cell lines, active γ-secretase has been found to localize primarily to the Golgi apparatus, endosomes and plasma membranes. However, no thorough studies have been performed to show the subcellular localization of the active γ-secretase in the affected organ of AD, namely the brain. Principal Findings We show by subcellular fractionation of rat brain that high γ-secretase activity, as assessed by production of Aβ40, is present in an endosome- and plasma membrane-enriched fraction of an iodixanol gradient. We also prepared crude synaptic vesicles as well as synaptic membranes and both fractions showed high Aβ40 production and contained high amounts of the γ-secretase components. Further purification of the synaptic vesicles verified the presence of the γ-secretase components in these compartments. The localization of an active γ-secretase in synapses and endosomes was confirmed in rat brain sections and neuronal cultures by using a biotinylated γ-secretase inhibitor together with confocal microscopy. Significance The information about the subcellular localization of γ-secretase in brain is important for the understanding of the molecular mechanisms of AD. Furthermore, the identified fractions can be used as sources for highly active γ-secretase.
Treatment of stress urinary incontinence with adipose tissue-derived stem cells.

BACKGROUND AIMS Effective treatment for stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is lacking. This study investigated whether transplantation of adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADSC) can treat SUI in a rat model. METHODS Rats were induced to develop SUI by postpartum vaginal balloon dilation and bilateral ovariectomy. ADSC were isolated from the peri-ovary fat, examined for stem cell properties, and labeled with thymidine analog BrdU or EdU. Ten rats received urethral injection of saline as a control. Twelve rats received urethral injection of EdU-labeled ADSC and six rats received intravenous injection of BrdU-labeled ADSC through the tail vein. Four weeks later, urinary voiding function was assessed by conscious cystometry. The rats were then killed and their urethras harvested for tracking of ADSC and quantification of elastin, collagen and smooth muscle contents. RESULTS Cystometric analysis showed that eight out 10 rats in the control group had abnormal voiding, whereas four of 12 (33.3%) and two of six (33.3%) rats in the urethra-ADSC and tail vein-ADSC groups, respectively, had abnormal voiding. Histologic analysis showed that the ADSC-treated groups had significantly higher elastin content than the control group and, within the ADSC-treated groups, rats with normal voiding pattern also had significantly higher elastin content than rats with voiding dysfunction. ADSC-treated normal-voiding rats had significantly higher smooth muscle content than control or ADSC-treated rats with voiding dysfunction. CONCLUSIONS Transplantation of ADSC via urethral or intravenous injection is effective in the treatment and/or prevention of SUI in a pre-clinical setting.
The relationship between BMI and blood pressure in children aged 7–12 years in Ankara, Turkey

Abstract Objective Recent studies have reported an increasing prevalence of childhood hypertension. Obesity is probably the most important risk factor. The relationship between hypertension and BMI in children has not been studied in Ankara, which is the second largest city in Turkey. Design Cross-sectional study analysing direct data on height, weight and blood pressure of students. Setting Population-based study in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey. Subjects In three schools, 2826 students aged 7–12 years. Results The overall prevalence of hypertension was 7·9 %. Among the 222 hypertensive children, 124 (56 %) were boys and ninety-eight (44 %) were girls (P=0·40). In the whole group, 3·6 % had only systolic hypertension, 0·7 % had only diastolic hypertension and 3·5 % had both systolic and diastolic hypertension. The prevalences of overweight and obesity were both 13·9 %. BMI was significantly correlated with blood pressure (P<0·001). Overweight and obesity were more common in boys (P<0·001). Conclusions Hypertension was more common than has been reported in other studies. Blood pressure measurement should be routine and frequent in children, especially obese children.
The Gamecycle Exercise System: Comparison With Standard Ergometry

Abstract Background: lt is weil established that physical activity is beneficial to health. For the individual in a wheelchair, a regular exercise program might not be available or may be too difficult to participate in physically and/or psychologically. Many exercise devices and regimes are boring. The goal, therefore, is to develop a device that makes exercise more exciting and, thus, motivates a person to exercise more or for a Ionger period of time, yielding increased energy expenditure. Our Iabaratory developed an interface between an arm ergometer and a computergamethat allows the user to control game play on the screen as if using a joystick. The purpose of this study was to determine (a) whether the GAMECycle system would elicit an exercise effect similar to arm ergometry, (b) whether perceived exertion would be different between the 2 devices, and (c) individuals' impressions regarding the GAMEcycle system. Methods: Thirteen individuals who used wheelchairs participated in the study. Participants were asked to exercise for 2 separate, 19-minute sessions. For 1 session, a GAMEcycle systemwas used and for the other session, the samearm ergometerwas used, but without the computer game being played. Physiologie data and perceived exertion were collected for each session. Results: There were significant differences between playing the game and not playing the game for V02 (P = 0.03) and VC02 (P = 0.02), with higher values being found when the gamewas played. Perceived exertion was not significantly different between the 2 trials. Conclusion: GAMECycle appears tobe similar in nature with respect to energy expenditure to arm ergometry. Because this study was conducted on athletes, furth er research is needed with sedentary individuals to determine exercise effects and perceived exertion.
Critical personality traits in successful pair programming

Pair programming (PP) is a common practice in Extreme programming, in which two programmers work together using a single computer. The close interaction required by PP makes it difficult to apply. The hypothesis is that certain personality traits are crucial for the success of PP, and PP partners should be chosen based on these personality traits. In this research, we first survey the programmers in industry to identify the perceived important personality traits for PP, and then conduct experiments to determine the significance of these personality traits in successful PP
Bias nonstationarity of global climate model outputs: The role of internal climate variability and climate model sensitivity

Bias correction methods are developed based on the assumption that the biases of climate model outputs are stationary, that is, the characteristics of the bias are constant over time. However, recent studies have shown the biases are not always stationary. The objectives of this study are to investigate the impacts of bias nonstationarity of climate‐model‐simulated precipitation and temperature on future climate projections, and the roles of internal climate variability (ICV) and climate model sensitivity (CMS) in bias nonstationarity. A pseudoreality approach is used in this study, in which each of the 24 climate model simulations is alternately selected as a reference to estimate the biases (defined as pseudobias to distinguish it from actual bias estimated by observations) of 23 other simulations. The absolute ratio of the change in pseudobias between two periods to the corresponding climate change signal is calculated to assess the impacts of bias nonstationarity on future climate projections. Furthermore, the roles of ICV and CMS are investigated by comparing the changes in pseudobias between historical and future periods relative to the baseline period. The results show that biases of climate‐model‐simulated mean annual and seasonal temperature and precipitation vary with time. Bias nonstationarity of temperature is not significant in future temperature projections, while the bias nonstationarity of precipitation plays an important role in future precipitation projections. In addition, the contributions of ICV and CMS to bias nonstationarity are both relatively small for temperature, even though the latter contributes slightly more than the former. However, ICV makes a large contribution to the bias nonstationarity of precipitation for the historical period. In the far future period, the role of CMS is as important as ICV. These results imply that the impacts of ICV and CMS may need to be considered when developing and evaluating a bias correction method, especially for precipitation projections.
Effects of Morphological Analysis in Translation between German and English

We describe the LIU systems for German-English and English-German translation submitted to the Shared Task of the Third Workshop of Statistical Machine Translation. The main features of the systems, as compared with the baseline, is the use of morphological pre- and post-processing, and a sequence model for German using morphologically rich parts-of-speech. It is shown that these additions lead to improved translations.
Adalimumab safety and mortality rates from global clinical trials of six immune-mediated inflammatory diseases

Objectives: Clinical trials of tumour necrosis factor antagonists have raised questions about the potential risk of certain serious adverse events (SAE). To assess the safety of adalimumab in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) over time and across five other immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and to compare adalimumab malignancy and mortality rates with data on the general population. Methods: This analysis included 19 041 patients exposed to adalimumab in 36 global clinical trials in RA, psoriatic arthritis (PsA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), Crohn’s disease (CD), psoriasis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) to 15 April 2007. Events per 100 patient-years were calculated using SAE reported after the first dose to 70 days after the last dose. Standardised incidence rates were calculated for malignancies using national and state-specific databases. Standardised mortality rates (SMR) were calculated for each disease using data from the World Health Organization. Results: Cumulative rates of SAE of interest in RA have remained stable over time. Rates of SAE of interest for PsA, AS, CD, psoriasis and JIA were similar to or lower than rates for RA. Overall malignancy rates for adalimumab-treated patients were as expected for the general population. SMR across all six diseases indicated that no more deaths occurred with adalimumab than expected in the general population. Conclusions: Based on 10 years of clinical trial experience across six diseases, this safety report and the established efficacy of adalimumab in these diseases provide the foundation for a better understanding of its benefit–risk profile.
Regulators on additive higher Chow groups

As an attempt to understand motives over $k[x]/(x^m)$, we define the cubical additive higher Chow groups with modulus for all dimensions extending the works of S. Bloch, H. Esnault and K. R\"ulling on $0$-dimensional cycles. We give an explicit construction of regulator maps on the groups of $1$-cycles with an aid of the residue theory of A. Parshin and V. Lomadze.
A systematic review of the performance of ceramic and metal implant abutments supporting fixed implant reconstructions.

OBJECTIVES The objective of this systematic review was to assess the 5-year survival rates and incidences of complications associated with ceramic abutments and to compare them with those of metal abutments. METHODS An electronic Medline search complemented by manual searching was conducted to identify randomized-controlled clinical trials, and prospective and retrospective studies providing information on ceramic and metal abutments with a mean follow-up time of at least 3 years. Patients had to have been examined clinically at the follow-up visit. Assessment of the identified studies and data abstraction was performed independently by three reviewers. Failure rates were analyzed using standard and random-effects Poisson regression models to obtain summary estimates of 5-year survival proportions. RESULTS Twenty-nine clinical and 22 laboratory studies were selected from an initial yield of 7136 titles and data were extracted. The estimated 5-year survival rate of ceramic abutments was 99.1% [95% confidence interval (CI): 93.8-99.9%] and 97.4% (95% CI: 96-98.3%) for metal abutments. The estimated cumulative incidence of technical complications after 5 years was 6.9% (95% CI: 3.5-13.4%) for ceramic abutments and 15.9% (95% CI: 11.6-21.5%) for metal abutments. Abutment screw loosening was the most frequent technical problem, occurring at an estimated cumulative incidence after 5 years of 5.1% (95% CI: 3.3-7.7%). All-ceramic crowns supported by ceramic abutments exhibited similar annual fracture rates as metal-ceramic crowns supported by metal abutments. The cumulative incidence of biological complications after 5 years was estimated at 5.2% (95% CI: 0.4-52%) for ceramic and 7.7% (95% CI: 4.7-12.5%) for metal abutments. Esthetic complications tended to be more frequent at metal abutments. A meta-analysis of the laboratory data was impossible due to the non-standardized test methods of the studies included. CONCLUSION The 5-year survival rates estimated from annual failure rates appeared to be similar for ceramic and metal abutments. The information included in this review did not provide evidence for differences of the technical and biological outcomes of ceramic and metal abutments. However, the information for ceramic abutments was limited in the number of studies and abutments analyzed as well as the accrued follow-up time. Standardized methods for the analysis of abutment strength are needed.
Casting cost estimation in an integrated product and process design environment

A casting cost estimation model, driven by the solid model of the part and its attributes (material, geometric, quality and production requirements) is presented. It is meant for product designers with little knowledge of the process, enabling design modifications for cost reduction in early stages, when the cost of such modifications is low. Analytical equations have been developed to estimate the cost related to material and conversion (energy and labour). A parametric model has been developed for tooling cost, driven by part complexity, which is computed from the part solid model. Parameters related to process plan and methoding or rigging (essentially feeding and gating design), required for accurate estimation of casting costs, are semi-automatically generated by process planning and casting methoding programs. The programs are in turn linked to a web-based intelligent collaborative engineering system called WebICE. This enables exchange of casting project data (including cost data) among product designers, tool makers and foundry engineers over the internet, enabling design modifications to achieve the targeted cost. An industrial example is presented to illustrate the entire system.
Participation of Leukotrienes in the Immune Modulation of Oral Tolerance

Oral tolerance (OT) is characterized as a peripheral immune tolerance form, in which, mature lymphocytes in lymphoid tissues associated with mucosa, become non-functional or hypo responsive due to prior oral administration of antigen. OT is an important immunological phenomenon due to its therapeutic potential in inflammatory processes and others diseases. Here we evaluated leukotriene role in the induction of OT, as well as, the production of cytokines IL-5 and IFN-γ in leukotriene deficient animals (knock-out). Our results suggested that even in the presence of OT and leukotrienes absence, cytokine IFN-γ remains being secreted, which gives us an indication of immune system specificity and also that IFN-γ participates in various immune processes.
Monotonicity of the electronic contribution to the Born-Oppenheimer energy

Let E(R) denote the ground-state energy of a single electron and two fixed nuclei of charges zA and zB a distance R apart. Let e(R)=E(R)-zAzBR-1 be the electronic contribution. The authors prove that 'e(R) increases as R does' in two different ways: using correlation inequalities and using the theory of log concave functions. Various extensions are described.
Key tumor suppressor genes inactivated by “greater promoter” methylation and somatic mutations in head and neck cancer

Tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) are commonly inactivated by somatic mutation and/or promoter methylation; yet, recent high-throughput genomic studies have not identified key TSGs inactivated by both mechanisms. We pursued an integrated molecular analysis based on methylation binding domain sequencing (MBD-seq), 450K Methylation arrays, whole exome sequencing, and whole genome gene expression arrays in primary head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) tumors and matched uvulopalatopharyngoplasty tissue samples (UPPPs). We uncovered 186 downregulated genes harboring cancer specific promoter methylation including PAX1 and PAX5 and we identified 10 key tumor suppressor genes (GABRB3, HOXC12, PARP15, SLCO4C1, CDKN2A, PAX1, PIK3AP1, HOXC6, PLCB1, and ZIC4) inactivated by both promoter methylation and/or somatic mutation. Among the novel tumor suppressor genes discovered with dual mechanisms of inactivation, we found a high frequency of genomic and epigenomic alterations in the PAX gene family of transcription factors, which selectively impact canonical NOTCH and TP53 pathways to determine cell fate, cell survival, and genome maintenance. Our results highlight the importance of assessing TSGs at the genomic and epigenomic level to identify key pathways in HNSCC, deregulated by simultaneous promoter methylation and somatic mutations.