Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Combining physical training with transcranial direct current stimulation to improve gait in Parkinson’s disease: a pilot randomized controlled study

Objective: To improve gait and balance in patients with Parkinson’s disease by combining anodal transcranial direct current stimulation with physical training. Design: In a double-blind design, one group (physical training; n = 8) underwent gait and balance training during transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS; real/sham). Real stimulation consisted of 15 minutes of 2 mA transcranial direct current stimulation over primary motor and premotor cortex. For sham, the current was switched off after 30 seconds. Patients received the opposite stimulation (sham/real) with physical training one week later; the second group (No physical training; n = 8) received stimulation (real/sham) but no training, and also repeated a sequential transcranial direct current stimulation session one week later (sham/real). Setting: Hospital Srio Libanes, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Subjects: Sixteen community-dwelling patients with Parkinson’s disease. Interventions: Transcranial direct current stimulation with and without concomitant physical training. Main measures: Gait velocity (primary gait outcome), stride length, timed 6-minute walk test, Timed Up and Go Test (secondary outcomes), and performance on the pull test (primary balance outcome). Results: Transcranial direct current stimulation with physical training increased gait velocity (mean = 29.5%, SD = 13; p < 0.01) and improved balance (pull test: mean = 50.9%, SD = 37; p = 0.01) compared with transcranial direct current stimulation alone. There was no isolated benefit of transcranial direct current stimulation alone. Although physical training improved gait velocity (mean = 15.5%, SD = 12.3; p = 0.03), these effects were comparatively less than with combined tDCS + physical therapy (p < 0.025). Greater stimulation-related improvements were seen in patients with more advanced disease. Conclusions: Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation during physical training improves gait and balance in patients with Parkinson’s disease. Power calculations revealed that 14 patients per treatment arm (α = 0.05; power = 0.8) are required for a definitive trial.
Duodenal Bulb in Celiac Adults: The “Whether Biopsying” Dilemma

Background: Celiac disease (CD)-related lesions were described in duodenal bulb of celiac patients. Goal: Our aim was to evaluate the morphology of bulb mucosa in adult celiac patients and in controls to evaluate its usefulness for CD diagnosis. Study: We studied 43 celiac patients (10 male, median age: 35.2 y) at diagnosis and 43 gastroenterological controls (10 male, median age: 37.8 y), submitted to upper endoscopy for gastroenterological complaints. Histologic lesions were assayed by an experienced pathologist according to the Marsh modified classification. Antiendomysium antibodies and antitransglutaminase antibodies-tTGAb (ELISA and/or RIA) have been tested. In selected patients, DNA was typed for DRB1, DQA1, and DQB1 genes by sequence-specific primer polymerase chain reaction. Results: In all celiac patients lesions were present in the bulb mucosa. One female with thyroiditis, who had a CD daughter, showed lesions only in the duodenal bulb. Patchy villous atrophy was found in another patient. All celiacs were antiendomysium and/or tTGAb positive. DQ2 heterodimer was present in 5 CD patients. The gastroenterological controls showed normal mucosa in the duodenum. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that CD-related histologic lesions are present in duodenal bulb of adult patients. Moreover, the normal aspect of this mucosa in gastroenterological controls implies the high negative predictive value of this finding. Therefore, we suggest taking at least 1 biopsy on the bulb area and 1 from the distal duodenum for CD diagnosis, in all the patients submitted to upper endoscopy, to avoid missed or delayed diagnosis.
Evaluating post-glacial bedrock erosion and surface exposure duration by coupling in-situ OSL and 10Be dating

Abstract. Assessing the impact of Quaternary glaciation at the Earth’s surface implies understanding of the long-term evolution of alpine landscapes. In particular, it requires simultaneous quantification of the impact of climate variability on past glacier fluctuations and on bedrock erosion. Here we present a new approach for evaluating post-glacial bedrock surface erosion in mountainous environments by combining in-situ cosmogenic 10Be (TCN) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) surface exposure dating. Using a numerical approach, we show how it is possible to simultaneously invert bedrock OSL signals and 10Be concentrations into quantitative estimates of post-glacial exposure duration and bedrock surface erosion. By exploiting the fact that OSL and TCN data are integrated over different timescales, this approach can be used to estimate how bedrock erosion rates vary spatially and temporally since glacier retreat in an alpine environment.
Introducing high-cost health care to patients: dentists' accounts of offering dental implant treatment

Objectives The decision-making process within health care has been widely researched, with shared decision-making, where both patients and clinicians share technical and personal information, often being cited as the ideal model. To date, much of this research has focused on systems where patients receive their care and treatment free at the point of contact (either in government-funded schemes or in insurance-based schemes). Oral health care often involves patients making direct payments for their care and treatment, and less is known about how this payment affects the decision-making process. It is clear that patient characteristics influence decision-making, but previous evidence suggests that clinicians may assume characteristics rather than eliciting them directly. The aim was to explore the influences on how dentists' engaged in the decision-making process surrounding a high-cost item of health care, dental implant treatments (DITs). Methods A qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was undertaken using a purposive sample of primary care dentists (n = 25). Thematic analysis was undertaken to reveal emerging key themes. Results There were differences in how dentists discussed and offered implants. Dentists made decisions about whether to offer implants based on business factors, professional and legal obligations and whether they perceived the patient to be motivated to have treatment and their ability to pay. There was evidence that assessment of these characteristics was often based on assumptions derived from elements such as the appearance of the patient, the state of the patient's mouth and demographic details. The data suggest that there is a conflict between three elements of acting as a healthcare professional: minimizing provision of unneeded treatment, trying to fully involve patients in shared decisions and acting as a business person with the potential for financial gain. Conclusions It might be expected that in the context of a high-cost healthcare intervention for which patients pay the bill themselves, that decision-making would be closer to an informed than a paternalistic model. Our research suggests that paternalistic decision-making is still practised and is influenced by assumptions about patient characteristics. Better tools and training may be required to support clinicians in this area of practice.
Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy in an Urban, Free-Care HIV Clinic in Guatemala City, Guatemala

Background: Numerous studies have demonstrated that, in addition to inherent qualities of antiretroviral (ARV) medications, adherence is affected by demographic, socioeconomic, and psychological factors. There are limited data about factors affecting adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) among HIV-infected persons in urban Guatemalan HIV care centers. Methods: Participants were patients at an urban, free-care public clinic in Guatemala City and obtained medications from a closed-pharmacy system. Nonpregnant patients ≥18 years who received medications from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria, who had taken ARV medications for ≥12 weeks, who arrived for an appointment at the clinic, and who provided informed consent were interviewed. Adherence was measured using pharmacy pill counts and patient self-reports. Recent biological markers for each patient were collected from the clinic’s database, and χ 2 and descriptive statistics were used to analyze results. Results: Among 122 patients interviewed, mean adherence by pill count was 97%. A total of 110 patients (90%) had adherence ≥95% using pharmacy pill counts, and 108 (89%) had adherence ≥95% using self-reports. Virologic failure (viral load [VL] ≥500 copies/mL) was significantly less common among patients with ≥95% adherence (P = .02). Family and spousal support for treatment were significantly associated with ≥95% adherence (P = .01 and .003, respectively). The presence of stavudine (d4T) in a patient’s regimen was significantly associated with <95% adherence according to self-reports (P < .01). The most common self-reported cause for missing medications was forgetfulness, followed by leaving medications at home. Inability to travel to the clinic was a major cause of missing medications, and only 51 patients (41.8%) reported always having sufficient economic resources to reach the clinic for appointments and to refill prescriptions. Conclusions: In this urban Central American population, high levels of adherence were measured by both self-report and pharmacy pill count. Socioeconomic and demographic conditions associated with adherence and specific reasons for missing medications were identified.
Connections Between Nuclear-Norm and Frobenius-Norm-Based Representations

A lot of works have shown that frobenius-norm-based representation (FNR) is competitive to sparse representation and nuclear-norm-based representation (NNR) in numerous tasks such as subspace clustering. Despite the success of FNR in experimental studies, less theoretical analysis is provided to understand its working mechanism. In this brief, we fill this gap by building the theoretical connections between FNR and NNR. More specially, we prove that: 1) when the dictionary can provide enough representative capacity, FNR is exactly NNR even though the data set contains the Gaussian noise, Laplacian noise, or sample-specified corruption and 2) otherwise, FNR and NNR are two solutions on the column space of the dictionary.
Pulse shaping and SIR-energy trade-off in chaos-based asynchronous DS-CDMA

We develop a general framework to assess the joint effect of pulse shaping and spreading sequence statistics on asynchronous DS-CDMA, which also allows pulse and sequence optimal design. For each pulse we also consider an implementation effort proportional to how much its energy is concentrated into a finite time interval. We are first able to show that, within the class of band-limited pulses, sinc-shaped profile paired with i.i. d sequences are able to minimize Multiple Access Interference (MAI) but maximize implementation effort. We then introduce a family of pulses that generalizes raised cosine profiles and show that, leveraging on the possibility of jointly designing sequence statistics and pulse profile, they help addressing the trade-off between MAI and implementation effort.
Proinsulin as a Marker for the Development of NIDDM in Japanese-American Men

Disproportionate hyperproinsulinemia is one manifestation of the B-cell dysfunction observed in non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM), but it is unclear when this abnormality develops and whether it predicts the development of NIDDM. At baseline, measurements of proinsulin (PI) and immunoreactive insulin (IRI) levels were made in 87 second-generation Japanese-American men, a population at high risk for the subsequent development of NIDDM, and, by using World Health Organization criteria, subjects were categorized as having normal glucose tolerance (NGT; n = 49) or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT; n = 38). After a 5-year follow-up period, they were recategorized as NGT, IGT, or NIDDM using the same criteria. After 5 years, 16 subjects had developed NTODM, while 71 had NGT or IGT. Individuals who developed NIDDM were more obese at baseline, measured as intra-abdominal fat (IAF) area on computed tomography (P = 0.046) but did not differ in age from those who continued to have NGT or IGT. At baseline, subjects who subsequently developed NIDDM had higher fasting glucose (P = 0.0042), 2-h glucose (P = 0.0002), fasting C-peptide (P = 0.0011), and fasting PI levels (P = 0.0033) and disproportionate hyperproinsulinemia (P = 0.056) than those who continued to have NGT or IGT after 5 years of follow-up. NIDDM incidence was positively correlated with the absolute fasting PI level (relative odds = 2.35; P = 0.0025), even after adjustment for fasting IRI, IAF, and body mass index (relative odds = 2.17; P = 0.013). Because 12 of the 16 subjects who developed NTODM had IGT at baseline, the 38 IGT subjects were also examined separately. In this cohort, the same risk factors (fasting and 2-h glucose, fasting C-peptide, and fasting PI levels) were predictive for the development of NIDDM. We conclude that Japanese-American men who subsequently develop NIDDM have more IAF and increased glucose, C-peptide, and PI levels. These data suggest that alterations in PI may be a new marker for the subsequent development of NTODM.
A 181 GOPS AKAZE Accelerator Employing Discrete-Time Cellular Neural Networks for Real-Time Feature Extraction

This paper proposes a real-time feature extraction VLSI architecture for high-resolution images based on the accelerated KAZE algorithm. Firstly, a new system architecture is proposed. It increases the system throughput, provides flexibility in image resolution, and offers trade-offs between speed and scaling robustness. The architecture consists of a two-dimensional pipeline array that fully utilizes computational similarities in octaves. Secondly, a substructure (block-serial discrete-time cellular neural network) that can realize a nonlinear filter is proposed. This structure decreases the memory demand through the removal of data dependency. Thirdly, a hardware-friendly descriptor is introduced in order to overcome the hardware design bottleneck through the polar sample pattern; a simplified method to realize rotation invariance is also presented. Finally, the proposed architecture is designed in TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology. The experimental results show a performance of 127 fps in full HD resolution at 200 MHz frequency. The peak performance reaches 181 GOPS and the throughput is double the speed of other state-of-the-art architectures.
Bayesian Calibration of a Natural History Model with Application to a Population Model for Colorectal Cancer

Background. Cancer natural history models are essential when evaluating screening/preventative interventions or changes to diagnostic pathways. Natural history models commonly use a state transition structure, but it is often not possible to observe the state transition probabilities required for parameterization. Aim. The work aimed to accurately represent the uncertainty in the parameters of a state transition model for the natural history of colorectal cancer by embedding the problem in the framework of Bayesian inference. Methods. The Metropolis-Hastings algorithm was used to estimate natural history parameters and screening test characteristics by generating multiple sets of parameters from the posterior distribution, which is the probability distribution that is compatible with the observed data. Observed data included colorectal cancer incidence categorized by age and stage, autopsy data on polyp prevalence, and cancer and polyp detection rates from the first round of screening with the fecal occult blood test in England. The approach was implemented using Visual Basic. Results. The results were subsequently examined for convergence using the package CODA in R 2.8. 0. Outputs from fitting were samples from the joint posterior distribution of the natural history parameters given the epidemiological data. The parameter sets obtained are shown to have a good fit to all the observed data sets. These parameter sets are used when running probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusion. The advantages of this strategy are that it draws efficiently from a high-dimensional correlated parameter space. The algorithm is simple to code and runs overnight on a standard desktop PC. Using this method, the parameter sets are drawn according to their posterior probability given calibration data, and thus they correctly summarize the residual uncertainty in the parameter space.
Influence of Ossicular Chain Damage on Hearing After Chronic Otitis Media and Cholesteatoma Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

IMPORTANCE Physicians should ideally be able to provide patients with chronic otitis media and/or cholesteatoma specific information about postoperative hearing outcome, based on their level of preoperative ossicular chain damage (OCD). OBJECTIVE To identify the influence of preoperative OCD on hearing outcomes in patients after chronic otitis media and/or cholesteatoma surgery. DATA SOURCES PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched for available evidence, without any constraints, on December 13, 2014, for articles published between January 1, 1975, and December 13, 2014. STUDY SELECTION We reviewed the literature for articles assessing the prognostic value of OCD on postoperative hearing outcome (air-bone gap [ABG] in decibels), using Austin-Kartush criteria or independent OCD classification systems. We assessed relevance and validity using a self-designed critical appraisal tool based on the Cochrane Collaboration's risk of bias tool. DATA EXTRACTION Characteristics of study populations and postoperative ABGs in decibels were extracted from all included studies by 4 authors (E.F.B., M.N.G., N.J.K., A.S.H.J.L.). RESULTS The tested hypothesis was formulated before data collection. Primary study outcome was defined as postoperative adult hearing outcomes after COM and/or cholesteatoma surgery defined as mean postoperative ABG. Our search yielded 5661 articles. Nine articles with high relevance were included. Pooled results of studies using the Austin-Kartush criteria showed a significant (P < .001) difference in mean ABG in favor of group B, when comparing group B (patients with malleus present, stapes absent; 11.1 [95% CI, 10.3-11.8] dB) to group C (patients with malleus absent, stapes present; 15.7 [95% CI, 14.6-16.7] dB) and group B to group D (patients with malleus absent, stapes absent; 16.5 [95% CI, 15.2-17.9] dB). Three studies using independent OCD classification criteria found no influence of stapes structure (intact stapes suprastructure, 13.5 [95% CI, 10.3-16.7], 15.1 [95% CI, 11.8-18.3], and 21.9 [95% CI, 15.0-28.8] dB vs absent stapes structure, 12.8 [95% CI, 9.5-16.1], 19.5 [95% CI, 14.9-24.1], and 30.2 [95% CI, 24.7-35.8] dB) on postoperative ABG. One study reported a significant (P = .04) difference in mean ABG between patients with present (18.9 [95% CI, 15.7-22.1] dB) and absent (24.4 [95% CI, 20.2-28.6] dB) malleus. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Pooled results of Austin-Kartush studies showed that in patients with COM, with or without cholesteatoma, the malleus status is a significant predictor of postoperative hearing outcome, independent of the stapes condition. Studies reporting on individual ossicle status supported this finding by showing that only malleus condition influenced postoperative hearing outcome. These findings are based on level IV evidence, which indicates the need for future high-level evidence studies.
Natural Killer Cells Mediate Protection against Yersinia pseudotuberculosis in the Mesenteric Lymph Nodes

Natural killer cells play a crucial role in the initial defense against bacterial pathogens. The crosstalk between host cells infected with intracellular pathogens and NK cells has been studied intensively, but not much attention has been given to characterize the role of NK cells in the response to extracellular bacterial pathogens such as yersiniae. In this study we used antibody-mediated NK cell depletion to address the importance of this immune cell type in controlling a Y. pseudotuberculosis infection. Analysis of the bacterial counts was used to follow the infection and flow cytometry was performed to characterize the composition and dynamic of immune cells. Depletion of NK cells led to higher bacterial loads within the mesenteric lymph nodes. We further show that in particular CD11b+ CD27+ NK cells which express higher levels of the activation marker CD69 increase within the mesenteric lymph nodes during a Y. pseudotuberculosis infection. Moreover, in response to the activation NK cells secrete higher levels of IFNy, which in turn triggers the production of the proinflammatory cytokine TNFα. These results suggest, that NK cells aid in the clearance of Y. pseudotuberculosis infections mainly by triggering the expression of proinflammatory cytokines manipulating the host immune response.
Is Unlabeled Data Suitable for Multiclass SVM-based Web Page Classification?

Support Vector Machines present an interesting and effective approach to solve automated classification tasks. Although it only handles binary and supervised problems by nature, it has been transformed into multiclass and semi-supervised approaches in several works. A previous study on supervised and semi-supervised SVM classification over binary taxonomies showed how the latter clearly outperforms the former, proving the suitability of unlabeled data for the learning phase in this kind of tasks. However, the suitability of unlabeled data for multiclass tasks using SVM has never been tested before. In this work, we present a study on whether unlabeled data could improve results for multiclass web page classification tasks using Support Vector Machines. As a conclusion, we encourage to rely only on labeled data, both for improving (or at least equaling) performance and for reducing the computational cost.
Implementation of uniform eort sharing schemes in dominant strategy equilibrium

Uniform effort sharing rules for tranfrontier pollution problems, like the popular equal percentage reduction arrangement, do not result in a cost efficient allocation of emission abatement efforts. In addition, they may violate voluntary participation constraints if the uniform effort level is decided upon by means of ordinary majority vote. In contrast to ordinary majority vote, we consider in this paper the so-called conservative mechanism by Moulin (1994), Rev. Econ. Studies 55, which picks the smallest revealed effort level in stead of the median. The conservative mechanism always respects a weak participation constraint. Moreover, it is coalitionally strategy proof meaning that no individual player, or group of players, can achieve a better outcome for themselves by misrepresenting its preferences for environmental quality. In order to remedy the cost inefficiency of the equal percentage arrangements, we propose to apply the conservative mechanism to the choice of a uniform emission tax rate. Simulations for greenhouse effect indicate that the latter mechanism might do considerably better than the traditional equal percentage arrangements. keywords: greenhouse effect, strategy proofness, transfrontier pollution problems ∗I would like to thank Erik Schokkaert for valuable comments on an earlier draft.