Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring illness insight in patients with alcohol-related cognitive dysfunction using the Q8 questionnaire: a validation study

Aim Impaired illness insight may hamper treatment outcome in patients with alcohol-related cognitive deficits. In this study, a short questionnaire for the assessment of illness insight (eg, the Q8) was investigated in patients with Korsakoff’s syndrome (KS) and in alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients with mild neurocognitive deficits. Methods First, reliability coefficients were computed and internal structure was investigated. Then, comparisons were made between patients with KS and patients with AUD. Furthermore, correlations with the Dysexecutive Questionnaire (DEX) were investigated. Finally, Q8 total scores were correlated with neuropsychological tests for processing speed, memory, and executive function. Results Internal consistency of the Q8 was acceptable (ie, Cronbach’s α =0.73). The Q8 items represent one factor, and scores differ significantly between AUD and KS patients. The Q8 total score, related to the DEX discrepancy score and scores on neuropsychological tests as was hypothesized, indicates that a higher degree of illness insight is associated with a higher level of cognitive functioning. Conclusion The Q8 is a short, valid, and easy-to-administer questionnaire to reliably assess illness insight in patients with moderate-to-severe alcohol-related cognitive dysfunction.
A Virtual RealityBased Exercise System for Hand Rehabilitation Post-Stroke

This paper presents preliminary results from a virtual reality (VR)-based system for hand rehabilitation that uses a CyberGlove and a Rutgers Master II-ND haptic glove. This computerized system trains finger range of motion, finger flexion speed, independence of finger motion, and finger strength using specific VR simulation exercises. A remote Web-based monitoring station was developed to allow telerehabilitation interventions. The remote therapist observes simplified versions of the patient exercises that are updated in real time. Patient data is stored transparently in an Oracle database, which is also Web accessible through a portal GUI. Thus the remote therapist or attending physician can graph exercise outcomes and thus evaluate patient outcomes at a distance. Data from the VR simulations is complemented by clinical measurements of hand function and strength. Eight chronic post-stroke subjects participated in a pilot study of the above system. In keeping with variability in both their lesion size and site and in their initial upper extremity function, each subject showed improvement on a unique combination of movement parameters in VR training. Importantly, these improvements transferred to gains on clinical tests, as well as to significant reductions in task-completion times for the prehension of real objects. These results are indicative of the potential feasibility of this exercise system for rehabilitation in patients with hand dysfunction resulting from neurological impairment.
Trade‐Offs between the Reproductive and Immune Systems: Facultative Responses to Resources or Obligate Responses to Reproduction?

A major challenge in biology is understanding how organisms partition limited resources among physiological processes. For example, offspring production and self‐maintenance are important for fitness and survival, yet these critical processes often compete for resources. While physiological trade‐offs between reproduction and immune function have been documented, their regulation remains unclear. Most current evidence suggests that physiological changes during specific reproductive states directly suppress various components of the immune system; however, some studies have not found this clear relationship. We performed two experiments in female tree lizards (Urosaurus ornatus) that demonstrate the presence of trade‐offs between the reproductive and immune systems under controlled laboratory conditions. These results also support the hypothesis that these trade‐offs are a facultative response to resource availability and are not obligatory responses to physiological changes during reproduction. We found that (1) experimentally increasing reproductive investment under limited resources resulted in suppressed immune function and (2) experimentally limiting resources resulted in immunosuppression but only during resource costly reproductive activities. There seems to be a critical balance of resources that is maintained between multiple processes, and changes in the balance between energy intake and output can have major consequences for immune function.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF PLANT MATING SYSTEMS: STUDY BIAS AGAINST OBLIGATELY OUTCROSSING SPECIES

Abstract Early models of plant mating-system evolution argued that predominant outcrossing and selfing are alternative stable states. At least for animal-pollinated species, recent summaries of empirical studies have suggested the opposite—that outcrossing rates do not show the expected bimodal distribution. However, it is generally accepted that several potential biases can affect conclusions from surveys of published outcrossing rates. Here, we examine one potential bias and find that published studies of outcrossing rates contain far fewer obligate outcrossers than expected. We approximate the magnitude of this study bias and present the distribution of outcrossing rates after compensating for it. Because this study examines only one potential bias, and finds it to be large, conclusions regarding either the frequency of mixed mating or the shape of the distribution of outcrossing rates in nature are premature.
Modified MMI/MPE: a direct evaluation of the margin in speech recognition

In this paper we show how common speech recognition training criteria such as the Minimum Phone Error criterion or the Maximum Mutual Information criterion can be extended to incorporate a margin term. Different margin-based training algorithms have been proposed to refine existing training algorithms for general machine learning problems. However, for speech recognition, some special problems have to be addressed and all approaches proposed either lack practical applicability or the inclusion of a margin term enforces significant changes to the underlying model, e.g. the optimization algorithm, the loss function, or the parameterization of the model. In our approach, the conventional training criteria are modified to incorporate a margin term. This allows us to do large-margin training in speech recognition using the same efficient algorithms for accumulation and optimization and to use the same software as for conventional discriminative training. We show that the proposed criteria are equivalent to Support Vector Machines with suitable smooth loss functions, approximating the non-smooth hinge loss function or the hard error (e.g. phone error). Experimental results are given for two different tasks: the rather simple digit string recognition task Sietill which severely suffers from overfitting and the large vocabulary European Parliament Plenary Sessions English task which is supposed to be dominated by the risk and the generalization does not seem to be such an issue.
The role of quetiapine in the treatment of bipolar disorder

Through a review of randomised, controlled trials, this article evaluates the efficacy and tolerability of quetiapine in the acute and maintenance phases of bipolar disorder. In trials involving mania patients, quetiapine was found to be effective as adjunctive therapy in combination with lithium or valproate, significantly superior to placebo, and equal to lithium or haloperidol as monotherapy. With regard to the prevention of relapses in bipolar disorder, quetiapine seems to differ from other atypical antipsychotics in its characteristics as a mood stabiliser, which are associated with a promising efficacy in the treatment of bipolar depressive episodes. However, further larger controlled long-term prospective studies are needed to confirm the efficacy of quetiapine for the prevention of relapses in bipolar disorder. Quetiapine seems to have a satisfactory safety and tolerability profile, with a low prevalence of extrapyramidal symptom-related adverse events, treatment-emergent depression and weight gain. Sedation is the main side effect of treatment with quetiapine.
A Robust Synchrophasor-Based Method for Determining Three-Phase Line Impedance

A new method is developed for synchrophasor-based determination of three-phase transmission line impedance parameters, applicable for both fully transposed and untransposed transmission lines. The method is based on accurate time-synchronised measurements of the voltage and current phasors at both ends of the transmission line. The method estimates the line impedance values using a robust estimator with the desirable property of automatic bad-data rejection as an alternative to ordinary least square estimation. The performance of the estimator has been evaluated using a laboratory setup simulating real power system conditions. The necessary conditions for algorithm convergence as well as requirements for measurement accuracy have been studied as well.
A Comparison of User-Generated and Automatic Graph Layouts

The research presented in this paper compares user-generated and automatic graph layouts. Following the methods suggested by van Ham et al. (2008), a group of users generated graph layouts using both multi-touch interaction on a tabletop display and mouse interaction on a desktop computer. Users were asked to optimize their layout for aesthetics and analytical tasks with a social network. We discuss characteristics of the user-generated layouts and interaction methods employed by users in this process. We then report on a web-based study to compare these layouts with the output of popular automatic layout algorithms. Our results demonstrate that the best of the user-generated layouts performed as well as or better than the physics-based layout. Orthogonal and circular automatic layouts were found to be considerably less effective than either the physics-based layout or the best of the user-generated layouts. We highlight several attributes of the various layouts that led to high accuracy and improved task completion time, as well as aspects in which traditional automatic layout methods were unsuccessful for our tasks.
Prevention of pressure ulcers after pediatric tracheotomy using a Mepilex Ag dressing

Skin irritation and ulceration beneath the tracheostomy tube or ties secondary to pressure and shearing forces on the skin frequently complicate pediatric tracheotomy in the immediate postoperative period. The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of Mepilex Ag dressings in reducing posttracheotomy wound complications.
ORAL ALBUTEROL DOSING DURING THE LATTER STAGES OF A RESISTANCE EXERCISE PROGRAM

Subjects performed isoload variable resistance exercise (REX) 3 days per week. After 10 weeks, they received a double-blind albuterol (n = 11) or placebo (n = 11) capsule assignment with no crossover and continued training. During the first week of capsule administration, dosages were increased from 4 mg to 16 mg daily and then maintained for 14 days. At weeks 0, 10, and 13, we measured upper arm and thigh cross-sectional area, knee and elbow extensor and flexor (KE, KF, EE, EF) strength at 3 angular velocities, and lean body mass. Data after 10 weeks showed insignificant between-group differences. From weeks 10–13, as subjects continued REX training, albuterol evoked higher (p < 0.05) KE-KF strength gains at multiple velocities versus placebo dosing. A higher lean body mass trend also occurred with albuterol from weeks 10–13. Results suggest that albuterol augments REX to provide greater strength gains from hypertrophic factors than an REX-placebo assignment.
Cannabinoid 2 receptor activation reduces leukocyte adhesion and improves capillary perfusion in the iridial microvasculature during systemic inflammation.

BACKGROUND Leukocyte adhesion to the endothelium and decreased microvascular blood flow causing microcirculatory dysfunction are hallmarks of systemic inflammation. We studied the impact of cannabinoid receptor activation on the iridial microcirculation, which is accessible non-invasively in vivo, in systemic inflammation induced by endotoxin challenge. METHODS 40 Lewis rats were used in the experiments. Endotoxemia was induced by 2 mg/kg i.v. lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Cannabinoid receptors (CBRs) were stimulated by i.v. administration of WIN 55212-2 (WIN; 1 mg/kg). CB1R antagonist (AM281; 2.5 mg/kg i.v.) or CB2R antagonist (AM630; 2.5 mg/kg i.v.) treatment prior to WIN was applied to identify the anti-inflammatory effects underlying each CBR subtype. Leukocyte-endothelial interactions were examined in rat iridial microvas culature by intravital microscopy at baseline and 1 and 2 h post-LPS. Additionally, systemic (mean arterial pressure, heart rate) and local (laser Doppler flow) hemodynamic variables were measured prior to and during cannabinoid treatments. RESULTS Endotoxemia resulted in severe inflammation as shown by significantly increased numbers of adherent leukocytes at 1 and 2 h observation time post-LPS challenge and decreased microcirculatory blood flow at 2 h within the iridial microcirculation. WIN treatment significantly reduced leukocyte adhesion in iridial microvessels with a diameter greater and less than 25 μm during endotoxemia (p < 0.05). Pre-treatment of animals by CB1R antagonist, AM281, did not affect WIN effects on LPS-induced leukocyte adhesion. When pre-treated with the CB2R antagonist, AM630, a reversal of the WIN-induced reduction in leukocyte adhesion was noticed in vessels with a diameter of less than 25 μm (p < 0.05). Cannabinoid treatment significantly increased the local iridial microcirculatory blood flow 2 hours after systemic LPS administration (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Systemic administration of the CBR agonist, WIN, decreased leukocyte-adhesion and improved iridial microvascular blood flow. This effect is most likely mediated by CB2R activation. Our findings indicate that the iris microvasculature can serve as a model to study the microcirculation during systemic inflammation and help to identify potential therapies to treat microcirculatory dysfunction in diseases such as sepsis.
State Policy and Classroom Performance: Mathematics Reform in California. CPRE Policy Briefs.

In the early 1990's many states tried to devise more robust and coherent instructional policies, in efforts to make teaching and learning more thoughtful and demanding. Policymakers and reformers pressed teachers to help students understand mathematical concepts, to interpret serious literature, to write creatively about their own ideas and experiences, and to converse thoughtfully about history and social science. But these efforts to reform instruction encountered skepticism about the link between policy and pedagogy. Skeptics ask if it is reasonable to expect state policies to steer teaching and learning sharply away from long-established conventional practice, noting that previous efforts to change practice on a large scale had failed. As instructional policy moved to the top of many state education agendas in the late 1990s, interest in the relations between policy and practice has grown. In this issue of CPRE Policy Briefs, we report encouraging findings from an important study that addresses these relationships. We use data from a 1994 survey of California elementary school teachers to probe the classroom effects of state efforts to reform mathematics teaching and learning in California. We report that policy changes did lead both to changed classroom practice and to improved student performance. In this brief, we develop a rudimentary model of the relationship between policy and practice. Student achievement is the ultimate dependent measure; teachers’ reported classroom practice in mathematics is an influence on achievement, but practice also is a measure of the effects of teachers’ learning opportunities about new math curriculum. We present results which show that teachers’ learning opportunities influenced their practice, and that both teachers’ learning opportunities and their practice influenced students’ mathematics achievement. The results suggest that teachers’ practice can change in ways that favorably influence student achievement, and that policy can play an important role in making those changes possible. We begin with a review of the California reform, briefly describe the research approach, and then discuss the major findings. Disciplines Curriculum and Instruction | Educational Methods | Education Policy | Elementary Education and Teaching | Science and Mathematics Education Comments View on the CPRE website. This policy brief is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/cpre_policybriefs/10
Identiﬁcation and Characterization of Clevudine-Resistant Mutants of Hepatitis B Virus Isolated from Chronic Hepatitis B Patients (cid:1)

Clevudine (CLV) is a nucleoside analog with potent antiviral activity against chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Viral resistance to CLV in patients receiving CLV therapy has not been reported. The aim of this study was to characterize CLV-resistant HBV in patients with viral breakthrough (BT) during long-term CLV therapy. The gene encoding HBV reverse transcriptase (RT) was analyzed from chronic hepatitis B patients with viral BT during CLV therapy. Sera collected from the patients at baseline and at the time of viral BT were studied. To characterize the mutations of HBV isolated from the patients, we subjected the HBV mutants to in vitro drug susceptibility assays. Several conserved mutations were identiﬁed in the RT domain during viral BT, with M204I being the most common. In vitro phenotypic analysis showed that the mutation M204I was predominantly associated with CLV resistance, whereas L229V was a compensatory mutation for the impaired replication of the M204I mutant. A quadruple mutant (L129M, V173L, M204I, and H337N) was identiﬁed that conferred greater replicative ability and strong resistance to both CLV and lamivudine. All of the CLV-resistant clones were lamivudine resistant. They were susceptible to adefovir, entecavir, and tenofovir, except for one mutant clone. In conclusion, the mutation M204I in HBV RT plays a major role in CLV resistance and leads to viral BT during long-term CLV treatment. Several conserved mutations may have a compensatory role in replication. Drug susceptibility assays reveal that adefovir and tenofovir are the most effective compounds against CLV-resistant mutants. These data may provide additional therapeutic options for CLV-resistant patients.
Evaluation of a Droplet Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction Format for DNA Copy Number Quantification

Droplet digital polymerase chain reaction (ddPCR) is a new technology that was recently commercialized to enable the precise quantification of target nucleic acids in a sample. ddPCR measures absolute quantities by counting nucleic acid molecules encapsulated in discrete, volumetrically defined, water-in-oil droplet partitions. This novel ddPCR format offers a simple workflow capable of generating highly stable partitioning of DNA molecules. In this study, we assessed key performance parameters of the ddPCR system. A linear ddPCR response to DNA concentration was obtained from 0.16% through to 99.6% saturation in a 20,000 droplet assay corresponding to more than 4 orders of magnitude of target DNA copy number per ddPCR. Analysis of simplex and duplex assays targeting two distinct loci in the Lambda DNA genome using the ddPCR platform agreed, within their expanded uncertainties, with values obtained using a lower density microfluidic chamber based digital PCR (cdPCR). A relative expanded uncertainty under 5% was achieved for copy number concentration using ddPCR. This level of uncertainty is much lower than values typically observed for quantification of specific DNA target sequences using currently commercially available real-time and digital cdPCR technologies.
ex Hormones as ovel Risk Biomarkers or Atherosclerosis in eripheral Vascular Disease *

therosclerosis respects no vascular territory, and its comlications can be acute and devastating, as exemplified by yocardial infarction, stroke, or sudden death. Peripheral rterial disease (PAD) is a harbinger of generalized atheroclerosis, and its relentless progression is associated with rofound disability, peripheral limb loss, and strong assocition with coronary and carotid diseases. Risk factors or iomarkers for atherosclerosis are useful for risk stratificaion, primary and secondary prevention, and to establish argets for treatment. Traditional risk biomarkers for athrosclerosis are well known, including smoking, hypertenion, diabetes, lipid abnormalities, and family history, mong others.
Brain-Mediated Dysregulation of the Bone Marrow Activity in Angiotensin II–Induced Hypertension

Oxidative stress in the brain is implicated in increased sympathetic drive, inflammatory status, and vascular dysfunctions, associated with development and establishment of hypertension. However, little is known about the mechanism of this impaired brain-vascular communication. Here, we tested the hypothesis that increased oxidative stress in the brain cardioregulatory areas, such as the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus, is driven by mitochondrial reactive oxygen species and leads to increased inflammatory cells (ICs) and decreased/dysfunctional endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), thereby compromising vasculature repair and accelerating hypertension. Chronic angiotensin II infusion resulted in elevated blood pressure and sympathetic vasomotor drive, decreased spontaneous baroreflex gain, and increased microglia activation in the paraventricular nucleus. This was associated with 46% decrease in bone marrow (BM)-derived EPCs and 250% increase in BM ICs, resulting in 5-fold decrease of EPC/IC ratio in the BM. Treatment with mitochondrial-targeted antioxidant, a scavenger of mitochondrial O2−·, intracerebroventricularly but not subcutaneously attenuated angiotensin II–induced hypertension, decreased activation of microglia in the paraventricular nucleus, and normalized EPCs/ICs. This functional communication between the brain and BM was confirmed by retrograde neuronal labeling from the BM with green fluorescent protein–tagged pseudorabies virus. Administration of green fluorescent protein–tagged pseudorabies virus into the BM resulted in predominant labeling of paraventricular nucleus neurons within 3 days, with some fluorescence in the nucleus tractus solitarius, the rostral ventrolateral medulla, and subfornical organ. Taken together, these data demonstrate that inhibition of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species attenuates angiotensin II–induced hypertension and corrects the imbalance in EPCs/ICs in the BM. They suggest that an imbalance in vascular reparative and ICs may perpetuate vascular pathophysiology in this model of hypertension.