Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Connecting Macroscopic Observables and Microscopic Assembly Events in Amyloid Formation Using Coarse Grained Simulations

The pre-fibrillar stages of amyloid formation have been implicated in cellular toxicity, but have proved to be challenging to study directly in experiments and simulations. Rational strategies to suppress the formation of toxic amyloid oligomers require a better understanding of the mechanisms by which they are generated. We report Dynamical Monte Carlo simulations that allow us to study the early stages of amyloid formation. We use a generic, coarse-grained model of an amyloidogenic peptide that has two internal states: the first one representing the soluble random coil structure and the second one the -sheet conformation. We find that this system exhibits a propensity towards fibrillar self-assembly following the formation of a critical nucleus. Our calculations establish connections between the early nucleation events and the kinetic information available in the later stages of the aggregation process that are commonly probed in experiments. We analyze the kinetic behaviour in our simulations within the framework of the theory of classical nucleated polymerisation, and are able to connect the structural events at the early stages in amyloid growth with the resulting macroscopic observables such as the effective nucleus size. Furthermore, the free-energy landscapes that emerge from these simulations allow us to identify pertinent properties of the monomeric state that could be targeted to suppress oligomer formation.
Histological, Histochemical, and Protein Changes after Induced Malocclusion by Occlusion Alteration of Wistar Rats

Although disorders of the stomatognathic system are common, the mechanisms involved are unknown. Our objective was to study the changes in the masseter muscles after unilateral exodontia. Molar extraction was performed on Wistar rats (left side), and the animals were sacrificed after either 14 or 26 days. The masseter muscle was processed for histological analysis, conventional and in situ zymography, and immunohistochemistry. The morphological analysis showed unique and specific characteristics for the experimental group. By conventional zymography no significant values of 72 kDa MMP-2 (P < 0.05) were found in both of the sides of masseter muscle after 14 and 26 days of unilateral extraction. The in situ zymography showed gelatinolytic activity on all deep masseter muscles, with significant increase on the contralateral side after 14 and 26 days (P < 0.05). The immunohistochemistry demonstrated greater expression of MMP-2 than MMP-9 and MMP-14 in all masseter muscles and there were few differences in the staining of 4 TIMPs. This knowledge about morphology and molecular masticatory muscle remodeling following environmental interventions can be used to develop clinically successful treatments.
Reputation, image, and impression management

Historical landmarks and further guidelines assumptions and issues personality, the self, social identity and social deviation group processes social networks, communication and influence impression management politics and reputation ethical and legal aspects corporate reputation - a general framework corporation reputation - empirical studies public relations and organizational behaviour brand image and consumer behaviour serial changes - an investigation methodology, quantification and research assessment - techniques and issues.
A genetic approach to the truck backer upper problem and the inter-twined spiral problem

The author describes a biologically motivated paradigm, genetic programming, which can solve a variety of problems. When genetic programming solves a problem, it produces a computer program that takes the state variables of the system as input and produces the actions required to solve the problem as output. Genetic programming is explained and applied to two well-known benchmark problems from the field of neural networks. The truck backer upper problem is a multidimensional control problem and the inter-twined spirals problem is a challenging classification problem. <<ETX>>
Japanese and English sentence reading comprehension and writing systems: An fMRI study of first and second language effects on brain activation*

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to compare brain activation from native Japanese (L1) readers reading hiragana (syllabic) and kanji (logographic) sentences, and English as a second language (L2). Kanji showed more activation than hiragana in right-hemisphere occipito-temporal lobe areas associated with visuospatial processing; hiragana, in turn, showed more activation than kanji in areas of the brain associated with phonological processing. L1 results underscore the difference in visuospatial and phonological processing demands between the systems. Reading in English as compared to either of the Japanese systems showed more activation in inferior frontal gyrus, medial frontal gyrus, and angular gyrus. The additional activation in English in these areas may have been associated with an increased cognitive demand for phonological processing and verbal working memory. More generally, L2 results suggest more effortful reading comprehension processes associated with phonological rehearsal. The study contributes to the understanding of differential brain responses to different writing systems and to reading comprehension in a second language.
An Evaluation of the Greiner Selective Analyzer and its Role in the Clinical Laboratory

The Greiner Selective Analyzer (GSA II) was evaluated over a period of six months. The evaluation assessed the reliability, accuracy, and precision of the analyser for six determinations. The methods evaluated were for glucose, urea, creatinine, total protein, total bilirubin, and alkaline phosphatase. Comparison of results was also made with those obtained for the same specimens using the Technicon SMA 12/60 Analyzer. Correlation and comparison of results indicate that the Greiner Selective Analyzer performed better for three of the methods but worse for serum creatinine determination. The role of the analyser as a routine tool in the clinical laboratory was also evaluated during analyses of approximately 900 patient specimens. Other features evaluated were analytical range of the six methods under study, the economics of operation, temperature control, and electrical and mechanical safety.
Adherence to first-line antiretroviral therapy affects non-virologic outcomes among patients on treatment for more than 12 months in Lusaka, Zambia

Background High-level adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is associated with favourable patient outcomes. In resource-constrained settings, however, there are few validated measures. We examined the correlation between clinical outcomes and the medication possession ratio (MPR), a pharmacy-based measure of adherence. Methods We analysed data from a large programmatic cohort across 18 primary care centres providing ART in Lusaka, Zambia. Patients were stratified into three categories based on MPR-calculated adherence over the first 12 months: optimal (≥95%), suboptimal (80–94%) and poor (<80%). Results Overall, 27 115 treatment-naïve adults initiated and continued ART for ≥12 months: 17 060 (62.9%) demonstrated optimal adherence, 7682 (28.3%) had suboptimal adherence and 2373 (8.8%) had poor adherence. When compared with those with optimal adherence, post-12-month mortality risk was similar among patients with sub-optimal adherence [adjusted hazard ratio (AHR) = 1.0; 95% CI: 0.9–1.2] but higher in patients with poor adherence (AHR = 1.7; 95% CI: 1.4–2.2). Those <80% MPR also appeared to have an attenuated CD4 response at 18 months (185 cells/µl vs 217 cells/µl; P < 0.001), 24 months (213 cells/µl vs 246 cells/µl; P < 0.001), 30 months (226 cells/µl vs 261 cells/µl; P < 0.001) and 36 months (245 cells/µl vs 275 cells/µl; P < 0.01) when compared with those above this threshold. Conclusions MPR was predictive of clinical outcomes and immunologic response in this large public sector antiretroviral treatment program. This marker may have a role in guiding programmatic monitoring and clinical care in resource-constrained settings.
The clinical characteristics of panic disorder in the elderly: a retrospective study.

BACKGROUND Community-based studies of the elderly have observed pathologic levels of anxiety to be common but find low rates of DSM-III-R anxiety disorders. Our clinical experience was that panic disorder may be more common than previously acknowledged. Our goals were to determine the prevalence, clinical characteristics, and possible factors that may facilitate a late-onset of panic disorder. METHOD The clinical records of 540 patients aged 60 years or more were reviewed. DSM-III-R panic disorder was identified in 51 subjects. Demographic information, current medical illness, and family history were extracted from their records. Rating scale measures of anxiety, depression, phobias, and cognition were available. For comparison, subjects were divided into an early group who experienced onset of panic disorder at age 59 years or earlier and a late group who experienced onset at age 60 years or later. RESULTS The overall prevalence of panic disorder was 9.4% and late-onset panic was 5.7%. The late-onset group experienced more shortness of breath (p = .05) during panic attacks and were more likely to have medical disorders like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, vertigo, and Parkinson's disease. The early-onset subjects were more socially phobic (p = .008) and more depressed. CONCLUSION Panic disorder can have onset in late life. Its phenomenology is similar in most respects to that described in young adults. Factors contributing to onset include stress, medical illness, and central nervous system disease.
Central nervous system involvement by Waldenström macroglobulinaemia (Bing‐Neel syndrome): a multi‐institutional retrospective study

Bing‐Neel syndrome (BNS) is a rare complication seen in patients with Waldenström macroglobulinaemia (WM), in which lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma cells colonize the central nervous system. In this retrospective multi‐centre study, we present the clinicopathological features, imaging findings, therapy, response and outcomes of 34 patients with BNS. The median time from WM diagnosis to BNS diagnosis was 3 years, 15% of patients were diagnosed with BNS at the time of WM diagnosis, and 22% of patients developed BNS when responding to active treatment for WM. Patients with BNS presented with variable clinical features including limb motor deficits, change in mental status and cranial nerve palsies. The diagnosis was made using a combination of cerebrospinal fluid cytology, flow cytometry and detection of the MYD88 L265 mutation, and magnetic resonance imaging. The estimated 3‐year overall survival rate was 59%. Of the survivors, 40% have evidence of pathological and/or radiological persistence of disease. Age older than 65 years, platelet count lower than 100 × 109/l, and treatment for WM prior to BNS diagnosis were associated with worse outcome. Exposure to rituximab for treatment of BNS was associated with a better outcome. Multi‐institutional collaboration is warranted to improve treatment and outcomes in patients with BNS.
Primary health care centres with asthma clinics: effects on patients knowledge and asthma control.

AIM To evaluate outcomes for patients attending primary care centres with and without asthma clinics. METHODS A cross-sectional survey at 42 primary health care centres randomly selected according to organisation of asthma care, 14 with complete, 14 with incomplete and 14 with no asthma clinic according to national criteria. 1,477 randomly selected patients 15-45 years received two questionnaires. Outcomes were: patients' knowledge of asthma; asthma control; and quality of life. RESULTS Patients attending primary health care centres with asthma clinics reported more knowledge of asthma but similar levels of asthma control and quality of life. Patients who reported they had visited the asthma nurse during the last year had more knowledge but similar asthma control and quality of life compared to patients who reported they had not. However, with more time allocated for the nurse, 44% achieved asthma control compared with 27% at asthma clinics with less time (p<0.003). CONCLUSIONS Having an asthma clinic at a primary health care centre improves asthma patients' knowledge of the disease, and better asthma control is achieved if the nurse is allocated more time.
Ultrathin Ni Silicides With Low Contact Resistance on Strained and Unstrained Silicon

Ultrathin Ni silicides were formed on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and biaxially tensile strained SOI (SSOI) substrates. The Ni layer thickness crucially determines the silicide phase formation: With a 3-nm Ni layer, high-quality epitaxial NiSi2 layers were grown at temperatures > 450°C, while NiSi was formed with a 5-nm-thick Ni layer. A very thin Pt interlayer, to incorporate Pt into NiSi, improves the thermal stability and the interface roughness and lowers the contact resistivity. The contact resistivity of epitaxial NiSi2 is about one order of magnitude lower than that of a NiSi layer on both As- and B-doped SOI and SSOI.
Observer-Based Non-PDC Control for Networked T–S Fuzzy Systems With an Event-Triggered Communication

This paper addresses the problem of an event-triggered non-parallel distribution compensation (PDC) control for networked Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy systems, under consideration of the limited data transmission bandwidth and the imperfect premise matching membership functions. First, a unified event-triggered T–S fuzzy model is provided, in which: 1) a fuzzy observer with the imperfect premise matching is constructed to estimate the unmeasurable states of the studied system; 2) a fuzzy controller is designed following the same premise as the observer; and 3) an output-based event-triggering transmission scheme is designed to economize the restricted network resources. Different from the traditional PDC method, the synchronous premise between the fuzzy observer and the T–S fuzzy system are no longer needed in this paper. Second, by use of Lyapunov theory, a stability criterion and a stabilization condition are obtained for ensuring asymptotically stable of the studied system. On account of the imperfect premise matching conditions are well considered in the derivation of the above criteria, less conservation can be expected to enhance the design flexibility. Compared with some existing emulation-based methods, the controller gains are no longer required to be known a priori. Finally, the availability of proposed non-PDC design scheme is illustrated by the backing-up control of a truck-trailer system.
CONSTRAINTS ON HOLOGRAPHIC DARK ENERGY MODELS USING THE DIFFERENTIAL AGES OF PASSIVELY EVOLVING GALAXIES

Using the absolute ages of passively evolving galaxies observed at different redshifts, one can obtain the differential ages, the derivative of redshift z with respect to the cosmic time t (i.e. dz/dt). Thus, the Hubble parameter H(z) can be measured through the relation H(z) = -(dz/dt)/(1+z). By comparing the measured Hubble parameter at different redshifts with the theoretical one containing free cosmological parameters, one can constrain current cosmological models. In this paper, we use this method to present the constraint on a spatially flat Friedman–Robert–Walker universe with a matter component and a holographic dark energy component, in which the parameter c plays a significant role in this dark energy model. Firstly we consider three fixed values of c = 0.6, 1.0 and 1.4 in the fitting of data. If we set c free, the best fitting values are c = 0.26, Ωm0 = 0.16, h = 0.9998. It is shown that the holographic dark energy behaves like a quintom-type at the 1σ level. This result is consistent with some.
Trastuzumab, paclitaxel, cisplatin, and radiation for adenocarcinoma of the esophagus: a phase I study.

PURPOSE To conduct a phase I study incorporating trastuzumab with paclitaxel, cisplatin, and radiation for adenocarcinoma of the esophagus. METHODS AND MATERIALS Patients with adenocarcinoma of the esophagus without distant organ metastases were eligible. All patients received cisplatin 25 mg/m2 and paclitaxel 50 mg/m2 weekly for 6 weeks with radiation 50.4 Gy. HER-2/neu-positive patients (2+/3+ by immunohistochemistry) received weekly trastuzumab at dose levels of 1, 1.5, or 2 mg/kg weekly for 5 weeks after an initial bolus of 2, 3, or 4 mg/kg, respectively. HER-2/neu-negative patients received the same chemoradiation without trastuzumab as a control for toxicity. Dose-limiting toxicities were defined as grade 3 esophageal, cardiac, or pulmonary toxicity. RESULTS Twelve of 36 screened patients (33%) overexpressed HER-2/neu by immunohistochemistry (seven 3+ and five 2+). Eight of 12 patients with HER-2/neu overexpression by IHC had an increase in the number of HER-2/neu genes, six from amplification of the HER-2/ neu gene and two were hypderdiploid for chromosome 17. Thirty patients were enrolled (12 HER-2/neu-positive and 18 HER-2/neu-negative controls). No increase in toxicity was seen with the addition of trastuzumab. One of 12 patients in the trastuzumab arm and 8 of 17 in the control arm had grade 3 esophagitis (p < or = .026). Mean left ventricular ejection fraction for the trastuzumab group was 57% before treatment and 56% after treatment. CONCLUSION HER-2/neu is overexpressed in approximately one-third of esophageal adenocarcinomas. Trastuzumab can be added at full dose to cisplatin, paclitaxel, and radiation. Future studies of trastuzumab in esophageal adenocarcinoma are indicated.
Swimming efficiency of bacterium Escherichia coli

We use measurements of swimming bacteria in an optical trap to determine fundamental properties of bacterial propulsion. In particular, we directly measure the force required to hold the bacterium in the optical trap and determine the propulsion matrix, which relates the translational and angular velocity of the flagellum to the torques and forces propelling the bacterium. From the propulsion matrix, dynamical properties such as torques, swimming speed, and power can be obtained by measuring the angular velocity of the motor. We find significant heterogeneities among different individuals even though all bacteria started from a single colony. The propulsive efficiency, defined as the ratio of the propulsive power output to the rotary power input provided by the motors, is found to be ≈2%, which is consistent with the efficiency predicted theoretically for a rigid helical coil.
Crying as a multifaceted health psychology conceptualisation: crying as coping, risk factor, and symptom

We summarize popular and pre-scientific conceptions of the relationship between crying, well-being, and health, and we review the scientific literature on this topic. It appears that crying can be conceived in three distinct ways: (1) crying as coping; (2) (non)crying as a risk factor for the development of disease; and (3) crying as a sign of distress and a symptom of disease. First, the focus is on whether crying brings relief and facilitates emotional recovery after stressor exposure. Next, we discuss the evidence addressing whether crying or its chronic inhibition is associated with increased risk of developing health problems. Finally, we address crying as a sign or symptom of distress, pain or disease. It is concluded that the question regarding whether crying serves a coping function and brings relief has yielded seemingly contrasting findings, dependent on the design of the study. Concerning the second and third issues, there is a lack of sound studies. We present evidence for a relationship between neurological disorders and crying. The relationship between crying and psychiatric disorders such as depression is less clear. There is also mainly anecdotal evidence of increased crying in a wide variety of health problems, which may reflect symptoms of disease, co-morbid depression, adjustment problems, or side effects of treatment. Furthermore, some recent studies suggest a positive effect of crying on health status in certain patient groups. More systematic and welldesigned studies are needed to clarify the relationship between crying and health.
Quantitative Analysis of Human-Model Agreement in Visual Saliency Modeling: A Comparative Study

Visual attention is a process that enables biological and machine vision systems to select the most relevant regions from a scene. Relevance is determined by two components: 1) top-down factors driven by task and 2) bottom-up factors that highlight image regions that are different from their surroundings. The latter are often referred to as “visual saliency. ” Modeling bottom-up visual saliency has been the subject of numerous research efforts during the past 20 years, with many successful applications in computer vision and robotics. Available models have been tested with different datasets (e.g., synthetic psychological search arrays, natural images or videos) using different evaluation scores (e.g., search slopes, comparison to human eye tracking) and parameter settings. This has made direct comparison of models difficult. Here, we perform an exhaustive comparison of 35 state-of-the-art saliency models over 54 challenging synthetic patterns, three natural image datasets, and two video datasets, using three evaluation scores. We find that although model rankings vary, some models consistently perform better. Analysis of datasets reveals that existing datasets are highly center-biased, which influences some of the evaluation scores. Computational complexity analysis shows that some models are very fast, yet yield competitive eye movement prediction accuracy. Different models often have common easy/difficult stimuli. Furthermore, several concerns in visual saliency modeling, eye movement datasets, and evaluation scores are discussed and insights for future work are provided. Our study allows one to assess the state-of-the-art, helps to organizing this rapidly growing field, and sets a unified comparison framework for gauging future efforts, similar to the PASCAL VOC challenge in the object recognition and detection domains.
Personal experience and perception of abuse in people with intellectual disabilities

This article presents a qualitative study designed to gain insight into personal experience and perception of abuse in people with intellectual disabilities. Ten members of the organization for people with intellectual disabilities in Zadar, Croatia, who have a diagnosis of light or moderate intellectual disability, were included in the research. Analysis of responses showed that most participants had experienced psychological, physical and financial abuse. The most frequent perpetrators of abuse were identified by participants as friends, acquaintances and volunteer carers. Typical sites for the experience of abuse were school, social clubs/support institutions, the street and the urban environment. Most participants seek assistance and support in cases of abuse through discussion with their loved ones, mostly their parents and friends. In addition to such informal relationships, some participants mentioned the importance of formal forms of support.