Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Early cannabis use and its relation to the development of psychiatric disorders: a review

Background. Cannabis is the most widely used illegal drug in the world. Both an early cannabis use onset and the amount used contribute to the risk of suffering mental disorders in adulthood. Objective. Review longitudinal studies conducted on adolescents associating early cannabis use with the subsequent occurrence of mental disorders. Method. A search was conducted in PubMed until December 2016, focusing on longitudinal researches and prioritizing studies that clearly distinguished between an early and late onset of cannabis use. To achieve the objective, the word “cannabis” was used in combination with the main psychiatric diseases. A manual search of articles that appeared in the references was also conducted. Results. Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria, but only five studies discriminated clearly between early and late onset of cannabis use. An association was found between early onset of cannabis use and mental disorders, particularly psychosis. The information regarding affective and anxiety disorders is more controversial. Discussion and conclusion. Early onset of cannabis use is associated with mental disorders, especially psychosis. Prevention plans for cannabis use in adolescents should be developed in order to decrease the risk of mental disorders.
Recursive Partitioning Analysis of Mediastinal N2 Lymph Node Involvement with Selected Biological Markers in Operable Non-small Cell Lung Cancer: A Correlative Study

Background Expressions of various biomarkers in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been linked with the prognosis and involvement of mediastinal lymph nodes. Methods In this study, we utilized recursive partitioning analysis (RPA) by using P53, c-erb-B2, and P-glycoprotein (PGP) expressions evaluated by immunohistochemistry to estimate retrospectively the likelihood of the occult N2 mediastinal lymph node involvement in patients with operable NSCLC. Results In univariate tests, immunohistochemical staining of the primary tumor for these 3 markers in 61 patients undergoing surgery revealed no direct relationship with the N2 involvement. However, RPA demonstrated in patients aged <75 and with ≥4 mediastinal lymph nodes removed that, high PGP expression frequency (≥20%) predicted an increased likelihood of the N2 involvement (46.7%, R2 = 0.25). Univariate nominal logistic regression analysis revealed that RPA group affiliation, and the number of mediastinal lymph nodes resected (logarithmic transformation) were associated with the metastasis to N2 lymph nodes (χ2 = 17.59, p = 0.0005, and χ2 = 2.40, p = 0.0654, respectively). Multivariate analysis confirmed that only RPA group affiliation predicted the N2 involvement (χ2 = 14.63, p = 0.0022). Conclusion This study shows for the first time that PGP expression of the primary tumor may help to predict the occult N2 mediastinal lymph node involvement in NSCLC. Thus, further research is required to understand whether PGP expression may aid in the decision process for preoperative mediastinoscopy.
The multiple hats of Vasa: Its functions in the germline and in cell cycle progression

Vasa, an ATP‐dependent RNA helicase, is broadly conserved among various organisms from cnidarians to mammals. It has a rich history of utility as a germline marker, and is believed to function as a positive translational regulator in the determination and maintenance of germline cells. Studies in non‐model organisms, however, revealed that Vasa is also present in somatic cells of many tissues. In many cases these cells are multipotent, are non‐germline associated, and give rise to a variety of different tissue types. Recent work now also demonstrates that Vasa functions in the regulation of the cell cycle. Here, we discuss this newly described function of Vasa in mitotic and meiotic cell cycles, and we address the conundrum created within these observations, that is, that most cells are mitotically independent of Vasa, yet when Vasa is present in a cell, it appears to be essential for cell cycle progression. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 78:861–867, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall: Avalanches, depinning transition, and the Barkhausen effect

We study the dynamics of a ferromagnetic domain wall driven by an external magnetic field through a disordered medium. The avalanchelike motion of the domain walls between pinned configurations produces a noise known as the Barkhausen effect. We discuss experimental results on soft ferromagnetic materials, with reference to the domain structure and the sample geometry, and report Barkhausen noise measurements on Fe21Co64B15 amorphous alloy. We construct an equation of motion for a flexible domain wall, which displays a depinning transition as the field is increased. The long-range dipolar interactions are shown to set the upper critical dimension to dc53, which implies that mean-field exponents~with possible logarithmic correction! are expected to describe the Barkhausen effect. We introduce a mean-field infinite-range model and show that it is equivalent to a previously introduced single-degree-of-freedom model, known to reproduce several experimental results. We numerically simulate the equation in d53, confirming the theoretical predictions. We compute the avalanche distributions as a function of the field driving rate and the intensity of the demagnetizing field. The scaling exponents change linearly with the driving rate, while the cutoff of the distribution is determined by the demagnetizing field, in remarkable agreement with experiments. @S0163-1829~98! 08833-X#
Genetic Structure of Pelagic and Littoral Cichlid Fishes from Lake Victoria

The approximately 700 species of cichlids found in Lake Victoria in East Africa are thought to have evolved over a short period of time, and they represent one of the largest known examples of adaptive radiation. To understand the processes that are driving this spectacular radiation, we must determine the present genetic structure of these species and elucidate how this structure relates to the ecological conditions that caused their adaptation. We analyzed the genetic structure of two pelagic and seven littoral species sampled from the southeast area of Lake Victoria using sequences from the mtDNA control region and 12 microsatellite loci as markers. Using a Bayesian model-based clustering method to analyze the microsatellite data, we separated these nine species into four groups: one group composed of pelagic species and another three groups composed mainly of rocky-shore species. Furthermore, we found significant levels of genetic variation between species within each group at both marker loci using analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA), although the nine species often shared mtDNA haplotypes. We also found significant levels of genetic variation between populations within species. These results suggest that initial groupings, some of which appear to have been related to habitat differences, as well as divergence between species within groups took place among the cichlid species of Lake Victoria.
Effects of prenatal cocaine exposure and postnatal environment on child development

Studies on the long‐term developmental effects of in utero cocaine exposure are few and the small number of studies published do not consider the postnatal environment. The present investigation was conducted to quantify the role that postnatal environment played compared to prenatal exposure. Four groups of 25 infants, each assessed at 12 months of age, were included in the study design: 1) noncocaine‐exposed children residing with their biological parents in low socioeconomic environments, 2) cocaine‐exposed children living with their biological parents in low socioeconomic environments, 3) noncocaine‐exposed children adopted at birth in middle to upper‐middle socioeconomic environments, and 4) cocaine‐exposed children adopted at birth. Infants were assessed by the Uzgiris‐Hunt Ordinal Scales of Infant Psychological Development, the Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence, and the Infant Monitoring Questionnaire. Height and head circumference were measured. Gender and ethnicity were controlled statistically. Significant differences were found in cognitive functioning, in fine motor development, and in physical growth between control and prenatally cocaine‐exposed children. Adoption enhanced cognitive functioning and fine motor skills among infants not exposed to cocaine prenatally, but had no apparent effect on infants prenatally exposed to cocaine. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 12:417–428, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Fulfilling the promise of Mendelian randomization

Many important questions in medicine involve questions about causality, For example, do low levels of high-density lipoproteins (HDL) cause heart disease? Does high body mass index (BMI) cause type 2 diabetes? Or are these traits simply correlated in the population for other reasons? A popular approach to answering these problems using human genetics is called "Mendelian randomization". We discuss the prospects and limitations of this approach, and some ways forward.
Knockdown of cullin 4A inhibits growth and increases chemosensitivity in lung cancer cells

Cullin 4A (Cul4A) has been observed to be overexpressed in various cancers. In this study, the role of Cul4A in the growth and chemosensitivity in lung cancer cells were studied. We showed that Cul4A is overexpressed in lung cancer cells and tissues. Knockdown of the Cul4A expression by shRNA in lung cancer cells resulted in decreased cellular proliferation and growth in lung cancer cells. Increased sensitivity to gemcitabine, a chemotherapy drug, was also noted in those Cul4A knockdown lung cancer cells. Moreover, increased expression of p21, transforming growth factor (TGF)‐β inducible early gene‐1 (TIEG1) and TGF beta‐induced (TGFBI) was observed in lung cancer cells after Cul4A knockdown, which may be partially related to increased chemosensitivity to gemcitabine. G0/G1 cell cycle arrest was also noted after Cul4A knockdown. Notably, decreased tumour growth and increased chemosensitivity to gemcitabine were also noted after Cul4A knockdown in lung cancer xenograft nude mice models. In summary, our study showed that targeting Cul4A with RNAi or other techniques may provide a possible insight to the development of lung cancer therapy in the future.
Effects of noise and working memory capacity on memory processing of speech for hearing-aid users

Abstract Objectives: It has been shown that noise reduction algorithms can reduce the negative effects of noise on memory processing in persons with normal hearing. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether a similar effect can be obtained for persons with hearing impairment and whether such an effect is dependent on individual differences in working memory capacity. Design: A sentence-final word identification and recall (SWIR) test was conducted in two noise backgrounds with and without noise reduction as well as in quiet. Working memory capacity was measured using a reading span (RS) test. Study sample: Twenty-six experienced hearing-aid users with moderate to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss. Results: Noise impaired recall performance. Competing speech disrupted memory performance more than speech-shaped noise. For late list items the disruptive effect of the competing speech background was virtually cancelled out by noise reduction for persons with high working memory capacity. Conclusions: Noise reduction can reduce the adverse effect of noise on memory for speech for persons with good working memory capacity. We argue that the mechanism behind this is faster word identification that enhances encoding into working memory.
Plasma miR-17-5p, miR-20a and miR-22 are down-regulated in women with endometriosis.

STUDY QUESTION Can plasma microRNAs be used as a non-invasive diagnostic test for the detection of endometriosis? SUMMARY ANSWER Plasma miR-17-5p, miR-20a and miR-22 are down-regulated in women with endometriosis compared with those without endometriosis in mainland China. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY There is currently a pressing need to develop a non-invasive diagnostic test for endometriosis. Altered circulating microRNA profiles have already been linked to various disease states. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, AND DURATION This was a prospective laboratory study in a tertiary-referral university hospital in Beijing, PR China, between January 2012 and May 2012. Twenty-three women with histologically proven endometriosis and 23 endometriosis-free controls were enrolled in this study. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, AND METHODS Laparoscopic inspection of the abdominopelvic cavity was performed for each patient, and peripheral blood samples were collected before laparoscopy. Microarray-based microRNA expression profiling was used to identify differentially expressed microRNAs in plasma samples between women with and without endometriosis, and quantification of selected microRNAs was performed using quantitative RT-PCR. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE Twenty-seven microRNAs were differentially expressed between women with and without endometriosis, of which six microRNAs (miR-15b-5p, miR-17-5p, miR-20a, miR-21, miR-22 and miR-26a) were selected for validation. MiR-17-5p, miR-20a and miR-22 were significantly down-regulated in women with endometriosis compared with controls (P = 0.011, 0.0020 and 0.0002, respectively), yielding an area under the receiver operator characteristics curve of 0.74 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.58-0.90], 0.79 (95% CI: 0.65-0.93) and 0.85 (95% CI: 0.71-0.98) in discriminating endometriosis from controls, respectively. LIMITATIONS AND REASONS FOR CAUTION Our sample size was small and all cases were rAFS stage III-IV, which may limit generalization of plasma microRNAs for early diagnosis of endometriosis. Moreover, only six microRNAs were selected for validation. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS Plasma microRNAs provide a promising opportunity for detection of endometriosis.
Student movements in the age of austerity. The cases of Chile and England

Abstract Several recent episodes of massive student protests in countries in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, raise the question of whether we are witnessing to a new surge of student protests. This profile offers an interpretation of the socio-economic and political processes that have caused contentious reactions among students, paying special attention to changes in the major characteristics of the higher education sector. In last decades, governments of all colors have enacted laws promoting the outsourcing of personnel, the managerialization of governing bodies, and the introduction of tuition fees as well as cuts to public funding. These changes are inspired by a new paradigm, which promotes the ‘discipline of the market place, the power of the consumer and the engine of the competition. ’ In this context, various forms of resistance and opposition can be observed. Here, we focus on three dimensions: (1) financing and autonomy of universities; (2) governance and managerialization; (3) precarization of labor conditions. The profile shows how recent protests in Chile and England are related to changes in the afore-mentioned dimensions. We conclude that the reappearance of students as political actors is related to the emergence of a range of distributional conflicts stemming from the implementation of the neoliberal agenda in the field of higher education.
Fast and high-quality bilateral filtering using Gauss-Chebyshev approximation

The bilateral filter is an edge-preserving smoother that has diverse applications in image processing, computer vision, computer graphics, and computational photography. The filter uses a spatial kernel along with a range kernel to perform edge-preserving smoothing. In this paper, we consider the Gaussian bilateral filter where both the kernels are Gaussian. A direct implementation of the Gaussian bilateral filter requires O(σs2) operations per pixel, where σs is the standard deviation of the spatial Gaussian. In fact, it is well-known that the direct implementation is slow in practice. We present an approximation of the Gaussian bilateral filter, whereby we can cut down the number of operations to O(1) per pixel for any arbitrary σs, and yet achieve very high-quality filtering that is almost indistinguishable from the output of the original filter. We demonstrate that the proposed approximation is few orders faster in practice compared to the direct implementation. We also demonstrate that the approximation is competitive with existing fast algorithms in terms of speed and accuracy.
Detecting credit card fraud by decision trees and support vector machines

Duman, Ekrem (Dogus Author) -- Conference full title: International MultiConference of Engineers and Computer Scientists: IMECS 2011: 16-18 March, 2011, the Royal Garden Hotel, Kowloon, Hong Kong -- Series: Lecture notes in engineering and computer science, v. 2188-2189.
Malariometric Indices among Nigerian Children in a Rural Setting

Malaria contributes to high childhood morbidity and mortality in Nigeria. To determine its endemicity in a rural farming community in the south-south of Nigeria, the following malariometric indices, namely, malaria parasitaemia, spleen rates, and anaemia were evaluated in children aged 2–10 years. This was a descriptive cross-sectional survey among school-age children residing in a rubber plantation settlement. The children were selected from six primary schools using a multistaged stratified cluster sampling technique. They were all examined for pallor, enlarged spleen, or liver among other clinical parameters and had blood films for malaria parasites. Of the 461 children recruited, 329 (71.4%) had malaria parasites. The prevalence of malaria parasitaemia was slightly higher in the under fives than that of those ≥5 years, 76.2% and 70.3%, respectively. Splenic enlargement was present in 133 children (28.9%). The overall prevalence of anaemia was 35.7%. Anaemia was more common in the under-fives (48.8%) than in those ≥5 years (32.8%). The odds of anaemia in the under fives were significantly higher than the odds of those ≥5 years (OR = 1.95 [1.19–3.18]). Malaria is highly endemic in this farming community and calls for intensification of control interventions in the area with special attention to school-age children.
Robust Short-Latency Perisomatic Inhibition onto Neocortical Pyramidal Cells Detected by Laser-Scanning Photostimulation

Inhibitory connectivity onto neocortical pyramidal cells was mapped using LSPS (laser-scanning photostimulation/glutamate uncaging). The average onset latency of IPSCs was shorter than that of EPSCs recorded in the same cells, indicating a specific mechanism for rapid network recruitment of inhibition. The majority of strong inhibitory synaptic inputs originated within 300 μm of the recorded cell's soma, had onset latencies between 4 and 10 ms, and high amplitude [short-latency IPSCs (slIPSCs)]. slIPSCs were GABAA receptor- mediated chloride currents that were evoked in an all-or-none manner. We tested whether slIPSCs resulted from somatic depolarization of presynaptic interneurons or from direct excitation of inhibitory presynaptic terminals via kainate receptors. Our evidence supports the former hypothesis: (1) slIPSCs had similar sensitivity to kainate and AMPA receptor blockers as electrically evoked EPSCs. (2) slIPSCs frequently had an notched rising phase suggestive of summated IPSCs resulting from repetitive firing of presynaptic neurons. (3) Latencies and interevent intervals were consistent with spike latencies and interspike intervals in fast-spiking (FS) interneurons. (4) slIPSCs were frequently evoked at spots where the recorded cell was also excited directly, but ∼15% of spots from which slIPSCs were evoked did not overlap with the recorded neuron's cell body. We propose that slIPSCs from FS interneurons represent a pool of powerful inhibitory signals that can be recruited by local excitation. Because of their magnitude, progressive recruitment, and short latency, slIPSCs are a effective mechanism of regulating excitability in neocortical circuits.
Unsupervised Learning of Word Boundary with Description Length Gain

This paper presents an unsupervised approach to lexical acquisition with the goodness measure description length gain (DLG) formulated following classic information theory within the minimum description length (MDL) paradigm. The learning algorithm seeks for an optimal segmentation of an utterance that maximises the description length gain from the individual segments. The resultant segments show a nice correspondence to lexical items (in particular, words) in a natural language like English. Learning experiments on large-scale corpora (e.g., the Brown corpus) have shown the e(cid:11)ectiveness of both the learning algorithm and the goodness measure that guides that learning.
Quantum circuits with mixed states

We define the model of quantum circuits with density matrices, where non-unitary gates are allowed. Measurements in the middle of the computation, noise and decoherence are implemented in a natural way in this model, which is shown to be equivalent in computational power to standard quantum circuits. The main result in this paper is a solution for the subroutine problem: The general function that a quantum circuit outputs is a probabilistic function, but using pure state language, such a function can not be used as a black box in other computations. We give a natural definition of using general subroutines, and analyze their computational power. We suggest convenient metrics for quantum computing with mixed states. For density matrices we analyze the so called ``trace metric'', and using this metric, we define and discuss the ``diamond metric'' on superoperators. These metrics enable a formal discussion of errors in the computation. Using a ``causality'' lemma for density matrices, we also prove a simple lower bound for probabilistic functions.
The short IPIP-BFM-20 questionnaire for measuring the Big Five

The most frequently used measures of personality consist of a large number of items. However, it is their short versions that have enjoyed popularity in recent years. This article is a presentation of the short form of Goldberg’s questionnaire for measuring the Big Five personality traits. The questionnaire measures five traits (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Intellect), and consists of 20 items. It is a shortened version of the 50-item Big Five Markers questionnaire from the resources of the International Personality Item Pool, whose Polish version was prepared by Strus, Cieciuch, and Rowinski (2014b). In constructing the short version, we followed the procedure developed by Donnellan and colleagues (2006), aimed at maximizing the internal consistency and independence of scales. The research was carried out on a group of N = 903 people aged between 16 and 83 years. The validity (verified in confirmatory factor analysis and in the analysis of correlations between the questionnaire’s scales and other measures of the five personality traits) and reliability (measured by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient) are satisfactory and make the questionnaire fit for use in scientific research.