Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Duplications in CYC‐like Genes from Dipsacales Correlate with Floral Form

Flower symmetry is of special interest in understanding the evolution and ecology of angiosperms. Evidence from the Antirrhineae (within the lamiid clade of Asteridae) indicates that several TCP gene family transcription factors, especially CYCLOIDEA (CYC), play a role in specifying dorsal identity in the corolla and androecium of monosymmetric (bilateral) flowers. We examine the evolution of this gene family in Dipsacales, representing the campanulid clade of Asteridae, in relation to evolutionary shifts in floral symmetry and stamen abortion. We identify three major forms of CYC‐like genes in Dipsacales. We identify the position of additional gene duplications by comparing each of the three gene trees to a well‐supported Dipsacales phylogeny. We infer duplications in two of the major gene lineages along the line leading to the Caprifoliaceae correlated with the origin of monosymmetric flowers. There are no duplications or losses associated with major shifts in stamen number. However, there are several additional duplications within the Caprifoliaceae, especially in the Morinaceae, possibly related to calyx monosymmetry and/or stamen reduction. Within the protein‐coding sequences, we identify a new conserved region—the ECE region—that appears to be present across known angiosperm sequences. There are major changes in length and in the presence or absence of the ECE region in the Dipsacales, indicating changes in gene function. These studies expand our understanding of the evolution of CYC‐like genes in angiosperms and provide a new system for studying the role of this gene family in determining floral form.
Topical Imiquimod Treatment for Nodular Basal Cell Carcinomas: An Open‐Label Series

BACKGROUND Imiquimod has been used for basal cell carcinomas (BCCs). This is the first open-label series using imiquimod for nodular BCC with Mohs surgery resection for confirmation of treatment. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy of topical imiquimod in patients with biopsy-proven nodular BCC. RESULTS After 12 weeks for three times a week application, treatment sites at week 15 were surgically excised using Mohs micrographic surgery. All 15 treatment subjects were clear of BCC. At the 18-month follow-up, no patients had recurrent tumor. CONCLUSION Imiquimod 5% cream may be another treatment modality for nodular BCC.
Gratifications from using freemium music streaming services: Differences between basic and premium users

Online music streaming services have become popular in listening to music. Most online music streaming services employ the freemium business model. The specific gratifications from online music streaming are not well understood. Moreover, research examining the freemium model from a user experience perspective remains scant. We employ uses and gratifications theory and examine four gratifications, namely ubiquity, social connectivity, discovering new music, and enjoyment, as the predictors of continuance intention. We examine the differences in these gratifications between the basic and premium users with data from 374 Spotify users. The results demonstrate that enjoyment, discovering new music, and ubiquity, are the main drivers of the continuance intention. Interestingly, social connectivity has no effect on continuance intention. Furthermore, premium users experience higher levels of enjoyment and ubiquity than the non-paying basic users. Finally, enjoyment is the only predictor of continuance intention among basic users, but has no effect among premium users.
Electrophysiological correlates of oxytocin-induced enhancement of social performance monitoring

Abstract Altered performance monitoring has been demonstrated after administration of different pharmacological compounds and in various clinical populations, such as excessive neurophysiological responses to mistakes in anxiety disorders. Here, a novel social pharmacological approach was applied to investigate whether oxytocin administration (24 IU) enhances performance monitoring for errors that have negative consequences for another individual, so-called social mistakes. Healthy male volunteers (N = 24) participated in a placebo-controlled crossover design. EEG measures were obtained while pairs of participants performed a speeded choice reaction-time task in an individual and social context. Following oxytocin administration, error-related negativity amplitudes were increased for social compared with individual mistakes. This increase was not found in the placebo condition. No effects of oxytocin were present in the individual context. The current study shows that oxytocin enhances performance monitoring specifically for social mistakes. This outcome is in line with a presumed role for oxytocin in salience attribution to social cues and underlines its context-dependency. Combining these processes may thus open up new research avenues and advance our understanding of individual differences in performance monitoring and oxytocin responses from a social neurocognitive, pharmacological and clinical perspective.
Clinical and Pathologic Features of Breast Cancers in Women Treated for Hodgkin's Disease: A Case‐Control Study

Abstract: The goal of this study was to assess whether there are clinical or pathologic differences between radiation‐associated breast cancers developing after treatment for Hodgkin's disease and spontaneously arising breast cancers. Clinical and pathologic data were reviewed for 26 Hodgkin's disease patients who received irradiation and subsequently developed breast cancer (cases) and 26 age‐ and stage‐matched patients with sporadic breast cancers (controls). The median age at diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease was 21 years (range 11–40 years), and the median interval between Hodgkin's disease and breast cancer diagnosis was 15 years (range 4–27 years). There were no differences between cases and controls with regard to clinical factors. Cases had a lower frequency of histologic grade III tumors (38% versus 65%, p = 0.09) and moderate to marked mononuclear inflammatory cell reaction (11% versus 35%, p = 0.03). When these covariates were combined, grade III tumors in conjunction with mononuclear inflammatory cell reaction were also seen less frequently in the case group than in the control group (11% versus 31%, p = 0.06). Seven cases developed additional cancers, but no additional cancers developed in the control group (p = 0.01). Patients who developed breast cancers after Hodgkin's disease did not differ from patients with spontaneous breast cancers, with regard to clinical factors. However, the lower frequency of high‐grade tumors and moderate to marked mononuclear inflammatory cell reaction among the cases suggests that radiation‐associated breast cancers may differ from spontaneously arising cancers in their pathogenesis. Cases appeared to be at increased risk of developing additional cancers, but we cannot exclude surveillance as a possible contributing factor.
Genome Size of Cyanobacteria

Summary: The genome sizes of 128 strains of cyanobacteria, representative of all major taxonomic groups, lie in the range 1.6 × 109 to 8.6 × 109 daltons. The majority of unicellular cyanobacteria contain genomes of 1.6 × 109 to 2.7 × 109 daltons, comparable in size to those of other bacteria, whereas most pleurocapsalean and filamentous strains possess larger genomes. The genome sizes are discontinuously distributed into four distinct groups which have means of 2.2 × 109, 3.6 × 109, 5.0 × 109 and 7.4 × 109 daltons. The data suggest that genome evolution in cyanobacteria occurred by a series of duplications of a small ancestral genome, and that the complex morphological organization characteristic of many cyanobacteria may have arisen as a result of this process.
Dissociable Neural Responses Related to Pain Intensity, Stimulus Intensity, and Stimulus Awareness within the Anterior Cingulate Cortex: A Parametric Single-Trial Laser Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Neuroimaging studies have demonstrated activations in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) related to the affective component of pain, but not to stimulus intensity. However, it is possible that the low spatial resolution of positron emission tomography, as used in the majority of these studies, obscured areas coding stimulus intensity. We revisited this issue, using a parametric single-trial functional magnetic resonance imaging design, and investigated pain, stimulus intensity, and stimulus awareness (i.e., pain unrelated) responses within the ACC in nine healthy volunteers. Four different stimulus intensities ranging from warm to painful (300–600 mJ) were applied with a thulium yttrium–aluminum granate infrared laser in a randomized order and rated by the subjects on a five point scale (P0–P4). Pain-related regions in the ventral posterior ACC showed a response that did not distinguish between innocuous trials (P0 and P1) but showed a positive linear relationship with the blood oxygenation level-dependent contrast signal for painful trials (P2–P4). Regions in the dorsal anterior ACC along the cingulate sulcus differentiated between P0 (not perceived) and P1 but exhibited no additional signal increase with P2; these regions are related to stimulus awareness and probably to cognitive processing. Most importantly, we identified a region in the dorsal posterior ACC showing a response that discriminated between nonpainful trials (P0 and P1); therefor, this region was simply related to basic sensory processing and not to pain intensity. Stimulus-related activations were all located adjacent to the cingulate motor area, highlighting the strategic link of stimulus processing and response generation in the posterior ACC.
Family aggregation of high myopia: estimation of the sibling recurrence risk ratio.

PURPOSE To estimate the sibling recurrence risk (KS) and the sibling recurrence risk ratio (lambda(S)) for high myopia in a cohort in the United Kingdom. METHOD The recurrence risks for myopia and high myopia were estimated in the siblings of 296 randomly selected high myopes ascertained from an optometric practice population. A model using an age of onset of spectacle wear for myopia of 9.1 +/- 0.7 years or younger was developed as a surrogate for high myopia. The influence of parental myopia on the sibling recurrence risk for high myopia was also evaluated. RESULTS KS was estimated (95% confidence limits) to be 10.0% (5.9, 14.8) and lambdaS to be 4.9 (2.8, 7.6). High myopes without myopic parents were surprisingly common ( approximately 40%) and were less likely to have highly myopic siblings (KS approximately 6%) than those with at least one myopic parent (KS approximately 14%). CONCLUSIONS The sibling recurrence risk ratio reported herein (lambdaS approximately 4.9) implies that the high penetrance autosomal dominant loci for high myopia identified to date account for only a minority of cases of high myopia in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, high-penetrance autosomal dominant inheritance or even high-penetrance recessive inheritance, per se, cannot account for most cases of high myopia. Instead, it may be necessary to consider high myopia as a "complex disease" resulting from the influence of either alleles of reduced penetrance ("susceptibility genes"), environmental factors, or both.
Reattachment of the Tuberosities With Cable Wires and Bone Graft in Hemiarthroplasties Done for Proximal Humeral Fractures With Cable Wire and Bone Graft: 58 Patients With a 22-Month Minimum Follow-up

Objective: The stability of 2 fixation techniques for the tuberosities in patients with 3- or 4-part proximal humerus fractures treated with hemiarthroplasties was compared. Design: Retrospective review of a nonrandomized sequential series of patients. Setting: Level I university orthopaedic surgery department. Patients: A consecutive series of 58 patients (average age, 64 years) from 1990 to 1999 with 3- and 4-part fractures of the proximal humerus. Intervention: In group 1, 31 patients were treated with either a Neer or Aequalis shoulder prosthesis using nonabsorbable sutures and no bone graft for the reattachment of the tuberosities. In group 2, 27 patients were treated with either an Aequalis or Epoca shoulder prosthesis and a combination of cable fixation and bone grafting. Main Outcome Measurements: At follow-up (average, 32 months), radiographs were taken to confirm tuberosity fixation or degree of displacement or resorption. Functional outcome was assessed by the Constant-Murley Score. Results: Significantly more dislocated tuberosities were found radiographically in group 1 (10 of 13 in total, P = 0.011), and significantly more tuberosities were resorbed in group 1 (9 of 12 in total, P = 0.012). Significant differences in functional results among healed versus failed tuberosity fixation were observed for activity of daily living (P = 0.05), range of motion (P = 0.002), strength (P = 0.01), the total score (P = 0.008), and the passive rotation amplitude (P = 0.04). Conclusion: In hemiarthroplasties for proximal humeral fractures, the reattachment of the tuberosities with cable wire and bone grafting gives consistently better radiographic and functional results than with suture fixation alone.
Factor descent optimization for sparsification in graph SLAM

In the context of graph-based simultaneous localization and mapping, node pruning consists in removing a subset of nodes from the graph, while keeping the graph's information content as close as possible to the original. One often tackles this problem locally by isolating the Markov blanket sub-graph of a node, marginalizing this node and sparsifying the dense result. It means computing an approximation with a new set of factors. For a given approximation topology, the factors' mean and covariance that best approximate the original distribution can be obtained through minimization of the Kullback-Liebler divergence. For simple topologies such as Chow-Liu trees, there is a closed form for the optimal solution. However, a tree is oftentimes too sparse to explain some graphs. More complex topologies require nonlinear iterative optimization. In the present paper we propose Factor Descent, a new iterative optimization method to sparsify the dense result of node marginalization, which works by iterating factor by factor. We also provide a thorough comparison of our approach with state-of-the-art methods in real world datasets with regards to the obtained solution and convergence rates.
Total and unbound darunavir pharmacokinetics in pregnant women infected with HIV-1: results of a study of darunavir/ritonavir 600/100 mg administered twice daily

Antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy is recommended to reduce the risk of mother‐to‐child transmission of HIV and for maternal care management. Physiological changes during pregnancy can affect pharmacokinetics, potentially altering pharmacological activity. We therefore evaluated the pharmacokinetics of twice‐daily (bid) darunavir in HIV‐1‐infected pregnant women.
Towards Identification of the Mechanisms of Action of Parasite-Derived Peptide GK1 on the Immunogenicity of an Influenza Vaccine

ABSTRACT Previous studies have shown that the synthetic peptide GK1, derived from Taenia crassiceps cysticerci, enhances the immunogenicity of the commercial inactivated influenza vaccine Fluzone in both young and aged mice. In particular, antibody responses were much improved. Since GK1 is a peptide and is rapidly cleared from the body, it offers the possibility to improve vaccine performance without undesirable effects. This study was therefore designed to understand the mechanisms of action involved in the adjuvant properties of GK1. For this, transgenic mice expressing a T-cell receptor specific for an epitope from the influenza virus hemagglutinin (HA) protein were employed. The GK1 peptide significantly increased the in vivo proliferative response of HA-specific CD4+ T cells when it was coimmunized with the HA epitope. Dendritic cells treated in vitro with GK1 were capable of enhancing T-cell activation. Furthermore, in synergy with lipopolysaccharide, GK1 enhanced the expression of major histocompatibility complex class II and costimulatory molecules of dendritic cells and promoted the secretion of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines upon antigen-driven T-cell interaction. These data provide important insights into the mechanism that underlies the GK1 adjuvant capacity observed previously and underline the feasibility of using the transgenic mouse model described herein as a tool for investigation of the modes of action of different influenza vaccine adjuvants.
Electrical Impedance Myography for Evaluating Paretic Muscle Changes After Stroke

Electrical impedance myography (EIM) was used to assess the paretic muscle intrinsic electrical properties post stroke. Twenty-seven subjects with chronic hemiparesis participated in this study. Muscle impedance was measured by applying high-frequency, low-intensity alternating current to biceps brachii muscles. Major EIM parameters, resistance (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$R$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), reactance (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$X$ </tex-math></inline-formula>), phase angle (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\theta $ </tex-math></inline-formula>), and electrical anisotropy ratios (AR) of the three parameters, were examined at 50 kHz. Statistical analysis demonstrated significant reduction of reactance, phase angle, AR of resistance, and AR of reactance in the paretic muscle compared with the contralateral side (Paretic X: <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$6.16~\pm ~0.55~\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, contralateral X: <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$7.62~\pm ~0.46~\Omega $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, and p < 0.001; Paretic <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\theta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> : <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10.97~\pm ~0.84^{\circ }$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, contralateral <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\theta $ </tex-math></inline-formula> : 14.5 ± 0.82°, and p < 0.001; Paretic AR of R: 0.969 ± 0.013, contralateral AR of R: 1.008 ± 0.011, and p < 0.02; and Paretic AR of X: 0.981 ± 0.066, contralateral AR of X: 1.114 ± 0.041, and p < 0.02). Correlation analysis, however, did not show any significant relationship between EIM parameters and clinical assessments. Findings of this paper indicated significant changes in the muscular intrinsic electrical properties after stroke, possibly related to structural modifications induced by loss of muscle fibers or fat infiltration as well as changes in the quality of cell membranes post stroke.
Occupational noise exposure, social class, and risk of ischemic heart disease and all-cause mortality--a 16-year follow-up in the Copenhagen Male Study.

OBJECTIVE Long-term exposure to occupational noise may be associated with an increased risk of ischemic heart disease (IHD) and all-cause mortality. However, the issue remains unsettled. Only a small number of longitudinal studies have been carried out, and control for potential confounders including a strong correlate of noise exposure namely social class may have been insufficient. METHODS We carried out a 16-year follow-up of 2998 men aged 53-75 years without overt cardiovascular disease. RESULT Overall, 197 men (6.6%) died due to IHD and 1192 (39.8%) from all-causes. Of the 2998 men, 1008 (33.6%) reported exposure to occupational noise for ≥5 years [mean 25.4, standard deviation (SD) 12.5 years]; among these men, 47.3% reported hearing impairment versus only 24.8% among unexposed men (63.0%). Referencing unexposed men, the hazard ratio (HR) for IHD mortality was 0.97 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 0.71-1.33], and the HR for all-cause mortality was 1.01 (95% CI 0.89-1.15) when adjusting for potential confounders: age, hearing impairment, blood pressure, diabetes, fasting serum triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, glucosuria, cancer, body mass index, alcohol, tobacco, leisure-time physical activity, and social class. Stratified analyses of high and low social classes confirmed the overall results. CONCLUSION Cumulative occupational exposure to noise was strongly associated with hearing impairment, but not with death from either IHD or all-cause mortality in a long-term follow-up adjusting for established cardiovascular risk factors including low social class.
Financial Econometrics: A Comparison of GARCH type Model Performances when Forecasting VaR

This essay investigates three different GARCH-models (GARCH, EGARCH and GJR-GARCH) along with two distributions (Normal and Student’s t), which are used to forecast the Value at Risk (VaR) for different return series. Seven major international equity indices are examined. The purpose of the essay is to answer which of the three models that is better at forecasting the VaR and which distribution is more appropriate. The results show that the EGARCH(1,1) is preferred for all indices included in the study.
Triage decisions of emergency physicians in Kocaeli and the principle of justice.

BACKGROUND We aimed to examine the accuracy of triage decision-making among emergency physicians, using a multiple casualty scenario. This will assist in determining the necessity of triage training, which is the foundation of emergency medical ethics. METHODS A self-administered questionnaire including a multiple casualty scenario requiring each casualty to be prioritized for treatments by Simple Triage and Rapid Treatment (START) was given to 110 emergency physicians working at pre-hospital and hospital emergency services in Kocaeli. The differences between personal/professional characteristics and triage decisions were analyzed using chi-square test. RESULTS Accurate triage decision rates of the emergency physicians ranged from 83.6% to 90.0% for four immediate casualties, 26.4% to 78.2% for seven urgent casualties, 70.9% to 91.8% for four delayed casualties, and 82.7% to 97.3% for two dead cases. Personal and professional characteristics were found to be statistically significant in five cases (p<0.05). CONCLUSION This study showed that emergency physicians tended to under-triage patients. This result and the discrepancy of the accuracy rates in urgent casualties revealed the necessity for improvement in medical-ethical decision-making in the training programs. This improvement will help in reducing violation of the important duties of justice and of do no harm by the emergency physicians.
Predictive Features in Semi-Supervised Learning for Polarity Classification and the Role of Adjectives

In opinion mining, there has been only very little work investigating semi-supervised machine learning on document-level polarity classification. We show that semi-supervised learning performs significantly better than supervised learning when only few labeled data are available. Semi-supervised polarity classifiers rely on a predictive feature set. (Semi-)Manually built polarity lexicons are one option but they are expensive to obtain and do not necessarily work in an unknown domain. We show that extracting frequently occurring adjectives & adverbs of an unlabeled set of in-domain documents is an inexpensive alternative which works equally well throughout different domains.