Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Two Multichannel Tactile Devices as Supplements to Speechreading in a Postlingually Deafened Adult

Objective The purpose of this study was to conduct a single-subject comparison of the effectiveness of two multichannel vibrotactile devices that encode different classes of speech information. One device, the Portapitch, is designed to convey fundamental frequency (FO) and its variation over time. The other, the TACTAID 7, is designed to convey the first two formant frequencies (F1 and F2) and their variation over time. Design The subject, a postlingually deafened adult, underwent an intensive 17-wk training and testing protocol with the Portapitch and then completed a similar 17-wk protocol with the TACTAID 7. Performance measures were obtained on phonetic-contrast perception by speechreading alone, tactile device alone, and speechreading plus tactile device, and on open-set word and sentence recognition by speechreading alone and speechreading plus tactile device. Results On phonetic-contrast testing, the subject demonstrated some ability to perceive voicing, stress, and intonation contrasts using the Portapitch, but gave little evidence of phonetic-contrast perception with the TACTAID 7. On open-set word recognition testing, no significant impmvements were seen with either device. On open-set sentence recognition testing, the subject showed a significant 9 percentage point enhancement effect using the Portapitch; the mean 5 percentage point enhancement effect provided by the TACTAID 7 was not statistically significant. Conclusions A small advantage was seen in favor of the tactile display of FO relative to the tactile display of formant frequency information on both phonetic-contrast testing and open-set sentence recognition. The difference, however, was of questionable significance and could have been confounded with an order effect. Nevertheless, the subject's preference was for the tactile formant frequency display.
Molecular characterization of deletion at 11q22.1‐23.3 in mantle cell lymphoma

Chromosomal deletions at 11q21‐23 have recently been reported to be common aberrations in mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). To characterize the structure of the deletion, we studied 41 cases of MCL by fluorescence in situ hybridization using a YAC contig, which spans the region at 11q22.1‐23.3. 17 MCLs were studied using a set of 20 yeast artificial chromosomes (YACs) in a contig, and nine of these cases showed deletion of 11q22‐23. The deletion spanned several megabases in all but one case, where only YAC 755b11 at 11q23.1, covering approximately a 1.6 Mb of DNA, was deleted. Analysis of additional 24 MCLs with YAC 755b11 revealed the deletion in 49% of all cases (20/41). The deleted region at 11q22.1‐23.3 was discontinuous in five lymphomas and in the majority of the cases the distal breakpoint occurred between YACs 785e12 and 911f2 at 11q23.3. We conclude that the deletion of 11q22‐23 and particularly the deletion of YAC 755b11 are very common in MCL and may be important in the genesis or progression of the disease.
Using Rate of Acid Neutralization to Characterize Aluminum Phosphate Adjuvant

Five aluminum phosphate adjuvants having P/Al molar ratios ranging from 0.74 to 0.26 were prepared. The adjuvants were characterized by both protein adsorptive capacity and rate of acid neutralization at pH 2.25, 25°C. The protein adsorptive capacity was not a useful parameter to compare the initial properties of the adjuvants, as differences in surface charge of the adjuvants required the use of different proteins. In contrast, the rate of acid neutralization allowed a comparison of the freshly precipitated adjuvants and revealed that the rate of acid neutralization was directly related to the P/Al molar ratio. The protein adsorptive capacity decreased slightly during 39 weeks of aging at room temperature. The changes in the rate of acid neutralization were much greater and indicated that a P/Al molar ratio of at least 0.5 was required to minimize the aging of the adjuvants. Thus, the rate of acid neutralization was found to be the most sensitive parameter to characterize aluminum phosphate adjuvants.
alcohol dependence : Unique abnormalities of magnetic resonance-derived brain metabolite levels Permalink

Background: Although comorbid substance misuse is common in alcohol dependence, and polysubstance abusers (PSU) represent the largest group of individuals seeking treatment for drug abuse today, we know little about potential brain abnormalities in this population. Brain magnetic resonance spectroscopy studies of mono-substance use disorders (e.g., alcohol or cocaine) reveal abnormal levels of cortical metabolites (reflecting neuronal integrity, cell membrane turnover/synthesis, cellular bioenergetics, gliosis) and altered concentrations of glutamate and -aminobutyric acid (GABA). The concurrent misuse of several substances may have unique and different effects on brain biology and function compared to any mono-substance misuse. Methods: High field brain magnetic resonance spectroscopy at 4 T and neurocognitive testing were performed at one month of abstinence in 40 alcohol dependent individuals (ALC), 28 alcohol dependent PSU and 16 drug-free controls. Absolute metabolite concentrations were calculated in anterior cingulate (ACC), parieto-occipital (POC) and dorso-lateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFC). Results: Compared to ALC, PSU demonstrated significant metabolic abnormalities in the DLPFC and strong trends to lower GABA in the ACC. Metabolite levels in ALC and light drinking controls were statistically equivalent. Within PSU, lower DLPFC GABA levels are related to greater cocaine consumption. Several cortical metabolite concentrations were associated with cognitive performance. Conclusions: While metabolite concentrations in ALC at one month of abstinence were largely normal, PSU showed persistent and functionally significant metabolic abnormalities, primarily in the DLPFC. Our results point to specific metabolic deficits as biomarkers in polysubstance misuse and as targets for pharmacological and behavioral PSU-specific treatment.
Investigating the efficacy of an attention training programme in children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder

Objective: The current study investigated the efficacy of a direct intervention programme aimed at improving attention abilities in children with foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Methods: The Computerized Progressive Attention Training (CPAT) program is an intervention which targets proposed attention networks. CPAT task difficulty automatically adjusts based on participant performance. Ten children aged 6–15 with FASD completed an average of 16 hours of intervention over ∼9 weeks at school, aided by a research assistant providing metacognitive strategies and support. Results: Pre- and post-intervention assessments indicate significant improvement on several attention measures including sustained attention and selective attention. In addition, several measures of spatial working memory, math fluency, and reading fluency also significantly increased, suggesting that better attention leads to better cognitive performance. Conclusion: Results provide support for the use of computerized attention training materials as part of an effective intervention for cognitive performance in children with FASD.
Enforced abstinence from tobacco during in-patient dual-diagnosis treatment improves substance abuse treatment outcomes in smokers.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Although the prevalence of tobacco use in those in substance abuse treatment is known to be quite high, most treatment programs do not address tobacco. The purpose of this study was to determine substance abuse recovery rates a year after treatment in a fully integrated, 90-day inpatient, dual diagnosis treatment program where patients are required to quit tobacco use in addition to drug and alcohol use for the duration of their 3 month stay. Tobacco is treated in the same way as other drugs and alcohol. METHODS One hundred fifty-four patients enrolled in a yearlong follow-up after treatment study consisting of monthly phone contact to assess recovery from substance abuse. RESULTS One hundred forty (n=140) patients completed the year follow-up. At the time of entry into the program 120 (86%) were using tobacco daily. At the end of the year this decreased to 102 (73%). Patients who were using tobacco were more likely to relapse to other drugs or alcohol (p = .01). Patients who actively attempted to abstain from tobacco after treatment were significantly more likely to remain continuously abstinent throughout the year (p = .03). CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates that tobacco use is correlated with relapse and addressing tobacco in treatment as seriously as and in the same fashion as other drugs, improves outcomes. SCIENTIFIC SIGNIFICANCE When provided with a tobacco free treatment environment for 90 days, patients with substance abuse and mental illness can and do make the decision to quit tobacco and stay quit, aiding their ability to remain sober. (Am J Addict 2014;XX:1-6).
Incidence of cerebral infarction associated with ruptured intracranial aneurysms

THE CAUSE of death after rupture of a berry aneurysm has often been in doubt in cases in which the amount and position of the hemorrhage were inadequate to account for the fatality. In an attempt to elucidate this problem, we have made a study of the brains of all patients with ruptured intracranial aneurysm received in this department over a period of eighteen months. From these, we have selected 8 patients with aneurysm of the anterior cerebralanterior communicating complex who died from three days to four and a half weeks after the first rupture. Apart from diagnostic lumbar puncture and carotid arteriography, no surgical procedures had been undertaken in these patients. Hypothermia was used terminally in l, and another was treated by this method for five days. The patients, 6 of whom were hypertensive, ranged in age from 37 to 78 years, with an average age of 58. In instances of ruptured aneurysm, we have frequently confirmed Robertson's' observation of gross cerebral infarctions at post mortem, and these 8 brains have therefore been studied in detail to determine the extent, distribution, and possible etiology of such infarcts.
The Short-Time Laguerre Transform: A New Method for Real-Time Frequency Warping of Sounds

The Laguerre transform and its time-varying version are general DSP techniques for frequency-warping audio signals. By means of this exact and computable transform, the frequency content of the original signal is altered via a mapping of the frequency axis. The interesting effects that are obtained include transformation of harmonic into inharmonic sounds, timevarying pitch shifting for vibrato and modulation, dispersive model-based pitch shifting of piano tones and sound morphing. However, the computation of the Laguerre transform is non-causal and not suitable for real-time applications. Due to the frequency dependent group delay of the basis elements of the transform, the time-localization of the signal is altered, e.g., the amplitude envelopes of the partials are non-uniformly deformed according to the frequency range. As a result, the Laguerre transform of long audio signals leads to the time fusion of certain frequency components that were originally related to distinct events. In this paper we introduce the Short-Time Laguerre Transform (STLT) as a new method for frequency warping, which circumvents most of the drawbacks of the Laguerre Transform. The sound stream is subdivided into overlapping frames and the windowed Laguerre transform is computed on each frame. Due to the time spread of the components, this process generates frames whose size is theoretically infinite while in practice not conformal to the size of the original frames. We address the problem of forming the warped signal by means of overlap add techniques.
Randomised controlled trial of psychological debriefing for victims of acute burn trauma

Background Psychological debriefing (PD) is widely used following major traumatic events in an attempt to reduce psychological sequelae. Method One hundred and thirty-three adult burn trauma victims entered the study. After initial questionnaire completion, participants were randomly allocated to an individual/couple PD group or a control group who received no intervention; 110 (83%) were interviewed by an assessor blind to PD status three and 13 months later. Results Sixteen (26%) of the PD group had PTSD at 13-month follow-up, compared with four (9%) of the control group. The PD group had higher initial questionnaire scores and more severe dimensions of burn trauma than the control group, both of which were associated with a poorer outcome. Conclusions This study seriously questions the wisdom of advocating one-off interventions post-trauma, and should stimulate research into more effective initiatives.
Clinical markers in Italian-speaking children with and without specific language impairment: a study of non-word and real word repetition as predictors of grammatical ability.

BACKGROUND In many languages a weakness in non-word repetition serves as a useful clinical marker of specific language impairment (SLI) in children. However, recent work in Italian has shown that the repetition of real words may also have clinical utility. For young typically developing Italian children, real word repetition is more predictive of particular grammatical abilities than is non-word repetition. This finding is important because these particular grammatical abilities--the production of present-tense third-person plural inflections and direct-object clitic pronouns--are precisely those that are problematic for Italian-speaking children with SLI. Along with their grammatical requirements, these two morpheme types present a significant phonological/prosodic challenge for these children. AIMS To replicate the findings with young typically developing Italian children and to determine whether real word repetition is also more predictive of the use of these two morpheme types than is non-word repetition in a group of Italian-speaking children with SLI. METHODS & PROCEDURES Seventeen Italian-speaking children with SLI and 17 younger typically developing children matched for mean length of utterance participated in tasks of real word and non-word repetition as well as tasks requiring the production of direct-object clitic pronouns and present-tense third-person plural inflections. OUTCOMES & RESULTS Children with SLI were less accurate than their younger peers on all measures. Importantly, for the younger typically developing children, real word repetition explained a significant amount of variance in the use of third-person plural inflections and direct-object clitic pronouns. For the children with SLI, in contrast, non-word repetition was a significant predictor, whereas real word repetition was not a contributing factor. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS It is argued that in Italian SLI, the grammatical details showing the greatest weakness present phonological/prosodic obstacles as well as grammatical challenges to these children. Consequently, non-word repetition emerges as a predictor of these grammatical weaknesses in SLI, unlike the profile observed in typically developing Italian children.
Relating teachers' whistleblowing tendency and personal features: Machiavellianism, religiosity, and utilitarianism

This study examines relationships between religiosity and value orientation of teachers, and preference for whistleblowing modes. Three hypotheses were developed, and tested related to the relationships between utilitarianism, religiosity, Machiavellianism and preference for various forms of whistleblowing. To analyse the data obtained from a sample of 271 teachers in Turkey, descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation test, and regression analysis were used. According to the results, teachers prefer internal and identified whistleblowing. Religiosity affects teachers' preference for internal reporting in a positive way, while Machiavellianism and utilitarianism do not. No relationship was found between the teachers' values and preference for modes of whistleblowing. Examining religiosity, ethical ideology and whistleblowing in an education context in Turkey, this study contributes an Islamic perspective to the literature concerning whistleblowing.
The role of indigenous microorganisms in the biodegradation of naturally occurring petroleum, the reduction of iron, and the mobilization of arsenite from west bengal aquifer sediments.

High levels of naturally occurring arsenic are found in the shallow reducing aquifers of West Bengal, Bangladesh, and other areas of Southeast Asia. These aquifers are used extensively for drinking water and irrigation by the local population. Mechanisms for its release are unclear, although increasing evidence points to a microbial control. The type of organic matter present is of vital importance because it has a direct impact on the rate of microbial activity and on the amount of arsenic released into the ground water. The discovery of naturally occurring hydrocarbons in an arsenic-rich aquifer from West Bengal provides a source of potential electron donors for this process. Using microcosm-based techniques, seven sediments from a site containing naturally occurring hydrocarbons in West Bengal were incubated with synthetic ground water for 28 d under anaerobic conditions without the addition of an external electron donor. Arsenic release and Fe(III) reduction appeared to be microbially mediated, with variable rates of arsenic mobilization in comparison to Fe(III) reduction, suggesting that multiple processes are involved. All sediments showed a preferential loss of petroleum-sourced n-alkanes over terrestrially sourced sedimentary hydrocarbons n-alkanes during the incubation, implying that the use of petroleum-sourced n-alkanes could support, directly or indirectly, microbial Fe(III) reduction. Samples undergoing maximal release of As(III) contained a significant population of Sulfurospirillum sp. , a known As(V)-reducing bacterium, providing the first evidence that such organisms may mediate arsenic release from West Bengali aquifers.
Increasing aridity reduces soil microbial diversity and abundance in global drylands

Significance Climate change is increasing the degree of aridity in drylands, which occupy 41% of Earth’s surface and support 38% of its population. Soil bacteria and fungi are largely responsible for key ecosystem services, including soil fertility and climate regulation, yet their responses to changes in aridity are poorly understood. Using a field survey conducted in drylands worldwide and DNA-sequencing approaches, we found that increases in aridity reduce the diversity and abundance of soil bacteria and fungi. This study represents an important advancement in our understanding of soil microbial communities and their likely responses to ongoing climate change. Soil bacteria and fungi play key roles in the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems, yet our understanding of their responses to climate change lags significantly behind that of other organisms. This gap in our understanding is particularly true for drylands, which occupy ∼41% of Earth´s surface, because no global, systematic assessments of the joint diversity of soil bacteria and fungi have been conducted in these environments to date. Here we present results from a study conducted across 80 dryland sites from all continents, except Antarctica, to assess how changes in aridity affect the composition, abundance, and diversity of soil bacteria and fungi. The diversity and abundance of soil bacteria and fungi was reduced as aridity increased. These results were largely driven by the negative impacts of aridity on soil organic carbon content, which positively affected the abundance and diversity of both bacteria and fungi. Aridity promoted shifts in the composition of soil bacteria, with increases in the relative abundance of Chloroflexi and α-Proteobacteria and decreases in Acidobacteria and Verrucomicrobia. Contrary to what has been reported by previous continental and global-scale studies, soil pH was not a major driver of bacterial diversity, and fungal communities were dominated by Ascomycota. Our results fill a critical gap in our understanding of soil microbial communities in terrestrial ecosystems. They suggest that changes in aridity, such as those predicted by climate-change models, may reduce microbial abundance and diversity, a response that will likely impact the provision of key ecosystem services by global drylands.
Comparison of Hemostatic Efficacy for Argon Plasma Coagulation and Distilled Water Injection in Treating High-risk Bleeding Ulcers

Goals and Background Endoscopic treatment is recommended for initial hemostasis in nonvariceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Many endoscopic devices have been demonstrated to be effective in the hemostasis of bleeding ulcers. However, the hemostatic efficacy of argon plasma coagulation (APC) has not been widely investigated. Study From February 2007 to February 2008, 271 consecutive patients with high-risk bleeding ulcers, characterized by active bleeding, nonbleeding visible vessels and adherent clots, were admitted to our hospital. Among these patients, 135 nonrandomly underwent either APC therapy or distilled water injection. Pantoprazole infusion was conducted during the fasting period after endoscopy and orally for 8 weeks to encourage ulcer healing. Episodes of rebleeding were retreated with endoscopic combination therapy. Patients who did not benefit from retreatment underwent emergency surgery. Results In all,135 patients were enrolled, among whom 6 with gastric malignancy, acute severe illness or multiple bleeding sites were excluded. Finally, hemostatic efficacy in 59 patients treated with APC was prospectively compared with 70 patients treated with distilled water injection. The two treatment groups were similar with respect to all baseline characteristics. Initial hemostasis was accomplished in 57 patients treated with APC, and 64 patients with distilled water injection therapy (97% vs. 91%, P=0.29). Bleeding recurred in 6 patients treated with APC, and in 17 patients treated with distilled water injection (11% vs. 27%, P=0.03). No significant differences were observed between the 2 groups in hospital stay, transfusion requirements, surgery and mortality. Conclusions Endoscopic therapy with APC is more effective than distilled water injection for preventing rebleeding in the treatment of high-risk bleeding ulcers.