Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CONGENITAL HYPOTHYROIDISM AS A RISK FACTOR FOR CENTRAL HEARING PROCESS DISORDERS

ABSTRACT Objective: To investigate the presence of central auditory processing disorder symptoms in children with congenital hypothyroidism. Methods: An exploratory, descriptive, cross-sectional study of 112 patients with congenital hypothyroidism aged ≥5 years old. An interview was held with the parents/caregivers at the time of the medical consultation. Patients with other medical conditions were excluded. As a research instrument, the structured protocol of anamnesis was used to evaluate the auditory processing routinely used by audiologists. For statistical analysis, the chi-square test was used. Results: Sex distribution was similar in both boys and girls (girls: 53.3%). The most prevalent phenotypic form of congenital hypothyroidism was no dysgenesis (88.4%), and 65.3% of the children had an episode of irregular serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels. Among the manifestations of the most frequent central auditory processing disorder symptoms, problems were reported with regard to cognitive functions, as they related to hearing, such as figure-background ability (83.0%), auditory attention (75.9%) and auditory memory (33.0%). Complaints related to school performance were reported in 62.3% of the cases. Conclusions: The data obtained show a high frequency of lag symptoms in cognitive functions related to central auditory processing, particularly with regard to auditory attention, figure-background ability and auditory memory in patients with congenital hypothyroidism.
A combined study of 18F-FDG PET-CT and fMRI for assessing resting cerebral function in patients with major depressive disorder

The present study investigated changes in the regional cerebral metabolic rates of glucose uptake (rCMRglc) using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) and regional homogeneity (ReHo), together with resting-state blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). In total, 18 patients with untreated MDD and 17 healthy control subjects underwent 18F-FDG PET and BOLD-fMRI scanning. The MDD patients' cerebral changes, measured as rCMRglc and ReHo values, were mapped and statistically analyzed. Compared with the control group, the patients with MDD had a decreased rCMRglc in the bilateral superior, middle and inferior frontal gyrus, in the bilateral superior and middle temporal gyrus, in the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex, in the bilateral putamen and caudate, and in the left pallidum, but an increased rCMRglc in the bilateral hippocampus and left thalamus. The ReHo values in the patient group were decreased in the bilateral superior and middle frontal gyrus, left pallidum, bilateral putamen and left anterior cingulate cortex, but increased in the right hippocampus and thalamus. No statistically significant differences were identified between decreased metabolism and ReHo brain regions of MDD patients (χ2=9.16; P=0.90) and between increased metabolism and ReHo brain regions (χ2=3.96; P=0.27), when comparing activated brain regions of PET and MRI. The standardized uptake values (SUV) of the bilateral superior, middle and inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral superior and middle temporal gyrus, bilateral putamen, the left caudate and pallidum, the left anterior cingulate cortex, and the bilateral hippocampus and thalamus were correlated with the ReHo (r=0.51–0.83; P<0.05). However, no correlation was detected between the SUV and ReHo in the right caudate and anterior cingulate cortex (r=0.41 and 0.37, respectively; P>0.05). Taken together, these results demonstrated that patients with MDD displayed characteristic patterns regarding changes of brain glucose uptake and ReHo in the resting state. Furthermore, 18F-FDG PET may be a more sensitive technique compared with BOLD-fMRI for the identification of brain lesions in patients with MDD.
The Anti-vaccination Movement: A Regression in Modern Medicine

There have been recent trends of parents in Western countries refusing to vaccinate their children due to numerous reasons and perceived fears. While opposition to vaccines is as old as the vaccines themselves, there has been a recent surge in the opposition to vaccines in general, specifically against the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine, most notably since the rise in prominence of the notorious British ex-physician, Andrew Wakefield, and his works. This has caused multiple measles outbreaks in Western countries where the measles virus was previously considered eliminated. This paper evaluates and reviews the origins of the anti-vaccination movement, the reasons behind the recent strengthening of the movement, role of the internet in the spread of anti-vaccination ideas, and the repercussions in terms of public health and safety.
Hippocampal-Evoked Feedforward Inhibition in the Nucleus Accumbens

The nucleus accumbens (NAc) is critical for motivated behavior and is rewired following exposure to drugs of abuse. Medium spiny neurons (MSNs) in the NAc express either D1 or D2 receptors and project to distinct downstream targets. Differential activation of these MSNs depends on both excitation from long-range inputs and inhibition via the local circuit. Assessing how long-range excitatory inputs engage inhibitory circuitry is therefore important for understanding NAc function. Here, we use slice electrophysiology and optogenetics to study ventral hippocampal (vHPC)-evoked feedforward inhibition in the NAc of male and female mice. We find that vHPC-evoked excitation is stronger at D1+ than D1− MSNs, whereas inhibition is unbiased at the two cell types. vHPC inputs contact both parvalbumin-positive (PV+) and somatostatin-positive (SOM+) interneurons, but PV+ cells are preferentially activated. Moreover, suppressing PV+ interneurons indicates they are primarily responsible for vHPC-evoked inhibition. Finally, repeated cocaine exposure alters the excitation of D1+ and D1− MSNs, without concomitant changes to inhibition, shifting the excitation/inhibition balance. Together, our results highlight the contributions of multiple interneuron populations to feedforward inhibition in the NAc. Moreover, they demonstrate that inhibition provides a stable backdrop on which drug-evoked changes to excitation occur within this circuit. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Given the importance of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) in reward learning and drug-seeking behaviors, it is critical to understand what controls the activity of cells in this region. While excitatory inputs to projection neurons in the NAc have been identified, it is unclear how the local inhibitory network becomes engaged. Here, we identify a sparse population of interneurons responsible for feedforward inhibition evoked by ventral hippocampal input and characterize their connections within the NAc. We also demonstrate that the balance of excitation and inhibition that projection neurons experience is altered by exposure to cocaine. Together, this work provides insight into the fundamental circuitry of this region as well as the effects of drugs of abuse.
Genotype‐phenotype correlation and risk stratification in a cohort of 123 hereditary stomatocytosis patients

Hereditary stomatocytoses (HSts) are a wide spectrum of hemolytic anemias in which the erythrocyte membrane cation permeability is increased. Dehydrated hereditary stomatocytosis is the most frequent among HSts. It is caused by missense mutations in PIEZO1 and KCNN4 genes.
Do Researchers Investigate what Practitioners Deem Relevant? Gaps Between Research and Practice in the Field of Information Systems Backsourcing

There is a common understanding amongst academics that information systems (IS) research sometimes has limited relevance for practitioners. This can be explained by the fact that research lags behind the fast moving IS environment, has limited practical applicability and is hard to access. We have focused on the research area of IS backsourcing, and analyzed practitioner literature to increase our understanding of topics of interest for practitioners, to determine a potential gap between academic and practitioner literature, and to identify future research directions in this field. We observed that most publications are either news or background articles, focusing on describing backsourcing cases. Additionally, we identified four recurring themes, namely reasons for backsourcing, presentation of survey results, discussion of industry trends, and backsourcing success stories. The main reasons identified to trigger backsourcing decisions are cost savings, quality improvements, and increasing control and flexibility. By comparing our findings with academic literature on IS backsourcing, we conclude that generally both literature types cover similar topics. However, researchers have a more formulative or interpretive focus than the often descriptive practitioner literature. Academic literature also examines a broader range of topics, while practitioner literature has a narrower focus. Additionally, we observe one difference regarding applied terminology: while researchers employ the term backsourcing, practitioners mostly use back in-house or insourcing. Our paper contributes to facilitating the exchange between academics and practitioners, presents topics to consider when aiming to increase practical relevance and provides researchers with concrete directions for future research within the field of IS backsourcing.
Timing of the reticular lamina and basilar membrane vibration in living gerbil cochleae

Auditory sensory outer hair cells are thought to amplify sound-induced basilar membrane vibration through a feedback mechanism to enhance hearing sensitivity. For optimal amplification, the outer hair cell-generated force must act on the basilar membrane at an appropriate time at every cycle. However, the temporal relationship between the outer hair cell-driven reticular lamina vibration and the basilar membrane vibration remains unclear. By measuring sub-nanometer vibrations directly from outer hair cells using a custom-built heterodyne low-coherence interferometer, we demonstrate in living gerbil cochleae that the reticular lamina vibration occurs after, not before, the basilar membrane vibration. Both tone- and click-induced responses indicate that the reticular lamina and basilar membrane vibrate in opposite directions at the cochlear base and they oscillate in phase near the best-frequency location. Our results suggest that outer hair cells enhance hearing sensitivity through a global hydromechanical mechanism, rather than through a local mechanical feedback as commonly supposed.
Navigating Sex and Sexuality After Sexual Assault: A Qualitative Study of Survivors and Informal Support Providers

Qualitative interview data from 45 matched pairs of survivors disclosing sexual assaults and their primary informal support providers (e.g., friend, family member, significant other) were used to explore survivor and support provider perspectives on changes in sexuality postassault and how those close to them have been affected as a result. Changes in sexuality included loss of interest in sex, increase or change in sexual partners, engaging in sex work, and increased sexual behavior. Support providers generally regarded promiscuity as a risky sexual behavior. If the support provider was the survivor’s sexual partner, he or she discussed exercising caution when navigating sexual intimacy with the survivor. Not all sexual encounters with romantic partners were positive; some survivors discussed being triggered (i.e., with post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] flashbacks) or experiencing the dissolution of their relationships due to the sexual impacts of their assault. Counseling implications are discussed in the context of improving survivors’ sexual experiences in general and in romantic relationships postassault. Implications can also be applied to prevention, scholarship on sex work, and sexuality research.
In vitro culture of L3 larvae of nematodes obtained from the African giant snail Lissachatina fulica (Mollusca: Gastropoda) in Santa Fe de Antioquia.

INTRODUCTION Over 170 municipalities in Colombia have been invaded by Lissachatina fulica, an African snail that can carry larvae of nematodes of interest in human and veterinary health. Nematodes enter the host snail as larvae L1 and then change to L2 and L3, the infectious form for vertebrates. OBJECTIVE To standardize culture in vitro of L3 carried by L. fulica from Santa Fe de Antioquia. MATERIALS AND METHODS Between July and November, 2014, 10 snails were collected, killed, and conserved with HCl 0.7%. Larvae were recovered using the Baermann technique and cultured for 36 days in Schneider, DMEM and RPMI media, with and without SFB 20% and distilled water with SFB 20%. Replacements were made every 36 hours; larvae were measured with an ocular micrometer on a microscope. Summary statistics were estimated; box and whisker plots were made; the t Student test was performed in SPSS 18™. A p-value below 0.05 was assumed as significant. RESULTS Fifty per cent of the larvae survived. The highest survival and growth was 85% in supplemented DMEM. The final average length of larvae in supplemented media exceeded the initial one. There were significant differences between the average length of larvae cultured in supplemented media and the initial length. The initial width of larvae did not change. CONCLUSIONS The best medium for the culture of L3 larvae was supplemented DMEM. The length provided more information than the width for the larval growth evaluation. The larvae studied did not correspond to Angiostrongylus cantonensis, A. costaricensis or Aelurostrongylus abstrusus.
Discriminative deep transfer metric learning for cross-scenario person re-identification

Abstract. A discriminative deep transfer metric learning method called DDTML is proposed for cross-scenario person re-identification (Re-ID). To develop the Re-ID model in a new scenario, a large number of pairwise cross-camera-view person images are deemed necessary. However, this work is very expensive due to both monetary cost and labeling time. In order to solve this problem, a DDTML for cross-scenario Re-ID is proposed using the transferring data in other scenarios to help build a Re-ID model in a new scenario. Specifically, to measure distribution difference across scenarios, a maximum mean discrepancy based on class distribution called MMDCD is proposed by embedding the discriminative information of data into the concept of the maximum mean discrepancy. Unlike most metric learning methods, which usually learn a linear distance to project data into the feature space, DDTML uses a deep neural network to develop the multilayers nonlinear transformations for learning the nonlinear distance metric, while DDTML transfers discriminative information from the source domain to the target domain. By bedding the MMDCD criteria, DDTML minimizes the distribution divergence between the source domain and the target domain. Experimental results on widely used Re-ID datasets show the effectiveness of the proposed classifiers.
Silence of long intergenic noncoding RNA HOTAIR ameliorates oxidative stress and inflammation response in ox‐LDL‐treated human macrophages by upregulating miR‐330‐5p

Evidence of the involvement of long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in atherosclerosis is growing but still not well characterized. Here, we concentrated on the biological roles of lncRNA HOX transcription antisense RNA (HOTAIR) in atherosclerosis. In our study, we found that oxidized low‐density lipoprotein (ox‐LDL) induced human macrophages THP‐1 cells apoptosis dose dependently and time dependently. Meanwhile, HOTAIR was significantly increased in THP‐1 cells treated with ox‐LDL. Then, HOTAIR was modulated by infection of LV‐short hairpin RNA (shRNA) and LV‐HOTAIR into THP‐1 cells. As displayed, CD36, Oil Red O staining levels, total cholesterol, triglyceride levels and dil‐ox‐LDL uptake rate were greatly repressed by the silence of HOTAIR while triggered by overexpression of HOTAIR. Moreover, knockdown of HOTAIR suppressed reactive oxygen species, malondialdehyde levels, increased superoxide dismutase activity and cell apoptosis were also restrained. Reversely, overexpression of HOTAIR exhibited an opposite phenomenon. In addition, interleukin 6 (IL‐6), IL‐1β, cyclo‐oxygenase 2, and tumor necrosis factor α protein levels were significantly depressed by LV‐shRNA) of HOTAIR while increased by upregulation of HOTAIR in THP‐1 cells. By carrying out bioinformatics analysis, miR‐330‐5p was predicted as a target of HOTAIR and the correlation between them was validated in our current study. MiR‐330‐5p was greatly decreased in THP‐1 cells incubated with ox‐LDL and overexpression of miR‐330‐5p was able to inhibit oxidative stress and inflammation process. Taken together, it was implied that HOTAIR contributed to atherosclerosis development by downregulating miR‐330‐5p in human macrophages.
Cilostazol on the expression of ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and inflammatory factors in plasma in patients with thromboangiitis obliterans

The effects of cilostazol on the expression of intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1) and inflammatory factors in plasma in patients with thromboangiitis obliterans (TAO) were studied. Plasma viscosity, fibrinogen, total cholesterol (TC) and triglyceride (TG) were detected for the healthy control, TAO and cilostazol groups, respectively. Results showed that compared with those in the control group, the plasma viscosity, fibrinogen, TC and TG levels in TAO group were significantly increased. By contrast, compared with those in TAO group, the plasma viscosity, fibrinogen, TC and TG levels in the cilostazol group were significantly decreased. ELISA results revealed that ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 expression levels in TAO group were obviously increased compared with those in control group. ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 expression levels in cilostazol group were obviously decreased compared with those in TAO group. According to RT-PCR, the mRNA expression levels of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α in TAO group were significantly higher than those in control group, while the levels in cilostazol group were significantly decreased compared with those in TAO group. In addition, RT-PCR and western blotting proved that expression of both mRNA and protein of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 in TAO group was significantly increased and obviously decreased after administration of cilostazol. The results of analysis of variance showed that the differences of ICAM-1 and VCAM-1 expression was statistically significant among the control, TAO and cilostazol groups (p<0.01). Cilostazol can significantly reduce the TAO-induced abnormal increase in ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and inflammatory factor expression in plasma in patients. It was proven that cilostazol has a good anti-TAO effect.
Leveraged volume sampling for linear regression

Suppose an n x d design matrix in a linear regression problem is given, but the response for each point is hidden unless explicitly requested. The goal is to sample only a small number k << n of the responses, and then produce a weight vector whose sum of squares loss over *all* points is at most 1+epsilon times the minimum. When k is very small (e.g., k=d), jointly sampling diverse subsets of points is crucial. One such method called "volume sampling" has a unique and desirable property that the weight vector it produces is an unbiased estimate of the optimum. It is therefore natural to ask if this method offers the optimal unbiased estimate in terms of the number of responses k needed to achieve a 1+epsilon loss approximation. Surprisingly we show that volume sampling can have poor behavior when we require a very accurate approximation -- indeed worse than some i.i. d. sampling techniques whose estimates are biased, such as leverage score sampling. We then develop a new rescaled variant of volume sampling that produces an unbiased estimate which avoids this bad behavior and has at least as good a tail bound as leverage score sampling: sample size k=O(d log d + d/epsilon) suffices to guarantee total loss at most 1+epsilon times the minimum with high probability. Thus, we improve on the best previously known sample size for an unbiased estimator, k=O(d^2/epsilon). Our rescaling procedure leads to a new efficient algorithm for volume sampling which is based on a "determinantal rejection sampling" technique with potentially broader applications to determinantal point processes. Other contributions include introducing the combinatorics needed for rescaled volume sampling and developing tail bounds for sums of dependent random matrices which arise in the process.
Non-Invasive Silent Phoneme Recognition Using Microwave Signals

Besides the recognition of audible speech, there is currently an increasing interest in the recognition of silent speech, which has a range of novel applications. A major obstacle for a wide spread of silent-speech technology is the lack of measurement methods for speech movements that are convenient, non-invasive, portable, and robust at the same time. Therefore, as an alternative to established methods, we examined to what extent different phonemes can be discriminated from the electromagnetic transmission and reflection properties of the vocal tract. To this end, we attached two Vivaldi antennas on the cheek and below the chin of two subjects. While the subjects produced 25 phonemes in multiple phonetic contexts each, we measured the electromagnetic transmission spectra from one antenna to the other, and the reflection spectra for each antenna (radar), in a frequency band from 2–12 GHz. Two classification methods (k-nearest neighbors and linear discriminant analysis) were trained to predict the phoneme identity from the spectral data. With linear discriminant analysis, cross-validated phoneme recognition rates of 93% and 85% were achieved for the two subjects. Although these results are speaker- and session-dependent, they suggest that electromagnetic transmission and reflection measurements of the vocal tract have great potential for future silent-speech interfaces.
The Factors Significantly affecting the Quality of Life of Patients Who undergo Radical Cystectomy due to Bladder Cancer.

OBJECTIVE Bladder cancer is, in Poland, the fourth most common malignancy in men and the eighth most common in women. Radical cystectomy often seems to be the only method of treatment. This mutilating procedure may affect the quality of life of the patient. The aim of our study was to analyze the impact of factors influencing quality of life in patients after a cystectomy. METHODS From January to August 2015, 50 consecutive patients treated in the Department of Urology of the Wroclaw Medical University in Wroclaw were enrolled into the study. Sixty-three percent of the respondents were men. Fifty-two percent of the respondents lived in urban areas. Patients ranged in age from under 25 to over 51 years. Clinical and demographic data were collected. Quality of life was evaluated with the SF-36 health survey questionnaire. For statistical analysis, Student's t-test, the Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient were used. Statistical analysis was carried out with IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows Version 21.0. RESULTS A decrease in quality of life was observed in both genders. The impact of place of residence on the occurrence of pain, health perception, vitality, and levels of physical and mental activity was found to be significant (p<0.05). Pain intensity, health perception, vitality, and levels of physical and mental activity were higher in patients living in urban areas. CONCLUSION Patients with bladder cancer who underwent a radical cystectomy were more likely to have a reduced quality of life if they lived in a village or small town than if they lived in an urban area.