Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Motion-based virtual reality cognitive training targeting executive functions in acquired brain injury community-dwelling individuals: A feasibility and initial efficacy pilot

Acquired brain injury (ABI) is a leading cause of long-term cognitive disability, often involving deficits in executive functions (EF). ABI patients usually stop receiving cognitive treatment when leaving the rehabilitation facility or shortly thereafter, due to the high cost of therapy sessions and the mobility requirement to access therapy. Software solutions offer a promising tool for accessible and affordable cognitive rehabilitation in the home environment. However, research provides limited evidence for effective transfer of benefits from computerized cognitive training to real-life functions. Virtual reality (VR) exergames using motion-interaction offer a more realistic and natural training environment, and are therefore expected to facilitate a more effective transfer. Although commercial exergames may bring about some cognitive gains, they usually do not target cognitive functions directly. Here we describe a novel exergames platform, the Active Brain Trainer (ABT), designed to directly target EF, using games in multiple realistic contexts. The software adapts in real-time to the patient's behavior, providing feedback and rewards, and hence may enhance usability and compliance. The primary goal of the current study is to assess the feasibly and acceptability of this platform for community-dwelling ABI patients during the chronic phase. A secondary goal is to assess the initial efficacy on EF and functional benefits from program training. Participants were instructed to use the games for 15–20 sessions. Neuropsychological assessments of EF and daily life functions were performed before and after training. Participants also filled a satisfaction questionnaire following training. All training and assessments were conducted in the participants' homes. Game performance was recorded throughout training sessions. Preliminary results from the six ABI patients who successfully completed the program so far show no adverse effects. Participants reported enjoyment and satisfaction from training. Participants performed increasingly more challenging EF tasks within game environments. Initial results show improvements in functional tasks and most executive neuropsychological assessments following training. Additional participants are currently being trained to increase the power of the results. These preliminary findings support the feasibility and potential efficacy of the motion-based cognitive training of EF for community-dwelling individuals with ABI.
Surgery in limited stage small cell lung cancer.

The role of surgery in small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is controversial. Surgery has several potential advantages because it may reduce the frequency of local relapses, it does not impede the intensity of chemotherapy, it does not affect the bone marrow, and surgical staging may be of prognostic significance. Several smaller retrospective studies which focus on surgery alone, surgery with adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy, or chemotherapy followed by adjuvant surgery have been reported. Five-year survival data have ranged from 10-50% according to stage, both T-status and nodal status appearing to be significant prognostic factors. Only one prospective randomized trial has been reported concerning the addition of surgery to chemotherapy alone. This trial does not favour surgery. The reason for this could be a selection bias in the smaller non-randomized studies or a result of stage migration. Nevertheless, surgery may yet play an important role in SCLC, especially in diagnosis and staging, and with new improved non-invasive staging procedures, such as positron emission tomography, resection may lead to cure in selected patients. Prospective randomized studies are needed to settle this issue.
Acute oxaliplatin-induced peripheral nerve hyperexcitability.

PURPOSE Oxaliplatin is a novel platinum compound with clinical activity in several malignancies. Neurotoxicity is dose-limiting and occurs in two distinct forms, an acute neurologic symptom complex that occurs within hours or days of therapy and a chronic, cumulative sensory neuropathy. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients were treated in a phase I study designed to establish the maximum-tolerated dose of capecitabine given with oxaliplatin. Because of the unusual neurosensory toxicity of oxaliplatin, detailed neurologic examination, needle electromyography (EMG), and nerve conduction studies (NCS) were performed before and the day after oxaliplatin in a subset of 13 patients. Carbamazepine therapy was tried in 12 additional patients to determine whether the neurologic effects might be relieved. RESULTS All patients experienced acute, reversible neurotoxicities with oxaliplatin. Symptoms included paresthesias, dysesthesias, cold hypersensitivity, jaw pain, eye pain, pain in the arm used for drug infusion, ptosis, leg cramps, and visual and voice changes. Serial EMG and NCS revealed striking signs of hyperexcitability in motor nerves after oxaliplatin. In patients who achieved therapeutic levels, carbamazepine did not alter the clinical or electromyographic abnormalities. CONCLUSION The acute neurotoxicity seen with oxaliplatin is characterized by peripheral-nerve hyperexcitability, and the findings are similar to the clinical manifestations of neuromyotonia. Carbamezepine, which provides symptomatic relief in acquired neuromytonia, did not seem to be beneficial. Efforts to identify a successful neuroprotectant strategy would have a major impact on improving patient quality of life and the ability to deliver full doses of oxaliplatin.
The SexFlex Scale: A Measure of Sexual Script Flexibility When Approaching Sexual Problems in a Relationship

ABSTRACT The objective of this paper was to develop a measure of sexual script flexibility when approaching a sexual problem in a relationship. A series of online studies were conducted with individuals in relationships. As one subscale on the two-factor model had poor convergent and discriminant validity, a final single factor scale with 6-items was retained. The single factor scale demonstrated good model fit, high internal reliability, adequate convergent and discriminant validity, and moderate test re-test reliability. These results support the SexFlex scale as a reliable and psychometrically sound assessment of an individual.s flexibility in approaching a sexual problem.
T2' Imaging of Native Kidneys and Renal Allografts - a Feasibility Study.

PURPOSE To evaluate the feasibility of T2' mapping in native kidneys and renal allografts. MATERIALS AND METHODS Following approval of the local ethics committee, 24 renal allograft recipients and 10 control subjects (healthy volunteers) were included in this study. Multi-echo T2 and T2* imaging was performed on a 1.5 Tesla scanner. Allograft recipients were assigned to two groups: group a), 8 patients with good (glomerular filtration rate of more than 40 ml/min) allograft function and no evidence of transplant rejection, transplant renal artery stenosis or ureteral obstruction; group b), 16 patients with deterioration of renal graft function (glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 40 ml/min or less). Two different imaging protocols were tested. RESULTS The mean T2' relaxation parameters were 108.33 msec ± 13.34, 100.00 msec ± 18.89 and 124.57 msec ± 6.51 for groups a), b) and for control subjects, respectively. The reduction of T2' values in patient group b) was not statistically significant. However, significant correlations could be demonstrated between T2' values and the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of renal allograft function. The reproducibility was tested and the coefficients of variation of T2' values in the cortex of transplanted kidneys were 11.1% within subjects and 11.3% between subjects. CONCLUSION Our results indicate that T2' imaging is a promising non-enhanced technique, which seems to reveal information on transplant function. Further studies are required to determine the clinical value of T2' mapping for monitoring renal allograft recipients.
Characterization of recombination intermediates from DNA injected into Xenopus laevis oocytes: evidence for a nonconservative mechanism of homologous recombination

Homologous recombination between DNA molecules injected into Xenopus laevis oocyte nuclei is extremely efficient if injected molecules have overlapping homologous ends. Earlier work demonstrated that ends of linear molecules are degraded by a 5'----3' exonuclease activity, yielding 3' tails that participate in recombination. Here, we have characterized intermediates further advanced along the recombination pathway. The intermediates were identified by their unique electrophoretic and kinetic properties. Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and hybridization with oligonucleotide probes showed that the intermediates had heteroduplex junctions within their homologous overlaps in which strands ending 3' were full length and those ending 5' were shortened. Additional characterization suggested that these intermediates had formed by the annealing of complementary 3' tails. Annealed junctions made in vitro were rapidly processed to products, indicating that they are on the normal recombination pathway. These results support a nonconservative, single-strand annealing mode of recombination. This recombination mechanism appears to be shared by many organisms, including bacteria, fungi, plants, and mammals.
CROSSING‐DISTANCE EFFECTS IN DELPHINIUM NELSONII: OUTBREEDING AND INBREEDING DEPRESSION IN PROGENY FITNESS

Depending on its genetic causes, outbreeding depression in quantitative characters may occur first in the free‐living F1 generation produced by a wide cross. In 1981–1985, we generated F1 progenies by hand‐pollinating larkspurs (Delphinium nelsonii) with pollen from 1‐m, 3‐m, 10‐m, or 30‐m distances. From the spatial genetic structure indicated by previous electrophoretic and reciprocal transplantation studies, we estimate that these crosses range from being inbred (f ≈ 0.06) to outbred. We planted 594 seeds from 66 maternal sibships under natural conditions. As of 1992, there was strong evidence for both inbreeding depression and outbreeding depression. Progeny from intermediate crossing distances grew approximately twice as large as more inbred or outbred progeny in the first 5 yr after planting (P = 0.013, repeated measures ANOVA), and survived almost 1 yr longer on average (contrast of 3‐m and 10‐m treatments versus 1 m and 30 m; P = 0.028, ANOVA). Twenty maternal sibships produced flowering individuals; only four and two of these represented 1‐m and 30‐m crossing distances, respectively (P = 0.021, G‐test). The cumulative fitness of intermediate distance sibships averaged about twice that of 1‐m sibships, and five to eight times that of 30‐m sibships (P = 0.017, ANOVA). Thus, even though progeny of 1‐m crosses were inbred to a degree only about one‐eighth that of selling, inbreeding depression approximated 50%, and outbreeding depression equaled or exceeded 50% for all fitness components.
Leonardo's laptop: human needs and the new computing technologies

The old computing was about what computers could do; the new computing is about what people can do.To accelerate the shift from the old to the new computing designers need to:reduce computer user frustration. Recent studies show 46% of time is lost to crashes, confusing instructions, navigation problems, etc. Public pressure for change could promote design improvements and increase reliability, thereby dramatically enhancing user experiences.promote universal usability. Interfaces must be tailorable to a wide range of hardware, software, and networks, and users. When broad services such as voting, healthcare, and education are envisioned, the challenge to designers is substantial.envision a future in which human needs more directly shape technology evolution. Four circles of human relationships and four human activities map out the human needs for mobility, ubiquity, creativity, and community. The World Wide Med and million-person communities will be accessible through desktop, palmtop and fingertip devices to support e-learning, e-business, e-healthcare, and e-government.Leonardo da Vinci could help as an inspirational muse for the new computing. His example could push designers to improve quality through scientific study and more elegant visual design. Leonardo's example can guide us to the new computing, which emphasizes empowerment, creativity, and collaboration. Information visualization and personal photo interfaces will be shown: PhotoMesa (www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/photomesa) and PhotoFinder (www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/photolib). For more: http://mitpress.mit. edu/leonardoslaptop and http://www.cs. umd.edu/hcil/newcomputing.
Neural Semantic Parsing by Character-based Translation: Experiments with Abstract Meaning Representations

We evaluate the character-level translation method for neural semantic parsing on a large corpus of sentences annotated with Abstract Meaning Representations (AMRs). Using a sequence-to-sequence model, and some trivial preprocessing and postprocessing of AMRs, we obtain a baseline accuracy of 53.1 (F-score on AMR-triples). We examine five different approaches to improve this baseline result: (i) reordering AMR branches to match the word order of the input sentence increases performance to 58.3; (ii) adding part-of-speech tags (automatically produced) to the input shows improvement as well (57.2); (iii) So does the introduction of super characters (conflating frequent sequences of characters to a single character), reaching 57.4; (iv) optimizing the training process by using pre-training and averaging a set of models increases performance to 58.7; (v) adding silver-standard training data obtained by an off-the-shelf parser yields the biggest improvement, resulting in an F-score of 64.0. Combining all five techniques leads to an F-score of 71.0 on holdout data, which is state-of-the-art in AMR parsing. This is remarkable because of the relative simplicity of the approach.
Accuracy of straight leg raise and slump tests in detecting lumbar disc herniation: a pilot study.

OBJECTIVE To determine the accuracy of the Straight Leg Raise (SLR) and slump tests in detecting Lumbar Disc Herniation (LDH). DESIGN Cross-sectional diagnostic accuracy study. SETTING Two referral hospitals in Kigali, Rwanda: King Faisal Hospital and Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Kigali. SUBJECTS All patients aged 18 to 70 who had an MRI and who were experiencing pain in the low back, leg or low back and leg. INTERVENTIONS Closed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) investigations for each patient as witnessed by a radiologist who read the image were recorded by the first researcher and blinded to other researchers. The SLR and slump tests were performed three times on each patient by independent testers who were blinded to the result of the first test. The test order was randomized for each subject and the two tests were separated by one day wash-out period. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Data were analyzed using a 2x2 table to ascertain diagnostic statistics including sensitivity and specificity with 95% confidence intervals. RESULTS Thirty three from a possible 37 patients mean age 41.58 ± 10 years completed all of the tests. The sensitivity of SLR was greater (0.875; CI: 0.690-0.957) than that of the slump tests (0.800; CI: 0.6087-0.911) (p = 0.01) in detecting LDH. The specificity for SLR was 0.429 (CI: 0.158-0.750) and for slump was 0.714 (CI: 0.359-0.918). Substantial agreement (K = 0.774) was obtained between the SLR and MRI. CONCLUSION The SLR was more accurate in detecting LDH. Further validation of this pilot finding is required by studying a larger sample.
An Innovative Cis-Diammineplatinum (II) Benzene-Polycarboxylic-Acids Complex Inhibits Growth of Burkitt`s Cell Lymphoma In Vitro and In Vivo

Cis-diammineplatinum (II) benzene-polycarboxylic acids (CDBPA) is a new therapy of solid tumors without toxicity, mild and transient side-effects and an ability to improve quality of life. The underlying mechanism of action of CDBPA in Burkitt`s lymphoma was tested in vitro and its effect on tumor size and survival was tested in a NOD-scid mice model. BL cells and normal fibroblasts were exposed to CDBPA for cytotoxicity screening by XTT assay, followed by cell cycle arrest, determination of apoptosis using Flow Cytometry and by annexin V/FITC/PI assay. Protein level and Gene expression were tested by Western blotting analysis and by the Applied Biosystems® Tagman® Array Plates, respectively. We demonstrated that CDBPA significantly reduced cell viability and induced apoptosis via the extrinsic and the intrinsic apoptotic pathways of Burkitts lymphoma cells without causing cell cycle arrest but reduction of the various phases. Gene expression experiments indicated that CARD9, BNIP3(L), TNFRSF-1B, and TNFRSF-25 genes are highly expressed in Ramos BL cells following treatment with CDBPA. CDBPA exerted a strong apoptotic cell death. A gene expression profile analysis has been performed and the results indicated that CBPDA is significantly increased the expression of five genes: CARD9, BNIP, TNFRSF-1B, TNFRSF25 and TNF-alpha, that have an important role in induction of apoptosis. This means that apoptosis is induced by NFκB in two ways. The survival period of mice treated with subcutaneous CDBPA was longer than that of mice treated with vehicle or R-CHOP. Tumor size was significantly reduced after 2 weeks of treatment with CDBPA. CDBPA, possesses strong in vitro and in vivo activity against Ramos cells, representing a potential approach for therapy of Burkitt lymphoma.
The Lost War and battles of environmental justice : the emergence of environmental justice in England : political potential in a post-political context

Environmental Justice (EJ), the name of both a concept and a social movement that originated in the United States in the early 1980s, is purported to possess both democratic and political potential. However, in its various manifestations, this potential is frequently not realised. This study, engaging in recent critiques of the nature of politics itself and the argument that the current context has become post-political, examines EJ’s radical potential and its emergence and presence in England. To investigate, interviews with key EJ actors in UK civil society, the Non-Government Organisation of Friends of the Earth (FoE) in particular, and a case study of a mobilisation against a stereotypical instance of environmental injustice (EiJ) are conducted. In England, the concept is seen to emerge at an elite civil society-level around the turn of the millennium, most noticeably with FoE. EJ and its social justice counterpart are seen to struggle for eminence, and the most prominent emergence of EJ is within a sustainable development discourse coalition addressing a technocratic deficit, post-political in form. With little presence of EJ discourses and the explicit EJ frame at the grassroots level, a number of barriers relating to the nature of both England’s EiJs and the organisations promoting the discourse are discerned. A congruence of neoliberalism and a ‘Protest Business’ organisational form with post-politics, which is unconducive to particular forms of EJ, is revealed. Moreover, in this context where the political is sublimated, an inherent fragmentation is seen organisationally, discursively and causally, that inhibits radical EJ diagnoses and prognoses. The case study provides insight into the discourses present in a contemporary EiJ mobilisation against an incinerator in England, revealing largely implicit justice claims and a ‘properly political’ claim of being “dumped on”, and their subsequent negotiation, sublimation and disavowal by a post-political planning system.
Detecting shifts of transmission areas in avian blood parasites — a phylogenetic approach

We investigated the degree of geographical shifts of transmission areas of vector‐borne avian blood parasites (Plasmodium, Haemoproteus and Leucocytozoon) over ecological and evolutionary timescales. Of 259 different parasite lineages obtained from 5886 screened birds sampled in Europe and Africa, only two lineages were confirmed to have current transmission in resident bird species in both geographical areas. We used a phylogenetic approach to show that parasites belonging to the genera Haemoproteus and Leucocytozoon rarely change transmission area and that these parasites are restricted to one resident bird fauna over a long evolutionary time span and are not freely spread between the continents with the help of migratory birds. Lineages of the genus Plasmodium seem more freely spread between the continents. We suggest that such a reduced transmission barrier of Plasmodium parasites is caused by their higher tendency to infect migratory bird species, which might facilitate shifting of transmission area. Although vector‐borne parasites of these genera apparently can shift between a tropical and a temperate transmission area and these areas are linked with an immense amount of annual bird migration, our data suggest that novel introductions of these parasites into resident bird faunas are rather rare evolutionary events.
Six-Minute Walk Test demonstrates motor fatigue in spinal muscular atrophy

Background: In spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), weakness, decreased endurance, and fatigue limit mobility. Scales have been developed to measure function across the wide spectrum of disease severity. However, these scales typically are observer dependent, and scores are based on sums across Likert-scaled items. The Six-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) is an objective, easily administered, and standardized evaluation of functional exercise capacity that has been proven reliable in other neurologic disorders and in children. Methods: To study the performance of the 6MWT in SMA, 18 ambulatory participants were evaluated in a cross-sectional study. Clinical measures were 6MWT, 10-m walk/run, Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale–Expanded (HFMSE), forced vital capacity, and handheld dynamometry. Associations between the 6MWT total distance and other outcomes were analyzed using Spearman correlation coefficients. A paired t test was used to compare the mean distance walked in the first and sixth minutes. Results: The 6MWT was associated with the HFMSE score (r = 0.83, p < 0.0001), 10-m walk/run (r = −0.87, p < 0.0001), and knee flexor strength (r = 0.62, p = 0.01). Gait velocity decreased during successive minutes in nearly all participants. The average first minute distance (57.5 m) was significantly more than the sixth minute distance (48 m) (p = 0.0003). Conclusion: The Six-Minute Walk Test (6MWT) can be safely performed in ambulatory patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), correlates with established outcome measures, and is sensitive to fatigue-related changes. The 6MWT is a promising candidate outcome measure for clinical trials in ambulatory subjects with SMA.