Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tactile brain-Computer Interface control of a Mobile Platform in a Real World Environment using a low-Cost Electroencephalography Headset

: We used a brain-computer interface (BCI) system controlled with event-related potentials (ERPs) evoked by tactile stimulation to control a mobile platform. Eight tactile stimulators were attached in four pairs to the arms, legs and back of the participants (N=12). The electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded via a modi-ﬁed Emotiv headset. All participants were trained in the laboratory, then four participants controlled the mobile platform in an outdoor environment. Inside the laboratory the participants achieved average accuracies of 72%. Outside four participants achieved average accuracies of 61% (range 52-88%). Technical problems with the responses of the mobile platform and high outside temperatures prevented higher levels of control with the mobile platform. A mobile platform better suited for the discrete control implemented with the BCI or a different control scheme will be needed for future experiments. Nevertheless, subjects were able to control the mobile platform with tactile ERPs using low-cost EEG equipment in a real world environment.
Persistence pays off: Paying Attention to What the LSTM Gating Mechanism Persists

Recurrent Neural Network Language Models composed of LSTM units, especially those augmented with an external memory, have achieved state-of-the-art results in Language Modeling. However, these models still struggle to process long sequences which are more likely to contain long-distance dependencies because of information fading. In this paper we demonstrate an effective mechanism for retrieving information in a memory augmented LSTM LM based on attending to information in memory in proportion to the number of timesteps the LSTM gating mechanism persisted the information.
Acute intraocular pressure responses to high-intensity interval-training protocols in men and women

ABSTRACT We aimed (1) to test the acute impact of two high-intensity interval-training (HIIT) protocols differing in the level of effort on intraocular pressure (IOP) responses, and (2) to elucidate whether the IOP responses differ between men and women. Twenty-four physically active collegiate (12 men and 12 women) performed three protocols: low-fatigue HIIT (eight 30-m sprints with 60-s of rest), high-fatigue HIIT (eight 30-m sprints with 30-s of rest), and control (walking). IOP was taken at baseline, after sprints and recovery by rebound tonometry. Our data revealed an acute IOP reduction during both HIIT protocols compared to the control condition (effect size [ES]:0.81–1.65). The differences between both HIIT protocols were generally negligible (ES<0.30), however, the reduction of IOP was moderately higher for the low-fatigue HIIT protocol after the 7th (ES: 0.67) and 8th (ES: 0.74) sprints. Women showed a more prominent lowering effect on IOP during the control condition (ES: 0.42–1.02), and during the two first sprints of both HIIT protocols (ES: 0.54–1.03). These findings highlight that a time-efficient HIIT protocol may acutely reduce IOP levels, while low-fatigue HIIT protocol could be recommended since it induced a higher reduction on IOP than the high-fatigue HIIT protocol.
Impaired step‐length setting prior to turning in Parkinson's disease patients with freezing of gait

E365K completely accounted for the previously identified GWAS signal (conditional p.E365K rs71628662, P = 0.6234). Within the current data set, the linkage disequilibrium between p.E365K and rs7168662 is very high (D0 = 0.987, r = 0.84). Previously, another noncoding variant (rs114138760) was also identified as an independent signal. In the NeuroX data set, this variant also showed association with disease (P = 0.0001853) and remained significant following adjustment for the primary GWAS variant (P = 0.0001511). In addition, this signal also remained significant following adjustment for p.E365K, p. N409S, and p.T408M (P > 0.007146), and of the 15 rs114138760 risk variant carriers, none carry p.L483P. In summary, this work affirms that functional alleles within GBA (p.E365K and p.T408M) that are insufficient to cause GD variants are robustly associated with PD. Further, we have shown that a previously reported GWAS signal at this locus can be largely explained by protein coding variability withinGBA. These data are consistent with p.E365K being the functional effector allele underlying the original GWA locus (GBA-SYT11 locus), as suggested previously. The results from this current study suggest that efforts directed at replacing or augmenting glucocerebrosidase activity already under way for PD may have wider-ranging applicability than just for individuals with GD-associated mutations in glucocerebrosidase.
Randomized Trial Comparing Proactive, High-Dose versus Reactive, Low-Dose Intravenous Iron Supplementation in Hemodialysis (PIVOTAL): Study Design and Baseline Data

Background: Intravenous (IV) iron supplementation is a standard maintenance treatment for hemodialysis (HD) patients, but the optimum dosing regimen is unknown. Methods: PIVOTAL (Proactive IV irOn Therapy in hemodiALysis patients) is a multicenter, open-label, blinded endpoint, randomized controlled (PROBE) trial. Incident HD adults with a serum ferritin < 400 µg/L and transferrin saturation (TSAT) levels < 30% receiving erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESA) were eligible. Enrolled patients were randomized to a proactive, high-dose IV iron arm (iron sucrose 400 mg/month unless ferritin > 700 µg/L and/or TSAT ≥40%) or a reactive, low-dose IV iron arm (iron sucrose administered if ferritin <200 µg/L or TSAT < 20%). We hypothesized that proactive, high-dose IV iron would be noninferior to reactive, low-dose IV iron for the primary outcome of first occurrence of nonfatal myocardial infarction (MI), nonfatal stroke, hospitalization for heart failure or death from any cause. If noninferiority is confirmed with a noninferiority limit of 1.25 for the hazard ratio of the proactive strategy relative to the reactive strategy, a test for superiority will be carried out. Secondary outcomes include infection-related endpoints, ESA dose requirements, and quality-of-life measures. As an event-driven trial, the study will continue until at least 631 primary outcome events have accrued, but the expected duration of follow-up is 2–4 years. Results: Of the 2,589 patients screened across 50 UK sites, 2,141 (83%) were randomized. At baseline, 65.3% were male, the median age was 65 years, and 79% were white. According to eligibility criteria, all patients were on ESA at screening. Prior stroke and MI were present in 8 and 9% of the cohort, respectively, and 44% of patients had diabetes at baseline. Baseline data for the randomized cohort were generally concordant with recent data from the UK Renal Registry. Conclusions: PIVOTAL will provide important information about the optimum dosing of IV iron in HD patients representative of usual clinical practice. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2013-002267-25.
Clinical features and prognostic factors of early-onset sepsis: a 7.5-year experience in one neonatal intensive care unit

Purpose In this study, we investigated the clinical features and prognostic factors of early-onset sepsis (EOS) in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on medical records from January 2010 to June 2017 (7.5 years) of a university hospital NICU. Results There were 45 cases of EOS (1.2%) in 3,862 infants. The most common pathogen responsible for EOS was group B Streptococcus (GBS), implicated in 10 cases (22.2%), followed by Escherichia coli, implicated in 9 cases (20%). The frequency of gram-positive sepsis was higher in term than in preterm infants, whereas the rate of gram-negative infection was higher in preterm than in term infants (P<0.05). The overall mortality was 37.8% (17 of 45), and 47% of deaths occurred within the first 3 days of infection. There were significant differences in terms of gestational age (26.8 weeks vs. 35.1 weeks) and birth weight (957 g vs. 2,520 g) between the death and survival groups. After adjustments based on the difference in gestational age and birth weight between the 2 groups, gram-negative pathogens (odds ratio [OR], 42; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.4–1,281.8) and some clinical findings, such as neutropenia (OR, 46; 95% CI, 1.3–1,628.7) and decreased activity (OR, 34; 95% CI, 1.8–633.4), were found to be associated with fatality. Conclusion The common pathogens found to be responsible for EOS in NICU patients are GBS and E. coli. Gram-negative bacterial infections, decreased activity in the early phase of infection, and neutropenia were associated with poor outcomes.
Orthographic and Phonological Priming Effects in the Same–Different Task

Masked priming tasks have been used widely to study early orthographic processes—the coding of letter position and letter identity. Recently, using masked priming in the same–different task Lupker, Nakayama, and Perea (2015a) reported finding a phonological priming effect with primes presented in Japanese Katakana, and English target words presented in the Roman alphabet, and based on this finding, suggested that previously reported effects in the same–different task in the literature could be based on phonology rather than orthography. In this article, the authors explain why the design of Lupker et al.’s experiment does not address this question; they then report 2 new experiments that do. The results indicate that the priming produced by orthographically similar primes in the same–different task for letter strings presented in the Roman alphabet is almost exclusively orthographic in origin, and phonology makes little contribution. The authors offer an explanation for why phonological priming was observed when the prime and target are presented in different scripts but not when they are presented in the same script.
Reduced risk of dementia among patients with atrial fibrillation receiving oral anticoagulants

Atrial fibrillation (AF), a well-recognized risk factor for dementia,1 likely increases risk through a higher prevalence of vascular pathology.2 AF does not cause cerebral degenerative changes per se. It appears to lower the threshold for the clinical diagnosis of degenerative and mixed dementias2 probably mediated by an increased burden of symptomatic and asymptomatic cerebrovascular pathology coexisting with degenerative changes.2 As such, oral anticoagulants (OACs) have been historically regarded as potentially beneficial for preventing or delaying dementia in patients with AF.
Inferring Structural Models of Travel Behavior: An Inverse Reinforcement Learning Approach

Author(s): Feygin, Sidney | Advisor(s): Pozdnukhov, Alexey | Abstract: Large volumes of digital human trajectories at high spatiotemporal resolution have become increasingly available to researchers and public entities. Derived from anonymized cellular records and social network postings, fine-grained mobility traces present exciting opportunities for longitudinal studies of daily travel and activity planning decisions. Through the application of automated and efficient data-mining techniques, researchers in machine learning, transportation engineering, and related disciplines have been able to use these movement microdata to model and forecast daily traffic conditions at metropolitan scales with unprecedented accuracy (Gonzalez and Hidalgo, 2008; Lin Z. et al., 2017; Widhalm et al., 2015; Yin, M. et al., 2017). However, state-of-the-art machine-learning and discrete-choice frameworks do not consider the dynamics of daily mobility decisions at the individual level. Existing methods also do not take into account strategic, interdependent interactions between representative agents, complicating the cost-benefit analysis of innovative decentralized policy instruments such as induced peer-to-peer influence. Interpretable structural models that can provide consistent and disaggregate estimates of replanning behavior are needed in order to evaluate the impacts of these novel regulatory measures. Therefore, in order to take better advantage of future and emerging technologies as tools to forge cooperative and sustainable relationships between citizens, governments, and the built environment, this thesis develops a framework for data-driven city management that bridges established travel demand planning practices with innovations in big data, reinforcement learning, and strategic decision-making. The work described herein is comprised of three major components. First, we develop a two-stage game theoretic model of peer pressure to investigate feedback between social, geographic, and temporal dimensions of agent choices in a hyper-realistic microsimulation of urban travel behavior. Second, in order to learn representations of dynamic agent utility functions, we extend \textit{inverse reinforcement learning} (IRL) algorithms to novel activity and travel planning environments and estimate associated structural parameters. Finally, we investigate the strength of modern high-dimensional imitation learning techniques to train flexible and accurate models of schedule composition and activity duration. Results from applications of the empirical methods developed herein suggest that our contributions could effectively complement the microsimulation and discrete choice modeling techniques used in disaggregate urban infrastructure planning frameworks such as activity-based transportation demand models.
Deficiencies in health-related quality-of-life assessment and reporting: a systematic review of oncology randomized phase III trials published between 2012 and 2016

Quality of life (QoL) is a relevant end point and a topic of growing interest by both scientific community and regulatory authorities. Our aim was to review QoL prevalence as an end point in cancer phase III trials published in major journals and to evaluate QoL reporting deficiencies in terms of under-reporting and delay of publication. All issues published between 2012 and 2016 by 11 major journals were hand-searched for primary publications of phase III trials in adult patients with solid tumors. Information about end points was derived from paper and study protocol, when available. Secondary QoL publications were searched in PubMed. In total, 446 publications were eligible. In 210 (47.1%), QoL was not included among end points. QoL was not an end point in 40.1% of trials in the advanced/metastatic setting, 39.7% of profit trials and 53.6% of non-profit trials. Out of 231 primary publications of trials with QoL as secondary or exploratory end point, QoL results were available in 143 (61.9%). QoL results were absent in 37.6% of publications in the advanced/metastatic setting, in 37.1% of profit trials and 39.3% of non-profit trials. Proportion of trials not including QoL as end point or with missing QoL results was relevant in all tumor types and for all treatment types. Overall, 70 secondary QoL publications were found: for trials without QoL results in the primary publication, probability of secondary publication was 12.5%, 30.9% and 40.3% at 1, 2 and 3 years, respectively. Proportion of trials not reporting QoL results was similar in trials with positive results (36.5%) and with negative results (39.4%), but the probability of secondary publication was higher in positive trials. QoL is not included among end points in a relevant proportion of recently published phase III trials in solid tumors. In addition, QoL results are subject to significant under-reporting and delay in publication.
Role of serum EBV‐VCA IgG detection in assessing gastric cancer risk and prognosis in Northern Chinese population

The study aimed to investigate the role of serum EBV‐VCA IgG in assessing gastric cancer (GC) risk and prognosis. A total of 1790 Northern Chinese participants with pathologically confirmed disease underwent EBV‐VCA IgG serologic testing using enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), including 821 controls, 410 atrophic gastritis (AG) patients, and 559 GC patients. We found that positive EBV‐VCA IgG was significantly associated with GC and its precursor, conferring a 1.55‐ and 1.36‐fold increased risk of GC and AG, respectively (P = 0.001, 95% CI = 1.21‐1.99; P = 0.011, 95% CI = 1.07‐1.72, respectively). The risk effects were more remarkable in younger, female, and Helicobacter pylori‐negative individuals than in older, male, and H. pylori‐positive individuals. EBV‐VCA IgG‐positive subjects had a lower PGI/II ratio than EBV‐VCA IgG‐negative subjects (median 8.0 vs 8.8, P = 0.001), especially those in the H. pylori‐positive (median 6.1 vs 6.8, P = 0.027) and GC subgroups (median 6.4 vs 7.9, P = 0.020). In the intestinal GC subgroup, the survival of EBV‐VCA IgG‐positive patients was worse than that of EBV‐VCA IgG‐negative patients (P = 0.041, HR = 2.45, 95% CI = 1.04‐5.78). Our study suggests that EBV‐VCA IgG seropositivity has potential in predicting the risk of GC and its precursor as well as the prognosis of histologically classified GC.
Relationship of fibroblast growth factor 21, sirtuin 1, visfatin, and regulators in children with short stature

Abstract Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is mainly secreted by the liver. It is a factor that is not fully understood in relation to growth. Sirtuin 1 (SIRT1) is a deacetylase protein. It is thought that may have an effect on the release and function of GH and IGF-1. Visfatin is synthesized from adipose tissue as primary. It may be prognostic marker associated with growth factors. As a result of our work, FGF21 is not associated with short stature but levels of SIRT1 and visfatin are associated with short stature. The decrease in visfatin value in the short-stature group is thought to be due to an insufficient amount of adipose tissue, which is important for growth and development. SIRT1 might decrease GH effect by increasing STAT5 deacetylation in the liver and we think that the result of this reduction of SIRT1 would negatively impact IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 production.
Millimeter Wave Systems for Wireless Cellular Communications

This thesis considers channel estimation and multiuser (MU) data transmission for massive MIMO systems with fully digital/hybrid structures in mmWave channels. It contains three main contributions. In this thesis, we first propose a tone-based linear search algorithm to facilitate the estimation of angle-of-arrivals of the strongest components as well as scattering components of the users at the base station (BS) with fully digital structure. Our results show that the proposed maximum-ratio transmission (MRT) based on the strongest components can achieve a higher data rate than that of the conventional MRT, under the same mean squared errors (MSE). Second, we develop a low-complexity channel estimation and beamformer/precoder design scheme for hybrid mmWave systems. In addition, the proposed scheme applies to both non-sparse and sparse mmWave channel environments. We then leverage the proposed scheme to investigate the downlink achievable rate performance. The results show that the proposed scheme obtains a considerable achievable rate of fully digital systems. Taking into account the effect of various types of errors, we investigate the achievable rate performance degradation of the considered scheme. Third, we extend our proposed scheme to a multi-cell MU mmWave MIMO network. We derive the closed-form approximation of the normalized MSE of channel estimation under pilot contamination over Rician fading channels. Furthermore, we derive a tight closed-form approximation and the scaling law of the average achievable rate. Our results unveil that channel estimation errors, the intra-cell interference, and the inter-cell interference caused by pilot contamination over Rician fading channels can be efficiently mitigated by simply increasing the number of antennas equipped at the desired BS.
Machine and deep learning for sport-specific movement recognition: a systematic review of model development and performance

ABSTRACT Objective assessment of an athlete’s performance is of importance in elite sports to facilitate detailed analysis. The implementation of automated detection and recognition of sport-specific movements overcomes the limitations associated with manual performance analysis methods. The object of this study was to systematically review the literature on machine and deep learning for sport-specific movement recognition using inertial measurement unit (IMU) and, or computer vision data inputs. A search of multiple databases was undertaken. Included studies must have investigated a sport-specific movement and analysed via machine or deep learning methods for model development. A total of 52 studies met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data pre-processing, processing, model development and evaluation methods varied across the studies. Model development for movement recognition were predominantly undertaken using supervised classification approaches. A kernel form of the Support Vector Machine algorithm was used in 53% of IMU and 50% of vision-based studies. Twelve studies used a deep learning method as a form of Convolutional Neural Network algorithm and one study also adopted a Long Short Term Memory architecture in their model. The adaptation of experimental set-up, data pre-processing, and model development methods are best considered in relation to the characteristics of the targeted sports movement(s).
GSK461364A, a Polo-Like Kinase-1 Inhibitor Encapsulated in Polymeric Nanoparticles for the Treatment of Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM)

Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is a common primary brain cancer with a poor prognosis and a median survival of less than 14 months. Current modes of treatment are associated with deleterious side effects that reduce the life span of the patients. Nanomedicine enables site-specific delivery of active pharmaceutical ingredients and facilitates entrapment inside the tumor. Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK-1) inhibitors have shown promising results in tumor cells. GSK461364A (GSK) is one such targeted inhibitor with reported toxicity issues in phase 1 clinical trials. We have demonstrated in our study that the action of GSK is time dependent across all concentrations. There is a distinct 15−20% decrease in cell viability via apoptosis in U87-MG cells dosed with GSK at low concentrations (within the nanomolar and lower micromolar range) compared to higher concentrations of the drug. Additionally, we have confirmed that PLGA-PEG nanoparticles (NPs) containing GSK have shown significant reduction in cell viability of tumor cells compared to their free equivalents. Thus, this polymeric nanoconstruct encapsulating GSK can be effective even at low concentrations and could improve the effectiveness of the drug while reducing side effects at the lower effective dose. This is the first study to report a PLK-1 inhibitor (GSK) encapsulated in a nanocarrier for cancer applications.