Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
CT and MR imaging findings in athletes with early tibial stress injuries: comparison with bone scintigraphy findings and emphasis on cortical abnormalities.

PURPOSE To prospectively compare computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, and bone scintigraphy in athletes with clinically suspected early stress injury of tibia. MATERIALS AND METHODS Medical ethics committee approval and informed consent were obtained. A total of 42 patients experiencing tibial pain due to early stress injuries were evaluated. Eight patients had bilateral involvement; thus, 50 tibiae were evaluated. All patients underwent initial radiography that was negative for injury. MR imaging, CT, and bone scintigraphy were performed in all patients within 1 month of onset of symptoms. Ten asymptomatic volunteers served as the control group. Location of stress injuries, types of bone alterations, and presence of periosteal and bone marrow edema were evaluated. Sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and positive and negative predictive values of MR imaging and CT were assessed, as was sensitivity of bone scintigraphy. McNemar test was used to detect statistically significant differences. RESULTS Sensitivity of MR imaging, CT, and bone scintigraphy was 88%, 42%, and 74%, respectively. Specificity, accuracy, and positive and negative predictive values were 100%, 90%, 100%, and 62%, respectively, for MR imaging and 100%, 52%, 100%, and 26%, respectively, for CT. Significant difference in detection of early tibial stress injuries was found between MR imaging and both CT and bone scintigraphy (McNemar test; P < .001 and P = .008, respectively). CONCLUSION MR imaging is the single best technique in assessment of patients with suspected tibial stress injuries; in some patients with negative MR imaging findings, CT can depict osteopenia, which is the earliest finding of fatigue cortical bone injury.
Impact of Low-Dose Ketamine on the Usage of Continuous Opioid Infusion for the Treatment of Pain in Adult Mechanically Ventilated Patients in Surgical Intensive Care Units

Background: Ketamine at subanesthetic doses has been shown to provide analgesic effects without causing respiratory depression and may be a viable option in mechanically ventilated patients to assist with extubation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of low-dose ketamine on opioid consumption in mechanically ventilated adult surgical intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Methods: A retrospective review of mechanically ventilated adult patients receiving low-dose ketamine continuous infusion (1-5 µcg/kg/min) for adjunctive pain control admitted to surgical ICUs was conducted. Patients were included if they met an ICU safety screen for a spontaneous breathing trial (SBT) implying extubation readiness pending SBT results. The primary end point was the slope of change in morphine equivalents (MEs) 12 hours pre- and postketamine infusion. We hypothesized that low-dose ketamine would increase the slope of opioid dose reduction. Results: Forty patients were analyzed. The median dose of ketamine was 5 µg/kg/min (interquartile range [IQR]: 3.5-5) and the treatment duration was 1.89 days (IQR: 0.96-3.06). Prior to ketamine, the majority of patients received volume-controlled or pressure-supported ventilation with a median duration of 2.05 days (IQR: 1.38-3.61). The median time from the initiation of ketamine to extubation was 1.44 days (IQR: 0.58-2.66). For the primary outcome, there was a significant difference in the slope of ME changes from 1 to −0.265 mg/h 12 hours pre- and postketamine initiation (P < .001). For the secondary outcomes, ketamine was associated with a decrease in vasopressor requirements (phenylephrine equivalent 70 vs 40 mg/h; P = .019). Conclusion: Low-dose continuous infusion ketamine in mechanically ventilated adult patients was associated with a significant increase in the rate of opioid dose reduction without adverse effects on hemodynamic stability.
miR-23 regulate the pathogenesis of patients with coronary artery disease.

OBJECTIVE To study whether miR-23 is regulated in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients and what is the possible mechanism of miR-23 in regulating CAD progression. Method Three different cohorts (including 13 AMI patients, 176 angina pectoris patients and 127 control subjects) were enrolled to investigate the expression levels of circulating miR-23 in patients with myocardial ischemia and also the relationship between plasma miR-23 and severity of coronary stenosis. Plasma miR-23 levels of participants were examined by real-time quantitative PCR. We further detected the correlation of miR-23 and VEGF by molecular and animal assays. Result miR-23 was enriched in not only diseased endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) but also the plasma of CAD patients. Besides, we found out miR-23 was able to suppress VEGF expression and EPC activities. Reporter assays confirmed the direct binding and repression of miR-23 to the 3'-UTR of VEGF mRNA. Knock down of miR-23 not only restored VEGF levels and angiogenic activities of diseased EPCs in vitro, but further promoted blood flow recovery in ischemic limbs of mice. Conclusion Circulating miR-23 may be a new biomarker for CAD and as a potential diagnostic tool. And increased miR-23 level may be used to predict the presence and severity of coronary lesions in CAD patients.
Gene therapy for hemophilia

Hemophilia A and B are X‐chromosome linked recessive bleeding disorders that result from a deficiency in factor VIII (FVIII) and factor IX (FIX) respectively. Though factor substitution therapy has greatly improved the lives of hemophiliac patients, there are still limitations to the current treatment that have triggered interest in alternative treatments by gene therapy. Significant progress has recently been made in the development of gene therapy for the treatment of hemophilia A and B. These advances parallel the technical improvements of existing vector systems including MoMLV‐based retroviral, adenoviral and AAV vectors, and the development of new delivery methods such as lentiviral vectors, helper‐dependent adenoviral vectors and improved non‐viral gene delivery methods. Therapeutic and physiologic levels of FVIII and FIX could be achieved in FVIII‐ and FIX‐deficient mice and hemophilia dogs by different gene therapy approaches. Long‐term correction of the bleeding disorders and in some cases a permanent cure has been realized in these preclinical studies. However, the induction of neutralizing antibodies often precludes stable phenotypic correction. Another complication is that certain promoters are prone to transcriptional inactivation in vivo, precluding long‐term FVIII or FIX expression. Several gene therapy phase I clinical trials are currently ongoing in patients suffering from severe hemophilia A or B. No significant adverse side‐effects were reported, and semen samples were negative for vector sequences by sensitive PCR assays. Most importantly, some subjects report fewer bleeding episodes and occasionally have very low levels of clotting factor activity detected. The results from the extensive preclinical studies in normal and hemophilic animal models and encouraging preliminary clinical data indicate that the simultaneous development of different strategies is likely to bring a permanent cure for hemophilia one step closer to reality. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Inhibition of Integrin-mediated Cell Adhesion but Not Directional Cell Migration Requires Catalytic Activity of EphB3 Receptor Tyrosine Kinase

Genetic studies have shown that Eph receptor tyrosine kinases have both kinase-dependent and kinase-independent functions through incompletely understood mechanisms. We report here that ephrin-B1 stimulation of endogenous EphB kinases in LS174T colorectal epithelial cells inhibited integrin-mediated adhesion and HGF/SF-induced directional cell migration. Using 293 cells stably transfected with wild type (WT)- or kinase-deficient (KD-EphB3), we found that inhibition of integrin-mediated cell adhesion and induction of cell rounding was kinase-dependent. Unexpectedly, in two independent assays, both KD- and WT-EphB3 significantly inhibited directional cell migration. Upon ephrin-B1 stimulation, the activities of Rac1 and Cdc42 were reduced in both WT- and KD-EphB3-expressing cells that were induced to migrate. Pharmacological evidence demonstrates that a relative increase in RhoA signaling as a result of decreased Rac1/Cdc42 activities contributes to the inhibitory effects. Furthermore, EphB3-mediated inhibitory effect on cell adhesion but not migration was abolished by the integrin activating antibodies, suggesting that the inhibition of cell migration is not because of down-regulation of integrin function. These results uncover a differential requirement for EphB3 catalytic activity in the regulation of cell adhesion and migration, and suggest that while catalytic activity of EphB3 is required for inhibition of integrin-mediated cell adhesion, a distinct signaling pathway to Rho GTPases shared by WT- and KD-EphB3 receptor mediates inhibition of directional cell migration.
Quantifying Backtest Overfitting in Alternative Beta Strategies

The authors investigate the biases in the backtested performance of “alternative beta” strategies using a unique sample of 215 trading strategies developed and promoted by global investment banks. Their results lend support to the cautions in the recent literature regarding backtest overfitting and lack of robustness in trading strategy performance during the “live” period (out of sample). The authors report a median 73% deterioration in Sharpe ratios between backtested and live performance periods for the strategies, and they establish a link between performance deterioration and strategy complexity, with the realized reduction in live versus backtested Sharpe ratios of the most complex strategies exceeding those of the simplest ones by over 30 percentage points. The robustness of strategy exposure to risk factors varies between asset classes and strategies; it appears reasonable in equity volatility and FX carry strategies but quite weak in the equity value strategy in particular.
Effects of between generations changes in nutrition type on vaginal smear and serum lipids in Sprague–Dawley rats

Abstract Objective: Previous studies established that between generations changes in feeding protocol can have significant impact on reproductive physiology. The aim of the study was to determinate effects of mothers' nutrition and nutrition of the offspring on the characteristics of vaginal smear and serum lipid content. Methods: Ten female rats were randomly divided in two groups; first group fed with food containing high content of saturated fatty acids (HFD) and the second with standard laboratory chow (CD). After coupling and lactation period their offspring were further randomly divided into two subgroups fed HFD or CD forming four study groups: (a) CD–CD, (b) CD–HFD, (c) HFD–CD and (d) HFD–HFD. The dams and offspring at the age of 37 and 18 weeks, respectively, were subjected to biochemical analysis of the blood and cytological analysis of the vaginal smears. Additionally body weight was recorded and body mass index (BMI) was calculated. Results: The HFD–HFD group presented with highest levels of triglycerides and the CD–HFD with the highest levels of cholesterol. Therefore, triglyceride and cholesterol levels were significantly different among the groups (p = 0.001 and p = 0.002, respectively). Vaginal cytological smears analysis showed features of irregular phase interchanges or extended estrous phase in offspring of high-fat fed dams. Conclusion: Maternal HFD consumption predisposes offspring to increased risk of developing metabolic abnormalities and estrous disorders.
Assessment of four stakeholder groups' preferences concerning outpatient commitment for persons with schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE Study findings indicating that involuntary outpatient commitment can improve treatment outcomes among persons with severe mental illness remain controversial. Opponents of outpatient commitment argue that its coerciveness is unacceptable even given its arguable benefits. However, it is unclear to what extent the public debate surrounding outpatient commitment represents the preferences of persons with a stake in the benefit or harm resulting from outpatient commitment. This study examines and compares views of outpatient commitment among four stakeholder groups: 1) persons in treatment for schizophrenia and related disorders, 2) family members of persons with these disorders, 3) clinicians treating persons with these disorders, and 4) members of the general public. METHOD Subjects from the Piedmont region of North Carolina who were members of the four stakeholder groups were presented with short vignettes that depicted potential outcomes that were associated alternatively with outpatient commitment and with voluntary treatment. Subjects rated each vignette according to how positively or negatively they viewed the overall situation for the individual described. Multivariate regression techniques were used to estimate preference weights for each stakeholder group. RESULTS With some exceptions, each group gave the highest preference to avoiding involuntary hospitalization, followed by avoiding interpersonal violence and maintaining good interpersonal relationships. No group gave appreciable importance to outpatient commitment, which suggests that avoiding its coerciveness is a lesser concern compared to other outcomes. CONCLUSIONS The findings suggest that these stakeholders are willing to accept the coerciveness of outpatient commitment to gain improved outcomes for certain persons with schizophrenia and related disorders.
Capacity-optimized topology control for cooperative wireless networks with interference cancellation

With recent advances in parallel cooperative transmissions between multiple source-destination pairs, interference cancellation (IC) can be achieved to improve sum data rate for one group of cooperating users. However, from the perspective of network capacity, user cooperation may not be always appealing, since the increased sum data rate of cooperating users comes at the price of blocking more neighboring users. In this paper, we study the potential benefits/drawbacks of cooperative communications on network capacity. We show that, in terms of network capacity, cooperative communications do not always outperform traditional non-cooperative communications, and cooperative communications should be dynamically applied in topology control to optimize the overall network capacity. Specifically, we propose a distributed Cooperative topology control scheme with Opportunistic IC (COIC) to improve network capacity. Simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Personality and Psychopathology: A Stagnant Field in Need of Development

A dominant paradigm in psychopathology research proposes that individual differences in personality are centrally involved in the origins and manifestations of psychopathology, and structural models of personality and psychopathology have been extremely useful in helping to organize associations among many traits and disorders. However, these models merely describe patterns of covariation; they do not explain the processes by which these patterns emerge. We argue that the field is stagnated, as it is overly focused on the demonstration of concurrent associations and on confirming a spectrum model that proposes traits and disorders are manifestations of the same underlying constructs. We contend that if the field is to move towards an understanding of causal processes, it must integrate knowledge and principles of personality development and developmental psychopathology. To begin this integration, we review (i) normative trends in personality change, (ii) age–related changes in the prevalence of disorders, and (iii) the impact of onset and chronicity on the severity of disorders. We propose several developmental processes that may contribute to the co–development of personality and psychopathology. We then present novel empirical findings to illustrate how a developmental perspective on traits and disorders can inform new hypotheses and propose principles and hypotheses that should guide future research. Copyright © 2014 European Association of Personality Psychology
X‐ray structure of junctional adhesion molecule: structural basis for homophilic adhesion via a novel dimerization motif

Junctional adhesion molecules (JAMs) are a family of immunoglobulin‐like single‐span transmembrane molecules that are expressed in endothelial cells, epithelial cells, leukocytes and myocardia. JAM has been suggested to contribute to the adhesive function of tight junctions and to regulate leukocyte trans migration. We describe the crystal structure of the recombinant extracellular part of mouse JAM (rsJAM) at 2.5 Å resolution. rsJAM consists of two immunoglobulin‐like domains that are connected by a conformationally restrained short linker. Two rsJAM molecules form a U‐shaped dimer with highly complementary interactions between the N‐terminal domains. Two salt bridges are formed in a complementary manner by a novel dimerization motif, R(V,I,L)E, which is essential for the formation of rsJAM dimers in solution and common to the known members of the JAM family. Based on the crystal packing and studies with mutant rsJAM, we propose a model for homophilic adhesion of JAM. In this model, U‐shaped JAM dimers are oriented in cis on the cell surface and form a two‐dimensional network by trans‐interactions of their N‐terminal domains with JAM dimers from an opposite cell surface.
Multiuser detection for uplink large-scale MIMO under one-bit quantization

In large-scale Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO), the number of Base Station (BS) antennas reaches tens even hundreds. If so many radio frequency front-ends adopt the classical receivers, their cost and power consumption during the receiving mode would increase quickly. Consequently, we exploit one-bit Analog Digital Convertor (ADC) to design low-cost and low-power software defined radio receivers for the BS. However, the new problem is how the BS fulfills Multiuser Detection (MUD) based on the one-bit baseband data. Based on the Message Passing De-Quantization (MPDQ) algorithm, an iterative multiuser detector is constructed. Its convergence properties is analyzed by the State Evolution (SE), and then its complexity is proved to be one order of magnitude smaller than that of the Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) detector. Simulation results show that the proposed detector outperforms MMSE. Finally, the proposed detector with matrix-vector multiplications is suitable for hardware implementation.
When and Why Are Deep Networks Better Than Shallow Ones?

While the universal approximation property holds both for hierarchical and shallow networks, deep networks can approximate the class of compositional functions as well as shallow networks but with exponentially lower number of training parameters and sample complexity. Compositional functions are obtained as a hierarchy of local constituent functions, where "local functions'' are functions with low dimensionality. This theorem proves an old conjecture by Bengio on the role of depth in networks, characterizing precisely the conditions under which it holds. It also suggests possible answers to the the puzzle of why high-dimensional deep networks trained on large training sets often do not seem to show overfit.
Trends in live births in the past 20 years in Zhengzhou, China

Objective. To evaluate changing trends in neonatal births and deaths in a provincial women's and children's hospital over the past 20 years. Design: Retrospective longitudinal study. Setting. Henan Provincial Women's and Children's Hospital, China. Population. Live births in Henan Provincial Women's and Children's Hospital from January 1987 to December 2006. Methods: Data was stratified by sex, birth weight, delivery type, maternal age, gestational age, and single or multiple births. The incidence of low Apgar scores and neonatal death was calculated for each fiscal year. Main outcome measures: Trends in the fundamental status of hospital‐born live births and risk factors for neonatal death. Results. 26 760 hospital live births were included. The ratio of males to females was 1.16:1. The mean gestational age decreased from 39.5±1.4 weeks to 38.4±2.5 weeks (p <0.001) and multiple births increased from 1.5 to 7.3% (p<0.001). The proportion of preterm births increased from 4.7 to 18.9% (p<0.001), maternal age increased from 25.9±3.7 years to 29.0±4.4 years (p<0.001), and cesarean deliveries increased from 23.7 to 65.5% (p<0.001). The incidence of low Apgar scores decreased from 12.9 to 1.1% (p<0.001). The incidence of neonatal death was 8.5/1 000 live births, with preterm births and low Apgar scores accounting for 72.8 and 16.2% of all neonatal deaths, respectively. Conclusion. Preterm births, multiple births, and cesarean deliveries increased dramatically. Preterm birth is the leading cause of neonatal death.
Perceived stigma, mental health and unsafe sexual behaviors of people living with HIV/AIDS.

OBJECTIVE To determine the relationship among perceived stigma, mental health and unsafe sexual behaviors of people living with HIV/AIDS. METHODS Cross-sectional research was used to interview people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) from April 2012 to March 2013 in Changsha, China. The questionnaires included General Questionnaire, Sexual Behavior Questionnaire, Patient Health Questionnaire Depression Scale (PHQ-9), General Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) and Psychometric Assessment of the HIV Stigma Scale. The results were statistically analyzed with SPSS18.0. RESULTS The total score of perceived stigma and its 4 dimensions were positively correlated with anxiety and depression. The total score of perceived stigma and its dimensions were associated with disclosure, but no significantly correlated with other sexual behaviors. Hierarchical regression showed perceived stigma had an effect on anxiety. CONCLUSION The stigma perceived by PLWHA is above the average level. Perceived stigma has an effect on mental health, especially anxiety, but no effect on unsafe sexual behaviors.
Sequences determining the pH dependence of viral entry are distinct from the host range-determining region of the murine ecotropic and amphotropic retrovirus envelope proteins

The entry of ecotropic and amphotropic murine leukemia retroviruses (MuLV) into cells was investigated by using viral vector particles carrying chimeric amphotropic-ecotropic envelope glycoproteins on their surface. Chimeras were made by joining, at or near the polyproline hinge, the N-terminal portion of the amphotropic (4070A) gp70 onto the C-terminal portion of the ecotropic (Moloney) gp70 and p15E (constructs AE2 and AE4) or vice versa (AE12). Transduction efficiency of the constructs was tested on target cells that either have only ecotropic receptors (CHO-2 and CHO-11 cells), only amphotropic receptors (mink lung fibroblasts and Cos 1 cells), or both types of receptors (NIH 3T3 cells). The assay made use of the fact that the mechanism for viral entry of ecotropic viruses is pH dependent while that of amphotropic viruses is pH independent. Treatment of target cells with NH4Cl, which prevents the reduction of pH within endosomes, reduced the titers of viral particles bearing the C-terminal moiety from the ecotropic envelope but did not reduce the titers of particles which had a C-terminal moiety from the amphotropic envelope. In addition, in contrast to other low-pH-dependent enveloped viruses, brief acid treatment did not allow surface-bound viruses to bypass the NH4Cl block. The results indicate that the pH dependence of viral entry is a property of the sequences C terminal to the polyproline hinge.