Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The impact of cognitive reserve on the effectiveness of balance rehabilitation in Parkinson's disease.

BACKGROUND Cognitive reserve (CR) can be considered an active expression of brain resilience in response to a damage. Several studies have shown the influence of CR on cognitive impairment and its relationship with cognitive function in Parkinson's disease (PD). AIM The aim of the present study was to show if CR influences the effectiveness of balance rehabilitation in PD patients who performed a conventional rehabilitative treatment. DESIGN Observational longitudinal study. SETTING Neurology Outpatient Unit, University Hospital. POPULATION Fifty-three patients affected by idiopathic PD, stage 2-3 at the Hoehn and Yahr Scale. METHODS Each patient underwent 32 group sessions of conventional rehabilitative treatment. At baseline, patients' CR was assessed by the Cognitive Reserve Index questionnaire (CRIq). The primary outcome was the evaluation of static and dynamic balance modifications, induced by the treatment, through the Berg Balance Scale (BBS), assessed at T0 and T1. Mini Mental State Examination, Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Part III (clinician-scored monitored motor evaluation) and Brief Intelligence Test were assessed only at T0 and used as descriptive variables. RESULTS Considering the clinically meaningful change, BBS improved in 26% of patients, worsened in 2% and was unchanged in 72%. BBS score significantly improved in older patients, and in those with lower CRI total score. A significant inverse correlation was observed between changes in BBS and work and education related CR. Patients with lower baseline BBS score showed better improvement in balance. CONCLUSIONS We found an inverse correlation between CR level and balance improvement in PD patients who underwent conventional rehabilitation: higher improvement in BBS was observed in those with a lower CRI score. This may suggest that patients with higher CRI could benefit from more stimulating types of non-conventional rehabilitation (e.g. robotic, virtual reality). CLINICAL REHABILITATION IMPACT Rehabilitation should be individually tailored considering CR as a significant variable.
Echovirus 22 is an atypical enterovirus

Although echovirus 22 (EV22) is classified as an enterovirus in the family Picornaviridae, it is atypical of the enterovirus paradigm, typified by the polioviruses and the coxsackie B viruses. cDNA reverse transcribed from coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3) RNA does not hybridize to genomic RNA of EV22, and conversely, cDNA made to EV22 does not hybridize to CVB3 genomic RNA or to molecular clones of CVB3 or poliovirus type 1. EV22 cDNA does not hybridize to viral RNA of encephalomyocarditis virus or to a molecular clone of Theiler's murine encephalomyelitis virus, members of the cardiovirus genus. The genomic RNA of EV22 cannot be detected by the polymerase chain reaction using generic enteroviral primers. EV22 does not shut off host cell protein synthesis, and the RNA of EV22 is efficiently translated in vitro in rabbit reticulocyte lysates. Murine enterovirus-immune T cells recognize and proliferate against EV22 as an antigen in vitro, demonstrating that EV22 shares an epitope(s) common to enteroviruses but not found among other picornaviruses.
Dissipative models of swell propagation across the Pacific

Ocean swell plays an important role in the transport of energy across the ocean, yet its evolution is not well understood. In the late 1960s, the nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation was derived as a simplified model for the propagation of ocean swell over large distances. More recently, a number of dissipative generalizations of the NLS equation based on a simple dissipation assumption have been proposed. These models have been shown to accurately model wave evolution in a laboratory setting, but their validity in modeling ocean swell has not previously been examined. We study the efficacy of the NLS equation and four of its generalizations in modeling the evolution of swell in the ocean. The dissipative models perform significantly better than conservative ones and are overall reasonable models for swell amplitudes, indicating dissipation is an important physical effect in ocean swell evolution. The nonlinear models did not outperform their linearizations, indicating linear models may be sufficient in modeling some aspects of ocean swell evolution over large distances.
Studies on the local immunity of intestinal tract of chickens after oral administration of Newcastle disease virus.

An enterotropic avirulent Newcastle disease virus (NDV-Ishii) which was administered by the oral route in a dose of about 105-108 TCD50/ chick caused alimentary tract infection in 4 week old chickens, which excreted NDV-Ishii in feces from 3 to 7 days after the first feeding. Indirect fluorescent antibody microphotograph of sections of the small intestine revealed that a sort of surface infection was established by the oral administration of enterotropic NDV. But the virus was scarcely recovered from feces after the second feeding 4 to 6 weeks later and the neutralizing activity of fecal extracts,
Paediatric regional anaesthesia: a current perspective

Purpose of review Effective analgesia is necessary for optimal recovery after surgery, but children often do not attain adequate postoperative pain control. This review examines the current trends in paediatric regional anaesthesia. Recent findings Better pain assessment and therapeutic regimens are needed for our patients. Trunk blocks such as paravertebral, transversus abdominis plane, rectus sheath and ilioinguinal/iliohypogastric are becoming a popular means of providing analgesia for thoracic and abdominal procedures. The introduction of ultrasound guidance improves accuracy, efficacy, and safety of regional anaesthesia, and also decreases the amount of local anaesthetic injected. Single injection nerve blocks have a limited duration and the patients can benefit from adding an adjunct to local anaesthetic or placing a catheter. The use of adjuncts is reasonable, but it is difficult to find a medication with both minimal side-effects and the ability to combat pain for extended periods of time. More peripheral nerve block catheters are used in the paediatric inpatient and outpatient settings and recent data support the feasibility and efficacy of ambulatory peripheral nerve catheters. Summary By using a multimodal approach that includes regional anaesthesia, paediatric pain management should aim to reduce patients’ pain to an acceptable level without compromising their degree of mobilization. Undoubtedly, peripheral nerve blocks improve analgesia, but future large prospective studies should be conducted to further delineate their effectiveness, duration and safety.
Some Results on the Vector Gaussian Hypothesis Testing Problem

This paper studies the problem of discriminating two multivariate Gaussian distributions in a distributed manner. Specifically, it characterizes in a special case the optimal type- II error exponent as a function of the available communication rate. As a side-result, the paper also presents the optimal type-II error exponent of a slight generalization of the hypothesis testing against conditional independence problem where the marginal distributions under the two hypotheses can be different.
Neuropsychological assessment of mental deterioration: purpose of a brief battery and a probabilistic definition of “normality” and “non‐normality”

ABSTRACT A brief battery for mental deterioration assessment was obtained by Discriminant Analysis techniques from the Mental Deterioration Battery (MDB) (1) and yielded 98 % correct classifications in a sample of 60 subjects (30 pathological and 30 controls). This battery, named Brief Mental Deterioration Battery (BMDB), both quick and easy to administer, is composed of four tests: Rey's 15 Words Test, Immediate Visual Memory, Barrage, and Simple Analogies Test. MDB was administered to a further sample of 60 normal subjects and, by multivariate statistical techniques, a probabilistic definition of “normality” and consequently of “non‐normality” was given. When applied to pathological and control groups, this probabilistic dichotomic classification yielded groups almost identical to the previous ones.
Life history consequences of temperature transients in Drosophila melanogaster

SUMMARY The physiological and life history consequences of chronic temperatures are well studied in ectotherms. However, little is known about the consequences of short-term exposure to unusually high or low temperatures, as would occur during a weather front. What are the immediate life-history effects of such thermal transients? Can ectotherms recover quickly or do they suffer carry-over effects that persist after weather returns to normal? We measured the impact of thermal transients on egg and progeny production of Drosophila melanogaster Meigen from Washington State. We reared flies at 25°C and then transferred 3- to 5-day old adults to one of three transient treatments (1 or 3 days at 18°C, 1 day at 29°C) before returning them to 25°C. We monitored daily egg production and egg-to-adult viability before (as a control), during, and after the transient as well as fecundity and viability of flies held at constant 18°, 25° and 29°C. This population appears particularly heat tolerant as neither constant nor transient exposure to 29°C (usually a stressful temperature for this species) affected female fecundity or the viability of her progeny. However, a 1- or 3-day exposure to 18°C reduced female fecundity by 75–90% relative to controls, and eggs laid during the 3-day exposure had greatly reduced viability. When returned to 25°C after transient exposure to 18°C, females immediately matched the fecundity and viability of females maintained constantly at 25°C. Therefore, these flies do not suffer negative carry-over effects from these moderate thermal transients. Surprisingly, fitness (intrinsic rate of population growth) was not depressed by transient temperature exposure. However, the severity and especially the timing of the transient will probably determine the likelihood of carry-over effects as well as its effect on fitness.
ZynqNet: An FPGA-Accelerated Embedded Convolutional Neural Network

Image Understanding is becoming a vital feature in ever more applications ranging from medical diagnostics to autonomous vehicles. Many applications demand for embedded solutions that integrate into existing systems with tight real-time and power constraints. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) presently achieve record-breaking accuracies in all image understanding benchmarks, but have a very high computational complexity. Embedded CNNs thus call for small and efficient, yet very powerful computing platforms. This master thesis explores the potential of FPGA-based CNN acceleration and demonstrates a fully functional proof-of-concept CNN implementation on a Zynq System-on-Chip. The ZynqNet Embedded CNN is designed for image classification on ImageNet and consists of ZynqNet CNN, an optimized and customized CNN topology, and the ZynqNet FPGA Accelerator, an FPGA-based architecture for its evaluation. ZynqNet CNN is a highly efficient CNN topology. Detailed analysis and optimization of prior topologies using the custom-designed Netscope CNN Analyzer have enabled a CNN with 84.5% top-5 accuracy at a computational complexity of only 530 million multiplyaccumulate operations. The topology is highly regular and consists exclusively of convolutional layers, ReLU nonlinearities and one global pooling layer. The CNN fits ideally onto the FPGA accelerator. The ZynqNet FPGA Accelerator allows an efficient evaluation of ZynqNet CNN. It accelerates the full network based on a nested-loop algorithm which minimizes the number of arithmetic operations and memory accesses. The FPGA accelerator has been synthesized using High-Level Synthesis for the Xilinx Zynq XC-7Z045, and reaches a clock frequency of 200MHz with a device utilization of 80% to 90 %.
Lifting posterior mitral annuloplasty for enhancing leaflet coaptation in mitral valve repair: midterm outcomes.

BACKGROUND We evaluated the midterm outcomes of lifting posterior mitral annuloplasty for enhancing leaflet coaptation in mitral valve repair. METHODS Between October 2007 and December 2012, 341 consecutive patients with significant mitral regurgitation underwent lifting posterior mitral annuloplasty using a specially designed fabric annuloplasty strip that lifts the middle portion of the posterior annulus. Associated procedures for mitral valve repairs, such as patch valvuloplasty for posterior leaflet prolapse (n=80), new chord placement for anterior leaflet prolapse (n=33), commissurotomy (n=29), and posterior leaflet extension (n=23), were performed in 141 patients (41.3%). RESULTS Thirty-day mortality was 0.9%. Nine late deaths (2.6%) occurred. Mean overall survival at 5 years was 96.0%±1.1%. During the mean follow-up period of 38±17 months, six patients (1.8%) underwent valve-related reoperation (5-year freedom from valve-related reoperation, 98.1%±0.8%). At 5 years, mean freedom from recurrence of mitral regurgitation grade 3+ to 4+ (moderate to severe) was 95.1%±1.6%. The mean valve pressure gradient (PG) was 3.2±1.5 mmHg across all strip sizes at the time of follow-up. CONCLUSIONS Lifting posterior mitral annuloplasty using an innovative annuloplasty strip in mitral valve repair has a low rate of recurrent regurgitation or valve-related reoperation with rare relevant complications.
Experimental studies of nonlinear metasurface with metamaterial substrate

In this paper the reflective properties of prototype of nonlinear metasurface with the grounded metamaterial (MM) substrate are studied to verify the possibility of aligning multiple frequency harmonics of reflected field. Frequency characteristics of the reflection and transmission for a prototype of the substrate based on MM experimentally are received. It is shown that alignment of levels of harmonic components of reflected fields provided by means of reduction of level of the reflected field on fundamental harmonic thanks to energy absorption in the MM.
Ask a silly question: two decades of troublesome trials.

BACKGROUND Randomized control trials and the use of meta-analysis in systematic reviews are the basis of evidence-based practice. The paper reviews their use in the development of evidence-based practice in speech and language therapy. AIMS It is accepted that clinical outcome research should develop in a sequence of phases. A model of this process is described. Examples of outcome research in speech and language therapy are used to illustrate the use of the model and the problems that result when it is not followed. MAIN CONTRIBUTION Existing research has largely ignored the agreed procedures for outcome research. Particular problems have arisen when randomized control trials are used to examine therapy provision for a client group. Clients are often a heterogeneous group and receive different therapies. Consequently, it is unlikely that trials can obtain significant results, nor, if they do, can they provide clinicians with useful information about the choice of treatment. Systematic reviews are equally uninformative. Many of the studies on which they are based have methodological problems and their frequent failure adequately to describe the therapies used mean that reviews cannot evaluate or compare different types of therapy. CONCLUSIONS Researchers in speech and language therapy have given too little attention to the basics of clinical outcome research. This requires that clinical and theoretical insights are used to identify specific therapies for well-defined groups of clients. These therapies must be tested first in efficacy, then in effectiveness studies, and their results should be disseminated to clinicians. Only then is it meaningful to carry out large-scale trials of the effectiveness of therapy provision for a client group or to conduct systematic reviews of existing research.
Clinical significance of hemoptysis.

The expectoration of blood is always an alarming experience for the patient and a matter of grave concern to the attending physician, because it may be the warning of serious disease. There is probably no symptom other than severe and acute pain that will stimulate a patient to seek medical aid as promptly as loss of blood for the first time from an unexplained source. When such bleeding occurs from the respiratory tract, the possibility of its being due to pulmonary tuberculosis or carcinoma of the lung is promptly suggested. It is unfortunate, indeed, that the severity of the bleeding is no guide as to the presence or absence of these diseases. It is imperative, therefore, that the patient with a history of hemoptysis have the benefit of thorough investigation to determine the cause of the bleeding. It is essential first to determine that the bleeding does not originate from
Extending the New Technology Acceptance Model to Measure the End User Information Systems Satisfaction in a Mandatory Environment: A Bank's Treasury

On having implemented a new dealing rooms platform in a Bank's Treasury, the management identified a number of areas for further investigations of the end user acceptance of the new technology. Answers were sought to what extent dissatisfaction, if any, was influenced by the end users' perception of the system quality, subjective norms and computer self-efficacy. New technology acceptance models assume perceived 'usefulness', rather than 'ease of use', as a strong indicator of usage. The end user satisfaction model was developed to measure the end user satisfaction in a mandatory environment, and to test the 'usefulness' versus 'ease of use' assumption. The findings suggest that in a mandatory environment such as a Bank's Treasury, the perceived 'ease of use' was a marginal{y stronger influencer of the end user satisfaction. Demographic variables such as age, position in a company and the length of employment were other significant contributors to satisfaction. The implications of the findings for the Bank's management are twofold: both 'computer self-efficacy', and the end user 'satisfaction' play a major role in new technology acctptance, therefore the two variables require a particular consideration in designing information systems in mandatory environments.
Variations in Unrealistic Optimism Between Acceptors and Decliners of Early Phase Cancer Trials

Research has found that patient-subjects in early phase cancer trials exhibit unrealistic optimism regarding the risks and possible benefits of trial participation. Unrealistic optimism is associated with therapeutic misconception and failures to appreciate research-related information. This is the first study to assess whether those who decline to participate in these trials also exhibit unrealistic optimism. It is also the first study to assess whether there are significant differences in appreciation of research-related risks/benefits and therapeutic misconception between these two groups. We approached 261 patients at two academic medical centers who were offered enrollment in a Phase I, II, or I/II cancer trial (between 2012 and 2016). Two hundred thirty-three patients agreed to enroll in an early phase cancer trial, 171 of whom agreed to be interviewed for the study. Twenty-eight patients declined the offer to enroll, 15 of whom agreed to be interviewed for the study. Subjects participated in a structured face-to-face interview with a research associate trained to administer the study questionnaires. Acceptors demonstrated a significantly higher level of unrealistic optimism than decliners (p < .05). Decliners had significantly less therapeutic misconception than acceptors (3.37 [SD = 0.85] vs. 3.79 [SD = 0.77], p = .042). There was a significant difference on one of the appreciation questions between acceptors and decliners (p = .009). Comparative assessment of acceptors and decliners to early phase cancer trials casts light on whether unrealistic optimism is consequential for the decision to participate in these trials. The different levels of unrealistic optimism exhibited by these groups suggest that it may be a factor that affects the decision to participate.
Axial-vector form factors of the baryon decuplet with flavor SU(3) symmetry breaking

The axial-vector form factors and axial-vector constants of the baryon decuplet are investigated within a pion mean-field approach, which is also known as the chiral quark-soliton model. Given an axial-vector current with a specified flavor, there are four different form factors of a decuplet baryon. When we consider the singlet, triplet, and octet axial-vector currents, we have twelve different form factors for each member of the baryon decuplet. We compute all these axial-vector form factors of the baryon decuplet, taking into account the rotational $1/N_c$ corrections and effects of flavor SU(3) symmetry breaking. We find that, for a given flavor, two of the form factors for a decuplet baryon are only independent within the present approach. We first examine properties of the axial-vector form factors of the $\Delta^+$ isobar and $\Omega^-$ hyperon. We also compare the results of the triplet axial-vector form factors of $\Delta^+$ with those from lattice QCD and those of the present work for the axial-vector constants of the baryon decuplet with the lattice data. All the results for other members of the baryon decuplet are then presented. The results of the axial charges are compared with those of other works. The axial masses and axial radii are also discussed.
Rapid Prototyping of Probabilistic Models : Emerging Challenges in Variational Inference

Perhaps ironically, the deep learning community is far closer to our vision of “automated modelling” than the probabilistic modelling community. Many complex models in deep learning can be easily implemented and tested, while variational inference (VI) techniques require specialised knowledge and long development cycles, making them extremely challenging for non-experts. A possible solution, lifted from manufacturing, is to create a Rapid Prototyping pipeline by combining recent advances in stochastic VI and developments in symbolic differentiation. This seemingly naive combination of existing techniques opens the door to a series of exciting new research problems in VI and engineering. I discuss the limitations of current tools and propose novel ideas to research such as black-box variance reduction, VI model compositionality, and others. Similar ideas in deep learning have led to rapid development in model complexity, speeding up the innovation cycle. This pipeline forms a vital steppingstone in the road towards automated statistics, making VI accessible to larger audiences than before.