Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Weight Stigma and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenocortical Axis Reactivity in Individuals Who Are Overweight.

BACKGROUND Stigmatized people exhibit blunted cortisol responses to many stressors. PURPOSE To examine the cortisol responses of individuals who are overweight to a stigma-related stressor involving interviewing for a weight-discriminatory company. METHODS We recruited 170 men and women (mean age = 35.01) from towns located within about a 30-min drive of the study center. Weight was assessed using body mass index (BMI) and self-perceptions about being overweight. Participants were exposed to a laboratory stressor, modeled after the Trier Social Stress Test. In the stigmatizing condition, participants gave a supposedly videotaped speech about what makes them a good candidate for a job at a company that was described as having a weight-discriminatory health insurance benefit. Participants in the nonstigmatizing condition made a supposedly audiotaped speech for a company whose health insurance benefit was not described. Cortisol reactivity was then assessed. RESULTS Participants who rated themselves as overweight or who were overweight according to their BMI evidenced a blunted cortisol response in the weight-stigmatizing condition, whereas lean participants in the weight-stigmatizing condition showed the rise in cortisol levels that typically occurs following the Trier Social Stress Test. CONCLUSIONS People who experience the chronic stress of being stigmatized due to their weight show blunted cortisol responses just as other chronically stressed people do.
An Update on Predictive Biomarkers for Treatment Selection in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

It is now widely established that management of lung cancer is much more complex and cannot be centered on the binary classification of small-cell versus non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Lung cancer is now recognized as a highly heterogeneous disease that develops from genetic mutations and gene expression patterns, which initiate uncontrolled cellular growth, proliferation and progression, as well as immune evasion. Accurate biomarker assessment to determine the mutational status of driver mutations such as EGFR, ALK and ROS1, which can be targeted by specific tyrosine kinase inhibitors, is now essential for treatment decision making in advanced stage NSCLC and has shifted the treatment paradigm of NSCLC to more individualized therapy. Rapid advancements in immunotherapeutic approaches to NSCLC treatment have been paralleled by development of a range of potential predictive biomarkers that can enrich for patient response, including PD-L1 expression and tumor mutational burden. Here, we review the key biomarkers that help predict response to treatment options in NSCLC patients.
NEUROPEPTIDES IN THE CELLS OF HUMAN THYMUS

The study was designed to explore the expression of different neuropeptides, viz. vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), calcitonin gene related peptide (CGRP), substance P (SP), bombesin and motilin in the cells of fetal and adult human thymus. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that cortical and medullary thymocytes were labeled by all antibodies, except those specific for motilin. Immunoreactive VIP and SP were observed in the solitary epithelial cells located in the subcapsular/subtrabecular cortex, at the corticomedullary junction and in the medulla. The cells within the subcapsular/subtrabecular monolayer, rare solitary cells in the deep cortex and epithelial cell network in the medulla, were labeled with antibodies to CGRP and bombesin. Hassall’s corpuscles were labeled with all antibodies except that specific for SP. The obtained data obtained testify to the expression of different neuropeptides in human thymic lymphoid and non-lymphoid cells and suggest a role for neuroendocrine hormone-mediated mechanisms in the regulation of thymic homeostasis in humans.
Detection of Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans leukotoxin and fimbria-associated protein gene genotypes among periodontitis patients and healthy controls: A case–control study

Background: Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans has been reported in higher proportions in subgingival microbiota of individuals with aggressive periodontitis (AgP) compared with those with chronic periodontitis (ChP) and healthy controls. The major virulence factors are the ones that help in colonization and evasion of host's defenses. Hence, this study was aimed to assess the prevalence of A. actinomycetemcomitans 16S rRNA and its virulent genotypes (leukotoxin [lktA] and fimbria-associated protein [fap]). Materials and Methods: In this case– control study We performed periodontal examination and measured probing depth and clinical attachment level (CAL). Subgingival plaque samples from 200 (ChP: n = 128 and AgP: n = 72) periodontitis patients and 200 healthy controls were screened for the presence of A. actinomycetemcomitans 16S rRNA, lktA, and fap genotypes by polymerase chain reaction. The prevalence of genotypes between periodontitis patients and healthy controls was compared with Pearson's Chi-square test. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: Mean pocket probing depth and CAL were high as compared to the healthy controls. The prevalence of A. actinomycetemcomitans in ChP (n = 128), AgP (n = 72), and healthy individuals (n = 200) was 32.0%, 61.1%, and 2.5%, respectively. A. actinomycetemcomitans lktA genotype prevalence was 71.8% among periodontitis patients, while A. actinomycetemcomitans fap genotype showed 31.8% prevalence. The prevalence of these genotypes was insignificant in healthy controls. Conclusion: The high odds ratio for A. actinomycetemcomitans prevalence suggests its strong link to periodontitis. Detection of A. actinomycetemcomitans lktA + genotype may be a useful marker for AgP as its prevalence was found to be high in AgP.
Domain Registration Policy Strategies and the Fight against Online Crime

ABSTRACT Domain names play an important role in nearly all online crime. Criminals commonly use domain names to evade blacklisting or to confuse users. The most common approaches to combat abusive registrations are proactive detection of the criminal activity, and reactive blacklisting of domain names. To complement these methods, we study the effects of policy intervention on the domain registration ecosystem with a focus on malicious domain names. Building on our understanding of the domain registration ecosystem, we develop a multi-stage analysis framework for registration policy proposals. As part of our framework, we discuss the biggest challenges to registration policy deployment (e.g., the complexity of the international domain registration ecosystem); when domain registration can or cannot affect online crime; and the inherent limitations of such analyses. We hope to stimulate further policy work and broaden the discussion beyond technical measures to impede online criminal activity. Our most promising registration policy proposal comes from the observation that online criminals need far more domain names to operate effectively than benign registrants. We propose a dynamic pricing function and stricter identity verification to make bulk domain registrations expensive. Our game-theoretical analysis indicates that this proposal should have a minimal effect on benign registrants and registries while having a significant financial and operational impact on certain criminal activities. Most interestingly, we observe a synergy between blacklisting and domain registration policies, where increasing blacklisting performance disproportionately boosts policy effectiveness.
On Strategyproof Conference Peer Review

We consider peer review under a conference setting where there are conflicts between the reviewers and the submissions. Under such conflicts, reviewers can manipulate their reviews in a strategic manner to influence the final rankings of their own papers. Present-day peer-review systems are not designed to guard against such strategic behavior, beyond minimal (and insufficient) checks such as not assigning a paper to a conflicted reviewer. In this work, we address this problem through the lens of social choice, and present a theoretical framework for strategyproof and efficient peer review. Given the conflict graph which satisfies a simple property, we first present and analyze a flexible framework for reviewer-assignment and aggregation for the reviews that guarantees not only strategyproofness but also a natural efficiency property (unanimity). Our framework is based on the so-called partitioning method, and can be treated as a generalization of this type of method to conference peer review settings. We then empirically show that the requisite property on the (authorship) conflict graph is indeed satisfied in the ICLR-17 submissions data, and further demonstrate a simple trick to make the partitioning method more practically appealing under conference peer-review settings. Finally, we complement our positive results with negative theoretical results where we prove that under slightly stronger requirements, it is impossible for any algorithm to be both strategyproof and efficient.
Indexed Left Atrial Adipose Tissue Area Is Associated With Severity of Atrial Fibrillation and Atrial Fibrillation Recurrence Among Patients Undergoing Catheter Ablation

Background: Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) has been associated with adverse left atrial (LA) remodeling and atrial fibrillation (AF) outcomes, possibly because of paracrine signaling. Objectives: We examined factors associated with a novel measure of EAT i.e., indexed LAEAT (iLAEAT) and its prognostic significance after catheter ablation (CA) of atrial fibrillation (AF). Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis of 274 participants with AF referred for CA. LAEAT area was measured from a single pre-ablation CT image and indexed to body surface area (BSA) to calculate iLAEAT. Clinical, echocardiographic data and 1-year AF recurrence rates after CA were compared across tertiles of iLAEAT. We performed logistic regression analysis adjusting for factors associated with AF to examine relations between iLAEAT and AF recurrence. Results: Mean age of participants was 61 ± 10 years, 136 (49%) were women, mean BMI was 32 ± 9 kg/m2 and 85 (31%) had persistent AF. Mean iLAEAT was 0.82 ± 0.53 cm2/m2. Over 12-months, 109 (40%) had AF recurrence. Participants in the highest iLAEAT tertile were older, had higher CHA2DS2VASC scores, more likely to be male, have greater LA volume, and were more likely to have persistent (vs. paroxysmal) type AF than participants in the lowest iLAEAT tertile (p for all < 0.05). In regression analyses, iLAEAT was associated with higher odds of AF recurrence (OR = 2.93; 95% CI 1.34–6.43). Conclusions: iLAEAT can quantify LA adipose tissue burden using standard CT images. It is strongly associated with AF risk factors and outcomes, supporting the hypothesis that EAT plays a role in the pathophysiology of AF.
DrAcc: a DRAM based Accelerator for Accurate CNN Inference

Modern Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are computation and memory intensive. Thus it is crucial to develop hardware accelerators to achieve high performance as well as power/energy-efficiency on resource limited embedded systems. DRAM-based CNN accelerators exhibit great potentials but face inference accuracy and area overhead challenges.In this paper, we propose DrAcc, a novel DRAM-based processing-in-memory CNN accelerator. DrAcc achieves high inference accuracy by implementing a ternary weight network using in-DRAM bit operation with simple enhancements. The data partition and mapping strategies can be flexibly configured for the best trade-off among performance, power and energy consumption, and DRAM data reuse factors. Our experimental results show that DrAcc achieves 84.8 FPS (frame per second) at 2W and 2.9× power efficiency improvement over the process-near-memory design.
Lipid Biomarkers in Acute Myocardial Infarction Before and After Percutaneous Coronary Intervention by Lipidomics Analysis

Background Reperfusion injury is one of the leading causes of myocardial cell death and heart failure. This study was performed to identify new candidate lipid biomarkers for the purpose of optimizing the diagnosis of myocardial ischemia reperfusion (I/R) injury, assessing the severity of myocardial I/R injury and trying to find the novel mechanism related to lipids. Material/Methods Forty patients who were diagnosed with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) were randomly selected for this study. Serum samples from all the patients with STEMI were collected at 3 time periods: after STEMI diagnosis but prior to reperfusion (T0); and then at 2 hours (T2) and 24 hours (T24) after the end of the percutaneous coronary intervention procedure. Plasma lipidomics profiling analysis was performed to identify the lipid metabolic signatures of myocardial I/R injury using lipidomics. Results Sixteen types of potential lipid biomarkers at different time periods (T0, T2, T24) were identified by using lipidomics technology. The T0 time periods exhibited 16 differentially metabolized lipid peaks in the patients after STEMI diagnosis but prior to reperfusion. With the increase of reperfusion times, the contents of these 16 lipid biomarkers decreased gradually, but there was a 1.5- to 2-fold increase of those 16 lipid biomarkers contents at T2 compared with T24. Conclusions Lipidomics analysis demonstrated differential change before and after reperfusion, suggesting a potential role of some of these lipids as biomarkers for optimizing the diagnosis of myocardial I/R, as well as for therapeutic targets against myocardial I/R injury.
Interoception: the forgotten modality in perceptual grounding of abstract and concrete concepts

Conceptual representations are perceptually grounded, but when investigating which perceptual modalities are involved, researchers have typically restricted their consideration to vision, touch, hearing, taste and smell. However, there is another major modality of perceptual information that is distinct from these traditional five senses; that is, interoception, or sensations inside the body. In this paper, we use megastudy data (modality-specific ratings of perceptual strength for over 32 000 words) to explore how interoceptive information contributes to the perceptual grounding of abstract and concrete concepts. We report how interoceptive strength captures a distinct form of perceptual experience across the abstract–concrete spectrum, but is markedly more important to abstract concepts (e.g. hungry, serenity) than to concrete concepts (e.g. capacity, rainy). In particular, interoception dominates emotion concepts, especially negative emotions relating to fear and sadness, moreso than other concepts of equivalent abstractness and valence. Finally, we examine whether interoceptive strength represents valuable information in conceptual content by investigating its role in concreteness effects in word recognition, and find that it enhances semantic facilitation over and above the traditional five sensory modalities. Overall, these findings suggest that interoception has comparable status to other modalities in contributing to the perceptual grounding of abstract and concrete concepts. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Varieties of abstract concepts: development, use and representation in the brain'.
Innovation Propensity in Croatian Enterprises: Results of a Community Innovation Survey

Innovation Propensity in Croatian Enterprises: Results of a Community Innovation Survey This paper assesses the determinants of innovation activities in Croatian enterprises and their implications for innovation policy. A Type-2 Tobit model is used for modelling the innovation behaviour of Croatian companies, based on the results of a Community Innovation Survey conducted for the period 2001-2003. This model identified the positive effects of conditions for enterprise growth (enterprise size and demand pull variable) and the integration of enterprises into international flows of capital and goods (through foreign direct investments) as well as R&D activities. These variables can be tackled through a more effective policy framework that should increase competitiveness within industries in order to stimulate the demand for innovation. The focus should be on fostering enterprise growth, attraction of FDI with strong spillover effects, and stimulating the export capability of enterprises. Only in such a context can the positive effects of engagement in R&D be maximised.
Lack of group-to-individual generalizability is a threat to human subjects research

Significance The current study quantified the degree to which group data are able to describe individual participants. We utilized intensive repeated-measures data—data that have been collected many times, across many individuals—to compare the distributions of bivariate correlations calculated within subjects vs. those calculated between subjects. Because the vast majority of social and medical science research aggregates across subjects, we aimed to assess how closely such aggregations reflect their constituent individuals. We provide evidence that conclusions drawn from aggregated data may be worryingly imprecise. Specifically, the variance in individuals is up to four times larger than in groups. These data call for a focus on idiography and open science that may substantially alter best-practice guidelines in the medical and behavioral sciences. Only for ergodic processes will inferences based on group-level data generalize to individual experience or behavior. Because human social and psychological processes typically have an individually variable and time-varying nature, they are unlikely to be ergodic. In this paper, six studies with a repeated-measure design were used for symmetric comparisons of interindividual and intraindividual variation. Our results delineate the potential scope and impact of nonergodic data in human subjects research. Analyses across six samples (with 87–94 participants and an equal number of assessments per participant) showed some degree of agreement in central tendency estimates (mean) between groups and individuals across constructs and data collection paradigms. However, the variance around the expected value was two to four times larger within individuals than within groups. This suggests that literatures in social and medical sciences may overestimate the accuracy of aggregated statistical estimates. This observation could have serious consequences for how we understand the consistency between group and individual correlations, and the generalizability of conclusions between domains. Researchers should explicitly test for equivalence of processes at the individual and group level across the social and medical sciences.
Cross-finger subdermal pocketplasty as a salvage procedure for thumb tip replantation without vascular anastomosis: a case report

Objectives Fingertip amputation is often encountered in emergency departments, especially in hospitals located near industrial areas. Replantation of the fingertip can be considered when the normal architecture is preserved in cases of sharp amputation. The goal of replantation is to preserve cosmesis and function, especially for the thumb because of its involvement in grasping and the key pinch. Even when microsurgical vascular anastomosis is applied, the absence of venous anastomosis along with the high rate of failure of arterial anastomosis in zone 1A fingertip amputation may lead to replantation failure. Methods We herein present a case report of thumb tip amputation salvaged via a modified cross-finger technique. The recipient site was on the ipsilateral radial side of the intermediate phalanx of the middle finger. Results The thumb tip was successfully replanted with no vascular anastomosis, and this new technique prevented stiffness in the metacarpophalangeal and interphalangeal joints of the thumb and middle finger. Conclusions This procedure can be performed in local clinics and emergency departments without the need for arterial and venous anastomoses.
Chondroprotective Effects of Hyaluronic Acid-Chitosan Nanoparticles Containing Plasmid DNA Encoding Cytokine Response Modifier A in a Rat Knee Osteoarthritis Model

Background/Aims: Interleukin (IL)-1β plays an essential role in the pathophysiology of osteoarthritis (OA). Cytokine response modifier A (CrmA) can prevent the generation of active IL-1β. This study aimed to explore the chondroprotective effects of hyaluronic acid-chitosan nanoparticles containing plasmid DNA encoding CrmA (HA/CS-CrmA) in a rat OA model. Methods: HA/CS-CrmA nanoparticles were synthesized through the complex coacervation of cationic polymers. The characteristics, toxicity, and transfection of the nanoparticles were investigated. Furthermore, the potential effects of HA/CS-CrmA nanoparticles were evaluated via a rat anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLT) model of OA. Cartilage damage and synovial inflammation were assessed by safranin O/fast green and hematoxylin and eosin staining. Type II collagen in cartilage was measured by immunohistochemistry, and the expression levels of IL-1β, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-3, and MMP-13 in synovial tissue were detected by western blot. Results: The HA/CS-CrmA nanoparticles, which effectively entrapped plasmid DNA, showed an adequate size (100-300 nm) and a regular spherical shape. The nanoparticles safely transfected synoviocytes and released plasmid DNA in a sustained manner over 3 weeks. Additionally, HA/CS-CrmA nanoparticles significantly inhibited cartilage damage, synovial inflammation, and the loss of type II collagen induced by ACLT. The expression levels of IL-1β, MMP-3, and MMP-13 in synovial tissue were dramatically down-regulated by HA/CS-CrmA nanoparticles. Conclusions: These results suggested that HA/CS-CrmA nanoparticles could attenuate cartilage destruction and protect against early OA by inhibiting synovial inflammation via inhibition of IL-1β generation.
Hydrogen in beryllium oxide investigated by DFT: on the relative stability of charged-state atomic versus molecular hydrogen

The behavior of hydrogen in perfect wurtzite beryllium oxide is herein investigated by means of electronic structure calculations based on density functional theory. The formation energies of the following set of states of hydrogen (H0, H+, H−, H2, , ) are computed and their solubility is established as a function of temperature and pressure with emphasis given to conditions relevant for hydrogen-implanted materials. It is found that all magnetic states H0, , are unstable, while the relative stability of the non-magnetic states depends on the thermodynamic conditions: H2 prevails above temperatures around 900 K at standard pressure, which is the lowest temperature in experiments measuring the diffusion coefficient of hydrogen in wurtzite beryllium oxide. Under hydrogen implantation, the total concentration of hydrogen is fixed by the implantation source; it is found that molecular hydrogen prevails starting from a very low total concentration in hydrogen (as low as 10−40 at.fr.). Finally, the diffusion coefficient of H2 in beryllium oxide is calculated and the results are compared with previous experimental data.