Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Depressive mood and low social support are not associated with arthritis development in patients with seropositive arthralgia, although they predict increased musculoskeletal symptoms

Objective Studies on the role of psychosocial vulnerability in the development of arthritis must be performed early in the disease course to exclude the reverse explanation that arthritis leads to psychological symptoms. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the longitudinal (5-year) association between depressive mood, daily stressors, avoidance coping and social support as predictors, and the development of arthritis and other clinical parameters as outcomes, in persons with seropositive arthralgia at risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis. Methods Five-year follow-up data of 231 patients from the Reade seropositive arthralgia cohort were used. Clinical and psychological data were collected using physical examinations and questionnaires. Mixed models and Cox regression analyses were used to assess the 5-year associations between depressive mood, daily stressors, avoidance coping or social support, and the development of arthritis or clinical parameters (tender joint count, Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) pain, VAS morning stiffness and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)). Results Higher scores for depressive mood and lower scores for social support were not associated with the development of arthritis nor with ESR. However, they were longitudinally associated with an increase in pain (p<0.001), morning stiffness (p<0.01) and tender joint count (p<0.001). No consistent associations were found between daily stressors, avoidance coping and the development of arthritis or other clinical parameters. Conclusion Although an effect on the development of arthritis could not be demonstrated, a strong longitudinal association was found between high depressive mood, low social support and clinical parameters. In persons with seropositive arthralgia, depressive symptoms and low social support may increase musculoskeletal symptoms.
Baseline predictors of antiretroviral treatment failure and lost to follow up in a multicenter countrywide HIV-1 cohort study in Ethiopia

Background Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been rapidly scaled up in Ethiopia since 2005, but factors influencing the outcome are poorly studied. We therefore analysed baseline predictors of first-line ART outcome after 6 and 12 months. Material and methods 874 HIV-infected patients, who started first-line ART, were enrolled in a countrywide prospective cohort. Two outcomes were defined: i) treatment failure: detectable viremia or lost-to-follow-up (LTFU) (confirmed death, moved from study sites or similar reasons); ii) LTFU only. Using stepwise logistic regression, four multivariable models identified baseline predictors for odds of treatment failure and LTFU. Results The treatment failure rates were 23.3% and 33.9% at 6 and 12 months, respectively. Opportunistic infections (OI), tuberculosis (TB), CD4 cells <50/μl, and viral load >5 log10 copies/ml increased the odds of treatment failure both at 6 and 12 months. The odds of LTFU at month 6 increased with baseline functional disabilities, WHO stage III/IV, and CD4 cells <50/μl. TB also increased the odds at month 12. Importantly, ART outcome differed across hospitals. Compared to the national hospital in Addis Ababa, patients from most regional sites had higher odds of treatment failure and/or LTFU at month 6 and/or 12, with the exception of one clinic (Jimma), which had lower odds of failure at month 6. Conclusions In this first countrywide Ethiopian HIV cohort, a high ART failure rate was identified, to the largest extent due to LTFU, including death. The geographical region where the patients were treated was a strong baseline predictor of ART failure. The difference in ART outcome across hospitals calls the need for provision of more national support at regional level.
Crustacean Female Sex Hormone From the Mud Crab Scylla paramamosain Is Highly Expressed in Prepubertal Males and Inhibits the Development of Androgenic Gland

Recently, the crustacean female sex hormone (CFSH), which is considered a female-specific hormone, has been shown to play a crucial role in female phenotypes in crustaceans. In this study, two transcripts (Sp-CFSH1 and Sp-CFSH2) encoding the same CFSH precursor were cloned from the mud crab Scylla paramamosain. Homology and phylogenetic analysis showed that CFSHs were homologous to interleukin-17 and highly conserved among brachyuran crabs. PCR analysis revealed that Sp-CFSH was expressed exclusively in the eyestalk ganglion of both prepubertal males and females, and surprisingly, the abundance of Sp-CFSH transcripts detected in the males were not significantly different from that of the females (P > 0.05). In addition, mRNA in situ hybridization showed that Sp-CFSH was localized in the X-organ of the male eyestalk ganglion. During the development of the androgenic gland (AG), the level of Sp-IAG mRNA in AG remained at low levels from stages I to II (early stage) but had a significant increase at stage III (mature stage). In contrast, the level of Sp-CFSH transcripts in the eyestalk ganglion was high in the early stage but extremely low in the mature stage. To investigate the potential function of CFSH in male S. paramamosain, the recombinant protein (∼20 kDa) was expressed in Escherichia coli and was subsequently added to AG explants in vitro. It was demonstrated that recombinant Sp-CFSH protein significantly reduced the expression of Sp-IAG in the AG explants at a concentration of 10−6 M (P < 0.05). In conclusion, our study provides the first piece of evidence that shows CFSH from the eyestalk ganglion acts as a negative regulator inhibiting the development of AG in crustaceans.
Comparison of nocturnal symptoms in advanced Parkinson’s disease patients with sleep disturbances: pramipexole sustained release versus immediate release formulations

Background Nocturnal symptoms are common in Parkinson’s disease (PD), which greatly affect the quality of life but are often overlooked in clinical settings. Treatment strategies that provide sustained dopaminergic stimulation may have sleep benefits. Objective To investigate the treatment effects of pramipexole (PPX) sustained release (SR) versus PPX immediate release (IR) on nocturnal symptoms in advanced PD patients with sleep disturbances. Materials and methods In this study, the PPX clinical trial (NCT00466167) was retrospectively analyzed for PD Sleep Scale (PDSS) total and domain scores in patients with advanced idiopathic PD receiving either PPX SR or PPX IR, who experienced motor fluctuations while on stable levodopa with a baseline PDSS total score of <90, indicating sleep disturbances. Analysis of covariance test was used to compare the adjusted mean changes at week 18 from baseline between treatment groups, after adjusting for pooled country and baseline scores. Results A total of 119 patients with PD reported sleep disturbances at baseline (PDSS <90; SR, n=59; IR, n=60). At week 18, patients receiving PPX SR reported numerically greater improvement of sleep disturbance than those receiving PPX IR, although the difference of 6.8 points was not statistically significant (adjusted mean changes in PDSS total score, SR=28.5 versus IR=21.7 points, P=0.165). Patients receiving PPX SR observed a numerically greater adjusted mean change in all PDSS domains compared with PPX IR. The overall proportions of patients with any adverse event were similar between both PPX SR and IR groups (62.7% versus 70.0%). Conclusion Both the PPX formulations showed improvements in nocturnal symptoms in advanced PD patients with sleep disturbances and were generally well tolerated. Given the known pharmacokinetic profile of an SR formulation and numerical advantage in PDSS mean change over IR formulation, these preliminary evidences support future prospectively designed studies to investigate the effects of PPX SR for improved sleep.
Different Behavioral Experiences Produce Distinctive Parallel Changes in, and Correlate With, Frontal Cortex and Hippocampal Global Post-translational Histone Levels

While it is clear that behavioral experience modulates epigenetic profiles, it is less evident how the nature of that experience influences outcomes and whether epigenetic/genetic “biomarkers” could be extracted to classify different types of behavioral experience. To begin to address this question, male and female mice were subjected to either a Fixed Interval (FI) schedule of food reward, or a single episode of forced swim followed by restraint stress, or no explicit behavioral experience after which global expression levels of two activating (H3K9ac and H3K4me3) and two repressive (H3K9me2 and H3k27me3) post-translational histone modifications (PTHMs), were measured in hippocampus (HIPP) and frontal cortex (FC). The specific nature of the behavioral experience differentiated profiles of PTHMs in a sex- and brain region-dependent manner, with all 4 PTHMs changing in parallel in response to different behavioral experiences. These different behavioral experiences also modified the pattern of correlations of PTHMs both within and across FC and HIPP. Unexpectedly, highly robust correlations were found between global PTHM levels and behavioral performances, suggesting that global PTHMs may provide a higher-order pattern recognition function. Further efforts are needed to determine the generality of such findings and what characteristics of behavioral experience are critical for modulating PTHM responses.
How silanization influences aggregation and moisture sorption behaviours of silanized silica: analysis of porosity and multilayer moisture adsorption

Based on the results of nitrogen adsorption and dynamic vapour sorption as well as analysis by the Hailwood–Horrobin (H-H) model, the effects of γ-methacryloxypropyltrimethoxysilane (MPTS) on the agglomeration and moisture sorption properties of fumed silica particles were investigated. After adding various concentrations (2%, 4%, 6% and 8%) of MPTS, different degrees of silanization were obtained by showing various ─OH group contents on the silica surface, which resulted in silica agglomerates with different porous structures. The bigger mesopores in the unmodified silica agglomerates became smaller and finally disappeared after MPTS modification and the Bruanuer–Emmett–Teller surface area decreased more gradually with an increase in MPTS concentration. The H-H model fitted the sorption isotherms very well, and both hydrated water and dissolved water showed decreasing trends with the increase in MPTS concentration, showing reduced hygroscopicity. Up to 6% MPTS, the ─OH groups decreased with increasing MPTS concentration, as indicated by reduced Kh and W parameters, while at 8% MPTS an extensive self-condensation of MPTS occurred. Adsorption hysteresis appeared for moisture sorption on silanized silica, especially at low relative humidity values and at low MPTS concentrations, which could be explained by a synergistic effect of the surface ─OH group content and pore characteristics. These results could aid our understanding of the applications of silane-modified silica particles.
On the DoF of Two-Way MIMO Butterfly Networks

This paper studies the degrees of freedom (DoF) of two-way multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) butterfly networks, a class of two-way four-unicast networks, that consists of four source/destination nodes and three relay nodes. We first give upper and lower bounds on the sum DoF of such network with any number of antennas in each node. We also study the DoF of the two-way MIMO butterfly network with caching at the relays. For the special case that each source/destination node has <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$M$</tex-math></inline-formula> antennas and each relay node has <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N$</tex-math></inline-formula> antennas, we obtain the exact DoF for some special cases. Specifically, if <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N \leq M$</tex-math> </inline-formula>, then without caching, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm DoF}=2N$</tex-math> </inline-formula>, which is equal to the DoF of a one-way MIMO butterfly network, and with relay caching, <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm DoF}=4N$</tex-math></inline-formula>. Moreover, if <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N > 2M$</tex-math></inline-formula>, then with or without relay caching, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm DoF}=4M$</tex-math></inline-formula> which doubles the DoF of a one-way MIMO butterfly network. Hence, for this MIMO butterfly network, when the number of relay antennas is large compared with the number of source/destination antennas, bidirectional transmission improves the DoF; and when the number of relay antennas is small, relay caching improves the DoF.
Detection of Glasses in Near-Infrared Ocular Images

Eyeglasses change the appearance and visual perception of facial images. Moreover, under objective metrics, glasses generally deteriorate the sample quality of near-infrared ocular images and as a consequence can worsen the biometric performance of iris recognition systems. Automatic detection of glasses is therefore one of the prerequisites for a sufficient quality, interactive sample acquisition process in an automatic iris recognition system. In this paper, three approaches (i.e. a statistical method, a deep learning based method and an algorithmic method based on detection of edges and reflections) for automatic detection of glasses in near-infrared iris images are presented. Those approaches are evaluated using cross-validation on the CASIA-IrisV4-Thousand dataset, which contains 20000 images from 1000 subjects. Individually, they are capable of correctly classifying 95-98% of images, while a majority vote based fusion of the three approaches achieves a correct classification rate (CCR) of 99.54%.
A randomized, open labeled study comparing the serum levels of cobalamin after three doses of 500 mcg vs. a single dose methylcobalamin of 1500 mcg in patients with peripheral neuropathy

Background Vitamin B12 deficiency has been associated with peripheral neuropathy, loss of sensation in the peripheral nerves, and weakness in the lower extremities. Methylcobalamin is the most effective analogue of vitamin B12 used to treat or prevent the complications associated with vitamin B12 deficiency. The current study aimed to compare the serum cobalamin levels after administration of two different regimes of methylcobalamin in peripheral neuropathy patients. Methods The present study was a prospective, randomized, comparative study. The study consisted of two parallel groups, group A (methylcobalamin 500 µg injection intramuscularly three times a week) and group B (methylcobalamin 1500 µg injection intramuscularly once a week). A control group of healthy volunteers was also included. Results A total of 24 patients (12 in each group) were included in the study. Five healthy volunteers were also included as a control in each group. At the end of treatment, serum cobalamin levels were significantly (P = 0.028) higher in group A (1892.08 ± 234.50) as compared with group B (1438.5 ± 460.32). The serum cobalamin levels in Group A healthy volunteers were also two times higher than that of group B (P = 0.056). Both the LANSS scale and DN4 questionnaire reported similar results at end of treatment. Conclusions The 500 µg methylcobalamin thrice weekly regime is more effective in increasing the serum cobalamin levels as compared to the 1500 µg methylcobalamin once weekly regime.
Automotive Safety and Machine Learning: Initial Results from a Study on How to Adapt the ISO 26262 Safety Standard

Machine learning (ML) applications generate a continuous stream of success stories from various domains. ML enables many novel applications, also in safety-critical contexts. However, the functional safety standards such as ISO 26262 did not evolve to cover ML. We conduct an exploratory study on which parts of ISO 26262 represent the most critical gaps between safety engineering and ML development. While this paper only reports the first steps toward a larger research endeavor, we report three adaptations that are critically needed to allow ISO 26262 compliant engineering, and related suggestions on how to evolve the standard.
Non-local RoIs for Instance Segmentation

We introduce the concept of Non-Local RoI (NL-RoI) Block as a generic and flexible module that can be seamlessly adapted into different Mask R-CNN heads for various tasks. Mask R-CNN treats RoIs (Regions of Interest) independently and performs the prediction based on individual object bounding boxes. However, the correlation between objects may provide useful information for detection and segmentation. The proposed NL-RoI Block enables each RoI to refer to all other RoIs' information, and results in a simple, low-cost but effective module. Our experimental results show that generalizations with NL-RoI Blocks can improve the performance of Mask R-CNN for instance segmentation on the Robust Vision Challenge benchmarks.
Nanoporous diopside modulates biocompatibility, degradability and osteogenesis of bioactive scaffolds of gliadin-based composites for new bone formation

Introduction It is predicted that with increased life expectancy in the whole world, there will be a greater demand for synthetic biomedical materials to repair or regenerate lost, injured or diseased tissues. Natural polymers, as biomedical materials, have been widely applied in the field of regenerative medicine. Materials and methods By incorporation of nanoporous diopside bioglass (nDPB) into glia-din (GL) matrix, macro–nanoporous scaffolds of nDPB/GL composites (DGC) were fabricated by method of solution compressing and particles leaching. Results The results revealed that the DGC scaffolds possessed well-interconnected macropores of 200–500 μm and nanopores of 4 nm, and the porosity and degradability of DGC scaffolds remarkably increased with the increase in nDPB content. In addition, in vitro cell experiments revealed that the adhesion and growth of MC3T3-E1 cells on DGC scaffolds were significantly promoted, which depended on nDPB content. Moreover, the results of histological evaluations confirmed that the osteogenic properties and degradability of DGC scaffolds in vivo significantly improved, which were nDPB content dependent. Furthermore, the results of immunohistochemical analysis demonstrated that, with the increase in nDPB content, the type I collagen expression in DGC scaffolds in vivo obviously enhanced, indicating excellent osteogenesis. Discussion and conclusion The results demonstrated that the DGC scaffolds containing 30 wt% nDPB (30nDGC) exhibited good biocompatibility and new bone formation ability, which might have a great potential for applications in bone regeneration.
Polymeric Immunoglobulin Receptor Mediates Immune Excretion of Mucosal IgM–Antigen Complexes Across Intestinal Epithelium in Flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus)

Polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (pIgR) is one important player of mucosal defenses, but very little is known on pIgR-mediated immune excretion of the antigens that penetrate mucosal surface in fish. Previously, we cloned the pIgR of flounder (Paralichthys olivaceus) and developed anti-pIgR antibody. In this study, the flounders were immunized intraperitoneally with the chicken ovalbumin (OVA) and the control protein bovine serum albumin (BSA) to elicit mucosal IgM antibody and pIgR response, and then challenged with OVA via caudal vein injection after the immunized OVA was absent from fish body at the fourth week after immunization. After OVA challenge, strong OVA-positive fluorescence signals were observed in lamina propria (LP) submucosa and epithelial cells of the hindgut at 30 min, increased proceeding toward the distal portion of intestinal folds, reached a peak at 2–3 h, and then weakened and disappeared at 12 h, indicating that the OVA rapidly diffused from bloodstream into LP submucosa and excreted across intestinal epithelium. Whereas in BSA-immunized and OVA-challenged control fish, the OVA was detected in LP submucosa but not in intestinal epithelium due to the lack of OVA-specific antibody. Accordingly, in intestinal epithelium, the transepithelial transport of OVA was confirmed by immunogold electron microscopy, and co-localization of OVA, IgM, and pIgR was illuminated by multiple-label immunofluorescence confocal microscopy and analyzed using Image J software. Furthermore, in gut mucus but not in serum, an ~800-kDa protein band showed IgM-positive, OVA-positive, and pIgR-positive simultaneously, and the OVA, together with IgM and secretory component (SC) of pIgR, could be immunoprecipitated by anti-OVA antibody, demonstrating the existence of SC–polymeric IgM–OVA complexes. All these results collectively revealed that the pIgR could transport mucosal IgM–OVA complexes from LP across intestinal epithelium into gut mucus via the transcytosis in flounder. These new findings provided direct evidences for pIgR-mediated immune excretion of IgM–antigen complexes, and better understanding the role of pIgR in mucosal immunity in teleost fish.
Comparative Analysis of Clinical and Pathological Lymph Node Staging Data in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients Treated at the General Hospital Vienna

Abstract Background Results from publications evaluating discrepancies between clinical staging data in relation to pathological findings demonstrate that a significant number of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients are not correctly staged. The aim of this retrospective study was to analyze potential discrepancies of radiological assessment versus pathological data of regional lymph node involvement and to compare the results with data published in the literature. Patients and methods In a retrospective analysis we focused on patients with HNSCC routinely treated by surgery plus postoperative radiotherapy between 2002 and 2012. For inclusion, complete pre-operative clinical staging information with lymph node status and patho-histological information on involved lymph node regions as well as survival outcome data were mandatory. We included 87 patients (UICC stage III-IV 90.8%) for which the aforementioned data obtained by CT or MRI were available. Overall survival rates were estimated by the Kaplan–Meier method. The Pearson correlation coefficient and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (non-linear relationship) was calculated. Results Discrepancies at the level of overall tumour stage assessment were noticed in 27.5% of all cases. Thereof, 5.7% were assigned to patho-histological up-staging or down-staging of the primary tumour. At the lymph node level, 11.5% of the patients were downstaged, and 10.3% were upstaged. Conclusions The study showed that in approximately one-fifth (21.8%) of the patients, lymph node assessment by CT or MRI differs from the pathologic staging, an outcome that corresponds well with those published by several other groups in this field.