Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neural Coding of Whisker-Mediated Touch in Primary Somatosensory Cortex Is Altered Following Early Blindness

Sensory systems do not develop and function independently of one another, yet they are typically studied in isolation. Effects of multisensory interactions on the developing neocortex can be revealed by altering the ratios of incoming sensory inputs associated with different modalities. We investigated neural responses in primary somatosensory cortex (S1) of short-tailed opossums (Monodelphis domestica; either sex) after the elimination of visual input through bilateral enucleation very early in development. To assess the influence of tactile experience after vision loss, we also examined naturally occurring patterns of exploratory behavior. In early blind (EB) animals, overall levels of tactile experience were similar to those of sighted controls (SC); locomotor activity was unimpaired and accompanied by whisking. Using extracellular single-unit recording techniques under anesthesia, we found that EB animals exhibited a reduction in the magnitude of neural responses to whisker stimuli in S1, coupled with spatial sharpening of receptive fields, in comparison to SC animals. These alterations manifested as two different effects on sensory processing in S1 of EB animals: the ability of neurons to detect single whisker stimulation was decreased, whereas their ability to discriminate between stimulation of neighboring whiskers was enhanced. The increased selectivity of S1 neurons in EB animals was reflected in improved population decoding performance for whisker stimulus position, particularly along the rostrocaudal axis of the snout, which aligns with the primary axis of natural whisker motion. These findings suggest that a functionally distinct form of somatosensory plasticity occurs when vision is lost early in development. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT After sensory loss, compensatory behavior mediated through the spared senses could be generated entirely through the recruitment of brain areas associated with the deprived sense. Alternatively, functional compensation in spared modalities may be achieved through a combination of plasticity in brain areas corresponding to both spared and deprived sensory modalities. Although activation of neurons in cortex associated with a deprived sense has been described frequently, it is unclear whether this is the only substrate available for compensation or if plasticity within cortical fields corresponding to spared modalities, particularly primary sensory cortices, may also contribute. Here, we demonstrate empirically that early loss of vision alters coding of sensory inputs in primary somatosensory cortex in a manner that supports enhanced tactile discrimination.
Cardiometabolic Risk Factors among Healthcare Workers: A Cross-Sectional Study at the Sefwi-Wiawso Municipal Hospital, Ghana

Background There is a dearth of information about the burden of cardiometabolic risk factors among the Ghanaian health workforce in the Western Region. This study sought to determine the prevalence of cardiometabolic risk factors among healthcare workers at the Sefwi-Wiawso Municipal Hospital in the Western Region of Ghana. Materials and Methods A hospital-based cross-sectional study involving 112 employees of the Sefwi-Wiawso Municipal Hospital was conducted. The cardiometabolic risk variables assessed were obesity, hypertension, dyslipidaemia, and diabetes. Sociodemographic parameters were also captured. The prevalence of hypertension and obesity was determined using the JNC VII panel and WHO BMI criteria for obesity classifications. Blood lipids and glucose concentrations were evaluated using standard methods. Results The prevalence of hypertension and prehypertension was 16.07% and 52.68%, respectively. About 38.39% of participants were overweight, and 12.50% were obese. Atherogenic dyslipidaemia was 26.79%, whereas prediabetes glycaemic levels and diabetes incidence were 5.41% and 4.50%, respectively. Fifty percent (50.00%) of participants presented at least one cardiometabolic risk factor. Aging and adiposity were associated with increasing cardiometabolic risk. Conclusion Cardiometabolic risk factors are prevalent among healthcare providers in Sefwi-Wiawso. The cardiometabolic dysregulation observed among this cohort of healthcare professionals may be modulated by age and adiposity.
The Reliability of 4-min and 20-min Time Trials and Their Relationships to Functional Threshold Power in Trained Cyclists.

PURPOSE The mean power output (MPO) from a 60-min time trial (TT) - also known as "functional threshold power" or "FTP" - is a standard measure of cycling performance; however, shorter performance tests are desirable to reduce the burden of performance testing. We sought to determine the reliability of 4-min and 20-min TTs and the extent to which these short TTs were associated with 60-min MPO. METHODS Trained male cyclists (n = 8; age = 25 ± 5 years; VO2max = 71 ± 5 mL/kg/min) performed two 4-min TTs, two 20-min TTs, and one 60-min TT. Critical power (CP) was estimated from 4-min and 20-min TTs. The typical error of the mean (TEM) and intraclass correlation (ICC) were calculated to assess reliability, and R2 values were calculated to assess relationships with 60-min MPO. RESULTS Pairs of 4-min TTs (Mean: 417 [SD: 45] W vs. 412 [49] W, p. = 0.25; TEM = 8.1 W; ICC = 0.98), 20-min TTs (342 [36] W vs. 344 [33] W, p = 0.41; TEM = 4.6 W; ICC = 0.99), and CP estimates (323 [35] W vs. 328 [32] W, p = 0.25; TEM = 6.5; ICC = 0.98) were reliable. The 4-min MPO (R2 = 0.95), 20-min MPO (R2 = 0.92), estimated CP (R2 = 0.82), and combination of the 4-min and 20-min MPO (adj. R2 = 0.98) were strongly associated with the 60-min MPO (309 [26] W). CONCLUSION The 4-min and 20-min TTs appear useful for assessing performance in trained, if not elite, cyclists.
“The prayer circles in the air”: a qualitative study about traditional healer profiles and practice in Northern Norway

ABSTRACT In Northern Norway, traditional healing has been preserved by passing down the knowledge through generations. Religious prayers of healing (reading) and Sami rituals (curing) are examples of methods that are used. We have examined traditional healers’ understanding of traditional healing, the healing process and their own practice, as well as what characteristics healers should have. Semi-structured individual interviews and focus group interviews were conducted among 15 traditional healers in two coastal Sami municipalities in Norway. The traditional healers understood traditional healing as the initiation of the patient’s self-healing power. This power was initiated through healing rituals and explained as the power of God and placebo effect. During the healing ritual, the doctor’s medical diagnoses, the patient’s personal data and a prayer in the name of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit were used in combination with steel and elements from the nature. The traditional healers stated that they had to be trustworthy, calm and mentally strong. Healers who claimed that they had supernatural abilities (clairvoyant or warm hands) were regarded as extra powerful. According to the participants in this study, the healers must be trustworthy, calm and mentally strong. Moreover, these traditional healers drew on information from conventional medicine when performing their rituals.
Human Echolocation for Target Detection Is More Accurate With Emissions Containing Higher Spectral Frequencies, and This Is Explained by Echo Intensity

Humans can learn to use acoustic echoes to detect and classify objects. Echolocators typically use tongue clicks to induce these echoes, and there is some evidence that higher spectral frequency content of an echolocator’s tongue click is associated with better echolocation performance. This may be explained by the intensity of the echoes. The current study tested experimentally (a) if emissions with higher spectral frequencies lead to better performance for target detection, and (b) if this is mediated by echo intensity. Participants listened to sound recordings that contained an emission and sometimes an echo from an object. The peak spectral frequency of the emission was varied between 3.5 and 4.5 kHz. Participants judged whether they heard the object in these recordings and did the same under conditions in which the intensity of the echoes had been digitally equated. Participants performed better using emissions with higher spectral frequencies, but this advantage was eliminated when the intensity of the echoes was equated. These results demonstrate that emissions with higher spectral frequencies can benefit echolocation performance in conditions where they lead to an increase in echo intensity. The findings suggest that people who train to echolocate should be instructed to make emissions (e.g. mouth clicks) with higher spectral frequency content.
Guaranteed Simultaneous Asymmetric Tensor Decomposition via Orthogonalized Alternating Least Squares

Tensor CANDECOMP/PARAFAC (CP) decomposition is an important tool that solves a wide class of machine learning problems. Existing popular approaches recover components one by one, not necessarily in the order of larger components first. Recently developed simultaneous power method obtains only a high probability recovery of top $r$ components even when the observed tensor is noiseless. We propose a Slicing Initialized Alternating Subspace Iteration (s-ASI) method that is guaranteed to recover top $r$ components ($\epsilon$-close) simultaneously for (a)symmetric tensors almost surely under the noiseless case (with high probability for a bounded noise) using $O(\log(\log \frac{1}{\epsilon}))$ steps of tensor subspace iterations. Our s-ASI method introduces a Slice-Based Initialization that runs $O(1/\log(\frac{\lambda_r}{\lambda_{r+1}}))$ steps of matrix subspace iterations, where $\lambda_r$ denotes the r-th top singular value of the tensor. We are the first to provide a theoretical guarantee on simultaneous orthogonal asymmetric tensor decomposition. Under the noiseless case, we are the first to provide an \emph{almost sure} theoretical guarantee on simultaneous orthogonal tensor decomposition. When tensor is noisy, our algorithm for asymmetric tensor is robust to noise smaller than $\min\{O(\frac{(\lambda_r - \lambda_{r+1})\epsilon}{\sqrt{r}}), O(\delta_0\frac{\lambda_r -\lambda_{r+1}}{\sqrt{d}})\}$, where $\delta_0$ is a small constant proportional to the probability of bad initializations in the noisy setting.
Internet Use, Depression, and Anxiety in a Healthy Adolescent Population: Prospective Cohort Study

Background Psychiatric disorders, including conduct disturbances, substance abuse, and affective disorders, emerge in approximately 20% of adolescents. In parallel with the rise in internet use, the prevalence of depression among adolescents has increased. It remains unclear whether and how internet use impacts mental health in adolescents. Objective We assess the association between patterns of internet use and two mental health outcomes (depression and anxiety) in a healthy adolescent population. Methods A total of 126 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15 years were recruited. Participants reported their typical computer and internet usage patterns. At baseline and one-year follow-up, they completed the Beck Depression Index for primary care (BDI-PC) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory for Primary Care (BAI-PC). Individual linear regressions were completed to determine the association between markers of internet use at baseline and mental health outcomes at one-year follow-up. All models controlled for age, gender, and ethnicity. Results There was an inverse correlation between minutes spent on a favorite website per visit and BAI-PC score. No association was found between internet use and BDI-PC score. Conclusions There is no relationship between internet use patterns and depression in adolescents, whereas internet use may mitigate anxiety in adolescents with higher levels of baseline anxiety.
Detection of Heart Rate through a Wall Using UWB Impulse Radar

Measuring the physiological functions of the human body in a noncontact manner through walls is useful for healthcare, security, and surveillance. And radar technology can be used for this purpose. In this paper, a new method for detecting the human heartbeat using ultra wideband (UWB) impulse radar, which has advantages of low power consumption and harmlessness to human body, is proposed. The heart rate is extracted by processing the radar signal in the time domain and then using a principal component analysis of the time series data to indicate the phase variations that are caused by heartbeats. The experimental results show that a highly accurate detection of heart rate is possible with this method.
Cat coexistence in central Sumatra: ecological characteristics, spatial and temporal overlap, and implications for management

At least six species of wild cats live in Sumatra. Many are globally threatened and yet their ecology is poorly understood. We investigated ecological characteristics and spatial and temporal overlap among cats in central Sumatra using data from systematic and opportunistic camera trapping in five major forest blocks. We developed occupancy models assessing probability of site use by each cat based on (1) photo-trap rates of other species at the same locations and (2) landscape-level factors extracted from geographic information systems. We also used two-species co-occurrence models to assess spatial overlap and used kernel density estimates on circular data to assess temporal overlap between species pairs. We photographed five cat species: Sumatran tigers, Sunda clouded leopards, Asiatic golden cats, marbled cats and leopard cats. Four cats were present in all sampling blocks and one sampling block had all five cats. Spatially, cat distributions varied among forest types, within the sampling blocks and across elevation. We placed camera traps at elevations ranging from 6 to 460 m above sea level. The five cats used statistically different elevations, with golden cats found at highest elevation. Site use by tigers and leopard cats negatively covaried with distance to protected areas. Clouded leopard presence covaried positively with altitude. Leopard cat presence covaried with the photo-trap rate of tigers, whereas the presence of tigers covaried with the photo-trap rate of non-cat carnivores. We found little evidence of spatial avoidance among cats at camera sites. Temporally, species more similar in size, or with similar-sized prey, had lower overlap, suggesting temporal avoidance. We identified six mechanisms promoting coexistence of central Sumatra cats. Knowledge of interspecific interactions may improve the effectiveness of management aimed at conserving the increasingly threatened wild cat community.
The relative contributions of species richness and species composition to ecosystem functioning

How species diversity influences ecosystem functioning has been the subject of many experiments and remains a key question for ecology and conservation biology. However, the fact that diversity cannot be manipulated without affecting species composition makes this quest methodologically challenging. Here, we evaluate the relative importance of diversity and of composition on biomass production, by using partial Mantel tests for one variable while controlling for the other. We analyse two datasets, from the Jena (2002–2008) and the Grandcour (2008–2009) Experiments. In both experiments, plots were sown with different numbers of species to unravel mechanisms underlying the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF). Contrary to Jena, plots were neither mowed nor weeded in Grandcour, allowing external species to establish. Based on the diversity–ecosystem functioning and competition theories, we tested two predictions: 1) the contribution of composition should increase with time; 2) the contribution of composition should be more important in non-weeded than in controlled systems. We found support for the second hypothesis, but not for the first. On the contrary, the contribution of species richness became markedly more important few years after the start of the Jena Experiment. This result can be interpreted as suggesting that species complementarity, rather than intraspecific competition, is the driving force in this system. Finally, we explored to what extent the estimated relative importance of both factors varied when measured on different spatial scales of the experiment (in this case, increasing the number of plots included in the analyses). We found a strong effect of scale, suggesting that comparisons between studies, and more generally the extrapolation of results from experiments to natural situations, should be made with caution.
Interaction-tailored organization of large-area colloidal assemblies

Colloidal lithography is an innovative fabrication technique employing spherical, nanoscale crystals as a lithographic mask for the low cost realization of nanoscale patterning. The features of the resulting nanostructures are related to the particle size, deposition conditions and interactions involved. In this work, we studied the absorption of polystyrene spheres onto a substrate and discuss the effect of particle–substrate and particle–particle interactions on their organization. Depending on the nature and the strength of the interactions acting in the colloidal film formation, two different strategies were developed in order to control the number of particles on the surface and the interparticle distance, namely changing the salt concentration and absorption time in the particle solution. These approaches enabled the realization of large area (≈cm2) patterning of nanoscale holes (nanoholes) and nanoscale disks (nanodisks) of different sizes and materials.
Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy in Long-term Survivors of Childhood Cancer: Clinical, Neurophysiological, Functional, and Patient-Reported Outcomes

Importance In light of the excellent long-term survival of childhood cancer patients, it is imperative to screen for factors affecting health, function, and quality of life in long-term survivors. Objective To comprehensively assess chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy in childhood cancer survivors to define disease burden and functional effect and to inform screening recommendations. Design, Setting, and Participants In this cross-sectional observational study, cancer survivors who were treated with chemotherapy for extracranial malignancy before age 17 years were recruited consecutively between April 2015 and December 2016 from a single tertiary hospital-based comprehensive cancer survivorship clinic and compared with healthy age-matched controls. Investigators were blinded to the type of chemotherapy. A total of 169 patients met inclusion criteria, of whom 48 (28.4%) were unable to be contacted or declined participation. Exposures Chemotherapy agents known to be toxic to peripheral nerves. Main Outcomes and Measures The clinical peripheral neurological assessment using the Total Neuropathy Score was compared between recipients of different neurotoxic chemotherapy agents and control participants and was correlated with neurophysiological, functional, and patient-reported outcome measures. Results Of the 121 childhood cancer survivors included in this study, 65 (53.7%) were male, and the cohort underwent neurotoxicity assessments at a median (range) age of 16 (7-47) years, a median (range) 8.5 (1.5-29) years after treatment completion. Vinca alkaloids and platinum compounds were the main neurotoxic agents. Clinical abnormalities consistent with peripheral neuropathy were common, seen in 53 of 100 participants (53.0%) treated with neurotoxic chemotherapy (mean Total Neuropathy Score increase, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.4-2.9; P < .001), and were associated with lower limb predominant sensory axonal neuropathy (mean amplitude reduction, 5.8 &mgr;V; 95% CI, 2.8-8.8; P < .001). Functional deficits were seen in manual dexterity, distal sensation, and balance. Patient-reported outcomes demonstrating reduction in global quality of life and physical functioning were associated with the Total Neuropathy Score. Cisplatin produced long-term neurotoxicity more frequently than vinca alkaloids. Conclusions and Relevance Clinical abnormalities attributable to peripheral neuropathy were common in childhood cancer survivors and persisted long term, with concurrent deficits in patient-reported outcomes. Both the type of neurotoxic agent and a targeted clinical neurological assessment are important considerations when screening survivors for long-term neuropathy. Further development of peripheral neuropathy–specific pediatric assessment tools will aid research into neuroprotective and rehabilitative strategies.
Effect of Community-Based Occupational Therapy on Health-Related Quality of Life and Engagement in Meaningful Activities of Women with Breast Cancer

We aimed to evaluate the short-term effects of community-based occupational therapy on health-related quality of life and engagement in meaningful activities among women with breast cancer. An open label randomized controlled trial study design was applied. The participants were members of various societies of women with cancer. In total, 22 women have participated in the study. Participants of the experimental group (n = 11) participated in a 6-week community-based occupational therapy program and the usual activities of various societies, whereas the control group (n = 11) women participated in the usual activities of the societies only. 1 of the participants withdrew during the course; therefore 21 completed the study successfully. Participants of both groups were assessed for health-related quality of life and the participants of the experimental group were assessed for engagement in meaningful activities. The evaluation was carried out during the nonacute period of the disease—at the beginning of the study and after 6 weeks. Women of the experimental group demonstrated statistically significantly better scores in the global quality of life, role functions, physical, emotional, cognitive, and social functions, fatigue, insomnia, financial impact, systemic therapy side effects, and breast symptoms scales compared to the control group participants (p < 0.05) after the 6 weeks, as measured by the EORTC QLQ-C30 questionnaire and its breast cancer module QLQ-BR23. Furthermore, women of the experimental group demonstrated significant greater engagement in meaningful activities when applying community-based occupational therapy (p < 0.05), as measured by using the Engagement in Meaningful Activities Survey (EMAS). The evaluation of the associations between the women's engagement in meaningful activities and changes in health-related quality of life showed that greater engagement in meaningful activities was associated with better emotional functions and a lower level of insomnia (p < 0.05). Based on the results of our study, we recommend applying occupational therapy in the field of community healthcare in order to maintain or improve breast cancer patients' health-related quality of life and suggest involving women into meaningful activities during community-based occupational therapy after clarifying which activities are important to them.