Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficacy and safety of veliparib plus chemotherapy for the treatment of lung cancer: A systematic review of clinical trials

Background As a poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, veliparib has been identified as a potential therapeutic agent for lung cancer. The present study aimed to conduct a systematic review of clinical trials investigating the efficacy and safety of veliparib for treating lung cancer. Methods PubMed, Scopus, the Web of Science, and Google Scholar were systematically searched up to October 30, 2022. Only randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the efficacy or safety of veliparib in the treatment of lung cancer patients were included. Studies were excluded if they were not RCTs, enrolled healthy participants or patients with conditions other than lung cancer, or investigated therapeutic approaches other than veliparib. The Cochrane risk-of-bias tool was used for quality assessment. Results The seven RCTs (n = 2188) showed that patients treated with a combination of veliparib and chemotherapy had a significantly higher risk of adverse events, when compared to the control arm. There was no statistically significant difference in overall survival (OS) between those treated with veliparib plus chemotherapy and those receiving the standard therapies. Only two trials demonstrated an improvement in progression-free survival (PFS), and only one study found an increase in objective response rate (ORR). Furthermore, adding veliparib to standard chemotherapy showed no benefit in extending the duration of response (DoR) in any of the studies. Conclusions Only a small number of studies have found veliparib to be effective, in terms of improved OS, PFS, and ORR, while the majority of studies found no benefit for veliparib over standard treatment.
The association between depression and addictive social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic: The mediating role of sense of control

Background COVID-19 precipitated a plethora of mental health difficulties, particularly for those with pre-existing mental health concerns such as depression or addictive tendencies. For some, the distress that emanated from the experience of the pandemic prompted excessive engagement in the safety of online interactions on social media. The present study examined whether variation in individuals’ sense of control explained the association between depression and addictive social media use. Method A sample of 1322 participants from two Middle Eastern nations provided data collected during the peak of the pandemic from February to May 2021. A combination of convenience and snowball sampling were used to recruit and collect data from college-aged students enrolled at two universities in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, respectively. This study adopted a cross-sectional design in which participants completed a self-administered survey that consisted of measures that assessed depressive affect, sense of control, and addictive social media use. Results Depression was significantly and positively associated with addictive SMU. Sense of control was negatively related to both depression and SMU and significantly mediated the association between these two variables (β = .62, SE = .03, 95%CI .56, .68). Conclusion This study identified a potential protective variable that could be targeted by psychological treatment to ameliorate the potential onset of addictive SMU in individuals with depressive symptoms under conditions of immense psychological distress such as a worldwide pandemic.
Not all movements are equal: Differences in the variability of trunk motor behavior between people with and without low back pain—A systematic review with descriptive synthesis

Background Differences in variability of trunk motor behavior between people with and without low back pain (LBP) have been reported in the literature. However, the direction and consistency of these differences remain unclear. Understanding variability of trunk motor behavior between individuals with LBP and those without is crucial to better understand the impact of LBP and potentially optimize treatment outcomes. Identifying such differences may help tailor therapeutic interventions. Objective This systematic review aims to answer the question: Is variability of trunk motor behavior different between people with and without LBP and if so, do people with LBP show more or less variability? Furthermore, we addressed the question whether the results are dependent on characteristics of the patient group, the task performed and the type of variability measure. Methods This study was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42020180003). A comprehensive systematic literature search was performed by searching PubMed, Embase, Cinahl, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science and Sport Discus. Studies were eligible if they (1) included a LBP group and a control group, (2) included adults with non-specific low back pain of any duration and (3) measured kinematic variability, EMG variability and/or kinetic variability. Risk of Bias was evaluated and a descriptive synthesis was performed. Results Thirty-nine studies were included, thirty-one of which were included in the descriptive synthesis. In most studies and experimental conditions, variability did not significantly differ between groups. When significant differences were found, less variability in patients with LBP was more frequently reported than more variability, especially in gait-related tasks. Conclusions Given the considerable risk of bias of the included studies and the clinical characteristics of the participants with low severity scores for pain, disability and psychological measures, there is insufficient evidence to draw firm conclusions.
Maternal, fetal, and perinatal outcomes among pregnant women admitted to an Ebola treatment center in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 2018–2020

Objective This study aims to investigate maternal, fetal, and perinatal outcomes during the 2018–2020 Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Methods Mortality between pregnant and non-pregnant women of reproductive age admitted to DRC’s Mangina Ebola treatment center (ETC) were compared using propensity score matching. Propensity scores were calculated using age, initial Ebola viral load, Ebola vaccination status, and investigational therapeutic. Additionally, fetal and perinatal outcomes of pregnancies were also described. Results Twenty-seven pregnant women were admitted to the Mangina ETC during December 2018—January 2020 among 162 women of childbearing age. We found no evidence of increase mortality among pregnant women compared to non-pregnant women (relative risk:1.0, 95%CI: 0.58–1.72). Among surviving mothers, pregnancy outcomes were poor with at least 58% (11/19) experiencing loss of pregnancy while 16% (3/19) were discharged with viable pregnancy. Two mothers with viable pregnancies were vaccinated, and all received investigational therapeutics. Two live births occurred, with one infant surviving after the infant and mother received an investigational post-exposure prophylaxis and Ebola therapeutic respectively. Conclusions Pregnancy was not associated with increased mortality among women with EVD in the Mangina ETC. Fetal and perinatal outcomes remained poor in pregnancies complicated by EVD, though novel therapeutics may have potential for improving these outcomes.
Band-resolved Caroli–de Gennes–Matricon states of multiple-flux-quanta vortices in a multiband superconductor

Superconductors are of type I or II depending on whether they form an Abrikosov vortex lattice. Although bulk lead (Pb) is classified as a prototypical type-I superconductor, we show that its two-band superconductivity allows for single-flux-quantum and multiple-flux-quanta vortices in the intermediate state at millikelvin temperature. Using scanning tunneling microscopy, the winding number of individual vortices is determined from the real space wave function of its Caroli–de Gennes–Matricon bound states. This generalizes the topological index theorem put forward by Volovik for isotropic electronic states to realistic electronic structures. In addition, the bound states due to the two superconducting bands of Pb can be separately detected and the two gaps close independently inside vortices. This yields strong evidence for a low interband coupling.
Learned-SBL-GAMP based hybrid precoders/combiners in millimeter wave massive MIMO systems

In Millimeter-Wave (mm-Wave) massive Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) systems, hybrid precoders/combiners must be designed to improve antenna gain and reduce hardware complexity. Sparse Bayesian learning via Expectation Maximization (SBL-EM) algorithm is not practically feasible for high signal dimensions because estimating sparse signals and designing optimal hybrid precoders/combiners using SBL-EM still provide high computational complexity for higher signal dimensions. To overcome the issues of high computational complexity along with making it suitable for larger data sets, in this paper, we propose Learned-Sparse Bayesian Learning with Generalized Approximate Message Passing algorithm (L-SBL-GAMP) algorithm for designing optimal hybrid precoders/combiners suitable for mmWave Massive MIMO systems. The L-SBL-GAMP algorithm is an extension of the SBL-GAMP algorithm that incorporates a Deep Neural Network (DNN) to improve the system performance. Based on the nature of the training data, the L-SBL-GAMP can design the optimal Hybrid precoders/combiners, which enhances the spectral efficiency of mmWave massive MIMO systems. The proposed L-SBL-GAMP algorithm reduces the iterations, training overhead, and computational complexity compared to the SBL-EM algorithm. The simulation results unveil that the proposed L-SBL-GAMP provides higher achievable rates, better accuracy, and low computational complexity compared to the existing algorithm, such as Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP), Simultaneous Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (SOMP), SBL-EM and SBL-GAMP for mmWave massive MIMO architectures.
Childhood Experiences: a Commitment To Caring and Care Work With Vulnerable Children

This article draws upon biographical interview material from a mixed-method British study of workers caring for vulnerable children: residential social workers, family support workers, foster carers and community childminders. It has two aims: (1) to identify the contexts — the particular events, circumstances and life course phases — that precipitated a move into their first occupation working with vulnerable children and young people; and (2) to analyse the main narrative resources that informants employed in explaining how they developed a commitment to care in general. It thereby suggests how workers are drawn to caring and when and why they take up this important work that is generally undervalued in the British context. In particular, it demonstrates how childhood constitutes a critical interpretive resource suggesting the importance of negative as well as positive formative experiences in creating a commitment to care for others, vulnerable children in particular.
Learning From Incorrectness: Active Learning With Negative Pre-Training and Curriculum Querying for Histological Tissue Classification

Patch-level histological tissue classification is an effective pre-processing method for histological slide analysis. However, the classification of tissue with deep learning requires expensive annotation costs. To alleviate the limitations of annotation budgets, the application of active learning (AL) to histological tissue classification is a promising solution. Nevertheless, there is a large imbalance in performance between categories during application, and the tissue corresponding to the categories with relatively insufficient performance are equally important for cancer diagnosis. In this paper, we propose an active learning framework called ICAL, which contains Incorrectness Negative Pre-training (INP) and Category-wise Curriculum Querying (CCQ) to address the above problem from the perspective of category-to-category and from the perspective of categories themselves, respectively. In particular, INP incorporates the unique mechanism of active learning to treat the incorrect prediction results that obtained from CCQ as complementary labels for negative pre-training, in order to better distinguish similar categories during the training process. CCQ adjusts the query weights based on the learning status on each category by the model trained by INP, and utilizes uncertainty to evaluate and compensate for query bias caused by inadequate category performance. Experimental results on two histological tissue classification datasets demonstrate that ICAL achieves performance approaching that of fully supervised learning with less than 16% of the labeled data. In comparison to the state-of-the-art active learning algorithms, ICAL achieved better and more balanced performance in all categories and maintained robustness with extremely low annotation budgets. The source code will be released at https://github.com/LactorHwt/ICAL.
The burden of rheumatoid arthritis and low back pain in North Africa and Middle East from 1990 to 2019: Results from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and low back pain (LBP) are among the most prevalent musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The need for investigation of regional and local patterns of these two MSDs seems inevitable for better policy‐making. The current study presents updated results of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019 and reports the burden of RA and LBP in North Africa and Middle East (NAME) countries from 1990 to 2019.
Different sensory information is used for state estimation when stationary or moving

Accurate estimation of limb state is necessary for movement planning and execution. State estimation requires both feedforward and feedback information; here we focus on the latter. Prior literature has shown that integrating visual and proprioceptive feedback improve estimates of static limb position. However, differences in visual and proprioceptive feedback delays suggest that multisensory integration could be disadvantageous when the limb is moving. To investigate multisensory integration in different passive movement contexts, we compared the degree of interference created by discrepant visual or proprioceptive feedback when estimating the position of the limb either statically at the end of the movement or dynamically at movement midpoint. In the static context, we observed idiosyncratic interference: discrepant proprioceptive feedback significantly interfered with reports of the visual target location, leading to a bias of the reported position toward the proprioceptive cue. In the dynamic context, no interference was seen: participants could ignore sensory feedback from one modality and accurately reproduce the motion indicated by the other modality. We modeled feedback-based state estimation by updating the longstanding maximum likelihood estimation model of multisensory integration to account for sensory delays. Consistent with our behavioral results, the model showed that the benefit of multisensory integration was largely lost when the limb was passively moving. Together, these findings suggest that the sensory feedback used to compute a state estimate differs depending on whether the limb is stationary or moving. While the former may tend toward multimodal integration, the latter is more likely to be based on feedback from a single sensory modality. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The estimation of limb state involves feedforward and feedback information. While estimation based on feedback has been well studied when the limb is stationary, it is unknown if similar sensory processing supports limb position estimates when moving. Using a behavioral experiment and computational model, we show that feedback-based state estimation may involve multisensory integration in the static case, but it is likely based on a single modality when the limb is moving. This difference may stem from visual and proprioceptive feedback delays.
Germ cells do not progress through spermatogenesis in the infertile zebrafish testis

Vertebrate spermatogonial stem cells maintain sperm production over the lifetime of an animal but fertility declines with age. While morphological studies have greatly informed our understanding of typical spermatogenesis, the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying spermatogenesis are not yet understood, particularly with respect to the onset of fertility. We used single-cell RNA sequencing to generate a developmental atlas of the zebrafish testis. Using 5 timepoints across the adult life of a zebrafish, we described cellular profiles in the testis during and after fertility. While all germ cell stages of spermatogenesis are detected in testes from fertile adult zebrafish, testes from older infertile males only contained spermatogonia and a reduced population of spermatocytes. These remaining germ cells are transcriptionally distinct from fertile spermatogonia. Immune cells including macrophages and lymphocytes drastically increase in abundance in infertile testes. Our developmental atlas reveals the cellular changes as the testis ages and defines a molecular roadmap for the regulation of male fertility.
Globalisation and language policy in Tunisia: Shifts in domains of use and linguistic attitudes

ABSTRACT This thesis builds on previous studies on the linguistic situation, attitudes and domains of language use in the Maghreb countries undertaken by Marley (2000, 2004, 2005, 2008) in Morocco, Benrabah (2007a, 2007b), in Algeria, and by Jabeur (1999) Daoud (2001, 2011a, 2011b) and Bahloul (2001) in Tunisia. It explores the shifts in the domains of language use, the differences in linguistic attitudes between generations in Tunisia and the role played by globalisation in this process. In order to investigate the ways in which domains of use and attitudes to English and French are shifting, a questionnaire was administered to a group of 100 teachers aged 40 to 60 and a group of 200 students aged 17 to 19. SPSS data analyses showed some statistically significant differences between the two groups. With respect to domains of use, the younger group uses significantly more English as a lingua franca, in chatting online, reading for pleasure, watching TV programmes and listening to songs. Teachers, by contrast, use significantly more French in activities such as reading and watching TV programmes. French remains the preferred foreign language of the older generation, but they believe it is threatened by English in Tunisia, whereas the younger generation preferred English. One main reason for these differences could be what the older generation consider to be the negative impact of globalisation on French and its positive impact on English. Interesting qualitative data were also extracted from the responses to a vox pop questionnaire submitted to 100 lay people in the street and from essays written by two groups of 25 students. These confirmed that the majority of Tunisians consider English to be the most useful foreign language in Tunisia and that it should be given more importance in academic settings due to its world status as an international lingua franca. This thesis also investigates language policy in Tunisia by analysing all relevant extracts from the speeches of Ben Ali, Tunisia’s ex-president, and interviews conducted with the three senior inspectors of the three main languages. Policy has promoted English over French in two ways: first, Arabic rather than French is now the vehicle for the teaching of the human and natural sciences in the Basic Education and, second, new measures in favour of English have simultaneously been taken in and outside academia. To conclude, the findings of this study contribute to knowledge in three ways: Firstly, by identifying differences in domains of language use and attitudes between generations in contemporary Tunisia, secondly, by scrutinizing the way students, teachers and lay people feel about French and English, the two main rival foreign languages in the country and, thirdly, by exploring the political discourse which influences the language situation both directly, through language policy, and indirectly, through hearts and minds.
Reduced social function in experimentally evolved Dictyostelium discoideum implies selection for social conflict in nature

Many microbes interact with one another, but the difficulty of directly observing these interactions in nature makes interpreting their adaptive value complicated. The social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum forms aggregates wherein some cells are sacrificed for the benefit of others. Within chimeric aggregates containing multiple unrelated lineages, cheaters can gain an advantage by undercontributing, but the extent to which wild D. discoideum has adapted to cheat is not fully clear. In this study, we experimentally evolved D. discoideum in an environment where there were no selective pressures to cheat or resist cheating in chimeras. D. discoideum lines grown in this environment evolved reduced competitiveness within chimeric aggregates and reduced ability to migrate during the slug stage. By contrast, we did not observe a reduction in cell number, a trait for which selection was not relaxed. The observed loss of traits that our laboratory conditions had made irrelevant suggests that these traits were adaptations driven and maintained by selective pressures D. discoideum faces in its natural environment. Our results suggest that D. discoideum faces social conflict in nature, and illustrate a general approach that could be applied to searching for social or non-social adaptations in other microbes. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Microbes interact in diverse and important ways, but the difficulty of directly observing microbes in nature can make it challenging to understand the adaptive significance of these interactions. In this study, we present an experimental evolution approach to infer the selective pressures behind an apparently social trait in the microbe Dictyostelium discoideum. We take advantage of the observation that organisms ‘use it or lose it’ – when selective pressures are relaxed, adaptations that evolved in response to those pressures tend to be lost. Our work helps resolve debate over the importance of cheating in D. discoideum, and demonstrates a general approach that could be applied to the study of other microbial traits that are difficult to observe in nature.
Biological Systems in Mineral Exploration and Processing

PART 1 GEOBOTANY IN MINERAL EXPLORATION: Plant Communities as Ore Indicators Indicator Plants Morphological and Mutational Changes in Plants as a Guide to Mineralization Remote Sensing of Vegetation. PART 2 GEOZOOLOGY IN MINERAL EXPLORATION: Land Mammals as a Guide to Mineralization Birds and Fish as a Guide to Mineralization Insects as an Indicator of Minerals. PART 3 MICROBIOLOGICAL METHODS OF MINERAL EXPLORATION: The Nature and Structure of Micro-organisms Limits of the Natural Environment of Micro-organisms Accumulation of Heavy Metals by Bacteria Microbiological Leaching or Ores Microbiological Prospecting. PART 4 BIOGEOCHEMISTRY IN MINERAL EXPLORATION: Soils and their Formation Accumulation of Elements by Plants Biogeochemical Parameters and their Significance for Mineral Prospecting The Barrier-free Method of Biogeochemical Prospecting Alternative Sample Types in Biogeochemical Prospecting A Field Guide to Biogeochemical Prospecting Biogeochemical Prospecting for the Noble Metals. PART 5 CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF PLANT MATERIAL: (Chapters by G.E.M.H.). PART 6 STATISTICAL: Statistical Treatment of Biochemical and Geobotanical Data.