Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
From Textbook Pluralism to Modern Hyperpluralism

We examine interest group involvement in Supreme Court nominations from 1930 to 2017, finding dramatic shifts in the number and type of groups, as well as their choice of tactics. Whereas the early period was dominated by labor unions, “core” civil rights groups, and groups affiliated with the “old right,” the modern period is dominated by public interest/citizen groups and “identity” groups. We also find a shift from more traditional “inside” tactics to the heavy use of “outside/grassroots” mobilization tactics. Finally, we show that the calculus of mobilization has increasingly been based on a nominee’s ideology over time.
Transcriptomic profiles and their correlations in saliva and gingival tissue biopsy samples from periodontitis and healthy patients

Purpose This study was conducted to analyze specific RNA expression profiles in gingival tissue and saliva samples in periodontitis patients and healthy individuals, and to determine their correlations in light of the potential use of microarray-based analyses of saliva samples as a periodontal monitoring tool. Methods Gingival tissue biopsies and saliva samples from 22 patients (12 with severe periodontitis and 10 with a healthy periodontium) were analyzed using transcriptomic microarray analysis. Differential gene expression was assessed, and pathway and clustering analyses were conducted for the samples. The correlations between the results for the gingival tissue and saliva samples were analyzed at both the gene and pathway levels. Results There were 621 differentially expressed genes (DEGs; 320 upregulated and 301 downregulated) in the gingival tissue samples of the periodontitis group, and 154 DEGs (44 upregulated and 110 downregulated) in the saliva samples. Nine of these genes overlapped between the sample types. The periodontitis patients formed a distinct cluster group based on gene expression profiles for both the tissue and saliva samples. Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery analysis revealed 159 enriched pathways from the tissue samples of the periodontitis patients, as well as 110 enriched pathways In the saliva samples. Thirty-four pathways overlapped between the sample types. Conclusions The present results indicate the possibility of using the salivary transcriptome to distinguish periodontitis patients from healthy individuals. Further work is required to enhance the extraction of available RNA from saliva samples.
The Attenuated Pseudorabies Virus Vaccine Strain Bartha K61: A Brief Review on the Knowledge Gathered during 60 Years of Research

Pseudorabies virus (PRV) is a member of the alphaherpesvirus subfamily of the herpesviruses and is the causative agent of Aujeszky’s disease in pigs, causing respiratory, neurological, and reproductive symptoms. Given the heavy economic losses associated with Aujeszky’s disease epidemics, great efforts were made to develop efficacious vaccines. One of the best modified live vaccines to this day is the attenuated Bartha K61 strain. The use of this vaccine in extensive vaccination programs worldwide has assisted considerably in the eradication of PRV from the domesticated pig population in numerous countries. The Bartha K61 strain was described in 1961 by Adorján Bartha in Budapest and was obtained by serial passaging in different cell cultures. Ever since, it has been intensively studied by several research groups, for example, to explore its efficacy as a vaccine strain, to molecularly and mechanistically explain its attenuation, and to use it as a retrograde neuronal tracer and as a vector vaccine. Given that the Bartha K61 vaccine strain celebrates its 60th birthday in 2021 with no sign of retirement, this review provides a short summary of the knowledge on its origin, characteristics, and use as a molecular tool and as a vaccine.
Towards Context-Aware End-to-End Code-Switching Speech Recognition

Code-switching (CS) speech recognition is drawing increasing attention in recent years as it is a common situation in speech where speakers alternate between languages in the context of a single utterance or discourse. In this work, we propose Hierarchical Attention-based Recurrent Decoder (HARD) to build a context-aware end-to-end code-switching speech recognition system. HARD is an attention-based decoder model which employs a hierarchical recurrent network to enhance model’s awareness of previous generated historical sequence (sub-sequence) at decoding. This architecture has two LSTMs to model encoder hidden states at both the character level and sub-sequence level, therefore enables us to generate utterances that switch between languages more precisely from speech. We also employ language identiﬁcation (LID) as an auxiliary task in multi-task learning (MTL) to boost speech recognition performance. We evaluate the effectiveness of our model on the SEAME dataset, results show that our multi-task learning HARD (MTL-HARD) model improves over the baseline Lis-ten, Attend and Spell (LAS) model by reducing character error rate (CER) from 29.91% to 26.56% and mixed error rate (MER) from 38.99% to 34.50%, and case study shows MTL-HARD can carry historical information in the sub-sequences.
Effect of Composition on the Crystallization, Water Absorption, and Biodegradation of Poly(ε-caprolactam-co-ε-caprolactone) Copolymers

Poly(ester amide)s have aroused extensive research interest due to the combination of the degradability of polyester and the higher mechanical properties of polyamide. In this work, a series of poly(ε-caprolactam-co-ε-caprolactone) (P(CLA-co-CLO)) copolymers with different compositions were synthesized by anionic copolymerization. The structure, crystallization behavior, water absorption, and biodegradation behavior of these copolymers were investigated by means of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), and polarized optical micrographs (POM). The results indicated that the composition of P(CLA-co-CLO) copolymers can be adjusted by the molar feed ratio. The PCL blocks decreased the crystallization rate of PA6 blocks but had little effect on the melting behavior of PA6, while the crystallized PA6 acted as a heterogeneous nucleating agent and greatly improved the crystallization rate of PCL. Moreover, the introduction of PCL blocks greatly reduced the water absorption of P(CLA-co-CLO) copolymers and endow them a certain degree of degradability.
Toric Artisan after transepithelial topography-guided photorefractive keratectomy for higher-order aberrations following intrastromal corneal ring segments in keratoconus – Trioptics

We report a case of a 40-year-old female with keratoconus and high myopia who had previous ICRS implantation in both eyes (OU) and was intolerant to contact lenses. Manifest refraction was -8.50 -1.50 × 95 (20/25--) in right eye (OD) and -9.50 -2.50 × 60 (20/70--) in left eye (OS). A topography-guided transepithelial-photorefractive keratectomy (ttPRK) was performed to correct high-order aberrations on OS, resulting in corneal surface and coma improvement, and CDVA achieved 20/30. Correction of residual ametropia was performed with an iris-fixated toric phakic lens in OU. CDVA improved to 20/20- (Plano) in OD and 20/20- (Plano -1.00 90°) in OS. In conclusion, it is possible to rehabilitate a patient with keratoconus and high ametropia after intrastromal corneal ring segments (ICRS) implantation associating ttPRK and phakic lens (”Trioptics”).
Molecular Screening of Familial Hypercholesterolemia in the Icelandic Population

Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is a monogenic disease characterized by a lifelong exposure to high LDL-C levels that can lead to early onset coronary heart disease (CHD). The main causes of FH identified to date include loss-of-function mutations in LDLR or APOB, or gain-of-function mutations in PCSK9. Early diagnosis and genetic testing of FH suspects is critical for improved prognosis of affected individuals as lipid lowering treatments are effective in preventing CHD related morbidity and mortality. In the present manuscript, we developed a comprehensive next generation sequencing (NGS) panel which we applied on two different resources of FH in the Icelandic population: 62 subjects from 23 FH families with known or unknown culprit mutations, and a population-based sampling of 315 subjects selected for total cholesterol levels above the 95th percentile cut-point. The application of the NGS panel revealed significant diagnostic yields in identifying pathogenic LDLR mutations in both family and population-based genetic testing.
A Deep 2D Convolutional Network for Waveform-Based Speech Recognition

Due to limited computational resources, acoustic models of early automatic speech recognition ( ASR ) systems were built in low-dimensional feature spaces that incur considerable information loss at the outset of the process. Several comparative studies of automatic and human speech recognition suggest that this information loss can adversely affect the robustness of ASR systems. To mitigate that and allow for learning of robust models, we propose a deep 2 D convolutional network in the waveform domain. The ﬁrst layer of the network decomposes waveforms into frequency sub-bands, thereby representing them in a structured high-dimensional space. This is achieved by means of a parametric convolutional block deﬁned via cosine modulations of compactly supported windows. The next layer embeds the wave-form in an even higher-dimensional space of high-resolution spectro-temporal patterns, implemented via a 2 D convolutional block. This is followed by a gradual compression phase that selects most relevant spectro-temporal patterns using wide-pass 2 D ﬁltering. Our results show that the approach signiﬁcantly out-performs alternative waveform-based models on both noisy and spontaneous conversational speech ( 24% and 11% relative error reduction, respectively). Moreover, this study provides empirical evidence that learning directly from the waveform domain could be more effective than learning using hand-crafted features.
Development and Application of a Pragmatic Algorithm to Guide Definitive Carbapenemase Testing to Identify Carbapenemase-Producing Pseudomonas aeruginosa

A minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) derived algorithm, predictive of carbapenemase production, was developed using a challenge set (n = 92) of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA), including carbapenemase-producing (CP), cephalosporinase and/or efflux/porin mutation, and wild-type isolates. Broth microdilution MICs to clinically relevant anti-pseudomonal agents were utilized. The algorithm was applied to 1209 clinical PA isolates from a US surveillance program. Confirmatory genotypic (Xpert® Carba-R assay) and phenotypic (mCIM/eCIM) testing for carbapenemases was conducted on algorithm-derived isolates. With the algorithm, carbapenem resistance alone resulted in poor specificity to identify CP-PA (54%) within the challenge set of isolates. Inclusion of cefepime, ceftazidime, and piperacillin/tazobactam non-susceptibility resulted in a specificity of 66%. Ceftolozane/tazobactam resistance further improved specificity (89%). Of the 1209 isolates, 116 met criteria (carbapenem-resistant and non-susceptibility to cefepime, ceftazidime, and piperacillin/tazobactam) for confirmatory testing. Carba-R and mCIM/eCIM identified five (all blaVIM-positive) and seven carbapenemase-producing isolates, respectively. This MIC algorithm combined with genotypic/phenotypic carbapenemase testing is a pragmatic and streamlined approach to identify CP-PA.
Changes in Urinary Titin Fragment in Response to Different Types of Dynamic Eccentric Exercises

Abstract The urinary level of the titin fragment has been considered a non-invasive and sensitive biomarker for muscle damage in clinical cases. However, there is little evidence regarding changes in the urinary titin fragment in response to exercise-induced muscle damage. In this study, we aimed to investigate whether the urinary titin fragment reflects the magnitude of muscle damage induced by two lower-limb eccentric exercises. In this study, healthy young male subjects performed drop jump (n=9) and eccentric ergometer exercise (n=9). Blood and urine samples were collected at various time points before and after the exercises. Although perceived muscle soreness assessed by sit-to-stand tasks was increased at 24 h and 48 h after both drop jump and the eccentric ergometer exercise groups, the pressure pain threshold was not changed. Changes of the urinary titin fragment, plasma myomesin 3 fragments, creatine kinase (CK), and myoglobin (Mb) after the eccentric exercises were increased but not statistically significant. Meanwhile, we found that the changes in the urinary titin fragment levels in response to both drop jump and the eccentric ergometer exercise were correlated with those of plasma CK and Mb levels. These results provide evidence that the urinary titin fragment level is a non-invasive biomarker reflecting the magnitude of eccentric exercise-induced muscle damage.
Zolpidem as a high risk factor for elderly suicide in South Korea

Abstract Backgrounds South Korea, a nation with rapidly aging population, has the highest suicide rates in the world, and the elderly have a suicide rate three times higher than the national average. We classified the drugs ingested for suicide attempts by age groups and compare the clinical outcomes between non-elderly and elderly patients who attempted suicide by ingesting drugs. Materials and methods Data were obtained from the nationwide Emergency Department-Based Injury Surveillance of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, South Korea between January 2011 and December 2016. Results There were 12,104 patients who attempted suicide by ingesting drugs, of whom the elderly (73.5%) ingested more sedatives and hypnotics than the non-elderly (53.9%); of these drugs, zolpidem ingestion was higher in the elderly than the non-elderly. Conversely, the non-elderly ingested more antipsychotics and antidepressants (15.9%) and analgesics (10.8%) than the elderly (7.4% and 2.8%, respectively). The elderly had longer hospital stay, higher intensive care unit (ICU) admission rate, and higher mortality rate than the non-elderly: more elderly patients (30.2%) were admitted to the ICU than the non-elderly (15.7%); the duration of hospital stays was 6.27 ± 11.35 days in the elderly and 8.94 ± 14.85 days in the non-elderly; and the mortality rate was 0.4% in the non-elderly and 3.0% in the elderly. Conclusion Findings suggest that zolpidem has become the greatest risk factor for the elderly Koreans in suicide attempts. Further prevention efforts are needed to prevent suicide among the elderly.
Unsupervised Feature Adaptation Using Adversarial Multi-Task Training for Automatic Evaluation of Children's Speech

Processing children’s speech is challenging due to high speaker variability arising from vocal tract size and scarce amounts of publicly available linguistic resources. In this work, we tackle such challenges by proposing an unsupervised feature adaptation approach based on adversarial multi-task training in a neural framework. A front-end feature transformation module is positioned prior to an acoustic model trained on adult speech (1) to leverage on the readily available linguistic resources on adult speech or existing models, and (2) to reduce the acoustic mismatch between child and adult speech. Experimental re-sults demonstrate that our proposed approach consistently out-performs established baselines trained on adult speech across a variety of tasks ranging from speech recognition to pronunciation assessment and ﬂuency score prediction.
Synthesis and evaluation of anticancer activities of 2- or 4-substituted 3-(N-benzyltriazolylmethyl)-13α-oestrone derivatives

Abstract 2- or 4-Substituted 3-N-benzyltriazolylmethyl-13α-oestrone derivatives were synthesised via bromination of ring A and subsequent microwave-assisted, Pd-catalysed C(sp2)–P couplings. The antiproliferative activities of the newly synthesised brominated and phosphonated compounds against a panel of human cancer cell lines (A2780, MCF-7, MDA-MB 231) were investigated by means of MTT assays. The most potent compound, the 3-N-benzyltriazolylmethyl-4-bromo-13α-oestrone derivative exerted substantial selective cell growth-inhibitory activity against A2780 cell line with a submicromolar IC50 value. Computational calculations reveal strong interactions of the 4-bromo derivative with both colchicine and taxoid binding sites of tubulin. Disturbance of tubulin function has been confirmed by photometric polymerisation assay.
Governor Vessel electro-acupuncture promotes the intrinsic growth ability of spinal neurons through activating CGRP/αCaMKII/NT-3 pathway after spinal cord injury.

Spinal cord injury (SCI) invariably results in neuronal death and failure of axonal regeneration. This is attributed mainly to the hostile microenvironment and the poor intrinsic regrowth capacity of the injured spinal neurons. We have reported previously that electro-acupuncture on Governor Vessel acupoints (GV-EA) can promote neuronal survival and axonal regeneration of injured spinal cord. However, the underlying mechanism for this has remained uncertain. The present study aimed to explore the neural afferent pathway of GV-EA stimulation and the possible mechanism by which GV-EA can activate the intrinsic growth ability of injured spinal neurons. By CTB retrograde labeling, immunostaining and ELISA, we showed here that GV-EA could stimulate the spinal nerve branches of the dorsal root ganglion cells. This would then increase the release of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) from the afferent terminals in the spinal cord; of note, the effect was abrogated after dorsal rhizotomy. Additionally, both in vivo and in vitro results showed that CGRP would act on the postsynaptic spinal cord neurons and triggered the synthesis and secretion of neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) by activating the CGRP/RAMP1/αCaMKII pathway. Remarkably, the observed effect was prevented by the dorsal rhizotomy and the blockers of CGRP/RAMP1/αCaMKII pathway. More importantly, increase in NT-3 had promoted the survival, axonal regrowth and synaptic maintenance of spinal cord neurons in the injured spinal cord. Thus, it is concluded that increase in NT-3 production is one of the mechanisms by which GV-EA can activate the intrinsic growth ability of spinal neurons after SCI. The experimental results have reinforced the theoretical basis of GV-EA for its clinical efficacy in patients with SCI.
Are ACOs Ready to be Accountable for Medication Use?

BACKGROUND: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) have the potential to lower costs and improve quality through incentives and coordinated care. However, the design brings with it many new challenges. One such challenge is the optimal use of pharmaceuticals. Most ACOs have not yet focused on this integral facet of care, even though medications are a critical component to achieving the lower costs and improved quality that are anticipated with this new model. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether ACOs are prepared to maximize the value of medications for achieving quality benchmarks and cost offsets. METHODS: During the fall of 2012, an electronic readiness self-assessment was developed using a portion of the questions and question methodology from the National Survey of Accountable Care Organizations, along with original questions developed by the authors. The assessment was tested and subsequently revised based on feedback from pilot testing with 5 ACO representatives. The revised assessment was distributed via e-mail to a convenience sample (n=175) of ACO members of the American Medical Group Association, Brookings-Dartmouth ACO Learning Network, and Premier Healthcare Alliance. RESULTS: The self-assessment was completed by 46 ACO representatives (26% response rate). ACOs reported high readiness to manage medications in a few areas, such as transmitting prescriptions electronically (70%), being able to integrate medical and pharmacy data into a single database (54%), and having a formulary in place that encourages generic use when appropriate (50%). However, many areas have substantial room for improvement with few ACOs reporting high readiness. Some notable areas include being able to quantify the cost offsets and hence demonstrate the value of appropriate medication use (7%), notifying a physician when a prescription has been filled (9%), having protocols in place to avoid medication duplication and polypharmacy (17%), and having quality metrics in place for a broad diversity of conditions (22%). CONCLUSIONS: Developing the capabilities to support, monitor, and ensure appropriate medication use will be critical to achieve optimal patient outcomes and ACO success. The ACOs surveyed have embarked upon an important journey towards this goal, but critical gaps remain before they can become fully accountable. While many of these organizations have begun adopting health information technologies that allow them to maximize the value of medications for achieving quality outcomes and cost offsets, a significant lag was identified in their inability to use these technologies to their full capacities. In order to provide further guidance, the authors have begun documenting case studies for public release that would provide ACOs with examples of how certain medication issues have been addressed by ACOs or relevant organizations. The authors hope that these case studies will help ACOs optimize the value of pharmaceuticals and achieve the “triple aim” of improving care, health, and cost.
Smooth muscle–derived progenitor cell myofibroblast differentiation through KLF4 downregulation promotes arterial remodeling and fibrosis

Resident vascular adventitial SCA1+ progenitor (AdvSca1) cells are essential in vascular development and injury. However, the heterogeneity of AdvSca1 cells presents a unique challenge in understanding signaling pathways orchestrating their behavior in homeostasis and injury responses. Using smooth muscle cell (SMC) lineage-tracing models, we identified a subpopulation of AdvSca1 cells (AdvSca1-SM) originating from mature SMCs that undergo reprogramming in situ and exhibit a multipotent phenotype. Here we employed lineage tracing and RNA-sequencing to define the signaling pathways regulating SMC-to-AdvSca1-SM cell reprogramming and AdvSca1-SM progenitor cell phenotype. Unbiased hierarchical clustering revealed that genes related to hedgehog/WNT/beta-catenin signaling were significantly enriched in AdvSca1-SM cells, emphasizing the importance of this signaling axis in the reprogramming event. Leveraging AdvSca1-SM–specific expression of GLI-Kruppel family member GLI1 (Gli1), we generated Gli1-CreERT2-ROSA26-YFP reporter mice to selectively track AdvSca1-SM cells. We demonstrated that physiologically relevant vascular injury or AdvSca1-SM cell–specific Kruppel-like factor 4 (Klf4) depletion facilitated the proliferation and differentiation of AdvSca1-SM cells to a profibrotic myofibroblast phenotype rather than macrophages. Surprisingly, AdvSca1-SM cells selectively contributed to adventitial remodeling and fibrosis but little to neointima formation. Together, these findings strongly support therapeutics aimed at preserving the AdvSca1-SM cell phenotype as a viable antifibrotic approach.