Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preventing Depression in Final Year Secondary Students: School-Based Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Depression often emerges for the first time during adolescence. There is accumulating evidence that universal depression prevention programs may have the capacity to reduce the impact of depression when delivered in the school environment. Objective This trial investigated the effectiveness of SPARX-R, a gamified online cognitive behavior therapy intervention for the prevention of depression relative to an attention-matched control intervention delivered to students prior to facing a significant stressor—final secondary school exams. It was hypothesized that delivering a prevention intervention in advance of a stressor would reduce depressive symptoms relative to the control group. Methods A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted in 10 government schools in Sydney, Australia. Participants were 540 final year secondary students (mean 16.7 [SD 0.51] years), and clusters at the school level were randomly allocated to SPARX-R or the control intervention. Interventions were delivered weekly in 7 modules, each taking approximately 20 to 30 minutes to complete. The primary outcome was symptoms of depression as measured by the Major Depression Inventory. Intention-to-treat analyses were performed. Results Compared to controls, participants in the SPARX-R condition (n=242) showed significantly reduced depression symptoms relative to the control (n=298) at post-intervention (Cohen d=0.29) and 6 months post-baseline (d=0.21) but not at 18 months post-baseline (d=0.33). Conclusions This is the first trial to demonstrate a preventive effect on depressive symptoms prior to a significant and universal stressor in adolescents. It demonstrates that an online intervention delivered in advance of a stressful experience can reduce the impact of such an event on the potential development or exacerbation of depression. Trial Registration Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry ACTRN12614000316606; https://www.anzctr. org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx? id=365986 (Archived by WebCite at http://www.webcitation.org/ 6u7ou1aI9)
Electrophysiological and spinal imaging evidences for sensory dysfunction in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Objectives The prevalence of sensory impairment at an early stage of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is still debated. The study aim was to investigate the anatomofunctional properties of sensory pathways in patients with ALS, combining spinal diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs). Design Case–control study. Settings ALS referral centre and laboratory of biomedical imaging (Paris, France). Participants Well-characterised group of 21 patients with ALS with moderate disability (mean amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS) score 39.3±1.0) and no clinical sensory signs and control group of 21 gender and age-matched healthy subjects. Outcome measures Fractional anisotropy and diffusivity of the dorsal columns at C5-T1 levels (DTI metrics) and SEPs after median and ulnar nerve stimulations (latency and amplitude of N9 and N20 components). Results Abnormal DTI metrics indicated anatomical damages of ascending sensory fibres in ∼60% of patients (p<0.05). Raw SEPs (μV) were smaller in ∼40% of patients but the difference with healthy subjects was not significant (p>0.16). Their normalisation to prestimulus activity strengthened the difference between groups (p<0.05) and allowed identification of ∼60% of patients with abnormal values. According to N9 latency, the peripheral conduction time was normal in patients (p>0.32) but based on N20 latency, the central conduction time (between spinal cord and parietal cortex) was found to be slower (p<0.05). Significant correlation was found between DTI metrics and N9 amplitude (p<0.05). Altered SEPs were also correlated with the disease duration (p<0.05). Taken together, spinal imaging and electrophysiology helped to identify ∼85% of patients with subclinical sensory defect while separated methods revealed abnormal values in ∼60%. Conclusions Sensory impairments have been underestimated at early stages of ALS. These results show for the first time the interest to combine electrophysiology and imaging to assess non-motor system involvement in ALS. Trial registration number IDRCB2012-A00016-37.
A multiple detector approach to low-resolution FIR pedestrian recognition

In this paper we present a recognition scheme, which is both reliable and fast. The scheme comprises the simultaneous harmonized use of three powerful detection algorithms, the hyper permutation network (HPN), a hierarchical contour matching (HCM) algorithm and a cascaded classifier approach. Each algorithm is evaluated separately and afterwards, based on the evaluation results, the fusion of the detection results is performed by a particle filter approach.
Reliability Analyses of Open Government Data

Public authorities are increasingly sharing sets of open data. These data are often preprocessed (e.g. smoothened, aggregated) to avoid to expose sensible data, while trying to preserve their reliability. We present two procedures for tackling the lack of methods for measuring the open data reliability. The first procedure is based on a comparison between open and closed data, and the second derives reliability estimates from the analysis of open data only. We evaluate these two procedures over data from the data.police. uk website and from the Hampshire Police Constabulary in the UK. With the first procedure we show that the open data reliability is high despite preprocessing, while with the second one we show how it is possible to achieve interesting results concerning the open data reliability estimation when analyzing open data alone.
Sampling for Approximate Inference in Continuous Time Bayesian Networks

We rst present a sampling algorithm for continuous time Bayesian networks based on importance sampling. We then extend it to continuous-time particle ltering and smoothing algorithms. The three algorithms can estimate the expectation of any function of a trajectory, conditioned on any evidence set constraining the values of subsets of the variables over subsets of the timeline. We present experimental results on their accuracies and time efciencies, and compare them to expectation propagation.
Release of TNF‐α from macrophages is mediated by small GTPase Rab37

Activated macrophages at wound sites release many cytokines which positively affect skin wound healing. However, the molecular mechanisms controlling cytokine secretion from macrophages have not been elucidated. In the present study, we performed an RT‐PCR analysis and found that 19 small GTPase Rab isoforms were expressed at skin wound sites, with six of them (i.e. Rab3B, Rab27B, Rab30, Rab33A, Rab37, and Rab40C) being upregulated during the inflammation and proliferation/migration phase of skin repair. We also found that gene expression of Rab37 in murine primary and RAW264.7 macrophages was significantly induced after stimulation with LPS. Overexpression of wild type and constitutively active Rab37 in RAW264.7 cells significantly increased TNF‐α secretion, whereas knockdown of Rab37 by siRNA significantly decreased it. We also identified 29 putative Rab37‐interacting proteins, including the membrane fusion regulating Munc13‐1, using liquid chromatography/linear ion trap mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS). Immunocytochemical analysis further revealed that TNF‐α‐containing vesicles were colocalized with both Rab37 and Munc13‐1 in activated macrophages. Knockdown of Munc13‐1 by siRNA significantly decreased TNF‐α secretion. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that Rab37 interacts with Munc13‐1 to control TNF‐α secretion from activated macrophages.
Decision Making of Heavy Cannabis Users on the Iowa Gambling Task: Stronger Association with THC of Hair Analysis than with Personality Traits of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire

Background: It is unclear whether impairment in decision making, measured by the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), in addiction is substance-induced or the consequence of personality structure. Methods: Analysis of the IGT, the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ) and cannabinoids in hair and urine were performed in 13 cannabis users and matched controls. Results: Hair Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) correlated negatively with the last subtrial (cards 80–100) of the IGT (R = –0.67). In all participants (n = 26) the TPQ dimension, harm avoidance, correlated negatively with the total IGT score (R = –0.46). The last IGT-subtrial correlated with adventure seeking (R = 0.43), harm avoidance (R = –0.39) and reward dependence (R = –0.44). The last subtrial gives information on whether a participant has learned the IGT strategy. Multiple regression confirmed the impact of THC on the last subtrial, whereas TPQ personality traits did not additionally explain variance. Conclusions: Former indications of the IGT performance depending on the amount of cannabis consumed were replicated with an objective measurement of chronic cannabis consumption (hair THC). Multiple regression analysis argues for a stronger impact of chronic THC consumption than personality traits, but does not provide a causal relationship. Other factors (e.g. genetic) may also play a role.
Effects of electromagnetic fields emitted by cellular phones on the electroencephalogram during a visual working memory task

Purpose : To examine the effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF) emitted by cellular phones on the event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) responses of the 4-6, 6-8, 8-10 and 10-12 Hz EEG frequency bands during cognitive processing. Materials and methods : Twenty-four subjects performed a visual sequential letter task (n -back task) with three different working memory load conditions: zero, one and two items. All subjects performed the memory task both with and without exposure to a digital 902MHz EMF in counterbalanced order. Results : The presence of EMF altered the ERD/ERS responses in the 6-8 and 8-10Hz frequency bands but only when examined as a function of memory load and depending also on whether the presented stimulus was a target or not. Conclusions : The results suggest that the exposure to EMF modulates the responses of EEG oscillatory activity ~8Hz specifically during cognitive processes.
Recognition of Requisite Part and Effectuation Part in Law Sentences

Analyzing a logical structure of a sentence is important for understanding natural language. In this paper, we present a task of Recognition of Requisite Part and Effectu-ation Part in Law Sentences , or RRE task for short, which is studied in the research of legal engineering. The goal of this task is to recognize the structure of a law sentence. We investigate RRE task in both aspects: linguistic features and problem modeling. We also propose solutions and present experimental results on a Japanese legal text domain. Our model achieved 88.58% in F β =1 score on the Japanese National Pension Law corpus.
Applications of both time of flight and point spread function in brain PET image reconstruction

AimTo assess the effects of different high-resolution image reconstruction methods on the quality of images and quantitatively compare their accuracy in human brain PET images. Materials and methodsBrain images were reconstructed using six algorithms including back-projection (B), B+time of flight (TOF), ordered subsets expectation maximization (OSEM), OSEM+TOF, OSEM+point spread function (PSF), and OSEM+PSF+TOF. The qualities of images including the spatial resolution, contrast, and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were compared qualitatively and quantitatively, and the mean standardized uptake value (SUVmean) of different brain regions obtained by different reconstruction algorithms were also compared. ResultsThe contrast of images obtained by the six reconstruction algorithms was not significantly different (P>0.05). PSF significantly improved the spatial resolution and SNR by 23.8%. Combined PSF significantly increased the SUVmean of all brain regions, except the mesial temporal lobe and part of the basal ganglia. Application of TOF did not obviously increase the resolution and contrast, but improved SNR by up to 11.9%. Compared with OSEM and OSEM+PSF, application of OSEM+TOF and OSEM+PSF+TOF evidently affected the SUVmean of some brain regions and resulted in differentiation phenomena. TOF obviously increased the SUVmean of the temporal lobe, but significantly reduced that of the cingulate and paracingulate gyri, mesial temporal lobe, and cerebellum. ConclusionPSF was the most effective reconstruction algorithm to improve the quality of brain images. The combined PSF algorithm could increase the SUVmean and made it closer to the actual standardized uptake value. The combined TOF algorithm should be applied with caution in quantitative analysis.
Identification in Daily Practice of Patients With Lynch Syndrome (Hereditary Nonpolyposis Colorectal Cancer): Revised Bethesda Guidelines-Based Approach Versus Molecular Screening

BACKGROUND:The identification of individuals who should undergo hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) genetic testing remains a critical issue. The Bethesda guidelines were developed to preselect patients for microsatellite instability (MSI) testing before germline mutation screening. These criteria have been revised, and a new set of recommendations, the revised Bethesda guidelines, has been proposed.OBJECTIVE:To evaluate the performance of these revised guidelines for identifying patients with HNPCC in a series of unselected consecutive patients and compare this revised guidelines-based approach with a molecular strategy (MSI testing for all tumors, followed by exclusion of MSI-positive sporadic cases from mutational testing). PATIENTS AND METHODS: The study included 214 patients with newly diagnosed colorectal cancer. The MSI analysis was performed for all tumors. Germline testing, guided by immunohistochemical staining for mismatch repair proteins, was performed for patients with MSI-positive tumors. Sporadic MSI-positive tumors were identified by screening for BRAF mutation and MLH1 promoter methylation.RESULTS:Ninety patients (42.1%) met the revised guidelines. Twenty-one patients (9.8%) had MSI-positive tumors. Germline testing identified eight mutations (3.7%) (MSH2 N = 5, MLH1 N = 2, MSH6 N = 1). The revised guidelines failed to identify 2 of the 8 probands (aged 67 and 81 yr, both with no family history). In contrast, the molecular strategy identified all patients requiring testing for germline mutation. The percentages of patients selected for germline testing by the revised guidelines and the molecular strategy were 4.2% and 5.1%, respectively.CONCLUSIONS:The revised Bethesda guidelines did not identify all HNPCC cases in our series. The molecular approach identified all HNPCC patients with MSI-positive tumors, increasing the workload for germline testing only slightly.
Human Telomerase Reverse Transcriptase Cloning and Characterization of the Promoter Region of Updated

Activation of telomerase is one of the rate-limiting steps in human cell immortalization and carcinogenesis. Human telomerase is composed of at least two protein subunits and an RNA component. Regulation of expression of the catalytic subunit, human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT), is suggested as the major determinant of the enzymatic activity. We report here the cloning and characterization of the 5*-regulatory region of thehTERT gene. The highly GC-rich content of the 5* end of the hTERT cDNA spans to the 5*-flanking region and intron 1, making a CpG island. A 1.7-kb DNA fragment encompassing thehTERT gene promoter was placed upstream of the luciferase reporter gene and transiently transfected into human cell lines of fibroblastic and epithelial origins that differed in their expression of the endogenoushTERT gene. Endogenous hTERT-expressing cells, but not nonexpressing cells, showed high levels of luciferase activity, suggesting that the regulation ofhTERT gene expression occurs mainly at the transcriptional level. Additional luciferase assays using a series of constructs containing unidirectionally deleted fragments revealed that a 59-bp region ( 2208 to 2150) is required for the maximal promoter activity. The region contains a potential Myc oncoprotein binding site (E-box), and cotransfection of a c-myc expression plasmid markedly enhanced the promoter activity, suggesting a role of the Myc protein in telomerase activation. Identification of the regulatory regions of the hTERT promoter sequence will be essential in understanding the molecular mechanisms of positive and negative regulation of telomerase.
iVI: An iterative vector interaction method for large eigenvalue problems

Based on the generic “static‐dynamic‐static” framework for strongly coupled basis vectors (Liu and Hoffman, Theor. Chem. Acc. 2014, 133, 1481), an iterative Vector Interaction (iVI) method is proposed for computing multiple exterior or interior eigenpairs of large symmetric/Hermitian matrices. Although it works with a fixed‐dimensional search subspace, iVI can converge quickly and monotonically from above to the exact exterior/interior roots. The efficacy of iVI is demonstrated by taking both mathematical and physical matrices as examples. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Systematic Review of Parameters of Stimulation, Clinical Trial Design Characteristics, and Motor Outcomes in Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation in Stroke

Introduction/Objectives: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation are two powerful non-invasive neuromodulatory therapies that have the potential to alter and evaluate the integrity of the corticospinal tract. Moreover, recent evidence has shown that brain stimulation might be beneficial in stroke recovery. Therefore, investigating and investing in innovative therapies that may improve neurorehabilitative stroke recovery are next steps in research and development. Participants/Materials and Methods: This article presents an up-to-date systematic review of the treatment effects of rTMS and tDCS on motor function. A literary search was conducted, utilizing search terms “stroke” and “transcranial stimulation. ” Items were excluded if they failed to: (1) include stroke patients, (2) study motor outcomes, or (3) include rTMS/tDCS as treatments. Other exclusions included: (1) reviews, editorials, and letters, (2) animal or pediatric populations, (3) case reports or sample sizes ≤2 patients, and (4) primary outcomes of dysphagia, dysarthria, neglect, or swallowing. Results: Investigation of PubMed English Database prior to 01/01/2012 produced 695 applicable results. Studies were excluded based on the aforementioned criteria, resulting in 50 remaining studies. They included 1314 participants (1282 stroke patients and 32 healthy subjects) evaluated by motor function pre- and post-tDCS or rTMS. Heterogeneity among studies’ motor assessments was high and could not be accounted for by individual comparison. Pooled effect sizes for the impact of post-treatment improvement revealed consistently demonstrable improvements after tDCS and rTMS therapeutic stimulation. Most studies provided limited follow-up for long-term effects. Conclusion: It is apparent from the available studies that non-invasive stimulation may enhance motor recovery and may lead to clinically meaningful functional improvements in the stroke population. Only mild to no adverse events have been reported. Though results have been positive results, the large heterogeneity across articles precludes firm conclusions.
Towards Practical PPM Spam Filtering: Experiments for the TREC 2006 Spam Track

This paper summarizes our participation in the TREC 2006 spam track. We submitted a single ﬁlter for the evaluation, based on the Prediction by Partial Matching compression scheme, a method that performed well in the previous TREC evaluation. A major focus of our eﬀort was to improve eﬃciency of the method, particularly in terms of memory consumption, in order to establish whether compression-based ﬁlters are in fact a viable solution for practical applications. Our system exhibited fair performance, despite the fact that the ﬁltering techniques remained virtually unchanged from the previous TREC evaluation. We did not investigate methods for tackling delayed user feedback. A very simple strategy of training on most recent examples was used for the active learning task, and found to work surprisingly well given its simplicity.
Plasmodium falciparum responds to amino acid starvation by entering into a hibernatory state

The human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum is auxotrophic for most amino acids. Its amino acid needs are met largely through the degradation of host erythrocyte hemoglobin; however the parasite must acquire isoleucine exogenously, because this amino acid is not present in adult human hemoglobin. We report that when isoleucine is withdrawn from the culture medium of intraerythrocytic P. falciparum, the parasite slows its metabolism and progresses through its developmental cycle at a reduced rate. Isoleucine-starved parasites remain viable for 72 h and resume rapid growth upon resupplementation. Protein degradation during starvation is important for maintenance of this hibernatory state. Microarray analysis of starved parasites revealed a 60% decrease in the rate of progression through the normal transcriptional program but no other apparent stress response. Plasmodium parasites do not possess a TOR nutrient-sensing pathway and have only a rudimentary amino acid starvation-sensing eukaryotic initiation factor 2α (eIF2α) stress response. Isoleucine deprivation results in GCN2-mediated phosphorylation of eIF2α, but kinase-knockout clones still are able to hibernate and recover, indicating that this pathway does not directly promote survival during isoleucine starvation. We conclude that P. falciparum, in the absence of canonical eukaryotic nutrient stress-response pathways, can cope with an inconsistent bloodstream amino acid supply by hibernating and waiting for more nutrient to be provided.
Matchmaking Support for Mathematical Web Services

Matchmaking is one crucial tasks in agent-based systems and describes locating and identifying the most suitable services among all available services. This paper introduces matchmaking of mathematical services, whereby the matching is based on semantics using OpenMath object descriptions of preand post-conditions. A matchmaking architecture for mathematical services is described containing four matching algorithms which achieve a structural match, a syntax and ontological match, an algebraic equivalence match and a value substitution match. The matchmaking architecture calculates the match scores which give an indication of the quality of the matches. A case study explains in detail how the matching process for all four matching algorithms works.
Visibility of dichalcogenide nanolayers

Dichalcogenides with the common formula MX2 are layered materials with electrical properties that range from semiconducting to superconducting. Here, we describe optimal imaging conditions for the optical detection of ultrathin, two-dimensional dichalcogenide nanocrystals containing single, double and triple layers of MoS2, WSe2 and NbSe2. A simple optical model is used to calculate the contrast for nanolayers deposited on wafers with varying thicknesses of SiO2. The model is extended for imaging using the green channel of a video camera. Using AFM and optical imaging we confirm that single layers of MoS2 and WSe2 can be detected on 90 and 270 nm SiO2 using optical means. By measuring contrast under broadband green illumination we are also able to distinguish between nanostructures containing single, double and triple layers of MoS2 and WSe2. We observe and discuss discrepancies in the case of NbSe2.