Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical severity in Parkinson’s disease is determined by decline in cortical compensation

Dopaminergic dysfunction in the basal ganglia, particularly in the post-commissural putamen, is often viewed as the primary pathological mechanism behind motor slowing (i.e., bradykinesia) in Parkinson's disease. However, striatal dopamine loss fails to account for inter-individual differences in motor phenotype and rate of decline, implying that the expression of motor symptoms depends on additional mechanisms, some of which may be compensatory in nature. Building on observations of increased motor-related activity in the parieto-premotor cortex of Parkinson patients, we tested the hypothesis that inter-individual differences in clinical severity are determined by compensatory cortical mechanisms, and not just by basal ganglia dysfunction. Using functional MRI, we measured variability in motor- and selection-related brain activity during a visuomotor task in 353 patients with Parkinson's disease ([≤]5 years disease duration) and 60 healthy controls. In this task, we manipulated action selection demand by varying the number of possible actions that individuals could choose from. Clinical variability was characterized in two ways. First, patients were categorized into three previously validated, discrete clinical subtypes: diffuse-malignant (n=42), intermediate (n=128), or mild motor-predominant (n=150). Second, we used the total bradykinesia score across the entire sample as a continuous measure. Patients showed motor slowing (longer response times) and reduced motor-related activity in the basal ganglia compared to controls. However, basal ganglia activity did not differ between clinical subtypes and was not associated with clinical bradykinesia scores. This indicates a limited role for striatal dysfunction in shaping inter-individual differences in symptom severity. Consistent with our hypothesis, we observed enhanced action selection-related activity in the parieto-premotor cortex of patients with a mild-motor predominant subtype, both compared to patients with a diffuse-malignant subtype and to controls. Furthermore, parieto-premotor activity was inversely related to bradykinesia, which points to a compensatory role. We conclude that parieto-premotor compensation, rather than basal ganglia dysfunction, shapes inter-individual variability in symptom severity in Parkinson's disease. Future interventions may focus on maintaining and enhancing compensatory cortical mechanisms, rather than only attempting to normalize basal ganglia dysfunction.
Resource allocation strategies to achieve malaria eradication

Background: Large reductions in the global malaria burden have been achieved in the last decades, but plateauing funding poses a challenge for progressing towards the ultimate goal of malaria eradication. We aimed to determine the optimal strategy to allocate global resources to achieve this goal. Methods: Using previously published mathematical models of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax transmission incorporating insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) as an illustrative intervention, we sought to identify the global funding allocation that maximized impact under defined objectives and across a range of global funding budgets. Results: We found that the optimal strategy for case reduction closely mirrored an allocation framework that prioritizes funding for high-transmission settings, resulting in total case reductions of 76% (optimal strategy) and 66% (prioritizing high-transmission settings) at intermediate budget levels. Allocation strategies that had the greatest impact on case reductions were associated with lesser near-term impacts on the global population at risk, highlighting a trade-off between reducing burden and "shrinking the map" through a focus on near-elimination settings. The optimal funding distribution prioritized high ITN coverage in high-transmission settings endemic for P. falciparum only, while maintaining lower levels in low-transmission settings. However, at high budgets, 62% of funding was targeted to low-transmission settings co-endemic for P. falciparum and P. vivax. Conclusions: These results support current global strategies to prioritize funding to high-burden P. falciparum-endemic settings in sub-Saharan Africa to minimize clinical malaria burden and progress towards elimination but highlight competing goals of reducing the global population at risk and addressing the burden of P. vivax.
Factors Associated with Arteriovenous Fistula Maturation Failure among Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis in Hospitals Based in a Low and Middle-Income Country

Introduction. The demand for haemodialysis among patients with end stage renal disease (ESRD) is rising worldwide, arteriovenous fistulas (AVF) are considered the gold standard vascular access modality for hemodialysis (HD) because of its longer patency, enhanced durability, and reduced risk of infection for those that mature compared to grafts and central venous catheters. This study will therefore assess the factors associated with arteriovenous fistula maturation for patients requiring hemodialysis in Dar es Salaam. Methods A multi-centre based prospective study conducted among patients with ESRD between April 2021 to May 2022 at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH), Jakaya Kikwete Cardiac Institute (JKCI), Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania (CCBRT),Kairuki hospital (KH) in Dar es Salaam. Patients with End stage renal disease eligible for arteriovenous fistula (AVF) creation and Hemodialysis were included. Socio-demographic data were extracted from the patients, intraoperative and postoperative variables were obtained from medical records. Patients were assessed through eight weeks for maturation and complications. Data analyzed accordingly by IBM-SPSS version 27.0, Univariate and multivariate analysis were used to stratify the factors and control the confounders for the effects on outcome, and p-value of <5% was used to state the level of significance at 95% CI. Results. Total of 151 fistulas were created, most (80.8%) were created on male, (31.8%) in the age group of less than 50 Years old, 58.9% of the participants had normal Body Mass Index (BMI), with majority (45%) being suffered from Hypertension and 54% of them were using Antihypertensive medication. Brachial cephalic fistulas were the most common type of fistula created 77(51%) and most matured 67(52.7%) among ESRD patients who had AVF creation, while radial cephalic fistulas were the most failed created AVFs 13 (54%). The AVF maturation failure rate was 16%. Conculusion. Failure of newly created AVF is a major barrier to the successful establishment of hemodialysis access, in this study the failure rate of AVF maturation was 16 percent. The major factors associated with failure to mature were; extreme age group (50-59), being suffered with both hypertension and diabetes, long period of alcohol taking and distal location of AVF( radiocephalic fistula). Vascular imaging was not regularly done to assess the status of veins and arteries for AVF creation.
Robust flight navigation out of distribution with liquid neural networks

Autonomous robots can learn to perform visual navigation tasks from offline human demonstrations and generalize well to online and unseen scenarios within the same environment they have been trained on. It is challenging for these agents to take a step further and robustly generalize to new environments with drastic scenery changes that they have never encountered. Here, we present a method to create robust flight navigation agents that successfully perform vision-based fly-to-target tasks beyond their training environment under drastic distribution shifts. To this end, we designed an imitation learning framework using liquid neural networks, a brain-inspired class of continuous-time neural models that are causal and adapt to changing conditions. We observed that liquid agents learn to distill the task they are given from visual inputs and drop irrelevant features. Thus, their learned navigation skills transferred to new environments. When compared with several other state-of-the-art deep agents, experiments showed that this level of robustness in decision-making is exclusive to liquid networks, both in their differential equation and closed-form representations. Description Liquid neural networks enable vision-based autonomous fly-to-target tasks under distribution shifts.
Some New Sequence Spaces

In the present paper we introduce some new sequence spaces defined by a Musielak-Orlicz function on semi normed spaces. We make an effort to study some topological properties and inclusion relations between these spaces. The study of sequence spaces over n -normed spaces has also been initiated in this paper.
The nonlinear optical properties of AlGaAs at the half band gap

We report experimental values for the nonlinear optical coefficients of AlGaAs, in the half-band-gap spectral region. The dispersion of the nonlinear refractive-index coefficient, n/sub 2/, is measured for both TE- and TM-polarized light. We observe n/sub 2/(TE)>n/sub 2/(TM) and a ratio of cross-phase modulation to self-phase modulation (TE) of /spl sim/0.95, as predicted from band structure calculations. The spectral dependence of the two- and three-photon absorption coefficients are also measured. Finally, the implications for all-optical switching and spatial soliton propagation are discussed.
Altitude and Breathing during Sleep in Healthy Persons and Sleep Disordered Patients: A Systematic Review

Abstract Objetive The aim of this systematic review is to analyze the recent scientific evidence of the clinical effects of altitude on breathing during sleep in healthy persons and sleep disordered patients. Material and Methods A search was carried out in PubMed and Scopus looking for articles published between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2021, in English and Spanish, with the following search terms: “sleep disorders breathing and altitude”. Investigations in adults and carried out at an altitude of 2000 meters above mean sea level (MAMSL) or higher were included. The correlation between altitude, apnea hypopnea index (AHI) and mean SpO2 during sleep was calculated. Results 18 articles of the 112 identified were included. A good correlation was found between altitude and AHI (Rs = 0.66 P = 0.001), at the expense of an increase in the central apnea index. Altitude is inversely proportional to oxygenation during sleep (Rs = −0.93 P = 0.001), and an increase in the desaturation index was observed (3% and 4%). On the treatment of respiratory disorders of sleeping at altitude, oxygen is better than servoventilation to correct oxygenation during sleep in healthy subjects and acetazolamide controlled respiratory events and oxygenation during sleep in patients with obstructive sleep apnea under treatment with CPAP. Conclusions Altitude increases AHI and decreases oxygenation during sleep; oxygen and acetazolamide could be an effective treatment for sleep-disordered breathing at altitude above 2000 MAMSL.
Self-Validation Theory: Confidence can Increase but also Decrease Performance in Applied Settings

Abstract This article presents self-validation theory (SVT) as a framework predicting when mental contents guide performance. First, we illustrate how confidence can validate people’s thoughts (goals, beliefs, identity) increasing and decreasing performance, depending on what thoughts are validated. This first section reviews examples of validation processes in guiding intellectual performance in academic settings, sport performance in athletes, as well as performance on diverse social tasks. SVT specifies moderating conditions for validation processes to operate. Therefore, in the second section of this review, we identify unique and testable moderators for metacognitive processes demonstrating when and for whom validation processes are more likely to occur. A third section calls for future research identifying new validating variables (e.g., preparation, courage) capable of increasing usage of unexplored thoughts relevant to performance (e.g., expectations). This final section examines new domains for validation (e.g., group performance, cheating in performance), discusses to what extent people can use self-validation strategies deliberatively to improve their performance and addresses when performance can be impaired by invalidation (e.g., due to identity threat).
Molecular Characterization of Odorant Receptor Gene GmolOR7 in Grapholita molesta (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)

Abstract Grapholita molesta Busck (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) is a major fruit pest of a wide range of Rosaceae trees. Olfaction plays a crucial role in insect behavioral activities, and insects primarily rely on odorant receptors (ORs) to detect odorant molecules. Several olfactory-related genes in G. molesta have been studied; however, the ORs of G. molesta are unclear. Here, GmolOR7, a general OR gene, was cloned and characterized. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree analysis showed that GmolOR7 is closely related to Cydia pomonella OR54, with the amino acid sequence identity of 80.21%. Furthermore, the different developmental stages and tissues of GmolOR7 in G. molesta were analyzed by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The results demonstrated that GmolOR7 was expressed at higher levels in adults, and particularly in the antennae of females. GmolOR7 expression was the highest in 3-d-old adults. These results will provide an indication for further functional study of the GmolOR7 in G. molesta and its role in the detection of host-plant volatiles by insects in general.
Species Richness and Floristic Quality Metrics Differ in Their Sensitivity to Lonicera maackii Invasions with Increasing Area

ABSTRACT Plant invasions are generally associated with lower biodiversity and ecosystem function, but the impacts of plant invasions on species richness are often scale-dependent. Like species richness, metrics of community structure and quality likely differ in their sensitivity to plant invasions with area. Therefore, depending on the spatial scale of sampling, some metrics are unlikely to capture the impacts of plant invasions. Lonicera maackii is a shrub native to Asia and invasive across the eastern United States. The impact of L. maackii invasion on species richness and two floristic quality assessment (FQA) metrics, floristic quality index (FQI) and mean coefficient of conservatism (mean C), was studied across multiple spatial extents to determine the spatial breadth of the sensitivity of these metrics to plant invasions. We selected 12 forest plots: 6 uninvaded plots (<1% L. maackii cover) and 6 invaded plots (>70% L. maackii cover), which we divided into subplots of 1 m2, 62.5 m2, 125 m2, 250 m2, and 500 m2. Within each plot, we calculated average plant richness, mean C, and FQI for each spatial extent. Invaded plots displayed lower total richness at smaller spatial scales, with richness within L. maackii–invaded plots recovering to levels found among uninvaded plots at an extent of 62.5 m2. Invasion lowered both mean C and FQI at spatial extents ≤125 m2. Consequently, invasion impacts on FQA metrics likely manifest themselves at small spatial extents, and comparing invasion impact among management units should be carried out at these scales for proper comparison.
Suitable Habitats for Cicadella viridis and Evacanthus interruptus (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) with Global Climate Change

Abstract Cicadella viridis (L.) and Evacanthus interruptus L. (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) are two of the most important leafhopper pests worldwide. Identifying habitat suitability areas of these species could be useful for their management. This study used the MaxEnt model to predict the current and future global habitat suitability areas of these species based on distribution and associated environmental data. The model showed that isothermality and the mean temperature of the driest quarter of the year were the most important environmental factors affecting the distribution of C. viridis and E. interruptus. Europe and southern China are the current primary habitat suitability areas for the two species. The high habitat suitability areas for C. viridis are also concentrated in these areas, whereas the high habitat suitability areas for E. interruptus are mainly found in western Europe. Under future climate change scenarios, the area of the two species habitat suitability areas increases, and the high habitat suitability areas for C. viridis decrease. However, the high habitat suitability areas for E. interruptus increase in 2041–2060 shared socioeconomic pathways 585 (ssp585) but decrease in 2041–2060 and 2061–2080 shared socioeconomic pathways 126 (ssp126). It is necessary to develop measures to monitor these species within habitat suitability areas, especially in high habitat suitability areas, to reduce economic losses.
Signs and symptoms of acute pulmonary embolism and their predictive value for all-cause hospital death in respect of severity of the disease, age, sex and body mass index: retrospective analysis of the Regional PE Registry (REPER)

Background The incidence of the signs and symptoms of acute pulmonary embolism (PE) according to mortality risk, age and sex has been partly explored. Patients and methods A total of 1242 patients diagnosed with acute PE and included in the Regional Pulmonary Embolism Registry were enrolled in the study. Patients were classified as low risk, intermediate risk or high risk according to the European Society of Cardiology mortality risk model. The incidence of the signs and symptoms of acute PE at presentation with respect to sex, age, and PE severity was investigated. Results The incidence of haemoptysis was higher in younger men with intermediate-risk (11.7% vs 7.5% vs 5.9% vs 2.3%; p=0.01) and high-risk PE (13.8% vs 2.5% vs 0.0% vs 3.1%; p=0.031) than in older men and women. The frequency of symptomatic deep vein thrombosis was not significantly different between subgroups. Older women with low-risk PE presented with chest pain less commonly (35.8% vs 55.8% vs 48.8% vs 51.9%, respectively; p=0.023) than men and younger women. However, younger women had a higher incidence of chest pain in the lower-risk PE group than in the intermediate-risk and high-risk PE subgroups (51.9%, 31.4% and 27.8%, respectively; p=0.001). The incidence of dyspnoea (except in older men), syncope and tachycardia increased with the risk of PE in all subgroups (p<0.01). In the low-risk PE group, syncope was present more often in older men and women than in younger patients (15.5% vs 11.3% vs 4.5% vs 4.5%; p=0.009). The incidence of pneumonia was higher in younger men with low-risk PE (31.8% vs<16% in the other subgroups, p<0.001). Conclusion Haemoptysis and pneumonia are prominent features of acute PE in younger men, whereas older patients more frequently have syncope with low-risk PE. Dyspnoea, syncope and tachycardia are symptoms of high-risk PE irrespective of sex and age.
Impact of delayed screening invitations on screen-detected and interval cancers in the Dutch colorectal cancer screening programme: individual-level data analysis

Objective To assess the impact of delayed invitation on screen-detected and interval colorectal cancers (CRC) within a faecal immunochemical testing (FIT)-based CRC screening programme. Design All individuals that participated in 2017 and 2018 with a negative FIT and were eligible for CRC screening in 2019 and 2020 were included using individual-level data. Multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to assess the association between either the different time periods (ie, ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ the first COVID-19 wave) or the invitation interval on screen-detected and interval CRCs. Results Positive predictive value for advanced neoplasia (AN) was slightly lower during (OR=0.91) and after (OR=0.95) the first COVID-19 wave, but no significant difference was observed for the different invitation intervals. Out of all individuals that previously tested negative, 84 (0.004%) had an interval CRC beyond the 24 months since their last invitation. The time period of invitation as well as the extended invitation interval was not associated with detection rates for AN and interval CRC rate. Conclusion The impact of the first COVID-19 wave on screening yield was modest. A very small proportion of the FIT negatives had an interval CRC possibly due to an extended interval, which potentially could have been prevented if they had received the invitation earlier. Nonetheless, no increase in interval CRC rate was observed, indicating that an extended invitation interval up to 30 months had no negative impact on the performance of the CRC screening programme and a modest extension of the invitation interval seems an appropriate intervention.
Recent improvements in propeller aerodynamic computations

The paper gives an overview of the different methods available at ONERA for the flow computation around propellers. Simple Lifting Line methods are applied for computation of overall performance of the propeller blades. When the local flow is transonic, the most sophisticated Euler and Navier-Stokes codes are used for detailed description of flow characteristics on the 3D blades and spinner. These methods are thoroughly validated by comparison with experimental results. The propeller interaction on wing/nacelle combination is treated with the actuatordisk model ; under the quasi-steady hypothesis, the azimuthal average approach computes the mutual interaction of contrarotating propellers as well as the wing/nacelle/propeller interaction. The unsteady approach is used for propeller computations with incidence. Comparison with experimental results shows a good agreement on the force coefficients including the lateral force which cannot be accurately predicted by the simple lifting line methods.
Untargeted metabolomics revealing changes in aroma substances in flue-cured tobacco

Abstract The composition and content of aroma substances in flue-cured tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum L.) will affect the quality of tobacco. To investigate the correlation between various aroma substances of K326 before and after flue-curing, and their impact on tobacco quality and diversity, this study employed the middle leaves of K326 and KRK26 as test materials. Samples were collected both before and after flue-curing for untargeted metabolomics analysis. The results of K326 showed that 584 metabolites were significantly different and there were 44 aroma-related metabolites, including alcohols, aldehydes, phenols, organic acids, etc. The analyzed aroma compounds consist of 37 known tobacco aroma substances, while 7 metabolites, previously not associated with tobacco aroma, have been identified as aroma substances in other food products. These findings suggest that these seven metabolites might may be potential tobacco aroma compounds. Further analysis showed that the content of phenols, alcohols, and aldehydes increased significantly after flue-curing, but the content of organic acids decreased. Furthermore, the analysis of KRK26 revealed a correlation between the quantity of aroma substances and the type of tobacco. These findings serve as a reference for enhancing the flue-curing process of K326 and optimizing the industrial production of cigarettes that use cured K326 tobacco leaves.