Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The effect of technology assisted therapy for intellectually and visually impaired adults suffering from separation anxiety: Conquering the fear

ABSTRACT Persons with an intellectual disability (ID) are at risk of developing separation anxiety (SA) and, if left untreated, this can be a risk factor for the development of psychopathology. The effects of an intervention, namely technology assisted therapy for SA (TTSA), were examined on the SA, challenging behavior, psychosocial functioning, and quality of life (QOL) experienced by moderate to mild intellectually and visually disabled adults. This study aimed to determine whether TTSA reduces SA and challenging behavior in persons with ID and visual impairment, and if this results in increased psychosocial functioning and QOL. A pre-experimental within-group design with randomized multiple baselines and staggered intervention start-points was used (n = 6). The variables were monitored with standardized instruments. The frequencies of each participant’s use of the technology and the frequency and intensity of their behavior were recorded over time. Results indicate that the SA and challenging behavior experienced by the participants decreased significantly and their psychosocial functioning and QOL increased significantly. The conclusions are that TTSA has the potential to be a valid intervention to address SA in adults with visual and moderate to mild IDs.
Capillary Exchange Modeling: Barrier-Limited and Flow-Limited Distribution

In the well-perfused visceral organs, active flow occurs in most capillaries, and they are packed closely. In this situation, lateral diffusion equilibration is relatively rapid and the distribution of exchanging materials is governed chiefly by the permeability of the capillary walls. We modeled extravascular distribution of exchanging substances from this kind of capillary and illustrated the changes expected in the outflow profile with increasing permeability, the evolution from the barrier-limited to the flow-limited case. We then examined the two extremes of the assemblies of such capillaries in an organ. In one, the large-vessel transit times are constant and the capillary transit times account for the outflow distribution of the vascular reference substance; in the other, the capillary transit times are constant but the large-vessel transit times vary. The barrier-limited and flow-limited cases corresponding to these are very different. In the case intermediate between these two extremes, the transit times in both the large vessels and the capillaries in the organs vary. If the organ is functionally homogeneous, the distribution of capillaries supplied by each large vessel is the same, and the situation may be described by a product distribution. The formulation for this intermediate case may then be used both to quantify capillary permeability and to describe the distributions of large-vessel and capillary transit times.
Relationships among stress, emotional intelligence, cognitive intelligence, and cytokines

Abstract The brain has multiple functions, and its structures are very closely related to one another. Thus, the brain areas associated with stress, emotion, and intelligence are closely connected. The purpose of this study was to investigate the multiple associations between stress and emotional intelligence (EI), between EI and intelligence quotient (IQ), between cytokines and stress, and between cytokines and IQ. We measured the stress, EI, cognitive intelligence using IQ, and cytokine levels of 70 healthy subjects. We also analyzed the association of cytokines with IQ according to hemispheric dominance using the brain preference indicator (BPI). We found significant negative correlations between stress and the components of EI, such as emotional awareness and expression, emotional thinking, and emotional regulation. High levels of anger, which is a component of stress, were significantly related to poor emotional regulation. Additionally, emotional application was positively correlated with full-scale IQ scores and scores on the vocabulary, picture arrangement, and block design subtests of the IQ test. High IL-10 levels were significantly associated with low stress levels only in the right-brain-dominant group. High IL-10 and IFN-gamma levels have been associated with high scores of arithmetic intelligence. TNF-alpha and IL-6 were negatively associated with vocabulary scores and full-scale IQ, but IL-10 and IFN-gamma were positively associated with scores on the arithmetic subtest in left-brain-dominant subjects. On the other hand, IL-10 showed positive correlations with scores for vocabulary and for vocabulary and arithmetic in right-brain-dominant subjects. Furthermore, we found significant linear regression models which can show integrative associations and contribution on emotional and cognitive intelligence. Thus, we demonstrated that cytokines, stress, and emotional and cognitive intelligence are closely connected one another related to brain structure and functions. Also, the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha and IL-6 had negative effects, whereas the anti-inflammatory cytokines (e.g., IL-10 and IFN-gamma) showed beneficial effects, on stress levels, and multiple dimensions of emotional and cognitive intelligence. Additionally, these relationships among cytokines, stress, and emotional and cognitive intelligence differed depending on right and left hemispheric dominance.
The Arabidopsis SLEEPY 1 Gene Encodes a Putative F-Box Subunit of an SCF E 3 Ubiquitin Ligase

The Arabidopsis SLY1 ( SLEEPY1 ) gene positively regulates gibberellin (GA) signaling. Positional cloning of SLY1 revealed that it encodes a putative F-box protein. This result suggests that SLY1 is the F-box subunit of an SCF E3 ubiquitin ligase that regulates GA responses. The DELLA domain protein RGA (repressor of ga1-3 ) is a repressor of GA response that appears to undergo GA-stimulated protein degradation. RGA is a potential substrate of SLY1, because sly1 mutations cause a significant increase in RGA protein accumulation even after GA treatment. This result suggests SCF SLY1 -targeted degradation of RGA through the 26S proteasome pathway. Further support for this model is provided by the observation that an rga null allele partially suppresses the sly1-10 mutant phenotype. The predicted SLY1 amino acid sequence is highly conserved among plants, indicating a key role in GA response.
Improving Compression of Massive Log Data

In this paper we explore a novel method of improving log compression by partitioning data into homogeneous buckets. By partitioning log records into buckets to improve homogeneous nature of log data, the effectiveness of generic compression methods, such as bzip2 and gzip, can be improved. A system is developed to archive log records using a partition function to distribute log records into buckets. Several partition functions are implemented and their improved compression ratio is reported when archiving several real world data sets. Several improvements to the method used in this paper are proposed.
Second-order consensus tracking of nonlinear multi-agent systems with intermittent links

This study addresses a consensus problem for the leader-following multi-agent systems with second-order nonlinear dynamics under a directed communication topology, without assuming the strong connectivity or containing a spanning tree characteristic. Besides, each agent can only communicate with its neighbors intermittently in this paper. An available control algorithm is introduced, by making full use of intermittent relative local information. Subsequently, some sufficient conditions are derived for achieving consensus of multi-agent systems under a general intermittent communication topology. Finally, a simulation result is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed results.
Compressed Sensing Recovery : A Survey

Candes and Tao [1] introduced the following isometry condition on matrices Φ and established its important role in CS. Given a matrix Φ ∈ Rm×n and any set T of column indices, we denote by ΦT the m × #(T) (i.e., m × |T|) matrix composed of these columns. Similarly, for a vector x ∈ Rn, we denote by xT the vector obtained by retaining only the entries in x corresponding to the column indices T. We say that a matrix Φ satisfies the Restricted Isometry Property (RIP) of order k if there exists a δk ∈ (0, 1) such that
Inhibition of MPO (Myeloperoxidase) Attenuates Endothelial Dysfunction in Mouse Models of Vascular Inflammation and Atherosclerosis.

Objective- Inflammation-driven endothelial dysfunction initiates and contributes to the progression of atherosclerosis, and MPO (myeloperoxidase) has been implicated as a potential culprit. On release by circulating phagocytes, MPO is thought to contribute to endothelial dysfunction by limiting NO bioavailability via formation of reactive oxidants including hypochlorous acid. However, it remains largely untested whether specific pharmacological inhibition of MPO attenuates endothelial dysfunction. We, therefore, tested the ability of a mechanism-based MPO inhibitor, AZM198, to inhibit endothelial dysfunction in models of vascular inflammation. Approach and Results- Three models of inflammation were used: femoral cuff, the tandem stenosis model of plaque rupture in Apoe -/ - mice, and C57BL/6J mice fed a high-fat, high-carbohydrate diet as a model of insulin resistance. Endothelial dysfunction was observed in all 3 models, and oral administration of AZM198 significantly improved endothelial function in the femoral cuff and tandem stenosis models only. Improvement in endothelial function was associated with decreased arterial MPO activity, determined by the in vivo conversion of hydroethidine to 2-chloroethidium, without affecting circulating inflammatory cytokines or arterial MPO content. Mechanistic studies in Mpo -/- mice confirmed the contribution of MPO to endothelial dysfunction and revealed oxidation of sGC (soluble guanylyl cyclase) as the underlying cause of the observed limited NO bioavailability. Conclusions- Pharmacological inhibition of MPO is a potential strategy to limit endothelial dysfunction in vascular inflammation.
Framewise speech-nonspeech classification by neural networks for voice activity detection with statistical noise suppression

A new voice activity detection (VAD) algorithm is proposed. The proposed algorithm is the combination of augmented statistical noise suppression (ASNS) and convolutional neural network (CNN). Since the combination of ASNS and simple power thresholding was known to be very powerful for VAD under noisy conditions, even more accurate VAD is expected by replacing the power thresholding with the more elaborate classifier. Among various model-based classifiers, CNN with noise adaptive training presented the highest accuracy, and the improvement was confirmed by the experiments using CENSREC-1-C public database.
The biochemical and toxicological significance of hypermethionemia: new insights and clinical relevance

Importance of the field: Disrupted l-methionine (Met) metabolism can lead to hepatic, neurological and cardiovascular dysfunction in humans. Aberrant methyl group flux likely contributes to the development of these pathologies, but when patients also become hypermethionemic, additional toxicological mechanisms may be relevant. Areas covered in this review: Following a discussion of the causes of hypermethionemia in humans, evidence for the toxicological roles and clinical significance of the Met transmethylation (TM), transamination (TA) and sulfoxidation (SO) pathways will be presented. What the reader will gain: Recent data from freshly isolated mouse hepatocytes (FIMHs) confirmed previous in vivo results in rodents that Met TM is a detoxification pathway while Met TA leads to toxicity. Gender-related differences in Met accumulation and metabolism in FIMHs correlated with gender differences in toxicity. Data obtained from FIMHs also implicated Met SO in Met metabolism and toxicity. Currently, little is known about the mechanisms and biological significance of Met sulfoxidation in humans. Take home message: In hypermethionemic patients, clinical and dietary interventions should focus on increasing Met TM and decreasing Met TA and SO. Novel biomarkers of hypermethionemia in humans that correlate with pathological end points are needed to better understand the impact of the condition.
Impact of seasonal variations in Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission on the surveillance of pfhrp2 gene deletions

Ten countries have reported pfhrp2/pfhrp3 gene deletions since the first observation of pfhrp2-deleted parasites in 2012. In a previous study (Watson et al., 2017), we characterised the drivers selecting for pfhrp2/3 deletions and mapped the regions in Africa with the greatest selection pressure. In February 2018, the World Health Organization issued guidance on investigating suspected false-negative rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) due to pfhrp2/3 deletions. However, no guidance is provided regarding the timing of investigations. Failure to consider seasonal variation could cause premature decisions to switch to alternative RDTs. In response, we have extended our methods and predict that the prevalence of false-negative RDTs due to pfhrp2/3 deletions is highest when sampling from younger individuals during the beginning of the rainy season. We conclude by producing a map of the regions impacted by seasonal fluctuations in pfhrp2/3 deletions and a database identifying optimum sampling intervals to support malaria control programmes.
RIG-I Activation by a Designer Short RNA Ligand Protects Human Immune Cells against Dengue Virus Infection without Causing Cytotoxicity

Short hairpin RNA ligands that activate RIG-I induce antiviral responses in infected cells and prevent or control viral infections. Here, we characterized a new short hairpin RNA molecule with high efficacy in antiviral gene activation and showed that this molecule is able to control dengue virus infection. We demonstrate how structural modifications of minimal RNA ligands can lead to increased potency and a wider window of RIG-I-activating concentrations before regulatory mechanisms kick in at high concentrations. We also show that minimal RNA ligands induce an effective antiviral response in human skin dendritic cells and macrophages, which are the target cells of initial infection after the mosquito releases virus into the skin. Using short hairpin RNA as RIG-I ligands could therefore be explored as antiviral therapy. ABSTRACT Virus-derived double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) molecules containing a triphosphate group at the 5′ end are natural ligands of retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I). The cellular pathways and proteins induced by RIG-I are an essential part of the innate immune response against viral infections. Starting from a previously published RNA scaffold (3p10L), we characterized an optimized small dsRNA hairpin (called 3p10LG9, 25 nucleotides [nt] in length) as a highly efficient RIG-I activator. Dengue virus (DENV) infection in cell lines and primary human skin cells could be prevented and restricted through 3p10LG9-mediated activation of RIG‐I. This antiviral effect was RIG-I and interferon signal dependent. The effect was temporary and was reversed above a saturating concentration of RIG-I ligand. This finding revealed an effective feedback loop that controls potentially damaging inflammatory effects of the RIG-I response, at least in immune cells. Our results show that the small RIG-I activator 3p10LG9 can confer short-term protection against DENV and can be further explored as an antiviral treatment in humans. IMPORTANCE Short hairpin RNA ligands that activate RIG-I induce antiviral responses in infected cells and prevent or control viral infections. Here, we characterized a new short hairpin RNA molecule with high efficacy in antiviral gene activation and showed that this molecule is able to control dengue virus infection. We demonstrate how structural modifications of minimal RNA ligands can lead to increased potency and a wider window of RIG-I-activating concentrations before regulatory mechanisms kick in at high concentrations. We also show that minimal RNA ligands induce an effective antiviral response in human skin dendritic cells and macrophages, which are the target cells of initial infection after the mosquito releases virus into the skin. Using short hairpin RNA as RIG-I ligands could therefore be explored as antiviral therapy.
Individual differences in level of wisdom are associated with brain activation during a moral decision‐making task

Wisdom is reportedly associated with better health and quality of life. However, our knowledge of the neurobiology of wisdom is still in the early stages of development. We aimed to improve our understanding by correlating a psychometric measure of the trait with patterns of brain activation produced by a cognitive task theorized to be relevant to wisdom: moral decision‐making. In particular, we aimed to determine whether individual differences in wisdom interact with moral task complexity in relation to brain activation.
Accuracy of inlay and onlay restorations based on 3D printing or milling technique - a pilot study.

PURPOSE To evaluate and compare the accuracy of 3D printing versus CAD/CAM milling in the fabrication of inlay/onlay restorations based on pilot experiments. MATERIAL AND METHODS Different shaped inlay/onlay cavities were prepared on six extracted and root canal treated human molar teeth. Digital impressions were taken with a CEREC AC Omnicam© intraoral scanner. Based on the same impression data, nano-ceramic restorations were performed using milling (M group) and composite restorations (from material not for clinical use) using Multijet 3D printing technology (3D group). The accuracy was evaluated by measuring the marginal and internal gaps based on x-ray microtomography 3D imaging scans. The internal fit was evaluated using a replica technique with A-silicone impressions and weighing. RESULTS The 3D group restorations showed better marginal and internal fit values. The mean internal gap values of the 3D group restorations were 40-60% lower compared to the M group restorations, the difference being statistically significant at most measuring points (p⟨0.05, t-test). CONCLUSIONS The accuracy of the Multijet 3D printing is at least at the same level as the milling technique in the fabrication of dental inlay/onlay restorations. Additional investigations are needed to develop the 3D printing process and suitable materials for dental applications.
Simplification of vector communities during suburban succession

Suburbanization is happening rapidly on a global scale, resulting in changes to the species assemblages present in previously undeveloped areas of land. Community-level changes after anthropogenic land-use change have been studied in a variety of organisms, but the effects on arthropods of medical and veterinary importance remain poorly characterized. Shifts in diversity, abundance, and community composition of such arthropods, like mosquitoes, can significantly impact vector-borne disease dynamics due to varying vectorial capacity between different species. In light of these potential implications for vector-borne diseases, we investigated changes in mosquito species assemblage after suburbanization by sampling mosquitoes in neighborhoods of different ages in Wake County, North Carolina, US. We found that independent of housing density and socioeconomic status, mosquito diversity measures decreased as suburban neighborhoods aged. In the oldest neighborhoods, the mosquito assemblage reached a distinct suburban climax community dominated by the invasive, peridomestic container-breeding Aedes albopictus, the Asian tiger mosquito. Aedes albopictus is a competent vector of many pathogens of human concern, and its dominance in suburban areas places it in close proximity with humans, allowing for heightened potential of host-vector interactions. While further research is necessary to explicitly characterize the effects of mosquito community simplification on vector-borne disease transmission in highly suburbanized areas, the current study demonstrates that suburbanization is disrupting mosquito communities so severely that they do not recover their diversity even 100 years after the initial disturbance. Our understanding of the community-level effects of anthropogenic land-use change on arthropod vectors will become increasingly important as we look to mitigate disease spread in a global landscape that is continually developed and altered by humans.
A method to extract three‐dimensional objects from three‐dimensional NMR image data

A method to extract shapes of bubble polyhedra from three‐dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance image data of foam has been developed. The method consists of four steps: first, to compute series of maximum intensity projection images from the three‐dimensional NMR image data of foam to visualize the network structure of the bubble edges; second, to measure the three‐dimensional coordinates of vertices of the bubble polyhedra interactively on a CRT using the series of MIP images to obtain polyhedral edges; third, to construct polyhedral faces from the assembly of the edge data; and fourth, to construct bubble polyhedra from the assembly of the face data. The algorithm for construction of polygons and polyhedra is based on the selection of polygons or polyhedra from an enormous number of possible combinations of edges or faces under some simple selection rules. Since the computation time for the selection increased exponentially with the number of the edge data, a ‘partial volume sweeping’ method in which a cubic region which could accommodate any bubble polyhedron was swept over the three‐dimensional image area, was developed to reduce the computation time. By using this method, it was demonstrated that the shapes of many bubble polyhedra could be extracted automatically from the assembly of the edge data within a practical computation time. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Sparsity and the Possibility of Inference

We discuss the importance of sparsity in the context of nonparametric regression and covariance matrix estimation. We point to low manifold dimension of the covariate vector as a possible important feature of sparsity, recall an estimate of dimension due to Levina and Bickel (2005) and establish some conjectures made in that paper.
ESMO–ESGO consensus conference recommendations on ovarian cancer: pathology and molecular biology, early and advanced stages, borderline tumours and recurrent disease

The development of guidelines is one of the core activities of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and European Society of Gynaecologial Oncology (ESGO), as part of the mission of both societies to improve the quality of care for patients with cancer across Europe. ESMO and ESGO jointly developed clinically relevant and evidence-based recommendations in several selected areas in order to improve the quality of care for women with ovarian cancer. The ESMO–ESGO consensus conference on ovarian cancer was held on April 12–14, 2018 in Milan, Italy, and comprised a multidisciplinary panel of 40 leading experts in the management of ovarian cancer. Before the conference, the expert panel worked on five clinically relevant questions regarding ovarian cancer relating to each of the following four areas: pathology and molecular biology, early-stage and borderline tumours, advanced stage disease and recurrent disease. Relevant scientific literature, as identified using a systematic search, was reviewed in advance. During the consensus conference, the panel developed recommendations for each specific question and a consensus was reached. The recommendations presented here are thus based on the best available evidence and expert agreement. This article presents the recommendations of this ESMO–ESGO consensus conference, together with a summary of evidence supporting each recommendation.