Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS): a multicultural cognitive assessment scale

Objective: To develop and validate a simple method for detecting dementia that is valid across cultures, portable and easily administered by primary health care clinicians. Design: Culture and Health Advisory Groups were used in Stage 1 to develop culturally fair cognitive items. In Stage 2, clinical testing of 42 items was conducted in a multicultural sample of consecutive new referrals to the geriatric medicine outpatient clinic at Liverpool Hospital, Sydney, Australia (n=166). In Stage 3, the predictive accuracy of items was assessed in a random sample of community-dwelling elderly persons stratified by language background and cognitive diagnosis and matched for sex and age (n=90). Measurements: A research psychologist administered all cognitive items, using interpreters when needed. Each patient was comprehensively assessed by one of three geriatricians, who ordered relevant investigations, and implemented a standardized assessment of cognitive domains. The geriatricians also collected demographic information, and administered other functional and cognitive measures. DSM-IV criteria were used to assign cognitive diagnoses. Item validity and weights were assessed using frequency and logistic regression analyses. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to determine overall predictive accuracy of the RUDAS and the best cut-point for detecting cognitive impairment. Results: The 6-item RUDAS assesses multiple cognitive domains including memory, praxis, language, judgement, drawing and body orientation. It appears not to be affected by gender, years of education, differential performance factors and preferred language. The area under the ROC curve for the RUDAS was 0.94 (95% CI 0.87–0.98). At a cut-point of 23 (maximum score of 30), sensitivity and specificity were 89% and 98%, respectively. Inter-rater (0.99) and test-retest (0.98) reliabilities were very high. Conclusions: The 6-item RUDAS is portable and tests multiple cognitive domains. It is easily interpreted to other languages, and appears to be culturally fair. However, further validation is needed in other settings, and in longitudinal studies to determine its sensitivity to change in cognitive function over time.
Throughput-Based Design of Polar Codes

Typically, forward error correction codes are designed based on the minimization of the error rate for a given code rate. However, for applications that incorporates hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) protocol, the throughput is a more important performance metric than the error rate. Polar codes, a new class of error correction codes with simple rate matching and low complexity decoders, can be optimized efficiently for maximization of the throughput. In this paper, we first introduce a method to design throughput-maximizing polar codes for successive cancellation decoding (SCD). Furthermore, since the optimized codes for SCD are not optimal for SC list decoders (SCLD), we propose a rate matching algorithm to find the best rate for the SCLD decoders while using the polar codes optimized for SCD. The resulting codes provide throughput close to capacity with low decoding complexity when used with Type-I HARQ.
Prescription Long-term Opioid Use in HIV-infected Patients

ObjectivesTo examine changes the in use of prescription opioids for the management of chronic noncancer pain in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients and to identify patient characteristics associated with long-term use. MethodsLong-term prescription opioid use (ie, 120+ days supply or 10+ prescriptions during a year) was assessed between 1997 and 2005 among 6939 HIV-infected Kaiser Permanente members and HIV-uninfected persons in the general health plan memberships. ResultsIn 2005, 8% of HIV+ individuals had prevalent long-term opioid use, more than double the prevalence among HIV-uninfected individuals. However, the large increases in use from 1997 to 2005 in the general population were not observed for HIV-infected individuals. The strongest associations with prevalent use among HIV-infected individuals were female sex with a prevalence ratio (PR) of 1.8 (95% CI=1.3, 2.5); Charlson comorbidity score of 2 or more (compared with a score of 0) with a PR of 1.9 (95% CI=1.4, 2.8); injection drug use history with a PR of 1.8 (95% CI=1.3, 2.6); and substance use disorders with a PR of 1.8 (95% CI=1.3, 2.5). CD4, HIV viral load, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome diagnoses were associated with prevalent opioid use early in the antiretroviral therapy era (1997), but not in 2005. ConclusionsLong-term opioid use for chronic pain has remained stable over time for HIV patients, whereas its use increased in the general population. The prevalence of prescribed opioids in HIV patients was highest for certain subgroups, including women, and those with a comorbidity and substance abuse history.
Studies of caloric vestibular stimulation: implications for the cognitive neurosciences, the clinical neurosciences and neurophilosophy

Objective: Caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) has traditionally been used as a tool for neurological diagnosis. More recently, however, it has been applied to a range of phenomena within the cognitive neurosciences. Here, we provide an overview of such studies and review our work using CVS to investigate the neural mechanisms of a visual phenomenon – binocular rivalry. We outline the interhemispheric switch model of rivalry supported by this work and its extension to a metarivalry model of interocular-grouping phenomena. In addition, studies showing a slow rate of binocular rivalry in bipolar disorder are discussed, and the relationship between this finding and the interhemispheric switch model is described. We also review the effects of CVS in various clinical contexts, explain how the technique is performed and discuss methodological issues in its application. Methods: A review of CVS and related literature was conducted. Results: Despite CVS being employed with surprising effect in a wide variety of cognitive and clinical contexts, it has been a largely underutilized brain stimulation method for both exploratory and therapeutic purposes. This is particularly so given that it is well tolerated, safe, inexpensive and easy to administer. Conclusion: CVS can be used to investigate various cognitive phenomena including perceptual rivalry, attention and mood, as well as somatosensory representation, belief, hemispheric laterality and pain. The technique can also be used to investigate clinical conditions related to these phenomena and may indeed have therapeutic utility, especially with respect to postlesional disorders, mania, depression and chronic pain states. Furthermore, we propose that based on existing reports of the phenomenological effects of CVS and the brain regions it is known to activate, the technique could be used to investigate and potentially treat a range of other clinical disorders. Finally, the effects of CVS (and its potential effects) on several phenomena of interest to philosophy suggest that it is also likely to become a useful tool in experimental neurophilosophy.
The effect of thread pattern upon implant osseointegration.

OBJECTIVES Implant design features such as macro- and micro-design may influence overall implant success. Limited information is currently available. Therefore, it is the purpose of this paper to examine these factors such as thread pitch, thread geometry, helix angle, thread depth and width as well as implant crestal module may affect implant stability. SEARCH STRATEGY A literature search was conducted using MEDLINE to identify studies, from simulated laboratory models, animal, to human, related to this topic using the keywords of implant thread, implant macrodesign, thread pitch, thread geometry, helix angle, thread depth, thread width and implant crestal module. RESULTS The results showed how thread geometry affects the distribution of stress forces around the implant. A decreased thread pitch may positively influence implant stability. Excess helix angles in spite of a faster insertion may jeopardize the ability of implants to sustain axial load. Deeper threads seem to have an important effect on the stabilization in poorer bone quality situations. The addition of threads or microthreads up to the crestal module of an implant might provide a potential positive contribution on bone-to to-implant contact as well as on the preservation of marginal bone; nonetheless this remains to be determined. CONCLUSIONS Appraising the current literature on this subject and combining existing data to verify the presence of any association between the selected characteristics may be critical in the achievement of overall implant success.
Interpreting skin prick tests in the evaluation of food allergy in children

BACKGROUND Skin prick tests (SPTs) are utilized routinely in the evaluation of food allergy and several authors have discussed their utility. Efforts to standardize SPT reagents and procedures have been made, but the accuracies of different recording techniques have not been clearly defined. The aim of this study was to compare different SPT recording methods with the outcome of oral food challenge and determine whether they offer any advantage over the criteria proposed by Bock and May (1). PATIENTS AND METHODS Children suspected of IgE-mediated symptoms to any of five common food allergens (egg, milk, peanut, soy and wheat) were skin tested by the prick technique utilizing commercial extracts. The wheal reactions were recorded by two different methods: first by measuring the largest diameter of the wheal and the diameter orthogonal to it (mean wheal diameter), and second by recording the surface area of the wheal with a hand-held scanner. Wheal sizes above the 95% confidence interval of tolerant individuals were considered positive. The results of double-blind, placebo-controlled food challenges were considered the "gold standard" for diagnosis. Cut-off values were compared for positive responses in our study population (mean diameter/surface area of wheal): 4 mm/16 mm2 for egg, 5 mm/29 mm2 for milk, 6 mm/40 mm2 for peanut, 3 mm/9 mm2 for soy, and 3 mm/7 mm2 for wheat. RESULTS Significant differences in wheal sizes were seen between individuals who were allergic or tolerant to egg (P < 0.001), milk (P < 0.001), wheat (P < 0.005), and peanut (P < 0.05). Reactivity to soy could not be predicted based on SPT results (P = n.s.). The sensitivities and the specificities of the two recording methods were similar. The predictive values were not significantly different from that of the commonly utilized method of grading SPTs (i.e. positive = mean diameter 3 mm or greater than the negative control). CONCLUSIONS Skin prick tests are a useful procedure for evaluating clinical reactivity to egg, milk, peanut and wheat, but not to soy. While the size of the SPT wheals may be interpreted utilizing mean diameter or surface area cut-offs, the predictive values of these measurement methods were no better than the commonly utilized grading method where a positive skin test was recorded as a mean wheal diameter 3 mm greater than the negative control.
Facial expression recognition using wavelet transform and local binary pattern

This paper aims to experimental evaluation of different methodologies to recognize human face based on different facial expression. The face and facial images were captured locally, as the experiment is aimed to be done in India domain. The features were extracted based on two techniques, viz, Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Local Binary Pattern (LBP). The range of extracted feature is 150,300,600,1200 and 2400. Further, mean and standard deviation are computed for feature vector generation. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used for classification/recognition. The experiment was carried out on different range of features as 160×15 samples. The result varies from 72% to 100% for various ranges of features. The performance of the proposed system is found to be satisfactory as compared to the existing system.
A Multicenter Study of the Safety and Effectiveness of Hyaluronic Acid with a Cohesive Polydensified Matrix for Treatment of Nasolabial Folds in Subjects with Fitzpatrick Skin Types IV, V, and VI

Background: Although the use of the hyaluronic acid with cohesive polydensified matrix hyaluronic acid has been well explored in subjects with lighter skin (i.e., Fitzpatrick skin types I, II, and III), further exploration in subjects with Fitzpatrick skin types IV, V, and IV is warranted. The primary purpose of the study was to assess the safety of a cohesive polydensified matrix hyaluronic acid in the correction of nasolabial folds in subjects with Fitzpatrick skin types IV, V and VI, especially assessment of hyperpigmentation, hypopigmentation, and scarring. Effectiveness was also assessed. Methods: A total of 93 subjects were enrolled in this 24-week investigation at three sites in the United States. All were injected bilaterally for nasolabial fold correction with cohesive polydensified matrix hyaluronic acid. Assessments included the recording of adverse events; injected volumes; wrinkle severity ratings; and global aesthetic improvement by evaluating investigators, treating investigators, and study subjects. Results: Injection of cohesive polydensified matrix hyaluronic acid for the treatment of nasolabial folds in subjects with Fitzpatrick skin types IV, V, and VI showed no evidence of an association with hypopigmentation, hyperpigmentation, or scarring. Adverse events reported were typical of dermal filler injections with respect to type, rate, duration, and severity. Conclusion: Cohesive polydensified matrix hyaluronic acid is a safe and well-tolerated dermal filler for subjects with Fitzpatrick skin types IV, V, and VI.
Photoluminescence study of the optically active, G-centre on pre-amorphised silicon by utilizing ion implantation technique

We report a new approach of generating the dicarbon G-centre on silicon substrates by utilizing technique that is fully compatible with the standard silicon ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) technology. Silicon wafers were implanted with carbon and irradiated with high energy protons to produce self-interstitials that are crucial in the formation of the G-centre. Prior to that, all the samples were pre-amorphised with germanium. Photoluminescence (PL) measurements at 80 K were carried out to investigate the point defect mediated luminescence of the G-centre with a wavelength of 1280 nm. The results show a prominent, sharp luminescence at the carbon related, G centre in majority of the samples.
Using game theory to battle jammer in control channels of cognitive radio ad hoc networks

Because of opportunistic spectrum access, cognitive radio networks is a promising solution for spectrum scarcity problem. In cognitive radio networks, users need to communicate through control channels in order to cooperate for sharing sensing information, channel sharing and spectrum management. As a result control channels security is of a great importance. If control channels get jammed, network's performance degrades dramatically; therefore, the jammers primary target in cognitive radio networks is to demolish control channels in order to disturb the network's performance. Traditionally hopping sequences were used to battle this problem but considering cognitive radio networks intelligence, dynamic spectrum access and learning algorithms all can be hired to confront jammer. In this paper, by using game theoretic concepts, stochastic games and by defining states, actions and players' reward, we introduce a stochastic game with multiple users to make control channels resilient against sweep attacks. Win or Learn Fast (WoLF) Q learning algorithm has been used to solve the designed game and variable learning rate are used to make sure that the designed game converges. By simulation we show that in the presence of dynamic channel variations and imperfect sensing the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing ones in terms of jammer resistivity.
Genetically modified bone morphogenetic protein signalling Alters traumatic brain injury‐induced gene expression responses in the adult mouse

Three genetic mouse models were examined to define effects of bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signalling on gene expression in normal and injured adult brain. CaMKII‐Cre eliminated the BMP receptor Acvr1 (Alk2) and the common TGFβ superfamily signal mediator Smad4 or activated a constitutively active Acvr1 in postnatal forebrain neurons. All mutants followed mendelian ratios, with no overt phenotypic changes. In situ hybridization demonstrated normal patterns of the dendritic marker MAP2 (Mtap2) throughout cortex despite neuron‐specific losses of Acvr1 or Smad4. However, strong up‐regulation of Mtap2 transcript in these mice was found by quantitative RT‐PCR (qRT‐PCR), indicating that Mtap2 is normally suppressed by BMP. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) resulted in increases of histone‐associated DNA fragments in both control and Smad4‐deficient cortex. Several cell‐type‐specific transcripts known to be involved in injury‐related responses were measured by qRT‐PCR. Gfap mRNA was strongly up‐regulated in controls as well as in the loss‐of‐BMP‐signalling mutants. Notably, activated Acvr1 signalling gave significantly lower TBI‐induced up‐regulations of Gfap and Phox2a mRNA levels, indicating reductions in astroglial and neuronal reactions to injury. Strong impairment in injury‐induced Timp1 transcript up‐regulation was also seen in these mice. In contrast, osteopontin (Spp1) transcript levels in activated microglia were not reduced by Acvr1 signalling. Altogether, the data suggest that BMP signalling is dispensable in adult cortical neurons but that augmented BMP signalling affects molecular changes associated with neuronal lesions. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
A randomized, double-blind, 24‐week study of escitalopram (10 mg/day) versus citalopram (20 mg/day) in primary care patients with major depressive disorder*

ABSTRACT Objective: A randomized, double-blind, 24‐week fixed-dose study comparing the efficacy and safety of escitalopram to that of citalopram was conducted in primary care patients with moderate to severe major depressive disorder (MDD). Research design and methods: This was a randomized, double-blind, 24‐week fixed-dose study. Patients were randomly assigned to treatment with escitalopram 10 mg/day (n = 175) or citalopram 20 mg/day (n = 182). Clinical response was evaluated using the Montgomery–Åsberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) and Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI‐S) scale. The prospectively defined primary parameter of antidepressant efficacy was the change from baseline in the mean MADRS total score during the 24 weeks of double-blind treatment, using a repeated measures analysis of variance to compare the treatment groups over all assessment points simultaneously. Results: Based on the primary parameter, escitalopram was at least as efficacious as citalopram. Based on the prospectively defined secondary parameter, mean change from baseline in the CGI‐S score, escitalopram was statistically significantly superior to citalopram at Week 24. The importance of long-term treatment could be demonstrated, in that more than half (55% and 51%) of the patients who had not responded by Week 8 achieved remission by Week 24. Both escitalopram and citalopram were safe and well tolerated in acute and long-term treatment, and the overall adverse event profiles for the two drugs were similar. For the intent-to-treat population, there were statistically significantly fewer withdrawals in the escitalopram group than in the citalopram group, particularly after Week 8. Conclusion: Patients with MDD responded well to long-term treatment with either escitalopram or citalopram. This study demonstrated the importance of extending treatment of depression beyond 8 weeks.
Lobar intracerebral hemorrhage model in pigs: rapid edema development in perihematomal white matter.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The mechanisms underlying brain injury from intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) are complex and poorly understood. To comprehensively examine pathophysiological and pathochemical alterations after ICH and to examine the effects of hematoma removal on these processes, we developed a physiologically controlled, reproducible, large-animal model of ICH in pigs (weight, 6 to 8 kg). METHODS We produced lobar hematomas by pressure- controlled infusions of 1.7 mL of autologous blood into the right frontal hemispheric white matter over 15 minutes. We froze brains in situ at 1, 3, 5, and 8 hours after hematoma induction and cut coronal sections of hematoma assessment, morphological brain examination, and immunohistochemical and water content determinations. RESULTS At 1 hour after blood infusion, "translucent" white matter areas were present directly adjacent to the hematoma. These markedly edematous regions had a greater than 10% increase in water content (>85%) compared with the contralateral white matter (73%), and this increased water content persisted through 8 hours. In addition, these areas were strongly immunoreactive for serum proteins. Intravascular Evans blue dye failed to penetrate into the brain tissue at all time points, demonstrating that this serum protein accumulation and edema development were not due to increased blood-brain barrier permeability. CONCLUSIONS Experimental lobar ICH in pigs models a prominent pathological feature of human ICH, ie, early perihematomal edema. Our findings suggest that serum proteins, originating from the hematoma, accumulate in adjacent white matter and result in rapid and prolonged edema after ICH. This interstitial edema likely corresponds to the low densities on CT scans and the hyperintensities on T2-weighted MR images that surround intracerebral hematomas acutely after human ICH.
Development of a Rat Plasma and Brain Extracellular Fluid Pharmacokinetic Model for Bupropion and Hydroxybupropion Based on Microdialysis Sampling, and Application to Predict Human Brain Concentrations

Administration of bupropion [(±)-2-(tert-butylamino)-1-(3-chlorophenyl)propan-1-one] and its preformed active metabolite, hydroxybupropion [(±)-1-(3-chlorophenyl)-2-[(1-hydroxy-2-methyl-2-propanyl)amino]-1-propanone], to rats with measurement of unbound concentrations by quantitative microdialysis sampling of plasma and brain extracellular fluid was used to develop a compartmental pharmacokinetics model to describe the blood–brain barrier transport of both substances. The population model revealed rapid equilibration of both entities across the blood–brain barrier, with resultant steady-state brain extracellular fluid/plasma unbound concentration ratio estimates of 1.9 and 1.7 for bupropion and hydroxybupropion, respectively, which is thus indicative of a net uptake asymmetry. An overshoot of the brain extracellular fluid/plasma unbound concentration ratio at early time points was observed with bupropion; this was modeled as a time-dependent uptake clearance of the drug across the blood–brain barrier. Translation of the model was used to predict bupropion and hydroxybupropion exposure in human brain extracellular fluid after twice-daily administration of 150 mg bupropion. Predicted concentrations indicate that preferential inhibition of the dopamine and norepinephrine transporters by the metabolite, with little to no contribution by bupropion, would be expected at this therapeutic dose. Therefore, these results extend nuclear imaging studies on dopamine transporter occupancy and suggest that inhibition of both transporters contributes significantly to bupropion’s therapeutic efficacy.