Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parent-reported patterns of loss and gain in communication in 1- to 2-year-old children are not unique to autism spectrum disorder

We compared loss and gain in communication from 1 to 2 years in children later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (n = 41), language impairment (n = 110) and in children with typical language development at 7 years (n = 831). Participants were selected from a prospective population cohort study of child language (the Early Language in Victoria Study). Parent-completed communication tools were used. As a group, children with autism spectrum disorder demonstrated slower median skill gain, with an increasing gap between trajectories compared to children with typical development and language impairment. A proportion from all groups lost skills in at least one domain (autism spectrum disorder (41%), language impairment (30%), typical development (26%)), with more children with autism spectrum disorder losing skills in more than one domain (autism spectrum disorder (47%), language impairment (15%, p = 0.0003), typical development (16%, p < 0.001)). Loss was most common for all groups in the domain of ‘emotion and eye gaze’ but with a higher proportion for children with autism spectrum disorder (27%; language impairment (12%, p = 0.03), typical development (14%, p = 0.03)). A higher proportion of children with autism spectrum disorder also lost skills in gesture (p = 0.01), sounds (p = 0.009) and understanding (p = 0.004) compared to children with typical development but not with language impairment. These findings add to our understanding of early communication development and highlight that loss is not unique to autism spectrum disorder.
Correlative light and immuno-electron microscopy of retinal tissue cryostat sections

Correlative light-electron microscopy (CLEM) is a powerful technique allowing localisation of specific macromolecules within fluorescence microscopy (FM) images to be mapped onto corresponding high-resolution electron microscopy (EM) images. Existing methods are applicable to limited sample types and are technically challenging. Here we describe novel methods to perform CLEM and immuno-electron microscopy (iEM) on cryostat sections utilising the popular FM embedding solution, optimal cutting temperature (OCT) compound. Utilising these approaches, we have (i) identified the same phagosomes by FM and EM in the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) of retinal tissue (ii) shown the correct localisation of rhodopsin on photoreceptor outer segment disc like-structures in iPSC derived optic cups and (iii) identified a novel interaction between peroxisomes and melanosomes as well as phagosomes in the RPE. These data show that cryostat sections allow easy characterisation of target macromolecule localisation within tissue samples, thus providing a substantial improvement over many conventional methods that are limited to cultured cells. As OCT embedding is routinely used for FM this provides an easily accessible and robust method for further analysis of existing samples by high resolution EM.
Simultaneous Determination of Imatinib, Dasatinib, and Nilotinib by Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry and Its Application to Therapeutic Drug Monitoring

Background: Imatinib, dasatinib, and nilotinib are tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) used as first-line treatment of chronic myeloid leukemia. Therapeutic drug monitoring is important to achieve treatment efficacy in the case of imatinib and nilotinib, and to control toxicity in the case of dasatinib. New high-sensitivity methods to monitor those drugs are needed, especially for dasatinib. Thus, a simple method to determine plasma levels of imatinib, dasatinib, and nilotinib for application in clinical practice was developed. Methods: TKIs were eluted with a Poroshell 120 EC-C18 column (2.1 × 75 mm, 2.7 &mgr;m) at 0.5 mL/min and 60°C, under gradient conditions through a mobile phase consisting of 4 mmol/L ammonium formate, pH 3.2 (65%), and acetonitrile (35%). TKIs were detected and quantified by liquid chromatography in tandem with mass spectrometry (LC/MS–MS) with positive electrospray ionization and analytes were extracted using solid phase extraction (Versaplate-SCX). Internal standards were isotope-labeled for each analyte. Results: The method was linear in the range of 2.5–5000 ng/mL for imatinib, 0.75–400 ng/mL for dasatinib, and 2–4000 ng/mL for nilotinib. The validation assays for accuracy and precision, matrix effect, extraction recovery, carryover, and stability of the samples for all the TKIs were appropriate according to regulatory agencies. Furthermore, imatinib plasma samples, stored for 4 years at −80°C were quite stable in approximately half of the samples. Conclusions: The method enables rapid quantification of TKI concentrations and is being applied to therapeutic drug monitoring to adjust dose and to manage adverse reactions in clinical practice.
Big Hat and No Cattle? The Implications of MOOCs for the Adult Learning Landscape.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a relatively new form of education, offered by some of the best known universities and attracting many hundreds of thousands of students. The authors describe MOOCs and the claims made for them, and analyse two major impacts of these programs based on the first MOOC offered by McGill University. The first area of discussion is the potential for expanded access to education offered by MOOCs, which this analysis finds to be more limited than often claimed. The second is the potential for radical educational practice in MOOCs, which is considered through the lens of andragogy. The authors find that there are indications of interesting possibilities in this area, though they are not being exploited as fully—or as deliberately—as they could be.
Apoptotic Effects of Some Tetrahydronaphthalene Derivatives on K562 Human Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia Cell Line.

BACKGROUND Retinoids which are vitamin A (Retinol) derivatives have been suggested to mediate the inhibition of cancer cell growth and apoptosis. It has been reported that all trans retinoic acid (ATRA) exhibited suppressive effects on different types of leukemia including chronic myelogenous leukemia. OBJECTIVE In the present study, we aim to find out the effects of 6 synthetic N-(3,5,5,8,8-pentamethyl-5,6,7,8- tetrahydronaphthalene-2-yl)-carboxamide derivatives (compound 6-12) on cell viability and apoptotic pathways in K562 human chronic myelogenous leukemia cell line. METHODS Cell viability and apoptosis were examined by spectrophotometric thiazolyl blue tetrazolium bromide (MTT) and caspase-3 assay, western blot, RT-PCR and flow cytometry. RESULTS Our results indicated that compound 6 (5-(1,2-Dithiolan-3-yl)-N-(3,5,5,8,8-pentamethyl-5,6,7,8- tetrahydronaphthalen-2-yl)pentanamide), 8 (4-(3,4-Dimethoxyphenyl)-N-(3,5,5,8,8-pentamethyl-5,6,7,8- tetrahydronaphthalen-2-yl)butanamide) and 11 (E-3-(4-Hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-N-(3,5,5,8,8-pentamethyl- 5,6,7,8-tetrahydronaphthalen-2-yl)acrylamide) exhibited apoptotic effects in K562 human chronic myelogenous leukemia cell line and induced caspase 3, PARP cleavage, Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, Bad and Bim gene expressions. CONCLUSION Some retinoid derivatives tested in this study induced apoptosis of K562 cells which suggest that these compounds may serve as potential agents in the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia.
Factor Structure and Construct Validity of the Worker Role Self-Assessment (WRS) When Used for People With Psychiatric Disabilities in Sweden

A self-report instrument assessing work-related factors among people with psychiatric disabilities would be useful when trying to match possible employment or prevocational opportunities with people’s desires and capacities. The aim of this study was to explore the factor structure, internal consistency, and construct and criterion validity of the Worker Role Self-Assessment (WRS) in this group as well as possible floor and ceiling effects. The participants were 283 clients from day centers for people with psychiatric disabilities and from outpatient units for people with psychosis. They completed the WRS and instruments selected to assess construct validity in terms of convergent (motivation for work and current activity level as reference variables) and discriminant validity (quality of life and self-rated health as reference variables). Two factors were identified, one tapping beliefs in a future worker role and one reflecting current capacities and routines. The internal consistency for the scale as a whole was good at 0.84. The factor reflecting a future worker role correlated as expected with the reference variables used to assess convergent and discriminant validity, whereas current capacities and routines showed a moderate association with quality of life and self-rated health, assumed to indicate discriminant validity. Criterion validity was shown in that those who had recent work experiences scored higher than the others on WRS. No floor or ceiling effects were identified. The findings indicate acceptable psychometric properties of the WRS. Further development is still warranted, however; the factor solution needs to be replicated and the construct validity should be further established.
Association Between Medicare Accountable Care Organization Implementation and Spending Among Clinically Vulnerable Beneficiaries.

IMPORTANCE Accountable care contracts hold physician groups financially responsible for the quality and cost of health care delivered to patients. Focusing on clinically vulnerable patients, those with serious conditions who are responsible for the greatest proportion of spending, may result in the largest effects on both patient outcomes and financial rewards for participating physician groups. OBJECTIVE To estimate the effect of Medicare accountable care organization (ACO) contracts on spending and high-cost institutional use for all Medicare beneficiaries and for clinically vulnerable beneficiaries. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS For this cohort study, 2 study populations were defined: the overall Medicare population and the clinically vulnerable subgroup of Medicare beneficiaries. The overall Medicare population was based on a random 40% sample drawn from continuously enrolled fee-for-service beneficiaries with at least 1 evaluation and management visit in a calendar year. The clinically vulnerable study population included all Medicare beneficiaries 66 years or older who had at least 3 Hierarchical Condition Categories (HCCs). Beneficiaries entered the cohort during the quarter between January 2009 to December 2011 when they first had at least 3 HCCs and remained in the cohort until death. Cohort entry was restricted to the preperiod to account for potential changes in coding practices after ACO implementation. Difference-in-difference estimations were used to compare changes in health care outcomes for Medicare beneficiaries attributed to physicians in ACOs with those attributed to non-ACO physicians from January 2009 to December 2013. EXPOSURES Medicare ACOs beginning contracts in January 2012, April 2012, July 2012, and January 2013 through the Pioneer and Medicare Shared Savings Programs. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Total spending per beneficiary-quarter, spending categories, use of hospitals and emergency departments, ambulatory care sensitive admissions, and 30-day readmissions. RESULTS Total spending decreased by $34 (95% CI, -$52 to -$15) per beneficiary-quarter after ACO contract implementation across the overall Medicare population (n = 15 592 600) and decreased $114 in clinically vulnerable patients (n = 8 673 823) (95% CI, -$178 to -$50). In the overall Medicare cohort, hospitalizations and emergency department visits decreased by 1.3 and 3.0 events per 1000 beneficiaries per quarter, respectively (95% CIs: -2.1 to -0.4 and -4.8 to -1.3), and hospitalizations and emergency department visits decreased in the clinically vulnerable cohort by 2.9 and 4.1 events per 1000 beneficiaries per quarter, respectively (95% CIs: -5.2 to -0.7 and -7.1 to -1.2). Changes in total spending associated with ACOs did not vary by clinical condition of beneficiaries. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Medicare ACO programs are associated with modest reductions in spending and use of hospitals and emergency departments. Savings were realized through reductions in use of institutional settings in clinically vulnerable patients.
The relationship between body mass index (BMI) and quality of life in Iranian primary school students in Tehran, Iran.

BACKGROUND This study aimed to investigate the relationship between Body Mass Index (BMI) and quality of life in primary school students in Tehran. METHOD In this cross-sectional study 829 primary school children and their parents participated. Healthrelated quality of life (HROOL) was evaluated with the Persian version of Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL™4.0) questionnaire. According to objective measures of height and weight, children BMI computed, and adapted for age and gender. For data analysis we used Pearson correlation test, Independentsample t-test and ANOVA using SPSS version 18. RESULTS Mean of children self-reported HRQOL total score was 82.05 ± 12.04 and mean of parent proxyreported HRQOL total score was 81.66 ± 12.81. Based on HRQOL subscale scores, social functioning was the highest subscale score of HRQOL (84.67 ± 15.07) and the emotional subscale score was the lowest (77.79 ± 17.26). Lower HRQOL scores were significantly correlated with Higher BMI and normal weight children had significantly higher HRQOL total score than obese children (P < 0.05). The difference between normal weight and overweight children in HRQOL total scores were not significant. Same results were obtained from parent proxy-reports and a good harmony between children self-report and parent proxy-report of HRQOL was perceived. CONCLUSION This study showed that HRQOL of obese children were at the lower level in comparison to normal weight and overweight children. At further interventional studies these outcomes can be very important for improving quality of life in obese children.
Enumerating Privacy Leaks in DNS Data Collected above the Recursive

—As with any information system consisting of data derived from people’s actions, DNS data is vulnerable to privacy risks. In DNS, users make queries through recursive resolvers to authoritative servers. Data collected below (or in) the recursive resolver directly exposes users, so most prior DNS data sharing focuses on queries above the recursive resolver. Data collected above a recursive resolver has largely been seen as posing a minimal privacy risk since recursive resolvers typically aggregate trafﬁc for many users, thereby hiding their identity and mixing their trafﬁc. Although this assumption is widely made, to our knowledge it has not been veriﬁed. In this paper we re-examine this assumption for DNS trafﬁc above the recursive resolver. First, we show that two kinds of information appear in query names above the recursive resolver: IP addresses and sensitive domain names, such as those pertaining to health, politics, or personal or lifestyle information. Second, we examine how often these classes of potentially sensitive names appear in Root DNS trafﬁc, using 48 hours of B-Root data from April 2017.
Hierarchical control of DC microgrid based on model predictive controller

A centralized controller of DC microgrid based on model predictive method is proposed in this paper. Stable and economical operation of the microgrid is guaranteed to provide high quality power for load by generating reference signals for local controller utilizing model predictive method. In addition, local droop control is switched on in case of communication failure to provide redundant reference signal choice. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed model predictive control system, simulations are conducted on MATLAB with results showing that the control objectives are fulfilled in both grid-connected and islanded mode with economical and flexible operation during normal condition using the proposed centralized controller and safe operation during communication failure by switching to the alternate local droop control.
Handgrip strength and associated factors in hospitalized patients.

BACKGROUND Handgrip strength (HGS) is a marker of nutrition status. Many factors are associated with HGS. Age, height, body mass index, number of diagnoses, and number and type of drugs have been shown to modify the association between undernutrition and HGS. Nevertheless, other patient characteristics that could modify this association and its joint modifier effect have not been studied yet. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the association of inpatients' HGS and undernutrition considering the potential modifier effect of cognitive status, functional activity, disease severity, anthropometrics, and other patient characteristics on HGS. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted in a university hospital. Sex, age, abbreviated mental test score, functional activity score, Charlson index, number of drugs, Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) score, body weight, mid-arm muscle circumference, adductor pollicis muscle thickness, body height, wrist circumference, hand length, and palm width were included in a linear regression model to identify independent factors associated with HGS (dependent variable). RESULTS The study sample was composed of 688 inpatients (18-91 years old). All variables included in the model were associated with HGS (β, -0.16 to 0.38; P ≤ .049) and explained 68.5% of HGS. Age, functional activity decline, Charlson index, number of drugs, PG-SGA score, body weight, and wrist circumference had a negative association with HGS. All other studied variables were positively associated with HGS. CONCLUSION Nutrition status evaluated by PG-SGA was still associated with HGS after considering the joint effect of other patient characteristics, which reinforces the value of HGS as an indicator of undernutrition.
Exact estimates of conductivity of composites formed by two isotropically conducting media taken in prescribed proportion

Synopsis This paper is a sequel to [1-4]. We consider the problem of G-closure, i.e. the description of the set GU of effective tensors of conductivity for all possible mixtures assembled from a number of initially given components belonging to some fixed set U. Effective tensors are determined here in a sense of G-convergence relative to the operator ∇· D · ∇, of the elements DeU ∈ [5, 6]. The G-closure problem for an arbitrary initial set U in the two-dimensional case has already been solved [3, 4]. It remained, however, unclear how to construct, in the most economic way, a composite with some prescribed effective conductivity, or, equivalently, how to describe the set GmU of composites which may be assembled from given components taken in some prescribed proportion. This problem is solved in what follows for a set U consisting of two isotropic materials possessing conductivities D+ = u+E and D− = u−E where 0
Association between School Membership and Substance Use among Adolescents

Background Substance use among adolescents is a major problem worldwide, producing many health and economic consequences. Even though there are well-known personal, familial, and social factors associated with drug use, less is known about the effect of school-related factors. School membership is a recognized variable affecting academic performance among students; however, its effect on substance use is less understood. Aims The primary aim of this study was to explore the association between school membership and cigarette, alcohol, and cannabis use among a representative sample of secondary students from municipal state-funded schools in Santiago of Chile, and secondly, to test the hypothesis that depressive or anxiety symptoms mediate this association. Methods A total of 2,508 students from 22 state-funded schools in Santiago, Chile, answered a questionnaire. This instrument included an abbreviated version of the psychological sense of school membership (PSSM), questions regarding the use of alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis and scales of psychological functioning (depression, anxiety, self-concept, and problem-solving). The association analyses were performed using adjusted regression models for each outcome using all independent variables while controlling for gender and age. For the mediation effect, a combination of ordinary least square and logistic regression analyses was conducted. Results There was an association between a strong PSSM and low risk for smoking (OR 0.57; 95% CI 0.46–0.72), drinking (0.65; 95% CI: 0.51–0.83), and cannabis use (0.52; 95% CI 0.37–0.74). We also found that depressive and anxiety symptoms do not fully mediate the association between school membership and any substance use, and 73% of this effect in the case of smoking, 80% in the case of drinking, and 78.5% in the case of cannabis use, was direct. Conclusion This is the first study in Latin America exploring the association between school membership and substance use among secondary students. School membership seems to be an important and independent factor to be included in preventive interventions. Therefore, these results support future research aiming to test interventions at increasing the sense of school membership to prevent substance use among adolescents. Clinical Trial Registration ISRCTN19466209. Retrospectively registered.
BigDataBench: A Dwarf-based Big Data and AI Benchmark Suite

As architecture, system, data management, and machine learning communities pay greater attention to innovative big data and data-driven artificial intelligence (in short, AI) algorithms, architecture, and systems, the pressure of benchmarking rises. However, complexity, diversity, frequently changed workloads, and rapid evolution of big data, especially AI systems raise great challenges in benchmarking. First, for the sake of conciseness, benchmarking scalability, portability cost, reproducibility, and better interpretation of performance data, we need understand what are the abstractions of frequently-appearing units of computation, which we call dwarfs, among big data and AI workloads. Second, for the sake of fairness, the benchmarks must include diversity of data and workloads. Third, for co-design of software and hardware, the benchmarks should be consistent across different communities. Other than creating a new benchmark or proxy for every possible workload, we propose using dwarf-based benchmarks--the combination of eight dwarfs--to represent diversity of big data and AI workloads. The current version--BigDataBench 4.0 provides 13 representative real-world data sets and 47 big data and AI benchmarks, including seven workload types: online service, offline analytics, graph analytics, AI, data warehouse, NoSQL, and streaming. BigDataBench 4.0 is publicly available from this http URL Also, for the first time, we comprehensively characterize the benchmarks of seven workload types in BigDataBench 4.0 in addition to traditional benchmarks like SPECCPU, PARSEC and HPCC in a hierarchical manner and drill down on five levels, using the Top-Down analysis from an architecture perspective.