Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing Longitudinal Change in Coordination of the Paretic Upper Limb Using On-Site 3-Dimensional Kinematic Measurements

Background and Purpose It is largely unknown how adaptive motor control of the paretic upper limb contributes to functional recovery after stroke. This paucity of knowledge emphasizes the need for longitudinal 3-dimensional (3D) kinematic studies with frequent measurements to establish changes in coordination after stroke. A portable 3D kinematic setup would facilitate the frequent follow-up of people poststroke. This case report shows how longitudinal kinematic changes of the upper limb can be measured at a patient's home using a portable 3D kinematic system in the first 6 months poststroke. Case Description The outcomes of the upper-limb section of the Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment (FMA), the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT), and 3D kinematic analyses were obtained from a 41-year-old man with a left hemispheric stroke. Three-dimensional kinematic data of the paretic upper limb were collected during a reach-to-grasp task using a portable motion tracker in 5 measurements during the first 6 months after stroke. Data from an individual who was healthy were used for comparison. Outcomes The FMA and ARAT scores showed nonlinear recovery profiles, accompanied by significant changes in kinematic outcomes over time poststroke. Specifically, elbow extension increased, forward trunk motion decreased, peak hand speed increased, peak hand opening increased, and peak hand opening occurred sooner after peak hand speed. Discussion This case report illustrates the feasibility of frequently repeated, on-site 3D kinematic measurements of the paretic upper limb. Early after stroke, task performance was mainly driven by adaptive motor control, whereas adaptations were mostly reduced at 26 weeks poststroke. The presented approach allows the investigation of what is changing in coordination and how these changes are related to the nonlinear pattern of improvements in body functions and activities after stroke.
Application of Morphological Pyramids: Fusion of MR and CT Phantoms

A hierarchical image fusion scheme is presented which preserves the details of the input images regardless of their scale. The technique is demonstrated by fusing phantom images derived from magnetic resonance (MR) and computed tomography (CT) scanners. Results are given to show that fused images preserve a more detailed representation of the scene and provide information that cannot be obtained by viewing the input images separately.
Heuristic Walkthroughs: Finding the Problems Without the Noise

Inspection-based evaluation techniques are popular because they require less formal training, are quick, can be used throughout the development process, do not require test users, and can result in finding numerous usability problems. A new technique is described that combines the benefits of heuristic evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, and usability walkthroughs. This technique, a heuristic walkthrough, provide more structure than heuristic evaluations but less than cognitive walkthroughs. The result is an effective task-oriented evaluation technique that is easy to learn and apply. Methods are proposed for comparing the validity, thoroughness, and reliability of evaluation techniques. Finally, heuristic walkthroughs are compared to heuristic evaluations and cognitive walkthroughs in a controlled study. The results indicate that heuristic walkthroughs are more thorough than cognitive walkthroughs and more valid than heuristic evaluations. In other words, heuristic walkthroughs resulted in finding more .
Treatment response and tolerability with once-monthly paliperidone palmitate initiated shortly after hospital admission in patients with schizophrenia

Abstract Objectives: Partial or non-adherence in patients with schizophrenia is common and increases the risk of relapse. This study explored safety, tolerability and treatment outcomes in patients hospitalised for an exacerbation of schizophrenia initiated on maintenance treatment of once-monthly paliperidone palmitate (PP1M). Methods: A 6-week, observational cohort study of patients initiated on PP1M within 3 weeks after hospital admission. Results: Overall, 367 patients were documented, 85.8% with paranoid schizophrenia subtype. Mean time from hospital admission to PP1M initiation was 9.4 ± 7.7 days. Treatment-emergent adverse events were reported by 22.9% of patients. From baseline to endpoint, significant improvements were observed in psychotic symptoms (Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale total score mean change –19.3 ± 12.6, P < .0001) and functioning (Personal and Social Performance scale total score mean change 14.3 ± 12.4, P < .0001). Overall, 6.0% of patients were very or extremely satisfied with their prior antipsychotic medication at baseline compared with 47.2% very or extremely satisfied with PP1M treatment at endpoint. Conclusions: Initiating PP1M in patients with exacerbated schizophrenia shortly after hospital admission was well tolerated and resulted in statistically significant and clinically relevant improvements in symptoms and patient functioning, suggesting that patients may benefit from early initiation of PP1M during their hospital stay.
Temporal Distance, Communication Patterns, and Task Performance in Teams

Abstract Drawing on theories on dispersed teamwork, computer-mediated communications, and organizations, we examine the direct associations between temporal distance and team performance as well as the mediating role of team interaction. We tested our research model in a laboratory experiment with four temporal distance conditions. Results show that the direct associations between temporal distance and team performance are substantially diminished when we enter the intervening team communication variables (communication frequency and turn-taking) into the analysis model. We find that communication frequency and turn-taking have differentiated effects on conveyance of information and convergence on its meaning. Conveyance is positively associated with production speed, whereas convergence is positively associated with higher product quality (i.e., accuracy). These findings speak to the theoretical significance of communication patterns and information exchange behaviors in dispersed team research. They also transcend the common wisdom that temporal distance is good for speed and bad for quality.
Effect of Neurolept and Epidural Analgesia on Cardiovascular Function and Tissue Metabolism in the Geriatric Patient

The cardiovascular and metabolic effects of neurolept (NLA) and epidural analgesia were studied in geriatric patients (n=16, mean age 83 and 84 years, respectively) with hip fractures. Measurements were performed before premedication, at the end of operation as well as 15 min and 2 h after the end of anesthesia. During anesthesia and surgery no significant changes were seen in the studied hemodynamic variables (systemic and pulmonary arterial, central venous and pulmonary capillary wedge pressures, heart rate, cardiac index, stroke volume index, pulmonary and systemic vascular resistances) in either group. Fifteen minutes after the end of anesthesia cardiac index and heart rate rose in the NLA group while no changes were seen in the epidural group. During anesthesia and surgery, arterial oxygen tension (PaO2) increased in both groups due to increased inspired oxygen fraction. In the NLA group, arterial carbon dioxide tension (PacO2) was decreased due to the mechanical ventilation, and a slight decrease in arterial base excess (BEa) was also seen. A similar decrease in Bea occurred in the epidural group. In the postoperative period, PaCO2 increased and pH and BEa decrease significantly in the NLA group, while the only change seen in the epidural group was a slightly low BEa level. Blood glucose. lactate and pyruvate levels increased to a similar extent in both groups during anesthesia and surgery. However, in the postoperative period these levels continued to increase in the NLA group while partial normalization was seen in the epidural group. The lactate levels in skeletal muscle were increased in both groups during the postoperative period. Glucose‐6‐phosphate levels were increased during surgery and in the postoperative period only in the NLA group. No changes were seen in high energy phosphagen levels of skeletal muscle in either group during the studied time period. With the techniques used in the present study epidural analgesia as there are less hemodynamic, respiratory and metabolic effect in postoperative period.
Predicting responses to climate change requires all life-history stages.

In Focus: Radchuk, V. , Turlure, C. & Schtickzelle, N. (2013) Each life stage matters: the importance of assessing response to climate change over the complete life cycle in butterflies. Journal of Animal Ecology, 82, 275-285. Population-level responses to climate change depend on many factors, including unexpected interactions among life history attributes; however, few studies examine climate change impacts over complete life cycles of focal species. Radchuk, Turlure & Schtickzelle () used experimental and modelling approaches to predict population dynamics for the bog fritillary butterfly under warming scenarios. Although they found that warming improved fertility and survival of all stages with one exception, populations were predicted to decline because overwintering larvae, whose survival declined with warming, were disproportionately important contributors to population growth. This underscores the importance of considering all life history stages in analyses of climate change's effects on population dynamics.
Usage of Pain Medications During Stroke Rehabilitation: The Post-Stroke Rehabilitation Outcomes Project (PSROP)

Abstract Pain remains one of the most common, yet most challenging, medical problems in health care today, and it is one of the most common complications that occurs after a stroke. Pain can affect the course of stroke rehabilitation adversely, and it occasionally may be a cause for transfer back to an acute care hospital. The Post-Stroke Rehabilitation Outcomes Project (PSROP) database was used to describe the incidence of pain by body location and trends in the use of different classifications of medications to treat pain. Of the 1,122 participants in the PSROP database, the most common locations of pain in stroke survivors were the head, leg, back, and shoulder. The most frequently prescribed classifications of pain medications were other analgesics (acetaminophen and tramadol), followed by narcotic analgesics, non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), anticonvulsants, and tricyclic antidepressants. After acetaminophen, the most frequently prescribed medications in each classification, respectively, include hydrocodone APAP, cox-2 inhibitors, gabapentin, and amitriptyline. Other frequently prescribed pain medications included sumatriptan (migraine analgesic), cyclobenzaprine (muscle relaxant), and baclofen (antispasticity muscle relaxant). Medications should be chosen based upon the medical condition causing pain, the ability of the stroke survivor to comply with administration of the medication, and the cost of the medication. Appropriate and timely treatments of painful conditions result in maximum function and the ability to lead active lives and maintain an adequate quality of life.
Hypoxaemia in Acute Stroke Is Frequent and Worsens Outcome

Background: Hypoxaemia in the acute phase of stroke might damage the ischaemic penumbra and worsen clinical outcome. We determined the frequency of hypoxaemia on admission with stroke and assessed whether it was related to outcome. Methods: We measured arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) and breathing effort with portable monitoring equipment in a large cohort of acute stroke patients, continually from arrival at hospital, during interdepartment transfer, in imaging and on the ward. Patients received best medical care according to current guidelines. Baseline neurological examination and 3-month outcome (Modified Rankin Scale) were assessed blind to other data. Hypoxaemia was defined as SaO2 <90% for ≧10% of each assessment stage. Results: Mean SaO2 was lowest during transfers (p < 0.01), but hypoxaemia was common in all assessment stages. Patients with hypoxaemia (30/153, 20%) were more likely to have a pre-existing respiratory disease on admission than those without hypoxaemia (p < 0.04). More patients with hypoxaemia (40%) died than those without hypoxaemia (20%) (hazard ratio, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.0–4.1), though after adjusting for National Institute of Health Stroke Scale and age this association was not statistically significant (hazard ratio, 1.5; 95% CI, 0.7–3.1). There were similar numbers of dependent survivors in both groups. Conclusion: Hypoxaemia during acute stroke assessment was associated with increased risk of death. Although SaO2 is lower during transfers, hypoxaemia occurs in all stages of the admission process. Further research is necessary to determine whether strategies to avoid hypoxaemia during acute assessment improve stroke survival.
The spatial resolution of the porcine multifocal electroretinogram for detection of laser‐induced retinal lesions

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the spatial resolution of a porcine multifocal electroretinogram (mfERG) protocol by testing its ability to detect laser‐induced retinal lesions. Furthermore, we wanted to describe time‐dependent changes in implicit time and amplitude of the different mfERG peaks after laser‐induced retinal damage.
Influence of insulin‐like growth factor‐I (IGF‐I) on nerve autografts and tissue‐engineered nerve grafts

To overcome the problems of limited donor nerves for nerve reconstruction, we established nerve grafts made from cultured Schwann cells and basal lamina from acellular muscle and used them to bridge a 2‐cm defect of the rat sciatic nerve. Due to their basal lamina and to viable Schwann cells, these grafts allow regeneration that is comparable to autologous nerve grafts. In order to enhance regeneration, insulin‐like growth factor (IGF‐I) was locally applied via osmotic pumps. Autologous nerve grafts with and without IGF‐I served as controls. Muscle weight ratio was significantly increased in the autograft group treated with IGF‐I compared to the group with no treatment; no effect was evident in the tissue‐engineered grafts. Autografts with IGF‐I application revealed a significantly increased axon count and an improved g‐ratio as indicator for “maturity” of axons compared to autografts without IGF‐I. IGF‐I application to the engineered grafts resulted in a decreased axon count compared to grafts without IGF‐I. The g‐ratio, however, revealed no significant difference between the groups. Local administration of IGF‐I improves axonal regeneration in regular nerve grafts, but not in tissue‐engineered grafts. Seemingly, in these grafts the interactive feedback mechanisms of neuron, glial cell, and extracellular matrix are not established, and IGF‐I cannot exert its action as a pleiotrophic signal. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Muscle Nerve 26: 87‐93, 2002
Negative Regulation of DNA Replication by the Retinoblastoma Protein Is Mediated by Its Association with MCM7

ABSTRACT A yeast two-hybrid screen was employed to identify human proteins that specifically bind the amino-terminal 400 amino acids of the retinoblastoma (Rb) protein. Two independent cDNAs resulting from this screen were found to encode the carboxy-terminal 137 amino acids of MCM7, a member of a family of proteins that comprise replication licensing factor. Full-length Rb and MCM7 form protein complexes in vitro, and the amino termini of two Rb-related proteins, p107 and p130, also bind MCM7. Protein complexes between Rb and MCM7 were also detected in anti-Rb immunoprecipitates prepared from human cells. The amino-termini of Rb and p130 strongly inhibited DNA replication in an MCM7-dependent fashion in a Xenopus in vitro DNA replication assay system. These data provide the first evidence that Rb and Rb-related proteins can directly regulate DNA replication and that components of licensing factor are targets of the products of tumor suppressor genes.
Exploiting Social Semantics for Multilingual Information Retrieval

Information Retrieval (IR) deals with delivering relevant information items given the specific information needs of users. As retrieval problems are defined in various environments such as the World Wide Web, corporate knowledge bases or even personal desktops, IR is an every day problem that concerns almost everybody in our society. In this thesis, we present research results on the problem of Multilingual IR (MLIR), which defines retrieval scenarios that cross language borders. MLIR is a real-world problem which we motivate using different application scenarios, for example search systems having users with reading skills in several languages or expert retrieval. As the main topic of this thesis, we consider how user-generated content that is assembled by different popular Web portals can be exploited for MLIR. These portals, prominent examples are Wikipedia or Yahoo! Answers, are built from the contributions of millions of users. We define the knowledge that can be derived from such portals as Social Semantics. Further, we identify important features of Social Semantics, namely the support of multiple languages, the broad coverage of topics and the ability to adapt to new topics. Based on these features, we argue that Social Semantics can be exploited as background knowledge to support multilingual retrieval systems. Our main contribution is the integration of Social Semantics into multilingual retrieval models. Thereby, we present Cross-lingual Explicit Semantic Analysis, a semantic document representation that is based on interlingual concepts exploited from Wikipedia. Further, we propose a mixture language model that integrates different sources of evidence, including the knowledge encoded in the category structure of Yahoo! Answers. For evaluation, we measure the benefit of the proposed retrieval models that exploit Social Semantics. In our experiments, we apply these models to different established datasets, which allows for the comparison to standard IR baselines and to related approaches that are based on different kinds of background knowledge. As standardized settings were not available for all the scenarios we considered, in particular for multilingual Expert Retrieval, we further organized an international retrieval challenge that allowed the evaluation of our proposed retrieval models which were not covered by existing challenges.
Escherichia coli SecG Is Required for Residual Export Mediated by Mutant Signal Sequences and for SecY-SecE Complex Stability

ABSTRACT Protein export to the bacterial periplasm is achieved by SecYEG, an inner membrane heterotrimer. SecY and SecE are encoded by essential genes, while SecG is not essential for growth under standard laboratory conditions. Using a quantitative and sensitive export assay, we show that SecG plays a critical role for the residual export mediated by mutant signal sequences; the magnitude of this effect is not proportional to the strength of the export defect. In contrast, export mediated by wild-type signal sequences is only barely retarded in the absence of SecG. When probed with mutant signal sequences, secG loss of function mutations display a phenotype opposite to that of prlA mutations in secY. The analysis of secG and prlA single and double mutant strains shows that the increased export conferred by several prlA alleles is enhanced in the absence of SecG. Several combinations of prlA alleles with a secG deletion cannot be easily constructed. This synthetic phenotype is conditional, indicating that cells can adapt to the presence of both alleles. The biochemical basis of this phenomenon is linked to the stability of the SecYE dimer in solubilized membranes. With prlA alleles that can be normally introduced in a secG deletion strain, SecG has only a limited effect on the stability of the SecYE dimer. With the other prlA alleles, the SecYE dimer can often be detected only in the presence of SecG. A possible role for the maintenance of SecG during evolution is proposed.
Quantitation of nuclear DNA in Ascaris lumbricoides: DNA constancy and chromatin diminution.

The DNA contents of nuclei during gametogenesis and embryogenesis in Ascaris lumbricoides were measured by Feulgen-microspectrophotometry. The variability in the mean value for the haploid amount of DNA in sperm from different males processed at different times was not significant when sperm cell samples were taken from the same region of the seminal vesicle. As the sperm mature, the extent of uptake of Feulgen dye decreases nonsystematically. A similar phenomenon occurs during embryogenesis, and as noted by others, primary oocytes in the terminal portion of the oviduct become Feulgen-negative. Feulgen-positive primary oocytes maintain a 4C DNA value without significant variation. Notwithstanding the differences in Feulgen-DNA values in certain types of nuclei, our evidence supports the view that in Ascaris lumbricoides the amount of intraspecific DNA has a constant value between individual organisms and from one generation to the next. About 34% of the DNA of the zygote is lost through chromatin diminution at the third embryonic cleavage. This quantity represents 0-23 pg DNA per haploid equivalent.
Aeroacoustic source mechanisms of a wavy leading edge undergoing vortical disturbances

High-accuracy numerical simulations are performed to study aeroacoustic source mechanisms of wavy leading edges (WLEs) on a thin aerofoil undergoing vortical disturbances. This canonical study is based on a prescribed spanwise vortex travelling downstream and creating secondary vortices as it passes through the aerofoil’s leading edge. The primary aim of the study is to precisely understand the relationships between the vortex-induced velocity perturbation and the wall pressure fluctuation on the WLE geometry. It is observed that by increasing the size (amplitude) of the WLE the source strength at the peak region is reduced rapidly to a certain point, followed by a saturation stage, while at the root (trough) it remains fairly consistent regardless of the WLE size. This observation is demonstrated to be the consequence of three-dimensional vortex dynamics taking place along the WLE. One of the most profound features is that a system of horseshoe-like secondary vortices are created from the WLE peak region upon the impingement of the prescribed vortex. It is found that the horseshoe vortices produce a significantly non-uniform velocity perturbation in front of the WLE leading to the disparity in the source characteristics between the peak and root. The alterations to the impinging velocity perturbation are carefully analysed and related to the wall pressure fluctuation in this study. In addition, a semi-analytic model based on Biot–Savart’s law is developed to better understand and explain the role of the horseshoe vortex systems and the source mechanisms.