Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparative expression analysis of aquaporin-5 (AQP5) in keratoconic and healthy corneas

Purpose Keratoconus (KC) is a common progressive corneal disease characterized by excessive stromal thinning, central or paracentral conical protrusion, and disruptions in Bowman’s layer. The etiology of KC is largely unknown, and a combination of genetic and environmental factors is believed to play a role in the origin of the disease. Recently, the absence of transcripts of the water channel, aquaporin-5 (AQP5), was demonstrated by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) in KC tissues and was proposed as a possible marker for KC. In this study, we sought to evaluate AQP5 mRNA and protein expression in KC and non-KC corneal tissues using a combination of techniques. Methods A total of 69 samples of corneal tissue were analyzed including 39 corneal buttons from patients with advanced KC, 16 samples of non-KC corneal epithelium belonging to patients who underwent surface refractive surgery, 12 sclerocorneal rims obtained from healthy donor subjects, and two healthy corneal buttons. Determination of AQP5 transcript and protein expression patterns was performed by means of real time RT–PCR, immunohistochemistry, immunocytochemistry, and flow cytometry methods. Cell culture was performed to identify AQP5 protein expression in KC epithelial cells. Results AQP5 mRNA was expressed with no significant differences between KC and non-KC tissues. Moreover, AQP5 protein expression analysis did not reveal differences in protein levels and/or cell location among KC and non-KC tissues. Interestingly, AQP5 expression continues for up to 21 days in the isolated KC corneal epithelial cells. Conclusions Our results do not support a role for AQP5 in KC etiopathogeny or as a disease marker. Genetic background differences or a distinct pathogenetic KC cascade specific to the analyzed population could account for the dissimilarities observed in KC-related AQP5 expression.
Consumer Characteristics and Responses to Failures of Self-Service Technology

The recent revolution of self-service technology (SST) has introduced crucial changes in today’s hypercompetitive service businesses. The significant growth of SST has mostly been studied in the context of adoption and satisfaction. For that reason, there are only limited studies investigating the failures of the SST and their consequences. This study explores the relationships between consumer characteristics, dissatisfaction, and switching intentions when service failure occurs in technology-based self-service. Based on the expectancy disconfirmation theory and the attribution theory, three personal characteristics; namely self-efficacy, locus of control, and technology readiness; are predicted to have moderating effect on dissatisfaction – switching intention relationships. The managerial contributions as well as future research directions are discussed.
Panfungal PCR Assay for Detection of Fungal Infection in Human Blood Specimens

ABSTRACT A novel panfungal PCR assay which detects the small-subunit rRNA gene sequence of the two major fungal organism groups was used to test whole-blood specimens obtained from a series of blood or bone marrow transplant recipients. The 580-bp PCR product was identified after amplification by panfungal primers and hybridization to a 245-bp digoxigenin-labeled probe. The lower limit of detection of the assay was approximately four organisms per milliliter of blood. Multiple whole-blood specimens from five patients without fungal infection or colonization had negative PCR results. Specimens from 11 infected patients had positive PCR results. Blood from three patients with pulmonary aspergillosis had positive PCR results: one patient’s blood specimen obtained in the week prior to the diagnosis of infection by a positive bronchoalveolar lavage fluid culture result was positive by PCR, and blood specimens obtained from two patients 1 to 2 days after lung biopsy and which were sterile by culture were positive by PCR. The blood of four patients with candidemia, three patients with mixed fungal infections, and one patient with fusariosis also had positive PCR signals. The panfungal PCR assay can detect multiple fungal genera and may be used as an adjunct to conventional methods for the detection of fungal infection or for describing the natural history of fungal infection. Further studies are needed to define the sensitivity and specificity of this assay for the diagnosis of fungal infection prior to the existence of other clinical or laboratory indications of invasive fungal infection.
Improving Audio Chord Transcription by Exploiting Harmonic and Metric Knowledge

We present a new system for chord transcription from polyphonic musical audio that uses domain-specific knowledge about tonal harmony and metrical position to improve chord transcription performance. Low-level pulse and spectral features are extracted from an audio source using the Vamp plugin architecture. Subsequently, for each beat-synchronised chromagram we compute a list of chord candidates matching that chromagram, together with the confidence in each candidate. When one particular chord candidate matches the chromagram significantly better than all others, this chord is selected to represent the segment. However, when multiple chords match the chromagram similarly well, we use a formal music theoretical model of tonal harmony to select the chord candidate that best matches the sequence based on the surrounding chords. In an experiment we show that exploiting metrical and harmonic knowledge yields statistically significant chord transcription improvements on a corpus of 217 Beatles, Queen, and Zweieck songs.
Observing versus Predicting: Initial Patterns of Filling Predict Long-Term Adherence More Accurately Than High-Dimensional Modeling Techniques.

OBJECTIVE Despite the proliferation of databases with increasingly rich patient data, prediction of medication adherence remains poor. We proposed and evaluated approaches for improved adherence prediction. DATA SOURCES We identified Medicare beneficiaries who received prescription drug coverage through CVS Caremark and initiated a statin. STUDY DESIGN A total of 643 variables were identified at baseline from prior claims and linked Census data. In addition, we identified three postbaseline predictors, indicators of adherence to statins during each of the first 3 months of follow-up. We estimated 10 models predicting subsequent adherence, using logistic regression and boosted logistic regression, a nonparametric data-mining technique. Models were also estimated within strata defined by the index days supply. RESULTS In 77,703 statin initiators, prediction using baseline variables only was poor with maximum cross-validated C-statistics of 0.606 and 0.577 among patients with index supply ≤30 days and >30 days, respectively. Using only indicators of initial statin adherence improved prediction accuracy substantially among patients with shorter initial dispensings (C = 0.827/0.518), and, when combined with investigator-specified variables, prediction accuracy was further improved (C = 0.842/0.596). CONCLUSIONS Observed adherence immediately after initiation predicted future adherence for patients whose initial dispensings were relatively short.
Reciprocity and Depressive Symptoms in Belgian Workers: A Cross-Sectional Multilevel Analysis

Objective: This study examines the multidimensional association between reciprocity at work and depressive symptoms. Methods: Data from the Belgian BELSTRESS survey (32 companies; N = 24,402) were analyzed. Multilevel statistical procedures were used to account for company-level associations while controlling for individual-level associations. Results: Different dimensions of individual reciprocity were negatively associated with depressive symptoms. On the company level, only vertical emotional reciprocity was negatively associated (&bgr; = −4.660; SE = 1.117) independently from individual reciprocity (&bgr; = −0.557; SE = 0.042). Complex interactions were found such that workplace reciprocity (1) may not uniformly benefit individuals and (2) related differently to depressive symptoms, depending on occupational group. Conclusions: This study extends the existing literature with evidence on the multidimensional, contextual, and cross-level interaction associations of reciprocity as a key aspect of social capital on depressive symptoms.
"Living Life in the Moment": Chronic Stress and Coping Among Families of High-Functioning Adolescent Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence rates have risen dramatically over the past decade and boys are five times more likely to be diagnosed than girls. Prior research on children with ASD includes samples that are overwhelmingly male, but does indicate that girls with high-functioning ASD may have distinct needs and profiles. This study begins to address this gap in the research through a qualitative study of eleven families with an adolescent daughter with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. The family is the primary unit of analysis and the study focuses on the following: (a) families’ experience with the diagnostic process (b) families’ management of their daughter’s adjustment to adolescence, and(c) the impact of the ASD on family wellbeing. Family stress theory was the conceptual framework used to guide the study. Using grounded theory with a supplemental quantitative data strand, the study involved forty in-depth semi-structured interviews. Parents completed the Stress Index for Parents of Adolescents (SIPA) and a demographic questionnaire. Findings indicate that parenting a daughter with ASD could be categorized as a chronic stressor. The majority of parents endorsed clinically significant levels of stress on the SIPA. The mean age of ASD diagnosis was 8.7 years, well above the most recent (2014) Centers for Disease Control findings (6.3 years). Delayed and misdiagnosis for girls with ASD resulted in significant stress for families and reduced access to appropriate intervention. A shift in perception of the ASD from an acute to a chronic stressor allowed families to move toward acceptance and adaptation. The study findings support the need for a family centered model of assessment and intervention. Social workers in schools and in early intervention programs can play a critical role in providing education and support for families.
Heat regulation in some arctic and tropical mammals and birds.

A series of arctic and tropical mammals and birds at Point Barrow, Alaska (lat. 71° N.) and in Panama (lat. 9° N.) was subjected to various air temperatures in a respiration chamber where the heat production was determined by oxygen consumption or carbon dioxide production. The larger arctic mammals and birds showed no increase in metabolism at — 30° C. and from observations on sleeping animals it is probable that their zone of thermoneutrality extends to — 40° C. or — 50° C. The smaller arctic species show a high critical temperature and the tropical species even higher. Metabolic heat production increases rapidly with lowering of the temperature in a tropical mammal or bird, and slowly in an arctic animal. It can be shown theoretically that in a thermoregulated system with a fixed basal energy level and variable insulation the critical gradient is proportional to the maximal insulation and the basal energy level.In a large series of experiments including our tropical and arctic animals, and all animals .
Mapping Discovery in P2P databases: a query-based approach

In this paper, we investigate a query-based approach to mapping discovery in peer to peer databases. The approach we propose does not require additional information about schemas of peers. The main idea behind our design is that even if the schemas are structurally and syntactically different, queries can be similar in the sense that they return semantically related objects. The discovery process is the following: given two queries Q1 and Q2 over schemas S1 and S2, respectively, (1) we analyze relationships between attributes appearing in Q1 and Q2, and (2) we propagate the relationships over the remaining attributes of S1 and S2.
Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Vision Loss among Young and Middle-Age U.S. Adults

Purpose. To examine the association between vision loss and cardiorespiratory fitness among young and middle-age U.S. adults. Design. The study had a cross-sectional design. Setting. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2004 served as the study setting. Subjects. Study subjects included 3135 adults ages 20 to 49 years. Measures. Cardiorespiratory fitness was assessed from cardiorespiratory extrapolation using heart rate response during submaximal treadmill testing, with inadequate cardiorespiratory fitness defined as below the 60th percentile for age and gender. Visual acuity was objectively assessed for each eye. Analysis. Multivariable regression (linear and logistic) models were computed to examine the association between cardiorespiratory fitness and vision. Results. Poorer cardiorespiratory fitness (β = −3.7 mL O2/kg per minute; 95% confidence interval: −5.3 to −2.2) was observed in subjects with visual impairment after adjusting for age, gender, race/ethnicity, and comorbid illness. Participants with vision impairment, as compared with those with normal sight, had 4.4-fold higher odds of having inadequate cardiorespiratory fitness (95% confidence interval: 1.04–18.97), whereas participants with uncorrected refractive error were not more likely to demonstrate poorer cardiorespiratory fitness. Conclusion. Adults with visual impairment, but not adults with uncorrected refractive error, demonstrate a significant reduction in cardiorespiratory fitness and are much more likely to have inadequate fitness compared with those with normal vision. Evaluation and implementation of strategies to increase cardiorespiratory fitness among those with vision impairment, in particular, are needed.
The medial frontal-prefrontal network for altered awareness and control of action in corticobasal syndrome

The volitional impairments of alien limb and apraxia are a defining feature of the corticobasal syndrome, but a limited understanding of their neurocognitive aetiology has hampered progress towards effective treatments. Here we combined several key methods to investigate the mechanism of impairments in voluntary action in corticobasal syndrome. We used a quantitative measure of awareness of action that is based on well-defined processes of motor control; structural and functional anatomical information; and evaluation against the clinical volitional disorders of corticobasal syndrome. In patients and healthy adults we measured ‘intentional binding’, the perceived temporal attraction between voluntary actions and their sensory effects. Patients showed increased binding of the perceived time of actions towards their effects. This increase correlated with the severity of alien limb and apraxia, which we suggest share a core deficit in motor control processes, through reduced precision in voluntary action signals. Structural neuroimaging analyses showed the behavioural variability in patients was related to changes in grey matter volume in pre-supplementary motor area, and changes in its underlying white matter tracts to prefrontal cortex. Moreover, changes in functional connectivity at rest between the pre-supplementary motor area and prefrontal cortex were proportional to changes in binding. These behavioural, structural and functional results converge to reveal the frontal network for altered awareness and control of voluntary action in corticobasal syndrome, and provide candidate markers to evaluate new therapies.
A Cooperative Learning Algorithm for Multiclass Classification

In this paper, we propose a cooperative learning algorithm for Multi-category classification which is decomposed into two sub-optimization problems by using the support vector machine technique. The proposed cooperative learning algorithm consists of two single learning algorithms and each sub-optimization problem is solved by one of them. Unlike the cooperative neural network, the proposed cooperative learning algorithm is discrete time, instead of continuous time. Therefore, the proposed cooperative learning algorithm has a faster convergence speed than the cooperative neural network for Multi-category classification learning. Simulation results show the computational performance of the proposed cooperative learning algorithm for multiclass classification learning.
Self-Empowering Urban Students and Teachers: A Book Review of Math is a Verb: Activities and Lessons from Cultures Around the World

JESSICA HOPSON BURBACH is a mathematics teacher at an alternative school, Portland YouthBuilders, and a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership program at Portland State University; email: jhopson@pdx.edu. Her research interests include culturally responsive and social justice mathematics teaching, the experiences of youth who are pushed out of school, and youth participatory action research. BOOK REVIEW
Dynamic spectrum access for cognitive radio systems with repeated games

We study a spectrum sharing scenario where multiple secondary systems coexist and interfere with each other. Unfair and inefficient situations may arise since negotiation is infeasible for competitive secondary users from dissimilar secondary systems. We use repeated games in microeconomic to construct cooperation due to lack of information exchange. Repeated games build reputations and apply punishments to achieve a desirable self-enforcing outcome. By playing a strategic game many times more efficient and fair Nash Equilibrium is acquired.
Effectiveness of treatments of depression in older ambulatory patients.

OBJECTIVE To determine the effectiveness of acute-phase pharmacological and psychological treatments of depression in older ambulatory patients by systematically reviewing original research relevant to this topic. METHODS Searches in MEDLINE and PsycINFO and manual reviews of bibliographies located 233 articles. Of these, 40 (37 different studies) met our 8 inclusion criteria: original research, written in English or French, subjects 55 years and older, diagnosis of depression, outpatient or community setting, prospective controlled study design, acute-phase pharmacological or psychological treatment, and outcome measure of depression. Two independent reviewers assessed the methodological quality of each article using a standard form and a quality score was computed. Quantitative data on levels of depression at the end of treatment were abstracted. Results were grouped by specific treatment comparison (type of treatment and type of control group). For comparisons that used the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, we computed mean posttreatment differences. Effect sizes were computed from the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale or an alternative scale. RESULTS In studies that compared active drugs with placebo, the heterocyclic drugs significantly reduced the posttreatment Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score (mean difference, -5.78; 95% confidence interval, -8.31 to -3.25); other drugs had smaller effects. In studies that compared active drugs, there were no significant differences overall between different classes of drugs; selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors appeared to be as effective as heterocyclic drugs. Rational psychological treatments performed significantly better than no treatment (mean posttreatment Hamilton Depression Rating Scale difference, -7.25; 95% confidence interval, -10.10 to -4.40) but not significantly better than that for controls who received similar attention. Adjustment for the study quality score did not affect these results. CONCLUSIONS Based on comparisons with untreated controls, heterocyclic antidepressants and rational psychological therapies appear to be the most effective treatments for older ambulatory patients with mild to moderate depression. Based on drug-drug comparisons, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors appear to be as effective as heterocyclic drugs. However, overall, the magnitude of the treatment effects is modest. Limitations in the quantity and quality of appropriate studies suggest a sober approach to treatment in this population.
Dynamic cell culture on calcium phosphate microcarriers for bone tissue engineering applications

Developing appropriate cell culturing techniques to populate scaffolds has become a great challenge in tissue engineering. This work describes the use of spinner flask dynamic cell cultures to populate hydroxyapatite microcarriers for bone tissue engineering. The microcarriers were obtained through the emulsion of a self-setting aqueous α-tricalcium phosphate slurry in oil. After setting, hydroxyapatite microcarriers were obtained. The incorporation of gelatin in the liquid phase of the α-tricalcium phosphate slurry allowed obtaining hybrid gelatin/hydroxyapatite-microcarriers. Initial cell attachment on the microcarriers was strongly influenced by the speed of the dynamic culture, achieving higher attachment at low speed (40 r/min) as compared to high speed (80 r/min). Under moderate culture speeds (40 r/min), the number of cells present in the culture as well as the number of microcarrier-containing cells considerably increased after 3 days, particularly in the gelatin-containing microcarriers. At longer culture times in dynamic culture, hydroxyapatite-containing microcarriers formed aggregates containing viable and extracellular matrix proteins, with a significantly higher number of cells compared to static cultures.
Cardiac Output Monitoring Using Indicator-Dilution Techniques: Basics, Limits, and Perspectives

The ability to monitor cardiac output is one of the important cornerstones of hemodynamic assessment for managing critically ill patients at increased risk for developing cardiac complications, and in particular in patients with preexisting cardiovascular comorbidities. For >30 years, single-bolus thermodilution measurement through a pulmonary artery catheter for assessment of cardiac output has been widely accepted as the “clinical standard” for advanced hemodynamic monitoring. In this article, we review this clinical standard, along with current alternatives also based on the indicator-dilution technique, such as the transcardiopulmonary thermodilution and lithium dilution techniques. In this review, not only the underlying technical principles and the unique features but also the limitations of each application of indicator dilution are outlined.