Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD)

Although familial factors in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are well established, uniform family-history assessment in genetic and epidemiologic studies of AD is needed to reconcile the divergent estimates of the cumulative risk of this illness among relatives of AD probands. To answer the need, the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) has developed a standardized Family History Assessment of AD to identify the presence of AD, Parkinson's disease (PD), and Down's syndrome (DS) in family members. This paper describes the use of this new assessment instrument in 118 patients with AD (estimated mean age at onset [± SD] = 64.5 ± 7.7 years) and their nondemented spouses who were enrolled in 11 different CERAD sites in the U.S. The first-degree relatives of the probands with AD had a significantly greater cumulative risk (p < 0.005) of AD or primary progressive dementia (24.8%) than did the relatives of spouse controls (15.2%). Furthermore, the cumulative risk for this disorder among female relatives of probands was significantly greater than that among male relatives. There were no differences between the families of probands and controls for the numbers of affected first-degree relatives with PD or DS. This is the first reported multicenter family-history study of AD, and it supports earlier reports of familial factors in AD and indicates a higher risk to female relatives of AD probands. The CERAD Family History Assessment instrument may be useful for further multicenter and epidemiologic studies designed to delineate familial factors associated with AD.
Results of a propensity score-matched comparison of the Perimount Magna and Mosaic Ultra aortic valve prostheses.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE STUDY Hemodynamic function and clinical outcomes were compared between the bovine pericardial Edwards Perimount Magna (EPM) and the porcine Medtronic Mosaic Ultra (MMU) aortic valve prostheses. METHODS Between January 2003 and June 2007, a total of 227 consecutive patients was prospectively enrolled, and received either the EPM (n = 125) or the MMU (n = 102) aortic valve prosthesis. The primary study end-point was the mean transvalvular gradient after surgery, at discharge and at six months follow up, as measured echocardiographically. The secondary study end-points were 30-day mortality and major adverse cardiac events (MACEs). RESULTS The intraoperative transvalvular mean pressure gradients were 9.4 +/- 4.6 mmHg in the EPM group compared to 17.7 +/- 6.7 mmHg in the MMU group (p < 0.001), and these remained essentially unchanged at hospital discharge (11.2 +/- 4.2 mmHg versus 19.1 +/- 6 mmHg; p < 0.001) and at six months' follow up (10 +/- 5 mmHg versus 20 +/- 7 mmHg; p < 0.001). A multivariable risk-adjusted analysis of covariance revealed the MMU valve (p < 0.0001) to be strongly associated with elevated postoperative mean transvalvular gradients during the six-month follow up. In addition, renal insufficiency, concomitant valve surgery and reoperation were identified as being significantly associated with in-hospital mortality (OR 3.3, 95% CI 1.3-8.1; OR 3.7, 95% CI 1.4-9.8; OR 3.3, 95% CI 1.1-10.2, respectively) and major adverse cardiac events (OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.0-4.7; OR 3.7, 95% CI 1.7-8.2; OR 2.7, 95% CI 1.1-7.2, respectively). To further control for selection bias, the propensity score was computed based on the major risk factors of 12 patients. An analysis of covariance model, adjusted for the propensity score, also confirmed the MMU prosthesis to be strongly associated with elevated mean transvalvular gradients during the six-month follow up period (p < 0.0001). CONCLUSION The study results clearly demonstrated a favorable hemodynamic function as shown by lower transvalvular gradients of the bovine pericardial Edwards Perimount Magna compared to the porcine Medtronic Mosaic Ultra aortic valve prosthesis.
Assessing regional hypoxia in human renal tumours using 18F‐fluoromisonidazole positron emission tomography

To assess renal tumours for hypoxic regions using 18F‐fluoromisonidazole (18F‐FMISO) positron emission tomography (PET), a recognized noninvasive method for detecting hypoxia in tumours, as renal cell carcinoma (RCC) can be potentially cured with nephrectomy but recurrence develops in most patients, who then respond poorly to treatments such as chemotherapy, and hypoxia is known to confer resistance to radiotherapy and chemotherapy in many solid tumours.
Due Process and Homicide: A Cross-National Analysis

As democracy advances in many regions throughout the world, it is often accompanied by increasing violence. Most cross-national analyses find that an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between homicide and democracy: homicide rates are highest in hybrid regimes and lowest in authoritarian and democratic regimes. While a fairly robust empirical result, little is known about why it exists. We identify a specific institution—due process—that cuts across regime types and effectively explains homicide. Due process generates a legitimacy that encourages individuals to use the justice system to settle disputes. A more effective criminal justice system also deters crime in the first place. Using a cross-national sample of eighty-nine countries between 2009 and 2014, we find a strong negative relationship between due process and homicide. Put simply, how states fight crime explains their success.
A Method for Estimating Local and National Good Governance Indices

In this paper, a method for estimating good governance indices is proposed. The six dimensions of good governance indices are voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, governance effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and control of corruption. The indicators of each good governance dimension are developed by using World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) and focus group meeting. Then the principal component analysis is used to select relevant indicators. The local governance indices are estimated by the proposed method which estimates correlation based weights and means of indicators and OLS slope. The data of 3 Thai provinces are used for simulations. The national governance indices are also estimated by using weighted local governance indices.
Multi-scale feature based convolutional neural networks for large vocabulary speech recognition

Deep learning has brought a breakthrough to the performance of speech recognition. The speech recognition systems based on deep neural networks have obtained the state-of-the-art performance on various speech recognition tasks. These systems almost utilize the Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients or the Mel-scale log-filterbank coefficients, which are based on short-time Fourier transform. Although these features are designed based on the auditory characteristics of the human, it is a problem that the inherent tradeoff of the temporal and frequency resolution still exists in spectral representations based on short-time Fourier transform. In this paper, we propose a multi-scale method to mitigate the tradeoff and a model architecture that enables to analyze speech at multiple scale. Experiments are conducted on TIMIT and HKUST corpus. We compare the proposed multi-scale features and traditional features at various number of configurations. Experimental results show that the proposed model architecture can obtain significant performance improvement.
Understanding Evolution of Inter-Group Relationships Using Bipartite Networks

In online social systems, users with common affiliations or interests form social groups for discussing various topical issues. We study the relationships among these social groups, which manifest through users who are common members of multiple groups, and the evolution of these relationships as new users join the groups. Focusing on a certain number of the most popular groups, we model the group memberships of users as a subclass of bipartite networks, known as Alphabetic Bipartite Networks (α-BiNs), where one of the partitions contains a fixed number of nodes (the popular groups) while the other grows unboundedly with time (new users joining the groups). Specifically, we consider the evolution of the thresholded projection of the user-group bipartite network onto the set of groups, which accurately represents the inter-group relationships. We propose and solve a preferential attachment based growth model for evolution of α-BiNs, and analytically compute the degree distribution of the thresholded projection. We further investigate whether the predictions of this model can explain the projection degree distributions of user-group networks derived from several real social systems (Livejournal, Youtube and Flickr). The study also shows that the inter-group network is tightly knit, and there is an implicit semantic hierarchy within its structure, that is clearly identified by the method of thresholding. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to analytically model the dynamical relationships among groups in online social systems.
Ghrelin and toxicity: recent findings and future challenges

Ghrelin is a novel brain–gut peptide that plays various roles in mammals, including control of food intake and growth hormone release, as well as gastric motility and acid secretion in the gastrointestinal tract. It is mainly secreted by the gastric mucosa, but is also expressed in various other tissues. Different studies confirm the multiple biological roles of and possible protective effects of ghrelin. Multiple in vitro and in vivo studies support the powerful protective action of ghrelin against heart, gastric and liver injury. Moreover, ghrelin has been reported to be beneficial in renal tissue injury and excretory function after ischemia–reperfusion and to exert neuroprotective effects in cerebral ischemic regions. The aim of this review is to summarize and evaluate all the currently available in vivo and in vitro studies regarding the effects of ghrelin on tissue injury induced in different organs and tissues. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Psychological and Personality Profiles of Political Extremists

Global recruitment into radical Islamic movements has spurred renewed interest in the appeal of political extremism. Is the appeal a rational response to material conditions or is it the expression of psychological and personality disorders associated with aggressive behavior, intolerance, conspiratorial imagination, and paranoia? Empirical answers using surveys have been limited by lack of access to extremist groups, while field studies have lacked psychological measures and failed to compare extremists with contrast groups. We revisit the debate over the appeal of extremism in the U.S. context by comparing publicly available Twitter messages written by over 355,000 political extremist followers with messages written by non-extremist U.S. users. Analysis of text-based psychological indicators supports the moral foundation theory which identifies emotion as a critical factor in determining political orientation of individuals. Extremist followers also differ from others in four of the Big Five personality traits.
Orbitofrontal lesions in rats impair reversal but not acquisition of go, no-go odor discriminations

Recent evidence suggests that orbitofrontal cortex lesions cause an inability to withhold inappropriate responses particularly when learned behavior must be modified to reflect changes in the likely outcome or consequence of responding. By this account, orbitofrontal cortex should not be necessary for acquisition of simple discrimination problems, but should be critical for acquiring reversals of those problems. However, previous work in rats has shown orbitofrontal cortex to be critical for withholding responses even in a simple go, no-go discrimination task. Here we have reexamined the contribution of rat orbitofrontal cortex to acquisition and reversal of go, no-go odor discrimination problems. Contrary to prior reports, we found that rats with lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex acquired novel discrimination problems at the same rate as controls. Impairments were evident in lesioned rats when the response contingencies of the odors in the discrimination problem were reversed. These findings suggest that orbitofrontal cortex is not necessary for inhibiting responses unless responses must be altered to reflect changing relationships between cues and outcomes.
Functional status after critical illness: agreement between patient and proxy assessments.

BACKGROUND assessment of baseline functional status of older patients during and after intensive care unit (ICU) admission is often hampered by challenges related to the critical illness such as cognitive dysfunction, neuropsychological morbidity and pain. To explore the reliability of assessments by carefully chosen proxies, we designed a discriminating selection of proxies and evaluated agreement between patient and proxy responses by assessing activities of daily living (ADLs) at 1 month post-ICU discharge. METHODS patients ≥60 years old admitted to the medical ICU were enrolled in a prospective parent cohort studying delirium. Proxies were carefully screened at ICU admission to choose the best available respondent. Follow-up interviews, including instruments for ADLs, were conducted 1 month after ICU discharge. We examined 179 paired patient-proxy follow-up interviews. Kappa statistics assessed inter-observer agreement, and McNemar's exact test assessed response differences. RESULTS patients averaged 73.3 ± 8.1 years old with 29% having evidence of cognitive impairment. Proxies were most commonly spouses (38%) or children (39%). Overall, there was substantial (κ ≥ 0.6) to excellent agreement (κ ≥ 0.8) between patients and proxies on assessment of all but one basic and one instrumental ADL. CONCLUSION proxies carefully chosen at ICU admission show high levels of inter-observer agreement with older patients when assessing current functional status at 1 month post-ICU discharge. This motivates further study of proxy assessments that could be used earlier in critical illness to assess premorbid functional status.
Validity of a Simple Method for Measuring Force-Velocity-Power Profile in Countermovement Jump.

PURPOSE To analyze the reliability and validity of a simple computation method to evaluate force (F), velocity (v), and power (P) output during a countermovement jump (CMJ) suitable for use in field conditions and to verify the validity of this computation method to compute the CMJ force-velocity (F-v) profile (including unloaded and loaded jumps) in trained athletes. METHODS Sixteen high-level male sprinters and jumpers performed maximal CMJs under 6 different load conditions (0-87 kg). A force plate sampling at 1000 Hz was used to record vertical ground-reaction force and derive vertical-displacement data during CMJ trials. For each condition, mean F, v, and P of the push-off phase were determined from both force-plate data (reference method) and simple computation measures based on body mass, jump height (from flight time), and push-off distance and used to establish the linear F-v relationship for each individual. RESULTS Mean absolute bias values were 0.9% (± 1.6%), 4.7% (± 6.2%), 3.7% (± 4.8%), and 5% (± 6.8%) for F, v, P, and slope of the F-v relationship (SFv), respectively. Both methods showed high correlations for F-v-profile-related variables (r = .985-.991). Finally, all variables computed from the simple method showed high reliability, with ICC >. 980 and CV <1.0%. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that the simple method presented here is valid and reliable for computing CMJ force, velocity, power, and F-v profiles in athletes and could be used in practice under field conditions when body mass, push-off distance, and jump height are known.
‘Smarter Information, Smarter Consumers’? Insights into the Housing Market

This study explores how information helps housing consumers make informed decisions and discusses potential market outcomes. We analyse the interaction between the disclosure of information on property conditions and the disparity between home sellers' willingness to accept (WTA) and home buyers' willingness to pay (WTP). Three hypotheses are derived and validated through field experimental investigation within the property market. We find that a WTA–WTP disparity exists. The identified policy instrument for information disclosure appears to function as expected. The WTA–WTP disparity is considerably reduced after information disclosure, and market liquidity and efficiency are improved. This study is an important complement to prior research on how information changes the behaviour of consumers in housing markets. Findings can inform central governments about the wider benefits of smart disclosure in the future, as well as the scope, format and structure of information supplied to general housing consumers to promote efficiency.
6 . 111 Final Project Proposal HeartAware

Standard pulse oximetry systems use an LED and photodiode pair that clips across a user’s thumb or index finger. This sensor is connected to control circuitry that drives the LED and converts the voltages read from the photodiode to relative light absorption by the oxygen bloodstream. The data then flows through signal processing logic to detect peaks and calculate heart rate. Finally, an output interface, such as an LCD screen, displays the signal and important related metrics. Modern pulse oximeters range from small and cheap consumer-grade informational sensors to robust medical-grade machines used in emergency rooms and secondary care facilities.
Risk-averse optimization in networks

The primary goal of this research is to model and develop efficient solution techniques for graph theoretical problems with topologically stochastic information that manifests in a various forms. We employ a stochastic programming framework that is based on a formalism of coherent risk measures in order to find minimum-risk graph structures with stochastic vertex weights. Namely, we propose a class of riskaverse maximum weighted subgraph problems that represent a stochastic extension of the so-called maximum weight subgraph problems considered in graph-theoretical literature. The structural nature of these model poses a twofold challenge in developing efficient solution algorithms. First, accurate quantification of uncertainties in mathematical programming via risk measures in the form of convex constraints typically requires very large representative scenario sets, thus incurring lengthy solution times. In this regard, we first introduce an efficient algorithms for solving large-scale stochastic optimization problems involving measures of risk that are based on certainty equivalents. The second major challenge relates to the fact that problems of finding a maximum vertex subset of a defined property within a network are generally not solvable in polynomial time. Nevertheless, much emphasis has been placed on developing efficient combinatorial solution methodologies that exploit the structural nature of the sought subgraphs. In pursuance of analogous frameworks, we propose a graph-based branch-and-bound algorithm for solving models in the risk-averse maxi-
Localization of the clustering protein gephyrin at GABAergic synapses in the main olfactory bulb of the rat

The tubulin‐binding protein gephyrin is essential for the formation of postsynaptic glycine‐receptor clusters in cultured spinal neurons. In addition, there is increasing evidence that gephyrin can also be present at nonglycinergic synapses. Here we analyzed immunocytochemically the subcellular localization of gephyrin in the main olfactory bulb of the rat and compared its distribution with that of γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA) and of two major GABAA‐receptor subunits. Gephyrin was selectively localized to the postsynaptic side of symmetric synaptic junctions, where the presynaptic terminals contained GABA. Moreover, gephyrin colocalized extensively with the α1 and γ2 subunits of the GABAA receptor. In contrast, gephyrin was not detected at presumed glutamatergic synapses. These results indicate that gephyrin is not uniquely associated with glycine receptors, but can also be found at distinct GABAergic synapses. Thus, they raise the possibility that gephyrin is involved in anchoring certain GABAA‐receptor subtypes in the postsynaptic membrane. J. Comp. Neurol. 395:231–244, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Selection of Fusion Levels in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis Using Fulcrum Bending Prediction: A Prospective Study

Study Design. A prospective study of 50 consecutive patients undergoing selective thoracic fusion for idiopathic scoliosis with minimum 2 year follow-up. Objective. We aim to establish the validity and safety of a new strategy using fulcrum bending (FB) radiographs and the inherent flexibility of the curve to select fusion levels for King type 2 and 3 curves (Lenke 1a, 1b, and 1c). The purpose of this new strategy is to preserve motion segments compared to the traditional method of selecting fusion levels. Summary of Background Data. The aim of fusion in idiopathic scoliosis is to achieve a balanced spine with the shortest fusion preserving motion segments particularly in the lumbar spine. Conventional strategies for choosing fusion levels have been based on the standing radiographs and have not taken into account the flexibility of the curve. Methods. We followed 50 consecutive patients who underwent selective thoracic fusion for King 2 and 3 curves (Lenke 1a, 1b, and 1c). The fusion levels were chosen based on our new strategy using the FB radiograph. Twenty-five patients were fused using a hook system and 25 with a hybrid system of hooks and screws. All patients were observed until skeletal maturity and a minimum of 2 years. The curve correction, trunk shift, radiographic shoulder height, list were recorded at the preoperative stage, postoperative stage, and final follow-up. Results. The patients had an average age of 15.4 years. The average preoperative Cobb angle was 55.4° and final follow-up Cobb angle for the primary curve was 24.1°, with no difference between the 2 groups. With the new strategy, we were able to save levels in 31 patients (62%), compared to the conventional method of selecting the lowest instrumented vertebra. There was a statistically significant difference in the correction of the fusion mass Cobb angle between the hook and hybrid groups. There was significant improvement in the trunk shift after surgery. Ninety-six percent of patients had balanced or minimally imbalanced shoulders at final follow-up. Three patients had tilting of the vertebra below the fusion mass into the primary curve that did not progress at skeletal maturity. Conclusion. The new objective strategy for determining fusion levels using FB radiographs is safe and effective. With considering the flexibility of the curve, we are able to save levels distally in over 60% of patients. This strategy takes into account the power of modern instrumentation.