Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Can the Severity of Dependence Scale Be Usefully Applied to ‘Ecstasy’?

Background/Aims: Although use of ‘ecstasy’ (drugs sold as containing 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) is prevalent, it is typically infrequent, and treatment presentations involving ecstasy as a principal problem drug are relatively rare. Human case reports and animal literature suggest dependence potential, although there may be some unique aspects to this syndrome for ecstasy in comparison to other substances. The Severity of Dependence Scale (SDS) was examined to determine whether this could usefully identify ‘dependent’ ecstasy consumers. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 1,658 frequent (at least monthly) ecstasy consumers across Australia, assessing drug use, associated harms and risk behaviours. Dependence was evaluated with the SDS, using a cut-off of ≥4 to identify potential ‘dependence’. Results: One fifth of the participants were screened as potentially dependent. These individuals used ecstasy more frequently, in greater amounts, engaged more extensively in risk behaviours and reported greater role interference than other participants. These findings were independent of methamphetamine use or dependence. The underlying structure of the ecstasy SDS was bifactorial. Conclusions: The SDS has demonstrated construct validity as a screening tool to identify ecstasy users at elevated risk of experiencing adverse consequences, including features of dependence. The underlying structure of dependence symptoms differs for ecstasy compared to other drug classes, and some dependent consumers use the drug infrequently. The unique neurotoxic potential and entactogenic effects of ecstasy may require a distinct nosological classification for the experience of dependence associated with the drug.
Declines in Birth Weight and Fetal Growth Independent of Gestational Length

OBJECTIVE: To estimate whether the decrease in birth weight of term singletons in the United States and elsewhere over the past decade, despite trends in common maternal characteristics expected to contribute toward an increase, is attributable to the simultaneous decrease in gestational length. METHODS: Using data from Intermountain Healthcare, where a successful initiative reduced the number of early-term (37–38 weeks) elective deliveries, we examined trends in birth weight, being small for gestational age (SGA), and being large for gestational age (LGA) among 219,694 singleton neonates born between July 2000 and December 2008 at 37–41 weeks of gestation. RESULTS: Over the 8.5 years, births through scheduled deliveries at 37–38 weeks decreased (9.7–4.4%), but overall scheduled deliveries increased (29–34%) and mean gestational age at birth (39.1 weeks) did not change. Mean birth weight (3,410–3,383 g) and LGA status (9.0–7.4%) both decreased, whereas SGA increased (7.5–8.2%). In multivariable analyses adjusting for maternal and newborn characteristics, birth weight decreased (−36 g; 95% confidence interval [CI] −31 to −42), especially among neonates born at 37–38 weeks of gestation (−40 g; 95% CI −30 to −49) or among those with medical indications for urgent deliveries (−48 g; 95% CI −34 to −63). Odds of being LGA decreased (0.77; 95% CI 0.73–0.82) and odds of being SGA increased (1.12; 95% CI 1.06–1.19). CONCLUSION: Even in a population in which gestational length did not change, birth weight and fetal growth declined. Decrease not only in gestational length but also in fetal growth is likely to be contributing to the widely observed recent decrease in birth weight. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: I
The Membrane-spanning Domains of Caveolins-1 and -2 Mediate the Formation of Caveolin Hetero-oligomers

The mammalian caveolin gene family consists of caveolins-1, -2, and -3. The expression of caveolin-3 is muscle-specific. In contrast, caveolins-1 and -2 are co-expressed, and they form a hetero-oligomeric complex in many cell types, with particularly high levels in adipocytes, endothelial cells, and fibroblasts. These caveolin hetero-oligomers are thought to represent the functional assembly units that drive caveolae formation in vivo. Here, we investigate the mechanism by which caveolins-1 and -2 form hetero-oligomers. We reconstituted this reciprocal interactionin vivo and in vitro using a variety of complementary approaches, including the generation of glutathioneS-transferase fusion proteins and synthetic peptides. Taken together, our results indicate that the membrane-spanning domains of both caveolins-1 and -2 play a critical role in mediating their ability to interact with each other. This is the first demonstration that these unusual membrane-spanning regions found in the caveolin family play a specific role in protein-protein interactions.
Immune Responses following Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy for Stage I Primary Lung Cancer

Purpose. Immune responses following stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for stage I non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were examined from the point of view of lymphocyte subset counts and natural killer cell activity (NKA). Patients and Methods. Peripheral blood samples were collected from 62 patients at 4 time points between pretreatment and 4 weeks post-treatment for analysis of the change of total lymphocyte counts (TLC) and lymphocyte subset counts of CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD19+, CD56+, and NKA. In addition, the changes of lymphocyte subset counts were compared between patients with or without relapse. Further, the correlations between SBRT-related parameters and immune response were analyzed for the purpose of revealing the mechanisms of the immune response. Results. All lymphocyte subset counts and NKA at post-treatment and 1 week post-treatment were significantly lower than pre-treatment (P < 0.01). No significant differences in the changes of lymphocyte subset counts were observed among patients with or without relapse. The volume of the vertebral body receiving radiation doses of 3 Gy or more (VV3) significantly correlated with the changes of nearly all lymphocyte subset counts. Conclusions. SBRT for stage I NSCLC induced significant immune suppression, and the decrease of lymphocyte subset counts may be associated with exposure of the vertebral bone marrow.
BGP Add-Paths: The Scaling/Performance Tradeoffs

Internet Service Providers design their network with resiliency in mind, having multiple paths towards external IP subnets available at the borders of their network. However, with the current internal Border Gateway Protocol, BGP routers and route reflectors only propagate their (unique) best path over their iBGP sessions. As a result, at the BGP router level, path diversity tends to be poor. Such lack of path diversity can lead to MED oscillations, prevents an efficient use of multipath BGP and does not allow for a fast and local recovery upon nexthop failure. Advertising multiple paths over iBGP sessions with BGP Add-Paths solves those issues, depending on the way the additional paths are selected. In this paper, we analyze the various options for the selection mode of the paths to be advertised. We show that these modes differently fulfill the needs of Add-Paths applications such as fast recovery upon failure and MED oscillation avoidance. We also show in our analysis that the costs and benefits bound with these modes depend on the connectivity of the AS where it is deployed. To support the analysis, we developed a tool allowing to measure the scaling of these modes in a given network. We illustrate the utilization of this tool on synthetic Internet topologies, and provide some recommendations for the choice of an Add-Paths selection mode.
Speaker dependent bottleneck layer training for speaker adaptation in automatic speech recognition

Speaker adaptation of deep neural networks (DNN) is difficult, and most commonly performed by changes to the input of the DNNs. Here we propose to learn discriminative feature transformations to obtain speaker normalised bottleneck (BN) features. This is achieved by interpreting the final two hidden layers as speaker specific matrix transformations. The hidden layer weights are updated with data from a specific speaker to learn speaker-dependent discriminative feature transformations. Such simple implementation lends itself to rapid adaptation and flexibility to be used in Speaker Adaptive Training (SAT) frameworks. The performance of this approach is evaluated on a meeting recognition task, using the official NIST RT’07 and RT’09 evaluation test sets. Supervised adaptation of the BN layer shows similar performance to the application of supervised CMLLR as a global transformation, and the combination of these appears to be additive. In unsupervised mode, CMLLR adaptation only yields 3.4% and 2.5% relative word error rate (WER) improvement, on the RT’07 and RT’09 respectively, where the baselines include speaker based cepstral mean and variance normalisation. The combined CMLLR and BN layer speaker adaptation yields a relative WER gain of 4.5% and 4.2% respectively. SAT style BN layer adaptation is attempted and combined with conventional CMLLR SAT, to show that it provides a relative gain of 1.43% and 2.02% on the RT’07 and RT’09 data sets respectively when compared with CMLLR SAT. While the overall gain from BN layer adaptation is small, the results are found to be statistically significant on both the test sets. Index Terms: Deep neural networks, bottleneck features, speaker adaptation, automatic speech recognition.
Nicotine Treatment of Mild Cognitive Impairment: a 6-Month Double-Blind Pilot Clinical Trial

# {#article-title-2} Writ e Click correspondence this week includes an instructive exchange between author, commenter, and biostatistician regarding the need to control for type I error. In reference to the recent article by Newhouse et al., “Nicotine treatment of mild cognitive impairment: A 6-month double-blind pilot clinical trial,” Dr. Gold warns of the possibility of type I error in the article's secondary outcomes analyses and against reading too much into the significant p values reported. The authors agree that, as an exploratory study, type I error was not controlled for as multivariate analysis would have been impractical. Our own …
Locating Frames in the Discursive Universe

Scholars from a range of disciplines use the term ‘frame’ to mean a variety of disjointed and incompatible concepts. This paper examines a range of framing literature, from the writings of authors including Erving Goffman, Tuen van Dijk, Serge Moscovici, George Lakoff, Alan Johnson, William Gamson, David Snow, Robert Benford and Paolo Donati. Then it develops the theoretical case for defining frames as semi-structured elements of discourse which people use to make sense of information they encounter. Additionally, this paper demonstrates the need to include social system frames, which provide patterns for understanding social relations, among the presently acknowledged frame types. Frames develop in parallel with language, vary across cultures, and shape, but are distinct from other extra-linguistic discourse forms, including myths and ideologies.
Return Wishes of Refugees in the Netherlands: The Role of Integration, Host National Identification and Perceived Discrimination

This study examined refugees' wishes to return to their home country. Previous research on return intentions among economic migrants has pointed at the relevance of three aspects of integration: employment and education (structural integration), language proficiency (cultural integration) and contact with natives (social integration) in shaping the wish to stay or return. We examined whether this is also the case among refugees. Furthermore, we extended research on return intentions by considering two social psychological experiences—host country identification and perceived discrimination—as mediators in the associations between the three aspects of integration and return wishes. Using a large survey among refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Somalia in the Netherlands, we found that employment was not related to return wishes. Higher-educated refugees and those proficient in Dutch perceived more discrimination and were therefore more likely to want to return. Simultaneously, language proficiency was also related to a wish to stay via increased host country identification. Contacts with natives were related to less discrimination and more identification, and therefore to a wish to stay. We discuss the importance of social psychological experiences, and the cross pressures they exert on the return wishes of refugees.
Understanding patient beliefs regarding the use of imaging in the management of low back pain

Imaging for low back pain (LBP) remains common despite guidelines recommending against routine imaging. Patient beliefs about imaging may contribute to the problem. This study aimed to quantitatively investigate patient beliefs regarding the need for imaging in managing LBP and to investigate whether personal characteristics, pain characteristics or back pain beliefs are associated with imaging beliefs.
Evaluation of ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide contrast agent labeling of equine cord blood and bone marrow mesenchymal stromal cells.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the efficacy and effects of labeling equine umbilical cord blood (UCB)- and bone marrow (BM)-derived multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) with an ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) contrast agent and the detection of labeled MSCs by use of MRI. SAMPLE UCB MSCs from placental tissues of 5 foals and BM MSCs from 5 horses. PROCEDURES UCB and BM MSC cultures were seeded in duplicate (5,000 cells/cm(2)). One duplicate was incubated with SPIO (50 μg/mL); the other was processed identically, but without SPIO. Mesenchymal stromal cells were expanded in triplicates for 5 passages and assessed for viability and proliferative capacity, labeling efficacy, and labeled cell proportion. For MRI detection, 5 × 10(6) labeled BM MSCs from passage 1 or 2 were injected into a collagenase-induced superficial digital flexor tendon defect of an equine cadaveric forelimb from 2 horses. RESULTS For passages 1, 2, and 3, labeling efficacy and cell proportion for UCB MSCs (99.6% [range, 98.8% to 99.9%], 16.6% [range, 6.5% to 36.1%], and 1.0% [range, 0.4% to 2.8%], respectively) were significantly higher than for BM MSCs (99.2% [range, 97.8% to 99.7%], 4.5% [range, 1.6% to 11.8%], and 0.2% [range, 0.1% to 0.6%], respectively). Labeling was not detectable after passage 3. Viability of MSCs was not affected, but cell doubling time increased in labeled MSCs, compared with that of unlabeled MSCs. On MRI 3-D T2*-weighted fast gradient echo sequences, decreased signal intensity was observed for BM passage 1 MSCs. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Equine UCB and BM MSCs were labeled with SPIO at high efficiencies.
Spectrum of UGT1A1 mutations in Crigler‐Najjar (CN) syndrome patients: identification of twelve novel alleles and genotype‐phenotype correlation

Crigler‐Najjar syndrome types I and II (CN1 and CN2) are usually inherited as autosomal recessive conditions and are characterized by non‐hemolytic unconjugated hyperbilirubinaemia. CN1 is the most severe form, associated with the absence of hepatic bilirubin‐uridinediphosphoglucuronate glucuronosyltransferase (UGT1A1) activity. CN2 presents intermediate levels of hyperbilirubinaemia as a result of an incomplete deficiency of hepatic UGT1A1 activity. Here, we present the analysis of UGT1A1 gene in 31 unrelated Crigler‐Najjar (CN) syndrome patients. This analysis allowed us to identify 22 mutations, 12 of which were no previously described, expanding the spectrum of known UGT1 mutations to 77. Novel mutations, considered pathogenic, including one nonsense mutation, two altered splice sites, one single base deletion and nine missense mutations were identified in coding exons of the UGT1A1gene and flanking introns. Several novel missense mutations localize in critical domain of UGT1A1 enzyme. In addition, the evaluation of Gilbert‐type promoter of UGT1A1in Crigler‐Najjar (CN) syndrome patients was performed. The polymorphisms of the promoter region can modify the UGT1A1 mutation phenotype. This study represents the molecular characterization of the largest cohort of Italian Crigler‐Najjar Gilbert syndrome patients studied so far; increase the mutational spectrum of UGT1A1 allelic variants worldwide and provide a new insight useful for clinical diagnosis and genetic counseling. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Double Statistical Distribution of Conductivity and Aspect Ratio of Inclusions in Dielectric Mixtures at Microwave Frequencies

An analytical model of a composite dielectric presented in this paper is the extension of Maxwell Garnett formulation. It takes into account the simultaneous statistical (Gaussian) distribution of conductivity and aspect ratio of inclusions. The inclusions are randomly oriented elongated conducting spheroids at concentrations below the percolation threshold. The formulation presented herein is limited to microwave frequencies. However, taking subtle frequency- dependent effects that play important part at optical frequencies into account is straightforward. Some results of computations of microwave complex effective permittivity of composites with different input parameters have been obtained using analytical and numerical integration in Maple 10 software. It is shown how the parameters of the distribution laws — mean values and standard deviations of aspect ratio and conductivity — affect the resultant complex effective permittivity. The results of computations demonstrate that the most important factors affecting frequency characteristics of microwave effective permittivity are the mean values of the aspect ratio and conductivity. As for the standard deviations of aspect ratio and conductivity, their effects are the most noticeable in the transition between the static and optical limits of the Debye characteristic for the effective permittivity. There is almost no effect in the static and "optic" regions of the Debye curves.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder among Cardiac Patients: Prevalence, Risk Factors, and Considerations for Assessment and Treatment

There is increasing awareness of the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on physical health, particularly cardiovascular disease. We review the literature on the role of trauma in the development of cardiovascular risk factors and disease, aftermath of a cardiac event, and risk for recurrence in cardiac patients. We explore possible mechanisms to explain these relationships, as well as appropriate assessment and treatment strategies for this population. Our main conclusion is that screening and referral for appropriate treatments are important given the high prevalence rates of PTSD in cardiac populations and the associated impact on morbidity and mortality.
A randomised comparative evaluation of supraclavicular and infraclavicular approaches to brachial plexus block for upper limb surgeries using both ultrasound and nerve stimulator

Background and Aims: The supraclavicular and infraclavicular brachial plexus blocks have a similar distribution of anaesthesia, and both can be used effectively for surgeries of the upper limb. This study aimed to compare the supraclavicular and infraclavicular approaches of brachial plexus blocks, guided by ultrasound and neurostimulation. Methods: Sixty adult patients scheduled for elective upper limb surgery of the elbow and/or below were randomly divided into two groups: infraclavicular Group (I) and supraclavicular Group (S). All the blocks were performed with the aid of ultrasound-guided nerve stimulator confirmation. The two groups were compared with respect to block performance time, onset of sensory and motor blockade, readiness for surgery, success rate and complications. The statistical analysis was performed with Student t-test and Chi-square test. Results: The block performance time for the infraclavicular group was 9.57 ± 3.19 min, whereas for supraclavicular group, it was 11.53 ± 2.90 min with similar success rates (93.3%). Onset of sensory blockade was achieved earlier (6.43 ± 2.61 min) in Group I than Group S (8.45 ± 2.87 min, P = 0.006). The onset of motor blockade was similar in Group I (7.32 ± 2.90 min) and Group S (8.68 ± 3.50 min, P = 0.121). The patient satisfaction was similar in both the groups. One patient had a pneumothorax, three patients developed Horner syndrome and another had clinically symptomatic diaphragmatic paresis in Group S. Conclusion: The infraclavicular block is more rapidly executed compared to supraclavicular block with similar success rates and fewer complications in the presence of ultrasound and nerve stimulator and hence should be preferred.
Interactive Tag Maps and Tag Clouds for the Multiscale Exploration of Large Spatio-temporal Datasets

'Tag clouds' and 'tag maps' are introduced to represent geographically referenced text. In combination, these aspatial and spatial views are used to explore a large structured spatio-temporal data set by providing overviews and filtering by text and geography. Prototypes are implemented using freely available technologies including Google Earth and Yahoo! 's Tag Map applet. The interactive tag map and tag cloud techniques and the rapid prototyping method used are informally evaluated through successes and limitations encountered. Preliminary evaluation suggests that the techniques may be useful for generating insights when visualizing large data sets containing geo-referenced text strings. The rapid prototyping approach enabled the technique to be developed and evaluated, leading to geovisualization through which a number of ideas were generated. Limitations of this approach are reflected upon. Tag placement, generalisation and prominence at different scales are issues which have come to light in this study that warrant further work.
Lack of association between the A118G polymorphism of the mu opioid receptor gene (OPRM1) and opioid dependence: A meta-analysis

Mu opioid receptor (OPRM1) gene variants, particularly the common A118G single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), are among the most frequently studied candidate genes associated with opioid dependence. However, despite numerous case-control studies and meta-analyses, no definitive conclusion has been reached regarding the association of the A118G SNP and risk of developing opioid dependence. This study aimed to resolve this discrepancy by reinvestigating the association between A118G SNP allelic, and for the first time, genotype frequencies and opioid dependence. A meta-analysis of sixteen case-control studies of opioid dependence was performed with a total of 5169 subjects. No association between the A118G allele (P = 0.23) and genotype (P = 0.34) frequencies and opioid dependence was found. However, significant heterogeneity between studies precluded highly definitive conclusions. In addition, the possibility that other OPRM1 SNPs albeit rarer may influence the risk of opioid dependence remains to be investigated at this level. Nonetheless, despite no evidence of a direct association with risk of dependence, A118G may still influence the pharmacological response to opioids impacting on an individual’s dosage requirements.
Hierarchically tiled arrays for parallelism and locality

Parallel programming is facilitated by constructs which, unlike the widely used SPMD paradigm, provide programmers with a global view of the code and data structures. These constructs could be compiler directives containing information about data and task distribution, language extensions specifically designed for parallel computation, or classes that encapsulate parallelism. In this paper, we describe a class developed at Illinois and its Matlab implementation. This class can be used to conveniently express both parallelism and locality. A C++ implementation is now underway. Its characteristics will be reported in a future paper. We have implemented most of the NAS benchmarks using our HTA Matlab extensions and found during that HTAs enable the fast prototyping of parallel algorithms and produce programs that are easy to understand and maintain