Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Double-side multi-touch input for mobile devices

We present a new mobile interaction model, called double-side multi-touch, based on a mobile device that receives simultaneous multi-touch input from both the front and the back of the device. This new double-sided multi-touch mobile interaction model enables intuitive finger gestures for manipulating 3D objects and user interfaces on a 2D screen.
"Unconscious anxiety": phobic responses to masked stimuli.

We tested the hypothesis that an unconscious preattentive perceptual analysis of phobic stimuli is sufficient to elicit human fear responses. Selected snake- and spider-fearful Ss, as well as normal controls, were exposed to pictures of snakes, spiders, flowers, and mushrooms. A separate forced-choice recognition experiment established backward masking conditions that effectively precluded recognition of experimental stimuli both for fearful and nonfearful Ss. In the main experiment, these conditions were used to compare skin conductance responses (SCRs) to masked and nonmasked phobic and control pictures among fearful and nonfearful Ss. In support of the hypotheses, snake- and spider-fearful Ss showed elevated SCRs to snake and spider pictures as compared with neutral pictures and with responses of the nonfearful Ss under both masking conditions. Ratings of valence, arousal, and dominance indicated that the fearful Ss felt more negative, more aroused, and less dominant in relation to both masked and nonmasked phobic stimuli.
Digital mammography, cancer screening: Factors important for image compression

The use of digital mammography for breast cancer screening poses several novel problems such as development of digital sensors, computer assisted diagnosis (CAD) methods for image noise suppression, enhancement, and pattern recognition, compression algorithms for image storage, transmission, and remote diagnosis. X-ray digital mammography using novel direct digital detection schemes or film digitizers results in large data sets and, therefore, image compression methods will play a significant role in the image processing and analysis by CAD techniques. In view of the extensive compression required, the relative merit of 'virtually lossless' versus lossy methods should be determined. A brief overview is presented here of the developments of digital sensors, CAD, and compression methods currently proposed and tested for mammography. The objective of the NCI/NASA Working Group on Digital Mammography is to stimulate the interest of the image processing and compression scientific community for this medical application and identify possible dual use technologies within the NASA centers.
Primary cultures for studies of cell regulation and physiology in intestinal epithelium.

The transport functions of intestinal epithelium are critical to health, and defects in these functions underlie clinical conditions such as diarrhea, mucoviscidosis, and malabsorption of sugars, iron, lipids, and bile acids. Many of these conditions can be reversed by direct intervention using pharmacological agents, but inherited genetic defects such as cystic fibrosis (71) and glucose-galactose malabsorption (91) represent a different challenge for therapy. The development of new pharmacological agents depends upon physiological studies to identify, characterize, and understand the regulation of these cellular processes. Traditional techniques for studying transport processes, such as patch clamping and Ussing chambers, depend on ex vivo manipulation of mucosa. This has been achieved by physically dissecting sheets of mucosa (15) and by isolating intact crypt and villus epithelium with divalent ion chelating solutions (17). These methods provide important insights into transport function, but the short-term viability of the isolated cells is an important limiting factor. Organ culture was initially used as a method to maintain cell,S ex vivo for longer periods, but tissue cultured in this way was also
Spectral Electroencephalogram Analysis for the Evaluation of Encephalopathy Grade in Children With Acute Liver Failure*

Objective: Spectral electroencephalogram analysis is a method for automated analysis of electroencephalogram patterns, which can be performed at the bedside. We sought to determine the utility of spectral electroencephalogram for grading hepatic encephalopathy in children with acute liver failure. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: Tertiary care pediatric hospital. Patients: Patients between 0 and 18 years old who presented with acute liver failure and were admitted to the PICU. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: Electroencephalograms were analyzed by spectral analysis including total power, relative &dgr;, relative &thgr;, relative &agr;, relative &bgr;, &thgr;-to-&Dgr; ratio, and &agr;-to-&Dgr; ratio. Normal values and ranges were first derived using normal electroencephalograms from 70 children of 0–18 years old. Age had a significant effect on each variable measured (p < 0.03). Electroencephalograms from 33 patients with acute liver failure were available for spectral analysis. The median age was 4.3 years, 14 of 33 were male, and the majority had an indeterminate etiology of acute liver failure. Neuroimaging was performed in 26 cases and was normal in 20 cases (77%). The majority (64%) survived, and 82% had a good outcome with a score of 1–3 on the Pediatric Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended at the time of discharge. Hepatic encephalopathy grade correlated with the qualitative visual electroencephalogram scores assigned by blinded neurophysiologists (rs = 0.493; p < 0.006). Spectral electroencephalogram characteristics varied significantly with the qualitative electroencephalogram classification (p < 0.05). Spectral electroencephalogram variables including relative &Dgr;, relative &thgr;, relative &agr;, &thgr;-to-&Dgr; ratio, and &agr;-to-&Dgr; ratio all significantly varied with the qualitative electroencephalogram (p < 0.025). Moderate to severe hepatic encephalopathy was correlated with a total power of less than or equal to 50% of normal for children 0–3 years old, and with a relative &thgr; of less than or equal to 50% normal for children more than 3 years old (p > 0.05). Spectral electroencephalogram classification correlated with outcome (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Spectral electroencephalogram analysis can be used to evaluate even young patients for hepatic encephalopathy and correlates with outcome. Spectral electroencephalogram may allow improved quantitative and reproducible assessment of hepatic encephalopathy grade in children with acute liver failure.
Sales Technology Applications: Self-Paced Video Enhanced Training: A Case Study

Video enhanced sales training (VET) is being adopted by a substantial number of firms. The reported advantages of video enhanced programs are lower costs and results-oriented training. The major characteristics and applications of this sales training technology are presented. The application of video enhanced training at Motorola Inc. is described. Results indicate that video enhanced training is a promising technological application that improves sales training effectiveness.
Stimulus-Rate Sensitivity Discerns Area 3b of the Human Primary Somatosensory Cortex

Previous studies have shown that the hemodynamic response of the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) to electrical median nerve stimulation doubles in strength when the stimulus rate (SR) increases from 1 to 5 Hz. Here we investigated whether such sensitivity to SR is homogenous within the functionally different subareas of the SI cortex, and whether SR sensitivity would help discern area 3b among the other SI subareas. We acquired 3-tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from nine healthy adults who received pneumotactile stimuli in 25-s blocks to three right-hand fingers, either at 1, 4, or 10 Hz. The main contrast (all stimulations pooled vs. baseline), applied to the whole brain, first limited the search to the whole SI cortex. The conjunction of SR-sensitive contrasts [4 Hz − 1 Hz] > 0 and [10 Hz − 1 Hz] > 0 ([4Hz − 1Hz] + [10Hz − 1Hz] > 0), applied to the SI cluster, then revealed an anterior-ventral subcluster that reacted more strongly to both 10-Hz and 4-Hz stimuli than to the 1-Hz stimuli. No other SR-sensitive clusters were found at the group-level in the whole-brain analysis. The site of the SR-sensitive SI subcluster corresponds to the canonical position of area 3b; such differentiation was also possible at the individual level in 5 out of 9 subjects. Thus the SR sensitivity of the BOLD response appears to discern area 3b among other subareas of the human SI cortex.
Murder, mayhem, and mourning: A qualitative study of the experiences, reactions, and coping mechanisms of homicide survivors

Murder, Mayhem, and Mourning: A Qualitative Study of the Experiences, Reactions, and Coping Mechanisms of Homicide Survivors. (May 2009) Clinton Edward Quisenberry, B.A., Humboldt State University; M.Ed., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Linda Castillo Previous research has greatly ignored the unique stressors that homicide survivors experience following the murder of their loved one, indicating a general lack of understanding of the experiences and reactions they are subjected to or the coping mechanisms that they utilize. What little research that had been conducted has largely been made up of anecdotal insight of psychological practitioners who had worked with clients. A need exists to speak with the survivors themselves to chronicle their experiences in as much detail as possible to help researchers and practitioners wrap their mind around the totality of the loss as well as ground future research. The participants in the study consisted of twelve persons who had immediate family members who had been murdered. Participants were interviewed utilizing Lincoln & Guba’s Naturalistic Inquiry paradigm. They were initially interviewed and encouraged to discuss their loss in narrative and then were asked a series of specific questions that may or may not have been discussed during the narrative.
Using standardized videos to validate a measure of handoff quality: the handoff mini-clinical examination exercise.

BACKGROUND The most recent iteration of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education duty-hour regulations includes language mandating handoff education for trainees and assessments of handoff quality by residency training programs. However, there is a lack of validated tools for the assessment of handoff quality and for use in trainee education. METHODS Faculty at 2 sites (University of Chicago and Yale University) were recruited to participate in a workshop on handoff education. Video-based scenarios were developed to represent varying levels of performance in the domains of communication, professionalism, and setting. Videos were shown in a random order, and faculty were instructed to use the Handoff Mini-Clinical Examination Exercise (CEX), a paper-based instrument with qualitative anchors defining each level of performance, to rate the handoffs. RESULTS Forty-seven faculty members (14 at site 1; 33 at site 2) participated in the validation workshops, providing a total of 172 observations (of a possible 191 [96%]). Reliability testing revealed a Cronbach α of 0.81 and Kendall coefficient of concordance of 0.59 (>0.6 = high reliability). Faculty were able to reliably distinguish the different levels of performance in each domain in a statistically significant fashion (ie, unsatisfactory professionalism mean 2.42 vs satisfactory professionalism 4.81 vs superior professionalism 6.01, P < 0.001 trend test). Two-way analysis of variance revealed no evidence of rater bias. CONCLUSIONS Using standardized video-based scenarios highlighting differing levels of performance, we were able to demonstrate evidence that the Handoff Mini-CEX can draw reliable and valid conclusions regarding handoff performance. Future work to validate the tool in clinical settings is warranted.
A new method for indexing genomes using on-disk suffix trees

We propose a new method to build persistent suffix trees for indexing the genomic data. Our algorithm DiGeST (Disk-Based Genomic Suffix Tree) improves significantly over previous work in reducing the random access to the input string and performing only two passes over disk data. DiGeST is based on the two-phase multi-way merge sort paradigm using a concise binary representation of the DNA alphabet. Furthermore, our method scales to larger genomic data than managed before.
A Template Effect Study on Voxel-Based Morphometry in Statistic Parametric Mapping

Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) is an automated method allowing identification of anatomical differences in the whole brain without the pre-specification of a region of interests. Spatial normalization is one of the major processes in VBM, which transforms all images to a standard template. A variety of templates were employed in VBM researches in the literature, including the MNI template and study-specific templates. Few studies were presented to test the effect of templates on the detection accuracy of VBM, although it is claimed in many papers that the study-specific template performs better. However, the creation of the study-specific template differs on the subjects included. In this paper, the gray matter (GM) difference of two groups (female vs male) was analyzed to evaluate the effects of templates on the VBM results. The statistic parametric mapping (SPM) package, as the standard software for VBM implementation, was used for analyses
I Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor Signaling via G q / G 11 Secures the Induction of Long-Term Potentiation in the Hippocampal Area CA 1

1Department of Physiology, Kanazawa University School of Medicine, Takara-machi, Kanazawa 920-8640, Japan, 2Department of Anatomy, Hokkaido University School of Medicine, Sapporo 060-8635, Japan, 3Pharmakologisches Institut, Abteilung Molekulare Pharmakologie, Universität Heidelberg, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany, and 4Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125
Association between Social Anxiety and Visual Mental Imagery of Neutral Scenes: The Moderating Role of Effortful Control

According to cognitive theories, verbal processing attenuates emotional processing, whereas visual imagery enhances emotional processing and contributes to the maintenance of social anxiety. Individuals with social anxiety report negative mental images in social situations. However, the general ability of visual mental imagery of neutral scenes in individuals with social anxiety is still unclear. The present study investigated the general ability of non-emotional mental imagery (vividness, preferences for imagery vs. verbal processing, and object or spatial imagery) and the moderating role of effortful control in attenuating social anxiety. The participants (N = 231) completed five questionnaires. The results showed that social anxiety was not necessarily associated with all aspects of mental imagery. As suggested by theories, social anxiety was not associated with a preference for verbal processing. However, social anxiety was positively correlated with the visual imagery scale, especially the object imagery scale, which concerns the ability to construct pictorial images of individual objects. Further, it was negatively correlated with the spatial imagery scale, which concerns the ability to process information about spatial relations between objects. Although object imagery and spatial imagery positively and negatively predicted the degree of social anxiety, respectively, these effects were attenuated when socially anxious individuals had high effortful control. Specifically, in individuals with high effortful control, both object and spatial imagery were not associated with social anxiety. Socially anxious individuals might prefer to construct pictorial images of individual objects in natural scenes through object imagery. However, even in individuals who exhibit these features of mental imagery, effortful control could inhibit the increase in social anxiety.
Mass Tag-Assisted Identification of Naturally Processed HLA Class II-Presented Meningococcal Peptides Recognized by CD4+ T Lymphocytes

The meningococcal class I outer membrane protein porin A plays an important role in the development of T cell-dependent protective immunity against meningococcal serogroup B infection and is therefore a major component of candidate meningococcal vaccines. T cell epitopes from porin A are poorly characterized because of weak in vitro memory T cell responses against purified Ag and strain variation. We applied a novel strategy to identify relevant naturally processed and MHC class II-presented porin A epitopes, based on stable isotope labeling of Ag. Human immature HLA-DR1-positive dendritic cells were used for optimal uptake and MHC class II processing of 14N- and 15N-labeled isoforms of the neisserial porin A serosubtype P1.5–2,10 in bacterial outer membrane vesicles. HLA-DR1 bound peptides, obtained after 48 h of Ag processing, contained typical spectral doublets in mass spectrometry that could easily be assigned to four porin A regions, expressed at diverging densities (∼30–4000 copies/per cell). Epitopes from two of these regions are recognized by HLA-DR1-restricted CD4+ T cell lines and are conserved among different serosubtypes of meningococcal porin A. This mass tag-assisted approach provides a useful methodology for rapid identification of MHC class II presented bacterial CD4+ T cell epitopes relevant for vaccine development.
Association Between Opioid Prescribing Patterns and Abuse in Ophthalmology

Importance Drug overdoses have become the number 1 cause of mortality in American adults 50 years and younger. Prescription opioid abuse is a growing concern that has garnered widespread attention among policymakers and the general public. Objective To determine the opioid prescribing patterns among ophthalmologists and elucidate their role in the prescription opioid abuse epidemic. Design, Setting, and Participants In this observational cohort study, beneficiaries and their physicians were analyzed using 2013 to 2015 Medicare Part D Prescriber Data. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Medicare Part D Prescriber Public Use Files for 2013, 2014, and 2015 were accessed. Analysis began in June 2017. Data were collected and analyzed regarding the prescribing patterns for opioid drugs (eg, number of prescriptions written including refills, number of days’ supply, and prescriber rates) for all participating ophthalmologists. Main Outcomes and Measures The mean number of opioid prescriptions written annually by ophthalmologists; prescriber rates compared with all prescriptions written; and geographic distribution of opioid prescriptions written per ophthalmologist. Results In 2013, 4167 of 19 615 ophthalmologists were women (21.2%). Consistently, most ophthalmologists (88%-89%) wrote 10 opioid prescriptions or fewer annually. Approximately 1% (0.94%-1.03%) of ophthalmologists wrote more than 100 prescriptions per year. On average, ophthalmologists wrote 7 opioid prescriptions per year (134 290 written annually by 19 638 physicians, on average) with a mean supply of 5 days. The 6 states with the highest volume of opioid prescriptions written annually per ophthalmologist were located in the southern United States. Conclusions and Relevance In general, ophthalmologists show discretion in their opioid prescribing patterns. The present opioid abuse epidemic should prompt physicians to consider revisiting their prescribing protocols given the high risk for dependency.
Predictive modeling of glucose metabolism using free-living data of type 1 diabetic patients

The aim of this study is to model the blood glucose metabolism of type 1 diabetic patients using free-living data. The proposed method considers the effect of diet, medication and exercise on blood glucose levels. Compartmental models are used to quantify the absorption of subcutaneously administered insulin, the absorption of glucose from the gut following a meal, as well as the effects of exercise on plasma glucose and insulin dynamics. Compartmental analysis is combined with a glucose predictive model which employs Support Vector machines for Regression to estimate the subcutaneous glucose concentrations. The model is trained and tested on real data recorded from two type 1 diabetic patients. The results obtained demonstrate the ability of the model to predict glucose response with a sufficient accuracy.
Fat Embolism Studied in 100 Patients Dying after Injury

The changes in the lung parenchyma accompanying fat embolism were found to be inconstant and non-specific. Transudation of fluid into the alveoli, with infection, diapedesis of polymorphs, and extravasation of red cells are all found in lungs showing no or minimal fat embolism as well as in those with severe degrees of the condition. Conversely, there may be little or no reaction to severe degrees of fat embolism.
Chemical crosslinkers enhance detection of receptor interactomes

Receptor function is dependent on interaction with various intracellular proteins that ensure the localization and signaling of the receptor. While a number of approaches have been optimized for the isolation, purification, and proteomic characterization of receptor–protein interaction networks (interactomes) in cells, the capture of receptor interactomes and their dynamic properties remains a challenge. In particular, the study of interactome components that bind to the receptor with low affinity or can rapidly dissociate from the macromolecular complex is difficult. Here we describe how chemical crosslinking (CC) can aid in the isolation and proteomic analysis of receptor–protein interactions. The addition of CC to standard affinity purification and mass spectrometry protocols boosts the power of protein capture within the proteomic assay and enables the identification of specific binding partners under various cellular and receptor states. The utility of CC in receptor interactome studies is highlighted for the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor as well as several other receptor types. A better understanding of receptors and their interactions with proteins spearheads molecular biology, informs an integral part of bench medicine which helps in drug development, drug action, and understanding the pathophysiology of disease.
An experimental assessment of five indices of retinal vessel tortuosity with the RET-TORT public dataset

We compare the performance of five indices of retinal vessel tortuosity against sampling rates of vessel centerlines. We consider distance measure, tortuosity density, two curvature-based measures, and a recently introduced slope-chain coding for general curves, never before assessed comparatively with retinal vessels. To enable replication of our results, we use the public dataset for retinal tortuosity, RETTORT. We find that (1) the tortuosity density index offers good performance overall, but is not always the best performer; (2) curvature-based methods are the best if high-frequency resampling is possible, but (3) are the most sensitive to variations of the number of samples; (4) slope-chain coding performs best at low sampling rates, but the length of the linear elements must be chosen carefully. In general, performance may vary considerably with resampling, suggesting that the choice of a tortuosity index for clinical inference requires attention to numerical details, and ideally standardization thereof.