Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Outcomes of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis Cycles by Fluorescent In situ Hybridization of Infertile Males with Nonmosaic 47,XYY Syndrome

Background: The 47,XYY syndrome could result in fertility problems. However, seldom studies reported comprehensive researches on the embryonic development and pregnancy outcomes of these patients. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical outcomes of nonmosaic 47,XYY patients performed with fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) treatment. Methods: This was a retrospective study. Between January 2012 and May 2017, 51 infertile males with nonmosaic 47,XYY syndrome underwent FISH-PGD were included in the study. According to sex chromosomal FISH results, embryos were classified as normal signal, no nuclei fixed, no signal in fixed nuclei, suspensive signal, and abnormal signal groups, respectively. The incidence of each group, the fixation rate, and hybridization rate were calculated. Embryonic development and pregnancy outcomes were also analyzed. The measurement data were analyzed with Student's t-test. The comparison of categorical data was analyzed with the Chi-square test and Fisher's exact test when expected cell count was <5. Results: The 53 PGD cycles with 433 embryos were analyzed. The fixation rate was 89.6%, while the hybridization rate was 96.4%. There were 283 embryos with two sex chromosomal signals with clear diagnosis (65.4%). The numbers of no nuclei fixed, no signal in fixed nuclei, suspensive signal, and abnormal signal groups were 45 (10.4%), 14 (3.2%), 24 (5.5%), and 67 (15.5%), respectively. Embryos with abnormal signals were abandoned. The number of good-quality embryos was 210 (57.4%), including implanted embryos on day 4/day 5 and cryopreserved. The rates of good-quality embryos in the no nuclei fixed (22.2%), no signal in fixed nuclei (28.6%), and suspensive signal groups (33.3%) were comparable (P > 0.05), and were significantly lower than the normal signal group (66.4%, P < 0.001). The clinical pregnancy rates of fresh and frozen embryos transferred cycles were 70.6% and 85.7%, respectively. Conclusions: Among embryos with a clear diagnosis of sex chromosome, about one-fifth showed abnormal signals. Embryos with two sex chromosomal signals are more likely to develop into good-quality ones. The application of the PGD by FISH may help to improve the clinical outcomes.
Access to End-of Life Parkinson's Disease Patients Through Patient-Centered Integrated Healthcare

Background: Palliative care in Parkinson's Disease (PD) patients considerably differs from palliative care in oncology patients. Integrated care models are a concept to support patients and improve management of PD symptoms. However, it is not known if the access to PD patients at the end of life can be achieved through integrated care models. Aim: To analyze an integrated model of care for PD patients with the aim to identify if this integrated model of care has access to PD patients at the end of life. Material and Methods: The Cologne Parkinson's network was designed as a randomized, controlled prospective clinical trial in order to increase quality of life of PD patients. This innovative model of care integrated a neurologist in private practice, a movement disorder specialist of the University Hospital and a PD nurse. Mortality rates of PD patients during the study period of 6 months were registered and compared with mortality rates of the general population of Germany according to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. The retrospective post-hoc analysis was conducted after completion of the initial study at the University Hospital and neurologists' practices in the greater area of Cologne, Germany. Eligible patients had a diagnosis of idiopathic PD and were aged 25–85 years. Results: Parkinson's Disease patients in this trial had an even slightly lower mortality rate as the general population (1.66 v. 2.1%). These results are contradictory and speak for a substantial proportion of late-stage disease patients, who have not been adequately included in this study or have been better treated within this trial. The mean disease duration of patients in this study was around 6 years which resembles the lower range of the mean disease duration at death of PD patients in general. Conclusions: The results of our post-hoc analysis show, that accessing PD patients in the last phase of their disease is extremely difficult and nearly fails in spite of an integrated care approach. Reasons for poor access and loss of follow-up at the end of life have to be identified and care models for PD patients until the end of life should be developed urgently.
Presentation Attack Detection for Cadaver Iris

This paper presents a deep-learning-based method for iris presentation attack detection (PAD) when iris images are obtained from deceased people. Post-mortem iris recognition, despite being a potentially useful method that could aid forensic identification, can also pose challenges when used inappropriately, i.e. utilizing a dead organ of a person in an unauthorized way. Our approach is based on the VGG-16 architecture fine-tuned with a database of 574 post-mortem, near-infrared iris images from the WarsawBioBase-PostMortem-Iris-v1 database, complemented by a dataset of 256 images of live irises, collected within the scope of this study. Experiments described in this paper show that our approach is able to correctly classify iris images as either representing a live or a dead eye in almost 99% of the trials, averaged over 20 subject-disjoint, train/test splits. We also show that the post-mortem iris detection accuracy increases as time since death elapses, and that we are able to construct a classification system with APCER=0%@BPCER≈1% (Attack Presentation and Bona Fide Presentation Classification Error Rates, respectively) when only post-mortem samples collected at least 16 hours post-mortem are considered. Since acquisitions of ante- and post-mortem samples differ significantly, we applied countermeasures to minimize bias in our classification methodology caused by image properties that are not related to the PAD. This included using the same iris sensor in collection of ante- and post-mortem samples, and analysis of class activation maps to ensure that discriminant iris regions utilized by our classifier are related to properties of the eye, and not to those of the acquisition protocol. This paper offers the first known to us PAD method in a postmortem setting, together with an explanation of the decisions made by the convolutional neural network. Along with the paper we offer source codes, weights of the trained network, and a dataset of live iris images to facilitate reproducibility and further research.
Semi‐aquatic spider silks: transcripts, proteins, and silk fibres of the fishing spider, Dolomedes triton (Pisauridae)

To survive in terrestrial and aquatic environments, spiders often rely heavily on their silk. The vast majority of silks that have been studied are from orb‐web or cob‐web weaving species, leaving the silks of water‐associated spiders largely undescribed. We characterize transcripts, proteins, and silk fibres from the semi‐aquatic spider Dolomedes triton. From silk gland RNAseq libraries, we report 18 silk transcripts representing four categories of known silk protein types: aciniform, ampullate, pyriform, and tubuliform. Proteomic and structural analyses (scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X‐ray spectrometry, contact angle) of the D. triton submersible egg sac reveal similarities to silks from aquatic caddisfly larvae. We identified two layers in D. triton egg sacs, notably a highly hydrophobic outer layer with a different elemental composition compared to egg sacs of terrestrial spiders. These features may provide D. triton egg sacs with their water repellent properties.
A multilevel latent Markov model for the evaluation of nursing homes' performance

The periodic evaluation of health care services is a primary concern for many institutions. We consider services provided by nursing homes with the aim of ranking a set of these structures with respect to their effect on resident health status. Since the overall health status is not directly observable, and given the longitudinal and multilevel structure of the available data, we rely on latent variable models and, in particular, on a multilevel latent Markov model where residents and nursing homes are the first and the second level units, respectively. The model includes individual covariates to account for resident characteristics. The impact of nursing home membership is modelled through a pair of random effects affecting the initial distribution and the transition probabilities between different levels of health status. Through the prediction of these random effects we obtain a ranking of the nursing homes. Furthermore, the proposed model accounts for nonignorable dropout due to resident death, which typically occurs in these contexts. The motivating dataset is gathered from the Long Term Care Facilities programme, a health care protocol implemented in Umbria (Italy). Our results show that differences in performance between nursing homes are statistically significant.
Comparative evaluation of supplemental zilpaterol hydrochloride sources on growth performance, dietary energetics and carcass characteristics of finishing lambs

Objective We compare the effects of three different approved sources of supplemental zilpaterol on growth-performance responses and carcass characteristics of finishing lambs. Methods Twenty four Pelibuey×Katahdin lambs (46.75±2.43 kg) were used in a 33-day feeding trial. Lambs were fed a dry rolled corn-based finishing diet. Treatments consisted of the non-supplemental basal diet (Control) versus the basal diet supplemented with 125 mg zilpaterol/kg of diet (as fed basis) from three commercial sources marketed in Mexico: Zilmax (ZIL), Grofactor, and Zipamix. Results Compared to controls, zilpaterol (ZH) supplementation did not affect dry matter intake (DMI), but increased carcass adjusted daily weight gain (ADG, 36.7%), gain efficiency (34.2%), and dietary net energy (26.0%), and decreased (23.4%) the ratio of observed:expected DMI. Compared to controls, supplemental ZH increased hot carcass weight (6.4%), dressing percentage (3.2%), m. longissimus thoracis (LM) area (15.6%), and shoulder muscle:fat ratio (28.7%), but decreased kidney-pelvic-heart fat, and fat thickness. Supplemental ZH increased 10.9% and 14.3% whole cut weight of loin and leg, respectively, and the proportion (as percentage of cold carcass weight) of leg (4.3%). These increases were reflected in greater forequarter and hindquarter weights. Lambs fed ZH increased (4.6%) empty body weight (EBW) and reduced (14.7%) liver/spleen weight (as g/kg EBW). Likewise, ZH supplementation tended (p = 0.08) to lower (8.9%) visceral fat. Growth performance, energetic efficiency, hot carcass weight, dressing percentage, LM area and whole cuts were not different across supplemental ZH sources. However, compared with non-supplemented controls, only ZIL appreciably decreased carcass fat distribution, including fat thickness, percentage kidney pelvic and heart fat, shoulder fat, and visceral fat. Conclusion Supplemental ZH increases ADG, gain efficiency, carcass dressing percentage, and LM area. The magnitude of these responses was similar among ZH sources. Nevertheless, compared with non-supplemented controls, only ZIL appreciably decreases carcass fat. The basis for this is uncertain, but indicative that some practical differences in zilpaterol bio-equivalency may exist across commercial sources tested.
The Trickle-Down Effects of Perceived Trustworthiness on Subordinate Performance

We study when and why perceptions of trustworthiness trickle down the organizational hierarchy to influence the performance of subordinates. Building on social learning theory, we argue that when supervisors perceive their managers as trustworthy, subordinates are more likely to also perceive their supervisor as trustworthy, which in turn enhances subordinate performance. We further argue that this trickle-down effect of trustworthiness perceptions emerges especially when the manager invites the supervisor to participate in decision-making. Finally, we propose that social learning processes that lead to supervisors exhibiting more trusting behavior toward their subordinates mediate this trickle-down effect. We find support for our predictions across one multisource field study (Study 1) and two experiments (Studies 2 and 3) that both use a yoked design. This research represents the first attempt to examine trickle-down effects related to trustworthiness, its impact on performance, and the mediating mechanisms by which those effects emerge. This research also provides the first empirical evidence about the role that social learning processes play in explaining trickle-down processes.
Effects of 3D Contemplative Landscape Videos on Brain Activity in a Passive Exposure EEG Experiment

Background: Studies on Contemplative Landscapes (CL) show that not only do they have high ecological and visual values and are preferred by a majority of people, but they also can be beneficial to our mental health and well-being. Physical attributes of CL have been studied and operationalized, which has led to the development of the psychometric measurement tool called the Contemplative Landscape Questionnaire (CLQ) (1). Objectives: In the present study, we applied an experimental approach to the analysis of CL. We hypothesized that, when compared to Non-Contemplative Landscapes (NCL), they would induce higher frontal alpha power asymmetry, higher temporal beta power asymmetry and lower bilateral frontal beta power. Methods: Thirty-two healthy individuals (12 female) took part in the study. During the experimental protocol, participants were asked to passively view 12 landscapes, six CL and six NCL, while continuous EEG was recorded in a within-subjects design. Results: We found significantly increased power in the beta frequency band of the right temporal brain regions in the viewings of CL compared to NCL Conclusions: The findings suggest that Contemplative Landscapes capture more visual, stimuli-driven attention from the viewers and can be linked with switching attention systems (described in Attention Restoration Theory), which is compatible with a stress reduction mechanism.
PII1: a protein involved in starch initiation that determines granule number and size in Arabidopsis chloroplast

The initiation of starch granule formation is still poorly understood. However, soluble starch synthase 4 (SS4) appears to be a major component of this process since it is required to synthetize the correct number of starch granules in the chloroplasts of Arabidopsis thaliana plants. A yeast-2-hybrid screen allowed the identification of several putative SS4 interacting partners. We identified the product of At4g32190 locus as a chloroplast-targeted PROTEIN INVOLVED IN STARCH INITIATION (named PII1). Arabidopsis mutants devoid of PII1 display an alteration of starch initiation process and accumulate, on average, one starch granule per plastid instead of the 5 to 7 granules found in plastids of wild-type plants. These granules are larger than in wild type and they remain flat and lenticular. pii1 mutants display wild-type growth rates and accumulate standard starch amounts. Moreover, starch characteristics, such as amylopectin chain length distribution, remain unchanged. Our results reveal the involvement of PII1 in starch priming process in Arabidopsis leaves through interaction with SS4.
Classification of Alzheimer’s Disease Stages: An Approach Using PCA-Based Algorithm

Early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) allows individuals and their health managers to manage healthier medication. We proposed an approach for classification of AD stages, with respect to principal component analysis (PCA)-based algorithm. The PCA has been extensively applied as the most auspicious face-recognition algorithm. For the proposed algorithm, 100 images of 10 children were transformed for feature extraction and covariance matrix was constructed to obtain eigenvalues. The eigenvector provided a useful framework for face recognition. For the classification of AD stages, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were obtained from Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative database. Hippocampus is one of the most affected regions by AD. Thus, we selected clusters of voxels from the “hippocampus” of AD screening stage (mild cognitive impairment), AD stage 1, AD stage 2, and AD stage 3. By using eigenvectors corresponding to maximum eigenvalues of fMRI data, the purposed algorithm classified the voxels of AD stages effectively.
Biotic and abiotic factors shape the microbiota of wild‐caught populations of the arbovirus vector Culicoides imicola

Biting midges of the genus Culicoides are known vectors of arboviruses affecting human and animal health. However, little is known about Culicoides imicola microbiota and its influence on this insect’s biology. In this study, the impact of biotic and abiotic factors on C. imicola microbiota was characterized using shotgun‐metagenomic sequencing of whole‐body DNA samples. Wild‐caught C. imicola adult nulliparous females were sampled in two locations from Sicily, Italy. The climatic variables of temperature and soil moisture from both localities were recorded together with potential host bloodmeal sources. Shared core microbiome among C. imicola populations included Pseudomonas, Escherichia, Halomonas, Candidatus Zinderia, Propionibacterium, and Schizosaccharomyces. Specific and unique taxa were also found in C. imicola from each location, highlighting similarities and differences in microbiome composition between the two populations. DNA and protein identification showed differences in host preferences between the two populations, with Homo sapiens and Canis lupus familiaris L. being the preferred bloodmeal source in both locations. A principal component analysis showed that the combined effect of host preferences (H. sapiens) and local soil moisture factors shape the microbiome composition of wild‐caught populations of C. imicola. These results contribute to characterizing the role of the microbiome in insect adaptation and its utility in predicting geographic expansion of Culicoides species with potential implications for the control of vector‐borne diseases.
A conceptual framework for planning and assessing learning in continuing education activities designed for clinicians in one profession and/or clinical teams

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this article is to provide a more actionable description of the components of the outcomes framework published in 2009.Methods: Synthesis of recent research in the learning sciences.Results: The authors propose a conceptual framework to be used planning learning activities and assessing learning in CPD.Conclusions: CPD practitioners will have a more explicit approach to help clinicians provide the very best care to their patients.
Assessment of Free Time Motivation on a Sample of 11 to 18 Year-Old Catalan-Speaking Spanish Adolescents

Abstract Free time is considered to be a very important aspect of adolescents’ psychosocial development. One of the instruments that has been developed to explore motivation in relation to free time activities is Baldwin and Caldwell’s (2003) Free Time Motivation Scale for Adolescents (FTMS-A), based on Ryan and Deci (2000) Self-Determination Theory. The main aim of this study is to explore the psychometric properties of the FTM S-A after its translation and adaptation to Catalan, administering it to a sample of 2,263 adolescents aged between 11 and 18 (M = 14.99; SD = 1.79) from Catalonia, Spain. To explore structural validity we follow two steps: Firstly, we analyze how the scale fits with the original model by conducting a CFA on the whole sample; secondly, we conduct an EFA on one half of the sample and a CFA on the other half in order to identify which structure best suits the sample. We also analyze convergent validity using three indicators of subjective well-being: The Personal Well-Being Index (PWI), the Satisfaction with Life scale (SWLS) and the Overall Life Satisfaction scale (OLS). The initial CFA produces a 5-factor model like the original, but with goodness of fit indices that do not reach the acceptable minimum. The EFA and the second CFA show a good fit for a 3-dimensional model (χ2(90) = 320.293; RMSEA = . 048; NNFI = . 92; CFI = . 94) comprising introjected motivation, intrinsic motivation and amotivation. The correlations obtained between the FTMS-A and the three measures of subjective well-being scales show an association between free time motivations and this construct. Due to the model of scale used in the present study differs from the original, it is proposed that the new scale structure with 16 items be tested in the future in different cultural contexts.
Fusion Network for Face-Based Age Estimation

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have been applied to age-related research as the core framework. Although faces are composed of numerous facial attributes, most works with CNNs still consider a face as a typical object and do not pay enough attention to facial regions that carry age-specific feature for this particular task. In this paper, we propose a novel CNN architecture called Fusion Network (Fusion-Net) to tackle the age estimation problem. Apart from the whole face image, the FusionNet successively takes several age-specific facial patches as part of the input to emphasize the age-specific features. Through experiments, we show that the FusionNet significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art models on the MORPH II benchmark.
Graded levels of phytase on performance, bone mineralization and carcass traits of broiler fed reduced dicalcium phosphate

Objective This study was conducted to assess increasing doses of phytase added to broiler diets formulated with different levels of available phosphorus (avP), calcium (Ca), and sodium (Na), and the respective effects on performance parameters, quantitative carcass characteristics, ash and phosphorus deposition in tibia and weight of organs. Methods Three different matrices were assumed for phytase with the following nutritional values: matrix A (MT A): 0.165% Ca, 0.150% avP, and 0.035% Na; matrix B (MT B): 0.215% Ca, 0.195% avP, and 0.045% Na; matrix C (MT C): 0.245% Ca, 0.225% avP, and 0.053% Na. There were six different diets: No phytase (formulated to meet the nutritional requirements); phytase 500 FTU/kg+MT A; phytase 1,000 FTU/kg+MT A; phytase 1,500 FTU/kg+MT A; phytase 1,000 FTU/kg+MT B and phytase 1,500 FTU/kg+MT C. Results There was no significant phytase influence on performance, quantitative carcass characteristics, ash and phosphorus deposition in tibia and weight of the organ throughout the study period, however, it was possible to observe a tendency of improvement in body weight corrected feed conversion for broilers fed the phytase 1,500+MT C diet, where potentially these birds were more efficient on utilize phytic phosphorus and other nutrients bounded to phytate molecule, translating into improvement in performance, and there was also a non significant numerical improvement in body weight corrected feed conversion of broilers fed this diet. Conclusion Broilers fed with diets formulated with different levels of avP, Ca, and Na and increasing doses of phytase have shown no change on performance, quantitative carcass characteristics, ash and phosphorus deposition in tibia and weight of organs.