Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Patient’s Perspective on the Link Between ADHD and Substance Use

Objective: The primary aim of this study was to investigate how adult individuals with ADHD perceive the role of alcohol and drugs in their lives. A secondary aim was to identify factors that those individuals consider useful in the treatment and prevention of co-occurring ADHD and substance use disorders (SUDs). Method: A qualitative interview study with ADHD outpatients (n = 14) at a psychiatric clinic. Data were analyzed based on pre-defined areas of interest using a deductive content analysis method. Results: The yearning for belongingness was identified as an important driving force underlying substance use. The participants felt that alcohol/drugs helped them being normal and thus respected and accepted. Early diagnosis of ADHD was perceived essential to avoid SUD. Conclusion: Adults with ADHD may have strong rational and emotional reasons for the use of alcohol and drugs. When planning for the treatment of adult ADHD, investigation of personal reasons for alcohol/drug use deserves a place.
Progressive edge-growth Tanner graphs

We propose a general method for constructing Tanner (1981) graphs with large girth by progressively establishing edges or connections between symbol and check nodes in an edge-by-edge manner, called progressive edge-growth (PEG) construction. Lower bounds on the girth and on the minimum distance of the resulting low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are derived in terms or parameters of the graphs. Encoding of LDPC codes based on the PEG principle is also investigated. We show how to exploit the PEG graph construction to obtain LDPC codes that allow linear time encoding. The advantages of PEG Tanner graphs over randomly constructed graphs are demonstrated by extensive simulation results on code performance.
The International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services: Working Toward Interdisciplinary and International Collaboration

©2002 International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services It is a privilege to be asked to write a brief introduction to a new association and a new journal. Psychiatry, psychology, nursing, and social work all have recognized a forensic specialization, and in the past decade or so there have been notable advances in, for example, the understanding of the relationship between mental disorders and violence, and in the assessment of the risk of future violence in mentally disordered persons. Though many organizations exist which deal with forensic mental health, most are national in scope or profession-based, so it was felt that an important gap existed—a need to have an international interdisciplinary organization devoted to forensic mental health services. In an article in this issue, Hodgins defines forensic mental health as “the study, treatment and management of persons with mental disorders who engage in illegal and/or violent behaviors. It is a larger and more encompassing field than either forensic psychiatry or psychology. ” The International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services was founded in 2001, at a conference held in Vancouver, British Columbia. Its presently defined purposes are:
Adaptive modulation schemes for minimum outage probability in wireless systems

In this paper, adaptive modulation schemes are designed that yield the minimum outage probability for wireless systems with strict delay constraints, under the assumption of perfect causal channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter and receiver. Using the channel characterization and delay constraint parameters imposed by the application, a recursive set of equations is derived for the outage probability. This set of equations is used to derive an optimal adaptive uncoded quadrature amplitude modulation scheme, and its performance is compared against that of traditional variable rate techniques designed to maximize average rate subject to a bit error probability constraint. A suboptimal scheme is also presented. Numerical results indicate that the proposed schemes significantly outperform adaptive schemes designed to maximize average rate.
Is Paternal Smoking at Conception a Risk for ADHD? A Controlled Study in Youth With and Without ADHD

Objective: Based on emerging preclinical findings suggesting that paternal smoking at conception may be a risk for ADHD in the offspring, we investigated whether a similar effect can be observed in humans. Method: We analyzed data from an opportunistic dataset of girl probands with (N = 140) and without (N = 122) ADHD with available information on paternal smoking at conception. Data were analyzed using Pearson’s chi-square tests and multiple logistic regression. Results: ADHD probands had a significantly higher rate of paternal smoking at conception than controls (35% vs. 23%, χ2 = 3.82, p = .05) with a significant odds ratio of 1.5. However, the association lost significance after controlling for paternal ADHD, most likely due to limited statistical power. Conclusion: While preliminary, findings suggest that paternal smoking at conception may be a risk factor for ADHD in the offspring.
Peripheral Hypoarousal but Not Preparation-Vigilance Impairment Endures in ADHD Remission

Objective: This study investigates whether impairments associated with persistent ADHD—impaired attention allocation (P3 amplitude), peripheral hypoarousal (skin conductance level [SCL]), and adjustment in preparatory state (contingent negative variation [CNV])—reflect enduring deficits unrelated to ADHD outcome or are markers of ADHD remission. Method: Young people with childhood ADHD (73 persisters and 18 remitters) and 144 controls were compared on neurophysiological measures during two conditions (baseline and fast-incentive) of a four-choice reaction time task. Results: ADHD remitters differed from persisters, and were indistinguishable from controls, on baseline P3 amplitude and fast-incentive CNV amplitude (p ≤ .05). ADHD remitters differed from controls (p ≤ .01), and were indistinguishable from persisters (p > .05), on baseline SCL. Conclusion: Preparation-vigilance measures were markers of ADHD remission, confirming previous findings with other measures. Yet, SCL-measured peripheral hypoarousal emerges as an enduring deficit unrelated to ADHD improvement. Future studies should explore potential compensatory mechanisms that enable efficient preparation-vigilance processes in ADHD remitters.
The Qualitative Interview Study of Persistent and Nonpersistent Substance Use in the MTA: Sample Characteristics, Frequent Use, and Reasons for Use

Objective:To evaluate participants’ perceptions about frequent use and reasons for substance use (SU) in the qualitative interview study, an add-on to the multimodal treatment study of ADHD (MTA). Method: Using the longitudinal MTA database, 39 ADHD cases and 19 peers with Persistent SU, and 86 ADHD cases and 39 peers without Persistent SU were identified and recruited. In adulthood, an open-ended interview was administered, and SU excerpts were indexed and classified to create subtopics (frequent use and reasons for use of alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs). Results: For marijuana, the Persistent compared with Nonpersistent SU group had a significantly higher percentage of participants describing frequent use and giving reasons for use, and the ADHD group compared with the group of peers had a significantly higher percentage giving “stability” as a reason for use. Conclusion: Motivations for persistent marijuana use may differ for adults with and without a history of ADHD.
High throughput low-density parity-check decoder architectures

Two decoding schedules and the corresponding serialized architectures for low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoders are presented. They are applied to codes with parity-check matrices generated either randomly or using geometric properties of elements in Galois fields. Both decoding schedules have low computational requirements. The original concurrent decoding schedule has a large storage requirement that is dependent on the total number of edges in the underlying bipartite graph, while a new, staggered decoding schedule which uses an approximation of the belief propagation, has a reduced memory requirement that is dependent only on the number of bits in the block. The performance of these decoding schedules is evaluated through simulations on a magnetic recording channel.
Childhood ADHD and Involvement in Early Pregnancy: Mechanisms of Risk

Objective: ADHD is associated with risky sexual behavior and early pregnancy, but few studies have examined mechanisms of risk linking childhood ADHD to early pregnancy. The present study utilized data from the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD to examine potential mechanisms that may account for the association between childhood ADHD and becoming pregnant or causing a pregnancy by age 18. Method: Participants were 579 children with ADHD and 289 comparison peers followed over 16 years. Results: Relative to the comparison group, those with childhood ADHD were at more than two times increased risk of early pregnancy. Univariately, persistence of ADHD symptoms, delinquency/substance use, and academic performance/achievement during adolescence each mediated the association between childhood ADHD and early pregnancy. When considered together, only delinquency/substance use remained a significant mediator of this relationship. Conclusion: Findings point toward specific targets of intervention for youth with ADHD to prevent early pregnancy.
Analysis of Interactions of Signaling Proteins with Phage-Displayed Ligands by Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy

Fluorescent correlation spectroscopy (FCS) was used to measure binding affinities of ligands to ligates that are expressed by phage-display technology. Using this method we have quantified the binding of the 14-3-3 signaling protein to artificial peptide ligand. As a ligand we used the R18 artificial peptide expressed as a fusion in the cpIII coat protein that is present in 3 to 5 copies in an M13 phage. Comparisons of binding affinities were made with free R18 ligands using FCS. The result showed a relatively high binding affinity for the phage-displayed R18 peptide compared with binding to free fluorescently labeled R18. Quantification was supported by titration of the phage numbers using atomic force microscopy (AFM). AFM was shown to accurately determine phage numbers in solution as a good alternative for electron microscopy. It was shown to give reliable data that correlated perfectly with those of the viable phage numbers determined by classical bacterial infection studies. In conclusion, a very fast and sensitive method for the selection of new peptide ligands or ligates based on a quantitative assay in solution has been developed. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2008:766-776)
Automated High-Throughput siRNA Transfection in Raw 264.7 Macrophages: A Case Study for Optimization Procedure

RNAi using siRNA is a very powerful tool for functional genomics to identify new drug targets and biological pathways. Although their use in epithelial cells is relatively easy and straightforward, transfection in other cell types is still challenging. The authors report the optimization of transfection conditions for Raw 267.4 macrophage cells. The herein described procedure makes use of automated confocal microscopy, enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)—expressing macrophages, and fluorescently labeled siRNAs to simultaneously quantify both siRNA uptake and silencing efficiency. A comparison of 10 commercial transfectants was performed, leading to the selection of the transfectant giving the highest reproducible knock-down effect without inducing cell toxicity or cell activation. Several buffers used for siRNA/lipid complex assembly were tested, and such a study revealed the crucial importance of this parameter. In addition, a kinetics study led to the determination of the optimal siRNA concentration and the best time window for the assay. In an original approach aimed at simultaneously optimizing both the high-throughput screening process and biological factors, optimal reagent volumes and a process flowchart were defined to ensure robust silencing efficiencies during screening. Such an account should pave the way for future genome-wide RNAi research in macrophages and present an optimization procedure for other “hard-totransfect” cell lines. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2009:151-160)
Merging Systems Biology with Pharmacodynamics

Enhanced pharmacodynamic models combine favorable features of systems biology and traditional models and may form the basis of precision medicine. Abstract The emerging discipline of systems pharmacology aims to combine analysis and computational modeling of cellular regulatory networks with quantitative pharmacology approaches to drive the drug discovery processes, predict rare adverse events, and catalyze the practice of personalized precision medicine. Here, we introduce the concept of enhanced pharmacodynamic (ePD) models, which synergistically combine the desirable features of systems biology and current PD models within the framework of ordinary or partial differential equations. ePD models that analyze regulatory networks involved in drug action can account for a drug’s multiple targets and for the effects of genomic, epigenomic, and posttranslational changes on the drug efficacy. This new knowledge can drive drug discovery and shape precision medicine.
Live-Cell Imaging of Caspase Activation for High-Content Screening

Caspases are central to the execution of programmed cell death, and their activation constitutes the biochemical hallmark of apoptosis. In this article, the authors report the successful adaptation of a high-content assay method using the DEVDNucView488™ fluorogenic substrate, and for the first time, they show caspase activation in live cells induced by either drugs or siRNA. The fluorogenic substrate was found to be nontoxic over an exposure period of several days, during which the authors demonstrate automated imaging and quantification of caspase activation of the same cell population as a function of time. Overexpression of the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-XL, alone or in combination with the inhibitor Z-VAD-FMK, attenuated caspase activation in HeLa cells exposed to doxorubicin, etoposide, or cell death siRNA. This method was further validated against 2 well-characterized NSCLC cell lines reported to be sensitive (H3255) or refractory (H2030) to erlotinib, where the authors show a differential time-dependent activation was observed for H3255 and no significant changes in H2030, consistent with their respective chemosensitivity profile. In summary, the results demonstrate the feasibility of using this newly adapted and validated high-content assay to screen chemical or RNAi libraries for the identification of previously uncovered enhancers and suppressors of the apoptotic machinery in live cells. (Journal of Biomolecular Screening 2009:956-969)
Raising the Bar: The Curative Potential of Human Cancer Immunotherapy

Genetic engineering of T cells may extend immunotherapy successes to common epithelial cancers. Immunotherapy with interleukin-2 can cure 5 to 10% of patients with metastatic melanoma and renal cancer. Recent adoptive cell transfer (ACT) immunotherapies have improved cure rates in metastatic melanoma to 20 to 40%. Genetic engineering of T cells to express conventional alpha/beta T cell receptors or antibody-based chimeric antigen receptors provides an opportunity to extend ACT to patients with common epithelial cancers.
BIST-based delay path testing in FPGA architectures

The widespread use of field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) as components in high-performance systems has increased the significance of path delay faults in FPGAs. We present a technique for FPGA path delay fault detection which integrates test insertion with the FPGA placement and routing stages to accomplish testing with low test application time. An accurate static timing analyzer is used to identify critical paths and built-in self-test (BIST) hardware is inserted using a placement and routing tool. Initial experimental results show that testing is accomplished with low test application time for several benchmark designs.
FLC-based MBWIMA/UMTS protocol for integrated video/voice/data services in UTRA TDD model

An intelligent medium access control (MAC) protocol based on fuzzy logic control (FLC) is proposed and compared with a general packet radio system in UMTS (GPRS/UMTS) and the movable boundary wireless integrated multiple access in UMTS (MBWIMA/UMTS) protocols. The integrated video/voice/data services of UMTS in UTRA TDD mode have different transmission properties. By fuzzy logic control, the resources of the wireless communication can be intelligent assigned for different types of mediums. The voice-video dropping probability and data packet delay are input to FLC to optimally select the maximum number of voice slots. The simulation results demonstrate that the FLC-based MBWIMA/UMTS protocol can greatly improve the voice-video call dropping probability of the GPRS/UMTS protocol under heavy traffic load conditions, providing low voice-video call completion rate and high voice call arrival rate. The data packet delay of the FLC-based MBWIMA/UMTS protocol is less than that for the MBWIMA/UMTS, priority scheme and GPRS/UMTS protocols.
Development of a High-Content Screening Method for Chemicals Modulating DNA Damage Response

The cellular response to DNA damage is emerging as a promising target for cancer therapy. In the present study, the authors exploited the relationship between the level of the phosphorylated form of histone H2AX (γH2AX) and the extent of DNA damage and developed a quantitative, cell-based, high-content screening system for measuring the DNA damage response (DDR). In this system, the authors quantified the level of γH2AX by measuring DNA damage–induced γH2AX nuclear foci using an automated cell imager. They found that the total area of γH2AX foci per cell exhibited a good correlation with the concentration of DNA damage–inducing agents, including etoposide. The effects of 2 well-known inhibitors of DNA damage could be quantified using this system, suggesting the suitability of the γH2AX-foci quantification method for large-scale screening applications. This was confirmed by using this method to screen a chemical library; the resulting “hits” included compounds that inhibited early signaling events in DDR, as well those that inhibited subsequent DNA damage repair processes. Overall, this γH2AX foci-measuring system may be an effective screening method for identifying DNA damage response inhibitors that could eventually be used to develop novel anticancer drugs.
A Quantitative, Facile, and High-Throughput Image-Based Cell Migration Method Is a Robust Alternative to the Scratch Assay

Cell migration is a key phenotype for a number of therapeutically important biological responses, including angiogenesis. A commonly used method to assess cell migration is the scratch assay, which measures the movement of cells into a wound made by physically scoring a confluent cell monolayer to create an area devoid of cells. Although this method has been adequate for qualitative characterization of migration inhibitors, it does not provide the highly reproducible results required for quantitative compound structure-activity relationship evaluation because of the inconsistent size and placement of the wound area within the microplate well. The Oris™ Cell Migration Assay presents a superior alternative to the scratch assay, permitting formation of precisely placed and homogeneously sized cell-free areas into which migration can occur without releasing factors from wounded or dead cells or damaging the underlying extracellular matrix. Herein the authors compare results from the scratch and Oris™ cell migration assays using an endothelial progenitor cell line and the Src kinase inhibitor dasatinib. They find that using the Acumen™ Explorer laser microplate cytometer in combination with the Oris™ Cell Migration Assay plate provides a robust, efficient, and cost-effective cell migration assay exhibiting excellent signal to noise, plate uniformity, and statistical validation metrics.
In Silico Method to Predict Functional Similarity between Two RecA Orthologs

RecA is a highly conserved bacterial protein that plays crucial roles in many cellular processes and hence is a potential target in the chemotherapy of bacterial infections. An understanding of the functional similarity between RecA proteins from different bacterial species should yield further insights into the biochemistry of RecA protein, along with the potential for new approaches to facilitate the improvement of RecA-targeted drugs. In this technical note, the authors present an in silico method based on tri-oligonucleotide usage correlations (TOUC) to predict the functional similarity between two RecA orthologs. The TOUC values analyzed in this study are in good agreement with the available experimental results. This method should prove useful in guiding future experimental efforts aimed at furthering our understanding of the biochemistry of RecA proteins and subsequent development of new drugs that modulate RecA biological activities in bacteria.
Music therapy practice: relative perspectives in evidence-based reviews

If a music therapist wanted to know the sum total of evidence published on the effectiveness of music therapy among persons with dementia, what would she find? Could she easily gain an overall understanding of (a) the quality of evidence and (b) the level of effectiveness of music therapy procedures among persons with dementia? A therapist who wanted to know the current state of the evidence might take one of several paths to getting this information. Indeed, these paths would lead to very different conclusions. And, the conclusions may be made at different times, using some short paths and some longer paths. If this therapist read ‘‘Is Music Therapy an Effective Intervention for Dementia? A Meta-Analytic Review of Literature’’ (Koger, Chapin, & Brotons, 1999), she would find that ‘‘the effect of music/music therapy was . highly significant’’ (p. 2). This meta-analysis included 21 empirical studies, with a total of 336 subjects, all of whom had symptoms of dementia. After reading this article, the music therapist would feel very positive about the effects of music therapy for people with dementia. Or the therapist might read ‘‘Sufficiency and Stability of Evidence for Public Health Interventions Using Cumulative Meta-Analysis’’ (Muellerleile & Mullen, 2006), in which the authors propose ‘‘performing new meta-analyses at successive points in time in a research domain’’ (p. 515) to provide information as to when there is sufficient evidence for the existence of the phenomenon, and when it becomes stable (p. 519). One of the meta-analyses that these authors use to illustrate their points is the one by Koger et al. (1999), described in the previous paragraph. Their analysis posits that sufficiency of studies in this area could have been achieved much earlier than the Koger et al. review. The authors’ simulation found that sufficiency or significance could have been identified after seven studies had