Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Distinct colours in the ‘synaesthetic colour palette’

In grapheme-colour synaesthesia, particular linguistic elements evoke particular colour sensations. Interestingly, when asked, non-synaesthetes can also associate colours to letters, and previous studies show that specific letter-to-colour associations have similar biases to those of synaesthetes. However, it is an open question whether the colours reported by synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes differ overall: is there a ‘synaesthetic colour palette’? In this study, we visualize the overall distribution in colour space of colour concurrents in grapheme-colour synaesthetes, and colour associations in non-synaesthetic controls. We confirm the existence of a synaesthetic colour palette: colour concurrents in synaesthetes are different from colour associations in non-synaesthetes. We quantify three factors that distinguish the colour palette of synaesthetes and non-synaesthetes: synaesthetes have an increased over-representation of ‘pure’ (unmixed) hues, an increased presence of ‘warm’ (yellow, orange, brown) colours, and an increased presence of achromatic (grey, white, black) colours. Furthermore, we demonstrate that differences in the synaesthetic colour palette can be used to train a machine learning algorithm to reliably classify single subjects as synaesthetes versus non-synaesthetes without using test–retest consistency data. As far as we know, this is the first time an individual could be ‘diagnosed’ as a synaesthete, based only on his or her colours evoked by letters. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
Do synaesthesia and mental imagery tap into similar cross-modal processes?

Synaesthesia has previously been linked with imagery abilities, although an understanding of a causal role for mental imagery in broader synaesthetic experiences remains elusive. This can be partly attributed to our relatively poor understanding of imagery in sensory domains beyond vision. Investigations into the neural and behavioural underpinnings of mental imagery have nevertheless identified an important role for imagery in perception, particularly in mediating cross-modal interactions. However, the phenomenology of synaesthesia gives rise to the assumption that associated cross-modal interactions may be encapsulated and specific to synaesthesia. As such, evidence for a link between imagery and perception may not generalize to synaesthesia. Here, we present results that challenge this idea: first, we found enhanced somatosensory imagery evoked by visual stimuli of body parts in mirror-touch synaesthetes, relative to other synaesthetes or controls. Moreover, this enhanced imagery generalized to tactile object properties not directly linked to their synaesthetic associations. Second, we report evidence that concurrent experience evoked in grapheme—colour synaesthesia was sufficient to trigger visual-to-tactile correspondences that are common to all. Together, these findings show that enhanced mental imagery is a consistent hallmark of synaesthesia, and suggest the intriguing possibility that imagery may facilitate the cross-modal interactions that underpin synaesthesic experiences. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Bridging senses: novel insights from synaesthesia’.
MEN1-Related Hyperparathyroidism: Response to Cinacalcet and Calcium-Sensing Receptor Gene Variant Arg990Gly

© 2019 Indian Journal of Medical and Paediatric Oncology | Published by Wolters Kluwer ‐ Medknow Sir, Calcium biometabolism is usually an aberrant in abnormal parathyroid neoplasm. How blood calcium level is controlled in such cases is very interesting. The calcium‐sensing receptor (CASR) plays an important role in this regard, and its polymorphism is widely studied. [1] The interrelationship between parathyroid malignancy, blood calcium, and underlying CASR polymorphism is very interesting. Whether different CASR polymorphisms have an effect on the drug treatment of the neoplasm is an important question that needs to be addressed.
PHACES syndrome – A rare case report

PHACES syndrome stands for posterior fossa malformations–hemangioma–arterial anomalies–cardiac defects–eye abnormalities–sternal cleft all together known as “PHACES syndrome. ” It is a rare cutaneous condition characterized by multiple congenital abnormalities. It affects girls nine times more often than boys. A 3-year-old girl presented with hemangioma of the face, palate, lips, and eyelids and developmental delay associated with seizure episodes. In the ocular examination, congenital cataract, choroidal coloboma, and optic disc hypoplasia were seen. Systemically, there were sternal cleft, ventricular septal defect, and posterior fossa arachnoid cyst and central nervous system vascular abnormalities. Diagnosis was made from systemic examination and ocular examination along with imaging study of the head and chest. PHACES syndrome needs to be managed by a multidisciplinary team of experts such as cardiologist, ophthalmologist, neurologist, and neurosurgeon. Every child with PHACES syndrome should be evaluated for glaucoma and associated pituitary function at each visit.
Effect of integrated complimentary therapies on physical and psychological variables of patients suffering from knee osteoarthritis: A pilot feasibility study

Background: Recent studies have shown beneficial effects of complementary and alternative therapies such as Yoga, Ayurveda, and Naturopathy on osteoarthritis (OA), but combining these therapies will have any synergistic effect and will be feasible and safe or not is not known. Aim: This study aims to assess feasibility and compare the effect of Ayurveda and Naturopathy as an add-on to Yoga in individuals with knee OA. Materials and Methods: This study involves forty Seven individuals (21 males and 26 females) in the age range of 45.19 ± 3.39, suffering from knee OA since 3.37 years admitted in a residential holistic therapy hospital. They were allocated into one of the three treatment programs based on their preference and clinician's advice: (a) Yoga (n = 16), (b) Yoga + Ayurveda (n = 21), and (c) Yoga + Naturopathy (n = 10). Assessments were done at baseline and after 1 week of respective treatment program using knee injury and OA outcome score (KOOS), perceived stress scale, visual analog scale for pain intensity, and stiffness index. Furthermore, physiological and anthropometric measures were assessed. Data were analyzed using paired t-tests and one-way ANOVA for within and between groups comparison, respectively, using SPSS version 10.0. Results: No side effects were reported by the individuals in any of the groups. Within-group comparisons showed significant improvement in all the variables except blood pressure in all the three groups and body mass index, heart rate (HR), and respiratory rate in Yoga + Naturopathy group. Between-group comparison showed significant improvement in Yoga group as compared to Yoga + Naturopathy group for KOOS subscale - sports function (P = 0.049; F = 3.24) and for HR (P = 0.025, F = 4.014) in Yoga group as compared to Yoga + Ayurveda group. Conclusion: Addition of Ayurveda and Naturopathy to Yoga therapy for short-term treatment was found to be safe and feasible. Seven days of Yoga therapy improved clinical symptoms, anthropometric measures, and psychological states of individuals with knee OA.
The interaction between human leucocyte antigen-G and natural killer cells at the placental interface in HIV-1 infected pregnant women and the significance, if any, to in utero transmission.

This study was undertaken to investigate the relationship between Natural Killer cells and HLA-G at the placental barrier in HIV-I infected pregnant women and to establish the significance, if any, to in utero infection. Fifty-five HIV -I infected pregnant women were recruited into the study after consent was obtained. Blood samples were collected from both mothers and babies for viral loads and CD4+ cell counts. Placental samples were obtained from pregnancies at delivery and examined by immunoperoxidase immunohistochemistry methods using monoclonal antibodies to p24 antigens and Natural Killer (CD56+) cells. HLA-G expression was quantified using real-time polymerase chain reaction. Analysis of viral loads and CD4+ cell counts were undertaken in categories. No significant association was observed between the viral load of mothers and their CD4+ cell counts. Eighteen percent of the women in this study population had < 200 CD4+ cell counts and were classified as having AIDS (CDC, 1993). Ninety percent of the women with AIDS had viral loads greater than 4 logs thereby, increasing the risk for transmission to the baby. Sixty percent of the women classified as having AIDS, had low haemoglobin values with a corresponding low CD4+ count. We also report here a statistically significant association between maternal viraemia and maternal haemoglobin (p = 0.05). The relationship between the babies' viral load and birth weight was investigated. There was no significant difference in the median birth weight between infected and uninfected babies
Notification in VR: The Effect of Notification Placement, Task and Environment

Virtual reality (VR) is commonly used for entertainment applications but is also increasingly employed for a large number of use cases such as digital prototyping or training workers. Here, VR is key to present an immersive secondary world. VR enables experiences that are close to reality, regardless of time and place. However, highly immersive VR can result in missing digital information from the real world, such as important notifications. For efficient notification presentation in VR, it is necessary to understand how notifications should be integrated in VR without breaking the immersion. Thus, we conducted a study with 24 participants to investigate notification placement in VR while playing games, learning, and solving problems. We compared placing notifications using a Head-Up Display, On-Body, Floating, and In-Situ in open, semi-open, and closed VR environments. We found significant effects of notification placement and task on how notifications are perceived in VR. Insights from our study inform the design of VR applications that support digital notifications.
Movement Empowerment in a Multiplayer Mixed-Reality Trampoline Game

Insufficient physical activity motivation is a major public health problem. Exergames-games requiring physical exertion-can be designed to support motivation. For example, granting superhuman movement abilities to players has been shown to support one's feeling of competence, an innate human need and a core intrinsic motivation factor posited by self-determination theory. In this paper, we present Super Stomp, a multiplayer mixed-reality trampoline game that empowers movement by exaggerating jump height both in the real world and in the game. We contribute a novel dual-trampoline game system and game mechanics for implementing engaging multiplayer gameplay. This provides an exemplar of satisfying the challenging constraints that real-world movement empowerment technology can impose on exergame movement safety and feasibility. We further contribute insights into the effect of empowering movement on need satisfaction through an in-the-wild study involving 26 participants who played Super Stomp at an indoor activity park.
Representation and Frequency of Player Choice in Player-Oriented Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment Systems

Dynamic difficulty adjustment (DDA) systems can improve the player experience (PX). Allowing the player to make difficulty adjustment decisions can lead to an improved sense of control. However, we hypothesize that shifting the responsibility for making difficulty adjustment decisions from the computational system to the player may be detrimental to the overall PX. We conducted a controlled experiment, analyzing data from 84 participants, to investigate how (1) the way difficulty choices are presented (integrated into game mechanics or direct control) and (2) the frequency of presenting these choices to the player (once, periodically, or constantly) affects the PX. Our findings show that integrated choices lead to an improved PX along some PX dimensions. Presenting choices once or constantly yields poorer PX compared to presenting choices periodically. The results also demonstrate interaction effects between the two experiment factors, suggesting the need for more deliberate design decisions when designing for difficulty adjustment.
Juicy Game Design: Understanding the Impact of Visual Embellishments on Player Experience

Visual embellishments (VEs) are design elements that support information already conveyed by other means. In games, this concept is known as juiciness, and refers to the provision of redundant feedback in situations where a single player action triggers multiple non-functional reactions. Academia and industry both view the concept as a means of improving player experience; however, empirical evidence to back the assumption is lacking. Here, we present findings from two studies: one initial study with 40 participants comparing the effects of visual embellishments in two research games, the Frogger-clone Cuber, and the FPS game Dungeon Descent, and a second study with 32 participants using the commercially available game Quake 3 Arena. Results show that visual embellishments contribute to the visual appeal of all games, but only affects aspects such as competence under specific circumstances. We discuss implications of our findings for the integration of visual embellishments and juiciness, and their relevance for game development.
Effects of Background Music on Risk-Taking and General Player Experience

Music affects our emotions and behaviour in real life, yet despite its prevalence in games, we have a limited understanding of its potential as a tool to explicitly influence player experience and behaviour in games. In this work, we investigate whether we can affect players' risk-taking behaviour through the presence and attributes of background music. We built a game that operationalizes risk behaviour by repeatedly giving players the choice between a safe but less rewarding course, and a risky but potentially more rewarding course. In a mixed-design user study (N=60), we explored the impact of music presence, tempo, and affective inflection on players' in-game risk behaviour and overall player experience. We found an effect of music presence on risk behaviour in the first playthrough, i.e., in the absence of other prior knowledge about the game. Further, music affect and tempo affected player immersion, as well as experienced mastery and challenge. Based on these findings, we discuss implications for game design and future research directions.
Fiddling, Pointing, Hovering, and Sliding: Embodied Actions with Three Evaluation Tools for Children

In user studies with children, it is important to use age appropriate evaluation tools to better understand their preferences, opinions, and thoughts. Here, we studied two accepted evaluation tools: The Five Degrees of Happiness, and the Sticky Ladder rating scale; together with the Paper Ladder, a paper version of the latter. Thirty-six preschoolers rated two creative and play activities ("Painting" and "Construction Blocks") and a game ("Musical Chairs") in terms of difficulty, enjoyment, and preference. Drawing from theories of embodied and distributed cognition, we performed a video analysis of the children's interactions with these tools, focusing on how each tool supported the children's cognitive processes and communication with the researcher. Here, we first describe children's embodied behavior and discuss how these were supported by design features and affordances of the tools. Then, we discuss strengths and shortcomings of each evaluation method. Last, we provide recommendations for their design, appropriation, and usage by researchers developing and evaluating playful solutions and games for children.
Towards Understanding the Design of Playful Gustosonic Experiences with Ice Cream

There is an increasing trend that explores the convergence of digital play and eating to support a playful relationship with food. We note that interactive sound, although prevalent in digital game design, has only received limited attention in this trend. To contribute to an understanding of "playful gustosonic experiences", we present a design and study of a novel capacitive-sensing ice cream cone, "iScream! ". In a study with 32 participants, the cone played four different sounds (a roaring, crunchy, giggling, and burping sound in order to explore fantasy facilitation, food congruency, anthropomorphism and bodily response) when eating ice cream. The results are two themes derived from six findings each, which detail how players explored the different auditory interaction possibilities with their eating actions while the sounds in turn modified those eating actions. Based on these findings, we present four design tactics for designers aiming to create playful gustosonic experiences to ultimately facilitate a more playful relationship with food.
Incremental Game Mechanics Applied to Text Annotation

We argue that the mechanics of 'Ville type Free-To-Play (F2P) games in general, and incremental games in particular, is especially suited for Games-With-A-Purpose. We demonstrate this through WordClicker, an incremental game whose mechanics is designed for text labelling. We believe the design and mechanics used are highly transferable to other games featuring annotation where game design is a challenge, such as serious games and language resourcing GWAPs. The game was tested with audiences from three popular indie gaming portals, achieving promising results both for entertainment value and learning.
Inequity in health; measurement indexes and application to the health care utilization data

Background and Objectives: Inequity in health is a universal term which used for showing current differences, variations and inequalities of people in access to health. But inequality in health refers to some inequities which seems are unfair or caused by some errors and biases. The current study aimed to describe some of the common health related inequity measures to be useful for the inequity researchers and other interested health coworkers. Methods: The calculation, advantage and disadvantage of most common health-inequity indexes including slope index of inequity, relative index of inequality, Theil's Index, mean log deviation, index of disparity, Gini coefficient, weighted utilization social welfare function, absolute and relative concentration index were assessed. Inequity size of these measures was calculated by using the health care utilization survey data. Results: Average of health care utilization in in-need subjects was 66.4. This indicator was in the first to fifth quintiles equal to 57.6, 63.4, 71.6, 69.5 and 75.3, respectively. Relative concentration index and Gini coefficient was calculated as 0.053 and 0.0062, respectively. Conclusion: Inequity in health care utilization in Markazi province differs based on the types of inequity measures. Selection of the inequity indexes dependent to the objective and the scale of under study variable. Among discussed indexes, concentration index determine the more accurate and also show the gradient of inequity. Therefore it can be used as the best index.
PBPK models for evaluating membrane transporter mediated DDIs: Current capabilities, case studies, future opportunities and recommendations.

Physiology-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) modelling has been extensively used to quantitatively translate in vitro data and evaluate temporal effects from drug-drug interactions (DDIs), arising due to reversible enzyme and transporter inhibition, irreversible time-dependent inhibition, enzyme induction, and/or suppression. PBPK modelling has now gained reasonable acceptance with the regulatory authorities for the Cytochrome-P450-mediated DDIs and is routinely used. However, the application of PBPK for transporter-mediated DDIs (tDDI) in drug development is relatively uncommon. Since the predictive performance of PBPK models for tDDI is not well established, here we represent and discuss examples of PBPK analyses included in regulatory submission (FDA, EMA, and PMDA) across various tDDI. The goal of this collaborative effort (involving scientists representing 17 pharmaceutical companies in the Consortium and from academia) is to reflect on the use of current databases and models to address tDDIs. This challenge the common perceptions on applications of PBPK for tDDI and further delve into the requirements to improve such PBPK predictions. This review provides a reflection on the current trends in PBPK modelling for tDDIs and provides a framework to promote continuous use, verification and improvement in industrialisation of the transporter PBPK modelling.
Early events in autoimmunity studied by antibody phage display

Autoimmune diseases, which affect approximately 2-3% of the world population, are characterized by the occurrence of high titres of autoantibodies. Some of these autoantibodies are disease-specific and their presence is often a valuable diagnostic, and sometimes prognostic, tool for clinicians. For example, autoantibodies directed to citrullinated proteins are almost exclusively present in patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, and are therefore regarded as an excellent serological marker for this disease. The question why patients produce autoantibodies is still unsolved. One model that is more and more supported by experimental data, hypothesizes that unusual posttranslational modifications, for example those occurring during cell death, can lead to the generation of neo-epitopes that subsequently can lead to the breaking of immunological tolerance to self-antigens. During the last 15 years the characterization of (auto)antibodies was greatly facilitated by the antibody phage display technology, a sophisticated methodology for the production of recombinant monoclonal antibodies. In this thesis, novel applications of the antibody phage display technology were designed and developed that can be used to gain more insight into the occurrence of autoantibodies and their antigenic targets