Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Systolic Blood Pressure and Outcome in Patients Admitted With Acute Heart Failure: An Analysis of Individual Patient Data From 4 Randomized Clinical Trials

BACKGROUND In acute heart failure (AHF), systolic blood pressure (SBP) is an important clinical variable. This study assessed the association between SBP and short‐term and long‐term outcomes in a large cohort of patients with AHF. METHODS AND RESULTS This is an analysis of 4 randomized controlled trials investigating serelaxin versus placebo in patients admitted with AHF and SBPs from 125 to 180 mm Hg. Outcomes were 180‐day all‐cause mortality and a composite end point of all‐cause mortality, worsening heart failure, or hospital readmission for heart failure the first 14 days. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was examined as LVEF<40% and LVEF≥40%. Multivariable Cox regression models were adjusted for known confounders of outcomes in AHF. A total of 10 533 patients with a mean age of 73 (±12) years and a mean SBP of 145 (±7) mm Hg were included. LVEF was assessed in 9863 patients (93%); 4737 patients (45%) had LVEF<40%. Increasing SBP was inversely associated with 180‐day mortality (adjusted hazard ratio [HRadjusted], 0.93; 95% CI, 0.89–0.98; P=0.008 per 10 mm Hg increase) and with the composite end point (HRadjusted, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.85–0.94; P<0.001 per 10 mm Hg increase). A significant interaction with LVEF was observed, revealing that SBP was not associated with mortality in patients with LVEF≥40% (HRadjusted, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.91–1.04; per 10 mm Hg increase), but was strongly associated with increased mortality in LVEF<40% (HRadjusted, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.77–0.92; per 10 mm Hg increase). CONCLUSIONS Elevated SBP is associated with favorable short‐term and long‐term outcomes in patients with AHF. In our predefined subgroup analysis, we found that baseline SBP was not associated with mortality in LVEF≥40%, but was strongly associated with mortality in patients with LVEF<40%.
Effects of Childhood Maltreatment on Self-Compassion: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background: This systematic review aims to estimate the extent to which childhood maltreatment influences self-compassion in later life. Method: Four English databases (Web of Science, PsycINFO, PubMed, and PsycARTICLES) and three Chinese databases (China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and Weipu) were systematically searched. We extracted data related to the associations between child maltreatment and self-compassion and pooled them using random effect models. Findings: A total of 20 eligible studies were included involving 6,877 participants in the analyses. Overall child maltreatment was negatively related to self-compassion (r = −.28, p < .001); emotional abuse and neglect were negatively related to self-compassion (r = −.28, p < .01; r = −.31, p < .01, respectively) at a moderate level; and physical abuse, sexual abuse, and physical neglect were negatively related to self-compassion (r = −.12, p < .01; r = −.10, p < .01; and r = −.22, p < .001, respectively) at a small level. Conclusion: The results indicate that overall and subtypes of maltreatment are associated with decreased self-compassion, and child intervention programs focused on self-compassion should be designed to protect the well-being of individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment.
Strategies of feigning mild head injuries related to validity indicators and types of coaching: Results of two experimental studies

Abstract Objective In this paper, we analyzed differences between uncoached, symptom-coached, and test-coached simulators regarding strategies of feigning mild head injuries. Method Healthy undergraduates (n = 67 in the first study; n = 48 in the second study), randomized into three simulator groups, were assessed with four experimental memory tests. In the first study, tests were administered face-to-face, while in the second study, the procedure was adapted for online testing. Results Online simulators showed a different approach to testing than face-to-face participants (U tests < 920, p < .05). Nevertheless, both samples favored strategies like memory loss, error making, concentration difficulties, and slow responding. Except for slow responding and concentration difficulties, the favorite strategies correlated with validity indicators. In the first study, test-coached simulators (m = 4.58–5.68, SD = 2.2–3) used strategies less than uncoached participants (m = 5.25–5.88, SD = 2.26–2.84). In the second study, test-coached participants (m = 3.8–5.6, SD = 1.51–2.2) employed strategies less than uncoached (m = 6.21–7.29, SD = 1.25–1.85) and symptom-coached participants (m = 6.14–6.79, SD = 1.69–2.76). Discussion Similarities and differences between online and face-to-face assessments are discussed. Recommendations to associate heterogeneous indicators for detecting feigning strategies are issued.
Analysis of Orientia tsutsugamushi promoter activity.

Orientia tsutsugamushi is an obligate intracellular bacterium that causes scrub typhus, a potentially fatal rickettsiosis, and for which no genetic tools exist. Critical to addressing this technical gap is to identify promoters for driving expression of antibiotic resistance and fluorescence reporter genes in O. tsutsugamushi. Such promoters would need to be highly conserved among strains, expressed throughout infection, and exhibit strong activity. We examined the untranslated regions upstream of O. tsutsugamushi genes encoding outer membrane protein A (ompA), 22-kDa type-specific antigen (tsa22), and tsa56. The bacterium transcribed all three during infection of monocytic, endothelial, and epithelial cells. Examination of the upstream non-coding regions revealed putative ribosome binding sites, one set of predicted -10 and -35 sequences for ompA, and two sets of -10 and -35 sequences for tsa22 and tsa56. Comparison of these regions among geographically diverse O. tsutsugamushi patient isolates revealed nucleotide identities ranging from 84.8 to 100.0%. Upon examination of the candidates for the ability to drive green fluorescence protein expression in Escherichia coli, varying activities were observed with one of the tsa22 promoters being the strongest. Identification and validation of O. tsutsugamushi promoters is an initial key step toward genetically manipulating this important pathogen.
Modeling Users and Items for Recommenders:There Is More than Semantics

Recommender systems aim to help us to take better decisions and thus to save resources and increase satisfaction. Personalized recommendations are their main asset. In some domains, such as tourism or news, recommender systems rely more on content-based approaches to give personalized recommendations, due to domain-specific challenges. Content-based methods tend to recommend items semantically similar to the users’ previous consumptions. However, the content of items (e.g., text, visuals, categories, etc.) usually contains more than semantic properties. In this PhD work we focus on the multifaceted nature of the recommendation items. Besides the mentioned semantic properties, we also take into account visual and textual style elements and more complex concepts such as emotions and personality. Our aim is to address people also on a non-rational, non-verbal, and rather emotional level; and thus, to improve recommendations. We propose a statistical-learning-based characterization of items, a picture-based approach to profile users and items, and a neural end-to-end approach, where we learn to represent users and items, and simultaneously to recommend. In all of the proposed methods we consider in addition to the semantic content either stylistic elements and/or more complex concepts like personality, and observe their impact. To contribute the community, we plan to open source our code and the datasets (to the extent our collaborators agree).
External locus of control and cognitive ability independently distinguish men in prison from community living non-offending men.

BACKGROUND The ability to cope with failure and subsequent feedback is crucial for prisoner rehabilitation. Impaired executive function in prisoners, high trait aggression and external locus of control can undermine the capacity to react to feedback in socially adaptive ways. AIM To investigate the relationships between aggression, locus of control, and attribution in an experimental task involving feedback about failure and success. METHODS Two groups were compared: 1. Imprisoned men, 2. Community living men without a history of incarceration. Aggression, locus of control and reasoning ability were assessed by means of psychometric instruments. An experimental task building on cognitive ability and providing performance-related feedback was carried out. Attributions of failure and success were measured using an ad hoc rating scale. RESULTS Prisoners reported higher levels of aggression and generalised externality, but poorer reasoning ability than the comparison group. Aggression was associated with external locus of control. In the experimental task, the community group showed higher success rates; higher scores on the task were correlated with less external attribution of own performance. Higher external locus of control and lower reasoning ability were independently associated with being a prisoner in a logistic regression model. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Men in prison were characterised by greater social and fatalistic externality paired with lower reasoning ability than never incarcerated community men. In-prison rehabilitation strategies should pay early attention to improving reasoning ability and enabling men to recognise likely overuse of externally attributing their difficulties to fate, then helping them to become more realistic in their attributions and make use of realistic feedback.
Investigating the National Adult Reading Test (NART-2) and Wechsler Test of Adult Reading Test (WTAR) in predicting Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence – Second edition (WASI-II) scores in an Australian sample

ABSTRACT Objective: The NART-2 and WTAR are used to estimate premorbid intellectual functioning. There are concerns about their accuracy. Our aim was to develop models predicting WASI-II scores from the NART-2 and WTAR variables and evaluate their accuracy within an Australian sample. Method: The sample included 145 adults aged 18.91 to 70.64 years (M = 34.70, SD = 13.30), of which 78 were female. Analyses examined the reliability of the word reading tasks and estimated WASI-II sores with multiple linear regression. Comparison of estimated scores were made with actual WASI-II scores. Results: WASI-II scores were moderately related to word reading tasks (r = .33 to.51, p < .01) and weakly related to age, years of education, and occupation. Models were identified for the four WASI-II index scores (with R2 = .20 to .36) and their accuracy checked. 24%-48%, 61%-73% and 80%-88% were correctly estimated within five, 10 and 15 points, respectively. Conclusions: Models for predicting WASI-II scores from the NART-2 and WTAR and demographic variables had adequate strength and accuracy. However, they were likely to be limited to those with FSIQ>79. Further development of word reading tasks for the prediction of premorbid intellectual functioning in the contemporary Australian context is warranted. Key Points What is already known about this topic: (1) The estimation of premorbid intellectual functioning is important in cognitive assessment, for which tests such as the National Adult Reading Test (NART-2) and Wechsler Test of Adult Reading Test (WTAR) were developed. (2) Research has pointed to potential problems with using the ageing norms and predictive models of the NART-2 and WTAR and recent Australian research has presented new models for predicting current Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS-IV) scores. (3) No evaluation of the NART-2 or WTAR has examined the accuracy of these models in predicting the shorter Wechsler Abbreviated Scales of Intelligence – Second Edition (WASI-II) scores in the Australian context. What this topic adds: (1) This study provides norms for the NART-2 and WTAR utilising Australian pronunciation rules, consistent with the Macquarie Dictionary. (2) Equations are presented for predicting WASI-II scores from NART-2 and WTAR scores and simple demographic variables, based on a healthy sample of Australian adults. (3) Evaluation of these predictive models shows they are likely to have adequate strength and accuracy, but were limited to predicting ability to within the low average range and above (FSIQ>79).
Learning to Match Job Candidates Using Multilingual Bi-Encoder BERT

In this talk, we will show how we used Randstad history of candidate placements to generate labeled CV-vacancy pairs dataset. Afterwards we fine-tune a multilingual BERT with bi encoder structure over this dataset, by adding a cosine similarity log loss layer. We will explain how using the mentioned structure helps us overcome most of the challenges described above, and how it enables us to build a maintainable and scalable pipeline to match CVs and vacancies. In addition, we show how we gain a better semantic understanding, and learn to bridge the vocabulary gap. Finally, we highlight how multilingual transformers help us handle cross language barrier and might reduce discrimination.
Horizontal Cross-Silo Federated Recommender Systems

Recommender systems (RSs) completely rely on the knowledge of training information to generate recommendations. However, due to privacy, ownership, and protection of users’ information, such training information is not easily accessible or shared with an RS. Moreover, with recent regulations in privacy laws (e.g, GDPR), collecting user preferences and perform centralized training may not be feasible. Federated Learning (FL) is a form of machine learning technique where the goal is to learn a high-quality recommendation model without never directly accessing raw training data. In this work, we specifically focus on situations where multiple stakeholders (referred to as corporate companies like e-commerce business partners, hospitals, banks, news media publishers) participate in federated learning to build a shared recommendation model. We performed offline experiments by simulating a real federated learning setup and investigated the benefits federated learning brings to stakeholders in terms of ranking compared to an RS model trained without participating in federated learning. Our experimental results reveal that stakeholders can significantly benefit from federated learning to generate accurate recommendations. Moreover, we also study the use and benefits of federated learning in situations when there are not enough preferences available for users.
Cytokine concentrations in saliva vs. plasma at rest and in response to intense exercise in adolescent athletes

Abstract Background Salivary measures are advantageous in conducting large paediatric studies involving repeated measures. However, research measuring salivary cytokines in youth is limited. Aim Compare salivary with plasma concentrations of inflammatory cytokines at rest and following exercise in adolescent swimmers (21 male, 22 female). Methods Following collection of resting saliva and blood samples, participants performed a bout of high-intensity interval swimming, with samples taken again ∼15 min post-swimming and analysed for interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin 10 (IL-10), and tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α). Results Resting IL-10 was significantly lower, while IL-6 and TNF-α were significantly higher in saliva compared with plasma. IL-10 increased from pre- to post-swimming in plasma, but less so in saliva (51% vs. 29%; p = 0.02). TNF-α decreased post-swimming in saliva, but not in plasma (–27% vs −1%; p = 0.01). IL-6 decreased post-swimming in saliva compared with plasma (–21% vs. −3%; p = 0.06). Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) revealed no association between salivary and plasma IL-6 and TNF-α, while IL-10 showed a weak correlation only at rest (ICC = 0.39; p = 0.05). Conclusions Differences in concentrations and exercise responses, along with weak correlations, suggest that salivary cytokine levels are not an accurate representation of blood cytokine levels, and should not be used as a surrogate measure in paediatric studies.
A Drug‐Drug Interaction Study Evaluating the Effect of Givosiran, a Small Interfering Ribonucleic Acid, on Cytochrome P450 Activity in the Liver

Givosiran (trade name GIVLAARI) is a small interfering ribonucleic acid that targets hepatic delta‐aminolevulinic acid synthase 1 (ALAS1) messenger RNA for degradation through RNA interference (RNAi) that has been approved for the treatment of acute hepatic porphyria (AHP). RNAi therapeutics, such as givosiran, have a low liability for drug‐drug interactions (DDIs) because they are not metabolized by cytochrome 450 (CYP) enzymes, and do not directly inhibit or induce CYP enzymes in the liver. The pharmacodynamic effect of givosiran (lowering of hepatic ALAS1, the first and rate limiting enzyme in the heme biosynthesis pathway) presents a unique scenario where givosiran could potentially impact heme‐dependent activities in the liver, such as CYP enzyme activity. This study assessed the impact of givosiran on the pharmacokinetics of substrates of 5 major CYP450 enzymes in subjects with acute intermittent porphyria (AIP), the most common type of AHP, by using the validated “Inje cocktail,” comprised of caffeine (CYP1A2), losartan (CYP2C9), omeprazole (CYP2C19), dextromethorphan (CYP2D6), and midazolam (CYP3A4). We show that givosiran treatment had a differential inhibitory effect on CYP450 enzymes in the liver, resulting in a moderate reduction in activity of CYP1A2 and CYP2D6, a minor effect on CYP3A4 and CYP2C19, and a similar weak effect on CYP2C9. To date, this is the first study evaluating the DDI for an oligonucleotide therapeutic and highlights an atypical drug interaction due to the pharmacological effect of givosiran. The results of this study suggest that givosiran does not have a large effect on heme‐dependent CYP enzyme activity in the liver.
Buoyancy-driven instabilities of partially miscible fluids in inclined porous media

Abstract This study presents a buoyancy-driven stability analysis in a three-dimensional inclined porous medium with a capillary transition zone that is formed between a non-wetting and an underlying wetting phase. In this two-phase, two-component, partially miscible system, a solute from a non-wetting phase diffuses into a porous layer saturated with a wetting-phase fluid, creating a dense diffusive boundary layer beneath an established capillary transition zone. Transient concentration and gravity-driven velocity fields are derived for the wetting phase while the saturation field remains fixed. Linear stability analysis with the quasi-steady-state approximation is employed to determine the onset of solutal convective instability for buoyancy-dominant, in-transition and capillary-dominant systems. The analysis of the problem leads to a differential eigenvalue problem composed of a system of three complex-valued equations that are numerically solved to determine the critical times, critical wavenumbers and neutral stability curves as a function of inclination angle for different Bond numbers. The layer inclination is shown to play an essential role in the stability of the problem, where the gravity-driven flow removes solute concentrations in the diffusive boundary layer. The results indicate that the horizontal porous layer exhibits the fastest onset of instability, and longitudinal rolls are always more unstable than oblique and transverse rolls. The inclination angle has a more substantial impact on stabilizing the diffusive boundary layer in the buoyancy-dominant than in the capillary-dominant systems. Furthermore, for both buoyancy-dominant and capillary-dominant systems, the critical times and wavenumbers vary exponentially with inclination angle ≤ 60° and follow the Stirling model.
A single mutation in the cis-acting replication element identified within the EV-A71 2C-coding region causes defects in virus production in cell culture

ABSTRACT Enterovirus A71 (EV-A71) can cause hand, foot and mouth disease with neurological and systemic complications, most frequently affecting children and infants. We describe a cis-acting replication element (cre) with a conserved stem-loop structure within the EV-A71 2C-coding region. By site-directed mutagenesis and reverse genetics using the EV-A71 full-length genome and the EV-A71 replicon containing the firefly luciferase reporter gene in place of the P1 region, the stem-loop structure and the AAACA in the loop of the cre were confirmed to be required for the EV-A71 replication phenotype. EV-A71 genomes containing a mutation at the first or third A residue of AAACA could not be recovered. Insertion of a wild-type cre from EV-A71 or poliovirus in the 5’UTR led to successful recovery of the replication of nonviable mutants. Furthermore, the cre mutants showed lower binding capacity with the host cellular factor IGF2BP2, knockdown of which resulted in a significant decrease in EV-A71 production. All the available evidence shows the location independence but functional importance of the interaction of the cre with the cellular host for efficient production of EV-A71, contributing to the growing body of knowledge regarding picornavirus cres.
Gene expression cassette and transformant, and process for production of 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose and process for purification of 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose using the transformant

A transformant is prepared by introducing at least one gene expression cassette comprising a gene involved in the synthesis of 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose into an Escherichia coli cell (as a host cell). By using the transformant, 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose can be synthesized from D-glucose, an oligosaccharide, a polysaccharide, a starch or rice bran. A culture containing 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose is treated through a mixed-bed or double-bed column having a strongly acidic cation exchange resin in the form of hydrogen ions and a basic anion exchange resin in the form of organic acid ions packed therein to purify 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose. The 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose can be more highly purified by reacting it with trimethoxymethane to convert it into a 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose dimethyl ketal, crystallizing and purifying the 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose dimethyl ketal and then hydrolyzing the purified 2-deoxy-scyllo-inosose dimethyl ketal in the presence of an acid.