Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The natural history of sound localization in mammals – a story of neuronal inhibition

Our concepts of sound localization in the vertebrate brain are widely based on the general assumption that both the ability to detect air-borne sounds and the neuronal processing are homologous in archosaurs (present day crocodiles and birds) and mammals. Yet studies repeatedly report conflicting results on the neuronal circuits and mechanisms, in particular the role of inhibition, as well as the coding strategies between avian and mammalian model systems. Here we argue that mammalian and avian phylogeny of spatial hearing is characterized by a convergent evolution of hearing air-borne sounds rather than by homology. In particular, the different evolutionary origins of tympanic ears and the different availability of binaural cues in early mammals and archosaurs imposed distinct constraints on the respective binaural processing mechanisms. The role of synaptic inhibition in generating binaural spatial sensitivity in mammals is highlighted, as it reveals a unifying principle of mammalian circuit design for encoding sound position. Together, we combine evolutionary, anatomical and physiological arguments for making a clear distinction between mammalian processing mechanisms and coding strategies and those of archosaurs. We emphasize that a consideration of the convergent nature of neuronal mechanisms will significantly increase the explanatory power of studies of spatial processing in both mammals and birds.
Lipoproteins, cholesterol homeostasis and cardiac health

Cholesterol is an essential substance involved in many functions, such as maintaining cell membranes, manufacturing vitamin D on surface of the skin, producing hormones, and possibly helping cell connections in the brain. When cholesterol levels rise in the blood, they can, however, have dangerous consequences. In particular, cholesterol has generated considerable notoriety for its causative role in atherosclerosis, the leading cause of death in developed countries around the world. Homeostasis of cholesterol is centered on the metabolism of lipoproteins, which mediate transport of the lipid to and from tissues. As a synopsis of the major events and proteins that manage lipoprotein homeostasis, this review contributes to the substantial attention that has recently been directed to this area. Despite intense scrutiny, the majority of phenotypic variation in total cholesterol and related traits eludes explanation by current genetic knowledge. This is somewhat disappointing considering heritability estimates have established these traits as highly genetic. Thus, the continued search for candidate genes, mutations, and mechanisms is vital to our understanding of heart disease at the molecular level. Furthermore, as marker development continues to predict risk of vascular illness, this knowledge has the potential to revolutionize treatment of this leading human disease.
Efficacy of an Alternative Smoking Cessation Treatment

ABSTRACT The authors tested the effectiveness of a smoking cessation treatment called auricular therapy that involves the delivery of electrical pulses to specific points on the outer ear. They explored the following question: Do patients undergoing auricular therapy demonstrate greater quit rates in comparison to patients assigned to a control group (i.e., undergoing sham auricular therapy)? Analysis revealed that genuine auricular therapy and placebo group differences on all measures of smoking behavior and nicotine withdrawal symptoms did not approach significance. Abstinence rates among patients in both groups were low and groups did not obtain significantly different scores on the Fagerstrom Test for Nicotine Dependence at all assessment points.
CO2 and CH4 Flux Measurements from Landfills - A Case Study: Gualeguaychú Municipal Landfill, Entre Ríos Province, Argentina

Municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills are used to dispose of household wastes: food and garden waste, paper, metal, glass, wood, textiles, rubber, leather, plastic, ash, dust and electronic waste (Meju 2000). Decomposition of landfilled MSW by long-term physicochemical, chemical and biological processes causes dissolution or decay of landfill materials and production of leachate and gases (Bjerg et al. 2005). In particular, bacterial decomposition of the biodegradable fraction of MSW generates mainly methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as a wide variety of minor and trace components: hydrogen, water vapor, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and volatile organic compounds (Scottish Environment Protection Agency [SEPA], 2004). In spite of efforts being made to control landfill gases (LG) gas containment, collection and utilisation, flaring and treatment, these are usually released into the atmosphere directly and indirectly, from the ground or via sub-surface gas migration, respectively.
Human mesenchymal stem cells: From immunophenotyping by flow cytometry to clinical applications

Modern medicine will unequivocally include regenerative medicine as a major breakthrough in the re‐establishment of damaged or lost tissues due to degenerative diseases or injury. In this scenario, millions of patients worldwide can have their quality of life improved by stem cell implantation coupled with endogenous secretion or administration of survival and differentiation promoting factors. Large efforts, relying mostly on flow cytometry and imaging techniques, have been put into cell isolation, immunophenotyping, and studies of differentiation properties of stem cells of diverse origins. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are particularly relevant for therapy due to their simplicity of isolation. A minimal phenotypic pattern for the identification of MSCs cells requires them to be immunopositive for CD73, CD90, and CD105 expression, while being negative for CD34, CD45, and HLA‐DR and other surface markers. MSCs identified by their cell surface marker expression pattern can be readily purified from patient's bone marrow and adipose tissues. Following expansion and/or predifferentiation into a desired tissue type, stem cells can be reimplanted for tissue repair in the same patient, virtually eliminating rejection problems. Transplantation of MSCs is subject of almost 200 clinical trials to cure and treat a very broad range of conditions, including bone, heart, and neurodegenerative diseases. Immediate or medium term improvements of clinical symptoms have been reported as results of many clinical studies. © 2012 International Society for Advancement of Cytometry
Recovery Experiences of Taiwanese Women After Terminating Abusive Relationships

This article describes the recovery experiences of women who had suffered intimate partner violence in Taiwan. A phenomenological study design using semi-structured interviews was used to obtain data from a purposive sample of eight women. Colaizzi’s approach to narrative analysis was applied. Findings indicate that “reconstructing the self” emerged as the essence of the women’s recovery experiences. Four themes were identified: Feeling shame, creating mastery, recognizing the imperfect self, and embodying the self by helping others. Understanding the recovery experience is an important step in effectively assisting women to recover from abusive relationships and to reconstruct their lives.
Machines d'Eilenberg Effectives

La theorie des automates est apparue pour resoudre des problemes aussi bien pratiques que theoriques, et ceci des le debut de l'informatique. Desormais, les automates font partie des notions fondamentales de l'informatique, et se retrouvent dans la plupart des logiciels. En 1974, Samuel Eilenberg proposa un modele de calcul qui unifie la plupart des automates (transducteurs, automates a pile et machines de Turing) et qui a une propriete de modularite interessante au vu d'applications reposant sur differentes couches d'automates ; comme cela peut etre le cas en linguistique computationnelle. Nous proposons d'etudier les techniques permettant d'avoir des machines d'Eilenberg effectives. Cette etude commence par la modelisation de relations calculables a base de flux, puis continue avec l'etude de la simulation des machines d'Eilenberg definies avec ces relations. Le simulateur est un programme fonctionnel enumerant progressivement les solutions, en explorant un espace de recherche selon differentes strategies. Nous introduisons, en particulier, la notion de machine d'Eilenberg finie pour laquelle nous fournissons une preuve formelle de correction de la simulation. Les relations sont une premiere composante des machines d'Eilenberg, la deuxieme composante etant son controle, qui est defini par un automate fini. Dans ce contexte, on peut utiliser une expression reguliere comme syntaxe pour decrire la composante de controle d'une machine d'Eilenberg. Recemment, un ensemble de travaux exploitant la notion de derivees de Brzozowski, a ete la source d'algorithmes efficaces de synthese d'automates non-deterministes a partir d'expressions regulieres. Nous faisons l'etat de l'art de ces algorithmes, tout en donnant une implementation efficace en OCaml permettant de les comparer les uns aux autres.
Fruit Salad

WIC Nutrition Program • 1-800-WiC-1007 Nutrition Division • MA Department of Public Health TDD/TTY: (617) 624-5992 • Web: www.mass. gov/wic Adapted with permission from the SDSU Research Foundation – WIC Program ingredientS 1 medium apple, cored and diced 1 cup strawberries, sliced 2 medium kiwis, peeled and sliced 2 medium bananas, peeled and sliced 1 tablespoon lime juice 1 tablespoon sugar 1⁄2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1⁄2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 4 maraschino cherries PreParation In a medium bowl, mix together the ingredients. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for approximately 20 minutes. Serve with baked cinnamon tortilla chips, if desired.
Pyrolysis of waste plastics into chemicals as an alternative to landfilling or incineration

ii Opsomming . iv Dedication . vi Acknowledgements . vii Table of contents . viii List of tables . xiii List of figures . xv Abbreviations and nomenclature . xix
Grapefruit juice and licorice increase cortisol availability in patients with Addison's disease.

OBJECTIVE Failure to mirror the diurnal cortisol profile could contribute to the impaired subjective health status in Addison's disease (AD). Some patients report benefit from the use of various nutritional compounds. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of licorice and grapefruit juice (GFJ) on the absorption and metabolism of cortisone acetate (CA). DESIGN Patients (n=17) with AD on stable CA replacement therapy were recruited from the outpatient clinic at Haukeland University Hospital, Norway. They were assessed on their ordinary CA medication and following two 3-day periods of co-administration of licorice or GFJ. METHODS Time series of glucocorticoids (GCs) in serum and saliva were obtained, and GCs in 24 h urine samples were determined. The main outcome measure was the area under the curve (AUC) for serum cortisol in the first 2.6 h after orally administered CA. RESULTS Compared with the ordinary treatment, the median AUC for serum cortisol increased with licorice (53 783 vs 50 882, P<0.05) and GFJ (60 661 vs 50 882, P<0.05). Median cortisol levels in serum were also elevated 2.6 h after tablet ingestion (licorice 223 vs 186 nmol/l, P<0.05; GFJ 337 vs 186 nmol/l, P<0.01). Licorice increased the median urinary cortisol/cortisone ratio (0.43 vs 0.21, P<0.00001), whereas GFJ increased the (allo-tetrahydrocortisol+tetrahydrocortisol)/tetrahydrocortisone ratio (0.55 vs 0.43, P<0.05). CONCLUSION Licorice and in particular GFJ increased cortisol available to tissues in the hours following oral CA administration. Both patients and physicians should be aware of these interactions.
The Bugnet distributed debugging system

Distributed debugging via serial debuggers suffers from two problems: i. serial debuggers are made for one process running on a single processor, whereas distributed programs contain many processes running on different processors in a network. 2. the sequence of events that lead to an error in a distributed program can be quite complex to model and difficult to capture and recreate using a serial debugger. A true distributed debugger should handle both problems easily.
Relationship between obesity and physical fitness and periodontitis.

BACKGROUND Obesity and exercise are important elements associated with lifestyle-related diseases, and studies suggested that these factors may also be related to periodontitis. This study investigates the relationship between obesity and physical fitness and periodontitis. METHODS One thousand, one hundred and sixty Japanese subjects, aged 20 to 77 years, who participated in health examinations at Fukuoka Health Promotion Center were analyzed. Periodontal conditions were evaluated using the Community Periodontal Index (CPI), and subjects with > or =3 sextants of CPI code 3 or 4 were defined as having severe periodontitis. We used the body mass index (BMI) and percentage of body fat as indicators of obesity and estimated the maximal oxygen consumption (VO(2max)) during exercise as an indicator of physical fitness. We divided these variables into quintiles. We examined the single effect and interactions of the obesity index and VO(2max) on severe periodontitis. RESULTS The lowest quintile in BMI and the highest quintile in VO(2max) were inversely associated with severe periodontitis, singly, in multivariate logistic regression analyses. Subjects with the combined lowest quintile in BMI and the highest quintile in VO(2max) had a significantly lower risk of severe periodontitis compared to subjects with other combined quintiles in BMI and in VO(2max) (odds ratio: 0.17; 95% confidence interval: 0.05 to 0.55). CONCLUSION This study suggests that obesity and physical fitness may have some interactive effect on periodontal health status.
On Diet and Gut Size in Non‐human Primates and Humans: Is There a Relationship to Brain Size?

Our pioneering paper includes measurements of gut size was a study ofthe allometric relationship of gut and body size for various dietary adaptations. It was disappointing that Aiello and Wheeler did not use the measurements on human guts, made with a similar method, introduced in papers published in the 80's (e.g. Mac Larnon et al., 1986). Some of these data are reported here, combined with one of our original figures (Chivers and Hladik, 1980) illustrating the reduced major axis for three major dietary tendencies of primates and other mammals (folivore / frugivore / faunivore). The human specimens fall, as expected, on the main axis for frugivore, a gross category corresponding to fruit and seed eaters (or omnivorous, when occasional meat eating is practiced).
New spectral approach for community structure analysis on complex networks

A simple but efficient spectral approach for analyzing the community structure of complex networks is introduced. It works the same way for all types of networks, by spectrally splitting the adjacency matrix into a "unipartite" and a "multipartite" component. These two matrices reveal the structure of the network from different perspectives and can be analyzed at different levels of detail. Their entries, or the entries of their lower-rank approximations, provide measures of the affinity or antagonism between the nodes that highlight the communities and the "gateway" links that connect them together. An algorithm is then proposed to achieve the automatic assignment of the nodes to communities based on the information provided by either matrix. This algorithm naturally generates overlapping communities but can also be tuned to eliminate the overlaps.
Subarachnoid hemorrhage in Kashmir: Causes, risk factors, and outcome

Context: Kashmir, a snow bound and mountain locked valley, is populated by about 7 million ethnic and non-migratory Kashmiris who have specific dietary and social habits than rest of the world. The neurological disorders are common in Kashmiri population. Aims: To study the prevalence and outcome of spontaneous intracranial subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) in Kashmir compared withother parts of the world. Settings and Design: A retrospective and hospital based study from 1982 to 2010 in the single and only Neurosurgical Centre of the State of Jammu and Kashmir. Materials and Methods: A hospital based study, in which, information concerning all Kashmiri patients was collected from the case sheets, patient files, discharge certificates, death certificates, and telephonic conversations with the help of Medical Records Department and Central Admission Register of Sher–i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, Kashmir India. Statistical Analysis: Analysis of variance and students T-test were used at occasions. Results: Incidence of SAH in Kashmiris is about 13/100,000 persons per year. SAH comprises 31.02% of total strokes and aneurysmal ruptures are cause of 54.35% SAHs. The female suffers 1.78 times more than the male. Total mortality of 36.60% was recorded against a good recovery of 14.99%. The familial SAHs and multiple aneurysms were also common. Intra-operative finding of larger aneurysmal size than recorded on pre-operative computed tomography (CT) angiogram of same patients was noteworthy. In 493 patients of SAH, the angiography revealed 705 aneurysms. Conclusion: Spontaneous intracranial subarachnoid hemorrhage, due to aneurysmal rupture, is common in Kashmir, with worst outcome. Food habits like “salt-tea twice a day”, group-smoking of wet tobacco like “Jejeer”, winter season, female gender, hypertension, and inhalation of “Kangri” smoke are special risk factorsof SAH, in Kashmiris. The plain CT brain and CT angiography are best diagnostic tools. The preventive measures for aneurysmal formation and rupture seems most promising management of future. The detachable endovascular aneurysmal occupying video assisted micro-camera capsules or plugs may be future treatment.
Combination decitabine, arsenic trioxide, and ascorbic acid for the treatment of myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia: A phase I study

which various erythrocyte polymorphisms protect against severe malaria. A report from Kenya recently provided evidence for negative epistasis between SCT and alpha-thalassemia in protection against malaria [16]. How the protective mechanisms of these and other conditions including G6PD (A2) might interact to mutually interfere in malaria protection remains to be resolved. By the way, more recent study with a limited number of patients has shown that G6PD deficiency and SCT have no effect on the severity of anemia in children infected with both HIV-1 and P. falciparum [17] despite the high proportion of G6PD deficiency in coinfected children. Further study with large sample size is needed to confirm this observation. Understanding the interaction of malaria protective factors in various infectious diseases may be a valuable tool of medical interest. Our evaluation of data was previously collected in the villages of Kangaba and Kela, Mali [9]. Subjects in the case–control study included children 10 years or less of age who presented with clinical symptoms of malaria. Microscopic confirmations of parasitemia, assignments of the cases into uncomplicated or severe malaria, and hemoglobin typing and G6PD (A2) detection were as described [9]. Data evaluation and analysis were performed under consents and protocols approved by Institutional Review Boards of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, MD and of the University of Bamako, Mali.
iGeoRec: A Personalized and Efficient Geographical Location Recommendation Framework

Geographical influence has been intensively exploited for location recommendations in location-based social networks (LBSNs) due to the fact that geographical proximity significantly affects users' check-in behaviors. However, current studies only model the geographical influence on all users' check-in behaviors as a universal way. We argue that the geographical influence on users' check-in behaviors should be personalized. In this paper, we propose a personalized and efficient geographical location recommendation framework called iGeoRec to take full advantage of the geographical influence on location recommendations. In iGeoRec, there are mainly two challenges: (1) personalizing the geographical influence to accurately predict the probability of a user visiting a new location, and (2) efficiently computing the probability of each user to all new locations. To address these two challenges, (1) we propose a probabilistic approach to personalize the geographical influence as a personal distribution for each user and predict the probability of a user visiting any new location using her personal distribution. Furthermore, (2) we develop an efficient approximation method to compute the probability of any user to all new locations; the proposed method reduces the computational complexity of the exact computation method from O(ILIn3) to O(ILIn) (where ILI is the total number of locations in an LBSN and n is the number of check-in locations of a user). Finally, we conduct extensive experiments to evaluate the recommendation accuracy and efficiency of iGeoRec using two large-scale real data sets collected from the two of the most popular LBSNs: Foursquare and Gowalla. Experimental results show that iGeoRec provides significantly superior performance compared to other state-of-the-art geographical recommendation techniques.
Cognitive Impairment No Dementia – Neuropsychological and Neuroimaging Characterization of an Amnestic Subgroup

Background/Aims: Cognitive impairment no dementia (CIND) describes individuals whose cognitive functioning falls below normal but who do not meet dementia criteria. An important goal within CIND is to identify subgroups that will predictably progress to Alzheimer disease. CIND with amnestic deficits has been associated with high risk of Alzheimer disease but has until now been investigated on a retrospective basis. In this study a prospectively defined amnestic CIND group was characterized on a detailed neuropsychological test battery and on structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures. Methods: Amnestic CIND was defined as meeting at least 1 but not all DSM-IV-TR criteria for dementia, scoring ≧1 SD below norms on Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test delayed recall, having a Clinical Dementia Rating score of 0.5 and a Mini-Mental State Exam score ≧24. This cross-sectional study compared subjects meeting these criteria (n = 25) to age- and education-matched controls (n = 26). The neuropsychological battery included memory and nonmemory measures that were analyzed as continuous variables and dichotomized into impaired (≧1 SD below controls) versus nonimpaired. MRI scans were evaluated with a global-brain volumetric measure [brain fractional ratio (BFR)] and with visually based medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) ratings. Results: Amnestic CIND had neuropsychological impairment in the episodic memory domain and also in nonmemory domains. There were 80% of CIND subjects with multidomain impairment. The most clear-cut nonmemory impairment was in the verbal ability domain, with 64% of subjects affected and a moderate effect size (d = 0.7). On MRI, BFR was lower (74.5 ± 4.6 vs. 75.5 ± 4.4) and MTA higher (72 vs. 38% with MTA ≧1) in CIND than in control subjects. BFR correlated with MTA (r = –0.45) and with a composite memory score (r = 0.296). Conclusion: A prospective amnestic CIND grouping appears to identify individuals with a multidomain pattern of neuropsychological impairment and with both medial temporal lobe and global brain atrophy.