Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Determinants of vitamin D status: focus on genetic variations.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW The role of vitamin D beyond its importance for bone health is under much debate. In this article, we review recent evidence for genetic influences on 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and discuss the uses of this information and its importance for public health. RECENT FINDINGS Findings from large-scale genome-wide association meta-analyses on 25(OH)D confirmed the associations for loci nearby genes encoding vitamin D binding protein (GC, group component), 7-dehydrochlesterol reductase (DHCR7), 25-hydroxylase (CYP2R1) and 24-hydroxylase (CYP24A1), all influencing key sites for vitamin D metabolism. Findings from candidate gene studies have been inconsistent, with some implicating an association with 25(OH)D for loci near the gene encoding the hormonal vitamin D activation enzyme (CYP27B1). SUMMARY The amount of variation in 25(OH)D explained by genetic determinants is small compared with environmental exposures. Information on genetic variants affecting 25(OH)D can be used as tools for Mendelian randomization analyses on vitamin D, and they provide some potential for the use as drug targets.
Cheap cycles from the desktop to the dedicated cluster: combining opportunistic and dedicated scheduling with Condor

Clusters of commodity PC hardware running Linux are becoming widely used as computational resources. Most software for controlling clusters relies on dedicated scheduling algorithms. These algorithms assume the constant availability of resources to compute fixed schedules. Unfortunately, due to hardware and software failures, dedicated resources are not always available over the long-term. Moreover, these dedicated scheduling solutions are only applicable to certain classes of jobs, and they can only manage clusters or large SMP machines. The Condor High Throughput Computing System overcomes these limitations by combining aspects of dedicated and opportunistic scheduling into a single system. Both parallel and serial jobs are managed at the same time, allowing a simpler interface for the user and better resource utilization. This paper describes the Condor system, defines opportunistic scheduling, explains how Condor supports MPI jobs with a combination of dedicated and opportunistic scheduling, and shows the advantages gained by such an approach. An exploration of future work in these areas concludes the paper. By using both desktop workstations and dedicated clusters, Condor harnesses all available computational power to enable the best possible science at a low cost.
Effect of recombination of charge carriers on modeling of PV array

This paper presents the effect of modeling the PV array with and without considering the recombination of charge carriers in space charge region. The main aim of the authors is to determine a model which can provide the results close to the experimental results. The series and shunt resistances are estimated using the Newton Raphson method with initial values derived from the basic equations of the models and the information provided by the manufacturer at standard test condition. To verify the procedure, modeling results were compared with the parameters provided by the manufacturer of ELDORA40 PV Panel. The relative errors between experimental and modeling results are computed. This comparison is useful for PV power converter designers who require accurate model for the PV array.
Prevention of myopia progression with 0.05% atropine solution.

AIM The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of 0.05% atropine solution for controlling myopia progression in school-aged children. RESULTS This retrospective, case-control study enrolled myopic school-aged children who had presented at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (Kaohsiung, Taiwan) from 2001 to 2004. A group of 57 children (30 boys, 27 girls; 6-12 years of age) with regular follow-up was divided into a subgroup of 21 children (12 boys, 9 girls) who received atropine eyedrops (0.05%) every evening, and a subgroup of 36 children (18 boys, 18 girls), who remained untreated, served as controls. The changes in refractive status of 114 eyes in 57 children were collected and compared for patients treated with 0.05% atropine eyedrop and those without medical control. The initial spherical equivalent of refractive status range was between -0.5 and -5.5 D. Mean myopia progression for the group of patients treated with 0.05% atropine eyedrop (n = 21) was -0.28 +/- 0.26 D/year, significantly lower than that of the control group of -0.75 +/- 0.35 D/year (36 patients; P < 0.001). The 0.05% atropine group had a significant lower ratio of uncontrolled myopia, that progressed greater than -0.50 D in 1 year, relative to the controls (16.7% versus 77.8%; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS The results of this study demonstrate that, with regular instillation, topical 0.05% atropine is an effective agent for controlling myopia progression in a majority of school-aged children for at least a period of 1 year.
Citicoline (Cognizin) in the treatment of cognitive impairment

Pharmacological treatment of cerebrovascular disorders was introduced at the beginning of the 20th Century. Since then, a multitude of studies have focused on the development of a consensus for a well defined taxonomy of these disorders and on the identification of specific patterns of cognitive deficits associated with them, but with no clear consensus. Nevertheless, citicoline has proved to be a valid treatment in patients with a cerebrovascular pathogenesis for memory disorders. A metanalysis performed on the entire database available from the clinical studies performed with this compound confirms the experimental evidence from the animal studies which have repeatedly described the multiple biological actions of citicoline in restoring both the cell lipid structures and some neurotransmitter functions.
Codependency and Pathological Altruism

Pathological altruism is a construct describing the willingness of an individual to place the needs of others above him- or herself to the point of causing harm, whether physical, psychological, or both, to the purported altruist. Codependency can be viewed as a form of pathological altruism. The study of codependency has been hampered by limited agreement as to what it is, whether it even exists, and a lack of validated psychometric instruments to study it. This chapter suggests codependency is best viewed as a behavior and not a diagnosis, facilitated by the inability to tolerate negative affect. This chapter will review the concept of codependency, comment on its roots in empathy and altruism, explore its potential neurobiological, genetic and evolutionary basis, and make suggestions for future research.
First births to older women continue to rise.

KEY FINDINGS Data from the National Vital Statistics System The first birth rate for women aged 35-39 increased from 1970 to 2006, decreased from 2006 to 2010, and increased again in both 2011 and 2012. The first birth rate for women aged 40-44 was steady in the 1970s and started increasing in the 1980s. The rate more than doubled from 1990 to 2012. For women aged 35-39 and 40-44 all race and Hispanic origin groups had increasing first birth rates from 1990 to 2012. Since 2000, 46 states and DC had an increase in the first birth rate for women aged 35-39. For women aged 40-44, rates increased in 31 states and DC. The average age of women at first birth has risen over the past 4 decades (1-3). This increase is in part a reflection of the shift in first births to women 35 years and older. Delayed childbearing affects the size, composition, and future growth of the population in the United States (2). Increased health risks to older mothers, especially those 40 years and older, and their infants are well documented (4-7), first time older mothers are generally better educated and more likely to have more resources including higher incomes than those at the youngest reproductive ages (8). This report explores trends in first births to women aged 35-39 and 40-44 years from 1970 to 2012, and by race and Hispanic origin from 1990 to 2012 (the most recent year for which comparable data are available). Trends in first births for older women by state are examined for the recent period, 2000 to 2012.
Foetal ECG extraction using broadband signal subspace decomposition

In this paper, we consider the extraction of foetal electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from cutaneous electrode recordings. Most existing methods cannot account for the broadband nature of the ECG signals, producing foetal ECG (FECG) estimates that are not sufficiently accurate. We propose a novel way of addressing this problem: the broadband equivalent of principal component analysis (PCA) is applied through the use of an algorithm that generalises the eigenvalue decomposition (EVD) to polynomial matrices; FECG extraction is achieved by way of an orthonormal projection of the data onto the broadband foetal subspace, whereby the maternal ECG and noise components are suppressed. The algorithm is contrasted with conventional PCA and the classical multi-reference adaptive noise cancelling method. The three techniques are applied to real multi-channel ECG recordings obtained from a pregnant woman. A qualitative comparison indicates that the proposed algorithm is more robust and yields cleaner FECG estimates.
Nature and Treatment of Stuttering: New Directions

Contributors. Preface. I. CHILDHOOD STUTTERING. 1. Epidemiology and Genetics of Stuttering, Susan Felsenfeld. 2. Home Environments and Parent-Child Interaction in Childhood Stuttering, Ehud Yairi. 3. Disfluency Characteristics of Childhood Stuttering, Ehud Yairi 4. Learning and Its Role in Stuttering Development, C. Woodruff Starkweather. II. STUTTERER-NONSTUTTERER DIFFERENCES. 5. Stuttering: A Psycholinguistic Perspective, Nan Bernstein Ratner. 6. Respiratory and Laryngeal Control in Stuttering, Margaret Denny & Anne Smith. 7. Brain Imaging Contributions, Ben C. Watson & Francis J. Freeman. III. ETIOLOGICAL VIEWS OF STUTTERING. 8. Stuttering as an Anticipatory Struggle Reaction, Oliver Bloodstein. 9. Stuttering as a Covert Repair Phenomenon, Herman Kolk & Albert Postma. 10. Stuttering: A Dynamic, Multifactorial Model, Anne Smith & Ellen Kelly. 11. Stuttering: Why Science Hasn't Solved It, William H. Perkins. IV. CLINICAL MANAGEMENT OF CHILDREN. 12. Evaluating Childhood Stuttering, Edward G. Conture. 13. Therapy for Younger Children, C. Woodruff Starkweather. 14. Therapy for Children's Stuttering and Emotions, Barry Guitar. 15. Clinical Management of Children: Direct Management Strategies, Peter R. Ramig & Ellen M. Bennett. 16. Managing of Cluttering and Related Fluency Disorders, Kenneth O. St. Louis & Florence L. Meyers. V. CLINICAL MANAGEMENT OF ADULTS. 17. Modifying Stuttering - The Stutterer's Reactive Behavior: Perspectives on Past, Present, and Future, David Prins. 18. Designing and Implementing a Strategy to Control Stuttered Speech in Adults, Mark Onslow & Ann Packman. 19. Instrumentation for the Assessment and Treatment of Stuttering, Klaus Bakker. 20. Stuttering and the Measurement of Speech Naturalness, Nicholas Schiavetti & Dale Metz. 21. Self-Measurement and Evaluating Stuttering Treatment Efficacy, Roger J. Ingham and Anne K. Cordes. Afterword. Index.
Plasma vasopressin and oxytocin concentrations increase simultaneously during suckling in goats

Goats are often kept on small farms where they suckle kids and are hand milked for human consumption. Our first objective was to investigate whether vasopressin secretion increases together with oxytocin during hand milking and suckling in seven goats 6–8 weeks after parturition. Four goats suckled and three were hand milked on the first day and the treatments were reversed on the next day. Blood samples were taken via a semi-permanent catheter. Plasma concentrations of vasopressin and oxytocin increased during suckling, but not during hand milking. Plasma cortisol concentration was elevated for 10 min after both treatments. These results initiated a second series in which the objectives were to measure vasopressin and oxytocin concentrations during hand milking in a larger number of goats and to investigate whether the rise in cortisol concentration was due to the experimental conditions or to milking, by adding a no-milking treatment. Nine goats in lactation weeks 4–10 were studied. Heart rate and arterial blood pressure were registered in eight of the goats. Oxytocin concentration did not change during hand milking and the vasopressin concentration was below the detection limit. Heart rate and blood pressure were elevated during milking and for about 10 min thereafter. Cortisol concentration increased after milking, as above. None of the variables changed in the no-milking treatment. This suggests that the rise in cortisol concentration was due to milk excretion and was not a stress reaction. In conclusion, suckling increased plasma concentrations of vasopressin and oxytocin, but hand milking did not. In a mixed system, presence of the kids may be necessary to stimulate release of the peptides and thereby contraction of the myoepithelial cells. However, milk stored in the udder cisterns can be obtained by hand milking without presence of oxytocin or vasopressin.
Immunolocalization of the Na-K-Cl cotransporter in bovine ciliary epithelium.

PURPOSE Recent evidence suggests that Na-K-Cl cotransport plays a major role in blood-to-aqueous anion transport across the ciliary body epithelium. The present study was undertaken to determine the location of the Na-K-Cl cotransporter in fixed sections of bovine eye. METHODS Sections of paraformaldehyde-fixed adult and calf bovine eyes were treated with a monoclonal antibody to mammalian Na-K-Cl cotransporter and a fluorescent secondary antibody and examined under a fluorescent microscope. Na-K-Cl cotransporter protein was detected on immunoblots of dissected tissue and purified nonpigmented ciliary epithelial (NPE) and pigmented ciliary epithelial (PE) cells. RESULTS Cotransporter immunofluorescence was most intense along the basolateral surfaces of the PE cells. Anterior pars plicata possessed the greatest PE immunofluorescence, and this diminished posteriorly toward the pars plana. Quantitation of immunofluorescence images indicated 7- to 10-fold more cotransporter protein in pars plicata PE than in pars plana PE. Diffuse cytoplasmic fluorescence was seen in the NPE cells, which was also brightest in anterior pars plicata. Immunoblots of separated PE and NPE cells from anterior pars plicata showed that PE contain four times more 170-kDa cotransporter protein than NPE. This confirmed fluorescence quantitation estimates. Cotransporter was barely detectable in cells isolated from pars plana in either cell layer. Immunoblots of the Na,K-ATPase catalytic (alpha) subunit in separated NPE and PE cells showed that NPE cells possessed approximately eight times more alpha subunit protein than PE. Immunofluorescence indicated a similar distribution of alpha subunits and indicated a basolateral membrane location for the subunit on both cell types. Na-K-Cl cotransporter fluorescence patterns showed more variability in adult animals than in calves, which may be related to aging and/or disease. Distinctive patterns of cotransporter fluorescence were also seen in the cornea, iris, and retina. CONCLUSIONS Localization of the Na-K-Cl cotransporter to the plasma membrane on the blood side of the ciliary epithelium tight junctions supports a role for the Na-K-Cl cotransporter in ciliary epithelium as a chloride entry mechanism involved in blood-to-aqueous chloride transport. The concentration of Na,K-ATPase catalytic subunits on NPE basolateral membranes could provide net Na(+) efflux into the aqueous humor.
Interactive Exploration and Discovery of Scientific Publications with PubVis

With an exponentially growing number of scientific papers published each year, advanced tools for exploring and discovering publications of interest are becoming indispensable. To empower users beyond a simple keyword search provided e.g. by Google Scholar, we present the novel web application PubVis. Powered by a variety of machine learning techniques, it combines essential features to help researchers find the content most relevant to them. An interactive visualization of a large collection of scientific publications provides an overview of the field and encourages the user to explore articles beyond a narrow research focus. This is augmented by personalized content based article recommendations as well as an advanced full text search to discover relevant references. The open sourced implementation of the app can be easily set up and run locally on a desktop computer to provide access to content tailored to the specific needs of individual users. Additionally, a PubVis demo with access to a collection of 10,000 papers can be tested online.
Creative Acts of School Violence

Not long ago I heard a news report about a case in Cobb County Georgia involving two 13-year-old girls who were accused of taking a poison cake to school. Apparently, the cornbread cake contained an expired prescription drug, bleach, clay, and Tabasco sauce. The cake sickened about a dozen children. This incident reminded me that how we think about school violence cannot be packaged into neat, conventional thinking about the way perpetrators plan and carry out violent acts at school. The approaches we invent for preventing and dealing with school violence demand imagination and creativity within the context of rational thinking. Years ago the counseling theorist Albert Ellis (1971) described the following notion as irrational:
The Generalized Back Projection Theorem for Cone Beam Reconstruction

The use of cone beam scanners raises the problem of three dimensional reconstruction from divergent projections. After a survey on bidimensional analytical reconstruction methods we examine their application to the 3D problem. Finally, it is shown that the back projection theorem can be generalized to cone beam projections. This allows to state a new inversion formula suitable for both the 4 ¿ parallel and divergent geometries. It leads to the generalization of the "rho-filtered back projection " algorithm which is outlined.
Performance comparison of binary and quaternary UWB modulation schemes

In this paper we test and compare different modulation strategies to be used in ultra-wide band (IR-UWB) communications. In the UWB systems of interest in this work the information is conveyed by short-duration pulses; the modulation scheme determine how the data stream is to be transmitted over those pulses. Here we test and compare several schemes based on three types of modulation. The first type is the pulse position modulation (PPM), which includes a pulse delay according to the data to be transmitted. The second is the recently proposed pulse shape modulation (PSM), that uses a different pulse shape to each data. The third one, proposed in this paper, is an M-ary modulation scheme that combines the shape and amplitude of the pulse to transmit the data, which we call pulse amplitude and shape modulation (PASM). Other M-ary schemes are tested, including the recent orthogonal M-ary PSM, based on orthogonal Hermite functions, and a new quaternary PPM scheme, also proposed here. All schemes are tested over an AWG channel.
DUDE-Seq: Fast, flexible, and robust denoising of nucleotide sequences

We consider the correction of errors from nucleotide sequences produced by next-generation sequencing. The error rate in reads has been increasing with the shift of focus of mainstream sequencers from accuracy to throughput. Denoising in high-throughput sequencing is thus becoming a crucial component for boosting the reliability of downstream analyses. Our methodology, named DUDE-Seq, is derived from a general setting of reconstructing finite-valued source data corrupted by a discrete memoryless channel and provides an effective means for correcting substitution and homopolymer indel errors, the two major types of sequencing errors in most high-throughput sequencing platforms. Our experimental studies with real and simulated data sets suggest that the proposed DUDE-Seq not only outperforms existing alternatives in terms of error-correction capabilities, and time efficiency, but also boosts the reliability of downstream analyses. Further, the flexibility of DUDE-Seq enables us to robustly apply it to different sequencing platforms and analysis pipelines by a simple update of the noise model. [availability: this http URL]
Perception, attention, and working memory are disproportionately impaired in dementia with Lewy bodies compared with Alzheimer's disease

OBJECTIVE To test the hypotheses that visuoperceptual and attentional ability are disproportionately impaired in patients having dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) compared with Alzheimer's disease (AD). METHODS A comprehensive battery of neuropsychological tasks designed to assess working, episodic, and semantic memory, and visuoperceptual and attentional functions was given to groups of patients with DLB (n=10) and AD (n=9), matched for age, education, and mini mental state examination (MMSE), and to normal controls (n=17). RESULTS Both patient groups performed equally poorly on tests of episodic and semantic memory with the exception of immediate and delayed story recall, which was worse in the AD group. Digit span was by contrast spared in AD. The most striking differences were on tests of visuoperceptual/spatial ability and attention. Whereas patients with AD performed normally on several subtests of the visual object and space perception battery, the DLB group showed substantial impairments. In keeping with previous studies, the AD group showed deficits in selective attention and set shifting, but patients with DLB were more impaired on virtually every test of attention with deficits in sustained, selective, and divided attention. CONCLUSIONS Patients with DLB have substantially greater impairment of attention, working memory, and visuoperceptual ability than patients with AD matched for overall dementia severity. Semantic memory seems to be equally affected in DLB and AD, unlike episodic memory, which is worse in AD. These findings may have relevance for our understanding of the genesis of visual hallucinations, and the differential diagnosis of AD and DLB.
The Importance of Social Relationship and Support System after Stroke: A Qualitative Inquiry

Background: Stroke is currently the main cause of neurological disability in Nigeria. The impact of stroke can be devastating, leaving a person with significant residual impairment of physical, psychological, and social functions. The residual physical consequences can pose a significant threat to a survivor’s quality of life: yet, we have an incomplete understanding of how stroke affects long-term quality of life. Objective: To develop a thorough understanding how essential social relationship and support systems are to enabling long-term QOL following stroke. Methods: This study reports finding from an in-depth interview with 15 stroke patients to understand the importance of social relationship and support system as essential dimensions of long-term quality of life following stroke. Results: The key themes identified by the patients were: social and instrumental supports, communication, autonomy, social role adjustments, sexual relationship and stigma. A lot of the interviews with the patients consisted of narratives regarding how stroke altered social relationships with families, spouses, friends and significant others. Conclusion: The finding of this study is consistent with the pre-existing researches attesting the importance of social relationship and support systems after stroke and therefore recommend including assessment of social functions and social support in estimating stroke-related quality of life.