Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polyunsaturated fatty acid concentration predicts myelin integrity in early-phase psychosis.

BACKGROUND White matter (WM) abnormalities have been implicated in schizophrenia, yet the mechanisms underlying these abnormalities are not fully understood. Several lines of evidence suggest that polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) play a role in myelination, and there is substantial evidence documenting decreased PUFA concentrations in schizophrenia. We therefore hypothesized that lower membrane PUFA concentrations may be related to reduced WM integrity in schizophrenia and related disorders. METHODS In 30 male patients with a recent-onset psychotic disorder, erythrocyte membrane PUFA concentrations were assessed and diffusion tensor imaging was performed with voxelwise analysis. RESULTS Lower total PUFA concentration was associated with lower fractional anisotropy (FA) throughout the corpus callosum and bilateral parietal, occipital, temporal and frontal WM (P < .05, corrected). Of the individual PUFAs, lower arachidonic acid concentration, and to a lesser extent, lower nervonic acid, linoleic acid, and docosapentaenoic acid concentration were significantly associated with lower FA. PUFA concentrations were inversely associated with radial diffusivity but showed little association with axial diffusivity. Greater severity of negative symptoms was associated with lower nervonic acid concentration and lower FA values. CONCLUSIONS Membrane PUFA concentrations appear to be robustly related to brain WM integrity in early phase psychosis. These findings may provide a basis for studies to investigate the effects of PUFA supplementation on WM integrity and associated symptomatology in early psychosis.
Time Lag Concerned Dynamic Dependency Network Structure Learning

Characterizing and understanding the structure and the evolution of networks is an important problem for many different fields. While in the real-world networks, especially the spatial networks, the time lags cost to propagate influences from one node to another tend to vary over both space and time due to the different space distances and propagation speeds between nodes. Thus time lag plays an essential role in interpreting the temporal causal dependency among nodes and also brings a big challenge in network structure learning. However most of the previous researches aiming to learn the dynamic network structure only treat the time lag as a predefined constant, which may miss important information or include noisy information if the time lag is set too small or too large. In this paper, we propose a dynamic Bayesian model which simultaneously integrates two usually separate tasks, i.e. learning the dynamic dependency network structure and estimating time lags, within one unified framework. Besides, we propose a novel weight kernel approach for time series segmenting and sampling via leveraging samples from adjacent segments to avoid the sample scarcity and an effective Bayesian scheme cooperated with RJMCMC and EP algorithms for parameter inference. To our knowledge, this is the first practical work for dynamic network structure learning concerned with adaptive time lag estimation. Extensive empirical evaluations are conducted on both synthetic and two real-world datasets, and the results demonstrate that our proposed model is superior to the traditional methods in learning the network structure and the temporal dependency.
Mild Hearing Impairment Can Reduce Verbal Memory Performance in a Healthy Adult Population

We studied to what extent immediate and delayed recall in an auditory verbal learning paradigm was affected by basic information processing speed (digit copying) and hearing acuity (average hearing acuity at 1, 2 and 4 KHz at the better ear). A group of 453 individuals in the age between 23 and 82 years with no overt hearing pathology was recruited from a larger study of cognitive aging (Maastricht Aging Study, MAAS). After controlling for age, sex, educational level, and processing speed it was found that a mild to moderate hearing loss predicted lower verbal memory performance. Auditory administered verbal memory tests can underestimate true memory performance, particularly in older individuals with unknown hearing status.
Impact of sub-optimal checkpoint intervals on application efficiency in computational clusters

As computational clusters rapidly grow in both size and complexity, system reliability and, in particular, application resilience have become increasingly important factors to consider in maintaining efficiency and providing improved computational performance over predecessor systems. One commonly used mechanism for providing application fault tolerance in parallel systems is the use of checkpointing. By making use of a multi-cluster simulator, we study the impact of sub-optimal checkpoint intervals on overall application efficiency. By using a model of a 1926 node cluster and workload statistics from Los Alamos National Laboratory to parameterize the simulator, we find that dramatically overestimating the AMTTI has a fairly minor impact on application efficiency while potentially having a much more severe impact on user-centric performance metrics such a queueing delay. We compare and contrast these results with the trends predicted by an analytical model.
Alzheimer ’ s Disease Clinical characteristics of late-onset Alzheimer ’ s disease ( LOAD ) Dr

The burden of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease Late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD) is the commonest cause of dementia in the world. At present, 0.9% of 65-year-olds, 4.2% of 75-year-olds, and 14.7% of 85-yearolds, worldwide, are estimated to have been diagnosed with LOAD [1]. Approximately 26.6 million people worldwide [2], and 296,000 people in Australia [3], are currently suffering from a dementia. By 2050, these numbers are expected to rise to 106.8 million [4] and 1.13 million [3], respectively. The total annual, direct and indirect costs, associated with the diagnosis, treatment, and ongoing care, of dementia sufferers are estimated to be 350.45 billion (AUS) worldwide, and 6.6 billion (AUS), in Australia [3]. The emotional and psychological costs to sufferers, and their families and carers, is incalculable. Caring for a person with dementia is associated with increased stress, anxiety, and sometimes depression [5, 6].
Polyvalent DNA Vaccines Expressing HA Antigens of H5N1 Influenza Viruses with an Optimized Leader Sequence Elicit Cross-Protective Antibody Responses

Highly pathogenic avian influenza A (HPAI) H5N1 viruses are circulating among poultry populations in parts of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and have caused human infections with a high mortality rate. H5 subtype hemagglutinin (HA) has evolved into phylogenetically distinct clades and subclades based on viruses isolated from various avian species. Since 1997, humans have been infected by HPAI H5N1 viruses from several clades. It is, therefore, important to develop strategies to produce protective antibody responses against H5N1 viruses from multiple clades or antigenic groups. In the current study, we optimized the signal peptide design of DNA vaccines expressing HA antigens from H5N1 viruses. Cross reactivity analysis using sera from immunized rabbits showed that antibody responses elicited by a polyvalent formulation, including HA antigens from different clades, was able to elicit broad protective antibody responses against multiple key representative H5N1 viruses across different clades. Data presented in this report support the development of a polyvalent DNA vaccine strategy against the threat of a potential H5N1 influenza pandemic.
Surprising properties of Maximum Parsimony on phylogenetic networks

Phylogenetic inference aims at reconstructing the evolutionary relationships of different species given some data (e.g. DNA, RNA or proteins). Traditionally, the relationships between species were assumed to be treelike, so the most frequently used phylogenetic inference methods like Maximum Parsimony were originally introduced to reconstruct phylogenetic trees. However, it has been well-known that some evolutionary events like hybridization or horizontal gene transfer cannot be represented by a tree but rather require a phylogenetic network. Therefore, current research seeks to adapt tree inference methods to networks. In the present paper, we analyze Maximum Parsimony on networks for various network definitions which have recently been introduced. For trees, there is a famous result by Tuffley and Steel which states that under a certain model of evolution, Maximum Parsimony always coincides with Maximum Likelihood. We now show that the various definitions Maximum Parsimony on networks can also be proven to be equivalent to certain functions which are similar to the likelihood concept, and we discuss their biological meaningfulness. We also present some complexity results of finding a most parsimonious network.
Nonparametric and Dual Likelihood in Survival Analysis

Recent results have shown that one can often construct dual likelihoods to analyze nonparametric likelihood ratio statistics. We will investigate a number of important statistics in survival analysis from this perspective. Findings include results on Bartlett correctibility and ancil-larity. In part of the discussion, we use a discrete time calculus for survival analysis, which we believe can be useful also in other contexts.
Mitochondrial fusion but not fission regulates larval growth and synaptic development through steroid hormone production

Mitochondrial fusion and fission affect the distribution and quality control of mitochondria. We show that Marf (Mitochondrial associated regulatory factor), is required for mitochondrial fusion and transport in long axons. Moreover, loss of Marf leads to a severe depletion of mitochondria in neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). Marf mutants also fail to maintain proper synaptic transmission at NMJs upon repetitive stimulation, similar to Drp1 fission mutants. However, unlike Drp1, loss of Marf leads to NMJ morphology defects and extended larval lifespan. Marf is required to form contacts between the endoplasmic reticulum and/or lipid droplets (LDs) and for proper storage of cholesterol and ecdysone synthesis in ring glands. Interestingly, human Mitofusin-2 rescues the loss of LD but both Mitofusin-1 and Mitofusin-2 are required for steroid-hormone synthesis. Our data show that Marf and Mitofusins share an evolutionarily conserved role in mitochondrial transport, cholesterol ester storage and steroid-hormone synthesis. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.03558. 001
CoenoFire: monitoring performance indicators of firefighters in real-world missions using smartphones

Firefighting is a dangerous task and many research projects have aimed at supporting firefighters during missions by developing new and often costly equipment. In contrast to previous approaches, we use the smartphone to monitor firefighters during real-world missions in order to provide objective data that can be used in post-incident briefings and trainings. In this paper, we present CoenoFire, a smartphone based sensing system aimed at monitoring temporal and behavioral performance indicators of firefighting missions. We validate the performance metrics showing that they can indicate why certain teams performed faster than others in a training scenario conducted by 16 firefighting teams. Furthermore, we deployed CoenoFire over a period of six weeks in a professional fire brigade. In total, 71 firefighters participated in our study and the collected data includes 76 real-world missions totaling to over 148 hours of mission data. Additionally, we visualize real-world mission data and show how mission feedback is supported by the data.
Truncated Epipolar Line Matching Method Based on Image Rectification

We present an efficient method based on image rectification for achieving the feature correspondence between images. The method is comprehensible through a geometric analysis of two rectified views. An important constraint-Truncation Point-is found and largely reduces a search range than the conventional method. The classical normalized cross-correlation is then performed on this search range to locate the correspondence points and tracking is followed further. The experiment demonstrates the considerable improvements obtained by this method as well as the good feature tracking effect.
Analysis of Uniform Circular Cylindrical Shells with Large Circular Holes

— a finite element analysis of a uniform cylindrical shell with a large circular cutout is presented. In this analysis three hole sizes are considered, respectively with radius a A = 62.87 mm; a B = 126.49 mm; a C = 196.01 mm. For the purpose of the research, the computer aided engineering software Abaqus (Dassault Systèmes, FR) is adopted in order to simulate material behaviour under compressive and torsional loading. The investigation is carried out with respect to the elastic behaviour of the material.
Biomarkers in the Management of Difficult Asthma

Difficult asthma is a heterogeneous disease of the airways including various types of bronchial inflammation and various degrees of airway remodeling. Therapeutic response of severe asthmatics can be predicted by the use of biomarkers of Type2-high or Type2-low inflammation. Based on sputum cell analysis, four inflammatory phenotypes have been described. As induced sputum is time-consuming and expensive technique, surrogate biomarkers are useful in clinical practice. Eosinophilic phenotype is likely to reflect ongoing adaptive immunity in response to allergen. Several biomarkers of eosinophilic asthma are easily available in clinical practice (blood eosinophils, serum IgE, exhaled nitric oxyde, serum periostin). Neutrophilic asthma is thought to reflect innate immune system activation in response to pollutants or infectious agents while paucigranulocytic asthma is thought to be not inflammatory and characterized by smooth muscle dysfunction. We currently lack of user-friendly biomarkers of neutrophilic asthma and airway remodeling. In this review, we summarize the biomarkers available for the management of difficult asthma.
A Controllable Local Peak-Shaving Strategy for Effective Utilization of PEV Battery Capacity for Distribution Network Support

Plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) have a potential amount of battery energy storage capacity, which is not fully utilized in regular day-to-day travels. The utilization of spare PEV battery capacity for grid support applications using vehicle-to-grid concept is becoming popular. Depending on the stress on the grid during peak load periods, a small amount of peak-shaving support from the PEVs in a feeder can be useful in terms of grid support. However, as the PEV batteries have limited capacity and the capacity usage is also constrained by travel requirements, a strategy is proposed in this paper for an effective utilization of the available PEV battery capacity for peak shaving. A controllable discharging pattern is developed to most utilize the limited PEV battery capacity when peak shaving is most valuable based on the demand pattern. To ensure an effective use of the available PEV battery capacity for travel, which is the main usage of the PEVs, and for grid support application, dynamic adjustments in PEV discharging rates are made. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is tested using a real distribution system in Australia and based on practical PEV data.
Characterization of the human aqueous humour proteome: A comparison of the genders

Aqueous humour (AH) is an important biologic fluid that maintains normal intraocular pressure and contains proteins that regulate the homeostasis of ocular tissues. Any alterations in the protein compositions are correlated to the pathogenesis of various ocular disorders. In recent years, gender-based medicine has emerged as an important research focus considering the prevalence of certain diseases, which are higher in a particular sex. Nevertheless, the inter-gender variations in the AH proteome are unknown. Therefore, this study endeavoured to characterize the AH proteome to assess the differences between genders. Thirty AH samples of patients who underwent cataract surgery were categorized according to their gender. Label-free quantitative discovery mass spectrometry-based proteomics strategy was employed to characterize the AH proteome. A total of 147 proteins were identified with a false discovery rate of less than 1% and only the top 10 major AH proteins make up almost 90% of the total identified proteins. A large number of proteins identified were correlated to defence, immune and inflammatory mechanisms, and response to wounding. Four proteins were found to be differentially abundant between the genders, comprising SERPINF1, SERPINA3, SERPING1 and PTGDS. The findings emerging from our study provide the first insight into the gender-based proteome differences in the AH and also highlight the importance in considering potential sex-dependent changes in the proteome of ocular pathologies in future studies employing the AH.
Implicit Indicators of Women's Persistence in Math, Science, and Engineering

The disproportionate dropout rate of female college students from math, science, and engineering (MSE) fields has recently received much attention (Brainard, Laurich-McIntyre, & Mobley, 1995; Carlin, 1997). The reasons for women’s higher attrition rate from MSE fields remain unclear. Eighty 1st-year university students with a preexisting interest in MSE completed a computer task—the Implicit Association Test (IAT)—that measured identification with MSE, gender stereotypes regarding MSE, and attitudes toward MSE on an implicit, nonconscious level. Results indicated that women showed less implicit identification with MSE than did men, and that men showed stronger implicit stereotypes about MSE being “male” fields. Surprisingly, although men and women held negative implicit attitudes toward MSE, they did not differ significantly from each other in their implicit MSE attitudes. These results may have implications for better understanding women’s persistence in MSE. LORA E. PARK
Cost-sensitive LVQ for bankruptcy prediction: An empirical study

Cost-sensitive learning is of critical importance in many domains including bankruptcy prediction where the costs of different errors are unequal. Most existing classification methods aim to minimize overall error based on the assumption that the costs are equal. This paper presents three cost-sensitive learning vector quantization (LVQ) approaches to incorporate cost matrix in classification. Experimental results on real-world data indicate the proposed approaches are effective alternatives for bankruptcy prediction in cost-sensitive situations.
Comparing the Effect of Preoperative Administration of Methylprednisolone and its Administration Before and During Surgery on the Clinical Outcome in Pediatric Open Heart Surgeries

Background Cardiac surgery under Cardiopulmonary bypass causes a systemic inflammatory response with a multifactorial etiology including direct tissue damage, ischemia and stimulation of immune system induced by cardiopulmonary bypass. This study was designed due to the high prevalence and complications of this stimulated immune system in mortality, morbidity, length of ICU stay, and mechanical ventilation. Objectives This study was aimed to compare preoperative and intraoperative methylprednisolone (MP) to intraoperative MP alone with respect to postbypass inflammation and clinical outcome. Patients and Methods Sixty pediatric patients (age < 5years) undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass surgery between September 2011-2012 at Imam Reza hospital-Mashhad were randomly assigned to receive preoperative and intraoperative MP (group 1: 30 mg/kg, 4 hours before bypass and in bypass prime, n = 30) or intraoperative MP only (group 2: 30 mg/kg, n = 30). Postoperative temperature (peak temperature and average temperature during the first 24 hours), amount of inotropic, duration of mechanical ventilation, ICU stay, WBC, BUN, creatinine, and CRP were recorded and compared in both groups. Data were analyzed with SPSS version 13 by T-test, Mann-Whitney test if necessary, and Chi-squared distribution. Results Patient characteristics including age, weight, gender, and duration of bypass were almost similar in both groups (P > 0.05). No significant difference in amount of inotropic medications used for hemodynamic supports, duration of mechanical ventilation, peak and average temperature and length of ICU stay was observed. Among the laboratory tests (WBC, BUN, creatinine, CRP) only WBC counts raised more in group 2 when compared to group 1(P < 0.05). Conclusions There was no difference in clinical outcome after cardiac surgery when we administered an additional dose of methylprednisolone compared to a single dose of methylprednisolone.
CSL encodes a leucine-rich-repeat protein implicated in red/violet light signaling to the circadian clock in Chlamydomonas

The green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii shows various light responses in behavior and physiology. One such photoresponse is the circadian clock, which can be reset by external light signals to entrain its oscillation to daily environmental cycles. In a previous report, we suggested that a light-induced degradation of the clock protein ROC15 is a trigger to reset the circadian clock in Chlamydomonas. However, light signaling pathways of this process remained unclear. Here, we screened for mutants that show abnormal ROC15 diurnal rhythms, including the light-induced protein degradation at dawn, using a luciferase fusion reporter. In one mutant, ROC15 degradation and phase resetting of the circadian clock by light were impaired. Interestingly, the impairments were observed in response to red and violet light, but not to blue light. We revealed that an uncharacterized gene encoding a protein similar to RAS-signaling-related leucine-rich repeat (LRR) proteins is responsible for the mutant phenotypes. Our results indicate that a previously uncharacterized red/violet light signaling pathway is involved in the phase resetting of circadian clock in Chlamydomonas.