Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autistic Traits in Neurotypical Adults: Correlates of Graph Theoretical Functional Network Topology and White Matter Anisotropy Patterns

Attempts to explicate the neural abnormalities behind autism spectrum disorders frequently revealed impaired brain connectivity, yet our knowledge is limited about the alterations linked with autistic traits in the non-clinical population. In our study, we aimed at exploring the neural correlates of dimensional autistic traits using a dual approach of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and graph theoretical analysis of resting state functional MRI data. Subjects were sampled from a public neuroimaging dataset of healthy volunteers. Inclusion criteria were adult age (age: 18–65), availability of DTI and resting state functional acquisitions and psychological evaluation including the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and Autistic Spectrum Screening Questionnaire (ASSQ). The final subject cohort consisted of 127 neurotypicals. Global brain network structure was described by graph theoretical parameters: global and average local efficiency. Regional topology was characterized by degree and efficiency. We provided measurements for diffusion anisotropy. The association between autistic traits and the neuroimaging findings was studied using a general linear model analysis, controlling for the effects of age, gender and IQ profile. Significant negative correlation was found between the degree and efficiency of the right posterior cingulate cortex and autistic traits, measured by the combination of ASSQ and SRS scores. Autistic phenotype was associated with the decrease of whole-brain local efficiency. Reduction of diffusion anisotropy was found bilaterally in the temporal fusiform and parahippocampal gyri. Numerous models describe the autistic brain connectome to be dominated by reduced long-range connections and excessive short-range fibers. Our finding of decreased efficiency supports this hypothesis although the only prominent effect was seen in the posterior limbic lobe, which is known to act as a connector hub. The neural correlates of the autistic trait in neurotypicals showed only limited similarities to the reported findings in clinical populations with low functioning autism.
HIV Infection and Microbial Diversity in Saliva

ABSTRACT Limited information is available about the effects of HIV and subsequent antiretroviral treatment on host-microbe interactions. This study aimed to determine the salivary microbial composition for 10 HIV-seropositive subjects, before and 6 months after highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), compared with that for 10 HIV-seronegative subjects. A conventional culture and two culture-independent analyses were used and consistently demonstrated differences in microbial composition among the three sets of samples. HIV-positive subjects had higher levels of total cultivable microbes, including oral streptococci, lactobacilli, Streptococcus mutans, and Candida, in saliva than did HIV-negative subjects. The total cultivable microbial levels were significantly correlated with CD4+ T cell counts. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), which compared the overall microbial profiles, showed distinct fingerprinting profiles for each group. The human oral microbe identification microarray (HOMIM) assay, which compared the 16S rRNA genes, showed clear separation among the three sample groups. Veillonella, Synergistetes, and Streptococcus were present in all 30 saliva samples. Only minor changes or no changes in the prevalence of Neisseria, Haemophilus, Gemella, Leptotrichia, Solobacterium, Parvimonas, and Rothia were observed. Seven genera, Capnocytophaga, Slackia, Porphyromonas, Kingella, Peptostreptococcaceae, Lactobacillus, and Atopobium, were detected only in HIV-negative samples. The prevalences of Fusobacterium, Campylobacter, Prevotella, Capnocytophaga, Selenomonas, Actinomyces, Granulicatella, and Atopobium were increased after HAART. In contrast, the prevalence of Aggregatibacter was significantly decreased after HAART. The findings of this study suggest that HIV infection and HAART can have significant effects on salivary microbial colonization and composition.
Prognosis for patients newly admitted to hospital with heart failure: survival trends in 12 220 index admissions in Leicestershire 1993–2001

Objective: To examine rates of, prognosis following, and the influences on first hospital admission with heart failure in Leicestershire during 1993–2001. Design: Historical cohort study using record linked discharge and mortality data. Setting: Leicestershire, England. Patients: 12 220 individual patients newly hospitalised with heart failure between 1 April 1993 and 31 March 2001. Main outcome measures: 30 day and one year survival, temporal trends in survival, and the influence on prognosis of age, sex, comorbidity, social deprivation, and year of hospital admission. Methods and results: Between 1993/94 and 2000/01, rates of first hospitalisation increased by 62%, from 29 to 47/10 000 population, confined largely to those aged > 65 years. Rates did not increase after 1998. Median age at presentation increased from 74 years in 1993/94 to 77 years in 2000/01 for men but was unchanged (80 years) for women. Overall one and five year survival was 57% and 27%, respectively. There was a 43–45% increase in risk of death for each decade of age at admission and a 14–17% increase associated with male sex. There was a clear influence on outcome of comorbidity but no influence of social deprivation score. Both one month and one year survival were lower for patients whose first heart failure admission was concomitant with acute myocardial infarction. Between 1993/94 and 2000/01 postdischarge cardiovascular survival improved by 50% (p < 0.001). Conclusions: Rates of first hospital admission with heart failure reached a plateau in the late 1990s. Case fatality rates remain high and prognosis poor, in particular for those of increasing age, for men, and for patients with concomitant acute myocardial infarction. However, clear trends to improved survival were seen over this time.
How we give personalised audio feedback after summative OSCEs

Abstract Background: Students often receive little feedback after summative objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) to enable them to improve their performance. Electronic audio feedback has shown promise in other educational areas. Aim: We investigated the feasibility of electronic audio feedback in OSCEs. Methods: An electronic OSCE system was designed, comprising (1) an application for iPads allowing examiners to mark in the key consultation skill domains, provide “tick-box” feedback identifying strengths and difficulties, and record voice feedback; (2) a feedback website giving students the opportunity to view/listen in multiple ways to the feedback. Acceptability of the audio feedback was investigated, using focus groups with students and questionnaires with both examiners and students. Results: 87 (95%) students accessed the examiners’ audio comments; 83 (90%) found the comments useful and 63 (68%) reported changing the way they perform a skill as a result of the audio feedback. They valued its highly personalised, relevant nature and found it much more useful than written feedback. Eighty-nine per cent of examiners gave audio feedback to all students on their stations. Although many found the method easy, lack of time was a factor. Conclusions: Electronic audio feedback provides timely, personalised feedback to students after a summative OSCE provided enough time is allocated to the process.
Empathy development in medical education – A critical review

Physicians’ empathy is generally regarded as important and attempts are made to foster empathy. However, research indicates that the medical students’ empathy is often stunted during medical education, and our understanding of how empathy is modulated during medical education is limited. This critical review explores some relatively-neglected challenges in the literature on empathy development in medical education. There is a lack of adequate attention to physicians’ disciplinary matrix, the medico-scientific formation of physicians is often neglected, the dichotomy between the science and the humanities lives on and the ‘soft’ side is often presented as an appendix. This may contribute to sustain a double-blinded, dichotomized clinical gaze – a clinical gaze that tends to separate biomedical aspects from human experience and understanding and to neglect existential aspects of both the physician and the patient. Empathy training and the humanities should not be situated outside the hard core of medicine, but rather foster critical discussions of the limits and strengths of biomedical paradigms throughout medicine. In this way, the gap between biomedicine and the humanities could be bridged, and empathy training could contribute both in developing physicians’ general clinical perception and judgement and in preventing the widespread stunting of empathy.
Novel Association of ABO Histo-Blood Group Antigen with Soluble ICAM-1: Results of a Genome-Wide Association Study of 6,578 Women

While circulating levels of soluble Intercellular Adhesion Molecule 1 (sICAM-1) have been associated with diverse conditions including myocardial infarction, stroke, malaria, and diabetes, comprehensive analysis of the common genetic determinants of sICAM-1 is not available. In a genome-wide association study conducted among 6,578 participants in the Women's Genome Health Study, we find that three SNPs at the ICAM1 (19p13.2) locus (rs1799969, rs5498 and rs281437) are non-redundantly associated with plasma sICAM-1 concentrations at a genome-wide significance level (P<5×10−8), thus extending prior results from linkage and candidate gene studies. We also find that a single SNP (rs507666, P = 5.1×10−29) at the ABO (9q34.2) locus is highly correlated with sICAM-1 concentrations. The novel association at the ABO locus provides evidence for a previously unknown regulatory role of histo-blood group antigens in inflammatory adhesion processes.
Late-time ringing characterization of cavity-backed UWB printed monopole antenna

This paper deals with the characterization of late-time ringing of cavity-backed ultra-wide band (UWB) printed monopole antenna. The proposed antenna is designed to have the working bandwidth of 5000MHz implementable for ground penetrating radar (GPR) application. A metallic cavity is developed to equip the antenna in order to get a unidirectional radiation pattern, therefore it is called as cavity-backed UWB printed monopole antenna. As one of critical parameters in GPR application, late-time ringing of the antenna is characterized experimentally in the conjunction with other parameters such as return loss, gain, and radiation pattern. From the characterization result, the antenna which is printed on a 1.6mm thick FR4 epoxy dielectric substrate works well within the frequency range of 50–5000MHz with the ringing level lower than −40dB for pulse of 5ns duration.
Wadhwa , Thorpe : Therapeutic use of haematopoietic growth factors 865 Factors controlling haematopoiesis

Haematopoietic growth factors constitute an important group of proteins that predominantly regulate the process of haematopoiesis. While some of these proteins have a very broad array of action on very early haematopoietic progenitors leading to multi-lineage increases in haematopoietic cell production and differentiation, others act in a restricted manner on specific committed terminally differentiated cell types. On the basis of their unique spectrum of activities, several factors are approved for clinical use in various indications while others are under investigation in the clinic either alone or as combination therapy.
Facilitating the Creative Functions of the Gifted

An important focus in our conception of educating the gifted child to the full over the past few years has been the identification of his creative potential and what we can do to enhance its development. In fact the Summer 1975 issue of the GIFTED CHILD QUARTERLY devotes itself almost wholly to measurement of creative potential as it relates to some of the more recent developments in the field, and reading the several important papers will give you an idea of how much more has been said about this question elsewhere; and in the Fall issue of the GIFTED CHILD QUARTERLY of the same year, you will find excerpted from an evaluation report on Project Talented and Gifted (ESEA Title III, Region II, W.V.) a brief summary of some major attempts at nurturing creative potential (Khatena, 1974a). Several other recent papers have tried to appraise the progress that was made in both these areas, namely, identification and nurture (Khatena, 1975ab).
Type-specific persistence of human papillomavirus DNA before the development of invasive cervical cancer.

BACKGROUND Infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) has been established as a cause of cervical cancer, but the association between a positive test for HPV DNA and the risk of the subsequent development of invasive cervical cancer is unknown. METHODS In a study of women who participated in a population-based screening program for cancer of the cervix in Sweden from 1969 to 1995, we compared the proportion of normal cervical smears (Pap smears) that were positive for HPV DNA among 118 women in whom invasive cervical cancer developed an average of 5.6 years later (range, 0.5 month to 26.2 years) with the proportion of HPV DNA-positive smears from 118 women who remained healthy during a similar length of follow-up (controls). The control women were matched for age to the women with cancer, and they had had two normal Pap smears obtained at time points that were similar to the times of the baseline smear and the diagnosis of cancer confirmed by biopsy in the women with cancer. RESULTS At baseline, 35 of the women with cancer (30 percent) and 3 of the control women (3 percent) were positive for HPV DNA (odds ratio, 16.4; 95 percent confidence interval, 4.4 to 75.1). At the time of diagnosis, 80 of the 104 women with cancer for whom tissue samples were available (77 percent) and 4 of the 104 matched control women (4 percent) were positive for HPV DNA. The HPV DNA type was the same in the base-line smear and the biopsy specimen in all of the women with cancer in whom HPV DNA was detected at base line. None of the control women had the same type of HPV in both smears. CONCLUSIONS A single positive finding of HPV DNA in a Pap smear confers an increased risk of future invasive cervical cancer that is positive for the same type of virus as identified earlier.
Designing SDI4Apps POI Base

The SDI4Apps project has collected a large number of points of interest (POIs). This data set represents a seamless and open resource of POIs in Europe. Its principal target is to provide information for cycling as Linked data together with other data set containing road network. The POIs, which will be available for other users for download, search and reuse, will be helpful for other applications in tourism as well. The article presents the data model for POIs and harmonization of external data sources into this data model. The current version of the SDI4Apps POI data set includes a harmonized combination of selected OpenStreetMap data, experimental ontologies and local data. A short comparison of the SDI4Apps POIs with the OpenPOIs data set is presented.
United States Food and Drug Administration New Management Strategies in Heart Failure

Between 2001 and 2012, 154 clinical trials in heart failure (HF) involving 162 725 patients were undertaken; the majority of which investigated the treatment for chronic HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). Enrollment rates did not significantly change over time, but those trials meeting their primary end point decreased during the same time period. As a result, until 2015, only 2 new drugs had been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of HFrEF in more than a decade: the aldosterone antagonist eplerenone in 2003 and a fixed dose combination of hydralazine–isosorbide dinitrate in 2005. In contrast, 2015 has witnessed the Food and Drug Administration approval of 2 new drugs, both for the treatment of chronic HFrEF: ivabradine and another combination drug, sacubitril/valsartan or LCZ696 (Table 1). Seemingly overnight, a range of therapeutic possibilities, evoking new physiological mechanisms, promise great hope for a disease that often carries a prognosis worse than many forms of cancer. Importantly, the newly available therapies represent an extension of a timeline predicated on basic and translational research. This review will summarize newer drugs currently being used in the treatment of HF, as well as newer strategies increasingly explored for their utility during the stages of the HF syndrome.
Robustness of Networks with Skewed Degree Distributions under Strategic Node Protection

Previous studies on the robustness of networks against intentional attacks have suggested that protecting a small fraction of important nodes in a network significantly improves its robustness. In this paper, we analyze the robustness of networks under several strategic node protection schemes. Strategic node protection schemes select a small fraction of nodes as important nodes, using a network measure such as node centrality, and protect the important nodes to prevent them from being removed by intentional attacks. Our simulation results indicate that (1) strategic node protection significantly improves the robustness of networks with skewed degree distributions, (2) the efficiency of strategic node protection schemes is affected by the strength of community structure of the network being protected, and (3) strategic node protection based on betweenness centrality can effectively improve the robustness of networks regardless of the strength of community structure.
Pharmacokinetics of the Antimalarial Drug, AQ-13, in Rats and Cynomolgus Macaques

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of a new antimalarial drug, AQ-13, a structural analog of chloroquine (CQ) that is active against CQ-resistant Plasmodium species, in rats and cynomolgus macaques. Sprague-Dawley rats (n = 4/sex) were administered a single dose of AQ-13 intravenously (i.v.) (10 mg/kg) or orally (20 or 102 mg/kg). Blood and plasma samples were collected at several timepoints. AQ-13 achieved C max after oral administration at approximately 3 to 4 h and could be detected in blood for 2 to 5 days after oral administration. The ratio of area under the curve (AUC) values at the high and low dose for AQ-13 deviated from an expected ratio of 5.0, indicating nonlinear kinetics. A metabolite peak was noted in the chromatograms that was identified as monodesethyl AQ-13. Oral bioavailability of AQ-13 was good, approximately 70%. The pharmacokinetics of AQ-13 was also determined in cynomolgus macaques after single (i.v., 10 mg/kg; oral, 20 or 100 mg/kg) and multiple doses (oral loading dose of 50, 100, or 200 mg/kg on first day followed by oral maintenance dose of 25, 50, or 100 mg/kg, respectively, for 6 days). The AUC and C max values following single oral dose administration were not dose proportional; the C max value for AQ-13 was 15-fold higher following an oral dose of 100 mg/kg compared to 20 mg/kg. MonodesethylAQ-13 was a significant metabolite formed by cynomolgus macaques and the corresponding C max values for this metabolite increased only 3.8-fold over the dose range, suggesting that the formation of monodesethyl AQ-13 is saturable in this species. The bioavailability of AQ-13 in cynomolgus macaques following oral administration was 23.8% for the 20-mg/kg group and 47.6% for the 100-mg/kg group. Following repeat dose administration, high concentrations of monodesethyl AQ-13 were observed in the blood by day 4, exceeding the AQ-13 blood concentrations through day 22. Saturation of metabolic pathways and reduced metabolite elimination after higher doses are suggested to play a key role in AQ-13 pharmacokinetics in macaques. In summary, the pharmacokinetic profile and metabolism ofAQ-13 are very similar to that reported in the literature for chloroquine, suggesting that this new agent is a promising candidate for further development for the treatment of chloroquine-resistant malaria.
Relevanseek : Determining relevant images from HTML source

Webpages of online articles typically contain one or more images which are relevant to the article, such as a photo of a key person or a graph of figures mentioned in an article, and many images which are irrelevant, such as links to related articles, “share” buttons, and advertisements. Given the HTML source to an article webpage, but without actual image data, we are able to train a model able to distinguish the two classes of images with high accuracy. Relevanseek was the winner of Diffbot’s Machine Learning Challenge for this classification problem.1
LMI-based H−/H∞ observer design in low frequency domain with application in fault detection

This paper deals with the robust fault detection(FD) problem in low frequency domain for linear time-delay systems. The H∞ norm and H− index are employed to measure the robustness to unknown inputs and the sensitivity to faults, respectively. The main results include derivation of a sufficient condition for the existence of a robust fault detection observer and a construction of it based on the linear matrix inequality(LMI) solution parameters. Finally, numerical simulation demonstrates the effectiveness of the presented methodology.
CHRIS DATA PRODUCTS - LATEST ISSUE

At the CHRIS/PROBA Workshop held last year in ESRIN a review was presented of various aspects associated with the CHRIS calibration [1]. The review addressed: first, the variation of the dark signal data, secondly, the use of the “generic” dark-field data sets for correcting analogue electronic offsets and, thirdly, the influence of the platform temperature variations on instrument response and hence radiometric calibration. It was concluded, first, that the errors introduced by gradual increase in dark signal through the mission life were negligible. Secondly, the use of the “generic” dark image data for correcting analogue offsets is probably acceptable for most land applications, where the scene albedo is relatively high. However, improvements in absolute offset errors may be worth pursuing for coastal scenes where the scene albedos are low, accepting that some images may experience saturation when imaging bright targets. Lastly, the temperature-induced pixel shifts significantly affect radiometric calibration and this effect required modelling within the image processing software. This paper reviews the changes that have been made to the data processing, following on from last year’s conclusions, and also addresses other information that has been added to the CHRIS data sets.