Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Diabetes-Specific Measure of Patient Desire to Participate in Medical Decision Making

PURPOSE the goal of this study was to develop a diabetesspecific scale of patient desire to participate in medical decision making (DPMD) and examine its internal consistency reliability, stability, and validity (content, discriminant, convergent, and construct). METHODS In a cross-sectional study, 65 patients with type 2 diabetes from a teaching hospital's general medical clinic were interviewed at baseline and 2 weeks later to measure their DPMD scores. Data were collected on demographic/clinical features, health value, social support, desire to make a final decision, and value of patient autonomy. RESULTS Of the 11 DPMD items, 2 distinct factors emerged representing desire for discussion and desire for information. The DPMD scale had high internal consistency reliability, was stable over 2 weeks and demonstrated good content validity. DPMD scale items were more correlated with each other than with health value or social support. Overall, patients who obtained diabetes education reported greater desire to participate in decisions. Younger patients had a greater overall desire for discussion. The DPMD desire for discussion subscale correlated with patients' desire to make the final treatment decision but not with patients' value of autonomy. CONCLUSIONS The DPMD is a brief, reliable, valid measure for assessing patient desire to participate in diabetes medical decision making.
A magnetoelectronic register file cell for a self‐checkpointing microprocessor

A self‐checkpointing microprocessor periodically copies the state of the currently executing program to on‐chip non‐volatile storage, allowing it to resume execution of the program at the last checkpoint after a power supply interruption or shutdown. In this paper, we present a register file cell for a self‐checkpointing microprocessor that integrates a magnetoelectronic non‐volatile memory cell into a register cell similar to the one used in the Itanium 2 microprocessor. Our design allows the contents of each bit in the register file to be checkpointed simultaneously, reducing the time required to take a checkpoint to a few clock cycles, without compromising the performance of the register file during normal read and write operations. Because the area of the base register file cell is determined by the wiring tracks it requires, adding self‐checkpointing to the cell only increases its area by 6%. Similarly, adding self‐checkpointing has effectively no impact on the cell's performance, only increasing read and write times from 299 to 300 ps, even when the additional load on the bit lines from the larger cells is considered. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Effects of Dental Rehabilitation under General Anesthesia on Children’s Oral-Health-Related Quality of Life: Saudi Arabian Parents’ Perspectives

Aim: To determine whether dental treatment under general anesthesia (GA) would improve quality of life for children as reported by Saudi Arabian parents using a Parental-Caregivers Perceptions Questionnaire (P-CPQ) and a Family Impact Scale (FIS). Methods: Sixty-six parents completed P-CPQ and FIS scales four to eight weeks after their children (ages three to ten years) underwent comprehensive dental treatment under GA. Postoperative data were compared with baseline data gathered before GA using paired t-test at the 0.05 level of significance. The responsiveness of the P-CPQ and the FIS and the magnitude of changes in children’s quality of life as a result of dental treatment were determined by calculating the effect size (ES). Cross-sectional construct validity and internal consistency were also examined using the pretreatment scores of the P-CPQ and the FIS scores. Results: The overall P-CPQ and FIS scores showed a significant decrease following treatment, concomitant with large ES in both scales and all their subscales with the exception of social wellbeing, which showed moderate ES (ES 0.59). The greatest relative changes were seen in the oral symptoms (ES 1.81) and the family activity (ES 1.57) subscales. Conclusion: Dental treatment under GA is associated with considerable improvement in children’s quality of life as perceived by Saudi parents. The P-CPQ and the FIS scales are valid and responsive to changes resulting from dental treatment of young children affected by severe childhood caries.
Zinc Finger Binding Motifs Do Not Explain Recombination Rate Variation within or between Species of Drosophila

In humans and mice, the Cys2His2 zinc finger protein PRDM9 binds to a DNA sequence motif enriched in hotspots of recombination, possibly modifying nucleosomes, and recruiting recombination machinery to initiate Double Strand Breaks (DSBs). However, since its discovery, some researchers have suggested that the recombinational effect of PRDM9 is lineage or species specific. To test for a conserved role of PRDM9-like proteins across taxa, we use the Drosophila pseudoobscura species group in an attempt to identify recombination associated zinc finger proteins and motifs. We leveraged the conserved amino acid motifs in Cys2His2 zinc fingers to predict nucleotide binding motifs for all Cys2His2 zinc finger proteins in Drosophila pseudoobscura and identified associations with empirical measures of recombination rate. Additionally, we utilized recombination maps from D. pseudoobscura and D. miranda to explore whether changes in the binding motifs between species can account for changes in the recombination landscape, analogous to the effect observed in PRDM9 among human populations. We identified a handful of potential recombination-associated sequence motifs, but the associations are generally tenuous and their biological relevance remains uncertain. Furthermore, we found no evidence that changes in zinc finger DNA binding explains variation in recombination rate between species. We therefore conclude that there is no protein with a DNA sequence specific human-PRDM9-like function in Drosophila. We suggest these findings could be explained by the existence of a different recombination initiation system in Drosophila.
Different Metabolomic Responses to Carbon Starvation between Light and Dark Conditions in the Purple Photosynthetic Bacterium, Rhodopseudomonas palustris

Purple photosynthetic bacteria utilize light energy for growth. We previously demonstrated that light energy contributed to prolonging the survival of multiple purple bacteria under carbon-starved conditions. In order to clarify the effects of illumination on metabolic states under carbon-starved, non-growing conditions, we herein compared the metabolic profiles of starved cells in the light and dark using the purple bacterium, Rhodopseudomonas palustris. The metabolic profiles of starved cells in the light were markedly different from those in the dark. After starvation for 5 d in the light, cells showed increases in the amount of ATP and the NAD+/NADH ratio. Decreases in the amounts of most metabolites related to glycolysis and the TCA cycle in energy-rich starved cells suggest the active utilization of these metabolites for the modification of cellular components. Starvation in the dark induced the consumption of cellular compounds such as amino acids, indicating that the degradation of these cellular components produced ATP in order to maintain viability under energy-poor conditions. The present results suggest that intracellular energy levels alter survival strategies under carbon-starved conditions through metabolism.
Positive online attentional training as a means of modifying attentional and interpretational biases among the clinically depressed: An experimental study using eye tracking.

OBJECTIVE The present study examined the effectiveness of online positive attention bias modification training (ABMT) in inducing positive attention and positive interpretational biases in depressed individuals. METHOD Clinically depressed individuals (n = 60) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions of 14-day online ABMT. In the positive ABMT condition, a probe replaced positive stimuli in 100% of trials. In the control condition, the probe replaced positive stimuli in 50% of trials. Before and after training, we recorded eye movements during the completion of a Scrambled Sentence Task in which participants created positive or negative sentences. Participants also completed measures of symptoms of depression and anxiety. RESULTS After training, participants in the positive ABMT condition fixated longer on positive keywords than participants in the control group and experienced a significant reduction in anxiety. CONCLUSION These findings suggest that positive AMBT can promote positive attention bias among clinically depressed individuals.
Driver Mutations in Uveal Melanoma: Associations With Gene Expression Profile and Patient Outcomes.

IMPORTANCE Frequent mutations have been described in the following 5 genes in uveal melanoma (UM): BAP1, EIF1AX, GNA11, GNAQ, and SF3B1. Understanding the prognostic significance of these mutations could facilitate their use in precision medicine. OBJECTIVE To determine the associations between driver mutations, gene expression profile (GEP) classification, clinicopathologic features, and patient outcomes in UM. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Retrospective study of patients with UM treated by enucleation by a single ocular oncologist between November 1, 1998, and July 31, 2014. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Clinicopathologic features, patient outcomes, GEP classification (class 1 or class 2), and mutation status were recorded. RESULTS The study cohort comprised 81 participants. Their mean age was 61.5 years, and 37% (30 of 81) were female. The GEP classification was class 1 in 35 of 81 (43%), class 2 in 42 of 81 (52%), and unknown in 4 of 81 (5%). BAP1 mutations were identified in 29 of 64 (45%), GNAQ mutations in 36 of 81 (44%), GNA11 mutations in 36 of 81 (44%), SF3B1 mutations in 19 of 81 (24%), and EIF1AX mutations in 14 of 81 (17%). Sixteen of the mutations in BAP1 and 6 of the mutations in EIF1AX were previously unreported in UM. GNAQ and GNA11 mutations were mutually exclusive. BAP1, SF3B1, and EIF1AX mutations were almost mutually exclusive with each other. Using multiple regression analysis, BAP1 mutations were associated with class 2 GEP and older patient. EIF1AX mutations were associated with class 1 GEP and the absence of ciliary body involvement. SF3B1 mutations were associated with younger patient age. GNAQ mutations were associated with the absence of ciliary body involvement and greater largest basal diameter. GNA11 mutations were not associated with any of the analyzed features. Using Cox proportional hazards modeling, class 2 GEP was the prognostic factor most strongly associated with metastasis (relative risk, 9.4; 95% CI, 3.1-28.5) and melanoma-specific mortality (relative risk, 15.7; 95% CI, 3.6-69.1) (P < .001 for both). After excluding GEP class, the presence of BAP1 mutations was the factor most strongly associated with metastasis (relative risk, 10.6; 95% CI, 3.4-33.5) and melanoma-specific mortality (relative risk, 9.0; 95% CI, 2.8-29.2) (P < .001 for both). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE BAP1, SF3B1, and EIF1AX mutations occur during UM tumor progression in an almost mutually exclusive manner and are associated with different levels of metastatic risk. These mutations may have value as prognostic markers in UM.
A Randomized Control Trial of Working Memory Training With and Without Strategy Instruction

Researchers are increasingly interested in working memory (WM) training. However, it is unclear whether it strengthens comprehension in young children who are at risk for learning difficulties. We conducted a modest study of whether the training of verbal WM would improve verbal WM and passage listening comprehension and whether training effects differed between two approaches: training with and without strategy instruction. A total of 58 first-grade children were randomly assigned to three groups: WM training with a rehearsal strategy, WM training without strategy instruction, and controls. Each member of the two training groups received a one-to-one, 35-min session of verbal WM training on each of 10 consecutive school days, totaling 5.8 hr. Both training groups improved on trained verbal WM tasks, with the rehearsal group making greater gains. Without correction for multiple group comparisons, the rehearsal group made reliable improvements over controls on an untrained verbal WM task and on passage listening comprehension and listening retell measures. The no-strategy-instruction group outperformed controls on passage listening comprehension. When corrected for multiple contrasts, these group differences disappeared but were associated with moderate to large effect sizes. Findings suggest—however tentatively—that brief but intensive verbal WM training may strengthen the verbal WM and comprehension performance of young children at risk. Necessary caveats and possible implications for theory and future research are discussed.
Off the shortest path: Betweenness on street network level to study pedestrian movement

Betweenness centrality is an important measure in network sciences that reflects the extent a node lies in between any pairs in a graph. The measure has been used by urban studies, to discuss the relationship between urban mobility and the spatial street network of a city, using Dijkstra shortest path betweenness centrality to describe human wayfinding procedures. As in reality, wayfinding is a more complex endeavor, results of studies using both random path or the most optimal shortest path approach might be misleading. In this paper we propose with the exploratory betweenness centrality (EBC) a more realistic set of measures that uses an exploratory path in calculating centrality rather than an optimal path in studying pedestrian movement. In particular we calculate EBC where the agent selects the longest street nearest to the destination (App-EBC) or any random street that is approaching the destination (Ran-EBC). In doing so, we compare how EBC and GBC correlate with aggregate pedestrian movement for two case studies in London. The result shows the EBC measures explains equal or greater variation of aggregate pedestrian movement than the GBC measure for both of the case studies, indicating the potential of using measures of EBC in modeling urban mobility.
Achievable Rate of Beamforming Dual-hop Multi-antenna Relay Network in the Presence of a Jammer

This paper studies a multi-antenna wireless relay network in the presence of a jammer. In this network, the source node transmits signals to the destination node through a multi-antenna relay node which adopts the amplify-and-forward scheme, and the jammer attempts to inject additive signals on all antennas of the relay node. With the linear beamforming scheme at the relay node, this network can be modeled as an equivalent Gaussian arbitrarily varying channel (GAVC). Based on this observation, we deduce the mathematical closed-forms of the capacities for two special cases and the suboptimal achievable rate for the general case, respectively. To reduce complexity, we further propose an optimal structure of the beamforming matrix. In addition, we present a second order cone programming (SOCP)-based algorithm to efficiently compute the optimal beamforming matrix so as to maximize the transmission rate between the source and the destination when the perfect channel state information (CSI) is available. Our numerical simulations show significant improvements of our propose scheme over other baseline ones.
Polymorphisms in Stromal Genes and Susceptibility to Serous Epithelial Ovarian Cancer: A Report from the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium

Alterations in stromal tissue components can inhibit or promote epithelial tumorigenesis. Decorin (DCN) and lumican (LUM) show reduced stromal expression in serous epithelial ovarian cancer (sEOC). We hypothesized that common variants in these genes associate with risk. Associations with sEOC among Caucasians were estimated with odds ratios (OR) among 397 cases and 920 controls in two U.S.-based studies (discovery set), 436 cases and 1,098 controls in Australia (replication set 1) and a consortium of 15 studies comprising 1,668 cases and 4,249 controls (replication set 2). The discovery set and replication set 1 (833 cases and 2,013 controls) showed statistically homogeneous (Pheterogeneity≥0.48) decreased risks of sEOC at four variants: DCN rs3138165, rs13312816 and rs516115, and LUM rs17018765 (OR = 0.6 to 0.9; Ptrend = 0.001 to 0.03). Results from replication set 2 were statistically homogeneous (Pheterogeneity≥0.13) and associated with increased risks at DCN rs3138165 and rs13312816, and LUM rs17018765: all ORs = 1.2; Ptrend≤0.02. The ORs at the four variants were statistically heterogeneous across all 18 studies (Pheterogeneity≤0.03), which precluded combining. In post-hoc analyses, interactions were observed between each variant and recruitment period (Pinteraction≤0.003), age at diagnosis (Pinteraction = 0.04), and year of diagnosis (Pinteraction = 0.05) in the five studies with available information (1,044 cases, 2,469 controls). We conclude that variants in DCN and LUM are not directly associated with sEOC, and that confirmation of possible effect modification of the variants by non-genetic factors is required.
The Antiestrogens Tamoxifen and Fulvestrant Abolish Estrogenic Impacts of 17α-ethinylestradiol on Male Calling Behavior of Xenopus laevis

Various synthetic chemicals released to the environment can interfere with the endocrine system of vertebrates. Many of these endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) exhibit estrogenic activity and can interfere with sexual development and reproductive physiology. More recently, also chemicals with different modes of action (MOAs), such as antiestrogenic, androgenic and antiandrogenic EDCs, have been shown to be present in the environment. However, to date EDC-research primarily focuses on exposure to EDCs with just one MOA, while studies examining the effects of simultaneous exposure to EDCs with different MOAs are rare, although they would reflect more real, natural exposure situations. In the present study the combined effects of estrogenic and antiestrogenic EDCs were assessed by analyzing the calling behavior of short-term exposed male Xenopus laevis. The estrogenic 17α-ethinylestradiol (EE2), and the antiestrogenic EDCs tamoxifen (TAM) and fulvestrant (ICI) were used as model substances. As previously demonstrated, sole EE2 exposure (10−10 M) resulted in significant alterations of the male calling behavior, including altered temporal and spectral parameters of the advertisement calls. Sole TAM (10−7 M, 10−8 M, 10−10 M) or ICI (10−7 M) exposure, on the other hand, did not affect any of the measured parameters. If frogs were co-exposed to EE2 (10−10 M) and TAM (10−7 M) the effects of EE2 on some parameters were abolished, but co-exposure to EE2 and ICI (10−7 M) neutralized all estrogenic effects. Thus, although EDCs with antiestrogenic MOA might not exhibit any effects per se, they can alter the estrogenic effects of EE2. Our observations demonstrate that there is need to further investigate the combined effects of EDCs with various, not only opposing, MOAs as this would reflect realistic wildlife situations.
A Framework for Understanding the Evasion of Host Immunity by Candida Biofilms

Candida biofilms are a major cause of nosocomial morbidity and mortality. The mechanism by which Candida biofilms evade the immune system remains unknown. In this perspective, we develop a theoretical framework of the three, not mutually exclusive, models, which could explain biofilm evasion of host immunity. First, biofilms may exhibit properties of immunological silence, preventing immune activation. Second, biofilms may produce immune-deviating factors, converting effective immunity into ineffective immunity. Third, biofilms may resist host immunity, which would otherwise be effective. Using a murine subcutaneous biofilm model, we found that mice infected with biofilms developed sterilizing immunity effective when challenged with yeast form Candida. Despite the induction of effective anti-Candida immunity, no spontaneous clearance of the biofilm was observed. These results support the immune resistance model of biofilm immune evasion and demonstrate an asymmetric relationship between the host and biofilms, with biofilms eliciting effective immune responses yet being resistant to immunological clearance.
MAPK Target Sites of Eyes Absent Are Not Required for Eye Development or Survival in Drosophila

Eyes absent (Eya) is a highly conserved transcription cofactor and protein phosphatase that plays an essential role in eye development and survival in Drosophila. Ectopic eye induction assays using cDNA transgenes have suggested that mitogen activated protein kinase (MAPK) activates Eya by phosphorylating it on two consensus target sites, S402 and S407, and that this activation potentiates the ability of Eya to drive eye formation. However, this mechanism has never been tested in normal eye development. In the current study, we generated a series of genomic rescue transgenes to investigate how loss- and gain-of-function mutations at these two MAPK target sites within Eya affect Drosophila survival and normal eye formation: eya+GR, the wild-type control; eyaSAGR, which lacks phosphorylation at the two target residues; and eyaSDEGR, which contains phosphomimetic amino acids at the same two residues. Contrary to the previous studies in ectopic eye development, all eya genomic transgenes tested rescue both eye formation and survival equally effectively. We conclude that, in contrast to ectopic eye formation, MAPK-mediated phosphorylation of Eya on S402 and S407 does not play a role in normal development. This is the first study in Drosophila to evaluate the difference in outcomes between genomic rescue and ectopic cDNA-based overexpression of the same gene. These findings indicate similar genomic rescue strategies may prove useful for re-evaluating other long-standing Drosophila developmental models.
Vagal baroreflex latency in circulatory control

In the recent paper by Eckberg et al. (2016) the issue of baroreflex latency resurfaces, and in particular how this latency turns up in recordings of blood pressure and heart rate: at resting heart rates, does the vagal branch of the baroreflex exert its feedback mainly within one heartbeat (our view; DeBoer et al. 1987), or is most of the feedback effect to be expected one beat later (Eckberg et al.)? In the paper by Eckberg et al. (2016), it is stated that our group assumes that frequency domain and time domain analyses give different results. We will elucidate this point by comparing different