Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence, correlates, disability, and comorbidity of DSM-IV borderline personality disorder: results from the Wave 2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions.

OBJECTIVES To present nationally representative findings on prevalence, sociodemographic correlates, disability, and comorbidity of borderline personality disorder (BPD) among men and women. METHOD Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 34,653 adults participating in the 2004-2005 Wave 2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Personality disorder diagnoses were made using the Wave 2 Alcohol Use Disorder and Associated Disabilities Interview Schedule-DSM-IV Version. RESULTS Prevalence of lifetime BPD was 5.9% (99% CI = 5.4 to 6.4). There were no differences in the rates of BPD among men (5.6%, 99% CI = 5.0 to 6.2) and women (6.2%, 99% CI = 5.6 to 6.9). BPD was more prevalent among Native American men, younger and separated/divorced/widowed adults, and those with lower incomes and education and was less prevalent among Hispanic men and women and Asian women. BPD was associated with substantial mental and physical disability, especially among women. High co-occurrence rates of mood and anxiety disorders with BPD were similar. With additional comorbidity controlled for, associations with bipolar disorder and schizotypal and narcissistic personality disorders remained strong and significant (odds ratios > or = 4.3). Associations of BPD with other specific disorders were no longer significant or were considerably weakened. CONCLUSIONS BPD is much more prevalent in the general population than previously recognized, is equally prevalent among men and women, and is associated with considerable mental and physical disability, especially among women. Unique and common factors may differentially contribute to disorder-specific comorbidity with BPD, and some of these associations appear to be sex-specific. There is a need for future epidemiologic, clinical, and genetically informed studies to identify unique and common factors that underlie disorder-specific comorbidity with BPD. Important sex differences observed in rates of BPD and associations with BPD can inform more focused, hypothesis-driven investigations of these factors.
Distinct Septin Heteropolymers Co-Exist during Multicellular Development in the Filamentous Fungus Aspergillus nidulans

Septins are important components of the cytoskeleton that are highly conserved in eukaryotes and play major roles in cytokinesis, patterning, and many developmental processes. Septins form heteropolymers which assemble into higher-order structures including rings, filaments, and gauzes. In contrast to actin filaments and microtubules, the molecular mechanism by which septins assemble is not well-understood. Here, we report that in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans, four core septins form heteropolymeric complexes. AspE, a fifth septin lacking in unicellular yeasts, interacts with only one of the core septins, and only during multicellular growth. AspE is required for proper localization of three of the core septins, and requires this same subset of core septins for its own unique cortical localization. The ΔaspE mutant lacks developmentally-specific septin higher-order structures and shows reduced spore production and slow growth with low temperatures and osmotic stress. Our results show that at least two distinct septin heteropolymer populations co-exist in A. nidulans, and that while AspE is not a subunit of either heteropolymer, it is required for assembly of septin higher-order structures found in multicellular development.
Enduring increased risk of developing depression and mania in patients with dementia

Objective: To investigate the time relation between dementia and major affective disorders (major depression and mania). Methods: Register linkage study of the Danish Hospital Register and the Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register, to establish study cohorts of patients with dementia and control groups (osteoarthritis or diabetes) on first discharge from hospital. Follow up of cohorts was for up to 21 years. Hazard of death was allowed for by the use of competing risks models. Results: Patients with dementia had an increased risk of being admitted to hospital for major depression or mania during the course of the illness. The incidence remained elevated throughout the rest of the patient's life. Conclusions: Patients with dementia have an increased risk of developing depression or mania. Proper treatment of affective disorders in patients with dementia is important in reducing suffering and costs.
Developing a Semi-Quantitative Occupational Risk Prediction Model for Chemical Exposures and Its Application to a National Chemical Exposure Databank

In this study, a semi-quantitative occupational chemical exposure risk prediction model, based on the calculation of exposure hazard indexes, was proposed, corrected, and applied to a national chemical exposure databank. The model comprises one factor used to describe toxicity (i.e., the toxicity index), and two factors used to reflect the exposure potential (i.e., the exposure index and protection deficiency index) of workers exposed to chemicals. An expert system was used to correct the above proposed model. By applying the corrected model to data obtained from a national occupational chemical hazard survey program, chemical exposure risks of various manufacturing industries were determined and a national control strategy for the abatement of occupational chemical exposures was proposed. The results of the present study would provide useful information for governmental agencies to allocate their limited resources effectively for reducing chemical exposures of workers.
The Chromatin-Remodeling Factor PICKLE Integrates Brassinosteroid and Gibberellin Signaling during Skotomorphogenic Growth in Arabidopsis[C][W]

This study reveals that the chromatin-remodeling factor PICKLE (PKL) functions as a signaling convergent point that integrates BR and GA signals that regulate skotomorphogenesis. PKL interacts with key transcription factors and modulates the chromatin state of their targets. It provides a direct molecular link between trimethylation of histone H3 Lys-27 and the BR and GA signaling pathways. Plant cell elongation is controlled by endogenous hormones, including brassinosteroid (BR) and gibberellin (GA), and by environmental factors, such as light/darkness. The molecular mechanisms underlying the convergence of these signals that govern cell growth remain largely unknown. We previously showed that the chromatin-remodeling factor PICKLE/ENHANCED PHOTOMORPHOGENIC1 (PKL/EPP1) represses photomorphogenesis in Arabidopsis thaliana. Here, we demonstrated that PKL physically interacted with PHYTOCHROME-INTERACTING FACTOR3 (PIF3) and BRASSINAZOLE-RESISTANT1 (BZR1), key components of the light and BR signaling pathways, respectively. Also, this interaction promoted the association of PKL with cell elongation–related genes. We found that PKL, PIF3, and BZR1 coregulate skotomorphogenesis by repressing the trimethylation of histone H3 Lys-27 (H3K27me3) on target promoters. Moreover, DELLA proteins interacted with PKL and attenuated its binding ability. Strikingly, brassinolide and GA3 inhibited H3K27me3 modification of histones associated with cell elongation–related loci in a BZR1- and DELLA-mediated manner, respectively. Our findings reveal that the PKL chromatin-remodeling factor acts as a critical node that integrates light/darkness, BR, and GA signals to epigenetically regulate plant growth and development. This work also provides a molecular framework by which hormone signals regulate histone modification in concert with light/dark environmental cues.
Simian virus 40 major late promoter: a novel tripartite structure that includes intragenic sequences

Unlike most genes transcribed by RNA polymerase II, the simian virus 40 late transcription unit does not have a TATA box. To determine what sequences are required for initiation at the major late mRNA cap site of simian virus 40, clustered point mutations were constructed and tested for transcriptional activity in vitro and in vivo. Three promoter elements were defined. The first is centered 31 base pairs upstream of the cap site in a position normally reserved for a TATA box. The second is at the cap site. The third occupies a novel position centered 28 base pairs downstream of the cap site within a protein-coding sequence. The ability of RNA polymerase II to recognize this promoter suggests that there is greater variation in promoter architecture than had been believed previously.
Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts

We investigate the problem of how nonnatural entities are represented by examining university students' concepts of God, both professed theological beliefs and concepts used in comprehension of narratives. In three story processing tasks, subjects often used an anthropomorphic God concept that is inconsistent with stated theological beliefs; and drastically distorted the narratives without any awareness of doing so. By heightening subjects' awareness of their theological beliefs, we were able to manipulate the degree of anthropomorphization. This tendency to anthropomorphize may be generalizable to other agents. God (and possibly other agents) is unintentionally anthropomorphized in some contexts, perhaps as a means of representing poorly understood nonnatural entities.
A Multiple-Rate, Multicarrier Direct-Sequence CDMA System with 2-D OVSF Codes in Fading Channels

In this paper, a multiple-rate, multicarrier direct- sequence code-division multiple-access (MC/DS-CDMA) system with the use of two-dimensional orthogonal variable spreading factor (2-D OVSF) codes is studied. They are the first 2-D codes that can be generated by the tree structure commonly used by one-dimensional OVSF codes in wideband-CDMA. The 2-D OVSF codes also preserve orthogonality among code matrices with different spreading factors in the code tree. The performances of the proposed system with RAKE receivers employing equal-gain and maximal-ratio combining methods are analyzed and compared. Our results show that our multiple-rate MC/DS-CDMA system with the 2-D OVSF codes is more suitable for a non-fading additive white Gaussian noise channel or a Rician weak-fading channel. However, in a Rayleigh fading channel, the system performance gets worse because the orthogonality of the 2-D OVSF codes is destroyed by the strong fading effect.
Automatic recognition of lower facial action units

The face is an important source of information in multimodal communication. Facial expressions are generated by contractions of facial muscles, which lead to subtle changes in the area of the eyelids, eye brows, nose, lips and skin texture, often revealed by wrinkles and bulges. To measure these subtle changes, Ekman et al.[5] developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). FACS is a human-observer-based system designed to detect subtle changes in facial features, and describes facial expressions by action units (AUs). We present a technique to automatically recognize lower facial Action Units, independently from one another. Even though we do not explicitly take into account AU combinations, thereby making the classification process harder, an average F1 score of 94.83% is achieved.
Electronic Patient Record : dealing with numbers or with words ?

he Electronic Patient Record (EPR) can be organized ither on a document-based backbone, or on a structured atabase system. Both alternatives have been used in the orld to implement EPR. We report the experience held t the Geneva University Hospital, which is original egarding the fact that both approach are used, ccording to the source and the use of data. However, hatever the organization of information behind the cene, the user interface and the data entry system are ey components of the EPR. Some pragmatic solutions vailable to implement an efficient data entry system ased on natural language technologies in order to ecrease the burden of care providers are presented. We ried to have this paper more a useful and practical uideline support for those that faces such problems han a basic and conceptual discussion on the subject. eywords: Electronic Patient Record, Natural anguage Processing, Database Management
A Theoretical Model of Consumer Acceptance of mPayment

Mobile payment entails making payments using mobile devices including wireless handsets, personal digital assistants, and other radio frequency and near field communication based devices. While mPayment is still in its infancy, its acceptance is expected to increase exponentially in the coming years. By expanding the Technology Acceptance Model and the Innovation Diffusion Theory, this study aims to provide a theoretical model that explains US consumers' acceptance of mPayment. Using the Structural Equation Modeling technique, the data from the 299 surveys completed by consumers will be used to validate the proposed research model.
A novel design of magnetically coupled circuits for wireless power transfer with improved waveforms

This paper presents the theory and design of coupled resonant systems for wireless power transmission (WPT) system for the next generation electrical power transfer application. A detailed analysis and experimental design of solenoid and spiral coil based wireless power transmitter and receivers are addressed. Experimentally, it is found that the power transfer efficiency reaches the maximum at resonant frequency, and the efficiency decrease with the increase of the distance between the source transmitter and receiver coils. The performance of the proposed WPT has been studied and a laboratory model is developed for experimental verification. The results show that spiral based WPT system shows better results.
Effect on survival of longer intervals between confirmed diagnosis and treatment initiation among low-income women with breast cancer.

PURPOSE To determine the impact of longer periods between biopsy-confirmed breast cancer diagnosis and the initiation of treatment (Dx2Tx) on survival. PATIENTS AND METHODS This study was a noninterventional, retrospective analysis of adult female North Carolina Medicaid enrollees diagnosed with breast cancer from January 1, 2000, through December, 31, 2002, in the linked North Carolina Central Cancer Registry-Medicaid Claims database. Follow-up data were available through July 31, 2006. Cox proportional hazards regression models were constructed to evaluate the impact on survival of delaying treatment ≥ 60 days after a confirmed diagnosis of breast cancer. RESULTS The study cohort consisted of 1,786 low-income, adult women with a mean age of 61.6 years. A large proportion of the patients (44.3%) were racial minorities. Median time from biopsy-confirmed diagnosis to treatment initiation was 22 days. Adjusted Cox proportional hazards regression showed that although Dx2Tx length did not affect survival among those diagnosed at early stage, among late-stage patients, intervals between diagnosis and first treatment ≥ 60 days were associated with significantly worse overall survival (hazard ratio [HR], 1.66; 95% CI, 1.00 to 2.77; P = .05) and breast cancer-specific survival (HR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.04 to 3.27; P = .04). CONCLUSION One in 10 women waited ≥ 60 days to initiate treatment after a diagnosis of breast cancer. Waiting ≥ 60 days to initiate treatment was associated with a significant 66% and 85% increased risk of overall and breast cancer-related death, respectively, among late-stage patients. Interventions designed to increase the timeliness of receiving breast cancer treatments should target late-stage patients, and clinicians should strive to promptly triage and initiate treatment for patients diagnosed at late stage.
Graphical Models for Primarily Unsupervised Sequence Labeling

Most models used in natural language processing must be trained on large corpora of labeled text. This tutorial explores a "primarily unsupervised" approach (based on graphical models) that augments a corpus of unlabeled text with some form of prior domain knowledge, but does not require any fully labeled examples. We survey probabilistic graphical models for (supervised) classification and sequence labeling and then present the prototype-driven approach of Haghighi and Klein (2006) to sequence labeling in detail, including a discussion of the theory and implementation of both conditional random fields and prototype learning. We show experimental results for English part of speech tagging. Comments University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer and Information Science Technical Report No. MSCIS-07-18. This technical report is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn. edu/cis_reports/638 Graphical Models for Primarily Unsupervised Sequence Labeling∗ Neal Parikh neal@nparikh.org Mark Dredze mdredze@seas.upenn. edu Department of Computer and Information Science University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA 19104
Edge-preserving prefiltering for document image binarization

We propose a novel coplanar filter, which exploits the coplanarity of the gray-level distribution of neighboring pixels, to pre-filter document images. Experiments show that the proposed filter exhibits the following desired properties for document image binarization: (1) impulsive noise removal; (2) piecewise smoothing; (3) sharp edge preservation.
Brand Names and the Organization of Mass Belief Systems

Previous research finds that the political views of citizens exhibit minimal constraint: it is difficult to predict the position citizens take on one issue, given their position on another. We show that constraint is much higher than previously recognized. In the world of real politics, parties and elites attach brand names (e.g. “Democratic” and “Republican”) to issues, thereby sending signals that help citizens respond coherently to an array of questions. Existing studies have measured policy preferences without presenting political brand names. A sequence of experiments supports four conclusions: political brand names (1) markedly increase constraint; (2) enhance constraint across rather than within policy agendas; (3) promote constraint among the politically unsophisticated as effectively as among the sophisticated; and (4) generate ideological consistency as effectively as ideological brand names. Michael Tomz is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, Encina Hall West Room 100, Stanford, CA 94305-6044, email tomz@stanford.edu, phone 650-725-4031, fax 650-723-1808. Please direct correspondence to Tomz. Paul M. Sniderman is Professor of Political Science, Stanford University, Encina Hall West Room 100, Stanford, CA 94305-6044, email paulms@stanford.edu, phone 650-723-3591, fax 650-723-1808. This project would not have been possible without Time Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS). We are also grateful for help from the Indiana Center for Survey Research, and for truly exceptional assistance from Mike Dennis and his colleagues at Knowledge Networks.
Common genetic variation in Neuregulin 3 (NRG3) influences risk for schizophrenia and impacts NRG3 expression in human brain

Structural and polymorphic variations in Neuregulin 3 (NRG3), 10q22-23 are associated with a broad spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders including developmental delay, cognitive impairment, autism, and schizophrenia. NRG3 is a member of the neuregulin family of EGF proteins and a ligand for the ErbB4 receptor tyrosine kinase that plays pleotropic roles in neurodevelopment. Several genes in the NRG-ErbB signaling pathway including NRG1 and ErbB4 have been implicated in genetic predisposition to schizophrenia. Previous fine mapping of the 10q22-23 locus in schizophrenia identified genome-wide significant association between delusion severity and polymorphisms in intron 1 of NRG3 (rs10883866, rs10748842, and rs6584400). The biological mechanisms remain unknown. We identified significant association of these SNPs with increased risk for schizophrenia in 350 families with an affected offspring and confirmed association to patient delusion and positive symptom severity. Molecular cloning and cDNA sequencing in human brain revealed that NRG3 undergoes complex splicing, giving rise to multiple structurally distinct isoforms. RNA expression profiling of these isoforms in the prefrontal cortex of 400 individuals revealed that NRG3 expression is developmentally regulated and pathologically increased in schizophrenia. Moreover, we show that rs10748842 lies within a DNA ultraconserved element and homedomain and strongly predicts brain expression of NRG3 isoforms that contain a unique developmentally regulated 5′ exon (P = 1.097E−12 to 1.445E−15). Our observations strengthen the evidence that NRG3 is a schizophrenia susceptibility gene, provide quantitative insight into NRG3 transcription traits in the human brain, and reveal a probable mechanistic basis for disease association.
Platelet-rich plasma: any substance into it?

Autologous platelet-rich plasma (PRP) is perceived to accelerate healing in muscu loskeletal injuries. PRP is increasingly used in situations that require rapid return-to play, which, in the professional sports arena, translates to fame and money. It is astonishing but understandable that the most influential stimulus for PRP therapy in the USA, years after the method had been popularised in Europe, was a February 2009 article in the lay press.1 Human blood platelet counts are approx imately 200 000/ml. PRP is an autologous concentration of human platelets above this in a small volume of plasma.2 Reports vary regarding the platelet concentration and different growth factors present in the PRP concentrate. Also, there are many preparation protocols, kits, centrifuges and methods to trigger platelet activation before use. The same is true for application methods, including using injectable activated PRP liquid concentrate versus implanting a fibrin scaffold, optimal timing of injection and the specific volume to use. Almost every major manufacturer in the orthopaedic and sports medicine world markets a different commercial kit. Some claim to produce a better quantity and quality of PRP than their competitors from the same amount of blood from the same patient. Costs vary tremendously: a commercial kit yields a PRP concentrate at the cost of several hundred dollars, but inhouse non-automatised techniques produce a PRP concentrate for approximately US$10. Each method to concentrate platelets leads to a different product with different biology and potential uses,3 with a high variation (3 to 27-fold) in growth factor concentration and in the kinetics of release.3,–,5 Most techniques yield a PRP concentrate of approximately 10% of the blood volume taken (eg, 20 ml of whole blood would result in approximately 2 ml of PRP). These differences might be of relevance to clinical management, …
Rééducation de la dysgraphie chez l’adulte: présentation d’une méthode visuo-orthographique et présentation de cas avec pathologie acquise et développementale

After having recalled cognitive models for interpreting writing disorders following cerebral lesions of the dominant hemisphere by adults, we propose a qualitative analysis of written productions; we will then present a therapeutic method based on a visual imagery strategy, devised by de Partz and collaborators in 1992, and specifically aimed at the remediation of surface dysgraphia. We present the results of two patients who were treated by this method: the first patient presented an acquired impairment consecutive to a vascular lesion, the second was treated as an adult for a developmental disorder. Finally, we will discuss the application conditions and its limits. We shall also consider some of the differences that could be linked to the mode of acquisition of these disorders.