Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Atypical antipsychotics in the treatment of schizophrenia: systematic overview and meta-regression analysis

Abstract Objective: To develop an evidence base for recommendations on the use of atypical antipsychotics for patients with schizophrenia. Design: Systematic overview and meta-regression analyses of randomised controlled trials, as a basis for formal development of guidelines. Subjects: 12 649 patients in 52 randomised trials comparing atypical antipsychotics (amisulpride, clozapine, olanzapine, quetiapine, risperidone, and sertindole) with conventional antipsychotics (usually haloperidol or chlorpromazine) or alternative atypical antipsychotics. Main outcome measures: Overall symptom scores. Rate of drop out (as a proxy for tolerability) and of side effects, notably extrapyramidal side effects. Results: For both symptom reduction and drop out, there was substantial heterogeneity between the results of trials, including those evaluating the same atypical antipsychotic and comparator drugs. Meta-regression suggested that dose of conventional antipsychotic explained the heterogeneity. When the dose was ≤12 mg/day of haloperidol (or equivalent), atypical antipsychotics had no benefits in terms of efficacy or overall tolerability, but they still caused fewer extrapyramidal side effects. Conclusions: There is no clear evidence that atypical antipsychotics are more effective or are better tolerated than conventional antipsychotics. Conventional antipsychotics should usually be used in the initial treatment of an episode of schizophrenia unless the patient has previously not responded to these drugs or has unacceptable extrapyramidal side effects.
A Comparative Histopathological Study of Heparin Coated and Uncoated Polytetrafluoroethylene Shunts in Children With Congenital Heart Defect

Objective: Recently, heparin coated polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) shunts are available and are believed to improve inherent shunt problems such as thrombosis and excessive and incomplete neointima formation or occlusion. We aimed at comparing the potential histopathological differences in the neointima (in) between uncoated (UCS) PTFE shunts and heparin coated (HCS) PTFE shunts. Materials and Methods: Thirteen shunts (six UCS and seven HCS) were analyzed. The specimens were fixed in formalin, embedded in paraffin or in methylmethacrylate, and characterized by standard and immunohistochemical staining. The thickness of pseudointima proliferation was graded as follows: 0 = no cell layers, 1 = few layers <100 µm, 2 = partial layers >100 µm, 3 = complete layers <300 µm, 4 = complete layers >300 µm, and 5 = occlusion. Results: Mean shunt size was 3.4 ± 0.2 mm in UCS and 3.1 ± 0.2 mm in HCS (P = .053). Mean time of implantation was 163 ± 75 days in UCS and 97 ± 52 days in HCS (P = .091). There were no significant differences in the proportion of patients with functionally single ventricle, body surface area, age at implantation, or implantation type, between both groups. Shunt occlusion did not occur. Unplanned shunt explantation due to cyanosis was performed in one patient in each group. Partial thrombus formation was observed in one UCS (P = .462). There was complete endothelialization in 50% of UCS and 86% of HCS (P = .266). The grade of pseudointima proliferation was 1.8 ± 0.4 in UCS and 1.7 ± 0.5 in HCS (P = .646). Conclusions: The histopathological workup of PTFE shunts revealed equally partial endothelialization and discrete pseudointima proliferation in both the groups. The process of endothelialization may be faster in HCS.
A multi-variables algorithm for dynamic reconfiguration of real-time distributed systems

In this article, we address the problem of dynamic reconfiguration of systems. This problem is related to the operability of real-time systems with high availability, suffering multiple and recurrent deterioration of their performance. We propose in this paper a dynamic and multi-variable algorithm for the reconfiguration of such systems. This algorithm ensures the necessary reconfigurations to optimize the configurations of a system, whenever performance degradation occurs, in order to restore it to its optimal operating conditions. To achieve this goal, the algorithm dynamically determines the new viable configurations corresponding to the current degraded configurations. Then it ensures the transitions between these configurations, while reducing the consumption of temporary resources and generated overhead. The results of our experimenting show that the proposed algorithm yields significant results against the reference works, found in the specialized literature, dealing with the solving of such problems.
Translocation after Synthesis of a Four-Nucleotide RNA Commits RNA Polymerase II to Promoter Escape

ABSTRACT Transcription is a complex process, the regulation of which is crucial for cellular and organismic growth and development. Deciphering the molecular mechanisms that define transcription is essential to understanding the regulation of RNA synthesis. Here we describe the molecular mechanism of escape commitment, a critical step in early RNA polymerase II transcription. During escape commitment ternary transcribing complexes become stable and committed to proceeding forward through promoter escape and the remainder of the transcription reaction. We found that the point in the transcription reaction at which escape commitment occurs depends on the length of the transcript RNA (4 nucleotides [nt]) as opposed to the position of the active site of the polymerase with respect to promoter DNA elements. We found that single-stranded nucleic acids can inhibit escape commitment, and we identified oligonucleotides that are potent inhibitors of this specific step. These inhibitors bind RNA polymerase II with low nanomolar affinity and sequence specificity, and they block both promoter-dependent and promoter-independent transcription, the latter occurring in the absence of general transcription factors. We demonstrate that escape commitment involves translocation of the RNA polymerase II active site between synthesis of the third and fourth phosphodiester bonds. We propose that a conformational change in ternary transcription complexes occurs during translocation after synthesis of a 4-nt RNA to render complexes escape committed.
Phytoplankton Culture for Aquaculture Feed

freshwater microalgae and other plant-like organisms. They are used in the production of pharmaceuticals, diet supplements, pigments, and biofuels, and also used as feeds in aquaculture. Phytoplankton are cultured to feed bivalve molluscs (all life stages), the early larval stages of crustaceans, and the zooplankton (e.g., rotifers, copepods) that are used as live food in fish hatcheries. Flagellates and diatoms are two important types of phytoplankton at the base of the food chain. They manufacture cellular components through the process of photosynthesis, taking up carbon dioxide and nutrients from the water and using light as an energy source. The microalgae used as feed in hatcheries vary in size, environmental requirements, growth rate, and nutritional value (Fig. 1, Tables 1 and 2) (Helm et al., 2004). When selecting a species for culture, it is important to take all of these parameters into consideration. Most hatcheries grow a variety of species that serve different needs throughout the production cycle with respect to size,
Establishing Construct Validity and Reliability: Pilot Testing of a Qualitative Interview for Research in Takaful (Islamic Insurance)

This paper describes the process of the conduct of preliminary tests to determine the construct and content validity of the chosen data collection method for a study into the relationship between Islamic principles and objectives, Islamic financial law and Takaful (Isamic Insurance) operations and practices in Nigeria.Semi-structured interviews were tested on a select group of respondents mirroring the intended subjects in the field.The pilot test showed the construct to be both valid and reliable while giving the opportunity to insert refinements to the research tool.
Ordering Processes in a Real-time Process Algebra

The Algebra of Communicating Shared Resources (ACSR) is a timed process algebra for the formal speciication and analysis of distributed, real-time systems. It features a dense time domain, resources, and priorities. Our goal is to make ACSR suitable for the stepwise, modular design of real-time systems, where several speciications can be constructed with various degree of desirability. Some may use more resources; some may be faster. In this paper, we explore several ordering relations over ACSR processes. Our method deenes an ordering relation over execution traces, and then extends the trace relation to order sets of traces, a possible semantics of ACSR processes.
Band gaps and transmission spectra in generalized Fibonacci σ(p,q) one-dimensional magnonic quasicrystals

We employ a microscopic theory to investigate spin wave (magnon) propagation through their dispersion and transmission spectra in magnonic crystals arranged to display deterministic disorder. In this work the quasiperiodic arrangement investigated is the well-known generalized Fibonacci sequence, which is characterized by the σ(p,q) parameter, where p and q are non-zero integers. In order to determine the bulk modes and transmission spectra of the spin waves, the calculations are carried out for the exchange dominated regime within the framework of the Heisenberg model and taking into account the random phase approximation. We have considered magnetic materials that have a ferromagnetic order, and the transfer-matrix treatment is applied to simplify the algebra. The results reveal that spin wave spectra display a rich and interesting magnonic pass- and stop-bands structures, including an almost symmetric band gap distribution around of a mid-gap frequency, which depends on the Fibonacci sequence type.
Resistor detection based on convolutional neural networks

Resistor detection are mostly suffered from compact size and multiple interferences of environment. In this paper, a method for resistor detection was proposed, which combined selective search (SS), convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and support vector machine (SVM). Using improved selective search method to reduce the time of generating candidate regions; taking advantages of independent features extraction and autonomous learning of CNNs, and avoiding the process of complicated features extraction manually; fewer training samples and parameters are needed with this method. According to the parameter tuning and experiment validation, this method achieved a precision of 96.15% on testing dataset established by ourselves. In addition, this method is also applicable to the identification of other small components.
Robust Automatic Recognition of Speech with background music

This paper addresses the task of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) with music in the background, where the accuracy of recognition may deteriorate significantly. To improve the robustness of ASR in this task, e.g. for broadcast news transcription or subtitles creation, we adopt two approaches: 1) multi-condition training of the acoustic models and 2) denoising autoencoders followed by acoustic model training on the preprocessed data. In the latter case, two types of autoencoders are considered: the fully connected and the convolutional network. Presented experimental results show that all the investigated techniques are able to improve the recognition of speech distorted by music significantly. For example, in the case of artificial mixtures of speech and electronic music (low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) of 0 dB), we achieved absolute improvement of accuracy by 35.8%. For real-world broadcast news and a high SNR (about 10 dB), we achieved improvement by 2.4%. The important advantage of the studied approaches is that they do not deteriorate the accuracy in scenarios with clean speech (the decrease is about 1%).
Medical management of Parkinson's disease.

Parkinsonism is a clinical syndrome characterized by at least two of four cardinal features: bradykinesia (slowness and minimal movement), rigidity, resting tremor (trembling), and an impairment of postural balance leading to disturbance of gait and falling.1 The most common type of parkinsonism is idiopathic Parkinson’s disease (PD), first described by James Parkinson, an English physician, in 1817 as paralysis agitans (the shaking palsy). Dr. Parkinson described the major symptoms of the disease that would later bear his name. For the next century and a half, scientists pursued the causes and treatment of the disease, defining its range of symptoms, its distribution among the population, and its prospects for cure. The pathological hallmark of PD is a loss of the pigmented, dopaminergic neurons of the substantia nigra pars compacta in the brain, with the appearance of intracellular inclusions known as Lewy bodies.2,3 In the early 1960s, researchers identified a fundamental defect that is a hallmark of the disease: the loss of brain cells that produce an important chemical, dopamine, which helps direct muscle activity. Progressive loss of dopamine-containing neurons is a feature of normal aging; however, most people do not lose the 70% to 80% of the dopaminergic neurons required to cause symptomatic PD.4 Without treatment, PD progresses over 5 to 10 years to a rigid, akinetic state in which patients are incapable of caring for themselves. Death may result from complications of immobility, such as aspiration pneumonia and pulmonary embolism. Pharmacological attempts to restore dopaminergic activity with levodopa and dopamine agonists have been successful in alleviating many of the clinical features of PD. An alternative but complementary approach has been to restore the normal balance of cholinergic and dopaminergic influences on the basal ganglia with anticholinergic drugs. The availability of effective pharmacological treatment has radically altered the prognosis of PD; in most cases, good functional mobility can be maintained for many years, and the life expectancy of adequately treated patients is increased substantially.
Determining an Efficient Supervised Classification Method for Hyperspectral Image

This paper proposes a research work done in search of best-supervised learning algorithm and the best kernel for Hyperspectral Image classification. In this work, we find that SVM outperforms other supervised algorithms. Many kernels are utilized in support vector machines for classification. Among them Linear, Polynomial and RBF kernels are analysed and the kernel that best suits for the application is determined. Cuprite (Nevada, USA) is the Hyperspectral image used in this paper.
Does the Perceived Identity of Non-player Characters Change How We Interact with Them?

Although there have been studies demonstrating that users will respond favorably to synthetic companions and team-mates in computer games, there has been little research into how a player's behavior may change when a known non-player character (NPC) assumes a human identity or persona. This is a common scenario in modern computer games, where players interact with NPCs assuming the guise of human characters. To explore this question, an online game was developed in which a human player had a primary objective of surviving against increasingly difficult waves of enemies. As a secondary objective, the player was tasked with protecting an unarmed NPC companion which assumed either a human, or non-human identity, but with identical underlying Artificial Intelligence. The intention was to explore whether the human player would be more or less protective of a synthetic companion simply due to the identity assumed. The results of the study demonstrate that player's behavior does change based on identity, and clearly indicates that the player was more protective of the companion assuming a human identity. Furthermore, the results show that this phenomenon extends beyond simple human and non-human identities, and that the specific persona, or gender of the NPC may influence the player's empathy towards it.
Primary school leadership: understanding preparation in the Tóraíocht programme

In the context of an impending global educational recruitment crisis, together with the recognition of the critical impact of effective leadership on educational outcomes, leadership preparation has become a focus of educational reform worldwide. The design and delivery of pre-appointment programmes for school leadership has significance for school effectiveness. In many countries, a leadership qualification is now mandatory for aspiring principals. In the Republic of Ireland, Tóraíocht, a non-mandatory accredited programme of preparation for school leadership was introduced in 2008, adding to the various diplomas and degrees available through higher education institutions. Adopting a narrative-informed qualitative methodological approach, the aim of this research study was to examine whether Tóraíocht makes a difference to the perceived leadership competencies of the novice primary school principals (n = 12), six of whom had participated in Tóraíocht and six of whom had not. The main findings indicate certain favourable conclusions regarding the impact of the programme on graduates subsequently appointed to primary-level principalship positions, and positive attitudes towards the proposed introduction of a compulsory pre-appointment leadership qualification in the near future.
Combination of Multiple mRNA Markers (PTTG1, Survivin, UbcH10 and TK1) in the Diagnosis of Taiwanese Patients with Breast Cancer by Membrane Array

Objective: Early detection is a prerequisite to the effective reduction of morbidity and mortality from breast cancer. The present study intended to employ a high-throughput membrane array to detect a panel of mRNA markers expressed by circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the peripheral blood of female patients with breast cancer. Methods: Peripheral blood was sampled from 92 breast cancer patients and 100 normal persons. CTCs were detected by using a membrane array technique. The markers used included the pituitary tumor transforming gene 1, survivin, UbcH10 and thymidine kinase 1. Results: The results showed that the membrane array could positively detect 5 cancer cells per 1 ml of peripheral blood in breast cancer cell dilution experiments. For the panel of 4 mRNA markers, sensitivity and specificity were elevated up to 86 and 88%, respectively. Furthermore, it was found that the patients’ clinicopathological characteristics tumor size (p = 0.006), histologic grade (p = 0.012), lymph node metastasis (p = 0.001) and TNM stage (p = 0.006) significantly correlated with the positive detection rate of the multimarker panel. Conclusions: These findings demonstrated that our multimarker membrane array method could detect CTCs in the circulation of breast cancer patients with considerably high sensitivity and specificity.
Applications of magnetic resonance elastography to healthy and pathologic skeletal muscle

Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is capable of noninvasively quantifying the mechanical properties of skeletal muscles in vivo. This information can be clinically useful to understand the effects of pathologies on the mechanical properties of muscle and to quantify the effects of treatment. Advances in inversion algorithms quantify muscle anisotropy in two‐dimensional (2D) and three‐dimensional (3D) imaging. Databases of the shear stiffness of skeletal muscle have been presented in the relaxed and contracted states in the upper extremity (biceps brachii, flexor digitorum profundus, and upper trapezius), distal leg muscles (tibialis anterior, medial gastrocnemius, lateral gastrocnemius, and trapezius), and proximal leg muscles (vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and sartorius). MRE measurements have successfully validated a mathematical model of skeletal muscle behavior in the biceps brachii, correlated to electromyographic data in the distal leg muscles and quantified the effects of pathologies on the distal and proximal leg muscles. Future research efforts should be directed toward improving one‐dimensional (1D) and 3D MRE data acquisition and image processing, tracking the effects of treatment on pathologic muscle and correlating the shear stiffness with clinical measurements. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Reasoning about necessity and possibility : a test of the mental model theory of deduction

This article examined syllogistic reasoning that differs from previous research in 2 significant ways: (a) Participants were asked to decide whether conclusions were possible as well as necessary, and (b) every possible combination of syllogistic premises and conclusions was presented for evaluation with both single-premise (Experiment 1) and double-premise (Experiment 2) problems. Participants more frequently endorsed conclusions as possible than as necessary, and differences in response to the 2 forms of instruction conformed to several predictions derived from the mental model theory of deduction. Findings of Experiments 2 and 3 showed that some fallacies are consistently endorsed and others consistently resisted when people are asked to judge whether conclusions that are only possible follow necessarily. This finding was accounted for by the computational implementation of the model theory: Fallacies are made when the first mental model of the premises considered supports the conclusion presented. Traditional applications of logic concern the validity of arguments, that is, proving that some conclusion is necessary given some premises. However, in everyday reasoning it may be just as important to decide whether some proposition is possible in light of the given information. Inferences of possibility occur whenever rules and regulations constrain a person's behavior rather than determine what it must be. For example, students choosing a degree program within a modular course structure will have many degrees of freedom but will have to respect constraints owing to timetabling restrictions, availability of teaching staff, prerequisite and corequisite relations between modules, and so on. Their decision making here involves inferring what is possible and then deciding between the possibilities identified. Most of the rules by which people live their lives in society, including criminal law, operate in a similar way. It is rarely determined by such rules that people must follow a particular course of action, but they are frequently constrained to act within a set of legal possibilities. The psychological study of deductive reasoning has been steadily increasing in recent years, and there are now many hundreds of experimental studies reported in the literature (see Evans, Newstead, & Byrne, 1993, for a review). In view of the above remarks, however, there is a curious limitation
Real-time tetrahedral volume editing accounting for discontinuities

Geological systems can be represented as unstructured tetrahedral grids where faults are topological discontinuities in the volume and each fault block is a connected component. These grids are built from interpretations of seismic and borehole data. Obtaining additional data or new interpretations can point out errors in the tetrahedralised volume. When the location of a fault is slightly off, a new tetrahedralised volume has to be created from scratch. Directly editing the volume would be more effective and comfortable. A free-form deformation technique was developed to implement this interaction. The deformation is confined to a zone around the fault to be edited. Volume deformation is achieved by dragging control points; the geometry of the volume in the vicinity of the discontinuity is updated in realtime. A constraint maintains model consistency throughout editing by preventing tetrahedrons from flipping over. A smoothness constraint distributes the displacement in the whole active region.