Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Auditory Sensitivity is Increased in Tinnitus Ears

Increased auditory sensitivity, also called hyperacusis, is a pervasive complaint of people with tinnitus. The high prevalence of hyperacusis in tinnitus subjects suggests that both symptoms have a common origin. It has been suggested that they may result from a maladjusted increase of central gain attributable to sensory deafferentation. More specifically, tinnitus and hyperacusis could result from an increase of spontaneous and stimulus-induced activity, respectively. One prediction of this hypothesis is that auditory sensitivity should be increased in tinnitus compared with non-tinnitus subjects. The purpose of this study was to test this prediction by examining the loudness functions in tinnitus ears (n = 124) compared with non-tinnitus human ears (n = 106). Because tinnitus is often accompanied by hearing loss and that hearing loss makes it difficult to disentangle hypersensitivity (hyperacusis) to loudness recruitment, tinnitus and non-tinnitus ears were carefully matched for hearing loss. Our results show that auditory sensitivity is enhanced in tinnitus subjects compared with non-tinnitus subjects, including subjects with normal audiograms. We interpreted these findings as compatible with a maladaptive central gain in tinnitus.
An Exploratory Study of Ethnic Minority Students' Constraints to and Facilitators of Engaging in Campus Recreation

A positive relationship exists between student engagement, student success, and institutional retention rates. Ethnic minority student retention rates are lower than those of the dominant culture. Campus recreation programs play a role in improving upon this situation. This study's purpose was to explore constraints to and facilitators of ethnic minority students' participation in campus recreation. Three focus groups were conducted with 22 ethnic minority students (female n = 14, male n = 8; freshman through senior year). Results revealed four constraints (i.e., organizational, lack of time, gender, cultural) to and six facilitators (i.e., social dynamics of campus recreation facilities, health maintenance, personal growth, maintaining cultural connections, facility and services, accountability) of participation. Strategies for creating more inclusive campus recreation environments and programming to increase student engagement and retention are proposed (e.g., ensuring equitable use of shared spaces, facilitating women's weight training, providing online resources, creating more structured programming, requiring cultural competence staff training, designating spaces for cultural recreational activities).
Experimental evaluation of the voltage unbalance in the efficiency of induction motors

This paper presents an experimental evaluation of the voltage unbalances effects in the efficiency of induction motors. In that sense, two distinct National Electrical Manufacturers Associations (NEMA) design were evaluated to seek the changes on their performance. The voltage unbalance was assessed using the Complex Voltage Unbalance Factor (CVUF). The experimental methodology consisted in a segregation losses approach to study the stator, core, friction, rotor, and stray-load losses clearly. First, a no-load test was carried out in both motors keeping constant the magnitude and the angle of CVUF. Next, a load test was accomplished ranging the mechanical load from 120% down to 30% of the nominal load using the same CVUF of the no-load test. Finally, according to the results of NEMA design B motor has the greatest losses increment because it was the most affected by the skin effect.
Clinical specificity of prison inmates with severe mental disorders

Background We wished to determine whether prison inmates with severe mental disorders possess specific clinical characteristics compared with psychiatric in-patients suffering from similar problems. Method Under a case-control design, 69 male prison inmates suffering from a schizophrenic or major affective disorder were matched for age and diagnostic spectrum to 60 male psychiatric in-patients. Standardised interviews were used to diagnose psychiatric disorders according to DSM-111-R and social functioning criteria. Case-notes were reviewed to cull data regarding social life, criminal record and service use. Results Inmates were more likely to suffer from delusional/NOS psychotic disorders (72%) or major depression (70%), and psychiatric in-patients from schizophrenic or bipolar disorder (62% and 71%, respectively). Comorbidity was more prevalent among inmates than among in-patients, while in-patients presented less social autonomy than did inmates. Conclusions The clinical specificity of prison inmates with severe mental disor ders clearly differentiates them from psychiatric in-patients, and warrants recognition of their special needs for assessment and integrated treatment approaches.
Runx3 Protects Gastric Epithelial Cells Against Epithelial‐Mesenchymal Transition‐Induced Cellular Plasticity and Tumorigenicity

The transcription factor RUNX3 functions as a tumor suppressor in the gastrointestinal epithelium, where its loss is an early event in carcinogenesis. While RUNX3 acts concurrently as a mediator of TGF‐β signaling and an antagonist of Wnt, the cellular changes that follow its loss and their contribution to tumorigenicity are not fully understood. Here, we report that the loss of Runx3 in gastric epithelial cells results in spontaneous epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT). This produces a tumorigenic stem cell‐like subpopulation, which remarkably expresses the gastric stem cell marker Lgr5. This phenomenon is due to the compounding effects of the dysregulation of the TGF‐β and Wnt pathways. Specifically, Runx3−/−p53−/− gastric epithelial cells were unexpectedly sensitized for TGF‐β‐induced EMT, during which the resultant induction of Lgr5 was enhanced by an aberrantly activated Wnt pathway. These data demonstrate a protective role for RUNX3 in safeguarding gastric epithelial cells against aberrant growth factor signaling and the resultant cellular plasticity and stemness. STEM Cells2012;30:2088–2099
Personalization of Saliency Estimation

Most existing saliency models use low-level features or task descriptions when generating attention predictions. However, the link between observer characteristics and gaze patterns is rarely investigated. We present a novel saliency prediction technique which takes viewers' identities and personal traits into consideration when modeling human attention. Instead of only computing image salience for average observers, we consider the interpersonal variation in the viewing behaviors of observers with different personal traits and backgrounds. We present an enriched derivative of the GAN network, which is able to generate personalized saliency predictions when fed with image stimuli and specific information about the observer. Our model contains a generator which generates grayscale saliency heat maps based on the image and an observer label. The generator is paired with an adversarial discriminator which learns to distinguish generated salience from ground truth salience. The discriminator also has the observer label as an input, which contributes to the personalization ability of our approach. We evaluate the performance of our personalized salience model by comparison with a benchmark model along with other un-personalized predictions, and illustrate improvements in prediction accuracy for all tested observer groups.
Competing Motivational Discourses for Weight Loss: Means to Ends and the Nexus of Beauty and Health

Western cultural discourses generally deem fat unhealthy and unattractive, providing strong motivation for body nonconformists to lose weight. Semistructured interviews with 42 overweight and obese participants illuminate how individuals understand health and beauty weight-loss motivations and the relationship between the two. Interviews indicate that health and beauty motivate because they are seen as means to various ends. Specifically, participants aspire to health to fulfill various social roles and to live long, meaningful lives. Moreover, they aspire to conventional beauty ideals hoping that aesthetic conformity will elicit benefits, both psychological and social. Interviews also illustrate an intertwining of discourses in which participants conflate beauty and health in three ways: indicating that depictions of the beauty ideal are depictions of the health ideal; using beauty indicators as health indicators; and employing beauty as a motivator for health goals. This article concludes with a discussion of the health, social, and policy implications of these findings.
Immunogenicity of pneumococcal vaccination in renal transplant recipients and hemodialysis patients: a comparative controlled trial.

BACKGROUND The objectives of this study were: to assess and compare the antibody responses of renal allograft recipients and dialysis patients to pneumococcal vaccination. MATERIAL/METHODS 14 stable dialysis patients as well as 37 kidney transplant recipients were eligible for inclusion in this trial. Participated patients receive a single 0.5-mL of 23-valent vaccine Pneumovax administered intramuscularly in the upper extremities. The efficacy of vaccination was evaluated by measuring the antibody response to the whole vaccine. Sera were obtained prior to vaccination and 4 weeks, 6 months and 1 year after the vaccination. RESULTS Prior to vaccination, mean IgG and IgG2 titers were equivalent in Dx and KTx patients (p>0.1 in both). Four weeks after vaccination, 49 out of 51 participated patients (96%) represented an increase in their anti pneumococcal IgG levels (mean 99+/-66) compared to 48 out of 51 (94%) for month 6 (mean 90+/-59), and 38 out of 45 (85%) for the first year after vaccination (mean 73+/-69). KTx patients kept significantly more serum IgG2 levels at months 6 and 12 after vaccination (p=0.001, p=0.03, respectively; Table 1). Mean IgG values for month 6 was 9+/-41 units lesser than month 1 post vaccination serum IgG levels. CONCLUSIONS We found that patients with renal failure on hemodialysis and kidney transplantation well respond to immunization by anti pneumococcal vaccination. But, they rapidly loss their serum antibody levels during the one year after vaccination. Specifying protective levels for serum IgG and IgG2 levels in these patients would help us to more precisely follow these patients and to consider a revaccination when they failed to save the protective serum antibody level.
Two Time-Scale Content Caching and User Association in 5G Heterogeneous Networks

In this paper, we develop a content caching and flow level BS-user association framework in a network environment with the spatial variation of content popularity. Because the studied content caching and BS-user association functions are tightly intertwined with each other, and their decision time scales can be very different in practice, our design considers the time-scale separation of these network functions to tackle and develop the BS-user association and content caching policies. Specifically, we propose an optimal BS-user association algorithm, namely OptUA, operating in the short time scale for a given content caching solution, and a greedy content caching algorithm, namely GCC, operating in the long time scale. The GCC algorithm exploits the submodularity characteristics of the objective function which ensures that the GCC algorithm achieves a constant fraction of the optimal performance for most feasible caching sets. Via extensive numerical studies in heterogeneous cellular networks, we demonstrate that proposed OptUA and GCC algorithms outperform other algorithms which do not consider spatial variations of content popularity in terms of average end-to-end delay per content request and average system load per content at each BS.
Social discovery framework: building capacity and seeking solutions

While journalists often portray discovery as the thrilling insight of a brilliant individual, many discoveries require years of work by competing and collaborating teams. Often large amounts of foundational work are necessary and dialogs among participants help clarify goals. The Social Discovery Framework suggests that (1) there are important processes in building capacity and then seeking solutions and (2) those that initiate requests are often as important as those who seek solutions. The implications of the Social Discovery Framework are that improved social tools to build capacity, initiate requests, and support dialog would accelerate the discovery process as much as the more visible tools for individuals seeking solutions.
A Large and Phylogenetically Diverse Class of Type 1 Opsins Lacking a Canonical Retinal Binding Site

Opsins are photosensitive proteins catalyzing light-dependent processes across the tree of life. For both microbial (type 1) and metazoan (type 2) opsins, photosensing depends upon covalent interaction between a retinal chromophore and a conserved lysine residue. Despite recent discoveries of potential opsin homologs lacking this residue, phylogenetic dispersal and functional significance of these abnormal sequences have not yet been investigated. We report discovery of a large group of putatively non-retinal binding opsins, present in a number of fungal and microbial genomes and comprising nearly 30% of opsins in the Halobacteriacea, a model clade for opsin photobiology. We report phylogenetic analyses, structural modeling, genomic context analysis and biochemistry, to describe the evolutionary relationship of these recently described proteins with other opsins, show that they are expressed and do not bind retinal in a canonical manner. Given these data, we propose a hypothesis that these abnormal opsin homologs may represent a novel family of sensory opsins which may be involved in taxis response to one or more non-light stimuli. If true, this finding would challenge our current understanding of microbial opsins as a light-specific sensory family, and provides a potential analogy with the highly diverse signaling capabilities of the eukaryotic G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), of which metazoan type 2 opsins are a light-specific sub-clade.
DiHA (Dextranomers in Hyaluronan) Injections for Treatment of Insufficient Closure of the Vocal Folds: Early Clinical Experiences

Objective To determine the clinical effects of injecting DiHA (a mixture of dextranomer molecules and 1% hyaluronan solution in equal proportions) as a “space filler” into the vocal folds of patients experiencing insufficient closure of the vocal folds resulting from either unilateral vocal fold paralysis or bowed vocal folds.
Asset Allocation Theory and Practice in Australian Investment Management

Asset allocation is the decision on how much of the investment portfolio to place in each of the broad asset classes (i.e., cash, fixed-interest securities, property, equities). It is a key decision area in the investment management industry, where professional investors manage pooled investments. This study sought to identify any dichotomy between theory and practice of asset allocation in the Australian investment management industry. It surveyed the available body of research on asset allocation consisting of Modern Portfolio Theory from the seminal Markowitz mean-variance formulation to subsequent research strands, and established that academics still believe in their relevance. An online survey among practitioners established that while there is a high level of awareness, there is a low level of usage of asset allocation theory and theory-based methods in the industry. Recommendations mostly revolving around improving the interaction between academia and industry are made that may help reduce the theory-practice dichotomy. Limitations of the study are discussed as well as future areas for related research.
Adult Attachment and Transgender Identity in the Italian Context: Clinical Implications and Suggestions for Further Research

ABSTRACT Introduction: Although attachment theory has been recognized as one of the main references for the study of the general well-being, little research has been focused on the attachment styles of transgender people. Attachment styles are deeply influenced by the earliest relationships with caregivers, which, for gender-nonconforming children, are often characterized by parental rejection. Consequently, transgender children and adults likely internalize societal stigma, developing internalized transphobia. The current research was aimed to explore the link between adult attachment and internalized transphobia. Method: Twenty-five male-to-female (MtF) and 23 female-to-male (FtM) transgender people participated in the survey filling in two self-report questionnaires: the Attachment Style Questionnaire and the Transgender Identity Survey. A cluster analysis, t-test, and multiple regression analysis were conducted to explore the link between attachment styles and internalized transphobia. Results: A greater prevalence of secure attachment styles was detected. Participants with secure attachment styles reported higher levels of positive transgender identity than those with insecure attachment styles. Secure attachment styles significantly affect positive transgender identity, while insecure attachment styles influence internalized transphobia. Conclusions: A clinical focus on the redefinition of the internal working models of transgender people can inform psychologically focused interventions that transgender people can benefit from.
Multiple loci on human chromosome 11 control tumorigenicity of BK virus transformed cells

BK virus (BKV) is a human papovavirus that readily transforms rodent cells, but not human cells, to a neoplastic phenotype, suggesting that tumor‐suppressor functions expressed in human cells control BKV oncogenicity. Transfer of a normal human chromosome 11 to BKV‐transformed mouse cells suppresses the malignant phenotype. In this report we map the regions of chromosome involved in tumor suppression. Transfer of chromosome 11 to the BKV‐transformed hamster cell line HKBK produces monochromosomic hybrids retaining only portions of the transferred human chromosome. We have compared the tumorigenicity of the hybrids with the molecular mapping of chromosome 11 retained regions. This analysis indicated that 3 regions of human chromosome 11, 11p15.5, 11p13 and 11q13, cooperate in tumor suppression. However, 11q13 seems the most important, since all the HKBK/H11‐induced tumors analysed had lost this region, whereas 11p15.5 and 11p13 were sometimes retained. The chromosomal regions identified in this study are deleted in several types of human tumors, suggesting that the BKV transformation system specifically detects tumor‐suppressor genes on chromosome 11 that are involved in human oncogenesis. This model may be of use in isolating and cloning such genes. The results of this report raise the possibility that BKV may have a synergistic tumorigenic effect in human cells where tumor‐suppressor genes controlling its oncogenk potential are inactivated. © 1994 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Microglial cells invade the outer retina as photoreceptors degenerate in Royal College of Surgeons rats.

PURPOSE Photoreceptor degeneration is accompanied by the invasion of phagocytic cells into the outer retina of Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) rats. Previous studies suggested that these mononuclear phagocytes were blood-borne macrophages and not retinal pigment epithelial cells nor Müller glia. Thus, immunospecific markers were used to identify these cells and to determine their distribution in the dystrophic retina. METHODS Retinas from RCS and control (RCS-rdy+) rats were processed for immunocytochemistry using antibodies against phosphotyrosine, which labels both microglial cells and peripheral macrophages, and ED2, which labels peripheral macrophages only. As a positive control to demonstrate ED2-labeling of peripheral macrophages that enter the retina during injury, experiments were performed using needle-punctured Long Evans rat retinas. RESULTS In normal animals, process-bearing, phosphotyrosine-reactive cells were restricted to the inner retinal layers and the outer plexiform layer. In early dystrophic retinas, phosphotyrosine-reactive cells also were observed in the outer retinal layers. The number of phosphotyrosine-labeled cells in the outer retina increased substantially in later stages of dystrophy. ED2-reactive cells were observed in normal or dystrophic retinas only after needle puncture. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that phagocytic cells during the early stages of dystrophy in RCS rat retinas are derived from resident microglial cells, not from peripheral macrophages. The migration of microglial cells into the outer retina when photoreceptor cells begin to degenerate further suggests that they may play a major role in photoreceptor cell death in the dystrophic retina.
Impaired tumor growth, metastasis, angiogenesis and wound healing in annexin A1-null mice

Despite 2 decades of research, no clear function for annexin A1 (AnxA1) has been established. Using AnxA1-KO mice, we show that tumor growth and metastasis are significantly decreased, whereas rodent survival and tumor necrosis are greatly increased when tumors grow in AnxA1-KO mice. Systems analysis of gene expression in these tumors specifically implicates 2 related vascular functions, angiogenesis and wound healing, in this impairment. Both tumor vascular development and wound healing are greatly retarded in KO tissues. Aortic ring assays reveal induced AnxA1 expression on sprouting endothelial cells of normal mice whereas KO aortas exhibit impaired endothelial cell sprouting that is rescued by adenoviral expression of AnxA1. Key differences in specific gene regulation may define new molecular pathways mediating angiogenesis, including a reset profile of pro- versus anti-angiogenic factors, apparently distinct for physiological versus pathological angiogenesis. These studies establish novel pro-angiogenic functions for AnxA1 in vascular endothelial cell sprouting, wound healing, and tumor growth and metastasis, thereby uncovering a new functional target for repairing damaged tissue and treating diseases such as cancer. They also provide critical new evidence that the tumor stroma and its microenvironment can greatly affect tumor progression and metastasis.
The amount, distribution, and timing of lifetime nursing home use.

OBJECTIVES Information on lifetime nursing home use is needed to design and evaluate long-term care financing reforms. Whereas a number of studies have estimated mean lifetime use or its distribution, very little is known about variation in use among subgroups of the population, the timing of use, the number of distinct episodes of care experienced by nursing home users, and the risk and expected use at ages other than age 65. The purpose of the study was to fill these gaps in knowledge. METHODS The study used a data base constructed to represent decedents who used nursing homes. The sample was derived from the sample of discharges collected as part of the 1985 National Nursing Home Survey. Weights were constructed for the purpose of making projections of remaining lifetime nursing home use at selected ages in 1995. RESULTS There was considerable variation in lifetime use among demographic groups. Overall, estimates of the amount of use remaining at selected ages tended to be relatively constant at approximately 1 year. Mean years until nursing home admission, however, decreased sharply from almost 40 years at age 45 to approximately 5 years at age 85. CONCLUSIONS The distribution of lifetime use was highly skewed, providing support for efforts to spread risk through public or private insurance. With roughly one quarter of all use occurring after 5 years of nursing home residence, however, a substantial share of use would exceed benefit maximums that are part of many proposals for public financing of long-term care as well as private insurance policies.