Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term lithium therapy for bipolar disorder: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

OBJECTIVE The authors sought to determine the efficacy and acceptability of lithium for relapse prevention in bipolar disorder. METHOD A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials comparing lithium with placebo in the long-term treatment of bipolar disorders was conducted. Data were obtained from searching the registers of the Cochrane Collaboration; reviewing reference lists, journals, and conference abstracts; and contacting authors, experts, and pharmaceutical companies. Outcomes investigated included risk of relapse (manic, depressive, and total) as well as risk of specific adverse effects and total withdrawal rates. RESULTS Five randomized controlled trials (770 participants) were included. Lithium was more effective than placebo in preventing all relapses (random effects relative risk=0.65, 95% CI=0.50 to 0.84) and manic relapses (relative risk=0.62, 95% CI=0.40 to 0.95). The protective effect of lithium on depressive relapses was smaller and was less robust (relative risk=0.72, 95% CI=0.49 to 1.07). CONCLUSIONS Lithium treatment reduces the risk of relapse in bipolar disorder. The preventive effect is clear for manic episodes, although it is equivocal for depressive episodes.
A Semantically-Enhanced Modelling Environment for Business Process as a Service

In this paper we present a hybrid modeling approach which supports the continuous alignment of business and IT in the cloud. Business Process as a Service provides the end-to-end cloud support for business processes instead of single applications. A graphical modelling environment allows non-technical modelers to design business processes and to specify requirements in human-interpretable way. Via semantic lifting, the graphical models can be annotated with classes and values from an enterprise ontology. The BPaaS Ontology contains the relevant classes for the smart Business and IT-Cloud alignment. It supports the modeler in using a standard terminology and thus ensures consistent modeling.
Self-Oligomerization Is Essential for Enhanced Immunological Activities of Soluble Recombinant Calreticulin

We have recently reported that calreticulin (CRT), a luminal resident protein, can be found in the sera of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and also that recombinant CRT (rCRT) exhibits extraordinarily strong immunological activities. We herein further demonstrate that rCRT fragments 18–412 (rCRT/18-412), rCRT/39-272, rCRT/120-308 and rCRT/120-250 can self-oligomerize in solution and are 50–100 fold more potent than native CRT (nCRT, isolated from mouse livers) in activating macrophages in vitro. We narrowed down the active site of CRT to residues 150–230, the activity of which also depends on dimerization. By contrast, rCRT/18-197 is almost completely inactive. When rCRT/18-412 is fractionated into oligomers and monomers by gel filtration, the oligomers maintain most of their immunological activities in terms of activating macrophages in vitro and inducing specific antibodies in vivo, while the monomers were much less active by comparison. Additionally, rCRT/18-412 oligomers are much better than monomers in binding to, and uptake by, macrophages. Inhibition of macrophage endocytosis partially blocks the stimulatory effect of rCRT/18-412. We conclude that the immunologically active site of CRT maps between residues 198–230 and that soluble CRT could acquire potent immuno-pathological activities in microenvironments favoring its oligomerization.
Color Correction for Face Detection Based on Human Visual Perception Metaphor

In this paper we present a method of automatic color correction of face images and its application in a face detection algorithm. The color correction method is based on the phenomenon of color constancy observed in human visual perception. This technique is further applied in a face detection system, which draws upon the analogy to the parallel organization of visual neural pathways, the magnoand parvocellular channels. Presented method proved to be efficient in diverse background and illumination conditions, including face images with background chromatically close to human skin and where prominent facial features are obscured by adverse illumination conditions.
The effects of an enriched environment and teacher intervention on the dramatic and sociodramatic play of children

This study examined the effects of an enriched environment and teacher intervention on the dramatic and sociodramatic play of four to five year old children in Singapore. Three groups, comprising one experimental group with an enriched play environment, another experimental group with an enriched play environment and teacher intervention, and a control group without any intervention, with a total of thirty-six children from three childcare centres, were observed in the classroom setting. The Smilansky Scale for Evaluation of Dramatic and Sociodramatic Play was used to evaluate and rate the six play elements of Imitative Role Play, Make-Believe with Objects, Make-Believe with Actions and Situations, Persistence in Role Play, Interaction and Verbal Communication, that occurred in the children's play sessions. Pre and post intervention data were analysed using paired t tests, analysis of variance, and chi-square to determine effects of the interventions. A qualitative perspective was included to provide additional information on the children's play. Overall, the results and analyses indicated increased play levels in the dramatic and sociodramatic play of the children in both experimental groups, and revealed more significant effects on the dramatic and sociodramatic play of children with the enriched play environment. Research has supported the influence of the enriched play environment (Petrakos and Howe, 1996), and the effects of the enriched play environment and teacher intervention (Smilansky, 1968) in children's play. The findings of this study serve to highlight the effects of the enriched environment and teacher intervention in enhancing the dramatic and sociodramatic play of children. The need to evaluate the role of teachers in children's play is also highlighted, with implications for teacher training programmes in the local context to emphasise the values and understanding of play in relation to learning experiences for children and the preschool curriculum.
Visual Acuity in Simple Myopic Astigmatism: Influence of Cylinder Axis

Purpose. The relationship between astigmatic refractive errors and their associated visual acuity has been studied in recent years in the context of refractive power space. The influence of the axis of astigmatism remains a matter of controversy. Our goal in this study is to provide additional experimental evidence to clarify this subject. The influence of the simulated axis orientation was compared with other factors that affect visual acuity such as the particular design of the test and the differences between eyes. Methods. Simple myopic astigmatism from 0 to −3.00 D, in steps of −0.25 D, and with five different axes between 0° and 90°, were simulated on four healthy eyes of young observers. In each case, visual acuity was recorded for three different tests. Refractions were expressed in the form of vectors and visual acuity was represented as a function of strength. Results. No significant differences in visual acuity were found for astigmatism of the same power but different axes. In fact, our results show these differences are even less important than those recorded for the same astigmatism induced in different eyes. The highest discrepancies in visual acuity were found when different charts were used to test the same astigmatic error. Conclusions. The strength of the vector representing the astigmatic refractive state describes very accurately the performance of visual acuity across simple myopic astigmatic errors. In these cases, visual acuity can be associated with a single refractive parameter. This fact could be useful, especially in statistical studies involving visual performance.
An efficient viral vector for functional genomic studies of Prunus fruit trees and its induced resistance to Plum pox virus via silencing of a host factor gene

Summary RNA silencing is a powerful technology for molecular characterization of gene functions in plants. A commonly used approach to the induction of RNA silencing is through genetic transformation. A potent alternative is to use a modified viral vector for virus‐induced gene silencing (VIGS) to degrade RNA molecules sharing similar nucleotide sequence. Unfortunately, genomic studies in many allogamous woody perennials such as peach are severely hindered because they have a long juvenile period and are recalcitrant to genetic transformation. Here, we report the development of a viral vector derived from Prunus necrotic ringspot virus (PNRSV), a widespread fruit tree virus that is endemic in all Prunus fruit production countries and regions in the world. We show that the modified PNRSV vector, harbouring the sense‐orientated target gene sequence of 100‐200 bp in length in genomic RNA3, could efficiently trigger the silencing of a transgene or an endogenous gene in the model plant Nicotiana benthamiana. We further demonstrate that the PNRSV‐based vector could be manipulated to silence endogenous genes in peach such as eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E isoform (eIF(iso)4E), a host factor of many potyviruses including Plum pox virus (PPV). Moreover, the eIF(iso)4E‐knocked down peach plants were resistant to PPV. This work opens a potential avenue for the control of virus diseases in perennial trees via viral vector‐mediated silencing of host factors, and the PNRSV vector may serve as a powerful molecular tool for functional genomic studies of Prunus fruit trees.
Vocal correlates of individual sooty mangabey travel speed and direction

Many group-living animals coordinate movements with acoustic signals, but so far most studies have focused on how group movements are initiated. In this study, we investigated movement patterns of wild sooty mangabeys (Cercocebus atys), a mostly terrestrial, forest-dwelling primate. We provide quantitative results showing that vocalization rates of mangabey subgroups, but not of focal individuals, correlated with focal individuals’ current movement patterns. More interestingly, vocal behaviour predicted whether individuals changed future speed, and possibly future travel direction. The role of vocalizations as a potential mechanism for the regulation of group movement was further highlighted by interaction effects that include subgroup size and the quality of poly-specific associations. Collectively, our results suggest that primate vocal behaviour can function beyond travel initiation in coordination and regulation of group movements.
MR-guided laser-induced thermotherapy (LITT) of liver tumours: experimental and clinical data

MR-guided laser-induced interstitial thermotherapy (LITT) is a percutaneous, minimally invasive treatment modality for treating liver lesions/metastases, soft tissue tumours and musculoskeletal lesions. In this group, MR-guided LITT is currently performed under local anaesthesia on an out-patient basis with a specially designed saline-cooled laser application system. Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm wave length) was used for tumour ablation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using both open and closed MR units has proven clinically effective in validating the exact positioning of optical fibres. It also allows for real time-monitoring of thermal effects and the evaluation of treatment-induced coagulation necrosis. In liver tumours, percutaneous MR-guided LITT achieves a local tumour control rate of 98.7% at 3 months post-therapy and 97.3% at 6 months with metastases smaller than 5 cm in diameter. The mean survival rate for 1259 patients with 3440 metastases treated with 14 694 laser applications at the institute (calculated with the Kaplan-Meier method) was 4.4 years (95% confidence interval: 4.1–4.8 years) and median survival was 3.00 years. No statistically significant difference in survival rates was observed in patients with liver metastases from colorectal cancer vs metastases from other primary tumours. The rate of clinically relevant side effects and complications requiring secondary treatment was 2.2%. The clinical use of MR guided LITT (size<5 cm, number<5) is justified in patients with liver metastases of colorectal and/or breast cancers if the inclusion criteria are carefully observed. Further indications for MR guided LITT include recurrent cancer lesions in the head and neck, lung metastases and bone and soft tissue lesions.
Subliminal Semantic Priming in Speech

Numerous studies have reported subliminal repetition and semantic priming in the visual modality. We transferred this paradigm to the auditory modality. Prime awareness was manipulated by a reduction of sound intensity level. Uncategorized prime words (according to a post-test) were followed by semantically related, unrelated, or repeated target words (presented without intensity reduction) and participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT). Participants with slower reaction times in the LDT showed semantic priming (faster reaction times for semantically related compared to unrelated targets) and negative repetition priming (slower reaction times for repeated compared to semantically related targets). This is the first report of semantic priming in the auditory modality without conscious categorization of the prime.
SuperWASP observations of long timescale photometric variations in cataclysmic variables

Aims. We investigated whether the predictions and results of Stanishev et al. (2002, A&A, 394, 625) concerning a possible relationship between eclipse depths in PX And and its retrograde disc precession phase, could be confirmed in long term observations made by SuperWASP. In addition, two further CVs (DQ Her and V795 Her) in the same SuperWASP data set were investigated to see whether evidence of superhump periods and disc precession periods were present and what other, if any, long term periods could be detected. Methods. Long term photometry of PX And, V795 Her and DQ Her was carried out and Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis undertaken on the resulting light curves. For the two eclipsing CVs, PX And and DQ Her, we analysed the potential variations in the depth of the eclipse with cycle number. Results. The results of our period and eclipse analysis on PX And confirm that the negative superhump period is 0.1417 ± 0.0001d. We find no evidence of positive superhumps in our data suggesting that PX And may have been in a low state during our observations. We improve on existing estimates of the disc precession period and find it to be 4.43 ± 0.05d. Our results confirm the predictions of Stanishev et al. (2002). We find that DQ Her does not appear to show a similar variation for we find no evidence of negative superhumps or of a retrograde disc precession. We also find no evidence of positive superhumps or of a prograde disc precession and we attribute the lack of positive superhumps in DQ Her to be due to the high mass ratio of this CV. We do however find evidence for a modulation of the eclipse depth over a period of 100 days which may be linked with solar-type magnetic cycles which give rise to long term photometric variations. The periodogram analysis for V795 Her detected the likely positive superhump period 0.1165d, however, neither the 0.10826d orbital period nor the prograde 1.53d disc precession period were seen. Here though we have found a variation in the periodogram power function at the positive superhump period, over a period of at least 120 days.
The Hotbox: efficient access to a large number of menu-items

The proliferation of multiple toolbars and UI widgetsaround the perimeter of application windows is an indication thatthe traditional GUI design of a single menubar is notsufficient to support large scale applications with numerousfunctions. In this paper we describe a new widget which is anenhancement of the traditional menubar which dramaticallyincreases menu-item capacity. This widget, called the Hotboxcombines several GUI techniques which are generally usedindependently: accelerator keys, modal dialogs, pop-up/pull downmenus, radial menus, marking menus and menubars. These techniquesare fitted together to create a single, easy to learn yet fast tooperate GUI widget which can handle significantly moremenu-items than the traditional GUI menubar. Wedescribe the design rationale of the Hotbox and its effectivenessin a large scale commercial application. While the Hotbox wasdeveloped for a particular application domain, the widget itselfand the design rationale are potentially useful in otherdomains.
Worst-case circuit delay taking into account power supply variations

Current Static Timing Analysis (STA) techniques allow one to verify the timing of a circuit at different process corners which only consider cases where all the supplies are low or high. This analysis may not give the true maximum delay of a circuit because it neglects the possible mismatch between drivers and loads. We propose a new approach for timing analysis in which we first identify the critical path(s) of a circuit using a power-supply-aware timing model. Given these critical paths, we then take into account how the power nodes of the gates on the critical path are connected to the power grid, and re-analyze for the worst-case time delay. This re-analysis is posed as an optimization problem where the complete operation of the entire circuit is abstracted in terms of current constraints. We present our technique and report on the implementation results using benchmark circuits tied to a number of test-case power grids.
A multi-level text mining method to extract biological relationships

Accurate and computationally efficient approaches in discovering relationships between biological objects from text documents are important for biologists to develop biological models. This paper presents a novel approach to extract relationships between multiple biological objects that are present in a text document. The approach involves object identification, reference resolution, ontology and synonym discovery, and extracting object-object relationships. Hidden Markov models (HMMs), dictionaries, and N-Gram models are used to set the framework to tackle the complex task of extracting object-object relationships. Experiments were carried out using a corpus of one thousand Medline abstracts. Intermediate results were obtained for the object identification process, synonym discovery, and finally the relationship extraction. For a corpus of thousand abstracts, 53 relationships were extracted of which 43 were correct, giving a specificity of 81%. The approach is both adaptable and scalable to new problems as opposed to rule-based methods.
The human imprintome vl.O: Over 120 imprinted genes in the human genome impose a major review on previous censuses

A relatively small number of human genes are marked with their parental origin and undergo a process termed "genomic imprinting", which, as a field of study, has grown rapidly in the last 20 years, with a growing figure of around 100 imprinted genes known in the mouse and approximately 120 in the human to comprise the updated whole set of human imprinted genes, the imprintome. Human imprintome is here analyzed by means of a reasonable, valid application of the Semantic Web and Linked Data approaches to a few structured datasets in order to provide a comprehensive collection of all known and predicted imprinted genes in the human genome. We have examined, compiled, structured and linked data to use them as a sharing resource for genome and epigenome interrogated studies regarding imprinted genes. Moreover, we offer our datasets of structured, linked data as being the actual research outcome of this human imprintome analysis because as genomics become more and more data intensive, due to huge amounts of biological data, so does our needs for more structured data to be easier mined and shared. The resulting version of the Linked Human Imprintome is a project within Linked Open Data (LOD) initiative (http://lod-cloud.net/) through Data Hub (http://thedatahub.org/en/dataset/a-draft-version-of-the-linked-human-imprintome).
Cpx signaling pathway monitors biogenesis and affects assembly and expression of P pili

P pili are important virulence factors in uropathogenic Escherichia coli. The Cpx two‐component signal transduction system controls a stress response and is activated by misfolded proteins in the periplasm. We have discovered new functions for the Cpx pathway, indicating that it may play a critical role in pathogenesis. P pili are assembled via the chaperone/usher pathway. Subunits that go ‘OFF‐pathway’ during pilus biogenesis generate a signal. This signal is derived from the misfolding and aggregation of subunits that failed to come into contact with the chaperone in the periplasm. In response, Cpx not only controls the stress response, but also controls genes necessary for pilus biogenesis, and is involved in regulating the phase variation of pap expression and, potentially, the expression of a panoply of other virulence factors. This study demonstrates how the prototypic chaperone/usher pathway is intricately linked and dependent upon a signal transduction system.
Interconnects in the Third Dimension: Design Challenges for 3D ICs

Despite generation upon generation of scaling, computer chips have until now remained essentially 2-dimensional. Improvements in on-chip wire delay and in the maximum number of I/O per chip have not been able to keep up with transistor performance growth; it has become steadily harder to hide the discrepancy. 3D chip technologies come in a number of flavors, but are expected to enable the extension of CMOS performance. Designing in three dimensions, however, forces the industry to look at formerly-two- dimensional integration issues quite differently, and requires the re-fitting of multiple existing EDA capabilities.
Towards integrated and efficient scientific sensor data processing: a database approach

In this work, we focus on managing scientific environmental data, which are measurement readings collected from wireless sensors. In environmental science applications, raw sensor data often need to be validated, interpolated, aligned and aggregated before being used to construct meaningful result sets. Due to the lack of a system that integrates all the necessary processing steps, scientists often resort to multiple tools to manage and process the data, which can severely affect the efficiency of their work. In this paper, we propose a new data processing framework, HyperGrid, to address the problem. HyperGrid adopts a generic data model and a generic query processing and optimization framework. It offers an integrated environment to store, query, analyze and visualize scientific datasets. The experiments on real query set and data set show that the framework not only introduces little processing overhead, but also provides abundant opportunities to optimize the processing cost and thus significantly enhances the processing efficiency.
An adaptive estimator for registration in augmented reality

In augmented reality (AR) systems using head-mounted displays (HMD), it is important to accurately sense the position and orientation (pose) of the user's head with respect to the world, in order that graphical overlays are drawn correctly aligned with real world objects. It is desired to maintain registration dynamically (while the person is moving their head) so that the graphical objects will not appear to lag behind, or swim around, the corresponding real objects. We present an adaptive method for achieving dynamic registration which accounts for variations in the magnitude of the users head motion, based on a multiple model approach. This approach uses the extended Kalman filter to smooth sensor data and estimate position and orientation.