Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Risk of bias in industry-funded oseltamivir trials: comparison of core reports versus full clinical study reports

Background The Cochrane risk of bias tool is a prominent instrument used to evaluate potential biases in clinical trials. In three updates of our Cochrane review on neuraminidase inhibitors, we assessed risk of bias on the same trials using different levels of detail: the trials in journal publications, in core reports, and in full clinical study reports. Here we analyse whether progressively greater amounts of information and detail in full clinical study reports (including trial protocols, statistical analysis plans, certificates of analyses, individual participant data listings and randomisation lists) affected our risk of bias assessments. Methods and findings We used the Cochrane risk of bias tool to assess and compare risk of bias in 14 oseltamivir trials (reported in 10 clinical study reports) obtained from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the manufacturer, Roche. With more detailed information, reported in clinical study reports, no previous assessment of ‘high’ risk of bias was reclassified as ‘low’ or ‘unclear’ in the main analysis, and over half (55%, 34/62) of the previous assessments of ‘low’ risk of bias were reclassified as ‘high’. Most assessments of ‘unclear’ risk of bias (67%, or 28/42) were reclassified as ‘high’ risk of bias when our judgements were based on full clinical study reports. The limits of our study were our relative inexperience in dealing with large information sets, sometimes subjective bias judgements and focus on industry trials. Comparison with journal publications was not possible because of the low number of trials published. Conclusions We found that as information increased in the document, this increased our assessment of bias. This may mean that risk of bias has been insufficiently assessed in Cochrane reviews based on journal publications.
Functional analysis of the archaea, bacteria, and viruses from a halite endolithic microbial community

Halite endoliths in the Atacama Desert represent one of the most extreme microbial ecosystems on Earth. Here we sequenced and characterized a shotgun metagenome from halite nodules collected in Salar Grande, Chile. The community is dominated by archaea and functional analysis attributed most of the autotrophic CO2 fixation to a unique cyanobacterium. The assembled 1.1 Mbp genome of a novel nanohaloarchaeon, Candidatus Nanopetramus SG9, revealed a photoheterotrophic life style and a low median isoelectric point (pI) for all predicted proteins, suggesting a "salt-in" strategy for osmotic balance. Predicted proteins of the algae identified in the community also had pI distributions similar to "salt-in" strategists. The Nanopetramus genome contained a unique CRISPR/Cas system with a spacer that matched a partial viral genome from the metagenome. A combination of reference-independent methods identified over 30 complete or near complete viral or proviral genomes with diverse genome structure, genome size, gene content, and hosts. Putative hosts included Halobacteriaceae, Nanohaloarchaea, and Cyanobacteria. Despite the dependence of the halite community on deliquescence for liquid water availability, this study exposed an ecosystem spanning three phylogenetic domains, containing a large diversity of viruses, and a predominant salt-in strategy to balance the high osmotic pressure of the environment.
SIGNIFICANCE MAP BASED CONTENT AWARE IMAGE

Images are displayed in devices with different resolutions with the help of image resizing. Traditional image resizing methods don’t pay attention to the content of an image while resizing, thus make the image be seen unnaturally. Content-aware image resizing techniques consider the visual content of images during the resizing process. The basic idea in these algorithms is the removal of vertical and/or horizontal paths of pixels (i.e., seams) having low energy. These low energy pixels contain the low salient information. The proposed method uses gradient vector flow (GVF) of the image to find the pixel paths to be considered for resizing. The relevance of these paths can be directly obtained from an energy map, related to the magnitude of the GVF of the image to be resized. These seams may contain visually important regions. So the proposed method uses a significance map for the final selection of the pixel path. The significance map includes the saliency and depth features of the associated image. Visually important image regions can be better preserved in the final resized image with the help of the significance map.
Targeting pleiotropin to treat osteoarthritis

Pleiotropin (PTN) is a secreted heparin-binding peptide expressed in mesodermal and neuroectodermal cells during development, but rarely in adult tissues. Although PTN is abundant in fetal or juvenile cartilage, it is undectable in mature cartilage. However, PTN is re-expressed in chondrocytes in early stages of osteoarthritis where it is detectable in situ and in synovial fluids from patients. PTN enhances chondrogenesis by stimulation of extra-cellular matrix synthesis, reduction of degrading matrix metalloproteases and induction of their inhibitors; PTN also slightly reduces pro-inflammatory factors, such as nitric oxide and vascular endothelial growth factor. Furthermore, PTN stimulates chondrocyte clustering and proliferation. Thus, PTN appears to mediate repair and protective processes in osteoarthritic cartilage and appears to be a promising factor to treat osteoarthritis.
Risk of vascular disease in patients with multiple sclerosis: a review

Abstract Objective: Vascular dysfunction and shared risk factors may lead to an increased risk of arterial and venous vascular disease in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The aim of this review was to describe studies examining the risk of vascular diseases in MS patients. Methods: A PubMed search combined with review of reference lists and table of contents revealed eight relevant studies describing the occurrence or risk of one or more vascular diseases. Results: One cohort study and three cross-sectional studies described stroke occurrence in 898 to 13 963 MS patients. MS was associated with an increased risk of stroke and cerebrovascular diseases compared with the general population and other hospitalized patients, particularly within the first years after MS diagnosis and in young and middle-aged MS patients. In contrast, data are conflicting with regard to the association between MS and coronary artery disease including myocardial infarction. Cross-sectional studies found a lower prevalence of coronary artery disease in MS patients, while the only cohort study found an increased risk within the first year after MS diagnosis only. MS was, however, associated with an increased risk of venous thromboembolism, including deep venous thromboembolism and pulmonary embolism, in particular within the first years after MS diagnosis. Discussion: MS is associated with an increased risk of vascular diseases within the first years after a first-time MS diagnosis compared with the general population. The risk declines thereafter, but remains elevated for stroke and venous thromboembolism. Shared risk factors, linked pathogenesis, and bias may contribute to the association.
The relationship between breastfeeding self-efficacy and perceived insufficient milk among Japanese mothers.

OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship between maternal perceptions of insufficient milk and breastfeeding confidence using the Breastfeeding Self-Efficacy Scale. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. PARTICIPANTS Two hundred and sixty-two in-hospital breastfeeding mothers in Japan. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Breastfeeding self-efficacy was measured in-hospital and perception of insufficient milk was measured at 4 weeks postpartum. RESULTS Although most mothers intended to exclusively breastfeed, less than 40% were doing so at 4 weeks postpartum. Among the mothers using formula, 73% cited perceived insufficient milk as the primary reason for supplementation or completely discontinuing breastfeeding. Mothers' perception of insufficient milk at 4 weeks postpartum were significantly related to breastfeeding self-efficacy in hospital in the immediate postpartum period (r=.45, p<.001). Hierarchical multiple regression revealed that breastfeeding self-efficacy explained 21% of the variance in maternal perceptions of insufficient milk, and the contribution was independent of sociodemographic variables. CONCLUSIONS Enhancing breastfeeding self-efficacy in the immediate postpartum period may reduce maternal perceptions of insufficient milk and the premature discontinuation or supplementation of breastfeeding. Additional research is warranted.
Techniques for optimizing CORBA middleware for distributed embedded systems

The distributed embedded systems industry is poised to leverage emerging real-time operating systems, such as Inferno Windows CE, EPOC, and Palm OS to support mobile communication applications, such as electronic mail, Internet browsing, and network management. Ideally, these applications can be developed using standard middleware components like CORBA to improve their quality and reduce their cost and cycle time. However, stringent constraints on memory available in embedded systems imposes a severe limit on the footprint of CORBA middleware. This paper provides three contributions to the study and design of small footprint, embedded CORBA middleware. First, we describe the optimizations used to develop the protocol engine and CORBA IDL compiler provided by TAO, which is our real-time CORBA implementation. TAO's IDL compiler produces stubs that can use either compiled and/or interpretive marshalling. Second, we compare the performance and footprint of TAO IDL compiler-generated stubs and skeletons that use compiled and/or interpretive marshalling for a wide range of IDL data types. Third, we illustrate the benefits of the small footprint and efficiency of TAO IDL compiler-generated stubs and skeletons for CORBA object services implemented using TAO. The results comparing the performance of the compiled and interpretive stubs and skeletons indicate that the interpretive stubs and skeletons perform between 75-100% of the compiled stubs and skeletons for a wide range of data types. However the code size for the interpreted stubs and skeletons was between 26-45% and 50-80% of the compiled stubs and skeletons, respectively. These results indicate a positive step towards implementing high performance, small footprint middleware for distributed embedded systems.
Quantitative trait loci on chromosome 5 for susceptibility to frequency-specific effects on hearing in DBA/2J mice

The DBA/2J strain is a model for early-onset, progressive hearing loss in humans, as confirmed in the present study. DBA/2J mice showed progression of hearing loss to low-frequency sounds from ultrasonic-frequency sounds and profound hearing loss at all frequencies before 7 months of age. It is known that the early-onset hearing loss of DBA/2J mice is caused by affects in the ahl (Cdh23ahl) and ahl8 (Fscn2ahl8) alleles of the cadherin 23 and fascin 2 genes, respectively. Although the strong contributions of the Fscn2ahl8 allele were detected in hearing loss at 8- and 16-kHz stimuli with LOD scores of 5.02 at 8 kHz and 8.84 at 16 kHz, hearing loss effects were also demonstrated for three new quantitative trait loci (QTLs) for the intervals of 50.3–54.5, 64.6–119.9, and 119.9–137.0 Mb, respectively, on chromosome 5, with significant LOD scores of 2.80–3.91 for specific high-frequency hearing loss at 16 kHz by quantitative trait loci linkage mapping using a (DBA/2J × C57BL/6J) F1 × DBA/2J backcross mice. Moreover, we showed that the contribution of Fscn2ahl8 to early-onset hearing loss with 32-kHz stimuli is extremely low and raised the possibility of effects from the Cdh23ahl allele and another dominant quantitative trait locus (loci) for hearing loss at this ultrasonic frequency. Therefore, our results suggested that frequency-specific QTLs control early-onset hearing loss in DBA/2J mice.
Energy Harvesting Cognitive Radio With Channel-Aware Sensing Strategy

An energy harvesting cognitive radio scenario is considered where a secondary user (SU) with finite battery capacity opportunistically accesses the primary user (PU) channels. The objective is to maximize the throughput of SU under energy neutrality constraint and fading channel conditions in a single-user multi-channel setting. A channel selection criterion based on the probabilistic availability of energy with SU, channel conditions, and primary network's belief state is proposed, which chooses the best subset of channels for sensing, yielding higher throughput. We construct channel-aware optimal and myopic sensing strategies in a Partially Observable Markov Decision Process framework based on the proposed channel selection criterion. The effects of sensing errors and collisions between PU and SU on the throughput of the latter are studied. It is shown that there exists a trade-off between the transmission duration and the energy lost in collisions.
Hierarchical fingerprint quality estimation scheme

The performance of an automatic fingerprint authentication system relies heavily on the quality of the captured fingerprint images. The error rates of such systems can significantly be decreased just by detecting and removing poor quality images right at the early stages. In this paper, an effective quality estimation scheme is proposed, which performs analysis in hierarchical fashion. This multilayered quality analysis comprises eight quality measures, three at global level (whole image)) and five at local level (block-wise), each one giving its respective quality score. The scores at their respective levels are fused into a single quality score by their corresponding fusion engines at two different levels. Fusion engines are based on the ‘Weighted Sum rule’. The scheme is also evaluated using ‘Sum rule’. The proposed scheme is experimented against fingerprint Verification Competition (FVC 2004) datasets. The experimental results show that this arrangement could correctly estimate and assign grades (good/acceptable/poor) to nearly 95% images in the dataset. Also, it is observed that this novel fusion-based hierarchical quality assessment model estimates fingerprint quality more effectively with ‘weighted sum rule’ than ‘sum rule’ and their individual counterparts.
Effects of laser-exposed gold nanorods on biochemical pathways of neuronal cells

Gold nanorods with citrate termination, poly(4 - styrenesulfonic acid) coating and silica coating were taken up by NG108 - K15 neuronal cells. This process proved to generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) and activate the nuclear factor κ -B (NF - κB). However, subsequent exposure to laser light at the plasmon resonance wavelength showed no long term cell damage or ROS / NF- κB activation. Interestingly, monitoring of intracellular Ca2+ signaling showed evidence of photo - generated transients without alteration of other normal cell functions. These results suggest new opportunities for peripheral nerve regeneration treatments and for infrared neural stimulation.
Burnout and Career Satisfaction Among American Surgeons

Objective:To determine the incidence of burnout among American surgeons and evaluate personal and professional characteristics associated with surgeon burnout. Background:Burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization that leads to decreased effectiveness at work. A limited amount of information exists about the relationship between specific demographic and practice characteristics with burnout among American surgeons. Methods:Members of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) were sent an anonymous, cross-sectional survey in June 2008. The survey evaluated demographic variables, practice characteristics, career satisfaction, burnout, and quality of life (QOL). Burnout and QOL were measured using validated instruments. Results:Of the approximately 24,922 surgeons sampled, 7905 (32%) returned surveys. Responders had been in practice 18 years, worked 60 hours per week, and were on call 2 nights/wk (median values). Overall, 40% of responding surgeons were burned out, 30% screened positive for symptoms of depression, and 28% had a mental QOL score >1/2 standard deviation below the population norm. Factors independently associated with burnout included younger age, having children, area of specialization, number of nights on call per week, hours worked per week, and having compensation determined entirely based on billing. Only 36% of surgeons felt their work schedule left enough time for personal/family life and only 51% would recommend their children pursue a career as a physician/surgeon. Conclusion:Burnout is common among American surgeons and is the single greatest predictor of surgeons’ satisfaction with career and specialty choice. Additional research is needed to identify individual, organizational, and societal interventions that preserve and promote the mental health of American surgeons.
Molecular and cellular pathways of neurodegeneration in motor neurone disease

The process of neuronal degeneration in motor neurone disease is complex. Several genetic alterations may be involved in motor neurone injury in familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, less is known about the genetic and environmental factors involved in the commoner sporadic form of the disease. Most is known about the mechanisms of motor neurone degeneration in the subtype of disease caused by SOD1 mutations, but even here there appears to be a complex interplay between multiple pathogenic processes including oxidative stress, protein aggregation, mitochondrial dysfunction excitotoxicity, and impaired axonal transport. There is new evidence that non-neuronal cells in the vicinity of motor neurones may contribute to neuronal injury. The final demise of motor neurones is likely to involve a programmed cell death pathway resembling apoptosis.
Falling prevention of humanoid robots by switching standing balance and hopping motion based on MOA set

This paper addresses falling prevention by a humanoid robot which adaptively switches a standing balance controller and a hopping motion controller. In the previous research, the author proposed a switching framework between a standing balance controller and stepping motion controller based on the Maximal Output Admissible (MOA) set. Different from stepping or walking motion, a hopping motion requires control of the COG in the vertical direction. In this paper, the MOA set is extended so as to deal with the vertical COG dynamics. The effectiveness is validated with a simulation of falling prevention.
Effects of Ho-Doping on Crystal Structure and Microstructure of La0.7Sr0.3MnO3 Ceramics

Crystal structure and microstructure of La0.7-xHoxSr0.3MnO3 (x=0.2,0.6) prepared by usual ceramic techniques and grinding procedure were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). When doping amount x equals to 0.2, incorporation of Ho atoms contributed to phase separation and coexistence of rhombohedral (La0.7Sr0.3MnO3) and hexagonal (HoMnO3) phases. La0.7Sr0. 3MnO3 phase is of typical perovskite structure, whereas, HoMnO3 phase is non-perovskite structure. As x reaches 0.6, the volume fraction of HoMnO3 phase was significantly increasing. Meanwhile, an orthorhombic lattice with perovskite structure and space group Pnma can be observed. It prevented from partial substitution of La 3+ or Sr2+ by Ho3+ and the distortion of Mn-O octahedra.
Well-being therapy. A novel psychotherapeutic approach for residual symptoms of affective disorders

Background. There is increasing awareness of the prognostic value of residual symptomatology in affective disorders and of the need for specific therapeutic strategies in this phase of illness. The aims of the study were to apply a novel, short-term psychotherapeutic approach for increasing well-being, based on Ryff's conceptual model, to remitted patients with affective disorders and to compare the results with those obtained with symptom-oriented cognitive behavioural strategies. Methods. Twenty patients with affective disorders (major depression, panic disorder with agoraphobia, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive–compulsive disorder) who had been successfully treated by behavioural or pharmacological methods were randomly assigned to a well-being enhancing therapeutic strategy (well-being therapy) or cognitive–behavioural treatment of residual symptoms. Results. Both well-being and cognitive–behavioural therapies were associated with a significant reduction of residual symptoms. However, a significant advantage of well-being therapy over cognitive–behavioural strategies was observed with observer-rated methods. Discussion. These preliminary results suggest the feasibility of well-being therapy in the residual stage of affective disorders. Further research should determine its value as a relapse-preventive strategy in specific mood and anxiety disorders.
A gesture recognition system using 3D data

In this paper a gesture recognition system using 3D data is described The system relies on a novel 3D sensor that generates a dense range image of the scene. The main novelty of the proposed system, with respect to other 3D gesture recognition techniques, is the capability for robust recognition of complex hand postures such as those encountered in sign language alphabets. This is achieved by explicitly employing 3D hand features. Moreover the proposed approach does not rely on colour information, and guarantees robust segmentation of the hand under various illumination conditions, and content of the scene. Several novel 3D image analysis algorithms are presented covering the complete processing chain: 3D image acquisition, arm segmentation, hand-forearm segmentation, hand pose estimation, 3D feature extraction, and gesture classification. The proposed system is tested in an application scenario involving the recognition of sign-language postures.
Importin- (cid:2) 7 Is Required for Enhanced Inﬂuenza A Virus Replication in the Alveolar Epithelium and Severe Lung Damage in Mice

Inﬂuenza A viruses recruit components of the nuclear import pathway to enter the host cell nucleus and promote viral replication. Here, we analyzed the role of the nuclear import factor importin- (cid:2) 7 in H1N1 inﬂuenza virus pulmonary tropism by using various ex vivo imaging techniques (magnetic resonance imaging, confocal laser scanning microscopy, and correlative light-electron microscopy). We infected importin- (cid:2) 7 gene-deﬁcient ( (cid:2) 7 (cid:3) / (cid:3) ) mice with a recombinant H1N1 inﬂuenza virus and compared the in vivo viral kinetics with those in wild-type (WT) mice. In WT mice, inﬂuenza virus replication in the bronchial and alveolar epithelium already occurred a few days after infection. Accordingly, extensive mononuclear inﬁltration and alveolar destruction were present in the lungs of infected WT mice, followed by 100% lethality. Conversely, in (cid:2) 7 (cid:3) / (cid:3) mice, virus replication was restricted mostly to the bronchial epithelium with marginal alveolar infection, resulting in signiﬁcantly reduced lung damage and enhanced animal survival. To investigate the host immune response during alveolar virus replication, we studied the role of primary macrophages in virus propagation and clearance. The ability of macrophages to support or clear the virus infection, as well as the host cellular immune responses, did not signiﬁcantly differ between WT and (cid:2) 7 (cid:3) / (cid:3) mice. However, cytokine and chemokine responses were generally elevated in WT mice, likely reﬂective of increased viral replication in the lung. In summary, these data show that a cellular factor, importin- (cid:2) 7, is required for enhanced virus replication in the alveolar epithelium, resulting in elevated cytokine and chemokine levels, extensive mononuclear inﬁltration, and thus, severe pneumonia and enhanced virulence in mice.