Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Seizure detection of newborn EEG using a model-based approach

Seizures are often the first sign of neurological disease or dysfunction in the newborn. However, their clinical manifestation is often subtle, which tends to hinder their diagnosis at the earliest possible time. This represents an undesirable situation since the failure to quickly and accurately diagnose seizure can lead to longer-term brain injury or even death. Here, the authors consider the problem of automatic seizure detection in the neonate based on electroencephalogram (EEG) data. They propose a new approach based on a model for the generation of the EEG, which is derived from the histology and biophysics of a localized portion of the brain. They show that by using this approach, good detection performance of electrographic seizure is possible. The model for seizure is first presented along with an estimator for the model parameters. Then the authors present a seizure-detection scheme based on the model parameter estimates. This scheme is compared with the quadratic detection filter (QDF), and is shown to give superior performance over the latter. This is due to the ability of the model-based detector to account for the variability (nonstationarity) of the EEG by adjusting its parameters appropriately.
Tissue Plasminogen Activator (t-PA) Is Targeted to the Regulated Secretory Pathway

Tissue-type plasminogen activator (t-PA) is a serine protease that plays a central role in the regulation of intravascular thrombolysis. The acute release of t-PA in vivo is induced by a variety of stimuli including exercise, trauma, and neural stimulation. These types of stimuli also result in sympathoadrenal activation and exocytotic release of amines and proteins from catecholamine storage vesicles of the adrenal medulla and sympathetic neurons. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that t-PA is packaged in and released directly from catecholamine storage vesicles, using several chromaffin cell sources including the rat pheochromocytoma PC-12 chromaffin cell line, primary cultures of bovine adrenal chromaffin cells, and human pheochromocytoma. t-PA was expressed in chromaffin cells as detected by Northern blotting, immunoprecipitation of [35S]Met-labeled t-PA, and specific t-PA enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay of cell homogenates. In addition, chromaffin cell t-PA was enzymatically active by fibrin zymography. To explore the subcellular localization of the expressed t-PA, PC-12 cells were labeled with [3H]norepinephrine, homogenized, and subjected to sucrose density fractionation. [3H]Norepinephrine and t-PA antigen were co-localized to the same subcellular fraction with a major peak at 1.4 M sucrose, consistent with the buoyant density of catecholamine storage vesicles. In addition, catecholamine storage vesicle lysates isolated from human pheochromocytoma tumors were enriched approximately 30-fold in t-PA antigen, compared with tumor homogenate. Furthermore, exposure of PC-12 cells or primary bovine adrenal chromaffin cells to chromaffin cell secretagogues (60 μM nicotine, 55 mM KCl, or 2 mM BaCl2) resulted in co-release of t-PA in parallel with catecholamines. These data demonstrate that t-PA is expressed in chromaffin cells, is sorted into the regulated pathway of secretion, and is co-released with catecholamines by chromaffin cell stimulation. Catecholamine storage vesicles may be an important reservoir and sympathoadrenal activation an important physiologic mechanism for the rapid release of t-PA. In addition, expression of t-PA by chromaffin cells suggests a role for this protease in the proteolytic processing of chromaffin cell proteins.
Metabolic profiling of plasma amino acids shows that histidine increases following the consumption of pork

Amino acid (AA) status is determined by factors including nutrition, metabolic rate, and interactions between the metabolism of AA, carbohydrates, and lipids. Analysis of the plasma AA profile, together with markers of glucose and lipid metabolism, will shed light on metabolic regulation. The objectives of this study were to investigate the acute responses to the consumption of meals containing either pork (PM) or chicken (CM), and to identify relationships between plasma AA and markers of glycemic and lipemic control. A secondary aim was to explore AA predictors of plasma zinc concentrations. Ten healthy adults participated in a postprandial study on two separate occasions. In a randomized cross-over design, participants consumed PM or CM. The concentrations of 21 AA, glucose, insulin, triglycerides, nonesterified fatty acids, and zinc were determined over 5 hours postprandially. The meal composition did not influence glucose, insulin, triglyceride, nonesterified fatty acid, or zinc concentrations. Plasma histidine was higher following the consumption of PM (P=0.014), with consistently higher changes observed after 60 minutes (P<0.001). Greater percentage increases were noted at limited time points for valine and leucine + isoleucine in those who consumed CM compared to PM. In linear regression, some AAs emerged as predictors of the metabolic responses, irrespective of the meal that was consumed. The present study demonstrates that a single meal of PM or CM produces a differential profile of AA in the postprandial state. The sustained increase in histidine following the consumption of a PM is consistent with the reported effects of lean pork on cardiometabolic risk factors.
Tidy Drawings of Trees

Trees are extremely common data structures, both as internal objects and as models for program output. But it is unusual to see a program actually draw trees for visual inspection. Although part of the difficulty lies in programming graphics devices, most of the problem arises because naive algorithms to draw trees use too much drawing space and sophisticated algorithms are not obvious. We survey two naive tree drawers, formalize aesthetics for tidy trees, and descnbe two algorithms which draw tidy trees. One of the algorithms may be shown to require the minimum possible paper width. Along with the algorithms proper, we discuss the reasoning behind the algorithm development.
Immunotherapy with a Combination of Intravenous Immune Globulin and P4 Peptide Rescues Mice from Postinfluenza Pneumococcal Pneumonia

ABSTRACT Alternate therapies are needed for treatment of secondary bacterial pneumonia following influenza. The immunomodulatory peptide P4 has shown promise in mouse models of primary pneumococcal infection. Mice infected with influenza virus and then challenged with Streptococcus pneumoniae were treated with a combination of P4 peptide and intravenous immune globulin. Survival was improved from 20% to 80% in treated mice relative to controls. Clinical cure correlated with increased clearance of bacteria and decreased lung consolidation. Greater trafficking of professional phagocytic cells to the site of pneumococcal infection coupled with enhanced opsonophagocytosis as manifest by decreased surface display of Fcγ receptors (FcγR) on neutrophils and macrophages were associated with P4 peptide treatment. This suggests that the mechanism of action for improved clearance of bacteria engendered by P4 is through improved uptake by phagocytes mediated by IgG Fc-Fcγ receptor interactions following antibody-mediated opsonophagocytosis of bacteria. Antibody-based therapies, when coupled with immune modulators, such as P4 peptide, may be an effective tool together with antibiotics in our armamentarium against severe pneumonia.
Understanding patient-initiated frequent attendance in primary care: a case-control study.

BACKGROUND Frequent attendance, which accounts for a high proportion of the general practitioner's (GP's) workload, is still poorly understood. AIM To assess the association and impact of exposure to chronic physical illness, mental disorders, life stress, and sociodemographic factors on the frequent attendance of primary health care medical services. METHOD Nine general practices in Bizkaia, Spain, participated in a case-control study. Cases were patients who exceeded the 90th percentile in the distribution of the number of visits that they made on their own initiative from January 1993 to March 1994. Controls were those for whom a single, patient-initiated consultation was registered. A total of 102 cases and 100 controls were selected by stratified sampling proportional to the size of each practice. We estimated odds ratios and population attributable fractions for frequent attendance in relation to being exposed to the study variables, adjusted by demographic characteristics by means of logistic regression analysis. RESULTS Medium-high life stress (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 4.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.7-12.8), chronic physical illness (AOR = 3.1; 95% CI = 1.4-6.9), mental disorder (AOR = 2.5; 95% CI = 1.3-5.1), and age were associated with patient-initiated frequent attendance. The adjusted population attributable fraction for chronic physical illness was 41%, 30.9% for mental disorder, and 15.2% for life stress. CONCLUSION There is evidence that patient-initiated frequent attendance is related to genuine physical and psychosocial needs; therefore, recognition requires a bio-psychosocial approach on the part of GP.
El pensamiento: ¿un asunto de la psicología?

Se sostiene que los “enigmas” que hasta hoy rodean al concepto “pensamiento” son producto de una profunda incomprension conceptual derivada de no distinguir entre preguntas filosoficas y problemas cientificos. Se senala que tal incomprension tiene lugar al no reconocer la naturaleza multivoca y contextual de los terminos en el lenguaje ordinario vs. la naturaleza abstracta y precisa de los terminos en ciencia. Se argumenta que dadas tales diferencias, el concepto “pensamiento”, y conceptos relacionados, no pueden ser abordados directamente como objeto de estudio en psicologia, al menos que, tales conceptos se acoten en conexion con un sistema teorico y con la terminologia apropiada. Se senala que una de las vias para elucidar la incomprension citada, es la identificacion de los referentes empiricos de las expresiones a partir del analisis de los usos de los terminos. En este contexto, se analiza el uso de las expresiones “pensamiento” y “pensamiento critico”, se identifican sus referentes empiricos, y se realiza unos analisis funcionales de tales referentes desde una perspectiva naturalista. Con base en lo anterior, se caracteriza al pensamiento como mediacion de interacciones linguisticas. Se concluye senalando que el analisis realizado posibilita la formulacion de preguntas pertinentes en el contexto de una ciencia del comportamiento. Descriptores: pensamiento, pensamiento critico, interacciones linguisticas, comportamiento complejo, analisis conceptual.
Samoafirmacija u službi održanja slike o sebi nakon pozitivne i negativne evaluacije ličnosti

This paper examines whether the strategy of self-affirmation – affirming one’s value in one personality domain after the other personality domain has been evaluated – can help person confront negative and positive evaluation of important personality characteristic. The key question in this research is: Are people primarily motivated to maintain positive selfimage (so-called self-enhancement motive) or existing self-image, be it positive or negative (so-called self-verification motive)? The aim was to examine whether individuals will use the opportunity to self-affirm after evaluation of one personality characteristic in order to satisfy one of these two motives, and which motive would it be? The female students of high and low self-esteem participated in an experiment in which they were given positive or negative feedback on the intelligence test. It was examined whether participants would change their self-views in three domains: intellectual, physical, and social after the evaluation of their intellectual ability. High self-esteem individuals did not change their self-views in any of the three domains neither after positive nor after negative evaluation. This finding suggests that self-concept of the high self-esteem individuals is stable and well-defined, and that it does not fluctuate as a consequence of periodic inconsistent evaluations. Low self-esteem individuals who allegedly performed very well on the intelligence test self-affirmed negatively afterwards, by underestimating their physical attractiveness. This result confirms that self-verification motive dominates in the cognitive domain, but it also suggests that selfconcept of the low self-esteem persons is more unstable and more sensitive to social evaluation than of the high self-esteem persons.
Benefits of Cross Memory Attach for MPI libraries on HPC Clusters

With the number of cores per node increasing in modern clusters, an efficient implementation of intra-node communications is critical for application performance. MPI libraries generally use shared memory mechanisms for communication inside the node, unfortunately this approach has some limitations for large messages. The release of Linux kernel 3.2 introduced Cross Memory Attach (CMA) which is a mechanism to improve the communication between MPI processes inside the same node. But, as this feature is not enabled by default inside MPI libraries supporting it, it could be left disabled by HPC administrators which leads to a loss of performance benefits to users. In this paper, we explain how to use CMA and present an evaluation of CMA using micro-benchmarks and NAS parallel benchmarks (NPB) which are a set of applications commonly used to evaluate parallel systems. Our performance evaluation reveals that CMA outperforms shared memory performance for large messages. Micro-benchmark level evaluations show that CMA can enhance the performance by as much as a factor of four. With NPB, we see up to 24.75% improvement in total execution time for FT and up to 24.08% for IS.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Opposing a different Europe The nature and origins of Euroscepticism among left-wing and right-wing citizens in Western Europe

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Betaine and Secondary Events in an Acute Coronary Syndrome Cohort

Background Betaine insufficiency is associated with unfavourable vascular risk profiles in metabolic syndrome patients. We investigated associations between betaine insufficiency and secondary events in acute coronary syndrome patients. Methods Plasma (531) and urine (415) samples were collected four months after discharge following an acute coronary event. Death (34), secondary acute myocardial infarction (MI) (70) and hospital admission for heart failure (45) events were recorded over a median follow-up of 832 days. Principal Findings The highest and lowest quintiles of urinary betaine excretion associated with risk of heart failure (p = 0.0046, p = 0.013 compared with middle 60%) but not with subsequent acute MI. The lowest quintile of plasma betaine was associated with subsequent acute MI (p = 0.014), and the top quintile plasma betaine with heart failure (p = 0.043), especially in patients with diabetes (p<0.001). Top quintile plasma concentrations of dimethylglycine (betaine metabolite) and top quintile plasma homocysteine both associated with all three outcomes, acute MI (p = 0.004, <0.001), heart failure (p = 0.027, p<0.001) and survival (p<0.001, p<0.001). High homocysteine was associated with high or low betaine excretion in >60% of these subjects (p = 0.017). Median NT-proBNP concentrations were lowest in the middle quintile of plasma betaine concentration (p = 0.002). Conclusions Betaine insufficiency indicates increased risk of secondary heart failure and acute MI. Its association with elevated homocysteine may partly explain the disappointing results of folate supplementation. In some patients, especially with diabetes, elevated plasma betaine also indicates increased risk.
Supervised Segmentation of Very High Resolution Images by the Use of Extended Morphological Attribute Profiles and a Sparse Transform

In this letter, a novel supervised segmentation technique based on sparsely representing the stacked extended morphological attribute profiles (EAPs) and maximum a posteriori probability (MAP) is presented for very high resolution (VHR) images. Attribute profiles (APs), which are extracted by using several attributes, are applied to the multispectral VHR image, leading to a set of extended EAPs. Using the sparse prior of representing the pixel with all training samples, the extended multi-AP (EMAP) feature stacked by the EAP features is transformed into a class-dependent residual feature, which can be normalized as a posterior probability distribution of the pixel. A graph-cut approach is utilized to segment the image scene and obtain the final classification result. Experiments were conducted on IKONOS and WorldView-2 data sets. Compared with SVM, object-oriented SVM with majority voting, and some other state-of-the-art methods, the proposed method shows stable and effective results.
Which Students to Serve? Universal or Targeted Eligibility for Postsecondary Opportunity Programs

POPs have the potential to transform students’ educational careers as well as enhance their future success. Therefore, the decision of who will be eligible to access these programs is extremely important and often highly contentious. POPs use two eligibility approaches: 1) universal eligibility, which includes all students in a certain service area, and 2) targeted eligibility, which most frequently includes students selected on the basis of family income or status as a firstgeneration college student.
An enhanced velocity-based algorithm for safe implementations of gain-scheduled controllers

ABSTRACT This paper presents an enhanced velocity-based algorithm to implement gain-scheduled controllers for nonlinear and parameter-dependent systems. A new scheme including pre- and post-filtering is proposed with the assumption that the time-derivative of the controller inputs is not available for feedback control. It is shown that the proposed control structure can preserve the input–output properties of the linearised closed-loop system in the neighbourhood of each equilibrium point, avoiding the emergence of the so-called hidden coupling terms. Moreover, it is guaranteed that this implementation will not introduce unobservable or uncontrollable unstable modes, and hence the internal stability will not be affected. A case study dealing with the design of a pitch-axis missile autopilot is carried out and the numerical simulation results confirm the validity of the proposed approach.
Interaction between Oligomers of Stefin B and Amyloid-β in Vitro and in Cells*

To contribute to the question of the putative role of cystatins in Alzheimer disease and in neuroprotection in general, we studied the interaction between human stefin B (cystatin B) and amyloid-β-(1–40) peptide (Aβ). Using surface plasmon resonance and electrospray mass spectrometry we were able to show a direct interaction between the two proteins. As an interesting new fact, we show that stefin B binding to Aβ is oligomer specific. The dimers and tetramers of stefin B, which bind Aβ, are domain-swapped as judged from structural studies. Consistent with the binding results, the same oligomers of stefin B inhibit Aβ fibril formation. When expressed in cultured cells, stefin B co-localizes with Aβ intracellular inclusions. It also co-immunoprecipitates with the APP fragment containing the Aβ epitope. Thus, stefin B is another APP/Aβ-binding protein in vitro and likely in cells.
Sleep Apnea and Heart Failure: Part II: Central Sleep Apnea

In the first part of this 2-part review, we provided a synopsis of the cardiovascular effects of normal sleep and an overview of the diagnostic, pathophysiological, and therapeutic implications of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in the setting of heart failure (HF). In this second part, we turn our attention to central sleep apnea (CSA), commonly referred to as Cheyne-Stokes respiration. This breathing disorder has a strikingly higher prevalence in patients with HF as compared with the general population with normal left ventricular function, and when present appears to have adverse prognostic implications. Our objective in Part II of this review is to provide a broad perspective of the pathophysiological and clinical significance of CSA in HF. CSA associated with Cheyne-Stokes respiration is a form of periodic breathing in which central apneas and hypopneas alternate with periods of hyperventilation that have a waxing-waning pattern of tidal volume. Figure 1 illustrates the proposed mechanisms that underlie periodic oscillations in ventilation in HF. Unlike OSA, CSA likely arises as a consequence of HF. Thus, the presence of CSA may alert the physician to the necessity of intensifying HF therapy. The current debate is whether CSA is simply a reflection of severely compromised cardiac function with elevated left ventricular filling pressures, or whether, for the same degree of cardiac dysfunction, CSA exerts unique and independent pathological effects on the failing myocardium. Although there are not yet sufficient data to resolve this controversy within the confines of this review, we will discuss evidence on both sides of this issue. Figure 1. Pathophysiology of central sleep apnea in heart failure (HF). HF leads to increased left ventricular (LV) filling pressure. The resulting pulmonary congestion activates lung vagal irritant receptors, which stimulate hyperventilation and hypocapnia. Superimposed arousals cause further abrupt increases in ventilation and drive PaCO2 …
Joint Multiview Segmentation and Localization of RGB-D Images Using Depth-Induced Silhouette Consistency

In this paper, we propose an RGB-D camera localization approach which takes an effective geometry constraint, i.e. silhouette consistency, into consideration. Unlike existing approaches which usually assume the silhouettes are provided, we consider more practical scenarios and generate the silhouettes for multiple views on the fly. To obtain a set of accurate silhouettes, precise camera poses are required to propagate segmentation cues across views. To perform better localization, accurate silhouettes are needed to constrain camera poses. Therefore the two problems are intertwined with each other and require a joint treatment. Facilitated by the available depth, we introduce a simple but effective silhouette consistency energy term that binds traditional appearance-based multiview segmentation cost and RGB-D frame-to-frame matching cost together. Optimization of the problem w.r. t. binary segmentation masks and camera poses naturally fits in the graph cut minimization framework and the Gauss-Newton non-linear least-squares method respectively. Experiments show that the proposed approach achieves state-of-the-arts performance on both tasks of image segmentation and camera localization.