Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why Collaborative Care for Depressed Patients is so Difficult: A Belgian Qualitative Study

Although current guidelines recommend collaborative care for severely depressed patients, few patients get adequate treatment. In this study we aimed to identify the thresholds for interdisciplinary collaboration amongst practitioners when treating severely depressed patients. In addition, we aimed to identify specific and feasible steps that may add to improved collaboration amongst first and second level Belgian health care providers when treating depressed patients. In two standard focus groups (n = 8; n = 12), general practitioners and psychiatrists first outlined current practice and its shortcomings. In a next phase, the same participants were gathered in nominal groups to identify and prioritise steps that could give rise to improved collaboration. Thematic analyses were performed. Though some barriers for interdisciplinary collaboration may seem easy to overcome, participants stressed the importance of certain boundary conditions on a macro- (e.g., financing of care, secure communication technology) and meso-level (e.g., support for first level practitioner). Findings are discussed against the background of frameworks on collaboration in healthcare and recent developments in mental health care.
Effects of metabolic rate on protein evolution

Since the modern evolutionary synthesis was first proposed early in the twentieth century, attention has focused on assessing the relative contribution of mutation versus natural selection on protein evolution. Here we test a model that yields general quantitative predictions on rates of protein evolution by combining principles of individual energetics with Kimura's neutral theory. The model successfully predicts much of the heterogeneity in rates of protein evolution for diverse eukaryotes (i.e. fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) from different thermal environments. Data also show that the ratio of non-synonymous to synonymous nucleotide substitution is independent of body size, and thus presumably of effective population size. These findings indicate that rates of protein evolution are largely controlled by mutation rates, which in turn are strongly influenced by individual metabolic rate.
Combining evidence of natural selection with association analysis increases power to detect malaria-resistance variants.

Statistical power to detect disease variants can be increased by weighting candidates by their evidence of natural selection. To demonstrate that this theoretical idea works in practice, we performed an association study of 10 putative resistance variants in 471 severe malaria cases and 474 controls from the Luo in Kenya. We replicated associations at HBB (P=.0008) and CD36 (P=.03) but also showed that the same variants are unusually differentiated in frequency between the Luo and Yoruba (who historically have been exposed to malaria) and the Masai and Kikuyu (who have not been exposed). This empirically demonstrates that combining association analysis with evidence of natural selection can increase power to detect risk variants by orders of magnitude--up to P=. 000018 for HBB and P=. 00043 for CD36.
The ACPATH Metric: Precise Estimation of the Number of Acyclic Paths in C-like Languages

NPATH is a metric introduced by Brian A. Nejmeh in [13] that is aimed at overcoming some important limitations of McCabe's cyclomatic complexity. Despite the fact that the declared NPATH objective is to count the number of acyclic execution paths through a function, the definition given for the C language in [13] fails to do so even for very simple programs. We show that counting the number of acyclic paths in CFG is unfeasible in general. Then we define a new metric for C-like languages, called ACPATH, that allows to quickly compute an very good estimation of the number of acyclic execution paths through the given function. We show that, if the function body does not contain backward gotos and does not contain jumps into a loop from outside the loop, then such estimation is actually exact.
OFDM symbol detection with interspersed pilot symbols and channel distribution information at the receiver

Detection of OFDM transmissions with interspersed pilot symbols is considered. A hard output detection algorithm developed by Taricco et. al. for flat fading channels is extended for this frequency selective scenario. In the investigated systems with 128 subcarriers, this algorithm outperforms conventional approaches and performs close to a genie aided receiver even with the use of a single pilot symbol for the whole frame. Furthermore, a novel soft output generating algorithm is developed, which is more suitable for channel coded systems. The resultant algorithm is capable of detecting coded OFDM transmissions with fewer pilot symbols than that required for noiseless channel identification.
Adaptive Shared Control for a Novel Mobile Assistive Robot

This paper presents a new adaptive servo-level shared control scheme for a mobile assistive robot that aims at assisting senior and disabled people to transport heavy objects in a complex environment with obstacles. Several technical problems and challenges related to the assistive robotic system and the shared controller are addressed. Specifically, a nonlinear tracking controller is developed for the robot to follow the user. An obstacle avoidance controller is developed based on the deformable virtual zone principle for the robot to avoid obstacles. The adaptive servo-level shared controller utilizes the tracking controller and the obstacle avoidance controller's outputs to generate a new shared control output to command the robot. Experiments show that the user can guide the movement of the robot safely and smoothly in the complex environment with the developed controllers.
Minor spliceosome components are predominantly localized in the nucleus

Recently, it has been reported that there is a differential subcellular distribution of components of the minor U12-dependent and major U2-dependent spliceosome, and further that the minor spliceosome functions in the cytoplasm. To study the subcellular localization of the snRNA components of both the major and minor spliceosomes, we performed in situ hybridizations with mouse tissues and human cells. In both cases, all spliceosomal snRNAs were nearly exclusively detected in the nucleus, and the minor U11 and U12 snRNAs were further shown to colocalize with U4 and U2, respectively, in human cells. Additionally, we examined the distribution of several spliceosomal snRNAs and proteins in nuclear and cytoplasmic fractions isolated from human cells. These studies revealed an identical subcellular distribution of components of both the U12- and U2-dependent spliceosomes. Thus, our data, combined with several earlier publications, establish that, like the major spliceosome, components of the U12-dependent spliceosome are localized predominantly in the nucleus.
Robust Rate Control for Heterogeneous Network Access in Multihomed Environments

We investigate a novel robust flow control framework for heterogeneous network access by devices with multihoming capabilities. Toward this end, we develop an Hinfin-optimal control formulation for allocating rates to devices on multiple access networks with heterogeneous time-varying characteristics. Hinfin analysis and design allow for the coupling between different devices to be relaxed by treating the dynamics for each device as independent of the others. Thus, the distributed end-to-end rate control scheme proposed in this work relies on minimum information and achieves fair and robust rate allocation for the devices. An efficient utilization of the access networks is established through an equilibrium analysis in the static case. We perform measurement tests to collect traces of the available bandwidth on various WLANs and Ethernet. Through simulations, our approach is compared with AIMD and LQG schemes. In addition, the efficiency, fairness, and robustness of the Hinfin-optimal rate controller developed are demonstrated via simulations using the measured real-world network characteristics. Its favorable characteristics and general nature indicate applicability of this framework to a variety of networked systems for flow control.
Gait Analysis on a Treadmill in Young, Obese Women

L. Vismara1, P. Bertocco1, C. Parisio1, G. Baccalaro1, M. Romerio1, B. Contu1, A. Montesano1, P. Cherubino2 1Istituto Auxologico Italiano, IRCCS, Ospedale San Giuseppe, Piancavallo (VB), Piancavallo, fraz. Oggebbio (VB) Italy 2Unità Operativa di Riabilitazione Reumatologica e Osteoarticolare Dipartimento di Scienze Ortopediche e Traumatologiche “Mario Boni”, Università dell’Insubria, Varese Italy
Simultaneous localization and map building – a guided tour

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) has been one of the active research areas in robotic community for the past decade of years. SLAM addresses the problem of a robot navigating and building a map of an unknown environment, without an initial map or an absolute localization means. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of the SLAM problem. Successful SLAM implementations using laser, sonar and radar can be found in the literature. However, recent extensions to the general SLAM problem has looked into the possibility of using 3-dimensional features and the use of vision sensors. We will focus on these two approaches to the SLAM problem using vision: one with single or monocular camera and another with stereovision. Current applications and future challenges will also be discussed.
Diffusion into human intervertebral disks studied with MR and gadoteridol.

PURPOSE To determine the feasibility of measuring diffusion into human intervertebral disks by means of MR imaging with an intravenous nonionic gadolinium complex (gadoteridol). METHODS In 18 patients undergoing lumbar spine MR imaging, signal intensity was measured in the intervertebral disks after a dose of 0.1 mmol/kg and after a supplemental dose of 0.2 mmol/kg. RESULTS Signal intensity in the intervertebral disks increased with both gadoteridol doses. A greater increase was consistently achieved with the 0.3 mmol/kg (total) dose than with the 0.1 mmol/kg dose. The increase was greater near the endplates than in the midportion of the disk. CONCLUSION Diffusion into human intervertebral disks can be detected with MR imaging after intravenous administration of gadoteridol. MR imaging with a paramagnetic contrast medium can be used to study diffusion into disk cartilage in vivo and noninvasively.
Experimental and Nonlinear Finite Element Analysis of Double Skin Beam-Column Joints

The Double Skin Composite (DSC) or Steel-Concrete-Steel (SCS) elements (beams, slabs and columns) have been subjected to intensive studies during the last three decades. Member beam, column and slab have been studied under monotonic, cyclic and fatigue loading, and there are also a few studies on impact loading to assess the structural response of such constructions. Validating connectivity between the DSC beam and DSC columns is behind the usage of such constructional systems since all the present studies focus on individual members. The main objective of this thesis was to introduce the Double Skin Composite (DSC) beam-column joint as a new structural element. Experimental investigation and Nonlinear Finite Element Modelling (FEM) of the structural behaviour of the DSC joint subjected to monotonic and quasi-static loading was introduced. Five DSC joints have been tested to assess the efficiency of the DSC beam-column joint in its basic design and to identify the most efficient strengthening method. Further, six DSC beam-column joints were tested to study the effect of steel fibre (SF) and the effect of high-strength concrete (HSC) on the behaviour of the joint under monotonic loading and under cyclic loading. The general FE Package ABAQUS 6.10 was used to model the nonlinear behaviour of the DSC joint. The Concrete Damage Plasticity Model (CDPM) was used to model the concrete in tension and compression, and the steel elements of the composite were modelled using the elastic-plastic model. The model was validated against the experimental result and showed good agreement in predicting the maximum load and the general behaviour with a deviation of 10% or less. The examined strengthening methods showed improvement in the ultimate load capacity of between 517% and 871%. SFC and HSC provided the best performance in increasing the ultimate load and moving the location of the plastic hinge away from the face of the column. The validated FE model was used to conduct a parametric study to investigate the effect of the concrete compressive strength, shear stud connector spacing to steel plate thickness ratio, and the stud diameter to steel plate thickness ratio. The parametric study findings were in good agreement with experimental observations such as that the concrete compressive strength had a significant effect on the joint shear resistance and ultimate load.
A Non-Local Low-Rank Approach to Enforce Integrability

We propose a new approach to enforce integrability using recent advances in non-local methods. Our formulation consists in a sparse gradient data-fitting term to handle outliers together with a gradient-domain non-local low-rank prior. This regularization has two main advantages: 1) the low-rank prior ensures similarity between non-local gradient patches, which helps recovering high-quality clean patches from severe outliers corruption and 2) the low-rank prior efficiently reduces dense noise as it has been shown in recent image restoration works. We propose an efficient solver for the resulting optimization formulation using alternate minimization. Experiments show that the new method leads to an important improvement compared with previous optimization methods and is able to efficiently handle both outliers and dense noise mixed together.
Mitochondrial diseases: advances and issues

Mitochondrial diseases (MDs) are a clinically heterogeneous group of disorders caused by a dysfunction of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. They can be related to mutation of genes encoded using either nuclear DNA or mitochondrial DNA. The advent of next generation sequencing and whole exome sequencing in studying the molecular bases of MDs will bring about a revolution in the field of mitochondrial medicine, also opening the possibility of better defining pathogenic mechanisms and developing novel therapeutic approaches for these devastating disorders. The canonical rules of mitochondrial medicine remain milestones, but novel issues have been raised following the use of advanced diagnostic technologies. Rigorous validation of the novel mutations detected using deep sequencing in patients with suspected MD, and a clear definition of the natural history, outcome measures, and biomarkers that could be usefully adopted in clinical trials, are mandatory goals for the scientific community. Today, therapy is often inadequate and mostly palliative. However, important advances have been made in treating some clinical entities, eg, mitochondrial neuro-gastrointestinal encephalomyopathy, for which approaches using allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, orthotopic liver transplantation, and carrier erythrocyte entrapped thymidine phosphorylase enzyme therapy have recently been developed. Promising new treatment methods are being identified so that researchers, clinicians, and patients can join forces to change the history of these untreatable disorders.
LENS MODELS OF HERSCHEL-SELECTED GALAXIES FROM HIGH-RESOLUTION NEAR-IR OBSERVATIONS

We present Keck-Adaptive Optics and Hubble Space Telescope high resolution near-infrared (IR) imaging for 500 μm bright candidate lensing systems identified by the Herschel Multi-tiered Extragalactic Survey and Herschel Astrophysical Terahertz Large Area Survey. Out of 87 candidates with near-IR imaging, 15 (∼17%) display clear near-IR lensing morphologies. We present near-IR lens models to reconstruct and recover basic rest-frame optical morphological properties of the background galaxies from 12 new systems. Sources with the largest near-IR magnification factors also tend to be the most compact, consistent with the size bias predicted from simulations and previous lensing models for submillimeter galaxies (SMGs). For four new sources that also have high-resolution submillimeter maps, we test for differential lensing between the stellar and dust components and find that the 880 μm magnification factor (μ880) is ∼1.5 times higher than the near-IR magnification factor (μNIR), on average. We also find that the stellar emission is ∼2 times more extended in size than dust. The rest-frame optical properties of our sample of Herschel-selected lensed SMGs are consistent with those of unlensed SMGs, which suggests that the two populations are similar.
Dissecting T cell lineage relationships by cellular barcoding

T cells, as well as other cell types, are composed of phenotypically and functionally distinct subsets. However, for many of these populations it is unclear whether they develop from common or separate progenitors. To address such issues, we developed a novel approach, termed cellular barcoding, that allows the dissection of lineage relationships. We demonstrate that the labeling of cells with unique identifiers coupled to a microarray-based detection system can be used to analyze family relationships between the progeny of such cells. To exemplify the potential of this technique, we studied migration patterns of families of antigen-specific CD8+ T cells in vivo. We demonstrate that progeny of individual T cells rapidly seed independent lymph nodes and that antigen-specific CD8+ T cells present at different effector sites are largely derived from a common pool of precursors. These data show how locally primed T cells disperse and provide a technology for kinship analysis with wider utility.
The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization

The science of emotion has been using folk psychology categories derived from philosophy to search for the brain basis of emotion. The last two decades of neuroscience research have brought us to the brink of a paradigm shift in understanding the workings of the brain, however, setting the stage to revolutionize our understanding of what emotions are and how they work. In this article, we begin with the structure and function of the brain, and from there deduce what the biological basis of emotions might be. The answer is a brain-based, computational account called the theory of constructed emotion.
Effects of Ischemia on Tissue Metabolites in Red (Slow) and White (Fast) Skeletal Muscle of the Chicken

Brief periods of ischemia have been shown to produce marked reactive hyperemia in both red (slow) and white (fast) skeletal muscle. However, evidence is lacking for specific vasodilator metabolites which are rapidly produced in ischemic skeletal muscle. The present study examined the effects of 1 and 3 minutes of ischemia on creatdne phosphate (CrP), adenine nucleotide metabolism, and anaerobic glycolysis in red anterior (ALD) and white posterior latissimus dorsi (PLD) muscles of the chicken. Tissue metabolite concentrations were determined from perchloric acid or trichloroacetic acid extracts using enzymatic assay or high pressure liquid chromatography. CrP or adenine nucleotldeg were not significantly altered in either muscle following 1 or 3 minutes of ischemia. However, adenosine increased by 611% in the ALD at 1 minute. Following 3 minutes of ischemia, adenosine concentrations were elevated by 439% and 201% in the ALD and PLD, respectively. The PLD showed the greatest increases in inosine and IMP. Inorganic phosphate increased by 67% and lactate increased by 142% in the ALD at 3 minutes. The PLD, which is reported to have a high anaerobic glycolytic capacity, showed no increase in lactate. These results support the hypothesis that adenosine may be a mediator of skeletal muscle reactive hyperemia folio-wing short periods of ischemia. Circ Res 46: 366-373, 1979
FPGA-Based Smart Sensor for Drought Stress Detection in Tomato Plants Using Novel Physiological Variables and Discrete Wavelet Transform

Soil drought represents one of the most dangerous stresses for plants. It impacts the yield and quality of crops, and if it remains undetected for a long time, the entire crop could be lost. However, for some plants a certain amount of drought stress improves specific characteristics. In such cases, a device capable of detecting and quantifying the impact of drought stress in plants is desirable. This article focuses on testing if the monitoring of physiological process through a gas exchange methodology provides enough information to detect drought stress conditions in plants. The experiment consists of using a set of smart sensors based on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to monitor a group of plants under controlled drought conditions. The main objective was to use different digital signal processing techniques such as the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) to explore the response of plant physiological processes to drought. Also, an index-based methodology was utilized to compensate the spatial variation inside the greenhouse. As a result, differences between treatments were determined to be independent of climate variations inside the greenhouse. Finally, after using the DWT as digital filter, results demonstrated that the proposed system is capable to reject high frequency noise and to detect drought conditions.
Superior Rectus Muscle Recession for Residual Head Tilt after Inferior Oblique Muscle Weakening in Superior Oblique Palsy

Purpose Residual head tilt has been reported in patients with superior oblique muscle palsy (SOP) after surgery to weaken the inferior oblique (IO) muscle. The treatments for these patients have not received appropriate attention. In this study, we evaluated the superior rectus (SR) muscle recession as a surgical treatment. Methods The medical records of 12 patients with SOP were retrospectively reviewed. Each of these patients had unilateral SR muscle recession for residual head tilt after IO muscle weakening due to SOP. The residual torticollis was classified into three groups on the basis of severity: mild, moderate, or severe. Both IO muscle overaction and vertical deviation, features of SOP, were evaluated in all patients. The severity of the preoperative and postoperative torticollis and vertical deviation were compared using a paired t-test and Fisher's exact test. Results The torticollis improved in nine of 12 (75%) patients after SR muscle recession. The difference between the preoperative and postoperative severity of torticollis was statistically significant (p = 0.0008). After surgery, the mean vertical deviation was significantly reduced from 12.4 prism diopters to 1.3 prism diopters (p = 0.0003). Conclusions Unilateral SR muscle recession is an effective method to correct residual head tilt after IO muscle weakening in patients with SOP. This surgical procedure is believed to decrease head tilt by reducing the vertical deviation and thereby the compensatory head tilt.