Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Subprojekt 3.8. des Kompetenznetzes „Depression/Suizidalität" im Teilprojekt 3 „Qualitätsmanagement in der Depressionsbehandlung"

Therapeutisches Drug Monitoring (TDM) ist bei Verordnung eines Antidepressivums eine potenziell nützliche Therapieergänzung. Wenn TDM unter naturalistischen Bedingungen für trizyklische Antidepressiva eingesetzt wurde, waren die Blutspiegel depressiver Patienten mit TDM häufiger auf therapeutische Konzentrationen eingestellt als ohne TDM. Mit der Einstellung therapeutischer Blutspiegel war die Wahrscheinlichkeit, auf die Therapie anzusprechen um das 2,3fache erhöht, Nebenwirkungen waren seltener. Erste Berichte der Literatur belegen, dass sich das Therapieansprechen bei der Behandlung depressiver Patienten mit selektiven Serotoninwiederaufnahmehemmer ebenfalls durch eine TDM-geleitete Dosisanpassung verbessern lässt. Dadurch sind Einsparungen in den Behandlungskosten möglich. Es gibt daher zunehmende Evidenz, dass TDM die Effizienz und Sicherheit einer antidepressiven Therapie bei einer Behandlung mit alten oder neuen Antidepressiva verbessern kann. Therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) can improve drug efficacy and safety. Aim of this study was to analyse the medical and monetary impact of TDM on antidepressant drug therapy. Applying TDM routinely to the therapy with tricyclic antidepressants it was found that TDM resulted in a higher number of patients with adequate blood levels. The chance for a clinical response at endpoint increased 2.3fold when blood levels were within the therapeutic range. Side effects occurred mostly in patients with blood levels above the recommended range. Data from the literature indicate that TDM might be also useful for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Evidence is thus growing that TDM may improve drug therapy under naturalistic clinical conditions when treating depressed patients with either old or new antidepressants.
Calcineurin Is Required for Candida albicans To Survive Calcium Stress in Serum

ABSTRACT The calcium-activated protein phosphatase calcineurin plays a critical role in the virulence of Candida albicans. Previous studies demonstrated that calcineurin is not required for the yeast-hypha dimorphic transition, host cell adherence, or host cell injury, which are all established virulence attributes of this organism. Calcineurin is, however, essential for survival in serum and disseminated infection. Here we identify the component of serum that is toxic to calcineurin mutant cells. Proteins, peptides, lipids, and other hydrophobic components were all excluded as essential toxic elements. Upon testing of small molecules present in serum, we discovered that calcineurin protects cells from stress caused by the endogenous levels of calcium ions present in serum. These studies illustrate how calcineurin functions in a calcium homeostatic pathway that enables a common human commensal to survive passage through the hostile environment of the bloodstream to establish deep-seated infections and cause disease.
POSTER: Exploiting Dynamic Partial Reconfiguration for Improved Resistance Against Power Analysis Attacks on FPGAs

FPGA devices are increasingly deployed in wireless and heterogeneous networks in-field due to their re-programmable nature and high performance. Modern FPGA devices can have part of their logic partially reconfigured during runtime operation, which we propose to exploit to realize a general-purpose, flexible and reconfigurable DPA countermeasure that can be integrated into any FPGA-based system, irrespective of the cryptographic algorithm or implementation. We propose a real-time dynamic closed-loop on-chip noise generation countermeasure which consists of an on-chip power monitor coupled with a low-overhead Gaussian noise generator. The noise generator is reconfigured continuously to update its generated noise amplitude and variance so that is sufficiently hides the computation power consumption. Our scheme and its integration onto an SoC is presented as well as our proposal for evaluating its effectiveness and overhead.
Schizophrenia: A benign trait

While schizophrenia may be genetically determined up to a point, neither it nor its nearest relatives offer any sort of reproductive advantage to its sufferers. Instead, from an evolutionary point of view, schizophrenia is benign – it neither promotes nor inhibits survival to reproduction. Because it is benign, its rate of occurrence should remain fairly constant over time.
Restenosis is not associated with stent length in a pig model of coronary stent implantation.

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to determine if stent length is by itself a risk factor for intimal proliferation and restenosis. Long lesions represent an independent risk factor for restenosis after coronary stent implantation. A longer stented segment might result in a higher probability of restenosis. METHODS Twenty-two 7-month-old male farm pigs underwent implantation of two steel stents, one short (8 mm length) and one long (16 mm length), in the right coronary artery. The pigs were sacrificed 28 days after stent implantation and histomorphometric analysis of the coronary arteries was performed for neointimal area proliferation and area stenosis evaluation. RESULTS Seventeen short stents and 19 long stents were finally implanted. There were no differences in neointimal proliferation (1.84 +/- 0.64 mm2 vs. 1.81 +/- 0.94 mm2, p = 0.84), area stenosis (40 +/- 9% vs. 41 +/- 19%, p = 0.86) and lumen area (2.96 +/- 1.30 mm2 vs. 2.51 +/- +/- 1.18 mm2, p = 0.21) between the short stent group and the long stent group, respectively. CONCLUSIONS These data suggest that stent length by itself does not influence restenosis extent in the porcine model.
Multi-Item Scales for Measuring Global Self-Rated Health

The authors used multigroup confirmatory factor analysis and structural equations models to examine the construct validity and item functioning of the five-item General Health (GH) scale from the SF-36 in Danes over 16 years of age (n = 4,084). They included four criteria variables for physical and mental health. Items GH2-GH5 had low response rates among the elderly, probably due to the compact layout of these items in the questionnaire. The authors found differential item functioning for several items, indicating some degree of multidimensionality in the GH scale. Thus, GH1 had stronger associations with age, physical functioning, and chronic diseases than predicted by the one-factor model. However, psychometrical problems were mostly found in the youngest age group. If the problem of missing values is solved by layout changes or interview administration, the GH scale appears to be a valid measure of self-rated health in elderly populations.
Identification of subunits contributing to synaptic and extrasynaptic NMDA receptors in Golgi cells of the rat cerebellum

1 To investigate the properties of N‐methyl‐D‐aspartate receptors (NMDARs) in cerebellar Golgi cells, patch‐clamp recordings were made in cerebellar slices from postnatal day 14 (P14) rats. To verify cell identity, cells were filled with Neurobiotin and examined using confocal microscopy. 2 The NR2B subunit‐selective NMDAR antagonist ifenprodil (10 μM) reduced whole‐cell NMDA‐evoked currents by ≈80 %. The NMDA‐evoked currents were unaffected by the Zn2+ chelator N,N,N′,N′‐tetrakis‐(2‐pyridylmethyl)‐ethylenediamine (TPEN; 1 μM) suggesting the absence of NMDARs containing NR2A subunits. 3 Outside‐out patches from Golgi cells exhibited a population of ‘high‐conductance’ 50 pS NMDAR openings. These were inhibited by ifenprodil, with an IC50 of 19 nM. 4 Patches from these cells also contained ‘low‐conductance’ NMDAR channels, with features characteristic of NR2D subunit‐containing receptors. These exhibited a main conductance of 39 pS, with a sub‐conductance level of 19 pS, with clear asymmetry of transitions between the two levels. As expected of NR2D‐containing receptors, these events were not affected by ifenprodil. 5 The NMDAR‐mediated component of EPSCs, evoked by parallel fibre stimulation or occurring spontaneously, was not affected by 1 μM TPEN. However, it was reduced (by ≈60 %) in the presence of 10 μM ifenprodil, to leave a residual NMDAR‐mediated current that exhibited fast decay kinetics. This is, therefore, unlikely to have arisen from receptors composed of NR1/NR2D subunits. 6 We conclude that in cerebellar Golgi cells, the high‐ and low‐conductance NMDAR channels arise from NR2B‐ and NR2D‐containing receptors, respectively. We found no evidence for NR2A‐containing receptors in these cells. While NR2B‐containing receptors are present in both the synaptic and extrasynaptic membrane, our results indicate that NR1/NR2D receptors do not contribute to the EPSC and appear to be restricted to the extrasynaptic membrane.
Calibration of a dual-PTZ-camera system for stereo vision based on parallel particle swarm optimization method

This work investigates the calibration of a stereo vision system based on two PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) cameras. As the accuracy of the system depends not only on intrinsic parameters, but also on the geometric relationships between rotation axes of the cameras, the major concern is the development of an effective and systematic way to obtain these relationships. We derived a complete geometric model of the dual-PTZ-camera system and proposed a calibration procedure for the intrinsic and external parameters of the model. The calibration method is based on Zhang’s approach using an augmented checkerboard composed of eight small checkerboards, and is formulated as an optimization problem to be solved by an improved particle swarm optimization (PSO) method. Two Sony EVI-D70 PTZ cameras were used for the experiments. The root-mean-square errors (RMSE) of corner distances in the horizontal and vertical direction are 0.192 mm and 0.115 mm, respectively. The RMSE of overlapped points between the small checkerboards is 1.3958 mm.
Treatment of painful bladder syndrome/interstitial cystitis with botulinum toxin A: why isn’t it effective in all patients?

Botulinum toxin A (BTA) is currently used to treat a variety of painful disorders, including painful bladder syndrome/interstitial cystitis (PBS/IC). However, BTA is not consistently effective in all patients. This may be due to the disparity of causes of pain, but this may also relate to the processes by which BTA exerts anti-nociceptive effects. This review discusses mechanisms by which BTA may inhibit pain and studies of the use of BTA in PSB/IC patients. It is doubtful that any single treatment will effectively control pain in PBS/IC patients, and it is highly probable that multiple strategies will be required, both within individual patients and across the population of PBS/IC patients. The purpose of this review is to discuss those mechanisms by which BTA acts, with the intent that alternative strategies exploiting these mechanism, or work through alternative pathways, can be identified to more effectively treat pain in PBS/IC patients in the future.
Input impedances of dipole and dipole-like antennas with prescribed phase difference between excitation currents

A novel variations of the conventional dipole radiator are analyzed. By properly choosing theirs parameters and outgoing lines of the exciting power divider/balun, it is possible to create the versions of the antenna that have suitable range of input impedance and figure-eight tilted radiation patterns. The change of the lengths of the outgoing lines allows the currents on the two arms of the antenna to have prescribed phase difference, thereby making the antenna operate at various states with corresponding E-plane maximum beam direction. The corresponding expressions for complex input impedances are derived in this paper.
Isolating Packet Dropping Misbehavior in VANET using Ant Colony Optimization

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are special type of decentralized wireless networks among the various mobile nodes. In VANET decision of forwarding the data packets from one node to other node is dynamic and based on the network connectivity. So efficient, optimized and secure techniques are required for secure transmission of data packets and tracking the changing topology of the network. We propose an ACO based Routing Algorithm in which data packets are forwarded based on the trustworthiness of the neighbor node. The nodes exchanges the Ants (agents) between source and destination deposit the pheromone based on the best path between the source and destination. In this proposed scheme we have projected Ant colony algorithm to defense against malicious attack. It also isolates various attacks and provides secure as well as optimize route from source to destination. We have also analyzed the performance metrics such as packet delivery ratio, end-to-end delay, routing overhead and energy consumption. Simulation result shows that our approach is efficient and reliable.
Visual odometry - A review of approaches

As the development of robot autonomous navigation, visual odometry gains more and more attention in the last few years. It can estimate the egomotion of a robot by analyzing the changes of the on-board camera view. This paper gives an overview of visual odometry and the development of its key technologies, such as feature detection, description and matching/tracking, camera pose estimation. The advantages and disadvantages of different methods are compared and the fundamental principles of them are described in this paper.
Factors Involved in the Development of Osteoarthritis after Anterior Cruciate Ligament Surgery

Background The incidence of osteoarthritis after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction is disturbingly high, with reports of nearly 50% of patients developing mild to moderate osteoarthritis 6 years after surgery. Few studies have assessed the factors involved in the development of osteoarthritis. Hypothesis: The following 10 factors will be found to be predictive of osteoarthritis meniscectomy, chondral damage, patellar tendon grafting, age at surgery, time delay between injury and surgery, type and intensity of postsurgery sport, quadriceps strength, hamstring strength, quadriceps-to-hamstring strength ratio, and residual joint laxity. Study Design Cohort study (prognosis); Level of evidence, 1. Methods Fifty-six subjects with anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction were followed for 6 years after surgery. Assessment included KT-1000 arthrometer testing, isokinetic strength testing, a return-to-sport questionnaire, and a radiograph assessment. A discriminant analysis was performed to assess which of the 10 factors could discriminate between those patients who developed tibiofemoral and patellofemoral osteoarthritis and those who did not. Results Five factors were found to be predictive of tibiofemoral osteoarthritis. Meniscectomy (r = .72) and chondral damage (r = .41) were the strongest discriminators, followed by patellar tendon grafting (r = .37) (χ2 [7, n = 56] = 25.48; P = .001). Weak quadriceps (r = .39) and low quadriceps-to-hamstring strength ratios (r = .6) were very close discriminators (χ2 [8, n = 42] = 15.02; P = .059). For patellofemoral osteoarthritis, meniscectomy (r = .45), chondral damage (r = .75), and age at surgery (r = .65) were predictors or close predictors (χ2 [7, n = 54] = 13.30; P = .065). Conclusion As not all 10 factors studied were predictive of osteoarthritis, the hypothesis was only partially proven. Preventing further meniscal and chondral damage in patients with anterior cruciate ligament deficiency is critical. Grafting using the hamstring tendons and restoration of quadriceps-to-hamstring strength balance are associated with less osteoarthritis.
Psychiatric disorders among obese binge eaters.

This study compared the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among obese binge eaters (n = 25) and obese non—binge eaters (n = 25) of similar age and weight. Subjects were interviewed by clinicians who were blind to the patients' binge status using the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. Sixty percent of bingers met criteria for one or more psychiatric disorders, compared with 28% of nonbingers, with differences most apparent in affective disorder; 32% of obese bingers reported a history of affective disorder versus only 8% of nonbingers. Obese binge eaters also reported significantly more psychiatric symptoms, especially symptoms of depression, anxiety, and sexual dysfunction.
Innovative IC Framework in the Non-Profit Sector

The importance of intellectual capital in the non-profit sector generates the need to measure its role in the value creation process. The purpose of the paper is to study the application of intellectual capital within the non-profit sector, by turning attention to resources such as: knowledge, experience, and skills. Organizations, which are able to increase the knowledge of their staff and transform this knowledge into skills to improve services, can easily meet usersâ€™ needs and, thereby, become competitive. This contribution proposes to study how peopleâ€™s knowledge can contribute to increasing social value, which is the nonâ€“profit organizationâ€™s aim. Furthermore, the goal is to demonstrate how collaboration between staff and volunteers is essential to professional services. Finally, the research proposes a conceptual framework in which intellectual capital helps in defining the strategic issues, which nonâ€“profit organizations must tackle in order to achieve their social programs.
Lung Cancer in Women

At the same smoking level, women have a higher risk of lung cancer. The aim of the study was to evaluate epidemiological, clinical and histological profile of women’s lung cancer. A retrospective study including women patients with a confirmed lung cancer followed at the Pneumology Department of University Hospital Center Mohammed VI of Marrakesh in Morocco between January 2010 and December 2014. 14 cases were included in the study. The average age of patients was 54.2 years. Active smoking was noted in 2 patients (14.4%). The chest X-ray showed an atelectasis in 6 cases (42.8%), hilar opacity in 6 cases (42.8%) and alveolar opacity in 2 cases (14.4%), pleural effusion was present in 3 cases (21.4%). Histological confirmation was obtained in 10 cases (71.4%) by bronchial biopsy, 2 cases with pleural biopsy (14.4%), one case (7.1%) by lymph node biopsy and one case trans-parietal biopsy (7.1%). An adenocarcinoma was found in 9 cases (64.3%), squamous cell carcinoma in 4 cases (28.6%) and small cell carcinoma in one case (7.14%). The study shows that the lung cancer in women in our context occurs more often in non-smoker patients and it’s usually an adenocarcinoma type.
Decreased motor cortex excitability mirrors own hand disembodiment during the rubber hand illusion

During the rubber hand illusion (RHI), subjects experience an artificial hand as part of their own body, while the real hand is subject to a sort of 'disembodiment'. Can this altered belief about the body also affect physiological mechanisms involved in body-ownership, such as motor control? Here we ask whether the excitability of the motor pathways to the real (disembodied) hand are affected by the illusion. Our results show that the amplitude of the motor-evoked potentials recorded from the real hand is significantly reduced, with respect to baseline, when subjects in the synchronous (but not in the asynchronous) condition experience the fake hand as their own. This finding contributes to the theoretical understanding of the relationship between body-ownership and motor system, and provides the first physiological evidence that a significant drop in motor excitability in M1 hand circuits accompanies the disembodiment of the real hand during the RHI experience. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.14972. 001
Design of a multiple contact point haptic interface

This paper addresses key perceptual and psychophysical issues concerned with the design of a multiple contact point haptic device. The majority of commercially available haptic devices operate based on a principle of point interaction. Thus, contact between the operator and the simulated virtual environment occurs only at an arbitrary single point, typically the tip of a stylus or thimble used for interaction. However, this can severely impair, or even exclude, perception of object material properties. It is shown that a haptic interface mechanism incorporating several points of contact, corresponding to the tips of different fingers, for example, may facilitate more optimal acquisition of information regarding object properties. An example of how several grounded devices may be positioned to combine their workspace is presented, achieving a workspace of roughly 20x30x15 cm.
Self-dual morphology on tree semilattices and applications

We present a new tree-based framework for producing self-dual morphological operators. For any given tree representation of images, one can associate a complete inf-semilattice (CISL) in the corresponding tree-representation domain, where the operators can then be derived. We also present a particular case of this general framework, involving a new tree representation, the Extrema-Watershed Tree (EWT). The operators obtained by using the EWT in the above framework behave like classical morphological operators, but in addition are self-dual. Some application examples are provided: pre-processing for OCR and dust & scratch removal algorithms, and image denoising.
Ethical Dilemmas in Evaluations Using Indigenous Research Workers

This article addresses ethical dilemmas experienced by street-level research and evaluation workers recruiting and gathering data in community-based research projects. The authors focus on a subgroup of street-level research workers, whom they call research extenders (REs), employed because they share important characteristics with the target population. Like other street-level research workers, some REs are single role (only do research work) and others are dual role (do research work and provide services). They discuss relevant literature and findings from pilot focus groups exploring how REs understand responsible ethical conduct in their research work in the community. REs face ethical issues somewhat different from those of more traditional, non-indigenous street-level research workers. These issues increase social risk for study participants and could compromise the validity of data. Researchers need to be aware of and address the distinctive set of ethical issues raised by research and evaluation projects employing indigenous, street-level research workers.
Consensus of second-order multi-agent systems with delayed nonlinear dynamics and aperiodically intermittent communications

ABSTRACT In this paper, we investigate the consensus problem for second-order multi-agent systems with inherent delayed nonlinear dynamics and aperiodically intermittent communication. First, different from previous works, aperiodically intermittent communication is proposed. Moreover, two types of delay are considered. The first case is that the delay is small enough so that it is less than the minimum of communication width. The other one is that the delay is time-varying and large, and in this case, we do not restrict the delay less than the communication width. Different approaches are provided to study these two cases, and some conditions are obtained to achieve second-order consensus under a fixed strongly connected and balanced topology. Finally, a simulation example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.