Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) - A Sensitive Screening Instrument for Detecting Cognitive Impairment in Chronic Hemodialysis Patients

Background Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) therapy have an increased risk of developing cognitive impairment and dementia, which are known relevant factors in disease prognosis and therapeutic success, but still lack adequate screening in clinical routine. We evaluated the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) for suitability in assessing cognitive performance in HD patients in comparison to the commonly used Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and a detailed neuropsychological test battery, used as gold standard. Methods 43 HD patients and 42 healthy controls with an average age of 58 years, were assessed with the MoCA, the MMSE and a detailed neuropsychological test battery, covering the domains of memory, attention, language, visuospatial and executive functions. Composite scores were created for comparison of cognitive domains and test results were analyzed using Spearman's correlation and linear regression. Cognitive dysfunction was defined using z-score values and predictive values were calculated. Sensitivity and specificity of the MoCA were determined using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results HD patients performed worse in all cognitive domains, especially in memory recall and executive functions. The MoCA correlated well with the detailed test battery and identified patients with cognitive impairment with a sensitivity of 76.7% and specificity of 78.6% for a cut-off value of ≤24 out of 30 points. In the detailed assessment executive functions accounted significantly for performance in the MoCA. The MMSE only discriminated weakly between groups. Conclusions The MoCA represents a suitable cognitive screening tool for hemodialysis patients, demonstrating good sensitivity and specificity levels, and covering executive functions, which appear to play an important role in cognitive performance of HD patients.
Semaphorin 3C regulates endothelial cell function by increasing integrin activity

Class 3 semaphorins (sema 3) are secreted guidance proteins. Sema 3A expressed by endothelial cells controls vascular morphogenesis through integrin inhibition. Sema 3C is required for normal cardiovascular patterning. Here we examined the potential role of sema 3C as regulator of endothelial cell function in vitro using mouse glomerular endothelial cells (MGEC). We determined that MGEC express sema 3C mRNA and protein and its receptors mRNA. Recombinant sema 3C induced MGEC proliferation 18 2% above control, as assessed by bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU) incorporation, and reduced starvation‐induced apoptosis by 46 3%, as indicated by an in situ marker of activated caspase 3. Sema 3C increased MGEC adhesion to fibronectin 79 13% and to collagen 55 12% as compared with control. Sema 3C‐induced MGEC adhesion was prevented by integrin blocking antibodies and involved 1 integrin serine phosphorylation. Sema 3C‐induced MGEC adhesion and proliferation were similar to those induced by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)‐A. Sema 3C induced a 44 11% increase in MGEC directional migration and stimulated MGEC capillary‐like network formation on collagen I gels. Collectively, our data indicate that sema 3C promotes glomerular endothelial cell proliferation, adhesion, directional migration, and tube formation in vitro by stimulating integrin phosphorylation and VEGF120 secretion, functions that are similar to VEGF‐A and opposite to sema 3A. —Banu, N. , Teichman, J., Dunlap‐Brown, M. , Villegas, G. , Tufro, A. Semaphorin 3C regulates endothelial cell function by increasing integrin activity. FASEB J. 20, E1520 –E1527 (2006)
A GDP-bound of rab1 inhibits protein export from the endoplasmic reticulum and transport between Golgi compartments

Rab1 is a small GTPase regulating vesicular traffic between early compartments of the secretory pathway. To explore the role of rab1 we have analyzed the function of a mutant (rab1a[S25N]) containing a substitution which perturbs Mg2+ coordination and reduces the affinity for GTP, resulting in a form which is likely to be restricted to the GDP-bound state. The rab1a(S25N) mutant led to a marked reduction in protein export from the ER in vivo and in vitro, indicating that a guanine nucleotide exchange protein (GEP) is critical for the recruitment of rab1 during vesicle budding. The mutant protein required posttranslational isoprenylation for inhibition and behaved as a competitive inhibitor of wild-type rab1 function. Both rab1a and rab1b (92% identity) were able to antagonize the inhibitory activity of the rab1a(S25N) mutant, suggesting that these two isoforms are functionally interchangeable. The rab1 mutant also inhibited transport between Golgi compartments and resulted in an apparent loss of the Golgi apparatus, suggesting that Golgi integrity is coupled to rab1 function in vesicular traffic.
Tailor-made novel polymers for hydrogel encapsulation processes

Natural polymers are materials of large molecular weight and natural origin such as plants, animals, or microorganisms. They have been known for centuries and have found widespread use in various industries, such as food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, textiles, plastics, and paper. They are of considerable importance because they are generally biodegradable and are generally recognized as safe (GRAS), which is a significant advantage, especially in recent times, when “pro‐nature” policies and goals to reduce “chemicals” and synthetic materials in our lives, including food, have become popular. This makes the interest in natural polymers unabated and still increasing. One successful way of using these materials is in encapsulation processes, including spray‐drying, emulsion techniques, coacervation, and ionotropic gelation. The utility of polymers as encapsulants is determined by their specific properties. These can include film‐forming properties, emulsifying properties, high resistance to the environment of the gastrointestinal tract, biodegradability, low viscosity at high solids contents, low hygroscopicity, and availability and low cost (Özkan and Bilek, 2014). Generally, among the natural polymers two main groups can be distinguished: polysaccharides and proteins. The next section presents the most popular polymers, commonly used as materials to form capsule matrix (Table 1.1 and Table 1.2). Despite the many well‐known encapsulants, there is still a need to look for novel polymers and new means to use the old ones in other ways to create ideal capsules with excellent resistance and mechanical properties and wide applicability; this topic is also presented in this chapter. Tailor‐made novel polymers for hydrogel encapsulation processes
Social-cognitive mechanisms in the development of conduct disorder and depression.

CONTENTS INTRODucnON 559 Mental Processes in Social Behavior 560 SOCIAL-INFORMA nON-PROCESSING THEORY . 560 Application to Single Behavioral Events 562 Application to Child Psychopathology 563 Critique . 571 KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURES THAT GUIDE PROCESSING 573 Relation to Aggressive Behavior 575 Relation to Depression . 577 DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF CONDUCT DISORDER AND DEPRESSION '''''''''''' 578 CONCLUSION 580
Bidding In Interrelated Day-Ahead Electricity Markets: Insights From An Agent-Based Simulation Model

In this paper we present results from an agent-based simulation model of two sequentially cleared electricity markets. Agents can bid on both a day-ahead market for physical delivery contracts and a day-ahead balancing power market and learn from their achieved results. Different scenarios of the order of market clearing and pricing rules are tested and their results are compared. We show that prices are lower in both markets when the day-ahead market is cleared first. We also show that pay- as-bid leads to lower resulting prices than a uniform price mechanism.
Eddy Current Loss in the Frame of a Flux-Switching Permanent Magnet Motor

The leakage flux and resultant eddy current loss in the frame of a flux-switching permanent magnet (FSPM) motor was investigated by 2D time-domain finite element analysis and validated experimentally. This paper presents predicted and measured results for eddy current loss in the frame during both low speed, constant torque operation and high speed, constant power (flux-weakening) operation.
Experimenting with multipath TCP

It is becoming the norm for small mobile devices to have access to multiple technologies for connecting to the Internet. This gives researchers an increasing interest for solutions allowing to use efficiently several communication mediums. We propose a demonstration of our Multipath TCP implementation for Linux, that allows spreading a single TCP flow across multiple Internet paths, without requiring any change to applications. The demonstration will involve a real Internet communication with MPTCP, with simultaneous use of several paths, as well as a demonstration of MPTCP failover capability.
Semi-blind image restoration via Mumford-Shah regularization

Image restoration and segmentation are both classical problems, that are known to be difficult and have attracted major research efforts. This paper shows that the two problems are tightly coupled and can be successfully solved together. Mutual support of image restoration and segmentation processes within a joint variational framework is theoretically motivated, and validated by successful experimental results. The proposed variational method integrates semi-blind image deconvolution (parametric blur-kernel), and Mumford-Shah segmentation. The functional is formulated using the /spl Gamma/-convergence approximation and is iteratively optimized via the alternate minimization method. While the major novelty of this work is in the unified treatment of the semi-blind restoration and segmentation problems, the important special case of known blur is also considered and promising results are obtained.
Bias and the limits of pooling

Modern retrieval test collections are built through a process called pooling in which only a sample of the entire document set is judged for each topic. The idea behind pooling is to find enough relevant documents such that when unjudged documents are assumed to be nonrelevant the resulting judgment set is sufficiently complete and unbiased. As document sets grow larger, a constant-size pool represents an increasingly small percentage of the document set, and at some point the assumption of approximately complete judgments must become invalid.This paper demonstrates that the AQUAINT 2005 test collection exhibits bias caused by pools that were too shallow for the document set size despite having many diverse runs contribute to the pools. The existing judgment set favors relevant documents that contain topic title words even though relevant documents containing few topic title words are known to exist in the document set. The paper concludes with suggested modifications to traditional pooling and evaluation methodology that may allow very large reusable test collections to be built.
Cutting Edge: Polycomb Gene Expression Patterns Reflect Distinct B Cell Differentiation Stages in Human Germinal Centers

Polycomb group (Pc-G) proteins regulate homeotic gene expression in Drosophila, mouse, and humans. Mouse Pc-G proteins are also essential for adult hematopoietic development and contribute to cell cycle regulation. We show that human Pc-G expression patterns correlate with different B cell differentiation stages and that they reflect germinal center (GC) architecture. The transition of resting mantle B cells to rapidly dividing Mib-1(Ki-67)+ follicular centroblasts coincides with loss of BMI-1 and RING1 Pc-G protein detection and appearance of ENX and EED Pc-G protein expression. By contrast, differentiation of centroblasts into centrocytes correlates with reappearance of BMI-1/RING1 and loss of ENX/EED and Mib-1 expression. The mutually exclusive expression of ENX/EED and BMI-1/RING1 reflects the differential composition of two distinct Pc-G complexes. The Pc-G expression profiles in various GC B cell differentiation stages suggest a role for Pc-G proteins in GC development.
A Deeper Look at Planning as Learning from Replay

In reinforcement learning, the notions of experience replay, and of planning as learning from replayed experience, have long been used to find good policies with minimal training data. Replay can be seen either as model-based reinforcement learning, where the store of past experiences serves as the model, or as a way to avoid a conventional model of the environment altogether. In this paper, we look more deeply at how replay blurs the line between model-based and model-free methods. First, we show for the first time an exact equivalence between the sequence of value functions found by a model-based policy-evaluation method and by a model-free method with replay. Second, we present a general replay method that can mimic a spectrum of methods ranging from the explicitly model-free (TD(0)) to the explicitly model-based (linear Dyna). Finally, we use insights gained from these relationships to design a new model-based reinforcement learning algorithm for linear function approximation. This method, which we call forgetful LSTD(λ), improves upon regular LSTD(λ) because it extends more naturally to online control, and improves upon linear Dyna because it is a multi-step method, enabling it to perform well even in non-Markov problems or, equivalently, in problems with significant function approximation.
Cross fostering in mice: behavioral and physiological carry‐over effects in adulthood

Cross fostering is a widely used laboratory practice. However, relatively few studies have directly investigated the carry‐over effects of this procedure in adult animals. The aim of the present study is to investigate the late effects of cross fostering (CF) at birth (in litters composed of no siblings) on adult mice. When adults, cross‐fostered male and female mice were examined for intrasex aggression, and levels of emotionality, exploration and anxiety. In addition, body weight was monitored, several internal organs were weighed and plasma corticosterone levels were measured. When compared to controls, body weight of CF male and female mice was increased, at least after early puberty. CF males showed smaller preputial glands, while basal corticosterone level was not affected by cross fostering. In the free‐exploratory test, CF males, but not females, showed a behavioral profile suggestive of lower anxiety. These effects in adulthood cannot be ascribed to differences in the maternal care received, which was not affected by cross fostering. In conclusion, cross fostering at birth induced a number of behavioral and physiological alterations in mice, particularly in males. These findings should be carefully evaluated when applying cross fostering procedure to laboratory animals.
Activation of Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 Protects Cardiomyocytes from Hypoxia/Reoxygenation-Induced Oxidative Stress Through the Upregulation of Manganese Superoxide Dismutase

Background—Mice with cardiac-specific overexpression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) are resistant to doxorubicin-induced damage. The STAT3 signal may be involved in the detoxification of reactive oxygen species (ROS). Methods and Results—The effects of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) or adenovirus-mediated transfection of constitutively activated STAT3 (caSTAT3) on the intracellular ROS formation induced by hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) were examined using rat neonatal cardiomyocytes. Either LIF treatment or caSTAT3 significantly suppressed the increase of H/R-induced ROS evaluated by 2′,7′-dichlorofluorescin diacetate fluorescence. To assess whether ROS are really involved in H/R-induced cardiomyocyte injury, the amount of creatine phosphokinase in cultured medium was examined. Both LIF treatment and caSTAT3 significantly decreased H/R-induced creatine phosphokinase release. These results indicate that the gp130/STAT3 signal protects H/R-induced cardiomyocyte injury by scavenging ROS generation. To investigate the mechanism of scavenging ROS, the effects of LIF on the induction of antioxidant enzymes were examined. LIF treatment significantly increased the expression of manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) mRNA, whereas the expression of the catalase and glutathione peroxidase genes were unaffected. This induction of MnSOD mRNA expression was completely blocked by adenovirus-mediated transfection of dominant-negative STAT3. Moreover, caSTAT3 augmented MnSOD mRNA and its enzyme activity. In addition, the antisense oligodeoxyribonucleotide to MnSOD significantly inhibited both LIF and caSTAT3-mediated protective effects. Conclusions—The activation of STAT3 induces a protective effect on H/R-induced cardiomyocyte damage, mainly by inducting MnSOD. The STAT3-mediated signal is proposed as a therapeutical target of ROS-induced cardiomyocyte injury.
Immunopathogenesis of acute transverse myelitis

&NA; Acute transverse myelitis is a group of disorders characterized by focal inflammation of the spinal cord and resultant neural injury. Acute transverse myelitis may be an isolated entity or may occur in the context of multifocal or even multisystemic disease. It is clear that the pathological substrate ‐ injury and dysfunction of neural cells within the spinal cord ‐ may be caused by a variety of immunological mechanisms. For example, in acute transverse myelitis associated with systemic disease (i.e. systemic lupus erythematosus or sarcoidosis), a vasculitic or granulomatous process can often be identified. In idiopathic acute transverse myelitis, there is an intraparenchymal or perivascular cellular influx into the spinal cord, resulting in the breakdown of the blood‐brain barrier and variable demyelination and neuronal injury. There are several critical questions that must be answered before we truly understand acute transverse myelitis: (1) What are the various triggers for the inflammatory process that induces neural injury in the spinal cord? (2) What are the cellular and humoral factors that induce this neural injury? and (3) Is there a way to modulate the inflammatory response in order to improve patient outcome? Although much remains to be elucidated about the causes of acute transverse myelitis, tantalizing clues as to the potential immunopathogenic mechanisms in acute transverse myelitis and related inflammatory disorders of the spinal cord have recently emerged. It is the purpose of this review to illustrate recent discoveries that shed light on this topic, relying when necessary on data from related diseases such as acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, Guillain‐Barré syndrome and neuromyelitis optica. Developing a further understanding of how the immune system induces neural injury will depend upon confirmation and extension of these findings and will require multicenter collaborative efforts.
Mixed reality with multimodal head-mounted pico projector

Many kinds of displays can be used for augmented reality (AR). Multimodal head-mounted pico projector is a concept, which is little explored for AR. It opens new possibilities for wearable displays. In this paper we present our proof-of-concept prototype of a multimodal head-mounted pico projector. Our main contributions are the display concept and some usage examples for it.
Multimodal Segmentation of Optic Disc and Cup From SD-OCT and Color Fundus Photographs Using a Machine-Learning Graph-Based Approach

In this work, a multimodal approach is proposed to use the complementary information from fundus photographs and spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) volumes in order to segment the optic disc and cup boundaries. The problem is formulated as an optimization problem where the optimal solution is obtained using a machine-learning theoretical graph-based method. In particular, first the fundus photograph is registered to the 2D projection of the SD-OCT volume. Three in-region cost functions are designed using a random forest classifier corresponding to three regions of cup, rim, and background. Next, the volumes are resampled to create radial scans in which the Bruch's Membrane Opening (BMO) endpoints are easier to detect. Similar to in-region cost function design, the disc-boundary cost function is designed using a random forest classifier for which the features are created by applying the Haar Stationary Wavelet Transform (SWT) to the radial projection image. A multisurface graph-based approach utilizes the in-region and disc-boundary cost images to segment the boundaries of optic disc and cup under feasibility constraints. The approach is evaluated on 25 multimodal image pairs from 25 subjects in a leave-one-out fashion (by subject). The performances of the graph-theoretic approach using three sets of cost functions are compared: 1) using unimodal (OCT only) in-region costs, 2) using multimodal in-region costs, and 3) using multimodal in-region and disc-boundary costs. Results show that the multimodal approaches outperform the unimodal approach in segmenting the optic disc and cup.
A Practical Algorithm for Enumerating Collinear Points

This paper studies the problem of enumerating all maximal collinear subsets of size at least three in a given set of $n$ points. An algorithm for this problem, besides solving degeneracy testing and the exact fitting problem, can also help with other problems, such as point line cover and general position subset selection. The classic \emph{topological sweeping} algorithm of Edelsbrunner and Guibas can find these subsets in $O(n^2)$ time in the dual plane. We present an alternative algorithm that, although asymptotically slower than their algorithm in the worst case, is simpler to implement and more amenable to parallelization. If the input points are decomposed into $m$ convex polygons, our algorithm has time complexity $O(n^2 \log m)$ and space complexity $O(n)$. Our algorithm can be parallelized on the CREW PRAM with time complexity $O(n \log m)$ using $n$ processors.
Two-year serial whole-brain N-acetyl-l-aspartate in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis

Objectives: To test the hypotheses that 1) patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RR-MS) exhibit a quantifiable decline in their whole-brain concentration of the neural marker N-acetyl-l-aspartate (WBNAA), that is 2) more sensitive than clinical changes and 3) may provide a practical outcome measure for proof-of-concept and larger phase III clinical trials. Methods: Nineteen patients (5 men and 14 women) with clinically definite RR-MS, who were 33 ± 5 years old (mean ± SD), had a disease duration of 47 ± 28 months, and had a median Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score of 1.0 (range 0–5.5), underwent MRI and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) semiannually for 2 years (5 time points). Eight matched control subjects underwent the protocol annually (3 time points). Their global N-acetyl-l-aspartate 1H-MRS signal was converted into absolute amounts by phantom replacement and into WBNAA by dividing with the brain parenchymal volume, VB, from MRI segmentation. Results: The baseline WBNAA of the patients (10.5 ± 1.7 mM) was significantly lower than that of the controls (12.3 ± 1.3 mM; p < 0.002) and declined significantly (5%/year, p < 0.002) vs that for the controls who did not show a decline (0.4%/year, p > 0.7). Likewise, VB values of the patients also declined significantly (0.5%/year, p < 0.0001), whereas those of the controls did not (0.2%/year, p = 0.08). The mean EDSS score of the patients increased insignificantly from 1.0 to 1.5 (range 0–6.0) and did not correlate with VB or WBNAA. Conclusions: WBNAA of patients with RR-MS declined significantly at both the group and individual levels over a 2-year time period common in clinical trials. Because of the small sample sizes required to establish power, WBNAA can be incorporated into future studies.