Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Influence of prone positioning on premature newborn infant stress assessed by means of salivary cortisol measurement: pilot study

Objective This study sought to assess the influence of prone positioning on the stress of newborn premature infants through the measurement of the salivary cortisol concentration and the evaluation of physiological and behavioral responses before and after changes in body positioning. Methods Saliva samples were collected from newborn infants at two different times: the first (corresponding to the baseline) after a period of 40 minutes during which the infants were not subjected to any manipulation and were placed in the lateral or supine position, and the second 30 minutes after placement in the prone position. Variables including heart rate, respiratory rate, peripheral oxygen saturation, and the Brazelton sleep score were recorded before, during, and at the end of the period in the prone position. Results The sample comprised 16 newborn premature infants (56.3% male) with a gestational age between 26 and 36 weeks, postnatal age between 1 and 33 days, birth weight of 935 to 3,050g, and weight at the time of intervention of 870 to 2,890g. During the intervention, six participants breathed room air, while the remainder received oxygen therapy. The median salivary cortisol concentration was lower in the prone position compared to baseline (0.13 versus 0.20; p=0.003), as was the median Brazelton sleep score (p=0.02). The average respiratory rate was lower after the intervention (54.88±7.15 versus 60±7.59; p=0.0004). The remainder of the investigated variables did not exhibit significant variation. Conclusion Prone positioning significantly reduced the salivary cortisol level, respiratory rate, and Brazelton sleep score, suggesting a correlation between prone positioning and reduction of stress in preterm infants.
Intergenerational Transfers And Demonstration Effect

How can parents secure old-age support in the form of care, attention or financial transfers from their children? We explore the enforcement of implicit intergenerational agreements from a fresh angle by studying the possibility that the child's conduct is conditioned by the parents' example. Parents can take advantage of this learning potential by making transfers to their own parents when children are present to observe such transfers. Parents who desire old-age support have an incentive to behave appropriately. The idea that the parents' behavior is aimed at inculcating desirable behavior in their children generates testable hypotheses about transfers that we investigate using household survey microdata. The demonstration-effect approach also has implications for such diverse phenomena as population aging and the labor market participation of women. (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
Study of the Relationship Between Social Deprivation and Outcome After Stroke

Background and Purpose— Although the incidence and mortality of stroke are known to be inversely related to socioeconomic status (SES), the relationship between SES and recovery after stroke has been little-studied. This study has investigated the relationship between SES and case fatality, “death or dependency,” and “death or institutional care” at 6 months after stroke. Methods— Patients with acute stroke (n=2709) were identified using routine hospital discharge data and SES was measured using Carstairs scores (an ecological index of social deprivation). Case mix and treatment data were collected by medical chart review, case fatality by record linkage, and functional status and place of residence by questionnaire. Logistic regression was used to adjust the association of social deprivation and outcome for case mix and selected treatment variables. Results— With increasing social deprivation, patients were younger, more likely to live alone, and, on admission, more likely to need help to walk. Social deprivation was not associated with case fatality or with “death or institutional care” in any analysis. However, patients residing in the most deprived areas (deprivation categories 6 and 7) were significantly more likely to be dead or dependent than patients from more affluent areas. This association was weakened but remained after adjusting for case mix and treatment variables. Conclusions— These findings contribute to growing evidence of an inverse social gradient in disability after stroke. Institutionalization, as a proxy for functional outcome, may not reflect this fact. A marked social gradient in case fatality after stroke seems unlikely.
DEVELOPMENT OF A PRECISION SPRAYER FOR SITE-SPECIFIC WEED MANAGEMENT

A machine-vision-system-guided precision sprayer was developed and tested. The long-term objectives of this project were to develop new technologies to estimate weed density and size in real time, realize site-specific weed control, and effectively reduce herbicide application amounts for corn and soybean fields. This research integrated a real-time machine-vision sensing system with an automatic herbicide sprayer to create an intelligent sensing and spraying system. Multiple video images were used to cover the target area. To increase the accuracy, each individual spray nozzle was controlled separately. Instead of trying to identify each individual plant in the field, weed infestation zones (0.254 m × 0.34 m) were detected. The integrated system was tested to evaluate the effectiveness and performance under varying field conditions. With the current system design, and using 0.5% weed coverage as the control zone threshold, herbicide savings of 48% could be realized.
Metabolic rates scale isometrically in larval fishes

We estimated the rate of oxygen consumption of larval Atlantic mackerel Scomber scombrus at 3 temperatures (13, 16, 19 "C) while controlling rigorously for methodological biases. Routine metabolic rates (p1 O2 h-' ind.-l) increase with body weight (W, in mg) and temperature (T, in "C) as: RMR = 2.168-W 1 OoO-e0.058 (rZ = 0.96). Thus metabolic rates scale isometrically with respect to body weight in larval Atlantic mackerel. This finding is at variance with results obtained for juvenile and adult fishes whlch follow an allometric relationship (WO ').
Antenna Management of Space-Time Shift Keying Systems

Wireless networks have quickly become part of everyday life. However, wireless devices are range and data rate limited. To overcome these limitations one method is to use Multiple-Input Multiple Output (MIMO) links. The multiple antenna allow MIMO systems to perform precoding (multi-layer beamforming) ,diversity coding(space-time coding),and spatial multiplexing. In the novel Space-Time Shift Keying (STSK) modulation scheme for MIMO communication systems, the concept of spatial modulation is extended to include both the space and time dimensions, in order to provide a general shift-keying framework . More specifically, in the proposed STSK scheme one out of Q dispersion matrices is activated during each transmitted block, which enables us to strike a flexible diversity and multiplexing tradeoff. This is achieved by optimizing both the space-time block duration as well as the number of the dispersion matrices in addition to the number of transmit and receive antennas. The concept of Generalized Space Time Shift Keying acts as united MIMO framework. The Spatial Multiplexing (SM)/Space Shift Keying (SSK) concept is extended into two dimension, mainly space as well as time. In this paper, power management solution for MIMO STSK system called antenna management is introduced. The key idea is to adaptively disable a subset of antennas and their RF chains to reduce circuit power consumption, when the capacity improvement of using a large number of antennas is small. Antenna management judiciously determines the number of active antennas to minimize energy per bit while satisfying the data rate requirement. Simulation results are provided to validate our analysis.
New treatment modalities in advanced thyroid cancer.

BACKGROUND Thyroid cancer is a heterogeneous disease that is classified into differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC), undifferentiated/anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) and medullary thyroid carcinoma. Results of conventional treatment modalities in advanced thyroid cancer have been disappointing and therefore, new therapies are needed. METHODS We searched PubMed, The Cochrane Library, Medline and EMBASE databases and abstracts published in annual proceedings for new treatment modalities in advanced thyroid cancer. We also searched for ongoing trials in www.clinicaltrials. gov. RESULTS Six phase I, 17 phase II and 1 phase III trials with tyrosine kinase inhibitors were carried out. We found 2 pilot studies and 11 phase II trials with redifferentiation therapies, mainly in DTC. For antiproliferative approaches, three phase I and four phase II trials were found. Immunomodulatory gene therapy was tested in a pilot study in ATC patients. Two phase II trials were carried out with immunotherapy. One phase I and nine phase II trials were found with radionucleotide therapy in patients with DTC. CONCLUSION The developments in the treatment of advanced thyroid cancer are intriguing. Future trials should aim at combinations of targeted agents with or without other treatment modalities, and will hopefully contribute to further improvement of outcomes.
Intrinsic activation of human motoneurons: possible contribution to motor unit excitation.

The main purpose of this study was to estimate the contribution of intrinsic activation of human motoneurons (e.g., by plateau potentials) during voluntary and reflexive muscle contractions. Pairs of motor units were recorded from either the tibialis anterior or soleus muscle during three different conditions: 1) during a brief muscle vibration followed by a slow relaxation of a steady isometric contraction; 2) during a triangular isometric torque contraction; and 3) during passive sinusoidal muscle stretch superimposed on a steady isometric contraction. In each case, the firing rate of a tonically firing control motor unit was used as a measure of the effective synaptic excitation (i.e., synaptic drive) to a slightly higher-threshold test motor unit that was recruited and de-recruited during a contraction trial. The firing rate of the control unit was compared at recruitment and de-recruitment of the test unit. This was done to determine whether the estimated synaptic drive needed to recruit a motor unit was less than the amount needed to sustain firing as a result of an added depolarization produced from intrinsic sources. After test unit recruitment, the firing rate of the control unit could be decreased significantly (on average by 3.6 Hz from an initial recruitment rate of 9.8 Hz) before the test unit was de-recruited during a descending synaptic drive. Similar decreases in control unit rate occurred in all three experimental conditions. This represents a possible 40% reduction in the estimated synaptic drive needed to maintain firing of a motor unit compared with the estimated amount needed to recruit the unit initially. The firing rates of both the control and test units were modulated together in a highly parallel fashion, suggesting that the unit pairs were driven by common synaptic inputs. This tight correlation further validated the use of the control unit firing rate as a monitor of synaptic drive to the test motor unit. The estimates of intrinsically mediated depolarization of human motoneurons ( approximately 40% during moderate contractions) are consistent with values obtained for plateau potentials obtained from intracellular recordings of motoneurons in reduced animal preparations, although various alternative mechanisms are discussed. This suggests that similar intrinsic conductances provide a substantial activation of human motoneurons during moderate physiological activity.
An effective extension to okapi for biomedical text mining

In biomedical text mining domain, a challenging problem is to identify the biological entity which has multiple forms of name. For this reason, the traditional IR system usually does not have a good performance. We propose an extension to Okapi information retrieval system so that it has the ability to identify the biological entity with multiple lexical variants. This extension integrates the Okapi system, an automatic query expansion algorithm and a new method for transforming a topic written in natural language into a structured query. Experiments on both 2004 and 2005 TREC Genomics data sets show that the proposed extension to Okapi is effective and competitive.
Role of Helicobacter pylori Eradication Therapy on Platelet Recovery in Chronic Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura

Background. Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is a bleeding disorder in which the immune system destroys native platelets. In this condition an autoantibody is generated against a platelet antigen. ITP affects women more often than men and is more common in children than adults. Objective. To assess the effect of Helicobacter pylori eradication therapy (HPET) on platelet count in Helicobacter pylori associated chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (chronic ITP) in adult. Materials and Methods. It is an interventional prospective study conducted at Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences, Jamshoro, from 2014 to 2015. A set of 85 patients diagnosed with chronic ITP were included in the study via convenient sampling. Patients with platelets count < 100 × 109/L for >3 months were selected. They were posed to first-line investigations which comprised complete blood count (CBC) and peripheral blood smear examination followed by second-line tests including bone marrow examination and Helicobacter pylori stool specific antigen (HpSA-EIA). Standard H. pylori eradication therapy was offered and the patients were assessed at regular intervals for 6 months. Results. Of the 85 study patients, 32 (37.6%) were male and 53 (62.3%) were female. Mean ages of H. pylori positive and negative subjects were 43.89 ± 7.06 and 44.75 ± 7.91 years, respectively. Bone marrow examination confirmed the diagnosis and excluded other related BM disorders. H. pylori stool antigen (HpSA) was detected in 34 (40%) patients and hence regarded as H. pylori positive; the rest were negative. Treatment with eradication therapy significantly improved the mean platelet counts from 48.56 ± 21.7 × 109/l to 94.2 ± 26.8 × 109/l. Conclusion. We concluded that the anti-H. pylori eradication therapy improves blood platelet counts in chronic immune thrombocytopenia.
The effect of social motives, communication and group size on behaviour in an N-person multi-stage mixed-motive game

Two experiments investigated the impact of social motives or individuals' preferences for specific self–other outcome distributions, on behaviour in an n-person game. Subjects' social motives (altruistic, cooperative, individualistic, competitive) were assessed prior to the decision-making in either 7-person games (Experiment 1) or 20-person games (Experiment 2). A modification of the n-person game format normally employed is introduced in this research to permit the choices made by players on a given trial to modify the payoff matrix available to self and others on subsequent trials. The game format, a simulated social dilemma, was presented in terms of a conservation of resources problem. In Experiment 1 communication opportunities were manipulated. As predicted, there were consistent differences between the four classes of social motivation in the amount of the resources taken for self: competitive subjects took the most, individualistic subjects took less than the competitive ones but more than the average, while cooperative and altruistic subjects took the smallest amount of the resources for themselves. Moreover, competitive subjects expected the others to take fewer resources than they intended to themselves, and altruistic subjects expected the others to take more resources than they intended to themselves. These findings are only partly consistent with existing theories concerning the relationship between behaviour and expected behaviour of others. In addition, when communication was allowed, significantly fewer resources were taken for self. Contrary to the predictions based on previous research findings, subjects in the 20-person groups did not take more resources for self than subjects in the 7-person groups.
Immature Neurons and Radial Glia, But Not Astrocytes or Microglia, Are Altered in Adult Cntnap2 and Shank3 Mice, Models of Autism

Abstract Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is often associated with cognitive deficits and excessive anxiety. Neuroimaging studies have shown atypical structure and neural connectivity in the hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and striatum, regions associated with cognitive function and anxiety regulation. Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is involved in many behaviors that are disrupted in ASD, including cognition, anxiety, and social behaviors. Additionally, glial cells, such as astrocytes and microglia, are important for modulating neural connectivity during development, and glial dysfunction has been hypothesized to be a key contributor to the development of ASD. Cells with astroglial characteristics are known to serve as progenitor cells in the developing and adult brain. Here, we examined adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus, as well as astroglia and microglia in the hippocampus, mPFC, and striatum of two models that display autism-like phenotypes, Cntnap2−/− and Shank3+/ΔC transgenic mice. We found a substantial decrease in the number of immature neurons and radial glial progenitor cells in the ventral hippocampus of both transgenic models compared with wild-type controls. No consistent differences were detected in the number or size of astrocytes or microglia in any other brain region examined. Future work is needed to explore the functional contribution of adult neurogenesis to autism-related behaviors as well as to temporally characterize glial plasticity as it is associated with ASD.
Passive Source Localization in a Randomly Distributed Wireless Sensor Networks

This paper proposes a source localization scheme using random arrays of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). A Total Least Square (TLS) estimator is proposed which improves the result of the location of source node. Using a relatively new Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimation technique Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA) receiver the proposed solution is able to perform localization in a multipath environment. The propose scheme considers both Line of Sight (LOS) and Non Line of Sight (NLOS) signals to perform the localization with the TLS estimator which is efficient than a simple Least Square (LS) estimator. Simulation results are included to demonstrate that the proposed solution provides an improved estimate by exploiting the NLOS information, SDMA receiver and using TLS estimator.
Assessing directionality and strength of coupling through symbolic analysis: an application to epilepsy patients

Inferring strength and direction of interactions from electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings is of crucial importance to improve our understanding of dynamical interdependencies underlying various physiological and pathophysiological conditions in the human epileptic brain. We here use approaches from symbolic analysis to investigate—in a time-resolved manner—weighted and directed, short- to long-ranged interactions between various brain regions constituting the epileptic network. Our observations point to complex spatial–temporal interdependencies underlying the epileptic process and their role in the generation of epileptic seizures, despite the massive reduction of the complex information content of multi-day, multi-channel EEG recordings through symbolization. We discuss limitations and potential future improvements of this approach.
On Achieving Precise Exceptions Semantics in Dynamic Optimization

Maintaining precise exceptions is an important aspect of achieving full compatibility with a legacy architecture. While asynchronous exceptions can be deferred to an appropriate boundary in the code, synchronous exceptions must be taken when they occur. This introduces uncertainty into liveness analysis since processor state that is otherwise dead may be exposed when an exception handler is invoked. Previous systems either had to sacrifice full compatibility to achieve more freedom to perform optimization, use less aggressive optimization or rely on hardware support. In this work, we demonstrate how aggressive optimization can be used in conjunction with dynamic compilation without the need for specialized hardware. The approach is based on maintaining enough state to recompute the processor state when an unpredicted event such as a synchronous exception may make otherwise dead processor state visible. The transformations necessary to preserve precise exception capability can be performed in linear time.
Role of the dorsolateral pontine nucleus in short-term adaptation of the horizontal vestibuloocular reflex.

The dorsolateral pontine nucleus (DLPN) is a major component of the cortico-ponto-cerebellar pathway that carries signals essential for smooth pursuit. This pathway also carries visual signals that could play a role in visually guided motor learning in the vestibular ocular reflex (VOR). However, there have been no previous studies that tested this possibility directly. The aim of this study was to determine the potential role of the DLPN in short-term VOR gain adaptation produced by viewing a scene through lenses placed in front of both eyes. In control experiments, adaptation of VOR gain was achieved by sinusoidal rotation (0.2 Hz, 30 degrees /s) for 2 h while the monkey viewed a stationary visual surround through either magnifying (x2) or minifying (x0.5) lenses. This led to increases (23-32%) or decreases (22-48%) of VOR gain as measured in complete darkness (VORd). We used injections of muscimol, a potent GABA(A) agonist (0.5 microl; 2%), to reversibly inactivate the DLPN, unilaterally, in three monkeys. After DLPN inactivation, initial acceleration of ipsilateral smooth-pursuit was reduced by 35-68%, and steady-state gain was reduced by 32-61%. Despite these significant deficits (P < 0.01) in ipsilesional smooth pursuit, the VOR during lens viewing was similar to that measured in preinjection control experiments. Similarly, after 2 h of adaptation, VORd gain was not significantly different (P > 0.61) from control adaptation values for either ipsi- or contralesional directions of head rotation. This was the case even though a stable ipsilesional smooth pursuit deficit persisted throughout the full adaptation period. Our results suggest that visual error signals for short-term adaptation of the VOR are derived from sources other than the DLPN perhaps including other basilar pontine nuclei and the accessory optic system.
Gabapentin enacarbil – clinical efficacy in restless legs syndrome

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a sleep-related movement disorder commonly involving an unpleasant urge to move the limbs, typically the legs. Dopaminergic agents represent the first-line therapy for RLS; however, long-term use of such drugs results in worsening symptoms due to “augmentation” or other adverse events. Gabapentin, an analog of the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), is an anticonvulsant/analgesic agent. Gabapentin is only mildly effective in relieving RLS symptoms, perhaps a result of its poor absorption from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Gabapentin enacarbil is a prodrug of gabapentin specifically designed to enhance absorption via the GI tract, and hence provide improved circulating levels of gabapentin on metabolism. Clinical trials to date have demonstrated favorable safety and (compared to traditional gabapentin) improved pharmacokinetics and efficacy in treating RLS symptoms. Thus, gabapentin enacarbil may prove to be a useful drug in treating RLS. An application of gabapentin enacarbil for treatment of RLS is currently pending with FDA for approval.