Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Freezing of gait in PD

Objective: To study the development of freezing of gait in PD. Background: Freezing of gait is a common, disabling, and poorly understood symptom in PD. Methods: The authors analyzed data from 800 patients with early PD from the Deprenyl and Tocopherol Antioxidative Therapy of Parkinsonism (DATATOP) clinical trial who were assigned either placebo, deprenyl, tocopherol, or the combination of deprenyl and tocopherol. The primary outcome measure was the time from randomization until the freezing of gait score on the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) became positive. Results: Fifty-seven patients (7.1%) had freezing of gait at study entry and 193 (26%) of the remaining patients experienced the symptom by the end of the follow-up period. Those with freezing of gait at baseline had significantly more advanced disease than those without the symptom, as measured by total UPDRS and Hoehn and Yahr stage. High baseline risk factors for developing freezing of gait during the follow-up period were the onset of PD with a gait disorder; higher scores of rigidity, postural instability, bradykinesia and speech; and longer disease duration. In contrast, tremor was strongly associated with a decreased risk for freezing of gait. At the end of follow-up, the signs most strongly associated with the freezing phenomenon were gait, balance, and speech disorders, not rigidity or bradykinesia. Deprenyl treatment was strongly associated with a decreased risk for developing freezing of gait; tocopherol had no effect. Conclusions: Freezing of gait is directly related to duration of PD. Risk factors at onset of disease are the absence of tremor and PD beginning as a gait disorder. The development of freezing of gait in the course of the illness is strongly associated with the development of balance and speech problems, less so with the worsening of bradykinesia, and is not associated with the progression of rigidity. These results support the concept that the freezing phenomenon is distinct from bradykinesia. Deprenyl, in the absence of l-dopa, was found to be an effective prophylactic treatment and should be considered for patients with PD who have an onset of gait difficulty.
Experimenting with innovation in creative spaces

This special issue is dedicated to the investigation of how people, teams, and organizations collaborate and experiment with innovative practices in different types of creative spaces and the challenges and opportunities they face in such contexts. The six papers of this special issue offer a comprehensive view of creative spaces by providing variegated perspectives, case studies, and evidence on exemplary experimentations within them.
Colorectal carcinoma at Al-Gamhouria Teaching Hospital, Aden, Yemen.

OBJECTIVE Colorectal cancer is the first common cause of cancer in men and the fourth cause after breast, NHL and ovary in women in Aden. This study aims to retrospectively analyze the pattern of patients with colorectal cancer seen in Oncology Unit, at Al-Gamhouria Teaching Hospital from January to December 2008. MATERIAL AND METHODS All cases of colorectal cancer presented at oncology unit, Al-Gamhouria Teaching Hospital in Aden Yemen between January and December 2008 were reviewed and the data was analyzed to determine age, gender, residency, clinical presentation, histological types and staging of disease and treatment. RESULTS A total of 50 cases were included in the study, 34 (68%) male and 16 (34%) were female. (M:F 2.1:1). The mean age at presentation was 48.8 years for females and 56.4 for males. Abdominal pain (70%) and bleeding per rectum (50%) were the main presenting complaints. The most common sites are rectum (34%), caecum and ascending colon (30%) and sigmoid in 18% of cases. 82% of tumors of colorectal region were adenocarcinomas, the majority of which (66%) were well to moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma. Stages at presentation were: stage I (12%), stage II (18%), stage III (52%) and stage IV (18%). CONCLUSION There is an increased incidence of colorectal carcinoma. Bad outcome directly related to late detection of cancer and >70 % of cases in stages III and IV. There is need to increase awareness through public education about this malignancy and its management. Any adult with complaints of vague abdominal pain, blood or mucus in the stool or features of haemorrhoids which may herald the onset of colorectal cancer should be adequately investigated with digital rectal examination (DRE) and proctosigmoidoscopy and barium enema where appropriate.
Non-Cooperative Games for Self-Interested Planning Agents

Multi-Agent Planning (MAP) is a topic of growing interest that deals with the problem of automated planning in domains where multiple agents plan and act together in a shared environment. In most cases, agents in MAP are cooperative (altruistic) and work together towards a collaborative solution. However, when rational self-interested agents are involved in a MAP task, the ultimate objective is to find a joint plan that accomplishes the agents' local tasks while satisfying their private interests. Among the MAP scenarios that involve self-interested agents, non-cooperative MAP refers to problems where non-strictly competitive agents feature common and conflicting interests. In this setting, conflicts arise when self-interested agents put their plans together and the resulting combination renders some of the plans non-executable, which implies a utility loss for the affected agents. Each participant wishes to execute its plan as it was conceived, but congestion issues and conflicts among the actions of the different plans compel agents to find a coordinated stable solution. Non-cooperative MAP tasks are tackled through non-cooperative games, which aim at finding a stable (equilibrium) joint plan that ensures the agents' plans are executable (by addressing planning conflicts) while accounting for their private interests as much as possible. Although this paradigm reflects many real-life problems, there is a lack of computational approaches to non-cooperative MAP in the literature. This PhD thesis pursues the application of non-cooperative games to solve non-cooperative MAP tasks that feature rational self-interested agents. Each agent calculates a plan that attains its individual planning task, and subsequently, the participants try to execute their plans in a shared environment. We tackle non-cooperative MAP from a twofold perspective. On the one hand, we focus on agents' satisfaction by studying desirable properties of stable solutions, such as optimality and fairness. On the other hand, we look for a combination of MAP and game-theoretic techniques capable of efficiently computing stable joint plans while minimizing the computational complexity of this combined task. Additionally, we consider planning conflicts and congestion issues in the agents' utility functions, which results in a more realistic approach. To the best of our knowledge, this PhD thesis opens up a new research line in non-cooperative MAP and establishes the basic principles to attain the problem of synthesizing stable joint plans for self-interested planning agents through the combination of game theory and automated planning.
Obese youths are not more likely to become depressed, but depressed youths are more likely to become obese

Background Overweight/obesity and depression are both major public health problems among adolescents. However, the question of a link between overweight/obesity and depression remains unresolved in this age group. We examined whether obesity increases risk of depression, or depression increases risk of obesity, or whether there is a reciprocal effect. Method A two-wave prospective cohort study of adolescents aged 11–17 years at baseline (n = 4175) followed up a year later (n = 3134) sampled from the Houston metropolitan area. Overweight was defined as 95th percentile >body mass index (BMI) ⩽85th percentile and obese as BMI >95th percentile. Three indicators of depression were examined: any DSM-IV mood disorder, major depression, and symptoms of depression. Results Data for the two-wave cohort indicated no evidence of reciprocal effects between weight and depression. Weight status predicted neither major depression nor depressive symptoms. However, mood disorders generally and major depression in particular increased risk of future obesity more than twofold. Depressed males had a sixfold increased risk of obesity. Females with depressive symptoms had a marginally increased risk of being overweight but not obese. Conclusions Our findings, combined with those of recent meta-analyses, suggest that obese youths are not more likely to become depressed but that depressed youths are more likely to become obese.
Effects of Work Ethos on Creativity

: This study reported the importance of improving education in work ethos in order to createstudent creativity in establishing entrepreneurial attitudes. The objective of this study is to identify the effect of work ethos on the creativity of vocational students. Therefore, it can be easily identified indicators that should be maintained and improved. This present study applied the creativity theory by Mac Kinnon. In this study, the involved research population was all students of vocational school in Bandung and 345 students were chosen as the samples. In addition, the data were collected using questionnaire and then the data processing was executed using a linear regression analysis. The results of this study showed that work ethos education had a positive effect on creativity (15.2%) and the remaining 84.8% was influenced by other factors. Based on the findings in this study, it was found that the highest creativity variable indicator could be found in terms of the creative product. On the other hand, the indicator of work ethos variable was solidarity. As for the further studies, it is suggested that there are some indicators that should be improved covering the creativity variable that is creative process, while work ethos variable is productive.
Rimonabant reduces obesity‐associated hepatic steatosis and features of metabolic syndrome in obese Zucker fa/fa rats

This study investigated the effects of rimonabant (SR141716), an antagonist of the cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1), on obesity‐associated hepatic steatosis and related features of metabolic syndrome: inflammation (elevated plasma levels of tumor necrosis factor alpha [TNFα]), dyslipidemia, and reduced plasma levels of adiponectin. We report that oral treatment of obese (fa/fa) rats with rimonabant (30 mg/kg) daily for 8 weeks abolished hepatic steatosis. This treatment reduced hepatomegaly, reduced elevation of plasma levels of enzyme markers of hepatic damage (alanine aminotransferase, gamma glutamyltransferase, and alkaline phosphatase) and decreased the high level of local hepatic TNFα currently associated with steatohepatitis. In parallel, treatment of obese (fa/fa) rats with rimonabant reduced the high plasma level of the proinflammatory cytokine TNFα and increased the reduced plasma level of the anti‐inflammatory hormone adiponectin. Finally, rimonabant treatment also improved dyslipidemia by both decreasing plasma levels of triglycerides, free fatty acids, and total cholesterol and increasing the HDLc/LDLc ratio. All the effects of rimonabant found in this study were not or only slightly observed in pair‐fed obese animals, highlighting the additional beneficial effects of treatment with rimonabant compared to diet. These results demonstrate that rimonabant plays a hepatoprotective role and suggest that this CB1 receptor antagonist potentially has clinical applications in the treatment of obesity‐associated liver diseases and related features of metabolic syndrome. (HEPATOLOGY 2007.)
Performance on the Defense Automated Neurobehavioral Assessment across controlled environmental conditions

ABSTRACT Neurocognitive assessment tools (NCAT) are commonly used to screen for changes in cognitive functioning following a mild traumatic brain injury and to assist with a return to duty decision. As such, it is critical to determine if performance on the Defense Automated Neurobehavioral Assessment (DANA) is adversely affected by operationally-relevant field environments. Differences in DANA performance between a thermoneutral environment and three simulated operationally-relevant field environments across the thermal stress continuum were calculated for 16 healthy U.S. Navy service members. Practice effects associated with brief test-retest intervals were calculated within each environmental condition. There were no significant differences between the simulated environmental conditions suggesting that performance on the DANA Brief is not impacted by thermal stress. Additionally, there were no significant differences in performance within each simulated environmental condition associated with repeated administrations.
Valbenazine for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia

ABSTRACT Introduction: Chronic intake of typical neuroleptics or centrally acting dopamine receptor blocking antiemetics may cause onset of tardive syndromes. Various types exist. One of them is tardive dyskinesia, characterised by often stigmatising, purposeless, rapid, repetitive, stereotypic, involuntary movements of face, limbs or trunk. Effective symptomatic drug treatment options beyond application of tetrabenazine are rare. Tetrabenazine is usually administered three times daily due to the short half life of this agent. Areas covered: This narrative review discusses the value of valbenazine for the treatment of tardive dyskinesia as a therapeutic alternative to tetrabenazine. Expert commentary: Valbenazine is a selective inhibitor of vesicular monoamine transporter 2, which is metabolized to (+)-alpha-dihydrotetrabenazine. Valbenazine and particularly its metabolite inhibit vesicular monoamine transporter 2 function. Once daily intake of valbenazine ameliorated the severity of tardive dyskinesia. The chiral purity of valbenazine circumvents generation of the (-)alpha and (+) and (-)beta dihydrotetrabenazine metabolites of tetrabenazine or deutetrabenazine. Valbenazine and its metabolite do not antagonize postsynaptic monoamine receptors in contrast to the tetrabenazine formulations. Therefore one may hypothesize that fewer and less severe motor and psychopathological side effects will occur during valbenazine long term application compared with tetrabenazine or deutretrabenazine.
Characterization of the Poly-β-1,6-N-Acetylglucosamine Polysaccharide Component of Burkholderia Biofilms

ABSTRACT We demonstrated the production of poly-β-1,6-N-acetylglucosamine (PNAG) polysaccharide in the biofilms of Burkholderia multivorans, Burkholderia vietnamiensis, Burkholderia ambifaria, Burkholderia cepacia, and Burkholderia cenocepacia using an immunoblot assay for PNAG. These results were confirmed by further studies, which showed that the PNAG hydrolase, dispersin B, eliminated immunoreactivity of extracts from the species that were tested (B. cenocepacia and B. multivorans). Dispersin B also inhibited biofilm formation and dispersed preformed biofilms of Burkholderia species. These results imply a role for PNAG in the maintenance of Burkholderia biofilm integrity. While PNAG was present in biofilms of all of the wild-type test organisms, a ΔpgaBC mutant of B. multivorans (Mu5) produced no detectable PNAG, indicating that these genes are needed for Burkholderia PNAG formation. Furthermore, restoration of PNAG production in PNAG negative E. coli TRXWMGΔC (ΔpgaC) by complementation with B. multivorans pgaBCD confirmed the involvement of these genes in Burkholderia PNAG production. While the confocal scanning laser microscopy of untreated wild-type B. multivorans showed thick, multilayered biofilm, Mu5 and dispersin B-treated wild-type biofilms were thin, poorly developed, and disrupted, confirming the involvement of PNAG in B. multivorans biofilm formation. Thus, PNAG appears to be an important component of Burkholderia biofilms, potentially contributing to its resistance to multiple antibiotics and persistence during chronic infections, including cystic fibrosis-associated infection.
Offline Signature Verification Using Real Adaboost Classifier Combination of Pseudo-dynamic Features

We present an offline signature verification system using three different pseudo-dynamic features, two different classifier training approaches and two datasets. One of the most difficult problems of off-line signature verification is that the signature is just a static image while losing a lot of useful dynamic information. Three separate pseudo-dynamic features based on gray level: local binary pattern (LBP), gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) and histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) are used. The classification is performed using writer-dependent Support Vector Machine (SVMs) classifiers and Global Real Adaboost method, where two different approaches to train the classifier. In the first mode, each SVM is trained with the feature vectors obtained from the reference signatures of the corresponding user and those random forgeries for each signer while the global Adaboost classifier is trained using genuine and random forgery signatures of signers that are excluded from the test set. The fusion of all features achieves the best result of 7.66% and 9.94% equal error rate in GPDS while 7.55% and 11.55% equal error rate in CSD respectively.
Homoeopathic and herbal prescribing in general practice in Scotland.

AIMS To investigate the current levels of homoeopathic and herbal prescribing in Scottish general practice. METHODS Prescribing of homoeopathic and herbal remedies in primary care was assessed in 1891 669 patients for the year 2003-2004, using computerized prescribing data retrieved from 323 general practices in Scotland. RESULTS Forty-nine percent of practices prescribed homoeopathic and 32% herbal remedies. A total of 193 homoeopathic and 17 herbal remedies were prescribed, with 5% of practices accounting for 46% of patients and 50% of remedies. Four thousand one hundred and sixty patients (2.2/1000 registered patients) were prescribed at least one homoeopathic remedy during the study period, with the highest prevalence to children under 12 months of age (9.5/1000 children of that age). Children under the age of 16 made up 16% of the population prescribed homoeopathic remedies (2.2/1000 registered patients of that age). Three hundred and sixty-one patients (0.2/1000 registered patients) were prescribed at least one herbal remedy during the study period, 44 of whom were children < 16 years old. Patients prescribed a homoeopathic or herbal remedy were also prescribed a median of four and five conventional medicines, respectively. Of patients prescribed an oral herbal remedy, 4% were also concomitantly prescribed a conventional medicine with which a drug-herb interaction has been documented. CONCLUSIONS Our study reports that a substantial number of Scottish general practitioners prescribe homoeopathic and herbal remedies, with an approximate doubling in the number of children prescribed homoeopathic remedies. The level of homoeopathic and herbal prescribing raises questions about homoeopathic/herbal provision in the National Health Service and should prompt critical review.
Treatment Options for Distal Femoral Fractures.

INTRODUCTION Due to their high complication rate and negative impact of those complications upon the knee and the whole lower limb, distal femoral fractures require optimal restoration of the functional anatomy and stable fixation thus allowing early recovery. This paper presents the experience of the authors regarding the indications and results of the most accepted surgical methods, including late complications affecting the knee. MATERIAL AND METHOD 36 patients with closed distal femoral fractures (21-81 yrs old) operated in Bucharest, Clinical Emergency Hospital, Orthopedics and Trauma Clinic, were retrospectively studied from the point of view of the fracture and implant type, functional results and complications. RESULTS Most of the fractures were high energy comminuted fractures (27 cases), mainly with articular involvement. Retrograde nail was used in type A fractures, while plating (LCP) was the main indication for type C fractures. The functional outcome was correlated with the fracture type and the incidence of complications was higher in type A3, C2 and C3 fractures. CONCLUSION Anatomical reduction of the articular surface, restoration of functional anatomy and stable fixation are mandatory for an optimal knee function after distal femoral fractures. Failure to achieve them, due to the character of the fracture or to improper fixation, is followed by significant functional deficit, thus delaying the patients' recovery.
The paradox of collective action: Linking interest aggregation and interest articulation in EU legislative lobbying

Olson's logic of collective action predicts that business interest associations face fewer collective action problems than citizen action groups. This article challenges this assumption by arguing that forming an organization comes with different collective action problems than voicing a joint policy position. This leads us to examine an important paradox: Citizen groups face challenges in establishing themselves as organizations but find it relatively easy to position themselves on policy issues, whereas the reverse is true for business associations. We study this paradox empirically based on interviews with spokespersons of interest organizations active in the European Union and find support for our hypotheses. Our findings demonstrate that citizen groups position themselves on policy issues more easily than business interests and that this competitive advantage is amplified when policy issues attract the attention of the media.
Learning Identification Control for Model-Based Optoelectronic Packaging

In this paper, we present a learning control algorithm for the packaging automation of optoelectronic systems. This automation provides high performance, low-cost alignment and packaging through the use of a model-based control theory and system-level modeling. The approach is to build an a priori model, specific to the assembled package's optical power propagation characteristics. From this model, an inverse model is created and used in the "feedforward" loop. In addition to this feedforward model, the controller is designed with feedback components, along with the inclusion of a built-in optical power sensor. We introduce a learning technique, which is activated at a lower sampling frequency for specific and appropriate tasks, to improve the model used in the model-based control. Initial results are presented from an experimental test bed that is used to verify the control and learning algorithms