Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Partial Deafness Treatment with the Nucleus Straight Research Array Cochlear Implant

Introduction: The Nucleus Straight Research Array (SRA) cochlear implant has a new 25-mm electrode carrier designed to minimize insertion trauma, in particular allowing easy insertion via the round window. The aims of this study were to measure preoperative to postoperative benefit in terms of speech recognition in quiet and in noise in three groups of patients (electrical complement, EC; electrical stimulation, ES; electro-acoustic stimulation, EAS) with varying levels of low-frequency hearing, and to evaluate the preservation of residual hearing after implantation with the SRA cochlear implant. Methods: The study design was prospective with sequential enrolment and within-subject comparisons: 23 adult cochlear implant candidates were divided into three groups according to their level of preoperative residual hearing at 500 Hz (EC ≤50 dB; 50 dB < EAS < 80 dB; ES ≧80 dB). Monosyllabic word recognition using the SRA cochlear implant in combination with residual low-frequency hearing was assessed at 4 and 13 months after implantation. Hearing threshold levels were also monitored over time. Results: Subjects across all three groups had significant improvements in speech recognition scores (i.e. >20 percentage points) both for listening in quiet (71% of subjects) and in noise (100% of subjects). The average score at 4 months after operation for words presented in quiet was 61.7%, and in 10 dB SNR noise 46.5%, compared to 34.4 and 10.6% preoperatively (p < 0.001). All subjects retained measurable hearing at 500 Hz in the implanted ear at 4 months after the operation; mean increases were 19, 29 and 1 dB for the EC, EAS and ES groups (n = 21). Across frequencies of 125–1000 Hz, the median increase in thresholds was 15 dB up to 13 months postoperatively (n = 15). Conclusions: Speech recognition performance of subjects with various levels of residual low-frequency hearing was significantly improved with the SRA cochlear implant. A high level and rate of hearing preservation was achieved with the SRA implanted using a round window surgical technique. Subjects with preoperative low-frequency hearing levels between 50 and 80 dB HL (EAS group) tended to lose more hearing than those with either better or worse hearing.
Biogenesis of histamine studied by its distribution and urinary excretion in germ free reared and not germ free rats fed a histamine free diet.

Summary. 1. The distribution and content of histamine in the whole animal and the urinary excretion of histamine has been investigated in germ free reared and not germ free rats of both sexes, all fed a histamine free diet. 2. The distribution and total content of histamine appears to be the same in germ free and not germ free rats. 3. In male rats the daily excretion of total histamine is about equal in germ free and not germ free rats, 9–23 μg/24 hr in the former group, 6–17 in the latter. In germ free male rats a large proportion of the total histamine is in the conjugated form in the not germ free almost all the histamine is conjugated. 4. Female germ free rats excrete both free and conjugated histamine, whereas not germ free females excrete histamine almost exclusively in the free form. 5. Evidence is presented that the conjugate in the urine of a germ free female may be acetylhistamine. 6. The consequences of the present observations for further studies of the metabolism and release of endogenous histamine is discussed.
ShortFuse: Biomedical Time Series Representations in the Presence of Structured Information

In healthcare applications, temporal variables that encode movement, health status and longitudinal patient evolution are often accompanied by rich structured information such as demographics, diagnostics and medical exam data. However, current methods do not jointly optimize over structured covariates and time series in the feature extraction process. We present ShortFuse, a method that boosts the accuracy of deep learning models for time series by explicitly modeling temporal interactions and dependencies with structured covariates. ShortFuse introduces hybrid convolutional and LSTM cells that incorporate the covariates via weights that are shared across the temporal domain. ShortFuse outperforms competing models by 3% on two biomedical applications, forecasting osteoarthritis-related cartilage degeneration and predicting surgical outcomes for cerebral palsy patients, matching or exceeding the accuracy of models that use features engineered by domain experts.
Expressed sequence tags from Diabrotica virgifer a virgifera midgut identify a coleopteran cadherin and a diversity of cathepsins 137

The Western corn rootworm is the major pest of corn in the USA and has recently become the target for insect-resistant transgenic crops. Transgenic crops have switched the focus for identifying insecticide targets from the insect nervous system to the midgut. Here we describe a collection of 691 sequences from the Western corn rootworm midgut, 27% of which predict proteins with no matches in current databases. Of the remaining sequences, most predict proteins with either catalytic (62%) or binding (19%) functions, as expected for proteins expressed in the insect midgut. The utility of this approach for the identification of targets for novel toxins is demonstrated by analysis of the first coleopteran cadherin gene, a putative Bt receptor, and a large class of cysteine-proteases, the cathepsins.
Neuropsychologie des représentations mentales de soi et des autres : Effets de l’âge et explorations dans la démence sémantique : [thèse soutenue sur un ensemble de travaux]

L'interet actuel porte a la conscience oriente les recherches sur le concept de Soi et de theorie de l'esprit (ToM), a l’origine des representations mentales que l'on a de soi et des autres respectivement. Avec une methodologie originale, cette these visait a etudier l'impact de l'âge sur le concept de Soi en memoire (1) et de ToM (2) et a explorer le fonctionnement de ces deux systemes cognitifs dans la demence semantique (DS) (3). La premiere partie, consacree au Soi, montre que l'âge n’affecte que certaines des ses caracteristiques et que repondre a la question «Qui suis-je? », mesure choisie de l'identite personnelle, requiere la memoire episodique et les representations de soi futures. La deuxieme partie sur la ToM, modelisee selon la dualite «ToM cognitive» et «ToM affective» met en evidence un effet deletere de l'âge sur ces deux dimensions. Or l'effet direct n’est retrouve que sur la ToM cognitive de deuxieme ordre, tandis qu'il apparait indirect sur les autres dimensions. Enfin, l'investigation de ces concepts pour la premiere fois dans la DS souligne d'une part une relative preservation de l'identite personnelle des patients malgre l'appauvrissement notable de sa dimension future. D'autre part, l'etude de la ToM chez ces patients met en lumiere une alteration de la ToM cognitive et une relative preservation de la ToM affective pouvant s'expliquer respectivement par l'atrophie du pole temporal gauche et la preservation de cette meme region dans l'hemisphere droit. L'etude du Soi et de la ToM dans la DS suggere un trouble du mecanisme de simulation mentale dans cette pathologie. Au total, ces travaux discutent des liens entre memoire, conscience de soi et des autres
Lanolin of reduced sensitizing potential

Confirmation has been obtained that reducing the content of natural free alcohols in lanolin to below 3 % particularly in the absence of detergent residues, reduces the incidence of positive patch test reactions amongst selected lanolin‐sensitive skin patients by 99.3 %. Only one reaction out of 149 subjects was recorded.
The Logic of Collective Rating

The introduction of participatory rating mechanisms on online sales platforms has had substantial impact on firms' sales and profits. In this note, we develop a dynamic model of consumer influences on ratings and of rating influences on consumers, focussing on standard 5-star mechanisms as implemented by many platforms. The key components of our social influence model are the consumer trust in the `wisdom of crowds' during the purchase phase and indirect reciprocity during the rating decision. Our model provides an overarching explanation for well-corroborated empirical regularities. We quantify the performance of the voluntary rating mechanism in terms of realized consumer surplus with the no-mechanism and full-information benchmarks, and identify how it could be improved.
Exploring new features of high-bandwidth memory for GPUs

Due to the off-chip I/O pin and power constraints of GDDR5, HBM has been proposed to provide higher bandwidth and lower power consumption for GPUs. In this paper, we first provide detailed comparison between HBM and GDDR5 and expose two unique features of HBM: dualcommand and pseudo channel mode. Second, we analyze the effectiveness of these two features and show that neither notably contributes to performance. However, by combining pseudo channel mode with cache architecture supporting fine-grained cache-line management such as Amoeba cache, we achieve high effciency for applications with irregular memory requests. Our experiment demonstrates that compared with Amoeba caches with legacy mode, Amoeba cache with pseudo channel mode improves GPU performance by 25% and reduces HBM energy consumption by 15%.
Pharmacokinetic Analysis of the Blood-Brain Barrier Transport of 125I-Amyloid β Protein 40 in Wild-Type and Alzheimer's Disease Transgenic Mice (APP,PS1) and Its Implications for Amyloid Plaque Formation

Amyloid plaques are formed in the extracellular space of Alzheimer's disease (AD) brain due to the accumulation of amyloid β (Aβ) proteins such as Aβ40. The relationship between Aβ40 pharmacokinetics and its accumulation within and clearance from the brain in both wild-type (WT) and AD transgenic mice (APP,PS1) was studied to understand the mechanism of amyloid plaque formation and the potential use of Aβ40 as a probe to target and detect amyloid plaques. In both WT and APP,PS1 mice, the 125I-Aβ40 tracer exhibited biexponential disposition in plasma with very short first and second phase half-lives. The 125I-Aβ40 was significantly metabolized in the liver kidney > spleen. Coadministration of exogenous Aβ40 inhibited the plasma clearance and the uptake of 125I-Aβ40 at the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in WT animals but did not affect its elimination from the brain. The 125I-Aβ40 was shown to be metabolized within and effluxed from the brain parenchyma. The rate of efflux from APP,PS1 brain slices was substantially lower compared with WT brain slices. Since the Aβ40 receptor at the BBB can be easily saturated, the blood-to-brain transport of Aβ40 is less likely to be a primary contributor to the amyloid plaque formation in APP,PS1 mice. The decreased elimination of Aβ40 from the brain is most likely responsible for the amyloid plaque formation in the brain of APP,PS1 mice. Furthermore, inadequate targeting of Aβ40 to amyloid plaques, despite its high BBB permeability, is due to the saturability of Aβ40 transporter at the BBB and its metabolism and efflux from the brain.
Molecular Identification of Salp15, a Key Salivary Gland Protein in the Transmission of Lyme Disease Spirochetes, from Ixodes persulcatus and Ixodes pacificus (Acari: Ixodidae)

ABSTRACT Salp15 is a multifunctional protein, vital to the tick in its need to obtain vertebrate host blood without stimulating a host inflammatory and immune response. The Salp15 protein from both Ixodes scapularis Say and Ixodes ricinus (L.), the principal vectors of the Lyme disease spirochete in eastern North America and Europe, respectively, have been well characterized and found to bind the murine CD4 receptor, DC-SIGN, and the OspC protein of Borrelia burgdorferi. In the current study, we characterized the full salp15 gene in Ixodes pacificus Cooley & Kohls and Ixodes persulcatus Schulze, the principal vectors of Lyme disease spirochetes in western North America and Asia, respectively. In comparing the Salp15 protein of all four principal vector ticks of public health importance for the transmission of Lyme disease spirochetes, we find the 53 C-terminal amino acids to have a high degree of similarity. There are at least three clades in the tree of Salp15 and its homologues, probably representing a multigene family.
Assessing the influence of researcher–partner involvement on the process and outcomes of participatory research in autism spectrum disorder and neurodevelopmental disorders: A scoping review

Participatory research aims to increase the relevance and broaden the implementation of health research by involving those affected by the outcomes of health studies. Few studies within the field of neurodevelopmental disorders, particularly autism spectrum disorders, have involved autistic individuals as partners. This study sought to identify and characterize published participatory research partnerships between researchers and individuals with autism spectrum disorder or other neurodevelopmental disorders and examine the influence of participatory research partnerships on the research process and reported study outcomes. A search of databases and review of gray literature identified seven studies that described participatory research partnerships between academic researchers and individuals with autism spectrum disorder or other neurodevelopmental disorders. A comparative analysis of the studies revealed two key themes: (1) variations in the participatory research design and (2) limitations during the reporting of the depth of the partner’s involvement. Both themes potentially limit the application and generalizability of the findings. The results of the review are discussed in relation to the use of evaluative frameworks for such participatory research studies to determine the potential benefits of participatory research partnerships within the neurodevelopmental and autism spectrum disorder populations.
Calculs de processus: observations et inspections. (Process calculi: observations, inspections)

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Calculs de processus: observations et inspections Daniel Hirschkoff
Immunity to Pre-1950 H1N1 Influenza Viruses Confers Cross-Protection against the Pandemic Swine-Origin 2009 A (H1N1) Influenza Virus

The 2009 H1N1 influenza virus outbreak is the first pandemic of the twenty-first century. Epidemiological data reveal that of all the people afflicted with H1N1 virus, <5% are over 51 y of age. Interestingly, in the uninfected population, 33% of those >60 y old have pre-existing neutralizing Abs against the 2009 H1N1 virus. This finding suggests that influenza strains that circulated 50–60 y ago might provide cross-protection against the swine-origin 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. To test this, we determined the ability of representative H1N1 influenza viruses that circulated in the human population from 1930 to 2000, to induce cross-reactivity to and cross-protection against the pandemic swine-origin H1N1 virus, A/California/04/09. We show that exposure of mice to the 1947 virus, A/FM/1/47, or the 1934 virus, A/PR/8/34, induced robust cross-protective immune responses and these mice were protected against a lethal challenge with mouse-adapted A/California/04/09 H1N1 virus. Conversely, we observed that mice exposed to the 2009 H1N1 virus were protected against a lethal challenge with mouse-adapted 1947 or 1934 H1N1 viruses. In addition, exposure to the 2009 H1N1 virus induced broad cross-reactivity against H1N1 as well as H3N2 influenza viruses. Finally, we show that vaccination with the older H1N1 viruses, particularly A/FM/1/47, confers protective immunity against the 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus. Taken together, our data provide an explanation for the decreased susceptibility of the elderly to the 2009 H1N1 outbreak and demonstrate that vaccination with the pre-1950 influenza strains can cross-protect against the pandemic swine-origin 2009 H1N1 influenza virus.
Costs of VA Ambulatory Care Estimating the Costs of VA Ambulatory Care

Ciaran S. Phibbs VA HSR&D Health Economics Resource Center and VA Cooperative Studies Program; Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University; Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University Aman Bhandari Health Services and Policy Analysis Program, University of California, Berkeley Wei Yu VA HSR&D Health Economics Resource Center and VA Cooperative Studies Program; Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University Paul G. Barnett VA HSR&D Health Economics Resource Center and VA Cooperative Studies Program; Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University; Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, Stanford University
Balamuthia Mandrillaris, N. G., N. Sp., Agent of Amebic Meningoencephalitis In Humans and Other Animals

ABSTRACT. We recently reported the isolation of a leptomyxid ameba from the brain of a mandrill baboon that died of meningo‐encephalitis. Based on light and electron microscopic studies, animal pathogenicity tests, and immunofluorescence patterns, we conclude that our isolate differs fundamentally from the other two amebas (Leptomyxa and Gephyramoeba) included in the Order Leptomyxida. We therefore created a new genus, Balamuthia, to accommodate our isolate and described it as Balamuthia mandrillaris to reflect the origin of the type species. Briefly, B. mandrillaris is a pathogenic ameba that causes amebic encephalitis in humans and animals. It has trophic and cyst stages in its life cycle, and is uninucleate with a large vesicular nucleus and a central nucleolus. Mature cysts have a tripartite wall consisting of an outer loose ectocyst, an inner endocyst and a middle mesocyst. Unlike Acanthamoeba and Naegleria, the other two amebas that cause amebic encephalitis in humans, Balamuthia will not grow on agar plates seeded with enteric bacteria. However, Balamuthia grows on a variety of mammalian cell cultures and kills mice following intranasal or intraperitoneal inoculation. Based on immunofluorescence testing, 35 cases of amebic encephalitis in humans and three in other animals have been identified worldwide as being caused by Balamuthia.
A nuclear encoded tRNA of Trypanosoma brucei is imported into mitochondria

The mitochondrial genome of trypanosomes, unlike that of most other eukaryotes, does not appear to encode any tRNAs. Therefore, mitochondrial tRNAs must be either imported into the organelle or created through a novel mitochondrial process, such as RNA editing. Trypanosomal tRNA(Tyr), whose gene contains an 11-nucleotide intron, is present in both the cytosol and the mitochondrion and is encoded by a single-copy nuclear gene. By site-directed mutagenesis, point mutations were introduced into this tRNA gene, and the mutated gene was reintroduced into the trypanosomal nuclear genome by DNA transfection. Expression of the mutant tRNA led to the accumulation of unspliced tRNA(Tyr) (A. Schneider, K. P. McNally, and N. Agabian, J. Biol. Chem. 268:21868-21874, 1993). Cell fractionation revealed that a significant portion of the unspliced mutant tRNA(Tyr) was recovered in the mitochondrial fraction and was resistant to micrococcal nuclease treatment in the intact organelle. Expression of the nuclear integrated, mutated tRNA gene and recovery of its gene product in the mitochondrial fraction directly demonstrated import. In vitro experiments showed that the unspliced mutant tRNA(Tyr), in contrast to the spliced wild-type form, was no longer a substrate for the cognate aminoacyl synthetase. The presence of uncharged tRNA in the mitochondria demonstrated that aminoacylation was not coupled to import.
Show us your pay stub: Income verification in P2P lending

Peer-to-peer lending is an alternative credit market that allows individual borrowers and lenders — people like you and me — to engage in credit transactions without traditional banking intermediaries. This research centers on income verification practices in peer-to-peer lending. We report on a descriptive analysis of all the loans that were funded through Lending Club, currently the world's largest peer-to-peer lending platform, with issue dates before September 1, 2012. The score that Lending Club assigns to a requested loan is supposed to encapsulate all the information that is needed for the lender to assess the risk of a potential default, This study points, however, to a potential weakness of Lending Club’s loan assessment tools, which indicates that information about a loan’s income verification status is in fact relevant and has value. Given this understanding, lenders’ choices are surprising. Lenders that are registered directly on Lending Club’s platform, including a crowd of small investors, fund a higher percentage of the listed loan amount when the borrower’s income is not verified, while all other investors display the opposite, traditional risk-averse behavior.
Time Course of Catch-up in Adiposity Influences Adult Anthropometry in Individuals Who Were Born Small for Gestational Age

Although necessary for a normal final height in individuals who were born small for gestational age (SGA), catch-up growth is associated with drastic changes in body composition that have been suspected to favor the later development of the long-term metabolic complications by promoting central adiposity; however, the specific contribution of catch-up itself on these later complications remains unclear. Therefore, the aim of the study was to characterize the dynamic changes in adiposity during childhood in individuals who were born SGA and to investigate their consequences on adulthood. The magnitude and the time course of postnatal changes in body mass index (BMI) relative to birth and their consequences on adult adiposity were investigated in 127 adults who were born SGA and had available serial anthropometric data in childhood (0–6 y) and adulthood. Catch-up in BMI, observed in 91% of individuals who were born SGA, was mostly completed within the first or second year of age. Overall, adult BMI was correlated with the magnitude of gain in BMI during childhood. However, this effect was significant only when this gain persisted after the first year of life. Similarly, the influence of the magnitude in gain in BMI on the risk for adult BMI >25 kg/m2 was significantly influenced by the age at which the gain in BMI occurred. In summary, although the extent of catch-up in BMI affects adiposity in adulthood, this effect is mostly deleterious when occurring after 1 y of age, suggesting that a rapid catch-up process should be more suitable than a delayed one. Whether this observation holds through regarding the metabolic syndrome remains to be elucidated.
gametophyte and sporophyte development in nonflowering plants (

The plant hormone auxin triggers complex growth and developmental processes. Its underlying molecular mechanism of action facilitates rapid switching between transcriptional repression and gene activation through the auxin-dependent degradation of transcriptional repressors. The nuclear auxin signaling pathway consists of a small number of core components. However, in most plants each component is represented by a large gene family. The modular construction of the pathway can thus produce diverse transcriptional outputs depending on the cellular and environmental context. Here, and in the accompanying poster, we outline the current model for TIR1/AFB-dependent auxin signaling with an emphasis on recent studies.