Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ear asymmetries and asymmetric directional microphone hearing aid fittings.

PURPOSE To determine whether an asymmetry between ears for speech understanding in noise was related to performance with, or preference for, 1 of 2 asymmetric microphone fittings in which omnidirectional processing was provided to 1 ear and directional processing to the other. METHOD Twenty-eight adults with symmetric sensorineural hearing impairment were recruited from the clinic population. Sixteen individuals had symmetric hearing-in-noise ability between their right and left ears, and 12 participants had an asymmetry for speech understanding in noise between ears. A repeated measures design was used. Interactions between various microphone fittings and speech signal locations in noise were assessed in the laboratory. In addition, the listeners with asymmetry between ears for hearing in noise completed a field trial comparing the 2 fittings in everyday listening situations. RESULTS Laboratory testing resulted in different patterns of performance for the 2 groups. Field trial results revealed that participants generally noticed little difference between the 2 fittings in everyday life and did not express a strong preference for 1 fitting over the other. CONCLUSION An asymmetry between ears for speech understanding in noise did not result in preference for 1 asymmetric fitting over the other in everyday listening situations.
DNA Methylation in Mammalian and Non-Mammalian Organisms

Of particular interest in biology is how different chromatin states contribute to the complex regulation of gene transcription that is necessary to establish and maintain multi-cellular organisms. This is because (with few exceptions) each cell within an organism contains the same genomic sequence, meaning that the diversity of expression states is not due to variability in the underlying genetic sequence but could result from differences in chromatin landscape. This area of research comes under the umbrella of ‘epigenetics’, which is concerned with molecular processes involved in regulating gene expression that are transmittable and independent of changes in DNA sequence. However, perhaps owing to the ambiguity of this definition, the term often means different things to different people. A more precise definition of 'epigenetic' mechanisms is 'the structural adaptation of chromosomal regions so as to register, signal or perpetuate altered activity states' (Bird, 2007). Differentiated cells are said to have an 'epigenetic memory' imparted by epigenetic processes that can maintain a pattern of gene transcription through time and cell divisions. Understanding the mechanisms involved in setting up and maintaining these processes is an exciting area of research investigation.
Calcium Modulation of Hypertension and Obesity: Mechanisms and Implications

Regulation of intracellular calcium plays a key role in hypertension and obesity. Dysregulation of calcium homeostasis appears to be a fundamental factor linking these conditions. Regulation of intracellular calcium in key disease-related target tissues by calcitrophic hormones provides the opportunity to modulate disease risk with dietary calcium. Overall, sub-optimal calcium intakes contribute to the etiology of salt-sensitivity and hypertension. High salt diets exert a calciuretic effect, serving to exacerbate the physiological consequences of sub-optimal calcium diets. Among these are increases in 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, which increases vascular smooth muscle intracellular calcium, thereby increasing peripheral vascular resistance and blood pressure. Dietary calcium reduces blood pressure in large part via suppression of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, thereby normalizing intracellular calcium. The practical relevance of this approach has been confirmed in the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) trial, which demonstrated that increasing low-fat dairy product and fruit and vegetable consumption exerted profound blood pressure-lowering effects. The magnitude of this effect among hypertensives was comparable to that typically found in pharmacological trials of mild hypertension. 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D also stimulates calcium influx in human adipocytes, resulting in stimulation of lipogenesis, inhibition of lipolysis and expansion of triglyceride stores. Accordingly, suppression of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D by dietary calcium has been identified as a target, which may contribute to the prevention and management of obesity. Indeed, laboratory, clinical and population data all indicate a significant anti-obesity effect of dietary calcium, although large-scale prospective clinical trials have not yet been conducted to definitively demonstrate the scope of this effect. Thus, available evidence indicates that increasing dietary calcium intakes may result in reductions in fat mass as well as in blood pressure.
Clinical, psychosocial, and treatment differences in minority patients with bipolar disorder.

OBJECTIVES The clinical profile of minorities with bipolar disorder has been largely unexplored. We compared the clinical (e.g. psychiatric and substance use comorbidity), psychosocial, and treatment characteristics between white and minority patients with bipolar disorder (minorities were defined as black or other minority, which included Hispanic, Asian-American, or Native-Americans). METHODS We collected demographic, diagnosis, and treatment information using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) from 330 inpatients with a current major affective episode across 11 Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers enrolled in the VA Cooperative Study (Reducing the Efficacy-Effectiveness Gap in Bipolar Disorder). RESULTS Twenty-four percent (n=80) were minority; 9% (n=30) were women, 4% (n=20) were >or=65 years old; and the majority (87%, n=286) had bipolar type I. Minorities compared with whites were no more likely to have a current episode of psychosis (30% versus 37%, respectively; p=0.28). However, minorities were more likely than whites to have a cocaine use disorder (adjusted odd's ratio, OR=2.2; 95% CI: 1.4-3.5; p<0.01) or current alcohol abuse disorder (adjusted OR=1.8; 95% CI: 1.1-3.9;p<0.05). Further breakdown by race/ethnicity revealed that cocaine use disorder was most prevalent among blacks (n=14, 29%), compared with all other minorities (n=2, 6%) or whites (n=10, 4%; p<0.001). Other minorities compared with blacks or whites were more likely involuntarily committed during some part of their index hospitalization (adjusted OR=2.47; 95% CI: 1.1-5.7; p=0.04). CONCLUSIONS Minorities with bipolar disorder may be a more vulnerable population because of higher rates of substance use disorder and higher rates of involuntary psychiatric commitment. Moreover, the specific profile of vulnerability may differ across minority groups.
Cannabis as a risk factor for psychosis: systematic review

Various lines of evidence suggest an association between cannabis and psychosis. Five years ago, the only significant case-control study addressing this question was the Swedish Conscript Cohort. Within the last few years, other studies have emerged, allowing the evidence for cannabis as a risk factor to be more systematically reviewed and assessed. Using specific search criteria on Embase, PsychINFO and Medline, all studies examining cannabis as an independent risk factor for schizophrenia, psychosis or psychotic symptoms, published between January 1966 and January 2004, were examined. Additional studies were also reviewed from references found in retrieved articles, reviews, and a cited reference search (ISI-Web of Science). Studies selected for meta-analysis included: (i) case-control studies where exposure to cannabis preceded the onset of schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like psychosis and (ii) cohort studies of healthy individuals recruited before the median age of illness onset, with cannabis exposure determined prospectively and blind to eventual diagnosis. Studies of psychotic symptoms were also tabulated for further discussion. Eleven studies were identified examining the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis. Seven were included in the meta-analysis, with a derived odds ratio (fixed effects) of 2·9 (95% confidence interval = 2.4-3.6). No evidence of publication bias or heterogeneity was found. Early use of cannabis did appear to increase the risk of psychosis. For psychotic symptoms, a dose-related effect of cannabis use was seen, with vulnerable groups including individuals who used cannabis during adolescence, those who had previously experienced psychotic symptoms, and those at high genetic risk of developing schizophrenia. In conclusion, the available evidence supports the hypothesis that cannabis is an independent risk factor, both for psychosis and the development of psychotic symptoms. Addressing cannabis use, particularly in vulnerable populations, is likely to have beneficial effects on psychiatric morbidity.
A Note on Constant Proportion Trading Strategies

We consider constant proportion (CP) trading strategies when there are multiple underlying securities and use a recently derived expression for the terminal wealth of a CP strategy to address two issues. First, we characterize the performance of a CP strategy relative to the performance of the corresponding buy-and-hold strategy. We then explain the performance of leveraged ETFs which have been criticized for not performing as expected, particularly during the financial crisis of 2008.
Pharmacokinetics of 400 mg of raltegravir once daily in combination with atazanavir/ritonavir plus two nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors.

U. parvum and U. urealyticum in previous studies. – 10 Therefore the association of the amino acid change (Asp-112 Glu) in GyrA with fluoroquinolone resistance in U. parvum is inconclusive. The amino acid change (Ser-83 Leu) in ParC, corresponding to the change at amino acid position 80 in E. coli ParC, has been proposed to be related to resistance in various bacterial species, including Ureaplasma spp. – 10 MICs of levofloxacin for nine clinical strains of U. parvum and five clinical strains of U. urealyticum harbouring the same amino acid in ParC without any amino acid changes in GyrA were reported to be 4 mg/L, ranging from 4 to 32 mg/L, respectively. Our findings would suggest that 5 (16.7%) of 30 clinical strains of U. parvum and 2 (3.3%) of 60 clinical strains of U. urealyticum are mutants with decreased susceptibility to fluoroquinolones. Continuous surveillance of the ureaplasmas for antimicrobial resistance and appropriate treatments based on their antimicrobial resistance trends should be required to prevent fluoroquinolone resistance from proceeding to a clinically significant level. For Ureaplasma spp. , culture techniques are still valuable, but the non-culture approach used in the present study would be helpful for surveillance in the present era when sensitive molecular-based assays are prevailing for the diagnosis of ureaplasma infections.
Development of an auditory test battery for young children: a pilot study

This article describes the development and results of a pilot study with a recently developed auditory test battery for 4-6-year-old Dutch children. The test battery consisted of a sustained auditory attention (SAA) test, a dichotic words (DW) test, a binaural masking-level difference (BMLD) test, an auditory word discrimination (AWD) test, a gap detection (GD) test and a test of phonemic awareness, the Lindamood Auditory Conceptualization (LAC) test. Our results show that this test battery can be administered successfully to children aged 4 years and older. Most tests showed a clear effect of chronological age; the strongest age effects were found for the DW test and the LAC test. The BMLD test was the only test for which no significant age effect was found in this group of children. A small, but significant right-ear advantage was found on the DW test, for the 4- and the 6-year-olds. Correlations between subtests were in general rather high, suggesting that several tests in this test battery may be tapping into similar auditory abilities. Sumario Este arti´culo describe el desarrollo y los resultados de un estudio piloto reciente sobre una bateri´a de pruebas auditivas para nin˜os holandeses de 4 a 6 an˜os. La bateri´a esta´ conformada por las siguientes pruebas: atencio´n auditiva sostenida (SAA), palabras dico´ticas (DW), diferencia binaural del nivel de enmascaramiento (BMLD), discriminacio´n auditiva de palabras (AWD), prueba de cierre auditivo (GD) y la prueba de conciencia fone´mica, la prueba de conceptualizacio´n auditiva de Lindamood (LAC). Nuestros resultados demuestran que esta bateri´a puede ser aplicada con e´xito a nin˜os de 4 an˜os de edad y mayores. La mayori´a de las pruebas mostraron un claro efecto de la edad cronolo´gica siendo ma´s notorios los encontrados en la prueba DW y en la prueba LAC. La u´nica prueba en la que no se demostro´ un efecto de la edad fue en la BMLD. Se encontro´ un efecto pequen˜o pero significativo del oi´do derecho en la prueba DW en los nin˜os de 4 a 6 an˜os. La correlacio´n entre las pruebas fue en general elevada, lo que sugiere que varias de las pruebas de esta bateri´a pueden estar explorando habilidades auditivas similares.
Morse theory for $G$-manifolds

Morse theory relates the topology of a Hubert manifold [3, §9], M, to the behavior of a C function/: M—>R having only nondegenerate critical points. In applying Morse theory to the study of G-manifolds, i.e., manifolds with a compact Lie group G acting as a differentiable transformation group, one must, of course, use maps in the category, i.e., equivariant maps. However, if x is a critical point of an equivariant function then gx is also a critical point for any g £ G , hence one must allow critical orbits or, more generally, critical submanifolds. In §1 we give the necessary definitions and notation. In §2 we extend the results of R. Palais in [3 ] to study an invariant C function ƒ : M-+R on a complete Riemannian G-space ikf, where in addition to ƒ satisfying condition (C) [3, §10], we require that the critical locus of ƒ be a union of nondegenerate critical manifolds in the sense of Bott [ l ] . In §3 we show that if M is finite-dimensional then any invariant C function on M can be C approximated by a C invariant function whose critical orbits are nondegenerate. Together with the results of §2 this provides an analogue for G-manifolds of the Smale handlebody decomposition technique. Proofs will be given elsewhere.
Assessing the Ability of Matching to Address Attrition Bias in a Randomized Experiment using Data from the Rand Health Insurance Experiment

It is well known that non-random attrition can lead to bias in estimating treatment effects from a social experiment that is based on random assignment. If the randomized intervention suffers from non-random attrition, the intent to treat (ITT) estimator is biased and the IV estimator of the treatment effect is also inconsistent (Frangakis and Rubin 1999). DiNardo, McCrary and Sanbonmatsu (2006) propose an approach to correct attrition bias, but their approach requires an additional randomization. In principle, propensity score matching can eliminate or mitigate the bias due to nonrandom attrition. This study investigates how well matching achieves this goal after we introduce a plausible form of non-random attrition in the well-known Rand Health Insurance Experiment (RHIE). Specifically, we introduce attrition in a less generous insurance plan sample at the end of year 1 of the experiment on the basis of high health care expenditures in year 2. We then assess whether matching can eliminate or mitigate the bias in estimating the treatment effect of switching plans by comparing our matching estimates to the experimental results. Since the data on pre-experimental health care expenditures is selfreported and unreliable, we use the individuals’ year 1 expenditure rank within their respective plans as one of our conditioning variables. While this is a post-experiment (treatment) variable, its use will be valid if an individual’s health expenditure ranking within a plan is not affected by health insurance plan assignment, i.e. the individuals are rank-order stable across the plans. We find that when we use year 1 expenditure rank as a conditioning variable and the outcome variable is defined as chronic condition expenditures, matching eliminates about half of the attrition bias. However, this is not the case when the outcome variable is defined as the total health care expenditures. Finally, without conditioning on year 1 rank, matching cannot mitigate attrition bias for either outcome variable.
A tunable laser near 535 nm

This paper presents a tunable laser near 535 nm. It is obtained by the intracavity frequency doubling of the tunable Stokes laser emission based on the stimulated polariton scattering in MgO:LiNbO3 crystal. The tunable green laser wavelength range was from 534.8 nm to 536.9 nm. The maximum output energy at 535.7 nm was 4.48 mJ.
The Effect of Prepubertal Diabetes Duration on Diabetes: Microvascular Complications in Early and Late Adolescence

OBJECTIVE To define the significance of prepubertal diabetes duration in the development of diabetic microvascular complications in adolescents. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Study A compares complications in 38 prepubertal (PreP) and 140 pubertal (Pub) subjects of the same age (10-14 years) and diabetes duration (3–12 years) to determine if the absence of puberty itself confers a lower risk of complications. Study B examines the importance of prepubertal and pubertal diabetes duration in 193 older adolescents (ages 15–22 years) with prepubertal onset of diabetes. Retinopathy status was assessed using stereoscopic fundus photography of seven fields per eye. Albumin excretion rate (AER) was assessed by three consecutive overnight urine collections, using a polyclonal radioimmunoassay. RESULTS In study A, there were no significant differences between the PreP and Pub groups for retinopathy (27 vs. 29%, P = 0.8) or differences in elevated AER (17 vs. 31%, P = 0.1). In study B, longer prepubertal diabetes duration improved the prediction for retinopathy over postpubertal duration alone (P < 0.0005). No relationship with duration was found for elevated AER (> 7.5, > 15, and > 30 micrograms/min). CONCLUSIONS Prepubertal subjects with diabetes did not have less retinopathy or elevated albumin excretion compared with pubertal subjects of the same age. Prepubertal diabetes duration is significantly related to the presence of retinopathy in adolescents.
Physical activity and health: MMXII

An Olympic year brings intensified interest in sport and exercise,1 with the anticipation of competitors reaching new feats of athletic performance. But what recent progress has been made in the field of physical activity and health research? The last 50 years or so of epidemiological research in physical activity have provided strong evidence for the beneficial effects of physical activity on a range of health outcomes. The promotion of physical activity for health is supported by at least 39 different disease-specific clinical guidelines,2 including the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. However, there remain several clinically relevant and interrelated issues in the field that have been the topic of much research and debate in recent years; these include, but are not limited to defining the minimal dose of physical activity required for health benefit; investigating the emerging role of sedentary behaviour in the physical activity—health area; developing interventions to effectively promote habitual physical activity in the general population. One of the most significant developments in the field over the last decade has been the introduction of small solid-state accelerometer devices that now permit physical activity to be assessed objectively over several days at low cost, thus making it is feasible to incorporate such measures in large-scale population studies, such as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and …
Short sleep duration as a risk factor for hypercholesterolemia: analyses of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

STUDY OBJECTIVES To explore the relationship between sleep duration in adolescence and hypercholesterolemia in young adulthood. Experimental sleep restriction has been shown to significantly increase total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels in women. Short sleep duration has been found in cross sectional studies to be associated with higher total cholesterol and lower HDL cholesterol levels. Sleep deprivation could increase the risk for hypercholesterolemia by increasing appetite and dietary consumption of saturated fats, decreasing motivation to engage in regular physical activity, and increasing stress and resultant catecholamine induced lipolysis. No previous published population studies have examined the longitudinal relationship between sleep duration and high cholesterol. DESIGN Multivariate longitudinal analyses stratified by sex of the ADD Health using logistic regression. SETTING United States nationally representative, school-based, probability-based sample. PARTICIPANTS Adolescents (n = 14,257) in grades 7 to 12 at baseline (1994-95) and ages 18 to 26 at follow-up (2001-02). MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS Among females, each additional hour of sleep was associated with a significantly decreased odds of being diagnosed with high cholesterol in young adulthood (OR = 0.85, 95% CI 0.75-0.96) after controlling for covariates. Additional sleep was associated with decreased, yet not statistically significant, odds ratios for hypercholesterolemia in males (OR = 0.91, 95% CI 0.79-1.05). CONCLUSIONS Short sleep durations in adolescent women could be a significant risk factor for high cholesterol. Interventions that lengthen sleep could potentially serve as treatments and as primary preventative measures for hypercholesterolemia.
The IRESTE On/Off (IRONOFF) dual handwriting database

Databases for character recognition algorithms are of fundamental interest for the training of statistics based recognition methods (neural networks, hidden Markov models) as well as for benchmarking existing recognition systems. Such databases currently exist, but none of them gives access to the online data (pen trajectory) and offline data (digital images) for the same writing signal. We have developed such a dual on/off database, named IRONOFF. Currently, it contains a large number of isolated characters, digits, and cursive words written by French writers. We have designed this database so that, given an online point, it can be mapped at the correct location in the corresponding scanned image, and conversely, each offline pixel can be temporally indexed. Since we think this database is of interest for a large part of the research community, it is publicly available.
Electrically Small MEMS Antenna for Wireless Biomedical Microsystems

This paper presents an extremely small antenna for wireless biomedical devices. Most of the implantable devices require very small dimensions, requiring the use of microtechnologies to obtain the necessary size reduction. One of the most challenging devices to integrate is the antenna, required if we want to communicate with the device through a wireless link. The proposed antenna uses a MEMS structure to convert the incoming electromagnetic field to a voltage. This antenna allows the reception of signals using a carrier in the kHz range and uses only a chip area of 1.5 times1.5 mm2.