Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Population-based assessment of cancer survivors' financial burden and quality of life: a prospective cohort study.

PURPOSE The impact of financial burden among patients with cancer has not yet been measured in a way that accounts for inter-relationships between quality of life, perceived quality of care, disease status, and sociodemographic characteristics. PATIENTS AND METHODS In a national, prospective, observational, population- and health care systems-based cohort study, patients with colorectal or lung cancer were enrolled from 2003 to 2006 within 3 months of diagnosis. For this analysis, surviving patients who were either disease free or had advanced disease were resurveyed a median 7.3 years from diagnosis. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate relationships between financial burden, quality of life, perceived quality of care, and sociodemographic characteristics. RESULTS Among 1,000 participants enrolled from five geographic regions, five integrated health care systems, or 15 Veterans Administration Hospitals, 89% (n = 889) were cancer free, and 11% (n = 111) had advanced cancer. Overall, 48% (n = 482) reported difficulties living on their household income, and 41% (n = 396) believed their health care to be "excellent. " High financial burden was associated with lower household income (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 0.61 per $20k per year, P < .001) and younger age (adjusted OR = 0.63 per 10 years; P < .001). High financial burden was also associated with poorer quality of life (adjusted beta = -0.06 per burden category; P < .001). Better quality of life was associated with fewer perceptions of poorer quality of care (adjusted OR = 0.85 per 0.10 EuroQol units; P < .001). CONCLUSION Financial burden is prevalent among cancer survivors and is related to patients' health-related quality of life. Future studies should consider interventions to improve patient education and engagement with regard to financial burden.
Let's Talk About the Quantified Workplace

Over the past decades the advances in pervasive technology have enabled new ways of understanding human behaviour in the workplace. This trend merged with the new rise in the Quantified-Self movement has engendered a new paradigm of Quantified Workplace, where sensing solutions as well as participatory inputs could be used to model, quantify and visualise dynamics of the workplace. In this workshop we want to start a new dialogue to discuss challenges, insights and reflections on this topic. To this aim we are looking for original submissions which offer new insights or propose new techniques for Quantified Workplace. We welcome technical research papers, qualitative research studies, case studies as well as work-in-progress papers which could trigger discussions around the workshop topics.
Prediction of spontaneous preterm delivery in women with threatened preterm labour: a prospective cohort study of multiple proteins in maternal serum

Please cite this paper as: Tsiartas P, Holst R, Wennerholm U, Hagberg H, Hougaard D, Skogstrand K, Pearce B, Thorsen P, Kacerovsky M, Jacobsson B. Prediction of spontaneous preterm delivery in women with threatened preterm labour: a prospective cohort study of multiple proteins in maternal serum. BJOG 2012;119:866–873.
Trans-nasal zolmitriptan novasomes: in-vitro preparation, optimization and in-vivo evaluation of brain targeting efficiency

Abstract Migraine attack is a troublesome physiological condition associated with throbbing, intense headache, in one half of the head. Zolmitriptan is a potent second-generation triptan, prescribed for patients with migraine attacks, with or without an aura, and cluster headaches. The absolute bioavailability of zolmitriptan is about 40% for oral administration; due to hepatic first metabolism. Nasal administration would circumvent the pre-systemic metabolism thus increasing the bioavailability of zolmitriptan. In addition, due to the presence of microvilli and high vasculature, the absorption is expected to be faster compared to oral route. However, the bioavailability of nasal administered drugs is particularly restricted by poor membrane penetration. Thus, the aim of this work is to explore the potential of novel nanovesicular fatty acid enriched structures (novasomes) for effective and enhanced nasal delivery of zolmitriptan and investigate their nose to brain targeting potential. Novasomes were prepared using nonionic surfactant, cholesterol in addition to a free fatty acid. A 23 full factorial design was adopted to study the influence of the type of surfactant, type of free fatty acid and ratio between the free fatty acid and the surfactant on novasomes properties. The particle size, entrapment efficiency, polydispersity index, zeta potential and % zolmitriptan released after 2 h were selected as dependent variables. Novasomes were further optimized using Design Expert® software (version 7; Stat-Ease Inc., Minneapolis, MN), and an optimized formulation composed of Span® 80:Cholesterol:stearic acid (in the ratio 1:1:1) was selected. This formulation showed zolmitriptan entrapment of 92.94%, particle size of 149.9 nm, zeta potential of −55.57 mV, and released 48.43% zolmitriptan after 2 h. The optimized formulation was further examined using transmission electron microscope, which revealed non-aggregating multi-lamellar nanovesicles with narrow size distribution. DSC, XRD examination of the optimized formulation confirmed that the drug have been homogeneously dispersed throughout the novasomes in an amorphous state. In-vivo bio-distribution studies of 99mTc radio-labeled intranasal zolmitriptan loaded novasomes were done on mice, the pharmacokinetic parameters were compared with those following administration of intravenous 99mTc-zolmitriptan solution. Results revealed the great enhancement in zolmitriptan targeting to the brain, with drug targeting potential of about 99% following intranasal administration of novasomes compared with the intravenous drug solution. Zolmitriptan loaded novasomes administered via the nasal route may therefore constitute an advance in the management of acute migraine attacks.
The acquisition of questions with long-distance dependencies

Abstract A number of researchers have claimed that questions and other constructions with long distance dependencies (LDDs) are acquired relatively early, by age 4 or even earlier, in spite of their complexity. Analysis of LDD questions in the input available to children suggests that they are extremely stereotypical, raising the possibility that children learn lexically specific templates such as WH do you think S-GAP? rather than general rules of the kind postulated in traditional linguistic accounts of this construction. We describe three elicited imitation experiments with children aged from 4;6 to 6;9 and adult controls. Participants were asked to repeat prototypical questions (i.e., questions which match the hypothesised template), unprototypical questions (which depart from it in several respects) and declarative counterparts of both types of interrogative sentences. The children performed significantly better on the prototypical variants of both constructions, even when both variants contained exactly the same lexical material, while adults showed prototypicality e¤ects for LDD questions only. These results suggest that a general declarative complementation construction emerges quite late in development (after age 6), and that even adults rely on lexically specific templates for LDD questions.
Urticaria Pigmentosa: A Review of 67 Pediatric Cases

Abstract: Mastocytosis is a disorder of mast cell proliferation that may appear during infancy, childhood, or adulthood. We studied 67 consecutive patients (33 males, 34 females) with urticaria pigmentosa and assessed them fully to determine the presence of systemic involvement. Ages at onset of lesions ranged from birth to 11 years, with most developing in the first year of life. Pruritus was the primary symptom. Hematologic and serum chemistry profile, radiologic skeletal surveys, and bone marrow aspirations were performed. Slight anemia was present in three patients. Radiologic bone lesions were observed in eight. Bone marrow aspirates showed slight changes in six patients, with only an increased number of mast cells in an additional patient. The disease tended to resolve spontaneously. This prospective study emphasizes the benign nature of pediatric urticaria pigmentosa.
The Growing Potential of Neurophysiology in Multiple Sclerosis

Neurophysiological techniques have a long history of clinical and research use in the setting of Multiple Sclerosis. With the output of evoked potential and electroencephalographic recordings being a direct consequence of the underlying functional integrity and activity of the nervous system it is unsurprising there is currently a resurgent interest in their possible use as biomarkers of disease related dysfunction. Herein we discuss the promise and possible pitfalls associated with their use in translational research of MS therapeutics. The numerous advantages of these methods are touched upon as demonstrated by their application to date. A number of obstacles which must be overcome prior to their successful widespread implementation are also outlined and readily achievable solutions discussed.
Interaction Between the Vitamin D Receptor Gene and Collagen Type Iα1 Gene in Susceptibility for Fracture

Osteoporosis is a common disease with a strong genetic component. Polymorphisms in the vitamin D receptor (VDR) gene have been implicated in osteoporosis but explain only a small part of the genetic effect on bone mineral density (BMD) while their effect on fractures is still uncertain. Recently, a G to T polymorphism in an Sp1 site in the collagen type Iα1 (COLIA1) gene was found to be associated with reduced BMD and with increased fracture risk. To analyze the combined influence of polymorphisms in the VDR gene and the COLIA1 gene in determining the susceptibility to osteoporotic fracture, we studied 1004 postmenopausal women. The “baT ” VDR haplotype, constructed from three adjacent restriction fragment length polymorphisms, was found to be overrepresented among fracture cases (p = 0.009). This corresponded to an odds ratio (OR) of 1.8 (95% CI, 1.0–3.3) for heterozygous carriers and 2.6 (95%CI, 1.4–5.0) for homozygous carriers of the risk haplotype. The effect was similar for vertebral and nonvertebral fractures and, most importantly, independent of BMD. We observed significant interaction (p = 0.03) between VDR and COLIA1 genotype effects. Fracture risk was not VDR genotype‐dependent in the COLIA1 “reference” group (genotype GG) while in the COLIA1 “risk” group (genotypes GT and TT) the risk of fracture was 2.1 (95%CI, 1.0–4.4) for heterozygous and 4.4 (95%CI, 2.0–9.4) for homozygous carriers of the VDR risk haplotype. We conclude that both the VDR and the COLIA1 polymorphisms are genetic markers for osteoporotic fracture in women, independent of BMD. Our data indicate that interlocus interaction is likely to be an important component of osteoporotic fracture risk.
IMPLEMENTATION OF PREAMBLE BASED LMMSE CHANNEL ESTIMATION MODEL FOR ACHIEVING RELIABILITY IN OFDM OQAM SYSTEM

OFDM/OQAM is a special type of multi-carrier modulation that can be considered as an alternative to conventional OFDM with cyclic prefix (CP) for transmission over multipath fading channels. Indeed, as it requires no guard interval, it has the advantage of a theoretically higher spectral efficiency. In this paper, preamble-based least squares (LS) channel estimation in OFDM systems of the QAM and offset QAM (OQAM) types is considered, in both the frequency and the time domains. In this work a preamble-based linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) estimation technique for filter bank multicarrier (FBMC) modulations. Channel estimation considers as important process in digital communication systems, techniques have been developed to reduce the impact of noise on the channel estimation process. Until recently, nonorthogonal multicarrier modulations such as FBMC were unable to use OFDM-like estimation techniques due to the non-orthogonality. The interference approximation method (IAM) is one of the most popular methods among preamble based estimation techniques with a limited complexity. In this paper a unique combination of IAM and LMMSE based algorithm is proposed to achieve reliable LMMSE estimation approach in FBMC.
Statistical modelling for facial expression dynamics

One of the most powerful and fastest means of relaying emotio ns between humans are facial expressions. The ability to capture, understand and mimic those em otions and their underlying dynamics in the synthetic counterpart is a challenging task because o f the complexity of human emotions, different ways of conveying them, non-linearities caused by fa cial feature and head motion, and the ever critical eye of the viewer. This thesis sets out to addre ss some of the limitations of existing techniques by investigating three components of expressio n m delling and parameterisation framework: (1) Feature and expression manifold representation, (2) Pose estimation, and (3) Expression dynamics modelling and their parameterisation for the purp ose of driving a synthetic head avatar. First, we introduce a hierarchical representation based on the Point Distribution Model (PDM). Holistic representations imply that non-linearities caus ed by the motion of facial features, and intrafeature correlations are implicitly embedded and hence hav e to be accounted for in the resulting expression space. Also such representations require large tr ining datasets to account for all possible variations. To address those shortcomings, and to provide a basis for learning more subtle, localised variations, our representation consists of tree-like stru cture where a holistic root component is decomposed into leaves containing the jaw outline, each of the eye and eyebrows and the mouth. Each of the hierarchical components is modelled according to its intrinsic functionality, rather than the final, holistic expression label. Secondly, we introduce a statistical approach for capturin g a underlying low-dimension expression manifold by utilising components of the previousl y defined hierarchical representation. As Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based approaches canno t reliably capture variations caused by large facial feature changes because of its linear nature, t he underlying dynamics manifold for each of the hierarchical components is modelled using a Hierarch ical Latent Variable Model (HLVM) approach. Whilst retaining PCA properties, such a model intro duces a probability density model which can deal with missing or incomplete data and allows discover y of internal within cluster structures. All of the model parameters and underlying density model are automatically estimated during the training stage. We investigate the usefulness of such a mode l to larger and unseen datasets. Thirdly, we extend the concept of HLVM model to pose estimati on to address the non-linear shape deformations and definition of the plausible pose spac e c used by large head motion. Since our head rarely stays still, and its movements are intrinsic ally connected with the way we perceive and understand the expressions, pose information is an inte gral part of their dynamics. The proposed
Comparison of HER‐2 status determined by fluorescence in situ hybridization in primary and metastatic breast carcinoma

Accurate assessment of HER‐2 status is necessary prior to anti‐HER‐2 antibody (trastuzumab) therapy for metastatic breast carcinoma. However, controversy exists regarding whether to assess HER‐2 status in the primary tumor or in metastatic lesions. It is also unclear whether HER‐2 status can change during disease progression or after chemotherapy.
Rax Homeoprotein Regulates Photoreceptor Cell Maturation and Survival in Association with Crx in the Postnatal Mouse Retina

ABSTRACT The Rax homeobox gene plays essential roles in multiple processes of vertebrate retina development. Many vertebrate species possess Rax and Rax2 genes, and different functions have been suggested. In contrast, mice contain a single Rax gene, and its functional roles in late retinal development are still unclear. To clarify mouse Rax function in postnatal photoreceptor development and maintenance, we generated conditional knockout mice in which Rax in maturing or mature photoreceptor cells was inactivated by tamoxifen treatment (Rax iCKO mice). When Rax was inactivated in postnatal Rax iCKO mice, developing photoreceptor cells showed a significant decrease in the level of the expression of rod and cone photoreceptor genes and mature adult photoreceptors exhibited a specific decrease in cone cell numbers. In luciferase assays, we found that Rax and Crx cooperatively transactivate Rhodopsin and cone opsin promoters and that an optimum Rax expression level to transactivate photoreceptor gene expression exists. Furthermore, Rax and Crx colocalized in maturing photoreceptor cells, and their coimmunoprecipitation was observed in cultured cells. Taken together, these results suggest that Rax plays essential roles in the maturation of both cones and rods and in the survival of cones by regulating photoreceptor gene expression with Crx in the postnatal mouse retina.
Assessing Patterns of Agitation in Alzheimer's Disease Patients with the Cohen‐Mansfield Agitation Inventory

As part of the effort of the NIA Alzheimer's disease cooperative study to develop improved instruments for quantifying effects in Alzheimer's disease (AD) clinical trials, patterns of agitated behaviors were evaluated with the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (CMAI) in 241 AD patients and 64 healthy elderly controls with valid baseline assessment on the CMAI. The test-retest reliability of the CMAI over 1 month was good (r = 0.74 to 0.92). Physically and verbally nonaggressive behaviors were most often reported, whereas physically aggressive behaviors were rare. Frequency of agitated behaviors increased with dementia severity, especially for patients with a Mini-Mental Status Exam score of 0–4. Agitation tended to increase in the evening with dementia severity for the more impaired patients. Amount of agitation did increase after 12 months in all but controls and mildly demented patients. The CMAI shows promise for evaluating a unique aspect of behavior and may be useful in assessing the effects of cognitive enhancers and other types of psychotropic drugs on behavior in dementia patients.
Preattentive Auditory Processing of Pitch Glide

Pitch glide is a continuously rising or falling characteristic of pitch contour in tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, and is critical for tonal speech comprehension. An interesting but unanswered question is whether pitch glide can be automatically processed at a preattentive stage in the brain. To address this question, we used iterated rippled noise (IRN) as a linguistically meaningless nonspeech stimulus to evoke mismatch negativity (MMN), an indicator of automatic auditory processing, from native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. To create a pitch glide contrast, we frequently presented IRN to the subjects with a flat pitch contour at different pitch levels and infrequently varied its pitch contour from flat to flat-rise. The pitch glide contrast evoked a robust MMN response with the peak latency around 155 ms after the rising onset. In addition, the steeper rising slope was, the larger MMN was evoked. These results suggest a preattentive auditory analysis of pitch glide information, which may be fundamental for contour tone perception.
Hepatitis B virus mutation may play a role in hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence: A systematic review and meta‐regression analysis

A number of studies have confirmed that antiviral therapy with nucleotide analogs (NAs) can improve the prognosis of hepatitis B virus (HBV)‐related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after curative therapy. However, what factors affected the prognosis of HBV‐HCC after removal of the primary tumor and inhibition of HBV replication? A meta‐regression analysis was conducted to explore the prognostic factor for this subgroup of patients.
Constraint Based Animation: An Investigation of Stabilization Methods

Physics based animation is the process of simulating a physical system and subsequently visualizing the simulation to create images and video that look real to the human eye. Accuracy comes at the price of computational efficiency. We wish to balance these requirements along the way to our goal, which is a realistic cloth simulation employing constraint based methods. Our physical system is modeled as a collection of particles which are constrained in their distance from one another. Cloth is well suited for just this kind of model. With the distance constraints well enforced, a grid of particles will be able to bend while not stretching perceptibly, which is precisely the observed behavior of cloth. Hard constraints involve computing forces that exactly cancel any accelerations in disallowed directions. This type of constraint is susceptible to systematic drift due to finite approximations in the numerical integration method. Constraint stabilization describes the methods employed to eliminate this drift. There are several methods to stabilize constraints and this project investigates four of them, namely Baumgarte stabilization, post step stabilization, fast projection and the novel tree methods which we will introduce here. These methods vary in terms of their accuracy, efficiency and ease of implementation. The accuracy of a stabilized system depends on the stabilization method and we compare the error of Baumgarte and post step stabilized systems. Furthermore, Baumgarte stabilization comes with a parameter tuning problem which we investigate. The project is written in Java with the main data structures being a List of particles and a List of constraints. Just as particles can be seen as objects in an object oriented language, so too can we construct objects which represent the constraint that two particles should be exactly some distance apart at all times.
Genome Sequence of Chinese Porcine Parvovirus Strain PPV2010

ABSTRACT Porcine parvovirus (PPV) isolate PPV2010 has recently emerged in China. Herein, we analyze the complete genome sequence of PPV2010. Our results indicate that the genome of PPV2010 bears mixed characteristics of virulent PPV and vaccine strains. Importantly, PPV2010 has the potential to be a naturally attenuated candidate vaccine strain.
Polyhedral GPS receiver system for attitude determination

A novel three-axis attitude determination technique using the Global Positioning System (GPS) is presented. This technique calculates the attitude of an object, such as a motor vehicle or an aircraft, by using a new configuration of GPS antennas in three dimensions, where a GPS antenna is placed at each vertex of a polyhedron. Polyhedra (tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron), which have regular triangular faces, are particularly suitable for this type of GPS-based attitude determination. An optimal method of data processing for measuring an object's attitude was developed that exploits all the information from the measurements detected by the GPS receivers. Since the computational complexity of the optimal method is not acceptable from the practical point of view, a reduced-complexity method that uses part of the measurements was also developed. The application of GPS-based attitude determination to a helicopter satellite communication system for disasters is presented.