jimnoneill/paper-to-field-training huggingface dataset:
Improvement of Quantitative Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography Image Quality by the New Step-and-Shoot Scan Mode

Field: Medicine (Health Sciences)

The step-and-shoot (SS) mode and continuous mode are currently used for single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scan mode, and a new scan mode that combines both modes, step-and-shoot plus continuous (SSC) mode, was developed. It is expected to allow a shorter scan time and lower injected dose because the SSC mode is more sensitive than the SS mode. We confirmed the image quality of this scan mode, including various quantitative correction methods for scatter (SC), attenuation (AC), and resolution recovery (RR) in a phantom study and clinical case study. Image quality was evaluated by the count, contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and percent of the coefficient of variation (%CV). Independent of the correction methods, the count, CNR, and %CV of the SSC mode were superior to those of the SS mode. The ACSCRR was the best method, with a maximum increased rate of 66.4% in counts and 57.8% in CNR for the 13-mm sphere and 19.6% in CNR for other sphere sizes. The %CV for the SSC mode was the best for AC and ACRR, which was at 15.1%. With regards to attaining short bone SPECT scan time, the combination of the SSC mode and ACRR or ACSCRR demonstrated the best physical performance.
Rhenium(V) Tris(pyrazolyl)borate Complexes as Ligands in Square Planar Palladium and Platinum Complexes

Field: Chemistry (Physical Sciences)

The reactions of TpReO(SnC3H7)2 (Tp = tris(pyrazolyl)borate anion) with acetonitrile complexes PdCl2(MeCN)2 and PtI2(MeCN)2 in toluene solutions resulted in the formation of new heterometallic rhenium complexes TpReO(µ-SnC3H7)2MX2 (MX2 = PdCl2 (I), MX2 = PtI2 (II)). A similar complex TpReO(µ-SnC3H7)2PdI2 (III) was formed either on treatment of I with NaI in dichloromethane or in the reaction of TpReO(SnC3H7)2 with a suspension of PdI2 in toluene. Complexes I–III were characterized by IR and NMR spectroscopy and by X-ray diffraction (CCDC nos. 2172225–2172227).
Identification of DLEC1 D215N Somatic Mutation in Formalin Fixed Paraffin Embedded Melanoma and Melanocytic Nevi Specimens

Field: Medicine (Health Sciences)

DLEC1 has been suggested as a tumor suppressor gene in several cancers. DLEC1 D215N somatic mutation (COSM36702) was identified in a melanoma cell line through whole genome sequencing. However, little is known about the implication and prevalence of this mutation in primary melanomas or in melanocytic nevi. The aim of this study was to genotype DLEC1 D215N mutation in melanoma tissue and melanocytic nevi samples to confirm its occurrence and to estimate its prevalence. Primary melanomas (n=81) paired with synchronous or asynchronous metastases (n=21) from 81 melanoma patients and melanocytic nevi (n=28) were screened for DLEC1 D215N mutation. We found the mutation in 3 primary melanomas and in 2 melanocytic nevi, corresponding to a relatively low prevalence (3.7% and 7.1%, resp.). The pathogenic role of DLEC1 215N mutation is unclear. However, since the mutation has not been previously described in general population, its involvement in nevogenesis and melanoma progression remains a possibility to be clarified in future studies.
The effectiveness of Lee Silverman Voice Treatment therapy issued interactively through an iPad device: A non-inferiority study

Field: Health Professions (Health Sciences)

Introduction This study compared the differences in recorded speech variables between people treated with conventional ‘in person’ Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) and those treated remotely via iPad-based ‘Facetime’. Method Eight participants were selected for the iPad LSVT, and 21 similarly matched subjects were selected from existing data to form the ‘in person’ group. Participants in both groups had diagnosed idiopathic Parkinson’s disease and moderate hypokinetic dysarthria. Eighteen sessions of prescribed LSVT comprising a pre-treatment assessment, 16 treatment sessions, and a six months’ post-treatment assessment were administered for each person. In both groups, pre- and post-treatment assessments were conducted face-to-face. Performance measures were recorded during assessment and treatment. Average measures were determined for all tasks at all time points and a summary outcome variable was composed from across-task performance. Results Non-inferiority testing confirmed that iPad LSVT was non-inferior in treating all LSVT task 3 variables except generating words, with the 90% upper confidence intervals (CI) lying between the non-inferiority margin of ± 2.25 and zero. The iPad was superior in treating the task 3 rainbow reading passage and describing motor task variables with upper and lower 90% CI values being negative. The improvement in the summary outcome variable score was also superior in the iPad group. Discussion Non-inferiority testing implies that the iPad LSVT is non-inferior in treating task three variables when compared to traditional LSVT. The study supports further development of remote delivery solutions involving the Apple iPad and ‘Facetime’ system as a means of improving access to services and the participant’s experience.
[The surgical treatment of primary hyperparathyroidism: clinical experience].

Field: Medicine (Health Sciences)

The primitive hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) constitutes still cause of discussion both from the diagnostic point of view and from the therapeutic one although surgical successes are generally reported. Between the most important problems there is the increase of the HPT asymptomatic or oligosymptomatic patients with the decisional difficulties in the timing of the surgical treatment and the difficult framing of the HLP disease associated with MEA and the relating surgical failures. Besides some authors support an unilateral dissection of the neck in patients with adenoma diseases diagnosed before the intervention against the traditional address of a bilateral exploration. Our experience is based on 31 patients subjected to intervention of parathyroidectomy for primitive HPT: 26 carriers of adenomas, of which 1 double, and 5 of diffused hyperplasia. We have effected 25 simple parathyroidectomy for adenoma, 1 resection of three parathyroid glands for double adenoma, 2 subtotal parathyroidectomy (7/8) for diffused hyperplasia. 2 patients had new surgical treatment for persistent hypercalcemia, and they were respectively carriers: 1 of a second ectopic adenoma and 1 of asymmetrical hyperplasia; 2 patients finally, operated in other hospitals had a second exploration and they were affected from MLP. In 26 patients we had very good results, in 2 persistence of hypercalcemia (patients who had a second look) and 3 hypocalcemia.
Semi-Complete Data Augmentation for Efficient State Space Model Fitting

Field: Mathematics (Physical Sciences)

We propose a novel efficient model-fitting algorithm for state space models. State space models are an intuitive and flexible class of models, frequently used due to the combination of their natural separation of the different mechanisms acting on the system of interest: the latent underlying system process; and the observation process. This flexibility, however, often comes at the price of more complicated model-fitting algorithms due to the associated analytically intractable likelihood. For the general case a Bayesian data augmentation approach is often employed, where the true unknown states are treated as auxiliary variables and imputed within the MCMC algorithm. However, standard “vanilla” MCMC algorithms may perform very poorly due to high correlation between the imputed states and/or parameters, often leading to model-specific bespoke algorithms being developed that are nontransferable to alternative models. The proposed method addresses the inefficiencies of traditional approaches by combining data augmentation with numerical integration in a Bayesian hybrid approach. This approach permits the use of standard “vanilla” updating algorithms that perform considerably better than the traditional approach in terms of improved mixing and lower autocorrelation, and has the potential to be incorporated into bespoke model-specific algorithms. To demonstrate the ideas, we apply our semi-complete data augmentation algorithm to different application areas and models, leading to distinct implementation schemes and improved mixing and demonstrating improved mixing of the model parameters. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.
Moral expansiveness around the world: The role of societal factors across 36 countries

Field: Psychology (Social Sciences)

What are the things that we think matter morally, and how do societal factors influence this? To date, research has explored several individual-level and historical factors that influence the size of our ‘moral circles’. There has, however, been less attention focused on which societal factors play a role. We present the first multi-national exploration of moral expansiveness – that is the size of people’s moral circles across countries. We found low generalized trust, greater perceptions of a breakdown in the social fabric of society, and greater perceived economic inequality were associated with smaller moral circles. Generalized trust also helped explain the effects of perceived inequality on lower levels of moral inclusiveness. Other inequality indicators (i.e., Gini coefficients) were, however, unrelated to moral expansiveness. These findings suggest societal factors, especially those associated with generalized trust, may influence the size of our moral circles.
Goal Shifts Structure Memories and Prioritize Event-defining Information in Memory

Field: Psychology (Social Sciences)

Abstract Every day, we encounter far more information than we could possibly remember. Thus, our memory systems must organize and prioritize the details from an experience that can adaptively guide the storage and retrieval of specific episodic events. Prior work has shown that shifts in internal goal states can function as event boundaries, chunking experiences into distinct and memorable episodes. In addition, at short delays, memory for contextual information at boundaries has been shown to be enhanced compared with items within each event. However, it remains unclear if these memory enhancements are limited to features that signal a meaningful transition between events. To determine how changes in dynamic goal states influence the organization and content of long-term memory, we designed a 2-day experiment in which participants viewed a series of black-and-white objects surrounded by a color border on a two-by-two grid. The location of the object on the grid determined which of two tasks participants performed on a given trial. To examine if distinct types of goal shifts modulate the effects of event segmentation, we changed the border color, the task, or both after every four items in a sequence. We found that goal shifts influenced temporal memory in a manner consistent with the formation of distinct events. However, for subjective memory representations in particular, these effects differed by the type of event boundary. Furthermore, to examine if goal shifts lead to the prioritization of goal-relevant features in longer lasting memories, we tested source memory for each object's color and grid location both immediately and after a 24-hr delay. On the immediate test, boundaries enhanced the memory for all concurrent source features compared with nonboundary items, but only if those boundaries involved a goal shift. In contrast, after a delay, the source memory was selectively enhanced for the feature relevant to the goal shift. These findings suggest that goals can adaptively structure memories by prioritizing contextual features that define a unique episode in memory.
Colloid Chemical Studies of Starching Materials. V. Rheological Properties of Concentrated Polyvinyl Alcohol Solutions

Field: Chemistry (Physical Sciences)

Abstract The dynamic viscosity, dynamic rigidity and steady-flow viscosity at 30°C have been measured for 11∼12% solutions of four specimens of polyvinyl alcohol, GH-17, GH-23, NH-17 and HN-26, 20, 60 and 110 hr. after the preparation of the solutions. In the dynamic measurement by a top-drive coaxial oscillation rheometer, the relations of η and G vs. ω did not depend on time and have all been explained by Rouse’s theory except for NH-26, the latter showing time and ω dependencies of the structure. In the steady-flow measurement by a coaxial rotation viscometer, the viscosity of all the polymers showed both time and velocity gradient dependencies.
Collective social concepts of childhood in Chilean social policy (2001 – 2012)

Field: Social Sciences (Social Sciences)

This is a qualitative descriptive study that looks at the way in which the category of childhood was constructed in Chile’s social policies between 2002 and 2012. The study is framed within the Theory of Collective Social Concepts. Through analysing presidential speeches and the speeches of those who have implemented childhood policy in the District of Concepción, the study identified the dominant collective social concept of a ‘child as an object of protection’ and the emerging concept of a ‘child as a social subject’.
Freeze-fracture confirmation of the presence of a core in the specialized tip structure of Mycoplasma pneumoniae

Field: Immunology and Microbiology (Life Sciences)

The presence of a specialized terminal region in Mycoplasma pneumoniae was seen in thin sections viewed in an electron microscope. Actively growing cells were examined by the freeze-fracture technique in the absence of fixation to further establish the core as a significant structural entity. Cross fractures revealed a cytoplasmic matrix surrounding a central core structure of about 54 nm. This structure disappeared rapidly in aging cells. The convex protoplastic faces of the membrane around the core had characteristic 5- to 10-nm intramembrane particles evenly distributed across the cell surface, with no apparent difference in the region of the specialized tip. A periodicity previously noted in negatively stained preparations was clearly defined here in thin sections. Attachment of actively growing cells to sheep erythrocytes was seen primarily as a side attachment rather than attachment at the tip alone. This association between the mycoplasma and the sheep erythrocytes seriously deformed the sheep erythrocytes, but no membrane fusion could be detected.
Novel Method To Identify the Optimal Antimicrobial Peptide in a Combination Matrix, Using Anoplin as an Example

Field: Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics (Life Sciences)

ABSTRACT Microbial resistance is an increasing health concern and a true danger to human well-being. A worldwide search for new compounds is ongoing, and antimicrobial peptides are promising lead candidates for tomorrow's antibiotics. The decapeptide anoplin (GLLKRIKTLL-NH 2 ) is an especially interesting candidate because of its small size as well as its antimicrobial and nonhemolytic properties. Optimization of the properties of an antimicrobial peptide such as anoplin requires multidimensional searching in a complex chemical space. Typically, such optimization is performed by labor-intensive and costly trial-and-error methods. In this study, we show the benefit of fractional factorial design for identification of the optimal antimicrobial peptide in a combination matrix. We synthesized and analyzed a training set of 12 anoplin analogs, representative of 64 analogs in total. Using MIC, hemolysis, and high-performance liquid chromatography retention time data, we constructed analysis-of-variance models that describe the relationship between these properties and the structural characteristics of the analogs. We show that the mathematical models derived from the training set data can be used to predict the properties of other analogs in the chemical space. Hence, this method provides an efficient means of identification of the optimal peptide in the searched chemical space.
Acetyicholine Receptor-Controlled Ion Translocation Caused by Phenyltrimethylammonium and Nereistoxin: Simple Estimation of Equilibrium Constants of the Minimal Model1

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (Life Sciences)

The rate of slow Li+ influx and the fraction of active form of acetylcholine receptor (AChR) of Electrophorus electricus membrane vesicles at equilibrium between the active and desensitized forms of the receptor were measured in the presence of various concentrations of phenyltrimethylammonium (PTA) and nereistoxin (NTX), by a simple filtration assay and flame emission spectroscopy. The equilibrium constants of these ligands in the minimal model, which accounts for the AChR-mediated ion flux, were estimated simply from these two measurements, since the equilibrium constants for acetylcholine (ACh) and carbamylcholine (Carb) estimated from two kinetic measurements agreed well with those estimated from five sophisticated kinetic measurements of AChR-mediated ion fluxes. PTA showed high potency but not high efficacy, and showed inhibition when large doses were applied. NTX showed both low potency and low efficacy and acted as an inhibitor when it was added with Carb. The apparent dissociation constants of these three agonists evaluated from the minimal model and the equilibrium constants agreed with those obtained by assay of inhibition of radiolabeled ligand binding.
A service-free wireless sensor solution

Field: Engineering (Physical Sciences)

This project encompasses the designing and development of a service-free wireless sensor system which will incorporate the use of various energy harvesting methods. The progress of the project will lead up to the design of an intruder alert system, which will be evaluated on its potential usage in residential and possibly commercial buildings. The report will discuss the practical options that are available for the development of the system, as well as the considerations that were made for the designing of the hardware and software system, before arriving at the final product. All relevant information pertaining to the designing of the full system can be found within the report, in the respective Chapters and Appendixes.
Emergent Nonlocal Combinatorial Design Rules for Multimodal Metamaterials

Field: Materials Science (Physical Sciences)

Combinatorial mechanical metamaterials feature spatially textured soft modes that yield exotic and useful mechanical properties. While a single soft mode often can be rationally designed by following a set of tiling rules for the building blocks of the metamaterial, it is an open question what design rules are required to realize multiple soft modes. Multimodal metamaterials would allow for advanced mechanical functionalities that can be selected on the fly. Here we introduce a transfer matrix-like framework to design multiple soft modes in combinatorial metamaterials composed of aperiodic tilings of building blocks. We use this framework to derive rules for multimodal designs for a specific family of building blocks. We show that such designs require a large number of degeneracies between constraints, and find precise rules on the real space configuration that allow such degeneracies. These rules are significantly more complex than the simple tiling rules that emerge for single-mode metamaterials. For the specific example studied here, they can be expressed as local rules for tiles composed of pairs of building blocks in combination with a nonlocal rule in the form of a global constraint on the type of tiles that are allowed to appear together anywhere in the configuration. This nonlocal rule is exclusive to multimodal metamaterials and exemplifies the complexity of rational design of multimode metamaterials. Our framework is a first step towards a systematic design strategy of multimodal metamaterials with spatially textured soft modes.
Integrative Genomic and Cytogenetic Analyses Reveal the Landscape of Typical Tandem Repeats in Water Hyacinth

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (Life Sciences)

Tandem repeats in eukaryotic genomes exhibit intrinsic instability that drives rapid evolutionary diversification. However, their evolutionary dynamics in allopolyploid species such as the water hyacinth (Pontederia crassipes or Eichhornia crassipes) remain largely unexplored. Our study used integrated genomic and cytogenetic analyses of this allotetraploid species to characterize five representative tandem repeats, revealing distinct genomic distribution patterns and copy number polymorphisms. The highly abundant centromeric tandem repeat, putative CentEc, was co-localized with the centromeric retrotransposon CREc, indicating conserved centromeric architecture. Remarkably, putative CentEc sequences showed high sequence conservation (91–100%) despite subgenome divergence, indicative of active concerted evolution. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) analysis showed ubiquitous telomeric repeats across all chromosomes, while an interstitial chromosome region tandem repeat (ICREc) displayed chromosome-specific localization, both exhibiting copy number variation. Furthermore, differential rDNA organization was observed. 5S rDNA was detected on a single chromosome pair, whereas 35S rDNA exhibited multichromosomal distribution with varying intensities. A comparative analysis of subgenome-specific rDNA sequences revealed substantial heterogeneity in both 5S and 35S rDNA units, suggesting subgenome-biased evolutionary trajectories. Collectively, these findings elucidate the structural and evolutionary significance of tandem repeats in shaping the water hyacinth genome, highlighting mechanisms of concerted evolution and subgenome-biased adaptation in invasive polyploids.
Electrostatic effects of interface states on carrier transport in semiconductor heterojunctions

Field: Physics and Astronomy (Physical Sciences)

A theory of the electronic transport properties of contacts between two dissimilar semiconductors is presented, which includes the effects of bias-dependent interface state charge on the electrostatic potential distribution in the contact. The quasi-Fermi level for the interface states is determined by the competition between the capture of electrons and holes at the interface for a given bias voltage. The conditions for diffusion-limited or thermionic-emission-limited current flow are defined in terms of heterojunction parameters and material properties. Ignoring the direct recombination currents through interface states, the interface states have no effect on diffusion-limited current, but when the transport is limited by the thermionic emission of carriers there are pronounced electrostatic effects on this current from interface states. A limiting density of interface states ∼1011–1012 cm−2 eV−1 has been established above which the current-voltage (J-V) relations are independent of the parameters characterizing these states, and for this condition the n* value of the exponential J-V characteristics is ?2 over an appreciable range of bias voltage.