Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prognostic value of microRNA-145 in patients with various cancers: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND MicroRNA-145 (miR-145) plays a crucial role in cancer prognosis. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the prognostic value of miR-145 in patients with various cancers. METHODS We pooled published literature from PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and calculated the hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to estimate the correlation between miR-145 expression levels and survival of patients with general cancers. RESULTS A total of 615 cases from 8 studies of multiple cancers were examined in this meta-analysis. The HR for overall survival (OS) of low miR-145 expression in multiple cancers was 1.80 (95% CI = 1.19-2.70). Furthermore, after excluding 1 study for its potential heterogeneity, the results suggested an increasing prognostic value of low miR-145 expression (HR = 2.20, 95% CI = 1.63-1.97). In addition, there was no significant difference between miR-145 expression levels and recurrence-free survival (RFS). CONCLUSION In conclusion, our findings suggest that miR-145 expression is associated with OS in cancer patients and can serve as a promising biomarker for monitoring prognosis.
Identification of Intrastent Pathology Associated With Late Stent Thrombosis Using Optical Coherence Tomography.

OBJECTIVE To better characterize intrastent pathology using optical coherence tomography (OCT) in patients presenting with late and very late stent thrombosis (LST/VLST). BACKGROUND The contribution of specific intrastent pathologies to the development of LST/VLST is not well understood. METHODS In this single-center, retrospective, observational study of 796 consecutive patients treated for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) with primary PCI we identified 57 patients (7.2%) in whom STEMI resulted from LST/VLST. Of the patients with LST/VLST, 21 patients (37%) had OCT performed at the discretion of the operator during PCI for LST/VLST. Independent reviewers performed qualitative offline analysis of OCT images to determine the cause of stent thrombosis defined as the specific intrastent pathology associated with thrombus deposition. RESULTS The principal intrastent pathology causing LST/VLST was determined to be stent malapposition in 11 patients (55%), of which 5 (25% of all LST/VLST patents) had findings suggestive of positive vessel remodeling. Neoatherosclerosis was determined to be the cause of LST/VLST in 7 patients (35%). LST/VLST resulted from uncovered stent struts in 2 patients (10%). Among all LST/VLST patients, in-hospital mortality (12.3%) and post-hospital target vessel failure (TVF) or cardiac death (21.7%, median follow-up 1.6 years) remained high. There was a trend towards decreased TVF or cardiac death (7.7% vs. 27.3% P = 0.24) in patients who underwent OCT-guided therapy. CONCLUSIONS LST/VLST remains a significant cause of STEMI and is associated with considerable morbidity and mortality. OCT use at the time of PCI consistently identifies significant intrastent pathology with potentially meaningful clinical impact.
The Synthesis of Array Functions and Its Use in Parallel Computation

In parallel programs, data is distributed between all the threads in the program. Many times it is necessary for one thread to access data that is located on a different thread, requiring communication between threads. The cost of communication can be a significant portion of the total running time of a parallel program (e.g. >40% for Titanium adaptive mesh refinement on 3 nodes [ 13]), and load imbalance can have a significant detrimental effect on performance. As a result, much of the effort involved in writing parallel code is focused on optimizing the data structures and access patterns, and the resulting implementation tends to be far removed from an abstract description of the structure. The end result is a large piece of code that is difficult to understand from the points of view of both correctness and performance. The goal of this project is to allow a programmer to specify data structure details at a high level, reducing the required programming effort while still resulting in good performance. Ignoring data distribution, most data structures used in parallel programming have a relatively simple abstract layout. For example, the main data structure may be just a multidimensional array. Distributing the structures across multiple threads introduces significant complexity. The following are a few issues that come up:
Electron probe microanalysis of carbon containing steels at a high spatial resolution

Whether it be inclusions, precipitates, segregation at grain boundaries, heterogeneous distribution of phases or constituents with complex morphologies, the development of new advanced high strength steels and manufacturing processes relies on the chemical characterization of their submicrometer features. More than any other alloying element, carbon plays a determining role, controlling the microstructure and the mechanical properties of these alloys. This work establishes acquisition and quantification strategies to measure the carbon concentration in low and high alloy steels by electron probe microanalysis at a high spatial resolution, circumventing many challenges associated with the measurement of this element. The optimal experimental conditions in terms of accuracy, precision and spatial resolution are determined using an optimization algorithm based on Monte Carlo simulations. Applications of the developed method for dual phase, transformation induced plasticity and twinning induced plasticity steels are presented. Out of the challenges, the carbon contamination and the quantification using soft X-rays are further elaborated in order to better understand their factors and mechanisms. The influence of the sample preparation, anti-contamination devices and experimental parameters on the carbonaceous deposits produced by a focused electron beam is studied based on specifically designed experiments and numerical simulations. The results support the hypothesis of the sample as the predominant source of contaminants, the low absorption and desorption rate of organic molecules on/from the sample surface, and the existence of a diffusion limited regime under the typical experimental conditions of a modern electron microprobe equipped with oil-free vacuum pumps. The quantification problems using soft X-rays, especially for the L3–M4,5 X-ray transition of first transition series metals, are investigated using Fe−Ni binary alloys. The effect of chemical bonding on the X-ray intensity is observed even for these metallic alloys. This work shows that the use of empirical mass attenuation coefficients and transition probability ratios, calculated from experimentally measured X-ray intensity vs. accelerating voltage curves, reduces the discrepancies between the experimental and calculated k-ratios, at least for this binary system.
An Extensive Empirical Evaluation of Character-Based Morphological Tagging for 14 Languages

This paper investigates neural character-based morphological tagging for languages with complex morphology and large tag sets. Character-based approaches are attractive as they can handle rarely- and unseen words gracefully. We evaluate on 14 languages and observe consistent gains over a state-of-the-art morphological tagger across all languages except for English and French, where we match the state-of-the-art. We compare two architectures for computing character-based word vectors using recurrent (RNN) and convolutional (CNN) nets. We show that the CNN based approach performs slightly worse and less consistently than the RNN based approach. Small but systematic gains are observed when combining the two architectures by ensembling.
B-modes in cosmic shear from source redshift clustering

Weak gravitational lensing by the large scale structure can be used to probe the dark matter distribution in the Universe directly and thus to probe cosmological models. The recent detection of cosmic shear by several groups has demonstrated the feasibility of this new mode of observational cosmology. In the currently most extensive analysis of cosmic shear, it was found that the shear eld contains unexpected modes, so-called B-modes, which are thought to be unaccountable for by lensing. B-modes can in principle be generated by an intrinsic alignment of galaxies from which the shear is measured, or may signify some remaining systematics in the data reduction and analysis. In this paper we show that B-modes in fact are produced by lensing itself. The eect comes about through the clustering of source galaxies, which in particular implies an angular separation-dependent clustering in redshift. After presenting the theory of the decomposition of a general shear eld into E- and B-modes, we calculate their respective power spectra and correlation functions for a clustered source distribution. Numerical and analytical estimates of the relative strength of these two modes show that the resulting B-mode is very small on angular scales larger than a few arcminutes, but its relative contribution rises quickly towards smaller angular scales, with comparable power in both modes at a few arcseconds. The relevance of this eect with regard to the current cosmic shear surveys is discussed; it can not account for the apparent detection of a B-mode contribution on large angular scales in the cosmic shear analysis of van Waerbeke et al. (2002).
Primary investigations on defined thermal effects on soft tissue using a diode pumped Er:YAG laser system

Flashlamp pumped Erbium lasers are successfully used clinical for soft and hard tissue ablation. Especially for soft tissue ablation the limited repetition rate is a disadvantage (bleeding; perforation instead of cutting). Now diode pumped solid state (DPSS) Er:YAG laser systems (Pantec Engineering AG) are available, with mean laser power up to 50 W and pulse repetition rate up to 2 kHz. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential of this laser system for increased and defined soft tissue coagulation/manipulation at various irradiation parameters, in particular at repetition rates exceeding 100 Hz. Firstly, an appropriate experimental set-up was realized with laser system, focusing unit, computer-controlled linear stage with sample holder and shutter unit to move the sample (fresh chicken breast) with a defined velocity while irradiation by various laser parameters. While irradiation the tissue effects were recorded by a video camera, adapted on a surgical microscope. After irradiation, the samples were analyzed by light microscopy. In addition, histological sections were prepared and microscopically analyzed. Mainly depending on the fluence, the thermal effect can be limited to coagulation without carbonization. In addition, tissue melting can be observed. The coagulation depth increases with increasing pulse repetition rate and decreasing movement velocity from about 30 µm to above 1 mm. In conclusion, the results of the in vitro studies show that the diode pumped, pulsed Er:YAG laser has the potential to provide one system both, for high efficient hard and soft tissue ablation as well as for soft tissue coagulation and fusion.
Effects of in ovo injection of chrysin, quercetin and ascorbic acid on hatchability, somatic attributes, hepatic oxidative status and early post‐hatch performance of broiler chicks

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of in ovo injection of chrysin, quercetin and ascorbic acid on hatchability, somatic attributes, hepatic antioxidant status and early post-hatch growth performance of broiler chicks. Four hundred and eighty embryonated broiler breeder eggs containing live 18-day-old embryos were divided into six groups of 80 eggs each. One group remained intact and served as a control group (i), whereas the other five groups were injected with the prepared injection solutions as follows: (ii) 0.05 ml distilled water; (iii) 0.05 ml distilled water containing 6 mg ascorbic acid; (iv) 0.05 ml dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO); (v) 0.05 ml DMSO containing 4.5 mg quercetin; and (vi) 0.05 ml DMSO containing 4.5 mg chrysin. The hatchability rate, hatching weight, residual yolk sac weight, yolk sac-free body weight, liver weight, hepatic glutathione peroxidase and total superoxide dismutase activities, as well as malondialdehyde concentrations, were not affected by the injected solutions. There were no differences between chicks hatched from the control and in ovo injected eggs in weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio from 0 to 11 days of age. However, the specific contrast performed between the in ovo injected groups and intact eggs revealed that in ovo injection significantly increased hatchability rate (p = .0493). This finding also implies that our injection procedure was harmless. In conclusion, the intra-egg injection of chrysin, quercetin or ascorbic acid at the injection rates used in this study did not have a significant effect on hatchability, somatic characteristics, early growth performance and hepatic antioxidant status of broiler chicks. However, the overall hatchability was higher in the in ovo injected eggs as compared to non-injected ones. These findings also confirmed the harmlessness of the procedure developed for in ovo injection in this study.
Separation Anxiety in Children Ages 4 through 9 with Oral Clefts

Background Psychosocial research on children with oral clefts (OCs), i.e., clefts of the lip, palate, or lip and palate, has suggested that these children may have higher rates of anxiety in general, but overall results have been equivocal. In this study we estimated the prevalence of separation anxiety disorder (SAD) in a population-based sample of children with OCs and identified associated risk factors. Methods Parents of 279 children with OCs, identified through three state birth defect registries, responded to a postal survey that included the Separation Anxiety subscale of the Screen for Child Anxiety-Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) and items regarding the child's OC and its sequelae, parent and child health, parent mental health, family structure, and socioeconomic status indicators. Associations with SA were evaluated using bivariate and multivariate statistics. Results One quarter (24%) of the children screened positive for SAD, which was substantially higher than the U.S. child population estimates of 3% to 5%. OC-related impairments in speaking and eating more than doubled the risk of SAD, as did lower socioeconomic status and lower maternal health rating. Maternal mental health and marital status remained in the logistic model but were not significant. Conclusions Children with OCs appear to be at increased risk for SAD as measured by the SCARED instrument. OC-related problems with speech and eating more than doubled the risk of SAD. The use of targeted screening tools may help refine our understanding of psychosocial adjustment in children with OCs.
Identification of Water Bodies in a Landsat 8 OLI Image Using a J48 Decision Tree

Water bodies are essential to humans and other forms of life. Identification of water bodies can be useful in various ways, including estimation of water availability, demarcation of flooded regions, change detection, and so on. In past decades, Landsat satellite sensors have been used for land use classification and water body identification. Due to the introduction of a New Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensor on Landsat 8 with a high spectral resolution and improved signal-to-noise ratio, the quality of imagery sensed by Landsat 8 has improved, enabling better characterization of land cover and increased data size. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the most appropriate and practical water identification methods that take advantage of the improved image quality and use the fewest inputs based on the original OLI bands. The objective of the study is to explore the potential of a J48 decision tree (JDT) in identifying water bodies using reflectance bands from Landsat 8 OLI imagery. J48 is an open-source decision tree. The test site for the study is in the Northern Han River Basin, which is located in Gangwon province, Korea. Training data with individual bands were used to develop the JDT model and later applied to the whole study area. The performance of the model was statistically analysed using the kappa statistic and area under the curve (AUC). The results were compared with five other known water identification methods using a confusion matrix and related statistics. Almost all the methods showed high accuracy, and the JDT was successfully applied to the OLI image using only four bands, where the new additional deep blue band of OLI was found to have the third highest information gain. Thus, the JDT can be a good method for water body identification based on images with improved resolution and increased size.
Sexual assault among North Carolina women: prevalence and health risk factors

Study objective: Sexual assault is traumatic at the time it occurs, but it also may have longlasting negative effects on physical health. Much of the research linking specific health problems to sexual assault victimisation has used samples from special populations. The goals of this study are to estimate the prevalence of sexual assault in a representative sample of women in North Carolina and examine sexual assault in relation to specific health risk factors for leading causes of morbidity and mortality in women. Design: The North Carolina Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is a household telephone survey of non-institutionalised adults, 18 years of age and older, conducted by random digit dialling. Setting: This investigation focuses on the study participants in the 1997 survey. Participants: The sample includes 2109 women who responded to the sexual assault questions in the 1997 North Carolina BRFSS interview. Main results: The lifetime prevalence of sexual assault was 19% (95% CI 17% to 20%), of which 73% of victims experienced or were threatened with forced sexual intercourse. Sexual assault victims, particularly victims of forced intercourse or the threat thereof, were more likely to perceive their general health as being fair or poor (OR=2.3, 95% CI 1.5 to 3.4) and were more likely to have suffered poor physical and mental health in the past month (poor physical health, OR=2.1, 95% CI 1.6 to 2.8; poor mental health, OR= 2.6, 95% CI 1.9 to 3.5). After controlling for sociodemographic factors and health care coverage, victims of forced intercourse or the threat thereof were more likely to smoke cigarettes (OR=2.0, 95% CI 1.4 to 2.8), to have hypertension (OR=1.5, 95% CI 1.1 to 2.2), to have high cholesterol (OR=1.7, 95% CI 1.2 to 2.5), and to be obese (OR=1.7, 95% CI 1.3 to 2.4). Conclusions: This study shows associations between sexual victimisation and health risk factors in a non-clinical statewide population of women. Future research should determine whether clinically screening for and identifying a history of sexual victimisation among women seen in a variety of health care settings leads to the initiation of effective interventions that help women successfully cope with these violent experiences. There is also a need for further research to investigate the temporal sequence of assaults and subsequent health outcomes by assessing physical health status before and after victimisation.
The Coalescence Rate of Double Neutron Star Systems

We estimate the coalescence rate of close binaries with two neutron stars (NS) and discuss the prospects for the detection of NS-NS inspiral events by ground-based gravitational-wave observatories, such as LIGO. We derive the Galactic coalescence rate using the observed sample of close NS-NS binaries (PSR B1913+16 and PSR B1534+12) and examine in detail each of the sources of uncertainty associated with the estimate. Specifically, we investigate (1) the dynamical evolution of NS-NS binaries in the Galactic potential and the vertical scale height of the population, (2) the pulsar lifetimes, (3) the effects of the faint end of the radio pulsar luminosity function and their dependence on the small number of observed objects, (4) the beaming fraction, and (5) the extrapolation of the Galactic rate to extragalactic distances expected to be reachable by LIGO. We find that the dominant source of uncertainty is the correction factor (up to ≃200) for faint (undetectable) pulsars. All other sources are much less important, each with uncertainty factors smaller than 2. Despite the relatively large uncertainty, the derived coalescence rate is consistent with previously derived upper limits, and is more accurate than rates obtained from population studies. We obtain a most conservative lower limit that the detection rate by LIGO II of about 2 events per year. Our upper limit on the rate is between 300 and 1000 events per year.
Functional, size and taxonomic diversity of fish along a depth gradient in the deep sea

Biodiversity is well studied in ecology and the concept has been developed to include traits of species, rather than solely taxonomy, to better reflect the functional diversity of a system. The deep sea provides a natural environmental gradient within which to study changes in different diversity metrics, but traits of deep-sea fish are not widely known, hampering the application of functional diversity to this globally important system. We used morphological traits to determine the functional richness and functional divergence of demersal fish assemblages along the continental slope in the Northeast Atlantic, at depths of 300–2,000 m. We compared these metrics to size diversity based on individual body size and species richness. Functional richness and size diversity showed similar patterns, with the highest diversity at intermediate depths; functional divergence showed the opposite pattern, with the highest values at the shallowest and deepest parts of the study site. Species richness increased with depth. The functional implications of these patterns were deduced by examining depth-related changes in morphological traits and the dominance of feeding guilds as illustrated by stable isotope analyses. The patterns in diversity and the variation in certain morphological traits can potentially be explained by changes in the relative dominance of pelagic and benthic feeding guilds. All measures of diversity examined here suggest that the deep areas of the continental slope may be equally or more diverse than assemblages just beyond the continental shelf.
Impact of the propagation environment on the performance of space-frequency coded MIMO-OFDM

Previous work on space-frequency coded multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) has been restricted to idealistic propagation conditions. In this paper, using a broadband MIMO channel model taking into account Ricean K-factor, transmit and receive angle spread, and antenna spacing, we study the impact of the propagation environment on the performance of space-frequency coded MIMO-OFDM. For a given space-frequency code, we quantify the achievable diversity order and coding gain as a function of the propagation parameters. We find that while the presence of spatial receive correlation affects all space-frequency codes equally, spatial fading correlation at the transmit array can result in widely varying performance losses. High-rate space-frequency codes such as spatial multiplexing are typically significantly more affected by transmit correlation than low-rate codes such as space-frequency block codes. We show that in the MIMO Ricean case the presence of frequency-selectivity typically results in improved performance compared to the frequency-flat case.