Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statin use in Brazil: findings and implications

Abstract Introduction and objectives: Statins have become an integral part of treatment to reduce cardiac events in patients with cardiovascular disease. However, their use within the public healthcare system in Brazil is unknown. Consequently, we sought to determine and characterize statin use in primary healthcare delivered by the public health system (SUS) in Brazil and evaluate associated patient factors to improve future use. Methods: Cross-sectional study with a national representative sample from five Brazilian regions, derived from the National Survey on Access, Use and Promotion of Rational Use of Medicines using a multi-stage complex sampling plan. Patients over 18 years old were interviewed from July 2014 to May 2015. The prevalences of statin use and self-reported statin adherence were determined amongst medicine users. The associations between statin use and sociodemographic/health condition variables were assessed using logistic regression. Results: A total of 8803 patients were interviewed, of whom 6511 were medicine users. The prevalence of statin use was 9.4% with simvastatin (90.3%), atorvastatin (4.7%) and rosuvastatin (1.9%) being the most used statins. Poor adherence was described by 6.5% of patients. Statin use was significantly associated with age ≥65 years old, higher educational level, residence in the South, metabolic and heart diseases, alcohol consumption and polypharmacy. Conclusions: This is the first population based study in Brazil to assess statin use in SUS primary healthcare patients. Addressing inequalities in access and use of medicines including statins is an important step in achieving the full benefit of statins in Brazil, with the findings guiding future research and policies.
Can anti-gravity running improve performance to the same degree as over-ground running?

ABSTRACT This study examined the changes in running performance, maximal blood lactate concentrations and running kinematics between 85%BM anti-gravity (AG) running and normal over-ground (OG) running over an 8-week training period. Fifteen elite male developmental cricketers were assigned to either the AG or over-ground (CON) running group. The AG group (n = 7) ran twice a week on an AG treadmill and once per week over-ground. The CON group (n = 8) completed all sessions OG on grass. Both AG and OG training resulted in similar improvements in time trial and shuttle run performance. Maximal running performance showed moderate differences between the groups, however the AG condition resulted in less improvement. Large differences in maximal blood lactate concentrations existed with OG running resulting in greater improvements in blood lactate concentrations measured during maximal running. Moderate increases in stride length paired with moderate decreases in stride rate also resulted from AG training. The use of AG training to supplement regular OG training for performance should be used cautiously, as extended use over long periods of time could lead to altered stride mechanics and reduced blood lactate.
Transparency by Design: Closing the Gap Between Performance and Interpretability in Visual Reasoning

Visual question answering requires high-order reasoning about an image, which is a fundamental capability needed by machine systems to follow complex directives. Recently, modular networks have been shown to be an effective framework for performing visual reasoning tasks. While modular networks were initially designed with a degree of model transparency, their performance on complex visual reasoning benchmarks was lacking. Current state-of-the-art approaches do not provide an effective mechanism for understanding the reasoning process. In this paper, we close the performance gap between interpretable models and state-of-the-art visual reasoning methods. We propose a set of visual-reasoning primitives which, when composed, manifest as a model capable of performing complex reasoning tasks in an explicitly-interpretable manner. The fidelity and interpretability of the primitives' outputs enable an unparalleled ability to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of the resulting model. Critically, we show that these primitives are highly performant, achieving state-of-the-art accuracy of 99.1% on the CLEVR dataset. We also show that our model is able to effectively learn generalized representations when provided a small amount of data containing novel object attributes. Using the CoGenT generalization task, we show more than a 20 percentage point improvement over the current state of the art.
Histomorphological features of the tongue of the Eurasian teal (Anas crecca)

This study presents the histomorphological features of tongue in Eurasian teal (Anas crecca); the smallest extant dabbling duck. Heads of four adult males and four adult females were used in this study. The results illustrate a tongue with three different parts; the apex with a lingual nail in ventral surface, the body with a lingual prominence in caudal part and some large and small conical papillae in lateral sides and the root, that was covered with many conical papillae in different sizes. Histological results revealed two types of keratinized and non‐keratinized epithelium covering parts of the tongue. The lingual salivary glands were observed in the lamina propria of the body and root of the tongue showed strongly periodic acid–Schiff (PAS)‐positive reaction. The yellow adipose tissue was located under the lamina propria on the body and root of the tongue. The filiform papillae between the conical papillae of the body were arranged densely. The sensory organs, which contain sensory receptors (Grandry and Herbst corpuscles), were located in the lamina propria of the body of the tongue. In conclusion, the anatomical and histological structure of the Eurasian teal’ tongue was generally similar to its family members such as domestic goose and duck but showed some differences that may be adoptions to the bird's habitat and mode of feeding.
Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Antagonize Macrophage Inflammation via Activation of AMPK/SIRT1 Pathway

Macrophages play a key role in obesity-induced inflammation. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω-3 PUFAs) eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) exert anti-inflammatory functions in both humans and animal models, but the exact cellular signals mediating the beneficial effects are not completely understood. We previously found that two nutrient sensors AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and SIRT1 interact to regulate macrophage inflammation. Here we aim to determine whether ω-3 PUFAs antagonize macrophage inflammation via activation of AMPK/SIRT1 pathway. Treatment of ω-3 PUFAs suppresses lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced cytokine expression in macrophages. Luciferase reporter assays, electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSA) and Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assays show that treatment of macrophages with ω-3 PUFAs significantly inhibits LPS-induced NF-κB signaling. Interestingly, DHA also increases expression, phosphorylation and activity of the major isoform α1AMPK, which further leads to SIRT1 over-expression. More importantly, DHA mimics the effect of SIRT1 on deacetylation of the NF-κB subunit p65, and the ability of DHA to deacetylate p65 and inhibit its signaling and downstream cytokine expression require SIRT1. In conclusion, ω-3 PUFAs negatively regulate macrophage inflammation by deacetylating NF-κB, which acts through activation of AMPK/SIRT1 pathway. Our study defines AMPK/SIRT1 as a novel cellular mediator for the anti-inflammatory effects of ω-3 PUFAs.
Fuzziness and Heterogeneity of Benthic Metacommunities in a Complex Transitional System

We propose an extension to the metacommunity (MC) concept and a novel operational methodology that has the potential to refine the analysis of MC structure at different hierarchical levels. We show that assemblages of species can also be seen as assemblages of abstract subregional habitat-related metacommunities (habMCs). This intrinsically fuzzy concept recognizes the existence of habMCs that are typically associated with given habitats, while allowing for the mixing and superposition of different habMCs in all sites and for boundaries among subregions that are neither spatially sharp nor temporally constant. The combination of fuzzy clustering and direct gradient analysis permits us to 1) objectively identify the number of habMCs that are present in a region as well as their spatial distributions and relative weights at different sites; 2) associate different subregions with different biological communities; and 3) quantitatively assess the affinities between habMCs and physical, morphological, biogeochemical, and environmental properties, thereby enabling an analysis of the roles and relative importance of various environmental parameters in shaping the spatial structure of a metacommunity. This concept and methodology offer the possibility of integrating the continuum and community unit concepts and of developing the concept of a habMC ecological niche. This approach also facilitates the practical application of the MC concept, which are not currently in common use. Applying these methods to macrophytobenthic and macrozoobenthic hard-substrate assemblages in the Venetian Lagoon, we identified a hierarchical organization of macrobenthic communities that associated different habMCs with different habitats. Our results demonstrate that different reference terms should be applied to different subregions to assess the ecological status of a waterbody and show that a combination of several environmental parameters describes the spatial heterogeneity of benthic communities much better than any single property can. Our results also emphasize the importance of considering heterogeneity and fuzziness when working in natural systems.
Multiwavelength observations of Mrk 501 in 2008

Context: Blazars are variable sources on various timescales over a broad energy range spanning from radio to very high energy (> 100 GeV, hereafter VHE). Mrk 501 is one of the brightest blazars at TeV energies and has been extensively studied since its first VHE dete ction in 1996. However, most of the -ray studies performed on Mrk 501 during the past years relate to flaring activity, when the source detection and characte rization with the available -ray instrumentation was easier to perform. Aims: Our goal is to characterize in detail the source -ray emission, together with the radio-to-X-ray emission, during the non-flaring (low) activity, which is less often studied than the occasional fla ring (high) activity. Methods: We organized a multiwavelength (MW) campaign on Mrk 501 between March and May 2008. This multi-instrument effort included the most sensitive VHE-ray instruments in the northern hemisphere, namely the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes MAGIC and VERITAS, as well as Swift, RXTE, the F-GAMMA, GASP-WEBT, and other collaborations and instruments. This provided extensive energy and temporal coverage of Mrk 501 throughout the entire campaign. Results: Mrk 501 was found to be in a low state of activity during the campaign, with a VHE flux in the range of 10%‐20% of the Crab nebula flux. Nevertheless, significant flux variations were detected wit h various instruments, with a trend of increasing variabili ty with energy and a tentative correlation between the X-ray and VHE fluxes. The broadband s pectral energy distribution during the two different emission states of the campaign can be adequately described within the homogeneous one-zone synchrotron self-Compton model, with the (slightly) higher state described by an increase in the electron number density. Conclusions: The one-zone SSC model can adequately describe the broadband spectral energy distribution of the source during the two months covered by the MW campaign. This agrees with previous studies of the broadband emission of this source during flaring and n on-flaring states. We report for the first time a tentative X-ray-to-VHE correla tion during such a low VHE activity. Although marginally significant, this positive correlation between X-ray and VHE, which has been reported many times during flaring activity, suggests that the mechani sms that dominate the X-ray/VHE emission during non-flaring-activity are not substanti ally different from those that are responsible for the emission during flaring activity.
Psychosexual outcomes in women of reproductive age at more than two-years from excisional cervical treatment – a cross-sectional study

Abstract Purpose: To investigate the long-term psychosexual outcomes in women following excisional cervical treatment. Materials and methods: Women with cold-knife conization (CKC) or large loop excision of the transformation zone (LLETZ) treatment were interviewed after a follow-up colposcopy visit. Their demographics, treatment and psychosexual characteristics were recorded. Results: One hundred and forty six women with a mean age of 35.2 ± 5.4 years underwent either LLETZ (68.5%) or CKC (31.5%) treatment within 4.7 ± 2.7 years (range: 2–15) before the interview. 27.4% of women were less interested in sexual intercourse following treatment in comparison with their interest before. Those women with less interest in sexual intercourse after treatment had higher anxiety and depression scores and were more worried about disease progression. Women with post-treatment complications were at risk of less interest in sexual intercourse and of greater anxiety and depression. Women with abnormal smears at follow-up were at risk of greater anxiety. The type of treatment and grade of dysplasia did not affect their interest in sexual intercourse or the anxiety and depression scores. Conclusions: Approximately, one-third of women at more than two years post-treatment may suffer from less interest in sexual intercourse, have relatively greater anxiety and depression, and might still be concerned about the possibility of disease progression.
Establishing Long-Term Efficacy in Chronic Disease: Use of Recursive Partitioning and Propensity Score Adjustment to Estimate Outcome in MS

Context Establishing the long-term benefit of therapy in chronic diseases has been challenging. Long-term studies require non-randomized designs and, thus, are often confounded by biases. For example, although disease-modifying therapy in MS has a convincing benefit on several short-term outcome-measures in randomized trials, its impact on long-term function remains uncertain. Objective Data from the 16-year Long-Term Follow-up study of interferon-beta-1b is used to assess the relationship between drug-exposure and long-term disability in MS patients. Design/Setting To mitigate the bias of outcome-dependent exposure variation in non-randomized long-term studies, drug-exposure was measured as the medication-possession-ratio, adjusted up or down according to multiple different weighting-schemes based on MS severity and MS duration at treatment initiation. A recursive-partitioning algorithm assessed whether exposure (using any weighing scheme) affected long-term outcome. The optimal cut-point that was used to define “high” or “low” exposure-groups was chosen by the algorithm. Subsequent to verification of an exposure-impact that included all predictor variables, the two groups were compared using a weighted propensity-stratified analysis in order to mitigate any treatment-selection bias that may have been present. Finally, multiple sensitivity-analyses were undertaken using different definitions of long-term outcome and different assumptions about the data. Main Outcome Measure Long-Term Disability. Results In these analyses, the same weighting-scheme was consistently selected by the recursive-partitioning algorithm. This scheme reduced (down-weighted) the effectiveness of drug exposure as either disease duration or disability at treatment-onset increased. Applying this scheme and using propensity-stratification to further mitigate bias, high-exposure had a consistently better clinical outcome compared to low-exposure (Cox proportional hazard ratio = 0.30–0.42; p<0.0001). Conclusions Early initiation and sustained use of interferon-beta-1b has a beneficial impact on long-term outcome in MS. Our analysis strategy provides a methodological framework for bias-mitigation in the analysis of non-randomized clinical data. Trial Registration Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00206635
Music Communicates Affects, Not Basic Emotions – A Constructionist Account of Attribution of Emotional Meanings to Music

Basic Emotion theory has had a tremendous influence on the affective sciences, including music psychology, where most researchers have assumed that music expressivity is constrained to a limited set of basic emotions. Several scholars suggested that these constrains to musical expressivity are explained by the existence of a shared acoustic code to the expression of emotions in music and speech prosody. In this article we advocate for a shift from this focus on basic emotions to a constructionist account. This approach proposes that the phenomenon of perception of emotions in music arises from the interaction of music’s ability to express core affects and the influence of top-down and contextual information in the listener’s mind. We start by reviewing the problems with the concept of Basic Emotions, and the inconsistent evidence that supports it. We also demonstrate how decades of developmental and cross-cultural research on music and emotional speech have failed to produce convincing findings to conclude that music expressivity is built upon a set of biologically pre-determined basic emotions. We then examine the cue-emotion consistencies between music and speech, and show how they support a parsimonious explanation, where musical expressivity is grounded on two dimensions of core affect (arousal and valence). Next, we explain how the fact that listeners reliably identify basic emotions in music does not arise from the existence of categorical boundaries in the stimuli, but from processes that facilitate categorical perception, such as using stereotyped stimuli and close-ended response formats, psychological processes of construction of mental prototypes, and contextual information. Finally, we outline our proposal of a constructionist account of perception of emotions in music, and spell out the ways in which this approach is able to make solve past conflicting findings. We conclude by providing explicit pointers about the methodological choices that will be vital to move beyond the popular Basic Emotion paradigm and start untangling the emergence of emotional experiences with music in the actual contexts in which they occur.
A survey exploring awareness and experience of tinnitus in young adults

Background Hearing loss among young adults is on the increase largely because of greater exposure to recreational noise. One of the effects of a sensorineural hearing loss is tinnitus. Despite efforts to raise awareness of hearing loss and tinnitus, young adults continue to expose themselves to the potential risks. The reasons for this are unclear; neither is the extent to which tinnitus is experienced in this population. Objectives The study aimed to describe the awareness and experience of tinnitus among young adults, with regard to its existence, causes, effects and management. Methods A descriptive study design was employed using an electronic survey that targeted students within a selected school at a university in KwaZulu-Natal. There were 75 participants between 18 years and 30 years. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics. To raise awareness about tinnitus, on completion of the questionnaire, all participants were given access to an information document about tinnitus, its causes and management. Results The majority of participants (69.86%) were not aware of the existence of tinnitus. Thus, most of the participants did not know about the causes or effects of tinnitus. Tinnitus was experienced by 13.51% of participants themselves and 12.16% knew someone who suffered from it. Conclusions The general lack of awareness of what tinnitus was, its causes and effects, has implications for audiologists who are involved in hearing health care across the age span. Hearing health promotion programmes targeted at young adults should include information on hearing loss as well as tinnitus and its management.
WORK PROCEDURES AND RADIATION EXPOSURE AMONG RADIOLOGIC TECHNOLOGISTS IN SOUTH KOREA

This study explored their work characteristics and safety compliance to identify primary factors influencing high occupational radiation exposure among radiologic technologists. A total of 12 387 radiologic technologists were surveyed from 2012 to 2013 in South Korea. Survey data for demographics and work-related characteristics were linked with the National Dose Registry. Multiple regression analysis was used and '% Excess Risk Explained' was calculated to illustrate the degree to which given risk factors explained the relationship of work procedures and radiation exposure. Characteristics of radiologic technologists exposed to higher radiation doses were male, aged <30, working at a general hospital or hospital, and frequently performing routine diagnostic X-ray, CT, portable X-ray and C-arm. Not being completely separated from patients and wearing lead apron was positively associated with higher radiation exposure. Type of facility and safety compliance were the main risk factors for high radiation exposure in performing diagnostic radiologic procedures.
Video Question Answering via Gradually Refined Attention over Appearance and Motion

Recently image question answering (ImageQA) has gained lots of attention in the research community. However, as its natural extension, video question answering (VideoQA) is less explored. Although both tasks look similar, VideoQA is more challenging mainly because of the complexity and diversity of videos. As such, simply extending the ImageQA methods to videos is insufficient and suboptimal. Particularly, working with the video needs to model its inherent temporal structure and analyze the diverse information it contains. In this paper, we consider exploiting the appearance and motion information resided in the video with a novel attention mechanism. More specifically, we propose an end-to-end model which gradually refines its attention over the appearance and motion features of the video using the question as guidance. The question is processed word by word until the model generates the final optimized attention. The weighted representation of the video, as well as other contextual information, are used to generate the answer. Extensive experiments show the advantages of our model compared to other baseline models. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of our model by analyzing the refined attention weights during the question answering procedure.