Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial of Azithromycin or Artesunate Added to Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine as Treatment for Malaria in Pregnant Women

Objective New anti-malarial regimens are urgently needed in sub-Saharan Africa because of the increase in drug resistance. We investigated the safety and efficacy of azithromycin or artesunate combined with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine used for treatment of malaria in pregnant women in Blantyre, Malawi. Methods/Findings This was a randomized open-label clinical trial, conducted at two rural health centers in Blantyre district, Malawi. A total of 141 pregnant women with uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria were recruited and randomly allocated to 3 treatment groups: sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP; 3 tablets, 500 mg sulfadoxine and 25 mg pyrimethamine per tablet); SP plus azithromycin (1 g/day×2 days); or SP plus artesunate (200 mg/day×3 days). Women received two doses administered at least 4 weeks apart. Heteroduplex tracking assays were performed to distinguish recrudescence from new infections. Main outcome measures were incidence of adverse outcomes, parasite and fever clearance times and recrudescence rates. All treatment regimens were well tolerated. Two women vomited soon after ingesting azithromycin. The parasite clearance time was significantly faster in the SP-artesunate group. Recrudescent episodes of malaria were less frequent with SP-azithromycin [Hazard Ratio 0.19 (95% confidence interval 0.06 to 0.63)] and SP-artesunate [Hazard Ratio 0.25 (95% confidence interval 0.10 to 0.65)] compared with SP monotherapy. With one exception (an abortion in the SP-azithromycin group), all adverse pregnancy outcomes could be attributed to known infectious or obstetrical causes. Because of the small sample size, the effect on birth outcomes, maternal malaria or maternal anemia could not be evaluated. Conclusions Both SP-artesunate and SP-azithromycin appeared to be safe, well tolerated and efficacious for the treatment of malaria during pregnancy. A larger study is needed to determine their safety and efficacy in preventing poor birth outcomes. Trial Registration ClinialTrials.gov NCT00287300
Supplementary Materials : Self-Paced Learning with Diversity

This is the supplementary material for the paper entitled “Self-Paced Learning with Diversity”. The material is organized as follows: Section 1 gives the proof of Theorem 1. Section 2.1 and Section 2.2 present the detailed experimental settings and results on the MED (Multimedia Event Detection) dataset. Section 2.3 and Section 2.4 present the settings and detailed results on the Hollywood2 and Olympic datasets. Section 3 briefly discusses our practical lessons and the observed deficiency of the SPL/SPLD models. 1 Proof of Theorem 1 We present the proof of Theorem 1 in the paper. Given the training dataset D = {(x1, y1), · · · , (xn, yn)}, where xi ∈ R denotes the i observed sample and yi denotes its label. Assume that the training samples X = [x1, · · · ,xn] are with b groups: X, · · · ,X, where X (j) = (x (j) 1 , · · · ,x (j) nj ) ∈ Rm×nj corresponds to samples in the j group, nj is the sample number in this group and ∑b j=1 nj = n. Accordingly, denote the weight vector as v = [v , · · · ,v], where v = (v (j) 1 , · · · , v (j) nj ) T ∈ Rj . The following theorem proves that Algorithm 1 can get the global solution of the following non-convex optimization problem: min v∈[0,1]n E(w,v;λ, γ) = n ∑ i=1 viL(yi, f(xi,w))− λ n ∑ i=1 vi − γ‖v‖2,1, (1) where L(yi, f(xi,w)) denotes the loss function which calculates the cost between the ground truth label yi and the estimated label f(xi,w), and the l2,1-norm ‖v‖2,1 is the group sparsity of v: ‖v‖2,1 = b ∑
The Gaussian interference channel revisited as a non-cooperative game with transmission cost

We consider the Gaussian interference channel as a non-cooperative game taking into account the cost of the transmission. We study the conditions of the existence of a pure Nash equilibrium. Particularly, for the many-user case we give sufficient conditions that lead to a Nash equilibrium, and for the two-user case we exhaustively describe the conditions of the existence and the uniqueness of a pure Nash equilibrium and we show the existence of best-response dynamics that converge to one of them.
Effect of Large Apertures on the Optical Quality of Three Multifocal Lenses.

PURPOSE To compare the optical quality under large apertures among three multifocal intraocular lenses (IOLs): the TECNIS Symfony ZXR00 (Abbott Laboratories, Abbott Park, IL), the AT LISA tri 839MP (Carl Zeiss Meditec, Jena, Germany), and the Finevision (PhysIOL, Liège, Belgium). METHODS The in vitro optical quality of each lens was assessed with an instrument that measured the modulation transfer function (MTF). The optical quality of each lens was described in terms of MTF and through focus average MTF. The Strehl ratio, cut-off frequency, area of visibility, and percentage energy were calculated to objectively describe the optical quality of each lens. These metrics were assessed for the best lens distance focus and at four vergences (from -1.50 to -3.00 D in 0.50-D steps) at a 4.5-mm aperture. RESULTS The through focus average MTF of the AT LISA and Finevision IOLs showed three mean areas corresponding to distance, intermediate, and near vision. The TECNIS Symfony IOL showed two main areas corresponding to distance and intermediate vision. All metrics revealed that the Finevision IOL showed the best optical quality at distance vision, the TECNIS Symfony IOL at intermediate vision, and the AT LISA IOL at near vision. The TECNIS Symfony IOL showed the most homogeneous light distribution between its best vision foci. CONCLUSIONS The TECNIS Symfony IOL is less vergence dependent than the AT LISA and Finevision IOLs under dim conditions. These results may help clinicians to choose the proper lens depending on the patient's visual requirements.
Streaming Variational Inference for Dirichlet Process Mixtures

Bayesian nonparametric models are theoretically suitable to learn streaming data due to their complexity relaxation to the volume of observed data. However, most of the existing variational inference algorithms are not applicable to streaming applications since they re-quire truncation on variational distributions. In this paper, we present two truncation-free variational algorithms, one for mix-membership inference called TFVB (truncation-free variational Bayes), and the other for hard clustering inference called TFME (truncation-free maximization expectation). With these algorithms, we further developed a streaming learning framework for the popular Dirichlet process mixture (DPM) models. Our ex-periments demonstrate the usefulness of our framework in both synthetic and real-world data.
Empirical performance of quadratic hedging strategies applied to European call options on an equity index

This thesis treats aspects of two fundamental problems in applied financial mathematics: calibration of a given stochastic process to observed marketprices on financial instruments (which is the topic of the first paper) and strategies for hedging options in financial markets that are possibly incomplete (which is the topic of the second paper). Calibration in finance means choosing the parameters in a stochastic process so as to make the prices on financial instruments generated by the process replicate observed market prices. We deal with the so called local volatility model which is one of the most widely used models in option pricing across all asset classes. The calibration of a local volatility surface to option marketprices is an ill-posed inverse problem as a result of the relatively small number of observable market prices and the unsmooth nature of these prices in strike and maturity. We adopt the practice advanced by some authors to formulate this inverse problem as a least squares optimization under the constraint that option prices follow Dupire’s partial differential equation. We develop two algorithms for performing the optimization: one based on techniques from optimal control theory and another in which a numerical quasi-Newton algorithmis directly applied to the objective function. Regularization of the problem enters easily in both problem formulations. The methods are tested on three months of daily option market quotes on two major equity indices.The resulting local volatility surfaces from both methods yield excellent replications of the observed market prices.Hedging is the practice of offsetting the risk in a financial instrument by taking positions in one or several other tradable assets. Quadratic hedging is a well developed theory for hedging contingent claims in incomplete markets by minimizing the replication error in a suitable L2-norm. This theory, though, is not widely used among market practitioners and relatively few scientific papers evaluate how well quadratic hedging works on real marketdata. We construct a framework for comparing hedging strategies, and use it to empirically test the performance of quadratic hedging of European call options on the Euro Stoxx 50 index modeled with an affine stochastic volatility model with and without jumps. As comparison, we use hedging in the standard Black-Scholes model. We show that quadratic hedging strategies significantly outperform hedging in the Black-Scholes model for out of the money options and options near the money of short maturity when only spot is used in the hedge. When in addition another option is used for hedging, quadratic hedging outperforms Black-Scholes hedging also for medium dated options near the money.
Spectral response patterns of auditory cortex neurons to harmonic complex tones in alert monkey (Macaca mulatta).

1. The auditory cortex in the superior temporal region of the alert rhesus monkey was explored for neuronal responses to pure and harmonic complex tones and noise. The monkeys had been previously trained to recognize the similarity between harmonic complex tones with and without fundamentals. Because this suggested that they could preceive the pitch of the lacking fundamental similarly to humans, we searched for neuronal responses relevant to this perception. 2. Combination-sensitive neurons that might explain pitch perception were not found in the surveyed cortical regions. Such neurons would exhibit similar responses to stimuli with similar periodicities but differing spectral compositions. The fact that no neuron with responses to a fundamental frequency responded also to a corresponding harmonic complex missing the fundamental indicates that cochlear distortion products at the fundamental may not have been responsible for missing fundamental-pitch perception in these monkeys. 3. Neuronal responses can be expressed as relatively simple filter functions. Neurons with excitatory response areas (tuning curves) displayed various inhibitory sidebands at lower and/or higher frequencies. Thus responses varied along a continuum of combined excitatory and inhibitory filter functions. 4. Five elementary response classes along this continuum are presented to illustrate the range of response patterns. 5. "Filter (F) neurons" had little or no inhibitory sidebands and responded well when any component of a complex tone entered its pure-tone receptive field. Bandwidths increased with intensity. Filter functions of these neurons were thus similar to cochlear nerve-fiber tuning curves. 6. "High-resolution filter (HRF) neurons" displayed narrow tuning curves with narrowband widths that displayed little growth with intensity. Such cells were able to resolve up to the lowest seven components of harmonic complex tones as distinct responses. They also responded well to wideband stimuli. 7. "Fundamental (F0) neurons" displayed similar tuning bandwidths for pure tones and corresponding fundamentals of harmonic complexes. This response pattern was due to lower harmonic complexes. This response pattern was due to lower inhibitory sidebands. Thus these cells cannot respond to missing fundamentals of harmonic complexes. Only physically present components in the pure-tone receptive field would excite such neurons. 8. Cells with no or very weak responses to pure tones or other narrowband stimuli responded well to harmonic complexes or wideband noise. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Automatic Handwriting Identification on Medieval Documents

In this paper, we evaluate the performance of text- independent writer identification methods on a handwriting dataset containing medieval English documents. Applicable identification rates are achieved by combining textural features (joint directional probability distributions) with allographic features (grapheme-emission distributions). The aim is to develop an automatic handwriting identification tool that can assist the paleographer in the task of determining the authorship of historical manuscripts.
3′,4′-Dihydroxyflavonol Reduces Superoxide and Improves Nitric Oxide Function in Diabetic Rat Mesenteric Arteries

Background 3',4'-Dihydroxyflavonol (DiOHF) is an effective antioxidant that acutely preserves nitric oxide (NO) activity in the presence of elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS). We hypothesized that DiOHF treatment (7 days, 1 mg/kg per day s.c.) would improve relaxation in mesenteric arteries from diabetic rats where endothelial dysfunction is associated with elevated oxidant stress. Methodology/Principal Findings In mesenteric arteries from diabetic rats there was an increase in ROS, measured by L-012 and 2',7'-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate fluorescence. NADPH oxidase-derived superoxide levels, assayed by lucigenin chemiluminescence, were also significantly increased in diabetic mesenteric arteries (diabetes, 4892±946 counts/mg versus normal 2486±344 counts/mg, n = 7–10, p<0.01) associated with an increase in Nox2 expression but DiOHF (2094±300 counts/mg, n = 10, p<0.001) reversed that effect. Acetylcholine (ACh)-induced relaxation of mesenteric arteries was assessed using wire myography (pEC50 = 7.94±0.13 n = 12). Diabetes significantly reduced the sensitivity to ACh and treatment with DiOHF prevented endothelial dysfunction (pEC50, diabetic 6.86±0.12 versus diabetic+DiOHF, 7.49±0.13, n = 11, p<0.01). The contribution of NO versus endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF) to ACh-induced relaxation was assessed by evaluating responses in the presence of TRAM-34+apamin+iberiotoxin or N-nitro-L-arginine+ODQ respectively. Diabetes impaired the contribution of both NO (maximum relaxation, Rmax diabetic 24±7 versus normal, 68±10, n = 9–10, p<0.01) and EDHF (pEC50, diabetic 6.63±0.15 versus normal, 7.14±0.12, n = 10–11, p<0.01) to endothelium-dependent relaxation. DiOHF treatment did not significantly affect the EDHF contribution but enhanced NO-mediated relaxation (Rmax 69±6, n = 11, p<0.01). Western blotting demonstrated that diabetes also decreased expression and increased uncoupling of endothelial NO synthase (eNOS). Treatment of the diabetic rats with DiOHF significantly reduced vascular ROS and restored NO-mediated endothelium-dependent relaxation. Treatment of the diabetic rats with DiOHF also increased eNOS expression, both in total and as a dimer. Conclusions/Significance DiOHF improves NO activity in diabetes by reducing Nox2-dependent superoxide production and preventing eNOS uncoupling to improve endothelial function.
Review Paper: Roundtable on Bioterrorism Detection: Information System-based Surveillance

During the 2001 AMIA Annual Symposium, the Anesthesia, Critical Care, and Emergency Medicine Working Group hosted the Roundtable on Bioterrorism Detection. Sixty-four people attended the roundtable discussion, during which several researchers discussed public health surveillance systems designed to enhance early detection of bioterrorism events. These systems make secondary use of existing clinical, laboratory, paramedical, and pharmacy data or facilitate electronic case reporting by clinicians. This paper combines case reports of six existing systems with discussion of some common techniques and approaches. The purpose of the roundtable discussion was to foster communication among researchers and promote progress by 1) sharing information about systems, including origins, current capabilities, stages of deployment, and architectures; 2) sharing lessons learned during the development and implementation of systems; and 3) exploring cooperation projects, including the sharing of software and data. A mailing list server for these ongoing efforts may be found at http://bt.cirg. washington.edu.
Low leakage, ultra-thin gate oxides for extremely high performance sub-100 nm nMOSFETs

Reports measurements of the DC characteristics of sub-100 nm nMOSFETs that employ low leakage ultra-thin gate oxides only 1-2 nm thick to achieve high current drive capability and transconductance. We demonstrate that I/sub Dsat//spl ap/1.8 mA//spl mu/m can be achieved with a 60 nm gate at 1.5 V using a 1.3-1.4 nm gate oxide with a gate leakage current less than 20 nA//spl mu/m/sup 2/. Furthermore, we find that I/sub Dsat/ deteriorates for gate oxides thicker or thinner than this.
Development of a Western Blot Assay for Detection of Bovine Immunodeficiency-Like Virus Using Capsid and Transmembrane Envelope Proteins Expressed from Recombinant Baculovirus

ABSTRACT A 120-amino-acid polypeptide selected from the transmembrane protein region (tTM) and the major capsid protein p26 of bovine immunodeficiency-like virus (BIV) were expressed as fusion proteins from recombinant baculoviruses. The antigenic reactivity of both recombinant fusion proteins was confirmed by Western blot with bovine and rabbit antisera to BIV. BIV-negative bovine sera and animal sera positive for bovine syncytial virus and bovine leukemia virus failed to recognize the recombinant fusion proteins, thereby showing the specificity of the BIV Western blot. One hundred and five bovine serum samples were tested for the presence of anti-BIV antibodies by the recombinant protein-based Western blot and a reference Western blot assay using cell culture-derived virions as test antigens. There was a 100% concordance when the p26 fusion protein was used in the Western blot. However, the Western blot using the tTM fusion protein as its test antigen identified four BIV-positive bovine sera which had tested negative in both the p26 recombinant-protein-based and the reference Western blot assays. This resulted in the lower concordance of 96.2% between the tTM-protein-based and reference Western blot assays. The results of this study showed that the recombinant p26 and tTM proteins can be used as test antigens for the serodetection of BIV-infection in animals.
Measuring Health Literacy Regarding Infectious Respiratory Diseases: A New Skills-Based Instrument

Background There is no special instrument to measure skills-based health literacy where it concerns infectious respiratory diseases. This study aimed to explore and evaluate a new skills-based instrument on health literacy regarding respiratory infectious diseases. Methods This instrument was designed to measure not only an individual’s reading and numeracy ability, but also their oral communication ability and their ability to use the internet to seek information. Sixteen stimuli materials were selected to enable measurement of the skills, which were sourced from the WHO, China CDC, and Chinese Center of Health Education. The information involved the distribution of epidemics, immunization programs, early symptoms, means of disease prevention, individual’s preventative behavior, use of medications and thermometers, treatment plans and the location of hospitals. Multi-stage stratified cluster sampling was employed to collect participants. Psychometric properties were used to evaluate the reliability and validity of the instrument. Results The overall degree of difficulty and discrimination of the instrument were 0.693 and 0.482 respectively. The instrument demonstrated good internal consistency reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.864. As for validity, six factors were extracted from 30 items, which together explained 47.3% of the instrument’s variance. And based on confirmatory factor analysis, the items were grouped into five subscales representing prose, document, quantitative, oral and internet based information seeking skills (χ2 = 9.200, P>0.05, GFI = 0.998, TLI = 0.988, AGFI = 0.992, RMSEA = 0.028). Conclusion The new instrument has good reliability and validity, and it could be used to assess the health literacy regarding respiratory infectious disease status of different groups.
Assessment of antibody responses to antigens of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Cysticercus cellulosae in cerebrospinal fluid of chronic meningitis patients for definitive diagnosis as TBM/NCC by passive hemagglutination and immunoblot assays.

Tanned sheep erythrocytes stabilized with pyruvic aldehyde and glutaraldehyde, called double-aldehyde-stabilized cells, were used to standardize passive hemagglutination assay (PHA) for detection of antibody responses to sonicate extract of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and Cysticercus cellulosae soluble antigens. PHA was performed in the following groups of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) samples: group I - chronic infections of the central nervous system with the possible diagnosis of tuberculous meningitis (TBM), tuberculoma and neurocysticercosis (NCC) (n=88), and group II - controls which included (a) non-infectious non-neurological conditions (n=30), (b) infectious neurological conditions (n=21) and (c) non-infectious neurological conditions (n=133). PHA could detect anti-mycobacterial antibodies at the sensitivity level of 80.76% with a specificity of 92.4% and anti-cysticercal antibodies with a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 92.94%. However, in 6.33% (i.e. 14/221) of group I and group II (c) CSFs both anti-mycobacterial and anti-cysticercal antibodies were detected. Immunoblot analysis of CSFs derived from TBM patients reacted predominantly to 120-kDa, 96-kDa, 65-kDa, 38-kDa, 26-kDa, 23-kDa, 19-kDa and 12-14-kDa and 4-6-kDa antigens of M. tuberculosis sonicate extract (MTSE), whilst CSFs of proven NCC reacted to >110-kDa, 96-kDa, 80-kDa, 66-68-kDa, 52-kDa and 26-28-kDa antigens of porcine whole cyst sonicate extract (PCSE). On immunoblot analysis, some of the CSFs of TBM patients were PHA positive for both MTSE and PCSE showed antibody reactivity to 70-kDa and 10-kDa antigens of C. cellulosae. Similarly CSF antibody of some Guillain Barre syndrome and myeloradiculopathy patients reacted with cysticercal antigens. But per se no cross-reactivity between MTSE and anti-cysticercal antibodies and vice-versa were observed. However, findings of this study should alert laboratory personnel especially in endemic areas to be extra careful in interpretation of antibody detection results.
Bandwidth Enhancement for a 60 GHz Substrate Integrated Waveguide Fed Cavity Array Antenna on LTCC

A substrate integrated waveguide fed cavity array antenna using multilayered low temperature co-fired ceramic technology is presented and designed at V-band (60 GHz). The 8 × 8 antenna array is designed with an enhanced bandwidth of 17.1% and a gain up to 22.1 dBi by reconfiguring radiating elements, feeding network, and the transition. The proposed array antenna also features the merits of compact size, stable performance, and high efficiency.