Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The joint effects of major lifestyle factors on colorectal cancer risk among Chinese men: A prospective cohort study

Previous studies have suggested individual healthy lifestyle factors are related to lower risk of colorectal cancer. Their joint effects, however, have rarely been investigated. We aimed to assess the combined lifestyle impact on colorectal cancer risk and to estimate the population attributable risks of these lifestyle factors. Using data from the Shanghai Men's Health Study (2002–2013), we constructed healthy lifestyle index composing the following lifestyle factors: smoking, alcohol consumption, diet, waist‐hip ratio and exercise participation. Cox proportional hazards models were used to calculate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Over a median of 9.28 years' follow‐up, 671 colorectal cancer cases occurred (400 colon cancer and 274 rectal cancer) among 59,503 men. Each increment of healthy lifestyle index was associated with a 17% lower risk of colorectal cancer (HR = 0.83, 95% CI: 0.78, 0.89), 10% of colon cancer (HR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.83, 0.99) and 27% of rectal cancer (HR = 0.73, 95% CI: 0.66, 0.82). If all men in the cohort followed a lifestyle as defined by these five factors, 21% colorectal cancer cases would have been prevented (PAR = 21%, 95% CI: 4%, 36%). In conclusion, combined lifestyle factors are significantly related to lower risk of colorectal cancer and the effects are more pronounced on rectal cancer than on colon cancer.
Role of Ultrasound and Ultrasound-Guided Fine-Needle Aspiration Cytology for Axillary Lymph Node Evaluation in Breast Cancer Patients: Correlation with Primary Tumor Size and Positive Lymph Node Number

Objectives: To evaluate the efficacy of ultrasound (US) and US-guided fine-needle aspiration (US-FNA) for axillary nodal staging in breast cancer patients. Methods: A retrospective study of breast cancer patients at our institution from January 2007 to December 2009 revealed 449 cases in which axillary US was performed. The US appearance of the axillary lymph nodes was divided into 4 categories: suspicious, borderline, benign, and not visible. The results were compared with the final pathologic outcome and correlated with the tumor size on US and the pathologic nodal stage (pN). Results: Among the 449 patients, the lymph nodes were: not visualized in 124, suspicious in 180, borderline in 39, and benign in 106 cases. The overall sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), and accuracy of US alone and combined US/US-FNA was 69.1%, 83.3%, 86.8%, 63%, and 74.6% and 69.1%, 100%, 100%, 67.2%, and 81.1%, respectively. The sensitivity of US increased with increasing tumor size and pN. A negative or benign US (combined n = 230) was associated with the pN0, pN1, pN2, and pN3 stage in 146, 66, 13, and 5 cases, respectively. Conclusions: Axillary staging using US criteria is about 70% sensitive and its sensitivity increases with increasing tumor size and pN stage.
From hippocampus to whole‐brain: The role of integrative processing in episodic memory retrieval

Multivariate functional connectivity analyses of neuroimaging data have revealed the importance of complex, distributed interactions between disparate yet interdependent brain regions. Recent work has shown that topological properties of functional brain networks are associated with individual and group differences in cognitive performance, including in episodic memory. After constructing functional whole‐brain networks derived from an event‐related fMRI study of memory retrieval, we examined differences in functional brain network architecture between forgotten and remembered words. This study yielded three main findings. First, graph theory analyses showed that successfully remembering compared to forgetting was associated with significant changes in the connectivity profile of the left hippocampus and a corresponding increase in efficient communication with the rest of the brain. Second, bivariate functional connectivity analyses indicated stronger interactions between the left hippocampus and a retrieval assembly for remembered versus forgotten items. This assembly included the left precuneus, left caudate, bilateral supramarginal gyrus, and the bilateral dorsolateral superior frontal gyrus. Integrative properties of the retrieval assembly were greater for remembered than forgotten items. Third, whole‐brain modularity analyses revealed that successful memory retrieval was marginally significantly associated with a less segregated modular architecture in the network. The magnitude of the decreases in modularity between remembered and forgotten conditions was related to memory performance. These findings indicate that increases in integrative properties at the nodal, retrieval assembly, and whole‐brain topological levels facilitate memory retrieval, while also underscoring the potential of multivariate brain connectivity approaches for providing valuable new insights into the neural bases of memory processes. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2242–2259, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
The Delaunay triangulation ( DT ) is defined using the so-called Delaunay criterion : a triangle is

Natalia Rodríguez 1,* and Rodrigo I. Silveira 2 ID 1 Departamento de Computación, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires C1428EGA, Argentina 2 Departament de Matemàtiques, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, 08034 Barcelona, Spain; rodrigo.silveira@upc.edu * Correspondence: nrodriguez@dc.uba. ar † This paper is an extended version of our paper published in 24th SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems (SIGSPATIAL 2016).
An Evaluation of the Large-Scale Implementation of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Using an Ocean General Circulation Model with Low-Complexity Atmospheric Feedback Effects

Previous investigations of the large-scale deployment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversions (OTEC) systems are extended by allowing some atmospheric feedback in an ocean general circulation model. A modified ocean-atmosphere thermal boundary condition is used where relaxation corresponds to atmospheric longwave radiation to space, and an additional term expresses horizontal atmospheric transport. This produces lower steady-state OTEC power maxima (8 to 10.2 TW instead of 14.1 TW for global OTEC scenarios, and 7.2 to 9.3 TW instead of 11.9 TW for OTEC implementation within 100 km of coastlines). When power production peaks, power intensity remains practically unchanged, at 0.2 TW per Sverdrup of OTEC deep cold seawater, suggesting a similar degradation of the OTEC thermal resource. Large-scale environmental effects include surface cooling in low latitudes and warming elsewhere, with a net heat intake within the water column. These changes develop rapidly from the propagation of Kelvin and Rossby waves, and ocean current advection. Two deep circulation cells are generated in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific basins. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is reinforced while an AMOC-like feature appears in the North Pacific, with deep convective winter events at high latitudes. Transport between the Indo-Pacific and the Southern Ocean is strengthened, with impacts on the Atlantic via the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC).
A high prevalence of TMD is related to somatic awareness and pain intensity among healthy dental students

Abstract Objective: Dental students have been identified as a group with high risks of developing both temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and psychosocial conditions. Our primary aim was to evaluate the cross-sectional prevalence of TMD diagnoses, as defined in the Diagnostic Criteria (DC)/TMD, among dental students. The secondary aim was to evaluate the prevalence and association of behavioural and psychosocial factors in relation to DC/TMD diagnoses. Materials and methods: The study was conducted among undergraduate dental students during the second semester of their third year at the Department of Odontology, Medical Faculty, Umeå University, Sweden. Three consecutive cohorts were recruited during August in 2013, 2014, 2015. In total, 54 students were included and examined according the DC/TMD procedure. Results and conclusions: The prevalence of any DC/TMD diagnosis was 30%. The most prevalent TMD diagnosis was myalgia. Individuals with a TMD-pain diagnosis (i.e. myalgia or arthralgia) reported significantly higher pain intensity levels according to the Graded Chronic Pain Scale (GCPS) as compared to individuals without TMD-pain (Fisher’s exact test p < .001, two-sided). In addition, individuals with any TMD scored significantly higher jaw functional limitations according to the Jaw Functional Limitation Scale 20 (JFLS-20, p < .001) and oral parafunctions according to the Oral Behavior Checklist (OBC, p = .005) as compared to individuals without TMD. The psychosocial factors evaluated did not differ between individual with or without a TMD diagnosis. The majority of the dental students reported symptoms that are already identified as risk factors for developing TMD and pain conditions. However, longitudinal data are needed to evaluate how this evolves over time.
Dissociated patterns of anti‐correlations with dorsal and ventral default‐mode networks at rest

Previous studies of resting state functional connectivity have demonstrated that the default‐mode network (DMN) is negatively correlated with a set of brain regions commonly activated during goal‐directed tasks. However, the location and extent of anti‐correlations are inconsistent across different studies, which has been posited to result largely from differences in whether or not global signal regression (GSR) was applied as a pre‐processing step. Notably, coordinates of seed regions‐of‐interest defined within the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus, an area often employed to study functional connectivity of the DMN, have been inconsistent across studies. Taken together with recent observations that the DMN contains functionally heterogeneous subdivisions, it is presently unclear whether these seeds map to different DMN subnetworks, whose patterns of anti‐correlation may differ. If so, then seed location may be a non‐negligible factor that, in addition to differences in preprocessing steps, contributes to the inconsistencies reported among published studies regarding DMN correlations/anti‐correlations. In this study, they examined anti‐correlations of different subnetworks within the DMN during rest using both seed‐based and point process analyses, and discovered that: (1) the ventral branch of the DMN (vDMN) yielded significantly weaker anti‐correlations than that associated with the dorsal branch of the DMN (dDMN); (2) vDMN anti‐correlations introduced by GSR were distinct from dDMN anti‐correlations; (3) PCC/precuneus seeds employed by earlier studies mapped to different DMN subnetworks, which may explain some of the inconsistency (in addition to preprocessing steps) in the reported DMN anti‐correlations. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2454–2465, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Heart rate: a strong predictor of mortality in subjects with coronary artery disease.

This editorial refers to ‘Long-term prognostic value of resting heart rate in patients with suspected or proven coronary artery disease’ † by A. Diaz et al. , on page 967 Risk stratification is important for determining the prognosis of subjects at moderate to high cardiovascular risk and various attempts have been made to integrate several clinical variables into a user-friendly risk model. Recently, the ESC has developed a model called SCORE which incorporates age, gender, smoking, systolic blood pressure, and total cholesterol (or total cholesterol/HDL-cholesterol ratio). 1 This model does not take into account several other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which may be relevant for modulating the disease risk, on the grounds that their impact on risk estimation is still uncertain. In the SCORE project article, resting heart rate was not even included in the list of the risk factors still under scrutiny. Yet, a large number of studies have shown that high heart rate is prospectively related to the development of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality,2–6 an association which was independent of other risk factors for atherosclerosis. The predictive power of heart rate for cardiovascular disease was observed in general populations,2,3 in elderly subjects,4,5 in hypertensive cohorts,4 and in patients with myocardial infarction.6 Further evidence in this respect is provided in the excellent article by Diaz et al. ,7 who studied the prognostic importance of resting heart rate for total and cardiovascular mortality in a large cohort of patients with stable coronary artery disease from the Coronary Artery Surgery Study (CASS) during a 15 year follow-up. In this study, subjects of … *Corresponding author. Tel: +39 049 821 2278; fax: +39 049 875 4179. E-mail address : palatini{at}unipd.it
Leveraging Human Brain Activity to Improve Object Classification

Today, most object detection algorithms differ drastically from how humans tackle visual problems. In this thesis, I present a new paradigm for improving machine vision algorithms by designing them to better mimic how humans approach these tasks. Specifically, I demonstrate how human brain activity from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be leveraged to improve object classification. Inspired by the graduated manner in which humans learn, I present a novel algorithm that simulates learning in a similar fashion by more aggressively penalizing the misclassification of certain training datum. I propose a method to learn annotations that capture the difficulty of detecting an object in an image from auxilliary brain activity data. I then demonstrate how to leverage these annotations by using a modified definition of Support Vector Machines (SVMs) that uses these annotations to weight training data in an object classification task. An experimental comparison between my procedure and a parallel control shows that my techniques provide significant improvements in object classification. In particular, my protocol empirically halved the gap in classification accuracy between SVM classifiers that used state-of-the-art, yet computationally intensive convolutional neural net (CNN) features and those that used out-of-thebox, efficient histogram of oriented gradients (HOG) descriptors. Further analysis demonstrates that my experimental results support findings in neuroimaging literature about the roles different cortical regions play in object recognition.
Parity associated with telomere length among US reproductive age women

STUDY QUESTION Is telomere length related to parity among a nationally representative sample of US reproductive age women? SUMMARY ANSWER History of live birth was associated with shorter telomere length. WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY Shorter telomeres have been linked with a range of chronic health conditions and mortality and parity has been associated with health indicators. However, there is a lack of research on how parity relates to telomere length. STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION This nationally representative, cross-sectional study included 1954 women from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1999-2002, the only survey period which includes measurement of telomere length. PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS Women aged 20-44 were included. Parity, defined as number of previous live births, was ascertained by questionnaire. Leukocyte telomere length was measured by polymerase chain reaction and reported as a ratio in relation to standard reference DNA (T/S ratio). The relationship between leukocyte T/S ratio and parity was examined using survey weighted linear regression. Models were adjusted for race/ethnicity, age, BMI, income-to-poverty ratio, education, early age at menarche and smoking status. MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE Among reproductive age women in the US, the adjusted mean leukocyte T/S ratio was 4.2% (95% CI: 0.9, 7.3) shorter in parous compared with nulliparous women. Parity was associated with 116 fewer base pairs (95% CI: 26, 204) on average, using estimated coefficients from the adjusted linear regression models and mean covariate values. LIMITATIONS REASONS FOR CAUTION This study was cross-sectional and therefore was unable to establish temporality. The dataset lacked information on social factors, stress and fertility status, which may help explain these findings. Only two previous studies have examined this question and our findings should be interpreted with caution. WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS These findings in a nationally representative sample of US reproductive age women suggest that history of live birth may be associated with accelerated cellular aging. The magnitude of the observed association was greater than that of the impact of smoking or obesity on telomere length, suggesting that parity may have an independent influence on cellular aging and warrant further study. STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S) The study was funded in part by the Undergraduate Research Scholars Program at George Mason University. The authors have no conflicts of interest. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER NA.
Prioritizing forest fuels treatments based on the probability of high‐severity fire restores adaptive capacity in Sierran forests

In frequent fire forests of the western United States, a legacy of fire suppression coupled with increases in fire weather severity have altered fire regimes and vegetation dynamics. When coupled with projected climate change, these conditions have the potential to lead to vegetation type change and altered carbon (C) dynamics. In the Sierra Nevada, fuels reduction approaches that include mechanical thinning followed by regular prescribed fire are one approach to restore the ability of the ecosystem to tolerate episodic fire and still sequester C. Yet, the spatial extent of the area requiring treatment makes widespread treatment implementation unlikely. We sought to determine if a priori knowledge of where uncharacteristic wildfire is most probable could be used to optimize the placement of fuels treatments in a Sierra Nevada watershed. We developed two treatment placement strategies: the naive strategy, based on treating all operationally available area and the optimized strategy, which only treated areas where crown‐killing fires were most probable. We ran forecast simulations using projected climate data through 2,100 to determine how the treatments differed in terms of C sequestration, fire severity, and C emissions relative to a no‐management scenario. We found that in both the short (20 years) and long (100 years) term, both management scenarios increased C stability, reduced burn severity, and consequently emitted less C as a result of wildfires than no‐management. Across all metrics, both scenarios performed the same, but the optimized treatment required significantly less C removal (naive=0.42 Tg C, optimized=0.25 Tg C) to achieve the same treatment efficacy. Given the extent of western forests in need of fire restoration, efficiently allocating treatments is a critical task if we are going to restore adaptive capacity in frequent‐fire forests.
Physiopathological factors affecting the diagnostic value of serum HE4-test for gynecologic malignancies

ABSTRACT Introduction: Serum epididymis protein 4 (HE4) represents a useful biomarker for the management of ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer patients. However, HE4 levels are affected by many physiopathological conditions or disorders that should be taken into consideration for an efficient application of this biomarker. Areas covered: The review provides an up-to-date reference on the multiple physiopathological factors that cause fluctuation of HE4 serum levels, and evaluates their impact on HE4-test in clinical settings. Potential mechanisms underlying the regulation of HE4 expression are also discussed. The review is based on data from literature search of PubMed and the author’s opinions. Expert commentary: Studies have shown that physiopathological factors such as age, infection/inflammation, renal function, menopause and hormonal levels impose significant impacts on HE4 serum levels. HE4 amount shed into the circulation is related to HE4 expression and secretion by tumor as well as normal tissues, which is affected by cancer heterogeneity, vascular permeability, renal clearance and HE4 degradation. Investigation on interfering factors builds a basis for the construction of a quantitative logarithm for individualized application of HE4-test in clinical settings.
Relationship between disturbed eating behavior and other psychosomatic symptoms in adolescents.

BACKGROUND There has been relatively little research on subthreshold eating disorders and factors which might promote their transition to eating disorders. METHODS A sample consisting of 1,944 Swiss adolescents of both sexes, 14-19 years of age, was investigated for eating behavior (EAT-26), psychological (SCL-90-R) and physical symptoms (GSCL-C). In addition, the relationship between eating behavior and other psychosomatic symptoms was analyzed. RESULTS The results revealed significantly higher scores for females than males on all except one scale of the questionnaires. Three categories of disturbed eating behavior based on the EAT scores were described: EAT 0-9 = not disturbed (77.5% girls, 93.1% boys), EAT 10-19 = moderately disturbed (14.1% girls, 5.5% boys), and EAT > or = 20 = severely disturbed (8.3% girls, 1.5% boys). With regard to the three aspects, eating habits, psychosomatic symptoms and suicidality a significant correlation between disturbed eating behavior and concurrent psychological and physical symptoms was found in female but not in male subjects. CONCLUSIONS The results emphasized that disordered eating behavior has to be seen as part of a broader psychopathological syndrome, especially in young women.
Oxidation Behavior of Austenitic Heat-resisting Steels in a High Temperature and High Pressure Steam Environment

Using a steam oxidation testing apparatus, operating under almost the same steam conditions as those in actual boilers, the influences of temperature and pressure (especially above critical pressure) on steam oxidation were investigated with austenitic heat-resisting steels such as SUS 347-HTB, 17-14CuMo, and the newly-developed 20Cr-25Ni and 22Cr-35Ni steels for advanced fossil steam plants.Oxidation loss in weight increased with higher steam pressure and temperature. Increase of Cr and Ni contents improved the oxidation resistance. Cr concentration in inner scale increased with Cr content of steel. This caused the higher resistance to steam oxidation.The existence of a Ni enriched layer at the scale and metal interface contributed to the improvement of steam oxidation resistance. The Ni concentration of the layer was higher in steels containing a higher Ni content.Morphological investigation of the scale cross sections showed that considerably large amounts of voids and cavities were produced in the outer scale of SUS 347HTB and 17-14CuMo steels oxidized in steam at high temperature and pressure.
An evaluation of sequential model-based optimization for expensive blackbox functions

We benchmark a sequential model-based optimization procedure, SMAC-BBOB, on the BBOB set of blackbox functions. We demonstrate that with a small budget of 10xD evaluations of D-dimensional functions, SMAC-BBOB in most cases outperforms the state-of-the-art blackbox optimizer CMA-ES. However, CMA-ES benefits more from growing the budget to 100xD, and for larger number of function evaluations SMAC-BBOB also requires increasingly large computational resources for building and using its models.