Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DNA image cytometry test for primary screening of esophageal cancer: a population-based multi-center study in high-risk areas in China

Objective To evaluate the feasibility of DNA image cytometry (DNA-ICM) as a primary screening method for esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC). Methods A total of 5,382 local residents aged 40–69 years from three high-risk areas in China (Linzhou in Henan province, Feicheng in Shandong province and Cixian in Hebei province) from 2008 to 2011 were recruited in this population-based screening study. And 2,526 subjects declined to receive endoscopic biopsy examination with Lugol’s iodine staining, while 9 and 815 subjects were excluded from liquid-based cytology and DNA-ICM test respectively due to slide quality. Finally, 2,856, 5,373 and 4,567 subjects were enrolled in the analysis for endoscopic biopsy examination, liquid-based cytology and DNA-ICM test, respectively. Sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), negative predictive values (NPV) and positive predictive values (PPV) as well as their 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for DNA-ICM, liquid-based cytology and the combination of the two methods were calculated. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were applied to determine the cutoff point of DNA-ICM for esophageal cancer. Results DNA-ICM results were significantly correlative with esophageal cancer and precancer lesions (χ2=18.016, P<0.001). The cutoff points were 5,802, 5,803 and 8,002 based on dissimilar pathological types of low grade intraepithelial neoplasia (LGIN), high grade intraepithelial neoplasia (HGIN), and ESCC, respectively, and 5,803 was chosen in this study considering the SE and SP. The SE, SP, PPV, NPV of DNA-ICM test (cutoff point 5,803) combined with liquid-based cytology [threshold atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS)] were separately 72.1% (95% CI: 70.3%-73.9%), 43.3% (95% CI: 41.3%-45.3%), 22.8% (95% CI: 21.1%-24.5%) and 87.0% (95% CI: 85.7%-88.3%) for LGIN, 85.7% (95% CI: 84.3%-87.1%), 41.3% (95% CI: 39.3%-43.3%), 4.6% (95% CI: 3.8%-5.4%) and 98.9% (95% CI: 98.5%-99.3%) for HGIN, and 96.0% (95% CI: 95.2%-96.8%), 40.8% (95% CI: 38.8%-42.8%), 1.7% (95% CI: 1.2%-2.2%) and 99.9% (95% CI: 99.8%-100.0%) for ESCC. Conclusions It is possible to use DNA-ICM test as a primary screening method before endoscopic screening for esophageal cancer.
Evaluation of Adhesion and Hysteresis Friction of Rubber–Pavement System

Tire-pavement friction is a key component in road safety. Adhesion and hysteresis are the two main mechanisms that affect the friction between rubber tires and pavements. This study experimentally examined the relationship between rubber–pavement adhesion and friction. The adhesive bond energy between rubber and pavement surfaces was calculated by measuring the surface energy components of rubber and aggregates. The friction was measured in the laboratory using a dynamic friction tester. The results revealed that there is a fair correlation between the adhesive bond energy and measured coefficient of friction. A rubber–pavement system with higher adhesion provided higher friction at low speed. In addition, the results demonstrated that there is a strong correlation between rubber–pavement friction and rubber properties. Softer rubber provided higher friction and vice versa. The results of this study provide an experimental verification of the relationship between adhesion and pavement surface friction. The adhesive bond energy and rubber rheological properties could be incorporated in computational models to study tire-pavement friction in different conditions (e.g., speed and temperature).
Mercury Exposure of Maroon Workers in the Small Scale Gold Mining in Suriname

Abstract Suriname is experiencing a revival of small scale gold mining activities, with about 10,000 to 15,000 workers involved in 1996. The estimated production in 1995 is at least 10,000 kg crude gold. Gold is extracted with mercury and methods used are comparable with those described for gold mining in the Amazon Basin. Since no data exist on the internal mercury exposure of workers in Suriname a study was performed. A group of mercury-exposed Maroons, who are principally involved in the mining located in the tropical rainforest, is compared with nonexposed Maroons living in a non-gold mining area. Blood and urine samples of both groups were analyzed for total mercury using an atomic absorption spectrometer with an FIAS hydride system. In the study 28 exposed and 17 controls with a comparable mean age (P=0.544; exposed 27±7.2 years,n=26; controls 26±7.7 years,n=17), all males, participated. The urine levels for both groups differ statistically significantly from each other (P
Performance Analysis of Sensing-Based Semi-Persistent Scheduling in C-V2X Networks

The 3rd Generation Partnership Project released the cellular vehicular-to-everything (C-V2X) specifications as part of the LTE framework in Release 14. C-V2X is the alternative to dedicated short range communications and both are specifically designed for V2X control signaling. C-V2X extends the device-to-de-vice specifications by adding two more modes of operation targeting the vehicular environment in coverage and out of coverage of LTE base stations. Vehicle-to-vehicle communications (V2V) is established with Mode 4, where the devices schedule their transmissions in a distributed way employing sensing-based semi-persis-tent scheduling (SPS). Research is needed to assess the performance of SPS, especially in congested radio environments. This paper presents the first open-source C-V2X simulator that enables such research. The simulator is implemented in ns-3. We analyze the effect of the Mode 4 resource pool configuration and some of the key SPS parameters on the scheduling performance and find that the resource reservation interval significantly influences packet data rate performance, whereas resource reselection probability has little effect in dense vehicular highway scenarios. Our results show that proper configuration of scheduling parameters can significantly improve performance. We conclude that research on congestion control mechanisms is needed to further enhance the SPS performance for many practical use cases.
Bond strength of self-adhesive resin cements to deep dentin

Introduction and objective: Self-adhesive resin cements are applied in only one clinical step whose technique is considered less sensitive and of easy handling. However, there is some concern relating to a reliable and effective bonding to tooth structure, particularly when dentin is involved. The aim of this study was to evaluate microtensile bond strength of self-adhesive resin cements to deep dentin as well as to discuss some concepts involving these materials. Material and methods: Twenty-eight freshly extracted third molars were used. Their crowns were sectioned using a diamond disc (Isomet) to obtain occlusal deep dentin flat surfaces. The teeth were randomly assigned to four groups (n = 7): RelyX ARC/3M ESPE conventional resin cement (Group 1), and three self-adhesive resin cements – RelyX U100/3M ESPE (Group 2), Set/SDI (Group 3) and Maxcem/Kerr (Group 4). The products were applied according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Tetric EvoCeram (Ivoclar Vivadent) blocks were used to simulate indirect restorations that were cemented onto the dentin surfaces. These blocks were sandblasted with oxide aluminum before adhesive procedures. The samples were stored in distilled water at 37±2°C for one week. Following, the samples were prepared for microtensile bond strength tests, which were performed at a crosshead speed of 1.0 mm/min until failure. Tensile bond strength data were calculated and the results were statistically analyzed by two-way ANOVA and Tukey test (p < 0.05). Results: The means (SD) (in MPa) were – Group 1: 14.7a(5.7); Group 2: 7.5b (2.3); Group 3: 5.6b (2.1); and Group 4: 4.7b(1.4). ANOVA showed significant differences and Tukey test identified differences among groups. Group 1 showed the highest bond strength mean. Bond strength mean of the other self-adhesive resin cements to dentin did not show statistical difference among them. Conclusion:Self-adhesive resin cements showed lower bond strength to dentin than RelyX ARC conventional resin cement. The highest bond strength mean of RelyX ARC is related to its mechanism of action. However, the mechanism of action involved in self-adhesive resin cements seems to be effective for clinical use if a proper prosthetic dental preparation is observed.
Incentives and the Structure of Communication

This paper analyzes the incentives that arise within an organization when communication is restricted to a particular network structure (e.g., a hierarchy). We show that restricting communication between the principal and agents may create incentives for the agents to misbehave when transmitting information and tasks throughout the organization. To remedy this issue, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions on the topology of the network of communication such that restricting communication to a particular network does not restrict the set of outcomes that the principal could otherwise achieve. We show that for any underlying incentives and any outcome available when communication is unrestricted, there exists a communication scheme restricted to a particular network that implements this outcome (i.e., does not induce agents to misbehave in the communication phase) if and only if that network satisfies our conditions.
Heightened stress responsiveness and emotional reactivity during pubertal maturation: Implications for psychopathology

Abstract The onset of adolescence, and more specifically the advent of pubertal maturation, represents a key developmental window for understanding the emergence of psychopathology in youth. The papers in this special section examine normative differences in the neurobiology of stress and emotional functioning over the peripubertal period. The work in this special section helps to fill in gaps in our understanding of key mechanisms that may contribute to increased vulnerabilities in behavioral and psychiatric morbidity during this developmental period.
Automatic Metric Validation for Grammatical Error Correction

Metric validation in Grammatical Error Correction (GEC) is currently done by observing the correlation between human and metric-induced rankings. However, such correlation studies are costly, methodologically troublesome, and suffer from low inter-rater agreement. We propose MAEGE, an automatic methodology for GEC metric validation, that overcomes many of the difficulties in the existing methodology. Experiments with MAEGE shed a new light on metric quality, showing for example that the standard M^2 metric fares poorly on corpus-level ranking. Moreover, we use MAEGE to perform a detailed analysis of metric behavior, showing that some types of valid edits are consistently penalized by existing metrics.
Thermal IR emissivity of oil films on sea surfaces under moderate winds

Oil slick detection, identification, and even quantization are of great interest in the context of oil spill countermeasures. As a first approximation, it can be assumed that at radar wavelengths, as the oil film thickness is much inferior to the wavelength, the electromagnetic wave cannot “see” the thickness H [1]; consequently, it could be concluded that the radar response is not significantly sensitive to H. By contrast, at infrared (IR) wavelengths, as the wavelength λ is in the same order as the oil film thickness H, the electromagnetic response sensitivity with respect to H can be hoped for.
Identification of Over-Represented Combinations of Transcription Factor Binding Sites in Sets of Co-Expressed Genes

Transcription regulation is mediated by combinatorial interactions between diverse trans-acting proteins and arrays of cis-regulatory sequences. Revealing this complex interplay between transcription factors and binding sites remains a fundamental problem for understanding the flow of genetic information. The oPOSSUM analysis system facilitates the interpretation of gene expression data through the analysis of transcription factor binding sites shared by sets of co-expressed genes. The system is based on cross-species sequence comparisons for phylogenetic footprinting and motif models for binding site prediction. We introduce a new set of analysis algorithms for the study of the combinatorial properties of transcription factor binding sites shared by sets of co-expressed genes. The new methods circumvent computational challenges through an applied focus on families of transcription factors with similar binding properties. The algorithm accurately identifies combinations of binding sites over-represented in reference collections and clarifies the results obtained by existing methods for the study of isolated binding sites.
Identification of Peptides in Flowers of Sambucus nigra with Antimicrobial Activity against Aquaculture Pathogens

The elder (Sambucus spp.) tree has a number of uses in traditional medicine. Previous studies have demonstrated the antimicrobial properties of elderberry liquid extract against human pathogenic bacteria and also influenza viruses. These properties have been mainly attributed to phenolic compounds. However, other plant defense molecules, such as antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), may be present. Here, we studied peptide extracts from flowers of Sambucus nigra L. The mass spectrometry analyses determined peptides of 3 to 3.6 kDa, among them, cysteine-rich peptides were identified with antimicrobial activity against various Gram-negative bacteria, including recurrent pathogens of Chilean aquaculture. In addition, membrane blebbing on the bacterial surface after exposure to the cyclotide was visualized by SEM microscopy and SYTOX Green permeabilization assay showed the ability to disrupt the bacterial membrane. We postulate that these peptides exert their action by destroying the bacterial membrane.
Genomic analysis of Salmonella enterica serotype Paratyphi A during an outbreak in Cambodia, 2013–2015

In 2013, an unusual increase in the number of Salmonella enterica serotype Paratyphi A (Salmonella Paratyphi A) infections was reported in patients in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and in European, American and Japanese travellers returning from Cambodia. Epidemiological investigations did not identify a common source of exposure. To analyse the population structure and genetic diversity of these Salmonella Paratyphi A isolates, we used whole-genome sequencing on 65 isolates collected from 1999 to 2014: 55 from infections acquired in Cambodia and 10 from infections acquired in other countries in Asia, Africa and Europe. Short-read sequences from 80 published genomes from around the world and from 13 published genomes associated with an outbreak in China were also included. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was performed on a subset of isolates. Genomic analyses were found to provide much more accurate information for tracking the individual strains than PFGE. All but 2 of the 36 isolates acquired in Cambodia during 2013–2014 belonged to the same clade, C5, of lineage C. This clade has been isolated in Cambodia since at least 1999. The Chinese outbreak isolates belonged to a different clade (C4) and were resistant to nalidixic acid, whereas the Cambodian outbreak isolates displayed pan-susceptibility to antibiotics. Since 2014, the total number of cases has decreased, but there has been an increase in the frequency with which nalidixic acid-resistant C5 isolates are isolated. The frequency of these isolates should be monitored over time, because they display decreased susceptibility to ciprofloxacin, the first-choice antibiotic for treating paratyphoid fever.
Adaptive Spectral Galerkin Methods with Dynamic Marking

The convergence and optimality theory of adaptive Galerkin methods is almost exclusively based on the Dorfler marking. This entails a fixed parameter and leads to a contraction constant bounded below away from zero. For spectral Galerkin methods this is a severe limitation which affects performance. We present a dynamic marking strategy that allows for a super-linear relation between consecutive discretization errors, and show exponential convergence with linear computational complexity whenever the solution belongs to a Gevrey approximation class.
Learning an adjective. The impact of descriptive information / Aprendiendo un adjetivo. El impacto de la información descriptiva

Abstract Picture books are a symbolic means by which children often learn words in everyday interactions with adults. The aim of this research was to study the impact of descriptive information on learning an adjective by using a picture book. We found that whilst this information helped three-year-olds learn the adjective, it was not effective for two-and-a-half-year-olds. It seems that for three-year-olds this descriptive clue contributed to the creation of a zone of proximal development where the teaching/learning process could unfold. This research is in line with studies that underscore the central role of social interaction in general and instruction in particular during the process of cognitive development and learning.
Urban forests sustain diverse carrion beetle assemblages in the New York City metropolitan area

Urbanization is an increasingly pervasive form of land transformation that reduces biodiversity of many taxonomic groups. Beetles exhibit a broad range of responses to urbanization, likely due to the high functional diversity in this order. Carrion beetles (Order: Coleoptera, Family: Silphidae) provide an important ecosystem service by promoting decomposition of small-bodied carcasses, and have previously been found to decline due to forest fragmentation caused by urbanization. However, New York City (NYC) and many other cities have fairly large continuous forest patches that support dense populations of small mammals, and thus may harbor relatively robust carrion beetle communities in city parks. In this study, we investigated carrion beetle community composition, abundance and diversity in forest patches along an urban-to-rural gradient spanning the urban core (Central Park, NYC) to outlying rural areas. We conducted an additional study comparing the current carrion beetle community at a single suburban site in Westchester County, NY that was intensively surveyed in the early 1970’s. We collected a total of 2,170 carrion beetles from eight species at 13 sites along this gradient. We report little to no effect of urbanization on carrion beetle diversity, although two species were not detected in any urban parks. Nicrophorus tomentosus was the most abundant species at all sites and seemed to dominate the urban communities, potentially due to its generalist habits and shallower burying depth compared to the other beetles surveyed. Variation between species body size, habitat specialization, and % forest area surrounding the surveyed sites also did not influence carrion beetle communities. Lastly, we found few significant differences in relative abundance of 10 different carrion beetle species between 1974 and 2015 at a single site in Westchester County, NY, although two of the rare species in the early 1970’s were not detected in 2015. These results indicate that NYC’s forested parks have the potential to sustain carrion beetle communities and the ecosystem services they provide.
High levels of circulating endothelial progenitor cells in patients with diabetic retinopathy are positively associated with ARHGAP22 expression

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a common microvascular complication of diabetes. Circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are derived from bone marrow and are characterized by pathological retinal neovascularization. Rho GTPase Activating Protein 22 (ARHGAP22) is a DR susceptibility gene that interacts with its downstream regulatory protein ras-related C3 botulinum toxin substrate 1 (Rac1), to assist in endothelial cell angiogenesis and increasing capillary permeability. The aim of this study was to elucidate the relationship between ARHGAP22 expression and EPC levels in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with DR. Fifty T2D patients with DR were recruited. Circulating EPCs were characterized as CD31+/vascular endothelial growth factor-2+/CD45dim/CD133+ and were quantified using triple staining flow cytometry. Real-time polymerase chain reaction tests were used to quantify ARHGAP22 expression. We found that T2D patients with proliferative DR had significantly lower EPC levels than those with non-proliferative DR (P = 0.028). T2D patients with EPC levels above the median value (> 4 cells/105 events) had higher levels of ARHGAP22 expression (P = 0.002). EPC levels were positively correlated with ARHGAP22 expression (r = 0.364, P = 0.009). Among T2D patients with DR, a higher expression of ARHGAP22 was associated with higher levels of EPCs. ARHGAP22 may be involved in the mobilization or active circulation of EPCs, thus contributing to neovascularization during DR development.
Diarrheagenic Escherichia coli infection in Baltimore, Maryland, and New Haven, Connecticut.

BACKGROUND Diarrhea remains a common complaint among US patients who seek medical attention. METHODS We performed a prospective study to determine the etiology of diarrheal illness among patients and control subjects of all ages presenting to the emergency departments and outpatient clinics of 2 large academic hospitals in Baltimore, Maryland, and New Haven, Connecticut. We used molecular methods to detect the presence of diarrheagenic Escherichia coli pathotypes, including enteroaggregative E. coli (EAEC), as well as Shiga toxin-producing, cytodetaching, enterotoxigenic and enteropathogenic E. coli. RESULTS Of the pathotypes sought, only EAEC was found in an appreciable proportion (4.5%) of case patients, and it was found more frequently among case patients than control subjects (P<.02). Surprisingly, EAEC was the most common bacterial cause of diarrhea in our population. EAEC was common in all age strata and was not associated with foreign travel or immunodeficiency. EAEC infection is frequently accompanied by fever and abdominal pain, though this did not happen more frequently in patients with EAEC infection than in patients with diarrhea due to other causes. CONCLUSIONS Our data suggest that EAEC infection should be considered among persons with diarrhea that does not yield another known etiologic agent.
The Best of Both Worlds: Combining Recent Advances in Neural Machine Translation

The past year has witnessed rapid advances in sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) modeling for Machine Translation (MT). The classic RNN-based approaches to MT were first out-performed by the convolutional seq2seq model, which was then out-performed by the more recent Transformer model. Each of these new approaches consists of a fundamental architecture accompanied by a set of modeling and training techniques that are in principle applicable to other seq2seq architectures. In this paper, we tease apart the new architectures and their accompanying techniques in two ways. First, we identify several key modeling and training techniques, and apply them to the RNN architecture, yielding a new RNMT+ model that outperforms all of the three fundamental architectures on the benchmark WMT’14 English to French and English to German tasks. Second, we analyze the properties of each fundamental seq2seq architecture and devise new hybrid architectures intended to combine their strengths. Our hybrid models obtain further improvements, outperforming the RNMT+ model on both benchmark datasets.