Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Simple non-invasive biomarkers of advanced fibrosis in the evaluation of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Background and aims. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common, morbid disease with profound implications for the overall health of the patient. We set out to determine the clinical predictors of advanced histology in the referral population. Methods. We performed a retrospective review of all biopsy-proven NAFLD patients, including 358 unique patients first seen between 1996 and 2009. Liver histology and ultrasound images were reviewed prospectively by clinicians who were blinded to clinical information and test indication. Results. Compared with men, women tended to present at an older age (51.4 ± 10.6 vs 45.3 ± 11.2 years, P < 0.001), were more likely to be Caucasian (P = 0.003), less likely to present with an elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (75.2% vs 88.8%), and more likely to have advanced non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) (44.7% vs 29.9%; P = 0.04) and advanced fibrosis (23.3% vs 14.1%; P = 0.03). In multivariate logistic regression, body mass index (BMI) ≥30 kg/m2 (odds ratio (OR) 2.21; 95% confidential interval (CI): 1.23–4.08), female gender (OR 1.76; 95% CI: 1.01–3.10) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) >40 IU/L (OR 2.00; 95% CI: 1.14–3.55) were associated with a NAFLD activity score >4. The sensitivity and specificity of an AST to platelet ratio index (APRI) >1 for significant fibrosis was 30.0% (95% CI: 17.2–45.4%) and 92.8% (95% CI: 88.2-95.8%), respectively; the likelihood ratio is 4.2. In multivariate logistic regression, APRI >1 was the most significant predictor of advanced fibrosis (OR 3.85; 95% CI: 1.55–9.59). In patients without ultrasound-detected steatosis, 20% had advanced fibrosis and 16.7% had active NASH. Conclusion. Patients with suspected NAFLD should routinely be evaluated for advanced liver disease, including non-invasive indices of fibrosis such as APRI, and serious consideration given to liver biopsy.
A specific attentional bias in panic disorder?

According to cognitive theories, panic patients are assumed to have an attentional bias toward bodily sensations. To date, there is only some indirect evidence of such a bias measured by an emotional Stroop task. Moreover, the content and disorder specificity of this bias is rather unclear. The aim of this study was to investigate the specificity of attentional bias in patients with panic disorder (PD). Patients with PD (n=32), patients with mixed anxiety disorders (n=25), and a healthy control group (n=26) performed an emotional Stroop task with three word types: panic threat, general threat, and neutral. There were no differences on reaction times between the different groups, or on the different word types. Despite the generally accepted existence of attentional biases in anxiety disorders, we found no evidence of a specific attentional bias in patients with PD. Depression and Anxiety, 2008. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Examining political efficacy among Malaysian voters: The role of traditional and new media

The technological advancement and political situations have dramatically impacted the way traditional and new media have played their role in society, especially in the political development of the country. Studying media use and credibility have been a major concern among scholars to understand audience perceptions and attitudes towards the media and their role in politics. This study investigated the level of media use and credibility among voters and their perception of political efficacy. Drawing on a nationwide quota sampling of 2030 respondents, the findings found voter perception on the media as credible, with the highest trust being on television, followed by newspapers and radio. Internet was found to be the least credible. A factor analysis performed on the political efficacy items extracted three dimensions: Voter Efficacy, Internal Efficacy and External Efficacy. The results of hierarchical regression suggested that traditional and new media use as well as media trust dimensions were significantly correlated with political efficacy but different media use and credibility contributed differently to the various efficacy dimensions. Implications and recommendations are further discussed.
An introduction to morphological neural networks

The theory of artificial neural networks has been successfully applied to a wide variety of pattern recognition problems. In this paper we introduce a novel class of neural networks, called morphological neural networks, in which the operations of multiplication and addition are replaced by addition and maximum (or minimum), respectively. By taking the maximum (or minimum) of sums instead of the sum of products, morphological network computation is nonlinear before thresholding. As a consequence, the properties of morphological neural networks are drastically different than those of traditional neural network models. In this paper we consider some of these differences and examine the computing capabilities of morphological neural networks. As particular examples of a morphological neural network we discuss morphological associative memories and morphological perceptrons.
Relativistic lattice Boltzmann method for quark-gluon plasma simulations

(Dated: September 13, 2011)In this paper, we investigate the recently developed lattice Boltzmann model for relativistic hydro-dynamics. To this purpose, we perform simulations of shock waves in quark-gluon plasma in the lowand high viscosities regime, using three diﬀerent computational models, the relativistic lattice Boltz-mann (RLB), the Boltzmann Approach Multi-Parton Scattering (BAMPS), and the viscous sharpand smooth transport algorithm (vSHASTA). From the results, we conclude that the RLB modeldeparts from BAMPS in the case of high speeds and high temperature(viscosities), the departurebeing due to the fact that the RLB is based on a quadratic approximation of the Maxwell-Ju¨ttnerdistribution, which is only valid for suﬃciently low temperature and velocity. Furthermore, we haveinvestigated the inﬂuence of the lattice speed on the results, and shown that inclusion of quadraticterms in the equilibrium distribution improves the stability of the method within its domain ofapplicability. Finally, we assess the viability of the RLB model in the various parameter regimesrelevant to ultra-relativistic ﬂuid dynamics.
Preserved autonomic regulation in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) – a prospective, comparative study

Abstract Heart rate and blood pressure variability as well as baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) lead to additional insights on the patients’ prognosis after cardiovascular events. The following study was performed to assess the differences in the postoperative recovery of the autonomic regulation after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) and surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR). Fifty-eight consecutive patients were enrolled in a prospective study; 24 underwent TAVI and 34 SAVR. BRS was calculated according to the Dual Sequence Method, heart rate variability (HRV) was evaluated using standard linear as well as nonlinear parameters. HRV and BRS parameters were reduced after surgery in patients with SAVR only (meanNN: p<0.001, sdNN: p<0.05, Shannon: p<0.01, BRS: p<0.01), while these indexes were preserved in patients after TAVI. Simultaneously, an increased complexity of blood pressure (BP) in SAVR patients (fwShannon: p<0.001, fwRenyi4: p<0.001), but not in TAVI patients was recorded. In this study we were able to demonstrate for the first time that, in contrast to patients undergoing conventional open surgery, there are fewer alterations of the cardiovascular autonomic system in patients with TAVI.
Opaque Trading, Disclosure and Asset Prices: Implications for Hedge Fund Regulation

We investigate the effect of ambiguity about hedge fund investment strategies on asset prices and aggregate welfare. We model some traders (mutual funds) as facing ambiguity about the equilibrium trading strategies of other traders (hedge funds). This ambiguity limits the ability of mutual funds to infer information from prices and has negative effects on market outcomes. We use this analysis to investigate the implications of regulations that affect disclosure requirements of hedge funds or the cost of operating a hedge fund. Our analysis demonstrates how regulations affect asset prices and welfare through their influence on opaque trading.
A Scan of Molecular Variation Leads to the Narrow Localization of a Selective Sweep Affecting Both Afrotropical and Cosmopolitan Populations of Drosophila melanogaster

Drosophila melanogaster originated in tropical Africa but has achieved a cosmopolitan distribution in association with human habitation. Cosmopolitan populations of D. melanogaster are known to have reduced genetic variation, particularly on the X chromosome. However, the relative importance of population bottlenecks and selective sweeps in explaining this reduction is uncertain. We surveyed variation at 31 microsatellites across a 330-kb section of the X chromosome located between the white and kirre genes. Two linked clusters of loci were observed with reduced variation and a skew toward rare alleles in both an Ecuador and a Zimbabwe population sample. Examining Zimbabwe DNA sequence polymorphism within one of these regions allowed us to localize a selective sweep to a 361-bp window within the 5′ regulatory region of the roughest gene, with one nucleotide substitution representing the best candidate for the target of selection. Estimates of sweep age suggested that this fixation event occurred prior to the expansion of D. melanogaster from sub-Saharan Africa. For both putative sweep regions in our data set, cosmopolitan populations showed wider footprints of selection compared to those in Zimbabwe. This pattern appears consistent with the demographic amplification of preexisting sweep signals due to one or more population bottlenecks.
Semantics vs. world knowledge in prefrontal cortex

Humans have knowledge about the properties of their native language at various levels of representation; sound, structure, and meaning computation constitute the core components of any linguistic theory. Although the brain sciences have engaged with representational theories of sound and syntactic structure, the study of the neural bases of sentence-level semantic computation has so far focused on manipulations that mainly vary knowledge about the world, and not necessarily linguistic knowledge about meaning, as defined by formal semantics. In this MEG study, we vary both semantic and world knowledge in the same experiment, and show that semantic violations, but not world knowledge violations, elicit an effect in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), while both types of violations engage the left inferior prefrontal cortex. In our previous work, we have shown that the vmPFC is also sensitive to various types of ‘coercions’, i.e., operations that repair semantic type-mismatch. Together, these results suggest that the vmPFC is involved in the composition of complex meaning, but not in the evaluation of whether an expression fits one's knowledge of the world.
Identifying Individuals using Identity Features and Social Information

This paper presents an approach for the disambiguation of individuals using the semantics of identity and social circles. Identity information is extracted and integrated to provide a presentation of existing identity information currently on the web relating to a given individual. Communities are used to discover identity resources, share them socially, and critique the resources based on the accuracy and volume of their content. As motivation for this research issues concerning identity theft, online fraud and cyber stalking are considered, where the growth of the social web has contributed to the rise in such practices. Monitoring identity on the web would go some way to addressing these issues.
Interactive Video Game Cycling Leads to Higher Energy Expenditure and Is More Enjoyable than Conventional Exercise in Adults

Background Despite the widely accepted health benefits of regular physical activity, only a small percentage of the population meets the current recommendations. The reasons include a wide use of technology and a lack of enjoyment while exercising. The purpose of this study was to compare the physiological, perceptual and enjoyment responses between a single bout of (I) conventional cycling and (II) interactive cycling video game at a matched workload. Methods A cross-sectional study in 34 healthy participants was performed. Initially, participants completed an incremental maximal cycling test to measure peak oxygen uptake and to determine ventilatory threshold. In random order, participants carried out a 30 min interactive cycling trial and a 30 min conventional cycling trial at 55% of peak power output. During the trials, oxygen uptake and energy expenditure were measured by open-circuit spirometry and heart rate was measured by radiotelemetry. RPE and enjoyment were measured every 10 minutes with Borg scale and a modified PACES scale. Results Interactive cycling resulted in a significantly greater %V̇O2Reserve (68.2% ± 9.2% vs 64.7% ± 8.1%), rate of energy expenditure (505.8±75.2 vs 487.4±81.2 j·kg-1·min-1), and enjoyment (63.4% ± 17 vs 42% ± 13.6), P<0.05. Participants were working at a higher intensity in relation to the individual’s ventilatory threshold during the interactive cycling video game trial (M = 11.86, SE = 3.08) than during the Conventional cycling trial (M = 7.55, SE = 3.16, t(33) = -2.69, P<0.05, r = . 42). No significant differences were found for heart rate reserve (72.5 ± 10.4 vs 71.4±10.1%) and RPE (13.1 ± 1.8 vs 13.2 ± 1.7). Conclusion Interactive cycling games can be a valid alternative to conventional exercise as they result in a higher exercise intensity than conventional cycling and a distraction from aversive cognitive and physiological states at and above the ventilatory threshold.
Reimagining Critical Care and Problematizing Sense of School Belonging as a Response to Inequality for Immigrants and Children of Immigrants

This chapter examines the factors that contribute to a sense of school belonging for immigrant and immigrant-origin youth. Through a review of the education research on critical care, the authors propose a framework informed by cariño conscientizado—critically conscious and authentic care—as central to reconceptualizing notions of school belonging. Research studies on teacher–student and peer relationships, student agency, and organizing are reviewed to identify how they function to disrupt structural factors that maintain educational inequities. Belonging as a concept is problematized through a re-envisioning of curriculum, pedagogy, and school–community relationships as a means to reduce inequality for immigrant and immigrant-origin youth and children.
Exact throughput capacity under power control in mobile ad hoc networks

The lack of a general capacity theory on mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is still a challenging roadblock stunting the application of such networks. The available works on this line mainly focus on deriving order sense results, which are helpful for us to explore the general scaling laws of throughput capacity but tell us little about the exact achievable throughput. This paper studies the exact per node throughput capacity of a MANET, where the transmission power of each node can be controlled to adapt to a specified transmission range v and a generalized two-hop relay with limited packet redundancy f is adopted for packet routing. Based on the concept of automatic feedback control and the Markov chain model, we first develop a general theoretical framework to fully depict the complicated packet delivery process in the challenging MANET environment. With the help of the framework, we are then able to derive the exact per node throughput capacity for a fixed setting of both v and f. Based on the new throughput result, we further explore the optimal throughput capacity for any f but a fixed v and also determine the corresponding optimum setting of f to achieve it. This result helps us to understand how such optimal capacity varies with v (and thus transmission power) and to find the maximum possible throughput capacity of such a network for any f and v. Surprisingly, our results here indicate that usually such maximum throughput capacity can not be achieved through the local transmission, a fact different from what is generally believed in literature.
Area-Efficient VLSI Design of Reed–Solomon Decoder for 10GBase-LX4 Optical Communication Systems

The Reed-Solomon (RS) code is a widely used forward error correction technique to cope with the channel impairments in fiber communication systems. The typical parallel RS architecture requires huge hardware cost to achieve very high speed transmission data rate for optical systems. This brief presents an area-efficient VLSI architecture of the RS decoder by using a novel just-in-time folding modified Euclidean algorithm (JIT-FMEA). The JIT-FMEA VLSI architecture can greatly reduce the hardware complexity by about 50% compared with the fully expanded parallel RS architecture. Meanwhile, it can achieve very high throughput rate for the 10Gbase-LX4 optical communication system. The proposed RS decoder architecture has been designed and implemented by using 0.18-mum CMOS standard cell technology at a supply voltage of 1.8 V. The post-layout simulation results show that the design requires only about 20 K gates and can achieve the data processing rate of 3.2 Gb/s at a clock frequency of 400 MHz
Measuring the quality of editorial peer review.

CONTEXT The quality of a process can only be tested against its agreed objectives. Editorial peer-review is widely used, yet there appears to be little agreement about how to measure its effects or processes. METHODS To identify outcome measures used to assess editorial peer review as performed by biomedical journals, we analyzed studies identified from 2 systematic reviews that measured the effects of editorial peer review on the quality of the output (ie, published articles) or of the process itself (eg, reviewers' comments). RESULTS Ten studies used a variety of instruments to assess the quality of articles that had undergone peer review. Only 1, nonrandomized study compared the quality of articles published in peer-reviewed and non-peer-reviewed journals. The others measured the effects of variations in the peer-review process or used a before-and-after design to measure the effects of standard peer review on accepted articles. Eighteen studies measured the quality of reviewers' reports under different conditions such as blinding or after training. One study compared the time and cost of different review processes. CONCLUSIONS Until we have properly defined the objectives of peer-review, it will remain almost impossible to assess or improve its effectiveness. The research needed to understand the broader effects of peer review poses many methodologic problems and would require the cooperation of many parts of the scientific community.
Rasamsonia pulvericola sp. nov., isolated from house dust

In the course of a global survey of the indoor mycobiota, we sampled and analysed settled dust from 87 buildings from 14 countries, using both a modified dilution-to-extinction method and 454-pyrosequencing. Rasamsonia is a recently established genus including thermotolerant or thermophilic species, five of which have been isolated from humans, including the emerging pathogen R. argillacea. A new species, R. pulvericola, was recovered from one residence in Songkhla, Thailand, and is morphologically characterised and compared phylogenetically with other members of the genus. Rasamsonia pulvericola forms a clade with R. brevistipitata and shares morphological characters such as usually biverticillate and never terverticillate conidiophores, and subglobose to ellipsoidal conidia. It has a lower maximum growth temperature and is the first mesophilic species added to the genus. The ITS sequence of R. pulvericola was not detected in the 454-pyrosequencing data for Thailand or other countries, but a similar ITS sequence was detected in Micronesia, probably representing another undescribed Rasamsonia species.
The motor hierarchy: from kinematics to goals and intentions

2 The idea of hierarchical organisation in the motor system has a long history, but the different components of the hierarchy have not been easy to localise in the human brain. We have recently developed a one-back paradigm for inducing repetition suppression in response to observed actions in fMRI, which allows different levels of the motor hierarchy to be examined independently within the same stimulus set. 31 participants viewed video clips of a hand taking a wine-bottle or a dumb-bell with either a precision or whole hand grip and performed one of four attentional tasks while fMRI images were acquired with a 3T scanner. We found suppression for repeated goals compared to novel goals in the anterior intraparietal sulcus (aIPS), cerebellum and basal ganglia, replicating previous results (Hamilton & Grafton, 2006). Suppression for repeated grasps compared to novel grasps was found in the lateral occipital cortex (LOC), middle intraparietal sulcus and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). An analysis of task revealed no main effects and no interactions between task and repetition suppression in any of the grasp or goal clusters. We suggest that these results are compatible with a model of the motor representational hierarchy in which aIPS represents goals or intentions and is placed at the top of the hierarchy. In this model, LOC provides a visual analysis of grasp, while IFG provides a motor analysis of grasp, both subsidiary to the goal representation in aIPS. We discuss this model in relation to other hierarchical control models, and in relation to the processing of actions for the self and others in the human mirror neuron system. Introduction An ordinary action such as a pouring a glass of wine can be understood on many levels. The barman will reach for and grasp the bottle, then transport it and tilt it over the glass, carefully controlling the angle to avoid spilling. These kinematic components each require a precisely orchestrated pattern of muscle activity guided by proprioceptive and visual feedback. But a drinker waiting for the barman to finish pouring would likely consider only the goal of the action – to provide some refreshment. Three broad levels of description can be distinguished in this example – the goal level incorporates the intention of the actor and the outcome of the action; the kinematic level describes the shape of the hand and the movement of the arm in space and time; while the muscle …
Does Regulation Induce Homogenization? An Analysis of Three Voucher Programs in the United States

We employ school and year fixed-effects regression to determine the effect of voucher programs on the supply of private schools. In particular, we examine individual private schools in Washington, D.C., Indiana, and Louisiana as they transition into voucher program environments. We leverage the Private School Universe Survey to examine how schools self-identify before and after switching into voucher environments. We find that upon switching into school voucher programs, private schools in more heavily regulated programs are more likely to identify as less specialized than they were prior to entering the program, and that those schools in more lightly regulated environments continue to highlight their specialized approach to education. These findings are examined within an institutional theory framework to understand the potential homogenizing effect of regulations on the diversity of the private school market.