Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Radiofrequency ablation for treatment of locally recurrent thyroid cancer presenting as a metastatic lymph node with dense macrocalcification

Rationale: Long-term recurrence rate of differentiated thyroid carcinoma has been reported to be as high as 30%. Repeat surgery may be challenging due to normal tissue plane distortion secondary to postoperative fibrosis, especially for small-sized recurrences. Recently, radiofrequency ablation (RFA) has been suggested to be a safe and effective alternative for high-risk patients or those who refuse surgery. Nonetheless, the efficacy of RFA remains questionable for densely calcified lymph nodes, which would have an increased likelihood of leaving residues after RFA. Patient concerns: We present a case of a successful combined treatment of a metastatic lymph node with dense macrocalcification with the use of a single RFA session and radioactive iodine (RAI) ablation in a patient with a previous history of total thyroidectomy and neck node dissection for papillary thyroid carcinoma. Diagnoses: A 71-year-old man with papillary thyroid carcinoma underwent total thyroidectomy and neck node dissection followed by RAI ablation. The stimulated serum thyroglobulin level was 4.74 ng/mL at the time of RAI ablation, and the follow-up ultrasonography 3 months later revealed a 15-mm lymph node with dense macrocalcification at the right cervical level III. Interventions: After confirming metastasis on cytology, the lesion was treated with ultrasound-guided RFA. Outcomes: The single RFA session combined with RAI ablation led to biochemical remission at 5 months after RFA, and complete resolution of structural recurrence including macrocalcification was observed 7 months after the second RAI (1 year after RFA). The patient remained free of recurrence at the 5-year follow-up. Lessons: RFA may offer a safe and effective alternative to ‘berry picking’ surgery in cases of surgical ineligibility or patient refusal of surgery even when the target lesions contain dense macrocalcification.
Automatic sleep stage classification of single-channel EEG by using complex-valued convolutional neural network

Abstract Many systems are developed for automatic sleep stage classification. However, nearly all models are based on handcrafted features. Because of the large feature space, there are so many features that feature selection should be used. Meanwhile, designing handcrafted features is a difficult and time-consuming task because the feature designing needs domain knowledge of experienced experts. Results vary when different sets of features are chosen to identify sleep stages. Additionally, many features that we may be unaware of exist. However, these features may be important for sleep stage classification. Therefore, a new sleep stage classification system, which is based on the complex-valued convolutional neural network (CCNN), is proposed in this study. Unlike the existing sleep stage methods, our method can automatically extract features from raw electroencephalography data and then classify sleep stage based on the learned features. Additionally, we also prove that the decision boundaries for the real and imaginary parts of a complex-valued convolutional neuron intersect orthogonally. The classification performances of handcrafted features are compared with those of learned features via CCNN. Experimental results show that the proposed method is comparable to the existing methods. CCNN obtains a better classification performance and considerably faster convergence speed than convolutional neural network. Experimental results also show that the proposed method is a useful decision-support tool for automatic sleep stage classification.
A Pilot Study of Peripheral Muscle Magnetic Stimulation as Add-on Treatment to Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation in Chronic Tinnitus

While brain stimulation techniques have been examined as treatment options for chronic tinnitus for many years, they have recently been extended to multimodal treatment approaches. As chronic tinnitus is often accompanied by comorbid muscular tension in the neck and back, we performed a one-arm pilot study to explore the feasibility of a new multimodal treatment approach. In detail, repetitive peripheral magnetic stimulation (rPMS) of the back was performed before and after each session of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the brain. Data of 41 patients were analyzed, all of which were treated with ten sessions of rTMS of the left prefrontal and left temporoparietal cortex followed by rPMS of the neck and back muscles. Tinnitus severity was measured using the tinnitus questionnaire (TQ). Neck pain was assessed using the neck pain and disability scale (NPAD). The new treatment approach was feasible and well accepted by the majority of patients. However, the overall patient group did not improve significantly in either of the questionnaires. If patients were divided in different subgroups depending on whether they were suffering from neck pain or somatosensory tinnitus, explorative post-hoc tests suggested differential effects: patients with both neck pain and somatosensory tinnitus had better outcomes than patients without those conditions or with neck pain only. This was true for both the TQ and the NPAD. This effect was of transient nature though: the TQ score went back to its baseline level after a follow-up period of 12 weeks. Based on our results we recommend that in studies that investigate tinnitus treatments targeting somatosensory afferents patients should be stratified according to somatic co-morbidities and somatosensory influence on the tinnitus percept. Clinical trial registration: www.clinicaltrials. gov, NCT02306447.
Extracellular Vesicles: Potential Roles in Regenerative Medicine

Extracellular vesicles (EV) consist of exosomes, which are released upon fusion of the multivesicular body with the cell membrane, and microvesicles, which are released directly from the cell membrane. EV can mediate cell–cell communication and are involved in many processes, including immune signaling, angiogenesis, stress response, senescence, proliferation, and cell differentiation. The vast amount of processes that EV are involved in and the versatility of manner in which they can influence the behavior of recipient cells make EV an interesting source for both therapeutic and diagnostic applications. Successes in the fields of tumor biology and immunology sparked the exploration of the potential of EV in the field of regenerative medicine. Indeed, EV are involved in restoring tissue and organ damage, and may partially explain the paracrine effects observed in stem cell-based therapeutic approaches. The function and content of EV may also harbor information that can be used in tissue engineering, in which paracrine signaling is employed to modulate cell recruitment, differentiation, and proliferation. In this review, we discuss the function and role of EV in regenerative medicine and elaborate on potential applications in tissue engineering.
A Novel aadA Aminoglycoside Resistance Gene in Bovine and Porcine Pathogens

Aminoglycosides are important antimicrobials used worldwide for prophylaxis and/or therapy in multiple production animal species. The emergence of new resistance genes jeopardizes current pathogen detection and treatment methods. The risk of resistance gene transfer to other animal and human pathogens is elevated when resistance genes are carried by mobile genetic elements. This study identified a new variant of a spectinomycin/streptomycin resistance gene harbored in a self-transmissible mobile element. The gene was also present in four different bovine pathogen species. ABSTRACT A novel variant of the AAD(3″) class of aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes was discovered in fatal bovine respiratory disease-associated pathogens Pasteurella multocida and Histophilus somni. The aadA31 gene encodes a spectinomycin/streptomycin adenylyltransferase and was located in a variant of the integrative and conjugative element ICEMh1, a mobile genetic element transmissible among members of the family Pasteurellaceae. The gene was also detected in Mannheimia haemolytica from a case of porcine pneumonia and in Moraxella bovoculi from a case of keratoconjunctivitis. IMPORTANCE Aminoglycosides are important antimicrobials used worldwide for prophylaxis and/or therapy in multiple production animal species. The emergence of new resistance genes jeopardizes current pathogen detection and treatment methods. The risk of resistance gene transfer to other animal and human pathogens is elevated when resistance genes are carried by mobile genetic elements. This study identified a new variant of a spectinomycin/streptomycin resistance gene harbored in a self-transmissible mobile element. The gene was also present in four different bovine pathogen species.
Stereotype Threat Effects on Older Adults’ Episodic and Working Memory: A Meta-Analysis

Background and Objectives Prior research has shown that exposure to negative age-based stereotype threat (ST) can undermine older adults' memory performance. The objective of the current meta-analysis was to examine the reliability and magnitude of ST effects on older adults' episodic and working memory performance-two forms of memory that typically show the greatest age-related declines. In addition, we examined potential moderators of age-based ST including type of ST manipulation, type and timing of memory task, participant age and education level. Research Design and Method A total of 23 samples for episodic memory and 15 samples for working memory were derived from 19 published and 4 unpublished articles and analyzed in two separate meta-analyses. Results Analyses revealed a reliable effect of ST on both older adults' episodic (d = 0.373) and working memory performance (d = 0.253). Interestingly, the age-based ST effect was only significant when blatant ST manipulations were used with episodic memory tasks or when subtle ST manipulations were used with working memory tasks. Moreover, within episodic memory, the ST effect only reached significance for recall but not cued-recall or recognition performance, and for immediate but not delayed tests of memory. Neither age nor level of education moderated the association between ST and older adults' memory performance. Discussion and Implications These results highlight the vulnerability of both older adults' episodic and working memory performance to age-based ST. When measuring older adults' memory performance in a research context, we must therefore be wary of exposing participants to common stereotypes about aging and memory.
Polygonal invariant curves for a planar piecewise isometry

We investigate a remarkable new planar piecewise isometry whose generating map is a permutation of four cones. For this system we prove the coexistence of an infinite number of periodic components and an uncountable number of transitive components. The union of all periodic components is an invariant pentagon with unequal sides. Transitive components are invariant curves on which the dynamics are conjugate to a transitive interval exchange. The restriction of the map to the invariant pentagonal region is the first known piecewise isometric system for which there exist an infinite number of periodic components but the only aperiodic points are on the boundary of the region. The proofs are based on exact calculations in a rational cyclotomic field. We use the system to shed some light on a conjecture that PWIs can possess transitive invariant curves that are not smooth.
Assessment of three medical and research laboratories using WHO AFRO_SLIPTA Quality Standards in Southwestern Uganda: a long way to go

Introduction While the laboratory represents more than 70% of clinical diagnosis and patient management, access to reliable and quality laboratory diagnostics in sub-Saharan Africa remains a challenge. To gain knowledge and suggest evidence based interventions towards laboratory improvement in Southwestern Uganda, we assessed the baseline laboratory quality standards in three medical and research laboratories in Southwestern Uganda. Methods We conducted a cross sectional survey from October, 2013 to April, 2014. Selected laboratories, including one private research, one private for profit and one public laboratory, were assessed using the WHO AFRO_SLIPTA checklist and baseline scores were determined. Results The three laboratories assessed met basic facility requirements, had trained personnel, and safety measures in place. Sample reception was properly designed and executed with a well designated chain of custody. All laboratories had sufficient equipment for the nature of work they were involved in. However, we found that standard operating procedures were incomplete in all three laboratories, lack of quality audit schemes by two laboratories and only one laboratory enrolled into external quality assurance schemes. The SLIPTA scores were one star for the research laboratory and no star for both the public and private-for-profit laboratories. Conclusion While most of the laboratory systems were in place, the low scores obtained by the assessed laboratories reflect the need for improvement to reach standards of quality assured diagnostics in the region. Therefore, routine mentorship and regional supportive supervision are necessary to increase the quality of laboratory services.
Subjective Ratings of Robot Video Clips for Human Likeness, Familiarity, and Eeriness: An Exploration of the Uncanny Valley

Masahiro Mori observed that as robots come to look more humanlike, they seem more familiar, until a point is reached at which subtle deviations from human norms cause them to look creepy. He referred to this dip in fa-miliarity and corresponding surge in strangeness as the uncanny valley. The eerie sensation associated with a mismatch between human expectations and a robot’s behavior provides a useful source of feedback to improve the cognitive models implemented in the robot. Is the uncanny valley a necessary property of near-humanlike forms? This paper contributes to ongoing work in understanding the nature and causes of the uncanny valley by means of an experiment: 56 participants were asked to rate 13 robots and 1 human, shown in video clips, on a very mechanical (1) to very humanlike (9) scale, a very strange (1) to very familiar (9) scale, and a not eerie (0) to extremely eerie (10) scale. Contrary to earlier studies with morphs [MacDorman and Ishiguro, 2006], plots of average and median values for ratings on these scales do not reveal a single U-shaped valley as predicted by Mori’s uncanny valley hypothesis [1970], although his hypothesis allows for some variation owing to movement. Robots rated similarly on the mechanical versus human-like scale can be rated quite diﬀerently on the strange versus familiar or the eeriness scales. The results indicate that the perceived human likeness of a robot is not the only factor determining the perceived familiarity, strangeness, or eeriness of the robot. This suggests that other factors could be manipulated to vary the familiarity, strangeness, or eeriness of a robot independently of its human likeness.
OPAL: prediction of MoRF regions in intrinsically disordered protein sequences

Motivation Intrinsically disordered proteins lack stable 3-dimensional structure and play a crucial role in performing various biological functions. Key to their biological function are the molecular recognition features (MoRFs) located within long disordered regions. Computationally identifying these MoRFs from disordered protein sequences is a challenging task. In this study, we present a new MoRF predictor, OPAL, to identify MoRFs in disordered protein sequences. OPAL utilizes two independent sources of information computed using different component predictors. The scores are processed and combined using common averaging method. The first score is computed using a component MoRF predictor which utilizes composition and sequence similarity of MoRF and non-MoRF regions to detect MoRFs. The second score is calculated using half-sphere exposure (HSE), solvent accessible surface area (ASA) and backbone angle information of the disordered protein sequence, using information from the amino acid properties of flanks surrounding the MoRFs to distinguish MoRF and non-MoRF residues. Results OPAL is evaluated using test sets that were previously used to evaluate MoRF predictors, MoRFpred, MoRFchibi and MoRFchibi-web. The results demonstrate that OPAL outperforms all the available MoRF predictors and is the most accurate predictor available for MoRF prediction. It is available at http://www.alok-ai-lab.com/tools/opal/. Contact ashwini@hgc.jp or alok.sharma@griffith.edu. au. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Unexpected Long Lower Limb in Patients with Unilateral Hip Dislocation

Background: Several methods are commonly used to predict lower-limb-length discrepancy (LLD) on pelvic radiographs. It is not clear how the lower-limb length of patients with unilateral developmental dislocation of the hip (DDH) changes and whether a pelvic radiograph is reliable to predict LLD. In this study, we analyzed the characteristics of LLD in patients with unilateral DDH by measuring full-length standing anteroposterior radiographs. Methods: The radiographic data of all patients with unilateral DDH who met the inclusion criteria from March 2011 to May 2016 were retrospectively reviewed. These data included femoral length, tibial length, skeletal limb length, and distance from the lesser trochanter to the tibial plafond. We also compared LLD between patients with Hartofilakidis type-II DDH and those with type III. Results: Sixty-seven patients (12 male and 55 female) were included. The tibial length, skeletal limb length, and lesser trochanter-tibial plafond distance were significantly greater (p < 0.001, p = 0.040, and p < 0.001, respectively) on the ipsilateral (DDH) side, compared with the contralateral side, in 51 patients (76%), 43 patients (64%), and 52 patients (78%), respectively, with the values on the ipsilateral side exceeding those on the contralateral side by an average of 4.6 mm (range, 0.4 to 17.5 mm), 7.0 mm (range, 0.3 to 21.1 mm), and 10.0 mm (range, 1.1 to 28.8 mm), respectively. The femoral length did not differ significantly between the 2 sides (p = 0.562). There was also no significant difference in LLD, femoral length, tibial length, skeletal limb length, or lesser trochanter-tibial plafond distance between patients with Hartofilakidis type II and those with type III (p > 0.05). Conclusions: Patients with unilateral DDH, regardless of whether the hip dislocation is low or high, may present with LLD derived from both the femur and the tibia. This LLD includes a greater ipsilateral tibial length, skeletal limb length, and lesser trochanter-tibial plafond distance in most patients and an unpredictable femoral length. Using the lesser trochanter on pelvic radiographs to predict LLD is not reliable. The use of full-length standing anteroposterior radiographs for preoperative templating is advisable for this special group of patients. Level of Evidence: Prognostic Level IV. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Performance Evaluation of Finite Sparse Signals for Compressed Sensing Frameworks

SUMMARY In this paper, we consider to develop a recovery algorithm of a sparse signal for a compressed sensing (CS) framework over ﬁnite ﬁelds. A basic framework of CS for discrete signals rather than continuous signals is established from the linear measurement step to the reconstruction. With predetermined priori distribution of a sparse signal, we reconstruct it by using a message passing algorithm, and evaluate the performance obtained from simulation. We compare our simulation results with the theoretic bounds obtained from probability analysis.
Diversification in continental island archipelagos: new evidence on the roles of fragmentation, colonization and gene flow on the genetic divergence of Aegean Nigella (Ranunculaceae)

Background and Aims Disentangling the relative roles of past fragmentation (vicariance), colonization (dispersal) and post-divergence gene flow in the genetic divergence of continental island organisms remains a formidable challenge. Amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLPs) were used to (1) gain further insights into the biogeographical processes underlying the Pleistocene diversification of the Aegean Nigella arvensis complex; (2) evaluate the role of potential key factors driving patterns of population genetic variability (mating system, geographical isolation and historical contingencies); and (3) test the robustness of conclusions previously drawn from chloroplast (cp) DNA. Methods Genetic diversity was analysed for 235 AFLP markers from 48 populations (497 individuals) representing 11 taxa of the complex using population genetic methods and Bayesian assignment tests. Key Results Most designated taxa are identifiable as genetically distinct units. Both fragmentation and dispersal-driven diversification processes occurred at different geological time scales, from Early to Late Pleistocene, specifically (1) sea barrier-induced vicariant speciation in the Cyclades, the Western Cretan Strait and Ikaria; and (2) bi-regional colonizations of the 'Southern Aegean Island Arc' from the Western vs. Eastern Aegean mainland, followed by allopatric divergences in Crete vs. Rhodos and Karpathos/Kasos. Outcrossing island taxa experienced drift-related demographic processes that are magnified in the two insular selfing species. Population genetic differentiation on the mainland seems largely driven by dispersal limitation, while in the Central Aegean it may still be influenced by historical events (island fragmentation and sporadic long-distance colonization). Conclusions The biogeographical history of Aegean Nigella is more complex than expected for a strictly allopatric vicariant model of divergence. Nonetheless, the major phylogeographical boundaries of this radiation are largely congruent with the geography and history of islands, with little evidence for ongoing gene exchange between divergent taxa. The present results emphasize the need to investigate further biological and landscape features and contemporary vs. historical processes in driving population divergence and taxon diversification in Aegean plant radiations.