Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hopf Bifurcation in Coupled Cell Networks with Interior Symmetries

A blanket with waterproof frictional backing comprising an upper layer attached to a lower layer, and frictional strips attached to the lower layer. The upper layer is a non-abrasive textile such as canvas or terrycloth, and is intended to provide a comfortable seating surface for an occupant. The lower layer is a waterproof material such as plastic or nylon, and serves to protect an occupant from a wet surface upon which the blanket with waterproof frictional backing rests. The frictional strips are fabricated of a material such as rubber or other suitable material, and are intended to prevent the blanket with waterproof frictional backing from slipping on a wet surface, thus enhancing the comfort of an occupant as well as decreasing safety risk.
Residual malaria transmission dynamics varies across The Gambia despite high coverage of control interventions

Over the last decades, malaria has declined substantially in The Gambia but its transmission has not been interrupted. In order to better target control interventions, it is essential to understand the dynamics of residual transmission. This prospective cohort study was conducted between June 2013 and April 2014 in six pairs of villages across The Gambia. Blood samples were collected monthly during the transmission season (June-December) from all residents aged ≥6 months (4,194 individuals) and then in April (dry season). Entomological data were collected monthly throughout the malaria transmission season. Ownership of Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets was 71.5% (2766/3869). Incidence of malaria infection and clinical disease varied significantly across the country, with the highest values in eastern (1.7/PYAR) than in central (0.2 /PYAR) and western (0.1/PYAR) Gambia. Malaria infection at the beginning of the transmission season was significantly higher in individuals who slept outdoors (HR = 1.51, 95% CI: 1.02–2.23, p = 0.04) and in those who had travelled outside the village (HR = 2.47, 95% CI: 1.83–3.34, p <0.01). Sub-patent infections were more common in older children (HR = 1.35, 95% CI: 1.04–1.6, p <0.01) and adults (HR = 1.53, 95% CI: 1.23–1.89, p<0.01) than in younger children. The risk of clinical malaria was significantly higher in households with at least one infected individual at the beginning of the transmission season (HR = 1.76, p<0.01). Vector parity was significantly higher in the eastern part of the country, both in the south (90.7%, 117/129, p<0.01) and the north bank (81.1%, 227/280, p<0.01), than in the western region (41.2%, 341/826), indicating higher vector survival. There is still significant residual malaria transmission across The Gambia, particularly in the eastern region. Additional interventions able to target vectors escaping Long-Lasting Insecticidal Nets and indoor residual spraying are needed to achieve malaria elimination.
Urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin and monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 as biomarkers for lupus nephritis in Colombian SLE patients

Background Information regarding urinary biomarkers in Mestizo and Afro-Latin-American patients is very limited. We investigated whether levels of urinary neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), and monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1) are good biomarkers to differentiate patients with lupus nephritis among Latin-American systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients. Methods SLE patients meeting the revised American College of Rheumatology classification criteria for SLE were recruited. Urinary levels of NGAL and MCP-1 were measured using a commercial ELISA kit. Serum anti-C1q antibodies were measured by ELISA. SLE activity was measured with the systemic lupus erythematosus disease activity index (SLEDAI). Mann–Whitney tests were used to compare data and Spearman’s rank correlations were used to examine associations between continuous variables. In addition, receiver operating characteristic curves were performed. Results One hundred and twenty SLE patients were recruited (87% women) with a median age of 32.8 ± 12.1 years and median disease duration of 7.3 ± 6.9 years. Afro-Latin-Americans had a significantly higher prevalence of lupus nephritis and higher SLEDAI scores than Mestizos. The three biomarkers were significantly higher in patients with lupus nephritis than in patients without lupus nephritis. In addition, urinary NGAL and MCP-1 were significantly higher in patients with active lupus nephritis than in inactive lupus nephritis. Urinary NGAL levels were significantly higher in Afro-Latin-American patients. A receiver operating characteristic curve for urinary biomarkers for lupus nephritis in all SLE patients showed a good level of sensitivity and specificity. Conclusion In our cohort of SLE patients, we found that urinary NGAL and MCP-1 in addition to anti-C1q antibodies were useful biomarkers for the identification of renal involvement and discrimination of active lupus nephritis among patients with renal disease.
Political and economic transformations in Ukraine: The view from psychiatry

This article examines contemporary Ukrainian psychiatry through the voices of patients, practitioners, and advocates, focusing on shifting objects of knowledge, interventions, and institutional transitions. Currently, we are witnessing the reconfiguration of psychiatry on a global scale through neoliberal rhetoric combined with the call for global mental health. The goal of the movement for global mental health is to scale up psychiatric treatments through greater access to psychiatric drugs, justified through the framing of distress as an illness. Neoliberal rhetoric suggests that cutting social service expenditure through the privatization and decentralization of the health care system will stimulate economic growth and, in the long term, combat poverty. This paper traces how these dynamics are playing out in Ukraine, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a psychiatric hospital in south-central Ukraine from 2008–2010, while working with a non-governmental organization.
Adaptive Fuzzy Control of Nonlinear Systems With Unknown Dead Zones Based on Command Filtering

Adaptive fuzzy control via command filtering is proposed for uncertain strict-feedback nonlinear systems with unknown nonsymmetric dead-zone input signals in this paper. The command filtering is utilized to cope with the inherent explosion of the complexity problem of the classical backstepping method, and the error compensation mechanism is introduced to overcome the drawback of the dynamics surface approach. In addition, by utilizing the bound information of dead-zone slopes, a new adaptive fuzzy method that does not need to establish the inverse of the dead zone is presented for the unknown nonlinear systems. Compared with existing results, the advantages of the developed scheme are that the compensating signals are designed to eliminate the filtering errors and only one adaptive parameter is required, which will make the proposed control scheme more effective for practical systems. An example of position tracking control for the electromechanical system is given to demonstrate the usefulness and potential of the new design scheme.
Experimental Evaluation of UWB Indoor Positioning for Sport Postures

Radio frequency (RF)-based indoor positioning systems (IPSs) use wireless technologies (including Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, and ultra-wide band (UWB)) to estimate the location of persons in areas where no Global Positioning System (GPS) reception is available, for example in indoor stadiums or sports halls. Of the above-mentioned forms of radio frequency (RF) technology, UWB is considered one of the most accurate approaches because it can provide positioning estimates with centimeter-level accuracy. However, it is not yet known whether UWB can also offer such accurate position estimates during strenuous dynamic activities in which moves are characterized by fast changes in direction and velocity. To answer this question, this paper investigates the capabilities of UWB indoor localization systems for tracking athletes during their complex (and most of the time unpredictable) movements. To this end, we analyze the impact of on-body tag placement locations and human movement patterns on localization accuracy and communication reliability. Moreover, two localization algorithms (particle filter and Kalman filter) with different optimizations (bias removal, non-line-of-sight (NLoS) detection, and path determination) are implemented. It is shown that although the optimal choice of optimization depends on the type of movement patterns, some of the improvements can reduce the localization error by up to 31%. Overall, depending on the selected optimization and on-body tag placement, our algorithms show good results in terms of positioning accuracy, with average errors in position estimates of 20 cm. This makes UWB a suitable approach for tracking dynamic athletic activities.
Skin cancer associated with commonly prescribed drugs: tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitors (TNF-αIs), angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs), phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5Is) and statins -weighing the evidence

ABSTRACT Introduction: Skin cancers, including both malignant melanoma (MM) and nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC), are the most commonly diagnosed cancers in the US. The incidence of both MM and NMSC continues to rise. Areas covered: Current evidence for an association between four of the most commonly prescribed classes of drugs in the U.S. and risk for MM and NMSC is reported. Medline was searched (January 2000 to May 2017) for each drug in the classes and for ‘basal cell carcinoma’, ‘squamous cell carcinoma’, ‘non-melanoma skin cancer’, ‘skin cancer’ and ‘melanoma’. Skin cancer risk information was reported for: tumor necrosis factor alpha inhibitors (TNF-αIs), angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs), phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5Is) and 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A (HMG-CoA)-reductase inhibitors (statins). Expert opinion: Since skin cancer risk is associated with all four classes of these commonly prescribed drugs that represent nearly 20% of the Top 100 drugs in the U.S., these important findings warrant enhanced education, especially for prescribers and those patients at high risk for skin cancer.
Bioluminescence Imaging Enhances Analysis of Drug Responses in a Patient-Derived Xenograft Model of Pediatric ALL

Purpose: Robust preclinical models of pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) are essential in prioritizing promising therapies for clinical assessment in high-risk patients. Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of ALL provide a clinically relevant platform for assessing novel drugs, with efficacy generally assessed by enumerating circulating human lymphoblasts in mouse peripheral blood (PB) as an indicator of disease burden. While allowing indirect measurement of disease burden in real time, this technique cannot assess treatment effects on internal reservoirs of disease. We explore benefits of bioluminescence imaging (BLI) to evaluate drug responses in ALL PDXs, compared with PB monitoring. BLI-based thresholds of drug response are also explored. Experimental Design: ALL PDXs were lentivirally transduced to stably express luciferase and green fluorescent protein. In vivo PDX responses to an induction-type regimen of vincristine, dexamethasone, and L-asparaginase were assessed by BLI and PB. Residual disease at day 28 after treatment initiation was assessed by flow cytometric analysis of major organs. BLI and PB were subsequently used to evaluate efficacy of the Bcl-2 inhibitor venetoclax. Results: BLI considerably accelerated and enhanced detection of leukemia burden compared with PB and identified sites of residual disease during treatment in a quantitative manner, highlighting limitations in current PB-based scoring criteria. Using BLI alongside enumeration of human lymphoblasts in PB and bone marrow, we were able to redefine response criteria analogous to the clinical setting. Conclusions: BLI substantially improves the stringency of preclinical drug testing in pediatric ALL PDXs, which will likely be important in prioritizing effective agents for clinical assessment. Clin Cancer Res; 23(14); 3744–55. ©2017 AACR.
Nutritional status of patients with alcoholic cirrhosis undergoing liver transplantation: time trends and impact on survival

Alcoholic cirrhotics evaluated for liver transplantation are frequently malnourished or obese. We analyzed alcoholic cirrhotics undergoing transplantation to examine time trends of nutrition/weight, transplant outcome, and effects of concomitant hepatitis C virus (HCV) and/or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Nutrition and transplant outcomes were reviewed for alcoholic cirrhosis with/without HCV/HCC. Malnutrition was defined by subjective global assessment. Body mass index (BMI) classified obesity. A total of 261 patients receiving transplants were separated (1988–2000, 2001–2006, and 2007–2011) to generate similar size cohorts. Mean BMI for the whole cohort was 28 ± 6 with 68% classified as overweight/obese. Mean BMI did not vary among cohorts and was not affected by HCV/HCC. While prevalence of malnutrition did not vary among cohorts, it was lower in patients with HCV/HCC (P < 0.01). One‐year graft/patient survival was 90% and not impacted by time period, HCV/HCC, or malnutrition after adjusting for demographics and model end‐stage liver disease (MELD). Alcoholic cirrhotics undergoing transplantation are malnourished yet frequently overweight/obese. Among patients selected for transplantation, 1‐year post‐transplant graft/patient survival is excellent, have not changed over time, and do not vary by nutrition/BMI. Our findings support feasibility of liver transplantation for alcoholic cirrhotics with obesity and malnutrition.
Nonlinearity Smooth solutions for the dyadic model

We consider the dyadic model, which is a toy model to test issues of wellposedness and blow-up for the Navier–Stokes and Euler equations. We prove well-posedness of positive solutions of the viscous problem in the relevant scaling range which corresponds to Navier–Stokes. Likewise we prove wellposedness for the inviscid problem (in a suitable regularity class) when the parameter corresponds to the strongest transport effect of the nonlinearity. Mathematics Subject Classification: 76D03, 76B03, 35Q35, 35Q30, 76D05, 35Q31
Organochlorine Pesticides in Freshwater Fish from the Zagreb Area

Organochlorine Pesticides in Freshwater Fish from the Zagreb Area The aim of this study was to determine the level of organochlorine pesticides in freshwater fish from the Zagreb area, Croatia. The study included 215 freshwater fish samples from three sites: the Sava River, Lake Jarun, and five fishponds from the Zagreb surroundings. Organochlorine pesticides DDT and derivates, HCH, HCB, lindane, aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor with epoxide, and methoxychlor were determined using the GC-ECD method. The determined amounts of organochlorine pesticides were within allowed concentration limits in all analysed fish samples. Median values ranged from below the detection limit of 0.01 μg kg-1 for dieldrin and metoxychlor to 2.00 μg kg-1 for DDT in the Cyprinidae fish family from the Sava River, Zagreb sampling site (group 1). This study has confirmed pesticide persistence in the overall ecosystem in our country despite the ban of some thirty years ago, like in many other parts of the world. Organoklorirani Pesticidi u Slatkovodnim Ribama Zagrebačkog Područja Cilj istraživanja bio je utvrditi količinu organokloriranih pesticida u slatkovodnim ribama zagrebačkog područja. Obrađeno je ukupno 215 uzoraka slatkovodne ribe sa sljedećih triju lokacija: rijeka Sava, jezero Jarun i pet tzv. ekoloških jezera u okolici Zagreba. Organoklorirani pesticidi DDT i derivati, HCH izomeri (α-HCH, β-HCH and δ-HCH), HCB, lindan (γ-HCH), aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, heptaklor, heptaklorepoksid i metoksiklor) određivali su se metodom plinske kromatografije uz elektronapsorpcijski način detekcije i uz postignutu granicu detekcije od 0, 01 μg kg-1. Vrijednosti ispitivanih organokloriranih pesticida u svim su uzorcima riba bile mnogo niže od maksimalno dopuštenih koncentracija. Vrijednosti medijana kretale su se od najnižih 0, 01 μg kg-1 za dieldrin i metoksiklor do najviših 2, 00 μg kg-1 za DDT u uzorcima riba porodice Cyprinidae s lokacije Sava - Zagreb. Utvrđeni ostaci preostalih ispitivanih pesticida potvrđuju kako njihovu uporabu na našim područjima tako i njihovu postojanost i prisutnost u cjelokupnom ekosustavu unatoč činjenici da je većina zabranjena u Hrvatskoj prije gotovo 30 godina, kao i u mnogim dijelovima svijeta.
Combined measurement of synovial fluid α-Defensin and C-reactive protein levels: highly accurate for diagnosing periprosthetic joint infection.

BACKGROUND The diagnosis of periprosthetic joint infection remains a challenge. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the combined measurement of the levels of two synovial fluid biomarkers, α-defensin and C-reactive protein (CRP), for the diagnosis of periprosthetic joint infection. METHODS One hundred and forty-nine synovial fluid aspirates, including 112 from patients with an aseptic diagnosis and thirty-seven from patients with periprosthetic joint infection, met the inclusion criteria for this prospective study. Synovial fluid aspirates were tested for α-defensin and CRP levels with use of enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The Musculoskeletal Infection Society (MSIS) definition of periprosthetic joint infection was utilized for the classification of cases as aseptic or infected. Comorbidities, such as inflammatory conditions, that could confound a test for periprosthetic joint infection were documented, but the patients with such comorbidities were included in the study. RESULTS The combination of synovial fluid α-defensin and CRP tests demonstrated a sensitivity of 97% and a specificity of 100% for the diagnosis of periprosthetic joint infection. Synovial fluid α-defensin tests alone demonstrated a sensitivity of 97% and a specificity of 96% for the diagnosis of periprosthetic joint infection. Synovial fluid CRP tests, with a low threshold of 3 mg/L, reversed all-false positive α-defensin results without affecting the sensitivity of the test. The diagnostic characteristics of these assays were achieved in a population of patients demonstrating a 23% rate of systemic inflammatory diseases (in the series as a whole) and a 27% rate of concurrent antibiotic treatment (in the infection group). The synovial fluid levels of α-defensin in the setting of periprosthetic joint infection were unchanged during concurrent antibiotic treatment. CONCLUSIONS The combined measurement of synovial fluid α-defensin and CRP levels correctly diagnosed 99% of the cases in this study as aseptic or infected. This was achieved despite the inclusion of patients with systemic inflammatory disease and those receiving treatment with antibiotics. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Diagnostic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
Genome-wide genetic heterogeneity discovery with categorical covariates

Motivation: Genetic heterogeneity is the phenomenon that distinct genetic variants may give rise to the same phenotype. The recently introduced algorithm Fast Automatic Interval Search (FAIS) enables the genome‐wide search of candidate regions for genetic heterogeneity in the form of any contiguous sequence of variants, and achieves high computational efficiency and statistical power. Although FAIS can test all possible genomic regions for association with a phenotype, a key limitation is its inability to correct for confounders such as gender or population structure, which may lead to numerous false‐positive associations. Results: We propose FastCMH, a method that overcomes this problem by properly accounting for categorical confounders, while still retaining statistical power and computational efficiency. Experiments comparing FastCMH with FAIS and multiple kinds of burden tests on simulated data, as well as on human and Arabidopsis samples, demonstrate that FastCMH can drastically reduce genomic inflation and discover associations that are missed by standard burden tests. Availability and Implementation: An R package fastcmh is available on CRAN and the source code can be found at: https://www.bsse.ethz.ch/mlcb/research/bioinformatics‐and‐computational‐biology/fastcmh.html Contact: felipe.llinares@bsse.ethz.ch Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
On the presence of super lattice intrinsic stacking faults in plastically deformed Ni3Al

Abstract Superlattice intrinsic stacking faults (SISFs) have been observed in Ni3Al polycrystals deformed in compression between room temperature and 800°C. A detailed weak-beam analysis indicates that the SISFs originate at a screw partial with a Burgers vector of 1/2〈110〉. Starting from the stable dissociation into two partials with collinear Burgers vectors and with an antiphase boundary stabilized on {001}, one of the two 1/2〈110〉 partials may split under the effect of a high local stress into an edge Shockley and a partial with a Burgers vector of 1/2〈112〉. The latter produces a SISF as it escapes from its initial position in a {111} plane. Calculations of the total energy of the threefold dissociation shows the presence of a secondary minimum when the 1/3〈112〉 partial lies between 25 and 50 nm from the Shockley partial, in good agreement with the weak-beam observations. However, the SISFs exhibit large deviations from this equilibrium distance when they result from a deformation at low temperature a.
PCPNet Learning Local Shape Properties from Raw Point Clouds

In this paper, we propose PCPNET, a deep‐learning based approach for estimating local 3D shape properties in point clouds. In contrast to the majority of prior techniques that concentrate on global or mid‐level attributes, e.g., for shape classification or semantic labeling, we suggest a patch‐based learning method, in which a series of local patches at multiple scales around each point is encoded in a structured manner. Our approach is especially well‐adapted for estimating local shape properties such as normals (both unoriented and oriented) and curvature from raw point clouds in the presence of strong noise and multi‐scale features. Our main contributions include both a novel multi‐scale variant of the recently proposed PointNet architecture with emphasis on local shape information, and a series of novel applications in which we demonstrate how learning from training data arising from well‐structured triangle meshes, and applying the trained model to noisy point clouds can produce superior results compared to specialized state‐of‐the‐art techniques. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our approach in the context of shape reconstruction, by showing how it can be used to extract normal orientation information from point clouds.