Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
UTH_CCB: A report for SemEval 2014 – Task 7 Analysis of Clinical Text

This work describes the participation of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) team on the SemEval 2014 ‐ Task 7 analysis of clinical text challenge. The task consisted of two subtasks: (1) disorder entity recognition, recognizing mentions of disorder concepts; (2) disorder entity encoding, mapping each mention to a unique Concept Unique Identifier (CUI) defined in Unified Medical Language System (UMLS). We developed three ensemble learning approaches for recognizing disorder entities and a Vector Space Model based method for encoding. Our approaches achieved top rank in both subtasks, with the best F measure of 0.813 for entity recognition and the best accuracy of 74.1% for encoding, indicating the proposed approaches are promising.
An overview on the improvement of mechanical properties of ceramics nanocomposites

Due to their prominent properties (mechanical, stiffness, strength, thermal stability), ceramic composite materials (CMC) have been widely applied in automotive, industrial and aerospace engineering, as well as in biomedical and electronic devices. Because monolithic ceramics exhibit brittle behaviour and low electrical conductivity, CMCs have been greatly improved in the last decade. CMCs are produced from ceramic fibres embedded in a ceramic matrix, for which several ceramic materials (oxide or non-oxide) are used for the fibres and the matrix. Due to the large diversity of available fibres, the properties of CMCs can be adapted to achieve structural targets. They are especially valuable for structural components with demanding mechanical and thermal requirements. However, with the advent of nanoparticles in this century, the research interests in CMCs are now changing from classical reinforcement (e.g., microscale fibres) to new types of reinforcement at nanoscale. This review paper presents the current state of knowledge on processing and mechanical properties of a new generation of CMCs: Ceramics Nanocomposites (CNCs).
Initial catch-up growth in children with hypothyroidism on thyroxine replacement therapy

Background: There is a paucity of observational data from India on initial catch up growth in hypothyroid children started on thyroxine replacement therapy. Methods: We retrospectively studied 44 children and adolescents (32 girls) with a diagnosis of primary hypothyroidism i.e., (thyrotropin > 15 μIU/mL and thyroxine < 55ng/mL). All were started on treatment with oral thyroxine. The dose was adjusted to maintain thyrotropin between 0.5-5 μIU/mL. Height was measured at baseline and at each follow-up visit and height standard deviation scores (HtSDS) were calculated. We studied the therapeutic benefit of thyroxine replacement therapy on growth in the initial couple of years of treatment. Results: Dose of thyroxine required to restore euthyroidism was 4.1±2.5 μg/kg body weight. The dose fell from 9.7±2.4 μg/kg body weight in infants to 3.0±1.5 μg/kg body weight in adolescence (p<0.001). Likewise, the dose per unit body surface area also fell consistently from 207 ± 70.3 μg/m2 in infants to only 89.3±17.9 μg/m2 in adolescents (p<0.001). The initial HtSDS was -2.0±1.5 and this improved by 0.4 to final value of -1.6±1.3 (p < 0.001) after an average follow up of 14.1±2.5 months. The mean catch-up growth velocity, weighted for the duration of follow-up was 7.7 cm/year. Conclusions: The HtSDS deficit because of hypothyroidism is partially regained in the first few years after treatment.
Facebook (A)Live?: Are Live Social Broadcasts Really Broadcasts?

The era of live-broadcast is back but with two major changes. First, unlike traditional TV broadcasts, content is now streamed over the Internet enabling it to reach a wider audience. Second, due to various user-generated content platforms it has become possible for anyone to get involved, streaming their own content to the world. This emerging trend of going live usually happens via social platforms, where users perform live social broadcasts predominantly from their mobile devices, allowing their friends (and the general public) to engage with the stream in real-time. With the growing popularity of such platforms, the burden on the current Internet infrastructure is therefore expected to multiply. With this in mind, we explore one such prominent platform - Facebook Live. We gather 3TB of data, representing one month of global activity and explore the characteristics of live social broadcast. From this, we derive simple yet effective principles which can decrease the network burden. We then dissect global and hyper-local properties of the video while on-air, by capturing the geography of the broadcasters or the users who produce the video and the viewers or the users who interact with it. Finally, we study the social engagement while the video is live and distinguish the key aspects when the same video goes on-demand. A common theme throughout the paper is that, despite its name, many attributes of Facebook Live deviate from both the concepts of live and broadcast.
Obesity and its association with sociodemographic factors, health behaviours and health status among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal adults in New South Wales, Australia

Background High body mass index (BMI) is the second leading contributor to Australia’s burden of disease and is particularly prevalent among Aboriginal peoples. This paper aims to provide insight into factors relating to obesity among Aboriginal adults and Aboriginal–non-Aboriginal differences. Methods Cross-sectional analysis of data from the 45 and Up Study, comparing obesity (BMI ≥30 kg/m2) prevalence and risk factors among 1515 Aboriginal and 213 301 non-Aboriginal adults in New South Wales. Age–sex-adjusted prevalence ratios (PRs) for obesity by sociodemographic factors, health behaviours and health status were estimated (multivariable log-binomial regression) for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants separately. We quantified the extent to which key factors (physical activity, screen time, education, remoteness, area-level disadvantage) accounted for any excess Aboriginal obesity prevalence. Results Obesity prevalence was 39% among Aboriginal and 22% among non-Aboriginal participants (PR=1.65, 95% CI 1.55 to 1.76). Risk factors for obesity were generally similar for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants and included individual-level and area-level disadvantage, physical inactivity, and poor physical and mental health, with steeper gradients observed among non-Aboriginal participants for some factors (Pinteraction <0.05). Many risk factors were more common among Aboriginal versus non-Aboriginal participants; key factors accounted for >40% of the excess Aboriginal obesity prevalence. Conclusion A substantial proportion of the excess obesity prevalence among Aboriginal versus non-Aboriginal participants was explained by physical activity, screen time, education, remoteness and area-level disadvantage. Socioeconomic and health behaviour factors are potential targets for promoting healthy BMI, but these must be considered within the context of upstream social and cultural factors. Adults with health needs and disability require particular attention.
Nest site selection by sea turtles

The distribution of 38 nests of loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) on beaches on Sanibel and Captiva islands, south-western Florida (26°26'N 82°16'W), and of 70 first digging attempts by green turtles (Chelonia mydas) on Ascension Island (7°57'S 14°22'W), was quantified. For loggerhead turtles on Sanibel and Captiva, nests were clumped close to the border between the open sand and the supra-littoral vegetation that backed the beaches. This spatial pattern of nests was closely reproduced by assuming simply that turtles crawled a random distance above the most recent high water line prior to digging. In contrast, green turtles on Ascension Island clumped their first digging attempts on the uneven beach above the springs high water line, crawling up to 80 m to reach this beach zone.
On the behavior and ductility of reinforced concrete coupling beams of shear walls

The results of an experimental program on coupling beams subjected to cyclic loading are presented. Ten specimens, scaled down to 1:2, with five different reinforcement layouts and two different shear ratios (equal to α s = 0.50 and 0.83) have been tested. An attempt is made to classify the performance of the specimens according to the ductility they exhibited. The validity of various ductility criteria is also discussed.
Clinical events preceding switching and discontinuation of oral anticoagulant treatment in patients with atrial fibrillation

Abstract Aims Switching between oral anticoagulants and treatment discontinuation are common events related to therapy with non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants (NOACs). However, knowledge on the reasons leading to these treatment changes is scarce. The aim of this study was to identify clinical events preceding anticoagulant switching and NOAC discontinuation during oral anticoagulant therapy in patients with atrial fibrillation. Methods and results We performed a nationwide register-based study including Danish atrial fibrillation patients initiating a NOAC between August 2011 and February 2016 (n = 50 623). We explored potential reasons leading to changes in anticoagulant treatment by identifying clinical events preceding switches from vitamin K antagonists (VKA) to NOAC, switches from NOAC to VKA, and discontinuations of NOACs. Among 23 531 anticoagulant users changing treatment, we identified 13 295 switches from VKA to NOAC, 5206 switches from NOAC to VKA, and 8995 discontinuations of NOACs. Approximately half of all treatment changes were preceded by a hospitalization. A relevant specific clinical event or procedure was identified prior to 18.3% of switches from VKA to NOAC, prior to 23.0% of switches from NOAC to VKA, and prior to 26.6% of discontinuations. Switches from VKA to NOAC were most often preceded by thromboembolic events (7.0%), whereas cardioversion was the most common specific event prior to a switch from NOAC to VKA (11.4%). Discontinuations were most often preceded by bleeding events (7.6%). Conclusion For about one in five patients, treatment changes during anticoagulant therapy were preceded by a major clinical event. However, the majority of patients changed treatment for reasons not recorded in health registries.
Physical-layer fingerprinting of LoRa devices using supervised and zero-shot learning

Physical-layer fingerprinting investigates how features extracted from radio signals can be used to uniquely identify devices. This paper proposes and analyses a novel methodology to fingerprint LoRa devices, which is inspired by recent advances in supervised machine learning and zero-shot image classification. Contrary to previous works, our methodology does not rely on localized and low-dimensional features, such as those extracted from the signal transient or preamble, but uses the entire signal. We have performed our experiments using 22 LoRa devices with 3 different chipsets. Our results show that identical chipsets can be distinguished with 59% to 99% accuracy per symbol, whereas chipsets from different vendors can be fingerprinted with 99% to 100% accuracy per symbol. The fingerprinting can be performed using only inexpensive commercial off-the-shelf software defined radios, and a low sample rate of 1 Msps. Finally, we release all datasets and code pertaining to these experiments to the public domain.
Response by Steinberg et al to Letter Regarding Article, "Clinical Outcomes of Transplanted Modified Bone Marrow-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Stroke: A Phase 1/2A Study".

We thank Dr Clark for his comments. Immunomodulation related to protein and molecular factors secreted by the SB623 cells could be one of the mechanisms underlying the observed neurological recovery in our patients1 and could suggest that there is ongoing chronic inflammation >6 months after stroke that is suppressing intact neural circuits and rendering them nonfunctional. This concept has some support in the recent preclinical and clinical literature.2 In addition, it is conceivable that the transplanted SB623-secreted factors are enhancing native neurogenesis or synaptogenesis, potentially through blocking excess tumor necrosis factor effects after stroke, although this is unproven. It will be important …
Final validation of the ProMisE molecular classifier for endometrial carcinoma in a large population-based case series

Background We have previously developed and confirmed a pragmatic molecular classifier for endometrial cancers; ProMisE (Proactive Molecular Risk Classifier for Endometrial Cancer). Inspired by the Cancer Genome Atlas, ProMisE identifies four prognostically distinct molecular subtypes and can be applied to diagnostic specimens (biopsy/curettings) enabling earlier informed decision-making. We have strictly adhered to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) guidelines for the development of genomic biomarkers, and herein present the final validation step of a locked-down classifier before clinical application. Patients and methods We assessed a retrospective cohort of women from the Tübingen University Women's Hospital treated for endometrial carcinoma between 2003 and 2013. Primary outcomes of overall, disease-specific, and progression-free survival were evaluated for clinical, pathological, and molecular features. Results Complete clinical and molecular data were evaluable from 452 women. Patient age ranged from 29 to 93 (median 65) years, and 87.8% cases were endometrioid histotype. Grade distribution included 282 (62.4%) G1, 75 (16.6%) G2, and 95 (21.0%) G3 tumors. 276 (61.1%) patients had stage IA disease, with the remaining stage IB [89 (19.7%)], stage II [26 (5.8%)], and stage III/IV [61 (13.5%)]. ProMisE molecular classification yielded 127 (28.1%) MMR-D, 42 (9.3%) POLE, 55 (12.2%) p53abn, and 228 (50.4%) p53wt. ProMisE was a prognostic marker for progression-free (P = 0.001) and disease-specific (P = 0.03) survival even after adjusting for known risk factors. Concordance between diagnostic and surgical specimens was highly favorable; accuracy 0.91, κ 0.88. Discussion We have developed, confirmed, and now validated a pragmatic molecular classification tool (ProMisE) that provides consistent categorization of tumors and identifies four distinct prognostic molecular subtypes. ProMisE can be applied to diagnostic samples and thus could be used to inform surgical procedure(s) and/or need for adjuvant therapy. Based on the IOM guidelines this classifier is now ready for clinical evaluation through prospective clinical trials.
Comparative Effectiveness of High-Dose Versus Standard-Dose Influenza Vaccines Among US Medicare Beneficiaries in Preventing Postinfluenza Deaths During 2012–2013 and 2013–2014

Background Recipients of high-dose vs standard-dose influenza vaccines have fewer influenza illnesses. We evaluated the comparative effectiveness of high-dose vaccine in preventing postinfluenza deaths during 2012-2013 and 2013-2014, when influenza viruses and vaccines were similar. Methods We identified Medicare beneficiaries aged ≥65 years who received high-dose or standard-dose vaccines in community-located pharmacies offering both vaccines. The primary outcome was death in the 30 days following an inpatient or emergency department encounter listing an influenza International of Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification code. Effectiveness was estimated by using multivariate Poisson regression models; effectiveness was allowed to vary by season. Results We studied 1039645 recipients of high-dose and 1683264 recipients of standard-dose vaccines during 2012-2013, and 1508176 high-dose and 1877327 standard-dose recipients during 2013-2014. Vaccinees were well-balanced for medical conditions and indicators of frail health. Rates of postinfluenza death were 0.028 and 0.038/10000 person-weeks in high-dose and standard-dose recipients, respectively. Comparative effectiveness was 24.0% (95% confidence interval [CI], .6%-42%); there was evidence of variation by season (P = .12). In 2012-2013, high-dose was 36.4% (95% CI, 9.0%-56%) more effective in reducing mortality; in 2013-2014, it was 2.5% (95% CI, -47% to 35%). Conclusions High-dose vaccine was significantly more effective in preventing postinfluenza deaths in 2012-2013, when A(H3N2) circulation was common, but not in 2013-2014.
Blocking EZH2 methylation transferase activity by GSK126 decreases stem cell-like myeloma cells

EZH2 is a critical epigenetic regulator that is deregulated in various types of cancers including multiple myeloma (MM). In the present study, we hypothesized that targeting EZH2 might induce apoptosis in myeloma cells including stem cell-like cells (CSCs). We investigated the effect of EZH2 inhibition on MM cells using a potent inhibitor (GSK126). The results showed that GSK126 effectively abrogated the methylated histone 3 (H3K27me3) level in MM.1S and LP1 cells, and inhibited the number of live cells and colony formation in soft agar of six MM cell lines. GSK126 induced massive apoptosis in MM.1S, LP1 and RPMI8226 cells. Progressive release of mitochondrial cytochrome c and AIF into the cytosol was detected in GSK126-treated MM cells. GSK126 treatment elicited caspase-3-dependent MCL-1 cleavage with accumulation of proapoptotic truncated MCL-1. These results suggested that GSK126 triggers the intrinsic mitochondrial apoptosis pathway. Enhanced apoptosis was observed in the combination of GSK126 with bortezomib. Using ALDH and side population (SP) assays to characterize CSCs, we found that GSK126 eliminated the stem-like myeloma cells by blocking the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. The in vivo anti-tumor effect of GSK126 was confirmed by using RPMI8226 cells in a xenograft mouse model. In conclusion, our findings suggest that EZH2 inactivation by GSK126 is effective in killing MM cells and CSCs as a single agent or in combination with bortezomib. Clinical trial of GSK126 in patients with MM may be warranted.
Invariance principle for Mott variable range hopping and other walks on point processes

We consider a random walk on a homogeneous Poisson point process with energy marks. The jump rates decay exponentially in the A-power of the jump length and depend on the energy marks via a Boltzmann--like factor. The case A=1 corresponds to the phonon-induced Mott variable range hopping in disordered solids in the regime of strong Anderson localization. We prove that for almost every realization of the marked process, the diffusively rescaled random walk, with arbitrary start point, converges to a Brownian motion whose diffusion matrix is positive definite, and independent of the environment. Finally, we extend the above result to other point processes including diluted lattices.
Aggressive Flight With Suspended Payloads Using Vision-Based Control

Payload manipulation with aerial robots has been an active research area for many years. Recent approaches have sought to plan, control, and execute maneuvers with large, yet deliberate, load swings for more agile, energy-optimal maneuvering. Unfortunately, the system's nonlinear dynamics make executing such trajectories a significant challenge and experimental demonstrations thus far have relied completely on a motion capture system and non-negligible simplifications like restriction of the system to a two-dimensional workspace or closing of the control loop on the quadrotor, instead of the payload. In this work, we observe the payload using a downward-facing camera and estimate its state relative to the quadrotor using an extended Kalman filter. We demonstrate closed-loop payload control in the full three-dimensional workspace, with the planning, estimation, and control pipeline implemented on an onboard processor. We show control of load swings up to 53º from the vertical axis. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first realization of closed-loop control of agile slung-load maneuvers and the largest achieved payload angle.
p16INK4a suppresses BRCA1-deficient mammary tumorigenesis

Senescence prevents the proliferation of genomically damaged, but otherwise replication competent cells at risk of neoplastic transformation. p16INK4A (p16), an inhibitor of CDK4 and CDK6, plays a critical role in controlling cellular senescence in multiple organs. Functional inactivation of p16 by gene mutation and promoter methylation is frequently detected in human breast cancers. However, deleting p16 in mice or targeting DNA methylation within the murine p16 promoter does not result in mammary tumorigenesis. How loss of p16 contributes to mammary tumorigenesis in vivo is not fully understood. In this article, we reported that disruption of Brca1 in the mammary epithelium resulted in premature senescence that was rescued by p16 loss. We found that p16 loss transformed Brca1-deficient mammary epithelial cells and induced mammary tumors, though p16 loss alone was not sufficient to induce mammary tumorigenesis. We demonstrated that loss of both p16 and Brca1 led to metastatic, basal-like, mammary tumors with the induction of EMT and an enrichment of tumor initiating cells. We discovered that promoter methylation silenced p16 expression in most of the tumors developed in mice heterozygous for p16 and lacking Brca1. These data not only identified the function of p16 in suppressing BRCA1-deficient mammary tumorigenesis, but also revealed a collaborative effect of genetic mutation of p16 and epigenetic silencing of its transcription in promoting tumorigenesis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first genetic evidence directly showing that p16 which is frequently deleted and inactivated in human breast cancers, collaborates with Brca1 controlling mammary tumorigenesis.
Exploiting Burst-Sparsity in Massive MIMO With Partial Channel Support Information

How to obtain accurate channel state information at the base station (CSIT) is a key implementation challenge behind frequency-division duplex massive MIMO systems. Recently, compressive sensing (CS) has been applied to reduce pilot and CSIT feedback overheads in massive MIMO systems by exploiting the underlying channel sparsity. However, brute-force applications of standard CS may not lead to good performance in massive MIMO systems, because standard sparse recovery algorithms have quite a stringent requirement on the sparsity level for robust recovery and this severely limits the operating regime of the solution. Moreover, since the channel support is usually correlated across time, it is possible to obtain partial channel support information (P-CSPI) from previously estimated channel support. Motivated by the above observations, we propose a P-CSPI aided burst Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) algorithm to exploit both the P-CSPI and additional structured properties of the sparsity, namely, the burst sparsity in massive MIMO channels. We also accurately characterize the asymptotic channel estimation error of the P-CSPI aided burst LASSO algorithm. Both the analysis and simulations show that the P-CSPI aided burst LASSO algorithm can alleviate the stringent requirement on the sparsity level for robust channel recovery and substantially enhance the channel estimation performance over existing solutions.