Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cross-sectional study assessing the addition of contrast sensitivity to visual acuity when testing for fitness to drive

Objectives The aim of this study is to quantify the importance of loss of contrast sensitivity (CS) and its relationship to loss of visual acuity (VA), driving restrictions and daytime, on-road driving evaluations in drivers aged 70+. Design A predictive cross-sectional study. Setting Volunteer participants to a drivers’ refresher course for adults aged 70+ delivered by the Swiss Automobile Club in western Switzerland from 2011 to 2013. Participants 162 drivers, male and female, aged 70 years or older. Clinical predictors We used a vision screener to estimate VA and the The Mars Letter Contrast Sensitivity Test to test CS. Outcomes We asked drivers to report whether they found five driving restrictions useful for their condition; restrict driving to known roads, avoid driving on highways, avoid driving in the dark, avoid driving in dense traffic and avoid driving in fog. All participants also underwent a standardised on-road evaluation carried out by a driving instructor. Results Moderate to severe loss of CS for at least one eye was frequent (21.0% (95% CI 15.0% to 28.1%)) and often isolated from a loss of VA (11/162 cases had a VA ≥0.8 decimal and a CS of ≤1.5 log(CS); 6.8% (95% CI 3.4% to 11.8%)). Drivers were more likely (R2=0.116, P=0.004) to report a belief that self-imposed driving restrictions would be useful if they had reduced CS in at least one eye. Daytime evaluation of driving performance seems limited in its ability to correctly identify difficulties related to CS loss (VA: R2=0.004, P=0.454; CS: R2=0.006, P=0.332). Conclusion CS loss is common for older drivers. Screening CS and referring for cataract surgery even in the absence of VA loss could help maintain mobility. Reduced CS and moderate reduction of VA were both poor predictors of daytime on-road driving performances in this research study.
Nonreactive Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Rapid Tests After Sustained Viral Suppression Following Antiretroviral Therapy Initiation During Primary Infection

We assessed the impact of early antiretroviral treatment (ART) on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody detection by rapid tests in 44 individuals after several years of successful ART. HIV self-tests and point-of-care tests were negative in 30% and 7%-9% of cases, respectively. These data reinforce the message that patients should never be retested after entering HIV care.
The Influence of Composition on Equiaxed Crystal Growth Mechanisms and Grain Size in Al Alloys

The role of solute concentration on equiaxed crystal growth mechanisms and grain size has been investigated. The study was undertaken on hypoeutectic concentrations in the systems Al-Si-Ti and Al-Si-Fe-Ti. The equiaxed structure was ensured by adding heterogeneously nucleating TiB{sub 2} particles in excess of that needed for a maximum grain-refining effect. It was found that two principally different growth models have to be applied in different parts of an alloy system. Cellular type of crystals in the low alloy region develop in a clover-leaf form and the diffusion profile build up front-wise ahead of the cellular interface. The alloying elements cooperate by growth restriction in promoting a fine-grained structure. On the high alloy side, however, dendrites with orthogonal branches develop lancet-like tips causing a major part of the diffusion to take place side-wise instead of in front of the growing tip. Increasing the solute concentration in this regime will increase the growth rate and consequently the grain size. (orig.)
Clinical value of induction protocol after second generation cryoballoon ablation for paroxysmal atrial fibrillation

Aims The predictive value of induction studies after catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) is still debatable. To date, these studies have not been implemented in patients after cryoballoon (CB) ablation. Our aim was to analyse the clinical value of AF induction in patients treated by second generation CB for paroxysmal AF. Methods and results Seventy patients underwent at first an isoproterenol challenge after pulmonary vein (PV) isolation to assess AF induction and early PV reconnections (EPVR). Patients without EPVR were evaluated for premature atrial contraction (PAC) induction; atrial ectopy was considered frequent (PAC+) if >1/10 cycles or >6/min. After restitution of baseline heart rate, rapid atrial pacing (RAP) was performed on all patients. AF induction by isoproterenol occurred only in 3/70 (4%) patients of whom 2/3 (66%) patients with an EPVR of a triggering vein. In the 62 patients without EPVR, PAC+ occurred in 17 patients (27%). RAP could induce AF in 23/70 (33%) patients. At a mean follow-up of 13.5 months, there were 11/70 (16%) AF recurrences. There was no significant difference in the AF recurrence rate between RAP inducible vs. non-inducible patients (log-rank P = 0.33). A 41% recurrence rate (7/17 patients) was seen in the PAC+ group with significantly different AF-free survival for PAC+ vs. PAC- patients (log rank P < 0.0001). PAC+ was the only independent determinant to predict AF recurrence after multivariate analysis. Conclusion PAC occurrence in response to isoproterenol could predict AF recurrence after PV isolation by CB, while RAP showed no prognostic implication.
Localization and functional consequences of a direct interaction between TRIOBP-1 and hERG proteins in the heart

ABSTRACT Reduced levels of the cardiac human (h)ERG ion channel protein and the corresponding repolarizing current IKr can cause arrhythmia and sudden cardiac death, but the underlying cellular mechanisms controlling hERG surface expression are not well understood. Here, we identified TRIOBP-1, an F-actin-binding protein previously associated with actin polymerization, as a putative hERG-interacting protein in a yeast-two hybrid screen of a cardiac library. We corroborated this interaction by performing Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) in HEK293 cells and co-immunoprecipitation in HEK293 cells and native cardiac tissue. TRIOBP-1 overexpression reduced hERG surface expression and current density, whereas reducing TRIOBP-1 expression via shRNA knockdown resulted in increased hERG protein levels. Immunolabeling in rat cardiomyocytes showed that native TRIOBP-1 colocalized predominantly with myosin-binding protein C and secondarily with rat ERG. In human stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, TRIOBP-1 overexpression caused intracellular co-sequestration of hERG signal, reduced native IKr and disrupted action potential repolarization. Ca2+ currents were also somewhat reduced and cell capacitance was increased. These findings establish that TRIOBP-1 interacts directly with hERG and can affect protein levels, IKr magnitude and cardiac membrane excitability. Summary: TRIOBP-1 and the hERG ion channel protein directly interact and colocalize in cardiomyocytes. TRIOBP-1 overexpression affects channel distribution, IKr magnitude and the morphology of the action potential.
Analysis of Temporal Effects in Quality Assessment of High Definition Video

The paper deals with the temporal properties of a scoring session when assessing the subjective qual- ity of full HD video sequences using the continuous video quality tests. The performed experiment uses a modification of the standard test methodology described in ITU-R Rec. BT.500. It focuses on the reactive times and the time needed for the user ratings to stabilize at the beginning of a video sequence. In order to compare the subjective scores with objective quality measures, we also provide an analysis of PSNR and VQM for the considered sequences to find that correlation of the objective metric results with user scores, recored during playback and after playback, differs signifi- cantly.
Variation in the strength of inbreeding depression across environments: Effects of stress and density dependence

In what types of environments should we expect to find strong inbreeding depression? Previous studies indicate that inbreeding depression, δ, is positively correlated with the stressfulness of the environment in which it is measured. However, it remains unclear why stress, per se, should increase δ. To our knowledge, only “competitive stress” has a logical connection to δ. Through competition for resources, better quality (outbred) individuals make the environment worse for lower quality (inbred) individuals, accentuating the differences between them. For this reason, we expect inbreeding depression to be stronger in environments where the fitness of individuals is more sensitive to the presence of conspecifics (i.e., where fitness is more density dependent). Indeed, some studies suggest a role for competition within environments, but this idea has not been tested in the context of understanding variation in δ across environments. Using Drosophila melanogaster, we estimated δ for viability in 22 different environments. These environments were simultaneously characterized for (1) stressfulness and (2) density dependence. Although stress and density dependence are moderately correlated with each other, inbreeding depression is much more strongly correlated with density dependence. These results suggest that mean selection across the genome is stronger in environments where competition is intense, rather than in environments that are stressful for other reasons.
Association Between Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet at Midlife and Healthy Aging in a Cohort of French Adults

Background The Mediterranean diet has been suggested as a key element for the prevention of age-related chronic diseases. However, very few studies have examined its relation with multidimensional concepts of healthy aging (HA). Our objective was thus to investigate the association between adherence to the Mediterranean diet at midlife and HA. Methods We analyzed data from 3,012 participants of the French SUpplémentation en Vitamines et Minéraux AntioXydants (SU.VI.MAX) study aged 45-60 years at baseline (1994-1995) and initially free of major chronic diseases, with available data on HA status in 2007-2009. We defined HA as not developing major chronic disease (cancer, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes), good physical and cognitive functioning (evaluated by validated, standardized tests), independence in instrumental activities of daily living, no depressive symptoms, good social functioning, good self-perceived health, and no function-limiting pain. An index assessing adherence to the Mediterranean diet, the Literature-based Adherence Score to the Mediterranean Diet (LAMD) was calculated using baseline data from repeated 24-hour dietary records. Results In 2007-2009, 38% of participants met the HA criteria. Multivariable logistic regression revealed that higher scores on the LAMD (ORTertile 3 vs Tertile 1: 1.36 [1.12; 1.65]) were associated with higher odds of HA. Supplementary analyses using structural equation modeling revealed a potential mediation of the observed associations by metabolic health-related factors. Conclusions Our results suggest a favorable role of a high adherence to the Mediterranean diet at midlife for maintaining good overall health during aging.
Peripheral Artery Disease Prevalence and Incidence Estimated From Both Outpatient and Inpatient Settings Among Medicare Fee‐for‐Service Beneficiaries in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study

Background Outpatient ascertainment of peripheral artery disease (PAD) is rarely considered in the measurement of PAD clinical burden; therefore, the clinical burden of PAD likely has been underestimated while contributing to a decreased awareness of PAD in comparison to other circulatory system disorders. Methods and Results The purpose of this study was to estimate the age‐standardized annual period prevalence and incidence of PAD in the outpatient and inpatient settings using data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study linked with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services claims. The majority (>70%) of all PAD encounters occurred in the outpatient setting. The weighted mean age‐standardized prevalence and incidence of outpatient PAD was 11.8% (95% CI 11.5–12.1) and 22.4 per 1000 person‐years (95% CI 20.8–24.0), respectively. Black patients had higher weighted mean age‐standardized prevalence (15.6%; 95% CI 14.6–16.4) compared with white patients (11.4%; 95% CI 11.1–11.7). Black women had the highest weighted mean age‐standardized prevalence (16.9%; 95% CI 16.0–17.8). Black patients also had a higher incidence rate of PAD (31.3 per 1000 person‐years; 95% CI 27.3–35.4) compared with white patients (25.4 per 1000 person‐years; 95% CI 23.5–27.3). PAD prevalence and incidence did not differ by sex alone. Conclusions This study provides comprehensive estimates of PAD in the inpatient and outpatient settings where the majority of PAD burden was found. PAD is an important circulatory system disorder similar in prevalence to stroke and coronary heart disease.
Is irisin the new player in exercise-induced adaptations or not? A 2017 update

Abstract Irisin is produced by a proteolytic cleavage of fibronectin type III domain-containing protein 5 (FNDC5) and has emerged as a potential mediator of exercise-induced energy metabolism. The purpose of this study was to review the results of studies that investigated irisin responses to acute and chronic exercise and provide an update. A comprehensive search in the databases of MEDLINE was performed (74 exercise studies). The focus of the analysis was on data concerning FNDC5 mRNA expression in skeletal muscle and circulating irisin concentration relatively to exercise mode, intensity, frequency and duration and the characteristics of the sample used. Circulating irisin levels may either not relate to FNDC5 transcription or expression of the later precedes irisin rise in the blood. Acute speed/strength and endurance exercise protocols represent potent stimuli for irisin release if they are characterized by adequate intensity and/or duration. There are no reports regarding irisin responses to field sport activities. Although animal studies suggest that irisin may also respond to systematic exercise training, the majority of human studies has produced contradictory results. Certain methodological issues need to be considered here such as the analytical assays used to measure irisin concentration in the circulation. Results may also be affected by subjects’ age, conditioning status and exercise intensity. The role of irisin as a moderator of energy metabolism during exercise remains to be seen.
Yield and Nutritive Quality of Five Sweet Potato Varieties in Response to Nitrogen Levels

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas (L) Lam) that able to thrive in the tropical harsh condition is one of the vital commodities to small scale farmers. With more than 6,500 wild, traditional and improved varieties globally and the importance of nitrogen (N) fertilization in producing high yield of quality tuber in the tropical region, further research on selected sweet potato varieties and optimum N fertilization was conducted in Field 2 of University Putra Malaysia (UPM) that specifically determining tuber yield and its nutritive quality (carbohydrate, total sugar, and β-carotene) and its selected plant parameters. Five varieties (labeled as A, B, C, D, and E for accessions E10073, E10236, E10136, E10173, and E10051, respectively) at four N application rates (0, 17, 34, and 68 kg ha -1 ) were used in the 2-factorial experiment with a split plot design. With generally of no N*varieties interaction effect on all parameters, the N rate for optimum yield determined by regression method was 45 kg N ha -1 . At this N rate, the resulted high yielder varieties were E and D with estimated yields of 15.1 and 14.5 t ha -1 respectively. The medium yielders were A (13.1 t ha -1 ) and C (12.7 t ha -1 ), while the low yielder was B (11.6 t ha -1 ). The LAI and photosynthetic rate for obtaining higher yield at the N rate were > 1.6 units and > 37 u moles m -2 s -1 respectively. Much higher leaves relative to stem did not cause the Peru originated variety (C) had higher yield than those of the high yielder Malaysian varieties. The high yielder E (E 10051) had carbohydrate, total sugar and β-carotene of 22.4%, 8.3%, 9248 ug g -1 , respectively, while the respective values for the medium yielder B (E 10236 ) were 24.1%, 8.0% and 7448 ug g -1 . Other varieties had minimal β-carotene of < 16 ug g -1
Change in Functional Arm Use Is Associated With Somatosensory Skills After Sensory Retraining Poststroke

OBJECTIVE. We investigated changes in functional arm use after retraining for stroke-related somatosensory loss and identified whether such changes are associated with somatosensory discrimination skills. METHOD. Data were pooled (N = 80) from two randomized controlled trials of somatosensory retraining. We used the Motor Activity Log to measure perceived amount of arm use in daily activities and the Action Research Arm Test to measure performance capacity. Somatosensory discrimination skills were measured using standardized modality-specific measures. RESULTS. Participants’ arm use improved after somatosensory retraining (z = −6.80, p < .01). Change in arm use was weakly associated with somatosensation (tactile, &bgr; = 0.31, p < .01; proprioception, &bgr; = −0.17, p > .05; object recognition, &bgr; = 0.13, p < .05). CONCLUSION. Change in daily arm use was related to a small amount of variance in somatosensory outcomes. Stroke survivors’ functional arm use can increase after somatosensory retraining, with change varying among survivors.
Direct numerical simulation and Lagrangian modeling of joint scalar statistics in ternary mixing

Direct numerical simulation (DNS) results are presented for the joint statistics of two inhomogeneous scalar fields, one due to a mixing layer source and the other due to a contiguous top-hat source. These two sources form the basis for all scalar mixing across three streams. The results are used to assess the performance of a Lagrangian stochastic modeling system incorporating the interaction with the conditional mean mixing model at two different times: A near-field time when there is little spatial overlap between the two scalar fields, and a far-field time when there is strong overlap. In the near field we find that for both the model and the DNS, the joint probability density function is essentially confined to two lines in concentration phase space; the diagonal ψ1+ψ2=1 and the axis ψ1=0, where ψ1 and ψ2 are the phase space concentrations for the mixing layer and top-hat scalars, respectively. The model and DNS results along these sections are in excellent quantitative agreement for a range of stati.
TACO: Learning Task Decomposition via Temporal Alignment for Control

Many advanced Learning from Demonstration (LfD) methods consider the decomposition of complex, real-world tasks into simpler sub-tasks. By reusing the corresponding sub-policies within and between tasks, they provide training data for each policy from different high-level tasks and compose them to perform novel ones. Existing approaches to modular LfD focus either on learning a single high-level task or depend on domain knowledge and temporal segmentation. In contrast, we propose a weakly supervised, domain-agnostic approach based on task sketches, which include only the sequence of sub-tasks performed in each demonstration. Our approach simultaneously aligns the sketches with the observed demonstrations and learns the required sub-policies. This improves generalisation in comparison to separate optimisation procedures. We evaluate the approach on multiple domains, including a simulated 3D robot arm control task using purely image-based observations. The results show that our approach performs commensurately with fully supervised approaches, while requiring significantly less annotation effort.
Roaring bitmaps: Implementation of an optimized software library

Compressed bitmap indexes are used in systems such as Git or Oracle to accelerate queries. They represent sets and often support operations such as unions, intersections, differences, and symmetric differences. Several important systems such as Elasticsearch, Apache Spark, Netflix's Atlas, LinkedIn's Pivot, Metamarkets' Druid, Pilosa, Apache Hive, Apache Tez, Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services, and Apache Kylin rely on a specific type of compressed bitmap index called Roaring. We present an optimized software library written in C implementing Roaring bitmaps: CRoaring. It benefits from several algorithms designed for the single‐instruction–multiple‐data instructions available on commodity processors. In particular, we present vectorized algorithms to compute the intersection, union, difference, and symmetric difference between arrays. We benchmark the library against a wide range of competitive alternatives, identifying weaknesses and strengths in our software. Our work is available under a liberal open‐source license.
Business and Breakthrough: Framing (Expanded) Genetic Carrier Screening for the Public

ABSTRACT A growing body of research has given attention to issues surrounding genetic testing, including expanded carrier screening (ECS), an elective medical test that allows planning or expecting parents to consider the potential occurrence of genetic diseases and disorders in their children. These studies have noted the role of the mass media in driving public perceptions about such testing, giving particular attention to ways in which coverage of genetics and genetic testing broadly may drive public attitudes and choices concerning the morality, legality, ethics, and parental well-being involved in genetic technologies. However, few studies have explored how mass media are covering the newer test, ECS. Drawing on health-related framing studies that have shown in varying degrees the impact particular frames such as gain/loss and thematic/episodic can have on the public, this study examines the frame selection employed by online media in its coverage of ECS. This analysis—combined with an analysis of the sources and topics used in such coverage and how they relate to selected frames—helps to clarify how mass media are covering an increasingly important medical test and offers considerations of how such coverage may inform mass media scholarship as well as health-related practices.
Differentially Private Distributed Learning for Language Modeling Tasks

One of the big challenges in machine learning applications is that training data can be different from the real-world data faced by the algorithm. In language modeling, the language of users (e.g. in private messaging) could change in a year and be completely different from what we observe in publicly available data. At the same time, public data can be used for obtaining general knowledge (i.e. general model of English). We study approaches to distributed fine-tuning of a general model on user private data with the additional requirement of maintaining the quality on the general data. Our experiments demonstrate that a technique based on model averaging and random rehearsal outperforms an approach based on transfer learning, and show that the proposed method improves prediction quality in a reasonable time. The procedure leads to an almost 70% perplexity reduction and 8.7 percentage point improvement in keystroke saving rate on informal English texts compared to a basic model trained on Wikipedia. We also propose an experimental framework for evaluating differential privacy of distributed training of language models and show that our approach has good privacy guarantees.