Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Placental Pathology Associated with Household Air Pollution in a Cohort of Pregnant Women from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Background: Smoke from the burning of biomass fuels has been linked with adverse pregnancy outcomes such as low birth weight, stillbirth, and prematurity. Objective: To identify potential underlying mechanisms of adverse perinatal outcomes, we explored the association of placental pathology with household air pollution in pregnant women from urban/periurban Tanzania who cook predominantly with charcoal. Methods: Between 2011 and 2013, we measured personal exposures to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and carbon monoxide (CO) over 72 hr among a cohort of Tanzanian pregnant women. Placentas were collected after delivery for examination. Placental pathologies of inflammatory, hypoxic, ischemic/hypertensive, infectious and thrombotic etiologies were diagnosed, blinded to exposure levels. Using multiple logistic regression, we explored the association of PM2.5 and CO exposure with placental pathology. Results: One hundred sixteen women had personal air exposure measurements and placental histopathology available for analysis. PM2.5 and CO exposures were moderate [geometric means (GSD) were 40.5 μg/m3 (17.3) and 2.21 ppm (1.47) respectively]; 88.6% of PM2.5 measurements exceeded World Health Organization air quality guidelines. We observed an increase in the odds (per 1-unit increase in exposure on the ln-scale) of fetal thrombotic vasculopathy (FTV) both with increasing PM2.5 [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 5.5; 95% CI: 1.1, 26.8] and CO measurements (aOR = 2.5; 95% CI: 1.0, 6.4) in adjusted models only. FTV also was more common among pregnancies complicated by stillbirth or low birth weight. Conclusions: Fetal thrombosis may contribute to the adverse outcomes associated with household air pollution from cook stoves during pregnancy. Larger studies are necessary for confirmation. Citation: Wylie BJ, Matechi E, Kishashu Y, Fawzi W, Premji Z, Coull BA, Hauser R, Ezzati M, Roberts D. 2017. Placental pathology associated with household air pollution in a cohort of pregnant women from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Environ Health Perspect 125:134–140; http://dx.doi. org/10.1289/EHP256
Assessment of Cardiac Motion Effects on the Fiber Architecture of the Human Heart In Vivo

The use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) for studying the human heart in vivo is very challenging due to cardiac motion. This paper assesses the effects of cardiac motion on the human myocardial fiber architecture. To this end, a model for analyzing the effects of cardiac motion on signal intensity is presented. A Monte-Carlo simulation based on polarized light imaging data is then performed to calculate the diffusion signals obtained by the displacement of water molecules, which generate diffusion weighted (DW) images. Rician noise and in vivo motion data obtained from DENSE acquisition are added to the simulated cardiac DW images to produce motion-induced datasets. An algorithm based on principal components analysis filtering and temporal maximum intensity projection (PCATMIP) is used to compensate for motion-induced signal loss. Diffusion tensor parameters derived from motion-reduced DW images are compared to those derived from the original simulated DW images. Finally, to assess cardiac motion effects on in vivo fiber architecture, in vivo cardiac DTI data processed by PCATMIP are compared to those obtained from one trigger delay (TD) or one single phase acquisition. The results showed that cardiac motion produced overestimated fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity as well as a narrower range of fiber angles. The combined use of shifted TD acquisitions and postprocessing based on image registration and PCATMIP effectively improved the quality of in vivo DW images and subsequently, the measurement accuracy of fiber architecture properties. This suggests new solutions to the problems associated with obtaining in vivo human myocardial fiber architecture properties in clinical conditions.
Opioid Oversupply After Joint and Spine Surgery: A Prospective Cohort Study

BACKGROUND: Many patients receive prescription opioids at hospital discharge after surgery, yet little is known regarding how often these opioids go unused. We estimated the prevalence of unused opioids, use of nonopioid analgesics, and storage and disposal practices after same-day and inpatient surgery. METHODS: In this prospective cohort study at a large, inner-city tertiary care hospital, we recruited individuals ≥18 years of age undergoing elective same-day or inpatient joint and spine surgery from August to November 2016. Using patient surveys via telephone calls, we assessed patient-reported outcomes at 2-day, 2-week, 1-month, and 6-month intervals, including: (1) stopping opioid treatment and in possession of unused opioid pills (primary outcome), (2) number of unused opioid tablets reported after stopping opioids, (3) use of nonopioid pain treatments, and (4) knowledge and practice regarding safe opioid storage and disposal. RESULTS: Of 141 eligible patients, 140 (99%) consented (35% taking preoperative opioids; mean age 56 years [standard deviation 16 years]; 47% women). One- and 6-month follow-up was achieved for 115 (82%) and 110 patients (80%), respectively. Among patients who stopped opioid therapy, possession of unused opioids was reported by 73% (95% confidence intervals, 62%–82%) at 1-month follow-up and 34% (confidence interval, 24%–45%) at 6-month follow-up. At 1 month, 46% had ≥20 unused pills, 37% had ≥200 morphine milligram equivalents, and only 6% reported using multiple nonopioid adjuncts. Many patients reported unsafe storage and failure to dispose of opioids at both 1-month (91% and 96%, respectively) and 6-month (92% and 47%, respectively) follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: After joint and spine surgery, many patients reported unused opioids, infrequent use of analgesic alternatives, and lack of knowledge regarding safe opioid storage and disposal. Interventions are needed to better tailor postoperative analgesia and improve the safe storage and disposal of prescription opioids.
Factors Affecting Low Seed:Ovule Ratios in a Spring Woodland Herb, Trillium grandiflorum (Melanthiaceae)

Female fertility in flowering plants is commonly observed to be submaximal. The fraction of ovules in a flower that produce seeds is commonly less than 1.00, particularly in outcrossing species. Here we investigate through controlled pollinations factors that may contribute toward low seed:ovule ratios in Trillium grandiflorum, a self‐incompatible woodland herb from eastern North America. Reduced fruit and seed set in open‐pollinated plants in comparison with hand cross‐pollinated plants demonstrated that pollen limitation was a contributing factor to low female fertility. However, seed:ovule ratios of hand cross‐pollinated flowers averaged only 0.66. Experimental pollinations involving the manipulation of pollen age, the number of pollen donors, the timing of pollination, and the application of self‐pollen before cross‐pollen each had no effect on fertility. This indicated that aspects of pollen delivery were not responsible for low seed:ovule ratios and that resources might influence variation in seed:ovule ratios. An analysis of the relation between plant size and seed set in hand cross‐pollinated plants provided evidence that resources limited fertility when ovules of T. grandiflorum were not pollen limited. We discuss these results in the context of the stochastic pollination environment that characterizes the early spring flowering period of T. grandiflorum.
ultiple year effects of a biological control agent ( Diorhabda carinulata ) on amarix ( saltcedar ) ecosystem exchanges of carbon dioxide and water eirith

Biological control of Tamarix spp. (saltcedar) with Diorhabda carinulata (the northern tamarisk beetle) is currently underway in several western states U.S.A. through historical releases and the natural migration of this insect. Given the widespread dispersal of this biological control agent and its many unknown consequences, this study examines a variety of ecohydrological effects of the beetle on a Tamarix invaded ecosystem in the Great Basin Desert, Nevada. Nearly four years of ecosystem carbon dioxide (CO2) and evapotranspiration (ET) fluxes, measured with an eddy covariance system, are examined in relation to normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from Landsat imagery and on the ground measures of leaf area index (LAI) with a light attenuation instrument. We predicted that successive years of beetle herbivory should result in a trajectory of reduced ET and reduced CO2 uptake. We found that three and
Evaluating Fast Algorithms for Convolutional Neural Networks on FPGAs

In recent years, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have become widely adopted for computer vision tasks. Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) have been adequately explored as a promising hardware accelerator for CNNs due to its high performance, energy efficiency, and reconfigurability. However, prior FPGA solutions based on the conventional convolutional algorithm is often bounded by the computational capability of FPGAs (e.g., the number of DSPs). To address this problem, the feature maps are transformed to a special domain using fast algorithms to reduce the arithmetic complexity. Winograd and fast Fourier transformation (FFT), as fast algorithm representatives, first transform input data and filter to Winograd or frequency domain, then perform element-wise multiplication, and apply inverse transformation to get the final output. In this paper, we propose a novel architecture for implementing fast algorithms on FPGAs. Our design employs line buffer structure to effectively reuse the feature map data among different tiles. We also effectively pipeline the Winograd/FFT processing element (PE) engine and initiate multiple PEs through parallelization. Meanwhile, there exists a complex design space to explore. We propose an analytical model to predict the resource usage and the performance. Then, we use the model to guide a fast design space exploration. Experiments using the state-of-the-art CNNs demonstrate the best performance and energy efficiency on FPGAs. We achieve 854.6 and 2479.6 GOP/s for AlexNet and VGG16 on Xilinx ZCU102 platform using Winograd. We achieve 130.4 GOP/s for Resnet using Winograd and 201.1 GOP/s for YOLO using FFT on Xilinx ZC706 platform.
Follicular Thyroid Carcinoma in a Country of Endemic Iodine Deficiency (1994–2013)

Background Follicular thyroid cancer (FTC) has historically been linked to iodine deficiency. Although Ghana is among the iodine deficient regions of the world, the proportions, trends, and the clinical features of FTCs have not been studied as a single disease entity. The aim of this study was to determine the relative frequencies, trends, and the clinicopathological characteristics of FTCs among all thyroid malignancies in our institution. Materials and Methods This was a retrospective study from January 1994 to December 2013. Data were analysed using SPSS software version 23 (Chicago) and Graph pad prism version 5.00. Results Follicular thyroid cancer was the second thyroid malignancy (35.0%) and showed a gradual rise in relative proportions over the period. The male-female ratio was 1 : 1.5. The mean ages were 46.9 (SD ±17.3) for males and 46.4 (SD ±13.3) years for females. Enlarged palpable anterior neck swelling was the commonest symptom in males (86.7%) and females (91.3%) (P = 0.730). Hurthle cell carcinoma was the commonest variant of FTC, with 26.7% males and 10.6% females (P = 0.116). Distant spread was found in 23.3% of males compared to 19.1% of females (P = 0.633). The common sites of distant spread were bones (57.2%) in males and cervical lymph nodes (44.4%) in females (P = 0.106). Conclusion Follicular thyroid cancer was the second common thyroid malignancy (35.0%) with a gradual rise in trend over the study period and male-female ratio of 1.5 : 1. Large anterior neck swelling was the commonest clinical presentation of FTC.
An Analysis of the Role of the Indigenous Microbiota in Cholesterol Gallstone Pathogenesis

Background and Aims Cholesterol gallstone disease is a complex process involving both genetic and environmental variables. No information exists regarding what role if any the indigenous gastrointestinal microbiota may play in cholesterol gallstone pathogenesis and whether variations in the microbiota can alter cholesterol gallstone prevalence rates. Methods Genetically related substrains (BALB/cJ and BALB/cJBomTac) and (BALB/AnNTac and BALB/cByJ) of mice obtained from different vendors were compared for cholesterol gallstone prevalence after being fed a lithogenic diet for 8 weeks. The indigenous microbiome was altered in these substrains by oral gavage of fecal slurries as adults, by cross-fostering to mice with divergent flora at <1day of age or by rederiving into a germ-free state. Results Alterations in the indigenous microbiome altered significantly the accumulation of mucin gel and normalized gallbladder weight but did not alter cholesterol gallstone susceptibility in conventionally housed SPF mice. Germ-free rederivation rendered mice more susceptible to cholesterol gallstone formation. This susceptibility appeared to be largely due to alterations in gallbladder size and gallbladder wall inflammation. Colonization of germ-free mice with members of altered Schaedler flora normalized the gallstone phenotype to a level similar to conventionally housed mice. Conclusions These data demonstrate that alterations in the gastrointestinal microbiome may alter aspects of cholesterol gallstone pathogenesis and that in the appropriate circumstances these changes may impact cholesterol cholelithogenesis.
Occurrence and Severity of White Striping in Broilers Until 50d of Age Fed with High and Low-Energy Diets: Body Weight, Histopathological Changes and Meat Quality

White striping (WS) is a condition characterized by the occurrence of white striations parallel to the muscle fibers on breast, thigh, and tender muscle of broilers. This study was aimed to evaluate the occurrence and severity of white striping and histopathological changes in breast fillets from 10 to 50 d broilers disregarding the effect of diet. Birds (n=572) were randomly assigned to a high- (HED) or low-energy (LED) diet (11 replicates of 26 birds/dietary treatment) and were processed at 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 d of age to evaluate occurrence of white striping, BW, histological analysis, and meat quality. The results showed that at 10 d of age, 2.27% of the birds showed some degree of WS and at 20 and 30 d of age the occurrence of WS (%) was higher in birds fed HED than birds fed LED diets. There was no differences (P>0.05) in the L*, a*, and b* values for meat or among different degrees of WS as well as between dietary treatments; however, carcass characteristics varied by age or carcass weight. Histologically, the severity of WS causes changes in myofibers, with muscle fibers showing sarcoplasmic reticulum vacuolization, a higher intercapillary distance and a reduced capillary to fiber ratio, suggesting loss of integrity of the cell structure, that was seen in birds fed both diets (low and high nutrient densities) after 30 d of age and lower oxygenation.
Convolutional Neural Networks Based Fire Detection in Surveillance Videos

The recent advances in embedded processing have enabled the vision based systems to detect fire during surveillance using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). However, such methods generally need more computational time and memory, restricting its implementation in surveillance networks. In this research paper, we propose a cost-effective fire detection CNN architecture for surveillance videos. The model is inspired from GoogleNet architecture, considering its reasonable computational complexity and suitability for the intended problem compared to other computationally expensive networks such as AlexNet. To balance the efficiency and accuracy, the model is fine-tuned considering the nature of the target problem and fire data. Experimental results on benchmark fire datasets reveal the effectiveness of the proposed framework and validate its suitability for fire detection in CCTV surveillance systems compared to state-of-the-art methods.
Characteristics of Pb2+ doped CsI matriz under gamma and neutron excitations

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in finding new fast scintillating material or improve the characteristics of known scintillators for the demand of high energy physics, industrial and nuclear medical applications. Ions divalent lead Pb2 + built in some crystal structures are efficient emission centers and their applications in scintillators was and still is the reason of an intensive study of emission properties of different compounds containing these ions. In this context, the crystals of Pb2 + doped CsI matrix were grown by the vertical Bridgman technique and subjected to annealing in vacuum of 10 -6 mbar and continuous temperatura of 350°C, for 24 hours, and then they were employed. To evaluate the response of the CsI:Pb scintillator crystal to gamma radiation, radioactive sources of 137 Cs (662 keV), 60 Co (1173 keV and 1333 keV), 22 Na (511 keV and 1275 keV) and 133 Ba (355 keV) was used. The operating voltage of the photomultiplier was 2700 V for the detection of gamma rays and the accumulation time in the counting process was 600 s. The scintillator response to neutron radiation from a radioactive source of Am/Be with energy range of 1 MeV to 12 MeV was available. The activity of the AmBe source was 1Ci Am. The fluency was 2.6 x 10 6 neutrons / second. The operating voltage of the photomultiplier tube was 1300 V. The accumulation time in the counting process was 600 s. With the results obtained, it may be observed that the crystals are sensitive to these radiations.
Delayed gastrointestinal recovery after abdominal operation – role of alvimopan

Postoperative Ileus (POI), which occurs after surgical manipulation of the bowel during abdominal operations, is associated with prolonged hospital stay, increasing medical costs, and delayed advancement of enteral diet, which contributes to a significant economic burden on the healthcare system. The use of accelerated care pathways has shown to positively impact gut function, but inevitable postoperative opioid use contributes to POI. Alvimopan is a peripherally acting μ-opioid receptor antagonist designed to mitigate antimotility effects of opioids. In our review, we examined ten trials on alvimopan’s use after abdominal operations. Several of the earlier studies on patients undergoing bowel resection showed correlations between the study group and GI recovery as defined by passage of flatus, first bowel movement, and time to readiness for discharge. Data in patients undergoing total abdominal hysterectomy showed similarly decreased GI recovery time. Additionally, data within the past few years shows alvimopan is associated with more rapid GI recovery time in patients undergoing radical cystectomy. Based on our review, use of alvimopan remains a safe and potentially cost-effective means of reducing POI in patients following open GI surgery, radical cystectomy, and total abdominal hysterectomy, and should be employed following these abdominal operations.
Did It Again ! Emotion-driven Design as a Means to Motivate Subjective Well-being

I knew I shouldn’t, yet I did it again! Our emotions sometimes seem to play tricks on us: the person who was fined for speeding knew she was behaving irresponsibly but simply could not resist when testing the new sports car. And the person who has to face an upset spouse knew that he should not have purchased these expensive shoes, but some inner voice made him buy them anyway. These and similar situations typically evoke mixed emotions: combinations of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions, such as pleasure and shame, or pride and regret. Emotions sometimes seem to ‘make us’ behave irresponsibly, jeopardizing our health, safety, and security. We know we should not eat the bag of candy because it will make us feel bad. But we do it anyway (while enjoying the taste), even when realizing that we will pay for it later. In this paper we explore how products can be designed with the intention to resolve these emotional conflicts, contributing to long-term subjective well-being, rather than to shortterm pleasures or thrills. There are several models in the design literature that attempt to explain the role of emotion in product design (Desmet, 2002; Jordan, 1999; Norman, 2004). The model adopted in this paper has been proposed by Desmet and uses appraisal theory as the basis for explaining how products elicit emotions through addressing one’s concerns. As it applies to design and emotion, an appraisal is “an automatic assessment of the effect of a product on one’s well-being” (Demir, Desmet, & Hekkert, 2009, p. 1). For example, if one wants to be successful at work, failing to get a promotion may generate anger or disappointment. Appraisal theory identifies concerns (wanting to be promoted) as reference points in the process of emotion elicitation. Experience of positive or negative emotions towards a given situation depends on whether that situation fulfills or harms one’s concern(s) (Frijda, 1986). Different people may experience different emotions in a given situation; however, the process of emotion elicitation, as explained by appraisal theory, is universal. Design for emotion also provides the means to design for subjective well-being, since the latter benefits from the influence of emotions on one’s being. Frijda (2007) argues that emotions can generate long-term goals, when a specific concern obtains a high priority in the hierarchical concern structure of a person. Such concerns are goals with high emotional value: The process ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Impact of communication delay on asynchronous distributed optimal power flow using ADMM

Distributed optimization has attracted lots of attention in the operation of power systems in recent years, where a large area is decomposed into smaller control regions each solving a local optimization problem with periodic information exchange with neighboring regions. However, most distributed optimization methods are iterative and require synchronization of all regions at each iteration, which is hard to achieve without a centralized coordinator and might lead to under-utilization of computation resources due to the heterogeneity of the regions. To address such limitations of synchronous schemes, this paper investigates the applicability of asynchronous distributed optimization methods to power system optimization. Particularly, we focus on solving the AC Optimal Power Flow problem and propose an algorithmic framework based on the Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers (ADMM) method that allows the regions to perform local updates with information received from a subset of but not all neighbors. Through experimental studies, we demonstrate that the convergence performance of the proposed asynchronous scheme is dependent on the communication delay of passing messages among the regions. Under mild communication delays, the proposed scheme can achieve comparable or even faster convergence compared with its synchronous counterpart, which can be used as a good alternative to centralized or synchronous distributed optimization approaches.