Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epipolar Consistency in Transmission Imaging

This paper presents the derivation of the Epipolar Consistency Conditions (ECC) between two X-ray images from the Beer-Lambert law of X-ray attenuation and the Epipolar Geometry of two pinhole cameras, using Grangeat's theorem. We motivate the use of Oriented Projective Geometry to express redundant line integrals in projection images and define a consistency metric, which can be used, for instance, to estimate patient motion directly from a set of X-ray images. We describe in detail the mathematical tools to implement an algorithm to compute the Epipolar Consistency Metric and investigate its properties with detailed random studies on both artificial and real FD-CT data. A set of six reference projections of the CT scan of a fish were used to evaluate accuracy and precision of compensating for random disturbances of the ground truth projection matrix using an optimization of the consistency metric. In addition, we use three X-ray images of a pumpkin to prove applicability to real data. We conclude, that the metric might have potential in applications related to the estimation of projection geometry. By expression of redundancy between two arbitrary projection views, we in fact support any device or acquisition trajectory which uses a cone-beam geometry. We discuss certain geometric situations, where the ECC provide the ability to correct 3D motion, without the need for 3D reconstruction.
Electrical dynamics of isolated cerebral and skeletal muscle endothelial tubes: Differential roles of G‐protein‐coupled receptors and K+ channels

Electrical dynamics of freshly isolated cerebral endothelium have not been determined independently of perivascular nerves and smooth muscle. We tested the hypothesis that endothelium of cerebral and skeletal muscle arteries differentially utilizes purinergic and muscarinic signaling pathways to activate endothelium‐derived hyperpolarization. Changes in membrane potential (Vm) were recorded in intact endothelial tubes freshly isolated from posterior cerebral and superior epigastric arteries of male and female C57BL/6 mice (age: 3‐8 months). Vm was measured in response to activation of purinergic (P2Y) and muscarinic (M3) receptors in addition to small‐ and intermediate‐conductance Ca2+‐activated K+ (SKCa/IKCa) and inward rectifying K+ (KIR) channels using ATP (100 μmol·L−1), acetylcholine (ACh; 10 μmol·L−1), NS309 (0.01‐10 μmol·L−1), and 15 mmol·L−1 KCl, respectively. Intercellular coupling was demonstrated via transfer of propidium iodide dye and electrical current (±0.5‐3 nA) through gap junctions. With similarities observed across gender, peak hyperpolarization to ATP and ACh in skeletal muscle endothelial tubes was ~twofold and ~sevenfold higher, respectively, vs cerebral endothelial tubes, whereas responses to NS309 were similar (from resting Vm ~−30 mV to maximum ~−80 mV). Hyperpolarization (~8 mV) occurred during 15 mmol·L−1 KCl treatment in cerebral but not skeletal muscle endothelial tubes. Despite weaker hyperpolarization during endothelial GPCR stimulation in cerebral vs skeletal muscle endothelium, the capability for robust SKCa/IKCa activity is preserved across brain and skeletal muscle. As vascular reactivity decreases with aging and cardiovascular disease, endothelial K+ channel activity may be calibrated to restore blood flow to respective organs regardless of gender.
Idiopathic facial aseptic granuloma—A diagnostic challenge in pediatric dermatology

Idiopathic facial aseptic granuloma is a distinct, benign lesion that presents in very young children and is characterized by a painless facial nodule that usually appears on the cheek. It is typically characterized by a prolonged course but heals spontaneously or in response to antibiotic treatment. The challenge is to diagnose this entity correctly, ideally based on clinical acumen, to avoid surgical intervention with facial sutures and the resultant scarring and unnecessary treatment interventions. In this article, we discuss three cases of idiopathic facial aseptic granuloma to raise awareness and highlight the diagnostic challenges and possible link to childhood rosacea.
Representativeness and Similarity

I provide a framework for analyzing a range of well-documented non-Bayesian behaviors including base rate neglect, conjunction fallacy and disjunction fallacy. The model that I propose formally links the concept of similarity in theoretical psychology with belief updating. I follow Kahneman and Tversky (1974) and assume that when attempting to respond to the question “How likely is A given B? ”, people mistakenly respond to the question “How representative is A of B (i.e. how similar are A and B)? ” With a similarity-based updating rule the conditional probability of A ∪C given B might be less than the conditional probability of A given B if B ∩ C = ∅, simply because the pair of events A ∪ C and B differ more from each other. The axioms that I propose yield a Cobb-Douglas weighted geometric mean of P (A|B) and P (B|A) as the behavioral conditional probability of A given B, where P is the correct subjective probability and P (·|·) is the Bayesian conditional of P . That is, I provide a model of behavioral decision makers who confuse these two conditional probabilities but have correct unconditional beliefs. This combination of correct priors and incorrect updating occurs often since in many experiments subjects are explicitly given the relevant prior probabilities. ∗I am grateful for insightful comments by Nemanja Antic, Roland Benabou, Liang Dai, Faruk Gul, Shaowei Ke, Wolfgang Pesendorfer, Chang Sun and participants in the Princeton Microeconomic Theory Student Seminar. All errors are mine.
Anti-epileptic drug utilisation in paediatrics: a systematic review

Objectives This study aims to determine global anti-epileptic drug (AED) utilisation prevalence and describe utilisation trends in different countries. Methods Databases Embase (1980–May 2017), Medline (1946–May 2017) and PubMed were searched for original research on AED utilisation. All paediatric national or regional database studies and surveys were included. Results Twenty-one studies were identified. Five were excluded from the analysis as the data were collected before 2005, leaving 16 studies. Monotherapy regimen varied between 58% and 94% in different countries. In several of the studies, sodium valproate was the most frequently prescribed AED. However, there is a trend towards increasing utilisation of new-generation AEDs, particularly levetiracetam, in some countries. Conclusion Monotherapy was used in 58%–94%of patients. There is increasing utilisation of the new-generation AEDs, in particular lamotrigine, levetiracetam and topiramate. Old-generation AEDs are still used in the majority of patients. There is a need for up-to-date studies to determine the prevalence of AEDs in children.
Action Choice and Outcome Congruency Independently Affect Intentional Binding and Feeling of Control Judgments

Sense of agency (SoA) refers to the subjective experience that one is in control of their actions and the consequences of these actions. The SoA is a complex phenomenon, influenced by a weighted combination of various prospective (pre-movement) and retrospective (post-movement) processes and factors related to action choice, action selection fluency, action-outcome associations and higher-level inferences. In the current study, we examined the effect of the congruency between actions and outcomes in a context where the choice-level of actions was varied from 1 to 4. The actions consisted of right, left, up and down key presses while the outcomes were visual representations of the actions (i.e., right, left, up and down-pointing arrowheads). Participants performed either an instructed action or freely selected an action among two, three, or four alternatives. Each action randomly produced either a congruent or an incongruent outcome, depending on the matching between the direction of the key press and the direction of the outcome arrowhead. Participants estimated the delay between their actions and the observed outcomes and reported their feeling of control (FoC) over the outcomes. Interval estimations were used as an indirect measure of the SoA to quantify the intentional binding effect, which refers to the perceived temporal attraction between voluntary actions and their outcomes. The results showed that both intentional binding and FoC were enhanced as the choice-level was increased from 1 to 4. Additionally, intentional binding and FoC over the outcomes were stronger when actions produced congruent compared to incongruent outcomes. These results provide additional evidence that both intentional binding and FoC are sensitive to the number of action alternatives and the congruency between actions and their outcomes. Importantly, the current study suggests that these prospective and retrospective cues might independently influence intentional binding and FoC judgments.
JMR EARLY CAREER SCHOLARS IN MATERIALS SCIENCE ANNUAL ISSUE: REVIEW Thermoelectric and thermal transport properties of complex oxide thin films, heterostructures and superlattices

Over the years, the search for high performance thermoelectric materials has been dictated by the “phonon glass and electron crystal (PGEC)” paradigm, which suggests that low band gap semiconductors with high atomic number elements and high carrier mobility are the ideal materials to achieve high thermoelectric figure of merit. Complex oxides provide alternative mechanisms such as large density of states and strong electron correlation for high thermoelectric efficiency, albeit having low carrier mobility. Due to vast structural and chemical flexibility, they provide a fertile playground to design high efficiency thermoelectric materials. Further, developments in oxide thin film growth methods have enabled synthesis of high quality, atomically precise low dimensional structures such as heterostructures and superlattices. These materials and structures act as excellent model systems to explore nanoscale thermal and thermoelectric transport, which will not only expand the frontier of our knowledge, but also continue to enable cutting edge applications.
Does N‐terminal huntingtin function as a ‘holdase’ for inhibiting cellular protein aggregation?

Proteolytic cleavage of huntingtin gives rise to N‐terminal fragments. While the role of truncated mutant huntingtin is described in Huntington's disease (HD) pathogenesis, the function of N‐terminal wild‐type protein is less studied. The yeast model of HD is generated by the presence of FLAG tag and absence of polyproline tract as flanking sequences of the elongated polyglutamine stretch. We show that the same sequence derived from wild‐type huntingtin exon1 is able to inhibit the aggregation of proteins in vitro and in yeast cells. It is able to stabilize client proteins as varied as luciferase, α‐synuclein, and p53 in a soluble but non‐native state. This is somewhat similar to the ‘holdase’ function of small heat shock proteins and ‘nonchaperone proteins’ which are able to stabilize partially unfolded client proteins in a nonspecific manner, slowing down their aggregation. Mutagenesis studies show this property to be localized at the N17 domain preceding the polyglutamine tract. Distortion of this ordered segment, either by deletion of this segment or mutation of a single residue (L4A), leads to decreased stability and increased aggregation of client proteins. It is interesting to note that the helical conformation of the N17 domain is also essential for aggregation of the N‐terminal mutant protein. Our results provide evidence for a novel function for the amphipathic helix derived from exon1 of wild‐type huntingtin.
Evaluation of anti-allergic and anti-anaphylactic activity of ethanolic extract of Zizyphus jujuba fruits in rodents

The present study reports the anti-allergic activity of ethanolic extract of Zizyphus jujubaMill. , Rhamnaceae, and its possible mode of action. The effect of extract of Z. jujuba at different doses (250, 500 and 1000 mg/kg, orally) was simulated on studied animal models of asthma and allergy: a) milk induced eosinophilia and leukocytosis; b) compound 48/80 induced mast cell degranulation; and, c) active and passive cutaneous anaphylaxis. In addition, extract of Z. jujuba's effect on sensitized guinea pig ileum (ex vivo) and tracheal chain preparations (in vitro) were investigated.Treatment with extract of Z. jujuba at all doses significantly: prevented the milk-induced eosinophilia and compound 48/80 induced degranulation of mesenteric mast cells; decreased passive cutaneous and active anaphylactic reactions. In addition, extract of Z. jujuba inhibited acetylcholine as well as histamine induced tracheal chain contraction, and also antigen induced contraction of sensitized guinea pig ileum (Shultz-Dale inhibition test). Furthermore, it exhibited also free radicals scavenging activity (in vitro). The observed anti-allergic and anti-anaphylactic activity of extract of Z. jujuba may be largely through the stabilization of mast cells by the membrane presence of phytoconstituents (steroidal saponins and flavonoids).
Continuous affect prediction using eye gaze

In recent times, there has been significant interest in the machine recognition of human emotions, due to the suite of applications to which this knowledge can be applied. A number of different modalities, such as speech or facial expression, individually and with eye gaze, have been investigated by the affective computing research community to either classify the emotion (e.g. sad, happy, angry) or predict the continuous values of affective dimensions (e.g. valence, arousal, dominance) at each moment in time. Surprisingly after an extensive literature review, eye gaze as a unimodal input to a continuous affect prediction system has not been considered. In this context, this paper evaluates the use of eye gaze as a unimodal input to a continuous affect prediction system. The performance of continuous prediction of arousal and valence using eye gaze is compared with the performance of a speech system using the AVEC 2014 speech feature set. The experimental evaluation when using eye gaze as the single modality in a continuous affect prediction system produced a correlation result for valence prediction that is better than the correlation result obtained with the AVEC 2014 speech feature set. Furthermore, the eye gaze feature set proposed in this paper contains 98% fewer features compared to the number of features in the AVEC 2014 feature set.
Clinical and Molecular Epidemiology of Human Bocavirus in Respiratory and Fecal Samples from Children in Hong Kong

Abstract Background. Human bocavirus (HBoV) is a recently discovered parvovirus associated with respiratory tract infections in children. We conducted the first systematic prospective clinical and molecular study using nasopharyngeal aspirates (NPAs) and fecal samples. Methods. NPAs negative for influenza virus, parainfluenza virus, respiratory syncytial virus, adenovirus, and coronavirus and fecal samples from patients with acute gastroenteritis were included. On the basis of results from a pilot study using 400 NPAs from all age groups, a prospective 12-month study was conducted to detect HBoV in 1200 NPAs and 1435 fecal samples from patients <18 years old by polymerase chain reaction. The complete genome sequences of HBoVs from 12 NPAs and 12 fecal samples were determined. Results. Of the 400 NPAs collected in the pilot study, 20 (5.0%) were found to contain HBoV, all from children <5 years old. In the subsequent prospective study of pediatric patients, HBoV was detected in 83 (6.9%) of 1200 NPAs. Upper and lower respiratory tract infections were equally common. HBoV was detected in 30 (2.1%) of 1435 fecal samples. Fever and watery diarrhea were the most common symptoms. The seasonality of HBoV in NPAs and fecal samples was similar. Codetection with other pathogens occurred in 33% and 56% of NPAs and fecal samples, respectively, from patients with HBoV infection. Genomes of HBoVs from NPAs and fecal samples displayed minimal sequence variations. Conclusions. HBoV was detected in fecal specimens in children with acute gastroenteritis. A single lineage of HBoV was associated with both respiratory tract and enteric infections.
Durable treatment response of relapsing CNS plasmacytoma using intrathecal chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and Daratumumab

CNS myelomatous involvement is a rare complication of multiple myeloma with dismal outcome. This disease's optimal treatment is unclear. Combined approach of systemic therapy, radiotherapy, and intrathecal injections chemotherapy should be considered and autologous stem cell transplant consolidation is offered to eligible patients. The role of Daratumumab in this disease deserves further evaluation.
Effect of surface treatment on the post-peak residual strength and toughness of polypropylene/polyethylene-blended fiber-reinforced concrete

This study involved an experimental investigation into the improvement of mechanical properties of fiber-reinforced concrete (FRC) utilizing chemically treated polypropylene/polyethylene fibers. Four types of chemical surface treatments were examined: two types of chromic acid (Types B and C), potassium permanganate (PP), and hydrogen peroxide solutions. Untreated and treated fibers were added at 0.32% by volume of concrete and also at 0.50% for the best treatment technique. Compressive and flexural strength were measured to quantify improvement. It was found that there were no significant differences in compressive strength. Type B chromic acid solution was found to be the most effective technique in improving the flexural strength of FRC resulting in average increases of 8.9% and 17.6% for peak and residual strengths, respectively, compared to nontreated fibers. While not as effective as plasma treatments, further research may be warranted for chemical treatments. Surface wettability of the treated fibers was measured by contact angle with water. The contact angle was found to have no correlation to the toughness. The higher volume of fibers, both treated and nontreated gave higher residual strength and toughness; however, surface treatment did not significantly enhance mechanical properties.
Evaluation of flexural modulus, flexural strength and degree of conversion in BISGMA/TEGDMA resin filled with montmorillonite nanoparticles

This study had as its main objective to evaluate the flexural properties (strength and modulus) and degree of conversion of a dimethacrylate resin containing different amounts of nanoparticulated clay Montomorillonite (MMT) as filler. A series of composites containing similar amounts (in volume) of barium glass particles was also tested as control data. Eight formulations with polymeric matrix-based BisGMA/TEGDMA (Bisphenol A Bis(2-hydroxy-3 methacryloxypropyl)Ether/Triethyleneglycol Dimethacrylate), four added with MMT and four added with barium glass in the volume concentration of 20, 30, 40 and 50 vol% were studied. The degree of conversion was determined using near-IR spectroscopy. Elastic modulus and flexural strength were determined by the three-point bending test. The dispersion of MMT nanoparticles was determined by means of X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy analysis. The fillers montomorillonite and barium glass interacted with polymer matrix-based BisGMA/TEGDMA in a distinct manner. Although the addition of montomorillonite nanoparticles resulted in similar degree of conversion and higher elastic modulus values at all concentrations tested, only at the 20 vol% the flexural strength was statistically higher, compared to the control groups filled with barium glass. This could be related to the need of concentration optimization of montomorillonite for each type of polymer matrix in order to adjust or improve mechanical properties. The addition of low concentrations (<l 20% vol) of montomorillonite nanoparticles in dental composites resins – such as additive or hybrid filler – should be studied, aiming to the reduction of polymerization shrinkage, better mechanical properties and improvement of a new technology for future applications.
Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL): ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up.

H. Tilly1, M. Gomes da Silva2, U. Vitolo3, A. Jack4, M. Meignan5, A. Lopez-Guillermo6, J. Walewski7, M. Andre8, P. W. Johnson9, M. Pfreundschuh10 & M. Ladetto11, on behalf of the ESMO Guidelines Committee* Centre Henri-Becquerel, Universite de Rouen, Rouen, France; Portuguese Institute of Oncology, Lisbon, Portugal; A.O. Citta della Salute e della Scienza di Torino, Turin, Italy; St James’s University Hospital, Leeds, UK; Henri Mondor University Hospital, Creteil, France; Hospital Clinic, Barcelona, Spain; Maria Sklodowska-Curie Memorial Institute and Oncology Centre, Warsaw, Poland; CHU Dinant-Godinne, UCL Namur, Yvoir, Belgium; Cancer Research UK, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK; Innere Medizin I, Universitat des Saarlandes, Hamburg, Germany; Divisione di Ematologia, Azienda Ospedaliera Santi Antonio e Biagio e Cesare Arrigo, Alessandria, Italy
Energy Gradients Structure Microbial Communities Across Sediment Horizons in Deep Marine Sediments of the South China Sea

The deep marine subsurface is a heterogeneous environment in which the assembly of microbial communities is thought to be controlled by a combination of organic matter deposition, electron acceptor availability, and sedimentology. However, the relative importance of these factors in structuring microbial communities in marine sediments remains unclear. The South China Sea (SCS) experiences significant variability in sedimentation across the basin and features discrete changes in sedimentology as a result of episodic deposition of turbidites and volcanic ashes within lithogenic clays and siliceous or calcareous ooze deposits throughout the basin's history. Deep subsurface microbial communities were recently sampled by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) at three locations in the SCS with sedimentation rates of 5, 12, and 20 cm per thousand years. Here, we used Illumina sequencing of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene to characterize deep subsurface microbial communities from distinct sediment types at these sites. Communities across all sites were dominated by several poorly characterized taxa implicated in organic matter degradation, including Atribacteria, Dehalococcoidia, and Aerophobetes. Sulfate-reducing bacteria comprised only 4% of the community across sulfate-bearing sediments from multiple cores and did not change in abundance in sediments from the methanogenic zone at the site with the lowest sedimentation rate. Microbial communities were significantly structured by sediment age and the availability of sulfate as an electron acceptor in pore waters. However, microbial communities demonstrated no partitioning based on the sediment type they inhabited. These results indicate that microbial communities in the SCS are structured by the availability of electron donors and acceptors rather than sedimentological characteristics.