Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ocean surgeonfish Acanthurus bahianus. I. The geography of demography

The ocean surgeonfish Acanthurus bahianus is a common inhabitant of reefs throughout the west and central Atlantic. We examined geographic variation in its demography among 10 locations spanning 56° of latitude. These populations exhibit a great diversity of growth trajectories, as well as 3-fold variation in terminal size and maximum longevity. There are strongly contrasting patterns of habitat variation in demography at 2 sites: at Bermuda, fish settle inshore, grow to about asymptotic size and then, when 2 to 6 yr old, relocate permanently to outer reefs, where they can reach 32 yr. At Belize, fish settle and attain 10 yr on both inner and outer reefs, but grow faster and reach a ~50% greater asymptotic weight on inner reefs. Habitat differences in growth at Belize largely span the range of variation among NW Atlantic locations. A. bahianus exhibits the fastest growth known for an acanthurid, and the strongest spatial variation in demography known for a tropical reef-fish. Maximum age, adult survivorship, terminal size and absolute growth rate are inversely related to temperature. However, relative growth rate is not: in all populations a similar percentage of mean asymptotic standard length (L∞) is achieved at 1, 2 and 3 yr, and then growth effectively ceases. Variation in longevity is related to temperature, and is largely independent of size. Variation in growth and size is related strongly to both habitat and temperature effects, and the rate of growth appears to set terminal size. High longevity at 3 isolated oceanic islands seems to reflect a temperature effect, rather than an island effect.
Software-Defined Networks with Mobile Edge Computing and Caching for Smart Cities: A Big Data Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach

Recent advances in networking, caching, and computing have significant impacts on the developments of smart cities. Nevertheless, these important enabling technologies have traditionally been studied separately in the existing works on smart cities. In this article, we propose an integrated framework that can enable dynamic orchestration of networking, caching, and computing resources to improve the performance of applications for smart cities. Then we present a novel big data deep reinforcement learning approach. Simulation results with different system parameters are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
Does ScoliScore Provide More Information Than Traditional Clinical Estimates of Curve Progression?

Study Design. Retrospective study comparing ScoliScore and clinical risk estimates. Objective. The purpose of this study was to compare risk stratification between ScoliScore and traditional clinical estimates to determine whether ScoliScore provides unique information. Summary of Background Data. ScoliScore is a genetic prognostic test designed to evaluate the risk of curve progression in skeletally immature patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis with Cobb angles of 10° to 25°. Clinicians are currently trying to better understand the role this test may play in guiding clinical decision making because current standards of curve progression are largely based on radiographical markers, such as curve magnitude and bone age. Methods. Ninety-one patients who received ScoliScore testing at our center and met study inclusion criteria were identified. Patients were given a “clinical risk” level using their Risser sign and Cobb angle. Assigned clinical risk levels were compared with the ScoliScore risk levels reported by the manufacturer's scoring algorithm. Results. ScoliScore risk distribution in our population was 36% low risk, 55% intermediate risk, and 9% high risk. This compares with 2%, 51%, and 47%, respectively, for comparable clinical risk groupings. Only 25% of patients were in the same risk category for both systems. There were no significant correlations between ScoliScore and age, race, menarcheal status, Risser sign, or sex. There was a positive correlation between the Cobb angle and the ScoliScore (r = 0.581, P < 0.001). Cobb angle remained significant in the multivariate regression model (P < 0.001), and Cobb angle was found to account for 33.3% of ScoliScore's variance. Conclusion. Only Cobb angle showed significant correlation with ScoliScore among the socioclinical variables studied. The risk distribution of the 2 risk estimation systems examined differed markedly: ScoliScore predicted nearly 16 times more low-risk patients and more than 5 times fewer high-risk patients. This demonstrates that ScoliScore provides unique information to traditional predictors of curve progression, advancing our understanding of the role of ScoliScore in the clinical setting.
Socioeconomic inequality in recovery from poor physical and mental health in mid-life and early old age: prospective Whitehall II cohort study

Background Few studies have examined the influence of socioeconomic status on recovery from poor physical and mental health. Methods Prospective study with four consecutive periods of follow-up (1991–2011) of 7564 civil servants (2228 women) recruited while working in London. Health was measured by the Short-Form 36 questionnaire physical and mental component scores assessed at beginning and end of each of four rounds. Poor health was defined by a score in the lowest 20% of the age–sex-specific distribution. Recovery was defined as changing from a low score at the beginning to a normal score at the end of the round. The analysis took account of retirement status, health behaviours, body mass index and prevalent chronic disease. Results Of 24 001 person-observations in the age range 39–83, a total of 8105 identified poor physical or mental health. Lower grade of employment was strongly associated with slower recovery from poor physical health (OR 0.73 (95% CI 0.59 to 0.91); trend P=0.002) in age, sex and ethnicity-adjusted analyses. The association was halved after further adjustment for health behaviours, adiposity, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and serum cholesterol (OR 0.85 (0.68 to 1.07)). In contrast, slower recovery from poor mental health was associated robustly with low employment grade even after multiple adjustment (OR 0.74 (0.59 to 0.93); trend P=0.02). Conclusions Socioeconomic inequalities in recovery from poor physical health were explained to a considerable extent by health behaviours, adiposity, SBP and serum cholesterol. These risk factors explained only part of the gradient in recovery for poor mental health.
A Proposal for a Publish/Subscribe, Disruption Tolerant Content Island for Fog Computing

The performance of applications for the Internet of Things (IoT) depends on the availability of effective transport services offered by the underlying network. In this sense, Fog Computing aims to provide alternative networking models that offer higher fluidity in distributing in-network functions, in addition to allowing fast and scalable processing and exchange of information. In this paper we present the architecture and a working prototype of a fog computing "content island" which interconnects groups of "things" packed-up together to interchange data and processing among themselves and with other content islands. These islands are based on the integration of a publish/subscribe system with DTN (Disruption Tolerant Networks) techniques to provide a higher flexibility with respect to data and computation sharing. Some preliminary results regarding the prototype performance are also given.
The Effect of Preservative and Temperature on the Analysis of Circulating Tumor DNA

Purpose: Analysis of genomic alterations in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is evolving as an approach to detect, monitor, and genotype malignancies. Methods to separate the liquid from the cellular fraction of whole blood for circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analyses have been largely unstudied, although these may be a critical consideration for assay performance. Experimental Design: To evaluate the influence of blood processing on cfDNA and ctDNA quality and yield, we compared the cfDNA levels in serum with those in plasma. Given the limitations of serum for ctDNA analyses, we evaluated the effects of two plasma processing approaches, K2EDTA and Cell-Free DNA BCT (BCT) tubes, on cfDNA and ctDNA recovery. A total of 45 samples from nine patients with cancer were collected in both tube types. Once collected, blood was processed into plasma immediately or kept at room temperature and processed into plasma at 1, 3, 5, or 7 days. Results: As early as 24 hours after collection, plasma isolated from blood collected in K2EDTA tubes contained an elevated level of cfDNA that increased over time compared with BCT tubes where no significant increase in cfDNA levels was observed. When samples from an additional six patients with cancer, collected in the same manner, were stored at 4°C in K2EDTA tubes over the course of 3 days, total cfDNA and ctDNA levels were comparable between samples collected in BCT tubes. At day 3, there was a trend toward a decrease in ctDNA levels in both tubes that was more pronounced when measuring the mutant allele fraction for cases stored at 4°C in K2EDTA tubes. Conclusions: In summary, methods of blood processing have a strong influence on cfDNA and ctDNA levels and should be a consideration when evaluating ctDNA in peripheral circulation. Clin Cancer Res; 23(10); 2471–7. ©2016 AACR.
Quantum linear systems algorithms: a primer

The Harrow-Hassidim-Lloyd (HHL) quantum algorithm for sampling from the solution of a linear system provides an exponential speed-up over its classical counterpart. The problem of solving a system of linear equations has a wide scope of applications, and thus HHL constitutes an important algorithmic primitive. In these notes, we present the HHL algorithm and its improved versions in detail, including explanations of the constituent sub- routines. More specifically, we discuss various quantum subroutines such as quantum phase estimation and amplitude amplification, as well as the important question of loading data into a quantum computer, via quantum RAM. The improvements to the original algorithm exploit variable-time amplitude amplification as well as a method for implementing linear combinations of unitary operations (LCUs) based on a decomposition of the operators using Fourier and Chebyshev series. Finally, we discuss a linear solver based on the quantum singular value estimation (QSVE) subroutine.
Injectable Chemically Crosslinked Hydrogel for the Controlled Release of Bevacizumab in Vitreous: A 6-Month In Vivo Study.

PURPOSE To evaluate the biocompatibility and 6-month in vivo release of bevacizumab from a hyaluronic acid/dextran-based in situ hydrogel after intravitreal injection in rabbit eye. METHODS The in situ hydrogel was formed by the catalyst-free chemical crosslinking between vinylsulfone functionalized hyaluronic acid (HA-VS) and thiolated dextran (Dex-SH) at physiological condition. The pH 7.4 buffered mixture containing HA-VS, Dex-SH, and bevacizumab were injected into the vitreous of rabbit eyes by a 30-G needle. The biocompatibility was evaluated by intraocular pressure measurement, binocular indirect ophthalmoscope (BIO), full-field electroretinogram (ERG), and histology. The concentrations of both total and active bevacizumab in rabbit vitreous were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The concentration of bevacizumab in rabbit vitreous after bolus injection was simulated by one-compartment first order elimination model. RESULTS A transparent gel was seen in the vitreous after injection. BIO images, ERG, and histology showed that the gel does not induce hemorrhage, retinal detachment, inflammation, or other gross pathological changes in rabbit eyes after injection. While the bolus intravitreal injected bevacizumab follows the first order elimination kinetics in rabbit eye, the in situ gel formation was able to prolong the retention of bevacizumab in rabbit eye at therapeutic relevant concentration for at least 6 months. The concentration of bevacizumab 6 months after injection was about 107 times higher than bolus injection. CONCLUSIONS The new in situ hydrogel formulation of bevacizumab was biocompatible and able to prolong the retention of drug in rabbit eyes in vivo at therapeutic relevant concentration for at least 6 months. TRANSLATIONAL RELEVANCE Although proven to be effective, monthly intravitreal injection of bevacizumab or other protein drugs may cause various complications. Extending the residence time of protein therapeutics in the eye can reduce the injection frequency, its associated complications, and treatment cost, which will be beneficial to both the patients and doctors. In this study, we showed that the in situ hydrogel-based controlled release system is a feasible option to tackle this problem.
Dispositional optimism and outcome following traumatic brain injury

Objective: Despite vast literature examining the predictors of patient outcome following traumatic brain injury (TBI), the complicated relationship between personality and psychological, cognitive and functional outcomes remains poorly understood. The present study examined the relationship between the personality trait of dispositional optimism (DO) and outcome after moderate and severe TBI in the context of a proposed theoretical model. Methods: Forty-five individuals who had sustained moderate-to-severe TBI were recruited through mailings and completed the Symptom Checklist Questionnaire-90 Revised (SCL-90-R), the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS), the Craig Handicap Assessment Reporting Technique (CHART) and the Life Orientation Test-Revised (LOT-R). Analyses were conducted to test a model predicting the relationship between personality and patient outcome after TBI. Results: DO was significantly correlated with psychological distress, but did not predict functional outcome. In addition, two significant mediating relationships were demonstrated: (1) psychological distress was shown to mediate the relationship between dispositional optimism and cognitive ability and (2) cognitive ability mediated the relationship between psychological distress and functional outcome. Conclusion: These findings illustrate that higher levels of DO in individuals sustaining moderate-to-severe TBI are related to better psychological functioning which in turn predicts improved cognitive and functional outcomes.
Diversity and Distribution of Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria in Jilin Oilfield

To better understand the roles of microorganisms in oil production, diversity and distribution of microbes in Jilin oilfield was studied. Firstly, chromosomal DNA wassuccessfully extracted directly from crude oil samples. Diversity and distribution of microbes was then analyzed based on 16S rDNA libraries. There were totally 21 OTUs were obtained through 16S rDNA sequencing. Of those OTUs, 13 are bacteria in which Proteobacteria is the major family, while 8 are archaea in which Methanomicrobia is the dominant. Finally, SRB was found in all samples by amplifying the apsA gene using PCR. SRB found in Jilin oil samples belong to δ-Proteobacteria.
On the abnormal negative temperature dependence of yield strength in the L12 compound Fe3Ge

Abstract Both the as-annealed and room temperature deformed microstructure of the L12 compound Fe3Ge have been studied using transmission electron microscopy. The as-annealed microstructure consisted of a dense array of stacking faults on {111} planes and a small concentration of thermal APB's on {100} planes. In the deformed microstructure, {001} cube slip has been identified. The asannealed stacking faults may also produce a strengthening effect on such slip. A combination of these two factors causes the large and negative temperature dependence of yield strength in Fe3Ge. The absence of octahedral slip is attributed to the fact that there is no dislocation configuration on {111} planes which is both glissile and allowed energetically.
Antrum Mucosal Protein-18 Peptide Targets Tight Junctions to Protect and Heal Barrier Structure and Function in Models of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Background:A peptide derived from Antrum Mucosal Protein (AMP)-18 (gastrokine-1) reduces the extent of mucosal erosions and clinical severity in mice with dextran sulfate sodium–induced colonic injury. This study set out to determine if AMP peptide was also therapeutic for immune- and cytokine-mediated mouse models of intestinal injury and inflammatory bowel diseases by enhancing and stabilizing tight junctions. Methods:Therapeutic effects of AMP peptide were examined in interleukin-10–deficient and a T-cell adoptive transfer models of colitis in immunodeficient recombinase activating gene-1 knock-out (RAG-1−/−) mice. Mechanisms by which AMP peptide enhances barrier function and structure were studied ex vivo using intestine and colon from mice given lipopolysaccharide and in AMP-18–deficient mice given dextran sulfate sodium. Results:In interleukin-10–deficient mice given piroxicam, AMP peptide enhanced recovery after weight loss, protected against colon shortening and segmental dilation, and reduced the colitis activity score. In the T-cell transfer model, treatment with the peptide protected against colon shortening. In mice given lipopolysaccharide in vivo to induce gut injury, AMP peptide prevented the onset of, and reversed established intestinal hyperpermeability by targeting TJ proteins and perijunctional actin. AMP-18–deficient mice challenged with dextran sulfate sodium exhibited increased mortality, developed erosions in the colon, and had lower levels of ZO-1 in TJs than heterozygous littermates or wild-type mice. Conclusions:The results indicate that AMP-18/peptide may serve a protective role against injury along the gastrointestinal mucosal barrier, and recommend further development of AMP peptide as a novel agent to treat patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
LOBAL OPTIMALITY CONDITIONS FOR DEEP NEURAL NETWORKS

We study the error landscape of deep linear and nonlinear neural networks with the squared error loss. Minimizing the loss of a deep linear neural network is a nonconvex problem, and despite recent progress, our understanding of this loss surface is still incomplete. For deep linear networks, we present necessary and sufficient conditions for a critical point of the risk function to be a global minimum. Surprisingly, our conditions provide an efficiently checkable test for global optimality, while such tests are typically intractable in nonconvex optimization. We further extend these results to deep nonlinear neural networks and prove similar sufficient conditions for global optimality, albeit in a more limited function space setting.
Masquer Hunter: Adversarial Occlusion-aware Face Detection

Occluded face detection is a challenging detection task due to the large appearance variations incurred by various real-world occlusions. This paper introduces an Adversarial Occlusion-aware Face Detector (AOFD) by simultaneously detecting occluded faces and segmenting occluded areas. Specifically, we employ an adversarial training strategy to generate occlusion-like face features that are difficult for a face detector to recognize. Occlusion mask is predicted simultaneously while detecting occluded faces and the occluded area is utilized as an auxiliary instead of being regarded as a hindrance. Moreover, the supervisory signals from the segmentation branch will reversely affect the features, aiding in detecting heavily-occluded faces accordingly. Consequently, AOFD is able to find the faces with few exposed facial landmarks with very high confidences and keeps high detection accuracy even for masked faces. Extensive experiments demonstrate that AOFD not only significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods on the MAFA occluded face detection dataset, but also achieves competitive detection accuracy on benchmark dataset for general face detection such as FDDB.
Detection and quantification of mammaglobin in the blood of breast cancer patients: can it be useful as a potential clinical marker? Preliminary results of a GOIM (Gruppo Oncologico dell'Italia Meridionale) prospective study.

BACKGROUND Mammaglobin is expressed mainly in mammary tissue, overexpressed in breast cancer (BC) and rarely in other tissue. The aim of this study was to assess the sensitivity and specificity of transcript MGB1 detection and to evaluate the role of MGB1 as potential clinical marker for the detection of disseminated cancer cells in the blood of BC patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS A consecutive series of 23 BC tissues, 36 peripheral blood BC samples and 35 healthy peripheral blood samples was prospectively recruited to investigate MGB1 expression by means of a quantitative Real Time RT-PCR assay. RESULTS MGB1 overexpression in tissue samples of BC patients is significantly associated only with high level of Ki67 (P <0.05). None of the samples from peripheral blood of 35 healthy female individuals were positive for MGB1 transcript. In contrast MGB1 mRNA expression was detected in three of 36 (8%) peripheral blood of BC patients. CONCLUSIONS Our preliminary results demonstrate that the detection of MGB1 transcript in peripheral blood of BC patients was specific but with low sensitivity. MGB1 overexpression by itself or in combination with Ki67 might be considered an index of BC progression.
Risk-taking and pathological gambling behavior in Huntington’s disease

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a genetic, neurodegenerative disorder, which specifically affects striatal neurons of the indirect pathway, resulting in a progressive decline in muscle coordination and loss of emotional and cognitive control. Interestingly, predisposition to pathological gambling and other addictions involves disturbances in the same cortico-striatal circuits that are affected in HD, and display similar disinhibition-related symptoms, including changed sensitivity to punishments and rewards, impulsivity, and inability to consider long-term advantages over short-term rewards. Both HD patients and pathological gamblers also show similar performance deficits on risky decision-making tasks, such as the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). These similarities suggest that HD patients are a likely risk group for gambling problems. However, such problems have only incidentally been observed in HD patients. In this review, we aim to characterize the risk of pathological gambling in HD, as well as the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Especially with the current rise of easily accessible Internet gambling opportunities, it is important to understand these risks and provide appropriate patient support accordingly. Based on neuropathological and behavioral findings, we propose that HD patients may not have an increased tendency to seek risks and start gambling, but that they do have an increased chance of developing an addiction once they engage in gambling activities. Therefore, current and future developments of Internet gambling possibilities and related addictions should be regarded with care, especially for vulnerable groups like HD patients.