Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of the effect of lecture and blended teaching methods on students’ learning and satisfaction

Introduction: Blended learning, a new approach in educational planning, is defined as an applying more than one method, strategy, technique or media in education. Todays, due to the development of infrastructure of Internet networks and the access of most of the students, the Internet can be utilized along with traditional and conventional methods of training. The aim of this study was to compare the students’ learning and satisfaction in combination of lecture and e-learning with conventional lecture methods. Methods: This quasi-experimental study is conducted among the sophomore students of Public Health School, Tehran University of Medical Science in 2012-2013. Four classes of the school are randomly selected and are divided into two groups. Education in two classes (45 students) was in the form of lecture method and in the other two classes (48 students) was blended method with e-Learning and lecture methods. The students’ knowledge about tuberculosis in two groups was collected and measured by using pre and post-test. This step has been done by sending self-reported electronic questionnaires to the students' email addresses through Google Document software. At the end of educational programs, students' satisfaction and comments about two methods were also collected by questionnaires. Statistical tests such as descriptive methods, paired t-test, independent t-test and ANOVA were done through the SPSS 14 software, and p≤0.05 was considered as significant difference. Results: The mean scores of the lecture and blended groups were 13.18±1.37 and 13.35±1.36, respectively; the difference between the pre-test scores of the two groups was not statistically significant (p=0.535). Knowledge scores increased in both groups after training, and the mean and standard deviation of knowledge scores of the lectures and combined groups were 16.51±0.69 and 16.18±1.06, respectively. The difference between the post-test scores of the two groups was not statistically significant (p=0.112). Students’ satisfaction in blended learning method was higher than lecture method. Conclusion: The results revealed that the blended method is effective in increasing the students' learning rate. E-learning can be used to teach some courses and might be considered as economic aspects. Since in universities of medical sciences in the country, the majority of students have access to the Internet and email address, using e-learning could be used as a supplement to traditional teaching methods or sometimes as educational alternative method because this method of teaching increases the students’ knowledge, satisfaction and attention.
Ultrasound-Guided Interscalene Catheter Complicated by Persistent Phrenic Nerve Palsy

A 76-year-old male presented for reverse total shoulder arthroplasty (TSA) in the beach chair position. A preoperative interscalene nerve catheter was placed under direct ultrasound-guidance utilizing a posterior in-plane approach. On POD 2, the catheter was removed. Three weeks postoperatively, the patient reported worsening dyspnea with a subsequent chest X-ray demonstrating an elevated right hemidiaphragm. Pulmonary function testing revealed worsening deficit from presurgical values consistent with phrenic nerve palsy. The patient decided to continue conservative management and declined further invasive testing or treatment. He was followed for one year postoperatively with moderate improvement of his exertional dyspnea over that period of time. The close proximity of the phrenic nerve to the brachial plexus in combination with its frequent anatomical variation can lead to unintentional mechanical trauma, intraneural injection, or chemical injury during performance of ISB. The only previously identified risk factor for PPNP is cervical degenerative disc disease. Although PPNP has been reported following TSA in the beach chair position without the presence of a nerve block, it is typically presumed as a complication of the interscalene block. Previously published case reports and case series of PPNP complicating ISBs all describe nerve blocks performed with either paresthesia technique or localization with nerve stimulation. We report a case of a patient experiencing PPNP following an ultrasound-guided placement of an interscalene nerve catheter.
Simulation of Implied Volatility Surfaces via Tangent Lévy Models

In this paper, we implement and test two types of market-based models for European-type options, based on the tangent Levy models proposed recently by R. Carmona and S. Nadtochiy. As a result, we obtain a method for generating Monte Carlo samples of future paths of implied volatility surfaces. These paths and the surfaces themselves are free of arbitrage, and are constructed in a way that is consistent with the past and present values of implied volatility. We use a real market data to estimate the parameters of these models and conduct an empirical study, to compare the performance of market-based models with the performance of classical stochastic volatility models. We choose the problem of minimal-variance portfolio choice as a measure of model performance and compare the two tangent Levy models to SABR model. Our study demonstrates that the tangent Levy models do a much better job at finding a portfolio with smallest variance, their predictions for the variance are more reliable, and the portfolio weights are more stable. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of empirical analysis that provides a convincing evidence of the superior performance of the market-based models for European options using real market data.
Age- and gender-specific reference intervals of TSH and free T4 in an iodine-replete area: Data from Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey IV (2013–2015)

Background Establishment of the reference interval of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) is critical in the diagnosis of thyroid dysfunction and is affected by age, gender, iodine nutrition, and ethnicity. The aim of this study was to determine the reference intervals of TSH and free thyroxin (FT4) from a large, nationwide data of Korea where iodine intake is more than adequate. Methods We analyzed data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey VI that measured serum TSH, FT4, and thyroid peroxidase antibody from 7,061 individuals (urinary iodine measurement in 6,565). Age- and gender-specific reference intervals were established from 95% confidence limits from the 2.5 to 97.5 percentile of TSH (log-transformed) and FT4 in reference populations. Results The geometric mean of TSH was 2.16 ± 0.01 mIU/L, with the lowest value found in the middle aged group (2.04 ± 0.02 mIU/L) and higher values noted in age groups of 10–19 and over 70 years (2.38 ± 0.02 and 2.32 ± 0.07 mIU/L, respectively). The association of TSH and age was U-shaped. The overall reference interval of TSH was 0.59–7.03 mIU/L. Mean FT4 was 1.25 ± 0.003 ng/dL (16.09 ± 0.039 pmol/L), and it showed a small but continuous decrease after 20 years of age (P < 0.001). There was a significant positive correlation between TSH and urine iodine concentration (r = 0.154, P < 0.001). Conclusions The reference interval of TSH in Korea, where iodine intake is above the requirement, was 0.59–7.03 mIU/L and showed U-shaped change with age, which was a similar pattern to iodine intake. The reference interval of FT4 was 0.92–1.60 ng/dL. The geometric mean and upper limit of TSH were higher than those of Western populations, reflecting the paramount importance of iodine intake on thyroid function.
On the use of convolutional neural networks for speech presentation attack detection

Research in the area of automatic speaker verification (ASV) has advanced enough for the industry to start using ASV systems in practical applications. However, these systems are highly vulnerable to spoofing or presentation attacks(PAs), limiting their wide deployment. Several speech-based presentation attack detection (PAD) methods have been proposed recently but most of them are based on hand crafted frequency or phase-based features. Although convolutional neural networks (CNN) have already shown breakthrough results in face recognition, little is understood whether CNNs are as effective in detecting presentation attacks in speech. In this paper, to investigate the applicability of CNNs for PAD, we consider shallow and deep examples of CNN architectures implemented using Tensorflow and compare their performances with the state of the art MFCC with GMM-based system on two large databases with presentation attacks: publicly available voicePA and proprietary BioCPqD-PA. We study the impact of increasing the depth of CNNs on the performance, and note how they perform on unknown attacks, by using one database to train and another to evaluate. The results demonstrate that CNNs are able to learn a database significantly better (increasing depth also improves the performance), compared to hand crafted features. However, CNN-based PADs still lack the ability to generalize across databases and are unable to detect unknown attacks well.
Search-based test case selection of cyber-physical system product lines for simulation-based validation

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are often tested at different test levels following "X-in-the-Loop" configurations: Model-, Software- and Hardware-in-the-loop (MiL, SiL and HiL). While MiL and SiL test levels aim at testing functional requirements at the system level, the HiL test level tests functional as well as non-functional requirements by performing a real-time simulation. As testing CPS product line configurations is costly due to the fact that there are many variants to test, test cases are long, the physical layer has to be simulated and co-simulation is often necessary. It is therefore extremely important to select the appropriate test cases that cover the objectives of each level in an allowable amount of time. We propose an efficient test case selection approach adapted to the "X-in-the-Loop" test levels. Search algorithms are employed to reduce the amount of time required to test configurations of CPS product lines while achieving the test objectives of each level. We empirically evaluate three commonly-used search algorithms, i.e., Genetic Algorithm (GA), Alternating Variable Method (AVM) and Greedy (Random Search (RS) is used as a baseline) by employing two case studies with the aim of integrating the best algorithm into our approach. Results suggest that as compared with RS, our approach can reduce the costs of testing CPS product line configurations by approximately 80% while improving the overall test quality.
The tube wall of Cambrian anabaritids

Celestite/barite−replaced and phosphate−replicated tubes of Early Cambrian anabaritids from the northern part of the Si− berian Platform (Anabar Shield) give new evidence on the wall−structure of these enigmatic fossils. The walls consist of fibres, interpreted as reflecting an original aragonitic fabric. Bundles of fibres are arranged in growth lamellae, and the latter form an angle of at least 45° with the inner tube wall. Where the outer tube surface projects into annular flanges, the lamellae have a chevron−like section due to the backwards deflection of the outer parts. Anabaritids are usually referred to the Cnidaria or left without systematic assignment, but earlier suggestions included affinity to the serpulid polychaetes. The chevron structure resembles that previously exclusively known from serpulids, but the presence of internal tooth−like structures in anabaritid tubes, perhaps compromising up−and−down movement through the tubes, continue to make a di− rect assignment to the Serpulida questionable.
Effects of Endothelin-Induced Prefrontal Cortical Lesions on Delay Discounting in the Rat

Stroke is one of the most prominent causes of neurological disability, and the number of stroke cases worldwide is expected to grow due to increases in both average life span and population. As such, new methods for both acute treatment and poststroke rehabilitation will be increasingly necessary. Although a number of approaches to restoring motor function poststroke are in development, there are few methods to alleviate the cognitive deficits caused by this disease. As well, there are very few preclinical models of stroke with a specific focus on higher-order cognitive functions. The goal of the current experiments was to examine the effects of bilateral ischemic lesions, produced by targeted microinjections of endothelin-1 (ET-1) in the medial (mPFC) and orbital (oPFC) prefrontal cortices of adult male Sprague–Dawley rats (n = 39) on inhibitory control as measured through a delay discounting paradigm. The ET-1 injections to the mPFC and oPFC resulted in average lesion volumes of 17.98 mm3 ± 2.841 mm3 (Mean ± SE) and 26.05 mm3 ± 4.052 mm3 (Mean ± SE), respectively. During delay discounting testing, wherein animals were offered a small, immediately available food reward versus a large, but delayed reward, it was found that animals with lesions to the oPFC were more likely to choose the immediately available reward as compared to their mPFC or control counterparts. We conclude that using ET-1 in the oPFC may be a new and viable method to study the effects of ischemic lesions on higher-order cognitive dysfunction poststroke.
Bevacizumab-based first-line chemotherapy in elderly patients with metastatic colorectal cancer: an individual patient data based meta-analysis

Background The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate efficacy and safety of first-line chemotherapy with or without a monoclonal antibody in elderly patients (≥ 70 years) with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), since they are frequently underrepresented in clinical trials. Results Individual data from 10 studies were included. From a total of 3271 patients, 604 patients (18%) were ≥ 70 years (median 73 years, range 70–88). Of these, 335 patients were treated with a bevacizumab-based first-line regimen and 265 were treated with chemotherapy only. The median PFS was 8.2 vs. 6.5 months and the median OS was 16.7 vs. 13.0 months in patients treated with and without bevacizumab, respectively. The safety profile of bevacizumab in combination with first-line chemotherapy did not differ from published clinical trials. Materials and Methods PubMed and Cochrane Library searches were performed on 29 April 2013 and studies published to this date were included. Authors were contacted to request progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS) data, patient data on treatment regimens, age, sex and potential signs of toxicity in patients ≥ 70 years of age. Conclusions This meta-analysis suggests that the addition of bevacizumab to standard first-line chemotherapy improves clinical outcome in elderly patients with mCRC and is well tolerated.
Impact of degree truncation on the spread of a contagious process on networks

Abstract Understanding how person-to-person contagious processes spread through a population requires accurate information on connections between population members. However, such connectivity data, when collected via interview, is often incomplete due to partial recall, respondent fatigue, or study design, e.g. fixed choice designs (FCD) truncate out-degree by limiting the number of contacts each respondent can report. Research has shown how FCD affects network properties, but its implications for predicted speed and size of spreading processes remain largely unexplored. To study the impact of degree truncation on predictions of spreading process outcomes, we generated collections of synthetic networks containing specific properties (degree distribution, degree-assortativity, clustering), and used empirical social network data from 75 villages in Karnataka, India. We simulated FCD using various truncation thresholds and ran a susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) process on each network. We found that spreading processes on truncated networks resulted in slower and smaller epidemics, with a sudden decrease in prediction accuracy at a level of truncation that varied by network type. Our results have implications beyond FCD to truncation due to any limited sampling from a larger network. We conclude that knowledge of network structure is important for understanding the accuracy of predictions of process spread on degree truncated networks.
Measurements and Analysis of Large-Scale Fading Characteristics in Curved Subway Tunnels at 920 MHz, 2400 MHz, and 5705 MHz

Wave propagation characteristics in curved tunnels are of importance for designing reliable communications in subway systems. This paper presents the extensive propagation measurements conducted in two typical types of subway tunnels - traditional arched “Type I” tunnel and modern arched “Type II” tunnel - with 300- and 500-m radii of curvature with different configurations - horizontal and vertical polarizations at 920, 2400, and 5705 MHz, respectively. Based on the measurements, statistical metrics of propagation loss and shadow fading (path-loss exponent, shadow fading distribution, autocorrelation, and crosscorrelation) in all the measurement cases are extracted. Then, the large-scale fading characteristics in the curved subway tunnels are compared with the cases of road and railway tunnels, the other main rail traffic scenarios, and some “typical” scenarios to give a comprehensive insight into the propagation in various scenarios where the intelligent transportation systems are deployed. Moreover, for each of the large-scale fading parameters, extensive analysis and discussions are made to reflect the physical laws behind the observations. The quantitative results and findings are useful to realize intelligent transportation systems in the subway system.
The Association of Left Ventricular Hypertrophy with Metabolic Syndrome is Dependent on Body Mass Index in Hypertensive Overweight or Obese Patients

Background Overweight (Ow) and obesity (Ob) influence blood pressure (BP) and left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). It is unclear whether the presence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) independently affects echocardiographic parameters in hypertension. Methods 380 Ow/Ob essential hypertensive patients (age ≤65 years) presenting for referred BP control-related problems. MetS was defined according to NCEP III/ATP with AHA modifications and LVH as LVM/h2.7 ≥49.2 g/m2.7 in males and ≥46.7 g/m2.7 in females. Treatment intensity score (TIS) was used to control for BP treatment as previously reported. Results Hypertensive patients with MetS had significantly higher BMI, systolic and mean BP, interventricular septum and relative wall thickness and lower ejection fraction than those without MetS. LVM/h2.7 was significantly higher in MetS patients (59.14±14.97 vs. 55.33±14.69 g/m2.7; p = 0.022). Hypertensive patients with MetS had a 2.3-fold higher risk to have LVH/h2.7 after adjustment for age, SBP and TIS (OR 2.34; 95%CI 1.40–3.92; p = 0.001), but MetS lost its independent relationship with LVH when BMI was included in the model. Conclusions In Ow/Ob hypertensive patients MetS maintains its role of risk factor for LVH independently of age, SBP, and TIS, resulting in a useful predictor of target organ damage in clinical practice. However, MetS loses its independent relationship when BMI is taken into account, suggesting that the effects on MetS on LV parameters are mainly driven by the degree of adiposity.
A study of elastic–plastic contact of statistical rough surfaces

In this article, a study of elastic–plastic contact of statistical rough surfaces is presented. The contact behaviors of a single asperity with deformable substrate are studied by finite element method. The influences of material properties and substrate deformation on the single asperity contact behaviors are investigated. An elastic–plastic contact model of rough surfaces is established based on the proposed single asperity contact model and statistical rough surface contact model. The surface topography plasticity index and material plasticity index are defined to indicate the influences of surface topography and material properties on the contact behaviors of rough surfaces. Comparisons with some exiting models and finite element results show that the proposed formulations can model the single asperity contact behaviors well for a wide interference range. The rough surface contact model in this work is consistent with some existing models for small plasticity indices, and it is slightly different from the existing models for large plasticity indices. The increase of surface topography plasticity index and material plasticity index would result in larger contact area and contact load for given separations.
We Built a Fake News / Click Bait Filter: What Happened Next Will Blow Your Mind!

It is completely amazing! Fake news and “click baits” have totally invaded the cyberspace. Let us face it: everybody hates them for three simple reasons. Reason #2 will absolutely amaze you. What these can achieve at the time of election will completely blow your mind! Now, we all agree, this cannot go on, you know, somebody has to stop it. So, we did this research, and trust us, it is totally great research, it really is! Make no mistake. This is the best research ever! Seriously, come have a look, we have it all: neural networks, attention mechanism, sentiment lexicons, author profiling, you name it. Lexical features, semantic features, we absolutely have it all. And we have totally tested it, trust us! We have results, and numbers, really big numbers. The best numbers ever! Oh, and analysis, absolutely top notch analysis. Interested? Come read the shocking truth about fake news and clickbait in the Bulgarian cyberspace. You won’t believe what we have found!
Defining asthma–COPD overlap syndrome: a population-based study

Asthma–chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) overlap syndrome (ACOS) seems an important clinical phenotype, but multiple definitions have been proposed. This study's objectives were to assess the effect of different ACOS definitions on prevalence, patient characteristics and exacerbations. 5675 individuals aged 45–65 years, with 846 asthma/COPD patients, were included in the Netherlands Epidemiology of Obesity study between 2008 and 2012, and followed-up for a median of 1.8 years. ACOS was defined by recent consensus criteria and five other definitions, based on registry, questionnaires and lung function. Prevalence of ACOS in the asthma/COPD population ranged between 4.4% and 38.3%, depending on the definition used. Agreement between registry-based and self-reported ACOS was 0.04 and 0.41 when lung function (forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1)/forced vital capacity (FVC) <0.7) was added. With registry or self-report defined ACOS, only 51% and 33% had FEV1/FVC <0.7. Patient characteristics were similar, but asthma duration was longer with self-reported compared with registry-based ACOS (mean difference 22 years (95% CI 12–33)). Exacerbation risk was highest with registry-based ACOS compared with asthma (adjusted incidence rate ratio 1.6 (95% CI 1.2–2.1)). This study adds important knowledge about agreement between ACOS definitions and their relation with exacerbations. Given the low agreement, differences in prevalence, patient characteristics and risk of exacerbations, consensus about ACOS definition in different care settings is urgently needed. Agreement between ACOS definitions is low, and prevalence and exacerbation risk depends strongly on the definition http://ow.ly/FR8i3089Q27