Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Initiating Abstinence from Alcohol on Daily Craving and Negative Affect: Results from a Pharmacotherapy Clinical Trial

BACKGROUND Craving and negative affect are distressing and commonly experienced during alcohol use disorder (AUD) treatment. Patients may assume that initiating abstinence will intensify their cravings and negative affect despite limited empirical data to support this assumption. This study extends and replicates, under improved methodological conditions, previous work that found reductions in daily craving associated with initiating abstinence. METHODS Seventy-eight adults (80.8% male, 57.1% Caucasian) in a clinical trial testing prazosin for AUD provided daily reports of drinking, craving, and negative affect for up to 12 weeks (mean = 64.77 daily reports). Participants were classified into 3 subgroups based on whether and when they initiated 14 days of continuous abstinence, including (i) "abstinence initiators" who quit drinking during treatment (n = 17), (ii) "already abstainers" who were abstinent at the start of treatment (n = 20), and (iii) "continued drinkers" who never initiated abstinence (n = 41). The timing and degree of change in craving and negative affect were compared across these groups using multivariate growth curve modeling. RESULTS All participant subgroups reported gradual reductions in craving over the course of treatment, with "abstinence initiators" reporting additional sudden reductions in craving upon initiating abstinence from alcohol. "Continued drinkers" reported higher levels of craving than "already abstainers" throughout the full course of treatment. Negative affect followed a different pattern of change, with "abstinence initiators" experiencing gradual reductions in negative affect after initiating abstinence but no changes prior to or immediately upon initiating abstinence, and with "already abstainers" and "continued drinkers" experiencing no changes in negative affect over time. CONCLUSIONS Initiating abstinence is associated with immediate reductions in craving, followed by gradual reductions in both craving and negative affect. Results provide insight into the timing and magnitude of changes in theoretically and clinically important variables and may help patients anticipate when to expect improvement in craving and negative effect.
Pediatric Rectal Prolapse

Abstract Rectal prolapse is a common and self-limiting condition in infancy and early childhood. Most cases respond to conservative management. Patients younger than 4 years with an associated condition have a better prognosis. Patients older than 4 years require surgery more often than younger children. Multiple operative and procedural approaches to rectal prolapse exist with variable recurrence rates and without a clearly superior operation. These include sclerotherapy, Thiersch's anal cerclage, Ekehorn's rectopexy, laparoscopic suture rectopexy, and posterior sagittal rectopexy.
Image-based biomechanics of collagen-based tissue equivalents

In this study, we compared experimentally measured fiber network kinematics and the macroscopic mechanical response from cell-compacted, cross-shaped collagen gels (cruciforms), with the predictions from our multiscale modeling technique. The macroscopic finite element model matched the physical dimensions and boundary conditions of the experimental cruciform to be modeled. Different microscale network models were constructed for each finite element that matched fiber microstructure described by maps of the local direction and strength of alignment obtained from polarimetric alignment imaging. The outputs of the multiscale model included the macroscopic load-deformation response and the microscopic (fiber) kinematics.
Video Foreground Cosegmentation Based on Common Fate

Extracting an object of interest from a single video still faces significant difficulties when the object has variegated appearance, manifests articulated motion, or experiences occlusions by other objects. In this paper, we present a video cosegmentation method to address the aforementioned challenges. Departing from the objectness attributes and motion coherence used by traditional foreground–background separation and video segmentation methods, we place central importance in the role of “common fate. ” Specifically, the different parts of the object should persist together in all the videos despite the possible presence of incoherent (e.g., articulated) motions. To accomplish this idea, we first extract seed superpixels by a motion-based foreground segmentation method. We next formulate a set of initial to-link constraints between these superpixels based on whether they exhibit the characteristics of common fate. An iterative manifold ranking algorithm is then proposed to trim away the incorrect and accidental linkage relationships. Having discovered the parts that should cohere together, we next perform clustering to extract the entire object and to handle the case in which there might be multiple objects present. This clustering is performed at two levels: the superpixel level and the object level. This two-level clustering algorithm also performs automatic model selection to estimate the number of object classes extracted. Finally, a multiclass labeling Markov random field is used to obtain a refined segmentation result. To evaluate the performance of our framework, we introduce a new data set in which the videos have complex form and motion that are liable to ambiguity in interpretation. Our experimental results on this data set show that our method successfully addresses the challenges in the extraction of complex objects and outperforms the state-of-the-art video segmentation and cosegmentation methods in our data set.
Emerging role of wetland methane emissions in driving 21st century climate change

Significance Conventional greenhouse gas mitigation policies ignore the role of global wetlands in emitting methane (CH4) from feedbacks associated with changing climate. Here we investigate wetland feedbacks and whether, and to what degree, wetlands will exceed anthropogenic 21st century CH4 emissions using an ensemble of climate projections and a biogeochemical methane model with dynamic wetland area and permafrost. Our results reveal an emerging contribution of global wetland CH4 emissions due to processes mainly related to the sensitivity of methane emissions to temperature and changing global wetland area. We highlight that climate-change and wetland CH4 feedbacks to radiative forcing are an important component of climate change and should be represented in policies aiming to mitigate global warming below 2°C. Wetland methane (CH4) emissions are the largest natural source in the global CH4 budget, contributing to roughly one third of total natural and anthropogenic emissions. As the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas in the atmosphere after CO2, CH4 is strongly associated with climate feedbacks. However, due to the paucity of data, wetland CH4 feedbacks were not fully assessed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report. The degree to which future expansion of wetlands and CH4 emissions will evolve and consequently drive climate feedbacks is thus a question of major concern. Here we present an ensemble estimate of wetland CH4 emissions driven by 38 general circulation models for the 21st century. We find that climate change-induced increases in boreal wetland extent and temperature-driven increases in tropical CH4 emissions will dominate anthropogenic CH4 emissions by 38 to 56% toward the end of the 21st century under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP2.6). Depending on scenarios, wetland CH4 feedbacks translate to an increase in additional global mean radiative forcing of 0.04 W·m−2 to 0.19 W·m−2 by the end of the 21st century. Under the “worst-case” RCP8.5 scenario, with no climate mitigation, boreal CH4 emissions are enhanced by 18.05 Tg to 41.69 Tg, due to thawing of inundated areas during the cold season (December to May) and rising temperature, while tropical CH4 emissions accelerate with a total increment of 48.36 Tg to 87.37 Tg by 2099. Our results suggest that climate mitigation policies must consider mitigation of wetland CH4 feedbacks to maintain average global warming below 2 °C.
Giving drought the cold shoulder: a relationship between drought tolerance and fall dormancy in an agriculturally important crop

Fall dormant/freezing tolerant plants often also exhibit superior tolerance to drought conditions compared to their non-fall dormant/freezing intolerant counterparts. This experiment aimed to investigate this phenomenon in an agriculturally important crop. Seven alfalfa cultivars with varying levels of fall dormancy/freezing tolerance were exposed to a water deficit. The more fall dormant cultivars had superior tolerance to a mild water deficit. Two genes, CAS18 (encodes for a dehydrin like protein) and CorF (encodes for a galactinol synthase), were up regulated in association with this drought tolerance. Both these genes are early response genes, providing clues to the stress signalling pathways involved.
A Novel Relative Frequency Based Ring Oscillator Physical Unclonable Function

Silicon physical unclonable function (PUF) exploits the random variation in the manufacturing process to extract unique information for each chip. Ring oscillator PUF (RO-PUF) is easy to implement for both ASIC and FPGA, and it becomes one of the most popular techniques to build a PUF. However, the unwanted systematic process variation degrades the randomness and uniqueness of RO-PUF. To reduce the effect of the systematic process variation and improve the randomness and uniqueness of RO-PUF, we propose a novel relative frequency based RO-PUF which exploits the differences between relative frequencies instead of absolute frequencies to generate unique secrets. Our proposed RO-PUF is lightweight, and it does not need extra hardware resources compared with the conventional RO-PUF. Experimental results on 193 FPGAs showed that the proposed RO-PUF could improve the average fractional hamming weight of a n-bit response from 25.34% to 50.40% and the average inter-die fractional hamming distance from 31.40% to 46.83%. Moreover, we propose a post-processing scheme to improve the reliability of the enrolled challenge response pairs, and it could reduce the error rate of the relative frequency based RO-PUF from 17.05% to 5.73% in the worst case.
Investigating the quality of modeled aerosol profiles based on combined lidar and sunphotometer data

Abstract. In this study we present an evaluation of the Comprehensive Air Quality Model with extensions (CAMx) for Thessaloniki using radiometric and lidar data. The aerosol mass concentration profiles of CAMx are compared against the PM2.5 and PM2. 5−10 concentration profiles retrieved by the Lidar-Radiometer Inversion Code (LIRIC). The CAMx model and the LIRIC algorithm results were compared in terms of mean mass concentration profiles, center of mass and integrated mass concentration in the boundary layer and the free troposphere. The mean mass concentration comparison resulted in profiles within the same order of magnitude and similar vertical structure for the PM2. 5 particles. The mean centers of mass values are also close, with a mean bias of 0.57 km. On the opposite side, there are larger differences for the PM2. 5−10 mode, both in the boundary layer and in the free troposphere. In order to grasp the reasons behind the discrepancies, we investigate the effect of aerosol sources that are not properly included in the model's emission inventory and in the boundary conditions such as the wildfires and the desert dust component. The identification of the cases that are affected by wildfires is performed using wind backward trajectories from the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model in conjunction with satellite fire pixel data from MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Terra and Aqua global monthly fire location product MCD14ML. By removing those cases the correlation coefficient improves from 0.69 to 0.87 for the PM2. 5 integrated mass in the boundary layer and from 0.72 to 0.89 in the free troposphere. The PM2.5 center of mass fractional bias also decreases to 0.38 km. Concerning the analysis of the desert dust component, the simulations from the Dust Regional Atmospheric Model (BSC-DREAM8b) were deployed. When only the Saharan dust cases are taken into account, BSC-DREAM8b generally outperforms CAMx when compared with LIRIC, achieving a correlation of 0.91 and a mean bias of −29.1 % for the integrated mass in the free troposphere and a correlation of 0.57 for the center of mass. CAMx, on the other hand, underestimates the integrated mass in the free troposphere. Consequently, the accuracy of CAMx is limited concerning the transported Saharan dust cases. We conclude that the performance of CAMx appears to be best for the PM2.5 particles, both in the boundary layer and in the free troposphere. Sources of particles not properly taken into account by the model are confirmed to negatively affect its performance, especially for the PM2. 5−10 particles.
Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) Scores in Burn Victims After Revival

This study aimed to evaluate reliability and validity of the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI) in Iranian burned patients and to examine this question, “Does burn severity or other demographical characteristics affect the patient’s perception of his or her quality of life after burn injury? ” In this study, we used the Persian version of DLQI questionnaire; its reliability and validity has been confirmed earlier in vitiligo patients. The questionnaire was administered to a group of patients with burn scars after revival. The internal consistency of the questionnaire was assessed by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Validity was performed using convergent validity. In all, 109 patients (mean age, 28.94) enrolled in the study. The scores of DLQI ranged from 4 to 28 (mean ± SD, 17.76 ± 5.55). Reliability analysis showed satisfactory result (Cronbach’s &agr;, 0.75). Cronbach’s &agr; coefficient in the patients with a Burn Index ≥15% was greater than those with <15%, which is an acceptable result. The Persian version of the DLQI is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing the impacts of burn scars on quality of life. The life quality index of all the patients irrelevant to age and sex were significantly impaired.
Moringa Genus: A Review of Phytochemistry and Pharmacology

Moringa is a genus of medicinal plants that has been used traditionally to cure wounds and various diseases such as colds and diabetes. In addition, the genus is also consumed as a source of nutrients and widely used for purifying water. The genus consists of 13 species that have been widely cultivated throughout Asia and Africa for their multiple uses. The purpose of this review is to provide updated and categorized information on the traditional uses, phytochemistry, biological activities, and toxicological research of Moringa species in order to explore their therapeutic potential and evaluate future research opportunities. The literature reviewed for this paper was obtained from PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar journal papers published from 1983 to March 2017. Moringa species are well-known for their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antihyperglycemic activities. Most of their biological activity is caused by their high content of flavonoids, glucosides, and glucosinolates. By documenting the traditional uses and biological activities of Moringa species, we hope to support new research on these plants, especially on those species whose biological properties have not been studied to date.
A filter with equal-ripple negative group delay

A new design method is proposed for filters with equal-ripple negative group delay (NGD). By combining the coupling matrix of bandstop filter with the nonuniform-ß technique, the equal-ripple NGD characteristic is achieved. The ripple is mainly determined by the minimum dissipation factor of resonators, while the NGD is controlled by the maximum insertion loss and dissipation factors. A prototype is developed at 2.0 GHz, with the measured NGD of −3.1 ns and NGD ripple of −0.5 ns within the bandwidth of 85 MHz.
Contribution of dissolved organic matter to submicron water-soluble organic aerosols in the marine boundary layer over the eastern equatorial Pacific

Abstract. Stable carbon isotopic compositions of water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) and organic molecular markers were measured to investigate the relative contributions of the sea surface sources to the water-soluble fraction of submicron organic aerosols collected over the eastern equatorial Pacific during the Tropical Ocean tRoposphere Exchange of Reactive halogens and Oxygenated VOCs (TORERO)/KA-12-01 cruise. On average, the water-soluble organic fraction of the total carbon (TC) mass in submicron aerosols was ∼ 30–35 % in the oceans with the low chlorophyll a (Chl a) concentrations, whereas it was ∼ 60 % in the high-Chl a regions. The average stable carbon isotope ratio of WSOC (δ13CWSOC) was −19.8 ± 2.0 ‰, which was systematically higher than that of TC (δ13CTC) (−21.8 ± 1.4 ‰). We found that in the oceans with both high and low Chl a concentrations the δ13CWSOC was close to the typical values of δ13C for dissolved organic carbon (DOC), ranging from −22 to −20 ‰ in surface seawater of the tropical Pacific Ocean. This suggests an enrichment of marine biological products in WSOC aerosols in the study region regardless of the oceanic area. In particular, enhanced levels of WSOC and biogenic organic marker compounds together with high values of WSOC / TC ( ∼ 60 %) and δ13CWSOC were observed over upwelling areas and phytoplankton blooms, which was attributed to planktonic tissues being more enriched in δ13C. The δ13C analysis estimated that, on average, marine sources contribute ∼ 90 ± 25 % of the aerosol carbon, indicating the predominance of marine-derived carbon in the submicron WSOC. This conclusion is supported by Lagrangian trajectory analysis, which suggests that the majority of the sampling points on the ship had been exposed to marine boundary layer (MBL) air for more than 80 % of the time during the previous 7 days. The combined analysis of the δ13C and monosaccharides, such as glucose and fructose, demonstrated that DOC concentration was closely correlated with the concentration levels of submicron WSOC across the study region regardless of the oceanic area. The result implies that DOC may characterize background organic aerosols in the MBL over the study region.
Accuracy of the ETDQ-7 for Identifying Persons with Eustachian Tube Dysfunction

Objective To compare the accuracy of the Eustachian Tube Dysfunction Questionnaire (ETDQ-7) in identifying people with eustachian tube (ET) dysfunction based on symptoms and an objective ET function test. Study Design Cross-sectional study. ObjSettingective Tertiary referral center. Subjects and Methods Fifty-five subjects with and without symptoms suggestive of ET dysfunction completed the ETDQ-7 and had their ET function evaluated by the percentage of middle ear pressure equilibrated after 5 swallows (PEq5) either during a pressure chamber test (intact tympanic membranes) or by the inflation-deflation test (nonintact tympanic membranes). ETDQ-7 score ≥14.5 and PEq5 <60% were used to define ET dysfunction, and sensitivity, specificity, and receiver operating characteristic curves were used to assess the level of association between ETDQ-7 scores and PEq5. Results Twenty-five asymptomatic subjects (group 1 = 15 females, 15 white; mean ± SD age, 32 ± 12.8 years) and 30 subjects with ET dysfunction symptoms (group 2 = 17 females, 25 white; age, 27 ± 16.3 years) were included in the analysis. ETDQ-7 sensitivity and specificity regarding correct group assignment were 70% and 100%, respectively, and with respect to predicting PEq5<60%, 54% and 78%. An area under the curve (AUC) of 0.68 (95% CI, 0.53-0.83) at the participant level and 0.64 (95% CI, 0.50-0.77) at the ear level indicated a moderate level of association that was lower, though not statistically significant, for nonintact tympanic membranes (AUC = 0.63 at the participant level and AUC = 0.49 at the ear level). Conclusion The ETDQ-7 score had a higher correlation with the ET dysfunction symptoms than with an objective measure of ET function.
Predicting ICU death with summarized patient data

Clinical Decision Support Tools (CDST), based on patients who are similar to the current patient might help a physician to deal with complex tasks. Many current researchers have focused on data mining and pattern identification with Electronic Health Records (EHR). CDST have been more popular as it captures significant trends and patterns in the data set without disclosing information of individual patients. In my project, I have focused on predicting ICU patient's mortality using clustered and un clustered data. I used MIMIC III online available database which includes information such as demographics, vital sign measurements made at the bedside (1 data point per hour), laboratory test results, procedures, medications, caregiver notes, imaging reports, and mortality (both in and out of hospital). The primary focus was on how the inputs (e.g. saline) and outputs (e.g. blood, urine, chart values) variables along with the LOS (length of stay) and weight of the patient can predict the death state for a particular ICU patient.
Bone strength and architecture : pharmacological targeting of CaMKK2 as a method for enhancing bone quality.

The tissue-restricted multifunctional Ca/calmodulin (CaM)-dependent protein kinase kinase 2 (CaMKK2) has roles in the anabolic and catabolic pathways of bone remodeling. Specifically, genetic ablation of CaMKK2 positively influences osteoblasts and negatively affects osteoclasts, resulting in a net increase of bone mass, and its pharmacological inhibition through STO-609 protects mice from ovariectomy-induced osteoporosis. However, it was not known whether the enhanced bone mass formed in the absence of CaMKK2
Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio associated with disease activity in patients with Takayasu’s arteritis: a case-control study

Background Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) have been reported to reflect the inflammatory response and disease activity in a variety of autoimmune diseases. Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the value of PLR and NLR as markers to monitor disease activity in Takayasu’s arteritis (TAK). Methods A retrospective case–control study involving 88 patients with TAK and 78 healthy controls was performed. We compared the PLR and NLR between patients and healthy controls, and also analysed the correlations between PLR or NLR and indices of TAK disease activity. Results Increased PLR and NLR were observed in patients with TAK. PLR was positively correlated with hs-C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) (r=0.239, p=0.010) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) (r=0.270, p=0.010). NLR also exhibited a positive relationship with Kerr’s score (r=0.284, p=0.002), hs-CRP (r=0.313, p=0.006) and ESR (r=0.249, p=0.019). A PLR level of 183.39 was shown to be the predictive cut-off value for TAK (sensitivity 37.8%, specificity 93.0%, area under the curve (AUC)=0.691). A NLR level of 2.417 was found to be the predictive cut-off value for TAK (sensitivity 75.6%, specificity 55.8%, AUC=0.697). Conclusions PLR and NLR could be useful markers to reflect inflammation and disease activity in patients with TAK.