Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Carotid artery thickness is associated with chronic use of highly active antiretroviral therapy in patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus: A 3.0 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging study

While patients with HIV infection have an elevated stroke risk, ultrasound studies of carotid artery wall thickness have reported variable results. We hypothesized that subjects with HIV infection on chronic highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) would have increased carotid artery wall thickness by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Device Placement Optimization with Reinforcement Learning

The past few years have witnessed a growth in size and computational requirements for training and inference with neural networks. Currently, a common approach to address these requirements is to use a heterogeneous distributed environment with a mixture of hardware devices such as CPUs and GPUs. Importantly, the decision of placing parts of the neural models on devices is often made by human experts based on simple heuristics and intuitions. In this paper, we propose a method which learns to optimize device placement for TensorFlow computational graphs. Key to our method is the use of a sequence-to-sequence model to predict which subsets of operations in a TensorFlow graph should run on which of the available devices. The execution time of the predicted placements is then used as the reward signal to optimize the parameters of the sequence-to-sequence model. Our main result is that on Inception-V3 for ImageNet classification, and on RNN LSTM, for language modeling and neural machine translation, our model finds non-trivial device placements that outperform hand-crafted heuristics and traditional algorithmic methods.
Association of an intact E2 gene with higher HPV viral load, higher viral oncogene expression, and improved clinical outcome in HPV16 positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

To assess the relationship of E2 gene disruption with viral gene expression and clinical outcome in human papillomavirus (HPV) positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, we evaluated 31 oropharyngeal and 17 non-oropharyngeal HPV16 positive carcinomas using two PCR-based methods to test for disruption of E2, followed by Sanger sequencing. Expression of HPV16 E6, E7 and E2 transcripts, along with cellular ARF and INK4A, were also assessed by RT-qPCR. Associations between E2 disruption, E2/E6/E7 expression, and clinical outcome were evaluated by Kaplan-Meier analysis for loco-regional recurrence and disease-specific survival. The majority (n = 21, 68%) of HPV16 positive oropharyngeal carcinomas had an intact E2 gene, whereas the majority of HPV16 positive non-oropharyngeal carcinomas (n = 10, 59%) had a disrupted E2 gene. Three of the oropharyngeal tumors and two of the non-oropharyngeal tumors had deletions within E2. Detection of an intact E2 gene was associated with a higher DNA viral load and increased E2/E6/E7, ARF and INK4A expression in oropharyngeal tumors. Oropharyngeal carcinomas with an intact E2 had a lower risk of loco-regional recurrence (log-rank p = 0.04) and improved disease-specific survival (p = 0.03) compared to tumors with disrupted E2. In addition, high E7 expression was associated with lower risk of loco-regional recurrence (p = 0.004) as was high E6 expression (p = 0.006). In summary, an intact E2 gene is more common in HPV16 positive oropharyngeal than non-oropharyngeal carcinomas; the presence of an intact E2 gene is associated with higher HPV viral load, higher viral oncogene expression, and improved clinical outcome compared to patients with a disrupted E2 gene in oropharyngeal cancer.
IQ discrepancy differentiates levels of fine motor skills and their relationship in children with autism spectrum disorders

Purpose We investigated 1) the impact of differences in intelligence quotient discrepancy (IQD) on motor skills of preschool-aged children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD); 2) the relationships between IQD and motor skills in preschool-aged children with ASD. Methods A total of 127 ASD preschool-aged children were divided into three groups according to the size of the IQD: IQD within 1 standard deviation (1SD; EVENIQ; n=81), discrepantly higher verbal intelligence quotient (VIQ; n=22; VIQ>performance intelligence quotient [PIQ] above 1SD [≥15 points]), and discrepantly higher PIQ (n=24; PIQ>VIQ above 1SD [≥15 points]). Children’s IQD and motor skills were determined with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence™ – Fourth Edition and the motor subtests of the Comprehensive Developmental Inventory for Infants and Toddlers (CDIIT), respectively. Results One-way analysis of variance revealed significant group differences for the fine motor domain of the CDIIT and the visual–motor coordination subtest (F=3.37–4.38, p<0.05). Children with discrepantly higher PIQ were associated with better fine motor skills than were children with even IQD and those with discrepantly higher VIQ, and vice versa. IQD (PIQ – VIQ) had significant positive correlations with the fine motor domain and fine motor subtests of the CDIIT (r=0.18–0.29, p<0.05). Conclusion The IQD can identify different levels of fine motor skills in preschool-aged children with ASD. This study suggests important implications for clinicians, therapists, and researchers: discrepantly higher PIQ could be related to better visual–motor coordination, and discrepantly higher VIQ could be related to poor visual–motor coordination. Furthermore, the results support that when therapists are working with preschool-aged children with ASD who are developing fine motor skills or undertaking fine motor tasks related to visual–motor coordination, they may need to pay attention to the children’s IQD.
Scale-Recurrent Network for Deep Image Deblurring

In single image deblurring, the "coarse-to-fine" scheme, i.e. gradually restoring the sharp image on different resolutions in a pyramid, is very successful in both traditional optimization-based methods and recent neural-network-based approaches. In this paper, we investigate this strategy and propose a Scale-recurrent Network (SRN-DeblurNet) for this deblurring task. Compared with the many recent learning-based approaches in [25], it has a simpler network structure, a smaller number of parameters and is easier to train. We evaluate our method on large-scale deblurring datasets with complex motion. Results show that our method can produce better quality results than state-of-the-arts, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Balancing Two-Player Stochastic Games with Soft Q-Learning

Within the context of video games the notion of perfectly rational agents can be undesirable as it leads to uninteresting situations, where humans face tough adversarial decision makers. Current frameworks for stochastic games and reinforcement learning prohibit tuneable strategies as they seek optimal performance. In this paper, we enable such tuneable behaviour by generalising soft Q-learning to stochastic games, where more than one agent interact strategically. We contribute both theoretically and empirically. On the theory side, we show that games with soft Q-learning exhibit a unique value and generalise team games and zero-sum games far beyond these two extremes to cover a continuous spectrum of gaming behaviour. Experimentally, we show how tuning agents' constraints affect performance and demonstrate, through a neural network architecture, how to reliably balance games with high-dimensional representations.
Higher-order organization of complex networks

Resolving a network of hubs Graphs are a pervasive tool for modeling and analyzing network data throughout the sciences. Benson et al. developed an algorithmic framework for studying how complex networks are organized by higher-order connectivity patterns (see the Perspective by Pržulj and Malod-Dognin). Motifs in transportation networks reveal hubs and geographical elements not readily achievable by other methods. A motif previously suggested as important for neuronal networks is part of a “rich club” of subnetworks. Science, this issue p. 163; see also p. 123 A mathematical framework for clustering reveals organizational features of a variety of networks. Networks are a fundamental tool for understanding and modeling complex systems in physics, biology, neuroscience, engineering, and social science. Many networks are known to exhibit rich, lower-order connectivity patterns that can be captured at the level of individual nodes and edges. However, higher-order organization of complex networks—at the level of small network subgraphs—remains largely unknown. Here, we develop a generalized framework for clustering networks on the basis of higher-order connectivity patterns. This framework provides mathematical guarantees on the optimality of obtained clusters and scales to networks with billions of edges. The framework reveals higher-order organization in a number of networks, including information propagation units in neuronal networks and hub structure in transportation networks. Results show that networks exhibit rich higher-order organizational structures that are exposed by clustering based on higher-order connectivity patterns.
Do Advanced Glycation End Products and Its Receptor Play a Role in Pathophysiology of Hypertension?

Abstract There is a close relationship between arterial stiffness and blood pressure. The studies suggest that the advanced glycation end products (AGEs) and its cell receptor (RAGE) are involved in the arterial stiffness in two ways: changes in arterial structure and vascular function. Plasma levels of AGEs and expression of RAGE are elevated, while the levels of soluble RAGE (sRAGE) and endogenous secretory RAGE (esRAGE) are lowered in patients with hypertension (HTN). There is a positive correlation between plasma levels of AGEs and arterial stiffness, and an inverse association between arterial stiffness/HTN, and serum levels of sRAGE and esRAGE. Various measures can reduce the levels of AGEs and expression of RAGE, and elevate sRAGE. Arterial stiffness and blood pressure could be reduced by lowering the serum levels of AGEs, and increasing the levels of sRAGE. Levels of AGEs can be lowered by reducing the consumption of AGE-rich diet, short duration of cooking in moist heat at low temperature, and cessation of cigarette smoking. Drugs such as aminoguanidine, vitamins, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, angiotensin-II receptor blockers, statins, and metformin inhibit AGE formation. Alagebrium, an AGE breakers reduces levels of AGEs. Clinical trials with some drugs tend to reduce stiffness. Systemic administration of sRAGE has beneficial effect in animal studies. In conclusion, AGE–RAGE axis is involved in arterial stiffness and HTN. The studies suggest that inhibition of AGEs formation, reduction of AGE consumption, blockade of AGE–RAGE interaction, suppression of RAGE expression, and exogenous administration of sRAGE may be novel therapeutic strategies for treatment of arterial stiffness and HTN.
Marek's disease resistance of B (MHC) heterozygotes in a cross of purebred Leghorn lines.

Abstract The incidence of Marek's disease (MD) was determined for 404 progeny of five B genotypes resulting from a cross of two purebred Leghorn lines. All chicks were inoculated at 3 weeks of age with 1000 pfu of MD virus, strain HPRS 16. Birds dying during the ensuing 14 week period and any with symptoms of MD at the termination of the experiment were subjected to postmortem examination. The female parent line, B, possessed B21 in relatively high frequency (.66), with B19 being the most frequent of three remaining B alleles. Comparison of progeny genotypes within line B matings for mortality from MD revealed that chicks with B21/B21 genotype were more resistant than those of the genotype B19/B21. Homozygous B21 females of this line were selected for mating to males of the other Leghorn line, A, in which five B alleles were segregating – B2 (.61 frequency), B5 (.09), B15 (.18), B19 (.02), and Bx (.10). Seven line A males were individually mated to the line B females; two of the males were of the genotype B2/Bx and there was one of each of the genotypes B2/B15, B5/Bx, B15/B19, B2/B2, and B5/B5. Among the progeny exposed to MD were 59 chicks of the Houghton Poultry Research Station MD susceptible line, which suffered a mortality of 83%. The percent incidence of MD among single-cross progeny with each of the five possible genotypes B2/B21, B5/B21, B15/B21, B19/B21, and Bx/B21 was, respectively, 5 (7/129), 38 (42/112), 48 (22/46), 50 (16/32), and 48 (41/85). This highly significantly greater resistance (P
Nativity, Country of Education, and Mexican‐Origin Women's Breastfeeding Behaviors in the First 10 Months Postpartum

BACKGROUND Breastfeeding is associated with numerous health benefits for the infant and mother. Latina women in the United States have historically had high overall rates of initiation and duration of breastfeeding. However, these rates vary by nativity and time lived in the United States. Exclusive breastfeeding patterns among Latina women are unclear. In this study, we investigate the current and exclusive breastfeeding patterns of Mexican-origin women at four time points from delivery to 10 months postpartum to determine the combined association of nativity and country of education with breastfeeding duration and supplementation. METHODS Data are from the Postpartum Contraception Study, a prospective cohort study of postpartum women ages 18-44 recruited from three hospitals in Austin and El Paso, Texas. We included Mexican-origin women who were born in either the United States or Mexico in the analytic sample (n = 593). RESULTS Women completing schooling in Mexico had higher rates of overall breastfeeding throughout the study period than women educated in the United States, regardless of country of birth. This trend held in multivariate models while diminishing over time. Women born in Mexico who completed their schooling in the United States were least likely to exclusively breastfeed. DISCUSSION Country of education should also be considered when assessing Latina women's risk for breastfeeding discontinuation. Efforts should be made to identify the barriers and facilitators to breastfeeding among US-educated Mexican-origin women to enhance existing breastfeeding promotion efforts in the United States.
Abdominal fat deposition and sudden death syndrome in broilers: the effects of restricted intake, early life caloric (fat) restriction, and calorie: protein ratio.

The effects of feed restriction, early life fat restriction, and calorie:protein ratio on abdominal fat pad development and sudden death syndrome (SDS) in the broiler chicken were studied in two experiments. In Experiment 1, restricting feed intake to 90% of ad libitum intake was found to reduce significantly (P less than .01) both 49-day body weights and abdominal fat pad size while feed efficiency was significantly (P less than .01) improved compared to groups fed a wheat diet ad libitum. Corn-fed birds tended to outperform wheat fed groups. Reduced growth rate or supplementation of the diet with additional vitamins and minerals did not effect the incidence of SDS. In Experiment 2, fat restriction in the diet from 0 to 7 days initially reduced growth rate and increased feed:gain ratios. By 49 days, no effect of fat restriction on these parameters was observed. Dietary fat restriction tended to increase abdominal fat measured at 49 days of age. Lowering the calorie: protein ratio of the finishing diet significantly (P less than .05) improved feed:gain ratios measured from 29 to 49 days and tended to reduce fat pad size. Incidence of SDS was significantly (P less than .05) lower from 29 to 56 days in groups fed the 24% protein finisher diet as compared to birds fed a 19% finisher diet.
The relation between remembered parental acceptance in childhood and self‐acceptance among young Turkish adults

This study examined the relation between young adults' age and remembrances of parental acceptance in childhood, and their current self-acceptance. The study was based on a sample of 236 young adults in Turkey (139 women and 97 men). The adult version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection/Control Questionnaire for mothers and fathers along with the Self-Acceptance subscale of the Psychological Well-Being Scale, and the Personal Information Form were used as measures. Results showed that both men and women tended to remember having been accepted in childhood by both their mothers and fathers. Women, however, reported more maternal and paternal acceptance in childhood than did men. Similarly, the level of self-acceptance was high among both men and women. However, women's self-acceptance was higher than men's. Correlational analyses showed that self-acceptance was positively related to remembrances of maternal and paternal acceptance among both women and men. Results indicated that age and remembered paternal acceptance significantly predicted women's self-acceptance. Age and remembered maternal acceptance made significant and independent contributions to men's self-acceptance. Men's remembrances of paternal acceptance in childhood did not make significant contribution to their self-acceptance. Finally, the relation between women's age and self-acceptance was significantly moderated by remembrances of paternal acceptance in childhood.
D181A Site-Mutagenesis Enhances Both the Hydrolyzing and Transfructosylating Activities of BmSUC1, a Novel β-Fructofuranosidase in the Silkworm Bombyx mori

β-fructofuranosidase (β-FFase) belongs to the glycosyl-hydrolase family 32 (GH32), which can catalyze both the release of β-fructose from β-d-fructofuranoside substrates to hydrolyze sucrose and the synthesis of short-chain fructooligosaccharide (FOS). BmSuc1 has been cloned and identified from the silkworm Bombyx mori as a first animal type of β-FFase encoding gene. It was hypothesized that BmSUC1 plays an important role in the silkworm-mulberry adaptation system. However, there is little information about the enzymatic core sites of BmSUC1. In this study, we mutated three amino acid residues (D63, D181, and E234) that represent important conserved motifs for β-FFase activity in GH32 to alanine respectively by using site-directed mutagenesis. Recombinant proteins of three mutants and wild type BmSUC1 were obtained by using a Bac-to-Bac/BmNPV expression system and BmN cells. Enzymatic activity, kinetic properties, and substrate specificity of the four proteins were analyzed. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) was used to compare the hydrolyzing and transfructosylating activities between D181A and wtBmSUC1. Our results revealed that the D63A and E234A mutations lost activity, suggesting that D63 and E234 are key amino acid residues for BmSUC1 to function as an enzyme. The D181A mutation significantly enhanced both hydrolyzing and transfructosylating activities of BmSUC1, indicating that D181 may not be directly involved in catalyzation. The results provide insight into the chemical catalyzation mechanism of BmSUC1 in B. mori. Up-regulated transfructosylating activity of BmSUC1 could provide new ideas for using B. mori β-FFase to produce functional FOS.
Anti-laminin-1 antibodies in serum and follicular fluid of women with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis undergoing in vitro fertilization

The aim of this study is to evaluate the presence of anti-laminin-1 antibodies (aLN-1) in sera and follicular fluid (FF) of infertile women affected by Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) and its impact on oocyte maturation and IVF outcome. aLN-1 were measured by a home-made enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in: (1) sera and FF from 44 infertile women affected by HT (HTIW) with tubal factor or male factor as primary cause of infertility; (2) in sera and FF from 28 infertile women without HT, with tubal factor or male factor as cause of infertility (infertile controls-ICTR); and (3) in sera from 50 fertile women (FW). aLN-1 serum levels were significantly higher in HTIW when compared with both fertile women and ICTR (P <0.001and P <0.01, respectively). Assuming as cutoff the 99th percentile of values obtained in sera of FW, 43.2% of HTIW and 3.6% of ICTR were aLN-1 positive (P = 0.0001). Also aLN-1 detected in FF from HTIW were significantly higher in comparison with those found in FF of ICTR (P = 0.006). In HTIW, metaphase II oocyte count showed inverse correlation with both serum and FF aLN-1 levels (r = 0.34, P = 0.02 and r = 0.33, P = 0.03, respectively). Implantation and pregnancy rates were significantly lower in HTIW (7.9% and 9.1%, respectively) when compared with ICTR (23% and 31.1%, respectively) (P = 0.015 and P = 0.03, respectively). Our results demonstrated for the first time the presence of aLN-1 in a relevant percentage of HTIW and suggest that these auto-antibodies may impair IVF outcome.
A Conceptual Framework for Understanding the Role of Adverse Childhood Experiences in Pediatric Chronic Pain

Objectives: This review outlines a conceptual framework adapted from the biopsychosocial model of pain to examine the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and chronic pain in youth to highlight the state of current research and guide future efforts. Methods: A review of the literature was performed in the areas of ACEs and health outcomes with general adult and pediatric populations in addition to studies within the pain literature. Potential relationships between ACEs, chronic pain, and its impact in youth are outlined and discussed. Results: The literature suggests an association between adverse outcomes of ACEs and chronic pain in children and adolescents although causal links have not been confirmed. However, ACEs are associated with multiple risk factors identified in the biopsychosocial model of pain, and may serve to exacerbate or confer heightened risk for pain and poor outcomes. Discussion: Adverse experiences in childhood may be associated with greater risk for the development/maintenance of chronic pain in youth. More research is needed on ACEs and how they uniquely affect the biopsychosocial mechanisms underlying chronic pain in children throughout the lifespan.
Cryptanalysis of indistinguishability obfuscation using GGH13 without ideals

Recently, Albrecht, Davidson and Larraia described a variant of the GGH13 without ideals and presented the distinguishing attacks in simplified branching program security model. Their result partially demonstrates that there seems to be a structural defect in the GGH13 encoding that is not related to the ideal 〈g〉. However, it is not clear whether a variant of the CGH attack described by Chen, Gentry and Halevi can be used to break a branching program obfuscator instantiated by GGH13 without ideals. Consequently this is left as an open problem by Albrecht, Davidson and Larraia. In this paper, we describe a variant of the CGH attack which breaks the branching program obfuscator using GGH13 without ideals. To achieve this goal, we introduce matrix approximate eigenvalues and build a relationship between the determinant and the rank of a matrix with noise. Our result further strengthens the work of Albrecht, Davidson and Larraia that there is a structural weakness in ‘GGH13-type’ encodings beyond the presence of 〈g〉.