Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stabilisation of acute‐on‐chronic liver failure patients before liver transplantation predicts post‐transplant survival

Acute‐on‐chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a severe complication of liver cirrhosis associated with excess short‐term mortality rates. Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is a potentially life‐saving therapeutic modality for acute‐on‐chronic liver failure patients, but selection of transplant candidates with an acceptable post‐transplant outcome is difficult.
New insight into type 1 diabetes development: resolving early diabetogenic CD4+ T cell responses that precede seroconversion.

Although it can arise at any age, type 1 diabetes (T1D) represents one of the most prevalent and severe chronic diseases in childhood and adolescence that results from the autoimmune-mediated destruction of insulin-producing β cells in the pancreatic islets of Langerhans causing insulin de ciency and hyperglycemia (1). There is currently no cure or prevention for T1D, leading to lifelong dependence on exogenous insulin therapy, which is essential in managing metabolic symptoms, but does not interfere with the underlying autoimmune process and is frequently associated with serious secondary complications such as retinal, renal, and neurological disease (2).
Phenome-wide association study using research participants’ self-reported data provides insight into the Th17 and IL-17 pathway

A phenome-wide association study of variants in genes in the Th17 and IL-17 pathway was performed using self-reported phenotypes and genetic data from 521,000 research participants of 23andMe. Results replicated known associations with similar effect sizes for autoimmune traits illustrating self-reported traits can be a surrogate for clinically assessed conditions. Novel associations controlling for a false discovery rate of 5% included the association of the variant encoding p.Ile684Ser in TYK2 with increased risk of tonsillectomy, strep throat occurrences and teen acne, the variant encoding p.Arg381Gln in IL23R with a decrease in dandruff frequency, the variant encoding p.Asp10Asn in TRAF3IP2 with risk of male-pattern balding, and the RORC regulatory variant (rs4845604) with protection from allergies. This approach enabled rapid assessment of association with a wide variety of traits and investigation of traits with limited reported associations to overlay meaningful phenotypic context on the range of conditions being considered for drugs targeting this pathway.
Association between periodontal disease and gestational diabetes mellitus—A prospective cohort study

AIM This study aimed to determine the association between periodontal disease and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and the effect of this association on pregnancy outcome in North Indian population. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 584 primigravidae were recruited at 12-14 weeks of gestation. Their periodontal examination was carried out along with 75 g oral glucose load test at the time of recruitment. GDM was diagnosed as per the DIPSI (The Diabetes in Pregnancy Study group India) guidelines (≥140 mg/dl). Women with normal plasma glucose values underwent a repeat 75 g oral glucose load test at 24-28 weeks of gestation. All patients were followed up for pregnancy outcomes. RESULTS Of 584 primigravida, 184 (31.5%) had gingivitis and 148 (25.3%) had periodontitis. Overall, 332 (56.8%) pregnant women had periodontal disease. It was associated with GDM with adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of 2.85 (95%CI = 1.47-5.53). The occurrence of pre-eclampsia was associated with periodontal disease with aHR of 2.20 (95%CI = 0.86-5.60). If primigravidae had periodontal disease along with GDM, the risk of pre-eclampsia had shown increased aHR of 18.79 (95% CI = 7.45-47.40). CONCLUSIONS The study shows a significant association of periodontal disease with GDM and an increased risk of developing pre-eclampsia due to this association.
A Planar Balanced Quadrature Coupler With Tunable Power-Dividing Ratio

This paper reports on, for the first time, planar balanced quadrature couplers with wide tunable power-dividing tuning ratio using two tuning capacitors. The differential-mode operation, common-mode rejection, and cross-mode conversion suppression are obtained for all power-dividing ratios. Closed-form design equations are derived. For verification, a 2-GHz tunable balanced quadrature coupler is designed and measured. The measured power-dividing ratio is in the range of −11.3–10.2 dB with better than 15-dB return loss and isolation. Furthermore, the insertion loss and phase difference resulting from the varactors and transmission lines are compensated using an active capacitance circuit with negative resistance. The worst case of phase imbalance is improved from 25° to 2°. The insertion loss is improved by ∼1.2 dB and nearly close to the theory value.
Bi-Directional Block Self-Attention for Fast and Memory-Efficient Sequence Modeling

Recurrent neural networks (RNN), convolutional neural networks (CNN) and self-attention networks (SAN) are commonly used to produce context-aware representations. RNN can capture long-range dependency but is hard to parallelize and not time-efficient. CNN focuses on local dependency but does not perform well on some tasks. SAN can model both such dependencies via highly parallelizable computation, but memory requirement grows rapidly in line with sequence length. In this paper, we propose a model, called "bi-directional block self-attention network (Bi-BloSAN)", for RNN/CNN-free sequence encoding. It requires as little memory as RNN but with all the merits of SAN. Bi-BloSAN splits the entire sequence into blocks, and applies an intra-block SAN to each block for modeling local context, then applies an inter-block SAN to the outputs for all blocks to capture long-range dependency. Thus, each SAN only needs to process a short sequence, and only a small amount of memory is required. Additionally, we use feature-level attention to handle the variation of contexts around the same word, and use forward/backward masks to encode temporal order information. On nine benchmark datasets for different NLP tasks, Bi-BloSAN achieves or improves upon state-of-the-art accuracy, and shows better efficiency-memory trade-off than existing RNN/CNN/SAN.
Metastasis-free survival is associated with overall survival in men with PSA-recurrent prostate cancer treated with deferred androgen deprivation therapy.

BACKGROUND Clinical trials in men with biochemically recurrent prostate cancer (BRPC) have been hampered by long survival times, making overall survival (OS) a difficult end point to reach. Intermediate end points are needed in order to conduct such trials within a more feasible time frame. PATIENTS AND METHODS This is a retrospective analysis of 450 men with BRPC following prostatectomy treated at a single institution between 1981 and 2010, of which 140 developed subsequent metastases. Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) was deferred until after the development of metastases. Cox regression models were developed to investigate factors influencing OS. RESULTS Median metastasis-free survival (MFS) was 10.2 years [95% confidence interval (CI) 7.6-14.0 years]; median OS after metastasis was 6.6 years (95%CI 5.8-8.4 years). Multivariable Cox regressions identified four independently prognostic variables for OS: MFS (HR 0.77; 95% CI 0.63-0.94), number of metastases (≤3 versus ≥4; HR 0.50; 95% CI 0.29-0.85), pain (absent versus present; HR 0.43; 95% CI 0.25-0.72), and bisphosphonate use (yes versus no; HR 0.60; 95% CI 0.37-0.98). CONCLUSIONS MFS emerged as an independent predictor of OS in men with BRPC treated with deferred ADT after the development of metastases. MFS may be a reasonable intermediate end point in future clinical trials. This observation requires prospective validation.
In vivo dosimetry and shielding disk alignment verification by EBT3 GAFCHROMIC film in breast IOERT treatment.

Intraoperative electron radiation therapy (IOERT) cannot usually benefit, as conventional external radiotherapy, from software systems of treatment planning based on computed tomography and from common dose verify procedures. For this reason, in vivo film dosimetry (IVFD) proves to be an effective methodology to evaluate the actual radiation dose delivered to the target. A practical method for IVFD during breast IOERT was carried out to improve information on the dose actually delivered to the tumor target and on the alignment of the shielding disk with respect to the electron beam. Two EBT3 GAFCHROMIC films have been positioned on the two sides of the shielding disk in order to obtain the dose maps at the target and beyond the disk. Moreover the postprocessing analysis of the dose distribution measured on the films provides a quantitative estimate of the misalignment between the collimator and the disk. EBT3 radiochromic films have been demonstrated to be suitable dosimeters for IVD due to their linear dose-optical density response in a narrow range around the prescribed dose, as well as their capability to be fixed to the shielding disk without giving any distortion in the dose distribution. Off-line analysis of the radiochromic film allowed absolute dose measurements and this is indeed a very important verification of the correct exposure to the target organ, as well as an estimate of the dose to the healthy tissue underlying the shielding. These dose maps allow surgeons and radiation oncologists to take advantage of qualitative and quantitative feedback for setting more accurate treatment strategies and further optimized procedures. The proper alignment using elastic bands has improved the absolute dose accuracy and the collimator disk alignment by more than 50%. PACS number: 87.55. kh.
Localized Airy Wave Packets in a Self-Defocusing Kerr Medium

Families of vortex-like and Gaussian-like localized Airy wave packets, propagating in a self-defocusing Kerr medium, are discovered. Their propagation is described by the cylindrical Korteweg–de Vries (CKdV) equation, reduced from the nonlinear Schrödinger equation by utilizing the reductive perturbation technique. The CKdV equation is solved using the Hirota bilinear method to obtain analytical Airy wave packet families of different order. In particular, we focus on the distribution of optical intensity via numerical simulations of the Airy wave packet solutions, obtained for different initial phases and amplitudes, at given propagation distances. In distinction to the usual ring solitons, the Airy wave packets display a novel internal structure, which reveals novel nonlinear phenomena during the propagation of packets.
Stochastic Thermal Load Management

There has been much recent interest in distributed demand response—where loads adjust in response to shortfalls (or excesses) in power supply—in order to maintain power quality, reduce dispatch costs, and even prevent or ameliorate blackouts. Some of the most promising candidates for demand response are thermal loads, such as heaters, air conditioners, and refrigeration units, which can often be switched OFF temporarily without inconveniencing the user. However, naive attempts to control such loads have experienced difficulties due to devices becoming synchronized in an undesirable way. Recent work using stochastic controls has been shown to be very promising, but still has certain practical limitations. In particular, these controls exhibit poor robustness and undesirable nominal device behavior. In this paper, we propose a novel stable closed-loop stochastic thermal controller that shows much greater robustness than the state of the art algorithm and provides nominal behavior very similar to that of ordinary hysteretic control. Our controller allows a large population of devices to react to the same demand response signal while maintaining an even distribution of device states. This allows them to act in unison to closely approximate a single deterministically controlled load.
The Design and In Vivo Evaluation of Engineered I-OnuI-Based Enzymes for HEG Gene Drive

The homing endonuclease gene (HEG) drive system, a promising genetic approach for controlling arthropod populations, utilises engineered nucleases to spread deleterious mutations that inactivate individual genes throughout a target population. Previous work with a naturally occurring LAGLIDADG homing endonuclease (I-SceI) demonstrated its feasibility in both Drosophila and Anopheles. Here we report on the next stage of this strategy: the redesign of HEGs with customized specificity in order to drive HEG-induced ‘homing’ in vivo via break-induced homologous recombination. Variants targeting a sequence within the Anopheles AGAP004734 gene were created from the recently characterized I-OnuI endonuclease, and tested for cleavage activity and frequency of homing using a model Drosophila HEG drive system. We observed cleavage and homing at an integrated reporter for all endonuclease variants tested, demonstrating for the first time that engineered HEGs can cleave their target site in insect germline cells, promoting targeted mutagenesis and homing. However, in comparison to our previously reported work with I-SceI, the engineered I-OnuI variants mediated homing with a reduced frequency, suggesting that site-specific cleavage activity is insufficient by itself to ensure efficient homing. Taken together, our experiments take a further step towards the development of a viable HEG-based population control strategy for insects.
Effects of iron supplementation versus dietary iron on the nutritional iron status: Systematic review with meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

ABSTRACT This meta-analysis compared the effects of dietary intervention versus iron supplementation on biochemical parameters related to the iron nutritional status in humans. The PubMed, CENTRAL, LILACS, SCIELO, OPENGREY.EU and ClinicalTrials.gov databases were searched for randomized clinical trials that assigned individuals to a dietary intervention or to an iron supplementation regimen, for 12 weeks or more. The primary outcome was the hemoglobin concentration, and secondary outcomes were ferritin, RDW, mean corpuscular volume, soluble transferrin receptor, total iron binding capacity, serum iron, and transferrin saturation. From the 6095 records identified, twelve studies were included, six with children, five with adolescents/adults, and one with pregnant women. In the subgroup of studies that included anemic/iron deficient children, supplementation significantly increased the hemoglobin concentration (weighted mean difference (WMD): 3.19 g/L [95% CI: 1.31, 5.07]) and induced a significantly greater reduction of the soluble transferrin receptor (WMD: −0.46 mg/L [95% CI: −0.70, −0, 21]), when compared to dietary intervention. It also induced a greater reduction of the total binding capacity of iron in adolescents/adults (WMD: −6.96 μmol/L [95% CI: −12.70, −1.21]). Supplementation showed a better effect on hemoglobin recovery in anemic/iron deficient children, while no differences were observed between supplementation and dietary intervention in treating adolescents/adults.
On the Difference Between Additive and Subtractive QM/MM Calculations

The combined quantum mechanical (QM) and molecular mechanical (MM) approach (QM/MM) is a popular method to study reactions in biochemical macromolecules. Even if the general procedure of using QM for a small, but interesting part of the system and MM for the rest is common to all approaches, the details of the implementations vary extensively, especially the treatment of the interface between the two systems. For example, QM/MM can use either additive or subtractive schemes, of which the former is often said to be preferable, although the two schemes are often mixed up with mechanical and electrostatic embedding. In this article, we clarify the similarities and differences of the two approaches. We show that inherently, the two approaches should be identical and in practice require the same sets of parameters. However, the subtractive scheme provides an opportunity to correct errors introduced by the truncation of the QM system, i.e., the link atoms, but such corrections require additional MM parameters for the QM system. We describe and test three types of link-atom correction, viz. for van der Waals, electrostatic, and bonded interactions. The calculations show that electrostatic and bonded link-atom corrections often give rise to problems in the geometries and energies. The van der Waals link-atom corrections are quite small and give results similar to a pure additive QM/MM scheme. Therefore, both approaches can be recommended.
Individual Behavioural–Cognitive Therapy v. Marital Therapy for Depression in Maritally Distressed Couples

Background Depressed patients are often characterised by marital distress, but few studies investigate the effects of marital therapy on depressed mood and relationship dysfunction. Method Twenty-seven depressed patients experiencing marital distress were randomly assigned to either individual behavioural–cognitive therapy or marital therapy. The individual treatment condition focused on depressed mood, behavioural activity and dysfunctional cognitions, whereas in the marital condition the partner was involved in the treatment and the focus was on the communication process in the marital relationship. MANOVAs revealed that treatment led to statistically significant improvements in depressed mood, behavioural activity and dysfunctional cognitions, an increase in relationship satisfaction and improvement of communication in patients and spouses. A significant interaction effect was found, showing that marital therapy had more impact on relationship variables than the individual treatment. Conclusion Both individual cognitive–behaviour therapy and marital therapy lead to less depressive complaints, and both treatment conditions have a positive effect on the relationship, although the effect on the relationship is significantly stronger in couples who were treated by marital therapy compared with patients who were treated individually.
Cricopharyngeal myotomy with thulium laser through flexible endoscopy: proof-of-concept study

Abstract Background and study aims Endoscopic treatment of Zenker’s diverticulum has proven feasible, but electrocautery and CO2 laser technology carry the risk of collateral thermal injury. Thulium laser septum incision may overcome this limitation. We describe for the first time the use of thulium laser through flexible endoscopy in a small cohort of patients with Zenker diverticulum. Patients and methods Thulium laser septum division was performed via flexible endoscopy under general anesthesia in consecutive symptomatic patients with primary or recurrent Zenker diverticulum. Primary study outcomes were feasibility and safety of the procedure. A 1.9-μm laser fiber was used with an emission power of 10 – 16 W. Results Five patients were treated between May and June 2017. Two patients presented with recurrent symptomatic diverticulum after previous transoral septum stapling. Complete division of the septum was achieved in all patients. There was no bleeding nor need of adjunctive electrocautery devices to complete the procedure. The postoperative course was uneventful in all patients; the chest film and gastrographin swallow study on postoperative Day 1 were negative for pneumomediastinum, leaks or residual pouch. All patients were discharged within 48 hours on a soft diet. At the 1- and 3-month follow-up visits, all patients were satisfied with the procedure and reported improved swallowing and absence of regurgitation and cough. Conclusions Division of Zenker’s septum with thulium laser is feasible and safe through flexible endoscopy. Longer-term follow-up is required to establish efficacy and effectiveness of this novel procedure.
Social Versus Moral Preferences in the Ultimatum Game: A Theoretical Model and an Experiment

In the Ultimatum Game (UG) one player, named “proposer”, has to decide how to allocate a certain amount of money between herself and a “responder”. If the offer is greater than or equal to the responder’s minimum acceptable offer (MAO), then the money is split as proposed, otherwise, neither the proposer nor the responder get anything. The UG has intrigued generations of behavioral scientists because people in experiments blatantly violate the equilibrium predictions that self-interested proposers offer the minimum available non-zero amount, and self-interested responders accept. Why are these predictions violated? Previous research has mainly focused on the role of social preferences. Little is known about the role of general moral preferences for doing the right thing, preferences that have been shown to play a major role in other social interactions (e.g., Dictator Game and Prisoner’s Dilemma). Here I develop a theoretical model and an experiment designed to pit social preferences against moral preferences. I find that, although people recognize that offering half and rejecting low offers are the morally right things to do, moral preferences have no causal impact on UG behavior. The experimental data are indeed well fit by a model according to which: (i) high UG offers are motivated by inequity aversion and, to a lesser extent, self-interest; (ii) high MAOs are motivated by inequity aversion.
Forward planned intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for whole breast postoperative radiotherapy. Is it useful? When?

The purpose was to compare the dosimetric results observed in 201 breast cancer patients submitted to tangential forward intensity‐modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) with those observed in 131 patients treated with a standard wedged 3D technique for postoperative treatment of whole breast, according to breast size and supraclavicular node irradiation. Following dosimetric parameters were used for the comparison: Dmax,Dmin,Dmean,V95% and V107% for the irradiated volume; Dmax,Dmean,V80% and V95% for the ipsilateral lung; Dmax,Dmean,V80% and V95% for the heart. Stratification was made according to breast size and supraclavicular (SCV) nodal irradiation. As respect to irradiated volume, a significant reduction of V107% (mean values: 7.0±6.6 versus 2.4±3.7,p<0.001) and Dmax (mean % values:111.2±2.7 versus 107.7±6.3,p<0.001), and an increase of Dmin (mean % values: 65.0±17.4 versus 74.9±12.9,p<0.001) were observed with forward IMRT. The homogeneity of dose distribution to target volume significantly improved with forward IMRT in all patient groups, irrespective of breast size or supraclavicular nodal irradiation. When patients treated with supraclavicular nodal irradiation were excluded from the analysis, forward IMRT slightly reduced V80% (mean values: 3.7±2.6 versus 3.0±2.4,p=0.03) and V95% (mean values 1.9±1.8 versus 1.2%±1.5;p=0.001) of the ipsilateral lung. The dose to the heart tended to be lower with IMRT but this difference was not statistically significant. Tangential forward IMRT in postoperative treatment of whole breast improved dosimetric parameters in terms of homogeneity of dose distribution to the target in a large sample of patients, independent of breast size or supraclavicular nodal irradiation. Lung irradiation was slightly reduced in patients not undergoing to supraclavicular irradiation. PACS numbers: 87.53. Kn; 87.55. de