Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Ureteroscopic Laser Lithotripsy and Shock Wave Lithotripsy in the Management of Ureteral Calculi in Eastern China

Introduction: It was the aim of this study to compare the efficiency and safety between shock wave lithotripsy (SWL) and ureteroscopic holmium laser lithotripsy (URL) methods for ureteral calculi while also determining which option is more cost-effective. Patients and Methods: During January 2008 to September 2009, a prospective randomized study was conducted to compare both modalities for the management of solitary radiopaque ureteral stones. Patient and stone characteristics, treatment outcome and charges were documented. Both options were compared using univariate statistical tests to identify the efficiency quotient and cost-effectiveness for ureteral calculi according to the stone location. Results: A total of 257 patients were in the SWL group, while 269 were in the URL group. The efficiency quotients for SWL and URL were 0.81 and 0.88, respectively. The initial stone-free rate of URL for lower ureteral calculi was higher (p = 0.002), while the complication rate of SWL for upper ureteral calculi was lower (p = 0.027). The SWL group required lower hospitalization charges (USD 440 vs. 1,221; p < 0.001), lower total charges (USD 454 vs. 1,284; p < 0.001) and a shorter period of hospitalization (5.4 vs. 6.6 days; p < 0.001) compared with the URL group for all ureteral locations. For mid and lower ureteral calculi, the postoperative office visits of the URL group were fewer (1.03 vs. 1.1 times; p = 0.001). Conclusions: Primary in situ SWL for upper and middle ureteral calculi showed lower complication rates compared to URL and was more cost-effective in Eastern China. However, primary URL was a better option for treating lower ureteral stones with a higher stone-free rate but was more expensive.
Macrophage Pro-Inflammatory Response to Francisella novicida Infection Is Regulated by SHIP

Francisella tularensis, a Gram-negative facultative intracellular pathogen infecting principally macrophages and monocytes, is the etiological agent of tularemia. Macrophage responses to F. tularensis infection include the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-12, which is critical for immunity against infection. Molecular mechanisms regulating production of these inflammatory mediators are poorly understood. Herein we report that the SH2 domain-containing inositol phosphatase (SHIP) is phosphorylated upon infection of primary murine macrophages with the genetically related F. novicida, and negatively regulates F. novicida–induced cytokine production. Analyses of the molecular details revealed that in addition to activating the MAP kinases, F. novicida infection also activated the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt pathway in these cells. Interestingly, SHIP-deficient macrophages displayed enhanced Akt activation upon F. novicida infection, suggesting elevated PI3K-dependent activation pathways in absence of SHIP. Inhibition of PI3K/Akt resulted in suppression of F. novicida–induced cytokine production through the inhibition of NFκB. Consistently, macrophages lacking SHIP displayed enhanced NFκB-driven gene transcription, whereas overexpression of SHIP led to decreased NFκB activation. Thus, we propose that SHIP negatively regulates F. novicida–induced inflammatory cytokine response by antagonizing the PI3K/Akt pathway and suppressing NFκB-mediated gene transcription. A detailed analysis of phosphoinositide signaling may provide valuable clues for better understanding the pathogenesis of tularemia.
The enhancement of phototropin-induced phototropic curvature in Arabidopsis occurs via a photoreversible phytochrome A-dependent modulation of auxin responsiveness.

The induction of phototropism in etiolated (dark-grown) seedlings exposed to an unidirectional pulse or extended irradiation with low fluence rate blue light (BL) requires the action of the phototropin (nph1) BL receptor. Although cryptochromes and phytochromes are not required for phototropic induction, these photoreceptors do modulate the magnitude of curvature resulting from phototropin activation. Modulatory increases in the magnitude of phototropic curvature have been termed "enhancement. " Here, we show that phototropic enhancement is primarily a phytochrome A (phyA)-dependent red/far-red-reversible low fluence response. This phyA-dependent response is genetically separable from the basal phototropin-dependent response, as demonstrated by its retention under extended irradiation conditions in the nph4 mutant background, which normally lacks the basal BL-induced response. It is interesting that the nph4 mutants fail to exhibit the basal phototropin-dependent and phyA-dependent enhancement responses under limiting light conditions. Given that NPH4 encodes a transcriptional activator, auxin response factor 7 (ARF7), we hypothesize that the ultimate target(s) of phyA action during the phototropic enhancement response is a rate-limiting ARF-containing transcriptional complex in which the constituent ARFs can vary in identity or activity depending upon the irradiation condition.
Multifeature speech/music discrimination based on mid-term level statistics and supervised classifiers

Speech and music discrimination task is considered among the most important tools in several multimedia applications. In this paper, we propose a twofold approach for speech/music discrimination: in the first side, we consider a relevant and rich set of features then in the second one, we adopt mid-term level statistics. The used set of features involves musical descriptors as well as speech and cepstral descriptors. According to the retrieved results, standard deviation metric was elected as the best mid-term level statistic parameter. The SVM classifier has provided the higher accuracy value among the set of employed classifiers. And when combined to the standard deviation statistical parameter, it has reached a satisfying accuracy percentage higher than 99%. Thus, the proposed scheme has achieved promising classification performance thanks to the discriminating abilities and diversity of the used features besides to the statistics on mid term level.
Phylogeny and historical demography of endemic fishes in Lake Biwa: the ancient lake as a promoter of evolution and diversification of freshwater fishes in western Japan

Abstract To elucidate the origins of the endemic fish of Lake Biwa, an ancient lake in Japan, and the role of the lake in the diversification of freshwater fish in western Japan, we established a molecular phylogenetic framework with an absolute time scale and inferred the historical demography of a large set of fish species in and around the lake. We used mtDNA sequences obtained from a total of 190 specimens, including 11 endemic species of Lake Biwa and their related species, for phylogenetic analyses with divergence time estimations and from a total of 2319 specimens of 42 species (including 14 endemics) occurring in the lake for population genetic analyses. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that some of the endemic species diverged from their closest relatives earlier (1.3–13.0 Ma) than the period in which the present environmental characteristics of the lake started to develop (ca. 0.4 Ma), whereas others diverged more recently (after 0.4 Ma). In contrast, historical demographic parameters suggested that almost all species, including endemic and nonendemic ones, expanded their populations after the development of the present lake environment. In phylogeographic analyses, common or very close haplotypes of some species were obtained from Lake Biwa and other regions of western Japan. The phylogenetic and historical demographic evidence suggests that there was a time lag between phylogenetic divergence and population establishment and that phenotypic adaptation of some endemic species to the limnetic environment occurred much later than the divergences of those endemic lineages. Population structure and phylogeographic patterns suggest that Lake Biwa has functioned not only as the center of adaptive evolution but also as a reservoir for fish diversity in western Japan.
Optimal conditions for anti-maximum principles

The resolvent for some polyharmonic boundary value problems is positive for h positive and less than the first eigenvalue. It is known that beyond this first eigenvalue a sign-reversing property exists. Such a result is called an anti-maximum principle. Depending on the boundary conditions, the dimension of the domain and the order of the operator, the result is uniform or not. In the non-uniform case the right hand side needs to be in LP(0) with p large enough. Sharp estimates for iterated Green functions are used in order to prove that such restrictions are optimal both for the non-uniform and the uniform anti-maximum principle. We will also use these estimates to give an alternative proof of the (uniform) anti-maximum principle.
How Does Grit Impact College Students' Academic Achievement in Science?.

Research has suggested that achievement is not solely based on the cognitive abilities of the learner, but rather on the combination of cognitive ability and personality traits. This paper explores how grit affects student academic performance and success in first-year college physics students in the context of a Quebec College d'enseignement general et professionnel (CEGEP). Two hierarchical linear regressions were performed using scores on a 12-item 5point Likert scale survey measure of Grit on student cumulative GPA and on final exam mark for a gateway physics course, controlling for gender and high school GPA. Prior academic performance was found to be a significant predictor of college performance, as well as success in the gateway physics course. Grit was not found to be a significant predictor of student academic achievement or course success.
Color and psychological functioning: a review of theoretical and empirical work

In the past decade there has been increased interest in research on color and psychological functioning. Important advances have been made in theoretical work and empirical work, but there are also important weaknesses in both areas that must be addressed for the literature to continue to develop apace. In this article, I provide brief theoretical and empirical reviews of research in this area, in each instance beginning with a historical background and recent advancements, and proceeding to an evaluation focused on weaknesses that provide guidelines for future research. I conclude by reiterating that the literature on color and psychological functioning is at a nascent stage of development, and by recommending patience and prudence regarding conclusions about theory, findings, and real-world application.
Engineering Algorithms for Personal Genome Pipelines

Recent technical advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies and their commercial availability at low costs have paved the way for revolutionary opportunities in the life sciences. One milestone was reaching the $1000 genome, allowing to determine the genetic makeup of hundreds of human individuals within a week for less than $1000 each. This ongoing revolution of the life sciences creates new challenges for the software and algorithms that are processing this data. In my thesis, I consider a typical software pipeline for determining the genome of a human individual. For the preprocessing pipeline step, I describe a method for error correction and consider the comparison of such methods. For the read mapping step, I provide a formal de nition of read mapping and I present a software package implementing a benchmark for read mapping, based on my formal de nition. I then describe the implementation, parallelisation, and engineering of a fully sensitive read mapper and evaluate its performance. For the variant calling step, I present a method for the prediction of insertion breakpoints and the assembly of large insertions. Of course, such a pipeline is not limited to the processing of human data but it is also applicable to data from other mammals or organisms with smaller and less complex genomes. The presented work is available as an e cient open source C++ implementation, either as parts of the SeqAn library or as programs using SeqAn.
Prehospital trauma systems reduce mortality in developing countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND The majority of trauma deaths in the developing world occur outside of the hospital. In the mid-1990s, preliminary studies of prehospital trauma systems showed improvements in mortality. However, no empirical data are available to assess the overall benefit of these systems. We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness of prehospital trauma systems in developing countries. METHODS We conducted multiple database and bibliography searches (from inception until December 2010) to identify articles assessing the effectiveness of prehospital trauma systems in developing countries. The primary outcome was mortality. Secondary outcomes were physiologic severity score, Injury Severity Score, and prehospital time. We calculated relative risks (95% confidence intervals [CIs]), performed a sensitivity analysis, and pooled estimates using a fixed effects method. RESULTS Fourteen studies met our inclusion criteria for qualitative analysis. Eight studies representing seven countries (n = 5,607) were included in the meta-analysis. Our pooled estimates show a 25% decreased risk of dying from trauma in areas that have prehospital trauma systems (relative risk [RR], 0.75; 95% CI, 0.66–0.85), with no significant heterogeneity (&khgr;2 = 3.71, p = 0.72). Rural settings showed slightly enhanced treatment effect compared with urban settings (RR, rural 0.71; 95% CI, 0.59–0.86 vs. urban 0.79; 95% CI, 0.65–0.94). In-field response time was reduced in both rural (without an ambulance system, 66 minutes, 95% CI: 24–108) and urban (with an ambulance system, 6 minutes, 95% CI: 5.47 to 6.53, p < 0.0005) settings. CONCLUSION Prehospital trauma systems in developing countries, particularly middle-income countries, reduce mortality. These data should inform and encourage developing countries to adopt prehospital trauma systems at the policy level. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Meta-analysis, level III+.
Effects of titanate treatment on morphology and mechanical properties of graphene nanoplatelets/high density polyethylene nanocomposites

The effect of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) and titanate coupling agent on morphology and mechanical properties of high density polyethylene (HDPE) nanocomposites was investigated. The titanate has a tendency to link chemically with the two dissimilar species GNPs and HDPE via proton coordination to generate a complete continuous phase for stress/strain transfer via the elimination of air voids and hydrophobicity. The interaction of titanate with GNPs and HDPE was effective to improve the dispersion of GNPs in HDPE composites. At constant weight (1 wt %) of titanate treatment for 2 and 5 wt % HDPE composites, we clearly observed a significantly high value of tensile strength and elongation at break than untreated composites. Particularly, composite containing 2 wt % GNPs in HDPE with titanate showed 66.5% improvement of the ultimate tensile strength and an enormously high value of elongation at break. The effect of GNPs dispersion and orientation in HDPE for the mechanical reinforcement was also evaluated based on the experimental modulus data to theoretical predictions made using the Halpin-Tsai model. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015, 132, 42073.
Low and high-delay source-channel coding with bandwidth expansion and correlated interference

We consider the problem of sending a Gaussian source over an additive white Gaussian noise channel with Gaussian correlated interference known to the transmitter. We study both low-delay and asymptotically high-delay (in the sense of infinite source and coding block lengths) joint source-channel coding schemes based on purely analog and hybrid-digital analog (HDA) schemes with bandwidth expansion, respectively. The achievable (square error) distortion region of these schemes under matched and mismatched noise power is analyzed. The low-delay scheme uses a non-parametric analog mapping that is designed using a joint optimization of the encoder and the decoder. Numerical results show that the non-parametric approach adapts better to the interference than the classical linear scheme. For the high-delay regime, we establish a lower bound on the system's distortion and propose a layered HDA scheme based on Wyner-Ziv and HDA Costa coding. The proposed HDA scheme is shown to perform close to the derived bound and to be resilient under noise mismatch.
BlackOut: Speeding up Recurrent Neural Network Language Models With Very Large Vocabularies

We propose BlackOut, an approximation algorithm to efficiently train massive recurrent neural network language models (RNNLMs) with million word vocabularies. BlackOut is motivated by using a discriminative loss, and we describe a new sampling strategy which significantly reduces computation while improving stability, sample efficiency, and rate of convergence. One way to understand BlackOut is to view it as an extension of the DropOut strategy to the output layer, wherein we use a discriminative training loss and a weighted sampling scheme. We also establish close connections between BlackOut, importance sampling, and noise contrastive estimation (NCE). Our experiments, on the recently released one billion word language modeling benchmark, demonstrate scalability and accuracy of BlackOut; we outperform the state-of-the art, and achieve the lowest perplexity scores on this dataset. Moreover, unlike other established methods which typically require GPUs or CPU clusters, we show that a carefully implemented version of BlackOut requires only 1-10 days on a single machine to train a RNNLM with a million word vocabulary and billions of parameters on one billion words. Although we describe BlackOut in the context of RNNLM training, it can be used to any networks with large softmax output layers.
Effects of Succinylcholine on the Pharmacodynamics of Pipecuronium and Pancuronium

To study the effects of succinylcholine on subsequent pharmacodynamics of nondepolarizing muscle relaxants, a comparative pharmacodynamic study was carried out in patients having balanced anesthesia (thiopental, fentanyl, nitrous oxide/oxygen) in whom equipotent doses of pipecuronium (80μg/kg) and pancuronium (100μg/kg) were given with or without prior administration of succinylcholine (1 mg/kg). Fifty–two patients were randomly assigned to one of the following four groups: 1, pancuronium (100μg/kg); 2, pipecuronium (80μg/kg); 3, succinylcholine (1 mg/kg) plus pancuronium (100μg/kg); and 4, succinylcholine (1 mg/kg) plus pipecuronium (80μg/kg). In groups 3 and 4, the nondepolarizing relaxant was given after succinylcholine when the twitch height recovered to 75% of its control value. For maintenance of neuromuscular blockade, additional increments of pancuronium (20μg/kg) or pipecuronium (15μg/kg) were given. Neuromuscular function was monitored throughout induction, maintenance, spontaneous recovery, and pharmacologic reversal of the neuromuscular block.Mean onset times for pancuronium (group 1) and pipecuronium (group 2) given without succinylcholine were (mean ± SEM) 2.5 ± 0.3 and 2.8 ± 0.2 min, respectively. Mean onset times (times to maximum twitch depression) of the two drugs given after succinylcholine (groups 3 and 4) were significantly shorter (1.4 ± 0.4 and 1.6 ± 0.1 min, respectively). Clinical durations (i.e., until 25% twitch recovery of pancuronium and pipecuronium) were not significantly different among the four groups, varying from 81.1 ± 5.4 (group 4) to 107.0 ± 17.0 (group 2) min. Incremental doses used for maintenance of neuromuscular blockade had durations of action ranging from 44.5 ± 5.1 min (group 1) to 52.8 ± 7.3 min (group 3) and were not altered by the prior administration of succinylcholine. After the administration of nondepolarizing relaxant, times for spontaneous recovery of twitch height from 10% to 25% of baseline levels were comparable in all groups (from 15.2 ± 1.7 to 19.8 ± 2.2 min). The response to reversal of residual neuromuscular blockade with neostigmine (2.5 mg) and glycopyrrolate (0.5 mg) was identical in all groups. We conclude that during balanced anesthesia, the use of succinylcholine for intubation does not necessitate subsequent alteration in doses of pancuronium or pipecuronium.
Standardization of a psychiatric screening test for use by general practitioners in Sardinia. Preliminary results

The use of screening test for case‐finding studies was introduced only a few years ago in Italy. This study aimed to define the degree of accuracy of the Italian version of the 24‐item Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ‐24) applied by general practitioners to their patients. The latter was carried out by comparing results with those obtained by means of the Present State Examination performed by a qualified psychiatrist. About 37% of patients interviewed could be considered as cases. In particular, 23% were affected by anxiety disorder and 14% by a depressive disorder. The receiver operating characteristic analysis showed a fairly good degree of accuracy of SRQ‐24 for cut‐off points between 7 and 8.
Dietary Glycemic Load, Glycemic Index, and Carbohydrate and Risk of Breast Cancer in the Women's Health Initiative

Dietary glycemic load (GL), glycemic index (GI), and carbohydrate could be associated with breast cancer risk by influencing long-term blood glucose and insulin concentrations. We examined associations between GL, GI, and carbohydrate and incident breast cancer in 148,767 Women's Heath Initiative (WHI) participants. Dietary variables were estimated from food frequency questionnaires administered at baseline. Self-reported breast cancers during follow-up were confirmed by medical records review. Cox proportional hazards regression modeled time to breast cancer within quintiles of GL, GI, and carbohydrate. There were 6,115 total breast cancers after a median follow-up of 8.0 yr. We observed no associations between GL, GI, or carbohydrate and total incident breast cancer, with hazard ratios and 95% confidence intervals for the highest vs. lowest quintiles of 1.08, 0.92–1.29 (P for trend = 0.27); 1.01, 0.91–1.12 (P = 0.74); and 0.95, 0.80–1.14 (P = 0.98), respectively. There was a trend toward significance for the positive association between GL and in situ cancers (1.40, 0.94–2.13; P = 0.07). Although there was no evidence of associations between GL, GI, or carbohydrate and total breast cancer risk in WHI participants, the suggestion of an association between GL and risk of in situ cancers requires further investigation.
A Sorting Platform Determines the Order of Protein Secretion in Bacterial Type III Systems

The bacterial enteropathogen Salmonella sorts its effector protein substrates prior to secretion. Bacterial type III protein secretion systems deliver effector proteins into eukaryotic cells in order to modulate cellular processes. Central to the function of these protein-delivery machines is their ability to recognize and secrete substrates in a defined order. Here, we describe a mechanism by which a type III secretion system from the bacterial enteropathogen Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium can sort its substrates before secretion. This mechanism involves a cytoplasmic sorting platform that is sequentially loaded with the appropriate secreted proteins. The sequential loading of this platform, facilitated by customized chaperones, ensures the hierarchy in type III protein secretion. Given the presence of these machines in many important pathogens, these findings can serve as the bases for the development of novel antimicrobial strategies.