Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessment of Nonresearch Industry Payments to Otolaryngologists in 2014 and 2015

Objective To characterize, describe, and compare nonresearch industry payments made to otolaryngologists in 2014 and 2015. Additionally, to describe industry payment variation within otolaryngology and among other surgical specialties. Study Design Retrospective cross-sectional database analysis. Setting Open Payments Database. Subjects and Methods Nonresearch payments made to US otolaryngologists were characterized and compared by payment amount, nature of payment, sponsor, and census region between 2014 and 2015. Payments in otolaryngology were compared with those in other surgical specialties. Results From 2014 to 2015, there was an increase in the number of compensated otolaryngologists (7903 vs 7946) and in the mean payment per compensated otolaryngologist ($1096 vs $1242), as well as a decrease in the median payment per compensated otolaryngologist ($169 vs $165, P = .274). Approximately 90% of total payments made in both years were attributed to food and beverage. Northeast census region otolaryngologists received the highest median payment in 2014 and 2015. Compared with other surgical specialists, otolaryngologists received the lowest mean payment in 2014 and 2015 and the second-lowest and lowest median payment in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Conclusion The increase in the mean payment and number of compensated otolaryngologists can be explained by normal annual variation, stronger industry-otolaryngologist relationships, or improved reporting; additional years of data and improved public awareness of the Sunshine Act will facilitate determining long-term trends. The large change in disparity between the mean and median from 2014 to 2015 suggests greater payment variation. Otolaryngologists continue to demonstrate limited industry ties when compared with other surgical specialists.
Correlation between the stress-induced transient increase in corticotropin-releasing hormone content of the median eminence of the hypothalamus and adrenocorticotropic hormone secretion.

Intravenous angiotensin II and ether stress were found to produce a rapid, transient increase in the corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) content of the median eminence as measured by a radioimmunoassay employing an antibody against rat CRH(1-41). This confirms previous reports of transient increases in CRH measured by bioassay. The increase did not occur in the paraventricular region or in other parts of the brain. It occurred along with an increase in plasma adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) when a second ether stress was administered 1 h after the first, and it also occurred when rats that had been adrenalectomized for 5 days were exposed to ether. The increases in CHR and the ACTH responses to ether were reduced or abolished by dexamethasone and pentobarbital. Four days after semicircular knife cuts in the posterior hypothalamus, resting CRH in the median eminence was increased but there was no further rise after ether stress. Plasma ACTH was normal at rest after the cuts, but the increase produced by ether was reduced. The ACTH responses to angiotensin II and immobilization were also reduced. Because the posterior knife cuts reduced hypothalamic catecholamine content, the effects of reducing hypothalamic norepinephrine and epinephrine by administration of the dopamine-beta-hydroxylase inhibitor diethyldithiocarbamate (DDC) were tested. Five hours after DDC, plasma ACTH was elevated but there was no further increase with ether stress. The median eminence CRH content was normal but failed to increase after exposure to ether. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
UMAN P RIORS FOR P LAYING V IDEO G AMES

What makes humans so good at solving seemingly complex video games? Unlike computers, humans bring in a great deal of prior knowledge about the world, enabling efficient decision making. This paper investigates the role of human priors for solving video games. Given a sample game, we conduct a series of ablation studies to quantify the importance of various priors. We do this by modifying the video game environment to systematically mask different types of visual information that could be used by humans as priors. We find that removal of some prior knowledge causes a drastic degradation in the speed with which human players solve the game, e.g. from 2 minutes to over 20 minutes. Furthermore, our results indicate that general priors, such as the importance of objects and visual consistency, are critical for efficient game-play.
Interaction between real and virtual humans during walking: perceptual evluation of a simple device

Validating that a real user can correctly perceive the motion of a virtual human is first required to enable realistic interactions between real and virtual humans during navigation tasks through virtual reality equipment. In this paper we focus on collision avoidance tasks. Previous works stated that real humans are able to accurately estimate others' motion and to avoid collisions with anticipation. Our main contribution is to propose a perceptual evaluation of a simple virtual reality system. The goal is to assess whether real humans are also able to accurately estimate a virtual human motion before collision avoidance. Results show that, even through a simple system, users are able to correctly evaluate the situation of an interaction on the qualitative point of view. Especially, in comparison with real interactions, users accurately decide whether they should give way to the virtual human or not. However, on the quantitative point of view, it is not easy for users to determine whether they will collide with virtual humans or not. On one hand, deciding to give way or not is a two-choice problem. On the other hand, detecting future collision requires to determine whether some visual variables belong some interval or not. We discuss this problem in terms of bearing angle.
Religious Competition and Reallocation: The Political Economy of Secularization in the Protestant Reformation

Using novel microdata, we document an important, unintended consequence of the Protestant Reformation: a reallocation of resources from religious to secular purposes. To understand this process, we propose a conceptual framework in which the introduction of religious competition shifts political markets where religious authorities provide legitimacy to rulers in exchange for control over resources. Consistent with our framework, religious competition changed the balance of power between secular and religious elites: secular authorities acquired enormous amounts of wealth from monasteries closed during the Reformation, particularly in Protestant regions. This transfer of resources had significant consequences. First, it shifted the allocation of upper-tail human capital. Graduates of Protestant universities increasingly took secular, especially administrative, occupations. Protestant university students increasingly studied secular subjects, especially degrees that prepared students for public sector jobs, rather than church sector-specific theology. Second, it affected the sectoral composition of fixed investment. Particularly in Protestant regions, new construction shifted from religious toward secular purposes, especially the building of palaces and administrative buildings, which reflected the increased wealth and power of secular lords. Reallocation was not driven by pre-existing economic or cultural differences. Our findings indicate that the Reformation played an important causal role in the secularization of the West.
CONTENT OF MACROELEMENTS AND CRUDE FIBRE IN GRAIN OF SPRING BARLEY CULTIVATED IN DIFFERENT AGRONOMIC CONDITIONS

The aim of this study was to determine the effect of a catch crop on the content of nutrients in grain of spring barley grown after it, intended for animal feed, using different intensities of chemical plant protection and nitrogen fertilization. Field experiments were carried out at the Research Station at Mochelek on Alfisols, in 2008-2011. The split- -plot experimental design was used. The effect of the catch crop (field pea plowed in autumn of the year preceding the barley sowing - factor I) on N, P, K, Ca, Mg and crude fiber content in grains of barley grown with the use of different levels of chemical plant protection (low and high - factor II) was evaluated. Moreover, different rates of nitrogen fertilization were tested (0, 35, 70, 105 and 140 kg·ha -1 - factor III). The catch crop plowed in the autumn as a green manure significantly increased the nitrogen and phosphorus content in spring barley grain. Intensity of chemical protection of barley had no effect on the content of N, P, K, Ca, Mg and crude fiber in the grain. Increasing the rate of nitrogen in the range from 0 to 140 kg·ha -1 contributed to increase in concentrations of N, P and K in grain and reduction in the content of Mg. The content of P, K, Ca and crude fiber was negatively correlated with the yield of pea biomass plowed in. Ca concentration in the grain was also negatively correlated with grain yield, whereas magnesium content was positively correlated with both the yield of pea biomass plowed in and grain yield of barley. The study confirmed the importance of the catch crop used as green manure in improving the quality of spring barley grain. Research hypothesis has not been fully confirmed in the impact of this factor on the grain composition of barley grown under low nitrogen fertilization. In treatments without N fertilization the catch crop used as green manure had only an effect on the Ca content in the grain. Barley fertilized with nitrogen at 35 kg·ha -1 responded significantly to the catch crop used as green manure only by
Rotary Ultrasonic Machining of Sapphire: Feasibility Study and Designed Experiments

Sapphire, widely used in high-speed integrated-circuit chips, thin-film substrates, and various electronic components, is regarded as one of the most difficult to cut materials owing to its great hardness and low fracture toughness. Rotary ultrasonic machining (RUM) has been regarded as an effective processing method for hard and brittle materials. In this paper, RUM process is introduced into the drilling of sapphire for the first time. The feasibility to machine sapphire using RUM is studied. Moreover, results of a designed experimental study into RUM of sapphire are presented to discuss the main effects as well as interaction effects of process parameters (ultrasonic power, spindle speed, and feedrate) on outputs. The process outputs investigated include cutting force and edge chipping size.
On the importance of single directions for generalization

Despite their ability to memorize large datasets, deep neural networks often achieve good generalization performance. However, the differences between the learned solutions of networks which generalize and those which do not remain unclear. Additionally, the tuning properties of single directions (defined as the activation of a single unit or some linear combination of units in response to some input) have been highlighted, but their importance has not been evaluated. Here, we connect these lines of inquiry to demonstrate that a network's reliance on single directions is a good predictor of its generalization performance, across networks trained on datasets with different fractions of corrupted labels, across ensembles of networks trained on datasets with unmodified labels, across different hyperparameters, and over the course of training. While dropout only regularizes this quantity up to a point, batch normalization implicitly discourages single direction reliance, in part by decreasing the class selectivity of individual units. Finally, we find that class selectivity is a poor predictor of task importance, suggesting not only that networks which generalize well minimize their dependence on individual units by reducing their selectivity, but also that individually selective units may not be necessary for strong network performance.
Effect of Ambient Temperature on the Human Tear Film

Purpose: During everyday life, the tear film is exposed to a wide range of ambient temperatures. This study aims to investigate the effect of ambient temperature on tear film physiology. Method: A controlled environment chamber was used to create different ambient temperatures (5, 10, 15, 20, and 25°C) at a constant relative humidity of 40%. Subjects attended for two separate visits and were exposed to 25, 20, and 15°C at one visit and to 10 and 5°C at the other visit. The subjects were exposed to each room temperature for 10 min before investigating tear film parameters. The order of the visits was random. Tear physiology parameters assessed were tear evaporation rate, noninvasive tear break-up time (NITBUT), lipid layer thickness (LLT), and ocular surface temperature (OST). Each parameter was assessed under each condition. Result: A threefold increase in tear evaporation rate was observed as ambient temperature increased to 25°C (P=0.00). The mean evaporation rate increased from 0.056 &mgr;L/min at 5°C to 0.17 &mgr;L/min at 25°C. The mean NITBUT increased from 7.31 sec at 5°C to 12.35 sec at 25°C (P=0.01). A significant change in LLT was also observed (P=0.00), LLT median ranged between 20 and 40 nm at 5 and 10°C and increased to 40 and 90 nm at 15, 20, and 25°C. Mean reduction of 4°C OST was observed as ambient temperature decreased from 25 to 5°C. Conclusion: Ambient temperature has a considerable effect on human tear film characteristics. Tear evaporation rate, tear LLT, tear stability, and OST were considerably affected by ambient temperature. Chronic exposure to low ambient temperature would likely result in symptoms of dry eye and ultimately ocular surface disorders.
Partially exhausted tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes predict response to combination immunotherapy.

BACKGROUND Programmed death 1 (PD-1) inhibition activates partially exhausted cytotoxic T lymphocytes (peCTLs) and induces tumor regression. We previously showed that the peCTL fraction predicts response to anti-PD-1 monotherapy. Here, we sought to correlate peCTL and regulatory T lymphocyte (Treg) levels with response to combination immunotherapy, and with demographic/disease characteristics, in metastatic melanoma patients. METHODS Pretreatment melanoma samples underwent multiparameter flow cytometric analysis. Patients were treated with anti-PD-1 monotherapy or combination therapy, and responses determined by Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors version 1.1 (RECIST v1.1) criteria. peCTL and Treg levels across demographic/disease variables were compared. Low versus high peCTL (≤20% vs. >20%) were defined from a previous study. RESULTS One hundred and two melanoma patients were identified. The peCTL fraction was higher in responders than nonresponders. Low peCTL correlated with female sex and liver metastasis, but not with lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), tumor stage, or age. While overall response rates (ORRs) to anti-PD-1 monotherapy and combination therapy were similar in high-peCTL patients, low-peCTL patients given combination therapy demonstrated higher ORRs than those who received monotherapy. Treg levels were not associated with these factors nor with response. CONCLUSION In melanoma, pretreatment peCTL fraction is reduced in women and in patients with liver metastasis. In low-peCTL patients, anti-PD-1 combination therapy is associated with significantly higher ORR than anti-PD-1 monotherapy. Fewer tumor-infiltrating peCTLs may be required to achieve response to combination immunotherapy. TRIAL REGISTRATION UCSF IRB Protocol 138510FUNDING. NIH DP2-AR068130, K08-AR062064, AR066821, and Burroughs Wellcome CAMS-1010934 (M.D.R.). Amoroso and Cook Fund, and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (A.I.D.).
Auxiliary energy assisted friction stir welding – status review

The present article introduces the auxiliary energy assisted friction stir welding (FSW) processes purported to overcome the shortcomings of the conventional FSW process. The auxiliary energies used for this purpose are thermal energy from electric resistance heat, induction heat, laser, plasma, arc, etc. and mechanical energy in the form of ultrasonic vibration. The state-of-the-art, experimentation and progresses in these FSW variants are surveyed and compiled. The auxiliary energy assisted FSW processes exhibit great promise by having numerous advantages over the conventional FSW in terms improved process window, heat generation, material flow, reduced load on the tools and mechanical properties of joints. Such remarkable advantages would lead these processes to redefine many global technologies and markets in the twenty-first century. However, these variants are still in their preliminary stages of investigation, and more systematic investigations are necessary for their critical assessment. In this aspect, some unsolved issues and challenges are overlooked.
Comparative Study of Sub-THz FSS Filters Fabricated by Inkjet Printing, Microprecision Material Printing, and Photolithography

This paper reports a comparative study of sub-THz frequency-selective surface (FSS) filter performance in relation to its method of fabrication. Three techniques are considered: conventional inkjet printing, microprecision inkjet printing, and photolithography. The complete design process is presented highlighting steps from substrate selection through to electromagnetic modeling and finally broadband THz filter characterization. Electromagnetic modeling is performed using the CST full-wave frequency-domain solver. Experimental characterization of substrate material, ink, and final FSS designs is done both by THz time-domain spectrometry and quasi-optically at WR-10 and WR-3 waveguide bands using PNA-X vector network analyzer. The center frequencies for bandpass FSS filters are 100 and 300 GHz, which enables prospective utilization in a quasi-optical multiplier system.
Minimally Redundant Laplacian Eigenmaps

Spectral algorithms for learning low-dimensional data manifolds have largely been supplanted by deep learning methods in recent years. One reason is that classic spectral manifold learning methods often learn collapsed embeddings that do not fill the embedding space. We show that this is a natural consequence of data where different latent dimensions have dramatically different scaling in observation space. We present a simple extension of Laplacian Eigenmaps to fix this problem based on choosing embedding vectors which are both orthogonal and minimally redundant to other dimensions of the embedding. In experiments on NORB and similarity-transformed faces we show that Minimally Redundant Laplacian Eigenmap (MR-LEM) significantly improves the quality of embedding vectors over Laplacian Eigenmaps, accurately recovers the latent topology of the data, and discovers many disentangled factors of variation of comparable quality to state-of-the-art deep learning methods.
Effect of penicillin irradiation on bacterial growth and penicillin resistance.

The interaction between benzylpenicillin and the specific bacterial cell wall receptor(s) is influenced in a noncontinuous manner through the antibiotic irradiation with λ = 546 nm. The growth of two B. subtilis strains, one sensitive and the other resistant to penicillin, presents a different response pattern to the irradiated antibiotic. For both strains, the inhibitory activity of the antibiotic is increased for 5, 25 and 45 sec penicillin irradiation times. For the resistant strain, the inhibitory activity of the antibiotic is decreased for 15, 35 and 55 sec penicillin irradiation times. This decrease is correlated with the enhancements induced in penicillinase activity, which appear also for 15, 35 and 55 sec of benzylpenicillin irradiation times.
Contributions of dynamic environmental signals during life-cycle transitions to early life-history traits in lodgepole pine ( Pinus contorta Dougl.)

Abstract. Environmental signals are important triggers in the life-cycle transitions and play a crucial role in the life-history evolution. Yet very little is known about the leading ecological factors contributing to the variations of life-history traits in perennial plants. This paper explores both the causes and consequences for the evolution of life-history traits (i.e., seed dormancy and size) in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl.) across British Columbia (B.C.), Canada. We selected 83 logepole pine populations covering 22 ecosystem zones of B.C. and through their geographic coordinate, 197 climatic variables were generated accordingly for the reference (1961–1990) and future (2041–2070) periods. We found that dynamic climatic variables rather than constant geographic variables are the true environmental driving forces in seed dormancy and size variations and thus provide reliable predictors in response to global climate change. Evapotranspiration and precipitation in the plant-to-seed chronology are the most critical climate variables for seed dormancy and size variations, respectively. Hence, we predicted that levels of seed dormancy in lodgepole pine would increase across large tracts of B.C. in 2050s. Winter-chilling is able to increase the magnitude of life-history plasticity and lower the bet-hedge strategy in the seed-to-plant transition; however, winter-chilling is likely to be insufficient in the north of 49° N in 2050s, which may delay germination while unfavorable conditions during dry summers may result in adverse consequences in the survival of seedlings owing to extended germination span. These findings provide useful information to studies related to assessments of seed transfer and tree adaptation.
Circulating Fatty Acids and Prostate Cancer Risk: Individual Participant Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies

Background Individual studies have suggested that some circulating fatty acids are associated with prostate cancer risk, but have not been large enough to provide precise estimates of associations, particularly by stage and grade of disease. Methods Principal investigators of prospective studies on circulating fatty acids and prostate cancer were invited to collaborate. Investigators provided individual participant data on circulating fatty acids (weight percent) and other characteristics of prostate cancer cases and controls. Prostate cancer risk by study-specific fifths of 14 fatty acids was estimated using multivariable-adjusted conditional logistic regression. All statistical tests were two-sided. Results Five thousand and ninety-eight case patients and 6649 control patients from seven studies with an average follow-up of 5.1 (SD = 3.3) years were included. Stearic acid (18:0) was inversely associated with total prostate cancer (odds ratio [OR] Q5 vs Q1 = 0.88, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.78 to 1.00, P trend = .043). Prostate cancer risk was, respectively, 14% and 16% greater in the highest fifth of eicosapentaenoic acid (20:5n-3) (OR = 1.14, 95% CI = 1.01 to 1.29, P trend = .001) and docosapentaenoic acid (22:5n-3) (OR = 1.16, 95% CI = 1.02 to 1.33, P trend = .003), but in each case there was heterogeneity between studies (P = .022 and P < .001, respectively). There was heterogeneity in the association between docosapentaenoic acid and prostate cancer by grade of disease (P = .006); the association was statistically significant for low-grade disease but not high-grade disease. The remaining 11 fatty acids were not statistically associated with total prostate cancer risk. Conclusion There was no strong evidence that circulating fatty acids are important predictors of prostate cancer risk. It is not clear whether the modest associations of stearic, eicosapentaenoic, and docosapentaenoic acid are causal.