Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SPECTRUM OF THYROID DISEASES IN SOUTH SOUTH, NIGERIA

BACKGROUND: Diseases of the thyroid gland are common endocrine disorders encountered globally and the incidence varies from one geographical region to another. AIM: To determine the dermographic, clinical and histopathological pattern of thyroid diseases as seen in University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH). MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a 6 year retrospective study of all patients with thyroid diseases that were managed at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital between January 2006 and December 2011. Relevant data were retrieved from the case notes and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 17. RESULTS: A total of 80 patients with thyroid diseases were evaluated. They included 11 (13.7%) males and 69 (86.3%) females with a male to female ratio of 1: 6.3. Their ages ranged from 18 to 70 years with a mean of 40.3±4.4 years and peak age at 31-40 years. Colloid goitre was the commonest lesion encountered, seen in 21.3% of the patients with an average age of 37.4±3.1 years and peak age of 21-30 years. Cosmesis was found to be the major indication for surgery and respiratory obstruction the commonest post operative complication seen. CONCLUSION: Diseases of the thyroid gland are common in Port Harcourt and seen in both genders with a female preponderance. Colloid goitre was the commonest lesion encountered and respiratory obstruction the commonest surgical complication. KEY WORDS: Thyroid diseases, clinical features, histopathology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Ozone production in four major cities of China: sensitivity to ozone precursors and heterogeneous processes

Abstract. Despite a large volume of research over a number of years, our understandings of the key precursors that control tropospheric ozone production and the impacts of heterogeneous processes remain incomplete. In this study, we analyze measurements of ozone and its precursors made at rural/suburban sites downwind of four large Chinese cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Lanzhou. At each site the same measurement techniques were utilized and a photochemical box model based on the Master Chemical Mechanism (v3.2) was applied, to minimize uncertainties in comparison of the results due to differences in methodology. All four cities suffered from severe ozone pollution. At the rural site of Beijing, export of the well-processed urban plumes contributed to the extremely high ozone levels (up to an hourly value of 286 ppbv), while the pollution observed at the suburban sites of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Lanzhou was characterized by intense in-situ ozone production. The major anthropogenic hydrocarbons were alkenes and aromatics in Beijing and Shanghai, aromatics in Guangzhou, and alkenes in Lanzhou. The ozone production was found to be in a VOCs-limited regime in both Shanghai and Guangzhou, and a mixed regime in Lanzhou. In Shanghai, the ozone formation was most sensitive to aromatics and alkenes, while in Guangzhou aromatics were the predominant ozone precursors. In Lanzhou, either controlling NOx or reducing emissions of olefins from the petrochemical industry would mitigate the local ozone production. The potential impacts of several heterogeneous processes on the ozone formation were assessed. The hydrolysis of dinitrogen pentoxide (N2O5), uptake of the hydroperoxyl radical (HO2) on particles, and surface reactions of NO2 forming nitrous acid (HONO) present considerable sources of uncertainty in the current studies of ozone chemistry. Further efforts are urgently required to better understand these processes and refine atmospheric models.
On the space of real algebraic morphisms

— In this Note, we announce several results concerning basic properties of the spaces of morphisms between real algebraic varieties. Our results show a surprising intrinsic rigidity of Real Algebraic Geometry and illustrate the great distance which, in some sense, exists between this geometry and Real Nash one. Let us give an example of this rigidity. An affine real algebraic variety X is rigid if, for each affine irreducible real algebraic variety Z , the set of all nonconstant regular morphisms from Z to X is finite. We are able to prove that, given a compact smooth manifold M of positive dimension, there exists an uncountable family ]Mi(i I of rigid affine nonsingular real algebraic varieties diffeomorphic to M such that, for each ic j in I , Mi is not biregularly isomorphic to Mj .
Complicit in Their Own Demise

Violent hazing has been a longstanding issue within African American, collegiate fraternities and sororities, otherwise known as Black Greek-Letter Organizations (BGLOs). This article investigates how and what hazing victims know about their hazing experiences. Additionally, the article examines how victims’ knowledge of hazing may hold serious implications for tort defense doctrines like assumption of risk and comparative fault. Specifically, the authors conduct two studies — one quantitative and the other qualitative — to find that not only are BGLO pledges aware that their pledge experiences are likely to involve mental and physical hazing, but that they believe such experiences will likely continue throughout the entirety of their induction process. Moreover, appreciation for hazing experiences is often captured in the fraternal chants, greetings, and songs they learn or create, which together reflects some understanding of danger and risk. The authors contend that these elements of black “Greek” hazing culture may serve as evidence of assumption of risk or comparative fault.
Does the spatial arrangement of urban landscape matter? examples of urban warming and cooling in phoenix and las vegas

Abstract This study examines the impact of spatial landscape configuration (e.g., clustered, dispersed) on land‐surface temperatures (LST) over Phoenix, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. We classified detailed land‐cover types via object‐based image analysis (OBIA) using Geoeye‐1 at 3‐m resolution (Las Vegas) and QuickBird at 2.4‐m resolution (Phoenix). Spatial autocorrelation (local Moran's I) was then used to test for spatial dependence and to determine how clustered or dispersed points were arranged. Next, we used Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) data acquired over Phoenix (daytime on 10 June and nighttime on 17 October 2011) and Las Vegas (daytime on 6 July and nighttime on 27 August 2005) to examine day‐ and nighttime LST with regard to the spatial arrangement of anthropogenic and vegetation features. Local Moran's I values of each land‐cover type were spatially correlated to surface temperature. The spatial configuration of grass and trees shows strong negative correlations with LST, implying that clustered vegetation lowers surface temperatures more effectively. In contrast, clustered spatial arrangements of anthropogenic land‐cover types, especially impervious surfaces and open soil, elevate LST. These findings suggest that city planners and managers should, where possible, incorporate clustered grass and trees to disperse unmanaged soil and paved surfaces, and fill open unmanaged soil with vegetation. Our findings are in line with national efforts to augment and strengthen green infrastructure, complete streets, parking management, and transit‐oriented development practices, and reduce sprawling, unwalkable housing development.
Wireless Key Generation from Imperfect Channel State Information: Performance Analysis and Improvements

The basis of generating secret key from the common wireless channel at two communication parties is reciprocity. However, due to non-simultaneous measurements and unavoidable estimation error, bias always exists and key disagreement occurs. In this paper, performance analysis and improvements for key generation exploiting imperfect channel statement information (CSI) is studied. Firstly, the closed-form expression for key disagreement rate (KDR) is derived to evaluate the key mismatch caused by time delay and estimation error. Secondly, the energy efficiency involving power allocation between key generation and private data transmission is presented. After that, a neural network based prediction (NNBP) algorithm is proposed to improve the key consistency. Simulation results verify the theoretical analysis and show that NNBP achieves significant improvements. And it's interesting to find that NNBP algorithm achieves a higher performance gain in low signal-to-noise ration (SNR) and high delay condition, which is different from other methods, like guard band based quantizer (GBBQ).
A Comparative Study Between the Effectiveness of 980 nm Photobiomodulation Delivered by Hand-Piece With Gaussian vs. Flat-Top Profiles on Osteoblasts Maturation

Photobiomodulation (PBM) is a clinically accepted tool in regenerative medicine and dentistry to improve tissue healing and repair and to restore the functional disability. The current in vitro study aimed to investigate the photobiomodulatory effects of 980 nm wavelength (the real energy at the target: ~0.9 W, ~0.9 W/cm2, 60 s, ~55 J/cm2 and a single energy ~55 J in CW) on MC3T3-E1 pre-osteoblast, delivered with flattop profile in comparison to the standard profile. The laser groupings and their associated energies were: Group 1 - once per week (total energy 110 J); Group 2 - three times per week (alternate day) (total energy 330 J); Group 3 - five times per week (total energy 550 J). The metabolic activity and the osteoblasts maturation were analyzed by alkaline phosphatase assay, alizarin red S histological staining, immunoblot and/or double immunolabeling analysis for Bcl2, Bax, Runx-2, Osx, Dlx5, osteocalcin, and collagen Type 1. Our data, for the first time, prove that laser irradiation of 980 nm wavelength with flat-top beam profile delivery system, compared to standard-Gaussian profile, has improved photobiomodulatory efficacy on pre-osteoblastic cells differentiation. Mechanistically, the irradiation enhances the pre-osteoblast differentiation through activation of Wnt signaling and activation of Smads 2/3-βcatenin pathway.
Effectiveness of acupressure on bio-physiological parameters in mediosternotomy patients

Acupressure is one of the emerging alternative therapies for the management of the pain, anxiety and other physiological indexes. The present study was conducted at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Whitefield, Bangalore. A total of twenty male and female patients those who undergo open heart surgery via median sternotomy were part of the study after obtaining the written informed consent. After recording the demographic data, the participants were randomly grouped into control and intervention groups using random numbers generated by computer with 10 participants in each group. The intervention was provided at PC6 acupressure point, situated on the inner side of forearm, three fingers below the wrist joint, three times a day (5-6am, 12 noon-1pm, 5-6pm) for four days. There was a significant decrease in the heart rate and blood pressure and significant increase in the partial pressure of oxygen. Further, there was decrease in the serum troponin T levels. The study support implementation of the acupressure.
How Effective are Intensive Care Unit Beds Used in Our Region?

Objective The demand for critical care facilities is also growing in our country. The aim of the present study was to investigate the incidence and causes of inappropriate admissions to adult intensive care units (ICUs) in our region to facilitate the planning of bed numbers. Methods A team of specialists made an unannounced visit to level 1, 2 and 3 adult ICUs in 12 hospitals in our region between June 2014 and January 2015. A total of 290 ICU patients were evaluated. Results The rate of inappropriate ICU admission was 55.9%, and the most common reason was the lack of a lower level ICU. Palliative patients comprised 35.5% of the ICU patients, 68% of whom should have been in home care. The rate of inappropriate admission was 16.7% higher in open ICUs than in closed ICUs. Conclusion Our results indicate that instead of increasing the number of beds in level 2 and 3 ICUs, hospitals should increase the number of level 1 ICU beds. In addition, we believe that the existing beds could be utilised more effectively if all ICUs implemented a closed management style and if there was better coordination between ICUs.
The Effect of Mode of Delivery on Postpartum Female Sexual Function in Suez Canal University Hospitals

Introduction: Female sexual dysfunction (FSD) is an underestimated common problem with serious effects on women’s quality of life. Female sexual function changes considerably during pregnancy and the postpartum period. During this time, the perineum and pelvic floor muscles are damaged. Type of delivery and perineal trauma during childbirth is associated with sexual problems after childbirth. There is controversy over the effect of mode of delivery on female sexual function. Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between mode of delivery and postpartum female sexual function. Materials and Methods: This was a prospective, descriptive study. 42 women (age range from 18–35years) were recruited in this cross-sectional study. Females were divided into two groups according to their mode of delivery, including: group A, normal labour (NL) (group NL, N = 21); group B, cesarean section (C/S) (group C/S, N = 21). Sexual function was assessed using Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) and Depression, Anxiety, and stress scale )DASS-21(. Results: There were statistically significant decrease of desire, arousal, orgasm and total score of FSFI and while there was significant increase in lubrication and satisfaction domains in NVD group when compared to CS group. The study showed that, there was significant decrease in depression, anxiety and stress in NVD group when compared to CS group according to DASS-21 score. Conclusions: Mode of delivery had actually affected female sexual function in postpartum period.
A study of the water quality of the Mhlathuze River, KwaZulu-Natal (RSA): microbial and physico-chemical factors

The microbial quality (total and faecal coliform counts) and some physico-chemical parameters of the Mhlathuze River water source were monitored during March 2001 to November 2002 and compared to the previous study conducted during 1998-1999. The results showed that most of the physical and chemical values obtained were within the recommended limits specified in the South African Water Quality Guidelines. High concentrations of metal were detected in water samples from Felixton and the Richards Bay estuary. Water samples from the Mhlathuze Pumping Station and Felixton, which contained higher concentrations of total nitrogen and phosphate, possessed higher faecal coliform contamination than other sites. The total coliform counts of the Mhlathuze River in this study period were noted to be significantly higher than those in the 1998 to 1999 period. As observed in the previous study, Felixton continues to be the site with major faecal contamination. The resuscitation results indicated that the level of faecal contamination in the Mhlathuze catchment was higher than that measured using conventional methods. Therefore the real impact of this “viable but non-culturable” state of micro-organisms in this water system requires urgent attention. Larger fluctuations in the trend of total and faecal coliform counts were observed in 2001. This phenomenon coincided with the major construction of the Mhlathuze pumping station. High water surface temperatures and rainfall figures might have also contributed to this observation. Evidence from our results strongly suggests that the use of faecal coliform bacteria as indicators should be expanded and more research is indicated to identify the impact of the “viable but non-culturable” (VBNC) state of pathogens in this environment.
Optimizing Network Performance for Distributed DNN Training on GPU Clusters: ImageNet/AlexNet Training in 1.5 Minutes

It is important to scale out deep neural network (DNN) training for reducing model training time. The high communication overhead is one of the major performance bottlenecks for distributed DNN training across multiple GPUs. Our investigations have shown that popular open-source DNN systems could only achieve 2.5 speedup ratio on 64 GPUs connected by 56 Gbps network. To address this problem, we propose a communication backend named GradientFlow for distributed DNN training, and employ a set of network optimization techniques. First, we integrate ring-based allreduce, mixed-precision training, and computation/communication overlap into GradientFlow. Second, we propose lazy allreduce to improve network throughput by fusing multiple communication operations into a single one, and design coarse-grained sparse communication to reduce network traffic by only transmitting important gradient chunks. When training ImageNet/AlexNet on 512 GPUs, our approach achieves 410.2 speedup ratio and completes 95-epoch training in 1.5 minutes, which outperforms existing approaches.
The preoperative modified Glasgow prognostic score for the prediction of survival after pancreatic cancer resection following non-surgical treatment of an initially unresectable disease

Aim of the study Recent advances in chemotherapy have increasingly enabled conversion surgery (CS) in patients with initially unresectable pancreatic cancer (PC), but patient selection remains controversial. We examined the characteristics of patients who would benefit from this procedure. Material and methods The clinical and pathological data of 38 patients with unresectable PC, who underwent CS after a favourable response to chemo(radio)therapy at our institute, were investigated. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify predictors for overall survival (OS). Several inflammation-based scores, such as the modified Glasgow prognostic score (mGPS), were also evaluated. Results The patients included 13 with locally advanced disease and 25 with metastatic disease. After non-surgical treatment with a median duration of six months, 27 patients (71%) underwent R0/1 resection, and the remainder underwent R2 resection. The two-year and five-year OS from the initial treatment for all patients were 64% and 29%, respectively, and the median survival was 29.1 months. Univariate analysis showed that age < 62 years, preoperative CA19-9 decrease rate ≥ 89%, preoperative mGPS-0, and R0/1 resection were related to a favourable OS. R0/1 resection and mGPS-0 were independent prognostic factors according to multivariate analysis. Conclusions Preoperative mGPS is a potential predictor of survival and can aid selection of patients for whom CS could yield promising prognosis for initially unresectable PC.
Docking protein-1 promotes inflammatory macrophage signaling in gastric cancer

ABSTRACT Docking protein-1 (DOK1) is a tumor suppressor frequently lost in malignant cells, however, it retains the ability to control activities of immune receptors in adjacent stroma cells of the tumor microenvironment. We therefore hypothesized that addressing DOK1 may be useful for cancer immunotherapy. DOK1 mRNA and DOK1 protein expression were downregulated in tumor cells of gastric cancer patients (n = 249). Conversely, its expression was up-regulated in cases positive for Epstein Barr Virus (EBV+) together with genes related to macrophage biology and targets of clinical immunotherapy such as programmed-cell-death-ligand-1 (PD-L1). Notably, high DOK1 positivity in stroma cells conferred poor prognosis in patients and correlated with high levels of inducible nitric oxide synthase in CD68+ tumor-associated macrophages. In macrophages derived from human monocytic leukemia cell lines, DOK1 (i) was inducible by agonists of the anti-diabetic transcription factor peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPARγ), (ii) increased polarization towards an inflammatory phenotype, (iii) augmented nuclear factor-κB-dependent transcription of pro-inflammatory cytokines and (iv) reduced PD-L1 expression. These properties empowered DOK1+ macrophages to decrease the viability of human gastric cancer cells in contact-dependent co-cultures. DOK1 also reduced PD-L1 expression in human primary blood monocytes. Our data propose that the drugability of DOK1 may be exploited to reprogram myeloid cells and enforce the innate immune response against EBV+ human gastric cancer.
ARE TOP EXECUTIVES PAID TOO MUCH? DETERMINANTS OF DIRECTORS’ PAY IN SWITZERLAND

Executive compensation has become a fashionable topic: Cross-nationally, the earnings of executives and non-executive directors have risen significantly in recent years. Academic literature offers two hypotheses for this trend, a “fat cat” and an “optimal-contract” explanation. Proponents of the “fat cat” explanation state that directors are paid too much due to their unjustified power. Proponents of the “optimal-contract” hypothesis state that competition in the managerial labour market establishes an optimal compensation contract. This study contrasts both hypotheses and presents evidence that the level of directors’ pay in Swiss corporations is to be explained by “optimal contracts” and by managerial power. We give evidence to which degree the two explanations are valid.
Fusing Visual, Textual and Connectivity Clues for Studying Mental Health

With ubiquity of social media platforms, millions of people are sharing their online persona by expressing their thoughts, moods, emotions, feelings, and even their daily struggles with mental health issues voluntarily and publicly on social media. Unlike the most existing efforts which study depression by analyzing textual content, we examine and exploit multimodal big data to discern depressive behavior using a wide variety of features including individual-level demographics. By developing a multimodal framework and employing statistical techniques for fusing heterogeneous sets of features obtained by processing visual, textual and user interaction data, we significantly enhance the current state-of-the-art approaches for identifying depressed individuals on Twitter (improving the average F1-Score by 5 percent) as well as facilitate demographic inference from social media for broader applications. Besides providing insights into the relationship between demographics and mental health, our research assists in the design of a new breed of demographic-aware health interventions.