Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term Pelvic Floor Symptoms, Recurrence, Satisfaction, and Regret Following Colpocleisis

Long-term follow-up suggests that colpocleisis remains an excellent surgical option; however, urinary and defecatory symptoms are common. Objectives There are insufficient studies on long-term outcomes following colpocleisis, which limits physicians' ability to effectively counsel patients. The purpose of this study was to assess pelvic floor symptoms, recurrence, satisfaction, and regret among patients who underwent colpocleisis procedures. Methods This is an ambidirectional cohort study involving patients who underwent a colpocleisis at a single institution from 2002 to 2012. Medical records were reviewed, and patients were contacted by telephone in order to complete questionnaires. Results A total of 73 patients met inclusion criteria for our study. At the time of colpocleisis, patients were an average of 78.1 years old (range, 62–85 years). Patients were followed up in clinic for a median of 44.4 months, and the majority reported overactive bladder postoperatively. We were able to contact 33 patients by telephone. Median time between surgery and telephone follow-up was 6 years (range, 5–15 years). Among these patients, 78% were satisfied with the procedure; however, 13% reported strong feelings of regret. Regret was associated with postoperative bowel and bladder symptoms. The majority reported urinary frequency (63%) and urgency urinary incontinence (56%). Fewer than half (44%) of patients reported bowel symptoms. Only 19% reported prolapse symptoms. No patients reported regret due to loss of sexual function. Conclusions Colpocleisis remains an excellent surgical option for elderly patients. However, regret and dissatisfaction may increase over time as bowel and bladder symptoms may be perceived to be the result of surgery. Our findings highlight the continued need for detailed consent and expectation setting for women considering colpocleisis.
Geometric Shape Abstraction and Simplification

In this thesis we present new insights into the research area of abstraction and simpli cation of geometric shapes, and to the eld of simulation of botanical processes. Abstracting and simplifying 3D shapes is one of the fundamental problems in shape processing research. Many application areas, including architecture, urban modeling, gaming, and movies, require shapes in a reduced form. In the rst part of this thesis we introduce three novel approaches, each addressing speci c issues in the problem domain of abstraction and simpli cation of shapes. A new method for the automatic simpli cation of botanical tree models is presented based on adaptive Billboard Clouds. An iterative optimization is applied to the tree structure to evaluate which geometric parts of the tree are substituted by Billboards. The entire process is guided by a newly developed quality measure that accounts for intrinsic properties of the tree. We evaluate our method by measuring the visual di erence between full polygonal tree models and their simpli cations. Inspired by non-photorealistic rending methods, we further introduce a novel paradigm for the abstraction of 3D shapes. The idea is to analyze a shape in a semi-automatic way with regard to symmetries and regular patterns to determine important structures. By using this information, the original geometry of a shape is replaced by a number of pre-de ned and parameterized geometric ll patterns, which are derived from an initial user study. This allows us to produce abstractions in which the expressiveness of a shape is directly manifested in its geometry, rather than only in its rendering. Another novel method for the abstraction of 3D shapes presented in this thesis allows users to easily convey abstractions with only a few simple strokes. For this we propose, a new user interface that combines perceptual rules de ned by Gestalt principles with sketches that capture the user’s intent. In particular, we extend the formulation of 2D Gestalt grouping principles to 3D elements. Compared to previous abstraction methods, this allows us to preserve important visual structures perceived by humans. Finally, we validate the e ectiveness of our system through two extensive user studies. The second part of this thesis is dedicated to contributions anchored in the eld of simulation of botanical processes. Especially in computer graphics, an accurate simulation of such processes is often required to produce plausible results from a biological point of view. In our work we focus on the simulation of botanical tree growth. In particular, we introduce a new method that captures the so-called cambial growth of a tree – the process that causes individual branches to thicken. Moreover, the simulation is coupled to a physical cracking model to produce plausible bark structures. By applying our method, we can give ordinary objects a tree-like appearance with familiar ligni ed features and cracked bark textures.
Expanding the Mutation Spectrum in ABCA4: Sixty Novel Disease Causing Variants and Their Associated Phenotype in a Large French Stargardt Cohort

Here we report novel mutations in ABCA4 with the underlying phenotype in a large French cohort with autosomal recessive Stargardt disease. The DNA samples of 397 index subjects were analyzed in exons and flanking intronic regions of ABCA4 (NM_000350.2) by microarray analysis and direct Sanger sequencing. At the end of the screening, at least two likely pathogenic mutations were found in 302 patients (76.1%) while 95 remained unsolved: 40 (10.1%) with no variants identified, 52 (13.1%) with one heterozygous mutation, and 3 (0.7%) with at least one variant of uncertain significance (VUS). Sixty-three novel variants were identified in the cohort. Three of them were variants of uncertain significance. The other 60 mutations were classified as likely pathogenic or pathogenic, and were identified in 61 patients (15.4%). The majority of those were missense (55%) followed by frameshift and nonsense (30%), intronic (11.7%) variants, and in-frame deletions (3.3%). Only patients with variants never reported in literature were further analyzed herein. Recruited subjects underwent complete ophthalmic examination including best corrected visual acuity, kinetic and static perimetry, color vision test, full-field and multifocal electroretinography, color fundus photography, short-wavelength and near-infrared fundus autofluorescence imaging, and spectral domain optical coherence tomography. Clinical evaluation of each subject confirms the tendency that truncating mutations lead to a more severe phenotype with electroretinogram (ERG) impairment (p = 0.002) and an earlier age of onset (p = 0.037). Our study further expands the mutation spectrum in the exonic and flanking regions of ABCA4 underlying Stargardt disease.
Imported and Autochthonous Cases of Myiasis Caused by Dermatobia hominis: Taxonomic Identification Using the Internal Transcribed Spacer Region

Abstract. Dermatobia hominis is a fly endemic to and widely distributed throughout the Americas; it is found from the southern regions of Mexico to Argentina. However, because of widespread travel, myiasis has become common in countries where neither the disease nor the species that cause this infection are endemic. Central Mexico, for instance, is not a region where myiasis is endemic. We, thus, describe three cases of D. hominis myiasis: two autochthonous cases from the southern part of Mexico and one imported from Costa Rica. In addition, morphological and genetic identification was performed on the maggots extracted from the patients.
Fluid directed rigid body control using deep reinforcement learning

We present a learning-based method to control a coupled 2D system involving both fluid and rigid bodies. Our approach is used to modify the fluid/rigid simulator's behavior by applying control forces only at the simulation domain boundaries. The rest of the domain, corresponding to the interior, is governed by the Navier-Stokes equation for fluids and Newton-Euler's equation for the rigid bodies. We represent our controller using a general neural-net, which is trained using deep reinforcement learning. Our formulation decomposes a control task into two stages: a precomputation training stage and an online generation stage. We utilize various fluid properties, e.g., the liquid's velocity field or the smoke's density field, to enhance the controller's performance. We set up our evaluation benchmark by letting controller drive fluid jets move on the domain boundary and allowing them to shoot fluids towards a rigid body to accomplish a set of challenging 2D tasks such as keeping a rigid body balanced, playing a two-player ping-pong game, and driving a rigid body to sequentially hit specified points on the wall. In practice, our approach can generate physically plausible animations.
A Practical Approach to the Diagnosis of Melanocytic Lesions.

CONTEXT. — Melanocytic lesions are common in routine surgical pathology. Although the majority of these lesions can be confidently diagnosed using well-established morphologic criteria, there is a significant subset of lesions that can be diagnostically difficult. These can be a source of anxiety for patients, clinicians, and pathologists, and the potential consequences of a missed diagnosis of melanoma are serious. OBJECTIVE. — To provide a practical approach to the diagnosis of melanocytic lesions, including classic problem areas as well as suggestions for common challenges and appropriate incorporation of ancillary molecular techniques. DATA SOURCES. — Literature search using PubMed and Google Scholar, incorporating numerous search terms relevant to the particular section, combined with contemporaneous texts and lessons from personal experience. CONCLUSIONS. — Although a subset of melanocytic lesions can be diagnostically challenging, the combination of a methodical approach to histologic assessment, knowledge of potential diagnostic pitfalls, opinions from trusted colleagues, and judicious use of ancillary techniques can help the pathologist navigate this difficult area.
Disease gene identification by walking on multilayer heterogeneous networks

NOTE FROM ACM: It has been determined that this article plagiarized the contents of a previously published paper. Therefore ACM has shut off access to this paper. This article has been removed from the ACM Digital Library because it was found to plagiarize an earlier work written by Alberto Valdeolivas, Laurent Tichit, Claire Navarro, Sophie Perrin, Gaelle Odelin, Nicolas Levy, Pierre Cau, Elisabeth Remy and Anais Baudot, published by Bioinformatics and entitled "Random Walk with Restart on Multiplex and Heterogeneous Biological Networks" Bioinformatics https://doi.org/10.1101/134734. It was also determined that Cangfeng Ding added the name of Kan Li without the consent or knowledge of Kan Li. For further information, contact the ACM Director of Publications.
Warsaw breakage syndrome DDX11 helicase acts jointly with RAD17 in the repair of bulky lesions and replication through abasic sites

Significance Warsaw breakage syndrome, a developmental disorder caused by mutations in the conserved DDX11/ChlR1 DNA helicase, shows features of genome instability partly overlapping with those of Fanconi anemia (FA). Here, using avian cellular models of DDX11 deficiency, we find that DDX11 functions as backup to the FA pathway and facilitates, jointly with the checkpoint clamp 9-1-1, a homologous recombination pathway of DNA bulky-lesion repair that does not affect replication fork speed and stalled fork stability. DDX11 also promotes diversification of the immunoglobulin-variable gene locus by facilitating hypermutation and gene conversion at programmed abasic sites that constitute endogenous replication blocks. The results suggest commonality between postreplicative gap filling and replication through abasic sites and pinpoint DDX11 as a critical player in both these processes. Warsaw breakage syndrome, a developmental disorder caused by mutations in the DDX11/ChlR1 helicase, shows cellular features of genome instability similar to Fanconi anemia (FA). Here we report that DDX11-deficient avian DT40 cells exhibit interstrand crosslink (ICL)-induced chromatid breakage, with DDX11 functioning as backup for the FA pathway in regard to ICL repair. Importantly, we establish that DDX11 acts jointly with the 9-1-1 checkpoint clamp and its loader, RAD17, primarily in a postreplicative fashion, to promote homologous recombination repair of bulky lesions, but is not required for intra-S checkpoint activation or efficient fork progression. Notably, we find that DDX11 also promotes diversification of the chicken Ig-variable gene, a process triggered by programmed abasic sites, by facilitating both hypermutation and homeologous recombination-mediated gene conversion. Altogether, our results uncover that DDX11 orchestrates jointly with 9-1-1 and its loader, RAD17, DNA damage tolerance at sites of bulky lesions, and endogenous abasic sites. These functions may explain the essential roles of DDX11 and its similarity with 9-1-1 during development.
Population Pharmacokinetics of Artemether, Dihydroartemisinin, and Lumefantrine in Rwandese Pregnant Women Treated for Uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum Malaria

The artemisinin-based combination therapy artemether-lumefantrine is commonly used in pregnant malaria patients. However, the effect of pregnancy-related changes on exposure is unclear, and pregnancy has been associated with decreased efficacy in previous studies. ABSTRACT The artemisinin-based combination therapy artemether-lumefantrine is commonly used in pregnant malaria patients. However, the effect of pregnancy-related changes on exposure is unclear, and pregnancy has been associated with decreased efficacy in previous studies. This study aimed to characterize the population pharmacokinetics of artemether, its active metabolite dihydroartemisinin, and lumefantrine in 22 Rwandese pregnant women in their second (n = 11) or third (n = 11) trimester with uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria. These patients were enrolled from Rwamagana district hospital and received the standard fixed oral dose combination of 80 mg of artemether and 480 mg of lumefantrine twice daily for 3 days. Venous plasma concentrations were quantified for all three analytes using liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectroscopy, and data were analyzed using nonlinear mixed-effects modeling. Lumefantrine pharmacokinetics was described by a flexible but highly variable absorption, with a mean absorption time of 4.04 h, followed by a biphasic disposition model. The median area under the concentration-time curve from 0 h to infinity (AUC0–∞) for lumefantrine was 641 h · mg/liter. Model-based simulations indicated that 11.7% of the study population did not attain the target day 7 plasma concentration (280 ng/ml), a threshold associated with increased risk of recrudescence. The pharmacokinetics of artemether was time dependent, and the autoinduction of its clearance was described using an enzyme turnover model. The turnover half-life was predicted to be 30.4 h. The typical oral clearance, which started at 467 liters/h, increased 1.43-fold at the end of treatment. Simulations suggested that lumefantrine pharmacokinetic target attainment appeared to be reassuring in Rwandese pregnant women, particularly compared to target attainment in Southeast Asia. Larger cohorts will be required to confirm this finding.
Consistent polynomial-time unseeded graph matching for Lipschitz graphons

We propose a consistent polynomial-time method for the unseeded node matching problem for networks with smooth underlying structures. Despite widely conjectured by the research community that the structured graph matching problem to be significantly easier than its worst case counterpart, well-known to be NP-hard, the statistical version of the problem has stood a challenge that resisted any solution both provable and polynomial-time. The closest existing work requires quasi-polynomial time. Our method is based on the latest advances in graphon estimation techniques and analysis on the concentration of empirical Wasserstein distances. Its core is a simple yet unconventional sampling-and-matching scheme that reduces the problem from unseeded to seeded. Our method allows flexible efficiencies, is convenient to analyze and potentially can be extended to more general settings. Our work enables a rich variety of subsequent estimations and inferences.
RESonance: Lightweight, Room-Scale Audio-Visual Biofeedback for Immersive Relaxation Training

Biofeedback systems enable the users’ awareness of their internal health status by displaying their physiological signal, and further facilitate them to move toward self-regulation and behavior change. Single-modal biofeedback display can provide clear yet less engaging physiological information; a multimodal, immersive display could provide more engaging user experiences, but such a biofeedback system is relatively difficult to deploy. To strike a balance between engagement and ease of deployment, we present RESonance, a lightweight, immersive audio-visual biofeedback system for relaxation training. The system informs the users about their internal states (i.e., breath and heart rate variability) through ambient mediums, i.e., ambient light and nature soundscape, which can be provided by a lightweight infrastructure. The results of a 24-participant user study suggest that the system not only efficiently supports breathing regulation in relaxation training but also offers immersive and engaging user experiences.
Is Parent–Child Disagreement on Child Anxiety Explained by Differences in Measurement Properties? An Examination of Measurement Invariance Across Informants and Time

There are numerous empirical studies demonstrating that agreement between parent-reports of youth and youth self-reports of internalizing behavior problems is modest at best. This has spurred much research on factors that influence the magnitude of associations between informants, including individual difference characteristics of the informants and contexts through which individuals interact with the child. There is also tremendous interest in understanding symptom trajectories longitudinally. However, each of these lines of work are predicated on the assumptions that the psychometric construct that is being assessed from each informant and at each measurement occasion is the same. This study examined measurement invariance between maternal and child reports and longitudinally across ages 9 and 12 on five dimensions of anxiety using the Screen for Child Anxiety and Related Disorders (SCARED; Birmaher et al., 1999). No cross-informant models for anxiety dimensions achieved acceptable fit and at least partial metric and scalar invariance. Moreover, few longitudinal models demonstrated acceptable fit and at least partial metric and scalar invariance. Thus, using the SCARED as an example, these results show that inter-informant agreement may be compromised by different item functioning, and highlight the need for testing invariance before using measures for longitudinal tracking of symptoms.
IoT-Based Management Platform for Real-Time Spectrum and Energy Optimization of Broadcasting Networks

We investigate the feasibility of Internet of Things (IoT) technology to monitor and improve the energy efficiency and spectrum usage efficiency of broadcasting networks in the Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) band. Traditional broadcasting networks are designed with a fixed radiated power to guarantee a certain service availability. However, excessive fading margins often lead to inefficient spectrum usage, higher interference, and power consumption. We present an IoT-based management platform capable of dynamically adjusting the broadcasting network radiated power according to the current propagation conditions. We assess the performance and benchmark two IoT solutions (i.e., LoRa and NB-IoT). By means of the IoT management platform the broadcasting network with adaptive radiated power reduces the power consumption by 15% to 16.3% and increases the spectrum usage efficiency by 32% to 35% (depending on the IoT platform). The IoT feedback loop power consumption represents less than 2% of the system power consumption. In addition, white space spectrum availability for secondary wireless telecommunications services is increased by 34% during 90% of the time.
A Novel Image Steganography Method via Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networks

The security of image steganography is an important basis for evaluating steganography algorithms. Steganography has recently made great progress in the long-term confrontation with steganalysis. To improve the security of image steganography, steganography must have the ability to resist detection by steganalysis algorithms. Traditional embedding-based steganography embeds the secret information into the content of an image, which unavoidably leaves a trace of the modification that can be detected by increasingly advanced machine-learning-based steganalysis algorithms. The concept of steganography without embedding (SWE), which does not need to modify the data of the carrier image, appeared to overcome the detection of machine-learning-based steganalysis algorithms. In this paper, we propose a novel image SWE method based on deep convolutional generative adversarial networks. We map the secret information into a noise vector and use the trained generator neural network model to generate the carrier image based on the noise vector. No modification or embedding operations are required during the process of image generation, and the information contained in the image can be extracted successfully by another neural network, called the extractor, after training. The experimental results show that this method has the advantages of highly accurate information extraction and a strong ability to resist detection by state-of-the-art image steganalysis algorithms.
Stackelberg Security Games with Multiple Uncoordinated Defenders

Stackelberg security games have received much attention in recent years. While most existing work focuses on single-defender settings, there are many real-world scenarios that involve multiple defenders (e.g., multi-national anti-crime actions in international waters, different security agencies patrolling the same area). In this paper, we consider security games with uncoordinated defenders who jointly protect a set of targets, but may have different valuations for these targets; each defender schedules their own resources and selfishly optimizes their own utility. We generalize the standard (single-defender) model of Stackelberg security games to this setting and formulate an equilibrium concept that captures the nature of strategic interaction among the players. We argue that an exact equilibrium may fail to exist, and, in fact, deciding whether it exists is NP-hard. However, under mild assumptions, every multi-defender security game admits an e-equilibrium for every e>0$, and the limit points corresponding to e\to 0$ can be efficiently approximated.