Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Outpatient DIEP: Safety and Viability following a Modified Recovery Protocol

Background: Breast reconstruction with autologous tissue is considered the current state-of-the-art choice following mastectomies, and the deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap is often among the favored techniques. Commonly referred to patients as a combination between a tummy tuck and a breast augmentation, it significantly differs by the required expertise and long hospital stays. We present a series attesting to the feasibility and effectiveness of performing this type of reconstruction in an outpatient setting following our recovery protocol. Methods: Patients undergoing DIEP flap breast reconstruction followed a recovery protocol that included intraoperative local anesthesia, microfascial incision technique for DIEP harvest, double venous system drainage technique, rib and chest muscle preservation, and prophylactic anticoagulation agents. Results: Fourteen patients totaling 27 flaps underwent breast reconstruction following our protocol. All patients were discharged within the initial 23 hours, and no take-backs, partial, or total flap failures were recorded. A case of abdominal incision breakdown was seen in 1 patient during a postoperative visit, without evidence of frank infection. No further complications were observed in the 12-week average observation period. Conclusion: With the proper use of a microfascial incision, complemented by rib sparing and appropriate use of injectable anesthetics, routine breast reconstructions with the DIEP flap can be safely performed in an outpatient setting with discharge in the 23-hour window.
Synergy between Nutritional Immunity and Independent Host Defenses Contributes to the Importance of the MntABC Manganese Transporter during Staphylococcus aureus Infection

During infection, the host utilizes a diverse array of processes to combat invaders, including the restriction of availability of essential nutrients such as manganese. Similarly to many other pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus possesses two manganese importers, MntH and MntABC. ABSTRACT During infection, the host utilizes a diverse array of processes to combat invaders, including the restriction of availability of essential nutrients such as manganese. Similarly to many other pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus possesses two manganese importers, MntH and MntABC. Several infection models have revealed a critical role for MntABC during staphylococcal infection. However, culture-based studies have suggested parity between the two transporters when cells are resisting manganese starvation imposed by the manganese binding immune effector calprotectin. In this investigation, initial elemental analysis revealed that MntABC is the primary transporter responsible for obtaining manganese in culture in the presence of calprotectin. MntABC was also necessary to maintain wild-type levels of manganese-dependent superoxide dismutase activity in the presence of calprotectin. Building on this framework, we investigated if MntABC enabled S. aureus to resist the synergistic actions of nutritional immunity and other host defenses. This analysis revealed that MntABC critically contributes to staphylococcal growth when S. aureus is subjected to manganese limitations and exposed to oxidative stress. This transporter was also important for growth in manganese-limited environments when S. aureus was forced to consume glucose as an energy source, which occurs when it encounters nitric oxide. MntABC also expanded the pH range conducive for S. aureus growth under conditions of manganese scarcity. Collectively, the data presented in this work provide a robust molecular basis for the crucial role of MntABC in staphylococcal virulence. Further, this work highlights the importance of synergy between host defenses and the necessity of evaluating the contribution of virulence factors to pathogenesis in the presence of multiple stressors.
Latent Question Interpretation Through Parameter Adaptation Using Stochastic Neuron

Many neural network-based question-answering models rely on complex attention mechanisms but they are limited in their ability to capture natural language variability, and to generate diverse and/or reasonable answers. To address this limitation, we propose a module that learns the diversity of the possible interpretations for a given question. In order to identify the possible span of the respective answers, parameters for our questionanswering model are adapted using the value of the discrete ”interpretation neuron”. Additionally, we formulate a semi-supervised variational inference framework and fine-tune the final policy using the rewards from the answer accuracy with the policy gradient optimization. We demonstrate sample answers with induced latent interpretations, suggesting that our model has successfully discovered multiple ways of understanding for a given question. When tested using the Stanford Question Answering Dataset (SQuAD), our model outperformed the current baseline, suggesting the potential validity of the approach described in this work. We open source our implementation in PyTorch1.
NSML: Meet the MLaaS platform with a real-world case study

The boom of deep learning induced many industries and academies to introduce machine learning based approaches into their concern, competitively. However, existing machine learning frameworks are limited to sufficiently fulfill the collaboration and management for both data and models. We proposed NSML, a machine learning as a service (MLaaS) platform, to meet these demands. NSML helps machine learning work be easily launched on a NSML cluster and provides a collaborative environment which can afford development at enterprise scale. Finally, NSML users can deploy their own commercial services with NSML cluster. In addition, NSML furnishes convenient visualization tools which assist the users in analyzing their work. To verify the usefulness and accessibility of NSML, we performed some experiments with common examples. Furthermore, we examined the collaborative advantages of NSML through three competitions with real-world use cases.
The Impact of Name-Matching and Blocking on Author Disambiguation

In this work, we address the problem of blocking in the context of author name disambiguation. We describe a framework that formalizes different ways of name-matching to determine which names could potentially refer to the same author. We focus on name variations that follow from specifying a name with different completeness (i.e. full first name or only initial). We extend this framework by a simple way to define traditional, new and custom blocking schemes. Then, we evaluate different old and new schemes in the Web of Science. In this context we define and compare a new type of blocking schemes. Based on these results, we discuss the question whether name-matching can be used in blocking evaluation as a replacement of annotated author identifiers. Finally, we argue that blocking can have a strong impact on the application and evaluation of author disambiguation.
Right Sizing: Sensory-Based Product Design Is a Promising Strategy to Nudge Consumers toward Healthier Portions

Research has shown that people consume more food when offered larger portions, and that reducing exposure to large food portions and packages could decrease the average daily energy consumed. In this context, our aim is to develop strategies to promote healthier eating behaviors by reducing portion selection and intake. The present research investigates the impact of different visual attributes of foods on quantity perception and portion selection. In the first study, we tested whether modifying the shape of a familiar food influenced the ideal portion size in adults. In the second study, we assessed the impact of shape, number of units, size, and color variety on a perceived quantity for a familiar multiunit product in children. Participants (N1 = 70 adults, N2 = 62 children) completed different picture-based computer tasks. As hypothesized: (1) adults selected a smaller ideal portion size for an elongated product than for wider and thicker shapes, and (2) children’s perception of food quantity was primarily driven by number of pieces, with smaller effects of size and elongation. Perceived quantity was not influenced by color variety. These findings suggest that it may be possible to reduce the size of food portions without negatively impacting perceived quantity, and to provide opportunities to nudge consumers towards smaller portions while maintaining satisfaction.
Content-Based Video Relevance Prediction with Second-Order Relevance and Attention Modeling

This paper describes our proposed method for the Content-Based Video Relevance Prediction (CBVRP) challenge. Our method is based on deep learning, i.e. we train a deep network to predict the relevance between two video sequences from their features. We explore the usage of second-order relevance, both in preparing training data, and in extending the deep network. Second-order relevance refers to e.g. the relevance between x and z if x is relevant to y and y is relevant to z. In our proposed method, we use second-order relevance to increase positive samples and decrease negative samples, when preparing training data. We further extend the deep network with an attention module, where the attention mechanism is designed for second-order relevant video sequences. We verify the effectiveness of our method on the validation set of the CBVRP challenge.
Knowledge regarding Breastfeeding Among Adolescent Girls.

A study was conducted to assess the knowledge regarding the breastfeeding among girl adolescent students of Government Senior secondary schools of rural areas of Rohtak district. 400 adolescent girls of class 11 and 12 in age range from 15 -18 years were administered with a Breastfeeding Knowledge Questionnaire consisting of 40 items covering items on knowledge about breastfeeding andfeeding practices, colostrums, advantages of breastfeeding, breastfeeding and weaning, breastfeeding & dietary practices and diseases. Elligible students completed the . questionnaire in class. The overall breastfeeding knowledge score of all the students in this study was 48.75 percent. The results suggest that breastfeeding knowledge is average among secondary school students.
Video Forecasting with Forward-Backward-Net: Delving Deeper into Spatiotemporal Consistency

Video forecasting is an emerging topic in the computer vision field, and it is a pivotal step toward unsupervised video understanding. However, the predictions generated from the state-of-the-art methods might be far from ideal quality, due to a lack of guidance from the labeled data of correct predictions (e.g., the annotated future pose of a person). Hence, building a network for better predicting future sequences in an unsupervised manner has to be further pursued. To this end, we put forth a novel Forward-Backward-Net (FB-Net) architecture, which delves deeper into spatiotemporal consistency. It first derives the forward consistency from the raw historical observations. In contrast to mainstream video forecasting approaches, FB-Net then investigates the backward consistency from the future to the past to reinforce the predictions. The final predicted results are inferred by jointly taking both the forward and backward consistencies into account. Moreover, we embed the motion dynamics and the visual content into a single framework via the FB-Net architecture, which significantly differs from learning each component throughout the videos separately. We evaluate our FB-Net on the large-scale KTH and UCF101 datasets. The experiments show that it can introduce considerable margin improvements with respect to most recent leading studies.
Advances in Antarctic Research for Antimicrobial Discovery: A Comprehensive Narrative Review of Bacteria from Antarctic Environments as Potential Sources of Novel Antibiotic Compounds Against Human Pathogens and Microorganisms of Industrial Importance

The recent emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria has become a critical public health problem. It is also a concern for industries, since multidrug-resistant microorganisms affect the production of many agricultural and food products of economic importance. Therefore, discovering new antibiotics is crucial for controlling pathogens in both clinical and industrial spheres. Most antibiotics have resulted from bioprospecting in natural environments. Today, however, the chances of making novel discoveries of bioactive molecules from various well-known sources have dramatically diminished. Consequently, unexplored and unique environments have become more likely avenues for discovering novel antimicrobial metabolites from bacteria. Due to their extreme polar environment, Antarctic bacteria in particular have been reported as a potential source for new antimicrobial compounds. We conducted a narrative review of the literature about findings relating to the production of antimicrobial compounds by Antarctic bacteria, showing how bacterial adaptation to extreme Antarctic conditions confers the ability to produce these compounds. We highlighted the diversity of antibiotic-producing Antarctic microorganisms, including the phyla Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Firmicutes, and Bacteroidetes, which has led to the identification of new antibiotic molecules and supports the belief that research on Antarctic bacterial strains has important potential for biotechnology applications, while providing a better understanding of polar ecosystems.
Electric compound action potentials (ECAPs) and impedances in an open and closed operative site during cochlear implantation

Introduction: In patients undergoing cochlear implantation, intraoperative measures of impedance and electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAPs) are used to confirm device integrity and electrode array position. However, these electrophysiological parameters have been shown to decrease over time, with a small decrement observable as early as 24 h post implantation and becoming more apparent after 6 months. Whether the intraoperatively measured impedances and ECAPs recorded immediately after electrode insertion versus later in the operation or in an open versus closed operative site vary has not been documented. Such variation in measurement procedure may affect the ultimate operative outcome. Patients and methods: Between February and October 2016, 38 patients received a cochlear implant (Cochlear®), with half receiving a CI 522 device and the other half receiving a CI 512 device. These patients were distributed into three groups. In the first (group A; n = 21), the impedance and threshold neural response telemetry (tNRT) measures were taken before (M1) and after cutaneous suture (M2), whereas in the second group (group B; n = 11) they were taken twice in the open operative site, once at the time of electrode insertion (M1) and then again 10 min later (M2). The last group (group C; n = 6) was measured only once after a 10 min waiting time before closing the operative site. Results: tNRTs of both group A and B were significantly higher at M1 than measured at M2. The magnitude of change in tNRT did vary significantly by group (P = .027) with group A having a bigger decrease than group B. For impedances there was evidence for a significant difference in M2 between the three groups (P = .012), with group C having significantly higher values compared to group A and B. Conclusion: Intraoperative tNRT measures change significantly over time, including within the first 10 min of implantation. One underlying etiology of this phenomenon for tNRTs seems to be the condition of the surgical site whereas changes of impedances can be best explained by the ‘electrochemical cleaning’ theory associated with the first stimulation of the electrode. However, for both impedances and tNRTs there also is an important impact of time as well as of acute perioperative changes in electrical conductivity.
Elevated Body Mass Index Is Associated with Secondary Hypogonadism among Men Presenting to a Tertiary Academic Medical Center

Purpose To characterize the population of hypogonadal men who presented to a tertiary academic urology clinic and evaluate risk factors for primary vs. secondary hypogonadism. Materials and Methods We evaluated all men with International Classification of Diseases-9 diagnosis codes R68.82 and 799.81 for low libido, 257.2 for testicular hypofunction, and E29.1 for other testicular hypofunction at a tertiary academic medical center from 2013 to 2017. We included men who had testosterone (T) and luteinizing hormone (LH) drawn on the same day. We classified men based on T and LH levels into eugonadal, primary, secondary, and compensated hypogonadism. Risk factors including age, body mass index (BMI) over 30 kg/m2, current smoking status, alcohol use greater than 5 days per week, and Charlson comorbidity index greater than or equal to 1 were investigated and measured in each group using the eugonadal group for reference. Results Among the 231 men who had both T and LH levels, 7.4%, 42.4%, and 7.4% were classified as primary, secondary, and compensated hypogonadism, respectively. Only elevated BMI was associated with secondary hypogonadism compared to eugonadal men (median BMI, 30.93 kg/m2 vs. 27.69 kg/m2, p=0.003). BMI, age, comorbidities, smoking, or alcohol use did not appear to predict diagnosis of secondary hypogonadism. Conclusions Secondary hypogonadism appears to be the most common cause of hypogonadism among men complaining of low T and decreased libido at a tertiary academic medical center. Secondary hypogonadism is associated with elevated BMI and therefore obesity should be used as a marker to evaluate men for both T and LH levels.
Assessing the Privacy of mHealth Apps for Self-Tracking: Heuristic Evaluation Approach

Background The recent proliferation of self-tracking technologies has allowed individuals to generate significant quantities of data about their lifestyle. These data can be used to support health interventions and monitor outcomes. However, these data are often stored and processed by vendors who have commercial motivations, and thus, they may not be treated with the sensitivity with which other medical data are treated. As sensors and apps that enable self-tracking continue to become more sophisticated, the privacy implications become more severe in turn. However, methods for systematically identifying privacy issues in such apps are currently lacking. Objective The objective of our study was to understand how current mass-market apps perform with respect to privacy. We did this by introducing a set of heuristics for evaluating privacy characteristics of self-tracking services. Methods Using our heuristics, we conducted an analysis of 64 popular self-tracking services to determine the extent to which the services satisfy various dimensions of privacy. We then used descriptive statistics and statistical models to explore whether any particular categories of an app perform better than others in terms of privacy. Results We found that the majority of services examined failed to provide users with full access to their own data, did not acquire sufficient consent for the use of the data, or inadequately extended controls over disclosures to third parties. Furthermore, the type of app, in terms of the category of data collected, was not a useful predictor of its privacy. However, we found that apps that collected health-related data (eg, exercise and weight) performed worse for privacy than those designed for other types of self-tracking. Conclusions Our study draws attention to the poor performance of current self-tracking technologies in terms of privacy, motivating the need for standards that can ensure that future self-tracking apps are stronger with respect to upholding users’ privacy. Our heuristic evaluation method supports the retrospective evaluation of privacy in self-tracking apps and can be used as a prescriptive framework to achieve privacy-by-design in future apps.
Developmental change of the biorbital angle in normal Japanese infants

Purpose To investigate postnatal changes in the biorbital angle in normal Japanese children. Subjects and methods Axial imaging of the orbit in the transverse plane of the horizontal extraocular muscles was obtained in 129 ophthalmologically healthy infants (age ranging from a few months to 11 years). The opening angle between both lateral walls of the orbit was defined as the biorbital angle. Results The mean biorbital angle in 11 infants less than a year of age was 105.0°±6.0°. The mean biorbital angles for each of the subsequent age groups were 97.7°±3.1°, 96.2°±4.0°, 96.3°±4.1°, 92.8°±3.8°, 92.3°±2.3°, 93.1°±2.8°, 91.5°±3.9°, 91.9°±2.3°, 91.4°±2.3°, and 90.9°±3.1°. The mean biorbital angle in infants less than a year old was significantly larger than those found in the groups of infants older than 1 year (P<0.01, Newman–Keuls test). Conclusion The biorbital angle in infants less than a year old was larger than that found in infants older than 1 year, with this larger biorbital angle potentially the causative factor of the observed exotropia seen in 70%–80% of newborns gradually disappearing in most cases by 2–4 months of age.
Global trends in infectious diseases of swine

Significance Pig production is an important component of global food security, agricultural economies, and local and international trade. Infectious diseases impact pig health and the stability and productivity of the global swine industry. By reviewing >57,000 publications on swine diseases, we identify priority pathogens in different regions and document shifting research priorities across 50 years. Publication rates for some pathogens have accelerated in recent years, highlighting the emerging or increasing threat of these pathogens to human and swine health. Our findings provide a global overview of research on swine pathogens, which can be used to make better decisions and policies that reduce the vulnerability of global swine industry. Pork accounts for more than one-third of meat produced worldwide and is an important component of global food security, agricultural economies, and trade. Infectious diseases are among the primary constraints to swine production, and the globalization of the swine industry has contributed to the emergence and spread of pathogens. Despite the importance of infectious diseases to animal health and the stability and productivity of the global swine industry, pathogens of swine have never been reviewed at a global scale. Here, we build a holistic global picture of research on swine pathogens to enhance preparedness and understand patterns of emergence and spread. By conducting a scoping review of more than 57,000 publications across 50 years, we identify priority pathogens globally and regionally, and characterize geographic and temporal trends in research priorities. Of the 40 identified pathogens, publication rates for eight pathogens increased faster than overall trends, suggesting that these pathogens may be emerging or constitute an increasing threat. We also compared regional patterns of pathogen prioritization in the context of policy differences, history of outbreaks, and differing swine health challenges faced in regions where swine production has become more industrialized. We documented a general increasing trend in importance of zoonotic pathogens and show that structural changes in the industry related to intensive swine production shift pathogen prioritization. Multinational collaboration networks were strongly shaped by region, colonial ties, and pig trade networks. This review represents the most comprehensive overview of research on swine infectious diseases to date.