Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Perception and satisfaction of the face and the need for aesthetic dental treatment in the college students

Objectives: The purpose of the study is to investigate the perception and satisfaction of faces and the need for aesthetic dental treatments in college students. Methods: A self-reported questionnaire was completed by 247 college students in Suncheon from August 29 to September 2, 2016. The questionnaire consisted of satisfaction of face (16 items), perception of the face (7 items), need for aesthetic dental treatment (3 items), and general characteristics of the study subjects (8 items). Tooth shade was measured using a shade guide (VITA classical shade guide, VITA North America, Chicago, USA). Data was analyzed using t test, ANOVA, and post hoc Scheffé test. Results: The students were satisfied with eye, mouth corner, and lip, but they were not satisfied with tooth shade, bilateral symmetry of face, and angle of jaw. The students tended to be concious of perception of others. Their most common tooth shade was orange and yellow. They preferred to have a brighter tooth color. Conclusions: To satisfy the needs of patients, it is important to understand the perception and satisfaction of face and the need for aesthetic dental treatment.
Measurement Methodology for Accurate Modeling of SiC MOSFET Switching Behavior Over Wide Voltage and Current Ranges

This paper presents two novel measurement methods to characterize silicon carbide (SiC) MOSFET devices. The resulting data are utilized to significantly improve the extraction of a custom device model that can now accurately reproduce device switching behavior. First, we consider the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$I_{\text{d}}- V_{\text{ds}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> output characteristics of power devices such as SiC transistors. These are typically measured using traditional curve tracers, but the characterization of the high-voltage and high-current (HVHC) region is very challenging because of device power compliance and self-heating. In this paper, we introduce a measurement technique that overcomes self-heating and derives the HVHC region from switching waveforms. The switching transient characteristics of devices are used to determine drain current <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $(I_{\text{d}})$</tex-math></inline-formula> as a function of drain–source voltage <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(V_{\text{ds}})$</tex-math></inline-formula> in the HVHC range. Second, we consider another challenging characterization area: measurement of nonlinear capacitances when device is turned on. These capacitance characteristics of on-state devices are important for correcting disagreements between simulations and measurements in turn-off switching transient waveforms and cannot be measured using a conventional capacitance-voltage meter. We introduce S-parameter measurements as an effective method to obtain the capacitance characteristics of both off-state devices and on-state devices. These novel measurement techniques have been applied to the modeling of a SiC device. The extracted device model, a modified version of the popular Angelov−GaN high-electron-mobility transistor model, shows significant improvement in terms of the accuracy of switching waveforms of devices over a wide range of operating conditions.
Anticoagulant Therapy in Sepsis. The Importance of Timing

Abstract Sepsis associated coagulopathy is due to the inflammation-induced activation of coagulation pathways concomitant with dysfunction of anticoagulant and fibrinolytic systems, leading to different degrees of haemostasis dysregulation. This response is initially beneficial, contributing to antimicrobial defence, but when control is lost coagulation activation leads to widespread microvascular thrombosis and subsequent organ failure. Large clinical trials of sepsis-related anticoagulant therapies failed to show survival benefits, but posthoc analysis of databases and several smaller studies showed beneficial effects of anticoagulants in subgroups of patients with early sepsis-induced disseminated intravascular coagulation. A reasonable explanation could be the difference in timing of anticoagulant therapy and patient heterogeneity associated with large trials. Proper selection of patients and adequate timing are required for treatment to be successful. The time when coagulation activation changes from advantageous to detrimental represents the right moment for the administration of coagulation-targeted therapy. In this way, the defence function of the haemostatic system is preserved, and the harmful effects of overwhelming coagulation activation are avoided.
Transient grounding behavior considering frequency-dependent soil parameters: Field versus transmission line theories

This paper presents a study on the transient behavior of grounding conductors. Two important physical quantities are analyzed: the harmonic impedance and the ground potential rise (GPR). For the determination of such quantities, two theories widely used in the literature are used: one based on field computation and the other based on transmission line theory. The first requires high computational time, while for the second this time is greatly reduced. Two geometric configurations (one horizontal electrode and four counterpoises) are considered. Soil parameters are modelled as constant and frequency-dependent. The results show that transmission line theory should be used with care, since for soils with high resistivities and frequency-dependent parameters the results may differ from those generated by the field theory.
Multimodal Aposematic Signals and Their Emerging Role in Mate Attraction

Chemically defended animals often display conspicuous colour patterns that predators learn to associate with their unprofitability and subsequently avoid. Such animals (i.e. aposematic), deter predators by stimulating their visual and chemical sensory channels. Hence, aposematism is considered to be ‘multimodal’. The evolution of warning signals (and to a lesser degree their accompanying chemical defences) is fundamentally linked to natural selection by predators. Lately, however, increasing evidence also points to a role of sexual selection shaping warning signal evolution. One of the species in which this has been shown is the wood tiger moth, Arctia plantaginis, which we here put forward as a promising model to investigate multimodality in aposematic and sexual signalling. A. plantaginis is an aposematic diurnal moth which exhibits sexually dimorphic colouration as well as sex-limited polymorphism in part of its range. The anti-predator function of its colouration and, more recently, its chemical defences (even when experimentally decoupled from the visual signals) have been well-demonstrated. Interestingly, recent studies have revealed differences between the two male morphs in mating success, suggesting a role of colouration in mate choice or attraction, and providing a possible explanation for its sexual dimorphism in colouration. Here, we: (1) review the lines of evidence showing the role of predation pressure and sexual selection in the evolution of multimodal aposematic signals in general, and in the wood tiger moth in particular; (2) establish gaps in current research linking sexual selection and predation as selective pressures on aposematic signals by reviewing a sample of the literature published in the last 30 years; (3) highlight the need of identifying suitable systems to address simultaneously the effect of natural and sexual selection on multimodal aposematic signals; and (4) propose directions for future research to test how aposematic signals can evolve under natural and sexual selection.
Bed Rest, Exercise Countermeasure and Reconditioning Effects on the Human Resting Muscle Tone System

The human resting muscle tone (HRMT) system provides structural and functional support to skeletal muscle and associated myofascial structures (tendons, fascia) in normal life. Little information is available on changes to the HRMT in bed rest. A set of dynamic oscillation mechanosignals ([Hz], [N/m], log decrement, [ms]) collected and computed by a hand-held digital palpation device (MyotonPRO) were used to study changes in tone and in key biomechanical and viscoelastic properties in global and postural skeletal muscle tendons and fascia from a non-exercise control (CTR) and an exercise (JUMP) group performing reactive jumps on a customized sledge system during a 60 days head-down tilt bed rest (RSL Study 2015–2016). A set of baseline and differential natural oscillation signal patterns were identified as key determinants in resting muscle and myofascial structures from back, thigh, calf, patellar and Achilles tendon, and plantar fascia. The greatest changes were found in thigh and calf muscle and tendon, with little change in the shoulder muscles. Functional tests (one leg jumps, electromyography) showed only trends in relevant leg muscle groups. Increased anti-Collagen-I immunoreactivity found in CTR soleus biopsy cryosections was absent from JUMP. Results allow for a muscle health status definition after chronic disuse in bed rest without and with countermeasure, and following reconditioning. Findings improve our understanding of structural and functional responses of the HRMT to disuse and exercise, may help to guide treatment in various clinical settings (e.g., muscle tone disorders, neuro-rehabilitation), and promote monitoring of muscle health and training status in personalized sport and space medicine.
The Common Clinical Presentation of Patients Selected for Septoplasty in Northern Saudi Arabia

Background Nasal septal deviation (NSD) plays a critical role in nasal obstruction symptoms, aesthetic look of the nose, increased nasal resistance, and occasionally snoring. Septoplasty is the most common method for correction of deviated nasal septum (DNS). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to assess the association between initial clinical presentations of patients selected for septoplasty and demographical characteristics in Northern Saudi Arabia. Methodology Archives related to all patients selected for septoplasty between 2012 and 2017 were retrieved from ENT Department at King Khalid Hospital in Hail, Northern Saudi Arabia. Only adults over 18 years of age were included in this study. Results With regard to the clinical presentations, almost all patients presented with variable degrees of nasal congestions, nasal blockages, breathing troubles, sleeping troubles, and exercise problems. Conclusion Nasal obstruction is prevalent in Northern Saudi Arabia with peaks being in the years 2016 and 2014 with the most etiological factor being DNS.
Ordinal Pattern: A New Descriptor for Brain Connectivity Networks

Brain connectivity networks based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or functional MRI (fMRI) data provide a straightforward way to quantify the structural or functional systems of the brain. Currently, there are several network descriptors developed for representing and analyzing brain connectivity networks. However, most of them are designed for unweighted networks, regardless of the valuable weight information of edges, or do not take advantage of the ordinal relationship of weighted edges (even though they are designed for weighted networks). In this paper, we propose a new network descriptor (i.e., ordinal pattern that contains a sequence of weighted edges) for brain connectivity network analysis. Compared with previous network properties, the proposed ordinal patterns cannot only take advantage of the weight information of edges but also explicitly model the ordinal relationship of weighted edges in brain connectivity networks. We further develop an ordinal pattern-based learning framework for brain disease diagnosis using resting-state fMRI data. Specifically, we first construct a set of brain functional connectivity networks, where each network is corresponding to a particular subject. We then develop an algorithm to identify ordinal patterns that frequently appear in brain connectivity networks of patients and normal controls. We further perform discriminative ordinal pattern selection and extract feature representations for subjects based on the selected ordinal patterns, followed by a learning model for automated brain disease diagnosis. Experimental results on both Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder-200 data sets demonstrate that our method outperforms the several state-of-the-art approaches in the tasks of disease classification and clinical score regression.
Exposure to Perchlorate in Lactating Women and Its Associations With Newborn Thyroid Stimulating Hormone

Background: Perchlorate, thiocyanate, and nitrate can block iodide transport at the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) and this can subsequently lead to decreased thyroid hormone production and hypothyroidism. NIS inhibitor exposure has been shown to reduce iodide uptake and thyroid hormone levels; therefore we hypothesized that maternal NIS inhibitor exposure will influence both maternal and newborn thyroid function. Methods: Spot urine samples were collected from 185 lactating mothers and evaluated for perchlorate, thiocyanate, and nitrate concentrations. Blood and colostrum samples were collected from the same participants in the first 48 h after delivery. Thyroid hormones and thyroid-related antibodies (TSH, fT3, fT4, anti-TPO, anti-Tg) were analyzed in maternal blood and perchlorate was analyzed in colostrum. Also, spot blood samples were collected from newborns (n = 185) between 48 and 72 postpartum hours for TSH measurement. Correlation analysis was performed to assess the effect of NIS inhibitors on thyroid hormone levels of lactating mothers and their newborns in their first 48 postpartum hours. Results: The medians of maternal urinary perchlorate (4.00 μg/g creatinine), maternal urinary thiocyanate (403 μg/g creatinine), and maternal urinary nitrate (49,117 μg/g creatinine) were determined. Higher concentrations of all three urinary NIS inhibitors (μg/g creatinine) at their 75th percentile levels were significantly correlated with newborn TSH (r = 0.21, p < 0.001). Median colostrum perchlorate level concentration of all 185 participants was 2.30 μg/L. Colostrum perchlorate was not significantly correlated with newborn TSH (p > 0.05); however, there was a significant correlation between colostrum perchlorate level and maternal TSH (r = 0.21, p < 0.01). Similarly, there was a significant positive association between colostrum perchlorate and maternal urinary creatinine adjusted perchlorate (r = 0.32, p < 0.001). Conclusion: NIS inhibitors are ubiquitous in lactating women in Turkey and are associated with increased TSH levels in newborns, thus signifying for the first time that co-exposure to maternal NIS inhibitors can have a negative effect on the newborn thyroid function.
Seasonal Shifts in Reproductive Investment of Female Northern Grass Lizards (Takydromus septentrionalis) from a Field Population on Beiji Island, China

Abstract Understanding seasonal variation in reproductive investment is crucial to explore life-history strategies of a given species. We measured the timing of reproduction and the reproductive output of recently captured females to test whether the conclusions on seasonal shifts of reproductive investment made in the laboratory can apply to field populations in a lacertid lizard Takydromus septentrionalis. Female T. septentrionalis started producing eggs in April and ceased reproduction in August. During the midreproductive season (May to July), more than 60% of field-captured females were gravid. The females produced more eggs and thus had heavier total egg mass in May than in July, although egg mass and hatchling size did not vary seasonally. The seasonal variation in clutch size did not induce seasonal shifts in trade-offs between clutch size and egg size. In general, these results are largely consistent with data collected in the laboratory and support the conclusion of previous studies in this species that seasonal shifts in reproductive output are determined ultimately by natural selection. However, Relative Clutch Mass (RCM) of recently captured females was greater than that of females in captivity, which suggests that RCMs could be affected noticeably by proximate factors. Therefore, when explaining the evolutionary strategies of an organism based on intraspecific comparisons of RCMs, investigators should measure them in a common-garden environment so as to control the potential influence of environmental factors.
Variant SemiBoost for Improving Human Detection in Application Scenes

Generic human detectors perform poorly in application scenes in which conditions are significantly different from those of the benchmark data sets. Based on the assumption that only a limited number of labeled examples are available, we propose a variant semi-supervised boosting approach for improving scene adaptiveness by utilizing unlabeled data. Specifically, we train a max-margin-based model as an initial detector for new example collection, instead of using generic detectors, and then a better model is trained via boosting in which the newly obtained examples influence the training process through their similarities to the labeled examples. Since the widely used human descriptors are usually high dimensional and redundant, we employ a graph-based method to determine the weight representing the importance of each feature, such that the weighted similarity measurement leads to a performance gain. In the experiments, the effectiveness of the proposed approach “Variant SemiBoost” is demonstrated and state-of-the-art performance on challenging data sets is achieved.
Testing Measurement and Factor Structure Invariance of the Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale for Youth Across Gender

Measurement equivalence is often assumed across comparison groups, a pervasive problem related to many self-report instruments. Measurement equivalence, also known as measurement invariance, implies that a measure has the same meaning across different groups of people. In this study, we aimed to examine the measurement and structural invariance among gender of the Malay version of the Physical Activity and Leisure Motivation Scale for Youth (PALMS-Y-M). Seven-hundred-and-eighty-three secondary school students (female = 57.3%, male = 42.7%) with mean age 14.5 years (standard deviation = 1.25) from Kota Bharu, Malaysia, volunteered to participate in this study and completed the PALMS-Y-M, consisting of 28 items with seven subscales. We conducted the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and invariance tests on the seven motives of the PALMS-Y-M model. The hypothesized model consisted of 28 observed items and seven latent variables. We used estimator robust to maximum likelihood, MLR to examine the hypothesized measurement and structural invariance. Measurement invariance was tested for three different levels. We first established the configural invariance model, then we compared the metric invariance model and the scalar invariance model with the less restrictive model. Then structural invariance was tested for factor variance, covariance, and means. Findings provided evidence for full measurement and structural invariance of the PALMS-Y-M in males and females. The final CFA model fit the data well for males [comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.922, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.048, standardized root mean residual (SRMR) = 0.050] and females (CFI = 0.922, RMSEA = 0.047, SRMR = 0.053). When invariance of both factor loadings and item intercepts holds in PALMS-Y-M, underlying factors consisting of different motives for participating in PA can be meaningfully compared across gender. Accurate and valid measurement of PALMS-Y-M across comparison groups is crucial for future research that involves examining motives to physical activity in different genders and other socio-cultural variables.
Simple but not simpler: a systematic review of Markov models for economic evaluation of cervical cancer screening

The aim of this study was to critically evaluate the quality of the models used in economic evaluations of screening strategies for cervical cancer prevention. We systematically searched multiple databases, selecting model-based full economic evaluations (cost-effectiveness analyses, cost-utility analyses, and cost-benefit analyses) of cervical cancer screening strategies. Two independent reviewers screened articles for relevance and performed data extraction. Methodological assessment of the quality of the models utilized formal checklists, and a qualitative narrative synthesis was performed. Thirty-eight articles were reviewed. The majority of the studies were conducted in high-income countries (82%, n=31). The Pap test was the most used screening strategy investigated, which was present in 86% (n=33) of the studies. Half of the studies (n=19) used a previously published Markov model. The deterministic sensitivity analysis was performed in 92% (n=35) of the studies. The mean number of properly reported checklist items was 9 out of the maximum possible 18. Items that were better reported included the statement of decision problem, the description of the strategies/comparators, the statement of time horizon, and information regarding the disease states. Compliance with some items of the checklist was poor. The Markov models for economic evaluation of screening strategies for cervical cancer varied in quality. The following points require improvement: 1) assessment of methodological, structural, heterogeneity, and parameter uncertainties; 2) model type and cycle length justification; 3) methods to account for heterogeneity; and 4) report of consistency evaluation (through calibration and validation methods).
Estimating Model Utility for Deformable Object Manipulation Using Multiarmed Bandit Methods

We present a novel approach to deformable object manipulation that does not rely on highly accurate modeling. The key contribution of this paper is to formulate the task as a multiarmed bandit problem, with each arm representing a model of the deformable object. To “pull” an arm and evaluate its utility, we use the arm’s model to generate a velocity command for the gripper(s) holding the object and execute it. As the task proceeds and the object deforms, the utility of each model can change. Our framework estimates these changes and balances the exploration of the model set with exploitation of high-utility models. We also propose an approach based on Kalman filtering for nonstationary multiarmed normal bandits to leverage the coupling between the models to learn more from each arm pull. We demonstrate that our method outperforms previous methods on synthetic trials and performs competitively on several manipulation tasks in simulation. Note to Practitioners—This paper is motivated by the problem of how to choose appropriate parameters for models used in deformable object manipulation. Existing approaches use time-consuming data collection and analysis methods to generate models for a given object and/or task. In contrast, our approach can be applied to multiple deformable objects or tasks without this time-consuming model generation step, learning what models are useful during the execution of the task itself. This enables the faster development of systems for a wide range of tasks, including those where a priori data collection is not possible. In this paper, we are only considering the modeling and control aspects of deformable object manipulation. These ideas can then be integrated with sensing and planning systems for commercial/industrial applications. We briefly discuss some methods and considerations for such an integration at the end of this paper.