Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Development of diagnostic performance & visual processing in different types of radiological expertise

The aim of this research was to compare visual patterns while examining radiographs in groups of people with different levels and different types of expertise. Introducing the latter comparative base is the original contribution of these studies. The residents and specialists were trained in medical diagnosing of X-Rays and for these two groups it was possible to compare visual patterns between observers with different level of the same expertise type. On the other hand, the radiographers who took part in the examination - due to specific of their daily work - had experience in reading and evaluating X-Rays quality and were not trained in diagnosing. Involving this group created in our research the new opportunity to explore eye movements obtained when examining X-Ray for both medical diagnosing and quality assessment purposes, which may be treated as different types of expertise. We found that, despite the low diagnosing performance, the radiographers eye movement characteristics were more similar to the specialists than eye movement characteristics of the residents. It may be inferred that people with different type of expertise, yet after gaining a certain level of experience (or practise), may develop similar visual patterns which is the original conclusion of the research.
Association between muscle strength and type 2 diabetes mellitus in adults in Korea

Abstract Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a significant chronic disease, and health burden from DM is increasing. Recently, studies on the relationship between handgrip strength, which is a measuring tool for muscle strength, and type 2 DM were published. However, the results have been conflicting. In addition, few studies that used data from adults in Korea have been conducted. Thus, this study aimed to identify the association between handgrip strength as well as type 2 DM and insulin resistance in adults using data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) 2014 to 2015. Inflammation is a condition affecting the muscle strength of individuals with type 2 DM; therefore, its mediating effects were also examined. We included 8208 participants aged between 19 and 80 years who had undergone a handgrip test and had received information about type 2 DM. General linear and binary logistic regression models were used to examine the association between handgrip strength and type 2 DM variables. In addition, mediation analysis was conducted to estimate the role of inflammation in the relationship between handgrip strength and type 2 DM. After adjusting for age, sex, education, alcohol consumption, lifetime smoking, obesity, and aerobic physical activity, handgrip strength was inversely associated with fasting glucose, HbA1c, and fasting insulin levels as well as the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) score. Multivariable logistic regression analyses showed that handgrip strength was significantly inversely associated with type 2 DM and insulin resistance. The high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), an inflammation-related biomarker, mediated approximately 10% of the association between handgrip strength and type 2 DM. Using large, well-defined, nationally representative cross-sectional data on adults in Korea, we found that handgrip strength, which is an indicator of muscle strength, was associated with type 2 DM.
Autoimmune diseases and 8.1 ancestral haplotype: An update

The aim of the present review is to provide an update of the current research into the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases associated with 8.1 ancestral haplotype. This is a common Caucasoid haplotype carried by most people who type for HLA‐B8, DR3. Numerous genetic studies reported that individuals with certain HLA alleles have a higher risk of specific autoimmune disorders than those without these alleles. However, much remains to be learned about the heritability of autoimmune conditions. Recently, progress and advances in the field of genome‐wide‐association studies have revolutionized the capacity to perform large, economically feasible, and statistically robust analyses of HLA within 8.1 ancestral haplotype, and understand its contribute to autoimmune events.
The Interplay between Two Transcriptional Repressors and Chaperones Orchestrates Helicobacter pylori Heat-Shock Response

The ability to gauge the surroundings and modulate gene expression accordingly is a crucial feature for the survival bacterial pathogens. In this respect, the heat-shock response, a universally conserved mechanism of protection, allows bacterial cells to adapt rapidly to hostile conditions and to survive during environmental stresses. The important and widespread human pathogen Helicobacter pylori enrolls a collection of highly conserved heat-shock proteins to preserve cellular proteins and to maintain their homeostasis, allowing the pathogen to adapt and survive in the hostile niche of the human stomach. Moreover, various evidences suggest that some chaperones of H. pylori may play also non-canonical roles as, for example, in the interaction with the extracellular environment. In H. pylori, two dedicated transcriptional repressors, named HspR and HrcA, homologues to well-characterized regulators found in many other bacterial species, orchestrate the regulation of heat-shock proteins expression. Following twenty years of intense research, characterized by molecular, as well as genome-wide, approaches, it is nowadays possible to appreciate the complex picture representing the heat-shock regulation in H. pylori. Specifically, the HspR and HrcA repressors combine to control the transcription of target genes in a way that the HrcA regulon results embedded within the HspR regulon. Moreover, an additional level of control of heat-shock genes’ expression is exerted by a posttranscriptional feedback regulatory circuit in which chaperones interact and modulate HspR and HrcA DNA-binding activity. This review recapitulates our understanding of the roles and regulation of the most important heat-shock proteins of H. pylori, which represent a crucial virulence factor for bacterial infection and persistence in the human host.
Symmetric Shape Morphing for 3D Face and Head Modelling

We propose a shape template morphing approach suitable for any class of shapes that exhibits approximate reflective symmetry over some plane. The human face and full head are examples. A shape morphing algorithm that constrains all morphs to be symmetric is a form of deformation regulation. This mitigates undesirable effects seen in standard morphing algorithms that are not symmetry-aware, such as tangential sliding. Our method builds on the Coherent Point Drift (CPD) algorithm and is called Symmetry-aware CPD (SACPD). Global symmetric deformations are obtained by removal of asymmetric shear from CPD's global affine transformations. Symmetrised local deformations are then used to improve the symmetric template fit. These symmetric deformations are followed by Laplace-Beltrami regularized projection which allows the shape template to fit to any asymmetries in the raw shape data. The pipeline facilitates construction of statistical models that are readily factored into symmetrical and asymmetrical components. Evaluations demonstrate that SA-CPD mitigates tangential sliding problem in CPD and outperforms other competing shape morphing methods, in some cases substantially. 3D morphable models are constructed from over 1200 full head scans, and we evaluate the constructed models in terms of age and gender classification. The best performance, in the context of SVM classification, is achieved using the proposed SA-CPD deformation algorithm.
How Quick Decisions Illuminate Moral Character

It has been suggested that people attend to others’ actions in the service of forming impressions of their underlying dispositions. If so, it follows that in considering others’ morally relevant actions, social perceivers should be responsive to accompanying cues that help illuminate actors’ underlying moral character. This article examines one relevant cue that can characterize any decision process: the speed with which the decision is made. Two experiments show that actors who make an immoral decision quickly (vs. slowly) are evaluated more negatively. In contrast, actors who arrive at a moral decision quickly (vs. slowly) receive particularly positive moral character evaluations. Quick decisions carry this signal value because they are assumed to reflect certainty in the decision (Experiments 1 and 2), which in turn signals that more unambiguous motives drove the behavior (Experiment 2), which in turn explains the more polarized moral character evaluations. Implications for moral psychology and the law are discussed.
Automated ECG Classification Using Dual Heartbeat Coupling Based on Convolutional Neural Network

A high performance electrocardiogram (ECG)-based arrhythmic beats classification system is presented in this paper. The classifier was designed based on convolutional neural network (CNN). Single channel ECG signal was segmented into heartbeats in accordance with the changing heartbeat rate. The beats were transformed into dual beat coupling matrix as 2-D inputs to the CNN classifier, which captured both beat morphology and beat-to-beat correlation in ECG. A systematic training beat selection procedure was also proposed which automatically include the most representative beats into the training set to improve classification performance. The classification system was evaluated for the detection of supraventricular ectopic beats (SVEB or S beats) and VEB using the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database. Our proposed method has demonstrated superior performance than several state-of-the-art detectors. In particular, our proposed CNN system has improved sensitivity and positive predictive rate for S beats by more than 12.2% and 11.9%, respectively, over these top performing algorithms. Our proposed CNN classifier with an automatic training beats selection process has shown to outperform the previous methods. The classifier is also a personalized one by combining training set from a common pool and a subject-specific set of ECG data. Our proposed system provides a reliable and fully automatic tool for detection of arrhythmia heartbeat without the need for manual feature extraction or expert assistant. It can potentially be implemented on portable device for the long-term monitoring of cardiac arrhythmia.
A SURVEY OF BACKGROUND RADIATION DOSE RATES AND RADIOACTIVITY IN TANZANIA

Potential terrestrial sources of naturally occurring elevated radiation levels have been identified in Tanzania. Thus, efforts are currently being undertaken to create a natural radiation database, in the form of a radiation level map of natural radioactivity, to be used to assess the associated radiation risk to public and workers. Background radiation dose rate was determined with thermoluminescent dosimeters for 7 y (1993–1999) in five stations. The average background radiation dose rates for these stations were as follows: Tropical Pesticides Research Institute (TPRI) (102 ± 7 nGy h−1), Same (98 ± 2 nGy h−1), Namanga (98 ± 5 nGy h−1), University of Dar Es Salaam (99 ± 2 nGy h−1), and Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center (121 ± 3 nGy h−1). These stations were found convenient from an economic point of view since the project has no funds to cover wider and/or more remote areas in Tanzania. For the sake of comparison, similar measurements were made for the same period at Minjingu phosphate mine. The mine was one of the suspected areas with elevated levels of natural radioactivity. The radiation dose rate measured in this mine was about fourteen times higher (1,415 ± 28 nGy h−1) than the average value obtained in northern Tanzania (98 nGy h−1). The high average activity levels of phosphate (5760 ± 107 Bq kg−1 for 226Ra, 497 ± 5 Bq kg−1 for 228Ra, 350 ± 6 Bq kg−1 for 228Th, and 280 ± 5 Bq kg−1 for 40K) and radiation dose rate recorded show that Minjingu phosphate mine has higher values than the highest radioactivity in phosphate compiled by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effect of Atomic Radiation. In view of these findings, a comprehensive risk-management strategy for reduction of radiation risk to the public and mine workers should be put in place. Efforts are currently being made to seek support to improve the background radiation database for subsequent assessment of radiation risk to miners and the societies in the vicinity of these mines in Tanzania.
Efficient GPU-Based Electromagnetic Transient Simulation for Power Systems With Thread-Oriented Transformation and Automatic Code Generation

Electromagnetic transients (EMT) simulation is the most accurate and intensive computation for power systems. Past research has shown the potential of accelerating such simulations using graphics processing units (GPUs). In this paper, an efficient GPU-based parallel EMT simulator is designed. Thread-oriented model transformations are first proposed for the electrical and control systems. Following the transformations, the electrical system is represented by connected networks of massive primitive electrical elements, the computations of which can be constructed as massive fused multiply-add operations and solutions to a linear equation. The control systems are represented by a layered directed acyclic graph with primitive control elements that can be dealt with using single-instruction-multiple-threads groups. Finally, code automation tools are designed to form the GPU kernels. Compared with past work, the proposed model transformations improve the degree of parallelism. Most importantly, the code automation tools improve computational efficiency by substantially reducing addressing and memory access, and render the implementation of the algorithm more general and convenient. Test systems of different sizes were created by connecting multiple IEEE 33-bus distribution systems and adding distributed generators. Simulations were performed on NVIDIA’s K20 $\times$ and P100 cards. The results indicate that the proposed method significantly accelerates EMT simulations compared with a CPU-based program. Real-time performance was also achieved under certain conditions.
Excessive habit formation in schedule‐induced polydipsia: Microstructural analysis of licking among rat strains and involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex

Schedule‐induced polydipsia (SIP) is an animal model of compulsive drinking that selects for individual differences and varies across rat strains. The aim of this study was to investigate excessive habit formation by analyzing the SIP licking microstructure among rat strains, and to compare the brain areas activated by SIP in different populations. Wistar, Long Evans and Roman High‐ and Low‐Avoidance rat strains were compared using a cluster analysis of 2 main variables, that is, frequency of licking (percentage of interpellet intervals with drinking episodes) and intensity of licking (mean number of licks per interpellet interval), and were found to exhibit high intensity and frequent licking (compulsive drinkers, CD), low intensity but frequent licking (habitual drinkers, HD), and low intensity and low‐frequency licking (low drinkers, LD). The Wistar strain showed a higher frequency and intensity of licking, and had the largest group of CD rats when compared with the other strains. Regarding the acquisition of SIP, CD rats showed a higher intensity of licking when compared with the HD and LD rats. Moreover, c‐Fos quantification revealed that rats in the CD group showed hyperactivity in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and basolateral amygdala when compared with the LD group. Analyzing the SIP microstructure could be a valuable tool for understanding the role of excessive habit formation in the development of compulsive drinking and its underpinning neurobiological mechanisms.
Analyzing the influence of Language Proficiency on Interactive Book Search Behavior

English content still dominates in many online domains and information systems, despite native English speakers being a minority of its users. However, we know little about how language proficiency influences search behavior in these systems. In this paper, we describe preliminary results from an interactive IR experiment with book search behavior and examine how language skills affect this behavior. A total of 97 users from 21 different countries participated in this experiment, resulting in a rich data set including usage data as well as questionnaire feedback. Although participants reported feeling language constraints, a preliminary analysis of native and non-native English speakers indicate little to no meaningful differences in their search behavior.
Earrthworm diversity and habitat preferences in arid regions of Rajasthan

Manuscript 1074; Received 18 August 2003; Revised finally accepted 15 May 2004; © Zoo Outreach Organisation 1515 ABSTRACT Earthworms were surveyed in different habitats of Jodhpur District, Rajasthan, India. A total of nine earthworm species belonging to four different families, viz., Glossoscolecidae, Megascolecidae, Ocnerodrilidae and Octochaetidae were identified, of which six are first records for Jodhpur. The earthworm species differed in their eco-morphological characteristics and in relative abundance in each of the habitats sampled. Metaphire posthuma and Lampito mauritii were present in all the observed pedoecosystems. Ocnerodrilus occidentalis was found in all systems except garden soil, whereas Dichogaster boluai inhabited cultivated, non-cultivated and sewage soil. Pontoscolex corethururs, Amynthas morrisi and Ramiella bishambari were recorded from only sewage, garden and cultivated fields, respectively. The occurrence of most of the species in sewage soil as compared to other pedoecosystems may be related to high organic carbon and much higher nitrogen of the sewage system. This showed a remarkable species-habitat relationship. The relative density, frequency and species diversity index of some abundantly found earthworm species inhabiting particular habitat were also calculated. The entire observations clearly indicate the richness of earthworm biodiversity in the arid region of Rajasthan.
Are Mechanical Turk worker samples representative of health status and health behaviors in the U.S.?

Introduction Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) is frequently used to administer health-related surveys and experiments at a low cost, but little is known about its representativeness with regards to health status and behaviors. Methods A cross-sectional survey comprised of questions from the nationally-representative 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and 2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) was administered to 591 MTurk workers and 393 masters in 2016. Health status (asthma, depression, BMI, and general health), health behaviors (influenza vaccination, health insurance, smoking, and physical activity), and demographic characteristics of the two MTurk populations (workers and masters) were compared to each other and, using Poisson regression, to a nationally-representative BRFSS and NHANES samples. Results Workers and master demographics were similar. MTurk users were more likely to be aged under 50 years compared to the national sample (86% vs. 55%) and more likely to complete a college degree than the national sample (50% vs. 26%). Adjusting for covariates, MTurk users were less likely to be vaccinated for influenza, to smoke, to have asthma, to self-report being in excellent or very good health, to exercise, and have health insurance but over twice as likely to screen positive for depression relative to a national sample. Results were fairly consistent among different age groups. Conclusions MTurk workers are not a generalizable population with regards to health status and behaviors; deviations did not follow a trend. Appropriate health-related uses for MTurk and ways to improve upon the generalizability of MTurk health studies are proposed.
Delivering group speech maintenance therapy via telerehabilitation to people with Parkinson’s disease: A pilot study

Abstract Purpose: This study aimed to determine the feasibility of delivering a group speech maintenance programme (eLoud and Proud) to people with Parkinson’s disease via telerehabilitation. Method: Treatment was delivered to eight participants who had previously received LSVT LOUD®. The programme focussed on using a “loud” voice within conversational and cognitively loaded tasks, and was delivered in two 90-minute sessions per week for four weeks. Data pertaining to sound pressure level (SPL) (for sustained phonation, reading and monologue tasks), maximum frequency range, maximum phonation duration and impact of dysarthria on quality of life were collected at three time points: (1) pre-treatment (PRE); (2) immediately post-treatment (POST); and (3) three months post-treatment (FU). Participant satisfaction with telerehabilitation was also obtained at POST. Result: Significant improvements were identified for all SPL measures PRE-POST and maintained for sustained phonation and reading tasks at FU. No significant differences were identified for the remaining outcome measures. Participants were overall highly satisfied with telerehabilitation and considered it to be an acceptable alternative to traditional service delivery. Conclusion: This study demonstrated the feasibility of delivering group speech maintenance therapy via telerehabilitation, and the potential for eLoud and Proud to improve and maintain vocal loudness in people with PD.
Retinopathy of prematurity: preferred practice patterns among pediatric ophthalmologists

Purpose The treatment of retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is not standardized and can vary significantly between providers. This study aims to determine preferred practices in treating ROP by globally surveying pediatric ophthalmologists. Methods Between January and February 2017, an international pediatric ophthalmology interest group was invited to complete an anonymous survey of 18 questions. The main objectives were to determine the preferred first line of treatment for ROP, the preferred dosage of intravitreal bevacizumab (IVB) used, and the outcome and possible complications following bevacizumab injection. Results Out of 101 pediatric ophthalmologists, 72 (71.8%) stated that they had direct involvement in the treatment of ROP. When presented with type 1 ROP which requires treatment, 69 ophthalmologists (68.3%) stated that they prefer laser treatment over bevacizumab, and 33 ophthalmologists (32.7%) stated they would recommend bevacizumab as a first choice. Ninety-three ophthalmologists (92.1%) reported the success of 1 laser treatment between 75% and 100%, and 35 ophthalmologists (34.7%) perceive bevacizumab to be 75%–100% successful. Half dose of adult-prescribed bevacizumab at 0.625 mg/0.05 mL was preferred by 47 of the ophthalmologists (46.5%). No cases of endophthalmitis were reported with intravitreal injection. Conclusion Laser photoablation remains the preferred mode of treatment for ROP among surveyed ophthalmologists across the world. Though bevacizumab is currently being used, this form of treatment is not as common, primarily due to the unknown safety profile and potential long-term ramifications of the drug.