Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Contemporary uplift of the Sierra Nevada, western United States, from GPS and InSAR measurements

Modern space geodesy has recently enabled the direct observation of slow geological processes that move and shape Earth’s surface, including plate tectonics and crustal strain accumulation that leads to earthquakes. More elusive has been the direct observation of active mountain growth, because geodetic measurements have larger uncertainties in the vertical direction, while mountain growth is typically very slow. For the Sierra Nevada of California and Nevada, western United States, the history of elevation is complex, exhibiting features of both ancient (40–60 Ma) and relatively young (<3 Ma) elevation. Here we exploit the complementary strengths of high-precision three-component point positions from the GPS and blanket coverage line-of-sight measurements from interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) to show that contemporary vertical motion of the Sierra Nevada is between 1 and 2 mm/yr. The motion is upward with respect to Earth’s center of mass and with respect to a relatively stable eastern Nevada, indicating generation of relief and uplift against gravity. Uplift is distributed along the entire length of the range, between latitude 35°N and 40°N, and is not focused near localized, seismically imaged mantle downwellings. These results indicate that the modern episode of Sierra Nevada uplift is still active and could have generated the entire modern range in <3 m.y.
Quality Signals in Generated Stories

We study the problem of measuring the quality of automatically-generated stories. We focus on the setting in which a few sentences of a story are provided and the task is to generate the next sentence (“continuation”) in the story. We seek to identify what makes a story continuation interesting, relevant, and have high overall quality. We crowdsource annotations along these three criteria for the outputs of story continuation systems, design features, and train models to predict the annotations. Our trained scorer can be used as a rich feature function for story generation, a reward function for systems that use reinforcement learning to learn to generate stories, and as a partial evaluation metric for story generation.
Let's learn with Kahoot!

Blended and computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) are contemporary trends that are constantly and rapidly evolving. In parallel, digital games are considered to be excellent tools for teaching and learning and offer an engaging and interesting way of participating and learning. For example, games like Kahoot! can be a very good choice for teaching university students. In this study, we leverage Kahoot! 's features by implementing in the learning process the Quiz and Jumble types of games, during the laboratory part of the "Web Technologies" course. Also, we use the Challenge feature to assign homeworks for further engagement. Finally, we gather the students' opinions about this blended type of teaching and learning by using a suitably adjusted questionnaire. The results are very positive since students think of Kahoot! as a useful learning tool.
A Novel Minimally Invasive Reduction Technique by Balloon and Distractor for Intra-Articular Calcaneal Fractures: A Report of 2 Cases

Treatment of displaced intra-articular fractures of the calcaneus remains a challenge for the orthopaedic surgeon. Conservative therapy is known to produce functional impairment. Surgical approach is plagued by soft-tissue complications and insufficient fracture reduction. We describe a minimally invasive technique that will hopefully improve these issues. We want to present our first experience through two cases. The first was a 46-year-old man who presented with a Sanders type IIBC calcaneal fracture, and the second was a 86-year-old woman with a type IIIBC calcaneal fracture. We introduced 2 Schanz screws in the talus and the calcaneus. After distraction, we introduced an inflatable balloon inside the calcaneus. By inflating the balloon, the articular surface was reduced by lifting it up. Then bone cement was injected in order to maintain the reduction. Additional screw fixation was used in the young patient. Postoperative imaging showed good congruence of the subtalar joint without leakage of cement, for the two cases. After 2 months, the patients had no pain and were without soft-tissue complications. We advocate this technique to perform a minimally invasive reduction and fixation of intra-articular calcaneal fractures because it preserves soft-tissues and provides good clinical results with early weight-bearing.
Complement-activating donor-specific anti-HLA antibodies and solid organ transplant survival: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Anti-human leukocyte antigen donor-specific antibodies (anti-HLA DSAs) are recognized as a major barrier to patients’ access to organ transplantation and the major cause of graft failure. The capacity of circulating anti-HLA DSAs to activate complement has been suggested as a potential biomarker for optimizing graft allocation and improving the rate of successful transplantations. Methods and findings To address the clinical relevance of complement-activating anti-HLA DSAs across all solid organ transplant patients, we performed a meta-analysis of their association with transplant outcome through a systematic review, from inception to January 31, 2018. The primary outcome was allograft loss, and the secondary outcome was allograft rejection. A comprehensive search strategy was conducted through several databases (Medline, Embase, Cochrane, and Scopus). A total of 5,861 eligible citations were identified. A total of 37 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Studies reported on 7,936 patients, including kidney (n = 5,991), liver (n = 1,459), heart (n = 370), and lung recipients (n = 116). Solid organ transplant recipients with circulating complement-activating anti-HLA DSAs experienced an increased risk of allograft loss (pooled HR 3.09; 95% CI 2.55–3.74, P = 0.001; I2 = 29.3%), and allograft rejection (pooled HR 3.75; 95% CI: 2.05–6.87, P = 0.001; I2 = 69.8%) compared to patients without complement-activating anti-HLA DSAs. The association between circulating complement-activating anti-HLA DSAs and allograft failure was consistent across all subgroups and sensitivity analyses. Limitations of the study are the observational and retrospective design of almost all included studies, the higher proportion of kidney recipients compared to other solid organ transplant recipients, and the inclusion of fewer studies investigating allograft rejection. Conclusions In this study, we found that circulating complement-activating anti-HLA DSAs had a significant deleterious impact on solid organ transplant survival and risk of rejection. The detection of complement-activating anti-HLA DSAs may add value at an individual patient level for noninvasive biomarker-guided risk stratification. Trial registration National Clinical Trial protocol ID: NCT03438058.
Consensus methods for virtual screening and clustering of chemical structure databases

The main combination procedures for chemoinformatics are combinations of multiple molecular descriptors, multiple similarity measures, multiple active reference molecules (queries) and multiple clustering methods. The combination methods provide better results for virtual screening because different descriptors, measures, or queries can provide different sources of evidence. In this paper, we review the recent work of combination methods for chemical structure databases
Interaction of Adatoms and Molecules with Single-Layer Arsenene Phases

Recent studies have shown that arsenic can form single-layer phases in buckled honeycomb as well as symmetric washboard structures, named as arsenene. These structures are stable even in freestanding form and are nonmagnetic semiconductors in the energy range which is suitable for various electronic applications. In this study we investigated the adsorption of selected adatoms (H, Li, B, C, N, O, Al, Si, P, Cl, Ti, Ga, Ge, As, Se, and Sb) and physisorption of molecules (H2, O2, and H2O) to these two arsene phases. Since the interaction of these adspecies with arsenene are studied using large supercells, the coupling between adspecies is minimized, and hence our results can be interpreted to mimic the effects of isolated adatom or physisorbed molecule. It is found that the adatoms form strong chemisorption bonds and hence modify the atomic structure and physical properties locally. Some of the adatoms give rise to significant local reconstruction of the atomic structure. Electronic states of some adatoms b.
Clinical Spectrum of Pediatric Tuberculosis: A Microbiological Correlation from a Tertiary Care Center

AIM AND OBJECTIVES The paucibacillary nature of pediatric tuberculosis (TB) makes diagnosis difficult. The aim of the study was to correlate the clinical spectrum of pediatric TB with microbiological diagnosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS Specimens from clinically suspected pediatric TB cases were subjected to Ziehl-Neelsen staining, culture on Lowenstein-Jensen medium and cartridge-based nucleic acid amplification test (CB-NAAT) for TB. RESULTS Pulmonary TB was the predominant form affecting 36 of 62 (58%) patients. Tubercular meningitis was the commonest form of extrapulmonary type and affected 13 of 26 (50%) children. Microbiological diagnosis by any of the above methods could be established in 35 (56.45%) cases. While 33 of 36 (92%) patients diagnosed with pulmonary TB had radiological findings, of which only 25 (76%) could be microbiologically confirmed, only 24 of 31 (77%) patients with extrapulmonary symptoms had radiological evidence and microbiological confirmation could be achieved in 4 (17%) of these. CONCLUSION An integrated approach of diagnosis, including clinical-radiological, microbiological and immunological evidence should be stressed on.
CFTR Mutation Analysis in Western Iran: Identification of Two Novel Mutations

Background: Cystic fibrosis (CF) is one of the most common autosomal recessive disorders in Caucasian population. The incidence of disorder varies among different religious, ethnic and geographical isolates. The aim of this study was to identify the spectrum and the frequency of known and unknown disease-causing mutations in Iranian CF patients. Methods: Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral whole blood with a QIAamp DNA Mini-Kit. Mutation analysis was done in the CFTR gene including complete coding region and intron/exon boundaries using a direct sequencing method. Results: In general, ten mutations were identified in 27 CF cases. Two out of 10 mutations, 754delT and GGTGGCdel/TTGins, were reported as novel mutations. The most common observed mutations in patients were R334W (40.74%), ΔF508 (18.5%), K710X (12.96%) and D110H (5.5%), 1897C>G (1.85%), R1162X (1.85%), S466X (1.85%) and T1036I (1.85%). Conclusion: The finding indicated a unique mutation panel which can be used in genetic counseling, prenatal diagnosis and future screening of CF in Iran. Although ΔF508 is the most common mutation in other populations including Caucasian, this mutation seem not to have an important role in Iranian CF patients. Findings suggest that a different approach in molecular genetics diagnostic strategies in Middle Eastern countries including Iran should be considered.
A novel channel pruning method for deep neural network compression

In recent years, deep neural networks have achieved great success in the field of computer vision. However, it is still a big challenge to deploy these deep models on resource-constrained embedded devices such as mobile robots, smart phones and so on. Therefore, network compression for such platforms is a reasonable solution to reduce memory consumption and computation complexity. In this paper, a novel channel pruning method based on genetic algorithm is proposed to compress very deep Convolution Neural Networks (CNNs). Firstly, a pre-trained CNN model is pruned layer by layer according to the sensitivity of each layer. After that, the pruned model is fine-tuned based on knowledge distillation framework. These two improvements significantly decrease the model redundancy with less accuracy drop. Channel selection is a combinatorial optimization problem that has exponential solution space. In order to accelerate the selection process, the proposed method formulates it as a search problem, which can be solved efficiently by genetic algorithm. Meanwhile, a two-step approximation fitness function is designed to further improve the efficiency of genetic process. The proposed method has been verified on three benchmark datasets with two popular CNN models: VGGNet and ResNet. On the CIFAR-100 and ImageNet datasets, our approach outperforms several state-of-the-art methods. On the CIFAR-10 and SVHN datasets, the pruned VGGNet achieves better performance than the original model with 8 times parameters compression and 3 times FLOPs reduction.
Prevalence of Diabetes Mellitus Type 2 and its Association with Demography, Socio-Economy and Nutritional Status for Women of Amagoro Division in Western Kenya

Diabetes mellitus is rapidly increasing in Kenya. The prevalence varies among tribes and risk factors are not well understood. This study investigated the prevalence of diabetes mellitus in association with demography, socio-economy and nutritional status for women in Amagoro, Western Kenya. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study involving 260 women aged 15-90 years. Households were chosen by cluster and stratified sampling. Data on demography, socio-economy and diabetes status were collected by interviews using pre-tested questionnaires. Random blood sugar was measured using a glucometer and levels ≥7.8 mmol/L underwent confirmatory testing using fasting blood sugar. Anthropometric measurements were taken following standard protocols with some modifications. Body mass index as indicator of nutritional status was calculated by dividing weight (kg) by height (m 2 ) and classified as underweight (<18.5); normal weight (18.5-24.9); overweight (25.0-29.9) and obesity (≥30). Waist circumference (WC) > 88 cm and waist-hip-ratio (WHR) >0.80 were considered abnormal. Focus group discussions were conducted on participants’ diabetes knowledge and selected repeated themes noted. Prevalence of diabetes was 16.9 %. Mean participants’ age was 37.1±14.8 years. Mean WC, BMI and WHR were 78.7±9.9, 22.7±3.44 and 0.85±0.08 respectively. Average income was KES 2438±2592. Factors significantly associated with diabetes were employment status (OR=3.16), income (OR=14.21) and place of residence (OR=4.54), p<0.05.
The use of WhatsApp in design-based modules

WhatsApp is used by 1.2 billion users worldwide. This social media platform is also used as an educational tool and has been the focus of many studies in higher education. WhatsApp was used as an educational tool to improve communication, to promote student engagement and to provide better student support in two design-based modules, namely Projects II and Design Project III, at the Central University of Technology (CUT) in South Africa. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study with descriptive statistics of quantitative data regarding student perceptions on the use of WhatsApp in these design-based modules. Student perceptions are important when new technologies are introduced and can be used to assess such teaching innovations. The research question thus arises, what are the perceived advantages and disadvantages of using WhatsApp in design-based modules at CUT? The results suggest that students have a generally positive view of WhatsApp as an educational tool that helps them to connect with others and collect information in a quicker and easier fashion (these are identified advantages). Disadvantages, listed by a minority of respondents, included the cost of airtime in South Africa, limited bandwidth and being distracted by using WhatsApp for other purposes. Although this study has focused on the use of WhatsApp in design-based modules, it will be interesting to investigate the use of several social media platforms over a range of modules offered at CUT.
Three-dimensional Analysis of How Radiation Affects Deep Inferior Epigastric Perforator (DIEP) Flap Volume, Projection, and Position in Breast Cancer Reconstruction

Background The deep inferior epigastric perforator (DIEP) flap has gained popularity for autologous free flap breast reconstruction. Historically, patients receiving post mastectomy radiation therapy (PMRT) were not candidates for immediate autologous reconstruction due to concerns for flap volume depletion, fat necrosis, and flap failure. However, this literature is anecdotal and lacks case controls. We objectively analyzed the effects radiation imparts on immediate DIEP flap reconstruction using 3-dimensional software and inherent controls. Methods We performed a cohort study on breast cancer patients who underwent immediate bilateral DIEP flap reconstructions followed by PMRT between 2005 and 2014. Exclusion criteria included patients less than 6 months from PMRT completion and bilateral PMRT. Three-dimensional photographs were analyzed using Geomagic (Rock Hill, SC) software to compare flap position, projection, and volume between the irradiated and nonirradiated reconstructed breasts. Breast Q survey evaluated patients’ satisfaction. Results Eleven patients met inclusion criteria. Average time from PMRT completion to photo acquisition was 1.93 years. There was no statistical difference in average volume or projection in the irradiated versus nonirradiated side (P = 0.087 and P = 0.176, respectively). However, position of the irradiated flaps was significantly higher on the chest wall compared to controls (mean difference, 1.325 cm; P < 0.004). Conclusions Three-dimensional analysis exhibited no statistical differences in projection or volume between irradiated DIEP flaps and nonirradiated controls. However, irradiated DIEP flaps were positioned higher on the chest wall, similar to observations in irradiated tissue expanders/implants. Patients were satisfied as measured by Breast Q. Immediate bilateral DIEP flap reconstructions can safely be performed with PMRT with satisfactory results.
A Survey on Acquisition, Tracking, and Pointing Mechanisms for Mobile Free-Space Optical Communications

This paper presents a comprehensive survey on acquisition, tracking, and pointing (ATP) mechanisms used in free-space optical (FSO) communications systems. ATP mechanisms are a critical component for a wide variety of use cases of mobile FSO communications. ATP mechanisms are used to align an FSO transmitter and receiver to attain line-of-sight, which is required for effective operation of FSO communications. Transceiver motion is not only associated to mobile stations but also to temporary displacements experienced by stationary FSO terminals, such as in building-to-building FSO communications. This survey categorizes ATP mechanisms according to their working principles, use cases, and implementation technology. This paper also discusses advantages and disadvantages of the surveyed ATP mechanisms, and presents a discussion on challenges and future research.
High-throughput adaptive sampling for whole-slide histopathology image analysis (HASHI) via convolutional neural networks: Application to invasive breast cancer detection

Precise detection of invasive cancer on whole-slide images (WSI) is a critical first step in digital pathology tasks of diagnosis and grading. Convolutional neural network (CNN) is the most popular representation learning method for computer vision tasks, which have been successfully applied in digital pathology, including tumor and mitosis detection. However, CNNs are typically only tenable with relatively small image sizes (200 × 200 pixels). Only recently, Fully convolutional networks (FCN) are able to deal with larger image sizes (500 × 500 pixels) for semantic segmentation. Hence, the direct application of CNNs to WSI is not computationally feasible because for a WSI, a CNN would require billions or trillions of parameters. To alleviate this issue, this paper presents a novel method, High-throughput Adaptive Sampling for whole-slide Histopathology Image analysis (HASHI), which involves: i) a new efficient adaptive sampling method based on probability gradient and quasi-Monte Carlo sampling, and, ii) a powerful representation learning classifier based on CNNs. We applied HASHI to automated detection of invasive breast cancer on WSI. HASHI was trained and validated using three different data cohorts involving near 500 cases and then independently tested on 195 studies from The Cancer Genome Atlas. The results show that (1) the adaptive sampling method is an effective strategy to deal with WSI without compromising prediction accuracy by obtaining comparative results of a dense sampling (∼6 million of samples in 24 hours) with far fewer samples (∼2,000 samples in 1 minute), and (2) on an independent test dataset, HASHI is effective and robust to data from multiple sites, scanners, and platforms, achieving an average Dice coefficient of 76%.
The radio and infrared counterparts of the ring nebula around HD 211564

We report the detection of the radio and infrared (IR) counterparts of the ring nebula around the WN3(h) star HD 211564 (WR 152), located to the south-west of the H II region Sh2 132. Using radio continuum data from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey, we identified the radio counterparts of the two concentric rings, of about 9 and 16 arcmin in radius, related to the star. After applying a filling factor f = 0.05-0.12, electron densities and ionized masses are in the range 10-16 cm- 3 and 450-700 M ⊙ , respectively. The analysis of the H i gas emission distribution allowed the identification of 5900 M ⊙ of neutral atomic gas with velocities between -52 and -43 km s -1 probably linked to the nebula. The region of the nebula is almost free of molecular gas. Only four small clumps were detected, with a total molecular mass of 790 M ⊙ . About 310 M ⊙ are related to a small IR shell-like source linked to the inner ring, which is also detected in the MSX band A. An IRAS young stellar object candidate is detected in coincidence with the shell-like IR source. We suggest that the optical nebula and its neutral counterparts originated from the stellar winds from the Wolf-Rayet star and its massive progenitor, and are evolving in the envelope of a slowly expanding shell centred at (l, b) = (102°.30, -0°.50) of about 31 pc in radius. The bubble's energy conversion efficiency is in agreement with recent numerical analysis and with observational results.
Shaping Synapses by the Neural Extracellular Matrix

Accumulating data support the importance of interactions between pre- and postsynaptic neuronal elements with astroglial processes and extracellular matrix (ECM) for formation and plasticity of chemical synapses, and thus validate the concept of a tetrapartite synapse. Here we outline the major mechanisms driving: (i) synaptogenesis by secreted extracellular scaffolding molecules, like thrombospondins (TSPs), neuronal pentraxins (NPs) and cerebellins, which respectively promote presynaptic, postsynaptic differentiation or both; (ii) maturation of synapses via reelin and integrin ligands-mediated signaling; and (iii) regulation of synaptic plasticity by ECM-dependent control of induction and consolidation of new synaptic configurations. Particularly, we focused on potential importance of activity-dependent concerted activation of multiple extracellular proteases, such as ADAMTS4/5/15, MMP9 and neurotrypsin, for permissive and instructive events in synaptic remodeling through localized degradation of perisynaptic ECM and generation of proteolytic fragments as inducers of synaptic plasticity.