Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient acquisition rules for model-based approximate Bayesian computation

Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) is a method for Bayesian inference when the likelihood is unavailable but simulating from the model is possible. However, many ABC algorithms require a large number of simulations, which can be costly. To reduce the computational cost, Bayesian optimisation (BO) and surrogate models such as Gaussian processes have been proposed. Bayesian optimisation enables one to intelligently decide where to evaluate the model next but common BO strategies are not designed for the goal of estimating the posterior distribution. Our paper addresses this gap in the literature. We propose to compute the uncertainty in the ABC posterior density, which is due to a lack of simulations to estimate this quantity accurately, and define a loss function that measures this uncertainty. We then propose to select the next evaluation location to minimise the expected loss. Experiments show that the proposed method often produces the most accurate approximations as compared to common BO strategies.
Time Tracking of Standard Ultrasound Examinations in Pediatric Hospitals and Pediatric Medical Practices – A Multicenter Study by the Pediatric Section of the German Society of Ultrasound in Medicine (DEGUM)

Abstract Purpose Ultrasonography is the primary imaging modality in pediatrics but still lacks sufficient reimbursement in Germany. In this multicenter study, national data for the duration of standard ultrasound in pediatrics were systematically documented in order to specify the actual time required. Materials and Methods N = 10 hospitals (N = 5 university hospitals, N = 5 non-university hospitals) and N = 3 medical practices in Germany recorded the entire process of an ultrasound examination in a special protocol developed by the Pediatric Section of the DEGUM. The duration of each of seven single steps during ultrasonography (from data input to final discussion of the results) of different organ systems was logged. Results In total, N = 2118 examinations from different organ systems were recorded. N = 10 organ systems were examined frequently (> 30 times). The total duration of an ultrasound examination was statistically significantly longer in hospitals compared to medical practices (median (IQR) 27 min. (18–38) vs. 12 min. (9–17), p < 0.001). The “hands-on” patient time was approximately one half of the total required time in both settings (49.9 % vs. 48.9 %). Ultrasonography of the abdomen and brain lasted longer in university hospitals than in non-university hospitals (p < 0.001, and p = 0.04, respectively). Cooperation and age did not uniformly correlate with the total duration. Conclusion This study provides novel comprehensive national data for the duration of standardized ultrasound examinations of children and adolescents in Germany. These data are essential for a further evaluation of the economic costs and should support better remuneration in the future.
Pregabalin augmentation for resistant obsessive–compulsive disorder: a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial

Abstract Background and objective. Glutamate dysfunction has been shown to be associated with pathophysiology of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Our objective is to survey the effects of pregabalin (a glutamate-modulating agent) as an augmenting treatment for resistant OCD. Patients and methods. In this 12-week double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial, 56 patients with resistant OCD were randomly allocated to receive either pregabalin or placebo plus their current medication (sertraline). Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) was used to evaluate the outcomes. Adverse effects were also registered. Results. Of the 56 patients with resistant OCD who were randomly allocated in 2 groups of pregabalin (n = 28) and placebo group (n = 28), 42 patients (22 in pregabalin group and 20 in placebo group) completed the trial. Throughout the trial, the mean score decreased from 26.13± 7.03 to 8.81 ± 3.47 in the pregabalin group (p < 0) and from 26.85 ± 4.34 to 17.63 ± 4.22 in the placebo group (p < 0). At the end of trial, 16 (57.14%) patients in the pregabalin group and 2 (7.14%) patients in the placebo group showed more than 35% decline in YBOCS (p < .01). The pregabalin group showed good tolerability and safety. Conclusions. Our study revealed that pregabalin, as an augmenting medication, is more effective than placebo in the treatment of patients with resistant OCD.
Polypharmacy and Incident Frailty in a Longitudinal Community‐Based Cohort Study

Polypharmacy may affect frailty, a common and costly condition among older adults. Frailty prevalence is elevated among racial/ethnic minorities and persons living in the US South, and research is needed to inform future pharmacologic interventions in these populations. Our aim was to quantify the prevalence of frailty and polypharmacy, and to estimate the association between polypharmacy and incident frailty.
KNOWLEDGE STRUCTURE AND REGIONAL ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE FRENCH CASE

The paper investigate the effects of knowledge on economic growth at the regional level Methodology approach: We elaborate a view on knowledge as the result of a combinatorial search activity and implement indicators synthesizing the network architecture of knowledge structure Findings: Empirical estimations corroborate the hypothesis that knowledge coherence and variety, besides the traditional measure of knowledge stock, matter in shaping regional economicperformances. Social implications: Important policy implications stem from the analysis, in that regional innovation strategies, in order to trigger economicperformances, should be carefully coordinated so as to foster exploration strategies, but taking into full account the technological competences accumulated in the course of time. Originality/value of the paper: The originality of the paper lies mainly in the methodological approach, which provides operational translation to the view of knowledge as an outcome of a combinatorial search. In this perspective, the paper also shed light on previously unexplored aspects of the relationships between knowledge and growth.
The Association Between Age at Palatoplasty and Speech and Language Outcomes in Children With Cleft Palate: An Observational Chart Review Study

Objective: To determine whether timing of palatoplasty (early, standard, or late) is associated with speech and language outcomes in children with cleft palate. Design: Retrospective case series. Setting: Tertiary care children’s hospital. Participants: Records from 733 children born between 2005 and 2015 and treated at the Cleft Craniofacial Clinic of a tertiary children’s hospital were retrospectively reviewed. Exclusion criteria were cleft repair at an outside hospital, intact secondary palate, absence of postpalatoplasty speech evaluation, syndromes, staged palatoplasty, and introduction to clinic after 12 months of age. Data from 232 children with cleft palate ± cleft lip were analyzed. Interventions: Palatoplasty. Main Outcome Measures: Speech/language delays and disorders at 20 months and 5 years of age based on formal hospital or community-based testing or screening evaluation in the Cleft Craniofacial Clinic; additional speech surgery. Results: Median age at palatoplasty was 12.6 months (range: 8.8-21.9 months). Age at palatoplasty was classified as early (<11 months, n = 28), standard (11-13 months, n = 158), or late (>13 months, n = 46). Late palatoplasty was associated with increased odds of speech/language delays and speech therapy at 20 months, and language delays at 5 years, compared with standard or early palatoplasty (P < .05 for all comparisons). However, speech sound production disorders, velopharyngeal incompetence, tube replacement, and hearing loss were not significantly associated with age at palatoplasty. Conclusions: Late palatoplasty may be associated with short- and long-term delays in speech/language development. Future studies with standardized surgical technique/timing and outcome measures are required to more definitively describe the impact of age at palatoplasty on speech/language development.
Psychometric properties of the Malay version of motivation scales in drug treatment.

INTRODUCTION In recognition of the role of motivation in drug use treatment, patient motivational screening instruments are needed for strategic planning and treatment. The aims of this study were to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Malay version of the Treatment Motivation Scale, and to compare the motivational levels of patients receiving substance abuse treatment with different modalities (inpatient vs. outpatient). The motivational scale consists of three scales: problem recognition, desire for help and treatment readiness. METHOD A convenience sample of 102 patients was recruited from four Cure and Care Service Centres in Malaysia. RESULTS Principal component analysis with varimax rotation supported two-factor solutions for each subscale: problem recognition, desire for help and treatment readiness, which accounted for 63.5%, 62.7% and 49.1% of the variances, respectively. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients were acceptable for the overall measures (24 items: ∝ = 0.89), the problem recognition scale (10 items; ∝ = 0.89), desire for help (6 items; ∝ = 0.64) and treatment readiness scale (8 items; ∝ = 0.60). The results also indicated significant motivational differences for different modalities, with inpatients having significantly higher motivational scores in each scale compared to outpatients. CONCLUSION The present study pointed towards the favourable psychometric properties of a motivation for treatment scale, which can be a useful instrument for clinical applications of drug use changes and treatment.
Comparative Study of Myxofibrosarcoma With Undifferentiated Pleomorphic Sarcoma

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Myxofibrosarcoma (MFS) is a malignant fibroblastic/myofibroblastic neoplasm with the prominent myxoid area. It has the clinical features of frequent local recurrence and occasional distant metastasis. Morphologically, MFS is occasionally difficult to distinguish from undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS), especially in the case of high-grade MFS. Here, we reviewed clinical and histologic data of 162 MFS cases and 43 UPS cases. MFS was distinguished from UPS with the criterion of 10% myxoid area as a cutoff value. Overall, 52 MFS (34.4%) and 9 UPS (20.9%) cases showed local recurrence, 18 MFS (12.2%) and 19 UPS (44.2%) cases developed distant metastasis, and 13 MFS (9.5%) and 14 UPS (32.6%) cases resulted in tumor-related death. Statistically, MFS had a better prognosis than UPS. Moreover, MFS with less myxoid area had a tendency to present a poorer prognosis. FNCLCC grade was a statistically significant prognostic factor (distant metastasis: P=0.0021, tumor-related death: P=0.0021). Cellularity and nuclear atypia had only a statistical tendency for associations with a poorer prognosis. The overall survival rate of MFS after transformation into a UPS-like condition (<10% myxoid area) was close to that of UPS. It was suggested that MFS is a biologically distinct tumor from UPS, and MFS with less myxoid area had a tendency to present a poorer prognosis. We considered that evaluation of the amount of myxoid area, cellularity, and nuclear atypia may be important as prognostic predictors. MFS may become similar to histologic malignancy of UPS in terms of morphology and biology via local recurrence.
Presence of Glandular Cells at the Preoperative Cervical Cytology and Local Recurrence in Endometrial Cancer

We investigated the correlation between glandular cells (GC) detected at preoperative cervical-smear and the histologic findings and oncologic outcomes in patients undergoing surgery for endometrial cancer (EC). We retrospectively analyzed data of all consecutive EC patients who underwent surgery between January 1, 1990 and December 31, 2012 with preoperative cervical smear performed within 3 mo from the EC diagnosis. Basic descriptive, logistic regression and artificial neural network analyses were used. Five-year disease-free survival and overall survival were assessed using Kaplan-Meier and Cox hazard models. The study included 229 (89%) and 29 (11%) patients with normal cytology (control group) and GC (GC group), respectively. A higher proportion of elderly patients with nonendometrioid and FIGO grade 3 EC was observed in the GC group compared with the control group (P<0.05). No differences in 5-yr disease-free survival and overall survival were observed. However, patients in the GC group experienced a higher local recurrence rate (hazard ratio: 7.6; 95% confidence interval: 1.7–34.2; P=0.008). We observed that age, body mass index, cervical stromal invasion, vaginal brachytherapy, and GC influenced the risk for developing local recurrence. However, at the multivariable analysis, only cervical stromal invasion (odds ratio: 1.2; 95% confidence interval: 1.02–1.4; P=0.02) and GC (odds ratio: 1.07; 95% confidence interval: 1.01–1.14; P=0.03) correlated with the increased risk. In addition, the results of an artificial neural network analysis reported that the most critical predictor of local failure was cervical stromal invasion (importance: 0.352) followed by GC (importance: 0.194). These results suggest that cervical stromal invasion and presence of GC at the preoperative cervical smear might predict the occurrence of local recurrence in EC.
Uncertainty in simulated nitrate leaching due to uncertainty in input data. A case study

Abstract. Deterministic leaching models are used to estimate regional losses of nitrate from agricultural land to the environment. The estimated leaching losses are associated with uncertainty arising from uncertainty in the input data used. In the present case study we have assessed this uncertainty by use of Monte Carlo analysis, using the Latin hypercube sampling technique. Input data have preferably been adopted from publicly available data. Data which could not be retrieved from the databases was assessed by guided estimates or based on local data. The estimated annual leaching loss from the study region was around 106 kg N ha−1, which is in agreement with previous findings. The uncertainty in the leaching expressed in terms of coefficients of variation (CV) depended on the agricultural practices. CV's for arable farm rotations, cattle farm rotations, and pig farm rotations were around 20, 30 and 40%, respectively. Breakdown of the total uncertainty into contributions of different error sources did not isolate one single all important source.
A case study of the interests and needs of the district director to improve job performance in the Bangkok metropolitan administration

This research identifies the professional development needs of fifty District Directors employed by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, Bangkok, Thailand, in order to produce an operational strategy for a learning organisation and an improvement in work quality. The population sample consists of the Permanent Secretary, two Deputy Permanent Secretaries, and all fifty District Directors of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. The research involves a Proactive Evaluation, in which a needs assessment of a group of fifty District Directors is undertaken. A mixed methods approach, using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, is applied. The quantitative research component applies a three-round Delphi survey of the fifty District Directors. The Delphi survey identified seven areas from the sixteen originally submitted; as well, a set of five professional development strategies is identified. The seven elements needed to improve their skills and competencies were: leading an organisation; administering responsibilities rapidly and transparently in order to provide effective service; being mature; establishing good human relationships; collaborating effectively with people and their organizations; providing moral leadership that is concerned with equity and equality; understanding people in order to satisfy their needs. The five professional development strategies required to promote these needs were: improving skills and competencies; successful training; overcoming problems with training; the duration of training programs; selecting suitable training venues. Finally, in order to draw these various elements together, a professional development training policy designed to benefit present and future District Directors of the BMA is developed.
Radio-loud active galaxies in the northern ROSAT All-Sky Survey. I. Radio identifications

We present 5 GHz high resolution VLA observations of 2,127 radio– and X-ray–emitting sources found in both the Green Bank (GB) 5 GHz radio catalog and the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS). We report core flux densities and positions accurate to ± 0.5. Combined with the GB measurements of the total radio emission, we derive the core-to-lobe ratio of objects in our sample and discuss their core-dominance relative to samples of radio galaxies and BL Lacertae objects. Our results show the RASS/Green Bank (RGB) sample is approximately an order of magnitude more core-dominated than the radio galaxy sample, but is more than an order of magnitude less core-dominated than highly beamed BL Lacertae objects. Using simple beaming models, this indicates the typical object in the RGB catalog exhibits moderately beamed radio emission and is oriented at an angle to the line-of-sight . The case of the origin of the X-ray emission is not as clear; the data are consistent with either an anisotropic unbeamed or moderately beamed X-ray component. Tables 2 and 3 which present the RGB catalog are available in their entirety only from the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc. u-strasbg.fr (130.79.128.5), via the WWW at http://cdsweb. u-strasbg.fr/ Abstract.html, or at ftp://ftp. astro. psu. edu /pub /edf.
Indicadores de riesgo del Perfil de Conductas de Desarrollo como instrumento para la detección temprana de retrasos y alteraciones del desarrollo

Objetivo: evaluar la validez de la discriminacion de los Indicadores de Riesgo del Perfil de Conductas de Desarrollo-Revisados (INDIPCD-R), como instrumento de tamizado, para la deteccion temprana de retrasos y alteraciones del desarrollo en infantes de 6 meses a 4 anos de edad. Materiales y metodos: estudio transversal comparativo con 145 infantes provenientes de una clinica y dos estancias infantiles (CENDI). Se evaluaron con INDIPCD-R y con la Escala Perfil de Conductas del Desarrollo-Revisada 83 ninos, el resto fue evaluado solo con los INDIPCD-R. Analisis: frecuencias para variables de estudio. U de Mann- Whitney para comparar INDIPCD-R en clinica y CENDI. Sensibilidad y especificidad para el INDIPCD-R. Consistencia interna del INDIPCD-R mediante alfa de Cronbach. Resultados: se encontraron diferencias significativas (p < 0.05) en las frecuencias de indicadores de riesgo en los grupos evaluados. Grupo de ninos de clinica: sensibilidad 100%; especificidad 69%. Grupo de ninos de los CENDI: sensibilidad 94%; especificidad 84%. Alfa de Cronbach: 0.938. Conclusiones: los Indicadores de Riesgo del Perfil de Conductas de Desarrollo-Revisados son un instrumento de tamizado que discrimina al nino que presenta alteraciones en su desarrollo de aquellos cuyo desarrollo es normal y no se encuentran en riesgo. Se demostro de forma valida y confiable que ninos con aparente desarrollo normal, sin diagnostico especifico, pueden presentar alteraciones en el desarrollo.
EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT, OCCUPATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS, CAREER PEAKS

ABSTRACT This paper answers questions on the educational attainment and occupational career of men in The Netherlands whose working life began in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, in so far as their job history is available until at least the age of 45 years. The analysis draws on five Dutch retrospective life-history surveys conducted between 1992 and 2003. The results show that a man's education depends upon his father's job, and that this effect has not changed for labour market entry cohorts. When explaining a man's first job, his father's job is influential once more, independent of a man's education. A man's education has a direct positive effect on his first job, his job after 10 and 20 years, and his peak job, but again the differences in status attainment between labour market entry cohorts are limited. Findings also reveal that advantages accumulate during a person's working life. Apart from a higher level of education, a higher first job has an independent positive effect on a man's job after 10 and 20 years, as well as on his peak status.
SIMULATION OF THE COSMIC EVOLUTION OF ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR HYDROGEN IN GALAXIES

We present a simulation of the cosmic evolution of the atomic and molecular phases of the cold hydrogen gas in about 3 × 107 galaxies, obtained by postprocessing the virtual galaxy catalog produced by De Lucia & Blaizot on the Millennium Simulation of cosmic structure. Our method uses a set of physical prescriptions to assign neutral atomic hydrogen (H i) and molecular hydrogen (H2) to galaxies, based on their total cold gas masses and a few additional galaxy properties. These prescriptions are specially designed for large cosmological simulations, where, given current computational limitations, individual galaxies can only be represented by simplistic model objects with a few global properties. Our recipes allow us to (1) split total cold gas masses between H i, H2, and helium, (2) assign realistic sizes to both the H i and H2 disks, and (3) evaluate the corresponding velocity profiles and shapes of the characteristic radio emission lines. The results presented in this paper include the local H i and H2 mass functions, the CO luminosity function, the cold gas mass–diameter relation, and the Tully–Fisher relation (TFR), which all match recent observational data from the local universe. We also present high-redshift predictions of cold gas diameters and the TFR, both of which appear to evolve markedly with redshift.
Certified Adversarial Robustness with Additive Noise

The existence of adversarial data examples has drawn significant attention in the deep-learning community; such data are seemingly minimally perturbed relative to the original data, but lead to very different outputs from a deep-learning algorithm. Although a significant body of work on developing defensive models has been considered, most such models are heuristic and are often vulnerable to adaptive attacks. Defensive methods that provide theoretical robustness guarantees have been studied intensively, yet most fail to obtain non-trivial robustness when a large-scale model and data are present. To address these limitations, we introduce a framework that is scalable and provides certified bounds on the norm of the input manipulation for constructing adversarial examples. We establish a connection between robustness against adversarial perturbation and additive random noise, and propose a training strategy that can significantly improve the certified bounds. Our evaluation on MNIST, CIFAR-10 and ImageNet suggests that the proposed method is scalable to complicated models and large data sets, while providing competitive robustness to state-of-the-art provable defense methods.