Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Posterior capsular complication rates with femtosecond laser-assisted cataract surgery: a consecutive comparative cohort and literature review

Purpose The aim of the study was to determine whether femtosecond-assisted laser cataract surgery (FLACS) reduces the posterior capsular complication (PCC) rate compared to manual cataract surgery when performed by an experienced surgeon. Patients and methods We reviewed 2,021 consecutive FLACS procedures between 1 June 2012 and 30 August 2017. All cases of posterior capsular rupture (PCR) with or without vitreous prolapse or zonular dialysis (ZD) that prevented an in-the-bag placement of the intraocular lens were included. Risk factors were noted and outcomes documented. Results Six eyes of 2,021 (0.3%) who underwent FLACS had either a PCR or ZD. One eye (0.25%) of 403 eyes that had manual cataract surgery had a PCR. There was no significant difference in outcomes. Risk factors included advanced age, dense nuclei, pseudoexfoliation and small pupil. Only a single case in the FLACS series may have been directly attributed to the FLACS procedure. Conclusion This study provides evidence that there is no significant difference in the PCC rate between FLACS and manual cataract surgery in the hand of an experienced surgeon who performs >350 cases annually. This low rate of complications may be achieved by less experienced surgeons adopting FLACS.
Instrumental Variable Based Kalman Filter Algorithm for Three-Dimensional AOA Target Tracking

This letter presents a new three-dimensional (3-D) instrumental variable based Kalman filter (3D-IVKF) algorithm for angle-of-arrival target tracking from azimuth and elevation angle measurements. First, a 3-D pseudolinear Kalman filter (KF) algorithm is derived by applying the classical linear KF to a pseudolinear state-space model. To counter the severe bias problems with this algorithm, bias compensation and recursive instrumental variable (IV) methods are considered. A selective-angle-measurement strategy is also adopted to satisfy requisite conditions for IV estimation. The resulting 3D-IVKF algorithm inherits the low computational complexity and robust performance of pseudolinear estimation techniques. It is shown through simulation examples that the 3D-IVKF algorithm can achieve a similar tracking performance to the sigma-point KFs by producing a negligible bias and a mean-square error close to the posterior Cramér–Rao lower bound at a much reduced computational complexity, while outperforming the extended KFs at high noise levels.
COSS Losses in 600 V GaN Power Semiconductors in Soft-Switched, High- and Very-High-Frequency Power Converters

We report losses from charging and discharging the parasitic output capacitor, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm C}_{\rm OSS}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, in Gallium Nitride (GaN) power devices with voltage ratings over 600 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm V}_{\rm DS}$</tex-math></inline-formula> . These losses are of particular importance in soft-switched circuits used at MHz switching frequencies, where the output capacitance of the device is charged and discharged once per switching cycle during the device's off-time. This process is assumed lossless. We measure <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm C}_{\rm OSS}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> losses from 5–35 MHz sine, square, and Class-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX"> $\Phi _{2}$</tex-math></inline-formula> waveshapes in enhancement-mode and cascode devices, and find that losses are present in all tested devices, equal or greater than conduction losses at MHz frequencies, and exponentially increasing with <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathbf{dV/dt}$</tex-math></inline-formula>. The cascode device outperforms the e-mode devices under 300 V, but the e-mode devices are preferred above this operating voltage. Furthermore, we show that, within a device family, losses scale linearly with output energy storage. Packaging appears to have only a minor effect on these losses. Finally, we demonstrate 10 MHz, 200 W dc–dc converters with varying device configurations, showing that, even with constant circulating currents, moving to larger devices with lower <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm R}_{\rm DS,ON}$</tex-math> </inline-formula> actually degrades efficiency in certain applications due to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\rm C}_{\rm OSS}$</tex-math></inline-formula> losses. In the high-voltage, high-frequency range, these reported losses must be optimized simultaneously with conduction losses on a per-application basis.
Islands Determination for Parallel Power System Restoration using Heuristic Based Strategy

Parallel power system restoration after total or widearea blackout is commonly implemented by power utilities to speed up the restoration time. The procedure involves sectionalizing the affected system into a number of sub-systems or islands. This paper describes a heuristic based strategy to determine number of islands based on lowest total restoration time, TRT. The strategy involves a searching method to identify cut-set (set of transmission lines that separate blackout system to islands). The main objective of the strategy is to search the optimum lines of the cut-set which create islands with almost similar parallel restoration time. Thus, the total restoration time for complete system interconnection can be significantly reduced. Physical properties and operation data of affected system are employed in the proposed method to assist the searching process using the graph theory model. Other than that, restoration constraints such as load power generation balance and availability of black start generators are considered. Load flow analysis is carried out on the selected islands to ensure that the voltage profile stability performance is in the acceptable range. IEEE 39-bus and 118-bus system are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in determining number of islands. Promising results in terms bf TRT was compared to other methods reported in the literature.
A survey of current surgical treatment of early stage breast cancer in China

The purpose of this national survey is to explore the patterns of surgical management for early stage breast cancer patients in China. A paper questionnaire survey was sent to the representatives from 520 hospitals who attended an international symposium in Guangzhou, China, 2014. The questionnaire included demographic information, initials and most preferred approaches for breast cancer surgery. The results were presented descriptively. The response rate was 42.5%. Only 7% of hospitals with >50% rate of breast conserving surgery (BCS). Intraoperative frozen sections and additional cavity margins assessment were used at 88% and 30.9% of hospitals, respectively. For invasive carcinoma, 15% of participants defined an adequate margin as no tumor cells on the ink. Sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB) was routinely performed in 93.2% of hospitals. Only 16.6% of hospitals would embrace the conclusions of the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group (ACOSOG) Z0011 study and omit axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) for patients who fit the Z0011 criteria. The current patterns for the management of breast cancer patients are still lagging behind. Chinese doctors need to catch up with the updated results of the cutting-edge clinical studies and multiple measures are in need to improve this situation.
Diagnostic benefits of the combined use of liquid-based cytology, cell block, and carcinoembryonic antigen immunocytochemistry in malignant pleural effusion.

Background Malignant pleural effusion (MPE) is a common complication of cancer cell metastasis to the pleura. Discrimination between MPE and benign pleural effusion is necessary to design treatment strategies. Cytology is important for the diagnosis of MPE. Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) is an epithelial biomarker with a strong staining pattern in adenocarcinomas. Here, the diagnostic performances of liquid-based cytology (LBC), cell block (CB) preparation, and CEA immunostaining for the detection of malignancy in effusion cytology were compared in a large case series. Methods In a single institution, 1,014 cytology samples from 862 patients were retrospectively collected and reviewed between January 2013 and November 2015. Ethanol-fixed, paraffin embedded CB of pleural effusions was analyzed by CEA immunostaining. Diagnostic values were compared among LBC, CB, CEA immunostaining, and the combination of two methods. Results The sensitivity and specificity of the CB preparation were 94.3% and 98.7%, respectively, compared with 81.3% and 99.4% for LBC preparations, respectively. Combination of LBC and CB increased sensitivity by 98.3%. Although the accuracy of CEA staining itself was moderate (sensitivity, 89.8%), the combined use of CB and CEA tumor marker increased the detection rate of malignancy (sensitivity, 100%; specificity, 100%), compared with that of cytology (LBC or CB) alone. Conclusions The sensitivity and specificity for the diagnosis of MPE could be improved by integrating the CB and CEA staining into LBC in routine clinical practice to improve diagnostic accuracy.
CAMONET: Moth-Flame Optimization (MFO) Based Clustering Algorithm for VANETs

A network aggregated of wirelessly connected vehicles is recognized as vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). Clustering in vehicular network is a technique among many others, which targets to improve communication proficiency in VANETs. In each cluster, there is one cluster head (CH) used to manage the whole cluster. All the communications are accomplished by the CHs, i.e., inter-cluster and the intra-cluster communications. The efficiency of a network is measured by number of CHs, load on each CH and lifetime of clusters. In this paper, a novel Clustering Algorithm centered on Moth-Flame Optimization for VANETs (CAMONET) is anticipated. This is a nature-inspired algorithm. CAMONET generates optimized clusters for robust transmission. CAMONET is evaluated experimentally with renowned techniques, such as multiobjective particle swarm optimization, clustering algorithm based on ant colony optimization for VANETs, and comprehensive learning particle swarm optimization. To assess the comparative efficiency of these algorithms, numerous experiments are performed. The results are accomplished by modifying the values of grid size of the network, the number of nodes in the network, and the transmission range of nodes. The speed, direction, and transmission range of the nodes are the notable factors considered for optimized clustering. The results indicate that CAMONET delivers near optimal results that develops it into an efficient method to perform vehicular clustering in order to improve the overall performance of the network.
Uric Acid and Risk of Atrial Fibrillation in the Korean General Population.

BACKGROUND Increased serum uric acid is associated with prevalence and incidence of atrial fibrillation (AF), but there is a lack of studies on the association between serum uric acid and risk of AF in the general population. Methods and Results: We used the data from the Kangbuk Samsung Hospital health screening cohort recorded between 2002 and 2015. The primary outcome was incidence of AF diagnosed on 12-lead electrocardiography. We analyzed and compared the hazard ratios (HR) according to baseline serum uric acid quartiles. The present study involved 282,473 subjects without baseline AF. Mean follow-up was 5.4±3.6 years. During follow-up, AF was identified in 365 subjects (cumulative incidence, 0.13%). After multivariable adjustment, including that for C-reactive protein, the risk of AF was significantly higher in the upper 2 quartiles than in the lowest quartile in men (upper third quartile: adjusted HR, 1.53; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.11-2.89; highest quartile: HR, 1.60; 95% CI: 1.13-2.25). In women, even though AF incidence rate was very low (0.6 of 10,000 person-years), the risk of AF in the highest quartile was 6.93-fold that in the lowest quartile (95% CI: 1.53-31.29). CONCLUSIONS Serum uric acid is significantly and positively associated with incident AF in the Korean general population.
Multiperiod Network Rate Allocation With End-to-End Delay Constraints

QoS-aware networking applications such as real-time streaming and video surveillance systems require nearly fixed average end-to-end delay over long periods to communicate efficiently, although may tolerate some delay variations in short periods. This variability exhibits complex dynamics that makes rate control of such applications a formidable task. This paper addresses rate allocation for heterogeneous QoS-aware applications that preserves the long-term end-to-end delay constraint while seeking the maximum network utility cumulated over a fixed time interval. To capture the temporal dynamics of sources, we incorporate a novel time-coupling constraint in which delay sensitivity of sources is considered such that a certain end-to-end average delay for each source over a prespecified time interval is satisfied. We propose an algorithm, as a dual-based solution, which allocates source rates for the next time interval in a distributed fashion, given the knowledge of network parameters in advance. Also, we extend the algorithm to the case that the problem data is not known fully in advance to capture more realistic scenarios. Through numerical experiments, we show that our proposed algorithm attains higher average link utilization and a wider range of feasible scenarios in comparison with the best, to our knowledge, rate control schemes that may guarantee such constraints on delay.
Effects of Task Repetition on L2 Oral (in Written Form) Production in Computer-Mediated Communication

The purpose of this study was to develop a three-phase integrative task-based course for achieving communicative effectiveness in two aspects. One aspect was to combine E-simulation with Facebook online chat in a computerised environment. E-activities may not only captivate participants and allow them to be immersed in friendly user interfaces, but also permit participants to engage in pre-task and online planning. Consequently, E-activities may enhance production performance in the complexity and accuracy dimensions, which were based on those described in previous studies. The other aspect was to observe the effects on the L2 production of learners according to the aforementioned computer-mediated communication (CMC) settings by manipulating task repetition. Whereas rehearsal can improve the performance of a task, it was also used to distinguish between the differences among tasks performed with the same partner or with a different partner. The theory of task-based language learning and teaching (TBLT) w.
Tumor mutational burden (TMB) as a biomarker of response to immunotherapy in small cell lung cancer.

Tumors avoid immune surveillance by inactivating various T-cell cytotoxic pathways that can promote cell death (1-3). Cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) and programmed death 1 (PD-1) are expressed primarily on cytotoxic T lymphocytes. In contrast, programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) is expressed on antigen-presenting lymphoid and non-lymphoid tissues, on tumor cells, and on virus-infected cells.
Open Source Tool for VH-replacement Products Discovery and Analysis

In this project an open source tool for discovery and analysis of abnormal immunoglobulin genes rearrangements was developed. The main goal is in finding so-called “footprints” - small parts of incompletely rearranged V-segments in IGH genes. Joint usage of publicly available databases, on-line markup IMGT V-Quest and clonal families analyzer Partis allowed to prepare an informative dataset, which was processed via the developed tool. A few dependencies between patient phenotype and footprints statistics were discovered.
The hallmarks of successful anticancer immunotherapy

Various features of the tumor and immune system influence the success of immunotherapy. Immunotherapy is revolutionizing the clinical management of multiple tumors. However, only a fraction of patients with cancer responds to immunotherapy, and currently available immunotherapeutic agents are expensive and generally associated with considerable toxicity, calling for the identification of robust predictive biomarkers. The overall genomic configuration of malignant cells, potentially favoring the emergence of immunogenic tumor neoantigens, as well as specific mutations that compromise the ability of the immune system to recognize or eradicate the disease have been associated with differential sensitivity to immunotherapy in preclinical and clinical settings. Along similar lines, the type, density, localization, and functional orientation of the immune infiltrate have a prominent impact on anticancer immunity, as do features of the tumor microenvironment linked to the vasculature and stroma, and systemic factors including the composition of the gut microbiota. On the basis of these considerations, we outline the hallmarks of successful anticancer immunotherapy.
Multiple Pregnancy: Epidemiology and Association with Maternal and Perinatal Morbidity

Abstract Twin pregnancy accounts for 2 to 4% of total births, with a prevalence ranging from 0.9 to 2.4% in Brazil. It is associated with worse maternal and perinatal outcomes. Many conditions, such as severe maternal morbidity (SMM) (potentially life-threatening conditions and maternal near-miss) and neonatal near-miss (NNM) still have not been properly investigated in the literature. The difficulty in determining the conditions associated with twin pregnancy probably lies in its relatively low occurrence and the need for larger population studies. The use of the whole population and of databases from large multicenter studies, therefore, may provide unprecedented results. Since it is a rare condition, it is more easily evaluated using vital statistics from birth e-registries. Therefore, we have performed a literature review to identify the characteristics of twin pregnancy in Brazil and worldwide. Twin pregnancy has consistently been associated with SMM, maternal near-miss (MNM) and perinatal morbidity, with still worse results for the second twin, possibly due to some characteristics of the delivery, including safety and availability of appropriate obstetric care to women at a high risk of perinatal complications.
Covariance Matrix Reconstruction With Interference Steering Vector and Power Estimation for Robust Adaptive Beamforming

To ensure link reliability and signal receiving quality, robust adaptive beamforming (RAB) is vital important in mobile communications. In this paper, we propose a new RAB algorithm based on interference-plus-noise covariance (INC) matrix reconstruction and steering vector (SV) estimation. In this method, the INC matrix is reconstructed by estimating all interferences SVs and powers, as well as the noise power. The interference SVs are estimated by using the Capon spatial spectrum together with robust Capon beamforming principle, subsequently the interference powers are estimated based on the orthogonality between different signal SVs. On the other hand, the desired signal SV is estimated via maximizing the beamformer output power by solving a quadratic convex optimization problem. The proposed algorithm only needs to know in advance the array geometry and angular sector, in which the desired signal lies. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing RAB techniques in terms of the overall performance in cases of various mismatches.
The dawn of precision medicine in HIV: state of the art of pharmacotherapy

ABSTRACT Introduction: Combination antiretroviral therapy (ART) reduces viral load to under the limit of detection, successfully decreasing HIV-related morbidity and mortality. Due to viral mutations, complex drug combinations and different patient response, there is an increasing demand for individualized treatment options for patients. Areas covered: This review first summarizes the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic profile of clinical first-line drugs, which serves as guidance for antiretroviral precision medicine. Factors which have influential effects on drug efficacy and thus precision medicine are discussed: patients’ pharmacogenetic information, virus mutations, comorbidities, and immune recovery. Furthermore, strategies to improve the application of precision medicine are discussed. Expert opinion: Precision medicine for ART requires comprehensive information on the drug, virus, and clinical data from the patients. The clinically available genetic tests are a good starting point. To better apply precision medicine, deeper knowledge of drug concentrations, HIV reservoirs, and efficacy associated genes, such as polymorphisms of drug transporters and metabolizing enzymes, are required. With advanced computer-based prediction systems which integrate more comprehensive information on pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, pharmacogenomics, and the clinically relevant information of the patients, precision medicine will lead to better treatment choices and improved disease outcomes.
ApproxFTL: On the Performance and Lifetime Improvement of 3-D NAND Flash-Based SSDs

3-D NAND flash is one of the most prospective advances in flash memory industry. While 3-D flash improves cell density and reduces lithography cost through die stacking, it suffers from severe program disturbance, which leads to significant performance and lifetime degradation for 3-D flash-based SSDs. To address the above challenge, we propose ApproxFTL, an approximate-write aware flash translation layer design, that uses approximate-write operations to store error-resilient data of modern applications. By reducing the maximal threshold voltage and tightening the guard bands between multilevel cell states, approximate write operations not only finish early but also exhibit large disturbance reduction, which can be exploited to alleviate disturbance in physical blocks that save both precise and approximate data. ApproxFTL maximizes the disturbance mitigation through approximate-write aware data placement, wear leveling, and garbage collection enhancements. Our experimental results show that ApproxFTL, while preserving high data quality, improves the read and write response time of flash accesses by 41.38% and 45.64% on average, respectively, and extends the lifetime of 3-D flash-based SSDs by 5.75% when comparing to the state-of-the-art.
Crime Scene Prediction by Detecting Threatening Objects Using Convolutional Neural Network

Crime scene prediction without human intervention can have outstanding impact on computer vision. In this paper, we present CNN (Convolutional Neural Network) in the use of detect knife, blood and gun from an image. Detecting these threatening objects from image can give us a prediction whether a crime occurred or not and from where the image is taken. We emphasized on the accuracy of detection so that it hardly gives us wrong alert to ensure efficient use of the system. This model use Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU), Convolutional Layer, Fully connected layer and dropout function of CNN to reach a result for the detection. We use Tensorflow, a open source platform to implement CNN to achieve our expected output. The proposed model achieves 90.2% accuracy for the tested dataset.