Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Classifications in Brief: The Lenke Classification for Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a spine condition that causes deformity in the coronal, sagittal, and axial planes. It is defined as a coronal curvature > 10°. The condition affects individuals between 10 and 18 years of age [11]. AIS is a diagnosis of exclusion once neuromuscular, neural, congenital, and syndromic causes of scoliosis have been ruled out [9]. Although AIS occurs in approximately 2% to 3% of the adolescent population, treatment is only indicated in < 10% of patients. In 1983, King et al. [12] introduced the first AIS classification system. The system has five thoracic curve types with recommendations for specific vertebral levels for spinal arthrodesis. It soon became the standard classification system. In the late 1980s, with the evolution of screws and multiple hook systems that allowed increased coronal curve correction, several limitationswith theKing classification systembecame evident. The King classification system did not include triple curves nor did it take into account the central sacral line or sagittal plane. Type 2 and 3 curves in theKing system became difficult to distinguish, leading to postoperative spinal imbalances with newer implant systems. Research at the time also placedmore emphasis on the importance of sagittal plane balance, which was lacking in King’s description [3, 6]. Studies that looked at the reliability of King’s system also found only poor to fair reliability, validity, and reproducibility [5, 14]. One study that examined the validity of King’s system, led by Lawrence G. Lenke [14], concluded that the system was not sufficiently reliable and likely not helpful for guiding treatment with the spinal fixation methods available at that time. To address the limitations of King’s classification system, Lenke developed a new AIS system in 2001 [16].
Effects of PERK eIF2α Kinase Inhibitor against Toxoplasma gondii

Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that has infected one-third of the population. Upon infection of warm-blooded vertebrates, the replicating form of the parasite (tachyzoite) converts into a latent form (bradyzoite) present in tissue cysts. ABSTRACT Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite that has infected one-third of the population. Upon infection of warm-blooded vertebrates, the replicating form of the parasite (tachyzoite) converts into a latent form (bradyzoite) present in tissue cysts. During immune deficiency, bradyzoites can reconvert into tachyzoites and cause life-threatening toxoplasmosis. We previously reported that translational control through phosphorylation of the α subunit of T. gondii eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2α) (TgIF2α) is a critical component of the parasite stress response. Diverse stresses can induce the conversion of tachyzoites to bradyzoites, including those disrupting the parasite's endoplasmic reticulum (ER) (ER stress). Toxoplasma possesses four eIF2α kinases, one of which (TgIF2K-A) localizes to the parasite ER analogously to protein kinase R-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK), the eIF2α kinase that responds to ER stress in mammalian cells. Here, we investigated the effects of a PERK inhibitor (PERKi) on Toxoplasma. Our results show that the PERKi GSK2606414 blocks the enzymatic activity of TgIF2K-A and reduces TgIF2α phosphorylation specifically in response to ER stress. PERKi also significantly impeded multiple steps of the tachyzoite lytic cycle and sharply lowered the frequency of bradyzoite differentiation in vitro. Pretreatment of host cells with PERKi prior to infection did not affect parasite infectivity, and PERKi still impaired parasite replication in host cells lacking PERK. In mice, PERKi conferred modest protection from a lethal dose of Toxoplasma. Our findings represent the first pharmacological evidence supporting TgIF2K-A as an attractive new target for the treatment of toxoplasmosis.
A nomogram prediction for the survival of patients with triple negative breast cancer

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a subtype of breast cancer with poor prognosis. In this study, we aimed to conduct a nomogram to predict the survival of individual with TNBC by incorporating significant clinical and laboratory parameters. 404 TNBC patients from the Affiliated Union Hospital of Fujian Medical University between 2006 and 2012 were selected in the training cohort. Cox univariate and multivariate regression analyses were adopted to identify independent prognostic factors. The predictive accuracy and discriminative ability of this nomogram were evaluated by concordance index (C-index) and calibration curve. The accuracy of this nomogram was also compared with the 8th AJCC TNM staging system. An external validation cohort was further performed in an independent cohort of 200 patients between 2012 and 2014. Seven independent prognostic factors, including family history of breast cancer, tumor location, number of positive lymph nodes, histological grade, serum CEA, CA125 and CA153 were identified as independent prognostic factors. A nomogram incorporating these prognostic factors was subsequently conducted and the calibration plot on the probability for 3 or 5 years overall survival (OS) showed an optimal agreement between the nomogram prediction and actual observations. In addition, the C-index of this nomogram was higher than that of TNM staging system in both training and validation cohort (training cohort, 0.76 vs. 0.66, p<0.001 and validation cohort, 0.72 vs. 0.64, p=0.002, respectively). This proposed nomogram could provide more accurate individual prediction for the prognosis of the patients with TNBC and was able to help physicians to identify subgroups of patients at different risk and to decide who need intensive follow-up or additional treatment.
Maturational Changes of Delta Waves in Monozygotic and Dizygotic Infant Twins

Aims: To compare developmental changes of delta 1 (0.5-2.0 Hz) and delta 2 (2.25-3.75 Hz) power spectra between healthy monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs and among MZ and DZ twin groups during active/REM (AS/REM) and quiet/NREM (QS/NREM) sleep stages at 38th, 46th, and 52nd weeks of postmenstrual age (PMA). Materials and methods: Electroencephalography (EEG) recordings were analyzed using fast Fourier transforms. Differences in the developmental changes of delta power within twin pairs and between twin groups were estimated by calculating mean absolute differences of relative spectral values in delta 1 (0.5-2 Hz) and delta 2 (2.25-3.75 Hz) frequencies. Results: A review of electrodes showed that relative delta 1 power decreased, whereas delta 2 power increased from 38th toward 52nd week of PMA regardless of zygosity, sleep stages, and electrode position. Twin groups did not significantly differ (P > .05) in within-pair MZ and DZ similarity for delta 1 and delta 2 power spectra; similarity between MZ twin partners for delta 1 and delta 2 power spectra was as high as that of DZ twin partners on each electrode position, sleep stage, and period of measurement. Conclusions: Developmental changes of delta 1 and delta 2 power spectra occurred equally in MZ and DZ twin groups during AS and QS sleep stages at 38th, 46th, and 52th PMA. The rhythm of EEG maturation evidenced by the maturation of delta 1 and delta 2 power spectra was not dependent on zygosity.
EGCG inhibits CSC‐like properties through targeting miR‐485/CD44 axis in A549‐cisplatin resistant cells

Non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains one of the most aggressive tumors with low life expectancy worldwide. The existence of cancer stem cells (CSCs) contributes to the failure of cancer treatment resulted from drug resistance. Altered microRNA expression has been observed in human tumors due to its role in tumor growth, progression, and metastasis. Hence, the aim of our present study was to investigate the effects of miR‐485 on the CSC‐like traits in NSCLC A549‐cisplatin resistant cells and concentrate on the underlying molecular mechanism. It was found that CSC‐like phenotypes were much more enriched in A549/cisplatin (A549/CDDP) cells compared to A549‐parental cells. In addition, we observed that miR‐485 was greatly decreased in A549/CDDP cells and miR‐485 overexpression was able to decrease the stemness of A549/DDP cells. Meanwhile, epigallocatechin‐3‐gallate (EGCG), a green tea polyphenol which has been identified as an effective anticancer compound was able to increase miR‐485 expression dose‐dependently in A549/CDDP cells. Inhibitors of miR‐485 remarkably increased CSC‐like phenotypes, which could be reversed by indicated doses of EGCG. Moreover, CD44 was predicted as downstream target of miR‐485 and the correlation between them was validated by performing dual‐luciferase reporter assay and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assay. Subsequently, in vivo experiments were employed to confirm that EGCG restrained CSC‐like characteristics by increasing miR‐485 and decreasing CD44 expression. Taken together, it was implied that stemness features and CSC population were suppressed by EGCG‐modulated miR‐485/CD44 axis in A549/CDDP cells.
Targeted Nonlinear Adversarial Perturbations in Images and Videos

We introduce a method for learning adversarial perturbations targeted to individual images or videos. The learned perturbations are found to be sparse while at the same time containing a high level of feature detail. Thus, the extracted perturbations allow a form of object or action recognition and provide insights into what features the studied deep neural network models consider important when reaching their classification decisions. From an adversarial point of view, the sparse perturbations successfully confused the models into misclassifying, although the perturbed samples still belonged to the same original class by visual examination. This is discussed in terms of a prospective data augmentation scheme. The sparse yet high-quality perturbations may also be leveraged for image or video compression.
Structural and biochemical characterization of Plasmodium falciparum Hsp70‐x reveals functional versatility of its C‐terminal EEVN motif

Plasmodium falciparum, the main agent of malaria expresses six members of the heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) family. Hsp70s serve as protein folding facilitators in the cell. Amongst the six Hsp70 species that P. falciparum expresses, Hsp70‐x (PfHsp70‐x), is partially exported to the host red blood cell where it is implicated in host cell remodeling. Nearly 500 proteins of parasitic origin are exported to the parasite‐infected red blood cell (RBC) along with PfHsp70‐x. The role of PfHsp70‐x in the infected human RBC remains largely unclear. One of the defining features of PfHsp70‐x is the presence of EEVN residues at its C‐terminus. In this regard, PfHsp70‐x resembles canonical eukaryotic cytosol‐localized Hsp70s which possess EEVD residues at their C‐termini in place of the EEVN residues associated with PfHsp70‐x. The EEVD residues of eukaryotic Hsp70s facilitate their interaction with co‐chaperones. Characterization of the role of the EEVN residues of PfHsp70‐x could provide insights into the function of this protein. In the current study, we expressed and purified recombinant PfHsp70‐x (full length) and its EEVN minus form (PfHsp70‐xT). We then conducted structure‐ function assays towards establishing the role of the EEVN motif of PfHsp70‐x. Our findings suggest that the EEVN residues of PfHsp70‐x are important for its ATPase activity and chaperone function. Furthermore, the EEVN residues are crucial for the direct interaction between PfHsp70‐x and human Hsp70‐Hsp90 organizing protein (hHop) in vitro. Hop facilitates functional cooperation between Hsp70 and Hsp90. However, it remains to be established if PfHsp70‐x and hHsp90 cooperate in vivo.
Twin-GAN - Unpaired Cross-Domain Image Translation with Weight-Sharing GANs

We present a framework for translating unlabeled images from one domain into analog images in another domain. We employ a progressively growing skip-connected encoder-generator structure and train it with a GAN loss for realistic output, a cycle consistency loss for maintaining same-domain translation identity, and a semantic consistency loss that encourages the network to keep the input semantic features in the output. We apply our framework on the task of translating face images, and show that it is capable of learning semantic mappings for face images with no supervised one-to-one image mapping.
Grouping of nanomaterials to read-across hazard endpoints: a review

Abstract The use of non-testing strategies like read-across in the hazard assessment of chemicals and nanomaterials (NMs) is deemed essential to perform the safety assessment of all NMs in due time and at lower costs. The identification of physicochemical (PC) properties affecting the hazard potential of NMs is crucial, as it could enable to predict impacts from similar NMs and outcomes of similar assays, reducing the need for experimental (and in particular animal) testing. This manuscript presents a review of approaches and available case studies on the grouping of NMs to read-across hazard endpoints. We include in this review grouping frameworks aimed at identifying hazard classes depending on PC properties, hazard classification modules in control banding (CB) approaches, and computational methods that can be used for grouping for read-across. The existing frameworks and case studies are systematically reported. Relevant nanospecific PC properties taken into account in the reviewed frameworks to support grouping are shape and surface properties (surface chemistry or reactivity) and hazard classes are identified on the basis of biopersistence, morphology, reactivity, and solubility.
A New Method for the Assessment of Spatial Accuracy and Completeness of OpenStreetMap Building Footprints

OpenStreetMap (OSM) is currently the largest openly licensed collection of geospatial data, widely used in many projects as an alternative to or integrated with authoritative data. One of the main criticisms against this dataset is that, being a collaborative product created mainly by citizens without formal qualifications, its quality has not been assessed and therefore its usage can be questioned for some applications. This paper provides a map matching method to check the spatial accuracy of the building footprint layer, based on a comparison with a reference dataset. Moreover, from the map matching and a similarity check, buildings can be detected and therefore an index of completeness can also be computed. This process has been applied in Lombardy, a region in Northern Italy, covering an area of 23,900 km2 and comprising respectively about 1 million buildings in OSM and 2.8 million buildings in the authoritative dataset. The results of the comparison show that the positional accuracy of the OSM buildings is at least compatible with the quality of the reference dataset at the scale of 1:5000 since the average deviation, with respect to the authoritative map, is below the expected tolerance of 3 m. The analysis of completeness, given in terms of the number of buildings appearing in the authoritative dataset and not present in OSM, shows an average percentage in the whole region equal to 57%. However, worth noting that the opposite, namely the number of buildings in OSM and not in the reference dataset, is not zero, but corresponds to 9%. The OSM building map can therefore be considered to be a valid base map for direct use (territorial frameworks, map navigation, urban analysis, etc.) and for derived use (background for the production of thematic maps) in all those cases where an accuracy corresponding to 1:5000 is required. Moreover it could be used for integrating the authoritative map at this scale (or smaller) where it is not complete and a rigorous quality certification in terms of metric precision is not required.
Unsupervised Image Super-Resolution Using Cycle-in-Cycle Generative Adversarial Networks

We consider the single image super-resolution problem in a more general case that the low-/high-resolution pairs and the down-sampling process are unavailable. Different from traditional super-resolution formulation, the low-resolution input is further degraded by noises and blurring. This complicated setting makes supervised learning and accurate kernel estimation impossible. To solve this problem, we resort to unsupervised learning without paired data, inspired by the recent successful image-to-image translation applications. With generative adversarial networks (GAN) as the basic component, we propose a Cycle-in-Cycle network structure to tackle the problem within three steps. First, the noisy and blurry input is mapped to a noise-free low-resolution space. Then the intermediate image is up-sampled with a pre-trained deep model. Finally, we fine-tune the two modules in an end-to-end manner to get the high-resolution output. Experiments on NTIRE2018 datasets demonstrate that the proposed unsupervised method achieves comparable results as the state-of-the-art supervised models.
Barriers to using E Learning in an Advanced Way

E‑Learning has become a common way to teach and learn. The number of technologies for a variety of educational purposes is already quite high and constantly rising. Scientific experiments and studies increasingly confirm the usefulness of various technologies for teaching purposes. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of formal training and support of digital skills within faculty training. Studies that report the potential of E‑Learning are matched by those reporting the barriers. Universities throughout Europe have now established Learning Management Systems (LMS); instead of using these to their full potential, lecturers often just upload their syllabus and some reading material. At the same time, higher education institutions all over Europe are expected to implement innovative technologies and scenarios such as Open Educational Resources (OER) or Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), but only a small number of universities actually do so. What are the reasons for not utilizing the pedagogic potentials of E‑Learning? What findings does the current research provide on this topic? Which barriers can be derived from studies and what can be done to avoid them? What are the individual barriers of one institution or university? This contribution summarizes barriers that were identified in recent studies and discusses possible solutions to finding connections between barriers to mitigate the negative effects. It also describes a data collection method (group concept mapping) suitable for identifying the individual barriers at an institution or university using a study in the European ERASMUS+ project AduLeT (Advanced Use of Technologies in Higher Education) as an example.
Trivial Transfer Learning for Low-Resource Neural Machine Translation

Transfer learning has been proven as an effective technique for neural machine translation under low-resource conditions. Existing methods require a common target language, language relatedness, or specific training tricks and regimes. We present a simple transfer learning method, where we first train a “parent” model for a high-resource language pair and then continue the training on a low-resource pair only by replacing the training corpus. This “child” model performs significantly better than the baseline trained for low-resource pair only. We are the first to show this for targeting different languages, and we observe the improvements even for unrelated languages with different alphabets.
Clinical implication of spontaneous gastrointestinal perforation in pediatric patients: its difference according to age group

Purpose Spontaneous gastrointestinal perforations (SGIPs; not associated with injury or disease) occur rarely in pediatric patients. This study aimed to define age-specific features associated with SGIPs in pediatric patients. Methods Retrospectively reviewed the clinical data of children (before adolescence) who received surgery due to a SGIP at a single institution. Thirty-nine patients were enrolled. Characteristics were compared between the 2 age groups: neonates (group A) and beyond neonates (group B). Results Group A included 24 patients (61.5%) an group B included 15 patients (38.5%). Thirteen perforations occurred in the stomach (33.3%), 12 in the small intestine (30.8%), and 14 in the large intestine (35.9%). A significantly higher proportion of perforations occurred in the stomach and small intestine in group A, while more perforations occurred in the large intestine in group B (P = 0.01). Several associated conditions during the preoperative period were identified in both groups. The overall mortality rate was 15.4% (6 of 39). Mortality was relatively high in group A (5 of 24, 20.8%) and for perforations of stomach (3 of 13, 23.1%) and small intestine (3 of 12, 25.0%); however, there were no significant differences with regard to age or perforation site (P = 0.244, P = 0.122, respectively). Conclusion SGIPs in pediatric patients had diverse clinical features and different perforation patterns according to age group. However, no significant group differences in mortality were found. Thus, favorable results regardless of age can be expected with prompt recognition, medical resuscitation, and adequate surgical management.
Infant feeding practices in Soweto, South Africa: Implications for healthcare providers.

BACKGROUND The 2011 Tshwane Declaration for the Promotion of Breastfeeding in South Africa ended the country's longstanding support for promoting either exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) or exclusive formula feeding for HIV-positive mothers. However, South Africa's EBF rate is only 32%. OBJECTIVES To describe multilevel factors associated with different infant feeding practices among HIV-positive and negative mothers of infants aged <6 months in an HIV-endemic community. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was administered to 298 HIV-positive and negative mothers accessing care in one of five community health clinics in Soweto, Johannesburg, between September 2015 and May 2016. Infant feeding practices and associated factors were explored through descriptive and multivariate analysis. RESULTS Excluding HIV-positive mothers who chose formula feeding (n=97), breastfeeding initiation was almost universal (99.5%). Caesarean section (CS) was the most common reason mothers delayed breastfeeding. HIV-positive mothers were significantly more likely to report prolonged EBF (and formula feeding) practices than their HIV-negative counterparts. Breastfeeding mothers were significantly more likely to be unemployed than mothers who formula fed. Mixed feeding was common. CONCLUSIONS EBF remains strongly associated with HIV status as opposed to infant health and development. Breastfeeding support for working mothers is needed. While breastfeeding increased following the Declaration, more should be done in the health setting to communicate the risks of mixed feeding in the first 6 months. The high rate of CSs reported by mothers, linked to late initiation of breastfeeding, also needs the medical community's attention.
RecipeQA: A Challenge Dataset for Multimodal Comprehension of Cooking Recipes

Understanding and reasoning about cooking recipes is a fruitful research direction towards enabling machines to interpret procedural text. In this work, we introduce RecipeQA, a dataset for multimodal comprehension of cooking recipes. It comprises of approximately 20K instructional recipes with multiple modalities such as titles, descriptions and aligned set of images. With over 36K automatically generated question-answer pairs, we design a set of comprehension and reasoning tasks that require joint understanding of images and text, capturing the temporal flow of events and making sense of procedural knowledge. Our preliminary results indicate that RecipeQA will serve as a challenging test bed and an ideal benchmark for evaluating machine comprehension systems. The data and leaderboard are available at http://hucvl.github. io/recipeqa.