Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relation of mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width levels with the severity of preeclampsia

Objective: We aimed to evaluate the alterations of platelet indices such as mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width in preeclampsia and normotensive pregnant women. Methods: This retrospective evaluation consisted of 45 preeclamptic pregnancies and 50 healthy singleton normotensive pregnancies matched for the maternal age and week of gestation admitted to our clinic between January 2012 and June 2013. The data regarding the hemoglobin level, platelet count, mean platelet volume, and platelet distribution width were analyzed. Results: Mean platelet count was 194.450±67.240/mm and 232.860±65.260/mm in preeclamptic and control groups, respectively (p=0.029). Mean platelet volume values were 10.20±1.25 and 9.91±1.95 fL in preeclamptic and control groups, respectively (p=0.04). Mean platelet distribution width values were 16.54±0.71 and 16.42±1.99 in preeclamptic and control groups, respectively (p=0.650). Mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width values were inversely related with platelet counts (p<0.05). There was a correlation, but not very strong, between mean platelet volume values and mean arterial pressure. Mean platelet volume value was correlated with proteinuria, and so with the severity of preeclampsia (p<0.05). Platelet distribution width values were also significantly correlated with proteinuria (p<0.05). Conclusion: Mean platelet volume and platelet distribution width values are increased with the severity of preeclampsia.
VideoCapsuleNet: A Simplified Network for Action Detection

The recent advances in Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (DCNNs) have shown extremely good results for video human action classification, however, action detection is still a challenging problem. The current action detection approaches follow a complex pipeline which involves multiple tasks such as tube proposals, optical flow, and tube classification. In this work, we present a more elegant solution for action detection based on the recently developed capsule network. We propose a 3D capsule network for videos, called VideoCapsuleNet: a unified network for action detection which can jointly perform pixel-wise action segmentation along with action classification. The proposed network is a generalization of capsule network from 2D to 3D, which takes a sequence of video frames as input. The 3D generalization drastically increases the number of capsules in the network, making capsule routing computationally expensive. We introduce capsule-pooling in the convolutional capsule layer to address this issue which makes the voting algorithm tractable. The routing-by-agreement in the network inherently models the action representations and various action characteristics are captured by the predicted capsules. This inspired us to utilize the capsules for action localization and the class-specific capsules predicted by the network are used to determine a pixel-wise localization of actions. The localization is further improved by parameterized skip connections with the convolutional capsule layers and the network is trained end-to-end with a classification as well as localization loss. The proposed network achieves sate-of-the-art performance on multiple action detection datasets including UCF-Sports, J-HMDB, and UCF-101 (24 classes) with an impressive ~20% improvement on UCF-101 and ~15% improvement on J-HMDB in terms of v-mAP scores.
Mudança e colapso no Litoral Fluminense: os sambaquieiros e o s outros no Complexo Lagunar de Saquarema, RJ

A pesquisa teve por objetivo compreender os grupos sambaquieiros que ocuparam o Complexo Lagunar de Saquarema entre 6.600-1.500 anos cal AP. Foi construido um modelo onde dois fatores, mudanca ambiental e contato intersocietal, influenciaram o processo de transformacao sociocultural verificado entre os grupos sambaquieiros. Paralelo as mudancas dos recursos e na pratica de edificacao dos mounds, observou-se mudanca na tecnologia da industria litica. Associada a esta mudanca tecnologica, novas praticas funerarias tambem foram introduzidas como a cremacao e a manipulacao de ossos humanos. Assim, por volta de 2.000 anos cal AP, esse contato, somado a um processo que ja vinha se desenvolvendo no interior do sistema, marcou o inicio do colapso da sociedade sambaquiana no Complexo Lagunar de Saquarema.
Hybrid Approach to Ensure Data Confidentiality and Tampered Data Recovery for RFID Tag

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an emerging wireless object identification technology with many potential applications such as supply chain management, personnel tracking and healthcare. However, security vulnerabilities of the RFID system have been a serious concern for its wide adoption in many applications. Although there are lots of work to provide privacy and anonymity, little focus has been given to ensure confidentiality and integrity of RFID tag data. To this end, we propose a lightweight hybrid approach based on stenographic and watermarking to ensure data confidentiality, linkability resistance and integrity on the RFID tags data. The proposed technique is capable of tampered data recovering and restoring for RFID tag. It has been validated and tested on EPC class 1 gen2 tags.
Measuring Cortisol in the Classroom with School-Aged Children—A Systematic Review and Recommendations

The collection of salivary cortisol has been chosen as one of the least intrusive, easiest to collect, analyze, and store methods of obtaining information on physiological changes. It is, however, not clear what the best practice is when collecting salivary cortisol from children within the school setting. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the feasibility of cortisol collection in schools for future research and to make recommendations for best practice. The review included 25 peer-reviewed articles from seven databases. The hypotheses of the included studies vary, but they all use cortisol as a diurnal, baseline, or acute measure, or to measure the effect of an intervention. Two methods of salivary cortisol collection were preferred by most of the research, i.e., passive drool or cotton Salivettes. The review has concluded that cortisol is a physiological marker that can be successfully measured in school-based research. However, there are discrepancies across studies when evaluating the collection guidelines, protocols, and instructions to participants as well as transparency of the success rate of obtaining all samples. Recommendations are made for future research to address and avoid such discrepancies and improve cross-study comparisons by implementing standard protocol guidelines.
Modeling the Random Orientation of Mobile Devices: Measurement, Analysis and LiFi Use Case

Light-fidelity (LiFi) is a networked optical wireless communication (OWC) solution for high-speed indoor connectivity for fixed and mobile optical communications. Unlike conventional radio frequency wireless systems, the OWC channel is not isotropic, meaning that the device orientation affects the channel gain significantly, particularly for mobile users. However, due to the lack of a proper model for device orientation, many studies have assumed that the receiver is vertically upward and fixed. In this paper, a novel model for device orientation based on experimental measurements of 40 participants has been proposed. It is shown that the probability density function (PDF) of the polar angle can be modeled either based on a Laplace (for static users) or a Gaussian (for mobile users) distribution. In addition, a closed-form expression is obtained for the PDF of the cosine of the incidence angle based on which the line-of-sight (LOS) channel gain is described in OWC channels. An approximation of this PDF based on the truncated Laplace is proposed and the accuracy of this approximation is confirmed by the Kolmogorov–Smirnov distance. Moreover, the statistics of the LOS channel gain are calculated and the random orientation of a user equipment (UE) is modeled as a random process. The influence of the random orientation on signal-to-noise-ratio performance of OWC systems has been evaluated. Finally, an orientation-based random waypoint (ORWP) mobility model is proposed by considering the random orientation of the UE during the user’s movement. The performance of ORWP is assessed on the handover rate and it is shown that it is important to take the random orientation into account.
Anti-proliferative diterpenes from Dacrycarpus imbricatus

Abstract A new diterpene, cassipouryl hexadecanoate (2), in addition to the cassipourol (1) and four terpenes (3–6) were isolated from the twigs and leaves of Dacrycarpus imbricatus (Blume) de Laub. The structures of the two monocyclic diterpenes (1, 2), were elucidated on the basic of 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopic data and compared with the literature. These two monocyclic diterpenes (1, 2) were tested for their anti-proliferative activity on acute myeloid leukemia (OCI-AML) cells. The results showed that 1 had significantly anti-proliferative activity whereas 2 was weakly active.
Screening for Sexually Transmitted Infections After Cervical Cancer Screening Guideline and Medicaid Policy Changes: A Population-based Analysis

Background: Sexually transmitted infection (STI) screening prevents complications and is cost-effective. Annual screening is recommended in sexually active women below 25 years and older women at increased risk. Cervical cancer (CC) screening guideline changes in 2009 and 2012 recommended less frequent screening, causing concern that STI screening would decrease. Pennsylvania Medicaid implemented a family planning program in 2007 which covered women’s health services (including STI testing) for uninsured women. It is unclear how STI screening was affected by these countervailing forces. Objective: The main objective of this study was to assess STI screening before and after CC screening guideline changes and family planning program implementation, and to determine factors associated with STI screening. Research Design: This study was an observational cross-sectional study of Pennsylvania Medicaid administrative claims from 2007 to 2013. Subjects: Sixteen-year-old to 30-year-old women enrolled in Pennsylvania Medicaid. Measures: Annual STI screening, defined as receipt of ≥1 STI test in respective 1-year periods. Results: Our population included 1,226,079 women-years for 467,143 women. STI screening increased by 48% between 2007 and 2011, and stabilized by 2013. Odds for STI screening were higher among black compared with white women [adjusted odds ratio (AOR), 2.56; 95% confidence interval (CI), 2.60–3.10]; Hispanic compared with non-Hispanic women (AOR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.39–1.46); family planning program enrollees (AOR, 1.42; 95% CI, 1.40–1.45); and urban compared with rural residents (AOR, 1.05; 95% CI, 1.03–1.06). Conclusions: STI screening dramatically increased between 2007 and 2011. Potential reasons are family planning program implementation, increased urine/vaginal testing, and reporting improvements. It is reassuring that STI screening did not decrease despite CC screening guideline changes. Between 2011 and 2013, rates stabilized at 45% among all women and 60% among sexually active women below 25 years, suggesting opportunities for improvement.
Cannabinoid WIN-55,212-2 mesylate inhibits tumor necrosis factor-α-induced expression of nitric oxide synthase in dorsal root ganglion neurons

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) is an established pain modulator in the peripheral nervous system. Elevated levels of TNF-α in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons reportedly is critical for neuropathic pain processing. It has been shown that the production of nitric oxide, a key player in the development and maintenance of nociception, depends on the expression of nitric oxide synthases (NOSs) and their activities. Accumulating evidence also supports an important role of cannabinoids in modulating neuropathic pain. In this study, we explored the effects and the underlying mechanisms of crosstalk between TNF-α and cannabinoid on the expression/activity of NOS in DRG neurons. With or without knockdown of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK), DRG neurons were treated with TNF-α in the presence or absence of synthetic cannabinoid WIN-55,212-2 mesylate (WIN-55) and selective cannabinoid receptor (CB) antagonists. TNF-α significantly increased the NOS activity as well as the mRNA stability and expression of neuronal NOS (nNOS) in DRG neurons; this was abolished by inhibiting p38 MAPK signaling. WIN-55 inhibited TNF-α-induced p38 MAPK activity as well as TNF-α-induced increase of mRNA stability and expression/activity of nNOS; the inhibitory effect of WIN-55 was blocked by a selective CB2 antagonist. Our findings suggest that TNF-α induces the expression/activity of nNOS in DRG neurons by increasing its mRNA stability by a p38 MAPK-dependent mechanism; WIN-55 inhibits this effect of TNF-α by inhibiting p38 MAPK via CB2. By linking the functions of TNF-α, NOS and cannabinoid in DRG neurons, this study adds new insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying the pharmacologic effects of cannabinoids on neuropathic pain as well as into the pathophysiology of neuropathic pain.
STS Classification with Dual-stream CNN

The structured time series (STS) classification problem requires the modeling of interweaved spatiotemporal dependency. most previous STS classification methods model the spatial and temporal dependencies independently. Due to the complexity of the STS data, we argue that a desirable STS classification method should be a holistic framework that can be made as adaptive and flexible as possible. This motivates us to design a deep neural network with such merits. Inspired by the dual-stream hypothesis in neural science, we propose a novel dual-stream framework for modeling the interweaved spatiotemporal dependency, and develop a convolutional neural network within this framework that aims to achieve high adaptability and flexibility in STS configurations from various diagonals, i.e., sequential order, dependency range and features. The proposed architecture is highly modularized and scalable, making it easy to be adapted to specific tasks. The effectiveness of our model is demonstrated through experiments on synthetic data as well as benchmark datasets for skeleton based activity recognition.
Hammondia sp . oocysts shed by a Brazilian fox ( Lycalopex vetulus ) differ from Hammondia heydorni and Hammondia triffittae

A Brazilian fox (Lycalopex vetulus) was rescued from a highway, and 16 days after maintained in captivity, the fox shed oocysts with sizes compatible with Hammondia sp. and Neospora caninum. DNA extracted from oocysts were initially tested in two PCRs targeting the internal transcribed spacer 1 (ITS-1) of the rDNA ofHammondia heydorni and the Nc-5 gene ofN. caninum. A 270-bp product was visualized in the PCR forH. heydorni. No amplification was observed for N. caninum PCR. Since ITS-1based PCR is not sufficient to differentiateHammondia species derived from canids, oocyst DNAwas examined usingmultilocus sequence analysis of five genetic fragments [intron 1 of the alpha tubulin gene (intron 1), internal transcribed spaces 1 and 2 (ITS1 and ITS-2) of the rDNA, 28S rRNA gene (D2/D3 domain), and heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70)]. The Hammondia sp. oocyst from the Brazilian fox, referred here as H-FOXBR isolate, is closely related toH. heydorni and Hammondia triffittae, but differs from these parasites in three genetic markers (alpha tubulin gene, ITS-2, and 28S rRNA). As reported by other research groups, Hammondia spp. excreted by canids are genetically diverse and may encompass additional species besides H. heydorni and H. triffittae. In this study, we confirmed that H-FOXBR has significant genetic differences in comparison to H. heydorni and H. triffittae and may represent a separate species. Further studies are needed to identify the life cycle of this parasite and to characterize the parasite stages in the intermediate and definitive hosts.
Personalized Classiﬁer for Food Image Recognition

—Currently, food image recognition tasks are evaluated against ﬁxed datasets. However, in real-world conditions, there are cases in which the number of samples in each class continues to increase and samples from novel classes appear. In particular, dynamic datasets in which each individual user creates samples and continues the updating process often have content that varies considerably between different users, and the number of samples per person is very limited. A single classiﬁer common to all users cannot handle such dynamic data. Bridging the gap between the laboratory environment and the real world has not yet been accomplished on a large scale. Personalizing a classiﬁer incrementally for each user is a promising way to do this. In this paper, we address the personalization problem, which involves adapting to the user’s domain incrementally using a very limited number of samples. We propose a simple yet effective personalization framework which is a combination of the nearest class mean classiﬁer and the 1-nearest neighbor classiﬁer based on deep features. To conduct realistic experiments, we made use of a new dataset of daily food images collected by a food-logging application. Experimental results show that our proposed method signiﬁcantly outperforms existing methods.
Brain Targeting Potential of Intravenous Carbamazepine SNEDDS

Purpose: The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of nano-droplets of Self Nano Emulsifying Drug Delivery System to diffuse into the brain tissue. Methods: The preconcentrate was prepared by dissolving oils, surfactants and cosolvents in 1:1 mixture of methanol and chloroform and flash evaporated at 50°C and was stored at room temperature until their use in subsequent studies. CSEDD with surfactant polysorbate-80 were radiolabel led with radioactive C18 triglyceride. The nanodroplets formed by CSEDD in 5% dextrose were subjected to evaluation in blood and brain. Results: The intravenous pharmacokinetics of carbamazepine in rats of CSEDD formulation generated high initial serum levels (5.25 mcg/ml) at 0.25 h when compared to C-Sol (3.91 mcg/ml) at 0.5 h. It was found that oil to surfactant ratio had an impact on the physical characteristics of the nano-emulsion formed. The brain levels of CBZ from optimized CSEDD were significantly high at all-time points when compared to plain solution. The initial levels of CBZ from CSEDD was 8.023 mcg/ml thereafter the levels were consistently high till 8 h and the initial levels of CBZ from plain solution was 3.62 mcg/ml followed by a gradual decline till 4 h evidently showing that the clearance of CBZ from CSEDD was reduced. The brain targeting index of CSEDD and solution were 3 and 2 respectively. The brain enhancement factor value was found to be 22.29 at 15 min revealing a very rapid penetration of CBZ into brain. Conclusions: This study proposes intravenous CSEDD as a new brain delivery system and highlights two requirements to design adequate delivery systems for long circulating properties of the carrier and appropriate surface characteristics to allow interactions with BBB endothelial cells.
Self-esteem and Symptoms in Individuals at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

Abstract Individuals with psychotic symptoms often report low global self-esteem (GSE). However, it remains unclear whether the low GSE is linked to the presence of psychotic symptoms or it is present before the onset of psychosis. In addition, the specific subdomains of GSE in these populations are unknown. To address this question, we conducted a cross-sectional study comparing global and SE elements among individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR; n = 36), individuals with schizophrenia (SCZ; n = 43), and healthy controls (HCs; n = 40). We then examined among CHR individuals the association between GSE, subdomains, and symptoms. CHR individuals displayed significantly lower GSE compared to HCs, at a level comparable with those for individuals with SCZ. The low GSE was driven primarily by self-perceptions of work and interpersonal relationships abilities. Lower GSE was associated with overall negative and disorganized symptoms severity, but not positive ones. The authors discuss the implications of the findings to intervention development.
Combination of Plasma UltraSensitive CRP and Homocysteine as Diagnostic and Predictive Protocol for Acute Myocardial Infarction

Objective: The aim of the present study was to provide us-CRP testtogether withhomocysteine test as a protocol for emergency diagnosis for acute myocardial infarction (MI) comparing to cTnI and LDL-C.Materials and Methods: This was a crosssectional study conducted in Sudan, between December 2012 and July 2014.The study included 122 patients(78 males and 44 females). All the patients were admitted in Intensive Cardiac-Care Unit (ICCU) ward, and informed consent was obtained with the blood samples immediately (within the first 3 hours after chest pain), regardless the type of that disease. Control group was consisted of 80 healthy volunteers.Using enzyme linked immunosorbent (ELISA) methodwe estimated serum homocysteine(Hcy), ultra-sensitivity C – reactive protein (us-CRP), and cardiac troponin I (cTnI); while low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) is measured by Standard direct automated spectrophotometric method. During the next 24 hours, and as a result of the medical follow-up, the patients were divided into 2 groups, AMI group (68 patients) and non-AMI group (57 patients). Results: The levels of us-CRP in AMI group showed significant increasing (P<0.05) when compared to non-AMI group, as well as comparison with the control group. While Hcy and cTnI displayed a significant increase in AMI when compared to control but showed insignificant raise when compared to non-AMI. On the other hand, the level of LDL-C showed insignificant variations between the three groups.Conclusion:Measurement of CRP together with homocysteine is thus a clinically sensible way to urgent and emergent assess whether a particular patient has acute MI than non-acute MI.
Three-dimensional vortex methods for particle-laden flows with two-way coupling

Abstract This paper presents a three-dimensional viscous vortex method for the simulation of particulate flows with two-way coupling. The flow is computed using Lagrangian vortex elements advected with the local velocity, while their strength is modified to account for viscous diffusion, vortex stretching, and generating vorticity induced by the particles. The solid particles move according to viscous drag and gravity, creating vorticity, which is discretised using vortex elements. This method adaptively tracks the evolution of the vorticity field and the generation of new computational elements to account for the vorticity source term. A key aspect of the present scheme is the re-meshing of the computational elements to adaptively accommodate the production of vorticity induced by the solid particles, and to ensure sufficient support for the proper resolution of the diffusion equation. High-order moment-conserving formulas are implemented to maintain the adaptive character of the method while they remain local to minimize the computational cost. These formulas are also implemented in the particle–mesh interpolation of the field and particle quantities in the context of a Vortex-in-Cell algorithm. The method is validated against the results of a related finite-difference study for an axisymmetric swirling flow with particles. The method is then applied to the study of a three-dimensional particle blob falling under the effect of gravity. It is shown that drastically different behaviours are found depending on the presence of an initial vorticity field.