Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polymorphisms in mTOR and Calcineurin Signaling Pathways Are Associated With Long-Term Clinical Outcomes in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Monitoring of immunosuppressive drugs, such as calcineurin and mTOR inhibitors, is essential to avoid undesirable kidney transplant outcomes. Polymorphisms in pharmacokinetics-related genes have been associated with variability in blood levels of immunosuppressive drugs and adverse effects, but influence of pharmacodynamics-related genes remains to be elucidated. The influence of polymorphisms in genes of the mTOR and calcineurin signaling pathways on long-term clinical outcomes was investigated in Brazilian kidney transplant recipients within the 1-year post-transplant. Two-hundred and sixty-nine kidney transplant recipients were enrolled at a kidney transplant center in São Paulo city, Brazil, and treated with tacrolimus plus everolimus or mycophenolate sodium (clinical trial NCT01354301). Clinical and laboratory data, including renal function parameters and drug blood levels were recorded. Genomic DNA was extracted from blood samples. Polymorphisms in MTOR rs1057079 (c.4731G>A), rs1135172 (c.1437T>C), and rs1064261 (c.2997C>T); PPP3CA rs3730251 (c.249G>A); FKBP1A rs6033557 (n.259+24936T>C); FKBP2 rs2159370 (c.-2110G>T); and FOXP3 rs3761548 (c.-23+2882A>C) and rs2232365 (c.-22-902A>G) were analyzed by real-time PCR. Frequencies of gene polymorphisms did not differ among the treatment groups. Analysis of primary outcomes showed that patients carrying MTOR c.1437CC and FOXP3 c. -23+2882CC genotypes had higher serum creatinine than non-carriers (p < 0.05) at 1-year post-transplant. MTOR c.4731G allele (AG+GG genotype) was associated with increased risk for acute rejection (OR = 3.53, 95% CI = 1.09–11.48, p = 0.037). Moreover, 1-year cumulative incidence of rejection was higher in MTOR c.4731G allele carriers compared to AA genotype carriers (p = 0.027). Individually, analysis of secondary outcomes revealed that FKBP2 c. -2110GG genotype carriers had higher risk of leukopenia, FKBP1A n.259+24936C allele carriers had increased risk of constipation, and FOXP3 c. -22-902A or c. -23+2882A allele had higher risk of gastrointestinal disorders (p < 0.05). However, these results were not maintained in the multivariable analysis after p-value adjustment. In conclusion, variants in genes of mTOR and calcineurin pathways are associated with long-term impaired renal function, increased risk of acute rejection, and, individually, with adverse events in Brazilian kidney transplant recipients.
In Revision Hip Arthroscopy, Labral Reconstruction Can Address a Deficient Labrum, but Labral Repair Retains Its Role for the Reparable Labrum: A Matched Control Study

Background: Revision hip arthroscopy is increasingly common and often addresses acetabular labrum pathology. There is a lack of consensus on indications or outcomes of revision labral repair versus reconstruction. Purpose: To report clinical outcomes of labral reconstruction during revision hip arthroscopy at minimum 2-year follow-up as compared with pair-matched labral repair during revision hip arthroscopy (control group) and to suggest a decision-making algorithm for labral treatment in revision hip arthroscopy. Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: Patients who underwent revision hip arthroscopy with labral reconstruction were matched 1:2 with patients who underwent revision arthroscopic labral repair. Patients were matched according to age, sex, and body mass index. Outcome scores, including the modified Harris Hip Score (mHHS), Non-Arthritic Hip Score, Hip Outcome Score–Sport-Specific Subscale, and a visual analog scale for pain, were collected preoperatively and at minimum 2-year follow-up. At latest follow-up, patient satisfaction on a 0-10 scale and the abbreviated International Hip Outcome Tool (iHOT-12) were collected. Complications, subsequent arthroscopies, and conversion to total hip arthroplasty were collected as well. Results: A total of 15 revision labral reconstructions were pair matched to 30 revision labral repairs. The reconstructions had fewer isolated Seldes type I detachments (P = .008) and lower postoperative lateral center-edge angle, but there were otherwise no significant differences in demographics, radiographics, intraoperative findings, or procedures. Both groups demonstrated significant improvements in all outcomes and visual analog scale at minimum 2-year follow-up. The revision repairs trended toward better preoperative scores: mHHS (mean ± SD: 59.3 ± 16.5 vs 54.2 ± 16.0), Non-Arthritic Hip Score (61.0 ± 16.7 vs 51.2 ± 17.6), Hip Outcome Score–Sport-Specific Subscale (39.6 ± 25.1 vs 30.5 ± 22.1), and visual analog scale (5.8 ± 1.8 vs 6.2 ± 2.2). At follow-up, the revision repair group had significantly higher mHHS (84.1 ± 14.8 vs 72.0 ± 18.3, P = .043) and iHOT-12 (72.2 ± 23.3 vs 49.0 ± 27.6, P = .023) scores than the reconstruction group. The magnitudes of pre- to postoperative improvement between the groups were comparable. The groups also had comparable rates of complications: 1 case of numbness in each group (P > .999), subsequent arthroscopies (repair: n = 2, 6.5%; revision: n = 3, 20%; P = .150), and conversion to total hip arthroplasty (1 patient in each group, P > .999). Conclusion: Labral reconstruction safely and effectively treats irreparable labra in revision hip arthroscopy. However, labral repair is another treatment option for reparable labra, yielding similar magnitude of improvement. A proposed algorithm may assist in surgical decision making to achieve optimal outcomes based on the condition and history of each patient’s acetabular labrum.
Prognostic significance of pretreatment lymphocyte/monocyte ratio in retroperitoneal liposarcoma patients after radical resection

Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of pretreatment inflammatory biomarkers in retroperitoneal liposarcoma (RPLS) patients after radical resection. Patients and methods One hundred patients with RPLS who underwent radical resection between September 2004 and October 2010 at Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center were included in this study. Laboratory tests of peripheral blood were sampled before surgery. The optimal cutoff values of systemic inflammatory markers were defined by receiver-operating curve analyses. Curves of disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) were obtained by the Kaplan–Meier method. Cox proportional hazards regression modeling was used to perform univariate and multivariate analyses. Results The median follow-up time was 53 months. The median DFS and OS were 27 and 86 months, respectively. On the basis of the optimal cutoff value of 3, 24 patients were classified into low lymphocyte/monocyte ratio (LMR) group and 76 patients into high LMR group. In univariate analysis, low LMR group had significantly shorter DFS (P<0.001) and OS (P<0.001) compared to high LMR group. In multivariate analysis, low LMR was demonstrated as an independent negative prognostic factor for both DFS (HR=2.854, 95% CI=1.392–5.851, P=0.004) and OS (HR=3.897, 95% CI=1.681–9.033, P=0.002). Conclusion Pretreatment LMR is a useful prognostic marker in RPLS patients after radical resection.
TinyDroid: A Lightweight and Efficient Model for Android Malware Detection and Classification

With the popularity of Android applications, Android malware has an exponential growth trend. In order to detect Android malware effectively, this paper proposes a novel lightweight static detection model, TinyDroid, using instruction simplification and machine learning technique. First, a symbol-based simplification method is proposed to abstract the opcode sequence decompiled from Android Dalvik Executable files. Then, N-gram is employed to extract features from the simplified opcode sequence, and a classifier is trained for the malware detection and classification tasks. To improve the efficiency and scalability of the proposed detection model, a compression procedure is also used to reduce features and select exemplars for the malware sample dataset. TinyDroid is compared against the state-of-the-art antivirus tools in real world using Drebin dataset. The experimental results show that TinyDroid can get a higher accuracy rate and lower false alarm rate with satisfied efficiency.
Optimal Low-Power Design of a Multicell Multiuser Massive MIMO System at 3.7 GHz for 5G Wireless Networks

Massive MIMO techniques are expected to deliver significant performance gains for the future wireless communication networks by improving the spectral and the energy efficiencies. In this paper, we propose a method to optimize the positions, the coverage, and the energy consumption of the massive MIMO base stations within a suburban area in Ghent, Belgium, while meeting the low power requirements. The results reveal that massive MIMO provides better performances for the crowded scenario where users’ mobility is limited. With 256 antennas, a massive MIMO base station can simultaneously multiplex 18 users at the same time-frequency resource while consuming 8 times less power and providing 200 times more capacity than a 4G reference network for the same coverage. Moreover, a pilot reuse pattern of 3 is recommended in a multiuser multicell environment to obtain a good tradeoff between the high spectral efficiency and the low power requirement.
Evolutionary Regression and Species-Specific Codon Usage of TLR15

Toll-like receptors (TLRs) form an ancient family of innate immune receptors that detect microbial structures and activate the host immune response. Most subfamilies of TLRs (including TLR3, TLR5, and TLR7) are highly conserved among vertebrate species. In contrast, TLR15, a member of the TLR1 subfamily, appears to be unique to birds and reptiles. We investigated the functional evolution of TLR15. Phylogenetic and synteny analyses revealed putative TLR15 orthologs in bird species, several reptilian species and also in a shark species, pointing to an unprecedented date of origin of TLR15 as well as large scale reciprocal loss of this TLR in most other vertebrates. Cloning and functional analysis of TLR15 of the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis), salt water crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis), and chicken (Gallus gallus) showed for all species TLR15 specific protease-induced activation of NF-κB, despite highly variable TLR15 protein expression levels. The variable TLR15 expression was consistent in both human and reptilian cells and could be attributed to species-specific differences in TLR15 codon usage. The species-specific codon bias was not or barely noted for more evolutionarily conserved TLRs (e.g., TLR3). Overall, our results indicate that TLR15 originates before the divergence of chondrichthyes fish and tetrapods and that TLR15 of both avian and reptilian species has a conserved function as protease activated receptor. The species-specific codon usage and large scale loss of TLR15 in most vertebrates suggest evolutionary regression of this ancient TLR.
Gender-associated differences in the prevalence of central obesity using waist circumference and waist-to-height ratio, and that of general obesity, in Slovak adults.

OBJECTIVES Central obesity represents an increased risk to develop cardiovascular diseases. Guidelines of international societies suggest estimating central obesity by measuring waist circumference (WC). Robust statistical data in literature provide evidence on the superiority of waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) over WC and body mass index (BMI) for detecting cardiometabolic risk in both genders. Based on measurements of weight, height and waist circumference we compared the prevalence of central obesity using both the above mentioned criteria in the apparently healthy Slovak adults, and compared the prevalence of central obesity to that of general obesity (BMI). METHODS Data collected from 5,184 individuals (45% males) aged ≥18 years in four cross-sectional studies carried out between the years 2009-2012 were subjected to secondary analysis. RESULTS Waist circumference underestimated central obesity in males and overestimated in females: 37.3% of males and 41.8% of females presented central obesity according to WC, 54.2% males and 34.9% females according to WHtR. 17.3% of males centrally obese according to WC present WHtR < 0.5; while 7.8% of females centrally obese according to their WHtR do not display increased WC. The frequency of central obesity increased with age. According to BMI, the prevalence of overweight was 39% in males and 22% in females; that of obesity was 17% and 15%, respectively. CONCLUSION The prevalence of central obesity estimated using WC vs. WHtR differs significantly in Slovak adults. WHtR is considered superior for detection of the risk of future development of cardiovascular afflictions. Thus, further studies addressing the gender-associated discordance of central obesity measures are required to determine whether our results are consistent across geographical regions and ethnic groups.
Proactive cache replacement technique for mobile networks based on genetic programming

In the mobile environment, the movement of users, disconnected modes, many data updates, power battery consumption, limited cache size, and limited bandwidth impose significant challenges to information access. Caching is considered one of the most important concepts to deal with these challenges. There are two general topics related to the client cache policy: cache invalidation method keeps data in the cache up to date; and cache replacement method chooses the cached item(s) which should be deleted from the cache when the cache is full. The aim of this work is to propose a new technique for cache replacement in a mobile database that takes into consideration the impact of invalidation time for enhancing data availability in the mobile environment by using genetic programming. In this case, each client collects information for every cached item in the cache like access probability, cached document size, validation time and uses these factors in a fitness function to determine cached items that will be removed from the cache. The experiments were performed using Network Simulator 2 to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, and the results are compared with the existing cache replacement algorithms. It is concluded that the proposed approach performs significantly better than other approaches.
Eliminating Latent Discrimination: Train Then Mask

How can we control for latent discrimination in predictive models? How can we provably remove it? Such questions are at the heart of algorithmic fairness and its impacts on society. In this paper, we define a new operational fairness criteria, inspired by the well-understood notion of omitted variable-bias in statistics and econometrics. Our notion of fairness effectively controls for sensitive features and provides diagnostics for deviations from fair decision making. We then establish analytical and algorithmic results about the existence of a fair classifier in the context of supervised learning. Our results readily imply a simple, but rather counter-intuitive, strategy for eliminating latent discrimination. In order to prevent other features proxying for sensitive features, we need to include sensitive features in the training phase, but exclude them in the test/evaluation phase while controlling for their effects. We evaluate the performance of our algorithm on several realworld datasets and show how fairness for these datasets can be improved with a very small loss in accuracy.
Panel Size, Clinician Time in Clinic, and Access to Appointments

Large panel sizes are often held responsible for worse access to appointments in primary care. We evaluated the relationship between appointment backlog, panel size, and primary care clinician time in clinic, using Spearman correlation and multiple regression in a retrospective analysis. We found no independent association between panel size and days until third next available appointment, but larger panel size adjusted for clinician time in clinic was associated with worse access. Less clinician time in clinic was independently associated with longer backlogs for appointments. Our findings suggest that patients of part-time clinicians may be less likely to obtain timely appointments than patients of fulltime clinicians, regardless of panel size.
Oscillations in working memory and neural binding: A mechanism for multiple memories and their interactions

Neural oscillations have been implicated in many different basic brain and cognitive processes. Oscillatory activity has been suggested to play a role in neural binding, and more recently in the maintenance of information in working memory. This latter work has focused primarily on oscillations in terms of providing a “code” in working memory. However, oscillations may additionally play a fundamental role in essential properties and behaviors that neuronal networks must exhibit in order to produce functional working memory. In the present work, we present a biologically plausible working memory model and demonstrate that specific types of stable oscillatory dynamics may play a critical role in facilitating properties of working memory, including transitions between different memory states and a multi-item working memory capacity. We also show these oscillatory dynamics may facilitate and provide an underlying mechanism to enable a range of different types of binding in the context of working memory. Author summary Working memory is a form of short-term memory that is limited in capacity to perhaps 3 – 5 items. Various studies have shown that ensembles of neurons oscillate during working memory retention, and cross-frequency coupling (between, e.g., theta and gamma frequencies) has been conjectured as underlying the observed limited capacity. Binding occurs when different objects or concepts are associated with each other and can persist as working memory representations; neuronal synchrony has been hypothesized as the neural correlate. We propose a novel computational model of a network of oscillatory neuronal populations that capture salient attributes of working memory and binding by allowing for both stable synchronous and asynchronous activity. The oscillatory dynamics we describe may provide a mechanism that can facilitate aspects of working memory, such as maintaining multiple items active at once, creating rich neural representations of memories via binding, and rapidly transitioning activtation patterns based on selective inputs.
Low back pain and associated disability in Swedish adolescents

Low back pain (LBP) defined as ache or pain in the lowest part of the back is a common experience among people all over the world. The lifetime prevalence is reported to be as high as 84%, and the prevalence of LBP seems to be almost the same among adolescents as among adults. The risk for having LBP later in life if you experienced LBP in adolescence is high.
Dopamine neurons drive fear extinction learning by signaling the omission of expected aversive outcomes

Extinction of fear responses is critical for adaptive behavior and deficits in this form of safety learning are hallmark of anxiety disorders. However, the neuronal mechanisms that initiate extinction learning are largely unknown. Here we show, using single-unit electrophysiology and cell-type specific fiber photometry, that dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) are activated by the omission of the aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) during fear extinction. This dopamine signal occurred specifically during the beginning of extinction when the US omission is unexpected, and correlated strongly with extinction learning. Furthermore, temporally-specific optogenetic inhibition or excitation of dopamine neurons at the time of the US omission revealed that this dopamine signal is both necessary for, and sufficient to accelerate, normal fear extinction learning. These results identify a prediction error-like neuronal signal that is necessary to initiate fear extinction and reveal a crucial role of DA neurons in this form of safety learning.
Correlation between Computed Ion Hydration Properties and Experimental Values of Sugar Transfer through Nanofiltration and Ion Exchange Membranes in Presence of Electrolyte

The widespread use of nanofiltration and electrodialysis membrane processes is slowed down by the difficulties in predicting the membrane performances for treating streams of variable ionic compositions. Correlations between ion hydration properties and solute transfer can help to overcome this drawback. This research aims to investigate the correlation between theoretically evaluated hydration properties of major ions in solution and experimental values of neutral organic solute fluxes. In particular, ion hydration energies, coordination and hydration number and the average ion-water distance of Na+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Cl− and SO42− were calculated at a high quantum mechanics level and compared with experimental sugar fluxes previously reported. The properties computed by simple and not computationally expensive models were validated with information from the literature. This work discusses the correlation between the hydration energies of ions and fluxes of three saccharides, measured through nanofiltration and ionic-exchange membranes. In nanofiltration, the sugar flux increases with the presence of ions of increasing hydration energy. Instead, inverse linear correlations were found between the hydration energy and the sugar fluxes through ion exchange membranes. Finally, an empirical model is proposed for a rough evaluation of the variation in sugar fluxes as function of hydration energy for the ion exchange membranes in diffusion experiments.
Intra- and inter-individual variability of stable strontium isotope ratios in hard and soft body tissues of pigs.

RATIONALE Stable isotope analysis has become an indispensable tool for the identification of the flow of matter in ecological sciences. Stable strontium isotope ratios are used in several different scientific fields as markers for provenance, mobility, and migration. A crucial prerequisite for such studies is a reliable definition of local ranges and an estimation of expected isotopic variability. METHODS To study the local variability of stable strontium isotope ratios at a specific place, a farrow of ecologically and locally grown pigs was investigated and strontium was extracted from their hard tissues (tooth enamel, bones and bristles) as well as soft tissues (meat, organs and blood) via dry- and wet-ashing procedures and subsequent column separation. The 87 Sr/86 Sr ratio was then measured via TIMS (thermal ionization mass spectrometry). RESULTS Reliable 87 Sr/86 Sr data was generated from all tissue types. Both intra- and inter-individual variability was high and tissue-specific patterns could be identified. High ranges occurred in sample types which were analyzed for animals of different age (pigs as well as piglets): teeth, parietal, mandible, femur, and leg muscle as well as in jaw muscle samples, which were only analyzed in adult pigs. Tooth enamel data showed a tooth-type-dependent pattern. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that a time factor played a role for the observed variability, e.g. a shift in food supply. Furthermore, we presume that local range estimates from the literature only work for tissues which integrate all consumed components over a sufficient amount of time and average fluctuations which can be found in tissues with higher turnover rates.