Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bayesian Estimation of 3-d Human Motion from an Image Sequence

We address the problem of reconstructing the 3-dimensional motions of a human gure from a monocular image sequence. We take a statistical approach, and use a set of motion capture examples to build a gaussian probability model for short human motion sequences. We rst study this model in a simpli ed rendering domain. This yields analytic results for the optimal 3-d estimate given a 2-d temporal sequence, as well as for which motion modes are di cult to estimate. The results from the simpli ed rendering conditions show that if we can overlay a stick gure on an image of a moving human, we can estimate his or her 3-d motion well. We built an interactive tracking system to process real video sequences, and can achieve good 3-d reconstructions of the human gure motion. This work may not be copied or reproduced in whole or in part for any commercial purpose. Permission to copy in whole or in part without payment of fee is granted for nonpro t educational and research purposes provided that all such whole or partial copies include the following: a notice that such copying is by permission of Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America; an acknowledgment of the authors and individual contributions to the work; and all applicable portions of the copyright notice. Copying, reproduction, or republishing for any other purpose shall require a license with payment of fee to Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America. All rights reserved. Copyright c Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology Center America, 1998 201 Broadway, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 1. First printing, TR98-05, April, 1998 1
Improved Breast Cancer Prognosis through the Combination of Clinical and Genetic Markers ( Supplement )

Improved Breast Cancer Prognosis through the Combination of Clinical and Genetic Markers (Supplement) Yijun Sun a,c∗, Steve Goodison b, Jian Li c,Li Liu a and William Farmerie a Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research, Department of Surgery, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611 Submitted on July 3rd, 2006; revised on October 10th, 2006;accepted on October 15th, 2006.
Oral contraceptives and breast cancer risk in Taiwan, a country of low incidence of breast cancer and low use of oral contraceptives

One hundred and seventy four (81% of all) pathologically confirmed new incident cases of female breast cancer identified from a medical center in Taipei from February, 1993 to June, 1994 were selected as the case group. Four hundred and fifty three inpatient controls who were without obstetric‐gynecological, breast, or malignant diseases were individually matched for each case by age and date of admission. Information was obtained through direct interview and review of medical records. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate the effects of each risk factor. After adjusting for education level, body mass index, age at menarche and first full‐term pregnancy, parity, menopausal status and age at menopause, lifetime lactation, use of lactation inhibition hormones, and family history of breast cancer, breast cancer risk significantly elevated in use of OC before 25 years old and before 1971. In stratified analysis, significantly higher risk were found in OC use before 25 years old and in duration of use less than one year among post‐menopausal subjects. Our results support the notion that OC use in early life for younger women and in early calendar years increase breast cancer risk. Int. J. Cancer 77:219–223, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Dual-energy CT-based radiomics for predicting invasiveness of lung adenocarcinoma appearing as ground-glass nodules

Objectives To explore the value of radiomics based on Dual-energy CT (DECT) for discriminating preinvasive or MIA from IA appearing as GGNs before surgery. Methods The retrospective study included 92 patients with lung adenocarcinoma comprising 30 IA and 62 preinvasive-MIA, which were further divided into a training (n=64) and a test set (n=28). Clinical and radiographic features along with quantitative parameters were recorded. Radiomics features were derived from virtual monoenergetic images (VMI), including 50kev and 150kev images. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), Pearson’s correlation analysis and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) penalized logistic regression were conducted to eliminate unstable and redundant features. The performance of the models was evaluated by area under the curve (AUC) and the clinical utility was assessed using decision curve analysis (DCA). Results The DECT-based radiomics model performed well with an AUC of 0.957 and 0.865 in the training and test set. The clinical-DECT model, comprising sex, age, tumor size, density, smoking, alcohol, effective atomic number, and normalized iodine concentration, had an AUC of 0.929 in the training and 0.719 in the test set. In addition, the radiomics model revealed a higher AUC value and a greater net benefit to patients than the clinical-DECT model. Conclusion DECT-based radiomics features were valuable in predicting the invasiveness of GGNs, yielding a better predictive performance than the clinical-DECT model.
Modelling the interactive effects of viral presence and global warming on Baltic Sea ecosystem dynamics

Marine viruses have been identified as key players in biogeochemical cycles and in the termination of phytoplankton blooms; however, most models of biogeochemical processes have yet to resolve viral dynamics. Here, we incorporate a viral component 10 into a 1D ecosystem model for the Baltic Sea to explore the influence of viruses on ecosystem dynamics under current and future climatic conditions. Virus host interactions and zooplankton grazing were mechanistically described through size-based contact rates. The model demonstrated that the presence of viruses increased nutrient retention in the upper water column. This corresponded to a reduction in phytoplankton biomass, production of dead organic matter and transfer of biomass to higher trophic levels. Viral presence played a key role in deeper water layers, near the thermocline. While warming alone reversed 15 these trends, the combination of warming and viral presence enhanced the effect of viruses. Our results illustrate that marine ecosystem models need to incorporate viral dynamics to better predict system responses to climate change.
Assimilation of Immigrants to the Cape Town Labour Market

Influx controls of the apartheid regime have had lasting consequences for South African residential and migration patterns. This is particularly the case for the Western Cape that receives about 48000 immigrants a year, with the notable streams of immigrants emanating from the Northern and Eastern Cape, two of the poorest provinces of South Africa. This study concentrates on Mitchell's Plain, an area in the Western Cape that contains a black township (Khayelitsha) and a large proportion of the coloured population of Cape Town. It is, in essence, an analysis of the urban poor. Using the Khayelitsha/Mitchell's Plain Survey (KMPS) 2000 data, an introductory assimilation analysis is conducted to gauge whether an assimilation effect exists amongst those that have entered the Cape Town labour market. Migrant status is found to influence current labour force status negatively. Descriptive statistics show evidence of pre-labour market disadvantage in terms of years of schooling and poor schooling quality for migrants. An occupational analysis probes assimilation effects in terms of occupational mobility. It finds that low mobility for both migrants and the local-born exists, which could hamper the ability of migrants to overcome any initial disadvantages experienced. An earnings function is assembled with a focus on the years since entry to the labour market to confirm that a longer time spent in Cape Town positively affects the current wage received for the sample in general.
Comparison of Charlson comorbidity index with sAPs and APAChE scores for prediction of mortality following intensive care

Background: Physiology-based severity of illness scores are often used for risk adjustment in observational studies of intensive care unit (ICU) outcome. However, the complexity and time constraints of these scoring systems may limit their use in administrative databases. Comorbidity is a main determinant of ICU outcome, and comorbidity scores can be computed based on data from most administrative databases. However, limited data exist on the performance of comorbidity scores in predicting mortality of ICU patients. Objectives: To examine the performance of the Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) alone and in combination with other readily available administrative data and three physiology-based scores (acute physiology and chronic health evaluations [APACHE] II, simplified acute physiology score [SAPS] II, and SAPS III) in predicting short- and long-term mortality following intensive care. Methods: For all adult patients (n = 469) admitted to a tertiary university–affiliated ICU in 2007, we computed APACHE II, SAPS II, and SAPS III scores based on data from medical records. Data on CCI score age and gender, surgical/medical status, social factors, mechanical ventilation and renal replacement therapy, primary diagnosis, and complete follow-up for 1-year mortality was obtained from administrative databases. We computed goodness-of-fit statistics and c-statistics (area under ROC [receiver operating characteristic] curve) as measures of model calibration (ability to predict mortality proportions over classes of risk) and discrimination (ability to discriminate among the patients who will die or survive), respectively. Results: Goodness-of-fit statistics supported model fit for in-hospital, 30-day, and 1-year mortality of all combinations of the CCI score. Combining the CCI score with other administrative data revealed c-statistics of 0.75 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.69–0.81) for in-hospital mortality, 0.75 (95% CI 0.70–0.80) for 30-day mortality, and 0.72 (95% CI 0.68–0.77) for 1-year mortality. There were no major differences in c-statistics between physiology-based systems and the CCI combined with other administrative data. Conclusion: The CCI combined with administrative data predict short- and long-term mortality for ICU patients as well as physiology-based scores.
Effects of a Standardized Hydrogenated Extract of Curcumin (Curowhite™) on Melanogenesis: A Pilot Study

The stimulation of melanogenesis by novel natural products is desirable for cosmetic applications such as skin tanning, anti-greying, and clinical use for treating vitiligo and leukoderma disorders. Microphthalmia transcription factor (MITF) is a central transcription factor that controls the expression of tyrosinase, which is a key enzyme responsible for catalyzing the rate-limiting processes of melanin production. Tetrahydrocurcuminoids (THCr), which mostly consist of tetrahydrocurcumin (THC), are a colorless bioactive mixture derived from curcuminoids that are extracted from the Curcuma longa plant. THCr has been reported to exhibit superior properties, including antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. Our previous study reported the greater melanogenesis-stimulating effects of purified THC, compared to hexahydrocurcumin (HHC) or octahydrocurcumin (OHC). Curowhite™ (CW) is a proprietary extract that consists of 25% hydrogenated curcuminoids (mixture of THCr, hexahydrocurcuminoids, and octahydrocurcuminoids) encapsulated in a β-cyclodextrin (βCyD) excipient. The encapsulation of THCr in a suitable excipient, such as the widely popular cyclodextrins, helps to enhance the stability, solubility, and bioavailability of the THCr. CW is marketed as a nutraceutical with GRAS status and is safe when administered orally, as shown in vivo studies. However, the impact of CW on melanogenesis remains unexplored. Herein, the impact of CW on melanogenesis were investigated using B16F10 and MNT-1 cells. Our findings show that CW is markedly cytotoxic to B16F10 cells without affecting the cellular melanin content. However, in MNT-1 cells, CW significantly stimulated intracellular melanin content over the concentration range (20–60 µg/mL) with increased dendrite formation while being nontoxic to MNT-1 cells or HaCaT cells after a 5-day treatment. Examination of the effects of the excipient βCyD on cytotoxicity and melanogenesis confirmed that the excipient had no contribution to the biological impacts that were found to be exclusively attributable to the encapsulated mixture (THCr). The mechanisms of CW’s promelanogenic effects in MNT-1 cells were found to be related, at least in part, to an increase in tyrosinase and MITF protein levels, as CW did not alter tyrosinase activity in MNT-1 cells. Moreover, CW exhibited antioxidant activity as obtained through DPPH radical scavenging assay. Together, the findings of this pilot study indicate that CW might hold an exciting avenue as a pro-pigmenting nutraceutical for treating hypopigmentation disorders, the detailed mechanisms of which warrant further exploration. Moreover, future investigations are necessary to examine CW’s effects on melanogenesis in normal human melanocytes and in vivo studies.
Erotic cue exposure increases neural reward responses without modulating temporal discounting

Abstract Humans prefer smaller sooner over larger later rewards, a tendency denoted as temporal discounting. Discounting of future rewards is increased in multiple maladaptive behaviors and clinical conditions. Although temporal discounting is stable over time, it is partly under contextual control. Appetitive (erotic) cues might increase preferences for immediate rewards, although evidence to date remains mixed. Reward circuit activity was hypothesized to drive increases in temporal discounting following cue exposure, yet this was never tested directly. We examined erotic vs. neutral cue exposure effects on subsequent temporal discounting in a preregistered within-subjects study in healthy male participants (n = 38). Functional magnetic resonance imaging assessed neural cue-reactivity, value-computations, and choice-related effects. We replicated previous findings of value-coding in ventromedial prefrontal cortices, striatum, and cingulate cortex. Likewise, as hypothesized, lateral prefrontal cortex activity increased during delayed reward choices, potentially reflecting cognitive control. Erotic cue exposure was associated with increased activity in attention and reward circuits. Contrary to preregistered hypotheses, temporal discounting was unaffected by cue exposure, and cue responses in reward circuits did not reliably predict changes in behavior. Our results raise doubts on the hypothesis that upregulation of (dopaminergic) reward systems following erotic cue exposure is sufficient to drive myopic approach behavior towards immediate rewards.
The Effects of Primary Tumor Location on Survival after Liver Resection for Colorectal Liver Metastasis in the Mediterranean Population

(1) Background: There is an abundance of literature available on predictors of survival for patients with colorectal liver metastases (CRLM) but minimal information available on the relationship between the primary tumor location and CRLM survival. The studies that focus on the primary tumor location and CRLM survival exhibit a great deal of controversy and inconsistency with regard to their results (some studies show statistically significant connections between the primary tumor location and prognosis versus other studies that find no significant relationship between these two factors). Furthermore, the majority of these studies have been conducted in the West and have studied more diverse and heterogenous populations, which may be a contributing factor to the conflicting results. (2) Methods: We included patients who underwent liver resection for CRLM between December 2004 and January 2019 at two university-affiliated medical centers in Israel: Carmel Medical Center (Haifa) and Rabin Medical Center (Petach Tikvah). Primary tumors located from the cecum up to and including the splenic flexure were labeled as right-sided primary tumors, whereas tumors located from the splenic flexure down to the anal verge were labeled as left-sided primary tumors. (3) Results: We identified a total of 501 patients. Of these patients, 225 had right-sided primary tumors and 276 had left-sided primary tumors. Patients with right-sided tumors were significantly older at the time of liver surgery compared to those with left-sided tumors (66.1 + 12.7 vs. 62 + 13.1, p = 0.002). Patients with left-sided tumors had slightly better overall survival rates than those with right-sided tumors. However, the differences were not statistically significant (57 vs. 50 months, p = 0.37 after liver surgery). (4) Conclusions: The primary tumor location does not significantly affect patient survival after liver resection for colorectal liver metastasis in the Mediterranean population.
Density-Based Entropy Centrality for Community Detection in Complex Networks

One of the most important problems in complex networks is the location of nodes that are essential or play a main role in the network. Nodes with main local roles are the centers of real communities. Communities are sets of nodes of complex networks and are densely connected internally. Choosing the right nodes as seeds of the communities is crucial in determining real communities. We propose a new centrality measure named density-based entropy centrality for the local identification of the most important nodes. It measures the entropy of the sum of the sizes of the maximal cliques to which each node and its neighbor nodes belong. The proposed centrality is a local measure for explaining the local influence of each node, which provides an efficient way to locally identify the most important nodes and for community detection because communities are local structures. It can be computed independently for individual vertices, for large networks, and for not well-specified networks. The use of the proposed density-based entropy centrality for community seed selection and community detection outperforms other centrality measures.
Natural Products in Renal-Associated Drug Discovery

The global increase in the incidence of kidney failure constitutes a major public health problem. Kidney disease is classified into acute and chronic: acute kidney injury (AKI) is associated with an abrupt decline in kidney function and chronic kidney disease (CKD) with chronic renal failure for more than three months. Although both kidney syndromes are multifactorial, inflammation and oxidative stress play major roles in the diversity of processes leading to these kidney malfunctions. Here, we reviewed various publications on medicinal plants with antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties with the potential to treat and manage kidney-associated diseases in rodent models. Additionally, we conducted a meta-analysis to identify gene signatures and associated biological processes perturbed in human and mouse cells treated with antioxidants such as epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), the active ingredient in green tea, and the mushroom Ganoderma lucidum (GL) and in kidney disease rodent models. We identified EGCG- and GL-regulated gene signatures linked to metabolism; inflammation (NRG1, E2F1, NFKB1 and JUN); ion signalling; transport; renal processes (SLC12A1 and LOX) and VEGF, ERBB and BDNF signalling. Medicinal plant extracts are proving to be effective for the prevention, management and treatment of kidney-associated diseases; however, more detailed characterisations of their targets are needed to enable more trust in their application in the management of kidney-associated diseases.
Learning Deductive Reasoning from Synthetic Corpus based on Formal Logic

We study a synthetic corpus based approach for language models (LMs) to acquire logical deductive reasoning ability. The previous studies generated deduction examples using specific sets of deduction rules. However, these rules were limited or otherwise arbitrary, limiting the generalizability of acquired reasoning ability. We rethink this and adopt a well-grounded set of deduction rules based on formal logic theory, which can derive any other deduction rules when combined in a multistep way. Then, using the proposed corpora, which we name FLD (Formal Logic Deduction), we first evaluate and analyze the logical reasoning ability of the latest LLMs. Even GPT-4 can solve only half of the problems, suggesting that pure logical reasoning isolated from knowledge is still challenging for the LLMs, and additional training specialized in logical reasoning is indeed essential. We next empirically verify that LMs trained on FLD corpora acquire more generalizable reasoning ability. Furthermore, we identify the aspects of reasoning ability on which deduction corpora can enhance LMs and those on which they cannot, and discuss future directions on each aspect. The released corpora serve both as learning resources and as challenging benchmarks.
Equity and Growth in Developing Countries: Old and New Perspectives on the Policy Issues

The"stylized fact"that distribution must get worse with economic growth in poor countries before it can get better turns out not to be a fact at all. Growth's effects on inequality can go either way and are contingent on several other factors. The authors found no sign in the new cross-country data they assembled that growth has any systematic impact on inequality. Possibly measurement errors confound the true relationship, but they think it more likely that the relationship between growth and distribution is not as simple as some theories have held. Since distribution does not worsen, growth reduces absolute poverty. Indeed, absolute poverty measures typically respond quite elastically to growth, and the benefits are certainly not confined to those near typical poverty lines. Of course, one cannot say that growth always benefits the poor or that none of the poor lose from pro-growth policy reform. Only aggregate effects are studied. But for 17 of the 20 countries for which they assemble quite good data (from at least two surveys since the mid-1980s), the mean and the proportion of people living below $1 a day moved in opposite directions. The gains to poor people from a distribution-neutral growth process will tend to be lower, the higher the extent of initial inequality. A smaller share of total income must imply a smaller absolute gain from a given increment to total income. Compensatory direct interventions can be important, provided they are integrated into a framework of fiscal and monetary discipline. The evidence does not suggest that growth is always distribution-neutral, and it would be wrong to conclude that changes in distribution are of little consequence. The point is not that distribution is irrelevant or that it never changes, but that its changes are roughly uncorrelated with economic growth. There is no intrinsic tradeoff between long-run aggregate efficiency and overall equity. Policies aimed at helping the poor accumulate productive assets--especially policies to improve schooling, health, and nutrition--when adopted in a relatively nondistorted framework, are important instruments for achieving higher growth.