Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy (SBRT) in Very Limited-Stage Small Cell Lung Cancer (VLS-SCLC)

Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an aggressive neuroendocrine tumour with metastatic propensity. Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) is an emerging therapeutic option for SCLC, despite limited supporting evidence. By evaluating the use of SBRT in very limited stage (VLS) SCLC at our institution, we aimed to contribute to the existing knowledge in this area while establishing a basis for further research. We performed a retrospective review of all cases of VLS-SCLC treated with SBRT between 2013 and 2020. Baseline demographics, diagnostic, and treatment information were collected. The primary outcome was overall survival (OS). We identified 46 patients with pathologically confirmed VLS-SCLC; 25 were treated with SBRT, and the remainder received either surgery, conventional radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or palliative-intent therapy. After a median follow-up of 23.7 months, 44% of the patients had died; the median OS was of 24.4 months for the SBRT cohort and 67.0 months for the curative intent non-SBRT cohort. The difference in disease recurrence and survival between cohorts was underpowered and not statistically significant. Higher baseline ECOG and comorbidity was noted in the SBRT cohort.
Quality of sleep in people living with HIV in the era of highly active antiretroviral treatment

Purpose Although HIV infection has become a chronic disease, people living with HIV (PLWHIV) often develop disorders that affect their quality of life. Sleep disturbances could occur in all stages of infection and lead to fatigue, increased risk for comorbidities and reduced adherence to treatment. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the quality of sleep in PLWHIV monitored at the HIV Unit of the University General Hospital of Evros (Greece). Methods Patients completed self-reported questionnaires including restless legs syndrome (RLS) questionnaire, the Epworth Scale, the Athens Insomnia Scale, the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale - HADS, the SleepF Quality Scale MOS, the STOP BANG questionnaire for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. Sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics, data of HIV infection and clinical factors were recorded. Results A total of 154 patients, 120 males, were included in the study. The percentage of patients diagnosed with RLS was 26.6% and the corresponding percentage of insomnia 55.2%. OSA was documented in 35% of patients. High prevalence of depression (46.1%) and anxiety (54.54%) was reported. Detectable viral load, low CD4 cell count and limited physical activity (p < 0.001) were significant risk factors for increased incidence rate of sleep disturbances. Sleep disorders were not proven to be associated with newer antiretroviral regimens. Conclusions Sleep disturbances were reported in high frequency in PLWHIV affecting their quality of life and increasing symptoms of depression and anxiety. It is vital to add sleep assessment into routine care and find efficient interventions in order to improve quality of life, mental health and adherence to antiretroviral treatment.
The co-effect of sensate focus technique and sexual position changing on sexual function of women who use medical treatment for endometriosis

Abstract Endometriosis is one of the most common chronic diseases of women. This study aimed to investigate the effect of sensate focus technique and sexual position changing on sexual function of women who used medical treatment for endometriosis. This clinical trial study was performed on 80 women who used medical treatment for endometriosis. Women were randomly assigned to two groups: in the intervention group, 2 h of verbal educational session were held and at the end of the session, an instruction booklet about sensate focus technique was given to them, the control group received routine treatment. The sexual function and the dyspareunia of the participants were evaluated after 4 and 8 weeks. Eight weeks after the intervention, the mean total score of sexual function in the intervention group was significantly improved compared to before the intervention (p < 0.001). The mean score of sexual pain in the follow-up periods in the intervention group was significantly different compared to before the intervention and control groups (p < 0.001). The sensate focus technique and sexual position change simultaneously improve sexual function in women with endometriosis who used medication. Trial registration: Approval number from Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials: IRCT2200617047812N1 (Registration date: 2020-11-05). Impact Statement What is already known on this subject? The role of endometriosis in the genesis of sexual dysfunction in women has been mentioned in several articles. Researches have shown that some sexual positions put less pressure on parts of the pelvis that contain endometrial tissue. The sensate focus technique can improve sexual dysfunction, including hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) and female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD), orgasm, dyspareunia, and vaginismus. What do the results of this study add? Have a positive effect on sexual function and dyspareunia in women with endometriosis undergoing medical treatment and improve their sexual function. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Medical staff recommended becoming familiar with these techniques to teach sensate focus and sexual position changing to women with endometriosis to improve their sexual function.
Image Manipulation Localization Using Multi-Scale Feature Fusion and Adaptive Edge Supervision

Image manipulation localization is a technique that can efficiently segment the tampered regions from a suspicious image. Existing work usually trains a detection model by fusing the features from diverse data streams, e.g., noise inconsistency, recompression inconsistency, and local inconsistency. They, however, ignore a fact that not all tampered images contain these data streams. As a result, high feature redundancy may cause a large number of false detection for tampered region. To address this problem, this paper designs an end-to-end high-confidence localization network architecture. First, deep convolutional neural networks are utilized to extract multi-scale feature sets from the RGB streams. We then design a semantic refined bi-directional feature integration module to fully fuse multi-scale adjacent features and significantly enhance feature representation. Subsequently, morphological operations are introduced to extract multi-scale edge information, which can efficiently reduce feature redundancy by generating wider high-resolution edges during image reconstructing. Finally, a deep semantic residual decoder is sequentially re-constructed by spreading deep semantic information into each decoding stage. The proposed method can not only improve the manipulation localization accuracy, but also guarantee the model robustness. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our method can obtain an effective performance in locating forged regions over different large-scale image sets, and outperforms most of state-of-the-art methods with higher localization accuracy and stronger robustness.
Robust estimation of the generalised partial linear model with missing covariates

In this paper, we propose robust estimation of the generalised partial linear model with covariates missing at random. The developed approach integrated the robust method and the method for dealing with missing data. Under some regularity conditions, we establish the asymptotic normality of the proposed estimator of the regression coefficients and show that the proposed estimator of the nonparametric function can achieve the optimal rate of convergence. It can be observed that the regression spline approach avoids some of the intricacies associated with the kernel method, and the robust estimation and inference can be carried out operationally as if a generalised linear model were used. Simulation studies are conducted to investigate the robustness of the proposed method. At the end, the proposed method is applied to a real data analysis for illustration.
Characteristics of a bearingless induction motor

A bearingless induction motor with additional windings in the stator slots is proposed. Additional two-pole windings were wound with the conventional four-pole windings to produce radial magnetic forces. These forces, which control the position of the rotor shaft, are produced when magnetic fluxes from the two-pole windings cause an imbalance in the revolving magnetic field of the four-pole windings. Inductance functions were measured to derive the machine inductance matrix expression, and from this matrix the radial force and current relationships were found. Control circuits were designed and fabricated for a test machine. This test machine was successfully driven by the control circuits. A bearingless induction motor was successfully operated at speeds up to 6000 r/min. >
Identification of genetic variants in HSF1 gene and their association with heat tolerance in Murrah buffaloes

The study was carried out to identify Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNPs) and their association with thermostolerance traits in 200 murrah Buffalos. Genomic DNA was extracted from frozen/thawed blood samples collected in Beckton-Dickinson vacutainer containing 0.5% (10 Î¼l/ml of blood) anticoagulant EDTA, using phenol-chloroform extraction method. Further the samples were processed for checked quality of DNA on 0.8% agarose gel electrophoresis while its quantification was done using Biospec-nano spectrophotometer method. Custom sequencing results revealed 7 SNPs at the position of A15732G located in intron 4, C17061T in intron 6, C17202T and A17226G in intron 7, G17454A in intron 8, C17605T in exon 9 and T18421C in intron 9 of HSF1 gene sequence. Association analysis showed that the thermal tolerance trait in Murrah buffaloes was significantly affected by three SNP locus, viz. A15732G, C17061T and T18421C. The association among the different genotype of this SNP locus with thermo-tolerance was analyzed using Generalized Linear Model procedure in Statistical Analysis System. Animals of GG genotype at locus A15732 G, TT genotype at locus T18421C and C17061T locus showed lower respiration rate and least HTC was observed in animals belonging to GG genotype at locus A15732G. At linkage, disequilibrium and haplotype construction were analysed using SHEsis software. Haplotypes (49) were constructed, and out of these seven haplotypes (>3 sample size) were considered for association studies. The individuals with Hap6 (ACCAGCC) haplotype combination had lower respiration rate (RR) than other haplotype combinations and these individuals may have better thermal adaptability in comparison to others animals.
Recognition of Rare Microfossils Using Transfer Learning and Deep Residual Networks

Simple Summary The collection of early Cambrian microfossils leads to the amassing of a pile of thousands of tiny tubes, grains and various fragments. Rare type of microfossils with high academic value are mingled with numerous ordinary fossils and the traditional way of manual selection is very inefficient. Many artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have already been applied in fossil image recognition, but current methods largely depend on a great number of fossil images to “train” the AI model. However, usually only a handful of samples are available for specific rare fossil taxa and these cannot provide enough photos for AI. In this study, we fine-tuned a new convolutional neural network, combining pre-trained models from a nature image database to solve the problem of the lack of training materials. Through many tests, this new model was proved valid. It presented relatively high accuracies in recognizing specific micro fossil taxa, while the required number of corresponding fossil images is very low. Abstract Various microfossils from the early Cambrian provide crucial clues for understanding the Cambrian explosion and the origin of animal phyla. However, specimens with important anatomical structures are extremely rare and the efficiency of retrieving such fossils by traditional manual selection under a microscope is quite low. Such a contradiction has hindered breakthroughs in micropaleontology for a long time. Here, we propose a solution for identifying specific taxa of Cambrian microfossils using only a few available specimens by transferring a model pre-trained on natural image datasets to the field of paleontological artificial intelligence. The method employs a 34-layer deep residual neural network as the underlying framework, migrates the ImageNet pre-trained model, freezes the low-layer network parameters and retrains the high-layer parameters to build a microfossil image recognition model. We built training sets with randomly selected images of varied number for each taxon. Our experiments show that the average recognition accuracy for specific taxa of Cambrian microfossils (50 images for each taxon) is higher than 0.97 and it can reach 0.85 with only three training samples per taxon. Comparative analyses indicate that our results are much better than those of various prevalent methods, such as the transpose convolutional neural network (TCNN). This demonstrates the feasibility of using natural images (ImageNet) for the training of microfossil recognition models and provides a promising tool for the discovery of rare fossils.
The fractal dimension of some railway networks

We determine the fractal dimension D of four different railway networks. We found for Paris, Moscow and the Rhine towns in Germany, D between 1.7 and 1.8 but for the network connecting Paris to the suburbs, D is equal to 1.5. We discuss some implications of these results.
Prevalence and Associated Factors of Suicidal Ideation among Almeda Textile Factory Workers in Adwa, Tigray, Ethiopia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background Suicidal ideation among textile factory workers is a major public health concern worldwide and is associated with a higher risk of completed suicide. However, there are limited studies that determined the prevalence and the potential determinants of suicidal ideation in Africa, including Ethiopia. Therefore, this study is aimed at exploring the prevalence of suicidal ideation and associated factors among textile factory workers in Almeda textile factory in Adwa, Ethiopia. Methods An institutional-based cross-sectional study design was conducted from May 3, 2020, to June 16, 2020, at Almeda textile factory in Adwa. A total of 409 workers were identified using a systematic random sampling technique. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire using suicidality module of Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22.0, and logistic regression model was employed. Adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval was computed, and statistical significance was declared at p value < 0.05. Result In this study, the prevalence of suicidal ideation was found to be 8.8% (95% CI: 6.1, 11.5). Working more than 48 hours per week (AOR = 2.88, 95% CI: 1.18, 7.04), depression (AOR = 3.90, 95% CI: 1.60, 9.50), work-related physical injury (AOR = 5.95, 95% CI: 2.37, 14.94), and interpersonal conflict (AOR = 3.54, 95% CI: 1.40, 8.90) were the significant factors associated with suicidal ideation. Conclusion and Recommendation. In this study, suicidal ideation among Almeda textile production workers was a significant problem. Factors including depression, work-related exposure to physical injury, long working hour, and interpersonal conflict can enlarge suicidal ideation.
Transient Elastography (Fibroscan) for the Prediction of Esophageal Varices in Egyptian Cirrhotic Patients

Background: Esophageal varices (EVs) are atypically dilated submucosal veins, which occurs consequently to portal hypertension. Liver stiffness measurement (LSM), obtained by transient elastography (Fibroscan), strongly correlates with portal hypertension. Aim: Is to predict the presence and grading of esophageal varices in Egyptian patients with liver cirrhosis using Fibroscan and other noninvasive tests. Methods: A 101 cirrhotic patients indicated for upper endoscopy were enrolled consecutively and subdivided according to endoscopic findings into: Group I (70 patients with EVs) and Group II (31 patients without EVs). Upper endoscopy, ultrasonography, routine lab. and Fibroscan assessment were done to all patients. Results: LSM correlated directly and significantly with the presence (p <0.001), and grading of EVs (p = 0.001). A LSM cut off value of 18.55 kPa had an AUC of 0.726, sensitivity of 74.3%, specificity of 54.8%, PPV of 78.79%, and a NPV of 48.57% for predicting the presence of EVs. Platelet count/spleen diameter ratio (PSR) inversely correlated with the EVs presence (p = 0.002), and grading (p <0.001). PSR had a cut off value of 742.17, an AUC of 0.695, sensitivity of 71% and a specificity of 58.6% (PPV of 82%, NPV of 43.14%) for EVs presence. Right lobe diameter/Albumin ratio (RLAR) correlated directly with EVs presence (p = 0.001), and grading (p =0.012). RLAR cut off value of 3.62 had AUC, sensitivity, specificity, PPV, and NPV of 0.7, 64.3%, 67.7%, 81.8%, and 45.7%, respectively for the prediction of EVs presence. Conclusion: LSM, PSR, RLAR as noninvasive methods for predicting the presence and grading of EVs are of moderate accuracy.
Awareness about role of health literacy and self efficacy in tobacco cessation among primary health care workers: A quantitative questionnaire study

ABSTRACT Background: The purpose of this study was to measure primary health care providers’ understanding of the significance of health literacy and self-efficacy in cigarette quitting. Material and Methods: The current study used a quantitative descriptive questionnaire to collect data. The research was carried out among primary health care providers in a rural location near the Azamgarh Dental College in Uttar Pradesh. Medical officials, nursing personnel, and dental practitioners, if existent, are examples of primary health professionals. Azamgarh district is divided into 22 blocks. 22 primary health facilities were selected from these 22 blocks. 54 medical officers and 98 other primary health workers (ANMs, GNMs, and Asha workers) were questioned at these primary health facilities. Results: The majority of study participants {132 (86.84%)} were aware of the bad effects of tobacco consumption. Most of the study participants don’t know about health literacy {115 (75.65%)} and self-efficacy {78 (51.32%)}. The majority of them did not know the questionnaire to test health literacy {114 (75.02%)} and self-efficacy {150 (98.68%)}. poor mean awareness score (20.77 ± 3.33) was significant (p = 0.001) in the age group 25-35 years. Anganwadi workers were having significantly (p = 0.002) highest poor awareness score (22.67 ± 2.34). Conclusion: From the above results, it was concluded that awareness of the role of health literacy and self-efficacy in tobacco cessation among primary health workers was poor. Almost all study participants had not attended any training programs on tobacco cessation.
European Respiratory Society statement on familial pulmonary fibrosis

Genetic predisposition to pulmonary fibrosis has been confirmed by the discovery of several gene mutations that cause pulmonary fibrosis. Although genetic sequencing of familial pulmonary fibrosis (FPF) cases is embedded in routine clinical practice in several countries, many centres have yet to incorporate genetic sequencing within interstitial lung disease (ILD) services and proper international consensus has not yet been established. An international and multidisciplinary expert Task Force (pulmonologists, geneticists, paediatrician, pathologist, genetic counsellor, patient representative and librarian) reviewed the literature between 1945 and 2022, and reached consensus for all of the following questions: 1) Which patients may benefit from genetic sequencing and clinical counselling? 2) What is known of the natural history of FPF? 3) Which genes are usually tested? 4) What is the evidence for telomere length measurement? 5) What is the role of common genetic variants (polymorphisms) in the diagnostic workup? 6) What are the optimal treatment options for FPF? 7) Which family members are eligible for genetic sequencing? 8) Which clinical screening and follow-up parameters may be considered in family members? Through a robust review of the literature, the Task Force offers a statement on genetic sequencing, clinical management and screening of patients with FPF and their relatives. This proposal may serve as a basis for a prospective evaluation and future international recommendations. Genetic predisposition to interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) is well known. The statement aims to assist health professionals with the care of monogenic pulmonary fibrosis and familial ILD patients and their relatives. https://bit.ly/3h9hvQ6
Nonlinear processes responsible for nondegenerate four-wave mixing in quantum-dot optical amplifiers

Wavelength conversion using nondegenerate four-wave mixing in quantum-dot optical amplifiers is investigated. From the detuning frequency dependence of χ(3), derived from the conversion efficiency, we consider that, within the range of detuning in the experiment, spectral-hole burning and carrier heating are responsible, and that their time constants, i.e., carrier relaxation time to the ground state and the phonon scattering time, are in the range of 60–140 and 200–400 fs, respectively. This indicates that the carrier supply to the ground level via relaxation from the higher levels is very fast and that a broad conversion bandwidth comparable to that of quantum-well devices is ensured.
Immunogenicity and safety of coadministration of COVID-19 and influenza vaccination

Seasonal influenza vaccination is established as important infection prevention measure, especially among highly exposed healthcare workers (HCWs) [1]. Coadministration with the third dose of COVID-19 vaccine could be an efficient strategy protecting HCWs from two major viral respiratory infections [2–4]. To date, the humoral immunogenicity and side-effects of a coadministered third COVID-19 and a seasonal quadrivalent influenza vaccine are still unclear, and the available data is limited in transferability to the general public [5–7]. This preference-based non-randomised controlled study examines the antibody-mediated immunogenicity and vaccine-related side-effects of mRNA-based COVID-19 and seasonal influenza vaccine coadministration in HCWs. Coadministration of seasonal quadrivalent influenza and COVID-19 booster vaccination is safe and does not increase vaccine-related side-effects, but may limit anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody formation https://bit.ly/3uKFUie