Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Measuring Farm Labor: Survey Experimental Evidence from Ghana

This study examines recall bias in farm labor through a randomized survey experiment in Ghana, comparing farm labor estimates from an end-of-season recall survey with data collected weekly throughout the agricultural season. Recall households report 10 percent more farm labor per person-plot, which can be explained by recall households’ underreporting of “marginal” plots and household workers. This “selective” omission by recall households, denoted as listing bias, alters the composition of plots and workers across treatment arms and inflates average farm labor hours per person-plot in the recall group. Since listing bias, in this setting, dominates other forms of recall bias at higher levels of aggregation (i.e., when farm labor per person-plot is summed at the plot, person, or household level), farm labor productivity is overestimated for recall households. Consistent with the notion that recall bias is linked to the cognitive burden of reporting on past events, there is no recall bias among more educated households.
Too much to handle? Interference from distractors with similar affordances on target selection for handled objects

The existence of handle affordances has been classically demonstrated using the Stimulus-Response Compatibility paradigm, with shorter response times when the orientation of the object handle and the response hand are compatible in comparison to incompatible. Yet the activation of handle affordances from visual objects has been investigated in very simple situations involving single stimulus and motor response. As natural perceptual scenes are usually composed of multiple objects that could activate multiple affordances, the consequence of multiple affordance activation on the perception and processing of a given object of the scene requires more investigation. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of distractor affordances on the processing of a target object in situations involving several familiar graspable objects. In two online experiments, 229 participants had to select a target object (the kitchen utensil or the tool) in a visual scene displaying a pair of objects. They performed left key presses when the target was on the left and right key presses when the target was on the right. Target handle orientation and response side could be compatible or incompatible. Critically, target and distractor objects had similar or dissimilar handle affordances, with handles oriented for left- or right-hand grasps. Results from the two experiments showed slower response times when target and distractor objects had similar handle affordances in comparison to dissimilar affordances, when participants performed right hand responses and when target orientation and response were compatible. Thus, affordance similarity between objects may interfere rather than facilitate object processing and slow down target selection. These findings are in line with models of affordance and object selection assuming automatic inhibition of distractors’ affordances for appropriate object interaction.
Scoring epidemiological forecasts on transformed scales

Forecast evaluation is essential for the development of predictive epidemic models and can inform their use for public health decision-making. Common scores to evaluate epidemiological forecasts are the Continuous Ranked Probability Score (CRPS) and the Weighted Interval Score (WIS), which can be seen as measures of the absolute distance between the forecast distribution and the observation. However, applying these scores directly to predicted and observed incidence counts may not be the most appropriate due to the exponential nature of epidemic processes and the varying magnitudes of observed values across space and time. In this paper, we argue that transforming counts before applying scores such as the CRPS or WIS can effectively mitigate these difficulties and yield epidemiologically meaningful and easily interpretable results. Using the CRPS on log-transformed values as an example, we list three attractive properties: Firstly, it can be interpreted as a probabilistic version of a relative error. Secondly, it reflects how well models predicted the time-varying epidemic growth rate. And lastly, using arguments on variance-stabilizing transformations, it can be shown that under the assumption of a quadratic mean-variance relationship, the logarithmic transformation leads to expected CRPS values which are independent of the order of magnitude of the predicted quantity. Applying a transformation of log(x + 1) to data and forecasts from the European COVID-19 Forecast Hub, we find that it changes model rankings regardless of stratification by forecast date, location or target types. Situations in which models missed the beginning of upward swings are more strongly emphasised while failing to predict a downturn following a peak is less severely penalised when scoring transformed forecasts as opposed to untransformed ones. We conclude that appropriate transformations, of which the natural logarithm is only one particularly attractive option, should be considered when assessing the performance of different models in the context of infectious disease incidence.
The hypoxic ventilatory response and hypoxic burden are predictors of the magnitude of ventilatory long‐term facilitation in humans

Mild intermittent hypoxia initiates progressive augmentation (PA) and ventilatory long‐term facilitation (vLTF) in humans. The magnitude of these forms of plasticity might be influenced by anthropometric and physiological variables, as well as protocol elements. However, the impact of many of these variables on the magnitude of respiratory plasticity has not been established in humans. A meta‐analysis was completed using anthropometric and physiological variables obtained from 124 participants that completed one of three intermittent hypoxia protocols. Simple correlations between the aggregate variables and the magnitude of PA and vLTF standardized to baseline was completed. Thereafter, the variables correlated to PA or vLTF were input into a multilinear regression equation. Baseline measures of the hypoxic ventilatory response was the sole predictor of PA (R = 0.370, P = 0.012). Similarly, this variable along with the hypoxic burden predicted the magnitude of vLTF (R = 0.546, P < 0.006 for both variables). In addition, the magnitude of PA was strongly correlated to vLTF (R = 0.617, P < 0.001). Anthropometric measures do not predict the magnitude of PA and vLTF in humans. Alternatively, the hypoxic ventilatory response was the sole predictor of PA, and in combination with the hypoxic burden, predicted the magnitude of vLTF. These influences should be considered in the design of mild intermittent hypoxia protocol studies in humans. Moreover, the strong correlation between PA and vLTF suggests that a common mechanistic pathway may have a role in the initiation of these forms of plasticity.
Assessing the integrity of auditory sensory memory processing in CLN3 disease (Juvenile Neuronal Ceroid Lipofuscinosis (Batten disease)): An auditory evoked potential study of the duration-evoked mismatch negativity (MMN)

Background: We interrogated auditory sensory memory capabilities in individuals with CLN3 disease (juvenile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis), specifically for the feature of “duration” processing, a critical cue in speech perception. Given decrements in speech and language skills associated with later-stage CLN3 disease, we hypothesized that the duration-evoked mismatch negativity (MMN) of the event related potential (ERP) would be a marker of progressively atypical cortical processing in this population, with potential applicability as a brain-based biomarker in clinical trials. Methods: We employed three stimulation rates (fast: 450 ms, medium: 900 ms, slow: 1800 ms), allowing for assessment of the sustainability of the auditory sensory memory trace. The robustness of MMN directly relates to the rate at which the regularly occurring stimulus stream is presented. As presentation rate slows, robustness of the sensory memory trace diminishes. By manipulating presentation rate, the strength of the sensory memory trace is parametrically varied, providing greater sensitivity to detect auditory cortical dysfunction. A secondary hypothesis was that duration-evoked MMN abnormalities in CLN3 disease would be more severe at slower presentation rates, resulting from greater demand on the sensory memory system. Results: Data from individuals with CLN3 disease (N=21; range 6–28 years of age) showed robust MMN responses (i.e., intact auditory sensory memory processes) at the medium stimulation rate. However, at the fastest rate, MMN was significantly reduced, and at the slowest rate, MMN was not detectable in CLN3 disease relative to neurotypical controls (N=41; ages 6–26 years). Conclusions: Results reveal emerging insufficiencies in this critical auditory perceptual system in individuals with CLN3 disease.
Intradialytic hypertension is associated with low intradialytic arterial oxygen saturation

Background. The pathophysiology of a paradoxical systolic blood pressure (SBP) rise during hemodialysis (HD) is not yet fully understood. Recent research indicated that 10% of chronic HD patients suffer from prolonged intradialytic hypoxemia. Since hypoxemia induces a sympathetic response we enter-tained the hypothesis that peridialytic SBP change is associated with arterial oxygen saturation (SaO 2 ). Methods. We retrospectively analyzed intradialytic SaO 2 and peridialytic SBP change in chronic HD patients with arteriovenous vascular access. Patients were followed for 6 months. We deﬁned persistent intradialytic hypertension (piHTN) as average peridialytic SBP increase (cid:6) 10mmHg over 6 months. Linear mixed effects (LME) models were used to explore associations between peridialytic SBP change and intradialytic SaO 2 in uni-variate and adjusted analyses. Results. We assessed 982 patients (29 872 HD treatments; 59% males; 53% whites). Pre-dialysis SBP was 146.7 6 26.5mmHg and decreased on average by 10.1 6 24.5mmHg. Fifty-three (5.7%) patients had piHTN. piHTN patients had lower intradialytic SaO 2 , body weight and interdialytic weight gain. LME models revealed that with every percentage point lower mean SaO 2 , the peridialytic SBP change increased by 0.46mmHg (P < 0.001). This ﬁnding was corroborated in multivariate analyses. Conclusion. We observed an inverse relationship between intradialytic SaO 2 and the blood pressure response to HD. These ﬁndings support the notion that hypoxemia activates mechanisms that partially blunt the intradialytic blood pressure decline, possibly by sympathetic activation and endothelin-1 secretion. To further explore that hypothesis, speciﬁcally designed prospective studies are required.
Tensor decomposition based unsupervised feature extraction in big data analytics applied to prostate cancer multiomics data

—Large p small n problem is a challenging problem in big data analytics. There are no de facto standard methods available to it. In this study, we propose a tensor decomposition (TD) based unsupervised feature extraction (FE) formalism applied to multiomics datasets, where the number of features is more than 100000 while the number of instances is as small as about 100. The proposed TD based unsupervised FE outperformed other conventional supervised feature selection methods, such as random forest, categorical regression (also known as analysis of variance, ANOVA), and penalized linear discriminant analysis when they are applied to not only multiomics datasets but also synthetic datasets. Genes selected by TD based unsupervised FE were biologically reliable. TD based unsupervised FE turned out to be not only the superior feature selection method but also the method that can select biologically reliable genes.
The Progress of Next Generation Sequencing in Assessment of Myeloid Malinancies

Address for Correspondence: Dr. Fulya Öz Puyan, Department of Pathology, Trakya University School of Medicine, Edirne, Turkey e-mail: fulyaozpuyan@trakya.edu. tr Received: 18 July 2018 Accepted: 24 September 2018 • DOI: 10.4274/balkanmedj.2018. 1195 Available at www.balkanmedicaljournal. org Cite this article as: Öz Puyan F, Alkan S. The Progress of Next Generation Sequencing in Assessment of Myeloid Malinancies. Balkan Med J ©Copyright 2018 by Trakya University Faculty of Medicine / The Balkan Medical Journal published by Galenos Publishing House. With increasing characterization of disease associated molecular markers, it is becoming challenging to perform multiple singlegene molecular assays. Specific molecular markers are helpful for diagnostic, prognostic evaluation and management of hematologic malignancies. Introduction and rapid progress on next generation sequencing has led to extensive modifications and offers a novel way to integrate concurrent assessment of multiple target genes in routine laboratory analysis especially in view of increasing clinical demands for testing of multiple genetic aberrations. Despite challenges in next generation sequencing particularly involving bioinformatics support and clinical annotation of novel variants, assessment of myeloid neoplasms with targeted next generation sequencing panels showing evidence to improve diagnosis, assist therapeutic decisions and provide better information about prognosis, as well as detection of minimal residual disease since it facilitates significant advantages over single-gene assays. Herein, we provide information for application and utilization of next generation sequencing studies with a focus on the most important mutations in clinical assessment of hematologic neoplasms such as acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndrome, myeloproliferative neoplasms and other myelodysplastic/ myeloproliferative neoplasms in order to integrate into daily clinical practice.
Stable approximation of Helmholtz solutions in the disk by evanescent plane waves

Superpositions of plane waves are known to approximate well the solutions of the Helmholtz equation. Their use in discretizations is typical of Trefftz methods for Helmholtz problems, aiming to achieve high accuracy with a small number of degrees of freedom. However, Trefftz methods lead to ill-conditioned linear systems, and it is often impossible to obtain the desired accuracy in floating-point arithmetic. In this paper we show that a judicious choice of plane waves can ensure high-accuracy solutions in a numerically stable way, in spite of having to solve such ill-conditioned systems. Numerical accuracy of plane wave methods is linked not only to the approximation space, but also to the size of the coefficients in the plane wave expansion. We show that the use of plane waves can lead to exponentially large coefficients, regardless of the orientations and the number of plane waves, and this causes numerical instability. We prove that all Helmholtz fields are continuous superposition of evanescent plane waves, i.e., plane waves with complex propagation vectors associated with exponential decay, and show that this leads to bounded representations. We provide a constructive scheme to select a set of real and complex-valued propagation vectors numerically. This results in an explicit selection of plane waves and an associated Trefftz method that achieves accuracy and stability. The theoretical analysis is provided for a two-dimensional domain with circular shape. However, the principles are general and we conclude the paper with a numerical experiment demonstrating practical applicability also for polygonal domains.
Impact of Visual Context on Noisy Multimodal NMT: An Empirical Study for English to Indian Languages

The study investigates the effectiveness of utilizing multimodal information in Neural Machine Translation (NMT). While prior research focused on using multimodal data in low-resource scenarios, this study examines how image features impact translation when added to a large-scale, pre-trained unimodal NMT system. Surprisingly, the study finds that images might be redundant in this context. Additionally, the research introduces synthetic noise to assess whether images help the model deal with textual noise. Multimodal models slightly outperform text-only models in noisy settings, even with random images. The study's experiments translate from English to Hindi, Bengali, and Malayalam, outperforming state-of-the-art benchmarks significantly. Interestingly, the effect of visual context varies with source text noise: no visual context works best for non-noisy translations, cropped image features are optimal for low noise, and full image features work better in high-noise scenarios. This sheds light on the role of visual context, especially in noisy settings, opening up a new research direction for Noisy Neural Machine Translation in multimodal setups. The research emphasizes the importance of combining visual and textual information for improved translation in various environments.
Simultaneous NICER and NuSTAR Observations of the Ultracompact X-Ray Binary 4U 0614+091

We present the first joint NuSTAR and NICER observations of the ultracompact X-ray binary 4U 0614+091. This source shows quasiperiodic flux variations on the timescale of ∼days. We use reflection modeling techniques to study various components of the accretion system as the flux varies. We find that the flux of the reflected emission and the thermal components representing the disk and the compact object trend closely with the overall flux. However, the flux of the power-law component representing the illuminating X-ray corona scales in the opposite direction, increasing as the total flux decreases. During the lowest flux observation, we see evidence of accretion disk truncation from roughly 6 gravitational radii to 11.5 gravitational radii. This is potentially analogous to the truncation seen in black hole low-mass X-ray binaries, which tends to occur during the low/hard state at sufficiently low Eddington ratios.
Stochastic thermodynamics of Brownian motion in temperature gradient

We study stochastic thermodynamics of a Brownian particle which is subjected to a temperature gradient and is confined by an external potential. We first formulate an over-damped Ito-Langevin theory in terms of local temperature, friction coefficient, and steady state distribution, all of which are experimentally measurable. We then study the associated stochastic thermodynamics theory. We analyze the excess entropy production both at trajectory level and at ensemble level, and derive the Clausius inequality as well as the transient fluctuation theorem (FT). We also use molecular dynamics to simulate a Brownian particle inside a Lennard-Jones fluid and verify the FT. Remarkably we find that the FT remains valid even in the under-damped regime. We explain the possible mechanism underlying this surprising result.
DebSDF: Delving into the Details and Bias of Neural Indoor Scene Reconstruction

In recent years, the neural implicit surface has emerged as a powerful representation for multi-view surface reconstruction due to its simplicity and state-of-the-art performance. However, reconstructing smooth and detailed surfaces in indoor scenes from multi-view images presents unique challenges. Indoor scenes typically contain large texture-less regions, making the photometric loss unreliable for optimizing the implicit surface. Previous work utilizes monocular geometry priors to improve the reconstruction in indoor scenes. However, monocular priors often contain substantial errors in thin structure regions due to domain gaps and the inherent inconsistencies when derived independently from different views. This paper presents \textbf{DebSDF} to address these challenges, focusing on the utilization of uncertainty in monocular priors and the bias in SDF-based volume rendering. We propose an uncertainty modeling technique that associates larger uncertainties with larger errors in the monocular priors. High-uncertainty priors are then excluded from optimization to prevent bias. This uncertainty measure also informs an importance-guided ray sampling and adaptive smoothness regularization, enhancing the learning of fine structures. We further introduce a bias-aware signed distance function to density transformation that takes into account the curvature and the angle between the view direction and the SDF normals to reconstruct fine details better. Our approach has been validated through extensive experiments on several challenging datasets, demonstrating improved qualitative and quantitative results in reconstructing thin structures in indoor scenes, thereby outperforming previous work.
Comparison Between Silicone Oil and Gas in Tamponading Giant Retinal Breaks

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare anatomical and visual outcomes after using silicone oil (SO) or C 3 F 8 gas as tamponades after pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) for retinal detachment (RD) associated with giant retinal tears (GRTs). Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted for cases that underwent PPV for GRT-associated RD. We excluded eyes that had prior vitreoretinal surgery, a history of ocular trauma or worse than grade B proliferative vitreoretinopathy (PVR). Baseline demographic and ocular characteristics, surgical details and postoperative anatomical and visual outcomes were recorded and statistically analyzed. Results: We included 88 eyes; 48 eyes had C 3 F 8 gas and 40 eyes had SO as a tamponading agent. Mean age was 39 years. All eyes underwent 23G PPV with no adjuvant scleral buckling and phacovitrectomy was performed for all phakic eyes. Final retinal reattachment was achieved in 86 eyes (97.7%). One eye from each group had recurrent RD. Postoperative vision was signi ﬁ cantly better in the gas group (p= 0.008). Prolonged increase of IOP developed in 6 eyes in the SO group and 5 eyes in the gas group. Prolonged uveitis developed in 4 eyes in the gas group and 6 eyes in the oil group (P= 0.04). Epiretinal membranes (ERM) developed in 10 eyes in the gas group and 9 eyes in the oil group. We found no signi ﬁ cant difference between both groups regarding postoperative glaucoma or ERM formation. Conclusion: Both agents achieved similar favorable anatomical outcomes in a series of eyes with fresh GRT-associated RD and low-grade PVR, with better visual outcome and less frequent uveitis associated with the use of gas tamponade.