Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bulk and element-specific magnetism of medium-entropy and high-entropy Cantor-Wu alloys

Magnetic Compton scattering, x-ray magnetic circular dichroism spectroscopy, and bulk magnetometry measurements are performed on a set of medium- (NiFeCo and NiFeCoCr) and high-entropy (NiFeCoCrPd and NiFeCoCrMn) Cantor-Wu alloys. The bulk spin momentum densities determined by magnetic Compton scattering are remarkably isotropic, and this is a consequence of the smearing of the electronic structure by disorder scattering of the electron quasiparticles. Nonzero x-ray magnetic circular dichroism signals are observed for every element in every alloy indicating differences in the populations of the majority and minority spin states implying finite magnetic moments. When Cr is included in the solid solution, the Cr spin moment is unambiguously antiparallel to the total magnetic moment, while a vanishingly small magnetic moment is observed for Mn, despite calculations indicating a large moment. Some significant discrepancies are observed between the experimental bulk and surface magnetic moments. Despite the lack of quantitative agreement, the element-specific surface magnetic moments seem to be qualitatively reasonable.
Imitating Unknown Policies via Exploration

Behavioral cloning is an imitation learning technique that teaches an agent how to behave through expert demonstrations. Recent approaches use self-supervision of fully-observable unlabeled snapshots of the states to decode state-pairs into actions. However, the iterative learning scheme from these techniques are prone to getting stuck into bad local minima. We address these limitations incorporating a two-phase model into the original framework, which learns from unlabeled observations via exploration, substantially improving traditional behavioral cloning by exploiting (i) a sampling mechanism to prevent bad local minima, (ii) a sampling mechanism to improve exploration, and (iii) self-attention modules to capture global features. The resulting technique outperforms the previous state-of-the-art in four different environments by a large margin.
Convergence of Deep Fictitious Play for Stochastic Differential Games

Stochastic differential games have been used extensively to model agents' competitions in Finance, for instance, in P2P lending platforms from the Fintech industry, the banking system for systemic risk, and insurance markets. The recently proposed machine learning algorithm, deep fictitious play, provides a novel efficient tool for finding Markovian Nash equilibrium of large $N$-player asymmetric stochastic differential games [J. Han and R. Hu, Mathematical and Scientific Machine Learning Conference, 2020]. By incorporating the idea of fictitious play, the algorithm decouples the game into $N$ sub-optimization problems, and identifies each player's optimal strategy with the deep backward stochastic differential equation (BSDE) method parallelly and repeatedly. In this paper, under appropriate conditions, we prove the convergence of deep fictitious play (DFP) to the true Nash equilibrium. We can also show that the strategy based on DFP forms an $\epsilon$-Nash equilibrium. We generalize the algorithm by proposing a new approach to decouple the games, and present numerical results of large population games showing the empirical convergence of the algorithm beyond the technical assumptions in the theorems.
Prevalence of FVIII Inhibitors Among Children with Hemophilia A: Experience at the Jordanian Royal Medical Services

Introduction: Replacement therapy is constantly required by Hemophilia A (HA) patients lacking coagulation factor VIII (FVIII). The most serious complication of this treatment is the development of neutralizing antibodies (inhibitors). Aim: The aim of this study is to determine the frequency of FVIII inhibitors among children treated for HA at the Jordanian Royal Medical Services. Methods: A total of 165 diagnosed HA patients receiving on-demand treatment, were tested for FVIII inhibitors between 2003 and 2018. The age range was 6 months to 16 years. Coagulation and inhibitor screening assays were performed, followed by Bethesda assay for inhibitor-positive samples to quantify FVIII inhibitor titers. Results: Out of the 165 patients, 111 had severe hemophilia with FVIII level < 1%, 26 had moderate hemophilia with FVIII levels of 1–5% and 28 had mild hemophilia with FVIII levels of > 5%. Twenty patients had FVIII inhibitors, of whom 18 had high titers, 2 had low titers. The mean inhibitor level in low (titer) responders was 2.40 ± 0.85 BU, as opposed to 116.25 ±169.25 BU in high (titer) responders. In terms of disease severity, 18 of the 20 patients with FVIII inhibitors had severe HA, whereas two had moderate HA. No inhibitors were encountered in the mild HA group. Conclusion: Inhibitors only developed in moderate and severe cases of HA. The severity of the disease and age were the main contributing factors. The association between family history of inhibitors and the incidence of inhibitor formation warrants genetic evaluations to look for relevant mutations.
Coordinating vector field equations and diagrams with a serious game in introductory physics

Mathematical reasoning with algebraic and graphical representations is important for a throughout understanding of physics problems and concepts. Many problems require students to fluently move between algebraic and graphical representations. We developed a freely available serious game to challenge the representational fluency of introductory students regarding vector fields. Within the game, interactive puzzles are solved using different types of vector fields that must be configured with the correct mathematical parameters. A reward system implemented in the game prevents from using trial-and-error approaches and instead encourages the player to establish a mental connection between the graphical representation of the vector field and the (algebraic) equation before taking any action. For correct solutions, the player receives points and can unlock further levels. The graphics implemented in the game make the effects of changing the direction of a field or its magnitude visible and thus can help the learner gain a throughout understanding of vector fields. We report about the aim of the game from an educational perspective, describe potential learning scenarios and put in perspective the use of the game in the classroom.
Great Horned Owls and Snowshoe Hares: What Causes the Time Lag in the Numerical Response of Predators to Cyclic Prey?

Predator populations often decline with a time log after the peak of prey cycles. Theoretical models of predator-prey interactions predict that this delay is caused by a higher rate of population growth in prey, which leaves predators with super-abundant food after the peak and buffers their decline. This situation is met when predator populations have a lower innate capacity for increase than their prey or when the increase is inhibited because of territorial behaviour. Here, I refer to this hypothesis as 'single prey hypothesis' (SPH) in contrast to the 'multiple prey hypothesis' (MPH), which predicts that the delayed decline is caused by high availability of other prey species. Results on population growth rates of great horned owls showed that the predictions of SPH were met, although the predicted difference was small when floaters were taken into account or social exclusion from breeding was removed in a population model. In their diet, great horned owls relied to a large degree on the main cyclic prey (snowshoe hares), and thus the results were not in agreement with the MPH. Inverse density-dependent growth rates in the territorial population, density-dependent accumulation of floaters, and replacements of territorial vacancies were consistent with the hypothesis that social behaviour limited the number of owl territories. Reproduction of resident owls was immediately affected by the prey decline, indicating that there was no buffering effect of super-abundant food. Therefore, neither MPH nor SPH were satisfactory explanations, and I propose a mechanism based on individual behaviour to explain delayed numerical responses : territorial predators monopolize a disproportionately large amount of resources for reproduction during the increase and peak of the cycle, and are then buffered against prey declines by adjusting their breeding activities. Non-territorial floaters have lower access to resources and their numbers are affected more immediately by declining prey.
A Regularization-Based Adaptive Test for High-Dimensional Generalized Linear Models

In spite of its urgent importance in the era of big data, testing high-dimensional parameters in generalized linear models (GLMs) in the presence of high-dimensional nuisance parameters has been largely under-studied, especially with regard to constructing powerful tests for general (and unknown) alternatives. Most existing tests are powerful only against certain alternatives and may yield incorrect Type I error rates under high-dimensional nuisance parameter situations. In this paper, we propose the adaptive interaction sum of powered score (aiSPU) test in the framework of penalized regression with a non-convex penalty, called truncated Lasso penalty (TLP), which can maintain correct Type I error rates while yielding high statistical power across a wide range of alternatives. To calculate its p-values analytically, we derive its asymptotic null distribution. Via simulations, its superior finite-sample performance is demonstrated over several representative existing methods. In addition, we apply it and other representative tests to an Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) data set, detecting possible gene-gender interactions for Alzheimer’s disease. We also put R package “aispu” implementing the proposed test on GitHub.
Curcumin, a Natural Antimicrobial Agent with Strain-Specific Activity

Curcumin, a principal bioactive substance of turmeric (Curcuma longa L.), is reported as a strong antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral agent. However, its antimicrobial properties require further detailed investigations into clinical and multidrug-resistant (MDR) isolates. In this work, we tested curcumin’s efficacy against over 100 strains of pathogens belonging to 19 species. This activity was determined by the broth microdilution method and by calculating the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC). Our findings confirmed a much greater sensitivity of Gram-positive than Gram-negative bacteria. This study exhibited a significantly larger variation in the curcumin activity than previous works and suggested that numerous clinical strains of widespread pathogens have a poor sensitivity to curcumin. Similarly, the MICs of the MDR types of Staphylococcus aureus, S. haemolyticus, Escherichia coli, and Proteus mirabilis were high (≥2000 µg/mL). However, curcumin was effective against some species and strains: Streptococcus pyogenes (median MIC = 31.25 µg/mL), methicillin-sensitive S. aureus (250 µg/mL), Acinetobacter lwoffii (250 µg/mL), and individual strains of Enterococcus faecalis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (62.5 µg/mL). The sensitivity of species was not associated with its affiliation to the genus, and it could differ a lot (e.g., S. pyogenes, S. agalactiae and A. lwoffii, A. baumannii). Hence, curcumin can be considered as a promising antibacterial agent, but with a very selective activity.
Motivations for a Career in Dentistry among Dental Students and Dental Interns in Kenya

A number of factors have been cited as determinants for choosing a career in dentistry around the globe. The purpose of this study was to determine motivations for a career in dentistry among dental students and dental interns in Kenya. This was a cross-sectional study where 293 individuals participated by filling and returning self-administered questionnaires. The mean age of all respondents was 22.3 years. Overall, 59.5% of the respondents had selected dentistry as their preferred career at the end of high school. Majority (76.1%) of the respondents agreed that personal interest in dentistry was an important motivating factor for them. This was followed closely by a desire to help or serve people (74%), a desire for a flexible work schedule (63%), and an aspiration to be self-employed (61.8%). There was no difference between males and females regarding these as motivating factors. On the other hand, among factors that the respondents felt had the lowest influence on their choice of dentistry was parental influence, where only 22% of the respondents indicated that this was a motivating factor for them. Other potential motivating factors such as influence by friends and siblings (30.3%) as well as career talk and guidance (41.3%) were also ranked low. In general, the respondents indicated that they were motivated much more by personal and humanitarian factors, when compared to financial and societal factors.
Levodopa-Carbidopa Intestinal Gel Infusion Therapy Discontinuation: A Ten-Year Retrospective Analysis of 204 Treated Patients

Background Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the second most common progressive neurodegenerative disease. In the advanced stages, the continuous delivery of levodopa (LD) as levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) has demonstrated significant improvement of motor and nonmotor complications and improvement of the patients’ quality of life (QoL). Despite the growing global experience with this treatment, anumber of unsolved practical issues remain, and currently, the data on the reasons that can lead to the discontinuation of LCIG are scarce. Objective In the present study, we aimed to analyze the causes that led to the discontinuation of LCIG therapy. Methods In this retrospective study, after 10 years of experience with LCIG as a therapeutic option in advanced PD, we analyzed the data of all dropout cases among the 204 patients that initiated LCIG therapy in two Romanian centers. Results Of the 204 patients enrolled, 43 patients dropped out. Disease duration until LCIG infusion was significantly longer (11.67±4.98 vs 9.44±3.44) and the overall clinical picture more sever (both regarding motor symptoms and cognitive decline) in dropout patients (compared to patients who continued treatment). The dropout patients also presented significant differences regarding the incidence of polyneuropathy (32.5% vs 11.18%). The main cause of discontinuation was death. Conclusion The causes of discontinuation from LCIG therapy in Romanian patients are similar to those from other centers; however, the rate of dropouts is somewhat lower. The clinician’s experience in selecting and treating the patients in advanced stages of PD can increase therapeutic adherence. Also, the presence of a well-trained caregiver along with the availability of a proper aftercare system is mandatory for maintaining the long-term benefits of the therapy and the overall best outcome possible. Targeted prospective studies are needed to confirm whether a more severe stage of the disease and cognitive impairment at the time of initiation, respectively, the association of polyneuropathy can be considered as predictive factors for dropout.
DF-GAN: Deep Fusion Generative Adversarial Networks for Text-to-Image Synthesis

Synthesizing high-resolution realistic images from text descriptions is a challenging task. Almost all existing text-to-image methods employ stacked generative adversarial networks as the backbone, utilize cross-modal attention mechanisms to fuse text and image features, and use extra networks to ensure text-image semantic consistency. The existing text-to-image models have three problems: 1) For the backbone, there are multiple generators and discriminators stacked for generating different scales of images making the training process slow and inefficient. 2) For semantic consistency, the existing models employ extra networks to ensure the semantic consistency increasing the training complexity and bringing an additional computational cost. 3) For the text-image feature fusion method, cross-modal attention is only applied a few times during the generation process due to its computational cost impeding fusing the text and image features deeply. To solve these limitations, we propose 1) a novel simplified text-to-image backbone which is able to synthesize high-quality images directly by one pair of generator and discriminator, 2) a novel regularization method called Matching-Aware zero-centered Gradient Penalty which promotes the generator to synthesize more realistic and text-image semantic consistent images without introducing extra networks, 3) a novel fusion module called Deep Text-Image Fusion Block which can exploit the semantics of text descriptions effectively and fuse text and image features deeply during the generation process. Compared with the previous text-to-image models, our DF-GAN is simpler and more efficient and achieves better performance. Extensive experiments and ablation studies on both Caltech-UCSD Birds 200 and COCO datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed model in comparison to state-of-the-art models.
Exercise Training Protects against Atorvastatin-Induced Skeletal Muscle Dysfunction and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in the Skeletal Muscle of Rats

Statins are used to prevent and treat atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, but they also induce myopathy and mitochondrial dysfunction. Here, we investigated whether exercise training prevents glucose intolerance, muscle impairment, and mitochondrial dysfunction in the skeletal muscles of Wistar rats treated with atorvastatin (5 mg kg−1 day−1) for 12 weeks. The rats were assigned to the following three groups: the control (CON), atorvastatin-treated (ATO), and ATO plus aerobic exercise training groups (ATO+EXE). The ATO+EXE group exhibited higher glucose tolerance and forelimb strength and lower creatine kinase levels than the other groups. Mitochondrial respiratory and Ca2+ retention capacity was significantly lower in the ATO group than in the other groups, but exercise training protected against atorvastatin-induced impairment in both the soleus and white gastrocnemius muscles. The mitochondrial H2O2 emission rate was relatively higher in the ATO group and lower in the ATO+EXE group, in both the soleus and white gastrocnemius muscles, than in the CON group. In the soleus muscle, the Bcl-2, SOD1, SOD2, Akt, and AMPK phosphorylation levels were significantly higher in the ATO+EXE group than in the ATO group. In the white gastrocnemius muscle, the SOD2, Akt, and AMPK phosphorylation levels were significantly higher in the ATO+EXE group than in the ATO group. Therefore, exercise training might regulate atorvastatin-induced muscle damage, muscle fatigue, and mitochondrial dysfunction in the skeletal muscles.
Diagnostic Performance of [18F]Fluorocholine and [68Ga]Ga-PSMA PET/CT in Prostate Cancer: A Comparative Study

The current study endeavored to closely compare the detection rate of 68-Gallium labelled prostate-specific membrane antigen ([68Ga]Ga-PSMA) versus [18F]Fluorocholine in men with prostate cancer (PC), to investigate the benefits and pitfalls of each modality in the setting of various patient characteristics. We retrospectively analyzed 29 biopsy-proven PC patients in two categories, staging and restaging, who underwent both scans within a maximum of 30 days of each other. Variables including patient demographics, prostate specific antigen (PSA) level, Gleason score, clinical course, and following treatments were recorded. The number and location of suspicious lesions as well as uptake values were noted. A total of 148 suspicious lesions were detected, of which 70.9% (105/148) were concordantly visualized in both imaging modalities. [68Ga]Ga-PSMA positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) revealed a higher number of metastatic lesions per patients (91% vs 78%). The mean of maximum standardized uptake value (SUV max) in concordant lesions was significantly higher in [68Ga]Ga-PSMA compared to [18F]Fluorocholine PET/CT (14.6 ± 8.44 vs. 6.9 ± 3.4, p = 0.001). Discordant lesions were detected by both modalities, but more frequently by [68Ga]Ga-PSMA PET/CT (20.3% in [68Ga]Ga-PSMA versus 8.8% by [18F]Fluorocholine PET/CT). In patients with PSA levels below 1.0 ng/mL and <2.0 ng/mL, [18F]Fluorocholine PET/CT detection rate was half (57% and 55%, respectively) that of [68Ga]Ga-PSMA PET/CT. Tumor, nodes and metastases (TNM) staging, and subsequently patient management, was only influenced in 4/29 patients (14%), particularly by [68Ga]Ga-PSMA PET/CT with PSA values under 0.5 ng/mL. [68Ga]Ga-PSMA PET/CT revealed superior diagnostic performance to [18F]Fluorocholine PET/CT in staging and restaging of PC patients, especially in cases with low PSA levels. However, in a few hormone resistant high-risk PC patients, [18F]Fluorocholine PET/CT may improve overall diagnostic accuracy.
Relationships of diabetes self‐care behaviours to glycaemic control in adults with type 2 diabetes and comorbid heart failure

Abstract Aim To describe the relationship between diabetes self‐care behaviours and glycaemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes and comorbid heart failure. Design A cross‐sectional, correlational study. Method A secondary analysis of 180 participants’ baseline data from a clinical trial that tested a 6‐month integrated self‐care intervention was performed. Correlational and hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to assess the relationships between diabetes self‐care behaviours and glycaemic control. Result The Summary of Diabetes Self‐Care Activities general diet and Summary of Diabetes Self‐Care Activities exercise were negatively associated with glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), while Summary of Diabetes Self‐Care Activities specific diet was positively associated. Diabetic end‐organ failure, taking insulin only and taking both oral antiglycaemic and insulin, predicted higher HbA1c and fasting blood glucose. African American race and dyslipidaemia predicted higher HbA1c while taking higher total daily medication predicted higher fasting blood glucose. Longer years lived with heart failure, lower ventricular ejection fraction and exposure to chemotherapy predicted lower fasting blood glucose.
Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on core surgical training

Background and aims COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption in training which is even more pronounced in the surgical specialties. We aim to assess the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on core surgical training. Methods All core surgical and improving surgical trainees in West of Scotland region were invited to participate in an online voluntary anonymous survey via SurveyMonkey. Results 28 of 44 (63.6%) trainees responded, 15 (53.6%) were CT1/ST1. 14 (50.0%) working in teaching hospital and 15 (53.6%) working in general surgery. 20 (71.4%) felt that due to the pandemic they have less opportunity to operate as the primary surgeon. 21 (75.0%) have not attended any outpatient clinics. 8 (28.6%) did not have any form of access to the laparoscopic box-trainer. 20 (71.4%) felt their level of confidence in preforming surgical skills has been negatively impacted. 18 (64.3%) found it difficult to demonstrate progress in portfolio. 21 (75.0%) trainees have not attended any teaching. 10 (35.7%) trainees have been off-sick. 8 (28.6%) trainees have felt slightly or significantly more stressed. Conclusion COVID-19 pandemic has an unprecedented negative impact on all aspects of core surgical training. The long term impact on the current cohort of trainees is yet to be seen.
AN ALTITUDINAL COMPARISON OF GROWTH AND SPECIES COMPOSITION IN HURRICANE-DAMAGED FORESTS IN PUERTO RICO

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, PO Box 454004, Las Vegas, NV 89154-4004, * Terrestrial Ecology Division, University of Puerto Rico, PO Box 363682, San Juan, PR 00936-3682, t USDA Forest Service, Centre for Forest Mycology Research, Forest Products Laboratory, Palmer, PR 00721 and tDepartment of Plant Biology, Louisiana State University, 502 Life Sciences Building, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA