Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
End-to-End Bias Mitigation by Modelling Biases in Corpora

Several recent studies have shown that strong natural language understanding (NLU) models are prone to relying on unwanted dataset biases without learning the underlying task, resulting in models that fail to generalize to out-of-domain datasets and are likely to perform poorly in real-world scenarios. We propose two learning strategies to train neural models, which are more robust to such biases and transfer better to out-of-domain datasets. The biases are specified in terms of one or more bias-only models, which learn to leverage the dataset biases. During training, the bias-only models’ predictions are used to adjust the loss of the base model to reduce its reliance on biases by down-weighting the biased examples and focusing the training on the hard examples. We experiment on large-scale natural language inference and fact verification benchmarks, evaluating on out-of-domain datasets that are specifically designed to assess the robustness of models against known biases in the training data. Results show that our debiasing methods greatly improve robustness in all settings and better transfer to other textual entailment datasets. Our code and data are publicly available in https://github.com/rabeehk/robust-nli.
High-performance stock index trading: making e ﬀ ective use of a deep long short-term memory network

We present a deep long short-term memory (LSTM)-based neural network for predicting asset prices, together with a successful trading strategy for generating proﬁts based on the model’s predictions. Our work is motivated by the fact that the e ﬀ ectiveness of any prediction model is inherently coupled to the trading strategy it is used with, and vise versa. This highlights the di ﬃ culty in developing models and strategies which are jointly optimal, but also points to avenues of investigation which are broader than prevailing approaches. Our LSTM model is structurally simple and generates predictions based on price observations over a modest number of past trading days. The model’s architecture is tuned to promote proﬁtability, as opposed to accuracy, under a strategy that does not trade simply based on whether the price is predicted to rise or fall, but rather takes advantage of the distribution of predicted returns, and the fact that a pre-diction’s position within that distribution carries useful information about the expected proﬁtability of a trade. The proposed model and trading strategy were tested on the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), NASDAQ and Russel 2000 stock indices, and achieved cumulative returns of 340%, 185%, 371% and 360%, respectively, over 2010-2018, far outperforming the benchmark buy-and-hold strategy as well as other recent e ﬀ orts.
Preoperative 5-Meter Walk Test as a Predictor of Length of Stay After Open Heart Surgery

Purpose:To determine if preoperative gait speed over 5 m is a predictor of total hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay (LOS) after open heart surgery. This would enable hospitals to prepare financially and proactively plan to manage risk for complications associated with increased LOS. Methods:Retrospective analysis of the results of 252 preoperative 5-Meter Walk Tests (5MWTs) and the relationship with hospital and ICU LOS within the context of patient demographics, gait deviation, and assistive device use. Results:A significant correlation was found between trial gait speed average and total hospital LOS in days (&rgr; = 0.22, P < .05) but not for ICU LOS. A significant association (P < .05) was found for patients having a total hospital LOS of >7 days and slower gait speed trial averages (5.0 vs 5.8 seconds, P < .05), increased occurrence of assistive device use (2.5% vs 9.9%, P < .05), and a greater number of ICU readmissions (P < .05). Conclusions:A significant relationship exists between a slower preoperative gait speed and an increased hospital LOS; however, this relationship is small as gait speed is only one of the several factors influencing LOS. A preoperative 5MWT may be useful to predict which patients are more likely to have an increased hospital LOS after cardiac surgery; however, as the relationship is not a strong one, external factors may more heavily impact a patient's LOS.
Abdominal sarcoidosis presenting as bilateral simultaneous optic disc granulomas

ABSTRACT A 24-year-old male presents with diminution of vision in both eyes of acute onset with floaters. He has a history of fever of unknown origin. Examination revealed bilateral optic disc granulomas with mild vitritis. Serum angiotensin converting enzyme was found to be elevated and tuberculin skin test was negative. Computed tomography scan of the chest showed clear lung fields with no hilar lymphadenopathy but mildly enlarged pretracheal lymph nodes. Computed tomography scan of the abdomen revealed multiple enlarged abdominal lymph nodes with hepatosplenomegaly, and ultrasound-guided biopsy of one of these lymph nodes showed chronic granulomatous inflammation consistent with sarcoidosis. Immunosuppressive therapy resulted in resolution of ocular inflammation with no recurrence.
Componental Analysis of the Factors Influencing Shoot Fly Resistance in Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench)

In studies on genotypic and phenotypic correlations between resistance in sorghum to Atherigona soccata Rond. (an important pest in India) and 3 of its component characters, trichome intensity and glossiness intensity showed significant negative associations with resistance but did not play any direct role in building up the total variability in resistance. Correlations and path analysis showed rather dissimilar pictures of the factors governing resistance. It was also evident from both kinds of analyses that the major portion of the variability in resistance was contributed by the character number of eggs/plant. The glossy seedling expression could be used as a simple and reliable criterion for resistance
Comparative study between functional outcome of lumbar canal stenosis treated with surgical decompression by laminectomy and unilateral partial hemi laminectomy approaches

Background: Lumbar spinal canal stenosis may eventually cause signs of intermittent neurogenic claudication. The surgical options include procedures such as midline decompression by laminectomy and different kinds of unilateral and bilateral fenestrations and partial or full hemi laminectomies. The aim of the study is to unilateral decompressive approach provides the sufficient decompression; less invasive unilateral procedure, which preserves posterior musculoligamentous complex and bony structures reduce associated morbidity.Methods: 41 patients underwent preoperative assessment of Japanese orthopaedic association score (JOA Score), Neurogenic claudication outcome scores (NCOS), visual analogy scale for back pain and neurogenic claudication. Patients were randomized to undergo either unilateral decompression by partial hemi laminectomy or CMD (CMD) by laminectomy. 20 patients was randomized into unilateral decompression by partial hemi laminectomy group and 21 patients into CMD (CMD) by laminectomy group.Results: The mean JOA recovery rate was 50.61% for the unilateral decompression group and 52.12% for the CMD group. Notably, 62% of CMD group had good or excellent outcome while 70% of unilateral decompression group had a good or excellent outcome.Conclusions: In our study, unilateral decompression by a partial hemi laminectomy provides minimal exposure for decompression in lumbar canal stenosis while preserving musculoligamentous attachments of the posterior elements of the spine and good postoperative results after one year with favorable outcomes of at least 70%.
Mothers’ Attitude and Practices on Breast Feeding in Sokoto, North- Western Nigeria

Background: Although the benefits of breastfeeding (BF) are well established, a number of traditional and cultural practices still affect the sustenance of appropriate breastfeeding. Inappropriate breast feeding practices predisposes children to early risk of malnutrition and death. Therefore, understanding those practices and attitudes that may hinder appropriate BF will help in addressing them. Objective: This study aimed to determine mothers’ attitudes and practices on breastfeeding and the prevalence of exclusive breast feeding among the respondents. Methodology: This is a descriptive, cross sectional study targeted at breast feeding mothers, presenting to Paediatric clinics in two major Hospitals in Sokoto metropolis. Interviewer administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Result: One hundred and thirty-two respondents were interviewed; with a mean age of 30.3±7.7 (range 18-56) years and mean parity of 4±2.7 (range 1-12) deliveries. Majority (78.8%) are Hausa by tribe, with only half of the respondents having secondary school education or higher. Only 34.8% of the respondents exclusively breastfed their last child for 6 months and 43.9% introduced complimentary feeds appropriately by 6months. Up to 10.6% of respondents have experienced interrupted BF and 39.4% of them did not recommence breast feeding after a period of more than 3 days of interruption, as they believed it would be harmful to the child. Majority said they would continue to breast feed even after becoming pregnant while breastfeeding and 60.6% would practice tandem nursing if the need should arise. Conclusion: Exclusive BF practice among the study subjects was low and misconception about recommencing BF after a period of interruption was high. There is need for more enlightenment campaigns on breastfeeding and factors that may influence its sustenance in our communities.
SegRPN: Scale Aware Joint Object Detection and Semantic Segmentation

—Object detection and semantic segmentation are two of the most fundamental tasks in computer vision. When addressed jointly, it can be applied to many ﬁelds such as autonomous driving. While most of the existing works mainly rely on sharing the deep convolutional features for jointly dealing with the two tasks, we exploit a much deeper connection between object detection and semantic segmentation. We observe that the feature maps used by Region Proposal Networks (RPN) resemble a dense class-agnostic (i.e., foreground/background) segmentation map. We exploit this observation to improve the functioning of RPN as well as improve performance for semantic segmentation. We propose a framework called SegRPN where we endow Faster-RCNN with a semantic segmentation branch using a shared Feature Pyramid Network (FPN) backbone. The semantic segmentation branch is facilitated by a class agnostic segmentation module, which serves two purposes: (i) it provides a scale speciﬁc objectness prior for semantic segmentation and (ii) it supports the RPN in the segmentation branch which improves the functioning of the RPN in the detection branch. Experimental results on Cityscapes dataset demonstrate that the proposed SegRPN is able to improve both object detection and semantic segmentation results.
CARDIOPROTECTIVE EFFECT OF VITAMIN E AGAINST MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION INDUCED BY ISOPRENALINE IN ALBINO RATS

Objective: Vitamin E is an antioxidant which can help in the prevention of cardiovascular disease. The objective of this study was to estimate the effects of Vitamin E on cardiac marker enzymes in isoprenaline (ISO)-induced myocardial infracted rats.Methods: Adult male albino rats were divided into three groups. The first group was the control negative group. The second group was the control positive group that was subcutaneously injected with ISO (100 mg/kg). The third group was pretreated with Vitamin E (100 mg/kg) once daily for 30 days, then subcutaneously injected with ISO at an interval of 24 h for 2 days. Aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine transaminase (ALT), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), cardiac troponin-I (CTn-I), glutathione (GSH), superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), and histopathological examinations were measured. Comparison between groups was achieved by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test through SPSS software.Results: The levels of AST, ALT, LDH, creatine kinase (CK), and CTn-I significantly decreased in pretreated group with Vitamin E compared to its increasing in the control positive group. The level of GSH and SOD markedly increased in pretreated group with Vitamin E compared to its decreasing in the control positive group, while the level of MDA significantly decreased in pretreated group with Vitamin E compared to its increasing in the control positive group. ISO + Vitamin E rats group reflected a cardioprotective role of Vitamin E in myocardial infarcted rats.Conclusion: Pretreatment with Vitamin E can protect the myocardial membranes against ISO-induced oxidative stress in rats and can be used for routine clinical and epidemiological purposes.
Response to reviewers on “Glacial cycles simulation of the Antarctic Ice Sheet with PISM – Part 2: Parameter ensemble analysis” by

The Parallel Ice Sheet Model (PISM) is applied to the Antarctic Ice Sheet over the last two glacial cycles (≈ 210,000 years) with a resolution of 16 km. A Large Ensemble :: An ::::::::: ensemble of 256 model runs is analyzed in which four relevant model parameters have been systematically varied using full-factorial parameter sampling. Parameters and plausible parameter ranges have been identified in a companion paper ::::::::: companion ::::: paper :::::::::::::::::: (Albrecht et al., 2019) and are associated with ice 5 dynamics, climatic forcing, basal sliding and bed deformation and represent distinct classes of model uncertainties. The model is calibrated ::::: scored : against both modern and geologic data, including reconstructed grounding line locations, elevation-age data, ice thickness and surface velocities as well as uplift rates. An aggregated score is computed for each ensemble member that measures the overall model-data misfit, including measurement uncertainty in terms of a Gaussian error model (Briggs 10 and Tarasov, 2013). The statistical method used to analyze the ensemble simulation results follows closely the simple averaging method described in Pollard et al. (2016). This analysis further constrains :::::: reveals ::::::: clusters :: of :::: best :: fit ::::::::: parameter ::::::::::: combinations :::: and ::::: hence :: a ::::: likely ::::: range :: of : relevant model and boundary parametersby revealing clusters of best fit parameter combinations, :::::: rather :::: than ::::::::: individual :::: best :: fit :::::::::: parameters. The ensemble of reconstructed histories 15 of Antarctic Ice Sheet volumes provides a score-weighted likely range of sea-level contributions since the Last Glacial Maximum of 9.4 ± 4.1 m (or 6.5 ± 2.0×10 km), which is at the upper range of :::: most previous studies. The last deglaciation occurs in all ensemble simulations after around 12,000 years before present, and hence after the Meltwater Pulse-1A. Our Large Ensemble :::::::: ensemble analysis also provides well-defined :: an :::::::: estimate :: of parametric uncertainty bounds and a probabilistic 20 range of ::: for ::: the : present-day states ::: state : that can be used for PISM projections of future sea-level contributions from the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
Role of FABP3 as biomarker in Alzheimer's disease and synucleinopathies

Lipids are fundamental components of brain cells as they are involved in several essential processes like remodeling of plasma membrane, synaptic function and receptor–ligand interactions. Systemic and brain alterations in lipid metabolism have been linked to the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders like dementia and parkinsonisms. Intracellular transport of lipids is regulated by fatty acid-binding proteins. Recently, a member of this family, the fatty acid-binding protein 3 has been proposed as a potential biomarker across a range of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. In this special report, we describe recent progresses in characterizing the role of fatty acid-binding protein 3 in neurodegeneration and its putative role as biomarker measurable in biological fluids.
Unilateral and Bilateral Cortical Resection: Effects on Spike-Wave Discharges in a Genetic Absence Epilepsy Model

Research Question Recent discoveries have challenged the traditional view that the thalamus is the primary source driving spike-and-wave discharges (SWDs). At odds, SWDs in genetic absence models have a cortical focal origin in the deep layers of the perioral region of the somatosensory cortex. The present study examines the effect of unilateral and bilateral surgical resection of the assumed focal cortical region on the occurrence of SWDs in anesthetized WAG/Rij rats, a well described and validated genetic absence model. Methods Male WAG/Rij rats were used: 9 in the resected and 6 in the control group. EEG recordings were made before and after craniectomy, after unilateral and after bilateral removal of the focal region. Results SWDs decreased after unilateral cortical resection, while SWDs were no longer noticed after bilateral resection. This was also the case when the resected areas were restricted to layers I-IV with layers V and VI intact. Conclusions These results suggest that SWDs are completely abolished after bilateral removal of the focal region, most likely by interference with an intracortical columnar circuit. The evidence suggests that absence epilepsy is a network type of epilepsy since interference with only the local cortical network abolishes all seizures.
Central giant cell granuloma of the jaws and giant cell tumor of long bones: A clinicopathological, cytometric and immunohistochemical comparative study

Aim: Central giant cell granuloma (CGCG) of the jaws and giant cell tumor (GCT) of bone share a number of similarities and dissimilarities in respect of their histopathological, cytometric and immunohistochemical features. The aim of this study was to compare CGCG of the jaws and GCT of long bones from clinicopathology, cytometry and immunohistochemistry aspects. Materials and Methods: 18 CGCG and 22 GCT of bones were compared. Clinical data were obtained on the age, gender, diagnosis, clinical course, treatment and follow up. Histopatholgical features of mononuclear cell; stroma and giant cells were assessed. Computer-assisted image analysis was used to measure the mean number of giant cells, mean number of nuclei per giant cell, fractional surface area and relative size index. Expression of cell differentiation markers (vimentin, CD68, CD34, S-100P, alpha-smooth muscle actin [αSMA]) and cell cycle related markers (PCNA, P53, Ki-67, bcl-2) were evaluated. Results: CGCG of the jaw showed an early age of presentation (55.6% <25 years) and the mandible was the more common anatomical location (77.8), whereas the femur and tibia were equally affected by GCT (36.4%). GCT showed higher mean number of giant cells, higher number of nuclei per giant cell, greater fractional surface area and relative size index. Both diseases showed similar cellular phenotype in respect of Vimentin, S100 protein, CD68 and CD34. There was increased immunoreactivity of GCT to Ki-67, P53 and αSMA. Conclusion: The findings suggested that the GCT and the CGCG may be variants of the same disease entity with age and site-specific features.
Screening for Cardiac Disease with Genetic risk scoring, Advanced ECG, Echocardiography, Protein Biomarkers and Metabolomics

Introduction Screening patients for cardiovascular disease has not been widely advocated due to cost implications and is reserved for high risk or symptomatic patients. We undertook an exploratory study to evaluate the promising low-cost methods for screening, including genetic risk scoring (GRS), advanced ECG (A-ECG), echocardiography and metabolomics. Methods 78 patients underwent advanced 5-min ECG and echocardiography, including global longitudinal strain (GLS), and echocardiographic calcium scoring (eCS). A GRS of 27 SNPs (GRS27) related to coronary disease and 3 SNPs for atrial fibrillation was used, as well as hs-troponin (Abbott, Singulex, Roche), NTproBNP (Roche) testing and targeted plasma metabolomics using GC-MS. Results were correlated with the presence of coronary artery disease (CAD) (CT coronary angiography (CTCA)), measures of left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) (echocardiography and CTCA), and LV systolic dysfunction (LVSD) (echocardiography). Results LV dysfunction was accurately identified by using either A-ECG (AUC 0.97, 0.89 to 0.99) or NTproBNP. eCS demonstrated accurate discrimination of CAD (AUC 0.84, 95% CI 0.72 to 0.92, p < 0.0001. Troponin I (Abbott/Singulex) had the highest sensitivity and accuracy for the detection of LVH measured by either CT or echocardiography (AUC 0.85, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.92), however specificity was reduced by the presence of LV systolic dysfunction. Metabolomics and A-ECG identified underlying abnormal mechanisms related to both LVH (glycine metabolism) and LV dysfunction, (Citric Acid cycle). Metabolomics provided incidental utility by identifying metformin adherence and nutritional biomarkers. Conclusion A multi-omic approach to screening can be achieved at relatively low cost, and high accuracy, but will need to be evaluated in larger populations to prove its utility.
Adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients in a tertiary care teaching hospital: analysis of the reported cases

Background: Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR’s) contributes to the burden of drug-related morbidity and mortality. ADRs are seen frequently in hospitals due to a variety of factors like complexity of diseases, drug interactions, polypharmacy, and possible negligence. The purpose of the study was to identify and assess ADR in various departments of a tertiary care teaching hospital.Methods: A prospective spontaneous reporting was carried out in a tertiary care teaching hospital during a period of four months from November 2016 to February 2017. All suspected spontaneous ADRs were assessed and the information was collected and analyzed by the pharmacologists for causality assessment using the Naranjo’s causality assessment scale.Results: A total of 30 ADRs were reported with female preponderance (70%). Majority of ADRs were from General Medicine and Oncology departments. The most affected organ systems were skin (80%) followed by the gastrointestinal system (13.3%). The most frequent drugs causing ADRs were antibiotics (56.3%) in which type B reactions were more compared to type A and followed by anticancer drugs (10%). The severity assessment showed that most of them were mild reactions (76.6%). Causality assessment revealed that 90% of the reactions were probable, 10% were possible and no reactions were unlikely.Conclusions: The study accomplished that ADRs are widespread and a few of them raised the healthcare expenditure due to increased hospital stay. The reporting of the ADRs to regional Pharmacovigilance centers should be encouraged to ensure drug safety.