Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generative Adversarial Networks for Electronic Health Records: A Framework for Exploring and Evaluating Methods for Predicting Drug-Induced Laboratory Test Trajectories

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) represent a promising class of generative networks that combine neural networks with game theory. From generating realistic images and videos to assisting musical creation, GANs are transforming many fields of arts and sciences. However, their application to healthcare has not been fully realized, more specifically in generating electronic health records (EHR) data. In this paper, we propose a framework for exploring the value of GANs in the context of continuous laboratory time series data. We devise an unsupervised evaluation method that measures the predictive power of synthetic laboratory test time series. Further, we show that when it comes to predicting the impact of drug exposure on laboratory test data, incorporating representation learning of the training cohorts prior to training GAN models is beneficial.
Mechanism of Inhibition of HIV-1 Integrase by G-tetrad-forming Oligonucleotides in Vitro *

The G-tetrad-forming oligonucleotides T30177 andT30695 have been identified as potent inhibitors of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 integrase (HIV-1 IN) activity (Rando, R. F., Ojwang, J., Elbaggari, A., Reyes, G. R., Tinder, R., McGrath, M. S., and Hogan, M. E. (1995) J. Biol. Chem. 270, 1754–1760; Mazumder, A. , Neamati, N. , Ojwang, J. O. , Sunder, S. , Rando, R. F. , and Pommier, Y. (1996)Biochemistry 35, 13762–13771; Jing, N. , and Hogan, M. E. (1998) J. Biol. Chem. 273, 34992–34999). To understand the inhibition of HIV-1 IN activity by the G-quartet inhibitors, we have designed the oligonucleotides T40215 and T40216, composed of three and four G-quartets with stem lengths of 19 and 24 Å, respectively. The fact that increasing the G-quartet stem length from 15 to 24 Å kept inhibition of HIV-1 IN activity unchanged suggests that the binding interaction occurs between a GTGT loop domain of the G-quartet inhibitors and a catalytic site of HIV-1 IN, referred to as a face-to-face interaction. Docking the NMR structure of T30695(Jing and Hogan (1998)) into the x-ray structure of the core domain of HIV-1 IN, HIV-1 IN-(51–209) (Maignan, S., Guilloteau, J.-P., Qing, Z.-L., Clement-Mella, C., and Mikol, V. (1998) J. Mol. Biol. 282, 359–368), was performed using the GRAMM program. The statistical distributions of hydrogen bonding between HIV-1 IN andT30695 were obtained from the analyses of 1000 random docking structures. The docking results show a high probability of interaction between the GTGT loop residues of the G-quartet inhibitors and the catalytic site of HIV-1 IN, in agreement with the experimental observation.
A Scalable Dataflow Implementation of Curran's Approximation Algorithm

Computational finance is a challenging application domain with ever-increasing performance requirements. Driven by the competition between companies, computational finance pushes High Performance Computing (HPC) technology to its limits. In this paper, we consider Asian options which are financial derivatives whose payoff is determined by the average price of their underlying asset at predetermined observation points rather than on the single value at expiration time. Due to this path dependency, their pricing is computationally expensive and is therefore a suitable candidate for dataflow acceleration. This paper introduces an application for Asian option pricing based on Curran's approximation method that exploits a dataflow-oriented development approach, employing dedicated optimisations and replacing conventional floating-point with fixed-point formats wherever possible. The implementation targets a Maxeler server-class HPC system consisting of a CPU server node and Maxeler dataflow engines encapsulating Altera Stratix V FPGAs. The application has been evaluated on two different data sets and achieves a speed-up of 111x and 278.3x compared to a single-threaded software implementation, and 4x and 9.2x compared to a multi-threaded software implementation running on a dual socket CPU server with 12-core Intel Xeon E5-2697 v2 CPUs with up to 48 hyper-threads in total.
A Test of Numeric Formats for Communicating Risk Probabilities

Background. Because people frequently encounter information about the probability of health risks, there is a need for research to help identify the best formats for presenting these probabilities. Methods. Three waves of participants were recruited from visitors to a cancer-related Internet site. Participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario that required them to perform 2 mathematical operations of the types that might be encountered in discussions of risk. Each wave encountered different operations. The operations used were compare, halve, triple, add, sequence, and tradeoff. Three numeric formats for communicating risk likelihoods were tested: percentages (e.g., 12%), frequencies (e.g., 12 in 100), and 1 in n (e.g., 1 in 8), and many levels of risk magnitude were crossed with the 3 formats. Results. The total sample of 16,133 individuals represented an overall participation rate of 36.1%. Although the relative performance of the formats varied by operation, aggregated across operations, the percentage and frequency formats had higher overall accuracy rates than the 1-in-n format (57% and 55% v. 45%, respectively). Participants with less education, African Americans, Hispanics, and women had more difficulty with the mathematical operations. Discussion. Percentage and frequency formats facilitate performance of simple operations on risk probabilities compared with the 1-in-n format, which should usually be avoided.
Etanercept protects rat cardiomyocytes against hypertrophy by regulating inflammatory cytokines secretion and cell apoptosis

We aimed to investigate the effect of etanercept, a tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) inhibitor, on rat cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and its underlying mechanism. Primary neonatal rat cardiomyocytes were isolated from Sprague-Dawley rats. The model of rat cardiomyocyte hypertrophy was induced by endothelin, and then treated with different concentrations of etanercept (1, 10, and 50 μM). After treatment, cell counts, viability and cell apoptosis were evaluated. The mRNA levels of myocardial hypertrophy marker genes, including atrial natriuretic factor (ANF), matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-9 and MMP-13, were detected by qRT-PCR, and the expressions of apoptosis-related proteins (Bcl-2 and Bax) were measured by western blotting. The protein levels of transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and cardiotrophin-1 (CT-1) were determined using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. In the present study, TNF-α level in cardiomyocytes with hypertrophy was significantly enhanced (P<0.05). Compared to the model group, cell number and viability were significantly increased and ratio of apoptotic cells was reduced by etanercept (P<0.05, P<0.01, or P<0.001). In addition, etanercept remarkably reduced the mRNA levels of ANF, MMP-9 and MMP-13, inhibited the expression of Bax, and increased the expression of Bcl-2 compared to the model group (P<0.05). ELISA results further showed that etanercept lowered the levels of IL-1β, IL-6, LIF and CT-1 but not TGF-β1 compared to the model group (P<0.05). Etanercept may protect rat cardiomyocytes from hypertrophy by inhibiting inflammatory cytokines secretion and cell apoptosis.
Performance of the LACE index to identify elderly patients at high risk for hospital readmission in Singapore

Abstract Unplanned readmissions may be avoided by accurate risk prediction and appropriate resources could be allocated to high risk patients. The Length of stay, Acuity of admission, Charlson comorbidity index, Emergency department visits in past six months (LACE) index was developed to predict hospital readmissions in Canada. In this study, we assessed the performance of the LACE index in a Singaporean cohort by identifying elderly patients at high risk of 30-day readmissions. We further investigated the use of additional risk factors in improving readmission prediction performance. Data were extracted from the hospital's electronic health records (EHR) for all elderly patients ≥ 65 years, with alive-discharge episodes from Singapore General Hospital in 2014. In addition to LACE, we also collected patients’ data during the index admission, including demographics, medical history, laboratory results, and previous medical utilization. Among the 17,006 patients analyzed, 2051 or 12.1% of them were observed 30-day readmissions. The final predictive model was better than the LACE index in terms of discriminative ability; c-statistic of LACE index and final logistic regression model was 0.595 and 0.628, respectively. The LACE index had poor discriminative ability in identifying elderly patients at high risk of 30-day readmission, even if it was augmented with additional risk factors. Further studies should be conducted to discover additional factors that may enable more accurate and timely identification of patients at elevated risk of readmissions, so that necessary preventive actions can be taken.
Spatial, socio‐economic, and ecological implications of incorporating minimum size constraints in marine protected area network design

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are the cornerstone of most marine conservation strategies, but the effectiveness of each one partly depends on its size and distance to other MPAs in a network. Despite this, current recommendations on ideal MPA size and spacing vary widely, and data are lacking on how these constraints might influence the overall spatial characteristics, socio‐economic impacts, and connectivity of the resultant MPA networks. To address this problem, we tested the impact of applying different MPA size constraints in English waters. We used the Marxan spatial prioritization software to identify a network of MPAs that met conservation feature targets, whilst minimizing impacts on fisheries; modified the Marxan outputs with the MinPatch software to ensure each MPA met a minimum size; and used existing data on the dispersal distances of a range of species found in English waters to investigate the likely impacts of such spatial constraints on the region's biodiversity. Increasing MPA size had little effect on total network area or the location of priority areas, but as MPA size increased, fishing opportunity cost to stakeholders increased. In addition, as MPA size increased, the number of closely connected sets of MPAs in networks and the average distance between neighboring MPAs decreased, which consequently increased the proportion of the planning region that was isolated from all MPAs. These results suggest networks containing large MPAs would be more viable for the majority of the region's species that have small dispersal distances, but dispersal between MPA sets and spill‐over of individuals into unprotected areas would be reduced. These findings highlight the importance of testing the impact of applying different MPA size constraints because there are clear trade‐offs that result from the interaction of size, number, and distribution of MPAs in a network.
Lumbopelvic kinematics and trunk muscle activity during sitting on stable and unstable surfaces.

STUDY DESIGN A single-group comparative study. OBJECTIVES To compare lumbopelvic kinematics and muscle activation patterns while sitting on stable and unstable surfaces. BACKGROUND Unstable surfaces are commonly used during the rehabilitation of certain low back pain disorders. The benefits postulated are increased muscle activity and facilitation of sustainable midrange positions via neuromuscular control. The use of unstable sitting devices in the workplace is controversial, as the postulated increase in muscle activity is thought to lead to a muscle fatigue/pain response. However, little evidence exists for or against the ability of these devices to alleviate or prevent spinal pain. METHODS AND MEASURES This study included 26 healthy adults (14 male, 12 female). Fastrak 3-dimensional motion analysis detected lumbar curvature, pelvic tilt, and postural sway during sitting on a stable and unstable surface over 5-minute periods. Surface electromyography was used to measure activity in the superficial lumbar multifidus, transverse fibers of internal oblique, and iliocostalis lumborum pars thoracis. RESULTS Spinal postures were similar for sitting on a stable and unstable surface. Significant increases in postural sway were detected (P = .013) in 3 dimensions of movement during sitting on an unstable surface. Gender differences were noted. No EMG amplitude or variance differences were detected between seating conditions. CONCLUSIONS Preliminary data show that sitting on unstable surfaces induces greater spinal motion, but does not significantly alter the lumbosacral posture nor the amount of activity in the superficial trunk muscles under investigation.
High-Resolution Time-Interleaved Eight-Channel ADC for Li-Ion Battery Stacks

An analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for monitoring the voltages of a stack of eight Li-ion batteries is presented. The converted voltage range for each battery is 3–4.2 V with a maximum nominal input voltage of 33.6 V. High-voltage (HV) switches and a single HV capacitor make up the HV track and hold. The remaining part of the circuit operates at a nominal 5-V supply. An interleaved extended-range ADC makes up the architecture. It converts the eight channels in 720 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu\text{s}$</tex-math></inline-formula>. The battery monitor has been fabricated in a 0.35-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu\text{m}$</tex-math></inline-formula> triple-well 5-V HV CMOS process with drain-extended MOS HV devices. The prototype active area is <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1300\times 650\ \mu\text{m}^{2}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, and the measured total power consumption is 3.64 mW. The measured input-referred noise is 177.9 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu\text{V}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, and the residual offset is 642.5 <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu\text{V}$</tex-math></inline-formula>.
The effect of daylight versus darkness on driver sleepiness: a driving simulator study

Driver sleepiness studies are often carried out with alert drivers during daytime and sleep‐deprived drivers during night‐time. This design results in a mixture of different factors (e.g. circadian effects, homeostatic effects, light conditions) that may confound the results. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of light conditions on driver sleepiness. Thirty young male drivers (23.6 ± 1.7 years old) participated in a driving simulator experiment where they drove on a rural road. A 2 × 2 design was used with the conditions daylight versus darkness, and daytime (full sleep) versus night‐time (sleep deprived). The results show that light condition had an independent effect on the sleepiness variables. The subjective sleepiness measured by Karolinska Sleepiness Scale was higher, lateral position more left‐oriented, speed lower, electroencephalogram alpha and theta higher, and blink durations were longer during darkness. The number of line crossings did not change significantly with light condition. The day/night condition had profound effects on most sleepiness indicators while controlling for light condition. The number of line crossings was higher during night driving, Karolinska Sleepiness Scale was higher, blink durations were longer and speed was lower. There were no significant interactions, indicating that light conditions have an additive effect on sleepiness. In conclusion, Karolinska Sleepiness Scale and blink durations increase primarily with sleep deprivation, but also as an effect of darkness. Line crossings are mainly driven by the need for sleep and the reduced alertness at the circadian nadir. Lane position is, however, more determined by light conditions than by sleepiness.
Partial Fiscal Decentralization and Local Government Spending Policy

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze how limits in revenue and spending autonomy of sub-sovereign governments influence their decisions. Revenue and spending autonomy indicators for Polish towns were established and used in analysis on school education expenditures during 2003–2016. The influence of limits on revenue autonomy on municipal spending has been extensively addressed in both theoretical and empirical literature. However, studies related to spending autonomy are rare. The analysis presented in this paper suggests that when limits exist in spending autonomy, more decentralized tasks are crowded out by regulated obligations. That is why the spending autonomy analysis is important to evaluate the equity between local units and the adequacy of local revenues to decentralized expenditures.The basic principle of local finance is that there should be an adequate relationship between the financial resources available to a local authority and the tasks it performs. However, in practice, the assessment of whether this has been achieved is very difficult. Often, only problems with the solvency of local governments indicate that we are dealing with a poorly constructed system of local finances. The expenditure autonomy indicator proposed in this article is a tool that provides a way to indicate problems with the adequacy of revenues before such anextreme situation occurs.
Prediction of the Risk to Develop Diabetes-Related Late Complications by Means of the Glucose Pentagon Model: Analysis of Data from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Continuous Glucose Monitoring Study

Background: By taking parameters into account that describe the variability of continuously monitored glucose and long-term metabolic control [hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c)], the glucose pentagon model (GPM) allows characterization of the glucose profile of individual patients with diabetes in a graphical format. A glycemic risk parameter (GRP) derived from this model might allow a better prognosis of the risk to develop diabetes-related complications than the HbA1c. Methods: To evaluate this hypothesis, we analyzed a subset of data from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) study. The values of the different parameters that are integrated in the GPM were extracted automatically from CGM profiles registered before and after 6 months by means of the Medtronic CGM system in 108 patients. Results: In these patients, the significant reduction in HbA1c from 7.4% to 7.0% was accompanied by a reduction in glycemia from 164 to 156 mg/dl, standard deviation from 61 to 57 mg/dl, area under the curve >160 mg/dl 29.2 to 23.1, and time per day >160 mg/dl 634 to 576 min. This led to a subsequent reduction in GRP from 3.3 to 2.7; this decrease by 18.2% was significantly larger than that in HbA1c by 8.6% (p < .001). Changes in individual GPMs/GRPs support this observation. They also show the impact of high glycemic variability on GPM/GRP. Conclusions: Our analysis of data of a study with a considerable sample size and study duration showed that the GPM is not only helpful for rapid assessment of individual glycemic profiles and how therapeutic interventions influence these, but also appears to provide a better prognosis of the risk to develop late complications than the HbA1c per se. However, it is also clear that a true validation of such a model requires performance of a long-term study in a large number of patients with diabetes.
Parser Adaptation to Patent Domain Exploiting Case Frames

This paper deals with parser adaptation to patent domain. Our adaptation method utilizes case frames that are compiled automatically from patent documents. We show that our method works well for adapting a parser to patent domain and that, in order to adapt a parser to a patent sub-domain like digital data processing, we can use different sub-domains like microbe/ferment and machinery to some extent.
Adaptive LQR control with Kalman filter for the variable-speed wind turbine in Region II

An ALQR (Adaptive Linear Quadratic Regulation) method for the variable speed wind turbines system is proposed in this paper. The controller is designed for the wind turbine operating in the low wind speed (Region 2), in which the pitch of the blades is fixed at the optimal angle. Since the wind turbine is a nonlinear system, the Kalman filter and the adaptive method are implemented in the controller to make the LQR compatible with the nonlinear system. The proposed control scheme is compared in the simulation with several commonly used control methods, i.e. look-up table, PID control and gain-scheduling method. The step changed wind speed profile and the turbulent wind speed profile are adopted for the tests. The results of the simulations show that the proposed ALQR method is much better than the conventional methods.
Molecular modeling of sulfoxaflor and neonicotinoid binding in insect nicotinic acetylcholine receptors: impact of the Myzus β1 R81T mutation.

BACKGROUND Sulfoxaflor (Isoclast™ active), a new sulfoximine-class insecticide, targets sap-feeding insect pests, including those resistant to neonicotinoids. Sulfoxaflor acts on the insect nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) in a distinct manner relative to neonicotinoids. Unlike any of the neonicotinoids, sulfoxaflor has four stereoisomers. A homology model of Myzus persicae (green peach aphid) based on the ACh binding protein from Aplysia californica, overlaid with M. persicae nAChR sequence (α2 and β1 subunits) was used to investigate the interactions of the sulfoxaflor stereoisomers with WT and R81T versions of the nAChR. RESULTS Whole-molecule van der Waals interactions are highly correlated with the binding affinity for the neonicotinoids and correctly predict the rank order of binding affinity for neonicotinoids and sulfoxaflor. The R81T mutation in M. persicae nAChR is predicted to have much less effect on binding of sulfoxaflor's stereoisomers than that of the neonicotinoids. CONCLUSION All four stereoisomers predictably contribute to the activity of sulfoxaflor. The WT and R81T nAChR homology models suggest that changes in a whole-molecule electrostatic energy component can potentially explain the effects of this target-site mutation on the pattern of reduced efficacy for the modeled neonicotinoids, and provide a basis for the reduced effect of this mutation on sulfoxaflor. © 2016 Society of Chemical Industry.
Synchronization and islanding detection of Dispersed Generation using Adaptive Notch Filter

This paper presents an active method in detecting islanding for Dispersed Generation (DG) by injecting small amount (0.5%) of negative current into the point of common coupling (PCC), and then the negative system impedance will be measured. In this study, Adaptive Notch Filter (ANF) makes a debut as a synchronous part instead of Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) and as a signal processing unit as well. The proposed control strategy allows DG detect properly an islanding occurring in balance distribution system. Simulation results are given to show the overall system performance including synchronization, power control and islanding detection (ID) capability of the simulated DG system.
No association of migraine to the GABA‐A receptor complex on chromosome 15

To date, no gene variants predisposing to common forms of migraine have been convincingly identified. Recently, significant linkage to a cluster of gamma‐amino butyric acid (GABA)‐A receptors on Chr 15q11–q13 was reported. We performed an extensive association study using 898 MA cases and 900 matched controls by covering the same gene cluster with 34 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). No association to MA was detected, suggesting that common variants of the GABA cluster are unlikely to be major contributors of MA susceptibility. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.