Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Species-level core oral bacteriome identified by 16S rRNA pyrosequencing in a healthy young Arab population

Background Reports on the composition of oral bacteriome in Arabs are lacking. In addition, the majority of previous studies on other ethnic groups have been limited by low-resolution taxonomic assignment of next-generation sequencing reads. Furthermore, there has been a conflict about the existence of a ‘core’ bacteriome. Objective The objective of this study was to characterize the healthy core oral bacteriome in a young Arab population at the species level. Methods Oral rinse DNA samples obtained from 12 stringently selected healthy young subjects of Arab origin were pyrosequenced (454's FLX chemistry) for the bacterial 16S V1–V3 hypervariable region at an average depth of 11,500 reads. High-quality, non-chimeric reads ≥380 bp were classified to the species level using the recently described, prioritized, multistage assignment algorithm. A core bacteriome was defined as taxa present in at least 11 samples. The Chao2, abundance-based coverage estimator (ACE), and Shannon indices were computed to assess species richness and diversity. Results Overall, 557 species-level taxa (211±42 per subject) were identified, representing 122 genera and 13 phyla. The core bacteriome comprised 55 species-level taxa belonging to 30 genera and 7 phyla, namely Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Fusobacteria, Saccharibacteria, and SR1. The core species constituted between 67 and 87% of the individual bacteriomes. However, the abundances differed by up to three orders of magnitude among the study subjects. On average, Streptococcus mitis, Rothia mucilaginosa, Haemophilus parainfluenzae, Neisseria flavescence/subflava group, Prevotella melaninogenica, and Veillonella parvula group were the most abundant. Streptococcus sp. C300, a taxon never reported in the oral cavity, was identified as a core species. Species richness was estimated at 586 (Chao2) and 614 (ACE) species, whereas diversity (Shannon index) averaged at 3.99. Conclusions A species-level core oral bacteriome representing the majority of reads was identified, which can serve as a reference for comparison with oral bacteriomes of other populations as well as those associated with disease.
Criteria for Organized Cervical Screening Programs

Based on the criteria of Wilson and Jungner and experiences in the population-based organized cervical screening program in the Netherlands, conditions for efficient and effective population screening for cervical cancer are described. The purpose of this paper is to determine if these criteria are met for cervical cancer screening and to give recommendations for improvement. Cervical cancer is still an important health problem; the present incidence reflects both background risk and screening activity during previous decades. A positive effect of screening is reached because of the long development time of the disease and the ability of the Pap smear test to detect precancer and early, symptomatic disease. Considerable reduction in the incidence and mortality of cervical cancers can be reached if all women attend and all detected lesions are adequately followed up. Common terminology and classification criteria for histology and cytology should be used. Whether newly developed techniques that may improve or replace cytology can be used in screening programs should be a multidisciplinary decision after clinical trials have given evidence-based information on the performance, cost-effectiveness and need of these techniques. When cervical cancer screening is undertaken, it should be offered in organized programs at the medical level closest to the patients, the general practitioner. High compliance is the most important factor in reducing cervical cancer incidence. Quality control and assurance must be performed at all levels. In the case of limited resources, the program should use a five-year interval and concentrate on the age range 25-60 years, with special attention to women who have never been screened or were screened > 10 years previously. Evaluation of medical and organizational aspects is mandatory. Cooperation between all involved parties is a prerequisite of creating a successful screening program.
Infectious mononucleosis and hepatic function

Abnormal hepatic function is common in infectious mononucleosis (IM). However, it remains unknown why increased transferase levels are more common than bilirubin abnormalities in IM. The current study aimed to investigate these associations in the Chinese population. A total of 95 patients with IM (47 males and 48 females) were enrolled in the current study, as well as 95 healthy controls. Patients were sorted by sex. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to determine cut-off values for IM diagnosis and prediction. Crude and adjusted odds ratios (OR) for IM were analyzed using binary logistic regression. It was determined that alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and γ-glutamyl transferase (GGT) levels were significantly higher in patients with IM compared with controls; however, total bilirubin (TB) levels were significantly lower in patients with IM. ROCs demonstrated that, if ALT, AST and GGT concentrations were higher than, or if TB was lower than, cut-off values, they were predictive of IM. Binary logistic regression identified that the risk of IM in patients exhibiting high levels of transferases was significantly increased, particularly in males. Crude ORs in ALT quartile 4 were 21.667 and 10.111 for males and females, respectively and adjusted ORs were 38.054 and 9.882, respectively. A significant IM risk of IM was evident in patients with low bilirubin levels and females appeared to be particularly susceptible. For example, crude ORs in quartile 1 were 8.229 and 8.257 for males and females, respectively and adjusted ORs were 8.883 and 10.048, respectively. Therefore, the current study identified a positive association between transferase levels and IM and a negative association between TB and IM. Therefore, the results of the current study indicate that high transferases are suggestive of IM, particularly in males, whereas low TB is suggestive for IM, particularly in females.
Perceptually-based foveated virtual reality

Humans have two distinct vision systems: foveal and peripheral vision. Foveal vision is sharp and detailed, while peripheral vision lacks fidelity. The difference in characteristics of the two systems enable recently popular foveated rendering systems, which seek to increase rendering performance by lowering image quality in the periphery. We present a set of perceptually-based methods for improving foveated rendering running on a prototype virtual reality headset with an integrated eye tracker. Foveated rendering has previously been demonstrated in conventional displays, but has recently become an especially attractive prospect in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) display settings with a large field-of-view (FOV) and high frame rate requirements. Investigating prior work on foveated rendering, we find that some previous quality-reduction techniques can create objectionable artifacts like temporal instability and contrast loss. Our emerging technologies installation demonstrates these techniques running live in a head-mounted display and we will compare them against our new perceptually-based foveated techniques. Our new foveation techniques enable significant reduction in rendering cost but have no discernible difference in visual quality. We show how such techniques can fulfill these requirements with potentially large reductions in rendering cost.
Rift Valley fever vaccines: an overview of the safety and efficacy of the live-attenuated MP-12 vaccine candidate

ABSTRACT Introduction: Rift Valley fever (RVF) is a mosquito-borne zoonotic viral disease endemic to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. High rates of abortion among infected ruminants and hemorrhagic fever in infected humans are major public health concerns. Commercially available veterinary RVF vaccines are important for preventing the spread of the Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) in endemic countries; however, RVFV outbreaks continue to occur frequently in endemic countries in the 21st century. In the U.S., the live-attenuated MP-12 vaccine has been developed for both animal and human vaccination. This vaccine strain is well attenuated, and a single dose induces neutralizing antibodies in both ruminants and humans. Areas covered: This review describes scientific evidences of MP-12 vaccine efficacy and safety, as well as MP-12 variants recently developed by reverse genetics, in comparison with other RVF vaccines. Expert commentary: The containment of active RVF outbreaks and long-term protection from RVF exposure to infected mosquitoes are important goals for RVF vaccination. MP-12 vaccine will allow immediate vaccination of susceptible animals in case of an unexpected RVF outbreak in the U.S., whereas MP-12 vaccine may be also useful for the RVF control in endemic regions.
Energy Efficient RRAM Spiking Neural Network for Real Time Classification

Inspired by the human brain's function and efficiency, neuromorphic computing offers a promising solution for a wide set of tasks, ranging from brain machine interfaces to real-time classification. The spiking neural network (SNN), which encodes and processes information with bionic spikes, is an emerging neuromorphic model with great potential to drastically promote the performance and efficiency of computing systems. However, an energy efficient hardware implementation and the difficulty of training the model significantly limit the application of the spiking neural network. In this work, we address these issues by building an SNN-based energy efficient system for real time classification with metal-oxide resistive switching random-access memory (RRAM) devices. We implement different training algorithms of SNN, including Spiking Time Dependent Plasticity (STDP) and Neural Sampling method. Our RRAM SNN systems for these two training algorithms show good power efficiency and recognition performance on realtime classification tasks, such as the MNIST digit recognition. Finally, we propose a possible direction to further improve the classification accuracy by boosting multiple SNNs.
Stepwise Transmit Antenna Selection in Downlink Massive Multiuser MIMO

Due to the large power consumption in RF-circuitry of massive MIMO systems, practically relevant performance measures such as energy efficiency or bandwidth efficiency are neither necessarily monotonous functions of the total transmit power nor the number of active antennas. Optimal antenna selection is however computationally infeasible in these systems. In this paper, we propose an iterative algorithm to optimize the transmit power and the subset of selected antennas subject to non-monotonous performance measures in massive multiuser MIMO settings. Numerical results are given for energy efficiency and demonstrate that for several settings the optimal number of selected antennas reported by the proposed algorithm is significantly smaller than the total number of transmit antennas. This fact indicates that antenna selection in several massive MIMO scenarios not only reduces the hardware complexity and RF-costs, but also enhances the energy efficiency of the system.
Designing connected marine reserves in the face of global warming

Marine reserves are widely used to protect species important for conservation and fisheries and to help maintain ecological processes that sustain their populations, including recruitment and dispersal. Achieving these goals requires well‐connected networks of marine reserves that maximize larval connectivity, thus allowing exchanges between populations and recolonization after local disturbances. However, global warming can disrupt connectivity by shortening potential dispersal pathways through changes in larval physiology. These changes can compromise the performance of marine reserve networks, thus requiring adjusting their design to account for ocean warming. To date, empirical approaches to marine prioritization have not considered larval connectivity as affected by global warming. Here, we develop a framework for designing marine reserve networks that integrates graph theory and changes in larval connectivity due to potential reductions in planktonic larval duration (PLD) associated with ocean warming, given current socioeconomic constraints. Using the Gulf of California as case study, we assess the benefits and costs of adjusting networks to account for connectivity, with and without ocean warming. We compare reserve networks designed to achieve representation of species and ecosystems with networks designed to also maximize connectivity under current and future ocean‐warming scenarios. Our results indicate that current larval connectivity could be reduced significantly under ocean warming because of shortened PLDs. Given the potential changes in connectivity, we show that our graph‐theoretical approach based on centrality (eigenvector and distance‐weighted fragmentation) of habitat patches can help design better‐connected marine reserve networks for the future with equivalent costs. We found that maintaining dispersal connectivity incidentally through representation‐only reserve design is unlikely, particularly in regions with strong asymmetric patterns of dispersal connectivity. Our results support previous studies suggesting that, given potential reductions in PLD due to ocean warming, future marine reserve networks would require more and/or larger reserves in closer proximity to maintain larval connectivity.
Current Evidence of the Monoaminergic Regulation of Romantic Love and Relationship

Introduction: Sexual response cycle is modulated by a variety of biological factors, especially antidepressants and antipsychotics. Although the circuit of romantic love has recently been delineated, the biological impact on romantic love is barely mentioned in human, however. Methods: In thus study, a comprehensive literature review was completed to elucidate the role of central monoamines, including dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, epinephrine, melatonin and histamine, for the romantic love and relationship in human. Results: The central circuit of romantic love includes the mesolimbic and mesocortical tract and their extensions widely distributed in cortical, subcortical and brainstem structures. The activation of brain foci progressively decreases along with the romantic relationship in many areas, including the bilateral caudate and ventral tegmentum area without change of passionate love. Hyperactivity of dopamine and serotonin is suggested at the synaptic level for romantic love in lovers, probably through an inhibition of transporters or increase of terminal release. Romantic love can be modulated by antidepressants or recreational drugs. Polymorphism of dopamine and serotonin receptor relates to the romantic relationship. The effect of other monoamines is barely mentioned. Conclusions: Romantic love is vulnerable for secondary effect, such as drugs which modulate the dopamine and serotonin, in human. Romantic relationship is also impacted by the polymorphism of monoamine receptors. Therefore, the biological effect is not limited to sexual response cycle but also the romantic love and relationship. Further investigation is warranted for understanding the secondary effect in romantic love for romantic dissolution or divorce.
Quantized Compressive Sensing with RIP Matrices: The Benefit of Dithering

Quantized compressive sensing deals with the problem of coding compressive measurements of low-complexity signals with quantized, finite precision representations, i.e., a mandatory process involved in any practical sensing model. While the resolution of this quantization impacts the quality of signal reconstruction, there exist incompatible combinations of quantization functions and sensing matrices that proscribe arbitrarily low reconstruction error when the number of measurements increases. This work shows that a large class of random matrix constructions known to respect the restricted isometry property (RIP) is ‘compatible’ with a simple scalar and uniform quantization if a uniform random vector, or a random dither, is added to the compressive signal measurements before quantization. In the context of estimating low-complexity signals (e.g., sparse or compressible signals, low-rank matrices) from their quantized observations, this compatibility is demonstrated by the existence of (at least) one signal reconstruction method, the projected back projection, whose reconstruction error decays when the number of measurements increases. Interestingly, given one RIP matrix and a single realization of the dither, a small reconstruction error can be proved to hold uniformly for all signals in the considered low-complexity set. We confirm these observations numerically in several scenarios involving sparse signals, low-rank matrices and compressible signals, with various RIP matrix constructions such as sub-Gaussian random matrices and random partial discrete cosine transform matrices.
“Sierra Leone’s Former Child Soldiers: A Longitudinal Study of Risk, Protective Factors, and Mental Health” (2010), by Theresa S. Betancourt, Robert T. Brennan, Julia Rubin-Smith, Garrett M. Fitzmaurice, and Stephen E. Gilman

In 2010, Theresa S. Betancourt, Robert T. Brennan, Julia Rubin-Smith, Garrett M. Fitzmaurice, and Stephen E. Gliman, published “Sierra Leone’s Former Child Soldiers: A Longitudinal Study of Risk, Protective Factors, and Mental Health” in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The paper describes the results of a longitudinal study of former Sierra Leone child soldiers that examines how protective and risk factors affect children’s post-conflict mental health outcomes over several years of development. Researchers from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, conducted the study in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee and the Post-Conflict Reintegration Initiative for Development and Empowerment in Sierra Leone. The study investigated different factors that affected the development of 260 former child soldiers at three points in time post-conflict. The authors found that besides war experience, post-conflict factors such as discrimination and community acceptance contribute to the mental health of former child soldiers. The study results have helped intervention programs focus on post-conflict factors to heal children from the harmful effects of war.
A series of normal stages in the development of the chick embryo. 1951.

The developmental stages [4] of the chick [5] embryo were examined by Viktor Hamburger [6] and Howard L. Hamilton [7] in “A Series of Normal Stages in the Development of the Chick Embryo,” published in the Journal of Morphology [8] in 1951. These stages were published to standardize the development of the chick [5] based on varying laboratory conditions and genetic differences. The stages Hamburger and Hamilton assigned were determined by the visible features of the chick [5] embryo. The first stage begins just prior to the primitive streak [9] , with the formation of the embryonic shield, and the final stage, forty-six, ends at the hatching of the chick [5] . This work was designed to update Frank Rattray Lillie’s The Development of the Chick [10] , a chronological identification of the developmental stages [4] of the chick [5] , which Hamilton was preparing. Hamburger met Hamilton in 1948 at a meeting in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Together they decided to produce a series of stages based on morphological changes rather than regular time sequences. The main requirements of the project were that the stages had to be easily identifiable by visible features, and they required the smallest possible differences between the features to avoid confusion. A previous description of morphological stages had been completed by Franz Keibel [11] and Karl Abraham [12] in 1900, as Normentofel , but did not gain prominence because it was incomplete in the later stages and the illustrations were difficult to interpret. The Hamburger-Hamilton stages aimed to match the morphological stages prepared by Ross Harrison for Ambystoma [13] . The stages of development were grouped by similar developmental features. The initial stages are identified by the developmental features of the primitive streak [9] . The middle stages are characterized primarily by somite number, then by related features. The later developmental stages [4] are characterized by measurable objective features such as beak or toe length, since the final stages are characterized by expansion of the features established earlier in development. Hamilton was responsible for describing the first 14 stages. Stages The developmental stages of the chick embryo were examined by Viktor Hamburger and Howard L. Hamilton in "A Series of Normal Stages in the Development of the Chick Embryo," published in the Journal of Morphology in 1951. These stages were published to standardize the development of the chick based on varying laboratory conditions and genetic differences. The stages Hamburger and Hamilton assigned were determined by the visible features of the chick embryo. The first stage begins just prior to the primitive streak, with the formation of the embryonic shield, and the final stage, forty-six, ends at the hatching of the chick.
Socioeconomic Inequalities in Childhood Obesity in the United Kingdom: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Childhood obesity is a major public health challenge worldwide. There is a growing literature documenting socioeconomic inequalities in childhood obesity risk. Here we draw inference from the literature about inequalities in childhood obesity risk in the UK. We summarize and appraise the extant peer-reviewed literature about socioeconomic inequalities in childhood obesity in the UK. Common area-level indices of socioeconomic position, including the Carstairs Deprivation Index, the Index of Multiple Deprivation and the Townsend Deprivation Index, as well as common household and individual-level metrics of childhood socioeconomic position, including head-of-household social class and maternal education, were generally inversely associated with childhood obesity in the UK. We summarize key methodological limitations to the extant literature and suggest avenues for future research.
Locating the Node by Exploiting Shadowing Fading

Shadowing fading is generally considered to be detrimental to node localization based on received signal strength (RSS). However, in this paper, we propose a new localization method which exploits shadowing fading to localize the node with unknown position. As we know that when a link comprised of the unknown node and an anchor node is blocked by an obstruction, the RSS of the link will be greatly attenuated. The shadowing fading can thus provide direction information with respect to the position of the unknown node because the largest shadowing loss is observed when the obstruction is located on the link. Motivated by this fact, an obstruction moves according to the predefined trajectory between an array of anchor nodes and the unknown node, resulting in large shadowing loss of the links. To localize the node, we extract the shadowing loss induced by the obstruction and employ the shadowing loss to estimate the time instants when the links are crossed. The link crossing time estimation is subsequently utilized to localize the unknown node by a least square (LS) method. The experimental result shows that the localization error of proposed method is about 0.33m, which is almost improved by 87% compared with conventional RSS-based localization method.