Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predischarge Morbidities in Extremely and Very Low-Birth-Weight Infants in Spanish Neonatal Units

We sought to describe neonatal morbidities and therapeutic interventions in very low-birth-weight (VLBW) and extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) infants cared for in Spanish hospitals. We preformed a prospective collection of data covering the perinatal period until discharge by the SEN1500 network. This network, set up by the Spanish Society of Neonatology, targets VLBW and ELBW infants (400 to 1500 g) admitted to neonatal units in Spanish hospitals. Data were recorded in electronic form and controlled for possible errors or inconsistencies before analysis. We report data for 8836 neonates admitted to 48 neonatal units from January 2002 to December 2005. Prenatal steroids were given to significantly more newborns in 2003 to 2005 (79.4%) than in 2002 (73.4%), although the remaining perinatal data examined failed to significantly vary. Delivery was by cesarean section in 69.8% of cases but significantly lower (35.9%) for infants under a postmenstrual age of 26 weeks. Hyaline membrane disease was diagnosed in 53.9% of the newborns and bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) in 10.46%. Mechanical ventilation was employed in 69.1%, surfactant in 50.3%, and steroids for BPD in 5.3%. Intraventricular hemorrhage grades 3 to 4 (8.1%) and cystic leukomalacia (2.6%) were the most relevant brain ultrasonography findings. Rates of early- and late-onset septicemia were 5% and 29.4%, respectively. Further diagnoses were necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC; 6.9%) and persistent ductus arteriosus (PDA; 24.2%); 40.6% of the cases of NEC and 15.3% of those of PDA required surgery. In addition, 26.6% of the newborns required supplementary oxygen at 28 days of life. The number of newborns who had not recovered their birth weight at this age fell from 3.1% in 2002 to 1.5% in 2005. Rates of prenatal steroid use, cesarean delivery, and main morbidities were comparable to figures cited for other patient series, although our BPD rate was among the lowest reported and nosocomial sepsis rate among the highest.
A Flexible, General-Purpose Code Based on the Iterative Physical Optics Algorithm: Analyzing Electromagnetic Scattering in Electrically Large Scenarios. [EM Programmer's Notebook]

A very flexible and efficient iterative physical optics (IPO) algorithm is presented for analyzing the electromagnetic (EM) scattering of complex and electrically large problems. The algorithm accounts for multiple interactions between the objects comprised in the scenarios under the physical optics (PO) approximation. Various techniques for accelerating and parallelizing the algorithm were used, thus obtaining an efficient tool that can be used in novel high-frequency solvers.
The semen enhancer of viral infection ( SEVI ) binds bacteria , enhances 1 bacterial phagocytosis by macrophages , and can protect against 2 vaginal infection by a sexually transmitted bacterial pathogen

25 The semen-derived enhancer of viral infection (SEVI) is a positively charged 26 amyloid fibril that is derived from a self-assembling proteolytic cleavage fragment of 27 prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP248-286). SEVI efficiently facilitates HIV-1 infection in 28 vitro, but its normal physiologic function remains unknown. In light of the fact that other 29 amyloidogenic peptides have been shown to possess direct antibacterial activity, we 30 investigated whether SEVI could inhibit bacterial growth. Neither SEVI fibrils nor the 31 unassembled PAP248-286 peptide had significant direct antibacterial activity in vitro. 32 However, SEVI fibrils bound to both Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram33 negative (Escherichia coli and Neisseria gonorrhoeae) bacteria, in a charge-dependent 34 fashion. Furthermore, SEVI fibrils but not the monomeric PAP248-286 peptide promoted 35 bacterial aggregation and enhanced the phagocytosis of bacteria by primary human 36 macrophages. SEVI also enhanced binding of bacteria to macrophages and the 37 subsequent release of bacterially-induced pro-inflammatory cytokines (TNFα, IL-6 and 38 IL-1β). Finally, SEVI fibrils inhibited murine vaginal colonization with Neisseria 39 gonorrhoeae. These findings demonstrate that SEVI has indirect antimicrobial activity, 40 and that this activity is dependent on both the cationic charge and the fibrillar nature of 41
A Knowledge-based Topic Modeling Approach for Automatic Topic Labeling

Probabilistic topic models, which aim to discover latent topics in text corpora define each document as a multinomial distributions over topics and each topic as a multinomial distributions over words. Although, humans can infer a proper label for each topic by looking at top representative words of the topic but, it is not applicable for machines. Automatic Topic Labeling techniques try to address the problem. The ultimate goal of topic labeling techniques are to assign interpretable labels for the learned topics. In this paper, we are taking concepts of ontology into consideration instead of words alone to improve the quality of generated labels for each topic. Our work is different in comparison with the previous efforts in this area, where topics are usually represented with a batch of selected words from topics. We have highlighted some aspects of our approach including: 1) we have incorporated ontology concepts with statistical topic modeling in a unified framework, where each topic is a multinomial probability distribution over the concepts and each concept is represented as a distribution over words; and 2) a topic labeling model according to the meaning of the concepts of the ontology included in the learned topics. The best topic labels are selected with respect to the semantic similarity of the concepts and their ontological categorizations. We demonstrate the effectiveness of considering ontological concepts as richer aspects between topics and words by comprehensive experiments on two different data sets. In another word, representing topics via ontological concepts shows an effective way for generating descriptive and representative labels for the discovered topics.
The Pseudomonas group as an indicator of potential regrowth in water distribution systems

The regrowth of micro‐organisms in the water distribution system is assisted by the presence of biodegradable organic matter (BDOC). The low concentration of available organic carbon in this type of water favours the growth of bacteria belonging to the Pseudomonadaceae family, as this group can grow better at low concentrations of substrate than other bacteria also present in the distribution system. Although the genus Aeromonas has already been adopted as an indicator of this potential regrowth, members of the Pseudomonadaceae have not yet been proposed as indicators of potential bacterial regrowth in the water distribution system. The results are presented of a year‐long study of the Barcelona distribution system in which the presence of Pseudomonas and Aeromonas was analysed and the validity of these micro‐organisms as indicators of potential regrowth in the distribution system was assessed. It seems that, at least in the drinking waters of the Barcelona area, Pseudomonas is a better indicator of potential bacterial regrowth than Aeromonas.
Magneto-dielectric and magnetic anisotropy maxima in γ-Fe2O3 nanocomposite

The temperature dependence of the magneto-dielectric (MD) response in polycrystalline γ-Fe2O3 nanoparticulates embedded in an epoxy resin has been experimentally investigated. A maximum in the MD coefficient (~9%) occurs at ~200 K, which is well below its Curie point (Tc ~ 948 K) and blocking temperature (TB = 310 K). The law of approach to saturation technique was used to measure the effective magnetic anisotropy KE over a broad temperature range. A maximum in the effective magnetic anisotropy appears at ~200 K. The correlation between the maxima in K E and MD suggests that magnetic anisotropy may play a role in designing improved magneto-dielectric coupling in single-phase magnetic materials at the nanoscale.
The Energy Operator and New Scaling Relations for the Incompressible Navier--Stokes Equations

The incompressible Navier--Stokes equations have been widely studied due to their vast ability to model hydrodynamic phenomena. The nonlinear character of these equations produces a hierarchical system of dynamical scales that offer challenging barriers to computation simulation and scale elimination modeling. Here, the incompressible Navier--Stokes equations are decomposed and studied under the context of global eigensystems that have a direct relation to the dynamical character of the scales-of-motion. In particular, the self-adjoint linear Reynolds--Orr operator is shown to correspond to the energy operator of this nonlinear system of equations and has the distinguishing property of having an eigensystem that orders the time derivative of the integral kinetic energy for the nonlinear Navier--Stokes operator. The eigensystem of the Reynolds--Orr operator is shown to yield a dynamical range of scales that can be characterized by an energy-containing range, an inertial range, and a dissipation range. It i.
Willingness of Sri Lankan Farmers to pay for a Scheme to Conserve Elephants: An Empirical Analysis

This paper explores the feasibility of adopting an integrated economic approach to raise farmers’ tolerance of the presence of elephants on their farming lands. Responses to this approach were sought from a sample of farmers in the areas affected by human elephant conflict in the northwestern province of Sri Lanka. Results from a contingent valuation survey of their willingness to pay for a scheme to conserve elephants are also reported. Two separate logit regression analyses were undertaken to examine the factors that influence the farmers’ responses for the payment principle question and their opinions on the integrated economic approach. Although found that the majority of the respondents expressed their willingness to pay for the proposed scheme and supported for the implementation of the integrated approach, we have insufficient data yet to determine if their support and financial contribution would be sufficient to set up this programme and also to predict its economic viability. Nevertheless, the overall finding of this study provides an improved economic assessment of the farmers’ attitudes towards the wild elephant in Sri Lanka. At the same time the study shows that, contrary to commonly held assumptions, farmers in this developing country, do support wildlife conservation.
Genetic doping algorithm (GenD): theory and applications

Abstract: This paper describes an evolutionary algorithm, GenD, conceived by Buscema in 1998 at the Centro Ricerche di Scienze della Comunicazione – Semeion in Rome, where it is still successfully used and has been further developed. Unlike classic genetic algorithms, the GenD system maintains an inner instability during evolution, presenting a continuous evolution of the evolution and a natural increase in biodiversity during the progress of the algorithm. The theory which leads to defining the GenD system is outlined. Specific characteristics of GenD, such as the definition of a species‐health aware evolutionary law, the use of genetic operators and the adoption of a structured organization of individuals (tribes), are described. In order to measure GenD capabilities, we investigated also different problems, such as that known as the travelling sales person problem, which belongs to the class of full NP problems.
Isolation of temperature-sensitive pantothenate kinase mutants of Salmonella typhimurium and mapping of the coaA gene

Temperature-sensitive pantothenate kinase mutants of Salmonella typhimurium LT2 were selected by using the excretion of pantothenate at the nonpermissive temperature as a screening method. Thermolability of the pathothenate kinase activity in extracts of the mutants was demonstrated. The mutations were mapped at min 89 of the Salmonella chromosome, near rpoB, by transduction. As pantothenate kinase catalyzes the first step in the biosynthesis of coenzyme A from pantothenate, the new genetic locus has been designated coaA.
Arabic Tweeps Gender and Dialect Prediction

In this paper, we present our approach for author profiling task based on Arabic content (Twitter case), which was one of the tasks required in PAN at CLEF 2017. Author profiling is the process of identifying authors’ traits, which constitute the profile of an author, by analysing his/her writings. In our research, we considered the gender and the variety (dialect) of an author as two important traits that have many useful applications in the domain of Arabic social media analysis. For this purpose, several feature vectors and classifiers were tried to reach to the best prediction models for these two traits
Analysis of high density lipoproteins by a modified gradient gel electrophoresis method.

A high resolution electrophoretic method has been developed to separate plasma high density lipoprotein (HDL) particles by size using 4-30% polyacrylamide agarose (PAA) gradient gels, Sudan black B staining, and laser densitometry. Fourteen distinct HDL bands were observed with HDL-1 being designated as the largest particle and HDL-14 as the smallest particle. HDL-1 was similar in size to ferritin (Stokes diameter 12.2 nm), HDL-8 to catalase (9.2 nm), and HDL-13 to lactate dehydrogenase (8.1 nm). HDL-1 to HDL-7 were found within the density range of HDL2b (d 1.063-1.10 g/ml), HDL-8 to HDL-10 within HDL2a (d 1.10-1.125 g/ml), and HDL-11 to HDL-14 within HDL3 (d 1.125-1.21 g/ml). On immunoblotting, apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I) was found in all HDL bands examined, being most prominent in HDL-6, 11, and 12. ApoA-II was not detected in HDL bands 1-5, but was present in all other HDL bands and was most prominent in HDL-9. ApoE was detected mainly in HDL bands 1-7, and was observed in only trace amounts in other bands. Lp A-I isolated by immunoaffinity column chromatography from the plasma of five subjects contained five subspecies (HDL-5, 6, and 11-13), while Lp A-I/A-II also had five subspecies (HDL-8, 9, and 11-13) in these subjects. In normal subjects (n = 57) four or five HDL bands were generally observed, with HDL-9, 11, and 12 being the most frequently observed. Mean HDL particle score (method of sizing based on scanning densitometry, where low score indicates large size and high score indicates small size) was significantly correlated (P < 0.001) with the concentrations of HDL cholesterol (r = -0.796), HDL free cholesterol (r = -0.780), HDL cholesteryl ester (r = -0.683), HDL phospholipid (r = -0.663), HDL apoA-I (r = -0.577), and HDL protein (r = -0.459), but not with HDL triglyceride (r = 0.069). In addition, HDL particle score was significantly correlated (P < 0.05) with HDL total mass (r = -0.649), HDL free cholesterol content (% of total mass, r = -0.608), HDL triglyceride content (r = 0.415), HDL phospholipid content (r = -0.359), and HDL protein content (r = 0.295), but not with HDL cholesteryl ester content (r = -0.219) or HDL apoA-I content (r = 0.183). (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Development of a Virtual Platform for Telepresence Control of an Underwater Manipulator Mounted on a Submersible Vehicle

This paper develops a virtual platform of an underwater manipulator mounted on a submersible vehicle via the three-dimensional simulator “Webots” for teleoperation through a replica master arm. The graphical, kinematic, and dynamic models of the manipulator refer to a master-slave servo hydraulic manipulator with seven functions, consisting of six degrees of freedom and a parallel gripper, while the “Jiaolong” deep-manned submersible vehicle, operating below the sea surface down to 7000 m, is chosen as the underwater manipulator carrier. This study uses the virtual platform for training an operator to telepresence control the virtual manipulator to complete basic tasks in subsea environments. When training the operator, one has to consider uncertain external disturbances and the visual impacts that stem from subsea environments. In order to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the virtual platform, one designs two typical underwater operational tasks: grasping a marine organism sample and reaching at a given position. This paper presents the comparative studies: 1) the performances demonstrated by remotely controlling the virtual manipulator and the real manipulator; 2) the operating performances delivered by three operators before and after training when using the platform.
Today's state of the art in surgical robotics

Objective: This paper describes the current level of development of robots for surgery. Material and Methods: This paper is based on a literature search in Pubmed, IEEExplore, CiteSeer and the abstract volumes of the MICCAI 2002, 2003 and 2004, CARS 2003 and 2004, CAOS 2003 and 2004, CURAC 2003 and 2004 and MRNV 2004 meetings. Results: Divided into different disciplines (imaging, abdominal and thoracic surgery, ENT, OMS, neurosurgery, orthopaedic surgery, radiosurgery, trauma surgery, urology), 159 robot systems are introduced. Their functionality, deployment, origin and mechanical set-up are described. Additional contacts and internet links are listed. Conclusions: The systems perform diverse tasks such as milling cavities in bone, harvesting skin, screwing pedicles or irradiating tumors. From a technical perspective the strong specialization of the systems stands out. Most of the systems are being developed in Germany, the United States, Japan or France.
Large-scale typicality of Markov sample paths and consistency of MDL Order estimators

For Markov chains of arbitrary order, with finite alphabet A, almost sure sense limit theorems are proved on relative frequencies of k-blocks, and of symbols preceded by a given k-block, when k is permitted to grow as the sample size n grows. As-an application, the-consistency of two kinds of minimum description length (MDL) Markov order estimators is proved, with upper bound o(log n), respectively, /spl alpha/ log n with /spl alpha/ < 1/log |A|, on the permissible value of the estimated order. It was shown by Csiszar and Shields (see Ann. Statist., vol.28, p.1601-1619, 2000) that in the absence of any bound, or with bound /spl alpha/ log n with large /spl alpha/ consistency fails.
Machine Learning & Knowledge Extraction (MAKE) for Health Informatics: Towards educating a new kind of graduates

My teaching in the last years revolved around Machine Learning & Knowledge Extraction (MAKE) with the application on Health Informatics. Machine Learning (ML) studies algorithms which can learn from data to extract knowledge from experience and to make decisions and predictions. Health Informatics studies the effective use of probabilistic information for decision making. However, successful application of machine learning in health informatics requires a cross-disciplinary skill set. To tackle the challenge of augmenting human intelligence with computational intelligence requires a synergistic combination of methods from two areas: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Knowledge Discovery/Data Mining (KDD). The HCI-KDD approach supports a concerted effort of seven areas: 1) data science, 2) algorithms, 3) network science, 4) graphs/topology, 5) time/entropy, 6) visualization, and 7) privacy, data protection, safety and security.
The testing of clinical skills in dietetic students prior to entering clinical placement.

BACKGROUND One of the most important requirements for contemporary education of a health care professional is to develop a framework for theory and practise which results in attainment of professional competencies suitably robust for a lifetime of practise (Howe, 2002). In the context of those educating preregistration dietitians, this offers the challenge of presenting the student with innovative curricula designed to deliver the appropriate level of knowledge and understanding together with emphasis on skill and attitude development. The purpose of this study was to allow preregistration students the opportunity to practise key clinical skills prior to clinical placement and test skills acquisition using the model of an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). METHODS The learning experience of the student was altered to accommodate a more conceptually-driven, problem-centred, case-based approach. The curriculum was adjusted to incorporate a short clinical skills programme where emphasis was deliberately placed on skill acquisition. At the conclusion of this clinical skills programme, and prior to the students entering clinical placement, skill performance by students was tested using the OSCE. The method of testing was also evaluated by students. RESULTS The OSCE was delivered to 37 preclinical students. Four of the test candidates (11%) failed in at least one of the skill areas: these students performed similarly during clinical placement. Twenty-one (57%) students returned the post-OSCE questionnaire. Twenty (95%) students reported a positive experience; 20 (95%) students reported initial anxiety that diminished as the test progressed. CONCLUSION The Project Team was confident with the novel approach taken in re-designing the curriculum: to include a dedicated clinical skills programme, together with addition of the testing of clinical skills using the OSCE model. These curriculum changes were deemed to be highly appropriate additions to the student experience in determination of skill performance of students prior to clinical placement.
Single-band full-duplex MAC protocol for distributed access networks

Recent advances in wireless communications promised the realisation of a revolutionary technique, called full-duplex (FD), which allows communication in both directions at the same time and over the same channel. However, the viability of FD in the physical layer requires the support of the MAC layer to fully spread the advantages of this technology to the whole wireless network. In this study, the authors introduce a distributed MAC protocol, termed distributed-access FD MAC, suitable for multi-hop communications whereby nodes are FD enabled. Using this protocol, a data packet can be forwarded by a number of nodes along a multi-hop path with un-contented access to the channel at each hop except for the head node. After detailing the specifications of this protocol, they establish a finite-state discrete-time Markov model to evaluate its performance. Using probabilistic mathematical methods, they derive important quantitative metrics such as path delay and throughput. Numerical results are provided and demonstrate the considerable improvement in network performance that the proposed protocol achieves compared with CSMA/CA half-duplex access mechanism.