Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of risperidone oral solution and intramuscular haloperidol with the latter shifting to oral therapy for the treatment of acute agitation in patients with schizophrenia

This randomized, parallel-group, open study investigated the efficacy and safety of risperidone oral solution (RIS-OS) in combination with clonazepam and intramuscular haloperidol for the treatment of acute agitation in patients with schizophrenia, and the study explored the possibility of decreasing the efficacy of an acute 6-week treatment by switching intramuscular haloperidol injection to RIS-OS. Two hundred and five agitation-exhibiting schizophrenic inpatients at six hospitals were originally included in the study. The 47-day trial consisted of 5 days (session I) of receiving either oral treatment (RIS-OS plus clonazepam) or intramuscular treatment (intramuscular haloperidol) and a 42-day (session II) period of either withdrawing from clonazepam or shifting from intramuscular haloperidol to a RIS-OS period. The primary efficacy outcome was measured as the change in the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale-Excited Component (PANSS-EC) in session I and the change in the PANSS in session II. Safety was assessed by the frequency of the adverse events. Mean PANSS-EC improvement was significant after 5 days of treatment in both groups (P>0.05) and was similar between the two treatment groups (P<0.01). Most patients’ PANSS-EC scores improved or remained stable during the drawback/shift treatment period. Efficacy was not significantly different between the two treatment groups after the 6-week treatment (P>0.05). However, combination treatment exhibited greater efficacy, and adverse events, especially extrapyramidal symptoms, were lower with the oral treatment than with the intramuscular treatment in session I. These results show that RIS-OS in combination with clonazepam is an effective treatment, comparable with intramuscular haloperidol, and is well-tolerated for acute agitation in patients with schizophrenia.
Essential oils in niosomes for enhanced transdermal delivery of felodipine

Abstract The fluidity of vesicular membrane affects vesicular transdermal drug delivery. Essential oils can be located in vesicular membrane imparting flexibility and influencing transdermal delivery. Accordingly, the objective was to investigate the effect of incorporation of essential oils in niosomes on felodipine transdermal delivery. Rigid niosomes comprising Span 60 with cholesterol (2:1, w/w) were used with clove, eucalyptus or lemon oils being incorporated in the vesicles at increasing concentrations. The vesicle size and shape was monitored using scanning electron microscopy. Thermal analysis was used to monitor the thermal behavior. Drug entrapment efficiency, release and skin permeation were monitored. Niosomes were spherical with size ranging from 279 to 345 nm. The drug entrapment ranged from 97.9 to 98.8%. Thermal analysis confirmed the existence of oils within vesicular membrane and highlighted the membrane fluidizing effect. Drug release depended on the oil with clove oil or eucalyptus oil showing a trend of increased drug release compared with plain niosomes. In contrast, lemon oil reduced drug release rate. Skin permeation study reflected the superiority of oil containing niosomes. The results correlated with the fluidizing and penetration enhancing effects of oils. The study introduced essential oils as potential niosomes fluidizing agents for enhanced transdermal drug delivery.
Detail and color enhancement in photo stylization

Abstraction in non-photorealistic rendering reduces the amount of detail, yet non-essential details can improve visual interest and thus make an image more appealing. In this paper, we propose an automatic system for photo manipulation that brightens an image and alters the detail levels. The process first applies an edge-preserving abstraction process to an input image, then uses the residual to reintroduce and exaggerate details in areas near strong edges. At the same time, image regions further from strong edges are brightened. The final result is a lively mixture of abstraction and enhanced detail.
Phylogenetic evidence from freshwater crayfishes that cave adaptation is not an evolutionary dead‐end

Caves are perceived as isolated, extreme habitats with a uniquely specialized biota, which long ago led to the idea that caves are “evolutionary dead‐ends. ” This implies that cave‐adapted taxa may be doomed for extinction before they can diversify or transition to a more stable state. However, this hypothesis has not been explicitly tested in a phylogenetic framework with multiple independently evolved cave‐dwelling groups. Here, we use the freshwater crayfish, a group with dozens of cave‐dwelling species in multiple lineages, as a system to test this hypothesis. We consider historical patterns of lineage diversification and habitat transition as well as current patterns of geographic range size. We find that while cave‐dwelling lineages have small relative range sizes and rarely transition back to the surface, they exhibit remarkably similar diversification patterns to those of other habitat types and appear to be able to maintain a diversity of lineages through time. This suggests that cave adaptation is not a “dead‐end” for freshwater crayfish, which has positive implications for our understanding of biodiversity and conservation in cave habitats.
Tobacco Harm Reduction with Vaporised Nicotine (THRiVe): The Study Protocol of an Uncontrolled Feasibility Study of Novel Nicotine Replacement Products among People Living with HIV Who Smoke

Smoking is a leading cause of morbidity and premature mortality among people living with HIV (PLHIV), who have high rates of tobacco smoking. Vaporised nicotine products (VNPs) are growing in popularity as a quit aid and harm reduction tool. However, little is known about their acceptability and use among PLHIV. Using a pragmatic, uncontrolled, mixed methods design this exploratory clinical trial aims to examine the feasibility of conducting a powered randomised clinical trial of VNPs as a smoking cessation and harm reduction intervention among vulnerable populations, such as PLHIV who smoke tobacco. Convenience sampling and snowball methods will be used to recruit participants (N = 30) who will receive two VNPs and up to 12 weeks’ supply of nicotine e-liquid to use in a quit attempt. Surveys will be completed at weeks 0 (baseline), 4, 8, 12 (end of treatment) and 24 (end of the study) and qualitative interviews at weeks 0 and 12. As far as we are aware, this feasibility study is the first to trial VNPs among PLHIV for smoking cessation. If feasible and effective, this intervention could offer a new approach to reducing the high burden of tobacco-related disease among PLHIV and other vulnerable populations.
A contents recommendation scheme using user's affection and shopping motive

This paper proposes a contents recommendation scheme using user's affection and shopping motive to improve the accuracy of recommendation. In this paper, joy, sadness, anger, happiness, and relaxation are considered as the user's affection. And the user's shopping motive is classified into four types: low-utility/low-pleasure, low-utility/high-pleasure, highutility/low-pleasure, and high-utility/high-pleasure. experimental results show that the proposed scheme improves the accuracy of contents recommendation compared to the ecommendation without considering user's affection and shopping motive.
Human papillomavirus was not detected by PCR using multiple consensus primer sets in esophageal adenocarcinomas in Chinese patients

The role of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in the development of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma is well established; however, there are few reports on the role of HPV in esophageal adenocarcinoma. To evaluate the putative role of HPV infection in esophageal adenocarcinoma, 57 formalin‐fixed, paraffin‐embedded esophageal adenocarcinoma specimens were collected from four hospitals in Shanghai and Anyang, China, between 1999 and 2008. HPV DNA was analyzed using PCR with multiple sets of consensus primers for HPV, GP5+/6+, CPI/CPIIG, SPF10, pU‐1M/pU2R, and pU31B/pU2R. Glyceraldehyde‐3‐phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), the internal control, was amplified successfully in all 57 specimens. However, HPV amplification was not detected in any specimens with any of the consensus primer sets used. The present study indicates that HPV infection is not likely to be a major factor in the etiology of esophageal adenocarcinoma in the Chinese population. J. Med. Virol. 85: 1053–1057, 2013. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Radiofrequency hyperthermia promotes the therapeutic effects on chemotherapeutic-resistant breast cancer when combined with heat shock protein promoter-controlled HSV-TK gene therapy: Toward imaging-guided interventional gene therapy

Objective Gene therapy is a frontier in modern medicine. In the present study, we explored a new technique for the effective treatment of multidrug-resistant (MDR) breast cancer by combining fully the advantages of multidisciplinary fields, including image-guided minimally invasive interventional oncology, radiofrequency technology, and direct intratumoral gene therapy. Results Combination treatment with PHSP-TK plus RFH resulted in significantly higher TK gene transfection/expression, as well as a lower cell proliferation rate and a higher cell apoptosis index, than those of control groups. In vivo validation experiments with MRI confirmed that combination therapy resulted in a significant reduction of relative tumor volume compared with those of control animals, which was supported by the results of histologic and apoptosis analyses. Materials and methods The heat shock protein promoter (PHSP) was used to precisely control the overexpression of thymidine kinase (TK) (PHSP-TK). Serial in vitro experiments were performed to confirm whether radiofrequency hyperthermia (RFH) could enhance PHSP-TK transfection and expression in a MDR breast cancer cell line (MCF7/Adr). Serial in vivo experiments were then carried out to validate the feasibility of the new technique, termed interventional RFH-enhanced direct intratumoral PHSP-TK gene therapy. The therapeutic effect of combination therapy was evaluated by MRI and confirmed by subsequent laboratory correlation. Conclusions This study has established “proof-of-principle” of a new technique, interventional RFH-enhanced local gene therapy for MDR breast cancer, which may open new avenues for the effective management of MDR breast cancers via the simultaneous integration of interventional oncology, RF technology, and direct intratumoral gene therapy.
Convolutional neural networks for license plate detection in images

License plate detection is a challenging task when dealing with open environments and images captured from a certain distance by low-cost cameras. In this paper, we propose an approach for detecting license plates based on a convolutional neural network which models a function that produces a score for each image sub-region, allowing us to estimate the locations of the detected license plates by combining the results obtained from sparse overlapping regions. Experiments were performed on a challenging benchmark, containing 4,070 license plates in 1,829 images, captured under several weather conditions. The proposed approach achieved a precision of 0.87 and recall of 0.83, outperforming a state-of-the-art detector — a promising result, given that the experiments were performed on single images, without any kind of preprocessing or temporal integration.
Vehicle collision warning algorithms implemented in VANET communication terminals

Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) has attracted many attentions in recent years. In order to avoid vehicle collision, most of scholars put efforts towards the design of collision warning algorithms, which mainly rely on the Basic Safety Messages (BSMs) of Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment (WAVE) protocol. For an embedded application, the computational load of the algorithm, roads layout and the real-time data processing must be taken into consideration seriously. Therefore, we present two novel vehicle collision warning algorithms: rear-end collision warning and intersection collision warning, which are implemented in our developed prototype of VANET communication terminals. The main features of the algorithms presented in this paper are simplicity and effectiveness. The fundamental method of the two algorithms is to construct reasonable traffic models for collision detection. Simulations and experiments show that the proposed algorithms are effective and efficient.
A channel coding approach for physical-layer authentication

For physical-layer authentication, the authentication tags are often sent concurrently with messages without much bandwidth expansion. In this paper, we present a channel coding approach for physical-layer authentication. The generation of authentication tags can be formulated as an encoding process for an ensemble of codes, where the shared key between Alice and Bob is considered as the input and the message is used to specify a code from the ensemble of codes. Then, we show that the security of physical-layer authentication schemes can be analyzed through decoding and physical-layer authentication schemes can achieve some degree of information-theoretic security.
Visual Localization across Seasons Using Sequence Matching Based on Multi-Feature Combination †

Visual localization is widely used in autonomous navigation system and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS). However, visual-based localization in seasonal changing situations is one of the most challenging topics in computer vision and the intelligent vehicle community. The difficulty of this task is related to the strong appearance changes that occur in scenes due to weather or season changes. In this paper, a place recognition based visual localization method is proposed, which realizes the localization by identifying previously visited places using the sequence matching method. It operates by matching query image sequences to an image database acquired previously (video acquired during traveling period). In this method, in order to improve matching accuracy, multi-feature is constructed by combining a global GIST descriptor and local binary feature CSLBP (Center-symmetric local binary patterns) to represent image sequence. Then, similarity measurement according to Chi-square distance is used for effective sequences matching. For experimental evaluation, the relationship between image sequence length and sequences matching performance is studied. To show its effectiveness, the proposed method is tested and evaluated in four seasons outdoor environments. The results have shown improved precision–recall performance against the state-of-the-art SeqSLAM algorithm.
Maximum Efficiency Tracking for Wireless Power Transfer Systems With Dynamic Coupling Coefficient Estimation

Maximum efficiency tracking is an important issue for wireless power transfer (WPT) system. Traditional maximum efficiency tracking method normally focuses on load impedance matching with fixed coupling condition. However, WPT system is a loosely coupling system, the coupling coefficient varies due to relative movement between the primary and secondary sides. Unknown to this variation may result in failure of the tracking. In this paper, a novel maximum efficiency tracking method is proposed with integrated dynamic coupling coefficient estimation. This method can take almost all requirements for maximum efficiency tracking into account including adaption for coupling coefficient and load variation, and output controllability. The tracking method is easy to implement because no additional circuitry or measurement is required. Experimental results have verified the correctness of the proposed coupling coefficient estimation method. And the maximum efficiency tracking results show the system can achieve a good performance against coupling coefficient and load variation with the proposed tracking method.
Differential control of Toll-like receptor 4–induced interleukin-10 induction in macrophages and B cells reveals a role for p90 ribosomal S6 kinases

Increasing evidence has linked dysregulated interleukin (IL)-10 production by IL-10+ve B cells to autoimmunity, highlighting the importance of improving the understanding of the regulation of IL-10 production in these cells. In both B cells and myeloid cells, IL-10 can be produced in response to Toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists. In macrophages, previous studies have established that mitogen- and stress-activated protein kinases (MSKs) regulate IL-10 production via the phosphorylation of cAMP response element–binding (CREB) protein on the IL-10 promoter. We found here that although MSKs are activated in peritoneal B cells in response to TLR4 agonists, neither MSKs nor CREB are required for IL-10 production in these cells. Using a combination of chemical inhibitors and knockout mice, we found that IL-10 induction in B cells was regulated by an ERK1/2- and p90 ribosomal S6 kinase-dependent mechanism, unlike in macrophages in which p90 ribosomal S6 kinase was not required. This observation highlights fundamental differences in the signaling controlling IL-10 production in B cells and macrophages, even though these two cell types respond to a common TLR stimulus.
Impact of point‐of‐care international normalized ratio monitoring on quality of treatment with vitamin K antagonists in non‐self‐monitoring patients: a cohort study: reply

bleeding than TTR [6]. The patients monitored by POC in the present study have a higher frequency of INR testing and more dose adjustments than the conventionally monitored patients [1] and we wonder if these results reflect higher INR variability. We fully agree with the authors0 conclusion that POC monitoring of INR, as carried out in a specialized clinical setting, is a safe alternative to laboratory monitoring. Nevertheless, we suggest that the already high clinical quality could possibly be further improved by introduction of measures of INR variability, and hope this will be a focus in future research efforts.
Registration of Vehicle-Borne Point Clouds and Panoramic Images Based on Sensor Constellations

A mobile mapping system (MMS) is usually utilized to collect environmental data on and around urban roads. Laser scanners and panoramic cameras are the main sensors of an MMS. This paper presents a new method for the registration of the point clouds and panoramic images based on sensor constellation. After the sensor constellation was analyzed, a feature point, the intersection of the connecting line between the global positioning system (GPS) antenna and the panoramic camera with a horizontal plane, was utilized to separate the point clouds into blocks. The blocks for the central and sideward laser scanners were extracted with the segmentation feature points. Then, the point clouds located in the blocks were separated from the original point clouds. Each point in the blocks was used to find the accurate corresponding pixel in the relative panoramic images via a collinear function, and the position and orientation relationship amongst different sensors. A search strategy is proposed for the correspondence of laser scanners and lenses of panoramic cameras to reduce calculation complexity and improve efficiency. Four cases of different urban road types were selected to verify the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method. Results indicate that most of the point clouds (with an average of 99.7%) were successfully registered with the panoramic images with great efficiency. Geometric evaluation results indicate that horizontal accuracy was approximately 0.10–0.20 m, and vertical accuracy was approximately 0.01–0.02 m for all cases. Finally, the main factors that affect registration accuracy, including time synchronization amongst different sensors, system positioning and vehicle speed, are discussed.
Depression, Inflammation, and Physiological Risk in Late Life: A National Longitudinal Study

ABSTRACT This nationally representative study queried effects of community dwelling older adults’ depression and inflammation at baseline on over-time changes in surrogate markers of their cardiometabolic risk. Data were from the 2005–2006 and 2010–2011 waves of the U.S. National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project. Inflammation was indicated by C-reactive protein and depression by the CES-D scale. Cardiometabolic markers included hemoglobin A1c and systolic BP. Lagged dependent variable models were used to examine effects. In none of the models did Wave 1 depression predict residual change in cardiometabolic states (i.e., Wave 2 values net of Wave 1). In contrast, men’s baseline C-reactive protein predicted their Wave 2 hemoglobin A1c (Coeff. = 0.02, p < .05) as well as their systolic BP (Coeff. = 3.22, p < .05). No such effects were found among women. Contrary to a growing clinical literature, depression may not increase cardiometabolic risk among older adults on average. Moderators that may interact with depression to yield such effects in delimited samples remain to be identified. Inflammation, in contrast, does seem linked to increase in physiological risk—but only among men, not women. Clinical research is needed to identify biological factors responsible for this sex difference.
A highly accurate facial region network for unconstrained face detection

In this paper, a new face detection method with very high accuracy is proposed. We introduce a novel facial region network to detect faces in unconstrained conditions. Firstly, a face proposal net is raised to generate possible face regions in the input image. Then, a novel weighted grid feature is applied to calculate features of face regions. Owing to that, faces with large pose variation and severe occlusion can be detected correctly. Furthermore, we use millions of general object data to pre-train the network to enhance the robustness of the extracted feature. Our method is evaluated on several public face detection datasets and achieves state-of-the-art performance on all of them. Specially, our method demonstrates a very high recall rate of 96.4% when false positives are 300 on the challenging FDDB benchmark, ranking first not only in the academic list but also in the commercial list which is much more competitive than the previous one.
Evaluation of the 1B Equation to Estimate Glomerular Filtration Rate in Pediatric Patients with Cancer

The 1B equation is recommended for calculating the glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in children. Since few reports have evaluated the performance of the 1B equation, we investigated the performance of estimated GFR (eGFR) equations with the blood urea nitrogen (BUN) variable for pediatric cancer patients. In total, 203 children with cancer who underwent measured GFR (mGFR) assessment were enrolled. The median (range) mGFR and eGFR calculated using the updated Schwartz equation were 118 (43–241) and 135 (34–257) mL/min/1.73 m2, respectively. The bias, precision (root mean square error [RMSE]), and accuracy (P30, mGFR±30%) of three eGFR equations including updated Schwartz, 1B, and full age spectrum (FAS) were compared. The median bias (mL/min/1.73 m2) was: updated Schwartz, 8.5; 1B, −9.0; and FAS, 4.2. The biases for all three eGFR equations were significantly different from zero. The P30 was: updated Schwartz, 63.5%; 1B, 66.0%; and FAS, 66.0%. The RMSE was the lowest for the 1B equation (40.4), followed by FAS (42.3), and updated Schwartz (45.5). The median eGFR/mGFR ratio for the eGFR equations decreased with age and reduced kidney functions (i.e., increased creatinine and BUN concentrations). The bias may be further reduced by using the average from two equations, such as the updated Schwartz and 1B, or FAS equation, rather than using the updated Schwartz or 1B equation alone. The use of the 1B equation may underestimate the GFR. Using creatinine and BUN variables in the eGFR equation may yield a more accurate estimate of the GFR in pediatric cancer patients.