Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Psychological burden of testing positive for high‐risk human papillomavirus on women with atypical cervical cytology: a prospective study

Objective. To assess the psychological burden of testing positive for high‐risk human papillomavirus (HPV) on Chinese women with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS). Design. Prospective observational study. Setting. Five community women's health clinics in Hong Kong. Population. Ethnic Chinese women (n=299) with ASCUS who underwent reflex HPV testing (of whom 142 tested HPV negative and 157 tested HPV positive). Methods. Women's psychological condition was assessed by self‐administered questionnaires at smear result notification and by structured telephone interviews six months after notification. All women who tested positive for HPV were referred for colposcopy. Main outcome measures. State anxiety, cervical cancer worry and psychosocial burden. Results. At result notification, the HPV‐positive group had significantly higher state anxiety, cervical cancer worry and psychosocial burden than the HPV‐negative group (all p<0.001). Irrespective of the HPV results, all outcome scores decreased over time. About 80% of the women who were HPV positive attended colposcopy as recommended. At six months, the two groups did not differ in state anxiety, cervical cancer worry, perceived risk of cervical cancer and satisfaction with intimate relationship, but psychosocial burden remained higher in the HPV‐positive group (p=0.001). Conclusions. A concurrent positive HPV result intensified the distress of women with ASCUS at result notification. With time and after colposcopy, their initial heightened anxiety and cervical cancer worry were significantly lowered. However, HPV positivity may pose a prolonged psychosocial burden on women even after having had the necessary follow‐up for their cervical abnormalities.
Correction for “ Interleukin 1 receptor-associated kinase 1 ( IRAK 1 ) mutation is a common , essential driver for Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus lymphoma

MICROBIOLOGY Correction for “Interleukin 1 receptor-associated kinase 1 (IRAK1) mutation is a common, essential driver for Kaposi sarcoma herpesvirus lymphoma,” by Dongmei Yang, Wuguo Chen, Jie Xiong, Carly J. Sherrod, David H. Henry, and Dirk P. Dittmer, which appeared in issue 44, November 4, 2014, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (111:E4762–E4768; first published October 23, 2014; 10.1073/ pnas.1405423111). The authors note that on page E4765, left column, third full paragraph, the text should instead appear as “From a statistical point of view, all the PEL-specific SNVs represent candidate driver mutations and deserve experimental follow-up, most notably VBP1 and WDR13, which are abundantly transcribed in PEL. We prioritized IRAK1 because IRAK inhibitors have entered phase I human clinical trials. Fifty-five previously identified, noncoding SNVs in the IRAK1 locus were not conserved among PEL; only the IRAK1 mutation was. The IRAK1 mutation is a common polymorphism, as recorded in various SNV databases. The odds ratio for association of this SNV with PEL is estimated at 8.4. 686.5 (95% CI). Because we only had two matched normal and tumor samples, we cannot claim that any of the PEL-specific SNVs represent somatic events in addition to PEL-defining polymorphisms. ”
One Scan 1-Bit Compressed Sensing

Based on $\alpha$-stable random projections with small $\alpha$, we develop a simple algorithm for compressed sensing (sparse signal recovery) by utilizing only the signs (i.e., 1-bit) of the measurements. Using only 1-bit information of the measurements results in substantial cost reduction in collection, storage, communication, and decoding for compressed sensing. The proposed algorithm is efficient in that the decoding procedure requires only one scan of the coordinates. Our analysis can precisely show that, for a $K$-sparse signal of length $N$, $12.3K\log N/\delta$ measurements (where $\delta$ is the confidence) would be sufficient for recovering the support and the signs of the signal. While the method is very robust against typical measurement noises, we also provide the analysis of the scheme under random flipping of the signs of the measurements. \noindent Compared to the well-known work on 1-bit marginal regression (which can also be viewed as a one-scan method), the proposed algorithm requires orders of magnitude fewer measurements. Compared to 1-bit Iterative Hard Thresholding (IHT) (which is not a one-scan algorithm), our method is still significantly more accurate. Furthermore, the proposed method is reasonably robust against random sign flipping while IHT is known to be very sensitive to this type of noise.
Draft Genome Sequence of Staphylococcus succinus subsp. succinus Type Strain DSM 14617, Isolated from Plant and Soil Inclusions within 25- to 35-Million-Year-Old Dominican Amber

ABSTRACT Staphylococcus succinus subsp. succinus type strain DSM 14617 was isolated from plant and soil inclusions within 25- to 35-million-year-old Dominican amber. The complete genome sequence of strain DSM 14617T includes a genome of 2.88 Mb (32.94% G+C content) without any plasmids.
Mechanical deflection of cantilever microbeams: A new technique for testing the mechanical properties of thin films

The mechanical deflection of cantilever microbeams is presented as a new technique for testing the mechanical properties of thin films. Single-layer microbeams of Au and SiO_2 have been fabricated using conventional silicon micromachining techniques. Typical thickness, width, and length dimensions of the beams are 1.0,20, and 30 μm, respectively. The beams are mechanically deflected by a Nanoindenter, a submicron indentation instrument that continuously monitors load and deflection. Using simple beam theory and the load-deflection data, the Young’s moduli and the yield strengths of thin-film materials that comprise the beams are determined. The measured mechanical properties are compared to those obtained by indenting similar thin films supported by their substrate.
Compliant grasping force modeling for handling of live objects

Models quasi-statically the force acting on an object by a rotating flexible finger. As compared to fingers with multiple active joints, flexible fingers have many potential advantages; specifically, they are lightweight and have no relative individual moving parts in each of the fingers. Their ability to accommodate a limited range of varying sizes, shapes, and the natural reactions of some objects (without the need of a feedback mechanism such as a visual servo) makes a system using flexible fingers an attractive candidate for use as a grasper in a high-speed production setting. The advantages of flexible fingers are seldom exploited for grasping, however, because of complicated analyses involved in their design. The paper offers two methods to determine contact points/forces. The first analytical model, based on the Frisch-Fay (1962) flexible bar theory, provides an approximate closed-form solution for determining the contact points and forces. The second method using FEM predicts the stress distribution around the contact area. Both methods of predicting the contact forces have been verified experimentally. The effects of parameter variations are presented. Our results demonstrate that the model could be used as a practical means to measure the contact force between the finger and the live object.
Fiber optic intra-grating distributed strain sensor

Fiber-optic intracore Bragg gratings have been widely used as strain sensors. In most applications, the strain along a fiber grating is uniform and the strain is measured by the shift of the reflective wavelength of the grating. If the grating is under a gradient strain field, however, its reflective spectrum will be not only shifted but also distorted due to the chirp of grating periods. The shape of this spectrum depends on the strain distribution. Therefore the location and the shape of the reflective spectrum together can provide information on the strain distribution over a small region (sub-centimeter). We have calculated the reflective spectra of gratings by using the T-matrix formalism which allows us to simulate gratings with any distribution of the refractive-index modulation depth and the chirp of the period length. The calculation results show a strong dependence of the reflective spectrum of a grating on the distributions of its refractive-index modulation depth and period length. Experimental results have verified the T-matrix calculations. These results indicate that fiber-optic gratings can be used as quasi-distributed strain sensors to detect strain gradients that is very useful for monitoring and studying the presence and the evolutionary process of fiber sensor malfunction or material fringe/damage.
Interacting with embodied agents that can see: how vision-enabled agents can assist in spatial tasks

In this paper, we describe user experiences with a system equipped with cognitive vision that interacts with the user in the context of personal assistance in the office. A cognitive vision computer can see the user and user responses and react to situations that happen in the environment, crossing the boundary between the virtual and the physical world. How should such a seeing computer interact with its users? Three different interface styles -- a traditional GUI, a cartoon-like embodied agent and a realistic embodied agent -- are tested in two tasks where users are actively observed by a (simulated) cognitive vision system. The system assists them in problem solving. Both the non-embodied and the embodied interaction styles offer the user certain advantages and the pros and cons based on the experiment results are discussed in terms of performance, intelligence, trust, comfort, and social presence.
Accuracy Estimation for Sensor Systems

In most sensing applications, the measurements generated by sensor networks are noisy and usually annotated with some measure of uncertainty. The question that we address in this paper is how to estimate the accuracy of these uncertain sensor measurements. Existing studies on estimating the accuracy of uncertain measurements in real sensing applications are limited in three ways. First, they tend to be application-specific. Second, they typically employ learning techniques to estimate the parameters of sensor noise models, and ignore alternative state estimation approaches without learning. Third, they do not explore whether exploiting the dynamics of the monitored state can yield significant benefits. We address the above limitations as follows: we define the accuracy estimation problem in a general manner that applies to a broad spectrum of application scenarios. We present a general framework to address this problem, and show that the proposed framework can be implemented in a number of different ways. We evaluate and compare the different implementations in the context of two real sensing scenarios, and discuss how they trade accuracy for computation cost, and how this trade-off largely depends on the user's knowledge of the application scenario.
Islet Autoantibody Seroconversion in the DPT-1 Study

OBJECTIVE Although type 1 diabetes autoimmunity frequently begins in childhood, little is known about the relationship between age and autoimmunity development. Our aim was to determine the timing of seroconversion to diabetes-associated autoantibody (DAA) positivity and risk in first- and second-degree relatives of patients with type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Study subjects were identified through the Diabetes Prevention Trial-Type 1 (DPT-1). Children 3–18 years of age (n = 42,447) were screened for DAAs; 1,454 were ICA positive (≥10 JDF units), 1,758 were GAD65 positive, and 899 were ICA512 positive at the time of initial screening. Subjects who were initially antibody negative (n = 39,212) were recalled for rescreening, and 11,813 returned for rescreening. RESULTS DAA seroconversion occurred in 469 (4%) children; 258 seroconverted to ICA, 234 to GAD65, and 99 to ICA512. The median time to seroconversion was 2 years. The 2-year risk for DAAs was highest in early childhood. For each 1-year increase in age in this cohort, the risk of any autoantibody seroconversion (HR 0.95, 95% CI 0.92–0.97) decreased by 5%, and for any two autoantibodies risk decreased by 13% (0.87, 0.82–0.93). CONCLUSIONS Risk of autoantibody seroconversion among children followed in DPT-1 is age dependent. Younger children have the highest risk for DAAs, with the majority of children seroconverting by 13 years of age (75%). This suggests that annual screenings should be started in early childhood and continued through early adolescence to identify the majority of subjects at risk for type 1 diabetes and eligible for prevention trials.
CORRECTION OF SHADOWING IN IMAGING SPECTROSCOPY DATA BY QUANTIFICATION OF THE PROPORTION OF DIFFUSE ILLUMINATION

High spatial resolution imaging spectroscopy data is affected by various shadowing influences: be it the shadows of buildings, within forests, at forest borders, by single trees, by terrain, or by clouds. The radiometric performance of modern imaging spectroscopy systems provides a dynamic range which is large enough to retrieve useful spectral surface information even within full cast shadows. Thus, atmospheric correction routines should provide a capability to account for all above-mentioned types of cast shadows. The use of accurate surface models for cast shadow ray tracing does not lead to useful results in many cases as the surface representation with respect to the radiometry is never accurate enough. Therefore, an image-based method applicable to a broad variety of image data is searched. A method for cast shadow detection and correction has been implemented and included in the workflow of the ATCOR atmospheric compensation package. The shadows are retrieved from calibrated at-sensor radiance imagery relying on the fact that all areas in shade are illuminated by a large proportion of diffuse irradiance. The diffuse irradiance is caused by scattering in the atmosphere and thus exhibits very specific spectral characteristics compared to the direct irradiance. Specifically, the relative signal in the blue is significantly higher in areas affected by cast shadow than in directly illuminated regions. Specific indices have been defined to quantify the shadow fraction on a per-pixel basis by exploiting the spectral properties of illumination. This strategy results in a continuous quantification of the shadow field. The output is used directly in the atmospheric/topographic correction on the basis of the ATCOR model in a physical way. Tests of the procedure on various imaging spectroscopy data samples show significant improvements of surface reflectance products in forests and in urban areas. Validation results demonstrate the performance and indicate limitations of the proposed methods. Implications for the retrieval of remote sensing products are discussed, with a particular focus on the vegetation indices normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and photochemical reflectance index (PRI).
Multiple instance learning from multiple cameras

Recently, combining information from multiple cameras has shown to be very beneficial for object detection and tracking. In contrast, the goal of this work is to train detectors exploiting the vast amount of unlabeled data given by geometry information of a specific multiple camera setup. Starting from a small number of positive training samples, we apply a co-training strategy in order to generate new very valuable samples from unlabeled data that could not be obtained otherwise. To compensate for unreliable updates and to increase the detection power, we introduce a new online multiple instance co-training algorithm. The approach, although not limited to this application, is demonstrated for learning a person detector on different challenging scenarios. In particular, we give a detailed analysis of the learning process and show that by applying the proposed approach we can train state-of-the-art person detectors.
Influence of anatomic location of lidocaine patch 5% on effectiveness and tolerability for postherpetic neuralgia

Purpose Lidocaine patch 5% is recommended as a first-line therapy for postherpetic neuralgia pain in neuropathic pain guidelines. Postherpetic neuralgia can occur anywhere on the body but often follows acute herpes zoster occurring in trigeminal and brachial plexus dermatomes. An analysis was conducted to determine whether the anatomic location of lidocaine patch 5% is associated with variations in effectiveness or tolerability in patients with postherpetic neuralgia. Methods This was a post hoc analysis by anatomic site of patch placement (head [including neck], trunk [chest, abdomen, back, hips], and extremities [arm, leg]) of a 4-week, multicenter, open-label study that enrolled patients with persistent pain following herpes zoster infection. Effectiveness was measured by Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) average pain intensity (0 [no pain] to 10 [worst imaginable pain]) and the BPI subscale for pain relief (0% [no relief] to 100% [complete relief]). Tolerability was assessed on the basis of patient-reported adverse events. Results Of 332 enrolled patients (59.6% women [n = 198]; 92.5% white [n = 307]; mean [standard deviation] age, 71.2 [13.9] years), those (n = 203) who applied lidocaine patch 5% to a single anatomic site only and had baseline and postbaseline pain score data were analyzed (trunk, n = 130; head, n = 41; extremities, n = 32). The frequency of adverse events differed significantly by anatomic location, with significantly more adverse events reported with patch placement on the head versus the extremities (P = 0.006) or trunk (P = 0.02). BPI average pain improved significantly from baseline in each of the three anatomic areas (mean score decrease, 1.50–2.04; P ≤ 0.002), with no significant difference in effectiveness by patch location. Conclusion Lidocaine 5% patch was effective and generally well tolerated for each anatomic area evaluated, although application to the head was tolerated less well compared with the trunk and extremities.
Structural and Landscape Analysis for the Robust Capacitated International Sourcing Problem (RoCIS)

In this paper the robust capacitated international sourcing problem (RoCIS) is approached. It consists of selecting a subset of suppliers with finite capacity, from an available set of potential suppliers internationally located. This problem was introduced by Gonzalez-Velarde and Laguna in 2004(1), where they propose a deterministic solution based on Tabu Search memory strategies. In this work a structural and landscape analysis for the larger problem instances is reported, to try of explain the relative hardness observed when the improved tabu solution (11) is applied to solve the instances.
Genome Sequences of Seven Mycoplasma hyosynoviae Strains Isolated from the Joint Tissue of Infected Swine (Sus scrofa)

ABSTRACT Mycoplasma hyosynoviae is a Gram-negative bacterium that can cause debilitating arthritis in swine. Currently, there are no M. hyosynoviae genome sequences in the GenBank database, which makes it impossible to understand its pathogenesis, nutrition, or colonization characteristics, or to devise an effective strategy for its control. Here, we report the genome sequences of seven strains of M. hyosynoviae. Within each genome, several virulence factors were identified that may prove important in the pathogenesis of M. hyosynoviae-mediated arthritis and serve as potential virulence markers that may be critical in vaccine development.
Exact and heuristic approaches to input vector control for leakage power reduction

We present two approaches to leakage power minimization in static CMOS circuits by means of input vector control (IVC). We model leakage effects using pseudo-Boolean functions. These are incorporated into an optimal integer linear programming model called VG-ILP that analyzes leakage variation with respect to a circuit's input vectors. A heuristic mixed-integer linear programming (MLP) method is also presented which has several advantages: it is faster, its accuracy can be quickly estimated, and trade-offs between runtime and optimality can easily be made. The proposed methods are used to generate a large set of experimental results on leakage reduction. It is shown that average leakage currents are usually 1.25 times the minimum, confirming the effectiveness of IVC. The heuristic MLP approach is much faster than exact ILP, while finding input vectors whose power consumption is only a few percent from the optimum.
Surface air hockey: a step towards smart tangibles

Tangibles provide a way to bridge the gap between on-screen content and the real world. However most communication between the tangibles and the virtual world is unidirectional from the tangible to the virtual world. We propose the concept of Smart Tangibles: tangibles that provide smart feedback to the user and investigate the effectiveness of these tools. To do this, we developed an Air hockey game on an interactive tabletop with custom 3D printed mallets. With a smartphone attached, the mallets provide vibrio-haptic feedback when the mallet collides with the virtual puck. Our user study shows that all the participants felt that the smart tangibles had a positive impact on the immersiveness of the game.
Environmental pollution has sex-dependent effects on local survival

Environmental pollutants cause a potential hazard for survival in free-living animal populations. We modelled local survival (including emigration) by using individual mark–recapture histories of males and females in a population of a small insectivorous passerine bird, the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) living around a point source of heavy metals (copper smelter). Local survival of F. hypoleuca females did not differ between polluted and unpolluted environments. Males, however, showed a one-third higher local-survival probability in the polluted area. Low fledgling production was generally associated with decreased local survival, but males in the polluted area showed relatively high local survival, irrespective of their fledgling number. A possible explanation of higher local survival of males in the polluted area could be a pollution-induced change in hormone (e.g. corticosterone or testosterone) levels of males. It could make them to invest more on their own survival or affect the hormonal control of breeding dispersal. The local survival of males decreased in the polluted area over the study period along with the simultaneous decrease in heavy metal emissions. This temporal trend is in agreement with the stress hormone hypothesis.
Thermal Conductivity of Unidirectionally Aligned SiC Whisker Reinforced Al Alloy Matrix Composite with Interfacial Thermal Resistance

The effective thermal conductivities of unidirectionally aligned SiC whisker reinforced aluminum alloy matrix composites with different whisker diameters and volume fractions were measured from room temperature to 700 K. The thermal conductivity values parallel to the whiskers were found to be significantly higher than those in the normal direction. The thermal conductivities decrease as the whiskers’ volume fraction is increased or their diameter is decreased. Effective-medium theory was used to calculate the effective thermal conductivity of the composites with consideration of the interfacial thermal resistance. The calculated values are in good agreement with the experimental ones.
Syntactically Informed Text Compression with Recurrent Neural Networks

We present a self-contained system for constructing natural language models for use in text compression. Our system improves upon previous neural network based models by utilizing recent advances in syntactic parsing -- Google's SyntaxNet -- to augment character-level recurrent neural networks. RNNs have proven exceptional in modeling sequence data such as text, as their architecture allows for modeling of long-term contextual information.