Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Validation of Catquest-9SF—A Visual Disability Instrument to Evaluate Patient Function After Corneal Transplantation

Purpose: Catquest-9SF is a 9-item visual disability questionnaire developed for evaluating patient-reported outcome measures after cataract surgery. The aim of this study was to use Rasch analysis to determine the responsiveness of Catquest-9SF for corneal transplant patients. Methods: Patients who underwent corneal transplantation primarily to improve vision were included. One group (n = 199) completed the Catquest-9SF questionnaire before corneal transplantation and a second independent group (n = 199) completed the questionnaire 2 years after surgery. All patients were recorded in the Swedish Cornea Registry, which provided clinical and demographic data for the study. Winsteps software v.3. 91.0 (Winsteps.com, Beaverton, OR) was used to assess the fit of the Catquest-9SF data to the Rasch model. Results: Rasch analysis showed that Catquest-9SF applied to corneal transplant patients was unidimensional (infit range, 0.73–1.32; outfit range, 0.81–1.35), and therefore, measured a single underlying construct (visual disability). The Rasch model explained 68.5% of raw variance. The response categories of the 9-item questionnaire were ordered, and the category thresholds were well defined. Item difficulty matched the level of patients' ability (0.36 logit difference between the means). Precision in terms of person separation (3.09) and person reliability (0.91) was good. Differential item functioning was notable for only 1 item (satisfaction with vision), which had a differential item functioning contrast of 1.08 logit. Conclusions: Rasch analysis showed that Catquest-9SF is a valid instrument for measuring visual disability in patients who have undergone corneal transplantation primarily to improve vision.
Natriuretic peptides and integrated risk assessment for cardiovascular disease : an individual-participant-data meta-analysis Natriuretic Peptides

Methods In this individual-participant-data meta-analysis, we generated and harmonised individual-participant data from relevant prospective studies via both de-novo NT-proBNP concentration measurement of stored samples and collection of data from studies identifi ed through a systematic search of the literature (PubMed, Scientifi c Citation Index Expanded, and Embase) for articles published up to Sept 4, 2014, using search terms related to natriuretic peptide family members and the primary outcomes, with no language restrictions. We calculated risk ratios and measures of risk discrimination and reclassifi cation across predicted 10 year risk categories (ie, <5%, 5% to <7·5%, and ≥7·5%), adding assessment of NT-proBNP concentration to that of conventional risk factors (ie, age, sex, smoking status, systolic blood pressure, history of diabetes, and total and HDL cholesterol concentrations). Primary outcomes were the combination of coronary heart disease and stroke, and the combination of coronary heart disease, stroke, and heart failure.
A unified hierarchical oscillatory network model of head direction cells, spatially periodic cells, and place cells

Spatial cells in the hippocampal complex play a pivotal role in the navigation of an animal. Exact neural principles behind these spatial cell responses have not been completely unraveled yet. Here we present two models for spatial cells, namely the Velocity Driven Oscillatory Network (VDON) and Locomotor Driven Oscillatory Network. Both models have basically three stages in common such as direction encoding stage, path integration (PI) stage, and a stage of unsupervised learning of PI values. In the first model, the following three stages are implemented: head direction layer, frequency modulation by a layer of oscillatory neurons, and an unsupervised stage that extracts the principal components from the oscillator outputs. In the second model, a refined version of the first model, the stages are extraction of velocity representation from the locomotor input, frequency modulation by a layer of oscillators, and two cascaded unsupervised stages consisting of the lateral anti‐hebbian network. The principal component stage of VDON exhibits grid cell‐like spatially periodic responses including hexagonal firing fields. Locomotor Driven Oscillatory Network shows the emergence of spatially periodic grid cells and periodically active border‐like cells in its lower layer; place cell responses are found in its higher layer. This model shows the inheritance of phase precession from grid cell to place cell in both one‐ and two‐dimensional spaces. It also shows a novel result on the influence of locomotion rhythms on the grid cell activity. The study thus presents a comprehensive, unifying hierarchical model for hippocampal spatial cells.
Mere experience of low subjective socioeconomic status stimulates appetite and food intake

Significance Lower socioeconomic status (SES) has been linked to increased risk of obesity. This relationship is generally assumed to be a product of low financial resources or greater stress associated with low SES that promotes unhealthy diets and lifestyles. We demonstrate here that the mere subjective experience of being lower in SES relative to others is alone sufficient to causally elicit behaviors that may risk obesity (e.g., preference, selection, and intake of greater calories), independent of actual economic deprivation or stress from being subordinated. Among social species, the physiological/psychological systems regulating hunger may have been adapted to be sensitive to perceived deprivation of critical social, material, and symbolic resources that underlie social class in addition to caloric deprivation. Among social animals, subordinate status or low social rank is associated with increased caloric intake and weight gain. This may reflect an adaptive behavioral pattern that promotes acquisition of caloric resources to compensate for low social resources that may otherwise serve as a buffer against environmental demands. Similarly, diet-related health risks like obesity and diabetes are disproportionately more prevalent among people of low socioeconomic resources. Whereas this relationship may be associated with reduced financial and material resources to support healthier lifestyles, it remains unclear whether the subjective experience of low socioeconomic status may alone be sufficient to stimulate consumption of greater calories. Here we show that the mere feeling of lower socioeconomic status relative to others stimulates appetite and food intake. Across four studies, we found that participants who were experimentally induced to feel low (vs. high or neutral) socioeconomic status subsequently exhibited greater automatic preferences for high-calorie foods (e.g., pizza, hamburgers), as well as intake of greater calories from snack and meal contexts. Moreover, these results were observed even in the absence of differences in access to financial resources. Our results demonstrate that among humans, the experience of low social class may contribute to preferences and behaviors that risk excess energy intake. These findings suggest that psychological and physiological systems regulating appetite may also be sensitive to subjective feelings of deprivation for critical nonfood resources (e.g., social standing). Importantly, efforts to mitigate the socioeconomic gradient in obesity may also need to address the psychological experience of low social status.
NMR relaxation and imaging studies of waterborne dispersion coatings

Following the introduction of legislation restricting the manufacture and use of coatings containing volatile organic solvents, alternative waterborne coatings are increasingly being adopted for adhesive, protective, and decorative applications. Better understanding is therefore sought of the behaviour of waterborne coatings during drying and film formation, and of their physical characteristics after film formation is complete. This thesis describes one-dimensional Magnetic Resonance Imaging studies of the distribution of water and solid particles through the depth of aqueous latex layers during drying which investigate how particle distribution and concentration are influenced by the competing forces of diffusion and evaporation. The manner in which the balance of these forces affects the formation of a crust or dry layer at the latex-air interface is also investigated. In the case of acrylic latexes, the same technique has been used to show that, when re-wet by the application of further latex during drying, drying layers absorb a quantity of water proportional to the water volume fraction at the time of re-wetting. A study is also reported in which Nuclear Magnetic Resonance diffusometry and, for the first time, two-dimensional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance relaxation and diffusion correlation and exchange measurements are used to investigate waterborne coatings. These methods allow both the pore size and the total pore volume of some emulsion paint products to be estimated.
Fat Intake and Risk of Skin Cancer in U.S. Adults

Background: Fat intake has been associated with certain cancers, including colorectal, breast, and prostate cancers. However, literature on dietary fat and skin cancer has been limited. Methods: We examined the association between fat intake and risk of skin cancer including cutaneous malignant melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), and basal cell carcinoma (BCC) within two prospective studies: the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). Dietary information on total, saturated, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, omega-6, and omega-3 fat and cholesterol was repeatedly assessed generally every 4 years. Incident cases were identified by self-report. Diagnosis on melanoma and SCC was confirmed by pathologic records. Results: A total of 794 melanoma, 2,223 SCC, and 17,556 BCC in the NHS (1984–2012) and 736 melanoma, 1,756 SCC, and 13,092 BCC in the HPFS (1986–2012) were documented. Higher polyunsaturated fat intake was associated with risk of SCC [pooled HR for highest vs. lowest quintiles, 1.16; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.05–1.28; Ptrend=0.001] and BCC (pooled HR, 1.06; 95% CI, 1.01–1.11; Ptrend=0.01). Higher omega-6 fat intake was associated with risks of SCC, BCC, and melanoma. Omega-3 fat intake was associated with risk of BCC, but not with SCC or melanoma. No other fats were associated with melanoma risk. The associations were similar in women and men and by other skin cancer risk factors. Conclusions: Polyunsaturated fat intake was modestly associated with skin cancer risk. Impact: Further studies are needed to confirm our findings and to identify relevant biological mechanisms. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 27(7); 776–82. ©2018 AACR.
A Novel and Practical Chromatographic “Fingerprint-ROC-SVM” Strategy Applied to Quality Analysis of Traditional Chinese Medicine Injections: Using KuDieZi Injection as a Case Study

Fingerprinting is widely and commonly used in the quality control of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) injections. However, current studies informed that the fingerprint similarity evaluation was less sensitive and easily generated false positive results. For this reason, a novel and practical chromatographic “Fingerprint-ROC-SVM” strategy was established by using KuDieZi (KDZ) injection as a case study in the present article. Firstly, the chromatographic fingerprints of KDZ injection were obtained by UPLC and the common characteristic peaks were identified with UPLC/Q-TOF-MS under the same chromatographic conditions. Then, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to optimize common characteristic peaks by the AUCs value greater than 0.7. Finally, a support vector machine (SVM) model, with the accuracy of 97.06%, was established by the optimized characteristic peaks and applied to monitor the quality of KDZ injection. As a result, the established model could sensitively and accurately distinguish the qualified products (QPs) with the unqualified products (UPs), high-temperature processed samples (HTPs) and high-illumination processed samples (HIPs) of KDZ injection, and the prediction accuracy was 100.00%, 93.75% and 100.00%, respectively. Furthermore, through the comparison with other chemometrics methods, the superiority of the novel analytical strategy was more prominent. It indicated that the novel and practical chromatographic “Fingerprint-ROC-SVM” strategy could be further applied to facilitate the development of the quality analysis of TCM injections.
Semi-supervised image classification based on sparse coding spatial pyramid matching

Image classification, namely classifying thousands of images into different classes, is an important task in images organization. Although many existing methods attempt to address this task, most of those are proposed in a supervised way based on the labeled data. However, in real world the labeled data is usually hard to obtain while large amounts of unlabeled data can be easier to acquire. The problem of effectively and efficiently classifying images combining unlabeled data with labeled data remains pretty much open. To this end, in this paper we proposed a novel semi-supervised image classification method based on sparse coding spatial pyramid matching (ScSPM). Specifically, we use the unsupervised ScSPM method to get the representation of unlabeled images as like the labeled images. Based on the obtained image representation, we then propose a linear LapSVM as the semi-supervised classifier. Since the proposed method has a linear kernel and can effectively explore the intrinsic structure of data by making full use of the information of unlabeled data, it leads to more accurate and efficient image classification. Experimental results on two real world datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our method especially when the labeled data is very little.
Methodology and Results for the Competition on Semantic Similarity Evaluation and Entailment Recognition for PROPOR 2016

In this paper, we present the methodology and the results obtained by our teams, dubbed Blue Man Group, in the ASSIN (from the Portuguese {\it Avalia\c{c}\~ao de Similaridade Sem\^antica e Infer\^encia Textual}) competition, held at PROPOR 2016\footnote{International Conference on the Computational Processing of the Portuguese Language - this http URL}. Our team's strategy consisted of evaluating methods based on semantic word vectors, following two distinct directions: 1) to make use of low-dimensional, compact, feature sets, and 2) deep learning-based strategies dealing with high-dimensional feature vectors. Evaluation results demonstrated that the first strategy was more promising, so that the results from the second strategy have been discarded. As a result, by considering the best run of each of the six teams, we have been able to achieve the best accuracy and F1 values in entailment recognition, in the Brazilian Portuguese set, and the best F1 score overall. In the semantic similarity task, our team was ranked second in the Brazilian Portuguese set, and third considering both sets.
The MODIS Cloud Optical and Microphysical Products: Collection 6 Updates and Examples From Terra and Aqua

The Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) level-2 (L2) cloud product (earth science data set names MOD06 and MYD06 for Terra and Aqua MODIS, respectively) provides pixel-level retrievals of cloud top properties (day and night pressure, temperature, and height) and cloud optical properties (optical thickness, effective particle radius, and water path for both liquid water and ice cloud thermodynamic phases-daytime only). Collection 6 (C6) reprocessing of the product was completed in May 2014 and March 2015 for MODIS Aqua and Terra, respectively. Here we provide an overview of major C6 optical property algorithm changes relative to the previous Collection 5 (C5) product. Notable C6 optical and microphysical algorithm changes include: 1) new ice cloud optical property models and a more extensive cloud radiative transfer code lookup table (LUT) approach; 2) improvement in the skill of the shortwave-derived cloud thermodynamic phase; 3) separate cloud effective radius retrieval data sets for each spectral combination used in previous collections; 4) separate retrievals for partly cloudy pixels and those associated with cloud edges; 5) failure metrics that provide diagnostic information for pixels having observations that fall outside the LUT solution space; and 6) enhanced pixel-level retrieval uncertainty calculations. The C6 algorithm changes can collectively result in significant changes relative to C5, though the magnitude depends on the data set and the pixel's retrieval location in the cloud parameter space. Example L2 granule and level-3 gridded data set differences between the two collections are shown. While the emphasis is on the suite of cloud optical property data sets, other MODIS cloud data sets are discussed when relevant.
Screening for subclinical subclavian artery stenosis before coronary artery bypass grafting: Should we do it?

Atherosclerotic subclavian artery disease is detected in about 5% of patients referred for coronary artery bypass (CABG) surgery. The internal mammary artery, a branch of the subclavian artery, is the most frequently utilized graft to restore coronary circulation because of its longevity. Stenosis or occlusion of the subclavian artery can cause retrograde blood flow in the ipsilateral internal mammary artery, known as “steal,” compromising coronary circulation supplied by the graft. Steal may be asymptomatic or may result in symptoms of myocardial ischemia. Symptomatic subclavian artery stenosis post bypass is referred to as coronary subclavian steal syndrome post‐CABG. The incidence is not well defined, and the benefits of screening patients referred for CABG are not known. Despite the various modalities available to detect subclavian artery stenosis, current guidelines fail to provide guidance about screening high‐risk patients for this entity. Detection of subclavian artery disease prior to CABG can reduce complications posed by post‐mammary artery graft cardiac ischemia. This review discusses the utility of preoperative subclavian artery screening prior to CABG.
The Macaque Social Responsiveness Scale (mSRS): A Rapid Screening Tool for Assessing Variability in the Social Responsiveness of Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

Understanding the biological mechanisms underlying human neuropsychiatric disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), has been hindered by the lack of a robust, translational animal model. Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) display many of the same social behaviors that are affected in ASD, making them an excellent animal species in which to model social impairments. However, the social impairments associated with ASD may reflect extreme ends of a continuous distribution of traits. Thus, to validate the rhesus monkey as an animal model for studying social impairments that has strong translational relevance for ASD, researchers need an easily-implemented measurement tool that can quantify variation in social behavior dimensionally. The Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) is a 65-item survey that identifies both typical and atypical social behaviors in humans that covary with ASD symptom severity. A chimpanzee SRS has already been validated and the current study adapted this tool for use in the rhesus monkey (mSRS). Fifteen raters completed the mSRS for 105 rhesus monkeys living at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. The mSRS scores showed a unimodal distribution with a positive skew that identified 6 statistical outliers. Inter-rater reliability was very strong, but only 17 of the 36 questions showed positive intra-item reliability. The results of an exploratory factor analysis identified 3 factors that explained over 60% of the variance, with 12 items significantly loading onto the primary factor. These items reflected behaviors associated with social avoidance, social anxiety or inflexibility and social confidence. These initial findings are encouraging and suggest that variability in the social responsiveness of rhesus monkeys can be quantified using the mSRS: a tool that has strong translational relevance for human disorders. With further modification, the mSRS may provide an promising new direction for research on the biological mechanisms underlying social impairments.
A critical evaluation of tribological interaction for restorative materials in dentistry

Abstract Dental bio-tribology is a developing and promptly expending research field that develops an understanding for designing of dental implants and better selection of artificial dental material. Importance of tribology in modern restorative dentistry is significantly reviewed including synthetic teeth and dental implants. The wear characteristic is one of the extremely important parameters in demonstrating the clinical success of dental composite restoratives. Superior wear resistance of denture teeth conserves a good relationship of functional stability and harmonious occlusion. The usage of resin based dental composites has increased considerably in recent years. These composites have numerous advantages i.e. good esthetics, significant mechanical properties, potential to cohere to the tooth structure etc. Despite of these benefits tribological aspect of the restorative resin composites are still needing to be focused i.e. low wear resistance of material, especially for posterior teeth and increased wear rate of opposite teeth. The most common wear of dental composite consists of distinct phenomenon such as chemical degradation, abrasion, adhesion, attrition and fatigue. The aim of restorative dentistry is to develop highly wear resistant materials that do not cause wear of opposite tooth structure. This evaluation especially focuses on the investigation of the factors associated with inter-oral movements and mastication process along with the study of distinct wear mechanism, harsh intraoral environments, and effect of occlusal force on the friction and wear characteristics of human teeth. Moreover, this study also fortifies to the wear aspect of resin based dental composites as well as future developments of these materials are recommended from a tribological perspective. Additionally, in dental prosthodontics, the role of chewing motor regulation and periodontal mechanoreceptor responses in occlusal functions has been discussed and also the clinical significances of oral implants interactions in patients for fixed dental prostheses and some clinical case studies of the patients with the presence and absence of periodontal diseases are discussed thoroughly. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
Study on Chemical Profile and Neuroprotective Activity of Myrica rubra Leaf Extract

The chemical profile of Myrica rubra (a native species in China) leaf extract was investigated by UPLC-PDA-HRMS, and the neuroprotective activity of two characteristic constituents, myricanol and myricetrin, was evaluated with N2a cells using H2O2-inducedoxidative challenge through a series of methods, e.g., MTT assay, ROS assay and [Ca2+]i assay. Among the 188 constituents detected in the extract of Myrica rubra leaf, 116 were identified definitely or tentatively by the comprehensive utilization of precise molecular weight and abundant multistage fragmentation information obtained by quadrupole orbitrap mass spectrometry. In addition, 14 potential new compounds were reported for the first time. This work established an example for the research of microconstituents in a complex analyte and revealed that suppression of H2O2-induced cytotoxicity in N2a cells was achieved by the pretreatment with myricanol. The evidence suggested myricanol may potentially serve as a remedy for prevention and therapy of neurodegenerative diseases induced by oxidative stress.