Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Combined Therapy Using Q‐Switched Ruby Laser and Bleaching Treatment With Tretinoin and Hydroquinone for Acquired Dermal Melanocytosis

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Acquired dermal melanocytosis (ADM; acquired bilateral nevus of Ota-like macules) is known for its recalcitrance compared with Nevus of Ota, and we assume that one of the reasons is a higher rate and degree of postinflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH) seen after laser treatments. METHODS Topical bleaching treatment with 0.1% tretinoin aqueous gel and 5% hydroquinone ointment containing 7% lactic acid was initially performed (4 to 6 weeks) to discharge epidermal melanin. Subsequently, Q-switched ruby (QSR) laser was irradiated to eliminate dermal pigmentation. Both steps were repeated two to three times until patient satisfaction was obtained (usually at a 2-month interval for laser sessions). This treatment was performed in 19 patients with ADM. Skin biopsy was performed in six cases at baseline, after the bleaching pretreatment, and at the end of treatment. RESULTS All patients showed good to excellent clearing after two to three sessions of QSR laser treatments. The total treatment period ranged from 3 to 13 (mean of 8.3) months. PIH was observed in 10.5% of the cases. Histologically, epidermal hyperpigmentation was observed in all specimens and was dramatically improved by the topical bleaching pretreatment. CONCLUSION QSR laser combined with the topical bleaching pretreatment appeared to treat ADM consistently with a low occurrence rate of PIH and lessen the number of laser sessions and total treatment period and may also be applied to any other lesions with both epidermal and dermal pigmentation.
Does Consultation Time Influence Patient Perception of Provider Communication Style, Patient Satisfaction, and Word of Mouth Recommendation in India? A mediation analysis

Background: In medically underserved developing countries such as India, the length of the consultation is often compromised; providers, it appears, have lost their natural empathetic tendencies and try to substitute talk with techniques and procedures. Despite this, surprisingly, patient satisfaction is high in India. This raises questions on the importance of understanding how patients feel about the clinical consultation length and the way it affects their satisfaction. In this context, this study analysed if the time spent with the patient predicted different changes to patient satisfaction with the provider and word of mouth recommendation.Methods: This cross sectional study comprised a sample of working Indian adults (N=501), completing communication competence measures and indicating their satisfaction and word of mouth recommendation potential. The four step Baron and Kenny’s model of mediation analysis, apart from the GLM and factor analysis, was used for the analysisResults: Findings showed that the communication style of the providers positively influenced the health outcomes such as patient satisfaction and word of mouth recommendation, and the length of direct consultation time mediated this relationship. Gender wise, male patients were more likely to complain about poor communication competency of the providers and less consultation time than female patients Conclusion: We conclude that patients positively associate a longer clinical consultation time with empathetic and competent providers and be willing to recommend him/her to others. However due to extreme paucity of qualified providers in India, patients generally ignore or suffer problems related to time or communication style.
Candidate evaluation strategies for improved difficulty prediction of language tests

Language proficiency tests are a useful tool for evaluating learner progress, if the test difficulty fits the level of the learner. In this work, we describe a generalized framework for test difficulty prediction that is applicable to several languages and test types. In addition, we develop two ranking strategies for candidate evaluation inspired by automatic solving methods based on language model probability and semantic relatedness. These ranking strategies lead to significant improvements for the difficulty prediction of cloze tests.
Fuzzy rule extraction from GIS data with a neural fuzzy system for decision making

This study focuses on a new methodology to model a complex process of fuzzy rule acquisition from GIS data. The proposed method of neural fuzzy network described in this paper differs from the other methods in construction of the network by a simple representation of specific knowledge. Our goal is to use semantic If-Then rules instead of numerical values in the analytical models when uncertainty is involved in data. Such a method is expected to solve realistic problems in natural resource analysis and management. This paper discusses an adaptive neural network based on a fuzzy inference system that is able to learn fuzzy sets and fuzzy rules from data by the algorithm of steepest gradient descent. The fuzzy rules that are created by this approach can be very well interpreted to support decision-making. The method is tested in a case study of land suitability assessment. The result shows that the neural fuzzy network successfully extracted fuzzy rules with multidimensional spatial features obtained from GIS and simulated the decision process.
The 5-minute Apgar score as a predictor of childhood cancer: a population-based cohort study in five million children

Objective The aetiology of childhood cancer remains largely unknown but recent research indicates that uterine environment plays an important role. We aimed to examine the association between the Apgar score at 5 min after birth and the risk of childhood cancer. Design Nationwide population-based cohort study. Setting Nationwide register data in Denmark and Sweden. Study population All live-born singletons born in Denmark from 1978 to 2006 (N=1 771 615) and in Sweden from 1973 to 2006 (N=3 319 573). Children were followed up from birth to 14 years of age. Main outcome measures Rates and HRs for all childhood cancers and for specific childhood cancers. Results A total of 8087 children received a cancer diagnosis (1.6 per 1000). Compared to children with a 5-min Apgar score of 9–10, children with a score of 0–5 had a 46% higher risk of cancer (adjusted HR 1.46, 95% CI 1.15 to 1.89). The potential effect of low Apgar score on overall cancer risk was mostly confined to children diagnosed before 6 months of age. Children with an Apgar score of 0–5 had higher risks for several specific childhood cancers including Wilms’ tumour (HR 4.33, 95% CI 2.42 to 7.73). Conclusions A low 5 min Apgar score was associated with a higher risk of childhood cancers diagnosed shortly after birth. Our data suggest that environmental factors operating before or during delivery may play a role on the development of several specific childhood cancers.
Call and response: Musical and bodily interactions in jazz improvisation duos

When individuals coordinate their behaviour, they need to both anticipate actions and respond to each other in meaningful ways. Jazz musicians often encounter situations in jam sessions in which they interact with previously unknown musicians, allowing insights into spontaneous collaboration. The current study investigated call and response patterns in free jazz improvisations by analysing movement and musical characteristics of duos. Twelve jazz musicians were paired into six duos of an e-guitar and a saxophone. Balanced across duos, one musician was asked to play a series of improvisations expressing the emotions happy, sad or neutral. The second musician responded to each improvisation without knowing the emotional intention of the first musician. Call and response roles were then exchanged. While musicians improvised or listened to their duo partner, they were both recorded with an optical motion capture system. Results indicate correspondences between call and response musicians in movement variability and cumulative distance of head motion. There were marked differences between happy and sad emotional expressions both in movement parameters and musical features including mean intensity, mode, and, albeit to a lesser extent, tempo. Retrospective verbal decoding of the call musicians’ emotional intentions was correct in 76.5% of all cases. Independently of explicit decoding success and even for the first encounters, musicians spontaneously tuned into each other’s performances by means of their body movements and the musical characteristics of the improvisations.
Self-Explanation in Adaptive Systems

The behaviour of self adaptive systems can be emergent. The difficulty in predicting the system's behaviour means that there is scope for the system to surprise its customers and its developers. Because its behaviour is emergent, a self-adaptive system needs to garner confidence in its customers and it needs to resolve any surprise on the part of the developer during testing and mainteinance. We believe that these two functions can only be achieved if a self-adaptive system is also capable of self-explanation. We argue a self-adaptive system's behaviour needs to be explained in terms of satisfaction of its requirements. Since self-adaptive system requirements may themselves be emergent, a means needs to be found to explain the current behaviour of the system and the reasons that brought that behaviour about. We propose the use of goal-based models during runtime to offer self-explanation of how a system is meeting its requirements, and why the means of meeting these were chosen. We discuss the results of early experiments in self-explanation, and set out future work.
Failure-Oriented Path Restoration Algorithm for Survivable Networks

In this article, a new polynomial-time approximation algorithm called Service Path Local Optimization (SPLO) is proposed for the online restoration problem. SPLO is shown to perform competitively with existing offline heuristics algorithm in terms of spare capacity. SPLO is designed for online computation where only one request is computed at any one time, and the decision making does not depend on future requests. The polynomial-time and online nature of the algorithm makes SPLO suitable for use in real-time on-demand path request applications. SPLO can be combined with a non-polynomial post-processing component that re-optimizes the backup paths. Significant reductions in spare capacity requirements are achievable at the expense of higher computation time. Further, the potential for SPLO as an algorithm in traffic engineering applications is investigated by looking at the performance impact when source-destination-based traffic aggregation is applied. We also introduce a new concept called path intermix where the service path¿s allocated bandwidth can be used by the backup paths protecting that particular service path.
Blood Vessel Diameter Estimation System Using Active Contours

The study and analysis of blood vessel geometry has become the basis of medical applications related to early diagnosis and effective monitoring of therapies in vascular diseases. This paper presents a new method to trace the outline of blood vessels from imperfect images and extract useful information about their dimensions in an automated manner.The system consists of a segmentation procedure that uses two Active Contours to detect blood vessel boundaries and a novel approach to measure blood vessel diameters directly as the distance between two points. We have succeeded in designing and implementing an automated, robust, measurement method that is not only accurate (it takes away human error) but also user-friendly and requires very little image pre-processing. The system is tested with a set of grey scale images of blood vessels.Results of all the aspects of the design and implementation are presented along with graphs and images.
Gendering Occupations: An Introductory Exercise for Teaching Reproduction of the Binary Gender System

This paper presents a foundational classroom exercise used to help introduce the systemic and interactional aspects of the binary gender system, using 12 occupations selected from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and personality characteristics from the Bem Sex Role Inventory. This activity was conducted in an introductory Diversity course at a Midwestern community college over 13 semesters (n = 603). Collected results indicate a strong tendency for students to invisibly gender each occupation without any suggestive cues and a willingness in retrospect to examine their role in the implicit process of gendering. As such, this exercise may offer an additional strategy to help students understand that their individual agency can serve both to reproduce and challenge existing power relations.
Factors Significantly Associated With the Increased Prevalence of Carotid Atherosclerosis in a Northeast Chinese Middle-aged and Elderly Population

AbstractCarotid atherosclerosis is associated with many serious cardiovascular diseases; hence, it is necessary to identify factors related to its occurrence in order to develop preventive and therapeutic strategies. This study was conducted to identify risk factors associated with carotid atherosclerosis among the population residing in Northeast China.This epidemiological survey was conducted in a representative group of relatively healthy community residents. All participants answered questions about their medical histories and underwent physical examination, blood biochemical analysis, and ultrasonography examinations of their necks and abdomens. The prevalence rates of carotid atherosclerosis under different factors and conditions were then analyzed.The results of this study showed that age, gender, and diabetes significantly affected the prevalence of carotid atherosclerosis in this Northeast Chinese population. In addition, gender-based subgroup analysis revealed additional factors correlated with the prevalence of carotid atherosclerosis in men or women, although their correlations were not significant in the overall population. While high serum TC and LDL-C levels were risk factors for carotid atherosclerosis in men, it showed no clear correlation with the prevalence of carotid atherosclerosis in women. In contrast, the prevalence of carotid atherosclerosis in female participants with high serum TG level, hypertension, obesity and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease were higher than that of the control population, a trend not observed in male participants.Older age, male sex, and diabetes were independently associated with increased risk of carotid atherosclerosis in Northeast China. These findings could lead to improved screening for carotid atherosclerosis for better disease management.
How can journal impact factors be normalized across fields of science? An assessment in terms of percentile ranks and fractional counts

Using the CD-ROM version of the Science Citation Index 2010 (N = 3,705 journals), we study the (combined) effects of (a) fractional counting on the impact factor (IF) and (b) transformation of the skewed citation distributions into a distribution of 100 percentiles and six percentile rank classes (top-1%, top-5%, etc.). Do these approaches lead to field-normalized impact measures for journals? In addition to the 2-year IF (IF2), we consider the 5-year IF (IF5), the respective numerators of these IFs, and the number of Total Cites, counted both as integers and fractionally. These various indicators are tested against the hypothesis that the classification of journals into 11 broad fields by PatentBoard/NSF (National Science Foundation) provides statistically significant between-field effects. Using fractional counting the between-field variance is reduced by 91.7% in the case of IF5, and by 79.2% in the case of IF2. However, the differences in citation counts are not significantly affected by fractional counting. These results accord with previous studies, but the longer citation window of a fractionally counted IF5 can lead to significant improvement in the normalization across fields. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Locating facial features by robust active shape model

Active shape model statistically represents a shape by a set of well-defined landmark points and can model object variations using principal component analysis. However, the shape generated by standard active shape model is unsmooth when the test sample has a large variation compared with the training images. In this paper, we introduce a robust active shape model for facial feature location. First, a color information and 2-dimension based local feature model is presented to characterize salient facial features, such as the eyes and the mouth. Then, a regularized principal component analysis based shape model is proposed to construct a smooth global shape. We evaluate our approach on a challenging dataset containing 2,000 well-labeled facial images with a large range of variations in pose, lighting and expression. Experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach.
A Murine, Bispecific Monoclonal Antibody Simultaneously Recognizing β-Glucan and MP65 Determinants in Candida Species

There is a real medical need of new diagnostic tools for the early recognition of invasive Candida infections. We exploited a rather simple and rapid redox methodology to construct a bispecific monoclonal antibody (bsmAb) that combines a monoclonal antibody (mAb) directed against 1,3-β-D-glucan, a well-known, pan-fungal diagnostic biomarker, with a mAb recognizing MP65, a major immunogenic mannoprotein secreted by C.albicans and other Candida species. The bsmAb (MP65/bglu mAb) was successfully produced and purified at high yields and proved to bind and reveal simultaneously, with high sensitivity, the β-glucan and MP65 antigens in both purified and native forms. The MP65/bglu mAb is the first bispecific antibody generated against a fungal microorganism and may prove useful for the concurrent detection of different and clinically significant Candida biomarkers in patient sera.
Applying an Intrusion Detection Algorithm to Wireless Sensor Networks

Although static sensor nodes have low computation and communication capabilities, they have specific properties, and can acquire stable neighboring nodes’ information, which can be used for detection of anomalies in networking and behaviors of the neighbor nodes, thus providing security for Wireless sensor networks. In many attacks against sensor networks, the first step for an attacker is to impersonate itself as a legitimate node within the network. To make a sensor node capable of detecting an intruder, a simple dynamic statistical model of the neighboring nodes is needed to build, together with a low-complexity detection algorithm to monitor received packet power levels. A detection algorithm based on security scheme for Wireless sensor networks is introduced in this paper.
Tracking algorithm analysis for the PCL-PET fusion system

We discuss the problem of poor initial estimation of altitude of distant and low located objects in PCL-PET data fusion. We focus here on tracking algorithm showing how one can make the convergence of the estimate to the real value faster. The main result is that on having replaced extended Kalman filter with unscented Kalman filter, we are able to choose from scenarios with various initial conditions the one which gives (statistically) the best estimation of position and velocity of an object.
Introduction to Hidden Markov Models Robert Zubek — Electronic Arts

My dog is a transparent beast—I don’t even need to be paying attention to know what he’s up to. As I sit in front of the TV, I only need to hear his claws tapping on the hardwood floor, a quiet cling of metal, the sound of a plastic bag rustling, and I know immediately what he’s been doing. He walked through the dining room to the kitchen, drank some water, noticed the cabinet door was ajar, and went over to sniff around the bag of dog food. And I know immediately that he’s going to come back in a moment, sit down right before me, and start begging for a treat, because that’s what he does after he notices that there’s food around.
The effect of background music and background noise on the task performance of introverts and extraverts

The study investigated the effects of music with high arousal potential and negative affect (HA), music with low arousal potential and positive affect (LA), and everyday noise, on the cognitive task performance of introverts and extraverts. Forty participants completed five cognitive tasks: immediate recall, free recall, numerical and delayed recall, and Stroop. Ten participants completed each of these tasks in one of four sound conditions: HA, LA, everyday noise and silence. Participants were also assessed for levels of introversion/ extroversion, and reported their music/noise and study preferences. Performance was lessened across all cognitive tasks in the presence of background sound (music or noise) compared to silence. HA and LA music produced differential distraction effects, with performance of all tasks being poorer in the presence of HA compared to LA and silence, in the presence of noise than silence across all tasks, and in the presence of noise than LA in three of the four tasks. Performance was moderated by internal arousal, with introverts performing better overall on each task except the Stroop, and appearing to be more detrimentally affected by the presence of HA music and noise.
Total Fructose Intake and Risk of Hypertension: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohorts

Objectives: Although most controlled feeding trials have failed to show an adverse effect of fructose on blood pressure, concerns continue to be raised regarding the role of fructose in hypertension. To quantify the association between fructose-containing sugar (high-fructose corn syrup, sucrose, and fructose) intake and incident hypertension, a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies was undertaken. Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and the Cochrane Library (through February 5, 2014) were searched for relevant studies. Two independent reviewers reviewed and extracted relevant data. Risk estimates were aggregated comparing the lowest (reference) quintile with highest quintile of intake using inverse variance random effect models and expressed as risk ratios (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Interstudy heterogeneity was assessed (Cochran Q statistic) and quantified (I2 statistic). The Newcastle–Ottawa Scale assessed study quality. Clinicaltrials.gov NCT01608620. Results: Eligibility criteria were met by 3 prospective cohorts (n = 37,375 men and 185,855 women) with 58,162 cases of hypertension observed over 2,502,357 person-years of follow-up. Median fructose intake was 5.7–6.0% total energy in the lowest quintile and 13.9–14.3% total energy in the highest quintile. Fructose intake was not associated with incident hypertension (RR = 1.02, 95% CI, 0.99–1.04), with no evidence of heterogeneity (I2 = 0%, p = 0.59). Spline curve modeling showed a U-shaped relationship with a negative association at intakes ≤50th percentile (∼10% total energy) and a positive association at higher intakes. Conclusions: Total fructose intake was not associated with an increased risk of hypertension in 3 large prospective cohorts of U.S. men and women.
Conventions for quantum pseudocode

A few conventions for thinking about and writing quantum pseudocode are proposed. The conventions can be used for presenting any quantum algorithm down to the lowest level and are consistent with a quantum random access machine (QRAM) model for quantum computing. In principle a formal version of quantum pseudocode could be used in a future extension of a conventional language.