Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Polite Water-Filling for Weighted Sum-Rate Maximization in MIMO B-MAC Networks Under Multiple Linear Constraints

Optimization under multiple linear constraints is important for practical systems with individual power constraints, per-antenna power constraints, and/or interference constraints as in cognitive radios. While for single-user multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel transmitter optimization, no one uses general purpose convex programming because water-filling is optimal and much simpler, it is not true for MIMO multiaccess channels (MAC), broadcast channels (BC), and the nonconvex optimization of interference networks because the traditional water-filling is far from optimal for networks. We recently found the right form of water-filling, polite water-filling, for capacity or achievable regions of the general MIMO interference networks, named B-MAC networks, which include BC, MAC, interference channels, X networks, and most practical wireless networks as special cases. In this paper, we extend the polite water-filling results from a single linear constraint to multiple linear constraints and use weighted sum-rate maximization as an example to show how to design high efficiency and low complexity algorithms, which find optimal solution for convex cases and locally optimal solution for nonconvex cases. Several times faster convergence speed and orders of magnitude higher accuracy than the state-of-the-art are demonstrated by numerical examples.
Myocardial effective transverse relaxation time 
 T2* Correlates with left ventricular wall thickness: A 7.0 T MRI study

Myocardial effective relaxation time T2* is commonly regarded as a surrogate for myocardial tissue oxygenation. However, it is legitimate to assume that there are multiple factors that influence T2* . To this end, this study investigates the relationship between T2* and cardiac macromorphology given by left ventricular (LV) wall thickness and left ventricular radius, and provides interpretation of the results in the physiological context.
Investigation of the benefits of early malnutrition screening with telehealth follow up in elderly acute medical admissions

Background The benefit of providing early nutrition intervention and its continuation post-discharge in older hospitalized patients is unclear. This study examined efficacy of such an intervention in older patients discharged from acute care. Methods In this randomized controlled trial, 148 malnourished patients were randomized to receive either a nutrition intervention for 3 months or usual care. Intervention included an individualized nutrition care plan plus monthly post-discharge telehealth follow-up whereas control patients received intervention only upon referral by their treating clinicians. Nutrition status was determined by the Patient Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) tool. Clinical outcomes included changes in length of hospital stay, complications during hospitalization, Quality of life (QoL), mortality and re-admission rate. Results Fifty-four males and 94 females (mean age, 81.8 years) were included. Both groups significantly improved PG-SGA scores from baseline. There was no between-group differences in the change in PG-SGA scores and final PG-SGA scores were similar at 3 months 6.9 (95% CI 5.6-8.3) vs. 5.8 (95% CI 4.8-6.9) (P = 0.09), in control and intervention groups, respectively. Median total length of hospital stay was 6 days shorter in the intervention group (11.4 (IQR 16.6) vs. 5.4 (IQR 8.1) (P = 0.01). There was no significant difference in complication rate during hospitalization, QoL and mortality at 3-months or readmission rate at 1, 3 or 6 months following hospital discharge. Conclusion In older malnourished inpatients, an early and extended nutrition intervention showed a trend towards improved nutrition status and significantly reduced length of hospital stay.
Hair cortisol in relation to job stress and depressive symptoms.

Background Measurement of hair cortisol concentration (HCC) may be used as a biomarker for chronic stress. However, the association between stress and HCC has rarely been investigated in a working population. Aims To explore associations between (i) HCC and various stress measures and (ii) HCC and symptoms of depression in Belgian workers. Methods Hair samples were collected from workers in two production companies and cortisol content was determined by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Participants completed a questionnaire including socio-demographics, health behaviours and standardized measures for assessing stress. Results After excluding those workers suffering from a psychiatric or neuroendocrine disease and those treated with glucocorticoids, there were a total of 102 workers with both questionnaire, cortisol results and anthropometric measures. Median HCC was 5.73 pg/mg hair (interquartile range = 4.52-9.06). No significant associations were found between cortisol and the standardized measures related to several work psychosocial risk factors. A significantly lower mean HCC was found in shift workers compared with dayworkers, adjusted for age. Additionally, a significant higher mean HCC was found in workers with symptoms of depression compared with those without symptoms of depression, after adjustment for age. Conclusions HCC showed a limited applicability as a biomarker for job stress in this sample, although the results suggest this method may be a suitable marker for detecting early symptoms of depression. Further research is needed to investigate the applicability of HCC in the working environment and within job stress research.
Dental pulp stem cells for the study of neurogenetic disorders

Dental pulp stem cells (DPSC) are a relatively new alternative stem cell source for the study of neurogenetic disorders. DPSC can be obtained non-invasively and collected from long-distances remaining viable during transportation. These highly proliferative cells express stem cell markers and retain the ability to differentiate down multiple cell lineages including chondrocytes, adipocytes, osteoblasts, and multiple neuronal cell types. The neural crest origin of DPSC makes them a useful source of primary cells for modeling neurological disorders at the molecular level. In this brief review, we will discuss recent developments in DPSC research that highlight the molecular etiology of DPSC derived neurons and how they may contribute to our understanding of neurogenetic disorders.
Text-Mining Approach for Estimating Vulnerability Score

This paper develops a method that can automatically estimate the security metrics of documents written in natural language. Currently, security metrics play an important role in assessing the impact and risks of cyberthreats. Security metrics also enable operators to recognize emerging cyberthreats and to prioritize operations in order to mitigate such threats. In this paper, we focus on estimating the ratings in the Common Vulnerability Scoring System by inspecting the threats described in the Common Vulnerability and Exposures dictionary. Our approach employs various techniques for processing natural language, and it uses the descriptions in the dictionary to estimate the base metrics. This paper also extends the algorithm to increase the accuracy of the estimate.
Impact of Trabectedin Interruption and Subsequent Rechallenge on Progression in Patients With Advanced Soft Tissue Sarcoma: Long-term Follow-up of the T-DIS trial

Objective: To assess the impact of trabectedin rechallenge. Patients and Methods: In the T-DIS trial (NCT0130309), after the 6 initial cycles of trabectedin, patients who were free from progressive disease (PD) were randomly assigned either to continuous treatment with trabectedin (C arm) or therapy interruption (I arm). Patients randomized in the interruption arm were allowed to restart trabectedin in case of PD. Herein we report an update of the impact of trabectedin discontinuation after subsequent rechallenge. Results: From February 2011 to March 2013, 27 and 26 nonprogressive patients were randomized to C and I arm, respectively. Twenty-two of 26 patients in I arm and 25 of 27 patients in C arm received 7 cycles and more. After randomization, the median number of cycles was similar in both arms (C arm: 5 cycles [range, 1 to 34]; I arm: 6 cycles [range, 1 to 48], P=0.96). After a median follow-up from randomization of 35.3 months, continuous treatment with trabectedin was associated with a significant improvement in progression-free survival compared with the rechallenge arm (5.3 vs. 3.5 mo, P=0.019). The observed difference in median overall survival from the seventh cycle did not meet the level of significance (26.0 vs. 14.9 mo, P=0.14). The safety profile was similar in both arms. Mean time spent without symptoms and toxicity (Q-TWIST) was higher in the C arm, but the difference did not reach the level of significance. Conclusions: We have demonstrated that trabectedin retains its activity when patients are rechallenged on progression after a treatment break.
Measurement of the Absolute Magnitude and Time Courses of Mitochondrial Membrane Potential in Primary and Clonal Pancreatic Beta-Cells

The aim of this study was to simplify, improve and validate quantitative measurement of the mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔψM) in pancreatic β-cells. This built on our previously introduced calculation of the absolute magnitude of ΔψM in intact cells, using time-lapse imaging of the non-quench mode fluorescence of tetramethylrhodamine methyl ester and a bis-oxonol plasma membrane potential (ΔψP) indicator. ΔψM is a central mediator of glucose-stimulated insulin secretion in pancreatic β-cells. ΔψM is at the crossroads of cellular energy production and demand, therefore precise assay of its magnitude is a valuable tool to study how these processes interplay in insulin secretion. Dispersed islet cell cultures allowed cell type-specific, single-cell observations of cell-to-cell heterogeneity of ΔψM and ΔψP. Glucose addition caused hyperpolarization of ΔψM and depolarization of ΔψP. The hyperpolarization was a monophasic step increase, even in cells where the ΔψP depolarization was biphasic. The biphasic response of ΔψP was associated with a larger hyperpolarization of ΔψM than the monophasic response. Analysis of the relationships between ΔψP and ΔψM revealed that primary dispersed β-cells responded to glucose heterogeneously, driven by variable activation of energy metabolism. Sensitivity analysis of the calibration was consistent with β-cells having substantial cell-to-cell variations in amounts of mitochondria, and this was predicted not to impair the accuracy of determinations of relative changes in ΔψM and ΔψP. Finally, we demonstrate a significant problem with using an alternative ΔψM probe, rhodamine 123. In glucose-stimulated and oligomycin-inhibited β-cells the principles of the rhodamine 123 assay were breached, resulting in misleading conclusions.
Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery yields better outcomes than thoracotomy for anatomical lung resection in Brazil: a propensity score-matching analysis using the Brazilian Society of Thoracic Surgery database†

OBJECTIVES The use of video-assisted anatomical lung resection is increasingly widespread for lung cancer and non-neoplastic diseases, showing excellent results. Nonetheless, a comparative analysis of the benefits of this technique has yet to be conducted in Latin America, a region with a completely different case mix from the USA or Europe. The purpose of this study was to compare the outcomes of video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) and open thoracotomy (OT) for anatomical lung resection in patients included on the Brazilian Society of Thoracic Surgery (BSTS) database. METHODS Using propensity score matching, we conducted an analysis of 1355 patients who underwent anatomical lung resection (704 OT and 651 VATS) registered in the BSTS database between August 2015 and December 2016. Propensity score matching was performed using the following baseline characteristics: age at surgery, gender, comorbidities, pulmonary lung function, type of resection and cancer and non-cancer diagnosis. The propensity score-matched sample comprised a well-matched group of 890 patients. The main outcomes tested were mortality, complications and major cardiopulmonary complications based on the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS) database definitions and terminology. RESULTS Standardized differences of means and proportions suggested that an adequate balance had been achieved. Major cardiopulmonary complications were shown to be more frequent in patients who underwent OT (16.0% compared with 9.2% in VATS patients; odds ratio = 1.87, 95% confidence interval 1.25-2.80) and the overall complications rate was higher among patients who underwent OT (30.1% compared with 21.8% in VATS patients; odds ratio = 1.55, 95% confidence interval 1.17-2.05). No statistically significant difference in mortality rate was observed between OT (2.5%) and VATS (1.8%) (odds ratio = 1.38, 95% confidence interval 0.54-3.50). CONCLUSIONS In Brazil, the rate of complications associated with minimally invasive surgery (VATS) for anatomical lung resection is significantly lower than that of conventional OT.
Deciphering HLA-I motifs across HLA peptidomes improves neo-antigen predictions and identifies allostery regulating HLA specificity

The precise identification of Human Leukocyte Antigen class I (HLA-I) binding motifs plays a central role in our ability to understand and predict (neo-)antigen presentation in infectious diseases and cancer. Here, by exploiting co-occurrence of HLA-I alleles across ten newly generated as well as forty publicly available in-depth HLA peptidomics datasets, we show that we can rapidly and accurately identify HLA-I binding motifs and map them to their corresponding alleles without any a priori knowledge of HLA-I binding specificity. Our novel approach uncovers new motifs for several alleles that up to now had no known ligands. HLA-ligand predictors trained on such data substantially improve neo-antigen predictions in four melanoma and two lung cancer patients, indicating that unbiased HLA peptidomics data are ideal for in silico identification of (neo-)antigens. The new motifs further reveal allosteric modulation of HLA-I binding specificity and we unravel the underlying mechanisms by protein structure analysis, mutagenesis and in vitro binding assays.
Consumers’ Use of UMLS Concepts on Social Media: Diabetes-Related Textual Data Analysis in Blog and Social Q&A Sites

Background The widely known terminology gap between health professionals and health consumers hinders effective information seeking for consumers. Objective The aim of this study was to better understand consumers’ usage of medical concepts by evaluating the coverage of concepts and semantic types of the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) on diabetes-related postings in 2 types of social media: blogs and social question and answer (Q&A). Methods We collected 2 types of social media data: (1) a total of 3711 blogs tagged with “diabetes” on Tumblr posted between February and October 2015; and (2) a total of 58,422 questions and associated answers posted between 2009 and 2014 in the diabetes category of Yahoo! Answers. We analyzed the datasets using a widely adopted biomedical text processing framework Apache cTAKES and its extension YTEX. First, we applied the named entity recognition (NER) method implemented in YTEX to identify UMLS concepts in the datasets. We then analyzed the coverage and the popularity of concepts in the UMLS source vocabularies across the 2 datasets (ie, blogs and social Q&A). Further, we conducted a concept-level comparative coverage analysis between SNOMED Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT) and Open-Access Collaborative Consumer Health Vocabulary (OAC CHV)—the top 2 UMLS source vocabularies that have the most coverage on our datasets. We also analyzed the UMLS semantic types that were frequently observed in our datasets. Results We identified 2415 UMLS concepts from blog postings, 6452 UMLS concepts from social Q&A questions, and 10,378 UMLS concepts from the answers. The medical concepts identified in the blogs can be covered by 56 source vocabularies in the UMLS, while those in questions and answers can be covered by 58 source vocabularies. SNOMED CT was the dominant vocabulary in terms of coverage across all the datasets, ranging from 84.9% to 95.9%. It was followed by OAC CHV (between 73.5% and 80.0%) and Metathesaurus Names (MTH) (between 55.7% and 73.5%). All of the social media datasets shared frequent semantic types such as “Amino Acid, Peptide, or Protein,” “Body Part, Organ, or Organ Component,” and “Disease or Syndrome. ” Conclusions Although the 3 social media datasets vary greatly in size, they exhibited similar conceptual coverage among UMLS source vocabularies and the identified concepts showed similar semantic type distributions. As such, concepts that are both frequently used by consumers and also found in professional vocabularies such as SNOMED CT can be suggested to OAC CHV to improve its coverage.
A diverse host thrombospondin-type-1 repeat protein repertoire promotes symbiont colonization during establishment of cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis

The mutualistic endosymbiosis between cnidarians and dinoflagellates is mediated by complex inter-partner signaling events, where the host cnidarian innate immune system plays a crucial role in recognition and regulation of symbionts. To date, little is known about the diversity of thrombospondin-type-1 repeat (TSR) domain proteins in basal metazoans or their potential role in regulation of cnidarian-dinoflagellate mutualisms. We reveal a large and diverse repertoire of TSR proteins in seven anthozoan species, and show that in the model sea anemone Aiptasia pallida the TSR domain promotes colonization of the host by the symbiotic dinoflagellate Symbiodinium minutum. Blocking TSR domains led to decreased colonization success, while adding exogenous TSRs resulted in a ‘super colonization’. Furthermore, gene expression of TSR proteins was highest at early time-points during symbiosis establishment. Our work characterizes the diversity of cnidarian TSR proteins and provides evidence that these proteins play an important role in the establishment of cnidarian-dinoflagellate symbiosis. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.24494. 001
Inter-patient variability and impact of proton pump inhibitors on platelet reactivity after prasugrel

Summary Although there is considerable variability of platelet reactivity among patients treated with clopidogrel, little is known about inter-individual differences and possible role of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) after prasugrel. We defined the extent of inter-patient variability, and evaluated the impact of PPI interaction in prasugrel-treated patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Between January 2010 and May 2011, 104 prospective, high-risk patients with ACS were recruited into this multicentre, prospective, observational study. Twelve to 24 hours after receiving 60 mg loading dose of prasugrel, light transmission aggregometry (LTA) and whole blood impedance aggregometry (Multiplate) were used to assess platelet activity. Platelet function measurements were repeated during maintenance phase on reduced (5 mg) or on conventional (10 mg) doses of prasugrel. High platelet reactivity (HPR) was defined according to the consensus document of the Working Group on High On-Treatment Platelet Reactivity (LTA:>46%; Multiplate:>47U). Compared to maintenance doses, 60 mg loading dose of prasugrel provided significantly greater platelet reactivity inhibition (p<0.05). There were no significant differences between the conventional and reduced maintenance doses. Notably, a remarkable inter-patient variability was present in platelet reactivity after all doses of prasugrel, and the prevalence of HPR was significantly higher during the maintenance doses (p<0.05). Although median platelet reactivity values were consistently higher when prasugrel was used in combination with PPIs, these differences were not significant (p≥0.17). Despite potent platelet inhibition, inter-patient variability is present after all tested doses of prasugrel. The 60 mg loading dose is superior to conventional and reduced maintenance doses in terms of platelet reactivity inhibition and regarding the prevention of HPR.
Cost-effectiveness of B-type natriuretic peptide testing in patients with acute dyspnea.

BACKGROUND B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) is a quantitative marker of heart failure that seems to be helpful in its diagnosis. METHODS We performed a prospective randomized study (B-Type Natriuretic Peptide for Acute Shortness of Breath Evaluation) including 452 patients who presented to the emergency department with acute dyspnea to estimate the long-term cost-effectiveness of BNP guidance. Participants were randomly assigned to a diagnostic strategy involving the measurement of BNP levels (n = 225) or assessment in a standard manner (n = 227). Nonparametric bootstrapping was used to estimate the distribution of incremental costs and effects on the cost-effectiveness plane during 180 days of follow-up. RESULTS Testing of BNP induced several important changes in management of dyspnea, including a reduction in the initial hospital admission rate, the use of intensive care, and total days in the hospital at 180 days (median, 10 days [interquartile range, 2-24 days] in the BNP group vs 14 days [interquartile range, 6-27 days] in the control group; P = .005). At 180 days, all-cause mortality was 20% in the BNP group and 23% in the control group (P = .42). Total treatment cost was significantly reduced in the BNP group (7930 dollars vs 10,503 dollars in the control group; P = .004). Analysis of incremental 180-day cost-effectiveness showed that BNP guidance resulted in lower mortality and lower cost in 80.6%, in higher mortality and lower cost in 19.3%, and in higher or lower mortality and higher cost in less than 0.1% each. Results were robust to changes in most variables but sensitive to changes in rehospitalization with BNP guidance. CONCLUSION Testing of BNP is cost-effective in patients with acute dyspnea.
NCTD promotes Birinapant-mediated anticancer activity in breast cancer cells by downregulation of c-FLIP

Second mitochondria-derived activator of caspases (SMAC) mimetics is a class of new anticancer agents. However, most cancers exhibit de novo or acquired resistance to SMAC mimetics, posting a problem for broad applications in clinic, and highlighting the necessity of exploring combinational strategies to circumvent SMAC mimetic-resistance. We here showed that Norcantharidin, a drug that is currently being used in cancer treatment, significantly enhanced SMAC mimetic Birinapant-mediated cell viability inhibition and robustly promoted apoptosis in established breast carcinoma cell lines, as well as in primary breast carcinoma cells. Mechanistically, we revealed that Norcantharidin effectively reduced the levels of two major protein isoforms of cellular FLICE-like inhibitor protein(c-FLIP), namely c-FLIP long (c-FLIPL) and c-FLIP short (c-FLIPS). Moreover, Norcantharidin markedly enhanced Birinapant-triggered caspase-8/caspase-3 cascade. Inhibition of caspase-8 activity by a synthetic peptide Z-IETD-FMK significantly attenuated cell death induction by the combination, suggesting that caspase-8 plays a critical role in the anticancer action. In conclusion, our study suggests that the combination of SMAC mimetics with Norcantharidin represents a novel strategy in breast cancer therapy and warrants further studies.