Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Optimally estimating the sample mean from the sample size, median, mid-range, and/or mid-quartile range

The era of big data is coming, and evidence-based medicine is attracting increasing attention to improve decision making in medical practice via integrating evidence from well designed and conducted clinical research. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique widely used in evidence-based medicine for analytically combining the findings from independent clinical trials to provide an overall estimation of a treatment effectiveness. The sample mean and standard deviation are two commonly used statistics in meta-analysis but some trials use the median, the minimum and maximum values, or sometimes the first and third quartiles to report the results. Thus, to pool results in a consistent format, researchers need to transform those information back to the sample mean and standard deviation. In this article, we investigate the optimal estimation of the sample mean for meta-analysis from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. A major drawback in the literature is that the sample size, needless to say its importance, is either ignored or used in a stepwise but somewhat arbitrary manner, e.g. the famous method proposed by Hozo et al. We solve this issue by incorporating the sample size in a smoothly changing weight in the estimators to reach the optimal estimation. Our proposed estimators not only improve the existing ones significantly but also share the same virtue of the simplicity. The real data application indicates that our proposed estimators are capable to serve as “rules of thumb” and will be widely applied in evidence-based medicine.
Medical and Economic Implications of Cognitive and Psychiatric Disability of Survivorship

Abstract Current research indicates that the majority of survivors of critical illness develop post–intensive care syndrome (PICS), which includes new or worsening cognitive or psychiatric disorders that persist for months to years after critical illness. These cognitive impairments and psychiatric disorders are profound and long-lasting, adversely affecting survivors' daily functioning, ability to return to work, and quality of life, as well as altering the lives of their family members. The medical effects of cognitive and psychiatric disability after critical illness translate directly into a large economic burden. A large and growing body of intensive care unit (ICU) survivors with cognitive and psychiatric morbidities presents challenges for research and identification of best practices and interventions, both during and after the ICU, including rehabilitation to prevent or remediate long-term neurological outcomes.
Shadows and shading flow fields

Many presume that parsing the shadows out of an image is a high-level task, because of the global nature of the shadow formation process. But shape-from-shading algorithms are low-level, in the sense that they seek solutions (surface normals or depth values) directly from image intensities. A dilemma arises: since shape-from-shading involves an illumination term, shadows must first be identified. We show that a structure intermediate between intensities and surfaces-the shading flow field-provides a solution to this dilemma. Our analysis is based on the observation that the geometric information that can be derived from images supports different inferences than the photometric information, and our specific goal will be to articulate this geometric structure and to show how shading flow fields can be reliably computed.
Revision of Bairdiella (Sciaenidae: Perciformes) from the western South Atlantic, with insights into its diversity and biogeography

ABSTRACT The sciaenid genus Bairdiella comprises a group of relatively small fishes found in inshore waters and estuaries of the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific. Despite recent analyses of the phylogenetic relationships of Bairdiella, there has been no comprehensive revision of the alpha taxonomy of the species of the genus. Bairdiella ronchus from the western Atlantic, has a complex taxonomic history, with four junior synonyms recognized. Based on morphological and molecular evidence, this study indicates that B. ronchus represents a species complex. The species is therefore redescribed and its geographic range is redefined. Bairdiella veraecrucis, which is currently recognized as a junior synonym of B. ronchus, is revalidated, and a new species of the genus is described from the Atlantic coast of Brazil. Finally, inferences are made on the diversity and biogeography of the B. ronchus species complex.
A polymeric micelle system with a hydrolysable segment for drug delivery

A potential anti-cancer drug-delivery polymeric micelle system with an in vitro degradation half-life of about 48 h that releases its drug upon application of ultrasound was synthesized. This vehicle was composed of an amphiphilic co-polymer, poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate-lactate n ). The degree of polymerization of the lactate side group, n, was 0, 3 or 5. The molar ratio of NIPAAm to HEMA-lactate n to PEO in polymerization was optimized to produce an in vitro polymeric micelle half-life of about 48 h at 40°C. 1,6-Diphenyl-1,3,5-hexatriene (DPH) was used as a fluorescent probe to study the hydrophobicity of the cores of the polymeric micelles. The results showed that the cores of the polymeric micelles were hydrophobic enough to sequester DPH and the anti-cancer drug doxorubicin (Dox). Dox was encapsulated into the polymeric micelles having a molar feed ratio of NIPAAm to HEMA-lactate3 to PEO equal to 20 : 5 : 1; this drug was released upon the application of low-frequency ultrasound. The Dox release was about 2% at room temperature and 4% at body temperature, and the drug returned to the polymeric micelles when insonation ceased.
Phaseolotoxin-insensitive ornithine carbamoyltransferase of Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola: basis for immunity to phaseolotoxin

Cell-free extracts from phaseolotoxin-producing strains of Pseudomonas syringae pv. phaseolicola grown at 18 degrees C, the optimum temperature for phaseolotoxin production, contain an ornithine carbamoyltransferase activity that is insensitive to phaseolotoxin. Extracts from the same strains grown at 30 degrees C, a temperature at which little or no detectable phaseolotoxin is produced, and from phaseolotoxin-nonproducing strains contain a phaseolotoxin-sensitive ornithine carbamoyltransferase activity. The phaseolotoxin-insensitive ornithine carbamoyltransferase activity is also less senstive to N delta-(phosphonacetyl)-L-ornithine than the phaseolotoxin-sensitive ornithine carbamoyltransferase activity of the corresponding strain.
The clinical significance of subsyndromal depression in older primary care patients.

OBJECTIVE Many seniors experience depressive symptoms not meeting standard diagnostic criteria. The authors sought to examine the clinical correlates of older primary care patients with "subsyndromal depression" (SSD), hypothesizing that SSD subjects have greater symptoms and functional impairment than nondepressed patients, but not as severe as those with major or minor depression, and to explore the characteristics of subjects captured by three different definitions of SSD used in prior published work. METHODS The authors conducted a cross-sectional case comparison study that enrolled 662 primary care patients age >or=65 years. Outcomes were validated measures of psychopathology, medical illness burden, and functional status. RESULTS All three SSD groups captured patients with greater symptoms and functional impairment than the nondepressed group. SSD subjects were as ill as those with minor or major depression on some measures (e.g., medical burden). Each SSD group definition captured some subjects unique to that group. CONCLUSIONS Subsyndromal depression is common and associated with symptoms or impairments of clinical importance. Sole reliance on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition definitions of major or minor depression omit a substantial proportion of seniors with clinically significant depressive symptoms. Longitudinal study is needed to help clinicians identify those at greatest risk for poor outcomes, while researchers testing mechanistic models should include patients with SSD to determine whether they share pathogenetic underpinnings with more severe mood disorders.
Hypothyroidism impairs long‐term potentiation in sympathetic ganglia: Electrophysiologic and molecular studies

Electrophysiologic and molecular techniques were used to study the effect of adult‐onset hypothyroidism on synaptic plasticity in the superior cervical sympathetic ganglion. Ganglia excised from adult thyroidectomized and sham‐operated rats were subjected to a brief high‐frequency stimulation of the preganglionic nerve to express long‐term potentiation (gLTP). Western blotting was carried out to determine the protein levels of key signaling molecules that may be involved in the expression of gLTP. Input/output relationship in ganglia from hypothyroid rats indicated a normal basal synaptic transmission, whereas activity‐dependent types of synaptic plasticity, posttetanic potentiation (PTP) and gLTP, were impaired. Immunoblot analysis showed that both calcium/calmodulin kinase II (CaMKII) and phosphorylated CaMKII (P‐CaMKII) levels were reduced markedly in hypothyroid rat ganglia compared to those from euthyroid controls. Additionally, protein levels of nitric oxide synthase‐1, heme oxygenase‐2, calmodulin, protein kinase C (PKC), and calcineurin were also reduced in hypothyroid rat ganglia. The results indicate that abnormally low basal levels of signaling molecules may be responsible for hypothyroidism‐induced impairment of gLTP in superior cervical ganglia. In addition, the results indicate that synaptic plasticity in sympathetic ganglia may involve a molecular sequence of events similar to that proposed for LTP in the hippocampus. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Structural Volatility in Chile: A Policy Report

This paper identifies Chile's economic weaknesses and offers policy recommendations for increasing stability. Current problems include weak international financial links, a Central Bank mandate that is ill-designed to deal with terms of trade shocks, a propensity to waste scarce liquidity in the banking system; and limited development of financial markets. The paper's policy recommendations include improving external financial links, molding terms of trade contingencies into anti-cyclical policies, Improving liquidity aggregation through and within the banking sector during crises, and improving the liquidity and immediacy of domestic financial instruments.
Soy provides modest benefits on endothelial function without affecting inflammatory biomarkers in adults at cardiometabolic risk.

SCOPE Systemic inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, and oxidative stress are involved in the pathogenesis of the metabolic syndrome (MetS). Epidemiological evidence supports an association between whole soy food consumption and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The objective of this randomized, controlled, cross-over study was to evaluate the effects of soy nut consumption on inflammatory biomarkers and endothelial function and to assess whether isoflavone metabolism to secondary products, equol, and/or O-desmethylangolensin (ODMA), modifies these responses. METHODS AND RESULTS n = 17 adults at cardiometabolic risk were randomly assigned to the order of two snack interventions, soy nuts, and macronutrient-matched control snack, for four weeks each, separated by a two week washout period. Outcome measures included biomarkers of inflammation, oxidative stress, and glycemic control (ELISA and clinical analyzers), endothelial function, and arterial stiffness (peripheral arterial tonometry (PAT)), and isoflavone metabolites (LC-MS/MS). Results revealed that consuming soy nuts improved arterial stiffness as assessed by the augmentation index using PAT (p = 0.03), despite lack of improvement in inflammatory biomarkers. Addition of equol and/or ODMA production status as covariates did not significantly change these results. CONCLUSION Soy nuts when added to a usual diet for one month provide some benefit on arterial stiffness in adults at cardiometabolic risk.
GUINNESS: A GUI Based Binarized Deep Neural Network Framework for Software Programmers

SUMMARY The GUINNESS (GUI based binarized neural network synthesizer) is an open-source tool ﬂow for a binarized deep neural network toward FPGA implementation based on the GUI including both the training on the GPU and inference on the FPGA. Since all the operation is done on the GUI, the software designer is not necessary to write any scripts to design the neural network structure, training behavior, only specify the values for hyperparameters. After ﬁnishing the training, it automatically generates C ++ codes to synthesis the bit-stream using the Xilinx SDSoC system design tool ﬂow. Thus, our tool ﬂow is suitable for the software programmers who are not familiar with the FPGA design. In our tool ﬂow, we modify the training algorithms both the training and the inference for a binarized CNN hardware. Since the hardware has a limited number of bit precision, it lacks minimal bias in training. Also, for the inference on the hardware, the conventional batch normalization technique requires additional hardware. Our modiﬁcations solve these problems. We implemented the VGG-11 benchmark CNN on the Digilent Inc. Zedboard. Compared with the conventional binarized implementations on an FPGA, the classiﬁ-cation accuracy was almost the same, the performance per power e ﬃ ciency is 5.1 times better, as for the performance per area e ﬃ ciency, it is 8.0 times better, and as for the performance per memory, it is 8.2 times better. We compare the proposed FPGA design with the CPU and the GPU designs. Compared with the ARM Cortex-A57, it was 1776.3 times faster, it dissipated 3.0 times lower power, and its performance per power e ﬃ ciency was 5706.3 times better. Also, compared with the Maxwell GPU, it was 11.5 times faster, it dissipated 7.3 times lower power, and its performance per power e ﬃ ciency was 83.0 times better. The disadvantage of our FPGA based design requires additional time to synthesize the FPGA executable codes. From the experiment, it consumed more three hours, and the total FPGA design took 75 hours. Since the training of the CNN is dominant, it is considerable.
Increased pulmonary vascular contraction to serotonin after cardiopulmonary bypass: role of cyclooxygenase.

BACKGROUND Pulmonary vascular resistance is frequently elevated after cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). We examined if altered pulmonary microvascular reactivity to serotonin (5-HT) is due to altered expression of isoforms of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) or cyclooxygenase (COX). MATERIALS AND METHODS Pigs (n = 8) were heparinized and placed on total CPB for 90 min and then perfused off CPB for 90 min. Noninstrumented pigs (n = 6) served as controls for vascular studies. Relaxation responses (% of precontraction) of microvessels (60-150 microm in diameter) were examined in vitro in a pressurized (20 mm Hg) no-flow state with video microscopic imaging. Expression of eNOS, iNOS, and inducible (COX-2) and constitutive (COX-1) cyclooxygenase was examined with Western blotting and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS Pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) increased from 316 +/- 39 mm Hg x s/cm(5) at baseline to 495 +/- 53 at 60 min and 565 +/- 62 at 90 min after termination of CPB. 5-HT elicited a relaxation response (46.8 +/- 11. 8%) in precontracted control microvessels. This response was not affected by the NOS inhibitor N(G)-nitro-l-arginine. After CPB, pulmonary microvessels contracted significantly to 5-HT (-29 +/- 27%, P < 0.05 vs control). This response was partially inhibited (7 +/- 20%, P = 0.06) in the presence of the COX-2 inhibitor NS398, but was unaffected by the thromboxane synthase inhibitor U63557A (-20 +/- 19%). Expression of iNOS or COX-1 was not changed after CPB. Protein and mRNA expressions of COX-2 both increased significantly after CPB, while that of eNOS decreased by approximately 50%. CONCLUSIONS PVR increased after CPB. This was associated with a hypercontractile response of isolated pulmonary microvessels to 5-HT that was in part mediated by the release of prostaglandins (but not thromboxane) and associated with increased expression of COX-2 and with decreased expression of eNOS.
SCA15 due to large ITPR1 deletions in a cohort of 333 white families with dominant ataxia.

BACKGROUND Deletions in ITPR1, coding for the inositol-triphosphate receptor type 1, have been recently identified in spinocerebellar ataxia type 15 (SCA15). OBJECTIVE To determine the frequency and the phenotypical spectrum of SCA15. DESIGN Taqman polymerase chain reaction (258 index cases) or single-nucleotide polymorphism genome-wide genotyping (75 index cases). SETTING A collaboration between the Centre de Recherche de l'Institut de Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière of the Salpêtrière Hospital (Paris, France) and the Molecular Genetics Unit of the National Institute of Aging (Bethesda, Maryland). Patients Index cases of 333 families with autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia negative for CAG repeat expansions in coding exons. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Detection of ITPR1 copy number alterations. RESULTS A deletion of ITPR1 was found in 6 of 333 families (1.8%), corresponding to 13 patients with SCA15. Age at onset ranged from 18 to 66 years (mean [SD] age, 35 [16] years). The symptom at onset was cerebellar gait ataxia, except in 1 patient with isolated upper limb tremor. Although families were tested irrespective of their phenotype, patients with SCA15 had a homogeneous phenotype and were characterized by a slowly progressive cerebellar ataxia. However, pyramidal signs (2 patients) and mild cognitive problems (2 patients) were occasionally present. Radiologic findings showed global or predominant vermian cerebellar atrophy in all patients. CONCLUSIONS In this series, ITPR1 deletions were rare and accounted for approximately 1% of all autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxias. The SCA15 phenotype mostly consists of a slowly progressive isolated cerebellar ataxia with variable age at onset; an additional pyramidal syndrome and problems in executive functions may be present.
GST and the Changing Incidence of Australian Taxes: 1994-95 to 2001-02

The past decade has seen major reforms to the design of Australia’s tax system. This paper outlines these reforms and examines their distributional impact across the household income spectrum. While the authors estimated tax incidence in Australia prior to the July 2000 (ANTS) reforms (which included the introduction of a 10% GST), no comprehensive estimates of the impact of these tax reforms have been made since that date. This paper addresses this deficiency. It finds that the personal income tax has become more income redistributive and more progressive over the period 1994-95 to 2001-02. However, the broad-based indirect tax reforms implemented over this period have become marginally more regressive and, because they have become more important as a revenue source, they now impact more adversely on post-tax income distribution. In the case of taxes other than the personal income tax and the reformed indirect taxes, they have become less regressive and have increased in importance. Overall, the progressivity of the Australian tax system and the distribution of post-tax income appears to have remained remarkably stable over the period.
Automatic detection of microcalcifications in breast ultrasound.

PURPOSE In an ultrasound (US) image, the presence of microcalcifications within breast lesions is an important indicator of malignancy. The purpose of this study was to develop a novel automatic detection system to find microcalcifications inside a breast lesion using an US image. METHODS Breast US images from 103 cases with microcalcifications were obtained using an US system with a 6-14 MHz transducer, and 585 microcalcification foci marked on 103 breast US images by a radiologist were used as the ground truth. After segmentation of the lesion contour using the level set method, the microcalcification candidates inside the lesion were found using adaptive speckle reduction and top hat filters. Then, three criteria were used to identify the real microcalcifications, including the mean, single point, and brightness criteria. RESULTS The proposed method revealed microcalcifications within the lesions in all 103 cases. The sensitivity and the false positive (FP) rate for the detection of microcalcification foci were 80.3% (470/585) and 3.1 per case, respectively. The sensitivities and FP rates for the benign and malignant cases were 79.2% (243/307) with a FP rate of 3.5 and 81.7% (227/278) with a FP rate of 2.6, respectively. CONCLUSIONS The authors' proposed method has the potential to provide a tool to help physicians detect microcalcifications within breast lesions.
WSN10-2: Energy-Efficient and Reliable Relay Path Determination in Wireless Sensor Networks with Mobile Sink

We present a relay path determination scheme that maximizes the network lifetime and guarantees the end-to-end reliability in the wireless sensor networks with mobile sink. The simple flooding algorithm may render an easy means for the determination but the resulting frequent collisions and profuse relay hops disable determining energy-efficient and reliable paths. To resolve this problem, we present a transmission backoff (TB)- based broadcasting algorithm that uses a transmission deferring approach to reduce the number of collisions and the number of the relay hops, while guaranteeing the end-to-end reliability. It is a distributed and stateless approach in which the relay path is determined by each node without any global and/or local exchange of network information. Each node decides whether or not to rebroadcast based on its own transmission backoff time, which is calculated using its residual battery energy and the target end-to-end reliability. Simulation results reveal that the proposed algorithm can achieve a longer network lifetime and a higher end-to-end reliability performance than other existing schemes.
Total variation minimization for stable multidimensional signal recovery

Consider the problem of reconstructing a multidimensional signal from partial information. Without any additional assumptions, this problem is ill-posed. However, for signals such as natural images or movies, the minimal total variation estimate consistent with the measurements often produces a good approximation to the underlying signal, even if the number of measurements is far smaller than the ambient dimensionality. While reconstruction guarantees and optimal measurement designs have been established for related l1-minimization problems, the theory for total variation minimization has remained elusive until recently, when guarantees for two-dimensional images x ∈ C N 2 were established. This paper extends the recent theoretical results to signals x ∈ C N d of arbitrary dimension d ≥ 2. To be precise, we show that a multidimensional signal x ∈ C N d can be reconstructed from O(sdlog(N d )) linear measurements y = Ax using total variation minimization to within a factor of the best s-term approximation of its gradient. The reconstruction guarantees we provide are necessarily optimal up to polynomial factors in the spatial dimension d and a logarithmic factor in the signal dimension N d . The proof relies on bounds in approximation theory concerning the compressibility of wavelet expansions of bounded-variation functions.