Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Disability in patients with end‐stage liver disease: Results from the functional assessment in liver transplantation study

Cirrhosis leads to sarcopenia and functional decline that can severely impact one's ability to function at home and in society. Self‐reported disability scales to quantify disability—Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL)—are validated to predict mortality in older adults. To evaluate disability in liver transplantation (LT) candidates and quantify its impact on outcomes, consecutive outpatients ≥18 years listed for LT with laboratory Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease scores of ≥12 at a single high‐volume US LT center were assessed for ADLs and IADLs during clinic visits. Multivariate competing risk models explored the effect of disabilities on wait‐list mortality (death or delisting for illness). Of 458 patients, 36% were women, median (interquartile range [IQR]) age was 60 years (IQR, 54‐64 years), and initial Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease–Sodium (MELD‐Na) was 17 (IQR 14‐20). At first visit, 31% had lost ≥ 1 ADL, and 40% had lost ≥ 1 IADL. The most prevalent ADL deficits lost were continence (22%), dressing (12%), and transferring (11%); the most prevalent IADLs lost were shopping (28%), food preparation (23%), and medication management (22%). After adjustment for age, MELD‐Na, and encephalopathy, dressing (subdistribution hazard ratio [SHR], 1.7; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.0‐2.8; P = 0.04), toileting (SHR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.1‐3.5; P = 0.03), transferring (SHR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.1‐3.0; P = 0.009), housekeeping (SHR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.2‐3.0; P = 0.009), and laundry (SHR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.3‐3.5; P = 0.002) remained independent predictors of wait‐list mortality. In conclusion, ADL/IADL deficits are common in LT candidates. LT candidates would benefit from chronic disease management programs developed to address the impact of cirrhosis on their daily lives. Liver Transplantation 23 292–298 2017 AASLD.
The chick chorioallantoic membrane as a novel in vivo model for the testing of biomaterials.

Current in vivo models for testing biomaterials are time and labor intensive as well as expensive. This article describes a new approach for testing biomaterials in vivo using the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) of the developing chicken embryo, as an alternative to the traditional mammalian models. Fertilized chicken eggs were incubated for 4 days, at which time a small window was cut in the shell of the egg. After 1 week of incubation, the CAM received several test materials, including the endotoxin LPS, a cotton thread and a Silastic tubing. One day and 1 week later, the tissue response to the test materials was assessed using gross, histological, and scanning electron microscope evaluations. The inflammatory response of the chorioallantoic membrane to biomaterials was fully characterized and found to be similar to that of the mammalian response and was also seen to vary according to test materials. We also found that the structure and geometry of the test materials greatly influenced the incorporation of the samples in the CAM. The similarity of the tissue response of the CAM with the mammalian models, plus the low cost, simplicity, and possibility to continuously visualize the test site through the shell window make this animal model particularly attractive for the rapid in vivo screening of biomaterials.
Face-scanning behavior to silently-talking faces in 12-month-old infants: The impact of pre-exposed auditory speech

The present eye-tracking study aimed to investigate the impact of auditory speech information on 12-month-olds’ gaze behavior to silently-talking faces. We examined German infants’ face-scanning behavior to side-by-side presentation of a bilingual speaker’s face silently speaking German utterances on one side and French on the other side, before and after auditory familiarization with one of the two languages. The results showed that 12-month-old infants showed no general visual preference for either of the visual speeches, neither before nor after auditory input. But, infants who heard native speech decreased their looking time to the mouth area and focused longer on the eyes compared to their scanning behavior without auditory language input, whereas infants who heard non-native speech increased their visual attention on the mouth region and focused less on the eyes. Thus, it can be assumed that 12-month-olds quickly identified their native language based on auditory speech and guided their visual attention more to the eye region than infants who have listened to non-native speech.
Analysis of the Learning Process of a Recurrent Neural Network on the Last k-Bit Parity Function

This study analyzes how simple recurrent neural networks (RNN) approach learning the last k-bit parity function. In the first experiment, the difficulty that an RNN has while learning different numbers of time dependencies is measured, and it is found that k is a potential lower bound for the number of hidden nodes necessary to quickly learn the function. In the second experiment, a principal component analysis on the hidden state vectors suggests that the RNN is memorizing sequences to achieve perfect test accuracy rather than truly learning the parity function.
Applying a Set of Gabor Filter to 2D-Retinal Fundus Image to Detect the Optic Nerve Head (ONH)

Background: The detection of edge of the cup (excavation), disc, and the optic nerves head which converges into the center of the excavation in the papilla of the retina is a crucial procedure in computer vision object detection processing and analysis. Purpose: We propose a method and approach for cup and disc detection based on 2-D Gabor filter with the addition of some constraints. This paper approves that edge magnitude and edge phase are useful for extracting the disc and the cup and to overcome the lack contrast between the cup-disc in order to discriminate one from the other and to extract the different optical vessels along several directions theta. These methods are based on space image and phase image after searching the favorable parameters (Scale, sigma, a & b, r .) to properly adjust the results of the application of kernels Gabor on the fundus image of the retina to calculate the magnitude image and the phase image which each bring additional information on the excavation of the of the optic nerve head ONH to help to early glaucoma disease screening. Results: The proposed method was applied on several retinal images issued from a set of images of Tunisian glaucomatous database. A total of 60 images were used. For an input image, several features were determined, such as edge of the disc, edge of the cup, boundaries of the papilla and calculate magnitude image and phase’s image. Fitting sigma, scale, spatial frequency F0 and (a, b) parameters were adjusted to aggregate the Gaussian kernel function modulated by a sinusoidal plane wave, ωr (x, y) and C (x, y) a complex sinusoid, respectively. The Signal-to-Noise Ratio SNR and the mean square error MSE were used to identify the optimum fitting parameters instigated in the Gabor function and convolved with the retinal image to detect the magnitude and phase image over different orientations for the segmentation of cup and the disc and the optic nerve head ONH. Conclusions: 2D Gabor filters are analyzed and the apply a set of Gabor filter to 2Dfundus image of retina is efficacious to detect the optic nerve head ONH and the Gabor filter banks for texture classification of the papilla and pattern analysis of the cup and the Disc. The results given in this paper can be useful by an ophthalmologist to diagnosis a glaucomatous case. Segmentation of the cup and the disc through the bank Gabor filter proved functional for glaucomatous diagnosis and screening the pathology.
Disturbed apoptosis of T-cells in patients with active idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura

Summary Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is an organ specific autoimmune disorder in whichT-lymphocyte abnormalities have pathogenetic importance.In a DNA microarray screen of CD3+ T-lymphocytes from ITP patients and healthy controls we found an altered expression of genes associated with apoptosis, e.g. A20, caspase-8 and Bax.This together with our previous findings of increased gene expression of Fas,interferon-g and IL-2 receptor beta (IL2RB) indicated an altered activation induced cell death (AICD) of T-cells in ITP. Using a proliferation assay we found that CD3+ lymphocytes from ITP patients were significantly more resistant to dexamethasone induced suppression compared to normal lymphocytes.We also found that cultured CD3+ lymphocytes from ITP patients in remission were more susceptible to apoptosis both in the presence and absence of dexamethasone compared to cells from patient with active ITP and healthy controls, as indicated by increased staining of AnnexinV binding. Our findings suggest that apoptotic resistance of activated T-lymphocytes in patients with active ITP may lead to defective clearance of autoreactive T-lymphocytes through AICD, which might cause a continued immune destruction of platelets. Conversely, a loss of resistance to AICD in ITP patients in remission might be an important mechanism for the achievement of remission.
Lower resting and exercise-induced circulating angiogenic progenitors and angiogenic T cells in older men.

Aging is associated with a dysfunctional endothelial phenotype as well as reduced angiogenic capabilities. Exercise exerts beneficial effects on the cardiovascular system, possibly by increasing/maintaining the number and/or function of circulating angiogenic cells (CACs), which are known to decline with age. However, the relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and age-related changes in the frequency of CACs, as well as the exercise-induced responsiveness of CACs in older individuals, has not yet been determined. One-hundred seven healthy male volunteers, aged 18-75 yr, participated in study 1. CRF was estimated using a submaximal cycling ergometer test. Circulating endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), angiogenic T cells (TANG), and their chemokine (C-X-C motif) receptor 4 (CXCR4) cell surface receptor expression were enumerated by flow cytometry using peripheral blood samples obtained under resting conditions before the exercise test. In study 2, 17 healthy men (8 young men, 18-25 yr; 9 older men, 60-75 yr) were recruited, and these participants undertook a 30-min cycling exercise bout at 70% maximal O2 consumption, with CACs enumerated before and immediately after exercise. Age was inversely associated with both CD34+ progenitor cells ( r2 = -0.140, P = 0.000) and TANG ( r2 = -0.176, P = 0.000) cells as well as CXCR4-expressing CACs (CD34+: r2 = -0.167, P = 0.000; EPCs: r2 = -0.098, P = 0.001; TANG: r2 = -0.053, P = 0.015). However, after correcting for age, CRF had no relationship with either CAC subset. In addition, older individuals displayed attenuated exercise-induced increases in CD34+ progenitor cells, TANG, CD4+, TANG, and CD8+CXCR4+ TANG cells. Older men display lower CAC levels, which may contribute to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, and older adults display an impaired exercise-induced responsiveness of these cells. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Older adults display lower circulating progenitor cell and angiogenic T cell counts compared with younger individuals independently of cardiometabolic risk factors and cardiorespiratory fitness. Older adults also display impaired exercise-induced mobilization of these vasculogenic cells.
Polytomous logistic regression as a tool for exploring heterogeneity across birth defect subtypes: an example using anencephaly and spina bifida.

BACKGROUND In birth defect epidemiology, phenotypic subgroups are often combined into a composite phenotype in an effort to increase statistical power. Although the validity of using composite phenotypes has been questioned, formal evaluations of the underlying assumption of effect homogeneity across component phenotypes have not been conducted. METHODS Polytomous logistic regression was used to assess effect heterogeneity of several generally accepted neural tube defect (NTD) risk factors across the component phenotypes of anencephaly and spina bifida. Data for these analyses were obtained from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study. RESULTS The use of a composite phenotype has the potential to mask associations specific to a component phenotype and in some cases the effect of a variable may be misattributed to the composite phenotype. For example, an association between infant sex and anencephaly (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1-1.9) was masked when data from all NTDs were analyzed (AOR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.9-1.3), whereas an association with maternal body mass index that was specific to spina bifida (AOR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.6-2.4) was attributed to all NTDs (AOR, 1.6; 95% CI, 1.4-2.0). Furthermore, conclusions regarding effect heterogeneity based on ad hoc comparisons, rather than some formal assessment, may be vulnerable to considerable subjectivity, as was the case for the association of maternal Hispanic ethnicity with spina bifida (AOR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.2-1.8) and anencephaly (AOR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.5-2.8). CONCLUSIONS Polytomous logistic regression provides a useful tool for evaluating putative risk factors for which there is no a priori basis for assuming effect homogeneity across component phenotypes.
Cohort profile: ‘Centenari a Trieste’ (CaT), a study of the health status of centenarians in a small defined area of Italy

Purpose Centenarians, a segment of the population which some 50 years ago comprised only a few individuals, now count thousands in many countries, and demographic projections forecast that this growth will continue. The study of this new population will give us new information on extreme longevity and help prepare for their health and social needs. The aim of the Centenari a Trieste study is to describe the health and health service use by centenarians, with specific focus on cognitive status. Participants This is a population-based study of centenarians living in the province of Trieste (Italy), a small area with a high prevalence of centenarians and a close network of health and social services, which makes it possible to conduct a study. Consenting individuals were visited by a clinician, tested by neuropsychologists and also gave a sample of their blood. Administrative data were retrieved as well. Findings to date Of the 163 centenarians, 70 could be contacted and participated in the study. The main reasons for non-participation were impossibility to contact the subject (70) and death (20). Centenarians were mostly women (90%), tended to live in a nursing home (60%) and were generally severely functionally impaired (Barthel Index <50: 61%). Data from the administrative database showed that about one out of five needed hospitalisation in the preceding year and more than three out of four had at least one drug prescription. Future plans In 2017, we started a new wave of the study enrolling people who had just become centenarian and reassessing subjects already seen; we hope to extend this recruitment in the next years. Subjects are now examined also by cardiologists and dental specialists. We are collecting further different biological specimens to investigate new hypotheses on the cognitive function of the centenarians.
Personalized recommendation for new questions in community question answering

Community question answering(CQA) websites such as Yahoo! Answers and Stack Overflow provide a new way of asking and answering questions which are not well served by general web search engines. Due to the huge volume and ever-increasing number of questions, not all new questions can get fully answered in required time. Therefore, it is of great significance to design some effective strategies of recommending experts for new questions. In this paper, we propose a novel personalized recommendation method for routing new questions to a group of experts. Different from prior work which only considers the topic modeling or the link structure, we aim at recommending new questions to more appropriate experts by considering both of these two factors. Moreover, we design a new strategy of network construction with the personalization fully considered. The comparison experiments are conducted with Stack Overflow data and the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method improves the recommendation performance over other methods in expert recommendation.
An Extended Passive Motion Paradigm for Human-Like Posture and Movement Planning in Redundant Manipulators

A major challenge in robotics and computational neuroscience is relative to the posture/movement problem in presence of kinematic redundancy. We recently addressed this issue using a principled approach which, in conjunction with nonlinear inverse optimization, allowed capturing postural strategies such as Donders' law. In this work, after presenting this general model specifying it as an extension of the Passive Motion Paradigm, we show how, once fitted to capture experimental postural strategies, the model is actually able to also predict movements. More specifically, the passive motion paradigm embeds two main intrinsic components: joint damping and joint stiffness. In previous work we showed that joint stiffness is responsible for static postures and, in this sense, its parameters are regressed to fit to experimental postural strategies. Here, we show how joint damping, in particular its anisotropy, directly affects task-space movements. Rather than using damping parameters to fit a posteriori task-space motions, we make the a priori hypothesis that damping is proportional to stiffness. This remarkably allows a postural-fitted model to also capture dynamic performance such as curvature and hysteresis of task-space trajectories during wrist pointing tasks, confirming and extending previous findings in literature.
USING RESPONSE SURFACE METHOD AND GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR OPTIMIZATION OF FIBER METAL LAMINATE STACKING SEQUENCES SUBJECTED TO EXPLOSION LOADING

In this research, stacking sequences of hybrid composites composed of aluminum plate and carbon/epoxy laminate under explosion loading have been optimized and analyzed. First, the effect of explosion wave on the stress, deflection field, and Tsai-Wu criteria has been investigated. Then, by using finite element modeling for these laminates and Response Surface Method (RSM) and Genetic Algorithm (GA), objective functions have been determined and the stacking sequences of aluminum plate and carbon/epoxy laminate were optimized. Results of this study show that change of the stacking layups can increase the resistance of FML for preventing the explosion effects as well as, providing maximum safety factor and
Physical therapies in the management of osteoarthritis: current state of the evidence

Purpose of reviewThis review considers the role of physical therapies in osteoarthritis management, highlighting key findings from systematic reviews and randomized controlled trials published in the last 2 years. Recent findingsThree new trials question the role of manual therapy for hip and knee osteoarthritis. No between-group differences in outcome were detected between a multimodal programme including manual therapy and home exercise, and placebo in one trial; a second trial found no benefit of adding manual therapy to an exercise programme, while a third trial reported marginal benefits over usual care that were of doubtful importance. Recent trials have also found no or uncertain clinical benefits of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) or acupuncture, or of valgus braces or lateral wedge insoles for pain and function in knee osteoarthritis. Available evidence suggests a small to moderate effect of exercise in comparison with not exercising for hip or knee osteoarthritis, although optimum exercise prescription and dosage are unclear. One trial also observed a delay in joint replacement in people with hip osteoarthritis. Two trials have reported conflicting findings about the effects of exercise for hand osteoarthritis. SummaryOther than exercise, recent data suggest that the role of physical therapies in the treatment of osteoarthritis appears limited.
A Dynamic Capability Perspective to Understanding the Typology of Big Data Capabilities. Evidence from a Ghanaian Health Insurance Firm

Big data has become a key competitive advantage tool for firms. Big data is disrupting several markets by causing firm to rethink and change their traditional way of handling and using data within and outside. This makes big data possess dynamic capabilities. Given that only few predominantly big technology firms have been able to fully adopt big data to obtain benefits. This research grounded in the theoretical lens of dynamic capabilities examines the constituents or typology of big data capabilities that are needed by firms to adopt big data. The research proposes a hierarchical model for the typology of big data capabilities which is made up technological capabilities, human skills capabilities and organisational capabilities as the core capabilities of big data capabilities. Beyond the second order capabilities, first-order capabilities and resource base or zero-order capabilities are proposed. An investigation of a health insurance firm implementing big data in Ghana is used to evaluate the suggested model and identify challenges in the development of the big data capabilities as experienced by the health insurance firm.
Channel estimation and data detection for MIMO-OFDM systems

The use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver can significantly increase the channel capacity. These systems are called the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. By using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission techniques, the MIMO-OFDM system can achieve high spectral efficiency, which makes it an attractive candidate for high-data-rate wireless applications. In this paper, we propose a convolutionally coded MIMO-OFDM system with EM-based channel estimation and a QRD-M data detection algorithm. In our systems, one training symbol is transmitted from each transmit antenna for the MIMO channel estimation at the receiver. With the channel estimates available, we apply the QRD-M algorithm on the estimated channel matrix for suboptimal data detection with reasonable computational cost. The bit error rate (BER) and packet error rate (PER) performance of the MIMO-OFDM systems are compared. In the simulations, the bit error rate performance of our systems is 9 (or 5) dB better than that of uncoded (or coded) BLAST systems.