Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pleural complications of hydatid disease.

OBJECTIVE The aim of this retrospective study was to review pleural and pericardial complications of patients with hydatid cysts and to analyze the management of therapy for these patients. METHODS Between 1991 and 2001, 43 (29.7%) of 145 patients presented with pleural and pericardial complications. These patients had spontaneous pneumothorax (6.2%), empyema (7.6%), pleural thickening (10.3%), hepatopleural fistula (2.8%), pericarditis (2.1%), and hepatobronchial fistula (0.7%). There were 22 male and 21 female patients, with a mean age of 30 years. RESULTS The most common symptom was chest pain (79.1%). In 37 (86.1%) of 43 patients, the cysts were unilateral. The ratio of ruptured cysts was 88.4%. In most of the patients, hydatid cysts developed in the right lung (62.9%) and the lower lobes of the lung (70.4%). Multiple cysts were found in 8 (18.6%) patients. The most common surgical techniques were cystotomy with capitonnage (55.7%) and decortication (69.8%). Radical lung resection was used in 14% of the patients. The morbidity rate was 16.3%, and the mortality rate was 2.3%. The mean follow-up was 19 months with no recurrence. CONCLUSIONS Although lung-preserving surgical interventions should be preferred, radical surgical procedures have been used more commonly in patients with pleural complications of hydatid cysts, and the postoperative morbidity rate was higher in these patients. Because of this, the surgical treatment should be carried out before the development of pleural complications. In addition, echinococcosis should be considered and included in the differential diagnosis of spontaneous pneumothorax and empyema.
CSI fingerprinting with SVM regression to achieve device-free passive localization

Location is an important context on which a broad range of context-aware applications can be built. Most previous approaches require the targets to carry electronic devices, while device-free passive localization is in need on many occasions. This paper proposes a device-free passive localization algorithm based on WiFi Channel State Information(CSI) and Support Vector Machines(SVM). In a physical space covered with WiFi signals, movements of targets may cause observable alteration of CSI. By establishing the nonlinear relationship between CSI fingerprints and target locations through SVM regression, the proposed algorithm is able to estimate the target locations according to the corresponding CSI fingerprints. The algorithm applies Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise(DBSCAN) to reduce the noise in CSI fingerprints, and applies Principal Component Analysis(PCA) to extract the most useful features and reduce the dimension of CSI fingerprints. Evaluations achieved the mean localization error distance of 1.22m, outperforming the Received Signal Strength Indication(RSSI) approach by 43.0%, and outperforming SVM classification and Naive Bayesian by 39.9% and 41.9%.
A Pathogen-Selective Antibiotic Minimizes Disturbance to the Microbiome

ABSTRACT Broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy decimates the gut microbiome, resulting in a variety of negative health consequences. Debio 1452 is a staphylococcus-selective enoyl-acyl carrier protein reductase (FabI) inhibitor under clinical development and was used to determine whether treatment with pathogen-selective antibiotics would minimize disturbance to the microbiome. The effect of oral Debio 1452 on the microbiota of mice was compared to the effects of four commonly used broad-spectrum oral antibiotics. During the 10 days of oral Debio 1452 treatment, there was minimal disturbance to the gut bacterial abundance and composition, with only the unclassified S24-7 taxon reduced at days 6 and 10. In comparison, broad-spectrum oral antibiotics caused ∼100- to 4,000-fold decreases in gut bacterial abundance and severely altered the microbial composition. The gut bacterial abundance and composition of Debio 1452-treated mice were indistinguishable from those of untreated mice 2 days after the antibiotic treatment was stopped. In contrast, the bacterial abundance in broad-spectrum-antibiotic-treated mice took up to 7 days to recover, and the gut composition of the broad-spectrum-antibiotic-treated mice remained different from that of the control group 20 days after the cessation of antibiotic treatment. These results illustrate that a pathogen-selective approach to antibiotic development will minimize disturbance to the gut microbiome.
Efficient Bayesian inference for partially observed stochastic epidemics and a new class of semi-parametric time series models

This thesis is divided in two distinct parts. In the First part we are concerned with developing new statistical methodology for drawing Bayesian inference for partially observed stochastic epidemic models. In the second part, we develop a novel methodology for constructing a wide class of semi-parametric time series models. First, we introduce a general framework for the heterogeneously mixing stochastic epidemic models (HMSE) and we also review some of the existing methods of statistical inference for epidemic models. The performance of a variety of centered Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms is studied. It is found that as the number of infected individuals increases, then the performance of these algorithms deteriorates. We then develop a variety of centered, non-centered and partially non-centered reparameterisations. We show that partially non-centered reparameterisations often offer more effcient MCMC algorithms than the centered ones. The methodology developed for drawing eciently Bayesian inference for HMSE is then applied to the 2001 UK Foot-and-Mouth disease outbreak in Cumbria. Unlike other existing modelling approaches, we model stochastically the infectious period of each farm assuming that the infection date of each farm is typically unknown. Due to the high dimensionality of the problem, standard MCMC algorithms are inefficient. Therefore, a partially non-centered algorithm is applied for the purpose of obtaining reliable estimates for the model's parameter of interest. In addition, we discuss similarities and differences of our fndings in comparison to other results in the literature. The main purpose of the second part of this thesis, is to develop a novel class of semi-parametric time series models. We are interested in constructing models for which we can specify in advance the marginal distribution of the observations and then build the dependence structure of the observations around them. First, we review current work concerning modelling time series with fixed non-Gaussian margins and various correlation structures. Then, we introduce a stochastic process which we term a latent branching tree (LBT). The LBT enables us to allow for a rich variety of correlation structures. Apart from discussing in detail the tree's properties, we also show how Bayesian inference can be carried out via MCMC methods. Various MCMC strategies are discussed including non-centered parameterisations. It is found that non-centered algorithms significantly improve the mixing of some of the algorithms based on centered reparameterisations. Finally, we present an application of this class of models to a real dataset on genome scheme data.
NEW EMBO MEMBER’S REVIEW: NF-κB and virus infection: who controls whom

Among the different definitions of viruses, ‘pirates of the cell’ is one of the most picturesque, but also one of the most appropriate. Viruses have been known for a long time to utilize a variety of strategies to penetrate cells and, once inside, to take over the host nucleic acid and protein synthesis machinery to build up their own components and produce large amounts of viral progeny. As their genomes carry a minimal amount of information, encoding only a few structural and regulatory proteins, viruses are largely dependent on their hosts for survival; however, despite their apparent simplicity, viruses have evolved different replicative strategies that are regulated in a sophisticated manner. During the last years, the study of the elaborate relationship between viruses and their hosts has led to the understanding of how viral pathogens not only are able to alter the host metabolism via their signaling proteins, but are also able to hijack cellular signaling pathways and transcription factors, and control them to their own advantage. In particular, the nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) pathway appears to be an attractive target for common human viral pathogens. This review summarizes what is known about the control of NF-κB by viruses, and discusses the possible outcome of NF-κB activation during viral infection, which may benefit either the host or the pathogen.
Improved Full-Vector Finite-Difference Complex Mode Solver for Optical Waveguides of Circular Symmetry

An improved full-vector finite-difference (FD) complex mode solver for circularly symmetric optical waveguides is developed and validated. The formulations are derived from Taylor expansion of transverse electric and magnetic fields and match of boundary conditions at radial index discontinuities. Calculation of the guided and leaky modes of step index fibers, Bragg fibers, and surface plasmon polaritons structures shows significant improvement in terms of accuracy and rate of convergence without increase of computational efforts, in comparison with the conventional FD scheme based on the average-index approximation. It is demonstrated that the performance of the new scheme is robust for high-order modes and waveguides with high index contrast. Contrary to the conventional FD solvers that claim the magnetic field formulation is more rigorous than the electric field formulation, the improved solver yields practically identical results for both formulations.
Validation of QF-PCR for prenatal diagnoses in a Brazilian population

OBJECTIVES: Quantitative fluorescence polymerase chain reaction (QF-PCR) is a rapid and reliable method for screening aneuploidies, but in Brazil, it is not used in public services. We investigated the accuracy of QF-PCR for the prenatal recognition of common aneuploidies and compared these results with cytogenetic results in our laboratory. METHOD: A ChromoQuant QF-PCR kit containing 24 primer pairs targeting loci on chromosomes 21, 13, 18, X and Y was employed to identify aneuploidies of the referred chromosomes. RESULTS: A total of 162 amniotic fluid samples analyzed using multiplex QF-PCR were compared with karyotyping analysis. The QF-PCR results were consistent with the results of cytogenetic analysis in 95.4% of all samples. CONCLUSION: QF-PCR was demonstrated to be efficient and reliable for prenatal aneuploidy screening. This study suggests that QF-PCR can be used as a rapid diagnostic method. However, rearrangements and some mosaic samples cannot be detected with this test; thus, those exceptions must undergo cytogenetic analysis.
Interleaved Processors Improve Cochlear Implant Patients’ Spectral Resolution

Objective: Cochlear implant patients have difficulty in noisy environments, in part, because of channel interaction. Interleaving the signal by sending every other channel to the opposite ear has the potential to reduce channel interaction by increasing the space between channels in each ear. Interleaving still potentially provides the same amount of spectral information when the two ears are combined. Although this method has been successful in other populations such as hearing aid users, interleaving with cochlear implant patients has not yielded consistent benefits. This may be because perceptual misalignment between the two ears, and the spacing between stimulation locations must be taken into account before interleaving. Design: Eight bilateral cochlear implant users were tested. After perceptually aligning the two ears, 12-channel maps were made that spanned the entire aligned portions of the array. Interleaved maps were created by removing every other channel from each ear. Participants’ spectral resolution and localization abilities were measured with perceptually aligned processing strategies both with and without interleaving. Results: There was a significant improvement in spectral resolution with interleaving. However, there was no significant effect of interleaving on localization abilities. Conclusions: The results indicate that interleaving can improve cochlear implant users’ spectral resolution. However, it may be necessary to perceptually align the two ears and/or use relatively large spacing between stimulation locations.
Social Influence on Metacognitive Evaluations: The Power of Nonverbal Cues

Metacognitive evaluations refer to the processes by which people assess their own cognitive operations with respect to their current goal. Little is known about whether this process is susceptible to social influence. Here we investigate whether nonverbal social signals spontaneously influence metacognitive evaluations. Participants performed a two-alternative forced-choice task, which was followed by a face randomly gazing towards or away from the response chosen by the participant. Participants then provided a metacognitive evaluation of their response by rating their confidence in their answer. In Experiment 1, the participants were told that the gaze direction was irrelevant to the task purpose and were advised to ignore it. The results revealed an effect of implicit social information on confidence ratings even though the gaze direction was random and therefore unreliable for task purposes. In addition, nonsocial cues (car) did not elicit this effect. In Experiment 2, the participants were led to believe that cue direction (face or car) reflected a previous participant's response to the same question—that is, the social information provided by the cue was made explicit, yet still objectively unreliable for the task. The results showed a similar social influence on confidence ratings, observed with both cues (car and face) but with an increased magnitude relative to Experiment 1. We additionally showed in Experiment 2 that social information impaired metacognitive accuracy. Together our results strongly suggest an involuntary susceptibility of metacognitive evaluations to nonverbal social information, even when it is implicit (Experiment 1) and unreliable (Experiments 1 and 2).
New approach for securing communication over MQTT protocol A comparaison between RSA and Elliptic Curve

The Internet of things (IoT) is the interconnection of physical objects with the Internet network using existing technologies and communication protocols. The speed up and massive uses of this network's type in a multitude domain, from large industrial applications to small every day's uses, raises new serious problematic related to security. Indeed, recent reports on cyber security highlighted the Internet of things' vulnerability, and the risks continue to increase exponentially, especially with the deployment of intelligent networks [1]. These objects connected to the Internet network will create a lot of new attack attempts and present a considerable danger for the integrity of data. To avoid disastrous consequences, security approaches must take place to ensure a set of criteria, namely: resistance to attack, data authenticity, access control and user privacy [2]. Due to limited IoT capacities as a CPU, memory, bandwidth and the energy, a new kind of protocols and concepts have been developed and/or improved to satisfy the specific quality of service of this network's type. Among these protocols we find “Message Queue Telemetry Transport” (MQTT). It is an open source protocol created by IBM that uses the Publish/Subscribe pattern and requires only a small bandwidth. In this work, we propose a new approach of secured communication based on the MQTT protocol. Indeed, in an unsecured network, we use standard techniques and algorithms of cryptography such as digital signatures, hash functions and the RSA algorithm to secure communications, data and keys exchanges in an IoT network.
Modifiers of heart and muscle function: where genetics meets physiology

What is the topic of this review? Genetic modifiers act on many different physiological aspects of muscle disease. Understanding and identifying such modifiers is important because their discovery may help to predict the course of muscle disease and also indicate pathways to be exploited in designing new therapeutics. What advances does it highlight? Genetic modifiers have been identified that act primarily on limb skeletal muscles. Newer modifiers, where the responsible gene has yet to be identified, alter the course of cardiopulmonary dysfunction in muscular dystrophy. Distinct modifiers that act differentially on limb skeletal muscles versus heart and respiratory muscles reflect underlying physiological differences of these muscle groups.
Forecasting Stock Market Volatility using GARCH Models: Evidence from the Indian Stock Market

The present article attempts to modelling and forecasting the volatility of the BSE-SENSEX Index returns of Indian stock market, using daily data covering a period from 1, July 1997 to 31, December 2015. The forecasting models that are considered in this study range from the symmetric GARCH (1,1) model to asymmetric GARCH models (including Exponential GARCH (1,1) and Threshold GARCH (1,1) models). On the basis of out of the sample forecasts and a majority of evaluation measures our result shows that the asymmetric GARCH models do perform better in forecasting conditional variance of the BSE-SENSEX returns rather than the symmetric GARCH model, confirming the presence of leverage effect. Our findings are consistent with the evidence of Banerjee and Sarkar (2006) and Srinivasan (2015) that reveals relatively asymmetric GARCH models are found superior in forecasting the conditional variance of Indian stock market returns rather than the parsimonious symmetric GARCH models.
Symptom Profile of Major Depressive Disorder in Women with Eating Disorders

Objective: Based on the well-documented association between eating disorders (EDs) and affective disorders, the patterns of comorbidity of EDs and major depressive disorder (MDD) were investigated. The temporal relation between EDs and MDD onset was analyzed to determine differences in the course and nature of MDD when experienced prior to versus after the onset of the ED. Method: Lifetime MDD and depressive symptoms were assessed in 1371 women with a history of ED. The prevalence of MDD was first explored across ED subtypes, and ages of onset of MDD and EDs were compared. Depressive symptoms were examined in individuals who developed MDD before and after ED onset. Results: The lifetime prevalence of MDD was 72.9%. Among those with lifetime MDD (n =963), 34.5% reported MDD onset before the onset of ED. Those who experienced MDD first reported greater psychomotor agitation (OR =1.53; 95%CI =1.14–2.06), and thoughts of own death (but not suicide attempts or ideation; OR =1.73; 95%CI =1.31–2.30). Among individuals who had MDD before ED, 26.5% had the MDD onset during the year before the onset of ED; 67% of individuals had the onset of both disorders within the same 3 year window. Conclusion: Clinicians treating individuals with new-onset ED or MDD should remain vigilant for the emergence of additional psychopathology, especially during the initial 3 year window following the onset of the first disorder.
Understanding Cross-Sectional Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Antiretroviral Use and Viral Suppression Among HIV Patients in the United States

AbstractTo examine racial/ethnic and gender disparities in antiretroviral (ART) use and viral suppression among HIV-infected persons in care and identify factors that might account for observed disparities.The Medical Monitoring Project (MMP) is a complex sample survey of HIV-infected adults receiving medical care in the United States.We used weighted interview and medical record data collected 06/2009 to 05/2012 to estimate the prevalence of ART use and viral suppression among gender-stratified racial/ethnic groups. We used &khgr;2 tests to identify significant differences in outcomes between white men versus other groups, and logistic regression models to identify the most parsimonious set of factors that could account for each observed difference.We found no significant disparity in ART use between white and Hispanic men, and no disparities between white men and white and Hispanic women after adjustment for disease stage, age, and poverty. Disparities in ART use between white men and black persons persisted after adjusting for other factors, but the observed differences were relatively small. Differences in ART use and adherence, demographic characteristics, and social determinants of health such as poverty, education, and insurance accounted for the observed disparities in viral suppression between white men and all groups except black men. In our model, accounting for these factors reduced the prevalence difference in viral suppression between white and black men by almost half.We found that factors associated with disparities differed among men and women of the same race/ethnicity, lending support to the assertion that gender affects access to care and health status among HIV-infected patients. In addition to supporting efforts to increase ART use and adherence among persons living with HIV, our analysis provides evidence for the importance of social determinants of health in understanding racial/ethnic and gender differences in ART use and viral suppression.
On Stochastic Orders and Fast Fading Multiuser Channels with Statistical CSIT

In this paper, fading Gaussian multiuser channels are considered. If the channel is perfectly known to the transmitter, capacity has been established for many cases in which the channels may satisfy certain information theoretic orders such as degradedness or strong/very strong interference. Here, we study the case when only the statistics of the channels are known at the transmitter which is an open problem in general. The main contribution of this paper is the following: First, we introduce a framework to classify random fading channels based on their joint distributions by leveraging three schemes: maximal coupling, coupling, and copulas. The underlying spirit of all scheme is, we obtain an equivalent channel by changing the joint distribution in such a way that it now satisfies a certain information theoretic order while ensuring that the marginal distributions of the channels to the different users are not changed. The construction of this equivalent multi-user channel allows us to directly make use of existing capacity results, which includes Gaussian interference channels, Gaussian broadcast channels, and Gaussian wiretap channels. We also extend the framework to channels with a specific memory structure, namely, channels with finite-state, wherein the Markov fading broadcast channel is discussed as a special case. Several practical examples such as Rayleigh fading and Nakagami-\textit{m} fading illustrate the applicability of the derived results.
An Aqueous Redox-Flow Battery with High Capacity and Power: The TEMPTMA/MV System.

Redox-flow batteries (RFB) can easily store large amounts of electric energy and thereby mitigate the fluctuating output of renewable power plants. They are widely discussed as energy-storage solutions for wind and solar farms to improve the stability of the electrical grid. Most common RFB concepts are based on strongly acidic metal-salt solutions or poorly performing organics. Herein we present a battery which employs the highly soluble N,N,N-2,2,6,6-heptamethylpiperidinyl oxy-4-ammonium chloride (TEMPTMA) and the viologen derivative N,N'-dimethyl-4,4-bipyridinium dichloride (MV) in a simple and safe aqueous solution as redox-active materials. The resulting battery using these electrolyte solutions has capacities of 54 Ah L-1 , giving a total energy density of 38 Wh L-1 at a cell voltage of 1.4 V. With peak current densities of up to 200 mA cm-2 the TEMPTMA/MV system is a suitable candidate for compact high-capacity and high-power applications.