Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diagnostic value of aldosterone to renin ratio calculated by plasma renin activity or plasma renin concentration in primary aldosteronism: a meta-analysis

Abstract Background: Since the diagnostic value of aldosterone to renin ratio (ARR) calculated by plasma renin concentration (PRC) or plasma renin activity (PRA) is still inconclusive, we conducted a meta-analysis by systematically reviewing relevant literature to explore the difference in the diagnostic efficacy of ARR calculated by PRC or PRA, so as to provide guidance for clinical diagnosis. Methods: We searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library from the establishment of the database to March 2021. We included studies that report the true positive, false positive, true negative, and false negative values for the diagnosis of primary aldosteronism, and we excluded duplicate publications, research without full text, incomplete information, or inability to conduct data extraction, animal experiments, reviews, and systematic reviews. STATA 15.1 was used to analyze the data. Results: The pooled results showed that ARR (plasma aldosterone concentration [PAC]/PRC) had a sensitivity of 0.82 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.78–0.86), a specificity of 0.94 (95% CI: 0.92–0.95), a positive-likelihood ratio (LR) of 12.77 (95% CI: 7.04–23.73), a negative LR of 0.11 (95% CI: 0.07–0.17), and symmetric area under the curve (SAUC) of 0.982, respectively. Furthermore, the diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of ARR (PAC/PRC) was 180.21. Additionally, the pooled results showed that ARR (PAC/PRA) had a sensitivity of 0.91 (95% CI: 0.86–0.95), a specificity of 0.91 (95% CI: 0.90–0.93), a positive LR of 7.30 (95% CI: 2.99–17.99), a negative LR of 0.10 (95% CI: 0.04–0.26), and SAUC of 0.976, respectively. The DOR of ARR (PAC/PRA) was 155.52. Additionally, we conducted a subgroup analysis for the different thresholds (<35 or ≥35) of PAC/PRC. The results showed that the DOR of the cut-off ≥35 groups was higher than the cut-off <35 groups (DOR = 340.15, 95% CI: 38.32–3019.66; DOR = 116.40, 95% CI = 23.28–581.92). Conclusions: The research results suggest that the determination of ARR (PAC/PRC) and ARR (PAC/PRA) was all effective screening tools for PA. The diagnostic accuracy and diagnostic value of ARR (PAC/PRC) are higher than ARR (PAC/PRA). In addition, within a certain range, the higher the threshold, the better the diagnostic value.
THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE RESISTANCE LEVELS OF FUSARIUM OXYSPORUM F. SP. RADICIS-LYCOPERSICI AND TOMATO YELLOW LEAF CURL VIRUSES IN DIFFERENT TOMATO GENOTYPES WITH TRADITIONAL AND MOLECULAR METHODS

Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. radicis-lycopersici (FORL) causes Fusarium crown and root-rot diseases and Tomato yellow leaf curling virus (TYLCV, Israel, Mild, Sardinian strains) infection leads to low yield and poor quality fruits, which causes important economic losses in tomato growing areas. In this study, previously developed molecular markers for FORL and TYLCV were used with 418 tomato genotypes which have characteristics of high yield, quality fruit and resistance to abiotic stresses. 62 tomato lines were obtained from Cukurova University (CU), 196 and 160 of tomato lines were generated from Western Mediterranean Agricultural Research Institute (BATEM) and private sector, respectively. All genotypes were tested with classical and molecular methods where species specific resistance RAPD and SCARFrl primers for FORL, CAPS and Co-dominant SCAR primers for TYLCV resistance were used. Analyses revealed that 102 tomato genotype are resistant to FORL, 46 and 35 of plant genotypes contain TY3 and TY1 loci respectively. Three genotypes from BATEM and 4 genotypes from private sector contained the 3 target genes (FORL+TY1+TY3), however, none of the tested CU tomato genotype was resistant to the 3 target genes. Furthermore, yield and some fruit quality characteristics of 7 tomato lines which were resistant to both diseases were determined in molecular and classical tests.
Challenges to be addressed in management of patients with sinusoidal obstruction syndrome after hematopoietic cell transplantation

Copyright © 2022 The Korean Association of Internal Medicine This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Challenges to be addressed in management of patients with sinusoidal obstruction syndrome after hematopoietic cell transplantation
Validation of a questionnaire on problematic use of smartphones among a rural population of West Bengal

Background: While a smartphone can be a hugely productive tool, excessive use of this device can interfere with work, education, our physical and mental health, and productivity. Nowadays, we do not just use our smartphones, but we rely on them. Objectives: The present study aims to develop and validate an instrument measuring the problematic use of smartphones among adults in a rural area of West Bengal, India. Methods: The questionnaire on problematic use of smartphone is a self-designed tool. The items were selected by literature review. The psychometric properties of the questionnaire were assessed by content validity, construct validity, and reliability. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to identify the factors. Results: Forty-two items were generated by literature review. After final analysis, the main questionnaire contained 28 items with 5 domains, namely “impulsive use of phone,” “dependence,” “impaired control,” “denial,” “decreased productivity,” and “emotional attachment. ” The Cronbach's alpha value for three domains was found to be >0.7 and >0.8 for the other three domains. Conclusion: Excessive mobile phone use is associated with various adverse consequences which is emerging as a public health problem in a large number of population in India. Problematic use of smartphone questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool to assess the pattern of mobile use among Indian population.
The salary cap proposal of the G‐14 in European football

In this paper we try to show that a salary cap, as it is proposed by the G‐14, the association of the 18 most successful clubsin European football, is fundamentally different from the salary cap as it has been introduced in some major leagues in the U.S. Whatever the objectives, the impact of these two types of salary caps on the distribution of playing, talent, which is the most important determinant of the competitive balance in a sports league,’ can be very different, depending, among other things, on the cost structure of the large and the small market clubs.
Deep Learning-Based Channel Estimation for Massive MIMO With Hybrid Transceivers

Accurate and efficient estimation of the high dimensional channels is one of the critical challenges for practical applications of massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO). In the context of hybrid analog-digital (HAD) transceivers, channel estimation becomes even more complicated due to information loss caused by limited radio-frequency chains. The conventional compressive sensing (CS) algorithms usually suffer from unsatisfactory performance and high computational complexity. In this paper, we propose a novel deep learning (DL) based framework for uplink channel estimation in HAD massive MIMO systems. To better exploit the sparsity structure of channels in the angular domain, a novel angular space segmentation method is proposed, where the entire angular space is segmented into many small regions and a dedicated neural network is trained offline for each region. During online testing, the most suitable network is selected based on the information from the global positioning system. Inside each neural network, the region-specific measurement matrix and channel estimator are jointly optimized, which not only improves the signal measurement efficiency, but also enhances the channel estimation capability. Simulation results show that the proposed approach significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art CS algorithms in terms of estimation performance and computational complexity.
Predictors of incubation of small, micro and medium-sized businesses in Gauteng Province, South Africa

This article is a result of a 5-year long follow-up study (2007 to 2012) of a random sample of 349 small, micro and medium-sized business enterprises (SMMEs) that operate in and around the City of Tshwane in South Africa. Data were gathered from each of the businesses on socioeconomic factors that are known to affect the long-term survival of small businesses. The objective of the study is to identify and quantify key predictors of viability and long term survival. The study finds that 188 of the 349 businesses that took part in the study (54%) are not viable, and that the long-term survival and viability of small businesses is adversely affected by lack of entrepreneurial skills, lack of supervisory support to newly established businesses, and inability to operators running newly established businesses to acquire relevant vocational skills.
The influence of creativity on the entrepreneurial intention of university female graduates: An SEM approach

Entrepreneurial activities have been vital to economic growth as a feasible career option for many university graduates. Nonetheless, it has been recognised that the lowest intentions to undertake entrepreneurial activity are among female graduates. While entrepreneurship is claimed to be a reflection of creative activity from which individuals generate value, graduates’ creativity can be a crucial aspect of entrepreneurship, with innovative concepts, products and services. This study examines the role of creativity skills in the entrepreneurial intentions of female university students attending business programs. Built on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, the survey results collected from 303 female business graduates identified the positive influence of creativity on entrepreneurial intentions. Recognising the need to embed creative skills and activities in the university curriculum is fundamental to encouraging entrepreneurial aspirations among female graduates.
Identifying HID-based attacks through process event graph using guilt-by-association analysis

The Universal Serial Bus (USB) provides an easy and convenient architecture for attaching external devices to a computer, which makes USB devices become one of the malware transmission media. Furthermore, attackers might exploit the weakness of USB devices and reprogram it as an HID (Human Interface Device) device to conduct spoofing attacks. In this paper, an HID identification system, HIDTracker, is proposed to recognize the suspicious HID attacks by analyzing native host event logs. The HID event graph is constructed by finding out the time of inserting HID and the events generated in a time period after insertion. In order to identify the suspiciousness of the events, the correlation of the process events and the objects within the event graph are analyzed with guilt-by-association method, and an HID event scoring module is implemented to identify the suspicious HID event graphs. We conduct three experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of HIDTracker. Experimental results show that with guilt-by-association analysis, our approach can achieve 90% precision rate, and the false positive rate decreases to 2.33%.
Oocyte Cryopreservation - Current Scenario and Future Perspectives: A Narrative Review

Oocyte cryopreservation is a boon for women undergoing assisted reproductive technology. With the evolution in the technique of cryopreservation over the last three decades, there has been an exponential rise in the number of oocyte cryopreservation cycles for diverse indications. Apart from cancer patients, it has also been promoted as a mode of fertility insurance to overcome the age-related decline in fertility as well as post-surgical decline following endometriosis surgery. The objective of the review is to evaluate its clinical applications, ideal age at freezing, optimal oocyte number, freezing method of choice, efficacy, safety and recent advances. In the last decade, vitrification has surpassed slow freezing for oocyte cryopreservation. Although closed system of vitrification provides the aseptic environment, open vitrification is commonly followed in practice. Early to mid-thirties is a reasonable age group for planned oocyte cryopreservation, although it might be recommended at a younger age, in patients with diminished ovarian reserve. The patients should be motivated to preserve around 14–20 mature oocytes for successful live birth. Various studies have shown comparable fertilisation and pregnancy rates between Intracytoplasmic sperm injection with fresh and frozen-thawed oocytes. The available evidence has shown no increase in the incidence of congenital abnormalities in babies born through vitrified oocytes. In the future, image analysis using artificial intelligence, and spindle visualisation using poloscope may further enhance the outcome of oocyte cryopreservation.
Palm vein recognition based on competitive code and DPL

Dictionary learning is essentially a dimensionality reduction representation of large data sets and always attempts to learn the most pristine features behind the sample. In this paper, the palm vein feature is extracted with the Competitive code, then the Competition code feature of the palm vein is learned by a novel projective Dictionary Pair Learning (DPL) model for pattern classification tasks. Different from conventional Dictionary Learning (DL) methods, which learn a single synthesis dictionary, DPL learns jointly a synthesis dictionary and an analysis dictionary. Such a pair of dictionaries work together to perform representation and discrimination simultaneously. Compared with previous DL methods, DPL employs projective coding, which largely reduces the computational burden in learning and testing. The Competition code is used to extract the direction information of the palm vein. The above two methods are comprehensively applied to the palm veins. This paper uses the multispectral near-infrared palm vein image database of Hong Kong Polytech University for testing. Compared with the palm vein Competition code classification, the recognition rate of the palm vein Competition code feature learned by DPL is improved in some degree. When the palm vein features are extracted with filters in six different directions, the recognition rate of the palm vein Competitive code feature after learning with DPL is increased to 98.96%.
Identifying the painter using texture features and machine learning algorithms

Every artist has their own unique style of painting. The quantitative analysis of artworks is therefore essential to better understand the statistical differences between the paintings of different artists. In this study, we test if we can distinguish the works of Juan Luna from other Filipino painters using features derived from different sections of their paintings - foreground, background, foreground and background. We extracted texture features from the Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) of the patches obtained from these sections and apply neural networks and Support Vector Machine (SVM) on duplets and triplets of features. From k-fold validation, the SVM on duplet of features from the background section of the paintings gave the highest accuracy of 83% for 375 dpi and 82% for 100 dpi. We have therefore shown that our approach can distinguish the works of Juan Luna from other Filipino painters.
A novel attribute-based access control system for fine-grained privacy protection

Public cloud have recently become popular platform for sharing data in real-time on web applications due to their simplicity in design and effectiveness in horizontal scaling and performance. However, no proper consideration has been fully investigated so far in privacy protection for public cloud. While many studies have acknowledged this issue, recent studies have not provided a fine-grained access control system for privacy protection in cloud system. As the data set becomes larger, we have to confront more privacy challenges. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive framework for enforcing attribute-based security protection in the public cloud together with the feature of data privacy protection by using privacy which define in XML format. With the proposed model, a request can be evaluated not only by access purpose but also by subject, action, resource, environment attributes. The experiment is carried out to illustrate the relationship between the processing time for access decision and the complexity of policies.
Burden and epidemiology of status epilepticus in infants, children, and adolescents: A population‐based study on German health insurance data

Status epilepticus (SE) is an important medical emergency condition with particularly unfavorable outcome in refractory and superrefractory SE (SRSE). The economic impact of SE and especially of SRSE in the pediatric population remains unclear. We aimed to determine the burden of illness of SE in a pediatric patient population.
Reversible control of enzyme‐inhibitor interactions with light illumination using a photoresponsive surfactant

The effects of a photoresponsive surfactant and light illumination on the complex formed between ribonuclease A (RNase A) and a protein ribonuclease inhibitor (RI) have been investigated to develop a light‐based technique to reactivate an enzyme through surfactant‐induced dissociation of the enzyme‐inhibitor complex. The photoresponsive surfactant undergoes a photoisomerization from the relatively hydrophobic trans isomer under visible light to the relatively hydrophilic cis isomer upon UV illumination, providing a means to reversibly control protein‐inhibitor interactions. In the absence of surfactant, RI binds tightly to RNase A through noncovalent interactions, which inhibits the enzyme activity. Upon addition of the surfactant under visible light, RNase A is reactivated, regaining ~75% of the native activity in the absence of RI. In the presence of the surfactant under UV light, however, the enzyme remains inhibited. Fluorescence spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering, and circular dichroism spectroscopy reveal that RI dramatically unfolds upon addition of the trans form of the surfactant, while RNase A does not undergo noticeable structural changes under the same conditions. This indicates that RNase A reactivation occurs through dissociation of the enzyme‐inhibitor complex arising from surfactant‐induced unfolding of the inhibitor. As a result, photoresponsive surfactant and light illumination can be used as a novel light‐based technique to dissociate enzyme‐inhibitor complexes and, thus, reactivate an inhibited enzyme.
Lipopolysaccharide-Induced Transcriptional Changes in LBP-Deficient Rat and Its Possible Implications for Liver Dysregulation during Sepsis

Sepsis is an organ dysfunction caused by the dysregulated inflammatory response to infection. Lipopolysaccharide-binding protein (LBP) binds to lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and modulates the inflammatory response. A rare systematic study has been reported to detect the effect of LBP gene during LPS-induced sepsis. Herein, we explored the RNA sequencing technology to profile the transcriptomic changes in liver tissue between LBP-deficient rats and WT rats at multiple time points after LPS administration. We proceeded RNA sequencing of liver tissue to search differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and enriched biological processes and pathways between WT and LBP-deficient groups at 0 h, 6 h, and 24 h. In total, 168, 284, and 307 DEGs were identified at 0 h, 6 h, and 24 h, respectively, including Lrp5, Cyp7a1, Nfkbiz, Sigmar1, Fabp7, and Hao1, which are related to the inflammatory or lipid-related process. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that inflammatory response to LPS mediated by Ifng, Cxcl10, Serpine1, and Lbp was enhanced at 6 h, while lipid-related metabolism associated with C5, Cyp4a1, and Eci1 was enriched at 24 h after LPS administration in the WT samples. The inflammatory process was not found when the LBP gene was knocked out; lipid-related metabolic process and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) signaling pathway mediated by Dhrs7b and Tysnd1 were significantly activated in LBP-deficient samples. Our study suggested that the invading LPS may interplay with LBP to activate the nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) signaling pathway and trigger uncontrolled inflammatory response. However, when inhibiting the activity of NF-κB, lipid-related metabolism would make bacteria removal via the effect on the PPAR signaling pathway in the absence of LBP gene. We also compared the serum lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels using the biochemistry analyzer and analyzed the expression of high mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) and cleaved-caspase 3 with immunohistochemistry, which further validated our conclusion.
Biodiversity loss through speciation collapse: Mechanisms, warning signals, and possible rescue *

Speciation is the process that generates biodiversity, but recent empirical findings show that it can also fail, leading to the collapse of two incipient species into one. Here, we elucidate the mechanisms behind speciation collapse using a stochastic individual‐based model with explicit genetics. We investigate the impact of two types of environmental disturbance: deteriorated visual conditions, which reduce foraging ability and impede mate choice, and environmental homogenization, which restructures ecological niches. We find that: (1) Species pairs can collapse into a variety of forms including new species pairs, monomorphic or polymorphic generalists, or single specialists. Notably, polymorphic generalist forms may be a transient stage to a monomorphic population; (2) Environmental restoration enables species pairs to reemerge from single generalist forms, but not from single specialist forms; (3) Speciation collapse is up to four orders of magnitude faster than speciation, while the reemergence of species pairs can be as slow as de novo speciation; (4) Although speciation collapse can be predicted from either demographic, phenotypic, or genetic signals, observations of phenotypic changes allow the most general and robust warning signal of speciation collapse. We conclude that factors altering ecological niches can reduce biodiversity by reshaping the ecosystem's evolutionary attractors.
Pregnancy-Related Low Back Pain and The Quality of Life among Pregnant Women : A Narrative Literature Review

Introduction: Around 50-70% of pregnant women have reported pregnancy-related back pain during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Physical and physiological aspects during pregnancy might affect the quality of life (QoL) of pregnant women, and the problems due to the alteration can be seen in how they run their daily activities. The effect of LBP in pregnancy on the QoL among pregnant women must be known to avoid the pain that affects pregnant women’s activities and well-being. The aim of this study is to review the relationship between low back pain and the QoL during pregnancy.Methods: Using the search terms via PubMed and Google Scholar, seven cross-sectional studies have met the inclusion criteria and included for further analysis. The appraisal tool for Cross-Sectional Studies (AXIS) is used to assess the quality of the included studies including the risk of bias.Results: The findings show that LBP in pregnancy affects the level of quality of life such as sleep quality and sexual activity, limits the activities and productivities, and even make physical disability among pregnant women. The 75-90% was of the range score obtained from the AXIS critical appraisal.Conclusions: This review mentioned those pregnant women with PRBP had decreased QoL during and after childbirth, so the awareness of health professionals needs to be improved.