Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Management of Paediatric Ulcerative Colitis, Part 1: Ambulatory Care—An Evidence-based Guideline From European Crohn's and Colitis Organization and European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition

Background: The contemporary management of ambulatory ulcerative colitis (UC) continues to be challenging with ∼20% of children needing a colectomy within childhood years. We thus aimed to standardize daily treatment of pediatric UC and inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD)-unclassified through detailed recommendations and practice points. Methods: These guidelines are a joint effort of the European Crohn's and Colitis Organization (ECCO) and the Paediatric IBD Porto group of European Society of Paediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (ESPGHAN). An extensive literature search with subsequent evidence appraisal using robust methodology was performed before 2 face-to-face meetings. All 40 included recommendations and 86 practice points were endorsed by 43 experts in Paediatric IBD with at least an 88% consensus rate. Results: These guidelines discuss how to optimize the use of mesalamine (including topical), systemic and locally active steroids, thiopurines and, for more severe disease, biologics. The use of other emerging therapies and the role of surgery are also covered. Algorithms are provided to aid therapeutic decision-making based on clinical assessment and the Paediatric UC Activity Index (PUCAI). Advice on contemporary therapeutic targets incorporating the use of calprotectin and the role of therapeutic drug monitoring are presented, as well as other management considerations around pouchitis, extraintestinal manifestations, nutrition, growth, psychology, and transition. A brief section on disease classification using the PIBD-classes criteria and IBD-unclassified is also part of these guidelines. Conclusions: These guidelines provide a guide to clinicians managing children with UC and IBD-unclassified management to provide modern management strategies while maintaining vigilance around appropriate outcomes and safety issues.
Development of the cranium and paired fins in the zebrafish Danio rerio (Ostariophysi, Cyprinidae)

Because of the genetic and developmental information available, Danio rerio stands out as a vertebrate model system in which significant progress in the areas of development and evolution can be made. Despite its increasing popularity, little research has been done on skeletal development. In this report, we provide developmental information on the structure and composition of the zebrafish skull, pectoral, and pelvic girdle. We describe the sequence of ossification of the skull and paired fins from a large series of cleared and Alizarin red‐stained specimens at larval and adult stages. The most commonly followed developmental sequence in Danio rerio is described. Chondrocranial development is noted from Alcian blue‐stained specimens. General trends in ossification patterns are examined from developmental, phylogenetic, and functional contexts. No clear pattern in ossification order of dermal versus cartilage bones is evident. Ossification sequence conforms to functional need in a general way, but there are inconsistencies in the details of order. Selected phylogenetic comparisons of ossification sequence within cranial regions are made among Danio rerio, Betta splendens, Oryzias latipes, and Barbus barbus. Greater sequence conservation is apparent between D. rerio and Barbus barbus, the ostariophysans, than among other taxon pairs. Intraspecific variation in ossification order is apparent, most of which involves small adjustments in timing. © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Contribution of binaural masking release to improved speech intelligibility for different masker types

In situations with competing talkers or in the presence of masking noise, speech intelligibility can be improved by spatially separating the target speaker from the interferers. This advantage is generally referred to as spatial release from masking, and different mechanisms have been suggested to explain it. One proposed mechanism to benefit from spatial cues is the binaural masking release, which is purely stimulus‐driven. According to this mechanism, the spatial benefit results from differences in the binaural cues of target and masker, which need to appear simultaneously in time and frequency to improve the signal detection. In an alternative proposed mechanism, the differences in the interaural cues improve the segregation of auditory streams, a process, which involves top‐down processing rather than being purely stimulus‐driven. Other than the cues that produce binaural masking release, the interaural cue differences between target and interferer required to improve stream segregation do not have to appear simultaneously in time and frequency. This study is concerned with the contribution of binaural masking release to spatial release from masking for three masker types that differ with respect to the amount of energetic masking they exert. Speech intelligibility was measured, employing a stimulus manipulation that inhibits binaural masking release and analysed with a metric to account for the number of better‐ear glimpses. Results indicate that the contribution of the stimulus‐driven binaural masking release plays a minor role while binaural stream segregation and the availability of glimpses in the better ear had a stronger influence on improving the speech intelligibility.
Effects of feeding high-quality hay with graded amounts of concentrate on feed intake, performance and blood metabolites of cows in early lactation

ABSTRACT Dairy cows are commonly fed energy-dense diets with high proportions of concentrate feedstuffs to meet the increased energy needs of early lactation. However, feeding large amounts of concentrates may cause rumen acidosis and impact cow health. The hypothesis tested was that the energy supply and metabolic health of early-lactation Simmental cows can be maintained when high-quality hay rich in water-soluble carbohydrates (WSC) and crude protein (CP) is fed, despite the proportion of concentrates in the diet being reduced or even excluded. Twenty-four Simmental cows were allocated to one of four feeding groups beginning 10 d before the expected calving date, until 28 d thereafter. The feeding groups were 60CH (60% conventional fibre-rich hay plus 40% concentrate feed), 60HQH (60% high-quality hay plus 40% concentrate feed), 75HQH (75% high-quality hay plus 25% concentrate feed) and 100HQH (100% high-quality hay). The fibre-rich hay and high-quality hay differed in WSC content (110 g vs. 198 g of dry matter (DM)), neutral detergent fibre (646 g vs. 423 g of DM) and CP (65 g vs. 223 g of DM). Individual feed intake and milk production were monitored daily, and blood samples were collected weekly. Dry matter intake (DMI) and milk yield increased post partum, but 4 weeks post partum, the DMI of cows fed 100HQH only reached a daily mean DMI of 18.6 kg, whereas the DMI of the other groups averaged 21.9 kg (p < 0.046). The negative energy balance was less pronounced in cows fed 75HQH since they showed similar milk yields to the cows fed 60CH and 100HQH, but their energy intake was higher. Concentrations of milk components were similar across rations 60CH, 60HQH and 75HQH, as were most of blood parameters. Cows fed 100HQH responded to the energy deficit post partum with a higher ratio of non-esterified fatty acids to cholesterol and a higher concentration of ß-hydroxybutyrate (significant in comparison to cows fed 75HQH, p < 0.05). In conclusion, feeding high-quality hay with a WSC content of 20% in DM has the potential to decrease the proportion of concentrates in dairy cow feeding in early lactation, but cannot fully replace their supplementation due to a limited rumen capacity for forage intake.
The role of apolipoprotein E (rs7412 and rs429358) in age-related macular degeneration

ABSTRACT Background: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of incurable visual impairment in the developed countries. The main pathological change in AMD is the formation of drusen containing 40% of lipids, dominated by esterified cholesterol (EC) and phosphatidylcholine (PC), and protein. Haplotype ε4 of apolipoprotein E (ApoE) acts as a ligand for the low-density lipoprotein receptor and is involved in the maintenance and repair of neuronal cell membranes. Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the association of AMD with ApoE gene polymorphism variants (rs7412 and rs429358). Methodology: A total of 2133 subjects were enrolled in our research. The study group comprised patients with early AMD (n = 413) and exudative AMD (n = 307), and the control group enrolled randomly selected persons (n = 1413). The genotyping of ApoE (rs7412 and rs429358) was performed using the real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method. Results: Statistical analysis revealed that ApoE 4/2 genotype was less frequently observed in in older patients with exudative AMD compared to older healthy controls (0.4% vs. 4.0%, p = 0.003). Conclusion: Our data demonstrated that ApoE 4/2 genotype was less frequently observed in old patients (65 years and more) with exudative AMD compared to old healthy controls. It leads to hypothesis on the protective effect of ApoE 4/2 to develop AMD in the elderly.
A parallel computational approach for similarity search using Bloom filters

Finding similar items in a large and unstructured dataset is a challenging task in many applications of data science, such as searching, indexing, and retrieval. With the increasing data volume and demand for real time responses, similarity search has gained much consideration. In this paper, a parallel computational approach for similarity search using Bloom filters (PCASSB) has been proposed, which uses Bloom filter for the representation of features of document and comparison with user's query. Query features are stored in integer query array (IQA), an array of integer. The PCASSB, an approximate similarity search technique, has been implemented on graphics processing unit with compute unified device architecture as the programming platform. To compute the similarity score between query and reference dataset, Dice coefficient has been used as a baseline method. The accuracy of the results generated by PCASSB is compared with the baseline method and other state‐of‐the‐art methods. The experimental results show that the proposed technique is quite effective in processing large number of text documents as it takes less computational time.
The path towards a cloud-aware mobile network protocol stack

We are currently observing the softwarization of communication networks, where network functions are translated from monolithic pieces of equipment to programs running over a shared pool of computational, storage, and communication resources. While it is clear that almost any softwarization improves flexibility (e.g., the ability to instantiate more servers to cope with increasing traffic demand), in this paper we advocate for a complete re-design of the communications protocol stack, instead of a mere translation of hardware functions into software. We discuss two drivers for this cloud-aware re- design: (i) relaxing the tight interactions between functions, and (ii) supporting a graceful degradation of the service when resources become scarce. The potential benefits of this re-design are illustrated with the numerical evaluation of one use case.
Reverting the molecular fingerprint of tumor dormancy as a therapeutic strategy for glioblastoma

Glioblastoma is an aggressive and invasive brain malignancy with high mortality rates despite current treatment modalities. In this study, we show that a 7‐gene signature, previously found to govern the switch of glioblastomas from dormancy to aggressive tumor growth, correlates with improved overall survival of patients with glioblastoma. Using glioblastoma dormancy models, we validated the role of 2 genes from the signature, thrombospondin‐1 (TSP‐1) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), as regulators of glioblastoma dormancy and explored their therapeutic potential. EGFR up‐regulation was reversed using EGFR small interfering RNA polyplex, antibody, or small‐molecule inhibitor. The diminished function of TSP‐1 was augmented via a peptidomimetic. The combination of EGFR inhibition and TSP‐1 restoration led to enhanced therapeutic efficacy in vitro, in 3‐dimensional patient‐derived spheroids, and in a subcutaneous human glioblastoma model in vivo. Systemic administration of the combination therapy to mice bearing intracranial murine glioblastoma resulted in marginal therapeutic outcomes, probably due to brain delivery challenges, p53 mutation status, and the aggressive nature of the selected cell line. Nevertheless, this study provides a proof of concept for exploiting regulators of tumor dormancy for glioblastoma therapy. This therapeutic strategy can be exploited for future investigations using a variety of therapeutic entities that manipulate the expression of dormancy‐associated genes in glioblastoma as well as in other cancer types. —Tiram, G. , Ferber, S. , Ofek, P., Eldar‐Boock, A. , Ben‐Shushan, D. , Yeini, E. , Krivitsky, A. , Blatt, R. , Almog, N. , Henkin, J., Amsalem, O. , Yavin, E. , Cohen, G. , Lazarovici, P., Lee, J. S. , Ruppin, E. , Milyavsky, M. , Grossman, R. , Ram, Z. , Calderón, M. , Haag, R. , Satchi‐Fainaro, R. Reverting the molecular fingerprint of tumor dormancy as a therapeutic strategy for glioblastoma. FASEB J. 32, 5835–5850 (2018). www.fasebj. org
The Effect of Contact Lens Wear on the Cellular Morphology of the Lid Wiper Area.

SIGNIFICANCE This cross-sectional study presented a link between contact lens wear and changes on the cellular morphology characteristics of the lid wiper (LW) epithelium, which was not visible by LW staining. PURPOSE The aim of this study was to establish if the duration of contact lens (CL) wear affects the cellular morphology of the LW epithelium. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study of 100 individuals with different exposures to CL wear: short, moderate, and long experience of CL wear; previous CL wearers; and nonwearers (NWs) as controls. Impression cytology samples were collected from the central upper lid margin (LW area). After fixing, samples were stained with periodic acid-Schiff and haematoxylin for cell morphology analysis and subsequently graded according to the Nelson 0- to 3-point scale. Lid wiper staining was assessed with the aid of lissamine green and graded using the Korb (0- to 3-point) scale. One-way Kruskal-Wallis analysis followed by the Dunn multiple-comparisons test was used for statistical comparison. RESULTS The Nelson grade for LW epithelium morphology was significantly different between groups (P = .003). Abnormal epithelial morphology as defined by grade 2 or 3 was evident in 66.7% of CL wearers with short experience and 76.5% of CL wearers with moderate experience. This was significantly higher than NWs of whom only 21.5% showed greater than grade 1 (P = .02 and .005, respectively). There was no significant difference between NWs and other groups. Lid wiper staining did not significantly differ between groups (P = .50) or correlate with the Nelson grade (Spearman r = 0.02, P = .08). CONCLUSIONS Metaplasia of the LW epithelium was significantly greater in the early to moderate stages of CL. This supports the view that mechanical irritation is responsible for LW changes in CL wear. Ceasing CL wear seems to lead to recovery. Lid wiper staining did not reflect the underlying morphological changes.
Comparing apples and oranges: Off‐road pedestrian detection on the National Robotics Engineering Center agricultural person‐detection dataset

Person detection from vehicles has made rapid progress recently with the advent of multiple high‐quality datasets of urban and highway driving, yet no large‐scale benchmark is available for the same problem in off‐road or agricultural environments. Here we present the National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) Agricultural Person‐Detection Dataset to spur research in these environments. It consists of labeled stereo video of people in orange and apple orchards taken from two perception platforms (a tractor and a pickup truck), along with vehicle position data from Real Time Kinetic (RTK) GPS. We define a benchmark on part of the dataset that combines a total of 76k labeled person images and 19k sampled person‐free images. The dataset highlights several key challenges of the domain, including varying environment, substantial occlusion by vegetation, people in motion and in nonstandard poses, and people seen from a variety of distances; metadata are included to allow targeted evaluation of each of these effects. Finally, we present baseline detection performance results for three leading approaches from urban pedestrian detection and our own convolutional neural network approach that benefits from the incorporation of additional image context. We show that the success of existing approaches on urban data does not transfer directly to this domain.
A randomised trial of a contraceptive vaginal ring in women at risk of HIV infection in Rwanda: Safety of intermittent and continuous use

Background Contraceptive vaginal rings could play a role in expanding the contraceptive method mix and in preparing communities for the introduction of HIV prevention and multipurpose rings. Methods We conducted an open label single-centre randomised clinical trial of intermittent versus continuous use of NuvaRing® in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2013–2014. We randomised 120 HIV-negative women 1:1 to intermittent use (three rings with a ring-free week in between rings) or continuous use (four rings without ring-free weeks). Women underwent an interview, counselling, and a speculum examination, and were tested for pregnancy, bacterial vaginosis (BV) by Nugent scoring, yeasts and trichomonads on wet mount, and sexually transmitted infections. Findings Only one woman withdrew early. Deliberate ring removals were rare, but spontaneous ring expulsions occurred during 14% of ring use periods. There were no incident pregnancies, serious adverse events, serious social harms, or early discontinuations for safety reasons. Systemic side effects were uncommon, and local side effects were not significantly differently distributed between groups except for lower abdominal pain (P = 0.013). The incidence of vaginal yeasts during ring use was high: 22% of intermittent users and 27% of continuous users had incident vaginal yeasts at one or multiple ring removal visits (P = 0.666), and symptomatic vaginal yeast cases were more common in the continuous than intermittent users (P = 0.031). In contrast, mean Nugent scores improved over time in both groups. Conclusions Intermittent and continuous NuvaRing® use were safe in Rwandan women and improved Nugent scores over time. However, attention should be paid to ring expulsions and to a potential increased risk of vaginal candidiasis.
Haltere removal alters responses to gravity in standing flies

ABSTRACT Animals detect the force of gravity with multiple sensory organs, from subcutaneous receptors at body joints to specialized sensors like the vertebrate inner ear. The halteres of flies, specialized mechanoreceptive organs derived from hindwings, are known to detect body rotations during flight, and some groups of flies also oscillate their halteres while walking. The dynamics of halteres are such that they could act as gravity detectors for flies standing on substrates, but their utility during non-flight behaviors is not known. We observed the behaviors of intact and haltere-ablated flies during walking and during perturbations in which the acceleration due to gravity suddenly changed. We found that intact halteres are necessary for flies to maintain normal walking speeds on vertical surfaces and to respond to sudden changes in gravity. Our results suggest that halteres can serve multiple sensory purposes during different behaviors, expanding their role beyond their canonical use in flight. Highlighted Article: Halteres are specialized mechanosensors used to detect body rotations in flying flies. Responses to sudden free falls in standing flies show that halteres can also sense gravity.
Post‐disaster assessment with unmanned aerial vehicles: A survey on practical implementations and research approaches

In this paper, we provide a review of the principal aspects related to search & rescue (SAR) with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), with particular interest in the phase of post‐disaster assessment (PDA). Some areas of interest related to this topic have been chosen for the analysis: the aerial platforms used in the field, multirobot software architectures, onboard sensors and simultaneous localization and mapping approaches, terrain coverage algorithms, autonomous navigation techniques, and human‐swarm interfaces. All these aspects have been analyzed with respect to the state‐of‐the‐art, and also in relation to the project PRISMA, which focuses on the development and deployment of robots and autonomous systems that can operate in emergency scenarios, with a specific reference to monitoring and real‐time intervention.
Modality-Independent Coding of Scene Categories in Prefrontal Cortex

Natural environments convey information through multiple sensory modalities, all of which contribute to people's percepts. Although it has been shown that visual or auditory content of scene categories can be decoded from brain activity, it remains unclear how humans represent scene information beyond a specific sensory modality domain. To address this question, we investigated how categories of scene images and sounds are represented in several brain regions. A group of healthy human subjects (both sexes) participated in the present study, where their brain activity was measured with fMRI while viewing images or listening to sounds of different real-world environments. We found that both visual and auditory scene categories can be decoded not only from modality-specific areas, but also from several brain regions in the temporal, parietal, and prefrontal cortex (PFC). Intriguingly, only in the PFC, but not in any other regions, categories of scene images and sounds appear to be represented in similar activation patterns, suggesting that scene representations in PFC are modality-independent. Furthermore, the error patterns of neural decoders indicate that category-specific neural activity patterns in the middle and superior frontal gyri are tightly linked to categorization behavior. Our findings demonstrate that complex scene information is represented at an abstract level in the PFC, regardless of the sensory modality of the stimulus. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Our experience in daily life includes multiple sensory inputs, such as images, sounds, or scents from the surroundings, which all contribute to our understanding of the environment. Here, for the first time, we investigated where and how in the brain information about the natural environment from multiple senses is merged to form modality-independent representations of scene categories. We show direct decoding of scene categories across sensory modalities from patterns of neural activity in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). We also conclusively tie these neural representations to human categorization behavior by comparing patterns of errors between a neural decoder and behavior. Our findings suggest that PFC is a central hub for integrating sensory information and computing modality-independent representations of scene categories.