Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gallstone disease and its correlates among patients attending teaching hospital of North India

Background: Gallstone disease (GSD) represents a significant burden for healthcare systems worldwide and is one of the most common disorders among patients presenting to emergency rooms with abdominal discomfort. Aim and Objective: This study was aimed to find correlates (demographic, dietary, and behavioral) of GSD in patients attending teaching hospital in North India. Methodology: A case–control study was conducted from January 2013 to December 2013 among subjects attending outpatient department of general surgery in a teaching hospital. Data collection for both cases and controls was done on a self-designed pretested “interview schedule” which assessed the sociodemographic profile, personal history, medical history, comorbidities, physical examination including anthropometry, and dietary intakes. To measure the strength of association, odds ratio (OR) was calculated. Binary logistic regression was used for multivariate analysis. Results: A total of 120 cases and the same number of age- and sex-matched controls were included in final analysis. In binary logistic regression, maximum association was seen with physical inactivity [OR 3.93, confidence interval (CI): 1.98–7.78] followed by current consumption of smokeless tobacco (OR 3.65, CI: 1.65–8.09), current smoking (OR 2.69, CI: 1.13–6.37), nonvegetarian diet (OR 3.10, CI: 1.65–5.83), and fat intake (OR 2.14, CI: 1.14–4.02). Current alcohol consumption (OR 0.90, CI: 0.41–1.98), high waist–hip ratio (OR 1.54, CI: 0.67–3.56), and intake of fruits and green leafy vegetables (OR 1.86, CI: 0.61–5.61) were not significantly associated with GSD. Conclusion: Physical inactivity, smokeless tobacco, nonvegetarian diet, current smoking, high fat intake, and family history were found to be risk factors for the development of GSD.
Glaucoma Diagnosis with Machine Learning Based on Optical Coherence Tomography and Color Fundus Images

This study aimed to develop a machine learning-based algorithm for glaucoma diagnosis in patients with open-angle glaucoma, based on three-dimensional optical coherence tomography (OCT) data and color fundus images. In this study, 208 glaucomatous and 149 healthy eyes were enrolled, and color fundus images and volumetric OCT data from the optic disc and macular area of these eyes were captured with a spectral-domain OCT (3D OCT-2000, Topcon). Thickness and deviation maps were created with a segmentation algorithm. Transfer learning of convolutional neural network (CNN) was used with the following types of input images: (1) fundus image of optic disc in grayscale format, (2) disc retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness map, (3) macular ganglion cell complex (GCC) thickness map, (4) disc RNFL deviation map, and (5) macular GCC deviation map. Data augmentation and dropout were performed to train the CNN. For combining the results from each CNN model, a random forest (RF) was trained to classify the disc fundus images of healthy and glaucomatous eyes using feature vector representation of each input image, removing the second fully connected layer. The area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of a 10-fold cross validation (CV) was used to evaluate the models. The 10-fold CV AUCs of the CNNs were 0.940 for color fundus images, 0.942 for RNFL thickness maps, 0.944 for macular GCC thickness maps, 0.949 for disc RNFL deviation maps, and 0.952 for macular GCC deviation maps. The RF combining the five separate CNN models improved the 10-fold CV AUC to 0.963. Therefore, the machine learning system described here can accurately differentiate between healthy and glaucomatous subjects based on their extracted images from OCT data and color fundus images. This system should help to improve the diagnostic accuracy in glaucoma.
Treadmill Exercise Ameliorates Depression-Like Behavior in the Rats With Prenatal Dexamethasone Exposure: The Role of Hippocampal Mitochondria

Prenatal exposure to synthetic glucocorticoids (sGCs) can increase the risk of affective disorders, such as depression, in adulthood. Given that exercise training can ameliorate depression and improve mitochondrial function, we sought to investigate whether exercise can ameliorate depression-like behavior induced by prenatal sGC exposure and mitochondria function contributes to that behavior. At first, we confirmed that prenatal dexamethasone (Dex) administration in late pregnancy resulted in depression-like behavior and elevated level of circulatory corticosterone in adult offspring. We then found that mRNA and protein expression of a number of mitochondrial genes was changed in the hippocampus of Dex offspring. Mitochondria in the hippocampus showed abnormal morphology, oxidative stress and dysfunction in Dex offspring. Intracerebroventricular (ICV) injection of the mitochondrial superoxide scavenger mitoTEMPO significantly alleviated depression-like behavior but did not significantly affect circulatory corticosterone level in Dex offspring. The adult Dex offspring treated with treadmill exercise starting at four-weeks of age showed ameliorated depressive-like behavior, improved mitochondrial morphology and function and reduced circulatory corticosterone level. Our data suggest mitochondria dysfunction contributes to depression-like behavior caused by prenatal sGC exposure. Intervention with exercise training in early life can reverse depression caused by prenatal Dex exposure, which is associated with improvement of mitochondrial function in the hippocampus.
Both the classical and alternative non-homologous end joining pathways contribute to the fusion of drastically shortened telomeres induced by TRF2 overexpression

ABSTRACT The double-stranded telomeric binding protein TRF2 is expressed in many human cancers at elevated levels. Moreover, experimental overexpression of TRF2 in human cells causes replication stalling in telomeric tracts, which leads to drastic telomere shortening and fusion of deprotected chromosome ends. To understand which end joining pathway is involved in mediating these chromosome fusions, we overexpressed TRF2 in human HCT116 cell lines that were deficient for the DNA Ligase 4 (Lig4)-dependent classical non-homologous end joining (C-NHEJ) or the DNA Ligase 3 (Lig3)-dependent alternative non-homologous end joining (A-NHEJ) pathway. Surprisingly, abrogation of either Lig4 or nuclear Lig3 significantly reduced inter-chromosomal fusion of drastically shortened telomeres, suggesting that both the C-NHEJ and A-NHEJ pathways are involved in mediating this type of fusion. Fusion between deprotected sister chromatids, however, only required the Lig3-dependent A-NHEJ pathway. Interestingly, a previous study reported similar end joining pathway requirements for the fusion of critically shortened telomeres during a telomere attrition-based cellular crisis. We speculate that, as in cellular crisis, the same repair pathway(s) may drive clonal and genomic evolution in human cancers containing elevated TRF2 levels.
Changes in employment status, barriers to, and facilitators of (return to) work in breast cancer survivors 5–10 years after diagnosis

Abstract Purpose: To qualitatively investigate changes in employment status, barriers to and facilitators of (return to) work in breast cancer survivors 5–10 years after diagnosis. Materials and methods: Women were eligible to participate in the focus groups if they were younger than 55 years and were employed at time of diagnosis. Data were analysed by two independent researchers using thematic content analysis. Results: Nineteen women participated in three semi-structured focus groups, of whom 18 reported a change in employment status 5–10 years after diagnosis. Perceived barriers to (return to) work shortly after breast cancer diagnosis tended to be disease- and treatment-related, while 5–10 years later, they were personal- and work-related. Participants recommended open communication and support at the workplace, and comprehensive information from (occupational) health care professionals to facilitate dealing with breast cancer at work. Conclusions: Breast cancer survivors still experience changes in employment status 5–10 years after diagnosis. (Occupational) health care professionals should be alert that perceived barriers for returning to work change over time. Future research should focus on increasing awareness (at work) of breast cancer survivors’ needs, providing adequate information and support to all involved, and developing interventions to sustain survivors’ work ability at the long term. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION Even long after diagnosis and treatment, a sizeable number of breast cancer survivors report a change in employment status, such as job loss. (Occupational) health care professionals should be alert that barriers for returning to work and retaining work change over time. There is a lack of awareness and a shortage of interventions regarding work-related issues for breast cancer survivors at long-term follow-up.
Efficacy of Pharmacological Therapies for the Prevention of Fractures in Postmenopausal Women: A Network Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND Osteoporosis and osteopenia are associated with increased fracture incidence in postmenopausal women. We aimed to determine the comparative effectiveness of various available pharmacological therapies. METHODS We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, ISI Web of Science, and Scopus for randomized controlled trials that enrolled postmenopausal women with primary osteoporosis and evaluated the risk of hip, vertebral, or nonvertebral fractures. A network meta-analysis was conducted using the multivariate random effects method. RESULTS We included 107 trials (193,987 postmenopausal women; mean age, 66 years; 55% white; median follow-up, 28 months). A significant reduction in hip fractures was observed with romosozumab, alendronate, zoledronate, risedronate, denosumab, estrogen with progesterone, and calcium in combination with vitamin D. A significant reduction in nonvertebral fractures was observed with abaloparatide, romosozumab, denosumab, teriparatide, alendronate, risedronate, zoledronate, lasofoxifene, tibolone, estrogen with progesterone, and vitamin D. A significant reduction in vertebral fractures was observed with abaloparatide, teriparatide, parathyroid hormone 1-84, romosozumab, strontium ranelate, denosumab, zoledronate, risedronate, alendronate, ibandronate, raloxifene, bazedoxifene, lasofoxifene, estrogen with progesterone, tibolone, and calcitonin. Teriparatide, abaloparatide, denosumab, and romosozumab were associated with the highest relative risk reductions, whereas ibandronate and selective estrogen receptor modulators had lower efficacy. The evidence for the treatment of fractures with vitamin D and calcium remains limited despite numerous large trials. CONCLUSIONS This network meta-analysis provides comparative effective estimates for the various available treatments to reduce the risk of fragility fractures in postmenopausal women.
Alcohol Treatment Goal Choice Predicts Longitudinal Drinking Outcomes in Adolescent Substance Users

ABSTRACT Social cognitive theory suggests when individuals select their own goals, they work harder to achieve them and experience increases in self-efficacy. Research in adults with alcohol use disorder supports the utility of treatment goal choice in predicting longitudinal outcomes; a total abstinence (TA) goal choice has been associated with better clinical outcomes versus a controlled use goal choice. Research on goal choice in adolescent substance users has not been reported. Data from 110 adolescents were collected upon admission to outpatient substance use disorder treatment. Hierarchical linear regressions tested baseline goal choice as a predictor of drinking outcomes at 6-, 12-, and 24-month follow-ups. Goal choice significantly predicted drinking outcomes at 12-month follow-up, but not at 6- or 24-month time points; TA was associated with better clinical outcomes. These findings suggest that goal choice may have clinical utility as a predictor of alcohol use disorder clinical course in adolescents.
Levellers

Competing conceptions of research in psychology have emerged in recent years. The emergence of qualitative research before, and then with increasing influence alongside, and now sometime after the emergence of discourse analysis as a specific approach, enables us to shift from a link between method and discipline to a new, more fruitful connection between method and innovation. I agree with most of the points made in the responses to my article on levels of discourse analysis. Yes there are “risks” in such an exercise, the accounts of each approach will be “partial,” and each approach is valuable for certain kinds of question in research. Of course, this is only one way of making sense of the field of discourse analysis (and I should emphasise that my concern here is with psychology), and you could treat my article as a kind of conceptual discourse analysis of discourse analysis; it is itself a discourse, oriented to a certain kind of task. Reviews of approaches to discourse analysis in relation to specific fields of research, such as psychotherapy, give a different picture partly because the task of the review is oriented to that particular field (e.g., Avdi & Georgaca 2007a, 2007b, 2009; Georgaca & Avdi 2009). Research that aims to connect discourse analysis with critical psychology faces at least two problems. First, as is the case for the forms of language it studies, “discourse analysis” itself poses a choice for researchers who use it to describe or change the world, a choice that hinges on the idea that we always either reproduce or transform phenomena when we describe them. There are forms of discourse analysis which aim to merely describe forms of language, and so they “reproduce” what they find. Against this politically conservative choice, I was concerned in my review of different levels with discourse analysis that transforms the world, the kind of analysis that connects interpretation with change. The phrase “reproduction or transformation” is borrowed from a “realist” tradition of inquiry (Bhaskar 1986). That tradition is sometimes pitted against discourse analysis, and it does draw attention to the importance of “structure” as a condition for or constraint upon human agency (Parker 1988). The second problem is that there is a host of different approaches to discourse analysis, and each approach is governed by a series of conceptual and methodological terms, which themselves orient the researcher to attend to specific delimited aspects of language. This array of different approaches causes much confusion to a researcher beginning to learn to notice the structuring force of language and wanting to study it. My response to this diversity in the field of discourse analysis was to treat this as an opportunity and to clarify
Comparison of blockchain platforms: a systematic review and healthcare examples

Objectives To introduce healthcare or biomedical blockchain applications and their underlying blockchain platforms, compare popular blockchain platforms using a systematic review method, and provide a reference for selection of a suitable blockchain platform given requirements and technical features that are common in healthcare and biomedical research applications. Target audience Healthcare or clinical informatics researchers and software engineers who would like to learn about the important technical features of different blockchain platforms to design and implement blockchain‐based health informatics applications. Scope Covered topics include (1) a brief introduction to healthcare or biomedical blockchain applications and the benefits to adopt blockchain; (2) a description of key features of underlying blockchain platforms in healthcare applications; (3) development of a method for systematic review of technology, based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses) statement, to investigate blockchain platforms for healthcare and medicine applications; (4) a review of 21 healthcare‐related technical features of 10 popular blockchain platforms; and (5) a discussion of findings and limitations of the review.
Grouping the gifted and talented: Questions and answers

Five questions about the academic, psychological, and socialization effects on gifted and talented learners of grouping for enrichment, cooperative grouping for regular instruction, and grouping for acceleration are addressed. The conclusions drawn from 13 research syntheses on these practices, conducted in the past 9 years are described. In general, these conclusions support sustained periods of instruction in like‐ability groups for students who are gifted and talented.
A Discriminative Feature Learning Approach for Remote Sensing Image Retrieval

Effective feature representations play a decisive role in content-based remote sensing image retrieval (CBRSIR). Recently, learning-based features have been widely used in CBRSIR and they show powerful ability of feature representations. In addition, a significant effort has been made to improve learning-based features from the perspective of the network structure. However, these learning-based features are not sufficiently discriminative for CBRSIR. In this paper, we propose two effective schemes for generating discriminative features for CBRSIR. In the first scheme, the attention mechanism and a new attention module are introduced to the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) structure, causing more attention towards salient features, and the suppression of other features. In the second scheme, a multi-task learning network structure is proposed, to force learning-based features to be more discriminative, with inter-class dispersion and intra-class compaction, through penalizing the distances between the feature representations and their corresponding class centers. Then, a new method for constructing more challenging datasets is first used for remote sensing image retrieval, to better validate our schemes. Extensive experiments on challenging datasets are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of our two schemes, and the comparison of the results demonstrate that our proposed schemes, especially the fusion of the two schemes, can improve the baseline methods by a significant margin.
Parallelism, Metalinguistic Play, and the Interactive Emergence of Zinacantec Mayan Siblings' Culture

In this article, I investigate how 2 young Tzotzil Mayan siblings playfully manipulate the sequential structure of adjacency pairs to align, to confront each other, and to challenge family roles and hierarchies. The young learners' intentional disruption reveals the early control of dialogic repetition typical of Mayan languages. More important, it illustrates the children's development of communicative competence as they reorganize greeting structures or reauthorize messages through frame shifts. In the case of a greeting game, the siblings disrupt its inherent sequential structure using semantic counterpointing with different address terms. When conveying a question sent by an adult, the 4-year old playfully repeats it and recycles it across several turns in alignment with his younger brother and his grandfather. The subversion of the social organization of talk shows how the children interactively construct an emergent sibling culture that contests the social organization of the age-graded structure of the extended family. The study contributes to the understanding of peer socialization in a small-scale society. One finds here how siblings' language play organizes and contests the social and moral order amidst everyday family life. I dedicate this article to my beloved compadre Mol Petul Vaskis who passed away on December 20, 2005. His beautiful and eloquent Tzotzil will be deeply missed by his family and community. May his grandchildren remember the rhymes, stories, and advice he sweetly gave them and teach them to their children. I thank the Vaskis family of Nabenchauk, Zinacantan, Chiapas, México for their warmth and their unconditional support. I also acknowledge George Collier, Candy Goodwin and Amy Kyratzis's thoughtful comments and suggestions to a previous version of the manuscript. Research was funded by CONACYT Research Grant # 42585.
Prophylactic epinephrine for the prevention of transbronchial lung biopsy-related bleeding in lung transplant recipients (PROPHET) study: a protocol for a multicentre randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Introduction Transbronchial lung biopsy (TBLB) is frequently performed in single-lung and double-lung transplant recipients for evaluation of clinical and radiological findings as well as routine surveillance for acute cellular rejection. While rates of clinically significant TBLB-related haemorrhage are <1% for all comers, the incidence in lung transplant recipients is reported to be higher, presumably due to persistent allograft inflammation and alterations in allograft blood flow. While routinely performed by some bronchoscopists, the efficacy and safety profile of prophylactic administration of topical intrabronchial diluted epinephrine for the prevention of TBLB-related haemorrhage has not been explored in a prospective manner. Methods and analysis In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicentre trial (PROPHET Study), single-lung and double-lung transplant adult recipients from participating institutions who are scheduled for bronchoscopy with TBLB for clinical indications will be identified. Potential participants who meet inclusion and exclusion criteria and sign an informed consent will be randomised to receive either diluted epinephrine or placebo prior to performance of TBLB. The degree of TBLB-related haemorrhage will be graded by the performing bronchoscopist as well as independent observers. The primary analysis will compare the rates of severe and very severe bleeding in participants treated with epinephrine or placebo. The study will also evaluate the safety profile of prophylactic topical epinephrine including the occurrence of serious cardiovascular and haemodynamic adverse events. Additional secondary outcomes to be explored include rates of non-severe TBLB-related haemorrhage, overall yield of the bronchoscopic procedure and non-serious cardiovascular and haemodynamic adverse effects. Ethics and dissemination The study procedures were reviewed and approved by institutional review boards in participating institutions. This study is being externally monitored, and a data and safety monitoring committee has been assembled to monitor patient safety and to evaluate the efficacy of the intervention. The results of this study will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and presented at relevant academic conferences. Trial registration number NCT03126968; Pre-results.
Feedback Network for Image Super-Resolution

Recent advances in image super-resolution (SR) explored the power of deep learning to achieve a better reconstruction performance. However, the feedback mechanism, which commonly exists in human visual system, has not been fully exploited in existing deep learning based image SR methods. In this paper, we propose an image super-resolution feedback network (SRFBN) to refine low-level representations with high-level information. Specifically, we use hidden states in a recurrent neural network (RNN) with constraints to achieve such feedback manner. A feedback block is designed to handle the feedback connections and to generate powerful high-level representations. The proposed SRFBN comes with a strong early reconstruction ability and can create the final high-resolution image step by step. In addition, we introduce a curriculum learning strategy to make the network well suitable for more complicated tasks, where the low-resolution images are corrupted by multiple types of degradation. Extensive experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed SRFBN in comparison with the state-of-the-art methods. Code is avaliable at https://github.com/Paper99/SRFBN_CVPR19.