Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adherence to pre-set benchmark quality criteria to qualify as expert assessor of dysplasia in Barrett’s esophagus biopsies – towards digital review of Barrett’s esophagus

Background Dysplasia assessment of Barrett’s esophagus biopsies is associated with low observer agreement; guidelines advise expert review. We have developed a web-based review panel for dysplastic Barrett’s esophagus biopsies. Objective The purpose of this study was to test if 10 gastrointestinal pathologists working at Dutch Barrett’s esophagus expert centres met pre-set benchmark scores for quality criteria. Methods Ten gastrointestinal pathologists twice assessed 60 digitalized Barrett’s esophagus cases, enriched for dysplasia; then randomised (7520 assessments). We tested predefined benchmark quality criteria: (a) percentage of ‘indefinite for dysplasia’ diagnoses, benchmark score ≤14% for all cases, ≤16% for dysplastic subset, (b) intra-observer agreement; benchmark score ≥0.66/≥0.39, (c) percentage agreement with ‘gold standard diagnosis’; benchmark score ≥82%/≥73%, (d) proportion of cases with high-grade dysplasia underdiagnosed as non-dysplastic Barrett’s esophagus; benchmark score ≤1/78 (≤1.28%) assessments for dysplastic subset. Results Gastrointestinal pathologists had seven years’ Barrett’s esophagus-experience, handling seven Barrett’s esophagus-cases weekly. Three met stringent benchmark scores; all cases and dysplastic subset, three met extended benchmark scores. Four pathologists lacked one quality criterion to meet benchmark scores. Conclusion Predefined benchmark scores for expert assessment of Barrett’s esophagus dysplasia biopsies are stringent and met by some gastrointestinal pathologists. The majority of assessors however, only showed limited deviation from benchmark scores. We expect further training with group discussions will lead to adherence of all participating gastrointestinal pathologists to quality criteria, and therefore eligible to join the review panel.
Antimicrobial Activity of Ag/Ag2O Nanoparticles Synthesized by Dead Biomass of Yeast and their Biocompatibility with Mammalian Cell Lines

Outbreaks of infectious diseases caused by different pathogenic bacteria and fungi and the development of antimicrobial resistance have led to the search for new antimicrobial agentes [1]. A literature review demonstrated remarkable bactericidal, fungicidal and antiviral activity of silver NPs [2]. The chemical and physical methods currently used for the synthesis of NPs are expensive, require high temperatures and high pressures, and produce hazardous wastes that posses risk to the environment [3]. In this respect, biological methods for the nanomaterials synthesis are used worldwide to create nano-factories [4], particularly for the preparation of silver NPs that offer several benefits such as compatibility for pharmaceutical and biomedical application [5]. Yeasts have become important in nanotechnology as producers of NPs, due to their advantages such as low-cost, rapid growth and easy preparation and biomass handling. Salvadori et al. [6] described for the first time the efficient and low-cost synthesis of Ag/Ag2O NPs using dead biomass of the yeast R. mucilaginosa, isolated from the weastewater of a mine in the Amazon region, for nanobioremediation of silver waste and its reuse in NPs form.
Reconfigurable control of flexible joint robot with actuator fault and uncertainty

Abstract This paper presents the fault tolerant control (FTC) of a flexible joint robot using singular perturbation method in order to compensate for the lost performance due to the occurrence of actuator fault and the uncertainty. This FTC is based on Lyapunov redesign principle. The singular perturbation method is used to reduce the dynamic model of the flexible joint robot in a fast and slow subsystem. The time scale reduction of the flexible joint model is carried out when their joint stiffness is large enough and the singular perturbation parameter is set to zero. The fault-tolerant control structure in this paper is based on two parts. The first term described the composite control for the system without defect and without uncertainty which represents the sum between slow and fast controllers. While the second term of the fault tolerant command describes additive control designed to compensate for the fault effect of the actuator on the uncertain system. The additive approach is based on the Lyapunov theorem, which guarantees asymptotic stability despite the presence of actuator defects and the parametric uncertainty. The theoretical results are applied on a robot manipulator with a single flexible joint.
Effectiveness of behavioral family therapy in people with schizophrenia: a randomized, controlled clinical trial

Objective. To evaluate the effectiveness of FBT in comparison with usual care in people with schizophrenia treated at an outpatient psychiatric department of a public hospital in Chile. Method. Quantitative study, with a randomized, controlled clinical trial design (CTCT) and pre-post measurements, with two arms. Fifty-four people with schizophrenia and their primary caregivers, randomly assigned to experimental and control groups, were studied. The main outcome variable was social functioning. As secondary outcomes, clinical symptoms and treatment adherence in people with schizophrenia were evaluated. Expressed emotion was evaluated in the primary caregiver. Results. FBT was effective in improving the social functioning of people with schizophrenia and decreasing expressed emotion in the primary caregiver, with a large effect size (d > 0.80). Conclusions. The implementation of FBT as a protocolized intervention, complementing usual care, helps to improve psychosocial outcomes in people with schizophrenia and their caregivers.
Fast Combined Decimal/Binary Multiplier Based on Redundant BCD 4221-8421Digit Recoding

- Many applications consider floating point arithmetic as a key component of the computations. Combined decimal/binary arithmetic becomes an important topic supports high speed decimal/binary applications. A new 64-bit (16×16 digit) combined decimal/binary multiplier is proposed and implemented in this work that can be used for both fused multiply add (FMA) and multiplier unit. A new partial products reduction tree is shared between decimal and binary multiplier unit. The valuation and comparison result between the proposed multiplier and the previous most recent works shows 4.66 % less delay than combined decimal/binary multiplier and 19.33 % less delay than fastest standalone decimal multiplier.
A Review of the Impacts of Roads on Wildlife in Semi-Arid Regions

Roads now penetrate even the most remote parts of much of the world, but the majority of research on the effects of roads on biota has been in less remote temperate environments. The impacts of roads in semi-arid and arid areas may differ from these results in a number of ways. Here, we review the research on the impacts of roads on biodiversity patterns and ecological and evolutionary processes in semi-arid regions. The most obvious effect of roads is mortality or injury through collision. A diversity of scavengers are killed whilst feeding on roadkill, a source of easily accessed food. Noise pollution from roads and traffic interferes with vocal communication by animals, and birds and frogs living along noisy roads compensate for traffic noise by increasing the amplitude or pitch of their calls. Artificial light along roads impacts certain species’ ability to navigate, as well as attracting invertebrates. Animals are in turn attracted to invertebrates at streetlights, and vulnerable to becoming roadkill themselves. Genetics research across taxa confirms a loss of genetic diversity in small populations isolated by roads, but the long-term impact on the fitness of affected populations through a reduction in genetic diversity is not yet clear. Roads may rapidly cause genetic effects, raising conservation concerns about rare and threatened species. We assess mitigation measures and collate methods to identify the impact of roads on wildlife populations and their associated ecosystems, with a particular focus on recent advances.
Development of a Four-axis Laser Measuring System for Turbine Blade Profile

Aiming at the acquirement of the turbine blade profile data with both high accuracy and efficiency, a non-contact measuring system based on line-laser displacement sensor and four-axis numerical-control platform has been developed. This article mainly describes the presented solution of the calibration of the laser axis and the rotation axis. With this solution, a measurement data merging algorithm was designed and applied to generate the blade profile from a set of multi-view point clouds. At the end of the article, an experiment was performed to verify the efficiency and accuracy of the system.
Snake bite classification using Chain code and K nearest neighbour

Live in tropical country causes a high risk of Indonesians affected by snake bites. One of the causes of death due to snake bites is incorrect snake bite identification by visually identifying. The difference between a venomous and non-venomous snake on their anatomy resulting in different bite marks on the victim. Bite marks are useful for medical team for identifying venomous snake bites or not, but there is no system that helps this problem. This research tries to build a system to recognize the existing bite points on the snake bite image and then classified to venomous snake bite or non-venomous using Chain Code and K Nearest Neighbour. The result of recognizing the bite marks has sensitivity value of 75.95%, specificity of 52.7% and accuracy of 65%. Classification of snake bites categories has sensitivity value of 76.92%, specificity value of 85.71% and accuracy of 80%.
Power Shift within a Couple’s Journey through Addiction

Addiction is a rapidly growing problem for many couples, but most treatment plans focus solely on the individual with a substance abuse diagnosis rather than taking a systemic approach. Investigating the power dynamics of couples who have been through addiction and recovery could assist future treatment plans to include underlying factors in relationships instead of only addressing symptoms of the problem. This grounded theory research study strives to understand the power shift within couples when one partner goes from being in active addiction to being sober for one year or more. Power is viewed through the four aspects that Knudson-Martin and Mahoney (2009) developed, which include relative status, well-being, attention to the other, and accommodation patterns. Interviews were conducted using four grand tour questions based on Knudson-Martin and Mahoney’s (2009) characteristics of power, then data was analyzed using the four-step process described by Charmaz (2006). The resulting model illustrated how power changes as this couple transitioned from active addiction to recovery. Power Shift within a Couple’s Journey through Addiction A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Marriage and Family Studies Abilene Christian University In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Marriage and Family Therapy By Carly Brack Marketto
Rethinking the Role of the Intelligentsia Habitus in the Case of Polish Workers in the North of England

This article considers upward mobility of UK Polish migrant workers by introducing a Bourdieusian habitus perspective. Drawing mainly on the interview data it was inquired whether the intelligentsia habitus understood as an example of embodied or learned “social expectations” concerning the position in the social hierarchy provides Polish migrants the motivational scripts for learning and innovating in the labour market. It was found that the intelligentsia habitus can legitimize successful jobs seeking strategies of some respondents. However, this paper also notes that a significant number of analysed respondents were unable to mobilize cultural capital resources and remained in a vicious circle of long hours of monotonous factory work that has created an additional constraint complicating their learning capabilities.
The ways of fish beyond the sea: fish circulation and consumption in the Atacama desert, northern Chile, during the Formative period (500 cal B.C.-700 cal A.D.)

ABSTRACT Along the Atacama Desert coast, fish has always been a staple food and by the Formative period (500 cal B.C.-700 cal A.D.) it had become a product in high demand by the inhabitants of the inland valleys, oases and ravines of the desert. In this paper we explore the technologies used in coastal fishing activities, the diverse species caught, and fish processing and preserving techniques. We further examine the circulation routes of the product through the desert and associated strategies, the agents involved in transporting it and consumption levels in inland villages. Our study employs a multivariate analysis that includes evidence from zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis of deceased individuals, and the composition of human coprolites, all of which were recovered from domestic waste, funerary contexts, and rest stops associated with the circulation routes running between the coast and the inland desert regions. Our results suggest that in this ancient social context, food was not only used to quell hunger, but through its associated economic cycles of production, circulation and consumption, was part of a complex and extended web of social relations. Within that network, food functioned as material culture, and as such enabled social distinctions to emerge within local groups and cultural negotiations to be conducted among different localities. Fish circulation and consumption played an active role in the reproduction of a social structure characterized by close and firm ties between marine hunter-fisher-gatherers and agropastoral communities, despite their long distance from each other.
Evolutionary approaches for weight optimization in collaborative filtering-basedrecommender systems

Collaborative filtering is one of the widely adopted approaches in recommender systems used for e-commerce applications, stating that users having similar tastes will have similar preferences in the future. The literature presents a number of similarity metrics such as the extended Jaccard coefficient to quantify these preference similarities. This paper aims to improve prediction accuracy by optimizing the similarity values computed using these metrics by adopting two biologically inspired approaches, namely artificial bee colony and genetic algorithms, with a bottom-up approach, suggesting that any improvement on a single-user basis will reflect on the overall prediction accuracy. Detailed statistical analysis was performed using the t-test, analysis of variance, and McNemar's test to see whether there were performance differences. The results show that statistically significant differences exist with high confidence levels.
A Self-Powered Glucose Biosensor Operated Underwater to Monitor Physiological Status of Free-Swimming Fish

The changes in blood glucose levels are a key indicator of fish health conditions and are closely correlated to their stress levels. Here, we developed a self-powered glucose biosensor (SPGB) consisting of a needle-type enzymatic biofuel cell (N-EFC), which was operated underwater and connected to a charge pump integrated circuit (IC) and a light emitting diode (LED) as the indicator. The N-EFC consisted of a needle bioanode, which was inserted into the caudal area of a living fish (Tilapia) to access biofuels, and a gas-diffusion biocathode sealed in an airtight bag. The N-EFC was immersed entirely in the water and connected to a charge pump IC with a capacitor, which enabled charging and discharging of the bioelectricity generated from the N-EFC to blink an LED. Using a smartphone, the glucose concentration can be determined by observing the LED blinking frequencies that are linearly proportional to the blood glucose concentration within a detection range of 10–180 mg/dL. We have successfully demonstrated the feasibility of the SPGB used to continuously monitor the physiological status of free-swimming fish treated with cold shock in real time. The power generated by a free-swimming fish with an N-EFC inserted into its caudal area, swimming in a fish tank with a water temperature (Tw) of 25 °C, exhibited an open circuit voltage of 0.41 V and a maximum power density of 6.3 μW/cm2 at 0.25 V with a current density of 25 μA/cm2. By gradually decreasing Tw from 25 °C to 15 °C, the power generation increased to a maximum power density of 8.6 μW/cm2 at 0.27 V with a current density of 31 μA/cm2. The blood glucose levels of the free-swimming fish at 25 °C and 15 °C determined by the blinking frequencies were 44 mg/dL and 98 mg/dL, respectively. Our proposed SPGB provides an effective power-free method for stress visualization and evaluation of fish health by monitoring a blinking LED through a smartphone.
Colon Hydrotherapy for Pre-endoscopy preparation

Colonoscopy is an important diagnostic procedure undertaken to evaluate colon disorder. Preparing the bowel is necessary prior to colonoscopy, to allow clear visualization of the bowel wall and any pathology within. There are presently a number of recommended measures to prepare the large bowel. These include the use of enema, oral mannitol and oral magnesium sulfate. At the hospital, we have been carrying out colon hydrotherapy using the Toxygen Model BSC UV colon hydrotherapy instrument manufactured by Dotolo Research USA prior to colonoscopy with the Olympus CF-230 colonoscopy since August 2000. Results have proved to be very satisfactory.
Reconstructing wells from high density regions extracted from super-resolution single particle trajectories

Large amount of super-resolution single particle trajectories has revealed that the cellular environment is enriched in heterogenous regions of high density, which remain unexplained. The biophysical properties of these regions are characterized by a drift and their extension (a basin of attraction) that can be estimated from an ensemble of trajectories. We develop here two statistical methods to recover the dynamics and local potential wells (field of force and boundary) using as a model a truncated Ornstein-Ulhenbeck process. The first method uses the empirical distribution of points, which differs inside and outside the potential well, while the second focuses on recovering the drift field. Finally, we apply these two methods to voltage-gated calcium channels and phospholipids moving on the surface of neuronal cells and recover the energy and size of these high-density regions with nanometer precision.
Optimization of passive coherent receiver system placement

Abstract : Passive coherent receiver systems are a form of non-monostatic radar (NMR) that use active emitters of opportunity (digital television, cell phone systems, and other types of emissions) as a source of reflected target energy. These systems, used within both the military and public sectors, require specific information in order to be placed properly relative to emitters of opportunity and the desired area of detection/coverage. This thesis refines and presents a method of deriving optimal NMR placement, taking into account such variables as spreading loss and terrain data. This also includes optimal placement in a dynamic electromagnetic environment, when one or more of the emitters of opportunity cease transmission/are shut down for maintenance. The majority of the modeling utilizes Matrix Laboratory (MATLAB) to generate signal strength plots which can be applied toward predicting the optimal location for passive receiver placement, as well as where detection hole/voids may be present. MATLAB was used to model the signal-to-noise ratios presented by varying the number and location of receivers. These simulations provide an analytic means to estimate the optimal placement of assets to maximize coverage for a particular geographic area.
Seaweed resources of Mexico: current knowledge and future perspectives

Abstract High diversity of marine macroalgae is reported for Mexican coasts, including numerous endemic species. Seaweed research in Mexico has focused on the northern regions of the Pacific coast (Temperate Pacific and Gulf of California) and on the Mexican Caribbean coast, leaving aside other regions (Tropical Pacific and Gulf of Mexico). Utilization of seaweed resources within the country has been based on artisanal collection of wild populations mainly for polysaccharide extraction, fertilizers, raw material for animal feed and cosmetic products. The main exploitation has occurred along the coasts of Baja California peninsula, based on few species (Gelidium robustum, Macrocystis pyrifera, Chondracanthus canaliculatus and Gracilariopsis lemaneiformis). Governmental regulations for management have allowed harvesting to reach approximately 11,500 wet tons per year (2013–2016). Nevertheless, in recent years (2014–2016) the total seaweed import volume has increased (5302 tons per year in average) over the export volume (2156 tons per year in average), suggesting a notably growing demand for seaweed resources in the country and representing an opportunity for investment projects. Several pilot studies on seaweed cultivation in Mexico propose that sustainable aquaculture techniques could complement the harvest in natural populations and ensure a homogeneous production with high quality in the long term.
Bayesian multivariate reanalysis of large genetic studies identifies many new associations

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have now been conducted for hundreds of phenotypes of relevance to human health. Many such GWAS involve multiple closely-related phenotypes collected on the same samples. However, the vast majority of these GWAS have been analyzed using simple univariate analyses, which consider one phenotype at a time. This is de-spite the fact that, at least in simulation experiments, multivariate analyses have been shown to be more powerful at detecting associations. Here, we conduct multivariate association analyses on 13 different publicly-available GWAS datasets that involve multiple closely-related phenotypes. These data include large studies of anthropometric traits (GIANT), plasma lipid traits (GlobalLipids), and red blood cell traits (HaemgenRBC). Our analyses identify many new associations (433 in total across the 13 studies), many of which replicate when follow-up samples are available. Overall, our results demonstrate that multivariate analyses can help make more effective use of data from both existing and future GWAS. 1 Author Summary Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have become a common and powerful tool for identifying significant correlations between markers of genetic variation and physical traits of interest. Often these studies are conducted by comparing genetic variation against single traits one at a time (‘univariate’); however, it has previously been shown that it is possible to increase your power to detect significant associations by comparing genetic variation against multiple traits simultaneously (‘multivariate’). Despite this apparent increase in power though, researchers still rarely conduct multivariate GWAS, even when studies have multiple traits readily available. Here, we reanalyze 13 previously published GWAS using a multivariate method and find >400 additional associations. Our method makes use of univariate GWAS summary statistics and is available as a software package, thus making it accessible to other researchers interested in conducting the same analyses. We also show, using studies that have multiple releases, that our new associations have high rates of replication. Overall, we argue multivariate approaches in GWAS should no longer be overlooked and how, often, there is low-hanging fruit in the form of new associations by running these methods on data already collected.