Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Hearing loss in individuals with osteogenesis imperfecta in North America: Results from a multicenter study

Hearing loss (HL) is an extra‐skeletal manifestation of the connective tissue disorder osteogenesis imperfecta (OI). Systematic evaluation of the prevalence and characteristics of HL in COL1A1/COL1A2‐related OI will contribute to a better clinical management of individuals with OI. We collected and analyzed pure‐tone audiometry data from 312 individuals with OI who were enrolled in the Linked Clinical Research Centers and the Brittle Bone Disorders Consortium. The prevalence, type, and severity of HL in COL1A1/COL1A2‐related OI are reported. We show that the prevalence of HL in OI is 28% and increased with age in Type I OI but not in Types III and IV. Individuals with OI Types III and IV are at a higher risk to develop HL in the first decade of life when compared to OI Type I. We also show that the prevalence of SNHL is higher in females with OI compared to males. This study reveals new insights regarding prevalence of HL in OI including a lower general prevalence of HL in COL1A1/COL1A2‐related OI than previously reported (28.3 vs. 65%) and high prevalence of SNHL in females. Our data support the need in early routine hearing evaluation in all types of OI that can be adjusted to the severity of the skeletal disease.
Evaluation of bone mineral density and 25-(OH) vitamin D levels in middle-aged and elderly women with recurrent benign paroxysmal positional vertigo

Abstract Background: Middle-aged and elderly perimenopausal women are prone to developing BPPV without definite cause. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate the correlation between bone mineral density (BMD), 25-(OH) vitamin D, and serum calcium levels in patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) in middle-aged and elderly women. Material and methods: A total of 103 women with two or more recurrent BPPV episodes (group A) and 80 age-matched healthy controls (group B) were recruited. All subjects had BMD and serum 25-(OH) D levels measurements taken, and the results were compared. Results: BMD was reduced in group A, and the proportion of osteoporosis was higher than in group B (p = .039). The BMD T-score and 25-(OH) vitamin D level were lower in group A than in group B (p = .004 and p < .0001, respectively). In group A, the BMD T-score was lower (p = .017) and serum 25-(OH) vitamin D level was higher (p < .0001) in premenopausal women than in menopausal women. Conclusions and Significance: Our study found that middle-aged and elderly women with recurrent BPPV, especially postmenopausal women, may present decreased BMD and serum vitamin D levels.
The effects of different bisphenol derivatives on oxidative stress, DNA damage and DNA repair in RWPE‐1 cells: A comparative study

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a well‐known endocrine disruptor and it is widely used mainly in the plastics industry. Due to recent reports on its possible impact on health (particularly on the male reproductive system), bisphenol F (BPF) and bisphenol S (BPS) are now being used as alternatives. In this study, RWPE‐1 cells were used as a model to compare cytotoxicity, oxidative stress‐causing potential and genotoxicity of these chemicals. In addition, the effects of the bisphenol derivatives were assessed on DNA repair proteins. RWPE‐1 cells were incubated with BPA, BPF, and BPS at concentrations of 0–600 μM for 24 h. The inhibitory concentration 20 (IC20, concentration that causes 20% of cell viability loss) values for BPA, BPF, and BPS were 45, 65, and 108 μM, respectively. These results indicated that cytotoxicity potentials were ranked as BPA > BPF > BPS. We also found alterations in superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and glutathione reductase activities, and glutathione and total antioxidant capacity in all bisphenol‐exposed groups. In the standard and modified Comet assay, BPS produced significantly higher levels of DNA damage vs the control. DNA repair proteins (OGG1, Ape‐1, and MyH) involved in the base excision repair pathway, as well as p53 protein levels were down‐regulated in all of the bisphenol‐exposed groups. We found that the BPA alternatives were also cytotoxic and genotoxic, and changed the expressions of DNA repair enzymes. Therefore, further studies are needed to assess whether they can be used safely as alternatives to BPA or not.
Aspirin plus heparin or aspirin alone in women with recurrent miscarriage.

BACKGROUND Aspirin and low-molecular-weight heparin are prescribed for women with unexplained recurrent miscarriage, with the goal of improving the rate of live births, but limited data from randomized, controlled trials are available to support the use of these drugs. METHODS In this randomized trial, we enrolled 364 women between the ages of 18 and 42 years who had a history of unexplained recurrent miscarriage and were attempting to conceive or were less than 6 weeks pregnant. We then randomly assigned them to receive daily 80 mg of aspirin plus open-label subcutaneous nadroparin (at a dose of 2850 IU, starting as soon as a viable pregnancy was demonstrated), 80 mg of aspirin alone, or placebo. The primary outcome measure was the live-birth rate. Secondary outcomes included rates of miscarriage, obstetrical complications, and maternal and fetal adverse events. RESULTS Live-birth rates did not differ significantly among the three study groups. The proportions of women who gave birth to a live infant were 54.5% in the group receiving aspirin plus nadroparin (combination-therapy group), 50.8% in the aspirin-only group, and 57.0% in the placebo group (absolute difference in live-birth rate: combination therapy vs. placebo, -2.6 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -15.0 to 9.9; aspirin only vs. placebo, -6.2 percentage points; 95% CI, -18.8 to 6.4). Among 299 women who became pregnant, the live-birth rates were 69.1% in the combination-therapy group, 61.6% in the aspirin-only group, and 67.0% in the placebo group (absolute difference in live-birth rate: combination therapy vs. placebo, 2.1 percentage points; 95% CI, -10.8 to 15.0; aspirin alone vs. placebo -5.4 percentage points; 95% CI, -18.6 to 7.8). An increased tendency to bruise and swelling or itching at the injection site occurred significantly more frequently in the combination-therapy group than in the other two study groups. CONCLUSIONS Neither aspirin combined with nadroparin nor aspirin alone improved the live-birth rate, as compared with placebo, among women with unexplained recurrent miscarriage. (Current Controlled Trials number, ISRCTN58496168.)
Thrombolytic Therapy for Deep Venous Thrombosis

Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is a common disorder and an important cause of morbidity. Although anticoagulation remains the standard treatment of DVT, thrombolytic therapy is considered an alternative, especially for treatment of massive iliofemoral thrombosis. The potential advantages of thrombolytic therapy in patients with DVT include more complete and rapid clot lysis with a lower incidence of embolization and postthrombotic syndrome, while increased risk of bleeding is its most important complication. In this article, we systematically review the medical literature on the shortand long-term efficacy and safety of thrombolytic therapy for DVT and provide evidence-based recommendations for its use.
Relative Hypoglycemia in Diabetic Patients With Critical Illness

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Objectives: Relative hypoglycemia is a decrease in glucose greater than or equal to 30% below prehospital admission levels (estimated by hemoglobin A1C) but not to absolute hypoglycemia levels. It is a recognized pathophysiologic phenomenon in ambulant poorly controlled diabetic patients but remains unexamined during critical illness. We examined the frequency, characteristics, and outcome associations of relative hypoglycemia in diabetic patients with critical illness. Design: Retrospective cohort study. Setting: ICU of a tertiary hospital. Patients: One-thousand five-hundred ninety-two critically ill diabetic patients between January 2013 and December 2017. Interventions: None. Measurements and Main Results: The median age of patients was 67 years (interquartile range, 60–75 yr). The median Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation III score was 53 (interquartile range, 40–68). Thirty-four percent of patients with diabetes experienced relative hypoglycemia (exposure) during their ICU admission. Such patients had higher glycemic lability, hemoglobin A1C levels, and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation III scores. The hazard ratio for 28-day mortality of diabetic patients, censored at hospital discharge, for patients with relative hypoglycemia was 1.9 (95% CI, 1.3–2.8) and was essentially unchanged after adjustment for episodes of absolute hypoglycemia. After an episode of relative hypoglycemia, the hazard ratio for subsequent absolute hypoglycemia in the ICU was 3.5 (95% CI, 2.3–5.3). Conclusions: In ICU patients with diabetes, relative hypoglycemia is common, increases with higher hemoglobin A1C levels, and is a modifiable risk factor for both mortality and subsequent absolute hypoglycemia. These findings provide the rationale for future interventional studies to explore new blood glucose management strategies and to substantiate the clinical relevance of relative hypoglycemia.
T-cell specific upregulation of Sema4A as risk factor for autoimmunity in systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis

Abstract The aim of the present study was to evaluate the impact of SEMA4A genetic variants on expression of sema4A protein and its relation to autoimmunity development in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Rheumatoid Arthritis patients. A total of 541 SLE patients, 390 RA patients and 607 healthy individuals were genotyped. We also assessed SEMA4A mRNA expression from whole blood cells and the in vitro protein production from resting and activated T lymphocytes as well as mature dendritic cells from healthy individuals stratified according to their genotypes for SLE/RA associated SEMA4A variants. Our results showed that T/T genotype for rs3738581 SNP is associated with both RA and SLE development (p = .000053, OR = 2.35; p = .0019, OR = 2.07, respectively; statistical power = 100%) and also to an increased in vitro sema4A production in active T lymphocytes. Our findings are indicative of a T cell-specific upregulation of sema4A in the presence of T/T genotype, being a risk factor for SLE and RA.
Counting and Sampling Directed Acyclic Graphs for Learning Bayesian Networks

Bayesian networks are probabilistic models that represent dependencies between random variables via directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). They provide a succinct representation for the joint distribution in cases where the dependency structure is sparse. Specifying the network by hand is often unfeasible, and thus it would be desirable to learn the model from observed data over the variables. In this thesis, we study computational problems encountered in different approaches to learning Bayesian networks. All of the problems involve counting or sampling DAGs under various constraints. One important computational problem in the fully Bayesian approach to structure learning is the problem of sampling DAGs from the posterior distribution over all the possible structures for the Bayesian network. From the typical modeling assumptions it follows that the distribution is modular, which means that the probability of each DAG factorizes into per-node weights, each of which depends only on the parent set of the node. For this problem, we give the first exact algorithm with a time complexity bound exponential in the number of nodes, and thus polynomial in the size of the input, which consists of all the possible per-node weights. We also adapt the algorithm such that it outperforms the previous methods in the special case of sampling DAGs from the uniform distribution. We also study the problem of counting the linear extensions of a given partial order, which appears as a subroutine in some importance sampling
Supplementary Material to: Replicating the Results in “A New Model of Trend Inflation” using Particle Markov Chain Monte Carlo

This online material contains several sections. We provide more technical details on the implementation of the PMCMC algorithms. We also provide examples that highlight some of the advantages of PMCMC compared to common Gibbs sampling approaches and intuitively justify applying PMCMC in practice. The last section provides additional figures and results regarding the AR-trend-bound model of Chan et al. (2013). Papers cited in this supplementary material are not necessarily listed in the references in the paper itself.
VILD: VARIATIONAL IMITATION LEARNING

The goal of imitation learning (IL) is to learn a good policy from high-quality demonstrations. However, the quality of demonstrations in reality can be diverse, since it is easier and cheaper to collect demonstrations from a mix of experts and amateurs. IL in such situations can be challenging, especially when the level of demonstrators’ expertise is unknown. We propose a new IL paradigm called Variational Imitation Learning with Diverse-quality demonstrations (VILD), where we explicitly model the level of demonstrators’ expertise with a probabilistic graphical model and estimate it along with a reward function. We show that a naive estimation approach is not suitable to large state and action spaces, and fix this issue by using a variational approach that can be easily implemented using existing reinforcement-learning methods. Experiments on continuous-control benchmarks and real-world crowdsourced demonstrations denote that VILD outperforms stateof-the-art methods. Our work enables scalable and data-efficient IL under more realistic settings than before.
How Participatory Design Works: Mechanisms and Effects

We argue that the distinguishing features of Participatory Design are not the participatory activities as such but the mechanisms used, the effects produced and the way in which these are sustained. We use program theory to illuminate how participatory design works and how it may be understood as more than a collection of methods or a matter of configuring user participation. Program theory operates by formulating the causal relations between the planned inputs, the process and the effects in terms of output, outcome and impact. While participatory design might appear similar to co-design or user-centered design on the level of design activities, PD differs in terms of the mechanisms employed and how effects and their sustainment are conceived. Looking at participatory design through the lens of program theory highlights how particular mechanisms work towards not only the designed product but also towards generating gains and lasting effects for participants.
AGGREGATING EXPLANATION METHODS FOR NEURAL NETWORKS STABILIZES EXPLANATIONS

Despite a growing literature on explaining neural networks, no consensus has been reached on how to explain a neural network decision or how to evaluate an explanation. Our contributions in this paper are twofold. First, we investigate schemes to combine explanation methods and reduce model uncertainty to obtain a single aggregated explanation. The aggregation is more robust and aligns better with the neural network than any single explanation method. Second, we propose a new approach to evaluating explanation methods that circumvents the need for manual evaluation and is not reliant on the alignment of neural networks and humans decision processes.
Nanoscale Silicon Devices Using Nanostructure Physics for VLSI Applications

This paper describes our recent research work on emerging nanoscale silicon devices using new physical phenomena in nanostructures. It is shown that there are three stages in the research of the silicon nanodevices. Special emphasis will be placed on the first and second stages where new physical phenomena in silicon nanostructures are positively utilized in CMOS-based devices and circuits.
Visual Procedural Content Generation with an Artificial Abstract Artist

We present Pollite (Pollock-lite), an artificial abstract artist with the capability to evaluate, augment, and generate video game visual elements. Our system is based on a cognitive model of abstract artists built from selfreports and interviews. The main intelligence behind our system is a Convolutional Neural Net (CNN), a deep neural network approach that has shown great success in image tagging tasks and that can learn associations between shapes, colors, and concepts. We demonstrate initial results with our system across three case studies.
Structural Brain Mapping Using Antibody-Conjugated Gold Nanoparticles and X-ray Microscopy

The current gold standard in cellular connectomics uses serial section electron microscopy approaches. But even when mapping very small regions of neural tissue (i.e. hundreds of micrometers), electron microscopy techniques can take months or years of work. Nondestructive methods which employ x-ray microscopy may facilitate far more efficient connectomic at resolutions sufficient for visualizing dendrites and axons. However, x-ray microscopy has so far been limited by chemical stains that cannot target desired tissue structures. A potential way of moving past this limitation is to use a gold nanoparticle contrast agent with covalently linked antibodies. To this end, an anti-dopamine 1 receptor antibody (anti-D1R) was conjugated to 60×27 nm gold nanorods. Immunohistochemical assays were performed on sections of rat striatum to verify the staining efficacy of these immunogold constructs. After an anti-Fab secondary antibody linked to Alexa Fluor® 488 was reacted with the primary antibodies on the gold nanorods, tissue fluorescence demonstrated that the immunogold had bound the striatum. X-ray microscopy was performed using a ZEISS Xradia 520 Versa x-ray microscope on a region of striatum that had been treated with the immunogold contrast agent. With a scan time of just 13h, the resulting threedimensional reconstruction revealed neurites at a 386 nm pixel size. Next, a thick tissue volume was treated using 5 nm spherical gold nanoparticles with covalently linked anti-D1R antibodies. This volume was then imaged via x-ray microscopy at a pixel size of 403 nm and with a scan time of 16h. Some neurites were visible in the reconstruction, but the high concentration of nanoparticles may have obscured many of the finer features. The proof-of-concept data acquired from rat striatum demonstrate this approach’s promise for high-throughput imaging of neuronal tissue.
RPGAN: random paths as a latent space for GAN interpretability

In this paper, we introduce Random Path Generative Adversarial Network (RPGAN) — an alternative design of GANs that can serve as a tool for generative model analysis. While the latent space of a typical GAN consists of input vectors, randomly sampled from the standard Gaussian distribution, the latent space of RPGAN consists of random paths in a generator network. As we show, this design allows to understand factors of variation, captured by different generator layers, providing their natural interpretability. With experiments on standard benchmarks, we demonstrate that RPGAN reveals several interesting insights about the roles that different layers play in the image generation process. Aside from interpretability, the RPGAN model also provides competitive generation quality and allows efficient incremental learning on new data.
Non-Rigid Optical Flow with Laplacian Cotangent Mesh Constraints

In this paper we present a novel non-rigid optical flow algorithm for dense image correspondence and non-rigid image registration. The algorithm introduces a smoothness term based on laplacian cotangent mesh deformation. Such deformation approaches are popular in graphics research, particularly for preserving local detail. In our wo rk we introduce the concept for optical flow smoothness with the similar motivation of imposing local detail preservati on. The algorithm applies a mesh to the image with a resolution up to one vertex per pixel. This uses edge angles defined by the mesh faces to ensure sensible local deformations between image pairs . The formulation is contained wholly inside the optical flow optimisation, and can be applied in a straightforward manner to a wide range of image tracking and registration problems. We evaluate our approach on several data sets against several popular optical flow algorithms. We show our approach to provide improved local detail preservation when registering image sequences containing non-rigidly deforming objects.
Disentanglement of natural interest rate shocks and monetary policy shocks nexus

This paper proposes a novel two-step identification procedure of natural interest rate shocks. Altogether, monetary policy and natural interest shocks explain about 90% of total inflation dynamics. The paper exploits (J.E. Arias et al., 2019) procedure, which allows getting canonical impulse response functions to monetary policy shocks. I find no evidence of price and output puzzles. The estimated natural interest rate declines from 2015 to 2019 years. Furthermore, Bank of Russia follows the mandate and reacts to inflation in monetary policy feedback rule, while does not respond to output fluctuations.
What You Need to Succeed: Examining Culture and Capital in Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Education

Carla B. Zoltowski is an assistant professor of engineering practice in the Schools of Electrical and Computer Engineering and (by courtesy) Engineering Education and Director of the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program at Purdue University. She holds a B.S.E.E. , M.S.E.E. , and Ph.D. in Engineering Education, all from Purdue. Prior to this she was Co-Director of the EPICS Program at Purdue where she was responsible for developing curriculum and assessment tools and overseeing the research efforts within EPICS. Her research interests include the professional formation of engineers, diversity, inclusion, and equity in engineering, human-centered design, engineering ethics, and leadership.
Response of stepped conical shells to the blast loading

Problems of the blast loading of inelastic plates and shells have theoretical and practical importance. The plastic response of a conical shell to the blast loading is studied. Material of the shell is assumed to be a perfect plastic material. Piece wise linear approximations of the exact yield surface are used. Making use of the velocity field corresponding to the associated flow law the statically admissible field of stress resultants is constructed. For determination of residual deflections the method of mode form motions is applied. Numerical results are obtained for the exponentially decaying load intensity. Keywords—blast loading, conical shell, plasticity, stepped thickness.