Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Machine learning may not be as good as expected : Evidence from unemployment rate forecasting

TThe rapid development of machine learning (ML) provides new tools for predicting financial-economic time series. However, this paper argues that, from the perspective of time series, ML prediction is merely a one-step static forecasting, which is usually good but of limited use. This study evaluates the predictive capability of ML methods by multistep dynamic forecasts, we use data of two frequencies: Monthly US unemployment rate and daily volatility of exchange-traded fund (ETF) price. Our results show that: First, for one-step forecasting, all models exhibit good predictability; among them, ML methods do not outperform others, and several nonlinear statistical time series models outperform MLs. Second, MLs are not good forecasters when it comes to multistep forecasting; except the deep learning method known as long short-term memory (LSTM), other ML methods and econometric time series models show themselves as poor forecasters. Moreover, although LSTM outdid itself in forecasting, its performance requires a deeply and properly trained pattern recognition from the network loops.
Distributed Scatterer Interferometry With the Refinement of Spatiotemporal Coherence

The state-of-the-art techniques have demonstrated that coherence error degrades the performance of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry (InSAR) for distributed scatterers (DSs). This article aims at fully evaluating the influence of coherence error on DS InSAR time-series analysis. In particular, we present a methodology to increase the estimation accuracy of DS interferometry, with emphasis on spatiotemporal coherence refinement. The motive behind this is that bias removal and variance mitigation of sample coherence matrix impose optimum weighting for estimating phase series and geophysical parameters of interest, whereas maximization of temporal coherence in a reference network can avoid spatial error propagation during the least-squares adjustment. Rather than developing independent processing chains, we integrate this method into SqueeSAR technique and simultaneously take the advantage of StaMPS into consideration. Using simulation and real data over southwestern China, comprehensive comparisons before and after spatiotemporal coherence refinement are performed over various coherence scenarios. The results tested from different phase and displacement rate estimators validate the effectiveness of the presented method.
Review of the assessment of functional impairment related to posttraumatic stress disorder

In 2010, the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense jointly published a new clinical practice guideline (CPG) for the management of posttraumatic stress. The CPG provides evidence-based recommendations for diagnosing and treating a spectrum of stress-related disorders. Included in the CPG were recommendations for assessing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other stress disorderrelated functional impairment. This article complements those CPG recommendations by providing information that may further guide clinicians in the assessment of functional impairment related to PTSD and other stress-related disorders. We briefly review some of the empirical literature on the association between PTSD and functional impairment and some of the more frequently used methods and measures for assessing functional impairment and introduce a new measure currently being developed by our group. We suggest that information obtained via patient self-report and/or clinician rating be supplemented whenever possible with collateral data from friends, family members, coworkers, or supervisors to provide a complete picture of current and premorbid functional status. Finally, we explore several important issues that we encourage clinicians to keep in mind when assessing functional impairment among Veterans and Active Duty servicemembers. Clinical Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov; PT074941, “Development and validation of a PTSD-related functional impairment scale; http://www.clinicaltrials. gov.
Exposure to particulate matter and carbon monoxide and cause-specific Cardiovascular-Respiratory disease mortality in Ahvaz

Abstract Recently the short term effects of air pollutants on cardiovascular and respiratory morbidity and mortality has attracted the attention of many researchers. This study comprehensively examined the association between short-term exposure to particulate matter (PM) and carbon monoxide (CO), on non-accidental mortality, and mortality due to respiratory, cardiovascular, and cerebrovascular diseases. Daily death and air pollutants data including PM10, PM2.5, and CO from 2008 to 2017 was inquired. A time-series study using modified linear distributed lag models, combined with quasi-Poisson regression was conducted for evaluating the effect of pollutants on mortality up to 7 days lag; adjusted for day of the week, temperature and relative humidity. A significant and direct relation was seen between PM2.5 and non-accidental, and respiratory deaths. For every 10 /m3 increase in PM2.5, the risk of non-accidental deaths increased 0.1% after 2 and 6 days lag, and the risk of respiratory deaths increased 0.4% after 5 days lag. Also, for every 10 /m3 increase in PM10, hypertension related death increased 0.2% after 4 days lag. Ultimately, for every 10 /m3 increase in CO, hypertension related death increased 30.5%, ischemic heart disease deaths increased 21.1%, and cerebrovascular disease related deaths increased 42.6%; after 7, 1, and 4 days lag respectively. Short-term encounter with PM and CO is associated with increased mortality. Urban and rural residents should avoid polluted air especially during dust storms. More serious air pollution control is needed in Ahvaz.
Modern Radiotherapy Era in Breast Cancer

Radiation therapy (RT) is one of the major treatment modalities that are used in breast cancer treatment, and depending on the chest-wall anatomy, RT fields have to be cus-tomized. Techniques used in planning have been evolving since last two decades from two dimensional (2D) to three-dimensional (3D), while intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) and even proton therapy have been an option in daily approach. In addition, technological hardware and software advances in delivery and planning systems, total treatment duration of breast RT have been shortened in last decades along with recent hypofractionated radiotherapy schemes or emerging partial-breast irradiation protocols. The other attractive approach—acceler- ated partial breast irradiation (APBI) could be a reasonable option for highly selected subpopulation of early-stage breast cancer patients out of a clinical trial. Long-term follow-up results have emerged heart and coronary sparing with maximum safety and efficacy. The most important advance could be named as cardiac sparing—deep breath- hold approach—in all the modern technique improvement. Although most advanced techniques in management of breast cancer have not been verified to increase survival, we suggest recommending resource stratified advanced in order to provide best technical and clinical care in this long-term survivor candidates.
Bortezomib Improves Endothelial Thromboresistance Via Induction of KLF Transcription Factors.

Background: Patients with multiple myeloma (MM) are at high risk for venothromboembolic events (VTE). Recent studies, however, suggest that MM patients treated with bortezomib, an approved proteasome inhibitor with potent NF-kB inhibitory effects, appear to have a lower risk of VTE compared to those treated with other therapies. We hypothesize that this could be due to a beneficial effect of bortezomib on endothelial thromboresistance. Methods and Results: Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were incubated with bortezomib for 20 hours and changes in the expression of a panel of coagulation and inflammation-related genes measured by qPCR. Bortezomib stimulated baseline expression of anticoagulant genes (thrombomodulin (TM), eNOS and tissue factor pathway inhibitor), suppressed baseline expression of pro-coagulant genes (vWF and protease activated receptor-1) and suppressed cytokine-mediated induction of E-selectin, VCAM-1 and tissue factor. Most pronounced, was the dose-dependent upregulation of TM, a member of the protein C anticoagulant pathway (229 ± 15% and 341 ± 7% of control, at 5 nM and 10 nM bortezomib, respectively, p in vivo significance of these findings, mice were administered ascending doses of bortezomib for 7 days and TM expression measured in selected tissue. Compared to controls, a dose of 0.8 mg/kg bortezomib ip increased TM gene and protein expression in the liver by 7.0 ± 1.1 and 9.5 ± 2.9-fold, respectively (p Conclusions: Bortezomib markedly stimulates endothelial TM expression, both in vitro and in vivo in a tissue-specific manner. TM upregulation appears dependent on the induction of KLF2 and KLF4 transcription factors rather than by inhibition of the NFkB pathways. Our findings provide a rationale for further studies of bortezomib-induced enhancement of endothelial thromboresistance in patients with MM and may help explain why these patients are reduced risk for VTE.
Pre‐adaptation to climate change through topography‐driven phenotypic plasticity

Climate change will increase the level of drought stress experienced by plant communities, but the spatial distribution of projected changes in dryness remains highly uncertain. Species can, to some extent, deal with climate uncertainty through natural variation in adaptive responses to environmental heterogeneity and predictability. Biodiversity conservation could thus target populations pre‐adapted to climatic heterogeneity to anticipate climate uncertainty. Disentangling adaptive evolution of trait means versus trait plasticity, however, requires a sampling design with genetic replicates grown under distinct environmental conditions. Here, we applied three soil moisture treatments to genetic replicates of Fragaria vesca plants raised from seeds that were sampled in distinct topographical settings, to study adaptive trait and plasticity divergence in response to drought. We demonstrate that various plant traits evolved along distinct topographical gradients. Populations on south‐exposed slopes, for example, retained high levels of both flowering and runner formation under drought stress, while north‐faced populations hardly flowered under reduced soil moisture levels. Aspect but not elevation was found to coincide with variation in plant traits, suggesting that microenvironmental variation rather than general clines in elevation drive evolution in mountainous landscapes. Our results also indicate that traits and their plasticity can evolve independently in response to distinct topographical stressors. Synthesis. We conclude that heterogeneous landscapes (a) harbour micro‐refugia of adaptive genetic diversity that protect natural populations against environmental change, and (b) represent invaluable sources of quantitative genetic variation that could support conservation where climate projections are inconclusive.
A gradient-type algorithm for constrained optimization with application to microstructure optimization

We propose a method to optimize periodic microstructures for obtaining homogenized materials with negative Poisson ratio, using shape and/or topology variations in the model hole. The proposed approach employs worst case design in order to minimize the Poisson ratio of the (possibly anisotropic) homogenized elastic tensor in several prescribed directions. We use a minimization algorithm for inequality constraints based on an active set strategy and on a new algorithm for solving minimization problems with equality constraints, belonging to the class of null-space gradient methods. It uses first order derivatives of both the objective function and the constraints. The step is computed as a sum between a steepest descent step (minimizing the objective functional) and a correction step related to the Newton method (aiming to solve the equality constraints). The linear combination between these two steps involves coefficients similar to Lagrange multipliers which are computed in a natural way based on the Newton method. The algorithm uses no projection and thus the iterates are not feasible; the constraints are only satisfied in the limit (after convergence). A local convergence result is proven for a general nonlinear setting, where both the objective functional and the constraints are not necessarily convex functions.
Design of a tunable LNA and its variability analysis through surrogate modeling

In this paper, a tunable low noise amplifier (LNA), which provides a bandwidth of 1 GHz, has been designed. The tunability of the LNA has been achieved by employing MOS varactors in accumulation mode. A shift in the LNA performance has been observed with the change in the total capacitance of the varactors through the control voltage. Starting from 2 to 3 GHz, the proposed tunable LNA provides a noise figure (NF) of less than 3 dB, a voltage gain of 12 dB and higher, while maintaining input and output power matching (S11 and S22) metrics at least below −12 dB. The total power consumption of the circuit is 23 mW. Moreover, two case studies that demonstrate the usage of surrogate modeling in RF circuit design have been described. Three‐ and six‐dimensional surrogate models have been built to illustrate the effect of bondwires on the variability of several LNA design metrics.
Information Entropy Approach for a Disorderless One-Dimensional Lattice

Dimensionless conductance through a disorderless lattice is studied using an alternative approach. Usually, the conductance of an ordered lattice is studied at a fixed size, either finite or infinite if the crystalline limit is reached. Here, we propose one to consider the set of systems of all sizes from zero to infinite. As a consequence, we find that the conductance presents fluctuations, with respect to system size, at a fixed energy. At the band edge, these fluctuations are described by a statistical distribution satisfied by an ensemble of chaotic cavities with reflection symmetry, which also satisfies a maximum-entropy, or minimum-information, criterion.
Differences in Efficacy, Resistance Mechanism and Target Protein Interaction between Two PPO Inhibitors in Palmer Amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri)

Abstract A weed survey was conducted on 134 Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri S. Watson) populations from Mississippi and Arkansas in 2017 to investigate the spread of resistance to protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PPO) inhibitors using fomesafen as a proxy. Fomesafen resistance was found in 42% of the A. palmeri populations. To investigate the resistance basis of different PPO inhibitors, we further characterized 10 representative populations by in planta bioassay in a controlled environment and molecular characterizations (DNA sequencing and TaqMan® gene expression assay). A total of 160 plants were sprayed with a labeled field rate (1X) of fomesafen or salfufenacil and screened for the presence of three known resistance-endowing mutations in the mitochondrial PPX2 gene (ΔGly-210, Arg-128-Gly, Gly-399-Ala). To compare the potencies of fomesafen and saflufenacil, dose–response studies were conducted on two highly resistant and one sensitive populations. The interaction of the two herbicides with the target protein harboring known PPX2 mutations was also analyzed. Our results showed that: (1) 90% of the fomesafen- or saflufenacil-resistant plants have at least one of the three known PPX2 mutations, with ΔGly-210 being the most prevalent; (2) saflufenacil is more potent than fomesafen, with five to nine times lower resistance/susceptible (R/S) ratios; (3) fomesafen selects for more diverse mutations, and computational inhibitor/target modeling of fomesafen suggest a weaker binding affinity in addition to a smaller interaction volume and volume overlap with the substrate protoporphyrinogen IX than saflufenacil. As a result, saflufenacil shows reduced sensitivity to PPX2 target-site mutations. Results from current study can help pave the way for designing weed management strategies to delay resistance development and maintain the efficacy of PPO inhibitors.
A Peptide Modified Hydrogel Therapy for Acute Myocardial Infarction

Myocardial infarction (MI) results in the death of cardiomyocytes (CM) followed by scar formation and pathological remodeling of the heart. We postulate that immobilization of the pro-survival angiopoietin-1-derived peptide, QHREDGS, to a chitosan-collagen hydrogel could produce a clinically translatable thermo-responsive hydrogel to attenuate post-MI cardiac remodeling. Conjugation of QHREDGS peptide to chitosan does not interfere with gelation, structure, or mechanical properties of chitosan-collagen hydrogel blends. The storage modulus of 2.5mg/mL 1:1 mass:mass chitosan:collagen was measured to be 54.9±9.1 Pa and loss modulus of 6.1±0.9 Pa. Dose response of the QHREDGS peptide was assessed and it was found that CMs encapsulated in High peptide gel (651±8 nmol peptide/mL-gel) showed improved morphology, viability, and metabolic activity in comparison to the Low peptide (100±30 nmol peptide/mL-gel) and Control (No Peptide) groups. Construct (CMs in hydrogel) functional properties were not significantly different between the groups, however success rate of obtaining a beating construct was improved in the hydrogel with the High amount of QHREDGS
PCI IN PATIENT WITH HEAVY CALCIFIED LESION. MANAGEMENT AND BALLOON RUPTURE COMPLICATION

Balloon angioplasty in calcified coronary lesions may have a decreased success rate and an increased incidence of complications. This lesion remain a technical challenge in interventional cardiology despite novel approaches and devices. We describe a case with heavy calcified coronary lesion in LAD that was not only resistant to high-pressure inflation of conventional, non-compliant balloons and cutting balloon but the inflations also results in balloon rupture. Even, the first balloon became fracture and entrapment in LAD. The fractured balloon could be removed using second baloon inflation in LCX. The angioplasty balloon was successfully performed after rotational atherectomy by rotablator and succesfully continued by implantation stent DES.
RANCANG BANGUN TACHOMETER DIGITAL BERBASIS ARDUINO DILENGKAPI CHARGING DAN MODE PENYIMPAN DATA

A good and feasible centrifuge is needed in the world of health, therefore a digital tachometer is needed to calibrate a centrifuge. Digital tachometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the rotation speed of a motor. This tachometer will be tested to function by being compared to using Digital Laser Photo Tachometer. This tachometer will display the number of rotations per minute of a motor according to the speed setting on the centrifuge using the output of this E18-D80NK sensor which will later be processed by the Arduino Nano. As for this feature charger and data storage mode, so that user can save the data of measurement results on SD Card, and beside that user can also be a way of charging when after usage or before usage. At testing the tool used point settings 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, and 12000 RPM. Based on the measurement results of centrifuge using tachometer module and comparison tachometer have average percentage of error varying at each setting point. The smallest error 0.8% at the setting Point 3000 RPM, while the largest error 4.9% at the setting point 1000 RPM. The Tacometer error value on this Centrifuge measurement is still within the tolerance limit of ± 10%
Development and study of innovative deep water piled structures of high bearing capacity

Deep water piled clusters and structures supported by large mono-piles are designed to take up significant lateral and pressing loads. In particular it relates to offshore structures which foundations need long piled supports of high bearing capacity. Two innovative structures and technologies have been worked out to optimize stress-strain state of piled clusters and mooring/fender dolphins. is effective and less resource-demanding design when connection of all pipe piles with large diameter steel casing provides their joint work and favorable distribution of stresses and deformations in pile cluster. (2) To increase energy-absorbing capacity of mooring/fender dolphins it is worked out and researched a new design of combined tubular mono-pile structure. It incorporates internal flexible pile and damping element (cushion) placed between external and internal piles’ heads. For both innovative and patented solutions laboratory tests and numerical modeling were fulfilled and compared. results demonstrated advantages of proposed solutions and explained peculiarities of their innovative structures.
Manipulation-based skills for anthropomorphic human-arm system based on integrated ANFIS and vector calculus

In this paper, we focus on developing our new approaches to solve Inverse Kinematics using Vector Calculus and integrating the ANFIS module. Specifically, these approaches are evaluated in term of accuracy and performance on the 5-DOF robotic arm model inspired by the human arm structure. Evaluation for our new approaches are described detail in this paper and therefore shows the efficiency and robustness of our methods and potentially leads a new research direction in modeling kinematics of anthro-pomorphic robotic arm.
Identifying the role of RGMc in an animal model of Multiple Sclerosis

The Repulsive Guidance Molecule a (RGMa) has recently been implicated in the development of Multiple sclerosis (MS). We report for the first time that the third member of the RGM family, RGMc, is downregulated in the sera of mice induced with Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (EAE), a well-characterized animal model of MS. Treatment with soluble RGMc (sRGMc) significantly delayed the onset of EAE and reduced the clinical severity of disease. Furthermore, RGMc knockout animals developed a stronger disease progression than wild-type controls. In vitro binding studies outlined a mechanism by which soluble RGMa and RGMc competed for interaction with their shared receptor, Neogenin. Finally, we demonstrated that administration of soluble RGMc halted leukocyte infiltration by interfering with the RGMa-mediated RhoA permeabilisation of the Blood-Brain Barrier (BBB). Overall, we show that RGMc treatment alleviated the clinical severity of EAE by enhancing BBB integrity and preventing leukocyte infiltration.
Preconception planning in diabetes mellitus

Abstract Preconception planning is an important part of obstetric care in women with preexisting diabetes who want to ensure a healthy pregnancy with optimal foetal and maternal outcomeThis review discusses the goals and opportunities for preconception counseling. It focuses on the organization of care and the evaluation required, prior to conception. It emphasizes monitoring and treatment with insulin, medical nutrition therapy, physical activity and behavioural therapy to ensure good glycemic control.The review also covers complication and co-morbid conditions such as nephropathy, neuropathy, retinopathy, hypertension and dyslipidemia, and touches upon the male factor.