Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Worldwide impacts of landscape anthropization on mosquito abundance and diversity: A meta‐analysis

In recent decades, the emergence and resurgence of vector‐borne diseases have been well documented worldwide, especially in tropical regions where protection and defense tools for human populations are still very limited. In this context, the dynamics of pathogens are influenced by landscape anthropization (i.e., urbanization, deforestation, and agricultural development), and one of the mechanisms through which this occurs is a change in the abundance and/or diversity of the vectors. An increasing number of empirical studies have described heterogeneous effects of landscape anthropization on vector communities; therefore, it is difficult to have an overall picture of these effects on a global scale. Here, we performed a meta‐analysis to quantify the impacts of landscape anthropization on a global scale on the presence/abundance and diversity of mosquitoes, the most important arthropods affecting human health. We obtained 338 effect sizes on 132 mosquito species, compiled from 107 studies in 52 countries that covered almost every part of the world. The results of the meta‐analysis showed an overall decline of mosquito presence/abundance and diversity in response to urbanization, deforestation, and agricultural development, except for a few mosquito species that have been able to exploit landscape anthropization well. Our results highlighted that these few favored mosquito species are those of global concern. They, thus, provide a better understanding of the overall effect of landscape anthropization on vector communities and, more importantly, suggest a greater risk of emergence and transmission of vector‐borne diseases in human‐modified landscapes.
Impact of anti-arrhythmic drugs and catheter ablation on the survival of patients with atrial fibrillation: a population study based on 199 433 new-onset atrial fibrillation patients in the UK

Abstract Aims Utilizing real-world UK data, we aimed to understand: (i) whether anti-arrhythmic drugs and catheter ablation are effective in improving the survival of atrial fibrillation (AF) patients and (ii) which rhythm control option produces better results for the whole AF population and for specific groups of patients, stratified by age, sex, and history of heart failure. Methods and results We identified 199 433 individuals (mean age at diagnosis 75.7 ± 12.7 years; 50.2% women) with new-onset AF diagnosis in nationwide electronic health records linking primary care consultation with hospital data and death registry data from 1998 to 2016. We investigated the survival and causes of death of new-onset AF patients receiving vs. not-receiving rhythm control therapies. During a median follow-up of 2.7 (0.7–6.0) years, we observed a significantly lower mortality in patients receiving rhythm control [multivariate-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) = 0.86, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.84–0.88]. Pulmonary vein isolation was associated with a two-third significant mortality reduction compared with no rhythm control (HR = 0.36, 95% CI 0.28–0.48), flecainide with 50% reduction (HR = 0.52, 95% CI 0.48–0.57), and propafenone and sotalol with reduction by a third (HR = 0.63, 95% CI 0.50–0.81, 0.71, 95% CI 0.68–0.74, respectively). Amiodarone showed no survival benefit in individuals <70 years (HR = 0.99, 95% CI 0.97–1.02). Otherwise, the effect of rhythm control on survival did not differ by age, sex, nor history of heart failure. Conclusion Among individuals with new-onset AF, favourable survival was observed for patients receiving rhythm control treatment. Among different rhythm control strategies, pulmonary vein isolation showed the most pronounced survival benefit.
Practice resource‐focused revision: Standardized pedigree nomenclature update centered on sex and gender inclusivity: A practice resource of the National Society of Genetic Counselors

This focused revision builds on the expert opinions from the original publications of ‘Recommendations for human standardized pedigree nomenclature’ published in 1995 and updated in 2008. Our review of medical publications since 2008 did not identify any fundamental systematic alternative pedigree nomenclature. These findings attest to the relevance of most of the nomenclature with the critical exception of the nomenclature used to denote sex assigned at birth and gender. While we are not recommending the creation of any new pedigree symbols, a major focus of this publication is clarification of the use of symbols and language in the description of the distinction between sex and gender, with a view to ensuring safe and inclusive practice for people who are gender‐diverse or transgender. In addition, we recommend modifications to the way that carrier status is depicted. Our goal is to respect individual differences and identities while maintaining biologically, clinically, and genetically meaningful information.
Assessing the Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Postpartum Depression Using Population-Level Hospital Discharge Data: Longitudinal Retrospective Study

Background In the United States, >3.6 million deliveries occur annually. Among them, up to 20% (approximately 700,000) of women experience postpartum depression (PPD) according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Absence of accurate reporting and diagnosis has made phenotyping of patients with PPD difficult. Existing literature has shown that factors such as race, socioeconomic status, and history of substance abuse are associated with the differential risks of PPD. However, limited research has considered differential temporal associations with the outcome. Objective This study aimed to estimate the disparities in the risk of PPD and time to diagnosis for patients of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. Methods This is a longitudinal retrospective study using the statewide hospital discharge data from Maryland. We identified 160,066 individuals who had a hospital delivery from 2017 to 2019. We applied logistic regression and Cox regression to study the risk of PPD across racial and socioeconomic strata. Multinomial regression was used to estimate the risk of PPD at different postpartum stages. Results The cumulative incidence of PPD diagnosis was highest for White patients (8779/65,028, 13.5%) and lowest for Asian and Pacific Islander patients (248/10,760, 2.3%). Compared with White patients, PPD diagnosis was less likely to occur for Black patients (odds ratio [OR] 0.31, 95% CI 0.30-0.33), Asian or Pacific Islander patients (OR 0.17, 95% CI 0.15-0.19), and Hispanic patients (OR 0.21, 95% CI 0.19-0.22). Similar findings were observed from the Cox regression analysis. Multinomial regression showed that compared with White patients, Black patients (relative risk 2.12, 95% CI 1.73-2.60) and Asian and Pacific Islander patients (relative risk 2.48, 95% CI 1.46-4.21) were more likely to be diagnosed with PPD after 8 weeks of delivery. Conclusions Compared with White patients, PPD diagnosis is less likely to occur in individuals of other races. We found disparate timing in PPD diagnosis across different racial groups and socioeconomic backgrounds. Our findings serve to enhance intervention strategies and policies for phenotyping patients at the highest risk of PPD and to highlight needs in data quality to support future work on racial disparities in PPD.
Fundamental experiment of a polarization‐rotating reflector of Van Atta array design for polarimetric calibration

Polarization‐rotating reflectors are important as a reference target for polarimetric calibration of a synthetic aperture radar. A polarization‐rotating retrodirective reflector of Van Atta array design has already been proposed by one of the authors. This paper describes the result of an experimental verification of the proposed polarization‐rotating retrodirective reflector. The experimental system consists of two subarrays each composed of 2 × 2 dual‐polarized elements for horizontal and vertical polarizations working at 2.4‐GHz frequency band. In the experiment, two subarrays are arranged side by side, and the respective orthogonal polarization ports of the subarrays are connected with lines of the same electrical length to form a one‐dimensional polarization‐rotating Van Atta array. To increase the radar cross section, amplifiers are inserted into the lines. The reflection pattern of the reflector is measured in a radio anechoic chamber by rotating the reflector around the axis perpendicular to the array normal direction. From the experiment, a wider angular response of the proposed reflector in the horizontal direction, which is provided by the retrodirective characteristics of the Van Atta array, than the conventional array reflector of the same element number as the proposed reflector is verified in addition to its polarization‐rotating capability introduced by the dual‐polarized antenna elements.
RNA modifications: an overview of select web-based tools

The field of epitranscriptomics has expanded dramatically in recent years, both in the number of identified RNA modifications and the number of researchers studying them. As knowledge of post-transcriptional modifications continues to expand, numerous new methods have been developed to detect these modifications. Additionally, modifications are being extended to therapeutic settings, such as with recent mRNA vaccines. With this increase in knowledge and use, the community is recognizing the necessity for user-friendly databases to (i) store information from both high- and low-throughput studies and (ii) provide prediction software on how RNA modifications contribute to RNA function and disease. This mini-review highlights select RNA modification databases and their key attributes with the aim of providing a resource to researchers in the field of epitranscriptomics.
Peritoneal carcinomatosis with intraperitoneal immunotherapy: current treatment options and perspectives

ABSTRACT Introduction Peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) is an advanced malignancy that is not sensitive to systemic conventional chemotherapy. Treatment options for PC are usually palliative rather than curative. Cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal (IP) chemotherapy are associated with limited efficacy in patients with PC. However, the peritoneum can produce effective immunity by inducing T-lymphocyte recruitment and proliferation, and the unique immune environment of the peritoneum provides the rationale for IP immunotherapy in PC. Areas covered The authors retrieved relevant documents of IP immunotherapy for PC from PubMed and Medline. This review elaborates on the knowledge of the peritoneal immune microenvironment and IP immunotherapy for PC covering immune stimulators, radioimmunotherapy, catumaxomab, cancer vaccines, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells, and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Expert opinion The prognosis of PC is poor. However, the peritoneal cavity is a unique immune compartment with abundant immune cells which can produce effective immunity. IP immunotherapy may be a promising strategy in patients with PC.
Derivation and External Validation of a Clinical Model to Predict Heart Failure Onset in Patients With Incident Diabetes

OBJECTIVE Heart failure (HF) often develops in patients with diabetes and is recognized for its role in increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in this population. Most existing models predict risk in patients with prevalent rather than incident diabetes and fail to account for sex differences in HF risk factors. We derived sex-specific models in Ontario, Canada to predict HF at diabetes onset and externally validated these models in the U.K. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Retrospective cohort study using international population-based data. Our derivation cohort comprised all Ontario residents aged ≥18 years who were diagnosed with diabetes between 2009 and 2018. Our validation cohort comprised U.K. patients aged ≥35 years who were diagnosed with diabetes between 2007 and 2017. Primary outcome was incident HF. Sex-stratified multivariable Fine and Gray subdistribution hazard models were constructed, with death as a competing event. RESULTS A total of 348,027 Ontarians (45% women) and 54,483 U.K. residents (45% women) were included. At 1, 5, and 9 years, respectively, in the external validation cohort, the C-statistics were 0.81 (95% CI 0.79–0.84), 0.79 (0.77–0.80), and 0.78 (0.76–0.79) for the female-specific model; and 0.78 (0.75–0.80), 0.77 (0.76–0.79), and 0.77 (0.75–0.79) for the male-specific model. The models were well-calibrated. Age, rurality, hypertension duration, hemoglobin, HbA1c, and cardiovascular diseases were common predictors in both sexes. Additionally, mood disorder and alcoholism (heavy drinker) were female-specific predictors, while income and liver disease were male-specific predictors. CONCLUSIONS Our findings highlight the importance of developing sex-specific models and represent an important step toward personalized lifestyle and pharmacologic prevention of future HF development.
Using dynamic microsimulation to project cognitive function in the elderly population

Background A long-term projection model based on nationally representative data and tracking disease progression across Alzheimer’s disease continuum is important for economics evaluation of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias (ADOD) therapy. Methods The Health and Retirement Study (HRS) includes an adapted version of the Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS27) to evaluate respondents’ cognitive function. We developed an ordered probit transition model to predict future TICS27 score. This transition model is utilized in the Future Elderly Model (FEM), a dynamic microsimulation model of health and health-related economic outcomes for the US population. We validated the FEM TICS27 model using a five-fold cross validation approach, by comparing 10-year (2006–2016) simulated outcomes against observed HRS data. Results In aggregate, the distribution of TICS27 scores after ten years of FEM simulation matches the HRS. FEM’s assignment of cognitive/mortality status also matches those observed in HRS on the population level. At the individual level, the area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve is 0.904 for prediction of dementia or dead with dementia in 10 years, the AUROC for predicting significant cognitive decline in two years for mild cognitive impairment patients is 0.722. Conclusions The FEM TICS27 model demonstrates its predictive accuracy for both two- and ten-year cognitive outcomes. Our cognition projection model is unique in its validation with an unbiased approach, resulting in a high-quality platform for assessing the burden of cognitive decline and translating the benefit of innovative therapies into long-term value to society.
High‐fidelity, high‐spatial‐resolution diffusion magnetic resonance imaging of ex vivo whole human brain at ultra‐high gradient strength with structured low‐rank echo‐planar imaging ghost correction

Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) of whole ex vivo human brain specimens enables three‐dimensional (3D) mapping of structural connectivity at the mesoscopic scale, providing detailed evaluation of fiber architecture and tissue microstructure at a spatial resolution that is difficult to access in vivo. To account for the short T2 and low diffusivity of fixed tissue, ex vivo dMRI is often acquired using strong diffusion‐sensitizing gradients and multishot/segmented 3D echo‐planar imaging (EPI) sequences to achieve high spatial resolution. However, the combination of strong diffusion‐sensitizing gradients and multishot/segmented EPI readout can result in pronounced ghosting artifacts incurred by nonlinear spatiotemporal variations in the magnetic field produced by eddy currents. Such ghosting artifacts cannot be corrected with conventional correction solutions and pose a significant roadblock to leveraging human MRI scanners with ultrahigh gradients for ex vivo whole‐brain dMRI. Here, we show that ghosting‐correction approaches that correct for either polarity‐related ghosting or shot‐to‐shot variations in a separate manner are suboptimal for 3D multishot diffusion‐weighted EPI experiments in fixed human brain specimens using strong diffusion‐sensitizing gradients on the 3‐T Connectom MRI scanner, resulting in orientationally biased dMRI estimates. We apply a recently developed advanced k‐space reconstruction method based on structured low‐rank matrix (SLM) modeling that handles both polarity‐related ghosting and shot‐to‐shot variation simultaneously, to mitigate artifacts in high‐angular resolution multishot dMRI data acquired in several fixed human brain specimens at 0.7–0.8‐mm isotropic spatial resolution using b‐values up to 10,000 s/mm2 and gradient strengths up to 280 mT/m. We demonstrate the improved mapping of diffusion tensor imaging and fiber orientation distribution functions in key neuroanatomical areas distributed across the whole brain using SLM‐based EPI ghost correction compared with alternative techniques.
Fluid Mechanics Approach to Perfusion Quantification: Vasculature Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation, Quantitative Transport Mapping (QTM) Analysis of Dynamics Contrast Enhanced MRI, and Application in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Classification

<italic>Objective:</italic> We quantify liver perfusion using quantitative transport mapping (QTM) method that is free of arterial input function (AIF). QTM method is validated in a vasculature computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation and is applied for processing dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) MRI images in differentiating liver with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) from healthy controls using pathology reference in a preclinical rabbit model. <italic>Methods:</italic> QTM method was validated on a liver perfusion simulation based on fluid dynamics using a rat liver vasculature model and the mass transport equation. In the NAFLD grading task, DCE MRI images of 7 adult rabbits with methionine choline-deficient diet-induced nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), 8 adult rabbits with simple steatosis (SS) were acquired and processed using QTM method and dual-input two compartment Kety's method respectively. Statistical analysis was performed on six perfusion parameters: velocity magnitude <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$| {\boldsymbol{u}} |$</tex-math></inline-formula> derived from QTM, liver arterial blood flow <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\boldsymbol{LB}}{{\boldsymbol{F}}}_{\boldsymbol{a}}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, liver venous blood flow <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\boldsymbol{LB}}{{\boldsymbol{F}}}_{\boldsymbol{v}}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, permeability <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${{\boldsymbol{K}}}^{{\boldsymbol{trans}}}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, blood volume <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${{\boldsymbol{V}}}_{\boldsymbol{p}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> and extravascular space volume <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">${{\boldsymbol{V}}}_{\boldsymbol{e}}$</tex-math></inline-formula> averaged in liver ROI. <italic>Results:</italic> In the simulation, QTM method successfully reconstructed blood flow, reduced error by 48% compared to Kety's method. In the preclinical study, only QTM |u| showed significant difference between high grade NAFLD group and low grade NAFLD group. <italic>Conclusion:</italic> QTM postprocesses DCE-MRI automatically through deconvolution in space and time to solve the inverse problem of the transport equation. Comparing with Kety's method, QTM method showed higher accuracy and better differentiation in NAFLD classification task. <italic>Significance:</italic> We propose to apply QTM method in liver DCE MRI perfusion quantification.
The collisional interaction of a beam of charged particles with a hydrogen target of arbitrary ionization level. [chromospheric heating during solar flares

The classical theory of scattering under the Coulomb potential of both charged and neutral particles is used to derive formulae for the energy deposition rate and mean scattering of a beam of charged particles interacting with a cold hydrogen target of arbitrary ionization level as a function of the column density traversed by the beam. These general results hold for any form of stable injection energy spectrum, and their relevance to the existing literature on chromospheric heating during solar flares is discussed.
Database Similarity Search in Metric Spaces: Limitations and Opportunities

Generic database similarity search is one of the most challenging problems in current database research. Generic data are not simply structured data with several keys of numeric or alphabetic types. Traditional search algorithms that only check specified fields and keys are not effective. Similarity searches find the objects that are similar to a target using a specified similarity criterion. Tree-structured indexing techniques based on metric spaces are widely used to solve this problem. Existing methods can be divided into two categories: approaches based upon Voronoi partitions and approaches based upon reference points. The later one is the focus of this research. The problem of database similarity search using reference points in metric spaces is formulated, and the key issues are addressed. This research focuses upon two broad sets of open problems: Analysis of the limitations of approaches to similarity search using metric spaces, and development of criteria that can be and to evaluate the opportunities for new design methods. The performance limitations of similarity search based on metric spaces are analyzed and proved to be imposed by statistical characteristics of the data collection. A new concept, range threshold, is defined to evaluate the feasibility of tree-structured indexing techniques based upon reference points in metric spaces. A method to estimate the range threshold is provided, which makes it possible to check the feasibility of this approach for a data set prior to implementation. The opportunities for different approaches are evaluated by criteria based on search efficiency and utility. Comparison of different Minkowski metrics and data extraction methods using PCA (principle component analysis) are presented. Search utilities are demonstrated by examples. Several issues related to index tree structure are addressed. iv Experimental results show that a taller tree yields better performance. All these results indicate that the approaches based upon reference points in metric spaces are promising.
Machine Reading, Fast and Slow: When Do Models “Understand” Language?

Two of the most fundamental issues in Natural Language Understanding (NLU) at present are: (a) how it can established whether deep learning-based models score highly on NLU benchmarks for the ”right” reasons; and (b) what those reasons would even be. We investigate the behavior of reading comprehension models with respect to two linguistic ”skills”: coreference resolution and comparison. We propose a definition for the reasoning steps expected from a system that would be ”reading slowly”, and compare that with the behavior of five models of the BERT family of various sizes, observed through saliency scores and counterfactual explanations. We find that for comparison (but not coreference) the systems based on larger encoders are more likely to rely on the ”right” information, but even they struggle with generalization, suggesting that they still learn specific lexical patterns rather than the general principles of comparison.