Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic cataract detection and grading using Deep Convolutional Neural Network

Cataract is one of the most prevalent causes of blindness in the industrialized world, accounting for more than 50% of blindness. Early detection and treatment can reduce the suffering of cataract patients and prevent visual impairment from turning into blindness. But the expertise of trained eye specialists is necessary for clinical cataract detection and grading, which may cause difficulties to everybody's early intervention due to the underlying costs. Existing studies on automatic cataract detection and grading based on fundus images utilize a predefined set of image features that may provide an incomplete, redundant, or even noisy representation. This paper aims to investigate the performance and efficiency by using Depp Convolutional Neural Network (DCNN) to detect and grad cataract automatically, it also visualize some of the feature maps at pool5 layer with their high-order empirical semantic meaning, providing a explanation to the feature representation extracted by DCNN. The proposed DCNN classification system is cross validated on different number of population-based clinical retinal fundus images collected from hospital, up to 5620 images. There are two conclusions suggested in this paper: The first one is, the interference of local uneven illumination and the reflection of eyes were overcome by using the retinal fundus images after G-filter, which makes an significant contribution to DCNN classification. The second one is, with the increase of the amount of available samples, the DCNN classification accuracies are increasing, and the fluctuation range of accuracies are more stable. The best accuracy, our method achieved, is 93.52% and 86.69% in cataract detection and grading tasks separately. It is demonstrated in this paper that the DCNN classifier outperforms state-of-the-art in the performance. Further more, The proposed method has the potential to be applied to other eye diseases in future.
G-Protein β3 Subunit C825T Variant, Nephropathy and Hypertension in Patients with Type 2 (Non-Insulin-Dependent) Diabetes mellitus

Background: There is substantial evidence that hereditary factors contribute to the predisposition to diabetic nephropathy. On the other hand, it has been suggested that genetics of diabetic nephropathy and hypertension may overlap. Recently, a C to T substitution (C825T) in the gene encoding for the guanine-nucleotide-binding protein β3 subunit (GNB3) was identified, and this molecular variant was found to be associated with enhanced activation of G proteins and increased risk of the development of hypertension. The aim of the study was to test whether GNB3 C825T polymorphism contributes to the development of incipient or overt nephropathy or hypertension in type 2 diabetic patients. Methods: GNB3 genotype was determined in 130 type 2 diabetic patients with overt proteinuria or chronic renal failure, 155 diabetic patients with microalbuminuria and 163 control subjects with normoalbuminuria and known type 2 diabetes duration of at least 10 years. Results: No differences in GNB3 genotype distributions or allele frequencies between the study groups were found. Also, no differences between normotensive and hypertensive patients were demonstrated. Conclusion: The study provided evidence against the major impact of the GNB3 C825T polymorphism on the increased risk of the development of nephropathy or hypertension in type 2 diabetic patients.
Artificial Intelligence in Business Communication: A Snapshot

Despite artificial intelligence’s far-reaching influence in the financial reporting and other business domains, there is a surprising dearth of accessible descriptions about the assumptions underlying the software’s development along with an absence of empirical evidence assessing the viability and usefulness of this communication tool. With these observations in mind, the purposes of this study are to explain how automated text summarization applications work from an overarching, semitechnical, modestly theoretical perspective and, using ROUGE-1 (Recall-Oriented Understudy for Gisting Evaluation–1) evaluation metrics, assess how effective the summarization software is when summarizing complex business reports. The results of this study show that the extraction-based summarization system produced moderately satisfactory results in terms of extracting relevant instances of the text from the business reports. Much work still needs to be accomplished in the area of precision and recall in extraction-based systems before the software can match a human’s ability to capture the gist of a body of text.
Antenatal prophylaxis of Rh immunization with 250 μg anti‐D immunoglobulin

Anti-D immunoglobulin (250 μg) was given i.m. to 830 Rh-negative primigravidae and multigravidae round the 32nd to 34th week of gestation. The multigravidae had previously been treated with anti-D immunoglobulin post partum or after abortion and had been followed up serologically after 8 months. Five hundred and twenty-nine of the women delivered Rh-positive infants and received another injection of anti-D immunoglobulin (250 μg) within 72 hours of delivery. At the serological follow-up 8 months after delivery 2 women (0.4%) had weak anti-D antibodies by the papain technique. No anti-D could be detected in these 2 women 14 and 20 months, respectively, after delivery. In a previously performed postnatal clinical study with 250 μg anti-D immunoglobulin the failure rate was 1.6% (10 out of 645 women). Thus, antenatal prophylaxis significantly (p<0.05) reduced the incidence of Rh immunization. The haemoglobin and bilirubin levels in cord blood and capillary blood did not differ in the Rh-positive and Rh-negat.
Comparing Binaural Pre-processing Strategies II

Several binaural audio signal enhancement algorithms were evaluated with respect to their potential to improve speech intelligibility in noise for users of bilateral cochlear implants (CIs). 50% speech reception thresholds (SRT50) were assessed using an adaptive procedure in three distinct, realistic noise scenarios. All scenarios were highly nonstationary, complex, and included a significant amount of reverberation. Other aspects, such as the perfectly frontal target position, were idealized laboratory settings, allowing the algorithms to perform better than in corresponding real-world conditions. Eight bilaterally implanted CI users, wearing devices from three manufacturers, participated in the study. In all noise conditions, a substantial improvement in SRT50 compared to the unprocessed signal was observed for most of the algorithms tested, with the largest improvements generally provided by binaural minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) beamforming algorithms. The largest overall improvement in speech intelligibility was achieved by an adaptive binaural MVDR in a spatially separated, single competing talker noise scenario. A no-pre-processing condition and adaptive differential microphones without a binaural link served as the two baseline conditions. SRT50 improvements provided by the binaural MVDR beamformers surpassed the performance of the adaptive differential microphones in most cases. Speech intelligibility improvements predicted by instrumental measures were shown to account for some but not all aspects of the perceptually obtained SRT50 improvements measured in bilaterally implanted CI users.
Pulmonary Viral Infections in the Immunocompromised Host

Therapeutic advances over the past two decades have created a dramatic increase in the number and variety of immunosuppressed patients. Recipients of organ transplants and patients treated with intensive cytotoxic therapy have experienced prolonged survival, but these patients are susceptible to a variety of infectious complications. The lungs are the primary site involved in life-threatening infections and several investigators have reviewed the general approach to diagnosis and management of pulmonary infections in the immunocompromised host. Despite the large number of human respiratory viruses and frequent viral respiratory infections in normal hosts, there are relatively few viruses that have caused pulmonary disease in immunocompromised patients. The viruses involved are primarily those of the herpes group: cytomegalovirus (CMV), herpes simplex virus (HSV), and varicella-zoster virus (VZV). Although the number of viral agents is limited, pulmonary viral infections have been a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the immunosuppressed patient population. In this article, we review the clinical features of these pulmonary viral infections and oudine the approach to diagnosis and management.
Real Indians: Policing or Protecting Authentic Indigenous Identity?

Research shows that the institutionalization of legitimacy criteria has created contested meanings of being indigenous to the United States, which leads to an unrelenting debate about authentic indigeneity among indigenous people and between indigenous communities. While instituted through colonizing federal Indian policy, the “real Indian” trope is now a social fact for American Indians. Thus, indigeneity claims commonly encounter resistance in the United States, even within indigenous communities. This work explores how indigeneity claims encounter opposition at interpersonal and group levels and the consequences of authenticity policing. I ask two guiding questions: What authenticity markers hold the most value for American Indians? How do American Indians justify authenticity policing? Using a qualitative approach and an indigenous epistemology, I examine the phenomenon of internalizing the real Indian trope and the impact of policing authenticity through conversations with 45 indigenous people. I find that achieving authenticity is elusive because of its dynamic nature within the local specificity of social contexts. I present and discuss two major signifiers of American Indian identity and major sites of authenticity contestation: (1) blood as protection, culture, and belonging, and (2) Indian cards as protection, responsibility, and belonging.
Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy versus laparoscopic gastric greater curvature plication: a prospective randomized comparative study

Background Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) involves resection of a significant portion of the stomach. Laparoscopic greater curvature plication (LGCP) is a relatively new alternative procedure similar to LSG, but without the need for gastric resection. Patients and methods Fifty patients fulfilled the National Institutes of Health criteria and were assigned randomly to receive either LGCP (n = 25) [16 women and nine men; mean age 32.1 years (19-49 years) and mean BMI 47.8 kg/m 2 (42-57 kg/m 2 )] or LSG (n = 25) [18 women and seven men; mean age 34.8 years (18-58 years) and mean BMI 46.8 kg/m 2 (41-55 kg/m 2 )] by a block randomization method. Patients were studied in terms of postoperative weight loss, changes in hypertension, HbA1c, and postoperative complications. Results All procedures were completed laparoscopically. Follow-up was 24 months. The mean hospital stay was 36 h (range 24-144 h) for both groups. No intraoperative complications occurred. Postoperatively, one case of minor leak was detected after LSG and two cases of stenosis following LGCP. All patients experienced postoperative excess weight loss and improvement in HbA1c. The improvement was significantly better in the LSG group in terms of the change in BMI (mean 14.45 compared with 10.35 in LGCP) and change in HbA1c (mean 1.2 compared with 0.5 in LGCP); the change in hypertension was not statistically significant. Conclusion LGCP is feasible, safe, and effective, but has an inferior weight-loss effect and is less effective in diabetes compared to LSG for morbidly obese patients with BMI above 40 kg/m 2 .
Intensive language therapy in chronic aphasia: Which aspects contribute most?

Background: Recent research suggests the effectiveness of short‐term highly intensive treatment approaches in the chronic stage of aphasia. However, the effective elements of such treatment need to be determined. This study was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, Grant RO 805/11‐4) and the Kuratorium Zentrales Nervensystem (Kuratorium ZNS, Grant 2001013). The study was carried out in cooperation with the Kliniken Schmieder (Konstanz and Allensbach) and the Hegau Jugendwerk (Gailingen). Aims: The present study's aim was to evaluate which factors attribute to the success of aphasia therapy. An intensive (3 hours/day, 10 consecutive days) model‐orientated aphasia therapy (MOAT), which considers patients' individual symptoms, was evaluated and therapy effects were compared to those of a similarly intensive training focusing on active speaking elements (constraint‐induced aphasia therapy, CIAT) in order to identify the effective elements. Methods & Procedures: 12 patients with chronic aphasia received 30 hours of MOAT over 10 days. Language functions were assessed with a standardised language test (Aachen Aphasia Test) and a naming task prior to therapy, after therapy, and at a 6‐month follow‐up. In addition, the amount and quality of communication were assessed with questionnaires as an indication of transfer to everyday communication. Results of this treatment group were compared to those of 27 patients who were treated according to principles of CIAT. Outcomes & Results: Language functions improved significantly following treatment relative to the pre‐treatment scores, and the improvements remained stable across the follow‐up period. Effects were comparable to those of CIAT for most variables, except for written language and perception of everyday communication which improved more after MOAT than after CIAT. The naming task disclosed generalisation to untreated items for MOAT. Conclusions: Results confirm that an intense training focused on individual deficits leads to substantial and durable improvements in language functions in patients with chronic aphasia. The comparison across treatments suggests consideration of the functional deficit, written language, and everyday communication as effective elements in the rehabilitation of chronic aphasia.
IEEE 802.11 DCF performance evaluation using one-dimensional discrete time chains

Previously proposed analytical studies for IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function model the behavior of a wireless station operating under saturation conditions as a two-dimensional discrete time Markov chain. In this document, we show that the two-dimensional chain can be partitioned into two one-dimensional chains. Such a partitioning not only simplifies the analysis, but also significantly reduces the number of state variables
Major depression in hospitalized medically ill older men: Documentation, management, and outcome

Fifty‐three hospitalized elderly men with medical illness were diagnosed with major depressive disorder and followed up for a mean of 2.3 months. Documentation and management of the depression by medical housestaff during the followup period were examined. There was no note of depression in the medical records of 44% of depressed patients, and depression was on the active problem list of only 32%. Followup and management plans for the depression after discharge were documented in 29%. No form of treatment was prescribed for 44% of depressed patients. Outcomes were determined by psychiatric evaluation at the end of the followup period. Of the 33 patients still alive and evaluated at followup, 64% had persistent depression, 18% improved, and 18% were in complete remission. No baseline patient sociodemographic or health characteristic, including severity of depression, was significantly related to improvement. Likewise, neither extent of documentation nor treatment implemented by housestaff was a significant predictor of outcome. We conclude that serious clinical depression in medically ill older patients may persist for a considerable period after hospital discharge and neither detection nor current management strategies appear to have a major impact on outcome.
A Fluorescence-Based High-Throughput Assay for the Identification of Anticancer Reagents Targeting Fructose-1,6-Bisphosphate Aldolase

A high rate of glycolysis, which supplies energy and materials for anabolism, is observed in a wide range of tumor cells, making it a potential pathway to control cancer growth. ALDOA is a multifunctional enzyme in the glycolytic pathway and also promotes HIF-1α, which is of importance in hypoxic solid tumors. The current method for assaying ALDOA activity involves monitoring the consumption of NADH in vitro using absorbance or intrinsic fluorescence via a coupled enzymatic reaction. Here, we report the development of a homogeneous biochemical assay that can overcome limitations of current methods, in particular for the application of high-throughput drug screening. The assay utilizes the commercially available Elite NADH Assay Kit, which incorporates an enzymatic reaction to measure the level of NADH using a fluorescent probe. Assay optimization and validation are discussed. Its feasibility for high-throughput screening (HTS) was demonstrated by screening 65,000 compounds for the identification of small molecules that inhibit ALDOA. Through a validation screen and dose–response evaluation, four inhibitors with IC50 below 10 µM were identified. In conclusion, we demonstrate that a traditional ALDOA assay can be transformed readily into a fluorescence-based assay utilizing a commercial NADH detection kit that is rapid, sensitive, inexpensive, and HTS friendly.
A Rate-1 2 × 2 Space-Time Code without any Constellation Extension for TH-UWB Communication Systems with PPM

In this paper, we propose for the first time a 2 × 2 space-time (ST) block code that can be applied with pulse position modulation (PPM) without introducing any constellation extension. This encoding scheme is adapted to low cost carrierless time-hopping ultra-wideband (TH-UWB) systems where information must be conveyed only by the time delay of the modulated signal that has a very low duty cycle. The proposed scheme permits to achieve full transmit diversity with M-ary PPM constellations for all values of M. Moreover, it permits to overcome the additional phase rotations or amplitude amplifications that are introduced by all the known ST codes such as the Alamouti code (S.M. Alamouti, 1998), the rate-1 codes proposed in B.A. Sethuraman et al. (2003), (A. J. Hammons and H. El Gamal, 2000) for PSK and the diversity schemes proposed in L. Yang and G.B. Giannakis (2004) for TH-UWB systems with PAM or PPM.
Field Experiments on Ultimate Frequency Efficiency Exceeding 30 Bit/Second/Hz Using MLD Signal Detection in MIMO-OFDM Broadband Packet Radio Access

This paper presents indoor and field experimental results on extremely high-speed packet transmissions of 4.92 Gbps in a 100-MHz channel bandwidth, i.e., the frequency efficiency of approximately 50 bit/second/Hz, in the downlink orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) radio access. The required received signal-to-noise power ratio (SNR) is less than 30 dB, which approaches the almost upper limit in cellular environments near a cell site even with a light channel load, with the aim of the application to future universal broadband packet radio access. We apply 12-by-12 MIMO multiplexing using the maximum likelihood detection employing QR decomposition and the M-algorithm (QRM-MLD) with adaptive selection of the surviving symbol replica candidates (ASESS), 64QAM data modulation, and turbo coding with the coding rate of R = 8/9 to achieve an extremely high frequency efficiency level. In the field experiments conducted in the Yokosuka Research Park (YRP) district of Yokosuka city, we show that the measured throughput of 4.92 Gbps is achieved at the average received SNR per receiver antenna of approximately 28.0 and 28.5 dB when the receiver antenna spacing is 40 cm (6.2lambda), and 10 cm (1.5lambda) at the average speed of 10 km/h, respectively.
Identification of Angiogenesis Inhibitors Using a Co-culture Cell Model in a High-Content and High-Throughput Screening Platform

Angiogenesis is an important hallmark of cancer, contributing to tumor formation and metastasis. In vitro angiogenesis models for analyzing tube formation serve as useful tools to study these processes. However, current in vitro co-culture models using primary cells have limitations in usefulness and consistency. Therefore, in the present study, an in vitro co-culture assay system was optimized in a 1536-well format for high-throughput screening using human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT)–immortalized mesenchymal stem cells and aortic endothelial cells. The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Pharmaceutical Collection (NPC) library containing 2816 drugs was evaluated using the in vitro co-culture assay. From the screen, 35 potent inhibitors (IC50 ≤1 µM) were identified, followed by 15 weaker inhibitors (IC50 1–50 µM). Moreover, many known angiogenesis inhibitors were identified, such as topotecan, docetaxel, and bortezomib. Several potential novel angiogenesis inhibitors were also identified from this study, including thimerosal and podofilox. Among the inhibitors, some compounds were proved to be involved in the hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and the nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-κB) pathways. The co-culture model developed by using hTERT-immortalized cell lines described in this report provides a consistent and robust in vitro system for antiangiogenic drug screening.
An optimized design of a parallel robot for gait training

The guidelines for enhancing robot-assisted training for post-stroke survivors head towards increasing exercise realism and variability; in particular lower limb rehabilitation needs the patient to feel challenged to adapt his locomotion and dynamic balance capabilities to different virtual ground scenarios. This paper proposes a design for a robot whose end-effector acts as a footplate to be in permanent contact with the user's foot during practice: the structure is such that it enables the user's foot to rotate around three axis, differently from what is currently available in the research for gait training; the parallel kinematic structure and the dimensional synthesis allow a suitable range of motion and aim at limiting device mass, footprint and reaction forces on the actuators when rendering virtual ground. The employed methodology has been validated using ground reaction forces data relative to stroke survivors.
Self-aligning exoskeleton hip joint: Kinematic design with five revolute, three prismatic and one ball joint

Kinematic compatibility is of paramount importance in wearable robotic and exoskeleton design. Misalignments between exoskeletons and anatomical joints of the human body result in interaction forces which make wearing the exoskeleton uncomfortable and even dangerous for the human. In this paper we present a kinematically compatible design of an exoskeleton hip to reduce kinematic incompatibilities, so called macro- and micro-misalignments, between the human's and exoskeleton's joint axes, which are caused by inter-subject variability and articulation. The resulting design consists of five revolute, three prismatic and one ball joint. Design parameters such as range of motion and joint velocities are calculated based on the analysis of human motion data acquired by motion capture systems. We show that the resulting design is capable of self-aligning to the human hip joint in all three anatomical planes during operation and can be adapted along the dorsoventral and mediolateral axis prior to operation. Calculation of the forward kinematics and FEM-simulation considering kinematic and musculoskeletal constraints proved sufficient mobility and stiffness of the system regarding the range of motion, angular velocity and torque admissibility needed to provide 50 % assistance for an 80 kg person.