Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
VariScreen secures the screening of high-risk varices in patients with hepatitis B virus-related cirrhosis beyond Baveno VI criteria

We aimed to validate the performance of the ratio of the platelet count (PLT) to liver stiffness measurement (LSM) in excluding high-risk varices (HRVs) in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related compensated cirrhosis beyond Baveno VI criteria. A total of 310 patients were assessed. The performances of the PLT:LSM ratio (PLER), PLER adjusted for the international normalized ratio, etiology, age, and sex (PLEASE), and the sequential algorithm for HRV screening (VariScreen) in excluding HRVs were evaluated and compared with those of expanded Baveno VI criteria (LSM <25 kPa and PLT >110×109/L, EB6C); PLT >150×109/L and model for end-stage liver disease score = 6 (P150M6 criterion); PLT >120×109/L and albumin >36 g/L (P120A36 criterion); and albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) grade and PLT score (ALBI-PLT score). Among the enrolled patients, 43 (13.9%) had HRVs. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of PLER for predicting HRVs (0.771, 95% confidence interval, 0.720–0.817) was significantly higher than that for PLT and LSM (p < 0.01). PLER was an independent risk factor for HRVs. VariScreen, PLEASE, and PLER could spare 20 (6.5%), 91 (29.4%), and 60 (19.4%) endoscopies, with 0, 3 (3.3%), and 1 (1.7%) HRVs missed, respectively. The EB6C and P120A36 criteria could spare 45 (14.5%) and 36 (11.6%) endoscopies, with 1 (2.2%) and 1 (2.8%) HRVs missed, respectively. The P150M6 criterion and ALBI-PLT score missed 6.8% and 10.3% of HRVs, respectively. We found that PLER performed better than other non-invasive tests. VariScreen secured the screening of HRVs in patients with HBV-related cirrhosis beyond Baveno VI criteria.
The thiol-reductase activity of YUCCA6 enhances nickel heavy metal stress tolerance in Arabidopsis

Anthropogenic activities cause the leaching of heavy metals into groundwater and their accumulation in soil. Excess levels of heavy metals cause toxicity in plants, inducing the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and possible death caused by the resulting oxidative stress. Heavy metal stresses repress auxin biosynthesis and transport, inhibiting plant growth. Here, we investigated whether nickel (Ni) heavy metal toxicity is reduced by exogenous auxin application and whether Ni stress tolerance in Arabidopsis thaliana is mediated by the bifunctional enzyme YUCCA6 (YUC6), which functions as an auxin biosynthetic enzyme and a thiol-reductase (TR). We found that an application of up to 1 µM exogenous indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) reduces Ni stress toxicity. yuc6-1D, a dominant mutant of YUC6 with high auxin levels, was more tolerant of Ni stress than wild-type (WT) plants, despite absorbing significantly more Ni. Treatments of WT plants with YUCASIN, a specific inhibitor of YUC-mediated auxin biosynthesis, increased Ni toxicity; however yuc6-1D was not affected by YUCASIN and remained tolerant of Ni stress. This suggests that rather than the elevated IAA levels in yuc6-1D, the TR activity of YUC6 might be critical for Ni stress tolerance. The loss of TR activity in YUC6 caused by the point-mutation of Cys85 abolished the YUC6-mediated Ni stress tolerance. We also found that the Ni stress–induced ROS accumulation was inhibited in yuc6-1D plants, which consequently also showed reduced oxidative damage. An enzymatic assay and transcriptional analysis revealed that the peroxidase activity and transcription of PEROXIREDOXIN Q were enhanced by Ni stress to a greater level in yuc6-1D than in the WT. These findings imply that despite the need to maintain endogenous IAA levels for basal Ni stress tolerance, the TR activity of YUC6, not the elevated IAA levels, plays the predominant role inNi stress tolerance by lowering Ni-induced oxidative stress.
Access, understanding, promotion and maintenance of good health: Evaluation of knowledge transfer of people with intellectual disabilities to bridge the health information and disease prevention in public health

The importance of patient empowerment among people with intellectual disabilities (ID) is steadily growing, yet multiple health and health literacy challenges still make this population more vulnerable to health disparities. Inadequate access to essential health and other basic services and the lack of involvement in health and educational research are some of the most crucial factors contributing to this inequality. A greater effort must be made to include people with ID in health literacy and communication research, preliminary focusing on language, including pictorial language. This community case study aimed to document the experiences of answering a pilot questionnaire to evaluate the problems of people with mild to moderate ID, 6A00.0 and 6A00.1 according to ICD-11. Our results show that most patients acquire health information from their physician or a medical professional. In preparing appropriate questionnaires, special education teachers can give valuable insight. However, participants were easily distracted and needed support in focusing on the questionnaire. Easy-to-read language, a simple format, big fonts and the presence of confidential caretakers are needed. This indicates, that semi-structured interviews with a trained interviewer might be most suitable for measuring the knowledge transfer of people with ID. The results of this case study highlight the need to develop an appropriate questionnaire and emphasize the need for a continued dialogue between people with ID and healthcare providers.
Examination of different wall jet and impinging jet concepts to produce large-scale downburst outflow

Thunderstorm downburst winds are a major cause of severe damage to buildings and other infrastructure. The initiative of the NSF-NHERI Wall of Wind (WOW) Experimental Facility to design and develop a downburst simulator was established to open new horizons for multi-hazard engineering research by extending the current capabilities of the facility to enable the simulation of non-synoptic winds. Five different downburst simulator designs have been tested in the 1:15 small-scale replica of the WOW to identify the optimal design. The design concepts tested herein considered both the 2-D impinging jet and the 2-D wall jet simulation methods. The basic design methodology consists of transforming the available atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) wind simulator into downburst winds by adding an external modification device to the exit of the flow management box. A flow characterization comparison among the five contending downburst simulators, along with comparisons to real downbursts and previous literature findings, has been conducted. The study on the effect of surface roughness length on the height of the peak wind velocity showed that the implementation of a 2-D plane wall jet enables large-scale outflows (higher peak velocity height) with high Reynold numbers, which is advantageous in terms of reducing scaling effects. In general, the current research work showed that four downburst simulation methods were suitable for adoption; however, only one downburst simulator was recommended based on the feasibility of construction in the facility. The chosen downburst simulator consisted of a two louver slat system near the bottom, with a blockage at the top. This configuration enables producing a large rolling vortex passing through the testing section, which would serve adequately in the further study of turbulent flow characterization and testing of larger scale test models.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy: Mutations to mechanisms to therapies

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) affects more than 1 in 500 people in the general population with an extensive burden of morbidity in the form of arrhythmia, heart failure, and sudden death. More than 25 years since the discovery of the genetic underpinnings of HCM, the field has unveiled significant insights into the primary effects of these genetic mutations, especially for the myosin heavy chain gene, which is one of the most commonly mutated genes. Our group has studied the molecular effects of HCM mutations on human β-cardiac myosin heavy chain using state-of-the-art biochemical and biophysical tools for the past 10 years, combining insights from clinical genetics and structural analyses of cardiac myosin. The overarching hypothesis is that HCM-causing mutations in sarcomere proteins cause hypercontractility at the sarcomere level, and we have shown that an increase in the number of myosin molecules available for interaction with actin is a primary driver. Recently, two pharmaceutical companies have developed small molecule inhibitors of human cardiac myosin to counteract the molecular consequences of HCM pathogenesis. One of these inhibitors (mavacamten) has recently been approved by the FDA after completing a successful phase III trial in HCM patients, and the other (aficamten) is currently being evaluated in a phase III trial. Myosin inhibitors will be the first class of medication used to treat HCM that has both robust clinical trial evidence of efficacy and that targets the fundamental mechanism of HCM pathogenesis. The success of myosin inhibitors in HCM opens the door to finding other new drugs that target the sarcomere directly, as we learn more about the genetics and fundamental mechanisms of this disease.
Dance activity interventions targeting cognitive functioning in older adults with mild cognitive impairment: A meta-analysis

Objectives To comprehensively determine the effect of dance activities on the cognitive functions and its sub-domains of older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Methods We obtained data from PubMed, Web of Science, EBSCO, China national knowledge infrastructure, Wanfang data, and VIP databases from 2017/01/01 to 2022/03/01. We included trials of older adults with MCI that underwent dance activity intervention and fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Two researchers independently assessed the quality of the study using the Cochrane risk of the bias assessment tool. Meta-analysis was performed when data were available, with further subgroup analysis, using Review Manager 5.4, and sensitivity analysis was performed using Stata software 15.1. Results Search terms yielded 183 articles, of which 12 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. This included 7 high-quality studies and 5 medium-quality studies. A total of 820 older adults were analyzed. Results showed that dance activity had beneficial effects for global cognition [SMDMMSE = 0.65, 95% CIMMSE (0.20, 1.09), pMMSE = 0.004; SMDMoCA = 0.87, 95% CIMoCA (0.44, 1.29), pMoCA < 0.0001], memory [SMD = 0.61, 95% CI (0.35, 0.88), p < 0.00001], visuospatial function [SMD = −0.39, 95% CI (−0.60, −0.19), p = 0.0002], cognitive flexibility [SMD = −0.31, 95% CI (−0.52, −0.11), p = 0.003], attention [SMD = 0.34, 95% CI (0.07, 0.61), p = 0.01], and balance [SMD = 1.25, 95% CI (0.06, 2.44), p = 0.04]. Further subgroup analysis showed that open-skill dance activity (OSDA) was more effective in promoting global cognition in older adults with MCI than closed-skill dance activity (CSDA) because of the different stimulation provided by the two types of dance activities in the brain regions of the older adults (p = 0.0002). It could be speculated that dance activity improved cognitive function mainly by affecting the microstructure and function of the cingulate tract, hippocampus, cardiovascular function, and other brain areas of older adults with MCI. Conclusion Dance activities can significantly improve global cognition, memory, visuospatial function, cognitive flexibility, attention, and balance in older adults with MCI. However, more trials with rigorous study designs are necessary to provide more concrete evidence in the future.
Pinyin-BART: An End-to-End Chinese Input Method

A Chinese Input Method Engine helps user con-001 vert a keystroke sequence into the desired Chi-002 nese character sequence. It is usually a cas-003 caded process in which the original input se-004 quence is ﬁrstly corrected to remove typos, then 005 segmented into the pinyin token sequence, and 006 ﬁnally converted into a Chinese character se-007 quence. Errors are prone to accumulate and 008 propagate in that pipeline. This paper summa-009 rizes that process as a Key-to-Character (K2C) 010 conversion task and solve it in a uniﬁed end-011 to-end way. Pinyin-bart is proposed which can 012 effectively solve the error propagation prob-013 lem and improve the IME engine performance 014 signiﬁcantly in experiments. Moreover, we 015 model the user real input behaviors and design 016 a method to generate the training corpus with 017 typos for the K2C task. It further improves 018 the robustness of Pinyin-bart. Finally, we de-019 sign a non-autoregressive (NAR) decoder for 020 Pinyin-bart and obtain 9x+ acceleration with 021 limited performance degradation, which makes 022 the deployment possible on the commercial in-023 put software. 024
On the response of the upper atmosphere to solar flares

ON THE RESPONSE OF THE UPPER ATMOSPHERE TO SOLAR FLARES by David J. Pawlowski Chair: Aaron J. Ridley Over the past several decades, modern civilizations have become increasingly dependent on spacecraft that reside in the near-Earth space environment. For this reason, scientists and engineers have been interested in understanding the causes of perturbations to the background state of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, and to quantify the impact of these events. As a result of the states of the thermosphere and ionosphere being directly dependent on the incident radiation from the sun, it is expected that sudden changes in the solar radiative output should cause significant changes in the upper atmosphere. Such dynamics are investigated in this study, specifically the manner in which solar flares affect the density, circulation, and temperature of the Earth’s thermosphere and ionosphere. A global model of this region is used to examine how the upper atmosphere responds to such transient events. In order to quantify the response, the model is run during realistic events in order to understand the magnitudes of the resulting perturbations to the global ionosphere-thermosphere system. In the thermosphere, density perturbations of approximately 15% are found to occur on the dayside within 1.5 hours after the start of a solar flare. The addition of solar energy to the dayside launches a traveling atmospheric disturbance which propagates
Pre-flight experiments for the unmanned aerial monitoring system (UAMS) radioactive detection feasibility

In this study, an unmanned aerial monitoring system (UAMS) was designed and fabricated. The final goal is to map environmental radioactivity and extract radioactive concentration points; therefore, preliminary experiments were performed to reach a robust detection system and also to study effective flight altitudes that the UAMS is able to detect anomalies. The UAMS consisted of a detection system including a two-inch sodium iodine crystal, a data-acquisition system and a mini-computer that all were installed under a drone body. One cesium and two cobalt source were used for the initial monitoring of the UAMS. The results showed that the system is able to detect the sources in the height range of 80 cm to 3 meters.
Extreme Multi-label Text Classification with Multi-layer Experts

Extreme multi-label text classification (XMTC) 001 is the task of tagging each document with the 002 relevant labels from a very large space of prede-003 fined categories, which presents an open chal-004 lenge in the recent development of neural classi-005 fiers. Popular Transformer-based XMTC meth-006 ods typically use the last-layer features to repre-007 sent the document and to match it against candi-008 date labels. We argue that the last-layer features 009 may not be sufficient for predicting labels at 010 different levels of semantic granularity, and that 011 multi-layer features may offer a better choice 012 instead. Based on this insight we propose a 013 novel multi-expert model, namely ME-XML 014 (Multiple Experts for XMTC), which combines 015 multi-layer embeddings in Transformer for im-016 proving the prediction power of the model. Our 017 experiments show that ME-XML outperforms 018 the state-of-the-art methods on two out of three 019 datasets, in the predictions over both head (com-020 mon) labels and tail (rare) labels. 021
Sustain Collaborative Initiative through Early Childhood Education University Students' Self-Reported Perceptions

This study describes and explores how early childhood education university students perceived their experiences of participating in a pilot collaborative initiative for improving kindergarten enrollment. The collaborative program initiated to improve kindergarten enrollment by neighborhood children, and to develop the early childhood education university students' knowledge and skills. Mixed method approach was used in the present study. Moreover, a convenience sample of early childhood education university students of those who practiced to fulfill the requirement of field training course objectives - a required last-semester early childhood education university program course- participated in the pilot initiative for improving kindergarten enrollment. Critical self-reflection on assumptions, and critical discourse were utilized to collect the qualitative data. The quantitative data, on the other hand, was collected using self report reaction index. Also, internal and external strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that impact the program were analyzed and SWOT analysis framework was utilized. On the whole, the entire early childhood education university students participating in the initiative program was highly positive about their experiences.
Synthesis of positive real H2 controllers

This paper describes a synthesis procedure for strictly positive real observer-based controllers. In particular, we address the standard /spl Hscr//sub 2/-optimal control problem with the additional constraint on the strict positive realness of the controller. A suboptimal version of this problem is shown to be a convex optimization problem, and a linear matrix inequality-based solution is provided. One example illustrates the main results.
Towards Offshore Software Maintenance Outsourcing Process Model

Summary Software maintenance outsourcing (SMO) is performed from developed countries to developing countries to gain different advantages like reducing the cost and securing time to pay attention to research and development of new products. This process of outsourcing between two (or more) different countries is called offshore software maintenance outsourcing. Both client and vendor face different kinds of problems during the execution of offshore software maintenance outsourcing (OSMO). In literature, a considerable contribution exists for software development outsourcing but OSMO is still an under-researched activity. This study aims to propose an OSMO process model. The proposed OSMO process model will address the problems of both client and vendor in the OSMO context. It is expected that the proposed an OSMO process model will help both the client and vendor organizations to make the OSMO services a success story
The Student Attitudinal Success Inventory III (SASI III): Construct Validity and Measurement Invariance

He received his B.S., M.S. degrees in Aerospace Engineering He is an ad-vocate for research-based approaches to engineering education, curricular reform, and student retention. Imbrie conducts both traditional, as well as educational research in experimental mechanics, piezospectro-scopic techniques, epistemologies, assessment, and modeling of student learning, student success, student team effectiveness, and global competencies He helped establish the scholarly foundation for engineering education as an academic discipline through lead authorship of the landmark 2006 JEE special reports ”The National Engineering Education Research Colloquies” and ”The Research Agenda for the New Discipline of Engineering Education. ” He has a passion for designing state-of-the-art learning spaces. While at Purdue University, Imbrie co-led the creation of the First-Year Engineering Program’s Ideas to Inno-vation (i2i) Learning Laboratory, a design-oriented facility that engages students in team-based, socially relevant projects. While at Texas A&M University Imbrie co-led the design of a 525,000 square foot state-of-the-art engineering education focused facility; the largest educational building in the state. His expertise in educational pedagogy, student learning, and teaching has impacted thousands of students at the universities for which he has been associated. Imbrie is nationally recognized for his work in ac-tive/collaborative learning pedagogies, teaming and student success modeling. His engineering education leadership has produced fundamental changes in the way students are educated around the world. Imbrie The Student Attitudinal Success Inventory III (SASI III): Invariance Abstract The Student Attitudinal Success Inventory (SASI) has been a useful self-reported instrument designed to quantify students‘ non-cognitive attributes that predict students’ success and persistence in Engineering Education. Developed from its first version, the third version of SASI consists 140 items quantifying 16 latent constructs, namely SASI III. The findings in this study provide evidence for the construct validity of the SASI III by talking time variables into consideration, both occasions (pre-survey vs. post-survey) and cohorts (cohort 2018 vs. cohort 2019). Further analysis of measurement invariance (MI) reveals the general pattern of fixed and free factor loadings in the sixteen-factor models. Using multiple group confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA), a series of models have been tested for invariance by comparing goodness-of-fit indexes. MI analysis by cohorts showed supports of scale invariance, while MI analysis by occasions established residual invariance. By providing reliability and construct validity index for the overall validity and each sub-validity and the established minimum scale invariance, SASI III has demonstrated its validity as a useful instrument ready to be used as a comprehensive inventory or for comparison purposes from a longitudinal perspective.
Application of Superpixels Segmentation in Digital Image forgery Detection

In the era of technology, multimedia contents are exposed to manipulations which leads for unsecured information transmission and reception. One such form of multimedia information is Digital Image. An image may be easily tampered in such a way that it gets difficult to find the forgery through human vision. This leads to the forgery creation in content of image data. Integrity and authenticity of image must be evaluated. In context to this, an approach for forgery detection using Superpixels segmentation is proposed. Spectral clustering is applied for images to obtain the segmentation of images in the form of Superpixels. Mapping of High dimensional feature space pixel point with proper weight computation is performed first and then K-means and normalized cuts is optimized using this objective functions. The obtained Superpixel segments forms the block for extracting the features using SIFT. The features of Superpixel segments are matched with one another to obtain the tampered part of the image based on similarity. The results obtained with the proposed copy move forgery detection method shows better precision and recall rate under various conditions than the existing forgery detection methods.
Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology: Cosmic Laboratories for New Physics (Summary of the Snowmass 2001 P4 Working Group)

The past few years have seen dramatic breakthroughs and spectacular and puzzling discoveries in astrophysics and cosmology. In many cases, the new observations can only be explained with the introduction of new fundamental physics. Here we summarize some of these recent advances. We then describe several problems in astrophysics and cosmology, ripe for major advances, the resolution of which will likely require new physics.