Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of body composition in POF and its association with bone mineral density and sex steroid levels

Abstract The study aims to investigate the body composition and bone mineral density (BMD) characteristics and discuss the relationships among body composition, BMD and sex steroid level in POF. A total of 240 POF patients, 240 normal women, and peri/postmenopausal women (Peri-M/Post-M) (260 patients in each group) were included. Compared to the control group, POF patients? strength of left/right lower limb (SLL/SRL), muscle distributing coefficient of lower limbs (MD) decreased however, waist circumference (WC) and hip circumference (HC) increased. The weight, WC, HC, whole body fat percentage (BF%), average fat distribution (FD), MD of POF patients were lower than those among Peri-M and Post-M and BMD were lower than the Peri-M, yet still higher than Post-M. Moreover, BMD were significantly positively correlated with BF%, FD, SLL, MD and estradiol (E2). The factors associated with L2–L4 BMD were E2, SRL, FD and age. For the FN BMD, the factors were FD, E2 and SLL. Therefore, we conclude that maintenance of appropriate weight, physical exercise and hormone replacement treatment (HRT) may have positive effects on increasing BMD, improving muscle mass and muscle strength, preventing osteoporosis. 摘要 本研究旨在探讨体成分和骨密度（BMD）特征, 并探讨POF患者体成分、骨密度和性类固醇水平之间的关系。 共纳入240名POF患者、240名正常女性和围绝经期/绝经后女性（Peri-M/Post-M）（每组260名患者）。 与对照组相比, POF患者左/右下肢力量（SLL/SRL）、下肢肌肉分布系数（MD）下降, 腰围（WC）和臀围（HC）增加。 POF患者的体重、WC、HC、全身脂肪百分比（BF％）、平均脂肪分布（FD）、MD均低于Peri-M和Post-M；BMD均低于Peri-M, 即便如此, 仍高于Post-M。 此外, BMD与BF％、FD、SLL、MD和雌二醇（E2）显著正相关。 与L2-L4 BMD相关的因素是E2、SRL、FD和年龄。 对于FN BMD, 相关因素是FD、E2和SLL。 因此, 我们得出结论, 维持适当的体重、体育锻炼和激素替代治疗（HRT）可能对增加BMD、改善肌肉质量和肌肉力量、预防骨质疏松症有积极作用。
Shifting landscape of hemophilia therapy: Implications for current clinical laboratory coagulation assays

Clinical coagulation assays are an integral part of diagnosing and managing patients with hemophilia; however, in this new era of bioengineered factor products and nonfactor therapeutics, problems have arisen with use of traditional coagulation tests for the quantification of several of these new products. Discussion over the use of one‐stage clotting assays versus chromogenic substrate assays for clinical decision making and potency labeling has been ongoing for many years. Emerging factor concentrates have heightened concern over assay selection and availability. Emicizumab interferes with all aPTT based assays, rendering them unreliable and potentially falsely reassuring to the unaware provider. This review explores considerations for coagulation assays in the clinical setting and highlights how awareness of institutional coagulation assays and potential limitations have never been more critical for providers caring for patients with bleeding disorders.
Oxidized DJ-1 Levels in Urine Samples as a Putative Biomarker for Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease. Oxidative stress is the most critical risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Huntington's disease (HD). Numerous reports have demonstrated that oxidative stress aggravates cytotoxicity in dopaminergic neurons and accelerates the formation of protein inclusions. In addition, oxidative stress, such as 4-hydroxynonenal (HNE), oxidized protein, and dopamine quinone, are related to PD progression. DJ-1 is a PD-causative gene, and it plays a pivotal role as a sensor and eliminator of oxidative stress. Several studies have shown that oxidized DJ-1 (OxiDJ-1) formation is induced by oxidative stress. Hence, previous studies suggest that oxidized DJ-1 could be a biomarker for PD. We previously reported higher DJ-1 levels in Korean male PD patient urine exosomes than male non-PD controls. We speculate that OxiDJ-1 levels in PD patient urine might be higher than that in non-PD controls. In this study, we established an ELISA for OxiDJ-1 using recombinant DJ-1 treated with H2O2. Using Western blot assay and ELISA, we confirmed an increase of OxiDJ-1 from HEK293T cells treated with H2O2. Using our ELISA, we observed significantly higher, 2-fold, OxiDJ-1 levels in the urine of Korean PD patients than in non-PD controls.
Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Prevalence of Depressive Symptoms Among U.S. Nursing Home Residents

ABSTRACT This study aimed to examine racial and ethnic differences in significant depressive symptoms among long-term nursing home residents. We analyzed the 2014 national Minimum Data Set linked to a nursing home file and estimated multivariable logistic regressions to determine the associations of race and ethnicities with significant depressive symptoms (score ≥ 10 on the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire [PHQ-9] scale) and whether associations were explained by resident and nursing home covariates. Stratified analyses further determined independent associations in subgroups of residents. We found that the prevalence rate of PHQ-9 scores ≥ 10 was 8.8% among non-Hispanic White residents (n = 653,031) and 7.4%, 6.9%, and 6.6% among Black (n = 97,629), Hispanic (n = 39,752), and Asian (n = 16,636) residents, respectively. The reduced likelihoods of significant depressive symptoms for minority residents compared to non-Hispanic Whites persisted after sequential adjustments for resident and nursing home covariates, as well as in stratified analyses. The persistently lower rate of significant depressive symptoms among racial and ethnic minority residents suggests that training of nursing home caregivers for culturally sensitive depression screening is needed for improved symptom recognition among minority residents.
Expressive Curve Editing with the Sigma Lognormal Model

We describe a practical application of the Sigma Lognormal model of handwriting movements for computer graphics applications that require the interactive or procedural definition of artistic or calligraphic traces. The method allows to easily edit curves with physiologically plausible kinematics that can be exploited in order to generate expressive brush renderings, natural looking stroke animations and easily generate stylistic variations of a trace.
Virtual machines and program comprehension

The objective of this paper is to critically examine several claims from the Psychology of Programming literature on the mental representations and processes involved in computer program understanding, and to suggest a reinterpretation of these claims in light of a set of core constructs from computer science. The claims concern whether mental simulation is a viable inference strategy as programs grow in size, that domain knowledge is crucial to the understanding of a program, that program readers develop a two-level representation of the program, and that program readers use a predominantly bottom-up or top-down inference strategies. The set of core computer science constructs involve the view of programs as a set of hierarchically arranged virtual machines, each machine having its own description. My reinterpretation centers around the claim that program readers are able to understand a virtual machine at a single level of description.
Who Benefits from Universal Child Care? Estimating Marginal Returns to Early Child Care Attendance

We examine heterogeneous treatment effects of a universal child care program in Germany by exploiting variation in attendance caused by a reform that led to a large expansion staggered across municipalities. Drawing on novel administrative data from the full population of compulsory school entry examinations, we find that children with lower (observed and unobserved) gains are more likely to select into child care than children with higher gains. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to attend child care than children from advantaged backgrounds but have larger treatment effects because of their worse outcome when not enrolled in child care.
Condition 1 Action 1 Condition 2 Action 2 Condition 3 Action 3 Default

Agents now exist that can play Texas Hold’em Poker at a very high level, and simplified versions of the game have been solved. However, this does not directly translate to learning heuristics humans can use to play the game. We address the problem of learning chains of human-learnable heuristics for playing heads-up limit Texas Hold’em, focusing on the post-flop stages of the game. By restricting the policy space to fast and frugal trees, which are sequences of if-then-else rules, we can learn such heuristics using several methods including genetic programming. This work builds on our previous work on learning such heuristic rule set for Blackjack and pre-flop Texas Hold’em, but introduces a richer language for heuristics.
Effect of indole-3-acetic acid (plant auxin) on the preservation at 15 °c of boar semen for artificial insemination

In order to extend the duration of boar sperm survival at 15 degrees C for artificial insemination, we tested the effect of indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), which appeared to be the main sperm protective substance present in the Coco nucifera endosperm (coconut water). Two IAA concentrations (10 and 100 ng/mL) in Beltsville extender (BTS) were studied for their in vitro effects. The motility, the percentage of motile spermatozoa and the acrosome morphology of sperm were recorded each day over 13 days of storage at 15 degrees C, after 5 min and 3 h of incubation at 39 degrees C. The IAA effect on sperm preservation was also studied in vivo at a concentration of 10 ng/mL in BTS by inseminating groups of females twice at 24 h intervals either at D0 (day of sperm collection) and D1 (D0/1) or at D5 and D6 (D5/6). At D0/1, the two groups of females (control and IAA) were inseminated with a total of 6.3 x 10(9) spermatozoa (3.15 x 10(9) at D0 and the same dose at D1) whereas at D5/6, on IAA group was inseminated with a total of 6.3 x 10(9) spermatozoa and another one with 12.6 x 10(9) spermatozoa. The animals in the D5/6 control group were inseminated each with a total of 12.6 x 10(9) spermatozoa. For each group of females (n = 106-140), fertility rate (% farrowing) and prolificacy rate (litter size) were recorded. No effect of IAA in vitro on the motility rate and on the percentage of motile spermatozoa was observed over a 13 day storage. However, IAA (10 ng/mL) had a significant positive effect on the percentage of living spermatozoa with intact acrosomes after 13 days (66 vs 54%, P < 0.05). The fertility and prolificacy rates after 5-6 days of sperm preservation in BTS extender alone did not differ significantly between D5/6 and D0/1 but the total number of inseminated spermatozoa was 12.6 x 10(9) at D5/6 instead of 6.3 x 10(9) at D0/1. When the spermatozoa were stored in the presence of 10 ng/mL IAA for 5-6 days at 15 degrees C, the fertility and prolificacy of the females inseminated with only 6.3 x 10(9) spermatozoa were identical to those of the females inseminated with an equal number of spermatozoa at D0/1 in the presence or absence of IAA.
SafeShareRide: Edge-Based Attack Detection in Ridesharing Services

Ridesharing services, such as Uber and Didi, are enjoying great popularity; however, a big challenge remains in guaranteeing the safety of passenger and driver. State-of-the-art work has primarily adopted the cloud model, where data collected through end devices on vehicles are uploaded to and processed in the cloud. However, data such as video can be too large to be uploaded onto the cloud in real time. When a vehicle is moving, the network communication can become unstable, leading to high latency for data uploading. In addition, the cost of huge data transfer and storage is a big concern from a business point of view. As edge computing enables more powerful computing end devices, it is possible to design a latency-guaranteed framework to ensure in-vehicle safety. In this paper, we propose an edge-based attack detection in ridesharing services, namely SafeShareRide, which can detect dangerous events happening in the vehicle in near real time. SafeShareRide is implemented on both drivers' and passengers' smartphones. The detection of SafeShareRide consists of three stages: speech recognition, driving behavior detection, and video capture and analysis. Abnormal events detected during the stages of speech recognition or driving behavior detection will trigger the video capture and analysis in the third stage. The video data processing is also redesigned: video compression is conducted at the edge to save upload bandwidth while video analysis is conducted in the cloud. We implement the SafeShareRide system by leveraging open source algorithms. Our experiments include a performance comparison between SafeShareRide and other edge-based and cloud-based approaches, CPU usage and memory usage of each detection stage, and a performance comparison between stationary and moving scenarios. Finally, we summarize several insights into smartphone based edge computing systems.
Flexural Capacity of Steel Rack Connections Via The Component Method

Received: October 01, 2017 Revised: November 01, 2017 Accepted: December 01, 2017 Abstract: Background: In pallet rack structures, cold-formed steel (CFS) beams and columns are connected through dry joints, so beams can be easily disconnected according to changes of the rack geometric layout. Due to the great variety of connector types and member geometries, recent design codes recommend experimental tests on rack connections to assess their mechanical features. Nevertheless, tests only allow for the overall response of a joint to be evaluated, without providing information about the contribution of each component of the joint to its stiffness and strength.
Structural analysis and immunostimulatory potency of lipoteichoic acids isolated from three Streptococcus suis serotype 2 strains

Streptococcus suis serotype 2 is an important porcine and human pathogen. Lipoteichoic acid (LTA) from S. suis has been suggested to contribute to its virulence, and absence of d-alanylation from the S. suis LTA is associated with increased susceptibility to cationic antimicrobial peptides. Here, using high-resolution NMR spectroscopy and MS analyses, we characterized the LTA structures from three S. suis serotype 2 strains differing in virulence, sequence type (ST), and geographical origin. Our analyses revealed that these strains possess–in addition to the typical type I LTA present in other streptococci–a second, mixed-type series of LTA molecules of high complexity. We observed a ST-specific difference in the incorporation of glycosyl residues into these mixed-type LTAs. We found that strains P1/7 (ST1, high virulence) and SC84 (ST7, very high virulence) can attach a 1,2-linked α-d-Glcp residue as branching substituent to an α-d-Glcp that is 1,3-linked to glycerol phosphate moieties and that is not present in strain 89-1591 (ST25, intermediate virulence). In contrast, the latter strain could glycosylate its LTA at the glycerol O-2 position, which was not observed in the other two strains. Using LTA preparations from WT strains and from mutants with an inactivated prolipoprotein diacylglyceryl transferase, resulting in deficient lipoprotein acylation, we show that S. suis LTAs alone do not induce Toll-like receptor 2–dependent pro-inflammatory mediator production from dendritic cells. In summary, our study reveals an unexpected complexity of LTAs present in three S. suis serotype 2 strains differing in genetic background and virulence.
Josephson junction dynamics in the presence of 2π - and 4π -periodic supercurrents

We investigate theoretically the dynamics of a Josephson junction in the framework of the resistively shunted junction model. We consider a junction that hosts two supercurrent contributions: a $2\ensuremath{\pi}$ and a $4\ensuremath{\pi}$ periodic in phase, with intensities ${I}_{2\ensuremath{\pi}}$ and ${I}_{4\ensuremath{\pi}}$, respectively. We study the size of the Shapiro steps as a function of the ratio of the intensity of the mentioned contributions, i.e., ${I}_{4\ensuremath{\pi}}/{I}_{2\ensuremath{\pi}}$. We provide detailed explanations where to expect clear signatures of the presence of the $4\ensuremath{\pi}$-periodic contribution as a function of the external parameters: the intensity ac bias ${I}_{\text{ac}}$ and frequency ${\ensuremath{\omega}}_{\text{ac}}$. On the one hand, in the low ac-intensity regime (where ${I}_{\text{ac}}$ is much smaller than the critical current ${I}_{\text{c}}$), we find that the nonlinear dynamics of the junction allows the observation of only even Shapiro steps even in the unfavorable situation where ${I}_{4\ensuremath{\pi}}/{I}_{2\ensuremath{\pi}}\ensuremath{\ll}1$. On the other hand, in the opposite limit (${I}_{\text{ac}}\ensuremath{\gg}{I}_{\text{c}}$), even and odd Shapiro steps are present. Nevertheless, even in this regime, we find signatures of the $4\ensuremath{\pi}$ supercurrent in the beating pattern of the even step sizes as a function of ${I}_{\text{ac}}$.
Screening Test for At-Risk Drinking: Development of New Abbreviated Version of Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test for Young and Middle-Aged Adults

Several abbreviated versions of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) have been developed for use in high-volume clinical situations such as emergency departments. In this study, we developed a new abbreviated version of AUDIT called the Screening Tool for At-risk Drinking (STAD) for young and middle-aged adults, consisting of two questions that reflect the structure of the AUDIT questionnaire using data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). To derive the abbreviated test considering AUDIT item structure, we performed confirmatory factor analysis on the 10 AUDIT questions in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) IV. To validate the new abbreviated test, we analyzed the sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) on the KNHANES V-VI except for the KNHANES VI-2. Based on the two-factor structure of AUDIT, question (Q) 3 and Q7 were finally selected for STAD. In validation, AUROC was significantly wider for STAD than for AUDIT-QF, which has the same number of questions. There was no significant difference between AUDIT-C, consisting of three questions, and STAD. It can be used as a simple and reliable screening test in clinical settings.
US Residents’ Perceptions of Dog Welfare Needs and Canine Welfare Information Sources

ABSTRACT The extent to which welfare needs of breeding dogs are met in commercial dog-breeding kennels is a potential point of controversy. This analysis sought to understand US residents’ perceptions and priorities related to dog welfare : by investigating (a) perceptions of breeding-dog welfare needs and (b) perceptions of various nonhuman animal welfare information sources. Using best/worst-choice experiments conducted in an online survey, respondents’ choices for most and least important breeding-dog welfare needs (n = 508) and most/least trusted canine welfare information sources (n = 508) were analyzed. The survey sample was targeted to be representative of the US population in terms of gender, age, region of residence, income, and education. The largest preference shares (relatively most important) for breeding-dog welfare needs were for “availability of food and water” (39.2%) and health/veterinary care (18.1%). The largest preference shares (relatively most trusted sources) for welfare information were American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, a veterinarian, and American Veterinary Medical Association, with 25.1%, 16.4%, and 14.1% shares, respectively.
An Improved FastICA Method for Fetal ECG Extraction

Objective The fast fixed-point algorithm for independent component analysis (FastICA) has been widely used in fetal electrocardiogram (ECG) extraction. However, the FastICA algorithm is sensitive to the initial weight vector, which affects the convergence of the algorithm. In order to solve this problem, an improved FastICA method was proposed to extract fetal ECG. Methods First, the maternal abdominal mixed signal was centralized and whitened, and the overrelaxation factor was incorporated into Newton's iterative algorithm to process the initial weight vector randomly generated. The improved FastICA algorithm was used to separate the source components, selected the best maternal ECG from the separated source components, and detected the R-wave location of the maternal ECG. Finally, the maternal ECG component in each channel was removed by the singular value decomposition (SVD) method to obtain a clean fetal ECG signal. Results An annotated clinical fetal ECG database was used to evaluate the improved algorithm and the conventional FastICA algorithm. The average number of iterations of the algorithm was reduced from 35 before the improvement to 13. Correspondingly, the average running time was reduced from 1.25 s to 1.04 s when using the improved algorithm. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) based on eigenvalues of the improved algorithm was 1.55, as compared to 0.99 of the conventional FastICA algorithm. The SNR based on cross-correlation coefficients of the conventional algorithm was also improved from 0.59 to 2.02. The sensitivity, positive predictive accuracy, and harmonic mean (F1) of the improved method were 99.37%, 99.00%, and 99.19%, respectively, while these metrics of the conventional FastICA method were 99.03%, 98.53%, and 98.78%, respectively. Conclusions The proposed improved FastICA algorithm based on the overrelaxation factor, while maintaining the rate of convergence, relaxes the requirement of initial weight vector, avoids the unbalanced convergence, reduces the number of iterations, and improves the convergence performance.
Data-Efficient Design Exploration through Surrogate-Assisted Illumination

Design optimization techniques are often used at the beginning of the design process to explore the space of possible designs. In these domains illumination algorithms, such as MAP-Elites, are promising alternatives to classic optimization algorithms because they produce diverse, high-quality solutions in a single run, instead of only a single near-optimal solution. Unfortunately, these algorithms currently require a large number of function evaluations, limiting their applicability. In this article, we introduce a new illumination algorithm, Surrogate-Assisted Illumination (SAIL), that leverages surrogate modeling techniques to create a map of the design space according to user-defined features while minimizing the number of fitness evaluations. On a two-dimensional airfoil optimization problem, SAIL produces hundreds of diverse but high-performing designs with several orders of magnitude fewer evaluations than MAP-Elites or CMA-ES. We demonstrate that SAIL is also capable of producing maps of high-performing designs in realistic three-dimensional aerodynamic tasks with an accurate flow simulation. Data-efficient design exploration with SAIL can help designers understand what is possible, beyond what is optimal, by considering more than pure objective-based optimization.