Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Between life and death: strategies to reduce phototoxicity in super-resolution microscopy

Super-resolution microscopy (SRM) enables non-invasive, molecule-specific imaging of the internal structure and dynamics of cells with sub-diffraction limit spatial resolution. One of its major limitations is the requirement for high-intensity illumination, generating considerable cellular phototoxicity. This factor considerably limits the capacity for live-cell observations, particularly for extended periods of time. Here, we give an overview of new developments in hardware, software and probe chemistry aiming to reduce phototoxicity. Additionally, we discuss how the choice of biological model and sample environment impacts the capacity for live-cell observations.
Prioritization of genetic variants predisposing to coronary heart disease in the Bulgarian population using centenarian exomes

Abstract Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a major cause of mortality and morbidity in Europe. CHD is usually caused by atherosclerosis. Despite extensive studies that have identified a large number of genetic variants, strong evidence of association with CHD are not easily replicable in different populations. Two DNA pools were constructed: one with 32 Bulgarian centenarians and one with 61 young healthy Bulgarian individuals. The pools were whole-exome sequenced and variants were annotated and quality filtered (89,810 filtered variants). Allele frequencies were estimated and Fisher’s exact test was used to evaluate the significance of allele frequency differences between the two pools. Two publicly available databases, Ensembl and DisGeNET, were used as a source of 2025 CHD-associated variants (CHD-AVs). These single nucleotide polymorphisms were screened in our data and 158 variants in 133 genes were found. ToppGene pathways analysis of genes called in both pools discovered participation of 37 genes in 9 significantly over-represented pathways. Eight variants in these 37 genes have significantly higher frequency in young individuals, and are nominated for CHD association. Variants called only in the young individuals pool (13 variants) are also nominated for association with CHD. Based on sufficiently unambiguous literature data, from the nominated variants, we prioritize five as associated with CHD in the studied Bulgarian sample. Centenarian genomes can be used to provide additional information regarding the clinical relevance of genetic variants reported as associated with CHD.
A Novel Doubly-Fed Flux-Switching Permanent Magnet Machine With Armature Windings Wound on Both Stator Poles and Rotor Teeth

In this article, a novel doubly-fed flux-switching permanent magnet (DF-FSPM) machine is proposed, whose armature windings are wound on both stator poles and rotor teeth. Different from the conventional FSPM machine in which the armature windings are only located in the stator, the rotor slot area is fully utilized in the DF-FSPM machine to improve the electrical loadings and, thus, the torque density. Moreover, it has the potential of fault-tolerant operation, since it comprises two sets of armature windings, which can work individually. The topology and the operating principle of the machine are introduced with reference to a 12-stator-pole/10-rotor-tooth DF-FSPM machine. The electromagnetic performances of the optimized DF-FSPM machine and its FSPM counterpart machine are compared, including the induced voltage, inductances, torque capability, flux weakening capability, efficiency, and power factor. It shows that the DF-FSPM machine can exhibit about 46.5% higher torque density than the FSPM machine, while its torque production per magnet volume is also improved by about 39.6%. In addition, the efficiency and power factor of the DF-FSPM machine are higher than those of the FSPM machine. Finally, experimental validation is conducted on a prototype machine.
Asynchronous adaptive output feedback sliding mode control for Takagi‐Sugeno fuzzy Markovian jump systems with actuator faults

In this article, the problem of asynchronous adaptive dynamic output feedback sliding mode control (SMC) for a class of Takagi‐Sugeno (T‐S) fuzzy Markovian jump systems (MJSs) with actuator faults is investigated. The asynchronous dynamic output feedback control strategy is employed, as the nonsynchronization phenomenon of jump modes exists between the plant and the controller. A novel asynchronous adaptive SMC approach is proposed to solve the synthesis problem for T‐S fuzzy MJSs with actuator faults. Sufficient conditions for stochastic asymptotic stability of T‐S fuzzy MJSs are given. Under the designed asynchronous adaptive SMC scheme, the effects of actuator faults and external disturbance can be completely compensated and the reachability of sliding surface is ensured. Finally, an example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design techniques.
Agnostic Allocation Portfolios: A Sweet Spot in the Risk-Based Jungle?

The authors advocate the use of agnostic allocation for the construction of long-only portfolios of stocks. Agnostic allocation portfolios (AAPs) are a special member of a family of risk-based portfolios that are able to mitigate certain extreme features (excess concentration, high turnover, strong exposure to low-risk factors) of classic portfolio construction methods, while achieving similar performance. AAPs thus represent a very attractive alternative risk-based portfolio construction framework that can be implemented in different situations, with or without an active trading signal. TOPICS: Portfolio theory, portfolio construction, risk management Key Findings • Long-only risk-based portfolio construction methods that rely on the inverse covariance matrix, such as minimum variance and maximum diversification, are plagued by overconcentration, excess turnover, and exposure to the low-risk factor. • Agnostic allocation portfolios (AAPs) deliver a compromise between risk-based portfolios that are structurally blind to the correlation structure and those that invert the covariance matrix of returns. They significantly reduce turnover and concentration and achieve performance similar to or better than that of traditional methods. • AAPs are supplemented with a pruning technique that discards unnecessary exposures to low-significance statistical factors. This technique, combined with the use of adequately cleaned covariance matrices, improves the outcome of AAPs by further reducing excess trading and concentration.
Observations on the natural history of stunting

The reason for organizing this workshop is very simple. If we use a low weight for age as the basis for the anthropometric diagnosis of malnutrition, then in many countries some four-fifths of the children considered to be malnourished are simply small in size, with normal weight for height (Table 1). However, it is remarkable that there has been no systematic attempt to tackle the question: Is it meaningful or realistic to call these small children malnourished? To establish a valid definition, we must avoid a circular argument: nutritional status is assessed by measurement of body size; therefore, a small child is malnourished. The question posed above is of great public health importance, and attempts to answer it will bring us into difficult territory. It may be useful to divide the question into two parts. First, does smallness imply any impairment of health or functional capacity? More precisely, what are the relationships between body size and different functions after interfering factors have been removed (if, indeed, they can be removed)? Here we are dealing with the mal in malnutrition. The second part of the question is whether the effects are caused primarily by nutritional factors and, if they are, by what mechanism? The chapters in this volume are addressed to different aspects of these two questions. These in turn encompass a third question: Does stunting represent a situation that calls for action in countries where resources are scarce, and, if so, what kind of action?
Time-Aware Smart Object Recommendation in Social Internet of Things

With a large number of possible smart objects in Social Internet of Things (SIoT), a recommendation system is of great necessity to help users find smart objects they need. However, traditional recommendation techniques usually exploit user’s rating or feedback information, which are impractical as such kind of user preference information is difficult to collect in the SIoT environment. In addition, temporal context plays an important role in smart object recommendation since most users tend to utilize different objects at different time slots in a day, e.g., making coffee at morning and playing games on weekends. In this article, we propose a time-aware smart object recommendation model by jointly considering user’s preference over time and smart object’s social similarity. We first learn user’s preference over time from his/her object usage events with a latent probabilistic model. Then, we estimate the smart object’s social similarity by embedding their heterogeneous social relationships into a shared lower dimensional space. Finally, we generate the recommendation list with an item-based collaborative filtering. We conduct a comprehensive experimental study based on two real-world data sets, and the experimental results show our method outperforms all baselines significantly in terms of recommendation effectiveness.
Beyond Jeopardy!: Harnessing IBM's Watson to improve oncology decision making.

6508 Background: Electronic decision support is increasingly prevalent in clinical practice. Traditional tools map guidelines into an interactive platform. An alternative method builds on experience-based learning. Methods: Memorial Sloan-Kettering (MSK), IBM and WellPoint teamed to develop IBM Watson – a cognitive computing system leveraging natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML) and massive parallel processing – to help inform clinical decision making. We made a prototype for lung cancers using manufactured and anonymized patient cases. We configured this tool to read medical language and extract specific attributes from each case to identify appropriate treatment options benchmarked against MSK expertise, anonymized patient cases and published evidence. Treatment options reflect consensus guidelines and MSK best practices where guidelines are not granular enough to match treatments to unique patients. Analysis and building accuracy is ongoing and iterative. Results: 420 manufactured a.
The effect of establishing a new, reorganized emergency department on quality of clinical healthcare and patient satisfaction

Assessment committee: Christian Backer Mogensen, Clinical Associate Professor, MD, PhD, Emergency Centre Aabenraa, Hospital of Southern Jutland, Aabenraa University of Southern Denmark, Denmark (Chair) Knut Stavem, Professor, MD, PhD, Institutt for klinisk medisin, Det medisinske Fakultet. Akershus Universitetssykehus University of Oslo, Norway Ulrika Enemark, Associate Professor, M.Sc., PhD, Department of Public Health Department of Health Services Research Aarhus University, Denmark
Physical Model Testing of the TetraSpar Demo Floating Wind Turbine Prototype

As part of the process of deploying new floating offshore wind turbines, scale model testing is carried out to de-risk and verify the design of novel foundation concepts. This paper describes the testing of a 1:43 Froude-scaled model of the TetraSpar Demo floating wind turbine prototype that shall be installed at the Metcentre test facility, Norway. The TetraSpar floating foundation concept consists of a floater tetrahedral structure comprising of braces connected together through pinned connections, and a triangular keel structure suspended below the floater by six suspension lines. A description of the experimental setup and program at the Alfond W2 Ocean Engineering Lab at University of Maine is given. The objective of the test campaign was to validate the initial design, and contribute to the development of the final demonstrator design and numerical models. The nonlinear hydrodynamic characteristics of the design are illustrated experimentally and the keel suspension system is shown to satisfy design criteria.
Lithium-ion Battery State of Health Estimation Using Empirical Mode Decomposition Sample Entropy and Support Vector Machine

Accurate knowledge of the state of health (SOH) is important for battery management system to maintain safe operation of batteries and extend their lifetime. In order to improve the accuracy in estimating the SOH of a battery, a new method based on empirical mode decomposition sample entropy (EMDSE) and support vector machine (SVM) is proposed in this paper. Compared with the tradition SE-based method, EMD is used to filter the noise of the original signal. Then the EMDSE as a new feature is used for the SVM training, and the potential relationship between the SOH and the EMDSE is established. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by experimental results.
The Development and Validation of a New Questionnaire to Address theGap between the Actual and Desired States in COPD Patients

Background: Numerous quality of life (QOL) assessment tools are available for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); however, most only focus on the patient’s actual state, and very few assess the patient’s desired state. Objective: To develop a questionnaire that can assess COPD patients’ desired states and to verify the usefulness of the findings. Methods: We interviewed COPD patients to identify components that best reflected the patients’ desired movement/activities. Two types of questionnaires were created with each component intended for self-assessment by actual and desired states. The revised questionnaire included the appropriate components based on the results of the preliminary survey. A multicenter study was performed using the final questionnaire. Results: We selected 32 components of the patients’ desired movement/activity from interviews with 22 COPD patients. The final questionnaire consisted of eight components and had a sufficiently high internal consistency (Cronbach’s α > 0.8). Three hundred and sixty two COPD patients participated in the validation study. The gap score (the difference between actual and desired scores) was significantly correlated with the predicted percentage of the forced expiratory volume in 1 s, dyspnea scale, and the COPD assessment test (CAT) (p < 0.0001). Oxygen therapy and frequent exacerbations exhibited unfavorable gap scores (p < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis on actual scores identified dyspnea scale, CAT, oxygen use, unemployment, exacerbation and heart failure to be independent explanatory variables (adjusted R2=0.63). Whereas only dyspnea scale and CAT were significant predictors in gap score (adjusted R2=0.32). Conclusion: The gap and actual scores evaluate the different aspect of the patients’ state. Evaluating the gap scores in patients might be useful in the assessment of the suitability of ongoing medical interventions and in the determination of future therapeutic goals.
Association of anthropogenic aerosols with subtropical drought in East Asia

Anthropogenic aerosols play an important role in altering the radiation budget and Earth's climate. In this study, the association of anthropogenic aerosols with subtropical drought in East Asia is investigated with multisource data and simulations of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) models. The result shows that the increase in anthropogenic aerosols partially contributes to the zonal drought at subtropical latitudes in East Asia from 1970. In East Asia, sulphate is the dominant type of anthropogenic aerosol and is mainly distributed over the southeastern China. Due to the sulphate aerosols, the geopotential height decreases/increases significantly at the upper‐/lower‐level atmosphere in the subtropical region, with a maximum variation at approximately 30°N. Consequently, the downward motion of air is intensified in the subtropical region. Ultimately, the precipitation amount in the vicinity of the subtropical region is significantly diminished, with a maximum decrease at approximately 30°N. In contrast, the sulphate aerosols could induce more precipitation over the tropical region. In conclusion, the anthropogenic aerosols have an important impact on precipitation in East Asia. In the future, with the intensification of human activities, the contribution of anthropogenic aerosols to aridification is an inevitable question.
Are Nutrition and Food Security Concerns a Priority of Certified Nursing Assistants in Work and Family Environments

Are Nutrition and Food Security Concerns a Priority of Certified Nursing Assistants in Work and Family Environments? Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) are responsible for the care of America’s aging population. CNAs are paid a miniscule amount of money and are often ineligible for medical benefits through their employers. CNAs bathe, change, feed, and help toilet the residents of long-term care facilities. The stressful work and personal lives of CNAs leads to many problems such as high turnover rates, absenteeism, health problems, and elder abuse. In the United States, food insecurity is a concern for many of the uninsured working poor. The purpose of this study was to assess the overall perceived concerns, barriers, and solutions of CNAs in both their work and family environments, identify where nutrition and food security fits into the priorities of CNAs, and identify educational strategies to improve their health and overall quality of life. Twenty-nine CNAs participated in six focus groups across the state of Virginia. Triangulation techniques were used to compare both qualitative (focus groups) and quantitative (participatory activities and questionnaires) research. Participatory activities showed that the top home concern of CNAs was money management. CNAs ranked keeping their family healthy fourth (9.6%), and they ranked preparing fast easy meals eighth (1.7%). The top work concern of CNAs was time management. Staying healthy at work ranked fourth (12.9%), while packing a nutritious lunch was sixth (3.4%). The preferred methods of education for the participants were watching videotapes, attending classes at a central location, and having a mentor to help them with their problems.
Voltage sensor based on liquid-crystal-infiltrated photonic crystal fiber with high index

The molecules of nematic liquid crystal rotate as the ambient voltage increases. A photonic crystal fiber with many holes distributed on its cross section provides a platform to integrate the fiber and liquid crystal. The refractive index distribution of the photonic crystal fiber infiltrated with liquid crystal varies with changing voltage. A photonic crystal fiber with a high refractive index is chosen. The influence of voltage on the molecular orientation of the liquid crystal, loss and birefringence of the fiber are analyzed. The average sensitivity is up to −7.37 nmV−1 at the temperature of 20 °C as the voltage varies from 325 to 425 V.
Design, Synthesis and Pharmacological Evaluation of Novel Annelated Pyrimido[2,1-c][1,2,4]Triazolo[3,4-f][1,2,4]Triazines as Antimicrobial Agents

In our tactic to construct bio-active molecules, a series of novel pyrimido[2,1-c][1,2,4]triazine-3,4-diones based heterocycles, were synthesized and evaluated for their in vitro antimicrobial impacts. The exploratory bioassay results declared that, the majority of the evaluated compounds exhibited considerable anti-microbial activity comparable to the reference drugs. Conjugates 15j, 15f, 15i, 15h, 15g and 15a were found to be the most potent antibacterial, indicating that conjugates bearing electron-attracting substituents exhibited higher potency than these with electron-releasing substituents.
Evidence-Based Policing and Fatal Police Shootings: Promise, Problems, and Prospects

The promise of evidence-based policing is to reduce harm with better research for targeting, testing, and tracking police actions. The problems of using evidence-based policing to reduce harm are found in the emotional dimensions of ethics and risk. These problems are most pronounced with fatal police shootings, where the risks of injury to American police are often framed as a zero-sum choice in relation to the ethics of taking citizens’ lives. Yet evidence-based policing offers good prospects for reframing the debate over fatal police shootings, in ways that could reduce harm to both police and citizens. This volume offers substantial new evidence for initiatives at all levels of U.S. government that could help to save lives in police encounters with citizens. Putting that evidence to work remains the major challenge facing the American police.
First steps towards combining faecal immunochemical testing with the gut microbiome in colorectal cancer screening

Objectives Many countries use faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) to screen for colorectal cancer. There is increasing evidence that faecal microbiota play a crucial role in colorectal cancer carcinogenesis. We assessed the possibility of measuring faecal microbial features in FIT as potential future biomarkers in colorectal cancer screening. Methods Bacterial stability over time and the possibility of bacterial contamination were evaluated using quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis. Positive FIT samples (n = 200) of an average-risk screening cohort were subsequently analysed for universal 16S, and bacteria. Escherichia coli (E. coli), Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum), Bacteroidetes and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii (F. prausnitzii) by qPCR. The results were compared with colonoscopy findings. Results Faecal microbiota in FIT were stably measured up to six days for E. coli (p = 0.53), F. nucleatum (p = 0.30), Bacteroidetes (p = 0.05) and F. prausnitzii (p = 0.62). Overall presence of bacterial contamination in FIT controls was low. Total bacterial load (i.e. 16S) was significantly higher in patients with colorectal cancer and high-grade dysplasia (p = 0.006). For the individual bacteria tested, no association was found with colonic lesions. Conclusions These results show that the faecal microbial content can be measured in FIT samples and remains stable for six days. Total bacterial load was higher in colorectal cancer and high-grade dysplasia. These results pave the way for further research to determine the potential role of microbiota assessment in FIT screening.
Anabaptist Community Members' Perceptions and Preferences Related to Healthcare

The plain Anabaptists are thought to differ from mainstream U.S. health care beliefs and practices. Many non-Anabaptist health care providers have limited knowledge of the specific health beliefs and preferences of Anabaptists, which can lead to misunderstandings. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to collect information from Anabaptist community members related to health care beliefs and preferences in their communities. Participants, who were members of various plain Anabaptist communities, completed a questionnaire containing openended questions about health issues. Seven themes emerged in results: (1) health viewed as a gift from God that provides the ability to work; (2) concern about exposure to chemicals and food additives as health risks; (3) the use of a variety of resources from lay members in the community in addition to seeking information from professionals; (4) the desire to use natural remedies first with outside care being sought when deemed necessary; (5) barriers to seeking professional healthcare as mainly related to cost, time, and provider attitudes; (6) maintaining a good diet, being active, and having good dental care as important preventative activities; and (7) expectation of respect, engagement, and care from providers.