Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Fuzzy Inference System for Unsupervised Deblurring of Motion Blur in Electron Beam Calibration

This paper presents a novel method of restoring the electron beam (EB) measurements that are degraded by linear motion blur. This is based on a fuzzy inference system (FIS) and Wiener inverse filter, together providing autonomy, reliability, flexibility, and real-time execution. This system is capable of restoring highly degraded signals without requiring the exact knowledge of EB probe size. The FIS is formed of three inputs, eight fuzzy rules, and one output. The FIS is responsible for monitoring the restoration results, grading their validity, and choosing the one that yields to a better grade. These grades are produced autonomously by analyzing results of a Wiener inverse filter. To benchmark the performance of the system, ground truth signals obtained using an 18 m wire probe were compared with the restorations. Main aims are therefore: (a) Provide unsupervised deblurring for device independent EB measurement; (b) improve the reliability of the process; and (c) apply deblurring without knowing the probe size. These further facilitate the deployment and manufacturing of EB probes as well as facilitate accurate and probe-independent EB characterization. This paper’s findings also makes restoration of previously collected EB measurements easier where the probe sizes are not known nor recorded.
Daily and near-daily cannabis use is associated with HIV viral load suppression in people living with HIV who use cocaine

ABSTRACT Disparities remain in HIV viral load (VL) suppression between people living with HIV (PLWH) who use cocaine and those who do not. It is not known how cannabis use affects VL suppression in PLWH who use cocaine. We evaluated the relationship between cannabis use and VL suppression among PLWH who use cocaine. We conducted a secondary data analysis of 119 baseline interviews from a randomized controlled trial in the Bronx, NY (6/2012 to 1/2017). Participants were adult PLWH prescribed antiretrovirals for ≥16 weeks, who endorsed imperfect antiretroviral adherence and used cocaine in the past 30-days. In bivariate and multivariable regression analyses, we examined how cannabis use, is associated with VL suppression among PLWH who use cocaine. Participants were a mean age of 50 years; most were male (64%) and non-Hispanic black (55%). Participants with VL suppression used cocaine less frequently than those with no VL suppression (p < 0.01); cannabis use was not significantly different. In regression analysis, compared with no use, daily/near-daily cannabis use was associated with VL suppression (aOR = 4.2, 95% CI: 1.1–16.6, p < 0.05). Less-frequent cannabis use was not associated with VL suppression. Further investigation is needed to understand how cannabis use impacts HIV outcomes among PLWH who use cocaine.
The Early Stages of Photosystem II Assembly Monitored by Measurements of Fluorescence Lifetime, Fluorescence Induction and Isoelectric Focusing of Chlorophyll-Proteins in Barley Etiochloroplasts

The relationship between functional and structural aspects of PSII formation during greening of etiolated barley leaves has been investigated using fluorescence lifetime measurements, fluorescence kinetics analysis and analysis of chlorophyll-protein complexes by IEF-PAGE. Two phases of different character could be distinguished in the course of the greening process in dark-grown plants. An early phase covering the first 3-4 h after the onset of illumination and a late phase covering the subsequent greening. During the first phase the formation of PSII reaction centers and their minor antenna components was observed as manifested by the IEF-PAGE polypeptide pattern. This was accompanied by shortening of the slow and middle components of the fluorescence lifetime, as well as by the rapid drop in the amplitude of the slow component. A room temperature emission band at 676 nm was associated with uncoupled chlorophyll and with the slow fluorescence lifetime component during the first hours of greening. During the late greening phase peripheral light-harvesting complexes of PSII were formed concomitantly to an increase in lifetime and amplitude of the fast component and to a further decrease in the lifetime of the middle component. The gradual increase in PSII complexity during both phases of greening was also manifested by changes in proportion and kinetic properties of PSII a and PSII^ units. Similar changes in fluorescence lifetime components as in the late greening of dark-grown plants were also observed in intermittentlight plants during continuous greening associated with the development of PSII antenna. The relationships between fluorescence lifetime characteristics and development of PSII are discussed in terms of a stepwise mechanism invoving a first step of Chi integration into small size PSII units followed by progressive increase of antenna size.
Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy vs. Retrograde Intrarenal Surgery for Renal Stones Larger than 2cm in Patients with a Solitary Kidney: A Systematic Review and a Meta-Analysis.

PURPOSE The safety and feasibility of percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL) compared with retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS) are debated. This systematic evaluation was performed to obtain comprehensive evidence with regard to the treatment outcomes of PCNL compared with RIRS for management of renal stones in patients with solitary kidney. MATERIAL AND METHODS A systematic search of Medline, Embase, Pubmed, Web of Science, CNKI, Scopus and the Cochrane Library was performed to identify studies that compared PCNL with RIRS for management of renal stones in patients with solitary kidney and published up to Aug 2019. Outcomes of interest included perioperative variables, complications, and stone-free rate (SFR). RESULTS Four studies assessing PCNL vs. RIRS for renal stones larger than 2cm were included for meta-analysis. Although patients underwent PCNL have higher initial SFR than RIRS (OR: 3.72, 95% CI:2.38 to 5.83; P＜0.001), patients underwent RIRS have less intraoperative blood loss (dropped Hb: WMD= 3.49 g/L, 95% CI:2.83 to 4.15; P＜0.001), lower blood transfusion rates (OR= 5.31, 95% CI:1.36 to 20.68; P=0.02), and higher incidence rate of steinstrasse (OR:0.20, 95% CI:0.04 to 0.91; P=0.04). All the other calculated results including operation time (WMD: -9.87 minute, 95% CI:-30.11 to 10.37; P=0.34), final SFR (OR:1.65, 95% CI:0.80 to 3.42;P=0.18) and overall complications (OR:1.22, 95% CI:0.78 to 1.93; P=0.38) are similar between the two groups. CONCLUSION Our results indicate that PCNL has higher initial SFR than RIRS in the treatment of renal stones larger than 2cm in patients with a solitary kidney, the overall complications were similar in both groups. However, RIRS, with less blood loss and transfusion rate, may be an alternative in selected patients. But we need to pay more attention to the incidence rate of steinstrasse after RIRS.
INACTIVATION OF CEPHAMYCINS BY VARIOUS β-LACTAMASES FROM GRAM-NEGATIVE BACTERIA

The enzymic inactivation of cephamycins, i.e. cefoxitin, cefmetazole, cefotetan and cefbuperazone, was investigated by means of bioassay, high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and spectrophotometric analysis using three types of cephalosporinase (CSase, RICHMOND type Ia, Ib and Ic) and one penicillinase (PCase, TEM type). These four cephamycins were not inactivated by Ic CSase and TEM type PCase or producers of these enzymes. However, the inactivation of cefmetazole and cefoxitin was noted when they were incubated in the cultures of CSase (Ia and Ib)-producers or incubated with a large amount of these purified enzymes although the inactivation of cefbuperazone was not noted. HPLC of culture fluid or enzyme solution which contained cefmetazole or cefoxitin and were incubated at 37°C showed that metabolites of cefmetazole or cefoxitin appeared as the drug disappeared. In addition, the appearance of metabolites corresponded to the loss of the drug's bioactivities and the absorption of iodine. UV and IR spectra of cefmetazole which were taken after incubation with the purified CSase showed the cleavage of the β-lactam ring.
Automation and validation of a MALDI-TOF MS (Mass-Fix) replacement of immunofixation electrophoresis in the clinical lab

Abstract Objectives A matrix assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) method (Mass-Fix) as a replacement for gel-based immunofixation (IFE) has been recently described. To utilize Mass-Fix clinically, a validated automated method was required. Our aim was to automate the pre-analytical processing, improve positive specimen identification and ergonomics, reduce paper data storage and increase resource utilization without increasing turnaround time. Methods Serum samples were batched and loaded onto a liquid handler along with reagents and a barcoded sample plate. The pre-analytical steps included: (1) Plating immunopurification beads. (2) Adding 10 μl of serum. (3) Bead washing. (4) Eluting the immunoglobulins (Igs), and reducing to separate the heavy and light Ig chains. The resulting plate was transferred to a second low-volume liquid handler for MALDI plate spotting. MALDI-TOF mass spectra were collected. Integrated in-house developed software was utilized for sample tracking, driving data acquisition, data analysis, history tracking, and result reporting. A total of 1,029 residual serum samples were run using the automated system and results were compared to prior electrophoretic results. Results The automated Mass-Fix method was capable of meeting the validation requirements of concordance with IFE, limit of detection (LOD), sample stability and reproducibility with a low repeat rate. Automation and integrated software allowed a single user to process 320 samples in an 8 h shift. Software display facilitated identification of monoclonal proteins. Additionally, the process maintains positive specimen identification, reduces manual pipetting, allows for paper free tracking, and does not significantly impact turnaround time (TAT). Conclusions Mass-Fix is ready for implementation in a high-throughput clinical laboratory.
Haptic and Visual Feedback Assistance for Dual-Arm Robot Teleoperation in Surface Conditioning Tasks

Contact driven tasks, such as surface conditioning operations (wiping, polishing, sanding, etc.), are difficult to program in advance to be performed autonomously by a robotic system, specially when the objects involved are moving. In many applications, human-robot physical interaction can be used for the teaching, specially in learning from demonstrations frameworks, but this solution is not always available. Robot teleoperation is very useful when user and robot cannot share the same workspace due to hazardous environments, inaccessible locations, or because of ergonomic issues. In this sense, this article introduces a novel dual-arm teleoperation architecture with haptic and visual feedback to enhance the operator immersion in surface treatment tasks. Two task-based assistance systems are also proposed to control each robotic manipulator individually. To validate the remote assisted control, some usability tests have been carried out using Baxter, a dual-arm collaborative robot. After analysing several benchmark metrics, the results show that the proposed assistance method helps to reduce the task duration and improves the overall performance of the teleoperation.
Imagine a Giant Aneurysm in the Posterior Cerebral Artery: More Ultrasound Than Words

Giant cerebral aneurysms are rare arterial dilatations of at least 25 mm in diameter that account for less than 5% of all cerebral aneurysms. Giant aneurysms of the posterior cerebral artery are even more infrequent and represent less than 1% of intracranial aneurysms. They are mainly treated by endovascular procedures. Surgical treatment is technically difficult because of their location near the brain stem and the risk of closing the supplying branches of the midbrain arteries originating from the posterior cerebral artery. When a giant aneurysm ruptures, the mortality rate is very high. Exploring the brain with ultrasound through the transtemporal window (Figure 1), is the preferred approach to visualize the anterior cerebral circulation. The transcranial color-coded Doppler (TCCD) learning curve is a stepped approach, with advanced knowledge Figure 1. The transtemporal window represents the most-used approach to explore the brain with ultrasound. The transducer is put on the temporal fossa, a narrow fan-shaped space behind frontal process of the zygomatic bone and above the zygomatic process. This area, covered by the temporal muscle, is characterized by a thin skull bone that allows easier ultrasound penetration (red circled zone). Through this window, it is possible to visualize the anterior cerebral circulation: ie, middle cerebral artery, anterior cerebral artery, anterior communicating artery, and posterior artery.
A Narrative Review of Development of Full-Endoscopic Lumbar Spine Surgery

In the first phase of development of lumbar endoscopic spine surgery, the focus was on removal of soft disc material through the working corridor of Kambin’s triangle using transforaminal endoscopic lumbar discectomy. With the introduction of the interlaminar approach and increased interest from both industry and surgeons, there has been an exponential development of endoscopic surgical equipment and a corresponding expansion of endoscopic techniques. Endoscopic treatment strategies are applied to conditions ranging from contained prolapsed intervertebral discs to noncontained migrated herniated discs, hard calcified discs, spinal stenosis in the central or lateral recess and the foraminal and extraforaminal region, and other combinations of degenerative conditions requiring decompression or fusion surgery. The further expansion of endoscopic surgical management involving complicated spinal cases and the final quartet of trauma, infections, tumors, and possibly deformities could be the future stage of endoscopic spine surgery development. This article covers the full range of current treatment strategies and presents possible future developments of endoscopic spine surgery for the management of lumbar spinal conditions.
Exploiting Retraining-Based Mixed-Precision Quantization for Low-Cost DNN Accelerator Design

For successful deployment of deep neural networks (DNNs) on resource-constrained devices, retraining-based quantization has been widely adopted to reduce the number of DRAM accesses. By properly setting training parameters, such as batch size and learning rate, bit widths of both weights and activations can be uniformly quantized down to 4 bit while maintaining full precision accuracy. In this article, we present a retraining-based mixed-precision quantization approach and its customized DNN accelerator to achieve high energy efficiency. In the proposed quantization, in the middle of retraining, an additional bit (extra quantization level) is assigned to the weights that have shown frequent switching between two contiguous quantization levels since it means that both quantization levels cannot help to reduce quantization loss. We also mitigate the gradient noise that occurs in the retraining process by taking a lower learning rate near the quantization threshold. For the proposed novel mixed-precision quantized network (MPQ-network), we have implemented a customized accelerator using a 65-nm CMOS process. In the accelerator, the proposed processing elements (PEs) can be dynamically reconfigured to process variable bit widths from 2 to 4 bit for both weights and activations. The numerical results show that the proposed quantization can achieve $1.37 {\times }$ better compression ratio for VGG-9 using CIFAR-10 data set compared with a uniform 4-bit (both weights and activations) model without loss of classification accuracy. The proposed accelerator also shows $1.29\times $ of energy savings for VGG-9 using the CIFAR-10 data set over the state-of-the-art accelerator.
Adipokines in early and mid-pregnancy and subsequent risk of gestational diabetes: a longitudinal study in a multiracial cohort

Introduction Several adipokines are implicated in the pathophysiology of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), however, longitudinal data in early pregnancy on many adipokines are lacking. We prospectively investigated the association of a panel of adipokines in early and mid-pregnancy with GDM risk. Research design and methods Within the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Fetal Growth Studies-Singletons cohort (n=2802), a panel of 10 adipokines (plasma fatty acid binding protein-4 (FABP4), chemerin, interleukin-6 (IL-6), leptin, soluble leptin receptor (sOB-R), adiponectin, omentin-1, vaspin, and retinol binding protein-4) were measured at gestational weeks (GWs) 10–14, 15–26, 23–31, and 33–39 among 107 GDM cases (ascertained on average at GW 27) and 214 non-GDM controls. Conditional logistic regression was used to estimate ORs of each adipokine and GDM, controlling for known GDM risk factors including pre-pregnancy body mass index. Results Throughout pregnancy changes in chemerin, sOB-R, adiponectin, and high-molecular-weight adiponectin (HMW-adiponectin) concentrations from 10–14 to 15–26 GWs were significantly different among GDM cases compared with non-GDM controls. In early and mid-pregnancy, FABP4, chemerin, IL-6 and leptin were positively associated with increased GDM risk. For instance, at 10–14 GWs, the OR comparing the highest versus lowest quartile (ORQ4–Q1) of FABP4 was 3.79 (95% CI 1.63 to 8.85). In contrast, in both early and mid-pregnancy adiponectin (eg, ORQ4–Q1 0.14 (0.05, 0.34) during 10–14 GWs) and sOB-R (ORQ4–Q1 0.23 (0.11, 0.50) during 10–14 GWs) were inversely related to GDM risk. At 10–14 GWs a model that included conventional GDM risk factors and FABP4, chemerin, sOB-R, and HMW-adiponectin improved the estimated prediction (area under the curve) from 0.71 (95% CI 0.66 to 0.77) to 0.77 (95% CI 0.72 to 0.82). Conclusions A panel of understudied adipokines including FABP4, chemerin, and sOB-R may be implicated in the pathogenesis of GDM with significant associations detected approximately 10–18 weeks before typical GDM screening.
A Comparative Study of Participation in Physical Education Classes among 170,347 Adolescents from 54 Low-, Middle-, and High-Income Countries

Given the need for comparative research on the participation of adolescents in physical education (PE) classes as a privileged space for physical activity (PA) promotion, this study sought to estimate, analyse and compare the prevalence of participation in PE classes among adolescents from 54 countries and to examine sex, age, country income and world regions disparities. Data from the Global Students Health Survey (2010–2015) were used, comprising 170,347 adolescents (90,305 girls, aged 13–17 years) from nationally representative samples of 54 countries—of which 7 are low-income, 23 lower-middle-income, 14 upper-middle-income and 10 high-income—and six world regions. The weighted percentages of adolescents participating in PE classes (never, 1–2 days/week, 3–4 days/week, 5 or more days/week) were estimated along 95% confidence intervals and compared across sex, age, country income, region, and country. Most adolescents reported to participate in PE on 1–2 days/week (55.2%), but almost 20% of adolescents reported never participating in PE. Girls, compared to boys, presented a lower prevalence for participating ≥5 days/week (girls 16.8%, boys 20.0%). The prevalence of participating in PE on ≥3 days/week was higher among adolescents aged 13–14 years when compared to adolescents aged 15–17 years (boys: 30.9% vs. 24.6%; girls: 26.1% vs. 18.2%). Concerning the countries’ income, the prevalence of never participating in PE was higher in high-income countries, and participating on ≥3 days/week was higher in low-income countries, but further research is recommended. The findings suggest that national, regional and worldwide data highlight the importance of improving participation in PE, particularly for girls and older adolescents. An improved and continued monitoring of PE policies and their actual implementation is needed worldwide.
Comparative Study of Immunogenic Properties of Purified Capsular Polysaccharides from Streptococcus suis Serotypes 3, 7, 8, and 9: the Serotype 3 Polysaccharide Induces an Opsonizing IgG Response

Streptococcus suis is an encapsulated bacterium and one of the most important swine pathogens and a zoonotic agent for which no effective vaccine exists. Bacterial capsular polysaccharides (CPSs) are poorly immunogenic, but anti-CPS antibodies are essential to the host defense against encapsulated bacteria. In addition to the previously known serotypes 2 and 14, which are nonimmunogenic, we have recently purified and described the CPS structures for serotypes 1, 1/2, 3, 7, 8, and 9. ABSTRACT Streptococcus suis is an encapsulated bacterium and one of the most important swine pathogens and a zoonotic agent for which no effective vaccine exists. Bacterial capsular polysaccharides (CPSs) are poorly immunogenic, but anti-CPS antibodies are essential to the host defense against encapsulated bacteria. In addition to the previously known serotypes 2 and 14, which are nonimmunogenic, we have recently purified and described the CPS structures for serotypes 1, 1/2, 3, 7, 8, and 9. Here, we aimed to elucidate how these new structurally diverse CPSs interact with the immune system to generate anti-CPS antibody responses. CPS-stimulated dendritic cells produced significant levels of C–C motif chemokine ligand 3 (CCL3), partially via Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR2)- and myeloid differentiation factor 88-dependent pathways, and CCL2, via TLR-independent mechanisms. Mice immunized with purified serotype 3 CPS adjuvanted with TiterMax Gold produced an opsonizing IgG response, whereas other CPSs or adjuvants were negative. Mice hyperimmunized with heat-killed S. suis serotypes 3 and 9 both produced anti-CPS type 1 IgGs, whereas serotypes 7 and 8 remained negative. Also, mice infected with sublethal doses of S. suis serotype 3 produced primary anti-CPS IgM and IgG responses, of which only IgM were boosted after a secondary infection. In contrast, mice sublethally infected with S. suis serotype 9 produced weak anti-CPS IgM and IgG responses following a secondary infection. This study provides important information on the divergent evolution of CPS serotypes with highly different structural and/or biochemical properties within S. suis and their interaction with the immune system.