Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Why aren't there more African-American physicians? A qualitative study and exploratory inquiry of African-American students' perspectives on careers in medicine.

PURPOSE African Americans comprise 13% of Americans but only 4% of U.S. physicians. The reasons for this disparity are unclear. The purpose of this study was to identify African-American high-school student perspectives on barriers to African Americans pursuing careers in medicine. METHOD Focus group interviews (consisting of 15 questions) were conducted of African-American high-school juniors attending a Milwaukee public high school in which 89% of students are African Americans. The two focus groups were conducted in 2006, transcribed and analyzed using grounded theory. RESULTS The 12 students interviewed in two focus groups had a mean age of 17 years; 41% of students' parents were high-school graduates. Major barriers to becoming a physician cited by students included financial constraints, lack of knowledge about medicine, little/no encouragement at home or in school, negative peer views on excelling academically, lack of African-American role models in the community and on TV, racism in medicine, and easier and more appealing alternatives for making money. Students stated that increasing the number of African-American physicians would enhance patient-physician communication and relationships, and more African Americans would become physicians if there were greater exposure to medicine in schools, more guidance at a younger age and more role models. CONCLUSION Financial constraints, insufficient exposure to medicine as a career, little encouragement at home and in schools, lack of role models, and negative peer pressure may contribute to racial disparities in the physician workforce for African Americans. Exposure at a young age to role models and to medicine as a profession might increase the number of African American physicians.
The N. gonorrhoeae Type IV Pilus Stimulates Mechanosensitive Pathways and Cytoprotection through a pilT-Dependent Mechanism

The Neisseria gonorrhoeae type IV pilus is a retractile appendage that can generate forces near 100 pN. We tested the hypothesis that type IV pilus retraction influences epithelial cell gene expression by exerting tension on the host membrane. Wild-type and retraction-defective bacteria altered the expression of an identical set of epithelial cell genes during attachment. Interestingly, pilus retraction, per se, did not regulate novel gene expression but, rather, enhanced the expression of a subset of the infection-regulated genes. This is accomplished through mitogen-activated protein kinase activation and at least one other undefined stress-activated pathway. These results can be reproduced by applying artificial force on the epithelial membrane, using a magnet and magnetic beads. Importantly, this retraction-mediated signaling increases the ability of the cell to withstand apoptotic signals triggered by infection. We conclude that pilus retraction stimulates mechanosensitive pathways that enhance the expression of stress-responsive genes and activate cytoprotective signaling. A model for the role of pilus retraction in influencing host cell survival is presented.
How I Treat How I treat target-speci fi c oral anticoagulant – associated bleeding

Target-specific oral anticoagulants (TSOACs) that target thrombin (dabigatran) or factor Xa (rivaroxaban and apixaban) offer practical advantages over vitamin K antagonists (VKAs) for long-term oral anticoagulant therapy, including rapid onset of action, short halflives, fewer drug and food interactions, and predictable pharmacokinetics eliminating the need for routine monitoring of anticoagulant effect. In large clinical trials, these agents demonstrated similar or enhanced efficacy and/or safety compared with VKAs and lowmolecular-weight heparin (LMWH) for prevention and treatment of thromboembolism. Table 1 outlines currently approved indications for clinical use of TSOACs. Unlike VKAs for which vitamin K and coagulation factor replacement (with either prothrombin complex concentrate [PCC] or plasma) can be used in case of bleeding, there are no therapies that specifically reverse the anticoagulant effect of the TSOACs. Management of TSOAC-associated bleeding is further complicated by the difficulty in determining the degree of anticoagulant effect present at the time of the bleed.Widely available tests of the integrity of the coagulation cascade are variably responsive to the effect of the TSOACs (and in many cases, may fall within the normal range even when therapeutic drug levels are present), and specific tests (although available) are largely limited to highly specialized coagulation laboratories. In this narrative review, we discuss available evidence for reversal strategies and provide a practical approach to the management of TSOAC-associated bleeding.
Color camera Thermal camera Heli state estimation Chronicle recognition Temporal logic Reasoning Engines GIS Databases Image processing

To achieve sophisticated missions an autonomous UAV operating in a complex and dynamic environments must create and maintain situational awareness. It is achieved by continually gathering information from many sources, selecting the relevant information for the current task, and deriving models about the environment and the UAV itself. Often models close to the sensor data, suitable for traditional control, are not sufficient for deliberative services. More abstract models are required to bridge the sense-reasoning gap. This paper presents how DyKnow, a knowledge processing middleware, can bridge the gap in a concrete UAV traffic monitoring application. In the presented example sequences of color and thermal images are used to construct and maintain qualitative object structures modeling the parts of the environment necessary to recognize the traffic behavior of the tracked vehicles in realtime. The system has been implemented and tested both in simulation and on data collected during test flights. 1
Barrier smoothing for nonsmooth convex minimization

This paper proposes a smoothing technique for nonsmooth convex minimization using self-concordant barriers. To illustrate the main ideas, we compare our technique and the proximity smoothing approach [1] via the classical gradient method on both the theoretical and numerical aspects. While the barrier smoothing approach maintains the sublinear-convergence rate, it affords a new analytic step size, which significantly enhances the practical convergence of the gradient method as compared to proximity smoothing.
Host‐Parasite Coevolution and Selection on Sex through the Effects of Segregation

The advantage of producing novel variation to keep apace of coevolving species has been invoked as a major explanation for the evolution and maintenance of sex (the Red Queen hypothesis). Recent theoretical investigations of the Red Queen hypothesis have focused on the effects of recombination in haploid species, finding that species interactions rarely favor the evolution of sex unless selection is strong. Yet by focusing on haploids, these studies have ignored a potential advantage of sex in diploids: generating novel combinations of alleles at a particular locus through segregation. Here we investigate models of host‐parasite coevolution in diploid species to determine whether the advantages of segregation might rescue the Red Queen hypothesis as a more general explanation for the evolution of sex. We find that the effects of segregation can favor the evolution of sex but only under some models of infection and some parameter combinations, almost always requiring inbreeding. In all other cases, the effects of segregation on selected loci favor reductions in the frequency of sex. In cases where segregation and recombination act in opposite directions, we found that the effects of segregation dominate as an evolutionary force acting on sex in diploids.
Using Parallel Singleton Arc Consistency to Enhance Constraint Solving

In the latest years and with the advancements of the multicore computing world, the constraint programming community tried to benefit from the capacity of new machines and make the best use of them through several parallel schemes for constraint solving. In this paper, we present a new approach using parallel consistencies to enhance the classical solving process. Specifically, we propose an approach where a master process tries to solve a constraint satisfaction problem while using the results of consistency tests done by auxiliary workers so as to avoid some useless branching.
Compressive tracking with 1000-element arrays: A framework for multi-Gbps mm wave cellular downlinks

We propose and demonstrate the feasibility of multi-Gbps cellular downlinks using the mm-wave band. The small wavelengths allows deployment of compact base station antenna arrays with a very large number (32×32) of elements, while a compressive approach to channel acquisition and tracking reduces overhead while simplifying hardware design (RF beamforming with four phases per antenna element). The base station array transmits multiple compressive (≪ 32 × 32) training beacons by choosing different sets of phases from 0°, 90°, 180°, 270° at random at each of the elements. Each mobile, equipped with a single antenna, reports the observations corresponding to the different beacons (e.g., on an existing LTE link at a lower frequency), allowing the array to estimate the angles of departure. We observe that tracking overhead can be reduced by exploiting the sparsity of the spatial channel to a given mobile (which allows parametric estimation of departure angles for the different paths), and the continuity in the user's mobility at microsecond timescales (for tracking the evolution of departure angles). We first illustrate the basic feasibility of such a system for realistic values of system parameters, including range of operation, user mobility and hardware constraints. We then propose a compressive channel tracking algorithm that exploits prior channel estimates to drastically reduce the number of beacons and demonstrate the efficacy of the system using simulations.
Nebivolol decreases oxidative stress in essential hypertensive patients and increases nitric oxide by reducing its oxidative inactivation

Objective To obtain further insight into the mechanism underlying the vasodilator effect of nebivolol. Since oxidative inactivation of nitric oxide (NO) is regarded as an important cause of its decreased biological activity, we studied (1) the effect of nebivolol on some oxidative parameters in essential hypertensive patients; (2) the effect of plasma of nebivolol-treated patients on reactive oxygen species production and NO availability in endothelial cells. Methods A total of 20 healthy subjects and 20 matched essential hypertensive patients treated with atenolol or nebivolol according to a double-blind, randomized design participated in the study. We measured low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and plasma hydroperoxides, 8-isoprostanes, oxidized LDL, susceptibility of LDL to oxidation (lag phase) and LDL vitamin E and the effect of plasma of nebivolol- and atenolol-treated patients on reactive oxygen species production and NO availability in endothelial cells exposed to oxidative stress. Results In hypertensive patients, nebivolol and atenolol significantly reduced blood pressure values after 4 weeks of treatment. Plasma and LDL hydroperoxides, plasma 8-isoprostanes, plasma ox-LDL and LDL lag phase were significantly improved only in the patients receiving nebivolol compared with the atenolol group. Similarly there was a reduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and O2•− concentration in endothelial cells exposed to oxidative stress after incubation of the cells with plasma of the patients enrolled in the trial only in the patients receiving nebivolol compared to atenolol group. Furthermore, the reduction of basal and stimulated NO induced by oxidative stress in endothelial cells was significantly lower in the patients receiving nebivolol compared to atenolol group. Conclusions The findings of the present study indicate that nebivolol, through its antioxidant properties, increases NO also by decreasing its oxidative inactivation.
Congenital muscular torticollis in children: distribution, treatment duration and out come.

AIM The aim of the study was to evaluate the proportion of left and right congenital muscular torticollis (CMT) in both genders and age groups of the patients as well as to evaluate the duration of physical therapy and treatment outcome in observed population. METHODS In our study, 980 children with CMT without hematoma were treated at University children's Hospital of Belgrade (Serbia). They were divided into 2 groups: group with left torticollis and group with right torticollis. Boys and girls were separately evaluated. Patients were classified into 5 age groups: group of children less than one month of life, group above one to 3 months, group above 3 months to 6 months, group above 6 months to 12 months and group of children above 12 months of life. Optimal time for physical therapy was analyzed in every age group. RESULTS We diagnosed 496 torticollis in boys and 484 torticollis in girls. There were 458 children with left torticollis and 522 children with right torticollis. In group of children less than one month of life median duration of physical therapy was 1.5+/-0.3 months, in group above one to 3 months of life 5.9+/-0.6, in group above 3 to 6 months 7.2+/-0.6, in group above 6 to 12 months 9.8+/-0.6 and in group of children above 12 months of life 10.3+/-0.8 months. CONCLUSION Right torticollis is frequent in both genders and age groups. Younger children have lower treatment duration and better treatment outcome. Boys have longer treatment duration and not significantly better treatment outcome.
With a Little Help from my Neighbors: Person Name Linking Using the Wikipedia Social Network

Driven by the popularity of social networks, there has been an increasing interest in employing such networks in the context of named entity linking. In this paper, we present a novel approach to person name disambiguation and linking that uses a large-scale social network extracted from the English Wikipedia. First, possible candidate matches for an ambiguous person name are determined. With each candidate match, a network substructure is associated. Based on the similarity between these network substructures and the latent network of an ambiguous person name in a document, we propose an efficient ranking method to resolve the ambiguity. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, resulting in an overall precision of over 96% for disambiguating person names and linking them to real world entities.
Passive image tamper detection based on Fast Retina Key Point Descriptor

Images are major resource for information owing to their wide use and availability in the internet. Ensuring trustworthiness for image content is a primary objective of image forensic discovery. Copy-move is one of the main and frequently used tampering practices for reproducing or concealing precise area of an image. Most of existing methods deploy block matching technique to match and locate the tampered region which leads high computational complexity. This article introduces a robust technique to discover copy-move tampering with Fast Retina Key Point Descriptor (FREAK). Suspected image is preprocessed and FREAK feature descriptors around each Harris corner points were discovered. Detected FREAK features are mapped by means of KD-Tree algorithm. Experimental outcomes reveals that proposed technique efficiently detects copy-move tampered region even it is rotated, multi-pasted, blurred or brightness adjusted.
Seroconversion to hepatitis C virus alternate reading frame protein during acute infection

The existence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) proteins encoded by alternate reading frames overlapping the core‐encoding region has been suggested. Several mechanisms of production have been postulated, and the functions of these proteins in the HCV life cycle remain unknown. We analyzed cases of seroconversion to an alternate reading frame protein in a group of 17 patients infected by one of the two HCV genotype 1b strains during an outbreak in a hemodialysis unit. Three patients seroconverted, and antibodies were transiently detected in another patient. Three of these patients were infected by one of the two HCV strains, whereas the strain infecting the remaining patient could not be identified. Quasispecies sequence analysis of the core‐coding region showed no differences in the core or +1 reading frame sequences that could explain alternate reading frame protein seroconversion in some but not all of the patients infected by one of the HCV strains, and no such difference was found between the two strains. Because differences in the structure of RNA elements could play a role in frameshift events, we conducted a predictive analysis of RNA folding. No difference was found between the patients who did and did not seroconvert to alternate reading frame protein. Conclusion: Our findings prove that alternate reading frame proteins can be produced during acute HCV infection. However, seroconversion does not occur in all patients for unknown reasons. Alternate reading frame protein could be generated by minority quasispecies variants or variants that occur transiently. (HEPATOLOGY 2009.)
Shearing of fibrillar adhesive microstructure: friction and shear-related changes in pull-off force

To characterize the effect of shearing on function of fibrillar adhesive microstructure, friction and shear-related changes in pull-off force of a biomimetic polyvinylsiloxane mushroom-shaped fibrillar adhesive microstructure were studied. In contrast to a control flat surface, which exhibited pronounced stick–slip motion accompanied with high friction, the fibrillar microstructure demonstrated a stable and smooth sliding with a friction coefficient approximately four times lower. The structured contact also manifested zero pull-off force in a sheared state, while the flat surface exhibited highly scattered and unreliable pull-off force when affected by contact shearing. It appears that the fibrillar microstructure can be used in applications where a total attachment force should be generated in a binary on/off state and, most surprisingly, is suitable to stabilize and minimize elastomer friction.
Dilemma of False Negative Mammograms in Breast Cancer Patients

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women and the second cause of mortality after lung cancer. Mammography is an effective tool in detecting both clinically occult and palpable breast cancers. However, a good number of breast carcinomas may not appear on the mammogram. The false negative rate for conventional mammography worldwide is 10% 30% 1 . There are very few studies addressing the results of mammography in Bahrain.
2016 Ieee International Conference on Big Data (big Data) Persisting In-memory Databases Using Scm *

—Big Data applications need to be able to access large amounts of variable data as fast as possible. Emerging Storage Class Memory (SCM) fit this need by making memory available in large capacity while making changes endure as a seamless continuation of load-store accesses through processor caches. However, when writing values into a persistent memory tier, programmers are faced with the dual problems of controlling untimely cache evictions that might commit changes prematurely, and of grouping changes and making them durable as a unit so that consistency can be guaranteed in the event of sudden failure. In this paper, we present various methods to achieve high-performance byte-addressable persistence for an in-memory data store. We chose Redis, a popular high-performance memory oriented key value database. We modified its source code to use SCM such that updates to data and structures are performed in a failure resilient manner. We evaluated the changes using both internal benchmarks and the Yahoo! Cloud Servicing Benchmark (YCSB). We found that even though Redis uses many SCM read operations, it can benefit from highly optimized persistent SCM write based approaches, especially when SCM write times are longer than DRAM write times. The paper presents an innovative Local Alias Table Batched (LATB) method, and shows that it outperforms the alternatives.
Morphology of synapses in the autonomic nervous system.

The ultrastructure of synapses in the autonomic nervous system is reviewed. The synaptic organization of the parasympathetic ganglia is relatively simple. Preganglionic axons form synapses either on the soma or on short perikaryal processes of the ganglionic neurons. The presynaptic terminals have a cholinergic morphology and contain mainly small clear vesicles with a few large dense cored vesicles. A few neuropeptides have been localized to the large dense cored vesicles of these terminals. The postganglionic parasympathetic axons ramify within their target tissues where they form close associations, but not true synaptic contacts. Sites of release of transmitter are recognized morphologically as varicosities along the length of the axon that contain clusters of small clear vesicles with a few large dense cored vesicles. The organization of the sympathetic nervous system is somewhat more complex. In addition to acetylcholine, enkephalin also exists in these terminals, probably in the large dense cored vesicles. There are at least three types of ganglion cell neurons in the paravertebral portion of the sympathetic nervous system: those that contain norepinephrine alone, those that contain norepinephrine along with neuropeptide Y, and those that contain acetylcholine and vasoactive intestinal polypeptide. The first type provides innervation to the parenchyma of the target tissues, while the second mainly innervates blood vessels. The third type innervates the sweat glands. In the prevertebral ganglia, a fourth type of neuron exists that contains norepinephrine and somatostatin. This neuron probably innervates the gut. Preganglionic terminals of the cholinergic type form synaptic connections mainly with the dendrites of the sympathetic ganglion neurons. In addition to the types of synapses described for the paravertebral ganglia, neurons in the prevertebral ganglia receive synaptic connections from dorsal root ganglia and from the enteric nervous system. The sympathetic ganglia also contain interneurons that receive preganglionic synapses and form efferent synapses with some of the principal ganglion cells. The interneurons have been shown to contain a variety of transmitters, including norepinephrine, epinephrine, dopamine, serotonin, and a number of neuropeptides. The postganglionic sympathetic axons have a similar morphology to the parasympathetic axons. They form networks in their targets, and the axons display varicosities with concentrations of both small and large vesicles. After appropriate fixation, these vesicles are seen to possess dense cores. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
A Siegel-Weil formula for automorphic characters: Cubic variation of a theme of Snitz

Let F be a number field with adele ring A. Let D be a quaternion division algebra defined over F and ramified precisely at a finite set SD of places of F . Let VD be the 3-dimensional quadratic space (D0,−ND) where D0 is the space of trace zero elements in D and ND is the reduced norm of D. Then the special orthogonal group SO(VD) is naturally isomorphic to PD × = D/F and the reduced norm induces a natural map