Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adherence to Drug Label Recommendations for Avoiding Drug Interactions Causing Statin-Induced Myopathy–A Nationwide Register Study

Purpose To investigate the extent to which clinicians avoid well-established drug-drug interactions that cause statin-induced myopathy. We hypothesised that clinicians would avoid combining erythromycin or verapamil/diltiazem respectively with atorvastatin or simvastatin. In patients with statin-fibrate combination therapy, we hypothesised that gemfibrozil was avoided to the preference of bezafibrate or fenofibrate. When combined with verapamil/diltiazem or fibrates, we hypothesized that the dispensed doses of atorvastatin/simvastatin would be decreased. Methods Cross-sectional analysis of nationwide dispensing data. Odds ratios of interacting erythromycin, verapamil/diltiazem versus respective prevalence of comparator drugs doxycycline, amlodipine/felodipine in patients co-dispensed interacting statins simvastatin/atorvastatin versus patients unexposed (pravastatin/fluvastatin/rosuvastatin) was calculated. For fibrates, OR of gemfibrozil versus fenofibrate/bezafibrate in patients co-dispensed any statin was assessed. Results OR of interacting erythromycin versus comparator doxycycline did not differ between patients on interacting and comparator statins either in patients dispensed high or low statin doses (adjusted OR 0.87; 95% CI 0.60–1.25 and 0.92; 95% CI 0.69–1.23). Interacting statins were less common among patients dispensed verapamil/diltiazem as compared to patients on amlodipine/felodipine (OR high dose 0.62; CI 0.56–0.68 and low dose 0.63; CI 0.58–0.68). Patients on any statin were to a lesser extent dispensed gemfibrozil compared to patients not dispensed a statin (OR high dose 0.65; CI 0.55–0.76 and low dose 0.70; CI 0.63–0.78). Mean DDD (SD) for any statin was substantially higher in patients co-dispensed gemfibrozil 178 (149) compared to patients on statin monotherapy 127 (93), (p<0.001). Conclusions Prescribers may to some extent avoid co-prescription of statins with calcium blockers and fibrates with an increased risk of myopathy. We found no evidence for avoiding co-prescriptions of statins and antibiotics with an increased risk of statin-induced adverse drug reactions. Co-prescription of statins and gemfibrozil is paradoxically associated with a marked increased statin dose, further aggravating the risk for severe myopathy.
A Method for Calculating Future Behaviors of Vehicles toward Effective Collision Prediction

There are many accidents in traffic inter- sections because of complicated situations. In order to prevent the accidents, collisions between vehicles should be predicted and drivers should be alerted by in-car systems as soon as possible. Our research view- point is to detect possible collisions by predicting ve- hicle behaviors. We propose a region-based approach that uses "attainable region" for predicting the be- haviors. In our method, traffic situations are observed by analyzing video streams of the scenes. Vehicle be- haviors are transformed into the scene plane as spa- tial regions. With attainable regions, possible colli- sions between vehicles can be estimated by checking overlaps between regions. Through evaluation exper- iments, we show the feasibility of prediction with at- tainable regions. Dangerous vehicles for the target vehicle are defined as the vehicles which will collide the target vehicle in a few seconds. It requires that the system estimates possible collisions. Collisions can be defined as an observational situation in which occupied regions of two vehicles overlap each other. Future occupied regions are important factors to estimate possible collisions between the target vehicle and others. In this paper, we introduce a concept of attainable regions for representing future behaviors. In our method, vehicle behaviors are transformed into the scene plane as spatial regions for representing future behaviors of vehicles. By representing physical elements as spatial elements, future collisions between vehicles are estimated effectively. An attainable region means a spatial range where a vehicle can attain in the near future. Our method can easily es- timate possible collisions by checking whether the regions overlap each other. We develop a vision-based system for predicting future behaviors of vehicles as attainable regions. Our system is a kind of traffic monitoring applications in the research area of visual surveillance. We assume the environment where a traffic monitoring camera is set in high points and overlooks the intersection. Traffic situations are observed from the video stream captured by the camera.
Climate change mitigation in China

Climate change mitigation issues including China’s carbon emission status, the mitigation potential and cost in different sectors, the target of 40%–45% reduction of emission intensity of GDP in 2020 compared with the 2005 level, and conditions and uncertainties of the carbon emission peak are analyzed and assessed in the Third China National Climate Change Assessment Report and summarized in this paper. Economic structure adjustment has played and is expected to continue to play important role for carbon mitigation. Development of nuclear and renewable power would contribute to around 2 billion tons and 3.7 billion tons carbon reductions by 2020 and 2030 respectively. Key energy saving and low carbon technologies in the end-use sectors such as industry, transportation and building are listed and assessed. The mitigation potential and cost curve for steel is provided as an example to show that a large amount of carbon emissions could be reduced with minus mitigation cost partly resulting to energy saved. For industry process, carbon mitigation potentials would be around 420 million tons and 770 million tons by 2020 and 2030 respectively. Carbon mitigation potentials from LULUCF (Land use, land use change and forestry) are still uncertain and needed further research. For the assessment of 45% carbon intensity reduction target in 2020, it is concluded that economic structure adjustment, energy efficiency improvement, development of non-fossil energy, building and transportation would contribute to 33.4%, 28.5%, 20.4% and 17.3% of the total reductions. Assuming GDP growth rate as 6%–7% during 2010–2030, energy intensity reduction rate as 15% during 2015–2020, 14% during 2020–2025, and 13% during 2025–2030, the total primary energy consumption would be around 6 billion tons. To control coal use to less than 50% of the total primary energy consumption, while increasing the share of nature gas to over 10%, and the share of new and renewable energy to 20% or higher, carbon emissions would peak around 2030 at 11 to 12 billion tons. Finally, Climate change mitigation strategies to facilitate the achievement of China’s carbon emission peak target are proposed. It’s also suggested that measures are needed to accelerate the economy restructuring and development modes shift, to control the growth rate of total energy demand, to maintain a sustainable energy system with the new and renewable energy as its main components, and to achieve the carbon emission peak target by sector and region.
Best Practices for International eSourcing of Software Products and Services from the Service Providers' Perspective

This research analyzes how eSourcing service providers can execute the Information and Communications Technology-enabled international sourcing of software-intensive systems and services (eSourcing) effectively. The extant literature falls short of providing a detailed enough set of best practices and supporting classes of information systems to help providers to manage and deliver effective services. This research presents a set of best practices for international eSourcing service providers to facilitate the execution, improvement, and management of international eSourcing services. The practices help providers to establish and execute a mature eSourcing life-cycle in order to overcome the cultural, technical, and geographical boundaries in international eSourcing. Future research should examine the introduction and application of these practices and classes in the context of various service providers to validate the proposed set.
Vessel Wall Imaging of the Intracranial and Cervical Carotid Arteries

Vessel wall imaging can depict the morphologies of atherosclerotic plaques, arterial walls, and surrounding structures in the intracranial and cervical carotid arteries beyond the simple luminal changes that can be observed with traditional luminal evaluation. Differentiating vulnerable from stable plaques and characterizing atherosclerotic plaques are vital parts of the early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of stroke and the neurological adverse effects of atherosclerosis. Various techniques for vessel wall imaging have been developed and introduced to differentiate and analyze atherosclerotic plaques in the cervical carotid artery. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (HR-MRI) is the most important and popular vessel wall imaging technique for directly evaluating the vascular wall and intracranial artery disease. Intracranial artery atherosclerosis, dissection, moyamoya disease, vasculitis, and reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome can also be diagnosed and differentiated by using HR-MRI. Here, we review the radiologic features of intracranial artery disease and cervical carotid artery atherosclerosis on HR-MRI and various other vessel wall imaging techniques (e.g., ultrasound, computed tomography, magnetic resonance, and positron emission tomography-computed tomography).
Monolithic waveguide coupled GaAs microdisk microcavity containing ingaas quantum dots

After the intensive development of dielectric microcavities containing semiconductor quantum dots (QDs), a variety of cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) effects have been demonstrated such as Purcell effect, Rabi splitting, or single photon emission in the strong-coupling regime. To enable more complicated functionality, the main interest of such devices is now shifting to construct a chip-based quantum network that consists of arrays of cavities and waveguide structures for interconnection. Indeed, the solid-state system has the advantage over the atomic systems in terms of the scalability. By using such a system, several important quantum information protocols are proposed such as quantum repeater protocol that is based on entanglement distribution for long-distance quantum communication or quantum transmission protocol that is based on deterministic single photon emission and trapping for photonic quantum gate is proposed. For those applications, cavities with high quality (Q) factor, small mode volume (Vm), and large Purcell factor that are over-coupling to waveguides are required. In this thesis, we present our experimental effort to fabricate and characterize our integrated cavity QED device that consists of a GaAs microdisk microcavity and a monolithic waveguide. Microdisk microcavity that supports whispering gallery modes (WGM) is used because of the high Q factor and the small Vm. Light coupling to the waveguide is achieved by the monolithic grating coupler. By optimizing the cleanroom process flow based on electron beam lithography and dry plasma etching, highquality devices are fabricated starting from a GaAs/AlGaAs wafer with low-surface density In0.3Ga0. 7As quantum dots. v Optical characterization is performed by a microphotoluminescence (μ-PL) setup. For an isolated microdisk, our cavities showed high Q as high as Q=25000 at In0.3Ga0. 7As QD emission wavelength (λ=900nm). By the cavity-QD tuning, we observed the onset of strong coupling of cavity QED, which demonstrate high quality and capability of our device. For waveguide coupled microdisks, out-coupling from the disk to the waveguide is evidenced by extracting the cavity mode photons from the output grating coupler. In-coupling into the disk from the waveguide is evidenced by the resonant transmission measurement through the waveguide, where we observed ∆T=35% dip in the transmission spectra. By achieving both the in-coupling and out-coupling, this device is expected in playing an important role in demonstrating the on-chip quantum repeater, quantum transmission, and large-scale photonic quantum information processor.
Recovering the mechanical properties of denatured intervertebral discs through Platelet-Rich Plasma therapy

Degenerative disc disease is one of the most common causes of low back pain instigating huge socioeconomic costs and posing an immense burden on healthcare systems worldwide. New therapeutic approaches to damaged intervertebral discs are therefore of great interest. Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) has been proposed for the repair and regeneration of degenerated discs, but there remains a knowledge gap regarding its effectiveness and influence on disc material properties. The objective of this study was to investigate and quantify the material properties of intact, denatured, and PRP treated discs. A systematic methodology was established in the process, where ex-vivo experiments were conducted and material properties were extracted using an inverse finite element approach. The results showed that PRP is able to recover the mechanical properties of denatured discs, thereby providing a promising effective therapeutic modality.
Preliminary study of time maximum intensity projection computed tomography imaging for the detection of early ischemic change in patient with acute ischemic stroke

Abstract Noncontrast computed tomography (NCCT) has been used for the detection of early ischemic change (EIC); however, correct interpretation of NCCT findings requires much clinical experience. This study aimed to assess the accuracy of time maximum intensity projection computed tomography technique (tMIP), which reflects the maximum value for the time phase direction from the dynamic volume data for each projected plane, for detection of EIC, against that of NCCT. Retrospective review of NCCT, cerebral blood volume in CT perfusion (CTP-CBV), and tMIP of 186 lesions from 280 regions evaluated by Alberta Stroke Program Early CT Score (ASPECTS) in 14 patients with acute middle cerebral artery stroke who had undergone whole-brain CTP using 320-row area detector CT was performed. Four radiologists reviewed EIC on NCCT, CTP-CBV, and tMIP in each ASPECTS region at onset using the continuous certainty factor method. Receiver operating characteristic analysis was performed to compare the relative performance for detection of EIC. The correlations were evaluated. tMIP-color showed the best discriminative value for detection of EIC. There were significant differences in the area under the curve for NCCT and tMIP-color, CTP-CBV (P < .05). Scatter plots of ASPECTS showed a positive significant correlation between NCCT, tMIP-gray, tMIP-color, and the follow-up study (NCCT, r = 0.32, P = .0166; tMIP-gray, r = 0.44, P = .0007; tMIP-color, r = 0.34, P = .0104). Because tMIP provides a high contrast parenchymal image with anatomical and vascular information in 1 sequential scan, it showed greater accuracy for detection of EIC and predicted the final infarct extent more accurately than NCCT based on ASPECTS.
Local Region Expansion: a Method for Analyzing and Refining Image Matches

We present a novel method for locating large amounts of local matches between images, with highly accurate localization. Point matching is one of the most fundamental tasks in computer vision, extensively used in applications such as object detection, object tracking and structure from motion. The major challenge in point matching is to preserve large numbers of accurate matches between corresponding scene locations under diﬀerent geometric and radiometric conditions, while keeping the number of false positives low. Recent publications have shown that applying an aﬃne transformation model on local regions is a particularly suitable approach for point matching. Yet, aﬃne invariant methods are not used extensively for two reasons: ﬁrst, because these methods are computationally demanding; and second because the derived aﬃne estimations have limited accuracy. In this work, we propose a novel method of region expansion that enhances region matches detected by any state-of-the-art method. The method is based on accurate estimation of aﬃne transformations, which are used to predict matching locations beyond initially detected matches. We use the improved estimations of aﬃne transformations to locally verify tentative matches in an eﬃcient way. We systematically reject false matches, while improving the localization of correct matches that are usually rejected by state-of-the-art methods.
Naive Bayes classifiers for music emotion classification based on lyrics

There is a constantly growing interest in evaluating music information retrieval (MIR) systems that can provide effective management of the music resources. The crucial characteristic of music is its emotion, which reflect the human's perception. To do the automatic classification of Chinese music emotions more effective, we use the lyrics of music to analysis and classify music based on emotion. There are many algorithms to achieve text classification, and one of the most popular algorithms is Naive Bayes algorithm. Although it is simple, it can classify text effectively. In this paper, we crawl the music lyrics and their labels from a popular website named Baidu music and make our four different datasets. We also train four classifiers with different datasets and report their performance. We evaluate the classifiers trained by four different datasets, and the final accuracy we get is approximately 68%.
Sauropod Necks: Are They Really for Heat Loss?

Three-dimensional digital models of 16 different sauropods were used to examine the scaling relationship between metabolism and surface areas of the whole body, the neck, and the tail in an attempt to see if the necks could have functioned as radiators for the elimination of excess body heat. The sauropod taxa sample ranged in body mass from a 639 kg juvenile Camarasaurus to a 25 t adult Brachiosaurus. Metabolism was assumed to be directly proportional to body mass raised to the ¾ power, and estimates of body mass accounted for the presence of lungs and systems of air sacs in the trunk and neck. Surface areas were determined by decomposing the model surfaces into triangles and their areas being computed by vector methods. It was found that total body surface area was almost isometric with body mass, and that it showed negative allometry when plotted against metabolic rate. In contrast, neck area showed positive allometry when plotted against metabolic rate. Tail area show negative allometry with respect to metabolic rate. The many uncertainties about the biology of sauropods, and the variety of environmental conditions that different species experienced during the groups 150 million years of existence, make it difficult to be absolutely certain about the function of the neck as a radiator. However, the functional combination of the allometric increase of neck area, the systems of air sacs in the neck and trunk, the active control of blood flow between the core and surface of the body, changing skin color, and strategic orientation of the neck with respect to wind, make it plausible that the neck could have functioned as a radiator to avoid over-heating.
Comparative Transcriptomic Analysis of Race 1 and Race 4 of Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense Induced with Different Carbon Sources

The fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. cubense causes Fusarium wilt, one of the most destructive diseases in banana and plantain cultivars. Pathogenic race 1 attacks the “Gros Michel” banana cultivar, and race 4 is pathogenic to the Cavendish banana cultivar and those cultivars that are susceptible to Foc1. To understand the divergence in gene expression modules between the two races during degradation of the host cell wall, we performed RNA sequencing to compare the genome-wide transcriptional profiles of the two races grown in media containing banana cell wall, pectin, or glucose as the sole carbon source. Overall, the gene expression profiles of Foc1 and Foc4 in response to host cell wall or pectin appeared remarkably different. When grown with host cell wall, a much larger number of genes showed altered levels of expression in Foc4 in comparison with Foc1, including genes encoding carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) and other virulence-related genes. Additionally, the levels of gene expression were higher in Foc4 than in Foc1 when grown with host cell wall or pectin. Furthermore, a great majority of genes were differentially expressed in a variety-specific manner when induced by host cell wall or pectin. More specific CAZymes and other pathogenesis-related genes were expressed in Foc4 than in Foc1 when grown with host cell wall. The first transcriptome profiles obtained for Foc during degradation of the host cell wall may provide new insights into the mechanism of banana cell wall polysaccharide decomposition and the genetic basis of Foc host specificity.
Terpenoids from Platostoma rotundifolium (Briq.) A. J. Paton Alter the Expression of Quorum Sensing-Related Virulence Factors and the Formation of Biofilm in Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1

Platostoma rotundifolium (Briq.) A. J. Paton aerial parts are widely used in Burundi traditional medicine to treat infectious diseases. In order to investigate their probable antibacterial activities, crude extracts from P. rotundifolium were assessed for their bactericidal and anti-virulence properties against an opportunistic bacterial model, Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1. Whereas none of the tested extracts exert bacteriostatic and/or bactericidal proprieties, the ethyl acetate and dichloromethane extracts exhibit anti-virulence properties against Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 characterized by an alteration in quorum sensing gene expression and biofilm formation without affecting bacterial viability. Bioguided fractionation of the ethyl acetate extract led to the isolation of major anti-virulence compounds that were identified from nuclear magnetic resonance and high-resolution molecular spectroscopy spectra as cassipourol, β-sitosterol and α-amyrin. Globally, cassipourol and β-sitosterol inhibit quorum sensing-regulated and -regulatory genes expression in las and rhl systems without affecting the global regulators gacA and vfr, whereas α-amyrin had no effect on the expression of these genes. These terpenoids disrupt the formation of biofilms at concentrations down to 12.5, 50 and 50 µM for cassipourol, β-sitosterol and α-amyrin, respectively. Moreover, these terpenoids reduce the production of total exopolysaccharides and promote flagella-dependent motilities (swimming and swarming). The isolated terpenoids exert a wide range of inhibition processes, suggesting a complex mechanism of action targeting P. aeruginosa virulence mechanisms which support the wide anti-infectious use of this plant species in traditional Burundian medicine.
Tailoring deformation-induced effects in Co powders by milling them with α–Al_2O_3

The evolution of the structural and magnetic properties of metal-ceramic, cermet, nanocomposite powders, consisting of Co and α–Al_2O_3 in different proportions, prepared by ball milling has been investigated. The overall microstructure of the system, after long-term milling, is found to be very sensitive to the amount of α–Al_2O_3, yielding a less refined and faulted hexagonal-close-packed (hcp)-Co structure for the sample with larger α–Al_2O_3 percentage. The increased presence of the ceramic counterpart also causes a delay of the face-centered-cubic (fcc) to hcp-Co stress-induced transformation during ball milling. The results seem to indicate an evolution of the role of α–Al_2O_3, from increasing locally the strain rate of the mechanical work for small amounts of ceramic to absorbing milling energy for large amounts of α–Al_2O_3. The magnetic properties correlate with the obtained microstructure, where the amount of hcp-Co and stacking faults and the isolation of the Co particles by the α–Al_2O_3 control the coercivity.