Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cystic Fibrosis

Cystic fibrosis (CF) has traditionally been considered a disease for pediatricians and pediatric pulmonologists owing to the short life expectancy for patients suffering from this disease in the recent past. Advances in the maintenance of nutritional status, as discussed by Drs. Matel and Milla, and aggressive health maintenance and early recognition of and improved treatments for disease complications, presented in the article by O’Sullivan and Flume, have all led to substantial increases in life expectancy. The fact that two adult pulmonologists served as editors for this issue is a great testament to decades of scientific rigor and advancements in patient care by our pediatric colleagues in that survival to adulthood is now the norm rather than the exception. Prolongation of survival presents a new series of challenges to CF providers. Dr. Cruz and colleagues discuss anxiety and depression and their impacts on disease outcomes and adherence to therapy, CFrelated diabetes, which differs from types 1 and 2 diabetes, and bone disease such as osteopenia and osteoporosis are more prevalent in CF patients than in the general population. Their implications and therapy are discussed by Dr. Curran and colleagues. Dr. Lynch discusses infection with resistant pathogens, specifically Burkholderia cepacia complex and the combination therapies currently in use. The atypical organisms nontuberculous mycobacteria and fungi and their role in CF are discussed by Drs. Whittaker and Teneback. Drs. Bendiak and Ratjen present new strategies that are evolving for the management of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Drs. Morton and Glanville explore the appropriate use of lung transplantation. Drs. Truitt and Aris describe advancements in the understanding of the genetics of CF and alternative pathways for ion transport, which have contributed to a burgeoning pharmaceutical pipeline as presented by Dr. Ashlock and colleagues. Drs. Kraynack and McBride describe similar advances that have taken place in the recognition of opportunities to improve the quality of care delivery and the formalization of quality improvement initiatives. We are grateful for the opportunity to edit this issue and appreciate the hard work of our panel of authors whose contributions elegantly explore the advances of the recent past and those on the horizon.
Examining the content and privacy of web browsing incidental information

This research examines the privacy comfort levels of participants if others can view traces of their web browsing activity. During a week-long field study, participants used an electronic diary daily to annotate each web page visited with a privacy level. Content categories were used by participants to theoretically specify their privacy comfort for each category and by researchers to partition participants' actual browsing. The content categories were clustered into groups based on the dominant privacy levels applied to the pages. Inconsistencies between participants in their privacy ratings of categories suggest that a general privacy management scheme is inappropriate. Participants' consistency within categories suggests that a personalized scheme may be feasible; however a more fine-grained approach to classification is required to improve results for sites that tend to be general, of multiple task purposes, or dynamic in content.
Vertical transmission of hepatitis B virus: challenges and solutions

More than 240 million people worldwide are chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Mother-to-child transmission remains the most important mechanism of infection in countries with a high prevalence of HBV. Universal screening of all pregnant women, at-birth prophylaxis with specific anti-HBV immune globulin, as well as HBV vaccination for newborns of infected mothers are effective in reducing the risk of vertical transmission. However, in cases of a high viral load and hepatitis B e antigen positivity, there is a residual risk of HBV transmission to the newborn despite prophylaxis. This review focuses on the above-indicated strategies and on the efficacy and safety of antiviral drugs administered during the third trimester of pregnancy.
3-Year Follow-up of a Long-Term Registry-Based Multicentre Study on Vitamin E Diffused Polyethylene in Total Hip Replacement

Purpose Preclinical studies of vitamin E diffused highly cross-linked polyethylene (E-XLPE) has shown enhanced mechanical properties with less wear. The purpose of our study was to document the early clinical outcome of E-XLPE to ensure, for the safety of patients, that there are no unforeseen early adverse events from using this new biomaterial. Methods The enrolled patients (n = 977) have received either a porous titanium coated or porous plasma sprayed acetabular shell with either a E-XLPE liner or a medium cross-linked (AXL) liner. At each follow-up 5 patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) were completed: Harris Hip Score, Case Mix Indicator, UCLA Activity Score, SF-36, and EQ-5D. Radiographs were measured for cup and stem position, as well as femoral head penetration into the liner (wear). Postoperative complications and revisions were collected. Results At 3 years follow-up, there were 13 revisions due to: 4 periprosthetic fractures; 1 sepsis; 6 instabilities; and 2 implant mismatches at surgery. Wear of the hip implant, calculated by software analysis of pelvis x-rays, from the postoperative interval to 3 years showed a liner penetration rate of 0.027 mm/year for AXL and 0.005 mm/year for E-XLPE with no significant difference between the 2 (p = 0.24). Improvement was seen in all PROMs from the preoperative interval to 3 years after surgery (p<0.0001). Conclusions Early follow-up of the E-XLPE and AXL liners show low penetration. PROMs indicate improvement after total hip arthroplasty in functionality and quality of life across the centers. We have not observed any early in vivo adverse effects from diffusing the liners with vitamin E. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00545285.
Dendritic Cells Are Dispensable for T Cell Priming and Control of Acute Lymphocytic Choriomeningitis Virus Infection

Dendritic cells (DCs) are considered to be the major APCs with potent activity for priming of naive CD4 and CD8 T cells. However, T cell priming can also be achieved by other APCs including macrophages, B cells, or even nonhematopoietic cell types. Systemic low-dose infection of mice with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) results in massive expansion of virus-specific CD4 and CD8 T cells. To determine the role of DCs as APCs and source of type I IFNs in this infection model, we used ΔDC mice in which DCs are constitutively ablated because of expression of the diphtheria toxin α subunit within developing DCs. ΔDC mice showed lower serum concentrations of IFN-β and IL-12p40, but normal IFN-α levels during the first days postinfection. No differences were found for proliferation of transferred TCR-transgenic cells during the early phase of infection, suggesting that T cell priming occurred with the same efficiency in wild-type and ΔDC mice. Expansion and cytokine expression of endogenous LCMV-specific T cells was comparable between wild-type and ΔDC mice during primary infection and upon rechallenge of memory mice. In both strains of infected mice the viral load was reduced below the limit of detection with the same kinetic. Further, germinal center formation and LCMV-specific Ab responses were not impaired in ΔDC mice. This indicates that DCs are dispensable as APCs for protective immunity against LCMV infection.
Pilot based Channel Estimation and SCGNN based Equalization for MIMO-OFDM System

In this paper a new channel equalization technique is described based on Scaled Conjugate Gradient Neural Network (SCGNN) for Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). To estimate the channel in frequency domain, Space Time Block Code (STBC) is used. At the beginning of each transmitted OFDM block the pilot sequence is inserted to estimate the channel. In the transmitter the 16-QAM modulation is used as it is efficient in conserving bandwidth. The performance is evaluated using MATLAB and various results are plotted at different values of SNR. It is observed from the simulation that the proposed channel estimation and equalization method greatly reduced the Symbol Error Rate. We are able to achieve the SER as low as 0.01at a very low value of SNR. The MMSE is also greatly reduced and the system converges very fast. General Terms ISI (Inter-symbol Interference), BER (Bit Error Rate), SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio)
ANALYSIS OF SHAPE MEMORY BARS USING THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Shape memory and pseudoelastic effects are thermo-mechanical phenomena associated with martensitic phase transformations, presented by shape memory alloys. This contribution concerns with the analysis of nonlinear behavior of shape memory bars employing the finite element method. A constitutive equation based on Fremond's theory is considered. The proposed model includes four phases in the formulation: three variants of martensite and an austenitic phase. Different material parameters for austenitic and martensitic phases are concerned. Thermal expansion and plastic strains are included into the formulation and hardening effect is represented by a combination of kinematic and isotropic behaviors. A plastic−phase transformation coupling is incorporated into the model allowing a correct description of the thermo-mechanical behavior of SMAs. Moreover, constitutive equations consider horizontal enlargement of the stress-strain hysteresis loop, allowing better adjustments with experimental data. An iterative numerical process based on operator split technique is developed in order to deal with the nonlinearities of the formulation. Numerical simulations are carried out in order to illustrate the general behavior of shape memory bars under different thermo-mechanical loadings. Results show that the proposed model capture the general behavior of SMAs, allowing the description of bars subjected to non-homogeneous themomechanical loads.
Outdoor visual path following experiments

In this paper the performance of a topological- metric visual path following framework is investigated in different environments. The framework relies on a monocular camera as the only sensing modality. The path is represented as a series of reference images such that each neighboring pair contains a number of common landmarks. Local 3D geometries are reconstructed between the neighboring reference images in order to achieve fast feature prediction which allows the recovery from tracking failures. During navigation the robot is controlled using image-based visual servoing. The experiments show that the framework is robust against moving objects and moderate illumination changes. It is also shown that the system is capable of on-line path learning.
Q A ] 3 0 M ay 1 99 9 Quantum groupoids

We introduce a general notion of quantum universal enveloping algebroids (QUE algebroids), or quantum groupoids, as a unification of quantum groups and star-products. Some basic properties are studied including the twist construction and the classical limits. In particular, it is shown that a quantum groupoid naturally gives rise to a Lie bialgebroid as a classical limit. Conversely, we prove that any regular triangular Lie bialgebroid is quantizable. As an application, we study the dynamical quantum groupoid D⊗~U~g, which gives an interpretation of quantum dynamical Yang-Baxter equation in terms of Hopf algebroids.
Perceptual organization and task demands jointly shape auditory working memory capacity

Listeners performed two different tasks in which they remembered short sequences comprising either complex tones (generally heard as one melody) or everyday sounds (generally heard as separate objects). In one, listeners judged whether a probe item had been present in the preceding sequence. In the other, they judged whether a second sequence of the same items was identical in order to the preceding sequence. Performance on the first task was higher for everyday sounds; performance on the second was higher for complex tones. Perceptual organization strongly shapes listeners' memory for sounds, with implications for real-world communication.
Planimetric and volumetric changes of reef islands in response to wave conditions

Reef islands are morphologically dynamic features located on atolls and platform reefs that are very sensitive to wave‐induced processes on different timescales. The planform morphological evolution of reef islands is widely described; however, the mechanisms of the volumetric variations in response to wave energy are still poorly documented. To assess their multitemporal vertical and horizontal mobility, we performed a series of synchronous measurements of the volumetric changes and incident wave energies at two reef islands and a shingle bank at the Rocas Atoll in the South Atlantic Ocean. The results show the differences in the magnitudes and locations of the sediment mobility between the reef islands. Whereas one island remained stable on all timescales, with only small volumetric changes concentrated at its extremities, the other island (Farol Island) showed high mobility, especially during the energetic northern swell season. The gross volumetric change reached 10.03 × 103 m3 (5% of the total island volume) on a daily timescale; however, on a seasonal scale, the gross erosion was compensated by the gross accretion, indicating a cyclical seasonal pattern. Moreover, the observed volumetric changes induced by the waves on both daily and seasonal timescales did not result in large shoreline displacements. However, long‐term oceanward erosion and substantial lagoonward accretion were observed at Farol Island on a decadal scale, resulting in a pronounced change in its planform morphology. This appears to be promoted by at least three sediment transport pathways induced by waves at the atoll, including sediment adjustment between the reef islands. Our results show that reef islands on the same atoll can have very distinct morphological behaviors on daily, seasonal and decadal scales in response to the same boundary conditions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The role of Inadine in wound care: a consensus document

Iodine‐based products are antibacterial. The small iodine molecular size is ideally suited to treat surface critical colonisation. Inadine is a 10% povidone iodine dressing with the equivalent of 1% available iodine that is easily extracted from the viscose backing by serum or exudate. The use of hydrophilic polyethylene glycol tulle dressing delivery vehicle allows the dressing to be easily removed by irrigation with potable water or saline. In this study, we developed a short online survey completed by 23 wound‐care key opinion leaders from the nursing, medical and podiatry professions. A computerised modified Delphi technique was used to achieve 80% consensus on 11 statements related to the utility and everyday topical wound‐care use of this product.
An intelligent neuro fuzzy temporal knowledge representation model for mining temporal patterns

Representation of temporal knowledge and analysis of temporal data is becoming a good practice for effective classification and prediction. Various semantic levels on knowledge representation schemes have been measured for temporal data. The existing Fuzzy Cognitive Maps FCMs facilitate modeling dynamic systems for knowledge representation and reasoning under uncertainty. However, the FCMs are constructed manually and are constrained by the human experts' validation for assessing its reliability and they are lacking in considering temporal features necessary for reasoning in medical applications. This paper proposes a new temporal mining system known as Fuzzy Temporal Cognitive Map FTCM, which defines a complete discrete temporal extension and fuzzy inference mechanism of FCM. In FTCM, the temporal dependencies of concepts during a particular time interval are measured. This work aims to reduce the complexities of dynamic modeling of a complex causal system by proposing a four layer fuzzy neural network to construct FTCM from the temporal data. In this proposed model, a fuzzy temporal mutual subsethood operator is used to measure the activation spread in the FTCM for automatic quantification of causalities. This FTCM is designed for a set of temporal clinical records, which can be further used for inferencing and prediction in medical diagnosis by generating a set of fuzzy temporal rules using Allen's temporal relationships and fuzzy temporal rules.
Robust urban mobile localization using data fusion and intelligent estimation

In this paper, we utilize the synergy between data aggregation and fuzzy inferences to derive a new intelligent multiple-model-based estimation algorithm for robust urban mobile localization. The location estimation problem is cast into a Markov state transitioned system framework with fuzzy inferences for each base station for modeling the dynamics of a mobile station (MS), and data fusion of received time-of-arrival data and signal strength. This leads to a fuzzy-tuned extended Kalman filtering based interacting multiple-model (FT-IMM-EKF) algorithm. Due to data fusion along with an adequate fuzzy adaption of process noise variances, the proposed FT-IMM-EKF can ameliorate adverse effects of both NLOS errors and MS mobility more effectively than other relevant methods. The analytical results are substantiated by simulations.
A Cross-Modal Concept Detection and Caption Prediction Approach in ImageCLEFcaption Track of ImageCLEF 2017

This article describes the participation of the Computer Science Department of Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA in the ImageCLEFcaption under ImageCLEF 2017. The purpose of this research and participation is to be able to predict the caption and detect UMLS concepts of an unknown query (test) image by using Cross Modal Retrieval and Clustering techniques. In our approach, for each image (without any caption or concept information) in the test set, we find the closest matching image in the training set by applying similarity search (e.g., content based image retrieval) in a combined feature space of color, texture, and edge-related visual features. By linking the associated caption and UMLS concepts of the closest matched image, further processing are performed to extract terms (keywords/concepts) to form a text feature vector and finally return the top ranked terms as predicted concepts (caption) from the best matching cluster centroids which are previously generated by applying K-means clustering in a term-document matrix of the training set. In this article we present main objectives of experiments, overview of these approaches, resources employed, and describe our submitted runs and results with conclusions and future directions.
Identification and Characterization of a Cleavage Site in the Proteolysis of Orf Virus 086 Protein

The orf virus (ORFV) is among the parapoxvirus genus of the poxviridae family, but little is known about the proteolytic pathways of ORFV encoding proteins. By contrast, the proteolysis mechanism of the vaccinia virus (VV) has been extensively explored. Vaccinia virus core protein P4a undergoes a proteolytic process that takes place at a conserved cleavage site Ala-Gly-X (where X is any amino acid) and participates in virus assembly. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that an ORFV encoding protein, ORFV086, has a similar structure to the vaccinia virus P4a core protein. In this study, we focus on the kinetic analysis and proteolysis mechanism of ORFV086. We found, via kinetic analysis, that ORFV086 is a late gene that starts to express at 8 h post infection at mRNA level and 12–24 h post infection at the protein level. The ORFV086 precursor and a 21 kDa fragment can be observed in mature ORFV virions. The same bands were detected at only 3 h post infection, suggesting that both the ORFV086 precursor and the 21 kDa fragment are viral structural proteins. ORFV086 was cleaved from 12 to 24 h post infection. The cleavage took place at different sites, resulting in seven bands with differing molecular weights. Sequence alignment revealed that five putative cleavage sites were predicted at C-terminal and internal regions of ORFV086. To investigate whether those cleavage sites are involved in proteolytic processing, full length and several deletion mutant ORFV086 recombinant proteins were expressed and probed. The GGS site that produced a 21 kDa cleavage fragment was confirmed by identification of N/C-terminal FLAG epitope recombinant proteins, site-directed mutagenesis and pulse-chase analysis. Interestingly, chase results demonstrated that, at late times, ORFV086 is partially cleaved. Taken together, we concluded that GGS is a cleavage site in ORFV086 and produces a 21 kDa fragment post infection. Both ORFV086 precursor and the 21 kDa fragment are structural proteins of mature ORFV virions. ORFV086 and its cleaved products are indispensable for correct assembly of mature viral particles and this proteolytic processing of ORFV086 may play an essential role in viral morphogenic transition.
Towards understanding the uniqueness of gait biometric

In this paper, we provide some insights towards understanding the uniqueness of gait (ankle motion) by relating the discriminativeness of gait to the shoe type, direction of the motion and gait cycle. For analysis, we use gait samples of the people when all of them walk with the same specific types of footwear, thus eliminating the randomness (noise) introduced by the shoe variability. We collect gait using an accelerometer sensor, which is attached to the ankle of the person. The accelerometer records ankle motion in three directions: up-down, forward-backward and sideway. The verification method is based on detecting and averaging gait cycles in acceleration signal. Our gait data set consists of 480 samples from 30 persons. Each person walked with the 4 different types of footwear. Our analysis reveal that heavy footwear reduces the discrimination and the sideway motion of the foot has the most discriminating power compared to the up-down or forward-backward directions of the motion. Furthermore, various gait cycle parts contribute differently to the recognition performance. In addition, our analysis confirm that recognition performance can significantly decrease when the test and template samples are obtained using different shoe types. The recognition performance in terms of EER was in the range of 5%-18.3% mainly depending on the shoe type and the direction of motion.
Interocular Transfer in Normal Humans, and Those Who Lack Stereopsis

Interocular transfer of the tilt aftereffect was investigated in normal humans with good stereopsis and in subjects without stereoscopic vision. These latter subjects were divided into two groups: those with and those without a history of strabismus. Strabismic subjects showed grossly reduced interocular transfer of the effect (12% mean transfer). Nonstrabismic subjects had moderate transfer (49%) and normal subjects showed approximately 70% mean transfer. All normal subjects showed greater transfer from the dominant eye to the nondominant than vice versa. The results are discussed with respect to developmental effects in the visual system of cats and humans, and the nature of the tilt aftereffect.