Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Swan-neck versus straight peritoneal dialysis catheter: Long-term effect on patient and method survival

Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is limited mainly by a higher technique failure rate as compared to hemodialysis (HD), catheter malfunction being an important reason. Intra- and extra-peritoneal catheter configuration may be associated with mechanical and infectious complications affecting method survival. We report our experience with two extra-peritoneal catheter configurations: the straight and the swan-neck (SN) catheters. A total of 85 consecutive patients, 58 males and 27 females were included in the study. Among them, 26 were diabetics; 52 were treated with automated PD (APD) and 33 with continuous ambulatory PD (CAPD). Straight catheters were used in 38 patients (straight group) and SN catheters in 47 patients (SN group). Straight catheters were mostly used in the first 6-year period while SN catheters in the last 6-year period. The baseline demographics were similar between the two groups. A significantly higher frequency of APD use was observed in SN group. Technique survival was better with SN versus straight (log-rank test, P = 0.01) while patient and catheter survival were similar. A better technique survival is noted in our group of patients with SN catheters. An additional factor could be the significantly higher frequency of APD use in this group. Changes in PD solutions’ composition could also contribute to improvement in technique survival. The outcome for patients and catheter types used was similar.
Design principles for competence-based Recommender Systems

In this paper we analyze the principal preconditions and limitations for designing a competence-based Recommender System. In detail this analysis is contextualized in the ARISTOTELE European project. In the second part of the paper an architectural view is proposed taking in consideration the objective to propose standard and non-standard suggestions. This solution will permit to insert serendipity approaches into classical solutions.
The two membrane proximal domains of CD4 interact with the T cell receptor

During T cell activation, CD4 is intimately involved in colocalizing the T cell receptor (TCR) with its specific peptide ligand bound to class II molecules of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Previously, the COOH-terminal residues, Trp62/63, which flank the immunodominant epitope of hen egg lysozyme (HEL 52-61), were shown to have a profound effect on TCR recognition. CD4 maintains the fidelity of this interaction when short peptides are used. To determine which portion of CD4 was responsible for this effect, a series of CD4 mutants were made and transfected into CD4 loss variants of two HEL 52-61- specific T cell hybridomas. Surprisingly, some CD4 mutants that failed to interact with MHC class II molecules (D2 domain mutant) or with p56kk (cytoplasmic-tailless mutant) restored responsiveness. Nevertheless, a significant reduction in association between cytoplasmic-tailless CD4 and the TCR, as determined by fluorescence resonance energy transfer, was observed. Thus, neither colocalization of CD4 and the TCR nor signal transduction via CD4 was solely responsible for the functional restoration of these T cell hybridomas by wild-type CD4. However, substitution of the two membrane proximal domains of murine CD4 (D3 and D4) with domains from human CD4 or intercellular adhesion molecule 1 not only abrogated its ability to restore function, but also substantially reduced its ability to associate with the TCR. Furthermore, the mouse/human CD4 chimera had a potent dominant negative effect on T cell function in the presence of equimolar concentrations of wild-type CD4. These data suggest that the D3/D4 domains of CD4 may interact directly or indirectly with the TCR- CD3 complex and influence the signal transduction processes. Given the striking structural differences between CD4 and CD8 in this region, these data define a novel and unique function for CD4.
Deformable spanners and applications

For a set S of points in ℝ3, an s-spanner is a graph on S such that any pair of points is connected via some path in the spanner whose total length is at most s times the Euclidean distance between the points. In this paper we propose a new sparse (1+ε)-spanner with O(n/εd) edges, where ε is a specified parameter. The key property of this spanner is that it can be efficiently maintained under dynamic insertion or deletion ofpoints, as well as under continuous motion of the points in both the kinetic data structures setting and in the more realistic blackbox displacement model we introduce. Our deformable spanner succinctly encodes all proximity information in a deforming point cloud, giving us efficient kinetic algorithms for problems such as the closest pair, the near neighbors of all points, approximate nearest neighbor search (aka approximate Voronoi diagram), well-separated pair decomposition, and approximate k-centers.
The Impact of Emotional States on Cognitive Control Circuitry and Function

Typically in the laboratory, cognitive and emotional processes are studied separately or as a stream of fleeting emotional stimuli embedded within a cognitive task. Yet in life, thoughts and actions often occur in more lasting emotional states of arousal. The current study examines the impact of emotions on actions using a novel behavioral paradigm and functional neuroimaging to assess cognitive control under sustained states of threat (anticipation of an aversive noise) and excitement (anticipation of winning money). Thirty-eight healthy adult participants were scanned while performing an emotional go/no-go task with positive (happy faces), negative (fearful faces), and neutral (calm faces) emotional cues, under threat or excitement. Cognitive control performance was enhanced during the excited state relative to a nonarousing control condition. This enhanced performance was paralleled by heightened activity of frontoparietal and frontostriatal circuitry. In contrast, under persistent threat, cognitive control was diminished when the valence of the emotional cue conflicted with the emotional state. Successful task performance in this conflicting emotional condition was associated with increased activity in the posterior cingulate cortex, a default mode network region implicated in complex processes such as processing emotions in the context of self and monitoring performance. This region showed positive coupling with frontoparietal circuitry implicated in cognitive control, providing support for a role of the posterior cingulate cortex in mobilizing cognitive resources to improve performance. These findings suggest that emotional states of arousal differentially modulate cognitive control and point to the potential utility of this paradigm for understanding effects of situational and pathological states of arousal on behavior.
Kinetic analysis of pancuronium interaction with sodium channels in squid axon membranes

The interaction of pancuronium with sodium channels was investigated in squid axons. Sodium current turns on normally but turns off more quickly than the control with pancuronium 0.1-1mM present internally; The sodium tail current associated with repolarization exhibits an initial hook and then decays more slowly than the control. Pancuronium induces inactivation after the sodium inactivation has been removed by internal perfusion of pronase. Such pancuronium-induced sodium inactivation follows a single exponential time course, suggesting first order kinetics which represents the interaction of the pancuronium molecule with the open sodium channel. The rate constant of association k with the binding site is independent of the membrane potential ranging from 0 to 80 mV, but increases with increasing internal concentration of pancuronium. However, the rate constant of dissociation l is independent of internal concentration of pancuronium but decreases with increasing the membrane potential. The voltage dependence of l is not affected by changine external sodium concentration, suggesting a current-independent conductance block, The steady-state block depends on the membrane potential, being more pronounced with increasing depolarization, and is accounted for in terms of the voltage dependence of l. A kinetic model, based on the experimental observations and the assumption on binding kinetics of pancuronium with the open sodium channel, successfully simulates many features of sodium current in the presence of pancuronium.
Towards a method for automatically selecting and configuring multi-label classification algorithms

Given a new dataset for classification in Machine Learning (ML), finding the best classification algorithm and the best configuration of its (hyper)-parameters for that particular dataset is an open issue. The Automatic ML (Auto-ML) area has emerged to solve this task. With this issue in mind, in this work we are interested in a specific type of classification problem, called multi-label classification (MLC). In MLC, each example in the dataset can be associated to one or more class labels, making the task considerably harder than traditional, single-label classification. In addition, the cost of learning raises due to the higher complexity of the data. Although the literature has proposed some methods to solve the Auto-ML task, those methods address only the traditional, single-label classification problem. By contrast, this work proposes the first method (an evolutionary algorithm) for solving the Auto-ML task in MLC, i.e., the first method for automatically selecting and configuring the best MLC algorithm for a given input dataset. The proposed evolutionary algorithm is evaluated on three MLC datasets, and compared against two baseline methods according to four different multi-label predictive accuracy measures. The results show that the proposed evolutionary algorithm is competitive against the baselines, but there is still room for improvement.
Factors affecting quality-of-life impact of adult tonsillectomy.

OBJECTIVE To assess the quality of life of adult patients with recurrent tonsillitis after tonsillectomy, and to determine predictive factors for patient satisfaction. METHODS In a prospective cohort study, a Glasgow benefit inventory questionnaire was posted to 70 adult patients six months after tonsillectomy for recurrent tonsillitis. Data were obtained on patient characteristics, risk factors, tonsillitis history, and clinical and operative findings. The patients were also assessed using self-completed diary data collection regarding acute symptoms (i.e. fever, throat pain, cough and rhinitis), tonsillitis episodes and visits to a doctor, either three to six months before tonsillectomy or six months after tonsillectomy. Predictive factors were sought for inclusion in the worst 30th percentile of patients (i.e. Glasgow benefit inventory score under 18), regarding post-operative change in quality of life. RESULTS Sixty-two patients (40 females, 22 males; age range 15-46 years) returned the questionnaire (response rate 89 per cent). The mean total Glasgow benefit inventory score after tonsillectomy was +26 (standard deviation 14). The mean scores for Glasgow benefit inventory subscales were: general health +25 (standard deviation 18), social functioning +5 (standard deviation 14) and physical functioning +55 (standard deviation 23). The only factors associated with low patient satisfaction were a small number of tonsillitis episodes (diary-based data) and days with fever before tonsillectomy. CONCLUSIONS Adult patients with recurrent tonsillitis seemed to be generally pleased with their tonsillectomy. The more symptoms they had prior to surgery, the greater was their improvement in quality of life. No other patient- or disease-related factors were associated with patient satisfaction.
Sonography of Common Carotid Arteries’ Intima: Media Thickness in the Normal Adult Population in Sudan

Background: Carotid ultrasonography is a useful diagnostic tool for assessing carotid disease. It is highly reliable, has no radiation risk, and has no risks when compared to conventional angiography. Aim: The study was to determine the common carotid artery (CCA) intima–media thickness (IMT) in the normal adult Sudanese so as to create standards for defining abnormalities. Materials and Methods: In 440 participants, the intima–media thickness was obtained sonographically in the supine position at the point of 1 cm section distal to the carotid bulb. Due to ethnic variations, participants were divided into a five ethnic groups according to their geographic distribution in Sudan. Results: The ranges of IMT found in the study were from 0.04 cm to 0.07 cm in carotids. Ethnically, males and females from West and East of Sudan show the highest IMT (0.070 ± 0.00 cm and 0.065 ± 0.01 cm) for CCA while males and females from the South of Sudan show the lowest IMT (0.055 ± 0.01 cm and 0.058 ± 0.004 cm). Conclusion: Mean carotids’ IMT was slightly higher in females compared to males. No significant differences were found between IMT and different ethnics but significance was noted among participants’ age and IMT of both sexes.
Effect of Fineness on the Properties of Cement Paste

Properties of cement paste were affected significently by fineness of cement which is one of the most important influence factors. Effect of fineness on the rheology properties, strength, hydration and pore structure of cement was studied. The results showed that: plastic viscosity of the cement paste can be reduced by the increase of cement fineness to some extent. The strength of cement, especially the early strength significantly increased; heat of hydration increased, the peak of hydration heat brought forward and induction period shortened; porosity of cement paste reduced with the increase of cement fineness. There is a good negative linear correlation between characteristics particle size D (0.1) and 1 day hydration heat of three different kinds of cement. Keywords: cement; fineness; hydration; porosity
The concept of control of COPD in clinical practice

Treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) requires a personalized approach according to the clinical characteristics of the patients, the level of severity, and the response to the different therapies. Furthermore, patients with the same level of severity measured by the degree of airflow obstruction or even with multidimensional indices may have very different symptoms and limitations for daily activities. The concept of control has been extensively developed in asthma but has not been defined in COPD. Here, we propose a definition of COPD control based on the concepts of impact and stability. Impact is a cross-sectional concept that can be measured by questionnaires such as the COPD Assessment Test or the Clinical COPD Questionnaire. Alternatively, impact can be assessed by the degree of dyspnea, the use of rescue medication, the level of physical activity, and sputum color. Stability is a longitudinal concept that requires the absence of exacerbations and deterioration in the aforementioned variables or in the COPD Assessment Test or Clinical COPD Questionnaire scores. Control is defined by low impact (adjusted for severity) and stability. The concept of control in COPD can be useful in the decision making regarding an increase or decrease in medication in the stable state.
Topology and Geometry of Deep Rectified Network Optimization Landscapes

The loss surface of deep neural networks has recently attracted interest in the optimization and machine learning communities as a prime example of high-dimensional non-convex problem. Some insights were recently gained using spin glass models and mean-field approximations, but at the expense of strongly simplifying the nonlinear nature of the model. In this work, we do not make any such assumption and study conditions on the data distribution and model architecture that prevent the existence of bad local minima. Our theoretical work quantifies and formalizes two important folklore facts: (i) the landscape of deep linear networks has a radically different topology from that of deep half-rectified ones, and (ii) that the energy landscape in the non-linear case is fundamentally controlled by the interplay between the smoothness of the data distribution and model over-parametrization. These results are in accordance with empirical practice and recent literature. The conditioning of gradient descent is the next challenge we address. We study this question through the geometry of the level sets, and we introduce an algorithm to efficiently estimate the regularity of such sets on large-scale networks. Our empirical results show that these level sets remain connected throughout all the learning phase, suggesting a near convex behavior, but they become exponentially more curvy as the energy level decays, in accordance to what is observed in practice with very low curvature attractors. ∗Currently on leave from UC Berkeley. 1 ar X iv :1 61 1. 01 54 0v 1 [ st at . M L ] 4 N ov 2 01 6
Revisit of Field Cancerization in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of Upper Aerodigestive Tract: Better Risk Assessment with Epigenetic Markers

We quantified field cancerization of squamous cell carcinoma in the upper aerodigestive tract with epigenetic markers and evaluated their performance for risk assessment. Methylation levels were analyzed by quantitative methylation-specific PCR of biopsied specimens from a training set of 255 patients and a validation set of 224 patients. We also measured traditional risk factors based on demographics, lifestyle, serology, genetic polymorphisms, and endoscopy. The methylation levels of four markers increased stepwise, with the lowest levels in normal esophageal mucosae from healthy subjects without carcinogen exposure, then normal mucosae from healthy subjects with carcinogen exposure, then normal mucosae from cancer patients, and the highest levels were in cancerous mucosae (P < 0.05). Cumulative exposure to alcohol increased methylation of homeobox A9 in normal mucosae (P < 0.01). Drinkers had higher methylation of ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal esterase L1 and metallothionein 1M (P < 0.05), and users of betel quid had higher methylation of homeobox A9 (P = 0.01). Smokers had increased methylation of all four markers (P < 0.05). Traditional risk factors allowed us to discriminate between patients with and without cancers with 74% sensitivity (95% CI: 67%–81%), 74% specificity (66%–82%), and 80% area under the curve (67%–91%); epigenetic markers in normal esophageal mucosa had values of 74% (69%–79%), 75% (67%–83%), and 83% (79%–87%); and both together had values of 82% (76%–88%), 81% (74%–88%), and 91% (88%–94%). Epigenetic markers done well in the validation set with 80% area under the curve (73%–85%). We concluded that epigenetics could improve the accuracies of risk assessment. Cancer Prev Res; 4(12); 1982–92. ©2011 AACR.
2015 Ieee International Conference on Big Data (big Data) Keylabel Algorithms for Keyword Search in Large Graphs

—Graph keyword search is the process of extracting small subgraphs that contain a set of query keywords from a graph. This problem is challenging because there are many constraints, including distance constraint, keyword constraint, search time constraint, index size constraint, and memory constraint, while the size of data is inflating at a very high speed nowadays. Existing greedy algorithms guarantee good performance by sacrificing the accuracy to generate approximate answers, and exact algorithms promise exact answers but require a high memory consumption for loading indices and advanced knowledge about the maximum distance constraint. For big data applications, existing techniques are inefficient and impractical due to huge memory consumption and varied distance constraint. We propose a new keyword search algorithm that finds exact answers with low memory consumption and without advanced knowledge of maximum distance constraint. This algorithm builds a compact index structure offline based on a recent labeling index for shortest path queries. At the query time, it finds the answer efficiently by examining a small portion of the index related to a query.
In vitro transcription of human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 is RNA polymerase II dependent

The HTLV-1 promoter directs RNA polymerase II transcription of viral genomic RNA in vivo. However, it has been reported that in vitro, a unique RNA polymerase, with characteristics of RNA polymerases II and III, is capable of HTLV-1 transcription (G. Piras, F. Kashanchi, M. F. Radonovich, J. F. Duvall, and J. N. Brady, J. Virol. 68:6170-6179, 1994). To further characterize the polymerase involved in HTLV-1 transcription in vitro, runoff transcription assays were performed with a variety of extracts and RNA polymerase inhibitors. Under all in vitro reaction conditions tested, RNA polymerase II appeared to be the only polymerase capable of correct transcriptional initiation from the HTLV-1 promoter. Synthesis of the specific HTLV-1 RNA transcript showed sensitivities to the RNA polymerase inhibitors tagetitoxin and alpha-amanitin that are consistent with RNA polymerase II transcription. Together, these data indicate that in vitro, as in vivo, the HTLV-1 promoter directs transcription by RNA polymerase II.
Using Social Networks to Aid Homeless Shelters: Dynamic Influence Maximization under Uncertainty

This paper presents HEALER, a software agent that recommends sequential intervention plans for use by homeless shelters, who organize these interventions to raise awareness about HIV among homeless youth. HEALER’s sequential plans (built using knowledge of social networks of homeless youth) choose intervention participants strategically to maximize influence spread, while reasoning about uncertainties in the network. While previous work presents influence maximizing techniques to choose intervention participants, they do not address three real-world issues: (i) they completely fail to scale up to real-world sizes; (ii) they do not handle deviations in execution of intervention plans; (iii) constructing real-world social networks is an expensive process. HEALER handles these issues via four major contributions: (i) HEALER casts this influence maximization problem as a POMDP and solves it using a novel planner which scales up to previously unsolvable realworld sizes; (ii) HEALER allows shelter officials to modify its recommendations, and updates its future plans in a deviation-tolerant manner; (iii) HEALER constructs social networks of homeless youth at low cost, using a Facebook application. Finally, (iv) we show hardness results for the problem that HEALER solves. HEALER will be deployed in the real world in early Spring 2016 and is currently undergoing testing at a homeless shelter.
Interplay between ER Exit Code and Domain Conformation in CFTR Misprocessing and Rescue

Impaired conformation underlies CFTR misprocessing in cystic fibrosis. Defective conformation interferes with ER export and post-ER stability. In ΔF508 CFTR, low temperature or R555K improves both through a global conformational reversion. The interplay between the ER exit code and domain conformation governs CFTR misprocessing and rescue.